Happy 95th birthday to Irwin Hasen. Man, I wish Irwin tweeted. He’s a very funny guy. He would put Jim Steranko to shame, and best of all, most of his posts would actually be true! ;)
Irwin broke into the industry in 1940 working for Harry “A” Chesler. He quickly got out of there (as did anyone with enough talent to get better work elsewhere), and within a year he was working for National/DC under Shelly Mayer. Though his natural style was more cartoony, Irwin did a lot of work on Green Lantern, and his first cover work was a Green Lantern cover for All-American Comics #24 (Mar. 1941), which he penciled and inked as he did with most of his assignments.
He also co-created Wildcat with Bill Finger for Sensation Comics #1. Of course, Wonder Woman hogged all those covers, so Irwin was mostly stuck inside each issue. But he did get to draw one occasionally, such as Sensation Comics #3 (Mar. 1942).
He also did a lot of covers and interior work for All-Star Comics. These a couple of his best known covers:
Another good one—he did several Comics Cavalcade covers—this one inked by Bob Oksner.
In the ’50s, Irwin mostly worked on Wonder Woman and westerns, though he also did a few war, sci-fi, romance, and mystery stories, and even a few “Detective Chimp” features. He stopped working for DC regularly in 1960, and his last cover for the company was Wonder Woman #107 (July 1959), inked by Bernard Sachs.
Irwin’s comic book work overlapped wih his Dondi newspaper strip—the highlight of his career—which started in 1955 and ran until 1986. Dondi even found his way into the comics in 1961.
Happy 87th birthday to fellow North Carolina native, Murphy Anderson! Murphy was a darn fine penciler and one of the all-time great inkers.
In 1943 during his freshman year of college, Murphy convinced his dad to give him some money ($100) so he could go to New York and try to break into the comic industry before he got drafted. He went to every publisher and studio he knew of, and eventually Harry Chesler saw his sci-fi samples (Murphy was a huge sci-fi fan) and pointed him to Fiction House where he got put on salary at $30 a week.
He got seated next to George Tuska, who showed him the ropes, and—along with his inking and assist duties—he drew a number of stories for Planet Comics over the next couple of years. Some of them were done after he was called to serve in the Navy. He spent his military years in a Visuals department in Chicago, so he was able to continue doing some comic book work during his personal time. He even met his future wife there.
After the war, Murphy returned to Fiction House, but missing his girl back in Chicago, he moved there and began working as a freelancer. It was there in 1947 that he became the artist of the Buck Rogers newspaper strip (John Dille—the creator of Buck Rogers—based his syndicate there). He drew the strip for about two years, though he still did a few comic jobs during that time. Once he left the strip, he began working for other companies, and in 1951 he did his first work for DC. He soon became the regular artist of “Captain Comet,” and it was a Captain Comet cover for Strange Adventures #18 (Mar. 1952) that was his first published cover.
I'll get back to Murphy Anderson tomorrow, because today marks Joe Shuster’s birthday. It would have been his 99th. It’s funny, even though he co-created Superman, he didn’t really draw that many covers, and as you would expect, most of the covers he did draw were done for Action or Superman. But I’d rather show some of the less seen covers, so I’ll start with Adventure Comics #103 (Apr. 1946), inked by Stan Kaye.
Funnyman is the book Siegel and Shuster started after leaving and suing DC. It only lasted six issues, and a là Bob Kane on Batman, most of the pencils in the book that were credited to Shuster were actually done by ghost pencilers, most notable Dick Ayers. But Shuster did pencil this cover to Funnyman #6 (Aug. 1948), inked by someone in the Shuster studio.
Shuster’s last regular work for mainstream comics was done for Charlton, where he benefited from being paired with the excellent inker Ray Osrin (remember him from those great Matt Baker covers?)—who I’m sure was doing a lot of redrawing in his inks—such as with these covers to Racket Squad #13 (Sept. 1954) and Crime and Justice #21 (Nov. 1954).
Given that DC is preparing to launch yet another crossover storyline, I thought we’d take a look back at the first major crossover series and some covers from a time when the art was good and less gimmicky. So let’s start with a classic: Crisis On Infinite Earths. #1...
...and a dynamic, classic cover by George Perez... the man who was born just to draw this one series, with a cast of millions.
Now for a few oddities. The next cover I have is Vigilante #22...
...(cover by Tod Smith & Rick Magyar) ...which I swear – but cannot now confirm – that I saw an ad somewhere at the time that claimed this issue was a Crisis crossover. It’s not, hence the lack of a Crisis banner on the cover. However, the story does take place within that time frame, as evidenced by the wild storms and red skies within. This story is what came to be known as a ‘red sky’ story, a crossover that isn’t a crossover, a chapter that takes place at the same time as the main event, but has no direct correlation or noteworthy contribution to it. In fact, so far as I can tell, this is the original ‘red sky’ story, and is noteworthy for just that fact.
Along similar lines is Detective Comics #558...
...with a cover by Gene Colan & Dick Giordano. It’s also primarily a ‘red sky’ story, but with a little more direct connection to the main event when a bolt of anti-matter suddenly strikes down a criminal right during a confrontation, and Batman gets a phone call that leads him directly into Crisis #2.
Now we have an odd little crossover within the crossover, beginning in Blue Devil #17...
(cover by Paris Cullins & Gary Martin), passing through the Crisis and on into Omega Men #31…
(cover by Shawn McManus), with the Devil bouncing through dying parallel worlds for a few issues of his title and the Omega Men struggling to survive on a disintegrating spaceship.
Now, a couple of chronal discrepancies. DC’s band of ragtag warriors, the Losers, meet their demise in Crisis at the hands of the Anti-Monitor’s shadowmen... but when the tale is retold in The Losers Special #1...
...(cover by Joe Kubert), a different account is given, this one about a final battle where they willingly sacrifice themselves during a battle in WW II. No shadowmen. If that seemed confusing, the same type of discrepancy occurs when, in Crisis, we are shown how the Red Tornado, during a repair seesion conducted by Blue Devil, Atom, Firestorm and Firehawk, suddenly and unexpectedly blows up and destroys the remains of the JLA sattelite HQ. (Which was what caused Blue Devil to drop in on the Omega Men and bounce around parallel worlds in the first place.) The Tornado then becames an elemental.
But! In Justice League Of America Annual #3...
...(cover by Paris Cullins & Mike Machlan), we have a slightly different account in which the explosion is caused by Reddy attempting to repair himself while no one else was on the satellite!
Confusing details. Obviously there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes where writers and editors were not playing together very well and not coordinating their storylines or contributions... and some, I understand, were only doing so reluctantly. Hence the conflicting stories.
On the other hand, this could be explained within the context of the overall story as an effect of the Crisis itself, that chronal ‘burps’ were already happening causing minor rewriting of history... kind of like a skipping record.
While there was resistance from a number of editors and creative folk over participating in any way whatsoever with the Crisis event, there were a number of exceptions where the creative teams jumped right in and did their very best to add and even augment the story. There were four titles that ran parallel storylines for the duration of the Crisis, two of which belonged to Roy Thomas. All-Star Squadron #50...
...(cover by Jerry Ordway) tied the Crisis, DC’s 50th anniversary, and the title’s 50th issue into a retelling of a classic JSA story: “Shanghaied Into Space!” – with some updated reconning, the JSA’s trip to the various planets of the Solar System was explained as taking place in various parallel universes, thanks to an unexpected ‘kick’ from Harbinger. This story was just one arc of a handful that Thomas juggled to play alongside the Crisis, sometimes playing up some scenes or events that had only a small mention in the Crisis mini-series.
He did the same with his other Earth-2 title, beginning with Infinity Inc #20...
...(cover by Mike Bair) following on the heels of the very last JLA-JSA team-up (of that era) which included the Infinitors. Along with adding some newer Inifinity members, Thomas took charge of guiding the Earth-2 heroes through the Crisis, exploring the changes and wreckage to their world and explaining what happened in the aftermath.
In another corner of the DCU, Swamp Thing #46...
...(cover by Stephen R Bissette & John Totleben) displays one of two direct tie-ins to the Crisis. Alan Moore was already taking the Swamp Thing through the American Gothic storyline wherein, through the questionable aid of John Constantine, he was learning the extent of his powers while he explored the psychic wreckage of the country’s supernatural side. I doubt that Moore ever had the Crisis in mind when he began his epic, but he blends his story into it rather masterfully, to the degree where he reveals that his antagonists had long anticipated the Crisis and had made their plans around it, scheming to storm heaven while the psychic wounds were still fresh. American Gothic pretty much stands on its own, but I tend to see it as part of the overall Crisis storyline and file my copies accordingly.
The last of the titles to run parallel stories is Green Lantern. Here’s Green Lantern #196...
...with a cover by Howard Chaykin, presenting, at last, Guy Gardner as a newly appointed GL with a specific mandate handed down from the Guardians. It’s not Guy’s first appearance – he was first introduced during the heyday of the Silver Age – nor is it the first time that he was a Green Lantern. But it is the beginning of a new look and surly attitude for Guy, one that helped him stick around for nearly thirty years now.
The Green Lanterns played little part during the Crisis mini-series, apart from some participation from John Stewart and some history of the Corps’ part in the creation of the multiverse, but we get full participation from Stewart, Gardner and even a ringless Hal Jordan in a sequence of issues leading up to the restructuring of the universe and the book’s 200th issue.
And now, for the oddball cross-overs, books that weren’t published until some point after the Crisis mini-series had ended but had a direct connection to the story.
DC Comics Presents #95...
...(cover by Ed Hannigan & Murphy Anderson) was actually more connected to The Shadow War Of Hawkman, but took place during the opening days of the Crisis, and built up to the tensions of the apparent and imminent demise of the universe, with the Hawks flying off into what they thought might be their last adventure.
Legends Of The DC Universe: Crisis On Infinite Earths #1
Cover by Glen Orbik. This came along about a decade or so after the Crisis. Marv Wolfman comes up with a new tale that can be very neatly inserted into the original mini-series without too much effort, spotlighting the Flash (Barry Allen) during his last days just before being kidnapped by the Anti-Monitor, trying to aid the Justice League of a parallel world to save the populace of their Earth before its eaten away by the anti-matter clouds seeping into their universe.
JLA: Incarnations #5
Cover by Val Semeiks & Prentis Rollins. Part of a post-Crisis look at the high points of the JLA’s revised history, this issue had a new look at what the Crisis actually was according to that altered timeline – and Vibe saves the world. That’s right; Vibe saves the world. Plus, a second story takes a new look at the Flash’s sacrifice and his last moments alive while destroying the Anti-Monitor’s weapon. Both stories are by John Ostrander. (If you haven’t read this mini-series, then you missed a great one. I could not recommend it strongly enough.)
Deadman: Dead Again #1
Cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & Kevin Nowlan. First issue of a mini-series that temporarily revived Deadman during the 2000’s. In this issue, Deadman follows the Flash into the afterlife following that aforementioned sacrifice during the Crisis.
You know, thinking back on it, I don’t think I bought any of those Crisis crossover stories when they came out—only one or two at the most. And I know I didn’t buy the main series. I think it was because, at least in part, because the first issue I saw on the spinner rack was the third or fourth issue. Since I knew I wasn't going to be able get the whole story, I didn’t buy that or any other issue of the series. I wish I could remember what I picked up instead. I’m pretty sure it was the first issue of the Gargoyle mini-series with the painted cover by Bernie Wrightson.
I've read Crisis since then of course, but I’ve never been enthralled by it as so many other DC fans seem to be. Maybe it’s because I read it years after the fact. Whatever the reason, company-wide crossovers have never held any special interest for me.
I'm going to postpone Murphy Anderson another day, because the June 11 is the birthday of Dan Barry (1923-97). Barry—along with Leonard Starr, Stan Drake, and his brother Sy—was a huge influence on the comic book industry, particularly DC. It was his (and the others’) slick style that set the standard at DC in the ’40s, ’50s, and early ’60s. He’s probably better known for his artwork on the Tarzan (which he drew for a year, taking over from Burne Hogarth) and Flash Gordon (which he helped revitalize in 1951, drawing the daily strip until 1990, and also the Sunday strip from 1967-90) newspaper strips. But he also drew a lot of comics before, during, and even after this time.
He broke into comics in 1943, working mostly for Hillman and Holyoke to begin with. His first cover was for Clue Comics #3 (Mar. 1943), which he penciled and inked (he almost always inked himself).
Yes, this is the cover (as well as the first page of the lead feature) for Air Fighters #15 (Dec. 1953).
After the war he also did some work for Fawcett, including this cover to Bulletman #16 (Fall 1946).
He was also a regular artist—interior and cover—in Buster Brown Comics for nearly half of its run.
He even took over the “Doll Man” feature for a brief time as well.
He got his first work from DC in 1948 as a regular in Gang Busters and Real Fact Comics, and his first cover for them was Gang Busters #2 (Feb.-Mar. 1948).
Once he took over the Flash Gordon daily strip, Barry’s comic book output dwindled rapidly. By 1960 he was doing practically no comic book work at all. But after he left the strip behind, he got back into it, drawing Predator and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles stories for Dark Horse among other smaller jobs.
Dark Horse was so awesome in thier early days. I still love Aliens & Predator; I'm in the process of getting all those omnibuses. Aliens vs. Predator (not to be confused with AVP) is still one of my favorite early teenage fanboy series.
Happy 73rd birthday to Mike Ploog! Mike’s gotten a lot of love on this thread already, and there probably aren’t many covers of his that haven’t already been posted, so I’ll just go with his first cover, Marvel Spotlight #3 (May 1972).
Also a happy 71st birthday to Tom Palmer! Like most of the very best inkers, Palmer is also a very good penciler. He paints as well.
Palmer started out in advertising in the early ’60s while going to art school. It was at one of these advertising studio jobs where he met Jack Kamen (I’ve posted about Kamen before), who was on staff there. Kamen got Palmer some extra work with Wally Wood, Wood got Palmer work with Mike Esposito (Palmer did background inking for him for a time), and Esposito hooked him up with Sol Brodsky at Marvel.
Thus it was in 1968 that Palmer did his first credited comic book work, the pencils for Dr. Strange #171, inked by Dan Adkins. With the next issue, Palmer became the regular inker of the book over Gene Colan. His first cover pencils didn’t appear at Marvel, though, but at Skywald. Palmer penciled, inked, and painted both covers for their short-lived The Crime Machine (1971) black-&-white magazine.
He later did the same for Marvel Comics Super Special #4 (1978). The interiors for this magazine, by the way, were done by Pérez and Janson.
But most of the cover penciling he did was for Star Wars.
He did do penciling and painting work for other titles though.
Palmer has always been one of my favorite artists, and I'd forgotten that he'd done covers from time to time. Pity that he seldom does any story art; the only one I can recall was in the early 70's for one of Marvel's horror comics (either Tower Of Shadows or Chamber Of Chills, don't remember which one) when he drew an adaptation of Lovecraft's Pickman's Model.
Palmer has always been one of my favorite artists, and I'd forgotten that he'd done covers from time to time. Pity that he seldom does any story art; the only one I can recall was in the early 70's for one of Marvel's horror comics (either Tower Of Shadows or Chamber Of Chills, don't remember which one) when he drew an adaptation of Lovecraft's Pickman's Model.
“Pickman’s Model” was in Tower of Shadows, but he did an adaptation of “Tell-Tale Heart” for Chamber of Chills the previous year. He also did a couple of shorts for Skywald’s magazines, and he often did finishing pencils along with the inks over other artists’ layouts or breakdowns—both John (Thor) and Sal Buscema (Nova), Walt Simonson (Star Wars) layouts, etc.
And now back to Murphy Anderson. Besides being the regular artist of the “Captain Comet” feature, Murphy did other small jobs for DC and occasionally Fiction House. Pencils and inks by Murphy unless otherwise stated. He also did a second stint on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip in the late ’50s.
Sensation Comics #109 (May-June 1952).
Strange Adventures #21 (June 1952).
Sensation Comics #50 (Nov. 1954).
Mystery in Space #23 (Dec. 1954-Jan. 1955)
And Strange Adventures #96 (Sept. 1958), the last cover he penciled in the ’50s.
In 1959, DC began to look at Murphy more as an inker. He still mostly penciled and inked his own stories, but with The Flash #110, Julie Schwartz had Murphy ink a Carmine Infantino story, and he liked the results, and soon Murphy was also inking Gil Kane and Mike Sekowsky on at least a semi-regular basis, besides inking Carmine on “Adam Strange.” Murphy was still able to do solo work in Strange Adventures though—covers and “The Atomic Knights.”
Inspiration for the Robots of Saga perhaps? Okay, probably not.
Yes, this is actually a return appearance for the Faceless Creature, who also showed up in Strange Adventures #124 and would return yet again in Strange Adventures #153. Marv Wolfman brought him back as an entire race of Faceless Hunters in DC Comics Presents #77 in the mid-’80s and they've made a few appearances since then.
The Atomic Knights finally got a cover appearance in Strange Adventures #144.
I'm not quite done with Murphy yet, but today is the birthday of another penciler/inker who eventually became primarily an inker for DC, Dick Giordano. Giordano broke into comics by joining the Iger Shop in 1951. He started out doing the basic odd jobs—sweeping floors, erasing pages, delivering art work, etc.—but very quickly he was filling in blacks and inking backgrounds. Within a few weeks he was inking figures, making about 75¢ an hour.
But Giordano wasn’t long for Iger’s sweatshop. In early 1952 he was introduced to Al Fago—who was the managing editor of Charlton at the time—through one of his father’s friends from work, who happened to be Fago’s brother-in-law. After a few trial jobs, Fago gave him enough regular freelance work that he was able to quit his job with Iger, and he was not just inking, but penciling as well.
I'm not sure if this was his first cover, but if not it’s pretty close to it: Hot Rods and Racing Cars #12 from sometime in 1952 (Charlton didn't include publishing dates at that time).
A few others from the early to mid-’50s.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Giordano worked on a lot of westerns in the mid-’50s, including many featuring the “real life” cowboys like Tex Ritter, Lash LaRue, and Rocky Lane.
Comments
Irwin broke into the industry in 1940 working for Harry “A” Chesler. He quickly got out of there (as did anyone with enough talent to get better work elsewhere), and within a year he was working for National/DC under Shelly Mayer. Though his natural style was more cartoony, Irwin did a lot of work on Green Lantern, and his first cover work was a Green Lantern cover for All-American Comics #24 (Mar. 1941), which he penciled and inked as he did with most of his assignments.
He also co-created Wildcat with Bill Finger for Sensation Comics #1. Of course, Wonder Woman hogged all those covers, so Irwin was mostly stuck inside each issue. But he did get to draw one occasionally, such as Sensation Comics #3 (Mar. 1942).
He also did a lot of covers and interior work for All-Star Comics. These a couple of his best known covers:
Another good one—he did several Comics Cavalcade covers—this one inked by Bob Oksner.
In the ’50s, Irwin mostly worked on Wonder Woman and westerns, though he also did a few war, sci-fi, romance, and mystery stories, and even a few “Detective Chimp” features. He stopped working for DC regularly in 1960, and his last cover for the company was Wonder Woman #107 (July 1959), inked by Bernard Sachs.
Irwin’s comic book work overlapped wih his Dondi newspaper strip—the highlight of his career—which started in 1955 and ran until 1986. Dondi even found his way into the comics in 1961.
He operated on his own brain
In 1943 during his freshman year of college, Murphy convinced his dad to give him some money ($100) so he could go to New York and try to break into the comic industry before he got drafted. He went to every publisher and studio he knew of, and eventually Harry Chesler saw his sci-fi samples (Murphy was a huge sci-fi fan) and pointed him to Fiction House where he got put on salary at $30 a week.
He got seated next to George Tuska, who showed him the ropes, and—along with his inking and assist duties—he drew a number of stories for Planet Comics over the next couple of years. Some of them were done after he was called to serve in the Navy. He spent his military years in a Visuals department in Chicago, so he was able to continue doing some comic book work during his personal time. He even met his future wife there.
After the war, Murphy returned to Fiction House, but missing his girl back in Chicago, he moved there and began working as a freelancer. It was there in 1947 that he became the artist of the Buck Rogers newspaper strip (John Dille—the creator of Buck Rogers—based his syndicate there). He drew the strip for about two years, though he still did a few comic jobs during that time. Once he left the strip, he began working for other companies, and in 1951 he did his first work for DC. He soon became the regular artist of “Captain Comet,” and it was a Captain Comet cover for Strange Adventures #18 (Mar. 1952) that was his first published cover.
More tomorrow.
Funnyman is the book Siegel and Shuster started after leaving and suing DC. It only lasted six issues, and a là Bob Kane on Batman, most of the pencils in the book that were credited to Shuster were actually done by ghost pencilers, most notable Dick Ayers. But Shuster did pencil this cover to Funnyman #6 (Aug. 1948), inked by someone in the Shuster studio.
Shuster’s last regular work for mainstream comics was done for Charlton, where he benefited from being paired with the excellent inker Ray Osrin (remember him from those great Matt Baker covers?)—who I’m sure was doing a lot of redrawing in his inks—such as with these covers to Racket Squad #13 (Sept. 1954) and Crime and Justice #21 (Nov. 1954).
...and a dynamic, classic cover by George Perez... the man who was born just to draw this one series, with a cast of millions.
Now for a few oddities. The next cover I have is Vigilante #22...
...(cover by Tod Smith & Rick Magyar) ...which I swear – but cannot now confirm – that I saw an ad somewhere at the time that claimed this issue was a Crisis crossover. It’s not, hence the lack of a Crisis banner on the cover. However, the story does take place within that time frame, as evidenced by the wild storms and red skies within. This story is what came to be known as a ‘red sky’ story, a crossover that isn’t a crossover, a chapter that takes place at the same time as the main event, but has no direct correlation or noteworthy contribution to it. In fact, so far as I can tell, this is the original ‘red sky’ story, and is noteworthy for just that fact.
Along similar lines is Detective Comics #558...
...with a cover by Gene Colan & Dick Giordano. It’s also primarily a ‘red sky’ story, but with a little more direct connection to the main event when a bolt of anti-matter suddenly strikes down a criminal right during a confrontation, and Batman gets a phone call that leads him directly into Crisis #2.
Now we have an odd little crossover within the crossover, beginning in Blue Devil #17...
(cover by Paris Cullins & Gary Martin), passing through the Crisis and on into Omega Men #31…
(cover by Shawn McManus), with the Devil bouncing through dying parallel worlds for a few issues of his title and the Omega Men struggling to survive on a disintegrating spaceship.
Now, a couple of chronal discrepancies. DC’s band of ragtag warriors, the Losers, meet their demise in Crisis at the hands of the Anti-Monitor’s shadowmen... but when the tale is retold in The Losers Special #1...
...(cover by Joe Kubert), a different account is given, this one about a final battle where they willingly sacrifice themselves during a battle in WW II. No shadowmen. If that seemed confusing, the same type of discrepancy occurs when, in Crisis, we are shown how the Red Tornado, during a repair seesion conducted by Blue Devil, Atom, Firestorm and Firehawk, suddenly and unexpectedly blows up and destroys the remains of the JLA sattelite HQ. (Which was what caused Blue Devil to drop in on the Omega Men and bounce around parallel worlds in the first place.) The Tornado then becames an elemental.
But! In Justice League Of America Annual #3...
...(cover by Paris Cullins & Mike Machlan), we have a slightly different account in which the explosion is caused by Reddy attempting to repair himself while no one else was on the satellite!
Confusing details. Obviously there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes where writers and editors were not playing together very well and not coordinating their storylines or contributions... and some, I understand, were only doing so reluctantly. Hence the conflicting stories.
On the other hand, this could be explained within the context of the overall story as an effect of the Crisis itself, that chronal ‘burps’ were already happening causing minor rewriting of history... kind of like a skipping record.
More Crisis covers in the next post.
...(cover by Jerry Ordway) tied the Crisis, DC’s 50th anniversary, and the title’s 50th issue into a retelling of a classic JSA story: “Shanghaied Into Space!” – with some updated reconning, the JSA’s trip to the various planets of the Solar System was explained as taking place in various parallel universes, thanks to an unexpected ‘kick’ from Harbinger. This story was just one arc of a handful that Thomas juggled to play alongside the Crisis, sometimes playing up some scenes or events that had only a small mention in the Crisis mini-series.
He did the same with his other Earth-2 title, beginning with Infinity Inc #20...
...(cover by Mike Bair) following on the heels of the very last JLA-JSA team-up (of that era) which included the Infinitors. Along with adding some newer Inifinity members, Thomas took charge of guiding the Earth-2 heroes through the Crisis, exploring the changes and wreckage to their world and explaining what happened in the aftermath.
In another corner of the DCU, Swamp Thing #46...
...(cover by Stephen R Bissette & John Totleben) displays one of two direct tie-ins to the Crisis. Alan Moore was already taking the Swamp Thing through the American Gothic storyline wherein, through the questionable aid of John Constantine, he was learning the extent of his powers while he explored the psychic wreckage of the country’s supernatural side. I doubt that Moore ever had the Crisis in mind when he began his epic, but he blends his story into it rather masterfully, to the degree where he reveals that his antagonists had long anticipated the Crisis and had made their plans around it, scheming to storm heaven while the psychic wounds were still fresh. American Gothic pretty much stands on its own, but I tend to see it as part of the overall Crisis storyline and file my copies accordingly.
The last of the titles to run parallel stories is Green Lantern. Here’s Green Lantern #196...
...with a cover by Howard Chaykin, presenting, at last, Guy Gardner as a newly appointed GL with a specific mandate handed down from the Guardians. It’s not Guy’s first appearance – he was first introduced during the heyday of the Silver Age – nor is it the first time that he was a Green Lantern. But it is the beginning of a new look and surly attitude for Guy, one that helped him stick around for nearly thirty years now.
The Green Lanterns played little part during the Crisis mini-series, apart from some participation from John Stewart and some history of the Corps’ part in the creation of the multiverse, but we get full participation from Stewart, Gardner and even a ringless Hal Jordan in a sequence of issues leading up to the restructuring of the universe and the book’s 200th issue.
DC Comics Presents #95...
...(cover by Ed Hannigan & Murphy Anderson) was actually more connected to The Shadow War Of Hawkman, but took place during the opening days of the Crisis, and built up to the tensions of the apparent and imminent demise of the universe, with the Hawks flying off into what they thought might be their last adventure.
Legends Of The DC Universe: Crisis On Infinite Earths #1
Cover by Glen Orbik. This came along about a decade or so after the Crisis. Marv Wolfman comes up with a new tale that can be very neatly inserted into the original mini-series without too much effort, spotlighting the Flash (Barry Allen) during his last days just before being kidnapped by the Anti-Monitor, trying to aid the Justice League of a parallel world to save the populace of their Earth before its eaten away by the anti-matter clouds seeping into their universe.
JLA: Incarnations #5
Cover by Val Semeiks & Prentis Rollins. Part of a post-Crisis look at the high points of the JLA’s revised history, this issue had a new look at what the Crisis actually was according to that altered timeline – and Vibe saves the world. That’s right; Vibe saves the world. Plus, a second story takes a new look at the Flash’s sacrifice and his last moments alive while destroying the Anti-Monitor’s weapon. Both stories are by John Ostrander. (If you haven’t read this mini-series, then you missed a great one. I could not recommend it strongly enough.)
Deadman: Dead Again #1
Cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & Kevin Nowlan. First issue of a mini-series that temporarily revived Deadman during the 2000’s. In this issue, Deadman follows the Flash into the afterlife following that aforementioned sacrifice during the Crisis.
I've read Crisis since then of course, but I’ve never been enthralled by it as so many other DC fans seem to be. Maybe it’s because I read it years after the fact. Whatever the reason, company-wide crossovers have never held any special interest for me.
He broke into comics in 1943, working mostly for Hillman and Holyoke to begin with. His first cover was for Clue Comics #3 (Mar. 1943), which he penciled and inked (he almost always inked himself).
Yes, this is the cover (as well as the first page of the lead feature) for Air Fighters #15 (Dec. 1953).
After the war he also did some work for Fawcett, including this cover to Bulletman #16 (Fall 1946).
He was also a regular artist—interior and cover—in Buster Brown Comics for nearly half of its run.
He even took over the “Doll Man” feature for a brief time as well.
He got his first work from DC in 1948 as a regular in Gang Busters and Real Fact Comics, and his first cover for them was Gang Busters #2 (Feb.-Mar. 1948).
Once he took over the Flash Gordon daily strip, Barry’s comic book output dwindled rapidly. By 1960 he was doing practically no comic book work at all. But after he left the strip behind, he got back into it, drawing Predator and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles stories for Dark Horse among other smaller jobs.
Palmer started out in advertising in the early ’60s while going to art school. It was at one of these advertising studio jobs where he met Jack Kamen (I’ve posted about Kamen before), who was on staff there. Kamen got Palmer some extra work with Wally Wood, Wood got Palmer work with Mike Esposito (Palmer did background inking for him for a time), and Esposito hooked him up with Sol Brodsky at Marvel.
Thus it was in 1968 that Palmer did his first credited comic book work, the pencils for Dr. Strange #171, inked by Dan Adkins. With the next issue, Palmer became the regular inker of the book over Gene Colan. His first cover pencils didn’t appear at Marvel, though, but at Skywald. Palmer penciled, inked, and painted both covers for their short-lived The Crime Machine (1971) black-&-white magazine.
He later did the same for Marvel Comics Super Special #4 (1978). The interiors for this magazine, by the way, were done by Pérez and Janson.
But most of the cover penciling he did was for Star Wars.
He did do penciling and painting work for other titles though.
Sensation Comics #109 (May-June 1952).
Strange Adventures #21 (June 1952).
Sensation Comics #50 (Nov. 1954).
Mystery in Space #23 (Dec. 1954-Jan. 1955)
And Strange Adventures #96 (Sept. 1958), the last cover he penciled in the ’50s.
I'll pick up in the ’60s next time.
Lone Ranger #13 (July 1949), probably by Gollub.
Lone Ranger #42 (Dec. 1951), by Ernest Nordli.
Inspiration for the Robots of Saga perhaps? Okay, probably not.
Yes, this is actually a return appearance for the Faceless Creature, who also showed up in Strange Adventures #124 and would return yet again in Strange Adventures #153. Marv Wolfman brought him back as an entire race of Faceless Hunters in DC Comics Presents #77 in the mid-’80s and they've made a few appearances since then.
The Atomic Knights finally got a cover appearance in Strange Adventures #144.
But Giordano wasn’t long for Iger’s sweatshop. In early 1952 he was introduced to Al Fago—who was the managing editor of Charlton at the time—through one of his father’s friends from work, who happened to be Fago’s brother-in-law. After a few trial jobs, Fago gave him enough regular freelance work that he was able to quit his job with Iger, and he was not just inking, but penciling as well.
I'm not sure if this was his first cover, but if not it’s pretty close to it: Hot Rods and Racing Cars #12 from sometime in 1952 (Charlton didn't include publishing dates at that time).
A few others from the early to mid-’50s.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Giordano worked on a lot of westerns in the mid-’50s, including many featuring the “real life” cowboys like Tex Ritter, Lash LaRue, and Rocky Lane.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
Inks by Vince Alascia.
More to come.
Kind of a letdown.
Pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Stan Kaye.