4 - World's Finest Comics (DC Comics)
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| World's Finest #207 (November 1971) Pencil art by Curt Swan, inks: Murphy Anderson |
Originating as World's Best Comics for one issue (Spring 1941) before assuming its long running title for 323 issues (Summer 1941 - January 1986) until Crisis on Infinite Earths killed it off.
World's Finest Comics featured team-ups between Superman and Batman, often with Robin, from #71 (July 1954) to #197 (October/November 1970), Superman then headlined the title with guest characters from #198 (November 1970) to #214 (October/November 1972), although Batman regularly appeared as the guest, as illustrated above in one of the earliest examples of the title in my personal collection, #207 (November 1971) by Len Wein and Dick Dillin. #198 (November 1970) - #199 (December 1970) featured a race between Superman and the Flash which had a winner, very unusual for the Silver Age!
World's Finest Comics featured team-ups between Superman and Batman, often with Robin, from #71 (July 1954) to #197 (October/November 1970), Superman then headlined the title with guest characters from #198 (November 1970) to #214 (October/November 1972), although Batman regularly appeared as the guest, as illustrated above in one of the earliest examples of the title in my personal collection, #207 (November 1971) by Len Wein and Dick Dillin. #198 (November 1970) - #199 (December 1970) featured a race between Superman and the Flash which had a winner, very unusual for the Silver Age!
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| World's Finest #198 (November 1970) Pencil Art by Curt Swan, inks: Murphy Anderson |
The Super Sons concept of a pairing of Superman Junior and Batman Junior from an alternative timeline, created by the zany Bob Haney with Dick Dillin, alternated with more traditional Superman and Batman team-ups from #215 (December 1972/January 1973) to #263 (June/July 1980).
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| World's Finest #221 (January/February 1974) Art by Nick Cardy |
The remaining issues featured Superman and Batman team-ups until cancellation with #323 (January 1986). What put this title in the top 5? Well, I have already written about the issue when the duo meet King Arthur in a previous post. That issue remains a nostalgic favourite portrayal of the friendship between Superman and Batman and perhaps it is the friendship displayed in World's Finest Comics from the early Silver Age that makes the title so appealing. The partnership is an unbeatable force for good which contrasts quite starkly with their portrayal in modern times and I have to admit I prefer the Silver Age take. We need heroes to look up to and trust and who could be better than the World's Finest team. If you wish to indulge in tales from a simpler time please seek out the World's Finest Archives 1, 2 & 3 which reprint #71 (July 1954) through to #116 (March 1961) featuring the talents of Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Ed Hamilton and Dick Sprang. These comics are fun!
I don't know for certain why they changed the format in 1970 from Superman-Batman team-ups to Superman with rotating co-stars. Maybe they decided those other characters needed more exposure, and/or that Batman needed less exposure. In the mid-to-late sixties, DC tried to exploit Batman's popularity (from the TV series) and the character was ubiquitous. Not only was he in his own self-titled comic and Detective Comics, he became the regular star of the Brave & the Bold, and dominated the Justice League of America (look at the covers of JLA #47-53 to see some examples). That over-exposure provoked a backlash, so maybe DC felt the need to tone it down for a while. As for the Superman-Flash race, I remember an ad for WF that promised, "No hedging-this time, there WILL be a winner." They had received a lot of complaints from fans about the inconclusive endings in Superman #199 and Flash #175.
ReplyDeleteI think the change may have been due to Julie Schwartz taking the title over from the departing Mort Weisinger and wanting to put his own spin on the title. Julie took over as editor with #198 the first to feature Superman with a guest star.
DeleteThat could be it. Especially since, at the time, DC was revamping a lot of their comics and trying to put a new spin on old series. They were getting outsold by Marvel, and were probably looking for a way to attract new fans.
DeleteYes, Marvel started outselling DC in 1967 but even by 1969 DC still had 7 of the top ten sellers with World's Finest at number 6: 1 Superman 2 Superboy 3 Lois Lane 4 Action Comics 5 Amazing Spider-man 6 World's Finest 7 Batman 8 Adventure Comics 9 Fantastic Four 10 Thor
DeleteMarvel were on the charge in the sixties and DC were worried, by 1970 Mort had retired and DC put their faith in Julie and Jack Kirby's defection from Marvel. Both companies lost sales in the early 70s and the DC brass lost faith in Kirby, if only they had handled Jack more carefully they could have re-gained their dominance.
DC ended up with several different versions of how Superman and Batman first met. They were mentioned as honorary members of the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics #3. They appeared in JSA stories twice, in All Star #7 (1941) and #36 (1947). In 1945 (IIRC), Batman and Robin began guest-starring semi-regularly on the Superman radio show. In the first episode in which they appeared, they seemed to have heard of Superman (and vice versa), but had never met him. Superman #76 (1952) guest starred Batman, and the opening caption/foreword said that the two heroes had never met. They became a permanent team in World's Finest in 1954. Then WF #94 (1958) retold the team's origin, and it was completely different from any of the earlier versions. Both Superman #78 and WF #94 were reprinted in WF #179 (1968). The Superman #76 opening caption was edited, removing the statement that they had not met before. From then on, Silver and Bronze age canon was that the World's Finest story told how they first met, and that Superman #76 took place later, and told how they learned each other's secret identities. WF #250 (1978) tried to reconcile the different versions. Presumably, the JSA stories took place on Earth 2, and the later stories were set on Earth 1. And maybe the radio show was a dream or an hallucination or something.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your great information about the tangled continuity of DC's premier pairing's first meeting. One of the reasons given for re-booting the DC multi-verse was that the convoluted continuity was too difficult for readers to understand. Well, I find the modern books mostly impenetrable and I love the old Earth 1/Earth 2 concept and have no difficulty imagining two or more different time-lines running concurrently. Isn't it fun that a concept like the Super Sons can exist?
DeleteI never had any problem understanding Silver and Bronze Age continuity, including the alternate time-lines. A brief caption would explain any apparent inconsistencies (e.g. "Barry Allen lives on Earth One, and Jay Garrick is the Flash on Earth Two"). The post-Crisis comics built up their own convoluted continuity, and became a lot more confusing. With today's long story arcs and line-wide crossovers and tie-ins, you would have to buy half a dozen issues of ten different titles just to figure out what is going on. BTW, IIRC, the Super Sons started as a series of "imaginary" (i.e., "what if...") stories. Those were common in Superman Family comics in the Silver Age, but seem to have been scrapped in the mid 1970's. I seem to remember the last Super Sons story revealing them to be a computer simulation that the "real" Superman and Batman were studying.
DeleteWorld's Finest #263 (March 1980) revealed the Super Sons to be a computer simulation. For some time before that, writer Bob Haney and editor Murray Boltinoff had insisted that the Super Sons stories were not "imaginary" and that they "really" took place in the near future. IIRC, a lot of fans complained, wanting more consistency and continuity. So WF #263 may have been written just to explain them away.
DeleteActually, the Super Sons seemed to be in the present time, not the future, so they caused contradictions with the other (solo) Superman and Batman titles, where the two heroes were still both unmarried. It would have been easier if Haney and Boltinoff would have just admitted that the stories were "imaginary."
DeleteBob Haney never let continuity get in the way of a good story. If he wanted to write stories that contradicted other books he did and in my opinion they were often the better for it. There is a place for tight continuity and I greatly enjoyed the evolution of the Marvel Universe and the establishment of the Earth 1/Earth 2 continuity at DC and bemoan the fact that this has been swept away but there should also be a place for concepts such as the Super Sons. If Editors and writers were imaginative enough we could still have the old continuity and fresh takes on concepts.
DeleteThe old DC Silver Age multiverse allowed for variations. Imaginary stories allowed speculation about Superman family concepts, e.g., "What if Krypton had not exploded," "What if Clark Kent were a villain and Luthor were a hero?" And the alternate timelines and parallel Earths allowed the Golden Age and Silver/Bronze Age versions to co-exist, and also allowed variations, such as "Mr. and Mrs. Superman" (Clark and Lois married on Earth 2), and the Huntress (daughter of Batman and Catwoman). World's Finest also had a few stories about the 30th century descendants of Superman and Batman. DC swept most of that away in the mid 1980's. Ironically, though, Marvel seemed to adopt concepts ("What If," the "2099" series) that DC abandoned.
DeletePost-Crisis the clear identities of DC and Marvel styles disappeared. Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans had shown that a Marvel approach could be very successful so ex-Marvel Editors-in-chief Wein and Wolfman with Perez unleashed Crisis and then DC released the History of the DC Universe to provide the back story. Since then we have had Zero Hour, Final Crisis and now New 52. A least DC had a plan post-Crisis with Byrne and Wolfman's Superman and Perez on Wonder Woman it seems that New 52 is more about Jim Lee's awful costume re-designs rather than coherent universe building.
DeleteIn the Silver Age and earlier, publishers tended to assume (probably with considerable justification) that the readership turned over completely every 7 years. A kid reading a comic in 1958 would not remember a comic published in 1952. Thus, it was not a problem if a story contradicted something from an earlier issue.
DeleteWhen the audience for comics became collectors who saved their old comics, and when DC and Marvel began reprinting the older stuff in their Annuals and Eighty-Page Giants, it became necessary to pay more attention to continuity. When WF #179 reprinted both "first meetings" of Superman and Batman in one volume, the two versions had to be reconciled in some way.
Today, with the seemingly endless retcons and revisions, it is impossible to keep track of what is "canon." Everything gets wiped out and rebooted soon anyway.
In the Silver Age, Marvel seemed to be aiming at a slightly older audience than DC. Not adults, of course, but maybe adolescents. By the 1970's, DC seemed to be emulating Marvel, with longer arcs and serials, more complex plots and cross-continuity, and character development. By the mid-1980's, "Post-Crisis, the clear identities of DC and Marvel styles disappeared," and there was really no significant difference between them anymore.
DeleteYou are correct both DC and Marvel became increasingly alike post-Crisis.
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