Bring on the back-ups: The last Green Lantern by Neal Adams & Denny O'Neil

One of my favourite comic book series of all time is Green Lantern/Green Arrow (# 76 -89 - 1970/72) by the legendary team of Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil. However, the first time I actually read an Adams\O'Neil Green Lantern tale was when the strip moved over to the Flash comic (#217 - 219) in 1972 after the GL\GA comic was cancelled with # 89. Until recently I thought that was the last time that the Adams \ O'Neil team worked together on Green Lantern. Well that was until I picked up Flash #226 (December 1973) which to my surprise contained the story below which I think may have been the last time that Adams/O'Neil worked together on the character.

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Below the Flash #226 (cover by Nick Cardy) The Green Lantern back -up strip would last until #244 in 1976 when a new Green Lantern \Green Arrow comic by O'Neil\Grell was published.

Favourite comics: Challengers of the Unknown #82: Mike Nasser, Joe Rubinstein, Gerry Conway

One of my favourite comics from the mid/late 1970s was DC's revamp of the Challengers of the Unknown which featured art by then comic book newcomers Keith Giffen, Jim Sherman, Mike Nasser ( Netzer) , and Joe Rubinstein. Nasser only drew 2 issues (82 & 83) before taking a break from regular comic work, but his two Challengers issues contained some of his best art and one of his best covers.

The cover blurb was a bit misleading in noting that it featured the Swamp Thing as the character only appeared in a flashback sequence. However, it did feature a single panel inked by Swamp Things co-creator Bernie Wrightson ( below), which at the time I found fascinating.

Mike Nasser (later changing his name to Netzer) left regular comics work in late 1977 and moved to Israel. In 1991 he began working with Neal Adams Continuity Comics which would later result in Netzer taking legal action against Adams over the intellectual property rights of Ms Mystic , a character created in 1977. The lawsuit was dismissed in 1995.

Bring on the Back-Ups: Elongated Man by Neal Adams and Gardner Fox

I was surprised to find out that before Neal Adams started work on such iconic DC superhero comics as the Spectre, Batman, Green Lantern and Green Arrow he deubted (along with his work on Deadman) on an Elongated Man back-up tale in Detective Comics # 369 (September 1967). Since finding this out I have been searching for a copy of this comic and as luck would have it I came across a copy while visiting family in the USA. Although the cover was badly ripped the interior pages were complete and for only around £8 I snapped it up for excellent Neal Adams art on this his one and only Elongated Man story.

Below the cover to Detective Comics #369 - image from DC Fandom

Favourite comics: Superboy #182 - the first meeting of Superboy and Batman by Bob Brown , Murphy Anderson and Leo Dorfman

Superboy was a comic that I only really interested me when it featured the Legion of Super-Heroes however, there were the odd exceptions where the urge to pick up a copy of the boy of steels comic minus the Legion was overwhelming. One such issue was Superboy #182 featuring an intriguing cover by the great Nick Cardy in a story where Superboy uses a machine, a 'time-scope' that can see into the future, a DC staple in telling "what if" type tales back in the day. The added interest in this tale was that this story tells of the first meeting between Superboy and a young Batman,or rather the Executioner!

In addition to the above main story this issue also featured an "Album of Unsung Heroes" tale and a reprint of a Super-baby tale

Favourite comics: Batman Family # 19 - Michael Golden, Denny O'Neil

Batman Family was an excellent anthology comic that ran for 20 issues between 1975 and 1978 which was designed to showcase solo stories featuring characters from the Batman universe including Batgirl, Robin and Man-Bat. Initially the series ran a mix of classic reprints with a couple of new stories. However, with issue 11 that all changed and it became an 80 page mag featuring all new strips illustrated by some of comics newest artistic talents. One such artist was Michael Golden who after drawing the Man-Bat series in #15 -17 took over the art chores on the Batman series from #14 until #20, the last issue of the Batman Family. For many fans Goldens Batman has remained a high point in the characters long history, for myself his Batman was always fun and exciting.

This issue also featured a Batgirl back-up.

Although #20 was the last issue of Batman Family the title merged with Detective Comics with #481 a series it out sold but DC decided to keep due to the titles importance to the company. Golden completed one final Batman story in issue 482 before moving on.

Favourite comics: Jimmy Olsen # 135: Jack Kirby, Neal Adams

Jack Kirby came to DC in 1970 with a deal that allowed him to create and edit three brand-new interconnected titles based on concepts that had been working on during his last few years at Marvel. Seemingly his deal at DC also called for him to work on one of their existing titles which turned out to be “Superman’s pal, Jimmy Olsen” , on the face of it a strange choice for someone like Kirby to work on with his galaxy spanning concepts. However, in November 1970 with Jimmy Olsen #133, Kirby began work on what would become known as the “Fourth World” series. The first issue of Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen that I picked up was actually issue 139 and over the next couple of years I managed to pick up most of Kirbys 15 issue run on Jimmy Olsen (#133-#139 and #141 -#148) except for the above #135 (with an excellent cover by Neal Adams) which I tracked down a few years ago. Of all Kirby’s DC output at this time Jimmy Olsen and Kamandi were by far my favourites and despite the 11 -12 year old me from 1971/72, not always understanding what was going on (and who the heck Don Rickles was!!!??) I loved this series which introduced me to golden age characters like the Newsboy Legion and (my favourite) the Golden Guardian. Below are a few pages for this excellent comic with some of Kirby's best art as DC.