In the early pre-Superman days of comic books, the medium was trying to figure itself out. The young and often ill-trained creators who toiled in the early comic books were mostly talented novices with a desire to tell stories in pictures and put some food on the table. Accordingly, much of the common wisdom of … Continue reading The Second Slam Bradley Story
By 1941, ADVENTURE COMICS was lagging a bit behind DC's other anthology titles, in particular ACTION COMICS which held the popular feature Superman and DETECTIVE COMICS with Batman and Robin. ADVENTURE's headliner Hour-Man clearly wasn't getting the job done, nor was the gas-mask-wearing Sandman. Clearly what was needed was a new feature with popular appeal. … Continue reading The Second Starman Story
Like the Green Arrow who we talked about last week, Aquaman was another of three features created to fill the back pages of the ailing MORE FUN COMICS and hopefully reverse its fortunes by creating some additional reader interest. The Sea King was the brainchild of newly-hired editor Mort Weisinger, who collaborated with artist Paul … Continue reading The Second Aquaman Story
When editor Mort Weisinger was first hired by DC Comics (then Detective Comics Inc) in 1941, one of the first tasks he was given was to improve the fortunes of one of the firm's longest-running titles, MORE FUN COMICS. The popularity of headliner characters Doctor Fate and Jerry Siegel's The Spectre were lagging behind the … Continue reading The Second Green Arrow Story
Johnny Quick was one of the perennial second banana super heroes of the Golden Age of Comics. He was created by newly-hired DC editor Mort Weisinger and debuted in the pages of MORE FUN COMICS #71 in 1941. At the time, what we think of today as DC Comics was actually two separate organizations with … Continue reading The Second Johnny Quick Story
Batman was created in direct response to the overwhelming success of Superman, and he represented the second major super hero to be created, and the polar opposite of the Man of Steel. While the two characters seemed like they shared a tailor, their attributes were in direct contrast to one another. Superman was godlike and … Continue reading The Second Batman Story
By 1940, the newsstands of the nation were filling up with stories of all-new superhuman champions. Superman had set off a flood of imitators, and costumed characters were clearly a bit of a gold mine. Not all of them were great, some of them were downright bizarre, and many wouldn't last the test of time. … Continue reading The Second Atom Story
As comic books entered teh 1940s, it became apparent to publishers that the thing that was really driving sales to kids, at least right at that moment, was super heroes. Larger-than-life costumed do-gooders dressed in outlandish costumes. Superman had shown the way, and every pulp publisher with two nickels to rub together began following suit. … Continue reading The Second Green Lantern Story
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
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
The Tom Brevoort Experience 