The Hero Origins retrospective has reached the same publication year of the very first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Obviously that won’t be part of the retrospective since it’s the second review I ever did… but it gave me an idea.
What was DC Comics publishing the same month?
I’m looking at the cover date, April 1958, since even after all this time I still don’t fully understand publishing dates.
SUPERBOY
Adventure Comics #247 wasn’t the only Superboy book of that month.
There was also Superboy #64, back when Krypto still had his original design.
The Superboy story isn’t very notable… it’s just about a Smallville kid faking being Superboy’s friend.
But there’s a Lana Lang story which has her birthday, where Superboy accidentally gifts her pills that temporarily give her superpowers.
And it’s a very Lana centric issue, because there’s a third story where Krypto becomes HER pet.
Notably, it’s the only story in the book written by Otto Binder, who of course also wrote the first Legion story.
You know this might be a rather silly story.
SUPERMAN
April 1958 is also the cover date of Action Comics #239, written by Ed Hamilton.
The story teases us about how horrific Superman’s face has become.
It’s actually very, VERY dumb.
April 1958 also has World’s Finest #93, again by Ed Hamilton.
It has a machine that gives Superman’s super-intelligence to Robin.
Who is still outsmarted by Batman.
Rounding up the Superman books, there’s also Lois Lane #1 and Jimmy Olsen #28.
I always forget Jimmy’s series is the older one.
These two books combined have 6 stories, and Otto Binder writes FIVE of them (only missing the Lois cover story).
You know I never actually reviewed the very first issue of Lois, what did I miss?
Not much.
I did review only one of the Jimmy Olsen stories, which means I lost this little gem.
Can’t argue with that.
OTHER SUPERHEROES
Batman had Detective Comics #254 and Batman #115.
How is it that the story with Ace the Bat-Hound is the sane one?
To balance things out, Detective Comics also features Martian Manhunter.
Wonder Woman is the only other superhero with her own book at this point (Flash had debuted, but Showcase doesn’t have an issue with an April cover date), where she fights a dinosaur.
The Ross Andru cover is DEFINITELY more impressive than the Harry G. Peter artwork of the rest of the book.
It’s a Kanigher story, which means that it’s COMPLETELY BONKERS.
An absolute masterpiece, no notes.
OTHER HEROES
There are no other supers around for April 1958, but there are other kinds of heroes.
Like Rex the Wonder Dog and the Blackhawks.
ANTHOLOGIES
This was a big genre for 1958. In April, there are no less than FIVE war anthologies.
“All-American Men of War”, “G.I. Combat”, “Our Army At War”, “Fighting Forces” and “Star-Spangled War Stories”.
The other big genre was sci-fi anthologies, with 5:
“House of Mystery”, “House of Secrets”, “My Greatest Adventure”, “Strange Adventures”, “Tales of the Unexpected”
You may recognize some of these titles as eventually starring Dial H for H.E.R.O. and Doom Patrol, among many many others.
There are two crime comics, “Big Town” and “Mr. District Attorney”.
To my surprise there are only 2 westerns, “Hopalong Cassidy” and “Western Comics”.
Another genre big in the 50s represented in April 1958 are romance comics, with “Falling In Love”, “Girls Romances” and “Secret Hearts”.
There are 2 comedy series: “The adventures of Jerry Lewis” and “Sgt. Bilko”.
Notice they are both licensed comics.
And finally there are 4 series that I would classify as kid comics: “Fox and the Crow”, “Screen Comics”, “Sugar and Spike” and “The Three Mouseketeers”.
That’s a total of 34 comics; Superman is still the most popular brand only if we include World’s Finest.
To give you an idea of how much more Superman was than other heroes (assuming World’s Finest is more of a Superman than a Batman book):
To give you an idea of how few superheroes DC was publishing:
By comparison, Marvel’s predecessor Atlas only had 8 books in April 1958.
Only 2 were sci-fi anthologies, “Strange Tales” and “World of Fantasy”.
Only two westerns, “Two-Gun Kid” and “Wyatt Earp”, and two war comics with “Battle” and “Navy Combat”.
And finally Patsy Walker has a monopoly on romance comics.
That should give you an idea of the status of comics by the time the Legion debuted.
No wonder they had an impact, considering the superhero competition was at its lowest.
I plan to do something like this when the retrospective reaches the first Marvel books.
There was a “Wyatt Earp” TV series that ran from 1955-1961. Was the Atlas comic tied to that?
It appears that the first issue of the Atlas/Marvel Wyatt Earp series hit the stands in August 1955, while the TV show debuted in September, 1955. Is it possible that Atlas knew that the show was coming out and threw together a series to capitalize on that? Sure. Earp was a public figure that no one would’ve owned the actual rights to at the time, and launching a series to piggyback on the possible success of an upcoming show is exactly the sort of thing Martin Goodman would be all about – creating a series that could have the benefit of being licensed from a TV show without needing to actually license anything.
On the other hand, as the cover of the first issue of the Atlas series trumpets, Wyatt Earp was the most famous lawman of the old west. In August 1955, Atlas published 37 titles, nine of which were westerns. That’s roughly 1/4 of their entire line, so westerns were a huge deal for Atlas. If they were wanting to launch another western title, it would make sense to just do one featuring the most recognizable name in the genre, instead of trying to come up with yet another Something Kid title. (What would’ve been left? Sagebrush Kid? Cactus Kid? Longhorn Kid?)
I would lean towards it just being coincidental that Atlas launched a comic book featuring the most famous figure from the west (that they wouldn’t have needed to acquire any rights to) at the same time a TV show featuring him was about to debut. Heck, it’s not even the only time it happened with Wyatt Earp – look at the early 90s when Tombstone and the Kevin Costner Wyatt Earp movie both hit the theaters at roughly the same time. Both movies were in development before they knew of each other’s existence, then when they found out it was a race to get to the theaters first, which Tombstone won. But it also can’t be ruled out that Martin Goodman saw an opportunity and leapt on it.
Dell Comics DID publish a Wyatt Earp series that was licensed from the show. It featured the show’s star Hugh O’Brian on the covers and had an “Authorized Edition” blurb on most covers. It appears to have launched a couple of years after the show and the Atlas series, but it was definitely using the TV show as its main selling point.
The Superman plots could be awful silly, but considering how few writers were churning them out every month, it’s amazing they were as good as they were.