Back Issue #81 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.

“Incredible Hulk in the Bronze Age!” Looks into Hulk’s mind, his role as a team player, his TV show and cartoon, merchandising, Hulk newspaper strip, Teen Hulk, villain history of the Abomination, art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, PETER DAVID, KENNETH JOHNSON, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, EARL NOREM, ROGER STERN, HERB TRIMPE, LEN WEIN, new cover by TRIMPE and GERHARD!

“Tryouts, One-Shots, & One-Hit Wonders”! Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Feature, Strange Tales, Showcase, First Issue Special, New Talent Showcase, DC’s Dick Tracy tabloid, Sherlock Holmes, Marvel’s Generic Comic Books, Bat-Squad, Crusader, & Swashbuckler, with BRUNNER, CARDY, COLAN, FRADON, GRELL, PLOOG, TRIMPE, and an ARTHUR ADAMS “Clea” cover!

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“Robots” issue! Cyborg, Metal Men, Robotman, Red Tornado, Mister Atom, the Vision, Jocasta, Shogun Warriors, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, plus the legacy of Brainiac! Featuring the riveting work of DARROW, GERBER, INFANTINO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, MILLER, MOENCH, PEREZ, SIMONSON, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and more, behind a Metal Men cover by MICHAEL ALLRED.

“Batman’s Partners!” MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS on their Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing flies solo, Man-Bat history, Commissioner Gordon, the last days of World’s Finest, Bat-Mite, the Batmobile, plus Dark Knight’s girl Robin! Featuring work by APARO, BUSIEK, DITKO, KRAFT, MILGROM, MILLER, PÉREZ, WOLFMAN, and more, with a cover by ALAN DAVIS and MARK FARMER.

“Bronze Age Fantastic Four!” The animated FF, the FF radio show of 1975, Human Torch goes solo, Galactus villain history, FF Mego figures… and the Impossible Man! Exploring work by RICH BUCKLER, JOHN BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GEORGE PÉREZ, KEITH POLLARD, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by KEITH POLLARD and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

“‘80s Independents!” In-depth looks at PAUL CHADWICK’s Concrete, DAVE SIM’s Cerebus the Aardvark, and RICHARD AND WENDY PINI’s Elfquest! Plus see ‘80s independent comics go Hollywood, DAVID SCROGGY remembers Pacific Comics, TRINA ROBBINS’ California Girls, and DENIS KITCHEN’s star-studded horror/sci-fi anthology Death Rattle. Cover by PAUL CHADWICK!

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

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“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

“Weird Issue!” Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps, ORLANDO’s Weird Adventure Comics, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, DITKO’s Shade the Changing Man and Stalker, CHAYKIN’s Iron Wolf, CRUMB’s Weirdo, and STARLIN and WRIGHTSON’s The Weird! Featuring JIM APARO, LUIS DOMINGUEZ, MICHAEL FLEISHER, BOB HANEY, PAUL LEVITZ, and more. Batman and Deadman cover by ALAN CRADDOCK.

“Charlton Action Heroes in the Bronze Age!” DAVE GIBBONS on Charlton’s WATCHMEN connection, LEN WEIN and PARIS CULLINS’ Blue Beetle, CARY BATES and PAT BRODERICK’s Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, and a look at Blockbuster Weekly! Featuring MIKE COLLINS, GIORDANO, KUPPERBERG, ALAN MOORE, PAT MORISI, ALEX ROSS, and more. Cover by AL MILGROM.

“Flash and Green Lantern in the Bronze Age” (crossover with ALTER EGO #132)! In-depth spotlights of their 1970s and 1980s adventures, MARK WAID’s look at the Flash/GL team, and PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Lost GL Fillins. Bonus: DC’s New York Office Memories, and Green Lantern: Ganthet’s Tale by LARRY NIVEN and JOHN BYRNE. With BARR, BATES, GIBBONS, GRELL, INFANTINO, WEIN, and more. Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

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Volume 1, Number 81 July 2015 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Nick Cardy (E.N.B. headshot by Dave Manak) COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Neal Adams Sergio Aragonés Robert Beerbohm Edgar Bercasio Jerry Boyd Pat Broderick Gary Brown Cary Burkett Comic Book Artist DC Comics Steve Englehart John Eury Stephan Friedt Carl Gafford Mike Gold Grand Comics Database Bob Greenberger Jack C. Harris Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Dan Johnson Rob Kelly Jim Kingman Paul Kupperberg Paul Levitz

Chris Marshall David Michelinie Martin Pasko Jeff Rovin Bob Rozakis Walter Simonson Steve Skeates Prof. Manuela Soares Bryan D. Stroud Linda Sunshine Laurie Sutton Roy Thomas Maggie Thompson Mike Tiefenbacher Anthony Tollin John Trumbull Michael Uslan Mark Waid Carolyn Wallace John Wells Bernie Wrightson Dedicated to the memory of E. Nelson Bridwell

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Remembering E. Nelson Bridwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: A Look at the Super Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 FANTASY COVER GALLERY: The Super Spectaculars That Weren’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 PRINCE STREET NEWS: History on the Spinner Rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 FLASHBACK: Super DC Giant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: Wanted, the World’s Most Dangerous Villains . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 WHAT THE--?!: The Inferior Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 FLASHBACK: Reprint Madness: DC’s Short-Lived Reprint Line of 1972–1973 . . . . . . . . .47 FLASHBACK: Secret Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 FLASHBACK: DC’s Bronze Age Reprint Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 FLASHBACK: Terminated Classics: The DC Implosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 FLASHBACK: DC’s Bronze Age Collected Editions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

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INTERVIEW: A Fireside (Books) Chat with Michael Uslan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 FLASHBACK: DC’s Bronze Age Paperbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84 BEYOND CAPES: The Masterworks Series of Great Comic Book Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 FLASHBACK: DC’s Deluxe Reprint Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 Our BACK TALK letters column will return next issue.

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Nick Cardy. Superman and related characters TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2015 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing, except for Prince Street News, which is TM and © Karl Heitmueller, Jr. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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Michael Eury

I never realized it until writing several of the articles for this issue, but E. Nelson Bridwell probably imprinted my career more than anyone else. For years I have listed Julius Schwartz, Dick Giordano, and my editorial mentor, Diana Schutz, among my top influences. But not E. Nelson Bridwell, DC Comics’ fabled “human encyclopedia.” Or not until now. As a fan-turned-pro, I entered this business over 25 years ago with the goals of being a comics editor and writer. Little did I realize that along the way I would become a comics historian. Thanks for that go to Nelson—or, to his respect for DC’s past, which I discovered through his selection of classics for 80-Page Giants, 100-Page Super Spectaculars, and other reprint books. Those golden oldies introduced me to the adventures of my dad’s superheroes. Bridwell’s text pages, which peppered various DC titles in the late ’60s and early ’70s, tutored me in the lore of both my favorite publisher’s characters and of the men (and occasionally women) who produced their adventures. Kids like me who were lured into the DC Universe by the POW!s and ZOWIE!s of TV’s Batman were taught by Bridwell of the Caped Crusader’s then-30-year-old saga, as well as the sagas of Batman’s super-friends. For the record, I never met Nelson Bridwell—but I knew him well. He spoke to me regularly, through his letters columns. His informative, reader-friendly lettercols—his responses usually punctuated by his trademark “E.N.B.”—welcomed me to whatever DC book I was lucky enough to find them in. E.N.B. informed me of DC’s new releases and series revivals. It’s unfortunate that his initials weren’t “F.A.N.”, because for me— and for many of you inclined to buy this issue—Bridwell was our mole, our inside man, the keeper of the DC vault and the one person who cared about the characters more than anyone else. He personified the fan in all of us. Born September 22, 1931 in Sapula, Oklahoma, Edward Nelson Bridwell started working at DC in 1965, as an assistant to Superman editor Mort Weisinger. Weisinger’s ironfisted management style is legend, as are the stories of how he would badger his brilliant but timid assistant. That abuse was usually invisible to the young readers laughing at the latest issues of The Inferior Five, however, which Bridwell co-created and scripted. Yet in one uncharacteristic issue of that series, Bridwell peeled back the veneer of the vaunted halls of DC to peek at, through satire, some of the idiosyncrasies of the publishing house and its personnel. (Please indulge me for a moment as I sidestep the Bronze Age to look at this late-Silver Age comic.) The cover of The Inferior Five #6 (Jan.–Feb. 1968) gave the appearance of being yet another superhero farce, with its Kooky Quintet surrounded by cameo stars Superman and Superboy (!), Batman and Robin, the Justice League, the Metal Men, the Blackhawks (in their dreadful superhero guises), and the Elongated Man (Wonder Woman was curiously absent), all revolting against the title’s inept characters. The story inside, however, eschewed the expected superhero parody. In Bridwell’s “How to Make a Bomb!”, team leader Merryman opened the tale by saying, “We have received numerous requests asking for a complete explanation of how an issue of this magazine is produced. What bothers us is that these requests have come from the editor, the writer, and the artists.” From there, the company’s “big boss” (executive vice president Irwin Donenfeld), characterized as a petulant child named I.D. who brandished a “D.C.” lollipop to head-bonk insubordinates, emerged from his office to check on the progress of the latest Inferior Five issue. Bridwell, with artists Mike Sekowsky and Mike Esposito, provided a sidesplitting backstage pass through DC’s offices, lampooning its editors and production staff. Nelson portrayed himself as a frequently abused nebbish, in this case at the mercy of not only of Weisinger but also Donenfeld and the story’s real “villain,” Inferior Five editor Jack 2 • BACK ISSUE • DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Bridwell’s Babies A rejected Inferior Five cover by Joe Orlando, from the archives of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). The Bridwell headshot, also used on our cover, is by Dave Manak, from the prozine The Amazing World of DC Comics. TM & © DC Comics.

Miller, comically presented as a self-aggrandizing taskmaster. Inferior Five #6 seemed like a nutty behind-the-scenes spoof worthy of the typewriter of Not Brand Ecch’s Stan “The Man” Lee or “Rascally” Roy Thomas, but one suspects it may have been Nelson’s sly joke, a veiled vengeance ploy against those who didn’t take him seriously. Bridwell was the “chief electrician” (the writer) behind the Direct Currents coming-attractions columns of DC’s go-go checks era and later. His lively copy could make even the most mundane DC book beg to be read. At the end of the Silver Age, Nelson also co-created Angel and the Ape and The Secret Six. Once Mort Weisinger retired in 1970, Bridwell steadily acquired titles of his own to edit, beginning with taking over Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane from his former boss. Some of those titles—as you’ll read in this issue—were reprint series. Bridwell was the smartest guy in the room. A voracious reader, he was a trivia expert, well versed in the Bible, mythology, folklore, literature, musicals, and comic books. At a time when continuity was rarely policed at DC Comics, Nelson was a stickler for it, although his appeals for cohesiveness throughout the Silver and early Bronze Age DC Universe

No Respect (left) Bridwell grovels before “I.D.” (DC head honcho Irwin Donenfeld) and (right) is bullied by editor Jack Miller in Inferior Five #6. Art by Sekowsky and Esposito. TM & © DC Comics.

sometimes fell upon the deaf ears of his editorial superiors or of DC’s writers. It was the little stuff that bugged him— why Aquaman’s Atlantis was different from Lori Lemaris’, for example—the type of details that get under the skin of a fan, as opposed to a casual reader. You can almost imagine the poor guy squirming in his office chair when Mike Sekowsky included the Phantom Zone “planet” in the Supergirl story in Adventure Comics #400, or when one of Bob Haney’s outlandish Brave and the Bold plots had Batman throwing an uncharacteristic temper tantrum. As Bridwell’s tenure grew at DC in the ’70s, so did his ability to correct some of these inconsistencies. He’d inform editor Julie Schwartz when a new Superman story violated or duplicated one from years earlier. Bronze Age fans remember two continuity conundrums that Bridwell, as writer, “fixed”: E.N.B.’s Super Friends comic blended the saccharine Justice League of ABC-TV Saturday morning with the traditional JLA readers knew, and by giving Billy Batson’s Uncle Dudley a mustache and the keys to a motorhome, he made a retrofitted Shazam! comic book compatible with the live-action Mike Carlin of how satisfying it was Shazam! show on CBS without disreto follow in the footsteps of E.N.B. garding the stories that preceded his. e. nelson bridwell Like Nelson, I was living the DC fan’s As DC Comics experienced a dream come true. seismic thematic shift in the mid-1980s, Photo courtesy of Mike W. Barr. A variety of detours derailed that with what-went-before becoming negotiable in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Bridwell, the gatekeeper to dream, and over time, instead of producing new comic DC’s yesteryear, seemed ill suited for a universe being books, I began to mine the stories behind the stories I reconstructed by superhero deconstruction. Ironically, so cherished as a kid. My commitment to preserving he passed away not long thereafter, on January 23, 1987. the past and to recording oral histories of those who I joined DC’s editorial staff a little over two years lived it has extended outside of my editing of BACK after Nelson’s death, and while I certainly wasn’t the ISSUE and my writing or co-writing a number of comicscompany’s “walking encyclopedia,” especially with history books and biographies. For the past eight years my then-officemate Mark Waid on staff, fan-skewed I have also adopted the mission of recording regional projects seemed to land on my desk, including a history in my hometown and county. That wasn’t what revamp of Who’s Who and the company’s info column I set out to do when I started my career, but it’s where Inside DC. I considered DC’s library, with its bound I’ve been directed. E. Nelson Bridwell’s body of work, volumes of every comic ever published by the company, particularly his text features and the reprint series to be holy ground. Meeting and working with the we examine in this issue, helped steer me into that direction—and I thank him for it. In a future edition, stalwarts who had so positively colored my childhood— Curt Swan, Gil Kane, and Carmine Infantino, among BACK ISSUE will explore the life and career of E.N.B., others—was exhilarating. In 1990, when I supplemented including recollections from his former colleagues, but my editorial income by freelance-writing letters pages for now, with the deepest respect and gratitude this for Superman and Action Comics, I told group editor issue is dedicated to Mr. Bridwell’s memory. DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Mr. Fix-It Bridwell delicately altered the Captain Marvel feature to mirror the hero’s live-action adventures in the DC TV Comic Shazam! and tethered Saturday morning’s JLA to the DC Universe in Super Friends. TM & © DC Comics.

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Bronze Age babies stuffed themselves silly on a smorgasbord of scrumptious super-snacks: relevant superheroes, Kirby is Coming!, Kirby is going, Limited Collectors’ Editions and Marvel Treasury Editions, black-and-white magazines, Shazam!, Super Friends, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl, 7-11 superhero Slurpee cups, Underoos, Megos, Hostess comic-book ads, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, Marvel Value Stamps, KISS in the Marvel Universe, Power Records, Fireside trade paperbacks, DC and Marvel calendars—the 1970s witnessed an explosion of comics innovations, comics formats, and comics-related merchandising. These and other favorites cheerfully colored our childhoods. Amid these pop-culture marvels, the meatiest and mightiest of them all was the DC 100-Page Super Spectacular, DC Comics’ squarebound mega-format offering a super page count and “the Biggest Bargain in Comics” for a price of a mere two quarters (later, 60 cents). The “Super Specs,” as they were affectionately called, afforded readers a super-ability that even the miraculous Man of Steel couldn’t boast: peer-into-the-past vision! With E. Nelson Bridwell (and other editors) handpicking a selection of Golden and Silver Age gems that our dads or grandpas might’ve read (and a few moms, too), the Super Specs unlocked the vault of DC’s decadesdeep library. Never mind the fact that many of these reprints were crudely etched and often preposterous— we were being made privy to the original adventures of Earth-Two heroes (the Golden Age Flash, Starman, etc.) we knew from appearances in Justice League of America and other Julius Schwartz-edited titles, plus we met old characters new to us (Air Wave, the Boy Commandos, Super-Chief, etc.)! And with their dynamic wraparound (originally, at least) covers by luminaries like Neal Adams and Nick Cardy, it’s no wonder that DC 100-Page Super Spectacular, which first appeared in 1971, soon grew from a worthy successor to the Silver Age’s beloved 80-Page Giants to an exciting new format that, some hoped, might save a sagging industry. Let us open the covers of these classics (but ever so gently, so as not to break their delicate square bindings) and gaze through those selfsame Super Specs for a clearer view of a group of comics that have become cherished by many longtime fans and highly sought-after by collectors.

LAND OF THE GIANTS Before we dive into the Super Spectaculars, first we’ll take a quick detour to learn how comics Giants came about. Awhile back I read an online column calling DC’s 80-Page Giants the trade paperbacks of their day. At face value, that’s true. DC’s 80-pagers, and the 100-pagers we’ll soon explore, did provide a selection of older stories collected in a single volume.

The First Super Spectacular DC 100-Page Super-Spectacular #4 (DC-4), 1971’s “Weird Mystery Tales,” with its spooky cover by Bernie (then Berni) Wrightson. TM & © DC Comics.

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Michael Eury

DC, Home of the Whopper Two of DC’s earliest giant-sized editions: (left) 1940’s New York World’s Fair Comics, weighing in at 100 pages for 15 cents; and (right) 1944’s The Big All-American Comic Book, a 128-page monster selling for a quarter. TM & © DC Comics.

But that description implies that the higher-page-count reprint comic was an offshoot of the traditional comic book, and that’s not the case. Actually, the reverse is true—at least with American comic books. The earliest comic books that saw print in the 1930s were (mostly) 64-page publications on pulp paper reprinting newspaper comic strips. (Some historians will argue that prototypical comics such as The Brownies and The Yellow Kid hold the distinction of being the earliest comic books, or that the European publication The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbrook, first released in 1837, was the first comic book. For the purpose of this article we will explore the traditional American comic that commenced during the Golden Age.) It wasn’t until toward the end of the 1930s that original material began appearing in the comic-book format. A famous early example was Detective Comics #1 (Mar. 1937), trumpeting on its cover, “Brand New! Action-Packed Stories in COLOR!” A little over a year later, its publisher, which we know today as DC Comics, took a chance on a costumed hero called Superman in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), and if you don’t know what happened after that pivotal issue, it’s unlikely you have the interest to read this magazine 77 years later. While the 64-page comic book with new material became the industry norm during the Golden Age, publishers, most notably DC, would occasionally release even bigger volumes. Early examples include two issues of DC’s New York World’s Fair Comics, the first published in 1939 and the second in 1940, both featuring 100 pages and 15-cent cover prices (and you thought the 50-cent Super Spectaculars were a bargain!). Another example is DC’s World’s Best Comics (which was quickly retitled World’s Finest Comics) #1 (Spring 1941), packed with 100 pages of new material featuring Superman, Batman and Robin, and host of other characters, for 15 cents. The whopper from DC was the character-loaded one-shot Big All-American Comic Book (Dec. 1944), featuring 128 pages (132, counting covers) for 25 cents. A decade earlier, however, several British publishers began producing “Annuals” which reprinted mostly American material in special editions boasting both a thicker page count and cover stock. Fiction House became the first US publisher to release an Annual, with 1947’s Toyland Comics Annual gathering three issues of Toyland Comics into a single, larger-sized edition. By the early 1950s, Archie, Dell, EC, and other American publishers were releasing Annuals that either combined previously published comics under a shared cover and binding or showcased new stories.

It was with Superman Annual #1 (Aug. 1960) that DC Comics introduced what most American comics readers would call a “Giant” (“Giant” was even part of its logo, in the same telescoping font of Superman’s). Edited by Mort Weisinger, this 80-page (84, counting covers) “All-Star Collection of the Greatest Super-Stories Ever Published!” featured an iconic Curt Swan/Stan Kaye cover showcasing the Metropolis Marvel but also featuring—in smaller boxes bordering the main Superman image—the other members of the Superman family, from Superbaby to Perry White, a template that would be imitated time and time again. More Annuals followed, featuring Superman, Batman, and other titles. Marvel got into the game with 72-page “King-Size Specials,” some featuring lengthy all-new lead stories backed up by reprints, others featuring all reprints. Other Silver Age publishers released Giants as well. In 1964, DC’s umbrella series 80-Page Giant debuted (with Superman in its first issue), that series’ title in a burst prefixed to the subject’s logo. Featured in these Giants were DC’s best-known super-stars, including Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, the Flash, Batman, and Sgt. Rock. After 15 issues, 80-Page Giant (Magazine), the title, was no more, but its format (and numbering) continued, albeit absorbed into special issues of DC’s regular series. The 16th 80-Page Giant was actually Justice League of America #39 (Nov. 1965), which bore the secondary issue numbering of #G-16, denoting the Giants’ chronology. The 80-Page Giants were a beloved staple of DC’s Silver Age, introducing fans to stories mostly from the 1950s, but occasionally a 1940s story would find its way into print. This format continued until the last days of the Silver Age, with Our Army at War #205 (Feb.–Mar. 1969), featuring Sgt. Rock’s Prize Battle Tales, being the last 80-Page Giant of its day (#G-56). Rising costs forced a price increase for comics publishers—DC and most other companies opted to boost the price of its 32-page, regular-sized editions from 12 cents to 15 cents, while DC’s Giants downsized from 80 to 64 pages, still maintaining the 25-cent price (and continuing the #G numbering). The very next month, Giant #G-57 was released—Action Comics #373, starring Supergirl—at the new 64-page size, for a quarter. Contemporary readers might chuckle at a three-cent price increase, and when compared to today’s average comic-book price of $3.99 or $4.99, 25 cents for 64 pages seems like a steal. But in those days, this price hike created hardships for the average reader, a school kid existing on an allowance. DC tried to soft-pedal the increase with a DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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TM & © DC Comics.

THE BOGUS BARGAIN IN COMICS! In 1971, some fans were led to believe that DC Comics was about to release a 500-page comic book bearing the title Blockbuster (not to be confused with the Batman villain of the same name) and a price tag of a whopping $2! Don Thompson wrote the following notice in Newfangles #47 (May 1971), the fanzine he co-published with his wife, Maggie: “DC is planning to launch Blockbuster (it is no coincidence that they have been using that word in a lot of ads lately) which will be the biggest comic book ever published in the U.S.” (April 1971 cover-dated DC books included house ads for “Kirby’s Fourth World Blockbusters” and “Kubert & Tarzan together in a blockbuster from DC.”) Once this mega-sized comic failed to materialize, however, Newfangles readers assumed that Blockbuster was one of those series that just never got off the ground. Yet Blockbuster wasn’t aborted—it was never intended to exist in the first place. Legend has it that DC’s head honcho Sol Harrison was annoyed that announcements of upcoming projects were being anonymously leaked to the fan press (the “fan press” during those days consisting of a smattering of fanzines). Sol had a suspect—a comics artist whose frequent after-hours presence in the DC bullpen gave him occasion to rummage through papers on editors’ desks. And so someone at DC planted “a fake news story about a supposed 500-page comic book entitled Blockbuster to flush out someone who was looking over DC editors’ desks for news to pass along to fanzines,” according to DC historian John Wells.

Apparently, the false report quieted DC’s “whistleblower.” In a 1982 letter printed in Fantagraphics’ Amazing Heroes #16, Jack C. Harris shared the Blockbuster story, noting that it had been told to him when he joined DC’s staff in 1974 and calling the accused snitch “Unnamed Professional.” Harris wrote, “When confronted with the evidence when the source of this information was tracked down, Unnamed Professional said nothing … and still claims innocence to this day.” We certainly don’t wish to stir up any ill will with this and won’t engage in any speculation over who “Unnamed Professional” might actually be … but the notion of a 500-page comic book in 1971 is a fascinating one, as is the story behind this whole matter. Blockbuster as a concept name continued to have life at DC. As Bob Greenberger wrote in BACK ISSUE #79, DC’s mid-’80s Charlton Action Heroes anthology (which was never published) was originally intended to be called Blockbuster Weekly. And to prove you can’t keep a good (unused) name down, John Wells just unearthed this tidbit, from Comics Buyer’s Guide #786 (Dec. 9, 1988), in a feature announcing DC’s 1989 publishing plans: “BLOCKBUSTER, a 96-page monthly anthology title, will reprint DC stories from all genres, including ‘funny animals,’ science fiction, and Westerns, published during the ’60s and ’70s. ‘The aim,’ a DC spokesman said, ‘is to reach out again to the younger readers and bring them into the fold.’ ” Special thanks to John Wells, Gary Brown, Bob Greenberger, Jack C. Harris, Paul Kupperberg, Paul Levitz, and Maggie Thompson.

house ad “letter” from publisher Carmine Infantino, talking directly to readers in corny teen-speak that might have even made Teen Titans scribe Bob Haney ill from his Gill-head to his Twinkletoes. Carmine “rapped” about how inflation had driven up the cost of virtually everything, and how even the readers’ parents were feeling the pinch. DC’s young readers got the message … although it was a tough pill to swallow, in many cases meaning the sacrifice of a former favorite title or a pack of trading cards or some other kid’s staple to offset the higher price of comics. DC’s Giants continued, one per month, and by the summer of 1970 the publisher began a gradual exploitation of the 25-cent, 64-page format. The reasoning was, this higher price tag offered a wider profit margin for retailers who were growing disenchanted with the small financial returns afforded by the traditional comic, a mindset that would, a year later, give birth to the 100Page Super Spectacular. In July 1970, the short-lived Super DC Giant premiered [see article on this topic, following], showering a diverse range of 64-page collections onto the stands, and Strange Adventures boosted its page count from 32 to 64 with issue #226 (cover-dated Sept.–Oct. 1970), branding itself “Gigantic Strange Adventures” and packing its pages with reprints of sci-fi short stories. On its heels the following month, DC’s other sci-fi anthology became the “Super-Size From Beyond the Unknown” and one of its war books was now “BIG G.I.

A “Line” of Giants (top) Several of DC’s ongoing books, including G.I. Combat and Strange Adventures, temporarily adopted a Giant format in the early 1970s. (bottom) The larger page count was also promoted in house ads. TM & © DC Comics.

6 • BACK ISSUE • DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

One GIANT Step (below) During DC’s “Bigger and Better” phase, its 64-page Giants adopted this intrusive cover layout. Lois Lane #113 (Sept.–Oct. 1971) cover by Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

52 Pages for 25 Cents Starting in the summer of ’71, DC made its line “Bigger and Better” by fleshing out its expanded page count with reprints. Marvel and Harvey briefly followed suit, but soon undercut DC by returning to a 32-page format with a cheaper 20-cent price tag. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen TM & © DC Comics. Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Sad Sack © Sad Sack, Inc.

Combat.” Within a few months, this format spread to other books: Binky, Date with Debbi, Swing with Scooter, The Three Mousketeers, and Young Romance, and shortly thereafter, Sugar and Spike, with a balance of new stories and reprints filling these 64-pagers. The Giants continued alongside these super-sized series, one DC stalwart being tapped each month for a reprint edition. (Even the Legion of Super-Heroes, which had been shunted into the back pages of Action after a long run in Adventure Comics, got its own Giant with Adventure #403, a.k.a. #G-81.)

BIGGER AND BETTER! The comics world was rocked with another price increase during the summer of 1971. DC Comics boosted the page counts of its 32-page comics to 48 pages (or 52, counting covers), with cover prices jumping an unprecedented ten cents, to 25 cents per copy! Beginning with its August 1971 cover-dated books, DC touted its titles as being “Bigger and Better,” its standard 22 pages of new material now backed up with 16 (or so) pages of reprints from the publisher’s story-rich archives. A couple of months later, Marvel Comics made the same page count/price jump, as did Harvey Comics. But the House of Ideas offered more new material than their Distinguished Competition, boasting novel-length stories of over 30 pages. Roughly one month later, Marvel sucker-punched DC by reducing their page count back to the standard 32, slashing their cover price to 20 cents—undercutting DC by a nickel. This bold move gave Marvel a sizeable advantage over DC, infuriating DC’s publisher, Carmine Infantino. Still, DC continued its “Bigger and Better” format for the next year. DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #4: WEIRD MYSTERY TALES 1971 Cover artist: Berni(e) Wrightson (front cover art appears as pinup on back cover) Editor: Joe Orlando Special features: • “Macabre Mystery” intro page by Wrightson (with Wrightson cameo); “The New Arrival” gag 1-pager by Dave Manak; 2 uncredited “Weird Tales” gag pages; 2 “Weird Tales” gag pages by Sergio Aragonés; 4 horror 1-pagers by Wrightson: “Eerie Adventure,” “Monsters,” “Science-Fiction,” “Childhood Haunt”; 1 “Weird Tales” gag page by Lore Shoberg Reprints: • “I Was the Last Man on Earth” from My Greatest Adventure #8 (Mar.–Apr. 1956) • “The Phantom Enemy” from Sensation Mystery #116 (July–Aug. 1953) • “I Fought the Clocks of Doom” from My Greatest Adventure #14 (Mar.–Apr. 1957) • “The Witch’s Candles!” from House of Secrets #2 (Jan.–Feb. 1957) • “I Was Lost in a Mirage” from My Greatest Adventure #12 (Nov.–Dec. 1956) • Johnny Peril in “Horror in the Lake!” from Sensation Mystery #110 (July–Aug. 1952) • The Phantom Stranger in “The Haunters from Beyond!” from The Phantom Stranger #1 (Aug.–Sept. 1952) • “I Was the Last Martian” from My Greatest Adventure #20 (Mar.–Apr. 1958) • “I Hunted the World’s Wildest Animals” from My Greatest Adventure #15 (May–June 1957) • “The City of Three Dooms” from Tales of the Unexpected #15 (July 1957) • “Jungle Boy of Jupiter” from Tales of the Unexpected #24 (Apr. 1958) • “The Mysterious Mr. Omen” from House of Mystery #49 (Apr. 1956) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #5: LOVE STORIES 1971 Cover artists: Bob Oksner (front cover), Charlie Armentano (back cover) Editor: Dorothy Woolfolk; Gail Weiss, assistant Special features: • “Laura Penn … Your Romance Reporter” 1-page advice column; “How I Met My Boyfriend” 2-page article; “How to Look Fabulous” 2-page article; “What’s in a Name?” 1-page filler; “Where is Love” 1-page filler New stories: • “How Do I Know When I’m Really in Love?” • “The Other Girl”

• “The Wrong Kind of Love” • “Goodbye, Lover” • “Happy Ending” Reprints: • “My Shameful Past” from Young Love #60 (Mar.–Apr. 1967) • “My Sister Stole My Man” from Young Love #60 (Mar.–Apr. 1967) • “Made for Love, Chapter 1” from Girls’ Romances #99 (Mar. 1964) • “Love is Forever (Made for Love, Chapter 2)” from Girls’ Romances #100 (Apr. 1964) • “I Didn’t Want His Love” from Girls’ Romances #130 (Jan. 1968) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #5: LOVE STORIES REPLICA EDITION 2001 Editor: Dale Crain; Scott Nybakken, associate Same content as original edition above. DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #6: WORLD’S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES 1971 Cover artist: Neal Adams (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special features: • “A Checklist of DC Super-Heroes” multi-pager, serialized through issue; Key to the Super-Heroes on the Cover (identifying characters on wraparound cover; also lists their alter egos and civilian vocations) Reprints: • Justice League of America (guest-starring the Justice Society of America) in “Crisis on EarthOne” from Justice League of America #21 (Aug. 1963) • Justice League of America (guest-starring the Justice Society of America) in “Crisis on EarthTwo” from Justice League of America #22 (Sept. 1963) • The Spectre in “The Spectre meets Zor” from More Fun Comics #55 (May 1940) • Johnny Quick in “Stand-In for 100 Convicts” from Adventure Comics #190 (July 1953) • The Vigilante in “The Galleon in the Desert” from Action Comics #146 (July 1950) • Wildcat in “Crime Wore a Costume”; unpublished story produced for Sensation Comics #91 • Hawkman in “Strange Spells of the Sorceror” from The Brave and the Bold #36 (June–July 1961) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #6: WORLD’S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES REPLICA EDITION 2004 Cover artist: Dick Giordano (wraparound; recreation of Neal Adams’ original cover) Editor: Robert Greenberger Same content as original edition above.

DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-7: SUPERMAN #245 Dec. 1971–Jan. 1972 Cover artists: Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Superman in “The Team of Luthor and Brainiac!” from Superman #167 (Feb. 1964) • Kid Eternity in “The Count” from Kid Eternity #3 (Autumn 1946) • The Atom in “The Time Trap” from The Atom #3 (Oct.–Nov. 1963) • Super Chief in “The Crowning of Super Chief” from All-Star Western #117 (Feb.–Mar. 1961) • Air Wave in “Adventure of the Shooting Spooks” from Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942) • Hawkman in “Super Motorized Menace” from Mystery in Space #89 (Feb. 1964) • Superman in “The Prankster’s Greatest Role” from Superman #87 (Feb. 1954) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-8: BATMAN #238 Jan. 1972 Cover artists: Neal Adams and Dick Giordano (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Batman in “The Masterminds of Crime” from Batman #70 (Apr.–May 1952) • Doom Patrol in “Origin of the Doom Patrol” from My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963) • Plastic Man in “Oh Plastic Man!” from Police Comics #14 (Dec. 1942) • Sargon the Sorcerer in “Trouble in the Big Top” from Sensation Comics #57 (Sept. 1946) • The Atom in “Danger in the Totem’s Eye”: unpublished Golden Age story • Aquaman in “The Aqua-Thief of the Seven Seas” from Adventure Comics #276 (Sept. 1960) • Legion of Super-Heroes in “The Legion of Super-Outlaws” from Adventure Comics #324 (Sept. 1964) • Batman in “Mr. Roulette’s Greatest Gamble” from Batman #75 (Feb.–Mar. 1953) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-9: OUR ARMY AT WAR #242 featuring SGT. ROCK Feb. 1972 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Editor: Joe Kubert Special features: • Sgt. Rock in “Infantry” 1-pager by Robert Kanigher and Kubert; Capt. Storm in “Navy” 1-pager by Kubert; Johnny Cloud in “Air Force” 1-pager by Kubert; Gunner and Sarge in “Marines” 1-pager by Kubert; Haunted Tank in “Cavalry” 2-page filler by Kubert; “Sam Glanzman’s War Dairy” 2-page filler; “Battle Roster

of Easy Company” 1-page text piece by Kubert Reprints: • “The Rock!” from G.I. Combat #68 (Jan. 1959) • Capt. Storm in “Death of a P.T. Boat” from Capt. Storm #3 (Sept.–Oct. 1964) • “Line of Departure” from G.I. Combat #64 (Sept. 1958) • Johnny Cloud in “Broken Ace” from All-American Men of War #87 (Sept.–Oct. 1961) • Gunner and Sarge in “A Tank for Sarge” from Our Fighting Forces #57 (Sept.–Oct. 1960) • The Haunted Tank in “The Wounded Won’t Wait” from G.I. Combat #108 (Oct.– Nov. 1964) • “The Brave Tank” from G.I. Combat #44 (Jan. 1957) • “Battle Hats” from Our Army at War #58 (May 1957) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-10: ADVENTURE COMICS #416 Mar. 1972 Cover artist: Bob Oksner (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special feature: • Key to DC’s Fighting Females (identifying heroines on wraparound cover) Reprints: • Supergirl in “The Untold Story of Argo City” from Action Comics #309 (Feb. 1964) • Supergirl in “Supergirl’s Rival Parents” from Action Comics #310 (Mar. 1964) • Johnny Thunder in “The Black Canary” from Flash Comics #86 (Aug. 1947) • Wonder Woman in “Villainy, Incorporated” from Wonder Woman #28 (Mar.–Apr. 1948) • Wonder Woman in “Trap of Crimson Flame” from Wonder Woman #28 (Mar.–Apr. 1948) • Wonder Woman in “In the Hands of the Merciless!” from Wonder Woman #28 (Mar.–Apr. 1948) • Phantom Lady in “Mystery of the Black Cat” from Police Comics #17 (Mar. 1943) • Merry, the Girl of a Thousand Gimmicks in “The Duel of the Gimmicks” from Star Spangled Comics #90 (Mar. 1949) • Supergirl in “The Black Magic of Supergirl” from Action Comics #324 (May 1965) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-11: THE FLASH #214 Apr. 1972 Cover artist: Nick Cardy (wraparound) Editor: Julius Schwartz Special features: • “Flash Facts!” science 1-pager; Famous Flash Covers: Showcase #4 and Flash #155 (inside back cover)

TM & © DC Comics.

20 • BACK ISSUE • DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Reprints: • The Flash in “Gauntlet of SuperVillains” from The Flash #155 (Sept. 1965) • Quicksilver in “The Wasp” from National Comics #67 (Aug. 1948) • Kid Flash in “The Face Behind the Mask” from The Flash #122 (Aug. 1961) • Johnny Quick in “The Modern Paul Bunyan!” from Adventure Comics #179 (Aug. 1952) • Golden Age Flash in “A Tale of Three Tokens”; unpublished story • Metal Men in “The Flaming Doom!” from Showcase #37 (Mar.–Apr. 1962) • The Flash in “The Weather Wizard Blows Up a Storm” from The Flash #145 (June 1964) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-12: SUPERBOY #185 May 1972 Cover artist: Nick Cardy (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special feature: • Key to DC’s Young Heroes (identifying characters on wraparound cover) Reprints: • Superboy in “Clark Kent’s SuperFather!” from Adventure Comics #289 (Oct. 1961) • Star-Spangled Kid in “The Jigsaw Puzzle Murder!” from Star Spangled Comics #55 (Apr. 1946) • Teen Titans in “The Astounding Separated Man” from The Brave and the Bold #60 (June–July 1965) • Kid Eternity in “Kid Eternity Hoax!” from Hit Comics #146 (May 1947) • Legion of Super-Heroes in “The Eight Impossible Missions” from Adventure Comics #323 (Aug. 1964) • Legion of Super-Heroes in “The Amazing Winner of the Great Proty Puzzle” from Adventure Comics #323 (Aug. 1964) • Little Boy Blue in “The Origin of Little Boy Blue” from Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942) • Superboy in “The Rip Van Winkle of Smallville” from Adventure Comics #208 (Jan. 1955) DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-13: SUPERMAN #252 June 1972 Cover artist: Neal Adams (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Superman in “Powerstone” from Action Comics #47 (Apr. 1942) • Superman in “When Titans Clash” from Superman #17 (July–Aug. 1942) • Dr. Fate in “The Lambent Flame” from More Fun Comics #57 (July 1940) • Golden Age Hawkman in “[The Hawkwoman]” from Flash Comics #24 (Dec. 1941)

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Black Condor in “The Missing Scientists” from Crack Comics #18 (Nov. 1941) The Spectre in “The Voice from Nowhere” from More Fun Comics #57 (July 1940) Starman in “Menace of the Invisible Raiders” from Adventure Comics #67 (Oct. 1941) The Ray in “A Modern Pied Piper” from Smash Comics #17 (Dec. 1940) Superman in “Superman’s Greatest Feats” from Superman #146 (July 1941)

100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-14: BATMAN Mar. 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special features: • “A Look Through the Super Spectacles” 2-page column; “This Issue’s Cover Features” text page Reprints: • Batman in “[Menace of the Monk]” from Detective Comics #31 (Sept. 1939) • Batman in “[Showdown with the Monk]” from Detective Comics #32 (Oct. 1939) • The Atom in “Battle of the Tiny Titans” from Showcase #34 (Sept.–Oct. 1961) • Blackhawk in “The Treasure of Ghanpat” from Blackhawk #10 (Spring 1946) • Wonder Woman in “[The Invisible Ray]” from Sensation Comics #6 (June 1942) • Doll Man in “Guardians Against Crime” from Doll Man #31 (Dec. 1950) • Wildcat in “Introducing Stretch Skinner” from Sensation Comics #4 (Apr. 1942) • Batman in “The Batmobile of 1950” from Detective Comics #156 (Feb. 1950) 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-15 Mar. 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy (wraparound) Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special features: • Key to DC’s Young Heroes (identifying characters on wraparound cover) Reprints: • Superboy in “The Boy Who Was Stronger Than Superboy” from Adventure Comics #273 (June 1960) • Boy Commandos in “[Nostradamus Predicts]” from Detective Comics #65 (July 1942) • Superboy in “The Boy of the Year Contest” from Superboy #57 (June 1957) • Aquaman in “The Menace of Aqualad!” from Adventure Comics #270 (Mar. 1960)

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Hawk and Dove in “Twice Burned” from The Hawk and the Dove #3 (Dec. 1968– Jan. 1969) Superboy in “The Trial of Superboy” from Superboy #63 (Mar. 1958) Sandman in “A Drama in Dreams” from Adventure Comics #81 (Dec. 1942) Dial H for Hero in “Villain with the Doomsday Stare” from House of Mystery #164 (Jan. 1967) Superboy in “Superbaby’s Search for a Pet” from Superboy #130 (June 1966)

100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-16: SGT. ROCK Apr. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Editor: Joe Kubert Reprints: • Sgt. Rock in “Make Me a Hero” from Our Army at War #136 (Nov. 1963) • Capt. Storm in “Killer Hunt” from Capt. Storm #1 (May–June 1964) • Johnny Cloud in “The Flying Chief” from All-American Men of War #82 (Nov.– Dec. 1960) • Mlle. Marie in “Battle Doll” from Star Spangled War Stories #84 (Aug. 1959) • Gunner and Sarge in “Gunner’s Choice” from Our Fighting Forces #46 (June 1959) • Haunted Tank in “Haunted Tank vs. Ghost Tank” from G.I. Combat #88 (June–July 1961) 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-17: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA June 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy Back cover: Cover gallery featuring Justice League of America #23 and 43 and All-Star Comics #37 Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special feature: • “A Look Through the Super Spectacles” lettercol Reprints: • Justice League of America in “Drones of the Queen Bee!” from Justice League of America #23 (Nov. 1963) • Justice Society of America in “The Injustice Society of the World!” from All-Star Comics #37 (Oct.–Nov. 1947); 7 chapters (JSA, Hawkman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, and JSA) • Sandman in “[The Magnesium Formula]” from Adventure Comics #65 (Aug. 1941) • Justice League of America in “The Card Crimes of the Royal Flush Gang!” from Justice League of America #43 (Mar. 1966)

100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-18: SUPERMAN July 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy Back cover: Cover gallery featuring Superman #23 and 162, The Atom #8, and Crack Comics #42 Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special feature: • “A Look Through the Super Spectacles” lettercol Reprints: • Superman in “I Sustain the Wings” from Superman #25 (Nov.– Dec. 1943) • The Golden Age Atom in “Murder on a Star” from Flash Comics #90 (Dec. 1947) • The Atom in “Lockup in the Lethal Lightbulb!” from The Atom #8 (Aug.–Sept. 1963) • Superman in “Superboy’s Last Day in Smallville!” from Superman #97 (May 1955) • T.N.T. and Dan the Dyna-Mite in “The Crime Clown” from World’s Finest Comics #5 (Spring 1942) • Hourman in “[Dr. Togg’s Gombezis]” from Adventure Comics #57 (Dec. 1940) • Captain Triumph in “[All That Glitters is Not Gold]” from Crack Comics #42 (May 1946) • Superman in “The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and SupermanBlue!” from Superman #162 (July 1963) 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-19: TARZAN Aug. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Back cover: Tarzan pinup by Russ Manning Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Tarzan in “Tarzan and the Elephants’ Guardian” from Tarzan newspaper strip • Tarzan in “Tarzan and the Prisoners in Opar” from Tarzan newspaper strip • Tarzan in “How I Met Tarzan” from Tarzan newspaper strip • Tarzan in “Tarzan in Tembo-Haven” from Tarzan newspaper strip 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR #DC-20: BATMAN Sept. 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy Back cover: Cover gallery featuring Detective Comics #66, 68, and 80, and Blackhawk #13 Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Batman in “The Crimes of TwoFace!” from Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942) • Batman in “The Man Who Led a Double Life” from Detective Comics #68 (Oct. 1942) • Dr. Mid-Nite in “[The Tarantula]” from All-American Comics #88 (Aug. 1947)

TM & © DC Comics, except Tarzan © ERB.

DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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All art, characters, and logos TM & © DC Comics.

Many DC Comics characters and titles didn’t make the cut for their own 100-Page Super Spectaculars. But here in BACK ISSUE land, we can don our Bronzecolored glasses and play make-believe. So enjoy these fantasy Super Specs—their covers written and art-directed by yours truly and ably designed by the always-accommodating, Photoshopperific Rich Fowlks—headlined by some snubbed members of the DC Line of Super-Stars.

32 • BACK ISSUE • DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Michael Eury

DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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The Summer of Giants This summer 1970 house ad announced the first two issues of Super DC Giant. TM & © DC Comics.

issues of DC Special to date, and July 1970’s Strange Adventures #225) Beyond its ill-fated attempt to revisit funny animals, DC was also eager to arrive at 12 earlier editions. A definitive answer is elusive. to revisit the Old West genre, as borne out by the back-to-back “Top Guns Beyond Super DC Giant’s funny numbering was its funny dating. of the West” and “Western Comics” in issues #S-14 and S-15 (both of which Despite practically weekly releases in the first two months, it had the went on sale one month after the All-Star Western title was revived). Along appearance of a bimonthly book. The first five issues were dated with a follow-up “Top Guns” issue in December (#S-22), the collections Sept.–Oct. 1970, with the latter month appearing on the cover to managed to reintroduce all of DC’s major 1950s Western heroes to a encourage dealers not to remove it from racks until them. The indicia modern audience, along with (in issue #S-22) latecomer Bat Lash. merely said the series was “published eight times a year,” which was “The following story was first published just over 3 years ago,” actually true since the ninth and tenth issues, although on sale in editor Dick Giordano explained in a preface to the acclaimed Nick November and December, bore 1971 cover dates. Cardy-illustrated Bat Lash feature. “Normally it would not have found Former Comic Reader editor Mike Tiefenbacher tells BACK ISSUE, its way back into print so soon. But every once in a while a hero is born “I asked Carmine Infantino in 1971: why the funny numbering who is so different, so appealing, that in the interest of good on these things? He said it was because distributors were entertainment, normal procedures should be abandoned. reluctant to put new titles on the rack, and beginning In my opinion such a hero is Bat Lash!” with the higher number confused them into racking The “Western Comics” edition was also distinguished them without thinking about it. Evidently, this was by a new story by writer/artist Gil Kane that featured the reason nearly all the Standard comics after 1949 a prospective series character named John Hawk. or so began with #5, 10, or 101.” The son of a white father and a Native-American True to its evident purpose, the reprint title— mother, he was declared “Half Breed” on the cover with one exception—mostly avoided superheroes and may have been meant for All-Star Western had throughout 1970. DC had revived its Leave It to Binky a similar character not been poised to debut in series in 1967 in an effort to compete with Archie’s Tomahawk two months later. teen humor success but did so on the cheap. Rather The new material in issue #S-16’s “The Best of than commission new stories, they reprinted old the Brave and the Bold”—the lone 1970 superhero ones that had been doctored to update hairstyles issue—came in the form of a rather silly framing mike tiefenbacher and fashions. By 1970, editor Joe Orlando was finally sequence (including a pinup of Batman’s previous running new material, but Super DC Giant #S-13 co-stars) wherein the Caped Crusader tried to select reflected the transition with several remodeled 1950s reprints, some of stories to be reprinted in the issue. (Illustrated by Dick Dillin and Mike which had originally starred other teen characters like Buzzy and Rusty. Esposito, the material was likely written by editor Murray Boltinoff.) Super DC Giant #S-17’s “Love 1970” took a similar approach to A Jack Sparling-illustrated sequence in issue #S-20’s “House of Mystery” the romance stories it reprinted, revising the hairstyle and fashions. special was more ambitious, weaving caretaker Cain into and out of the The “Love 1971” follow-up (#S-21) had an easier time of things, stories being reprinted. Issue #S-23’s “Unexpected” special had no time opening with a new story and closing with a still-fresh Mike Sekowsky/ for such things and ran its 1950s reprints with no modern lead-ins. Dick Giordano-illustrated trilogy from two years earlier. The star of issue #S-24 was unexpected in her own right since she Issue #S-18 and S-19’s funny animals and Jerry Lewis spotlights was part of the G-series that should properly have appeared in her own were comparatively timeless, with only the revision of a 1954 date to book. Two months earlier, Supergirl had been denied her own annual 1970 in one panel of the former. Headlining the Three Mouseketeers, Giant in Adventure Comics #403 to make room for a Legion of Superthat Giant was entirely 1950s reprints (other than a new cover) like Heroes collection that served as cross-promotion for the LSH series’ the recently revived 15-cent title of the same name. In the wake of the return in the simultaneously released Superboy #172. Instead, the Girl Super DC Giant special, the Three Mouseketeers series was promoted of Steel’s spotlight—neatly assembling a four-part 1962–1963 serial to the 25-cent Giant format for its last three issues (#5–7). as one book-length adventure—was deferred to Super DC Giant. 38 • BACK ISSUE • DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

It was followed by two issues that represented last chances for their respective stars. Challengers of the Unknown and Aquaman had each been canceled in 1970, but hope sprang eternal. Issue #S-25’s COTU Giant reprinted late-1950s Jack Kirby material and hoped to catch some of the heat generated by the superstar’s recent move from Marvel to DC. In a clever touch, the book also reprinted a generic text filler from COTU #15 and changed the names of its two characters into members of the Challs. A Bob Browndrawn pinup of the team from 1965—originally a premium sent to fans—also appeared in an actual comic book for the first time. The Ramona Fradon-illustrated Aquaman stories in issue #S-26 were a departure from the more recent Jim Aparo-drawn tales, but the latter series was briefly represented nonetheless. The comic book closed with a two-page prose adventure written by Steve Skeates with spot art by Sal Amendola. Elsewhere, the last reprint closed with a blank strip that was meant to promote the contents of the next issue. But Super DC Giant was canceled and, two weeks later, the bulk of DC titles would sport a 25-cent retail price in a line expansion that would introduce reprints into nearly every comic book. The long-running Giant series hung on for a few months at a 35-cent pricepoint before it, too, came to a close with issue #G-89 (a.k.a. JLA #93). Two weeks after Super DC Giant #S-26 went on sale, a new kind of reprint anthology debuted and its name was 100-Page Super Spectacular.

The fanzine Etcetera #3 (May 1971) reported that issues devoted to House of Mystery, Three Mouseketeers, and Teen Titans were shelved while a Plastic Man spotlight was rerouted to DC Special #15 (itself the final issue). There was a happier fate for “Weird War Tales,” a concept issue that had been announced a year earlier in Newfangles #37 (July 1970). As Paul Levitz explained in 1975’s Weird War Tales #36, the series had begun as two reprint issues that Joe Kubert had provided with new covers and framing sequences. With the material ready to go, DC put a slimmed-down version of the first book on the schedule for July 1971 and green-lighted Weird War Tales as an ongoing Kubertedited bimonthly. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #78 for the full Weird War Tales story.] Eventually, the series was able to transition into new material and ultimately boasted a 12-year, 124-issue run. It was Super DC Giant’s greatest success, but it never appeared under that logo. The series’ name wasn’t quite gone, though. As 68page Giants—now retailing at 50 cents—returned to prominence in 1975, Super DC Giant returned to the schedule with a planned inaugural issue starring the Teen Titans (which was mentioned in Four-Star Spectacular #1). At the last minute, though, the reprint series was renamed DC Super-Stars and the old name returned to limbo … almost. Out of the blue, Super DC Giant #27 popped up on racks in July with an issue devoted to “Strange Flying Saucers Adventures.” Although Julius Schwartz received top billing as editor on the book, associate editor E.

DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Cool Covers Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com), two covers in original art form: (left) Charlie Armentano’s “Love 1971” (#S-21, originally an inventory piece) and (right) Bob Brown and Frank Giacoia’s “The Unexpected” (#S-23). TM & © DC Comics.

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In this era of villain-centric comics and events, the idea of a supervillain-showcase reprint title might sound routine. But when DC Comics released its first collection of Wanted, the World’s Most Dangerous Villains, it was a bit of a risky proposition. Comics readers would only root for the good guy, said traditional wisdom. On the rarest of occasions during comics’ earlier decades, a bad guy might get his own series—Yellow Claw, for example. And surely, the industry watchdog, the Comics Code Authority, would frown upon kids’ lit being littered by lawbreakers. So, in 1970, as the Bronze Age was rising from the ashes of the Silver Age, it might have raised some eyebrows among the stuffed shirts at DC when this “Wanted” concept was selected for issue #8 of DC Special. Mort Weisinger was listed as its editor, but it was probably his associate, E. Nelson Bridwell, who took a deciding hand in gathering the stories that would headline this 64-page Giant. They were safe bets, culled from the files of DC’s heaviest hitters: Lex Luthor and the Joker, teaming to tackle Superman and Batman; five of the Flash’s Rogues’ Gallery (Mirror Master, the Trickster, Capt. Cold, Capt. Boomerang, and the Top), trying to trip up the Fastest Man Alive; renegade hero Sinestro, ringing his way into combat against Green Lantern; and the Shadow-Thief, ruffling Hawkman’s feathers. The comic’s cover design was eye-catching and thematically clever, with its “WANTED” logo in cautionary, red-stenciled lettering, and its parchment paper background with push pin-tacked cover segments evoking an FBI poster any kid might see when accompanying his parents to his local post office. Packaged under a beautiful cover by Murphy Anderson, artist extraordinaire and standardbearer for DC’s house style, DC Special #8 (July–Sept. 1970) tried to trick readers into thinking they were buying a comic about villains—but what we were sold was a comic starring heroes battling villains. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. These were classic stories that made an engaging collection, one that I gleefully revisited lo, these 40-plus years after I bought my original copy at 25 cents. And truth be told, were DC Special #8 issued with the same content but packaged as “Justice League of America: All-Villains Issue,” it probably would’ve lacked the same punch that “Wanted, the World’s Most Dangerous Villains” offered. That punch was sufficient for a return bout. One year later, DC Special #14 (Sept.–Oct. 1971) paroled “Wanted” for a second outing. In the year between issues, a price increase in comics led DC to truncate its Giants from 64 pages to 52. This smaller format now allowed for only three stories, and Bridwell—now the

Running Wild in Central City This Infantino/Anderson pinup from 1964’s Flash 80-Page Giant reappeared in the first “Wanted” edition. TM & © DC Comics.

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Michael Eury

project’s sole editor—returned to the pre-Trinity Big Three (sorry, Wonder Woman) of Superman, Batman, and the Flash, fighting the Toyman, the Penguin, and the Heat Wave/Capt. Cold team, respectively.

THE BAD GUYS BREAK OUT As noted in the 100-Page Super Spectaculars article, DC Comics sliced its page count from 48 to 32 pages and its cover price from 25 to 20 cents with its July 1972 cover-dated issues. Premiering that month was the first issue of an ongoing series predicated upon the success of those two DC Specials: Wanted, The World’s Most Dangerous Villains (herewith Wanted)! The editorial powers-that-be of that era are no longer here to recall those days, but Wanted’s editor, E. Nelson Bridwell, enthusiastically told readers of his plans in his “WANTED: Your Letters” lettercol in Wanted #1 (July–Aug. 1972). He shared a lethal laundry list—including a typo of “Hugh” (instead of Hugo) Strange, a goof that no doubt drove DC’s vault-keeper E.N.B. up a wall!—of DC villains which might appear in future issues. But issue #1’s big revelation was the following announcement: “And we’ll soon have some new adventures of our bad guys and gals!” Bridwell also suggested that those new stories might pair off villains against heroes they did not normally encounter, citing the then-current Catwoman appearance in Wonder Woman as the type of story they might see in future Wanteds.

Issue #1, once again sporting a magnificent Murphy Anderson cover, pitted three highly visible DC heroes—Batman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow— against three old foes that might have been new to younger readers—Signalman, Puppet Master, and Clock King. Issue #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1972) once again spotlighted heavy hitters Batman and the Flash, although showing on its cover the Earth-One Batman (yellow oval around his chest insignia) while featuring a Golden Age (Earth-Two) Batman reprint inside. With that issue, Nick Cardy took over from Murphy Anderson as the Wanted cover artist, maintaining that position for the rest of the series’ run. Two changes commenced with Wanted #3 (Nov. 1972): the title was promoted to monthly, and editor Bridwell began to skew more toward Golden Age than Silver Age reprints, with an emphasis on heroes from DC’s B- and C-lists, and in some cases, villains that were virtually unknown to Bronze Age readers. The biggestname villain in issue #3 was recognized only by the most seasoned comics historian: the Dummy, arch-foe of the Vigilante. To call that issue’s other featured felons obscure is an act of kindness: Probably no one at DC other than E.N.B. had ever heard of the Human Fly Gang, the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s adversaries, or Dr. Fate’s foe Nyarl-Amen. Wanted #3’s letters column featured a plea from reader Tim Oswald to switch to new stories and to occasionally feature villains fighting other villains. Bridwell’s issue #1 promise of new stories was softened to a response to DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

Wanted: More Cardy (left) E.N.B.’s lettercol to Wanted #6 included a house ad for the first issue of Secret Origins. (right) Yes, we love Nick Cardy covers here at BI Central! Here’s his original art to Wanted #7’s cover, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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THE INFERIOR 5 #11 Aug.–Sept. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Orlando Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Inferior Five in “The Coming of the Costumed Incompetents” from Showcase #62 (May–June 1966) TM & © DC Comics.

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Michael Eury

TM & © DC Comics.

In the next article, you’ll read that DC trotted out a line of reprint titles in late 1972, reviving some of its dormant series. But during that summer, editor E. Nelson Bridwell tested the reprint market with the launch of Wanted, the World’s Most Dangerous Villains and the revival of a project dear to his heart: The Inferior Five, a feature he co-created in 1966 with artist Joe Orlando. In a 1981 interview in Comics Feature magazine, Bridwell credited the original Inferior Five editor, Jack Miller, with brainstorming a book about inept superheroes in what he called “The Inferior Four,” a name no doubt playing off of the Fantastic Four. Bridwell gave life to the concept by creating its quirky quintet of characters and their backstory as legacy heroes, the offspring of the Freedom Brigade. (Instead of further describing the concept, I’ll leave that to Bridwell himself, via the text page reproduced here, from I5 #12.) Bridwell admitted in the lettercol of Wanted #1 to being “particularly pleased” by the revival of The Inferior Five, noting that it was picking up on the original title’s numbering. The first issue (#11) went on sale June 29, 1972, re-presenting the team’s first adventure, from Showcase #62. Issue #12 followed on August 24, 1972, reprinting the team’s second outing, from Showcase #63, where the I5 tangled with takeoffs of Marvel’s Avengers. Joe Orlando returned to the drawing board for new covers for both reprint issues, and a new logo was unveiled. The series’ title itself was slightly altered: These two issues were branded The Inferior 5, whereas the original series was The Inferior Five for its ten-issue run. Bridwell hoped for a continuation—with new stories— at the end of I5 #12’s text page, indicating, in the series’ playfully self-deprecating tone, “If that should ever happen—ridiculous though it may seem—I promise to write like I’ve never written before—good!” Weak sales didn’t give Bridwell that chance, but the Inferior Five has managed pop-ups in random DC books over the decades, most notably in Grant Morrison’s Animal Man #25 in 1990, in Phil Foglio’s 1991 Angel and the Ape miniseries (appropriately so, since Bridwell also co-created that concept), and in a team-up with the Legion of Substitute Heroes in 2010’s The Brave and the Bold #35. While it’s unlikely such a wacky concept will resurface in the New 52, we encourage our friends at DC to add a Showcase Presents: The Inferior Five volume to its collectededitions list. Comic readers could use a good laugh!

THE INFERIOR 5 #12 Oct.–Nov. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Orlando Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Special feature: “Meet the … Heroes?” text page Reprints: • Inferior Five in “Conquer Man-Mountain—Because He’s There” from Showcase #63 (July–Aug. 1966)

Jim Kingman

In 1972, National Periodical Publications (DC), now DC Entertainment, had genuine reasons for concern, and not just due to the loss of its long-standing status as the #1 comic-book company in the country. That happened in January when it was announced that Marvel Comics had surpassed DC in sales. Other discouraging factors weighing on the company: DC’s price increase of its books from 15 cents for 36 pages (approximately 22 pages of new material plus ads) to 25 cents for 52 pages (22 to 26 pages of new material plus 12 to 14 pages of reprints) had failed after 11 months (June 1971–Apr. 1972). (In May, DC returned its comics to the standard-sized format, now at 20 cents for 24 pages of new material.) Also, throughout 1972 and 1973, DC’s superhero line suffered a setback in publishing frequency, as many monthly and eight-times-a-year titles dropped to bimonthly status because sales of most comic books were in decline. These books included previously A-list titles: Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, Batman, The Flash, Justice League of America, and World’s Finest Comics. Finally, the critically acclaimed Green Lantern (co-starring Green Arrow) and two of Jack Kirby’s much-publicized Fourth World entries, New Gods and Forever People, were canceled. There were some bright spots, however, shining through the dimming. The Superman family of books remained solid sellers, and sales of DC’s mystery line had escalated, resulting in that genre’s books shifting from bimonthly to monthly status. Still, given DC’s drop in popularity and sales, it didn’t seem the time to be introducing a wide range of additional books, all of them reprints and almost all of them hitting the newsstands and comics spinner racks at once. Yet that’s exactly what DC did at the end of 1972. Jeff Rovin, who edited half of the reprint line’s eight titles when they debuted in December 1972, tells BACK ISSUE, “In 1972, before the direct market, there was a real battle for rack space to display comics. There were a finite number of slots. Marvel was publishing more titles and DC chief Carmine Infantino had to do the same or risk being squeezed out. The cost of doing all-new titles was jeff rovin prohibitive; reprints were the solution.” Two other reprint books, Secret Origins and DC Courtesy of Comic Book Artist. 100-Page Super Spectacular, were placed on the December schedule. Also that month, two new books were introduced, Shazam! and Sword of Sorcery, making December 1972 one of the most productive months DC had seen in years. Three of the books, Challengers of the Unknown, Doom Patrol, and Metal Men, contained reprints of those eclectic Silver Age teams, well loved by their fans, certainly, but certainly not A-listers. Johnny Thunder, the first Western reprint to debut, was of a genre long past its prime. The first war book, Four-Star Battle Tales, had potential, as DC’s war books still had some clout. The only likely success was Legion of Super-Heroes, as the super-teen team of the 30th Century was undergoing a creative resurgence in Superboy thanks to writer Cary Bates and artist Dave Cockrum. Given the loosening of Comics Code Authority regulations, however, which gave a thrilling edge to the mystery line that it sorely needed, the reprints appeared dated, of a bygone past only a decade removed. As if to add insult to injury, one had to spend eight cents more for a story that had cost 12 cents ten years before.

Something Borrowed, Something New Nick Cardy’s original cover art to Legion of Super-Heroes #1, one of a handful of new covers commissioned for DC’s reprint line. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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JOHNNY THUNDER #3 July–Aug. 1973 Cover artist: Alex Toth Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Johnny Thunder in “The Real Johnny Thunder” from All-American Western #122 (Oct.–Nov. 1951) • The Nighthawk in “Secret of the Outlaw Timepiece!” from Western Comics #75 (May–June 1959) • Johnny Thunder in “Battle For Mesa City!” from All-Star Western #71 (June–July 1953)

Reprints: • Metal Men in “The Headless Robots!” from Metal Men #14 (June–July 1965)

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1 Feb. 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy Editor: Jeffrey Rovin Reprints: • Legion of Super-Heroes in “The Lad Who Wrecked the Legion!” from Adventure Comics #328 (Jan. 1965) • Tommy Tomorrow in “The Riddle of the Space Rainbow” from Action Comics #232 (Sept. 1957)

G.I. WAR TALES #1 Mar.–Apr. 1973 Cover artists: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito Editor: Jeffrey Rovin Reprints: • The War That Time Forgot in “Guinea Pig Patrol!” from Star Spangled War Stories #95 (Feb.–Mar. 1961) • “One-Man Road Block!” from Star Spangled War Stories #23 (July 1954) • “Stragglers Never Come Back!” from Star Spangled War Stories #100 (Dec. 1961–Jan. 1962)

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #2 Mar. 1973 Cover artist: Nick Cardy Editor: Jeffrey Rovin Reprints: • Legion of Super-Heroes in “The War Between Krypton and Earth!” from Adventure Comics #333 (June 1965) • Tommy Tomorrow in “The Toys That Stopped Space Crime” from Action Comics #239 (Apr. 1958) LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #3 Apr.–May 1973 Cover artists: Curt Swan and George Klein Editor: Jeffrey Rovin Reprints: • Legion of Super-Heroes in “Computo the Conqueror!” from Adventure Comics #340 (Jan. 1966) • Tommy Tomorrow in “The Trial of Tommy Tomorrow!” from Action Comics #240 (May 1958) LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #4 July–Aug. 1973 Cover artists: Curt Swan and Sheldon Moldoff Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Legion of Super-Heroes in “Colossal Boy’s One-Man War!” from Adventure Comics #341 (Feb. 1966) • Tommy Tomorrow in “The Forbidden Robots” from Action Comics #223 (Oct. 1957) METAL MEN #42 Feb.–Mar. 1973 Cover artists: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito Editor: Jeffrey Rovin Reprints: • Metal Men in “The Deathless Doom!” from Showcase #39 (July–Aug. 1962) METAL MEN #43 Apr.–May 1973 Cover artists: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito Editor: Jeffrey Rovin

METAL MEN #44 July–Aug. 1973 Cover artist: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito Editor: Allan Asherman Reprints: • Metal Men in “Rain of the Missile Men!” from Metal Men #1 (Apr.–May 1963)

G.I. WAR TALES #2 June–July 1973 Cover artist: Russ Heath Editor: Joe Kubert Reprints: • The War That Time Forgot in “The Killing Ground!” from Star Spangled War Stories #134 (Sept. 1967) • “Suicide Volunteer” from G.I. Combat #133 (Dec. 1968–Jan. 1969) G.I. WAR TALES #3 Aug.–Sept. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Editor: Joe Kubert Reprints: • “Split-Second Target” from AllAmerican Men of War #55 (Mar. 1958) • “The G.I. Who Replaced Himself!” from All-American Men of War #38 (Oct. 1956) • “The Last Wave!” from All-American Men of War #47 (July 1957) G.I. WAR TALES #4 Oct.–Nov. 1973 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Editor: Joe Kubert Reprints: • “Four-Legged Tank!” from Star Spangled War Stories #36 (Aug. 1955) • “Soldiers of the High Wire” from Our Army at War #10 (May 1953) • “Medal For A Marine!” from Star Spangled War Stories #78 (Feb. 1959) TRIGGER TWINS #1 Mar.–Apr. 1973 Cover artists: Gil Kane and Joe Giella Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Trigger Twins in “Code of the Trigger Twins!” from All-Star Western #94 (Apr.–May 1957) • Pow-Wow Smith in “The Bandit and the Bracelet!” from Western Comics #81 (May–June 1960) • Trigger Twins in “The Unknown Hero of Rocky City!” from All-Star Western #103 (Oct.–Nov. 1958)

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BOY COMMANDOS #1 Sept.–Oct. 1973 Cover artists: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Boy Commandos in “The Sphinx Speaks” from Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942) • Boy Commandos in “Heroes Never Die” from Boy Commandos #1 (Winter 1942–1943) BOY COMMANDOS #2 Nov.–Dec. 1973 Cover artists: Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando Editor: E. Nelson Bridwell Reprints: • Boy Commandos in “Nine Lives for Victory” from Boy Commandos #2 (Spring 1943) • Boy Commandos in “News from Belgium” from Boy Commandos #6 (Spring 1944) BLACK MAGIC #1 Oct.–Nov. 1973 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Creig Flessel Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “Maniac!” from Black Magic vol. 5 #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1954) • “The Head of the Family!” from Black Magic vol. 4 #6 (May– June 1954) • “The Greatest Horror of Them All!” from Black Magic vol. 4 #5 (Mar.–Apr. 1954) BLACK MAGIC #2 Dec. 1973–Jan. 1974 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Creig Flessel Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “Fool’s Paradise!” from Black Magic vol. 4 #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1953) • “The Cat People” from Black Magic vol. 4 #3 (Nov.–Dec. 1953) • “Birth After Death” from Black Magic vol. 3 #2 (Jan. 1953) • “Those Who Are About to Die!” from Black Magic vol. 3 #5 (Apr. 1953) BLACK MAGIC #3 Apr.–May 1974 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Creig Flessel Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “Nasty Little Man!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #12 (Nov. 1952) • “The Angel of Death!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #9 (Aug. 1952) • “The Courts of Sleep!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #8 (July 1952) BLACK MAGIC #4 June–July 1974 Cover artists: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “The Girl the Earth Ate Up!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #6 (Aug.–Sept. 1951) • “His Father’s Footsteps!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #1 (Oct.– Nov. 1950)

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“Last Second of Life!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #1 (Oct.–Nov. 1950)

BLACK MAGIC #5 Aug.–Sept. 1974 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Creig Flessel Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “Strange Old Bird!” from Black Magic vol. 4 #1 (June–July 1953) • “It’s Your Funeral!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #6 (May 1952) • “Up There!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #7 (June 1952) BLACK MAGIC #6 Oct.–Nov. 1974 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Bill Draut Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “The Thirteenth Floor” from Black Magic vol. 2 #5 (Apr. 1952) • “Satan’s Sister!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #3 (Feb.–Mar. 1951) • “The Girl Who Walked on Water!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #5 (Apr. 1952) BLACK MAGIC #7 Dec. 1974–Jan. 1975 Cover artists: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “The Cloak!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #2 (Dec. 1950–Jan. 1951) • “The Mary Celeste: Ship of Evil!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #11 (Oct. 1952) • “Freak!” from Black Magic vol. 2 #11 Oct. 1952 • “The Boy Who Was 2000 Years Old” from Black Magic vol. 2 #11 (Oct. 1952) BLACK MAGIC #8 Feb.–Mar. 1975 Cover artist: Jerry Grandenetti Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “When You Were Alive!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #1 (Oct.– Nov. 1950) • “The Girl in the Grave!” from Strange World of Your Dreams vol. 1 #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1952) • “My Dolly is the Devil!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #1 (Oct.– Nov. 1950) • “Send Us Your Dreams!” from Strange World of Your Dreams vol. 1 #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1952) BLACK MAGIC #9 Apr.–May 1975 Cover artists: Jerry Grandenetti and Creig Flessel Editor: Joe Simon Reprints: • “Yesterday You Died!” from Black Magic vol. 1 #2 (Dec. 1950– Jan. 1951) • “Who Walks In My Dream?” from Black Magic vol. 1 #5 (June–July 1951) • “The Woman In The Tower!” from Strange World of My Dreams vol. 1 #3 (Nov.–Dec. 1952)

Michael Eury

What started in 1961 as a “Special Giant Issue” ultimately became a tried-and-true DC Comics brand. Secret Origins #1 was DC’s fourth 80-Page Giant, preceded by three Superman Annuals (which were released biannually, by the way) and quickly followed by the first Batman Annual. Its ninepanel-grid cover foreshadowed The Hollywood Squares’ set and The Brady Bunch’s title credits, with the blurb “By Popular Demand! A SuperCollection of the Most SoughtAfter Stories Ever Published!” occupying the center spot where Paul Lynde or Ann B. Davis would later be found on TV. Co-edited by Julius Schwartz and Jack Schiff, it trotted out reprints starring DC’s Silver Age headliners—even the Challengers of the Unknown. The rest of DC’s A- and B+-list was rounded up for a sequel, More Secret Origins, which followed a few years later, published as 80Page Giant (Magazine) #8 (Mar. 1965). And a tradition began … yet one whose next phase would be eight years in coming. Editor E. Nelson Bridwell appropriated the aforementioned blurb to top-mount the Secret Origins logo when DC’s quest for shelf-display dominance green-lighted a bimonthly Secret Origins series, hitting newsstands just before Christmas of 1972 with a Feb.–Mar. 1973 cover-dated first issue. A subtitle (appearing on the cover but not the indicia inside) promised that this comic would chronicle the origin tales “of Super-Heroes and Super-Villains,” and the first issue delivered just that: Joining the three most popular Justice Leaguers—Superman, Batman, and the Flash—was “[the Golden Age] Hawkman’s first battle with the Ghost!” Issue #1’s cover, pulsating at the reader with its vivid primary colors bouncing off a bright white background, featured artist Nick Cardy at his best, delivering a multi-character display that afforded each hero equal stature (Cardy would go on to illustrate the covers for each of Secret Origins’ seven issues). A wash technique employed on the first-issue cover faded the heroes’ and villain’s

May the Source Be with You The Duke of Data, E.N.B., credited reprints’ original sources, either in text pages or, as shown here, on title pages. The Atom’s origin, as re-presented in Secret Origins #2. (inset) The first issue of Secret Origins. Cover by Nick Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

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They were bigger. They were better. They were historical. They were sometimes themed. They reintroduced classic stories and characters. They also rolled out new material. They were profitable. And they could be had for substantially less than a dollar. They were reprint Giants and their popularity grew and grew. The reprint Giant at DC can trace its beginnings back to 1960 with the 80-Page Giants. Since there was a substantial history to draw from and eBay and the back-issue bin had yet to be devised, the Giant was a way to provide readers with classic material that would be otherwise unavailable or perhaps even unknown. It wasn’t long before it was realized they were onto a good thing and the concept only gained traction from there.

DC SPECIAL DC Special was one of the first and was kicked off with the “AllInfantino Issue,” published at the end of 1968 and featuring a sampling of some of Carmine Infantino’s best efforts, from Batman to the Flash and Adam Strange to Carmine’s purported favorite, Detective Chimp, all in one neat package for a quarter. The themed issues continued with offerings such as “All-Teen,” “All-Girl,” and another featured artist with issue #5’s “The Secret Lives of Joe Kubert.” Included in the mix was a reprint edition dedicated to mystery stories (issue #4), and of particular note in that issue is the inclusion of a story by Jack Kirby titled “The Magic Hammer,” reprinted from Tales of the Unexpected from the 1950s. While the setting is the Old West, a mighty familiar-looking leather-strapped hammer is discovered and it’s later claimed by Thor, who explains that it had been stolen by Loki. As a matter of fact, this is not the first appearance of a Kirby-drawn Thor for DC, as “The Villain from Valhalla,” found in a Sandman story in Adventure Comics #75 from 1942 will attest. As you can see, “Ol’ Goldilocks” has a history prior to his debut in Marvel’s Journey into Mystery #83. DC Special continued on as a series until 1977 and issue #29, though there was a break in the action between issue #15 at the end of 1971 and issue #16 from 1975. Themes bounced around between a particular character like the Viking Prince, Plastic Man, or Green Lantern to collected similar stories like “Strangest Sports Stories Ever Told”; “Wanted, the World’s Most Dangerous Villains”; and “Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers.” Before DC Special faded, however, other reprint Giants were launched, some with runs longer than others, but still carrying on the tradition.

FOUR STAR SPECTACULAR On December 11, 1975, the short-lived Four Star Spectacular hit the newsstands and spinner racks. Edited by E. Nelson Bridwell and featuring four stories showcasing four different heroes, the title mined tales as far back as the Golden Age and had two consistent headliners in Superboy and Wonder Woman with the other two heroes as “guest stars,” as explained by Bridwell in the first issue’s lettercol, “Four Thought.” Of special interest in issue #1 (Mar.–Apr. 1976) is the Golden Age Flash tale. As explained at the top of the splash page, “This story originally appeared in ALL-FLASH COMICS in 1944—but the art of the original version was too far below modern standards to reprint the tale as it was! So we had a young artist, Edgar Bercasio, re-do the

Returning to Orbit “Super-Stars of Space” became a popular series-within-aseries with the reprint Giant DC Super-Stars. Ernie Chua’s original cover art to issue #6 is courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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Bryan D. Stroud

art using the original story and dialogue. That’s how we’ve brought you this old/new adventure of the Golden Age Flash.” Edgar Bercasio was part of Nestor Redondo’s studio when he received this very unusual assignment, and he was kind enough to share his memories of how it came about: “The script for the Golden Age Flash story was given to me by Nestor Redondo before Christmas of 1975. I was one of ten artists at the Nestor Redondo Art Studio in Valenzuela, Bulacan, a suburb of Manila. He chose me to illustrate the script, which was sent to him by DC Comics. Our group had just concluded a painting tour when he approached me for this assignment. “We exchanged ideas about Flash and his movements. He expressed full confidence in my ability to interpret the character. I was excited to start right away and regarded the assignment as a great opportunity. Nestor Redondo gave broad suggestions, but left a lot of room for me to visualize and interpret the script. I used my imagination for

the most part and recreated every scene of the story in my mind. Mr. Redondo asked me to sketch the Flash in motion and made suggestions and improvements. “I finished the 13 pages (layout, penciling, inking) before the four-week deadline. When I handed the finished artwork in, Mr. Redondo was so impressed that he sent the finished product to DC Comics right away. “Shortly after its publication, Nestor Redondo was sponsored into the US by Marvel Comics Group. I stayed in the Philippines and joined Atlas Publishing. [The] Flash [story] helped me get steady work. I illustrated series, short stories, and novels. Nestor Redondo’s older brother, Virgilio, was an established script writer and illustrator, and he was working for another publishing company known as GASI (Graphic Arts Service, Incorporated). On the strength of Flash, he hired me to illustrate his new novel called ‘Rax Aceron.’ ” Following this auspicious debut of Four Star Spectacular, issue #2 appeared with fewer pages and one less story, though the third tale was a team-up, so both heroes were featured as the other two guest stars. Editor Bridwell offered an explanation in the lettercol about the abrupt drop from 64 to 48 pages as a business decision: “A funny thing happened to this magazine on the way to the newsstand. It shrunk. Those of you who read the text feature in the last issue will recall that I gave a rundown of features for this issue. At the time, I had a Green Lantern tale and a Blackhawk story on tap. But, costs being what they are, the number of pages available for the magazine had to be cut, necessitating a change to the lineup inside—if we were to keep four stars in it. Result—the substitution of Kid Flash and the Elongated Man for GL and Blackhawk.” This technique was continued for a couple of more issues, using a team-up story to provide the requisite four stars, even though the book contained three stories, but toward the end, shorter tales were found, bringing the count back up to four. By then, however, the writing was on the wall and in the sixth and final issue, Nelson Bridwell bids farewell in the lettercol, but notes that there will be other reprint series, probably referring to DC Super-Stars. He also points out a fascinating addition to final issue #6, which, as usual, features a Wonder Woman reprint, this time from the Kanigher/ Andru/Esposito era, but there is also a three-page filler from 1943

Joe Kubert Was Something Special! (top) The Kubert clan, circa 1969, from DC Special #5. (bottom right) Original art to the title page of the Viking Prince issue, DC Special #12, and (bottom left) a story splash from the same issue, both courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

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1973). Battle Classics #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1978) reprinted “Suicide from 1950s issues of All-Star Western. The first issue would have reprinted Mission” by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, the first team-up Bat Lash’s first appearance by Sergio Aragonés and Nick Cardy from between DC’s World War II heroes, Sgt. Rock, Lt. Cloud, and Jeb Showcase #76 (Aug. 1968), and “The Silent Gun” by Robert Kanigher Stuart and the Haunted Tank (with Mlle. Marie), from The Brave and and Gil Kane, from All-Star Western #105 (Mar. 1959). the Bold #52 (Feb.–Mar. 1964). As Burkett soon realized, reprinting the company’s older material Cary Burkett was the editor on both books, but as he explains to did pose one problem, and it is something that he indicates he would BACK ISSUE, the material had been chosen for these titles before he have been more careful about had the line continued. “I recall a came onboard. “I was to be the editor after they launched,” says lesson I learned as a fledgling editor,” says Burkett. “Joe Kubert’s stories Burkett, “but the material for the initial issues was chosen by Joe were being reprinted in Battle Classics, but there was a difference in Orlando and Paul Levitz. Actually, Paul probably made all the size between the pages of the old stories and the current comics. decisions on that.” Reprint comics often made up for that by putting a little ‘DC While the first issue of Dynamic Classics featured Batman in the COMICS’ banner across the top of the page. I thought the banner lead story, the second issue would have begun reprinting stories from looked bad, and I thought maybe it could be eliminated by extending the Phantom Stranger series that had begun in 1969. “At that point the art just a bit at the top and bottom of the pages. The width, there was a variety of great DC material that was five/ten years old I think, was not a problem.” As Burkett found out, his decision did not and still very much in the style that was contemporary then,” says sit well with the legendary artist. “Anyway, it was not a good idea as Paul Levitz. “So I probably picked some of my favorites from that Joe Kubert let me know, in relatively polite fashion. He didn’t want his range.” While the Phantom Stranger would have replaced the Dark art extended, and I saw his point immediately. He would have drawn Knight, the plan was to run the entire Manhunter feature as the it and framed it differently if he had had that extra space. This didn’t book’s backup feature until it reached its completion. “I don’t know represent him at his best. So, I think future issues would have been specifically why the Manhunter series was chosen [for Dynamic printed with the banner if they had continued.” Classics], other than that most fans felt it was a high-quality As to those future issues that Burkett mentions, there are series that deserved have a wider exposure,” adds Burkett. some hints on what could have come next, such as the Had Battle Classics gone on, it would have continued “Kryptonite Nevermore” story and the Enemy Ace stories, featuring Sgt. Rock, as evidenced by the cover for the but nothing solid. “Bat Lash and Manhunter certainly book’s second issue that features new artwork by Joe sound like my kind of picks,” says Levitz. “Regarding Kubert, and also by the enthusiastic plug given for long-term plans for the books: I rarely made longthe character by Barr in the Dynamic Classics editorial: term plans for reprint projects, unless it was starting “Battle Classics is likely to represent anything from a natural sequence, like Manhunter.” DC’s many years of top-quality war magazines, but Perhaps the best clue we can get as to what will surely not neglect the noncom most generals this line could have been is DC’s next big effort at wish they were, Sgt. Rock.” Even though the book marketing reprint material: The Best of DC and DC would have been Easy Company-heavy, there were Special Blue Ribbon Digest books. Where the Classics plans to eventually work other war features in as line died way to soon, DC’s digest reprints struck well. “Battle Classics would have [had] some of the pure gold. When asked about the digest books, and paul levitz superior war stories,” says Burkett. “I would have if they were an attempt to see the Classics line’s gone to Enemy Ace fairly soon.” original mission carried through to fruition, Levitz Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. The other two books in the Classics line never made it past their indicates it was merely seen as an effort to branch out into new markets. initial announcements and having their covers appear in a few DC “[It was] an attempt to capitalize on the success Western and Archie house ads. Sadly, the cover for first issue of Demand Classics was partially had with their digest lines, which were distributed differently than obscured in the ads it appeared in, which is a real shame. The title regular-format comics.” [Editor’s note: For an index of DC’s digest was going to kick off by reprinting one of the most important stories books and trivia about the line, see BACK ISSUE #76.] of the Silver Age, “Flash of Two Worlds” by Gardner Fox, Carmine Still, for this comic-book fan, and many others, I’m sure, the Infantino, and Joe Giella, and the cover was a wonderful reinterpretation digest books did fill the need that the Classics line could have. At last, by artists Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin of the iconic cover of The we got the chance to read the stories that mattered, and we did Flash #123 (Sept. 1961). “I recall that Demand Classics was to focus so without paying an arm and a leg. And for on comics that had some kind of ‘historical impact’ on the DC a young comics collector like myself back Universe,” says Burkett. “ ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ certainly fit that bill, in the day, I really couldn’t have asked for since it was the comic that introduced the whole idea of Earth-Two anything more. and led eventually to the annual JLA/JSA team-ups. I think the DAN JOHNSON is a comics writer who is currently Superman story which got rid of kryptonite, at least for a time, was writing and creating features for the new line of one that was considered.” In the pipeline before the Superman Charlton Comics and is also their Chief Executive “Kryptonite Nevermore” story, however, was the “Death of Ferro Lad” Assistant Editor. His other notable comics work Legion of Super-Heroes serial from Adventure Comics, by Jim Shooter, includes Herc and Thor for Antarctic Press and several Curt Swan, and George Klein, planned to begin in the second issue books for Campfire Graphic Novels. He is also a gag writer for the Dennis the Menace comic strip and a of Demand Classics. The final book in this lineup, Western Classics, would have featured contributing author to the short story anthology, the Bat Lash stories of the late 1960s and the Johnny Thunder feature With Great Power. DYNAMIC CLASSICS #1 Sept.–Oct. 1978 Cover artist: Dick Giordano Editor: Cary Burkett Special feature: • Manhunter 1-page pinup by Walter Simonson Reprints: • Batman in “The Secret of the Waiting Graves” from Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970) • Manhunter in “The Himalayan Incident” from Detective Comics #437 (Oct.–Nov. 1973) TM & © DC Comics.

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BATTLE CLASSICS #1 Sept.–Oct. 1978 Cover artist: Joe Kubert Editor: Cary Burkett Special feature: • “Secret Army Files Profile on Johnny Cloud” 1-page filler Reprints: • Sgt. Rock, Lt. Cloud, and Jeb Stuart and the Haunted Tank (guest-starring Mlle. Marie) from The Brave and the Bold #52 (Feb.–Mar. 1964)

I was in the third grade when I read my first DC Comics “collected edition”—Signet’s 1966 Batman paperback, reprinting in black and white a handful of Golden Age adventures of the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder. My much-loved, dog-eared copy, along with a few 80-Page Giants from DC’s go-go checks era, introduced me to the earlier adventures of the Dynamic Duo to whom I was devoted, two nights a week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Paperback reprints of comics—from MAD Magazine collections, to popular comic strips like Peanuts, to comic-book superheroes—were the rage in the swinging ’60s, but outside of Jules Feiffer’s seminal collection The Great Comic Book Heroes, first published in hardcover in 1965, superhero reprints were mostly relegated to inexpensive, pulp-paper formats. As comic books’ content matured in the ’70s, so did the presentation of the stories harvested from their vaults. National Periodical Publications (DC Comics), partially motivated by the increased visibility afforded their characters through television, brokered deals with major book publishers to distribute reprint volumes, in both hardcover and softcover formats, into the traditional book market.

WORLD’S FINEST COLLECTIONS

Michael Eury

The first one of these I read as a young fan was Bonanza Books’ (a division of Crown Publishers, Inc.) hardcover Batman from the Thirties to the Seventies, a meaty tome of nearly 400 pages packed with Batman reprints spanning those four decades, reproduced mostly in black and white with a smattering of color pages. Its cover repurposed a pose of the Dynamic Duo rendered by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, originally produced as a pinup in DC titles during the Bat-craze of the mid-’60s. With its entrancing purple-orange background and electric-yellow title lettering shrieking at the potential customer, no self-respecting Batman fan could ignore this book. A bonus of the book was its introduction by DC historian extraordinaire E. Nelson Bridwell; here is where I first learned fascinating trivia such as Batman and Robin’s appearances on the Superman radio series, the revelation that Bill Finger was the principal Golden Age Batman scribe, and that actor Conrad Veidt in the film The Man Who Laughs influenced the look of the Joker. That information may be considered common knowledge by the BACK ISSUE reader of today, but in the early ’70s these were mindblowing discoveries to Bronze Age babies. Bridwell also wrote the introduction to this book’s companion volume, Superman from the Thirties to the Seventies, which, like the Batman book, first saw print in 1971. E.N.B.’s Superman intro was another treasure trove of trivia, from which I learned about Superman’s roots as a figure of emancipation during the Great Depression, other supermen (including Philip Wylie’s Gladiator) that predated the Man of Steel, George Lowther’s 1942 Superman novel, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane’s brief marriage in the 1950s’ Superman newspaper strip (long before Bobby Ewing stepped out of a Dallas shower, Mr. and Mrs. Kent’s union was erased from continuity as a dream). What I did not learn from Bridwell’s introduction, however, was that Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. When Superman from the Thirties to the Seventies was in production, Siegel and Shuster were suing DC over the ownership of Superman, and Bridwell was directed to omit referencing their names in his text. E.N.B.’s fingerprints are clearly visible on both DC books, but he did not edit this dynamic duo. That distinction fell to Linda Sunshine,

DC’s First Collected Edition Cover to the ultra-rare, “squishy” hardcover edition of The Great Superman Comic Book Collection. Art by José Luis García-López and Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

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Michael Eury

interview conducted October 3, 2014 and transcribed by Steven Thompson

MICHAEL EURY: How did this deal with Fireside originate? MICHAEL USLAN: This actually begins with—a little background—my teaching the first-ever accredited course on comic books, which was 19—I think it was ’72. As a result of the worldwide extensive publicity that course got, I received a call from Sol Harrison, vice president of DC Comics, who said to me, “Carmine Infantino and I have been reading about you in newspapers, we’ve been watching you on TV shows. We’ve been listening to you on radio talk shows, and we think you’re a very innovative young man. We’d like to fly you to New York to discuss ways we might be able to work together.” And they did. And that led to my job at DC Comics. There was no word “intern” at that point. They just called us Junior Woodchucks. I started at DC six months after the little scrawny kid, Paul Levitz. [Eury laughs] Whatever happened to him I don’t know. We had the Junior Woodchucks at DC Comics, and then they put me on retainer when I went back to school at Indiana University, so it was a really great situation. Sol became my mentor. He also knew that I was absolutely fascinated with the history of comics and often I would pass up lunch with the boys to sit with Sol and Jack Adler and sometimes Julie Schwartz and, oh … [Robert] Kanigher, [Joe] Kubert, or [Murray] Boltinoff. [Joe] Orlando … whoever it was. I was just soaking up their stories and asking a zillion—probably annoying—questions as I could. But that was me. There were a lot of lunches and I made friends with Gerta Gattel, who was in charge of the archive of the DC library. And knowing my passion for the history, she would often let me go in there and sit in the vault and read volumes of comics so I could eventually say I read every DC comic. That was my world back then. And very much so. Through Sol, I wound up acquiring the [motion picture] rights to Batman in 1979. He introduced me to the man at Warner Books that we negotiated the deal with and, on October 3rd, 1979, I acquired the rights to Batman. And the rest, as they say, is history! But while I was working with Sol, Sol approached me and said, “Michael, I know how you know our entire library. You know all these characters, you know the history, you love all of this. We’ve just signed a new contract with Simon & Schuster. They have a division, Fireside Books,” which, my memory tells me, had already been doing some books with Marvel. EURY: You’re correct. They started with Origins of Marvel Comics in ’74. But it took several years, as you’re aware, before DC signed on with them. USLAN: Right. Well, now they had the contract to start to do trade paperbacks and potentially hardback books with Fireside on DC. So he asked me if I would write, edit, and be the guy to work with the editor at Simon & Schuster who was in charge of it and do the series. And I said, “Absolutely!” He introduced me to someone who—while I haven’t seen her in a number of years—we became fast friends. Linda Sunshine, one of the greatest book editors that you’ll ever want to meet. Linda was the queen of Simon & Schuster. She loved the world of comics. She was involved in doing the Marvel books and her assistant at the time, her aide-de-camp, was Bobbi Jackson. Bobbi is the daughter of Woody Gelman, one of the most important figures in the history of comics fandom and even underground comics. He had a lot to do with the Spirit and Will Eisner. Woody was one of the first fan publishers of a lot of great comic-book and comic-strip material.

Fireside Hardcover Joe Kubert’s spellbinding America at War wraparound cover was printed onto the dustjacket of this rare hardcover edition of the 1979 book. TM & © DC Comics.

EURY: Linda Sunshine also edited those Crown books, the Batman USLAN: Yeah, and it’s a shame because he also had the bestseller and Superman ones in the early ’70s. in the Superman line, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, USLAN: She’s just marvelous. Meeting Linda was a great moment for when that was cracking. G.I. Combat was always near the top of the me in my life. We really worked hand-in-hand. Bobbi Jackson would sales chart for DC, so [Murray] had his group of books and he had help do all of this stuff as well. the touch! He really, truly did. Going in, the overall idea was to do a “Best of DC Comics” series I would sit and talk to Joe Kubert, to Murray, to Bob Kanigher … of books, and I was excited because we would start with these three I was one of the only people I think Kanigher would talk to! [Eury laughs] and I was already planning the “Best of DC Westerns,” and just kind We happened to have a very nice relationship, which was very rare of go through a lot of different genres. They really wanted to put the for Bob with, I think, anybody! Ultimately that was cemented when focus outside the superheroes. So it gave us an opening that he read the introduction I wrote for America at War and felt, even to this day books rarely get. If you look at the entire at last, somebody had given him credit, as opposed to Marvel Masterworks series, you get maybe two volumes just credit going to Kubert and the artists. He was so of Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt, Outlaw and Two-Gun Kid, appreciative of it that he was always willing to talk you know … a lot of these have never even shown with me and share with me, and that was an unusual up! Certainly, in the DC Archives series, it’s the same situation to be in. [with material that has not been reprinted]. You’ve So with input from those guys, and knowing the got all of this beautiful Alex Toth and Carmine books as well as I did, I went into the library to pick Infantino, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, etcetera, though it and try to figure out what to represent. etcetera, great work on their Westerns, which really I remember at first I must have had a thousand predated and established the look and quality for pages. That was my initial cut. I knew I could do an what would become the Silver Age of Comics. entire volume just on Sgt. Rock, or an entire volume So we had great and grand ideas for the entire just on Enemy Ace. long-term venture. The decision was made: Let’s In talking with Linda, we mapped it out that bob kanigher start with the war books. So I, then, pretty much off there should be representation from different eras, the top of my head knew a lot of what I wanted. so it wouldn’t simply be the best of DC war comics Courtesy of Bob Rozakis. EURY: What was the reason for a war book being first? but it really was an overview of the best of DC war comics. We had to USLAN: In the ’70s, Sgt. Rock was a huge seller for DC—a huge seller. deal with the ’40s, and with Vietnam, so Captain Hunter had to be G.I. Combat had consistently been a great seller. [G.I Combat editor] represented. I’d call it more of an overview of the best rather than Murray Boltinoff doesn’t get a lot of attention today from fandom, really the best of the war comics that DC had ever done. the comic-book historians, and I spent a lot of time with him. Murray EURY: You even threw in Superman, as well [“Clark Kent Tries to Join was in the OSS, working with Wild Bill Donovan in World War II. A very, the Army” from the Superman newspaper strip and “I Sustain the very interesting man! The books that he edited really turned out to be Wings” from 1943’s Superman #25]. a lot of sales gold! There was a stretch of time he had the bestselling USLAN: I did, and that was important to me. In the 1970s, that story Batman book with what he was doing with Brave and Bold. was great lore and historians—or people who wanted to be comic-book EURY: As a kid, that was my favorite comic so I’m definitely aware of historians—knew about this story but nobody had any proof of it. They Murray’s golden touch, too, and we do give him a shout-out from couldn’t find the comic book that supposedly had this thing. So I sat time to time in BACK ISSUE. But I agree with you that he’s been largely down to track it down and it turned out it was in the strips! I wanted to ignored by historians, and the contemporary fan, of course, would make sure that finally was visible to people who cared about the history really not know him from Adam. of comics and the history of Superman. It really fit in well. There was DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints

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Fourth World The cover to the unpublished The Masterworks Series of Great Comic Book Artists #4, spotlighting Neal Adams. TM & © DC Comics.

NEAL ADAMS In 1983, Neal Adams needed no introduction to anyone familiar with comic books. His work on comics garnered fans from its very beginnings in the very early 1960s with work for Archie Comics, the newspaper strip Ben Casey, and acclaimed work for Warren magazines. He hit DC with stories in every genre, including the humor series The Adventures of Jerry Lewis and The Adventures of Bob Hope. When he turned his distinctive and realistic art style to hundreds of covers and the series The Spectre, Deadman (in Strange Adventures), Batman, and Green Lantern, and more covers and titles for Marvel like X-Men and Avengers in the 1970s, fans could not get enough! Adams’ DC horror stories were slated for the never-realized Masterworks issue #4, and his war stories for the aborted issue #5. I asked Neal Adams if he had any involvement in the series, or knew which of his stories might have been in the lineup. He replied via email, “I know nothing about such a series. I did not approve such a series.” Paul Levitz adds, “The specific books were Phil’s idea. I don’t recall the artists being consulted. I suspect Phil chose the stories himself. My records indicate that I didn’t. I didn’t even recall we had discussed other issues, only that Phil had a sincere joy in the work of each of the artists chosen. That was probably the best part of the project.” Anthony Tollin recolored all but one of the Masterworks reprints. The Masterworks Series of Great Comic Book Artists abruptly ended after the publication of its third issue with Phil’s death from a rare liver disease in 1984. Sea Gate Distributing closed the following year, emphasizing the level of involvement Phil had in everything he was connected to. STEPHAN FRIEDT is senior administrator of www.comicspriceguide.com.

THE MASTERWORKS SERIES OF GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS #1 FRANK FRAZETTA/ “SHINING KNIGHT” Spring 1983 Cover artist: Frank Frazetta Editor: Uncredited Special feature: • “Frank Frazetta: The Art World’s Shining Knight” 1-page profile by Allan Asherman Reprints: • Shining Knight in “The Ten-Century Lie!” from Adventure Comics #150 (Mar. 1950) • Shining Knight in “Sir Justin, Bronco Buster” from Adventure Comics #151 (Apr. 1950) • Shining Knight in “The Duel of the Flying Knights!” from Adventure Comics #153 (June 1950) • Shining Knight in “The Imitation Knight” from Adventure Comics #155 (Aug. 1950) • Shining Knight in “Camelot U.S.A.” from Adventure Comics #157 (Oct. 1950)

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THE MASTERWORKS SERIES OF GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS #2 FRANK FRAZETTA/ “SHINING KNIGHT AND OTHER TALES” July 1983 Cover artist: Frank Frazetta Editor: Uncredited Reprints: • Shining Knight in “Knight of the Future! ” from Adventure Comics #159 (Dec. 1950) Shining Knight in “The Flying Horse Swindle!” from Adventure Comics #161 (Feb. 1951) Shining Knight in “The Knight in Rusty Armor!” from Adventure Comics #163 (Apr. 1951) “Botalye—Immortal Indian Warrior” from Jimmy Wakely #7 (Sept.–Oct. 1950) “Spores From Space!” from Mystery in Space #1 (Apr.–May 1951)

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THE MASTERWORKS SERIES OF GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS #3 BERNI WRIGHTSON/ “THE MACABRE” Oct. 1983 Cover artist: Bernie Wrightson Editor: Uncredited Special feature: • “Berni Wrightson: An Artist of Fearsome Skills” 1-page profile by Allan Asherman Reprints: • “Molded In Evil” from Plop! #5 (May–June 1974) • “The Secret of the Egyptian Cat” from House of Mystery #186 (May–June 1970) • “House of Madness!” from House of Mystery #188 (Sept.–Oct. 1970) • “The Gourmet” from Plop! #1 (Sept.– Oct. 1973)

J o h n Tr u m b u l l

In the early 1980s, with DC Comics’ 50th anniversary fast approaching, the occasion became as much about celebrating DC’s past as preparing for its future. Executive editor Dick Giordano teased in his August 1983 Meanwhile… column, “We’re planning a reprint line that I’m excited about! Generally, I think of reprints as being in a class with kissing your sister, something that one does out of obligation. Not these reprints! More on them in a future column. The businesstypes around here get nervous when I start gushing prematurely about pet projects.” Giordano certainly had reason to be excited. While most reprints came in the typical newsprint comic-book format, these collections were double-sized, 48 pages (containing two to three issues’ worth of material), and printed on heavier, whiter Baxter paper stock, often with wraparound covers [Author’s note: Marvel Comics’ deluxe reprints of the 1980s will be covered in BACK ISSUE #86]. Giordano explained his reprint philosophy in his June 1984 Meanwhile… column: “First off, we pay the highest reprint rates currently being paid to creators. This means that the difference in cost to us between all-new art, and reprinting existing art has been narrowed to the point where there exists no overwhelming profit motive to reprint, since production and shipping costs are fixed. Secondly, we choose only material that deserves to be reprinted … material that has stood the test of time and has, in our opinion, earned the status of ‘classic,’ and we’ll only release one title per month. Last, we heap lots of T.L.C. on the best of DC’s past … we give the material the attention that it deserves, and, wherever possible, invite the original creator(s) to join us in the preparing the original material for publication.”

GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW With an October 1983 cover date, DC’s reprint series debuted with a comics milestone: Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ Green Lantern/ Green Arrow, where superheroes tackled contemporary problems like race, pollution, overpopulation, and drugs. These stories also introduced Speedy’s drug addiction and African-American Green Lantern John Stewart. The new editions featured text pieces, interviews, an O’Neil/Adams checklist, and new colors by Cory Adams. DC hired Neal Adams to provide new covers for the seven-issue series. As Adams recalls, “They didn’t want them to seem SO much like reprints. The thought in mind was it made it seem like a new product. They felt, ‘Well, if we get Neal to do new covers, of course we’re going to sell more copies.’ Which, of course, they did.” Nevertheless, issue #5 featured a recolored version of his famous “Speedy is a junkie” cover from Green Lantern #85 (Aug. 1971). Adams states, “I don’t think people really wanted a new [cover] on that one. I think that one pretty much said it.” Adams didn’t worry about the 1970s stories appearing dated. “I don’t think people have actually gone beyond those in comic books since then. I don’t see a lot of comic books that deal with topical situations very much. I don’t see comic books that deal realistically with political issues. I see delving into fantasy, I see killing populations of cities in comic books, I see fantasy stories with characters that are totally unbelievable, but I don’t see any appreciable direction toward reality in dealing with social issues. So I think those books are probably as topical today as they were back then. I don’t think that we’ve passed them up, I think we’re trying to catch up to them.”

Kirby’s Coming (Back)! DC produced this poster to promote its deluxe reprinting of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World anchor, The New Gods. Art by Kirby and Mike Royer. TM & © DC Comics.

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