Number 1516: Avenger’s scarlet “A”

 Casting about for new ideas to fit into the post-Comics Code era, ME Comics came up with superheroes The Avenger and Strongman. Neither of them made it past four issues, but they were an interesting experiment to see if new long underwear characters (beyond the lone remaining, still popular heroes like DC’s Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) could still be viable despite having been a near-dead comic book genre for several years.

It would take just a few months longer until DC reintroduced the Flash and superheroes began their climb back into comic book supremacy, but before then ME’s contributions to the genre came and went.

These two stories are from The Avenger #1 (1955), drawn by Dick Ayers, with scripts attributed to Paul S. Newman. Last May I showed stories one and four from the issue (including the origin story), and these are stories two and three. So if you want to read those others first you should go to the link below and click on the thumbnail of the cover to see them.

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 Click on the thumbnail to see the other two stories mentioned above: