Super Heroes are not new. We had them when I was a kid. In many ways they were just as big and just as impressive as the ones today. The special effects make today’s super heroes even more super. The two that I am going to mention are Flash Gordon and the Lone Ranger. These two were the ones that I remember and had the greatest influence on me.
Flash Gordon was bigger than life. I remember coming home from school and turning on the TV to see the next adventure of Flash Gordon. He was played by an actor named Buster Crabbe. You could also get comic books with more of Flash Gordon’s adventures. Flash had a beautiful co star who was always by his side. Flash’s nemesis was Ming the Merciless. Flash had this cool spaceship that he traveled in. There are many pictures of this thing on the internet. The one thing that I remember were episodes involving these clay people. Flash would be in a tunnel or next to a wall and all of a sudden these “clay people” would come to life from the wall. I never really gave any thought to how they stayed alive but that would be my first question today. They were either creepy clay people or part of a wall. Either way it was great when Flash defeated them.
The other super hero for me was the Lone Ranger. His faithful side kick was Tonto. These two had many adventures. It seemed like there were always enormous boulders that the two of them could hide behind on their horses to get away from the bad guys. We have all heard about the silver bullet. The Lone Ranger was that elusive “masked man”. After he would save the day the people would ask who that masked man was. Of course they were told that it was the Lone Ranger. Each time he would leave a silver bullet and they would know that it was him. Great stuff. We all knew that no matter what, he would save the day and there was comfort in that.
I never really wanted to be Flash Gordon or the Lone Ranger but both of these crime fighters were great and they were a part of my young life. I do remember having comic books. At that time they were not collectors items and there were no comic book stores. You could buy these things at the grocery stores and they were cheap. Maybe 10 cents or for a special one maybe a quarter. I know I had many of these over the years. Flash Gordon ones and Lone Ranger ones. Today those publications would all be worth something and coveted by collectors. I just read them and threw them away or set them out for paper drives. Times change.
