Nostalgia: Great Runs that Never Existed (Silver Age only)

[Polar Bear]

Boy, remember that great Captain America/Nick Fury crossover that bounced back and forth between Strange Tales and Takes of Suspense, back when Joe Kubert was drawing both titles? Man, that was great. What was that, eight, maybe nine chapters? I wish Marvel would reprint that storyline in a trade (or maybe a special hardcover edition?).

I also loved seeing Carmine Infantino's Spider-Man. I thought no one could get Spidey's odd gangliness and Peter's--well, dorkiness down pat after Ditko left, but he really captured it perfectly. Who inked that run, anyway?

I also loved that great Ditko run on the Atom. He could draw those bizarre worms-eye perspectives like nobody's business! And his sub-atomic views were just surreal.

But the best of all has got to be those amazing Kirby years on Wonder Woman. He managed to take a character no one was really looking at and breathe into it all the life and energy of Greek mythology, with all those intricate subplots and what god was working behind what other god's back, and so on, with those tremendous fight scenes . . . Kirby's WW was a woman that any warrior would fear, but she managed to still stay attractive (Joe Sinnott's inks helped, of course).

What were some of your favorites?

[Mike Kuypers]

Neal Adams's & Dick Giordano's Daredevil.

Gene Colan's & Tom Palmer's Deadman.

Bill Everett's Aquaman.

[Red Oak Kid]

Those issues of Ben Casey that Neal Adams did for Dell. That was his first comic book work. They didn't sell so well but later he did 10 issues of "I Spy" for Gold Key. Classic stuff.

[Matt_K]

Al Hartley's 100 issue run on Thor.

[BuccaneerBruce]

I wish I still had Mike Grell's Jon Sable/Punisher crossover that was published back in the eigthies. Poachers, drug runners, mobsters in the jungle (what a weird concept now), and two characters that know how to use a gun! Great limited series.

[Jonathan Bogart]

You know, I know not a lot of people liked them, but I really got a kick out of Curt Swan's fill-in issues at Marvel during the early '70s. And not just for the camp value either ... there's something oddly compelling about the work, as though the flashy, dynamic smokescreen of the Kirby/Buscema/Romita/Colan "Marvel Style" had been lifted and we got to see what the characters really looked like. (Almost like an anticipation of Alex Ross!) His Daredevil and Ant-Man stories are just fascinating. Although I will say that his Fantastic Four issues left something to be desired.

And I have to wonder why no one ever talks about EC's Cold-Blooded Crime series. I know there were only a few issues of it, but the Simon/Kirby stories and that one Lou Fine story (can't remember the title ... "A Job of His Own," was it?) seemed to point in a direction that could maybe have saved EC during the Kefauver mess ... much more noir and grown-up than the famous horror titles. Has anyone ever heared why those guys didn't stay around EC?

Of course, one of the runs that always comes to mind in a thread like this is the "Gimpy & His Gang" series from Gold Key in the mid-60s. Really amazing to see guys like Mort Walker and Dik Browne stretching out in the comic-book format. Of course, it was pretty standard "Archie"-type material, but there was a looseness to the drawing that really stood out ... really nice to see those guys draw something other than the Army or Vikings, respectively.

Anyone else?

[Rod G]

Neal Adams' 13 issue run on Spider-Man was awesome to say the least.

[T GUy]

Mike Kuypers: Gene Colan's & Tom Palmer's Deadman. I'm with you on this one.

Do you remember the loccol where a reader, after quite rightly praising the Kanigher/Colan/Palmer team to the skies, requests that the book move up to monthly publication? Jack Miller gives some fuffle about quality work needing time to produce and leaves it at that... restraining himself from suggesting that the reader picks up his stablemate in alternate months, Secret Hearts featuring Amy Ames by the exact same team!

[Red Oak Kid]

The first 22 issues of Conan by Steranko. (This was after his run on Thor.)

[T GUy]

The first 22 issues of Conan by Steranko. How torn all the Steranko fans are between these and his Shadow at DC. What is it with Steranko and the old pulp characters anyway?

We must, by the way, not let anyone think that we don't value the next 100+ issues by Gil Kane.

[Red Oak Kid]

Personally I'm one of those fans who preferred Berni Wrightson's Shadow set in the 1930's over Steranko's modern day version.

[Polar Bear]

The first 22 issues of Conan by Steranko. (This was after his run on Thor.)

Yeah, but it was a shame about all those fill-in issues during that run. At least he did all the covers.

And yeah, that whole Deadman/Secret Hearts situation was funny, wasn't it?

[Donar]

Nick Cardy on Namor the Sub-mariner
Stan Lee and Gene Colan´s Phantom Stranger
Gardner Fox original Avengers (Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp) issues
and last but not least Mike Grell´s great Hawkeye/Mockingbird mini series.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Yeah, but it was a shame about all those fill-in issues during that run. At least he did all the covers.
Hey, now, some of those fill-ins were pretty good. IIRC, we saw Simonson a couple times and Kaluta at least once. But yeah, Rich Buckler was more common.

T Guy's bringing up Secret Hearts reminds me of some of the other great (or at least readable, before the direct market killed them off) romance/soap opera books of the time. Anyone else remember Crazy in Love, with Gil Kane's art? Sure, the premise was kind of limited -- how many love stories set in a psychiatric ward are possible, anyway? -- but Kane sure drew some hot nurses! And what was the name of that one that introduced all the Filipino artists stateside? Fantasy Romance, or something else just as generic, I think. Of course it didn't last, but it was gorgeous while it did.

Oh, hey! That reminds me of of one of my very favorites -- Herb Trimpe's run on Brave & the Bold, those years when it was a Green Lantern/Flash team-up book. I don't want to start any arguments here ... but I gotta say that Trimpe's space-time imaginings absolutely murder the similar kind of thing being done at the same time by Ditko over in Captain Marvel. (I mean his run on the Marvel character, not when he did the Fawcett/DC one in the late 80s. Yuck.) Of course, the near-psychedelic visions in Brave & the Bold were helped a lot by Bob Haney's most out-there scripts ever ... any truth to the rumor that he was doing a lot of LSD at the time?

Okay, one more, and then I'll stop. Nick Cardy's year-long run on the JSA revival in the late 60s. Possibly some of the most beautiful artwork in a DC book, ever. That it was set in the 40s was the most special thing about it, of course -- but his Hawkgirl! And his Spectre! And ... well, remember the issue where Green Lantern and Wildcat battle the Sorceress of Uz? Blew my mind as a kid. That one splash page in particular . . . .

[T GUy]

that whole Deadman/Secret Hearts situation was funny, wasn't it? - Polar Bear

Not as funny as what Kanigher did left to his own devices without Jack Miller reining him in. During the Suicide Squad's run in B&B 25 - 49, Star-Spangled War Stories often featured the other Suicide Squad (Morgan and Mace - the soldiers who hated each other more than the enemy!) - both series by Kanigher/Andru/Esposito!

And when the War That Time Forgot (incorporating the Suicide Squad) left SSWS to be replaced by the Enemy Ace feature, that appeared in alternate months with All-American Men of War featuring Steve Savage, the Balloon Buster - both by Kanigher/Kubert.

[Red Oak Kid]

This thread is really bringing back some great memories. I went and dug thru my collection of "Inside Comics" magazine to relive those days. There was that great 3 part interview with Roy Thomas in the late 80s. Tho everyone knows the story now, I was amazed when I first read that before taking over the editorship of the Superman titles from Mort Weisinger in the mid 60s, Roy had actually spent one week working for the late Stan Lee at Marvel. Roy reported that Lee was so quite and shy that he would never tell Roy exactly what he wanted him to write. And of course when Lee fell off that subway platform and was hit by the Uptown express, it really changed the direction of Marvel comics in the 60s. Fortunately for us fanboys, Laughin' Larry Leiber was there to take charge at Marvel and the rest, as they say is history. We're lucky that Larry had such a great relationship with Steve Ditko and that's the main reason Ditko stayed on the Spiderman book for 20+ years.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Al Hartley's 100 issue run on Thor.
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but from what I've read of this run it's uneven, at best. Of course, Hartley was only writing it, so a lot depended on the artists ... but even so, something about the idea of turning Thor into a Christian who attends weekly Bible meetings just seems ... off. (No offense if you really liked it.)

I will say that the storyline where Thor goes to Hell to rescue the souls of NYC's unborn children (this was right around Roe v. Wade, I believe) is deservedly a classic. But that may have had more to do with Wally Wood's phenomenal art. His last hurrah, in many ways.

[telerites]

Murphy Anderson on the first issues of the Uncanny X-Men.

[dan bailey]

i'm trying to amass all of john severin's 50 issues on tomahawk ...

[Mike Kuypers]

Okay, one more, and then I'll stop. Nick Cardy's year-long run on the JSA revival in the late 60s. Possibly some of the most beautiful artwork in a DC book, ever. That it was set in the 40s was the most special thing about it, of course -- but his Hawkgirl! And his Spectre! And ... well, remember the issue where Green Lantern and Wildcat battle the Sorceress of Uz? Blew my mind as a kid. That one splash page in particular . . . .

I wasn't as pleased about this as you. Nick Cardy had to give up his regular assignment on The Legion of Super-Heroes to do the JSA. Legion was my favorite title in those days. Sigh.

[T GUy]

Nick Cardy had to give up his regular assignment on The Legion of Super-Heroes to do the JSA. Yes, but those Steranko issues!

All 3 of 'em (was it three issues and two covers or the other way around?).

[MWGallaher]

I'm really fond of those early 70's short runs at Marvel and DC. Of the ones that ran no more than 4 issues, I especially loved:

JOHN JONES by Jack Kirby: I know Kirby didn't like taking over existing properties, but by taking this character back to his roots, he got to pretty much start from scratch. The lackluster title probably helped sink this book, plus the fact that we only saw JJ's Martian image as an occasional ghost-like aura, just like the original run. But Jack's wacky UFO/SF cases were a far cry from the 'Tec run of JJ...it was kind of like X Files with an unlimited budget! I really lamented Kirby leaving this book to return to Marvel, but, given the evidence, I'm happy Gerry Conway didn't drag this one into his "corner", too!

ICE MAN by far too many writers for a 4 issue run, but with consistently exceptional art by Herb Trimpe. Not as suitable for Herb as Ant-Man was, but I sure loved it. He did a great job depicting Antarctica in issue 1, and the follow-up issues in the Savage Land with Ka-Zar were wonderful!

JASON'S QUEST by Mike Sekowsky. I despaired of anything launching from those last days of SHOWCASE, but out of all the features, I'm happy that this one got another shot at the big time. Quite unique to see a comic series come to a definitive end in those days--I can't complain about it being only 4 issues since Mike got to resolve the quest.

MEDUSA by Bill Everett and Tony Isabella. Man, this was a gorgeous book! I guess flowing water and flowing hair aren't that different! Bill went out at the top of his game, as far as I'm concerned. Too bad Marvel's female-oriented books (this, NIGHT NURSE, SHANNA, and CAT) didn't catch on. This was definitely the best of the bunch: Unus, Stilt-Man, and the Starfish (Everett just had to put Medusa underwater!) were a perfect selection of villains for our scarlet-tressed heroine to encounter!

[T GUy]

Can we take this back to the Silver Age where the Polar Bear began?
But the best of all has got to be those amazing Kirby years on Wonder Woman. He managed to take a character no one was really looking at and breathe into it all the life and energy of Greek mythology, with all those intricate subplots and what god was working behind what other god's back, and so on, with those tremendous fight scenes . . . Kirby's WW was a woman that any warrior would fear, but she managed to still stay attractive (Joe Sinnott's inks helped, of course).

What were some of your favorites?

For a long time I preferred Jack's Challengers of his two Silver Age long runs for DC, seeing Wonder Woman as simply a string of adventures followed by the lead-in to The New Gods. No Diana villain comes close to Dr. Doom or Galactus, let's face it. But re-reading them, and seeing other people's comments here and there I finally got what Jack was doing: characterising Diana as an Amazon Princess - a demi-god who doesn't soliloquize like Bob Haney's Batman or Black Panther (one of many Kirby Challengers spin-offs ), but who acts like she's meant to and doesn't say an awful lot about what she's thinking or feeling. Until, of course, 'Diana's Love Story' in No. 201, after Thor dies and there's that rather extreme change of direction in 202 when Mike Sekowsky takes over as Jack moves over to the New Gods in Showcase then their own title. Whoops! That's the Bronze Age (though I'd argue that the first Challs in Showcase up to the last New Gods two decades later is the Golden Age, but that's another thread, perhaps...). And, of course, learning, as came out a decade or so ago, that Kirby wanted to leave the Challs after they met Galactus changes one's perspective somewhat... though, with stories such as the 'Him' two parter and the intro of the Black Panther and the near-constant presence of the Inhumans he did a good job of staying on... even if a four-part Star Trek homage is an odd way to bow out (and celebrate the 100th issue...).

Back to your fave:my favourite Wonder Woman moments are the scene where Hippolyte unwittingly provokes Odin into explaining that Ragnarok is coming and no-one can do anything about it and the classic first meeting of Diana and Barda, where they simply instinctively recognise each other. I don't believe anyone else would have handled that last one correctly.

[Gingold]

Stan Lee and Gene Colan´s Phantom Stranger.

It's funny, everybody talks about how groundbreaking the Stan/Gene Phantom Stranger run was, but I got bored with the constant soliloquies and hippy-dippy philosophising. It might sound like blasphemy around these parts, but I much prefer the four issues Kirby did of PS after Lee and Colan left the title because of flagging sales. Sure, the Stranger as a streel level hero leading a gang of scrappy kid mystics in the slums of Gotham is a departure from the previous issues, but it remains an enduring memory of my childhood. (And of course it set the stage for Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson's great run of Phantom Stranger stories in the early 80s, which are pretty universally loved.) I wish DC would reprint these stories- including the "lost" story that only showed up in the 1984 baxter reprint series, which I've never been able to find.

[T GUy]

It's funny, everybody talks about how groundbreaking the Stan/Gene Phantom Stranger run was, but I got bored with the constant soliloquies and hippy-dippy philosophising.

More extreme case: O'Neill writing the Silver Surfer book after Kirby left after 6 issues (3 in Showcase, 3 of his own book). He seemed to want to do the Haney/Cardy Green Lantern/Green Arrow book (or Black Panther/Black Canary as it seemed to be turning into for a time there...).

[Gingold]

More extreme case: O'Neill writing the Silver Surfer book after Kirby left after 6 issues (3 in Showcase, 3 of his own book). He seemed to want to do the Haney/Cardy Green Lantern/Green Arrow book (or Black Panther/Black Canary as it seemed to be turning into for a time there...).

I totally agree with you there. I give Denny credit for tackling some relevant social issues (the two part story about the plight of migrant farm workers that introduced El Dorado certainly had its heart in the right place, and Mike Sekowsky's art never looked better IMO), but the issues where the Surfer returns from Tibet and becomes Norin Rad, Karma Cop are pretty much unreadable.

[Red Oak Kid]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the incredible job Dick Giordano did of making Charlton Comics the #1 selling line of comics in the early 70s with his Action Hero lineup.

While the superhero artists get all the adulation, lets not forget the funny animal artists. A man by the name of John Byrne did over 100 issues of Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch.

And how about Scott!! Shaw's work on Atomic Mouse.

Jim Aparo was a great artist too, it's just too bad he could never meet deadlines and rarely did more than one or two issues of any book he worked on.

And how about the great job John Romita did on DC's Dracula books. No one draws the undead better than Romita.

[Jonathan Bogart]

If I might step outside the "great runs" format for a moment:

I just have to gush about the Krigstein/Eisner/Kurtzman/Stanley line of "Picto-Novellas" in the early '70s. I can't remember who the publisher was -- Bantam? Del Rey? (of course Kitchen Sink reprinted them all in the '90s) -- but these were some seriously innovative comics works in book-length format. Yeah, it followed some of the late EC straight-to-book innovation (something that wouldn't get followed up on for decades), and probably the most immediate inspiration for it was Jack Kirby's New Gods being published in a hardcover series around that time, but, well ... it's just such a damn shame that the market didn't support them.

Krigstein's effort, "The Tell-Tale Fall of the House of Amontillado," was really a major breakthrough, something that no one was expecting after he'd fallen off the face of the earth with the implosion of EC. Some people have complained about the "unoriginality" of using various Poe stories to create a full-on metanarrative about psychosis and the dread of death, but as far as I'm concerned that's as ridiculous as criticizing "Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead" for stealing the plot of "Hamlet." His linework, especially in those last scenes, is probably the best "intellectual horror" art I've ever seen. So many panels!

Eisner's "Muldowitz Takes Flight" may, ultimately, be a lesser work compared to what came later -- "A Contract With God" and so forth -- but I'm not sure I've ever seen such joy in his work before or since. You can tell that getting out of Army instructional comics was really liberating. Everyone says it's a rip-off of the Gerhard Shnobble story from "The Spirit," but I like to think of it as more of an amplification and deeper investigation of that story -- like releasing a single and then producing an album that builds on it.

Kurtzman's entry ("Man and Stupor-Man") might be the weakest, content-wise, of the four (by the way, I've heard that Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Carl Barks, and Jack Cole were approached to do the next "wave" of books before the publisher got the sales figures back and realized it was a no-go -- anyone know for sure?). But it's Kurtzman, man! Even if the story itself was nothing special -- some foofaraw about Cold War espionage, big-business intrigue, and innocence destroyed -- his cartooning, and his dialogue, was never better. Bold, decisive, almost savage at times. Like he'd been reading Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman, and decided to fuse them to his borscht-belt sense of humor. Ultimately, it's feather-light, but there's still somehow a kick to it, even today.

But John Stanley! I don't see how anyone could have expected this out of him. Sure, he had a dedicated Lulu fanbase, but Gold Key had called it quits in the mid-60s, and it's not like grown-up comics fans were really in the habit of taking "children's comics" seriously. (Yet.) But "Mother Major, Do You Hear Me Calling in the Night?" was fricking unreal. Like Roth or Updike or something, but manic and Marxian (that's Groucho, not Karl). Bam, bam, bam, mile-a-minute storytelling, with such a perfect ear for dialogue and crystal-clear (almost transparent) cartooning. That sequence where the wife hears her husband coming and tries like fifteen times to get the lover out of sight is one of the high points of 20th-century popular art, in my book. Farce and existentialism all in one. It makes his death a few years later all the more tragic.

Of course, these didn't get noticed at all at the time, unlike Kirby's New Gods, but then they were little, fat paperbacks, with black-and-white pages and no advertising budget. It just makes you wonder what might have been ... what if these had succeeded? Who else might have joined the bandwagon and started making serious, grown-up comics twenty years ahead of schedule?

Oh, well.

[Jonathan Bogart]

I wasn't as pleased about this as you. Nick Cardy had to give up his regular assignment on The Legion of Super-Heroes to do the JSA. Legion was my favorite title in those days. Sigh.
Well, YMMV and all that, but I couldn't help feeling that Cardy's art was much more at home in the fog-and-brick atmosphere of 40's Gotham than in the shiny 30th-century spaceways. Although yeah, there were some killer Legion issues there.

[Jonathan Bogart]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the incredible job Dick Giordano did of making Charlton Comics the #1 selling line of comics in the early 70s with his Action Hero lineup.
Them's fighting words, mister! Well, not really, but I was one of the guys who bought into the "rivalry" that Atlas and Charlton were promoting in those days. I was even what they called an "Atlas zombie" for a few years. But you know, the Chaykin "Wulf the Barbarian" run still holds up, and Kurt Schaffenberger's heavily underrated "Tiger-Man" is one of the prizes of my collection.

I will say, though, that Ditko's "Blue Beetle" for Charlton, even though I used to give it all sorts of grief for being a "Spider-Man" ripoff, eventually proved to be better than "Spider-Man" ever was. (Even though I hated what they did to the character in the 90s. But they never should have let Liefeld near it with a ten-foot pole.)

While the superhero artists get all the adulation, lets not forget the funny animal artists. A man by the name of John Byrne did over 100 issues of Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch.
I always thought he was kind of coasting on the steam of Alex Toth's initial ten-issue run. But there's still a lot of enjoyment to be had from Byrne's issues, you're right.

And how about Scott!! Shaw's work on Atomic Mouse.
Not really a fan. Not since I came across the amazing Floyd Gottfredson Atomic Mouse comic books from the 40s. (Scored one of the Fantagraphics collections for 50 cents at a flea market, then had to pay through the nose on eBay to get the second volume.) Though Shaw!'s introduction of the dastardly No-Nuke Nogoodniks was one of those brilliant strokes of satire you never expected to see in a corporate character like that.

My favorite funny animal from the period (and I know everyone's sick of hearing me yap about it) was the five issues of Droopy Dog that Tex Avery did scripts and breakdowns for. The way he built up the whole world of inverted logic, where every male who wasn't Droopy was a wolf and every female was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Stupefyin' Jones ... I never expected these comics to work without the activity and sound of cartoons, but they really did. A little too much innuendo to read to kids, but still just amazing, amazing comics.

[Rod G]

SHAZAM! by Jack Kirby.



Now THAT was a series!

[Polar Bear]

SHAZAM! by Jack Kirby.



Now THAT was a series!
Eeh, I thought he was pretty much burned out by that time, after all the energy he had put into FF, WW, and then New Gods. Ditko soon took over (as I think Red Kid or Jonathan pointed out), and he had no idea what to do with it, and it was gone.

But hey, any book that was one's childhood favorite deserves praise.

[T GUy]

I thought he was pretty much burned out by that time, after all the energy he had put into FF, WW, and then New Gods.

I assume that that's a typo - you mean CotU, not FF, the CotU plagiarism Kirby did two issues of for Marvel in the three weeks he defected there in 1961. Top Kirbyfan points for having heard of it, however (anyone who wants to sample this debacle should be able to pick up either issue for about ten bucks on ebaY). (Just occurred to me, of course - rather than a typo, it was a joke! Doh!)

'Burned out' I'm not convinced by - the concurrent issues of both The New Gods and Kamandi are the Master at the top of his form (yes, I know there are Kirby fans who'd disagree with my assessment here... though not as, passionatly split as they are over Shazam!). I just think that that whole early Bronze Age DC idea of getting Kirby to kick-start revivals of old series in the hope of hitting another Wonder Woman was if not misguided, at least an interesting failure. But, ultimately, if it was the price he had to pay to get off WW and CotU and do The New Gods, then I think it was worth paying.

Then, of course, there's the whole thing that while Kirby was doing these characters he didn't create, Bob Haney and Nick Cardy were doing rather unKirbyesque versions of Professor X and the Mutants and the Black Panther. Yes, I love 'em to bits, but I don't think Kirby would ever have had Scott 'Slim' Summers say to Xavier 'get with the groove, Prof!'

[Mike Kuypers]

MEDUSA by Bill Everett and Tony Isabella. Man, this was a gorgeous book! I guess flowing water and flowing hair aren't that different! Bill went out at the top of his game, as far as I'm concerned. Too bad Marvel's female-oriented books (this, NIGHT NURSE, SHANNA, and CAT) didn't catch on. This was definitely the best of the bunch: Unus, Stilt-Man, and the Starfish (Everett just had to put Medusa underwater!) were a perfect selection of villains for our scarlet-tressed heroine to encounter!

It was Bill Everett's run on Aquaman that got him Medusa. Tony liked the way he drew Mera.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Just a few more, quick shots:

Frank Thorne's "Elongated Man" run. Sue never looked better.

Kirby's two-issue "Green Lantern" run. Wish it hadn't been yanked out from under him so quickly.

Wayne Boring on "Iron Man." If it wasn't any good, why did it last so long?

And, of course, the mid-70s "X-Men" revival that brought together the classic team of Starlin and Simonson.

[MWGallaher]

Let's not neglect the backup strips from the early 70's DCs! I think my favorites was Sandman in DETECTIVE, written and drawn by Frank Robbins. The way Robbins drew, you almost didn't notice that this was a modern-day (well, at the time, anyway) setting, rather then Wesley Dodds' original era of the early 40's. Mobsters, gang molls, show girls, loan sharks, and the Sandman's vintage (well, ignoring the numerous technical modifications) Packard!

[Sir Tim Drake]

This is a fascinating thread. I see I have a lot of back issues to catch up on.

I can't believe no one's mentioned Bernard Krigstein's adaptations of the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Most of these stories appeared in the early '60s in EC's Impact. With each story Krigstein seemed to develop a whole new style and a different repertoire of artistic tricks. "The Garden of Forking Paths," for example, could have been just a bizarre hybrid of "Master Race" and "The Flying Machine," but it vastly improves upon both those stories. Krigstein's "Library of Babylon" is truly labyrinthine. Of course, all of this was just the prelude to Krigstein's spectacular graphic novels, which are so well-known that I hardly need to discuss them here.

And then there were the last 50 issues of Blazing Combat. That series faced cancellation after the fourth issue, but luckily Warren somehow convinced the army POs to start stocking them again. It was a good thing, too, because Blazing Combat was easily the greatest war comic ever. Most of the issues featured stories by Frazetta, Kubert, Glanzman, Jack Cole, Alberto Breccia, and a host of other all-time greats.

Speaking of Breccia, I'm very grateful that Fantagraphics translated his entire body of work and that it's all still in print.

[InfoBroker]

but I don't think Kirby would ever have had Scott 'Slim' Summers say to Xavier 'get with the groove, Prof!'

True, but I could see(hear?) Jack having Jean Grey's youmger sister say it. According to Roz, Jack had a certain fascination with and a big crush on Betty Hutton in the 40s. He used Betty as the main model/source for Kathleen "Kitty" Grey.

-jb the "Command Performance" ib :cool:

partial lyrics to "He Says Murder He Says" sung by Betty Hutton

He says, "hep, hep with helium,
now babe we're cookin'"
and other expressions to wit.

He says, "we're into groovin'
and the groove is good lookin'."
It sounds like his uppers don't fit.

[Jonathan Bogart]

I can't believe no one's mentioned Bernard Krigstein's adaptations of the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Most of these stories appeared in the early '60s in EC's Impact.
I think the main reason no one's mentioned them is that they haven't been reprinted in decades! What is wrong with Image, anyway? They have the rights to the late EC properties, and haven't done anything with them!

Thanks for the photocopies, by the way. They really are great stories.

Speaking of early 70s DC backups, was anyone else really freaked out as a kid by the black-and-white backups Kirby used to run in the New Gods titles? I mean, don't get me wrong, props to both Kirby for running whatever he wanted and to DC for letting him do it, but it didn't seem like Crumb, Shelton, Deitch, Moscoso, et al. really fit in with the Kirby ethos. It seems even harder to imagine nowadays, when the line between "mainstream" and "underground" has been much more firmly drawn.

I remember one Miracle Man issue in particular, where the final splash page shows Barda about to be swallowed up alive by the Desaad-Engines, and then on the very next page there's Crumb sniffing one of his big-thighed amazon's ankles. Damn thing nearly gave me a complex!

[T GUy]

Jean Grey's youmger sister... According to Roz, Jack had a certain fascination with and a big crush on Betty Hutton in the 40s. He used Betty as the main model/source for Kathleen "Kitty" Grey. - Infobroker

Oops! I enjoyed Haney's Mutants stories so much that I tend to forget that a lot of all that stuff was established - or at least introduced - by Kirby himself in their appearances in the Challengers and their own series (both in the Showcase run and their own title). Perhaps I was getting confused by Lilith, who is a Haney creation?

Hey, remember that 'arc,' as the young people say nowadays, where Jean, Kitty and Lilith are in the USSR with that Russian mutant from the collective farm? One of many high points.

T Guy

'You're in the groove, Jackson' - Bob or Bing in The Road to Rio.

[Polar Bear]

And hey, what about Carl Barks' years doing Mickey Mouse epics after he retired from Uncle Scrooge? He used Pete so rarely, and every issue was unpredictable. I think moving from ducks to mice really re-invigorated him. If he'd just retired flat-out, I don't think we'd have gotten any more comics art out of him at all--maybe some gorgeous oil paintings or something (one never knows), but no more panel work.

[Super Villains INC>]

I'm surprised now one has mentioned Ditkos' run on the Spectre...that still remains creepy to me to this day! Easily his darkest and most grim work. Only 13 issues, but man, they rule!

another run that I always go back to and reread was Kirbys Deathlok series from the early seventies (what was it, 1970, 71?).....you could see a lot of his OMAC and Kamandi ideas in embrionic form, he was kind of juggling a lot of different things there. Even his later Machine Man was in there.....

John Romita on Superman was also a favorite from then. Classic stuff all around, and the six issue "Superman VS Brainiac" he did during that run seems definitive to me....

Lastly, Gil Kane on G.I. Combat....I wasn't sure he was the right guy for a war comic, but those are just some beautiful comics.

[Scott Shaw!]

Allow me to reminisce about some of the great ODDBALL COMICS series of the Silver Age, such as...

Jim Steranko's SECRET SIX
Jack Kirby's "B-Man" in DOUBLE-DARE ADVENTURES
Frank Thorne's run of KONA, MONARCH OF MONSTER ISLE
Grass Green's "The Web" in MIGHTY COMICS
John Forte's HERBIE
Ramona Fradon's INFERIOR FIVE and NOT BRAND ECHH
Joe Simon's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS
John Stanley's FATMAN, THE HUMAN FLYING SAUCER
Tony Tallarico's SUPERHEROES for Dell
Mike Sekowsky's THE HONEYMOONERS
Jayson Disbro's BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
Kurt Schaffenberger's IRON MAN
Jesse Marsh's REX THE WONDER DOG
Al Williamson's KA-ZAR
Gene Colan's THE PHANTOM for King Comics
Marie Severin's ANTHRO and THE ADVENTURES OF BOB HOPE and THE ADVENTURES OF JERRY LEWIS
Ogden Whitney's "Tales Of The Bizarro World" in ADVENTURE COMICS
Steve Ditko's BRAIN BOY for Dell, "Jigsaw" for BIG HERO ADVENTURES for the Harvey Thrillers line and DOCTOR SOLAR for Gold Key
George Gladir and Orlando Busino's MELVIN MONSTER and PLOP!
Dick Sprang's METAMORPHO
Johnny Craig's NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo's PREZ
Joe Kubert's "Phantom Eagle"
Herb Trimpe's tryout issue of "Solomon Grundy" in SHOWCASE
Gilbert Shelton's unusual fill-in issue of SUGAR & SPIKE
Sam Glanzman's authorized TARZAN series
Bob Bolling's LITTLE LULU
Al Kilgore's ROCKY AND HIS FIENDISH FRIENDS for Gold Key
Sergio Aragonés revival of TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU BATS
Ross Andru and Mike Esposito's adapation of KING KONG for Gold Key
John Severin's TOD HOLTON, SUPER GREEN BERET
and, of course,
Manny Stallman's version of Myron Fass' "Split!" CAPTAIN MARVEL

Aloha,

Scott!

[Sir Tim Drake]

Another oddball comic was Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones's brief run on Conan the Barbarian. It was interesting-- sort of like a cross between Mark's run on Dagar the Invincible and Sergio's last twenty issues of Bat Lash. But given how humorous it was, the run was quite a change of pace from the much more serious Roy Thomas/Jeff Jones run that had preceded it.

Some of the things in those issues still puzzle me. I have yet to find all the hidden messages, nor do I understand why Mark sometimes had Conan call himself the Prince of Chach Ystahr. And it was kind of odd how the hilt of Conan's sword was constantly changing shape.

[Scott Shaw!]

Mark Evanier would probably be horrified to learn that he's considered a Silver Age creator since he graduated from high school in 1969, arguably the final year of the Silver Age!

Aloha,

Scott!

[InfoBroker]

Mark Evanier would probably be horrified to learn that he's considered a Silver Age creator...
Scott!

Ah... you can try to deny the rumors, but we've pretty well concluded that Mark was ghosting Legion stories while still in High School. There were too many Graphic Traffic fanzine articles that featured Lighting Lad and Bouncing Boy biographies to convince us otherwise.

- jb the ib :cool:

[Polar Bear]

Allow me to reminisce about some of the great ODDBALL COMICS series of the Silver Age, such as...


Jesse Marsh's REX THE WONDER DOG
Al Williamson's KA-ZAR
Gene Colan's THE PHANTOM for King Comics

Aloha,

Scott!

=Takes instant umbrage=

What's so oddball about these? These were GREAT series!!! I own every issue of Ka-Zar that Al Williamson ever drew, and none of them are "odd" at all! Same for Colan's Phantom. Now I admit that Marsh's RTWD may be an acquired taste, but, oddball? Surely, you jest!!

[Sir Tim Drake]

Mark Evanier would probably be horrified to learn that he's considered a Silver Age creator since he graduated from high school in 1969, arguably the final year of the Silver Age!

Aloha,

Scott!

Eh... there have already been several posts in this thread about comics from the early '70s or even the '80s. Besides, I believe that the Silver Age didn't really end until 1975, when Steve Gerber and Paul Gulacy did their fantastic run on Captain America. For me, that series was the true beginning of the Bronze Age sensibility.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Ah... you can try to deny the rumors, but we've pretty well concluded that Mark was ghosting Legion stories while still in High School. There were too many Graphic Traffic fanzine articles that featured Lighting Lad and Bouncing Boy biographies to convince us otherwise.

- jb the ib :cool:

We all know that "Jim Shooter," the writer who was credited with those Legion stories, never actually existed. That name was a pseudonym for a high school student whose parents refused to let him write under his real name. Unfortunately, the real identity of "Jim Shooter" is a mystery to this day, but Mark Evanier seems like as good a guess as any.

My favorite of the "Shooter"/Cardy Legion stories is probably "Green, Blue, and Mordru Too," in which the wedding of Shadow Lass and Brainiac 5 is interrupted by a certain malicious sorcerer.

[InfoBroker]

The first 22 issues of Conan by Steranko. (This was after his run on Thor.)

Yea, but Jim only agree to do Conan after striking the magazine deal for his Talon character, which including letting him keep the character rights.

Thankfully he never allowed a cross-over tale. What a mess that would make of two excellent S&S mythologoes. They share the same gendre, but the nuts and bolts foundations of each fantasy realm were unique and operated under their own rules.

Besides Talon would have made mince-meat out of Conan in three panels, and one would have been the set-up shot letting Conan draw his sword first and scream "By Crom!"

In a fight Conan was such a predictable putz!

- jb the reaching his Witzend ib :cool:

[T GUy]

Sir Tim: there have already been several posts in this thread about comics from the early '70s or even the '80s.

Yes, I think this is out of order. There should be a separate thread for the boisterous Bronze Age. Besides, I believe that the Silver Age didn't really end until 1975, when Steve Gerber and Paul Gulacy did their fantastic run on Captain America. As a Kirby fan, I believe that the last Silver Age comic is the third and final 'Thor' in Showcase and the first Bronze Age comic is the first 'New Gods' issue of Showcase. The fact that a six-issue story (sort-of) changes ages in the middle is neither here nor there... And I know that the Haney/Cardy Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Steranko's Conan don't start till a couple of years later in 1970, but Kirby was always ahead of everyone else.

Do you remember all the fuss in fandom when Kirby started his brief period at Marvel in 1976 - and the first release was Captain America's Bicentennial Battles... right in the middle of that Gerber/Gulacy run?

[Rod G]

I forgot to include Steve Ditko's run on New Gods,Forever People and Mr. Miracle.


Silly me.

[fumetti]

I will never forget Robert Crumb's run on Sugar and Spike.

Or Walt Kelly's Spectre.

Or the Kanigher/Kubert run on Beetle Bailey.

[InfoBroker]

I will never forget Robert Crumb's run on Sugar and Spike.

Or Walt Kelly's Spectre.

Or the Kanigher/Kubert run on Beetle Bailey.

Who was the editor on these? He was definitely a deconstructionist, long before we poor comic fans even knew what that meant.

- jb the "trying hard NOT to image what these would have looked like" ib :cool:

[Sir Tim Drake]

Who was the editor on these? He was definitely a deconstructionist, long before we poor comic fans even knew what that meant.

- jb the "trying hard NOT to image what these would have looked like" ib :cool:

I found it surprising that, when Jacques Derrida died recently, none of the obituaries mentioned his brief career as a DC Comics editor.

[InfoBroker]

Jacques Derrida... brief career as a DC Comics editor.

Ah yes, that's right! I remember seeing him on a Writer's Panel at the 1968 Scarp Convention. When a fan casually asked for an explantion to the plot for Spectre #8, Alligator's Lament; Derrida replied; " It was a textual strategy piece. I refuse to extrapolate additional exposition that you would construe as having some precisional, primitive meaning. There is no etymological shelter that you should derive from or outside of any contextual strategy in my work."

Needless to say, that emptied the room in no time.

It's interesting to note, that based on Jacques' Post-Structuralism period of work, several Marvel Marketing Veeps asked him to join Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid for the Heroes Reborn comics launch in the late 1990s.

His deteriorating health forced him to decline. It still an ongoing debate over who was more relieved, the writers, the artists or Tom Breevort.

-jb the "also relieved" ib :cool:

[jam]

I'm not clever enough to come up with an alternate history to place my "great runs that never existed" into context.

I don't have enough imagination to come up with things that never happened (or do I?).

I think my suggestions would be for extended runs that were -- IMHO -- too short in actuality.

Wally Wood on Daredevil -- way too short a run!

Steve Ditko on Spider-Man for a while longer.

Lee & Kirby on the next hundred issues of the FF.

Ditko's series at DC to run longer i.e. the Creeper. Ditko's Captain Atom and Blue Beetle.

For things that never happened? Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's reboot of Superman in 1964. Wally Wood, then John Romita on Superman. Ditko's Batman? Jack Kirby's hundred issue run on the Fourth World, edited by Stan Lee.

I'd like to have seen mostly-Marvel and mostly-DC creators at the other company for a while. John Buscema on Superman. Curt Swan on the FF. That kind of thing.