Thank you for posting that video. It was very informative. Kahn seems like a really cool person to be able to work with. I wonder what got her the job being 28 and no experience with comics. Also this was the 70's too. Surprised another old guy wasn't just hired.

Anyways, great interview. The interviewer was not very good though.

Neal Adams likes to take the credit, but it was Jenette Kahn who went before the Warner's board and convinced them of why it was a good idea to make peace with Siegel and Shuster over Superman, giving them both health insurance and pensions.

It was less then the two deserved, but far more then what they had been given up to that point, and it was only the first of several moves that led to DC under Kahn becoming the creator friendly place that it was throughout the 80's and 90's.

There really is no need to keep going after this statement.

Potato, Potahtoe

Look, I love Neal, and I'm well aware of his attempt to form the Guild back in the early 1970's, but he's like Steranko. Neal is the master of all tasks and knowledge...just ask him.

January 1976



Superman #298: You knew this was coming after last issue, where Superman decided to spend his time exclusively as Clark Kent. Now, he decides to try it the other way - becoming just Superman 24 hours a day. He discovers that people expect a lot from Superman; now he has no time to unwind, and even his friends are constantly demanding that he rush off to one disaster or another. However, he also realizes this is necessary, after a crazy supervillain nearly blows up Metropolis. he's made up his mind - he knows what has to be done! But will it be in time? After all, that alien agent has stolen even more data from Superman's apartment, and is now ready to destroy the Earth... My Grade: B. Not quite as compelling as last issue, and most of what Superman experiences suggests he needs to be Clark more than Superman. Team Clark!

Action Comics #458: Clark gets a promotion to producer on his newscast, which he doesn't want, as it will make his job as Superman harder. but with talent like Lola Barnett signing up with rival networks, something has to be done. Speaking of rivals, a rival newspaper wants their own version of Superman to sell papers. So they have a scientist whip up a costume that gives people powers. Wow, it's that easy? This new guy, Blackrock, starts solving crimes around the city, making Superman look like a has been. But is he also committing those crimes? We'll have to wait until next issue to find out. In the backup, Lex Luthor has hypnotized Black Canary into protecting him, while harboring a deep need to kill Green Arrow! But Canary turns the tables, somehow using her martial arts training to hypnotize herself into thinking Lex is Ollie. Lex decides this would be a good time to cut bait, so he vanishes (to reappear in the pages of The Joker #7, according to an unusually cohesive footnote). Ollie finally shows up to rescue Dinah, but with Lex gone, her compulsion is gone too, so they happily reunite. THE END!! My Grade: C+. Ho hum.

Superman Family #176: A country music star named Red dies in a plane crash. Jimmy Olsen travels to the funeral, where he meets an old pal who is a fellow reporter. Just as the guy is about to spill an important secret about the deceased, however, a dude with a bazooka blows him sky high! Did not expect that. Jimmy decides to investigate further, so he has Superman use his super-computers to devise an algorithm that composes a guaranteed country music hit song. Jimmy then adopts the identity of country star Jimmy Joe Curtis and heads to Nashville to infiltrate the deadly country music underground. Obviously.

Jimmy manages to make a splash at the Opry with his song, but that makes him a target. Luckily, when a sinister cab driver abducts him, Jimmy has an extra box of guitar string son hand, which he uses to lasso the emergency brake, stopping the car with such force that the driver smashes his head through the windshield and is knocked out. Jimmy heads to the memorial show for Red, but it attacked by armed goons! Lukcily again, Jimmy's guitar has a gas launcher inside, and he takes them down. Obviously.

Jimmy knows what's what. He disguises himself as one of the thugs, then goes back to headquarters to find the mastermind - Red, who isn't dead after all. He faked his death so his albums would sell better! Unfortunately for Jimmy, Red has some gas launchers of his own, and he knocks out Jimmy. Red then seals Jimmy inside a giant ceramic bust of his own head, which for some inexplicable reason, Superman throws into space as part of the memorial service. That is a really strange way to honor the dead.

The victorious Red goes for a ride in his new yacht. Suddenly, a giant ceramic bust of his own head comes flying out of the sky and destroys his boat!!! Turns out that the studio head, realizing something was wrong, had implanted secret morse code signals inside the song - signals only Superman could hear. Filled in on the plot in this way, Superman threw the bust with a specific trajectory so it would crash right into Red's boat. Jimmy, of course, is miraculously unhurt by this, and Red is taken into custody. THE END!!! My Grade: A++. That's the stuff right there.

World's Finest #237: A big hunk of space metal turns up in Gotham out of nowhere. From inside emerges a huge winged monster. Superman can't fight it, though, because it's impervious to his powers. Batman chases it around to no avail, only to discover when he returns ot the scene that Superman is gone. Naturally, Batman immediately assumes Superman has turned into a coward, because that makes more sense than any of the other 20,000 possibly explanations. Batman devises a bomb to blow the monster up, but when he tries to use it, Superman appears and destroys the bomb. He's protecting the monster! Just then, a swarm of space locusts shows up and starts devouring Gotham! Superman releases the monster on them, and it eats them all up, then dies. Turns out Jor-El sent the monster to Earth to protect Earth from a swarm of space locusts he knew would eventually attack. THE END!! My Grade: C+. Not nearly Haney enough.


Notes: Not a lot to discuss here really. The covers are worth discussing again, though. Each of them has an element of the "simplified background" they've been doing for a while. It's fairly well handled on the Action cover, as they make that background the ocean, so it at least makes sense. And it's okay on the Superman cover, as they gives us some background action.

But the World's Finest cover makes no sense! There's like a weird half-frame, and inside is are some buildings, but the people are outside of it and... I mean, are they in front of a big window? It honestly just looks like they were too lazy to draw the whole background, and didn't even have the energy to fake it, so they got half done, said "eff it" and just colored the rest of it orange and called it a day. The composition is so bizarre I don't know what to say except this era of covers royally sucks to high heaven, which I think we all already knew. But man. WTF.

Bob Haney... one of the things that is best in life.