In his enjoyably hipster introduction to Supermen!, novelist and occasional comics writer Jonathan Lethem lauds these tales for their "defiant disorienting particularity, their blazing strangeness." And yes, there is something kind of creepy and unknown here, some of the imagery nearly as surreal as something out of Salvador Dali (the silent skull-faced primitives battled by The Flame, or the leering countenance of The Comet's archenemy who goes by the subtle name of "Satan"). Men in capes hadn't quite become cliches then.
One of my favorite tales is the whacked out Daredevil Vs. The Yellow Claw saga by Plastic Man creator Jack Cole, whose vivid, rubbery art leaps off the page. This Daredevil isn't the blind superhero of today, but a wisecracking pliable acrobat with a striking red-and-blue costume. The towering, fanged and drooling Oriental villain Yellow Claw is so over-the-top a caricature of "yellow peril" racism it's hard to be offended by it, although some readers might find it a bit rude today. Still, Cole's sheer storytelling energy makes this story as exciting to read now as it was decades ago.
There are two stories by the king of bizarre Fletcher Hanks, whose fever-dream madness almost makes everyone else here look staid and dull by comparison. My only quibble with the inclusion of the Hanks stories is that he's already been the focus of two Fantagraphics books and frankly, it would've been better to give space here to another forgotten creator instead. But you can't top the sheer lunacy of Hanks' stories, such as the one here featuring Stardust battling space vultures that features a startlingly high body count.
Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes resurrects a forgotten army of well-meaning, bizarrely named heroes and villains. It's one of the best comic collections of the year. Bring on a sequel!
Article comments
1 - Bill Sherman
I remember back in the early seventies a fannish publisher put out black-and-white photocopy books of various Golden Age superhero titles. Even in faded b-&-w, the whacked-out dynamics of Cole's Daredevil Versus the Yellow Claw popped at ya. I can't wait to see this collection.