Dell Comics is not particularly well-known for their superhero comics - in fact, I was not even aware until recent years that Dell actually published any comics with superheroes in them. Sure, I had heard of Brain Boy (of which I have all but one issue), but I never really considered him a superhero; I saw him more as just a science fiction type tale. To me, Dell was famous for a lot of licensed material, such as Walt Disney World comics and old Western comics. In fact, I have some of their books, such as Gil Thorp, Ellery Queen, Friday Foster, Johnny Jason Teen Reporter, Mary Perkins On Stage, and The New People. But it was not until I stumbled upon a couple of issues of this title that I found a whole susbset of titles from Dell that offered superhero fans some new characters and stories. I was pleasantly surprised and definitely curious enough to pick them up and give them a try!
Super Heroes, as it was so generically titled, was a four-issue series published in 1967 featuring a team known as the "Fab 4." One might think this is a cheap rip-off of Marvel's the
Fantastic Four (the name is even very similar), which first hit the stands back in 1961; however, other than the name similarity and the fact both teams has four members (with only one female), the two books are very different. While Marvel's "World's Greatest Comic Magazine," as it promoted itself, featured a family dynamic, the Fab 4 is actually made up of four teenagers who, through unexpected circumstances, wind up with the ability to transfer their consciousnesses into four amazing robots with superhuman abilities: Dan Boyd can become "El," with light-based powers; Polly Wheeler can become "Polymer Polly," with speed and heat resistant powers; Tom Dennis can become "Hy," with sonic powers; and Reb Ogelvie can become "Crispy," with cryogenic powers. Although not very original, each character's costume has the first letter of their name on the chest (with the except of "El," who has a huge "L" on his chest, I'm guessing because his name is actually pronounced simply as "L").
Each issue features three chapters, with some connecting and some simply stand-alone tales. The first issue, cover dated January 1967, opens with a 12-page origin story (yeah, let's see any of today's comics tell an origin story in that few pages!), followed by a second chapter that finds our new heroes battling a nuclear powered robot, and a final chapter that brings the Fab 4 versus the rampaging robot story to a chilly conclusion (yes, that's a pun - read the story to find out why!). The story and plot are pretty simple and straightforward, but I do think the author managed to capture some of the nuances of what it would be like for teenagers to suddenly find themselves able to control super-powered robots. The only problem is, like Negative Man in DC's Doom Patrol title, when they transfer their essence, their actual bodies basically become comatose; so, they must be sure their bodies are in a secure location before they transfer over to the Fab 4.
The second issue was released three months later, with a cover date of April 1967. This issue features three different tales, as our Fab 4 face off against various villains. In the first chapter, the kids go up against "The Clowns," a group of dastardly circus men who use their clown disguises take advantage of attendees and steal their valuables - with their ultimate goal of cleaning out the city! Of course, the Fab 4 manage to round them up and take them down. The second chapter is the story of "Nutt's Revenge," as an engineer is determined not to see his creations displayed at the Great Fair (a/k/a the World's Fair in our world) destroyed by others - so he decides to take them out himself, until the four kids get in his way, and they have to use their fabulous alter egos to save their bodies! The final chapter find El enslaved by a criminal who learned electronics in prison - and he uses El to go after the police that put him away. It's up to the remaining Fab 4 to save their friend and bring him to his senses.
Which brings us to the third issue, in which our fabulous foursome must face the threat of the Coalman, an underground creature that gets hotter and more deadly the more the kids throw at him. The four heroes then face the hypnotizing spells of the Mad Magician, who uses hypnosis to steal from his guests, leaving them with the impression they enjoyed the show and not caring about their lost valuables! The four have to put their heads together to stop the madman from hypnotizing the entire city and robbing it blind. In the last chapter, the gang goes up against Nepto of the Reef, an underwater villain off the coast of Florida (yay! my state!) who, like Aquaman, is able to get the help of marine life to aid him in his tasks - only Nepto's tasks are criminal, and the Fab 4 go underwater to put an end to his crime spree.
The fourth and final issue of this series, cover dated June 1967, foretells its own demise, with a cover blurb that proclaims: "The End of The Fab 4!" Like the first issue, it features three chapters that are interconnected, but these final tales alter the lives of our heroes in an unexpected way. While the first chapter provides a simple mission of stopping missiles that were somehow controlled to drop on the city, it is the second chapter that changes everything - when the four teens throw their consciousnesses into the heroic robots, only to have an explosion merge them, so that the teens no longer need the robots! Instead, they find themselves now possessing the powers of the robots, giving them the chance to fight crime in their own physical forms - something they do in the third and final chapter as they face off against Mr. Mod, a hippie musician with the power to influence things around him. It was he who directed the bombs to be dropped on the city, and it was he who caused the explosion that changed the Fab 4's lives forever. And it takes some quick thinking and cooperation on their part to bring Mr. Mod to justice at last.
And with that final battle, Super Heroes and its tales of the Fab 4 came to an end. After only four issues and eight battles of good versus evil, the adventures of these powerhouse teens came to a conclusion. As far as I have been able to find, these four heroes have remained in comic book limbo (with the exception of a short story in InDELLible Comics first issue of Popular Comics, published in July 2017). I actually found the concept for these heroes somewhat different, and they certainly would have been the perfect fit for comics published back in the 1960s and 1970s; however, I wonder if the fact they were published by Dell, who did not seem to have the same popularity as DC or Marvel Comics, hurt their chances of succeeding. InDELLible Comics, headed up by David Noe and Jim Ludwig, seems to be bringing some attention back to all of these old Dell Comics characters, so who knows? Perhaps someone will get inspired and get the rights to bring these characters into the 21st century!
There is some dispute about who wrote these four issues of
Super Heroes for Dell. While some websites credit Don Arneson as the writer, the Grand Comics Database indicates that "[i]n an e-mail to Jim Ludwig August 2013, DJ Arneson states that he did not write this series." Thus, the writer remains a mystery. The art, however, has been credited to Bill Ely on pencils (according to Martin O'Hearn's blog) for the first two issues and Bill Molno on pencils (according to Martin O'Hearn's blog) for the last two issues, with Sal Trapani on inks on all four books. The covers for all four issues are credited to Sal Trapani on inks, as well as possibly the pencils. The art is not overly impressive, with many panels simply featuring the characters against single-colored backgrounds, I did enjoy it for the simple fact that it was not overpowering. The pages provided backgrounds where necessary, but it focused more on the story and less on flashy splash pages as today's comics do, which definitely was a plus in my book! Simple stories of good guys vs. bad guys without all of the needless personal crises and forced continuity - just plain old fun!
One thing I did notice about the Fab 4's costumes - the letters on each of their chests could have spelled the word H-E-L-P (because the "c" on Crispy's chest could easily be mistaken for an "e"), and I wonder if that was intentional, since these kids / heroes were determined to help keep the world safe? Just a thought...
Now the hunt begins for some of Dell's other super hero titles, such as Nukla, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wereewolf, and any others I can discover in my hunt!
RATING: 8 circus-battling, undersea-fighting, robot-defeating, mad-magician stopping adventures out of 10 for giving comic fans a creative new crew of heroes (it's just unfortunate they did not last!).
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