As of December, 1973, it had been seventeen months since my younger self had bought an issue of Batman. For the record, that issue had been #245, in which the lead story (as well as the cover) had been drawn by Neal Adams. The last issue I’d bought before that had been #244, which had also had a lead story illustrated by Adams; the last one before that had been #243, which was drawn by (you guessed it) Neal Adams; and before that came #242, which didn’t feature the art of Neal Adams, but did continue the Ra’s al Ghul saga begun in issue #232 by writer Denny O’Neil and artist… Neal Adams. You see the pattern, right? Adams’ art wasn’t the only factor that came into play when I stood at the spinner rack and pondered over whether to buy the latest issue of the Masked Manhunter’s title — but it was definitely the largest factor, and the presence of the artist’s work made it pretty much a no-brainer that I would buy that particular comic book.
Which, to this day, makes it something of a puzzler as to how and why I ended up not buying Batman #251, featuring O’Neil and Adams’ “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!” — a story now widely regarded as one of the most outstanding Batman stories of this era, perhaps even of all time. Regular readers of this blog have already seen me self-flagellate over this matter a couple of times, and I don’t really have anything new to add to what I’ve already written — except that I’ve just about convinced myself that speculators cleaned out the local comic-book purveyors of their supply of this issue before I ever saw a copy. (I say “just about”, because there will always be a small, nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that maybe I did see it but decided to pass because, having formed my impressions of the Joker on the basis of Cesar Romero’s performance on the 1966-68 TV series, I thought that the villain was too silly for any story about him to be worth reading. Arrgghh…)
But, whatever the reason might have been for my not buying Batman #251, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with #255. I suspect that I picked the book up out of the spinner rack purely based on the Adams cover (or, more accurately, the mostly Adams cover; Nick Cardy drew the four small illustrations representing the issue’s “Batman family” reprinted stories), then, once I’d determined that Adams drew the lead story as well (aided by his frequent collaborator [and business partner] Dick Giordano on inks), happily slapped my 50 cents down on the counter, and took this “100 Page Super Spectacular” home.
Of course, neither I nor anyone else buying this comic at the time — nor Neal Adams himself, for that matter — could have guessed that this was the last Batman story the artist would draw for DC Comics for the next 37 years.* And that’s probably a good thing, since if anyone had known, the speculators would have probably screwed me over (whether again or for the first time) as bad as they may (or may not) have done with issue #251.
But since that didn’t happen, I lucked out — and so, here we are, with a friendly Darknight Detective cheerily introducing his latest adventure (a device which strongly suggests that this first story page was originally supposed to include indicia at its bottom — indicia which has instead been moved to the issue’s actual first page, its Table of Contents).
Yes, we’re all here to see Batman fight a werewolf — but before we can get to that, Adams indulges himself with a bit of mild “peek-a-boo”-type exploitation…
Poor Ralph… couldn’t writer Len Wein have had Batman arrive on the scene just a few moments earlier? Oh, well…
Neal Adams was always interested in unusual page layouts; while they usually served the purposes of clear storytelling quite well, on occasion they tripped up the innovative artist. At least for this reader, page 4 is a case in point; our eyes are meant to follow the swooping figures of Batman and his rescuee, Janet Bonner, from the upper left all the way down to the bottom of the page, then hop back up to the top again to continue reading (guided by the “whoosh” lines, I suppose). It’s an interesting experiment that didn’t quite work for me on my most recent re-reading of this story, as I was surprised to visually encounter Bats and Ms. Bonner way down there at the bottom after having already perused the rest of the page.
Commissioner Gordon has a gut feeling that the two cases are somehow related; Batman agrees, and further muses on the possibility that “our wolf-like prowler is not wearing a mask“…
Yes, the name “Anthony Lupus” is painfully on-the-nose… at least by 2023 standards. (I think we were a bit more forgiving of this kind of thing in 1973… but, maybe not.)
The expository dialogue concerning that “rare disease… lycanthropy” may or may not be loosely derived from theories about how werewolf legends may have inspired by actual medical conditions; in any case, its main function appears to be to provide a rational veneer for supernatural-seeming phenomena that either Len Wein or his editor, Julius Schwartz — or maybe both — didn’t feel fit comfortably within the “grounded” world of the Darknight Detective (despite his numerous previous meetings with such characters as the Phantom Stranger, Deadman, the Demon, and so on).
Cover to Batman #112 (Dec., 1957). Art by Sheldon Moldoff.
Cover to Detective #247 (Sep., 1957). Art by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye.
Professor Milo might represent something of a “deep cut” as far as Batman villains go, having only appeared twice before this, and not at all since 1957 — but Len Wein had particularly personal reasons for using him. As he related to Dan Greenfield for the “13th Dimension” web site in 2014:
My first two comics I remember as a kid were both Batman. The first one was an issue of Detective and was called, The Man Who Ended Batman’s Career, where Batman becomes phobic about being the Batman and becomes Starman. The villain of that piece was Professor Milo. It was the first time he appeared. Then about six months later I picked up an issue of Batman where the lead story was, Am I Really Batman? Again, the villain was Professor Milo. He gives Batman amnesia and Robin has to re-teach him to be the Batman. As a result of that, when I wrote one of my very first solo Batman stories, Moon of the Wolf, I revived Professor Milo who had not been seen since.
Panel from Batman #112. Text by Finger; art by Moldoff and Paris.
Panel from Detective #247. Text by Bill finer; art by Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris.
The perfidious Professor Milo’s debut in Detective #247 (Sep., 1957) was written by Bill Finger, pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff, and inked by Charles Paris (all credited as “Bob Kane”, of course); the same team were responsible for Milo’s return engagement in Batman #112 (Dec., 1957). Considering that the two stories came out only a few months apart, it’s a little odd that Moldoff drew the villainous scientist with two completely different looks. Personally, I think that the original version (the one with the Moe Howard haircut, as shown at left, above) is the superior character design, so I’m glad that DC went with that one in 1973.
Returning now to our storyline… in the present day, Anthony Lupus again implores Prof. Milo to give him the cure he so desperately needs: “Tonight I almost killed someone!”
Tony Lupus explains to his club-mates that there’s nothing shady about his “tax dodge”. He wants to donate $250,000 to any charity of Batman’s choice, with the only stipulation being that the Caped Crusader come to his home to pick up the check personally: “I’ve always wanted to meet the man!” But how is he supposed to track down this man of mystery? “I wouldn’t worry about it, Tony!” Bruce Wayne tells him. “Once the Batman gets wind of an offer like yours… I think he’ll find you!”
This is the last we see of Milo in the story, and you’d be forgiven for believing that he’s just now met his end at the taloned hands of the transformed Tony Lupus. But the professor will survive the injuries incurred here, and return to make trouble for Batman (and other heroes) in several future stories, beginning with Batman #326 (Aug., 1980).
Batman realizes that “Shaggy” will have the advantage as long as they remain on the ground, but things might be different if they take their battle to the rooftops — so, despite his right arm currently being numb from the shoulder down, he scales the steel framework of the building being erected on the construction site…
As strongly suggested by the brief epilogue, Anthony Lupus survives the events of this tale; he’ll return (still cursed with lycanthropy, btw) in Detective #505 (Aug., 1981).
But that, as they say, is another story. This one has reached its end; and while it might not rank in the very top tier of Neal Adams’ Batman opuses, it’s still a pretty good one to go out on. Len Wein, on the other hand, was practically still at the beginning of his Bat-writing career, with many more yarns yet to come (including the aforementioned return of Prof. Milo in Batman #326). He’d even get to revisit “Moon of the Wolf” some nineteen years down the road, when he’d adapt the tale for an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
(Incidentally, in that version, Anthony Lupus would be renamed… to Anthony Romulus. Yeah, still very much on-the-nose.)
As with all of the titles DC converted to the Super Spectacular format in 1973, the amount of new story content in Batman #255 — 20 pages — is virtually dwarfed by the sheer volume of reprint material. This issue offers 60 pages’ worth of vintage Batman and Robin adventures, drawn from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
Our first such story is “The First Batman”, which was produced by the team of Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff, and Stan Kaye, and was originally presented in Detective #235 (Sep., 1956). In this one, Batman’s co-creator Bill Finger adds elements to the hero’s origin narrative, establishing that Bruce Wayne’s choice of crimefighting attire was inspired in part by a suppressed memory of a bat-costume his father Thomas wore to a masquerade party whilst he was still a wee lad. (I guess we should all be glad that Bruce fixated on that getup, and not on the butterfly outfit his mom Martha rocked that same night.) The story has even more significance to the evolving legend of Batman, however, as this is where Batman — and we readers — learned that the man who killed his parents, Joe Chill, wasn’t a random holdup man, but rather had been hired to kill the Waynes by a gang boss named Lew Moxon; in the present-day part of the story, Batman and Robin track Moxon down to bring final closure to the Wayne murder case.
The second reprinted story in Batman #255 is also the oldest; “The Duped Domestics!”, written by Alvin Schwartz, pencilled by Bob Kane, and inked by Jerry Robinson, comes from Batman #22 (Apr.-May, 1944). It focuses on Alfred, who was still a new character at this point — and one who was being played largely for laughs. Here, the butler attempts to impress a fellow “domestic”, a maid named Belinda, by masquerading as Batman; alas for the lovelorn manservant, Belinda turns out to be Catwoman in disguise.
Next up is “The True-False Face of Batman!” — a much more recent yarn from Detective #363 (May, 1967), written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene, which features Batgirl in a supporting role alongside Batman and Robin. The hook here is that Batman appears to reveal his true identity of Bruce Wayne to Batgirl, but, of course, doesn’t really do so… at least, that’s probably the hook for most readers. It likely was for my younger self as well, back in 1973; in 2023, however, this retired public librarian gets more of a charge from seeing Batgirl, in her own secret identity of Barbara Gordon, uncover a criminal scheme while working her day job as the head of the Gotham City public library. (That’s in spite of the somewhat dodgy professional ethics Babs exhibits when she goes poking around in patrons’ checkout records, which really ought to be confidential, even on Earth-One.)
Our fourth reprint is the only one that doesn’t come from an older issue of Batman or Detective — it’s from Star Spangled Comics, where Robin, the Boy Wonder, held down a solo strip for several years in the late ’40s-early ’50s. “Crazy-Quilt Comes Back!” was written by John Broome (maybe), and drawn by Jim Mooney, and originally appeared in SSC #123 (Dec., 1951); as you might guess from the title, it features the return of a villain named Crazy-Quilt — who, interestingly, had never faced either Robin or Batman before, his earlier appearances having all been in Boy Commandos.
We now come at last to Batman #255’s final reprint feature, which was probably also the one I appreciated most in 1973 (the historical importance of “The First Batman” notwithstanding): “The Outsider Strikes Again!” by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff. This yarn from Detective #340 (Jun., 1965) was another episode in the “Outsider” story arc which had run intermittently in the title for a couple of years in the 1960s; as I wrote about in my Detective #439 post last month, I had only bought one installment of the serial new off the stands (fortunately, it was the last one), so I was pleased to be able to pick up a couple of the earlier chapters via DC reprint editor E. Nelson Bridwell’s astute curation of material for the Super Spectaculars. This one was particularly freaky, as the eerie villain (who’d ultimately be revealed to be an amnesiac and mutated Alfred) animated the Dynamic Duo’s own equipment against them. Holy bucking Batmobile, Batman!
And that’s that for Batman #255 — the first issue of the title I’d bought since August, 1972… and the last one I would buy until February, 1977, assuming that my memory is accurate. Not that my comic-book reading was empty of Batman stories during that three-years-plus break — I did buy a number of Detectives and Brave and the Bolds during that time — but as much as I continued to like the Caped Crusader as a character, without there being any issue-to-issue continuity to speak of, my decision to purchase Batman in any given month was based almost entirely on whether a favorite creator was writing and/or drawing it… at least until 1977, when my enthusiasm over an exciting new creative team on Detective seems to have spilled over onto the Batman title as well. But, of course, that’s a story for another post… coming in 2027.
Seeing as how this is our last post of 2023, your humble blogger would like to wish each and all a Happy New Year. See you in ’24!
*December, 1973 also saw the publication of Neal Adams’ last Green Lantern story — “The Powerless Power Ring”, an eight-pager which ran in the back of Flash #226 — making this month even more of a milestone in regards to the artist’s DC Comics career. (Indeed, it would be 1978 before Adams pencilled another full story for the publisher; for the record, that one was “Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali”, published in All New Collectors’ Edition C-56.)
Another of the earliest comic books I picked up. https://tombrevoort.com/2016/04/23/while-i-was-waiting-for-my-copy-of-the-action/
what a great way to end the year! That panel of the close up of Bat’s face with the moon behind is worth the price of admission!
The end of this period of Neal at DC, what a ride it was…just a creative powerhouse, and whilst I don’t own every DC book he’s done, what i do have has been a delight to read!
1977..creative team….hmmmm….Mike Greil….i’ll put my bet down here for in 3 years time!
Thanks again for the entertainment
If I was a betting man I would put my money on Englehart, Rogers and Austin for 1977!
Your response is so much better than mine! After a long day pressing and cleaning my brain said – what happens in Bat Man in 3 years time??? Not once did i think Detective….great answer!!! I’m changing my wager to ‘what Brian said!’
👍
I have this one in the Neal Adams Does Batman three volume set, though I read it in the original (my brother’s copy). I particularly like Wein’s “there were other doctors, then there were the faith healers … then there was Milo.”
Maybe Moldoff didn’t remember he’d done Milo before?
I love the first Batman, especially Bruce’s final showdown with Moxon. Today they’d have retconned that out almost immediately, I suspect (I think they’ve gone back and forth a couple of times on whether Bats ever found his parents’ killer).
Adams seemed to have based anthony Lupus on a circa 1973 Michael (“I Was a Teenaged Werewolf”) Landon . . . .
Bodybuilder Peter Lupus enjoyed fame in the US TV series Mission: Impossible a few years before this story was published, so the surname has more plausibility than you may have thought, Alan.
Loved Neal’s art here. Berni Wrightson did a great werewolf transformation sequence in Swamp Thing #4, whereas Adams does not one, but several here—and with scripted Len Wein. I know that Berni left ST on not the best of terms with Len. BW’s girlfriend at the time had convinced him that *he* was the sole reason for ST’s success, so he tried to write #10, but there were too many plot problems – Len Wein doctored it, Berni received plot credit, and he was off to Warren Publishing to work on Creepy and Eerie.
I wonder if doing a werewolf story with Neal Adams and having him pull out all the stops, so to speak, was meant to send Berni a message that he wasn’t the only game in town when it came to horror comics scenes.
By the way, Neal Adams’ last Green Lantern story wasn’t that Flash backup, but this one pager, published in Detective Comics #470 in June, 1977 (and probably a lot of other DC titles that same month):
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hlldYqpqbBQ/VnLI1XUUQ9I/AAAAAAAAd8U/k83j-L9d0ZQ/s0-Ic42/RCO002.jpg
Those Hostess ads paid well above regular comics rates for art so they got several name people to draw them.
After several years, Mission: Impossible’s producers decided a muscleman wasn’t cool enough so they replaced him with Sam Elliott as a doctor. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative so Lupus came back on board.
I didn’t mean to imply that I thought “Lupus” was an implausible surname (I watched Mission Impossible too) — just that to have a guy with that name become a werewolf is a whopper of a coincidence.
Twinkies? Whopper? Is this more product placement, Alan? 😉
Archive Goodwin had a werewolf called Hugo Lupus in the story ‘House of Fiends’ in Eerie 10. Wonder if Wein was inspired by that?
That lightning panel is dynamite!
Some lovely narrative from Wein in this one. That’s something I miss in modern comics, where the narrative boxes are usually nothing but the characters’ bitching and moaning.
The one thing that bothers me now, but seldom did in my childhood, was how characters could jam a phonebook’s worth of words as dialogue or thought in two seconds’ worth of action. A guy falling from a building has little time to think cohesive sentences about it.
Math’s never been my best subject, but it’s not so bad that I don’t have problems with “The First Batman.”
Bruce Wayne was eight years old when he saw his parents murdered (or his father murdered and his mother succumb to a fatal heart attack). At that age, I can imagine that you would be sufficiently impressionable to swear “the vengeance vow” (to borrow the Dark Knight’s reaction to Kathy Kane’s death).
But enough time has passed with Lew Moxon’s arrest and time in prison to make Bruce more than eight years old and I think he’d then be at an age where he’d fall into an Oscar Wilde situation (you begin by loving your parents; you then begin to judge them; sometimes you forgive them). Without the powerful randomness of the origin we saw in *Detective* #33 (reprinted in *Batman* #1), something is lost.
Alan Brennert captures this well in “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne” (*Brave and the Bold* #197) when he has a stunned Catwoman see the scar tissue on the Batman’s back. Why did he become the Batman? she asks, and he replies that he lost his parents at eight and never got over it. (Thus emphasizing that this choice is a rare one, if not a unique one.)
(Interestingly, Brennert does make Moxon’s involvement work very well for me in “To Kill a Legend” in *Detective* #500, but, to rewrite Christopher Marlowe, that was on another Earth and, besides, the Waynes merely got mugged.)
I shall spare you my thoughts on why Leslie Thompkins should have been a character used in only one story and then never seen again and wish you a very happy 2024.
I don’t see how that’s math rather than character.
Batman’s childhood trauma wasn’t really a major part of his character before the Bronze Age I think. After the early 1940s it came off as much more more wanting to help people than easing his personal grief. Of course, heroes’ origins almost never came up as frequently as they do now; I don’t think I ever worried about the “why” of them as a kid (though when JLA 37 showed me the origins of several Leaguers, I was fascinated).
It’s a funny thing about that *JLA* story.
The Thunderbolt prevents most of the heroes from coming into being, but his involvement with the Batman is to persuade him to make “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” his first and last case.
He doesn’t go to Park Row and prevent it from becoming Crime Alley.
In later stories in which the heroes don’t become heroes, Bruce Wayne’s parents don’t die, and correcting the timeline causes a pang for someone.
Earth-One may become Earth-A in these two issues, but it certainly deviated from Earth-Two before that! The Batman’s thoughts in “Earth — Without a Justice League” suggest that “Chemical Syndicate” was his first case and would be his last; however, in the story in *Detective* #27, set on Earth-Two, finds Commissioner Gordon remarking to Bruce that “the Bat-Man” (1939 spelling) “puzzles” him. This implies that while this is the first story we’re reading about the character that he’s had adventures prior to this, if not the run-in with the Red Hood we’ll learn about in 1951, then perhaps the encounter with the Clock detailed in 1959.
Or maybe it’s just Lou Reed in his Stutz Bearcat, Jim, reminding us that “those were different times.”
Yes, on last reread I wondered about the choice of turning point for Batman. It’s odd. compared to the others.
Usual great art by Adams. During his heyday, from the late ’60s to this mag, the only work of his I got new off the racks was an Inhumans story in Amazing Adventures from 1971. His art in particular stuck with me although I wouldn’t realize his significance in the world of comics until several years later.
Back to this issue, it strikes me that of the A level superheroes, Batman and Spider-Man are the ones who tend to lend themselves the most to horror stories, much more-so than Superman or the Fantastic Four or Captain America, although the later has also faced off against werewolves and vampires. By this point, aside from Werewolf by Night, Spider-Man, Cap, Swamp Thing and now Batman, and I’m sure a few others I’ve forgotten about, have all faced off against other wolf-men, a sort of were-wolfmania going about! Of course, there was also the wolfman in the Saturday morning cartoon Groovy Ghoulies.
Storywise, I was struck by how seemingly easily Bats walked right into the trap and the silly old trope of Milo, so anxious to have him killed doesn’t take the opportunity to do so while Batman is unconscious and totally helpless but instead chains him to the floor in the expectation of watching him become wolfman food. He doesn’t even bother to remove his costume to better ensure he doesn’t have some means within his costume to help free himself. Even so, Bats happens to find a handy pin just within reach to undo the lock on one wrist just in time! Also, doesn’t really make sense that Lupus recovered quickly enough from getting electrocuted by lightning and falling down several stories to quickly get away without Batman seeing him. But that’s another standard comicbook trope. For all that, enjoyable enough comicbook romp, made most memorable for the exquisite art. Not sure that would have really conveyed much of a message to Wright, alas for Wein if that was his intent.
Of all Adams work in this period (where he really dominated comics), his Inhumans work might be the weakest.
For that reason, I’m not surprised you did not become an Adams fam.
The issue inked by Palmer is supurb, but John Verpooten (one of Kirby’s best late period inkers) did not mesh with him.
I suspect Adams’s impact was the same as Alex Toth’s in the 1940s and may have somewhatblunted teh impact of people like Wrightson and Starlin.
I was about 8 years old at that time and didn’t yet pay much attention to who the artist was but at any rate, even at that age I loved the art. It was just pure happenstance that I didn’t get more comics with Adams’s art as until 1973 I didn’t get collect many comics at all and by then I was strictly buying Marvel Comics, not expanding to non-Marvel titles until about 1982. My collecting prior to 1973 was very random, based on what was available and how much money I had on me. My favorites were already Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, but otherwise it was whatever was on the racks that happened to appeal to me at the time. The first issue of the Avengers I got was 104, with artwork by Rich Buckler that was very much imitative of Adams’ style, although I wouldn’t have known or even cared about that back then. I started getting the Avengers regularly shortly afterwards, liking the writing enough to keep on collecting even when I didn’t care for the art, as during Heck’s brief return.
My tastes did become more particular in my latter teens and early 20s, such that in thinking about what I did and didn’t get, I can only slap my forehead in wonderment as to what was going on in my head at the time that I got some stuff I came to regard as sheer rubbish but didn’t get stull I came to regard as classic once I actually obtained and read them.
The particular issue of Amazing Adventures I got, btw, was #5. I’d gotten a couple of earlier issues, written & drawn by Kirby, but that was about it for AA, until I got #11, featuring the debut of the new furry Beast. By the same token, as much as I loved the FF and ASM at the time, I also missed a considerable number of those issues up until issues 126 & 120, respectively, which is when I really began collecting both on much more regular basis, without gaps of several months between issues.
Berni Wrightson had a fan following on his House of Mystery & House of Secrets work at DC, but Swamp Thing made him a superstar. He won the best penciller Shazam! award from the ACBA for three consecutive years, and had carte blanche to do what he wanted when he went to Warren in January, 1974. That lasted for about two years, then he had the itch to paint, and did a memorable poster series for Christopher Enterprises, followed be a number of limited edition portfolios, leading up to Dragon’s Dream publishing The Studio in 1979, Berni Wrightson: a Look Back published by Christopher Zavisa in 1979, and eventually his illustrations for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published by Marvel in 1983.
Well the werewolf is one of the classic horror figures up there with Dracula and Frankenstein.
After finishing their shifts on the horror circuit, they got together to make music as the Groovy Ghoulies.
Well, if this was Adams’ swansong on Bats for 37 years, he certainly went out in a big way. Not that the story itself is all that special; Wein is just getting started writing Batman stories and this one, despite Wein’s fond re-use of Milo from his childhood, was not particularly strong. Adams’ art, however is as pitch-perfect as always. Like you, Alan, I didn’t quite follow the pictures correctly when Batman saves Janet Bonner’s life, but its still cool to see Adams take the big swings artistically, especially at a point in his artistic career when he so obviously doesn’t have to.
Story-wise, I think it might have been better if Janet had some connection to Lupus’ life, thus giving him a reason for stalking her, like she was an old girl-friend or something, but I guess you can only do so much with a twenty page story. Also, Fred’s right in that Milo could have easily killed Bats while he was unconscious, but his insistence on the big “gruesome death scene,” a sure sign a character has succumbed to “Cliched Super-Villain Syndrome,” was his downfall.
As to the other stories, I remember the Thomas Wayne Bat-costume story. Wasn’t that ultimately part of the inspiration for Thomas Wayne being Batman in Flashpoint? I believe I read somewhere that it was. I also remember the Outsider story. I didn’t care for the mountain of reprints DC was foisting off on us during this time, but I must admit, this issue was full of some good ones.
Thanks for the rundown, Alan. I hope everyone had a great holiday and will have a very Happy New Year!
Disagree about Janet. The idea that the werewolf is a random monster capable of attacking anyone works for me (and fits with 1970s themes about urban violence and all that).
I liked the GL story in Flash # 236 and Moon of te Wolf.
I hoped Adams woud be back more, even assumed this is what it meant.
Not quite.
Over at Marvel, Adams did a B&W Conan that appeared in his color comic at about this time, (Bucema needed some deadline help becase he inked to issues himself.) Although Adams continued to work for Marvel’s B&W Books that was about it for his credited stuff at Marvel in their color comics. ( A couple of Conan’s were “Crusty Bunker” jobs after Ernie Chua left.)
Now, at Marvel, Adams famously inked two pages of Cockrum’s Giant Sized Avengers # 2 and probably did other uncredited kibizing on folks lke Cockrum and Starlin.
At DC, some licensed work was picked up by DC for Publication in Superman Special Newsstand Editions: 1) the prospectus on the proposed Superman Amusement Park in Metropolis, IL; and 2) the Superman Beach towel illustration.
House of Mystery #228 had Adams inks on a four page story that was probably recent.
Adams basiclly repenciled Ross Andru’s Superman on the Superman/Spiderman Team-up.
He also did MANY covers for DC during the Fall of 1976-Winter of 1977 and inked the Marshall Rogers Hawkman/Calculator story in Detective #467.
If I recall, the Crazy Quilt Story was credited to France Herron in Batman #255. France Herron was a Simon & Kirby collaborator, who created the Red Skull. Crazy Quilt was, at least,, originally drawn by Kirby in 1946. I suspect France Herron wrote it, given this.
Herron and Broome were contemporaries. One of te few comics people Brooke mentioned in his last interview in 1999 was France Herron, whom he mentioned thought Broome’s stories were “cold,” something that seemed to offend Broome (and which with I disagree).
Neal Adams & Continuity also did some mid-70s work on a Six Million Dollar Man mag (for Charlton?). After Batman #255 and that Conan story you mentioned, his next memorable story for comics was “Thrillkill” in Creepy #75, published in 1975.
In 1975 Neal Adams also drew a story with alternating panels by Larry Hama, with Neal’s portraying a glamourised swinging NYC, and Larry’s the grim reality behind the facade (Hama’s part definitely NSFW). This was published by Flo Steinberg in Big Apple Comix #1. Wood also has an infamous, bitter satire of his E.C. classic “My World” in it. X-rated in parts, and rife with cynicism. Al Weiss, in stark contrast, has a much jollier tone in his story (no floats in it, though, for fans of Batman #237).
I went with the Grand Comics Database on the writing credit for the “Crazy-Quilt” story, which states in its entry for the original printing in Star-Spangled Comics #123: “Script was erroneously credited to France Herron in Batman (DC, 1940 series) #255.” https://www.comics.org/issue/219779/#392380
They could be wrong, of course!
It might have been Herron who suggestede the characyter to Broome of course, since they knew each other . . . .
I knew Broome (at times) did work for Jack Schiff (he did a GA in WF in 1960 or so), but was Broome regular on the Robin strip?
I have no idea whether or not Broome was a regular on the SSC “Robin” strip, John, but since the GCD actually puts a question mark after his credit on this story, I’ve added a “maybe” qualifier to the post.
More musings on this issue … this is another typical DC story in which the plot very much takes precedence over any sort of character development or really any focus at all on the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Bruce’s appearance, sans costume, is entirely in furtherance of the plot itself, showing he & Lupus exercising together and obviously acquainted but I feel safe in going on a limb to assume that Lupus had never shown in any previous issue and was not someone Bruce would have regarded as a friend or otherwise had a close connection with. Over at Marvel, this situation may have typically been developed with Bruce & Lupus becoming at least casual friends and the mystery of Lupus’ headaches developed over several issues before Milo comes into the picture with his intricate plot of revenge, perhaps having Lupus in his lupine guise, kill a few innocent people, resulting in Batman’s investigation and being lured into a better planned trap and perhaps recognizing that he is having to fight his friend who has been transformed into an unthinking, murderous beast, to give a greater psychological edge to the story.
That sort of difference in storytelling techniques typical of Marvel and DC in the late ’60s & early ’70s is what enamored me more with Marvel Comics over DC. I felt more of an emotional connection with Peter Parker and Ben Grimm, et al, that I never really felt after reading any DC comics starring their top characters of the time (although I did like the humorous aspects of the Metal Men, of which I read a few issues from that period).
In retrospect, I know some writers, including O’Neil and Wein, at DC at the time were making efforts to make their characters more relatable and distinct than they had been before. But doesn’t seem Wein gave it much of a go in this particular issue. Very good story with great art and all but doesn’t have the elements that would have made my younger self feel a strong compulsion to see what happens next with Bruce Wayne, in or out of costume. Or feel that I’ve missed anything of significance if I happened to miss one or several issues.
Hello, Fred,
I wanted to comment about your observation concerning the difference between Marvel and DC storytelling of the time. You are absolutely correct that most of the Marvel books relied heavily on continuing subplots as a way to engage readers (and, incidentally, get them to read the next issue and the next…).
But I also think there’s something to be said for the “done-in-one” approach that was the hallmark of DC, certainly under Julius Schwartz. I think that decompressed storytelling has its place, but (to use the most obvious example) Brian Michael Bendis taking six months to tell a story that could be told in one or two issues isn’t necessarily a positive thing.
The other thing is when you use subplots as character development and when you use them to resurrect old villains. When Len Wein wrote AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, for example, his subplots were almost exclusively about bringing back villains, rather than developing character arcs. During the 30 issues or so that he wrote, the biggest thing he did was marry off Betty Brant and Ned Leeds (finally!) and get Harry Osborn and Liz Allen together. Big deal! You;ll notice that neither of those directly affected Peter Parker. (In contrast, when Marv Wolfman took over the title, he had Peter graduate college and completely restructured his love life, all in only three or four issues.)
I don’t think focusing on the supporting cast is a bad thing — it’s part of the strength of Spidey’s series that he has such a strong supporting cast the writer can make things like that happen.
I do agree there’s a lot to be said for a simple one-shot that doesn’t “matter” in the sense of shaking things up or advancing a long-term arc. Particularly these days of big events — I sometimes think longingly of Silver Age stories where heroes simply stop the bad guy, then go home for dinner.
I like a bit of a mix, such as Gaiman provided on Sandman, with both long arcs and one-issue stories.
Regular comics all of a sudden had no Adams, no Wrightson, no Windsor-Smith, no Toth no Kaluta and only limited Kubert and became a much greyer place. Yes there was still Buscema, Colan and Kirby (and sometimes Starlin and Cockrum)…but too much of comics art for the next few years was rushed or uninspired journeyman art, and we would have to wait for Perez, Byrne, Golden and Rogers to break through before comics art became interesting again.
Although I don’t rate Verpoorten as an artist, his best inking of Kirby was yet to come, on Eternals #1 and #2.
There was still Nestor Redondo who inherited the artistic chores on Swamp Thing from 1974-76, and the other great Filipino artists in DC’s mystery titles, but the printing was so bad in the mid to late ’70s that their work started looking muddy. All that fine line work was lost.
After Wrightson went to Warren in early 1974 we saw him joined occasionally by Toth, Adams, Wood, Williamson, and Severin, along with those who preceded him like Corben, Ortiz, and Maroto. Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, were enjoying a renaissance that was largely unchallenged in US comics in magazine format until Heavy Metal came along in 1977 (with French Metal Hurlant reprint material as well as new work). By 1980 Marvel tried its hand with Epic Illustrated magazine which held its own for about five years.
Well, Adams, Wrightson and Toth DID show up in 1974 at Atlas/Seaboard. High rates and ownership of the IP “drew” them out.
Adams continued to do various things for the Marvel B&W books . . . .
Byrnes is getting a start at Charlton in late 1974, You start seeing Golden in Batman Family in 1977 or so. Marshall Rogers starts appearing in 1976, with “Calculator” backups in Detective . . . .
Lot’s of good deadends and odds and ends the next few years: MiKe Nasser;; Giffen & Wood on All Star; Giffen & Celardo on the Challs; Ditko & Wood on Destructor and Stalker and Plop; Bob Layton starting to get DC work in 1976; Grell on Warlord, starting in 1975; one issue of Ka-Zar by Heath in 1975; Perez (starting off as a Rich Buckler clone in 1975 and becoming a lot more).
It is a process. It never stops, .
Berni Wrightson was “slumming it” at Atlas in 1975, doing a bit of journeyman on Ditko in one issue of Morlock 2001 and some partial inks over Chaykin on an issue of the Scorpion. While I own all of Wrightson’s work of the ’60s and ’70s these are certainly not career highlights. His best efforts in 1975 were “The Muck Monster” story for Eerie #68, various frontispieces for both Creepy and Eerie, and his DC covers for Kong the Untamed #2 (he did #1 at the end of 1974) and House of Mystery #236. More journeyman assignments for BW were inks over Rich Buckler’s pencils in Batman #265, did partial inks over Al Milgrom in Capt. Marvel #41 (Mar-Vell), and assorted cover inks at Marvel over Val Mayerick and Ed Hannigan. He also inked Chaykin again in a Reuben Flagg story for Warren, and inked a continuing Chaykin comic strip for National Lampoon that year.
As for Neal Adams, I only recall his cover art for Atlas Comics’ Wulf the Barbarian #2 and for Thrilling Adventure Stories (#2 was probably the best single magazine Atlas/Seaboard ever published, with Walt Simonson’s personal favourite story of his entire career as one of the highlights). Larry Hama did fine work in the first two issues of Wulf the Barbarian. I wish Atlas could have held on longer, but too many titles were released at once and the line collapsed in less than a year.
Hey, I am not saying there were no highlights, but there were few comics in the mid 70s that you would go out and buy because of the regular artist on the strip. When I think of the early 70s I think of Adams, Kirby (4th World) Wrightson, Kubert, Smith etc. When I think of the mid 70s all I can think of is endless Sal B/Esposito/Colletta comics which were of a certain standard, but never artistically noteworthy or outstanding. Any quality work appeared to be the opus of the inker, than inspiration from the pencil artist. I don’t remember getting excited again about comic art until Byrne and Perez hit their stride, and were producing regular, not once in a while, work. The amount of artists that disappeared is quire staggering, and include Brunner, Ploog, Cardy as several I forgot to mention (Romita and Kane too..although they of course remained in comics, just not doing actual stories).
A couple of artistic highlights not been mentioned are Gulacy on MOKF ( although again, briefly) and Vincente Alcazar’s tour de force on Satana in Marvel Preview 7.
I felt that an era was over as well, not just because the artists you mentioned had largely moved on from mainstream comics, but also because the print quality was beginning to really suffer, and the story page count dwindled from 24 pages in 1972 to 17 pages in 1975 (at DC In particular). AND the price went up twice within those years! I used to put my comics side by side and try to figure out when the print quality actually went downhill. I believe it was a multi-step process, and not one sudden plummet. In 1973-74 Marvel and DC stopped using Eastern Printing for their comics. Neal Adams would have certainly known what happened, but he is no longer with us. Perhaps Steranko might know. He was very savvy about printing techniques of that era.
Cockrum on the X-men and Grell on Warlord we’re highlights of the mid 70s for me.
Adams did the covers to Iron Jaw #1 and #2. inked the cover of Planet of the Vamp[ires #1 and drew bthe cover to #2 with Giordano. He also contributed to the interior art on Wulf the Barbarian # 2 as a Crusty Bunker. . ,
Hi, Alan,
Great write-up of a memorable story, and a fine way to end retrospectives of 1973.
With all due respect to Nick Cardy (who had a great reputation among his fellow professionals), there’s something almost criminal about cramming a Neal Adams illustration of Batman and a werewolf into less than ha;f a cover. I’m sure you’ve seen on Facebook the mock-up that turns this drawing into a full cover of a 20-cent comic of the era.
Although I understand your reservations about the layout of page 4 of this story, I have to say it didn’t bother me then and really doesn’t bother me too much now. Adams’ story-telling elsewhere is just so dang good – not only the big set pieces but the quiet scenes like the one in Commissioner Gordon’s office or the one in the athletic club.
I like to think that we didn’t take Neal Adams on Batman for granted back in the early 1970s. Every few months it seemed we were treated to one of his stories either in BATMAN or DETECTIVE, and of course there were all those covers. As much as I liked Irv Novick and Bob Brown, Adams really did set the tone for the character in this era, and his departure really did mark the end of an era.
I’m sure the choice of reprints was done completely removed from whatever the new material was in an given issue, but I always thought they missed an opportunity here. This is only the third appearance of Professor Milo, and his first in 16 years. Why not reprint the two earlier stories, especially since they were referenced in the main story?
And as far as the name “Anthony Lupus” goes – ahem, if you ever get the chance to read the letters page of BATMAN #257, which included comments on #255, you’ll find a letter by “William Nutt, Dover, NJ” who lamented characters whose surnames are so obvious. (Kinda like – well…)
Happy New Year to all! Now bring on the memories for 1974!
A friend of mine works with a Dick “Call me Richard” Harness.
There’s a politician in Alabama whose name is Young Boozer III.
Brings up the question of if his great-grandfather was Old Boozer.
I’ve seen 3rd’s photo and he looks like Old Boozer himself.
Bill, were you still living in Dover, NJ when the Kubert School began in 1976? That would have been a great opportunity to meet Joe and a number of cartoonists who worked in golden age (and onwards) comic books as well as comic strips. Dick Giordano and Sal Amendola also taught there in the early days.
Hello, Chris,
Hah! I lived in Dover from 1959 (the year of my birth) until 1985, when I moved into my own place in Parsippany. I actually had the chance to interview Joe Kubert in 1974 when I was a high school student at Morris Catholic, and it was a thrill to me to be spend time with the great man in his studio. At the time, his adaptation of THE BIBLE was about to be released. I also remember seeing his layout for a page of RIMA on his drawing board, and I could tell it was a Robert Kanigher script because it had a series of three panels, each zooming in closer and closer on the subject. (That was a hallmark of a Kanigher script.)
I know where the Kubert School was located, and I remember hearing about some of the new kids coming out of it (like Steve Bissette). I also had the chance to meet John Ostrander when he lived in northwest NJ, and both he and Tom Mandrake were guests on my radio show on WNTI, a station based out of Centenary College in Hackettstown, where I’ve lived for the past 34 years. I consider John a friend and still stay in touch with him.
Great memories, Bill; thanks for sharing!
For all the talk of this being Adam’s last Batman and his not doing much for DC in the immediate period after that I don’t see anyone point to why this was the case. Was it financial? Did he have a falling out with the powers that be at DC? Also Alan you mentioned the character named Anthony Lupus was renamed Anthony Romulus for the Animated Series adaption of this tale. I wonder if this was because someone thought the word lupus, a disease after all, might strike some as insensitive, even in “pre-woke” 1992?
Neal Adams was running his advertising agency Continuity Associates, and that took precedence over his previously prolific comic art output of 1967-73. He still had his hand in it, of course, but very sporadically until his return in 2010. He had said in interviews that once you get a taste of the real money, you want more. Neal started obtaining more lucrative accounts than mainstream comics could afford to pay him—which is why he trained what is essentially a team of ghost artists in the Crusty Bunkers and continued this sort of collaboration with his own Continuity Comics line in the 1980s-90s. I was so disappointed that he (or other writers working for him) wrote down to the readership for his line, as if they were all infantile. Those comics do not hold up well at all.
I think the “Big 2” had soured on Adams in late 1971, because GL/GA # 88 was late and because the Avengers Kree Skrull War story had come close to being late. Adams was no longer drawing almost all the DC Covers by March of 1972 or so and. despite drawing the first issue of Killraven that appeared in 1973, his new work at Marvel (Outside of the B&W books, which likely had a higher page rate) was rare as hen’s teeth.
Continuity Associates both probably took up Adams’s time and tended to replace accounts he had lost.
His involvement with Atlas/Seaboard in 1974-early 1975, was a sign Adams was still interested in working on comics as was his DC work in 1976-’77, which built up to Superman v. Muhhamad Ali.
It might be that he started to sour on the “Big 2” when his X-Men project with Claremont got cancelled in 1982. That’s when he does Ms. Mystic with Mike Nasser through Pacific and then launches Continuity Cpmics.
Some artists are also gifted writers:, Kirby, Eisner, Kubert, Byrnes, Starlin, etc. But it seems many have tropes they love and keep trying to re-cycle: Wood with Superheroes fighting in a castle, Ditko with most of his post 1969 stuff and Adams with his space battles.
I’m going to have to push back a little on the idea that “the ‘Big 2′ had soured on Adams in late 1971”, John, as I see little evidence for it. Adams’ editor on GL/GA was Julius Schwartz, who continued to use him on Batman stories. And the artist’s de facto editor on Avengers was Roy Thomas, who went on to collaborate with him on Killraven and Conan (including the color Conan #37, coming to this blog later this month 😉 ).
Based on everything I’ve read, my impression is that Adams got pretty much all the work he wanted from DC, Marvel, Atlas, Warren, whoever — but none of them could pay enough to justify his spending the majority of his time and energy doing comics, rather than the more lucrative advertising and other commercial work that Continuity Associates was involved in, once he and Dick Giordano got that company up and running in ’71-’72.
I agree with you, Alan. Neal Adams had a lifelong love of comics. His decision to move on from them full-time in 1973 was a financial one, as he was a husband and father. Steranko had made a similar move three years earlier, doing primarily covers for Marvel after 1970, and expanding as a self-publisher at SuperGraphics, paperback book cover painter (with over 100 of the Shadow, besides many others), and concept/storyboard artist for Hollywood films, besides other endeavours). Steranko still loves the comics medium today as much as he did in the ’60s.
Plenty of writers who aren’t artists do that. Stan Lee loved his disability tropes. Claremont with mind-control. And so on.
By December of 1973, my 7-year-old self was only intermittently buying 20-cent comic books, so my copy of 50-cent Batman # 255 may have been “transmattered” over from my new next-door neighbors. I had made the acquaintance of my first comic book werewolf just over a year earlier, when Superman and the Vigilante battled one in World’s Finest # 214, and Batman taught Supes (and me) the great new vocabulary word of lycanthropy. In regard to the discussion about the etymological nature of the surname Lupus/Romulus, it occurred to me that the first instance of a comic-book character with a similar derivation was Karl Lykos, aka Sauron, from X-Men # 60-61.
I’ve been reading bronze-age comics online via the website onemillioncomics.com, and I’ve been constantly amazed by the dynamic coloring of what I assume is some kind of digital process. When I got to this issue’s panel of Lupus being struck by lightning, the visual effect was phenomenal. Alan, your scans are already far superior to the original printed comic book page, but wow! the image that I saw was electrifying!
Alan, thanks for the references to Professor Milo’s first appearances from 1957. I took a gander at the first story where Batman took on the identity of Starman and realized that this story was the basis of James Robinson’s retcon about the Starman of 1951.
I remember being fascinated as a kid reading the story of Thomas Wayne being the “first” Batman, which just seemed like such cool foreshadowing.
Also very nostalgic was the Robin story where he battled Crazy Quilt. It was so much fun when I first saw the Batman: Brave and the Bold episode in which he sought revenge on Robin, who was wearing the costume created by Neal Adams back in the JLA/JSA team-up of 1971.
Lastly, I echo the sentiments of others who enjoyed the vast number of reprints in the Super-Spectaculars, as I got to learn about so many characters, even if I didn’t care much for Golden-Age artwork.
Happy New Year to you, Alan, as well as the rest of you whose comments make this such a fun and informative website!!!
One thing I like about that first Milo appearance is that when his gang reports back that Robin’s now working with some guy named Starman he’s “No, you idiots, that’s Batman in a different suit!”
🤣
Just thought I would provide a few historical observations since I missed this book the first time around, Alan, and don’t really have any comments regarding Batman 255. We are around the same age and I find it interesting that we have had some similar yet quite different comic buying experiences. By 1973 I was buying Batman sporadically, but I did pick up Batman 251 and enjoyed it, but missed Batman 252, but again picked up Batman 253 (probably because it had a cover with the Shadow, drawn by Kaluta). However that would be the last issue of Batman I would buy for over 10 years. I really have no recollection why, but I am certain that I never saw Batman 255 because I would not have passed up an issue of Batman with such an excellent Neal Adams cover. It was probably about 10 years later that I saw Batman 255 on display at a comics convention and yes I did get it (fortunately not too expensive), but even then I had no idea that this was Neal Adams’ “last” Batman story (at least for quite a while). What I did want to mention, and I only know this after the fact, is that at this point in time 50 years ago, Batman was apparently not selling very well. In fact both Batman and Detective Comics were now both bimonthly and would continue that way for the entirety of 1974. Things would change in 1975 but I thought it was interesting to note. While I don’t buy comics regularly currently, I am well aware that Batman is currently DC’s most popular character and there are all sorts of tie-ins, spin-offs and Batman related miniseries now. Hard to believe that Batman was at a fairly low point 50 years ago. Yes I know that Batman was also featured in Brave and the Bold and World’s Finest as well as regularly in JLA but those books were also bimonthly and would continue to be bimonthly in 1974. If I remember correctly based on what I’ve read Superman would continue to be DC’s most popular character throughout the 70s and both Superman and Action continued to come out on a regular monthly basis (although I had also stopped buying both of those books as well).
The other point I wanted to make was regarding “werewolves.” For some reason 1973-1974 seemed to be some sort of high point for werewolf appearances. They seemed to be everywhere as noted by other commentators. For example, Swamp Thing 4, Kull 8, Monsters Unleashed 1 and 4, Cap and Falcon 164, and guest appearances by Werewolf by Night in MTU 12 and TOD 18, the debut of Man-Wolf in Spider-Man 124-125, and I’m sure many I’ve missed. Werewolf by Night went monthly early in 1973. In 1974, WBN would have several giant size issues one of which would have the Cat transform into Tigra the Were-Woman. The Man-Wolf would fight Spider-Man again and get his own series (which I missed completely). I’m sure there are plenty of other werewolf appearance that I have not mentioned (probably at DC in their horror comics). It all seemed to die down as the 70s progressed.
Thanks for another interesting post and happy new year.
Hello, Bruce,
Nice catch on all the werewolves of the era! In fact, the letter of comment that I wrote (and which ran in BATMAN #257 – ahem!) noted that Neal Adams drew the meanest werewolf this side of Berni Wrightson, whose SWAMP THING #4 made a powerful impression on me.
Marvel’s MAN-WOLF series of the 1970s was only so-so, and I think it is now remembered mainly as being one of the first series illustrated by young George Perez.
As for BATMAN and DETECTIVE being bi-monthly – it seems that most of the 100-page Super Spectaculars at that time (including such other Schwartz-edited books like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA) went bi-monthly. I understand that DETECTIVE COMICS has always sold less than BATMAN, no matter how much the logos were tweaked to reflect Batman’s prominence and how the stories would overlap. In fact, when Steve Englehart came to DC for that one year, he specifically asked to write DETECTIVE COMICS because it sold worse and he thought his presence would boost sales. (A little bit like Jack Kirby asking to work on JIMMY OLSEN, which was about to be cancelled) before his other Fourth World books.
The story of Kirby taking on Jimmy Olsen isn’t what legend tells us: https://www.cbr.com/jack-kirby-jimmy-olsen-worst-selling-title-dc/
Neal Adams pencilled and Dick Giordano inked a 16 page story for a book and record set in 1975 called Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein. The interior pages can be seen here:
https://dochermes.livejournal.com/644524.html
I remember when this came out I was getting used to the idea that comics with Adams art were becoming scarce. For the few years prior to that, since he’d started on Batman and GL/GA, it had seemed as if new Adams drawn comics or covers were always available in my local newsagents.
I also remember being a bit disappointed with this one at the time. The new layout spoiled what would’ve been another fine cover, and the story itself seemed to be very badly printed, making it hard to appeciate what I assume was art coloured by Neal himself, and it’s still apparent in the examples above. Not sure of the technical terms, but it’s dirty looking and panels from pages underneath seem to be bleeding through excessively.
That apart, it was still top-notch Adams, and the panel with the moon behind his head on page four is still tremendous. As this is his last Batman, I’ll just mention how privileged I still feel to have started buying American comics just as he was doing all his great work at DC and Marvel. When I picture Batman, Lantern, Arrow and, dare I say it, Conan, it’s his versions that I think of.
When he writes in the Batman by Neal Adams volumes how his Batman is a tall man who moves like he’s Bruce Lee’s size, I realized that’s exactly how I envision him.
It may depend on the copy. Many collectors comb through multiple copies of comics of this era to find one with the blackest ink inside that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the line work.
Once the flexographic (plastic plates) replaced the metal plates used in DC Comics printer’s presses, things got a lot worse. I remember seeing this Neal Adams PSA (he did several) in one of Nestor Redondo’s last issues of Swamp Thing. The ink was so light grey, especially on that page, that I could hardly see the art. The scan below is much clearer than what I saw in my copy:
https://comicbookcovers.tumblr.com/post/183966871110/justice-for-all-includes-children-superman-psas
Sorry, only meant to share the first image. There is at least one more by Adams in there as well as Swan and other artists.
I also saw that Neal Adams drew CBS Saturday morning cartoon advertisements for DC Comics from 1975-77 as well. In a way he was more present in mainstream comics than I had realised at the time, but such work was unsigned.
https://13thdimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1975-CBS-Kerrytoonz-768×1066.jpg
https://13thdimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SMF05-1977-cbs-768×563.jpeg
Thanks, as always, for the well-researched article! I was not a fan of the Super Spectaculars because I didn’t feel that the (to me) extremely old reprints were worth the extra charge. I think I was turned off by the less realistic art than what I was seeing in the current books. The only ones I had were bought for me by my mother. DC’s done-in-one approach did appeal to me because of my limited budget, lack of access to stores that sold comics and/or spotty distribution. I could never be sure of getting the next issue. I once successfully stashed a Flash continued story in the store. When the next issue came out, I retrieved the earlier one and bought both!
There is some great Neal Adams art here! It is really a travesty that his cover got such limited real estate. Looking back, I like that both Milo and the werewolf escaped and later turned up.
The end of the Adams Batman era roughly coincides with the rise of the Aparo Batman era at DC. I hope you’ll be covering some of his great B&B work in the months to come.
Look for a post about BatB #112 around the tail end of this month, Henry!
“For some reason 1973-1974 seemed to be some sort of high point for werewolf appearances. They seemed to be everywhere…”
My guess is simply that since the Comics Code had eased the ban on such characters, everyone wanted to draw one.
Just read the recent Tales of the Titans #4, published in December 2023. It features an altercation between Beast Boy and Anthony Lupus. Just goes to show that no character, however obscure, is ever really forgotten in the DC Universe(s).