Cosmic Comic Crossovers: Arch and the Gang Meet Frank

While Archie Andrews and his pals had met some golden age superheroes back in the mid-1940s, including his number one hero the Shield, it was in the 1990s when he met the strangest hero ever. Or more accurately, an anti-hero, in the Punisher. Formerly Frank Castle, a battle-hardened veteran who lost his family due to a malevolent mob, took up his vigilante alter ego to strike terror in crime. Eventually, he was drawn to the peaceful burg of Riverdale, tracking down "Red" Fever for the government, and encountered Red's near-double in Archie Andrews. After a brief and tense first meeting, Punisher left the teen behind to continue tracking down his quarry through the streets of Archie's hometown. Turns out, Fever had a trump card of his own in case he had been cornered.

Disguising himself as Melvin Jay, a young entrepreneur, Fever took out Archie's on-again off-again girlfriend Veronica Lodge to a dance. Using her as a hostage in a standoff versus the Punisher, it ended up being Red's lookalike Archie who clumsily took down the criminal, with the aid of an old friend of his. As Fever was pulled from the social scene into the sky above, his foot hooked to a rope tied to a float of the Shield, Riverdale was safe once more from the criminal element. And so, Frank Castle bid his new acquaintences adieu. And they, for their part, eventually forgot about this entire surreal episode!

Friday Fiends: Good Guys Getting Greedy

Perhaps the greatest fiends of Charlton and MLJ didn't start out as such. And yet, each became consumed in his own success and dreams of conquest, albeit not on purpose. Honest!

When DC Comics attempted to craft an epic crossover throughout its various series, a new supervillain named Monarch appeared. A vile tyrant of the year 2030 who found his start in 1991, the one thing known about him was that he was a former superhero.

Although originally intended to be Captain Atom adopting this new alias, he was revealed to be another hero known as Hawk. However, Atom eventually adopted this identity after several time traveling machinations of the original, although his criminal career was relatively short and didn't taint his lasting legacy as a larger-than-life legend.

When MLJ Comics tried various means to brand their flagship series Pep a success, a comical lad named Archie introduced his readers to a world of teenage comics from which he would henchforth be king from which other publishers would aspire to imitate.

However, the side effect of this success led to the fall of costumed crusaders such as the Shield and Hangman, who once held sway over their small but significant share of readers. So, in essence, Archie ended up doing what several foes like the Hun and Captain Swastika couldn't... vanquish the underwear set... banishing them into comicbook limbo from which they would not return for nearly twenty years!

Watchmen and Friends: The Missing Issue!

Who watches the Watchmen of Riverdale?

Why Principle Weatherbee of course!

Who would win a battle between Captain Pureheart the Powerful and the Horned Owl?

Depends on whether Mr Owl sends his gal-pals after Cap, given his weakness towards kisses and all.

Why would Jughead where that odd mask?

C'mon, if you had that kinda face, wouldn't you prefer a big huge inkblot where your sourpuss was?

Who is Betty if Veronica is the Silk Spectre?

Well, she IS Superteen in her alter ego, so...

Who would win between Silky and Supes?

That's fodder for another post, someday perhaps?

(P.S. Apparently Arche DOES like Watchmen... despite our earlier post to the contrary!)

Archie Doesn't Like the Watchmen

If looks could kill, watch the daggers flying from the Archies' eyes gazing upon our heroes! They just aren't into Alan Moore in Riverdale, I suppose!?! More of a Springdale thing, me thinks...

Archie Animated: The End of a Cult Classic

The Archies had all the makings of a perpetual plethera of plentiful plots from the published pandering to the prepubescent crowd. And then... something happened to cause the dominant freight train of Saturday mornings to come to a screeching halt! And now part two from http://www.memorabletv.com/tvsgreatesthits/archies.htm

But the series took an unexpected plunge in popularity with The U.S. of Archie made in 1974. Designed as a mingling of history with entertainment, it found the gang going back in time in such plots as working with Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad for slaves during the 1800s. Such serious concerns were off-kilter for the normally light series, and it disappeared from Saturday mornings in 1975. Its last season on CBS consisted of U. S. of Archie repeats. NBC tried repeats of earlier shows in 1977 under the ride The Bang-Shang Lalapalooza Show, but it flopped too.

Nearly a decade later, NBC gave the property another try under the title The New Archies. The characters became prepubescent in this instalment, with a few modifications made for the properties to accommodate the 1980s. Some were substantial (Eugene the egghead and Amani the nice girl finally integrated previously lily white Riverside), others were subtle (Pop's Chok'lit Shoppe was now Pop's Video Cafe). Even Hot Dog became an English terrier. The emphasis remained on jokes and hijinks, but without the music and peppy atmosphere, this edition looked decidedly inferior to the earlier cartoon. There were two stories used in each show, and the 1988?89 season consisted of repeats.

Besides the comic book and cartoons, there was a radio sitcom titled Archie Andrews on Mutual from 1943-44 and NBC from 1946-53. Additionally, ABC commissioned unsold sitcom pilots for the show in 1962 and 1976, and there was a lousy live-action NBC TV movie in 1990 titled Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, starring Christopher Rich as Archie, in which the characters appeared in middle age.

Archie Animated: The Man Behind the Music

Continuing in our last installment of the animated Archies series, which began in the late 60's, we present the man behind the redhead that became a cult classic... Ron Dante. This from the Classic Bands website:

The Archies were a bubblegum pop group that had a #1 hit, appeared frequently on Saturday morning television, and put out three hit albums. However, despite this success they never did any live performances or touring. Why? Because they were cartoon characters.

The Archies began their animated lives when The Archie Show debuted on Saturday morning in September of 1968. Each episode featured a song and dance segment performed by the characters. The show’s music was supervised by Don Kirshner, the man who put together the music for The Monkees. Kirshner tapped veteran pop producer Jeff Barry to put together the snappy, kid-friendly songs The Archie Show needed.

The Archies’ songs were also issued as singles. The first one, “Bang-Shang-A-Lang,” was a #22 hit on the pop charts and got the band off to a good start. But it was a song released the next year that won the animated band its biggest success. “Sugar Sugar” was an infectious tune built on rich boy-girl harmonies and a catchy instrumental hook played on the xylophone. It went to #1 in the summer of 1969, selling six million copies and knocking The Rolling Stones off the top of the charts in the process. The group also enjoyed another Top 10 hit in 1970, with "Jingle Jangle", before "bubble-gum" music gave way to disco.

The group is also notable for the singers who provided the voices of The Archies, all of whom went on to successful careers. Ron Dante, who sang all the lead vocals, went on to sing other bubblegum hits like “Tracy” and produced most of Barry Manilow’s chart successes in the seventies. Ellie Greenwich and Toni Wine, the female vocalists, enjoyed lengthy careers as a songwriter and session vocalist, respectively. Another backup singer, Andy Kim, had a #1 hit in 1974 with a solo song, “Rock Me Gently.”

Archie Animated: The Start of a 60's Cult Classic!

Following on last weeks (admittedly) extensive review of the limited amount of animated appearances by characters formerly of Charlton Comics, we now turn our attention to Mighty MLJ's cartoon output...

...if you are listening to crickets churp, its because none of the superheroes in the Mighty MLJ stable ever made the jump to the big screen, in that format. Or much of any aside from marketing purposes for the ill-fated Mighty Crusader action figure line. However, that publisher's bread and butter, the Archie franchise, made a serious impact. So without further adieu, we consider the impetus of a nationwide sensation beginning in 1968. From Memorable TV Dot Com:

The number one cartoon of 1968?69 by a huge margin, The Archies had success beyond its ratings: it revived interest in the Archie character, which had been seen in comic books since 1941; it showed the appeal of silly jokes, teenagers, and music to the Saturday morning audience, a mix which would be much copied in the 1970s; and it even generated an international hit single.

The shows format changed considerably over the years, but most incarnations featured amiable Archie Andrews as nominal leader of a clique in fictional Riverdale High, where Mr. Weatherbee was the principal. His cohorts were vain, rich Veronica, who had an exaggerated Southern drawl in the cartoon; egocentric Reggie, who often fought Archie for the attention of Veronica; down-to-earth blonde Betty, whom Archie should have been pursuing; Jughead, the skinny yet always hungry sidekick of Archies; and Hot Dog, the group mutt. They rode around in Archies jalopy and hung out at Pops Chok'lit Shoppe. 

In the first two seasons (titled officially The Archie Show in 1968-69 and then The Archie Comedy Hour m 1969-70), interspersed between brief sketches involving the gang were musical numbers with flashy color backgrounds having the characters show off the "Dance of the Week" and sing new songs. (A character introduced here got her own show in 1970; see Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.) More significantly, for the first time, there was a concerted effort to make some of the shows tunes hits on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

Crossover Month: What's Bugging Lana?

Poor Lana, she is the second most jilted lass in all of comics next to Betty Cooper. Always the bridesmaid and such. She just happened to know Superman from the days of his youth when she fawned after the Boy of Steel, back in the pre-Lois days when all he knew was Miss Lang. She even adopted a heroic alias as Insect Queen, and still he wasn't impressed, although his alias Clark Kent did date her as an adult for awhile.

Maybe what she needs is Archie... ah yes we know he is the King of Fickleness. Still, maybe she has what all his other gals lacked, a Je ne sais quoi unmatched by others. And he meets one of your requirements, at least when dressed up as Pureheart the Powerful.

Crossover Month: Marvelous Marys

Doesn't sound like Mary Andrews is to pleased that dimension-traveling Mary Jane Watson is trying to pickup little Archie. Maybe she knows that MJ is on the rebound from a certain webhead she seems to have forgotten lately.

Does Mary have someone else in mind for her only son? Stay tuned...

Crossover Month: Quintessential Quartets

This crossover has it all: The main man, his "sis", his best buddy, and his worst enemy. And if we threw in arch-foes Doctor Sivana and Mad Doctor Doom, we'd have the requisite bald bad guy present as well.

Theoretically, if Fawcett had transformed the aliases of the Marvel Family into teen icons like Archie, Betty, Jughead, etc, perhaps they would've had more staying power. And had Archie Comics incorporated the Pureheart brand of characters into the main series that have thrived for decades, perhaps they would have created an environment that allowed their MLJ heroes to thrive instead of being banished into obscurity.

Crossover Month: Powerful Protagonists' Pops

Fred Andews, the long-suffering father of Archie, the all-American teen with the wandering eye. Imagine the advise he could glean from Jonathan Kent, himself a father of a famed figure:

• Train your lad to be selective of his best friends, that they not eat him out of house and home.
• Work on his coordination for those days when the world's security is in the hands of his son.
• Keep the number of love interests in your life to ONE. No mermaids or insect lasses.
• For goodness sake, kick that kid out of your house! He's been mooching since 1942!

Charlton Meets MLJ Week: Autograph Hound

Some fan boys just cannot take a hint!

Captain Atoms's Girlfriends: Eve and Shade

Charlton had something going when they introduced their two-in-one gal, Eve Eden aka Nightshade. Whereas poor Archie Andrews had to eternally pick between the blonde and the brunette, the naive and the vain, the girl and the woman. Captain Atom had her all in one in lady!

Rich socialite Eve Eden, blonde daughter of a prominent U.S. Senator, seemed to have it all. An oppulent life, a jet-setting lifestyle, great looks and a charming personality. And the attention of one hunk-a-man in the form of Captain Adam, who could easily benchpress a hundred Archies!

In her secret identity, Eve donned a brunette wig... worn in a ponytail style for maximum effectiveness during battle... and became the fighting femme fabulous known as Nightshade! Oh, and lest you believe she was vain like Veronica Lodge, aka Ms. Vanity, Eve knew how to flaunt her footwear!

The best of both worlds wrapped in one fab package. A sorta reverse version of blonde ponytailed Betty and raven haired Veronica. If only Arch had lived on Earth-Four, he would've had his dream girl right there.

Like she'd give that dork the time of day. You go Atom, boy!

Sideline Sundays: Noble Novices and Numbering

There was always something almost natural when it came to Archie's gang fitting into a world with superheroes. After all, if a group of teenagers can survive for decades un-aged by the ravages of time, certainly the physics defying feats of meta-humans is not so far fetched?

 

And speaking of revisiting heroes, that's exactly what Charlton Comics has done through the years, with somewhat mind boggling results as to the actual first issues of several of its mildly successful superhero brands.

For consider  yourself a young comic book collection who picked up Captain Atom #78 and and Blue Beetle #18, and you feverishly look for earlier issues! Not a chance! Somehow, this gimmick was believed by by the Dudes in Derby Connecticut to be the means to circumvent costs entailed in first issues!

Our thoughts exactly, Might Man! Kinda sucks all the joy of buying comics! Never fear, after awhile they learned from this and by the 70's Charlton was on the straight and narrow of comic book publishing etiquette.

And we now return you to your lazy summer weekend to relax and enjoy a good issue of Zap Comics #111. We know it does the trick for Superguy!

A Historical Overview of Comics: MLJ & Charlton

For those history buffs who want a good heaping helping of some heroic hot-stuff of the Archie Comics variety, we have a treat for you! You will find over at E-Dispatches from the Great White North as comprehensive an analysis on the "A Historical Overview of the MLJ Magazines/Archie Comic Publications Superhero Lines" as you'll find anywhere!

Consider, if you would, just a few factoids gleaned from this comprehensive essay on MLJ:

• "While a great deal has been written over the years about Archie Andrews and his pals the same cannot be said about Archie Comic Publications' superheroes. Few people seem to know that not only Archie Comic get its start-under a different name mind you-in 1939-as a publisher of superhero comics but that it was one of the more innovative comics publishers in the industry...chances are that appeared around the same time as Martin Goodman's "Marvel Comics" #1. "Blue Ribbon Comics" #1 hit the stands late in the summer of 1939. Cover-dated November 1939."
• "Debuting in December, 1939, "Top-Notch Comics" (called "Top-Notch Laugh" from no. 28 on) appeared until cover-date June, 1944, with the last issue being numbered 45. During its run Top-Notch introduced a number of now-classic MLJ heroes including "The Wizard", "The Firefly", "The Black Hood" and "Roy, the Super Boy" (the second costumed boy hero after DC/National's Robin). Top-Notch also featured the work of a number of talented artists Bob Montana, Mort Meskin, Jack Cole and Bob Novick."
• " Cover-dated January 1940 "Pep Comics", MLJ Magazines' third anthology, was the company's most successful and innovative anthology. Not only did Pep run for a total of 411 issues (the final one cover-dated March, 1987) but it was also where comics' first patriotic hero debuted, where the first comics hero died in the line of duty and where the comics character that the publisher eventually renamed itself after first appeared."

You owe yourself this treat to dive into the ups and downs of the publisher known for teen comics who, in fact, gave inspiration for some of their more profitable competitor's own creations. Which we'll begin dissecting in more detail on coming Mondays. As for a companion piece for Charlton Comics history, there are bits and pieces you can find throughout the internet, but perhaps the most comprehensive piece can be found at Comic Book Artist wherein the creative talents that be made the best of a pretty bad situation financially, a diamond in the rough.

Some quotations from this thorough article for your enlightenment and (hopeful) enjoyment:

• "Charlton Publishing Empire's humble beginnings stretch back to the 1930s, when an Italian immigrant named John Santangelo began selling unauthorized printed song lyric sheets in Central Connecticut"
• "In 1956, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel briefly packaged titles for Charlton, bearing the eclectic names Mr. Muscles, Zaza the Mystic, and Nature Boy. Ditko's impressive work appears in Tales of the Mysterious Traveler, based on a Shadow-like radio show."

And later, the legendary (in these parts) Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt, appeared in Derby, whose origin is reprinted in this article for your entertainment. Good stuff.

Team-Up Tuesdays: Celluloid Heroes

Over in a parallel universe adjacent to MLJ, a group of teenagers decide to dress as their fictional heroes for the opening night of "The Shield". What Archie (aka the Shield), Betty (aka the Comet), Veronica (aka the Jaguar), Jughead (aka the Web) and Reggie (aka the Brain Emperor) didn't realize is that their heroes were REAL. Oh wait...this was 2002...two years after Archie and gang had met them in His Weird Mysteries #3 and 14. Guess they forgot... but then again continuity has never been what one would call a strong staple in the World of Riverdale, now is it?

What is interesting about these selections is how dead-on they were to their heroic counterparts. Reggie is definitely the "big bad" within his teen clique. Betty is the "looker" (wearing goggles, get it?) while Ronnie was always the catty one. Jug never let no girl keep him from his higher calling, just like the Web, only Mr. Jone's calling wasn't capturing criminals but consuming calories. By the way, wouldn't Big Ethel have made a wonderful "Pow Girl" aka Rose? That would be old school Ethel, natch.

As for Archie being the Shield, well there's history where the two of our resident red-heads are concerned. Consider his first cover on Pep #43:

A rather disturbing cover the next issue, maybe some building resentment on the Shield's part now that this punk was gaining more fans than he:

Despite this, our boy Arch never waivers in his adulation for his hero, even envisioning himself as the colorful crusader in action!

Charlton never had quite the same phenomenon where a humor character took top billing from heroes. Oh wait, there was ONE red-head:

Course you probably can't make out his hair color in this black-and-white rendering of Charlton Portfolio, but he's the guy right at the top in the middle of the page. Sad to say, E-Man never made it quite as big as the once and future Pureheart the Powerful... known the world over as Archie Andrews (more on Pureheart in future posts, never fear).

Hump-Day Humour: A Teenager's Breakthrough!

This solicit for a new feature in Jackpot comics was the beginning of the end for the MLJ back of mystery men. Humour would soon rule the day, thanks in large measure to the hijinks of one red haired teenager. Subsequent covers and ads would frequently pair Archie with this publisher's premier hero, the Shield, over in Pep Comics. This might help to break up the lengthy career of the Riverdale gang, with Archie and friends' 1940s-50s adventures on the same Earth as the Mighty heroes, and the modern versions on a separate universe (see Archie's Weird Mysteries #3 that shows this in detail). We were laughing, and so were the publishers all the way to the bank, but were the heroes? Don't think so.

Why Charton vs Mighty MLJ?

A comment over at Charlton Comics facebook blog stated the following: "Okay, we're not sure we understand the point of this blog (the gist of it appears to be comparing Charlton superhero comics to Archie superhero comics), but it features some pretty cool stuff, so who cares?"

While the description on the page's header: "Two parallel universes from two silver age comic book publishers examined ad naseum!" provide a reader with the gist of its intent, perhaps a few illustrative points can cement the driving force(s) behind this blog. Allow me to bend the rules, a bit, and introduce some non-featured characters from a different publisher which hopefully explains the method behind our madness:

Postulating further that there would be other publishing universes operating side-by-side, with similarites like those season between DC Comic's golden and silver age characters, we see the golden age MLJ and (mostly) silver age Charlton stables of characters had definite parallels as well. This is further hypothezied in this Omniverse Map found at http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/:

In 1986 it was confirmed that previous Charlton Comics' characters were assigned their own universe in Crisis on Infinite Earths #6. Later in 2000, the former MLJ/Mighty/Red Circle characters were also acknowledged as having existed in their own seperate dimensional reality.While never meeting directly, they had other similarities including the Watchmen having been originally inspired by the MLJ's Crusaders and later inspired by the Charlton heroes instead. Whether or not this allegation is valid or not, this was only the first of several cases where the two companies seemed to mirror one another. Consider...

Two military captains that harnessed fundamental forces to become the premier heroes on their worlds. Two heroines that disappear into darkness. Two athletic intellectural blonde haired heroes with similar fashion sense. Two insect heroes weilding special weapons while gliding through the air.  And so on and on...

Plus, you drive twice as much traffic to your blog with twice as many characters and interests...doing so in a non-sequitor manner...

Thank you, Robert, BBC, Victor, Rip and others who have expressed interest in this rather unorthodox approach. Hope you'll continue to be entertained with future posts with our Sunday/Tuesday/Friday/VS features.

Link-O-Rama around the Blog-o-Sphere

This site is not the sole repository for all things Charlton & Mighty MLJ (thankfully!). See below:

Mighty Crusaders is the premiere site for Mighty/MLJ characters

Comprehensitive Encyclopedia for Mighty/MLJ/Red Circle

Message Board for Archie Brand Characters

Excellent Reviews of Sarge Steel and Judomaster issues

Silver Age Blog's Comprehensive Review of the Question

More Question-goodness from over at Silver Age

Question and Peacemakers "Grovy" connection to Watchmen 

 Blue Beetle and Thunderbolt's "Grovy" connection to Watchmen 

 

One-Shot Prankster by Jim Aparo for Charlton

We will investigate more resources online for these wonderful forgotten characters at a later date. See you next Friday Fiends, fandom friends.