By Roy Nuhn Superheroes – they’re all around us these days. On giant 3-D movie screens and television, in a mind-boggling array of comic books and as all sorts of toys and novelties for youngsters.
The powers of these special men – and women – range from burrowing through the Earth and lifting up multi-ton trucks to whipping the blazes out of terrorists and flying into deep space to wage battle with invading alien space armadas.
There are so many of them now, you need a score card to keep track. Stan Lee’s comic book empire is the source of many of them – The Hulk, Green Lantern, X-Men, Spiderman, etc. Others come from yet different roots.
Some – the really famous ones – have lived among us for 50 to 75 years. Superman debuted in 1938; Wonder Woman in 1941; and Batman and Robin began patrolling the skies over Gotham City in 1939.
A few from the distant past are no longer with us. Wondrous fighters for good like Captain Marvel, along with family members Uncle Billy (a pretend hero) and cousin Mari Marvel, and Mighty Mouse disappeared a long time ago. They can be seen now only on the dusty pages of old 1940s and 1950s comic books.
The first superhero postcards, in 1944 and 1945, were about Superman. Published by the Superman-Tim (fan) Club, they were mailed to members as birthday greetings. Several varieties are known, including a double-fold. Usually, though, they resulted from a TV series. “Batman” (1966-1968), “Wonder Woman” (1976-1979), and “The Adventures of Superman” (1951-1957) stand out. These were some of the earliest postcards about the demigods.
In modern times, Superman was the first superhero to be glorified by Hollywood. Christopher Reeve starred in the first of these, “Superman,” in 1978, and in the several sequels. Batman and Robin, The Caped Crusader and his sidekick, hit the silver screen shortly afterwards, also inspiring numerous follow-ups.
Of course, before the current explosion of extraordinarily empowered men and women fighting all sorts of crime, evil and space villains on movie screens, occasional films about them had been made back in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Among these “B” grade gems were a couple of Superman titles.
But mostly the many superheroes of that vintage era used their powers to save the world in Saturday-morning serials. Noisy Youngsters crowded into neighborhood movie houses to watch the latest episode of “Batman” (1943), “Adventures of Captain Marvel” (1941), or “The Green Hornet” (1941). Thrown in with a “Three Stooges” or Roy Rogers film and a bunch of cartoon shorts, the serials gave the kids of yesteryear a super time for a mere dime or so!
POSTCARDS Postcards about superheroes are many. They make for an exciting collecting topic In 1967, King Features, the giant comic strip syndicate, began using postcards picturing their superheroes to answer mail from readers. In all, three different were printed – Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon, and The Phantom.
During the 1970s and ’80s, some European companies marketed superhero chrome style cards in this country. Notable among these was F. Nugeron, a leading French publisher which operated a distribution and sales branch in New York City. Zreik, another French printer, also did business here. Number 1 in their series of film posters postcards depicted the 1948 movie man of steel, Kirk Alyn.
In 1978 Nostalgia, Inc. and Prime Press, under authorization from Marvel Comics Group, published a booklet of 32 detachable postcards of several superheroes, such as The Hulk, Spiderman, and Captain America. A couple years later, D.C. Comics, the comic book giant, sold two similar softbound booklets of their greats like Superman and Wonder Woman.
Sometime around 1956, the TV show’s producers used two different black-and-white postcards, showcasing George Reeves in his Superman costume, to solicit advertisers for the syndicated re-runs. Around the same time, readers of the Superman family comic books were lucky recipients of postcards picturing their hero as acknowledgments of subscriptions or renewals.
Superman’s “home town,” Metropolis, Illinois, a town-wide theme park, issued several postcards in 1988. Then came a series by J. R. Coles. Both sets depicted Superman and things associated with him, such as his quick-change phone booth.
The first Batman and Robin postcards came from their 1960s television series. Dexter’s two “Offical Batman Postcard” sets (one of ten cards and one of eight) were artist-drawn.
A decade later, a blue-and-white postcard portraying Adam West in his Batman role advertised the syndicated re-runs of the show. Also in the 1970s, Editions Cinema released a series of black-and-white cards picturing stars not only of the television series but also from the 1940s Saturday morning serials. The epic $40 million Batman movie (1989) was the subject of a set of 18 postcard~ by Athena (Great Britain) and a set of 12 by Ludlow Sales (U.S.).
Postcards of Wonder Woman are not too plentiful. A black-and-white of Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner was part of a large series of television shows and motion pictures by an unknown publisher in the 1970s.
Nugeron and a couple of other printers of the 1970s and ’80s did a few of Wonder Woman along with the other superheroes. The DC comics postcard books of 1979 and 1981 previously mentioned also included quite a few of Wonder Woman.
Movie audiences, television viewers, and readers of comic books have been infatuated with the ever-growing army of superheroes for many, many decades. This fascination has produced many great postcards.
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