NIGHTSHADE "Masque of Mirrors"

The final NightShade solo tale has a kool "Easter Egg"...

...let's see if you can pick it out!

(Note: Unlike Marvel or DC, Charlton didn't tend to use footnotes referring to other issues.)

Co-creator David A Kaler and artist Jim Aparo included a reference to Charlton's WWII-based hero JudoMaster by making his now-adult sidekick, Tiger, the teen-age Eve's martial-arts instructor!
Jewelee (also a Kaler/Steve Ditko creation) was part of a duo who faced NightShade and Captain Atom in an earlier issue.
Charlton's Captain Atom #89 (1967) was the final issue of the series.
While a Captain Atom book-length tale had been penciled and plotted (and finally saw publication in the 1970s), no further NightShade stories were prepared beyond a few story notes continuing this arc.
BTW, while the main stories (starring Captain Atom) from these issues of Captain Atom were reprinted in DC Action Hero Archive hardcovers, the NightShade backup tales were not!

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NIGHTSHADE "Poetry of Peril"

When Last We Left Our Heroine...

...since the first panel has already synopsized the story, sit back and enjoy this never-reprinted tale from Charlton's Captain Atom #88 (1967)!

Be here Next Week

as the Secret Origin of

NightShade

concludes...

Co-creator David A Kaler and artist Jim Aparo continue the origin, adding just enough detail to intrigue the reader!
BTW, while the main stories (starring Captain Atom) from these issues of Captain Atom were reprinted in DC Action Hero Archive hardcovers, the NightShade backup tales were not!

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NIGHTSHADE "Image's Idyl"

She only made a half-dozen appearances during the Silver Age...

...and two in the Bronze Age, but the Darling of Darkness made an indelible impression on comics fans...

Be here Next Week

as the Secret Origin of

NightShade

continues...

Though Marvel and DC dominated the super-hero genre during the Silver Age, numerous companies jumped into the fray with their own lines of costumed characters.

One of the most successful (artistically, at least) was Charlton.

With a lineup of talent including old pros like Dick Giordano, Pete Morisi, and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko as well as up-and-comers like Denny O'Neil, Roy Thomas, Pat Boyette, and Jim Aparo, Charlton offered a line of "Action Heroes" including two different Blue Beetles, ThunderBolt, Hercules, JudoMaster, The Sentinels, The Question, Son of Vulcan, Captain Atom, and one "Action Heroine"...NightShade.

She had already appeared in several issues of Captain Atom by writer David A Kaler and illustrator Steve Ditko as a super-powered CIA operative assigned by the government to assist the title hero.

No explanation was given for her powers, which were assumed to be technological or chemical in nature.

The Darling of Darkness proved popular enough to receive her own back-up strip in Captain Atom #87 (1967), where co-creator Kaler and new artist Jim Aparo told her origin, making it supernatural rather than scientific!

Next week, along with Part 2 of her origin, we'll include more info about this influental heroine.

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AGAR-AGAR "Martian Visitors"

Continuing the "never seen in the US" stories of this cosmic heroine...

...told in an extremely-psychedelic (and kool) style unique even in the late 1960s-early 1970s!

This story from Dracula #9 (1971) was written by Luis Gasca under the pen-name Sadko (which he also used as the scripter on Wolff, another strip in Dracula, illustrated by Estaban Maroto, which we're running in Hero Histories™) and illustrated in a Peter Max-esque style by Alberto Solsona..

As we mentioned, this was the third of five stories unseen by American audiences.
The final two will be presented before Halloween.
It'll be a groovy trip, baby!

Be here next week, when we present another tale of classic comic grrl power!

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WILDFIRE "introducing WildFire"

Here's a Golden Age heroine with abilities equal to any male...

...(both super-powers and hand-to-hand combat skills) along with one of the skimpiest costumes we ever saw in Golden Age comics!

Created by writer Robert Turner and artist Jim Mooney, WildFire debuted in Quality's Smash Comics #25 (1941), running for 12 issues, all by Turner and Mooney!

In the early 1980s, when Roy Thomas conceived All-Star Squadron as a showcase for Golden Age heroes (including ones from companies DC had acquired over the years like Fawcett and Quality), he planned to include WildFire among them.

DC vetoed the idea since the name "WildFire" was already in use by a member of the Legion of Super Heroes.

Thomas liked the idea of a woman with fire-oriented powers, so he introduced a new sister for existing, now-powered, character FireBrand, killed him off, and had the sister assume the name, complete with newly-gained super-powers!

Trivia: WildFire never appeared on the cover of any issue of Smash Comics, not even as a head-shot, making her the only character with an ongoing strip to do so!

We'll be re-presenting the never-reprinted in color tales of this Golden Age heroine over the next few months...

Be here next week, when we present another tale of classic comic grrl power!

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