Number 1399: Black Knight: hero or spineless lack-a-day?

Stan Lee portrayed the Black Knight’s alter ego, Sir Percy, in much the same way the alter ego of Zorro, Don Diego, was played by Tyrone Power in the 1940 movie, The Mark of Zorro. Foppish. Effeminate. The attitudes toward Sir Percy by the characters in the story are insulting, even physical. Modred whacks him with a glove (to which Sir Percy later says to Merlin, the one guy who knows he’s role-playing, “I’ll feel the sting of Modred’s glove till the day I avenge that insult.”) To Lady Rosamund Sir Percy is a “churl,” (I looked it up, it means a rude, boorish person, which Sir Percy is not, and I wonder if Stan threw it in because it looked good, no matter its meaning.) Earlier, in the Black Knight’s origin story (available by a link below this story), Lady Rosamund on first meeting Percy, is positively hostile: “How can you stay around here, like an old man or a woman . . .” (Emphasis mine.) I think you get my point. It was another era when it was okay to disrespect someone who was thought gay. Stan Lee may not have been aware that was what he was doing, or if he was he had no way of knowing it would be brought up by a churlish blogger nearly 60 years hence, forsooth (meaning “in truth.”)

Monday we featured an artist, Fred Fredericks, who could draw a variety of styles and genres, and at Atlas in the fifties that described Joe Maneely, a wonderful cartoonist who could draw anything, and was called upon by editor Lee to do so. Westerns to science fiction to humor, medieval knights to horror. All in a day’s work for Joe. One of the greatest tragedies of the golden age of comics is that Maneely died young, in an accident.

From The Black Knight #1 (1955):

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Here’s the other story from the comic, mentioned above. Click on the picture.

Number 1187: Origin of the Black Knight

Black Knight was a transitional character for Atlas Comics in 1955, created after the Comics Code was implemented. Black Knight was not a superhero, but had a secret identity. Merlin the Magician was a major player in the series. The real magic was a combination of writing and drawing by Stan Lee and Joe Maneely.

Maneely drew the character for the first three issues, after which it was taken over by Fred Kida for the penultimate issue, #4, and Syd Shores for the last issue, #5.

I showed stories from Black Knight #3 in Pappy's #897 and Pappy's #964.

This story is the origin story from Black Knight #1, 1955.

Number 964


Crusader and Black Knight


I showed the first half of Black Knight #3 in Pappy's #897, in February. Here are the other two stories, both drawn by the great Joe Maneely.

I know I'm slow getting back to this. I apologize.

From Black Knight #3, 1955:

Number 897


Maneely's Black Knight


In January we showed a couple of Atlas war stories drawn by Joe Maneely. Now we've got a couple of stories by Maneely set in the days of King Arthur. The Black Knight lasted just five issues. It was published after the institution of the Comics Code in early '55, but like a lot of attempts to publish comic books that would sell without horror, violence or sex--for sure without horror, and featuring a more camouflaged sex and violence--it didn't last.

The Black Knight was all Maneely for the first three issues, which is why I snapped up this issue at an antiques fair. These are the first two stories of the four from the issue. Three stories in the issue feature the Black Knight, one features The Crusader. I'm aware the Black Knight was revived in the '60s, but our interest here is in Joe Maneely's original mid-1950's version.

From Black Knight #3: