Stupid Comics

As one of Fiction House's Big 6, Planet Comics tried to pad each issue of the first few years of their run to about 70 pages long. Issue #10 has a 2-page text story titled Super Salesman Of Space about an epic cosmic delivery man, even though he has nothing on Mars Mason of the Interplanetary Mail Service. The same issue has a strange 3-page segment that tried to be a short comic reusing old art by Bob Powell and George Tuska that was called Fashions Of The Future written by H.G. Mills. It's hard to tell if this is a bizarre sales pitch for a non-existent product or the comic equivalent of a clip show from some lazy network sitcom. The first page goes over all the accoutrements your average galactic hitchhiker might need in their everyday wardrobe like tiny radio transmitters and built in air conditioners. The plot has an unnamed guy and girl heading out into the inky void just to test out their future threads. They arrive on Pluto back when it was still considered a planet and...

Former DC Comic editor Richard Hughes went on to become a writer for the American Comics Group. In 1964, he wrote a comedic story for Issue #119 of their anthology series, Forbidden Worlds. This 13-page tale titled The Girl From Bald Mountain was drawn by Avengers artist Chic Stone, with Hughes going under the alias of Zev Zimmer. The story might seem like a prelude to the old Bewitched sitcom, but in fact came out a few months earlier as it's about a young witch falling in love with a normal guy. Bald Mountain is a regular hangout for monsters and other supernatural folks including Dracula and Frankenstein hanging out in the background. Here, a young witch named Amelia learns from some neighboring demons that she gets to fly off on a broom on Hallowe'en(which was the olde time term for Halloween)to go on her first haunting trip. After nearly getting run over by a passenger jet, Amelia heads to the middle of downtown in her witch outfit which no one minds since its Hallowe'...

Maple Leaf Publishing was a Canadian publisher of comics in the early 1940s. They mainly sustained themselves in mixed bag anthologies like Rocket Comics which featured the comedic Callahan The Detective, the struggling survivor Poppy, the strange science of Cosmo And His White Magic, professional pilot Mono The Air Cobra, and the mideval Shazam ripoff of The Black Knight. A particularly peculiar installment by the creator known as Velper was The Metal Monster, a giant robot created by a mad scientist, but two good guys managed to end the inventor's scheme and claim the mighty mecha for themselves. After the scientist is done away with, the do-gooder duo of Tom Masters and Sid Stacy used the Metal Monster to go on their own personal crusade against evil. One of their adventures barely had the robot in it at all. The whole story from Volume 2, Issue 5 dealt only with the convicted criminal of Killer Kurtz who is about to be hung for his crimes after Tom and Sid put him away in a pri...

Phantom Lady was the centerpiece of cheesecake comics in the Golden Age, and Matt Baker's stunning but sexy artwork made her the target of randy youngsters and raving fundamentalists. Back when she was actually wearing a mask, Phantom Lady got locked in mortal combat with none other than the Easter Bunny, but a few years later in 1947 she battled an army of walking dead, although not "The Walking Dead". In Issue #15 of her own title series from Fox Feature Syndicate, the heroine who dressed like a showgirl lost her mask and redid her yellow and green costume to be in traditional superhero red and blue with a cape. Secretly Sandra Knight, daughter of Senator Henry Knight, she leaps into action in her secret identity as the nasty villain serendipitously named Doctor Crime sicks his zombie henchman on Sandra's father. Phantom Lady is surprised to find her trademark blacklight project doesn't blind the zombie. Dr. Crime gives PL an exposition of his diabolical plan to...

Olga Mesmer is reportedly the first comics heroine to have superpowers, but she was confined to comic strips in pulp magazine. Arguably the first heroine in comic books to have actual powers was really The Magician From Mars who premiered in 1939 in the pages of Centaur Publications' Amazing Man #7. Set sometime in the future, Jane Q-X3 was the result of an Earthling woman and a Martian human male who would've grown up like any other human on Mars, but because she was accidently exposed to cathode rays by a clumsy doctor, she is granted the power to do nearly anything. This includes matter-manipulation, enhanced speed, telekinesis, flight, creating illusions, superior intelligence, and the ability to change her body at will. Her shape-changing power includes being able to heal herself, immortality, super-strength, and being able to turn herself into a giant. After the death of Jane's parents, her controlling aunt had her locked away. Fed up with her aunt's tyranny, Jane...