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Argentverse
Argent: Superheroes for the Silver Age
ARGENT tells the stories of novice superheroes of the Argentverse, Vanguard, Jr., a trio of teenagers, the children and heirs of the golden age heroes known as the Three Musketeers; the Stargazer, an alien stranded on Earth; Shadowalker, a young Native American who learns that his heritage is a mystical one. Each novella reads like a comic book series, covering the summer months of 1961. Readers will discover the Argentverse and its inhabitants (both good and bad) alongside these new heroes in over twenty exciting original tales by Jeff Deischer, master of the pulp superhero prose story.
490 pages, Paperback
First published July 6, 2015
2 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Deischer
113 books9 followersJeff Deischer is best known for his chronologically-minded essays, particularly the book-length The Man of Bronze: a Definitive Chronology, about the pulp DOC SAVAGE series. It is a definitive chronology, rather than the definitive chronology, he explains, because each chronologist of the DOC SAVAGE series has his own rules for constructing his own chronology. Jeff believes his own chronology to be the definitive one – using his rules, which were set down by Philip Jose Farmer in his book, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.
Jeff was born in 1961, a few years too late, in his opinion. He missed out on the Beatles, the beginning of the Marvel Age of comic books and the early years of the Bantam reprints of the DOC SAVAGE series, the latter two of which he began reading when he was about ten years old (on the other hand, he was too young to go to Viet Nam …).
Jeff had become enamored of Heroes – with a capital “H”, for these were not ordinary men – at a very young age. He grew up watching DANIEL BOONE (to whom he is distantly related, by marriage), TARZAN, BATMAN, THE LONE RANGER and ZORRO on television. There is a large “Z” carved into his mother’s sewing machine that can attest to this fact (as you might imagine, it did not impress her the way it always did the peasants and soldiers on ZORRO).
This genre of fiction made a lasting impression on his creative view, and everything he writes has Good Guys and Bad Guys – in capital letters. As an adult writer, he tries to make his characters human, as well.
Jeff began writing as a young teenager, and, predictably, all of it was bad. He started to write seriously while in college, but spent the next decade creating characters and universes and planning stories without seeing much of it to fruition. This wasted time is his biggest regret in life.
In the early 1990s, Jeff began a correspondence with noted pulp historian and novelist Will Murray, while he was writing both the DOC SAVAGE and THE DESTROYER series (THE DESTROYER #102 is actually dedicated to Jeff). Jeff currently consults on Will Murray’s DOC SAVAGE books (as evidenced by the acknowledgements pages in the novels of “The Wild Adventures of …” series), a privilege that he enjoys. Will Murray’s sage advice helped turn Jeff into a true author.
Producing few books over the next few years, Jeff’s writing finally attained professional grade, and, after being laid off from the auto industry in 2007, he was able to devote more time to writing. From 2008, he produced an average of three books a year, most of it fiction, and most of that pulp. Reading so much of the writing of Lester Dent, the first, most prolific and best of those using the DOC SAVAGE house name “Kenneth Robeson”, Jeff’s own natural style is similar to Dent’s. He “turns this up” when writing pulp, and “turns this down” when writing non-pulp fiction.
Jeff primarily writes fiction, and, combining his twin loves of superheroes and pulp, began THE GOLDEN AGE series in 2012. This resurrected, revamped and revitalized the largely forgotten characters of Ned Pines’ Standard, Better and Nedor publishing companies. These characters, drawn from superhero, pulp and mystic milieus, fill the “Auric Universe”, as Jeff calls it.
Jeff’s webpage is jeffdeischer.blogspot.com, where he posts the first chapters of his novels, so that potential readers can peruse his work without having to spend several dollars on a trade paperback to find out if they like it or not.
Jeff was born in 1961, a few years too late, in his opinion. He missed out on the Beatles, the beginning of the Marvel Age of comic books and the early years of the Bantam reprints of the DOC SAVAGE series, the latter two of which he began reading when he was about ten years old (on the other hand, he was too young to go to Viet Nam …).
Jeff had become enamored of Heroes – with a capital “H”, for these were not ordinary men – at a very young age. He grew up watching DANIEL BOONE (to whom he is distantly related, by marriage), TARZAN, BATMAN, THE LONE RANGER and ZORRO on television. There is a large “Z” carved into his mother’s sewing machine that can attest to this fact (as you might imagine, it did not impress her the way it always did the peasants and soldiers on ZORRO).
This genre of fiction made a lasting impression on his creative view, and everything he writes has Good Guys and Bad Guys – in capital letters. As an adult writer, he tries to make his characters human, as well.
Jeff began writing as a young teenager, and, predictably, all of it was bad. He started to write seriously while in college, but spent the next decade creating characters and universes and planning stories without seeing much of it to fruition. This wasted time is his biggest regret in life.
In the early 1990s, Jeff began a correspondence with noted pulp historian and novelist Will Murray, while he was writing both the DOC SAVAGE and THE DESTROYER series (THE DESTROYER #102 is actually dedicated to Jeff). Jeff currently consults on Will Murray’s DOC SAVAGE books (as evidenced by the acknowledgements pages in the novels of “The Wild Adventures of …” series), a privilege that he enjoys. Will Murray’s sage advice helped turn Jeff into a true author.
Producing few books over the next few years, Jeff’s writing finally attained professional grade, and, after being laid off from the auto industry in 2007, he was able to devote more time to writing. From 2008, he produced an average of three books a year, most of it fiction, and most of that pulp. Reading so much of the writing of Lester Dent, the first, most prolific and best of those using the DOC SAVAGE house name “Kenneth Robeson”, Jeff’s own natural style is similar to Dent’s. He “turns this up” when writing pulp, and “turns this down” when writing non-pulp fiction.
Jeff primarily writes fiction, and, combining his twin loves of superheroes and pulp, began THE GOLDEN AGE series in 2012. This resurrected, revamped and revitalized the largely forgotten characters of Ned Pines’ Standard, Better and Nedor publishing companies. These characters, drawn from superhero, pulp and mystic milieus, fill the “Auric Universe”, as Jeff calls it.
Jeff’s webpage is jeffdeischer.blogspot.com, where he posts the first chapters of his novels, so that potential readers can peruse his work without having to spend several dollars on a trade paperback to find out if they like it or not.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 16, 2018
Jeff Deischer tries to synthesize the silver age era in a single book. We get a Teen Titans type story, a Martian Manhunter type story, and a Dr. Strange type story, all intertwining at various points. I liked the Martian Manhunter type story the best, but the others weren't too bad.
It's okay, although I tend to like the more unusual stories by the lesser known companies.
It's okay, although I tend to like the more unusual stories by the lesser known companies.
March 21, 2025
Third of Deischer's Argentverse series after Mystery Men and Night of the Owl. Deischer admits he would much rather have given us the first twelve issues of three separate comic book series. He wrote prose works because they were cheaper and easier to produce. Here we have Silver Age heroes set in 1961. Vanguard, Jr. is a trio of adolescent superheroes, the children of the Three Musketeers. Stargazer is an alien fugitive marooned on Earth with mental powers. Nate Birdsong is a Navajo medicine man just learning his inherited powers. Loosely, they correspond to the Teen Titans, Martian Manhunter, and Doctor Strange. The feel is direct and simple with short, episodic encounters with such baddies as The Brigand, The Steel Hammer, and The Magic Mystery Marksman. If you still love Silver Age comics, this will entertain you.
February 5, 2017
Nice comic book to prose book. The 3 novellas do a very good job of covering the different type of Silver Age comic stories and plots. If you are a comic fan give this a try. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews