The Real Superheroes of the Comics

The Real Superheroes of the Comics

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USS Stevens March 1943

If I say “comic book superhero” who do you think of? Superman? Iron Man? Batman? Wonder Woman? Spiderman? Captain Marvel? (The real one please, and don’t give me any of this “Shazam” crap.) Those and many others are all perfectly legitimate choices, of course, only they’re not really heroes — super or otherwise — are they? They’re adolescent daydreams, and no matter how dark or gritty they have gotten in the years since their shiny Golden or Silver Age peaks, they’re still characters with “secret identities” running around in silly costumes doing things that no actual person could ever do — or probably would even want to. (In the words of the immortal Will Eisner, “I never understood why the hell anyone would run around fighting crime.”)

That’s not a knock on the members of the Justice League or the Avengers, and when I was a kid, I loved superhero comics; in fact, I still do, but then I love all kinds of comic books — science fiction, humor, horror, romance (Patsy Walker, anyone?) — back in the day, I read them all.

One of my favorite genres was war. Now, with all due apologies to Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandoes, I was a DC guy, which meant that during my Silver and Bronze Age heyday, I was reading stories that were somewhat more realistic than what Marvel was offering at that time, even taking the Haunted Tank and Dinosaur Island into account. (“Comic book realism” is a tricky term, as we all know.)

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Forgotten Authors: George Griffith

Forgotten Authors: George Griffith

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George Griffith

George Griffith was born George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones on August 20, 1857 in Plymouth, England to George Alfred Jones and Jeanette Henry Capinster Jones. The family did not have roots to any specific place as his father’s role as a clergyman kept him moving from parish to parish. By the time George was seven, his father had served in at least six different parishes.

He was home-schooled by his parents and allowed to teach himself from books in his father’s library.  Following his father’s death in 1872, Griffith began attending private school , where the limitations of his home schooling became apparent, particularly with regard to mathematics. He left school in 1873 and ran away to sea, deserting in Melbourne, Australia after less than three months. By the age of 19, he had worked in various jobs in Australia and managed to travel, eventually returning to England where he began teaching English, first at Worthing College in Sussex and later at Bolton Grammar School in Manchester. He viewed his time teaching as “penal servitude.”

It was while he was teaching at Bolton that he published his first two books, Poems and The Dying Faith, both were collections of poetry and both published under the pseudonym Lara. Other pseudonyms he used over the course of his career included Levin Carnac and Stanton Morich. He also met Elizabeth Brierly, whom he married in February of 1887.  They had a daughter and two sons, including Alan Arnold Griffith, who was a mechanical engineer who helped develop the jet engine.

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A Heaven of Action: Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison

A Heaven of Action: Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison

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Mistress of Mistresses (Ballantine Books, August 1967). Cover by Barbara Remington

I heard her say, faint as the breath of nightflowers under the stars,

“The fabled land of Zimiamvia. Is it true, will you think, which poets tell us of that fortunate land: that no mortal foot may tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it of the dead that be departed: of them that were great upon earth and did great deeds while they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and the glories of earth, and yet did justly and were not dastards nor yet oppressors?”

 Very shortly after the paperback publication of The Lord of the Rings made it a best seller, Ballantine Books began treating publishing other paperback fantasy novels, turning fantasy into a genre. Some of these were by contemporary authors, such as Joy Chant, Katherine Kurtz, or Evangeline Walton; but many more were older works being brought back into print. Among these older works was E.R. Eddison’s Mistress of Mistresses, first published in 1935.

Eddison had begun writing fantasy in 1922 with The Worm Ourobouros, which Ballantine also republished, a little earlier. In fact they treated them as two volumes of a series. There is indeed a minor linkage between them: The Worm Ourobouros begins by introducing a viewpoint character named Lessingham, who has a dream in which his consciousness is transported to Mercury and witnesses the events of the novel proper, though he doesn’t take part in them and soon enough is no longer mentioned even as a witness.

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The Epic Science Fiction & Fantasy of Poul Anderson, Part Three: The Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki’s Saga, and Conan

The Epic Science Fiction & Fantasy of Poul Anderson, Part Three: The Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki’s Saga, and Conan

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The Broken Sword (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #24, January 1971). Cover by George Barr

Read Part One and Part Two of this article here at Black Gate.

The Broken Sword is arguably the best book Anderson ever wrote, and it was the “first” novel length fantasy he published. It mixes High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery. The High Fantasy comes because of its setting in the land of Faerie, which is part of our world but invisible to most humans, and the fact that most major characters are elves and trolls. However, there is also a lot of the good bloody action that characterizes S&S.

The Broken Sword is set in the Ninth century A.D., in Alfred the Great’s time (849-899). It was published in 1954 and revised in 1971. The story is of Skafloc, a human child stolen and raised by elves, and of Valgard, the half-elf/half-troll who replaces Skafloc as a changeling. It also involves Skafloc’s sister, who unknowingly falls in love with Skafloc, which, of course, ends in tragedy.

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It’s Not That Deep – Silliness in Entertainment

It’s Not That Deep – Silliness in Entertainment

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Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I’m here to do something angsty, teenage me would be horrified by – defending “bad” entertainment. You know the ones – bad movies that are just a fun time to sit through, even if the only thing they have going for them is epic fight choreography, pulpy books with lead characters whose names are alliterations, and who rock their way through the pages with naught but their wry grins and cheesy one-liners. Video games that attempt a story, but fall short and yet are still really fun to play by virtue of their mechanics or visuals. All these “bad” movies, books and games, if done right, can actually be just what the doctor ordered.

Sometimes you need RPGs that inexplicably change direction to wallop the bad guys. Sometimes you need heroes with flowing locks and bare chests. Sometimes you need the weirdly gravelly-voiced maniac with a gun fetish who saves the day. Entertainment does not need to be deep. Sometimes, the exact thing it needs to be is silly — “Bad.”

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: A Terrific Little Noir – After Dark My Sweet

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: A Terrific Little Noir – After Dark My Sweet

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

— Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

1990 was quite the year for hardboiled and Noir on the big screen. Pacific Heights (Michael Keaton) came in as the 41st highest grossing movie of the year, with Revenge (based on the novella from the uber-talented James Harrison) was 83rd. Those are both solid Noirs.

At 107th was The Two Jakes – the long-delayed sequel to Chinatown. At 109th was Miami Blues, with Fred Ward as Charles Willeford’s Hoke Mosely. I’ve read the books several times, but not seen the movie.

The 135th highest grossing movie is probably second only to The Maltese Falcon in the harboiled genre for me. It’s the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing. Starring the tastefully-last named Gabriel Byrne! At 155th is a remake of a Bogart flick, Desperate Hours. Mickey Rourke delivered a pretty good Noir.

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A Taste of British Dark Fiction: The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories by RB Russell

A Taste of British Dark Fiction: The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories by RB Russell

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The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories by RB Russell (Tartarus Press, May 15, 2026). Cover by R.B. Russell

Co-owner of the distinguished British publishing house Tartarus Press, editor, author and music composer RB Russell has collected in one hefty volume most of his short stories. The book includes tales of very different type and content, which have in common one feature: good quality.

Commenting upon every single story would be tedious and in a way, useless. Thus, I will mention only the stories that I’ve especially liked and which, to me, make the book absolutely worth reading.

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The Limits of Vision: Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth

The Limits of Vision: Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth

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When I began reading science fiction in the early 70’s, a handful of writers stood taller than any others, at least judging by the bookshelves at the thrift store around the corner from my middle school, where I spent my lunch money every day on used sf paperbacks. In those days the Kings of the Hill were Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury… and Arthur C. Clarke.

I read very little Clarke in those years, though; for me, Heinlein stood higher than anyone else, with Bradbury and Asimov right behind. Clarke was far in the rear; aside from a few short stories, the only thing of his that I read back in the day was Childhood’s End.

For the past decade or so, though, I’ve been correcting that failure by reading the Clarke novels that I neglected all those years ago, and I’ve greatly enjoyed them. Most recently I read one of his later works, Imperial Earth. I found it a problematic book, and it left me with more mixed feelings than I usually have after finishing a Clarke opus.

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Forgotten Authors: R.F. Starzl

Forgotten Authors: R.F. Starzl

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R.F. Starzl

Roman Frederick Starzl, who wrote as R.F. Starzl was born in Le Mars, Iowa on December 10, 1899 to John V.N. Starzl and Margaret (née Theisen). His grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1895, along with their five children, including Starzl’s father.  While the family settled in Le Mars, Iowa, John moved to Chicago, where he owned a pharmacy. Around the time he married Margaret, John moved back to Le Mars and bought a German language newspaper, Der Herold, which he renamed Le Mars Globe-Post newspaper. Starzl began working as reporter for his father and claims he began writing for the pulp magazines in order to raise enough capital to acquire the newspaper and the printing press, a goal he achieved in 1934 when he became a partner in the Globe-Post, becoming the sole owner and publisher in 1940.

Starzl served in the army during World War I, serving for about eight and half months. Upon his return to the U.S., he spent a year at Northwestern University before finding a job in the advertising department of the Chicago Tribune. He worked there from 1920 until 1923, when he returned to Le Mars, began working for his father, and married Anna Laura Fitzgerald on November 14. Anna was a nurse from  They had one son, Thomas, who was born in 1926. Anna died in 1947 and on July 27, 1948, Starzl married Rita Gertrude Kenaley.

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Dark Muse News: The Legend of Top-Shelf Books Open Mic

Dark Muse News: The Legend of Top-Shelf Books Open Mic

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Ever hear of the legend of Top Shelf Books? Gene Wolfe did!

I first heard about the legendary Top Shelf Books from four people who had frequented that mythical venue. However, they were not together when they mentioned the place, and the interval between tellings was years and across many locations. What I eventually learned was that it was a used book shop that hosted open-mic readings for writers. The “open-mic” writer’s group ran from ~2007-2013, in Top Shelf Books in Palatine, Illinois. It was uncanny that Top Shelf kept creeping into conversations, so I had to find out the history and then share it! Here are those who introduced me to the legend.

2015: Author Joe Bonadonna was the first. Back in 2015, he had reviewed my first novel and, by serendipity, we both joined forces as Perseid Press contributors for Heroika and Heroes in Hell, sharing six volumes; we even jointly wrote a story for Monsters in Hell. I adore Joe’s Dorgo the Dowser (Mad Shadows) books and interviewed him in 2022. Several times over the last decade, he mentioned Top Shelf.

2016: Chief editor of Black Gate, John O’Neill, was another Top Shelfer. I met John in person at the 2016 World Fantasy Convention, the same year and event in which Black Gate won the World Fantasy Special Award.  I began contributing to Black Gate in 2018, with one of my lead articles being coverage of Todd McAulty’s Robots of Gotham (spoiler alert: Todd McAulty is a pseudonym for John O’Neill). In 2019, at a Gen Con event with John and Howard Andrew Jones, I heard about the editing opportunity at Black Gate that led to becoming the Managing Editor.

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