Stupid Comics

Better Publications broke the mold when they came out with their iconic figure of The Black Terror, specifically their second one as the first was a villain from a Woman In Red story from a year before. Exciting Comics #9 in 1941 premiered the superhero version of the Nemesis Of Evil whose outfit has made him one of the most recognizable characters of the Golden Age. What most modern-day geeks would probably label as Super-Punisher, Black Terror has a look that anime hero Captain Harlock would borrow a few decades later. His bizarre origin is of course one of medicinal use, but not the substance abuse kind that heroes like Hourman or Underdog would be roped to as similar to Captain America he only needed the drug the one time. Bob Benton ran a pharmacy that was constantly getting hit up by mobsters for protection money. One day, the mayor's secretary Jean Starr and her hunky boyfriend Rodney fight off two hoods pestering Bob for dough along with a local kid named Timmy. Bob hires T...

Ace Magazines was founded by the husband/wife team of A.A. Wyn and Rose Wyn in 1940 which ran until 1956 with a wide variety of superheroes, some of which got their own titles. One of their comics highlighted four heroes in a single issue but in separate stories titled Four Favorites featuring characters like Raven and Vulcan, along with room for at least one other adventure story starring good guys like Black Ace, Mr. Whiskers, and Blitz Buster. The regular spotlight supers shown on most covers were Lash Lightning, Captain Courageous, Magno, and the Unknown Soldier. Even though it was called Four Favorites, the cover would usually include Magno's sidekick Davey and Lash's partner Lightning Girl. One particular supervillain shown on the cover of Issue #5 menaced all four of the main heroes all as he simultaneously captured each of them in their own little individual death-trap. Whoever this guy was, he made Jigsaw look like a freaking amateur. Magno is going to have the door sl...

Even though there had been a handful of comic book characters called The Human Fly, both good guys and bad, only two of them managed to get their own official comic. One of them was a Bronze Age series by Marvel which was recently brought back to life by IPI Comics. The other was a character that didn't even get to show up in his own title by IW Publishing, sometimes billed as Super Comics. IW's main revenue came from reprinting material from different former comics publishers like Doll Man, Kaanga, Man O' Mars, and Plastic Man, but one of them didn't have the correct title character included in it. During the Silver Age, IW published at least two issues titled The Human Fly, an Issue #1 and an Issue #10, with no word if the intervening issues were ever printed. Israel Waldman who headed up IW Publishing, instead of having his title of The Human Fly actually having someone called The Human Fly, the comic instead had reprints of Blue Beetle, specifically the original Dan...

Great Comics Publications had two different anthology titles during its three-month stint from 1941-1942 just before Pearl Harbor, Great Comics and Choice Comics. Aside from its unconventional line up of heroes like Zarro the Great or Kangaroo Man, they also dedicated a percentage of each anthology to generic humor, although not with satisfying results. Laffin’ Gas was a portion of Choice Comics that was composed entirely of comedic bits. This included generic one-page gags like Romeo Rutt, Petey And His Pals, Suzy And Sam, Gilda Gray, Private Wire, Haff Nelson, and Little Terror. There was also a section called Choice Classroom Boners which were a single-page showcase of cheap gags, some of which were considerably racist. Great Comics itself had its own humor hub called the Barrel Of Fun Section much of which spotlight lengthier comics strips that continue to several issues. Knight And Dye were a pair of bungling knights, Snarzan The Ape shows how pop culture influences jungle wildli...