Frank Robbins

Ghost Rider #19 (August, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

At the end of last Saturday’s Tomb of Dracula #47 post, I promised you that the next installment of this blog would feature “the strange, sad story of Ghost Rider #19.”  But, as anyone out there who already knows some version of this tale is well aware, its origins go back well before the May, 1976 publication of the comic whose Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover appears at the top of this post.  To begin with, this specific issue presents the conclusion of a multi-part storyline that had kicked off in Ghost Rider #17; but beyond that, the ongoing plot lines that find their (more or less) ultimate resolution in this arc extend back at least to Ghost Rider #8 (Oct., 1974)… and, arguably, all the way back to the feature’s debut in Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug., 1972).  And seeing as how we haven’t discussed any issues of this series since July, 2023, when we hit the high points of Ghost Rider #1 and #2 in the context of covering the debut of spinoff character Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, in Marvel Spotlight #12 (Oct., 1973), we’re going to have to do some catching up to properly set the stage.  So let’s get to it, shall we?  Read More

Batman Family #1 (Sep.-Oct., 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that when I picked up Detective Comics #450 in the late spring of 1975, it had been well over a year since I’d bought an issue of that title.  As it happens, I could have said the same thing about most of DC Comics’ other Bat-books of the time.  The last issue of Batman itself that I’d purchased had been #255, which had come out at the end of 1973, and I hadn’t been paying any attention at all to World’s Finest (which of course was technically Superman’s book at least as much as it was Batman’s) since well before that.  Granted, I was a somewhat more frequent consumer of Brave and the Bold, where every new issue arrived possessing the baseline advantage of Jim Aparo’s reliably fine artwork, then might pick up additional interest based on who the Masked Manhunter’s co-star happened to be this time around.  Still, you get the basic idea; while I continued to like the character of Batman just fine, DC’s “Batman family” of comic-book titles was mostly leaving my younger self cold.  Read More

Captain America #186 (June, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.

The last issue of Captain America we discussed in this space, was, as I’m sure you’ll remember, a highly significant one for the series, featuring as it did not only the tragic death of Roscoe, the young man who’d attempted to replace Steve Rogers in the titular role, but also Steve’s inevitable response to that tragedy: the abandonment of his briefly-held “Nomad” identity to once again take up the shield of Captain America, as he prepared to deal with the return of his greatest arch-enemy (and the man who’d brutally murdered Roscoe) — the Red Skull.

Interestingly, however, issue #183’s letters column devoted at least as much attention to the hero who shared the series’ title logo with Cap (even if the book’s “official” title, per the indicia, had been, and would remain, simply Captain America) — namely, the Falcon.  In response to a missive from reader Bob Stenson that included a brief, vaguely critical remark about the Falcon’s decision not to come to the aid of his erstwhile partner Steve Rogers against the Golden Archer back in CA #179, the book’s anonymous letters-page answerer (identified by the Grand Comics Database as series scribe Steve Englehart) took the opportunity to preview some upcoming — and ominous-sounding — developments in regards to Marvel Comics’ first Black American superhero:  Read More

Captain America #183 (March, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years and one month ago, on the final page of Captain America #182, writer Steve Englehart promised his readers that the next issue would feature “The Return of Captain America!  Eight months in the making, and worth every second of the wait!”  That bottom-of-the-page blurb struck an unmistakably triumphal tone — but it was a tone that was significantly tempered by the full-page splash panel that immediately preceded it, in which the Red Skull — Captain America’s greatest foe — was shown not only to have returned, but also to have gotten the drop on Cap’s longtime partner, the Falcon, as well as his would-be replacement, a Brooklyn youth named Roscoe — both of whom now lay helpless at the Skull’s feet.  Clearly, the return of Steve Rogers to the role of Star-Spangled Avenger wasn’t going to be purely an occasion for celebratory fireworks and parades — a message that would be visually underscored when CA #183 showed up on stands in December, 1974, featuring a brutally dramatic cover by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.  Read More

Captain America #182 (February, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The cover of Captain America #182 — drawn by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia (with probable touch-ups by John Romita) — offered few, if any, hints of major surprises to be found within its pages.  Here’s Steve Rogers in his new heroic identity of Nomad, continuing his ongoing battle against the Serpent Squad, with a symbolic (and huge) representation of his former (and, of course, much better-known) costumed alter ego looming in the background.  Pretty much what anyone who’d been following this title for the past several months would expect.

But upon turning to the issue’s opening splash page, we readers of November, 1974, learned that changes had indeed come to Captain America…  Read More

The Shadow #6 (Aug.-Sep., 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last November, we took a look at the third issue of DC Comics’ The Shadow — the first issue by the team of writer/editor Denny O’Neil and artist Michael W. Kaluta to carry a credit for another creative talent.  In this case, it was Kaluta’s friend and fellow artist, Bernie Wrightson, who stepped in to help out his pal when the former artist ran behind on his bi-monthly deadline.

Kaluta ended up having some uncredited help on issue #4, as well — this time from Howard Chaykin and Stephen Hickman as well as Wrightson — although this seems to have been a case of the other artists just wanting to pitch in for the fun of it, rather than a matter of necessity.  Kaluta drew the cover solo, however, just as he had the previous three; like them, it was enhanced by the special washtone process utilized by colorist Jack Adler.  (For the record, this issue also featured an additional writing credit for the first time, as Len Wein co-scripted the story with O’Neil.)

Then, in March, 1974, The Shadow #5 brought the largest creative shakeup yet, as Kaluta was entirely absent from the issue; instead, both the cover and story were illustrated by an artist with a diametrically different style, i.e., Frank Robbins.  Read More

Plop #1 (Sep.-Oct., 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In the early 1970s, when DC Comics publisher Carmine Infantino surveyed the then-current comic book industry landscape, he saw traditional superheroes — long a mainstay for his company —  seemingly in decline, while other well-established genres, such as romance, war, and westerns, were managing to hold on at best.  About the only sector that could be said to be actually thriving was the mystery books — the label “mystery” in this case having next to nothing to do with conventional crime or detective fiction, but rather signifying supernatural horror — or, at least, what passed for it under a Comics Code Authority that didn’t allow the word “horror” to be used in the title of a comic or even an individual story, despite the 1971 revisions to the Code that allowed “literary” monsters such as vampires and werewolves to appear in the color comics of DC and most other publishers for the first time since 1954.  Read More

Captain America #164 (August, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago, John Romita’s cover for the topic of today’s blog post promised a certain degree of novelty; not only did it nod to the then-hot horror genre via presenting the superheroic Falcon as a werewolf, but it also heralded the debut of a new supervillain — and a Black female one at that.  (Nightshade may not have been the first such character to appear in American comics, but her particular race-gender combo made her stand out in this era, nevertheless… actually, as far as your humble blogger can tell, it still does.)

But we readers of May, 1973 couldn’t guess the full scope of the novelty awaiting us until we turned to this issue’s first page:  Read More

Detective Comics #411 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As of March, 1971, my thirteen-year-old self was picking up Detective Comics on a fairly consistent basis — but it was a habit I’d acquired only recently (or perhaps I should say reacquired, as I’d been a regular reader of the title before, back in 1965-67).  For that reason, I’d missed writer Denny O’Neil’s first two “League of Assassins” stories, which had run in issues #405 and #406, respectively.  On the other hand, I had bought and read Detective #408, whose lead Batman story, though not scripted by O’Neil, had featured an attempt by the villainous Dr. Tzin-Tzin to eliminate the Darknight Detective at the League’s behest.  So it wasn’t like I was completely unfamiliar with the sinister organization prior to my purchasing issue #411.  Rather, I was intrigued by the little I knew — and though I realized I was coming in late, I was eager to catch up. Luckily, this third installment of O’Neil’s League saga didn’t depend very much on knowledge of the previous two at all — and what little I did need to know, I’d manage to pick up easily through the script’s unobtrusive exposition.    Read More

Detective Comics #408 (February, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

There’s an interesting story behind Detective #408’s lead Batman feature (and cover story), “The House That Haunted Batman!”.  Or perhaps we should say, in the interest of total accuracy, that there are four of them.

Back in 1998, in the 1st issue of Comic Book Artist, editor Jon B. Cooke published “The Story That Haunted Julie Schwartz”, a collection of interviews with four of the personnel who’d been involved with producing this classic Detective story:  editor Julius Schwartz, writers Len Wein and Marv Wolfman, and penciller Neal Adams.  The funny thing about it, though, was that in spite of the interviews’ brevity (the entire article ran only two pages) the four veteran comics pros’ recollections differed in certain details, lending the whole enterprise a Rashomon-like quality.

This much, at least, the quartet could agree on:  Quite early on in their professional careers, longtime friends Len Wein and Marv Wolfman wrote a Batman story together which they hoped to sell to Julius Schwartz.  Somewhere along the line, Neal Adams took an interest in the as-yet-unbought script and ended up drawing it in his spare time, on spec — a remarkably generous gesture, considering how busy the artist was (not to mention what his time was worth).  Ultimately, despite the irregularity of the process, editor Schwartz did indeed buy the completed 15-pager, and scheduled it for the next available issue of Detective Comics.  Read More