818 – Green Lantern in the Future

Green Lantern is whisked away into the year 5700AD to help the “Solarians” with some menace in Green Lantern #8 (July 1961). They do this by swapping his 20th century memories out and hypnotizing Hal Jordan into believe he is Pol Manning, famed asteroid explorer of the 58th century. It’s a neat little trick that […]

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817 – Lesla-Lar’s Evil Plot Thickens

Speaking of Machiavellianism, the long-running Supergirl story arc continues, as a de-powered Linda Lee, having recently been adopted by the Danvers, goes on a school field trip to visit Metropolis’ Daily Planet. There, she meets up with her cousin Clark Kent – I really like the way they depict Clark here, very casual without a […]

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816 – Dev-Em’s Revenge

We first met the super-brat Dev-Em last month and Adventure #288 (July 1961) is the conclusion to this tale. Having arrived on Earth, Dev-Em lures Superboy into his suspended animation vehicle where he imprisons Superboy in the Phantom Zone. Dev-Em then crafts a mask to resemble Superboy and goes about committing horrific deeds, like destroying […]

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815 – The Silver Age Atom

Though DC just introduced the concept of the multiverse, Gardner Fox didn’t stop reinterpreting Golden Age characters in the Silver Age: The Atom debuts in Showcase #34 (July 1961). Ray Palmer is a graduate student and fellowship physicist who seeks to shrink matter via using white dwarf star material. He has a girlfriend named Jean […]

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814 – Flash of Two Worlds

Flash Comics #123 (July 1961) has the official birth of the DC multiverse in the landmark story “Flash of Two Worlds”. After super-speed vibrating during a show for charity, Barry Allen’s Silver Age Flash finds himself in a similar-but-different world, where Central City is replaced by Keystone City. Remembering that Jay Garrick, the “fictional” inspiration […]

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812 – Secret Origins!

In June 1961, DC published a super-collection of many superhero origin stories entitled Secret Origins, a one-shot. I’m a sucker for origin stories and I really liked the 1986+ series of the same name, which helped solidify DC’s continuity in a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths timeline. But back in the 1960s, there was no really […]

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811 – Dev-Em

Adventure Comics #287 (June 1961) introduces the story of Dev-Em, a super-bratty teenager who lived on Krypton and used to babysit Kal-El. Dev-Em has a habit of getting into trouble by stealing technology and inventions from the Jor-El’s laboratory. When he discovers Jor-El’s prediction of the end of Krypton, he steals technology to build himself […]

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810 – The Young and the Restless Lesla-Lar

Action Comics #279 (June 1961) continues the multi-issue Supergirl story arc started last month, where we learn that Supergirl lost her powers due to an evil, jealous, genius inventor named Lesla-Lar who lives inside the bottled city of Kandor and happens to look exactly like Supergirl. Meanwhile, a de-powered Linda Lee tries to make the […]

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809 – Legion of Super-Villains and Luthor

No less than 7 months earlier, DC foreshadowed the Legion of Super-Villains and now we get their first appearance of the LSV in Superman #147 (June 1961). In prison, Luthor offers to repair other inmate’s radios, cobbling together a super-scientific device that can project his voice into the future for this hypothesized evil Legion to […]

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