The 1978 2017 2023 DC Calendar of Super-Spectacular Disasters: January Justice

This is an expanded and updated version of a post originally published January 1, 2017.

It's once again January and time for me to finally and reluctantly take down my Li'l Björk Calendar


and hang up one for 2023. So let me first consult with my handy-dandy Perpetual Calendar, which tells me that it's 2023. Um, thanks, Perpetual Calendar! Ah, it's also telling me that if I have any calendars from the years 1967, 1978, 1989, 1995, 2006. or 2017, I can hang 'em up on the wall and use them to party as if it were 2017! Which it is, so that's a good thing.

Well, whatdaya know!


cover of The 1978 Calendar of Super-Spectacular Disasters, front cover art by Neal Adams
It's a year full of Super-Spectacular Disasters, so this really should have been a calendar for 2016, and I'm certainly hoping that it doesn't apply to this new year, or, as I'm calling it, the Year of the Bull. (does celebratory somersault, lands in plate of spaghetti) Whoops.

Yo, 2023, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish, but 1978 had one of the best comic book calendars of all time! One of the best comic book calendars of all time! It's probably the only calendar that actually tells a story over the course of a full year, apart from some copies of Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying Calendar 1984.


With its all-star cast of characters and artists, the 78CoSSD is attractive enough, but month by month it unravels a sinister plot of the DC Super-Villains to execute dark deeds plotted by an evil mastermind! Follow the story in each month's illustration!

"January: Batman" in The 1978 Calendar of Super-Spectacular Disasters (DC, 1977); artwork by Dick Giordano
(Click picture to 100-watt-size)
Then, pick up on the clues in the date boxes! Please note that beginning on January 1, Doctor Light threatens the Big Apple by...no, not that, stop it...by putting the city under a blackout. He starts with a one-minute power failure on 1/1, and by 1/4 has increased it to four minutes!


That means he's doubling the blackout duration each day, so by the time Batman slugs Doctor Light upside the luminescent bulbs on January 11, the blackout is 17 hours and four minutes! Why, by the very next day, he'll be sinking Manhattan into darkness for 34 hours a day! Good thing Batman was right on that or Dr. Light would have been warping time and we all might be our own grandpas.

There's more long-game clues to follow: throughout the month, certain days will tell you to black out squares...


...in a grid at the end of the calendar, so that by December 31, you'll have figgered out the identity of the super-jerks' evil boss!

"December 31"; art by José Luis Garcia-López
(Click picture to you-sunk-my-battleship-size)
Starting on February 1, at the beginning of each month, I'll show you the blacked-out version of the grid so far (or take a Sharpie and mark them off on your computer monitor screen!), and we'll all meet back here on December 31 and see who was behind all these terrible, world-breaking disasters.

On the other hand, you might just be able to detect some inkling of the dastardly villain thanks to this bald-faced clue on January 29.


(And tune in later for a peek at a '78 calendar from the Magnificent Competition Guys!)