Comic Books

[Billy A. Anderson]

Webmaster Deeky, is the Entertainment forum the right one for a Comic Book thread?

Last night, or was it the night before last, I typed up a fairly long paragraph or two starting a new comic book thread for the new board, but today I can't find it in
my post list.

Maybe I did something wrong, and it didn't get posted?

Well, that's as far as I will go in what will be the new comic book thread for the new board, if this one does show up.

[Choconado]

I can't possibly imagine why a comic book thread wouldn't belong in the entertainment forum here.

I'm presently reading the brief mid-80s series "Hex" that DC decided to make as a dramatic change to the long lived Jonah Hex Western series following the Crisis on Infinite Earths mega event that caused many paradigm shifts in the entire company product. Suddenly Hex is transported to the mid 21st century in a plot stolen directly from the Doctor Who serial "Master of the World", wherein a time thief is stealing history's best warriors to have them fight in what they think is their own times for the entertainment of others. Hex escapes and finds himself in a world that's a cross between Mad Max dystopia, and Blade Runner futurism. He goes on plenty of adventures, and just when I thought I was getting a handle on all the strangeness, one helluva plot came about:

Some men convince Hex that his girlfriend has been killed by none other than Batman of the future, convincing him to go to New York to fight him. Future Batman meanwhile is not Bruce Wayne but a lawyer whom, after the nuclear holocaust, had his parents killed for being anti gun lobbyists and Jews by neo-nazis. He keeps his batcave inside the statue of liberty, and crusades through NYC trying to keep it gun-free. The gun lobbyists aren't too happy about this, and smuggle in 30 foot tall Terminators (they even use the name!) with laser eyes to start wrecking the city, forcing the two to team up. Oh, and in case you were wondering about the girlfriend, she's become an underground pit fighter. Like you do.

[Deeky]

Mar 20, 2018 3:14:40 GMT -5 Choconado said:

I can't possibly imagine why a comic book thread wouldn't belong in the entertainment forum here.

What if they're not entertaining? Maybe that's the real question.

[Deeky]

[Billy A. Anderson]

Well, now that we have determined that the new comic book thread is on the correct forum, I'll get down to the nitty gritty of my current comic book interests.

Many thanks to Choco for telling me about the comicsonline webpage.

I was able to fill in some of the gaps I had with Detective comics.

I went back to about 1960 or so, and forward to about 1967, when the new Bat Girl was introduced.

At that time, a second extra page of reader comments was included, with opinions about the general direction of Batman and Robin in the comic books, and on the TV show.

One division among the readers was costumed villians vs. plain villians.

For the present, I'm now going to slow down and not go any further past 1967, and my exploration of Batman and Robin in the 1950s and 1940s will progress at a slower pace.

In 1966, before Alfred was resurrected from the dead, the concept of the alternate dimension of Earth 2, was introduced, and in Earth 2 Alfred was still alive.

Some readers thought that Bill Dozier was pretty much running things, and telling Julius Schwartz, the DC Editor, what to do with the comic books.

I like the stories after the "new look" of batman and robin was introduced, although I still need to go back to the Beginning and check out more of the origins of the Dynamic Duo.

Aunt Harriet was in one World's Finest story. I also liked the direction that Green Arrow Oliver Queen took, with loosing his fortune, and also growing a beard. So far, I have not found out what happened to his sidekick Speedy, tho.

I can't remember everything I want to say, so I'll bring this one to an end by saying, that with the old Batman movie house serials available for free on the net, I think I might check them out.

I've probably said before, that all I had seen was maybe two 8mm episodes that a friend had.

[Choconado]

hoo boy do you have a lot of history for Speedy ahead of you in the next 30-40 years...

[Billy A. Anderson]

Thanks for telling me, Choco.

I have noticed that the 1967 issue of Detective with the Million Dollar Debut of the new Bat Girl sells for outrageously expensive prices by dealers.

Do you have any idea why this is?

[Choconado]

If I had to wager a guess, it's because it was the debut of the Barbara Gordon character, who is pretty popular, and has been pretty important over the years.

[Count Zero]

Yeah, first appearances of major characters tend to go for a lot, especially when they're from the Silver Age or before, and the first appearance of Barbara Gordon would definitely be one that fetches a high asking price.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Thanks for the replies, Choco and Count Zero.

Now, another question.

About the 2 alternate covers for Batman (1940 series), issue # 88, where the kid is pointing his thumb backwards, toward Batman, and saying, "Hey, that's my Pop."

I have seen an alternate cover # 88a, where The Huntress is in place of the kid, in her mask and costume, saying about Batman, "Hey that's My Pop."

Was their a different story written for that cover, at a later date?

I don't remember The Huntress, from the 1950s, and in that alternate version, she didn't really look like a 1950s comic book herionne.

When exactly was the Huntress introduced into DC Comics?

[Count Zero]

Mar 23, 2018 22:51:59 GMT -5 Billy A. Anderson said:

Thanks for the replies, Choco and Count Zero.

Now, another question.

About the 2 alternate covers for Batman (1940 series), issue # 88, where the kid is pointing his thumb backwards, toward Batman, and saying, "Hey, that's my Pop."

I have seen an alternate cover # 88a, where The Huntress is in place of the kid, in her mask and costume, saying about Batman, "Hey that's My Pop."

Was their a different story written for that cover, at a later date?

I don't remember The Huntress, from the 1950s, and in that alternate version, she didn't really look like a 1950s comic book herionne.

When exactly was the Huntress introduced into DC Comics?

The original Huntress - Helena Wayne - was introduced in 1977, in an anthology book called DC Super Stars. She was the daughter of the Golden Age versions of Batman and Catwoman - making her, at the time of her introduction, an Earth-2 character, albeit one who was introduced in the Bronze Age.

The deal with that cover is most likely that someone did a more recent homage to the Batman #88 cover. This is a pretty common practice in comics - for instance, here's a collection of cover homages from various volumes of The Flash. The actual story doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the original comic, and given the recent trend towards "iconic" covers (covers just featuring a random image of the character), doesn't really have to have anything to do with the issue it's attached to, either. My guess is somebody remembered the Batman #88 cover and, given Helena's parentage (i.e., Batman in fact is her pop), thought it would be clever to do a similar cover with Huntress.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Count Zero, thanks for the link, which I checked out, and also for your ideas on that Batman cover.

The Flash did appear in a recent comic book I was reading, probably World's Finest, or, no, now I remember, it was in an Elongated Man story in Detective Comics.

For right now, I have finished more of my heavy comic book reading, although will probably continue to buy some hard copies of the first Worlds Finest series, when the prices are good.

On readcomiconline and/or idoc.co, I think I'll read some of the earliest Batman in Detective comics, from what I've seen very crude and primitive artistically.

I do not want to overload my PC with too many comic book files, and want to get them archived to CD to prevent another computer crash such as the one I had when I put too many comic book files onto it.

Once Burned and Twice Shy. Learn from Expeience.

[Choconado]

I too mostly let other people host the media files that involve my dread pirate activities. It's just so much easier to go look on a database for a comic or a movie than to hunt down a way to download it and clog up my harddrive.

Also, I've always adored that Rogues Triumphant cover of Flash on the page Count linked.

[Count Zero]

Mar 25, 2018 9:18:09 GMT -5 Choconado said:

Also, I've always adored that Rogues Triumphant cover of Flash on the page Count linked.

That's a fantastic cover, yeah. Very Will Eisner-esque.

[Mayzshon]

[Deeky]

Same.

[Mayzshon]

Comic book related. Under the name Rod Gray, Gardener Fox wrote a series of spy porn novels called The Lady From L.U.S.T.

[Count Zero]

Mar 27, 2018 18:37:47 GMT -5 Mayzshon said:

Comic book related. Under the name Rod Gray, Gardener Fox wrote a series of spy porn novels called The Lady From L.U.S.T.

I never knew that about Gardner Fox! It's actually not particularly unheard of for writers or artists in old comics to have also done some kind of porn work - Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, drew a 16-issue S&M series in the '50s called Nights of Horror.

[Deeky]

Who hasn't done some porn work at one time or another?

[Billy A. Anderson]

My latest, occosional part time project is reading the Batman stories that started in Detective Commics 27, until . . . ? ? ?

Right now,I have read thru issue of Detective 43, and am slowly moving forward.

Batman was really a badassed character, throwing people off of buildings, supposedly to their deaths, left and right, but of course, when someone threw Batman off of a building, he always survived.

In the 1960s, readers complaiined about the science fiction elements in the stories, but Batman started off with SF and a srong dose of horror movie elements, also,l with werewolves and vampires.

I'm enjoying reading the stories, and have gotten to where Robin has joined Batman.

Can't recall where, but I think in one case,Robin's actions against a villain caused the bad guy's death. So it wasn't just Batman that was a killer.

So far no "holy" was it holy cow, Robin's trademark saying, which the TV show took to higher levels.

There was a film actor villain, with a nanme similar to Boris Karloff in one of the stories.

So far Batman, Robin and Superman have not met or even been mentioned,but, at the point I am now in my reading the Batman comic book has gotten started, and right now, I'm just sticking to Detective comics.

While the contrasts are not very good for reading the older comics,I think it is worth the effort, even tho the re-colored versions, of which I have only come across one example so far, are easier reading, there is still something gratifying about reading scans from the mouldering old unretouched originals.