Luke Blanchard brought up some interesting ideas in the "Silver Age Superman" thread, and I didn't want to thread-jack it. So I'm following up on his ideas in this thread.
Luke said:
DC's line was shaken up coming into the 1960s in multiple ways. It dropped its licensed police/crime titles, Rex the Wonder Dog, and its Westerns. Features were introduced into the War comics, and "Mark Merlin" into House of Secrets. SF features were launched ("Challengers of the Unknown." "Adam Strange," "Space Ranger," "Atomic Knights." etc.)
The new superhero features overseen by Julie Schwartz made extensive use of science fiction. Batman's and Tomahawk's features began to make very extensive use of fantastic elements. The Silver Age Superman Family was paralleled in the Bat-books by the Batman Family.
After Quality ceased publishing DC briefly had a monopoly on superheroes, but they were only part of its line. As DC expanded its superhero line other companies tried them again, but DC didn't face substantial competition in that area before Marvel's new superhero line took off.
On the Super-books there were changes in personnel. Judging by the GCD's credits, Alvin Schwartz left the books at the end of the 1950s. Otto Binder helped initiate the Silver Age approach but was busy for a period editing a magazine in the early 1960s. Bill Finger wrote less for the the Super-books in the 1960s than previously. Jerry Coleman died in 1962.
Jerry Siegel returned to DC in 1959. I don't think he initiated the Super-books' increasing humor: one already finds in the Lois try-out in Showcase #10 (1957) the line "And my cottage ... all my furniture ... wrecked! I -- I see that matrimonial trickery does not pay!" But he was often goofy and may have helped drive the trend. He and the other writers seem to have enjoyed building on each others' work, and making fun of the franchise's tropes. Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane lent themselves to this humorous approach.
Swan had been working for Weisinger for a while before he began to regularly draw Superman. He was the initial artist on the version of the "Tommy Tomorrow" feature in Action Comics, and the initial artist on Jimmy Olsen. He was the artist on the Superman newspaper strip from 1956-1960. When he became the lead artist on the comic book feature Wayne Boring replaced him on the newspaper strip.
There's a lot of food for thought here.
The first question I have is: Do we know if the changes in the early Silver Age -- let's call it 1958-61 -- were due to individual editors making decisions to beef up sales in their editorial group, or was it a company-wide mandate from on high that, say, all anthologies were to introduce ongoing features?
Also, did Jack Liebowitz or somebody put out a kill order on Westerns and licensed titles?
And why did SF become so prominent? (I'm guessing the space program.)
You mention that Batman changes mirrored the Superman changes, Luke, and that makes sense (since the Superman group included DC's best-selling titles). I think the editor of the Bat-books was Jack Schiff at the time. So I want to know if he introduced Bat-Woman, Bat-Girl, Ace the Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, et al, on his own initiative, or was he ordered to do so?
And science fiction in the Bat-titles, same question.
As for other changes in the late 1950s, there were indeed a lot of them at the same time. Which is the sort of thing that's easy for even old hands like me to miss, as we tend to read titles or characters from Ye Olden Times in isolation from each other. That's why I love the Marvel omnibuses that have collected a given month in 1961, 1962 and (coming up) 1963. That way you can see what a publisher was up to at a given moment in time company-wide, and infer what happened between omnibuses. That provides context, and suggests trends and editorial decisions.
So now you've got me hooked, Luke! I wanna know! Editorial mandate, or individual decisions? Why SF? And did all this stuff happen at once, or does it just look that way from the compressed perspective of the present?
Hopefully some regular reader of Alter Ego or something can help out with direct evidence. In the meantime, all I can do is research the elements in question and see what they suggest.
First, I looked at cancellation dates for DC Westerns and licensed titles prior to 1965 (Note: There's some overlap):
WESTERN TITLE CANCELLATIONS
- Romance Trail (1950)
- Annie Oakley (1952)
- Dale Evans (1952)
- Jimmy Wakely (1952)
- Frontier Fighters (1956)
- Hopalong Cassidy (1959)
- All-Star Western (1961)
- Western Comics (1961)
The closest to an extinction event is 1952, when three titles -- and the only two headlined by a women -- were axed. Or maybe 1961, when the last two DC Westerns (outside of Tomahawk) were canceled. This doesn't suggest anything to me yet. Especially licensed titles, which, presumably, would have different licenses of varying lengths, none of which I know.
As noted, Tomahawk continued, until 1972. DC didn't have any other Western titles until the short-lived Bat Lash in 1968. The publisher seemed to test the waters for Westerns again in the early 1970s with some new titles (albeit most of them reprint), including All-Star Western (vol. 2, 1970), Johnny Thunder (1973), Trigger Twins (1973) and Weird Western (1972).
Weird Western gave us Jonah Hex, of course, which has kept DC's toe in the Western waters off and on ever since. They've occasionally attempted other Westerns in an uncoordinated way, including Vigilante: City Lights, Prairie Justice (1995), The Kents (1997), El Diablo (Vol. 2, 2001), Weird Western (Vol. 2, 2001), Cinammon (2003), Loveless (2005), Scalped (2007), Bat Lash (Vol. 2, 2008) and All-Star Western (Vol. 3, 2011).
Anyway, can we infer that DC made a decision to kill off its vestigial Western line in 1958-61?
LICENSED TITLE CANCELLATIONS
- Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (1950)
- Dale Evans (1952)
- Big Town (1958)
- Jackie Gleason and the Honeymooners (1958)
- Mutt & Jeff (1958)
- New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1959)
- Flippity and Flop (1959)
- Gang Busters (1959)
- Mr. District Attorney (1959)
- Real Screen Comics>TV Screen Cartoons (1961)
- A Date with Judy (1960)
- Sgt. Bilko (1960)
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1961)
- The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1964)
- Adventures of Bob Hope (1968)
- Bomba the Jungle Boy (1968)
- The Fox and The Crow (1968)
- Captain Action (1969)
- Adventures of Jerry Lewis (1971)
- Hot Wheels (1971)
This list gives us a lot more data points, and therefore a lot more latitude for speculation. It does seem like there's something very much like intent in 1958-59, when seven licensed books expired (including all three licensed "crime" books -- which you mentioned, Luke, and I put in bold). That does look like some sort of editorial decision. Adding that 3 of 4 Westerns got axed in 1958-61, we may be on to something.
There's another extinction event in 1968, with three more books. One wonders if the decision was made then to cancel Jerry Lewis as well (along with companion title Bob Hope), but they had to spin out the license. Although it's possible that Jerry Lewis actually sold better, presumably being a more familiar name to 1960s kids than Bob Hope. (At least that was true of me and my friends, who knew Lewis from silly comedies aired on TV, but none of us had ever watched any Hope movies, which usually had romance and Bing Crosby and singing and dancing and other boring adult stuff.)
As to adding series/characters to SF and war anthologies:
SERIES/CHARACTER INTRODUCTION IN DC WAR TITLES
- Gunner and Sarge (Our Fighting Forces, 1959)
- Sgt. Rock (Our Army at War, 1959)
- Johnny Cloud, Navajo Ace (All-American Men of War, 1960)
- War that Time Forgot (Star-Spangled War Stories, 1960)
- Haunted Tank (G.I. Combat, 1961)
- Fighting Devil-Dog (Our Fighting Forces, 1965)
- Capt. Phil Hunter (Our Fighting Forces, 1966)
- Lt. Hunter's Hellcats (Our Fighting Forces, 1967)
- Enemy Ace (Star-Spangled War Stories, 1968)
- The Losers (Our Fighting Forces, 1970)
- Unknown Soldier (Star-Spangled War Stories, 1970)
- U.S.S. Stevens (Our Army at War, 1970)
It makes sense that all these titles would try the same thing at the same time, since they were all -- AFAIK -- edited by one man, Robert Kanigher. He trotted out ongoing features in all five titles in the period we're talking about, 1958-61. Obviously some (Sgt. Rock, Haunted Tank) were more successful than others (the rest). Which would explain new features being introduced in the following years in the titles that didn't have the luck to star Sgt. Rock or Haunted Tank.
Of course, the question is: Was introducing ongoing series into war anthologies in 1958-61 Kanigher's idea, or editorial mandate? It does dovetail with the expansion of the Super- and Bat-families, and a goodly number of Western and licensed-title cancellations.
SERIES/CHARACTER INTRODUCTION IN DC SF/SUSPENSE COMICS
- Captain Comet (Strange Adventures, 1951)
- Johnny Peril (Sensation Mystery, 1952-53)
- Knights of the Galaxy (Mystery in Space, 8 appearances, 1952)
- Interplanetary Insurance Inc. (Mystery in Space, 10 appearances, 1953)
- Space Cabbie (Mystery in Space, 24 appearances, 1954)
- Space Ranger (Mystery in Space, 11 appearances, 1958)
- Adam Strange (Mystery in Space, 14 appearances, 1958)
- Mark Merlin (House of Secrets, 1959)
- Space Museum (Strange Adventures, 1959)
- Space Ranger (Tales of the Unexpected, 83 appearances, 1959)
- Atomic Knights (Strange Adventures, 1960)
- Star Hawkins (Strange Adventures, 1960)
- Star Rovers (Mystery in Space, 7 appearances, 1961)
- Eclipso (House of Secrets, 1963)
- Hawkman (Mystery in Space, 4 appearances, 1963)
- J'Onn J'Onzz, Manhunter from Mars (House of Mystery, 1964)
- Space Ranger (Mystery in Space, 11 appearances, 1964)
- Prince Ra-Man (House of Secrets, 1965)
- Animal Man (Strange Adventures, 1965)
- Ultra the Multi-Alien (Mystery in Space, 8 appearances, 1968)
- Adam Strange (Strange Adventures, 22 appearances, 1969)
This is all over the place and muddles my various theses. Probably one reason is that very few attempts at an ongoing series in the SF books actually stuck, resulting in second, third and fourth tries in the same title. I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few, and I'm aware I'm not addressing attempts at ongoing characters like Tommy Tomorrow in superhero books like World's Finest and Action Comics.
Just focusing on our suspect era, 1958-1961, we do see a spurt of ongoing series introductions in the SF titles, including Space Ranger, Adam Strange, Space Museum, Atomic Knights, Star Hawkins and Star Rovers. None of them had any legs except for Adam Strange, but it does seem like a concerted effort to find something that could at least run every issue, although not necessarily as the cover feature.
As to the suspense books, they seem oddly neglected. House of Secrets introduced the tepid Mark Merlin, who was replaced/revamped as Prince Ra-Man, but still remained boring. Eclipso arrived a couple of years before Ra-Man, and both continued until the series was discontinued (the first time) in 1966. I think whoever the editor was (George Kashdan, maybe?) was probably trying for an ongoing character, but he didn't seem to be trying very hard.
Meanwhile, House of Mystery didn't even take a stab at an ongoing lead until 1964, when the title went superhero (with Martian Manhunter, previously running as a backup in Detective Comics). That kinda pokes a hole in the editorial-mandate theory, since it simply didn't happen in House of Mystery.
Another hole-poker: DC's remaining romance titles. Many of them did introduce ongoing characters (or at least ones that appeared more than once), but not in the 1958-61 window. In fact, most repeating romance characters were pretty late to, and unsuccessful at, the party. You have:
- Wendy Winthrop, Girls' Romances #99-100 (1964)
- Penelope Potter, Secret Hearts, Young Love (1970-71)
- Bonnie Taylor, Young Romance #126-139 (1963-66)
- Page Peterson (advice columnist), Girls' Love Stories, Secret Hearts, Young Romance (1972-ish)
- Betty's Boutique, Girls' Romances (1969-71)
- The Private Diary of Mary Robin, R.N., Young Love #39-52 (1963-65)
- The Life and Loves of Lisa St. Claire, Young Love #68 and #70-78 (1968-70)
- Jewel and April Heywood from "Confessions," Girls' Love Stories #147-152 (1969-70)
- Cindy the Salesgirl, Falling in Love, Girls' Love Stories, Girls' Romances, Secret Hearts (1968-69)
- Karen Wilder Summers from "Reach for Happiness!" Secret Hearts #110-138 (1966-69)
- Melanie and Monica Winters from "20 Miles to Heartbreak," Young Love #78-79, Secret Hearts #141-142 (1970)
- April O'Day, Hollywood Starlet, Girls' Love Stories #104-113 (1964-65)
- Marian Tyler, Sandy Simms, and Chris Mason from "3 Girls -- Their Lives ... Their Loves," Heart Throbs #102-123 (1966-70)
Most of these titles lasted until the early 1970s, but the ongoing characters didn't. I suspect that it's tough to have an ongoing gal in a romance book, because she can't succeed at love, or the series is over, but the longer she fails at love, the more of a loser she looks to the target audience. Just a thought.
Still, a whole lot happened in 1958-61. Not just the stuff I've researched here, but of course Silver Age superheroes, which I do think I've read was editorial mandate (at least Schwartz's characters). So in addition to dramatic expansion of the Super- and Bat-mythologies, there's also the introduction of the new Flash (1956), Green Lantern (1959), Hawkman (1961), Atom (1961) and Justice League (1961), plus revamps/updates/new origins for Green Arrow, Aquaman and Wonder Woman in 1958.
Thoughts, anyone?
Replies
Was Rex the Wonder Dog a licensed character? I'd always thought that he was a DC original, created by Bob Kanigher and Alex Toth. There were some movies feaatuing "rex the Dog" in the 19020's, but I'm not seeing any indication that they were connected to the DC character.
You’re right. I always assumed it was a licensed property, but ii’s not. I’ll fix.
The "easy" answer as to why the emphasis on science fiction was that Julius Schwartz was well-versed in the genre since the 1940s. That combined with the space race and various science fiction movies of the 50s were reflected in the comics.
Mutt & Jeff were in All American Comics since 1940 which was strange for a licensed feature.
I know that DC were planning to continue certain licensed titles WITHOUT the licensee! Super Hip was supposed to take over Bob Hope, Stanley & His Monster The Fox & The Crow and Renfrew and Witch Craft in Jerry Lewis.
I'm puzzled by who was editing what. Before in-story credits comics often carried an editors credit in the indicia. Through most of the 1950s DC's titles had a credit to Whitney Ellsworth, but it's been my understanding the actual oversight was by Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger and so on.
Before they became full editors Murray Boltinoff and George Kashdan were Jack Schiff's assistants. Schiff nominally oversaw more titles that Weisinger or Julie Schwartz. So did he edit the lead features, and his assistants the back-up features?
Ellsworth was credited on the Bat-books to the start of 1959, when his credit was replaced by Schiff's. The profile on Mort Weisinger in Amazing World of DC Comics #7 says Weisinger edited "Batman" and quotes him as saying Batman was his "favourite": "and I got the book up to a circulation equal to Superman's." I have no idea in what period that was.
Martin O'Hearn notes that when Boltinoff succeeded Schiff on Tomahawk in 1962 the Rangers were introduced and the format changed. So there the formal handover had a visible result. (Mr O'Hearn credits #83 as Boltinoff's first issue; checking, I find his credit replaced Schiff's in #82.)
It seems to me DC's line wasn't all aimed at the same age. "Superman" was aimed young in the 1950s, and in the early Silver Age "Batman" was too. So were the Superman/Batman stories in World's Finest Comics. The Batman Family approach was at the same time the Batman-for-little-kids approach. There was Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, Bat-Girl.
The War comics were aimed older, and the Schwartz superhero comics were too. In the Silver Age the Superman Family titles were silly in a way likely to please the young, but the complexity of their lore and the ingenuity of and satire in the writing may have extended their appeal upwards.
Wertham had criticised "Batman" as a crime comic. DC had begun to tone the feature down long before he wrote, but it may be DC was worried it was still too much one.
DC's art policy changed in the Silver Age. In the 50s a lot of DC's output was in the Dan Barry style. In the 1960s artists increasingly got to be individual. You see this evolution in the work of Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert and Gil Kane, and how they were inked.
Further Silver Age changes:
-In Action Comics Congo Bill became Congorilla (1958); Supergirl's feature replaced "Tommy Tomorrow" (1959); "Congorilla" was moved to Adventure Comics and Action Comics went to a two-feature format (start of 1960).
-Adventure Comics went to a two-story format (late 1960); after a period in which "Congorilla" and "Aquaman" alternated, "Tales of the Bizarro World" replaced both (1961). "Aquaman" was shifted to Detective Comics.
-In Detective Comics J'onn J'onzz's existence was revealed to the world, after which he operated openly (1959); Roy Raymond's feature was replaced by Aquaman's (1961); after Aquaman started his feature was dropped from Detective and the title went to a two-feature format (1961).
FROM PHILIP
The "easy" answer as to why the emphasis on science fiction was that Julius Schwartz was well-versed in the genre since the 1940s. That combined with the space race and various science fiction movies of the 50s were reflected in the comics.
Agreed, absolutely. I expect a sci-fi sensibility in anything Schwartz dealt with in the Silver Age (or his stable of writers, like Gardner Fox and John Broome), from Adam Strange to Green Lantern to Hawkman to Justice League. But that doesn't explain Luke's line "Batman's and Tomahawk's features began to make very extensive use of fantastic elements." Neither of those features were edited by Schwartz, and they were strips where sci-fi/fantasy was out of place.
Then there's "Tommy Tomorrow," which somebody (Weisinger, I guess), thought would boost Action Comics and World's Fintest, which were otherwise superhero books. Blackhawk was a grounded strip, but like Batman and Tomahawk, was suddenly overrun with aliens and giant Aztecs in the late 1950s. Challengers of the Unknown was primarily a sci-fi book. My Greatest Adventure/Doom Patrol was chockablock with mad science.
I could also make an argument that Stan Lee was doing much the same with the Timely line, which was almost entirely comprised of sci-fi/fantasy books.
On the other hand, there were a lot of DC books that did NOT see a sudden upsurge in over-the-top SF/fantasy in the late 1950s, including the romance books and the war books.
Mutt & Jeff were in All American Comics since 1940 which was strange for a licensed feature.
It sure is unusual for a licensed property to run 28 years, but M&J isn't the only one. The Phantom, Star Wars, Star Trek, Disney ducks and mice, G.I. Joe and Tarzan could usually be found at one publisher or another for decades. Sonic the Hedgehog has been in continuous print for 30 years, first at Archie (1993-2017), and now at IDW (2018-present). There are probably others I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.
But "Mutt & Jeff" seem like the king of Golden Age licensees, for sure. To be fair, it was helped along by so many publishers going bust in the late 1940s and 1950s. Any competition for the crown would have to been at one of the few 1940s publishers that survived to the 1960s, like DC, Archie and Marvel.
Who's No. 2, you think? Popeye? Dick Tracy?
I know that DC were planning to continue certain licensed titles WITHOUT the licensee! Super Hip was supposed to take over Bob Hope, Stanley & His Monster The Fox & The Crow and Renfrew and Witch Craft in Jerry Lewis.
I did not know that! I assume the plan was to keep the numbering (and the postal permit) and change the titles, but it would be funnier if they didn't. Kids reading Fox and Crow in, say, 1970 would be wondering issue after issue if Fox was Stanley and Crow was the Monster, or vice versa.
FROM LUKE
I'm puzzled by who was editing what.
Same. And in this sort of conversation, it's important.
It seems to me DC's line wasn't all aimed at the same age.
That's another important consideration. Nor were all DC's books in the same universe. It took decades before Sgt. Rock was acknowledged in the superhero books, and vice versa. The superheroes never intruded on the romance books.
They did, however, cameo in humor books like Jerry Lewis and Inferior Five, so maybe we can assume DC felt those books were aimed at the same audience. There was definitely a silo effect at DC, split by genre (and in the superhero books, also by editor), and each editor seemed to have a clear idea of what age group their line of books was aimed at.
DC's art policy changed in the Silver Age. In the 50s a lot of DC's output was in the Dan Barry style. In the 1960s artists increasingly got to be individual.
I attributed this to the rise of Marvel. I don't remember where I read it, but DC was puzzled by Marvel's popularity, mainly because they thought the art was ugly. Someone said, "OK, if they want ugly art, we'll give them ugly art" and the Dan Barry house style began to disappear in favor of, as you say, letting the artists show their individuality.
The Li'l Capn loved the results when the new policy applied to the likes of Neal Adams, Gil Kane and Nick Cardy. Not so much, again from my tastes, when it was Jerry Grandenetti or Jack Sparling.
My point about Mutt & Jeff wasn't just about their longevity but they were a licensed feature in All American Comics, being neighbors to Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Mite and the Atom whom they outlasted!
It would be as if Dick Tracy was in Detective or Buck Rogers in Action or Peanuts in World's Finest!
I can't speak for the US, but I know that licensed Doctor Who comics have been appearing in various magazines in the UK from November 1964 (a year in to the show's initial run) down unto the present day, without any breaks that I'm aware of.
Captain Comics said:
Another thing is that science fiction concepts were added to the Batman stories way before 1958. There was always the odd sci-fi inspired tale during the 40s. But Batman met Roh Kar, the original Manhunter from Mars in Batman #78 (S'53), almost a year before he started regularly teaming with Superman (thus opening the door for more sci-fi) in World's Finest in 1954.
My point about Mutt & Jeff wasn't just about their longevity but they were a licensed feature in All American Comics, being neighbors to Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Mite and the Atom whom they outlasted!
Hrm. I can't think of another licensed strip that appeared in a non-licensed anthology off-hand. Oh, wait, Fu Manchu was in early issues of Detective. There may be more. But none that outlasted the Golden Age, like "Mutt & Jeff"!
Another thing is that science fiction concepts were added to the Batman stories way before 1958. There was always the odd sci-fi inspired tale during the 40s.
And sci-fi didn't look any prettier in Bat-comics in the '40s! I actually don't know when sci-fi became a regular thing in Bat-comics, as I am behind on my Bat-omnibuses. (Early Batman and Wonder Woman are ... not good.) It will be interesting to find out if it was before 1958, and who the editor was.
Sometimes I wonder about the popularity of sci-fi comics, particularly those involving the moon.
A few data points:
* Hergé published his couple of "... Moon" Tintin books roughly during 1952 and 1953.
* The Spirit weekly comics in newspapers ended their run in late 1952 with a Moon expedition story which did not fully conclude.
* Dick Tracy had a "moon car" period from 1963 to 1969.
I can hardly be very certain, but I assume that the 1952-1953 period resides in a sort of sweet spot. Sufficiently distanced from WW2, and not so late that thoughts of a space program must bring the URSS to mind. In a way the idea of space travel - never particularly unpopular - made a nice substitute of sorts for the promise of adventure and strange environments that were a large part of the appeal of war-connected stories. It also offered a promise of growth and achievement for humanity based on ingenuity and technology that was probably badly wanted by people with clear memories of at least one World War and a lot of taste for promises that there would not be a third one.
On the war titles and characters, I will note that Unknown Soldier has been more succesful than most, no doubt because it is a well-designed concept with a lot of scope. It works in many combinations of several genres, including gritty war, spy stories, mystery and even a hint of the supernatural. He is not too distanced from superhero-adjacent concepts either, most notably Human Target (who came a few years later). If nothing else, he is unusual and surprising in a genre that often struggles (pun unintended) on both fronts.
Thinking about Tommy Tomorrow... I assume that similar considerations about the receptivity to sci-fi apply. He was introduced in 1947 and was probably perceived as an uplifting reminder of the potential of human technology at that time. By 1958 it would carry unconfortable undertones of the Soviet Space Program and be ready to take a rest.
Finally, being born in 1969 and a young fan of The Mary Tyler Moore show I can't help but notice the name "Marian Tyler" in a similarly themed feature in Cap's last item. It is probably a coincidence, but I caught my eye.
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