Remembering Artist Joe Orlando

Remembering artist Joe Orlando on his birthday (April 4, 1927 - December 23, 1998).  Though known more for his editing and work on horror comics, Joe worked on humor comics as well, handling the first 13 issues of Swing With Scooter...the adventures of an English singer who came to America to escape his fame, but wasn't that successful.

Scooter had a group of followers, including redhead Cynthia, brunette Penny, blond Cookie, friendly Sylvester, angry Malibu and hipster Kenny who served to lead him into all sorts of scrapes (at least until issue #14, where the mag turned into more of an Archie Comics clone).

Swing With Scooter #1 and #2 (June-July and August-September, 1966) 

.

Swing With Scooter #3 and #4 (October-November, 1966 and December-January, 1966/1967) 

.

Swing With Scooter #5 and #6 (February-March and April-May, 1967) 

.

Swing With Scooter #7 and #8 (June-July and August-September, 1967) 

.

Swing With Scooter #9 and #10 (October-November, 1967 and December-January 1967/1968) 

.

Swing With Scooter #11 and #12 (February-March and April-May, 1968)

.

Swing With Scooter #13  (June-July, 1968)

.  

Celebrating Artist Todd Nauck

Celebrating artist Todd Nauck (April 2, 1971) on his birthday with a few special covers to Young Justice, featuring the team.

The team started out with Robin, Superboy and Impulse (under the watchful eye of Red Tornado)...grew to add Secret, Wonder Girl and Arrowette...and then even Empress, Slobo and the Ray (and so many more!).

Young Justice #1 and #18 (September, 1998 and March, 2000)

.

Young Justice #21 and Dark Crisis: Young Justice #1 (July, 2000 and August, 2022)

.

Mad April Fools

What better way to celebrate April Fool's Day than with the biggest fool of all...Alfred E. Newman!

Here, from Mad Magazine #39 (May, 1958) with a cover painting by C.C. Beall Jr. and Mad Magazine #114 (October, 1967) with Alfred playing the fool for a cover by Norman Mingo.

Celebrating Artist Val Mayerik

Celebrating the birthday of artist Val Mayerik (March 29, 1950) with a couple of his covers featuring Frankenstein's Monster...Frankenstein Monster #18 (September, 1975) and Iron Man #101 (August, 1977).

Planet DC JSA And Batman

Here are the last two of the 8 Planet DC Annuals of 2000, focusing on heroes you know meeting heroes from foreign lands...

...this time around, the new heroes are Nemesis and the Boggart, who meet with the JSA and Batman.

JSA Annual #1 (October, 2000)

First up is Nemesis (Soseh Mykros) in a story by David Goyer, Uriel Caton and Wade von Grawbadger, as she fights the clones of Sportsmaster (an old JSA foe) as a way to battle the Council.  Soseh was the daughter of Dr. Anatol Mykros (who worked with the Council, which were thought to be defeated by Batman and the Mark Shaw Manhunter long ago.  Mykros experimented and had two daughters, Soseh and Ellina, both of whom had incredible regeneration abilities, as well as Eidetic Kinesthesia (the ability to duplicate any fighting style she encountered).  Meant to lead the Sportsmaster clones, Soseh felt what her father was doing was wrong, and opposed him, drawing her into battle with her sister.  While Soseh defeated Ellina and got away, she was injured and floated away in the Aegean Sea...

...where, in the second story in the annual (by Geoff Johns, Buzz and Jim Royal, as Buzz did the cover as well), Soseh ended up on Themyscira, home of the amazons, where, at the time, Hippolyta was acting as Wonder Woman, and training newer JSA members Black Canary, Star-Spangled Kid and Hawkgirl.  There, she related her tale and, having encountered the Sportsmaster clones before, the JSA decided to help, going to the back to the secret facility in Greece where the Council was cloning Sportsmaster, and destroyed it, with Soseh killing her sister along the way (a setback for the Council, who was allied with JSA foe, the Ultra-Humanite as well).  Nemesis continued fighting the Council with the help of the JSA, but ended up allying with Black Adam, where she was killed by Eclipso (all in the next few years of JSA books).

Batman Annual #24 (October, 2000)

The last of the new heroes from the Planet DC was the Boggart, as detailed in this story by John Ostrander, Jim Aparo and Sal Buscema (with a cover by Michael Kaluta).  On a rare vacation to England, Alfred Pennyworth ran into the beast...leaving him comatose, inviting a visit by Bruce Wayne (and Batman) to investigate.  Going to the place Alfred last was, Elsbeth Fields (call her Gran Puddin) was set to give Bruce her granddaughter, Rosemary....until Bruce was chased from the house by the Boggart.  Having Rosemary calm the Boggart, Gran Puddin explained that her son Harry, and new bride, Diana, had Rosemary with help from Lord Malvern, who, now claimed Rosemary.  

Bruce went to confront Geoffrey, Lord Malvern, who directly shooed Bruce from his mansion and made light of claims of the beast.  Going back as Batman, Bruce encountered security guard Grayle, as Rosemary and the Boggart went to the mansion as well.  When the girl and her imaginary friend got in, they found other children who also had imaginary friends, and found that Lord Malvern was experimenting to give children telekinetic powers....which manifested as imaginary friends.  Grayle, as a security guard representing other interests, tried the formula on himself, manifesting the beast.  Lord Malvern had a cure for the formula, but needed Batman to distract Grayle, and the Boggart to distract the beast, wherein Malvern gave Grayle the cure, and the beast disappeared.  Realizing Malvern was not malevolent, Gran Puddin gave her blessing for Rosemary to be trained at the mansion (with the Boggart reluctantly agreeing).

In the second story, also by Ostrander, Aparo and Buscema, Rosemary (and the Boggart, the manifestation of her powers) met Roland Royce, who was to study the Boggart (but the Boggart would have none of that).  The Boggart manifested badly, and, after being admonished by Rosemary, disappeared for a while.  Rosemary learned why Malvern was so intend on protecting children, having lost his son, William, who was the first recipient of the experiment, and killed himself because he couldn't handle the power.  With the help of the Boggart, Malvern and the spirit of his son reconciled.  Sadly, Rosemary and the Boggart never reappeared.

Celebrating Artist Glenn Fabry

Celebrating the birthday of artist Glen Fabry (March 24, 1961), who provided the painted covers to the Trenchcoat Brigade...

...a four issue mini-series featuring John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Doctor Occult and Mister E...four magic users in the DC universe united by their love of finely tailored coats.

Trenchcoat Brigade #1 and #2 (March and April, 1999)

.

Trenchcoat Brigade #3 and #4 (May and June, 1999)

.

Planet DC Flash And Green Lantern

Even more coverage of the Planet DC Annuals of 2000, where DC's greatest American heroes worked with heroes from other lands.

Here, the Flash (Wally West) teams up with the members of Super Malon including sorceress Salamanca), while Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) meets Sala.

Flash Annual #13 (September, 2000)

Here it is a whole team of heroes in Argentina, in this story by Chuck Dixon and Enrique Alcatena, but first we start out with one of the earliest heroes, Jay Garrick, the Flash, trapped in some mystical land, while Wally West, the Flash, plays chess with Oracle in the JLA Watchtower on the moon.  There, Wally gets a mystical summons from Salamanca, and beams down to Argentina, where he faces the Peteys (little hairballs that are super fast servants of Gualicho).  Gualicho entraps Salamanca in a mystic bottle, with one of the Peteys taking it, leading Wally on a chase through Argentina, where it finally disappears.  

Wally uses his super speed to follow the Peteys' vibrations, ending up in the mystic land, where he meets Jay and the rest of the Super Malon (Cachiru, wolf Lobizon, blue costumed Pampero, brown hooded Vizacacha,  swashbuckling Cimarron, jaguar styled Yaguarette and horse headed Bagual), where they explain that Flash must race los Peteys and win or become trapped in phantom form as they are (and do it before the solstice or the wizard Gualicho can free himself from this land Salamanca trapped him in).  Wally starts to race the Peteys, but instead confronts Gaulicho, freeing Salamanca from the bottle, so she can free the rest from their phantom forms, and combined, beat Gaulicho.

In the second story, also by Dixon/Alcatena, readers learn of the romantic ties between Salamanca and Cachiru, as the duo have to deal with a ghostly Mazorquero (a secret police member of a governor of Argentina long ago) who haunts the Dona Rosario Echeverria, an old woman who was dying....and, the love of Jose, who was that secret guard, who was waiting for her to die to be with her, leaving Salamanca and Cachiru to decide if they would resurrect their old affair.  Salamanca and most of the Super Malon appear again in Wonder Woman #186 and #187, with Salamanca attending a meeting of mystics in Infinite Crisis.

Green Lantern Annual #9 (September, 2000)

Meanwhile, in Tunisa, Sala is introduced in a story by Timothy Truman, Koi Turnbull and John Lowe (with a cover by Truman), starting with demons of the air decimating a small tribe, raising one of them from the dead to become Pazuzu (who will open the gateway).  Soon after, on an archeological dig in the area, Sala Nisaba and friends (including Assan) find an old well that is a passageway to the gates of hell, with local soldiers killing all but Sala and Assan, as Green Lantern appears to save them.  Sala recognizes Kyle (as they attended college classes together), and, along with the old man the soldiers were torturing, go to explore the well. 

There, they find the wall keeping the Kurnugi (Babylonian Underworld) from invading Earth.  Sala finds the ruins to explain the wall, that it keeps Nergal (lord of terror), his wife (Ereskigal) and her evil mother (Tiamat), the demon lord (Pazuzu) and Humbaba (entrail faced demon) away from Earth.  Istar (the lady of heaven) and her ring bearer (Ninurta) fought to keep them back there in ancient times...and, Kyle finds the ring bearer was an agent of Oa (and the Guardians of the Universe).  Then, the demons appear and take Sala and the rest to Kurnugi, where the family plots to escape (and against each other...), but needed the ring of one of the Guardians' agents (Kyle) as well as Istar's ringstaff to get free, which they now have.  They also reveal that Sala was a descendant of Istar and Ninurta, and has the power of Istar...

In the second story, by Tim Truman and Paul Ryan, the plans continue, with the family sending their demons into Kyle to try to get him to relinquish the ring, which they eventually do, but even as Nergal opens the gateway, Kyle continues to fight, with Sala fully embracing her new identity as the lady of battle.  Kyle gets Assan as Sala continues to fight the family, with Sala getting Kyle his ring, as he and Assan escape through the gateway, but leaving Sala behind.  Kyle would return to help Sala in the JLA: Gatekeeper mini-series, with Sala later appearing in the Infinite Crisis Special: Day of Vengeance.