Stupid Comics

Centaur Publications' spinoff character of Mighty Man named Super-Ann wasn't the only character from that publisher to share that sobriquet as a totally different one premiered a year later in what was essentially a showcase for the Chicago Mail Order Company. CMO Comics from 1942 was essentially a catalog for a mail order company, and the anthology would highlight their various products in a way that was as subtle as a falling cannonball. This second Super-Ann instead of being superpowered Ann Star was instead Ann Allan, a non-superpowered heroine who was basically a young socialite with some fighting skills that would frequently come across one caper after another in Arizona. Unlike Super-Ann the First, Super-Ann the Second had a small team that worked with her instead of a shapeshifting crimefighter who was such a silent partner that not even his partner knew he existed. Ann Alan had two girls as her running crew, "Freckles" Doyle and Susan Green. Freckles would al...

Before they had most of their properties bought up by DC Comics, Charlton Publications in the early 80s was trying to bolster their brand with a new anthology titled Charlton Bullseye which first started out as a Bronze Age fanzine put out by The CPL Gang during the 70s who also did one of Wally Wood's Heroes Inc. comics. Charlton dug the name so much that they gave it to their latest comics showcase under the same title which featured the publisher's regular heroes of Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and The Question, even though they left it opened for original characters to get their own shot at fame. One of these was in Issue 4 starring three super space ladies called the Vanguards. This was drawn by future Masters Of The Universe mini-comic artist Larry Houston, but nothing about these way-out wonder women was ever continued after their single-issue appearance. Set in the Alpha star system, the Alphaforce lead by the Vanguards was an alliance formed against tyrants. The Vanguard...

Martin Filchock was one of the longest working cartoonists starting when he was 13 and continuing into his 90s as he lived to be 100 years old. He created several strange Golden Age superheroes including Fireman, Electric Ray, and The Owl, even though his most bizarre was Mighty Man, and that was his real name with no secret identity. Starting out in Centaur's Amazing Man Comics, he was the last of a race of giant people and was over 10 ft. tall with immense strength, and the scientist Prof. Hilldale granted him the power to not only shrink down to average height but even smaller down to fit in someone's pocket more than 100 ft. tall, plus the added bonus of altering the size of any part of his body along with being able to morph his appearance. For over two years, Mighty Man would fight evil and protect American freedom incognito, but that all changed when he ran across the eponymous World's Strongest Girl also referred to as Super-Ann. One day, Mighty Man tried to stop a ...

Strange Worlds was Avon Periodicals' sci-fi/fantasy anthology from the 1950s and starred a smorgasbord of talent. One such story from their third issue was Invasion From The Abyss that featured an enormous swell of artists including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood into a simple 7-page segment. The whole genre of Hollow Earth had been popularized thanks to pulp magazine creators like Richard Shaver, so tales of mole people and underground dinosaurs began to come out of the woodwork. Starting out a year after the actual comic was published, the story has a professor giving a speech in front of the U.N. about a new atomic power plant when a team of short assassins bomb the stage and kill the professor. Agent Steve Hanson later goes to the prof's hotel room seeking answers and gets ambushed by more small men with crimson skin and green helmets. Steve tails them in a literal underground railroad, gets ambushed by the deadly dwarfs, and is taken before thei...

The early days of comics were littered with ads for unconventional toys, one of which was the Auto-Magic Picture Gun made in 1939. Now don't you worry parents, this wasn't a genuine gun capable of shooting physical projectiles, but a small film projector that could be used on any flat surface. Made available from Stephens Products Co as well as Allen Sales Co., this toy was designed to operate like a real gun, along with four film strips that contained up to 36 images each. Later versions of this would feature seven film strips and a special Auto-Magic Theater that you could use to show them with if you didn't happen do have any flat surfaces in your house, plus it was advertised as being "wonderful for shut-ins" which is terribly egregious if your company was trying to glamorize a child staying inside all day. The actual films varied from being educational or historic, while others were of copyright free original characters like Pilot Jerry and slightly original ...