Hm, I didn't realize he hung on quite that long.

Can you post a scan of the panel? Someone here is likely to recognize him. I suspect it's Sol Harrison, but that's just a hunch.

It might be Managing Editor Joe Orlando.

Surely, it was mentioned in the letter column in issue #184? My copy seems to be missing it. (since it's my copy from 1977)

January 1977

Superman #310: Superman stops some Skull agents busting into STAR Labs. One of them is seriously injured during the fight, though their own stupidity. Later, while Clark is on a date with Lois - who is trying to explain why she is thinking about leaving both Metropolis and Clark - he gets wind of the fact that Skull has kidnapped Steve Lombard, who was trying his hand at investigative journalism. Clark locks Lois in the bathroom, then flies off to confront Skull, only to find that the injured agent has been reborn as the new Metallo! And his cyborg frame is powered by synthetic Kryptonite. It weakens Superman, but he figures out that if he over exerts Metallo, Metallo will burn himself out. So Superman does that, and Metallo seemingly drops dead. Clark returns home to an enraged Lois, while the "dead" Metallo wakes up in the morgue, not so dead. THE END? My Grade: B-. The description makes it sound better than it was.

Action Comics #470: Superman isn't dead, but for some reaosn he's been transformed into Terra Man. Flash and Green Lantern show up to avenge Superman, and end up attacking Superman because they think he's Terra Man. Why? Turns out that the brother of the alien who kidnapped/raised Terra Man is out for revenge. To duck this, Terra Man disguised himself as a normal guy and made it so the alien would attack Superman instead. This gets foiled, though, when someone who appears to be Superman shows up (obviously Greg Reed, his "powers" supplied by Flash and Green Lantern), and the real Superman then pretends to actually be Terra Man. Terra Man gets jealous of someone stealing his identity and reveals himself, whereupon Superman whoops him. If none of this makes a lick of sense, well, you're right. It's beyond stupid. THE END! My Grade: D. More below.

World's Finest #244: It's Dollar Comics time. Let's just dive in and try to keep our sanity if we can.

Superman and Batman: Three mobsters die mysteriously. The only link: Superman seemed to be at each site. Only he denies it. Still, it looks bad, so he agrees to be imprisoned as a point of honor. You know, until he has a chance to just put a robot double in prison instead; he has the gall to claim this doesn't violate his honor pact because the robot is good enough to fool everyone. That's not how honor works, you tool! But it's a good thing he does, because he and Batman quickly learn that the real villain is a guy from the 23rd century who came to the past to destroy humanity in order to ensure his future doesn't happen, and for some reason, decided to test his death weapon while dressed as Superman. The real Superman accidentally points out a pretty egregious logic flaw: If the guy can change the past, then... why not just change it for the better instead of destroying everything? Anyway, they stop the guy. THE END!

Black Canary: A fool called The Rainbow Archer tries to kill a kid, but Black Canary stops him. But in the process...

Green Arrow: ...she gets bopped in the face with a rock. Ollie chases after the Rainbow Archer's partner, Slingshot. So for everyone who thought trick arrow were goofy, how about trick rocks. Green Arrow defeats him, but Slingshot somehow gets away anyway. THE END!

Vigilante: Some jerks are blowing up stuff with dynamite because they're ticked about losing a local election. Man, school board meetings are really cut throat in the 70's! Vigilante tries to stop them and kind of succeeds, in that the bad guy blows himself sky high. Whoops! THE END!

Wonder Woman: Nazis try to blow up Washington, but Diana stops them. Good thing it wasn't Vigilante on the case, of half the city would be rubble. THE END!!

My Grade: C.

Notes: The introduction of synthetic Kryptonite in Superman #310 opens a massive can of worms. Not only does it bring back Kryptonite - which I can't think is a good thing - it's man made, meaning pretty much any schmo can have Kryptonite now. I just think this is a bad idea all around. If people can just manufacture Kryptonite, that should pretty much be lights out for Superman.

This story is also the "return" of Metallo, though it's a new Metallo, the brother of the original. Metallo seems like a major villain, but that can more of less be traced to this issue I think, because I believe the original only appeared in one story before being forgotten for the next 19 years. Well... it's a little more complex than that, as there were a couple previous characters with the same name. But Metallo as we know him - cyborg guy, Kryptonite heart - I believe was just that one appearance in 1958 before this.

Interestingly, both this revival and the revival of Toyman in #305 - two stories that have a very modern feel - were not written by Gerry Conway, but rather by Marty Pasko. Pasko wrote a few Superman stories back in the early 70's, but then seemed to vanish. Now he's back and it feels like the Marvelization of the line has loosened things up enough for him to really stretch his muscles, as these are his best Superman stories yet.

Anyway, let's talk about the debacle that was this month's issue of Action Comics. Okay, so Terra Man's plan is to fake the alien out by switching places with Superman. Two things. First, what the hell does that have to do with the TV show crap that went on for the previous two issues? And secondly... Terra Man flips out because someone is stealing his identity, when that was HIS ENTIRE PLAN! He's the guy who turned Superman into a Terra Man clone to begin with! For the sole purpose of making people think Superman was Terra Man! And then when they do, he gets jealous?!

I swear. This nonsense is going to push me right over the edge.

As for World's Finest, well, it was better than Superman Family anyway, which isn't saying much. Once again, many of the strips seem to have been turned over to second stringers; I'm seeing a lot of writer credits to folks like Bill Kunkel, and art credits for folks such as Mike Nasser. However, unlike Superman Family, at least a couple of the stirps are anchored by top line talent - and characters - with Bob Haney, Denny O'Neil and Tony Isabella all writing stories, and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Jose Delbo on art chores (even if the latter isn't done any favors by Coletta inks).

The Wonder Woman story takes place in World War II; her stories in her own title were also taking place in WWII at this time, as this issue came out at the same time as WW #230. It's also interesting to note that at this point, the entire DC "Trinity" of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are now all co-starring in the same comic. This didn't even happen that much in Justice League. You'd think it would be a bigger selling point, but it doesn't seem to really be highlighted much.

There are two different full page editorial notes this issue about Dollar Comics, one in general and one specific to World's FInest. In the general one, Jenette Kahn tries to explain in some detail the difficulties facing the newsstand distribution system. Essentially, she says that comics are having a hard time competing for space and attention in newsstand outlets because, thanks to their low price point and low profitability, most retailers can't be bothered with them. By raising the price to a dollar, it supersizes the amount of profit the retailers get, making the comics a lot more desirable for newsstands to carry in the first place. So the Dollar Comics experiment is aimed less at fans, and more at retailers. It's interesting, though I wonder how many fans at the time cared at all about what she was trying to explain. It does help further explain why DC led the push into the direct market.

The World's Finest editorial note talks about the various features and claims that the Vigilante feature was needed because it had been far too long since he last had his own solo story, in Adventure Comics #426. I mean, according to who, exactly? Who was clamoring for a singing cowboy on a motorcycle? I guess the rhinestone cowboy fad was underway during this period. But still. Seriously.

Speaking of seriously - there's a pointed reference in the Black Canary story to the murders at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Finally, Superman and Action both have covers from Garcia Lopez this month, while Superman Family gets a cover from Neal Adams. The design of the Dollar Comics line leaves a lot to be desired in this case, though, with the giant banner and the logo taking up half the cover space. It doesn't exactly give Adams much room to shine - and if you're going to have Neal Adams do your cover, I'd think you'd want to let him cut loose and show off for the fans. Guess not.

A short list:

1) singing
2) cowboy
3) motorcycle
4) six-shooters
5) lasso

Wow! Tough audience.

But seriously, I do recall some of those 1970s Vigilante stories having great art on them, even if the stories themselves weren't so great.