Tales of the Bizarro World Part 1

Following his return in Action #254 and #255, Bizarro made several more appearances. Apparently the character was popular enough that DC gave him a continuing feature in Adventure starting with #285, the June 1961 issue. This had a cascading effect. Congorilla was dropped after a long history as Congo Bill that stretched through More Fun to Action (for over 200 consecutive issues) to Adventure. Congo Bill was at the time the third-longest running feature in DC Comics, after Superman and Batman.

Aquaman was bumped from the backup spot in Adventure that he had held down for almost 15 years. He was briefly sent over to Detective, causing the cancellation of Roy Raymond, who exposed frauds on his tv show in that slot for about 12 years. After eight issues there, he was sent to World's Finest, resulting in the cancellation of yet another long-running series, Tommy Tomorrow (although DC would soon give the series several tryout issues).

Just another example of how Bizarro tended to bump things around, I guess. Now, when Bizarro appears on Earth, he's trouble for Superman and a somewhat tragic figure. But on his own world he's an everyman, with a wife and children.

Yes, children. Never mind that we had been assured from the beginning that Bizarros weren't alive, somehow they could reproduce sexually because Bizarro #1 and Bizarro Lois Lane #1 had both a son and a daughter, and there were many other children.

The Bizarro stories often focused on the oddities of that world:



The writers, egged on by readers' suggestions, came up with more and more examples of just how bizarre the Bizarros were. The Bizarro washing machine takes clean clothes and makes them dirty. The Bizarro children go off to school, where they try hard to learn the wrong answers. This causes some ironic problems:



In the second story we learn the Bizarro Code:



We also discover the name of the Bizarro planet: Htrae (Earth spelled backwards).

More about →

Bizarro, Take II

Bizarro returned in Action Comics #254, July 1959. Lex Luthor happened to discover an old newspaper story about Superboy's initial encounter with Bizarro during a visit to Smallville. He steals the plans to Professor Dalton's duplicator machine, and recreates it. Then he lures Superman to his laboratory and beams the Man of Steel. Sure enough, Bizarro appears. However, much to Luthor's dismay, the creature is not controllable and indeed, brings him promptly to jail.

Bizarro also tries to do good deeds, but because he's imperfect, he makes mistakes which are misinterpreted. He soon finds himself under an all-out assault. Then in a surprising move he tells the generals to stop trying to kill him; he will do it himself. He tries flying into a mountain but of course with Superman's powers and invulnerability he just bores a tunnel through it. Jimmy gets a photo of the action, and Bizarro overhears Lois exclaiming what a great photo it is. He assumes that she's fallen in love with him, and of course falls for her.

He brings her to a shack he has constructed on an island and proposes, but she admits that she loves only Superman. Bizarro has an idea; perhaps if he focuses the duplicator ray on himself, it will create another Superman. It does, but this one talks as poorly as Bizarro himself (although Lois doesn't notice this at first). But when she realizes it, the New Bizarro reveals himself as conceited, unlike the humble Bizarro on whom he's based. Briefly Superman and Bizarro team up to fight the New Bizarro, who is eventually killed by Kryptonite.

But Superman and Bizarro continue to battle over Lois until she has a brilliant idea. She creates an imperfect duplicate of herself for Bizarro to love. He and Bizarro Lois Lane go off together to live on their own planet.

Bizarro's popularity is not hard to understand. Gee, tries to do good, but sometimes screws up because of not thinking things through? That wouldn't describe most adolescent boys, would it? Especially since it's understood that Bizarro's not evil, he's just misguided. In addition, he lets the reader feel a little superior: we may screw up but at least we recognize it. Bizarro never regrets anything.

Prior entry in the Bizarro series.

More about →

Apes Playing Baseball? It Must Be the Silver Age!

The Fortress Keeper has a terrific post (his 100th) on Wonder Woman playing baseball with simians. Hilarious stuff; be sure to check out WW's unorthodox batting style!

More about →

Ahab and the White Submarine

DC typically did not launch new comic books without some sort of trial run first in Showcase or Brave & Bold. But in May 1964, DC broke with that tradition for Captain Storm, allowing him to debut in his own book. Captain Bill Storm skippered a PT boat in the South Pacific during World War II. During a battle with a Japanese sub, his boat was cut in two and he lost his left leg below the knee. The enemy sub commander guns down all of his crew, then leaves Captain Storm alive.

He is determined to return to active duty, but his commanding officer is skeptical he can handle the job with a wooden leg. With the help of a no-nonsense nurse, Storm begins his rehabilitation, eventually proving to his superiors that he is worthy of another command.

Now it is the men under him who question his ability. He's already lost one crew; will his second tour be another disaster? This suspicion is highlighted in the first issue in the men being unwilling to call him "Skipper"; it's always "Sir" or "Lieutenant".

Eventually he proves his worth by showing his ability to use his wits, and his fearless fighting when wits won't get the job done.

There are some obvious parallels with Captain Storm and the real world at the time. First, obviously, the incident with the ship cut in half by an enemy vessel is inspired by PT-109 with Storm as John F. Kennedy. In addition, there were many popular movies and TV shows with World War II themes at the time, including McHale's Navy, which also featured a PT boat captain.

The comic itself makes reference to Ahab and Moby Dick; of course the equivalent for Captain Storm is the Japanese submarine which killed his first crew. In issue #1, it appears that PT-47 has destroyed that sub, but this appears to have been conveniently forgotten in later issues to keep Storm's revenge motive alive.

Also apparently forgotten was the name of the nurse who helped Storm get back on his feet again. In #1:



But in the second issue:

More about →

Super Hippie

I confess I had forgotten about this guy:



The smoking banana peel is a gag that runs throughout the story. According to a popular myth of the times, invented by an underground newspaper as a spoof, you could get high by smoking a banana peel.

More about →

Lady Blackhawk Update!

The always-alert Laura Gjovaag pointed out in the comments that Lady Blackhawk is currently appearing in Birds of Prey as Oracle's pilot.

I'd also like to update some information from that post. I had not read Blackhawk #140 at that point and didn't have access to scans of that issue. I noted:

She returned many times over the years, and appears to have been inducted as a full-fledged member of the team in Blackhawk #140 (don't have the story to check, but her next appearance opens with this line):

It is a great day for Lady Blackhawk when she joins the famed team on her first flight patrol.

This is unusual compared with the other female characters that DC added to their line: Batwoman was initially forbidden by Batman to operate, while Supergirl had to act as Superman's "secret weapon".

Perhaps I was a little optimistic there. Luckily for me, a friend managed to scan Blackhawk #140 and I've now read the story in question.

Lady Blackhawk performs magnificently in this adventure. When the Blackhawks are captured by The Scavenger, she deduces their location, then flies to rescue them. She isn't above using her feminine wiles here:



Later she uses a boomerang to kayo The Scavenger himself. But alas, my hope that Blackhawk would prove more willing to adapt to changing times than most of the DC heroes was dashed:



Maybe someday, we'll hold a vote on whether to give you honorary membership? I mean, what the heck is that? Give me a break! This is not like Blackhawk #133, where Lady Blackhawk's many positive qualities are balanced by some negatives. She's behaved like a superstar, saving the rest of the team twice.

More about →

How Many Comics Make Up the Silver Age?

I dunno is the short answer. I'd like to is the longer one. Mike at DC Indexes, which is a terrific site, has a master list of DC Comics. If we just say 1955-1970 is the Silver Age, DC published 5,863 comics. From a friend's list of Marvel Comics I got 1,672 for the 1960s alone.

While there weren't as many publishers as in the Golden Age, there were some substantial publishers--Archie, Dell, ACG, Quality before they sold their titles to DC, Charlton, Harvey, Fawcett. I have a master list of all Harvey Comics which shows 6,753 issues but I don't know how many of them are Silver Age. If we estimate that it's 1/4 of their total, that's another 1,690 comics which would put us over 9,100. Archie would seem likely to have had at least another 1800 or so, which would put us near 11,000. So I'm pretty sure the answer's somewhere north of 12,000.

More about →