Stranger in the mirror: the “definitive” Phantom Stranger arrives
I put quotes around “derivative” in the title because as I’ve written about before, definitive is a subjective term. Someone like me who grew up with Silver Age Mort Weisinger …
Author: frasersherman
A blast from the past
Once again, an ad from yesterday — late 1971 in this case — caught my eye during my ongoing Silver/Bronze Age reread. Iron-on patches had become popular in the 1960s …
THAT’S what that song meant?
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who’s involved with a woman in an open marriage. He said that when he and she got back together after several …
My Secret, Entirely Head-Canon History of Homo Magi
If you’re wondering how Homo magi, something Gerry Conway came up with in 1979, fits into my Silver Age reread — well, Superboy #175 (cover by Neal Adams) came out in …
Continuity: it matters behind the scenes too
There’s no question a lot of the Bronze Age was solid gold. Steve Englehart’s Avengers. Tomb of Dracula. Starlin’s Warlock and Captain Marvel. Plus less spectacular but solidly entertaining books such as Cary Bates …
In the Bronze Age, the past wasn’t dead. It wasn’t even past
As I’ve mentioned before, the early Bronze Age was an age of reprints. By 1971 DC, in particular, was all in. For the comics cover-dated August 1971, they raised the …
More crimes of the century
And this time the culprit is the U.S. government! THE PLUTONIUM FILES: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War by Eileen Welsome is a grimly detailed reminder that movie …