Sometimes We All Feel Like Punching An Elephant In The Face!! Strange Adventures #180, September, 1965

When Julius Schwartz, a former literary agent for Science Fiction writers, became Editor-in Chief of DC Comics, the connection between Silver Age Super Heroes and Sci-Fi was cemented once and for all.

Starting with a revival of the Flash (in Showcase #4) and moving quickly to more sci-fi oriented re-envisionings of Green Lantern Hawkman, and the Atom, it was clear that the DC superhero of the late 50's and early 1960 was probably going to have some "scientific" explanation for his/her powers.

At the time, it was quite unusual for a new character (or even a new version of an established character) to debut in their own title. DC had comics devoted solely to trying out new material, such as Showcase and The Brave and the Bold. Showcase debuted the new Flash, Green Lantern, B'wanna Beast, The Atom, etc. The Brave and the Bold debuted the JLA.

But, with the aforementioned connection between the new breed of hero and Sci-Fi, is it any wonder that one such hero would find his home in the pages of one of DC's Sci-Fi anthology books, Strange Adventures?

Enter "The Man with the Animal Powers" . Or, as he would be known as of issue #190, Animal Man.

No, you won't find the familiar, orange and blue superhero duds here. A-Man's debut is very much in the vein of any other one-off Strange Adventures tale. Except he kept going. And going. Until eventually, he got his own catchy hero name and costume.

Sadly, he was not a big seller in his own time. It was not until the 1980's that Animal Man reached wide exposure in a landmark series by writer Grant Morrison and as a team member of Justice League Europe.

Interestingly, the character who would later be depicted as a very adamant animal rights activist, would make his debut punching an elephant in the face.

Check it out yourself. Enjoy "The Man With The Animal Powers" from Strange Adventures #180. September 1965 by Dave Wood and Carmine Infantino-










Will Buddy save those kids? Will he live to pop the question to Ellen?? Will he pummel more animals for our amusement??? For the answers to these and other questions, tune in tomorrow. Same Man With The Animal Powers time, same Man With The Animal Powers channel!!

Well, If You're Going to "Ape" Sherlock Holmes...

What happens when you pair the Silver Age Green Lantern's writer with the Silver Age Flash's Artist? You get a back-up feature about a chimp who solves crime, that's what!

These days, it's not enough to have a chimp who's clever and observant, so the current incarnation of Detective Chimp is a superhumanly smart, talking chimp...but it was not always thus. Enjoy Bobo's humble beginnings as a back-up from The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4- "Meet Detective Chimp"

Not-So-Secret Origins of the JLA Week- The Flash

For many comics historians, Showcase #4, October, 1956 is the "Day the universe changed". Or at least one of them. The publication of this little number ushers in The Silver Age. The Flash is widely regarded as the first new superhero of the Silver Age. Especially by DC. I'm not sure why they withhold their love from poor little Johnny Jones, Manhunter from Mars. After all, he did debut almost a full year earlier than The Flash. Perhaps, as a back-up feature to Batman he just didn't bring in the sales figures of a coverboy like Flash.

At any rate, in Showcase #4, DC takes it's first steps towards creating a new age of heroes. And they did it by looking towards the past. The Flash was a remake of a previous DC hero from the 1940's whose book had been cancelled (in fact, Barry Allen is reading one of his comics in the story). This process is old hat these days, but in 1956, comics had only been around for 2 decades. As you'll see tomorrow, it was successful, because DC went back to the same well time and time again.

Enjoy the beautiful dynamic art of Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Kubert (more commentary after the feature) :
















I have to say, Barry Allen is a likeable guy. While The Flash is a very physical sort of hero, his alter-ego is a genuinely nerdy police scientist and comics geek.

There are many ways to show a man running fast but Infantino seems to have mastered the technique of depicting The Flash's speed through blurred motion lines, suggesting that he's moving faster than the eye can keep up with.

My favorite panel in this issue? Top of page 5, with the food floating in mid-air. Comics don't actually move, like film or TV, so it's remarkable how well Infantino captures the moment here. I think the coffee really sells it. It would have been very easy to draw this scene and simply rely on captions to tell you what was happening, but this picture actually tells you that everything is standing still except Barry.

Tomorrow: Green Lantern.

"I Hate Flash's Girlfriend!" and other observations

Several years ago, back when your Mild-Mannered Reporter was in his mid 20's, I used to have a job doing telephone customer service for a famous children's magazine. I worked at a dilapidated call center on the second floor of a barely-insulated warehouse and took phone calls all day mostly consisting of "I didn't get my magazine" and "I didn't order this magazine!!".

Luckily, I had a co-worker who sat near me who shared my passion for comics. He and I would read comics between calls and on our breaks and lunches. Sometimes we'd swap for the day. One day, we discovered that another co-worker, Rufus was a comics fan. Rufus was at least 20 years my senior and was a hard-working family man who just happened to have been a big fan of Silver Age comics during the Silver Age itself. Rufus would borrow our comics, sometimes the newer ones to see what was going on with his favorite characters of yesteryear, but mostly he wanted to read any reprints we had of "the good stuff". He preferred DC to Marvel because, as Rufus put it, "I prefer my heroes heroic."

One day, I brought in a re-issued 80-Page Giant of The Flash. Rufus was all over it like white on rice. When his break rolled around, I looked up to see him leaning over my cubicle. "Well?" I said, Rufus handed the comic back to me, thanked me, smiled,shook his head and said "I HATE Flash's girlfriend. She gets on my nerves."

"WHY?" You ask. "Why would Rufus dislike Flash's girlfriend Iris West so very much?"

Well, friends, I've anticipated your curiosity. Here are just a FEW examples:


She's rude...



She has no respect for Barry Allen's carreer as a Police Scientist...

I know this was before all those forensics shows on TV, but what the !@#$ does Iris think Barry does?? He's HELPING CATCH THE BAD GUYS!!


She's an immasculating shrew:


And, even though she seems to think The FLash is all man compared to Barry, she'll throw him over in a heartbeat...

Um, Iris, you're drooling.

So, yeah, I can totally understand why Rufus hates Flash's girlfriend. You know what? I hate her too.

Who is YOUR Favorite Silver Age Batman?

It's kind of a funny thing about Batman. There are really two different takes on Batman during the Silver Age. See, when the Silver Age starts, around 1954, Batman is a different comic than it was in the 1940's, but not as different as it will become in 1964.

When DC's Silver Age gets rolling, it's due to the introduction of completely new versions of some of their Golden Age heroes, i.e.: The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom...

But things were different for the heroes who never went away. Changes were happening, but they were usually subtle. Aquaman got a new origin in 1959. Which was fine, since most of his readers were too young to remember his 1941 origin. Superman's powers had slowly been expanded and now derived from the radiation of Earth's yellow sun. Wonder Woman was still in the Air Force, but was far less about bondage.

And then there's Batman. Batman carried on with his same, cartoony self. Elaborate stories highlighted his need to protect his secret identity, his latest innovations in Bat-themed equipment, his struggles with his bizzarre villains

and showed off his ever-increasing supporting cast which included a Batwoman,


Batgirl,



Bat-Hound and even Bat-Mite.



Batman in the late 50's was a rare treat of bizarre storytelling. Alien worlds, time travel, and an endless string of other hero teams who base their careers on Batman and Robin are common plot ideas. Batman goes through bizarre transformation after bizarre transformation. He is turned into an alien, a macro cephalic genius from the future, and even a baby!


Still, amongst all this brilliant, imaginative fun, nothing could have compared to the weird transformation he was about to undertake.

In 1964, editor Julis Schwartz introduced Batman's "New Look". Carmine Infantino was brought in to make the Caped Crusader look more realistic. Detective Comics regular Shelly Moldoff was told to curb his cartoony enthusiasm and draw a more life-like Batman. To help standardize the look, Inker Joe Giella was brought on to ink both titles . Schwartz fired Batwoman, Batgirl, Bat-Hound and even Bat-Mite. A new Batgirl was introduced and no reference to the previous Batgirl was ever mentioned.

The stories became less fanciful. Batman now fit in better with his Justice League peers- The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and The Atom. The Batmobile was made over as an open-top two-seater.

In 1966, Batman was broadcast to the world as a new comedy TV series.
Ironically, it was the weirdness of the earlier Batman that had inspired the show's highly stylized, campy take on the character. The TV show boosted sales of the comic, but the comic was much more staid that the TV show.

Personally, I prefer the pre-New Look Batman. No offense to the brilliant Carmine Infantino, but I prefer the more stylized, moody, noir look of the previous Batman. I really dig the Batmans of Shelly Moldoff, Dick Sprang,

Charles Paris... And more than that, I miss those weird stories and the never-ending string of supporting characters.

Which Batman do you prefer?

Forget the Russians, It's the Gorillas You Have to Beat! Strange Adventures #64

Just as mankind is on the verge of launching its first artificial satellite, it is visited by unexpected guests, guests with a warning!

A large spacecraft (described as a "space station" lands outside an American rocket base. The scientists and guards are stunned as its occupants emerge and turn out to be gorillas (who look a lot more like chimps to me)! The gorillas explain that they were once Earthmen who ventured into space. Cosmic rays caused them to devolve, physically, into gorillas while their minds stayed intact. The Space gorillas warn the scientists to wait until a cure is found before venturing into space themselves.

However, two-fisted science-guy , Dr. Owens doesn't buy their story. Sneaking onboard the gorilla ship, Owens discovers that the visitors are aliens in gorilla suits (still look like chimps to me). Jumping one of the aliens, Owens dons a gorilla suit and forces the ship to crash-land. Later, after explaining everything to his peers, Owens is asked what made him suspicious. Owens explains that the aliens, unlike men or gorillas, never blinked.

Gorillas Don't Have Sideburns. Flash #106

Gorilla Grodd may be the best-known talking gorilla supervillain in comics. He started off pretty inauspiciously, though. He didn't even get the cover of Flash #106 and gorillas almost ALWAYS got the cover.



Grodd's first appearance was as a second feature in Flash #106. Grodd arrives in Central City Park at the controls of an "all-purpose craft" which flies, submerses in water and bores through the Earth. immediately, the citizens of Central City begin reporting strange gorilla sightings.

These sightings trouble actor Fred Pearson who plays a gorilla on the stage in a play "The Great Gorilla" (I'm not generally a devotee of live theatre, so maybe I'm a poor judge, but does anyone out there think a theatre is going to pack the house every night with a dude in a gorilla suit?). Pearson keeps blacking out after and sometimes before the show and now people are seeing a gorilla in the streets at night. Fred calls his friend, policeman Barry Allen (aka the Flash) for some help.

On his way to meet with Fred, Flash spots a gorilla and gives chase, but the gorilla out-maneuvers the Fastest Man Alive in all-purpose craft. Flash then goes to meet with Pearson and hears his strange story first hand.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Grodd who spends a lot of time thinking expositionally to himself about how he came from Gorilla City- a secret, hidden city in Africa populated by super-intelligent gorillas. Grodd is Gorilla City's lone criminal mind and he has come out into the human world seeking Solovar, the missing ruler of the gorillas. Solovar alone holds the power to control others by "force of mind". using his own telepathy, Grodd locates Solovar as a captive in a circus. Grodd rips the secret from Solovar's mind and returns to Gorilla City.

Solovar escapes from the circus and seeks out the Flash. Enlisting Flash's aide, Solovar and the Scarlet Speedster rush to Gorilla City where they quickly defeat Grodd. Apparently the spinning attack Flash uses on Grodd jots the force of mind power right out of him.

Flash returns home and tells Fred Pearson that his troubles are over.

This story is really short and really unimpressive. Apart from the fact that it features talking gorillas and a gorilla city, it really doesn't have much about it that speaks of the impact it will have for years to come.

As we have previously seen, evil talking genius gorillas are nothing new to DC at this time. And even an embryonic version of Gorilla City had been previously seen in a 1950's Congo Bill story- albeit a more rustic version made of bamboo and huts. Still, Grodd had something to him that made him return again and again, arguably becoming Flash's arch-enemy (or is that Mirror-Master or Captain Cold?- ask Pat at The Silver Age, that discussion can really drag out!). Even so, gorillas do not have sideburns.

Joe Kubert Draws the Happiest Space Monster Ever for the Cover of... Strange Adventures #232

Okay, so this comic is from 1971. Hardly within the scope of the Silver Age, you say. And he just covered a comic from 1983 yesterday. Has this become a Bronze Age blog??? Fear not, True Believers! The contents of this little gem are all solidly Silver!

First up, reprinted from Mystery In Space #14, from back in 1953 we have a little number called "Hollywood in Space". It was written by John Broome and gorgeously drawn by Mort Drucker. I'll give you the teaser:

"Webb Weldon's fate as a movie director hung on the success of a multi-million dollar picture -- A spectacular space-adventure that he had made on actual location ... on unknown and ultra-distant worlds! And fame seemed within his grasp until that moment, back on Earth, when he ran part of the footage he had shot on the strange and very friendly planet of Xunis..."

"A multi-million dollar picture"? I'm guessing that 27th century dollars are worth more.

Next up, the Star Rovers hunt the aptly named but biologically improbable Loborilla in the sci-fi adventure yarn "Who Caught the Loborilla?" from Mystery In Space #66, 1961. Written by the immortal Gardner Fox and enthusiastically rendered by Sid Greene.

The Loborilla looks like something B'wanna Beast left lying around after a fight. The joke's on the Star Rovers, though. The Loborilla is actually a super-intelligent being on vacation.

Next up, we have a big-fat feature-length Adam Strange story, "The Multiple Menace Weapon" from Mystery In Space #72,1961, written, again by Gardner Fox and drawn by Carmine Infantino with inks by Murphy Anderson.



Adam Strange travels once more via Zeta Beam to his adopted planet, Rann. But this time, 100,000 years into the distant future, where people have predictably large heads and are unfamiliar with fire. I wonder if this is what happened to the Mars of Martian Manhunter? Anyway, as always Rann is menaced by an alien invasion only Adam Strange can stop. The action centers on the capital city of Rann, Ranagar City. I always love how the capital of Rann is Ranagar which rhymes with Hawkman's home world of Thanagar. It's like they asked Scooby-Doo to say "Thanagar".

The final tale in this issue is "The Magnetic Duel" from- you guessed it- Mystery In Space #17, 1954 (Maybe they shouldn't have cancelled Mystery In Space?). Written by John Broome and drawn by Murphy Anderson. I don't know about you, but I love a good space Western. Especially an old-school one where the space explorers wear cowboy hats and ray guns. Classic!



I'm old enough to remember comics costing a quarter, but not a big, fat 48-pager like this baby. Still, in 1971 the cost must have been scandalous, because Carmine Infantino himself wrote a memo to the readers, justifying the extravagant cost:


I love how Infantino asks you to "rap" for a moment and that he understands that you expect a lot for your hard-earned "bread". "But the fact that you bought it is what turns us on. " -Shades of SNAPPER CARR! That's some hip talk! Carmine sounds like he just got busted on Dragnet.

Even funnier, though, is the idea that this comic contains "Specially selected stories that we were planning for a long time... and that time is now!" This is ALL reprints. I'm pretty sure that kept the overhead down and allowed DC to get more for their "bread".