The vast majority (46 individual issues) of the 1980s Red Circle titles show “Archie Comics Publications” as publisher in the CLZ core, however 12 individual issues are listed with different publisher names. While the 2 alternatives are probably legit in some ways I assume they should all be listed the same. Here are the 12 issues:
Mantech Robot Warriors - all 4 issues, publisher listed as “Archie Enterprises, LLC”
The Original Shield - all 4 issues, publisher listed as “Archie Enterprises, LLC”
The Black Hood - all 3 issues, publisher listed as “Red Circle Comics Group”
Thunder Bunny, Vol. 1 - one-shot, publisher listed as “Red Circle Comics Group”
One other detail that might be helpful - here are the other Red Circle / Archie Adventure titles from the 80s (with # of issues in parenthesis). Again, all of these show “Archie Comics Publications” as the publisher.
Me too @Valeyard ! I had no idea who these characters were on Mighty Crusaders #1 in 1983 but I was quite intrigued. I ended up buying every issue of this short lived line and really enjoyed it! I plan to buy the Impact relaunch at some point. Do you have any of those?
I have a few Impact Comics. Not too many but I loved the Earth Quest crossover that ran through all their annuals in 1992. The stories felt more teenage focused than Archie’s own Red Circle did.
I was exactly the same with the Red Circle Group as you. I discovered these characters in Mighty Crusaders #1 and loved that they had an in-depth history like DC and Marvel did that went back to the 1940s. No idea who they were but they were pretty awesome by the end of the issue. Too bad Red Circle burned out within a couple of years. I have all of them including the ones after they moved to Archie Adventure.
Very cool. Personally I thought Mighty Crusaders and The Fly were the best titles of the line, with Black Hood a close second. Blue Ribbon was frequently very interesting. I had never seen the original Fly stories from the late 50s and found them surprisingly well done. I’d love to know what happened with Shield where it morphed into Steel Sterling by issues 3 and 4! Thunder Bunny to me was a Captain Carrot type book which was fun. The Mantech books, for being toy tie-ins, were surprisingly well done to me!
I really liked the Black Hood stories. His title and whenever he popped up in Blue Ribbon and Mighty Crusaders. Didn’t like when they turned him harder edge toward the end of the line. Thunder Bunny was fun too. Outside of the Red Circle appearances, I followed him over to Warp Graphics for a while. That first issue definitely was meant for Archie because the story follows directly from Blue Ribbon #13 and even has a cameo by Archie and Jughead (tho they get killed!).
Ah yea forgot about the Blue Ribbon issue. Some issues of that title I really liked and others were ‘meh’.
I thought Ditko’s art on The Fly was fantastic. I was amazed to see Ditko doing one of these books! Not to mention Infantino on The Comet, and Alex Toth on the painfully short but amazing Fox backup strip in Black Hood! Agreed that they made Black Hood too ‘dark’ late in this short run.
Oh man, Toth on The Fox was excellent! These were the years where I went from “kid who just read comics” to “teen who wanted to learn everything about comics,” and Toth’s work blew me away for those three issues. I really started appreciating artists like Perez, Broderick and Stevens. Toth blew them all away,
I believe my first encounter with Ditko was the two Micronauts annuals he did and I absolutely fell in love with his art and style. I didn’t really discover his Spider-Man until they started reprinting it in Marvel Tales in 1981. That man was beautiful. Before he passed, I use to mail order his Ditko 32s as they came out. It was such a joy to see him continuing his art form.
Interesting, I’d never heard of the ‘Ditko 32s’ until you just mentioned them. I also enjoyed the Marvel Tales reprints but I discovered Ditko’s Spidey in a large treasury book and vol 2 of the Pocket Books reprints of early Spidey tales. They were fascinating, like relics of a bygone era lol! The Marvel Tales issues were my first chance to read ALL the early tales. Fun times!
Hi @CLZ_Rowdy , I’m not sure if this got missed after Valeyard and I had fun reminiscing about these comics lol :). It appears there are a few ‘stragglers’ that didn’t convert
to “Archie Comics Publications”:
The Black Hood - issues 2 and 3 still show as “Red Circle Comics Group”
Thunder Bunny, Vol. 1 - the one-shot still shows as “Red Circle Comics Group”
Also, these were converted to “Archie Enterprises, Inc.” rather than “Archie Comics Publications” like all the rest:
The Original Shield - issues 1 and 4 now show as “Archie Enterprises, Inc.”
Mantech Robot Warriors - all 4 issues now show as “Archie Enterprises, Inc.”