Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon

Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon
Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon (1969). Cover art by Wally Wood
Publication information
Publisher	Issue #1: Wally Wood Issue #2: CPL Gang Publications
Publication date	Issue #1: 1969 Issue #2: 1976
Main character(s)	Cannon The Misfits Dragonella
Creative team
Writer(s)	Wally Wood, Ron Whyte
Artist(s)	Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, Ralph Reese

Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon is a two-issue comic book series that represents one of the earliest independent comics. The first issue was self-published by prominent writer-artist Wally Wood in 1969, with a second issue published by CPL Gang Publications in 1976.

This comic-book series is unrelated to the organization HEROES, Inc. ("Honor Every Responsible Officer's Eternal Sacrifice"), a Washington, D.C. aid group for families of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Writer-artist Wally Wood, who by 1969 had had a critically admired two decades in comic books, self-published the first issue of his mature-audience comic Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon that year, after having already self-published a similar anthology, witzend. These comics, along with such titles by other publishers as Star Reach (1974), Big Apple Comix (1975), and American Splendor (1976), helped bridge the gap between the countercultural underground comics and traditional mainstream fare, providing genre stories for an adult audience. Like those other examples, it was a forerunner of the late-1970s rise of the modern graphic novel and the 1980s independent-comic publishing boom.

Created for the military readership Wood had cultivated with his "Sally Forth" feature in Military News and Overseas Weekly, the first issue contained no U.S. Postal Service indicia. The only publishing information was on an editorial page that gave the office address as "Armed Forces Dist., P.O. Box 23635, Pleasant Hill, Calif." Not targeted at children and carrying no Comics Code seal, it contained more action/combat violence and more revealing clothing on nubile young women than did mainstream comics, though it did not contain nudity or gore; most deaths occurred in silhouette, off-panel or indeterminately within battle scenes. The glossy cover promoted "Amazing Adult Adventure".