788 – Bat-Girl

In Batman #139 (Feb 1961), the creators try to improve the supporting cast of the Batman “family” by adding Bat-Girl. Betty Kane, the niece of Kathy Kane, discovers her aunt is actually Bat-Woman and decides to help out with crime-fighting. Batman encourages her to train her sidekick as a stalling tactic, but it actually seems […]

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787 – Marvel Monsters: January 1961

Atlas/Marvel’s latest batch of wacko giant monsters in January 1961 features Gruto, Grogg, Gorgilla and Metallo. Someone needs to fix the ‘G’ key on Stan Lee’s typewriter, it seems to be sticking! Metallo is a proto-Iron Man story. The army has produced an impenetrable metal suit about twice the size of a man. An escaped […]

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786 – New Legionnaire: Star Boy

After all that deeper thinking about character motivation, it’s time for something light-hearted and fun: a new Legionnaire is introduced in Adventure Comics #282 (Jan 1961): Star Boy! Lana wants to make Superboy jealous, so she eavesdrops as a new teen superhero arrives from the future to meet Superboy. She learns the teen’s identity is […]

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785 – The Reversed Super-Powers!

We have had many stories before about Lois becoming “Super Woman“, usually done to explore some aspect of the love triangle between Superman-Lois-Clark, and Action Comics #274 (Jan 1961) is certainly no exception. This time it’s exploring whether Lois loves Superman for who he is, or because of his amazing abilities and his fame. Lois […]

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784 – Hector Hammond

Green Lantern #5 (Jan 1961) introduces a new villain for GL in Hector Hammond. In this first tale, Hector has found a meteorite and secretly kidnapped and exposed four scientists to its radiation, forcing them to mutate and evolve along future lines of the human race. This involves giant craniums, feeble willpower, and the ability […]

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783 – Sue Dibny

By the Elongated Man’s third story in Flash #119 (January 1961), the writers had decided to marry Ralph Dibny to debutante Sue Dearbon, making him the second DC super-hero to be married (Hawkman/Hawkgirl being the first). On their honeymoon they run into a strange underwater world and Sue calls for help from the Flash. I […]

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