Johnathan | August 4, 2011
The other day, I was reading some Silver Age comics (natch) and I came across this plot point in Lois Lane No.50, from July 1964. At first I was going to merely point this out and mention that from my experience with people of the generation that Lois would have been sliding through at [...]
Johnathan | January 25, 2011
Welcome back to Smallville, Ladies and Gents. As per usual we find our hero Superboy utilizing the full range of his extraordinary powers to help teach one of his peers an important life lesson. This time, the lesson is about safety! Yes, safety! The kind of thing that you can only truly comprehend once [...]
Johnathan | September 4, 2010
I’m sitting here waiting for Hurricane Earl to finish crawling up the coast of Nova Scotia to trounce us – okay, I’m sitting here reading old Superman comics, but I’m aware that the storm hasn’t started yet and I’ll know when it gets here, and that’s almost like waiting – and so I thought I’d [...]
Johnathan | July 31, 2010
Peg is one of those DC characters who lurked in the interstices for years, starring in a half- or one-page gag every couple of issues. She’s a typical blonde teen girl who occupies a world in which all of the females under a certain age have either one giant tooth or a portal to a [...]
Johnathan | February 27, 2010
Hip-Happy Heroes comes to its inevitable conclusion with the tale of the proudest fatty of all: the indomitable Bouncing Boy! Bouncing Boy, aka Chuck Taine, is a special case, as he didn’t just become fat, he started out fat and got fatter. In fact, Chuck was one of maybe ten fat guys left in the [...]
Johnathan | February 25, 2010
Hip-Happy Hero: Superman Ah, Big Fat Superman. I had never read the story in which he appears before looking it up for this series of writings, but I was somehow positive that he existed, somewhere, in some extremely chubby form. Big Fat Superman is my new symbol for everything that is right about comics. [...]
Johnathan | January 30, 2010
I spent an hour or so chipping ice off of a sidewalk yesterday, and as a consequence my fingers aren’t working quite as well as they usually do. Also, the rest of my arms. Here, instead, is my one-panel picture quiz, featuring Superboy’s robot pal Percy from Superboy No 9: As for the quiz part: just [...]
Johnathan | June 28, 2009
Well, it’s Sunday morning. Once more I have proved myself very bad at preparing something in advance of a busy day. Ah well. We’re dipping into the Sack of Silver Age Strangeness today and hauling out Superboy No. 126, because I know that you all want to learn about Krypto the Super-dog’s family tree and because [...]
Johnathan | May 16, 2009
It’s a lazy Saturday here at the John pad, so I’m going to engage in some thought-exercise. Specifically, I’m going to try to figure out just what kind of chance the members of the 1960s version of the Doom Patrol would have had if they’d applied for membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes. I’ve changed [...]
Johnathan | February 8, 2009
Ha ha! I have returned, overcoming a month’s worth of illness, romance and computer failure to bring you the tale of a plucky little guy by the name of Molecular Master! Here, look at him sitting around in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes No. 201: Such a good-looking era in Legion art – check [...]