Friday, February 5, 2016
Making a Splash: DC Comics 40 Years Ago This Month: February 1976
Let's truck on back to the Bi-Centennial to see what DC was offering for February, Groove-ophiles! It might have been winter, but DC was heating things up with some cool stuff like Keith Giffen and Wally wood on the JSA in All-Star Comics, Mike Grell on Green Lantern in the back of Flash, Jim Aparo on Aquaman in Adventure Comics, and hey, there's some "new" stuff like Freedom Fighters, Karate Kid, and Secret Society of Super-Villains, too! Whooooo!
Very cool post....
ReplyDeletewe have that issue of "Joker" ... great one to read... even though they had him "flesh-colored in some panels... and the "Underworld Olympics" sounded interesting...
Actually, Reggio is on the tip of the italian boot, Mr Kanigher, but OK. ;-)
ReplyDeleteGreat period, great artists, and it casually recalls me today (or so) it's 40 years since I've started reading DC's heroes. Gosh.
I remember that issue of All-Star with Power Girl's enormous boobies.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, we are talking Keith GiffIn (sic) and Wally Wood, here! Along with Chan/Chua, Grell, Kubert, Garcia-Lopez, Aparo, Staton and icons as Swan, Novick and Dillin. The art level of this highly underestimated DC phase was huge! Also, I'm amazed by the ton of work Ric Estrada was doing.
ReplyDeleteDr. Theda, I fondly remember the Underworld Olympics, as it was my first Batman saga: it had that "dark campiness" mood, typical of D.V. Reed works, which would probably sound a bit dull for today's standards, but, again, great art and good story pace. It's funny how it was almost mandatory to link storylines to main events (Olympics and Bicentennial) at the time!
Did not know that one was from issue #1 of the Secret Society of Super Villains... We have about 1/2 of those (bought them in the late 90's....)
ReplyDeleteAhhh, how I long for the days when comics were just unapologetically fun like this. So much awesomeness to choose from.
ReplyDeleteThe WWII stories... all gone now. I guess as the "post-war"generation we were willing to plunk a few coins down to read them. For what it's worth, though, there is a war comic out called Peter Panzer Faust by Image. It's worth a read and right up there with DC's war comics of the 60s and 70s imho. So, all is not lost!
ReplyDeleteI still have that issue of the Haunted Tank! Great stuff Groove!
ReplyDelete- Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.
Poor DC. This was a rough period for them. They were living in the shadow of Marvel, which had become the best-selling comic company in 1972 and was dominating the newsstands with titles such as X-Men and Conan. Additionally huge chunks of their talent kept relocating to the House of Ideas including Wein, Cockrum, Wolfman and Andru. But as these splashes testify to, they were still turning out good work. Love the Batman, All-Star and Secret Society of Super-Villain stuff.
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