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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 66 Short-Term Avenger, Long-Term Party Animal

Imagine that you’re participating in one of my “Comic Book Jeopardy!” quizzes . . . .

 

Under ‘Silver-Age Avengers Tenures’ for $50, the answer is . . . . “This hero left the Avengers only five issues after being made a member.”

 

The clock is ticking, f

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Deck Log Entry # 195 Merry Christmas 2016!

I’m going to do something different this time.

 

In past Christmas Deck Log entries, I’ve written about wondrous events that took place when people were imbued with the Christmas spirit, that feeling that transcends religion and fills one with the hear

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Deck Log Entry # 194 Happy Thanksgiving 2016!

For many of the millions of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving to-day, one thing rises above all else. Football!  Go on, admit it---there's a game going on your television set right now, isn't there?

 

Much to my late father’s chagrin, I was not, and a

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Deck Log Entry # 193 The Silver-Age Challenge---Secret Identities. Answers!

Time!

 

I always get a kick out of reading the posts in response to one of my quizzes.  I get to see the sharp headwork you fellows apply, and there’s always one or more of you who manage to dodge a snare I’ve laid down.  You’re a tough bunch to fool. 

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Deck Log Entry # 192 The Silver-Age Challenge---Secret Identities

It’s summer again, and time for the annual tradition here.  No, I don’t team up with my parallel-world counterpart to tackle a crisis.  I mean, it’s time for my annual Silver-Age trivia quiz.

 

These things are getting tougher to write.  I’ve always ha

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Deck Log Entry # 191 What's on TV in the DC Universe?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many of these DCU shows do you remember?

 

 

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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 76 The Champions (No, the OTHER Ones)

(After the Baron's thread on the Marvel Comics' Champions series wound up last month, I couldn't resist dusting off, polishing up, and re-presenting my piece on the other guys.)

 

 

 

The Champions: Craig Stirling, Sharron Macready, and Richard Barrett.

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Deck Log Entry # 183 The Silver-Age Challenge---So, You Think You Know the Batman?

The summer-quiz bug bit me again, gang, although I have to admit, the season almost got by me.  I got the idea for a couple of really good questions early in the year, but it took me several months to fill out my card.  By then, I had to finish my tw

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Deck Log Entry # 190 A Forgotten Gem: Fantastic Four # 39-40 (Jun. and Jul., 1965) (Part Two)

“The Battle of the Baxter Building”

 

Editor and writer: Stan Lee   Art: Jack Kirby (pencils), Vince Colletta (inks)

 

 

The first half of this forgotten gem left off with the individual members of the Fantastic Four---now powerless from the effects of th

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Deck Log Entry # 189 A Forgotten Gem: Fantastic Four # 39-40 (Jun. and Jul., 1965) (Part One)

“A Blind Man Shall Lead Them”

 

Editor and writer: Stan Lee   Art: Jack Kirby (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)

 

 

Scholars of the comic Fantastic Four mark 1965 as a watershed year in the series’ history.  Up to that year, the adventures of the title’s st

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Deck Log Entry # 187 Merry Christmas 2015!

This is the story of a Christmas present given in faith that it would be delivered fifteen years later.

 

Yeah, I’ve been rummaging through the dustbin of America’s cultural memory, again.  It’s surprising how much of our way of life and the freedoms w

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Deck Log Entry # 188 The Cop and the Cowl

Before the holiday break, I had been talking about Aunt Harriet, the character introduced in 1964 by newly appointed Batman editor Julius Schwartz.  The idea was to deflect accusations, first suggested by psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, that Bruce Way

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Deck Log Entry # 186 Happy Thanksgiving 2015!

It’s that time of the year, again.

 

The season when the cable stations fill their time slots with holiday-themed films.  The old black-and-white classics and the modern Technicolor wanna-bes.  Usually leading off the seasonal schedule is the appropria

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Deck Log Entry # 185 The Trouble with Harriet

Raise your hand if you believe that the character of Aunt Harriet was created by the producers of the Batman television series, which ran from 1966 to 1968.  The folks who frequent the Captain Comics site are, by and large, a comics-savvy bunch.  Yet

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Deck Log Entry # 181 Mysteries of the Silver Age (Part One)

Those of you with long memories and an interest in such a thing will remember Jeff of Earth-J’s thread on the television soap opera Dark Shadows.  Jeff introduced it in 2010 and it picked up a good head of steam, running strong for years.  Even five

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Deck Log Entry # 184 The Silver-Age Challenge---So, You Think You Know the Batman? Answers!

Three . . . two . . . one.

 

Step back.  Hands in the air.

 

Wow!  Lots of comments on this one.   I love that.  Philip Portelli had posted his answers so fast---I mean, he’s usually fast, but this time, it was almost like he had been looking over my sho

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Deck Log Entry # 182 Mysteries of the Silver Age (Part Two)

Welcome back!  We’ve been talking about unusual deviations that appeared in Silver-Age comics without an explanation---at least, not from an authoritative source.  Last time out, we discussed the curious case of the adult Robin’s first costume, which

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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 45 The Short Death of Red Ryan (Part Three)

Red Ryan, loyal buddy of a million adventures, is dead!  Sacrificed for a world that will not long remember him!

 

Challengers of the Unknown editor Murray Boltinoff and writer Arnold Drake had delivered a stunning blow to their readers.  They killed o

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From the Archives: Deck Log Entry # 44 The Short Death of Red Ryan (Part Two)

Murray Boltinoff was going to kill off one of the Challengers of the Unknown.  And Red Ryan was the Chall who had drawn the short straw.

 

As Boltinoff would discuss in subsequent letter columns, killing off one of the Challengers had been discussed fo

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Deck Log Entry # 178 Merry Christmas 2014!

It’d only been five months and already it was the ugliest war in history to that point.

 

Soldiers hunkered down in trenches a football field apart from each other.  Between them was open ground where men were chopped to bits by machine guns, repeating

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