[Watney]

Hi

I am now getting into Golden Age comics. I need help in figuring out who is who on the  cover of History, volume 2. I want to read the characters' adventures. I no longer have the book, just the cover.

#1: The purple masked hero that is between  the Green Lama and Skyman. He has red lightning bolts on his mask and shoots lightning out of his hands.

#2 Lower right corner has a woman in a catsuit with a tight fitting cap that looks to have two white wings on it. She is in front of Captain America's shield and Hawkman's head. Holds a gun. Maybe she is from SHIELD?

#3 Back cover, at the bottom. The blond hero with an emblem "SS" on his red costume chest, he is between Bullet Girl and Johnny Quick.

#4 Back cover, lower left bottom, this  red masked hero has a bullseye as an emblem on his yellow shirt. He is in front of the Blond Phantom.

Thanks in advance

[John C]

All the years I've been looking into Golden Age books, and y'know, I don't think I ever looked at Steranko's tome.  Sad, really, and something I'm going to need to rectify soon.  Meanwhile, since I've apparently been doing this way too long, I'm going to guess based solely on your descriptions:

#1- Red, purple, and lightning must be Nedor's Pyroman.  Or a badly-drawn Magneto.
#2- I want to suggest Miss Fury from Timely/Atlas/Marvel, but the wings suggest otherwise.
#3- That must be Gleason's Silver Streak, created to headline a preexisting comic by that name, and with the most bizarre origin you're going to find.  I dare you to make sense of it!
#4- That's almost certainly Novelty's Target, leader of the Targeteers.

[narfstar]

1. Pyroman
2. Black Venus from Contact comics
3. Silver Streak
4. Target and the Targeteers

[Watney]

Thank you very much, guys! I am excited to read about these heroes.

And if you do not mind...

I now have my cover to Volume One.

(for some reason, the cover easily tears off. I have owned two copies of the volumes and have the same results)

#1: Behind the "History of Comics 1" sticker is a hero dressed in light blue with a yellow "fin" on his cowl. Looks like he has a matching light blue cape. He is behind the letters "R" and "Y", and the $4.00 price. Behind Batman's cape.

And next to him is a red booted foot. I doubt this foot belongs to the blue uniformed hero. Would be amazing if jcolag could ID that foot!

#2 Behind Dr. Doom is a blond woman with a green veil, green glove and a green hat.

#3 A dark hair hero with a black domino mask, red cape, skull and crossbones as his chest emblem. Dressed in black.

#4 Back cover. Top middle. Red cowled hero with a red costume, yellow boots, yellow belt, blue truncks, blue and yellow cape, no gloves and the same type of wristbands that Captain Marvel sports.

He is in between the Blue Beetle and Robin.

#5 I take it the jungle woman on both volume's covers is not Shanna, but rather Sheena of the Jungle.

Thanks again, guys. You sure know your Golden Age heroes!

[darkmark]

Thank you very much, guys! I am excited to read about these heroes.

And if you do not mind...

I now have my cover to Volume One.

(for some reason, the cover easily tears off. I have owned two copies of the volumes and have the same results)

#1: Behind the "History of Comics 1" sticker is a hero dressed in light blue with a yellow "fin" on his cowl. Looks like he has a matching light blue cape. He is behind the letters "R" and "Y", and the $4.00 price. Behind Batman's cape.

ME:  Blue Bolt.


And next to him is a red booted foot. I doubt this foot belongs to the blue uniformed hero. Would be amazing if jcolag could ID that foot!

ME:  Only red boots I see in that vicinity are on Blue Bolt's feet.


#2 Behind Dr. Doom is a blond woman with a green veil, green glove and a green hat.

ME:  Lady Luck.


#3 A dark hair hero with a black domino mask, red cape, skull and crossbones as his chest emblem. Dressed in black.

ME:  Black Terror.


#4 Back cover. Top middle. Red cowled hero with a red costume, yellow boots, yellow belt, blue truncks, blue and yellow cape, no gloves and the same type of wristbands that Captain Marvel sports.

ME:  Stuntman.


He is in between the Blue Beetle and Robin.

#5 I take it the jungle woman on both volume's covers is not Shanna, but rather Sheena of the Jungle.

ME:  You take it right.

Thanks again, guys. You sure know your Golden Age heroes!

[OtherEric]

It's really too bad Steranko never finished the series; but the two volumes we have are nice.  What was the original plan, 6 books?

[darkmark]

Something like that.  In one of the early issues of COMIXSCENE Steranko revealed the projected contents of the upcoming volumes, but he never got around to writing them.

[John C]

Darkmark already got the other batch of characters, but I'll try to fill in a blank or two to help you find the relevant books:

Blue Bolt was published by Novelty Press, and is semi-notable in that Jerry Ordway adapted and recolored that outfit for the villainous Deathbolt in All-Star Squadron.

Lady Luck is a Will Eisner creation associated with the Spirit, published both by Quality Comics and through a newspaper insert, the latter containing her first appearance.

The Black Terror comes from the Nedor books, and I suspect that he holds the record for obscure revivals that have little to do with the original series.

Stuntman is a Simon and Kirby creation for Harvey Comics; Toonopedia has a particularly good article on the character, not that Don's other articles are bad, by any means.

And Sheena you recognized already, so I'll leave you to that.  I was going to make someone up for the boot, but I quickly realized that satire is all but impossible in such an "anything goes" field as the Golden Age heroes were.  I submit Silver Streak (as mentioned, Gleason's speedster), Fox's Bouncer, and Harvey's Blazing Scarab as exhibits A through C...how do you get weirder than them?

[Watney]

Thanks. I started reading Plastic Man here, which lead to the Phantom Lady , then to Captain Marvel and now...these unknown to me heroes.

Back to unwritten Sterkano volumes. If he had four more to go, I wonder how he would organized them? Two for the '50s and two for the '60s? Or would the pre-Silver Age get one volume?

Let alone what hero gets his own chapter and who has to share.

[phabox]

Image Comics put out a couple of issues of "Big Bang Comics" (Numbers 024 and 027) in 1999 Titled 'The Big Bang History of Comics' giving some backround on their stable of characters done very much in the style of Steranko ( even crediting him with the format) although retaining the regular comic book size.

No 'real' Golden Age characters to be found in these two volumes but still a FUN read all the same.

-Nigel

[darkmark]

Steranko planned to wind up the Golden Age in Volume 3.  Vol. 4 would deal with the 1950's, and Vol. 5 would take care of the Silver Age.  (Personally, I think he would need 2 volumes for the Silver Age.)  Vol. 6 would deal with the Seventies, i think.

BTW, that "red boot" that our first poster saw was, I think, a tail fin from a Blackhawk plane.

[Yoc]

Well, that was a fun project.
Nice work guys!