Manic Monday Bonus--Take That, Justin Turdeau!!

From the letters column in Superboy #115 (1964):

Silver Age DC fans: Hey, characters violating obscure, never-enforced laws ruins our enjoyment of this super-powered fantasy!

Silver Age DC editors: It's OK to mutilate Canadian currency!!

Still perhaps that's preferable to...

Some modern DC fans: To hell with laws, Superman should straight up murder bad guys.

Modern DC editors and movie makers: We're with you.

Wow, this got real dark real fast...

Marvel Vs. The Reds!!

Letters in Fantastic Four #29 (1964), debating the use of communists as villains in Marvel's books:

For what it's worth, this very same issue featured the FF fighting the Red Ghost, so there you go...

This Really Should be An Olympic Sport!!

Gravitron has brought his little chunk of Canada to the big city!!

Man, everybody wants to make it in Manhattan! What's wrong with ruling Canada, bro?

Anyway, in one of the saddest variations of "I have a girlfriend, but she's in Canada," well, Frank's Canadian scientist crush really exists, and kills herself rather than be forced to be Graviton's queen. Oops!

Uh, don't do that, Frank...

Get ready, ladies, for the Great 1977 Marvel Beefcake Show!

Oh, dear...

Hurray!! Do it again!! Do it again!

Now, I fear that some of your primitive post-1970s minds are whining "physics" or "tidal waves" or the like.

The Bullpen has you covered, friend:

Still, Namor could have been pretty pissed...

From Avengers #159 (1977). Letter from Avengers #163 (1977)

Admit It--You Want To Read Every One Of These Now!!

On the letters page of Marvel Team-Up #101 (1981):

This was no small thing. It's easy for us to forget in 2016, with our instant access to virtually all information ever. But 35 years ago, there was no GCD, no Wikipedia, no way to tell who had starred in all of those earlier MTU's you might have missed, short of scouring back issue bins (OK, OK, Spider-Man was a pretty good guess for most of them...). And the villains, too!

So thank you, Marvel Team-Up #101, for helping us lust after comics that we hadn't read yet!!

Now That DC Allegedly Cares About Legacy Again...

Apparently, there was some vague notion back in the day that DC's Secret Origins would run the origin stories of Golden Age heroes more or less sorta kinda in nearly the chronological order of their first appearances. Which, in turn, seemed to have created a groundswell of questions:

I wonder what the over/under is on the number of letters that Roy Thomas considered "so many of you." Ten?

Note the claim that, at this point (1988), DC only had the right to the Marvel Family from Fawcett? That's interesting, because in the 70s DC certainly used Ibis, Bulletman, et al; and they used those characters a lot in the 90s in Power Of Shazam and Starman, and on in to the 2000s. Did they lose the rights for a few years? Did DC never properly have the rights to Ibis et al when they were used in the 70s? Or was Roy mistaken/misinformed?

Anyway, here's the list of most of the Golden Age heroes DC controls, and the order in which they first appeared. Enjoy this astonishing feat of pre-internet research!

Thank you, Roy!

Now that DC allegedly cares about "legacy" again, let's just wait and see how long it is until any of these folks appear in a Rebirth era comic, shall we?

From Secret Origins #23 (1988)

Manic Monday--Why Wasn't Jimmy Olsen Fragged In 'Nam?

There are good questions, and then there are really good questions:

Yeah--why the hell wasn't Jimmy drafted?

DC Comics: endorsing the idea that if you knew the right powerful people, you had every right to dodge the draft!!

From Jimmy Olsen #79 (1964)

Manic Monday--The Bob Kanigher That Time Forgot!!

Because, well, because they had space to fill, I guess, most of DC's war comics of July 1973 ran this full-page feature (click to embiggen to full readable war-size):

That was from my copy of Four-Star Battle Tales (1973).

Now, the piece didn't purport to be a complete listing of Robert Kanigher's creations--it expressly says at the end that "these are only a few of Bob Kanigher's creations."

But apparently, someone complained about how incomplete that list was. Did readers write in? Or, for all I know, Kanigher himself kvetched. Anyway, just 3 months later, this "addendum" graced several of the war book's letter pages (this one was from G.I. War Tales #4 (1973)):

It's easy to forget how much of DC history was created by Robert Kanigher. Especially these days, when even DC itself admits that they've lost touch with their legacy.

So take a minute, and go read a Bob Kanigher comic today...

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Dead Is Dead (Not)!!

Maria Pepeta of Omaha, Nebraska, has a bone to pick with Marvel in the letter column of X-Men #53 (1969):

Yeah, that's a good question--how can you revive Magneto yet let Professor X stay dead?

We saw him die!! We saw his body!! We saw his funeral!! There's no humanly possible or plausible way to bring him back!!

Exactly one year later, Professor Xavier was alive again.

Was this the first time a significant character was retconned back from a "for real, no kidding" death? Let's not count super-villains--they were designed to apparently die and bounce back. Is this the one that opened the floodgates?

Of course, considering some of the character assassination that's been done to Xavier's character in recent decades, Charles would have been better off staying dead...

Manuc Monday Triple Overtime--Why Stan Is A Master Plotter!

From the Stan's Soapbox column in Avengers Forever #6 (1999):

And you know what? I'd pay to read it!!

Manic Monday--Don't Try This With The Nu52!!

From the letters page in Superboy #123 (1965):

So, seriously, Warren Anschultz of Wilson, Kansas, apparently went through his Superboy comics, and actually counted the the number of  "Friendly Expressions" on young Kal-El's face versus the the number of times he frowned?

Kids, this is the kind of thing we had to do to amuse ourselves before the internet and cable TV...

I really (really) hope that Warren didn't stick with comics long enough to try this little game out with, say, the nu52. The ratios of frowns to smiles has to be, what, 90%-10%? One can only imagine the wrath his letters would contain (not that DC actually prints, or even reads, letters anymore...)

When Is A Lying DC Cover NOT A Lying DC Cover?

This is the cover to Weird Western Tales #50 (1978):

Now, I don't have this issue. But according to prolific letter writer T.M. Maple (a.k.a. The Mad Maple, a.k.a. Jim Burke), in a letter printed in Weird Western Tales #56 (1979), this is a pretty inaccurate cover:

Well, picky, picky picky.

What follows is the response from editor Mike W. Barr:

"The scene could have happened, had the story gone differently" is an interesting justification. I mean, at least it is an actual rule, with actual standards, which is more than DC had for many a year.

Still, it does seem ridiculously broad, doesn't it? Given the wonkiness of the DC Universe, literally anything "could have happened" in a given situation. With sufficient imagination, almost any cover could satisfy the rule.

And if a rule allows you to run a cover that is 180 degrees from actually happens in the story, it's pretty hard to say you're not running misleading covers.

For example, instead of this cover...

 ...the rule says that DC could have run this cover for Crisis On Infinite Earths #6:

I mean, Supergirl could have beaten the Anti-Monitor and survived (she almost did). And that would have been the greatest thing that ever happened to her, right?

So you buy the comic with that second cover, and Kara dies tragically but heroically on the inside...and the MWB rule would say that the cover is NOT misleading. When, in fact, it would be terrifically misleading (not to mention depriving us of 30 years of homage covers).

So, sorry, DC, that rule don't hunt. Misleading is misleading, even if "could have happened" is your rule.

Manic Monday Bonus--The More Things Change...

In Captain America #244 (1980),Marvel ran a little survey. In Captain America #250 (1980), they published the results.

Presented without comment:

Letters To Lois 4--Kissin' Cousins?!?

From the incredibly fruitful letters page in Lois Lane #24 (1961):

They've received requests for an "imaginary" marriage between Superman and Supergirl?!? EWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to mention, if Lois is too old for a relationship with Jimmy, well, there's certainly a greater age gap between Kal-El and Kara.

And not to mention, EEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

Letters To Lois 3--Killing The Cat!!

From the letters page in Lois Lane #24 (1961):

Oh, so Lois is just DC's version of Ben Urich, World's Worst Reporter...

Letters To Lois 2--Corporal Punishment!!

From the letters page of Lois Lane #24 (1961):

What the hell is going on in Winnetka, Illinois?!?

49 out of 51 kids want to see Lois get a "good hard spanking"?!?!?

Of course, they're right, Superman would never spank Lois--

 That was from just 10 issues earlier, in Lois Lane #14...

OK, OK, causing your robot to spank Lois doesn't count, right? Superman himself would never, ever spank a woman--

 Never mind.

Letters To Lois 1--May-December Romance?

From the letter column of Lois Lane #24 (1961):

Well, that's not the worst idea ever...or is it?

Wait--exactly how much older is Lois than Jimmy? "Several" years should be an absolute barrier?

Plus, Lucy Lane is a vile beast...

But you're right...Superman has always been a good sport, and would never pull a nasty prank on Jimmy, or force Jimmy to live in a slum, or...go back to beat up a mean truck driver once he got his super-powers back, or snap Zod's neck, or...

What If What If? #48 Actually Existed?"

From the letters page of What If? #47 (1984):

Unfortunately, this was almost entirely wrong. #47 was the very last issue of this volume of What If?, which would vanish for the next 4 years.

And honestly, this blurb is filled with what seems to be B.S. Not to pick on Mr. Macchio, but let's break this down:

**"Back-breaking bi-monthly schedule"?!? Really? In fairness, this volume of  What If? was always "giant-sized" issues. But back-breaking? Now we know where Jim Lee picked up this attitude...

**"What If #48 will appear when we feel it is perfect--and I mean perfect." I guess it's not perfect yet...

**What if Doctor Doom had kept the powers of the Silver Surfer?!? By Stan Lee and Butch Guice?!?! If this was ever real, I don't believe it ever appeared anywhere. Butch Guice did draw one prior isse of What If?--#40--but no others. Stan wrote a short thing for What If ? #200, in 2011. Did this story ever actually exist?

**A two-part X-Men What If by Peter Gillis and Jerry Ordway?!?! Well, while there was no shortage of X-Men What Ifs in future volumes, this story doesn't seem to have been one of them. Gillis wrote a ton of stories in the last year of What if? Volume 1, but after that only the Special in 1988, and that didn't involve the X-Men. Jerry Ordway has never drawn a What If?. Again, did this story ever exist?

**"We want to spend as much time as possible polishing these gems until they glisten." It's been 30 years...perhaps you polished them so hard they turned invisible?

**"We have some unbelievable things planned for this book..." You're right, I don't believe it.

Yeah, I'm being a bit of a dick here. Still, you have to admit there's an awful lot of highfalutin' promises here for a mag that was actually cancelled, and would vanish for 5 years.

Of course, that doesn't mean Macchio knew that this really was the end of the line, or that these proposed stories didn't actually exist, at least as approved pitches.

So Quesada and Alonso--why don't you rifle through some of the desks there in the Bullpen and see if these stories are really buried there, gathering dust? Because I would like to read them...

Fat-Shaming Spider-Man!

The following letter appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #47 (1967), criticizing Peter Parker's appearance in an earlier issue:

Because I love you all so much, I dug up the panel in question, from Amazing Spider-Man #43 (1966):

Well, John Romita doesn't draw him as thin as Ditko did.

But fat?!? Foggy Nelson's twin brother???

Fortunately, for comparison's sake, this very same issue had a cameo by Foggy Nelson, also drawn by Romita. Let's compare, shall we?

Not even close. Sorry, Johnny Fisher of Ringwood, OK, but you're wrong. Even though Peter is slightly huskier than you're used to, he's nowhere near as big as Foggy (who, by the way, doesn't seem particularly fat here, either). So thanks for the gratuitous weight-shaming!

BTW, here's the response:

A chubby, roly-poly arachnid would be cute!