I’ve always been fascinated by the one-hit wonders of the superhero world, and in Charlton Premiere 1 (Sept. 1967), we got three of them.
With the superhero craze inspired by the Batman TV show already on the wane, perhaps the Shape, the Tyro Team, and the Spookman misfired because they were mistimed.
“The real prize of that first issue was its final story, The Spookman, by Pat Boyette, which shows the Texan’s art style on par with Alex Toth,” observed Jon B. Cooke in The Charlton Companion.
“A supreme example of his wild imagination is found in the Spookman, whose singular episode was in Charlton Premiere #1 with an eight-page story about a long-haired, sinister-looking albino (whom Boyette originally intended to call the Sandman).
“Dressed in Puritan attire with a cloak, witch-finder hat, and lethal-looking walking stick, Spookman, when adorned with the Moonstone Amulet, had the ability to time-travel ‘through a universe of vapors,’ and then he was party to helping Emperor Nero set ancient Rome on fire.”
Like the Hulk, Spookman was something of a monster and wasn’t particularly interested in crusading against crime.
In ordinary life, he was the owner of the Manhattan Gallery, Aaron Piper. “A former archeologist, Piper opened a gallery to ‘allay his frustrations (over) his failure to decipher Etruscan texts,’” wrote comics historian Jeff Rovin. “During an expedition to Central America in search of artifacts, Piper and his aid Crispin X. Crispin find the Moonstone amulet in a temple. Thereafter, they use it to travel into the past to preserve rare works of art for posterity.”
“It is the Moonstone that produces the terrible metamorphosis that turns Aaron Piper into the terrifying monstrosity of strength we have come to call ‘the Spookman,’” Crispin explains to readers. “We have just touched the surface of the seemingly endless powers of the Moonstone.”
In his sole recorded exploit, Spookman travels to 64 C.E. to obtain a Roman statue. After battling the strongest of Nero’s gladiators for the dictator’s amusement, Spookman and Crispin trade a cigarette lighter for the statue they want. As the fascinated Nero starts burning the curtains, the time travelers return to 1967 to sell the statue for $10,000.
“Despite the cover blurb of ‘Three New Action Hero Ideas from Charlton,’ he never was an Action Hero proper and it’s a damn shame there wasn’t more than a single atmospheric adventure for Boyette’s imaginative Spookman,” Cooke said.
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