No, not talking about Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Al Kaline, Pete Rose, Kirk
Gibson, Reggie Jackson, or even A-Rod, but instead, a little bit on how
comic books used some of their tried and true storylines with baseball
players instead of super-heroes!
A great way to kick off the All-Star game and get a little of some the stranger parts of
the Silver Age, where anything could happen….and often did!
Baseball Uniforms
First up, a story from
Brave & the Bold #45 (January 1963)
, wherein the baseball uniforms were animated to battle against a team of regular players in “
The Challenge of the Headless Baseball Team” in a cover by
Carmine Infantino and
Murphy Anderson (and interior story written by
Gardner Fox, with art by
Infantino...).
This kicked off a run of Strange Sports Stories...and boy were these sports stories strange!
This theme of either the hero becoming a bodiless uniform, or fighting a bodiless uniform was used a few times, once in
Action Comics #383-384 (Dec-Jan 1969, 1970) with Superman (and a little later in issue
#299 of his own title when one of Superman‘s foes made him only his uniform!), Green Lantern foe - the Invisible Destroyer from
Showcase #23 (November-December, 1959), a little bit in Flash
(there was slight of hand involved with Abra Kadabra in his first appearance in
#128 in May, 1962), and later on wherein the
Justice League of America (in
#35, May 1965) where the team faced off against the animated uniforms of a few of their fiercest foes like
Pied Piper
, Killer Moth
and Dr. Polaris in the
“Battle of the Bodiless Uniforms”!
Monkeying Around On The Field
Then, another Strange Sports Story happened in
Brave & the Bold #49 (September 1963, with another cover by
Carmine Infantino and
Murphy Anderson), wherein the baseball team faced off against simians, monkeying around on the infield in the “
Gorilla Wonders of the Diamond!”, written by
Gardner Fox!
This was also the last of the strange sports stories for
Brave and the Bold, as they switched to super-hero team-ups with the next issue (starring Green Arrow and the Manhunter from Mars to start!)
For those that don’t know, back in the Silver Age, it had been
“proven” that putting an ape on a cover would increase sales of comics.
Superman had Titano
(a monkey enlarged to King Kong size, with Kryptonite vision, first appearance
Superman #127, February 1959), Flash had Gorilla Grodd
(a super-intelligent beast with mental powers who first faced the speedster in
Flash #106, April-May 1959, but he didn't make a cover until
Flash #127), the Doom Patrol had Monseiur Mallah
(an experiment and more with the Brain of the Brotherhood of Evil
starting with
Doom Patrol #86, March 1964), Congo Bill added Congorilla (a golden ape whom the great white hunter switched minds with thanks to a mystic ring) in
Action Comics #248, January 1959, and even Rex the Wonder Dog had the Detective Chimp
(a monkey who solved crimes starting with
Rex, the Wonder Dog #4, July-August 1952)!
The simian fascination in comics is explained a little more in
Secret Origins #40, featuring 3 of these characters (but still missing a few, like the Gorilla Boss of Gotham City
(first appeared
Batman #75, February-March 1953), the Mod Gorilla Boss foe of Animal Man from
Strange Adventures #201, June 1967, Mogo the Bat-Ape from
Batman #114, March 1958, even Sam Simeon of Angel & the Ape who started in
Showcase #77, September 1968).
So, not only did your favorite costumed heroes fight some odd things
back in the day, but so did the boys of summer! Baseball sure was
interesting back then.
You have to wonder who would have won, the
empty uniforms or the gorillas?
Grodd thinks he has the answer....
