Within a half-century span, comic books can effectively operate as limited-range time machines for me.
Because I loved them so much when I was young, just reading a Silver Age story can take me back to that precise moment in that spring of 1960 when I was 5 and the world’s colors all seemed as vivid as those four in the comics, or that autumn of 1962 when I was 7 and the civilization of the planet Earth actually faced destruction, or that January of 1966 when I was 11 and one of my superheroes was, wonder of wonders, suddenly the biggest hit on television.
So reading a feature like Rip Hunter, Time Master is an ironic experience in seeing time, real and fictional, collapse upon itself, something like one of those paintings of an infinite regression.
Of course, I’m also old enough to have seen the debut of Eclipso in 1963’s House of Secrets 61. I subsequently figured that this Jekyll-and-hide protagonist might have been inspired by Marvel Comics’ similar idea, the Incredible Hulk. The last issue of the Hulk’s original six-issue run had appeared just a couple of months before Eclipso’s debut.
The inspiration for the name of Eclipso’s other identity, Bruce Gordon, was an inside joke, according to co-creator Bob Haney. It was meant to suggest a combination of “Bruce Wayne” and “Commissioner Gordon.”
Ken Mitchell:
ReplyDeleteComics and music...my own personal T.A.R.D.I.S.😆
Jim Ludwig:
ReplyDeleteDan Hagen, You are two years older than me so started earlier than I. I was raised in poverty in the boonies with no running water and an outhouse. It was my, what we considered rich, cousin who got me hooked on comics. She was also older than me and a girl. She got all the Harvey and Archie comics as well as romance and Millie type comics. But she also got all the Superman family. She did not collect, just read and passed all those treasures on to me. I enjoyed the Harvey and Archie comics until I "outgrew them" (glad I outgrew my outgrowing and can enjoy them again.) But the Superman Family created a life long addiction. But I actually feel more like reading some Harveys in the moment.
Mark Engblom:
ReplyDeleteTo me, DC’s B and C-listers seem to define the Silver Age more completely than their A-list icons, who generally transcend decades in both their appeal and consecutive issues. It’s these peculiar characters inhabiting a very specific time period that best define it.
Michael Fraley:
ReplyDeleteI envy you those moments of discovery. My adventures with comics remained mostly with the TV version until about 1970, when I saw Weisinger leave DC, Kirby leave Marvel, Stan Lee reduce his regular presence at Marvel, John Romita began to ease away from Spider-Man, etc. Even at seven, I knew I was getting in on the END of a spectacular period.
I replied:
It's funny that even then, even younger, you could sense the atmosphere of ending that I could. I knew I was in on the beginning of something great with Marvel a few years previously, too.
Lee Doll:
ReplyDelete...and then there also was: Bruce Gordon was an American actor best known for playing gangster Frank Nitti in the ABC television series The Untouchables.
Joseph Lenius:
ReplyDeleteDapper Dan Hagen, I had forgotten how early Eclipso had had appeared in HOS. But although I bought the title, it never was high on my list. But I did love Rip Hunter because of the time travel, corny stories and all.
Cliff Heeley:
ReplyDeleteI had to move mentally to a different continent to even read the comics. My mother never quite understood why I called the dustbin, a trashcan. The early DC renaissance after 1959 gave us many new gems, some remained forever as B,C and D list guilty pleasures. We still had a fair few of the pre-existing characters as well, just hiding in the backs of the Anthology Comics. To be fair I think the Hulk was a take on a Solomon Grundy lookalike and combined with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with Marvel's inevitable Radiation Origin thrown in.
Carl Thiel:
ReplyDeleteNicely stated, Dan. Finding others who shared our youthful interests is one of the reasons why these groups are important. Thank you!
Philip Rushton:
ReplyDeleteAs with Doctor Who, I loved the way Rip Hunter switched between historical adventures set in the past and science fiction stories set in the future.
Todd Tamanend Clark:
ReplyDeleteIt always bothered me that RIP HUNTER, TIME MASTER was so biased in favor of Euro-centric history and barely ever considered the indigenous history of the Americas! Where were the MAYA, the INCA, the MEXICA (Aztecs), the HAUDENOSAUNEE (Iroquois)? But in spite of that flaw, I still loved BONNIE BAXTER, the smartest woman in the world!
I replied:
Wells, Tomahawk and Superman both became Aztec kings, Does that count? LOL