In World’s Finest #71 (May 1954), DC changes the format of its comic from a giant 68-page grab-bag of stories for only 15 cents, to a 28-page comic for only 10 cents. With the number of stories drastically reduced, DC came up with brilliant idea to take the Superman-Batman team-up story and make it the […]
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Four years after defeating and exiling U-ban, Kizo and Mala, Superman faces off again against the three evil Kryptonians in Action Comics #194 (May 1954). After their prison ship collides with an asteroid, the trio are freed and Mala decides to head to Earth to get his revenge on Jor-El’s son, Superman. Mala disguises himself […]
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In “Gorilla World!”, another intelligent ape story from Strange Adventures #45 (April 1954), Otto Binder and Carmine Infantino introduce us to a parallel world where gorillas evolved into the dominant, intelligent species and man did not. Scientists from the Gorilla World pluck a couple from our Earth into theirs and then keep them in cages, […]
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Atlas (Marvel) make the unusual move to turn Namor and Namora back into outsiders / antiheroes again in Men’s Adventures #28 (March 1954). After thwarting a commie plot, the red convinces a “yank” that Namor was responsible for the invasion. Namor and Namora plunge into the sea before they can be seized and Namor swears […]
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In “The Talking Tiara!”, a story from Wonder Woman #66 (March 1954), we get the origin story for Wonder Woman’s tiara. The tiara apparently gives Wonder Woman the ability to understand and speak any language she wants. She tells the story to Steve Trevor about how she won the tiara by battling a dinosaur, a […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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).
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