My Back Pages

I should mention that I do go back and add details to some of my older posts as I learn more about the topic or see another story that hits on the theme I happened to be covering at the time, so at times it may seem like there's nothing new on the blog, when down below the Moleman and his minions have been laboring away.

So here's a shout-out to a couple old posts that have been updated many times:

My Batman and Guns post is now the #1 result for that topic on Google and has been linked by many forums and websites. It features an exhaustive look at the relationship between Bruce Wayne and firearms, from the Golden Age through Final Crisis. It's my personal favorite post and contains dozens of examples of Batman or Bruce using (or refusing) a gun.

I first did my post about the Code Against Killing focusing mainly on DC's Silver Age heroes, but after some more research I found the Avengers Code and the X-Men Pledge, plus an incredible Superman story where Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang and Lois Lane all volunteer to be the first person killed by Superman. It could only happen in the Silver Age!

The Great DC Contest Boo-Boo

In Superman #169, DC editor Mort Weisinger had a rather unusual little contest for his readers:



Readers were encouraged to scour the story for the missing "D and C", which was only supposed to appear in one place in the book; here as it turns out:



That should have been a clue that something odd was up, especially since, as it happened, the story was NOT continued on the next page (there was a subscription ad). However, Weisinger didn't look carefully enough at the issue before shipping it to the printers:



Both the word "and" and the word "goodbye" contain a D, although as far as I know, there was no other C in the story.

The results were published in Superman #174:



And when the story was reprinted in Superman #202, the "and" was contracted to "an'", and "goodbye, boss" became "so long, boss".

End of the errors with regard to this story? Not quite. DC reprinted the story again in the book, Superman in the '60s, only this time a production error left the "Continued on Next Page Following" out of the story, so that anybody reading that story would be quite confused, as for example this person:

"The Bizarro Invasion Of Earth" -- also known as "The Great DC Contest", this story invited readers to use their detective skill to find out what made it so unusual. The answer was that the story was crafted to only use the letters D and C once each.

(SPOILERS HO! -- as far as I can tell, the letters only appear together in the opening splash panel which takes place in front of the "City Dump" sign. However, the bottom panel on page 4 has a caption referring to the "Daily Planet." I believe this was said to be an editorial mistake.)

I don't have the Superman in the 1960s book to check this out, but in the original, there are a couple references to "The Planet" without the "Daily" part. And the opening splash panel was specifically mentioned in the rules as not counting.

The usually reliable Fred Hembeck misremembers the situation here.

Of course, the whole carefully conceived plan backfired when, at the very bottom of page 3, the production department had mindlessly pasted in one of their standard "Continued on the next page following" blurbs because, well, the story WAS continued on the next page following, dig? Several issues later, the prize--an autographed Curt Swan cover!!--was awarded not to someone who discovered Mort's strategically hidden letters but who was first to recognize his stupid error!

Actually, as you can see from the announcement in Superman #174, the prizes went to those who discovered the intended "DC" (which was in the "Continued" blurb) and not to those who discovered the mistakenly included two Ds, and there were 25 Swan covers awarded, not just one.

Hat Tip: Commenter Kelly, who pointed this out in a comment on my post about Weisinger's earlier Great Superman Boo-Boo Contest.

Update: Is this story cursed or what? My longtime buddy Snard notes in the comments that there was a D added to the reprint in Superman #202, shown here:



This is probably what the guy who reviewed Superman in the '60s was talking about. In the original it's just "Later, in the parking lot...."

Secret Origins: The Bullpen Bulletins

One of the more distinctive features of the Marvel Comics of the 1960s was the Bullpen Bulletins page. About 1/2 hype, 1/4 advertising, and 1/4 legitimate news, the BB's functioned as Stan's Soapbox (and eventually, they even added a special section on the page entitled just that).

But like everything at Marvel, the Bullpen Bulletins page did not debut in a flash of inspiration; rather it evolved over time. Initially "Marvel" only had one superhero comic, The Fantastic Four, so there wasn't much need for a BB page, although starting with the third issue, Stan did put in a letters page, which is where the Bullpen Bulletins actually started. In FF #5, Stan appended a little comment at the end of the letters column:



You could argue that was the beginning of the Bullpen Bulletins, and I wouldn't disagree too hard. In FF #10, though, come some unmistakable signs:



Note the lack of a hyphen in Spiderman.

And:



In FF #13, the letters column included a "Special Announcements Section":



As I have mentioned in the past, this was about the time (April 1963) that Marvel could credibly have a "line" of superheroes, and the next issue saw the debut of "Marvel Comics" on the cover, and the continuation of the Special Announcements Section:



This lasted until FF #20, when the Special Announcements Section got bigger (taking up almost half of the second letters page), and a key change was made:



It's not quite the Mighty Marvel Checklist, but it's the beginning of one. In FF #26 we get the first appearance of "Item":



I never quite understood the need to say "Item" in front of every tidbit, but it became a very durable part of the Bullpen Bulletins.

In FF #33, we saw the first named appearance of the Mighty Marvel Checklist:



With FF #38, Stan did away with the Special Announcements Section, in favor of sprinkling the announcements throughout the letters page. In FF #41, we saw the first appearance of the Merry Marvel Bullpen Page, although it was really just an ad for FF tee shirts and the Merry Marvel Marching Society.

Finally, in FF #45 we got a look at the future:



Incidentally, while I appreciate Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase reprints as a good way to read these issues on a budget, it is a shame that filler material like this is almost never reprinted. I got these scans from Marvel's 2005 complete FF collection on CD-ROM, which are an even better value and contain beautiful scans of every page of every issue.

Coming soon: A complete index to the Bullpen Bulletins for each year!

The Great Editors of the Silver Age: Julius Schwartz

Much of what we consider today to be the DC Silver Age was developed under the watchful eye of Julius Schwartz. Schwartz was an influential science fiction fan, creating an early (1932) fanzine called Time Traveller, with two friends, Forrest Ackerman and Mort Weisinger.

By the early 1940s, Schwartz had landed at All-American Comics, which at that time was still separately owned by William Gaines. Schwartz was an assistant editor for the Golden Age Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Sensation Comics and All Star Comics. When All-American merged with DC, Schwartz retained most of his assistant editor titles, although eventually most of the All-American titles folded. Schwartz was made the full editor of Wonder Woman, which I believe was the only AA title to survive into the 1960s (although he did not last that long as editor of that mag).

When DC decided to branch out into science fiction in the early 1950s, Schwartz was the natural choice to edit the new mags, starting with Strange Adventures in 1950 and Mystery in Space in 1951. Schwartz had extensive contacts in the science fiction industry, having also served as an agent to several sci-fi writers before moving over to the comics biz. (Note: Whitney Ellsworth was listed as the editor of most DC magazines in the 1950s including SA and MIS, but Schwartz did the work.)

In 1956, DC decided to launch a tryout magazine for new features, called Showcase. Unlike most titles, Showcase had a rotating editorship, with each separate feature under a different editor. The first three issues of Showcase were nothing special, but with #4, DC struck gold. Schwartz, Bob Kanigher, and Carmine Infantino collaborated to bring back an updated (Barry Allen) version of the Flash.

Schwartz also worked on the Adam Strange launch (and picked up the character for his Mystery in Space title). With Showcase #22, Schwartz brought back his second Golden Age hero for DC in the form of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. In Brave & Bold #28, Schwartz combined the new Flash and Green Lantern with existing heroes Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter to form the Justice League of America. In this endeavor, Schwartz was greatly encouraged by the letters of Dr Jerry Bails, a huge fan of the Golden Age Justice Society of America.

Over the next few years, Schwartz helped relaunch new versions of the Atom and Hawkman. In 1964, he was given control of DC's second-most famous character at the time, Batman. Although I remain unimpressed with the "New Look Batman", Schwartz did get rid of some of the cheesier science fiction elements that had plagued the character under prior editor Jack Schiff, and there is no denying that he made a major (and terrific) revamp of the character after the collapse of the Batman TV show.

Schwartz was an unusual editor in that he "got" fandom. After all, that was how he himself got his start. When Roy Thomas and Dr Jerry Bails approached him about their fanzine for comics (the original Alter Ego), Schwartz not only provided helpful advice from his own fanzine experience years earlier, but gave them a plug in the letters pages of JLA. To encourage quality letters in his own magazines, Schwartz began giving away original artwork to the best writers.

Schwartz was a great editor, consistently turning out quality entertainment through into the 1980s, eventually taking over the reins of Superman from his childhood buddy Mort Weisinger. And by all accounts, Schwartz was an even finer human being; I don't think I've ever heard anybody who had a negative thing to say about him.

Storytelling on a Budget

Modern comic writers frequently marvel (and sniff suspiciously) when they hear that old-time comics stories frequently ran 6-8 pages or less. Nowadays that wouldn't be enough space to establish a red herring in a subplot of a mega-crossover. So how did writers and artists manage to tell a story in such a brief period of time, especially in comics like the war books where (frequently) there weren't even continuing characters that the audience was familiar with?

The answer is that you had to push characterization hard in the early part of the story so that your plot is driven by that characterization. That sounds fairly complicated, but if we look at a couple stories, you'll see what I mean:



We get a very good sense of the story from those first three panels; Vic is frustrated by the need to wait around for phone calls, and yet he's forced to do so by circumstances. Sure enough, the story concerns Vic's being forced to wait behind the lines for a phone call, but when he sees an enemy surveillance vehicle he battles against the men inside and wins, but still gets chewed out for not waiting for the call. The next time, Vic brings the phone everywhere with him so he won't be punished for disobeying orders, but at the same time, he destroys an enemy machine-gun nest.

The second story in the same issue (All-American Men of War #24, October 1955) only requires two panels to set the stage:



You can tell that Andrews will find plenty of excitement in his new unit and that the ending will find him loyal to his new unit (which indeed turns out to be the story).



This one you could go several ways with, and the one chosen turns out to be pretty good: Hearn goes into the army, and teaches one of his fellow infantrymen how to film him with the camera. Hearn performs incredibly brave (not staged) feats, but something always happens that makes the film unusable. As it happens, though, another cameraman caught Hearn's heroics.

The next story can be seen through the following two panels, plus the title: False Alarm Pilot.



New Lt. Ben Burton has terrific ability but he keeps believing he's defeated enemy targets like a destroyer and a sub, when actually they have fooled him into believing they were sunk. So in the end he makes absolutely certain he defeats the sub by forcing it to tow him (with pontoons) to his base.

In each case the ending is suggested by the characterization presented.

Stamp Day for Superman

Here's a new one on me; I found this bit of DC promotion in the pages of All-American Men of War #24 (August 1955). And yes, the special TV episode is on Google Video.



Update: That's actually a pretty terrific episode. Since we're on the topic of Superman doing good works, I thought I would mention Superman's extraordinary speech from the Christmas, 1945 episode of the radio show. The first time I heard it (about ten years ago) I was overwhelmed:



A lot of people don't know that this is what's meant by "truth, justice and the American Way"; the last part is often interpreted as some sort of slam at the Soviets (and indeed in the 1950s the phrase was often used to contrast the USA with the USSR). But in the Superman radio show it was a reference to America as the melting pot, and a plea to listeners to treat each other with dignity and respect, without regard to race, creed or color. The radio show went on to present many famed episodes in those early postwar years where Superman not only battled against crooks and conmen, but against merchants of hatred and intolerance, in stories like Clan of the Fiery Cross, or Knights of the White Carnation.

Update: The Beat Down also has a well-worth reading post on the TV Superman.

My first experience with Superman was via the TV show "Adventures of Superman". George Reeves introduced Superman to me and will always be indelibly inked on my brain as the definitive personification of the character.

That was my first experience with Superman as well, although I confess that over the years I've really come to appreciate how much we know of the Superman legend came from the radio show: Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, the Daily Planet and Kryptonite. "Up, up and away!" originated as a verbal cue to listeners that Superman was going to fly. And when Bud Collyer had to go on vacation, they often worked in a story or two featuring Batman and Robin. :)

Cool And Early Easter Egg Found!

Jacque Nodell locates a 1971 Easter Egg in DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #5. Very cool stuff; it's not the earliest Easter Egg I've seen but it's certainly subtler than most.

As it happens Gorilla Daze just recently posted a slightly earlier (1970), but much more obvious, Easter Egg.

Update: Some more modern ones.

Iron Man Run Part 5

Picking back up again with Tales of Suspense #79, Tony Stark is wanted by the police for failing to appear before Senator Byrd's committee (because he was teleported to the Mandarin's palace instead). Now that he's back he's weak and needs a recharge, but neither Pepper nor Happy are at their homes. But in the meantime, Warlord Krang and Lady Dorma (who have lost their blue skin) appear in a nearby submarine.



Iron Man manages to drive them away, but ironically this enrages the Sub-Mariner, who had been trailing them but is unable to catch up with Warlord Krang's ship. So they have the obligatory Marvel hero fight:



Fortunately for Iron Man, Subby never read any of the Br'er Rabbit stories. Iron Man beats the Sub-Mariner for now, but the latter goes back to water to recharge his powers and:



Say what? A crossover into the Sub-Mariner feature in TTA? Arrgggghhh! Okay, I'm going to assume that they had some more battling to do but eventually kissed and made up.

In TOS #81, Tony is prepared to go to Washington to appear before Senator Byrd's committee and reveal his secret identity. Here's a reminder how much things have changed since 9-11:



I can remember showing up at airports with ten minutes to spare and still making the flight. Anyway, Tony decides to fly to Washington as Iron Man, rather than taking a plane. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, the communists have modified the Titanium Man's armor to make it stronger and more powerful. So TM decides to take this opportunity to attack Iron Man. He is sent to the US in a missile that arrives just as Iron Man reaches DC and:



The battle takes place in the next two issues. At first Titanium Man has the upper hand but when Pepper and Happy arrive in Washington, TM realizes that Pepper means something to him, and threatens her:



Well, that ticks Iron Man off royally and (after rescuing Pepper), he fights with renewed determination. Meanwhile, elsewhere, folks are watching on TV:



Reading from Left to Right, President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Oddball tidbit: McNamara's middle name was "Strange" (his mother's maiden name). Iron Man defeats the Titanium Man, who hopes to get away in a Soviet sub, but learns there is no room for second place among the commies:



Happy recovers his memory during the battle, but Pepper apparently loses hers:



Say what? Tony's absence during the first Titanium Man's battle with Iron Man was a big part of what turned Pepper off on him, and there's been no reconciliation since, but he misses the second battle and suddenly Pepper's all lovey-dovey towards him? What happened to her affection for Iron Man?

Comments: A solid series of issues with only a few missteps. I do wish that Stan had been more consistent with the Pepper/Tony relationship.

Next: Tony Stark testifies before Congress!

Neat Stuff

I've mentioned in the past my biggest criticism of Wayne Boring; the man simply could not put eyeglasses on the nose of Clark Kent to save his life. But Boring was a terrific artist in many other respects, and this is one of them. Boring realized that if Superman wasn't flying simply by jumping from place to place, then there was no earthly reason for his feet to be trailing behind him. So he often made Superman look like he was out for a leisurely stroll in the park, which I always thought was pretty cool.

Neat Stuff elsewhere:

I keep recommending Sequential Crush, because Jacque keeps coming up with interesting posts. I was particularly interested in her post on men's belted sweaters, an apparent fashion trend of the early 1970s that I completely missed. But she's got the evidence!

Of course my idea for Neat Stuff is a ripoff of Mark Engblom's Random Coolness, and as it happens he's got a post up on that topic covering the Cosmic Treadmill, Kirby Krackle and Peter Parker's Pessimism.

Ol' Groove's got a tribute to the covers of John Buscema. And a Batman fan like me can't resist his coverage of Marshall Rogers' all-too-brief stint on Batman in Detective Comics.

Bill Jourdain covers Jules Feiffer's groundbreaking reprint book, the Great Comic Book Superheroes. I remember reading that book in the late 1960s at the Ridgewood Library; I was most impressed with the Plastic Man story from Police Comics #1 and was disappointed in the Spirit story (a 1941 tale, while most of Eisner's legendary stuff was after the war. But as he notes, it was definitely the first exposure for many young comics fans to a significant number of Golden Age stories.

Dave Olbrich has a long post up about the proposed casting for the Johnny Quest movie. I remember being completely jazzed by the show back in the 1960s, with kids having great adventures with frequent sci-fi themes. Remember the lizardmen?

Mails of Suspense

Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd take a quick look at the letters columns in Tales of Suspense #s 70-79 to see if there are any interesting patterns I can discern. There were 47 letters in all, so that's a little under five per issue.

1. Only one writer had more than one letter published in TOS in those issues: Kenny Chance of Brooklyn who had letters in TOS #75 and #76.

2. Maybe it should be called Males of Suspense? Only one of the letters was written by a female. Linda Crowe of Greenwood, Indiana, wrote in to complain about the apparent death of Happy Hogan in TOS #70.

3. The letters were all terse; I don't recall any of them being longer than about 5-6 sentences and never two paragraphs. Partly this may have been because TOS only had a one-page letter column, but also Stan obviously had his hands full with so many scripts to pop out in a month and around this time was begging his fans to keep their letters to under a page in length. A little while afterward he even tried publishing the letters without any editorial reply, although this proved so unpopular that he returned to commenting a few months later.

4. The states that had the most letter writers were New York (9), Illinois (6) and New Jersey (4). Five letters were mailed from outside the USA; three from Canada and one each from Puerto Rico and Trinidad. Actually I guess Puerto Rico is still part of the US, but it's not a state.

5. The first names were very much "white bread": Lots of Joes and Bobs and Dons and Williams. The ethnic flavor was more in the last names: Khan, Della Fiore, Zimmerman, Iacopelli, Ahokas, Martinez, etc. It was an era where people tried to blend in, rather than emphasize their heritage, and I actually disliked my name of Patrick back them because it was so uncommon. (According to Social Security, fewer than one boy out of every 200 born in the US in 1955 was given that name).

You Learn Something New Every Day...

At least, you did when you read DC's Silver Age comics. In addition to the regular features, several of the mags had informative features about science and history. Here's a sample from Green Lantern #2:



Consider these Amazing Speeds, appropriately enough from Flash #119:



In Wonder Woman we found out about quaint romance and marriage customs throughout the world:



Was DC doing its civic duty, or just abiding by postal regulations? Actually, a little of both, according to a response to a letter in Green Lantern #5:



Now the funny thing is that DC did have an irregular "fact" feature in Batman called "Strange Old Laws", but it didn't appear in every issue by any means. In fact, the fillers in Batman were much more likely to be Henry Boltinoff cartoons like Warden Willis, Casey the Cop and Jail Jests:



Although they did have a Public Service Announcement in virtually every issue, so that may be how they got by:



That kid in the blue shirt is DC's version of Goofus, although he generally learns a lesson by the end of every PSA.

Giant Green Ring Things Part III

Picking up with issue #4, we encounter our first repeat Green Ring Thing, a Giant Net:



As with the first net it's marginal to call it giant, and given that it doesn't work, it only gets one Star Sapphire out of five possible.

The next Green Ring Thing is a stethoscope:



The text describes it as huge, but does it qualify as giant? Ah, well, I can't resist the opportunity to add a Giant Green Stethoscope to the list. Two Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #18 is a giant hand:



Pretty dull, though, so we'll only give it the minimum one Star Sapphire.

Next up is a Green Ring Thing Shield:



Not giant.

A Green Tidal Wave is GRT #20:



Tempting, very tempting, but that does not look like an oversized tidal wave to me.

Giant Green Hands for #21:



What to call Green Ring Thing #22?



It's kind of like a net, kind of like one of those old-fashioned shopping bags that ladies used to bring to the supermarket with them. And so that's what we'll call it, and as it is giant and retro, we'll give it three Star Sapphires.

GL #5 features the first Green Ring Thing not created by Green Lantern:



A spear, but not a giant spear.

GL responds with GRT #24:



A shield, but not a giant shield. And in the next panel:



Giant Green Hands arm-wrestling? Four Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #26 is a dam:



But not a giant dam.

The Giant Broom sweeps clean:



Three Star Sapphires.

Green Ring Thing #28 is rather unusual:



I'm not sure why GL would only be able to do this on a planet with a "super-magnetic field"; presumably Schwartz was looking to make sure his writers didn't overdo this particular trick.

Running Tally:

Giant Green Net: 2
Giant Green Bird: 1
Giant Green Springs: 1
Giant Green Test Tube: 1
Giant Green Ice Tongs: 1
Giant Green Hand(s): 4
Giant Lock Wrench: 1
Giant Green Umbrella: 1
Giant Green Chiller Diller Menace: 1
Giant Green Stethoscope: 1
Giant Green Old-Fashioned Shopping Bag: 1
Giant Green Broom: 1

The hands move out into the lead, but still no sign of the Giant Green Boxing Glove!

Single-Issue Review: All-American Men of War #73

Hmmm, given that the Amerikaner has a better grip on the rope, with his right hand instead of his left hand, I'd guess that he can hang on longer than the German. And I don't get what's going on with the GI's helmet strap. Unless it has just now come loose, wouldn't it be hanging down, and wouldn't the helmet be falling from his head?

The cover story, No Detour, opens the issue and is a real page turner. Two soldiers named Mac and Lee find themselves facing detours every where they go, both literal detours that take them longer to get to the action, and figurative detours, where they are being shot at by an German 88 tank, and duck into a nearby house, only to find it occupied by a machine gunner. Later they make it to the roof of one building only to find it being blasted by a mortar crew across the way.

Through it all they survive by their wits and courage, as here:



In the climax, the soldiers are climbing a mountain to reconnoiter the area, when a German fighter plane blasts at them. Check out this picture-in-picture:



But even after defeating the pilot, there's still one roadblock up ahead, and no detour:



But Mac saves Lee by tugging on the rope, a pre-arranged signal for Lee to come down. The German is unprepared for the sudden movement and falls to his death.

Comments: Excellent story by Robert Kanigher and superb art by Joe Kubert. Look at the menace in that smile by the German; that's really quite perfect. I particularly like the detours theme being used to frame the story.

The second story, Tanks Don't Cry, is about three brothers. One is a pilot, and he swears that his plane is human and that he heard it cry when it was almost shot down, but it got him home safely. The second is in the Navy, and recalls the time that his aircraft carrier was almost sunk, but though it cried it refused to sink.

Of course the third brother, a junior tank officer, thinks this is silly. His tank is just a bucket of bolts, a mechanical marvel to be sure, but not human. But in a tough situation, caught in a tank trap, the tank somehow escapes and crashes into a German pillbox, rescuing the men but destroying itself in the process. And in the end:



I was pleased to recognize Mort Drucker's style in the artwork; I am getting a little better at identifying artists without looking them up these days. Of course, this panel was a pretty big hint:



Comments: Very neat and tight little story. Humans do tend to anthropomorphize pieces of equipment, like cars, so it's not surprising that a tank man would get emotional over his "bucket of bolts". I did think it was a little bit of a stretch to say that the plane and the aircraft carrier were crying, but obviously that was needed to give the ending some punch.

The finale is Nobody Owns a Medal. A green soldier eyes with some envy the Bronze Star of his corporal, but the non-com insists that he's just holding the medal temporarily until somebody comes along who deserves it more. Sure enough, the kid proves his resourcefulness and courage in the next skirmish, knocking out a machine gun nest, and the corporal hands over his Bronze Star.



But sure enough, when he goes out on patrol with a rookie and things look grim:



And at the end of the action, he gives the rookie his Bronze Star, with the title admonition.

Comments: Another terrific short form tale from Bob Haney (who also wrote the second story), with fine art by Jack Abel. It strikes me reading this entire book how terrific the writing was, and yet it was done by two writers who are probably more remembered for the cringe-worthy work they did on Wonder Woman and Brave & Bold/Teen Titans. Yet another reminder that not every person is suited for every genre.

Have a healthy and safe Memorial Day, everyone!

Update: Other Memorial Day posts:

Easily Mused has the first appearance of the Ice-Cream Soldier in Sgt. Rock. Not to be missed!

Mark Engblom reflects on the reality of the soldiers as compared to the comics versions and recommends a book of letters from servicemen.