There were some really crazy Golden Age characters all trying to somehow set themselves apart as unique and popular, like Superman or Captain America.

Fletcher Hanks' Stardust definitely fits in this category.



Stardust the Super Wizard lives on his own asteroid in space and has unlimited omnipotent powers having never been shown to have a weakness or vulnerability.

His powers included a variety of rays including retarding, extinguishing, magical transforming, anti-gravity, suspending, magnetic, disintegrating, reducing, reversing, repulsing, attraction, invisibility, "bright as a star", and a ray that shows the skeletons of murder victims to their murderers.

He flew through space using his "tubular spatial accelerated supersolar light waves" and his exposure to gases from certain stars enabled him to withstand the rigors of heat and cold.

His artificial lungs enabled him to breathe in space and poisons didn't affect him.

Flexible metal skin protected him from chemicals, electricity and physical attacks.

Stardust could teleport both himself and others in a star-shaped burst of light and would write fiery messages in the sky.



The criminals were terrorized by him and Stardust would apprehend them and typically cast them to a far off prison incapacitating them as we see here and leaving them to rot and think back to their crimes.



He and the Spectre could pal around for laughs !

Hanks himself was no saint as he was an abusive alcoholic to his family.  He only stayed in comics for a short time and was later found frozen to death on a park bench in 1976.

Not sure I understand. What don't you like about it? Other than the poor grammar, I mean.

I've read a few of those and they are really good.  AC reprinted some of the battles with Ironjaw, who was definitely one of the more memorable villains of the Golden Age.

In theory? Or in Practice?

In theory, I really like The Sandman and The Crimson Avenger in their original togs. I love me some pulpy characters. I practice their stories were pretty pedestrian.

Donald Duck was really good in the Golden Age.

I also greatly admire the first year or so of Doctor Fate stories from More Fun Comics...it has a really unique feel with Fate facing all kinds of mystical horrors many of them having almost a Lovecraftian feel...



but then about a year or so in they seem to suddnely change up his origin and the interesting unique stories replaced by generic super-hero stories that any costumed hero could have replaced Dr. Fate in and it wouldn't have changed the story in the slightest, and every other story has Doc being overcome by gas because he still needs to breathe and its his one weakness...most of this came form the half-helmet era where Dr. Fate was Superman/Starman/Green Lantern/fill-in-the-blank superhero with a different costume rather than a sorcerer or mystic hero.



If they had kept the original tone and types of stories, this could have been one of my favorite runs in comics, instead I cherish the early stories and will never revisit the later stuff, t too is nigh unreadable.

-M

Golden Age Superman is the only version of the character I can stand.  

Have you read the Dynamite Flash Gordon series by Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner?  

I haven't read any of the follow-ups either.  But that initial mini was gold.  But then Parker is one of the better writers working now.  And Shaner is a gem.  A slow gem.