With this 175th issue of Captain America, the “Secret Empire” saga that had dominated the series’ pages for over half a year finally reached its climax. And as our storytellers picked up their narrative right where the previous month’s episode had left us readers hanging, you could hardly accuse writer Steve Englehart of underselling the occasion in his opening, credits-prefacing caption… Read More
In November, 1973, the third bimonthly issue of DC Comics’ The Shadow arrived on newsstands as scheduled, sporting yet another instantly-classic cover by regular series artist Michael W. Kaluta and colorist/washtone-process master Jack Adler. Turning to the opening splash page, a prospective buyer might have noted that the creative lineup for the book’s interior contents remained basically consistent with the title’s previous installments as well, its story having once again been scripted by writer/editor Denny O’Neil, and drawn by Kaluta and… Bernie Wrightson? Read More
Fifty-one years after the fact, it seems at least possible that the DC Comics title Weird Worlds might never have come into existence at all, had that publisher kept up its “Bigger and Better” experiment — i.e., a standard comic-book format of 48 pages, which sold for 25 cents — for a while longer than it did. After all, the earliest DC issues of Tarzan and Korak had seemed to have ample space not only for the adventures of author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous jungle hero and his somewhat less well-known son, but also for backup features based on what were arguably even less familiar ERB properties, such as “John Carter of Mars”, “Carson of Venus”, and “Pellucidar”.
But with the shift back to 32-page comics as DC’ standard size (“Now Only 20¢”), Tarzan and Korak could no longer accommodate all of those backups — let alone add any of the other properties that DC had access to via their Burroughs license. And so, while “Carson of Venus” continued to appear in Korak (and a new feature, “Beyond the Farthest Star”, took up residence in the back pages of Tarzan), John Carter and David Innes (the protagonist of “Pellucidar”) each found a new home in a brand new title: Weird Worlds, the first issue of which arrived on stands in June, 1972. Read More
Cover to Shadow Comics #1 (1940). Art by Jerome Rozen.
Cover to The Shadow #8 (Sep., 1965). Art by Paul Reinman.
As memory serves, my younger self had very little knowledge of the Shadow when DC Comics first started promoting their upcoming title about him in the fall of 1972. If asked, I probably could have told you that he was an old-time crime-fighting hero who had appeared both in pulp magazines and on the radio, though I doubt I could have told you which had come first. And I’m all but certain that I had no knowledge that he already had a comic-book career behind him, with not only 101 issues of a titular series that ran from 1940 to 1949 (and that featured work by his primary writer in the pulps, Walter Gibson) but also a short-lived (and notoriously unfaithful) revival from Archie Comics in 1964-65 (the eighth and final issue of which coincidentally happened to come out just one month prior to my buying my own first comic book; from most reports, I was lucky to have missed this one, which might have put me off comics forever — who can say?). Read More
Last December, we looked at the first issue of Sword of Sorcery — DC Comics’ new (as of December, 1972, that is) bi-monthly series featuring author Fritz Leiber’s fantasy fiction duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The debut of the two roguish heroes in their own title came five months after their introduction to DC readers in Wonder Woman #202, courtesy of writer Samuel R. Delany, artist Dick Giordano, and editor Denny O’Neil — the latter of whom, not so coincidentally, would be not only editing DC’s new sword-and-sorcery title (the company’s first ongoing effort in that genre), but scripting it, as well. SoS #1’s art, meantime, was contributed by a young penciller named Howard Chaykin, with inks by the mysterious “Crusty Bunkers” (whom, as we’d soon learn, consisted of various talents working out of the Continuity Associates studio run by Neal Adams and Giordano.) Read More
Back in July of this year, we took a look at Wonder Woman #202 — an issue which, in addition to being the penultimate issue of that title’s four-year “Diana Prince” run (which had found the Amazing Amazon battling bad guys sans her traditional powers or costume), featured the comic-book debut of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, two heroes of sword-and-sorcery fiction who’d been appearing in the stories of Fritz Leiber since 1939. In the comic’s story, Diana and Catwoman journeyed to the the world of Nehwon (spell it backwards), where they tussled briefly with the two blade-wielding adventurers before teaming up against their common foes.
Immediately following the story’s conclusion, a half-page ad promised us readers of 1972 that this was by no means the last we’d see of Fafhrd and the Mouser: Read More
In our present age, when not only the original Captain Marvel has been the subject of a blockbuster motion picture (with a second one on the way), but so has his most powerful adversary, it may be difficult for younger fans to comprehend just how obscure Billy Batson and his alter ego were to the average comic book reader of half a century ago. Even if you were an avid comics fan who’d been reading superhero funnybooks for the past seven years (as was my fifteen-year-old self, back in December, 1972), you might not have much more than a vague idea of what the “Marvel Family” and its mythos were all about, prior to the publication of Shazam! #1. Read More
Neal Adams’ cover for Batman #244 is probably one of the most famous and iconic comic book covers of its era. There are a number of good reasons for that, starting with the sheer drama of the moment it depicts, as our hero lies vanquished, perhaps even dead, at the feet of his greatest enemy, Ra’s al Ghul. Then there’s the strength of Adams’ composition, which frames that dramatic moment so perfectly, as well as the sophisticated coloring by Adams and Jack Adler, which wonderfully enhances the mood as well as the visual appeal of the illustration.
And then there’s the chest hair. Oh, and the nipples, of course. Mustn’t forget the nipples. Read More
In July, 1972, I bought my second-ever issue of Wonder Woman. My first issue had been #171 (Jul.-Aug., 1967) — and as I wrote here on the blog back in May, 2017, my nine-year-old self hadn’t been all that taken at the time with Robert Kanigher’s silly scripts, nor had the art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito held much appeal for me. So, what motivated me to finally get around to giving the title another go, five years later?
It wasn’t the whole “New Wonder Woman”, white-jumpsuited Diana Rigg Prince thing, for sure; that had been around since 1968, and if it hadn’t inspired me to lay down my coin to check it out yet, it wasn’t going to. No, it was the appearance on the Dick Giordano-drawn cover of perhaps the two most unlikely guest stars I could have imagined — science fiction and fantasy author Fritz Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery heroes, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. What the heck were those guys doing on the cover of any DC comic book — let alone Wonder Woman? Read More
Batman #243 picks up the ongoing Ra’s al Ghul storyline from the previous issue without missing a step –and with the welcome return to the proceedings of Ra’s’ co-creator, artist Neal Adams, who contributes the comic’s fine cover prior to rejoining writer Denny O’Neil and inker Dick Giordano for the story within. Read More
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 