Category: Superman

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Green Lantern Sector 2814 volume 2


By Len Wein, Paul Kupperberg, Steven Englehart, Dave Gibbons, Bill Willingham, Joe Staton, Bruce Patterson, Mark Farmer, Rich Rankin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4078-3 (TPB), 978-1-4012-4812-3 Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

When mortally wounded alien cop Abin Sur crashed on Earth, he commanded his power ring – a device which could materialise thoughts – to seek out a replacement officer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet, it selected brash young test pilot Hal Jordan in nearby Coast City, California and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien then bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his professional vocation to the astonished Earthman.

Over many traumatic wonder-packed years, Jordan grew into one of the greatest members of a serried band of indomitable law-enforcers. The Green Lantern Corps protected the cosmos from evil and disaster for billions of years, policing vast numbers of sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal superbeings who appointed and considered themselves Guardians of the Universe. These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races to evolve and dwelt in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

Green Lanterns are chosen for their capacity to overcome fear and are equipped with a ring that creates solid constructs out of emerald light and offers other informational, procedural defensive, communicative and administrative facilities. The miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of the user’s willpower, making it one of the mightiest tools imaginable.

For eons, a single individual from each of 3600 arbitrary sub-divisions – “sectors” – of known space was selected to patrol his, her or its own beat, but being cautious, methodical and meticulous masters, the Guardians laid contingency plans, such as appointing designated reserve officers.

Jordan’s substitute was a nice quiet (white) PE teacher named Guy Gardner, but when he was critically injured the Oans’ fallback option was a little worrying to staid, by-the-book Hal. In Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87 (December 1971/January 1972) ‘Beware My Power!’ a bold, new and painfully contemporaneous character was introduced to the DCU. Back then John Stewart was an unemployed architect and full-time radical activist: an angry black man always spoiling for a fight and prepared to take guff from no-one.

Jordan was convinced the Guardians had grievously erred when selecting rash, impetuous Stewart as Sector 2814’s official GL stand-in, but after seeing how his proposed pinch-hitter handled a white supremacist US presidential candidate trying to foment race war, the established and entrenched Emerald Gladiator was delighted to change his tune…

As time progressed Stewart popped up occasionally, even as the Guardians’ motives and ineffability increasingly came into question from many of their once-devoted operatives and peacekeepers. All too frequently, the grunts saw their formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, ruthless, doctrinaire and even capricious…

As his repute grew, headstrong Hal enjoyed an extremely tempestuous relationship with his bosses which eventually resulted in them accusing him of neglecting his space sector – 2814 – to concentrate on Earth’s problems and criminals. When he couldn’t reconcile his love for Carol Ferris and duty to the Corps, Jordan quit…

This second stellar Fight’s ‘n’ Tights compilation gathers Green Lantern #182-183 and 185-193, comprising cover-dates November 1984 through October 1985: a period of radical change and increasing cosmic calamity as the DCU counted inexorably down to a reality-altering Crisis on Infinite Earths…

Without preamble, Len Wein, Dave Gibbons & Mark Farmer continue their groundbreaking reshaping of the legend in ‘It’s a Dirty Job, But…’ wherein the now merely mortal Jordan second-guesses his decision as he revisits Abin Sur’s remote resting place. Meanwhile, across the universe, the Guardians moved swiftly, promoting Stewart to the peacekeeping position in his sector. At this time, the architect is working on rebuilding the shattered Ferris Aircraft complex (a regular collateral casualty of Green Lantern’s complex lifestyle) and had no idea that Hal Jordan was the alter ego of his abruptly “retired” predecessor, nor that GL Jordan’s old enemy Major Disaster had returned and was looking for a fight…

Further complicating matters, Dr. Bruce Gordon – currently employed building a solar engine for Ferris – was being stalked and harassed by his own inner demon made manifest. Before Green Lantern Jordan had helped cure him, Gordon was the unwilling host to a demonic hate-filled energy spirit called Eclipso. Now, that monster was apparently back and seeking to steal the almost-completed solar engine for his own dark designs…

Calamitously, when Major Disaster furiously threatens to destroy a massive hydroelectric dam and flood the entire state, the Emerald Gladiator he stridently demands a rematch with is not the one who turns up…

Refusing to accept any substitute, the madman tectonically triggers a ‘Day of Disaster’… and learns to his sorrow that the masked black man is every inch as competent and formidable as his despised archfoe.

Green Lantern #184 reprinted the origin of Guy Gardner from #59 (1968) and was omitted from this collection but Wein & Gibbons (inking himself) return for #185 as ‘In Blackest Day…!’ sees the new ringbearer for Sector 2814 fully acclimate to his responsibilities. An overnight celebrity and media sensation, Stewart is courted by TV reporter Tawny Young but earns her enmity after refusing to divulge the circumstances of his origin and promotion.

On a more mundane level, Hal still frets over his decision and loss of power, even as his supposedly free-&-clear romance with Carol hits a new snag. Unknown to either of them, she has acquired a super-powered stalker determined to protect her from anything he perceives as a threat…

With Eclipso still secretly beleaguering Gordon, Hal prepares to test-fly the prototype Ferris solar jet, but is ambushed by his old pal and mentor Rich Davis. That medically-disqualified pilot wants one last flight of glory and takes Hal’s place, only to become a hostage when Eclipso snatches the jet out of the sky from his fantastic landscape-rending moon satellite…

‘In Brightest Night…!’ Wein & Gibbons (with plotting input from Paul Kupperberg) sees the new GL rush to the rescue as Hal can only look on helplessly. Then, Carol’s mystery suitor The Predator also boards the moon globe and the situation flares beyond control, resulting in victory at a terrible cost…

Kupperberg, Bill Willingham & Rich Rankin provide a rapid fill-in for #187 (April 1985) as ‘A Day in His Life…’ finds Carol confronted by the Predator who declares his amorous intentions by beating up her current boyfriend Hal, even as John Stewart tackles his first space catastrophe and narrowly escapes destroying the malfunctioning space shuttle he was trying to save. Thankfully, the all-wise Guardians have anticipated teething troubles and despatched veteran GL Katma Tui be his training officer…

The next issue heralded a changing of the guard as writer Steve Englehart and illustrators Joe Staton & Bruce Patterson signed on with ‘Decent Exposure’, wherein Tawny Young outs Stewart on national TV, and he – after some early frustration – decides “so what?”

With Predator proving to be far more than a mere abusive, controlling maniac, proud but pounded Hal swears revenge, even as European ultra-nationalist Sonar returns to destroy the new Green Lantern in his obsessive campaign to prove the superiority of his postage-stamp principality Modora…

After Stewart proves his worth with a uniquely elegant solution to the villain’s sound weapons, ‘Echoes!’ sees Sonar bounce back, escaping from custody with enhanced allies Blindside & Throttle, despite the assistance of Katma Tui. Hal and Carol’s search for Predator lead them to a much-delayed visit with practically-braindead shut-in Guy Gardner, which inadvertently starts those long-dormant cogs clicking again…

Even as Stewart at last apprehends his fugitive foes, a new crisis breaks. ‘Time Out of Mind!’ starts with Tawny Young re-entering the picture, touting years-old video-tape interviews she carried out with Green Arrow, Black Canary, the previous GL, Carol and Stewart himself. Disturbingly, nobody on Earth remembers these meetings and if the journalist hadn’t been raiding the archives, never would have…

As she shows the tapes to the astounded superheroes, Predator nonchalantly ambles in to steal the records and is stunned to realise that the gimmick he’s used to make everyone unable to see him doesn’t work on alien Katma…

A back-up tale – ‘Mind Out of Time!’ – focuses on Hal’s hunt for Predator and furious confrontation in a theatre in front of a bizarre alien musical organ. That preliminary bout becomes the main event in GL #191 as ‘Macho!’ sends John & Katma off-earth to work with Dalor of Timron – Green Lantern of neighbouring Sector 2813 – whilst Hal’s final confrontation with Predator reveals an uncanny, impossible connection to Carol which revives her own darkest and most suppressed secret…

Green Lantern #192 sees the separate storylines converge in ‘First Star I See Tonight!’ with the off-world Emerald officers tackling the immortal amazon warriors of Zamaron, whilst on Earth, Carol reverts to sometime-alter ego Star Sapphire, a murderous monster now finally purged of the annoying, pitiful humanity that held her back from operating as the dominating tyrant and chosen queen of those self-same Zamarons…

Utterly dominating powerless Hal, she reveals the decades-long machinations that have led to this moment of terrible triumph… before teleporting home where three furious Green Lanterns are waiting…

This volume concludes with the return of another Hal villain in ‘Dead Ringer’, but where Jordan defeated the tragic alien Replikon through brute force and guile, Stewart proves his worth through innovation and compassion: building a solution which makes friend out of foe and corrects a grave cosmic injustice…

Way back then, many fans and critics felt the substitution of Jordan with John Stewart was little more than a PC stunt, but time and the quality of the stories proved the decision to be a brilliant one. It certainly offered a cruelly under-served portion of the readership another solid role model, but as time progressed and the different personalities and approaches coalesced, the move led to a huge expansion and re-evaluation the nature of being a DC hero.

And the best was still to come…
© 1984, 1985, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Deadman: Book Three


By Cary Bates, Gerry Conway, Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, Paul Levitz, Martin Pasko, Dick Dillin, Jim Aparo, Fred Carillo, Mike Grell, Kurt Scaffenberger, Romeo Tanghal, Tex Blaisdell, Vince Colletta, Dick Giordano, Bob Layton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3728-8 (TPB), 978-1-4012-4198-8 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Deadman debuted in Strange Adventures #205 cover-dated October 1967 and on sale from August 29th. He heralded a new kind of superhero comic at a time when costumed crusaders were in their second decline in 20 years, and edgy if not actually scary supernatural stories were increasingly attracting the attention of the entire world.

In his wake TV introduced Dark Shadows, sci fi anthologies Outer Limits and Twilight Zone segued into Rod Serling’s Night Gallery whilst movies like Rosemary’s Baby revolutionised scary cinema. In literature, a revival of Gothic romance set pulses racing and hearts fluttering once more. However, in many ways it was business as usual as horror stories had been a top seller since books began and plays, comics, radio, and TV since its earliest incarnations had dwelt heavily upon tales of the unknown…

As the 1960s ended, its colossal superhero boom became a slow but certain bust, with formerly major successes no longer able to find enough readers to keep them alive. The appetite for costumed clowns was paling in favour of a resurgence of more traditional genres, and one rational editorial response was to reshape comic characters to fit evolving contemporary tastes.

Publishers swiftly changed gears and even staid, cautious DC reacted rapidly, making masked heroes fit the new landscape. Newly revised and revived costumed features included roving mystic troubleshooter The Phantom Stranger and golden age colossus The Spectre, whilst resurgent traditional genres spawned atrocity-faced WWII spy Unknown Soldier and cowboy bounty hunter Jonah Hex, spectral western avenger El Diablo and game-changing monster hero Swamp Thing, spearheading a wave of new formats, anthologies and concepts.

Moreover, supernatural themes and horror-tinged plots were shoehorned into those superhero titles that weathered the trend-storm. Arguably, the moment of surrender and change had already arrived with the creation of Boston Brand in the autumn of 1967, when venerable science fiction anthology Strange Adventures was abruptly retooled as the haunted home of an angry ghost…

This third Deadman collection (of five) again proves that changing times and tastes demand different heroes, with pertinent material from World’s Finest Comics #223 & 227: The Phantom Stranger #33, 39-41; Brave and the Bold #133, Superman Family #183 and DC Super-Stars #18, cumulatively spanning cover-dates May/June 1974 to Winter 1978, and confirming that as tastes vacillate, the valiant dead can keep on going simply by changing a bit of perspective…

High wire acrobat Boston Brand was a rough, tough, jaded performer who had seen everything and masked his decent human heart behind an obnoxious exterior and cynical demeanour. As “Deadman”, Brand had been the star attraction of Hills Circus and lover of its reluctant owner Lorna Carling. He also acted as a secret guardian for the misfits it employed and sheltered. One fateful night, Brand almost missed his cue because he had to stop a local cop harassing circus mystic Vashnu. It would have better if Brand had been late, because as soon as he started his act – 40 feet up and without a net – someone put a rifle slug into his heart. Despite being dead before he hit the ground, Brand was scared and furious. Nobody could see or hear him screaming, and Vashnu kept babbling on that he was the chosen of Rama Kushna – “the spirit of the universe”. The hokum all proved horribly true when that entity astonishingly made contact, telling Boston that he would walk among men until he found his killer.

The gig came with some advantages. He was invisible, untouchable, immune to physical laws and able to take possession of the living and drive them like meat cars. His only clue was witnesses in the audience who claimed that a man with a hook had shot him…

Brand’s hunt brought him into contact with killer mystic The Sensei – a master murderer who has dealt with ghosts before – and helplessly, frustratingly, experienced the end of the Hook. When the Sensei executed Boston’s quarry, Rama Kushna asked if a balance has been struck and capitalised on Brand’s furious negative response. Brand demanded true justice for everyone and inadvertently elected himself the agent of its enactment…

The search had brought him into contact with Batman (and other superheroes) and together they saved a Tibetan spiritual paradise on Earth. Sensei’s League of Assassins deemed benevolent Shangri La Nanda Parbat bad for the business of murder, and Deadman’s efforts to save the city from invasion were coloured by the fact that within its boundaries he becomes a living, breathing person again…

By the time of this outing, and thanks to a rapprochement with his aerialist twin brother Cleveland Brand, Deadman has found his killer, but only uncovered infinitely more injustice and innate rottenness at the heart of the world. Now he roams aimlessly, despondent and nearly mad…

Opening in World’s Finest Comics #223, Superman & Batman recruit Brand to help in their search for a serial killer. Shocks abound when all evidence points to the culprit being the brain-damaged, secretly institutionalised, unsuspected older brother of Bruce Wayne! When the whole truth emerges in ‘Wipe the Blood Off My Name’ (Bob Haney, Dick Dillin & Vince Colletta), the lonely, isolated ghost goes off the rails and decides to keep on possessing mentally vacant Thomas Wayne Jr.

Batman has other ideas though…

Apparently ignoring these events, Deadman then clashes with The Phantom Stranger (#33, November 1974 by Drake & Mike Grell) during the Man with No Name’s war against spiritual mad scientist Dr Zorn. In ‘Deadman’s Bluff!’, the ghost’s protracted, and apparently obsessively pointless hunt for his own murderer is exploited by the villain. As ever, the chase ends in frustration and fury for Boston, even though Zorn fails to spark war between the ethereal avengers, and instead causes an antagonistic partnership to be formed between them. After months of relentless manhunting, Batman’s search for Thomas Wayne culminates in ‘Death Flaunts its Golden Grin’ (WFC #227, February 1975 by Haney, Dillin & Tex Blaisdell), as the caped crusaders accidentally find the fugitives whilst tracking global smugglers. That moment of triumph is brief and ends in tragedy for all concerned, after which the guy in the hat gets reacquainted with the spectre in skin-tights for Phantom Stranger #39’s ‘Death Calls Twice for a Deadman’: a last-ditch effort to revive dwindling sales as horror stories faced their own decline.

Guest-starring The Sensei, it signalled a belated return to the company’s over-arching continuity, but was too little, too late. Deadman similarly co-starred in PS #40’s ‘In the Kingdom of the Blind’ and #41’s concluding chapter ‘A Time for Endings’(February-March 1976 and both by Paul Levitz & Fred Carillo). Now modern mage Dr Nathan Seine sought to bring Elder Gods to Earth using blind psychic Cassandra Craft as a medium…

With that tale’s finish, his series ended and the Phantom Stranger all-but-vanished until the winter of 1978 and a giant-sized Deadman team-up tale from DC Super-Stars #18 that is happily forthcoming.

First, though, Deadman – by Haney & Jim Aparo – remanifests in Brave and the Bold #133 to deliver ‘Another Kind of Justice!’ to aging rum-runner Turk Bannion when his heir and murderer turns to a more modern form of smuggling with Dark Knight & Wandering Wraith objecting. Uncanny events hit a lighter note next as Cary Bates, Kurt Schaffenberger & Colletta explore inexplicable somnolent excursions on ‘The Day Lois Lane Walked All Over Superman!’ (Superman Family #183, May June 1977). Here, though, Brand invisibly aids all concerned as a monomaniacal psychic messes with mind-control and body-borrowing…

Closing this grimoire of the dead-&-gone is that epic clash from DC Super-Stars #18. Concocted by Gerry Conway, Marty Pasko, Romeo Tanghal, Dick Giordano & Bob Layton, ‘Phantom Stranger and Deadman’ was an extended Halloween extravaganza seeing the moribund supernatural champions – with venerable vintage ghost-breaker Dr. Terrence Thirteen and necromantic nemesis Tala, Goddess of Evil in attendance – attempting to eradicate an infestation of demons lethally infiltrating the comic book Mecca of the season: Rutland, Vermont (long associated in both Marvel and DC titles as the only place to be on the Eve of All Hallows). The war was for humanity’s survival and no-one escaped unscathed…

With covers by Aparo & Neal Adams, this graphic grimoire perfectly captures the echoes of an era in transition through a delirious run of comics classics no ardent art lover or fanatical fear aficionado can do without.
© 1964, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen


By Otto Binder, Alvin Schwartz, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, Leo Dorfman, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Curt Swan, John Forte, Kurt Schaffenberger, Pete Costanza, Ray Burnley, Creig Flessel, Stan Kaye, George Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1369-5 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Over nearly nine decades, Superman has provided excitement, imagination and fun in more or less equal amounts; albeit admittedly not so much of that last one in recent times! This lost and longed for compilation relies heavily on the last two categories and offers the kind of reading experience we just don’t get enough of these days…

Although unnamed, a red-headed, be-freckled plucky kid worked alongside Clark Kent and Lois Lane from Action Comics #6 (cover-dated November 1938 and on sale from September 26th). He was called by his first name from Superman #13 (November-December 1941) onwards, but only after unlikely input from an even more ubiquitous mass entertainment. That lad was James Bartholemew AKA “Jimmy” Olsen who was a major player in The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940; somebody for the hero to explain stuff to for the listener’s benefit, and the closest thing to a sidekick the Man of Tomorrow ever needed.

When the similarly titled TV show launched in the Fall of 1952 it became a monolithic hit and National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their valuable and precious franchise with new characters and titles. First up were gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of a rash, capable but naïve photographer and “cub reporter” from the Daily Planet and titular star of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which launched in 1954 with a September/October cover date. The title was popular for over two decades, blending action, adventure, broad, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gentle manner initial scripter Otto Binder had perfected a decade previously at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Captain Marvel. As the feature progressed, one of the most popular plot-themes (and most fondly remembered and referenced today by most Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his friends.

The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen gathers some of the very best and most iconic tales from the series; as they originally appeared in issues #22, 28, 31-33, 41-42, 44, 49, 53, 59, 65, 72, 77, 80, 85 & 105 of the weirdly popular comic book, plus the lead story from giant-size anthology Superman Family #173, into which SPJO evolved when times got tough for Superhero publishers in the 1970s.

The spellbinding wonderment opens with a selection of beautifully reconfigured covers (from #22, 44, 59 & 105) acting as contents/credit pages, after which the stories commence with Binder, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley’s ‘The Super-Brain of Jimmy Olsen’ wherein resident crackpot inventor Professor Phineas Potter evolves the boy of today into a man from 1,000,000AD. This apparently benevolent being seems to have a hidden agenda, however, and is even capable of bending the Man of Steel to his towering will…

The same creative team crafted ‘The Human Skyscraper’, with another Potter production enlarging Jimmy to monumental size, whilst in ‘The E-L-A-S-T-I-C Lad’ Superman is inadvertently responsible for the boy reporter gaining stretching powers after leaving a chest of alien artefacts with the nosy, accident-prone kid…

Alvin Schwartz, Swan & Burnley’s ‘The Jimmy Olsen from Jupiter’ then sees aliens mutate him into one of their scaly selves, complete with mind reading powers, before Binder’s ‘The Human Flame-Thrower!’ depicts how Potter’s latest experiment causes the worst case of high-octane halitosis in history, after which Robert Bernstein, Swan & John Forte highlight the lad’s negligent idiocy as Jimmy eats alien fruit and becomes ‘The Human Octopus!’

Creig Flessel inked the hilariously ingenious ‘Jimmy the Genie!’ in which boy and magical sprite exchange roles, prior to Binder, Swan & Stan Kaye delivering a gleeful masterpiece. ‘The Wolf-Man of Metropolis!’ is a beloved, oft-reprinted classic blending horror, mystery, romance and heart-warming charm into a cautionary tale impossible to ignore or forget.

Next, Professor Potter is blamed for – but entirely innocent of – turning Jimmy into ‘The Fat Boy of Metropolis!’ – a nonsensical but clever crime caper from Swan & Forte – whilst sheer mischance results in scripter Jerry Siegel’s now-legendary if not culturally significant saga of ‘The Giant Turtle Man!’ and his oddly casualty-free rampage…

Leo Dorfman, Swan & George Klein then contribute a sparkling tale of alien love gone amiss, which results in our boy temporarily becoming ‘Jimmy Olsen, Freak!’, a frequent consequence of Jimmy’s remarkable love life. Thanks to Siegel, Swan & Klein, when Jimmy spurns amorous attentions of surrealistic Fifth Dimensional hottie Miss Gzptlsnz, she quite understandably turns him into ‘The Human Porcupine’ in a wild and possibly thematically influential precursor to vengeance sagas like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct or What’s Opera, Doc? The self-same creators also crafted intriguing enigma ‘The World of Doomed Olsens!’ wherein the Olsen boy is aggressively confronted by manifestations of his most memorable metamorphoses… a dilemma that was nothing like what it seemed…

‘The Colossus of Metropolis!’ finds Jimmy deliberately and daringly grown to giant size to tackle rampaging Super-Ape Titano before Siegel, Forte & Klein’s ‘Jimmy Olsen, the Bizarro Boy!’ poses a parlous comedy of errors with Potter’s cure for those backwards-living un-beings going painfully awry, resulting in the poor warped lad being ‘Exiled on the Bizarro World!’ The immensely popular Legion of Super-Heroes guest-star in many of these tales and play a pivotal part in ‘The Adventures of Chameleon-Head Olsen!’, a madcap mirth spree as only Siegel, Forte & Klein could make ’em, whilst the far more menacing account of ‘The World of 1,000 Olsens! (Binder, E. Nelson Bridwell & Pete Costanza) was a product of changing times and darker tastes; with an actual archenemy trapping Jimmy on a murderous alien world where everybody looks like yet hates the cub reporter…

This fabulously strange and cruelly out of print brew concludes with a smart thriller set in the Bottled City of Kandor where Jimmy resumes occasional costumed-hero identity Flamebird beside Superman (AKA the original Nightwing), hoping to save the last of Kryptonian civilisation from the ‘Menace of the Micro-Monster!’ This sharp terrorism-tinged action-shocker by Cary Bates & Kurt Schaffenberger satisfyingly closes a magically engaging tome by proving that even the silliest ass can sometimes be the hero and not the goat…

As well as reliving some of the most delightful episodes of DC’s pre-angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic days, these stories also perfectly frame the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry: keep them entertained and keep them wanting more.

I know I certainly do…
© 1957-1965, 1967, 1975, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest Green Lantern (volume 3) – Hard-Travelling Heroes


By Denny O’Neil, Gardner F. Fox, John Broome, Mike Friedrich, Bob Haney, Gil Kane, Jack Sparling, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene, Dick Dillin, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson, Wallace Wood, Vince Colletta, Bernie Wrightson, John Costanza, Joe Letterese, Ben Oda & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79951-027-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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 genre-versatile 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 but strictly non-digital assemblage gathers Green Lantern #62-82 (July 1968-March 1971) including contemporaneous guest appearances in The Flash #191 and World’s Finest Comics #201. These all follow neatly on from GL’s previous DC Finest compilation, so you should get that too. It has no bearing on your understanding, as these are deftly designed to be read fresh at any stage of your fandom-hood, but they are really good too and I wouldn’t want you to miss out…

At the time this selection of stories began, DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (which in comic book terms meant younger writers) being given greater headway than ever before, an influx of new kids unseen since the very start of the industry, when excitable young artists and writers ran wild with imagination.

However Green Lantern #62 had veteran scribe Gardner Fox providing clever scientific mystery/crime caper ‘Steal Small… Rob Big!’ for Jack Sparling & Sid Greene to limn before Denny O’Neil’s metaphysical, history-warping thriller ‘This is the Way… the World… Ends!’ in #63 sees Hal apparently hallucinating as the Guardians of the Universe seek to support his battle against time-warping despot Gracchus by acting though his so-human subconscious…

Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella illustrated O’Neil’s ‘Death to Green Lantern’ wherein a long-forgotten minor foe almost destroys the Green Guardian’s reputation before ending his life… Social historians might want to note the early inclusion of benevolent and necessary (as well as favourably depicted and written) hippie flower children acting as more than mere comedic asides: Those times they really were a-changin’…

A return to straight superhero drama comes as Fox, Sekowsky & Giella’s deliver doomsday eco-thriller ‘Dry Up… and Die!’ which apparently ends the criminal career of Doctor Polaris before Broome takes GL back to the future for another planet-saving sci-fi romp in #66’s ‘5708 AD… A Nice Year to Visit – But I Wouldn’t Want to Live Then!’

GL #67 offered two shorter tales, the first of which – ‘Green Lantern Does his Ring Thing!’ by Fox, Dick Dillin & Giella – is a delightful old-school conundrum as old foe Bill Baggett again wrests mental control of the ring away from the Emerald Gladiator whilst ‘The First Green Lantern!’ (Fox & Greene) reveals how the Corps began in the first (and only, I think) of a projected series: Tales of the Power Ring.

Contemporary space opera was the order of the day in intriguing action thriller ‘I Wonder Where the Yellow Went!’ by O’Neil and featuring the wonderfully welcome return of a rejuvenated Gil Kane, aided and abetted by Giella. Kane’s last efforts of the decade on the hero he visually created was to be an eye-popping run of beautiful, dynamic classics, and none more so than the youth-rebellion parable ‘If Earth Fails the Test… it Means War!’, cleverly scripted by Broome and inked by the incomparable Wally Wood.

Vince Colletta inked the less impressive Broome & Kane space spoof ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Earth’, but honour and quality are restored with Broome, Kane & Giella’s tense countdown-to-disaster conundrum ‘The City that Died!’: one of two tales in #71, and one that reintroduced Olivia Reynolds: a potential love interest for Hal whose subconscious mind is a planet-shattering energy source. The second story was another jolly Jordan Brothers yarn by Broome, Dillin & Murphy Anderson, but ‘Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!’ is a regrettably old-fashioned tale of a grifting hippie way out of tune with readers’ sensibilities… and that’s a shame because it is quite funny.

The annual traditional of an Emerald Gladiator/Scarlet Speedster team-up appears next as The Flash #191 hosts the heroes’ perplexing quest to unite and stop another alien catastrophe involving Olivia Reynolds and many marauding robots in Broome, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito’s ‘How to Invade Earth – Without Really Trying!’

Then in Green Lantern #72 O’Neil, Kane & Giella manifest and materialise ‘Phantom of the Space Opera!’ in a visually magical but rather heavy-handed co-opting of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs (a favourite work of music-loving Kane) transposed to deep space. However, this was more than compensated for by the brilliant two-parter that followed. ‘From Space Ye Came…’ in Green Lantern #73, and climactic conclusion ‘Lost in Space!’ by Mike Friedrich, Kane & Anderson sees an unforgettable clash of ultimate enemies as renegade Green Lantern Sinestro makes a brutal attempt on Jordan’s life using his foe’s unrequited love for Carol Ferris as a psychological wedge. However, the alien mastermind was unaware of just how unstable Ferris was in her dual identity of gem-possessed space amazon Star Sapphire…

With #76 Denny O’Neil would become sole scripter and in collaboration with comics genius Neal Adams completely redefine contemporary superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories. First, though, the opening chapter of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern’s chequered career comes to its glorious swan-song with #75 and ‘The Golden Obelisk of Qward!’ Here the Emerald Crusader and a desperate doctor invaded the antimatter universe to save Olivia Reynolds and destroy a weapon capable of demolishing our galaxy. Broome, Kane & Giella went out on a high note, blending modern sensibilities with the plot-driven sense of wonder and high-octane action which made Green Lantern such an astounding hit and the very foundation stone of DC mythology.

In 1969, after nearly a decade of earthly crimebusting, interstellar intrigue and spectacular science fiction shenanigans, the Silver Age Green Lantern was swiftly becoming one of the earliest big-name casualties of the downturn in superhero sales. Editor Schwartz knew something extraordinary was needed to save the series and the result was a bold experiment that created a fad for socially relevant, ecologically aware, more mature stories which spread throughout costumed hero comics and utterly revolutionised the industry and nigh-radicalised the readers.

Tapping relatively youthful superstar-in-waiting O’Neil and with hyper-realistic artist Neal Adams to produce the revolutionary fare, Schwartz watched in fascinated disbelief as 13 groundbreaking issues captured and encapsulated the tone of the times. These garnered critical praise and awards within the industry and crucially valuable publicity from the real world outside. Sadly, the stories simultaneously registered such poor sales that the series was cancelled anyway, with the heroes unceremoniously packed off to the back of marginally less endangered title The Flash. O’ Neil, in tight collaboration with Adams, assaulted all the traditional monoliths of contemporary costumed dramas with tightly targeted, protest-driven stories. The comic book was re-titled Green Lantern/Green Arrow with the Emerald Archer constantly mouthing off as a hot-headed, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis, as staid, conservative, quasi-reactionary Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard.

America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. In comic book terms, everything was challenged and ended with GL/GA #76. Cover-dated April 1970, on sale from February 19th, it was the first issue of the new decade and from the start O’Neil & Adams redefined superheroes; transforming complacent establishment masked boy scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution and enigmatic, apparently self-consuming America.

Inked by Frank Giacoia, ‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ broke the mould of the medium, re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as newly-impoverished ex-millionaire turned social rebel Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen challenges GL’s cosy worldview. The specific villain du jour is a wealthy landlord whose treatment of his poverty-stricken tenants isn’t actually illegal but certainly is wickedly immoral. Soon the lofty space-cop painfully discovers real villains wear business suits, operate expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and can happily poison their own nests for short-term gain.

Of course, that the story is a magnificently illustrated brilliant crime thriller with science-fiction overtones doesn’t hurt either…

O’ Neil became sole scripter with this story and, in close collaboration with socially “involved” ultra-realistic art-genius Adams, instantly overturned contemporary costumed dramas with their societally-targeted protest-stories. At least the “Ring-slinger” was able to perceive his faults, and was more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

Follow-up ‘Journey to Desolation’ in #77 was every bit as groundbreaking.

At the conclusion of #76 an immortal Guardian of the Universe – affectionately known as “the Old Timer” – is assigned to accompany the Emerald Duo on a voyage to “discover America”: a soul-searching exploration into the dichotomies which divided the nation, and a tremendously popular pastime for the nation’s disaffected citizens back then.

The first stop brought the trio to a poverty-stricken mining town run as a private kingdom by a ruthless entrepreneur happy to use agent-provocateurs and Nazi war criminals to keep his wage slaves in line. When a young protest singer looks likely to become the next Bob Dylan and draw unwelcome publicity, he has to be eliminated… as do the three nosy strangers who drive into town at just the wrong moment…

Although the heroes provide temporary solutions and put away viciously human criminals, these tales were always carefully heavy handed in exposing bigger ills and those issues which couldn’t be fixed with a wave of a Green Ring; invoking an aura of helplessness that was metaphorically emphasised during this story when Hal is summarily stripped of much of his power for no longer being the willing, unquestioning stooge of his officious, high-and-mighty alien masters. Even with Jordan off active duty (but still on-call!), his power levels and actions were still arbitrarily controlled by his little blue bosses…

The confused, now merely-mortal Lantern discovers another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ after newly-widowed Black Canary joins the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her stalled relationship with Green Arrow, she is waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Sadly, drop-out Joshua is more Manson than Messiah and his brand of Peace & Love only extends to white people. Everybody else is simply target practise…

The plight of Native Americans was stunningly highlighted in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’, as corporate logging interests attempt to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, again provoking the Green Knights to pick a side and take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help. GL/GA #80 then returns some science fictional gloss in a tale of judicial malfeasance. In ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (inked by Dick Giordano), after the Old Timer uses his powers to save Green Lantern rather than prevent a pollution catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest, he is immediately sanctioned. For his selfish deed he is chastised by his fellow Guardians and dispatched to the planet Gallo for judgement by the supreme arbiters of Law in the universe.

His earth friends accompany him there and find a disturbing new administration with a decidedly off-kilter view of justice in a barbed and telling attack on the then-seen-to-be biased if not corrupt US Supreme Court… same as it ever was…

Adams’ staggering facility for capturing likenesses added extra-piquancy to this yarn that we’re just not equipped to grasp all these decades later, with the usurping, overbearing villain derived from the Judge of the infamous trial of anti-war protesters “The Chicago Eight”

Insight into the Guardians’ history underpins ‘Death Be My Destiny!’ when Lantern, Arrow & Canary travel with the now-sentenced and condemned Old Timer to the ancient planet Maltus (that’s a pun, son: just type Thomas Robert Malthus into your search engine of choice or even look in a book). They arrive on a world literally choking on its own out-of-control population. The uncanny cause of the catastrophe casts an unlovely light on the perceived role and worth of women in modern society…

Penultimately closing on a more traditional note, GL/GA #82 enquired ‘How Do You Fight a Nightmare?’ (with additional inks from Bernie Wrightson) as Lantern Jordan’s greatest foe unleashes Harpies, Alien Amazons and all manner of female furies on the hapless hero before Black Canary & Green Arrow can turn the tide, all whilst asking a few extremely pertinent and extremely pointed questions about women’s rights…

We properly close here with a nifty sidestep into the more cosmic heydays of the hero as World’s Finest Comics #201 (recently converted into a team-up vehicle for Superman), finds Jordan back at full strength and gulled into contesting ‘A Prize of Peril!’ (O’Neil, Dillin & Giella) after clashing with Superman. A close miss in near space prompts a competition to decide whether either Emerald Gladiator or Man of Steel has sole jurisdiction of Earth’s skies; at least that is the ostensible goal, but those adjudicating are not at all what they seem…

Augmented with covers by Kane, Sparling, Adams, Sekowsky, Anderdon, Jack Adler, Jo Kubert, 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 as well as the start of the new world in comics, as a plot-driven plethora of action sagas and masterful thrillers give way to emotive, evocative dramas that literally reshaped the DC Universe. These tales of wit and courage, illustrated with astounding dynamism defined – and marked the end of – the Silver Age of comics and they are still as captivating and engrossing now as they ever were; perhaps even more so. If you love the gloss, scope and glamour of superhero fiction, you will never read better.
© 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Justice League of America – Crisis on Earth X


By Len Wein, Cary Bates, Elliot S! Maggin, Denny O’Neil, Gerry Conway, Martin Pasko, Bob Rozakis, Mark Hanerfeld, Dick Dillin, Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin, Nick Cardy, Mike Grell, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López, Tatjana Wood, Glynis Oliver, Neal Adams, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-883-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Keystone of the contemporary 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 repeatedly 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 and less definable options – in capes and masks were back for good…

When editorial legend 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. Cover-dated March 1960, the JLA debuted in The Brave and the Bold #28, cementing the growth and validity of the revived subgenre, and consequently triggering an explosion of new characters at every company publishing funnybooks before spreading to the rest of the world as the decade progressed.

Spanning cover-dates December 1972 to July 1976, this classic-crammed, full-colour paperback compendium re-presents issues #103-132 of the epochal first series, as a new wave of scripters provided steadfast illustrator Dick Dillin with increasingly challenging concepts he had no trouble bringing to vivid vibrant life. While we’re showing our gratitude, lets also salute stalwart letterer Ben Oda (and occasionally Milt Snappin) for herculean but unsung efforts to make the uncanny and obscure clear to us all, colourists Glynis Oliver, Tatjana Wood and anonymous colleagues as well as cover specialists Nick Cardy, Dick Giordano, Mike Grell, Ernie Chan, José Luis García-López and the others…

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

These yarns begin after a major JLA/JSA team up returned the Golden Age Seven Soldiers of Victory to the expanding continuity. Appetites unsatisfied, the revival and expansion continued by adding more as yet unaffiliated mystery men to the team. Returned to their own planet the Justice League teamed up with and then inducted one of the few heroes who hadn’t accompanied them to Earth-2 in ‘A Stranger Walks Among Us!’ (#103 by Len Wein, Dillin & Giordano) as cross-genre horror hero The Phantom Stranger foils a plot to slaughter six Leaguers during the annual Halloween carnival in Rutland, Vermont, after which Green Lantern’s arch-enemy Hector Hammond orchestrates an attack on his oldest foe by setting an unstoppable monster loose on the team in ‘The Shaggy Man Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!’ The “More-the-Merrier” recruitment drive continued in #105 as Elongated Man signs up to save the day against marauding, malignant putty-men in ‘Specter in the Shadows!’, albeit anonymously aided by a miraculously resurrected robotic Red Tornado who joins the party in #106, unaware that he has been reprogrammed into becoming a ‘Wolf in the Fold! Justice League of America #107’s ‘Crisis on Earth-X’ ( Wein, Dillin & Giordano) was the first chapter of another landmark crossover with their Earth-2 counterparts and antecedents in the JSA.

Following the revival of a forgotten superteam during their previous get-together, this time the annual get-together reintroduced another band of Golden Age warriors (from corporate acquisition Quality Comics) newly redesignated The Freedom Fighters. It began when a recreational trip across the dimensional divide is accidentally sabotaged by android stowaway Red Tornado, depositing Batman, Green Arrow & Elongated Man from Earth-1 and Superman, Sandman & Doctor Fate of Earth-2 into another alternate universe – one where the Nazis had won World War II. Trapped and outnumbered, the seven displaced heroes were rescued by the last liberty-loving champions of a world dominated by fascist super-science and a secret dictator. Joining forces with embattled champions Uncle Sam, The Ray, Doll Man, Phantom Lady, Black Condor & The Human Bomb, the newcomers ended the Nazi threat forever in sinister sequel ‘Thirteen Against the Earth!’…

With everybody returned to their home planes #109 brought back a cultish guest star as ‘The Doom of the Divided Man!’ revived the dormant career of 1960’s hero/villain Eclipso, who attempted another cunning plan to conquer Earth. However, the real focus of this tale was the unexpected resignation of Hawkman following his recall to home planet Thanagar. Wein, Dillin & Giordano then got to deliver a delightful but potent seasonal present in #110 as Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary & Red Tornado had to adapt to abrasive substitute Green Lantern John Stewart. A controversial “angry black man” conceived at a time when non-Caucasian heroes could be counted on the fingers of one hand he turned up mid-mission, just as the League gathered to hunt down ‘The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!’

Murderous psychopath The Key had set up the heroes for ambush and destruction, with the callous assassination of an actor hired to cheer orphaned kids, but his horrific deeper scheme was only foiled thanks to the supernatural intervention of another almost forgotten League member…

For that issue, Bob Rozakis designed a ‘JLA Puzzle’ which follows accompanied by the answer page before JLA #111 introduced a seminal villain who became, decades later, a pivotal player in The Final Crisis. Here however, enigmatic Libra merely uses his incredible abilities to revive the dormant Injustice Gang of the World. Although his stated goal is to imbue Chronos, Mirror Master, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Shadow Thief & Tattooed Man with energies stolen from Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Flash, Elongated Man and fully recovered GL Hal Jordan, the ‘Balance of Power!’ he truly seeks actually entails keeping all the purloined might for his own incomprehensible use…

Those stolen super-powers feature in #112’s follow-up ‘War with the One-Man Justice League!’ as the entire team gather to help restore their diminished comrades. The high risk solution is to resurrect power-stealing android Amazo to collect the stolen energies and abilities… but nobody considers what the mechanoid might do after it absorbs Batman’s vast intellect and suspicious mind…

Justice League of America #113 (September/October 1974) proved how desperate were the times for the spandex set as the epic annual collaboration with the JSA was restricted to a single issue. Nevertheless, ‘The Creature in the Velvet Cage!’ proved to be one of the very best team-up tales ever, as a JLA visiting party to Earth-2 (Batman, Superman, GL Jordan & Elongated Man) share the shame and horror of The Sandman when his greatest, most shameful secret was catastrophically revealed.

Years ago the Master of Dreams had accidentally transformed sidekick Sandy, the Golden Boy into a ravening silicoid monster and been compelled to sedate and imprison his best friend. Now after three decades the beast is awake and free, seemingly intent on destroying the world. At least that’s what Hourman and the Golden Age Flash & Wonder Woman believe when they join their old comrade on his tragic manhunt…

Wein, with the plotting assistance of Mark Hanerfeld, ended his run as scripter with a smart and decidedly effective little thriller in #114:‘The Return of Anakronus!’ During a League-sponsored telethon, an enigmatic time-bending villain takes disgraced JLA team mascot Snapper Carr and his family hostage. Although definitely dangerous, the crazed felon’s ranting doesn’t make much sense: after all, why would a man who claims to have repeatedly defeated the JLA stoop to demanding a mere cash ransom?

The tone turned cosmic in #115 as Denny O’Neil provided a fill-in yarn bringing back retired hero J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars who implores his former allies to save the dying remnants of his people from ‘The Last Angry God!’ who has imprisoned them on a far-distant world. Cary Bates then contributed ‘The Kid Who Won Hawkman’s Wings!’ in #116, as sightings of Hawkman in Midway City lead Elongated Man, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Flash & Batman into a deadly duel against Matter Master. Closer inspection reveals the Pinioned Paladin to be a baffled kid Charley Parker, who has no idea why he suddenly changed into a Golden Eagle, whilst the actual mastermind behind the plot is a shock to all concerned. The tale is followed by another Rozakis ‘JLA Puzzle’ and a picture posing ‘JLA Super-Villain Quiz’…

After just over a year’s absence the true Winged Wonder returned in #117. ‘I Have No Wings and I Must Fly!’ was scripted by Elliot S! Maggin, with Giordano’s protégé Frank McLaughlin assuming regular inking chores over Dillin’s sleek and effective pencils. It saw alien cop Katar Hol resurface to warn Earth of a deadly extraterrestrial menace dubbed The Equalizer. This ineffable terror was driven to achieve pure balance in the universe, and to achieve this he somehow homogenised entire civilisations, making life forms exactly identical to each other. His Equalizer plague weapon was overwhelmingly contagious and – after reducing the population of Thanagar to imbecilic, four-foot tall clones of each other, (including Hol’s beloved wife Shayera) – the unfathomable voyager turned his single eye upon Earth…

With his homeworld quarantined and after defeating the appalling threat as part of the JLA, Hawkman had no other refuge than our planet and promptly joined Aquaman, Black Canary, Flash, Red Tornado & Superman in resisting the ‘Takeover of the Earth-Masters!’ (#118 by Maggin, Dillin & McLaughlin). This revealed a misguided attempt by trans-dimensional beings who sought to save our world from super beings by despatching eerie hyper-evolving Adaptoid organisms. With even the Man of Steel unable to face the ghastly invaders, Hawkman devises a risky strategy involving his Equalization-infected wife, which happily turns out in Humanity’s favour in #119’s concluding clash ‘Winner Takes the Earth!’

Another old friend reappeared in #120 as ‘The Parallel Perils of Adam Strange!’ (written by Bates) sees the Earth-born champion of Planet Rann forced to re-fight his greatest battles after despotic Kanjar Ro murders his beloved Alanna.

Even though Ro has cruelly stacked the deck, Strange and his newly arrived Earth allies triumph before pulling a rabbit out of the hat to restore the Rannian heroine in time for her own magical wedding in blistering conclusion ‘The Hero Who Jinxed the Justice League!’

In #122 Marty Pasko delved into the team’s private lives and revealed why the JLA shared their civilian secrets with each other in ‘The Great Identity Crisis!’ when old foe Dr. Light used photonic super-science and the too-good-to-be-true mineral Amnesium (guess what it causes?) to mess with the heroes’ minds and lure them into what should be inescapable death-traps…

Another year gone, it was time for the annual JLA/JSA yarn and Bates, Maggin, Dillin & McLaughlin stepped far off the reservation with ‘Where on Earth Am I?’ & ‘Avenging Ghosts of the Justice Society!’ from issues #123 & 124. Back in Flash #179 (‘The Flash – Fact of Fiction?, May 1968) Bates & Gardner Fox first took the multiple Earths concept to its illogical conclusion by trapping the Monarch of Motion in “our” Reality (Earth-Prime!) where the Sultan of Speed was just a comic book character. Now and here Bates and co-scripter Maggin return to the conceit as a story conference in editor Julie Schwartz’s office leads to the oafish goons playing with Flash’s hastily-constructed and long abandoned Cosmic Treadmill, before catapulting one of them between dimensions.

Transformed and empowered by the trip, Bates becomes the most dangerous villain alive, leading Earth-2 criminals The Wizard, Shade, Sportsmaster, Huntress, Icicle & The Gambler in a lethal assault on JSA heroes Robin, Hourman, Wildcat, Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder and Dr. Mid-Nite. Maggin has followed his friend but ends up on Earth-1.

Undaunted, he recruits Batman, Black Canary, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow & Flash to save three imperilled universes but it eventually requires the Divine Might of the supernal Spectre to truly set everything and everybody back to their assigned places and times…

Gerry Conway began his long association with the Justice League in #125, in a smart 2-parter concerning dumping of toxic energy from an outer dimension onto Earth. ‘The Men Who Sold Destruction!’ craftily employ schizophrenic villain Two-Face as their wily broker to expend these deadly forces, but the super-minds of Dronndar completely underestimate double-dealing Harvey Dent‘s capacity for betrayal. Almost as bad is the opportunistic action of the Weaponers of Qward, and thus the JLA are easily – but only initially – fooled by the Machiavellian multi-visaged maniac in #126’s Byzantine conclusion ‘The Evil Connection!’

JLA #127 confirmed that ‘The Command is “Chaos!”’ after The Anarchist discovers a way to tap Green Lantern’s power battery and desperate Hal Jordan begs his fellow champions to stop him recharging his ring at any cost, after which Pasko popped back to author a sharp, smart reintroduction for the Earth-1 Amazing Amazon in #128’s ‘Death-Visions of the Justice League!’

For a period “our” Wonder Woman had lost her powers and fought crime as a martial artist, but once her supernatural gifts returned she underwent a self-imposed set of trials before rejoining the team. Sadly her readmission coincided with the team disbanding following a cataclysmic, psychologically punishing assault by alien fear-eater Nekron, and even she seemed unable to galvanise the Leaguers before ‘The Earth Dies Screaming!’in #129.

The next issue explored the revelatory early days of the team’s orbiting satellite HQ as ‘Skyjack at 22,300 Miles!’ (scripted by Pasko) disclosed how an intergalactic interloper attempted to turn the space base into a spawning ground, putting the nonplussed heroes through a gamut of ghastly trials before order and equilibrium were unconventionally restored.

This mammoth tome ends with a clever mystery double-bill from Conway, Dillin & McLaughlin. In #131’s ‘The Beasts Who Thought Like Men!’ a new credit card currency for America somehow enhances the minds of animals and insects, simultaneously decreasing human brainpower to such a low point that bugs can enslave deadly villains like Sonar & Queen Bee. The tale takes a stranger turn in #132 as Superman vanishes and Supergirl steps in to help against animals organised enough to conquer the country. Even then there was still one more tangled twist in the tale of ‘The Beasts Who Fought Like Men!…’

To Be Continued…

The Justice League of America was always the keystone of US comics and these tales are still among the most thought-provoking, controversial and purely entertaining episodes in their six and half decade history. 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.

Come see for yourself…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2026 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1946 cartoonist/scripter/letterer Rick Parker (Beavis and Butt-Head, Deadboy, Tales from the Crypt) was born, with mangaka Yumiko Ōshima (Gū-gū datte Neko de aru, Wata no Kuni Hoshi) arriving one year later and Brazilian Underground Commix exponent Arnaldo Angeli Filho AKA “Angeli” coming on scene in1956 and writer G. Willow Wilson (Air, Invisible Kingdom, Ms. Marvel, Poison Ivy) born in 1982.

Swedish cartoonist turned diplomat Jan Romare (Pyton) died today in 2017, and the day also marks Scott McCloud’s first 24-hour comic in 1990 and DC’s controversial relaunch The New 52 in 2011.

 

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DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die


By Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Curt Swan, Werner Roth, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano Heck, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Kanigher, John Costanza, Ben Oda, Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Marv Wolfman & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: ?978-1-79950-831-1 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Jack Kirby was born today in 1917. This is part one of his absolute greatest work and I’ll happily fight you if you disagree…

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 whole new mythology over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers.

It began in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen where he revived his Golden Age kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introducing large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinting that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections, Kirby moved on to new titles The Forever People, New Gods & Mister Miracle; an interlinked triptych of projected finite length titles that together would form a mosaic of staggering potency and grandeur. The groundbreaking titles introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their eternal conflict spread to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired his contemporaries and successors. The gods of Apokolips and New Genesis became a crucial keystone of unfolding DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe thereafter, surviving numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over the years and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations.

This trade paperback collection reshapes the chronology slightly, rejecting strict release date order for a more syncretic narrative, but does include sidebar material never included in previous collected editions. Here you will see the pertinent contents of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133-139 & #141-143; The Forever People #1-4; Mister Miracle #1-4; The New Gods #1-3, plus relevant (but non-Kirby) material from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111, 114 & 115 and Superman #233, all collectively spanning cover-dates January – November 1971.

After his previous acrimonious departure from National/DC, Kirby had found fresh fields and an equally hungry new partner in Stan Lee at the remnants of ailing Atlas Comics (AKA once-mighty Timely Comics). There he launched and spearheaded a revolution in comics storytelling, but after just over a decade of a continual innovation and wonderment, Jack felt increasingly stifled. His efforts had transformed the dying outfit into industry-leader Marvel, but success had left him trapped in a profitable rut. Thus, he moved back to DC to generate another tidal wave of sheer imagination and pure invention. The result was experimental adult magazines Spirit World & In the Days of the Mob followed by a stunning reworking of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. By the time he had finished, all DC continuity was changed. The latter was a prelude to his landmark Fourth World saga comprising interlinked contemporaneous titles: the very definition of something game-changing and far too far ahead of its time…

Incidentally, on many levels Jimmy Olsen was an ideal match for the King and not an incongruous display of breast-beating or do-or-die audition. Olsen was an idealistic, heroic young man in the thick of the incredible at all times, and Kirby had a long history with such boy heroes. He and Joe Simon had invented the comic book “kid gang” subgenre and for the next two years Kirby revived it with his new take on The Newsboy Legion, albeit interlaced with a future-embracing backstory and aspirational wonder, rather than the poverty, privation and ongoing war of survival embodied by the Forties iteration.

As previously stated, in this tome we don’t start in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum, but long away and far ago as the scene is set by a history lesson from the distant past…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, New Gods #1 opened with an ‘Epilogue’ and closed on a ‘Prologue’ as Kirby & contractually assigned inker Vince Colletta declared ‘Orion Fights for Earth!’ 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 he persevered…

Here we learned that (relatively) soon after creation began, gods were born, lived and died – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods perished in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was sundered. When the chaos cooled, fragments had congealed into two new but lesser planets: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming pristine orb New Genesis. Over millennia, a fresh 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 found 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 ineffable 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 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 personally control everything. Furthermore he’s decided this means possessing 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 onto the dire world against Parademons, Darkseid’s Dog Cavalry and assorted terror weapons, Orion frees the mortals as 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. 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…

The Forever People #1’s ‘In Search of a Dream!’ sees Kirby wonders unfold following a spectacular and contemporarily astute UFO sighting wherein 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 Jimmy’s snapshots of those weird kids offer Superman a glimpse of a place where he can be one guy among equals. Curiosity and a painful need to find the newcomers drive the Man of Steel to find them, and brings him into first known contact with the absolute embodiment of intellectual and philosophical totalitarianism. Darkseid had been infiltrating our world, quietly seeking a unique mind concealing a metaphysical ultimate weapon. The Anti-Life Equation was instant, irresistible negation of free will and with it the right despot would command all that lives. Darkseid’s obsessive search 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 alien-armed racketeers Intergang and saved by her friends Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan & Mark Moonrider. They were all from that promised land Superman had glimpsed and 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 gestalt 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…

After Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were largely sidelined in favour of a tense and relatively isolated new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, whilst the most important component was seeing seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself. With that all going on, next came something utterly unexpected: a non-hero reflecting a changing world, and seeking to ride the turbulent era’s zeitgeist by looking out for himself and breaking loose of expectations and societal shackles…

Cover-dated February/March 1971, the premiere issue of Mister Miracle – Super Escape Artist sprang the last piece of the puzzle on readers, opening with a sedate set of mysteries counterpointed by emotional tension and explosive action. The star – based on Jack & Roz Kirby’s friend (comics genius, magician/escapologist) Jim Steranko – was a fugitive runaway avoiding (perhaps dodging?) his responsibilities and searching for deeper truths. No matter how wild things got, that set-up was pure reportage…

Inked by Colletta ‘Murder Missile Trap!’ introduces aging entertainer Thaddeus Brown, an old war horse trying to get back in the saddle, practicing his old escapology act to win an unwise wager with Metropolis’ Intergang boss Steel Hand. A terrifying test run is interrupted by a young stranger who observes with shock Brown’s apparent suicide and the panic of equally aged assistant Oberon even as he rushes in to help them. That act of getting involved leads to orphan Scott Free inheriting the identity and stage persona of Mister Miracle after Steel Hand cheats and has Thaddeus shot and killed. Angry, intrigued and ready to settle down at last (or for a while at least), the wanderer (who has an astounding carpet bag of high-tech tricks) wins justice for his predecessor by beating a spectacular rocket trap before opting to try something strange but substantial for a change. However, the coils of his past are already preparing to ensnare him…

That premiere issue (and this collection) also offered a text feature by Marvin Wolfman wherein readers could enjoy ‘A Visit With Jack Kirby’ before New Gods #2 confirms that there are no civilians in war in ‘O’ Deadly Darkseid!’ After fighting off a savage ambush on arrival and confronting Darkseid himself, Orion drafts the shaken, rescued human hostages as his point men and intel unit. Private eye Dave Lincoln, secretary Claudia Shane, student Harvey Lockman and aging insurance salesman Victor Lanza are scared but resolved to help their world however possible, even as the dread tyrant reviews 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 to feed off the paralysing horror it generates. However, thanks to sentient miracle computer Mother Box, his innate personal power and the star-shattering Astro-Force he commands, Orion easily wins the initial skirmish…

This scene & agenda setting saga is complemented with Mark Evanier & Steve Sherman’s prose filler ‘To and From The Source’ prior to FP #2 finding our young explorers exuberantly enjoying their dalliance with a primitive culture. The reunited quintet joyously interact with toiling humanity, and find shelter in a mostly deserted slum with disabled kid Donnie and his aging Uncle Willie. The visiting star kids’ hunger to learn is sadly curtailed when Darkseid steps up his hunt for the equation. The monster’s reasoning says abject terror could shake loose the formula from whoever is afflicted with it, and to that end he orders bug-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 living computer Mother Box to perform the ritual that will call him and subtract them from existence, sparking a cataclysmic clash. The drama is again augmented by an Evanier & Sherman essay, specifically ‘Buzzing in the Boom Tube’ as is Mister Miracle #2 with ‘Miracle Talk’.

The comics magic preceding it considers the prosaic life of a showman, as amidst a beguiling setting Scott & Oberon plan a theatrical comeback, Sadly, the old stagehand/retainer learns just how different the new kid really is and his suspicions of a wider, wilder side are confirmed as the orphanage Scott fled comes looking for him. Vicious Apokolyptian virago Granny Goodness unleashes the techno-terrors of matter-warping monster Overlord, trapping the targets in the insidious, infernal ‘X-Pit!’ and provoking a battle for their lives and sanity…

Kirby’s arrival coincided with a major overhaul of DC’s biggest gun, and is represented here by the last three pages of Superman #233. The Mn of Tomorrow had been a mega-media star since his launch, with internationally syndicated comics, books, newspaper strips, movie and animated serials plus hugely successful radio and TV shows (live action and animated) making the franchise globally recognizable. Whenever that happens, inevitably overkill and overexposure inescapably set in and the core property needs to be carefully overhauled or vanish forever. Incoming editor Julie Schwartz knew his market and was open to new ideas, and his creative changes were just appearing as 1970 ended. The new direction was also vanguard and trigger for a wealth of controversial, socially-challenging “realistic” story content unseen since the feature’s earliest days: a wave of tales ultimately described as “Relevant”…

As the sixties closed Superman was in dire need of editorial revision. That officially began with Superman #233 in a groundbreaking serial by scripter Dennis J. “Denny” O’Neil, and illustrators Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson: a deliberate very public abandonment of tired old supervillains, fanciful Kryptonian scenarios and otherworldly paraphernalia instantly poked the readership and revitalised the Man of Tomorrow, attracting new readers and began a period of engagingly human-scaled stories making Superman a “must-buy” character all over again.

Although only the portentous ending is included here, the innovations began with ‘Superman Breaks Loose’ as a government experiment to harness Kryptonite as an energy source goes explosively wrong. Closely monitoring, the Metropolis Marvel is blasted across the desert surrounding the isolated lab, but somehow survives a supposedly fatal radiation-bath. Then, reports begin filtering in from all over Earth: every piece of the deadly mineral has been transformed to harmless, common iron! As he goes about his protective, preventative patrols, the liberated hero experiences an emotional high at the prospect of all the good he can now accomplish. He isn’t even phased when the Daily Planet’s new owner Morgan Edge (a key character created by Kirby and Darkseid’s top secret agent) shakes up Clark Kent’s cosy civilian life: summarily ejecting him from the print game to remake him as a roving TV journalist. (for more see DC Finest: Superman – Kryptonite Nevermore)…

As much humour feature as adventure series, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen was a long-running but increasingly lacklustre spin-off feature spawned by the TV show that had very much reached its end. Latterly, Leo Dorfman had begun the process of ending the cascade of comedic transformations and body-shaming events, remaking Jimmy into a competent, confident action hero and serious investigative journalist. This was in tune with a rebellious new era but stalled when the worlds of DC forever altered on the pages of what was then considered one of their least appreciated and poorest-selling titles. According to fan myth & legend, none of it apparently mattered when Kirby took over. By all popular accounts, he had asked for DC’s worst performing title to prove what he could do, and used that gesture to spearhead a wave of changes whilst adapting grand schemes his old employers at Marvel were too timid to countenance on their pages…

Jack’s first in-universe foray was Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133, cover-dated October and on sale from August 25, 1970. Suddenly readers were thrown into a bravely strange new world where, out of nowhere, extremely shady incoming Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge gifts Jimmy with a fantastic supercar – the “Whiz Wagon” – demanding that he and his previously unseen pals ‘The Newsboy Legion!’ (technically the “New Newsboy Legion” comprising the sons of Tommy, Big-Words, Gabby & Scrapper, with the addition of African-American, scuba diving addict Flipper Dipper) deliver an exclusive scoop on a bizarre counterculture movement in the wilds outside Metropolis. The mysterious subjects are all weird hippie-types and don’t trust anyone over age 25, so Edge needs to send youth combined with experience, However, the one who can’t be trusted is Edge himself. He has undisclosed connections to crime combine Intergang and a chilling stone-faced alien dubbed Darkseid…

After very publicly surviving an assassination attempt, Clark Kent goes into hiding, allowing Superman to take off after Jimmy and the boys as they probe fantastic unsuspected region dubbed the Wild Area. Here Olsen survives trial by combat to become leader of futuristic biker gang The Outsiders, before being sucked into their quest for meaning by hunting a moving mountain inhabited by techno-pacifists “The Hairies”…

Linking up with the Man of Steel as tremors rock the organically grown refuge city of Habitat, Jimmy and the Newsboys chase the ultimate test of existence alongside other motor nomads, unaware that pal Superman already knows the secret they’re seeking. What Jimmy isn’t aware of is that Edge has boobytrapped the Whiz Wagon to satisfy his vile master’s desire to destroy what might be the next step in human evolution and a threat to his own schemes…

The total reboot closed with the King introducing himself to a prospective new audience text titbit ‘Jack Kirby – CONTINED’ but although Kirby & Colletta put their hearts and souls into the job, and despite Publisher Carmine Infantino’s promise of strict non-intervention, meddling with the concept began early, as regular Superman art staff redrew Superman and Jimmy’s faces. We’ll never know what they tried to do to the overall story arc…

Without pause for breath, exposition or recap SPJO #134 saw Jimmy and his petrol-head wild bunch catch up to monstrous mechanised white whale ‘The Mountain of Judgement!’ after astoundingly taking out Superman with weapons casually discarded by inveterate tinkerers the Hairies. Thankfully, Edge’s bomb is easily defused by the techno-hippies who all share an incredible secret; one the Action Ace is fully aware of. In short order, Jim and the lads are briefed on “The Project”: the US government’s cracking of the human genome and extensive duplication/experimentation on life forms. This had already resulted in cloning the dead, mass-producing soldiers & staff to order and even modifying or reconfiguring chromosomal structures to create “D.N.A.liens”. These included the genetically pacifist techno-wizard Hairies. Moreover, the whole Project is run for the government by none other than slum-kids made good the original Newsboy Legion!

Although commonplace now, the notion of cloning was practically unknown in 1970 and Kirby took the idea and ran with it: blending eternal questions about Life itself with Spy Fi tropes, gangsterism and Bond movie settings, all packed with freaks and monsters and underpinned by a constant threat posed by a mysterious mastermind and his own experimental devils. The inspired auteur was also pulling out all the stops visually and his experimental concepts were backed up by equally innovative art and photo collages. The issue ends with Kirby’s rumination on technology in ‘The Whiz Wagons are Coming!’

Followed by similar thoughts in ‘THE HAIRIES – Super-Race or Man’s Second Chance’, SPJO #135 introduces Simyan & Mokkari, whose raid on the Project’s genetic storehouse provides raw material to constantly reproduce wilder and wilder versions of our heroes in their own hidden ‘Evil Factory!’ Being utterly without restraint or ethical scruple, their goal of destroying the Project for Darkseid is well-advanced, and – as previously stated – Jimmy’s genes are a particularly promising medium for random transformations…

Their control of what they make is less impressive though, and a superstrong, giant Jimmy infused with artificial Kryptonite is teleported without plan into the Project simply to save Simyan & Mokkari from dying at the oversized hands of their own experiment. Although it almost kills Superman and his juvenile pals, the day is saved by the Senior Newsboys’ passion project – a new regrown and modified iteration of their murdered WWII superhero patron Jim Harper – The (Golden) Guardian – in concluding, action-packed background-filling expository chapter ‘The Saga of the D.N.A.liens!’ (cover-dated March 1971). Chronologically this led into the launch of Kirby’s official Fourth World titles Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle #1.

Scene set, Jimmy’s further exploits were generally Fourth World adjacent: a forge and funnel for concepts linking Superman to the ongoing narrative of Gods and Armageddons whilst exploring Mankind’s dangerous tendencies and corruptible natures. In Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #137, the Newsboys and Jimmy learn more about their own (utterly non-consensual) contributions to the Project. Without their knowledge Scrapper has been mass-produced as foot-soldiers and guards in different sizes – from six feet to six inches – and innumerable Gabbys man switchboards and communications consoles! As they reel in shock, the Evil Factory strike again. As Jimmy meets The Project’s emergent telepath and resident D.N.A.lien Dubbilex, elsewhere Darkseid demands results forcing Simyan & Mokkari to rashly unleash another Olsen variant on the hidden science citadel. Gifted with astounding strength and uncanny energy powers ‘The Four-Armed Terror!’ has been bred to feed on nuclear radiation and just one of them carves a wave of destruction that extends into the Wild Area on its path to the Project’s atomic power plant. Superman and the boys are easily disposed of and discarded, with the crisis escalating even further after the Apokolyptian biologists lose control of the other quadra-killers and beam the entire rampaging herd into the subterranean Project’s tunnels, forcing Superman to pull out all the stops to get free and save everything in cataclysmic closing chapter ‘The Big Boom!’

Cover-dated June/July 1971, New Gods #3 explored metaphysics and the unknowable. Dwelling in spaces far beyond the rational 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. ‘Death is the Black Racer!’ opens with glorious, jovial innocent God of Illumination Lightray barely escaping his moment with the great shadow – thanks to coldly methodical Metron, but the close escape finds the cosmic force diverted and deposited on Earth. Throughout the overlapping clashes and conflicts there is undeniable indications that even gods are being moved and shaped by 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 to create chaos and panic…

Elsewhere, having explored isolation versus community, introduced outside negation of free will and the concept of terror as addictive sustenance (Darkseid’s vile deputy DeSaad feasts on fear, pain and torture), Forever People #3 tackles head-on the saga’s core concepts. ‘Life vs. Anti-Life!’ probes 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 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. I’m sure we’ve all dabbled with those notions…

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

Still seeking his separate way Mister Miracle #3 opens a bravura double-issue imbroglio as Scott Free agrees to an honourable duel with dishonourable disembodied robot-wearing intelligence Doctor Bedlam. Darkseid’s war code is strict and binding and finds the escape artist challenged to make his way out of a packed 50-storey skyscraper. The problems comes because the edifice is sealed tight and every person inside it is a raving homicidal maniac thanks to mental murderer Bedlam’s administering of ‘The Paranoid Pill!’…

As stated before, Kirby’s Fourth World impacted other titles, particularly the Fourth Estate of Superman’s supporting cast. Here, crafted by Bob Kanigher, Werner Roth & Colletta, ‘The Dark Side of the Justice League!’ from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111 (July 1971) sees the feisty newsmaker targeted by a miniature, corrupted JLA grown by the Evil Factory. Turned into a unsuspecting bio-weapon to kill The Man of Steel, the plot fails as The Project had anticipated such a problem and provided Lane with what every girl needs: her own cloned well-armed protection force…

Forever People #4 then horrifically subverts the American Dream as 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 see nothing but toys and robots dancing and playing for their pleasure. To this set-up the captive waifs of New Genesis are added as 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’…

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

This cliffhanger moment is somewhat offset by a trio of Forever People pinups: ‘The Super-Kids of the Century!’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer vs Darkseid!’ and ‘The Infinity Man…

Despite those promises of non-interference, DC editors and promotional staff perpetually sought to “goose up” Kirby’s flagship title. Always a team player, the King acquiesced to a guest-appearance by currently-hot comedian Don Rickles and oddly (in the manner of Marmite) it either worked uproariously or appalled readers. I thought it was a genuinely hilarious hoot. Further undercutting the narrative, the saga was bifurcated by a reprint 80-Page Giant of pre-Kirby Olsen escapades in SPJO #140 (not included here).

Nevertheless #139 & 141 (July’s ‘The Guardian Fights Again!!!’ and September’s ‘Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?’) comprise a compelling tale of Edge’s unfolding evil, Intergang’s growing influence and the creeping menace of Darkseid, as the tyrant allows his tech to be used to send Clark Kent into hyperspace destined for Apokolips whilst Jimmy and the Golden Guardian are poisoned by slow-acting incendiary Pyro-Granulate: a slow death that will turn them into human torches unless they find an antidote.

Slowing them down is equally doomed Galaxy Broadcasting staffer Goody Rickles whom Edge wants gone because he looks like the star Edge wants to sign up – and is really, really annoying…

The conclusion is compounded by text feature ‘The Newsboy Legion Returns’ by Evanier & Sherman and a Kirby self-portrait… before the last Mister Miracle inclusion (#4). As Oberon frets back at the Brown mansion, he is visited by another old friend of Scott’s. However, master warrior Big Barda is not out to assassinate the runaway. She seems more interested in his wellbeing and fate and teleports to the trap site in time to watch Mister Miracle deftly avoid ‘The Closing Jaws of Death!’ and humiliate another Apokolips monster. Barda is another abstention from the Apokolips method and a rowdy runaway like no other who will change Scott Free’s life forever in the next volume…

Extracted from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #114, two brief pages by Kanigher, Roth & Colletta’s ‘The Foe of 100 Faces’ act as a set-up to ‘My Death… by Lois Lane!’ (SGFLL #115) wherein Morgan Edge attempts to kill his nosy top reporter as she closes in on his darkest secret and takes Superman with her. His biggest mistake, however, is attempting to suborn supernal force The Black Racer to do his dirty work…

With Kent, Lane and Superman reasonably safe, Kirby next addressed the rise in horror and supernatural tales via a 2-parter (reeler?) beginning in #142 with ‘The Man from Transilvane!’ Here, seemingly mystic vampire Count Dragorin and his wolfman assistant Lupek target and “turn” Edge’s PA Laura Conway in their desperate hunt for long-missing mad scientist Dabney Donovan. He was a planetologist who apparently built worlds in his secret laboratory and shaped entire civilisations by screening movies across their skies. Like all sensible scientists, Donovan planned to end his research project on a certain day and set up programmed measures involving his ‘Genocide Spray!’ (SPLO #143 ) with no consideration of the beings he had made and discarded… but Jimmy and Superman certainly did…

Elsewhere, the Newsboy Legion had their own case, one that again led to Intergang but also the thug who murdered the original Jim Harper/Guardian…

From SPJO #142, Kirby added short background-enhancing vignettes and here 2-pager ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! “Hairie” Secrets Revealed!!!’ offered a glimpse of the techno-hippies and their Mountain of Judgment, whilst the next issue added drama to fact-finding with ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! The Alien Thing!!!’ detailing the terrifying results of creating the first non-human clone…

To Be Continued…

DC Finest: Fourth World – When the Old Gods Die collects foundational chapters of Kirby’s legendary saga; a bold new cosmic playground for so many to forever build upon. Almost overnight and in one broad flourish, Kirby had created one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The Fourth World inserted a whole new mythology into the existing DC Universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers and especially those who would become the next generation of creators. Who knows what could have happened if the publishers had had a little more courage, patience and vision?
© 1970, 1971, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1917 Jack Kirby was born. Also on that date in 1917 pioneering Italian artist Aurelio Galleppini (Tex Willer, Occhio Cupo) arrived, sharing birthdays with Dell Barras (Savage Sword of Conan, Dark Angel, Deaths Head II, Web of Spider-Man) in 1957; colourist Pamela Rambo in 1968 and French ace Joann Sfar (Dungeon, The Rabbi’s Cat, Klezmer, Little Vampire) in 1971.

The great Frederick Burr (Happy Hooligan, And Her Name Was Maud, Alphonse and Gaston) died today in 1937, as did Belgian superstar Willy Vandersteen (Spike and Suzy, Bessy, De Rode Ridder) in 1990 and Dutch Master Bert Bus (Olaf Noord, Theban, de eerste wereldreiziger, Cliff Rendall, Stef Ardoba, Malorix, Russ Bender, Archie the Robot) in 2017.

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Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors


By Martin Pasko, Elliot S! Maggin, Cary Bates, Len Wein, Curt Swan, John Rosenberger, Irv Novick, Dick Dillin, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Giordano, José Delbo, Tex Blaisdell, Phil Zupa, Vince Colletta, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3494-2 (PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The Princess of Paradise Island originally debuted as a special promotional feature in All Star Comics #8 (cover dated December 1941/January 1942 and on sale from October 21st 1941). Happy 85th birthday Princess Diana!

Officially, she was conceived by psychologist/polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and realised and nigh-exclusively illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in their calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, to sell more funnybooks to girls. Later research has since disclosed much of her genesis was thanks to Moulton’s wife – attorney turned psychologist Sarah Elizabeth Marston (née Holloway) who had worked with him to create the systolic lie detector process – with further input provided by their live-in partner Olive Byrne.

Wonder Woman catapulted into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit, the Amazing Amazon won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months later, cover-dated Summer 1942.

Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal superwomen, US aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana. Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they forever isolated themselves from the mortal world and devoted their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However, with the planet in crisis, goddesses Athena and Aphrodite instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty. She would be chosen by triumphing over all her sisters in a grand tournament. Although forbidden to compete, Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary. On arriving in the Land of the Free, she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazing Amazon to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick but poverty-stricken care-worker to join her own finance in South America. Diana gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy yet supremely competent and capable Lieutenant Prince…

That set up set the Star-Spangled Siren to weather the vicissitudes of the notoriously transient comic book marketplace and survive the end of the Golden Age of costumed heroes along with Superman, Batman and the few lucky second-stringers who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on until the end of the Silver Age revival, mostly under the auspices of Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – US society – changed. Back then, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Editor Jack Miller & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical proposal and made a little bit of comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that turbulent marketplace.

The superbly eccentric art of Sekowsky had been a DC mainstay for nearly two decades, and he had also scored big with fans at Gold Key with Man from Uncle and Tower Comics in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and war title Fight the Enemy! His unique take on the Justice League of America had cemented its overwhelming success, and in 1968 he began stretching himself further with a number of experimental, young-adult oriented projects. Tapping into the teen zeitgeist with Easy Rider style drama Jason’s Quest and resurgent sci fi and western genres in Manhunter 2070 proved ultimately unsuccessful, but with the Metal Men and the hopelessly outdated and moribund Wonder Woman he had much greater impact. Sekowsky would subsequently work the same magic with equally stalled icon Supergirl…

The big change came when the Amazons were compelled to leave our dimension, taking with them all their magic – including Wonder Woman’s powers and all her mystic weaponry. Now no more or less than human, she opted to stay on Earth permanently, assuming her own secret identity of Diana Prince, dedicated to fighting injustice as a mortal, very much in the manner of TV’s Emma Peel, Honey West and crimebusting comics siren Modesty Blaise…

Blind Buddhist monk I Ching rather rapidly trained her as a martial artist, and she soon became embroiled in the schemes of would-be world-conqueror Doctor Cyber. Most shockingly, her beloved Steve was branded a traitor and murdered! Sekowsky’s root & branch overhaul offered a whole new kind of Wonder Woman, but as I’ve already said fashion ruled and, in a few years, without fanfare or warning, everything that had happened since Diana lost her powers was unwritten. Her mythical origins were revised and re-established as she returned to a world of immortals, gods, mythical monster and super-villains with a new nemesis… an African (or perhaps Hellenic?) American half-sister named. Nubia. It took decades for her to find her place in the modern DC but that’s a tale for another day and review…

Such abrupt reversal had tongues wagging and heads spinning in fan circles. Had the series offended some shady “higher-ups” who didn’t want controversy or a shake-up of the status quo?

Probably not. Sales were never great even on the Sekowsky run and the most logical reason is probably Television. The Amazon had been optioned as a series since the days of the Batman TV show in 1967, and by this time (1973) production work had begun on the original 1974 pilot featuring Cathy Lee Crosby. An abrupt return to the character most viewers would be familiar with from their own childhoods seems perfectly logical to me…

By the time Lynda Carter made the concept work in 1975, Wonder Woman was once again “Stronger than Hercules, swifter than Mercury and more beautiful than Aphrodite”, but as Diana returned to mainstream DC continuity, readers and fans expected her to fully reintegrate, leading to this early and impressive example of a comics miniseries which ran in Wonder Woman #212 through 222 (cover-dates July 1974 to March 1976), detailing how the Amazing Amazon reclaimed her confidence and rejoined the JLA.

Scripter Len Wein and artists Curt Swan & Tex Blaisdell got the ball rolling with ‘The Man Who Mastered Women!’ wherein the Hellenic Hellion thwarts a terrorist attack at New York’s United Nations building… where Diana Prince now works as a translator. In the aftermath she surprisingly meets old friend Clark Kent. Over the course of a conversation she suddenly realises that her memories have been tampered with and understands why her JLA colleagues haven’t called her to any meetings. She had resigned years ago…

Although her former comrades beg her to re-enlist, Diana declines, fearing her memory lapse might endanger the team and the world. After much insistent pleading, she relents enough to suggest the League must covertly monitor her next dozen major cases – in the manner of Hercules’ twelve legendary tests – until she proves herself competent and worthy, for her own peace of mind, if not the JLA’s.

Once they grudgingly agree, she leaves and Superman begins surveillance, observing her flying to Paradise Island in her Invisible Plane. Correctly deducing she has been subjected to Amazonian selective memory manipulation, Diana confronts her mother and learns of her time as a mere mortal and of Steve’s death. Although the past has been excised by her well-meaning Amazon sisters, Diana now demands every recollection removed be returned…

Back in “Man’s World”, a crisis is already brewing as chauvinist costumed crazy The Cavalier exerts his uncanny influence over women to control female Heads of State. Ultimately, however, his powers prove ineffectual over the Amazing Amazon. As a result of that case, Diana Prince changes jobs, going to work as a troubleshooter for dashing Morgan Tracy at the UN Crisis Bureau, and her first mission isn’t long in coming…

Crafted by Cary Bates, Irv Novick & Blaisdell, Wonder Woman #213 details how an alien robot removes all aggression from humanity in one stroke. As The Flash helplessly observes, however, ‘The War-No-More Machine!’ also quashes all bravery, determination, confidence and capability. The species faces imminent – if long and drawn out – extinction. Happily, Diana, a teenaged girl and a murderous criminal are all somehow immune to the invader’s influence. Elliot S! Maggin, Swan & Phil Zupa then share Green Lantern Hal Jordan‘s undercover observations after a lost Amazon gem in unwitting, unscrupulous hands almost triggers World War III with the Princess of Power barely averting nuclear holocaust spawned by a ‘Wish Upon a Star!’

Inked by Vince Colletta, the superb and vastly undervalued John Rosenberger pencilled Bates’ tale of the ‘Amazon Attack Against Atlantis’ as Aquaman watches Wonder Woman unravel a baroque and barbaric plot by Mars, God of War to set Earth’s two most advanced nations at each other’s throats, after which #216 boasts Black Canary uncovering the Amazon Sisterhood’s greatest secret in ‘Paradise in Peril!’ (Maggin, Rosenberger & Colletta). The tale concerns an obsessed multi-millionaire risking everything… including the collapse of civilisation… to uncover exactly what would happen if a man set foot upon the Amazons long-hidden Island.

One of Diana’s oldest foes resurfaces in ‘The Day Time Broke Loose!’ (Maggin, Dick Dillin & Colletta) and Green Arrow is caught in the crossfire as the Duke of Deception attacks the UN, with temporally torturous images and hallucinations designed to generate madness and death on a global scale.

Produced by Martin Pasko & Kurt Schaffenberger, WW #218 offers two short complete tales. Firstly Red Tornado reports on the ‘Revolt of the Wonder Weapons’ as an astrologer with influential political clout uses mind-control techniques to gain power and accidentally undermine Diana’s arsenal, after which The Phantom Stranger stealthily surveys her foiling a mystic plot by sorcerer Felix Faust to animate and enrage the Statue of Liberty in ‘Give Her Liberty – and Give Her Death!’

This was a time when feminism was finally making inroads into American culture and Pasko, Swan & Colletta slyly tipped their hats to the burgeoning movement in a wry and fanciful sci-fi thriller. Thus, #219 sees Diana preventing a vile incursion by the dominating males of Xro, a ‘World of Enslaved Women!’, with stretchable sleuth Elongated Man covertly traversing the parallel dimensions in Wonder Woman’s wake.

With the epic endeavour almost ended, scripter Pasko added a patina of mystery to the affair as The Atom watched Diana tackle ‘The Man Who Wiped Out Time!’ Illustrated by Dick Giordano, WW #220 found temporal bandit Chronos eradicating New York’s ability to discern time and time pieces: a plot foiled with style and brilliance by the on-form, in-time Power Princess. The only problem was that during that entire exacting episode Hawkman was simultaneously watching Diana tackle another potential disaster hundreds of miles away.

The Feathered Fury’s report (illustrated by Swan & Colletta) shows how Crisis Bureau operative Diana Prince was targeted by Dr. Cyber & Professor Moon – old enemies from her powerless period – who combined their craving for vengeance with a plan to steal a UN-controlled chemical weapon in ‘The Fiend with the Face of Glass’

How she could be in two places simultaneously was revealed by Batman, who wraps up the twelve trials in ‘Will the Real Wonder Woman Please… Stand Up Drop Dead!’ (illustrated by José Delbo & Blaisdell), detailing how a beloved children’s entertainment icon was subverted into a monster feeding off people whilst replacing them with perfect duplicates.

Even this was not enough to deter Diana who triumphed again before taking up her leading role in the World’s Greatest Superheroes again…

With covers by Bob Oksner, Nick Cardy, Mike Grell, Dick Giordano & Ernie Chan, this is a spectacular slice of pure, uncomplicated, all ages superhero action/adventure starring one of comics’ true all stars.

Stuffed with stunning art and witty, beguiling stories, here is Wonder Woman at her most welcoming in a timeless, pivotal classic of our medium: one that still provides astounding amounts of fun and thrills for anyone interested in a grand old time.
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1867 primal and insalubrious British Comics icon Ally Sloper first appeared in the magazine Judy. Coincidentally on the same day in 1932, Frederick Burr Opper’s descendant strip itinerant Happy Hooligan made his final bow.

Real people sharing the day include Golden & Silver Age Bill Draut (genre anthologies, The Fly, Teen Titans, Phantom Stranger, Weird War Tales) born in 1921; impossibly prolific French Shakespeare René Goscinny in 1926; artist letterer John Costanza (Tales of the Green Berets, Swamp Thing, The Dark Knight Returns, everything!) arriving in 1943’ master mangaka Jiro Taniguchi (A Distant Neighborhood, The Summit of the Gods, A Journal of My Father, K, Guardians of the Louvre) in 1947; cartoonist Gary Larson (The Far Side) in 1950; British musician/cartoonist Peter Blegvad (Leviathan) in 1951 and writer/inker Jimmy Palmiotti (Ash, Painkiller Jane, Daredevil, Jonah Hex, Supergirl, Harley Quinn) in 1961.

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Green Lantern John Stewart: A Celebration of 50 Years


By Neal Adams, Dennis O’Neil, Len Wein, Steve Englehart, Christopher Priest, Jim Starlin, Ron Marz, Judd Winick, Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard, Peter J. Tomasi, Van Jensen, Robert Venditti, Stuart Moore, Derek Fridolfs & Dustin Nguyen, Dave Gibbons, Joe Staton, Gil Kane, Mike Mignola, Darryl Banks, Dale Eaglesham, Ed Benes & Maros Marz, Tyler Kirkham, Fernando Pasarin, Igor Lima, Rodney Buchemi & Geraldo Borges, Pat Broderick, Doug Mahnke, John Delaney, Eric Nguyen & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1125-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Now a cornerstone underpinning the entire DC Universe, the many heroes called Green Lantern have waxed and waned over eight decades and are now much more Concept than Character. This stunning compilation – part of a dedicated series introducing and exploiting the comics pedigree of veteran DC icons – offers a brief but astoundingly enticing sequence of snapshots detailing how one particular Emerald Gladiator broke many boundaries whilst battling evil and injustice for the entertainment of millions across many generations.

This book features material from Action Comics #601; Batman Beyond Unlimited #4-5; Cosmic Odyssey #2, Green Lantern (volume 2) #87, 182, 185; Green Lantern (vol. 3) #74, 156; Green Lantern (vol. 4) #49; Green Lantern Corps #211; Green Lantern Corps (vol. 2) #60,; Green Lantern Corps (vol. 3) #9; Green Lantern: Futures End #1; Justice League #1 (vol. 4) #6, 40; Justice League Adventures #22; Justice League of America #110 and Secret Origins (vol. 4) #9. These span cover-dates January 1971 to April 2020, with the groundbreaking appearances are preceded by brief critical analysis of the significant stages in his development. The emerald exploits begin with Part I: 1971-1985 – A Sign of the Times and a revelatory essay by legendary activist/comics iconoclast Neal Adams who shares the secret origin of the first Green Lantern of colour, before we enjoy that seminal classic…

Originally created by Martin Nodell & Bill Finger, the first Emerald Avenger – Alan Scott – debuted in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), just as superheroes started to take hold, and supplanting newspaper strip reprints and stock genre characters in still primarily-anthologised comic books. He was a white guy with a magic ring and an icon of his era.

After superheroes vanished and returned in the early 1950s, another GL was created: once again a symbol of his era. After the hugely successful revival and reworking of The Flash, DC/National Periodicals were keen to build on the resurgent superhero trend. Showcase #22 hit the stands 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, inked by Joe Giella.

A vivid Space Age origin revealed how young test pilot Hal Jordan was plucked from his Californian aircraft factory by an alien policeman who had crashed his spaceship on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his power ring – a device to materialise thoughts – to seek out a replacement officer who was honest and without fear. Scanning the planet, it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his professional vocation to the astonished Earthman.

In six pages ‘S.O.S Green Lantern’ established characters, scenario and narrative thrust of a series that became the spine of DC continuity, leaving room for another two adventures in that premiere issue. Unlike the debut of The Flash, the editors were now confident of their ground. Two more Showcase issues carried even greater exploits, and six months later Green Lantern #1 was released.

For the new iteration, emerald ring-wielders were a members of a universal police force and Jordan’s “beat” – which included planet Earth – was Space Sector 2814. Having introduced the cosmic peacekeepers, Broome, Gardner Fox and others carefully expanded the concept throughout the 1960s, adding alien – and even female(!) GLs – as well as alternate human Lanterns like Charlie Vicker and Guy Gardner. They even brought back the original as Alan Scott (now designated Green Lantern of alternate world Earth-Two) became a semi regular cast member…

Over many traumatic years, Jordan emerged as one of the greatest members of a serried band of law-enforcers. For billions of years, the Green Lantern Corps protected and served the cosmos, policing countless sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal superbeings who deemed themselves Guardians of the Universe. These undying patrons and enforcers of Order were one of the first sentient species to evolve and dwelt in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity at the very centre of creation on the small world of Oa. Primarily chosen for a capacity to overcome fear, Green Lanterns are equipped with a ring that forms solid constructs from emerald light. The miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of the user’s willpower, making it one of the mightiest tools imaginable. For eons, a single individual from each of 3600 sectors of known space was selected to patrol their, his, her, or its own beat. Cautious, meticulous supervisors, Guardians laid contingency plans and frequently appointed designated reserve officers to inherit the office of their peacekeeping representatives.

Jordan’s originally assigned substitute was quiet, steadfast PE teacher Gardner, but when the other white Guy was critically injured and required long-term recuperation, the Oans’ fallback option was somewhat worrying to staid, by-the-book Hal. In GL #87 (cover-dated December 1971/January 1972 and crafted by Adams, his scripter of choice Denny O’Neil & inker Dick Giordano), ‘Beware My Power!’ introduced a bold new character to the DCU, conceived at a time when non-Caucasian heroes could be counted on the fingers of one hand…

The time was more than ripe for change. With superhero titles in decline, O’Neil & Adams had been asked to try something different to save the title and responded by assaulting all the traditional monoliths of contemporary costumed dramas with tightly targeted, protest-driven stories. The series was re-titled Green Lantern/Green Arrow with the loudly Liberal avenging Archer constantly mouthing off as a hot-headed sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis, whilst staid, conservative, quasi-reactionary Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard. America had become a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade), O’Neil and comics iconoclast Adams utterly redefined superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment boy scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution.

Racial disparity had been the crux of the creators’ first outing. ‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (not included here) broke the mould of the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of a costumed crusader as newly-minted ardent rebel/social justice warrior Oliver Queen challenged Jordan’s cosy worldview after the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wear business suits, operate expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and will happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

Here, from GL/GA #87, that tone and strident attitude manifested as unemployed architect and full-time “radical” activist John Stewart “made the scene”. This angry black man was spoiling for a fight and would to take guff from no-one, making Jordan certain his bosses had grievously erred when selecting the rash, impetuous Stewart as Sector 2814’s official GL stand-in. However, after seeing how his proposed pinch-hitter handled a white supremacist US presidential candidate trying to ride into the Oval Office by fomenting race war, he was happy to change his tune…

Once established, Stewart was almost immediately forgotten. His next appearance came in Justice League of America #110 (March 1974) where Len Wein, Dick Dillin & Giordano delivered a delightful and potent seasonal present as Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary and Red Tornado had to adapt to the abrasive substitute mid-mission, when the team gathered to hunt down ‘The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!’ Murderous psychopath The Key had set up the heroes for ambush with the callous assassination of an actor hired to cheer orphaned kids, but his horrific deeper scheme was only foiled thanks to the supernatural intervention of almost forgotten Leaguer The Phantom Stranger, after which rebellious Stewart “finessed” his bosses’ cosmic rules and protocols to give destitute and impoverished ghetto dwellers a Christmas present that changed their lives forever…

Time passed and Stewart popped up occasionally as the Guardians’ motives and ineffability were increasingly called into question by many of their once-devoted operatives. Frequently, the grunts began seeing their formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, ruthless, doctrinaire and even capricious. As his repute grew, headstrong Hal Jordan enjoyed an extremely tempestuous and fractious relationship with the Guardians, which eventually led to them accusing him of neglecting his space sector to concentrate on Earth’s problems and criminals. When he couldn’t reconcile his love for Carol Ferris with his offworld duty to the Corps, Jordan quit.

In Green Lantern #182 (November 1984), Wein, Dave Gibbons & Mark Farmer confirmed a landmark reshaping of the legend as ‘It’s a Dirty Job, But…!’ saw now merely mortal Jordan second-guessing his decision as he revisits Abin Sur’s remote resting place. Meanwhile, across the universe, the Guardians have moved swiftly, promoting Stewart to the full-time position in Space Sector 2814. At this time, the architect was working on rebuilding the shattered Ferris Aircraft complex and had no idea Jordan was the alter ego of his abruptly “retired” predecessor, nor that his predecessor’s old enemy Major Disaster was back and looking for a fight…

In Green Lantern #185, Wein & Gibbons took another brave step as ‘In Blackest Day…!’ found 2814’s newest ringslinger fully acclimated to his responsibilities. Overnight celebrity/media sensation Stewart is courted by TV reporter Tawny Young but only earns her enmity after refusing to divulge the circumstances of his origin and promotion. Meanwhile, in the wings evil energy entity Eclipso lays his own plans…

At that time, many fans and critics felt the substitution of Jordan with Stewart was little more than a PC stunt, but time and the quality of the stories proved the decision to be brilliant one. It certainly offered a cruelly underserved portion of the readership another solid role model but as time progressed and the different personalities and approaches coalesced, the move led to an expansion and re-evaluation the nature of being a DC hero…

Part II: 1987-1996 – More Than Just the Back-up Guy opens with John (12 Years a Slave; The Other History of the DC Universe; Future State: The Next Batman) Ridley’s discussion of Stewart’s evolution from experiment in “measured progressiveness” to uniquely individualist major character prior to another tantalising of tranche revolutionary tales.

In the mid-1980s, DC’s editorial hierarchy felt their vast 50-year continuity was deterring new readers. The solution was a colossal braided-mega series to streamline, redefine and even add new characters to the mix. The worlds-shattering, reality-altering Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in such spectacular commercial success, those movers-&-shakers must have felt more than justified in revamping a number of their hoariest icons for their next fifty years of publishing. As well as Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman and Justice League of America, Green Lantern was earmarked for a radical revision, with the Guardians removed from existence and most of their surviving agents setting up a far smaller shop on Earth. Stuart, Jordan & Gardner were joined by a number of alien GLs, and John found unlikely romance with his former training officer Katma Tui of Korugar in Steve Englehart, Joe Staton & Farmer’s ‘Pink Elephants’ (Green Lantern Corps #211, April 1987). However, doom lurked in the wings in the form of Hector Hammond and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris…

Signature DC title Action Comics became a weekly anthology in May 1988, with the GL’s a key feature. Pulling no punches, first chapter ‘…And the Pain Shall Leave My Heart’ (#601, by Christopher Priest as James Owsley & Gil Kane) opened years of heartache for Stewart as Star Sapphire murdered his beloved…

Thanks to Jim Starlin, Mike Mignola & Carlos Garzon, the Emerald Gladiator’s troubles peaked as the year ended. Cosmic Odyssey was a stellar melodrama teaming Superman, Batman, Doctor Fate, a cadre of alien superheroes and many of Jack Kirby’s greatest DC creations in an interplanetary slugfest to save the Milky Way galaxy from malevolent and predatory sentient concept The Anti-Life Equation. Here from Book Two of the 4-part miniseries, unfolding events reveal how Green Lantern Stewart’s arrogance and unwarranted overconfidence causes the obliteration of inhabited world and rising civilisation Xanshi…

Years later, after the GL Corps was utterly destroyed by Hal Jordan as Parallax, only one hero remained. Youthful Kyle Rayner wielded the last power ring to keep the green flame burning until the peacekeeper force could rebuild. During that interim, Stewart joined rival paramilitary organisation The Darkstars, and in Ron Marz, Darryl Banks & Romeo Tanghal’s ‘Stand’ (Green Lantern vol. 3, #74, June 1996) unites with Rayner, Donna Troy/Troia and space veteran Adam Strange to save planet Rann from annihilation by Grayven, son of Darkseid…

Screenwriter/comics author Geoff Johns (JSA, The Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Stargirl) then discusses Stewart’s modern major league status in Part III: 2003-2020 – The Identifiable Hero, which begins here in the aftermath of many changes to the history of DC’s first black superhero.

Courtesy of Judd Winick, Dale Eaglesham & Rodney Ramos, Green Lantern volume 3 #156 (January 2003), Stewart is again ‘Walking Tall’: a restored, reactivated ring-wielder freshly healed from wheelchair-bound paraplegia thanks to arch enemy and understandably aggrieved Xanshi survivor Fatality. Sadder, wiser and resolute, he’s ready to resume the duties he was born for. Ongoing continuity revisions had remade him as a former elite soldier, and ‘Semper Fi’ (Green Lantern #49, February 2003 by Johns, Ed Benes, Marcos Marz & Luciana del Negro) samples epic event Blackest Night as combat flashbacks and fallen Lantern buddies seek to wear Stewart down, after which an increasing breakdown of trust between the Guardians and their agents leads to all-out rebellion as seven different shades of the emotional power spectrum clash.

With Rayner empowered by blue hues of Hope and Stewart employing indigo shades of Compassion against reborn rogue Oan Krona, the odd couple embark on a suicide mission to assassinate a beloved emerald comrade suborned to ultimate evil in ‘War of the Green Lanterns, Part Eight’ (Green Lantern Corps #60 July 2011, by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham & Matt Banning). Months later DC rebooted its entire line for a second time in high profile stunt “The New 52”. The mostly cosmetic changes barely affected the assorted GL boutique titles, which had been merrily dismantling and rebuilding the Master & Servant relationship between ring-wielders and their obsessively controlling bosses. With civil war rending the organisation, ‘Alpha War: Tried and True’ (Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin & Scott Hanna, GLC #9 July 2012) saw rapidly ascendant figurehead Stewart railroaded and held for judgement by the Guardians’ new secret police, before scoring ultimate victory by embracing his sins and accepting his guilt…

In 2014, as the New 52 staggered to its conclusion, a company-wide event offered speculative glimpses at the eventual demise of its heroes. Green Lantern Corps: Futures End #1 (Van Jensen, Igor Lima, Rodney Buchemi, Geraldo Borges & Ruy José) detailed how, five years from “now” Stewart goes rogue: ruthlessly enforcing a Green Peace as ‘The Death Dealer’. He has no inkling of how one last sanction will change him…

Secret Origins #9, March 2015, by Jensen & Pat Broderick related his latest modified backstory in ‘The Architect’, after which Robert Venditti, Doug Mahnke & Richard Friend bring us relatively up to date with Justice League #40 (April 2020) and ‘Invasion of the Supermen Part One: Impact!’ with Stewart taking point for his earthly teammates when The Eradicator leads an army of Daxamites (each mightier than Superman) in a war of ruthless conquest…

This celebration concludes with a personal memoir from celebrated actor Phil LaMarr who played Stewart in TV shows Justice League & Justice League Unlimited: discussing the hero’s out-world impact in Part IV: The Animated Years – Voicing an Icon. It’s supported by tales from assorted DC comics based on animated shows adapted from the original DC comics – Whoa! Infinity moment! – and opens with ‘Second Contact’ from Justice League Adventures #22 (October 2003). Here Stuart Moore, John Delaney & Robin Riggs reveal how John leads a JL squad against the Shayol, perpetrators of a Green Lantern massacre five years previously and which only he survived. They claim to have changed, but can he trust himself to trust them?

The compulsive comics classics close with a yarn from 2012, culled from the thrilling and expansive sub-universe based on the animated Batman Beyond show. Set in the days when Gotham’s Dark Knight is troubled teen Terry McGinnis, it includes an elderly Superman and a new Justice League populated with the children and legatees of the originals. Taken from Batman Beyond Unlimited #4-5, back-up strip ‘Beyond Origin: Warhawk’ by Derek Fridolfs, Dustin Nguyen & Eric Nguyen details the doomed love story of Stewart and Thanagarian teammate Hawkgirl, his rebound romance with African superhero Vixen and the tragedy and terrors that led to the birth of his son and heir, before this celebratory chronicle closes with a ‘Poster Pinup’ from Green Lantern: Mosaic by Cully Hamner & Dan Panosian. The tome is immeasurably enhanced throughout by a superb collection of covers by Adams, Giordano, Gibbons, Banks & Tanghal, Ariel Olivetti, Benes, Kirkham & Banning, Fernando Pasarin & Scott Hanna, Francis Portela and Bryan Hitch. This is not a sop to minorities or appeasement to diversity, but a solid reminder that heroes and superstars come in all colours.

Green Lantern has a long, proud history of shaking things up and providing provocative, dynamic drama wedded to outstanding artwork. This compelling assortment of snapshots is staggeringly entertaining, titanically tantalising and a monolithic testament to the inestimable value of a strong core concept matured over decades of innovation.
© 1971, 1974, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988,1996, 2003, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1934 arrived Spanish-born artist of British & international comics Jesús Redondo Román (El Capitán Trueno, SOS Dossier Ecológico, Suzette of the Silver Sword, Mind Wars, Dan Dare, Motormouth and Killpower, Star Trek, Kitty Pryde), with Swiss raconteur & illuminator Claude de Ribaupierre AKA Derib (Yakari, Buddy Longway) popping by in 1944 and underground comix pioneer Rory Hayes (Arcade, Weirdo, Bijou Funnies, Snatch Comics, Bogeyman) in 1949. In 1952 prolific colourist Janice Cohen (Howard the Duck, Godzilla. Spider-Man, Warp, Starslayer, Jon Sable) was born, with German cartoonist Ralf König (The Killer Condom, Der bewegte Mann, Lysistrata, Pretty Baby, Wie die Karnickel, Santa Claus Junior) proudly joining the parade in 1960; master mangaka Kit? Mohiro (Noririn, Shadow Star, Bokurano) and in 1966; comic book artist Carlo Barbieri (Impulse, Harley Quinn, Gen13) in 1972 & Ryan Ottley (Invincible, Haunt, Amazing Spider-Man,) in 1975.

The date also marks the deaths of writer, screenwriter and poet Joseph Patrick “J.P.” McEvoy (Dixie Dugan) in 1958 and Mexican writer of Memin Pinguin Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra in 1999.

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Superman vs The Flash


By Jim Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Dennis O’Neil, Marty Pasko, Dan Jurgens, Geoff Johns, Curt Swan, Ross Andru, Dick Dillin, José Luis García-López, Rick Burchett, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, George Klein, Mike Esposito, Joe Giella, Dan Adkins, Art Thibert, Prentiss Rollins & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0456-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

The comic book experience is littered with eternal questions that can never really be satisfactorily answered. The most common and most passionately asked always begin “who would win if…?” or “who’s strongest/smartest/fastest…?” Teenaged scripting wunderkind Jim Shooter knew that very well when he pitched and subsequently scripted a Superman story in 1967 that created a subgenre of comic-plots and led inevitably and delightfully to the graphic compilation under review here.

DC Editors in the 1960s generally avoided such questions as who’s best for fear of upsetting some portion of their tenuous and supposed-transitory fan-base, but as the superhero boom slowed and the upstart Marvel Comics began to make genuine inroads into their market, the notion of a definitive race between the almighty Man of Steel and the Fastest Man Alive became an increasingly enticing and sales-worthy proposition. This sporty curated chronicle catalogues material from Superman #199, Flash #175, World’s Finest Comics #198-199, DC Comics Presents #1-2, Adventures of Superman #463 & DC First: Flash/Superman: collectively spanning cover-dates August 1967 through July 2002.

Long overdue for re-release – fully updated and translated to digital formats – this compendium and sporting almanac gathers together that initial contest and numerous rematches between the heroic speed-demons, but if you’re seeking a definitive answer you won’t find it here. These are splendid costumed entertainments; adventures designed to catch your breath and quicken your pulse. It not about the winning: it’s all about the taking part…

‘Superman’s Race with The Flash’ (Superman #199, August 1967) gets the ball rolling in a stirring saga by Shooter, limned by Curt Swan & George Klein, wherein the two speedy champions are asked to compete in an exhibition contest by the United Nations, to raise money to fight World Hunger. Naturally they agree, but the clever global handicap, circling the planet three times, is secretly and insidiously subverted by rival criminal combines attempting to stage the greatest gambling coup in history…

Of course, the vile gamblers are foiled and justice and wholesome charity triumph in the end, but the stakes are catastrophically raised in the inevitable rematch from The Flash #175 (December 1967). ‘Race to the End of the Universe!’ finds the friendly rivals rocketing across the cosmos after ruthless alien gamblers threaten to eradicate Central City and Metropolis unless the pair settle who was fastest.

Scripter E. Nelson Bridwell added an ingenious sting in the tale, whilst Ross Andru & Mike Esposito delivered a sterling illustration job in this yarn, but once more the actual winning was deliberately fudged. Presumably to prevent hurt feelings on the part of partisan young readers…

When World’s Finest Comics became briefly a team-up vehicle for Superman the first guest-star was the Flash, who again found himself in speedy if contrived competition. ‘Race to Save the Universe!’ and its conclusion ‘Race to Save Time’ (by Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella in WFC #198-199, November & December 1970) once again upped the stakes as the Guardians of the Universe conscripted our high speed heroes to circumnavigate the entire cosmos at their greatest velocities to undo the rampage of the enigmatic Anachronids: faster-than-light creatures whose pell-mell course throughout the galaxies was actually unwinding time itself.

Little did anybody suspect that Superman’s oldest enemies were behind the scheme…

‘Chase to the End of Time!’ & ‘Race to the End of Time!’ opened new team-up series DC Comics Presents (#1-2, July/August & September/October 1978) as Marty Pasko, José Luis García-López & Dan Adkins rather reprised that World’s Finest tale with two eternally-warring alien races tricking Superman & Flash into speeding through the time-stream to prevent Earth’s history from being corrupted and destroyed. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, nobody could predict the deadly intervention of the Scarlet Speedster’s most dangerous foe: Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash…

After the continuity-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths mega-event, DC heroes got a sound refitting, and the frankly colossal power levels of the costumed community were suitably downscaled to more believable limits. Some stalwarts even died, and so when ‘Speed Kills!’ appeared in Adventures of Superman #463 (February 1990 by writer/artist Dan Jurgens and inker Art Thibert), the issue was touted as the first race between the fastest men on Earth. Of course, there was a new kid in the Flash’s uniform: former sidekick Wally West had graduated to the role after his mentor Barry Allen perished saving the universes in that aforementioned epic.

The story itself is a delightfully whacky romp wherein 5th dimensional gadfly Mr. Mxyzptlk coerces the pair into running a race everybody knows is fixed from the get-go…

This selection concludes with a spectacular saga unerringly aimed at older fans. ‘Speeding Bullets’ (from one-shot DC First: Flash/Superman July 2002) is by Geoff Johns, Rick Burchett & Prentis Rollins, and features futuristic villain Abra Kadabra who challenges the Man of Steel and 1940s Flash Jay Garrick to catch the current Vizier of Velocity – currently running amok at hyperspeed and rapid-aging with every step he takes. If they can’t catch him then the Fastest Man Alive won’t be for long…

With the inclusion to this book of some of the very best covers the company has ever produced – courtesy of Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Mike Esposito, Curt Swan, Neal Adams, García-López, Jurgens & Brett Breeding and Kevin Nowlan – readers casual and deeply devoted alike are guaranteed a joyous thrill-ride from some of the most entertaining stand-alone stories in DC history.

On your marks, get set, Go for it!
© 1970, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1951 comic book all-rounder Ed Hannigan (Black Panther, The Defenders, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Arrow, Spectacular Spider-Man) was born, sharing the birthday with US artist Don Kramer (Detective Comics, JSA, Nightwing, Doctor Fate, Wonder Woman) and Swedish cartoonist Tony Cronstam (Provet, Bamse, Elvis) in 1969 and comic book writer/colourist Jordi Bellaire (Absolute Wonder Woman, The Nice House, G.I. Joe, Catwoman, Detective Comics, Hawkeye, Batman, The Vision, Black Widow) in 1988.

Today in 1989 Berke Breathed took a decades-long sabbatical from Bloom County as the strip “ended” to be replaced by whole bunches of other fabulous comics stuff. The day also marks the death of Dick Tracy artist Richard Earl “Dick” Locher in 2017.

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Superman The Golden Age Sundays volume 2 1946-1949


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & various (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-109-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times..

After years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits were at last made available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one, compiled under the auspices of the Library of American Comics. Sadly, that bounty has dried up and the books are becoming as rare as the original strips. Hopefully the whole canon will one day make it into digital editions. Until then though, we fortunate ones can share what we have, like this epic transitional selection seeing the close of a Golden era in advance of a fresh, bold, daringly Atomic Age…

The comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s bold and unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. The Man of Tomorrow was shamelessly copied, adapted by countless inspired writers and artists for numerous publishers, spawning an incomprehensible army of imitators and variations within three years of his summer 1938 debut.

Yes, 88 YEARS… and still counting!

The intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and visceral wish-fulfilment expressed by the newborn Action Ace swiftly expanded to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reformist dramas, science fiction and fantasy, romance and comedy; and – once war in Europe and the East engulfed America – absorbed and reinforced patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and dashing derring-do. Superman was master of the world and whilst transforming and dictating the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, relentlessly expanded into all areas of entertainment media.

We might think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comic strip creation, but the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Sherlock Holmes, Popeye and Tarzan. Diehard comics fans regard our purest, most enduring icons in primarily graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk and their hyperkinetic ilk long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures, instantly recognised in mass markets across all platforms and age ranges. Far more people have viewed or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comics.

His globally syndicated newspaper strips reached untold millions, and by the time of his 20th anniversary – at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics – he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, as well as two films and a novel by George Lowther. Superman was a perennial wellspring for toys, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more shows, a stage musical, a ton of blockbuster movies and near-seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even superdog Krypto has got in on the all screens act. However, in his formative years the moving picture option was simply an expensive novelty for most. The Action Ace achieved true mass market fame through a different medium: one not that far removed from his print origins.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for most of the last century newspaper strips were the Holy Grail American cartoonists/graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and frequently the world – they might be seen by millions if not billions of readers and were generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books. At that time it also paid far better, and rightly so. Some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Blondie, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped humble, even tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Some still do…

Superman was the first comic book character to make that leap; about six months after exploding out of Action Comics. The daily Superman strip launched on 16th January 1939, augmented from November 5th of that year by a full-colour Sunday page. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required the additional artistic gifts of Jack Burnley and ancillary writers Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran uninterrupted until May 1966, and at its peak appeared in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers with a combined readership surpassing 20 million. For most of the post-war years, Boring & Stan Kaye limned the spectacular Sundays (latterly supplemented by Win Mortimer & Curt Swan). The majority of strips from 1944 to 1958 were written by largely unsung, nigh-forgotten scribe Alvin Schwartz.

Born in 1916, Schwartz was an early maestro of comic books, writing Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, and for many other titles and companies. Whilst handling the Superman strip he freelanced on Wonder Woman and other superheroes as well as DC’s genre titles such as Tomahawk, Buzzy, A Date with Judy and House of Mystery. After numerous and ever-escalating clashes with new Superman Editor Mort Weisinger, Schwartz quit comics for commercial writing: selling novels, essays, documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada. He worked miracles in advertising and market research, developing selling techniques like psychographics and typological identification. A member of the advisory committee to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, he died in 2011.

After too many years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits are finally available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one compiled under the aegis of the Library of American Comics.

Showcasing Schwartz & Boring in their purest prime, these Sundays (numbered as Pages #354 to #520, collectively spanning August 11th 1946 to October 16th 1949) depict an almost omnipotent Man of Steel in domestically-framed tales of emotional dilemma, pedestrian criminality and surreal situations rather than muscle-flexing bombast, faux angst and bludgeoning action. Here humour, wit, mystery, fashion, satire and wonder reign supreme.

Following affable appreciation of the creators and the times in Mark Waid’s ‘An Introduction’ and a selection of contemporaneous Superman comic book covers in ‘A Wayne Boring Gallery’ the weekly wonderment recommences in all its vibrant glory. Sadly, the serials are untitled, so you’ll just have to manage with my meagre synopses of individual yarns…

Kicking off is a beguiling domestic dilemma as Lois Lane is overwhelmed looking after a neighbour’s boy whilst preparing to collect her sternly formidable, imminently visiting Aunt Matilda. Snowed under mounting physical and mental loads, she ropes in Superman to backstop her, only to discover there are many tasks – like baking a cake whilst watching a boisterous brat – that even the miraculous Man of Steel cannot manage…

Next up and beginning with Page 358 (September 8th 1946) the Action Ace faces criminal mastermind Tom Catt who plunders Metropolis in “Curiosity Crimes” dependent on the victims’ own innate nosiness. After a cascade of cat & mouse clashes the cunning crook ultimately falls because he didn’t follow his own advice about obtrusive inquiry and foolhardy felines…

More distracting nonsense results after social thinktank The Skeptics prove by rational debate that Superman doesn’t exist and seek to legally end the fraud being perpetrated upon the world. It takes a number of impossible tasks diligently performed by our hero before the cranky coots are convinced to change their minds, after which Page 371 (December 8th 1946) briefly returns the Man of Tomorrow to his war years and wish-fulfilling Superman’s Service for Servicemen scheme as he helps demobbed G.I. Steve Kennedy adapt to peacetime, work woes and officious in-laws making life intolerable…

Keeping our frame of reference domestic, a new year and fresh sequence (Page 375, January 5th 1947) saw the invulnerable hero hounded by an indefatigable go-getting salesman from Dynamic Insurance. Elmer Doolittle’s career – and future wedded bliss – depend on selling Superman a policy. Luckily, the goal never actually specified what kind of policy…

March 9th (Page 384) signalled a return to fantastic fantasy as an invisible beast causes havoc in the heartlands and farmers call for help to bring the “Nosuch Animal” to brook. Sadly, when Superman intervenes the unseen terror loses its camouflage gift and is exposed as a living example of a dinosaur… a Paleomatzoball. Moreover, this rampaging colossus loves rough handling and develops a disastrous romantic attachment to the Man of Steel before our embarrassed involuntary swain devises a timely solution to their mutual problem…

The “peace dividend” delivered by the end of the war is scrutinised next as Clark visits Boom Town and sees how a former manufacturing mecca was infiltrated and overrun by mobsters, gamblers and racketeers once the military – and their trustworthy, well-trained police – were transferred elsewhere. When the entrenched thugs begin attacking the municipality’s new law enforcement recruits, the Man of Steel steps up to school the neophytes and ensure crime never pays there again…

Circuses were a big draw and popular pastime of the postwar years and from Page 400 (June 29th) Superman & Lois were lured into that limelight when swindlers targeted Cap’n Tobey’s Mammoth Carnival. When the doddering owner is gulled into promising the world that the Metropolis Marvel is his new top attraction, Superman naturally helps out by showing up, but his good deed only allows a cartel of gangsters to use his scheduled performances as opportunities to try new ways to assassinate the Action Ace… with no appreciable result…

Next (from 28th August) two more former G.I.’s enlist the Man of Steel in a business venture, hoping his promotion of their new hot dog line (“Teenie Weinies”) will ensure success, Sadly, the enthusiastically spectacular super sales campaign only lands our hero with a lawsuit for restraint of trade when established fast food rivals cry unfair competition against their own brand of “Yankie Frankies”! Ordered to cease and desist, our hero still manages one stellar and out of this world act of promotion before capitulating…

One of the earliest examples of a recurring Silver Age Superman trope comes next as Page 414 (October 5th 1947) sees exotic nuclear radiation (another increasing popular maguffin of the forthcoming Atomic Age) accidentally reduce the mighty Man of Tomorrow to the size and relative age – but thankfully not intellect or emotional development – of an infant. Unable to appear as Clark, “Superbabe” recruits vagabond Edward Benton who resembles his adult self to impersonate Kent until a remedy is found, only to see the double fall for Lois and attempt to steal his civilian life and wed her under false pretences. Unable to operate as hero or tolerate the loss of Lois, the Caped Kryptonian risks a deadly potential cure, sabotages Lois’ wedding day and risks exposing his greatest secret to stop the mad escapade…

After that soap opera scandal carries us over the Holiday season, accidental time travel – beginning with February 22nd 1948’s Page 434 – sees Superman stranded in the past and ensnared by the irresistible wiles of seductive, lethally ambitious Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Thankfully, former beau Mark Antony is able to break her spell before the Man of Tomorrow returns to today, just in time to foil an impending Martian invasion (May 2nd – July 18th over Pages 444-455) by impersonating an “ordinary human” abducted to their testing labs…

He even acts as a matchmaker for their lonely leader before returning to Earth and his strangest encounter yet after he’s “adopted” by talking dog Angus who needs a safe, secure home for his homeless human orphan kid pal Nicky Nichols. Of course, once he’s over the shock and disbelief, Superman is delighted to provide them and even reunite Nicky with his missing-but-not-dead mother… once he’s stopped every grifting chancer’s exploitative schemes to make money out of the mouthy mutt…

Another extraordinary tyke turns up on Page 467 (October 10th) as radical theorists of The Educational Improvements Association attempt to hothouse a 3-year old prodigy with plenty of weird notions of her own. “Smartypants” is granted absolute freedom to do whatever she wants, with the Man of Steel sworn to make every wish come true. The result is utter anarchy (with unleashed dinosaurs!) and total chaos until the harassed, embattled boffins convene for a swift rethink before resorting to tried-&-trusted rearing methods…

November 28th (Page 474) saw Superman in whimsical mood as he puckishly teaches a rug salesman a lesson by making his smarmy, smug sales patter about magic carpets come true for downtrodden shopper Geoge Paley. Sadly, the prank goes exponentially awry as an ever-escalating war for possession of George’s flying rug breaks out, resulting in violence, loss of livelihood and litigation. Once he’s done settling all the crises he’s sparked, the Action Ace resolves to quit playing practical jokes…

Far-flung fantasy follows from Pages 484 to 493 (February 6th – April 10th 1949) as Superman gathers Amazon jungle flora for the Metropolis Botanical Society and stumbles upon a fabulous golden sword, a potent legend and a long-hidden civilisation in the Lost Valley of Ru. Holding the antique blade, the Man of Steel inadvertently fulfils an ancient prophecy and must marry the socially reforming Queen. That’s not what tyrannical nobles led by Baron Akhar want, and his machinations to thwart the prophecy and marry her himself – as well as the monarch’s embarrassing infatuation with the mighty caped stranger – lead to confusion, crisis and civil war before our hero can fix everything and flee back to the outer world’s relative calm…

The next serialised saga (Pages 494-505, April 17th to July 3rd) offers another human-interest drama given a super-powered spin as, having learned nothing, Superman hires a double to stand in for him at all onerous public functions he’s too polite to refuse. Sadly, affable, honest mimic Mike is soon innocently complicating the Action Ace’s double lives to the point of imminent calamity and when the hapless doppelganger is kidnapped, panic ensues following wildfire rumours of the hero losing his powers. Realising the jig is up, Superman takes drastic action…

Concluding this final Golden Age collection, Pages 506-520 (July 10th – October 16th 1949) detail a bizarre fantasy wherein Superman emulates the travels of Lemuel Gulliver in a story within a story. To cheer up a love-crushed youngster, the Metropolis Marvel recounts his travails on a distant heavy-gravity world where his powers fluctuated and he faced miniscule warriors and lumbering giants, overthrew a tyrant before brokering peace and even arranging a love match between representatives of each side!

The Golden Age Superman: – Sunday Pages 1946-1949 – was the last of two huge (312 x 245 mm), lavish, high-end twinned hardbacks re-presenting the Man of Steel’s exploits during WWII and the immediate aftermath. They were a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which preserved in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Lil Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons. It’s an unimaginable joy to see these neglected Superman stories again, offering a far more measured, domesticated and comforting side of one of America’s most unique contributions to world culture. It’s also a pure delight to see some of the most engaging yesterdays of the Man of Tomorrow. Join me, see for yourself and agitate for the entire library to be released in digital editions…
© 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved. SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.

Today in 1883, Edwin Balmer – journalist/fantasist/author/co-creator of the Speed Spaulding sci fi strip – was born. The day also saw the deaths of groundbreaking cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland, Gertie the Dinosaur, Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend) in 1934 and Reg’lar Fellers, It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken, Wide Awake Willie creator Gene Byrnes in 1974.