Justice League of America #135 (October, 1976)

Half a century ago, July, 1976 brought the return of one of my younger self’s favorite comic book traditions of those bygone days– the annual team-up event between the Justice League of America and their forerunners from the Golden Age of Comics, the Justice Society of America.  This particular iteration was the fourteenth such team-up to appear since DC Comics had kicked the whole thing off back in 1963, not to mention the eleventh for your humble blogger, who’d first come aboard in 1966.  And though you couldn’t tell it from Ernie Chan’s cover, Justice League of America #135 had an additional numerical distinction as well, as it presented the first chapter of what would eventually emerge as only the second JLA/JSA event up to that point to occupy three full issues, two having been the norm ever since JLA #21 and #22 had inaugurated the tradition way back when.  Read More

Shazam! #1 (Feb., 1973)

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