For whatever reason, Ed's Coins and Stamps seemed to have a much greater variety of old DC titles than he did Marvels, and so much of what I bought from him on this first trip followed suit. This issue of DOOM PATROL was among them. I had never seen a copy of DOOM PATROL before … Continue reading BHOC: DOOM PATROL #100
I've mentioned before that my father worked at Chase Manhattan Bank out of a branch in the same Levittown Mall location that housed a Heroes World store. And so, needing somebody to perform a massive data-sorting project, one day he made a deal with me: if I would go to work with him on a … Continue reading BHOC: DOOM PATROL #91
The Marvel revolution of the early Silver Age took those toiling in the field entirely by surprise. That's entirely due to the fact that, prior to 1961, Martin Goodman's publishing enterprise, whether it was known as Timely or Atlas or Marvel had been producers of enormous amounts of shlock. Goodman's professed publishing strategy was to … Continue reading The First Spider-Man Parody
As Dave Lister explains to Arnold Rimmer in an early episode of the British science fiction comedy series RED DWARF, "Death isn't the handicap it used to be." Today, it's a given that, in the world of super heroes, death is, at worst, a revolving door, and any character who breathes his or her last … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Silver Age Character Deaths
We covered the first of comedian Jerry Lewis's encounters with the DC super heroes here, in the story in which he and his cast crossed paths with the most popular Caped Crusader of the mid-1960s, Batman. https://tombrevoort.com/2021/10/17/jerry-lewis-meets-batman-and-robin/ Apparently, that issue must have performed well (which is no surprise seeing as how it hit the stands … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: Jerry Lewis Meets Superman
It's somewhat difficult to believe today, but comedian and movie star Jerry Lewis headlined his own DC comic book for about twenty years, the first half-dozen in conjunction with his then-partner, Dean Martin. Amazingly, more copies of Jerry Lewis were being sold and consumed than of the Atom or Hawkman or the Doom Patrol, all … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: Jerry Lewis Meets Batman and Robin
While as we've seen, Marvel was relatively quick to begin to self-mythologize its creative staff and editorial Bullpen, rival publisher DC (then known as National Periodical Publications in an attempt to disguise the fact that they published evil comic books in the aftermath of the senate hearings) wasn't as quick to follow suit. Even creator … Continue reading 5BC: Five Times DC Self-Mythologized
In any long-running series, there's going to be a magnetic pull among a certain type of writer to want to change things, to make adjustments to details, to eliminate contradictions in the stories that have been told and to introduce new information about foundational events. These ideas can sometimes be additive and sometime be destructive, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Forgotten DC Retcons
The Powers-That-Be at DC Comics in the 1960s could see that something was going on over at Stan Lee's new upstart Marvel imprint, but they were ill-equipped to figure out just what. This is largely due to the fact that the editorial and creative staff remained largely unchanged since the halcyon days of the 1940s. … Continue reading Brand Echh – Inferior Five #6
Outside of a few sure-bet favorites, I was I think pretty typical in my comic book purchasing habits: I would pick up whatever looked good among what was available on whatever outing made it possible for me to purchase a comic book. At this point, I knew that what I wanted was super heroes (and … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #220
