568 – Time Spins Away

In “Captain Kent the Terrible!”, a story from Superman #89 (March 1954), time travel has become an effortless thing for Superman. Spinning around faster than the speed of light, he travels back into the past to investigate a story about a “Captain Kent” that the Compass, a rival newspaper, has dug up. Of course, it […]

Read More »

568 – Superboy Robots

In Adventure Comics #199 (February 1954), Superboy discovers an underground civilization of humans. Queen Vya followed the surface civilization via “sonar television”, learned of Superboy’s exploits, and then created a life-like robot with all of Superboy’s powers. Yet this civilization apparently still prefers to live underground. And the “upper world”, having learned of this civilization, […]

Read More »

567 – Superboy Grounded

In “When Superboy Couldn’t Fly!” from Superboy #32 (Feb 1954), Superboy starts to make a bunch of costly blunders when flying. The Major of Smallville serves Superboy an injunction that he must stop flying. The blunders were due to “Blimp” Beagle sabotaging Superboy’s exploits, and Superboy is able to put him behind bars. Remember way […]

Read More »

566 – Betty Betty Betsy

Oddly, all the Atlas/Marvel superheroes that were revived in 1953 happen to have girlfriends named Betty / Betsy. Someone must have loved that name – Stan Lee perhaps? Betty Wilson was introduced as a minor character for the Human Torch. Betsy Ross (no relation to the Hulk’s Betsy Ross?) used to be Golden Girl, but […]

Read More »

565 – Cap in the Army Again

After taking Captain America out of retirement, Atlas (Marvel) puts Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes back into the Army where they belong, leaving his teaching job behind in Captain America #76 (January 1954).

Read More »

564 – Batcave Origin Retcon

In Detective Comics #205 (Jan 1954), the Bat-Cave is given a revised origin in which Bruce Wayne discovers the cave only after purchasing his house. This is a pretty significant ret-con, given that most Batman origins depict that Bruce inherited the stately Wayne manor from his parents.

Read More »

563 – Slap Them Together

In the Captain America story in Young Men #26 (Dec 1953), a sneaky Kremlin secret agent calls together all the heroes in the Atlas/Marvel universe to fight the Reds, giving them the name “Champions”. By this time, DC had given up on the Justice Society of America three years ago and, apart from a Batman/Superman […]

Read More »

562 – The Vulture Returns!

The Human Torch and Toro are not the only ones who have returned from the Golden Age. One of the Golden Age villains called “The Vulture” makes an appearance. Actually it’s not clear this is the same Vulture that appeared back during World War II, since that was a Captain America villain, but nonetheless it […]

Read More »

560 – More Swan Superman

In Action Comics #189 (Dec 1953), the formidable team of Edmond Hamilton (writer) and Curt Swan (penciller) team up again – so it seems like I was wrong that Swan left DC soon after “The Mightiest Team in the World!“. The story is kind of meh, but what I love about it is the breath […]

Read More »