| Title | : | Frank Thomas Archives v1Centaur Years (Centaur) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 165 |
| Publication | : | Published February 26, 2018 |
Centaur on super-hero Solarman,
Animal mind swapping Dr Hypno and
Chuck Hardy in the Land Beneath the Sea.
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Presenting the complete comic works of
Golden-Age artist/writer Frank Thomas for
Centaur and Dell comics in two volumes each on this Jan 19t
Frank Thomas Archives v1Centaur Years (Centaur) Reviews
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This book is the first of several volumes collecting the work of Golden Age of Comics writer/illustrator Frank Thomas.
This volume collects his early for Centaur Comics in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The largest section of the book is dedicated to Chuck Hardy, Land Beneath the Sea which finds two divers ending up in a mysterious world undersea and getting strange powers. A good way to describe this is as an Ocean-based Flash Gordon. It's a good bit of Science Fantasy that doesn't offer any closure, but is fun while it lasted.
Doctor Hypno is a superhero who develops the ability to transport his mind into the body of various animals. I didn't care much for the first strip, but he did find a clever way to use them and a kind of wish there had been more because there were definitely possibilities for him.
Beyond that, the book also includes a couple of features that didn't really go anywhere. One introduced a mystery man known as the Researcher and the tales wasn't all that interesting even though the art was fine. Solarman introduced a Saturnian hero to Earth. This one had potential, but I don't if it would have made it in the 1940s, plus the origin took up way much space for a first story in that era.
Other than that, we get some text stories by others that Thomas illustrated and he does some good work on these particularly the baseball story.
Overall, these are some really strong examples of public domain comic work. The main features are better than some of the stuff that's collected in Marvel Masterworks and if you're looking for some offbeat stuff, this makes for a good read.
