In Adventure Comics #289 (Aug 1961), Superboy is amazed when Pa Kent seemingly acquires super-powers. After several mis-adventures where Super-Pa becomes increasingly evil, he unmasks “Pa Kent” as a Kryptonian criminal, Jax-Ur (making his first appearance). Superboy spares little time in sending Jax-Ur back into the Phantom Zone. The epilogue of the story explains that […]
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In Action Comics #281 (Aug 1961), the fourth installment in the long-running, multi-month story arc continues as Lesla-Lar masquerades as a recently-re-powered Supergirl. She goes with Superman to the Fortress of Solitude, while the de-powered Supergirl continues to live out her best life with amnesia in the bottled city of Kandor. While there, Krypto sniffs […]
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The Atomic Knights return in Strange Adventures #132, July 1961. The story picks up where the previous one ended: the Atomic Knights have rescued seeds and fruits from the now-sunken, time-displaced island of Atlantis after their cobalt bomb went off in present-day 1990. Got all that? The scientists in Atlantis learn they have been displaced […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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