Multiversity’s history column returns with five new items celebrating an anniversary in June. The first two follow an item from an earlier column about DC igniting a superhero revival in 1956. Then, we skip to 1994 for the start of a new annual convention and we finish with a comic getting recalled and destroyed in 1999. Enjoy!
June 1959
The Silver Age of Superheroes got off to a slow start with “Showcase” #4 in 1956, as DC doubted its own success when it saw the sale numbers for the return of the Flash and waited until March 1959 to give the character a self-titled series. Other publishers weren’t so slow – Archie Comics noticed the new “Flash” right away and responded with it’s own revival just a few months later.
“The Double Life of Private Strong” #1, cover dated June 1959, saw the return of The Shield, a 1940 creation who was also the first patriotic superhero. In his original run, Shield was such an inspiration when Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created Captain America that Archie Comics (then called MLJ) threatened a lawsuit over it. This time around, Archie hired Simon and Kirby to craft the new stories, but their usual magic wasn’t there – 1959 America didn’t feel the same kind of patriotism it had when World War II was looming. “Double Life of Private Strong” was canceled after its second issue, and while Archie kept trying new superheroes with some success, it never found a big hit.
June 1961
The company that would be known as Marvel also jumped on the superhero revival bandwagon, though a bit later than most. The first attempt was a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby named Dr. Droom in “Amazing Adventures” #1. Droom was a false start for the duo, but had several notable qualities.
First, he had no costume, a unique trait at the time serving as an visual sign that the creators were trying to be more grounded in reality than their peers. They recycled the concept a few months later in “Fantastic Four” until reader demand led to the blue uniforms.
Second, Droom was the first superhero loosely based on Eastern spiritualism – he got his powers from a Tibetan lama. Dr. Strange’s origin was a essentially a superior retelling of Droom. That’s not to say Lee and Kirby were wholly original themselves – magic had been one of the primary sources of superhero powers in the Golden Age, and Lee later said Droom was inspired by the 1930s radio drama “Chandu the Magician”.
Although Droom was just one segment in the “Amazing Adventures” anthology, it didn’t take long to realize he was not a success. After being excluded from “Amazing Adventures” #5, Droom’s fifth appearance was his last, this time drawn by Paul Reinman because Kirby had been pulled to start work on “Fantastic Four” #1. Not only was “Amazing Adventures” #6 the end of Droom, it was also the end of the title, which became “Amazing Adult Fantasy” with issue #7.
June 1994
As the comic market boomed in the early 1990s, the big comic publishers (and the ones vying to be big) dominated the San Diego Comic Convention. In response, Slave Labor Graphics publisher Dan Vado arranged the Alternative Press Expo (APE), an event dedicated to small publishers and the do-it-yourself movement. The inaugural APE was held June 4, 1994, in San Jose, California.
Perhaps if Vado had charged more than $4 for admission, he might not have lost $3,000 in the venture. Then again, he may have considered that a worthwhile investment to show proof of concept. SDCC was impressed enough to take over the show in time for them to run the second event a year later.
Meanwhile, the similar Small Press Expo (SPX) got its start also in 1994, except on the East Coast, for virtually identical reasons with the New York Comic Convention. You can read more about both conventions and the small press movement here.
June 1999
In June 1999, DC fans were eagerly awaiting the “Elseworlds 80-Page Giant” one-shot. It was supposed to be an anthology of comedy showcasing the publisher’s classic heroes in offbeat stories. It was made, solicited, printed, and ready to be shipped… but then publisher Paul Levitz read it. He was not impressed.
Continued belowOne story in particular was simply too egregious. ‘Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter’ featured the Kryptonian infant using his superpowers to get into all kinds of hilariously dangerous situations and giving his young babysitter quite a hard time. It was all fun and games until Superbaby climbed into a microwave and slept on a highway.
That was Levitz’s main concern, but there were others (like Batman and Eve in the Garden of Eden) that he felt weren’t up to the company’s editorial standards. This $5.95 comic was so far below standards in fact, Levitz had it recalled and pulped. The high price tag meant orders were already on the low side and DC was able to get almost all of the 26,000 printed copies back. Unfortunately, some got put on a boat to the UK before the recall notice came through.
Initial estimates put the number of copies escaping destruction somewhere between 300 and 2000, but it was later found to be closer to 1500. That instant rarity put the book on many want lists and drove the price up to $45 the month of release. It continued to climb in value over the next several years, hitting $175 by 2003. The content was eventually reprinted as “DC Comics Presents Elseworlds 80-Page Giant” in January 2012 (mere months after Levitz left DC, coincidentally), but that did little to change the demand for the original, which still guides for $280 in near mint condition.
