Adventures of the Fly
Publisher: Red Circle Productions (Archie)
Writer / Artist: Joe Simon / Jack Kirby & Various
Format: 96p, Full Color Price: 12.95 US
If there ever was a Spider-Man "proto-type" this
character is it. Archie Comics saw DC's success
when they brought back Superheroes in the mid 50s.
They then hired (who else?) Simon and Kirby to
create a new superhero line for them. Simon says
he was originally going to create "Spiderman" for
the line, but upon thinking it over, he decided a
spider would make a much better villain and a fly
character being a hero. He also didn't like the
name Spiderman as he felt there were too many
heroes with a 'man' as part of their names
(Superman, Batman, Aquaman, etc..). Simon changed
his 'Spiderman' character into The Fly. He would
eventually do a Spider hero as a back up story in
a Private Strong comic book from this same line.
His name was the Silver Spider. But that's not
what this book is about.
It's about a brave boy named Tommy Troy who is in
an orphanage. One night him and the other boys are
really hungry as the orphanage have not been
feeding them. He goes up to the main administrator
to say something when he over sees a couple of
gangsters in the room with him. They are roughing
him up, telling him to steal more money from the
orphanage and give it to them. They discover Tommy
had heard everything and in order to get rid of
him the administrator gives him to these creepy,
very reclusive old couple that work him like a
dog and rarely let him have any free time outside
the house. Tommy discovers the old couple are
magicians with a lot of occult objects. One thing
he comes across while cleaning their attic is a
ring. He puts it on and cleans it. Poof, an alien
fly man appears. He tells Tommy his race used to
live on earth but they were beaten by their
enemies. Some escaped and the others were turned
into the flys we see today.
The alien then decides that Tommy deserves
superpowers so he can fight injustice. He tells
him by rubbing his ring and wishing he was the fly
he will turn into The Fly. Among his powers are
strength, the ability to walk on walls, fly and
can see all 360 degrees around him at all times.
He briefly gets a gun that shoots paralyzing
quills. It isn't said if The Fly has the
proportional strength of a fly, but he clearly
does get some fly-like powers.
Most of the villains The Fly fights are gangsters,
but often with a weird quirk. One was a hypnotist,
another was a weird spidery body, etc.. None of
them really presented much of a challenge to the
Fly. For a love interest, there is Dolly; A plot
device who does nothing but hang around Tommy when
there is trouble brewing and look the other way
when he turns into The Fly. She then complains
about Tommy being a wimp for disappearing. Hmm...
I think I read that somewhere else before.
In short, the stories are pretty dumb and old
fashioned, even for 1959. The artwork, despite
having Kirby's name on it, doesn't have that Kirby
magic. I had to double check and see if it was him
or not. I suspect Joe Simon did much of the
layouts. There are other classic artists involved,
among them Jack Davis and Al Williamson.
The other interesting thing about this is it's
Neal Adams 'debut' as a comic book artist. He was
looking for work and went to Archie. They looked
at his work, told him it was good, but they didn't
have any openings for him and the Superhero line
was losing money so they were shutting it down.
He left his portfolio there and the production
people saw a sucky Tommy turning into the Fly
panel when Simon turned in the work. Instead of
re-drawing it they looked through Neals portfolio,
saw a better one transition, cut it out and used
it instead. So there is one panel that is drawn by
Neal Adams.
By 1960 the series was done and Simon and Kirby
split up for good. Jack, desperate for work went
to Marvel. When Stan was told to try some
superheroes he asked Jack to pitch him some. The
unused Spiderman idea was pitched. Jack drew 5
pages and handed them in. Steve Ditko was at the
Marvel office one day, noticed them and their
similarity to The Fly. Stan heard about the
similarity and had Ditko re-do the character to
avoid any potential lawsuits. Archie had
previously threatened to sue Marvel over some
Archie like book with Dan DeCarlo doing the art.
Joe Simon believes they added the hyphen in
Spider-Man's name as another way of protecting
themselves.
So while the book as some historical significance,
it's not that entertaining. I give it a 1 out of 5.
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