If Frank Capra had made a superhero movie, it might well have been 1980’s Hero at…
Just Imagine!
JUST IMAGINE! November 1956: Have Rocket Belt, Will Fight Crime
In France after World War II, superheroes became problematic. Characters like Tarzan and the Batman-like French…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1964: When Justice Jests
One scene in superhero stories always amuses me. It’s the bit where some bully, smartass, or…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1947: The Wonder in the Wheelchair
Gardner Fox wrote superhero stories intended to provide support for the disabled, all the way back…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1967: That’s Nice, That’s Terrific
Superman editor Mort Weisinger often took his story cues from the popular culture fads of the…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1964: On the Side of the Angel
In Tales of Suspense 49 (Jan. 1964), Iron Man uses his new armor to withstand a…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1967: The Everyman in Superman
That mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent seldom gets any applause. Superman 197, a 1967 80-page Giant, was…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1986: Götterdämmerung for Superman
A certain dramatic flaw is inherent in superhero stories appearing in ongoing commercial magazines like pulps…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1964: Enter the Dragon Man
The Thing began by being subject to embittered, violent rages, but those tantrums evolved from being…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1965: Pulling Powers Out of Your Hat
His power came from his long-unfashionable hat. Teeny weeny magic beanie, / Pointing towards the sky;…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1958: The Dynamic Duo and the Terrible Trio
Who could threaten a duo of animal-costumed heroes more than a trio of animal-costumed villains? The…
JUST IMAGINE: April 1954: Captain America By Any Other Name…
But for a quirk of fate, comic books’ Silver Age might have arrived a couple of…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1967: Now Tarzan Make War
Wielding a huge mounted machine gun as if it were a tommy gun, a grimacing Tarzan…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1960: Females and Felines
Females and felines. They go way back. But why that particular popular cultural association? Perhaps partly…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1964: The Advantages of Being Frozen
As a writer, Stan Lee took pride in attempting to repurpose something that might be regarded…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1958: Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Hawk!
Thanks to his seven comic book titles, his newspaper comic strip, his movie cartoons, his movie…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1970: Another Thunder
Alan Jim Hanley’s Captain Thunder appeared in his fanzine efforts in the late 1960s-early 1970s. The…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1940: The Start of the Shtick Superheroes
Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the Flash was among the first of…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1960: Pity the Old Man in the Sky
Superheroes generally have one power of which even they remain unaware: they don’t age. We long-time…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1970: The Female of the Species
In 1970, Marvel unveiled the first of its several female counterparts to Spider-Man. And it turned…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1942: A Superman No More
Perhaps MLJ may have decided that Batman-like heroes were on the way in, and Superman-like heroes…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1941: Beware the Butterfly’s Bayonet
In a single story in Captain America Comics 3 (May 1941), we get mummies, a looming…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1960: When Dinosaurs Fly Through a Hole in the Sky
When I was a boy in the early 1960s, my heart belonged to the superheroes. But…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1939: Small Heroes, Big Dreams
Everything about superheroes is gigantic, symbolically if not literally. They are colossal, displaying the strength of…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1964: Even Iron Can Crumble
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1943: Johnny Thunder Plays Spider-Man
Super-goofball Johnny Thunder probably drove some readers up the wall. In All-Star Comics 18 (Fall 1943),…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1946: The Superhero Circus Leaves Town
Superheroes are supposed to arrive in the nick of time, but Stuntman left it too late,…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1962: The Monster At My Window
There’s something about the thing that’s inexorably approaching that can send a particularly keen frisson of…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1962: Aliens and Alienation
For a second time, interplanetary foes have attacked the Fantastic Four through the tactic of turning…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1939: The Name is Phantom, Bob Phantom
I always suspected that Bob Phantom, an early MLJ superhero, added the friendly, aw-shucks “Bob” just…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1930: The Shadow Arrives, and Returns and Returns
By the time Superman arrived in 1938, the Shadow was already a well-established multi-media superhero who’d…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1966: Home is the Hunter
Many of Spider-Man’s early foes were animal-themed costumed adventurers, like him. And one of them was…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1942: The Rabbit Who Said ‘Shazam!’
Fawcett’s Captain Marvel was one early superhero who swiftly evolved into a franchise. Debuting in 1940,…