10 DC Heroes Who Are Based On Pulp Comics

[caj]

CBR lists 10 heroes who are base on Pulp comics.

https://www.cbr.com/10-dc-heroes-who...n-pulp-comics/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazine

According to Wikipedia, Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges.

The pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Successors of pulps include paperback books, digest magazines, and men's adventure magazines. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps".

10. Golden Age Sandman
09. Challengers Of The Unknown
08. The Spirit
07. Tom Strong
06. Jonah Hex
05. Hawkman
04. Adam Strange
03. Blue Beetle
02. Batman
01. Superman

[Lee Stone]

Missing the link to the article.

[caj]

Missing the link to the article.

Sorry. It's now in the OP.

[Jim Kelly]

Ashley Land's title for the article is a bit off--as it say "pulp comics" when I think Land meant pulps or pulp magazines. Also in the article, comic books are called pulp comics (technically they were since they were on the same grade of paper as dime novels). Some confusion in terms an editor could have easily caught--if the site used editors.

The original Blue Beetle from Fox wasn't the Ted Kord or Jaime Reyes version or even the Dan Garrett version that Charlton published. The original Dan Garret got his powers from a vitamin.

Flash Gordon was a comic strip character, not created by the pulps. The Green Hornet was created in 1936 for radio.

In his seminal work, THE STERANKO HISTORY OF COMICS (Volumes 1 and 2, would that there had been more), Jim Steranko introduced his subject by going into the pulps and newspaper strips that existed at that time, circa 1930s, and showed how so many pulps and strips influenced the comic books.

When TOM STRONG first came out I was peeved with Alan Moore for stealing so much from the pulps. Street & Smith should have launched a lawsuit against him--given they still own Doc Savage and the Shadow.

[j9ac9k]

Would Peacemaker fall into that category? He has a fancy helmet, a gun and a jetpack. Seems as pulpy as Adam Strange, although without the space setting.

[Jim Kelly]

There are a few other pulp heroes they could have mentioned. Philip Wylie's GLADIATOR (1930) influenced Superman. Not really a pulp, but THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1905), by Baroness Orczy, sets the standard for the mystery man secret identity character. Zorro--first appearing in ALL-STORY WEEKLY(August 1919)--borrows a lot from that.

The Black Bat appeared in BLACK BAT DETECTIVE MYSTERIES between 1933 and 1934. Steranko mentions it. There was another Black Bat in 1939, in BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE--but that was after the Bat-Man's first appearance. Bill Finger was likely thinking of the earlier Black Bat when he co-created the Caped Crusader.

Captain Future was created by Mort Weisinger (at that time a sci-fi pulp magazine editor) at the 1939 New York World Science Fiction Convention, organized by Julius Schwartz. Edmond Hamilton wrote most of the Captain Future stories for editor Weisinger--and Schwartz as Hamilton's agent got a cut of the money he made--and Ned Pines was the publisher. Hamilton would go on to write a lot of comics, bringing some of his Captain Future ideas to the super-heroes.

By the way, Hamilton's life partner, Leigh Brackett was also a science fiction writer, as well as a screenwriter. She worked on the screenplay for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK--but passed away before that movie hit the screens. There's a lot of pulp in that movie, too.

When I read TOM STRONG, I got some Edgar Rice Burroughs vibes. I think there's some Tarzan influence there. I also think there are traces of Tarzan in Superman--Lord Greystoke is raised by apes and Kal-El is raised by farmers.