This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the 1940 issues of Mystic Comics from Marvel back when the company was known as Timely Comics.
MYSTIC COMICS Vol 1 #1 (Mar 1940)
A. The Origin of the Blue Blaze – In 1852, 20-something Spencer Keen is seemingly killed in a tragic accident caused by a Blue Energy experiment his father is conducting. He is buried, but in 1940 some grave robbers dig up his coffin and we see that he has really just been in suspended animation all this time. The fresh air revives him.
Now endowed with Blue Energy powers that enhance his physical abilities, our hero adopts the costumed identity Blue Blaze and thwarts the grave robbers’ evil employer, Professor Drake Maluski. That villain has been experimenting on a ray that can turn dead bodies into a zombie army for world conquest. Blue Blaze isn’t having it.
B. Dynamic Man – Scientist Dr. Simon Goettler creates a super-powered android who can pass as human. (Timely Comics had created the original android called the Human Torch the previous year, too.) Gottlieb has a heart attack and dies after activating this Dynamic Man android but the incredibly intelligent creation uses its Superman-level strength and ability to shoot energy blasts from its hands to fight evildoers.
Dynamic Man battles evil millionaire Daniel “King” Bascom and his army. Bascom has financed the invention of a machine which lets him weaponize storms in all kinds of ways. Dynamic Man defeats Bascom’s forces and turns him over to the authorities. Continue reading
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #17 (Nov 1974) 
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #25 (Oct 1975) 
CRACK COMICS Vol 1 #17 (Oct 1941) 
LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #1 (Sep 1995) 
LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #2 (Oct 1995) 
VENUS
ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #25 (Aug 1974) 
RED NAILS – I always like to emphasize that – despite the way Marvel Comics’ 1970s and 1980s Conan stories kept the character’s name alive and introduced new generations to him – the Cimmerian was not a mere comic book figure. Iconic author Robert E. Howard introduced Conan on the printed page in his 1930s stories featuring the character. 
I. This first installment introduces readers to a blonde female pirate – Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is the only female pirate among them and is as notoriously deadly as the others. NOTE: Yes, this is the character that Sandahl Bergman played in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. That movie made her a standard thief instead of a pirate and – sadly – gave her the “ghostly return” scene that actually belonged to Conan’s true love Belit (Bay-LEET) from 
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #12 (February 1974)
Dr Strange, Hulk and Valkyrie are the only Defenders available who can be rallied to save the world from Xemnu. (I’d have thrown in Clea, too, myself.) Our heroes battle the alien, who is defeated and again seems to be destroyed in the explosion of a spaceship he made the enthralled citizens of Plucketville construct for him. 
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 1973 combination of its licensed War of the Worlds rights with its original IP Killraven (1973-1976). It was similar to how Marvel combined their licensed Fu Manchu rights with 
WAR OF THE WORLDS – Jonathan Raven, rechristened Killraven in the gladiatorial circuit of Earth’s alien conquerors of the “future,” leads a group of Freemen in an attempt to retake the planet. CLICK 
THE WARLORD STRIKES – On the run after the destruction and genocide of their Staten Island rebel colony, Killraven and his Freemen run afoul of the Warlord, a human quisling who has wanted revenge against the rebel leader ever since he escaped from the gladiatorial pens. CLICK 
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