Today in Comics History, May 25: Happy birthday, Diana Prince! (Both of 'em!)

Born on this day, per the 1976 Super DC Calendar: Diana Prince, US army nurse who moved away to South America, leaving her identity to be used by Wonder Woman!


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

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 178: Turn me on, Deadman

House ad for DC Special Series #15 [Batman Spectacular] (Summer 1978); Showcase [Deadman] #105 (never published), Demand Classics #1 (never published); and Western Classics #1 (never published) printed in Batman #304 (October 1978)

I've discussed the DC Implosion earlier in this series, and here's a house ad for three out of four comics that fell like an abandoned building in the Implosion. That is, except for "Batman Spectacular" (actually DC Special Series #15), they were cancelled and never published. Demand Classics and Western Classics were to contain all reprints, so you didn't miss anything by them going kaput. What about the "25 all-new pages" of Deadman "from the pages of Adventure Comics..."? Well, they probably should have added at the bottom of that ad "To the pages of Adventure Comics, because yes, that story did see print ten months later in Adventure #464.


Cover of Adventure Comics #464 (July-August 1979), pencils and inks by Jim Aparo, colors by Tatjana Wood
Now, if you were the detail-oriented sort of comics reader, you may have specifically noticed that ad at the top had promised you a new 25-page Deadman thriller, but if you counted the story pages in Adventure #464, the Deadman story tops out at 22 pages. Where the Sam Scratch did the other three pages go? Into some sort of spooky limbo from which mortal man would seldom see them again?

Well, yes, sorta! Even tho' Adventure #464 was 68 hefty pages for a buck, three pages were cut from the original Deadman story to make it fit in the comic with the four other "all-new super-star features." As seen in Adventure, page four looked like this:


Panels from "Requiem for a Deadman!" in Adventure Comics #464 (July-August 1979); plot by Len Wein; script by Gerry Conway; pencils, inks, and letters by Jim Aparo; colors by Glynis Wein
The missing three pages fell between panels 2 and 3 of this page, and were published (to keep the copyright when Showcase ended) in the infamous Cancelled Comic Cavalcade, the Xeroxed book of stories that were left hanging high and dry after the DC Implosion. Here's what you were missing, a little ministory about Deadman saving a young kid in peril:




Pages from "Requiem for a Deadman!" in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 (Fall 1978)
CCC #2 also published the artwork for what was to have been Showcase #105 (funny, why didn't they just adapt this for Adventure?)...


Original cover to Showcase #105 (unpublished), pencils and inks by Jim Aparo
...as well as the covers for what would have been Demand Classics #1 (look familiar?) and Western Classics #1:



Original covers to Demand Classics #1 and Western Classics #1 (unpublished). Demand: pencils by Dick Dillin, inks by Frank McLaughlin. Western: pencils by James Sherman, inks by Maurice Whitman
Why, they even published the last can of Who-Hash the text page that would have accompanied "requiem for a Deadman" in Showcase #105—with an unfortunate ad at the bottom:


Text page from Showcase #105 (unpublished), written by Paul Levitz
According to this, those three issues of World of Krypton I featured back on April 12 were to have been published in the pages of Showcase #110-112! Instead, Showcase's cancellation inadvertently led to the first comic book miniseries ever!

And, for completists' sake, here's a letter from Adventure Comics #464 that addresses how DC were using the backlog of unpublished stories in books like this one:


So there you go: a Deadman story that, just like its protagonist, wouldn't quite stay dead.

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 52

House ad for DC Special Series #11 [The Flash Spectacular] (1978); printed in Batman #299 (May 1978)
Comic cover art: pencils and inks by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

The Eight Nights of Comic Book Hanukkah, Night Four: It's a Very Colossal Hanukkah with Gim Allon

from "Star Light, Star Bright...Farthest Star I See Tonight!" in DC Special Series #21 [Super-Star Holiday Special] (DC, Spring 1980), script by Paul Levitz, pencils by José Luis Garcia-López, inks by Dick Giordano, colors by Adrienne Roy, letters by Ben Oda

366 Days with Alfred Pennyworth, Day 200/Today in Comics History, July 19, 1927

Let's celebrate our terrific two hundredth day with Alfred Pennyworth with one of the more unusual Batman comic book stories: a prose tale, written by Bat-master Denny O'Neil and illustrated by Marshall Rogers, that also just happens to mention a date...Today in Comics History!


from "Death Strikes at Midnight and Three" in DC Special Series #15 (DC, Summer 1978), script by Denny O'Neil, pencils and inks by Marshall Rogers