Favourite DC Comics Character (and Why)

Justice League of America.

I prefer team books, as I feel you get more action and story with the additional characters.

Apart from the interactions between the team members, the adversaries also tend to be a greater threat.

My favourite Justice League era was the Giffen/DeMatteis one, to be honest, when it tended to be far more about the interaction between the characters than who (if anyone) they were fighting.

tony ingram wrote:My favourite Justice League era was the Giffen/DeMatteis one, to be honest, when it tended to be far more about the interaction between the characters than who (if anyone) they were fighting.

My favorite JLA era is partly a sentimental one . . . Len Wein's run, which was around when I first started reading / buying the book. (I had picked up issues #101 and #102 for my older sister when she was away working at summer camp, then started buying my own copies with issue #103.)







I enjoyed the writing, then there was also that great Dick Dillin artwork beautifully inked by Joe Giella (#101 and #102) and Dick Giordano (#103).

Of the original run of JLA, the issues that I was always most interested in were always the annual JLA/JSA crossovers, though I do also have a nostalgiac attahment to certain other stories-notably the one where Zatanna finds her mother's people, and the one where they face the Wizard's Secret Society of Super Villains, which later became the basis for Identity Crisis.

tony ingram wrote:Of the original run of JLA, the issues that I was always most interested in were always the annual JLA/JSA crossovers, though I do also have a nostalgiac attahment to certain other stories-notably the one where Zatanna finds her mother's people, and the one where they face the Wizard's Secret Society of Super Villains, which later became the basis for Identity Crisis.

This one was good, too.

That was the team that was supposed to have existed before the JLA, yes? Before half of them were retconned as being on Earth Two?

tony ingram wrote:That was the team that was supposed to have existed before the JLA, yes? Before half of them were retconned as being on Earth Two?

Well, I don't think they were technically "a team" . . . those characters all were either on Earth-One or had both Earth-Two and Earth-One counterparts at the time since they were all characters who were in print at some point in features from DC during the Silver Age. (Back when that book came out in 1977, it was still just a little over thirty years since the end of WWII, and they weren't really using a sliding time scale like Marvel would eventually resort to in later years.)

I know there were Earth One versions of Greg Saunders, Plastic Man and the Blackhawks, but was there really an Earth One version of the Bob Crane Robotman? Did he appear anywhere else?

tony ingram wrote:I know there were Earth One versions of Greg Saunders, Plastic Man and the Blackhawks, but was there really an Earth One version of the Bob Crane Robotman? Did he appear anywhere else?

His last original appearance in the 1950s was evidently in Detective Comics #202, cover-dated December 1953.  I thought he lasted a little longer than that, but that was nearly two years later than the last JSA appearance in All-Star comics (1951), though it was also about two years before the first appearance of Martian Manhunter in Detective Comics #225.

Old Robotman stories were reprinted in World's Finest Comics #208 (December 1971) and Adventure Comics #413 (same cover date) and some issues of World's Finest in 1974, and then there was the DC Comics Presents back-up "Whatever Happened to Robotman?" in issue #31, but I don't know if they ever clearly defined him as being from Earth-2 prior to the All-Star Squadron Preview in 1981.

Interesting. The version of Crane seen in DCCP was definitely later assigned to Earth Two in America vs the Justice Society.

tony ingram wrote:Interesting. The version of Crane seen in DCCP was definitely later assigned to Earth Two in America vs the Justice Society.

But that was still Roy writing it, so if he made a decision to include Robotman on Earth-2 in All-Star Squadron in 1981, he would go with that in a limited-series he wrote that was published four years later. (And you know how Roy loooooooooved his retcons!)

I know he loved assigning as many characters as possible to Earth Two, even characters who were continuity implants like Steel the Indestructible Man. There's nothing in the 1970s Steel series to suggest that Hank Heywood isn't on Earth One, but Roy still had him show up in All-Star Squadron. And the early 80s Jonni Thunder: Thunderbolt limited series was generally assumed to be set on Earth One as well, until Jonni unexpectedly turned up in Infinity Inc midway through COIE.

tony ingram wrote:I know he loved assigning as many characters as possible to Earth Two, even characters who were continuity implants like Steel the Indestructible Man. There's nothing in the 1970s Steel series to suggest that Hank Heywood isn't on Earth One, but Roy still had him show up in All-Star Squadron. And the early 80s Jonni Thunder: Thunderbolt limited series was generally assumed to be set on Earth One as well, until Jonni unexpectedly turned up in Infinity Inc midway through COIE.

And let's not forget putting the Freedom Fighters / Quality characters on Earth-2 before having them leave for Earth-X (only to come back to Earth-2 to get more Quality heroes to help fight the Nazis on Earth-X during one of the CoIE crossover issues).

I loved that storyline. It's such a shame all Roy's plans for the Golden Age characters were ruined by the Crisis.

One thing that Roy did (putting the Quality Heroes on Earth 2, meeting and teaming with DC heroes) ran contrary to both Len Wein's original idea for the Freedom Fighters (who did not know the JSAers or even of alternate Earths) and even the Quality heroes' appearances in COIE especially Uncle Sam (who also had not heard of other Earths other than their time spend on Earth 1 sort of). I was hoping that Roy would eventually explain this which he caused.

Thing is, Uncle Sam's comments in COIE make very little sense given that Roy's retcon of the Freedom Fighters being from Earth Two actually came first (as did the Dc Comics Presents issue where they had been shown to be able to move between worlds as needed). But that was Marv Wolfman's fault, not Roy's.

tony ingram wrote:Thing is, Uncle Sam's comments in COIE make very little sense given that Roy's retcon of the Freedom Fighters being from Earth Two actually came first (as did the Dc Comics Presents issue where they had been shown to be able to move between worlds as needed). But that was Marv Wolfman's fault, not Roy's.

Not sure if this was an established "retcon" by Thomas or an oversight. He later admitted that he may have made a mistake by making the Quality heroes originally from Earth 2 (as compared to the Fawcett heroes which were given their own Earth originally). I certainly think there was an easy fix (At least for the FF's who, when the JLA/JSA crossover occurred could've blamed the mind-control machines for blanking their minds in order to prevent Sam from contacting their former home Earth - not too sure how to fix the JSAers lack of remembering). And I don't recall - in COIE, did the FF's remember having been on Earth 1?

They didn't mention it, that I recall.

As much I as like COIE, and I thought this back then too, there were many flaws in the storytelling, in what I can only think, was a combination of getting as many characters into the story as possible combined with deciding who would survive and who wouldn't. I blame Wolfman and whoever was giving the okays on the things. Originally, the idea was to have Earths 1, 2, 3, S and X survive and then the decision was made to have only 1 Earth and that messed up a lot of things.

Surely it was 1, 2, 4, X and S? The world of the Charlton heroes?

I think you're right. Earth 3 was already destroyed a few pages into the first issue of COIE.

note the different mask

Silogramsam wrote:note the different mask

And I first encountered that Manhunter in the stories when he started wearing this outfit:

That Walt Simonson design is a classic. I remember being very pleased when they brought it back in Power Company a few years back, and then rather disappointed when Kirk duPaul got killed off in the last Manhunter series. Someone at DC clearly liked it in the mid 70s, too, because after Paul Kirk's death, they had another Kirk clone show up in Secret Society of Super Villains.

Even in the end of The Golden Age, Robinson wrote that Kirk disappeared in Africa at the dawn of the Silver Age anyway not to appear again (according to Johnny Chambers' narrative at that time) which is what supposedly happened to Kirk until it was revealed in the Manhunter series in Detective that he had been captured, cloned, etc. So Robinson also alluded, in an indirect way, to the 70s version of Manhunter. I also liked the costume although the idea of large flapping sleeves in a fight was a bit troubling to me.

To be honest, I don't think the flapping sleeves would be any more or less of a hindrance in a fiht than a cape. Most superhero outfits are staggeringly impractical.

Yes, and it's amazing how many female superheroes have long hair. Wouldn't that just give their opponents something to grab on to?

Lucy McGough wrote:Yes, and it's amazing how many female superheroes have long hair. Wouldn't that just give their opponents something to grab on to?

You would think so.
On a related note, I always loved Phantom Lady's justification for going into battle half naked. She claimed she did it because her enemies would be too busy looking at her chest to notice her face.
Hello? You're a superhero! Wear a mask!

She obviously just wanted an excuse to show off her assets.

Lucy McGough wrote:She obviously just wanted an excuse to show off her assets.

If you got it, flaunt it.

[img]http://www.cosmicteams.com/quality/images/phantomLady_Police_7.png[/img][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/ff/Phantom_Lady_panel.jpg[/img]This is her original costume.  Maybe alluring by those days but clearly, when Fox Studios took over, that's when the exploitation idea started really.  And even when DC had her again, the skimpiness wasn't as accentuated until, I think, Chuck Austen's feature in Action Comics Weekly.


By 1942 [img]http://www.cosmicteams.com/quality/images/PhantomLady_Police_15.jpg[/img]

Those links appear to be broken

let's try this...here's PL with what I would describe as a bathing suit circa 1956

By Dillin in the FF's debut with DC. PL is not depicted like those others here either.

Cool, thanks! I see.

For a phantom, she's showing a lot of flesh. Nowt intangible about her

but then, Dee Tyler came along...maybe Sandra was more demure.

because in the 40s at Quality

It's a pretty revealing costume no matter which variation you pick. Society's changed enormously since the 19th century, hasn't it? And every decade we get less inhibited.

Lucy McGough wrote:Cool, thanks! I see.

For a phantom, she's showing a lot of flesh. Nowt intangible about her

I think she gained invisibility (and maybe intangibility?) in the mid-1970s when she crossed over to Earth-1.

MajorHoy wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:Cool, thanks! I see.

For a phantom, she's showing a lot of flesh. Nowt intangible about her

I think she gained invisibility (and maybe intangibility?) in the mid-1970s when she crossed over to Earth-1.

She gained the ability to phase through solid objects in that series, but not to turn invisible. Her only other "power" was her black light ray.

the [b]19th[/b] Century?

Well, it has!

why am I having the same problem again? let's try again


the 19th Century

okay. Here we go...19th century

I'd say that, of the publishers from the 40s, some of whose characters were absorbed eventually by DC, Quality had the female characters with the more revealing costumes even compared with Wonder Woman, for those years. Besides Phantom Lady, there was Wildfire (which is why Danette Reilly became Firebrand in part) and there was Miss America. THere was USA. There was Fear, the Blackhawks villain.

and, of course, all of the women by Eisner in the Spirit

Please, don't try to justify it by tying it into the discussion. Just keep posting that gorgeous Golden Age art!  

Margo the Magician (daughter of the great, but dead, Great Presto)