Thursday, March 16, 2017

Groovy Age Gold: "The Origin of Dr. Mid-Nite"

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Seems most of us love the JSA here in Groove City, so how 'bout we truck back to the Golden Age (via the Groovy Age, natch) to dig on the origin of a fave JSA-er, Dr. Mid-Nite? Yeah, Ol' Groove thought you'd dig that. "The Origin of Dr. Mid-Nite" really grabbed Young Groove for some reason. I s'pose 'cause Dr. Charles McNider was heroic before he even became a super-hero, and it was really wild that his becoming blind is what led him to become a "mystery man." (Remember, I was 8 years old and still processing the fact that this hero pre-dated Marvel's Daredevil by a couple decades. These Golden Age reprints challenged my growing understanding of what all went on in those four color fantasies I was growing to love so much.) I dug his pet owl (shades of Batman's origin!) Hooty, too. Though author Charles Reizenstein's story is rough, it's fun and definitely grabbed my developing imagination. Stanley Josephs Aschmeier's (better known as Stan Asch) art was crude, but energetic, moody, and fun. Need Ol' Groove say he LOVED finding these Golden Age first appearances and origin stories in the back of those big, beautiful twenty-five cent, 52 page issues of Justice League (this one was #95, October 1971)? Originally from All-American Comics #25 (February 1941) here comes..."The Origin of Dr. Mid-Nite!"








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3 comments:

  1. Charlie Horse 47March 16, 2017 at 3:02 PM

    Dig it!!! Also, I do not think the art is so crude! After all we see the shadow of the lamp post on page 2! Lol! If I may ask, is there a way to show the cover? Thanks Groove you rock! Hey, you do C2E2 convention?

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  2. Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)March 16, 2017 at 9:21 PM

    golden age stories were so goofy. Holyoak comics had a Doctor midnite rip off called "Blackout." I like Blackout, his stories were pretty good. He fought the Nazis in Europe but in costume with infared goggles. I don't actually know which was teh ripoff and which was first.

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  3. UnknownMarch 17, 2017 at 5:05 AM

    One of the joys of the Bronze Age was discovering the history of of the Golden and Silver Ages in the 25 cent giants and 100 page super specs. I would have been overjoyed to have come across this when I was a kid.

    James Chatterton

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


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