{"id":10272,"date":"2020-08-14T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=10272"},"modified":"2026-07-02T15:42:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T19:42:44","slug":"pulp-comics-adventureman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2020\/08\/14\/pulp-comics-adventureman\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulp comics: ‘Adventureman’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Adventureman'<\/a>I was really hoping I’d like this New Pulp<\/a>-inspired comic, Adventureman<\/em> (Image Comics<\/a>), from Matt Fraction<\/strong> (really Matt Fritchen<\/strong>) and artists Terry<\/strong> and Rachel Dodson<\/strong>. The first issue, a triple-sized one, came out, and I picked it up.<\/p>\n

At first glance, it seems interesting. We have Adventureman<\/strong>, a larger-than-life pulp hero in the mold of Doc Savage<\/a><\/strong>, who has an group of diverse associates, in a final fight with a band of their worst villains lead by Baron Bizarre<\/strong>. Defeated, we find out that we are being read the last Adventureman story, which ends on this cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

It’s being read by single mom Claire<\/strong> to her young son, who is upset at this turn of events. Through a series of bizarre events, a strange young lady, who appears to the readers (at least me) to be one of Adventureman’s associates, pops into the mom’s used bookstore and leaves behind a previously unknown Adventureman novel. But she is chased by some shadowy figures and driven away in a car. Clearly this will start the adventure.<\/p>\n

I guess what the reader should pick up is that Adventureman and his associates and enemies are real, but that through some kind of magic spell, not only did the villains defeat them, but changed reality so that no one remembers them as being real. Maybe they are all alive, but in some other reality. Maybe they can break through and return, but I’m not sure if that will happen.<\/p>\n

We are also given some background materials by Matt Fraction giving his inspiration and ideas in creating this series, as well as information on the characters, along with some artwork. But it’s here that we see this won’t be as good as I had hoped, as well if you read more clearly the story.<\/p>\n

While it seems Fraction has read some pulp works (he mentioned reading Philip Jos\u00e9 Farmer<\/strong>‘s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life<\/em> and The Spider<\/strong> novels, but nothing else), it seems he doesn’t have much love for the pulps. He slams them for being “racist, sexist, and colonialist.” While some of these elements existed in most of the literature of the time, it wasn’t as widespread as he thinks it was. Frankly, the New Pulp authors are doing a better job than he is of raising above some of this within their works.<\/p>\n

In the creation of Adventureman and his enemy, they seem more like over-the-top comic book characters than the more realistic, if a bit larger-than-life, pulp characters. The names aren’t what pulp heroes would have, nor do you have such superpowers or magical powers in the pulps. And if he’s a pulp hero, why are his adventures in fancy hardback books instead of pulp magazines (or reprinted in cheap paperbacks)?<\/p>\n

Claire and her family are strange, as in unlikely. At a family dinner, we see Claire and her six sisters, along with their father (their mother being dead). The parents are Jewish, but Claire’s sisters are all ethnically diverse, so I have to assume all are adopted or fosters (as well as being around the same age). And futher unlikely, all are outstanding experts in their fields and unmarried. Claire seems to be the only average person, being a single mother and running the used bookstore of her deceased mother. She is also handicapped by hearing loss.<\/p>\n

But we are lead to believe that she will be the hero of this story, somehow taking over the legacy of Adventureman. Uh, ok. Not my idea of a female adventure hero. We have Pat Savage<\/strong>, Domino Lady<\/strong>, The Tocsin<\/strong>, and many others to follow from the pulps themselves, as well as New Pulp characters like Vic Challengers are better models.<\/p>\n

Overall, this shows Fraction’s poor understanding of the pulps.<\/p>\n

Now, the artwork is great. I’m not familiar with the Dodsons, but they do excellent work.\u00a0 Someone should get them to do a pulp or pulp inspired series without Fraction.<\/p>\n

I’ll not bother with the rest of the series. I see a collected edition \u2014 I assume to contain the first three or four issues \u2014 is planned for November. I might get it to see how it turns out. But this strikes me as another disaster like the Dynamite take on The Black Bat<\/strong> or most of DC’s First Wave works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was really hoping I’d like this New Pulp-inspired comic, Adventureman (Image Comics), from Matt Fraction (really Matt Fritchen) and artists Terry and Rachel Dodson. The first issue, a triple-sized one, came out, and I picked it up. At first glance, it seems interesting. We have Adventureman, a larger-than-life pulp hero in the mold of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at a New Pulp-inspired comic book: \r\n\"Adventureman.\" #newpulp #comics #comicbooks","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18,58,46,14],"tags":[2657,2669],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-10272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","category-commentary","category-pastiche","category-review","tag-comic-books","tag-image-comics"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2020\/08\/adventureman-no-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-2FG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10272"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23302,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272\/revisions\/23302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10272"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=10272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}