Today in Comics History, September 19, 1783: The Golden Age of Ballooning

This is a much expanded and updated version of a post originally published September 19, 2016.


Yes, t'was today in 1783, that Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier initiated the livestock-crewed flight that ushered in the Golden Age of Ballooning!


from "Airecords" in Adventure Comics #40 (DC/Detective Comics, Inc., July 1939), by Terry Gilkison

Today in Comics History, September 14, 1814: Comic books would like to remind you that today's the anniversary of the writing of "The Star Spangled Banner," our traditional, unsingable, racist national anthem

This is an expanded and updated version of a post originally published September 14, 2012.


cover of Magic Comics #36 (David Mckay, July 1942), painting by Edgar Franklin Wittmack

Today in Comics History, August 11: Happy birthday, John Wise!

Born on this day in 1808: pioneering balloonist (man, all the greatest job titles have gone defunct) John Wise, who developed innovations in the balloononautic field and was the first to build and demonstrate a balloon that would collapse into a parachute if ruptured, allowing its passengers to safely land, as seen here in this here early DC Comic!


from "AiRecords" in Adventure Comics #40 (DC/Detective Comics, July 1939), by Terry Gilkison
Wise bad-assededly wrapped up his career when he disappeared over Lake Michigan; he and his balloon were never found. At the age of 71.

Happy birthday, John Wise, and thank for contributing to The Golden Age of Ballooning!


from Monty Python ""The Golden Age of Ballooning" (BBC, 31 October 1974), written by Michael Palin

Today in Comics History, Father's Day: Bully's Father's Day Gift Suggestion #73: Really, anything at all, Clark, ya load

Guess who forgot it was Father's Day! Golly, that computer-like brain of yours is great for categorizing super-criminals and which girls on the Legion of Super-Heroes you'd like to see in their underwear, Kid Kal...not so good for remembering dates.


from "Father's Day on Planet Krypton!" Adventure Comics #313 (DC/National, October 1963), script by Leo Dorfman and Mort Weisinger, pencils and inks by George Papp, letters by Joe Letterese
It's a story cleverly called "Father's Day on Planet Krypton!" because it's about...Father's Day on Planet Krypton. Not Earth, so you can shove it, Pa Kent.

Today in Comics History, June 14: Flag Day Bonus: This Totally Am Not Flag Day

from "The Shame of the Bizarro Family!" in Adventure Comics #285 (DC/National, June 1961), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Wayne Boring, inks by Stan Kaye

Today in Comics History, May 31: Happy birthday, Bert Christman!

Born on this day in 1915: Bert Christman, comic book writer and illustrator as well as WWII naval aviator. Christman was writer and artist on the popular newspaper strip Scorchy Smith, of which many adventures were reprinted in Easter Color's Famous Funnies comic book, plus work on the Three Aces feature in Action Comics, Funny Picture Stories, and Adventure Comics. That last one's pretty important, because t'was in the pages of Adventure that Bert created, along with Gardner Fox, Wesley Dodds — the Golden Sandman. Yes, the Sandman Mystery Theatre version. Here's his first appearance!


from "[The Tarantula Strikes]" in Adventure Comics #40 (DC, July 1939), script by Gardner Fox as Larry Dean, pencils and inks by Bert Christman; shown here in a recolored reprint from Justice League of America #94 (DC/National, November 1971)

Today in Comics History, December 31, 1939, New Year's Eve: Like sands through the hourglass

So, if Roy Thomas says that Hourman debuted on New Year's Eve...


from "The Secret Origin of the Golden Age Hourman" in Secret Origins (1986 series) #16 (DC, July 1987), script by Roy Thomas and Dann Thomas, pencils by Michael Bair, inks by Mike Gustovich, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by David Cody Weiss and Agustin Más
...then that means it's also when this story take place:


cover of Adventure Comics #48 (DC, March 1940), pencils and inks by Bernard Baily

Today in Comics History, September 27: Happy birthday, Jim Shooter!

Born on this day: America's tallest comic book editor/creator/writer/publisher and even artist, Jim Shooter!



from (top, L-R) Mighty Marvel Calendar 1978 and 1979 (Marvel, 1977-1978); Marvel Age #57 (Marvel, December 1987); text by Mike Carlin, pencils and inks by Ron Zalme, colors Paul Becton;(bottom) Marvel Age #33 (Marvel, December 1985); text by Jim Salicrup, pencils and inks by Ron Zalme, colors by Adam Philips

Today in Comics History, April 15: Happy birthday, Jerry Grandenetti!

Born on this day in 1926: comic book artist, and advertising art exec Jerry Grandenetti! He was a member of the Eisner Studio; in the 1950s Grandenetti was penciling The Spirit as a ghost-artist, under Eisner's byline.

Before that, however, Eisner drew Grandenetti and letterer Abe Kanegson into the strip as the criminal trio Bellows, Dapperish, and Slippery Eall. The boys are back in town! I mean jail. (L-R in the panel: Grandenetti as Dapperish, Kanegson as Bellows, and Eisner as Slippery Eall.



from The Spirit (1980 series) #25 (Kitchen Sink, November 1986); reprinting "A River of Crime" (aka "Slippery Eall") from The Spirit (Register and Tribune Syndicate, November 30th, 1947); script, pencils, and inks by Will Eisner; additional inks by Jerry Grandenetti; letters by Abe Kanegson

Today in Comics History, Oscar Night: The Power of the Dog sweeps the Academy Awards

from "The Super Star of Hollywood!" in Adventure Comics #272 (DC, May 1960), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils and inks by George Papp

Today in Comics History, January 12: Burning the ground, I break from the crowd / I'm on the hunt, I'm after you

Happy birthday to the hairest dawg of the 30th and/or 31st century, that lupine luminary of the Legion: Brin Londo, Timber Wolf!


from Super DC Calendar 1976 (DC, 1975), letters by Ben Oda

Today in Comics History, January 3: My hunger burns a bullet hole, a spectre of my mortal soul (Happy birthday, Jim Corrigan!)

According to the DC Super Calendar 1976, Jim Corrigan, the Golden and Silver Age host of the wrath of God himself, The Spectre, was born today!


from DC Super Calendar 1976 (DC, 1975, letters by Ben Oda)

Today in Comics History, January 11, and 365 Days of Defiance, Day 11: Here Comes the Sun-Eater

Today! It's the very birthday of the Legionnaire you can open up with a can opener, Ferro Lad! That's "Andrew Nolan" to you and me who surely have all the ciiviian names or the Legion memorized. Reep Daggle? Imra Adreen? Jenni Ognuts? Yeah, you know 'em all, and how! (Jo Nah? See, that one was easy!)

Anyway, Andrew Nolan, sealed forever inside an iron suit moresuitable for storing pork and beans. Mmm, delicious, delicious pork and bears. But it's just him inside! I know, yu're disappointed too. Luckily the Iron Suit also gives him the power to iron to the core (and I think we all know how inconvenient that can be, especially when he's your water polo partner at the far end of the pool. "Marco!" you shout, gearing the pony to rear up in the pool, but all that happened at the other end is a series of slow bubbles from the bottom. I'm getting ahead of myself because for his birthday (and hey, one day beyond it!) we're going to look at how Andrew Nolan, Ferro Lad, showed his mettle metal by taking on the deadly and dangerous Sun-Eater! ("No man can escape the Sun-Eater," is its guaranteed slogan to you, the buyer!)

Remember that chilling, dramatic opening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Sure you do! You hadn't fallen asleep by then yet.


But, if you're at all familiar with the history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, you can stand up in your seat back there in 1979 and proudly shout to the annoyed masses: "Comics did it first!" And while they're bodily kicking you out of the movie theater, you can be proud that you were right.


from The Legion of Super-Heroes stories in Adventure Comics #352-353 (DC, January-February 1967), script and layouts by Jim Shooter, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by George Klein, letters by Milton Snapinn
Now play Jerry Goldsmith's spaceariffic Star Trek movie theme while we do our opening (comics) credits and introduce our amazing cast from one thousand years in the future! (uture uture uture uture) But grife, what are the Fatal Five doing there getting star credits alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes? Inconceivable! I keep using that word and I think it means what it is! Why, that would be like, as the narration tells us, not dating the story at all, U.N.C.L.E. making a pact with T.H.R.U.S.H.! Or CONTROL teaming up with KAOS! Or S.H.I.E.L.D.* being controlled by HYDRA...um, well, maybe not that last one.


ONE OF THESE PEOPLE WILL DIE! (flashing arrow pointing directly to

Ferro Lad

) This is a good example of early Legion stories making great use of the Mission: Impossible concept: a specific but small group of Legionnaires pitted against a villain rather than all six hundred and eight of 'em. In this case, however, the villain is about as big as they get: a cosmic entity searching for sustenance throughout the galaies, but instead of jus' stopping by Hardee's in the Alpha Centauri Spacemall like you or I would do, it eats stars. What's more, it operates purely on instinct and is completely mindless. So, it's sort of like Galactus after a huge fraternity kegger party.


The Sun-Eater is (gasp! choke!) heading directly towards Earth's sun, apparently bypassing some other, meatier, tenderer stars on its way from the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. It's like when you want White Castle and nothing else will do. Superboy runs a PowerPoint he's prepared earlier to show the Legionnaires what they'll be up against: victory is a totally utter, impossibility. For the Legion of Super-Heroes, this is Tuesday.


WHY ARE THERE ONLY FIVE LEGIONNAIRES AT HQ oh wait Superboy (and Jim Shooter) casually explain that the other Legionnaires are away in Dimension QK-51 (home of the Superman Meets the Quik Bunny crossover). That must be some doozy of a mission that makes them keep only five members in reserve (granted, one's Superboy; on the other hand, Projectra and Ferro) on Earth. I mean, they coulda left behind Matter-Eater Lad, the greatest Legionnaire, who would have handily ate the Sun-Eater. Burp!

Surely, you say, there must be other heroes in the galaxy considering there are entire planets whose biospheres support magnetic control or intangibility or extreme! computing! power! Well, sure there is, and stop calling me Shirley. But nobody, not the Heroes of Lallor, not the Wanderers, not even the Tiny, Tiny Avengers of Imsk (they're so cuuuute!) can come to the Legion's aide. And then there's these buncha jerks! They think they can get out of helping to save Earth just because they are only disembodied floating heads!


Incidentally, note the first caption in the panels above. A rare sliparoo from Shooter on which century LSH takes place in! (the Thirtieth). WHOOPS.


With a Legion consisting only of Superboy (almost infinitely powerful), Cosmic Boy (pretty darn powerful), Sun Boy (a dangerous thing to be around a Sun-Eater), Princess Projectra (ummmmm...) and Ferro Lad (.........), the Legion of Super-Heroes is in dire need of allies to battle the Sun-Eater. So they find and deputize the Fatal Five: Tharok (unstoppable cyborg), the Persuader (he'll beg the Sun-Eater to leave), the Emerald Empress (she'll keep an eye out for you), Mano (The Hand of Fate), and Validus (who, when he's not freaking out, has a tragic and yet-to-be-told Legion origin story!) This quintet of quirky quacksalvers are promised amnesty from their crimes if they help stop the Sun-Eater. That doubles the defense force and allows Jim Shooter to nod his very tall hat at a plot device from The Dirty Dozen Time for a soundtrack cue!


First up on our Star Search stage: Sun Boy! He's hot and fiery and full of cosmic gas! All the powers of a raging star and the ability to stand on a giant compact disc! But no savior of the universe he! So, they all give up and go home.


Now, Tharok and Validus try chopping at it and throwing lightning at it! But what works in Kitchen Stadium is ineffective in space, and they can't truly stop the unstoppable thing which cannot be stopped! Are ya sorry ya didn't go to Dimension QK-51 yet, Legionnaires?


Well, here comes the galaxy's most powerful hero (in handy compact boy form): Superboy! I dunno, Clark, use your Krypto-vision to shoot small dogs at it, or maybe super-ventriloqism to convince it our sun is out of business and not worth heading for. Because only Superboy can stand up to the power of a billion suns projecting yellow, orange, green, blue rays...D'OH! RED SUN RAYS! WHO COULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT?


Cosmic Boy / Cosmic Boy / He has got a cosmic ploy / Is he magnetic? / Listen, Jim / He'll attract any metal / Except aluminum / Alas / Sun-Eater's not made of metal / No joy


Emerald Empress and her Eye stare at it! Aside from the Sun-Eater feeling momentarily self-conscious about its weight, it does no damage.


Eh, what the heck, let's let the Princess take a crack sending illusions at it. It surely couldn't get worse. (beat) AIEEE! It got worse!


Mano! The man with the hand that destroys everything it touches! How he goes to the bathroom we'll never know. Ah, Mano, thank you for making us laugh at "Ehahh!" again.


Well, that's everybody from both teams, so Earth's gonna die, uh huh. I would kiss your loved ones and maybe eat that ice cream in the fridge before it goes to waste...oh yeah, Ferro Lad! Forgot about him! As is often the case in the Legion, a member you don't think is gonna pull off a mission is absolutely successful! Yay Ferro! I-RON-na give you a big hug!


Now that they know the thing has a brain that looks like a mascot from the 1964 World's Fair Let's Get Charged for Electrons pavilion, they can destroy it! Tharok quickly whips up a bomb out of ordinary household items you probably have lying around your place, but who will carry it into the heart of the storm? Aw, c'mon...if you didn't know the ending of this story, turn in your Comics Predicting Badge. Even Brainiac Minus-5 saw that coming, and he's the Dumbest Guy in the Galaxy three years running from 2964-2967.


I've poked gentle (well, except for Projectra) fun at this story throughout, but in terms of emotion and defiance, the sacrifice of Ferro Lad ranks very high on my list. This tale — and this first panel showing Ferro Lad flying into the heart of the Sun-Eater to ignite the bomb himself — is justifiably iconic in comics history, and the first "real" death of the Legion (altho' Lightning Lad had died before, he came back or Proty had babies with Saturn Girl, however you wanna think about that). I admit I cried...just a little...when I first read this story, lowering the value of my copy of Adventure #353 from VG to G: waterstained.


We salute you, Ferro Lad! We will miss your honor, your bravery, your ingenuity, and your ability to hold our grocery lists using fridge magnets.


Ferro Lad, we will not see your type again. Because Shooter killed you off on purpose because you couldn't have been black.

When Jim Shooter first created the character, he intended Ferro Lad to be black, but editor Mort Weisinger vetoed the idea, saying "we'll lose our distribution in the South."

This was in fact why Shooter chose Ferro Lad to be the one to die in the Sun Eater story. "Ferro Lad, I killed because my plan was that he was a black guy, and Mort said no. Then I said, "Well, let's see. I've got this idea for a story, and someone needs to die...Ah-ha! Him!" So basically, I killed him off because it annoyed me that I couldn't do with him what I wanted." — Wikipedia

Say, remember that whoops! caption above that said "Time: The twentieth century?" Well, in a way Jim Shooter could have never predicted, it eventually wound up being true when the story was retold in Post-Zero Hour 1996. Tune in tomorrow to find out how, why, and when! (Oh, 1996. Ignore that last one.)


Cover of Legion of Super-Heroes (1989 series) #86 (DC, November 1996), pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer, colors by Patrick Martin

---

*Sun-Eater Heading Into Enormous Lightyear District

Today in Comics History, May 24: Bizarro is not telling you to not have Unhappy Halloween from Bizarro World, or is he? Yes. He am not.

This is an expanded and updated version of a post originally published May 24, 2013.

Today: Happy Bizarro Halloween! from the planet known as Htrae! (Pronounced "hu-tray.")


from "The Halloween Pranks of the Bizarro-Supermen!" in Adventure Comics #294 (DCm March 1962), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils and inks by John Forte
(You know, I'd expect a Bizarro calendar to have more imaginary numbers and symbols, like May the Fish.)

Then, Bizarro No. 1 joins his "buddie-pals" for Halloween celebrations. Say, shouldn't that be "enemy-foes?" Also, instead of join, shouldn't that be "tear apart?" And instead of "then," should it be, "before?" Man, Bizarro World confuses me with its half-assed approach to being completely in reverse.


Ah, the good old days when Bizarro World was off somewhere in the same cosmos as Earth-1. No, according to Multiversity, it's the alternate dimension of Earth-29! Or, at least it will until midnight tonight, when it all gets blown up by Rebirth. BOOM! The New DC Universe...there's no stopping us now...from trying to undo every story since 1935.

Because knowing is half the battle, you can read more about this wacky story in "Bizarro Back Issues: The Existential Dread of Halloween on Bizarro World" by pal Chris Sims on the late, lamented Comics Alliance.

Remember: everything you know about Bizarro World is wrong. Because that am not way Bizarro World ain't.

So, Happy Halloween, guys! Trick's on you!

Today in Comics History, Febroohairy 14, 6019: Me think me hate you

this panel am not from "The Shame of the Bizarro Family!" in Adventure Comics #285 (DC, June 1961), script unwrote by Jerry Siegel, pencils erased by Wayne Boring, ink mopped uop with new suit by Stan Kaye

Today in Comics History, January 1 (or am it?): Bizarro not wish you Unhappy Old Year!

from "The Shame of the Bizarro Family!" in Adventure Comics #285 (June 1961), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Wayne Boring, inks by Stan Kaye