This 450th issue of Detective Comics — a numerical milestone, though not commemorated as such by DC Comics at the time of its release (probably because the major comics publishers hadn’t yet determined that such commemorations often provided a sales bump) was the first issue of the series my younger self had purchased since #439, back in November, 1973. As I related in a post last fall, as much as I liked the “new” comics material in that issue, I was a hard sell on DC’s reprint-heavy 100 Page Super-Spectacular format. That meant I ended up missing out on most of editor-writer Archie Goodwin’s tenure on Detective, which largely overlapped with the run of issues published in that format — and which included among its highlights the “Manhunter” backup serial by Goodwin and a new young artist named Walt Simonson. That serial, which ran through all of the Goodwin-edited Detective issues, culminated in #443’s Batman/Manhunter crossover — a “book-length” story which not only marked the end of the “Manhunter” feature itself (and the concurrent end of Archie Goodwin’s stint as Detective‘s editor), but was also the very first time that Walt Simonson drew the Batman.
Given, then, that I wasn’t buying Detective even semi-regularly circa mid-1975, I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to pick this particular issue up out of the spinner rack. Maybe I was curious to see if DC was doing anything special for that “#450” milestone, or perhaps my eye was drawn the striking cover by Dick Giordano. In any event, I feel pretty sure that it took a look inside the comic to seal the deal — meaning that what ultimately sold me on the book was the artwork of Walt Simonson.
“Pin-up” page drawn by Walt Simonson for Detective Comics #443 (Oct.-Nov., 1974).
As already noted, I’d missed out on Simonson’s one previous outing drawing DC’s Darknight Detective, so I didn’t have the reaction that I imagine many other readers did upon first seeing the above splash — which was to wonder why Batman looked so different here than he had back in Detective #443’s “Gotterdammerung” (a taste of which interpretation you can get from the illustration from that issue shown at left).*
Not too long ago, the artist discussed the evident change in his approach to drawing Batman for an article published in Back Issue #150 (Apr., 2024):. It began, he said, with the recognition that the hero had had several standard looks over the decades:
You had the Bob Kane and Bill Finger look, you had the Dick Sprang look, you had the Carmine [Infantino] look, you had Neal’s [as in Neal Adams] look, and the Batmans all looked rather different. When you drew Batman, you had a real range of possibilities of where you could go with the character at a time when that was probably less true of Superman or some of the other characters that were out there. But Batman had quite a range. So I drew a kind of neo-Adams Batman for Manhunter. He had long ears and a long cloak….
The next time I drew him, I changed up completely. What I kind of wanted to do was to take a crack at a variety of Batman versions. I didn’t want to be bound to just one. Usually I try to let the story I’m doing guide me as far as the artwork is concerned… When I did “The Cape and Cowl Deathtrap,” I had done this kind of long, lithe Batman and I thought I’d like to go in a different direction… I went back to the Dick Sprang model, almost a square jaw…
We’ll have more of Simonson’s commentary later in the post; but, for now, let’s continue with the story… 
One last note on this story’s credits: The script for “The Cape & Cowl Deathtrap” was by Elliot S! Maggin, a mainstay among editor Julius Schwartz’s stable of writers during the Bronze Age of Comics. Seventeen years following his story’s publication, Maggin would adapt it for an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, “The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy”; originally airing on October 14, 1992, the episode can be viewed in full here.
Though we only see him for this single page, Simonson makes sure to give us a Bruce Wayne every bit as distinctive looking as his Batman; among other attributes, Bruce wears his hair longer on Simonson’s watch than I believe he does as rendered by any other Bat-artist of the 1970s (with the notable exception of Bernie Wrightson’s take in Swamp Thing #7 [Nov.-Dec., 1973]).
Harcourt informs Wormwood that on his earlier visit, he’d picked up a “chemical brand” from a doorknob. But now that he’s sure his operative is who he says he is, he’s happy to hand over the agreed-on hundred thousand dollars.
The two men sit down to have a drink together. Wormwood is curious what Harcourt plans to do with Batman’s cape and cowl; the latter man says he’ll be glad to swap him that information for what he himself wants to know, which is: who gave Wormwood the order to shoot Senator Locksley? At first, Wormwood deflects the question, saying that all he knows about the killing is what he’s read in the papers. But Harcourt presses the point…
Continuing his discussion of his approach to Batman in this story for the Back Issue article quoted earlier, Walt Simonson observed:
…he was obviously sort of a… a fascist killer. I think he beat the crap out of people. I was very much influenced by the work of Jose Ortiz when I was doing that job. Ortiz was a master of chiaroscuro, master of black and white. And so that Batman job was very much influenced by Ortiz.
In the opinion of your humble blogger, calling the Batman of this story “a fascist killer” might be laying it on a bit too thick. That said, it’s hard to think of a fight scene involving the character that’s more brutal than this one having appeared in any DC comic published prior to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, in 1986.
(As for José Ortiz — for those not familiar with the name, he was a Spanish illustrator whose work for American comics appeared primarily in Warren Publishing’s black-and-white magazines from 1974 to 1982. And while we haven’t looked at any of Ortiz’s work on the blog up until now, we’ll be rectifying that situation in a few short weeks… so stay tuned.)
While my younger self had missed Walt Simonson’s earlier foray into drawing Batman, I did have at least a passing familiarity with his work prior to “The Cape & Cowl Deathtrap”; in addition to the “Manhunter” story that had run in Detective #439, I’d also seen a couple of strips he’d drawn for DC’s short-lived Sword of Sorcery title. But while I’d enjoyed all that material well enough, Simonson’s dynamic, design-oriented style didn’t fully click with me until this job. This was the one that turned me into a fan for life, as Walt Simonson joined the relatively short list of artists whose work would, at least on occasion, be enough to get me to buy a comic all by itself, regardless of who its writer was, or who or what the story was about. In retrospect, my “conversion” was a timely one, as following a rather quiet ten months since the conclusion of ‘Manhunter”, Simonson was about to become decidedly more prolific; there was some really good stuff on the near horizon, and fortunately, I’d caught on in time to catch most if not all of it.
At this point in Detective Comics history, editor Julius Schwartz was rotating the title’s backup feature slot between the Elongated Man, Hawkman, and Robin. In Detective #450, it was the Teen Wonder’s turn in the spotlight:
Of the three creators listed in the credits for “The Parking Lot Bandit!”, the best established was penciller Al Milgrom. Milgrom had broken into the comics biz in 1973, and while most of his jobs to date had been for Marvel (where he continued to work regularly, serving as the regular penciller and co-plotter of Captain Marvel among other assignments), he’d done some inking over both Walt Simonson and Jim Starlin in DC’s aforementioned Sword of Sorcery when he was first starting out, and had more recently had one-off gigs on the publisher’s Kung-Fu Fighter and House of Mystery.
On the other hand, Milgrom’s artistic collaborator for this story, inker Terry Austin, was only now beginning to pick up professional assignments, at least under his own name. Austin had started out as an assistant to Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, and as such had served as a member of the “Crusty Bunkers” inking collective; his work had only just begun appearing under his own byline, however, his first such gig having come in Flash #233, published in February, where he and Giordano had shared the credit for inking Dick Dillin’s pencils for that issue’s Green Lantern backup story.
Scripter Bob Rozakis was also new to the ranks of professional comic-book writers; one of the young fans-turned-pros currently toiling in DC’s editorial offices, where he and his fellow “Junior Woodchucks” were responsible for putting out the company’s in-house fanzine, The Amazing World of DC Comics, Rozakis’ byline had first appeared the previous November over the Robin backup story in Detective #445. “The Parking Lot Bandit!” was Rozakis’ third such tale, as well as being his third pro credit overall.
It had been at least a couple of years since I’d read a Robin solo story, so I had no real idea who was in his regular supporting cast these days — or if he even had one. For the record, Bob Rozakis had introduced Hudson U. security chief Frank McDonald in his very first Robin story, while this tale represents the debut appearance of Dick Grayson’s fellow student, Lori Elton. Both characters would continue to be part of the Robin strip for several years to come, their final appearances (to date) coming in 1980 and 1979, respectively.
Robin hustles into the dark office, where he quickly catches hold of the bandit — or at least thinks he does…
Shuster explains that he was heading for his office to pick up some papers when a young man fled past him though the building’s rear entrance; then, when he rushed into the office to see what was what, he was tackled by “this bird-brain“, i.e., Robin. The Teen Wonder sheepishly assumes that the bandit’s kick must have knocked him out momentarily, causing him to mistake Shuster for the burglar when he came to…
As I’ve said, I wasn’t buying Detective all that frequently during this era, so I’m a little surprised that I did, in fact, pick up issue #451. Was I that invested in finding out how Bob Rozakis and company were going to resolve the mystery of the Parking Lot Bandit? I guess so. On the other hand, I was probably also drawn in by the issue’s cover — another really good one by Dick Giordano. On the other other hand, I doubt I was terribly enthused by the lead story’s Ernie Chan artwork; I liked Chan fine as an inker, and as a penciller on barbarian fantasy comics, but never really warmed up to his superhero stuff. (For the record, the script for “The Batman’s Burden” was by Denny O’Neil; it’s serviceable enough, but by no means his best work.) In any event, I bought the book — and so I am pleased to be able to share with you the conclusion of the story.
“The Parking Lot Bandit Strikes Again!” (well, what would you have called it?) is brought to you by the same creative team of Rozakis, Milgrom, and Austin; like its predecessor, it’s been allotted just six pages, so they’d better get right to it, right? Well, not necessarily — in fact, they spend a good hunk of the first two pages giving us a bit of completely gratuitous action as Robin chases down and clobbers another, unconnected parking lot robber, following that with a recap of the previous chapter’s events. We really don’t get into the meat of the thing until the last panel on page 2…
That’s our Teen Wonder suited up as a parking lot attendant, as he’s been working undercover to help catch the bandit — and evidently not worrying much, if at all, that someone might recognize him as Hudson University student Dick Grayson. Anyway, he may as well not have bothered, given that (as we’re about to see on the very next page) he won’t be playing an active part in the actual bust…
The Parking Lot Bandit may have been caught, but he still steadfastly maintains his innocence in regards to the Hudson U. Treasurer’s Office robbery. Luckily for him, not only do Robin and Chief McDonald believe his story, but the former also has an idea for catching the real H.U. thief…
Why, Master Richard Grayson… you young rascal, you!
Back in June, 1975, my seventeen-year-old self thought that this gratuitous little bit of “nudge nudge, wink wink” was quite daring. And, in the very chaste context of mid-Seventies DC superhero comics, I guess it was. In any event, it’s the one aspect of this story that I could clearly recall fifty years after first reading it, long after the Parking Lot Bandit(s) had long faded from memory — so make of that what you will.
Actually, that sounds a bit more harsh than I really mean to be. After all, while it may not be as eye-popping as Walt Simonson’s art for issue #450’s Batman story, the work of Al Milgrom and Terry Austin is quite attractive through both chapters of Bob Rozakis’ Robin yarn. And if that yarn didn’t wow me, it was probably pretty much what editor Julius Schwartz was looking for from his writers, so that really shouldn’t count as a knock against Rozakis. Plus, everybody has to start somewhere, right?
Over the next year or so, I’d continue to pick up the odd issue of Detective Comics here and there (though, sadly, issue #457, featuring Denny O’Neil and Dick Giordano’s classic “There Is No Hope in Crime Alley!” would not be among them). But I wouldn’t buy two or more issues in a row until early 1977 — and when I did, those issues would feature the return of Walt Simonson to Batman… though, oddly enough, he wouldn’t even be the main draw this time around. Assuming we’re all still around come February, 2027, that’s a topic I look forward to exploring with you then.
We began this post talking about numerical milestones; and, as it happens, this post is itself the 500th to appear here at Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books. No, I’m not going to take this as an opportunity to indulge in any retrospective musings… mainly because we’ve got another milestone coming up in a couple of months, the blog’s 10th anniversary, which is of rather more significance to me personally. So, I figure I’ll wait until July before subjecting you to any of my ruminations about where we’ve been and/or where we’ve going. Still, 500 is a nice, big, round number, so what the hell? I thought I’d share.
*UPDATE 5/31/25, 2:00 p.m.: One difference between Simonson’s version of Batman in these two issues of Detective that neither I nor any other reader of May, 1975 would have noticed is the somewhat scary smile that the hero is wearing on #450’s splash page — because it didn’t appear in the original published 
version. Evidently, someone at DC nixed the whole idea of Bats smiling while threatening a suspected perp, and the image was redrawn as shown at right. However, Simonson later re-drew the smile on the original art, and it’s this recreation which has been used in later reprintings and digital editions — such as the one I unknowingly used for this post. My thanks to Ferdinando Fontana and the other members of the Walt Simonson Appreciation Society group on Facebook for sharing this information, thereby allowing me to provide a more accurate overview of this comic.
https://tombrevoort.com/2016/11/20/thats-a-really-pretty-dick-giordano-cover-still/
That is a nice cover, and at first glance it put me in mind of the wonderful Adams/Wrightson one for Batman #241.
I know I read this but despite having loved Simonson’s work on Manhunter, I only half remember it. Guess I was still at the point where by and large, I didn’t really appreciate artists (it was just a vehicle for the writer to tell a story). Is it Simonson’s Metal Men that you’ll be getting to next?
“Father Knickerbocker” was established as the symbol of Gotham City back in Batman 258 so points to Maggin on that detail. Not so much the “elaborate ruse” (as the Batman Encyclopedia describes these stories) — being too elaborate to make sense. Though I do like Batman suggesting the killer’s just not very good.
My BFF Dori and I both vividly remembered that look on Dick’s face when we were discussing comics years later (we hadn’t met yet).
Technical point: according to the excellent book “The Law and Superheroes” Batman works so closely with the cops that he’d qualify as a police agent and therefore procedural rules do apply to him. Not that I lose sleep over this.
In both DC & Marvel, the law & police work in very strange ways that often are highly absurd and not particularly efficient, to a much greater degree than even in the world we live in. Of course, if the legal system in the worlds of comics was more efficient, many superheroes would be in a lot of legal trouble and a great many popular costumed baddies wouldn’t make so many comebacks. Dr. Doom certainly wouldn’t have “diplomatic immunity” – after his many crimes, including attempts at world conquest, diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Latveria would have been severed and he’d be sought for crimes against humanity by most other nations, including the U.S. Of course, capturing and keeping Dr. Doom imprisoned might have been more problematic than was the case of former dictator of Panama Manual Noriega (the defense, “hey, I’m the ruler of my nation! I have diplomatic immunity! Let me go!” didn’t work out that well for him).
Not as bad as Lethal Weapon 2 where the South African villains murder people quite openly and the law is helpless because Diplomatic Immunity.
I’m willing to cut writers a lot of slack — it’s not like they’re writing LA Law after all — but things like Matt Murdock thinking “corpus delecti” refers to a literal corpse (it’s “body of evidence”) make me wince.
I’ve gotten to the point where I dislike those sort of mindless action films and would rather skip them than check them out.
Corpus delecti? Wasn’t that the legal defense used by Jeffery Dahmer and Hannibal Lechter? (Ducks)
While this is all true, assuming that Latveria was in the United Nations, Doom could travel with diplomatic immunity to the UN and to Latveria’s UN embassy (although embassy might not be the right word in this context).
“Delegation?”
Yes. Delegation. Thank you. I don’t know why I could not think of that. I am getting a little worried as I’m getting older. For real.
“Is it Simonson’s Metal Men that you’ll be getting to next?”
Dr. Fate in 1st Issue Special first — that’s in September. Metal Men will be in January.
Ah, that Doctor Fate issue will be worth discussing.
Batman was a seldom read for me for some reason back then and it’s weird because I was such a completist. I know I didn’t pick this up because I would remember disliking Simonson’s artistic choices. I loved his Manhunter and Metal Men but this leaves me cold. Maggin was not a favorite at all though writer hadn’t been elevated to the same importance as character for me yet. Artist never would, serving only to be a deterrent at times when I disliked it more than I enjoyed a character, title, or writer. Rozakis here shows the beginnings of his talent for crafting complete stories and enjoyable ones to boot in just six to eight pages. Some more revered writers never learned this skill and blame the length rather than a shortcoming on their part. The hundred page giants were better received by me too. I think I wanted the new material more than I minded reprints from a time when production values were so much less than the then current day standards.
I saw (and liked) this at the time.
Julie Schwartz had come back to Detective after Goodwin left (first to Atlas and then back to Marvel. where his wrap up to Gerry Conway’s last Spider-Man arc wrapped up the Clone sagas, or so we thought).
Schwartz seemed to use ‘Tec to try new ideas and new talent (as here). For example, Schwartz had tried out two foreign artists Neal Adams had recommended in the previous Robin story in ‘Tec #447.
I would suspect this issue sold well, since Simonson would draw Englehart’s first two ‘Tec scripts by Steve Englehart in ‘Tec # 469-70 *inked by Al Milgrom,
However, someone senior at DC (apparently neither Schwartz nor Jennette Kahn) disliked Simonson’s work on this, so he was replaced by Rogers/Austin (who had done #468 and several back-ups).
When Englehart left, Rogers apparently asked if they would replace Austin with Giordano.
There is just no accounting for preferences in art.
Hadn’t ever seen either issue before, but I love Simonson’s distinctive art. Also enjoyed the artwork of Milgrom & Austin on the Robin story. The stories themselves weren’t all that great, although at least they involved actual detective work, or what passed for such in super-hero mags.
Congratulations on this and your pending milestones, Alan! Been a fun ride reading your reminisces of these mags of nearly 60 to 50 years ago, both those I’ve also read or am learning about for the first time. And hope for many more to come!
It was true in the seventies and it’s true today, my appreciation of a comic story is at least 75% based on how much I like the art. Maybe more. And I loved Walt Simonson. He had me with the very first Manhunter story, and while I doubt I picked up every story he drew during this time period, I’m absolutely certain I bought every one I saw. For the record, I preferred his style for Bats on Gotterdammerung more than I did here, but not much more. And while I loved Marshall Rogers on the Englehart stories, I would have loved Simonson on them just as much. As for the inking, Walt is at his best when he inks his own work, though Terry Austin was a good fit, too. Once Austin found his style, he was a good choice for artists like Byrne or Rogers or Simonson, whose style already leaned in that exaggerated, more cartoony direction (which is not a negative). Otherwise, he was one of those inkers whose style tended to overwhelm the pencils until all you could tell was that Austin did the inks.
Speaking of Austin, he did a serviceable job on the Robin story, though his style hadn’t quite developed yet. I will say that, while I knew exactly what that look on Dick’s face was supposed to communicate in 1975, it honestly made him look constipated. Emotional nuance is difficult in a comics illustration. John, I assume when you say Rogers asked to have Terry replaced as inker on Detective, that he was unhappy with Austin’s work. I had no idea Rogers wasn’t as delighted with Austin’s inks on his pencils as the rest of us were. Considering how synonymous they were in the 70’s, I’m surprised. I seem to remember some sort of kerfluffle between Byrne and Austin in the 80’s as well, though I’m very vague on the details.
All in all, a great trip back to an excellent, if not outstanding, job by Simonson on Batman. So much good stuff to come. Happy #500, Alan!
I can’t find the reference I had seen (or thought I had seen) to this, so I may be mistaken about Rogers and Austin . . . .
Congratulations on reaching 500 Alan. Great achievement; an amazing show of commitment and tenacity. Here’s to at least 500 more!
Detective 450 is an issue I only discovered a few years ago. Simonson’s art is obviously the highlight here and his layout and pacing just about makes the story credible. I am assuming that the Batman wore another disguise beneath his costume, for how could he have foreseen that Wormwood would hold no interest in discovering his secret identity? The lettering looks as distinctive as the art. GCD gives Ben Oda as the letterer, but I really see Walt’s hand here. The colouring in the original comic is also effective, tying in well with Simonson’s art. The version that you show Alan is a bit garish for me, especially the final panel.
Re the back-up: I didn’t realise that Al was penciling for DC at the same time as doing Captain Marvel. Imagine getting amazing inkers like Janson and Austin so early on! ( Of course Austin at this stage had no rep to speak of as yet, but that was soon in coming!)
Thanks for this terrific blog!
As Simonson has noted, he also brought back smiling Batman, but placed in a dramatic scene. This was at the time of the Adams influenced giant ears Bats—an awesome bit of contrarian and good cartooning.
I don’t know if Simonson at that time would have served Englehart’s Bat scripts as well as Rogers and Austin, even though Simonson is one of the greats.
OTOH The pacing and delivery of his Manhunter/Batman collab with Goodwin, including Gotterdamrung was perfect—they had a great chemistry together.
WordPress shuttled this comment into the spam folder for some reason, Steven… my apologies for not realizing it until tonight!
One of my all-time favourite Batman stories, for one very simple exchange of dialogue.
I got into DC from being a devoted Marvel fan because someone told me I should check out Neal Adams’ work on Batman. That led me to Jim Aparo’s Batman and Batman in Justice League and Batman generally, and some stuff (mostly Kirby) that was not Batman-related. I did get, for example, Batman #251 (‘The Joker’s 5-way Revenge’) and was well-pleased. Batman seemed to bring out the best in creators.
O’Neil and Adams had started the (then) more recent trend of portraying Batman as, if not outright arrogant, someone who did not suffer fools gladly and was supremely self-confident. Being a thoughtless and arrogant teenager myself, it made perfect sense to me that someone who had devoted themselves to a lifetime of training in various disciplines would feel a degree of superiority and behave in such a way. And so to this story.
Having suffered, as Alan noted, a fairly brutal smack-down from the Batman, Wormwood, at the start of p.11 (in a mess on the floor), says, somewhat feebly… ‘I… surrender..’, and Brucey-boy replies, somewhat nonchalantly: ‘We’ve already established that!’ One of my most favourite lines ever, and hats off to an often under-appreciated writer, Elliot S! Maggin.
Maggin did a couple of interesting Batman stories: this; , he had the vampire story (#455) with Mike Grell (apparently plotted with Bernie Wrightson, who loaned Grell his thumbnail sketches; and the pastiche of (I think); and a Cornell Woodrich (?) mystery story in ‘Tec #458. (Martin Pasko did a pastiche of an Ellery Queen story in the next issue and David Vern did a pastiche of a Dashiell Hammett story in Batman # 269).
Maggin does a great job writing Luthor in his two paperback novels of the Bronze Age. His interactions with Superman are “I’m the funny guy, you’re the dimwit straight man, Supes” and it works.
He did a really good Superman story about 3 months after this came out, The Luther Nobody Knows (https://www.supermanthroughtheages.com/theages/tales2/luthor/) in Superman # 292.
Maggin was a better writer than he is remembered as being . . . .
I thought this, as well as Englehart’s reinvention of The Red Skull a few months before this came out and The Joker’s Five Way Revenge were classic re-inventions of key bad guys.
I agree also that Maggin was a better writer than he’s remembered for. His Superman stories were really good at characterization and he captured something that other writers have always struggled with in plotting and writing Superman. That being, Superman is essentially unbeatable so really, once he brings his powers to bear the “jig is up” so to speak. So what Maggin did was craft the stories around the details, the preparation, the exotic characters , often out of mythology, who often really weren’t that malevolent, just misunderstood. Often Superman was just one player in his own adventures , sometimes not the focal point at all and it worked! Every comic needn’t be the ‘end of the world, life altering threat’ that most modern comics seem to trumpet every month. Maggin’s Superman was cool, calm and collected, just as a person that gifted probably would be.
And thanks Again Alan for all the hard work you do on these blogs! As someone who’s been around since the beginning I say congratulations on an impressive body of work!
I always thought that Molly Post from Detective #451 could have been Silver St. Cloud before Silver St Cloud; a capable woman who was Wayne’s equal . . . but not particularly comfortable with Batman or his world.
Congratulations on 500 – that’s a huge achievement considering how in depth these reviews are and the amount of research involved.
I bought this issue off the newsstand based on the strength of the cover, but at 8 years old I found the artwork to be off-putting. The emaciated Bruce Wayne particularly bothered me. Like with Frank Robbins, its an art job I can appreciate as an adult.
Thanks for the great write up, and cheers for hitting 500! Here’s to 500 more!
I don’t remember this issue at all but I’m sure that I must have read it. I had no clue who Walt Simonson was but I did know that I passionately hate the artwork now and most assuredly did then. I first learned of Simonson when I read his Thor work on Marvel Unlimited in the mid 2010s and was awed. I confess that I’m shocked that Walt Simonson drew this Batman issue. I don’t like my super-heroes “cartoony” (take that Frank Robbins!)
I would not be surprised if Simonson did some of the lettering on this issue as he certainly seemed to do it a lot on his later Thor work.
I remember really liking Lori Elton in the Robin series. Well, her name anyway. I was a very big Elton John fan and “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” had just become the first album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart.
Alan — Congrats on 500! That’s a lot of attacks by comic books. 🙂
It’s struck me the past few years how DC comics posts have become rare. Indeed, in December 2020, 7 of the 10 posts you made regarding December 1970 comics were about DC creations. That there are far fewer DC posts these days reflects what I recall from that era: The overall quality of DC offerings declined as the decade approached its midpoint.
Seemed to me then, and even more now, that Julius S. and crew retreated to a “play it safe” approach to their characters and books. There was such a burst of creativity at DC, from maybe 1968 until 1972, and those books then and now were simply more compelling than most Batman or Superman or Flash or JLA comics in 1975. Maybe they decided they couldn’t win the young adult battle against Marvel and reverted to aiming at 7-year-olds?
It’s funny, my one sure-thing DC purchase 50 years ago was The Brave and the Bold. For all of Bob Haney’s head-scratching choices, he and Jim Aparo were masters of the solid, one-issue read.
Congrats on the 500! Mike Carley is a character mentioned. A reference to Michael Fleisher/Russell Carley, the writing team on the then-very recent classic Spectre series with Jim Aparo?
I agree that Simonson had some hand in the lettering. That splash page lettering could’ve come from Walt’s Thor run.
Simonson (the trap closing sequence plus many Manhunter episodes) shared with Rich Buckler (see his Deathlock creation, for example) a penchant for many-panelled pages during their early careers. Did contemporaries and fellow post-Adams mavericks Kaluta, Chaykin and Wrightson indulge in this technique early doors? It must be a Steranko by way of Krigstein admiration or influence.
I feel like Chaykin probably did, although I can’t immediately think of an example from his early work.
And I hadn’t noticed that “Mike Carley” — your suggestion seems likely, IMHO.