It's always been something of a mystery to me how the publishers of the Golden Age determined that one of their secondary features was the thing that was driving the circulation of their anthology series. Case in point: when he was first launched, Plastic Man was a secondary character in the pages of Quality's POLICE … Continue reading The Second Plastic Man Story
As we mentioned yesterday, this issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA was the first in the title's long history not to be edited and overseen by Julie Schwartz. Julie had innovated the series in 1960 and had stayed with it for 19 years. But for the first time, somebody else was at the wheel. That … Continue reading BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #166
Predating Captain America and a horde of other lesser lights, The Shield was the first patriotic-themed super hero of the Golden Age of Comics, debuting in PEP COMICS #1 in 1939. He was billed as a "G-Man Extraordinary", and over the next eight years, he'd carry on the fight against evil, losing his Superman-inspired super-powers … Continue reading The Last Shield Story
This issue of THE FLASH is where new editor Ross Andru's vision for the title really crystalized. In essence, this took the form of bring on board a new regular penciler. Longtime FLASH artist Irv Novick had departed one issue after outgoing editor Julie Schwartz, and while Ross had stopgapped for two months, here he … Continue reading BHOC: THE FLASH #273
So here's the sort of mental exercise that I undertake on days when I'm trying to ignore the larger world. I just recently celebrated my 35th Anniversary of being hired to work in Editorial at Marvel. Over the course of those 35 years, I've had the pleasure of working on a huge variety of projects. … Continue reading The Fifteen Best Projects That I Edited
Pretty much everyone knows the story by now. Having conceived of their adventure strip about an indestructible, super-strong crusader for justice in the early 1930s, creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (and sometimes other, different artists) spent the next five or six years trying to find a buyer for what they felt confident was a … Continue reading The Second Superman Story
This next issue of THOR got back to the business at hand after four months of fill-ins. It kicked off a long, sprawling saga in which writer/editor Roy Thomas attempted to integrate Jack Kirby's Eternals into the continuity of the Marvel Universe. This is akin to trying to drive a square peg into a round … Continue reading BHOC: THOR #283
After the peak sales period of the war years, the postwar period saw the changing tastes of returning G.I.s and the public at large impact on what was available at the Newsstand. Costumed super heroes had lost a lot of their popularity with the general public, no longer having a colorful, unifying enemy like the … Continue reading The First Two-Gun Kid Story
So my weekly sojourn to the neighborhood 7-11's spinner rack turned up the next issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, a title that I was then reading regularly. The book was in the middle of an extended six-part storyline, not that I knew that exactly at this moment. This is a solid cover but somehow lacking in … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #233
It's a well-known part of comic book history that Fawcett Publication's character Captain Marvel was one of the most popular characters of the Golden Age of Comics, regularly outselling Superman. And in fact, the series was successful until a lawsuit from DC/National Comics forced Fawcett to agree to cease publishing the Captain's adventures. For years, … Continue reading The Second Captain Marvel Story
The Tom Brevoort Experience 