In 1964, the Batman titles got a “New Look,” but as 1969 ended, it already faded and change was again needed as both Batman and Detective Comics didn’t sell that much anymore. Artist Neal Adams was motivated to bring the Caped Crusader back onto a darker gothic path and worked with writer Frank Robbins—and occasionally Denny O’Neil—toward this goal.
One of the creative highlights of the Adams and Robbins collaboration in 1970 was in the pages of Detective Comics #400 with the introduction of Man-Bat.
In 1992, DC Comics published a four-part miniseries titled “The Sword of Azrael,” written by Dennis O’Neil–the editor of the Batman line–and penciled by Joe Quesada. At the time, readers thought it was just another inconsequential adventure of Batman, not knowing that the introduction of the character Azrael was part of a bigger plan that would come to fruition with the Knightfall storyline.
Azrael, Vengeful Angel of the Order of St. Dumas
When Jean-Paul Valley’s father is mortally shot by a gangster he was sent to kill, he gives his son instructions to follow before dying. This led Jean-Paul to Switzerland where he had a rendezvous in a tiny mountain village to meet his destiny. There, a small man dressed as a monk named Nomoz becomes his new teacher. His brutal training starts.
Jean-Paul Valley is to become the new Azrael, the deadly Angel working to protect the Order of St. Dumas–a secret society/religious organization with a long history, dating back to the Crusades, that was originally connected to the Knights Templar. What he doesn’t know is that he was conditioned to take on this role from birth as were his father and ancestors.
The Gang War concluded only a few weeks ago, but a new bloody menace is emerging and, this time, it’s not confined to New York, it’s all over the world. The big summer event of Marvel Comics is here.
Coming from writer Jed MacKay and artist Pepe Larraz, as the official synopsis tells it, Marvel’s Blood Hunt starts as “the skies have gone dark, the sun hiding its face from the carnage to come. The children of the night, the vampires, have risen from the dark and hidden places of the world as one to drown the Marvel Universe in blood. Earth’s final night has fallen—can even the heroes of this doomed world stem the tide of blood that is to come? A dawn might assuredly come, but not before the universe is drenched in crimson!”
Avengers, Blade, Bloodline, Spider-Man, Hunter’s Moon, Tigra, Doctor Strange and Clea, The X-Men, and more are fighting in a war of a new kind against the creatures of the night.
When it comes to manga, Dragon Ball is a classic. Written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama (1955-2024), Dragon Ball was first serialized in Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995. A long run due to the fact that it quickly became one of the most successful manga series of all time. A status cemented by the multiple adaptations into various anime series, movies, video games, and other media.
At first, the story of Dragon Ball tells the adventures of Goku, a pure-hearted, naive, and incredibly strong monkey-tailed boy martial artist, as he embarks on a quest for the mystical seven Dragon Balls, powerful artifacts that can summon Shenlong, a wish-granting dragon, when gathered together. Everything begins with Goku’s encounter with Bulma, a brilliant inventor who is searching for the Dragon Balls to fulfill her wish of obtaining a boyfriend. Together, they embark on a journey filled with battles against powerful foes, including the likes of Emperor Pilaf, the Red Ribbon Army, and the evil King Piccolo. Along the way, Goku trains under various martial arts masters, forms lifelong friendships, and faces increasingly formidable adversaries.
As the series progresses, Goku’s quest expands to include participation in various martial arts tournaments where he faces off against other skilled fighters from around the world. He also learns about his Saiyan heritage, a warrior race to which he belongs, and confronts powerful enemies like Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu, who threaten not only Earth but the entire universe.
Beyond the first long-running series, Dragon Ball continued with other series like Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball SD, Dragon Ball Super, and more! Hundreds and hundreds of chapters of the manga were collected in a fairly notable amount of volumes published in America by Viz Media.
Some characters from the DC Comics universe are old. In the case of the infamous Mister Mxyzptlk, we are talking 80 years old. It was in the Superman daily comic strip by writer Whitney Ellsworth and artist Wayne Boring that the mischievous imp made his first official apparition.
However, like with Bizarro, the planning of publication pushed the real first issue a bit later as Mister Mxyzptlk was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Ira Yarborough in a story published in Superman #30 (fall 1944).
Mister Mxyzptlk is a magical being from the fifth dimension (like Bat-Mite) who enjoys causing mischief and playing pranks on Superman and other characters within the DC universe. In fact, where he comes from, he works as a jester, a powerful magical one. He possesses the ability to warp reality and manipulate the laws of physics, often leading to bizarre and surreal situations.
He loves challenging Superman to some sort of game or contest, and Superman can only defeat him by tricking him into saying or spelling his own name backward (“Kltpzyxm”)–a fine trick that was modified in the 1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot. After that point in time, Mr. Mxyzptlk changes his condition to leave with each new apparition (even if saying his name backward eventually came back).
As the Space Race was just starting to become a reality, National Comics (aka DC Comics) went back to produce a bit more science-fiction stories. It was 1958 and Space Ranger was created, and rapidly forgotten. That was not the case of another space hero created almost at the same time, Adam Strange.
The idea for the character came from editor Julius Schwartz and the costume design was by Murphy Anderson. Strange first apparition was on the cover of Showcase #17 drawn by Gil Kane, but it was Mike Sekowsky who penciled the story written by Gardner Fox following Schwartz’s direction.
Adam Strange’s origin story is highly inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars. The character was an archaeologist working in South America who was suddenly transported to the distant planet of Rann by a beam of energy from the Zeta Beam, a device created by a scientist named Sardath. On Rann, Strange discovered that he had gained superhuman abilities due to the different gravitational pull and the planet’s radiation. He also learned that the Zeta Beam technology only allowed him to stay on Rann for a limited amount of time before transporting him back to Earth.
Adam Strange became a hero on Rann, saving the world from tyrants, monsters, and extraterrestrial invaders among other threats. In addition, he developed feelings for Alanna, a Rannian woman, with whom he finally got married.
The 1950s were another time, especially in the pages of comics like Superboy where strange things happened regularly for our young superhero. As the decade concluded, things would not become more conventionally heroic by today’s standards. Yesterday’s standards, that’s another story. Anyways, Superboy met The Super-Creature of Steel named Bizarro in Superboy #68 (October 1958).
Often portrayed as a distorted and imperfect duplicate of Superman, Bizarro had different origin stories through the years, but he has chalky white skin and distorted features–and is often depicted with a backward “S” symbol on his chest. His actions and speech are often opposite or inverted compared to Superman’s. As a result, he became the source of humorous situations or, on the contrary, tragic ones.
Credits for the creation of the character are often given to writer Otto Binder and artist George Papp, but Bizarro came from the mind of another writer, Alvin Schwartz. He was going to introduce this distorted mirror version of the Man of Steel first in the Superman daily newspaper strip. However, editor Mort Weisinger had reviewed Schwartz’s work and passed the idea to Binder to use in Superboy. The newspaper strip ended up published later and that’s why Alvin Schwartz is not the credited creator of Bizarro.
Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby in The X-Men #10 (1965), Kevin Plunder is Ka-Zar. The New Ka-Zar to be precise as he used the same hero name as David Rand, a character from a pulp magazine created by Bob Byrd in 1936–published by one of the many companies owned by Martin Goodman. When Goodman began publishing comics with Marvel Comics #1 in 1939, writer-artist Ben Thompson adapted one of Byrd’s stories.
Since then, this Ka-Zar appeared in multiple Marvel comics like Marvel Mystery Comics or Human Torch. Then, during the Silver Age, Marvel reintroduced some of his Golden Age characters. Most of them have updated origins. However, Ka-Zar became a new character. He is now clearly a Tarzan-like hero but he is stuck in a Jules Verne setting–David Rand was lost in the jungles of the Congo, not in the dinosaur-populated Savage Land. But he quickly found his place in the Marvel continuity.
All of DC Comics’s heroes don’t wear a cape, some are not even qualifiable as heroes, but they still fight crimes in their way, especially when there are occult elements involved. That is the case of Bobo T. Chimpanzee, the world’s greatest simian detective–his real name is unpronounceable, but can be translated as “Magnificent Finder of Tasty Grubs.”
Better known as Detective Chimp, Bobo first appeared in 1952 on the pages of Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4. Created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, Bobo started as an abnormally intelligent chimpanzee. When his trainer, Fred Thorpe, was killed, Bobo helped Sheriff Edward Chase to catch the murderer. Maybe he could not speak, but he always knew how to make himself understand–and how to outsmart criminals. After that, he became the lawman’s unofficial partner.
This became the career of a lifetime. You may not be too familiar with this Detective Chimp as it was the 1950s version of the characters. Decades later, Bobo’s story was retcon.
Nowadays, Will Eisner (1917-2005) is still one of the most famous comic book creators in the history of the medium–the highly respected Eisner Awards were named after him for a good reason. He did a lot from his beginnings in 1933 doing illustrations and comic strips in his high school newspaper to his famous graphic novels. But his most famous creation is clearly “The Spirit.”
Eisner broke into the comic book industry next to his school friend, Bob Kane, creator of Batman, but their career didn’t follow the same path. Quite the entrepreneur, Eisner formed a partnership with Samuel “Jerry” Iger. They opened their own studio that soon started to work like a factory, putting out comics. This was a financial success, but when Everett Arnold of Quality Comics offered him the possibility to produce a 16-page newspaper supplement for the Des Moines Register-Tribune Syndicate, the offer was too good to say “no.” Eisner loved comics and this was for him a new avenue to prove that this sequential art was not just for kids.
Eisner left Iger, took with him a few employees, and started to work on what is, on paper, the creation of another mystery man. The Weekly Comic Book supplement was composed of three stories per issue–two of them were the backups “Lady Luck” and “Mr. Mystic.” The main feature was of course “The Spirit.”
