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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 12, 2020 21:09:51 GMT -5
Week 17: Covers from a series of 12 issues or less Here’s one that was intended to trip up anyone who might be on to my secret theme. Sherlock Holmes was touted to be a “fourth fabulous co-star” on the cover of DC Special Series 8, a Brave & Bold special. Since it uses the official B&B logo, I counted it as a “real issue” of the classic run, and treated Holmes as a mystery guest, just like Superman and Plastic Man before him, only without the question mark logo that those two co-stars received. And the issue that co-starred Conan Doyle's legendary detective: Co-star Commentary:I had kicked myself when someone else used one of the two Marvel black and white magazines starring Sherlock Holmes for the "dollar comic" topic earlier. I wish I had thought of that, since Holmes was one of the only opportunities to use a non-DC comic cover. Of course, there were other Sherlock Holmes comics from different companies that I could have used in this particular week's topic, but I thought it would be fun to feature a comic that took the "12 issues or less" to its minimum. The book wasn't billed as a one-shot, and I always assumed DC had intended to continue it, since they didn't issue many one-shots around this time. Once I modified my roster, I found a chance to use one other cover from another company. I had hoped to use one European cover (France's Eclipso comic), but never found the chance, so, as it turned out, the entire project featured only DC covers. This was an oddball guest star for sure, but Holmes was undergoing a revival in popularity during the 70's. I was on board with that revival, and I got a kick out of his appearance. Holmes also made an appearance with Batman in Detective Comics #500 #572 (thanks for the correction, foxley!). Week 18: There will be blood I figured the handful of villains who co-starred (other than the Joker) would be hard to place, but they weren’t. Neal Adams delivered the blood, so I was able to use this cover: Co-star Commentary:Ra’s al Ghul was the headlining co-star for B&B 159. Co-starring villains was a gimmick that never seemed to pan out after that first, surprising Joker team-up. I can't say Ra's was an inspired choice; I can think of other super-villains I'd rather have seen contrived into a partnership with the Caped Crusader, such as Mr. Freeze or, for a really wacky scenario, Terra-Man! But Denny O'Neill wrote this one, and Ra's was obviously a favored creation. Week 19: Meltdowns I had a few options, and went for this classic. Co-star Commentary:Adam Strange was the guest in B&B 90, 161, and 190. Adam wasn't one of my favorites in the 1970's, so I didn't really get excited about seeing him crop up, but B&B was sometimes about trotting out the defunct characters and keeping the trademarks active. But Adam's appearances gave us the chance to see Batman on the alien world of Rann, and gave Carmine Infantino the opportunity to revisit drawing his old pal.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 12, 2020 7:21:30 GMT -5
Week 12: Covers that had Mego toy figures I get the chance to use the Riddler! I had been worried about this one, because there are only a few comics that had the Riddler as a headline character, and those covers were mostly kind of boring and bland. Fitting any of them to a theme was going to be difficult, and here this topic plopped right in my lap! Riddler was a Mego! I didn't have to worry about the particular cover image satisfying some broader criteria--just having the Riddler was enough! Co-star Commentary:The Riddler co-starred in B&B 183. B&B tried a few times to recapture the magic of issue 111, the surprising team-up of Batman and the Joker that sold so well that they almost immediately started prepping a Joker solo comic. I don't think any of them had the same impact or interest, including the Joker's other guest-starring issues of B&B. Week 13: Norm Breyfogle I didn’t have a lot of options--most of Norm's DC work was on Batman--but I did find this one Hawkman cover by Breyfogle. Whew! (Later on, I came to the conclusion, as mentioned earlier, that a Batman solo entry would be appropriate, but that had not occurred to me at this point.) This might be the most debatable case of whether a "post-Crisis" character is really the same as the "Earth-I" version used in B&B, but I always thought of him as being the same old Katar Hol, just with an altered history. Co-star Commentary:Hawkman appeared in B&B 70, 139, and 164. He also co-starred with Aquaman in issue 51, when the team-ups didn't always include Batman, and made three solo appearances in the pre-team-up days, for a total of seven billings on the cover. Although Hawkman's team-ups weren't the most memorable in the run, he was a very suitable co-star, with a fairly grounded power set and a science fiction footing that provided some good plot springboards. And Jim Aparo drew a terrific Hawkman--I'd rank him just behind Joe Kubert and Murphy Anderson. Week 14: Choices An appropriate opportunity to use a Two-Face cover! I figured this would be tough—there are a few comics with Two-Face as a named headline character, and he was just “two” fitting a choice for this topic! Although Robin is not listed in the logo, he’s prominent, so I also counted this as my Robin (Earth-1 version) entry. Despite the Earth-II stylings courtesy of Dick Sprang, this is the Earth-I Robin character, as near as I can determine. Co-star Commentary:Two-Face was one of the “4 Famous Co-Stars” of B&B 130, and was also the second mystery character alluded to only as "?" on B&B 106. Robin was one of a different set of "4 Famous Co-Stars" in B&B 100. It's pushing things to call Two-Face a co-star, at least in the same sense as those who teamed up with Batman in B&B, but he got the cover billing, so he made the roster. I always thought that Two-Face would have been a good choice for a solo comic, even in the 70's. A proper team-up could certainly have been worked up, if Harvey Dent's coin were to land good face up for a long run of tosses. Week 15: Stan Lee Obviously, I had to skip this week. Someone did offer up a cover with Funky Flashman, but it was one I couldn’t have used, since I’d already used up that lead character (Superman) in a previous entry. Week 16: Weird Transformations Lois Lane and Rose and the Thorn took care of a pair of co-stars from my list. As I mentioned before, I permitted myself to allow a second appearance of Superman in my entries, since he’s on almost every Lois Lane cover, and Rose & Thorn mostly appeared on Lois covers. A grudging accommodation, but necessary. Co-star Commentary:Lois was in B&B 175, Rose and the Thorn was in a rare two-parter in 188-189.In its later issues, B&B seemed eager to enlist much of the Superman Family as co-stars. Lois's appearance played well to Jim Aparo's skills at plain-clothes stories, and while his Lois didn't really capture the established house look for the character, she was very appealing. The Thorn got two issues probably because her creator Robert Kanigher was on board for a two issue run, and I guess DC didn't care too much what went on with B&B, which was scheduled to end at 200. But maybe they wanted to give her a spotlight with an eye towards a solo series, and B&B had the luxury of providing that. She was certainly a reasonable choice for guest star, and I'll bet Bob Haney could have had an interesting take on her if they'd tried her out earlier. Up next: the Batman team-up co-star you're most likely to have forgotten or never known about!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 12, 2020 7:11:42 GMT -5
No, my rules required it to be the same character, as much as possible, and for that character to be as prominently featured on the cover, preferably by name with logo or other prominent identification. I think there was one instance where the character was depicted but not identified, and one instance where a character went by a different name than he did in B&B. Plus, at this point in my challenge, I had a more modest aim, intending to use only the characters who had co-starred with Batman. I later opened it up to all of the team-up features, and later to all of the characters who had appeared in new stories in B&B.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 11, 2020 16:17:01 GMT -5
Week 9: Russ Heath I went for one of Heath’s Sgt. Rock covers. I had at least one other option, but using it wouldn’t have provided significantly more options in later contests. Co-star Commentary:Rock appeared in issues 84, 96, 103, 117, 124, and 162 ofB&B, and in DC Super-Stars #8. It's one of the unexpected twists in B&B history that Sgt. Rock would become one of the most popular guest stars. My personal impression was that the super-hero fans and the war comics fans didn't overlap that much. But even though I never read Sgt. Rock, I always got a big kick out of seeing Rock show up in B&B. But then, except in that first surprise appearance with Batman somehow operating in WWII *and* in the present day, the B&B Rock was the post-war, older soldier, operating in a different milieu. Week 10: Bang for your buck (Covers with a 1 dollar price tag) I had a lot of flexibility here, of course, and I went with this issue of an excellent Plastic Man miniseries. Co-star Commentary:
Plastic Man appeared in B&B 76 (as “?”), 95, 123, and 148. Plas was the first mystery guest in B&B, and Haney's take on the character was, well, different than the way he'd been characterized in his brief mid-60's run at DC. This Plas was a mooning, depressed freak. Plas brought along one of the only recurring B&B-exclusive supporting cast members, Ruby Ryder, who tended to show up whenever Plas did. Week 11: Frankenstein This issue of Detective Comics not only had Frankenstein,but also cover featured the Earth-2 versions of Batman and Robin. I decided I couldn't use the Phantom Stranger vs. the Spawn of Frankenstein cover, since that was the "official DC Frankenstein", a "headline character" who never appeared in B&B. Co-star Commentary:Earth-2’s Batman co-starred in B&B 200, and Robin of Earth-2 appeared in B&B #182 and #200. But then, really, the Earth-2 Batman had a few other appearances in B&B, since he was "The" Batman in team-ups with Blackhawk, Catwoman, one (or two?) of the Sgt. Rock issues, and Unknown Soldier. An apt choice for the send-off issue, although that one wasn't a conventional team-up, since the story didn't have the two meeting. Robin's appearance also included Batwoman (who appeared on the cover but wasn't billed) and Starman, with some cameos by some other Justice Society of America members. Starman's disabled for most of the story, but Batwoman's a major character in the plot. Still, no cover billing means she didn't make the roster; I had to draw the line somewhere--but I would later change my mind!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 11, 2020 5:09:50 GMT -5
Week 5: Not You, It Can’t Be You! I probably should have been a little stricter and not included this, since it also has other New Gods on the cover, (and neither Orion nor "The New Gods" as a collective never appeared as billed headliners in B&B) but I hadn't yet firmed up the rules I intended to follow. From here on, though, I’d try hard to avoid having any “headline” characters other than the lead appearing on my entries. Co-star Commentary:Mr. Miracle was in B&B 112, 129, and 138. Mr. Miracle has always been one of my favorites, so it was great to see Aparo be the first artist other than Kirby to get a crack at Scott Free. And a darn good job of it he did, too! Batman's got a pretty good rep as an escape artist, so it's a natural to pair these guys up and put them in challenging entrapments. Week 6: Wacky Weather Aquaman got the nod here. I probably should have saved him for a more difficult topic, but I love this cover! Co-star Commentary:Aquaman co-starred in B&B 82, 114, 126, and 142.Co-star Commentary:Aquaman's another favorite, all the better when we could get more from Jim Aparo on the King of the Sea. In issue 126, although Aparo was billed before co-artist John Calnan, he only provided inks over Calnan's pencils. Aquaman also had the "lead slot" in B&B 51 and 73 (before Batman became the entrenched headliner), co-starring with Hawkman and then the Atom, for a total of 6 team-up appearances. Week 7: Joe Kubert This was a strategic misstep! With all the Joe Kubert covers available I opted for one that would use up Superman, who would have been really handy to have held onto for the more challenging topics. I also had to bend my rules later, when I realized that there weren’t many options for Lois Lane or Rose & Thorn covers that didn’t also feature Superman! Co-star Commentary:Superman was the mystery guest (“?”) in B&B 150. The Demon was in issues 109 and 137. I remember some lettercol writers were disappointed that the guest star in the landmark 150th issue was Superman, who'd been teamed with Batman for years over in World's Finest. But I sure wasn't, because Haney didn't just serve up another weak issue of WF here, but really played up the mystery guest angle. For once, I didn't peek at the interiors, preferring to be surprised, and I was! And those who know me know my bias for the artwork of Jim Aparo, but I gotta say his Superman was very nicely done. It was quite different from what we typically got from Swan, Dillin, Delbo, Schaffenberger, but not wrongly different. A lot more dynamic, I thought. Aparo was also, I believe, the first artist after Kirby to draw the Demon. Etrigan's another favorite, and Jim did the character justice. I thought the Demon was a terrific team-up choice. He's a little off-kilter, supernatural but not outrageously overpowered, and most importantly for B&B, he had an interesting secret identity in Jason Blood. It occurs to me that Bob Haney utilized the guests' civilian identities much more heavily than typical team-up magazines. You could always count on a lot of plain-clothes scenes, and that made this book superior, to my reckoning, to the kind of stories Marvel was doing in Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, where it was all about the super-heroes teaming up against super-villains. Fine if that's your kick, but it got old a lot faster than the more grounded set-ups that Haney devoted so much time to. Of course, it helped a lot that Jim Aparo could handle the civilian scenes with such skill. Week 8: Archie Obviously, I had to skip this week, the first time of many. None of the Archie characters ever appeared in B&B.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 10, 2020 22:26:08 GMT -5
Week 3: Mike Grell was the topic. So now the search was on for a Grell cover with one of the B&B co-stars. Superboy would have been easy, but I figured I better hold onto that for later—there are so many Superboy issues that I could easily match a Superboy cover to many different contest themes. I probably had a few other options, but I went for Karate Kid: Co-star Commentary:Karate Kid co-starred in B&B #198. I guess they were trying to pump up Karate Kid to boost sales of his comic, which was not succeeding in capitalizing on the martial arts craze. I know I wasn't interested. But having a martial artist team up with Batman certainly doesn't seem like a bad idea just on the face of things. Week 4: Action #1 I had to jump on this one quickly, since there aren’t that many Action #1 tributes available. I managed to get to this Supergirl-featured cover before anyone else. Whew! Co-star Commentary:Supergirl appeared in two B&B adventures, issues 147 and 160.Two fairly close in time appearances for the Girl of Steel. I imagine there had been some fan interest in seeing this team-up. Personally, I could do without much Superman Family presence here, but I wasn't too disappointed that she got the slot.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 10, 2020 16:41:33 GMT -5
Week 1: JSA was the contest topic on the first week of my personal challenge. I picked this cover without knowing what my next secret theme would be. I just picked an appropriate cover and decided I’d figure out my new secret theme when I had to follow up the following week! I don't remember all of the potential challenge themes I considered. I remember considering "Neal Adams covers", but I'm not really even a big fan of Adams. But Wildcat always brings B&B quickly to mind, and it didn't take long to settle on the concept. Co-star Commentary:The Spectre had four B&B appearances, issues 75, 116,180, and 199. Wildcat appeared in five issues: 88, 97, 110, 118, and 127. The Spectre was an odd character to team with Batman. I mean, people thought the World's Finest team was lopsided?! As I recall, these stories tended to feature Jim Corrigan a lot more than the Spectre, so they tended to work out well. Wildcat, meanwhile, was a more reasonable choice of partners for the kinds of grounded stories that Bob Haney seemed to prefer in B&B, but it often seemed that Ted Grant overshadowed his alter ego in his appearances as much as Jim Corrigan did! I remember one issue that barely had him in costume at all. Still, Wildcat was a curiously frequent guest, despite having extremely limited presence outside of B&B. Both, of course, are contributors to the reputation for inattention to the Earth-1/Earth-2 concepts for which Bob Haney is well known. Wildcat certainly appears to be resident on this Batman's world, despite there being little other indication of there being an Earth-1 counterpart during the Bronze Age. Week 2: Legion of Super-Heroes I opted to go a bit off the beaten path when selecting this unusual team-up to qualify for this topic, and my new theme was cemented. I decided that my policy would be that I could include any suitable issue of Brave & Bold—in fact, this would be necessary, since one of the B&B co-stars only appeared on a single issue of B&B. I also liked the idea of planting an early hint to my theme. I knew it would take several more entries before anyone might feasibly catch on, though. Co-star commentary:The Legion appeared in B&B #179.The LOSH showed up during a period when B&B was trying to stretch out of its comfortable slate of usual partners, now that Haney was gone. I don't think the Legion fans were especially interested in seeing them operate outside the 30th century. I sure wasn't, so I passed on this issue. No Aparo, no loss. Still, it's a team-up that, according to the letters page over the years, had frequently been proposed by readers.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 10, 2020 16:38:38 GMT -5
The moral of the story in advance:
Even if you can't win the big game, you can try to win your own game.
As of this week, I'm declaring victory in my secret little project, after 97 weeks' engagement with our weekly Classic Comics Cover Contest. I had two entries I wanted to add, but given the trends of topics, it's looking like I might be hanging on for another year trying to find a chance to use the few remaining covers available to me. Since these last two, along with one I have already used, were outside the bounds of my original challenge, I decided to "cut them from the team" and let everyone in on my secret theme.
At some point, I began using spoilers to let any who were interested know that I did have a secret theme dictating my selections. I left additional clues by "liking" only those covers that might have potentially been used, had I not made an alternative choice or had already retired that character by using it in a prior contest. So you saw me liking a lot of DC covers (but not all! plenty of DC covers wouldn't qualify!), and only one Marvel (yes, there was in fact a Marvel cover that showed up in someone's entry that would have been a valid choice for this project!). At least one of the forum members--foxley--figured out my theme, but kindly kept mum about it!
Introduction: This is a review of my Classic Cover Contest Personal Challenge that I've been engaging in for almost two years now. This wasn't the first time I made up my own additional rules to apply to my cover contest entries. For a long time, beginning on the contest's predecessor on "the old boards" and continuing here, I challenged myself to post a cover that satisfied both the current contest and the previous week's contest. The challenge ended when I was finally defeated with a topic that I couldn't find a suitable entry for. Along the way, I had some exciting challenges; one of my proudest moments was when we had a "Favorite Jim Starlin Cover" back-to-back with a "Favorite John Buscema Cover", and I found a cover that was in fact not only a Jim Starlin layout under John Buscema finishes, but actually was one of my favorite covers, one with a personal meaning to me: the first issue I bought of Defenders, which would be one of my ongoing favorite titles (it was issue 4, with the introduction of Valkyrie to the team).
I followed that with a new challenge, which I kept secret: for the next seven weeks, I restricted my choices to comics with a cover date of February 1962. That didn't last very long, and when it came time for a new secret personal challenge, I eventually settled on: Brave and Bold Co-Stars!
Here's how it would work: Each week, the cover that I entered in the Classic Comics Forum's Classic Cover Contest would feature only characters or teams (or concepts) that co-starred with Batman during the original run of The Brave and the Bold. The initial rules, as we shall see, were later adjusted to include all of the B&B co-stars, including those who were teamed up with someone other than Batman, and eventually, all of the cover-billed features, even if not team-up participants. I had also decided to include the three features that appeared only as cover-billed reprints, but it is those features that I decided this week to un-include. So although I had already used a Challengers of the Unknown cover, I've decided not to try to fit in Hourman or the Secret Six.
The Rules: Over the first few weeks of the challenge, I developed and refined the rules that I would try to operate under, which turned out to be a lot more complicated than I expected:
Once I used a co-star, he, she, it, or they would no longer be eligible to appear on any future covers I would use (with some exceptions noted below). In other words, I could use each B&B star only once.
If a cover featured other major characters who had not appeared as a B&B co-star, that cover was ineligible for my use. For example, any cover with Batgirl clearly depicted on it would be off-limits, since she never appeared (as a cover-credited co-star) with Batman in B&B. Although some villains did co-star in B&B, I allowed the appearance of any *other* villains on covers I might use. I was lax with this early on, as I was working out the rules for myself, so there is one cover with additional superhero characters who might feasibly have been used in B&B.
I did make a general exception to the previous rule for co-starring teams. For example, any grouping of the original run of Teen Titans covers would count, even if they included members who were not in the B&B appearances (or if they did not include a member who was in the B&B appearances). The same went for the Legion of Super-Heroes. I did require the covers I used to be from the "same" team, i.e., not the New Teen Titans or Legionnaires or any of the other Teen Titans successor titles.
Any character who appeared as both a member of a co-starring team and as an individual counted separately. This applied only, or so I thought, to the Earth-I Robin, who appeared in B&B as a Teen Titan and as an individual (in the team of "4 Famous Co-Stars" in B&B #100). To clarify, this means I would have to use both a cover featuring the Teen Titans cover and a different cover featuring Robin. Batman himself--Earth-I or Earth-II--could appear on any covers I used (since both of them served as the leads in different Batman team-ups).
The Earth-II Batman would also need to appear in one of my entries since he was also a "guest" in issue 200. I later decided that since he was also the "lead" team-up partner, it was only fair to include an Earth-I Batman spotlight cover.
I decided that any B&B covers were eligible, which was essential since one of the co-starring teams never appeared on any cover other than B&B! Consequently, Batman is allowed to appear as often as I want. Later, I decided to allow myself to use Robin of Earth-II on multiple entries if necessary, since I probably wouldn't be able to use the Earth-II Catwoman otherwise. Since both Robins were guest co-stars, I considered that any Batman-centric covers that included them would count as fulfilling their appearance on my roster. Since I used the Earth-II Batman and Robin early on, there was, therefore, no need to use a Star-Spangled Comics cover with Robin, and the Earth-I Robin was checked off my roster with an appearance on Two-Face's entry.
I favored covers with the lead character identified in the logo itself, or at least identified on the cover. So rather than using a Batman cover that included Riddler, Two-Face, or Ra's Al Ghul, I wanted to use covers with those characters in the actual title, with their own logos on display, if possible.
I...Vampire! appeared primarily in House of Mystery. I considered those as separate entries, so that I could use one "standard" House of Mystery cover and one "I...Vampire!" House of Mystery cover.
Features in cover cameos counted, if the character were depicted on the cover (which in itself would disqualify all of the Hourman covers from Adventure Comics. So I couldn't use a cover that included an illustration for a Golden Age Green Lantern story, for example, but if I used a cover with a "Nemesis" backup depicted, that would count as my "Nemesis" entry and take him off the board.
I could use multiple co-stars in a single cover. For example, I started off with a cover that prominently featured two of Batman's frequent co-stars. I allowed myself to re-use Superman in the context of a Lois Lane cover. Otherwise, my Lois and Rose & the Thorn selections would have been too restricted. If I had a do-over, I wouldn't have used Superman before Lois, and would have counted my Lois Lane cover as a "threefer", eliminating Superman, Lois, and Thorn from my list. (Obviously, I considered it acceptable to use either Rose or Thorn in my selection, not both--which probably would have been impossible.)
The characters I used had to be essentially the same ones as the characters in Brave & Bold. They didn't necessarily have to be pre-Crisis versions, but they couldn't be legacy characters. In other words, my Green Arrow had to be Oliver Queen, not Connor Hawke. My Earth-II Huntress had to be specifically the Earth-II version, the daughter of Bruce Wayne, not Helena Bertinelli. My Earth-II Robin had to be the Golden Age character (although I allowed myself to use a version from before the multiple Earth concept was part of the canon for any of the Earth-II characters). The only exception I (initially) intended to allow myself was for Catwoman: the Earth-I version was "sort of" cover-billed on B&B 131 "Batman and Wonder Woman vs Catwoman", while the Earth-II Catwoman was the formal co-star of issue 197. Rather than count these as two separate co-stars, my initial plan was to include only a single Catwoman in my roster. Obviously, the Earth-I Catwoman would be a lot easier to find covers for, at least as logo-billed headliner, but there were plenty of Batman covers featuring the first Catwoman. Ultimately, I realized it might be smart not to make a decision on this until I had to, in order to give myself some flexibility. The more I thought on it, the most consistent position would be to use an Earth-II Catwoman cover as a priority, leaving Earth-I Catwoman as a contingency plan, and not allow myself to use the Earth-I Catwoman as a stand-in for the actual, headlined co-star. That is, it must either be both of them or only the Earth-II version that I would use. The latter approach would limit my cover options more. After I did in fact use the Earth-I Catwoman, I was obligated to using the Earth-II Catwoman in a later entry.
Black Canary was another bit of a challenge, but I decided to ignore the mother/daughter retcon and allow myself to use any of the Black Canary covers, whether they were the explicitly Earth-II version, Earth-I when she was presumably the same person as the Earth-II version, Earth-I after being identified as the original's daughter, or post-Crisis.
I counted as a "co-star" anyone who was referred to specifically as a co-star on the cover, even if their actual logo didn't appear. There were only a few instances where this applied: Earth-I Robin and Two-Face were among two different sets of "4 Famous Co-Stars". Three characters were identified only as "?" on the cover, although two of them later appeared as co-stars under their own names (one of them was Two-Face, who never got a cover logo, but was identified as a co-star, as mentioned in the previous sentence. One surprise co-star was mentioned in a cover blurb only as a "fourth fabulous co-star"; that character went on the list, too. As mentioned above, Earth-I Catwoman was listed as a part of the masthead in one issue, so her position on the roster is debatable, but I ultimately opted to include her.
I drafted one other character onto my roster as an "honorary" guest star, one who was cover-featured on one issue and made at least two significant story appearances, but was never mentioned on any cover. There are probably several incidental characters who appeared in various stories, but didn't rate being on my roster.
I counted The Outsiders as legitimate B&B co-stars, since they were touted on the final issue and did in fact team up with Batman inside. This meant another two co-stars, like Robin, who would be included in my roster both as a team member and a solo guest star: Black Lighting and Metamorpho.
DC Special Series #8 counted as an issue of B&B, since it was only identified on the cover as "The Brave and the Bold Special", and the indicia listed the same thing as the primary title of the comic. All of its co-stars had to be accounted for, but only one of them never appeared as a co-star in the regular series.
If I could not satisfy the weekly contest topic using one of the covers available to me, I would skip the contest that week and continue the next. To be honest, it was always a little disappointing to see a contest with so specific a theme that I immediately knew I couldn't join in--particular companies and characters, mostly.
Eventually, as we shall see, the ground rules changed a bit, to include characters who appeared in non-Batman B&B team-ups.
This Thread: While I will use this thread to do a retrospective of all my entries, discussing the various challenges I found myself up against, I'll also be making short comments on each of the characters/features. Since the initial focus was on the characters Batman teamed with, I'd welcome others' thoughts on these characters as team-up partners or as concepts in their own right, specific team-up appearances, or any other observations you might want to contribute. I'll be tackling these in order of my usage, so that you've got an idea of how the noose slowly tightened around me as my "talent pool" got used up, so I ask you to refrain from discussing features and co-stars until they come into play. But I do hope this discussion will be more than a vanity project: I know that B&B is a favorite of many of us here, but it's not one that we've explored in depth (other than the terrific podcasts that focused on the pre-Batman team-ups!)
I've been writing these up the entire time alongside my entries, so there should be no risk of this thread evaporating (like some of my review threads have--temporarily, I hope!).
And thus, let us proceed--or is it recede?--to the beginning of my challenge!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 5, 2020 9:43:15 GMT -5
Showcase #32 It may be a stretch, but I've always thought the funniest monsters were the ones intended to be taken seriously, and Showcase #32 cover artist Bernard Baily could generate some goofy-looking beasts, as we've seen over in the early days of the Spectre thread. So how about this portly pink beetle-bodied triple-jointed turtle/dinosaur-headed mount, galloping under the bare-handed control of the one and only Cave Carson in the City 100 Miles Down? With this, I'm down to only 2 more covers remaining in my (so far) 97-week-long personal Secret Classic Comics Cover Contest Challenge! I could stop here if I really wanted to: the remaining pair of features on my roster didn't qualify under my initial rules, and so this entry is a definite milestone. But, for the sake of a solid finish, I'm going to hang in there and see if I can use covers from the two remaining features in the next few weeks. It's going to be difficult, I'm sure, since I now have only 17 covers to pick from, and the odds of any of those satisfying a random contest topic are very low! If I can't find a slot for them, I'll retroactively pull one of my previous entries, and start up the overview of this little project!
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 2, 2020 7:09:59 GMT -5
Gotta vote for foxley for posting one of my all-time favorite covers, the Aparo Phantom Stranger cover that cleverly works to show three different tones on three planes, with the witnesses reacting with different emotions in the central plane, the grim and unexpressive Stranger looking on in judgment behind them unseen, and the shadow of the sentenced man rendered as a tormented shadow.
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Post by MWGallaher on May 27, 2020 21:25:23 GMT -5
House of Mystery #303: The "jury of his peers" are also the executioners: {Spoiler}Hurray! Two contests in a row! This brings me down to three remaining entries in my secret personal Classic Comics Cover Contest Challenge. Actually, it finishes out all the entries on my original list, but since I expanded my roster, I've got three more left. Maybe I can finish by the end of the summer, if enough of the weekly topics suit my needs...
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Post by MWGallaher on May 20, 2020 9:22:13 GMT -5
Detective Comics #318: {Spoiler}It's great to have a topic that I can compete in again! I've been selecting my entries according to a secret set of criteria, and if I can't meet the criteria, I have to sit out for the week. Even starting with a large pool of potential covers available, there have been occasional weeks that I couldn't participate in, when the topic was just way too specific for my criteria to be satisfied. As my project continued, that reserve of cover options has become smaller and smaller, and as I expected, here near the end, the challenge of matching the topic has become extremely difficult, and I've had to sit out more and more. I don't want to spill the beans on just what my theme has been until I finish (although at least one member of the forum has figured it out!), but I will tell you this much: I now have only four entries remaining to complete the project. One of those entries must be selected from a specific run of covers from the early 1940's, one from a handful of issues from two different series from the early 1960's, one from a particular series published in the late 1960's and one from a run of covers published in the 1980's. I trust I'll find some appropriate topics over the coming months to finally finish this up! When I began, I had a somewhat different set of criteria I was working from. Along the way, I made some expansions to allow me to stay in the game and to broaden the scope of my initial challenge. That led me to a few further expansions of my roster, eventually settling on one that was, in a very specific way, more "complete" than my initial one. Today's entry, in fact, features the final "recruit" to the team, a last minute decision to include..Batman and Robin? Catman? Catwoman? Batwoman? Cats? Detective Comics? I'm not telling...yet! By the way, one additional hint to my Secret Classic Comics Cover Contest Challenge can be found in the covers I hit the "Like"button on each week: those are all covers that I could have potentially used somewhere along the way, but had either been eliminated by earlier usage or would have been an available option to the one that I entered myself that week.
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 28, 2020 10:33:33 GMT -5
Icctrombone
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 21, 2020 6:47:04 GMT -5
beccabear67
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 14, 2020 6:29:38 GMT -5
batsywatsy It took me a long time to warm to Corben, for some reason, but at some point I was suddenly overwhelmed by an impression of true genius in his work.
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