“Yesterday’s” Comic> Son Of Vulcan #49

People complain about the “yellow menace” period but nobody talks about the “green menace”. Kermit would be disappointed.

Son Of Vulcan V2 #49

Charlton Comics (November, 1965)

Some history first: Son Of Vulcan started as a feature in the anthology Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds, taking over the numbering (as we’ve seen Charlton do more than once) with #49. This comic will see two issues before getting into the last of our pre-DC run, though DC actually bought a bunch of Charlton characters that they never used. Peter Cannon, aka Thunderbolt, will be our last look at Charlton’s pre-DC titles because DC didn’t own the rights and didn’t know until after publishing a few comics and Alan Moore using him as the template for Ozymandias in Watchmen. I want to focus on the characters they actually used.

“The Diamond Dancers”

WRITER: Joe Gill

PENCILER: Bill Fraccio

INKER: Tony Tallarico

no other credits for colorist or letterer

[Read along with me here]

In the main story, an old enemy of Son Of Vulcan’s, Dr. Kong, is using a Chinese performance troupe as cover to steal diamonds from a diamond exchange near the theater. As this is not Johnny Mann’s day (of course he’s a reporter), the god Mars, who had been exiled from Mount Olympus due to a previous encounter (probably in the previous title for this comic), seeks bury the hero, and failing that tries to frame him for the robbery in the hopes of making him a laughingstock of the gods of Olympus. That plan also fails as Vulcan helps his adopted sun behind Jupiter’s back. Kong is seemingly killed trying to escape with the diamonds and Mars continues to swear revenge.

If you didn’t read the comic under its previous name, you might not follow parts of what’s going on. I know I can’t. Too many old villains at once, like the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman movies. I still don’t understand using previous comics’ numbers. As for the story itself, things just kind of happen from one moment to the next, barely connected by Dr. Kong’s attempted diamond theft and both villains wanting payback on the hero. I just didn’t enjoy this story.

The back-up story, “Enemies Of The Deep”, is just talking about various predators fighting human hunters. Two pages of padding.

Overall, this was not a good comic. I can see why under this name it only lasted two issues, which we’ll finish off next time.