In Adventure Comics #271 (Feb 1960), Superboy meets a new kid in town: Lex Luthor. This is the first comic that uses his full name in the story (though it was mentioned in a previous letters column. Lex starts out as a really smart guy who is also a Superboy fan. He ends up saving […]
Read More »
18 years after his debut, Aquaman’s origin gets a complete re-tooling in Adventure Comics #260 (March 1959). This seems like DC wanted to bring Aquaman into the Silver Age in a big way. Aquaman is forced to reveal his origin story to a submarine commander who is testing nuclear depth charges in the ocean. The […]
Read More »
In World’s Finest #82 (March 1956), Green Arrow’s relates his origin to a reporter, explaining that he was raised in the west and that Little Otter, a childhood friend of Sioux origin, was the first one who taught him to shoot arrows. This origin tale is counter to any others presented so I would call […]
Read More »
Although it borrows elements from the story of when Roy Harper met Oliver Queen 11 years earlier, the back-story to Speedy is given some retcon attention in the Green Arrow story in Adventure Comics #209 (Dec 1954). The new story is that Roy was orphaned when his scientist father blew up their cabin in the […]
Read More »
In Detective Comics #168 (December 1950), the Batman reminisces to a college class in criminal deduction about the Red Hood, a criminal that Batman failed to catch ten years ago. In their final encounter, Batman had chased him from a playing card factory and the Red Hood dove into a vat of chemicals to escape. […]
Read More »
Wonder Woman #45 (November 1950), includes a re-telling of Wonder Woman’s origin. It describes in detail how Aphrodite awarded Queen Hippolyte a magic girdle, and how Hercules tricked her into giving up the girdle, rendering the Amazons helpless against Hercules’ army. Hippolyte makes a plea to Aphrodite, who agrees to help the Amazons this one […]
Read More »
Speaking of world-building, in Action Comics #144 (March 1950), we are flashed back to the time when Clark Kent first tried to get hired by Perry White at the Daily Planet. Years after Perry White visited Smallville High School and suggested it, Clark moves to Metropolis and tries to take Perry up on this offer […]
Read More »
In Superboy #8 (March 1950), we get a little more world-building in a story that depicts the first appearance of Super-Baby / Super-Toddler and shows where Superboy’s super-suit was inspired from. Ma Kent sews blankets from the Kryptonian rocket into play clothes and gives him a cape. Another story in the issue has Superboy tricked […]
Read More »
The final issue of Sub-Mariner Comics #23 also came out in March 1949. Like the Human Torch’s last issue, it features an origin story for the Sub-Mariner that goes much deeper into Namor’s birth, early life, than has ever been seen before. I don’t know if this was just a backup story they had lying […]
Read More »
Although Superman had built his “sanctuary” back in 1942, it was more or less a one-off story that was never explored. Superman #58 (March 1949) firmly establishes that Superman has a “fortress of solitude” and it is in the “polar wastes”. Interestingly it looks a lot like an artist’s depiction of an older European town. […]
Read More »