Pete Morisi, Pat Boyette, Frank Mclaughlin and others. Charlton was petering out in the mid 80s, so DC bought the rights to those characters and presented them to Giordano – now DC’s executive editor – as a gift.
DC used the Charlton superheroes as the basis for the main characters in Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen. Also, that company occasionally publishes its own versions of some of them, such as Captain Atom and Peacemaker. Other Charlton stories turn up very occasionally, in very sporadic reprints from small publishers. Other than that, today, there’s nothing left of Charlton Comics.
DC’s initial idea was, with cover art by Dave Gibbons, to put them in their own mag. Because the Charlton characters were seen as not enough of a draw to be saleable, the idea was to include the Superman Sunday newspaper comic strips as an “anchor” (just like The Bay in a mall).
However, after putting together a pilot book that could have also been titled Blockbuster Weekly, DC cancelled this initial book idea. Alan Moore came along and created new versions of those characters with Dave Gibbons and that was The Watchmen.
DC later relaunched some of the original Action Heroes in their own books with varying success. They’re still a part of DC’s universe.
Charlton Comics was a sub division of Charlton Publications, active from 1946 to 1985.
