Gardner Fox

Batman #183 (August, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The estimable and invaluable web resource known as the Grand Comics Database, without which the production of this blog would be exponentially more difficult (if not downright impossible), generally confines its content to verified (or at least verifiable) facts.  Its entry for Batman #183, however, contains the following anonymous “Indexer Note”:

“Camp style stories in the fashion of the TV series begin.”

That statement, on the face of it, appears to assert as fact something which, if we’re going to be honest and objective, surely must be reckoned a matter of subjective opinion, no matter how well-informed.  But because it is from the Grand Comics Database — and also because we’ve already noted how, in the letters column of the last non-reprint issue of Batman prior to this one, editor Julius Schwartz dropped a non sequitur reference to “camp” — I think it’s worthwhile to examine Batman #183 in the context of that claim.  Read More

Batman #181 (June, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Most of the villains generally considered to be on Batman’s “A-list” of foes were introduced in the first decade or so following the Caped Crusader’s first appearance in 1939.  The Joker first arrived on the scene in 1940, barely a year after his heroic adversary’s debut, as did Catwoman.  The Penguin and the Scarecrow followed soon after, in 1941, while Two-Face first turned up in 1942.  Even the Riddler, a character who wouldn’t really take off until the mid-Sixties, debuted as early as 1948.

I may be as old as dirt, but even so, I’m not quite ancient enough to have been around for any of those characters’ introductory appearances.  On the other hand, I am old enough, and also fortunate enough, to have been present for the debut of another member of that top rank of Batman baddies — the villainess known as Poison Ivy.      Read More

Justice League of America #44 (May, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Justice League of America #44 was the first comic book I ever got through the mail.  It came in a brown paper wrapper.  And it was folded in two, lengthwise.

Which, of course, would significantly lessen its future value as a collectible, but my eight-year-old self hardly cared about that.  After all, I was the kid who cut the logo off the cover of Superman #181 and cut up a story page in The Brave and the Bold #64 for the subscription coupon on the back — said subscription coupon being the very reason why I was now receiving my first issue of JLA through the mail, just a few months after I’d mailed the coupon in, accompanied by a single dollar bill.  (One dollar for 10 issues!  I saved a whole 2 cents per comic book.)  Read More

Hawkman #13 (Apr.-May, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Hawkman was the fourth member of the Justice League of America on whose solo adventures I eventually decided to gamble 12 cents, his having been preceded by Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash.  (Wonder Woman, the Atom, and Aquaman would eventually follow, though unfortunately Green Arrow had already lost his supporting slot in World’s Finest by this time, and I wouldn’t get around to checking out House of Mystery until well after its doors had shut on the Martian Manhunter.)  Most of what I knew about the Winged Wonder came from Justice League of America #41, where I’d learned that both Hawkman and his wife, the similarly attired and identically powered (but perhaps slightly smarter) Hawkgirl, were alien police officers from the planet Thanagar, operating undercover on Earth for reasons I didn’t quite understand yet. Read More

Batman #179 (March, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In January, 1966, I bought my first issue of Batman.  I’d already had plenty of exposure to the character by this time, of course, in multiple issues of Justice League of America, plus appearances in The Brave and the Bold and World’s Finest.  More to the point, one of the very first comics I’d bought had been the 344th issue of Detective, Batman’s “other” book (and arguably the primary Batman book, as it was the 27th issue of Detective in which the character made his debut way back in 1939).  Still, up until January, 1966, I hadn’t gotten around to buying an actual issue of the Caped Crusader’s titular comic.

But if I was ever going to pick up an issue of Batman, there could hardly have been another month when I would have been more primed to do so than January of 1966.  Because on January 12, eight days prior to the release of Batman #179, American television viewers saw this on their screens for the very first time: Read More

Green Lantern #43 (March, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Guest appearances and crossovers are par for the course in the superhero comics of today, but it wasn’t always that way, at least not at DC Comics.  In 1966 you had DC’s big guns teaming up every month (more or less) in Justice League of America, and Superman and Batman appearing together regularly in World’s Finest.  And The Brave and the Bold had by now evolved into a book featuring a constantly revolving lineup of (usually) two headliners (although Batman would soon lock down one of the co-starring slots as an ongoing gig).  But to have, say, Aquaman turn up in an issue of Wonder Woman?  That sort of thing didn’t happen very often. Read More

Justice League of America #42 (February, 1966)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

By December, 1965, I had been buying and reading comics for almost half a year, and in that time Justice League of America had definitely become my favorite comic book — the one series I would buy whenever I saw a new issue.  That’s not surprising, I guess, considering its all-star cast of heroes.  Concurrently, I had also sampled individual issues of a number of the Justice League members’ own series (and most of those that I hadn’t gotten around to yet, I’d be checking out before long).  But there were other DC heroes I only glanced at when perusing the spinner racks at the Tote-Sum.  These particular heroes — characters like the Doom Patrol, the Metal Men, and Ultra the Multi-Alien — were a little more bizarre, and a little less-human seeming, than Superman, Batman, and the rest of the JLA gang.  Nevertheless, there was a way for such characters to get my attention, and that was to appear in the JLA’s own book — as Metamorpho, the Element Man, did in Justice League of America #42’s “Metamorpho Says — No!” (produced, per the Grand Comics Database, by the series’ regular team of writer Gardner Fox, penciller Mike Sekowsky, and inker Bernard Sachs).  Read More

Justice League of America #41 (December, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Before re-reading this comic in preparation for this blog post — probably the first time I’d cracked its cover in at least three decades — I had been remembering it as a more typical example of the JLA stories of the period than the first one that I’d bought and read, the philosophical and essentially villain-less “The Indestructible Creatures of Nightmare Island!” in JLA #40.  As it turns out, however, this issue has a good bit more in common with its immediate predecessor than I’d previously recalled.  Like in that story, the main action here turns upon a character manipulating people’s attitudes and behaviors by artificial means.  However, in “The Key-Master of the World!” (uncredited, but produced by the book’s regular creative team of Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, and Bernard Sachs, according to the Grand Comics Database), the manipulation is limited only to the titular heroes rather than affecting the whole world, and the perpetrator’s intent is malicious, rather than benign.  Read More

Justice League of America #40 (November, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Today’s 50 year old comic book ranks as one of the most personally significant that I ever bought, for several reasons.

The first, and most obvious, is that it introduced me to a number of superheroes I hadn’t encountered before.  I had known about Superman (and maybe Batman) before I bought my first comic, of course, and in my first month of comics buying I had picked up books featuring those two heroes (and possibly one starring Green Lantern), but this book was packed with colorful, memorable new characters.  The Flash!  The Atom!  Hawkman!  Aquaman!  Green Arrow!  J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter!  Wonder Woman! (Waitaminnit — who let a girl in the clubhouse?)  And not just heroes, but villains as well, with cameo appearances by the Penguin, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, and — the Shark!  (OK, maybe not all the characters were A-listers.)

But just as important, if not more so, was the impact that the story had on the development of my personal moral philosophy.  Seriously.  Read More

Detective Comics #344 (October, 1965)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I think that this was the second comic book I bought, but I’m not sure.  It has the same cover date as Superman #180, but so does another comic I bought around the same time.  I’m sure Superman #180 was the very first, but my memory of the specific sequence of acquisitions is a little dim after that.  I feel like Batman followed right after Superman, however, and it also seems like the most appropriate choice — so that’s what I’m going with here.

My memory is also trying to tell me that I was previously aware of Batman from commercials for his upcoming live-action series (maybe even one featuring the Batusi?), but that seems pretty unlikely.  The premiere of ABC’s “Batman” was still 5 months away, and I don’t believe that networks aired promos that far in advance in those days — but I could be wrong.  Assuming there hadn’t been any such commercials, however, I must have had only a vague idea of who Batman was and what he was all about.  Only a year later, Batman would be everywhere — toys, records, books, trading cards, other novelties, a movie — but in the summer of ’65 there were only the comics.  Read More