Category: Aquaman

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DC Finest: Green Lantern – The Defeat of 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: 978-1-77952-848-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

This stunning compilation is another of the initial batch of DC Finest editions: full colour extentions of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories.Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on the superhero character pantheon, there will also be genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia.

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver & Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

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, generally inked by Joe Giella.

Hal Jordan was a brash and cocky young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed his spaceship 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, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

In 6 pages ‘S.O.S Green Lantern!’ 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. The 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 #19-39 (March 1963 – September1965) plus his guest shots in The Flash #143 and The Brave and the Bold #59, and opens with a return match for sound-weaponising radical Modoran ultranationalist Sonar in ‘The Defeat of Green Lantern!’ (Broome, Kane & Joe Giella): a high-energy super-powered duel neatly counterpointed by whimsical crime-caper ‘The Trail of the Horse-and-Buggy Bandits!’ by the same team, wherein a little old lady’s crossed phone line led the Emerald Gladiator into conflict with a passel of crafty crooks. Issue #20’s ‘Parasite Planet Peril!’ (Broome, Kane & Murphy Anderson) then triumphantly reunites GL with new best buddy The Flash in a full-length epic to foil a plot to kidnap human geniuses.

One of the DCU’s greatest menaces debuted in #21’s ‘The Man Who Mastered Magnetism’. Broome created a worldbeater in dual-personality villain Doctor Polaris for Kane & Giella to limn, whilst ‘Hal Jordan Betrays Green Lantern!’ is the kind of action-packed, devilishly baffling puzzle-yarn ex-lawyer Fox excelled at, especially with Anderson’s stellar inks to lift the art to a delightful high. Fox also scripted the encore of diabolical futurist villain Hector Hammond in ‘Master of the Power Ring!’ (Giella inks) before Broome turned his hand to a human-interest story in the Anderson-inked ‘Dual Masquerade of the Jordan Brothers!’ Here, Hal plays mischievous matchmaker, trying to convince his future sister-in-law that her intended is in fact Green Lantern!

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. In #23 our hero tackles the ‘Threat of the Tattooed Man!’ in the first all Fox scripted issue and the start of Giella’s tenure as sole inker, as the Ring-Slinger tackles a second-rate thief who lucks into the eerie power to animate his skin-ink, after which ‘The Green Lantern Disasters’ take the interplanetary lawman offworld to rescue missing comrade Xax of Xaos: an insectoid member of the GL Corps. Broome scripted #24, heralding the first appearance of ‘The Shark that Hunted Human Prey!’ after an atomic accident hyper-evolves the ocean’s deadliest predator into a psychic fear-feeder, whilst ‘The Strange World Named Green Lantern!’ (inks by Frank Giacoia & Giella) finds the Emerald Gladiator trapped on a sentient lonely planet craving his constant presence…

GL #25 featured Fox’s full-length thriller. ‘War of the Weapon Wizards!’ sees GL fall foul of lethally persistent Sonar and his silent partner-in-crime Hector Hammond, whilst in the next issue Hal’s girlfriend Carol Ferris is again transformed into a man-hating space queen determined to beat him into marital submission in ‘Star Sapphire Unmasks Green Lantern!’ This wry and witty cracker by Fox is supplemented by his superb fantasy ‘World Within the Power Ring!’ wherein the Viridian Avenger battles an extraterrestrial sorcerer imprisoned inside his ring by deceased predecessor Abin Sur…

Fox’s super-science crime thriller ‘Mystery of the Deserted City!’ led in GL #27, before Broome charmed and alarmed with ‘The Amazing Transformation of Horace Tolliver!’, as Hal learns a lesson in who to help – and how. An appearance in The Flash #143 (March 1964 by Fox, Carmine Infantino & Giella) delivered another full-length team-up with for ‘Trail of the False Green Lanterns!’ as a bizarre string of multiple manifestations lead the baffled heroes to a new nemesis – future-gazing mad scientist Thomas Oscar Morrow.

There’s no prize for guessing who – or what – menace returns in #28’s ‘The Shark Goes on the Prowl Again!’, but kudos all round if you can solve the enigma of ‘The House that Fought Green Lantern!’: both engaging romps courtesy of writer Fox, whereas Broome adds to his tally of memorable creations with the debut of “Cliché Criminal” Black Hand – who purloins a portion of GL’s power in ‘Half a Green Lantern is Better than None!’, as well as penning a brilliant back-up alien invader tale in ‘This World is Mine!’

This issue, #29, is doubly memorable as not only does it feature a rare – for the times – Justice League cameo (soon to be inevitable – if not interminable – as comics continuity grew into an unstoppable force in all companies’ output) but also because the incredibly talented Sid Greene signed on as regular inker.

Issue #30 offered two more Broome tales: dinosaur attack thriller ‘The Tunnel Through Time!’ and a compelling epic of duty and love as Katma Tui – who replaced the renegade GL Sinestro as the Guardians’ operative – learns to her eternal regret ‘Once a Green Lantern… Always a Green Lantern!’ The same writer provided baffling mystery ‘Power Rings for Sale!’ and tense Jordan Brothers thriller ‘Pay Up – or Blow Up!’ whilst Fox handled all of #32: tantalizing crime caper ‘Green Lantern’s Wedding Day!’ and transgalactic Battle Royale ‘Power Battery Peril!’, in which Jordan comes to the initially involuntary assistance of an alien superhero team…

Nefarious villain Dr. Light opted to pick off his enemies one by one after his debut defeat in Justice League of America #12, and his follow-up attempts in various member’s home titles reached GL with #33, but here too he gets a damned good thrashing in ‘Wizard of the Light Wave Weapons!’, whereas thugs in the back-up yarn, as well as giving artist Gil Kane another excuse to show his love of and facility with movie gangster caricatures, come far too close to ending the Emerald Gladiator’s life in ‘The Disarming of Green Lantern!’

Fox had by this time become lead writer. ‘Three-Way Attack against Green Lantern!’ in #34 was another extended cosmic extravaganza as Hector Hammond learns the secrets of the Guardians of the Universe and launches an all-out assault on our hero, after which both scripts in #35 – costumed villain drama ‘Prisoner of the Golden Mask!’ and brain-swop spy-saga ‘The Eagle Crusader of Earth!’ – look much closer to home for their abundance of thrills, chills and spills.

Next up is a guest shot with resurgent star Batman from The Brave and the Bold #59 (April/May 1965) which became the prototype of that title’s next 20 years. Scripted by Bob Haney and illustrated by Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris it saw Gotham Gangbuster and Emerald Crusader reliving the The Count of Monte Cristo as they sought to foil ‘The Tick-Tock Traps of the Time Commander!’ after devious criminal scientist John Starr tricked Bruce Wayne into clearing his name. The liberated rogue then stole the green energy to fuel a chronal assault on Gotham but had severely underestimated his foes’ resilience and ingenuity.

Firmly established as a major star of the company firmament, Green Lantern increasingly became the series to provide conceptual highpoints and “big picture” foundations. These, successive creators would use to build the tight-knit history and continuity of the DC universe. At this time there was also a turning away from the simple imaginative wonder of a ring that could do anything in favour of a hero who increasingly ignored easy solutions in preference to employing his mighty fists. What a happy coincidence then, that at this time Gil Kane was reaching an artistic peak, his dynamic full-body anatomical triumphs bursting with energy and crashing out of every page…

Scripted by Fox Green Lantern #36 cover-featured bizarre mystery ‘Secret of the Power-Ringed Robot!’ (how can you resist a tale that is tag-lined “I’ve been turned into a robot… and didn’t even know it!”?) and trumped that all-action conundrum with the incredible tale of Dorine Clay – a young lady who was the last hope of her race against the machinations of the dread alien Headmen in John Broome’s ‘Green Lantern’s Explosive Week-End!’

As previously stated, physical combat was steadily overtaking ring magic on the pages of the series and all-Fox #37’s‘The Spies Who “Owned” Green Lantern!’ – despite being a twist-heavy drama of espionage and intrigue – was no exception, whilst second story ‘The Plot to Conquer the Universe!’ pitted the Emerald Crusader against Evil Star, an alien foe both immortal and invulnerable, who gave Jordan plenty of reasons to lash out in spectacular, eye-popping manner.

For #38 (another all-Fox scripted affair), Jordan re-teamed with fellow GL Tomar Re to battle ‘The Menace of the Atomic Changeling!’ in a brilliant alien menace escapade counterpointed by ‘The Elixir of Immortality!’ wherein criminal mastermind Keith Kenyon consumes a gold-based serum to become a veritable superman. He might be immune to Ring Energy (which can’t affect anything yellow, as eny old Fule kno) but eventually our hero’s flashing fists bring him low – a fact he will never forget on the many occasions he returns as merciless master criminal Goldface…

Closing this outing is Green Lantern #39 (September 1965), featuring two tales by world-traveller John Broome, Kane & Green: opening with a return engagement for Black Hand, entitled ‘Practice Makes the Perfect Crime!’ and ending in a bombastic slugfest with an alien prize fighter named Bru Tusfors in ‘The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!’ They were mere warm-ups for the next issue and even more cosmic excitement…

These costumed 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 Broome, Fox & Kane’s imaginative and creative peak: a plot driven plethora of adventure sagas and compelling thrillers that literally reshaped a Universe. Action lovers and fans of fantasy fiction couldn’t find a better example of everything that defines superhero comics.

This fresh and evergreen collection is a must-read item for anybody in love with comics and especially anyone just now encountering the hero for the first time through his movie and TV incarnations.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Justice League of America – The Bridge Between Earths


By Gardner F. Fox & Mike Sekowsky, Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Sid Greene, George Roussos, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1779528377 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This stunning compilation is part of the first tranch of long-awaited DC Finest editions: full colour continuations of their chronolgically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories.Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on the superhero character pantheon, there will also be genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the lst decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Keystone of the DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we still have a comics industry today. The day the first JLA story was published marks the moment when superheroes truly made comic books their own particular preserve. Even though the popularity of masked champions has waxed and waned a few time since 1960, and other genres have re-won their places on published pages, in the minds of America and the world, Comics Means Superheroes and the League signalled that men – and even a few women – in capes and masks were back for good…

When Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956, his Rubicon move came a few years later with the uniting of his reconfigured mystery men into a team. The JLA debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover-dated March 1960) and cemented the growth and validity of the revived subgenre, consequently triggering an explosion of new characters at every company publishing funnybooks and spreading to the rest of the world as the decade progressed.

Spanning June 1966 to June 1969, this first full-colour paperback compendium of classics re-presents issues #45-72 of the epochal first series with scripter Gardner Fox and illustrator Mike Sekowsky eventually giving way to new wave Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin with inkers Joe Giella, Sid Greene, George Roussos seemingly able to do no wrong. While we’re showing our gratitude, lets also salute stalwart letterer Gaspar Saladino for his herculean but unsung efforts to make the uncanny clear to us all…

The adventures here focus on the collective exploits of Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, J’onn J’onzz – Manhunter from Mars, Green Arrow, The Atom, hip and plucky mascot Snapper Carr, latest inductee Hawkman and a few unaffiliated guest stars as the team consolidated its hold on young hearts and minds whilst further transforming the entire nature of the American comic book experience.

The volume encompasses a period in DC’s history that still makes many fans shudder with dread but I’m going to ask them to reconsider their aversion to the “Camp Craze” that saw America go superhero silly in the wake of the Batman TV show (and, to a lesser extent, the Green Hornet series that introduced Bruce Lee to the world). I should also mention that comics didn’t create the craze. Many popular media outlets felt the zeitgeist of a zanier, tongue-in-cheek, mock-heroic fashion: Just check out episodes of Lost in Space or The Man from U.N.C.L.E if you doubt me…

Without pause or preamble we plunge straight into the fun with Justice League of America #45 (cover dated June 1966) with Fox, Sekowsky, Frank Giacoia & Joe Giella for the witty monster-menace double-feature ‘The Super-Struggle against Shaggy Man!’ A wisecracking campy tone was fully in play with the next issue, in acknowledgement of the changing audience profile. It was the opening part of the fourth annual crossover with the Justice Society of America and this time the stakes were raised to encompass destruction of both planets in ‘Crisis Between Earth-One and Earth-Two’ and #47’s ‘The Bridge Between Earths!’ Here a bold – if rash – experiment pulls the two sidereal worlds into an inexorable hyperspace collision, whilst making matters worse, an antimatter being uses the opportunity to explore our positive matter universe.

Peppered with wisecracks and “hip” dialogue, it’s sometimes difficult to discern what a cracking yarn this actually is, but if you’re able to forgive or swallow dated patter, this is one of the best plotted and illustrated stories in the entire JLA/JSA canon. Furthermore, the vastly talented Sid Greene signed on as regular inker with this classic adventure, adding expressive subtlety, beguiling texture and whimsical humour to the pencils of Sekowsky and Fox’s increasingly light, comedic scripts. The next issue was an 80-Page Giant (reprinting Brave and the Bold #29 and Justice League of America #2 and 3, represented here by its stirring Sekowsky/Murphy Anderson cover, to be followed by ‘Threat of the True-or-false Sorcerer’ in which a small team of the biggest guns (Batman, Superman, Flash & Green Lantern) must ferret out a doppelganger Felix Faust before the mage inadvertently dissolves all creation.

There’s no excessive hoopla to celebrate the fiftieth issue but ‘The Lord of Time Attacks the 20th Century’ is another brilliantly told tale of heroism, action and sacrifice that -uncharacteristically for the company and the time – references the ongoing Vietnam conflict. With “Batmania” in full swing, editor Schwartz also deemed it wise to include Robin, The Boy Wonder with regulars Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Snapper Carr & Batman. Issue #51 concluded a long-running experiment in continuity with ‘Z – As in Zatanna – and Zero Hour!’, in which a young sorceress concluded a search for her long-missing father with the assistance of a small group of Leaguers and guest-star Ralph “Elongated Man” Dibny.

Zatarra was a magician-hero in the Mandrake mould. In the 1940s he fought evil in the pages of Action Comics for over a decade, beginning with the very first issue. During the Silver Age Fox had Zatarra’s young and equally gifted daughter, Zatanna, go searching for him by guest-teaming with a selection of superheroes Fox was currently scripting (if you’re counting, these tales appeared in Hawkman #4, Atom #19, Green Lantern #42, and the Elongated Man back-up strip in Detective Comics #355). Thanks to a very slick piece of back writing the roster included the high-profile Caped Crusader via Detective #336’s ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’. For that full story you could track down Justice League of America: Zatanna’s Search…

Experimentation was also the basis of #52’s ‘Missing in Action – 5 Justice Leaguers!’, a portmanteau tale showing what happened to those members who didn’t show up for issue #50. Hawkman – plus wife and partner Hawkgirl – Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Superman reported their solo yet ultimately linked adventures, whilst The Atom referred them to his time-travelling escapade with Benjamin Franklin from the pages of his own comic (The Atom #27 ‘Stowaway on a Hot Air Balloon!’). Batman still managed to make an appearance through the magic of a lengthy flashback, showing again just how ubiquitous the TV show had made him. No editor in his right mind would ignore a legitimate (or even not-so much) chance to feature such a perfect guarantee of increased sales.

‘Secret Behind the Stolen Super-Weapons!’ saw Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow & Hawkman – again with Hawkgirl guest-starring – deprived of their esoteric armaments and in desperate need of the Atom, Flash, Aquaman & Superman whilst card-carrying criminals returned in ‘The History-Making Costumes of the Royal Flush Gang!’: a taut mystery-thriller with plenty of action to balance the suspense, and fed into another summer-spectacular team-up with the JSA.

Boasting a radical change, the Earth-2 team now starred an adult Robin instead of Batman, but Hourman, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Wildcat, Johnny Thunder & Mr. Terrific still needed the help of Earth-1’s Superman, Flash, Green Lantern & Green Arrow to cope with ‘The Super-Crisis that Struck Earth-Two!’ and ‘The Negative-Crisis on Earths One-Two!’

This cosmic threat from a dying universe was in stark contrast to the overly-worthy but well intentioned ‘Man – Thy Name is Brother!’ in #57, where Flash, Green Arrow & Hawkman joined Snapper Carr in defending human rights and equality via three cases involving ethnic teenagers: a black kid, a native American/Apache (and if that modern phrase doesn’t indicate the necessity and efficacy of such stories in the 1960’s then what does?) and an aid-worker in India. Morepver, although it’s all beautifully drawn and obviously heartfelt, I still ponder on the fact that all the characters are male…

Eventually comics would confront even that last bastion of institutionalised prejudice….

Another Eighty-Page Giant cover – by Infantino & Anderson – follows as #58 reprinted Justice League of America #1, 6 & 8, which is followed by the extremely odd conceptual puzzler ‘The Justice Leaguer’s Impossible Adventure!’ wherein the heroes battle beyond realty to prevent raw evil poisoning the universe before another “hot” guest-star debuted as JLA #60 featured ‘Winged Warriors of the Immortal Queen!’ and pitted the enslaved and transformed team against DC’s newest sensation: Batgirl.

However, 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, the Marvel heroes and even the JLA were there every Saturday in your own living room…

It was 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.

The remainder of this collection increasingly reflects the turmoil of the times as the writer and penciller who had created every single adventure of the World’s Greatest Superheroes since their inception gave way to a “new wave” writer and a fresh if not young artist.

Kicking off the fresh start is ‘Operation: Jail the Justice League!’ by Fox, Sekowsky & Greene: a sharp and witty action-mystery with an army of supervillains wherein the team must read between the lines as Green Arrow announces he’s quitting the team and super-hero-ing!

George Roussos replaced Greene as inker for ‘Panic from a Blackmail Box!’, a taut thriller about redemption involving the time-delayed revelations of a different kind of villain, and ‘Time Signs a Death-Warrant for the Justice League’, where the villainous Key finally acts on a scheme he initiated way back in Justice League of America #41. This rowdy fist-fest was Sekowky’s last pencil job on the team (although he returned for a couple of covers). He was transferring his attentions to the revamping of Wonder Woman (for which see the marvellous Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volume 1 ).

Fox ended his magnificent run on a high point with the 2-part annual team-up of League and the Society. Creative to the very end, his last story was yet another of Golden Age revival of the kind that had resurrected the superhero genre. JLA #64 & 65 featured the ‘Stormy Return of the Red Tornado!’ and ‘T.O. Morrow Kills the Justice League – Today!’ with a cyclonic sentient super-android taking on the mantle of the comedic 1940s “Mystery Man” who appeared in the very first JSA adventure (if you’re interested, the original Red Tornado was a brawny washer-woman/landlady named Ma Hunkle, who fought street crime dressed as a man).

Fox’s departing shot saw the artistic debut of veteran Blackhawk artist Dick Dillin: a prolific draughtsman who would draw every JLA exploit for the next 12 years, as well as many other adventures of DC’s top characters like Superman and Batman. His first jobs were inked by the returning Sid Greene, a pairing that seemed vibrant and darkly realistic after the eccentrically stylish, almost abstract late period Sekowsky.

Not even the heroes themselves were immune to change. As the market contracted and shifted, so too did the team. With no fanfare Martian Manhunter was dropped after #61. He just stopped appearing and the minor heroes (ones whose strips or comics had been cancelled) got less and less space in future tales. Denny O’Neil took over scripting with #66, opening with a rather heavy-handed satire entitled ‘Divided they Fall!’ wherein defrocked banana-republic dictator Generalissimo Demmy Gog (did I mention it was heavy-handed?) used a stolen morale-boosting ray to cause chaos on a college campus. O’Neil was more impressive with second outing ‘Neverwas – the Chaos Maker!’: a time-lost monster on a rampage. However, the compassionate solution to his depredations better fitted the social climate and hinted at joys to come when the author began his legendary run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Neal Adams.

‘A Matter of Menace’ featured a plot to frame Green Arrow by daft villain Headmastermind , but is most remarkable for the brief return of Diana Prince. Wonder Woman had silently vanished at the end of #66 and her cameo here is more a plug for her own de-powered adventure series than a regulation guest-shot. This is followed by a more traditional guest-appearance in #70’s ‘Versus the Creeper’ wherein the much diminished team of Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern & Atom battle misguided aliens inadvertently brought to Earth by the astoundingly naff Mind-Grabber Kid (latterly seen in Seven Soldiers and 52) with the eerie Steve Ditko-created antihero along for the ride and largely superfluous to the plot.

Eager to plug their radical new heroine, Diana Prince guested again in #71’s ‘And So My World Ends!’: a drastic reinvention of the history of the Martian Manhunter from O’Neil, Dillon & Greene which, by writing him out of the series, galvanised and reinvigorated the character for a new generation. The plot introduced the belligerent White Martians of today and revealed how a millennia long race war between Whites and Greens devastated Mars forever.

Closing down this outing, ‘Thirteen Days to Doom!’ offers a moody gothic horror story in which Hawkman was turned into a pillar of salt by demons, precipitating another guest-shot for Hawkgirl, but excellent though it was, the entire thing was but prelude to O’Neil’s first shot at the annual JLA/JSA team-up in issues #73 and 74.

For which you’ll need a different volume…

With iconic covers by Sekowsky, Dillin, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Joe Kubert & Murphy Anderson, these tales are a perfect example of all that was best about the Silver Age of comics, combining optimism and ingenuity with bonhomie and adventure. This slice of better times also has the benefit of cherishing wonderment whilst actually being historically valid for any fan of our medium. Best of all the stories here are still captivating and enthralling transports of delight.

These classical compendia are a dedicated fan’s delight: an absolute gift for modern readers who desperately need to catch up without going bankrupt. They are also perfect to give to youngsters as an introduction into a fabulous world of adventure and magic. Although an era of greatness had ended, it ended at the right time and for sound reasons. These thoroughly wonderful thrillers mark an end and a beginning in comic book storytelling as whimsical adventure was replaced by inclusivity, social awareness and a tacit acknowledgement that a smack in the mouth doesn’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 need to buy this book…
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Dear DC Super-Villains


By Michael Northrop & Gustavo Duarte, coloured by Cris Peter & lettered by Wes Abbott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1779500540 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal to Steal Stocking Stuffer… 9/10 (just give it back after reading, okay?)

Superheroes are purely iconic embodiments if not “perfectualisations” of a whole bunch of deep things about humans. Ask any psychologist or modern philosopher. Sadly, such pristine intellectualisations don’t cut much ice (just ask Captain Cold) in the stories-for-money racket; and every hero from Gilgamesh to the Scarlet Pimpernel and every sleuth and super-doer since mass entertainment began owes a huge recurring debt to the bad lurking in the shadows or monster rampaging down main street.

DC have a particularly fine stable of misguided miscreants, justifiable revengers and thieving psychotic loons – just look at how many have their own titles, shows and films – and their antics as much as the heroes we’re supposed to admire are part of children’s awareness and maturing processes (even boys, who I’m forced to admit frequently grow up by a different set of metrics to girls or other flavours of kids).

Reprising or rather expanding their 2019 hit, Michael Northrop (Trapped, Plunked, Gentlemen, TombQuest) and Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters! and Other Stories link both please), turn their delightful comedic eyes on the bad guys who might well be a Legion of Doom but still have it in them to answer a few salient questions from some curious kids with a really good search engines…

In Cairo, a major heist is capped by a relaxing moment of downtime as Selina Kyle responds to a ‘Dear Catwoman’ query about getting caught, whilst Earth’s most maximumly imprisoned mad scientist accepts a rash challenge from a heckler who thinks he’s safely anonymous in ‘Dear Lex Luthor’ and ‘Dear Harley Quinn’ shares her experiences of stand-up comedy and chaotic behaviour…

All these messages come courtesy of the Legion of Doom forwarding service but the would-be world conquerors are generally fretful and bad tempered while trying to find a new leader. Those tensions a painfully apparent in ‘Dear Gorilla Grodd’ as the Super-Ape shares school memories – but never bananas – even as ‘Dear Giganta’ offers advice on bullies and being the tallest girl in class.

When a disabled girl challenges ‘Dear Sinestro’ to examine his motivations, it sparks an unexpected sentimental response, and even ruthless hardcase rogue ronin ‘Dear Katana’ also reassesses her life after opening a succinctly sharp email question, whereas the modern-day pirate king only gets “fished” after clicking on ‘Dear Black Manta’, leading to a long-awaited calamitous convergence, supervillain showdown and inevitable big battle with the JLA in concluding chapter ‘Dear DC Super-Villains’…

Big, bold, daft and deliriously addictive, this in another superb all-ages action romp packed with laughs and delivering a grand experience for any who red it. Extra material includes ‘Who’s Who in the Legion of Doom’ of the heroes, and creator biographies in ‘Auxiliary Members!’ plus an extract from Metropolis Grove by Drew Brockington. If you love comics and want others to as well you couldn’t do more that point potential fans this way. Actually, just show, tell, or email them: pointing is rude…
© 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Dear Justice League


By Michael Northrop & Gustavo Duarte, coloured by Ma Maiolo & lettered by Wes Abbott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8413-8 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Comic Perfection and Ideal Stocking Stuffer… 10/10

Keystone of the DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we have a comics industry today. After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in June 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 everyone blessed with four-colour hindsight was irrefutably proven: a number of popular characters combining forces can multiply readership. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick…

The Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a landmark in industry development but faded and failed after tastes changed at the end of the 1940s. When Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956 the true turning point came a few years later with the (inevitable?) teaming of his freshly reconfigured mystery men. When wedded to relatively unchanged costumed big guns who had weathered the first fall of the Superhero, the result was a new, modern, Space-Age version of the JSA and the birth of a new mythology.

The moment that changed everything for us baby-boomers came with The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover dated March 1960): a classical adventure title recently retooled as a try-out magazine like Showcase. Just in time for Christmas 1959, 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!”

When the JLA launched it cemented the growth and validity of the genre, triggering an explosion of new characters at every company producing comics in America and even spread to the rest of the world as the 1960s progressed. Superheroics have waned since, but never gone away, and remain a trigger point for all us kids. However, comics have grown serious and mature, and we increasingly left the kids out of the equation, letting TV cartoons pick up the slack. Even the roster in this tale is informed as much by animation adventures as potent printed page-turners…

Well, superheroes are still kids’ stuff as this superb book – and its sequel – attest. An early entry in DC’s project to bring their characters back to young readers, Dear Justice League takes all the iconic riffs and paraphernalia attached to the team and comedically runs wild with a core conceit: the heroes individually answering emails – or other, older, lesser communications – from young fans with problems to share or questions needing answers.

Played strictly for laughs by Brazilian illustrator/slapstick maestro Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters! and Other Stories link both please), the segmented saga is composed by author and journalist Michael Northrop (Trapped, Plunked, Gentlemen, TombQuest) who blends charm with wit and a great deal of heart for maximum effects.

It begins as long-suffering little Ben Silsby gets under some steel-hard skin by texting ‘Dear Superman’, whilst ‘Dear Hawkgirl’ distracts the winged wonder so much during an alien bug battle that she neglects her beloved hamster. Although old foe Black Manta is no problem, the Sea King reads a ‘Dear Aquaman’ question and must ponder hygiene issues to the point of upsetting Hall of Justice roommate Purdey (his goldfish)…

As the team convene to discuss big bug activity, a ‘Dear Wonder Woman’ direct message send the Amazing Amazon off on an embarrassing memory moment whilst ‘Dear Flash’ takes on bullies, poor concentration and bad parenting, ‘Dear Green Lantern’ trades fashion tips and colour swatches with grade school diva-to-be Shalene and ‘Dear Cyborg’ finds a different kind of opponent online and ready to rock…

Ultimate paranoid the Dark Knight doesn’t do email and must find another way to respond to a ‘Dear Batman’ that sets his sentimental heart and brutal boyhood into perspective, which all sets the scene for ET extermination excitement as the bug subplot rattling through all the vignettes boils over into all-ages cartoon action in blockbuster finale ‘Dear Justice League’…

Pure comics nostalgia writ large and hard hitting. Enjoy all you oldster kids…

Extra material includes creator biographies, the ‘Hall of Justice Top Secret Files (No Peeking!)’ of our heroes, and their animal ‘Auxiliary Members!’ before concluding with come-hither extracts from other kid-friendly books in the line (specifically the sequel plugged next) and Superman of Smallville by Art Baltazar & Franco.

Fun, deceptively thrilling and infinitely re-readable, this old school treat is a must have item for anyone who loves superheroes.
© 2019, DC Comics All Rights Reserved.

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Teen Titans: Year One (New Edition)


By Amy Wolfram, Karl Kerschl & Serge Lapointe, coloured by Stéphane Péru & John Rausch, lettered by Nick J. Napolitano (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6724-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: How Growing-Up-Super Really Feels… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The concept of kid hero teams was not a new one when DC finally entrusted their big heroes’ assorted sidekicks with their own regular comic:  resulting in a fab, hip and groovy ensemble as dedicated to helping kids as they were to stamping out insidious evil.

The biggest difference between juvenile wartime groups such as The Young Allies, Newsboy Legion and Boy Commandos or 1950s holdovers like The Little Wise Guys or Boy Explorers and the creation of the Teen Titans was quite simply the burgeoning phenomena of “the Teenager” as a discrete social and commercial force. These were kids who could – and should – be allowed to do things themselves without constant adult “help” or supervision. As early as The Brave and the Bold #54 (June/July 1964), DC’s Powers-That-Be tested the waters in a gripping tale by Bob Haney & Bruno Premiani teaming Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad.

The wild punt was a huge hit and the kids – supplemented by Wonder Girl and Speedy – got their own title, offering teen tinged tales crafted by old(ish) white guys. To be fair, the sagas were certainly unlike anything else DC was concurrently producing and have certainly withstood the test of time as a peek at Teen Titans The Silver Age volumes 1 & 2 will confirm.

However, ways in which society relates to kids – and vice versa – has changed radically since the hazy crazy, shimmery sixties, and this delicious dose of post-modern retro-revelation details how a new century and fresh thinking can reevaluate the trials and costs of growing up super. Originally released in 2008 as 6-part miniseries Teen Titans: Year One, this coming of ages yarn is packed with humour and pathos as well as action, making many memorable points whilst delivering a wonderful superhero romp. It was crafted by animation screen writer/comics writer Amy Wolfram (Sym-Bionic Titan, Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go!, The Secret Saturdays, Supergirl, Legion of Super-Heroes) and Karl Kerschl (Adventures of Superman, Gotham Academy, All-Flash, Majestic) with the assistance of inker Serge Lapointe, colourists Stéphane Péru & John Rausch and letterer Nick J. Napolitano.

Offering a compelling reinterpretation of those classic quirkily eclectic Silver Age sagas, there’s a heavy emphasis on the kind of adults who would expose kids to violent thugs, murderers and psychopaths on a nightly basis… including the pressures involved all around and the coping mechanisms evolved to manage that kind of life…

It begins with the Boy Wonder distracted and painfully not meeting Batman’s expectations, wasting time with some costumed sidekicks he’s recently met. Soon the kids are trading stories and covertly working together against the likes of The Ant and Ding Dong Daddy, becoming overnight sensations as in the background, psionic monster the Antithesis is making its move.

It all gets crazy serious when the super-juniors realize their guardians and mentors are going off the rails and becoming increasingly dangerous to the world and themselves, and it’s now up to them to save the day and the world…

Despite how heavy that all sounds, the epic exploit – originally entitled “In the Beginning…’, ‘Flash in the Pan’, ‘Young Heroes in Love’ and ‘Awakening’ – is actually bright, breezy, inspiring and frequently hilarious, but it does pull no punches.

Fast paced, funny, compelling and captivating, this is absolute escapism and absolutely delightful and you absolutely should get this book, Absolutely.
© 2008, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Identity Crisis 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition


By Brad Meltzer, Rags Morales & Michael Bair & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2592-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dark Highlights Not to Be Forgotten… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

For most of us older acolytes, comics – drenched as they are in childhoods shared and solitary – are a nostalgic wonderland as much as fantasy playground. We grew up with certain characters and they mean a lot to us. It’s often a wrench to share such golden moments with other – usually new or just younger – disciples, especially if those new guys have different notions on what we communally cherish.

Jam-packed with all the heroes and villains and supporting cast Silver Agers and Boomers grew up with, 2004 miniseries Identity Crisis was, more than any other, the story that changed the tone and timbre of the DC universe forever.

For such an impressive, far-reaching comics event, the core collection is a rather slim and swift read. Whilst the serialised comic book drove the narrative forward in the manner of a whodunit, most of the character by-play and staggeringly tectonic ripples of the bare-bones murder-mystery at the heart of the story could only be properly experienced in interlinked, individual issues of involved (or perhaps “implicated”) titles. As this was all absorbed week-by-week, month-by-month, the cumulative effect was both bewildering and engrossing, and I doubt that such a muti-level entertainment experience could be duplicated or even attempted in traditional publishing… or any other medium.

Comprising and compiling Identity Crisis #1-7, with additional editorial material from Identity Crisis, Absolute Edition, this potent memento mori opens with an ‘Introduction by Dan Didio’ explaining some hows and whys of the tale. Still controversial after all these years, the plot unfolds next, involving DC heroes brutally, painfully and uncompromisingly re-assessing their careers whilst frantically hunting a murderer.

This assailant struck too close to home however, killing Sue Dearborn-Dibny, the beloved and adored-by-all wife of second-string hero/deceptively top drawer detective The Elongated Man. The deed is done in ‘Coffin’, exposing a toxic ‘House of Lies’ and leading to escalating incidents that point to a cape-&-cowl ‘Serial Killer’ on the rampage. However, with heroes at each other’s throats and cuttingly questioning past mistakes – especially a very vocal younger generation of costumed champions only just learning of cover-ups and dubious decisions made by their mentors – eventually, rational heads and deductive procedures force distraught protagonists to ask ‘Who Benefits’.

This leads to revelatory discoveries on ‘Father’s Day’ and appalling disclosures between ‘Husbands and Wives’ before the culprit is unmasked and the superhero community reels and begins a long, painful recovery…

As the investigation proceeds, the heroes – and villains – confront and reassess many of their bedrock principles including tactics, allegiances and even the modern validity of that genre staple, the Secret Identity.

Throughout, characterisation is spot-on and dialogue is memorable with the artwork never short of magnificent. Moreover, this time the aftershocks of revelation did indeed live up to their hype. How sad then than this central book feels like a rushed “Readers Digest” edition, whilst many of the key moments are scattered in a dozen other (unrelated) collections. Maybe it’s time to start more modern omnibus collected editions, and even make them available digitally  too?

As befits a 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, there is a vast amount of extra material, and behind the scenes treats including a ‘Cover Gallery’, heavily-illustrated essays ‘The Making of Identity Crisis’, ‘The Making of The Covers’, ‘The Making of the Action Figures’ (!!) and an appreciative memorial piece ‘Remembering Michael Turner’.

Gripping, painful in places but extraordinarily cathartic, Identity Crisis is a book every superhero fan must see and will never forget.
© 2004, 2005, 2011, 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Kingdom Come – New Edition



By Mark Waid & Alex Ross, with Todd Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9096-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

With documentary The Legend of Kingdom Come out and another commemorative edition scheduled for early next year, it’s time to revisit this modern classic once more and prep for all the furore to come. It’s also a damn fine read to amble into the festive season with…

In the mid-1960s a teenaged Jim Shooter wrote a couple of stories about the Legion of Super-Heroes set some years into the team’s own future. Those stories of adult Legionnaires revealed hints of things to come that shackled the series’ plotting and continuity for decades as eager, obsessed fans (by which I mean all of us) waited for the predicted characters to be introduced, presaged relationships to be consummated and heroes to die. By being so utterly impressive and similarly affecting, Kingdom Come accidentally repeated the trick decades later, subsequently painting the entire post Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe into the same creative corner until one of the company’s periodic continuity reboots unleashed possibility and uncertainty again…

Envisaged and designed by artist Alex Ross as DC’s answer to groundbreaking epic Marvels, Kingdom Come was originally released as a 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries in 1996 to rapturous acclaim and numerous awards and accolades. Although set in the future and an “imaginary story” released under DC’s Elseworlds imprint, it almost immediately began to affect the company’s mainstream continuity.

Set approximately 20 years into the future, the grandiose saga details a tragic failure and subsequent loss of Faith for Superman and how his attempt to redeem himself almost leads to an even greater and ultimate apocalypse. The events are seen through the eyes and actions of Dantean witness Norman McCay, an aging cleric co-opted by Divine Agent of Wrath the Spectre after the pastor officiates at the last rites of dying superhero Wesley Dodds. As the Sandman, Dodds was cursed for decades with precognitive dreams which compelled him to act as an agent of justice.

Opening chapter ‘Strange Visitor’ reveals a world where metahumans have proliferated to ubiquitous proportions: a sub-culture of constant, violent clashes between the latest generation of costumed villains and vigilantes, all unheeding and uncaring of the collateral damage they daily inflict on the mere mortals around and in all ways beneath them. The shaken preacher sees a final crisis coming, but feels helpless until the darkly angelic Spectre comes to him. Taken on a bewildering voyage of unfolding events, McCay is to act as the ghost’s human perspective whilst the Spirit of Vengeance prepares to pass final judgement on Humanity.

First stop is the secluded hideaway where farmer Kal-El has hidden himself since the ghastly events which compelled him to retire from the Good Fight and the eyes of the World. The Man of Tomorrow was already feeling like a dinosaur when newer, harsher, morally ambiguous mystery-men began to appear. After the Joker murdered the entire Daily Planet staff and hard-line new hero Magog consequently executed him in the street, the public applauded the deed. Heartbroken and appalled, Superman disappeared for a decade. His legendary colleagues also felt the march of unwelcome progress and similarly faded from sight.

With Earth left to the mercies of dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes, civil unrest escalated. The younger heroes displayed poor judgement and no restraint, with the result that within a decade the entire planet had become a chaotic arena for metahuman duels.

Civilisation was fragmenting. The Flash and Batman retreated to their home cities and made them secure, crime-free solitary fortresses. Green Lantern built an emerald castle in the sky, turning his eyes away from Earth and towards the deep black fastnesses of space. Hawkman retreated to the wilderness, Aquaman to his sub-sea kingdom whilst Wonder Woman retired to her hidden paradise. She did not leave until Armageddon came one step closer…

When Magog and his Justice Battalion battled the Parasite in St. Louis, the result was a nuclear accident which destroyed all of Kansas and much of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Overnight the world faced starvation as America’s breadbasket turned into a toxic wasteland. Now with McCay and the Spectre invisibly observing, Princess Diana convinces the bereft Kal-El to return and save the world on his own terms…

In ‘Truth and Justice’ a resurgent Justice League led by Superman begins a campaign of unilateral action to clean up the mess civilisation has become: renditioning “heroes” and “villains” alike, imprisoning every dangerous element of super-humanity and telling governments how to behave, blithely unaware that they are hastening a global catastrophe of Biblical proportions as the Spectre invisibly gathers the facts for his apocalyptic judgement.

In the ensuing chaos, crippled warrior Bruce Wayne rejects Superman’s paternalistic, doctrinaire crusade and allies himself with mortal humanity’s libertarian elite – Ted (Blue Beetle) Kord, Dinah (Black Canary) Lance and Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen – to resist what can only be considered a grab for world domination by its metahuman minority. As helpless McCay watches in horror, Wayne’s group makes its own plans; one more dangerous thread in a tapestry of calamity…

At first Superman’s plans seem blessed to succeed, with many erstwhile threats flocking to his banner and his doctrinaire rules of discipline, but as ever there are self-serving villains with their own agendas. Lex Luthor organises a cabal of like-minded compatriots – Vandal Savage, Catwoman, Riddler, Kobra and Ibn Al Xu’ffasch (“Son of the Demon” Ra’s Al Ghul) – into a “Mankind Liberation Front”. With Shazam-empowered Captain Marvel as their slave, this group are determined the super-freaks shall not win. Their cause is greatly advanced once Wayne’s clique joins them…

‘Up in the Sky’ sees events spiral into catastrophe as McCay, still wracked by his visions of Armageddon, is shown the Gulag where recalcitrant metahumans are dumped. He also witnesses how it will fail, learns from restless spirit Deadman that The Spectre is the literal Angel of Death and watches with growing horror as Luthor’s plan to usurp control from the army of Superman leads to shocking confrontation, betrayal and a deadly countdown to the End of Days…

The deadly drama culminates in a staggering battle of superpowers, last moment salvation and a second chance for humanity in a calamitous world-shaking ‘Never-Ending Battle’…

Thanks to McCay’s simple humanity, the world gets another chance and this edition follows up with epilogue ‘One Year Later’ ending the momentous epic on a note of renewed hope…

This particular edition – released as a 20th Anniversary deluxe hardback, a standard trade paperback and in digital format – came with an introduction by author and former DC scribe Elliot S. Maggin, assorted cover reproductions and art-pieces, an illustrated checklist of the vast cast list plus a plethora of creative notes and sketches in the ‘Apocrypha’ section, and even hints at lost glories in ‘Evolution’: notes, photos and drawings for a restored scene that never made it into the miniseries. We will have to see what Kingdom Come DC Compact Comics Edition additionally offers when it’s released next May…

Epic, engaging and operatically spectacular, Kingdom Come is a milestone of the DC Universe and remains to this day a solid slice of superior superhero entertainment, worthy of your undivided attention.
© 1996, 2006, 2008, 2016, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Quality Counts …9/10

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Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays 1968 – 1969


By Whitney Ellsworth, Joe Giella, Al Plastino & various (IDW)
ISBN: 987-1-63140-121-3 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For more than seven decades in America the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail cartoonists and graphic-narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country and often the planet, winning millions of readers and accepted (in most places) as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books, it also paid better, with the greatest rewards and accolades being reserved for the full-colour Sunday page. So it was always something of a poisoned chalice when a comic book character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint strips in cheap, accessible form?) and became a syndicated serial strip. Superman, Wonder Woman and Archie Andrews made the jump soon after their debuts and many features have done so since.

Due to war-time complications, the first newspaper Batman and Robin strip was slow getting its shot, but when the Dynamic Duo finally hit the Funny Pages the feature quickly proved to be one of the best-regarded, highest quality examples of the trend, both in Daily and Sunday formats. Yet somehow the strip never achieved the circulation it deserved, even though the Sundays were eventually given a new lease of life when DC began issuing vintage stories in the 1960s for Batman 80-page Giants and Annuals. The exceedingly high-quality all-purpose adventures were ideal short stories and added an extra cachet of exoticism for young readers already captivated by simply seeing tales of their heroes that were positively ancient and redolent of History with a capital “H”.

Such was not the case in the mid-1960s when, for a relatively brief moment, mankind went bananas for superheroes in general and most especially went “Bat-Mad”…

The Silver Age of comic books revolutionised a creatively moribund medium cosily snoozing in unchallenging complacency, bringing a modicum of sophistication to the returning genre of masked mystery men. For quite some time changes instigated by Julius Schwartz in Showcase #4 (October 1956) had rippled out in the last years of that decade, affecting all of National/DC Comics’ superhero characters but had generally bypassed The Gotham Gangbuster. Fans buying Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest Comics and latterly Justice League of America would read adventures that in look and tone were largely unchanged from the safely anodyne fantasies that had transformed a Dark Knight Detective into a mystery-solving, alien-fighting costumed Boy Scout just as the 1940s turned into the 1950s.

By the end of 1963, however, Schwartz having, either personally or by example, revived and revitalised the majority of DC’s line (and by extension and imitation, the entire industry) with his reinvention of the Superhero, was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and near-cancellation Caped Crusaders. Installing his go-to team of creators, the Editor stripped down the accumulated luggage and rebooted the core-concept. Down – and usually out – went the outlandish villains, aliens and weird-transformation tales in favour of a coolly modern concentration on crime and detection.

Even the art-style underwent a sleek streamlining and rationalisation. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories had changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had crept back in.

At the same time Hollywood was in production of a television series based on Batman and, through the sheer karmic insanity that permeates the universe, the studio executives were basing their interpretation not upon the “New Look Batman” currently enthralling readers but the rather the addictively daft material DC was emphatically turning its editorial back on.

The Batman TV show premiered on January 12th 1966 and ran for three seasons of 120 episodes, usually airing twice weekly in the first two. It was a monumental, world-wide hit and sparked a wave of trendy imitation. Resulting media hysteria and fan frenzy generated an insane amount of Bat-awareness, no end of spin-offs and merchandise – including a movie – and introduced us all to the phenomenon of overkill. No matter how much we might squeal and froth about it, to a huge portion of this planet’s population Batman is always going to be that “Zap! Biff! Pow!” buffoonish costumed Boy Scout…

“Batmania” exploded across Earth and – almost as quickly – became toxic and vanished, but at its height led to the creation of a fresh newspaper strip incarnation. That strip was a huge syndication success and even reached fuddy-duddy Britain, not in our papers and journals but as the cover feature of weekly comic Smash! (from issue #20 onwards).

The TV show ended in March, 1968. As it foundered and faded away, global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual orientation no matter what you and Mel Brooks might think – burst as quickly as it had boomed. The Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back…

However, from the time when the Gotham Guardians could do no wrong comes a second superb compilation re-presenting the bright and breezy, sometimes zany cartoon classics of Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder, augmented by a wealth of background material, topped up with oodles of unseen scenes and background detail to delight the most ardent Baby-boomer nostalgia-freak. The fun-fest opens with more informative, picture-packed, candidly cool revelations from comics historian Joe Desris in ‘A History of the Batman and Robin Newspaper Strip: Part 2’: stuffed with behind-the-scenes set photos, communications between principal players like Bob Kane and the Producers, clippings, glorious unpublished pencils from strip illustrator Joe Giella as well as newspaper promotional materials, followed by pictorial essays on ‘Newspaper Strip Trivia’ and ‘Batman/Superman Crossovers’, more unpublished or censored strips and a note on the eclectic sources used to compile this collection before the comics cavorting continue…

Dailies and Sundays were scripted by former DC editor (and the company’s Hollywood liaison) Whitney Ellsworth and initially illustrated by Kane’s long-term art collaborator Sheldon Moldoff, before inker Giella was tapped by the studio to produce a slicker, streamlined modern look – usually as penciller but ALWAYS as embellisher. Since the feature was a 7-day-a-week job, Giella often called in comic book buddies to help lay-out and draw the strip; luminaries like Carmine Infantino, Bob Powell, Werner Roth, Curt Swan and others.

In those days, monochrome Dailies and full-colour Sundays were mostly offered as separate packages and continuity strips often ran different stories for each. For Batman the strip started out that way, but by the time of the stories in this volume had switched to unified 7-day storylines.

Riding a wave and feeling ambitious, Ellsworth & Giella had started their longest saga yet in July 1967, combining the tales of ‘Shivering Blue Max’ with ‘“Pretty Boy” Floy and Flo’, wherein a perpetually hypothermic criminal pilot accidentally downed the Batcopter and erroneously claimed the underworld’s million dollar bounty on Batman and Robin.

Our heroes were not dead, but the crash caused the Batman to lose his memory and, whilst Robin and faithful manservant Alfred sought to remedy his affliction, Max had collected his prize and jetted off for sunnier climes. With Batman missing, neophyte crimebuster Batgirl then tracked down the heroes – incidentally learning their secret identities – and was instrumental in restoring him to action… if not quite his fully-functioning faculties.

However, when underworld paymaster BG (Big) Trubble heard the heroes had returned, he quite understandably wanted his money back, forcing already-broke Max back to Gotham where he gullibly fell foul of Pretty Boy whilst that hip young gunsel and twin sister Flo were enacting a murderous scam to fleece a horoscope-addicted millionaire…

The tale picks up here on January 1st 1968 with Batman held at gunpoint, patiently trying to convince supremely suggestible, wealthy whale Tyrone Koom he is not there to assassinate him as the tycoon’s new astrologer Madame Zodiac (AKA Flo Floy) was insisting she had foreseen. When her minted dupe proves incapable of murder, Flo/Zodiac takes matters into her own hands by knocking out the mighty manhunter, but despite all her and her brother’s arguments, the millionaire cannot be convinced to pull the trigger…

Instead, befuddled Koom – still thinking the masked marvel wants him dead – has Batman bundled off to an isolated island where a fully-automated, exotic palace of wonders will act as the Caped Crusader’s impregnable prison for the remainder of his life. With the hero as good as dead Pretty Boy & Flo plan to claim BG’s million dollar bounty, but have not reckoned on Blue Max horning in…

When the pilot collides with Robin (tracking his senior partner by Bat-Radio) the erstwhile enemies reluctantly join forces but cannot prevent Batman’s banishment. Moreover, in the frantic melee, the Boy Wonder suffers a broken leg. Meanwhile, lost in an endless ocean, Batman slowly adjusts to life of enforced luxury on palatial penitentiary island Xanadu, unaware that life at home has become vastly more complicated for Robin and Alfred. Not only do they believe the Cowled Crimebuster dead but Max has ferreted out their secret identities and blackmailed them into cooperating in his vengeance scheme against Pretty Boy. Max plans to prevent the young thug collecting the reward by impersonating Batman…

Events spiral to a grim climax when Max finally confronts his criminal enemies and Koom realises he’s been played for a fool. The dupe’s guilt-fuelled final vengeance ends all the villains at once, but not before Pretty Boy presses a destruct button that will cause Xanadu to obliterate itself in an atomic explosion.

Thankfully Superman and especially Sea King Aquaman have been mobilised to help find the missing Masked Manhunter but the countdown – although slow – is unstoppable…

During this sequence the severely overworked Giella bowed out and a veteran Superman illustrator took over the pitiless illustration schedule. Alfred John “Al” Plastino was a prodigious artist with a stellar career. He had been active in the early days of comic books, with credits including Captain America and Dynamic Man before serving in the US Army. His design talents were quickly recognised and he was seconded to Grumman Aerospace, The National Inventors Council and latterly The Pentagon, to design war posters and field manuals for the Adjutant General’s office.

In 1948 Plastino joined DC and quickly became one of Superman’s key artists. He drew many landmark stories and – with writer Otto Binder – created Brainiac, Supergirl and The Legion of Super-Heroes. From 1960-1969 he ghosted the syndicated Superman newspaper strip and whilst still drawing Batman, also took over Ferd’nand in 1970, drawing it until his retirement in 1989. He was extremely versatile and apparently tireless. In 1982-1983 he drew Nancy Sundays after creator Ernie Bushmiller passed away and was controversially hired by United Media to produce fill-in episodes of Peanuts when Charles Schulz was in dispute with the company. Al Plastino died in 2013.

With a new policy of introducing guest stars from DC’s pantheon, Plastino was the ideal artist successor and as the assembled champions desperately sought to find and save their missing comrade, a new tone of straight dramatic adventure largely superseded the campy comedy shenanigans of the TV series.

The search for Batman had been continually hampered by the Man of Steel’s strange weakness and loss of powers, but now that the Gotham Gangbusters were reunited they concentrated their efforts on finding out why. The deductive trail soon led to bone fide mad scientist ‘Diabolical Professor Zinkk’ (originally running March 19th to August 6th) and saw the Dynamic Duo tracking down a mercenary maniac who had found a way to broadcast Kryptonite waves and was oh-so-slowly killing Superman for a big payout from Metropolis’ mobsters…

This is a cunningly convoluted, beautifully realised and supremely suspenseful tale with the clock ticking down on a deranged and dying Metropolis Marvel as Batman & Robin hunt rogue radio-physicist Zoltan Zinkk to divine the method by which he brings low Earth’s greatest defender. It culminates in a savage, spectacular and truly explosive showdown before the World’s Finest heroes finally triumph…

Another tense thriller then sees Aquaman return to share the spotlight, beginning with determined “dolly-bird” Penelope Candy perpetually plaguing news outlets and even pestering the Gotham Police Department in a tireless quest to be put in touch with Batman. The man in question is blithely unaware: Bruce Wayne is dealing with a small personal problem. In his infinite wisdom he intends for Robin to temporarily retire whilst young Dick Grayson completes a proper education! To that end has engaged a new tutor for the strongly-protesting Boy Wonder…

With that all acrimoniously settled, the Caped Crimebuster roars out into the night and is filmed falling to his doom in a river trying to save apparently suicidal Penny Candy…

At first the heartbroken sidekick doesn’t know Batman is still alive but has actually been drawn into a Byzantine scheme devised by Penny to find her missing father. Oceanographer Archimedes Candy disappeared after working with Aquaman on a serum allowing humans to live beneath the sea. Penny is certain someone has abducted the researcher and, after Batman contacts Robin, they have the junior crimebuster send out a radio alert for the Sea King, before impatiently trying the potion together. ‘Breathing Underwater’ (August 7th – December 15th), they set off on a sub-sea search for the missing sea scientist…

Of course Penny’s fears of foul play are justified and before long she and Batman are reunited with Dr. Candy. Sadly, that’s as captives of nefarious international smuggler Cap’n Wolf and they are nearly done to death by being abandoned on a mountain in the airy atmosphere they can no longer breathe before Aquaman arrives to settle matters.

Even as Batman makes his way home, the next adventure has started. Gangster fugitive Killer Killey devised the world’s most perfect hiding place and in ‘I Want Bruce Wayne’s Identity!’ (December 15th 1968 – May 30th 1969) abducts the mild-mannered millionaire so a crooked plastic surgeon can swap their faces and fingerprints. The scheme is hugely helped by the fact that Dick has been packed off on a world cruise with tutor Mr. Murphy and his daughter Gazelle whilst Alfred has used accumulated vacation time for an extended visit to England.

When Killer captures Bruce and discovers he also has Batman, the mobster is truly exultant. However the plan goes awry as the victim escapes the death-trap which should have resulted in the authorities finding “Killey’s” drowned body, and the subsequent relocation into Wayne Manor becomes a fraught affair.

Perhaps the villain would be less troubled if he knew that although alive, the real Wayne has once again lost his memory…

Moreover, unbeknownst to anyone, neophyte crimebuster Batgirl already knows Batman’s other identity, and her suspicions are aroused by the state of the mansion and behaviour of Bruce and his new girlfriend…

As events escalate and spiral out of control, Killer – still safely hidden behind Wayne’s face – starts to crack: stupidly antagonising the one person he thought he could always rely on…

This volume’s comics cavortings end with the opening shots of ‘My Campaign to Ruin Bruce Wayne’ (which ran from May 31st – December 25th 1969) but as only seven days of that tale unfold in this volume I think we’ll leave that for the next volume and simply say…

To Be Continued, Bat-Fans…

The stories in this compendium reveal how gentler, stranger times and an editorial policy focusing as much on broad humour as Batman’s reputation as a crime-fighter swiftly returned to all-out action/adventure once Batmania gave way to global overload and ennui. That was bad for the strip at the time but happily resulted in some truly wonderful yarns for die-hard fans of the comic book Caped Crusader. If you’re of a certain age or open to timeless thrills, spills & chills this a truly stunning collection well worth your attention.

Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays 1968-1969 was the second in a set of huge (305 x 236 mm) lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Dynamic Duo/Trio (and pals!), and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many other immortal cartoon icons.

If you love the era, the medium or even just graphic narrative, these are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have.

… And maybe one day the compilers will get around to making them all available in digital edition too…
© 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved. Batman and all related characters and elements ™ & © DC Comics.

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Teen Titans: The Silver Age volume One


By Bob Haney, Bruno Premiani, Nick Cardy, Irv Novick, Bill Molno, Sal Trapani, Jack Abel & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7508-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Although primarily concerned with celebrating Pride Month and simultaneously prepping for a really big blowout/hunkering down for the new dystopia following our imminent election, I couldn’t let the month end without shouting out to an anniversary celebrating a publishing landmark that truly changed the comics landscape. Here you go, Groovers and True Believers…

The concept of kid hero teams was not a new one when the 1960s Batman TV show prompted DC to entrust their big stars’ assorted sidekicks with their own regular venue in a fab, hip and groovy ensemble as dedicated to helping kids as they were to stamping out insidious evil. The biggest difference between the creation of the Teen Titans and earlier wartime youth teams like The Young Allies, Newsboy Legion, Boy Champions and Boy Commandos or even 1950s holdovers such as The Little Wise Guys or Boys Ranch was quite simply the burgeoning phenomena of “The Teenager” as a discrete commercial and social force. These newcomers were kids who could – and should – be allowed to do things themselves without constant adult help or supervision.

This quirkily eclectic compilation re-presents the landmark try-out appearances from The Brave and the Bold #54 & 60 and Showcase #59 – collectively debuting in 1964 and1965 – as well as the first 11 issues of the Teen Titans solo title, spanning January/February 1966 to September/October 1967.

As early as April 30th – albeit cover-dated June/July – 1964, The Brave and the Bold #54 saw DC’s Powers-That-Be test the waters in a gripping tale by writer Bob Haney superbly illustrated by unsung genius Bruno Premiani. ‘The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister’ initially united Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin the Boy Wonder in desperate battle with a modern wizard-cum-Pied Piper who sought to abduct every teen of scenic Hatton Corners. The young heroes accidentally meet in the town by chance after involved students individually invite them to mediate in a long-running dispute with the town’s adults…

This element of a teen “court of appeal” was the motivating principle in many of the group’s subsequent cases. One year later the team reformed for a second adventure (B&B #60, by the same creative team) and introduced two new elements. ‘The Astounding Separated Man’ features more misunderstood kids (weren’t we all?): this time in coastal hamlet Midville and threatened by an outlandish monster whose giant body parts detach and move independently. Wonder Girl was added to the roster (not actually a sidekick, or even a person at that juncture, but rather an SFX incarnation of Wonder Woman as a child – a fact the writer and editor of the series seemed blissfully unaware of (or simply ignored) but most importantly the kids finally had a team name: ‘Teen Titans’.

Their final try-out appearance was in Showcase (#59, November/December 1965) and the birthplace of so many hit comic concepts. It was also the first drawn by the brilliant Nick Cardy (who became synonymous with the 1960s series). ‘The Return of the Teen Titans’ pits the neophyte team against teen pop trio ‘The Flips’ who are apparently also a gang of super-crooks. As was so often the case, the grown-ups had got it all wrong again…

One month later Teen Titans #1 debuted (cover-dated January/February 1966 and released mere weeks before the Batman TV show aired on January 12th), with Robin very much the point of focus on the cover… and most succeeding ones. Haney & Cardy crafted an exotic thriller entitled ‘The Beast-God of Xochatan!’ which sees the team acting as Peace Corps representatives in a South American drama of sabotage, giant robots and magical monsters. The next issue held a fantastic mystery of revenge and young love involving ‘The Million-Year-Old Teen-Ager’ who was preserved by accidental entombment and revived in the 20th century. He might have survived modern intolerance, bullying and culture shock on his own, but when his ancient blood enemy also turned up, the Titans were ready to lend a hand…

‘The Revolt at Harrison High’ in #3 cashed in on a contemporary craze for drag-racing in a tale of bizarre criminality. Produced during a historically iconic era, many readers now can’t help but cringe when reminded of such daft foes as Ding-Dong Daddy and his evil biker gang, and of course the hip, trendy dialogue (it wasn’t that accurate then, let alone now) is pitifully dated, but the plot is strong and the art magnificent.

‘The Secret Olympic Heroes’ guest-starred Green Arrow’s cocky teen partner Speedy in a very human tale of parental pressure at the Olympics, although there’s also skulduggery aplenty from a terrorist organisation intent on disrupting the games. Next TT #5’s ‘The Perilous Capers of the Terrible Teen’ finds the Titans facing the dual task of aiding a troubled young man and capturing elusive super-villain The Ant, despite all evidence indicating that they’re the same person, after which another DC sidekick made his Titans debut.

Illustrated by Bill Molno & Sal Trapani ‘The Fifth Titan’ then brings aboard Beast Boy (the obnoxious juvenile know-it-all from the Doom Patrol). Feeling unappreciated by his adult mentors, the young hero wrongly assumes he’ll be welcomed by his peers. Rejected again, he falls under the spell of an unscrupulous circus owner and the kids need to set things right…

Slow and overly convoluted, it’s possibly the low-point of a stylish run, but many fans disagree, citing #7’s ‘The Mad Mod, Merchant of Menace’ as the biggest stinker. However, beneath painfully dated dialogue there’s a witty, tongue-in-cheek tale of swinging London, cool capers and novel criminality, plus the return of magnificent Nick Cardy to the art chores.

It was back to America for ‘A Killer called Honey Bun’ (illustrated by Irv Novick & Jack Abel): another tale of intolerance and misunderstood kids, played against a backdrop of espionage in Middle America, and featuring a deadly prototype robotic superweapon in the menacing title role…

TT #9’s ‘Big Beach Rumble’ finds the Titans refereeing a swiftly-escalating vendetta between rival colleges on holiday when modern day pirates led by the barbarous Captain Tiger crash the scene. Novick pencilled it and Cardy’s inking made it all very palatable in a light and uncomplicated way. Editor George Kashdan clearly concurred as the art teem continued for the next few issues, beginning with ‘Scramble at Wildcat’: a rowdy crime caper featuring dirt-bikes and desert ghost-towns, with skeevy biker The Scorcher profiting from a pernicious robbery spree…

Wrapping up this first outing, Speedy returned in #11’s spy-thriller ‘Monster Bait’, with the young heroes going undercover to save a boy being blackmailed into betraying his father and his country…

Although dated in delivery now, these tales were an incomprehensibly liberating experience for kids when first released. They betokened a new empathy with increasingly independent youth and sought to address problems that were more relevant to and generated by that specific audience. That they are so captivating in execution is a wonderful bonus. This is absolute escapism and absolutely delightful and you absolutely should get this book.
© 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Harley Quinn: A Rogue’s Gallery – The Deluxe Cover Art Collection


By Bruce Timm, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Amanda Connor & Paul Mounts, Tim Sale, Jim Lee, Frank Cho, Alex Ross and many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7423-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Comic books aren’t just stories. So often the cover is as important and thrilling as the contents – if not more so. Let’s face it; we’ve all gone for something for its appearance only to be disappointed by its interior. So it’s a relief and a delight to thoroughly recommend a comic cover-art compilation where the visuals are as extraordinary as the material they were promoting.

Harley Quinn was never supposed to be a star – or even actual comics character. As soon became apparent, however, the manic minx always has her own astoundingly askew and off-kilter ideas on the matter – and any other topic you could name: ethics, friendship, ordnance, coffee, cuddle bunnies…

Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough television cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iteration, consequently leading to some of the absolute best comic book tales in the Dark Knight’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a universally accessible, thematically memorable form even the youngest of readers could enjoy, whilst adding exuberance and panache that only the most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…

Harley was initially the Clown Prince of Crime’s self-destructive, slavishly adoring, extreme abuse-enduring assistant, as seen in “Joker’s Favor” (airing September 11th 1992). She instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers and began popping up in the incredibly successful licensed comic book. Always stealing the show, Harley soon graduated into mainstream DC continuity. Along the circuitous way, Quinn – AKA Dr. Harleen Quinzel – developed a support network of sorts in living bioweapon Poison Ivy and a bizarre love/hate relationship with some of Gotham’s other female felons…

After a brief period bopping around the DCU, she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint major makeover: subsequently appearing all over comics as cornerstone of a new iteration of the Suicide Squad, in those aforementioned movies and her own adult-oriented animation series. At heart, however, she’s always been a comic glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…

Harley Quinn: A Rogue’s Gallery – The Deluxe Cover Art Collection is a giant collection of some of the best comic covers from her first quarter century of existence spanning her first print appearance in Batman Adventures #12 (1993) to 2017: charting her progress from frolicsome cartoon felon to comic book big draw, movie magnate and all around gay icon.

Of course, you could just take my word for it and accept there are gathered here 170 fabulous eye-grabbing images (plus a few bonus sketches and such) by 92 stellar artists – mostly stripped of verbal clutter and text livery – but I suspect many will also study the huge shopping lists of names and numbers assembled below.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THEM – they are for obsessive completists like me, okay?

If you’re still here and not off shopping now, what’s here are the covers from Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, Batman Adventures #12; Gotham Adventures #12;  Batman: Harley Quinn #1;  Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam #1; Harley Quinn #1, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, 19, 38; Batman Adventures #3, 16; Gotham Girls #3; Harley and Ivy#1-3; Detective Comics #831, 837; Batman #613; Joker’s Asylum II: Harley Quinn #1; Gotham City Sirens #1, 5, 15, 20; Gotham City Sirens Book II; Suicide Squad #1, 6, 7, 14, 15, 21; Detective Comics volume 2 #23.2, 39; Harley Quinn volume 2 #0-3, 6-9, 11-13, 15-19, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30; Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con International: San Diego #1; Harley Quinn Holiday Special #1; Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day Special #1; Secret Six #5; Action Comics volume 2 #39; Aquaman volume 2 #39; Batgirl volume 4 #39; Batman volume 2 #39; Batman and Robin volume 2 #39; Batman/Superman #19; Catwoman volume 4 #39; The Flash volume 4 #39, 47; Grayson #7; Green Lantern volume 5 #39, 47; Green Lantern Corps volume 3 #39; Justice League volume 2 #39, 47; Justice League Dark volume 1 #39; Justice League United #9; Sinestro #10; Supergirl volume 6 #39; Superman volume 3 #39, 47, Superman/Wonder Woman #19; Teen Titans volume 4 #7; Wonder Woman volume 4 #39, 47; New Suicide Squad #4, 22; Green Arrow volume 5 #47; Justice League of America volume 3 #6; Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad: April Fool’s Special #1; Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad: April Fool’s Special #1; Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #1; DC Comics Bombshells #27, 32; Harley Quinn volume 4 #1, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13, 17-19, 21, 22; Harley’s Greatest Hits; Harley Quinn Volume 1: Die Laughing; Justice League Vs Suicide Squad #1, 3; Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1 and Suicide Squad volume 7 #1-2, 4, 8, 13, 16, 20.

These are chronologically delivered, fully listed and accredited on the contents pages, so I’m also going to list the creators in case someone’s a particular favourite. Represented here by single images or many bites of the cheery cherry are Bruce Timm, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett, Alex Ross, Shane Glines, Joe Chiodo, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson, Tim Sale, Scott Morse, Kelsey Shannon, Simone Biachi, Jim Lee & Scott Williams, Claudio Castellini, Guillem March, Ryan Benjamin, Paul Renaud, Ivan Reis, Eber Ferreira & Rod Reis, Greg Capullo & FCO Plascencia, Ken Lashley & Matt Yackley, Jason Pearson, Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn, Amanda Connor & Paul Mounts, Dave Johnson, Alex Sinclair, Stephane Roux, Adam Hughes, Clay Mann, Tommy Lee Edwards, Mike Allred & Laura Allred, Ant Lucia, Darwin Cooke, Dan Panosian, Eduardo Risso, Ben Caldwell, Emanuela Lupacchino & Tomeu Morey, Chad Hardin, Neal Adams, Ryan Sook, Jeromy Cox, John Timms, Nicola Scott, Danny Miki, Cliff Chiang, Jill Thompson, J.G. Jones, Jim Balent, Mike McKone & Dave McCaig, Marco D’Alfonso, Dustin Nguyen, Joe Quinones, Mikel Janin, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, Joe Benitez, Peter Steigerwald, Francis Manapul, Sean Galloway, Phil Jimenez & Hi-Fi, Jeremy Roberts, Juan Ferreyra, Brennan Wagner, Joe Madureira, Nei Ruffino, Lee Bermejo, Frank Cho, Mirka Andolfo, Joseph Michael Linsner, Minjue Helen Chen, Tony S. Daniel, Jason Fabok, Babs Tarr, Rafael Albuquerque, Yanick Paquette, Paul Pope & Lovern Kindzierski, Tyler Kirkham, Jae Lee & June Chung, Ed Benes & Dinei Ribeiro, Aaron Lopresti, Tom Raney & Gina Going, Khary Randoph & Emilio Lopez, Michael Turner, Carlos D’Anda, Laura Martin, Sabine Rich, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Witter, Dawn McTeigue, Jonboy Myers, Sunny Gho, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion, Paul Pelletier & Sandra Hope, Joshua Middleton. Liam Sharp, Billy Tucci, John Romita Jr & Dean White, and Otto Schmidt.

This collection is exciting, lovely to look upon, deliriously daft, happily hilarious and will provide hours of delighted deliberation as we all dip in, reminisce and ultimately disagree on what should and shouldn’t be included. Enjoy, Art-lovers, Bat-Fans and proud Harley-queens!

If you are utterly absorbed and crave still more, you might want to also see companion volume The Art of Harley Quinn by Andrew Farago.
© 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.