Anniversary Countdown #34: Italian job

The year 2025 will mark two big personal comic-related milestones.
It will be the fifth anniversary of the first review on the site, but it will also by my 35th anniversary as a regular comic book reader.
Emphasis on “regular”: my introduction to superhero comics were actually a bunch of older comics laying around in the house.
I have no clue how they ended up there: nearly all of them date from before I was even born, or even before my older brother was born. I know the origin of one of them, but for the others even my parents have no idea where they came from.

So in celebration of the site’s anniversary, and because they give me the chance to talk about characters and eras that I rarely touch otherwise… for the next 33 weeks, every Saturday I’ll be reviewing one of them… until we get to the comic that made me a regular reader.
But these comics need some introduction first.

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As I’ve mentioned several times across the reviews, I’m from Italy. And while at this point the vast, VAST majority of superhero comics I’ve read in my life have been the original English version, naturally I started with the Italian translations.
This is an English-speaking site so of course I will actually be reviewing their English counterparts, but I’m pretty sure that nearly all my readers are American.

So before I get to the actual reviews, you need to know three things about how superhero comics have been published in Italy for decades.
Well, you don’t really NEED to know any of this to follow the retrospective, but you might have noticed I like to talk about comics anyway.

#1: The same issue contains more than one story. The standard is generally having 3 stories per issue; it can be more or it can be less, but 1 story per issue is almost unheard of (unless it’s an especially long story).

#2: It’s unusual for the same comic to have multiple stories from the same original series, and it’s VERY common to have series from different years. As an example: the very first Italian translation of Spider-Man (published in 1970) featured both his first story from 1962, but also Doctor Strange #169 from 1968.

#3: The publishing history of superhero comics in Italy is AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE TO FOLLOW. What do I mean by that? Well…

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DC COMICS

Let’s start with the one that will have the least impact on the countdown because I owned just 3 comics with DC characters before I became a regular reader.
As of 2024 the publishing rights of DC Comics in Italy have gone through nearly TWENTY PUBLISHERS.

1-5) Pre-war days

The first Italian translation of a DC Comic goes waaaaay back: it’s from publisher “Edizioni Juventus“, and it’s one of the Superman newspaper strips.
It was published on issue 19 of “Gli Albi dell’Audacia” (roughly “The Books of Audacity”) all the way back in July 1939.
Other strips were later published by SAEV-Vecchi, Casa Editrice Vittoria and Società Editrice Cremona Nuova.
Well it’s a Superman strip, but here it’s Ciclone L’Uomo D’Acciaio (“Cyclone the Man of Steel”), and instead of being the son of Jor-El and Lara he’s the son of Aldebaran and Liama.
Get used to extreme liberties when translating names, it’s going to be a theme.

6) Early post-war days (1945-1947)

There were no Superman comics published in Italy between 1940 and 1945, for obvious reasons.
DC Comics returns to Italy thanks to Casa Editrice Milano, that publishes the anthology book Collezione Uomo Mascherato (“Masked Man Collection”, from the Italian name of the Phantom).
Unusually for Italian reprints, these were one-story books. And since they were from the Golden Age, they were mostly 8 pages.
This is also a huge mess: the stories are no longer from newspaper strips but they’re from the original comics… but often they’re actually translations of the French reprints (!!!), many panels are altered, and many names are unrecognizable.
Batman shows up as either Fantasma (“Ghost”) or Ala D’Acciaio (“Wing of Steel”).
Superman is at least more consistent: he’s first Uomo D’Acciaio (“Man of Steel”) and then Superuomo (the literal translation of “Superman”, but otherwise unheard of for the character).

7) Mondadori years (1954-1970)

This is pretty much the “Golden Age of DC Comics in Italy”, thanks to Mondadori publisher.
These are the years of the anthology Albi Del Falco (roughly “Books Of The Hawk”), which publishes stories from all over the DC universe from 1954 to 1970, for a staggering 574 bi-weekly issues.
While a very important period from a historical perspective, this is an infamous era for Italian superhero fans because this is THE era of absurd name changes.

Easily the worst offender is Superman himself, who is renamed Nembo Kid!!!
There is an urban legend that this was done to avoid comparisons between Superman and Nietzsche’s Uber-Mensch (yes, really)… but the REAL reason was apparently an attempt to pay lower publishing rights. No idea on whether it worked.
In addition to making no sense, it’s absurd: Nembo is a relatively old-fashioned Italian word for “Cloud”, and Kid is not an Italian word. So Superman is essentially called “Cloud Kid” for no reason!!!

Batman is called Pipistrello (literally “Bat”) for a couple of stories before he consistently gets to keep his actual name. But he received an awful recoloring for YEARS.

Supergirl shows up as “Nembo Star”. So we’re not even pretending to translate here.

The Legion makes its first appearance in July 1960, with the translation of Adventure Comics #267 from December 1959. They’re actually the first super-team to be published in Italy!
For some reason, under the name Legione Degli Ultra-Eroi (“Legion of Ultra-Heroes”), and their stories are published completely out of order: their first story won’t be published until 1962.
Sadly they rarely get the cover.

As if all those changes weren’t bad enough… Mondadori had its own version of the Comics Code, the Garanzia Morale (“Moral Warranty”) marking.
And yes, they managed to censor stories that were already Comics Code approved.

Superman eventually got to keep his actual name instead of Nembo Kid, and Batman regained his actual colors following the success of his 1966 TV series.

All this mess… stories out of order, heavily censored and modified from the originals… seriously contributed to DC comics having a bad name, and sales dropped.
Mondadori stopped publishing DC comics in 1970, ONE MONTH before Marvel characters were regularly published in Italy for the first time!

8) Williams (1971-1974)

This is easily the lowest point of DC publishing history in Italy.
Williams Intereuropa gets the publishing rights, and publishes several bi-weekly series.
Unlike the vast majority of the Mondadori books, Williams has fully colored issues… but they’re all re-colored from scratch!!! They’re pretty rare to find: I have never seen one in person, but apparently the quality is very bad.
They only last between 1970 and 1974.
1975 doesn’t have a single DC comic published in Italy, and that’s right in the middle of an explosion of popularity for Marvel characters.

9-10) Cenisio and Corno (1976-1984)

Think of this as the “Silver Age of DC Comics in Italy”, because Cenisio publishes A LOT and in chronological order. A couple of stories from the proper retrospective will cover this period.
Most of the Cenisio books close in 1980, but Superman holds until 1984.

In the middle of this, publisher Corno has a few DC series, most notably Kamandi. This is interesting because Corno was synonymous with Marvel, as we’ll soon see.

11) Labor Comics (1985-1986)

With both Cenisio and Corno ceasing publications, the small independent Labor Comics takes over.
For whatever reason they decide to publish an anthology that features Vigilante, Jonah Hex and the Cary Bates series “V”. It only lasts six issues.

12-13) Rizzoli and Comic Art (1988-1995)

 Publisher Rizzoli brings back DC by publishing Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns… but it took them 18 months to publish the whole thing.
Rizzoli was all over the place: the same magazine also included stories from Superman, Black Orchid and even Watchmen… but all of them with a few pages at a time.
I don’t have any of these issues, but apparently it’s a bit of an unreadable mess.

Comic Art is the other publisher with DC comics in this period, with a bit of everything: from Deadman to Hellblazer, from Swamp Thing to Sandman.
They also had the extremely confusing anthology book All American Comics, which at least at one point alternated issues with only Marvel characters to issues with only DC Characters!!!

14) Play Press (1990-2006)

While Comics Art was doing its own thing, Play Press had already started publishing some Marvel series (more on that soon). They eventually became the only DC publisher for Italy.
They regularly published a HUGE variety of series, both pre-Crisis but mostly post-Crisis.
While their treatment of the Marvel series was a bit questionable… more on that later… they were pretty consistent with DC.
Especially notable were their prestige books for miniseries, like Play Saga that published both Crisis On Infinite Earths and the Great Darkness Saga.

In contrast with what we’ve seen earlier, Play Press stood out against most other publishers for their steadfast resistance of translating ANY title and very, very few character names.
While appreciated when compared to the earlier ones, they even kept this practice when it made little to no sense.
We won’t get to see any of this, because no Play Press book is part of the retrospective.

Play Press was a great publisher for DC up until roughly the year 2000. It’s around that time that they started to close individual series and publish everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING as very costly paperbacks with anything from 6 to 12 issues each.

They began focusing exclusively on comic book shops, which is a rarity in Italy where MOST comic books are still sold in newsstands. Especially in the early 2000s, so that decision has always been baffling to me.
Around this time I completely dropped Play Press because I had already started reading the original DC Comics in English.
Play Press is still around, but I think they exclusively publish gaming magazines.

15-17) Planeta (2006-2011)
    RW Edizioni (2011-2020)
    Panini Comics (2020-present)

For completion’s sake, even if it has nothing to do with this retrospective.
In 2006, the rights for DC Comics were acquired by Spanish publisher Planeta.
They were VERY aggressive in their publishing: not only they published absolutely everything, but they had quote cheap and they had a large number of reprints of classic series from the Silver Age and the 70s that had never been published in Italy. They had truly awful translations, though.
Rights then passed to published RW Edizioni in 2011, but I have never read a single book they published.
And then in 2020, Panini Comics took over publishing, meaning they are now the sole publishers of both DC and Marvel… but that is ALSO a complicated story!

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MARVEL

So as we’ve seen, the history of DC publications is complex because there’s been a lot of successions between publishers. Marvel is not AS complex, but it’s still a mess.

1) Wilderness years (1945-1959)

Very few Italian readers know this, but Captain America WAS published during the war!!!
Specifically on the pages of Il Pupazzetto (roughly “The puppet”), a book published by Resistance sympathizes despite the ban of the Fascist regime against American comics.
In 1945 they published TWO Captain America stories, where he was translated as “Capitano America”, unlike the traditional translation of “Capitan America”.
Two stories were published: the first taken from 1943’s Select Comics #4 (EDIT: many thanks to reader Luis Dantas for providing a better quality picture than the one I found!!!)

The second one LOOKS like a Captain America story…

…but it’s actually a Namor story, where Namor was re-drawn as Cap!!!

Between 1958 and 1959, publisher Rama was in the Western business, so they ended up publishing Two-Gun Kid as “Kid Due Pistole” (the literal translation, if you assume Kid is his actual name).

2) Linus and Eroica (1966-1967)

Linus is Italy’s first comics magazine focusing entirely on comics, starting in 1965 and still being published today. It’s a VERY prestigious publication.
And in 1966 they became the first to regularly publish Marvel stories, with a few Fantastic Four stories until 1967.
This is also the very first Italian appearance of Doctor Doom, with the unusual translation Dottor Fato (“Doctor Fate”), unlike the traditional translation of Dottor Destino (literally “Doctor Destiny”, because there isn’t a clear direct translation of “doom” in Italian).

Also in 1966, publisher Eroica had a 13-issue run publishing Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos (translated as “Sgt. Fury and his commandos”).

3) Corno (1970-1984)

This is the Golden Age of Marvel Comics in Italy, and the VAST majority of the retrospective will be spent here.
They published pretty much EVERYTHING, and for the most part they had great translations (although that changed towards the end).

Unlike the publishers of DC Comics, they were very focused on publishing stuff in the correct chronological order… within the same series, at least: unlike the others they didn’t jump around within the same series. But in the same book you can find a series from 1962 as the first story, a completely unrelated 1970 series as the second story, and then a backup feature from the 50s.
No point spending too much time here because we’ll see this era up close, but be prepared for two things:

A) Graphical changes.
Nothing as severe as the early DC comics, but the most egregious examples are Daredevil having his symbol changed to a single D, because he was simply named Devil, and Spider-Man’s eyes being recolored yellow.

B) Absurd matchups
Often there seems to be absolutely no reason behind why books are grouped together. The worst offender is the Devil series, which at one point was named “Devil – Ghost – Iron Man” because it was publishing in the same issue Daredevil, Ghost Rider and Iron Man stories!

3) Labor Comics (1985)

Remember these guys from before? They’re the ones who published Vigilante and Jonah Hex for 13 issues. They only managed 2 issues of the anthology simply titled Marvel.

4) The Big Four:
Play Press (1986-1994)
Star Comics (1987-1994)
Comic Art (1986-1994)
Max Bunker Press (1990-1994)

This is when things get complicated, even though it’s the Silver Age of Marvel Comics in Italy. Because for years you had FOUR publishers at the same time.

Max Bunker Press only had the anthology SuperComics, which was all over the place: it had some regular series (She-Hulk, Black Panther) but it mostly published graphic novels (including God loves man kills, Parallel lives, Shamballah, Revenge of the Living Monolith, Dazzler: The Movie, Silver Surfer: Homecoming, Emperor Doom). They had great graphic quality and an oversized format.

Comic Art mostly published Conan stories and their EXCELLENT reprints of the earliest Marvel comics from the Silver Age. They’re probably still the highest quality prestige reprint out there.

And then there’s the Big Two of the era.
Star Comics, born out of the ashes of Labor Comics, was the one to kick off this renaissance and continuing publications from the Corno era, for the most part without skipping anything.
Their attention to continuity was their strong point: EVERY issue was accompanied by notes that explained all references to older stories, and to me this is still THE gold standard for publishing.

Play Press was their direct competitor, and a bitter rivalry developed… which I always found to be in good sport from Star Comics but a bit mean-spirited from Play Press.

The two had fundamentally different approaches in many things. As previously mentioned, Play Press was sort of infamous for not translating titles and character names, even when there was ample precedent for it.
And they skipped A LOT of stories when they wanted to jump to more popular eras… I will never forgive them for skipping the entire Iron Man run dealing with his alcoholism just because they wanted to publish the John Byrne issues quickly.

And they also played a few dirty tricks against Star Comics to mess with them: for example, they published an extremely minor Hulk appearance only because he was in his grey “Joe Fixit” persona that had yet to appear on Star Comics books.
Not a huge surprise when they started out with the Transformers adaptation: Spider-Man’s black costume shows up there during his cameo, black costume during his cameo, even though it had yet to appear on the Star Comics title with the black costume.

Ultimately, I became a regular reader with Star Comics and I’ve always been on the Star Comics side of the rivalry… even though by this point it’s been 30 years since it ended.
Because did you notice all these four publishers ended publications in 1994?

5) Marvel Italia (1994-2001)

In 1994, “Marvel Comics Italia” was founded as a branch of Marvel Comics, becoming the only publisher for Italy.
Series like Spider-Man and Fantastic Four (with their literal translations of “Uomo Ragno” and “Fantastici Quattro“) continued the numbering from the Star Comics era. In fact, this was mostly Star Comics 2.0 from the staff to the comics format.
The two series in particular, launched in 1987 and 1988, are STILL ONGOING TODAY with the same numbering! Although “Uomo Ragno” has now been renamed “Spider-Man”.

In 1996 Marvel Comics bought Panini, a publisher of collectible stickers and trading cards, and fused it with Marvel Italia to become Edizioni Panini.

6) Panini Comics (2001-present)

In 2001, Marvel Comics sold Edizioni Panini to Italian investors: this was the founding of Panini Comics.
Today they are a true juggernaut. In addition to being the only publishers of Marvel Comics for Italy, they have the exclusive rights of publishing Marvel comics in Europe, Central and South America and Oceania.
Starting in 2013 they are ALSO the Italian publisher for Disney comics, and as mentioned earlier in 2020 they acquired the rights to be the distributors of DC Comics in Italy… as well as Germany and Brazil, because why not.

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After such a difficult road, it looks like it’s easier than ever to read superhero comics in Italy.
Having grown in the wilderness years of multiple publishers, it’s refreshing to see everything is now under a single umbrella. Especially when it’s the heir of the publisher I grew up with that seems to have become the only distributor on the planet.
On the other hand, it’s the end of my generation’s way of approaching comics. With such a mess you couldn’t just pick up all issues referenced in a single story, you had to work hard to either find it or you had to connect all the notes to figure out what was going on.

And I think it’s fair to say that learning how to navigate this mess has really prepared me for the journey I started with this site, and that’s the REAL reason why I’m doing this retrospective.
Well, that and I’m a colossal windbag who loves nothing more than talking about comic books.
That might also be a factor.

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Since this is easily the most complicated retrospective I’ve ever done, in terms of explaining exactly WHAT is part of it… here’s the schedule.

#33: Batman (Cenisio). Includes stories from Batman, The Brave And The Bold, Wonder Woman, Detective Comics and Hawkman

#32-31: Superman (Cenisio). Includes Superman, World’s Finest and Supergirl

#30-25: Captain America (Corno). Includes Captain America, X-Men, Amazing Adventures (featuring Beast), Luke Cage

#24-20: Thor (Corno). Includes Thor, Avengers, Black Widow, Captain America, Not Brand Echh, Champions

#19-11: Fantastic Four (Corno). Also includes stories from Sub-Mariner, Tales of Suspense (starring the Watcher), Captain Marvel, Marvel Team-Up, Adam Warlock, Inhumans

#10-5: Spider-Man (Corno). Also includes stories from Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, Daredevil

#4-2: Spider-Man (Corno), specifically only stories from “Spidey Super-Stories”. Sadly, none of the meme ones.

#1: Spider-Man (Star Comics). Specifically, the book that made me a regular comic book reader. Also includes stories from Uncanny X-Men.

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Also, to my fellow non-US readers: how crazy is the publishing history in your country?