Monday, October 31, 2011

Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: Mr Monster

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
For a guy who had only one appearance in the Golden Age (and in a Canadian comic, at that) he's made a helluva impact on modern audiences!
Read the rest of this titillating tale, then we'll fill you in...
During the Golden Age, Doc Stearne had been a regular in the anthology title Triumph Comics.
"Triumph Comics"?
WTF?
Triumph Comics was a Canadian comic book.
We presented some background info about them HERE.
Doc was the typical two-fisted heroic adventurer in civvies of the 1930s-40s.
His nickname came from his daytime profession--he was a psychiatrist!
Doc Stearne continually ended up with patients who claimed they were seeing monsters...and actually were seeing deadly things of supernatural or alien origin!
Eventually, like most other civvie-clad heroes (Sandman, Doc Savage, Crimson Avenger, etc.), Stearne adopted a colorful set of tights and an appropriate name, though in his case, it was in his final appearance in 1947's Super-Duper Comics #3!
Years later, a copy of that book found it's way into the hands of writer-artist Michael T. Gilbert, who, long before Alex Ross did his mass resurrection of public domain characters in Project SuperPowers, revived the character in revamped form (though the original eventually did pop up as the new character's father).
Since then, Gilbert's version has been an action hero as well as a reprint anthology host.
And all his appearances are well worth picking up.
Oh, look! There's a bunch of them below!

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