Archie's 80th anniversary: Pureheart the Powerful in "Postage Due"

[alicemacher]

When MLJ Magazines, as Archie Comics was originally known, began publishing in 1939, its focus, like that of nearly every early Golden Age publisher, was superheroes: the Shield, Black Hood and Comet (the latter succeeded by his brother, Hangman). By 1946, however, the combination of Archie's popularity and readers' loss of interest in superheroes after WWII led not only to a company name change but also to the gradual phasing out of its caped characters.

Two decades later, of course, the Silver Age was in full swing and superheroes were back, big time. So in 1965, Archie Comics revived their old hero characters in their Mighty Comics Group line. However, recognizing that their teenage humour characters were the real stars, they also hit upon the idea -- months before the debut of the Batman TV series -- of having said teens moonlight as parodies of the superhero genre. Thus, in the fall of 1965 Archie became Pureheart the Powerful (aka Captain Pureheart), while Betty became Superteen. The coming months saw the debuts of Jughead as Captain Hero and Reggie as the supervillain Evilheart. (Veronica would have to wait until 2001 to become Powerteen.) Neither the serious Mighty Comics titles nor the goofier teen superheroes lasted much longer than a couple of years, but the latter at least are still remembered today, thanks to the Power of Digests! :-)


From Archie as Captain Pureheart #6 (Nov. 1967). Story by Frank Doyle, art by Dan DeCarlo. 4 of 12 pages.


The villain Postal Peril infiltrates the Lodge mansion, putting Veronica under with a knockout-gas perfumed letter while seeing to Archie the old-fashioned way: punching him out and tying him up. He then plants a bug under Mr. Lodge's desk and escapes. When Archie revives, he calls upon his "PH factor" and transfoms into Pureheart the Powerful, breaking his bonds in the process. He then, to Mr. Lodge's annoyance, proceeds to break down the door to his study ("I thought it'd be locked!") and, after finding the bug, breaks through the nearest window in pursuit of Postal Peril.





On his way out of the conference room, Pureheart spots a stick of dynamite in the mail chute. He reaches in to remove it... and promptly gets his hand stuck.





An angry and dishevelled Postal Peril makes his way back to the Lodge mansion and strongarms Veronica into calling Archie and asking him over. (Somehow, unlike Veronica and Hiram, the villain is able to see through Pureheart's clever disguise... oh wait, Pureheart doesn't have a disguise, clever or otherwise.) Veronica does so, suggesting that she and Archie could play Post Office and thus ever so subtly tipping him off.

Comments

[bolindbergh]

Sheesh, he's worse than Sal Walters...

[donnblake]

But he can't be Archie! Archie always uses doors! Except when he's pratfalling out a window or engaged in some sort of tomfoolery...

[jlbarnett]

Veronica was also Miss Vanity in the 90s

[zachbeacon]

You really have to appreciate Mr. Lodge's logic.

"Who but Archie could possibly cause such massive property damage while trying to HELP?"

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Speaking of Archie superheroes, anyone remember Faculty Funnies?

Incidentally, leading up to its release, it looked like something else entirely, and then it became elderly superhero high jinks. Always wondered why.