Fifty Years Ago Today

This comic, one of the true Silver Age "keys" appeared on the newsstands on March 31, 1959. Although DC had toyed with the idea of a female version of Superman on several occasions, this was the first that they decided to accept such a character on an on-going basis.

It was also the first time since about 1939 that the cover of Action featured a story that was not the Superman story. Yep, Supergirl did not appear in the Superman story, rather she popped up in her very own feature.

The Superman story in this issue featured Metallo. Although I didn't know it at the time, the concept of Metallo had appeared on a few occasions in the past; indeed when one was encountered in an early World's Finest, Lois Lane referred to it as "a Metallo" as if there were quite a few out there. The concept in the DC universe always amounted to a man inside a robot's body, and such was the case here.

John Corben, a reporter, has just committed the perfect crime, murdering the only man who knew he was guilty of being an embezzler. But in a moment he is shattered when his car crashes off a hillside. Fortunately a professor happens by who can save his life, but at quite a cost:



The only thing that can keep his body ticking is uranium, or another element. Unfortunately the professor keels over of a stroke before he can tell Metallo of the second source of power. Corben discovers that he has super strength with his new body. He gets a job at the Daily Planet, where he astounds Clark with his steel grip. But Lois is less impressed when Corben tries to hustle her.

Corben commits several robberies to build up a reasonable stockpile of uranium, but he'd rather have the second element which can last indefinitely. Fortunately the professor has recovered and advises Corben that what he really needs is Kryptonite, a small sample of which he has in a safe. Corben takes the Kryptonite, intending to use it to kill Superman. He wedges it near some pipes in a museum where Superman is about to make an appearance, and puts another sample of Kryptonite which he found in the museum in his body to power it.

But Superman manages to stay alive by focusing the heat of his x-ray vision on the Kryptonite, melting it. And Metallo finds out that the sample of Kryptonite at the museum was phony, and dies.

Comments: Clearly this story was inspired by the famous Atom Man story from the Superman radio show, where a German was injected with Kryptonite which gave him tremendous powers. The young man joined the staff of the Daily Planet and attempted to kill Superman.

The second story features Congo Bill as Congorilla. Congo Bill was a longtime DC character, having debuted in More Fun Comics #56. He switched over to Action with #37, and thus this was his 216th appearance in that magazine. A few years earlier he had gained the power to exchange bodies with a golden gorilla, giving him great strength. In this story, Congo Bill foils a plot by some French Foreign Legion mutineers.

Now we come at last to the reason why this comic is so highly prized by collectors: the debut of Supergirl! Here's her first in-story appearance:



A rocket from Krypton has landed on Earth, and the above is what Superman sees.

Now the decision to make her a girl caused some plot problems. Since Superman was a baby when Krypton exploded, it should be obvious that anyone so much younger than he could not have been born on that planet. Supergirl explains a chunk of Krypton called Argo City was thrown off into space when the planet exploded, with a group of survivors and sufficient atmosphere to support them. However, they did have one problem; the ground had turned into Kryptonite:



That scene of the workers rolling out the lead would be shown many times in the Silver Age; along with the shrinking of Kandor, it was one of the most-reprinted sequences. Zor-El and his wife would eventually have a daughter, Kara. Unfortunately a meteor shower punctured the lead, dooming the residents of Argo City. But Zor-El saved his daughter by sending her to Earth in a small rocket.

The echoes of Superman's own origin are obvious, but the pair discovered another link between them:



As a new relative for Clark would attract suspicion, Superman puts Kara into an orphanage in the town of Midvale, with instructions not to let anybody know that a Supergirl exists. She adopts the name Linda Lee and a brown, pigtailed wig as her disguise.



Comments: It is difficult to overstate the importance of Supergirl. Although DC had made fits and starts towards introducing female counterparts for their male heroes, such as Batwoman, Lady Blackhawk and Miss Arrowette, this was the only time between the late 1940s and the late 1960s that a new female superhero was given her own feature right off the bat. And she appeared in Action Comics, one of the biggest-selling comic magazines in the country. In addition, Supergirl got a big boost from being part of the Superman family, as she very quickly began making guest appearances in Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen (especially after her existence was announced to the world).

Supergirl is, by a wide margin, the most important female character in comics during the Silver Age. Only Wonder Woman even has an argument, and given the wretched state of that feature during the 1960s, I don't think many people will make the case.

Update: Superman was not the only major DC character who got a significant addition to his family 50 years ago today.

Meme Machine

Ol' Groove hit me with the meme stick.

The Rules
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Write six random things about yourself.
4) Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Some not-so random things:

1. The earliest comic memory I have is of a Baby Huey story where his dad's trying to fill in a crossword puzzle and can't figure out a 16-letter word for "a ringing in the ears". Baby Huey suggests tintinnabulation, which of course is the answer. I can't remember anything more about it, but I have been checking every Baby Huey issue posted for years trying to find it.

2. Another missing comic book memory is of a Fox and Crow story where the Crow puts his dirty mitts on an envelope addressed to the Fox and the latter becomes convinced it is a "black hand letter". None of the adults I showed the comic book to then had a clue what that meant.

3. My favorite comic book character is Batman and my second favorite is the Spirit, while Spiderman comes in third. My favorite character of all time in any medium is Sherlock Holmes.

4. I have listened to almost every available episode of the Superman radio series. It was interesting to realize that the whole rationale behind the "Up, Up, and Away" bit was because they needed a way to tell the kids that Superman was flying off. At the end of his flights he'd often say, "Down, Down," as well, although of course that's not nearly as famous.

5. My favorite baseball team is the Detroit Tigers. Growing up outside of New York, I rooted avidly for the Mets, but when I started watching baseball on TV (1963) the Mets were terrible and so I decided I had to have a team in the American League as well. I picked the Tigers because I liked the animal, the tiger.

6. Almost anything I do I can do well right out of the chute, but I have a frustrating inability to progress much from that level despite significant effort on my part. I broke 100 very quickly in golf; it took me years to break 90.

My six hapless victims:

Chris at I Believe in Batmite.

Dan at the Beat Down.

Avi at Four Color Media Monitor.

Bill at the Golden Age of Comic Books.

Chris/Chalwa at He Collects Dick Tracy.

Allan at Gorilla Daze.

Electro Prototype at Charlton?

Here's a July 1960 Charlton featuring the work of Steve Ditko. The opening story should be of some interest to Spiderman and Daredevil fans, as it features the appearance of a clear prototype for Webhead and Hornhead's longtime foe, Electro. George Clinton (pre-Funkadelic) is an accountant who suddenly and inexplicably finds his body supercharged with electricity. This look a little familiar?



Quite a bit like this:



Clinton goes out into the countryside so as to not be a danger to others, but then suddenly he senses a purpose:



And he sends a bolt skyward:



Comments: The story is ho-hum, but of course the Ditko artwork and the Electro connection make it much more interesting. Ditko seems to be experimenting with his style here; I certainly don't recall him doing lots of close-up portraits as he did in this story.

Number 497


Al Wiseman


Al Wiseman was Hank Ketcham's assistant on Dennis the Menace, but where I encountered him was in the comic book versions of Dennis. Wiseman's artwork was excellent, and not only did he do a great job on Dennis and the other characters, but he could really draw architecture. He gave us a view of 1950s suburban America at Dennis' eye-level.

There were a series of special giant comics that came along in the late '50s-early '60s: Dennis the Menace In Mexico, in Hollywood, in Hawaii, etc. Where they were different for me was that Al Wiseman and writer Fred Toole had write-ups in the comics. They were given credit! Wiseman and Toole got their names and photos in the books. Ketcham must've really thought a lot of them to allow that.

There's an Al Wiseman website, but it doesn't look like it's had any activity in a couple of years.

This fun take on Treasure Island from Dennis' point of view is from Dennis the Menace #17, 1956. It was reprinted a couple of times. I think it's an excellent example of Toole and Wiseman's superior work on Dennis.

Silver Age Plot Types: The Tontine

Among the more durable plots of the Silver Age was the Tontine. A Tontine is an investment club with an interesting difference. All the money in the pool goes to the last surviving member. Of course, most of the stories in the Tontine format did not involve an investment group, but with some variations, this turned out to be an incredibly durable plot.

The most important fact about a Tontine is, "Who's the last person?" That is the key question in all Tontine plots. Consider, for example, a murder mystery, like Peril at Playland Isle from Detective #264. We are given the suspects and as the story evolves, each of them is eliminated logically (sometimes by being murdered) until only the guilty one is left.

The most common identifier of a Tontine-type story is the presentation of a cast of characters near the beginning:





The purpose of presenting this cast is so that the reader can go back and forth to this page at least in theory to mentally X out the innocent as their involvement is eliminated. Of course the writer (or in the story the criminal) is aware of this and so there's usually a trick in there to throw the reader off the scent.

Let's go back to the Peril at Playland Isle story. In the tale, Barden, a millionaire, has bought an amusement park and transported it to an island he owns. He is going to make admission free to kids, for reasons discussed in the panel above. But as Batman and Robin tour the site, Conn tells them that Barden wants to see them at the funhouse. When they arrive they are shocked to discover that the millionaire is dead. We learn some potential motives:



Conn is not shown as having a motive, but given that in the next scene he's attacked by the killer I think we can eliminate him. However, things change when Batman learns that a stolen necklace has been found in the park. Now he knows that the motive for the plot is not something personal, but involves other crimes that have taken place and eventually zeroes in on Carter, the business associate.

Note that a murder mystery is not the only use for a Tontine story, not by a long shot. There are several Batman stories where Bruce Wayne is in an isolated place with a few other men, and when Batman appears the other men begin eliminating suspects as to whom he is:



And the Tontine was also used in other series, like the Legion of Superheroes:

Number 496


Dr. Gordon and Mr. Eclipso


Don Markstein's Toonopedia site gives a pretty concise history of Eclipso, a super villain who is the dark side of a decent guy.

Holy Robert Louis Stevenson.

Anyway, this particular episode, with the tunnel-digging robot ROGER, was published in House of Secrets #67, July-August 1967. Bob Haney wrote it, and Alex Toth illustrated it. I know for sure because he signed the last panel in a most distinguished way. As usual with Toth, the artwork is probably better than the story, and yet the story is pretty good!

I got these scans from the Internet some years ago, 2003 to be exact, off of some DC fan site. I just can't remember where. If the guy who produced these scans will contact me I'll give him credit.

DC Annuals in the Silver Age

These comics had a story and a magic all to themselves and so I thought I'd put together a series of posts on them.

Giant comics were not unheard of in the DC Golden Age. DC's regular comics started out at 68 pages, then dropped briefly to 60 and then 52 pages. Big All-American Comics came out in 1944, with an incredible 132 pages. But it, like the World's Fair Comics and World's Finest and Comics Cavalcade issues always featured new stories, not reprints.

So Superman Annual #1 was a landmark in the Silver Age as it was the first time I know of that DC actually reprinted a story in its entirety. Why is this such a key moment? Because after that comics really had to start caring about continuity. In the old days if a current story contradicted a five year old one, it was a couple letters to the editor. But if that original story got reprinted, it became part of the newly forming canon of the character.

Superman Annual #2 followed only a half year later, making obvious the lie of the title. The reprint giants of the 1960s tended to be printed in early summer and early November, which made them perfect for long drives in the car during the former and stocking stuffers or Thanksgiving presents from Grandma and Grandpa.

The next new giant was truly historic:



That's the history of the DC Silver Age right there on the cover. It's edited by Julius Schwartz. The earliest story in the issue is the Martian Manhunter origin, and aside from Aquaman, all early Justice League characters are represented.

Superman Annual #3 came out next and a week later Batman Annual #1, which I reviewed here. In the fall of 1961 DC released Superman Annual #4 and Batman Annual #2.

So what did DC lead off with in the summer of 1962? Well, if you've been looking at the circulation numbers around then, it will come as no particular surprise:



Lois Lane was moving about 4 million copies a year.

In the winter, DC released Batman Annual #4 and Superman Annual #6. The pattern had been basically established: Batman and Superman had winter and summer "Annuals", other characters might get summer Annuals. Batman Annual #5 led off the summer 1963, followed by Lois Lane Annual #2, and Superman Annual #7. But there was no apparent addition to the DC annuals as the summer of 1963 dragged on until in mid-August there suddenly appeared:



Now up to that point although DC had pretended to be opening up their vault, this issue's Star Sapphire story was the first actual 1940s story to be reprinted. It was an obvious nod to the Golden Age fans. Publishing the Flash Annual was something of a surprise, but the other candidates were Superboy and Jimmy Olsen, both of which would just have added to Weisinger's workload.

The Winter Annuals were again Superman and Batman (#8 and #6 respectively). The next year DC led with Superboy Annual #1, then Batman Annual #7.

And then the numbering of DC's Giants gets complicated. The post office apparently wanted to charge them more for all these new "Annual" titles, so DC got the brilliant idea of calling them "80-Page Giant #1, #2, etc." Brilliant from a screw the post office standpoint, but holy hell on anybody trying to figure out which issues he was missing in the early 1970s.

80-Page Giant #1 featured Superman
80-Page Giant #2 featured Jimmy Olsen. This meant that JLA was now DC's highest circulation title without an annual, excluding the variety mags like Action, Adventure, Detective, etc.
80-Page Giant #3 was Lois Lane
80-Page Giant #4 starred the Flash
80-Page Giant #5 featured Batman's 25th anniversary
80-Page Giant #6 was Superman against amazing things and creatures!
80-Page Giant #7 had Sgt Rock's Prize Battle Tales as war comics became the only genre in DC's lineup outside superheroes to win an annual.
80-Page Giant #8 was the second Secret Origins annual, which turned out to be pretty dull compared to the original, with only a 1960 origin revision for Aquaman and the first Silver Age Atom tale really standing as significant stories. I mean, the "Origin of Flash's Masked Identity?"
80-Page Giant #9 was the Flash again, apparently putting his annuals in the semi-annual category. That did not last however.
80-Page Giant #10 was the second Superboy Annual.
80-Page Giant #11 may have been the first comic ever dedicated to a villain:

After that came Batman, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane. The final issue (#15) of 80-Page Giant was World's Finest. Here DC hit on another great idea. By seeding in the annuals with the regular series they could eliminate another title and pay the post office even less money. So 80-Page Giant #16 was also Justice League of America #39, bringing the JLA into the rotation. #20 was also Action Comics #334 and featured Supergirl.

And that was basically it. DC had found a rotation of Annuals where they could issue one per month and they didn't really alter it much after that, perhaps thinking that the market couldn't handle more than one 25 cent comic at a time. They did squeeze in an extra Batman Annual during 1966 to take advantage of Batmania, and Adventure Comics picked up the Supergirl Annuals after she moved over from Action, but aside from that there were no additions and no subtractions to the DC annuals after 1965.

Number 495


Moon Monster


Bernard Baily, who began his comics career almost before there were comic books, drew this moody-looking monster tale for House of Mystery #97, April 1959. I scanned it from DC Special #11, a DC Giant Comic from 1971.

Baily co-created The Spectre, Hourman, had his own comic book art shop, did some of the most gruesome and horrific horror comics covers of the early '50s, and during the Silver Age did a lot of work in DC's mystery comics. That's not to mention his syndicated comic strip work. The guy was busy!

Baily, who was born in 1916, died at age 79 in 1996.