Showcase Presents Reprint List

I needed this list myself, so I thought it might be useful for my readers as well. Here is a list of all the DC Showcase Presents volumes and the issues/stories they reprint:

Adam Strange V1: Showcase 17-19, Mystery In Space 53-84 (Adam Strange stories only).

Ambush Bug V1: DC Comics Presents 52, 59, 81, Supergirl 16, Secret Origins 48, Action Comics 560, 563, 465, Ambush Bug 1-4, Son of Ambush Bug 1-6, Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer 1, and Ambush Bug Nothing Special 1.

Aquaman V1: Adventure 260-280, 282, 284 and Detective 293-300, Lois Lane #12, Jimmy Olsen #55, World's Finest 125-129, (Aquaman stories only) Showcase 30-33, Aquaman 1-6.

Aquaman V2: Aquaman 7-23, World's Finest 130-133, 135, 137, 139 (Aquaman stories only) and Brave & Bold 51.

Aquaman V3: Aquaman 24-39, Brave & Bold 73, Jimmy Olsen 115 (Aquaman story only).

Atom V1: Showcase 34-36, and Atom 1-17.

Atom V2: Atom 18-38, Atom-Hawkman 39-45 (Atom stories only).

Batgirl, V1: Detective Comics #359, 363, 369, 371, 384, 385, 388, 389, 392, 393, 396, 397, 400, 401, 404, 405-424, Batman #197, Adventure Comics #381, World's Finest Comics #169 and 176, The Brave and The Bold #78, Justice League of America #60 and Superman #268 and 279.

Batlash: Showcase 76, Batlash 1-7, DC Special Series 16, Jonah Hex 49, 51-52.

Batman and the Outsiders: Batman and the Outsiders 1-19, Brave & Bold 200, New Teen Titans #16.

Batman V1: Detective Comics 327-342 (Batman stories only) and Batman 164-174.

Batman V2: Batman 175-188 (not including annuals 176, 182, 185 and 187) and Detective 343-358 (Batman stories only).

Batman V3: Detective 359-375 (Batman stories only), Batman 189-192, 194-198 and 199-201.

Batman V4: Batman 202-215, Detective 376-390 (Batman stories only).

Blackhawk V1: Blackhawk 108-127.

Booster Gold: Booster Gold 1-25, Action Comics 594.

Brave & Bold Batman Team-Ups V1: Brave & Bold 59, 64, 67, 69-71 and 74-87.

Brave & Bold Batman Team-Ups V2: Brave & Bold 88-109.

Brave & Bold Batman Team-Ups V3: Brave & Bold 109-134 (109 overlap?)

Challengers of the Unknown V1: Showcase 6, 7, 11 and 12, and Challengers of the Unknown 1-18.

Challengers of the Unknown V2: Challengers of the Unknown 18-37 (18 overlap?).

DC Comics Presents Superman Team-ups: DC Comics Presents 1-26.

Doom Patrol V1: My Greatest Adventure 80-85, Doom Patrol 86-101, and Challengers of the Unknown 48.

Eclipso: House of Secrets 61-80 (Eclipso stories only).

Elongated Man: Flash #112, 115, 119, 124, 130, 134, 138 and Detective Comics 327-371 (Elongated Man stories only).

Enemy Ace: Our Army At War 151, 153, 155, Showcase 57-57, Star Spangled War Stories 138-152, 158, 181-183, 200, Detective Comics #404, Men At War 1-3, 8-10, 12-14, 19-20, Unknown Soldier 252-253, 260-261, 265-267 and DC Special 26.

Flash V1: Stories not specified, but presumed to include Showcase 4, 8, 13-14, and Flash 105-119.

Flash V2: Flash 120-140.

Flash V3: Flash 141-161.

Green Arrow V1: Adventure 250-266, 268-269 (Green Arrow stories only), Brave & Bold 50, 71, 85, Justice League of America 4, and World's Finest 95-140 (Green Arrow stories only).

Green Lantern V1: Showcase 22-24 and Green Lantern 1-17.

Green Lantern V2: Green Lantern 18-37.

Green Lantern V3: Green Lantern 39-59. (Note missing Green Lantern 38?)

Green Lantern V4: Green Lantern 60-75.

Haunted Tank V1: GI Combat 87-119, Brave & Bold #52 and Our Army At War #155.

Haunted Tank V2: GI Combat 120-157.

Hawkman V1: Stories not specified; presumed to include Brave & Bold 34-36, 42-44, and Mystery in Space #87-90, and Hawkman 1-11.

Hawkman V2: Hawkman 12-27, Atom-Hawkman 39-45, Atom 31, and Brave & Bold 70.

House of Mystery V1: House of Mystery 174-194.

House of Mystery V2: House of Mystery 195-211.

House of Mystery V3: House of Mystery 212-226.

House of Secrets V1: House of Secrets 81-98.

House of Secrets V2: House of Secrets 99-119.

Jonah Hex: All-Star Western 2-8, 10-11, Weird Western Tales 12-14, 16-33.

Justice League of America V1: Brave & Bold 28-30, JLA 1-16, Mystery in Space #75.

Justice League of America V2: JLA 17-36.

Justice League of America V3: JLA 37-60 (not including annuals 39, 48, 58).

Justice League of America V4: JLA 61-83 (not including annuals 67, 76).

Legion of Superheroes V1: Adventure 247, 267, 282, 290, 293, 300-328, Action #267, 276, 287, 289, Superboy 86, 89, 98, 117, Superman Annual #4, Jimmy Olsen 72 and 74 (Legion-related stories only).

Legion of Superheroes V2: Adventure 316, 322-348, 365, Superboy 117, 125 and Superman Annual 4. (Seems to be some overlap there with V1).

Legion of Superheroes V3: Adventure 349-368 (365 overlap?) and Jimmy Olsen 116.

Martian Manhunter V1: Stories not specified; presumed to include Detective 225-304 (Martian Manhunter stories only)

Martian Manhunter V2: Detective Comics 305-326 and House of Mystery 143-173 (Martian Manhunter stories only).

Metal Men V1: Showcase 37-40, Metal Men 1-16 and Brave & Bold 55.

Metal Men V2: Metal Men 16-36 and Brave & Bold 66.

Metamorpho V1: Brave & Bold 57-58, 66, 68, Metamorpho 1-17, and Justice League of America 42.

Phantom Stranger V1: Showcase #80, Phantom Stranger 1-21.

Phantom Stranger V2: Phantom Stranger 22-41, JLA 103, House of Secrets 150, Brave & Bold 89, 98.

Robin the Boy Wonder V1: Batman 184, 192, 227, 229-231, 234-236, 239-242, 244-246, 248-250, 252, 254, Detective 386, 390, 394-395, 398-403, 445, 447, 450-451, Jimmy Olsen 91, 111, JLA 50, 91-92, Teen Titans 14, Brave & Bold 83, 100 and World's Finest 195, 200.

Secrets of Sinister House V1: Sinister House of Secret Love 1-4, Secrets of Sinister House 5-18.

Sgt. Rock V1: GI Combat 68, Our Army At War 81-117.

Sgt. Rock V2: Our Army At War 118-148.

Shazam! V1: Shazam! 1-35 (New stories from those issues only)

Strange Adventures V1: Strange Adventures 54-73.

Supergirl V1: Action Comics 252-282, Jimmy Olsen 40, 44, 46, 51-52, Adventure 278, Superboy 80, Lois Lane 14, Superman 123, 139-140, 144.

Supergirl V2: Action 283-321 (missing 282?), (Supergirl stories only).

Superman V1: Superman 122-133 and Action Comics 241-257 (Superman stories only).

Superman V2: Superman 134-145 and Action Comics 258-275 (Superman stories only).

Superman V3: Stories not specified; presumed to be Superman 146-156 and Action Comics 276-292 (Superman stories only)

Superman V4: Action Comics 293-310 (Superman stories only) and Superman 157-167

Superman Family V1: Jimmy Olsen 1-22, Showcase 9.

Superman Family V2: Jimmy Olsen 23-34, Showcase 10, Lois Lane 1-7.

Superman Family V3: Jimmy Olsen 35-44, Lois Lane 8-16.

Teen Titans V1: Brave & Bold 54, 60, Showcase 59, Teen Titans 1-18.

Teen Titans V2: Teen Titans 19-36, Brave & Bold 83, 94, and World's Finest 205.

Unknown Soldier V1: Star Spangled War Stories 151-190 (Unknown Soldier stories only).

Warlord: 1st Issue Special 8, Warlord 1-28.

War that Time Forgot: Stories not specified, presumed to include the Star Spangled War Stories featuring WWII soldiers and dinosaurs.

Wonder Woman V1: Wonder Woman 98-117.

Wonder Woman V2: Wonder Woman 118-137.

Wonder Woman V3: Wonder Woman 138-156.

World's Finest V1: Superman 76, World's Finest 71-111 (Superman-Batman team-up stories only).

World's Finest V2: World's Finest 112-145 (Superman-Batman team-ups only).

World's Finest V3: World's Finest 146-173 (Annuals 161 and 170 not included), (Superman-Batman team-ups only).

Update: Thanks to commenters Lito S and Jim for corrections to the Aquaman and Supergirl entries, and to JJ for going to the trouble to find out all the Batgirl stories!

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Showcase #8

This was the great unknown comic. DC reprinted stories like crazy in the 1960s and 1970s, especially Flash Comics, which joined their annuals rotation in 1963. And yet somehow the two stories in this issue were not reprinted until the 1990s, although one of them featured the first appearance of Captain Cold, one of the more significant villains in Flash's Rogue's Gallery. (Correction: As pointed out in the comments by Robert McKinney, DC reprinted the Captain Cold appearance in Limited Collector's Edition #C-39 in 1975.)

Reading it makes it pretty obvious why Julius Schwartz and DC's various reprint editors kept the issue under wraps during the 1960s. The first story, Secret of the Empty Box, while clever, has some obvious problems with the Silver Age Flash. It starts off with Barry late (as usual) for a date with Iris. But he's got a good excuse; a small girl has lost her ring down a storm drain:

Okay, given that it became accepted that the Flash could vibrate his way through anything (including dimensions), that's problematic. The story itself features three magician brothers whom the Flash defeats one at a time as they pop out of the Empty Box of the title:

The story has some interesting aspects, but there's also considerable DC silliness. For example, at one point Barry decides to change into his secret identity of the Flash in one of those old-fashioned "photograph yourself" booths. The sleazy owner thinks he's gotten the golden ring with Flash's secret identity, but:

Uh, if you can change faster than 1/100,000th of a second, why bother ducking into a booth?

The second story, is the Coldest Man on Earth, definitely one of those stories that I craved in the 1960s. Captain Cold was a strong contender for best Flash villain in the Silver Age. I preferred the Reverse Flash, but you could argue that CC was Dr Octopus to Professor Zoom's Green Goblin; the villain who seemed like the top enemy as the Silver Age ended.

Captain Cold pulls off a daring robbery in broad daylight:

The Flash attempts to stop him, but:

In a flashback, we learn that Len Snart was an ambitious criminal who searched for a way to defeat the Flash. This was helpfully supplied by a scientific magazine:

And when he accidentally invents a cold ray, we get this amusing moment:

I absolutely love the idea of the villain trying out nicknames for himself. Further experiments reveal to Captain Cold that he can create illusions from his ray gun, which he uses against the Flash:

But:

And of course, the Flash ends the fight shortly thereafter.

Comments: The first appearance of Captain Cold demonstrates nothing of the characteristic he became noted for in the Silver Age: his desire to impress women. It's another significant negative to the story.

However, there is another three-page story in that issue, that I suspect will not see the light of day again. Not that it's a bad story by any means, it's just not part of the Flash saga. The story is entitled, "The Race of Wheel and Keel," and tells of a race:

So, New York to SF around South America versus St. Louis to SF through "Indian Country," is the basic premise. As you would expect, there are issues:

But eventually the stagecoach defeated the ship anyway, establishing the need for transcontinental travel rather than going around South America. The protagonist of the story is John Butterfield. Despite a somewhat less adventurous life than shown in this story, he did establish the companies that became American Express and Wells Fargo.

Overall, I can see why Showcase #8 remained under wraps for so long. Although the stories are not terrible by any means, they are inconvenient in several ways, since they reveal the way Schwartz and his writers were still experimenting with the character when this issue came out (in May-June 1957).

The stories in Showcase #8 and many other Flash tales are reprinted in:

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Trivia Quiz #28: Barry Allen Flash

1. Who told Barry Allen, "You're my best friend, Barry!" and after that story never appeared again in the Silver Age?

2. What Flash villain was inspired by a competition to represent a game company?

3. What Flash villain had the reverse name of a famous outlaw?

4. What Flash villain passed up a lifetime in another dimension with beautiful women waiting on him hand and foot?

5. What college did Barry Allen graduate from?

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How Comics Were Marketed in the Silver Age

This is something that came up in a recent podcast I listened to and I thought it might make an interesting post. In the Silver Age, comic books were marketed at newsstands. Not the kind of newsstand you'd see in the big city, which was just a wooden shed on the sidewalk, these were actual stores that were extremely common in smalltown America in the 1950s-1970s, but are mostly gone today. They usually had newspapers and magazines at the front of the store, with a soda fountain and short-order cook to whip up fast food like a hamburger and fries in the back and a pinball machine in the corner. Almost every small town in America had one of these places. The larger towns might have a full rack of comics, while smaller burgs just had a spinner rack or two.

The differential in comic capacity had significant impacts. For example, my hometown of Allendale had a small newsstand with only one spinner rack, which meant that the only comics stocked were DC, Archie or Harvey; it was not until about 1968 that I can recall seeing a Marvel there and that was a stray Silver Surfer issue. The town north of mine had a bigger newsstand (which was also closer to the train station), so they had Marvels and Charltons as well.

Comics were sent to stores with the understanding that unsold copies could be returned to the comics company for a refund. To save money on mailing costs, comics companies had the vendors simply tear off the top 1/3rd of the cover and send that back; they were then supposed to destroy the rest of the comic although it was not uncommon for vendors to turn around and sell those partial cover issues to used bookstores. Hence the fact that all comics dedicated about the top 1/3rd of the cover to the title of the comic, and this exhortation that I'm sure all of you have ignored thousands of times (as have I):



Hence also the numerous older comics that come up for sale on ebay with that crucial top-third of the cover missing. By the way, almost all magazines were sold that way, not just comic books; when I worked at a convenience store in the early 1970s one of my weekly tasks was to pull the TV Guides and rip off that same top third.

How did the comics companies know they had a hit on their hands? It's really pretty simple; on those issues the number of returns were smaller. As a practical matter, I'm sure each of the editors had a few high-volume locations (like Grand Central Station) he could call to check on how many copies were remaining of a particular issue to gauge interest a little quicker.

What were typical returns like? I don't know yet, but I am going to look into the matter. Starting with 1965's reporting year DC began reporting more detailed information on their publications than had previously been available. Here's the Batman report as it appeared in Batman #183:



DC's returns for Batman were about 35% on average with the most recent issue about 30%.

Here's the statement from Challengers of the Unknown #51:



Returns for Challengers were generally around 35%.

World's Finest #158:



Again, returns running generally in the 30-35% range.

This appears to have been intentional. The comics companies back then always made sure that there were excess copies printed, partly on the theory that if something was a hit they could tell (because suddenly returns went down), and partly because if the issue turned out to sell higher than normal, they could then charge their advertisers more. Remember, the money that the comics companies made from sales of the comics was (relatively) peanuts compared to the big money in the books, which came from the ads.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the way comics are sold now, with the publishers shipping pre-ordered comics to (mostly) comics-only stores which cannot return them. But I thought I would mention it because it's definitely one of the major differences between comics of the Silver Age and comics today.

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Five Things to Understand about Silver Age Comics

I want to go into each of these points in more detail at some time, but I did want to mention what I consider to be the five most important things to keep in mind when reading Silver Age Comics (both the blog and the actual books):

1. These comics were designed to be largely throwaway entertainment for youngsters, an impulse purchase. Due to the Comics Code Authority, comic books had to be both entertaining to kids and unlikely to raise the hackles of any mother. The result was a product that while hugely entertaining to young readers would generally be (and was) seen as childish by a large majority of adults and teens.

2. Quality entertainment did make it through despite (or as a result of?) the "G" rated nature of the product. But still it must be judged on that level and for its time. Things that I look for today in the comics of the past are things like positive characterization of the hero, and inspiring stories. Remember, when I praise something that I'm not comparing it to how things would be done today; I'm comparing it to Saturday morning cartoons of the 1960s and the Hardy Boys, because that's what the Silver Age comics were competing against.

3. Many of the developments of the Silver Age were fan-based. This is something that I have not talked about sufficiently, but Mort Weisinger started the practice of publishing letters to the editor in some of his Superman family of magazines, which reinforced the continuity that Weisinger was already imposing on the Superman legend. Although letters columns had appeared in other comics before then (notably the American Comics Group line), this was a first at DC as far as I can determine. At the same time, fans like Dr Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas were petitioning Julius Schwartz for a renewal of the old Justice Society of America. I have a longish post coming up on Bails and Thomas.

4. The successful superhero revivals almost all had one thing in common; they were new versions of the old hero, with different names and occupations and origins (Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, Hawkman, Human Torch). Where the returns fizzled (mostly) were where they involved simple returns of the old characters. DC tried returning several of the Golden Age heroes as they were, including Dr Fate, Hourman, Black Canary and Starman, and all failed (although BC came back a few years later). Even at Marvel, the new Human Torch sizzled while the Sub-Mariner fizzled for years. Captain America? The exception that proves the rule; it was really when they stopped talking about him being around in WWII that he started making sense as a modern character.

5. Changing demographics at least partially caused by the ready availability of the birth control pill resulted in the dramatic changes that occurred in comic books in the early 1970s, as the publishers chased after the baby boomers.

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Did the Birth Control Pill End the Silver Age?

To me, the key aspect of the Silver Age of Comics is that it was the only era in which comic books were seen as and intended to be juvenile entertainment. Certainly during the Golden Age, there were many comics that were aimed at older readers, and after the Silver Age it became quite common to explore more adult themes and concepts.

But during the Silver Age, comics were intentionally kept at a level where the stories would be acceptable to a mother of an eight-year-old boy. The violence was toned down, romance never got more hot and heavy than a chaste kiss, and real-world issues like race relations were seldom discussed.

Obviously the Comics Code Authority had a lot to do with that. But in the late 1960s the CCA began to be seen as a hindrance to comics moving to a more mature fare. Stan Lee famously dedicated Spiderman #96-98 (May-July 1971) to a series of stories involving drug abuse, and the CCA refused to issue their seal of approval. The comics went out any way, and were sold in stores. The CCA, exposed as a paper tiger, relented and a few months later gave their approval to a much more nuanced anti-drug story which featured the stunning cover of Speedy (Roy Harper) injecting himself with heroin.

Why the sudden push for more relevance, more violence and more (semi) nudity? When I have thought about this question in the past I just assumed that it was the famed Baby Boomers; that there were a lot of children born from about 1946 to 1956, that after that it declined fairly rapidly and regularly, and thus the comic companies were forced to chase the larger market.

Congratulations if you didn't buy it, because it's wrong. My first clue that it was wrong was when got live birth statistics for every year starting in 1952. I reasoned that probably the prime comic-buying years for a kid back then were from age 7 to age 12, a six-year span, so I looked at the number of kids who would have been that age in the following years:

1964 24,586,000
1965 24,928,000
1966 25,258,000
1967 25,437,850
1968 25,602,176
1969 25,551,538
1970 25,341,558
1971 25,114,048
1972 24,579,406

As you can see, there is a bulge in the market around 1968, and a steady decline after that to 1972, but it's nothing dramatic, and 1972's market is still very close to 1964's, even if it's off about 4% from the peak. There's nothing in those figures to show why the comics companies were pressing to offer fare that would appeal to teenagers.

But this is one of those rare cases where the rolling average is hiding what was really going on. Here are the live births in the US by year from 1952-1964:

1952 3,913,000
1953 3,965,000
1954 4,078,000
1955 4,104,000
1956 4,218,000
1957 4,308,000
1958 4,255,000
1959 4,295,000
1960 4,257,850
1961 4,268,326
1962 4,167,362
1963 4,098,020
1964 4,027,490

The story looks the same there; a peak in 1957, but still holding pretty steady as late as 1961, then some minor dropoffs in 1962, 1963 and 1964. Ah but look what came next:

1965 3,760,358
1966 3,606,274
1967 3,520,959
1968 3,501,564

Steep and sudden drops indeed; about 6.6% down in 1965, another 4% off in 1966 and and a 2.5% decline in 1967.

And the Birth Control Pill is the most likely cause. Although it was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive in 1960, it first became widely available in 1964-1965, following a series of court challenges to state bans on contraception. After the Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut married women everywhere in the US were guaranteed access to contraception; the ruling was later extended to all women, married or unmarried.

Now let's go back to our look at the market. It's true that it held up fairly well until 1972, but then things really turned downwards:

1972 24,579,406
1973 23,927,830
1974 23,180,463
1975 22,514,665
1976 22,016,851
1977 21,720,747

So the companies were virtually guaranteed to be losing sales throughout the 1970s unless they could expand their market by appealing to a slightly older demographic. Hence the vastly different comic book world of the 1970s.

Incidentally, there is also a visible "Roe" effect as well when we look at the live births:

1968 3,501,564
1969 3,600,206
1970 3,731,386
1971 3,555,970
1972 3,258,411
1973 3,136,965

As you can see, births held fairly steady between 1968 and 1971, but then as abortion became more widely available there were swift and steep drops.

Note that I make no judgment here about the morality of birth control or abortion; I am just demonstrating that their effect on society was profound in ways that many of us may not have noticed at the time. And until someone convinces me otherwise, I'm going to say that the Birth Control Pill ended the Silver Age.

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The Best Silver: Batman #127's The Second Life of Batman

Here's a story that's so far ahead of its time that I have to admit that I blinked a bit when reading it. There have been many "What If" stories over the years about Batman, but here's what surely must rank as the first:



Well, you can probably guess the single event that Bruce would like to not be affected by; the death of his parents. So Dr Nichols hooked him up to a machine that told him what his future life would have been like.

A side note: This appears to have been mirrored by a terrific Superman story that same month, in Superman #132, called Superman's Other Life.

As it happens, Thomas and Martha Wayne did not survive much longer than they had in Bruce's original life; we learn that they perished a few years before this story in an automobile accident. We see the dissolute lifestyle that Bruce would have led with his, um, merry chums:



Hilariously (and ingeniously) Bruce shows up as Superman. However the young playboys are distressed when a robber (dressed as Batman but called the Blue Bat) shows up. The real Superman arrives to save the day, but Bruce also helps out with his natural athletic ability.

When the Blue Bat's mob beats him up, Bruce decides to get revenge. He dons the Bat's costume and faces him down. And in the end he resolves:



That is just beautiful. In the early days, Batman often did that bit with the cape across the lower part of his face, a la Bela Lugosi in Dracula, but it had been years since it had been seen. It's just a minor detail, but great stories always get the minor details right. And check out the closing panel:



Wow. Art by Dick Sprang, Story by Bill Finger.  Note again the usual DC comics' inexorable nature of fate, in that Bruce's parents would still have died and Bruce would still become Batman.

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The Modern Silver Age

Although the Silver Age of Comics ended (in my estimation) about 38 years ago, the market is still served via Archive Editions (DC) or Masterworks (Marvel). In addition, several modern comic book series have been produced to provide new looks at the Silver Age characters. Three that I have specifically in mind are the Silver Age series produced by DC around 2000, 1963 by Alan Moore, and The New Frontier, released by DC in 2004.

I thought I would take a look at that last series over the next few days. I will say right up front that while the series has a few unfortunate flaws, it comes with my highest recommendation. It is a fine achievement in storytelling and captures the essence of the Silver Age while clearly reflecting modern sensibilities as well.

The name, "The New Frontier", refers to a phrase used by John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention:

We stand at the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.

In the title it evokes the same era in comics, as DC began the great revival of superheroes that became known as the Silver Age.

The story begins with the Losers, several of DC's Silver Age WWII characters, stranded on an island with a T-Rex. This evokes the rather oddball "WWII and dinosaurs" era of Star Spangled War Stories in the mid-1960s, although the Losers (Captain Storm, Gunner, Sarge & Pooch and Johnny Cloud) came along later. The T-Rex kills all but Johnny Cloud, who avenges his fellow losers:



It is basically a digression from the real story, but isn't that the point? The DC war comics of the 1960s are certainly nowadays considered a digression from the really interesting superhero era. Which gets underway in the second part of the first book, when a young man meets Colonel Chuck Yeager:



There is a moment in every great comic where the reader suddenly realizes that this is going to be really good. For me it came a few panels later, when it is revealed that the young lad who idolizes Col. Yeager is Hal Jordan. It's the missing piece of the puzzle, the moment where we understand why Hal became a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft in the Silver Age. It may seem minor, but an additional piece of characterization for one of DC's major SA characters that fits what we already know and yet adds depth to the character? Priceless.

This highlight is followed by a bit of tedious political correctness that has apparently become part of the DC mythos. We are told through an Iris West feature article that the Golden Age comic heroes of the DC Universe were banned and either retired or hunted down during the McCarthy-inspired "Red Scare" of the 1950s. This merges Earth-1 with Earth-2. We hear that Roy Raymond got caught up in the blacklist and that's why his show was canceled. We also learn that Richard Nixon was behind it all, and Superman was the enforcer of the edict against superheroes.

The negative of this nonsense is that it wasn't true. DC's Golden Age Superheroes were not forced to take a dirt nap by anything other than consumer (lack of) demand. Roy Raymond's series was canceled in 1961, well after the Hollywood Blacklist had been broken.

When this tedious bit is followed by the revelation that Hal has become a young fighter pilot in Korea, but that he refuses to shoot down enemy pilots, I resumed my skepticism that the story was going to prove pleasing. Fortunately I was wrong, but this was a silly attempt to shoehorn in the prohibition against killing. Perhaps we can buy Hal's refusal to become an ace, but how do we understand his commanding officer's acceptance of same?

The last part of the first issue weaves in Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Hal actually does kill an enemy soldier, but solely because he cannot remember Korean for "The war is over."

Comments: This issue has some terrific moments but also slips into an annoyingly PC view of comic history at the end that actually had me wondering if it was worth continuing. If you get through the first book and are wondering as well, definitely read on. There will be more annoying moments, but the good parts outweigh the bad by a large margin.

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Trivia Quiz #7 Answers

#1 is from Superman #162, featuring The Amazing Story of Superman Red and Superman Blue. (Note the blue costumes of the kids).

#2 is from Jimmy Olsen #69, featuring Nightwing (Superman) and Flamebird (Jimmy Olsen):



#3 is from Lois Lane #42.


This is one of those unbelievably wacky Lois Lane stories. She has a photo of Superman changing from his normal identity (as yet undeveloped, so she doesn't know it's Clark). Superman implores her to give him the film, but (influenced by a concussion she has sustained) she blackmails him into agreeing to marry her the next day. But Lois sprays herself and Superman with a rejuvenation spray that makes them temporarily underage. Cute idea for a story, but it gets even better. Lois is undeterred, and tries to get a blind Justice of the Peace she knows to marry them. But Superboy cures his blindness. Meanwhile they've regressed further in age, back to pre-teenagers. But:



"This is highly irregular, but..." is the favored plot-hole covering of writers everywhere. But Superboy causes some heavy waves with his breath, making Lois seasick, and she demands to be taken to shore. By this time they have become youngsters of maybe five years old, but she hires a lawyer and the marriage license is issued, and by the time they're ready to walk down the aisle, they can't walk:



Fortunately the tots are unable to say, "I Do," so the story ends before we get to the point where the priest says "I now pronounce you zygote and zygote."

#4 is from Action #303. You can only see a small part of Superman in this picture; his tail (he had been turned into a monster by Red Kryptonite).

#5 is from Action #305, Why Superman Needs A Secret Identity, a cute bit of myth-polishing.

Kudos to Joe Bloke who got #2 and #3 and clearly knew #1 even if he wrote Superman #152 instead of #162. And big props to anonymous, who correctly identified all five covers by story name or issue number. Very impressive!

If you'd like to request a trivia quiz on a favorite character or topic, please feel free to leave a comment.

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You Can Learn A Lot From Comics

Sometimes even I'm surprised at what turns out to be well-grounded. I was reading Atom #10 (Dec 1963-Jan 1964). The second story in that issue is called The Mysterious Swan-Maiden, in which Jean Loring is required to act as defense counsel for a swan.



Now looking at it, I thought that citation looked ridiculous, but when I typed it into Google (and Google corrected a minor error by asking if I wanted "fitzh abr barre pl 290"), I was taken to this page from a book on Privacy and the Constitution, where indeed the topic of animals being guilty of crimes is discussed:

The reader will see in this passage, as has been remarked already of the Roman law, that a distinction is taken between things which are capable of guilt and those which are not--between living and dead things; but he will also see that no difficulty was felt in treating animals as guilty.

Gardner Fox (who wrote the story) obviously knew his legal precedents! I should add that this discussion comes in a section on liability (i.e., torts), and that animals can not really be brought to criminal trial; that's a little bit of literary license.

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