Category: Showcase Presents

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Showcase Presents Superman volume 4


By Edmond Hamilton, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, Leo Dorfman, Al Plastino, Curt Swan, George Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1271

By the time of the stories collected in this fabulous fourth monochrome compendium Superman was truly a global household name, with the burgeoning mythology of lost Krypton, modern Metropolis and the core cast familiar to most children and many adults.

The Man of Tomorrow was just beginning a media-led burst of revived interest.

In the immediate future, television exposure, a rampant merchandising wave thanks to the Batman-led boom in superheroes generally, highly efficient world-wide comics, cartoon, bubblegum cards and especially toy licensing deals would all feed a growing frenzy. Everything was working to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant yet comfortably familiar icon of modern, Space-Age America: particularly the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comicbook stories…

The tales in this tome span October 1962-February 1964 culled from Action Comics #293-309 and Superman #157-166 and increasingly saw the Man of Tomorrow facing more fantastic physical threats and critical personal and social challenges.

Action Comics #293 gets things off to a fine start with ‘The Feud Between Superman and Clark Kent!’ by Edmond Hamilton & Al Plastino, as another exposure to the randomly metamorphic Red Kryptonite divided the Metropolis Marvel into a rational but powerless mortal and an aggressive, out of control superhero, determined to continue his existence at all costs…

Superman #157 (November 1962) opened with a key new piece of the ongoing legend as ‘The Super-Revenge of the Phantom Zone Prisoner!’ by Hamilton, Curt Swan & George Klein introduced permanently power-neutralising Gold Kryptonite and Superman’s Zone-o-phone – allowing him to monitor and communicate with the incarcerated inhabitants – in a stirring tale of injustice and redemption.

Convicted felon Quex-Ul used the device to petition Superman for release since his sentence has been served, and despite reservations the fair-minded hero could only agree.

However further investigation revealed Quex-Ul had been framed and was wholly innocent of any crime, but before Superman could make amends for the injustice he had to survive a deadly trap which the embittered and partially mind-controlled parolee had laid for the son of the Zone’s discoverer…

The issue also contained a light-hearted espionage-sting yarn as the Action Ace became ‘The Super-Genie of Metropolis!’ (Robert Bernstein & Plastino) as well as ‘Superman’s Day of Doom!’ by Jerry Siegel, Swan & Klein, wherein a little kid saves the Man of Steel from a deadly ambush set during a parade in the hero’s honour.

Action #294 then offered a classic duel between Superman and Lex Luthor in ‘The Kryptonite Killer!’ (Hamilton & Plastino) wherein the obsessed scientist creates elemental humanoids to destroy his hated foe, whilst #295’s ‘Superman Goes Wild!’ featured an insidious plot by the Superman Revenge Squad to drive the hero murderously insane – courtesy of creators Bernstein, Swan & Klein.

Issue #158 of his solo title featured the full-length epic ‘Superman in Kandor!’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein) which saw raiders from the preserved Kryptonian enclave attacking the Man of Steel in ‘Invasion of the Mystery Supermen’, describing him as a traitor to his people. Baffled, Superman infiltrated the Bottle City with Jimmy Olsen where they created the costumed identities of Nightwing and Flamebird to become ‘The Dynamic Duo of Kandor!’ and discovered the answer to the enigma before saving the entire colony from utter destruction in ‘The City of Super-People!’

Action #296 seemed to offer a simple man vs. monster saga in ‘The Invasion of the Super-Ants!’ (Hamilton & Plastino) but the gripping yarn also had a sharp plot twist and timely warning about nuclear proliferation, whilst in #297 ‘The Man Who Betrayed Superman’s Identity!’ by Leo Dorfman, Swan & Klein, veteran newsman Perry White was tricked into solving the world’s greatest mystery after a bump on the head gave him amnesia.

Whilst Editor Mort Weisinger was expanding the series’ continuity and building the legend, he learned that each new tale was an event which added to a nigh-sacred canon and that what he printed was deeply important to the readers. However as an ideas man he wasn’t going to let that aggregated “history” stifle a good plot situation, nor would he allow his eager yet sophisticated audience to endure clichéd Deus ex Machina cop-outs which would mar the sheer enjoyment of a captivating concept.

Thus “Imaginary Stories” were conceived as a way of exploring non-continuity plots and scenarios, devised at a time when editors believed that entertainment trumped consistency and fervently believed that every comic read was somebody’s first and, unless they were very careful, their last…

This volume’s first Imaginary Novel follows, taken from Superman #159 wherein ‘Lois Lane, the Super-Maid of Krypton!’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein) saw a baby girl escape Earth’s destruction by rocketing to another world in ‘Lois Lane’s Flight from Earth!’ befriending young Kal-El and growing to become a mighty champion of justice.

She clashed with ‘The Female Luthor of Krypton!’ and saved the world over and again before tragically enduring ‘The Doom of Super-Maid!’ at a time when attitudes apparently couldn’t allow a girl to be stronger than Superman – even in an alternate fictionality…

Dorfman, Swan & Klein produced ‘Clark Kent, Coward!’ in Action #298 wherein a balloon excursion dumped Jimmy, Lois and the clandestine crusader in a lost kingdom whose queen found the timid buffoon irresistible. Unfortunately the husky hunks of the hidden land took great umbrage with her latest fascination…

In his eponymous publication the hero temporarily lost his powers in ‘The Mortal Superman!’ (#160 by Dorfman &Plastino) and almost died in ‘The Cage of Doom!’, before his merely human wits proved enough to outsmart a merciless crime syndicate, after which the mood lightened when, fully restored, he became ‘The Super-Cop of Metropolis!’ to outwit a gang of spies in a classy “why-dunnit” by Siegel, Swan & Klein.

Action #299 revealed the outlandish story behind ‘The Story of Superman’s Experimental Robots!’ in a truly bizarre tale from Siegel & Plastino, after which Superman #161 led with an untold tale that revealed how he tragically learned the limitations of his powers.

In ‘The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent!’ (Dorfman & Plastino) a vacation time-travel trip led to his foster parent’s demise and only too late did the heartbroken hero learn that his actions were not the cause of their deaths, after which ‘Superman Goes to War’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein) lightened the mood as a war game covered by the Daily Planet staff segued into the real thing when Clark discovered some of the participants were actually aliens.

Action Comics reached #300 with the May1963 issue and to celebrate Hamilton & Plastino crafted the brilliantly ingenious ‘Superman Under the Red Sun!’ which saw the Man of Tomorrow dispatched to the far, far future where Earth’s sun has cooled to crimson and his powers faded. The valiant chronal castaway suffered incredible hardship and danger before figuring out a way home, just in time for #301 and ‘The Trial of Superman!’ (Hamilton & Plastino), wherein the Man of Steel allowed himself to be prosecuted for Clark Kent’s murder to save the nation from a terrible threat.

Dorfman, Swan & Klein’s ‘The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue!’ (Superman #162) is possibly the most ambitious and influential tale of the entire “Imaginary Tale” sub-genre: a startling utopian classic so well-received that decades later it influenced and flavoured the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman continuity for months.

In ‘The Titanic Twins!’ the Metropolis Marvel is permanently divided into two equal beings who forthwith solve all Earth’s problems with ‘The Anti-Evil Ray!’ and similar scientific breakthroughs before both retiring with pride and the girls of their dreams, Lois Lane and Lana Lang (one each, of course) in ‘The End of Superman’s Career!’

There’s no record of who scripted Action #302’s ‘The Amazing Confession of Super- Perry White!’ but Plastino’s slick illustration lends great animation to the convoluted tale wherein the Man of Steel replaces the aging editor to thwart an assassination plot, only to accidentally give the impression that the podgy Perry is his actual alter ego…

Superman #163 offered a crafty mystery as ‘Wonder-Man, the New Hero of Metropolis!’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein) almost replaced the Man of Steel, were it not for his tragic foredoomed secret whilst ‘The Goofy Superman!’ (Bernstein & Plastino) saw Red K deprive the Metropolis Marvel of his powers and sanity, resulting in a rather fortuitous stay in the local home for the Perpetually Bewildered – since that’s where a cunning mad bomber was secretly hiding out…

Action #303 saw the infernal mineral transform Superman into ‘The Monster from Krypton!’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein), almost dying at the hands of the army and a vengeful Supergirl who believed her cousin had been eaten by the dragon he’d become, whilst #304 heralded ‘The Interplanetary Olympics!’ by Dorfman, Swan & Klein, with Superman deliberately throwing the contest and shaming Earth… but only for the best possible reasons…

Next up is a classic confrontation between the Caped Kryptonian and his greatest foe in ‘The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman’ (Superman #164, October 1963 and by Hamilton, Swan & Klein again) pitting the lifelong foes in an unforgettable confrontation on the post-apocalyptic planet Lexor – a lost world of forgotten science and fantastic beasts – which resulted in ‘The Super-Duel!’ and displayed a whole new side to Superman’s previously two dimensional arch-enemy.

The issue also included ‘The Fugitive from the Phantom Zone!’ (Siegel & Plastino) a smart vignette which saw Superman cunningly outwit a foe he could not beat by playing on his psychological foibles…

Action #305 featured the Imaginary Story ‘Why Superman Needs a Secret Identity!’ (Dorfman, Swan & Klein) which outlined a series of personal tragedies and disasters following Ma and Pa Kent’s proud and foolish public announcement that their son was an alien Superboy, whilst in Superman #165 ‘Beauty and the Super-Beast!’ and its conclusion ‘Circe’s Super-Slave’ (Bernstein, Swan & Klein), the Man of Steel was seemingly helpless against the ancient sorceress, but in fact the whole thing was an elaborate hoax designed to foil the alien invaders of the Superman Revenge Squad. The issue’s third tale, ‘The Sweetheart Superman Forgot!’ (Siegel & Plastino) featured a memorable and heartbreaking forbidden romance in which a powerless, amnesiac and disabled Superman met, loved and lost a good woman who loved him purely for himself. When his memory and powers returned Clark had no recollection of Sally Selwyn, who’s probably still pining faithfully for him…

Action #306 offered ‘The Great Superman Impersonation!’ by Bernstein & Plastino, as in a twist on the Prince and the Pauper Clark Kent was hired to protect the President of a South American republic because he looks enough like Superman to fool potential assassins. Of course it’s all a Byzantine con, but by the end who’s conning who?

The reporter’s crime exposés found ‘Clark Kent – Target for Murder!’ in Action #307 (by an unattributed scripter and artists Swan &Klein) but the villainous King Kobra made the mistake of his life when the hitman he hired turned out to be the intended victim in disguise, whilst issue #308 concentrated on all-out fantasy when ‘Superman Meets the Goliath-Hercules!’ (anonymous & Plastino) after crossing into a parallel universe.

Before returning the Man of Steel helped a colossal demigod perform the Six Labours of King Thebes in a story clearly cobbled together in far too much haste.

Superman #166 (January 1964) featured ‘The Fantastic Story of Superman’s Sons’ by Hamilton, Swan & Klein: an Imaginary Tale and solid thriller built on a painful premise -what if only one of Superman’s children inherited his powers? The story begins in ‘Jor-El II and Kal-El II’ with the discovery that little Kal junior takes after his Earth-born mother and subsequently grows into a teenager with real emotional problems.

Hoping to boost his confidence, Superman packs both sons off to Kandor where they’ll be physically equal and soon the twins are finding adventure as ‘The new Nightwing and Flamebird!’

However, when a Kandorian menace escapes to the outer world, it’s up to the human son to save Earth following ‘Kal-El II’s Mission to Krypton!’ which wraps everything up in a neat and tidy bundle of escapist fun.

This volume closes with a strange TV tie-in tale from Action Comics #309 as an analogue of This Is Your Life honours Superman by inviting all his friends – even the Legion of Super-Heroes and especially including Clark Kent – to ‘The Superman Super-Spectacular!’ (Hamilton, Swan & Klein).

With no other option the Metropolis Marvel is compelled to share his secret identity with somebody new so that they can impersonate him. Although there must be less convoluted ways to allay Lois’ constant suspicions, this yarn does include perhaps the oddest guest star appearance in comics’ history…

These tales are the comicbook equivalent of bubblegum pop music: perfectly constructed, always entertaining, occasionally challenging and never unwelcome. As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling, mind-boggling and yes, frequently moving all-ages stories also perfectly depict the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics between the safely anodyne 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more”.

I know I certainly do…
© 1962-1964, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents House of Secrets volume 2


By many and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-472-5

With superheroes on the decline again in the early 1970s, four of the six surviving newsstand comicbook companies (Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey and Marvel) relied increasingly on horror and suspense anthologies to bolster their flagging sales. Even wholesome Archie briefly produced Red Circle Sorcery/Chillers comics and their teen-comedy core moved gently into tales of witchcraft, mystery and imagination.

DC’s first generation of mystery titles had followed the end of the first Heroic Age when most of the publishers of the era began releasing crime, romance and horror genre anthologies to recapture the older readership which was drifting away to other mass-market entertainments like television and the movies.

As National Comics in 1951, the company bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology – which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles – with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

When a hysterical censorship scandal led to witch-hunting hearings attacking comicbooks and newspaper strips (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time) the industry panicked, adopting a castrating straitjacket of stringent self-regulatory rules and admonitions.

Even though mystery titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, the appetite for suspense was still high, and in 1956 National introduced the sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November-December cover-date.

Supernatural thrillers and monster stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated genteel, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which nonetheless dominated the market until the 1960s when the super-hero (which had begun a renaissance after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom and a host of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked myrmidons which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery and Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with anti-hero Eclipso in House of Secrets.

When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties and the title folded with the September-October 1966 issue.

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and at the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom busted again, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too…

This real-world Crisis led to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at the time but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Great Unknown, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.”

Thus with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Secrets rose again with issue #81, (cover-dated August-September 1969) just as big sister House of Mystery had done a year earlier.

Under a spooky bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, creators veteran and neophyte churned out a massive deluge of spooky, creepy, wryly tongue-in-cheek and scary tales, all introduced by the innocuous and timid Abel; caretaker of a  ramshackle, sentient old pile temporarily located somewhere in the Dark Heart of the USA…

This second enthralling and economical monochrome Showcase compendium collects the chilling contents of issues #99-119, spanning August 1972 – September 1973, and also features a stellar selection of covers from artists Michael Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Nick Cardy, Jack Sparling and Luis Dominguez.

‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson began another pensive package of terrors after which ‘Beyond His Imagination’ by Bill Meredith & Nestor Redondo saw a comicbook artist travel to the other side of death in search of inspiration, after which ‘Beat the Devil’ (Jack Oleck, Jack Katz & Tony DeZuniga) dealt with a religious thief who repented too late before ‘Goodbye, Nancy’ by John Albano, Vic Catan, Frank Redondo & Abe Ocampo saw a lonely child go to lethal lengths in her attempts to find a playmate…

A huge boost to the battered American industry at his time was the mass hiring of a flight of top Filipino artists whose stylish realism, experience in many genres and incredible work ethic made them an invaluable and highly influential factor of the horror boom. This collection especially is positively brimming with their superb illustrative excellence.

First in issue #100 however is ‘Round-Trip Ticket’ by Lore Shoberg & Tom Palmer, wherein a hippy truth-seeker learns a little more about alternate lifestyles than he bargained for. These comics chillers were frequently leavened by the mordant and wordless cartoon gags of the legendary Sergio Aragonés, who here contributes a trio of gems starring ‘Cain & Abel’ before Oleck, Mike Sekowsky & Dezuniga reveal the fate of an escaped convict who briefly became ‘The Man Who Stopped Time!’ After a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ cartoons by Shoberg, Oleck & Alfredo Alcala brought the issue to a close with the dark period Voodoo yarn ‘Rest in Peace’…

Clever science fiction courtesy of Sheldon Mayer & Alex Niño opened #101 as ‘Small Invasion’ told a tale of love, double-cross and vengeance when an alien infiltrator discovers true romance whilst preparing to destroy humanity, after which ‘The Sacrifice’ (Oleck & June Lofamia) pitted Witch against Warlock in a game as old as time… Aragonés’ ‘Cain & Abel’ page then precedes ‘Hiding Place’ by Raymond Marais & Ruben Yandoc, with a murderous gangster picking the wrong home to invade after which an ‘Abel’s Fables’ page by Shoberg brings the issue to a close.

‘Make a Wish’ by Oleck & E.R. Cruz, led in #102 as a troubled boy periodically escapes the real world – until well-meaning adults take him in hand, whilst ‘The Loser’ (Oleck, Quico Redondo & Ocampo) details a hen-pecked husband who can’t even get his revenge right, and bracketed between a brace of Aragonés’ ‘Abel’s Fables’ Albano & Nestor Redondo shone with the salutary romantic chiller starring ‘A Lonely Monstrosity’…

House of Secrets #103 began with a tale on con men and time travel in ‘Waiting… Waiting… Waiting’ by Mayer & Rico Rival, whilst ‘No Bed of Roses’ (Albano & Sparling) told a unique tale of reincarnation and revenge, before a post-apocalyptic revelation proved that man could never change in ‘The Village on the Edge of Forever’ by Steve Skeates & Niño, before Aragonés wrapped another issue with one of his ‘Cain & Abel’ pages.

In #104 ‘Ghosts Don’t Bother Me… But…’ by Mayer & Nestor & Virgilio Redondo told the sorry story of a hitman who found that his victims didn’t always rest in peace, whilst ‘The Dead Man’s Doll’, by Bill Riley & Alcala and book-ended by two ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés and Albano, saw a beloved puppet take vengeance for his owner when the frail fellow was murdered by his uncaring carers, whilst ‘Lend Me an Ear!’ by Oleck & George Tuska, saw merciless college pranksters hoisted on their own petard after playing in a morgue…

Issue #105 featured ‘Vampire’ an effective game of Ten Little Indians played out in an old Nevada mine by Maxene Fabe & Gerry Taloac, the gloriously dry ‘Coming Together!’ (Skeates & Jim Aparo) which showed that courage wasn’t everything when demons invaded a small town, and a great old-fashioned murdered man’s revenge yarn in ‘An Axe to Grind’ by Skeates & Alcala, whilst #106, after a magical ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson, opened with ‘The Curse of Harappa’ (Fabe & Yandoc) as a man dedicated to wiping out superstition found it wasn’t all nonsense, after which ‘The Island of No Return’ by Albano & Niño displayed the epitome of monstrous abiding terror, and Oleck and Alcala closed the show with a turn-of-the-century joker getting his just desserts in ‘This Will Kill You’.

In #107 Alcala illustrated Oleck’s ‘Skin Deep’ a dark tale of magic masks and ugly people in New Orleans and, after an Aragonés ‘Cain & Abel’, Arnold Drake’s hilarious hen-pecked howler ‘The Night of the Nebish!’ before ‘Winner Take All’ by Skeates & Bernard Baily restores some lethal gravitas to the proceedings when a greedy tramp learns too late the life-lesson of when to let go…

In #108 ‘Act III Eternity’ by George Kashdan & Jess Jodloman describes how a washed up thespian unsuspectingly took method acting to unfortunate extremes whilst ‘A New Kid on the Block’ (Fabe & Rival) found a new wrinkle in the hoary legend of revivified mummies and ‘The Ghost-Writer’ by Riley & Taloac saw a dissolute author finally pay for taking undeserved credit during his successful career. This issue also featured two more bleak and black ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés,

HoS #109 held two longer tales; ‘Museum of Nightmares’ by Michael Pellowsky, Fabe & Alcala, in which animated waxworks haunted the last case of a great detective whilst in ‘…And in Death there is No Escape!’, (Albano & Niño) a callous bluebeard and actor of towering ego at last regretted the many sins that had led him to physical immortality and infamous renown. Issue #110 opened with an entertaining vampire tale in ‘Domain of the Dead’ by Oleck & Fred Carrillo, continued with supernatural murder-mystery ‘Safes Have Secrets Too’ by Pellowsky, Fabe & Flor Dery and finished on a beguiling high note with Oleck & Taloac’s ‘Possessed’ as a simple farmer searched in all the wrong places for a deadly witch…

Gerard Conway & Dezuniga provided a haunting tale of lonely lighthouses and other worlds in #111’s ‘A Watchtower in the Dark’, after which ‘Hair-I-Kari’ by Fabe & Romy Gamboa told a sordid tale of a magic baldness cure and Michael Fleisher & Taloac recounted a bold adventurer’s quest to defeat death in ‘The Land Beyond the Styx!’

In #112 ‘The Witch Doctor’s Magic Cloak’ by Fleisher & Rudy Nebres explored the grotesque consequences of alternative medicine and limb regeneration, after which Conway & Luis Dominguez pastiched Sherlock Holmes to great effect in ‘The Case of the Demon Spawn!’ whilst #113 opened with an all-out monster mash in the delightfully dark ‘Not So Loud – I’m Blind!’ by Doug Moench, Nick Cardy & Mike Sekowsky and after another Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ Oleck & Nestor Redondo unleashed a truly nasty tale of child vampires in ‘Spawns of Satan’ …

HoS# 114 led with Fleisher & Frank Bolle’s ‘Night Game’ – a chilling sports-story of corruption in hockey and murder on ice – and close with the same writer’s ‘The Demon and the Rock Star!’, concerning one Hell of a comeback tour and illustrated by Talaoc, whilst #115 featured ‘Nobody Hurts my Brother!’ by Drake & Alcala: a tale of once-conjoined twins who shared each others hurts but not morals, after which ‘Remembered Dead’ (Kashdan & Niño) dealt with a wax museum guard’s unhealthy attachment to one of the exhibits, and ‘Every Man my Killer!’ by Kashdan and Nardo & E.R. Cruz, followed a tormented soul the entire world wanted dead…

‘Like Father, Like Son’ by Oleck & Nestor Redondo in #116 followed the rise and fall of a 18th century peasant who sold more than his soul for wealth, love and power, and ‘Puglyon’s Crypt’ by David Michelinie & Ramona Fradon explored with delicious vivacity the obsession of a man determined never to suffer premature burial…

House of Secrets #117 opened with a tale of medieval feuds and bloody vendettas that inevitably led to ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Oleck & Ernie Chan), whilst ‘Don’t Cry for Uncle Malcolm’ Gerry Boudreau & Niño provided a phantasmagorical glimpse at the power of modern Voodoo, after which another couple of Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ bracket a wickedly ironic vignette entitled ‘Revenge For the Deadly Dummy!’ by Skeates Alcala.

The sinister magic of Hollywood informs the chilling delayed vengeance saga ‘The Very Last Picture Show’ by Fleisher & George Evans which opens #118, after which a ghostly  ‘Turnabout’ (Skeates & Quico Redondo) proves too much for a cunning murderess, and Oleck & Fradon display a different look at leprechauns in ‘Nasty Little Man’…

This compendium concludes with issue #119 and ‘A Carnival of Dwarfs’ by Fleisher & Arthur Suydam, wherein an unscrupulous showbiz impresario comes between a gentle old man and his diminutive friends, and wedged between two last ‘Cain & Abel’ pages by Aragonés, Pellowsky, Kashdan & Alcala proved that primitive people are anything but when a callous anthropologist provided an ‘Imitation Monster!’ for an isolated tribe and lived to regret his foolishness…

If you crave witty, beautifully realised, tastefully splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your return to the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly can…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Superman volume 3


By Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Bill Finger, Jerry Coleman, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Curt Swan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1271-1

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character currently undergoing another radical overhaul, these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…

At the time these tales were first published The Man of Tomorrow was enjoying a youthful swell of revived interest. Television cartoons, a rampant merchandising wave thanks to the Batman-led boom in “camp” Superheroes generally, highly efficient global licensing and even a Broadway musical: all worked to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant icon of modern, Space-Age America.

Although we might think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic invention as the epitome of comicbook creation the truth is that soon after his launch in Action Comics #1 Superman became a multimedia star and far more people have enjoyed the Man of Steel than have ever read him and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strip.

By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons and two movies and just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of stellar movies and an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

It’s no wonder then that the tales from this Silver Age period should be so draped in the wholesome trappings of Tinseltown – even more so than most of celebrity-obsessed America. It didn’t hurt that editor Whitney Ellsworth was a part-time screenwriter, script editor and producer as well as National/DC’s Hollywood point man. His publishing assistant Mort Weisinger, a key factor in the vast expansion of the Kryptonian mythos, also had strong ties to the cinema and television industry, beginning in 1955 when he became story-editor for the blockbusting Adventures of Superman TV show.

This third magnificent monochrome chronicle collects the contents of Action Comics #276-292, Superman #146-156 and excerpts from Superman Annuals #3-5, spanning May 1961 to October 1962; taking its content from the early 1960’s canon (when the book’s target audience would have been little kids themselves) yet showcasing a rather more sophisticated set of tales than you might expect…

The wide-eyed wonderment commences with ‘The War Between Supergirl and the Superman Emergency Squad’ by Robert Bernstein, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye from Action #276, wherein Superman is conned into revealing his secret identity and has to resort to incredible measures to make the swindler disbelieve his eyes, after which #277 presented ‘The Conquest of Superman’ (Bill Finger, Curt Swan & John Forte); another brilliantly brooding duel against super-scientist Lex Luthor.

Superman #146 (July 1961) offered ‘The Story of Superman’s Life’ which related more secrets and recapitulated Clark Kent’s early days in a captivating résumé covering all the basics: death of Krypton, rocket-ride to Earth, early life as Superboy, death of the Kents and moving to Metropolis, all by Otto Binder & Al Plastino, by Al Plastino, whilst the closing ‘Superman’s Greatest Feats’ (Jerry Siegel & Plastino) saw the Man of Tomorrow travel into Earth’s past and seemingly succeed in preventing such tragedies as the sinking of Atlantis, slaughter of Christians in Imperial Rome, the deaths of Nathan Hale, Abraham Lincoln and Custer and even the death of Krypton’s population. Of course it was too good to be true…

Action #278 featured ‘The Super Powers of Perry White’ (Jerry Coleman, Swan & Kaye) with the senescent editor suddenly gaining super-powers and an inexplicable urge to conquer the world whilst in Superman #147 ‘The Great Mento!’, by Bernstein & Plastino, a mysterious mind-reader threatened to expose the hero’s secret identity. ‘Krypto Battles Titano’ (Siegel & Plastino) found the wandering Dog of Steel voyaging back to the Age of Dinosaurs to play and inadvertently save humanity from alien invasion alongside the Kryptonite mutated giant ape. The issue closed with ‘The Legion of Super Villains’ (by Siegel, Swan & Sheldon Moldoff) a landmark adventure and stand-out thriller featuring Lex Luthor and the adult Legion of Super-Heroes overcoming certain death with valour and ingenuity.

This was followed by Swan’s iconic cover for Superman Annual #3 (August 1961), the uncredited picture-feature Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude and the superb back-cover pin-up of the Metropolis Marvel.

The author of Action #279’s Imaginary Story ‘The Super Rivals’ is regrettably unknown but John Forte’s sleekly comfortable art happily illustrates the wild occurrence of historical heroes Samson and Hercules being brought to the 20th century by Superman to marry Lois Lane and Lana Lang, thereby keeping them out of his hair, whilst in #280 ‘Brainiac’s Super Revenge’ (Siegel, Swan & Kaye) returned that time-lost villain to our era and saw him attack the Man of Steel’s friends, only to be foiled by a guest-starring Congorilla (veteran Action hero Congo Bill who could trade consciousness with a giant Golden Gorilla)…

Imaginary Stories were conceived as a way of exploring non-continuity plots and scenarios devised at a time when editors believed that entertainment trumped consistency and knew that every comic read was somebody’s first

When Editor Mort Weisinger was expanding the Superman continuity and building the legend he knew that the each new tale was an event that added to a nigh-sacred canon: that what was written and drawn mattered to the readers. But as an ideas man he wasn’t going to let that aggregated “history” stifle a good plot situation, nor would he allow his eager yet sophisticated audience to endure clichéd deus ex machina cop-outs to mar the sheer enjoyment of a captivating concept.

The mantra known to every fan was “Not a Dream! Not a Hoax! Not a Robot!” boldly emblazoned on covers depicting scenes that couldn’t possibly be true… even if it was only a comic book.

Superman #148 opened with ‘The 20th Century Achilles’ by Edmond Hamilton, Swan & Moldoff, wherein a cunning crook devised a way to make himself immune to harm, after which ‘Mr. Mxyzptlk’s Super Mischief’ (Siegel, Swan & Moldoff) once again found the 5th dimensional pest using his magic to cause irritation after legally changing his name to something even easier to pronounce whilst the delightfully devilish ‘Superman Owes a Billion Dollars!’ written by Bernstein, saw the Caped Kryptonian face his greatest foe – a Revenue agent who diligently discovered that the hero had never paid a penny of tax in his life…

Action Comics #281 featured ‘The Man Who Saved Kal-El’s Life!’ (Bernstein & Plastino), which related the story of a humble Earth scientist who had visited Krypton and cured baby Kal-El, all wrapped up in a gripping duel with a modern crook who was able to avoid Superman’s every effort to hold him, whilst in Superman #149 ‘Lex Luthor, Hero!’, ‘Luthor’s Super-Bodyguard’ and ‘The Death of Superman’ by Siegel, Swan & Moldoff formed a brilliant extended Imaginary saga which described the insidious inventor’s ultimate victory over the Man of Steel.

Back in “real” continuity Action #282 revealed ‘Superman’s Toughest Day’ (Bill Finger & Plastino) as Clark Kent’s vacation only revealed how his alter ego never really took it easy, whilst #283 and ‘The Red Kryptonite Menace’ (Bernstein, Swan & Kaye) saw a brace of Chameleon Men from the 30th century afflict the Action Ace with incredible new powers and disabilities after exposing him to a variety of crimson K chunks.

Superman #150 opened with ‘The One Minute of Doom’ by Siegel & Plastino, which disclosed how all the survivors of Krypton – even Super-dog – commemorated the planet’s destruction, after which Bernstein & Kurt Schaffenberger’s ‘The Duel over Superman’ finally saw Lois and Lana teach the patronising Man of Tomorrow a deserved lesson about his smug masculine complacency, before Siegel, Swan & Kaye baffled readers and Action Ace alike ‘When the World Forgot Superman’ in a clever and beguiling mystery yarn

From Superman Annual #4 (January 1962) comes the stunning cover and The Origin and Powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes by Swan & George Klein after which Action #284 featured ‘The Babe of Steel’ (Bernstein, Swan & Klein) wherein Superman endured humiliation and frustration after deliberately turning himself into a toddler – but there was a deadly and vital purpose to the temporary transformation…

Superman #151 opened with the salutary story of ‘The Three Tough Teen-Agers!’ (Siegel & Plastino) wherein the hero set a trio of delinquents back on the right path, after which Bernstein, Swan & Klein’s ‘The Man Who Trained Supermen’ saw Clark Kent expose a crooked sports trainer and ‘Superman’s Greatest Secret!’ was almost revealed after battling a fire-breathing dragon which survived Krypton’s doom in a stirring tale by Siegel, Swan & Klein: probably one of the best secret identity-saving stories of the period…

Since landing on Earth, Supergirl’s existence had been a closely guarded secret, allowing her time to master her formidable abilities, which were presented to the readership monthly as a back up feature in Action Comics. However with #285 ‘The World’s Greatest Heroine!‘ finally went public in the Superman lead spot after which the Girl of Steel defeated ‘The Infinite Monster’ in her own strip, as Supergirl became the darling of the universe: openly saving the planet and finally getting the credit for it in a stirring brace of tales by Siegel & Jim Mooney.

Action #286 offered the Superman saga ‘The Jury of Super-Enemies’ (Bernstein, Swan Klein) as the Superman Revenge Squad  inflicts Red K hallucinations on the Man of Steel which torment him with visions of Luthor, Brainiac, the Legion of Super-Villains and other evil adversaries. The epic continued in Action #287, but before that Superman #152 appeared, offering a surprising battle against ‘The Robot Master’ (Siegel, Swan & Klein), the charmingly outrageous ‘Superbaby Captures the Pumpkin Gang!’ by Leo Dorfman, George Papp and ‘The TV Trap for Superman!’ a devious crime caper by Finger & Plastino which saw the hero unwittingly wired for sound and vision by a sneaky conman…

The Revenge Squad thriller then concluded in #287’s ‘Perry White’s Manhunt for Superman!’ (Bernstein, Swan & Klein) as an increasingly deluded Man of Steel battled his worst nightmares and struggled to save Earth from a genuine alien invasion.

‘The Day Superman Broke the Law!’, by Finger & Plastino, opened Superman #153 as a wily embezzler entangled the Metropolis Marvel in small-town red tape after which ‘The Secret of the Superman Stamp’ (Edmond Hamilton, Swan & Klein) saw a proposed honour for good works turned into a serious threat to the hero’s secret identity, whilst ‘The Town of Supermen’ by Siegel & Forte found the Man of Tomorrow in a western ghost town facing a deadly showdown against ten Kryptonian criminals freshly escaped from the Phantom Zone…

The growing power of the silver screen informed ‘The Man Who Exposed Superman’ (Action #288 by an unknown writer and artists Swan & Klein) when a vengeful convict originally imprisoned by Superboy attempted to expose the hero’s identity by blackmailing him on live television whilst ‘The Super-Practical Joker!’ (in #289 by Dorfman & Plastino) saw Perry White forced to hire obnoxious trust-fund brat Dexter Willis, a spoiled kid whose obsessive stunts almost exposed Superman’s day job.

‘The Underwater Pranks of Mr. Mxyzptlk’ by Hamilton, Swan & Klein led in Superman #154 as the insane sprite returned, determined to cause grief and stay for good by only working his jest whilst submerged, after which ‘Krypton’s First Superman’ (Siegel, Swan & Klein) revealed a hidden tale of baby Kal-El on the doomed world which had unsuspected psychological effects on the full-grown hero. This is followed by an example of the many public service announcements which ran in all DC’s 1960’s titles. ‘Superman Says be a Good Citizen’ was probably written by Jack Schiff and illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff.

Exposure to a Red Kryptonite comet in Action #290 led to the hero becoming ‘Half a Superman!’ in another sadly uncredited story illustrated by Swan & Klein after which

Superman Annual #5 (July 1962) offers another stunning cover and displays the planetary Flag of Krypton, whilst Superman #155 featured the two-chapter ‘Superman Under the Green Sun’ and ‘The Blind Superman’ by Finger, Wayne Boring & Kaye, as the Man of Steel was trapped on a totalitarian world where his powers were negated and he was blinded as part of the dictator’s policy to keep the populace helpless. However, even sightless, nothing could stop the hero from leading the people to victory. As if that wasn’t enough Siegel, Swan & Klein then offered the showbiz thriller ‘The Downfall of Superman!’ with a famous wrestler seemingly able to defeat the Action Ace – with a little help from some astounding guest-stars…

‘The New Superman!’ by Bernstein & Plastino (Action #291) wherein the Metropolis Marvel lost his deadly susceptibility to Kryptonite, only to have it replaced by aversions to far more commonplace minerals, whilst #292 revealed ‘When Superman Defended his Arch Enemy!’ – an anonymous thriller illustrated by Plastino – which saw the hero save Luthor from his just deserts after “murdering” alien robots

This grand excursion into comics nostalgia ends with one of the greatest Superman stories of the decade. Issue #156, October 1962, featured the novel-length saga ‘The Last Days of Superman’ by Hamilton, Swan & Klein which began with ‘Superman’s Death Sentence’ as the hero contracted the deadly Kryptonian Virus X and fell into a swift and painful decline. Confined to an isolation booth, he was visited by ‘The Super-Comrades of All Times!’ who attempted to cure and swore to carry on his noble works until a last-minute solution was discovered on ‘Superman’s Last Day of Life!’ This tense and terrifying thriller employed the entire vast and extended supporting cast that had evolved around the most popular comicbook character in the world and still enthrals and excites in a way few stories ever have…

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling, mind-boggling and yes, occasionally deeply moving all-ages stories also perfectly depict the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics between the safely anodyne 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more”.

I know I certainly do…
© 1961, 1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes volume 3


By Jim Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Otto Binder, Curt Swan, George Klein, Pete Costanza, Jim Mooney & George Papp (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2185-0

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join them…

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten over and over again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

This sturdy, action packed third monochrome compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from October 1966 to May 1968, originally seen in Adventure Comics #349-368, and includes a Legion-featuring story from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106 (October 1967).

During this period the Club of Champions finally shed the last vestiges of wholesome, imaginative, humorous and generally safe science fiction strips to become a full-on dramatic action feature starring a grittily realistic combat force in constant, galaxy-threatening peril: a compelling force of valiant warriors ready and willing to pay the ultimate price for their courage and dedication…

The main architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (usually finished and inked by veterans Curt Swan & George Klein) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up in the Future…

The tense suspense begins with Adventure Comics #349’s ‘The Rogue Legionnaire!’ (Shooter, Swan & Klein) wherein Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy and Brainiac 5 hunted hypnotic villain Universo through five periods of Earth’s history, aided by boy-genius Rond Vidar, a brilliant scientist with a tragic secret…

This is followed by a stellar two-parter from #350-351 scripted by E. Nelson Bridwell which restored a number of invalided and expelled members to the team. In ‘The Outcast Super-Heroes’, a cloud of Green Kryptonite particles enveloped Earth and forced Superboy and Supergirl to retire from the Legion just as demonic alien Evillo unleashed his squad of deadly metahuman minions on the universe.

The Kryptonian Cousins were mind-wiped and replaced by armoured and masked paladins Sir Prize and Miss Terious in ‘The Forgotten Legion!’ but quickly returned when a solution to the K Cloud was found.

On Evillo’s eventual defeat, the team discovered that the wicked overlord had healed the one-armed Lightning Lad and restored Bouncing Boy‘s power for his own nefarious purposes, and together with the reformed White Witch and rehabilitated Star Boy and Dream Girl the Legion’s ranks and might swelled to bursting.

That was a very good thing as the next issue saw Shooter, Swan & Klein produce one of their most stunning epics. When a colossal cosmic entity known as the Sun Eater menaced the United Planets, the Legion were hopelessly outmatched and forced to recruit the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals to help save civilisation.

However The Persuader, Emerald Empress, Mano, Tharok and Validus were untrustworthy allies at best and formed an alliance as ‘The Fatal Five!’ intending to save the galaxy only so that they could rule it…

Adventure #353 revealed how the Five seemingly sealed their own fate through arrogance and treachery and the cost of heroism was paid when ‘The Doomed Legionnaire!’ sacrificed his life to destroy the solar parasite…

Issue #354 introduced ‘The Adult Legion!’ when Superman travelled into the future to visit his grown-up comrades – discovering tantalising hints of events that would torment and beguile LSH fans for decades – before the yarn concluded with #355’s ‘The War of the Legions!’ as Brainiac 5, Cosmic Man, Element Man, Polar Man, Saturn Woman and Timber Wolf, accompanied by the most unexpected allies of all, battled the Legion of Super-Villains.

This issue also included an extra tale in ‘The Six-Legged Legionnaire!’ (by Otto Binder, Swan & Klein) wherein Superboy brought his High School sweetie Lana Lang to the 30th century, where she joined in a mission against a science-tyrant as the shape-shifting Insect Queen. Disaster soon struck though when the alien ring which facilitated her changes was lost, trapping her in a hideous bug-body…

In issue #356 Dream Girl, Mon-El, Element Lad, Brainiac 5 and Superboy were transformed into babies and became ‘The Five Legion Orphans!’: a cheeky and cunning Bridwell scripted mystery.

The repercussions and guilt of the Sun-Eater episode were explored when the survivors of that mission were apparently haunted by ‘The Ghost of Ferro Lad!’ (#357 by Shooter, Swan & Klein) whilst ‘The Hunter!’ (Shooter & George Papp) saw the heroes stalked by an insane and murderous sportsman with a unique honour code.

Adventure #359 found the once-beloved champions disbanded and on the run as ‘The Outlawed Legionnaires!’ (Shooter, Swan & Klein) thanks to the manipulations of a devious old foe, only to rousingly regroup and counter-attack in #360’s ‘The Legion Chain Gang!’

Once again a key component of United Planets Security in ‘The Unkillables!’, the superhero squad were then assigned to protect alien ambassadors the Dominators from political agitators, assassins and a hidden traitor in a tense thriller illustrated by Jim Mooney, after which ‘The Lone Wolf Legion Reporter!’ (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106, October 1967, by Shooter & Pete Costanza) found the young newsman seconded to the 30th century to help with the club newspaper. Sadly he was far better at making news than publishing it…

Adventure Comics #362 found the team scattered across three worlds as mad scientist Mantis Morlo refused to let environmental safety interfere with his experiments in ‘The Chemoids are Coming!’, resulting in a lethally ‘Black Day for the Legion!’…

Shooter & Costanza then topped their gripping two-parter by uncovering ‘The Revolt of the Super-Pets!’ in #364, when the crafty rulers of planet Thanl attempted to seduce the animal adventurers from their rightful – subordinate – positions with sweet words and palatial new homes…

When the isolated world of Talok 8 went dark and became a militaristic threat to the UP, their planetary champion Shadow Lass led Superboy, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy and Karate Kid on a reconnaissance mission which resulted in the disastrous ‘Escape of the Fatal Five!’ (illustrated by Swan & Klein).

The quintet then almost conquered the UP itself and were only frustrated by the defiant, last ditch efforts of the battered heroes in the blistering conclusion ‘The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!’

In grateful thanks the Legion were gifted with a vast new HQ but before the paint was even dry a vast paramilitary force attempted to invade the slowly reconstructing planet Earth in #367’s ‘No Escape from the Circle of Death!’ (Shooter, Swan, Klein & Sheldon Moldoff), after which this volume ends on a note of political and social tension when a glamorous alien envoy attempted to suborn the downtrodden female Legionnaires in #368’s ‘The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines!’

The Legion is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom.

Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League – fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and underpinned the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 3


By Edmond Hamilton, Cary Bates, Jim Shooter, Leo Dorfman, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, George Klein, Sheldon Moldoff, & Al Plastino (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-585-2

For decades Superman and Batman were quintessential superhero partners: the “World’s Finest” team. They were friends as well as colleagues, and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes could cross-pollinate and cross-sell their combined readerships.

This third magnificent monochrome compendium gathers their cataclysmic collaborations from the glory days of the mid 1960’s (World’s Finest Comics #146-173, with the exception of reprint 80-Page Giant issues #161 and 170, covering December 1964 to February 1968): a period when the entire Free World went superhero gaga in response to the Batman live action and Superman animated TV shows…

A new era had already begun in World’s Finest Comics #141 when author Edmond Hamilton and artists Curt Swan & George Klein (who illustrated the bulk of the tales in this tome) ushered in a more dramatic, realistic and far less whimsical tone, and that titanic creative trio continued their rationalist run in this volume with #146’s ‘Batman, Son of Krypton!’ wherein uncovered evidence from the Bottle City of Kandor and bizarre recovered memories seemed to indicate that the Caped Crusader was in fact a de-powered, amnesiac Kryptonian. Moreover, as the heroes dug deeper Superman thought he had found the Earthman responsible for his homeworld’s destruction and became crazed with a hunger for vengeance…

Issue #147’s saw the sidekicks step up in a stirring blend of science fiction thriller and crime caper, all masquerading as an engaging drama of youth-in-revolt when ‘The New Terrific Team!’ (February 1965 Hamilton, Swan & Klein) saw Jimmy Olsen and Robin quit their underappreciated assistant roles to strike out on their disgruntled own. Naturally there was a perfectly rational, if incredible, reason…

In #148 ‘Superman and Batman – Outlaws!’ (with Sheldon Moldoff temporarily replacing Klein) saw the Cape and Cowl Crimebusters transported to another dimension where arch-villains Lex Luthor and Clayface were heroes and Dark Knight and Action Ace the ruthless hunted criminals, after which World’s Finest Comics #149 (May 1965 and also inked by Moldoff) ‘The Game of Secret Identities!’ found Superman locked into an increasingly obsessive battle of wits with Batman that seemed likely to break up the partnership and even lead to violent disaster…

‘The Super-Gamble with Doom!’ in #150 introduced manipulative alien’s Rokk and Sorban whose addictive and staggeringly spectacular wagering almost got Batman killed and Earth destroyed, whilst ‘The Infinite Evolutions of Batman and Superman!’ in #151 introduced young writer Cary Bates, who paired with Hamilton to produce a beguiling science fiction thriller with the Gotham Guardian transformed into a callous future-man and the Metropolis Marvel reduced to a savage Neanderthal….

Hamilton solo-scripted #152’s ‘The Colossal Kids!’ wherein a brace of impossibly powered brats outmatched outdid but never outwitted Batman or Superman – and of course there were old antagonists behind the challenging campaign of humiliation – after which Bates rejoined his writing mentor for a taut and dramatic “Imaginary Story” in #153.

When Editor Mort Weisinger was expanding the Superman continuity and building the legend he knew that the each new tale was an event that added to a nigh-sacred canon: that what was written and drawn mattered to the readers. But as an ideas man he wasn’t going to let that aggregated “history” stifle a good idea, nor would he allow his eager yet sophisticated audience to endure clichéd deus ex machina cop-outs to mar the sheer enjoyment of a captivating concept.

The mantra known to every baby-boomer fan was “Not a Dream! Not a Hoax! Not a Robot!” boldly emblazoned on covers depicting scenes that couldn’t possibly be true… even if it was only a comic book.

Imaginary Stories were conceived as a way of exploring non-continuity plots and scenarios devised at a time when editors believed that entertainment trumped consistency and knew that every comic read was somebody’s first – or potentially last – and ‘The Clash of Cape and Cowl!’, illustrated by as ever by Swan & Klein, posited a situation where brilliant young Bruce Wayne grew up believing Superboy had murdered his father, thereafter dedicating his life to crushing all criminals as a Bat Man and waiting for the day when he could expose Superman as a killer and sanctimonious fraud…

WF #154 ‘The Sons of Superman and Batman’ (by Hamilton) opened the doors to a far less tragic Imaginary world: one where the crime fighters finally found time to marry Lois Lane and Kathy Kane and have kids. Unfortunately the lads proved to be both a trial and initially a huge disappointment…

‘Exit Batman – Enter Nightman!’ saw the World’s Finest Team on the cusp of their 1,000th successful shared case when a new costumed crusader threatened to break up the partnership and replace the burned out Batman in a canny psychological thriller, whilst ‘The Federation of Bizarro Idiots!’ in #156 saw the well-meaning but imbecilic imperfect duplicates of Superman and Batman set up shop on Earth and end up as pawns of the duplicitous Joker, after which #157’s ‘The Abominable Brats’ – drawn with inevitable brilliance by Swan and inked by both Klein & Moldoff – featured an Imaginary Story sequel as the wayward sons of heroes returned to cause even more mischief, although once more there were other insidious influences in play…

In ‘The Invulnerable Super-Enemy!’ (#158 by Hamilton, Swan & Klein), the Olsen-Robin Team stumbled upon three Bottled Cities and inadvertently drew their mentors into a terrifying odyssey of evil which at first seemed to be the work of Brainiac but was in fact far from it, whilst ‘The Cape and Cowl Crooks!’ (WFC #159) dealt with foes possessing far mightier powers than our heroes – a major concern for young readers of the times.

To this day whenever fans gather the cry eventually echoes out, “Who’s the strongest/fastest/better dressed…?” but this canny conundrum took the theme to superbly suspenseful heights as Anti-Superman and Anti-Batman continually outwitted and outmanoeuvred the heroes, seemingly possessed of impossible knowledge of their antagonists..

Leo Dorfman debuted as scripter in#160 as the heroes struggled to discredit ‘The Fatal Forecasts of Dr. Zodiac’, a scurrilous Swami who appeared to control fate itself.

World’s Finest Comics #161 was an 80-Page Giant reprinting past tales and is not included in this collection, and jumping in with #162’s ‘Pawns of the Jousting Master!’ is another fresh scripting face in Jim Shooter, who produced an engaging time travel romp wherein Superman and Batman were defeated in combat and compelled to travel back to Camelot in a beguiling tale of King Arthur, super-powered knights and invading aliens…

‘The Duel of the Super-Duo!’ in #163 (Shooter, Swan & Klein) pitted Superman against a brainwashed Batman on a world where his mighty powers were negated and the heroes of the galaxy were imprisoned by a master manipulator, after which Dorfman produced an engaging thriller where a girl who was more powerful than Superman and smarter than Batman proved to be ‘Brainiac’s Super Brain-Child!’

Bill Finger & Al Plastino stepped in to craft WF #165’s ‘The Crown of Crime’ (March 1967) which depicted the last days of dying mega-gangster King Wolff whose plan to go out with a bang set the underworld ablaze and almost stymied both Superman and Batman, after which Shooter, Swan & Klein produced ‘The Danger of the Deadly Duo!’ in which the twentieth generation of Batman and Superman united to battle the Joker of 2967 and his uncanny ally Muto: a superb flight of fantasy that was the sequel to a brief series of stories starring Superman’s heroic descendent in a fantastic far future world

WF #167 saw Cary Bates fly solo by scripting ‘The New Superman and Batman Team!’: an Imaginary Story wherein boy scientist Lex Luthor gave himself super-powers and a Kal-El who had landed on Earth without Kryptonian abilities trained himself to become an avenging Batman after his foster-father Jonathan Kent was murdered. The Smallville Stalwarts briefly united in a crime-fighting partnership but destiny had other plans for the fore-doomed friends…

In World’s Finest Comics #142 a lowly and embittered janitor suddenly gained all the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes and attacked the heroes out of frustration and jealousy. He was revived by Bates in #168’s ‘The Return of the Composite Superman!’ as the pawn of a truly evil villain but gloriously triumphed over his own venal nature, after which #169 featured ‘The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot’ a whimsical fantasy feast from Bates, Swan & Klein wherein the uppity lasses seemingly worked tirelessly to supplant and replace Batman and Superman before it was revealed that the Dynamic Damsels were mere pawns of an extremely duplicitous team of female felons – although a brace of old WF antagonists were actually behind the Byzantine scheme…

Issue #170 was another mammoth reprint edition, after which #171 revealed ‘The Executioner’s List!’ (script by Dorfman); an intriguing and tense murder-mystery wherein a mysterious sniper seemingly targeted the friends of Superman and Batman, whilst the stirring and hard-hitting Imaginary Story ‘Superman and Batman… Brothers!’ (WF #172 December 1967) posited a grim scenario wherein orphaned Bruce Wayne was adopted by the Kents, but could not escape a destiny of tragedy and darkness.

Written by Shooter and brilliantly interpreted by Swan & Klein, this moody thriller in many ways signalled the end of the angst-free days and the beginning of the darker, crueller and more dramatically cohesive DC universe for a less casual readership, and thereby surrendered the mythology to the increasingly devout fan-based audience.

This stunning compendium closes with World’s Finest Comics #173 and ‘The Jekyll-Hyde Heroes!’ again by Shooter, Swan & Klein, as a criminal scientist devises a way to literally transform the Cape and Cowl Crusaders into their own worst enemies…

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling, timeless style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: the Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this tome are a veritable feast of witty, gritty thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.

Unmissable adventure for fans of all ages!
© 1964-1968, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents All Star Comics Volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Wally Wood, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-810-0

In the torrid and turbulent 1970s many of the Comics industry’s oldest publishing ideas were finally laid to rest. The belief that characters could be “over-exposed” was one of the most pernicious and long-lasting (although it never hurt Superman, Batman or the original Captain Marvel), garnered from years of experience in an industry which lived or died on that fractional portion of pennies derived each month from the pocket-money and allowances of children which wasn’t spent on candy, toys or movies.

By the end of the 1960s comicbook costs and prices were inexorably rising and a proportion of titles – especially the newly revived horror stories – were consciously being produced for older readerships. Nearly a decade of organised fan publications and letter writing crusades had finally convinced publishing bean-counters what editors already knew: grown-ups avidly read comics too; they would happily spend more than kids and, most importantly, they wanted more, more, more of what they loved.

Explicitly: If one appearance per month was popular, extras, specials and second series would be more so. By the time Marvel Wunderkind Gerry Conway was preparing to leave The House of Ideas, DC was willing and ready to expand its variegated line-up with some oft-requested fan-favourite characters.

Paramount among these was the Justice Society of America, the first comicbook super-team and a perennial gem whose annual guest-appearances in the Justice League of America had become an inescapable and beloved summer tradition.

Thus in 1976 Writer/Editor Conway marked his DC tenure (where he had first broken in to the game by writing horror shorts for Joe Orlando) by reviving All Star Comics with number #58; in 1951 as the first Heroic Age ended the original title had transformed overnight into All Star Western with that number running for a further decade as the home of such cowboy crusaders as Strong Bow, the Trigger Twins, Johnny Thunder and Super-Chief. If you’re interested, among the other revivals/introductions in “Conway’s Corner” were Blackhawk, Plastic Man, Secret Society of Super-Villains, Freedom Fighters, Kobra, Blitzkrieg – and many others

Set on the parallel world of Earth-2 and in keeping with the editorial sense of ensuring that the series was relevant to young readers too, Conway reintroduced the veteran team and leavened it with a smattering of teen heroes, combined into a contentious, generation-gap fuelled “Super Squad”.

The youngsters included Robin (already a JSA member since the mid 1960s – as per Showcase Presents the Justice League of America volume 3), Sylvester Pemberton, AKA The Star-Spangled Kid (in actuality a boy-hero from the 1940s who had spent decades lost in time) and a busty young nymphet who quickly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L; soon to become infamous as the “take-charge” dynamo Power Girl.

This superb titanic monochrome volume gathers the four year run of the JSA from the late 1970s into a sublime showcase of different, ever-changing times and includes All-Star Comics #58-74, the series’ continuation and conclusion from giant anthology title Adventure Comics #461-466 plus the seminal DC Special #29 which, after almost four decades, at last provided the team with an origin…

The action begins with ‘Prologue’ – a three-page introduction, recap and summation of the Society’s history and the celestial mechanics of Alternate Earths, by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton & Bob Layton From Adventure #461 (January/February 1979) outlining the history and mechanics of the alternate Earths, after which the two-part debut tale from All- Star Comics #58 (January/February 1976 by Conway, Ric Estrada and Wally Wood) found newly-inducted Pemberton chafing at his time-lost plight and revelling in his new powers (he had been given a cosmic power device by retired veteran Starman) when a crisis propelled him and elder heroes Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wildcat, Hawkman, Green Lantern and Dr. Fate into a three-pronged calamity devastating Seattle, Cape Town and Peking (which you youngsters now know as Beijing) with man-made natural disasters.

The veterans split up but were overwhelmed, giving the new kids a chance to shine in ‘All Star Super-Squad’. With the abrasive, impatient Power Girl in the vanguard the entire team was soon on the trail of old foe Degaton and his mind-bending ally in the concluding ‘Brainwave Blows Up!’

Keith Giffen replaced Estrada in issue #60 for the introduction of a psychotic super-arsonist who attacked the squad just as the age-divide started to chafe and Power Girl began to tick off or “re-educate” the stuffy, paternalistic JSA elders in ‘Vulcan: Son of Fire!’.

The closing instalment ‘Hellfire and Holocaust’ saw the flaming fury mortally wound Dr. Fate before his own defeat, just as a new mystic menace was beginning to stir…

Conway’s last issue as scripter was #62’s ‘When Fall the Mighty’ as antediluvian sorcerer Zanadu attacked, whilst the criminal Injustice Gang opened their latest vengeful assault using mind-control to turn friend against friend…

The cast expanded with the return of Hourman and Power Girl’s Kryptonian mentor, but even they were insufficient to prevent ‘The Death of Doctor Fate’ (written by Paul Levitz and fully illustrated by the inimitable Wally Wood). Attacked on all sides, the team splintered: Wildcat, Hawkman and the Kryptonian Cousins tackling the assembled super-villains, Flash and Green Lantern searching Egypt for a cure to Fate’s condition, and Hourman, Mid-Nite and Star-Spangled Kid desperately attempting to keep their fallen comrade alive.

They failed and Zanadu attacked once more, almost adding the moribund Fate’s death-watch defenders to his tally until the archaic alien’s very presence called Kent Nelson back from beyond the grave…

With that crisis averted Superman made ready to leave but was embroiled in a last-minute, manic time-travel assassination plot (Levitz & Wood) which dragged the team and guest-star Shining Knight from an embattled Camelot in ‘Yesterday Begins Today!’ to the far-flung future and ‘The Master Plan of Vandal Savage’: a breathtaking spectacle of drama and excitement that signalled Wood’s departure from the series.

Joe Staton & Bob Layton had the unenviable task of filling his artistic shoes, beginning with #66 as ‘Injustice Strikes Twice!’ with the reunited team – sans Superman – falling prey to an ambush from their arch-enemies, whilst the emotion-warping Psycho-Pirate began to twist Green Lantern into an out-of-control menace determined to crush Corporate America beneath his emerald heel, which subsequently led to the return of Earth-2’s Bruce Wayne, who had retired his masked persona to become Gotham’s Police Commissioner.

The Injustice Society had monstrous allies who were revealed in ‘Attack of the Underlord!’ (All-Star Comics #67, July/Aug 1977) as a subterranean race of conquerors who nearly ended the team forever. Meanwhile Wayne’s plans to close down the JSA before their increasingly destructive exploits demolished his beloved city neared fruition…

The modern adventures pause here as the aforementioned case from DC Special #29 (September 1977) disclosed ‘The Untold Origin of the Justice Society’

In this extra-length epic Levitz, Staton & Layton, revealed the previously “classified” events which saw Adolf Hitler acquire the mystical Spear of Destiny in 1940 and immediately summon mythical Teutonic Valkyries to aid in the in 1940 invasion of Britain.

Alerted to the threat, American President Roosevelt, hampered by his country’s neutrality, asked a select band of masked mystery-men to lend their aid as non-political private citizens. In a cataclysmic escalation the struggle ranged from the heart of Europe, throughout the British Isles and even to the Oval office of the White House before ten bold costumed heroes finally – if only temporarily – stopped the Nazis’ evil plans…

Back in All Star #68 (October, 1977) the curvy Kryptonian was clearly becoming the star of the show and as ‘Divided We Stand!’ by Levitz, Staton & Bob Layton, concluded the Psycho-Pirate’s scheme to discredit and destroy the JSA, she was well on the way to her first solo outing in Showcase #97-98 (reprinted in Power Girl, but not included here). Meanwhile GL resumed a maniacal rampage through Gotham City and Police Commissioner Bruce Wayne took extreme measures to bring the seemingly out-of-control JSA to book.

In #69’s ‘United We Fall!’ Commissioner Wayne brought in his own team of retired JSA heroes to arrest the “rogue” squad, resulting in a classic fanboy dream duel as Dr. Fate, Wildcat, Hawkman, Flash, GL and Star Spangled Kid battled the one-time Batman, Robin, Hourman, Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wonder Woman. It was a colourful catastrophe in waiting until PG and Superman intervened to reveal the true cause of all the madness.

…And in the background, a new character was about to make a landmark debut…

With order (temporarily) restored ‘A Parting of the Ways!’ focussed on Wildcat and Star Spangled Kid as the off-duty heroes stumbled upon a high-tech gang of super-thieves called Strike Force. The robbers initially proved too much for the pair and even new star The Huntress, but with a pair of startling revelations in ‘The Deadliest Game in Town!’ the trio finally triumphed.

In the aftermath the Kid resigned and the daughter of Batman and Catwoman (alternate Earth, remember?) replaced him.

All-Star Comics #72 reintroduced a couple of classic Golden Age villainesses in ‘A Thorn by Any Other Name’ wherein the psychopathic floral fury returned to poison Wildcat, leaving Helena Wayne to battle the original 1950’s Huntress for an antidote and the rights to the name…

The concluding ‘Be it Ever So Deadly’ (with Joe Giella taking over the inker’s role) saw the entire team in action as Huntress battled Huntress whilst Thorn and the Sportsmaster did their deadly best to destroy the heroes and their loved ones. Simultaneously in Egypt Hawkman and Dr. Fate stumbled upon a deadly ancient menace to all of reality…

The late 1970s was a perilous period for comics with exponentially rising costs inevitably resulting in drastically dwindling sales. Many titles were abruptly cancelled in a “DC Implosion” and All-Star Comics was one of the casualties. Issue #74 was the last and pitted the entire team against a mystic Armageddon perpetrated by the nigh-omnipotent Master Summoner who orchestrated a ‘World on the Edge of Ending’ before the Justice Society triumphed dragged victory from the jaws of defeat…

Although the book was gone, the series continued in the massive 68 page anthology title Adventure Comics, beginning in #461 (January/February 1979) with the first half of a blockbuster tale originally intended for the anniversary 75th issue. Drawn and inked by Staton, ‘Only Legends Live Forever’ detailed the last case of the Batman as the Dark Knight came out of retirement to battle a seeming nonentity who had mysteriously acquired god-like power.

Issue #462 delivered the shocking, heartbreaking conclusion in ‘The Legend Lives Again!’ whilst ‘The Night of the Soul Thief!’ saw Huntress, Robin and the assembled JSA deliver righteous justice to the mysterious mastermind who had actually orchestrated the death of the World’s Greatest Detective.

Adventure #464 then provided an intriguing insight into aging warrior Wildcat, as with ‘To Everything There is a Season…’ he embraced his own mortality and began a new career as a teacher of heroes, whilst ‘Countdown to Disaster!’ (inked by Dave Hunt) saw Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Power Girl, Huntress and Dr. Fate hunt a doomsday device lost in the teeming masses of Gotham. It would be the last modern outing of the team for decades.

But not the last in this volume: that honour falls to another Levitz & Staton landmark history lesson wherein they exposed the reason why the team had vanished at the beginning of the 1950s.

From Adventure #466 ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society!’ showed how the American Government had cravenly betrayed their greatest champions during the McCarthy Witch-hunts; provoking the mystery-men into withdrawing from public, heroic life for over a decade – that is until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-1 started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

Although perhaps a tad dated now, these exuberant, rapid-paced and imaginative yarns perfectly blended the naive charm of Golden Age derring-do with cynical yet hopeful modern sensibilities that never doubted that, in the end. heroes would always find a way to save the day.

These classic tales from a simpler time are a glorious example of traditional superhero storytelling at its finest: fun, furious and ferociously engaging, exciting written and beguilingly illustrated. No Fights ‘n’ Tights fan can afford to miss these marvellous sagas.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents the Haunted Tank Volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0789-8

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics, horror stories and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman and others genres too numerous to cover here. He scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world in 1956.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel.

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Lady Cop, and many memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, which Kanigher also scripted.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War. He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny but formulaic adventure arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot and The Losers as well as the irresistibly compelling “combat ghost stories” collected here in this stunning and economical monochrome war-journal.

This terrific first monochrome tome re-presents the early blockbusting exploits of boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Stryker and Rick Rawlins from G.I. Combat #87-119 (April/May 1961- August/September 1966) and also includes guest-star postings from The Brave and the Bold #52 (February/March 1964) and Our Army at War #155 (June 1965) beginning with ‘Introducing – the Haunted Tank’, illustrated by the sublime Russ Heath.

In this introductory tale the now-adult pals are all assigned to the same M-3 Stuart Light Tank, named for the legendary Confederate Army General who was a genius of cavalry combat – and during a patrol somehow destroy an enemy Panzer even though they are all knocked unconscious.

Narrated by Jeb as he mans the Commander’s spotter-position (head and torso sticking out of the top hatch and completely exposed to enemy fire whilst driver Slim, gunner Rick and loader Arch remain inside) he recounts how a ghostly voice seems to offer advice and prescient, if veiled, warnings, all while enduring the jibes of fellow soldiers who drive bigger, tougher war machines…

Eventually the little tank proves its worth and Jeb wonders if he imagined it all due to shock and his injuries, but in #88 ‘Haunted Tank vs. the Ghost Tank’, Jeb was actually seeing and conversing with his phantom namesake as he and the boys solved the completely logical mystery of an enemy battle-wagon which seemed to disappear at will.

‘Tank With Wings’ in G.I. Combat #89 was illustrated by Irv Novick and described how the old General’s impossible prophecy came chillingly true when the M-3 shot down a fighter plane whilst hanging from a parachute, after which Heath returned to limn a staggering clash against German ‘Tank Raiders’ who had stolen their haunted home on treads.

Throughout the early days Jeb’s comrades continually argued about what to do with him. Nobody believed in the ghost and they all doubted his sanity, but ever since he began to see the spirit soldier Stuart Smith had become a tactical genius and his “gifts” were keeping them all alive against incredible odds. In #91’s ‘The Tank and the Turtle’ a chance encounter with a plucky terrapin led to brutal clashes with strafing aircraft, hidden anti-tank guns and a booby-trapped village whilst ‘The Tank of Doom’ (illustrated by Jerry Grandenetti) saw the snow-bound tank-jockeys witness true heroism and learn that flesh, not steel, won wars…

In #93 Heath depicted a ‘No-Return Mission’ which depleted American tank forces until the Ghostly General took a hand and guided his mortal protégé through a veritable barrage of traps and ambushes, after which ‘The Haunted Tank vs. the Killer Tank’ began to widen the General’s role as the phantom protector agonised over intel he was not allowed to share with his Earthly namesake during a combined push to find a Nazi terror-weapon.

This time it was the young sergeant who had to provide his own answers…

The rest of the crew were near breaking point and ready to hand Jeb over to the medics in #95’s ‘The Ghost of the Haunted Tank’ but when Slim took over he too began to see and hear the General in the blistering heat of battle…

In ‘The Lonesome Tank’ Jeb was back in the hot-seat and scoffing at the other tank commanders’ reliance on lucky talismans, until the General seemingly abandoned him and he was pushed to the brink of desperation, whilst in G.I. Combat #97 ‘The Decoy Tank’ proved that a brave man made his own luck after a Nazi infiltrator took the entire crew hostage.

‘Trap of Dragon’s Teeth’ allowed the Ghostly Guardian to teach Jeb a useful lesson in trusting one’s own senses, not weapons and machinery, in combat, after which issue #99 saw the legendary Joe Kubert begin a stint on the series in the book-length thriller ‘Battle of the Thirsty Tanks’ with the Stuart labouring under desert conditions which reduced both German and American forces to thirsty wrecks as they struggled to capture a tantalising oasis.

‘Return of the Ghost Tank’ in #100 found the lads back in Europe as the crew revealed that their fathers had all been tank jockeys in WWI who had disappeared in action. Shock followed shock when they realised their sires had all been part of the same crew and reality was further stretched when the M-3 began to retrace the last mission of their missing fathers…

Any doubts about whether the General was real or imagined were finally laid to rest in #101’s ‘The Haunted Tank vs. Attila’s Battle Tiger’ illustrated by Jack Abel, as the evil spirit of the barbarian became patron to a German Panzer and began a campaign to destroy both the living and dead Jeb Stuarts, after which Kubert returned for ‘Battle Window’, a brilliant tale of old soldiers where a broken-down nonagenarian French warrior was given one final chance to serve his country as the American tank blithely drove into a perfect ambush…

A particularly arcane prognostication in #103 drove Jeb crazy until ‘Rabbit Punch for a Tiger’ showed him how improvisation could work like magic in a host of hostile situations whilst ‘Blind Man’s Radar’ helped the crew complete a dead man’s mission after picking up a sightless survivor of an Allied attack.

In the mid-1960s before the Batman TV show led to rampant “Bat-mania” The Brave and the Bold was a comicbook that featured team-ups of assorted DC stars and #52 (February-March 1964) grouped Tankman Stuart with Sgt. Rock and Lt. Cloud as the 3 Battle Stars in ‘Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!’ by Kanigher & Kubert. In this superb thriller the armoured cavalry, infantry and Air Force heroes combined forces to escort and safeguard a vital Allied agent, who had been sealed into a cruel and all-encompassing iron suit. Fast-paced, action-packed and utterly outrageous, the chase across occupied France resulted in one of the best battle blockbusters of the era.

Back in G.I. Combat #105 the ‘Time-Bomb Tank!’ began seconds after the B&B yarn as the Haunted Tank received information that Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company were under attack and dashed to the rescue. However circumstances soon caused the M-3 to become a mobile Marie Celeste…

The ‘Two-Sided War’ saw Jeb promoted to Lieutenant and suffer apparent hallucinations where he and his crew were trapped in the Civil War after which #107’s ‘The Ghost Pipers!’ found the tank aiding the last survivor of a Scottish battalion in an attack that spanned two wars, before again teaming up with Rock in ‘The Wounded Won’t Wait’ as Rick, Arch and Slim were injured and the Easy Co. topkick rode shotgun on the brutal ride back to base…

Issue #109 ‘Battle of the Tank Graveyard’ downplayed the supernatural overtones for a more straightforward clash in a deadly mountain pass whilst ‘Choose Your War’ found the Confederate General chafing at his role assisting “Union” cavalry until circumstances again seemed to place the modern soldiers in a historical setting and the two Jeb Stuarts worked out their differences.

In #111’s ‘Death Trap’ the Armoured Cavalry crew was again working with Easy Company – in the desert this time, as continuity was never a big concern for Kanigher – but when the M-3 was captured by the enemy, Jeb and the boys had a bloody taste of infantry fighting before taking it back.

‘No Stripes for Me’ is actually a Sgt. Rock tale from Our Army at War #155 (June 1965) with the Haunted Tank in support as a battle-hungry General’s son continually refused the commendations and promotions his valiant actions deserved, no matter what the cost to men or morale…

Rock and Jeb stayed together for G.I. Combat #112’s struggle against the Luftwaffe ‘Ghost Ace!’ who was Attila the Hun’s latest mortal avatar in a blistering supernatural shocker that once more forced the Phantom General to take a spectral hand in the battle against evil, after which ‘Tank Fight in Death Town!’ saw the war follow the M-3 crew back into a much-needed leave. Luckily Rock and Easy Co. were around to provide vigorous fire-support…

After nearly four years in the saddle scripter Kanigher decided to revamp the backstory of the crew and issue #114 (October/November 1965) featured the Russ Heath illustrated ‘Battle Origin of the Haunted Tank’ with the General revealing that he had been assigned to watch over the M-3’s boys by Alexander the Great.

In the afterlife all great military commanders sponsored mortal combatants but he had refused to pick anybody and was stuck looking after “Damned Yankees”. Happily the courage and mettle of the boys under fire had changed many of his opinions after watching their first battle in the deserts of North Africa…

Heath also drew the team-up in #115 where Jeb was reunited with Navajo fighter-pilot Johnny Cloud as ‘Medal for Mayhem’ pitted both spiritually-sponsored warriors (Cloud regularly saw a mounted Indian Brave dubbed Big-Brother-in-the Sky galloping across the heavens during his missions) against overwhelming odds and forced to trade places in the air and on the ground, after which Novick illustrated the sequel when Cloud and Stuart helped proud Greek soldier Leonidas fulfil his final mission in the stirring ‘Battle Cry of a Dead Man!’

‘Tank in the Icebox’ in #117 was another Heath martial masterpiece wherein an incredible mystery was solved and a weapon that turned the desert into a frozen hell was destroyed before Novick took the controls for the last two tales in this volume, beginning with ‘My Buddy… My Enemy’ as a bigoted Slim learned tragically too late that not all Japanese soldiers were monsters and #119 again asked difficult questions when Jeb and the crew had to escort an American deserter to his execution with German forces attempting to kill them all before they got there in ‘Target for a Firing Squad!’

An added attraction for art fans and battle buffs are the breathtaking covers by Heath, Kubert and Grandenetti, many of them further enhanced through the stunning tonal values added by DC’s brilliant chief of production Jack Adler.

These spectacular tales cover the Haunted Tank through the blazing gung-ho early years to a time when America began to question the very nature and necessity of war (Vietnam was just beginning to really hurt the home-front in 1966) and combat comics started to address the issue in a most impressive and sensitive manner. They combine spooky chills with combat thrills but always offer a powerful human message that has never dated and may well rank amongst the very best war stories ever produced.
© 1961-1966, 2006 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Shazam! Archives volume 2


By Bill Parker, C.C. Beck, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Pete Costanza, Charles Sultan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 01-56389-521-8

One of the most venerated and beloved characters of America’s Golden Age of comics was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck in 1940 as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity which followed the stunning success of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character quickly moved squarely into the area of light entertainment and even straight comedy, whilst as the years passed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action, drama and suspense.

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name – invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

At the height of his popularity Captain Marvel outsold Superman and was even published twice a month, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They settled an infamous long-running copyright infringement case begun by National Comics in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese disappeared – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fans…

This second magnificent deluxe full-colour hardback compendium re-presents the lead strips and pertinent Spy Smasher episodes from the fortnightly Whiz Comics #15-20 where Fawcett conducted one of comics’ first character crossover sagas, as well as the premier issue of solo title Captain Marvel Adventures and the magnificent Special Edition Comics #1 which opens this spectacular box of delights after an enthralling introduction by cartoonist, author and historian R.C. Harvey.

Fawcett had a brilliant hit on their hands and in late 1940 released a 64-page bonus comic dedicated to their dashing hero with four all-new adventures by Parker & Beck.

It began with an untitled epic wherein Billy and his adult alter ego battled mystery powerhouse Slaughter Slade and his ghastly monsters – including a giant spider and a super-intelligent gorilla – when they tried to lay waste to the nation’s Capitol.

‘Captain Marvel and the Haunted House’ was an old-fashioned spooky chiller where a dead man’s curse proved to have a mortal and mercenary cause whilst ‘Captain Marvel and the Gamblers of Death’ pitted the hero against betting racketeers who preferred to kill athletes rather than pay out to winning punters.

The Special Edition ended with the epic ‘Captain Marvel and Sivana, the Weather Wizard’ wherein Billy returned to Venus and discovered the deranged genius had devised a method of creating natural disasters on Earth. Sivana’s scheme to get rich from millions of insurance claims naturally fell foul of the World’s Mightiest Mortal and Billy’s sheer ingenuity…

In the formative years as the feature catapulted to the first rank of superhero superstars, there was actually a scramble to fill pages so Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (1941) was farmed out to up-and-coming whiz-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby who produced the entire issue in a hurry from Beck and Parker’s guides.

First up was a visually impressive drama with the irrepressible Sivana creating ‘Z’; a hulking brute designed to be every inch the Captain’s equal. After a spectacular knock-down, drag-out, Kirby-co-ordinated dust-up it was apparent that he wasn’t…

‘Captain Marvel Out West’ found Billy in Rimrock City covering a rodeo for radio listeners before stumbling onto a rustling plot that only the big Red Galoot could quash and, after ‘Captain Marvel’s Puzzle Page’, the Big Guy headed into outer space to crush a gang of alien slavers who had invaded a peaceful Earth-like planet.

Following another perplexing ‘Billy Batson’s Game Page’ the Golden Age Dream-Team wrapped up their stint by crafting ‘Captain Marvel Battles the Vampire’, a manic thriller in the movie haunted vein that would so influence their Captain America stories a year later, as Billy is just too late to stop unwise scientist Doctor Deever’s attempt to reanimate the deadly blood-sucker Bram Thirla. Luckily all the powers of the undead were no match for the Good Captain…

This is followed by an ad for the blockbusting Captain Marvel Movie Serial, which might have inspired the next bold innovation (by a tragically unknown scripter or scripters, although I suspect Parker had a hand in the proceedings somewhere…)

From the middle of Whiz Comics #15 (March 2nd 1941) comes ‘Spy Smasher’ – illustrated by Pete Costanza – which saw the physical and mental marvel Alan Armstrong defeat the giant Grosso only to be brainwashed by his master: a Nazi agent called The Mask.

Soon the costumed hero had become America’s greatest foe, terrorising and sabotaging the country he loved, so two weeks later in Whiz #16 the Captain Marvel lead feature carried on the serial suspense in a dazzling duel (illustrated by Beck & Costanza) wherein Marvel’s brawn and Billy’s brains proved no match for the mesmerised former hero, who after murdering the Mask, released a prison full of convicts and used the brainwashing ray on the Captain…

Happily it didn’t work but in the Spy Smasher instalment (with art by Charles Sultan) Armstrong’s destructive campaign decimated America’s heavy industry and almost killed his girlfriend and sidekick Eve Corby until a certain crimson comet stepped in…

Issue #17 saw Armstrong try to kill Billy’s boss Sterling Morris and steal a deadly new poison gas despite Marvel’s best efforts before continuing into that issue’s Spy Smasher instalment where the tireless madman struck into the nation’s heartland; devastating crops and natural resources with an artificial cyclone.

The crossover continued until the splendid climax in #18 (June 13th 1941) as Armstrong met the Axis spymasters in America and declared war on them too. The hypnotised hero was determine to destroy all governments but finally met his match and was successfully cured in a blistering final fight with Marvel before the concluding Spy Smasher chapter saw them join forces to route the enemy espionage ring…

Whiz Comics #19 (July 11th 1941) then follows with business as unusual when ‘Captain Marvel and the Black Magician’ (possibly written by Otto Binder?) found Billy exposing supernatural charlatans and being targeted by an affronted but genuine backwoods witch-man after which this tome terminates with the rousing ‘Crusher of Crime’ from #20 (August 8th) wherein Sivana laid a deadly trap for Billy before making himself Marvel’s physical match.

Of course, there was much more going on than first appeared…

DC eventually acquired the Fawcett properties and characters and in 1973 revived the Captain for a new generation to see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns.

Re-titled Shazam! due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright convention, the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of characters…

Nevertheless Captain Marvel is a true icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This second stellar collection further proves that these timeless and sublime comic masterpieces are an ideal introduction to the world of superhero fiction: tales that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.
© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Shazam! Archives volume 1


By Bill Parker, C. C. Beck & Pete Costanza (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-053-4

One of the most venerated and beloved characters of America’s Golden Age of comics was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck as part of the wave of opportunistic creativity which followed the stunning success of Superman in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett character quickly moved squarely into the area of light entertainment and even straight comedy, whilst as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action, drama and suspense.

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s name – an acronym for the six legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

This magnificent full-colour, deluxe hardback compendium re-presents the first 15 adventures from Whiz Comics #2 to 15 (February 1940 to March 1941 – there was no #1, two issue #5’s and two editions in March but I’ll try to explain all that as we go along) to cash in on the sales phenomenon of Superman and his many imitators and descendents.

Publisher Fawcett had first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans named Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, before branching out into books and general interest magazines. Their most successful publication – at least until the Good Captain hit his stride – was the ubiquitous boy’s building bible Mechanix Illustrated and, as the decade unfolded, the scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both the art and plots of the Marvel Family titles.

The series was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and brilliant young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck who, with his assistant Pete Costanza, handled all the art in this book, and in this quirky first volume the adult hero is a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse his whilst his junior alter ego Billy is the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, bold, self-reliant and resourceful youth overcoming impossible odds by pluck, grit and sheer determination…

Author, journalist and fan Richard A. Lupoff covers in great detail the torturous beginnings of the feature in his Foreword before the magic proper starts with a rare and priceless glimpse at the hero’s nigh-cursed design stage and the book also contains biographical details on all the creators.

To establish copyright, publishers used to legally register truncated black and white facsimile editions called “Ash-can Editions” in advance of their launch issues. For Fawcett, the production of their first comicbook proved an aggravating process since this registration twice uncovered costly snags which forced the editors to redesign both character and publication.

Contained herein are cover reproductions of Flash Comics #1 starring Captain Thunder (obliviously scheduled for release mere days after DC’s own Flash title hit the stands), Thrill Comics #1 which repeated the accident just as Standard’s Thrilling Comics launched, and the uncoloured art for the first half of the story of Captain Thunder which would eventually be re-lettered and released as the lead in anthology title Whiz Comics #2 cover-dated February 1940.

Like many Golden Age series the stories collected here never had individual titles and DC’s compilers have cleverly elected to use the original comics’ strap-lines or cover blurbs to differentiate the tales…

‘Gangway for Captain Marvel!’, drawn in style reminiscent of early Hergé, saw homeless orphan newsboy Billy Batson lured into an abandoned subway tunnel to a meeting with the many millennia-old wizard Shazam. At the end of a long life fighting evil, the white-bearded figure grants the lad the powers and signature gifts of six gods and heroes; bidding him to continue the good fight.

In thirteen delightfully clean and simple pages Billy gets his powers, has his secret origin revealed (he’s heir to a fortune embezzled by his crooked uncle Ebenezer), wins a job as a roaming radio reporter for Amalgamated Broadcasting and defeats the demonic schemes of Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana who is holding the airwaves of America hostage, with the mighty, taciturn and not yet invulnerable Marvel only sparingly used to do the heavy lifting.

It is sheer comicbook poetry…

The March issue had no cover number but was listed as #3 in the indicia and featured ‘The Return of Sivana’ as the insane inventor unleashed a mercenary army equipped with his super-weapons upon the nation, attempting to become Emperor of America. His plan was thwarted by Billy acting as a war correspondent and the mighty muscles of Marvel…

The third (April) Whiz Comics had “Number 3” on the cover but #4 inside and proudly proclaimed ‘Make Way for Captain Marvel!’ before bolding leaping into full science fiction mode as Billy was shanghaied to Venus in Sivana’s mighty rocket-ship. The boy was forced to reveal his amazing secret to the demented inventor whilst battling incredible monsters and the giant frog-men dubbed “Glompers” but the magnificently guileless and gallant Marvel was seemingly helpless against the savant’s new ally Queen Beautia as the deadly duo prepared to invade Earth.

Only seemingly though…

‘Captain Marvel Crashes Through’ (4 on the cover, #5 inside) detailed how the bewitching Beautia, aided by Sivana’s technology, ran for President. However the sinister siren had a soft heart and when Billy was captured (and faced the first of a multitude of clever gadgets designed to stop him saying his magic word) she freed him, thus falling foul of the gangsters who were backing her. Luckily Captain Marvel was there to save the day…

An inexplicable crime-wave shook the country in ‘Captain Marvel Scores Again!’ (5 on the cover and #5 inside: the wild numbers game finally ending here) as a different sinister scientist used a ray to turn children into thieves and even young Billy was not immune, whilst in ‘Captain Marvel and the Circus of Death’ (July 1940) Sivana returned with fantastic Venusian dino-monsters which the Good Captain was hard-pressed to handle. Incidentally, this was the first issue where the Big Red Cheese was seen definitely flying as opposed to leaping – something Superman is not acknowledged as doing until late 1941…

In ‘Captain Marvel and the Squadron of Doom’ young Billy travelled to the North Pole for a radio story and discovered a secret organisation thawing out frozen cavemen to act as an army of conquest, after which he and his mature magical avatar foiled a murderous spiritualist causing mass-drownings to bolster his reputation and fortune in ‘Saved by Captain Marvel!’

Whiz #9’s ‘Captain Marvel on the Job!’ saw the man and boy foil a revolution, recover foreign crown jewels and defeat a madman with a shrinking ray after which Sivana and Beautia returned in ‘Captain Marvel Battles the Winged Death’ a blistering yarn involving espionage and America’s latest secret weapon. In this tale the Empress of Venus finally reformed and became a solid citizen…

‘Hurrah for Captain Marvel!’ found Batson investigating college hazing and corrupt sporting events whilst in #12 (January 1941) the World War loomed large as “Gnatzi” maritime outrages brought Billy to London where he uncovered the spy responsible for sinking refugee ships in ‘Captain Marvel Rides the Engine of Doom!’

‘Captain Marvel – World’s Most Powerful Man!’ featured Sivana’s latest atrocity as the madman disrupted hockey matches, blitzed banks and incapacitated the US army with a formula that turned men into babies. Even Billy wasn’t immune but at least Beautia was there to help him…

War looked increasingly inescapable and many heroes jumped the gun and started fighting before America officially entered the fray. ‘Captain Marvel Boomerangs the Torpedo!’ was a superb patriotic cover for Whiz #14 (March 1941) but the actual story involved Sivana’s capture and subsequent discovery of a thought process which allowed him to walk through walls and bars. Happily the World’s Mightiest Mortal possessed the Wisdom of Solomon and deduced a solution to the unstoppable menace…

This superb collection concludes after another stirring cover ‘With the British Plane Streaking to a Fiery Doom, Captain Marvel Dives to the Rescue!’ (issue #15 and also cover-dated March) and an unrelated adventure which revealed the incredible origin of Dr. Sivana, his astounding connection to Beautia, and also introduced her brother Magnificus – almost as mighty a fighter as Marvel – when Billy was kidnapped and trapped once again on Venus…

DC/National Periodical Publications had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 was released and the companies slugged it out in court until 1953, when, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate. The name lay unclaimed until 1967 when M.F. Enterprises released six issues of an unrelated android hero before folding after which Marvel Comics secured rights to the name in 1968.

DC eventually acquired the Fawcett properties and characters and in 1973 revived the Captain for a new generation to see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns. Retitled Shazam! due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright convention, the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of characters…

Nevertheless Captain Marvel is a true icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This collection only scratches the surface of the canon of delights produced over the years and is an ideal introduction to the world of adventure comics: one that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.
© 1940, 1941, 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1


By Jack Miller, Joe Samachson, Joe Certa & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8

As the 1950’s opened, comicbook superheroes were in a steep decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-based he-men and “Ordinary Joes” in extraordinary circumstances.

By the time the “Red-baiting”, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any sort of mature content or themes.

The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained.

American comics could have the bowdlerised concept of evil and felonious conduct but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody and cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands and severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet without ever drawing blood…

Moreover no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saint…

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply punch and tension to their works via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanation…

Arguably the first superhero of the Silver Age, beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956) the series depicting the clandestine adventures of stranded alien scientist J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars; a decent being unwillingly trapped on Earth who fought crime secretly using his incredible powers, knowledge and abilities with no human even aware of his existence.

However even before that low key debut Batman #78 trialled the concept in ‘The Manhunter From Mars!’ (August/September 1953) wherein Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charlie Paris told the tales of Roh Kar, a lawman from the Fourth Planet who assisted the Dynamic Duo in capturing a Martian bandit plundering Gotham City. That stirring yarn opens this first magnificent monochrome compendium which also includes the eccentric and often formulaic but never disappointing back-up series from Detective Comics #225 to 304, covering November 1955 – June 1962.

In one of the longest tenures in DC comics’ history, all the art for the series was by veteran illustrator Joe Certa (1919-1986), who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics “Shop”. His credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics, Harvey romance titles, whilst for DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many anthology tales for such titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery. Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted the long-lived boxing strip Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories.

At the height of US Flying Saucer fever John Jones, Manhunter from Mars debuted in Detective Comics #225, November 1955, as ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ (written by Joe Samachson) described how a reclusive genius built a robot-brain which could access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, accidentally plucking an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbed to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth the Martian realises his new home is riddled with the primitive cancer of Crime and determines to use his natural abilities (which included telepathy, mind-over-matter psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super-strength, speed, flight, vision, invulnerability and many others) to eradicate the evil, working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern is the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which saps Martians of all their mighty powers…

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlisted as a Police Detective and with #226’s ‘The Case of the Magic Baseball’ began a long and peril-fraught career tackling a variety of Earthly thugs and mobsters, beginning with the sordid case of Big Bob Michaels – a reformed ex-con and baseball player blackmailed into throwing games by a gang of crooked gamblers – and continuing in ‘The Man with 20 Lives’ where the mind-reading cop impersonated a ghost to force a confession from a hard-bitten killer.

The tantalising prospect of a return to Mars confronted Jones in the Dave Wood scripted ‘Escape to the Stars’ (issue #228) when criminal scientist Alex Dunster cracked the secret of Erdel’s Robot Brain, but duty overruled selfish desire and the mastermind destroyed his stolen super-machine when Jones arrested him…

With Detective #229 Jack Miller took over as series writer with ‘The Phantom Bodyguard’ as the Hidden Hero signed on to protect a businessman from his murderous partner and discovered a far more complex plot unfolding, whilst #230’s ‘The Sleuth Without a Clue’ found the Covert Cop battling a deadline to get the goods on a vicious gang just as a wandering comet was causing his powers to malfunction…

Detective Comics #231 saw the series shift towards its sci fi roots in ‘The Thief who had Super Powers!’ as an impossible bandit proved to be another refugee from the Fourth Planet after which ‘The Dog with a Martian Master’ proved to be another delightful if fanciful animal champion before Jones returned to crime-busting and clandestine cops and robbers capers by becoming ‘The Ghost From Outer Space’ in #233.

The cop went undercover in a prison to thwart a smart operator in #234’s ‘The Martian Convict’, infiltrated a circus as ‘The World’s Greatest Magician’ to catch a Phantom Thief and finally re-established contact with his distant family to solve ‘The Great Earth-Mars Mystery’ in #236 and saw out 1956 as ‘The Sleuth Who went to Jail’ – this time one operated by crooks – and lost his powers becoming ‘Earth Detective for a Day’ in #238.

In Detective #239 (January 1957) ‘Ordeal By Fire!’ found the Anonymous Avenger transferred to the Fire Department to track down an arson ring whilst in ‘The Hero Maker’ Jones surreptitiously used his powers to help a retiring cop go out on a high before another firebug targeting historical treasures provided ‘The Impossible Manhunt’ in #241.

Jones thought he’d be safe as a underwater officer in ‘The Thirty Fathom Sleuth’ but even there flame found a way to menace him after which he battled legendary Martian robot Tor in #243’s ‘The Criminal from Outer Space’ before doubling for an endangered actor in ‘The Four Stunts of Doom’ and busting a clever racket utilising ‘The Phantom Fire Alarms’ in #245.

As a back-up feature expectations were never particularly high but occasionally all the formula elements gelled together to produce exemplary and even superb adventure tales such as #246’s ‘John Jones’ Female Nemesis’ which introduced in the pert, perky and pestiferous form of trainee policewoman Diane Meade who, being a 1950’s woman, naturally had romance in mind, but was absent for the next equally engaging thriller wherein the indomitable cop puzzled over ‘The Impossible Messages’ of scurrilous smugglers and the marvellous tales of ‘The Martian Without a Memory’ in #248. Struck by lightning, Jones used deductive skill to discern his lost identity and almost exposed his own extraterrestrial secret in the process…

In Detective #249 ‘Target for a Day’ the Martian disguised himself as the State Governor marked for death by a brutal gang whilst as ‘The Stymied Sleuth!’ in #250 he was forced to stay in hospital to protect his alien identity as radium thieves ran amok in town, after which he seemingly became a brilliant crook himself… ‘Alias Mr. Zero’.

Issue #252 saw Jones battle a scientific super-criminal in ‘The Menace of the Super-Weapons’ before infiltrating a highly suspicious newspaper as ‘The Super Reporter!’ and invisibly battling rogue soldiers as ‘The One-Man Army’ in #254.

The Hidden Hero attempted to foil an audacious murder-plot that encompassed the four corners of the Earth in the ‘World-Wide Manhunt!’ after which #256’s ‘The Carnival of Doom’ pitted him against canny crooks whilst babysitting a VIP kid and #257 found the Starborn Sleuth committing spectacular crimes to trap the ‘King of the Underworld!’

In Detective #258 Jones took an unexpectedly dangerous vacation cruise on ‘The Jinxed Ship’ and returned to tackle another criminal genius in ‘The Getaway King’ before helping a desolate and failing fellow cop in the heart-warming tale of ‘John Jones’ Super-Secret’, after which a shrink ray reduced him to ‘The Midget Manhunter!’ in #261.

An evil mastermind used beasts for banditry in ‘The Animal Crime Kingdom’ whilst a sinister stage magician tested the Manhunter’s mettle and wits in #263’s ‘The Crime Conjurer!’ before the hero’s hidden powers were almost exposed when cheap hoods found a crashed capsule and unleashed ‘The Menace of the Martian Weapons!’

Masked and costumed villains were still a rarity when J’onzz tackled ‘The Fantastic Human Falcon’ in #265 whilst ‘The Challenge of the Masked Avenger’ was the only case for a new – and inept – wannabe hero, after which the Martian’s sense of duty and justice forced him to forego a chance to return home in #267’s ‘John Jones’ Farewell to Earth’…

Another menacing fallen meteor resulted in ‘The Mixed-Up Martian Powers’ whilst a blackmailing reporter almost became ‘The Man who Exposed John Jones’ in Detective #269, after which a trip escorting an extradited felon from Africa resulted in J’onzz becoming ‘The Hunted Martian’.

The Manhunter’s origin was revisited in #271 when Erdel’s robot-brain accidentally froze his powers and resulted in ‘The Lost Identity’ before death threats compelled Jones’ boss to appoint a well-meaning hindrance in the form of ‘The Super-Sleuth’s Bodyguard’…

By the time Detective Comics #273 was released (November 1959) the Silver Age superhero revival was in full swing and with a plethora of new costumed characters catching the public imagination old survivors like Green Arrow, Aquaman and others were given a thorough makeover. Perhaps the boldest was the new direction taken by the Manhunter from Mars as his existence on Earth was revealed to all mankind when he very publicly battled and defeated a criminal from his home world in ‘The Unmasking of J’onn J’onzz’.

As part of the revamp J’onzz had lost the ability to use his powers whilst invisible and perforce became a very high-profile superhero. At least his vulnerability to common flame was still a closely guarded secret…

This tale was promptly followed by the debut of incendiary villain ‘The Human Flame’ in #274 and the introduction of a secret identity-hunting romantic interest as policewoman Diane Meade returned in ‘John Jones’ Pesky Partner’ in #275.

‘The Crimes of John Jones’ found the new champion an amnesiac pawn of mere bank robbers but another fantastic foe debuted in #277 with ‘The Menace of Mr. Moth’ after which invading Venusians almost caused ‘The Defeat of J’onn J’onzz’ and a hapless millionaire inventor almost wrecked the city by accident with ‘The Impossible Inventions’…

Advance word of an underworld plot forced the Manhunter to become ‘Bodyguard to a Bandit’ and keep a crook out of prison, whilst ‘The Menace of Marsville’ in #281 inadvertently gave criminals powers to equal his and a fallen meteorite temporarily turned Diane into ‘The Girl with the Martian Powers’ – or did it…?

To help out an imperilled ship captain J’onzz became ‘The Amazing One-Man Crew’ whilst in #284 Diane tried to seduce her partner in ‘The Courtship of J’onn J’onzz’ unaware of his extraterrestrial origins after which monster apes tore up the city in ‘The Menace of the Martian Mandrills!’

Detective #286 saw ‘His Majesty, John Jones’ stand in for an endangered Prince in a take on The Prisoner of Zenda before ‘J’onn J’onzz’s Kid Brother’ T’omm was briefly stranded on Earth. Only one of the siblings could return…

‘The Case of the Honest Swindler’ in #288 found a well-meaning man accidentally endangering the populace with magical artefacts after which a quick trip to Asia pitted the Martian against a cunning jungle conman in ‘J’onn J’onzz – Witch Doctor’.

When a movie was being sabotaged Diane took over for the lead stunt-girl with some assistance from the Manhunter in ‘Lights, Camera – and Doom!’ whilst a lovesick suitor masqueraded as ‘The Second Martian Manhunter’ to win his bride in #291 and ‘The Ex-Convicts Club’ almost foundered before it began when someone began impersonating the reformed criminals and pulling new jobs. Luckily J’onzz was more trusting than most…

Diane found herself with a rival in policewoman Sally Winters and their enmity could only be resolved with ‘The Girl-Hero Contest’ after which the Manhunter pursued crooks into another dimension and became ‘The Martian Weakling’ in #294, before becoming ‘The Martian Show-Off’ to inexplicably deprive a fellow cop of his 1000th arrest and ‘The Alien Bodyguard’ for Diane who was unaware that she had been marked for death…

In #297’s ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. the Vigilantes’ the Green Guardian exposed the secret agenda of a committee of wealthy “concerned citizens” before coming to the aid of a stage performer who was ‘The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz’ and then almost failed as a ‘Bodyguard for a Spy’ because Diane was jealous of the beautiful Princess in his charge…

Detective #300 unveiled ‘The J’onn J’onzz Museum’ – a canny ploy by a master criminal who believed he had uncovered the Martian’s secret weakness, whilst ‘The Mystery of the Martian Marauders’ found the hero battling impossible odds when an army of his fellows invaded Earth…

‘The Crime King of Mount Olympus’ pitted the Manhunter against a pantheon of Hellenic super-criminals to save Diane’s life whilst more standard thugs attempted to reveal his secret identity in ‘The Great J’onn J’onzz Hunt’ before this first beguiling compendium concludes with #304’s stirring tale of an academy of scientific lawbreaking infiltrated by John Jones in ‘The Crime College’…

Although certainly dated, and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are still an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
© 1953, 1955-1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.