Best Romances of the Silver Age?

Note the question mark at the end there. I'm asking for your help. As I see it, there are not really a lot of contenders, so here's a rundown:

Superman and Lois Lane: A rather tepid romance at best, and it was not, as Mort Weisinger put it, consummated during the Silver Age (although that changed eventually).

Batman and ???: 'Nuff said.

Barry Allen and Iris West. One of several marriages within the Silver Age of a long-dating couple. Lots of good interaction, although Iris could be a beeyatch when she wanted to as well.

Aquaman and Mera. One of the definitely consummated marriages in the Silver Age; they did, after all, have a son.

Green Lantern/Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris. It ended badly, and this was always an oddball romantic triangle with Hal competing against his secret identity as I have discussed previously.

Ray Palmer and Jean Loring. A solid contender; don't let the ridiculous Identity Crisis storyline distract you. A major reason why Ray fought crime as the Atom was to help Jean establish her practice so she'd marry him.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl: Unique situation as the Halls were married when we first met them. Worked well together both in their costumed identities and as civilians.

Ralph Dibney and Sue Dibney: Another early married couple, one of the charms of the Detective Comics series was the interaaction between the pair.

Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Another rare case of consummated love, as they bore a son as well in the Silver Age.

Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. Ill-fated and frequently tested, their love was surprisingly strong during the late 1960s.

Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Like the Dibney's they were not really major characters at the time, but they did marry.

Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. They came close to getting married in the Silver Age, but I never really felt a strong bond between the two.

Any others? The Marvel characters pretty much turned over all their girlfriends before the decade was over: Karen Page, Jane Foster, Pepper Potts, etc. Archie and Veronica/Betty and Richie Rich/Gloria are cute, but not really romance in my book.

Update: Some very good suggestions in the comments:

Adam Strange and Alanna. An excellent romance with lots of interaction, the involuntary separations and even an accepted proposal of marriage. A very strong contender.

Ben Grimm and Alicia. If we look at a romance as union of yin and yang, this would have to rate strongly. Alicia completes Ben, and softens his hard edges (although figuratively, not literally).

Green Arrow and Black Canary. I'd rate this as more of a Bronze Age Romance. Same with the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Catwoman and Batman. Terrific pick but more Golden Age than Silver; the Catwoman only made two real appearances in Batman during the Silver Age.

BTW, on the consummated part, I do think that marriage and children are an important manifestation of love, but I was also being a little puckish; see this post for more.

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Devils and Wonder Glasses 3D + Gold Key Flash Gordon #25

Happy Valentine's day to you all.

Today with this post Books and Comics reaches another milestone of 300 posts.

I am posting very special comic for the occassion, First 3D comics published in India.

It was published my Star Comics in 1980s. It started a new trend of 3D comics, but it did not last long. Mainly I feel due to bad stories, cost and also due to fake 3D comics in market.

With each comics was provided on pair of 3D glasses red color on left eye and cyan color on right. It was based on 3D anaglyph images technology. Wikipedia has an excellent article on this subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaglyph_image

Unfortunately you do need a pair of 3D glasses. This articles has description of glasses It is pretty easy to make them. All you need is thin cardboard and transparent film of red and cyan color. These glasses are also available on ebay for about Rs.50. Search for Anaglyph or 3d glasses. I have many other 3D comics in my collection,if your response is favourable I'll post them all.

Most of you probably don't have 3D glasses, until you get them enjoy this long awaited Flash Gordon comics from Gold Key.

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Super-Swipes #2

This one took me a bit by surprise. About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post about Action #331 (December 1965), where the story concerned Lois Lane writing an article for the Daily Planet about how Clark Kent was really Superman. It was intended as a gag, but the pressman who ran off a few copies took ill, and his assistant accidentally ran off the full press run with the headlines. At first it appears that the Planet will suffer, and Lois will be fired, but then Clark suggests that if he pretends to really be the Man of Steel for a few days and then the Planet reveals the gag, readers will forgive them. Inevitably this causes big complications, but in the end it all comes off well.

It turns out that this story is virtually note-for-note swiped from Superman #20 (Jan-Feb 1943). Note:


For:


Note:


Oh, there are a few changes here and there; "Ironjaw" the villain becomes "Iron Ike" and some of the more humorous slapstick moments of the original like these are gone:


But overall this is one of the more blatant Super-Swipes that I can recall.

The Superman #20 story is contained in this archive edition:

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Some Nice Moments

I thought I'd put up a post highlighting some of the nicer moments in the comics. In Superman #96 (March 1955), there was a story about the Girl Who Didn't Believe in Superman. The Daily Planet is holding their annual "Lovely Child" contest, and Alice Norton is the winner of $1,000 and an around the world tour with Superman. But there's a catch:

We learn that she became blind after a car accident. And it turns out little Miss Norton is quite the skeptic:

Superman is determined to prove that he does exist, but Alice has a rational explanation for every super power he demonstrates:

But then he discovers that Alice's blindness may be caused by a tiny sliver of glass behind her optic nerve. Paging Dr Superman:

And sure enough, the surgery is successful. Alice gets her sight-seeing tour:

And it gets even better. Superman spots some vagabond spying on the Norton residence, but it turns out to be Alice's father. He's been consumed with guilt ever since the accident. Mrs Norton tells him that the car's brakes were faulty and that it wasn't his fault. The family is reunited and in the end:

In Superman #97 (May 1955), we learned the story of Superboy's last day in Smallville. He did a lot of civic improvement for the town and the people turned out for a farewell:

Very sweet.

Update: As requested by longtime blog-buddy Bill Jourdain, I'm including reprint information on these two stories.

The Girl Who Didn't Believe in Superman has been reprinted several times, including Superman #242 (1971), the Best of DC #25 (1979), and in this volume:

Superboy's Last Day in Smallville was reprinted in 100-Page Super Spectacular #DC-18 (1973) and in a Pizza Hut Collector's Edition (1977) of Superman #97, as well as the Superman in the Fifties:


Update II: An anonymous commenter points out that the Superman in the Fifties book notes that the story of the blind girl saved by Superman also appeared on the Adventures of Superman TV show. I found mention of the episode here. It appeared on TV about a year before the comic book version.

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Fantastic Four Fridays: To Dream the Impossible Man...

After awhile, I'm sure that comic fans winced whenever they saw the word "offbeat" on a Marvel cover, as it seemed to indicate, "We ran out of ideas this month so we decided to try being funny."

As the story begins, we see more of the fourth-wall breaking that first appeared in FF #10. The new Fantastic Four issue is coming out and there's a line out the door of the newsstand as folks clamor for the latest story featuring their heroes. Kids play at being the various members of the team:


When the FF get to the Baxter Building, they find tons of fan mail, including a jack-in-the-box punch for the Thing from the Yancy Street Gang (their second mention). Later, Reed comes up with another serum to try to turn him back into Ben Grimm:

Not to ruin the suspense or anything, but it wasn't permanent. Via a flashback, we learn that Reed and Ben had been roommates in college. And afterwards:

Of course, back then (1962) you could argue that this made Reed and Ben merely in their late-30s; nowadays they would have to be geezers to have fought in WWII. We also learn that Sue was Reed's girl next door, although of course that's getting into some pretty murky territory. If Sue's as old as Reed, how can she have a teen-aged brother? Anyway, they go on to reminisce about their origin as the Fantastic Four, and then mention the adventures they've had. But Sue wails a bit that the others have had adventures, while she's been something of a fifth wheel:

It's a reflection of a debate that had been going on in the FF letters page about how useless Sue's invisibility power was. Which is certainly true; hence the force-field ability that she began to develop not long afterwards. But it's rather amusing to Reed and Ben defending her as a valuable member of the team to the readers.

And then it turns out that it's Sue's birthday, and Reed, Ben and Johnny have baked her a cake. Ben turns into the Thing again, and Sue realizes that her problems with the FF's readers are trivial compared to him turning into a pile of orange rocks. And the story ends on that note.

Comments: Certainly an oddball tale, but it does show that Stan and Jack were paying attention to the readers and trying to promote Sue as a more valuable member of the team than we might otherwise assume. IIRC, this is the only FF issue that features two different self-contained stories.

The second story is the cover one, and it's quite "offbeat". The Impossible Man comes from the planet Poppup in the Tenth Galaxy. He possesses amazing powers, including flight, teleportation, the ability to turn his body into steel, etc. He shows up at a hobo jungle and asks for some food. They tell him he has to get some money, so:

After robbing the bank, he grabs a meal at a restaurant where the FF encounter him. They discover his extraordinary powers. After some battling:

So he's sort of the Marvel equivalent of Mr Mxyzptlk or Bat-Mite. But Reed figures out how to get rid of him:

And that turns out to be the solution; the one thing the Impossible Man can't handle is being ignored.

Comments: Not Marvel's finest hour, by any means. The Impossible Man did not return for many years.

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Target Annual 1988 & Ajit's funny world

A change in my today's posting plan.

    At request of our old visitor Dr.S.M putting his both contribution as post in earlier Target post. The first comic are photos taken by digital camera & 2nd by cellphone. He doesn't have a scanner at present, however we can enjoy as scan copies. Both comics I saw in digital version only, liked both. 

    Now friends has started sharing links in comments part, please have a quick look or wait until we will put it as post.

    

Target Annual 1988

Ajit's funny world  This is a collection of Ajit Ninan's Funny World strips

All credits go to Dr.S.M. only.

Wait for next post by IUnknown - we are going to hit 3rd century. 

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X-Men #14-16: The Sentinels

The long-running antagonists for the X-Men debuted in X-Men #14. An anthropologist named Dr Trask warns mankind that the mutants are among us and that they are a severe danger to mankind:



For starters, it seems unlikely that an anthropologist would be issuing this warning; anthropologists study other cultures and attempt to do so without making judgments about right and wrong (not always successfully, mind you). And later events in the story make the idea that Trask is an anthropologist very unlikely. For example, after Professor X demands a TV debate with Trask, the latter brings out his sentinels:



Okay, so now we've got an anthropologist who's skilled at making robots? Then again, maybe he's not all that skilled, for the Sentinels quickly turn against him:



This is possibly the biggest cliche of the Silver Age: robots and computers were constantly rebelling against their masters. Indeed, the series Magnus, Robot Fighter which I have discussed several times recently, is based on that premise. But there are many, many other examples, like Computo rebelling against Brainiac 5, or Wonder Man (one of Superman's robots) who briefly replaced Superman.

It also ties into one of the odder conundrums of the Silver Age. While there was enormous respect for "science", the writers were considerably more suspicious of technology (i.e., applied science). To a certain extent, this may be due to the shoddy workmanship of electronic devices of the time.

The X-Men race to the TV studio in response to a mental summons from Professor X. Most of the Sentinels leave with Trask, but one remains behind. The X-Men have a minor battle with it, when it inexplicably keels over:



Professor X hears the robot say something about a "Master Mold" before it collapses. He is also able to get an impression of the HQ of the Sentinels. The team heads there, but they get split up and the Sentinels start catching them:

Trask, now a prisoner of the Sentinels himself, learns of the real mission of the X-Men:

This story also tells us the origin of the Beast, aka Hank McCoy. His father worked at an "atomic project", as an ordinary laborer, which of course raises the question where Hank got his prodigious loquacity (of course, in the real world, he got it from Kirby's earlier "Big Words" character, who got it from "Johnny" in the Doc Savage series, who probably picked it up from somewhere else). Hank discovered that he had extraordinary agility, which he put to good use on the gridiron:

His extraordinary feats brought him to the attention of Professor X, who invited him to join the X-Men.

In the finale (X-Men #16), the team escapes from the prison where the Sentinels were holding them, and using teamwork are able to hold them off briefly. Meanwhile, Professor X has determined what stopped the original Sentinel in the TV studio; it was a crystal which interfered with the transmission signals from the Master Mold to the Sentinels. Professor X has the crystal flown to the Sentinel's headquarters. At the same time, the Master Mold is forcing Trask to create more Sentinels:

But at the last moment, Trask rebels:

Trask destroys the Master Mold and is killed in the process. The X-Men manage to escape the Sentinel's HQ via some solid teamwork.

Comments: A terrific and exciting tale with lots of excellent characterization. If the entire X-Men run had been as solid as this one, it would not have been canceled before the end of the Silver Age.

The stories described in this post have been reprinted here:

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