Comic Book Resources

Ooo, wow. You’re right– I never knew these existed! That Wonder Woman one must be awesome.

A “That’s what she said” joke tossed in there randomly? Really? Is CSBG Wizard now? Sorry, it’s not a big deal, but it felt fairly out of place there.

What can I say? I’ve got ‘The Office’ on the brain these days.

As far as I know, CSBG is whatever its contributors want it to be on that given day.

Keep in mind, I type these up in 20 minutes or so, while trying to get through my first coffee of the day, while keeping my co-workers at bay. It’s all just stream of consciousness.

It’s also kind of a test to see if people actually read the words, rather than just look at the pretty pictures.

You passed.

Remember, guys, it’s not just Sijo that you have to get approval by before you post, it’s stealthwise, too.

That’s what she said.

He’d still be making Chuck Norris & Canada jokes if Apodaca hadn’t alerted him that those were gauche now too. Where would we be if people just commented about the articles themselves, and not just the style of the writer.

Oh yeah, and great article, Scott. World’s Finest was a fun title because you not only got a bunch of Batman/Superman team-ups, but some totally random team-ups that you never knew to ask for.

Remember, guys, it’s not just Sijo that you have to get approval by before you post, it’s stealthwise, too.

Hey, I’m getting famous around here!

But seriously, that joke does throw you off for a moment, because it sounds so out of place with the rest of the article’s tone. But it’s the kind of thing you go “huh” at, nothing of importance. It deserves at most, a post about it in an online forum.

…Such as this one.

Oh, and thanks to Scott for alerting me about these Superman Team Up stories, I wasn’t aware of them. Good stuff to hunt down.

In addition to being a good yarn, that Supes/TT issue actually was a bit of a mind-expander for young me.

layne – it is a pretty crazy story.

That cover does a terrible job of conveying all of the lunacy inside. I thought they would have done some sort of ‘topical’ cover with Speedy telling Mal that they can’t eat in the same restaurant or telling the female Titans to start vacuuming. It’s a very interesting issue, and I was very happy to find Skeates’ commenting on it in the latest Alter Ego .

Who is the girl next to Wonder Girl on the Teen Titans cover?

Here’s what everyone who writes for CSBG needs to do: send your columns to each and every commenter who has ever posted on this blog. We’ll send them back with helpful hints, including which jokes are approved and which aren’t funny (objectively speaking), and exactly what opinion you should have on every subject. Remember, we’re only doing this to improve your website (which we read for free) and yourselves.

Oh man! That World Finest #204 cover is freaking insane! I love that era of Wonder Woman and didn’t know it existed. I need to find that beauty now.. Neal Adams cover! Was this a Dick Dillin interior job, Scott?

Hey, I was just reading somea these last night.

Single worst run of team-up books ever, I tell you what. A boring selection of guest stars, surprisingly weak back-up reprints and Dick Dillin… I just don’t get it. What’s the appeal? I know he was FAST, but it’s also kinda obvious why he worked so quickly

Mike – That’s Lilith, a late 60s addition to the Titans. She was the team’s resident empath/telepath.

Dub – that one has Dillin/Giella artwork. If memory serves, they all do.

MA – I can’t quite put my finger on why I love Dick Dillin so much. Perhaps it was because he was the JLA artist when I was a kid. I agree that this isn’t his strongest stuff – and without sounding like a total jerk, I blame Giella. Dillin’s artwork really comes alive when matched with an inker who can add some depth – Frank McLauglin on his later JLA stuff, Sid Greene on some of the Silver Age stuff, Chuck Cudeira on Blackhawk.

I’ve got some original artwork, and I can’t tell you how impressive it looks up close and person. I have 5 pages from World’s Finest #235 (when the Atom has a Fantastic Voyage type adventure), That one is inked by John Calnan and it’s just gorgeous. The other page I have is from JLA #129 with McLaughlin inks. It’s absolutely stunning.

Oh man, that Wonder Woman team-up looks like the greatest thing ever.

I have a collection of 70′s Superman comics with fantastic “Holy S#!t” covers and mediocre-to-terrible stories inside…this one looks like it would make a great addition.

For the Seven Soldiers fans among you, this run of Superman team-ups is also where incredibly and inconsequentially minor villain the Tempter, who turned up in 7S: Zatanna #3, debuted. It helps in its way to see Seven Soldiers and even Final Crisis partly in the light of Morrison’s creative ‘love letters” to Gardner Fox, John Broome, and especially Len Wein. (Libra’s prominence in the early FC issues seems to me to have been explicitly about saying “how cool is Len Wein.”)

Tempter existed before? Dang, I didn’t know so much slipped past me until today.

I think I’ve only seen Dillin on JLA and here… And the big team books where you have to draw 16 characters in every panel are very rarely anyone’s best work, – Sekowsky was way better on Wonder Woman and Star Hawkins, John Buscema did better work on Silver Surfer and Conan then on the Avengers – ‘An so on.

Is WF # 235 the one with Superman about to mush the Atom into paste on the cover? I do remember really diggin’ the art in that one. (Although I forgot it was Dillin who did it.)

I meant to highlight the Hawkman issue with Tempter, but I cannot find my copy anywhere. IIRC, that issue generated quite a few interesting letters.

MA – That’s the issue, indeed. I’ve made it my goal to track down all of the original art from that book. I’ve got the 5 pages, but I’ve been stuck at that number since 2000.

That Superman/TT story was recently reprinted in one of the Teen Titans showcase volumes. I don’t remember which one right now (and I don’t have the time to look it up, but I’m guessing it’s the second one) if anyone’s interested.

I’m very surprised at the insinuation that Bob Haney was a racist. I’ll have to track down that Alter Ego interview.

I don’t want to put words in Steve Skeates’ mouth, as I don’t think he was saying quite that – so much as that Haney was very old fashioned in his world view (perhaps he shares some, but not all of Handley’s traits).

I don’t believe that Skeates also didn’t think much of the “Daddy-O” Teen Titans-era, and was trying to make things a bit more relevant, notably with ‘Blindspot’ from TT #28. Skeates was the lead writer on TT for only 4 or 5 issues, and was replaced by Haney. I don’t have the interview in front of me, so I can’t quote the passage specifically. If I get the chance, I’ll re-read it and try to communicate precisely what Skeates said.

Thanks for the clarification, Scott.

Tempter existed before? Dang, I didn’t know so much slipped past me until today.

Especially in the Zatanna mini, Seven Soldiers was filled with Easter Eggs that you hardly needed to catch to get the plot. But yeah, pretty much every magic-based character besides Gwydion, Ali, and Misty preexisted 7S in that mini as a comics character, and Gwydion was a reference to some very old mythology from the British Isles that was folded into the Arthurian Merlin many centuries ago.

I dunno. Haney always came off as pretty socially liberal t’me: Check out his Batman/Titans team-ups (Reprinted in Brave and Bold Showcase vol. 2.) Obviously he was older than Skeates or Denny O’ Neil and not “hip” and “with it, daddio” but I can’t imagine much political disagreement between ‘em.

And while I kind of admire his originality, I didn’t think Skeates costume-less Titans stuff was very good – Like, substantially worse in the writing dept. than these here issues of World’s Finest. -Although I certainly like Cardy’s art more’n Dillin’s.

Couple more comments:

Yeah, the Superman/Teen Titans story is reprinted in Showcase Presents: Teen Titans (Volume 2.) And, heck, you get the Steve Skeates Teen Titans stories along with it, so you can see if you agree with me or not.

And my OTHER favorite issuesof this run (That I own – I’m missing 4 of ‘em, including the DIana Prince issue) are reprinted in the Superman/Flash races TPB. I’m not a huge fan of these issues of WF in general, but the two part Flash story in 198-199 is pretty damn awesome.

The Tempter issue’s nicely plotted – There’s an invisible demon slowly turning Superman and Hawkman against each other – and has at least one REALLY nice sequence with a shadow-draped Superman telling Lois Lane off, but it ain’t, y’know, ESSENTIAL or anything.

P.S. I’d totally buy a Seven Soldiers companion. ‘Specially since I still need the Superman/Vigilante issue of WF (214, I think) for my team-up book collection.

I dug out the Skeates interview, and here are the direct quotes re. Bob Haney.

On WF #205

“I should, I suppose, mention at this point that there was one more ‘Titans’ pirce that I wrote for DC, a ‘Superman/Titans” team-up script for World’s Finest #205 edited by Julie Schwartz – in which the villain of the piece, one Richard Handley (a fairly obvious parody of Bob Haney), is show to be (via mind control) transforming the Titans from thoughtful teens into dumb-headed teenyboppers, an unfortunate change I fel (back at the Titans’ own book) was well under way even as I scripted this particular team-up”

On the overall changes at Teen Titans,

“Haney had a tendency to treat these characters like some sad silly batch of brainless teenyboppers (perhaps a bit of evidence as to Haney’s dismal view of the future, although I also suspect in there an arrogant reaction to Haney himself losing work to a number of far youger writers)”

I think I was focusing on the words ‘dismal view of the future’ when I said that he had a more traditional view on life.

That should, hopefully, clear things up.

Anyway – lots of interesting subtext in a relatively obscure team-up book.

That certainly does clarify things a bit. I don’t think it’s fair to say that Haney was anti-teen- they don’t come off any dumber then Metamorpho- rather more that he was writing them in a certain style that was kinda brainless. Everyone at DC was trying very hard to figure out just what the hell was making those Stan Lee comics so popular, and a lot of the latter Silver Age stuff suffered because of this mannered, awkward voice. IMHO, of course!

Better late than never. I actually picked up a lot of these in the early 80s for cheap because of the golden age reprints in them. It certainly wasn’t because of Superman…who I hated.