What were your views on The Mighty Comics Group; Archie's attempt to copy Stan Lee's editorial style crossed with some very 'high camp' TV Batman stories?
I remember managing to pick up a lot of these second-hand in the mid-70's and I liked them in a very 'guilty pleasure' way. These are the ones I remember buying for a few pence ...
I think the covers were excellent - and that's what attracted me, even in my more 'sophisticated' teen-age tastes - but the stories, characterisation and dialogue were pitiful. I remember acquiring some of The Fly and Jaguar comics and thought they were better.
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...Those FLY and JAGUAR ishes were before the - I guess that is the Conventional Fannish Wisdom , anyway - pseudo-Marvelish " Mighty " approach set in !!!!!!!!!
I recently did acquire a bacissue of the MIGHTY COMICS RESENT anthology with Steel Sterling , so I'll try to read it again and report...
An issue of the ARCHIE QUARTER SERIES revolving one-shot title reprinting some of the earliest Mighty stories was among the comics I bought in my first year of buying comics , 1966...I remembered it but I bought no more then...In the 70s I managed to acquire that " High Camp Super Heroes " mass-market paperback of Mighty stuff that Archie somehow got someone to take a flyer on then ! ( It first-printed a Steel Sterling?? story before in was in the comic books , incidentally , where it saw print in a shorter version , in the very last MC issue , IIRC . )
I always was curious about MIGHTY CRUSADERS #4 , " Too Many Super Heroes " but that TMC TPB Archie put out a ways back stopped just short of that issue .
Joe Simon's estate now owns the Fly and all concepts from the first four issues of his title , in the 50s , 100%...but Archie can , apparently , still reprint the existing Archie Fly stories .
I spoke about the Bronze Age Mighty Crusaders here and I feel the same about the Silver Age revival. Had Archie invested in the characters without trying to make them "Marvel"-ish and had better art and pushed them as hard as they did Archie and the gang, who knows how long they could have lasted? Archie Comics was already a major company so if they put, say, a Shield story in Pep or the Fly in Jughead or the Black Hood in Madhouse as serious stories, what harm could it have done?
...You could call these - the " High "/Later Silver Age versions , Philip ???
After the more Mort Wes./very early SA-styled versions that I guess were marked " Archie Adventure Series " ??? - !
I enjoyed some of the early Silver Age Archie superheroes- the Jaguar, Private Strong and the Fly- when Archie was imitating the DC revival. They were imitating the Mort Weisinger Superman and Hal Jordan as Green Lantern and they seemed very comfortable doing that. In some cases, they even exceeded the DC comics they were imitating because they didn't have some of the restraints.
I also enjoyed the Bronze Age revival when they picked up the Red Circle name.
However, in between, it was misstep after misstep. In the late '60s, the Archie heroes dove heavily into the kitsch humor of the Batman television show and it didn't work at all. Mighty Crusaders was especially awful. However, I have a copy of the Black Hood comic you listed above. I don't remember much about it either way so it must not have been as bad as Mighty Crusaders.
...In the 70s , when Archie first tried the Red Circle name , they made TWO attempts at the Black Hood , I believe , one drawn by Gray Morrow (who edited the RC line at the time) , one by Neal Adams .
Both were " realistic " " tough " attempts , I believe , and were only published later on - and just barely .
I enjoyed some of the early Silver Age Archie superheroes- the Jaguar, Private Strong and the Fly- when Archie was imitating the DC revival.
That was my reaction, too. The Fly and Jaguar were pretty good, on par with DC's second tier of heroes mostly for me. But those Mighty Comics issues were just bad. They seemed patronizing to me, and the art wasn't anything special.
Making the Batman TV "camp" style work in a comic is tough. You're making fun of the thing that readers are there to read. That works for a large TV audience but not in the comics themselves. The Archie Super-Teen concept did it about the best. There were some interesting, original super-hero concepts in the group, but they didn't seem to respect them, so how could we?
-- MSA
George says he's embarrassed to say he had those Mighty Comics. I'm not embarrassed, I have them all plus most of the Fly, Jaguar, Shadow. Double Life of Private Strong was a revelation to me when I first saw it in a newsagents here and I now have the 2 issues, they are very good.
"Jerry Siegel and Paul Reinman were a GREAT choice for MIGHTY CRUSADERS! I hated when DC tried thier hand at "kitsch" humor, but I ALWAYS thought Siegel EXCELLED at it - "What dirty rat stole my gat?"." Robin
Bang on, Unca Robin. Such good, funny entertainment. If any of you can find these comics, have a read at The Web stories - the first hen-pecked superhero? And didn't his wife don a supersuit at one point?
Yes, she was Pow Girl. I'm not making this up!
Stephen Montgomery said:
Bang on, Unca Robin. Such good, funny entertainment. If any of you can find these comics, have a read at The Web stories - the first hen-pecked superhero? And didn't his wife don a supersuit at one point?
Pow Girl, thank you. Racking what is left of my brains and anyway, can't remember where the comic is. I was sooooo disappointed when I saw what the Web had become in the Impact line. But The Black Hood was good.
I just read an article on the MLJ heroes in Alter Ego. The Web lasted about a year and was a very violent feature.
In the Golden Age, The Wizard (The Man With the Super-Brain) was one of their most popular stars yet was turned into a villain in the Silver Age (in a completely different appearance) with the Hangman who reformed. And he has been ignored ever since. I wonder why?
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