Early cross-promotion

Here's a very early example of a continued story in DC comics. Sort of.

On the left is Adventure 152, starring Superboy. In this story, prompted by a "what I want to be when I grow up" essay assignment, Clark travels to Metropolis to "try on" several potential jobs. He eventually settles on "newspaper reporter". His essay wins a writing contest, the prize for which is presented by a surprise guest, reporter Perry White, who invites Clark to contact him when he's older.

On the right is Action 144, starring Vigilante. (Just kidding.) In this month's Superman story, Clark happens to find the cover page for the edition of the Daily Planet that contains his first by-line. This inspires him to reminisce about having met Perry White while still in high school, and his later attempts to see White in order to apply for a position as a reporter. The same scene of young Clark winning that writing award is seen in flashback.

Both comics would have been on the racks in the same week of March 1950. Neither story has ever been reprinted.

"It was maybe corrupting her."

From the Washington Post:

As [Supreme Court nominee Sonia] Sotomayor was growing up in a family in which no one had gone to college, people prodded her to excel.

"The females were expected to achieve more," said her younger brother, Juan Sotomayor. She loved comic books -- Archie, Casper, Richie Rich -- so much that, after her father died, her paternal grandmother and aunts once convened a family meeting with her mother. "They were concerned about the role of the comic books in my sister's life," recalled her brother, an allergist outside Syracuse, N.Y. "It was maybe corrupting her."

Okay, I can sort of see Richie Rich. God knows how many little tykes were driven into reactionary liberalism by Richie's conspicuous consumption.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 12

Whew. Whose idea was this again?

Day 12: The Fantastic Four

Early period: Fantastic Four #70, Jan 1968, by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. This issue (spoiler!) actually ends with this scene, and isn't resolved until the following issue. The big green guy is an android, an "ultimate weapon" prepared by the Mad Thinker (defeated an issue or two back) and accidentally activated.

Boy, I hate when that happens.

This issue also contains a full-page panel of Reed and Sue musing on the love they share and the child that will soon be theirs. You can see Sue's new miniskirted uniform on the cover: We never find out if those unstable molecules can stretch into a maternity uniform.

Later period: Fantastic Four #369, Oct 1992, by Paul Ryan. Everybody, but everybody, is in this issue, as Sue battles her evil side Malice on the astral plane. Those of you who thought the corruption of Mary Marvel was unprecedented should probably look this story up.

Well, this was actually a lot of fun. Maybe I should continue looking at random character's covers at odd intervals. After all, we didn't do Captain America, or Batman, or Daredevil, or Wonder Woman, or the X-men, or Green Lantern, or the Hulk, or Captain Marvel, or Doctor Strange, or Plastic Man, or Thor, or Elongated Man...

Oh, crap, that's twelve more days...

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 11

Day 11: The Flash

The story in Flash #90, Dec 1947, is really just an excuse for the Flash to play all nine positions in a baseball game. I keep meaning to dig this story up (it's reprinted in 80 Page Giant #4) to see what the other team had to say about it. Not to mention the league position.

I wanted to choose the first Elongated Man, of course, or "Land of the Golden Giants" (another sentimental favorite), but was there ever a more provocative cover than this one, from Flash #128, May 1962?

I don't remember if I was disappointed or relieved when we caught up with Barry and he was wearing street clothes. I mean, you've seen how tightly his uniform fits. No way does he wear a shirt and slacks under it.

Oh, well. If I'm prepared to accept the expanding-costume-in-the-ring thing, business-casual space travel is nothing.

Both of these covers, by the way, were pencilled by Carmine Infantino. Frank Giacoia inked "Nine Empty Uniforms", Joe Giella inked "Real-Gone Flash".

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 10

Day Ten: Iron Man

An out-and-out sentimental pick: I mentioned back on day 4 that Marvel comics didn't come to my little town until 1967. My only previous exposure to these characters was those awful television cartoons. This, Tales of Suspense #93, Sep 1967, was my first Marvel comic ever.

I could have done worse. 12 pages of Colan-Giacoia greatness, 10 pages of Kirby-Sinnott energy on Captain America, and this awesome Colan cover emphasizing the sheer bulk and power of the massive Titanium Man.

I felt kind-of cheated that both stories were continued from the previous issue, and both were continued into the next as well... But I bought the next issue.

Forward over four years to Iron Man #46. By now, Marvel's distribution arrangements allowed it to publish more monthlies, and they responded by immediately splitting Tales of Suspense (and its companions, Tales to Astonish and Strange Tales) in two. Gene Colan was busy with Daredevil, so this cover was by Gil Kane and Ralph Reese.

(I guess, since we're not now reading The Guardian #400, you know who won this battle.)

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 9

I've fallen behind!

Day 9: The Spirit

The Spirit?!? Way to rattle my cage! I've never seen most of these! Which is, of course, my loss. There are no bad Spirit stories, only good and better. And there are no bad Eisner covers, for all of them show characters and situations that the page can barely contain.

My first choice is my (and reportedly Will Eisner's own) favorite, "The Story of Gerhard Shnobble", from Sept 5, 1948.

Mr. Shnobble has just been fired from his job, and has decided that today is the day to become famous. He intends to do this by throwing himself off the roof of a building... and flying.

And he does!

From another era, is the cover to the Warren Spirit magazine #7, April 1975, pencils by Will Eisner, inks and colors by Ken Kelley. I like it because of the devotion and determination of Ebony White, proving he is not just another comic sidekick.

Also clearly shown is that, like Popeye, the Spirit has no superpowers other than being simply indomitable. Like the Timex watch he predated and outlived, he takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 8

Day Eight: Justice League

Early period: JLA #31, Nov 1964, by Mike Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson. I realize that many fans don't care for Sekowsky's pencils, but as far as I'm concerned JLA is the only comic of its time in which Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash look "right". Sekowsky defines the "house style" everyone else should be trying to copy.

This scene should look silly, but it doesn't. It's dynamic and provocative. What kind of disaster can tear loose a chunk of the cavern floor, complete with table, chairs and occupants, and catapult it into space? I had to buy this issue and find out. (Unlike many comics, this scene actually occurred in this one.)

Later period: Justice League Task Force #8, Jan 1994, Sal Velluto and Jeff Albrecht. I can't say I like the execution here, but the concept... Well, I shouldn't like that either. This is a tentacle rape scene, isn't it? (On the cover of a DC comic, in 1994?)

It may be that what appeals to me is the question that the scene implies: Just how "male" is J'onn J'onzz? He's an alien. Our concepts of maleness and femaleness should be pretty much irrelevant to him.

Maybe I'm just tickled that when he is a woman (I mean... oh, never mind, I'm not going to try to rephrase it), his costume actually covers more skin.

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 7

Day 7: The Defenders. This time for sure.

Well. there are no good Defenders covers. See you tomorrow: Thanks for coming.

Everything that is wrong with Avengers covers is wrong with Defenders covers, squared. Especially "horrified floating heads" disease. It's a wonder the book sold at all. On the other hand, they had a remarkably stable roster for a team that "isn't a team".

Here's the image that introduced the concept, Neal Adams' cover for Marvel Feature #1, December 1971. Our heroes are charging directly at the reader, with something unspecified but obviously destructive going on behind them.

It was a pretty big jolt when I opened the book and saw the art on this lead feature by Ross Andru and Bill Everett -- but it grew on me.

Jump forward to Defenders #11, January 2002 (I didn't know until looking through covers for this that there even was a 2001 restart of the Defenders). This image features an iconic, if uncharacteristically restful, pose of the "classic" team by Erik Larsen. Valkrie's anatomy is a little odd (what, did Rob Liefield ghost-draw this?), but I have to congratulate Larsen for including all seven lead characters without feeling crowded.

And has the Hulk's attention been momentarily diverted by a butterfly? Nice touch.

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 7

Day 7: The Defenders

This is an odd choice for Mag and H, but sure, I'll go along with it.

The Defenders starred E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed, and was one of several legal dramas hoping to ride the coattails of Perry Mason...

What?

Oh. Never mind.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 6

Day Six: Aquaman

To be honest, the first issue of Aquaman-in-his-own-book I ever read was the first "Sword of Atlantis" issue. (Sorry, H.) He just never grabbed me as a lead feature. For me, the golden era of Aquaman was 8-12 page stories in the back of Adventure. Mmm, all that Ramona Fradon goodness.

Which means that this was the perfect issue of Aquaman, notwithstanding that it was actually Super DC Giant #s-26, Jul-Aug 1971, cover by Dick Giordano. It contained five Fradon gems, including a rare book-length story (reprinted from Showcase #30), the first Aquagirl (a real cutie, too, in those orange-and-greens), and the astounding origin of the Human Flying Fish!

And ooh, looky here, A dramatic Infantino/Anderson cover from Superboy #171, Jan 1971. (Okay, it was Aquaboy, but it's the same guy. Another in a series of newly revealed "first meetings" that neither character remembers later.) This issue was heavily environmental (the "dark strangler" was an oil spill). About the only thing that would have improved that image would have been to make it wordless.

What's that? I broke the rule? Both covers are from 1971? Oh, OK, here's your Nick Cardy cover, from April '62.

Boy, I betcha if Ramona Fradon were doing covers, they'd still be publishing Aquaman today.

Previously: Days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 5

Day 5: Mad

I was too young to have seen any EC comics on the newsstands. By the time I came along, they were all gone: Mad was a magazine... and a series of paperback reprints you had to read sideways.

You kids don't know what we had to go through to be entertained.

If the "Plastic Man" parody had made the cover, I would have used that one. Because it didn't, here's the "Hah! Noon!" cover from Mad #9, Feb-Mar 1954, by the great Harvey Kurtzman. Mad's comic era was somewhat uneven, but when it was good, it was genius.

Fast-forward twelve years to #105, September 1966, and cover artist Norman Mingo. Al Feldstein managed to make lightning strike twice, creating a brand-new "usual gang of idiots" and setting a standard that would sustain Mad through almost 500 regular issues and countless specials.

Previously: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 4

Day 4: The Avengers

Like Spider-Man, the Avengers suffered from an embarrassment of so-so covers. There are only so many ways to depict a crowd scene, and I personally am sick of floating heads reacting in horror to a central scene, a recurring motif that haunts Avengers covers like a disease.

When I saw the cover of Avengers Annual #1 on the stands in 1967, I had no idea who the Avengers were. Well, I knew who John Steed and Emma Peel were, but this lot clearly wasn't them.

No, really. Throughout the early sixties, Marvel comics were handled by a distributor owned by DC. DC used this advantage to severely limit the number of comics Marvel could publish. Some of you kiddies may know this, intellectually, but in practice the newsstand advantage was even greater. Many outlets, including the ones in my hometown, didn't carry Marvel comics at all. This was the very first Avengers comic I'd ever seen.

It may be why I never really warmed to the monthly series: It set unrealistic expectations.

The experts at GCDB are divided over whether this cover was by Don Heck or John Buscema, though they agree John Romita touched it up.

For late-period, I'll go with The Mighty Avengers #2 by Frank Cho.

If there are any comics fans remaining who haven't experienced puberty, this cover (like yesterday's Neal Adams Superman cover) should push them through it.

Hard to believe that's Tony Stark, isn't it?

Previously: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 3

Day Three: Superman

This is clearly a Curt Swan cover for Action #232, September 1957. Try not to be too disappointed when you see the story itself and discover it is by Wayne Boring. Sadly, it is about a year too early to be included in the first Showcase Presents Superman collection, which I guess makes this "officially" a Golden Age story. I was so disappointed to see that charming image of Superman cooling lemonade with his super-breath on Superman in the Fifties yet not see this story contained therein.

This was, as they sometimes said, not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story. But I don't suppose I'm spoiling anything to tell you that the boy is not, in fact, Superman's biological son, but an Earth boy who has accidentally acquired a full set of super-powers. Things like that happened in the Silver Age: That which does not kill us makes us stronger, or something like that.

This may have been the first time they played with the classic Super-color scheme, but not the last. You should have seen the yellow-and-green dog's breakfast Superman himself tried a couple of issues later, complete with communications helmet and wings on his boots.

Skip forward a decade and change to 1971 and Superman #243, cover by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. I think this cover may actually have triggered puberty in a generation of boys. I was seventeen, and this may be my favorite Superman cover ever ever.

It's hard to be disappointed by an art job by Swan and Anderson, but the woman inside this comic suffered in comparison.

This story (by Cary Bates) immediately followed the "Sand Creature" arc that destroyed all kryptonite on earth and supposedly depowered Superman by about half. You couldn't tell it.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas, day 2

Day Two: Spider-Man

I think H is right: There aren't a lot of really distinctive, iconic Spider-Man covers. Which is surprising: Given how flippin' many Spider-man covers there are, you'd think the odds would be on their side.

The first fifty issues have far more than their share of gotcha covers, even though some of them are cut-and-pasted from Ditko's interior pages. On this cover to Amazing Spider-Man #22, Ditko attempts Batman's menacing shadow, which shouldn't work and probably wouldn't have worked if not for the Spider-signal belt buckle. (does he still have that?) It turns an off-center pose where the hero of the book isn't even present into a striking, moody piece. There have been dozens of attempts to use the signal motif since, none as effectively as this.

Oh, and the interiors aren't bad either.

The requirement to select covers from distinctly different eras of the book forced me to choose only one Ditko cover -- and also eliminated the best of John Romita Sr's covers as well. I probably could have considered the Andru run a different era, but despite countless classic images for Wonder Woman, I have to say I never liked his Spider-Man.

And Todd McFarlane's work always looked too busy to me. Lookit me, I drew all these extraneous web lines, aren't you impressed by all the work I did here?

As long as I'm flashing forward, I'll go all the way to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #4, the end of "The Other" arc. Not having approved of the trials and reboot inflicted on the character throughout "Sins Past", "Civil War", "Back in Black" and "One More Day", I consider this gorgeous Weiringo portrait the end of Spider-Man's run. I prefer to remember Pete and MJ looking forward to the days they should have had, and it doesn't get any better than this.

The Treadmill Days of Christmas

Over at the Comic Treadmill, Mag and H are celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas by each selecting their two favorite covers featuring a particular character. The series is such fun reading that I decided to play along over here. Well, that and not having anything else to talk about.

Day One: The Atom

I've never been a big fan of the Atom (get it? get it?), but he is a big (I kill me) part of the cover for one of my favorite silver-age Justice League of America stories, from #18. Our mite-sized heroes are attempting to get the Atom's attention before they shrink completely out of existence. This cover is by the masterful Murphy Anderson.

Of course, they do manage to do this, and he follows them under his own power to a microscopic world whose Protectors emit a radiation that is slowly killing their planet. But these android Protectors were created too well, and cannot surrender to their makers. They have summoned the Justice League so that they might defeat them and end the threat they pose.

Boy, that'd be a year's worth of story arc now. You young whippersnappers don't realize how good we had it way back then.

By the 80s, the Atom had been canceled a couple of times, and generally written off as an unworkable concept. Jan Strnad and Gil Kane got Jean (the bitch) engaged to another man, dumped Ray in an Amazonian forest, broke his size-controls, stuck him at six inches high, and let him stumble onto a lost six-inch-high civilization.

Sort of like if the Atom had been created by Edgar Rice Burroughs -- and I mean that as a compliment.

I never did get the logic of having him wear a loincloth over his tights, though.