As announced during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), several Warner Bros. cartoons will be appearing in local comic shops soon! My favorite, of course, will be The Herculoids!
WHAT’S THE DEAL?
Reported here at MajorSpoilers.com, there will be even more cartoon characters arriving in comic books!
Dynamite Entertainment will be bringing Ben 10, Captain Planet and the Palenteers, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Dynomutt & Blue Falcon from the small screen to the printed page yet again!
I’ve left out my personal favorite, naturally, and that is The Herculoids! Here’s the info from the aforementioned release:
The Herculoids is a unique mix of science fiction and fantasy, featuring a “space barbarian” family of father Zandor, mother Tara, and son Dorno alongside their eponymous giant pet Herculoids. These include Zok, a giant dragon able to shoot lasers; the rhinoceros Tundro; an ape formed of rocks named Igoo; and last but not least the shape-shifting Gloop and Gleep. Together this ragtag team fights off robots, evil scientists, and a stream of other foes who threaten their planet and way of life. The classic Hanna-Barbera show spotlights the boundless creative vision and unique character designs of legendary animation and comics artist Alex Toth.
I’m always a big fan of crossovers, so maybe Thundarr or even Space Ghost could team up with those cool monsters from outer space! Hey, it could happen!
WHERE DID THE HERCULOIDS COME FROM, ANYWAY?
I’ve talked previously about 1966 and how it was a big deal to fans of superheroes. Batman (’66) was on ABC, taking names and kicking backsides in terms of ratings and attention. His popularity spilled over into other pop culture, including Saturday morning animated shows. Superman was starring in a popular cartoon during that time, and many of the networks, cashing in on the Bat-guy’s popularity, turned to adventure animation to fill up their Saturday morning schedules.
I remember plunking down in September of 1967 to watch Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles at 9 a.m., The Herculoids at 9:30, Shazzan after that, then Space Ghost followed by Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor (which aired at the same time as Birdman on NBC, causing me to flip back and forth to watch as much of both shows as I could). It was a glorious time for a lover of heroes and cartoons like myself!
That era didn’t last long, and when Batman left ABC’s airwaves, Saturday mornings became much tamer and less interesting to me. Yes, there were some short-lived comic anthologies featuring many of these heroes having new adventures, but they also left the stands very shortly afterward.
That wasn’t the end for the Herculoids, though, as NBC soon ran a conglomerate cartoon called Space Stars, which included those great monsters and Space Ghost, just to name a few. I got to see the Herculoids team up with Space Ghost at the time, which I loved!
Even that show didn’t survive long enough to suit me! And then there was a long period of silence with those cartoons until DC Comics started teaming up the Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters with their own heroes, which was followed from 2016 to 2017 by a mini-series called Future Quest. That book contained everyone from Jonny Quest to Mightor to the Herculoids to Birdman to the Galaxy Trio to Space Ghost, just to point out a few of my favorites.
I guess there weren’t enough of us buying that series because it ended with issue #12. Even though some of the heroes got some uniform updates I wasn’t all that excited about, I loved seeing them in action again, even on the printed page.
WHAT ABOUT THE HERCULOIDS?
I found the Herculoids particularly interesting because they had such a wide variety of monsters in the group. From a laser-firing dragon (Zot) to shape-shifting aliens (Gloop and Gleep), it covered all the bases for me. Led by the humans Zandor, Tara, and Dorno, they encountered the weirdest invaders anywhere in the galaxy, from robots to mad scientists to mutants to all manner of galactic threats that dared to invade their planet. (By the way, that world was originally called Amzot in the first cartoon, but it was renamed Quasar in the revival. Why? I have no idea!)
The designs for the various characters came from artist Alex Toth, and did they work for me! I loved their looks, their powers, and their ability to work together even though they didn’t have a common ancestry. I couldn’t get enough of them! And I’m not really a big monster guy, either!
Zot was my favorite because when he showed up, he mopped up the place with the baddies quickly! Loved that!
In later years, when people I worked alongside would compare what we called “useless bits of information” we know, I would always trot out the Herculoids, easily naming each and every one down to their home planet’s rename. Yeah, that didn’t come in handy once during my time working in an office!
But they did something special for me, a science-fiction and animation fan—they tickled my imagination in ways that had never happened for me before or since.
See, it’s very rare for me to see a wish come true when it comes to what I would like to see in the comics. I’m usually left wanting when it comes to things I want to see happen in the books. So, to see the Herculoids joining Space Ghost in my stack of comics, well, that’s a big deal for me!
My local comics store already knows I want their books whenever they appear, hopefully during 2025! Based on how well Space Ghost has been doing at Dynamite, I’m hoping for similar happenings with the Herculoids!
NOSTALGIA STILL SELLS
I often discuss how comics that deal with fondly remembered shows and movies do well among fans like me. I still feel like many of these characters have great adventures left untold, so I’m ready to jump back into what they are doing, even with some possible tinkering to make them more palatable to new readers.
Since Dynamite now has the rights to publishing these fun characters, it seems that DC’s Future Quest is gone—at least, for now. But since that company is bringing back these monsters, may I make another suggestion? How about an anthology book that features small stories will other characters, like short stories that could end in a team-up adventure at the back of the book? Hey, I’d buy it, for what that’s worth!
If you haven’t heard of the Herculoids of these other Saturday morning cartoon heroes, you just might give them a chance! They transfixed many of us when we were very young, and they still garner our support years later! You just might discover what it was about these characters that delighted us then and are something we look forward to even today!
What do you think? Are there other animated characters the comics could give new life to? Do you check out characters you haven’t heard about before, just to see what’s up with them? If the books do well, might we get one of the “cartoon networks” to give these franchises another chance on streaming? Whatever your opinions, be sure to share them in the space below!
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Wayne Hall creates the Wayne's Comics Podcast. He’s interviewed Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, John Layman, Kyle Higgins, Phil Hester, Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, David Petersen, Christos Gage, Mike Grell, and Matt Kindt. On this site each week, he writes his "Comics Portal" column (general comics comments and previews) and reviews comics.