A Cover a Day

[Steve W]

Ok, how about this for an idea.  We take it in turns to post a favourite (British spelling) comic cover every day.  This went really well on the comic fan website that I used to frequent.  What we tried to do was find a theme or subject and follow that, until we all got bored with that theme.  I'd like to propose a theme of letters of the alphabet. So, for the remainder of October (only 5 days) and all of November, we post comic cover pictures associated with the letter "A".  Then in December, we post covers pertaining to the letter "B".  The association to the letter can be as tenuous as you want it to be. For example I could post a cover from "Adventure Comics" or "Amazing Spider Man".  However Spider Man covers can also be posted when we're on the letter "S".  Adventure Comic covers could also be posted when we're on the letter "L" if they depict the Legion of Super Heroes.  So, no real hard, fast rules - in fact the cleverer the interpretation of the letter, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

And it's not written in stone that we have to post a cover every day. There may be some days when no cover gets posted. There's nothing wrong with this, it just demonstrates that we all have lives to lead.

If everyone's in agreement I'd like to kick this off with one of my favourite Action Comic covers, from January 1967. Curt Swan really excelled himself here.

Date	Page/Reply	Theme (and clickable link)	Pages	Replies
Oct 2016	1/1	Letter A	19	228
Dec 2016	20/1	Letter B	17	207
Jan 2017	37/4	Letter C	18	214
Feb 2017	55/2	Letter D	17	208
Mar 2017	72/6	Letter E	15	178
Apr 2017	87/4	Letter F	15	184
May 2017	102/8	Letter G	13	157
Jun 2017	115/9	Letter H	16	195
Jul 2017	131/12	Letter I	12	133
Aug 2017	143/1	Letter J	16	194
Sep 2017	159/3	Letter K	19	237
Oct 2017	178/12	Letter L	24	285
Nov 2017	202/9	Letter M	24	280
Dec 2017	226/1	Letter N	19	236
Jan 2018	245/9	Letter O	21	245
Feb 2018	266/7	Letter P	25	295
Mar 2018	291/2	Letters Q & R	20	243
Apr 2018	311/5	Letter S	22	270
May 2018	333/11	Superman’s 80th anniversary	21	250
Jun 2018	354/9	Letter T	21	250
Jul 2018	375/7	Letter U	17	207
Aug 2018	392/10	Letter V	19	228
Sep 2018	411/10	Letter W	20	233
Oct 2018	431/3	Letter X	15	180
Nov 2018	446/3	Letter Y	13	156
Dec 2018	459/3	Letter Z	13	156
Jan 2019	472/3	Person being carried	16	190
Feb 2019	488/1	Real people	17	214
Mar 2019	505/11	Homages/parodies	19	224
Apr 2019	524/7	Green-skinned people	17	207
May 2019	541/10	Wanted posters	17	201
Jun 2019	558/7	Boxing rings	15	180
Jul 2019	573/7	Empty uniforms	15	177
Aug 2019	588/4	Beaches	25	297
Sep 2019	613/1	Apes	28	340
Oct 2019	641/5	Haunted houses/graves	21	250
Nov 2019	662/3	Motor bikes	21	254
Dec 2019	683/5	Foreign language covers	17	209
Jan 2020	700/10	Playing cards/tabletop games	23	275
Feb 2020	723/9	Valentines and Cupids	22	259
Mar 2020	745/4	Statues	21	256
Apr 2020	766/8	Elephants	22	263
May 2020	788/7	Heroes & villains cooperating	17	198
Jun 2020	805/1	The Moon	26	322
Jul 2020	831/11	Flags & patriotic symbols	18	215
Aug 2020	849/10	Foreign locations (non-US)	20	233
Sep 2020	869/3	MST3K (with commentary)	24	292
Oct 2020	893/7	Vampires and Werewolves	20	245
Nov 2020	913/12	Giants	24	286
Dec 2020	937/10	Snow & winter scenes	24	289
Jan 2021	961/11	Doppelgängers	32	377
Feb 2021	993/4	Movies	23	275
Mar 2021	1016/3	Cats/cat-themed adventurers	22	263
Apr 2021	1038/2	Dogs/dog-themed adventurers	25	305
May 2021	1063/7	Big guns/Heavy weaponry	25	302
Jun 2021	1088/9	Dinosaurs/Time Travel	28	338
Jul 2021	1116/11	Big Questions/Question Marks	28	330
Aug 2021	1144/5	Highways, Travel etc	19	232
Sep 2021	1163/9	Favourite Covers/Comics	28	330
Oct 2021	1191/3	Lineups	21	260
Nov 2021	1212/11	JSA 80th Anniversary	23	269
Dec 2021	1235/4	Logos in the action	26	317
Jan 2022	1261/9	Dynamic Duos	29	348
Feb 2022	1290/9	Romantic Scenes	26	313
Mar 2022	1316/10	Bridges	29	339
Apr 2022	1345/1	Unexpected Green	23	286
May 2022	1368/11	Neal Adams
Jun 2022		George Perez
Jul 2022		Parents
Aug 2022		Fairgrounds/Carnivals

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Sandman and the Star spangled Kid team up in Star Spangled Comics. 

[Dave Palmer]

This could have been a three of a kind.

Here we have DC’s other team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, made up of all National characters instead of a mix of DC and AA characters as was the case with the JSA.  This cover predates the similar All Star cover.


and here we have Marvel’s JSA/JLA

Richard Willis said:

Philip Portelli said:

I loved getting the DC Digests from the 80s! These two reprinted the above Superman/Batman story and the first appearance of Per Degaton. 

When I first saw the cover of The Best of DC #21 I thought "Why are they destroying the eagle sculpture?" Then I realized they were sculpting it. Since this issue reprinted the debut of Per Degaton, I figured the original cover of that story was fitting.

[Lee Houston, Junior]

Okay, my cover this time is the first half of the JLA-JSA team up that Dave Palmer posted on page 1212 at the start of November's Justice Society tribute month.

As the (pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths) years passed since the classic first meeting, DC thought they had to up the ante by bringing a third team into the mix somehow. At one point in the letter columns afterwards, a reader posed the question as to whether or not there was a Legion of Superheroes somewhere in the Justice Society/Earth 2's future.

My question is: even if it was just in another letters page, was this issue ever resolved?

(Image of the Grand Comics Database.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"My question is: was this issue ever resolved?"

It sure was. The LSH of Earth 2 was one of the Legion of Three Worlds.

And bringing it full circle, centuries before Mordru fought the LSH, he fought the JSA.

[Lee Houston, Junior]

Truthfully, I didn't think much of Mordru fighting the JSA at the time since it was post COIE and all one earth, but I totally missed most of the Final Crisis side minis so I honestly didn't know. Thanks Jeff.

[Peter Wrexham]

Dave Palmer said:

DC Special #29 (September 1977), written by Paul Levitz, gave the pre-Crisis origin of the JSA, in which Superman and Batman took part.  Post-Crisis, the two of them had never been members of the JSA, so they had to be omitted when the story was retold in Secret Origins #31 (October 1988), written by Roy Thomas.

The GCD describes the changes to the story as follows:

Although Batman was easily eliminated, Superman wasn't, because of his last minute rescue of FDR from the Valkyries' attack pre-Crisis.  As a result, FDR was killed, but the Spectre was able to return him to life with the stipulation that FDR wouldn't live long enough to see the end of World War 2, known only to the Spectre himself.  Things returned to normal, with nobody the wiser of FDR's "death" save one.

[Richard Willis]

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Green Lantern and Johnny Thunder team up in All-American Comics.

[Peter Wrexham]

I'm not familiar with JSA: Strange Adventures, but it looks like an interesting series.  According to the GCD, Johnny Thunder decides to become a pulp author, writing about the JSA, and is helped by the (real-life) SF author Jack Williamson.  The lovely painted covers are by John Watson (the cover-credited artists Barry Kitson and Gary Erskine did the interiors).

The first issue cover shows Green Lantern and Starman embroiled in combat with an appropriately pulp-SF fanged and tentacled alien monstrosity.

[Dave Palmer]

Infinity Inc. featured children of the original JSA.

However, it wasn’t the first DC series to do so.  Before Infinity Inc there was the Inferior Five, the children of Earth-12’s JSA, theFreedom Brigade.

The Freedom Brigade appeared in Showcase #65

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"I'm not familiar with JSA: Strange Adventures, but it looks like an interesting series."

I've been debating with myself whether or not to post covers from the Strange Adventures mini-series. Personally, I didn't care for it, but I can't pinpoint exactly why, exactly. Too atypical, I guess.

Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite team up in Smash Comics.

[Philip Portelli]

100 Page Super Spectacular #DC-17 (Ju'73) was the first time DC ever reprinted a Justice Society adventure! It was All Star Comics #37 (N'47), the first appearance of the Injustice Society of the World!

So it took some readers a decade to read a full JSA story! This was one I had to hunt down!