Volume Three, Number Twenty

EVERYTHING'S SUPERHEROES:

A

Historical Overview

of the

MLJ Magazines/Archie Comic Publications

Superhero Lines!

Part Ten

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Even though Archie Comic Publications/Radio Comics had launched "The Adventures of Young Dr. Masters" and "The Shadow" in 1964, the Archie Adventure Series line was dying a slow painful death. As mentioned in the previous installment, according to Rick Goldwater, son of one of MLJ Magazines' founders, John Goldwater, the main reason for the poor sales of the line was strictly distribution difficulties; a somewhat doubtful possibility as Archie Adventure Series was distributed by the same company that distributed Archie Comic Publications' Archie Series line which could be found just about everywhere in those days. Most comics fans and historians put the blame on the poor quality of the material, but a few people point the finger at the name of the line itself: ARCHIE Adventure Series.

While the Archie titles were big sellers in the 1960s-and are still quite successful today-they were and still are targeted at a certain type of readership. Also too anything with the name "Archie" on it signified good, wholesome fun. While there's nothing wrong with that, some comics readers were looking for something more challenging, something like, well, what was being given to them by Marvel and to a lesser extent DC/National and Gold Key (with Dr. Solar, Turok and other titles). And while the Archie Adventure Series titles weren't along the same lines as the Archie Series titles the mere mention of the name "Archie" on the cover was a turn-off to the very readers who might well have ordinarily bought "The Shadow" and "Adventures of The Fly" (though chances are they would have only bought one issue of "The Shadow"). Today's fans are a bit more sophisticated, but back in the 1960s Archie meant wholesomeness, and even in 1964 readers wanted their superheroes to have a bit of an edge.

Thus, the line was failing and by 1964 the Archie Adventure Series' flagship title, "Adventures of The Fly" was reduced to being published semi-annually. After issue #30 (October 1964) it vanished completely. But before it was canceled, the title-and the line-made one more attempt at reviving a long forgotten MLJ Magazines character; or in this case more of a revitalization.

In the Fly Girl story that appeared in "Adventures of The Fly" #30, The Fly's partner met up with The Comet. This was not though the same, brutal Comet who had appeared in the early issues of Pep Comics, but rather the ruler of a distant planet called Altron who had come to Earth to convince Fly Girl to be his bride. Even his powers and costume were different with this Comet wearing a rainbow-striped helmet and an extremely gaudy looking outfit. His powers included flight-which he was able to accomplish thanks to his "rainbow helmet"-and the ability to shoot ray beams from his gloves. The story, as with previous stories that had been appearing in "Adventures of The Fly", was fairly pedestrian. But what Fly-fans -and there were some including myself at the time-were totally unaware of was that this Comet was actually a harbinger of things to come in 1965. But that's a story for next month when we talk about Fly Man, Mighty Comics Group and The Mighty Crusaders. See you then.

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That's all for this time out. Don't forget to check out The Groovy Agent's excellent blog on 1970s comics at http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com, and feel free to comment on what you've read so far in E-Dispatches From The Great White North at its blogsite http://dispatchesfromthegreatwhitenorth.blogspot.com .

Volume Three, Number Eighteen

EVERYTHING'S SUPERHEROES:

A

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

OF THE

MLJ MAGAZINES/ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS

SUPERHERO LINES!

(Part Eight)

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As mentioned last time out "The Double Life of Private Strong" vanished from the newsstands and magazine shelves after only two issues. However, this did not mean that The Fly was the sole super-powered member of the Archie Adventure Series Universe (for lack of a better term). In "Adventures of The Fly" #7 (July 1960) The Black Hood made his silver age debut in a tale where he teamed up with The Fly and in the very next issue (cover-dated September 1960) the silver age Shield (some years later to be revealed as the son of the original Shield) appeared.Both these characters must have gotten favourable fan mail as each made return appearances; The Shield in issue 9 and The Black Hood in issue 10.

In the coming months the Archie Adventure Series Universe continued to grow. In the 14th issue of The Fly Kim Brand, a movie actress who debuted in the previous issue, became Fly-Girl and would be Fly's partner throughout his comics appearances in the 1960s. Also that month-September 1961-Archie would launch a new comics title; "Adventures of The Jaguar" featuring a superhero who could summon up all the powers of the animal kingdom (but for some unexplained reason needed a jet-belt to fly).

Around the same time The Fly, Flygirl and The Jaguar began appearing in five-page adventures in the back of "Pep" and "Laugh". While some comics historians have speculated that this was done to get superhero fans to read other Archie titles this is unlikely as their appearances in these two Archie Universe titles were never promoted and the characters never appeared on the covers of either "Pep" or "Laugh" when they appeared. What is more likely the case is the reverse; that the folks at Archie Comic Publications wanted to get the readers of "Pep" and "Laugh" interested in the Archie Adventure Series line.

"Adventures of The Jaguar" ran for fifteen issues with number 15 being cover-dated November 1963. While a competent series With the exception of issues 13 and 14-both of which featured The Black Hood-none were very memorable or contributed much to the history of the Archie Adventure Series Universe.

With the cancellation of "Adventures of The Jaguar" The Fly's comic was alone on the stands again until (cover-date) August 1964. two new titles were launched that year under the Archie Adventure Series imprint. One was a quarterly title called "Adventures of Young Dr. Masters" which lasted only two issues and the other (cover dated November 1964) is a definite candidate for, outside of M.F. Enterprises' "Captain Marvel", the title of the worst comic book of the 1960s. It's name? THE SHADOW.

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NEXT: BELMONT PAPERBACKS, RADIO COMICS AND THE SHADOW.