I'm starting this thread for the little things that I've discovered while re-reading my old books. This will probably be trivia of the most trivial nature but it is what it is!
Today I picked out TWO things from Detective Comics #446 (Ap'75):
1) In the lead BATMAN story which is the third part of the "Bat-Murderer" arc, the Dark Knight sneaks into the police morgue disguised as an elderly janitor, a trick that he learned from THE SHADOW who did the same thing. Sadly I don't have an image of that page but there is a small headshot of the Shadow included. Now in 1975, DC was publishing The Shadow comic book and Batman met his predecessor in two issues of his own title, Batman #253 (N'73) and #259 (D'74) so the reference makes sense.
But when the story was reprinted in the digest Best of DC #9 (F'81), the panel and reference were left intact despite DC no longer having the rights to the Shadow (at that time). I found that a bit surprising. However the much later Tales of the Batman: Len Wein and Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 3 also have the panel intact! The oddest thing is that the two Batman/Shadow team-ups were NEVER reprinted!
While this issue was by no means a third Batman/Shadow pairing, it did make me regret that we never saw the two in Brave & Bold! So we're bereft of a Jim Aparo Shadow rendering and whatever weird story Bob Haney could have come up with!
Small observation: this chapter in the "Bat-Murderer" story could have been dropped as it did not move the plot along much as it focused on the debut of the rather pedestrian Sterling Silversmith and his bizarre motivation. He was hoarding silver in case the world switched from the gold standard to a silver one!
2) There was also a HAWKMAN back-up feature. The Winged Wonder just returned to Earth after a lengthy absence in Justice League of America #117 (Ap'75). According to the GCD, that issue came out at the beginning of January while Detective #446 came out at the end of January, which one must admit a quick transition. It's not so amazing though since Julius Schwartz was the editor of both books and E. Nelson Bridwell was the writer of the Hawkman story and the associate editor of both books!
The strange thing is that the story showed us Shayera Hol/Shiera Hall/Hawkgirl back on Earth still recovering from the Equalizer Plague with a footnote referencing her return in JLA #119 (Ju'75), a book that would not be published for TWO MONTHS! Thus readers of Detective were given a spoiler for JLA!
More to follow!
Replies
Here's another...
For about 10 years (starting in 1991), the "Superman" family of titles was part of what has since become known as the "Triangle Era," in which a sequential number inside a small triangle on the cover indicate in which order the various series should be read. Eventually the triangle was replaced by an "S" shield, which made much more sense to me. In his introduction to "The Triangle era Omnibus," Mike Carlin reveals that that had been his plan all along. "I was told that we shouldn't 'dilute' the S-shield's trade-marked Diamond Shape by using it without an 'S'." [This dictum came from DC's legal department, apparently.] "It ultimately did morph into the original S-shield-shaped idea, not sure what changed legally, but I wasn't gonna argue..."
This was something that surprised me! I knew about how close the first appearance of Man-Thing, Savage Tales #1 (My'71) was to Swamp Thing's debut in House Of Secrets #92 (Jl'71) but the tone, style and time periods of the two stories could make you think that they were thought up seperately.
What I didn't know that Man-Thing's second appearance was with Ka-Zar in Astonishing Tales #12-13 (Ju-Au'72). (I always thought his Fear series came first!) Here they give us an edited version of what would have been Manny's episode for Savage Tales #2 and it was drawn by Neal Adams and written by LEN WEIN, Swampy's co-creator! It may have even been written around the same time as HoS #92!
Another tidbit: not only were their debuts close together, so were their solo books as Fear #10 (O'72) was one month before Swamp Thing #1 (N'72)!
From Skywald September 1971
That was a different Heap than the Golden Age one, IIRC.
And the Glob was Roy Thomas' tribute to the Heap. Actually I'm surprised that the Glob didn't get his own series or solo story!
He did get a couple of return appearances, however, starting with...
Later, when Len Wein was writing Incredible Hulk, he had a plan to reunite with Berni Wrightson to do Man-Thing, but Wrightson's schedule didn't allow it.
Wrightson was able to do the cover, though.
By the way, for a discussion of Skywald's The Heap, see HERE.
While checking the dates to see how fast Man-Wolf got his own series, I was shocked to "discover" that MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE got his series six months earlier in FEAR #20 (F'74), which wasn't the shocking part but that GIANT-SIZE SUPER-HEROES #1 (Ju'74) came out afterwards, making Morbius the villain of one book while he was the hero of another!
Morbius also had an ongoing feature in Vampire Tales at the same time.
That issue of Giant-Size Super-Heroes was my first exposure to both characters.
Roy Thomas had this to say about the behind-the-scenes origin of Morbius in his introduction to Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man v11: "Gil Kane and I wanted to have Spidey meet the #1 bloodsucker of all time, Dracula--who wasn't yet a Marvel character, not had the possibility that he ever might become one yet probably occurred even to Stan. The Man, however, nixed the notion of using dracula; he wanted this initial vampire to be more of a 'super-villain.' So Gil and I came up with Morbius." Thomas goes on to describe other aspects of Morbius's creation in quite some detail, such as he was inspired by a 1957 b&w B movie titled The Vampire, and probably got the name, subconsciously, from The Forbidden Planet.
Gerry Conway's introduction to Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man v13 is almost entirely about the death of Gwen Stacy. The closest he comes to even mentioning Man-Wolf is this: "There are other tales in this volume with stories behind them." Soon after his appearance in Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1, Man-Wolf spun off into his own series in Creatures on the Loose (#30-37), which was just starting to get good when it was cancelled. The conclusion was presented in Marvel Premiere #45-46.
Morbius's series in Fear (#20-31) suffered from a total lack of writer/editor continuity. Furthermore, it tried to do too many things at once, vacillating between the occult, science fiction, detective and fantasy genres.
Reposting my comment from the What Comic Books Have You Read Today thread:
Before the Code was liberalized to allow for Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night (supernatural monsters beyond just ghosts), Man-Wolf and Morbius were watered-down “scientific” versions that could get past the Code. I never cared for either of them.
I don’t understand why neither introduction talked about the Code.
Blackhawk #56 appeared just two months before Airboy (v9) #11.
Another example (Doom Patrol/X-Men, Swamp Thing/Man-Thing) of parallel comics development?
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