Month: August 2015

Green Lantern #40 (October, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

According to the Grand Comics Database, this comic book was published exactly 50 years ago today, on August 26, 1965.  The fact that it came out pretty late in the month may be significant, as it seems very likely to me that I bought it only after buying Justice League of America #40, which doesn’t have a specific date of release given in the GCD, but does have a later cover date of November, 1965.  That’s because I didn’t have a clue who Green Lantern was before I started buying comics, and it seems logical that I took a chance on the Emerald Crusader’s solo book only after first encountering him as a member of the JLA.  This book could well have been on the stands for a week or two after JLA #40’s release.  But since I don’t really know if any of that is actually true, I’m going to go ahead and honor the cover dates, and post about GL #40 ahead of the Justice League book.  Read More

Detective Comics #344 (October, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I think that this was the second comic book I bought, but I’m not sure.  It has the same cover date as Superman #180, but so does another comic I bought around the same time.  I’m sure Superman #180 was the very first, but my memory of the specific sequence of acquisitions is a little dim after that.  I feel like Batman followed right after Superman, however, and it also seems like the most appropriate choice — so that’s what I’m going with here.

My memory is also trying to tell me that I was previously aware of Batman from commercials for his upcoming live-action series (maybe even one featuring the Batusi?), but that seems pretty unlikely.  The premiere of ABC’s “Batman” was still 5 months away, and I don’t believe that networks aired promos that far in advance in those days — but I could be wrong.  Assuming there hadn’t been any such commercials, however, I must have had only a vague idea of who Batman was and what he was all about.  Only a year later, Batman would be everywhere — toys, records, books, trading cards, other novelties, a movie — but in the summer of ’65 there were only the comics.  Read More

Superman #180 (October, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

According to the Grand Comics Database, this particular comic book, the first one I ever bought, went on sale on the 5th day of August, 1965.  I probably didn’t buy it on that specific day, but it is possible.  In any case, I’m going to post about it today — exactly 50 years to the date it originally hit the stands.

Why Superman?  Well, then as now, he was the best-known comic book superhero in the world, having been published continuously from 1938 onwards.  And I already knew him from television, for even though the live-action series starring George Reeves had ended its run in 1958 (when I was two years old), episodes were being re-run every weekday afternoon by one of our two local stations.  It may be hard to believe in our era, when superheroes permeate popular culture in films, TV shows, games, toys, etc., but that was pretty much it for encountering comic book heroes in other media in the summer of 1965.  (Things would change drastically pretty soon afterwards, but that’s a subject for our next post.)  Read More