Featuring: Hercules
Release: March 29, 1940
Cover: June 1940
10 cents
7 pages
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| Two-Gun Kid #77 | INTERLUDE | |
| PRELUDE | Daring Mystery Comics #5, Story H | |
| Daredevil #9 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery Annual 1 |
Crime cruelty! Maybe I can stop such things!
In preparation for meeting Marvel’s Hercules, let’s meet Marvel’s first character with that name. Not the Olympian god but a forgettable superhero who bears his name. Recall that 1940s Marvel had more superheroes than anybody can name.
No credits are given. The Marvel Masterworks reprint credits story and art to Arnold Hicks.
Dr. David left civilization to raise his son in harsh conditions and train him to physical and mental perfection. He keeps calling his son a specimen. I’m kind of reminded of that recent King Richard movie about Venus and Serena’s father.
Adult Hercules is captured by people who want to put him in the circus.
He shows his potential for heroism by wrestling a bull. Could this be an allusion to the classical Hercules wrestling the Bull of Crete?
I feel like he could have just contained the bull, but he chooses to kill it.
Lady reporter Bobbie Drew convinces him to leave the circus and become a superhero.
Hercules’ adventures continue in the next issue of Mystic Comics, and then as far as I can tell, he is never seen again.
He does get the cover feature next issue.
We of course previously read a story from the next issue that introduced the original Black Widow.
And we read a story from issue 6 of this throw-things-at-the-wall series that introduced the original Destroyer.
Rating: ★★½, 47/100
Characters:
- Hercules
- Dr. David
- Garton
- Millok
- Bobbie Drew
Story notes:
- “Garton-Millok presents Mammoth Show Special Attraction Hercules Biggest Man on Earth.”
- Hercules appears to be at least 10 feet tall.
- Bobbie Drew of the Daily Globe.
- Hercules helps out with flooding dam.
- Hercules thinks he can help police against rackets. To be continued.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Two-Gun Kid #77 | INTERLUDE | |
| PRELUDE | Daring Mystery Comics #5, Story H | |
| Daredevil #9 | Reading order | Journey Into Mystery Annual 1 |
