Oh, Superman.
We’ve said it before – and another blog, Superdickery, specialized in this – but Superman is a dick.
Here’s the cover of “Jimmy Olsen” 30, which came out in August 1958. Cover art by the great Curt Swan and Stan Kaye.
In this issue, Superman adopts the cub reporter but is inexplicably mean to him, culminating in the cover scene.
Jimmy sad.
But it all works out.
How amazing is this?
How many of us have joked that it seemed unlikely that Lois Lane – not to mention Lex Luthor and everybody else in the world – wouldn’t recognize Superman just because he wore a pair of glasses as Clark Kent?
I vaguely remember a Superman comic that explained that Superman’s super-vision, when filtered through Clark’s glasses – produced a kind of Super-hypnosis that made everyone see Clark as a little old man.
Yeah, I didn’t believe that one, even as a kid.
But I had no idea that DC addressed the problem – and even early on, in February 1966 with “Lois Lane” 63.
I don’t know if the story inside is the Super-hypnosis one I’m thinking of.
Wonderful cover. And what an attitude Supes has.
Holy Moly, Miss Lane!
Here’s another in our series of odd and inappropriate comic book moments.
This one is the cover of issue 29 of “Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane,” from November 1961, and as you can see, Lois is locking lips with all of Superman’s one-time buds in the Justice League. Well, except for Wonder Woman. The world wasn’t ready for that.
The art is by Curt Swan, a classic “Superman” artist.
And what’s the story behind this cover?
According to the DC Comics Database:
Aliens capture Superman in a Kryptonite trap, and Lois Lane smuggles Red Kryptonite to him by kissing Aquaman, Batman, and Green Arrow with Red K-imprinted lipstick. The heroes smear the lipstick from their face to handkerchiefs, which Batman takes to Superman. The Man of Steel smears himself with the Red K, which makes him impervious to Kryptonite poisoning, and allows him to recover and defeat the aliens.
Well, that explains everything, huh?
Okay, which of the superheroes on the make came up with this convoluted plan?
Here’s an ad I remember even if I didn’t have the product it advertised.
The Haunted House Mystery Bank looked cool in the ad and videos I’ve seen online suggested it was indeed cool. You place a penny in a particular spot and the doors open and a ghostly figure comes out and grabs the coin.
The bank was battery operated and made of metal, but I love the ad – which appeared in comics in the 1960s – itself. The artwork is cool and primitive and the copy is appropriately breathless and jokey at the same time.
Online sources indicate this was a “Disney Haunted Mansion” bank, but I’m not sure about that. Check out that ad. No mention of Disney. You’d think they would have marketed the product with the Disney name.
That price, by the way, separated a lot of us out of the possibility of buying this bank. How many kids in the 1960s had six bucks for something from a comic book ad? How many kids had parents who would let their kid send off six bucks?
I’m pretty sure Detective Comics No. 367 is not the most rare comic book in history. But it oughta be. I’ll tell you why in a minute.
This issue of Detective came out in September 1967, during an interesting time for Batman. DC had been plugging along with the character since the Golden Age by this point, but Batman saw a revitalization after the 1966 “Batman” TV series.
By September 1967, however, the show was waning. It would hang on until the spring of 1968, when the show was gone and Batman was left to his own devices.
The comic almost always – like a lot of DC, even in the years of improbable plots – had beautiful artwork. This cover wasn’t among the best – it’s credited to longtime DCers Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson – but it was pretty unusual in that it offered a jigsaw puzzle for readers to assemble to try to figure out that issue’s villain.
Here’s my question along the lines of rare comic books: I wonder how many kids would have cut up the cover of this issue to assemble the jigsaw puzzle?
I didn’t have this issue, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to do so.
And thus would have been lost another copy.
Back with our occasional look at odd moments in comic books.
It’s easy to forget how crazy much of DC’s Silver Age was. Batman was fighting space monsters, Lois Lane was scheming to discover Superman’s identity – and marry him – and Superman was constantly falling in love with mermaids and the like.
Or getting fixed up, like in Action Comics 289, which came out in June 1962.
In a plot that could be adapted as a Kate Hudson romantic comedy, Supergirl, worried about her cousin Superman’s loneliness, keeps trying to fix him up. Potential mates include Helen of Troy and members of the far-future Legion of Superheroes.
Ultimately, Supergirl finds a perfect match for her cousin. And what the hey – she looks just like a slightly-older Supergirl!
Some feverish dreaming going on there, among fans and in the DC editorial offices.
This one doesn’t require much explanation.
Or maybe it does.
This installment of our occasional series of odd and inappropriate comic book panels comes from Batman Volume 1 Number 49, released by DC in October 1948.
The story is “Batman’s Arabian Nights,” and the action finds the Caped Crusaders up against the Joker. Kinda.
Bruce and Dick find a 1,000-year-old rug with the Joker’s face on it. To investigate, they go back in time (!) through hypnotism to ancient Baghdad and find a duplicate for the Joker … only this one sobs all the time.
Before long, Batman tickles him to make him laugh and … I kind of lost the thread of the story there.
But it’s a good panel.
Sometimes you just have to chalk it up to the indisputable silliness of the times.
Here’s the cover from World’s Finest 61, from November 1952.
According to the DC Comics database, Win Mortimer was the artist.
Anybody’s who’s read this blog knows I love Captain America.
So this is one of my favorite comic book bloopers. I first saw it in a Marvel Comics “No Prize” collection a long time ago.
From “Tales of Suspense” 92, cover dated August 1967. Also in this issue, Iron Man returns to Vietnam.
‘Nuff said.
This odd comic book moment has been bouncing around the Internet for a while now.
It still makes me laugh.
keithroysdon 