Sometimes the comic books you didn’t see were the most intriguing.
For example, I spotted Detective Comics 287 (Jan. 1961) in DC’s house ads, but probably spent that week’s quarter on the second (and best) of the Superman annuals, the all-menace issue.
By next week, 287 must have vanished from the newsstand, because I remember my disappointment at missing it. Colorfully costumed figures were still thin on the ground then, just ahead of the Marvel Age, and the bright cover of 287 offered four of them — two bird-themed, one insect-themed, and the familiar flying mammal — plus ray guns. Ray guns!
Irresistible.
But not, of course, to long-time Batman fans.
“By the early 1950s, Batman and Robin were spending more and more time traveling the world and donning exotic disguises, yet still (editor Jack) Schiff and his staff kept their adventures squarely in the realm of what was plausible for a costumed master sleuth without super powers,” wrote Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs in The Comic Book Heroes. “Then, in the jittery wake of the Comics Code, the Bat-tales were dulled down a bit as DC editors feared to show people getting shot and punching each other. In 1957, science fiction came to Gotham City, and during the next few years, the Dynamic Duo went haywire.”
“First (Batman) faced against a thug armed with an ‘energy radiator’ from the planet Skar (Detective 250, Dec. 1957), then the winged bat-people from another dimension (Batman 116, June 1958), next Garr of Planetoid X (Batman 117, Aug. 1958). Within three years, Batman found himself embroiled with so many aliens and weird creatures that on one cover he was driven to remark, ‘Great Scott! Another bizarre character with a fantastic weapon.’ (Detective 287, Jan. 1961).”
Yes, that’s the issue I was so sorry to miss. As Jim Shooter once observed, every comic book is some child’s first one, and at 6 years old, I was still delighted by what slightly older fans found tedious.
I discovered that issue a few months later in a used magazine shop, and learned that it also included a story that provided the Martian Manhunter with his own “Superboy,” J’onn J’onzz’s young brother T’omm.
Never was a nickel better spent.
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