This DC house ad from June 1961 showcases two features that relied on the considerable talents of artist Carmine Infantino.
The Flash 121 gave us a return engagement with the merrily villainous Trickster, who’d been introduced a year before in Flash 113 (Danger in the Air!, June-July 1960).
Believe it or not, he was walking on air — and usually mocking the earthbound speedster. The blond, harlequin-costumed super-criminal drew my brightness-fascinated young eye and therefore my dime. The Trickster was caped, yellow-clad, flying — three things I loved.
Mystery in Space 68 was the first issue of that title I bought. I was fascinated by the Infantino-Murphy Anderson cover scene, which showed a horned alien tiger springing even as a colorful rocket-belted hero with a ray gun was teleported away, leaving behind a damsel in distress.
Much too much to resist.
And inside, even more! The issue introduced Strange’s recurring foes, the Dust Devils — sentient, sinister, semi-anthropomorphic whirlwinds perfectly designed to inhabit the dreamlike mental landscape of a child.
Adam Strange was the thinking man’s superhero of the late 1950s, rendered with a sleek, space-age elegance by Infantino and written with a reassuring respect for intelligence by Gardner Fox.
But we were, in fact, approaching the end of an era, and Adam Strange’s loss would be Batman’s gain. In early 1964, Infantino would move on to revamp the flagging Batman titles, leaving Strange behind. By 1967, when Infantino also left the Flash feature, the best years of both characters were clearly behind them.
In June 1961, of course, we readers didn’t know it was the end of an era. But then, one rarely does.
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