Monday, October 27, 2008

The GREEN KNIGHT vs the Vampire! -plus-
The Rebirth of FRANKENSTEIN's Monster!

Today were doing a double again. Partially because the first story is kinda cheese-tastic, and partially because the second story has nothing even resembling a super hero in it. But, dang, you can't have Halloween without Frankenstein!!

From the cut and color-scheme of his costume to his bow-and-arrow motif, Green Knight looks like a Green Arrow rip-off. But he debuted just one month after Ollie Queen premiered in MORE FUN COMICS #73 (November 1941)!

Green Knight got his start in DYNAMIC COMICS #2 (December 1941) and wrapped up his career in DYNAMIC COMICS #3 (February 1942).

from
BULLS EYE COMICS #11 (1944)
[reprinted from DYNAMIC COMICS #2 (December 1941)]
story by ?; art by Charles Sultan
?


Those last couple panels are all kinds of "what th- huh?" He says "We'll fire the old trap!" Which to me seems barely English. Then, the panel where he's "firing the old trap" hardly looks like anything; whether it's the art of the coloring...I just don't see a trap being fired. Finally, in the last panel, Dale says "Gosh, they did'nt [sic] even let me thank them!" Meanwhile, Green Knight is barely two feet away talking to her!!! Oh my...



Frankenstein's Monster has a checkered past -- made more interesting by the fact that all of his appearances published by Prize were from the same creator; Dick Briefer. He debuted as, well, a monster in PRIZE COMICS #7 (December 1940). By 1944 he was battling Nazis, as all good comic heroes were doing at the time. Before the year was out, his adventures were played strictly for laughs, sharing wacky adventures with vampires and ghouls. The comedy carried over into his own series; FRANKENSTEIN #1-17
(Summer 1945-January 1949). He continued to appear in PRIZE COMICS through the final issue, #68 (February 1948).

In the early 1950s, horror comics were getting huge. Prize decided to go for a piece of the pie and Dick Briefer brought back Frankenstein's Monster as, well, a monster. The new, original monster's adventures ran in FRANKENSTEIN #18-33 (March 1952-October 1954).

from
FRANKENSTEIN #18 (March 1952)
story and art by Dick Briefer

2 comments:

  1. The Green Knight! Hey, you found another gold-age GREEN hero for me! I gotta include him in my list of green heroes ...!

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  2. Yay! Happy to help.
    There aren't a lot of GREEN gold-age heroes. Maybe 10-ish. Blue, Yellow and White are also under-represented.
    If your name was sea_of_red or sea_of_black...you'd be set! ;-)

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