Thread by @Comrade_Bullski

Alright folks let's kick off part 2 of our mighty retrospective of the MLJ/Archie superheroes. Today put on your space-age helmets, get that Kirby crackle fired up and grab your trust buzz-guns because we are going to...

THE SILVER AGE.

Previously on Comrade Bullski presents: A new comics publisher called MLJ blazed onto the golden age scene with a roster of superheroes! Said superheroes had a riotous few years before being supplanted entirely by one Archie Andrews and his gang, and they all faded before 1950!

IN TODAY'S EPISODE: Archie senses a trend and jumps on it! The Archie superheroes go high camp! Simon and Kirby! Stan Lee! C.C Beck! Outdated lingo! More sockos than you can shake a letterer at! And a lot of REALLY BAD comics! And now our episode...

In the mid-1950s the long-ailing superhero genre was getting a shot in the arm in the form of revitalized heroes like the Barry Allen Flash from DC Comics. A few years later and these stabs in the dark had blossomed into a full-fledged trend. Superheroes were back!

The 1950's had seen quite a few attempts at reviving superheroes for the new decade but most had gone the way of Marvel's ill-fated "false spring" in 1953-1955 - gone without much fanfare. But DC... DC were on to something. Sci-fi and shiny new heroes for a new era.

But before we talk about what Archie actually did to capitalize on this trend we need to first go back all the way to 1953 to find the seeds of the Archie silver age... and the Marvel silver age as well. We need to visit the Simon & Kirby Studio.

Fawcett Comics had been a giant of its age, publishing the first comic book to trounce Superman in monthly sales - Captain Marvel. But in 1953 the company was bleeding out following the prolonged lawsuit from DC and decided to simply shut its doors.

Once such lost soul was Charles Clarence Beck, the vastly talented and endlessly creative artist behind the Big Red Cheese himself. Seeing Beck without a regular book to draw made Simon & Kirby sad, and they decided to make Beck an offer - Create a new, creator-owned comic.

With input from Simon & Kirby and Harvey Comics editor Jack Oleck, Beck created the Silver Spider, one young Thomas Troy who discovered a magic genie that gave him a ring which transformed him from boy into the mighty Silver Spider. It seemed like a great idea.

For various dreary reason the Silver Spider never sold, and Beck retired from comics for decades, but Simon & Kirby kept the idea in their vaults. After all, yesterday's trash might be tomorrow's treasure.

Enter Archie Comics (finally).

Archie wanted in on now booming superhero genre, and turned to Simon & Kirby to come up with some ideas. The duo accepted and took on the task of revamping one golden age MLJ hero in the same way DC had done with the Flash and Green Lantern... and introduce an all-new one.

The first fruit of Simon & Kirby's labors was "The Double Life of Private Strong", a mouthful of a title but this was a Shield comic in all but name. Hitting stands in summer of 1959, this title totally revamped the Shield character for a new age.

"Double Life" was an energetic punch to the gut from the very first splash page, with the new Shield introduced as a science-fiction adventurer, a renaissance man hero for the silver age. With powers far beyond the golden age Shield, the series blasted out of the gate.

The oft-reprinted Double Life #1 sees the eponymous hero be endowed by superpowers by his scientist father before an enemy terrorist attack leaves him an orphan to be adopted by the rural Strong family, who give him the fantastic name of "Lancelot Strong"!

"Double Life" totally dropped the slapstick and satire of S&K's previous patriotic hero the Fighting American and instead presented a comic packed from cover to cover with aliens, mad scientists and communist threats, all presented in a very earnest fashion.

Unfortunately by the second issue Kirby's work was noticeably absent and Simon was backed by a number of ghost artists, many of which imitated the S&K style. And then... after two short issues, Double Life of Private Strong was canceled.

But... why?

The only first-hand account about the fate of Private Strong comes from Simon, who in one of his biographies writes that DC put legal pressure on Archie due to supposed similarities between the new Shield and Superman. Is this what happened? We'll never know.

Fortunately, the same month that Private Strong breathed his last another hero appeared, one who would define Archie's silver age.

Say hello Simon & Kirby's Adventures the Fly, the salvaged remains of the ill-fated Silver Spider!

Simon and Kirby re-used much of the background of the Silver Spider including the central character being young orphan Thomas "Tommy" Troy.

Tommy is adopted by the eccentric old Marsh couple who are rumored to be black magic practitioners, but here we encounter a major divergence from the Silver Spider pitch.

Despite the setup the being Tommy summons is not the Silver Spider's genie but Turan, the enigmatic emissary of the dimensionally displaced "Fly World". The premise has been reworked after many revisions to be much more sci-fi sounding in keeping with silver age sensibilities.

The very vague spider theme of the original hero has also been replaced by a fly theme, an interesting choice which gives the hero a natural mode of flying. Note that his powers are still VERY much a Billy Batson/Captain Marvel deal, however. This had not changed.

Much of the first issue was devoted to presenting the premise and the various powers and gadgets granted to the Fly by his mentor. Note that Turan is very much just a background element in these early stories, as that will change drastically.

Without a doubt the coolest thing about the Fly's comic was the "wide-angle scream", a single double page spread which was very rare in comics of the time. In the first issue this extravagant page was devoted to the Fly's first clash with his arch-nemesis, Spider Spry.

The Spider is a typically grotesque and almost comical foe, but is presented as a fairly formidable threat. His visual design and jumping remind me a lot of the Toad who Kirby would design much later for the X-Men series.

Adventures of the Fly seemed to be a hit from the get-go and continued immediately into issue 2. Unfortunately this would prove to be the final issue Jack Kirby worked on and indeed his final artistic credit for Archie during the era.

With only 3 partial issues to his credit it may seem like Kirby's influence on Archie was minor, but these titles really did make the company sit up and realize that superhero comics were fully viable, and thus Jack's legacy would live on.

But here's where fates collide. One of the name change ideas that S&K had considered for the Silver Spider prior to his transformation into the Fly was... Spiderman.

When he returned to Marvel, Jack pitched the Spider-Man idea again, only slightly modified from the Fly and Silver Spider, but it was rejected. But the germ of an idea was there, an idea that would lead to one of the most popular superheroes in history.

For more information on the frankly fascinating rabbit hole of the Simon/Kirby influence on Spider-Man's creation, please consult Tom Brevoort's excellent summary on the matter:

tombrevoort.com/2020/10/24/lee…

With Jack gone, Joe continued plugging away at the Fly for a while with the aid of various fill-in artists. He retained the Wide-Angle Scream gimmick and told various entertaining stories, but it was clear to everyone that he wouldn't stay either.

Simon's final issue was #4, with a cover-date of January 1960 and with issue #5 it was obvious from a very brief glance at the cover that things were now going to be very different.

Gone were the Simon & Kirby trappings of the title. A timeskip had happened and Tommy Troy was now an adult -a fully graduated lawyer no less! The title was suddenly much more generic, with the art for this issue provided by Bill Vigoda.

We don't quite know what happened to the Marshes, but maybe they just passed on.

Oh and the Spider returns and is now this Snidely Whiplash-looking fellow for... some reason?

Much (all?) of this issue was written by Robert Bernstein who wrote under many different pen names for many different publishers, but I will always remember him as the guy who wrote the worst silver age Marvel comics I ever read, like the one where Don Blake builds a super-robot.

With Bernstein remaining as the head writer for most of the title's run, the Fly quickly metamorphosed into essentially a Superman comic, rife with contrived plots, aliens and little in the way of innovation or characterization.

Even the Wide Angle Scream gimmick vanished after a few attempts, leaving the title as a rather middle-of-the-road silver age romp in the style of DC.

Issue 7 at least brought a surprise. There was the Black Hood, a character not seen since the golden age when he had been forced out of comics by the Riverdale gang. Sure he was now wearing garish red gloves and boots, but it was him!

The story is your regular silver age nonsense about King Kong sized apes and a time warp but the return of the Black Hood is memorable as he is seemingly reintroduced as a new silver age version of the character, back to being a policeman but still being Kip Burland.

In fact the Hood would become something of a mainstay of the title in another way. Early on the Fly had ran simple one-page comics where Lancelot Strong or "Bill Bell of the Shield's Young Americans Club" would teach simple martial arts moves to kids...

However following his guest appearance eventually the Black Hood took over as martial arts instructors, teaching kids how to defend themselves with their bare hands. This Hood was clearly not a trigger-happy guy like his golden age version!

Lancelot Strong was not entirely forgotten yet, however, as in issue 8 (right after the Black Hood's return) he popped up to join forces with the Fly against the apparently formidable Monster Gang run by a disfigured makeup artist.

The issue after THAT (#9) saw the Fly encounter his second recurring foe, though he would soon lose her to a fellow superhero.

The Cat Girl (always written as two words) was a rather suggestive figure for a silver age Archie comic too.

The mysteriously indestructible Cat Girl turned out to be "the Sphinx, cat goddess of old Egypt" (Bastet? Sekhmet?) and was more than a match for the Fly. She also turned out to be quite a reader favorite, as evidenced later.

Mostly the Fly now battled strictly non-super criminals or alien invaders, however, and if you're not convinced he had become a Superman-style hero the introduction of the substance "Chlordane" which acted as his very own Kryptonite in several stories should seal the deal.

Some two years into his existence Fly #12 amidst stories of tiger genies and Rodans in caves suddenly advertised something new. A Fly... Girl? This must be the work of the essjaydubbs! The same issue also introduced a pretty actress named Kim Brand who the Fly saved.

True to their word, in issue 11 Kim Brand is just sort of given a duplicate Fly ring by Turan and instantly becomes Tommy's high-flying sidekick Fly Girl. No doubt Bernstein and his team were more than a little influenced by the growing popularity of Supergirl.

Fall of 1961 also suddenly provided the Fly with some backup on the superhero field as Archie considered his title successful enough to launch another. And the idea behind it was... "more of the same please". This was Adventures of the Jaguar.

The same month that Kim Brand murdered her first alien invader world-renowned veterinarian and zoologist Ralph hardy found himself in an Inca temple where he found a mysterious belt which imbued him with the amazing powers of... the Jaguar.

Ralph has a Clark Gable-esque mustache, the Jaguar does not. The "magical" Inca Jaguar belt also literally has boot jets on it and the powers it bestows on the Jaguar are even more Superman-esque than those of the Fly.

Early on the Jaguar stories use Ralph's profession as an excuse to have him globetrotting and feature many uses of his animal telepathy but over time he would just be based in the United States and generally fly around punching aliens.

Over in the Fly, late 1961 saw him and Fly Girl tackle menaces such as the now dead ringer for Lex Luthor Spider (in #15)...

...and an endless parade of alien menaces and monsters such as Lxo III of Mars (in #19, cover-dated May 1962).

You had your metal aliens, you had your tree aliens, you had your green aliens. Basically you had a LOT of aliens.

In fall of 1961 the Fly and the Jaguar (and Fly Girl) also made a return to the titles which originally introduced the MLJ heroes. An ongoing six-page feature of either an all-new Fly adventure or a Jaguar story began in Laugh Comics #127 and Pep Comics #150 both October 1961.

I won't spend too much time on these backup stories which never appeared or were even advertised on the covers of Laugh and Pep and didn't seem to make much of an impression on the fanmail either. But they were there and offered some additional superhero action each month.

The backups lasted for around a year and a half, with the last regular ones appearing in Laugh #144 and Pep #160 in early 1963, with one final inventory story appearing mysteriously in Pep #168 in 1964.

In Jaguar #3 (Nov 61) the title hero met his first recurring foe in the form of the enchanting Kree-Nal, the "Circe of the sea". The descendant of stranded alien visitors, Kree-Nal came to the surface to have some fun by using her vision to turn people and animals into monsters.

True to the bullshit plot device nature of these stories, Jaguar defeats Kree-Nal by scaring her with his power to turn into an ACTUAL jaguar which had never been mentioned before and would never be mentioned again. Oh and Kree-Nal was actually a monster herself, what a tweest!

Not content with having one exotic female in his rogue's gallery, in the very next issue (#4, Jan 62) the Jaguar also permanently steals Cat Girl from the Fly's title where she had only managed to appear twice before being whisked away.

It seems Cat Girl was much more interested in Jaguar and quickly developed a crush on him, even saving him from an amorous alien queen. Cat Girl would appear several times in Jaguar's title in 1962 as both friend and foe.

Meanwhile in the Fly, not only did #18 cover-dated March 1962 feature a story where Fly was nearly transformed into a lookalike of the creature from the famous horror movie "the Fly"...

...but the same issue also features an ABSOLUTELY INSANE story about intelligent mice trying to destroy Turan's Fly World only to be exterminated and having their world blown up by the Fly People. Straight-up genocide, and this wasn't the first time.

At this point neither Fly nor Jaguar even bother to explain the powers of the heroes and all the heroes can now easily fly to other planets without breaking a sweat. Maybe one day scientists can use this to advance humanity, Fly Girl says.

And of course there's Kryp- Chlordane. There's ALWAYS Chlordane.

Adventures of the Fly #21 published in autumn of 1962 did something slightly interesting in that it began an ongoing narrative where many foes of the Fly and Fly Girl banded together as the Anti-Fly League. However this sounds more exciting than it actually is.

The group itself doesn't serve any real purpose, as the members just sit around and grouse about the Fly and Fly Girl before spinning a wheel Wheel of Fortune style to see who gets to solo tackle the heroes. Despite having many members, only three issues featured the group.

Back in the harem adventures of the Jaguar, Cat Girl physically transformed herself in issue 6 to be more attractive and was at this point competing with Kree-Nal and Ralph Hardy's decidedly non-super assistant Jill Ross for the Jaguar's affections.

And if you're thinking "But Bullski, wasn't the whole plot twist of the first Kree-Nal story that she was actually a monster who could only pose as a human above the waves?"

Yes but Bernstein either didn't remember or decided to pretend that never happened. YOU SAW NOTHING.

If you think I'm JOKING about this harem thing, in issue 7 (Jul 62) Cat Girl, Kree-Nal and Jill have to TEAM UP to try and find the Jaguar who is missing and also safeguard the planet in his place, despite the fact they are rivals for his affection.

Turns out Jaguar was just pulling a Superman-esque test on them to see if they could work together if he was actually threatened. Lucky Kree-Nal and Cat Girl forgot they originally didn't care at all about humans?

Apart from this Lois-Lana-Superman triangle on steroids Jaguar mostly deals with poachers, aliens and people trying to pretend like coelocanths still exist in 1962. What? They've been known to survive since 1938? Quick, tell Bernstein!

Remember how Turan kept talking about how peaceful and nice the Fly World is? And then he annihilated a whole world very casually? Adventures of the Fly #24, January 1963 shows us what the Fly World is really like.

And it's a nightmare.

The Fly is all bummed out about all the crime on earth, so Turan whisks him off to the Fly World to show him how they have created their utopia. Turan has steadily become more and more of a meddler in the title, constantly showing up to exposit and intervene.

The Fly People simply take anyone with "bad" thoughts and stick them inside the previously seen cube which "destroys" his "anti-social nature". The guy is also pleading and struggling as he goes in.

Wow! Isn't that swell! If only we could have this kind of thing on earth says the Fly as he's sent back home, reinvigorated with the knowledge that one day we too can just eradicate unwanted thoughts.

This is the story that legit soured me on this whole run.

After this nightmare scenario the rest of 1963 is rather unremarkable for the Fly. You know your standard "this new villainess is a mechsuit driven by a tiny alien MiB-style but it's okay because he/she just dies in our atmosphere, serves 'em right" kinda thing.

Over in Adventures of the Jaguar #12 (May 63) Jill manages to figure out the Jaguar's secret identity, and you know what that means...

Yep, it's time to lobotomize the love interest! Fortunately Jaguar is such a good Superman clone that he can just invent things on the fly. The only upside is that he accidentally creates a telepathic supervillain with this device (who is promptly defeated).

By issue 13 (Aug 63) Bernstein seems to have fully tired of the Jaguar's harem. Kree-Nal never appears again and Cat-Girl loses all her powers except her feline telepathy and also inexplicably turns into a suspiciously Selina Kyle-esque new form, her second big change.

Cat Girl now being debutante "Lydia Fellin" this new Cat Girl has a couple of extremely uninteresting stories where she basically just just Jill but rich. A totally pointless character change. And that was basically it for the Jaguar, #15 (Nov 63) was the final issue.

The Fly soldiered on for almost another year but was clearly on his last legs as well. Another Black Hood cameo and a few more clashes with the Spider rounded out the years of 1963 and 1964.

Entirely unheralded on the cover, the final issue of Adventures of the Fly (#30, cover-dated October 1964) contained the surprise (re)appearance of another Archie superhero in the Fly Girl back-up story. Yes, this was the return of the Comet!

If you're thinking "But didn't he die? Wasn't that the Hangman's whole motivation?". Yep he did and yes it was, but this is seemingly a totally new Comet, wearing a weird rainbow helmet and hailing from the alien planet Altrox. And he wants to marry Fly Girl.

In a RARE moment of genre awareness, Fly Girl ruins this whirlwind courtship since she is so convinced Comet is a monster in disguise or a villain or SOMETHING that he just gets put off by her paranoia and flies off. But this wouldn't be the last we saw of him...

A quick word about names. Archie published these titles under the name "Radio Comics" but the cover blurbs often used the "Archie Adventure Series" as a common name for them instead, a title that should be familiar to fans of Archie's licensed comics.

Also the artists for the Jaguar and Fly comics are not all identified but two of the most prolific were John Rosenberger and John Giunta, neither of which really got credited but were namedropped on the odd letters page.

Now a quick break before we barrel head-first into 1965 and see what new horrors the silver age might conjure for us! Stay tuned!

As we have seen, Archie's 1960-1963 superhero output sought to imitate the DC silver age style which had certainly been the safe bet back when they started, but by 1965 it was fairly obvious to anybody with eyes that a new force was now dominating the comic book racks - Marvel.

As previously mentioned Jack Kirby had drifted back to Marvel in the first years of the sixties and together with Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and others had kickstarted a whole new kind of superhero comic, one that would come to become wildly popular.

Once more, the powers that be at Archie sat up and paid attention and just like before they said "We want some of this". But the previous creative team behind Fly and Jaguar were clearly not up to the task as three years of mediocre silver age comics demonstrated.

With Kirby unavailable, Archie turned to Paul Reinman, an artist we met way back in the golden age installment. He'd worked for Archie's early superhero comics and also done art for Marvel's current superhero comics. Surely he would be a great Kirby replacement?

And then there was Jerry Siegel. Co-creator of Superman, co-creator of the entire superhero genre, legendary creator, recently "let go" by DC for the second time. Archie invited Siegel with open arms, offering him the chance to become their Stan Lee.

A full six months after issue 30, "Adventures of the Fly" returned as the much more Marvel-esque "Fly Man" (but retained the same numbering) and right off the bat Siegel and Reinman sought to emulate the Marvel style. Comet! Black Hood! And... the Shield?

From the Marvel-imitating loud cover copy to the extensive amount of narration and bombastic exclamations Fly Man was certainly a different beast than the previously sedate Fly.

The panels are bigger, there's more action and Fly Man now has a power set less like Superman and more like Ant-Man/Giant-Man mixed with Spider-Man. He starts the story off clashing with the Spider, now sporting yet another garish costume with a web on his head.

Fly Man keeps getting bailed out of various traps first by Comet who has an even more garish outfit this time but seems to be the same guy who courted Fly Girl.

He then gets flattened by the Spider's trio of henchmen... er. "Boppo" "Flipsy" and "Basher". Yeah this is a thing you have to get used to. I don't know what Siegel thought Marvel character names sounded like but this is the kind of stuff we get.

This time Fly is bailed out by the Shield, but not the Lancelot Strong one who the Fly already met. No, this is seemingly the ORIGINAL Shield from way back in Pep Comics #1 who has made a return, tho he refuses to elaborate on this to the confused Fly.

Fly is rescued a third time by his old friend the Black Hood who is now riding a flying robot horse named Nightmare and sporting a cape. No these things will never be explained. He also now has a distinctly non-lethal sci-fi gun.

Another absolutely infuriating thing Siegel does to emulate Marvel comics is to have the heroes squabble constantly over the pettiest things possible. The Archie comics just take this thing way beyond what's charming.

Shockingly this time the argument is staged and the heroes manage to defeat the Spider who I want to remind you is a guy without any powers who is kinda smart and can throw nets. And the team is formed! Sort of! The Spider is the first one to use the name "Crusaders"

The Jaguar was still MIA but it seemed the Fly Man and his new partners were here to stay. In fact almost every story in the revived magazine was a team-up of some kind with #32 (Jul 65) being another Crusader story.

The villain this time is Eterno The Conqueror, an ancient Atlantean warlord who among other things creates giant living statues and menaces a comic convention. SDCC 1965 was weird.

Eterno is a bit better of a villain but this story is still absolutely silly with tons of the trademark stiff Reinman action sequences. Eterno is only defeated by questionable time travel shenanigans involving a mosquito... yeah...

33 (cover-dated September 65) proudly advertises an upcoming Might Crusaders comic book and also reintroduces us to a couple of long-gone MLJ characters.

Weirdly this time the villains turn out to be old MLJ heroes the Hangman (now sporting a magic animated rope) and the Wizard (who has been totally redesigned and seems to have magic powers now). The Crusaders defeat them, as usual and no explanation is given for their heel turn.

Around this time there was a tiny bit of cross-promotion for this burgeoning new superhero population as several of them cameoed in the comedy title Archie's Madhouse and later appeared on a couple of Jughead covers (but not in the actual issues)

With a cover-date of November 1965 and a very awkward Paul Reinman action cover, Mighty Crusaders #1 promised to be the Avengers of the Archie universe, featuring the already established team from the Fly Man issues.

The issues wastes little time to introduce the group, instead instantly pitting them against a team of evil "ultra-villains" from space with weird-ass Siegel names and strange powers.

Siegel also seems to think that Marvel heroes routinely execute their villains as the Crusaders murder each one of this team except one, with the Comet quipping about it. What is this the 1965 MCU?

The now cape-less Black Hood loses his robot horse in the process. RIP Nightmare.

This was all just a prelude however as the real enemy soon arrives: The Brain Emperor. This guy is basically the Archie superheroes equivalent to Dr Doom or Magneto and he's... I mean he's not that bad of a concept, honestly.

Of course the actual comic is not that great, with the heroes winning through yet another convenient plot device. But wait, this series also has backup stories...

In a bit of a surprise twist it turns out the new "original" Shield isn't the original at all, he is the son of Joe Higgins, the first Shield. The older Higgins got turned into a metal statue by a villain called the Eraser and his son has been using a spare suit as the new Shield

Issue 2 of Mighty Crusaders continues chasing that Marvel dream with the over-the-top Inferno the Destroyer, with the most notable thing being that the story was drawn by Justice League co-creator Mike Sekowsky rather than Reinman.

Shockingly, however, the backup story in this issue reveals that the goofy rainbow helmet Comet is actually the original Comet. You know, the guy who murdered people left and right? Turns out he had been zapped to Altrox in an unseen adventure.

Upon his "death" the Altroxians saved the Comet and revived him, but upon the death of the Altroxian queen Naija he changed his costumed and became the new ruler of the planet which somewhat but not really ties together the golden age Comet with that first Fly Girl backup.

Meanwhile Fly Man continued being a team-up book, with issue 34 (Nov 65) even having a whole story without any Fly Man action at all, where the Shield and Comet team up against Evilo the Tempter. Another Sekowsky story and HE CHOSE... POORLY

The few times Tommy Troy and Kim Brand got to have adventures of their own it was bizarre stuff like teaming up with the "Iniquitous Bee-Man" against another villain. The narration here is so weird I can't even imagine what Siegel thought he was doing.

The same issue (Fly Man #35, Jan 66) also gave a surprising origin for Black Hood. Turns out he really was the golden age Black Hood all along, he just got turned into a living phantom for decades during which he didn't age until he managed to get turned back.

This "man out of time" backstory for Black Hood would literally never come up again and I can only imagine it was meant to emulate the explanation for Captain America's return over at Marvel.

Mighty Crusaders #3 (March 66) saw the constantly bickering team take on the Wizard and the Hangman again in a ridiculously convoluted scheme where Hangman replaced the Black Hood and Wizard posed as a villain called the "Deathless Smiler"

The backup once again is more interesting, as we learn that the reason for Fly Man and Fly Girl's new powers is that Turan modified their rings since we was dying. And you know what, I don't normally say this but GOOD. Because FUCK Turan.

...wait nevermind in Fly Man #36 (March 66) Turan shows back up and is all "No I'm fine lol" and then uses time travel to prevent a villain from having his origin. Bernstein would be proud.

The backup in the same issue reintroduces another golden age hero in the form of the Web. They recount his golden age origin about his crooked brother and then reveal that he settled down and married his love interest Rose/Rosie (who was an actual supporting character in the GA)

In an earlier strip a young hoodlum had posed as the new Web and now John Raymond feels forced to come out of retirement to clear his name, much to Rosie's chagrin. She seems somewhat accepting though reluctant here but that will change. Oh boy.

But if you think all these golden age superheroes coming back so far was notable, Mighty Crusaders #4, cover-dated April 66 would break all the limits. In this story Siegel and Reinman would bring back nearly EVERY MLJ hero... and have them all constantly fight and bicker.

This issue is emblematic of all the problems of the silver age Archie comics. There's tons of characters and things happening but little to no characterization and no reason for us to care about any of them. And they all act like children. Shouldn't these guys all be middle-aged?

I question why they even bothered explaining why the Black Hood and Shield look young if all these other heroes are just gonna show up like this. Anyway I love this page of the Web just being picked up by the Fox in his Foxmobile. And he brought BOB PHANTOM!

Anyway it's a big dumb misunderstanding fight with the Wizard and Hangman behind it (again).

Even golden age magicians Zambini and Kadrak show up and call the Wizard's past self and Roy the Wonder Boy straight out of Top-Notch Comics to help. No real explanation why Wizard went bad, but at least this is kind of a fun idea.

Much less interesting, issue #5 has the heroes battle the SPECTRE/HYDRA-esque D.E.M.O.N and its leader the Nameless One, and the Spider turns up. This issue has some really stiff and awkward fight scenes.

Fly Man staggered along for another couple of issues but the last issue bearing that title was #39, cover-dated September 1966. This issue is notable really just for one thing... it featured a story originally destined for a canceled comic.

It seems that originally Archie intended for an ongoing Steel Sterling comic to launch with a #1 in 1966, but this never came to be and the story intended for it was divided up between Fly Man #39 and Mighty Crusaders #7 with the Crusaders issue also reusing the cover.

Since I already got ahead of myself I may as well cover Mighty Crusaders #6 (Aug 66) as well. The story is very convoluted with a false villain called the Maestro testing the heroes to see if they can join the secret S.H.I.E.L.D-like organization T.R.I.U.M.P.H

The shocking thing about this issue is that it has honest-to-Kirby actual credits, not the smarmy "Vic-Rick-Jerry-and-Paul" kind of thing. Nope, they just straight spelled out who did this. I wonder how people reacted to Siegel writing this, since he worked a lot under pseudonyms

Anyway the aforementioned issue 7 is actually the final Mighty Crusaders issue. The title didn't even last a year, even at a time when comics were booming. And the final issue barely even has the Crusaders in it, it's mostly just the repurposed Steel Sterling story and OH BOY.

The Archie superhero comics used to run full-page ads with all-new art advertising other issues in the line or upcoming stories and the one for Mighty Crusaders #7 certainly looks much more exciting than the actual comic.

The aforementioned Hammerhead turns out to be a total goon who Shield easily soloes, giving the Black Hood some Marvel-esque angst. And so ends the Mighty Crusaders. The group would not be seen again for the duration of the silver age.

I think it's safe to say that the Archie superhero experiment had failed to take off. One of few pieces of merchandise ever to see the light of day was the Mighty Cromics Super Heroes Game which strangely had Captain Flag on the cover instead of the Comet or Steel Sterling or...

Archie had also tried their hand at reprinting the stories in a digest magazine and also in a book called "High Camp Super-Heroes" which used the word "Marvel" VERY clearly on the cover but contained only Archie stories.

But as 1966 rolled to a close the Archie Superheroes made one last attempt at pop culture relevance. I mentioned Fly Man #39 was the final issue, but in truth it just got renamed to "Mighty Comics" which would feature a rotating cast of superheroes between each issue.

Issue #40 (cover-dated November 66) started off with the Web and I really wish it didn't. You see Siegel had at this point arrived at the idea that Web was the "hen-pecked superhero", constantly nagged and abused when he tried to do superheroics by Rosie and Rosie's mother.

Your average Web story would consist of Web wanting to battle a supervillain, not being allowed to, doing it anyway and then being punished. Which led to one of his villains to just GIVE UP VILLAINY IN DISGUST. If you want good old 60s sexism, Web comics will provide.

One thing that's actually really cool about Mighty Comics is the amazing individual logos and cover dress for the issues. These look so cool and I really wish they had something else than Paul Reinman and the odd Mike Sekowsky art to showcase.

The above issue actually has the Black Hood pledge from wayyyy back in his golden age series (and his radio drama) which I like. They previously shamelessly reused this pledge for a Fly cover, but this is the real deal.

Apart from the cool covers and novelty of seeing some of these characters it's your standard Siegel fare with awkwardly named characters, extremely strange made-up slang and the occasional death sex robot. Sex death robot?

By FAR my favorite issue of the short Mighty Comics run is #47, cover-dated January 1967 because this issue featured the return of the Black Hood's actual golden age nemesis, the man responsible for Kip Burland's origin: The Skull!

The story is certainly strange - the Skull pulls the Black Hood into a nightmare which is essentially the Matrix. If the Skull manages to kill the Hood in his dream he dies for real, like the Skull is Freddie Kruger or something.

There's no mention whatsoever on how Skull survived his final golden age story or of the "Son of the Skull" villain who took his mantle but who cares? The Skull has a pit filled with giant spiders!

Oh yeah, Siegel has also doubled down on giving the Shield a "Marvelous" setup. Turns out he can't hold down a job because he's always running off to do hero stuff so he's always broke. It's handled as subtly as you think in between the supervillains in silly hats.

And by "subtle" I mean it's always stuff like this. What whacky job will the Shield fuck up this issue?

Mighty Comics #48 had another sudden and unexpected turn of events. The Hangman was suddenly a good guy again! Described in this story as the nemesis of crime and generally a great chap, there's zero explanation for how he went from villain to hero again.

The following issue (#49, cover-dated August 67) featured a Fox solo story where we find out he's drawn to being a costumed hero and the son of the golden age Fox, something that was never explained before. He also gets a girlfriend named Delilah.

Man I'd love to see Paul Patton's career as Ape Lad. Get on it Haspiel!

The same issue also features Steel Sterling and the Black Hood teaming up against the returning Monster-Master (the guy who got sucked into his computer) and the new villain find of 1967... DR EVIL!

Alas, all things have an ending and issue 50 would be not only the final issue of the run but also the final issue of the Archie superhero canon that had been running more or less since 1959.

The final story is about the Web and returning golden ager Inferno the Fire-Breather teaming up to stop an Inferno imposter and some gangsters. Hardly classic stuff, and Web gets nagged on for his trouble as usual.

I realize I forgot to discuss the one interesting Web story. In issue 43 of Mighty Comics Rosie creates her own superhero identity to keep an eye on her husband and to her surprise discovers she likes it. The story ends asking if the readers want to see her as "Pow-Girl" again.

This never came to pass, though readers seemed much more interested in seeing this happening than in more of the "hen-pecked hero" thing. Some future versions of the characters would use Rosie's masked identity, at least.

Sometimes I see people (even serious reviewers) who claim that Archie's "Mighty" comics were an attempt to capitalize on the success of the camp Batman TV show.

Only slight problem, Archie's superhero line debuted about a year before the first Adam West Batman episode.

More accurately, the Archie superheroes were exactly the kind of thing the Batman TV show drew from, even if nobody involved ever read an issue. They tried to channel a perceived fascination with camp and goofy superheroes which was little more than a passing fad.

It's astonishing to me that The Fly managed to last nearly four years with the low quality of its original style of stories, but I guess it had more of an audience than the hamfisted attempt at mimicking Marvel's success that followed.

Maybe Jerry Siegel was just burned out. Maybe he just couldn't wrap his head around the new style of storytelling that Marvel was having such success with. Maybe he was still reeling from his shoddy treatment at DC. Whatever the reason, these comics are overall very bad.

And so we end our story of Archie's silver age superheroes. It failed to find the hearts of the audience of the era and seems even more dated now. But regardless, there are always those who keep the flame of hope alive. Those who remember the ideals rather than the stories.

Please join me again next week as we hit the tumultuous 1980s, witness another relaunch that was and one that wasn't. And we at least get better comics than these.

Have any questions, corrections or comments? Have a favorite Crusader? I'm always here for engagement, even if you just want to tell me I suck for not understanding the GENIUS of these comics.

Thank you for reading!