The Switch-Up

A few months ago, DC Comics announced that they would be restarting their books at number 1. Issue 882 of Detective Comics, their longest running title and the namesake of the company, the longest continuously published comic in the country, was instead number 1.

I thought it might be interesting to look at a few covers of this seminal book to get a feel for the DC of the past and the present.

Warning: This is written with the assumption that the reader doesn't know much about comics. Don't be sad!

Detective Comics no. 1

While writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joel Schuster were collecting rejections for their Superman character at other companies, their character Slam Bradley (a hard-boiled freelance police investigator stationed in that cesspool of crime and corruption, Cleveland) was published in Detective No. 1 along with Speed Saunders and another

Siegel/Schuster brainchild, Bart Regan, Spy. Stereotypical Asian villains and hard-boiled adventuring types were all the rage in 1937!

Note that the very fact that these stories are presented in color is presumed to be exciting.

Detective Comics no. 27

Batman first appeared in 1939, a

year after

Superman's debut in Action Comics no. 1 and what is often considered to be the birth of the superhero. "Bat-Man" appeared in a feature called "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" which also introduced Commissioner Gordon. The 64 pages contained 9 stories -- most modern comics only include 32, 8 of which are ads. In 1938, 10 cents was also the price of gas.

Detective Comics no. 38

They called him "The Sensational Character Find of 1940...", whatever that means. Dick Grayson was from a family of trapeze artists, his parents were killed by a gangster, and Bruce Wayne took him in as his "ward", dressed him up in pixie boots and short-shorts, and thus began decades of gay jokes, all of them Hi-Larious. The circus was considered very cool in the 30's and 40's -- kids wanted to join the circus like kids in the 50's wanted to be astronauts, or kids today want to be... well, superheroes, at least according to this. How's that for full-circle?

Detective Comics no. 78

Lest you think that the Tea Party is the first group in history to namedrop the founding fathers, Batman and Robin, along with George Washington, Nathan Hale, and Patrick Henry, team up (at last!) to sell you war bonds. It's "A Timely Patriotic Story with Real Punch!", you see. Possibly more interesting are the Boy Commandos, who were created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who also created Captain America (Kirby also created a lot of other really crazy pointy/blocky/whacko stuff, such as DC's New Gods, and he's pretty much THE Marvel artist, having co-created the Fantastic Four, X-Men and Hulk with Stan Lee). The Kid Commandos were a lot like the Sentinels of Liberty Simon and Kirby had created over at Timely (later Marvel) comics. You know, a group of kids who run around fighting Nazis? They also created a gang called the Newsboy Legion, led by Tommy Tompkins. The other members were Big Words (team smarty-pants), Gabby (team chatterbox), and Scrapper (team tank).

In the 70's they added Flippa Dippa. He loved doing things underwater.

What?

Oh yeah.

Team black guy.

Next Time! The 50's and Beyond...

Thanks to coverbrowser.com, dc.wikia.com, toonopedia.com and the fabulous "DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle" by Alan Cowsill, Alex Irvine, Matther K. Manning, Michael McAvennie and Daniel Wallace with Alastair Dougall.