July 1963: Nuclear and Nuptial Near Misses

The first time I saw Wonder Woman, she was slugging it out with a futuristic giant robot, along with four other members of the Justice League, in the second of the team’s tryout appearances in The Brave and the Bold (May 1960).

The real wonder to me was discovering I could read the individual adventures of these colorful heroes in various comic books — a mission I undertook with alacrity.

I appreciated the Amazing Amazon’s strength and speed and her transparent, telepathically controlled jet, but her “gliding on air currents” power gave me pause. Even to a 6-year-old, that seemed shaky at best. Superman’s flatly inexplicable power of flight somehow seemed a better bet.

Wonder Woman was drawn by the capable Ross Andru, but penned by Robert Kanigher, who wrote spare, moody combat stories for DC’s war titles but bizarrely erratic, unsatisfying Wonder Woman adventures.

The plots didn’t make any sense, even by comic book standards. Dinosaurs and gigantic clams and electric eels and nuclear missiles seemed to show up at random and disappear for no reason, and Wonder Girl displayed an unsettling taste for dating teenage males who were half-fish or half-bird.

Nor did Steve Trevor cut too impressive a figure, making goo-goo eyes at “my angel” at every opportunity. The idea that a woman would have to “give up her career” of saving the world when she got married seemed ridiculous even in the 1950s and 1960s.

But then, what can you say about a guy who actually accepts the explanation, “I’ll marry you, but only after I’ve eradicated crime from the face of the Earth?”

Talk about an obvious brush-off.

June 1961: The Comic That Made Me Cry

I never wanted a comic book more than the 25-cent DC giant Secret Origins, which was on newsstands in June 1961, the month I turned 7.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone. The comic sold out instantly at my newsstand in Effingham, IL. I was so disappointed I burst into tears on the spot. Then I was ashamed at having cried.

But we almost never got to read characters’ origins in those halcyon days, and to acquire a bunch of those in one comic would’ve been a thrill.

I wouldn’t learn until years later than DC’s apparent discomfort with reprinting 1940s material would lead them to cheat a bit on the Secret Origins title, meaning that the real origins of the Superman-Batman team, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow would remain secret.

In fact, the only “Golden Age material” to be found in all 80 pages was an old copy of Flash being chuckled over by police scientist Barry Allen while he ate lunch in one panel.

Instead of Wonder Woman’s real 1941 origin, we got a retconned version by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito reprinted from Wonder Woman 105 (April 1959).

Green Arrow and Speedy got even shorter shrift, merely a text page that summarized their origins.

So that dark, sunny June day I had to content myself with the origin of a new superhero in Archie Comics’ Adventures of the Jaguar 1, the second issue of Charlton’s Gorgo, the battle between Batman and the super-powered Villain of 1,000 Elements in Detective Comics 294, learning The Secret of Tigerman in World’s Finest 119, seeing the debut of The Legion of Super-Villains in Superman 147 and the exciting third Superman Annual, featuring The Strange Lives of Superman.

That one was almost as good as Secret Origins.

Almost.

Despite its deficiencies, Secret Origins remained The One That Got Away. I hadn’t learned, at 7, that desire often makes the unattainable seem more wonderful than reality can ever be.

The witty Bruce Kanin weighs in...

November 1959: When Suicide Could Be Fun

Without super powers to support them against fantastic foes, DC's "uncanny teams" had to rely on their wits, their uniformly dauntless courage, some mid-century high tech and each other. 

Being miniaturized or propelled into other times or dimensions were not uncommon experiences for them, certainly no cause for panic. In the idiom of the era, they were cool cats.

Such uncanny teams included the Challengers of the Unknown, the Sea Devils, Cave Carson’s intrepid band of spelunkers, Rip Hunter’s temporal explorers and — borrowed from Quality Comics — the World War II military fliers the Blackhawks, re-enlisted into the fight against extraterrestrial enemies and super villains.

And in Brave and the Bold 25 (Aug.-Sept. 1959), writer Robert Kanigher and artist Ross Andru introduced us to the Suicide Squad, a/k/a Task Force X, a team headed by pilot and military intelligence officer Col. Rick Flag (clearly a hero from the “Mike Hammer,” “John Shaft” and “Peter Gunn” School of Coincidental Naming).

The team included physicist Jess Bright, astronomer Hugh Evans and military nurse Karin Grace, “all the last living members of their respective crews, all willing to die to save the world and uplift their lost friends’ legacies,” as C. David noted. “They’re basically a crew powered by pure survivor’s guilt.”

They proved to be just the kind of plucky people you might hear say, “Never thought we’d be trying to save a whale from a flying dinosaur!”