This was the latest issue of DETECTIVE COMICS that I wound up with in my 1988 Windfall Comics purchase, where I bought a box of close to 150 Silver Age comic books for $50.00. And it represents a bit of a quantum leap forward from the earliest one that was in that purchase, the strongest … Continue reading WC: DETECTIVE COMICS #349
When we talk about the forces that came into play in the creation of the original Marvel super heroes, in particular the Fantastic Four and attempt to apportion credit (or blame) between the two men who worked on those early strips, one earlier feature that is inevitably invoked is Jack Kirby's series for DC, CHALLENGERS … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: When Challengers of the Unknown Presaged Fantastic Four
We covered one of the previous SHOWCASE issues featuring the Inferior Five not that long ago--and in fact, here's a link to that piece for anybody who missed it. https://tombrevoort.com/2022/10/15/the-first-hulk-parody/ But the gist is that the Inferior Five were the brainchild of writer E. Nelson Bridwell, originally conceived as a satire of the Fantastic Four … Continue reading The First X-Men Parody
By 1966, there was no way for industry leader DC/National Comics to be unaware of the growing appeal of upstart publisher Marvel--especially given that both companies' output was distributed by an outfit owned by National's owners. Marvel's growth was often scoffed at and decried as a passing fad, but as the firm started making inroads … Continue reading The First Hulk Parody
Among the more memorable strips DC launched during the Silver Age of Comics was Metal Men. The brainchild of writer Robert Kanigher and artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, the Metal Men was a team of robots, each one crafted out of a particular element, who battled super-scientific menaces under the direction of their creator, … Continue reading WC: SHOWCASE #40
This issue of MYSTERY IN SPACE, another book that I got in my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, sports another of those great halftone covers that DC production man Jack Adler was experimenting with. The added texture does give the piece a nice painterly quality, as well as far more subtlety than the typical DC … Continue reading WC: MYSTERY IN SPACE #55
A short while back, we covered an issue of SUPERMAN that I had purchased in 1988 as a part of my big Windfall Comics buy. That issue featured a single full-length Superman adventure rather than the usual three shorter stories that the title typically ran. (That story was broken up into three discrete chapters so … Continue reading The First Book-Length Superman Adventure
This 1959 issue of SUPERMAN represented a rare departure from the format of the series, one that would be used more and more often in the coming years as the tastes of the audience changed over time. Rather than featuring three shorter Superman stories, as all of the books in the line were doing, here … Continue reading WC: SUPERMAN #132
This one isn't about a comic book feature that saw print but rather one that didn't--at least not in its original intended form. SHOWCASE was the round-robin series that would move from editor to editor throughout the DC stable, each of whom was expected to debut some new feature within its pages as a try-out … Continue reading SHOWCASE #50 and the Non-History of Yankee Doodle Dandy
SHOWCASE was a bit of an institution in the latter half of the 1950s and the 1960s. It was a series that birthed a great number of characters and series that would go on to star in their own titles. It was the experimental laboratory in which DC tested out new ideas for comic books, … Continue reading WC: SHOWCASE #39
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