Teen Titans Olympics

Holy hot rings, Batman!  Continuing a look back at Olympic comic book moments, here's an entry from the swinging sixites by Bob Haney and Nick Cardy, with "The Secret Olympic Heroes" from Teen Titans #4 (July-August, 1966).

This was the first appearance of Speedy in a Teen Titans title, with this flashback tale happening before the first appearance of the Teen Titans, though later events made him a charter member, so the importance of his issue cannot be overlooked! 

Captain Marvel Olympics

Holy Moley!  When Billy says Shazam!, some of the gods he gets his powers from are Greek.  It took some time, but Captain Marvel was involved in "The Olympic Game Of The Gods!" in a story by Otto Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger, under a cover by C.C. Beck in Whiz Comics #125 (September, 1950).

Wonder Woman Olympics

 

Wonder Woman had Greek beginnings, but it took a trip to the future, where Diana helped President Virtura of the female kingdom of Noman against the male forces Prowd, the director of Elam in Olympic games, in a story by William Marston and H. G. Peter in Sensation Comics #83 (November, 1948) in "The Sinister Olympics".

National Ice Cream Day With Betty And Veronica 2021

Celebrating National Ice Cream Day, but while Veronica Lodge is looking for ice cream, Archie Andrews is getting his two scoops with Betty Cooper, in this cover by Dan DeCarlo to Archie's Girls Betty And Veronica #247 (July, 1976).

Kamandi's World

"Something had happened in the dim past---!  A natural disaster....The people in the bunkers lived out their lives and died dreaming of a day of return".

This was the world of Earth A.D. (After Disaster), and the world Kamandi, the Last Boy On Earth, set out to explore. 

Sadly, he didn't have a map with which to explore it!

Kamandi's world was introduced in Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #1 (October-November, 1972) by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer.  This featured the start of the adventures of Kamandi, a young boy who had lived in bunker of Command D with his grandfather, until some scavenging Rat-men killed the old man, forcing Kamandi out into the great unknown world.  In this world, he started to find things were not the same as in the old books his grandfather had shown him.  

Here, he encountered Great Caesar and his tiger-men cavalry, who were battling the leopard men.  Kamandi was captured, and taken to the human slave pits (the mutated men thinking Kamandi just a dumb animal, which all humans had fallen to).  There, he met the talking bulldog scientist Doctor Canus, who took an interest in the boy, and introduced him to Ben Boxer, a radioactive android who looked like a normal human...

The map was a part of Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #32 (August, 1975), by Jack Kirby and D. Bruce Berry, and that issue also reprinted issue #1.

The issue had a new story as well, entitled "Me!", with with Kamandi, Dr. Canus, Ben Boxer and Prince Tuftan (the son of Great Caesar) fighting gorilla commandos and meeting a new alien, which would come to figure in the future of Kamandi!

The issue also contained a lengthy article on the penciling talent of Jack Kirby, written by Steve Sherman.

Jack would soon leave the title after this story, but with this and other works, DC writers would start to flesh out the world after the Great Disaster (more on that here!), and though they took it in some unexpected directions, Kirby had laid out the map! 

Oddly enough, #32 (less the Kirby article) was reprinted in The Kamandi Challenge Special #1 (March, 2017), along with the stories that were intended for Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #60 and #61, which had only previously been a part of of the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 (Fall, 1978), and even then, those (and what was reprinted here), was an uncolored and unfinished version of the issues that would have seen print, and included other titles that fell victim to the Great Disaster of the mass cancellation of the 1970s at DC, including Steel the Indestructible Man #6, Secret Society of Super-Villains #16 and #17 and more!

National Bikini Day 2021 With Betty And Veronica

Another year, another National Bikini Day, and this time, just watching Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge.. 

...as are Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle and the boys from Riverdale, as on this cover to Archie's Girls Betty And Veronica #226 (October, 1974) from Dan DeCarlo.

Yes, technically a bikini is a two-piece, so these are swimsuits, but just enjoy the cover and the day....

Happy 4th Of July With Captain America

Celebrate the Fourth of July with Captain America and Jack Kirby, as they did in 1976, with the Marvel Treasury Special Featuring Captain America's Bicentennial Battles #1 (September, 1976).

One of the things this special Marvel Treasury did was celebrate the 200th Birthday of the United States, which was celebrated heavily on July 4th, 1976.

Due to events in the story, Jack Kirby had a few pin up pages, where he explored the idea of Captain America, that, Cap was an institution, supporting America from colonial days, well into space and the future!

Best of all, in line with July being Western Comics Month, Cap even was ready to be part of the drive to expand the USA, heading out west to spread our country across North America!

These Captain America redesigns a wonderful "What If?" to the Captain America legend....

 

Wild West UFO Invasion

It seems an odd cover for a western, with a UFO landing, this Neal Adams cover to DC Special #6 (January-March, 1970), and it was indeed....as odd as the reprints with this issue, and, much more importantly, the new, framing story by Len Wein, Gil Kane and Vince Colletta.

The framing story, "Behold The Wild Frontier", deals with a grandpa trying to get some logging done, yet his two wild grandsons are more interested in getting in the way.  So, to calm them down, he sits them down and starts to tell him stories of men going out to tame the Western frontier.

These stories include tales of Daniel Boone (from The Legends of Daniel Boone #1 from October-November 1955), Davy Crockett and Kit Carson (both from Frontier Fighters #4 from March-April 1955), 

Buffalo Bill (from Frontier Fighters #6 from July-August 1956 - cover not pictured), 

Tomahawk (from World's Finest Comics #69 of March-April 1954) and Pow-Wow Smith (from Detective Comics #178 from December, 1951), with the last two not being featured on the covers, and a little Tomahawk history is here, as Pow-Wow Smith's is here!

As the group was heading out with their lumber, they were set upon by arrows, and found a young brave attacking their group, yet that boy's father arrived to tell him how his people were taken to the sky, and knew that the men they left behind would follow, but the logger grandfather wanted to extend his hand in peace (as readers see the slow pullback to find they were logging on an asteroid in space, extending the Wild West into the Final Frontier, with a UFO in the background!).