Favourite comic book covers: Superman issue 252 (DC-13)

A regular comic book purchase of mine from around 1970 to 1972 was DCs Superman title. From issue 231 the title had feature the triple art threat of Neal Adam on covers and Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson on the internal art. In addition to the great artwork that was on show there was also the not inconsiderable writing talents of Cary Bates and in particular Denny O’Neil making this a must read comic. As it turned out issue 252 was to be my last regular purchase of Superman as I had replaced many of my DC purchases with Marvel titles that were starting to become more available in the UK.

Issue 252 itself was not the best issue of Superman in that great 21 issue run as it was a 100 page all reprint special featuring strips from the 1940s/50’s. But it had its charm reprinting some nice strips from the likes of Doctor Fate, The Ray, Black Condor Starman and the Spectre. But that cover is just a classic and worth every penny of the 15p purchase price when I first bought it on the road home from school in 1972 - and later the £10 it cost me to pick up my replacement copy (as I stupidly gave my original copy away).

Bring on the back-ups: - One-shot hero!

One of the good things about DC comics in the early to mid-1970’s were the backup stories that appeared in many of their books. In many cases these strips were better than the main feature which made it worth picking up a title that on the face of it, I would not normally purchase. One such title was Superboy which in the early 1970s featured the occasional tale of my then favourite team the Legion of Super-Heroes. The LSH had been appearing in Superboy since issue 172 and with issue 197 the popularity of the strip justifiably resulted in the comics title being changed to “Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes".

It was with issue 195 of Superboy that my favourite Legion strip appeared an 8 page tale entitled “ The one-shot hero!” written by Cary Bates with art by the wonderful Dave Cockrum. The story revolves around a new candidate for the Legion called ERG-1 (Energy Release Generator - 1) a teen who was converted into pure energy which he stores in a containment suit. But he also has a secret power which he refuses to show to the rest of the Legion members thereby resulting in him being turned down for membership.

ERG-1’s secret power was that he could deliver a high powered energy blast but he could only use this once before (seemingly ) dooming himself. In the story ERG-1 despite being rejected for membership to the Legion responds to an emergency that the other Legion members are unable to halt and saves Colossal Boy from certain death by using his power blast thereby dooming himself. Of course that wasn’t the end of ERG-1 as the character was so popular that ERG-1 returned from the “dead” under the name of Wildfire to become one of the Legions most popular members.