Today in Comics History, December 26: Hydrogen War bleaches features from entire population

from "Silent Night" in DC Holiday Special 2017 #1 one-shot (DC, February 2018), script by Dan DiDio, pencils by Matthew Clark, inks by Sean Parsons and Matthew Clark, colors by Rob Schwager, letters by Travis Lanham

Today in Comics History, Octover 29, 1986: Biggest news story of the year, and they buried it on the sports page

This is an updated version of a post originally (post-)dated October 29, 1986.

We warned you on October 9!


from Strange Adventures #117 (DC, June 1960), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson

Today in Comics History, October 9, 1986: Whoops Apocalypse

This is an updated version of a post originally (post-)dated October 9, 1986.

Mike W. Barr never forgets a plotline!

Please stay inside today and do not go out for at least three to four thousand years.


from The Outsiders (1985 series) #27 (DC, January 1988), script by Mike W. Barr, pencils and inks by Erik Larsen, colors by Adrienne Roy, letters by Albert DeGuzman

Today in Comics (Alternate) History, Thanksgiving Day, 1990: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Aquaman.

Hey, remember thirty years ago, when the world ended? That thirty years has flown by so fast it feels like the world ended only last week. Anyway, flash-forward four years to a post-apocalypse world of Thanksgiving Day, 1990! When I check the "Today in Regular History" website, it tells me that the strange, mutated people of Thanksgiving 1990 had made "Love Takes Time" by Mariah Carey the #1 hit! Well, you've always got to expect some radioactive horror after the bombs fall.


from "Thanksgiving Day — 1990!" in Strange Adventures #132 (DC, September 1961), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Wow, that sure is a lot more exciting than my Thanksgiving day, which mainly consists of stuffing myself with stuffing (of the non-stuffed bull variety) and then lying on the couch for the rest of the day burping along to the songs in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. But in the scary atomic world of the future past, just gathering enough food to even survive is a challenge! Why, even Saturn Girl and G.I. Joe's Duke only got seed, sods, fruits and grasses! Say...is corn grass?


Later, the last dregs of humanity have a Thanksgiving picnic! It's all vegetarian (booooo!), because if you remember your basic Atomic Knights mythology, all the animals were mutated into monstrous forms. So not so much any turkey steaming on the table, more like turkeys looming on the horizon ready to stomp your house while gobbling menacingly.


Suddenly, distant relatives you don't care for that much arrive for Thanksgiving dinner! In this case, the interlopers are the armies of Atlantis, and they're brandishing their "8"s at us! Quick, put in the extending leaf and get out the card table for the kids!


So just where did this horde of the Undersea Kingdom come from? If you can trust the ads on the very next page of this here comic book, they came from Rockville Center, New York, and they're monochromatically armed for battle at a low, low price!


No, actually, the Atlantean attackers were blasted from the distant past into their hellish post-nuclear future by the power of the atomic bomb! Golly, is there anything it can't do?!?


SCIENCE!:


Luckily, the Atomic Knights fight right back! Keep in mind these tactics for when your cousins from a mythical land of millennia ago show up and there's not enough green bean casserole!


So, just like many Thanksgiving stories before it, the Atomic Knights' 1990 Thanksgiving ends with exterminating the native people. Enjoy your pumpkin pie, suckers!

Today in Comics History: Blame It on Mister Mole

Hey, remember when everybody an' his brother were trying to figger out who blew up Earth? When after all it was the Mole People?



Panels from "When the Earth Blacked Out!" in Strange Adventures #144 (September 1962), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson
Well...that'll happen.

Today in Comics History, October 9, 1986: The world's greatest detectives ignore an obvious clue that the Riddler did it

from "When the Earth Blacked Out!" in Strange Adventures (1950 series) #144 (DC/National, September 1962), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 93

House ad for Who's Who in the DC Universe (1985); printed in World's Finest Comics #314 (April 1985)
Atomic Knight art by Murphy Anderson, from Who's Who #1:


Page from Who's Who: The Definite Directory of the DC Universe v.1 #1 (March 1985), pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson
And if you can't get enough Who ('s Who) excitement, you really need to check out Siskoid's Blog of Geekery and his "Who's This?" feature, focusing on the C-listers in Who's Who and forgotten DC Universe heroes and villains of the past! Like, say, this fellow they call "Bat-Man"—he puzzles me!