Category: DC Superhero

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The Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume One: Green Arrow and others


By Jack Kirby with Joe Simon, France E. Herron, Dave Wood, Bill Finger, Robert Bernstein, Frank Giacoia, George Roussos, Roz Kirby & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3107-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Happy New Year! Let’s look at something old and valued!

Green Arrow is one of DC’s Golden All-Stars. He’s been a fixture of the company – in many instances for no discernible reason – more or less continually since his 1941 debut in More Fun Comics #73, cover dated November but on sale from September 19th 1941. Happy 85th and Many Happy Returns, Emerald Archer!

In those distant heady days, origins weren’t as important as image and storytelling, so creators Mort Weisinger & George Papp never bothered. The first inkling of formative motivations came in More Fun Comics # 89 (March 1943) wherein Joe Samachson & Cliff Young detailed ‘The Birth of the Battling Bowman!’ With the secret revealed, it was promptly ignored for years, leaving later workmen France Herron, Jack Kirby and his wife Roz to fill in the blanks again…

Jack Kirby was – and remains – the most important single influence in the history of US comics. There are millions of words written – such as those here by former Kirby assistant-made-good Mark Evanier in a revelatory. myth-busting Introduction to this gloriously enthralling hardback compilation – about what the King has done and meant, and you should read those too, if you are at all interested in our medium.

Tragically this particular tome is not available digitally, but that will just make it an even more impressive and rewarding once you get a copy. It might even prompt the publisher to reprint and repackage these mini masterpieces…

For those of us who grew up with his work, Kirby’s are the images which furnish and clutter our interior mindsets. Close your eyes and think “robot” and the first thing that pops up is a Kirby kreation. Every fantastic, futuristic city in our heads is crammed with his chunky yet towering spires. Because of Jack, we all know what the bodies beneath those stony-head statues on Easter Island look like, and we are all viscerally aware that you can never trust great big aliens parading around in their underpants…

When comic books began, in a remarkably short time Kirby and creative partner Joe Simon became the wonder-kid dream-team of the nascent industry. After generating a year’s worth of the influential monthly Blue Bolt, and dashing off Captain Marvel Adventures (#1) for Fawcett, Martin Goodman nailed them down. He appointed Simon editor at Timely, where “S&K” created a host of iconic stars like Red Raven, the first Marvel Boy, Hurricane, The Vision, The Young Allies, immortal villain The Red Skull and of course million-selling mega-hit Captain America (and Bucky AKA Winter Soldier).

When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby quit and were snapped up by National DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a fat chequebook. Bursting with ideas the staid company were never really comfortable with, the pair were initially an uneasy fit, and were given two moribund strips to play with until they found their creative feet: Sandman and Manhunter. They turned both around virtually overnight and, once established and left to their own devices, switched to the “Kid Gang” genre they pioneered at Timely. Joe & Jack created wartime sales sensation The Boy Commandos and Homefront iteration the Newsboy Legion before being called up to serve in the war they had been fighting on comic book pages since 1940. When they returned it was to a very different funnybook business, and soon they left National to create their own little empire.

Simon & Kirby heralded and ushered in the first American age of mature comics – not just by inventing the Romance genre, but with all manner of challenging modern material about real people in extraordinary situations. They saw it all disappear again in less than eight years. Their small stable of magazines – generated for an association of interlinked companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines/Essenkay/Mainline Comics – blossomed and as quickly wilted when the industry abruptly contracted throughout the 1950s. After years of working for others, Simon & Kirby had finally established their own publishing house, producing comics for a far more sophisticated audience, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by an anti-comicbook pogrom.

Hysterical censorship-fever spearheaded by US Senator Estes Kefauver and opportunistic pop psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham led to witch-hunting Senate hearings. Caving in, publishers adopted a castrating straitjacket of draconian self-regulation. Horror titles produced under the aegis and emblem of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock & Gore, even though the market’s appetite for suspense and the uncanny was still extremely high. Non superhero Crime comics vanished and mature themes challenging society’s status quo were suppressed…

Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less daring, companies. As the panic subsided, Kirby returned briefly to DC where he worked on mystery tales and Green Arrow (a long-lived back-up in Adventure Comics & World’s Finest Comics) whilst concentrating on his long-dreamed-of newspaper strip feature Sky Masters of the Space Force. During that period, Kirby also re-packaged a superteam concept kicking around in his head since he and Joe had closed their innovative, ill-timed ventures. At the end of 1956, Showcase #6 (a try-out title that launched many DC mainstays) premiered Challengers of the Unknown. After 3 more test issues “the Challs” won their own title, with Kirby in command for the first 8. Then a legal dispute with Editor Jack Schiff kicked off and the King was gone…

During that brief 3-year period (cover-dates 1957-1959), Kirby also crafted a plethora of short comics yarns which this fabulous tome re-presents in originally-published order. The roster comprises superhero, mystery and science fiction shorts from Tales of the Unexpected #12, 13, 15-18, 21- 24; House of Mystery #61, 63, 65, 66, 70, 72, 76, 84, 85; House of Secrets #3, 4, 8, 12; My Greatest Adventure #15- 18, 20, 21, 28; Adventure Comics #250-256 and World’s Finest Comics # 96-99: a long-lost gem from All-Star Western #99 plus 3 quirky vignettes by Simon & Kirby from 1946-1947 for Real Fact Comics #1, 2 & 6.

Records from those days when no creator was allowed a by-line are sparse and scanty, so many of these carry no writer’s credit (and besides, Kirby was notorious for rewriting scripts he was unhappy drawing) but Group Editor Schiff’s regular stable of authors included Dave Wood, Bill Finger, Ed Herron, Joe Samachson, George Kashdan, Jack Miller & Otto Binder, so feel free to play the “whodunit” game…

National DC Comics was relatively slow in joining the post-war mystery comics boom, but as 1951 closed they at last launched a gore-free, comparatively straight-laced anthology which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles: The House of Mystery (cover-dated December 1951/January 1952). Its success inevitably led to a raft of similar, creature-filled fantasy anthologies including Sensation Mystery, Tales of the Unexpected, My Greatest Adventure and House of Secrets. With the Comics Code in full effect, plot options for mystery and suspense stories were savagely curtailed: limited to ambiguous, anodyne magical artefacts, wholesomely educational mythological themes, science-based miracles and criminal chicanery.

Although marvellously illustrated, stories were rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles and they dominated until the early 1960s when superheroes (reinvigorated after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4, October 1956) usurped them…

In this compilation, following that aforementioned Introduction – describing Kirby’s 3 tours of duty with DC in very different decades – the vintage wonderment commences with another example of the ingenious versatility of Jack & Joe.

Originating in the wholesome and self-explanatory Real Fact Comics, ‘The Rocket-Lanes of Tomorrow’ (#1, March/April 1946) and ‘A World of Thinking Robots’ from #2 (May/June 1946) are forward-looking, retro-fabulous graphic prognostications of the “World That’s Coming”. A longer piece in #6 (July/August 1947) then details the history and achievements of ‘Backseat Driver’ and road-safety campaigner Mildred McKay. These were amongst the very last strips the duo produced for National before moving to Crestwood/Pines, so we skip ahead a decade and more for Jack’s return in House of Secrets #3 (March/April 1957) where ‘The Three Prophecies’ eerily depicts a spiritualist conman being fleeced by an even more skilful grifter… until Fate takes a hand…

Mythological mysticism informs ‘The Thing in the Box’ (House of Mystery #61, April 1957) wherein a salvage diver is obsessed with a deadly casket his captain is all too eager to dump into the ocean. From the same month, Tales of the Unexpected #12 focuses on ‘The All-Seeing Eye’ as a journalist responsible for many impossible scoops realises the potential dangers of the ancient artefact he employs far outweigh its benefits…

In House of Secrets #4 (May/June 1957) the ‘Master of the Unknown’ seems destined to take the big cash prize on a TV quiz show until the producer deduces his uncanny secret, after which ‘I Found the City under the City’ (My Greatest Adventure #15, from the same month) details how fishermen recover the last testament of a lost oceanographer and read of how he intended to foil an impending invasion by aquatic aliens…

From May 1957, France E. Herron & Kirby investigated ‘The Face Behind the Mask’ (Tales of the Unexpected #13): a gripping crime-caper involving gullible men, a vibrant femme fatale and a quest for eternal youth. There was no fakery to ‘Riddle of the Red Roc’ (House of Mystery #63, June) as a venal explorer hatches and trains the invulnerable bird of legend, creating an unstoppable thief before succumbing to his own greed. My Greatest Adventure #16 (July/August) features a truly fearsome threat as an explorer is sucked into a deadly association, creating death and destruction to learn ‘I Died a Thousand Times’…

That month, Unexpected #15 offered ‘Three Wishes to Doom’: a crafty thriller proving that even with a genie’s lamp, crime does not pay, after which weird science transforms a rash scientist into ‘The Human Dragon’ (HoM #65 August, with George Roussos inking his old pal Jack), although his time to repent is brief as a criminal mastermind capitalises on his misfortune…

There’s an understandable frisson of foreshadowing to ‘The Magic Hammer’ (TotU #16 August) as it relates how a prospector finds a magical mallet capable of creating storms and goes into the rainmaking business… until the original owner turns up…

A smart gimmick underscores a tantalising tale of plagiarism and possible telepathy in ‘The Thief of Thoughts’ (HoM #66 September) whilst straight Sci Fi tropes inform the tale of a hotel detective and a most unusual guest in ‘Who is Mr. Ashtar?’ (TotU #17, September) before MGA #17 (September/October 1957) reveals how aliens intent on invasion brainwash a millionaire scientist to eradicate humanity in ‘I Doomed the World’. Happily one glaring error was made…

In Tales of the Unexpected #18 (October), Kirby shows how an astute astronomer saves us all by outwitting an energy being with big appetites in ‘The Man Who Collected Planets’, after which MGA #18 (November/December 1957) ushers in the comic book Atomic Age with ‘I Tracked the Nuclear Creature’, detailing how a hunter sets out to destroy a macabre mineral monster created by uncontrolled fission…

A new year dawned with Roussos inking ‘The Creatures from Nowhere!’ (HoM #70, January 1958) as escaped alien beasts rampage through a quiet town, and HoS #8 (January/February) finds greed, betrayal, murder and supernatural suspense are the watchwords when a killer tries to silence ‘The Cats Who Knew Too Much!’ Tales of the Unexpected #21 (also January) sees a smart investor proving too much for apparent extraterrestrial ‘The Mysterious Mr. Vince’, whilst a month later Unexpected #22 sees an ‘Invasion of the Volcano Men’ start in fiery fury and panicked confrontations before resolving into an alliance against uncontrolled forces of nature.

Kirby never officially worked for National’s prodigious Westerns division, but apparently his old friend and neighbour Frank Giacoia did, and occasionally needed Jack’s legendary pencilling speed to meet deadlines. ‘The Ambush at Smoke Canyon!’ features long-running cavalry hero Foley of the Fighting 5th single-handedly stalking Pawnee renegades in a somewhat standard sagebrush saga scripted by Herron and inked by Giacoia from All-Star Western #99 (February/March 1958).

Meanwhile in House of Mystery #72 (March) a shameless B-Movie Producer seemingly becomes ‘The Man Who Betrayed Earth’ whilst in MGA #20 (March/April), interplanetary bonds of friendship are forged when space pirates kidnap assorted sentients and a canny Earthling saves the day in ‘I Was Big-Game on Neptune’…

Inadvertent cosmic catastrophe is narrowly averted in TotU #23 (March) when one man realises how to make contact with ‘The Giants from Outer Space’, after which issue #24 (April) slips into wild whimsy as ‘The Two-Dimensional Man!’ strives desperately to correct his incredible condition before being literally blown away…

When an early space-shot brings back all-consuming horror in MGA #21 (May/June 1958), a brace of boffins realise ‘We Were Doomed by the Metal-Eating Monster’ before ‘The Artificial Twin’ (HoM #76, July) combines mad doctor super-science with deception and fraud, whilst House of Secrets #12 (September) reveals a frantic man struggling to close ‘The Hole in the Sky’ before invading aliens use it to conquer humanity…

Also scattered throughout this extraordinary compendium of the bizarre is a stunning and bombastic Baker’s Dozen of Kirby’s fantastic covers from the period, but for most modern fans the real meat is the short, sharp salvo of superhero shockers that follow…

On his debut, Green Arrow proved quite successful. With boy partner Speedy, he was one of precious few masked stalwarts to survive beyond the Golden Age. A blatant blend of Batman and Robin Hood seemed to have very little going for itself, but the Emerald Archer always managed to keep himself in vogue. He carried on adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joined the Justice League of America just as their star was rising and later became – courtesy of Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams – the spokes-hero of the anti-establishment generation, during the 1960-70’s “Relevancy Comics” trend.

Later, under Mike Grell’s stewardship and thanks to epic miniseries Green Arrow: the Longbow Hunters, he at last became a headliner: re-imagined as an urban predator dealing with corporate thugs and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls. This version, more than any other, informs and underpins the TV incarnation seen in Arrow.

After his long career and numerous venue changes, by the time of Schwartz’s resurrection of the Superhero genre the Battling Bowman was a solid second feature in Adventure and World’s Finest Comics where, as part of a wave of retcons, reworkings and spruce-ups DC administered to their remaining costumed old soldiers, a fresh start began in the summer of 1958. Part of that revival happily coincided with Kirby’s return to National Comics.

As revealed in Evanier’s Introduction, after working on anthological stories for Schiff, the King was asked to revise the idling archer and responded by beefing up science fictional aspects. When supervising editor – and creator – Weisinger objected, changes were toned down and Kirby saw the writing on the wall. He lost interest and began quietly looking elsewhere for work…

What resulted was a tantalisingly short run of 11 astounding action-packed, fantasy-filled swashbucklers, the first of which was scripted by Bill Finger as ‘The Green Arrows of the World’ (Adventure Comics #251, July 1958) sees costumed archers from many nations attending a conference in Star City. They are blithely unaware a fugitive criminal with murder in his heart is hiding within their masked midst…

August’s #251 takes a welcome turn to astounding science fiction as Kirby scripted and resolved ‘The Case of the Super-Arrows’ wherein the Amazing Archers take possession of high-tech trick shafts sent from 3000 AD. World’s Finest Comics #96 (writer unknown) then reveals ‘Five Clues to Danger’ – a classic kidnap mystery made even more impressive by Kirby’s lean, raw illustration and wife Roz’s sharp inking. A practically unheard-of continued case spanned Adventure #252 & 253 as Dave Wood, Jack & Roz posed ‘The Mystery of the Giant Arrows’ before GA & Speedy briefly became ‘Prisoners of Dimension Zero’ – a spectacular riot of giant aliens and incredible exotic other worlds, followed in WFC #97 (October 1958) with a grand old-school crime-caper in Herron’s ‘The Mystery of the Mechanical Octopus’. Kirby was having fun and going from strength to strength. Adventure #254 featured ‘The Green Arrow’s Last Stand’ (by Wood): a particularly fine example with the Bold Bowmen crashing into a hidden valley where Sioux warriors thrive unchanged since the time of Custer. The next issue saw the heroes battling a battalion of Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender their island bunker in ‘The War That Never Ended!’ (also by Wood). December’s WFC #98 nearly ended the heroes’ careers in Herron’s ‘The Unmasked Archers’, when a private practical joke caused the pair to inadvertently expose themselves to public scrutiny and deadly danger…

As previous stated, in the heady early days origins weren’t as important as just plain getting on with it. The definitive version was left to later workmen Herron, Jack & Roz (in Kirby’s penultimate tale), filling in the blanks with ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ as the superhero revival hit its stride. It appeared in Adventure Comics #256 – cover-dated January 1959 – and this time the story stuck, becoming, with numerous tweaking over successive years, the basis of the modern Amazing Archer of page and screen. Here we learned how wealthy wastrel Oliver Queen was cast away on a deserted island and learned to use a handmade bow and survive. When scurvy mutineers fetched up on his desolate shores, Queen used his newfound skills to defeat them and returned to civilisation with a new career and purpose…

Kirby’s spectacular swansong came in WFC #99 (January 1959) in ‘Crimes under Glass’. Written by Robert Bernstein, it sees GA & Speedy confronting crafty criminals with a canny clutch of optical armaments, before the Archer steadfastly slid back into the sedate, gimmick-heavy rut of pre-Kirby times…

The King had moved on to other enterprises – Archie Comics with Joe Simon and a little outfit which would soon be calling itself Marvel Comics – but his rapid rate of creation had left completed tales in DC’s inventory pile which slowly emerged for months thereafter and neatly wrap up this comprehensive compendium of the uncanny. From My Greatest Adventure #28 (February 1959) ‘We Battled the Microscopic Menace!’ pits brave boffins against a ravening devourer their meddling with unknown forces had unleashed, whilst a month later HoM #84 depicted a terrifying struggle against ‘The Negative Man’ as an embattled researcher fought his own unleashed energy doppelganger.

It all ends in an unforgettable spectacular as House of Mystery #85 (April 1959) awakens ‘The Stone Sentinels of Giant Island’ to rampage across a lost Pacific island and threaten the brave crew of a scientific survey vessel… until one wise man deduces their incredible secret…

Jack was and is unique and uncompromising: his words and pictures are an unparalleled, hearts-and-minds grabbing delight no comics lover could resist. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind.

That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the American comics scene and the entire comics planet: affecting billions of readers and thousands of creators in every arena of artistic endeavour for generations. He still wins new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep and simultaneously mythic and human. This collection from his transformative middle period exults in sheer escapist wonderment, and no one should miss the graphic exploits of these perfect adventures in that ideal setting of not-so-long-ago in a simpler, better time and place than ours.
© 1946, 1947, 1957, 1958, 1959, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights

Today in 1912 British cartoonist and strip master Tony Weare was born. Where the tarnation is that Matt Marriot compilation? Ten years later in Trenton, New Jersey Sherrill David Robinson followed. You know Jerry for co creating the Joker and his Batman stuff, but try tracking down his Still Life panels…

In 1980, Gary Larson’s The Far Side debuted, only to stop original material on the same day 15 years later. How weird is that? Of course you could ascertain all that by seeing observing There’s a HAIR in My Dirt! – A Worm’s Story please link to November 2nd 2021.

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Showcase Presents Robin The Boy Wonder


By E. Nelson Bridwell, Ed Hamilton, John Broome, Leo Dorfman, Gardner F. Fox, Cary Bates, Mike Friedrich, Frank Robbins, Denny O’Neil, Bob Haney, Elliot Maggin, Bob Rozakis, Ross Andru, Curt Swan, Sheldon Moldoff, Pete Costanza, Chic Stone, Gil Kane, Irv Novick, Murphy Anderson, Dick Dillin, Rich Buckler, Bob Brown, Mike Grell, A. Martinez Al Milgrom & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1676-4 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As previously mentioned, there are a lot of comics anniversaries occurring in this otherwise dreadful year. The ultimate and original sidekick is probably the most significant of DC’s representatives, and indeed there have been a few intriguing collections released to celebrate the occasion. This one, however, is probably the best but remains criminally out of print, if not utterly unavailable…

Robin the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (cover dated April 1940 and on sale from March 6th). Co-created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson, he was a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder college student. His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with has inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

The first Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952, a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s – a position he alternated and shared with Batgirl – and a starring feature in anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans, initially in his original costumed identity but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, all while re-establishing a (somewhat turbulent) working relationship with his masked mentor.

This broad ranging easy on the eye monochrome compilation covers the period from Julie Schwartz’s captivating reinvigoration of the Dynamic Duo in 1964 until 1975 with Robin-related stories and material from Batman #184, 192, 202, 213, 227, 229-231, 234-236, 239-242, 244-246, 248-250, 252, 254 and portions of 217; Detective Comics #342, 386, 390-391, 394-395, 398-403, 445, 447, 450-251; World’s Finest Comics #141, 147, 195, 200; Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91, 111, 130 and Justice League of America #91-92.

The wonderment begins with the lead story from Batman #213 (July-August 1969) – a 30th Anniversary reprint Giant – which featured an all-new retelling of ‘The Origin of Robin’ courtesy of E. Nelson Bridwell, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, perfectly reinterpreting that epochal event for the Vietnam generation. After that, the tales proceed in (more or less) chronological order, covering episodes where Robin took centre-stage.

First up is ‘The Olsen-Robin Team versus… the Superman-Batman Team!’ (from World’s Finest #141, May 1964, by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan & George Klein). In a stirring blend of science fiction thriller and crime caper, the underappreciated sidekicks fake their own deaths to undertake a secret mission even their adult partners must remain unaware of – for the very best of reasons of course. A sequel from WF #147 (February 1965) delivers an engaging drama of youth-in-revolt as ‘The New Terrific Team!’ quit their assistant roles to strike out on their disgruntled own. Naturally there’s a perfectly reasonable – if incredible – reason here, too…

Detective Comics #342 (August 1965) featured ‘The Midnight Raid of the Robin Gang!’ by John Broome, Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella, wherein the Boy Wonder joins a youthful gang of costumed criminals, after which Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91 (March 1966) delivers ‘The Dragon Delinquent!’ (Leo Dorfman & Pete Costanza) as Robin and the cub reporter, unknown to each other, both infiltrate the same biker gang with potentially fatal consequences.

‘The Boy Wonder’s Boo-Boo Patrol!’ – originally a back-up in Batman #184 (September 1966, Gardner Fox, Chic Stone & Sid Greene), shows the daring lad’s star-potential in a clever tale of thespian skulduggery and classic conundrum solving, before ‘Dick Grayson’s Secret Guardian!’ (Batman #192, June 1967, Fox, Moldoff & Giella) depicts his physical prowess in one of comic books’ first instances of the exo-skeletal augmentation gimmick.

‘Jimmy Olsen, Boy Wonder!’ (SPJO #111, June 1968, by Cary Bates & Costanza) finds the reporter trying to prove his covert skills by convincing the Gotham Guardian that he was actually Robin, whilst that same month in Batman #203 the genuine article tackles the ‘Menace of the Motorcycle Marauders!’ (Mike Friedrich, Stone & Giella) consequently learning a salutary lesson in the price of responsibility…

Cover-dated April 1969, Detective Comics #386 featured the Boy Wonder’s first solo back-up in what was to become his semi-regular spot for years. ‘The Teen-Age Gap!’ (as described by Friedrich, Andru & Esposito) depicts a High School Barn Dance which only narrowly escapes becoming a riot thanks to his diligent intervention, after which Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson assume the art-chores with #390’s ‘Countdown to Chaos!’ (August 1969), bringing the series stunningly alive. Friedrich concocted a canny tale of corruption and kidnapping leading to a paralysing city ‘Strike!’ for the Caped kid to spectacularly expose and foil in the following issue.

Batman #217 (December 1969) was a landmark in the character’s long history as Dick leaves home to attend Hudson University. Only the pertinent portion from ‘One Bullet Too Many!’ by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick & Dick Giordano is included here, closely followed by ‘Strike… Whilst the Campus is Hot’ (Detective #394 from the same month, by Robbins, Kane & Anderson) as the callow freshman stumbles into a campus riot organised by criminals and radical activists, forcing the now Teen Wonder to ‘Drop Out… or Drop Dead!‘ to stop the seditious scheme…

Detective #398-399 (April & May 1970) ran a 2-part spy-thriller with Vince Colletta replacing Anderson as inker. ‘Moon-Struck’ has lunar rock samples borrowed from NASA apparently causing a plague among Hudson’s students until Robin exposes a Soviet scheme to sabotage the Space Program in ‘Panic by Moonglow’. The 400th anniversary issue (June 1970) finally teamed the Teen Wonder with his alternating back-up star in ‘A Burial For Batgirl!’ (Denny O’Neil, Kane & Colletta): a college-based murder mystery which again heavily references the political and social unrest then plaguing US campuses, but which still finds space to be smart and action-packed as well as topical, before chilling conclusion ‘Midnight is the Dying Hour!’ wraps up the saga.

Never afraid to repeat a good idea, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #130 (July 1970) sees Bob Haney & Murphy Anderson detail the exploits of ‘Olsen the Teen Wonder!’ as the boy reporter again apes Batman’s buddy – this time to infiltrate an underworld newspaper – whilst World’s Finest #195 (August 1970) finds Jimmy & Robin targeted for murder by the Mafia in ‘Dig Now, Die Later!’ by Haney, Andru & Esposito. Simultaneously in DC #402 ‘My Place in the Sun’ (Friedrich, Kane & Colletta), embroils Grayson and fellow Teen Titan Roy Speedy Harper in a crisis of social conscience, before our scarce-bearded hero wraps up his Detective run with corking crime-busting caper ‘Break-Out’ in the September issue.

Robin’s romps transferred to the back of Batman, beginning with #227 (December 1970) and ‘Help Me – I Think I’m Dead!’ (Friedrich, Novick & Esposito) as ecological awareness and penny-pinching Big Business catastrophically collide on the campus, beginning an extended epic seeing the Teen Thunderbolt explore communes, alternative cultures and the burgeoning spiritual New Age fads of the day. Inked by Frank Giacoia ‘Temperature Boiling… and Rising!’ (#229, February 1971) continues the politically-charged drama, albeit uncomfortably interrupted by a trenchant fantasy team-up with Superman sparked when the Man of Steel attempts to halt a violent campus clash between students and National Guard.

Crafted by Friedrich, Dick Dillin & Giella, ‘Prisoners of the Immortal World!’ (WFC #200, February 1971), has brothers on opposite sides of the teen scene abducted with Robin & Superman to a distant planet where undying vampiric aliens wage eternal war on each other. A return to more pedestrian perils in Batman #230 (March 1971) sees ‘Danger Comes A-Looking!’ for our young hero in the form of a gang of right-wing, anti-protester jocks and a deluded friend who prefers bombs to brotherhood, courtesy of Friedrich, Novick & Dick Giordano. ‘Wiped Out!’ (#231, May 1971) then offers an eye-popping end to the jock gang whilst #234 sees a clever road-trip tale in ‘Vengeance for a Cop!’, when a campus guard is gunned down forcing Robin to track the only suspect to a commune. ‘The Outcast Society’ has its own unique system of justice, but eventually the shooter is apprehended in the cataclysmic ‘Rain Fire!’ (#235 & 236 respectively).

The Collective experience blooms into psychedelic and psionic strangeness in #239 as ‘Soul-Pit’ (illustrated by new penciller Rich Buckler) finds Grayson’s would-be girlfriend, “Jesus-freaks” and runaway kids all sucked into a telepathic duel between a father and son, played out in the ‘Theatre of the Mind!’ before exposing the ‘Secret of the Psychic Siren!’ and culminating in a lethal clash with a clandestine cult in ‘Death-Point!’ (Batman#242, June 1972). After that eerie epic we slip back a year to peruse the Teen Wonder’s participation in one of the hallowed JLA/JSA summer team-ups, beginning in Justice League of America #91 (August 1971) and ‘Earth… the Monster-Maker!’, as Supermen, Flashes, Green Lanterns, Atoms and a brace of Hawkmen from two separate Realities simultaneously and ineffectually battle an alien boy and his symbiotically-linked dog (sort of) on almost identical planets a universe apart. There’s still time to painfully patronise the Robins of both until ‘Solomon Grundy… the One and Only!’ gives everyone a brutal but ultimately life-saving lesson on acceptance, togetherness, youthful optimism and lateral thinking…

Elliot Maggin, Novick & Giordano then set ‘The Teen-Age Trap!’ (Batman#244, September 1972), with Grayson mentoring troubled kids – and finding plenty of troublemakers his own age – whilst ‘Who Stole the Gift from Nowhere!’ is a delightful old-fashioned change-of-pace mystery yarn. However, ‘How Many Ways Can a Robin Die?’ by Robbins, Novick, Dillin & Giordano (Batman #246, December 1972) is actually a Dark Knight story with Teen Wonder helpless hostage throughout, whereas #248 opens another run of solo stories with ‘The Immortals of Usen Castle’ (Maggin, Novick & Frank McLaughlin) wherein another deprived-kids day trip turns into an episode of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? The ‘Case of the Kidnapped Crusader!’ (pencilled by Bob Brown) then puts the Student Centurion on the trail of an abducted consumer advocate and ‘Return of the Flying Grayson!’ (Maggin, Novick & McLaughlin from #250) painfully reminds the hero of his Circus past after tracking down pop-art thieves.

Batman #252 (October 1973) sees Maggin, Dillin & Giordano’s light-hearted pairing of Robin with a Danny Kaye pastiche for charming romp ‘The King from Canarsie!’, before ‘The Phenomenal Memory of Luke Graham!’ (#254 January/February 1974 and inked by Anderson) causes nothing but trouble for the hero, his college professors and a gang of robbers…

It was a year before the Teen Wonder’s solo sallies resumed with ‘The Touchdown Trap’ in Detective Comics #445 as new scripter Bob Rozakis and artist Mike Grell catapulted our hero into a 50-year-old college football feud that refused to die, whilst ‘The Puzzle of the Pyramids’ (#447 and illustrated by A. Martinez & Mazzaroli) offers another clever crime conundrum. This eccentrically eclectic monochrome compendium concludes with an action-packed, chase-heavy human drama by Al Milgrom & Terry Austin as ‘The Parking Lot Bandit!’ & ‘The Parking Lot Bandit Strikes Again!’ (DC #450-451, August & September 1975), giving the titanic teen one last chance to strike a bit of terror into the hearts of evil-doers…

These stories span a turbulent and chaotic period for comic books: perfectly encapsulating and describing the vicissitudes of the superhero genre’s premier juvenile lead: complex yet uncomplicated adventures drenched in charm and wit, moody tales of rebellion and self-discovery, and rollercoaster, all-fun romps. Action is always paramount, and angst-free satisfaction is pretty much guaranteed. These cracking yarns are something no fan of old-fashioned Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction should miss.
© 1964-1975, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1922, Belgian auteur Marc Sleen was born. We still haven’t seen English versions of his Nero yet, but have slavishly and repeatedly begged you all to tune in to the oeuvre of Ronald Searle, who left us all far less today in 2011.

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New Gods by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Mike Royer, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, D. Bruce Berry, Greg Theakston, Mike Thibodeaux & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8169-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Monumental Masterpieces… 9/10

Today in 1970 American comic books changed forever. On December 1st newsstands saw Superman meet the counterculture head on courtesy of Jack Kirby in a title like no other ever before. It was only one crucial component part of a bold experiment that quite honestly failed, but still undid and remade everything. That was Forever People #1 and it was followed on December 22nd with New Gods #1, as the world just kept on changing…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970 he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a complete new mythology onto and over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers. If only there had been a few more of them…

Starting in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, where he revived his 1940s kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introduced large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinted that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to a main course beginning with The Forever People, intersecting where appropriate with New Gods and Mister Miracle to form an interlinked triptych of finite-length titles that together presented an epic mosaic. Those three groundbreaking titles collectively introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their conflict spreads to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired contemporaries and successors. Gods of Apokolips & New Genesis became a crucial keystone of DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe, surviving the numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over decades and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations. That’s happening now even as I type this…

As previously stated, the herald of all this innovation had been Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which Kirby had used to lay groundwork since taking it over with #133. There readers first met Darkseid, Intergang, The Evil Project and so much more, but it was also used as an emotional setup for a fascinating notion that had seldom if ever previously troubled the mighty, generally satisfied and well situated Man of Tomorrow…

After The Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were dropped in favour of a tense new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, but the next and most important component was seeing the seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself…

Cover-dated February/March 1971 and on sale 55 years ago today, the premiere issue infamously opened with an ‘Epilogue’ and closed with a ‘Prologue’ as Kirby & inker Vince Colletta declared that ‘Orion Fights for Earth!’

We learned that (relatively) soon after creation began gods were born, lived and died – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods died in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was sundered. When the chaos cooled the fragments had congealed into two new but lesser planets: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming noble orb New Genesis. Over millennia another generation of superior beings of might and majesty populated the spinning spheres, but sadly, a tragic trait New Gods shared with their progenitors was a capacity for destruction and taste for conflict. Denizens of both worlds always and inevitably find new ways to end each other’s immortal lives.

The tale proper begins on joyous, spiritual New Genesis years after the latest all-out war with Apokolips ceased. Mighty Orion arrives in paradisical Supertown where divine patriarch Highfather communes with cosmic mystery The Source. The metaphysical conduit despatches the turbulent, ever-anxious wolf in their fold to the antithetical diabolical hell-world, only to find despot Darkseid gone and – against all treaties – captive humans from Earth being “examined” for signs of the tyrant’s dream. For both races the basic tool is Mother Box: sentient circuitry connected to The Source and a lifelong cyber-symbiotic companion, able to communicate, advise and manipulate the physical world.

The lord of Apokolips wants to do away with all that and rule everything personally. Furthermore he has decided this means controlling an irresistible, intangible ultimate weapon. The “Anti-Life Equation” is a cheat code for totalitarianism: the instant negation of choice and free will, and anyone using it would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a cross-section of humans to test his extraction methodology. That he is gone and his realm is governed by Mass Control Units means the Evil One has found his key to success…

After batting his way into the world, against Parademons, Darkseid’s Dog Cavalry and assorted terror weapons, Orion frees the mortals before New Genesis God of Knowledge Metron delivers advice and a message. Thus after outwitting and outfighting vile brute Kalibak the Cruel the peaceful God of War uses a matter-transmitting Boom Tube to return them all to Earth…

However, Darkseid and his elite warrior caste are waiting for him. They have already infiltrated Earth through its criminal class and begun testing humanity in search of the unique mind holding the Equation. Apparently, a sufficient amount of instilled terror should shake it loose…

‘O’ Deadly Darkseid!’ then confirms that there are no civilians in war as – after fighting off a savage ambush on arrival and confronting Darkseid himself – Orion drafts the shaken, rescued hostages as his point men and intel unit. Private eye Dave Lincoln, secretary Claudia Shane, aging insurance salesman Victor Lanza and student Harvey Lockman are scared but resolved to help their world however possible, even as the transplanted tyrant sees his forces scattered all over Earth, applying a range of schemes to make humanity scream and shatter and give up that equation.

As New Genesis’ comrades volunteer for the fight on this isolated island Earth, the call to arms comes in Lincoln’s backyard as God of Depravity DeSaad triggers his gigantic Fear Machine and feeds off the paralysing horror it generates. However, thanks to sentient miracle computer Mother Box, his innate personal power and the blockbusting Astro-Force Orion commands, the initial skirmish is easily won…

Dwelling in spaces far beyond the physical and mundane, New Gods are subject to forces beyond mortal understanding. One of them is the embodiment of cessation who personally calls for each of them as they perish. NG #3 opens with glorious, jovial innocent God of Illumination Lightray barely escaping his moment with the great shadow (again thanks to coldly methodical Metron) as ‘Death is the Black Racer!’ finds the spirit derailed and deposited on Earth.

Throughout the overlapping clashes and conflicts there is undeniable indications that even the gods are being moved and shaped by even greater forces that have larger plans in motion. Thus the macabre soul collector inexplicably nests within the immobile form of paralysed Vietnam veteran Willie Walker, and – apparently inadvertently – derails a plot by Apokolips-backed mob Intergang to destroy all communications in Metropolis and create even more chaos and panic…

Orion’s shattering counterattacks segue straight into issue #4 as New Genesis suffers its first casualty. In response, ‘The O’Ryan Gang and the Deep Six!’ sees him and his reluctant human allies tracking down an Intergang device that frustrates and negates Mother Boxes before stumbling into a staggering and diabolical plan to render Earth’s oceans off limits to humanity…

With Mike Royer replacing Colletta as inker, ‘Spawn’ sees Orion captive of six subsea Apokolyptians who warp sea life and grow an unstoppable marine mutant monster. Meanwhile, Kalibak arrives in Metropolis hungry for vengeance and bloodletting. The various players and cosmic factions are angling towards a catastrophic confrontation, but in Metropolis at least, some of the poor endangered mortals are seeking to take charge of their own destinies…

At this juncture, DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as Golden Age reprints, “Kirby’s Korner” ran short background vignettes of upcoming characters and cosmic guest stars. Here, inked by Colletta, ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Fastbak!’ focuses on Supertown, where a rowdy juvenile speed freak constantly tests himself and the patience of peacekeeping Monitors but finds there are some things even his miraculous tech cannot outrace…

Cover-dated January 1972, New Gods #6 launched ‘The Glory Boat!’ a complex and tragic morality tale and metaphor for fractured Vietnam era society wherein father and his peace-nik son clashed over duty and morality in war time as Lightray joins Orion to destroy or subvert the colossal horror devised by the Deep Six leading to a shocking secret exposed concerning the increasing out-of-control Orion…

Before that though, New Gods #7 finally revealed how it all began for the heirs of those first gods. When the primal Godworld sundered into gleaming New Genesis and sulphurous Apokolips the beings who eventually populated them were constant foes and rivals. After untold eons of sniping and acrimony, however, a young prince of the dark world sought to overthrow his mother and seize power. However, when ambitious Darkseid engineered a fresh war with New Genesis it started with the inadvertent murder of Avia, wife of New Genesis leader Izaya the Inheritor. As a result the conflict grew without let-up or rules, Darkseid and his bellicose uncle Steppenwolf had underestimated the ingenuity and ferocity of the Light Gods and the resulting conflict almost destroyed both worlds as the ancient enemies harnessed all the destructive capabilities of the universe.

Teleporting tanks, energy-generators, bio-toxic agents and genetic monsters wreaked havoc at ground level in personal combat, but entire solar systems also died. The planetary opposites were in peril of extinction as escalating science – and emotionless even-handed researcher Metron – found increasingly catastrophic ways to destroy. Gravity-bombs, sun-sized lasers and precision-aimed asteroids almost ended all factions forever. Mercifully, war-weary visionary Izaya found solace in the mystical Source, and badly rattled Darkseid agreed to a hastily-brokered truce before the gods once more extinguished themselves.

A pause in fighting was agreed, allowing both sides to regroup and, in the case of New Genesis at least, seek other paths. To seal ‘The Pact!’ Darkseid and newly renamed Highfather traded their young sons as hostages to the tenuous peace process…

Kirby & Royer’s staggering cosmic spectacle is accompanied by another history lesson as backup feature ‘The Young Gods of Supertown! Vykin the Black!’ finds the Forever People’s science-nerd neatly expunging one monstrous results of the last war’s bio-bombs beneath the savaged crust of New Genesis after which NG #8 returns to the present and increasing resistance by one Metropolis cop to the foreign super-conflict imported to his turf. ‘The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin!’ sees Orion coming to terms with Lightray learning that he the son of Darkseid even as his despised half-brother Kalibak rips the city apart in a deadly deranged display of wounded honour demanding satisfaction…

When Orion brutally reacts to the challenge, nobody expected the doughty earthman to settle the issue for them…

The issue closes with another peep at the past in self-explanatory clash ‘The Young Gods of Supertown: Fastbak Returns in Beat the Black Racer!!’ whilst in New Gods #9, Kirby exposes a darker side to the Good Gods as ‘The Bug!’ details how they ruthlessly deal with “lesser beings” infesting New Genesis since the last war. However, as seen through the eyes of insectoid colony scout Forager, the pests are a sentient species with their own culture and imperatives. Unfortunately it’s one easily manipulated by Darkseid’s flunky Mantis who Boom Tubes them all to Metropolis in search of newer, safer conquests in concluding chapter

‘Earth – the Doomed Dominion!’ Here, Orion & Lighray barely repel a mass colonisation only to discover a shocking secret about Forager…

The Fourth World was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism. It was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering, and they often didn’t. With numbers low, and spooky stories proliferating everywhere, Kirby was pressured to drop the weird stuff and concentrate on old standards. Despite promises of support and complete autonomy, the King had already surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but management had no understanding of what he was planning and promotion was non-existent. Thus, inevitably the series and its interlinked companions failed to find sufficient sales to keep on until the planned conclusion. Nobody in comics argued with numbers so New Gods #11 was the last, with the core title cancelled before Kirby could complete his grand experiment.

The King did however, go out in style as ‘Darkseid and Sons!’ saw Kalibak and Orion battle to the death, with the Black Racer in attendance as a hidden enemy tipped the scales against the war god… until the least expected player of all incongruously rebalanced the scales and ensured the death of another major actor in the grand design…

…And that was that. New Gods and Forever People were axed although Mister Miracle carried on with a sharp change of emphasis until it too passed on. Eventually time and tastes brought sequels and, at long last, Kirby’s return to craft a proper ending… of sorts. As explained in The King Returns! the growth of an independent comics industry and dedicated system of retail stores in the 1980s sparked a wave of fan-favourite reprints in expensive formats. In 1984 The New Gods miniseries reprinted the 11 issues from 1971-1972 and concluded with the long-delayed, all-new conclusion. All concerned admitted it wasn’t what Kirby had intended at the time and was very much the product of the older wiser, creator but ‘Even Gods Must Die!’ (inked by Bruce D. Berry) spectacularly and bombastically wrapped up the saga whilst setting the scene for a new chapter. If you were a fan of any of the non-Kirby revivals of the intervening years though, there was nothing for you. This was all Jack…

Moreover, the conclusion led to a re-energised new beginning as ‘The Hunger Dogs’ by Kirby, Berry, Royer & Grek Theakston, aided by Bill Wray & Tony Dispoto, expanded the saga with a true epic in the format Kirby had always predicted would come: book-length pictorial tomes…

 Released in March 1985 as DC Graphic Novel #5, wildly experimental, deeply philosophical, potently profound parable The Hunger Dogs explored the consequences of power lost and repercussions as fascism inevitably collapses. Set on Apokolips in the aftermath of a failed prophecy (that Darkseid would die at the hands of his son in the pits of the world’s gigantic slum sector Armagetto) it traces the efforts of eternal rebel dreamer Himon and his daughter Bekka in the face of the Dark Lord’s seeming total triumph.

With victory in the eternal conflict assured thanks to New Genesis traitor Esak, Darkseid is utterly unprepared when the gutter trash “Lowlies” who blindly worship, fear and despise him rise in revolt. Led by a most unsuspected mercilessly charismatic leader, the pitiful Hunger Dogs at the base of Darkseid’s pyramid of oppression prove too much for the despot and the entire universe shifts under his quaking boots…

This handy compendium also offers bonus material including pinups of ‘Lightray!’ & ‘Kalibak the Cruel!’ from NG #4, before the ‘Mother Box Files’ gather a dozen pertinent Kirby characters as revisited by himself, Theakston and Terry Austin from assorted editions of the DC Who’s Who fact files. Here a tremendous group treatment of The New Gods and New Genesis are complimented by solo entries for Black Racer, Darkseid, the Deep Six, Forager, Highfather, Kalibak, Lightray, Metron, Orion and Steppenwolf and supported by the covers and new art from that 1984 prestige reprint New Gods series, by Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Royer & Berry.

Closing the wonderment are more delights in ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, including hand-coloured original designs for Orion, Lightray, Mantis & Mister Miracle; Concept Drawings of the New Gods, plus a selection of stunning pencilled pages from the original run and long-awaited continuation and conclusion.

What more do you need to know?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1984, 1985, 1986, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1908, Italian Gian Luigi Bonelli was born; he created Tex Willer. We can’t offer the original, but perhaps a taste can be gleaned from Tex: The Lonesome Rider?

In 1951 Black Lightning and The Champions creator Tony Isabella was born, with Bill (Elementals; Fables) creator Willingham arriving five years later.

In 1974 Welsh-born Canuck Adrian Dingle died, with nobody then appreciating that his creation of Canadian woman superhero Nelvana of the Northern Lights in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1 (August 1941) actually predates the debut of Wonder Woman. Where’s her movie franchise then, eh?

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Justice League of America – The Last Survivors of Earth!


By Denny O’Neil, Mike Friedrich, Robert Kanigher, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson, Curt Swan, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8920-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Action, Imagination and Social Conscience: a True Xmas Tradition… 9/10

After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – for which read the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus, what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one… or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

And so, the debut of the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comic books, and when Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the turning point came with an inevitable union of his reconfigured mystery men. That moment came with #28 of The Brave and the Bold, a classical adventure title that had recently transformed into a try-out magazine like Showcase. Just before Christmas 1959 the ads began running. …Just Imagine! The mightiest heroes of our time… have banded together as the Justice League of America to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they appear!…

The rest is history: the JLA captivated the youth of a nation, reinvigorated an industry and even inspired a small family concern into creating the Fantastic Four, thereby transforming the art-form itself. Following a spectacular rise, TV spin-offs brought international awareness which led to catastrophic overexposure: by 1968 the new superhero boom looked to be dying just as its predecessor had at the end of the 1940s.

Sales were down generally in the comics industry and costs were beginning to spiral, and more importantly “free” entertainment, in the form of television, was by now ensconced in even the poorest household. If you were a kid in the sixties, think on just how many brilliant cartoon shows were created in that decade, when artists like Alex Toth and Doug Wildey were working in West Coast animation studios. Moreover, comic book heroes were now appearing on the small screen. Superman, Aquaman, Batman, upstart Marvel’s heroes and even the Justice League of America were there every Saturday in your own living room…

It was also a time of great political and social upheaval. Change was everywhere and unrest even reached the corridors of DC. When a number of creators agitated for increased work benefits the request was not looked upon kindly. Many left the company for other outfits. Some quit the business altogether… and some were pushed out…

This fabulous compendium volume reflects the turmoil of those times as the original writer and penciller who had created every single adventure of the World’s Greatest Superheroes since their inception gave way to a new wave of scripters and a fresh if not young artist.

Richard Allen “Dick” Dillin (17th December 1928 – 1st March 1980) had started in the 1940s at Quality Comics on Blackhawk, Plastic Man and their war anthologies. An utterly reliable prolific draughtsman, he moved to DC when the company bought out Quality and spent over a decade drawing their Blackhawk. When Sekowsky left, he would draw every JLA issue for the next twelve years, as well as many other adventures of DC’s top characters – and even a wealth of horror stories when the company started scaring kids for money again…

Collecting issues #77-95 (cover-dates December 1969 to December 1971) and generously re-presenting the stirring covers of #85 & 93: giant all-reprint editions, this tome captures a culture in transition and visible change in the way DC stories were told, over a period when the market changed forever, and comics stopped being casual disposable mass-entertainment.

By the end of the period covered in this volume the publishers had undertaken the conceptual and commercial transition from a mass-market medium which slavishly followed trends and fashions to become a niche industry producing only what its dedicated fans wanted…

Without preamble the drama commences with the heroes’ confidence and worldview shattered after enigmatic political populist Joe Dough suborns and compromises their beloved teen mascot in ‘Snapper Carr… Super-Traitor!’ as crafted by Denny O’Neil, Dillin & Joe Giella, a coming-of-age yarn that changed the comfy, cosy superhero game forever.

Greater social awareness parading through comics at this time manifested in the next epic 2-parter, which also revives another Golden Age Great (presumably to cash in on the mini-boom in screen Westerns). The Vigilante – a cowboy-themed superhero who battled bandits and badmen in a passel of DC titles from 1941-1954 – here alerts the team to ‘The Coming of the Doomsters!’ just in time to foil alien invaders who use pollution as their secret weapon. The vile plot concludes in ‘Come Slowly Death, Come Slyly!’ as the heroes stop the toxic baddies whilst subtly introducing young readers to potential ecological disasters in the making. This gave us plenty of time to offset greenhouse gases and end our dependence on fossil fuels and has given us the healthy planet we enjoy today…

Another landmark of this still-impressive tale was the introduction of the JLA Satellite, as the team moved from a hole in a mountain to a high-tech orbiting fortress. As they are moving in, ‘Night of the Soul-Stealer!’ sees Thanagarian Lorch Nor collecting heroic spirits in a magic box, but it is only prelude to an even greater threat as JLA #81 reveals his good intentions when the ‘Plague of the Galactic Jest-Master’ threatens to inflict a greater mind-crushing horror upon our entire universe…

Next is another grand collaboration between JLA and the Justice Society of America as ruthless property speculators (is there any other kind?) from outer space seek to raze two separate Earths in ‘Peril of the Paired Planets’. Only the ultimate sacrifice of a true hero averts trans-dimensional disaster in climactic conclusion ‘Where Valor Fails… Will Magic Triumph?’

Justice League of America #84 (November 1970) hosted ‘The Devil in Paradise!’: a guest-script from veteran Robert Kanigher wherein a well-meaning but demented scientist builds his own Eden to escape Earth’s increasing savagery, before going off the deep end and attempting to cleanse the world and start civilisation afresh.

With superheroes on the outs the team was severely truncated too. JLA #86 confronted issues of overpopulation and impending global starvation as Mike Friedrich began a run of excellent eco-thrillers with ‘Earth’s Final Hour!’. Here crooked business entrepreneur (can I say “any other kind” again?) Theo Zappa tries to trade away Earth’s plankton (base of our entire food-chain) to a race of aliens with only Superman, Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Atom & Hawkman on hand to thwart him, whilst #87’s ‘Batman… King of the World!’ brings in occasional guest-star Zatanna and semi-retired Green Lantern Hal Jordan to tackle a deadly alien robot raider. This was a devious and barely veiled attack on Big Business and the Vietnam war, most renowned these days for introducing a group of alien superheroes mischievously based on Marvel’s Mighty Avengers.

The human spirit and enduring humanity are highlighted as ancient refugees from the lost city of Mu return to find us in charge of the planet they had abandoned millennia ago. ‘The Last Survivors of Earth!’ proves that even when superheroes are outmatched by scientifically-instigated global catastrophes, the simple patience, charity and self-confidence of ordinary folks can move mountains and save worlds…

‘The Most Dangerous Dreams of All!’ is one of the oddest tales in the JLA canon, with a thinly disguised Harlan Ellison psychically inserting himself into the consciousness of Superman and Batman to woo Black Canary with near-fatal repercussions, in a rather self-indulgent but intriguing examination of the creative process. Back on – and under – solid ground again for #90, ‘Plague of the Pale People!’ sees Aquaman’s submerged kingdom of Atlantis conquered by a primitive subsea tribe (the Saremites from Flash #109) using nerve gas negligently dumped in the ocean by the US military. In a mordant and powerful parable about lost faith and taking responsibility, the JLA must deal with problems much tougher than whomping monsters, repelling invaders and locking up bad guys…

JLA #91 (August 1971) heralds a hero-heavy first chapter in the annual JLA/JSA team-up with ‘Earth… the Monster-Maker!’ as the Supermen, Flashes, Green Lanterns, Hawkmen, Atoms & Robins of two Realities simultaneously and ineffectually battle an alien boy and his symbiotically-linked dog on two planets a universe apart. The result is meaningless carnage and imminent death until ‘Solomon Grundy… the One and Only!’ gives all concerned a life-saving lesson on togetherness and lateral thinking…

Following the cover of reprint giant #93, Neal Adams steps in to provide additional pencils for tense mystery ‘Where Strikes Demonfang?’ as ghostly guardian Deadman helps Batman, Aquaman & Green Arrow foil a murder mission by previously infallible archer Merlyn and the League of Assassins.

The issue and this tome end on a cliffhanger as Flash, Green Lantern & Hawkman are lost in a teleporter accident, leaving Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow & Atom to fight ‘The Private War of Johnny Dune!’ wherein a disaffected African American freshly returned from Vietnam discovers the power and temptation of superpowers. Tragically, even the ability to control minds isn’t enough to change an unjust society 200 years in the making…

Augmented by stunning covers from Murphy Anderson, Curt Swan, Dick Giordano & Adams, these thoroughly wonderful thrillers mark an end and a beginning in comic book storytelling as whimsical adventure was replaced by inclusivity, social awareness and tacit acknowledgement that a smack in the mouth can’t solve all problems.

The audience was changing and the industry was forced to change with them. But underneath it all the drive to entertain remained strong and effective. Charm’s loss is drama’s gain and today’s readers might be surprised to discover just how much punch these tales had – and still have.

And for that you must get this book…
© 1969, 1970, 1971, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1929, Dick Dillin was born. You can appreciate his lifetime of comics creation drawing everyone from Aquaman to Zatanna in everything from Blackhawk to World’s Finest Comics… and you should. Or you could just scroll up.

In Britain, Strongman’s Daughter Pansy Potter debuted in 1938, courtesy of Hugh McNeill and The Beano. Red Ryder co-creator Stephen Slesinger died today in 1953 and in 2006 ultra prolific comics phenomenon Joe Gill passed away. He co-created Captain Atom and most reprinted Charlton comics you’ve heard of. Why not track down Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives vol 1 for a taste?

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DC Finest: Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters


By Mike Grell, Sharon Wright, Dennis J. O’Neil, Lurene Haynes & Julia Lacquement, Ed Hannigan, Denys Cowan, Randy DuBurque, Ed Barreto, Tom Artis, Dick Giordano, Frank McLauglin, Rick Magyar, Klaus Janson, Tony DeZuñiga, Tom Dzon, Arne Starr, Gary Martin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-991-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

It’s been a big year for comic book anniversaries and next year is another one. Let’s get our congratulations in early for a change…

Debuting in More Fun Comics #73 (cover-dated November 1941 and on sale from 19th September), Green Arrow is one of very few costumed heroes to be continuously published (more or less) since the Golden Age of American comic books. On first look, the combination of Batman and Robin Hood seems to have very little going for him, but he has always managed to keep himself in vogue and on view. Probably the most telling of his many, many makeovers came in 1987, when – hot on the heels of The Dark Knight Returns – Mike Grell was given the green light to make the Emerald Archer the star of DC’s second Prestige Format Mini-Series.

Grell was a major league, much celebrated creator at the time, having practically saved the company with his Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired fantasy series Warlord. He had also illustrated many of GA’s most recent and radical tales (in Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Action Comics and elsewhere, and was a confirmed fan-favourite after well-received runs on Legion of Super-Heroes, Aquaman, Phantom Stranger, Batman and others. During the early 1980s, he had worked on the prestigious Tarzan newspaper strip and created successful genre series including Starslayer and Jon Sable, Freelance for pioneering indie publisher First Comics.

By the middle of the grim ‘n’ gritty Eighties, it was certainly time for an overhaul of the Battling Bowman. Exploding arrows yes, maybe even net or rope arrows, but arrows with boxing gloves on them just don’t work (trust me – I know this from experience!).

Moreover, in his 1960s makeover, the hero had evolved into a tempestuous, social reformer using his gifts to battle for the little guy. Now, in a cynical era of corrupt government, secret services with private agendas, drug cartels and serial killers, this emerald survivor adapted again and thrived once more. Thus, sans preamble, the action unfolds, laying a new path that would quickly lead to the hero becoming a major player at long last and, ultimately, a TV sensation.

The plot is astutely logical and still controversial, concerning a superhero midlife crisis. Weary, aging Oliver Queen relocates to Seattle, struggling to come to terms with the fact that since his former sidekick Speedy, is now a dad, he is “technically” a grandfather. With longtime significant other Dinah Lance AKA Black Canary, Ollie starts simplifying his life, but the drive to fight injustice hasn’t dimmed for either of them. As she goes undercover to stamp out a pervasive drug ring, the Arrow becomes embroiled in the hunt for a psycho-killer dubbed “The Seattle Slasher”.

As he tracks a prolific stalker butchering prostitutes, Ollie becomes aware of a second – cross-country – slayer using arrows to murder people. Infuriatingly, this travesty only comes to his attention after the “Robin-Hood Killer” slaughters a gravedigger in his new city…

Eschewing gaudy costume and gimmicks to find such unglamorous hidden monsters, Queen reinvents himself as an urban hunter relentlessly searching Seattle’s darkest corners and soon stumbles into a complex mystery leading back to World War II involving the Yakuza, CIA, corporate America and even the Vietnam war: secrets that converge and will eventually change the course of the Archer’s life…

The intricate plot effortlessly weaves around the destabilized champion and past loves, thereby introducing new character Shado, exploring and echoing themes of vengeance and family in a blending of three stories that are in fact one, yet still delivers a shocking punch even now, through its disturbingly explicit examination of torture. These issues won the miniseries much undeserved negative press when first published. Although possibly tame to modern eyes this was eye-opening stuff at the time, which is a shame, since it diverted attention from the tale’s real achievement. That was narrative quality and sophistication, as this tale is arguably the first truly mature superhero yarn in the DCU.

Across ‘The Hunters’, ‘Dragon Hunt’ and ‘Tracking Snow’ Grell crafts a gripping, action-packed mystery adventure that pushes all the right buttons, all conveyed by artwork – in collaboration with Lurene Haynes & Julia Lacquement – that was and remains a revelation. Beautifully demure yet edgily sharp as required, these painterly visuals and watercolour tones perfectly complement a terse, sparse script, offering a compulsive, compelling ride any prose thriller writer would be proud of.

The saga – weaving themes of age, diminishing potency, vengeance and family – was another major turning point in American comics and led to an ongoing series specifically targeting “Mature Readers”. Latterly, the treatment and tone herein heavily influenced and flavoured TV adaptation Arrow.

Collectively covering February to October 1988, this paperback compilation (no digital edition yet, sadly) gathers the miniseries Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, Green Arrow volume 2, #1-8, The Question #17-18, and a crossover tale told in Detective Comics Annual #1, The Question Annual #1 and Green Arrow Annual #1. Controversy notwithstanding, the comic book retooling swiftly spawned a monthly series which itself evolved into one of the best reads of the 1990s and those monthly events immediately follow…

Scripted by Grell with superbly efficient and powerfully understated art from Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano & Frank McLaughlin, the new series presented grimly realistic yarns ripped from headlines, tailored and honed for maximum impact and relevance. Sparse, spartan and devastatingly compelling, the initial episodes were constructed as two-part dramas, beginning with ‘Hunter’s Moon’ as the hunter (the series was notable in that other than on the cover, the soubriquet “Green Arrow” was never, ever used or uttered) prowls his new home. He deals harshly with thugs, gangbangers and muggers before heading home to his still-traumatised girlfriend.

As graphically depicted in Longbow Hunters, Black Canary was tortured for days before Ollie found her and, although the physical wounds have faded, Dinah is still suffering…

She’s not the only one. Police Lieutenant Jim Cameron has just heard that child-torturing sociopath Al Muncie has used his vast beer-dynasty inheritance to buy a retrial after 18 years in prison. The cops couldn’t get him for murdering all those “missing” kids back then, but one lucky 10-year-old, after days of appalling torment, escaped and testified so Muncie’s been locked up for aggravated assault ever since. Now the heartbroken cop has to tell that brave survivor she must do it all over again…

The victim grew up to be Dr. Annie Green and she’s working wonders treating Dinah, but the therapist’s own long-suppressed terrors come flooding back when Muncie – despite being in total lockdown in his palatial house on the family brewery estate – somehow hand-delivers a little souvenir of their time together…

Present when Annie freaks out and flees in panic, Ollie gives chase and finds her once more calm and resigned. On hearing the full story he makes a house-call on the maniac but cannot “dissuade” him from paying Annie another visit that night. The veteran manhunter is waiting as a masked assailant tries to break ino the doctor’s apartment, but when the intruder shrugs off a steel arrow to the chest Ollie realises something’s not right…

Part Two expands the mystery of how Muncie gets past police guards at will, but by the time the Arrow has convinced cops to raid Muncie’s den with the solution to the obsessed sociopath’s disappearing act and apparent invulnerability, the killer has already made his move. Sadly for him, once again Muncie has underestimated Annie, and her defiance buys Ollie time to intercept the hellbent human fiend. After a furious chase back to the brewery, the killer meets his fate in a most ironic manner…

A broad change of pace follows as part one of ‘The Champions’ sees Ollie abducted by US government spooks and pressganged into competing for a deadly prize. A joint space venture with the Chinese has resulted in a deadly “DNA-programmable” virus being created and – following the sudden destruction of the satellite lab where it was propagated – the only surviving sample has crashed onto remote San Juan Island. With political allies turned rivals for sole possession of a bio-agent which can be set to kill anything from wheat harvests to black or yellow or white people, open warfare would only lead to catastrophic publicity, so the political superpowers have agreed to a gladiatorial bout as the method of deciding ownership.

Ollie has his own reasons for accepting the job. For starters he doesn’t trust any government with the DNA-hunting bug, the agents who drafted him are actually Russian, not American and, most urgently, he has no doubt that he’ll be killed if he refuses to compete…

Equipped with a tracking device, Ollie is dumped on the island as a colossal storm kicks off, meeting his arrogant opposite getting off the ferry. Former CIA operative Eddie Fyers is an old foe and one of the sneakiest killers on Earth. Fyers convinces Ollie they should work together before double-crossing and leaving him to bleed out in a blizzard. The archer is saved by an archaeologist who has inadvertently picked up the lost bio-agent pod, but as Ollie argues with his rescuer over the wisdom and morality of his mission, her cabin is peppered with gunfire…

Fyers has the upper hand but suffers a sudden change of attitude when a third team ambushes him and his prisoners. It seems neither Russians nor Chinese trust their champions…

Again forced to join forces, spy and vigilante despatch the hit squad before Ollie has the very last word after finding a way to deprive everybody of the death-sample…

The hunter appeared tangentially in The Question #17-18 (June & July 1988 by Dennis O’Neil, Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar) as ‘A Dream of Rorschach’; tacitly acknowledging the debt owed to the groundbreaking series Watchmen for the revival of Steve Ditko’s obsessive faceless trouble-seeker The Question. Here journalist/crimebuster Vic Sage is chasing murder-obsessed miscreants Butch and Sundance out of Hub City. Catching a plane, he reads the graphic novel and has a vision of and conversation with the iconic sociopath whilst flying to Seattle and a chilling showdown. On arrival he is intercepted by highly suspicious, extremely overprotective and intensely impatient local hero the Arrow before they ally to catch the scum as they seek fresh kill supplies from terrorists in massive clash-concluding chapter ‘Desperate Ground’…

Determined to challenge all manners of social inequity, Grell’s next story in Green Arrow confronted the rise in homosexual prejudice that manifested in the wake of the AIDs crisis. It begins after two customers leaving Dinah’s flower shop are brutally attacked by kids ordered to “gay-bash” as part of their gang initiation. The horrific crime is further compounded when Ollie discovers Dinah’s new assistant Colin is not only a bloody-handed perpetrator but also a victim…

The Warhogs are the most powerful gang in the city, but their latest induction policy is one the Arrow cannot allow to exist any longer. Any kid refusing to join is mercilessly beaten by a ‘Gauntlet’ of thugs. Those who eagerly volunteer suffer the same treatment at their own initiation… and once you’re accepted as a Warhog, you still have to prove your loyalty by beating – and preferably killing – a “queer”…

In the shocking conclusion Ollie, having failed to make a dent through any of his usual tactics, goes straight to the top. Big boss Reggie Mandel has big plans for the Warhogs. He’s already made them a national force to be reckoned with, but when he arrives in Seattle to check on regional deputy Kebo, the Machiavellian schemer is confronted by a nut with a bow challenging him in his own crib…

The Arrow is keen to point out the strictly local Warhog policy of gay hate-crimes is not only bad for business but serves someone else’s private agenda. Reggie actually agrees with the vigilante, but before he’s prepared to take appropriate action he expects his verdant petitioner to undergo the same gauntlet any Warhog must survive before being heard…

Next comes complex collaboration ‘The Powderhorn Trail’ – written by Grell & Sharon Wright who divided the Ollie and Dinah sections between them, with Randy DuBurque illustrating Black Canary pages whilst Ed Barreto pencilled Arrow bits, with Giordano & Arne Starr inking it all. The round-robin episode sees the hunter stumbling upon a clue to drug-smuggling at his local carwash and having to explain to Dinah why he’s taking off for Alaska. Possibly coincidentally, she is approached by a casual acquaintance whose life the Canary once saved, who inadvertently tips Dinah to a string of crimes-in-the-making…

The tempestuous conclusion (by Grell, Paris Cullins, Gary Martin & Giordano) then sees Ollie solo-stalking from Anchorage to deep in the North country on the trail of not just drug dealers and high-end car thieves but also opportunistic Tong smugglers trafficking illegal, poached and utterly pointless Chinese herbal remedies under cover of the infamous Iditarod. Sometimes it’s just good and so satisfying to be a lawless vigilante…

This initial collection concludes with a Denny O’Neil martial arts epic/experimental comic book koan ‘Fables’: a crossover tale encompassing Detective Comics Annual #1, Green Arrow Annual #1 and The Question Annual #1, which will make far more sense if you read Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon!…

It begins in China during Japan’s invasion prior to the official start of WWII, where a truly honourable bushido warrior is shamed by his own troops and resigns his commission to become a warrior monk: the O-sensei. Years later he and his student (Lady Shiva “the most dangerous woman on Earth”) arrive in America seeking a new hero called The Batman. They have a lesson to impart but first must find him. This overture means working again with an old student named Vic Sage…

Rendered by Klaus Janson & Tony DeZuñiga, ‘The Monkey Trap’ sees the Dark Knight hunt a horrific bio-weapon stolen from arch maniac Ra’s Al Ghul and pursued by money-mad miscreant The Penguin. The quest is only accomplished after the cocky masked manhunter learns a crucial lesson from the warrior sage and incurs a monumental debt of honour…

Then ‘Lesson for a Crab’ – illustrated by Tom Artis & Tom Dzon – finds the former Emerald Archer & Black Canary embroiled in the schemes of English aristocrat Lord Kalesque who wants to be the greatest archer in the world but cannot feel secure in the title until he crushes a certain vigilante in Seattle. As Kalesque is no adherent of fair play, that can be accomplished by perpetrating a string of murders to destabilize the hunter and put him and his woman off their game. Happily, Shiva and the O-Sensei are already on their way with advice and a zen teaching that will be of great service…

The interlinked saga concludes in The Question Annual #1 (Cowan & Magyar art) with explanations and conclusions. The aged sage wants to be buried beside his Japanese wife but her family are opposed to the plan and have moved her body. Star pupil Shiva orchestrates a plan involving western heroes touched by his teachings and owing service to the O-Sensei, and her efforts culminate in ‘The Silent Parable’. Now Batman’s detective skills locate the resting place and the Americans join what seems like a cursed mission to Malaya – one that is beset by an army of assassins and string of natural disasters; and which seems to end in utter failure…

However, in the aftermath The Question deduces that fate and honour have worked their own miracles and made a suitable accommodation with the universe…

Closing the book and capping the fantasy is a linked cover triptych of the Annuals by Janson, Ed Hannigan, Cowan & Bill Sienkiewicz, and rest – both fully painted and line art – are by Grell, Cowan, Sienkiewicz, Giordano, Hannigan & Tatjana Wood and suitably placed throughout…

Terse, sparse scripts, intelligent, flawed human interactions, stunning action delivered through economical and immensely effective illustration and an unfailing eye for engaging controversy make these some of the most powerful comic tales US comics ever produced, an epic of masked mystery saga no lover of the genre will want to miss.
© 1987, 1988, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

In 1911 strip writer Nicholas P. Dallis (Apartment 3-G, Rex Morgan MD) was born. Nine years later so was the fabulous Kurt Scaffenberger (Captain Marvel, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen) with Al Plastino popping in 366 days later. He was a key Superman illustrator who co-created the Legion of Super-Heroes and also drew the Batman newspaper strip (see Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays 1968 – 1969).

In 1953 JM DeMatteis was born, in 1961 Reginald Hudlin arrived and in 1969 Stuart Immonen, but we did lose Abie the Agent illustrator Harry Hershfield in 1974 and Uruguayan Eduardo Barreto who drew many US features including Steel Sterling, Aliens, Teen Titans, Superman, Batman and Judge Parker.

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All-Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever


By Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Ric Estrada, Wally Wood, Keith Giffen, Joe Staton, Bob Layton, Joe Giella, Dave Hunt, Dick Giordano, Brian Bolland, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0071-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ageless Evergreen Super-Sensationalism… 8/10

In the torrid and turbulent 1970s many of the comics industry’s oldest publishing ideas were finally laid to rest. The belief that characters could be “over-exposed” was one of the most long-lasting (after all, it never hurt Superman, Batman or the original Captain Marvel), garnered from years of experience in an industry which lived or died on that fractional portion of pennies derived each month from pocket-money and allowances of kids that wasn’t spent on candy, toys or movies.

By the end of the 1960s, comic book costs and retail prices were inexorably rising and a proportion of titles – especially newly resurrected horror stories – were consciously being produced for older readerships. Nearly a decade of organised fan publications and letter writing crusades had finally convinced publishing bean-counters what editors already knew: grown-ups avidly read comics too. Avidly. Passionately. Obsessively. They would happily spend more than kids and, most importantly, wanted more, more, more of what they particularly loved.

Explicitly: If one appearance per month was popular, extras, specials and second series would be more so. By the time Marvel Wunderkind Gerry Conway was preparing to leave The House of Ideas, DC was willing and ready to expand its variegated line-up with some oft-requested/demanded fan-favourite characters…

Paramount among these was the Justice Society of America, the first comic book super-team and a perennial gem whose annual guest-appearances in the Justice League of America had become an inescapable and beloved summer tradition. Thus in 1976 Writer/Editor Conway marked his second DC tenure (he had first broken into the game writing horror shorts for Joe Orlando) by reviving All Star Comics with number #58. In 1951, as the first Heroic Age ended, the key title had transformed overnight into All Star Western, with that numbering running for a further decade as home cowboy crusaders like Strong Bow, Trigger Twins, Johnny Thunder (a new “masked” do-gooder, not the Golden Age costumed idiot with a genie) and Super-Chief.

If you’re interested, among the other revivals/introductions in “Conway’s Corner” were perennial star Plastic Man, Blackhawk, The Secret Society of Super-Villains, Freedom Fighters, Kobra, Blitzkrieg – and many more.

In case you need reminding in their anniversary year: All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941 and released in November 1940) is the officially cited kick-off for all Superteam tales, even if the assembled mystery men merely had dinner and recounted recent cases. They didn’t actually go on a mission together until ASC #4, which had an April 1941 cover-date and hit newsstands on February 7th.

Set on the parallel world of Earth-2, and in keeping with the editorial sense of ensuring the series be relevant to young readers too, Conway reintroduced a veteran team, leavened with a smattering of teen heroes, combined into a contentious, generation-gap fuelled Super Squad. These young whippersnappers included Robin (already a JSA-er since the mid-1960s and Justice League of America #55); Sylvester Pemberton AKA The Star-Spangled Kid (in actuality a boy-hero from the 1940s lost in time for decades) and – it must shamefully be said – a busty young thing who quickly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys.

Kara Zor-L was attention grabbing in all the right and wrong ways and would soon become infamous as the “take-charge” pushy feminist dynamo Power Girl.

This titanic hardback and digital collection volume gathers that 4-year run of the JSA from the late 1970s into a sublime showcase of so-different, ever-changing times via All-Star Comics #58-74, plus the series’ continuation and conclusion from epic anthology title Adventure Comics (#461-466), and includes the seminal saga from DC Special #29 which, after almost four decades, finally provided the team with an origin…

Without preamble, the action begins with ‘Prologue’: a 3-page introduction/recap/summation of the Society’s history as well as the celestial mechanics of Alternate Earths, as crafted by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton & Bob Layton and first seen in Adventure #461, January/February 1979. This outlines the history and workings of DC’s parallel continuities, after which the first half of the 2-part debut tale from All-Star Comics #58 (January/February 1976 by Conway, Ric Estrada &Wally Wood) finds newly-inducted Pemberton chafing at his time-lost plight and revelling in new powers after being given a cosmic-energy device by retired JSA veteran Starman.

When a crisis propels him and elder heroes Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wildcat, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Dr. Fate into a 3-pronged calamity devastating Seattle, Cape Town and Peking (which you youngsters now known as Beijing). With man-made natural disasters, everywhere the elder statesmen split up but are overwhelmed, giving the new kids a chance to shine in ‘All Star Super-Squad’. With abrasive, impatient Power Girl in the vanguard, the entire team is soon on the trail of old foe Degaton and his mind-bending ally in #59’s conclusion ‘Brainwave Blows Up!’

Keith Giffen replaced Estrada in #60 whilst introducing a psychotic super-arsonist who attacks the Squad just as the age-divide starts grating and PG begins ticking off (or “re-educating”) the stuffy, paternalistic JSA-ers in ‘Vulcan: Son of Fire!’. Closing instalment ‘Hellfire and Holocaust’ finds the flaming fury fatally wounding Fate before his own defeat, just as a new mystic menace is stirring…

Conway’s last issue as scripter was #62. ‘When Fall the Mighty’ highlights antediluvian sorcerer Zanadu who devastatingly attacks, even as the criminal Injustice Gang open their latest vengeful assault using mind-control to turn friend against friend. The cast subsequently expands with the return of Hourman and Power Girl’s Kryptonian mentor, but even they prove insufficient to prevent ‘The Death of Doctor Fate’ as written by Paul Levitz. Assaulted on all sides, the team splinters. Wildcat, Hawkman and the Kryptonian cousins tackle the rampant super-villains whilst Flash & Green Lantern search Egypt for a cure to Fate’s condition, and Hourman, Mid-Nite & Star-Spangled Kid desperately attempt to keep their fallen comrade alive.

When they fail Zanadu renews his assault, almost adding the moribund Fate’s death-watch defenders to his tally… until the archaic alien’s very presence calls Kent Nelson back from beyond the grave…

With that crisis averted, Superman makes ready to leave but is embroiled in a last-minute, manic time-travel assassination plot (Levitz script, and fully illustrated by inimitable Wally Wood) which drags the team and guest-star The Shining Knight from an embattled Camelot in ‘Yesterday Begins Today!’ to the far-flung future and ‘The Master Plan of Vandal Savage’: a breathtaking spectacle of drama and excitement that signalled Woody’s departure from the series.

Joe Staton & Bob Layton took the unenviable task of filling his artistic shoes, beginning with #66 as ‘Injustice Strikes Twice!’ wherein the reunited team – sans Superman – fall prey to ambush by arch-enemies, whilst emotion-warping Psycho-Pirate starts twisting GL Alan Scott into an out-of-control menace determined to crush Corporate America beneath his emerald heel. This subsequently leads to the return of Earth-2’s Bruce Wayne, who had previously retired his masked persona to become Gotham’s Police Commissioner. In ‘Attack of the Underlord!’ (All-Star Comics #67, July/August 1977), the Injustice Society’s monstrous allies are revealed as subterranean conquerors who nearly end the team forever. Meanwhile, Wayne’s plans near fruition. He wants to shut down the JSA before their increasingly destructive exploits demolish his beloved city…

Contemporary continuity pauses here as the aforementioned case from DC Special #29 (September 1977) discloses ‘The Untold Origin of the Justice Society’ in an extra-length epic set in 1940. Here Levitz, Staton & Layton reveal previously classified events which saw Adolf Hitler acquire the mystical Spear of Destiny and immediately summon mythical Teutonic Valkyries to aid in the invasion of Britain. Alerted to the threat, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – hampered by his country’s neutrality – unofficially asks a select band of masked mystery-men to lend their aid as non-political, private citizens.

In a cataclysmic escalation, the struggle ranges from the heart of Europe throughout the British Isles and even to the White House Oval Office before ten bold costumed champions finally – albeit temporarily – stymy the Nazis’ plans…

Back in All Star #68 (October 1977) the Kryptonian Kid was clearly becoming top star of the show. ‘Divided We Stand!’ (Levitz, Staton & Layton) concludes the Psycho-Pirate’s scheme to discredit and destroy the JSA, and sets the scene for her first solo outing in Showcase #97-99 (which is not included here). Meanwhile GL resumes a maniacal rampage through Gotham and Police Commissioner Wayne takes extreme measures to bring the seemingly out-of-control JSA to book. With ASC #69’s ‘United We Fall!’, he reunites in his own team of retired JSA stars to arrest the rogue squad, resulting in a classic fanboy dream duel as Dr. Fate, Wildcat, Hawkman, Flash, GL & Star-Spangled Kid battled the original Batman, Robin, Hourman, Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wonder Woman. It’s a colourful catastrophe in waiting until PG & Superman intervene to reveal the true cause of all that unleashed madness.

… And in the background, a new character was about to make a landmark debut…

With order restored ‘A Parting of the Ways!’ spotlights Wildcat and Star-Spangled Kid as the off-duty heroes stumble upon high-tech super-thieves Strike Force. These bandits initially prove too much for the pair – and even new star The Huntress – but with a pair of startling revelations in ‘The Deadliest Game in Town!’ the trio finally triumph. In the aftermath, the Kid resigns and the daughter of Batman & Catwoman replaces him…

All-Star Comics #72 reintroduces a brace of classic Golden Age villainesses in ‘A Thorn by Any Other Name’ – wherein the psychopathic floral fury returns to poison Wildcat, leaving Helena Wayne to battle the original 1940’s Huntress for an antidote and rights to the name. With Joe Giella taking over the inker’s role, concluding chapter ‘Be it Ever So Deadly’ sees the whole team deployed as Huntress battled Huntress whilst Thorn and The Sportsmaster do their deadly best to destroy the heroes and their loved ones. Meanwhile in Egypt, Hawkman & Dr. Fate stumble upon a deadly ancient menace to all of reality…

The late 1970s was a perilous period for comics, with exponentially rising costs inevitably resulting in drastically dwindling sales. Many titles were abruptly cancelled in a “DC Implosion” and All-Star Comics was one of the casualties. Issue #74 was the last, pitting the reunited Society against a mystic Armageddon perpetrated by a nigh-omnipotent Master Summoner who orchestrated a ‘World on the Edge of Ending’ before the JSA triumphantly dragged victory from the jaws of defeat…

Although the book was gone, the series continued in 68-page anthology title Adventure Comics, beginning in #461 (January/February 1979) with the first half of a blockbuster tale originally intended for the anniversary 75th issue. Drawn & inked by Staton, ‘Only Legends Live Forever’ details the Batman’s last case as the Dark Knight comes out of retirement to battle a seeming nonentity who has mysteriously acquired god-like power. Adventure #462 delivered the heartbreaking conclusion in ‘The Legend Lives Again!’ before AC #462’s ‘The Night of the Soul Thief!’ sees Huntress, Robin and assembled Society members deliver righteous justice to the mysterious mastermind who actually orchestrated the death of the World’s Greatest Detective…

For #464, an intriguing insight into aging warrior Wildcat reveals ‘To Everything There is a Season…’ as Ted Grant embraces his own mortality and begins a new career as a teacher of heroes, before ‘Countdown to Disaster!’ (inked by Dave Hunt) finds Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Power Girl, Huntress & Dr. Fate hunting a doomsday device lost amidst Gotham’s teeming masses. It would be the last modern outing of the team for years to come…

But not the last in this volume: that honour falls to another Levitz & Staton landmark: a little history lesson wherein they expose the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s. From Adventure #466, ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society!’ shows how the US Government had cravenly betrayed their greatest champions during the McCarthy witch-hunts: provoking the mystery-men into voluntarily withdrawing from public, heroic life for over a decade… until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-1 started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

Upping the gaudy glory quotient, a team pin-up by Staton & Dick Giordano and two earlier collection covers from Brian Bolland cap off the costumed dramas.

Although perhaps a tad dated now, these exuberant, rapid-paced, imaginative yarns perfectly blend the naive charm of Golden Age derring-do with cynical modern sensibilities. Here you will be reassured that no matter what, in the end our heroes will always find a way to save the day. Such classic spectacles from simpler times are a glorious example of traditional superhero storytelling at its finest: fun, furious, ferociously engaging, excitingly written and beguilingly illustrated. No Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should miss these marvellous sagas.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1912 Cliff Sterrett’s astounding strip Polly and Her Pals ran in US papers for the first time, and in 1921 artist Art Saaf was born – someone else you’ve probably enjoyed without even knowing it, so go learn about him too.

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The Forever People by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, Mike Royer, Murphy Anderson, Al Plastino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-230-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Monumental Masterpieces… 9/10

Today in 1970 American comic books changed forever. On December 1st newsstands saw Superman meet the counterculture head on courtesy of Jack Kirby in a title like no other ever before. Moreover it was only one crucial component part of a bold experiment that quite honestly failed, but still undid and remade everything. It was Forever People #1…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970 he brought with him one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The epic grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a complete new mythology onto and over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers. If only there had been a few more of them…

Starting in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, where he revived his 1940s kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introduced large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinted that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to a main course beginning with The Forever People, intersecting where appropriate with New Gods and Mister Miracle to form an interlinked triptych of finite-length titles that together presented an epic mosaic. Those three groundbreaking titles collectively introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their conflict spreads to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired contemporaries and successors. Gods of Apokolips & New Genesis became a crucial keystone of DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe, surviving the numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over decades and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations. That’s happening now even as I type this…

As previously stated, the herald of all this innovation had been Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which Kirby had used to lay groundwork since taking it over with #133. There readers first met Darkseid, Intergang, The Evil Project and so much more, but it was also used as an emotional setup for a fascinating notion that had seldom if ever previously troubled the mighty, generally satisfied and well situated Man of Tomorrow…

The Forever People #1’s ‘In Search of a Dream!’ saw Kirby & contractually assigned inker Vince Colletta open with a spectacular and contemporarily astute UFO sighting.

Despite a promise of complete autonomy, the King had surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but his choice of inkers was vetoed, and he had to compromise and accept insulting art edits drawn by regular Superman artists perennially pasted onto Superman’s trademarked face to present something DC demanded. Nevertheless, the work was everything and wonders unfolded when friends of Jimmy Olsen witnessed the arrival of a quartet of weird wild kids on the strangest bike on – or off – Earth. Because they took pictures, Clark Kent’s life changed forever.

He had just completed a bruising interview that made him question his role and purpose on Earth when Jimmsys snapshots of those weird kids offered Superman a glimpse of a place where he could be one guy among equals…

Curiosity and a painful need to find those newcomers drove the Man of Steel to find them, and brought him into first known contact with the absolute embodiment of intellectual and philosophical totalitarianism…

Darkseid was infiltrating our world, quietly seeking a unique mind concealing a metaphysical ultimate weapon. The “Anti-Life Equation” was the instant, irresistible negation of choice and free will and with it the right despot would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it had led him to Earth and now he had kidnapped a psychic youngster from a world called New Genesis. Her name was Beautiful Dreamer…

All this Superman learned later, after being ambushed by Intergang and saved by her friends Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan and Mark Moonrider. They were all from that promised land Superman had glimpsed but had abandoned Eden to “get involved” helping their friend and Earth. They called themselves Forever People…

Apparently benevolent, curious kids open to new experiences and welcoming the myriad choices the future holds, they were also trained to handle trouble. When Darkseid’s forces counterattacked and took out Superman they revealed one final trick, combining into an unbeatable enigmatic being called Infinity Man…

When Darkseid ceded the day, he left a booby trap only Superman could tackle and in return the kids let him travel to Supertown on their fabled paradise planet New Genesis. However, they stressed that any decent right-thinking person’s place was here, fighting evil by facing Darkseid. For the briefest moment, need overwhelmed duty before, inevitably, the Man of Tomorrow turned back and took up the new never-ending battle…

Exuberantly enjoying their dalliance with a primitive culture, the reunited quintet joyously interact with toiling humanity, finding shelter in a mostly deserted slum with disabled kid Donnie and his aging Uncle Willie. The odd youngster’s urge to learn is sadly curtailed when Darkseid steps up his hunt for the equation. His reasoning says abject terror might shake loose the formula from whoever is afflicted with it, and to that effect he orders bug-like behemoth Mantis to declare shattering ‘Super War!’ on humanity.

Arguably marginally less powerful than the Master of Apokolips, Mantis can only be countered by Infinity Man, and the Forever People happily ask mystic computer Mother Box to perform the ritual that will call him and subtract them from existence…

After exploring isolation versus community, introducing outside negation of free will and the concept of terror as addictive sustenance (vile deputy DeSaad feasts on fear and torture), FP #3 tackle’s head-on the series’ core concepts.

‘Life vs. Anti-Life!’ explores conformity, personal freedoms, informed choices, organised bigotry and the tyranny of psychological and physical fascism as the wonder kids are tracked down by Justifiers: human zealots who have willingly surrendered individual autonomy to what appears to be a televangelist telling them what they want to hear. Defeat doubt by surrendering to Anti-Life. It is Good to kill those who are better or weaker than you…

Equipped with terrifying Apokolips weapons, Justifiers burn libraries, attack minorities and even drive the kids out of their tatty home and onto the attack, infiltrating Apokoliptian infiltrator/demagogue Glorious Godfrey’s appalling recruitment rally. Shockingly, when Infinity Man faces Darkseid, the devil defeats the mysterious angel and the traumatised kids are captured…

Forever People #4, horrifically subverts the American dream as fun theme park Happyland is revealed as ‘The Kingdom of the Damned’: a sprawling factory built to mass-produce terror by exploiting whimsy and fantasy. Here DeSaad torments countless human victims while others innocently observe nothing but toys and robots dancing and playing for their pleasure. To this set-up the captured waifs of New Genesis are added and DeSaad feeds, but they have all underestimated the power of Mother Box who seeks aid and finds it in the form of zen wrestler ‘Sonny Sumo’…

With the living computer boosting his remarkable gifts, the pacifist warrior executes a one-man rescue that demonstrates the true horror of the Anti-Life Equation: a battle so fast and furious that even Darkseid is panicked and overreacts…

At this juncture DC comic books expanded to 52 pages and as well as reprints, Kirby’s Korner ran short background vignettes. The lost history of the previous war of pantheons was filled in as here when ‘The Young Gods of Supertown Introducing Lonar’ finds a wandering historian picking through cosmic rubble on New Genesis and uncovering a living, breathing remnant of that cataclysmic conflict

Cover-dated January 1971 FP #6 was inked by Mike Royer and revealed how the Master of Apokolips resorts to his personal ultimate weapon ‘The Omega Effect!!’: scattering Sumo and the triumphant New Genesisians throughout key moments of Earth’s history. All but sensitive Serifan who retreats bereft and shellshocked to their sentient Super-Cycle and a final brutal battle with Godfrey’s Justifiers…

Inked by Colletta, back-up The Young Gods of Supertown’ also focuses on the kid with cosmic cartridges as a sneaky ‘Raid from Apokolips’ ruins his and Big Bear’s meditation moment and makes them unpardonably rude in response…

Time travel travails are sorted in concluding episode ‘I’ll Find You in Yesterday!!’ as on New Genesis, Supreme Leader Highfather puts everyone back where they belong by use of almighty Alpha Bullets, and the kids find out how destiny dealt with their saviour Sonny Sumo. That’s bookended by ‘Lonar of New Genesis and his Battle-Horse Thunderer!!!’ as the survivor of the first fall meets current war god Orion…

Everything Darkseid ransacks humanity’s subconscious for is found in #8 as manipulative human parasite Billion-Dollar Bates reveals he has ‘The Power!’ of the Anti-Life Equation. Every vice readily embraced, he thinks he’s evil incarnate until the Apokolips crowd show up, but Darkseid’s joy turns to ashes as the Forever People rush in and fate takes a hand that even gods cannot turn aside…

The Fourth World was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism. It was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering, and they often didn’t. With numbers low, spooky stories proliferating everywhere and popular wisdom saying character crossovers boosted sales, Kirby eventually caved to pressure and agreed to host another creator’s star in his epic. Thus Forever People #9 hosted (failed) horror hero Boston Brand, AKA Deadman who was made marginally manifest by a seance and another Cosmic Cartridge. The vengeance hunter accepted an artificial body to pursue the man who killed him in an intriguing, action-packed but ultimately ridiculous aside that began by introducing a ‘Monster in the Morgue!’ It rampaged through town before tech bandits ‘The Scavengers’ sought to steal Brand’s new “mobile home”, and drew the wrath of ghost and teen godlings. The yarn actually ended with a plug for Kirby’s forthcoming series The Demon…

After that peculiar and extremely wearisome divertissement the war came for the interstellar innocents with ‘Devilance the Pursuer’. It was the last issue and at least the King had time enough to prepare a narrative pause if not proper conclusion. Simply put, Darkseid’s top killer is despatched to end the pesky brats and is unstoppable. Chased across Earth they appear doomed until the long missing Infinity Man is contacted, returning for one last hurrah that sees the Forever People vanished from the world and human ken…

And that was that. This title and New Gods were axed although Mister Miracle continued on with a definite change of emphasis until time and tastes brought sequels and, at long last, Kirby’s return to craft a proper ending… of sorts.

But that’s a tale for another day…

This handy compendium also offers bonus material including ‘Mother Box Files’ re-presenting dozens of pertinent Kirby characters as revisited by himself and others in various editions of the DC Who’s Who fact files. Here a group treatment of The Forever People augments solo entries for Beautiful Dreamer, Big Bear, DeSaad, Infinity Man, Mantis, Mark Moonrider and The Pursuer by Kirby & Greg Theakston; with Glorious Godfrey inked by Bob Smith, Serifan inked by Gary Martin and Vykin the Black inked by Karl Kesel. Augmenting them are Kirby pin-ups from the original run: the four guys in ‘The Forever People’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer versus Darkseid’ and ‘The Infinity Man’ plus a self-portrait of the King, all from FP #4 and inked by Colletta.

We close with a selection of stunning pencilled pages in ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, what more do you need to know?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Lucky Luke creator Morris was born today in 1923, and in 1945 Shazam/Captain Marvel spinoff Hoppy the Marvel Bunny debuted in Funny Animals Comics #1. Five years later cartoonist Gary Panter was born. I’m sure there’s no connection but just in case why not see Jimbo in Paradise.

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Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years


By Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher, John Broome, Denny O’Neil, Paul Levitz, Roy Thomas, Len Strazewski, James Robinson, David Goyer, Geoff Johns, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Jerry Ordway, Arvell Jones, Mike Parobeck, William Rosado, Stephen Sadowski, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5531-2 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless, Remorseless, Evergreen… 8/10

After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – via the Action Comics debut of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in our industry’s history was the combination of individual stars into a like-minded group. Thus, what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and combining a multitude of characters inevitably increases readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one… or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America in 1940 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry. Following the runaway success of Superman and Batman (and other stars at other publishers!), both National Comics and its separate-but-equal publishing partner All American Comics went looking for the next big thing in funnybooks whilst frantically concentrating on getting anthology packages into the hands of a hungry readership. Thus All Star Comics was conceived as a joint venture affording characters already in their respective stables an extra push towards winning elusive but lucrative solo titles.

Technically, All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941 and released in November 1940) was the kick-off, but the mystery men featured merely had dinner and recounted recent cases and didn’t actually go on a mission together until #4, which had an April 1941 cover-date and hit newsstands on February 7th.

Although itself a little bit vintage, this superb commemoration from 2015 cannily compiles significant exploits of the pioneering paragons: specifically All–Star Comics #4, 37, 55; Justice League of America #21, 22, 30, 47, 82, 83, 193; Adventure Comics #466; All-Star Squadron #67; Justice Society of America #10; JSA Returns: All–Star Comics #2; JSA #25; Justice Society of America vol. 2 #10 and Earth 2 #6, and – like all these generational tomes – follows a fixed pattern by dividing into chapters curated by contextual essays.

Here Roy Thomas’s history-packed treatise describes how leading characters from National-DC’s Adventure Comics and More Fun Comics and All-Star Publishing’s Flash Comics and All-American Comics were first bundled together in an anthological quarterly. Back then ‘A Message from the Editors’ asked readers to vote on the most popular…

The merits of the marketing project would never be proved: rather than a runaway favourite graduating to their own starring vehicle as a result of the poll, something radically different evolved. For the third issue, prolific scribe Gardner F. Fox apparently had the bright idea of linking all the solo stories by a framing device, with the heroes gathering to chat about their latest exploits. With that simple notion that mighty mystery men hung out together, history was made and it wasn’t long before they started working collaboratively as well as collegiately…

The anniversary amazement opens with Part I 1941-1950: For America and Democracy honing in on those early moments, as All Star #4 eventually unites the costumed community ‘For America and Democracy’ with Fox and artists EE Hibbard, Martin Nodell, Bernard Baily, Howard Sherman, Chad Grothkopf, Sheldon Moldoff & Ben Flinton relating solo cases for Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, Hourman, Doctor Fate, The Sandman, The Atom, Hawkman and Johnny Thunder which coincide, converge and result in a concerted attack on Nazi espionage master Fritz Klaver…

Pattern set, the heroes marched on against all foes from petty criminals to social injustice; aliens, mobsters and magical invaders until post-war tastes began shifting the formula…

With post-war tensions abated All Star Comics #37 (1947) introduced ‘The Injustice Society of the World’ (November 1947) in a yarn by Robert Kanigher, Irwin Hasen, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino & John Belfi. This sinister saga sees America almost conquered by a coalition of supervillains before our on-the-ropes mystery men counterattack and triumph.

As superheroes plummeted in popularity, genre themes predominated and it was a stripped-down team (Flash, GL, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Hawkman, Atom and Dr. Mid-Nite) who faced a flying saucer scare in #55: scouring outer space for ‘The Man Who Conquered the Solar System!’ (October/November 1955 by John Broome, Frank Giacoia, Arthur F. Peddy & Bernard Sachs).

Thomas then turns up again for another educational chat as Part II 1963-1970: The Silver Age of Crisis focuses on the era that changed comics forever.

As I’ve frequently stated, I was one of the lucky “Baby Boomer” crowd who grew up with Julie Schwartz, Fox & Broome’s tantalisingly slow reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes during the halcyon, eternally summery days of the early 1960s. To me those fascinating counterpart crusaders from Earth-Two weren’t vague and distant memories rubber-stamped by parents or older brothers – they were cool, beguiling and enigmatically new. Moreover, for some reason the “proper” heroes of Earth-One held them in high regard and treated them with obvious deference…

It all began, naturally enough, in The Flash: trailblazing trendsetter of the Silver Age Comics Revolution. After successfully ushering in the return of the superheroes, the Scarlet Speedster – with Fox & Broome at the writing reins – set an unbelievably high standard for costumed adventure in sharp, witty tales of science and imagination, illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Carmine Infantino.

The epochal epic that forever changed the scope of American comics was Fox’s ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961 and not included here), establishing the existence of Infinite alternate Earths, multiple versions of costumed crusaders, and – by extension – the multiversal structure of the DCU. Every succeeding, cosmos-shaking annual summer “Crisis” saga grew from it. Fan pressure almost instantly agitated for the return of more “Golden Age Greats” but Editorial bigwigs were hesitant, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet, put readers off. If they could see us now…

These innovative crossover yarns generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so inevitably the trans-dimensional tests led to the ultimate team-up in the summer of 1963. A gloriously enthralling string of JLA/JSA convocations and stunning superhero wonderments begin with landmark opening salvoes ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (Justice League of America #21-22, August to September). In combination they comprise one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most crucial tales in American comics.

Written by Fox and compellingly illustrated by Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs, the yarn sees a team of villains from each Earth plundering at will; meeting and defeating the mighty Justice League before imprisoning them in their own secret mountain HQ. Temporarily helpless “our” heroes contrive a desperate plan to combine forces with champions of another Earth to save the world – both of them – and the result is pure comic book majesty. It’s impossible for me to be totally objective about this saga. I was a drooling kid in short trousers when I first read it and the thrills haven’t diminished with this umpty-first re-reading.

This is what superhero comics are all about!

The second team-up is only represented by the concluding chapter ‘The Most Dangerous Earth of All!’ Justice League of America #30 (September 1964) reprised the team-up of League and Society, after (evil) versions of our heroic champions, and crucially beings from a third alternate Earth, discover the secret of trans-universal travel. Unfortunately, Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick & Power Ring come from a world without heroes and only see the crimebusting JLA and JSA as living practice dummies to sharpen their evil skills upon…

With this cracking thriller the annual summer get-together became entrenched in heroic lore, giving fans endless entertainment for years to come and making the approaching end of school holidays less gloomy than they could have been.

The fourth annual event was a touch different: flavoured by self-indulgent humour as a TV show drove the wider world bats. Veteran inker Bernard Sachs retired before the fourth team-up, leaving the superb Sid Greene to embellish a gloriously whacky saga springing out of the global “Batmania” craze engendered by the twice-weekly Batman series…

A wisecracking campy tone was fully in play, acknowledging the changing audience profile and this time stakes were raised to encompass destruction of both planets in ‘Crisis Between Earth-One and Earth-Two’ (not reprinted here) and ‘The Bridge Between Earths’ (Justice League of America #47, September 1966), wherein a bold but poorly judged continuum-warping experiment drags two Earths towards inexorable hyper-space collision. Meanwhile, making matters worse, an awesome anti-matter entity uses the opportunity to break into and explore our positive matter universe whilst two worlds’ heroes are distracted by destructive rampages of monster-men Blockbuster and Solomon Grundy.

Peppered with wisecracking “hip” dialogue, it’s sometimes difficult to discern what a superb yarn this actually is, but if you can forgive or swallow the dated patter, this is one of the best plotted and illustrated stories in the entire canon. Furthermore, the vastly talented Greene’s expressive subtlety, beguiling texture and whimsical humour add unheard-of depth to Sekowsky’s pencils and Fox’s light & frothy comedic scripts.

The exercise in fantastic nostalgia continues with both chapters of a saga wherein alien property speculators seek to simultaneously raze Earths One and Two in ‘Peril of the Paired Planets’ (#82 August 1970 by O’Neil, Dillin & Joe Giella) and only the ultimate sacrifice by a true hero averts transdimensional disaster in ‘Where Valor Fails… Will Magic Triumph?’ (#83 September)…

Part III: Bronze Age and Beyond 1971-1986 returns to independent status and stories as – following another pertinent briefing from Thomas – we focus on a time when the team was on its second career after decades in retirement. Set on parallel world Earth-2, the veterans are leavened with teen heroes, combined into a contentious, generation-gap fuelled “Super Squad”. Those youngsters included grown up Robin, Sylvester Pemberton – The Star-Spangled Kid (a 1940s teen superhero lost in time for decades) and a busty young thing who quickly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L – AKA Power Girl.

It starts with a little history lesson as Paul Levitz & Joe Staton reveal how and why the JSA went away. In ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society’ (from Adventure Comics #466 December, 1979) they expose the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s as the US government cravenly betrays its greatest champions during Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts: provoking mystery men into voluntarily withdrawing from public heroic life for over a decade… until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-One started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again.

When Roy Thomas left Marvel for DC, he made a lifetime wish come true by writing his dream team… sort of. Justice League of America #193 (August 1981) featured a “Prevue” insert minicomic featuring the ‘All-Star Squadron’. Thomas, Rich Buckler & Jerry Ordway launched a series of new stories set in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, told in real time and integrating previously published Golden Age tales into an overarching continuity. Here the JSA were augmented by contemporaries from other companies acquired by DC over the years – like Plastic Man, Firebrand and Uncle Sam – with minor DC stalwarts like Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick and Robot Man. The prequel tells of December 6th 1941 and how JSA heroes are attacked by villains from their own future as a mastermind seeks to alter history, leaving President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue a clarion call to all of Democracy’s other champions.

After an impressive and entertaining 5 year run that skilfully negotiated rewriting much continuity during Crisis on Infinite Earths, the series ended with All-Star Squadron #67 (March 1987) as Thomas, Arvell Jones & Tony DeZuñiga recondition ‘The First Case of the Justice Society of America’ (from All Star #4) revealing how Nazi Fritz Klaver met justice…

Industry insider Ivan Cohen then explains how things changed after the Crisis as a taster for Part IV: The JSA Returns 1992-2007. We open with the last issue of Justice Society of America volume 1 (#10, May 1993) – a series that concentrated on adventures of the aging heroes in modern times. ‘J.S.A. No More?’ by Len Strazewski, Mike Parobeck & Mike Machlan closed a superb, joyously fun run with geriatric wonders polishing off ancient mage Kulak to save humanity from an army of unquiet ghosts and zombies…

The heroes were re-rebooted six years later via a series of one-shots bracketed by a 2-issue miniseries. Here James Robinson, David Goyer, William Rosado, John Dell & Ray Kryssing conclude a WWII-set campaign against mystic marauder Stalker with ‘The JSA Returns, Conclusion: Time’s Arrow’ from JSA Returns: All-Star Comics #2 (Late May 1999).

All that attention led to a spectacular new series, winning new fans for the old soldiers by turning the team into a mentoring service for young superheroes. It must have been hard to select a sample from that era, but here its ‘The Return of Hawkman: Seven Devils’ (JSA #25, August 2001 by Goyer, Geoff Johns, Stephen Sadowski, Michael Bair, Dave Meikis, Paul Neary & Rob Leigh).

But first, a slight digression…

Hawkman is one of the oldest, most revered heroes ever published, premiering in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). Although created by Fox & Dennis Neville, the most celebrated artists to have drawn the Winged Wonder are Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert, whilst a young Robert Kanigher was justly proud of his later run as writer. Carter Hall was a playboy archaeologist until he uncovered a crystal knife that unlocked submerged memories. He realised that once he had been Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, and that he and his lover Shiera had been murdered by High Priest Hath-Set. Moreover, with his returned memories came knowledge that his love and his killer were also nearby. Using past life knowledge, Hall fashioned a costume and flying harness, hunting his killer as The Hawkman.

Once his aim was achieved, he and Shiera maintained their Mystery-Man roles to fight modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past. Disappearing as the Golden Age ended, they were revived by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team in the 1960s, but after a long career involving numerous revamps and retcons, the Pinioned Paladin “died” in the Zero Hour crisis.

The interconnection between all those iterations is resolved after time-lost Jay The Flash Garrick awakens in ancient Egypt, and learns from Nabu (the Lord of Order who created Doctor Fate, Black Adam and Khufu himself) the true origins of Hawkman. Meanwhile in the 21st century, the modern Hawkgirl discovers connections to alien cop Katar Hol, the Hawkworld of Thanagar and true power of empowering Nth Metal…

When Hawkgirl is abducted to aforementioned Thanagar by its last survivors, desperate to thwart the schemes of insane death-demon Onimar Synn, the JSA frantically follow and Carter Hall makes his dramatic return from beyond to save the day in typical fashion: leading the team to magnificent victory in this concluding chapter…

There had been many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999, on the back of both a highly successful rebooting of the JLA by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter and James Robinson’s seminal but critically favoured modern Starman, that the multi-generational team found a new mission and fan-base big enough to support them. As the century ended the original superteam returned and have been with us in one form or another ever since.

Called to order after Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis, this JSA saw surviving heroes from WWII as teachers for the latest generation of champions and metahuman “legacy-heroes”: a large, cumbersome but nevertheless captivating assembly of raw talent, uneasy exuberance and weary hard-earned experience. Taken from truly epic storyline ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham, Ruy Jose & Drew Geraci’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ comes from Justice Society of America (vol. 2 #10; November 2007). It expands clarifies and builds on heroes introduced in the landmark 1996 Mark Waid & Alex Ross miniseries Kingdom Come, and belated sequel The Kingdom.

The elder Kal-El from that tragic future dystopia has crossed time and dimensions to stop his world ever forming, and not even awakened god Gog or his new allies will stop him. ‘What a Wonderful World’ sees Tomorrow’s Man of Steel disclose how heroes and their successors almost destroyed the planet (with flashback sequences painted by Ross) before (another) Starman explains his own connection to all the realms of the multiverse. Initially suspicious, the JLA come to accept the elder Man of Steel, but elsewhere, a deadly predator begins eradicating demi-gods and pretenders to divinity throughout the globe…

Having grown too large and unwieldy again, DC’s continuity was again pruned and repatterned in 2011, founding a New 52 as sampled here in concluding segment Part IV: Revamp 2012. Accompanied by another Cohen text briefing, ‘End Times’ (Robinson, Nicola Scott & Trevor Scott) comes from Earth 2 #6 (January 2012) with a recreated JSA operating on a restored alternate Earth, but one where an attack from Apokolips has created a living hell for the survivors of humanity. Only a small group of metahumans such as Flash, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern are keeping humanity alive and free…

With covers by Hibbard, Irwin Hasen, Arthur F. Peddy & Bernard Sachs, Sekowsky, Murphy Anderson, Joe Giella, Neal Adams, Dick Dillin, George Pérez, Tom Grindberg & Tony DeZuñiga, Mike Parobeck, Dave Johnson, Andrew Robinson, Alex Ross, Ivan Reis & Joe Prado, this magnificent celebration of the premiere super-team is a glorious march down memory lane no fan can be without. If you cherish tradition, this titanic tome must be yours…
© 1941, 1947, 1950, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1979, 1981, 1986, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2012, 2015, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1919, Golden Age art star Gill Fox was born, whilst in 1953 strip paragon Milt (Count Screwloose of Tooloose) Gross passed on. You can see his whacky wonderment by checking out He Done Her Wrong.

Scribe supreme Greg Rucka was born in 1969 and this week we love his Stumptown stuff most. Go find Stumptown volume 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took her Shampoo (But Left her Mini) to see why. Lastly, the astounding Fran Hopper died today in 2017, She mostly drew for Fiction House from the industry’s earliest days and cleared a path for so many other women in what so wanted to be a white-boys-only club…

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DC Finest Green Lantern (volume 2) – Earth’s Other Green Lantern


By Gardner F. Fox, John Broome, Bob Haney, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris, Murphy Anderson, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, Sid Greene & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-326-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pure & Superhero Sensationalism… 9/10

After a hugely successful revival and reworking of Golden Age all-star The Flash, DC (National Periodical Publications as they were then) built on a resurgent superhero trend. Cover dated October 1959 and on sale from July 28th, Showcase #22 hit newsstands at the same time as the fourth issue of the new Flash comic book (#108) and once again the guiding lights were Editor Julie Schwartz and writer John Broome. Assigned as illustrator was action ace Gil Kane.

Brash, cocky test pilot Hal Jordan was in California when an alien cop crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his ring – a device which could materialise thoughts – to find a replacement officer: one both honest and without fear. Scanning the planet, the wonder weapon selected Jordan, whisking him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession (patrolman of Sector 2814) to the astonished Earthman.

In 6 pages the story established characters, scenario and narrative thrust of a series that would become the spine of all DC continuity. With the concept of the superhero being re-established among the buying public, there was no shortage of gaudily clad competition. Better books thrived by having something a little “extra”. With Green Lantern that was primarily the superb scripts of John Broome & Gardner Fox and astounding ever-evolving drawing of Gil Kane (ably abetted by a string of top inkers) whose dynamic anatomy and dramatic action scenes were maturing with every page he drew. Happily, the concept itself was also a provider of boundless opportunity.

Other heroes had extraterrestrial, other-dimensional and even trans-temporal adventures, but the valiant champion of this series was also a cop: a lawman working for the biggest police force in the entire universe.

This fabulous compilation gathers Green Lantern #40-61 (October 1965 -June 1968) plus contemporary guest appearances in The Flash #168, Detective Comics #350 and The Brave and the Bold #69. It all gets started without fanfare and opens with GL #40 which went on sale on August 26th 1965.

Conceived and delivered by Broome, Kane & Sid Greene (with conceptual input as always from editor Schwartz, ‘The Secret Origin of the Guardians!’ was a landmark second only to game-changing ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (see DC Finest: The Flash – The Human Thunderbolt) as the Emerald Gladiator with his Earth-2 counterpart Alan Scott have to stop obsessed Oan scientist Krona, whose misguided attempts to discover the origins of the universe had introduced evil into our pristine reality billions of years ago. His actions forced his immortal brethren to become protectors of life and civilisation in an unending act of group contrition – the Guardians of the Universe.

Now he was back and still asking the wrong question, with his efforts also endangering a parallel earth. Happily for creation, that world had its own vastly experienced Emerald Avenger, who pitched in, and was so good at crisis management that the Guardians offered him Hal’s job…

Simultaneously high concept and all-action, the tale became a keystone of DC cosmology and a springboard for all those mega-apocalyptic publishing events such as Crisis on Infinite Earths. It has seldom been equalled and never bettered…

Gardner Fox scribed GL #41, spotlighting twisted romance in ‘The Double Life of Star Sapphire!’ as an alien power-gem again compels Jordan’s boss/true love Carol Ferris to subjugate and marry her sometime paramour Green Lantern. Fox also wrote another cracking magical mystery to end the issue as extraterrestrial wizard Myrwhydden triggered ‘The Challenge of the Coin Creatures!’

Next came ‘The Other Side of the World!’ wherein Fox continued a long-running experiment in continuity with a superb tale of time-lost civilisations and an extra-dimensional invasion by the Warlock of Ys co-starring peripatetic quester Zatanna the Magician as perfectly pictured by Kane & Greene.

At that time the top-hatted, fish-netted sorceress appeared in a number of Schwartz-edited titles, hunting her long-missing father Zatarra: a magician-hero in the Mandrake mould who had fought evil in the pages of Action Comics for over a decade, beginning with the very first issue. In true Silver Age “refit” style, Fox concocted a young, equally empowered daughter, promoting and popularising her in guest-team ups with superheroes he was currently scripting. If you’re counting, these tales appeared in Hawkman #4, Atom #19, Green Lantern #42 and an Elongated Man back-up strip in Detective Comics #355 as well as a slick piece of back writing to include the high-profile Caped Crusader via Detective #336. It all concluded after this GL segment in Justice League of America #51. You can enjoy the entire early epic by tracking down Justice League of America: Zatanna’s Search…

The Flash shared the spotlight in #43: a high-energy tussle with a debuting tectonically terrifying new supervillain for Fox’s ‘Catastrophic Crimes of Major Disaster!’ and the next issue provide two tales – an increasing rarity as book-length epics became the action-packed norm.

Second-class postage discounts had for years dictated the format of comic books: to qualify for cheaper rates periodicals had to contain more than one feature, but when the rules were revised single, complete tales not divided into “chapters” soon proliferated. Here though are two reasons to bemoan the switch; Fox’s ‘Evil Star’s Death-Duel Summons’ and Broome’s “Jordan Brothers” adventure ‘Saga of the Millionaire Schemer!’, offering high-intensity alien supervillain action and a heady, witty comedy-of-errors mystery as Hal visits his family and is embroiled in new sister-in-law Sue’s hare-brained scheme to prove that her husband Jim Jordan is actually Green Lantern!

Crossovers were becoming increasingly common as shared continuity expanded and heroes popped up out of their regular jurisdiction. One brilliantly executed example follows…

Back in 1963 Schwartz had assumed editorial control of Batman & Detective Comics, allowing him space for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut as a very long-legged walk-on in the April/May 1960 Flash. The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny: a circus-performer who discovered an additive in popular soft drink Gingold which gave certain rare people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, Dibny isolated and refined the chemical and developed a serum granting him the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree. From Detective #350 (April 1966) comes ‘Green Lantern’s Blackout!’ wherein Hal’s best friend Thomas Kalmaku seeks out the Stretchable Sleuth to solve the riddle of the hero’s abrupt disappearance – an entrancing, action-packed team-up with a future Justice League colleague by Fox & Carmine Infantino.

Scripted by Broome, Earth-2’s ring wielder returns for another power-packed pairing in Green Lantern #45’s fantasy & fisticuffs romance romp ‘Prince Peril’s Power Play’. The author raised the dramatic stakes with the hero’s first continued adventure in the following issue. GL #46 opens with Fox’s delightfully grounded crime-thriller ‘The Jailing of Hal Jordan’, before – preceded by a spectacular Kane pin-up – ‘The End of a Gladiator!’ details the murder of Sector 2814’s GL by old foe Dr. Polaris, concluding with his honour-laden funeral on Oa, home of the Guardians!

Broome was on fire at this time: the following issue and concluding chapter sees the hero’s corpse snatched to the 58th century and revived in time to save his occasional future home from a biological infection of pure evil in the spectacular triumph ‘Green Lantern Lives Again!’ Bizarrely garbed goodies and baddies were common currency at this time of incipient TV-generated Batmania, so when gold-plated mad scientist Keith Kenyon returned it was as a dyed-in-the-wool costumed crazy for Fox’s ‘Goldface’s Grudge Fight Against Green Lantern!’: a brutal clash of opposites. Sadly, Broome’s showbiz scoundrel Dazzler didn’t quite set the world afire in #49’s ‘The Spectacular Robberies of TV’s Master Villain!’ but the yarn was still a shocker, as Hal Jordan quit his job as a Coast City test pilot and went on the first of his vagabond quests across America…

Green Lantern had been the first hero to co-headline with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #59 (April/May 1965): a tale which became the blueprint of the title’s next 20 years as two colleagues joined forces for a specific case. There devious criminal scientist John Starr tricked Bruce Wayne into clearing his name and stole the Emerald Crusader’s power to fuel a chronal assault on Gotham as the Time Commander. Here and now, Win Mortimer joins scripter Bob Haney as Gotham Gangbuster and Green Knight endure a fractious reunion in B&B #69’s ‘War of the Cosmic Avenger’ (December 1966-January 1967) as John Starr repeats his tactic to unleash star-powered golem Cosmo upon the world, utterly unaware that the monster might have its own sinister agenda. Luckily, our heroes are smarter than the brilliant but bad time bandit…

With Green Lantern #50 Kane began inking his own art (probably in preparation for his forthcoming independent publications Savage and Blackmark), lending the proceedings a raw, savage appeal. The fight content in the stories was also ramped up, as seen in Broome’s murder-mystery treasure hunt ‘The Quest for the Wicked Queen of Hearts!’, complimented by an extragalactic smack-fest in Fox’s ‘Thraxton the Powerful vs Green Lantern the Powerless’, prior to Broome bringing the Emerald Crusader back to the 58th century to battle ‘Green Lantern’s Evil Alter Ego!’ in #52. Meanwhile, across the editorial aisle in The Flash #168 (cover-dated March 1967 but on sale from January 19th) Broome delivered a full-length thriller for Infantino & Sid Greene in which the Guardians of the Universe seek out the Scarlet Speedster after finding ‘One of our Green Lanterns is Missing!’ Bafflingly, as the Vizier of Velocity hunts for his missing best buddy, he is constantly distracted and diverted by a gang of third-rate thugs who have somehow acquired futuristic super weapons…

Back in GL #52, Broome & Kane have Alan Scott and comedy sidekick Doiby Dickles pop over from Earth-2 to aid against returning arch nemesis Sinestro in frankly peculiar ‘Our Mastermind, the Car!’, before finding far less outré plot or memorable foe for #53’s ‘Captive of the Evil Eye!’ wherein an alien giant stealing Earth’s atmosphere is ferociously foiled. The same issue sees Infantino & Greene step up to illustrate Broome’s thrillingly comedic Jordan Brothers back-up ‘Two Green Lanterns in the Family!’ as Hal finds employment as an investigator for the Evergreen Insurance company…

Broome & Kane reunite for positively surreal, super-scientific saga ‘Menace in the Iron Lung!’ (GL #54), with a manic shut-in orchestrating a deadly remote war against the Viridian Avenger followed by an all-out attack on the Guardians and their operatives in ‘Cosmic Enemy Number One’. The trans-galactic assassinations conclude in ‘The Green Lanterns’ Fight for Survival!’ and the appointment of a second Earthling to the now depleted Corps.

For #57, Fox scripts a sparkling Fights ‘n’ Tights duel in ‘The Catastrophic Weapons of Major Disaster!’ with the walking extinction event simultaneously tapping into and depowering the power ring before #58’s gripping psycho-thriller ‘Peril of the Powerless Green Lantern’ sees our hero seemingly suffering from debilitating combat fatigue. Sid Greene returned to inking with this yarn, staying on to embellish another continuity landmark.

In Green Lantern (volume 2 #59, March 1968) Broome introduced ‘Earth’s Other Green Lantern!’ in a rip-roaring cosmic epic of what-might-have-been. When dying Abin Sur originally ordered his ring to select a worthy successor Hal Jordan wasn’t the only candidate, but simply the closest of two. Here thanks to Guardian technology Hal sees what would have occurred if the ring had chosen his alternative Guy Gardner instead¦?

Action lovers and fans of fantasy fiction couldn’t find a better example of everything that defines superhero comics, but by the time of these later stories began DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (for which, in comic-book terms, read “new, young writers”) granted greater headway than ever before: in turn generating an influx of new kids unseen since the very start of the industry, when excitable young artists and writers ran wild with imagination. Green Lantern #60 (April 1968), however, was an all-veteran outing as Fox, Kane & Greene introduced a fantastic new foe in ‘Spotlight on the Lamplighter!’, a power-packed, crime-busting morality play inadvertently foreshadowing a spectacular Green team-up classic in the next issue.

We end as we began for the last tale in this collection, wherein Mike Friedrich pens ‘Thoroughly Modern Mayhem!’ Mercifully the story is as wonderful as the title is not, since it cut to the quick of a problem many a kid had posited. If the power ring was so powerful why not just command it to end all evil? When the old and world-weary Emerald Crusader of Earth-2 does just that, it takes both him and his Earth-1 counterpart to remedy the shocking consequences to all of humanity…

Augmented with covers by Kane, Murphy Anderson, Jack Adler, Infantino, Greene & Joe Giella, these costumed drama romps are in themselves a great read for most ages, but when also considered as the building blocks of all DC continuity they become vital fare for any fan keen to make sense of the modern superhero experience. This blockbusting book showcases the imaginative and creative peak of Broome, Fox & Kane: a plot driven plethora of action sagas and masterful thrillers that literally reshaped the DC Universe. If you love superheroes you will never read better…
© 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1908 key comics personage, DC editor, writer and media intermediary Whitney Ellsworth was born, and in 1970 so was Mexican maestro Humberto Ramos who has excelled on everything from Amazing Spider-Man to Young Justice.

You’ve probably never heard of her, but Dorothy Woolfolk shattered a bunch of glass ceilings and was DC’s first woman editor. We lost her today in 2000, but her legacy lives on.

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The JSA All Stars Archives volume 1


By John Wentworth, Ken Fitch, Bill O’Connor, Sheldon Mayer, Charles Reizenstein, Bill Finger, Stan Aschmeier, Bernard Baily, Ben Flinton & Leonard Sansone, Howard Purcell, Hal Sharp, Irwin Hasen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1472-2 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Golden Aged but Evergreen Enjoyment …8/10

In the JSA’s anniversary year, here’s yet another DC classic collection long overdue for revival and digital return. Until then – and if you can find it – this hardback will make a perfect present for you or yours…

After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – indisputably Action Comics’ debut of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men and combining a multitude of characters inevitably increases readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one… or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 (with copies of All-Star Comics #3 going on sale today waaay back then) utterly changed the shape of the budding business. However, before that team could unite they had to be popular enough to qualify, and this superb hardcover sampler gathers the debut adventures of a septet of beloved champions who never quite made it into the first rank but nonetheless scored enough to join the big team and maintain their own solo spots for much of the Golden Age of American Comics.

Whilst most favoured 1940s stalwarts all won their own DC Archive collections (some even making it into digital modern editions this century), this particular tome bundles a bunch of lesser lights – or at least those who never found as much favour with modern fans and revivalists – and features the first 5 appearances of 7 of the JSA‘s “secondary” mystery men: all solid supporting acts in their own anthology homes but who were potentially so much more…

Gathered here are short, sharp, stirring tales from Flash Comics #1-5; Adventure Comics #48-52; All-American Comics #19-29 and Sensation Comics #1-5, collectively spanning January 1940 to May 1942. They are preceded a sparkling, informative and appreciative Foreword by Golden Age aficionado and advocate Roy Thomas… himself enjoying an anniversary today so a very happy 85th birthday to you, sir!

The vintage vim & vigour begins with a character equally adored and reviled in modern times. Johnny Thunderbolt – as he was originally dubbed – was an honest, well-meaning, courageous soul who was also a grade A idiot. However, what he lacked in smarts he made up for with sheer luck, unfailing pluck and the unconscious (at least at first) control of an irresistible magic force.

The series was played for action-packed laughs, but there was no getting away from it: Johnny was, quite frankly, a simpleton in oblivious control of an ultimate weapon. At least his electric genie was more plausible than an egomaniacal orange-toned cretin in control of America’s nuclear arsenal…

John Wentworth & Stan Aschmeier introduced the happy sap in ‘The Kidnapping of Johnny Thunder’ from January 1940’s Flash Comics #1: a fantastic origin detailing how, decades previously, the infant seventh son of a seventh son in America was abducted by priests from mystical island Badhnisia. The child was to be raised as the long-foretold wielder of a fantastic magical weapon, all by voicing the eldritch command “Cei-U” – which sounds to western ears awfully like “say, you”…

However, ancient enemies on neighbouring isle Agolea started a war before ceremonial indoctrination could be completed and at age seven the lad, through that incomprehensible luck, returned to his parents to be raised in relative normality of the Bronx. Everything was fine until Johnny’s 17th birthday, when the rite finally came to fruition and – amid bizarre weather conditions – Badhnisians cultists intensified the search for their living weapon.

By the time they tracked him down, he was working in a department store and had recently picked up the habit of blurting out the phrase “say you.” It generally resulted in something very strange happening. One example being a bunch of strange “Asiatics” attacking him and being blown away by a mysterious pink tornado…

Pattern set, each month Johnny looked for gainful employment, stumbled into a crime or crisis where his voluble temperament resulted in an inexplicable unnatural phenomenon that solved the problem but left him no better off. It was a winning theme that lasted until 1947, by which time the Force had resolved into a wisecracking thunderbolt-shaped humanoid genie, while Johnny was ousted from his own strip by sexy new crimebuster Black Canary.

Flash Comics #2 featured ‘Johnny Becomes a Boxer’. Upon stepping in to save a girl from bullies, Johnny somehow convinces vivacious Daisy Darling to be his girlfriend. He then becomes Heavyweight Champion, leading to his implausibly winning a fixed bout in #3’s ‘Johnny versus Gunpowder Glantz’. Only now, Daisy refuses to marry a brute who lives by hitting others. The solution came in ‘Johnny Law’ when kidnappers attempt to abduct Daisy’s dad. Following his sound thrashing of the thugs, and at his babe’s urging, Johnny then joins the FBI. This tantalising taste of times past concludes with ‘G-Man Johnny’ (#5 May 1940) as the kid’s first case involves him in a bank raid and results in his own dad being taken hostage…

Although he eventually joined the JSA, and despite affable, good-hearted bumbling carrying him through the war, shifting peace-time fashions found no room for a hapless hero anymore, and when he encountered a sultry masked female Robin Hood who stole from crooks, the writing was on the wall. Nevertheless, fortuitously imbecilic (and remarkably Millennial in outlook and prospects) Johnny Thunder is fondly regarded by many modern fans, still having much to say and a decidedly different way of saying it…

Ken Fitch & Bernard Baily’s Hourman was a far more serious proposition. He actually had a shot at stardom and began by supplanting The Sandman as cover feature in Adventure Comics #48 (March 1940). Here, his exploits run through #52 (July) establishing the unique and gripping methodology which made him such a favourite of later, more sophisticated fans.

In an era where origins were never as important as action, mood and spectacle, ‘Presenting Tick-Tock Tyler, the Hour-Man’ begins with a strange classified ad offering assistance to any person in need. Chemist Rex Tyler had invented Miraclo: a drug super-energising him for 60 minutes at a time, and his first case sees him help a wife whose man is being dragged back into criminal endeavours by poverty and bad friends. Then ‘The Disappearance of Dr. Drew’ finds Tyler locating a missing scientist kidnapped by thugs before ‘The Dark Horse’ has the Man of the Hour crush a crooked, murderous bookie who swipes both horse and owner before a key race. Mad science and a crazy doctor employing ‘The Wax-Double Killers’ adds scary thrills and supervillain cachet for our timely hero to handle, and ‘The Counterfeit Hour-Man’ concludes the offerings here as he again defeats Dr. Snegg in a scurrilous scheme to frame the hooded hero.

Hourman always looked great and his adventures developed into tight and compulsive affairs, but as simply another strong, fast, tough masked guy, he never caught on and eventually timed out at the beginning of 1943 with Adventure #83.

Our third second string star is Calvin College student Al Pratt: a diminutive but determined kid fed up with being bullied by jocks. Al remade himself by effort and willpower into a pint-sized, two-fisted mystery man ready for anything. One of the longest lasting Golden Age greats, The Mighty Atom was created by writer Bill O’Connor and rendered by Ben Flinton & Leonard Sansone. He debuted in All-American Comics #19 and, after an impressive run there, transferred to Flash Comics in February 1947. The Atom sporadically appeared until the last issue – #104, cover-dated February 1949 – and made his final bow in the last JSA tale (All Star Comics #57) in 1951.

The cases here span AAC #19-23 (October 1940 – February 1941), beginning by ‘Introducing the Mighty Atom’ as the bullied scholar hooks up with down-&-out trainer Joe Morgan, whose radical methods soon have the kid at the very peak of physical condition and well able to take care of himself. However, when Al’s hoped-for girlfriend Mary is kidnapped, the lad eschews fame and potential sporting fortune to bust her loose, thereafter opting for clandestine extracurricular activities….

The Atom sported a costume for his second adventure, going into ‘Action at the College Ball’ to foil a hold-up before tackling ‘The Monsters from the Mine’ – actually enslaved victims of a scientific maniac intent on conquest. The college environment offered plentiful plot opportunities and in ‘Truckers War’ the hero crushes hijackers who bankrupt a fellow student and football star’s father. These episodes conclude with ‘Joe’s Appointment’ as Al’s trainer is framed for spying by enemy agents and needs a little atomic assistance…

Although we think of the Golden Age as a superhero wonderland, the true watchword was variety. Flagship anthology All-American Comics offered everything from slapstick comedy to aviation adventure on its four-colour pages and one of the very best humour strips featured semi-autobiographical exploits of Scribbly Jibbet: a boy who wanted to draw.

Created by actual comics wonderboy Sheldon Mayer, Scribbly: Midget Cartoonist debuted in AAC #1 (April 1939) and built a sterling rep for himself beside star reprint features including Mutt and Jeff and all-new adventure serial Hop Harrigan, Ace of the Airways. However, when contemporary fashions demanded a humorous look at mystery men, in #20 (November 1940) Mayer’s comedy feature evolved into a delicious spoof of the trend as Scribbly’s formidable landlady Ma Hunkel decided to do something about crime in her neighbourhood… so she dressed up as a husky male masked hero.

‘The Coming of the Red Tornado’ sees her don cape, woollen longjohns and a saucepan for aN identity-obscuring helmet to crush gangster/kidnapper Tubb Torponi. The mobster had made the mistake of snatching Ma’s terrible nipper Sisty and Scribbly’s little brother Dinky (who would later become her masked sidekicks), so Ma was determined to see justice done…

An ongoing serial rather than specific episodes, the dramedy concluded in ‘The Red Tornado to the Rescue’, with irate, inept cops deciding to pursue the mysterious new vigilante, with the ‘Search for the Red Tornado’ only making them look (more) stupid. With the scene set for outrageous parody ‘The Red Tornado Goes Ape’ pits the parochial masked manhunter against a zoo full of critters before the superb, sublime silly selection ends with ‘Neither Man nor Mouse’ (All-American Comics #24) with the hero apparently retiring and crime resurging – until Dinky & Sisty become crime- crunching duo The Cyclone Kids…

A far more serious and sustainable contender debuted in the next AAC issue, joining the growing horde of grim masked avengers. Delivered by Charles Reizenstein & Aschmeier in All-American Comics #25 (April 1941), ‘Dr. Mid-Nite: How He Began’ reveals how surgeon Charles McNider is blinded by criminals but subsequently discovers he can see perfectly in darkness. Becoming an outspoken criminologist, the maimed medico devises blackout bombs and other night paraphernalia to also wage secret war on gangsters, aided only by his new pet owl Hooty…

After bringing his own assailant to justice, the good doctor smashes river pirates protected by corrupt politicians in ‘The Waterfront Mystery’ and rescues innocent men blackmailed into serving criminals’ sentences in jail in ‘Prisoners by Choice’ (#27, illustrated by Howard Purcell). With Aschmeier’s return, Mid-Nite crushes aerial wreckers using ‘The Mysterious Beacon’ to down bullion planes and then smashes ‘The Menace of King Cobra’: a secret society leader lording it over copper mine workers.

The Master of Darkness also lasted until the era’s end and appeared in that last JSA story. Since his 1960s return he’s become one of the most resilient and mutable characters in DC’s pantheon of Golden Age revivals, whereas the next nearly-star was an almost forgotten man for decades. Of course his nineties reboot successor is a big shot screen star now…

When Sensation Comics launched (on sale from November 5th 1941) all eyes were rightly glued to uniquely eye-catching Wonder Woman who hogged all the covers and unleashed a wealth of unconventional adventures every month. However, like all anthologies of the era, her exploits were balanced by other features. Sensation #1-5 (cover-dates January to May 1942) also featured a pugnacious fighter who was the quintessence of manly prowess and a quiet, sedate fellow problem-solver who was literally a master of all trades.

Crafted by Reizenstein & Hal Sharp, ‘Who is Mr. Terrific?’ introduced physical and mental prodigy Terry Sloane who so excelled at everything he touched, that by the time of the opening tale he was planning his own suicide to escape terminal boredom. Happily, on a very high bridge he found Wanda Wilson, a girl with the same idea. By saving her, Sloane found purpose: crushing the kinds of criminals who had driven her to such despair…

Actively seeking out villainy of every sort, he performs ‘The One-Man Benefit Show’ after thugs sabotage performers, travels to the republic of Santa Flora to expose ‘The Phony Presidente’ and helps a rookie cop pinch an “untouchable” gang boss in ‘Dapper Joe’s Comeuppance’. Sloan’s last showing here sees him at his very best, carefully rooting out political corruption and exposing ‘The Two Faces of Caspar Crunch’…

Closing out this stunning hardback extravaganza is another quintet from Sensation #1-5, this time by Bill Finger & Irwin Hasen: already established stars for their work on Batman and Green Lantern.

‘This is the Story of Wildcat’ premieres one the era’s most impressive lost treasures and a genuine comic book classic in the tale of Ted Grant: a boxer framed for the murder of his best friend. Inspired by a kid’s hero-worship of Green Lantern, Grant clears his name by donning a feline mask and costume and ferociously stalking the true killers. Finger & Hasen captured everything which made for perfect rollercoaster adventure in their explosive sports-informed yarns. Mystery, drama and action unfolded unabated in sequel ‘Who is Wildcat?’ as Ted retires his masked identity to compete for the vacant world boxing title, but cannot let innocents suffer as crime and corruption befoul the city. ‘The Case of the Phantom Killers’ sees Wildcat stalk mobsters seemingly striking from beyond the grave, before his adventures alter forever with the introduction of hard-hitting hillbilly hayseed ‘Stretch Skinner, Dee-teca-tif!’ He came to the big city to be a private eye and instead became Grant’s foil, manager and crimebusting partner. The capsule comic craziness then concludes for now with a rousing case of mistaken identity and old-fashioned framing, as Wildcat saves his new pal from a murdering gambler in ‘Chips Carder’s Big Fix’…

These eccentric early adventures might not suit some modern fans’ tastes but they stand as an impressive and joyous introduction to the fantastic worlds and exploits of the World’s oldest if not always greatest superheroes. If you have an interest in the way things were or just hanker for simpler times, less complicated and angsty fun, this may well be a book you’ll cherish forever…
© 1940, 1941, 1942, 2007 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Also Today, in 1901 Roy Crane was born. His Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer all shaped the way comics evolved and deserve your attention. In 1923 Belgian cartoonist Paul (Corentin) Cuvelier was born. You can celebrate the birthday of Marjane Satrapi who joined the world in 1969 by checking out Persepolis – The Story of a Childhood & Persepolis 2 – The Story of a Return or recall the wonders of C.C. Beck who died today in 1989 just by heading to The Shazam! Archives volume 1. Better yet, you could skip my blather and just read the actual books I’m plugging…