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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 2, 2016 1:17:40 GMT -5
World's Finest #176 'The Superman-Batman Split' Bates/Adams/Giordano  Boy, what an awful cover! Hope that's not reflective of the story! And Neal Adams, too? Maybe he didn't lay it out. Clark Kent is heading over to interview a movie star he's a fan of, only it turns out its an alien in disguise, who knows he's Superman and needs protection! He's the Vice President of the 6th planet of Sirius, you see, and fears the same assassin that took out the President is after him, too. Superman does what any hero would do... believes him completely, drops him in the Fortress of Solitude, then goes off 'on a vital mission in another galaxy' that he's scheduled for. Sure, Supes, that's not a tee time at Augusta, right. Meanwhile, another alien of the same race visits Batman, saying he needs help catching a dangerous criminal from his planet, and J'onn J'onzz is too busy (OK, I made that part up). He knows Batman's identity, too, if that matters. Anyway, he's looking for the alien Superman plopped int he Fortress, of course. Batman agrees to help since Robin is off with the Titans.. I guess he was lonely. The 2nd alien (Tiron) tells them Superman is helping the 1st alien (Dur), so Batman stops and picks up Supergirl, and heads to the Fortress, with Tiron suspciously stays behind. Superman comes home just in time to see his best bud and his cousin B&E'ing his pad. The fight, Superman wins, and gets away with Dur. Despite handling them easily, Superman is worried about the team up, and gets Batgirl on his side. Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen and Robin team up to investigate why their buds are fighting. They figured out what's why wit their spy cameras in the Batcave, and go off to straighten it out. ..but they get gassed! We get another fight, this time Supergirl and Batman vs. Batgirl and Superman. as their fighting , Tiron falls passed out. Turns out he IS the actor, who is dying from radiation that his scientist brother's mini Jet pack caused... because that's what you do if you're dying, try to trick Batman and Superman! He dies, then Superman and Batman reveal they know all along. The girls and the sidekicks are a bit mad, but hey, that's Superdickery! Yeah, wow. This one goes up to 11 on the silver age wackiness scale.. a bit too much for me, honestly. Notes: -- Hey Superman, you know what a good way would be to help keep you id a secret? Don't yell 'Great Krypton' when you're dressed like Clark Kent! -- I would have like just a teeeny bit of explanation why everyone is so trusting of strangers and not of their friends. -- Ok, wait... Jimmy Olsen and Robin have a secret HQ they share? And they can spy on Batman AND Superman? Do the Titans know? I didn't know they were even acquaintances.. is that a thing, or just for this story. More importantly... WHY? |
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 2, 2016 11:16:49 GMT -5
World's Finest #176 'The Superman-Batman Split' Bates/Adams/Giordano Boy, what an awful cover! Hope that's not reflective of the story! And Neal Adams, too? Maybe he didn't lay it out.
From The Krypton Companion edited by Michael Eury
"I believe there was a cover that I did - I don't want to say it was Cary [Bate]'s and it was really somebody else's, it might be Mike Friedrich's - but [Mort Weisigner] was deliriously happy about this cover. I don't know if it was for Adventure or World's Finest, maybe World's Finest, and what it had was two heads of two super-heroes on the left and two heads of two super-heroes on the right, I think. And in the middle, was a guy sitting in a chair with some kind of gun or something and he was in silhouette, and on him was this question mark, "Who is it?" Do you remember that cover? In his mind, that was the greatest cover because it asked a question and made you buy the book. A very intelligent editorial approach. And, you know, it was boring cover to draw. I hated it. It was simple and essentially boring and it was sloppy, but it sold comic books."
Neal Adams
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 2, 2016 14:34:36 GMT -5
Wow, great quote! So, what do you guys think... does that cover make you want to see what's inside? For me, better art is what draws me, since, as an experience comic book I know the cover depiction is often unrelated to the content inside... or, at best, features a misleading hook.
Perhaps back then it was more effective that such strategies work now?
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Post by Action Ace on Apr 2, 2016 20:31:09 GMT -5
-- Ok, wait... Jimmy Olsen and Robin have a secret HQ they share? And they can spy on Batman AND Superman? Do the Titans know? I didn't know they were even acquaintances.. is that a thing, or just for this story. More importantly... WHY? The Eyrie (since Robin and Jimmy "Flamebird" Olsen have a bird theme) made its debut in World's Finest #141. It appears again in #148. I'm not sure it ever appeared in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. I can why they wanted to bring him in, Jimmy outsold Batman in the first half of the 1960s. |
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 2, 2016 20:53:05 GMT -5
Jimmy outsold Batman in the first half of the 1960s. I find that a bit hard to believe, not that I'm questioning the validity of your statement |
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Post by Action Ace on Apr 2, 2016 20:55:29 GMT -5
Jimmy outsold Batman in the first half of the 1960s. I find that a bit hard to believe, not that I'm questioning the validity of your statement 1960s page |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 2, 2016 21:53:14 GMT -5
Jimmy outsold Batman in the first half of the 1960s. I find that a bit hard to believe, not that I'm questioning the validity of your statement Jimmy was a huge TV star up 'till 1958. And Jimmy was generally the stronger book - Batman never turned into a giant turtle boy. |
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Post by MDG on Apr 3, 2016 9:20:22 GMT -5
Wow, great quote! So, what do you guys think... does that cover make you want to see what's inside? For me, better art is what draws me, since, as an experience comic book I know the cover depiction is often unrelated to the content inside... or, at best, features a misleading hook. Perhaps back then it was more effective that such strategies work now? Looking at it as a 1968 comic buyer, the question/situation posed by the cover was a much bigger motivator than the quality of the art. (Also hate to break it to you, but most EC customers in the 50s bought the books because of gory pictures, not how well they were drawn.) |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 3, 2016 13:25:06 GMT -5
Wow, great quote! So, what do you guys think... does that cover make you want to see what's inside? Oh yeah. I'll still grab books out of the 2 for a buck box based on a cool cover. That's actually how I discovered Reptisaurus. I paid some crazy amount like 5 bucks for Reptisaurus # 8. I just knew from the cover I needed to read it! And now, shockingly, it's one of my very favorite comic runs. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 3, 2016 20:42:00 GMT -5
Wow, I had no idea the Superman family titles outsold everything else until Adam West came along! I stand corrected on the cover, sounds like... very good then  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 29, 2016 23:23:50 GMT -5
Bat Lash #6 Aragones/O'Neil/Cardy/Sekowsky  I'm not sure if it's because the doom of cancellation is coming, it was a creative decision, or what, but this issue is completely different from the first 5. It starts with Bat gunning down a preacher at a funeral... who turns out to have been the man who killed his parents. We then get a flashback for most of the issue, which is essentially Bat's origin story. No gags, not weirdness, just a straight on western tragic justification for a western gunslinger. Mind you, it was really good.. Cardy's art continues to be amazing, and the story (if a bit generic) flows nicely and makes sense, but it's just completely different. Then there's the letter justifying the price increase (to .15 from .12 very large % wise, but only 3 cents)... and a letter complaining about the lack of a letters page. Just very odd all around, but a great story with great art none the less. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 11, 2016 22:41:34 GMT -5
 Bat Lash #7 Ok, so what happened here? This was a completely trope-y, standard story, where Bat is hunted by a bounty hunter who is his long lost brother. Why all this orgin stuff.. at the end of the series? Did Aragones and Cardy run out of ideas so fast? Get bored? The art isn't even as good here..it seems a bit rushed and not nearly as unique as the first 5 issues. Was this one of those things where the book got cancelled because some editor or another didn't like it? On the plus side, when trying (unsuccessfully) to find that out, I learned that 'Guns of the Dragon' is a series I really want to read.. I remember getting the 1st issue of it when it came out, then losing track of it... I had no idea at the time who Bat Last was, or his awesomeness. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 19, 2016 23:35:24 GMT -5
 Atom #7 Fox/Kane/Anderson 'Case of the Cosmic Camera' This could quite possibly be the more forced team up ever. Ray Palmer helps the police solve a crime (by figuring out their trick).. on his way to go bird watching... only the birds are doing weird stuff. Then there's a devastating earthquake, but it fizzles out. Meanwhile, A weird thing that the Thanagarians can't figure out goes missing... it looks like a camera, but doesn't take pictures, so they're completely mystified. It does give off unique radiation, which is messing with the birds, so Hawkman is on the case. Sadly, Kiera has their ship at Thanagar reporting in (which is especially weird since they can chat by radio... why go?) , so he has to track things with his radiation contacts from a few issues ago. (Continuity from silver age DC!!!). They end up crossing paths, and Hawkman helps Atom catch one of his crooks, who is escaping over the Ocean. Turnabout is fair play, as the camera thingy belongs to aliens that are all like Atom, and defeat Hawkman easily. Turns out the cosmic camera used the energy of the Earthquake to make a voodoo doll of the whole darn planet. The good guys foil them as they demand to take over the world, of course, and the heroes go bird watching together with their signifigant others with the promise of more team ups to come. Notes: - LOTS of 'teaching moments' in this one... we get a few panels of Bird migration... how the Mercalli rating scale works (which I didn't know!) and how planes can find subs by heat trails. - Quite a counter with all that science when we essential have tiny aliens make an Earth Voodoo doll -- It seemed really unnecessarily complicated and dangerous to shoot the Atom at the balloon floating thieves with a pin.. why not just shoot the balloons with regular guns? -- I think this was the first DC editors note of a back issue I've noticed since starting this thread. -- Weird that Hawkman isn't in the JLA at this point, isn't it? I think I like the 'hey, you're a good guy, I've seen you in the paper) better than the Marvel 'first they fight, then they team up' formula... at least as a change of pace. Decent, if weird, story that seems like it really should have been in Brave anf the Bold. |
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Post by Action Ace on May 21, 2016 19:15:00 GMT -5
Hawkman will need another sixteen months before he joins the JLA in issue #31. They let others join the JLA that didn't have their own series, so I don't know why they needed to wait so long for Hawkman to build his popularity.
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Post by Cei-U! on May 22, 2016 8:20:24 GMT -5
Actually, all the JLAers had series at the time they joined the team prior to Hawkman, just not their own titles (though Green Arrow lost his solo series after he joined). Hawkman had struggled to find an audience, requiring three tryouts (two in Brave and Bold, one in Mystery in Space) before finally landing his own title. Once he had four issues under his belt, TPTB decided he was now popular enough to warrant a spot on the roster. (There may have been some reticence, too, about overloading the team with characters from Schwartz's stable but that's just a theory.)
Cei-U!
Wheet! Wheet!
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