In Action Comics #19 (October 1939), Zatara visits a city full of gorillas with human slaves, a full generation before Planet of the Apes. Crazily enough, this is not the fabled African Gorilla City that bothers the Flash decades later but a different city of gorillas in Mexico (?!?) made by a mad scientist who […]
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In Action Comics #16 (August 1939), Zatara ventures into space and lands on the planet Saturn, where he encounters a bald, green-skinned man wearing a cape and a distinctive cross across his chest that very much resembles the Martians of the Martian Manhunter era.
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In April 1939, DC also published a 96-page one-shot, the New York World’s Fair Comics. This featured stories of several established characters like Superman and Zatara promoting the 1939 World’s Fair. This was also the first time that Superman’s vision powers were mentioned as Superman stood atop the Trylon looking for Lois Lane.
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Zatara was the second major DC character introduced in Action Comics #1 (May 1938). Unlike Superman, Zatara is more of a copy of an existing character: Mandrake the Magician. He even gains a similar mustache in the next issue. He had the ability to cast spells by saying words backwards, though sometimes he is able […]
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