The Supreme Villain

Of the Silver Age was undoubtedly Adolf Hitler. Of course he mostly appeared in World War II comics like Sgt Fury and Our Army at War, but there were several occasions where he popped up in the more modern world.



In this story from Blackhawk #115 (Aug 1957), a series of daring attacks sends a rumor around the world: Hitler is alive! However, it turns out to be a hoax as a gang of crooks have plotted to steal the Nazis' hidden treasure which is in the hands of a fanatical Hitler supporter.

Hitler made a memorable appearance in Adventure #314. A criminal manages to evade the Legion's elaborate security system and steal their only time-bubble. He heads back into the past to gather some of the greatest villains of history: Nero, Dillinger and Hitler. When they come to the present he manages to switch the minds of those three villains into the bodies of Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Superboy respectively. But Saturn Girl senses that the villains can be defeated by informing each of the weakness of the others (Superboy to Kryptonite, Mon-El to lead, Ultra-Boy to radiation). Sure enough they all kayo each other and their minds are transferred back into their evil bodies:



Der Fuehrer also popped up in Jimmy Olsen #86. Jimmy is shocked when watching an old WWII film to discover that he had a double on Hitler's staff and decides to go back in time to investigate. He arrives on D-Day and sees Eisenhower on the beach (a goof, since Eisenhower did not travel to Normandy until the day after D-Day). Jimmy convinces the Germans he's one of them, and after some amazing predictions of his come true (all learned from the history books), is rapidly promoted up the ladder to the German High Command. He was that German general he saw in that film.



Unfortunately, Jimmy neglects to tell Hitler about the plot on the latter's life by the German generals and he is about to be killed when the time travel mechanism he used (a Professor Potter "time bomb") returns him to the present.

In Fantastic Four #21, Stretcho and the gang battle the Hate Monger, a man who is stirring up hatred in the US and a revolution in South America. In the end, the villain is killed by his own supporters and revealed:

The World's Finest Teamups--Part I

In the Golden Age, DC put out a couple oversized, omnibus books. Comic Cavalcade (initially) was dedicated to the All-American superheros: Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, while World's Finest (called World's Best for the first issue only) featured Superman, Batman, Boy Commandos and several other features. These comics cost a little more (15 cents instead of a dime), but they contained 92 pages, so it was worth the extra nickel.

Initially, there were no Batman and Superman teamups in World's Finest, with the notable exception of the covers, which generally featured Batman, Robin & Superman behaving like, well, teenagers. Here's a particularly amusing example:



But inside the book there would always be a Batman story and a Superman story, with no crossover.

That changed with World's Finest #71, July-August, 1954. DC decided to slim down the book to the standard 36 pages (including covers), and pare the price back to a dime. They maintained a couple of the backups (Green Arrow and Tomahawk), so to fit the other two features they were combined into one story.

This was not technically the first crossover of Batman and Superman. There was a one-shot teamup in Superman #76, in which (improbably) Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent share a room aboard a ship and accidentally discover each other's identity. However, outside the comics Superman and Batman had often paired up in the Superman radio series.

The first seven issues (WF #71-77) were illustrated by Curt Swan, who would go on to the great Superman artist of the 1960s and 1970s. But in WF #78 the series was (mostly) turned over to Dick Sprang. Sprang had been a longtime penciller of Batman stories and his style worked with Superman as well.

Sprang's specialty was perspective, and he always seemed to have the "camera" aimed in the right direction to give the reader the most entertainment. Here's a terrific example from WF #80:



Note that in the first shot, we get the crowd looking up at Batman and Robin, and in the second, we get almost exactly the opposite angle. This was a continuing theme with Sprang.

Sprang would go on to do the lion's share of the next 40 issues of World's Finest. Along the way there were a couple of significant stories.

In WF #88, Luthor and the Joker teamed up in Superman and Batman's Greatest Foes, a story in which the respective nemeses apparently go straight and set up a robot-building business together. Of course, it's just a front for a new criminal endeavor. This is the first super-villain team-up of the Silver Age and one of only a handful in DC history at that point.

World's Finest #90 featured The Super-Batwoman, the story where Batman decides to allow Batwoman to continue her crime-fighting career. He had forced her to retire in Detective #233 by discovering her secret identity, but now he was convinced that she had what it took to handle criminals.

In World's Finest #113, Bat-Mite and Mr Mxyzptlk teamed up. Although neither was truly a villain, this is still a significant early crossover. The Joker and Luthor got together again in WF #129, while Bat-Mite and Mr M renewed their acquaintance in #123.

By this time the editorial reins had been handed over to Jack Schiff and the stories suffered for a number of years with the same monsters, aliens and weird transformations that plagued Batman and Detective of the era. Dick Sprang only did three stories after WF #119, including WF #135's The Menace of the Future Man, his last work in the comics for many years. Schiff's own finale as editor was #140; in the next issue Weisinger took over this book, and that's a pretty good breakpoint.

Kid Flash

The DC Silver Age superheros appeared to have teenage sidekicks almost at random. Batman did certainly, Superman did sort of, but Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman all eschewed the buddy combination, as did later DC heroes like the Spectre, Metamorpho and the Creeper.

But Flash got Kid Flash, and since it became so significant an event in the DC Universe, it is worth looking back on. Kid Flash first appeared in Flash #110. Wally is Iris West's nephew and Barry feels an affinity for the young lad, who's clearly one of the Flash's biggest fans. But when the Flash appears himself (of course Barry slipping away), lightning does strike twice.



I suspect what happened was a suggestion from the publisher for a Kid Flash character, because that is one of the lamest origins for a DC character ever. Oh, by a wild coincidence he got hit while by lightning standing in front of some beakers and test tubes, just as Barry did? That's lame and intentionally so.

Like all of DC's young heroes, he starts out as a boy and quickly becomes a teen. In Flash #110 he looks to be about 8 years old; by the end of the 1960s he will be clearly a man.

The Five Most Important DC Comics of the Silver Age

This is not really a hard thing to work out. First, of course, is Showcase #4, the comic that started the superhero revival that is probably the biggest aspect of the Silver Age. To give you an idea, during the 1950s, DC Comics published 3,397 different comics, of which 849 were superhero-oriented (including Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen). In the 1960s, DC published 3,579 different comics, of which 1,629 were superhero-oriented. The return of the Flash kicked off that surge.



Next up is Adventure #247, which introduced the Legion of Superheroes:



The Legion was one of DC's best features during the Silver Age. The combination of a futuristic setting with super-powered characters proved irresistable to readers of the time and provided seemingly endless plot possibilities.

The third major DC comic of the Silver Age is Brave & Bold #28. Now that DC had brought back Green Lantern, DC combined him with the Flash, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Aquaman into a fighting team called the Justice League of America. This served as a marketing gimmick for the individual magazines featuring those heroes (although at the time both Aquaman and Martian Manhunter were backup features in Adventure and Detective respectively), but it also apparently sold very well on its own, leading Marvel Comics' head honcho Martin Goodman to instruct Stan Lee to create a superhero team, which of course became the Fantastic Four.



The next major DC comic of the Silver Age may not be as apparent as the others, but it's a key to understanding the appeal of the superhero titles during this era:



Prior to this, DC had reprinted almost none of their older stories. Superman Annual #1 gave recognition to the fact that comics had a back story that it was important to understand in order to get the most out of current issues. It also represented a promise from the editors to you, that if you didn't know the back story, DC would fill you in over the years with reprints of their older tales. DC did a phenomenal amount of reprinting in the 1960s and early 1970s. Even Marvel got into the act once their comparatively recent tales were old enough to attract new readers.

The final major issue is obvious:



In the very first appearance of the Flash in Showcase #4, we learned that Barry Allen had read comics featuring the Jay Garrick Golden Age Flash. So it seemed only logical to pair the two up. But there was a problem; Jay Garrick (the gentleman on the right) had been a fictional character only on Barry Allen's Earth. The solution hit upon by Gardner Fox was to postulate an alternate Earth, called Earth-2, where the Golden Age superheroes had reigned.

This opened the door for a slew of Golden Age/Silver Age crossovers, about which I have a post planned for the future. It also created numerous headaches for DC's editors as time wore on, but that was not apparent in the 1960s.

Other comics that were crucial to the Silver Age DC, but perhaps not as critical as these:

Showcase #22, featuring the origin of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. Lost in the memory of the Silver Age is the fact that it took three years after Flash's debut issue for DC to bring back its second GA hero in a new form. After this the pace quickened, with Aquaman, Atom and Hawkman all getting new launches.

Detective #225, with the first appearance of the Martian Manhunter, which actually predates Showcase #4. However, MM was a new character, not a rebirth of an old one.

Detective #327, with the "New-Look" Batman. Certainly the Batman TV series had a huge impact on DC Comics, but it is hard to say that this really spawned the show. Indeed, it is arguable that far more influential was Batman #155, which started the practice of bringing back Batman's Golden Age rivals (in this case, the Penguin).

Action #242, with the introduction of Brainiac. This is arguably the beginning of the Silver Age Superman under Mort Weisinger, although his name would not appear as editor for another few months. Weisinger's tenure running the Superman books was extremely influential, as he standardized the looks and mannerisms of the characters and presided over a substantially more serious hero than had been the case in the past. Superman in the 1940s and 1950s, perhaps influenced by Captain Marvel, had a touch of whimsy to it. Under Weisinger most of that was gone (with the notable exception of the Lois Lane series).

Viagra Ads, Circa 1959

This marital aid brought to you by Forbidden Worlds #79 (American Comics Group).

Strange Tales Annual #2

Here's an oddball early teamup of Spidey and the Human Torch. Marvel quite naturally wanted to establish some bond between their two teenage superheroes (at the time, this being before the debut of the X-Men).

The Torch had been a major character in the Golden Age for Marvel (then known as Timely) and he was also 1/4 of the Fantastic Four. Spidey was a new character, whose comic was then less than a year old. Strange Tales was the magazine that featured the Torch in his solo adventures. So one would think that Johnny Storm would at least hold his own in the teamup story. But it did not develop that way.

In typical Marvel fashion the story starts out with a fight between the two heroes because of a misunderstanding. But where DC would have ended it in a draw, Marvel decided to have one character win the fight:



And when they clash again, Spidey is prepared:



Of course, eventually he convinces the Torch that he is not responsible for the theft and they team up to fight the real criminal, the Fox. Although the Torch does save Spiderman in one memorable moment, for the most part it's Spidey following the clues, Spidey asking the questions, and the Torch mostly looking like an ornament. When it comes time to catch the villain, guess who does it?



And Peter handles this with his usual lack of class while in uniform:



The Human Torch co-starred with Spiderman in several adventures including a memorable run in ASM 17-19. But you could see the passing of the baton to the new guy in this story, in what obviously turned out to be a preview of things to come. The Torch ended up not a strong enough character to cover his own mag in the Silver Age, and eventually was squeezed out of Strange Tales in favor of Nick Fury Agent of Shield. And Spidey... well I guess you know that story.

The Death of Captain America

No, not the one that happened today, the one that took place during the Silver Age. In Captain America #111. Cap was in a battle with the evil forces of Hydra, when he was apparently shot to death:



(Art by Steranko)

The following issue was a real treat, a retrospective look at Captain America's great career, drawn by co-creator Jack Kirby:



Captain America #113 happened to be the first Cap book I bought as a kid. It featured his solemn funeral, and then:



Now, that's a resurrection!

The Battle Between Good & Evil

Was seldom presented so starkly by DC in the 1960s as with the Flash and the Reverse Flash. The Reverse Flash, also known as Professor Zoom, was a criminal from hundreds of years in the future who had stolen a Flash costume from a time capsule. By amplifying the super-speed wave patterns he found in the costume (don't laugh) Zoom was able to gain the speed power himself. The Flash managed to defeat him in Flash #139 (September 1963), but he was back a year later in Flash #147 for a terrific story called Our Enemy the Flash.

The story also featured the return of one of the Flash's earliest villains, Al Desmond, who had appeared in both Showcase #13 and #14, the last two tryout issues before Barry Allen was granted his own title. It is worth noting that Desmond appeared as two villains, both Mr Element and Dr Alchemy, in those issues. He was one of two DC characters I can think of who changed his supervillain identity in the Silver Age; the Signalman/Blue Bowman was the other.

But by Flash #147, Al Desmond was on the straight and narrow, and in this respect he was pretty unique in the DC universe, although of course Marvel had probably dozens of characters that started as villains and became heroes--the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow, Hawkeye and Quicksilver to name just a few.

Professor Zoom, who lost his superspeed in the prior battle with the Flash, manages to hypnotize Desmond and forces him to bring him back to the past. He has discovered a metal called Element Z which allows him to travel at hypervelocity, but unfortunately it is unstable and thus he can only maintain the speed for awhile. So he naturally seeks out Mr Element for his chemical abilities.

And is dismayed to discover that Al's become a goody-two shoes. So he forces Desmond to commit a couple of crimes after which, improbably, Mr Element solves the problem of Element Z.

Professor Zoom heads back to the future leaving a despondent Mr Element behind. But the Flash, who suspects the truth behind Desmond's suddent lapse chases him on his cosmic treadmill. He defeats Zoom and returns to the past. Meanwhile Desmond has turned himself in along with the proceeds of his crime wave. Thanks to the Flash's explanation, Al is freed.

The Reverse Flash/Mr Element/Flash story continues in Flash #153's The Mightiest Punch of All Time. In this story, Professor Zoom is about to be freed from prison after being subjected to a "cerebro scanner" that reveals that he has been entirely rehabilitated. Not surprisingly, Zoom had managed to scam the scanner. He decides to resume his battle with the Flash by corrupting Al Desmond with a criminality-inducing ray.

The Reverse Flash manages to capture Barry. Desmond, realizing that he can only help as Mr Element, dons his costume and commits a crime. This gives Zoom an idea: Why not allow Mr Element to destroy the Flash? But the good side of Desmond wins out and he frees the Flash, who kayoes his evil counterpart. Flash then takes Al to the future, to undergo scientific rehabilitation. This time the cerebro scanner works properly and Desmond is finally free of his criminal past.

Green Lantern's Brother Jim

One oddity about comics is how seldom we encounter relatives of superheroes, especially siblings. Kal-El had no brothers or sisters; neither did Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Peter Parker, Barry Allen, Jimmy Olsen... it might save some time to mention characters that we know did actually have siblings in the Silver Age: Lois Lane (sister Lucy), Scott Summers (brother Alex), Sue Storm (brother Johnny), Quicksilver (sister Scarlett Witch) and Hal Jordan (brothers Jim and Jack).

The first three mentioned had a fair number of appearances in the Silver Age. Johnny Storm was the Human Torch, and he appeared in both Fantastic Four and Strange Tales. Havok appeared in the last dozen or so issues of the Silver Age X-Men. Lucy Lane became the permanent love interest for Jimmy Olsen during the Silver Age.

Jim Jordan, on the other hand, appeared in only a few issues of Green Lantern, becoming more or less an annual character. The interesting part of these stories was that Sue Williams became convinced because of an odd set of circumstances, that Jim was secretly Green Lantern. In her first appearance with Jim (GL #9), Sue's a magazine reporter determined to get the scoop on Green Lantern's secret identity. By the end of that story she's convinced (wrongly as we know) that Jim is actually GL.

Hal's brothers next appear in GL #14. By now, Sue's introduced as Jim's girlfriend. She discovers an old green lantern in Jim's hotel room and is convinced that it is the famed lamp that gives GL his powers. Earlier, Jim and Hal have accidentally switched rings, so he does briefly have super abilities, which just serves to confirm Sue's suspicions.

The Jordan brothers next appear in GL #22's Dual Masquerade of the Jordan Brothers. Red Peters, a criminal has just escaped from jail. As it happens, Jack Jordan was the prosecutor who sent him to jail, while Uncle Jeremiah Jordan was the judge who sentenced him, and Green Lantern captured him. Since Sue has written about her suspicions that Jim is secretly GL, she is concerned that Red will be gunning for the Jordans at Uncle Jeremiah's upcoming birthday party.

In one of those "convenient for the plot" moments, the birthday party turns out to feature a masquerade, although in a sloppy bit of art, Jim Jordan and Red Peters seem to be the only ones wearing a disguise. Hal decides to play along with his brother's impersonation of GL in the hopes that Peters will be scared away.

In GL #31, the Jordan Brothers return. This time Jim is about to be married to Sue, but then a villain appears with a bizarre threat:



Once again, Green Lantern comes to the rescue, and once again, circumstances conspire to convince Sue that her husband (they marry in the last panel of the story) is secretly Green Lantern.

Jim returns again in GL #44. He has started a new career as an image maker, and his first client is another uncle, this time millionaire Titus Jordan. Sue has enrolled Uncle Titus in a scheme to establish once and for all that Jim is secretly Green Lantern. Uncle Titus wants Hal to pretend to be a super-criminal named the Bottler (sheesh, what a scary name for a villain). But the real Bottler shows up and Hal, the real Green Lantern, once again saves the day, but leaves Sue more convinced than ever that her husband is secretly the Emerald Gladiator.

In GL #53, Hal babysits his new nephew, Howard Jordan, the son of Sue and Jim, while the young couple attends a play. But the theatre is robbed and when GL shows up to defeat the crooks, Sue is even more convinced than ever that he is secretly her husband.

Jim, Sue and Howard make a cameo appearance in GL #63. The whole family gets together for their final appearance in GL #71. In this story, they meet up with Doug Jordan, who somehow is a hippie from Tennessee. Sue is convinced Doug is up to no good, so she insists that Jim take care of him as GL. But Doug (who is indeed a bad 'un), konks Jim and takes him to a motorcycle gang he's trying to join. Fortunately the real GL arrives in time to save him. In the end, Jim extracts a promise from GL to come to the party to prove to his wife he's not the superhero she thinks he is. GL agrees, but only because he's already going to the party as Hal, and thus Sue remains convinced that her husband is the ring-wielder.

Quick Trivia

Quick, name a DC series that started out in Mystery in Space, then continued in Strange Adventures in the 1960s.

Did you say Adam Strange? Wrong! Adam Strange did start out in Mystery in Space, but the Strange Adventures stories were all reprints with the exception of #222, which featured a new Adam Strange story, but which was dated Jan-Feb 1970.

The answer, and it's a tough one, is Star Rovers. The Star Rovers were a trio of space explorers and adventurers. Glamorous Karel Sorenson was a former Miss Solar System and expert shot, while playboy Rick Purvis was a big game hunter. The final member was novelist and sportsman Homer Glint.

The series seems in some ways the Atomic Knights equivalent in Mystery In Space, in that they did not appear in every issue, but every few issues. However, unlike Atomic Knights, Star Rovers was more traditional in some ways and yet more offbeat. It was traditional in that the stories were formulaic. The Star Rovers would be asked to solve some mystery and each would come to a conclusion that debunked the others, and yet in the end all three would be proven wrong.

Indeed, within a few stories they were all remarking on that fact:



The titles to the stories were all questions:

MIS #66: Who Shot the Loborilla?
MIS #69: What Happened on Sirius-4?
MIS #74: Where Is The Paradise of Space?
MIS #77: Where Was I Born? Venus? Mars? Jupiter?
MIS #80: Who Saved the Earth?
MIS #83: Who Went Where? and Why?
MIS #86: When Did Earth Vanish?

At this point, though, Julius Schwartz, the editor of MIS ran into a problem that was actually fairly common at DC over the years: he inherited a new feature. Hawkman, who had been having trouble earning his own title despite a pair of three-issue tryouts in Brave and Bold was assigned to Mystery in Space, which left no room for the Rovers. So they scurried over to Strange Adventures #159 and #163 before finally being retired. They never made the cover of any magazine they appeared in; they were strictly backup material.

And yet there is a certain charm to the series. Gardner Fox tinkered with the formula a bit, and so the Rovers were not always wrong despite frequent initial misconceptions. Sid Greene's artwork was perfect for the slightly humorous sci-fi settings. And it cut against the grain of DC's typical heroes who always figured out the most cryptic mysteries on their own.

Correction: I originally said Sid Broome. My bad!

More DC Scientofascism

Now that is creepy. As a kid you could buy the notion that scientists were gods and that they never screwed up, but as an adult, the idea of "electro-re-education" makes me want to scream and run for a cave.

Gorilla Your Dreams

In Flash #106-108 we were introduced to a complete different civilization, not living on another planet, but here on Earth.

Gorilla City is located in Africa. It occupies the same space as the jungle, but vibrates on a slightly different plane. In Flash #106, Barry Allen discovers its existence from the greatest mind on earth, a gorilla named Solovar who has figured out how to control the minds of others.

An evil gorilla named Grodd steals the secret from Solovar during a crime spree in Central City. Grodd returns to Gorilla City with the intention of becoming first its dictator, and then the leader of the world. However, Solovar contacts the Flash and the Scarlet Speedster manages to capture the super-gorilla and drive the knowledge of mind control from him.

In the following issue it is discovered that Grodd has not lost his mind control powers. We also learn of the lax nature of Gorilla City's prison security:



Gee, good thing we thought to check on Grodd's prison guard... after a week! He's escaped to a world just beneath the Earth's crust, inhabited by winged people. I can't be positive but I don't think this civilization ever appeared again in another DC story. Anyway, Grodd has used his mind control powers to take over this subterranean world and is preparing another onslaught on the rest of the world. He plans to use a "devolutionizer" ray to reduce the brainpower of the Gorilla City residents, while the strange air underground causes the air around Flash to crystalize when he tries to run too fast. Flash is briefly trapped, but manages to escape and once again find a way to subdue the Super-Gorilla.

In the final story, Barry Allen is startled to hear from his girlfriend Iris West that the Flash has a strong competitor for Central City Man of the Year. A brilliant man named Drew Dowden has made millions in the stock market and has hired workers for a factory that produces a product that nobody knows about.

But when Flash checks out Dowden, he is surprised to be attacked. It turns out that Dowden is secretly Grodd after bathing in an evolutionary ray that advances him beyond the mere humans. But Grodd reverts to his natural form and Flash defeats him yet again.

After this Grodd dramatically decreased his appearances, popping up only in Flash #115, then #127 and making his last appearance of the Silver Age in Flash #172.

Oddball Cover Sunday

Wonder Woman-#78

Of all the comic characters to make it through the Silver Age, Wonder Woman seems the least likely. Her comic was embarrassingly bad during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and in the late 1960s DC hopped her aboard the secret agent bandwagon just as the bloom was leaving that genre.

It is not that the character was intrinsically mediocre; indeed the Golden Age Wonder Woman was quite entertaining. Perhaps the Comics Code Authority meant that WW's adventures had to be toned down to eliminate the bondage and feminism that marked the earlier era?

Take for example this horrific issue from 1955, the very beginning of the Silver Age:



It's a gorilla! Playing baseball! With Wonder Woman!

The premise for the story is that Wonder Woman is helping out a little old lady that runs a private school. The terms of the will that endowed the school require that their baseball team meet another school's baseball team every year. Unfortunately, the little old lady's school has been quarantined for measels and thus will be unable to meet its obligations. So they enroll a gorilla... please stop laughing... and ask Wonder Woman to teach it.

So now it's down to the ballgame, featuring Wonder Woman and the Gorilla against the nine from the other school. And somehow now the loser of the game will have to merge with the other school. That's a funny kind of annual game--wouldn't it end after the first year? And since the mean old man who's the principal of the other school gets to set the rules of the game....



Of course, it's not hard to guess that Wonder Woman hits a homer.

Curiously, the "every year" phenomenon comes up again in the second story:



Somebody appears to have forgotten to tell Wonder Woman about this law, as every time one of her weapons fails, she remarks on how fortunate she is to have the others. Fortunately, with her ingenuity, she is able to overcome the weaknesses of her weapons for that one day.

The third story is actually an interesting one. In Wonder Woman's day job as Romance Editor of the Daily Globe (this appears to be the first time this is mentioned), she is offered $1,000,000 for charity if she will act out a three-act film. She discovers the role is quite dangerous (requiring her to fight a robot octopus for example), but continues to do her part because it's for charity. In the end, it turns out to be Wonder Woman's old nemesis, Angle Man, trying to get rid of her, but she catches him so the million plus the proceeds from the film are put to good use.

Clark and Lois Compete on "Survivor"?

This is slightly outside the range for the Silver Age, as it appeared in the March 1951 issue of Action Comics, but it's such a surprising story that I couldn't resist commenting. The story is entitled, Miss Robinson Crusoe, and the premise is summed up rather well here:



Of course, Clark looks a little startled there because he realizes it's unfair for him to compete against Lois in a Survivor-type contest because he doesn't need to eat. So he decides to secretly even things up as Superman. Lois spots him changing identities, but because she's getting ill she becomes convinced (with a little trickery from Clark) that she was hallucinating.

Amazing Spiderman 50-52

ASM #50 begins another cycle of the Spiderman saga. As in ASM#17-18, Spidey is in a fight when Aunt May takes ill. Once again, Peter decides to discard his uniform. Once again, the gangs start operating the minute it becomes obvious the friendly neighborhood Spiderman is out of business.

But the issue does bring one big new aspect to Spiderman: the Kingpin makes his first appearance. One of the most enduring villains in the Spiderman and Daredevil rogues gallery, he decides to take over the mob in New York City.

But when Peter sees a guard about to be killed by mobsters, he can't hold back, even though he doesn't have his costume. He goes into action, quickly subduing the gang and getting away before he can be seen. Afterwards, he remembers that it was his failure to stop a criminal that resulted in Uncle Ben's death.

Aunt May and Uncle Ben are the hammer and anvil Peter is continually suspended between. If he plays his Spiderman role too long, he's neglecting Aunt May; if he ignores the Spidey aspect too long, he's not living up to his obligation to Uncle Ben. This tension between the two aspects of his character is what makes him so memorable.

Peter is not the only person torn between his past and his future. Frederick Foswell, the ace reporter who had previously been a mob boss (in ASM #10), is apparently tempted to resume a life of crime. He tries to take over the Kingpin's position, but is casually brushed aside. Apparently the Kingpin is smarter, stronger and faster than he looks. He imprisons Foswell and captures J. Jonah Jameson, whose editorials against the crime boss are causing problems.

In ASM #52, Spidey and JJJ are about to be killed, but they survive thanks to Peter's strength and quick thinking. However, this does not impress the newspaper magnate. Spidey and the Kingpin battle, while Foswell tries to save JJJ from the rest of the mob. In the end, Foswell is killed and the Kingpin gets away.

Comments: A superb mini-series, among the best of the Lee-Romita stories. Foswell becomes the first, but by no means the last, long-running character to die in ASM. The other major deaths in ASM to this point had been Uncle Ben, Betty Brant's brother and the Crimemaster, all of whom died in their initial story arc. Foswell on the other hand had been around since ASM #10.

Daredevil #3-5

The DD series began to hit its stride in these issues. For starters, each issue featured a new villain. In #3, DD first faced the Owl, who would be a longtime foe. In #4 we first met the Purple Man, an intriguing character who could convince anybody to do anything by force of his personality. Although the villain in DD #5, the Matador, was not terribly interesting, the artwork, which had been handled by Bill Everett in the first issue and Joe Orlando in #2-#4, was turned over to Wally Wood. Although Wood did not last long, his influence on the character is undeniable.

On the romance front, it becomes obvious in these issues that Foggy is pursuing Karen romantically. This adds for an additional dimension to the usual "if only I dared tell her that I love her" that was a staple of the Marvel superheroes of the time. Now Matt has to feel guilty about being in love with his best friend's girlfriend.

See No Evil

Daredevil first appeared in April 1964, in Daredevil #1. He was something of a new concept; a handicapped superhero. True, Don Blake was lame, but that disappeared every time he turned into the Mighty Thor. Daredevil was blind, 24/7.

We learn his origin in that first issue. Matt Murdock was the son of a prize fighter. The old man, known as Battling Murdock, was determined that his son should get an education. However, as Matt prepares for college, his dad's career is on the skids. The only manager who will handle him is known as The Fixer.

But Matt's life takes a sudden turn when he saves a blind man from being run down by a truck. The truck was carrying radioactive materials which hit Matt in the face, blinding him. However, he also discovers that he has gained incredible agility and his other senses (especially his sense of hearing) have become stronger.

This of course, makes Daredevil yet another Marvel 1960s superhero who gained his powers from radiation, like Spiderman, the Fantastic Four and the Hulk (and many villains as well, including the Sandman).

Meanwhile, his father's career has suddenly taken off. But, true to his name, The Fixer has been arranging for other fighters to take a dive against Battling Murdock. Now that the big fight is here, it's Dad's turn to lose. But with Matt in the stands he kayos the opponent, angering The Fixer, who has him gunned down in retaliation.

Matt decides to avenge his father's death, but he had promised his dad he wouldn't be a fighter. So he dresses up in a yellow and red costume and Daredevil is born:



The yellow part wouldn't last long; perhaps it was seen as inappropriate for a character dubbed "The Man Without Fear". Which was another oddity about DD; all of Marvel's characters had a name like "The Mighty Thor" or "The Amazing Spiderman" or "The Incredible Hulk", but Matt Murdock was "Daredevil, the Man Without Fear".

DD #1 also introduced Matt's buddy Foggy Nelson. The two start up a law practice together and their secretary, Karen Page, becomes the love interest.

In DD #2, Stan pitted him against Electro, who had previously appeared in Spiderman #9. This was one of many smart things that Marvel did in the 1960s. Although DC had done superhero crossovers for years, especially with the long-running Batman/Superman teamup in World's Finest, the villains tended to remain pitted against one superhero. This gave Marvel a distinct edge. Not only did they have to invent fewer villains (at least at first), but they could capitalize on the popularity of Spiderman and the FF by hiring out their villains.

However, that Stan was still thinking this stuff out on the fly is evident. The Thing arrives (yet another crossover!) at Matt Murdock's office to ask him to review a lease. Matt's out, so Thing delivers these instructions to Foggy:



Yeah, okay, my blind partner will come out and inspect the premises.

The Silver Surfer and Galactus

As we have discussed, the Inhumans saga ended (temporarily) about six pages into Fantastic Four #48. But that issue was also significant for the first appearances of the Silver Surfer and Galactus.

The inspiration for the former is pretty obvious. This was the mid-1960s and there was nothing cooler among teens than surfing. Believe it or not, I actually got up on a board a couple times while visiting my cousins on the Jersey shore; the main impression I got was how fast you went; it was definitely a thrill ride.

As the FF returns from the Hidden Land after their encounter with the Inhumans, they discover that New York is covered with a fiery sky. What is going on? We also see the Silver Surfer for the first time, looking through the universe for a particular type of star and a particular type of planet orbiting that star.

It turns out that the Watcher had tried the fire as a way to conceal Earth, but since that caused panic among the humans, he revised his plan and tried hiding us behind a wall of space debris. But the Silver Surfer makes it through anyway and conveniently (for story purposes) lands on the Baxter Building. He sends a signal to his master, Galactus, who arrives with bad news:



The Thing has punched the Silver Surfer away from the Baxter Building, but in the grandest tradition of coincidence, he lands atop Alicia Master's skylight. She treats him with kindness, and is horrified when the Surfer tells her of Galactus' intentions for Earth. We can see that he is swayed by her arguments.

Meanwhile, the Thing and Mr Fantastic have temporarily delayed Galactus' plan to drain the earth of its energy. The Watcher sends Johnny to the home world of Galactus, where a weapon exists that may stop him. And Alicia convinces the Silver Surfer to attack his master in an effort to save Earth.

In Fantastic Four #50, we see the battle between the Silver Surfer and Galactus. While the latter is clearly more powerful, the Surfer is not without some ability himself. Meanwhile Johnny is racing back with the weapon from Galactus' homeworld. He arrives in the nick of time and hands off the instrument to Reed. Threatened with potential destruction, Galactus agrees to leave. But first he strips his former herald of the ability to roam among the stars; he will be stuck on Earth.

These are terrific issues; at this point the FF was going from strength to strength, with Stan and Jack turning out memorable characters seemingly at will, from the Inhumans to the Silver Surfer and Galactus to the Black Panther, who would shortly make his initial appearance.

Our Apocalyptic Past

One of the hazards of comic books is that a writer may pen a story when the future seems far off and then time passes and suddenly that future is 20 years in the past. So it is with the Atomic Knights. They were formed in the dark days of 1986 after the nuclear holocaust that, as you may recall, didn't quite happen.

However, this was a terrific series nonetheless. In Strange Adventures #117 (June 1960), we learn that Gardner Grayle is a soldier in an underground bunker when World War III starts, with atomic bombs destroying much of the planet. He teams up with Douglas Herald, a schoolteacher, who's hoping to defeat a local tyrant called the Black Baron. By chance, they discover that a set of medieval suits of armor blocks the radiation from the Baron's rayguns, with which he has been keeping control of the local citizenry.

They look for volunteers to help them fill the six suits. Hollis and Wayne Hobard, athletic twins, join up, as does Bryndon, a scientist. However, the final suit proves too small for a grown man, so they leave that one behind. Herald also introduces someone else:



Of course, Marene and Gardner become an item, and following their deepening romance is one of the real charms of this series. In the origin story, the Knights attack the Baron's stronghold, but it turns out that in addition to the rayguns he's got an old rifle. Gardner is unsure that his armor will hold up to a bullet, but at the last moment he is saved by one of the other knights, who pushes the Baron aside, causing him to shoot wide. Gardner later discovers that his savior had been none other than Marene, who had managed to fit into the remaining suit.

The story continued every third issue of Strange Adventures over the next several years. Each was written by John Broome with superb artwork by Murphy Anderson. The stories tended to move forward sequentially; for example, in one story the Knights were attacked by Giant Dogs, but after taming them that issue in later ones the dogs were helpful.

The stories also featured the Knights traveling to different locations in what remains of the the US, with titles like "The Cavemen of New York" and "The Lost City of Los Angeles" and "Danger in Detroit". The series continued like clockwork until Strange Adventures #160 (Jan 1964), when the final instalment appeared. There was no announcement at the time that the series had ended. I suspect that what happened was that Murphy Anderson had been assigned to replace Joe Kubert on Hawkman effective with Mystery in Space #87 (Nov 1963), and that Atomic Knights just didn't fit into his workload any longer (remember that Anderson was one of DC's top inkers in addition to his fine pencils).

Dr Jerry Bails, RIP

One thing I don't get into much around here is the fan aspect to comic book publishing. I liked comics but only attended one comic convention (around 1971 in New York), and only knew of a couple other kids my age who were into them as well. I only wrote one letter to the editor (pointing out a mistake in a Thor issue), which went unpublished. I pretty much was out of comic collecting by 1977, and the only comics I bought from about 1979-1998 or so were Spirit reprints, Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns and the final issue of The Flash.

But Dr Jerry Bails' passing does deserve mention, because he was the young man who pushed for the return of the Justice Society of America with letters to Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox in the 1950s, and thus may have been a partial inspiration for DC's Silver Age heroes. And considering that it was sales of the (renamed) Justice League of America which inspired Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to create the Fantastic Four, it's not hard to see that this man had a huge impact on Silver Age comics.

Here's a terrific interview with him from a couple years back, hitting on a theme I've returned to on occasion here:

A culture passes on its values through stories, and I credit comics with shaping many of my values. I noticed when I wrote a book on the impact of technology on the environment, I made lots of references to the morals in famous children's stories, and classical stories. My view of the moral world was shaped by comics, radio drama, movies, storybook time at the library, as well as the traditional Sunday school. All these sources conveyed values by telling stories. It's part of humanity's oldest tradition. Comics were just the best visual method for the mid-20th century.

The lighter moments when we are reading for fun are not trivial. They are part and parcel of the mortar that strengthens our character by providing both stress relief and reaffirmation of cultural values. I don't personally get into the study of this function of pastime reading, but I'm aware of it.

Frankly, I think readers tend to be more empathetic and less aggressive than people who prefer aggressive sports for the cathartic effect. Unfortunately the mass media today sell more advertising and admissions by playing up caustic, vituperative and downright antisocial values. I can't believe that's good for any of us, but especially kids. Stories, even crime stories, can and should have a redeeming value. I guess that's why horror for its own sake never interested me. I prefer heroic behavior in my stories, even if the hero is a slow learner.

I especially liked his tale of hunting down the All Star issues back in those pre-comic store, pre-Ebay days. I didn't buy a whole lot of back issues by mail back then because they were expensive and so my experience was pretty much the same; slowly finding back issues by checking around here and there--used bookstores, somebody's older brother, etc. I had one great score around 1970 when an antiques show came to town with a big batch of 5 cent comics including a nearly complete run of the Legion issues of Adventure.

Batman was probably the easiest to locate, as everybody had bought issues back during the TV show craze, and I quickly assembled a fairly long run (although I did have to break down and buy one "filler" issue). Which resulted in my fascination with the character that continues to this day.

Howling At Hitler

In the early 1960s, the World War II generation began to come into power. This was reflected in both politics, where Navy veteran John F. Kennedy was elected to the White House over fellow Navy vet Richard Nixon, and in pop culture, where the theatres were filled with WWII features like The Longest Day, The Great Escape and The Guns of Navarone. On TV, there was Combat, the Rat Patrol and McHale's Navy.

So it's not surprising that as Marvel was casting about for new ways to wrest 12 cents out of the nation's youth, that they hit upon the idea of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. As is de rigeur in such series, there is an ensemble cast:





This was a tradition dating back to the Boy Commandos (also co-created by Jack Kirby) and Blackhawk, and movies like Destination Tokyo. But this group was a little more integrated than most. Although it isn't obvious in the portrait above, Gabe Jones was a black man, and Izzy Cohen the first explicitly Jewish heroic character that I can remember in comics.

The Howlin' Commandos typically get the suicide mission assignments with big stakes. In SFAHHC #1, they have to rescue the resistance leader who knows the planned date of D-Day, while in #2 they are assigned the task of destroying Hitler's attempt at an atomic bomb. By the standards of the time, these were incredibly violent comics, although Kirby avoided the gore with some clever tricks:



There are many memorable moments in the first few issues, such as when the Howlers intentionally get themselves imprisoned in a concentration camp:



As always with Marvel, there were frequent crossovers. For example Reed Richards appears as a young major in #3, while Baron Zemo, Captain America's nemesis, pops up in #8. Cap and Bucky themselves fight side by side with the Howlers in #13.

As with most war comics, the bullets hit all around the Howlers but seldom were stopped by them. However in Sgt. Fury #4, that changed suddenly:



We have already discussed how Sgt. Fury #6 tackled the subject of racism. In retrospect, it is obvious that Stan was using the backdrop of World War II to talk about issues that were on the front burner in 1964.

Of course, another issue that was moving to the front burner that year would eventually doom the war comics: Vietnam. For the times, they were a-changing.

Getting Smaller, Getting Bigger

Following the Fantastic Four, the next super-powered hero to appear in the pages of a Marvel comic was the Ant-Man (technically, anyway). Hank Pym was introduced in Tales to Astonish # 27, January 1962, in a short story entitled The Man in the Ant-Hill.

Hank is a scientist interested in pursuing his own line of study. He creates a pair of serums that will shrink and later expand objects. He decides to test it on himself, but unfortunately he forgets that he will be too far away from antidote to expand back to normal. The ants are after him, but he manages to elude them with the aid of one friendly ant. Eventually he makes his way back to the serum that restores him to normal size. He decides that the method is too risky, and throws away the twin potions.

But in Tales to Astonish, #35, Hank returns, this time in full superhero garb and with additional powers: he has learned how to communicate with the ants.



At first, Ant-Man changes sizes by pouring liquid on himself from a test-tube. In TTA #36, this changed to a gas that he could inhale; later still it became just a matter of swallowing a pill.

In TTA #44, things changed dramatically for Ant-Man. He had been thinking that he needed help in his fight against crime, an assistant to take some of the load off his shoulders. In a flashback, we learn that Hank had been married to a woman named Maria, whose father had defected from Hungary. She wants them to visit her homeland for their honeymoon, but when they arrive the commie rats kidnap and kill her. In a way, she had led to Hank becoming the Ant-Man, by telling him jokingly that he should "go to the ants".

Back in the present, Hank meets a fellow scientist and his attractive but young daughter, Janet Van Dyne. She reminds him of his wife, but he insists she's too young for him. Meanwhile, she's thinking that she doesn't want a scientist, she wants a man of action.

When her father is murdered, she turns to Hank Pym. However, the Ant-Man answers her summons. She expresses a desire for revenge and Hank wonders if she might be the one he's been looking for. Yep:



He discloses his secret identity to her and outfits her with a small pair of wings and antennae that only appear when she shrinks down to tiny size. However he maintains a strictly business attitude towards her, not wanting to be hurt again with the loss of a lover. But in the end, we see she is determined to win his heart.

Comments: I confess I did not remember these stories having the charm and entertainment value that they did.

More Relevant Comics--Payola?

The Payola scandal involved (as this cover implies) the effort by record companies to bribe deejays to play their records. It hit the newspapers in November 1959; this is the April 1960 issue of Archie. In something of a rarity for Archie at the time, the cover actually refers to a story inside, where the kids at Riverdale High pay Archie to spin their records.

Classic Stories of the 1960s: Super-Menace

A friend of mine suggested I review this terrific story from Superman #137 (May 1960):



It starts with a brief retelling of Superman's origin, with one striking new detail: The rocket which Superman came to Earth in had hit an alien space ship which bathed the rocket in a duplicator ray. The second rocket also landed on Earth, but this time near the hideout of a gangster and his moll. At first they worry that the super-infant inside has been sent by their enemies to kill them, but then they discover that he's actually friendly. They decide to pretend to love the boy, whom they dub Super-Brat so that when he grows up, he will help them with crime.

In the second act, both Superboy and his doppelganger, now referred to as Super-Bully, are teenagers. Super-Bully despises Superboy, and dreams of defeating him. This seems quite possible when he discovers that unlike the real Kal-El, he's immune to Kryptonite. In a bit of irony, Super-Bully actually helps out Clark. While Superboy is busy, he changes into Clark's clothes and visits Lana Lang, who tries out some Kryptonite to find out if Superboy is secretly her neighbor. Super-Bully also tries imitating his rival with Krypto, but this turns out badly as the super-dog recognizes that this is not his master.

The final sequence tells us about Super-Menace's adulthood. His crime boss father wants him to go kill Superman, knowing that this will result in his daddy becoming the leader of the crime syndicate. But the gangster mistakenly admits that he never really loved Super-Menace, and the latter overhears this.

The battle between Superman and Super-Menace initially starts out pretty even, but of course with the latter's invulnerability to Kryptonite, it isn't long before he brings down some meteors of Green K. They both discover that Super-Menace is actually a "force manifestation" and not really alive.

But as he watches his enemy dying, he wonders if the mobster and his moll never really loved him, perhaps the other things he was taught by them were untrue as well. He saves Superman, then rushes off to confront the couple who raised him. He converts himself into pure energy, ending his life as well as theirs.

Comments: A terrific story with many entertaining features. For example, this was a precursor to the Reverse Flash; a character exactly like a hero but evil. In addition, the sad ending echoes Frankenstein in some ways (the movie, of course, not the book). It also includes a brief retelling of Superman's origin.

Journey Into Mystery #91-94

Overall, these stories don't move the character forward. Stan still seems to be struggling to find someone tough enough to fight Thor to a standstill, and when he does find a worthy foe, he simply lets the Thunder God appeal to Odin for assistance. This is of course Deus Ex Machina writ large.

In JIM #91, Thor faces Sandu the Sorceror, whose normal powers of ESP and levitation have been enhanced a thousand times by Loki. He starts by robbing banks by teleporting them to a location where he can take the money at leisure. But he quickly realizes that the world is helpless against him and decides to become its ruler. However, when it appears that Thor is about to be killed Odin sends him a belt that makes him even stronger. Sandu at one point transports Thor's hammer to another dimension, and seemingly has him helpless. But he foolishly tries to take control of the hammer and in his attempts he expends his magical power, resulting in the hammer returning to Earth.

Loki battles Thor personally in JIM #91. But, amusingly, there is a subplot involving a wounded gangster who needs Don Blake to operate on him, just as in JIM #89, only two months earlier. Once again a major part of the plot involves separating Thor from his hammer. This time, Thor travels to Asgard and fashions different hammers from wood and stone around him to defeat his enemy. However, there is one odd thing; despite being separated from his hammer for a long time, he does not revert to his Don Blake identity. Perhaps the 60-second limitation only applies on Earth?

In JIM #92, Thor again battles the communists. Are we seeing a pattern here? Aliens and commies and Loki, oh my! Chen Lu, a Chicomm scientist, turns himself into the Radioactive Man. He hypnotizes Thor and forces him to discard his hammer. However, this actually works to Thor's advantage as when he reverts to his Don Blake identity he is no longer under the Radioactive Man's control. He locates the hammer at the bottom of the Hudson and (somewhat unbelievably) swims down to the bottom to retrieve it. With his hammer back he sends the Radioactive Man back to China inside a tornado, causing a nuclear explosion there.

It's Loki's turn once again in JIM #93. He manages to turn Thor evil by distracting him so that the hammer conks the Thunder God on the noggin, resulting in a personality change. Thor comes to Asgard and frees his evil brother. Then they return together to Earth, where Thor destroys many famous landmarks, like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A delegation from the United Nations comes forward offering mankind's surrender, but Loki wants control of Asgard. The delegation turns out to be Odin and other gods in disguise, who manage to restore Thor's original, good, personality, and he defeats Loki.

Thor Prototype at DC?

It's well-established that prototypes for many Marvel characters appeared in the horror mags the company specialized in prior to the release of Fantastic Four #1. But it also appears that Stan Lee wasn't above lifting a hero or two from his competitors as well. I had always known there was a Batman story featuring the Mighty Thor out there, what I did not realize is that it so clearly presaged Marvel's later character.

Here's the cover of the issue in question:



Let's trace the elements of similarity. Hammer flies back to him automatically? Check. Refers to his opponents as "mortals"? Check. Winged helmet? Check.



Secretly a meek, unassuming man? Changes back into Thor when he touches the hammer? Check, check.



Obviously there are dissimilarities as well; this Thor has red hair and a beard, and the man who changes into him has no memory of his Thor persona when he changes back. But overall, it's pretty obvious where Stan got the inspiration for one of his major characters of the Silver Age.

Batman II & Robin II.

Although Batman did not have imaginary stories per se in his comics, there were many stories that served the same function--dream stories, most notably. Along the same lines were the Batman II and Robin II stories. They were stories that Alfred, Batman's butler, wrote about a possible future time when his employer had retired from crime-fighting and been succeed by Dick Grayson as Batman, while the new Robin was none other than Bruce Wayne, Jr., the offspring of Batman and Kathy Kane, the former Batwoman.

The series debuted in Batman #131, the April, 1960 issue. Batman has just retired in favor of Dick Grayson, and Bruce, Jr., wants the job of Robin. Over time, he proves his mettle, although typically for a youngster he is impulsive and prone to not thinking things through. However, in a noticeably weak ending the new Batman and Robin are about to be killed when Batman I and Batwoman show up to save them.

The duo return in Batman #135. This time they are faced with a criminal bent on revenge against the original Batman. They are captured, but fortunately the original Batman saves them.

Are we beginning to see a problem here? These are supposed to be tales of the new Batman & Robin team, and yet every time, just as they are about to be killed, the old Batman shows up and saves them. Ditto with Batman #145's third entry in the series, The Son of the Joker:

The Brave & The Bold

One of the more interesting DC magazines of the Silver Age was the Brave & the Bold. The first issue hit the stands in Aug-Sept 1955. Perhaps inspired by the movie The Black Shield of Falworth, it featured the adventures of warriors from the past: The Golden Gladiator, the Viking Prince, and The Silent Knight. The features, drawn by Russ Heath, Joe Kubert and Irv Novick were terrific reads with some famed covers:



But after issue #24, DC decided to take the magazine in a new direction. Showcase, another DC magazine, had been churning out new characters (or revamps of old ones) on a regular basis. With issue #25, Brave & Bold became another tryout magazine for new features that DC hoped would catch on with the public.

The first effort was called the Suicide Squad, a Mission Impossible-type force that did not seem to catch on with young boys. After three issues, Brave and Bold came up with a winner as the 28th issue featured the Justice League of America. The JLA was an organization of superheroes, including (at first) Aquaman, Flash, the Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Batman and Superman were also members, but at first they were usually kept in the background, probably for fear they would dominate the group.

This series succeeded quite memorably, but oddly that turned out to be the exception rather than the rule. After three JLA tryouts, Brave & Bold tempted youngsters with Cave Carson's Adventures Inside Earth. No sale. Then came three issues of Hawkman drawn by one of his GA artists, Joe Kubert. These also failed to fly off the shelf, so DC came back with three more tryouts for the Suicide Squad. When the kids failed to drink the Kool-Aid, the Brave & the Bold went back for two more issues of Cave Carson, followed by three more of Hawkman.

None of those features graduated to headliner status. Particularly troubling to DC must have been the Hawkman failure; this was the first superhero mag put out by DC in the Silver Age which failed to catch on (although it did later after a third trial run in Mystery in Space).

Brave & Bold did try something different with #46-49: Strange Sports Stories. These were oddball adventures mixing science fiction with sports. Drawn by Carmine Infantino, they also included something unique; the narrative captions were given illustrations too:



But once again, the sales did not justify creating a new title, so with #50 they again tried something different: A teamup of two of DC's existing superheroes, in this case the Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow. B&B #51 featured Aquaman and Hawkman. Then, in a surprise manuever, DC teamed up several of its top war comics features: Sgt. Rock, Johnny Cloud, and Jeb Stuart for #52; this was the first crossover for the war heroes, although there would be more. Issue #53 featured a teamup of the Atom and the Flash.

Finally, DC hit the jackpot again in B&B #54, with the Teen Titans (although they were not referred to as that in the story or cover). Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin teamed up to help some of their fellow teenagers. There followed two more teamup issues before Metamorpho debuted in B&B #57 and #58. Batman hooked up with Green Lantern in #59, followed by another Teen Titans tryout.

In Brave & Bold #61 and #62, DC tried bringing back some more Golden Age heroes, with Starman and the Black Canary. Although the series did not take, the stories in those issues are particularly gorgeously drawn by Murphy Anderson and are well-worth reading.

B&B #63 features a meeting of Wonder Woman and Supergirl. The story concerns Supergirl's desire to be more like a normal girl. She decides to abandon fighting crooks in favor of being a fashion model in Paris, where she falls for a young Frenchman. Wonder Woman, dispatched by Superman to talk her out of it, finds herself enticed by the simple life. The story does reveal one major drawback of teamup stories. Because they are created by people other than their usual writers and editors, there are frequent goofs. For example, consider this embarrassing flub:



Of course, it was well-established in the Superman books that only lead could block Kryptonite radiation.

The next three issues featured more of the seemingly random teamups--Batman/Eclipso, Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamopho/Metal Men. By this point (mid-1966) it was obvious that the Batman show was a major hit, and for the next six issues (a full year), the teamups featured Batman and another DC character. Batman did not appear in B&B #72, which featured the Spectre and the Flash, or #73, with Aquaman and the Atom.

After that, though, the teamups always featured Batman, I believe all the way to #200, the final issue for this interesting title.

Journey Into Mystery #87-90

As remarked by Thelonius Nick in the comments on the earlier Thor post, Stan Lee seemed unsure as to what to do with the Mighty Thor at first. The Thunder God was far too powerful and cosmic a character to waste against the usual crooks & mobsters. In Journey into Mystery #87 he defeats a plot by the communists to kidnap American scientists.

Loki returns in #88. Having learned of Thor's secret identity, he forces the Thunder God to choose between recovering the hammer and saving Jane Foster. Then Loki surrounds the hammer with a force field, preventing the now helpless Don Blake from recovering his powers. Fortunately Don tricks Loki into removing the force field and sends Loki back to Asgard.

In #89 Don and Jane are kidnapped by mobsters to operate on a wounded crime boss. In a classic example of Deus Ex Machina, he prays to Odin to intervene when he and Jane are about to be killed despite saving the mobster's life. Odin sends down a thunderbolt to save them. We also get a new power for Thor (that is never again mentioned); that of super-ventriloquism.

In #90, Thor again fights aliens. Ho-hum.

Lee still had not found the right format for the Mighty Thor in these issues. Nobody really seems able to handle the Thunder God, and so the plot often revolves around him somehow losing control of his hammer, despite its well-established tendency to return to him.

This is similar to the problems that DC had with Superman in the 1940s. DC had solved it by using deceptive villains like Mxyzptlk, the Prankster and Wolfingham; even Luthor was usually operating behind the scenes. But of course, this had the tendency to diminish the value of the powers that Superman possessed, which, after all, was what made the character different.

Goldilocks

I've talked briefly about Thor in the past, but now it's time to discuss him in a little greater detail. Thor is the Norse god of thunder. His initial appearance in Marvel was in Journey Into Mystery #83. JIM was one of Marvel's horrible "horror" mags, which featured stories like "I Unleashed SHAGG Upon the World!" and "I Found RRO... The Thing from the Bottomless Pit!"

Don Blake, a lame physician, was on vacation in Norway when he discovers a plot by alien invaders from Saturn. He is spotted by the Stone Men, and runs into a cave. There he discovers a small staff, which is fortunate because he has lost his cane. But when he strikes the cane against a boulder blocking his way, he transforms suddenly into the Mighty Thor!



Thor has many powers. He is virtually invulnerable and fantastically strong. But even more important is his mighty hammer (the staff transformed), which makes it possible for him to fly and which destroys almost anything it's thrown against and returns automatically to his hand like a boomerang. It can also cause lighting and storms.

But of course with this power comes a weakness. If the hammer leaves Thor's hand for 60 seconds, he reverts to Don Blake, the lame physician. As always in the Marvel universe, there is also a love interest. Nurse Jane Foster secretly loves Dr Blake, and he adores her but worries that she could never love a weakling like him.

Initially Thor battles fairly traditional enemies for superheroes: Aliens intent on a hostile takeover, communist dictators and assorted crooks. But quickly a supervillain worthy of Thor's interest was discovered; his evil brother, Loki, the God of Mischief. Loki first appeared in JIM #85, and was returned quite often in the early issues: He is featured in JIM #88, 91, 92 and 94 as well as Avengers #1.

The characterization of Nurse Jane Foster in these early issues stinks. She's the typical 1960s Marvel eye-candy airhead. We see her thinking about how much she loves Don Blake, but she has an eye for Thor (not realizing that they are actually one and the same). And the first time Loki shows up, he's quite a prize as well:



This is all too typical of Marvel at the time. Girlfriends/love interests existed mostly as potential hostages for villains and were generally placed in traditional women's occupations: nurses like Jane Foster and secretaries like Karen Page, Betty Brant. Compare that with DC, which had Lois Lane as a reporter, Vicki Vale as a news photographer, Jean Loring a young attorney and Carol Ferris running an aircraft factory.

Robby Reed Unveiled!

In the final (for now) post on Dial B for Blog. His blog is incredible; undeniably the finest comics blog on the net.

More DC Scientofascism

As we have discussed in the past, if there was a religion in the DC Universe back in the Silver Age, it was science. In a way, this is probably a natural outgrowth of the postwar era, as it seemed that technology, government and industry were forging ahead to move us into the glorious future. But it looks just a tad creepy with the benefit of hindsight.

For example, consider this bit from Flash #153, the June 1965 issue. Professor Zoom, aka the Reverse Flash, aka Eobard Thawne has apparently reformed thanks to the "electro-reeducation" provided by prison authorities in the year 2465:



Of course as often happens in these stories, there is something wrong with the machine. In fact, Professor Zoom has tampered with the Cerebro-Scanner to make sure that he will pass the test despite not having gone straight at all. As was the case in Superman #132, once the machine is repaired, nobody stops to think, hey, maybe we shouldn't be setting murderous crooks free just on the basis of them passing a test.

Challengers Part II

I didn't have the time or the inclination to read all of the Challengers series at this point, so I thought it might be entertaining to jump ahead five years and check the changes.

Challengers of the Unknown #31 contains a retelling of the Challengers' origin with new details. We learn that before the fateful flight, Rocky had defended his wrestling championship despite an attempt by the mob to influence the bout.

More unbelievably, Prof Haley was reintroduced as a rich delinquent. Uh, how did he get the nickname "Prof" then? He reforms after helping rescue an ancient statue from the deeps via his skin-diving ability.

Red Ryan, who had originally been introduced as a circus daredevil (only to have Kirby ignore that aspect of him), was now reincarnated as a mountain climber, and electronics expert. He builds a radio tower on a mountain with the money of a rich patron to educate the poor people of a valley in South America. However, it turns out that the patron really intended to use the tower to transmit propaganda and become a local dictator, fortunately prevented by Red.

Ace Morgan was a pilot who had contracted to carry high explosives for miners in his plane, but was forced to toss them out when they broke loose. He manages to hit the mountain in a place that reveals a vein of ore, so the miners are happy.

However, as the four men fly in Ace's plane, they feel like failures for one reason or another, especially when the plane conks out and they must crash land in a forest. Given a second chance, they feel like they are living on borrowed time, and resolve to do something more with this second chance at life.

This origin retelling is contained within a larger story where a mysterious stranger claims to have rescued the Challengers from their plane. Thus they were not really saved by "fate" as they had long believed. Their rescuer, a Mr Clayton, presents evidence. He is in a jam and needs the Challengers to help him reassemble an ancient statue. It turns out the statue's actually a giant robot that has two arms missing which when assembled will give him incredible power. But the Challengers eventually realize Mr Clayton did not really save them and defeat his robot.

Comments: Interesting but uneven origin retelling by DC.

Challengers of the Unknown #32 contains two stories. The first one features Volcano Man, who had previously appeared in Challengers #27. In the second story we learn that the Challs had picked up an alien pet whom they called Cosmo. He seems to have almost unlimited mental powers, so much so that he dwarfs the rest of the team. Looking back I see that Cosmo first appeared in Challengers #18, and had made a couple intermediate appearances. In this story, they discover his original alien owner, who is happy to let them keep the pet since it is proving of so much use. Perhaps typically for DC, this ended up being the last time Cosmo appeared in the Silver Age Challengers; probably for the reason noted above; he was just too powerful and made it too easy for them to get out of tight scrapes.

My previous article on the Challengers is here.