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Deck Log Entry # 242 The Silver-Age Challenge---Speedsters!

 

Summer’s here, and once again, it’s time for that annual event.  No, not the yearly Justice League/Justice Society team-up.  I wish it were.  No regular comic-reading experience of the Silver Age was more eagerly awaited by me than those dual Earth

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Deck Log Entry # 240 Requiem for a Son

Eleven years ago, I wrote how my wife was a woman of steel in dealing with the death of her father.  As painful as it is, that’s the way of the world.  A child burying a parent is the natural order of things. 

 

The reverse, however, is not.  One doesn

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Deck Log Entry # 239 Happy Thanksgiving 2022!

From Cheryl and myself, to all of you, our fondest wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving Day, and many more of them!

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Deck Log Entry # 241 Merry Christmas 2022!

Next year, I'll be back to writing my usual Thanksgiving and Christmas entries, I promise.  But this time around, I'm leaving it to someone who did a far, far better job of it than I ever could---the incomparable Milt Caniff.

It's more personal this

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Deck Log Entry # 231 A Forgotten Gem: Superman # 172 (October, 1964)---Part One

"The New Superman"

 

Editor:  Mort Weisinger   Writer:  Edmond Hamilton   Art:  Curt Swan (pencils), George Klein and Sheldon Moldoff (inks)

 

 

By 1964, the Superman mythos constructed by Mort Weisinger was complete.

 

The very idea had been novel.  Before

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Deck Log Entry # 237 The Silver-Age Challenge---the Cape and Cowl Contest

When I was a lad, there were certain events you could count on happening every year, no matter what.  The annual showing of The Wizard of Oz on television.  The arrival of the Sears Wishbook in the fall.  Checking the new calendar in January to see w

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Deck Log Entry # 238 The Silver-Age Challenge---the Cape and Cowl Contest . . . Answers!

O.K., pencils down!

 

This quiz proved more challenging to you folks than I thought it would.  You see, Jeff of Earth-J’s instincts were spot-on when he said that the question about Hawkgirl’s earrings was familiar.  I had mentioned it before---but not

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Deck Log Entry # 235 Happy Thanksgiving 2021!

It was about fifteen years ago.  The last week of November was near, and the Good Mrs. Benson and her sister were bemoaning the approach of Thanksgiving.  They were, after all, the ones who were inevitably stuck with the grunt work of the holiday, th

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Deck Log Entry # 233 The Silver-Age Challenge---DC Edition IIII

"Life," said comic-strip writer Allen Saunders, "is what happens to us while we are making other plans."  (Yes, I know that line has been attributed to others, most often, John Lennon, but the January, 1957 issue of Reader's Digest credits it to Saun

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Deck Log Entry # 236 Merry Christmas 2021!

Seven years ago, I told you the story of the Christmas Truce of World War I.

 

This is the other World War I Christmas story.

 

By the time of America's entry into the Great War, A. C. Gilbert was an accomplished man by any yardstick---physician, Oly

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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 31 A Real Pal

Philip José Farmer once wrote, “It’s lonely to be a superman; it’s far more lonely to be a superboy.”

 

He was speaking of Clark “Doc” Savage, Junior, but that sentiment would have also applied to another Clark---Clark Kent. 

 

Superman, of course, had t

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Deck Log Entry # 234 The Silver-Age Challenge---DC Edition IIII . . . Answers!

Three . . . two . . . one . . . time's up!

 

Every time I put one of these quizzes together, I try to determine which question will cause you guys the most trouble.  Believe it or not, most of the time, I'm wrong.  The one I think will be the stumper y

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Deck Log Entry # 228 The Wienie-isation of Hal Jordan

By the green beam of my ring . . . I see that you are honest!  And the battery has already selected you as one born without fear!

 

Those would be decent qualities for anyone, but then Hal Jordan started out as a pretty remarkable guy, even before he p

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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 90 Death in the Silver Age---Mark Merlin, R. I. P.

If you lived in the DC universe in the 1950’s and were a greedy relative or unscrupulous lawyer trying to swindle someone out of his fortune by posing as a ghost or a space alien or a time-traveller, you didn’t stand a chance.  Not with all the DC sl

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Deck Log Entry # 229 Happy Thanksgiving 2020!

Even now, Maria would be considered a firebrand.

 

She was born in Massachusetts, to a sickly and emotionally distant mother and a stern, religiously devout father named Francis.  Mr. Francis was a successful baker, so she grew up in a solidly middle

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Deck Log Entry # 232 A Forgotten Gem: Superman # 172 (October, 1964)---Part Two

Previously, in "The New Superman":

 

After a deadly green comet robs Superman of his powers, his hand-picked successor, Ar-Val of Kandor, takes over as the New Superman.  When Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up to enact a scheme of villainy, Ar-Val refuse

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Okay, once and for all.........

...Has anyone here seen comic books, standard-sized, on sale at ANY non-comics shop in 2020. The last 6 month's obviously everything has been upturned, but in the first 3 months of 2020 and since them, has ANYONE, other than Walmart and whatever othe

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Deck Log Entry # 230 Merry Christmas 2020!

In our nearly three decades together, one area in which the Good Mrs. Benson and I still disagree is the subject of music.  I sensibly maintain that little good music has come out since, oh, 1965, and the further one gets from that year, the occurren

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Deck Log Entry # 227 The Silver-Age Challenge---the Legion of Super-Heroes Edition II . . . Answers!

I expected a Legion quiz to get a robust response, and you fellows didn't disappoint.  Lots of lively speculation on the possible right answers and, in at least two cases, answers other than the ones I intended, but had to rule them correct.  We'll g

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Deck Log Entry # 225 Dueling Scars

The first time we heard the story, it was put straightforward enough.

 

"Years ago, in my college days, there was a student named Victor von Doom, who was fascinated by sorcery and black magic.  He was a brilliant science student, but he was only inter

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