At the risk of getting off-topic...

"Creature of 1000 Disguises!" had a sequel written by Craig Boldman and was featured in Action Comics 572 (1985).  Boldman wrote the story after giving a talk at The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art and having one the attendees suggest that he write a follow-up to the tale.  The writer accepted the challenge and later discovered that the student who made the request was none other than future Batman artist Graham Nolan.

www.craigboldman.com/2016/04/25/wayne-boring-pencils/

Not really pertinent to this thread, but seeing as how I just recently came across this bit of info and seeing as how said tale was just brought up...

The Red Scare allegories also appeared in the pilot for The Adv of Superman, the film Superman and the Mole Men. In the story, a deep oil drilling project brings up a pair of creatures, who while exploring the town, are attacked as monsters. Superman ends up defending both the creatures and one of the townspeople, from a raygun, but chastises the man he saved because he was the one who instigated violence against the creatures. That was released in 1951

I’m not going to go into Green Arrow’s complex history. I’ve read a few old Green Arrow stories and ... I was going to say they’re not very good, but then I remembered the Green Arrow back-up series in Detective Comics in the 1980s. That’s not very good. The Golden Age Green Arrow stories I’ve read have at the very least a little charm and entertaining silliness.

Of course, the Jack Kirby Green Arrow stories are pretty cool! I’m not talking about that. But that doesn’t start until 1958.

Not to derail, but, as I've written before about the resilient frontiersman:

Tomahawk first appeared in Star Spangled 69 (on sale in April, 1947) and became the cover and lead feature with #96; he remained there through #121 (on sale in August, 1951). He also was featured through the final issue of SS, #130 (on sale May, 1952). The only issues on which Tomahawk's logo wasn't displayed when he wasn't the cover feature were #69, 70, 81-89 (when most of them featured new character, Captain Compass's logo), and that final issue, 130.

That was 62 straight issues of stories.

He also appeared in three straight issues of World's Finest (33-35) in 1948. Now we're up to 65 stories.

Meanwhile, two years before finishing the run in Star Spangled, Tomahawk got his own eponymous magazine, the first issue of which went on sale in July of 1950; it ran through #140, which went on sale in March, 1972, just shy of 22 years. (With #131, the logo, though not the title, changed to Son of Tomahawk.)

During that run, he also appeared again in WF, from issue #65 through #101!

He also popped up a handful of times in the 80s and maybe even the 90s. I know he was in an issue of Swamp Thing in the late 80's/ early 90s, too.

That's nearly 500 appearances (some admittedly were reprints used as back-ups as the years went by) and over 200 appearances as a cover feature. Quite an achievement for a non-super-powered character, IYAM.

Just a quick note about the sf aspect of Batman and Detective.

Schiff always bears the brunt of the criticism for the injustices done to Batman during that goofy era, but remember that during the latter half of the 50s and the early 60s, science-fiction and monsters were enormously popular and successful, as were dinosaurs (a sub-set of monsters).

Schiff was only doing what so many other comics were doing in exploiting the interest in those subjects. Schiff takes a bigger hit than Weisinger because Batman had always been more down to earth, no pun intended. Anything could happen in a Superman story: inter-planetary travel, battles against space monsters, whatever. Same to an extent with another super-powered being, Wonder Woman. When Flash and Green lantern reappeared, with their very origins drenched in science-fiction, those kinds of escapades were also no big deal.

But Batman's MO just didn't fit with all of these bizarre adventures. But, like virtually every other comic book at the time, from Tomahawk to Archies to the new adventure titles like Challengers, Rip Hunter, and Fantastic Four, Batman and Detective had to play to the crowd. That the artwork on Batman was unsuited to sf stories also hurt.

For the record, I, a man with no life, did a quick unscientific count of the covers of Batman and Detective from 1950 until the debut of the New Look in 1964.

I counted 26 of the 83 issues from Batman 59 through 163 and 31 of the 119 Detective covers from 208 through 326 as having science-fiction covers. (Feel free to check my math; I did that quickly yesterday.)

The point is that of the nearly 200 covers starring Batman, about 60, or 30 percent, were sf-oriented. They must have been popular, but they were not the sole focus of the Schiff era, either.

PS: Meanwhile, over at World's Finest, of the 40 or so issues between #s 99 and 138, Mort Weisinger went full sf on about half of them. Nobody gets on his case for giving kids what they wanted at a much higher, more concentrated rate.

The poor guy did what he could...

(Right up until four issues before the New Look saved them all from alien attacks.)

Comic books are always trying to mix or profit from whatever is the popular current craze or fad might be This is part of the nature of comic books. So Batman and Robin going sci-fi/fantasy isn't all that outrageous or upsetting for me. Batman with a Hula Hoop, a slinky or Silly Putty as part of his utility belt arsenal is something not likely to be seen, but I can imagine an editor or writer back in the day trying to work them into a plot. Can you say Roller Skate and helmet nose Iron Man?


Reality is NOT really what I want in my comic book reading. Realistic is fine but I prefer escapism with fun and thrills. Get plenty of reality in life so don't need or want it in my "funny books".