Thrill-O-Rama Monday #4--Bee-Man!!

Harvey was desperate to break into the "older" comic market.

And desperation results in printing any damned idea that you come up with, no matter how nuts. And few were nuttier than...

Bee-Man!! Or B-Man! Or The Bee! Or...well, you can see they had some difficulty making up their minds:

Otto Binder and Bill Draut created this charming fellow, and, well, he's got a seriously odd origin.

So, what is B-Man's origin? Well, I swear that I'm not making this up...Barry E. Eames (get it, get it?!?) was an embittered NASA tech, who managed to hijack a space probe returning from Mars, so he could get all those valuable (?) goodies for himself.

And what did the probe contain? Martian bees, of course!! They stung him, and gave him superpowers!! He escaped from authorities, and was kidnapped by the Martian Bees (!) back to Mars, where GIANT Martian bees told him of their plans to conquer Earth, and locked him up (but not before they gave him a nifty bee costume chock full of bee weaponry, for some reason).

Still not done yet...he escapes, returns to Earth...but he joined the Martian bees in trying to rule the Earth!! Because embittered scientist, right? But he's captured, and government shrinks "cure" him, so now he's a hero!! He goes to work for...and once again, I'm not kidding here...the F-Bee-I.

Yes, really.

Someone needs to reprint these. Someone needs to make B-Man part of the "Fourth Wave" of the nu52.

But despite back-up two series with heroes created by Jim Steranko (The Glowing Gladiator! The Magicmaster!!), Double Dare Adventures suffered the same fate as all of Harvey's Thriller line...a quick and ignoble cancellation.

MORE THRILL-O-RAMA TO FOLLOW!!!

Thrill-O-Rama Monday #3--Pirana!!

After languishing in limbo for a full year, Harvey Comics line of "non-kiddie" comics, "Harvey Thrillers," made sudden return in the fall of 1966.

Why? No doubt the success of former partner Jack Kirby's work at Marvel inspired Joe Simon to try again in the genre. And, of course, the nation's descent into Batmania from the television show convinced Harvey that the iron was hot. So...

Oh, of all the heroes to try and rip off, we've got to do the lame underwater ones?

Still, the logo is pretty cool:

There are enough alternate spellings out there that I think we can cut them a break, right? Because that's a cool logo.

Ah, and the cover copy...let's try to combine Stan's successful hucksterism and Batman '66's camp. The result?

Oh, dear.

There was a second issue...

Yes, he had pet barracudas named..Bara and Cuda. Yes, he fought some guy called The Human Anchor.

Well, for two months, at least, there was a hero lamer than either Aquaman or Namor...

Despite the pedigree--most of the stories were by Otto Binder and Jack Sparling, there was a back-up Clawfang The Barbarian story by Wally Wood and Al Williamson--Pirana and Thrill-O-Rama sank to the briny depths after issue #3, setting the model that Atlas would follow a decade later.

Oh, but there was more to Harvey Thriller...stay tuned...