(Continued from Altron-Boy, Pt. 6)
Larry Ivie's MONSTERS & HEROES 7
"THE JOURNEY BEGINS"
This was the 3rd of the 3 issues (#4, 5 & 7) that I ordered from Mile High Comics back in 2006.
I didn't know what to expect, and I have to say, I was rather disappointed. Following the escape from Voltar's fortress, the 2nd part of "The Crusade Against Voltar" began with the 3 friends starting to make their way thru a heat-infested, dinosaur-filled jungle... and then, it just fizzled out. And there was no 8th issue of the magazine.
Is there anything sadder than an unfinished story? Maybe, maybe not. I have no idea what Larry Ivie did after MONSTERS & HEROES came to an abrupt (and, apparently, unexpected) end. But it baffles me that, in all the years that followed, he somehow NEVER manages to finish this story. Oh well.
From the start, I knew I wanted to make this project more "personal" than those I'd seen other fans do on Ivie & Altron-Boy.
I think I've succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.
This blog page finished on 4-1-2021.
ENJOY!
Larry Ivie's MONSTERS & HEROES 7
cover by LARRY IVIE (M & H Publications / May 1970)
"THE JOURNEY BEGINS!"
Story & Art by LARRY IVIE / Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Back Cover / The Warlord Of Mars
Decades after I discovered Altron-Boy, I got my hands on Golden Age STARMAN Archive, Vol.1, which contained the first 16 episodes of the Ted Knight STARMAN character. I could not get over the similarities between the origin story and Ivie's Altron-Boy story. Both characters flew via anti-gravity devices, did not hide their faces with masks, both stories involved scientists kidnapped by villains with mountain-top headquarters and lightning-bolt icons: Dr. Doog and Voltar. Considering how big of a Golden Age fan Larry Ivie was, it sure seems possible that Altron-Boy was at least partly a tribute. Witness:
ADVENTURE COMICS #61
Cover by JACK BURNLEY (National Comics / April 1941)
I found scans of the original comic at the Read Comics Online site, but they were of such TERRIBLE quality, I decided instead to use scans from the 2000 Archive book reprint. These were slightly fuzzy, and on closer inspection, were missing a LOT of line detail, and the coloring had been DRASTICALLY simplified, and changed RADICALLY. But, for the purposes of this blog page, they STILL look better than those online scans were. (Sheesh. Why the HELL can't DC Comics do better with such EXPENSIVE hardbound reprint collections?)
Page 4 / Anti-Gravity!
Page 5 / Lightning Bolt Hideout!
Page 7 / the kidnapped scientist & the villain!
But, there's more! I can't recall if I saw this when it was first-run or later in syndication, but there's a 2nd-season SPIDER-MAN cartoon by Ralph Bakshi & Gray Morrow that ALSO has several similarities:
"SPIDERMAN MEETS SKYBOY".
Once again, you have a young hero with an insulated suit, an anti-gravity device (controlled by the belt buckle), a kidnapped scientist held prisoner in a mountain-top hideout, by a villain named "Dr. Zapp"! As it happens, the cartoon aired on January 4, 1969, around the same time that MONSTERS & HEROES #4 was published. And something I never realized until recently, Ivie & Gray Morrow collaborated on at least one story for Warren's CREEPY magazine a few years earlier. Was Morrow's "Skyboy" a tribute to Ivie's "Altron-Boy", or Burnley's "Starman"-- or BOTH?
I should also mention that Ivie himself did an earlier, similar character also named "Skyboy", in a 1965 fanzine I have not yet identified. The helmet here looks even more like Starman's!
Jan Caldwell & the insulated suit.
Belt-buckle control.
Lightning Mountain.
Watch "SPIDERMAN MEETS SKYBOY" at Dailymotion!
ALTRON-BOY pin-up by MIKE HOFFMAN.
Finally... it seems someone has reprinted the ALTRON-BOY series in a "standard trade paperback" format (I'm guessing that means magazine-size, so the art isn't shrunk). It's available at the IndyPlanet site. I can't attest to the quality of the line reproduction, as I don't have a copy myself. But if you'd like to get one, it's available as either a "print on demand" copy or as a digital download. Or, if you'd like the original issues of MONSTERS & HEROES, all 7 are wildely available from a lot of different online sellers, for what I think are reasonable prices, for magazines from the late 60s.
Whoever put this out, they definitely picked the right cover painting for it. But I can't help but think if I'd done it, I would have come up with a much-better logo for the book.
STARMAN Copyright (C) DC Comics, Inc.
SPIDER-MAN tv series Copyright (C) Krantz Films.
Scans from MY collection!
with special thanks to Mile High Comics.
ADVENTURE COMICS #61 (1941) cover scan from the Heritage Auctions site.
GOLDEN AGE STARMAN ARCHIVE VOL.1 (2000) interiors from MY collection!
with special thanks to Fred Marcus at A Time Lost.....And Found.
SKYBOY (1965) pages from COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine.
SPIDERMAN MEETS SKYBOY (1968) images from MY video collection!
with special thanks to Paul Ettinger via the Spidey-Jazz Yahoo Group.
Mike Hoffman pin-up from the Comic Art Fans site
with special thanks to Arthur Chertowsky.
Larry Ivie photo from the Wikipedia site.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa.
For more:
See more Larry Ivie art at the ERBzine site.
See the Gods Of Mars gallery at the ERBzine site.
Read the obituary/tribute to Larry Ivie at Buzz Dixon's site.
Read Sandy Plunkett's article about Larry Ivie in ALTER EGO 152.
See the Larry Ivie Gallery of Illustrations!
Read CAPTIVE BRIDE OF THE APE MEN!
Read THE LAST WAR!
Read SKY BOY! (Coming soon!)
Read the entire ALTRON-BOY series!
(Continued on Larry Ivie)
Hello Henry, just a quick post to show I have read this.Interesting & cool stuff. Beautiful art too.
ReplyDeleteKevIn Hawkins