I loved DC's 80 page Giants. Those (what I call) "postcard" covers made each story within seem like the most exciting story ever. And you're right, Prince Hal, the "direct address" device was quite compelling, esp. to a young audience . And even though at that time I wasn't buying DC (still reading Harveys, I think), I remember looking through my cousins' immense DC collection when we visited them at holidays and being riveted by those DC house ads. By the time I could buy my own comics, I felt I had a good basic idea of the DC characters through the house ads and Direct Currents.

Bought as back-issues:

Atom #24
House of Mystery #158
Metal Men #19
Mighty Crusaders #4 - Hard to believe Jerry Siegel had anything to do with this. Man, is it stinky.
Superboy #128
Superman #185
Tales of Suspense #77

Fantastic Four #51

Topping my list of books I purchased that month was one of the iconic covers of the Silver Age, thanks to the talents of Kane and Anderson. Spooky, creepy, so skillfully designed. (Is there a possibility that Infantino did the layout?) The go-go checks don't even seem to be there because of the title banner and the driving rain. 

Of course, once you opened the book, the lush moody cover was replaced by a Moldoff-Giella generic-o-rama. It really can't be accused of being a bait-and-switch; after all, plastic bagging comics was a long way off, so you could leaf through the comic if the newsdeaer wasn't too cranky. The thing was, that cover was so good that you had to buy the comic even though the interiors were just a giant letdown. Had a less staid art team done the story, we might have ahd a full-blown classic on our hands.



I remember liking this cover, too, whihc was no surprise because I loved seeing these heroes in their torn and tattered costumes, a la Sgts. Rock and Fury. But the pitiful look on Batman's face got to me, too, as did the ever-frightening word "plague."



Lois Lane comics were, in the eyes of the couple of friends I had who liked comics, pretty darn close to the romance comics we only usually saw at the barber shop, of all places. I endured their taunts because so many of the stories were so weird, especially the imaginary stories in which  Lois inevitably married someone else and took revenge on Superman. The plots were melodramas straight out of Dickens and my grandmother's soap operas (her "stories," she called them), but as I look back, I realize that  Jerry Siegel was giving kids the same kinds of wish-fulfillment fantasies he was dishing out in his Legion stories. Except in Lois's series, it was all about fulfilling revenge fantasies, like the ones kids concocted against the likes of bullies, snobs, teachers, and parents who just never recognized how wonderful we were. Yes, these stories are primitive, but that's why they were also so emotionally powerful for kids.



I remember the day I bought World's Finest 157 quite vividly. I had been playing some sport down at our school playground on a rare Saturday that my father didn't have me working around the house and picked this up afterwards. As I so often did, I read it on the way home, about a 15-minute walk or so. My house was at the top of a hill and if you stood on the sidewalk, you could easily see 10 or 12 houses down the street. As I turned onto that part of the street, I could see both of my parents outside looking my way, which was pretty weird. I still don't know why they were out there just as I emerged above the horizon. They could easily see that I had something in my hand. I quickly rolled up that somethign and inserted it down the sleeve of my jacket.

Oh, did I mention that my parents had forbidden me from reading and/or buying comics? Yeah, it was one of those times. Who knows what inspired it that time... the usual paranoia and control issues, I guess.

Anyway, they could easily see me doing somethong as I kept walking, especially when I raised my arm stiffly to wave to them. I can't recall how everything went down after that, but I do know I had to surrender the comic. My feeble attempt at smuggling it past the border guards was doomed from the moment they watched me fumbling with my jacket.

I got much better at smuggling after that.

As for the comic, it was a kind of forerunner to the Super-Sons stories from Earth Bob Haney). Ironic that it was about disobedient kids. No wonder my parents thought that comics reading accounted for my eventual moral bankruptcy.

I've never seen the interior story but I love this cover too: Lord Death Man's skeleton outfit is oddly effective, even though it's really just a kind of Hallowe'en costume that anybody might buy in a shop; that combined with the cemetery setting, and especially the way he's pictured, casually kicking Robin into an open grave while forcing Batman down to one knee, create an impression of serious menace that I don't get from most Batman adversaries. Even the mundane hand-gun adds to the effect: you get the feeling that he actually means to use it, that this isn't one of those villains like the Joker who's more interested in playing mind games, or simple crime-bosses like the Penguin, who just wants to get on with his business.

Frank Miller should have used him in one of his hard-boiled Batman stories.

I think just about all the comics I bought in 1965 were Batman Annuals.

The only comics I actually own from March 1966 are Adventure #344 (first part of the Super-Stalag of Space tale--great story!) and a rather tattered copy of Avengers #28.

I don't currently own a copy of Fantastic Four #51 (also on sale in March 1966), but I can just picture kids at the newsstand back then being mesmerized by these two Kirby covers that both feature imposing central figures.