Carmine Infantino

1st Issue Special #13 (April, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In late January, 1975, DC Comics premiered a new ongoing title called 1st Issue Special with an initial installment starring “Atlas”, the latest creation of writer/artist Jack Kirby.  Almost exactly one year later, DC released the thirteenth — and as it turned out, the last — issue of that same title.  This time, the cover feature was “Return of the New Gods”, featuring some of the earliest creations Kirby had produced for the publisher upon his arrival there in 1970.

There was one major difference this time, however; Jack Kirby himself wasn’t involved, having left DC to return to its greatest rival, Marvel Comics, some months earlier (although his final contracted work for the former company had only appeared a few weeks before this, in Kamandi #40).  But if anyone at Kirby’s former employer found this fact to be at all ironic, they kept it to themselves.  Not only was the “King of Comics” not creatively or editorially included as part of this stab at reviving his “Fourth World” characters and concepts — his name didn’t even appear anywhere within its pages.  Read More

Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man (1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Half a century ago this week, the new year of 1976 brought comics fans something that would have seemed an utter impossibility just a few years before — a all-new tabloid-sized comic book co-produced by the American comics industry’s two greatest rivals, DC and Marvel, featuring their flagship characters in a single 92-page adventure.  Read More

Phantom Stranger #41 (Feb.-Mar., 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Cover to Phantom Stranger #11 (Jan.-Feb., 1971). Art by Neal Adams.

By the time that the 41st issue of Phantom Stranger arrived in spinner racks in November, 1975, I had been buying the title regularly for a full five years — or, to put it another way, for an unbroken run of thirty issues.  That made it unique among the DC Comics offerings I was picking up regularly at the time, as none of the others — Beowulf, Claw the Unconquered, Hercules Unbound, Kong the Untamed, Warlord, and the just-revived All-Star Comics — had even been around just one year before, let alone five.  As for the other DC books that I’d been routinely buying back when I first sampled Phantom Stranger in November, 1970 — these included Green Lantern, House of Mystery, Jimmy Olsen, Justice League of America, Superman, and World’s Finest — while most of them were still going concerns, a couple weren’t; and those that were still being published had become occasional purchases for me, at best.  Phantom Stranger was the only DC comic I’d bought continuously for the last half-decade — the sole survivor of my own personal DC Comics class of ’70.

And after this month, it would be gone, as well… because the 41st issue of Phantom Stranger was also to be the final one.  Read More

1st Issue Special #9 (December, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

My first encounter with Doctor Fate dates back to 1966, when I met him as a member of the Justice Society of America in Justice League of America #46 — the opening half of that year’s annual summer JLA-JSA meet-up event, which, as it happened, was the first such event I experienced as a young comics fan.  As I wrote in my post about that issue nine years ago, he very quickly became one of my very favorite JSAers, probably due as much to his look (that golden, whole-head-covering helmet was so cool) as to his power set (I developed a predilection for the supernaturally-based superfolks pretty early on, for whatever reason).  That opinion hadn’t changed by September, 1975, so when the sorcerer from Salem was granted a solo showcase in the ninth issue of 1st Issue Special (his first such since 1944!), it was pretty much a given that I would show up for the occasion.  Read More

Justice League of America #123 (October, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

1975’s team-up between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America was the thirteenth such event since the annual tradition had begun in 1963.  Over the years, DC Comics fans had been privileged to vicariously visit such parallel worlds as Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-Three, Earth-X, and even the short-lived Earth-A.  But there was one particular Earth that had been established as existing in what would eventually be known as “the DC multiverse” that had yet to be glimpsed in any of the JLA-JSA summer shindigs… though readers of those comics could hardly claim to be unfamiliar with the place.  After all, they lived there.

Of course, I’m talking about Earth-Prime.  Read More

The Brave and the Bold #112 (Apr.-May, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

By my reckoning, DC Comics’ The Brave and the Bold was one of the first comic book titles I ever spent my own money on (for the record, it was preceded only by Superman, Detective Comics, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Flash, and Lois Lane).  I bought my first issue, #64, in December, 1965 — drawn in, no doubt, by its irresistible Gil Kane cover — and BatB soon became one of my most consistent regular purchases as a nascent comics fan.  No, I didn’t buy every single issue, but that was true of virtually every other title as well (the sole exception in those early days being Justice League of America, to which I quickly subscribed).  The ongoing appeal of the book, of course, was that you were always guaranteed at least two superheroes for the price of one (sometimes, as with issue #65’s team-up between the Flash and the Doom Patrol, you got even more).  That wasn’t quite as good a deal as JLA, which might give you as many as ten costumed crusaders cavorting in the same story… but it was still pretty sweet.  Read More

Batman #255 (Mar.-Apr., 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

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.  Read More

Justice League of America #110 (Mar.-Apr., 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

From a creative standpoint, 1973 had been a very stable year for Justice League of America.  Everyone who’d been working on the book as the year began — writer Len Wein, penciller Dick Dillin, inker Dick Giordano, cover artist Nick Cardy, and (of course) editor Julius Schwartz — remained in place as 1973 neared its end.  From a business perspective, however, it was a rather different story.  After having been published on a nine-times-a-year schedule from 1965 to 1971, DC Comics’ premiere super-team title had dropped back to eight issues per year in 1972; and then, with the first issue of 1973, had its frequency reduced even further, to a bimonthly status.

And then, December, 1973 brought a change that was even bigger (in more ways than one), as JLA joined several other DC titles in transitioning to the “100 Page Super Spectacular” format — a giant-sized package that featured some three pages of reprints to every one of new art and story, at a cost of 50 cents — more than twice that of the “standard” format comic JLA had been prior to the change, which sold for 20 cents.  (With the following month, the price of the “Super Spectacular” format would go up to 60 cents, making these comics a full three times more expensive than DC’s standard size books… but of course we fans of the time didn’t know that yet.)  Read More

Detective Comics #439 (Feb.-Mar., 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As of November, 1973, it had been twenty-seven months since the last time I bought an issue of Detective Comics.  (For the record, that issue was #416, featuring the fourth appearance of Man-Bat.)  There hadn’t been any conscious “drop” decision involved in this long dry spell between purchases; like a lot of other titles, Detective was simply one of those books I made an individual buy-or-not-buy choice about every time I saw a new issue on the stands.  I’d check out the cover, glance at the credits for the Batman story, note who Bats was fighting this go-around — maybe even see who was starring in the backup feature (there was always a backup feature back then) — and if one or more of those aspects grabbed me (or, if the spinner-rack pickings were really slim that week, even just mildly interested me), I bought the comic book.  Read More

Justice League of America #108 (Nov.-Dec., 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In August, 1973, the second half of the 11th annual team-up event between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America led off with a cover (by Nick Cardy) that clearly called back to a particular predecessor — namely, the cover that had graced the second half of the 5th such summertime event, way back in July, 1967.  And why not?  That Carmine Infantino-Murphy Anderson number is an all-time classic, which, aside from its own individual excellence, arguably established the motif of “two line-ups of superheroes charging each other” that has been a staple of super-team comic book covers ever since.

That said, it rankled me just a bit at the time — and, what the hell, I guess it still does — that to make the idea work in the context of JLA #108’s story by writer Len Wein and artists Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano, editor Julius Schwartz had to fudge the cover copy a bit.  After all, there aren’t just “two different Earths” represented among the eight costumed stalwarts heading towards blows whom we see on the cover above — there are three.  The JLA’s Earth-One, the JSA’s Earth-Two, and — as had been introduced to DC Comics’ readers just one issue before — Earth-X.  A world inhabited by yet another team of heroes, newly dubbed “the Freedom Fighters”, who had been published during the Golden Age of Comic Books by DC’s now-defunct rival, Quality Comics… and also a world where the Nazis had won World War II.  Read More