It’s that time again – that time when DC wants to give one of their newer heroes a readership boost by adding them to the Justice League, just like they added Green Arrow in 1961. In Justice League of America #14 (July 1962), the entire team (including Batman and Superman in absentia) votes unanimously for […]
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In Action Comics #292 (July 1962), Luthor is given center stage in a Superman story. He pretends he’s gone insane, and then tricks a guard to escape from prison. He then blasts off from Earth using a rocket with “radium powered motors” to escape into space. When did he figure all this out? His star […]
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Hank Pym returns in Tales to Astonish #35 (June 1962) as an official superhero: Ant Man! This time around the scientist has invented a now-recognizable superhero suit, a cybernetic helmet and some powers beyond “shrinking to the size of an ant”. However, at the same time, the government has given Dr. Pym an assignment: Invent […]
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In Fantastic Four #6 (June 1962), while we get some light-hearted ribbing of the Thing by Johnny Storm about his Yancy Street Gang hate mail, we also get a nice cross-section view of the finally-named Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four headquarters. This headquarters “cutout” far out-classes the old cross-section view of the Bat-Cave from 1942. […]
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Spider-Man wasn’t the only Marvel hero getting started this month. In fact June 1962 was a big month for Marvel on the newsstand with The Mighty Thor debuting in Journey into Mystery #83. I can’t call this one a great origin story, it’s on the lame side (heh heh). Frail, handicapped Doctor Donald Blake is […]
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My favorite Marvel character finally makes his debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 (June 1962): Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man! Like Superman and Batman, we pretty much all know the origin story, but it’s still so much fun to show some of that old Steve Ditko art. After getting bit by a radioactive spider, high school […]
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Adventure Comics #299 (June 1962) has the imaginary tale “The Unwanted Superbaby!”, in which authorities discover baby Kal-El has super-powers before the Kents can adopt him. The result is that Kal-El grows up resentful of Earth people, who only take advantage of him and mis-trust him. Eventually he leaves Earth, despite thinking wistfully back towards […]
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In Incredible Hulk #2 (May 1962), we get a quick re-telling of the Hulk’s origin… saves Rick Jones, dose of gamma radiation, upon nightfall turns in Mr. Hyde… with the never-explained change from grey-skinned to green-skinned. Bruce and Rick proceed to build an underground bunker for the Hulk to spend his quiet evenings, with 10-ft […]
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The blog post title contains the spoiler, but Ultra-Boy is a pretty well-known character in Legion lore these days that it’s hardly that much of a spoiler. A mysterious super-powered teen shows up in Smallville to uncover Superboy’s secret identity, accompanied by a stern, elderly man dressed in similar clothes. We get some cat-and-mouse where […]
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In another outing of the Metal Men, chemical scientist Ramsey Norton dumps his failed chemical experiments into a plastic, human-shaped vessel, which he names Chemo. Somehow Chemo gains some form of sentience, animates the plastic vessel, grows to a gigantic size, and starts on a rampage, to topple buildings and proving impervious to police bullets. […]
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