Comic Book Retro 50: April 1976

A bit of blog bidness up front: 

1) The bi-monthly blog post where I look back at comic books I bought 50 years ago will now be monthly.

2) And it's called Comic Book Retro 50! 

Tell all your friends and enjoy! 

******************************************************

Here we go, fellow comic book nerds as we venture forth 50 years into the past to answer the burning question of:

What comic books did a young Dave-El buy in April 1976?

Since Marvel had a banner across the top of every cover proclaiming the "Marvel Comics Group", DC answered with their own banner starting in May 1975.  

Now taking up even more real estate on the cover was "DC Comics Salutes the Bicentennial".  

The number on the right end of the banner was part of a giveaway that required readers to (gasp!) mutilate their comics to win a metal Superman belt buckle.

Note that this trade dress ran on issues that were COVER dated July 1976 although these issues actually went on sale in April 1976.   

The gap between the actual sell date and the date on the cover was designed to trick retailers into keeping titles in the spinner racks longer.  

Maybe you could get your nifty Superman buckle in time to wear at your 4th of July Bicentennial picnic! 

Let's get on with the comics! 

I picked up Superman#301 which had a couple of significant developments with the creative team. 

Instead Cary Bates or Elliott S! Maggin (or in the case of the last 5 issues, both of them), we get writer Gerry Conway.

And instead of Superman mainstay Curt Swan, we get the debut of Jose Luis Garcia Lopez on pencils.  While Swan was a solid artist who provided the definitive look for Superman both in comics and for outside marketing, Garcia Lopez offerd a more dynamic style that made the Man of Steel feel more modern.  

Alas, Garcia Lopez only provided a relative handful of issues for interior Superman art but did provide a plethora of covers for various Superman titles.  DC Comics also employed Garcia Lopez as their principal artist for style guides, making his version of Superman more unbiquitous than Curt Swan's.  

Conway & Garcia Lopez pair up with regular inker Bob Oskner for a 17 page slugfest called "Solomon Grundy Wins on a Monday!".  

 Solomon Grundy was a massive zombie man-monster who mostly fought the Golden Age Green Lantern on Earth 2.   

How did Grundy get from Earth 2 to Earth 1 to fight Superman.  IIRC, Gerry Conway tells us that Grundy walked here. 

Conway didn't have to deal with multiple Earths over at Marvel.

Conway does a little bit of world building by introducing the super criminal organization known as SKULL in this issue 

They would appear off and all in Superman for a couple of years as well as in Superman Family.

April 1976 brought us Batman Family#6.  This book was split between new stories feature Robin and Batgirl working solo or as a team and an assortment of reprints. 

The reprints include a short 1945 solo out for Alfed (when he was known as Alfred Beagle) and a Mad Hatter story from Batman#161 where the villain takes revenge on the jurors who convicted him and sent him to prison. Which is the same story used in the Mad Hatter's appearance on the Batman TV show.

The new stories include a solo outing for Batgirl as Congresswoman Barbara Gordon heads out west.

But of some considerable note is this issue's Robin adventure. 

By Bob Rozakis, Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin, "The Joker's Daughter" introduces a distaff version of the Clown Prince of Crime.  

"Can't bring myself to hit a girl"? Jesus, Robin, it's 1976, not 1946! 

The mysterious femme fatale would return in subsequent stories as various "daughters" of established Batman villains to bedevil the Teen Wonder.  

Her reveal of who she is and how she came to be will be covered in a future Comic Book Retro 50 post. 

Next up is Justice League of America#132 by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin & Frank McLaughlin, "The Beasts Who Fought Like Men",concluding the tale begun the month before in issue #131.

From Justice League to Justice Society, we go to All Star Comics#61.  

Let's talk about this cover for a second.

We've got the two banners at the top, word balloons and a text box hyping the plot.  Besides the big All Star Comics logo, we've got a banner proclaiming "with the SUPER SQUAD" with the JSA reduced to an afterthought shield graphic next to the comic's title. 

Boy, there is a LOT going on! 

So what the hell is a "Super Squad"?   

I'll let Gerry Conway try to explain it.

"I wanted to do a “modern” group — which at the time meant kids in costume.  Youth rules — and the original JSA characters were a bit long in the tooth, according to continuity (even given that time seemed to run at a different rate on Earth-Two).  Robin was a nod to the present; The Star-Spangled Kid was a nod to the past; and Power Girl was an attempt at something “new.”"

"Calling the resulting group the “Super-Squad” was intended to differentiate it from the JSA.  Also, while I wanted to use the All-Star name for the comic, I knew that, in fact, none of these characters were what readers of the ’70s would consider to be “stars.”  Hence, “Super-Squad.”"  

Except that never quite panned out.  Robin was quickly written out and SSK and PG were basically members of the JSA.  Still, the Super Squad cover dress would continue for another year before it was finally replaced with a proper Justice Society logo.

Keith Giffen took over as penciller  with issue #60  and li'l Dave-El was really loving his artwork.  

Giffen was still relatively new to the comics game but I found his work to be especially powerful and dramatic, setting the stage for Giffen's later work with Paul Levitz on Legion of Super Heroes. 

Speaking of the Legion,  here comes Superboy#218.

Cary Bates is determined to make us care about Tyroc.

But we don't want to.  

He's got the dumbest super power where he screams weird shit which makes stuff happen. 

What kind of stuff is determined by the needs of the plot.  

The convoluted standard issue Cary Bates plot involves some shenangans with a Legion reject called Absorbancy Boy.

I will pause a moment to let you giggle at that.

<pause>

Are you done now? Good. 

So Absorbancy Boy (stop giggling!) absorbs residue energy such as from super-powers. Now he has the powers of Sun Boy and Superboy.

Because Cary Bates is determined to  make us like Tyroc whether we want to or not, the solution to this threat is something only Tyroc can do.  

Tyroc challenges Absorbancy Boy using an ultra-high frequency that only Superboy's super hearing can hear.  This hurts Absorbancy Boy because he's not used to Superboy's powers so Tyroc knocks him out.

World's Finest Comics #239 gives us  "The UFO That Stole the U.S.A." wherein Superman, Batman & Gold from the Metal Men contend with an alien invasion that isn't what it seems.

Illustrated by Curt Swan & John Calnan, the story is more patented insanity from writer Bob Haney.  

In order to reach Superman in space, Batman has Gold (which is a very malleable metal) stretch into a very long wire to extend to Superman in outer space.  

If that sounds impossible, well, that's Bob Haney for you.   

Action Comics #461 continues the Superman tale by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Tex Blaisdell as the alien Karb-Brak continues to cause problems.  

And because DC has it's finger on the pulse of the young people of 1976, the back up is a solo story featuring Perrty White. 

Look at the ol' cigar chomping Daily Planet editor in the DC banner, just begging the hip happening kids of the 70's to buy this comic! 

Challenging All Star Comics#61 for the month's most crowded cover is Adventure Comics #446.  

Aquaman is on this cover THREE times, in the banner, off to the left side on a friggin' seahorse with an American flag and beating the shit out of Black Manta.

Guys, I think Aquaman is in this book! 

We're in the middle of an Aquaman run by writer Paul Levitz and artist Jm Aparo (with Paul getting some scripting help from Martin Pasko.)  Paul was very young (I think he was just out of high school maybe?) and was writing Aquaman because no one else wanted to.  

Pasko pecks out the script for the Creeper who holds down the fort in the back up with Ric Estrada  & Joe Staton doing their best to invoke the spirit of Creeper creator Steve Dikto.  

I was not buying this book on the regular and this was very much a random purchase.  After this issue, I did not buy another issue of Adventure until 1978.   

Looks like April 1976 was another month without Batman or Detective Comics. 

Next month, Comic Book Retro 50 moves to May 1976 where the Caped Crusader's solo titles will return to my purchase pile and we get the return of Green Lantern/Green Arrow.