COVER STORIES for 12/24/2006
COVER STORIES INSTALLMENT #85
Welcome, faithful readers (and those of you joining us for the first time) to the 85th installment of Cover Stories, the weekly column in which I, Jon B. Knutson, present a group of covers with a common theme (unless I'm doing an installment of one of the sub-series of Cover Stories, 1-10 or this week's installment)!
This time around, it's time once again for...
And once again we return to another quartet of issues of the other-reality Charlton title, "Drive-In Movie Classics!"
We're up to issue 17 of this title, which featured Robinson Crusoe on Mars, a relatively recent release of the time! If you've ever seen this movie yourself, you'll probably remember that the space ships in it were the same ones as used in War of the Worlds (despite what the movie poster shows). Did you remember that future Batman Adam West was one of the stars of this one?
This was another one of those issues that doesn't appear to have been drawn by regular artist Fred Michaels... the art style is much more stilted than usual, and lacking in detail. In fact, it almost looks like it was a last-minute job that a different Charlton artist did by tracing the storyboards done for the movie, if I'm any judge!
Must have been a last-minute deal with the studio.
Now... it's time for Hercules, as there were three issues in a row featuring adaptations of the Hercules movies!
Issue 18's adaptation was of the 1955 Hercules movie, which (like the others in the series) were originally filmed in Italy featuring strongman Steve Reeves as Hercules, and then dubbed into English. These movies have a reputation for being pretty cheesy... and, well, to be honest, based on this first movie (the only one I've ever seen myself), I can understand why.
At least the first movie was more-or-less based on the original myths (in this case, Jason and the Argonauts, although it focused more on Herc). Plus there were fabulous babes with short skirts galore!
It's interesting that there were three issues in a row featuring the Hercules movies... almost as if Charlton was considering originally just doing a Hercules comic book based on these movies, but decided at the last minute to make them part of this comic (not that there's any real evidence that was the case).
If you've never seen any of these movies yourself, here's a few trailers to give you an idea of what they were like:
Here's the last of this week's four covers... featuring Hercules and the Captive Women! It looks like Joey and Fred decided to just have fun with these, reworking some of the storylines so that more of the fabulous babes in the short skirts could be featured prominently!
Now, I know that I haven't given you that much info about these comics this time around... but I'll make up for it in the next "Comics They Never Made," as I present the single-rarest issue of this title there ever was - issue 21!
So that's the four issues of this title for this edition of "Comics They Never Made," so let's shut down the Kurtzberg Alternate Reality device, and get ready to look at comics you can actually find at a local convention... next time around!
Join me next time for another installment of "Cover Stories," in which I'll present some covers that revisit a previous topic, and in the meantime, you can check out my blog at http://waffyjon.blogspot.com for other musings and ramblings by me, or email me with comments about this column at !
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
