Action Heroes Archives Vol. 2

The Action Heroes Archive #2

by David Kaler, David Kaler, Gary Friedrich

From the mid-1960s -- the legendary Silver Age of Comics -- come these fast-paced superheroic tales starring the colorful Blue Beetle, the nuclear-powered Captain Atom, and the man of mystery known only as The Question Originally created as part of publisher Charlton Comic's line of "Action Heroes," nearly all of these classic tales were written and illustrated by artist Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man.

Genres: Comics, Comic Book, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Adventure

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2007

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Action Heroes Archives, Volume 2, contains Captain Atom 83-89, Blue Beetle 1-5, Mysterious Suspense 1, Charlton Portfolio 9 and 10, and Charlton Bullseye 1, 2, and 5, all originally published by Charlton Comics Group, all with art by Steve Ditko.

In the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths and reading most issues of Who's Who, I was enamored with a trio of new DC characters I'd previously never heard of, namely Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and The Question. While I enjoyed the DC versions of the characters, I started scouring flea markets and yard sales whenever I could, unearthing issues of Charlton Bullseye and reprints of Blue Beetle. Yes, I was a popular kid...

I didn't know what my attraction to the formerly Charlton characters was at the time but now I'm thinking it was that they were way more like Marvel characters than DC characters.

After reading a few stories in this volume, it was pretty clear that Charlton was the poor man's Marvel comics in its day. Captain Atom gets depowered and unmasked on TV a handful of pages into his second appearance. Likewise, the Blue Beetle gets his ass handed to him and arrested for the murder of the original Blue Beetle. Shit like that never happened in DC comics in the 60's.

You can almost feel Ditko's anger at Marvel in the artwork. It's more edgy than his work on Spider-Man and has more life than his final work at Marvel. Some of the poses are updates on poses he used in Spider-Man, like Ted Kord hunched over his work bench or Captain Atom straining to stop a menace with much of his power gone. There's a sequence where Blue Beetle battles an octopus underwater that I think is pretty spectacular for the time period.

The colors in this archive edition are really vibrant and a nice change of pace from the muddy coloring of the back issues I acquired over the years. The stories are simplistic by today's standards but on par with Marvel stories of the same time period. Captain Atom goes up against menaces like The Ghost and puppet themed Punch and Jewellee while Blue Beetle battles gangs of scrubs like The Squids and the Madmen. The Question's tales are short backup features and have a certain punchiness to them as he fights The Banshee and other menaces.

It's easy to see why DC would want to acquire these characters when Charlton went out of business but I have to think they would have fit in better in the Marvel universe. Also, I have to wonder how things would have gone differently for Charlton if they'd had a wider distribution, or, God forbid, social media at their disposal.

As a piece of Silver Age comic book history and a repository of seldom-seen Steve Ditko art, I have to rate this one pretty highly. Four out of five stars.

2022 I picked this up to thumb through after recently finishing the big Question omnibus. Most of my feelings about it haven't changed. I intended to focus on The Question on this read but The Blue Beetle stories are still the best straight up super hero stories in the book. I have to wonder what unused ideas Ditko had that didn't make it to print. I know DC resolved the Pago Island/Dan Garrett thing but I wonder what Ditko had planned for it. The Question leaving thugs to die in the sewers was the most memorable part of the Question stories.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The old Charlton heroes were a nice simpler era of Heroes. you basically had crook and the Red menace and everyone knew who was bad and good. no gray lines for people to exist in. These are very nice reads and a great time trip. Recommended

[Rich Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

While a good portion of my hardcover reprint collection consists of Marvel Masterworks volumes, there are a few DC Comics Archives that I also take the time to grab when they’re cheap on Amazon: The Doom Patrol, All-Star Comics, some o the non-Superman and Batman golden age stuff, and the Action Heroes.

Now many folks who aren’t into comics are probably saying “Action Heroes”? Who the hell are they? Well, to put it simply, they are a bunch of characters that were published by Charlton Comics in the late sixties. The three big names were the Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and the Question. All three of those were created, co-created, or revamped by Steve Ditko, the comic legend behind Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and most of the really good aspects of the first Marvel Age of Comics. After leaving Marvel, he sauntered over to Charlton, where Dick Giordano was trying something new with their heroes, which hadn’t really caught on with the public. (It was hard to really make any headway into super-hero comics when DC and Marvel monopolized the field for, well, nearly ever.)

Captain Atom was an entirely new, atomic-age super-hero, with a healthy dose of the jingoism-of-the-day. Blue Beetle was the latest in a long line of characters to assume that name, beginning back in late 1939. Charlton Comics had just ceased publishing their last versions of both characters a few years earlier.

The Question was a brand new creation by Steve Ditko, and was one of his first creations to really espouse his Randian view of the world. He was the immediate predecessor of Mr. A and numerous other stories that Ditko has created since taking the self-publication route for his more, shall we say “political”, works.

Now if you’re wondering why DC Comics put out an archive (well, two) of these characters, they purchased most of the Charlton heroes (and villains) back in the early eighties and incorporated them into their own comic book multiverse in the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series.

A side note: The Action Heroes almost ended up being deconstructed in their first major story for DC, as Alan Moore had wanted to use them for his epic tale Watchmen. DC didn’t like that idea, but they were used as inspirations (The Question = Rorschach, Captain Atom = Dr. Manhattan, Blue Beetle = Nite Owl, Nightshade = Silk Spectre, etc.).

The Action Heroes Archives Volume 2 reprints every Ditko-scripted or drawn adventure of the Question and Blue Beetle, and the revived run of Captain Atom. The issues in this volume are:

--Captain Atom #83-89 (featuring Nightshade as his partner in many)
--Blue Beetle #1-5, along with a black-and-white story intended for #6 (the Question was the back-up feature)
--Mysterious Suspense #1 (featuring the Question)
--Charlton Bullseye #1, 2, 5
--And a Question story by Alex Toth.

Fan writer David Kaler contributed a couple of scripts, but nearly everything else in this book is Steve Ditko (he wrote under the alias of “D.C. Glanzman” among others). And it’s very good Steve Ditko was well. He doesn’t really have the opportunity to stretch his artistic vision as he did in Doctor Strange but he manages to work in a lot of space adventures for Captain Atom that are very reminiscent of this long run of work on Charlton and Marvel science fiction and monster comics in the fifties. His Blue Beetle is effervescent and nearly as action-filled as his Spider-man and later Creeper stories.

And the Question is … well, the Question is perhaps the most realistic hero Steve Ditko created for mainstream comics. And when I say “realistic”, I mean he was the most real as a part of Steve Ditko himself. The Question’s stories will seem, to the average comic reader today, very verbose. I would say that almost half of a page of a Question story was filled with captions or word balloons. And he did his best to make his Objectivist points, though with not nearly the uncompromising edge of the later Mr. A, who believed in good and evil and nothing in between the two. If this hadn’t been Charlton, with considerably lax publisher interference in the editorial department, I doubt that Mysterious Suspense would’ve ever been published. It is very good that it was, of course, since it is often called one of the highlights of Charlton’s entire publishing history, and one of the best single issues of ANY comic book series.

I read a good number of these stories when I was a little todger, when Woolworth was selling the Charlton books under the “Modern Comics” imprint. Both volumes of the Action Heroes Archives make it so nice to read these again, as the reproduction values are parsecs away from the originals. That was pretty much standard for Charlton Comics thought, and part of the nigh-perverse reason that many folks remember the company and its comics with such fondness today. They may have been a bit clunky (hell, I actually got a Charlton comic book a few years ago that had five sides), but the tales within were good examples of solid storytelling. The fact that this volume is nearly all Ditko is merely an added benefit.

One of the Charlton Bullseye reprints features an interesting story that finished off the Captain Atom series, and has artwork by Ditko but inked by a young John Byrne, before he came to fame at Marvel. Alex Toth’s Question story is exemplary.

I can’t really find any reason NOT to recommend this book. It’s really one of those books that should be required reading for any comic book artist, given the mastery of storytelling that Steve Ditko exudes. I think even the casual reader will enjoy it, especially if they’re old enough to remember any of these characters, or just the days when comics were printed on newsprint and sold in grocery stores. You can usually score it fairly cheap on Amazon or eBay (in the $20-40 range), which is a small price for revisiting a chunk of a happy childhood.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmm. This should probably be a 3.5, as there are some limitations to the presentation. For instance, the introduction really does not provide adequate context or commentary for or on Charlton's abrupt shutdown of its superhero line, nor is there an explanation for why an Alex Toth-drawn Question story is included--not that I object to seeing Toth (though this is far from inspired Toth work), but the ostensible point here is to give us Ditko's unique vision.

However, I'll go with four simply because the Question stuff (and the Blue Beetle crossover story) is such a fascinating development. It goes from being early on relatively straightforward adventure stuff to becoming quite quickly--and I don't think I realized before just how few Question stories Ditko actually did--overtly personal/political/polemical in its Randian ideology. Even early on, Ditko's relative lack of interest in superhero trappings (no origin story, little attention to the mechanics of how the Question's gimmicks work) is interesting, but when he really moves into using the comics--Blue Beetle too, though to a lesser extent--to advance his ideology, the sheer idiosyncracy of it adds . . . something. Are they great comics, objectively (no pun intended)? No. But props to Ditko for taking a hard line and holding to it.

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The later issues in the book start to get really wordy. Lots of paragraph text bubbles. Going full Ditko.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it wasn’t for the Captain Atom stories, I would have been tempted to give this 5 stars. Most of them are not written or inked by Ditko, and they range from unremarkable to really pretty bad.

But the Blue Beetle and Question stories are dynamite! Ditko starts off as a strong writer and grows in confidence as he goes along. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because his Objectivism ramps up as he gets more issues under his belt. But this isn’t necessarily a negative; you get a taste of his EXTREMELY sincerely held beliefs, but not so much that it feels unreadable, like his later self-published works. Plus, if you only know Blue Beetle as the JLA jokester, it’s pretty hilarious to see him turned into nothing more than a mouthpiece for Randian philosophy.

I thought these stories were weird and fun and cheap and unlike any other superhero stuff of the era. Ditko is great.

[Brannigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fun to see the early days of the Question and Blue Beetle and the arts great but the stories are pretty weak. Only for serious fans.

[Robert Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1966, Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko left Marvel Comics. ACTION HEROES ARCHIVES, Volume 2 shows us what Ditko did next. More specifically, it reprints his subsequent work on three Charlton Comics super heroes: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle and the Question – all created or co-created by Ditko himself.

Today, these three characters have become something of a footnote. Most modern fans know them best as Alan Moore’s models for his WATCHMEN characters Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and Rorschach. WATCHMEN fans perusing these tales might satisfy some curiosity, but few would consider them essential reading. If you’re a Ditko fan, however…well, that’s another story.

I’ll begin with Captain Atom. In my review of Volume One, I noted that the character’s second series toned down the Cold War themes, thus losing a certain “purity of vision.” This continues with Volume Two, as the series is revamped in the opening story. Captain Atom’s powers are decreased, and he gains a new costume. The mysterious super heroine Nightshade (introduced in the last story of Volume One) becomes a recurring character, and the Cold War atmosphere is replaced by an increased emphasis on science fiction and super heroics. The change actually works surprisingly well. Ditko fans will, of course, enjoy his artwork here, which is generally more fantastical than on Blue Beetle or the Question. The weak link is scripter David Kaler, who provides some fairly atrocious dialogue (When Nightshade finds a villain in a library, for example, she says, “Instead of curling up with a good book, how about curling up with one of my karate blows?” Ouch!)

Ditko provides the dialogue, as well as plotting and writing, on all the Question stories and most of the Blue Beetle ones. The good news there is that his ear isn’t nearly as tin as Kaler’s. The bad news? If you’re familiar with Ditko’s philosophical and political views, then you can probably guess.

By 1966, Ditko had become a full-blown true believer in Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy. The Question (Alan Moore’s later inspiration for Rorschach) represents Ditko’s version of a true Randian hero. As a result, the Question stories are especially wordy, with the Question and his alter ego Vic Sage constantly lecturing villains and supporting characters. That said: There is certainly an original idea here, and no one would mistake the Question for a run-of-the-mill DC or Marvel hero. Remember that “purity of vision” phrase that I applied to the original Captain Atom? Well, Ditko’s Question has that in spades. You may love the Randian philosophy or hate it (and I’m no Randian myself, I hasten to add), but regardless, Ditko’s Question stories are certain to spark debate, and debate is not a bad thing.

While Randian philosophy is the whole point of the Question, Ditko’s Blue Beetle conversely begins as a fun Batman-type character, i.e. a costumed hero with no powers and lots of gadgets. Heck, the Blue Beetle’s aircraft (similar to the one used by WATCHMEN’s Nite Owl) is arguably even cooler than the Batmobile. Ditko both draws and writes the Blue Beetle tales (although for some reason, he scripts them under a pseudonym), and he introduces some good mysteries, and largely keeps his Randian views out of it…for a while, at least. The mysteries are all wrapped up in BLUE BEETLE #4, and then, come the series' last two issues. Perhaps Ditko knew that the series would be cancelled, but at any rate, BLUE BEETLE #s 5 and 6 (The latter didn’t even see publication until seven years after the fifth issue.) are extremely heavy on Randian speeches. I expect this in a Question story (that being the whole point of the Question, after all.), but for Blue Beetle, it seems out of place. BLUE BEETLE #5, in fact, is especially ponderous and wordy, with characters hammering the same points over and over and over again (I’d add, too, that those Ditko’s villains conveniently set up lectures from Randian heroes by commenting on, say, how society “owes” them things or how they don’t want to work for a living).

Nonetheless, I remain a fan of Ditko’s work in general. I love his art, with its imaginative costume designs, herky jerky character movements, and odd, ethereal environments. I love his weird ideas and alienated oddball loner heroes. Ditko is definitely an original, and with the exception of BLUE BEETLE #s 5 and 6, I mostly found this volume a fun and occasionally thought-provoking ride. If you like Ditko as much as I do, then ACTION HEROES ARCHIVES, Volume Two is worth the price of admission.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

These comic books are below average for the era storywise, with nothing exceptional going on here except for Steve Ditko's artwork. I kept thinking of these characters as the ones that Alan Moore re-purposed for Watchmen. It read like an untold tales/ prequel, and I couldn't help but think of them not as Captain Atom and Nightshade, Blue Beetle (II), and The Question, but Doctor Manhattan and Silk Spectre (II), Nite Owl (II), and Rorschach.

The Question is the most interesting of the bunch. Ditko made this his most personal creation, the personification of his Objectivist beliefs. While this Ayn Rand created method of thought has been adopted wholesale by Tea Party nuts, I doubt that Ditko would have much use for them, either. Ditko was a counterculture fan favorite thanks to his runs on his creations/ co-creations Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. He openly detested and mocked these same fans in The Question. He was not a fan of then-modern art and his perception of the self-centered beliefs of the Baby Boomers and hippies. Ditko has conviction and brass balls.

Alex Toth's take on The Question is just incredible. Like all of the Charlton Bullseye and Charlton Portfolio stories (approximately 50 of the 380 pages of this book), they are presented in black and white as they were originally published.

The lettering is tiny and can be difficult to read at times. Fortunately, Ditko's great artwork and unique panel composition more than make up for this shortcoming. I really enjoy his fighting scenes. Ditko himself wrote The Question, and I have to say that his dialogue is hilarious. It's long-winded, and at times can make Don McGregor look like Brian Michael Bendis by comparison. The Question is far and away my favorite character in the book. I couldn't help but read his dialogue in the same internal mental “voice” that I read Rorschach from the Watchmen in. I really enjoyed the Blue Beetle (II), and again, couldn't help but think of these as old Nite Owl stories. The ship, the basement base, the aircraft coming out of the water...it's all there.

Charlton was the minor leagues during the '60s and '70s. Many future Marvel favorites got their start here, such as Gary Friedrich, Roger Stern, Al Milgrom, and John Byrne. Ditko was a Marvel alumni when he came to Charlton after he left Marvel over a disagreement. No one knows for sure what it was, but the popular story is that Ditko got into a fight with Stan Lee over the identity of the Green Goblin. Ditko wanted it to be someone that we never saw before, while Lee favored Norman Osborn. We all know who “won” that argument.

The Ghost is the most common foe in this series, fighting the rebooted and depowered Captain Atom. Punch and Jewelee are as cheesy as Silver Age foes can get. I love them all the same. Most of the foes are unremarkable, and that is being kind. If the notion of Before Watchmen offends you but you'd like more then I would recommend both of these Action Heroes Archives. Fans of Steve Ditko should also give this a look-see.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second volume of Steve Ditko's work at Charlton comics collects a ton of work involving characters Captain Atom, the Blue Beetle, and the Question. This is a massive nearly 400 page book, the largest of the DC Archive books which usually clock in at around 250 pages.

Captain Atom had been in previous volumes and he's streamlined somewhat here. For pure comic enjoyment, the Captain Atom stories are the money books. Captain Atom's powers and costumes change as a result of a radiation accident. He also garners some public suspicion as a menace giving him perhaps a bit of a Marvel feel. The character's two part adventure. "Finally Falls the Mighty" and "After the Fall A New Beginning" are great as are his adventures in battling the ghost. It appears on page 249, this will never be resolved as there are no more issues of Captain Atom, but the Charlton Bullseye stories towards the back of the book.

The Blue Beetle is Ted Kord who replaced Dan Garrett and I like the sense of mystery about what happened to Garrett, the original Blue Beetle. IT gave the character interesting problem. It would be like if with no explanation given to readers or the public, someone else became Batman and Bruce Wayne was missing.

The Question is Danny Gage, a local reporter who has a mask which allows him to see and breathe normally but completely hides his feature. The gas allows changes the color of his clothes for some reason. The Question's an interesting character but these early stories are a tad repetitive.

Ditko does the art but doesn't script most of the book. He does get into some class objectivist polemics when he does some of the later stories. This becomes problematic in Blue Beetle #4 and #5 in particular. In Blue Beetle #4, you have the closest thing you get to a team up as the Blue Beetle battles someone who wants to destroy works of art that suggest that there are heroic men or someone are better or achieve more than others. The story had something very important to say about the lowering of standards and the idea of self-esteem run amuck. And that way, it was almost prophetic. But the script was horrible for a comic as page after page was filled with overflowing text bubbles. Issue 5 focused on people objecting to scientists doing crazy things and was a defense of science and it had the same problem. Ditko could escape verbosity in scripts. While the stories are "wrong," it's wrong in a way that's interesting and worth reading to just wonder why Ditko thought this was a good way to communicate his message.

In this end, this is still a fun book and worth reading for the rarity alone. While there aren't classic villain and the only truly great story is the two part Captain Atom story that began the book, it's a fun look at some comics which provided the reading public an interesting alternative during the Silver Age of comics.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collecting stories from the short-lived Charlton super hero line, concentrating on the Ditko characters.

Great stuff. The art is very strong. I love the designs on all the heroes and most of the bad guys.
The writing is Ditko having fun and playing with ideas:

The Blue Beetle stories are light-hearted adventure, mixing early Spider-man with a Batman vibe.
Captain Atom is bigger sci-fi adventures with a nice, surreal 'Steed and Mrs. Peel' vibe as he teams up pretty regularly with Nightshade.
The Question is where Ditko focuses nearly all his Ayn Rand philosophy and it works with the pulpy/noir version of the Question.

Also love how at the end of the book Ditko was working towards a BB/Qiuestion crossover. Shame it never happened.

Only stumbles are the couple times he tries to use Blue Beetle to do serious message stories. It was a clunky fit.

You will also feel sad reading this book as you realize how badly DC has treated these great characters since they bought them.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

fantastic Ditko art, with some pretty good stories. towards the end of the Charlton Action Heroes line, though, Ditko's Objectivist views became very heavy handed and were not just confined to The Question.

still, i enjoyed this volume a good deal. all Ditko fans should check this out. he was really doing some great work in this time period.