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With Further Ado #263: Peek-a-Boo: It’s Veronica Lake

With Further Ado #263: Peek-a-Boo: It’s Veronica Lake

Posted on by Ed Catto

Back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, DC and Marvel fans sure loved the superheroes of the 40s. We would enjoy the current issues of Justice League of America or The Avengers, but every now and again there was an adventure that was kind of like “looking over our shoulders” at the past. The JLA would routinely get together with their historical antecedents, the Justice Society of America and there were so many tales to be told and retold of Captain America’s WWII teams, the All-Winners Squad and the Invaders.

But there was one of those old heroes that I kind of liked and I wasn’t sure why. Liberty Belle was a DC heroine who fought golden age criminals and saboteurs, like all those women did – in high heels. Created by Don Cameron and Chuck Winter, Liberty Belle debuted in Boy Commandos #1 (from Winter of 1942).

It took me a while to realize her greatest superpower was that she was (essentially) the Hollywood star, Veronica Lake.

Veronica Lake grew up in Saranac Lake and originally went by the name Constance Keane. (That seems like a pretty cool name to me too.) Her Hollywood star burned brightly – but flamed out all too quickly. Lake was a quintessential femme fatale in film noir thrillers and even the Bewitched prototype in I Married a Witch. Continue reading “With Further Ado #263: Peek-a-Boo: It’s Veronica Lake” →

With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow

With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow

Posted on by Ed Catto

I was excited to read the announcement that DC is creating another oversize book to challenge the stamina of bookcases everywhere. The Green Arrow by Mike Grell Omnibus Volume #1 will be published next year. This collects a series that was a real favorite of mine.

It was the late ’80s, which somehow quickly turned into the early ’90s, and this series was such a breath of fresh air. The ever-brilliant Mike Gold (You are most certainly reading his columns here on Pop Culture Squad) was the editor who famously teased writer/artist Mike Grell with a pitch consisting of two words: “Urban Hunter”.  Gold knew that a more modern approach to the character would appeal to Grell.  For many years, the Green Arrow had been strange sort of a hero that mixed the best parts of Batman with Robin Hood. But those silly days were long gone.  Grell signed onboard, intrigued by Mike Gold’s vision, and the rest is history.

This series started with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, a mini-series with story and art by Grell.   Fans barely had time to catch their collective breath when Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen’s story continued in the regular comic. Mike Grell was still the writer, and supplied many memorable covers, but the art chores were initially handled by Ed Hannigan.  Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin impressively inked it. Continue reading “With Further Ado #60: On Target with Green Arrow” →

Brainiac On Banjo #035: Women Unite — But In Mongolia, Hold The Soda!

Brainiac On Banjo #035: Women Unite — But In Mongolia, Hold The Soda!

Posted on by Mike Gold

Avengers: Endgame passed the $2,100,000,000 mark ten days after release, so in honor of that momentous event, here is a photo of my all-time favorite superhero team-up, even though it has yet to happen on-screen.

Now that the Avengers movies have made about as much money as your average Wall Street cocaine dealer, I think we can say the “women heroes don’t sell movies” bullshit is behind us. It’s time to do the A-Force movie.

Seriously. It’s well past time, but before this weekend the banks might not have financed such a film. I think an A-Force movie will inspire more young girls than a woman president, though that is not an either/or proposition. And the prospect of women getting their boyfriends to take them to a big super-hero movie epic is the very meaning of “turnabout is fair play.” Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #035: Women Unite — But In Mongolia, Hold The Soda!” →

Don’t Let’s Start #003: The Comic I’ve Had The Longest

Don’t Let’s Start #003: The Comic I’ve Had The Longest

Posted on by Adriane Nash

Contributor Bob Harrison posed the question in his first column here at Pop Culture Squad. Not what is the oldest comic in your collection, but rather what comic have you held onto the longest. I immediately knew my answer, and that it was 3 comics I had bought at the same time when I was in 3rd grade.

Now I don’t remember the actual date (I was 8 years old) but it was a snow day during the 1983/84 school year. Being raised by a single mother, snow days often meant I went to work with her when I was too young to stay home all day alone. At some point that day I walked from my mom’s office to the newstand around the corner and bought myself some books off the spinner rack. Zyn’s News & Cigars is still in the same spot on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Connecticut today.

I was a voracious reader even then and a rather precocious child. I say that not to toot my own horn, it’s a thing I heard adults say about me and it often didn’t seem like they meant it as a compliment; I say it because the books I bought were not exactly the Archies that society seemingly wanted me, a little girl, to be reading.

As I look back at the 3 books that are the subject of this column I see so much of the foundation of my fandom laid out in these issues. Wonder Woman. Black Canary. The Huntress. Deadshot. Alfred Pennyworth. Doctor Strange.  Continue reading “Don’t Let’s Start #003: The Comic I’ve Had The Longest” →