They Might Be Giants! (1965) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Another snowstorm, one that dropped about two feet of that white crap on my area, but I managed to post this on Wednesday nonetheless!

So here we go again, fellow babies! This edition's focus is on the giant-sized comic books (or annuals) which hit the stands in 1965.

Well, mainly...

You may very well be wondering, whuzzup with the Giant Superman Annual #2, pictured above? That book came out all the way back in 1960!

Well, y'see, I estimate that it was in 1965 that I first saw that annual, which belonged to either my friend Jeff or my friend Kevin. Only his copy looked more like this:

That's right, no front cover! But plenty of great stories in it, nonetheless! It reprinted the first appearances of villains like Brainiac, Metallo, Bizarro, and -- I swear -- Titano, the Super Ape! And no, in case you're wondering, Titano did not wear a freakin' mask like Ace, the Bat-Hound did!

And there's another ultra-cool, giant-sized book that I missed, this one back in 1961... and why I'm even mentioning it will be apparent very, very soon, I promise.

Since 1961, DC has come out with a lot of Secret Origins annuals, series, one-shots, etc., but the first one I ever saw devoted to that theme was yet another issue of the 80 Page Giant series!

80 Page Giant #8 was the first of a terrific four-issue run.

That issue contained mostly cool stories, as I recall, except for (maybe) the Flash story, "The Origin of Flash's Masked Identity!" Back in the 1940s, y'see, the original (Golden Age) Flash, Jay Garrick, never wore a mask... and yet, no one ever realized that Jay and the Flash were the same guy! (Hey, it worked for Superman, right?) Well, in this particular story, the new (Silver Age) Flash, Barry Allen, daydreamed about how his life would be if he tried the maskless route. He ended up deciding it was a stupid idea. What a surprise.

So, now we're back to the real 1965. Or something.

I was still at the stage where I thought The Flash was one of the coolest superheroes ever, and 80 Page Giant #9 reprinted plenty of early appearances by members of Flash's Rogues Gallery, plus "Flash of Two Worlds" from The Flash #123, the landmark issue which established that the modern-day DC heroes (and villains) lived on an Earth called Earth-One, while DC characters from the Golden Age had existed on a different Earth, called Earth-Two (actually an entire universe)!

Actually, the so-called Earth-Two heroes came first, so their universe probably deserved to be called Earth-One instead. It gets complicated... and I'm barely scratching the surface, believe me!

DC and Marvel, which produced all of the giants and annuals that I'm gushing about in this series -- except for one, in my next installment -- seemed to enjoy re-publishing first appearances of certain characters, hero or villain origins, and the like. Both companies really knew what their audience wanted.

(Well, they knew I wanted, anyway. I can't speak for the rest of the country's comic book readers.)

Two examples of "re-publishing first appearances of certain characters, hero or villain origins, and the like" would be the reprinted debut of The Kryptonite Kid, as well as the story which told how a teenage Lex Luthor met Superboy and became his friend at first, only to end up as his greatest enemy.

And speaking of Lex Luthor, the next issue of 80 Page Giant featured several stories of the adult Lex Luthor against Superman... and in one case, Superboy.

How did that happen? Via time travel!

In a fairly well-told, effective story called "The Impossible Mission," Superboy decides to go back in time to prevent the assassination of none other than Abraham Lincoln. Purely by coincidence, Lex Luthor, who is an adult in "our" time (1960, when this story first appeared), is in Washington, D.C. on that very same day! Apparently, he'd traveled to 1865 just to hide from Superman. No, really.

Luthor spots Superboy, and assumes that Superman had sent his own younger self to capture him (Luthor). Lex luckily has some Red Kryptonite with him. "Red K" is a variation of plain ol' Green Kryptonite, which can kill Superman or Superboy. However, Red Kryptonite doesn't kill Superman/Superboy. Instead, it causes strange effects, transformations, etc. that last (in most stories) for forty-eight hours, but that period sometimes varied, depending on the writer of the individual stories!

In this instance, the "Red K" completely immobilizes Superboy, while Luthor stands there gloating. Suddenly, a commotion from nearby begins as news hits the streets that Lincoln has been shot. A tear runs down Superboy's face because he knows that he's failed in his mission. Luthor, hearing the uproar and seeing Superboy's reaction, realizes the real reason Superboy was in 1865. With an "I'm evil, but not that evil!" kind of attitude, the horrified Lex exits the room (and, presumably, leaves 1865 by whatever method he'd used to get there in the first place).

Whew! And all that just to teach Superboy that it was impossible to change what's already happened.

Now, on the Marvel Comics side of things...

The Mighty Thor had been introduced back in 1962, in a title called Journey into Mystery. The comic was later renamed The Mighty Thor, but as of 1965 J.I.M. still bore its original title. That's why the first annual featuring Thor was actually Journey into Mystery Annual #1.

This annual introduced Marvel's version of Hercules in an all-new story. And if that wasn't enough, it reprinted the first appearances of the Lava-Man (whom I'd first seen in The Avengers #5), the Radioactive Man (whom I'd first seen in The Avengers #6 as a member of The Masters of Evil), and last but not least, Thor's perennial nemesis, his scheming half-brother Loki!

It seems like every year brought us little Marvelites yet another superb annual or two or three, and 1965 was no exception. The third Fantastic Four Annual featured the wedding of Reed Richards ("Mister Fantastic") and Sue Storm, a/k/a "The Invisible Girl." And almost every Marvel hero appeared, and more villains than you could count tried to disrupt the proceedings. At this point, who needed reprints, you may well ask, but F.F. Annual #3 had those, as well!

For today's final selection: In 1965 "Mighty Marvel" gave us a brand new, slightly-more-than-double-sized comic. This was Marvel Collectors' Item Classics, which became an ongoing title. Its first issue contained extremely early stories of the F.F., Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and the "Tales of Asgard" feature which served as a back-up to Thor in Journey into Mystery.

Yep, I was pretty spoiled when it came to relatively recent stories from DC and Marvel being reprinted, but I had no real hopes of ever seeing anything from the supposed "Golden Age." It looked like those would be forever out of my reach.

Well... As it turned out, I didn't know everything!

Next week: 1966, another banner year! (Uhhh, no pun intended, Hulk fans!)

Thanks for your time.

They Might Be Giants! (1964) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Welcome to my Comical-Wednesday-on-a-Thursday post! Lots of reasons this one's a day late, mainly a snowstorm that made the libraries close early Wednesday and open late Thursday... but it's only a freakin' blog, so no crime's being committed by my falling behind.

Anyway...

I don't know about you, fellow babies, but I'm really enjoying this series!

My previous Comical Wednesday post, "They Might Be Giants," dealt with the year 1963. The last comic book scan shown was the cover of Giant Superman Annual #8, which was released at the very end of that year. 

And by the way, fellow babies, I'd like to point out that I am not attempting to list all of the annuals or giant-sized comics that I read back in my younger days! I'm only talking about the ones that made the greatest impressions on my li'l self back in the period from 1963-1968 or so.

One annual I recall enjoying immensely was the one-and-only Giant Superboy Annual, from back in the good old days when Superboy stories told "the adventures of Superman when he was a boy," as opposed to whatever the hell DC Comics is doing with the character nowadays.

It's kind of strange for me to note that, although I was (and still am) a fan of Batman, there aren't many issues of Giant Batman Annual or any other Batman "giants" that made a huge impression on me. As I explained last time, I was only starting to realize back then that all these stories that were being thrown at me were reprints, and not all current tales.

One annual that did catch my fancy was Giant Batman Annual #7, which reprinted the very first appearances of the original Batgirl, and a character I absolutely loved as a child, a pixieish little guy who called himself Bat-Mite. There were other assorted nutty stories in this annual, too.

You see, by the time I started reading the Batman titles (Batman, Detective Comics, and World's Finest) in the early 1960s, Batman's world had come a long, long way from the moody, down-to-earth detective stories of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and had gotten rather silly. In addition to Batman and Robin, the stories featured Batwoman, Batgirl, Bat-Mite, and (I swear) Ace, the Bat-Hound! (Ace, you see, was a German Shepherd who wore a mask to protect his secret identity!) Batman's adventures also included time-travel stories, stories where aliens appeared on Earth, or conversely, stories where Batman and Robin visited other planets...! This was the craziness that was the status quo when I was learning to read, but most of this nonsense was scuttled by the so-called "New Look" in 1964, and rightfully so.

The back cover of Giant Batman Annual #7 featured the so-called "Batman Family."

Interestingly enough, this "portrait" of the 1950s-1960s Batman Family resurfaced in the ultra-moody and realistic Batman: The Killing Joke in 1988.

Shortly after Giant Batman Annual #7 came a big surprise. After being advertised as the Giant Superman Annual #9 (shown at the top of this post), the comic actually hit the stands as 80 Page Giant #1, which only "featured"  Superman. (You can even tell that the 80 Page Giant logo was pasted over the previous form of DC's "Giant [Whatever]" logo!)

This began a brand new monthly series called 80 Page Giant, which, over time, featured Superman, Jimmy Olsen ("Superman's Pal"), Lois Lane ("Superman's Girl Friend") The Flash, Superboy, Batman, and many other stars. The first fifteen issues kept their own independent numbering. After that, the numbers were "shared" with individual issue numbers of various titles! (For instance, 80 Page Giant #G-16 was also Justice League of America #39, 80 Page Giant #G-17 was also Batman #176, etc.!)

In my "$1.56" post, I told how I was given a stack of Marvel Comics during early 1964, a collection which turned me on to a lot of titles I'd neither seen nor heard of before. That summer, Marvel released the second issue of Fantastic Four Annual. The entire issue featured stories concerning Doctor Doom, who was Darth Vader before Darth Vader was Darth Vader!

FF Annual #2 contained an all-new, expanded origin for Dr. Doom, a reprint of his first appearance from FF #5, and a terrific story called "The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!" Another of my all-time favorite annuals!

The summer of 1964 also saw the very first Amazing Spider-Man Annual! In this issue, Spidey fought "The Sinister Six," half a dozen of his deadliest foes, teamed up against him. Each battle Spider-Man fought with these nemeses included a spectacular single-panel shot drawn by the inimitable Steve Ditko. I've reproduced all six of these mind-blowing full-pagers below!

As a bonus feature, writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko supplied this three-page bit of craziness.

And yet another of -- Yeah, you guessed it! -- my all-time favorite annuals was the first Marvel Tales Annual! This one featured an incredible array of Marvel "firsts."

• The first appearance and origin of the Amazing Spider-Man!
• The first appearance and origin of the Incredible Hulk!
• The first appearance of the original Ant-Man in costume, plus a brief reprint of when he first became Giant-Man!
• The first appearance of the Mighty Thor!
• Pages from the very first story of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos!
• The first appearance and origin of Iron Man, plus a short sequence from the issue where he replaced his bulky gold iron suit with a more streamlined red and gold outfit!

And if all that wasn't enough -- although it would have been for me -- Marvel Tales Annual #1 also contained two pages of photos featuring the biggest names in the Marvel stable!

Of course, DC was still churning out their 80 Page Giant series. Issue #4, dated October, 1964, featured more early stories of The Flash.

To Be Continued, natch!

In our next installment, we take a look at the "giants" of... 1965! (But you probably saw that one coming, huh?)

And thanks for your time!

Superboy Meets Bonnie and Clyde! ~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post... Finally!

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the movie Bonnie and Clyde. And, since comic books back then loved to jump on the proverbial bandwagon whenever anything was popular, it made perfect sense that DC Comics would eventually use Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow as characters in at least one comic book story.

Only problem was, Bonnie and Clyde had operated in the early 1930s, roughly thirty-five years before the movie was released.

So, as it turned out, the only contemporary DC title which could have a guest-star appearance by the notorious outlaws was Superboy. Why? Well, it gets complicated...

Y'see, the original Superboy series -- not to be confused with whatever the hell they're doing with Superboy in modern comics -- featured "the adventures of Superman when he was a boy." And since Superman had debuted as a character in 1938's Action Comics #1, for years DC treated the Superboy stories as having taken place in the late 1920s or early 1930s (depending on the age of Superboy in the individual story itself).

However, somewhere along the line, the editors at DC Comics realized that sticking to this would establish a birthdate for Superman which was somewhere around 1920, or even earlier. But "comic book time" is much more complicated than "real world time," and Superman was not aging at the same rate as his readers! (That's why, when Superman -- actually the Earth-2 Superman, don't ask! -- finally married Lois Lane in 1978's Action Comics #484, real-world reporters were writing things like "It's about time! They've only been dating for forty years!" But no, not really, because in "comic book time," Lois Lane and Clark (Superman) Kent hadn't known each other for anywhere near that long!)

Somewhere in the early 1970s, DC's editors made up their ever-changing minds that the character of Superman would be twenty-nine years old "forever," meaning that every Superboy story would have to be written as if it were taking place ten to twenty years before the year it was actually published! This established a "sliding scale" of sorts, so Superboy stories published in the 1970s would have to take place in the 1950s, and Superboy stories published in the 1980s would have to have happened in the 1960s...

Told you it was complicated!

So, back to Superboy #149, cover-dated July, 1968 (which means it was actually released in May of 1968), a story written and printed before DC's editors developed that "sliding scale" approach.

Uh-oh! All of us readers know that Clark Kent is really Superboy, but he can't let anyone else know! How is he going to save that guard without exposing his all-too-important secret identity?

Well, that keeps Bonnie from killing the guard, and luckily, the guard drops his gun and gives up so Clyde doesn't have to shoot him.

As Clyde threatens the old woman, Clark's friend Lana Lang jumps into action. (Lana, by the way, is a pain in the ass whose main reason to exist seems to be trying to prove that Clark is really Superboy.)

Yeah, quick thinking, Superboy. Clark just happened to be wearing a costume under his street clothes, for that conveniently-timed costume party.

Bonnie and Clyde take both Lana and Clark as hostages, and travel to their next intended robbery, the home of recluse "Looney Looey," an old codger who has a fortune in solid gold ingots in his home.

Oh, cute. Clark's confused as to who he is, Lana's confused as to who she is, and the story's writer is confused as to who they both are...!

Of course it could cause amnesia. Funny how that happens so often, innit? Wonder if Clark (who sheds his "Clyde" duds to reveal his supposedly-phony Superboy costume again) is correct...?

Yep, Clark certainly appears to have been right! How prescient of him!

Hm. The real Bonnie didn't even know who Superboy was, remember? But the amnesiac Lana seems to. And hey! Where did Superboy's cape disappear to in that third panel above?

Having the advantage of surprise, Clyde and Lana/Bonnie tie up the guards, and then...

Oh, crap. We know Superboy can't be hurt by a mere bullet, but how will "Clark Kent" get out of this one?

Oh, come on! It sure looked to me like Clyde shot Clark right between the eyes, and Clark was not holding any "soft gold ingot" in front of his face.

Nahhh, I'm not buying it. If, as we can assume, the real and the fake ingots were all mixed together, how did Clark/Superboy carry his phony ones without doing a lot of painfully-obvious shuffling of all those ingots first?

I also love how we're left to think that Bonnie and Clyde ended up in jail (because the Comics Code Authority had strict rules that criminals could never get away with their crimes).

Even at eleven years old, I thought this story was kind of lame. What do you think, fellow babies?

Thanks for your time.