Today in Comics History, January 11, 1951: Goofball history is made as first man becomes hopped up on them

from Providence #11 (Avatar, March 2017), script by Alan Moore, pencils and inks by Jacen Burrows, colors by Juan Manuel Rodriguez, letters by Kurt Hathaway

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1935: Comics Oughta Be New Fun

On this day in 1935: headed by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, National Allied Publications (the forerunner of DC Comics), publishes one of the first comic books of all-new (not reprinted from newspapers) comics: the oversized (seriously, it's bigger than a treasury!), all-black-and-white anthology book New Fun #1. Here's a news item from my local paper, back in the days when I was just a little flat-capped, all-singin', all-dancin' newsie!


from the Brooklyn Eagle (January 11, 1935)
(You can read more about its history - and other early DC Comics — at The Secret Origins of DC Comics blog!)

In 2020, DC put out a facsimile edition of New Fun #1 in their much-loved but long-dormant "Famous First Editions" series, and oh boy, I gotta tell ya, it's a doozy! Lookit how big this thing is! (I recemmend a hard copy rather than a digital version for exactly that reason.) You obviously won't find Batman or Superman or Angel Love in these pages — the DC Universe had yet to be built — but there's a lot of great gag strips and adventure stories, plus all the original text pages and ads. Look, here's my copy! It dwarves me.




Copies are still available out there in the wild, but I bet DC won't reprint this, so rush out right now (put some pants on first, of course) to your local comic store and buy it or ask them to see if they can order it for you, an if all else fails that big Monopoly Bookstore Online has it currently in stock. And hey, wait a minute, why were you reading my blog without pants on?


(Amazon ad)
You need New Fun in your life. We all need New Fun! Why, no lesser a sage than Mister Jack Hues once intoned Everybody New Fun tonight! Or somethin' like that.

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1949: Those guys must have had some seriously huge wrists

from "Superman's Hall of Trophies!" in Action Comics #162 (DC, January 1952), script by Bill Woolfolk, pencils by Wayne Boring, inks by Stan Kaye

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1955: Bucky's barbecue gets a little out of hand

from Captain America (2005 series) #11 (Marvel, November 2005), script by Ed Brubaker, pencils and inks by Steve Epting, additional inks by Mike Perkins, colors by Frank D'Armata, letters by Randolph Gentile

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1970: Just like the liberal media; minimizing the size of his horns

from Daredevil (1964 series) #62 (Marvel, March 1970), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Gene Colan, inks by Syd Shores, colors by Michele Robinson (?), letters by Artie Simek

Today in Comics History, January 11: The Scarecrow of Oz falls on hard times

from Batman #659 (DC, January 2007), script by John Ostrander, pencils and inks by Tom Mandrake, colors by Nathan Eyring, letters by Rob Leigh

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, January 11, 2014: Nobody came

from The Wicked + The Divine #6 (Image, December 2014), script by Kieron Gillen, pencils and inks by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Today in Comics History, January 11: Batman once again confuses the word "explain" with the word "punch"

from Batman #659 (DC, January 2007), script by John Ostrander, pencils and inks by Tom Mandrake, colors by Nathan Eyring, letters by Rob Leigh

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1954: Tom Beckett and Batman also have a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

from "The Man Who Wanted to Die With Batman" in World's Finest Comics #69 (DC, March 1954), script by Bill Finger (?), Batman and Robin figure pencils by Bob Kane, all other pencils by Lew Sayre Schwartz, inks by Stan Kaye

Today in Comics History, January 11, 1950: Tom Weaver and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

from "The Death-Cheaters of Gotham City!"* in Batman (1940 series) #72 (DC, August 1952), script by David Vern, pencils and inks by Jim Mooney, letters by Ira Schnapp
*Seriously, such a great title.