Stupid Comics

Dead center in the middle of Bat-Mania, Harvey Comics camps it up with this character that seems like it was intended to be the vehicle for an action figure. Aside from being designed by comics icon Jim Steranko, Harvey took a hint from Marvel by branding their new hero, The Glowing Gladiator. Harry Barker runs an independent treasure hunting service called Adventures Unlimited who is assigned by the mysterious client known as Destiny to find the Amulet of Hannibal. Tomb raiding comes easy to this freewheeling rich boy as he just happens to find the amulet immediately upon entering the ruins where Harry is visited by the spirit of the famous warrior. Hannibal gives Harry his shape-changing Sword of Achilles along with a headband, breastplate, and an armlong gauntlet to complete the ensemble, plus the Amulet itself so Harry could dial up Hannibal if he ever needed a pep talk. Destiny is in reality a supervillain with his own time machine that he uses to pluck people out of history to co...

Before Jack Kirby created the star-hopping Metron in his intergalactic chair, the King of Comics made a similar seat for Alarming Tales in 1957. Harvey Comics' mixed bag of science fiction and near screwball comedy anthology was like a less-eerie Twilight Zone to which Donnegan's Daffy Chair fits in just right, especially from the eye-catching cover art of a schmuck on flying furniture. Timothy Donnegan is an Irish janitor cleaning in a patent office briefly asked to watch over a new fangled invention an impatient scientist left while he went to go to spend a penny. The Irishman thinks the gizmo looks like an ordinary office chair when he sits in it to activate a retractable switchboard along with a pair of sci-fi specs. Donnegan hits the launch button and he's on a rocket-powered rocker soaring through the busy city skyline. This gets the attention of the air force as Donnegan flies by one of their top guns even though they ignore it as its too foolish to follow up on. Don...

The ambitious Regor Company wanted to break into the funny papers with their singular release of Atomic Thunderbolt, Issue #1, which the headliner gets his own story as well as a cameo in the following segment. Professor Josiah Rhonne was one of the few comic book scientists that actually specialized in alchemy despite being a former a-bomb designer. His latest experiment is to transmute man into ubermensch resistant to radiation. Instead of waiting for a volunteer, the professor goes hunting a test subject even if it means murdering the unsuspecting dope. Willy the wharf rat is a WWII vet with shell shock who gets harassed by kids that pretend to shoot at him, and Rhonne talks him into giving his life up in the name of science. The professor resides in a Frankenstein-type castle complete with traps generously provided to him by the war department, although the egghead accidently flipped the wrong switch on his own invention causing an explosion that disrupts all his neighbors. Willy i...