Charlton Comics Action Heroes Annual 01 - Cover (Imaginary)

I've been reading a lot of old random back issues lately. At one point I grabbed the next one in the stack and found it to be one of the Modern Reprints of Captain Atom. It really got my mind going on how cool Charlton seemed there in the late 60's / early 70's. They may never've had it in them to be the next Marvel but ~man~ were there some cool comics in there. The Crisis on Independent Earths piece really scratched the itch I had for most of my favorite small press characters but there just seemed like there was something that could be done with the Charlton's that I remembered. And as always, when in doubt for a commission layout, I just ripped off Perez. And boy did the Fraim's deliver!

I'd toyed with calling this one "The Destroyer of Heroes" riffing off a Blue Beetle cover but, in the end, I decided against it. Not enough room on the cover, ~really~, for the lettering and the center image turned out a lot more powerful than I expected. I didn't wanna mess with all that black by dropping some lettering in there. Some great, great faces here from the Fraims. Judomaster especially but Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Graves and Weirwulf too. And, just on the off chance you don't recognize the villains assembled there in center, that's the Acrobat, Countess R.H. Von Bludd, Doctor Spectro, Fiery Icer and the Ghost that've been brought together by Dr. Haunt to give our heroes such a big headache that it lead to Charlton's first line-wide team up.

Original size 11x17