[movielover]

For this week, we return to the English language, with 4Most v1n1, located here, https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17656

The story is The Domain of the Purple Knights.

Enjoy.

[misappear]

The letter from the editor surprised me, mentioning that readers were expressing boredom with what I infer as super hero/science fiction. I was always under the impression that the malaise against that genre didn

[SuperScrounge]

Who Is Dick Cole? - The villain of the story is named Reggie... is there anybody in comics named Reggie that isn't bad? Reggie Mantle, Richie Rich's cousin Reggie, I can't think of a single good Reggie in comics. The story tends to be all over the place. In the real world finding a living dinosaur would be a big deal, but here it's a minor plot point.

Real Cadets In Action - Interesting.

The Domain Of The Purple Knights - Sadly it was pretty obvious how this one would end. I think I would have preferred it if it had been a wizard that had brought them back in time since then it would have been a real battle for the characters.

His Junior Air Raid Wardens - Ugh. Not a good story to start with and an insane plot twist at the end. Errrrg...

Death A.W.O.L! - Story had a few problems, but otherwise okay.

Popularity Chart - Interesting to see what characters were popular at the time.

[SuperScrounge]

The letter from the editor surprised me, mentioning that readers were expressing boredom with what I infer as super hero/science fiction. I was always under the impression that the malaise against that genre didn

[positronic1]

Blue Bolt Comics was like that. It's almost as if they breathed a sigh of relief when they had Blue Bold get rid of his costume and join up to serve in the war. That happened relatively sooner than most publishers began to give up on superheroes, so there's a definite feeling there that the editor and/or writers and artists couldn't wait to be done with superheroes, and cultivated a readership that didn't like them that much either.

[positronic1]

Many folks here hold a great bit of enthusiasm for early

[The Australian Panther]

Well, for me this book is pretty dreadful. This is #1 but I am unfamiliar with these characters so I don't know if the Target story is an origin story. Somehow, I suspect not. First question. Don't these guys have girlfriends? This is one of the laziest pieces of writing I have ever seen. In my opinion, the writer goes out of his way to show that he just doesn't care. I think Sid Greene went on to do much better than this, but when art is so bad that I know I could do better, its really bad! Almost all of the anatomy is wrong and way out of proportion in almost all panels. As soon as someone says, 'Good King Wombat' I know the writer is not taking this seriously. I could go on with criticisms of this, but why put that much effort into it?
A couple of random comments.
I played computer games back in the early 90's that had similar plots and artwork.
This type of book is what Alan Moore used for a template with his 'Americas Best' imprint. 
'Reggie'? Visually, he reminds me of Dr Sivana. Casting that type of a character as a villain would be seen as negative typecasting today, and you probably wouldn't get away with it.
No, actually Reggie is pretty scary for a comic book villain. He's a bit more realistic than most, since this is a pretty accurate portrayal of a psychopath.
[Definition. A person suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.]
With this story featuring students at a military academy who are usually in school uniform, this type of story is more what you would expect in a British Comic paper than in an american comic.
I'm not in a hurry to read any more of these.
Misappear , yes the writing can be dreadful in Golden Age comics,( see my review above) but not universally.
You can't go wrong applying Theodore Sturgeon's Law, '90 PERCENT OF EVERYTHING IS CRAP' 
My interpretation of what he meant by that was that in terms of creative work,less than 10% is excellent.
Or Rudyard Kiplings'
Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake."[1]
Both quoted here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law   
The writing was also dreadful in a lot of the pulps, and 'B' movies of that generation are often so bad that they have a cult audience all their own. But going through this stuff is like looking for diamonds in mud, you have to keep looking and you find them when you least expect to. There is some quite good stuff out there.  Also, some of the artists were excellent and for some of us tracing the growth and development of people like Kubert, Ditko, Kirby and Wood is very rewarding. Not to mention coming across creators you have never heard of before and then following them up to find out more.     

[crashryan]

I have to agree with the Panther that this comic is pretty bad. The featured story with The Target and his pals is notable mostly for seeing very early Sid Greene. He certainly improved with time! That woman has a very small head. It wasn't much of a surprise to learn It Was All a Dream, given King Wombat and chain mail costumes that appear magically. Quickly forgotten.

Not so the 30-page Dick Cole epic. This is one seriously weird story. The way Sivana Jr.--sorry, I mean Reggie--obsesses over the other boys' bodies...if the strip had been drawn by an anatomist like Burne Hogarth it would definitely have won a place in the Gay Interest Comic archives. The story careens all over the place. The last living dinosaur is sold to a schoolboy for a pet? Thinking Dick and Simba are traitors, the other students switch their allegiance to Reggie? Bought off by a dinosaur...just one weird scene after another.  The shot of Reggie wheeling a dead pig into the dino's cage, for example. I don't know what to make of all this.

The concept of a comic set at a military academy is unusual for an American comic. Kids must have bought it, though, since Dick lasted several years. The editor's letter sounds less like "you asked us for this kind of comic" than it does "we can't sell our superheroes so try this instead." Note that each student is issued both a revolver and a rifle, just in case a dinosaur gets loose on the school grounds. Novelty Press must have considered Dick Cole their flagship character. When they launched the detective comic Young King Cole they made King a relative of Dick, even though the YKC character dated from the dime novel days.

[lyons]

There's nobody else out on the street as I walk down the darkened alley.  Then I hear footsteps approaching behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see a tall man in a black cloak.  He begins to walk faster, his footsteps echoing on the ancient stone.  He draws something from the folds of his garment.  A knife!  It flashes in the streetlight.  A scream pierces the night...
...and it's my alarm clock.  I awake, comforted in my bed.  It was only a dream. One of the worst ways to end a story.  The previously occurring events are made wholly irrelevant.  It's fake, and it disrespects the reader.  SuperScrounge is right.  The Domain of the Purple Knights would have been better made into a time travel story.  A poor ending to an entertaining tale.  Thanks movielover.   

[positronic1]

The concept of a comic set at a military academy is unusual for an American comic. Kids must have bought it, though, since Dick lasted several years. The editor's letter sounds less like "you asked us for this kind of comic" than it does "we can't sell our superheroes so try this instead." Note that each student is issued both a revolver and a rifle, just in case a dinosaur gets loose on the school grounds. Novelty Press must have considered Dick Cole their flagship character. When they launched the detective comic Young King Cole they made King a relative of Dick, even though the YKC character dated from the dime novel days.

You get pretty much the same in Novelty Press' BLUE BOLT. After the early superhero issues, Dick Cole "Wonder Boy" essentially becomes the star character of that comic book, as well. With the same sort of tone in the editorial comments. Not sure if Dick Cole migrated from 4Most to BB after the former was discontinued, or if he appeared in both concurrently. Seems like 4Most might have been Novelty Press' answer to DC's World's Finest, Fawcett's America's Greatest Comics, or Nedor's America's Best Comics, with the 2 most popular characters from Target Comics and Blue Bolt.