Heroes, Inc. #2 [1976]

As discussed recently, the first issue of Wallace Wood's HEROES, INC comic came out in 1969, designed to be sold to members of the armed services. With the first issue printed but getting little to no distributfeion, there obviously wasn't a second.

Then in 1976 HEROES, INC. #2 was published, this time as a larger sized black and white magazine from the fan publishers CPL/Gang, best known for their Charlton Comics themed fanzines. Two of Wood's features from the first issue continue here, The Misfits and Cannon. I assume the stories were at least written and penciled back around 1969, the tonework was probably added to compensate for the lack of colour the art was intended for.

This small press distribution means that, while HEROES, INC. #1 is probably the easiest 1960s Ditko comic to find, #2 is among the most difficult 1970s Ditko comics to find for a decent price. And I doubt there'll be a warehouse find of 70,000 copies of it. A tip of the hat to Brian Franczak for getting me my copy.

The story that concerns us here is the 14-page untitled "Cannon" story drawn by Ditko, written and inked by Wood. As I mentioned before, Wood continued Cannon without Ditko for military newspapers in the 1970s, and various subsequent reprints, heavily increasing the "adult" content, especially nudity. I haven't read those later Cannon stories, but this one seems to have a partial move in that direction, no nudity but definitely a more salacious rendering of the female character, and a bit more violence, though often partially obscured or implied.

As you can tell by the page below, the story this time is Cannon versus Nazis, who have taken over a small South American country. Cannon falls into a trap trying to help a woman in distress, only to find out she's a Nazi official named Erika Meissner, and is captured by her team of Specialists with self-explanatory names, Gunner, Lash, Blade and Archer (not unlike the Enforcers from a previous Ditko comic). Taken to their gorgeous castle base in the middle of the jungle, Cannon proves resistant to persuasion by torture or drugs (as a nod to his double-brainwashing origin), but turns after some seduction by Erika. Or at least he fakes it long enough to get more information, radio in for back-up and then take the Specialists and everyone else out.

Pretty decent story, well worth picking up if you can find a reasonably priced copy. The Wood inks are a bit more overpowering on Ditko's pencils than in the first story, but it's still very noticeable, especially with the Specialists and the head Nazi.

Heroes, Inc. #1 [1969]

HEROES, INC. #1 [1969] features the debut of Wallace Wood's Cannon as the lead story, with a 12-page adventure drawn by Steve Ditko and inked by Wood. There's a lot of history behind the title, for which I'll refer you to this Wikipedia article. The short version is that it was a comic intended to be sold to US armed services members, and with ads targeted at that audience (mostly jewelry, plus land in New Mexico). For some reason the first issue was printed but got little or no distribution. Large quantities of uncirculated copies have turned up over the years, including a lot of about 70,000 copies (not a typo) auctioned off in 2005. That probably makes it one of the most common silver age comics.

Wood continued publishing Cannon stories in other venues, although I don't know if those use the same set-up as this story. They definitely seem to be more risque, with the last major printing of them being published under the adult Eros imprint by Fantagraphics. Another issue of HEROES, INC. was eventually published in 1976, with a second Ditko/Wood Cannon story. The other Cannon stories have been reprinted a few times, but I don't think the two Ditko stories were ever reprinted. Just searching now I see Fantagraphics has another edition coming out in 2014. It's 288 pages instead of the 144 pages of their previous "Compleat" edition, but looks like it's in a landscape format, so I'm guessing it's the same contents reformatted, so odds are no Ditko.

(and reading the description of the upcoming book, I see it is the same set-up on the later stories, only with a lot of nudity added)

In this story, Chinese communists attack a secret lab and kidnap Jean Voss, who has the secret to an anti-missile defense system. The President immediately sends in Cannon on a mission to find and kill her before she can talk. We get a very quick bit of background on Cannon, just that he was a top spy who was captured, brain-washed and returned to assassinate top US scientists. Fortunately re-captured by the US before he could follow through on that mission, they found they couldn't reverse the brainwashing, so they decided to brainwash him even more, leaving him devoid of emotions. Thus his response to the orders to kill Voss rather than even try to rescue her: a deadpan "Right."

The invasion force gets Cannon onto the island base of the communists  and he plays one man army, planting bombs, fighting guards and eventually finding Voss. Apparently he decides that since she already talked under truth serum, he will save her. I'm not sure I get the logic of that. He sticks around on the island while she takes his escape rocket, determined to destroy everything the whole base to keep the secret safe. He manages to do that, even adding a stolen secret enemy plane to his tally. Plus there's a pretty funny ending which I won't spoil.  Hey, it's easy enough to find a copy of this, with 70,000+ uncirculated copies out there...

Fun story, if a little goofy, I kind of like how it plays with and subverts the James Bond model of men's adventure stories. It's obviously Wood's show, so a lot of the surface elements of Ditko's pencils get buried in the inks, but you can still see it in the storytelling and body language, and especially in the hands.