The Atom Man

Marvel was not the only comics company to notice the success DC was having with its Silver Age heroes. Gold Key Comics decided to try their hand at the superhero biz with an entry called Dr Solar, Man of the Atom, which debuted in October 1962. Dr Solar was a research physicist working on project that attempts to convert energy into matter. Unknown to him, Rasp, another scientist working at the same facility, is secretly an agent for a villain named Nuro. Rasp tries to get on Solar's project, but is rejected in favor of Dr Bently. After trying to kill Solar and failing, he sabotages the nuclear reactor so Bently is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. Dr Solar finds Bently dying, but apparently survives the radiation himself. However, it is later discovered that he had not survived so much as transformed:



Note the green color; the Hulk had debuted about a half-year earlier. Not sure if changing color is really a side-effect of radiation poisoning or if this is just a little copying.

The action takes place in Atom Valley and there is a love interest; a pretty blonde Gail Sanders whom Dr Solar had known back at college. Oddly, although she does not know what happened to Dr Solar (who now must stay in a lead-lined office), when talking to him through a lead window she makes no remarks about his green skin.

Meanwhile, we discover that Dr Solar has the ability to generate enormous heat, like a miniature sun. However, this rapidly drains him of energy and he must expose himself to the atomic pile to regenerate. Dr Clarkson, head of the laboratory where Dr Solar works, is the only person who knows his secret.

By the second issue, they had mostly dropped the green coloring, although it does appear occasionally. We learn of new powers; Dr Solar is capable of generating "lightning-like rays" with his eyes. He is also capable of changing his body into a wave of energy and flying through the air.

In the fourth issue we learn that he has "radar-like vision". In Dr Solar #5, he gains a superhero costume:



It actually looks a little more red than pink on the covers.

Dr. Solar lasted for 27 issues before finally folding in 1969. He made a brief comeback in the early 1980s for another four issues under the Whitman Comics line.

The Avengers Part II: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

One advantage that DC had over Marvel in the early 1960s (although it would change by the end of the decade) was that their characters seemed frozen in time. Thus it was no great challenge for writers and artists on different mags to portray Batman.

Not so with Marvel's characters, and the Avengers demonstrated this as early as their second issue. Hank Pym's Ant-Man was replaced in this story by Hank Pym's Giant Man. In addition, the Hulk decided to leave the team.

By the third issue, Iron Man had exchanged his all-gold outfit for the gold and red combination which has mostly endured (with minor changes) to this day. And in the fourth issue.... well, let's just say that things changed for good.

The second issue featured the Space Phantom, a shape-shifter who could banish any human that he imitated to a place called limbo. He imitates all of the Avengers in turn, but eventually he makes the mistake of trying to mimic Thor, the Thunder God, and is banished to limbo himself as a result.

One oddity about Avengers #2 is that it contains an obvious boner. Rick Jones, who is shown living in the Southwest in both Avengers #1 and #3, appears on the streets of New York and confronts the Hulk (really the Space Phantom).

In Avengers #3, the Hulk teams up with the Submariner to fight the Avengers. Obviously this is a major comic, and yet it is dwarfed by the following issue.

Captain America returns! It is one of those interesting coincidences that in Fantastic Four #4, Stan Lee brought back the Submariner, a major Marvel character of the Golden Age, and in Avengers #4, Captain America, the biggest Marvel character of that era returned.



Cap helps the Avengers in another battle against the Submariner and in the end was offered and agreed to join the team. We learn that Bucky, Cap's sidekick, had died at the end of World War II, although we don't learn the identity of the man responsible for his death (yet). He seems interested in pursuing a friendship with Rick Jones much like that he'd had with Bucky back in the Golden Age.

Avengers #5 featured a pedestrian one-off battle with a former foe of the Mighty Thor, the Lava Men. But in Avengers #6, we first meet Baron Zemo, who is responsible for Bucky's death. He had been working on a super adhesive for Hitler's war machine when Captain America destroyed the factory. In the process, Zemo's mask, which he'd worn to prevent reprisals against him from the common folk, became permanently glued to his face.

Zemo returns in Avengers #7, this time assisted by the Enchantress and the Executioner, a pair of immortal villains who had previously appeared in a Thor story in Journey into Mystery. Banished from Asgard, they hook up with Zemo for different reasons. The Enchantress convinces Thor that the Avengers have gone bad and they are his enemy.

Up to this point, the Enchantress has seemed like a character caught between good and evil, much like other Marvel characters who eventually reformed. But we can sense the evil coming to the fore in this sequence:



Is this the first genuinely evil female in the Marvel universe? I can't think of another one.

The Avengers

It is well-known that Marvel started the Fantastic Four as a way to cash in on the superhero team craze that the Justice League of America was creating over at DC. However, the team that actually seemed more like a knockoff of the JLA were the Avengers. Consider that the the JLA and the Avengers both featured existing characters in their respective universes, while the FF featured three new characters and one revival of a Golden Age superhero (the Human Torch). Both the Avengers and the JLA included a teenaged "honorary" member (Rick Jones and Snapper Carr).

In Avengers #1, Loki wants to get revenge against Thor for getting him banished to a barren isle as ordered by Odin. He decides to utilize the Hulk in this effort. By faking a bomb on a train trestle, Loki deceives the Hulk into destroying the trestle. Fortunately for the train, the Hulk rectifies his mistake in time, but the humans still believe that the Hulk was responsible for the near accident.

Rick Jones, the Hulk's only friend, sends a shortwave message intended for the Fantastic Four, asking for their help, but Loki diverts it so that Dr. Don Blake receives the SOS. Unknown to Loki, though, the Ant-Man and Iron Man have also received the summons, and they independently make their way to the Southwestern United States.

Thor realizes that Loki is behind the illusions and heads to Asgard. Meanwhile, the Ant-Man and Iron Man have located the Hulk, who is disguised as a circus strongman. Thor battles Loki and eventually subdues him, returning to Earth. He interrupts a fight between Iron Man and the Hulk, proviing that Loki was responsible for the near accident involving the train.

As they are about to leave, Ant-Man suggests that they form a regular fighting team, and the others agree:



The Avengers would undergo the most dramatic changes over the next few years of any superhero team in the Silver Age. Stay tuned for more!

The Identity Crisis Superhero of the 1960s

Was the Mighty Thor. While vacationing in Norway, the lame doctor Don Blake discovers an invasion of Earth by the Stone Men of Saturn. They chase him into a cave, where he discovers a cane. When he taps it on the ground it transforms into a powerful hammer while he himself changes into the Norse God of Thunder. Hey, it made for a very quick costume change, which was useful for a comic hero of the 1960s.

Over time, it was explained that Thor actually was the famed Norse god and that he had a family including his father, Odin and his evil brother, Loki. Of course, this made things a bit confusing for readers; wasn't Don Blake the real person and Thor just a superhero identity? Where did Thor go when he tapped the hammer on the ground and changed back into Dr. Blake? Eventually things got so mixed up that Marvel actually asked its fans to help them figure it out, and here, from a letter published in Journey Into Mystery #111 is the explanation that Stan Lee decided to use:

Blogroll Surfing

Dial B for Blog has a terrific post on The Final Chapter from Amazing Spiderman #33, frequently cited as one of the highlights of the Silver Age. My post on that issue is here.

Booksteve's Library has a post about Green Arrow and the Red Feather Kid. I believe that the Community Chest mentioned in that ad is probably the forerunner of today's United Way. Of course these days Community Chest is only mentioned when playing Monopoly.

Speaking of Community Chest, Phantom Lady seems to have one in this post over at the new digs of the Fortress of Fortitude.

Four Color Media Monitor has a long and thoughtful post on Captain Anti-America (as he should have been known circa 2003). I don't engage in a lot of serious commentary over here, but one of the reasons I focus on Silver Age comics is that it's the last era where superheroes were heroes, not alcoholics and wife-beaters and Chomskyites.

Some cheesecake from the 1970s over at The Legion of Superheroes Blog.

Living On Borrowed Time

That was the schtick of the Challengers of the Unknown. Ace Morgan, a test pilot, Prof Haley (Hale in #1), a skindiver, Red Ryan, a circus daredevil, and Rocky Davis, an Olympic wrestling champion. After they survive a plane crash unhurt, they decide to band together and take on dangerous assignments because, after all, they shouldn't rightly be alive anyway.

The series marked the (brief) return of Jack Kirby to DC Comics. Kirby had been influential with DC in the early 1940s, creating several long-running series like Boy Commandos (originally a Detective Comics backup strip, who later expanded into their own book which lasted a full 36 issues and the Newsboy Legion, who held down the lead feature in Star Spangled Comics for several years.

The Challengers first appeared in Showcase #6, the Jan-Feb 1957 issue. They made three more appearances in #7, #11 and #12, before graduating to their own title in Apr-May 1958. They were the second feature to make the jump from Showcase to headlining a magazine after Lois Lane, but before the Flash.

One of the more interesting facets of the Challengers was that they started out with book-length tales. This was unique for DC comic books of the time, which always had at least two stories and usually had three. Kirby broke the stories into four parts and had splash panels on each part, very much like what he would do with Fantastic Four a few years later. Oddly enough, though, when the series moved into its own title there were generally two stories in each issue.

June Walker (later June Robbins), a highly regarded young scientist was an honorary Challenger. Of course, like many other DC features the Challengers would eventually attract a bunch of subsidiary characters.

The Challengers initially had rather bland purple uniforms that basically looked like a sweatsuit, although that would change twice before the Silver Age was finished. They went to an ugly yellow and red combination with an hourglass (symbolizing borrowed time) in Challengers of the Unknown #43, then to back to purple suits with yellow striping on the arms and legs in #70, one of the last original issues.

One interesting facet of the early Challengers was the use of "modern" science. In Challengers #1, a Dr Evil-type steals a rare transistor. In #2, we see what a good calculator looked like back in 1958:



The series was edited by Jack Schiff, and as with all Schiff's titles suffered from a surfeit of monsters, dinosaurs and weird transformations.

Dr Strange Part II

Dr Strange returned in Strange Tales #111. This story introduces his arch-rival, Baron Mordo. Mordo is another former student of the Master, the Tibetan monk who taught Dr Strange the Mystic Arts. His ecoplasmic form compels the Master's servant to poison him, and hectors the Master to give him all his secrets if he wishes to remain alive. Fortunately Dr Strange arrives and saves the day. This is a very short story (only five pages), and the last Dr Strange for a few issues.

Dr Strange returns in Strange Tales #115, in "The Origin of Dr Strange". Stephen Strange (the first we learn his given name) was a skilled but arrogant and money-hungry surgeon. A car accident leaves the nerves in his hands damaged and he becomes a drifter. When he hears of a man who can supposedly cure anyone, he seeks out the Master in Tibet. However, the Master is not willing to help him because his motives are selfish, but he does offer to tutor Strange in the magic arts.

Strange is introduced to the Master's other pupil, Baron Mordo. Mordo is trying to kill the Master. Mordo casts a spell preventing Strange from warning the Master of his danger. Strange realizes that in order to defeat Mordo, he must learn black magic himself.

The next appearance is in Strange Tales #116. Dr Strange faces the villain from the first story, Nightmare, who has worked out a way to bring sleeping humans into the dark world he inhabits.

Ditko's artwork is again perfect for the moody, mystical story:



Dr Strange manages to rescue the sleeping men from the clutches of Nightmare, but not without considerable risk to himself.

This was also the last issue of Strange Tales not to feature at least a mention of the Dr Strange story on the cover.

For the previous Dr Strange post, click here.

I'm Late to This Party

But Dial B for Blog, which is always terrific, has a superb series on Ira Schnapp. Who was Ira Schnapp? One of the most important men in the history of comics. This is highly recommended!

"Imaginary" Stories

In the early 1960s, Mort Weisinger, the editor of the Superman line of comics (including Action, Adventure, Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and World's Finest) began to allow his writers to script what were called "imaginary" adventures. Of course, all superhero comics are "imaginary", but these stories allowed the writers to break some of the rules that were required with such successful continuing characters. We could see what might happen if Lois Lane married Superman (or Lex Luthor) while the next issue could completely ignore that wedding, because it had been clearly labeled an imaginary story.

I suspect in some ways this was an outgrowth of the way DC's comics of the early 1960s often featured what I call a "puzzle" cover. The puzzle was "Why is this happening?" For example, suppose the cover showed Jimmy Olsen doing something particularly nasty to Superman, like the following:







The last one even offers a double puzzle since not only is Olsen betraying his friend, but Brainiac and Luthor, Superman's worst enemies, are pleading for his life.

Anyway, the point is that DC loved these puzzle covers and so apparently did their readers. But of course it became tougher and tougher for the writers to create situations that managed to not only create a great puzzle cover, but which ended with everybody unchanged essentially. Hence the imaginary stories.

The concept has proven irresistable. Marvel published hundreds of "What If" issues and DC has its "Elseworlds" line; both are clearly inspired by the "Imaginary" stories. Of course you can track imaginary stories back to dream stories; the difference is that you don't have the falling asleep and waking up scenes.

I believe (but I'm not sure) that the first "Imaginary" story billed as such was "The Death of Superman" in Superman (V1) #149, November 1961. This is one of the most famous Superman stories of all time because it does not cop out at the end; Superman dies and Supergirl (until then still unknown) must carry on her cousin's tradition. (Correction: As noted in the comments, the first imaginary story is "Mr and Mrs Clark (Superman) Kent" from Lois Lane #19, August 1960).

In the story, Luthor convinces the world and Superman that he's reformed by finding a cure for cancer, then ambushes his longtime opponent and kills him with Kryptonite. Supergirl apprehends him (much to his dismay), but Luthor thinks he can escape the death penalty because he knows how to expand the bottle city of Kandor, where the trial is taking place, to normal size. However the Kandorians demand justice and Luthor is sentenced to the ultimate penalty.

There were some terrific "Imaginary" stories; "The Story of Superman Red and Superman Blue" in Superman #162, "Jor-El II and Kal-El II" from Superman #166, and "Clark Kent's Brother" in Superman #175 were all excellent three-part tales that explored Superman's character in new ways that would not have been possible otherwise.

Unfortunately, the great stories did not come without a price. Some stories which created bad characterization would be undone by the explanation that "it was an imaginary story". For example in Superman #205 (April 1968), it was disclosed that a heretofore unknown villain named Black Zero had actually destroyed Krypton. Jor-El was wrong, the planet would not have exploded without Black Zero to restart the nuclear reaction.

This of course was horrific characterization for Jor-El, who was God the Father in the DC universe in those days and the story was kicked under the carpet. In a similar fashion, DC explained in Flash #167 that Barry Allen had not been hit by chemicals and lightning by accident in Showcase #4; rather he'd been blessed by a Guardian Angel. Exit Guardian Angel stage left.

For the most part the "Imaginary" stories were confined to Superman, but a couple crept over to Batman via the World's Finest title, so we saw what would happen if Bruce Wayne had been adopted by the Kents. In an influential pair of stories, DC tried an imaginary look at Superman and Batman's sons in World's Finest #154 and 157. Amusingly, forced to come up with a wife for Batman, Weissinger chose Kathy Kane aka Batwoman, who had been retired from Batman for about two years.

No DC stories of the Silver Age that did not prominently feature Superman were billed as imaginary at the time, although they have been retconned to that status.

Amazing Spiderman 48-49

In Amazing Spiderman #48, Marvel did something rather interesting. They replaced an aging villan (the Original Vulture) with a newer, updated version. Blackie Drago was the cellmate of the OV, and has been pestering him for the secret of his wings. The Vulture, facing death as a result of a machine shop accident, decides to divulge the hiding place of a pair just outside the prison walls.

At this point Blackie laughs and reveals that he was responsible for the accident which injured the Vulture. He wastes little time in breaking out of prison and once he has the wings he seems to be invulnerable, especially since our friendly neighborhood Spiderman is coming down with a cold.

The story comes to a climax atop a bridge, with a hostage and Spidey facing an enemy who can fly. This time, however, the hostage is a nobody and thus does not die. Eventually the new Vulture manages to defeat Spidey, helped a great deal by the latter's illness.

There are a few examples I can think of where an old villain was replaced by a new one in the GA and SA. For example, Batman's old nemesis Two-Face came back as two different people before Harvey Dent himself resumed the role at the very end of the Golden Age. Still, it was not common as of 1967, when this story first appeared, although of course in modern comics there are many examples of crooks retiring and others (sometimes related, sometimes not) taking over their names.

Another interesting aspect to the story is that it's plainly set in the winter in New York, and the weather plays a key role in the story.

In ASM #49, Kraven reappears. Jealous that the Vulture has gotten attention by defeating Spiderman, he resolves to attack Drago. Meanwhile, Peter is still sick and recuperating in bed. Aunt May stops by and insists on calling Dr Bramwell, the family doctor. While Peter is waiting to see him, and starting to feel much better, he learns that Kraven and the Vulture are tearing up the city. So he joins the battle and this time manages to decoy Kraven into kayoing the Vulture before he removes the former's ray gun that so devastated Peter in ASM #47.

Amazing Spiderman #46-47

ASM #46 starts rather abruptly. Spidey, his arm still in a sling from his battle with the Lizard in #44, encounters the Shocker, a guy with special vibrating gloves which give him extraordinary power. He kayos Peter and gets away.

The next big event in Peter's life comes later. Harry Osborn's dad has rented an apartment for him close to Empire State U. He invites Peter to take the second bedroom. Of course, our hero is thrilled at the prospect, but has to figure out whether it would be an inconvenience to Aunt May. Fortunately, she has already decided to move in with Anna Watson, so for once things seem to be breaking Peter's way. At this point he appears to be casually dating Mary Jane, but Gwen is starting to interest him more.

Spidey handles the Shocker in their second battle by not allowing the crook to use his thumbs on the vibrating gloves. Some modest pop culture and political references; Spidey mentions Hubert Humphrey and The Man from UNCLE. Still, we get some inevitable teenage angst here:



Kraven returns in #47, as well as (briefly, in flashback) the Green Goblin. We learn that Gobby had hired Kraven to attack Spiderman in ASM #34, something that was not disclosed at that time. In addition, Norman Osborn himself (aka the Green Goblin) had acted as a go-between, exposing himself as a crook to Kraven.

Kraven has developed a new ray that will eliminate Spidey's super-speed, and is confident once that is gone he will be able to subdue Webhead. We get a long dose of the Archie stuff:



But eventually the battle starts. Kraven decides to kidnap Harry, who's with Peter at a going-away party for Flash Thompson, who's been drafted into the army as discussed in earlier issues. Peter sneaks away and reappears as Spiderman. He taunts Kraven into dropping Harry and they fight. This time Kraven defeats him with his ray, but stops short of killing him when Norman Osborn shows up. However Kraven is baffled when his jungle senses tell him that Osborn doesn't remember him at all. Of course, he had no way of knowing that Osborn has amnesia about his Green Goblin years. Kraven decides that his victory over Spiderman is enough and dashes off.

Lo, There Shall Come a Geek

Of all the weird heroes to arise at the end of the Silver Age, and there were a lot of them, perhaps none was weirder than Brother Power, the Geek. A creation of Joe Simon, the less famous half of the Simon & Kirby team, Brother Power came to life via spontaneous generation. He was originally a tailor's dummy, but combined with the heat from a radiator, a little machine oil, and a spark from a bolt of lightning, he came to life.

He was initially a friend of hippies, but aspired to more than their lifestyle. He had incredible strength, which came in handy for beating up a bunch of motorcycle goons:



In the first issue he's kidnapped to be a featured attraction at a carnival freak show, but his hippie buddies rescue him. He decides he wants to become a politician, but the carnival operators convince the cops to arrest him for breaking up their tents. At the end of the first issue he drives off the Golden Gate Bridge.

In the second issue, after being pulled from the deep by another group of losers, and almost kidnapped by a bizarre Baron with a Fokker biplane (sic), Brother Power goes into the world of business. He rapidly moves up the ladder, with smart thinking and hard work. Eventually he runs a major missile plant, beating out a villain named Lord Sliderule. But Sliderule gets revenge by sabotaging a missile launch. BP is once again wanted by the police. He sneaks into the missile in an attempt to escape but Lord Sliderule blasts it into space. The hippies manage to convince the cops that LS is to blame for the problem with the missile launch, but in the meantime, what will happen to Brother Power?



Despite the promise of a next issue, none appeared and Brother Power, The Geek was sidelined for several decades, although he did pop up in a couple comics in the 1990s.

In retrospect, it seems like DC had decided to try to go after the burgeoning hippie market. In some ways this seems inspired, but of course as with much that DC did back then, it was half-hearted. It poked fun at the hippies for their laid-back lifestyle and while this was certainly a fair criticism, it did undercut the marketing to many teens who saw the hippies as role models (mostly because they were their older brothers).

This Wikipedia entry certainly indicates that BPtG was controversial in DC's halls.

While sales of the title were modest, Brother Power was not popular among the staff. DC Comics artist Carmine Infantino claimed in an interview that Superman editor Mort Weisinger disliked the character very strongly, and petitioned DC publisher Jack Liebowitz to shut down the title. Weisinger hated hippies and felt that Simon portrayed them too sympathetically.

The Spiderman TV Cartoon

I don't remember the original 1960s run of these cartoons, but recall them more from the early 1970s in the afternoon. As you can see, the quality is pretty mediocre, and it would get worse before the end of the run (this was the tenth episode). Most adaptations of comics were pretty cheesy back then; it wasn't until the Superman movie in about 1978 that anybody approached the subject of superheroes with real respect.

Obviously the biggest impact of the Spiderman cartoon series was the theme song, (snipped from this cartoon) which has been incredibly durable. Here it is:



I always liked the part about "In the chill of night at the scene of a crime...."

DC, The Home of WeirDCrooks

In the Golden Age, it was seldom necessary to give criminals a motivation. They were just crooks, simple as that. Some of them (Luthor notably) also were mad scientists, a bogeyman familiar to youngsters from the TV and radio serials.

But as the Silver Age wore on, establishing a motive for the criminal behavior became more important. Two of the oddest motivations came from Captain Cold and Sonar.

Captain Cold was one of the Silver Age Flash's first villains, appearing in Showcase #8, the second comic to feature the Scarlet Speedster. His weapon was a gun that could freeze things instantly; a rather pedestrian power. But he was an interesting character nonetheless because his reason for pursuing a life of crime was to impress women.

Initially he had a crush on Iris West, Barry Allen's girlfriend, but would later transfer his affections to other women. Along the way, he picked up a supervillain polar opposite named Heat Wave, who frequently was his rival for the affections of women.

Sonar, on the other hand, had the ability to control sounds with a special tuning fork. Again, this is not an ability likely to fascinate readers for long. But Sonar's back story was wild. He came from a small European country named Modora. Frustrated that his homeland was not a player on the world stage, he resolved to make it a major power.



In one of the annoying coincidences that plagued Green Lantern in the early years (see for example, my earlier post about Qward), GL discovers Sonar because he is searching for a stamp from Modora. He searches the mind of an old clockmaker, whose apprentice, Bito Wladon (Sonar) has just quit the job. The clockmaker is worried because Wladon had discussed his dangerous ideas before leaving.

GL battles Sonar twice, but each time the villain manages to escape. The third time turns out to be a charm and in gratitude, the citizens of Modora issue a special stamp for Green Lantern to give to Pie-Face.

Fantastic Four Annual #1

As I have discussed earlier, DC's success with "Annuals" (really 80-page reprint mags) resulted in Marvel looking to add this profitable niche to its line. The problem was that Marvel had not been publishing their superheros long enough to be able to reprint stories and expect them to sell very well, or so they thought. So Fantastic Four Annual #1 featured a brand new double-length story with the FF facing the Sub-Mariner and his Atlantean hordes.

This was the first time since Namor's return in FF #4 that he appears in Atlantis. We learn that the Atlanteans are blue in color, which raises some questions about the claims that he is "a prince of the blood" as one character puts it. We also learn that he has a love, Lady Dorma, and a rival for both the throne and the girl, in the Warlord Krang. He gives a speech to his subjects in which he vows to make the "insolent human race pay for its crimes against our people."

The next sequence shows us the FF in a typical opening, with Johnny and Ben fighting. This time they damage some of Sue's priceless gowns. In an effort to relieve the team's tension while accomplishing some business, Reed suggests a cruise of the Atlantic, where sea monsters have been reported recently.

The sea monsters turn out to be a trap for the FF. Namor advises Reed that he declares the seas and the skies above them as his territory, banning any overseas boating or flights. This of course will mean war with the humans.

There follows a brief bio of Subby; turns out he's the product of a marriage between an human and an Atlantean princess; hence the caucasian skin. The Sub-Mariner's forces quickly take over New York and other major cities on the coast. However, the invasion is thwarted when Reed manages to create an evaporation ray, depriving the Atlanteans of the water in their helmets that they need to survive on land.

Angered, Namor kidnaps Sue Storm. While the boys fight it out above, Dorma, in a fit of jealousy, breaks a window in the undersea room where Sue is being held. Sue, realizing it is her only hope, jumps out the broken window. But she becomes tangled in some seaweed, and nearly drowns. Namor flies her back to the mainland to a hospital. But his act of selflessness has a price, as the Atlanteans feel betrayed and desert him.

In the second feature, the brief encounter between Spiderman and the FF from ASM #1 is retold in an extended version. The book also contains a reprint of the FF's origin from Fantastic Four #1, and a gallery of their most memorable villains.

Ultra, the Multi-Alien

DC introduced a lot of weird characters in the late 1960s, but few of them were weirder than Ultra, The Multi-Alien. Ultra was Ace Arn, a space explorer from the near future, who was accidentally transformed into a freak with the composite powers and body of four different aliens. As was becoming common, some of the conflict in the story was actually internal; the hero was unhappy with being "different". See Ben Grimm (Thing), Metamorpho, the Doom Patrol and others. At first one of the agonies for him was the loss of his girlfriend, Bonnie Blake, but eventually she accepted him despite his strange appearance.

Ultra's powers were pretty basic--he could fly, had incredible strength in one arm, could shoot lightning and had magnetic powers as well. He first appeared in Mystery in Space #103, taking over the cover and feature slot from Adam Strange. There were eight appearances in all, with #110 spelling the end for both the Multi-Alien and Mystery in Space.

Lois Lane

Lois Lane famously appeared alongside Clark Kent in Action Comics #1. In the early Superman stories, Lois appears to despise Clark, who loves her and longs to win her himself, although it quickly becomes apparent that she's more interested in Superman.

Lois earned a feature of her own right in Superman #28. Although the title of the feature may seem sexist to us now, "Lois Lane, Girl Reporter" was accurate at the time. Many newspapers had a "girl reporter" as something of a novelty--Nellie Bly being the most famous. The stories were generally four pages long and emphasized comedy over drama, much like the Alfred series that was printed in Batman around the same time.

In 1954, a Superman supporting character was given a solo book, but it wasn't Lois Lane or even editor Perry White. Rather it was Jimmy Olsen. Olsen had been a relatively minor character in the comic books up till that time. In fact, he was so minor that in Superman #72, a character looking exactly like the Silver Age Olsen appeared, as Perry White's son!

Of course, Olsen had been a much more significant character in both the Superman radio show and on television, which is the most probable reason for the sudden launch of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen.

Lois didn't get her shot until Showcase #9, July-August 1957. She had one more tryout in the following issue, and in March-April 1958 Lois Lane #1 appeared on the newsstands. That issue also included the first artwork by the man who was to define Lois for the rest of the Silver Age, Kurt Schaffenberger.

Schaffenberger had drawn Captain Marvel back in the Golden Age, and he seemed to sense that Lois Lane needed to be slightly different from the ultra-serious Superman series. The covers often featured Lois or Superman in a particularly humiliating, yet comical situation, such as this:



The stories from this era are always a guilty pleasure. They have just the right amount of whimsical humor without quite dissolving into farce. A frequent theme had Lois being wooed by another man, either wealthy or powerful. Of course, Lois' goal was always to marry Superman, and there was a continuing "imaginary" series including the above story about the trials and tribulations of being married to the Man of Steel.

Gunner & Sarge

In the late 1950s and early 1960s war comic books became more popular, mirroring trends in pop culture as a whole. As the World War II generation moved into positions of power, they naturally wanted to explore the themes of the most important events of their generation. DC had several war magazines as the Silver Age started; All American Men of War, Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, and Star Spangled War Stories; they added GI Combat after purchasing the title from the old Quality Line. For the most part the stories in these comics were one-shots, featuring characters that would not appear again. This was a significant negative as most other comics had continuing characters.

So DC gradually began to add features to its titles which did not have them. Our Fighting Forces starred Gunner & Sarge starting with issue #45, with a May 1959 cover date. Gunner was a Thompson sub-machine gunner, while Sarge was the crusty order giver. The pair apparently formed the smallest squadron in the US Marines, although they grew a bit with Our Fighting Forces #49, when a German shepherd dog (named Billy, but simply called Pooch) was added to the mix. Although they mostly fought in the Pacific, oddly enough in the first story they were in Europe battling the Nazis.

That story also established a basic pattern for the series. Gunner was the decoy, intended to draw the fire of the enemy so that the Sarge could locate and finish them off. Many stories featured Gunner griping about this.

Gunner, Sarge & Pooch lasted until Our Fighting Forces #94, August 1965, when they were retired in favor of the Fighting Devil Dog, a series of Vietnam stories featuring Sergeant Rock's younger brother, Larry. However, they were resurrected a few years later for a series called "The Losers" which featured them, Johnny Cloud, and Captain Storm. Ironically, The Losers lasted even longer than Gunner & Sarge's original fifty issues, accounting for the final 59 issues of Our Fighting Forces.

Update: Star-Studded War Comics has a post up featuring a solid Gunner & Sarge story.

Pete Ross

Pete Ross was a moderately interesting character in the Superboy/Superman mythos. Young Clark Kent meets Pete in Superboy #86, when a couple of bullies pick on Clark in a theatre line. Ross soon sends the bullies packing and a friendship is struck.

But Clark has always avoided close friendships for a good reason: Because a buddy would notice if Clark suddenly disappeared all the time whenever an emergency came up requiring Superboy's services. And it turns out that Pete has a hobby that makes Clark a little nervous. He's recording information on Superboy's attributes and comparing those to Clark's. However, it all proves to be innocent, as Pete wants Clark to portray Superboy in a school play.

In Superboy #90, Pete discovers Clark's secret identity. Pete and Clark are camping out together when an emergency call goes out for Superboy. As Clark changes, a lightning flash reveals him in his Superboy costume.

This was a pretty big deal for DC, because Superman, their signature character, had never had anybody know his identity at that time aside from the Kents and Batman. Thus it would seem that Pete would become a significant character in the DC universe.

But as it worked out, there really wasn't a lot of use for him in the stories. In Superboy #94, Pete helps Superboy protect his identity, but you can only do that so many times before it becomes tiresome. At one point he was inducted into the Legion of Super Heroes because of his nobility in knowing Superboy's identity and not announcing it. But of course, once that's done, there's not much use for Pete in the Legion.

He did appear a few more times in Superboy and in Superman (as an adult) as well, but he was pretty much a marginal character despite what seemed like an exciting and promising beginning.

Hawkman in Mystery in Space

DC had a tough time launching Hawkman in the 1960s. The first three tryouts, in Brave & Bold #34-36 apparently did not sell well enough to justify giving him his own book. DC gave it another run in B&B #42-44. When those did not work out as well as planned, DC shifted the character to Mystery in Space effective with #87. In addition, Joe Kubert was taken off the art chores. Kubert had drawn Hawkman in the Golden Age, but his style did not seem to impress superhero fans (although his war comics sold well at the time).

DC handed the character to Murphy Anderson. Anderson had mostly been a science-fiction penciller for DC, although he also did inks for many titles. A fine artist, Anderson had a tight line and a terrific eye for facial expressions. Sadly, Anderson's assignment to Hawkman may have prompted the end of the terrific Atomic Knights series which he had created in Strange Adventures; the last episode of that feature appeared two months after the first MIS Hawkman.

The first story in Mystery in Space introduced a frequently recurring villain known as Ira Quimby, aka IQ. Quimby at first could think up brilliant criminal schemes but he was unable to put them into action until one day at the Metropolitan Museum, Quimby is turned into a genius by light rays falling on a glowing stone. Now his great ideas work because he is able to invent amazing machines that make them possible.

As it happens, Carter Hall and his wife Shiera are visiting New York at the time and they witness IQ's first major crime. However, he brilliantly manages to come up with a way to defeat the Winged Wonders. Quimby later figures out that the stone is behind his sudden brilliance, but his attempt to steal it results in chips of the stone being left behind. Hawkman is able to use these to defeat Quimby.

Adam Strange makes a brief appearance in the story in his archaeologist guise:



One particularly oddball facet of the Hawkman series was Mavis Trent. Mavis worked at the same museum as Carter Hall, and decided to set her cap for Hawkman after meeting him, even though he was obviously partnered with Hawkgirl. The heat gets turned up on this romantic triangle a notch in MIS #88, where Mavis impersonates Hawkgirl after accidentally finding her costume in the museum. Because Mavis has discovered a connection between Hawkman and the museum, they worry that she'll connect Carter Hall and Shiera with Hawkman and Hawkgirl, so they convince Police Commissioner Emmett (who knows their secret identities) to imply without quite lying to Mavis that Hawkman is still single.

The highlight of Hawkman's brief run in Mystery in Space came in MIS #90. The story "Planets in Peril" featured a book-length team-up between Hawkman and Adam Strange. Earth is suddenly transported to an orbit around Rann's sun, but on the opposite side from Rann, and with a slightly faster orbit, which means the two planets will collide eventually. But with the heroes of two worlds working together, they manage to defeat the villain who caused the Earth to be teleported to Alpha Centauri.