POP-A-LOOZA: Star Wars, The Sandman, The Silver Surfer, The Spider, Spy Smasher, and The Seven Soldiers of Victory

Every week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares a post from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. This week's shared post is an Everlasting First look back at my introductions to Star Wars, The Sandman, The Silver Surfer, the pulp hero The Spider, Spy Smasher, and The Seven Soldiers of Victory.



Although I loved the original Star Wars trilogy in the late '70s and early '80s, I haven't ever had much to say about the franchise. A piece I wrote about The Monkees ("The Monkees Bring The Summer: A Girl I Knew Somewhere") contains a reference to seeing the first Star Wars movie in 1977, and my reminiscence about Flash Gordon mentions our Flash's influence on Luke Skywalker and friends. An otherwise-unrelated piece included this passage about seminal space opera hero Buck Rogers and his impact on what came after:

"In our far-future world, it may be difficult to appreciate the sheer, vast impact of Buck Rogers in the '30s. The character debuted in newspaper comics in 1929, though the strip was based on Phillip Frances Nowlan's pulp novella Armageddon 2419 A.D., which appeared in Amazing Stories in 1928. Buck Rogers was simply huge; there ain't no Flash Gordon without Buck Rogers' inspiration, no Star Trek, no Star Wars, arguably no Superman, perhaps no superhero boom at all."



So, yeah. No Buck Rogers, no Star Wars. And worse, no Princess Leia!



What else? I've written several times about the Golden Age Sandman's main inspiration The Green Hornet, including my introduction to the character, my idea for a Green Hornet '66 rock 'n' roll story (both teaser hype and the first few script pages), and a Greatest Record Ever Made! piece about "The Green Hornet Theme" by Al Hirt. I haven't written about Spy Smasher, though I have used some of the character's 1940s adventures in issues of my 100-Page FAKES! series. Not much coverage of The Silver Surfer or The Fantastic Four here, but the subject is part of my introduction to Marvel Comics and my eulogy for Stan Lee. All of my writing about The Seven Soldiers of Victory was contained within various 100-Page FAKES!, most notably this one. The Spider hasn't gotten a lot of Boppin' ink, but the Master of Men was part of my '70s fascination with superpulp paperbacks and Tony Goodstone's hardcover anthology The Pulps, but The Spider was never quite as big for me as The Shadow or Doc Savage.







And, of course, Star Wars! These few days past the official observance of Star Wars Day, let the force remain with you and with all of us. The story of how I discovered Star Wars and some other S-named favorites is this week's Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.



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