Category: Showcase Presents

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Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 2


By Gardner Fox, Murphy Anderson, Bob Haney, Dick Dillon & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1817-1

After fighting long and hard to win his own title it was such a pity that time and fashion seemed to conspire against the Winged Wonder…

Katar Hol and his wife Shayera Thal were police officers on their own highly advanced planet of Thanagar. They originally travelled to Earth from the star system Polaris in pursuit of a shape-changing spree-thief named Byth but stayed to study Earth police methods in the cultural metropolis of Midway City. This all occurred in the wonderful ‘Creature of a Thousand Shapes’ which appeared in The Brave and the Bold #34 (cover-dated February-March 1961), but the public was initially resistant and it was three years and many further issues, guest-shots and even a back-up feature in Mystery in Space before the Winged Warriors finally won their own title

Hawkman #1, cover-dated April-May 1964, signalled the beginning of a superb run of witty, thrilling, imaginative and hugely entertaining science fiction, crime-mystery and superhero adventures that captivated the devoted but still painfully small audience.

This second, concluding volume, reprinting in crisp efficient black and white Hawkman #12-27, Brave and the Bold #70, The Atom #31 and the avian portions of the last-ditch combination-comic The Atom and Hawkman #39-45, recommences the magic with another large-scale cosmic epic that originally debuted in February-March 1966 (issue #12). ‘The Million-Year-Long War!’ is pure Gardner Fox storytelling, recounting how a Thanagarian exploration team awakened two aliens determined to kill each other even after eons of suspended animation and whose enmity drove them to possess all of Thanagar, turning Hawkman’s homeworld into one huge weapon. As usual Fox’s imaginings were gloriously illustrated by Murphy Anderson – as they would be until Julie Schwartz surrendered editorial control with issue #22.

Hawkman #13 featured a startling time-bending saga ‘Quest of the Immortal Queen!’ wherein a Valkyrie from Earth’s far future decided to add the Winged Wonder to her seraglio of lusty warriors plucked from history. Happily his wife Shayera strenuously objected and is both smart and tough enough to sort things out. Fox’s treatment of female characters was highly unique for those pre-feminist times: all his heroines – a large number of them wives, not wishy-washy “girlfriends” – were capable, intelligent and most importantly, wholly independent individuals.

Hawkgirl was written as every bit her husband’s equal and the Hawks had one of the most subtle and sophisticated relationships in the business. Like Sue and Ralph Dibney (Elongated Man and wife) Katar and Shayera were full partners, (both couples were influenced by the Nick and Nora Charles characters of the Thin Man movies) and the interplay between them was always rich in humour and warmth.

As a sign of the times super-secret criminal conspirators C.A.W. returned to seize control of the ‘Treasure of the Talking Head!’ – an ancient computer which held all the world’s knowledge, built before the birth of Christ, and the Pinioned Paladins then faced a fantastic monster in ‘Scourge of the Human Race!’, an encounter which revealed the true history of humanity as the last surviving specimen of Homo Sapiens’ earliest rival for mastery of the planet attempts to reverse evolution…

Issue #16 was a dimension-hopping sequel to Hawkman #6 (‘World Where Evolution Ran Wild’): an incredible Lost Worlds romp which combined secret history, fantastic fantasy and DC’s signature fascination with apes and simians in ‘Lord of the Flying Gorillas!’ whilst #17’s ‘Ruse of the Robbing Raven’ changed pace with a clever costumed crook caper. The issue also contained the first short back-up tale in over a year – another science based mystery entitled ‘Enigma of the Escape-Happy Jewel Thieves!’

Hawkman then guest-starred – and clashed – with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #70 (February-March 1967): ‘Cancelled: 2 Super-Heroes’ by Bob Haney, EC legend Johnny Craig and Chuck Cuidera saw the usually comradely crime-busters at each others throats due to the machinations of a manic millionaire who collected secret identities, whilst later that month in his own title the Winged Wonder teamed with Adam Strange against the malevolent Manhawks to locate the ‘World That Vanished!’ The planet in question was Thanagar and when it went it took Hawkman’s beloved Shayera with it…

This colossal tale concluded in the next issue with the action-packed ‘Parasite Planet Peril!’ and the Avian Ace then joined his old friend in The Atom #31 for ‘Good Man, Bad Man, Turnabout Thief!’ (by Fox, Gil Kane & Sid Greene) to battle a phantom super-criminal hidden within the brain of an innocent man, before returning to home ground for Hawkman#20’s ‘Death of the Living Flame’ a classy anthropological tomb-raiding yarn and the introduction of a new and persistent foe in ‘Lion-Mane… the Tabu Menace!’

The alien-infected leonine marauder returned in the very next issue ‘Attack of the Jungle Juggernaut!’– a typically classy thriller for Fox and Anderson to bow out with. With issue #22, George Kashdan took over the editorial reins, tapping Bob Haney, Dick Dillin and Charles “Chuck” Cuidera to continue the adventures of the Winged Wonders in a market increasingly indifferent to costumed characters. ‘Quoth the Falcon “Hawkman Die!”’ certainly hit the ground running as the tale of extraterrestrial paranoia and civil unrest resulted in Hawkman revealing his secret identity and alien heritage to a hostile Earth…

‘The Hawkman from 1,000,000 B.C.!’ was another dark, moody tale wherein a mad scientist’s time-plundering ray inflicts dinosaurs, ancient warriors and an amnesiac Hawkman on the shell-shocked citizens of Midway City. Arnold Drake scripted the alien invasion saga ‘The Robot-Raiders from Planet Midnight!’ and Haney resurfaced for ‘Return of the Death Goddess!’ and Shayera’s brief but ghastly possession by the ghost of the mythical Medusa.

The writing was on the wall by June-July 1968 and the prophetically entitled ‘Last Stand on Thanagar!’(issue #26) scripted by Raymond Marais, was a rushed inconsequential affair before the final tale ‘…When the Snow-Fiend Strikes!’ ended Hawkman’s solo career with a muddled tale of Communist agents and Yetis in the Himalayas.

It was a bad time for superheroes. Buying tastes had changed and a drop in comic sales and attendant rise in interest in supernatural themes prompted publishers to drop or amend much of the anti-horror provisions of the Comics Code Authority. Tales of mystery and imagination were returning after nearly a decade-and-a-half, but sales figures notwithstanding, Julie Schwartz had worked too hard to just let Hawkman die.

Just as Marvel were converting their double-feature split books into solo titles Hawkman was crammed into the equally struggling Atom comic for one last year of adventures.

The Atom and Hawkman, beginning with #39 (October-November 1968, carrying on the numbering of the Tiny Titan’s publication) featured some of Schwartz’s biggest creative guns, alternating short solo stories with shared adventures. The first of these was ‘Vengeance of the Silver Vulture!’ an epic battle against a resurgent Mayan death-cult written by Bob Kanigher, illustrated by Anderson and Joe Giella, with cover art by Joe Kubert – who would also contribute interior art to the feature he struggled so long and hard to create.

Written by Fox, pencilled by Kubert and inked by Anderson, the Hawkman portion of #40, ‘Man with the Inbuilt Panic Button!’ and its sequel ‘Yo-Yo Hangup in the Sky!’ from #41 are one last splendid slice of the “Good Old Days” – an intriguing mystery about a ordinary man who suddenly develops the power of teleportation – but only from one life-threatening crisis to a greater one…

Denny O’Neil joined Dick Dillin and Sid Greene for ‘When the Gods Make Madness!’, a full-length team-up which pitted the heroes against Hindu gods, and Kanigher revived the Golden Age Hawkman’s greatest foe in the two part saga of The Gentleman Ghost ‘Come to my Hanging!’ and the concluding ‘The Ghost Laughs Last’, both illustrated by Anderson.

The Atom and Hawkman #45 was the final issue, a revelatory psycho-drama featuring both heroes by O’Neil, Dillin and Greene that wrapped up their comic tenure and set them up with a prolonged series of further adventures in Justice League of America: a veritable lifeboat for cancelled costumed crime-fighters at that time.

‘Queen Jean, Why Must We Die?’ revealed that the Atom’s fiancée Jean Loring was the descendent of aliens who had crashed on Earth in the Stone Age. Returned from sub-molecular exile the survivors drove her insane – because their hereditary rulers must be free of all care – before the heroes could rescue – but not cure her. This tale would provide much of the basis for Loring’s actions in contemporary sagas Identity Crisis and Countdown to Final Crisis…

And then , but for the JLA, occasional guest-spots or back-up features in Action or Detective Comics that was it for the Winged Wonders until changing tastes and times gave them another, indeed many other, shots at the stars.

Hawkman briefly grew into one of the most iconic characters of the second superhero boom, not just for the superb art but also because of brilliant, subtle writing and incomparable imagination. These tales are comfortably familiar but grippingly timeless. Yet comics are a funny business; circumstances, tastes and fashions often mean that wonderful works are missed and unappreciated.

Don’t make the same mistake readers did in the 1960s. Together with its first volume this book captures and perfectly preserves the very essence of the Silver Age of Superheroes. Whatever your own vintage, read these astounding adventures and become a fan. It’s never too late.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 2


By Bob Haney, Jim Aparo, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-813-3

Now settled on a winning format – pairing media superstar Batman with other luminaries of the DC universe in complete stand-alone stories – The Brave and the Bold proceeded to win critical as well as commercial kudos by teaming regular writer Bob Haney with the best artists available. At this time editors favoured regular if not permanent creative teams, feeling that a sense of visual and even narrative continuity would avoid confusion amongst younger readers. During this second collection (reprinting B&B #88-108 in crisp, efficient black and white) a number of stellar artists contributed before the comicbook finally found its perfect draughtsman…

Following a ground-breaking run by the iconoclastic and influential Neal Adams (see Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 1) was always going to be a tough act but veteran Irv Novick – who would unfairly tread in Adams’ mighty shadow on Batman for years to come – did sterling work here on a gritty tale of boxing and Cold War mind-games when the Caped Crusader met Wildcat in ‘Count Ten… and Die!’ (B&B #88, February-March 1970).

Mike Esposito inked that tale before rejoining longtime collaborator Ross Andru for a brief return engagement that began with an eerie thriller pitting Batman against the mystery sensation Phantom Stranger in #89’s ‘Arise Ye Ghosts of Gotham!’ and then switching pace and genre for a time-bending science fiction thriller ‘You Only Die Twice!’ guest-starring interstellar champion Adam Strange.

Issue #91, ‘A Cold Corpse for the Collector’ is a true gem of a tale. Haney was always at his best with terse, human scale dramas, especially “straight” crime thrillers, and his pairing of the Gotham Guardian with Black Canary (transplanted from Earth-2 to replace the “de-powered” Wonder Woman in the Justice League) found the recently widowed heroine searching for the Earth-1 counterpart of her dead husband only to find imminent death in a masterpiece of ironic melodrama. It also signalled the advent of the superb Nick Cardy as illustrator: a run of beautifully drawn and boldly experimental assignments that are still startling to see even four decades later.

The artistic exploration continued in the next issue when Batman traveled to England, embroiled in a moody, gothic murder mystery with a trio of British stereotypes fancifully christened “The Bat Squad.” Although the scratch team never reappeared, ‘Night Wears a Scarlet Shroud!’ remains a period delight and a must for those who still remember when “Eng-ga-land Swung.”

At the end of the 1960s the Comics Code Authority ended its ban on crime and horror comics to allow publishers to exploit the global interest in the supernatural. This had instantly affected comics and more and more stories had macabre overtones. It even led to the revival of horror and suspense anthologies. One such was the venerable House of Mystery; and unquestionably the oddest team-up in B&B history.

Scripted by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams #93’s ‘Red Water, Crimson Death’ is a chilling ghost story with the added advantage of having the Dark Knight’s somber shtick counterbalanced by the musings of the sardonic laconic Cain, ethereal and hip caretaker of that haunted habitat…

Bob Haney, Nick Cardy and the Teen Titans returned for the powerful counter-culture bomb-plot ‘Rebels in the Streets’ whilst a forgotten mystery hero (I won’t spoil it for you) helped Batman get the goods on ruthless, fat-cat industrialist Ruby Ryder in ‘C.O.D. – Corpse on Delivery’, and – somewhat more palatable for continuity bugs – Sgt Rock’s second engagement was set in contemporary times rather than in WWII as the honourable old soldier became a bureaucrat’s patsy in an excellent espionage thriller ‘The Striped-Pants War!’

Haney clearly had a fondness for grizzled older heroes as Wildcat made another comeback in #97’s South-of-the-Border saga ‘The Smile of Choclotan!’, an epic of exploration inked by Cardy over the husky he-man pencils of the hugely underrated Bob Brown. The Phantom Stranger guested next in a truly sinister tale of suburban devil worship which found Batman thoroughly out of his depth in ‘The Mansion of the Misbegotten!’, illustrated by the man who would soon become the only B&B artist: Jim Aparo.

Brown and Cardy returned to draw the Flash saving the Gotham Gangbuster from ghostly possession in ‘The Man who Murdered the Past’ and Aparo illustrated the anniversary 100th issue as Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Black Canary had to take over for a Batman on the verge of death and trapped as ‘The Warrior in a Wheel-Chair’ as well as the outrageous murder-mystery ‘Cold-Blood, Hot Gun’ wherein Metamorpho, the Element Man assisted the Caped Crusader in foiling the World’s most deadly hitman.

Brave and the Bold #102 featured a true rarity: the Teen Titans again featured in an angry tale of the generation gap ‘Commune of Defiance’ which began as an Aparo job, but in a bizarre turnabout Neal Adams – an artist legendary for blowing deadlines – was called in to finish the story, contributing the last nine pages of the tension-packed political thriller. Bob Brown and Frank McLaughlin illustrated ‘A Traitor Lurks Inside Earth!’ a doomsday saga of military computers gone awry featuring the multipurpose Metal Men whilst Aparo handled the poignant story of love from beyond the grave in the eponymously entitled ‘Second Chance for a Deadman?’ from #104.

The aforementioned unpowered Wonder Woman returned after a long absence in Haney and Aparo’s superb revolutionary epic ‘Play Now… Die Later!’ wherein Diana Prince and Batman become pawns in a bloody South American feud exported to the streets of Gotham, and Green Arrow was sucked into a murderous get-rich-quick con in #106’s ‘Double Your Money… and Die’, featuring a surprise star villain.

Black Canary then featured in a clever take on the headline-grabbing – and still unsolved – D.B. Cooper hijacking of a airliner in ‘The 3-Million Dollar Sky’ from B&B #107 (June-July 1973. Inflation sucks: “Cooper” only got $200,000 when he jumped out of that Boeing 727 in November 1971, never to be see again…) and this volume ends with a wonderfully chilling tale of obsession as Sgt. Rock tried once more to catch the greatest monster in history on ‘The Night Batman Sold his Soul!’

These are some of the best and most entertainingly varied yarns from a period of magnificent creativity in the American comics industry. Aimed at a general readership, gloriously free of heavy, cloying continuity baggage and brought to stirring action-packed life by some of the greatest artists in the business, this is a Batman for all seasons and reasons with the added bonus of some of the most fabulous and engaging co-stars a fan could imagine. How could anybody resist? Seriously: can you…?

©1970-1973, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase presents Green Lantern volume 4


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Dennis O’Neil, Gil Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-322-3

Slightly slimmer than the usual phonebook-sized tome the fourth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (here reproducing in crisp, stylish black and white the contents of issues #60-75 of the groundbreaking comic book) is a kind of throat-clearing shuffle to allow a fifth volume to begin with the landmark O’Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow tales, but that doesn’t by any means imply that the superb collection here is unworthy of your attentions.

By the time this selection of stories began DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (for which, in comic-book terms read “new, young writers”) 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…

Green Lantern #60 (April 1968) was however an all-veteran outing as Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene introduced a fantastic new foe in ‘Spotlight on the Lamplighter!’, a power-packed, crime-busting morality play that foreshadowed a spectacular team-up classic in the next issue.

Mike Friedrich penned ‘Thoroughly Modern Mayhem!’ but mercifully the story was as wonderful as the title is not, since it cut to the quick of a problem many a kid had posited. If the power ring was so powerful why not just command it to banish all evil? When the old and weary Emerald Crusader of Earth-2 does just that, it takes both him and his Earth-1 counterpart to remedy the shocking consequences…

Issue #62 replaced Kane with Jack Sparling for Fox’s clever scientific mystery ‘Steal Small… Rob Big!’ and Denny O’Neil’s metaphysical, history-warping thriller ‘This is the Way… The World… Ends!’ in #63: whilst Mike Sekowsky and Joe Giella illustrated the O’Neil scripted ‘Death to Green Lantern’ wherein a long-forgotten foe almost destroyed the Green Guardian’s reputation before ending his life. Social historians might like to note the inclusion of benevolent and necessary (plus favourably depicted and written) hippies/flower children acting as more than mere comedic asides: Those times they really were a-changin’…

There was a return to straight superhero drama with Fox, Sekowsky and Giella’s doomsday thriller ‘Dry Up… and Die!’ which apparently ended the criminal career of Doctor Polaris whilst John Broome took 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!’

Issue #67 featured two shorter tales, the first of which ‘Green Lantern Does his Ring Thing!’ was a delightful old-school conundrum as old enemy Bill Baggett wrested mental control of the ring away from the Emerald Gladiator (by Fox, Dick Dillin and Giella) whilst ‘The First Green Lantern!’ by Fox and Sid Greene revealed 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 the intriguing action thriller ‘I Wonder Where the Yellow Went!’ scripted by O’Neil and featuring the wonderfully welcome return of a rejuvenated Gil Kane, aided and abetted by Giella. Kane’s last efforts on the hero he visually created was to be a eye-pooping 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 were restored with the tense countdown to disaster mystery ‘The City that Died!’ (Broome, Kane and Giella): one of two tales in #71, and one that reintroduced Olivia Reynolds – a love interest whose subconscious mind was a planet-shattering energy source. The second story was another jolly Jordan Brothers yarn, from Broome, Dillin and Murphy Anderson, but ‘Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!’ was a regrettably old-fashioned tale of a grifting hippie way out of tune with its readers’ sensibilities – and that’s a shame because it is quite funny…

‘Phantom of the Space Opera!’ by O’Neil, Kane and Giella is a visually magical but rather heavy-handed co-opting of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs, transposed to deep space, but this was more than compensated for by the brilliant two-parter that followed.

‘From Space Ye Came…’ in Green Lantern #73 and its climactic conclusion ‘Lost in Space!’, by Mike Friedrich, Kane and Anderson was an unforgettable clash of ultimate enemies as Sinestro, the renegade Green Lantern, made a brutal attempt on our hero’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 the gem-possessed Star Sapphire…

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

These tales of wit and courage, illustrated with astounding dynamism defined 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 sheer gloss and glamour of superhero fiction, then it never gets better than this…

© 1968, 1969, 1970, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 1


By Bob Haney, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1209-4

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format that mirrored the contemporary movie fascination with historical dramas. Written by Bob Kanigher issue #1 led with Golden Gladiator, the Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. From #5 the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure format carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Issue #25 (August-September 1959) featured the debut of Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, followed by Justice League of America (#28), Cave Carson (#31), Hawkman (#34), and since only the JLA hit the first time out, there were return engagements for the Squad, Carson and Hawkman. Something truly different appeared in #45-49 with the science fictional Strange Sports Stories, before Brave and the Bold #50 provided a new concept that once again truly caught the reader’s imagination.

That issue paired two superheroes – Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding issues: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII Battle Stars Sgt Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie and the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom and Flash in #53. The next team-up, Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash, evolved rapidly into the Teen Titans. After Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter a new hero, Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58. Then it was back to superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time this particular conjunction, Batman with Green Lantern would be particularly significant.

After a return engagement for the Teen Titans in #60, the next two issues highlighted Earth-2 champions Starman and Black Canary, whilst Wonder Woman met Supergirl in #63. Then, in an indication of things to come, and in acknowledgement of the TV induced mania mere months away Batman duelled hero/villain Eclipso in #64. Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol (#65) and Metamorpho/Metal Men (#66) Brave and the Bold #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title, and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/the Flash and Aquaman/Atom) the comic was henceforth to be a place where Batman invited the rest of company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

This first collection of Batman’s pairing with other luminaries of the DC universe (reprinting B&B #59, 64, 67-71 and 74-87) features the last vestiges of a continuity-reduced DC where individual story needs were seldom submerged into a cohesive overarching scenario, with writer Bob Haney crafting stories that were meant to be read in isolation, and drawn by a huge variety of artists with only one goal: entertainment.

The Brave and the Bold #59 (April-May 1965, illustrated by Ramona Fradon and Charles Paris) found Batman and Green Lantern reliving the plot of the Count of Monte Cristo as they resisted ‘The Tick-Tock Traps of the Time Commander!’ whilst a long-lost romantic interest brought the Caped Crusader into conflict with criminal combine Cyclops in ‘Batman versus Eclipso’ (#64, February-March 1966, illustrated by the great Win Mortimer).

‘The Death of the Flash’ in #67 (August-September 1966) was a terse high-speed thriller drawn with flair by Carmine Infantino and Charles Paris, and the next issue, with visuals from Mikes Sekowsky and Esposito, offered one of the oddest tales in DC’s long history as Metamorpho had to defeat a Gotham Guardian mutated into a vicious monster in ‘Alias the Bat-Hulk!’

Win Mortimer returned to illustrate Batman, Green Lantern and the Time Commander’s fractious reunion in #69’s ‘War of the Cosmic Avenger’ whilst Hawkman’s first Bat team-up ‘Cancelled: 2 Super-heroes!’ pitted the pair against a secret identity collector in a quirky tale with art by Johnny Craig and Chuck Cuidera, and Green Arrow, drawn by his Golden Age illustrator George Papp, helped Batman survive ‘The Wrath of the Thunderbird!’

After the aforementioned hiatus the Caped Crime-crusher took full possession of Brave and the Bold with #74’s fast-paced and funny ‘Rampant Run the Robots’ as the Metal Men tackled prejudice and evil inventors and in #75 The Spectre joined the Dark Knight to free Gotham City’s Chinatown from ‘The Grasp of Shahn-Zi!’ both tales drawn by the new semi-regular art team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

Drawn by Sekowsky and Jack Abel, Plastic Man helped solve the mystery of The Molder in #76’s ‘Doom, What is Thy Shape?’ Andru and Esposito illustrated the Atom’s exploits in ‘So Thunders the Cannoneer!’ and Bob Brown stepped in to draw ‘In the Coils of the Copperhead’ wherein Wonder Woman found herself vying with the newly-minted Batgirl for Batman’s affections. Of course it was all a cunning plan… wasn’t it?

Neal Adams was a young illustrator who had worked in advertising and ghosted some newspaper strips whilst trying to break into comics. With #75 he had become a cover artist for B&B, and with #79 (August-September 1968) he took over the interior art for a groundbreaking run that rewrote the rulebook for strip illustration. ‘The Track of the Hook’ paired the Dark Knight Detective with the justice-obsessed Deadman: murdered trapeze artist Boston Brand  who was hunting his own killer, and whose earthy, human tragedy elevated the series’ costume theatrics into deeper, more mature realms of drama and action. The stories aged ten years overnight and instantly became every discerning fan’s favourite read.

‘And Hellgrammite is his Name’ found Batman and the Creeper battling an insect-themed super-hitman, and the Flash aided the Caped Crusader defeat an unbeatable thug in ‘But Bork Can Hurt You!’ (both inked by Dick Giordano) whilst Aquaman became ‘The Sleepwalker from the Sea’ in an eerie tale of mind-control and sibling rivalry.

Issue # 83 took a radical turn as the Teen Titans tried to save Bruce Wayne’s latest foster-son from his own inner demons in ‘Punish Not my Evil Son!’ but the next team-up was one that got many fans in a real tizzy in 1969. ‘The Angel, the Rock and the Cowl’ recounted a World War II exploit where Batman and Sgt. Rock of Easy Company hunted Nazi gold together, only closing the case twenty-five years later. Ignoring the kvetching about relative ages and which Earth we’re on, you should focus on the fact that this is a startlingly gripping tale of great intensity, beautifully realised, and one which has been criminally discounted for decades as “non-canonical”.

Brave and the Bold #85 is arguably the best of an incredible run. ‘The Senator’s Been Shot!’ reunited Batman and Green Arrow in a superb multi-layered thriller of politics, corruption and cast-iron integrity, wherein Bruce Wayne became a stand-in for a law-maker and the Emerald Archer got a radical make-over that turned him into the fiery liberal gadfly champion of the relevancy generation.

Boston Brand returned in #86, as Batman found ‘You Can’t Hide from a ‘Deadman!’ in a captivating epic of death, redemption and resurrection that became a cornerstone of Bat-mythology for the next three decades, and this spellbinding black and white collection of classic confrontations concludes with a decidedly different adventure written and drawn by Mike Sekowsky and starring the venerable comics icon he had made fresh and exciting all over again.

Entitled ‘The Widow-Maker’, it tells of the son of one of Batman’s foes who attempts to add to his tally of motoring murders by luring the Caped Crusader into a rigged high performance car race until Diana Prince, once and future Wonder Woman, steps in…

By taking his cues from news headlines, popular films and proven genre-sources, Bob Haney produced gripping adventures that thrilled and enticed with no need for more than a cursory nod to an ever-more onerous continuity. Anybody could pick up one of his concoctions and be sucked into a world of wonder. Consequently those tales are just as fresh and welcoming today, their themes and premises as immediate now as then and the glorious variety of artists involved still proves a constant source of joy and wonder. Here is a Bat-book literally everybody can enjoy.

© 1965-1970, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase presents Green Lantern volume 3


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, Sid Greene & Carmine Infantino (DC Comics)

ISBN13: 978-1-84576-853-9

Firmly established as a major star of the company firmament, Green Lantern increasingly became a series which provided conceptual highpoints and “big picture” foundations that successive creators would use to build the tight-knit history and continuity of the DC universe. At this time there was also a turning away from the simple imaginative wonder of a ring that could do anything in favour of a hero who preferred to use his fists first and ignore easy solutions.

What a happy coincidence that at this time artist Gil Kane was just reaching his artistic peak, his dynamic full-body anatomical triumphs bursting with energy and crashing out of every page…

Green Lantern #39 (September 1965) featured two tales by John Broome, Kane and master inker Sid Green; a return engagement for Black Hand, the Cliché Criminal entitled ‘Practice Makes the Perfect Crime!’ and a bombastic slugfest with an alien prize fighter named Bru Tusfors, ‘The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!’ They were mere warm-ups for the next issue.

‘The Secret Origin of the Guardians!’ was a landmark second only to ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (see Showcase Presents the Flash volume 2 or Crisis on Multiple Earths: the Team-ups volume 1) as Broome teamed the Emerald Gladiator with his Earth-2 counterpart Alan Scott to stop Krona, an obsessed Oan scientist whose misguided attempts to discover the origins of the universe had introduced evil into our reality billions of years ago and forced his immortal brethren to become protectors of life and civilisation in an unending act of group contrition.

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

Issue #41 featured twisted romance in ‘The Double Life of Star Sapphire!’ as an alien power-gem once more compelled Carol Ferris to subjugate and marry her sometime paramour Green Lantern, and Gardner Fox wrote another cracking magical mystery as the extraterrestrial wizard Myrwhydden posed ‘The Challenge of the Coin Creatures!’

In ‘The Other Side of the World!’ Fox continued a long-running experiment in continuity with a superb tale of time-lost civilisations and an extra-dimensional invasion by the Warlock of Ys that co-starred the peripatetic Zatanna the Magician.

The top-hatted, fish-netted, comely young sorceress had appeared in a number of Julie Schwartz-edited titles hunting her long-missing father Zatarra: a magician-hero in the Mandrake mould who had fought evil in the pages of Action Comics for over a decade beginning with the very first issue. In true Silver Age “refit” style Fox created his young and equally gifted daughter, and popularised her by guest-teaming her with a selection of superheroes he was currently scripting (if you’re counting, these tales appeared in Hawkman #4, Atom #19, Green Lantern #42, and the Elongated Man back-up strip in Detective Comics #355 as well as a very slick piece of back writing to include the high-profile Caped Crusader via Detective #336 – ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’, before concluding after the GL segment in Justice League of America #51).

The Flash guest-starred in a high-powered tussle with a new nemesis in the ‘Catastrophic Crimes of Major Disaster!’ in #43 and the next issue provide two tales – a rarity as book-length epics increasing became the action-packed norm. Oddly, second-class postage discounts had for years dictated the format of comic-books: to qualify for cheaper rates periodicals had to contain more than one feature, but when the rules were revised single, complete tales not divided into “chapters” soon proliferated. Here though are two reasons to bemoan the switch; Fox’s ‘Evil Star’s Death-Duel Summons’ and Broome’s Jordan Brothers adventure ‘Saga of the Millionaire Schemer!’, offering high-intensity super-villain action and heady, witty mystery.

The Earth-2 Green Lantern returned for another team-up in #45’s fantasy romp ‘Prince Peril’s Power Play’ by Broome, who raised the dramatic stakes with the hero’s first continued adventure in the following issue. Before that, though Green Lantern #56 opened with a delightfully grounded crime-thriller ‘The Jailing of Hal Jordan’ from Fox, before ‘The End of a Gladiator!’ detailed the murder of GL by old foe Dr. Polaris and concluded with his funeral on Oa, home of the Guardians!

Broome was on fire at this time: the following issue found the hero’s corpse snatched to the 58th century and revived in time to save his occasional future home from a biological infection of pure evil in the spectacular conclusion ‘Green Lantern Lives Again!’

Bizarrely garbed goodies and baddies were common currency at this time of “Batmania” so when gold-plated mad scientist Keith Kenyon returned it was as a dyed-in-the-wool costumed crazy in Fox’s ‘Goldface’s Grudge Fight Against Green Lantern!’, although Broome’s showbiz scoundrel Dazzler didn’t quite set the world afire in #49’s ‘The Spectacular Robberies of TV’s Master Villain!’ The story was still a shocker however as Hal Jordan quit his job as a Coast City test Pilot and went on the first of his vagabond quests across America…

With Green Lantern #50 Gil Kane began inking his own art, lending the proceedings a raw, savage appeal. The fight content in the stories was also ramped up, as seen in Broome’s murder-mystery treasure hunt ‘The Quest for the Wicked Queen of Hearts!’ which was complimented by an extragalactic smack-fest in Fox’s ‘Thraxton the Powerful vs Green Lantern the Powerless’ before Broome took the Emerald Crusader back to the 58th century to battle ‘Green Lantern’s Evil Alter Ego!’ in #52.

Alan Scott and comedy sidekick Doiby Dickles popped over from Earth-2 to aid against the return of arch nemesis Sinestro in the frankly peculiar ‘Our Mastermind, the Car!’ by Broome and Kane, but found a much less outré plot or memorable foe in #53’s ‘Captive of the Evil Eye!’ whilst artists Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene stepped in to illustrate Broome’s thrillingly comedic Jordan Brothers back-up ‘Two Green Lanterns in the Family!’ as Hal took a job as a county-spanning investigator for the Evergreen Insurance company.

Broome and Kane were reunited for the positively surreal, super-scientific ‘Menace in the Iron Lung!’ (#54), and all-out attack on the Guardians in ‘Cosmic Enemy Number One’, which concluded in ‘The Green Lanterns’ Fight for Survival!’ and the appointment of a second Earthling to the Corps.

Fox scripted a sparkling Fights ‘n’ Tights duel in ‘The Catastrophic Weapons of Major Disaster!’ (#57) and a gripping psycho-thriller in #58’s ‘Peril of the Powerless Green Lantern’ wherein the hero seemingly suffered from debilitating combat fatigue. Sid Greene returned with this latter and stayed to ink the last tale in this volume, another continuity landmark.

In issue #59 (March 1968) Broome introduced Guy Gardner ‘Earth’s Other Green Lantern!’ in a rip-roaring cosmic epic of what-might-have-been. When dying GL Abin Sur had ordered his ring to select a worthy successor Hal Jordan hadn’t been the only candidate, but the closest of two. What if the ring had chosen his alternative instead…?

With a superb double page pin-up from GL #46 to end on this book gathers the imaginative and creative peak of Broome, Fox and Kane, a plot driven plethora of adventure sagas and masterful thrillers that literally reshaped the DC Universe. Action lovers and fans of fantasy fiction couldn’t find a better example of everything that defines superhero comics.
© 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase presents Green Lantern volume 2


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1264-3

As the Emerald Crusader entered his fourth year (which is how this second superb collection, reprinting issues #18 to 38 of the Silver Age series kicks off) the concept of the superhero was firmly reestablished among the buying public and there was no shortage of gaudily clad competition. The better books survived by having something a little “extra”. With Green Lantern that was primarily the superb scripts of John Broome and Gardner Fox and the astounding drawing of Gil Kane, whose dynamic anatomy and deft page design was maturing with every page he drew, but 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. As such his support team was necessarily composed of some the brightest talents in American comics. Green Lantern #18 (January 1963) led with ‘The World of Perilous Traps!’ by John Broome, regular penciller Gil Kane and inker Joe Giella who teamed to produce another cracking, fast paced thriller featuring the renegade GL Sinestro, whilst Mike Sekowsky penciled Kane’s layouts for the intriguing ‘Green Lantern Vs. Power Ring’ as Broome engineered a startling duel when hobo Bill Baggett took control of the Green Ring, necessitating a literal battle of wills for it power.

Green Lantern #19 saw the return of ultra-nationalist villain Sonar in ‘The Defeat of Green Lantern!’ (Broome, Kane & Giella) a high-energy cosmic duel nicely counter-pointed by the whimsical crime-caper ‘The Trail of the Horse-and-Buggy Bandits!’ by the same team, wherein a little old lady’s crossed phone line led the Emerald Gladiator into conflict with a passel of canny crooks. Issue #20 ‘Parasite Planet Peril!’ by Broome, Kane and Murphy Anderson reunited GL with the Flash in a full-length epic to foil a plot to kidnap human geniuses.

One of the DCU’s greatest menaces debuted in #21’s ‘The Man who Mastered Magnetism’. Broome created a world-beater in the duel-personality villain Doctor Polaris for Kane and Giella to draw, whilst ‘Hal Jordan Betrays Green Lantern!’ is the kind of action-packed, clever puzzle-yarn that Gardner Fox always excelled at, especially with Anderson’s stellar inks to lift the art to a delightful high.

Fox also scripted the return of diabolical futurist villain Hector Hammond in ‘Master of the Power Ring!’ (Giella inks) whilst Broome turned his hand to a human-interest story with the Anderson-inked ‘Dual Masquerade of the Jordan Brothers!’ as GL played matchmaker, trying to convince his future sister-in-law that her intended was in fact Green Lantern!

‘Threat of the Tattooed Man!’ kicked off #23, the first all-Fox scripted issue and the start of Giella’s tenure as sole inker, as the Ring-Slinger tackled a common thief who lucked into the eerie power to animate his skin-ink and ‘The Green Lantern Disasters’ took the hero off-world to rescue missing comrade Xax of Xaos, a insect member of the GL Corps. Issue #25 featured the first appearance of ‘The Shark that Hunted Human Prey!’ (Broome) wherein an atomic accident evolved the ocean’s deadliest predator into a psychic fear-feeder whilst ‘The Strange World Named Green Lantern!’ (Broome again) found the Emerald Crusader trapped on a sentient and lonely planet that craved his constant presence…

Green Lantern #25 featured Fox’s full-length thriller ‘War of the Weapon Wizards!‘ as GL fell foul of the lethally persistent Sonar and his silent partner-in-crime Hector Hammond, whilst Hal Jordan’s girlfriend Carol Ferris once more transformed into an alien queen determined to beat him into marital submission in ‘Star Sapphire unmasks Green Lantern!’– a witty cracker from Fox who also scripted the superb ‘World Within the Power Ring!’ as the hero battled an extraterrestrial sorcerer imprisoned within his ring by his deceased predecessor!

Fox’s super-scientific crime thriller ‘Mystery of the Deserted City!’ led in issue #27 whilst Broome charmed and alarmed with ‘The Amazing Transformation of Horace Tolliver!’, as Hal learned a lesson in who to help – and how. No prizes for guessing who – or what – menace returned in #28’s ‘The Shark Goes on the Prowl Again!’, but big applause if you can solve the puzzle of ‘The House that Fought Green Lantern’, both engaging romps courtesy of writer Fox whilst Broome added to his tally of memorable villain creations with the debut of Black Hand – the Cliché Criminal – who misappropriated a portion of GL’s power in ‘Half a Green Lantern is Better than None!’ as well as scripting a brilliant alien invader tale in ‘This World is Mine!’

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

Issue #30 featured two more Broome tales; the dinosaur attack thriller ‘The Tunnel through Time!’ and a compelling epic of duty and love as Katma Tui, who replaced the renegade Sinestro learned ‘Once a Green Lantern… Always a Green Lantern!’ The same writer also provided the baffling mystery ‘Power Rings for Sale!’ and the tense Jordan Brothers thriller ‘Pay Up – or Blow Up!’ whilst Fox handled all of #32, the tantalizing crime caper ‘Green Lantern’s Wedding Day!’ and the trans-galactic Battle Royale ‘Power Battery Peril!’

Nefarious villain Dr. Light decided to pick off his enemies one by after his defeat in Justice League of America #12 (see Showcase presents Justice League of America volume 1). His attempts in various member’s home titles reached GL with #33, but here too he got a damned good thrashing in ‘Wizard of the Light Wave Weapons!’, whereas the thugs in the back-up yarn, as well as giving artist Gil Kane another excuse to show his love of and facility with movie gangster caricatures, came far to close to ending the Emerald Gladiator’s life in ‘The Disarming of Green Lantern!’

Fox had by this time become lead writer and indeed wrote all the remaining stories in this volume. ‘Three-Way Attack against Green Lantern!’ in #34 was another full-length cosmic extravaganza as Hector Hammond discovered the secrets of the Guardians and launched an all-out assault on our hero, whilst both scripts in #35; costumed villain drama ‘Prisoner of the Golden Mask!’ and brain-swop spy-saga ‘The Eagle Crusader of Earth!’ looked much closer to home for their abundance of thrills, chills and spills.

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

Physical combat had been gradually overtaking ring magic in the pages of the series and #27’s ‘The Spies who “Owned” Green Lantern!’ despite being a twist-heavy drama of espionage and intrigue was no exception, whilst the second story ‘The Plot to Conquer the Universe!’ pitted the Emerald Crusader against Evil Star, a foe both immortal and invulnerable, which gave the hero plenty of reasons to lash out in spectacular, eye-popping manner.

Green Lantern teamed with fellow corpsman Tomar Re to battle ‘The Menace of the Atomic Changeling!’ in a brilliant science fiction escapade and the issue (#38 if you’re still counting) as well as this terrific volume concludes with ‘The Elixir of Immortality!’ as criminal mastermind Keith Kenyon absorbed a gold-based serum to become a veritable superman. He might have been immune to Ring Energy (which can’t affect anything yellow, as eny Fule kno) but eventually our hero’s flashing fists brought him low – a fact he never forgot on the many occasions he returned as the merciless master criminal Goldface…

The increasingly vast scope of these tales would become a cornerstone of the greater DC Universe and the incredibly animated, dynamic art of Gil Kane transformed how action comics were drawn. These stories changed comics storytelling forever and they’re still some of the most entertaining and mesmerising reads in all superhero fiction. What more do you need to know…?

© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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SHOWCASE presents Bat Lash


By Sergio Aragonés, Denny O’Neil, Nick Cardy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2295-6

By 1968 the glory-days of comic-books as a cheap mass-market entertainment were over. Spiralling costs, “free” alternatives like television and an increasing inability to connect with the mainstream markets were leaving the industry at the mercy of dedicated fan-groups with specialised, even limited, interests and worse yet, dependent on genre-trends to bolster sales.

Editorial Director Carmine Infantino, a thirty-year veteran, looked for ways to bolster DC business (already suffering a concerted attack by the seemingly unstoppable rise of Marvel Comics) and clearly remembered the old publisher’s maxim “do something old, and make it look new”. Although traditional cowboy yarns (which had ruled both TV and cinema screens since the 1950s) were also in decline, novel alternatives such as Wild, Wild West and Italian “Spaghetti Westerns” were popular, and would be a lot easier to transform into comics material than the burgeoning Supernatural craze that would come to dominate the next half-decade – but only after the repressive and self-inflicted Comics Code was re-written.

Thus Spanish/Mexican cartoonist and actor Sergio Aragonés was asked by Infantino and Editor Joe Orlando to add some unique contemporary twists to a cowboy hero they had concocted with the aid of the legendary Sheldon Mayer. Although many hands had stirred the plot, Aragonés, with dialogue provider Denny O’Neil, rendered the world-weary lonely saddle-tramp archetype into a completely fresh and original character – at least in comic-book terms – by making him a seemingly amoral wanderer with an aesthete’s sensibilities, a pacifist’s good intentions, and the hair-trigger capabilities of a top gun-for-hire. …And they played him for sardonic, tongue-in-cheek laughs.

Roguish, sexually promiscuous and always getting into trouble because his heart was bigger than his charlatan’s façade; Bat Lash caroused, cavorted and killed his way across the West – and Mexico – in one Showcase try-out (#76, August 1968) and seven bi-monthly issues (October/November 1968 – October/November 1969) before poor sales and a changing marketplace finally brought him low. Now this slim black and white tome (only 240 pages) collects those ahead-of-their-times adventures and also includes later revivals from DC Special Series #16 and a short run from the back of rival and fellow controversial cowboy Jonah Hex.

None of the Bat Lash stories had a title – which makes reviewing them a mite harder – but their strength was always that they took traditional plots and added a sardonic spin and breakneck pace to keep them fairly rattling along. It also didn’t hurt that the majority of the art was produced by that unsung genius Nick Cardy, whose light touch and unparalleled ability to draw beautiful women kept young male readers (those who bothered to try the comic) glued to the pages.

The drama begins with the Showcase introduction in which the flower-loving nomad wanders into the town of Welcome in search of a fancy feed only to find a gang of thugs and a mystery poisoner in the process of driving out the entire populace. Bat Lash #1 carried on the episodic hi-jinks as the laconic Lothario narrowly escaped a lynching only to stumble into the murder of a monk carrying part of a treasure map. Was it his finer instincts seeking retribution for the holy man, the monk’s stunning niece or the glittering temptation of Spanish gold that prompted the rootin’ tootin’ action that followed?

Issue #2 began with a shotgun wedding, ensued as the drifter became unwilling guardian to a little girl orphaned by gun-runners and brilliantly climaxed with unexpected poignancy – and calamitous gunplay…

A radical departure – even for this series – occurred in #3 when the easy Epicurean – whilst trying out the temporary role of Deputy Sheriff – encountered a hanging judge who thought he was a Roman Emperor, before Lash crossed the border into revolutionary Mexico in issue #4 to become embroiled in an assassination plot; a tale as much gritty as witty which displayed the emotional depths of the rambling man.

Still in Mexico for #5 the creative team pitted the dashing rogue against his near-equal in raffish charm and gunplay when he met the deadly bandito Sergio Aragones. Of course they were both outmatched by the delightfully deadly Senorita Maribel…

Mike Sekowsky pencilled most of issue #6 for Cardy to ink: a dark, tragic origin tale which revealed the anger and tears behind the laughter, whilst Bat Lash #7 set the far-from-heroic wanderer on the trail of a younger brother he had believed dead for ten years…

And that’s where it was left for nearly a decade. In 1978 the giant sized anthology comic DC Special Series (#16) produced a Western-themed issue for which O’Neil and artist George Moliterni crafted a slick, sly murder-mystery set in San Francisco where an older Bat Lash was a professional gambler enveloped in a deadly war between Irish gangs and Chinese immigrant workers. This compelling, enjoyable yarn eventually led to a four-issue run as back-up in Jonah Hex #49-52 (June-September 1981) wherein the charming chancer won a New Orleans bordello in a river-boat card game and despite numerous attempts to kill him took possession of the Bourbon Street Social Club.

Was he that hungry for lazy luxury and female companionship, or was it perhaps that he knew a million dollars in Confederate gold was hidden there in the dying days of the Civil War – and never found?

Scripter Len Wein and the incomparable Dan Spiegle concluded this criminally under-appreciated character’s solo exploits in fine style; which only leaves it to you to buy this brash and bedazzling book to convince DC’s powers-that-be to give the foppishly reluctant gunslinger another crack at the big time – and no, I’m not forgetting the recent, ill-conceived make-over miniseries…

Enchanting, exciting, wry and wonderful, this is a book for all readers of fun fiction and a superb example of comics’ outreach potential.

© 1968, 1969, 1978, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Phantom Stranger volume 2


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1722-8

By the end of 1972 the horror and mystery boom had stabilized into a key component of both DC and Marvel’s core output, with fantasy and sword and sorcery adventurers also scoring well with fans, but the glory days of huge comic-book print-runs were gone forever. However, although a depleted force, superhero comics did not disappear as some older heads suspected they might, and an initially unwieldy amalgam, the horror-hero, soon became a useful crossover sales tool.

Never as common as Marvel’s burgeoning pantheon of spooky crusaders, the most successful of the DC stalwarts were Swamp Thing and the 1950’s revival Phantom Stranger. This volume concludes his impressive second run of tales (see also Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger volume 1 (ISBN: 978-1-4012-1088-5) and includes not only his crossover trips into the greater DC Universe, but also includes the rare final appearances that seemingly ended his career until revived in the post Crisis on Infinite Earths 1980s.

The monochrome magic begins with an impressive chiller from Bob Haney, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito that originally appeared in the Batman team-up vehicle the Brave and the Bold (#89, April/May 1970). ‘Arise Ye Ghosts of Gotham’ saw a religious sect return to the city that had driven them out two centuries previously, only to awaken the vengeful spirits of their banished ancestors until pacified by our initially squabbling heroes.

The Stranger’s return to Brave and the Bold (#98, October/November 1971), was a much more traditional tale, superbly crafted by Haney and Jim Aparo. ‘Mansion of the Misbegotten!’ was a twist-ridden mystery of demon-cults and possession that fully exploited the world-wide obsession with Satanism that began with Rosemary’s Baby and peaked with The Exorcist, as the Gotham Guardian found himself outwitted, outmatched and in dire need of assistance to foil a seemingly diabolical force threatening the life of his godson.

Following on is ‘A Stranger Walks Among Us!’ by Len Wein, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano, as the haunted hero saved Halloween and the World’s Greatest Superheroes from a magical murder plot and consequently joined the Justice League of America (in issue #103 of their own comic, December 1972).

From the same month the Stranger’s own solo adventures featured ‘Circle of Evil’ (Phantom Stranger #22) by Wein and Aparo, wherein the coalition of evil calling itself the Dark Circle initiated its master plan by attacking the hero through blind psychic – and nominal love-interest – Cassandra Craft, whilst Ghost-Breaker Dr. Thirteen exposed another hoary hoax in ‘Creatures of the Night’ by Steve Skeates and Tony DeZuniga. These counterpoints to eldritch adventure, although usually excellent, were rapidly reaching their sell-by date, and very soon Thirteen would be battling real monsters he couldn’t rationalize away…

‘Panic in the Night!’ from #23 saw the Stranger and Cassandra in Paris battling analogues of the Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame as they gathered an unlikely ally for their imminent final clash with the Dark Circle. However, great as this yarn is, the real gem is the back-up feature which transformed Terry Thirteen.

‘The Spawn of Frankenstein!’ saw the discovery of an ice-entombed man-monster lead to dark tragedy. When Victor Adams, a colleague of Dr. Thirteen, attempted to revive the beast it resulted in his death and Thirteen’s wife Marie being crippled and hurled into a coma. The vengeance-crazed Ghost-Breaker resolved to hunt down and destroy the unthinking monster, utterly unaware – and perhaps uncaring – that the beast was both rational and wholly innocent of any misdeed.

Written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by the unique talent of Michael Kaluta, this debut promised much, but the feature was plagued by inconsistency. Phantom Stranger #24 (March/April 1973) saw the epic conclusion of the long war against the Dark Circle as the hero and Cassandra battled the ‘Apocalypse!’ in the shadow of Mount Corcovado (that’s the one with the Jesus statue “Christo Redentor” overlooking Rio de Janeiro) with old foes Tannarak and Tala, Queen of Darkness along for the spectacular and long-overdue ride.’The Spawn of Frankenstein continued by Wolfman and Kaluta as the revived monster decided to revenge itself upon Victor Adams for dragging him back to cruel, unwanted life (by returning the favour…) by resurrecting the dead scientist in return…

A new tone and a resumption of episodic, supernatural triage marked issue #25 as the mysterious wanderer pitted himself against a voodoo cult in ‘Dance of the Serpent’ (by Wein – from an idea by Michael J Pellowski – and Aparo) whilst Kaluta ended his run on Frankenstein with another untitled tale wherein Rachel Adams (wife of the departed Doctor) was kidnapped by Satanists before being rescued by the monster; a tale that led into #26’s crossover ‘From Dust Thou Art…’ by Wein, Wolfman and Aparo, which teamed the monster and the Stranger against demons in need of earthly bodies.

The radical change was completed with the next issue as innovative horror-anthology artist Gerry Talaoc replaced the sleek, realistic Aparo (who moved on to the Brave and the Bold and a long career illustrating Batman), whilst journeyman mainstay Arnold Drake assumed the writer’s seat. Together they introduced another long-term nemesis for the Stranger in the deeply disturbed psychiatrist and parapsychologist ‘Dr. Zorn: Soul-Master!’

Eschewing the Gothic trappings that had carried the series thus far this driven meddler, callously warping his patients and performing illicit experiments for the US Military-Industrialist Complex, was a far more insidious and freshly contemporary threat in tune with the times. Thwarted but seldom defeated he returned to bedevil the Stranger many times.

Frankenstein was taken over by Steve Skeates and the legendary Bernard Baily (Golden Age co-creator of Hourman and the Spectre) and ‘The Terror and the Compassion’ saw the misunderstood beast stumble into a commune that was actually a demonic coven intent on blood sacrifice and raising the devil…

‘The Counterfeit Madman!’ by the new regular team saw the Stranger explore the mind of mad-dog killer Johnny Ganz. Was the young offender a true psychopath or a cunning crook pretending to be a multiple-personality sufferer? Was there another innocent victim trapped inside the killer’s skull with him? An element of moral ambiguity had been added by Drake that layered the later adventures with enticing and challenging dilemmas absent from most comic fiction and only matched by Steve Gerber’s challenging work on Man-Thing. The back-up,‘Night of the Snake God’ however, was a more traditional tale which continued the Spawn of Frankenstein’s battle against the hippie cult in a solid if undemanding manner.

Zorn returned to his unscrupulous scientific explorations of the supernatural in Phantom Stranger #29’s ‘The Devil Dolls of Dr. Z!’ whilst matters hardly progressed at all in ‘The Snake-God Revealed!’, which saw the Spawn of Frankenstein lose momentum – and story-space – as his strip was reduced to six pages. The next issue led with another contemporary terror in ‘The Children’s Crusade!’ as a modern Pied Piper seduces a town’s young into his charismatic cult whilst ‘Turn-about!’ concludes – and not before time – the exploits of the Spawn of Frankenstein.

Issue #31 (June-July 1974) is an exotic yarn dealing with the aftermath of the Vietnam war as a disgraced US “general” smuggling drugs for a local warlord awakens a slumbering demon in ‘Sacred is the Monster Kang!’ The Stranger tales were usually 12 pages long at this period, but the back-up feature that originally filled up the comics – The Black Orchid – is not included in this volume.

Bill Draut, one of the Stranger’s earliest illustrators returned in #32’s ‘It Takes a Witch…!’ an old-fashioned spooky whodunit, whilst superstar-in-waiting Mike Grell illustrated another Dr. Zorn vehicle that guest-starred the ghost of Boston Brand. In ‘Deadman’s Bluff!’ the ghost’s protracted hunt for his murderer ended as usual in frustration, but an antagonistic partnership was established for the future…

Talaoc returned for ‘A Death in the Family!’ in #34 where a “clean” brother was compelled to assume control of the family’s business – running a crime mob. His guilt was further compounded when his dead sibling returned from the grave to give him a few pointers. Increasingly the Stranger was becoming a mere witness to supernatural events in his own series, so perhaps it’s no coincidence that this issue featured a return for the more hands-on Dr. Thirteen (wife Marie cured and both of them ignoring their brief stint of Frankensteinian tragedy). ‘…And the Dog Howls Through the Night!’ was another straightforward yet gripping adventure from Skeates and Tony Dezuniga, which I suspect had been waiting a few years in a drawer before publication.

‘The Demon Gate’ was the debut tale for writer David Michelinie who made the Stranger a target for the derivative Dr. Nathan Seine who wanted to siphon off the hero’s mystic energy and soul to cure his dying wife, and like ‘Crimson Gold’, a deadly African treasure hunt for Nazi treasure in #36, it briefly betokened a more active role for the immortal wanderer. Drake and Paul Levitz scripted ‘Images of the Dead’ in Phantom Stranger #37, another highly charged moral quandary wherein a young artist was forced to commit reprehensible crimes to earn money for his wife’s hospital bills…

Talaoc made way for fellow Philippino artist Fred Carrillo with issue #38 as Nathan Seine returned to extract a bitter revenge in Levitz’s ‘The Curse of the Stalking Skull’ and this new creative team brought back Boston Brand for ‘Death Calls Twice for a Deadman’ in a last-ditch effort to revive dwindling sales. Including the sometime Batman villain the Sensei signaled a belated return to the company’s over-arching continuity, but it was too little, too late.

Deadman also co-starred in #40’s ‘In the Kingdom of the Blind’ and #41’s concluding chapter (February-March 1976) ‘A Time for Endings’ as Dr. Seine tried to bring Elder Gods to Earth using the long-absent Cassandra Craft as a medium. With the tale’s finish the series ended and the Stranger all-but vanished until the winter of 1978 and a giant-sized tale from DC Super-Stars #18.

‘Phantom Stranger and Deadman’ (by Gerry Conway, Marty Pasko, Romeo Tanghal, Dick Giordano and Bob Layton) was an extended Halloween extravaganza as the mystic champions, with Dr. Thirteen and Tala in attendance, attempted to stamp out an infestation of demons that had infiltrated the comicbook 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).

One final tale appeared a few months later in the 150th issue of House of Secrets (February-March 1978) as Conway and Talaoc related a generational tale of restless evil in ‘A God by any Other Name.’ The Stranger and Dr. Thirteen united to complete the work of Rabbi Samuel Shulman and Father John Christian who in the dire environs of London, 1892, joined spiritual forces to destroy the World’s first malignant machine intellect Molloch. But those Satanic Mills have a habit of being rebuilt by greedy men…

More than most the Phantom Stranger is a strong character and concept at the mercy of pitiless fashion. Revived at the end pf the 1960s on a wave of interest in the supernatural, and seemingly immune to harm, he struggled to find an audience in the general marketplace before direct sales techniques made publishing a less hit-or-miss proposition. Blessed with a vast cohort of talented creators, however, the stories themselves have proved to be of lasting quality, and would so easily transfer to today’s television screens that I wonder why they haven’t yet. Mystery, exotic locales, forbidden monsters spectacular effects and a cool hat: C’mon, you know you’d watch it…

But until then you’ll have to thrill and scare yourselves with these fantastic tales.

© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Atom volume 1


By Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1363-3

Julius Schwartz had already ushered in the Silver Age of American Comics with his Showcase successes Flash, Adam Strange and Green Lantern, but his fourth attempt to revive and revitalize a “Golden Age Great” had stalled when Hawkman (debuting in Brave and the Bold #34, February/March 1961) could not find an immediate audience. Undeterred, he persevered with the Winged Wonder, but also moved forward and for Showcase #34 (September/October 1961) retooled the pint-sized strongman of the 1940’s Justice Society of America into a fascinating science-fiction champion and eternal underdog.

Ray Palmer was a young physicist working on the compression of matter and a teaching Professor at Ivy Town University. He was wooing career girl Jean Loring, who wanted to make her name as a trial lawyer before settling down as Mrs. Palmer (c’mon, it was the 1960s). One evening Ray found an ultra-dense fragment of White Dwarf Star Matter, which took his researches in a new direction. By converting some of the degenerate matter into a lens he could shrink objects, but frustratingly they always exploded when he attempted to restore them to their original state.

As fiercely competitive as his intended bride, Ray kept his progress secret until he could perfect the process. Meanwhile the couple took a group of youngsters on a science hike to Giant Caverns, where a cave-in trapped the entire party. As they all lay trapped and dying Ray secretly activated his reducing lens to shrink himself, using the diamond engagement ring he was carrying to carve a tiny fissure in the rock wall into an escape hole. Fully expecting to detonate any second, he was astounded to discover that some peculiar combination of circumstances allowed to him to return to his normal six foot height with no ill effects.

With his charges safe he returned to his lab to find that the process only worked on his own body; all other subjects still catastrophically destructed. Somewhat disheartened he pondered his situation – and his new-found abilities…

And thus ended ‘The Birth of the Atom!’, a taut and intriguing short tale written by Gardner Fox and dynamically illustrated by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, which was supplemented by the spectacular ‘Battle of the Tiny Titans!’ wherein a six-inch tall, teleporting alien went on a crime-spree in Ivy Town, the unwilling slave of petty thief Carl Ballard.

Jean was called in to defend a bank-teller accused of embezzlement – after all, the woman claimed her cash-drawer was emptied by a little genie – and Ray determined to clandestinely help her using his newest innovation, a suit made from White Dwarf material, which could alter not only his height but also his weight and mass. The story is thrilling and entrancing, not to mention astonishingly inventive (including such gimmicks as the Atom traveling along telephone wires) but the art – allowing Kane to combine the usual long-shots, mid-shots and close-ups with glorious, balletic, full-body action poses – made this and all subsequent Atom adventures a symphony of human dynamism. Some text pages featuring a potted history of the original Al Pratt Atom and the science behind that phone trick filled out Showcase #34… and Schwartz was back on track with another instant hit.

The second try-out issue opted for a complete single story. ‘The Dooms From Beyond!’ is a spectacular tale of witches, curses and murderous trickery in pursuit of an inheritance, capped with biographies of Fox, Kane and Anderson – a true rarity in a time when publishers still preferred their staff worked in anonymity.

The final Showcase try-out again featured two adventures, and the first of these ‘Prisoner in a Test Tube!’ introduced a recurrent theme in the Tiny Titan’s career: Cold War Espionage. The American/Soviet arms-and-ideas race figured heavily in the life of physicist Ray Palmer and in the collegiate circle of Ivy Town where even Jean’s father was a scientist carefully watched by both CIA and KGB. In this pensive thriller a brief moment of East-West détente allowed the Reds to replace a visiting Hungarian Professor with a deadly doppelganger until the Atom took a diminutive hand, whilst it was back to basics with super-science and criminal conundrums in the mystery of ‘The “Disappearing Act” Robberies!’

Editor Schwartz knew he had a sure thing. Barely breaking stride to count the sales figures the bi-monthly Showcase stint segued into a bi-monthly feature title. The Atom #1 debuted with a June/July 1962 cover date featuring a spectacular full-length yarn entitled ‘Master of the Plant World!’ which pitted the hero against Jason Woodrue (later famed as the Floronic Man), an extra-dimensional botanist who had enslaved Earth’s supernatural plant spirits in a schemes to conquer our world.

‘The Oddest Man on Earth!’ was another superb scientific mystery, counter-pointed by the return of Carl Ballard in the action-packed revenge thriller ‘The Prisoners who Vanished!’ and with #3 the hero finally found a costumed arch-foe as the flamboyant thief Chronos began his obsessive career in ‘The Time Trap!’

That issue was doubly significant, if singly themed. The second tale, ‘The Secret of the Atom’s Lamp!’ introduced Ray’s mentor and colleague Professor Alpheus Hyatt and his “Time-Pool” a six-inch energy field that opened on to other eras. Hyatt thought it an intriguing but useless scientific oddity, occasionally extracting oddments from it by blindly dropping a fishing line through it. Little did he know his erstwhile student was secretly using it to experience rousing adventures in other times and locations, such as this initial exploit in which the diminutive daredevil visited Arabia in 850AD to discover the true story of Aladdin. This charming, thrilling and unbelievably educational yarn set a format and high bench-mark for some of the Atom’s best and most well-loved exploits.

Our hero joined the Justice League of America with issue #14 (September 1962) and the Atom #4 (December 1962/January 1963) featured ‘The Machine that Made Miracles!’ a prototypical crossover in which the hero helped League mascot Snapper Carr solve a baffling mystery that had aliens at the bottom of it, whilst ‘The Case of the Innocent Thief!’ was a cool crime procedural yarn, as once more a client of Jean Loring’s occasioned some clandestine legal aid from the Tiny Titan…

Issue #5 opened with a sharp science-fiction thriller as the Mighty Mite journeyed to a sub-atomic civilisation in ‘The Diamond of Deadly Dooms!’ (with a delightful art contribution from the great Mike Sekowsky) whilst ‘The Specter of 3000-Moons Lake!’ tested the hero’s detective skills in an eerie tale of bogeymen and bandits.

‘The Riddle of the Two-Faced Astronaut!’ in #6 was actually a crafty crime-caper, but the real highlight was another Time-Pool tale when our hero met and mastered infamous rogue Dick Turpin in ‘The Highwayman and the Mighty Mite!’, whilst the next issue formed part of Editor Schwartz’s charm offensive to promote Hawkman when the Winged Wonder met Tiny Titan in a full-length spectacular, world-threatening epic ‘The Case of the Cosmic Camera!’

Justice League villain Dr. Light opened a campaign to pick off his foes piecemeal when he subjected the Atom to a ‘Lock-up in the Lethal Lightbulb!’ in #8 and master craftsman Sid Greene inked the deft mystery of ‘The Purloined Miniatures’ which completed that issue. ‘The Atom’s Phantom Double!’ was another high-tech fantasy, complimented by ‘The Seaman and the Spyglass!’ (Greene again) wherein the Mighty Mite proved instrumental in Hans Lippershey’s invention of telescopes and helped explorer Henry Hudson shape the destiny of the USA, courtesy of the ubiquitous Time-Pool.

‘Ride a Deadly Grenade!’ was another breathtaking Cold-War spy-thriller, whilst ‘The Mysterious Swan-Maiden!’ was just a crafty scam, but Atom #11 truly tested the Mighty Mite’s deductive mettle with both ‘Trouble at the Ten-Year Club’ and the Greene inked fantasy thriller ‘Voyage to Beyond!’

A technological master-criminal briefly made our hero his weapon-of-choice in ‘Danger… Atom-Gun at Work!’ and the charming Time-Pool tale ‘The Gold-Hunters of ’49!’ allowed the Tiny Titan to meet his literary hero Edgar Allan Poe in #12, with which issue Greene became the regular inker (necessitated by Hawkman finally getting his long-awaited – Murphy Anderson illustrated – solo-feature).

Chronos returned in #13’s ‘Weapon Watches of the Time-Wise Guy!’, and Anderson returned to ink the procedural drama of ‘I Accuse Ray Palmer… of Robbery!’, but super-science was increasingly the order of the day as our hero had to endure ‘The Revolt of the Atom’s Uniform!’ in #14 and both spies with ‘Illusions for Sale!’ and the crafty Hyper-Thief in ‘The Super-Cracker who Defied the Law!’ in #15.

Atom #16 was another mind-boggling novel where yet another criminal scientist brought about the ‘Fate of the Flattened-Out Atom!’ and this immensely dynamic treat for eyes and imagination concludes with #17’s ‘Case of the Hooded Hijackers!’ (wherein Gil Kane displayed his love of gangster movies and talent for caricature) and finishes big with another magical Time-Pool extravaganza when the Tiny Titan visits the year 1888 and retrieves ‘Jules Verne’s Crystal Ball!’

The Atom was never a major name or huge success, but from reading these witty, compelling tales by Gardner Fox, where Gil Kane first mastered the fluid human dynamism that made him a legend, you’d be hard-pressed to understand why. This is sheer superhero perfection. Why not try a bit… just a tiny bit?

© 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents: the Justice League of America


By Gardner Fox, Denny O’Neil, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-82856-188-5

By 1968 the new superhero boom looked to be dying just as its predecessor had at the end of the 1940s. Sales were down generally in the comics industry and costs were beginning to spiral, and more importantly “free” entertainment, in the form of television, was by now ensconced in even the poorest household. If you were a kid in the sixties, think on just how many brilliant cartoon shows were created in that decade, when artists like Alex Toth and Doug Wildey were working in West Coast animation studios. Moreover, comic-book heroes were now appearing on the small screen. Superman, Aquaman, Batman, the Marvel heroes and even the JLA were there every Saturday in your own living room…

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

This fourth monochrome volume reflects the turmoil of the times as the writer and penciller who had created every single adventure of the World’s Greatest Superheroes since their inception gave way to a “new wave” writer and a fresh if not young artist. Collecting issues #61-83 (and re-presenting the stirring covers of #67 and 76: giant editions which reprinted issues #4, 14 & 31, and #7 &12, respectively), this tome covers a society in transition and a visible change in the way DC comics stories were told.

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

George Roussos replaced Greene as inker for ‘Panic from a Blackmail Box’, a taut thriller about redemption involving the time-delayed revelations of a different kind of villain, and ‘Time Signs a Death-Warrant for the Justice League’, where the villainous Key finally acts on a scheme he initiated way back in Justice League of America #41. This rowdy fist-fest was Sekowky’s last pencil job on the team (although he returned for a couple of covers). He was transferring his attentions to the revamping of Wonder Woman (for which see the marvellous Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volumes 1–4).

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

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

Not even the heroes themselves were immune to change. As the market contracted and shifted, so too did the team. With no fanfare the Martian Manhunter was dropped after #61. He just stopped appearing and the minor heroes (ones whose strips or comics had been cancelled) got less and less space in future tales.

Denny O’Neil took over the scripting with #66, a rather dated and heavy-handed satire entitled ‘Divided they Fall!’ wherein defrocked banana-republic dictator Generalissimo Demmy Gog (did I mention it was heavy-handed?) used a stolen morale-boosting ray to cause chaos on a college campus. O’Neil was more impressive with his second outing. ‘Neverwas – the Chaos Maker!’: a time-lost monster on a rampage, but the compassionate solution to his depredations better fitted the social climate and hinted at the joys to come when the author began his legendary run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

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

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

‘Thirteen Days to Doom!’ was a moody gothic horror story in which Hawkman was turned into a pillar of salt by demons, precipitating a rare guest-shot for Hawkgirl, but excellent though it was the entire thing was but a prelude to O’Neil’s first shot at the annual JLA/JSA team-up in issues #73 and 74. ‘Star Light, Star Bright… Death Star I See Tonight!’ and ‘Where Death Fears to Tread!’ related the fearsome tale of Aquarius, a sentient but insane star, that magically destroyed Earth-Two until our heroes (with their surviving Golden Age counterparts) manage to restore it, but not without some personal tragedy.

As a result the Black Canary chose to emigrate to Earth-One, handily becoming the team’s resident Girl Superhero, and picking up a new if somewhat unreliable power in the process. The repercussions of her move and Green Arrow losing all his wealth made Justice League of America #75 one of O’Neil’s best. ‘In Each Man there is a Demon!’ (inked by new regular Joe Giella) found the team literally battling their own worst aspects and the heroes’ confidence was further rocked when the enigmatic Joe Dough compromised their beloved mascot in ‘Snapper Carr… Super-Traitor!’

The greater social awareness parading through comics at this time manifested in the next epic two-parter, which also revived another Golden Age Great (presumably to cash-in on the mini-boom in screen Westerns). The Vigilante – a cowboy-themed superhero who battled Bandits and Badmen in a passel of DC titles from 1941-1954 – alerted the team to ‘The Coming of the Doomsters!’, just in time to foil the alien invaders who used pollution as their secret weapon in ‘Come Slowly Death, Come Slyly!’ Another landmark of this still-impressive tale was the introduction of the JLA Satellite, as the team moved from a hole in a mountain to a high-tech orbiting fortress.

‘Night of the Soul-Stealer!’ saw an alien collecting heroic spirits in a magic box, but it was only a prelude to a greater threat as issue #81 revealed his good intentions as the ‘Plague of the Galactic Jest-Master’ threatened to inflict a greater horror upon our entire universe.

This book ends with another grand collaboration between JLA and JSA as property speculators from outer space sought to raze both Earths in ‘Peril of the Paired Planets’, and only the ultimate sacrifice of a true hero could avert trans-dimensional disaster in the concluding ‘Where Valor Fails… Will Magic Triumph?’

Although an era of greatness had ended, it ended at the right time and for sound reasons. These thoroughly wonderful thrillers mark an end and a beginning in comic-book storytelling as whimsical adventure was replaced by inclusivity, social awareness and a tacit acknowledgement that a smack in the mouth couldn’t solve all problems. The audience was changing and the industry was forced to change with them. But underneath it all the drive to entertain remained strong and effective. Charm’s loss is drama’s gain and today’s readers might be surprised to discover just how much punch these tales had – and still have.

But for that you need to get this book…

© 1968, 1969, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.