DC Comics Presents

By the end of the 1970's DC Comics decided to give Superman his own Team up series again when they gave him DC Comics Presents. The series allowed them to team up the grandfather of all superheroes with nearly every DC character in their universe. While it was a treat to see him work with some JLA heroes on a one to one basis it was more fun to see him team with others that he normally would not be with. This was rarely done while he headlined the team up version of World's Finest with a different guest star each month. Those new guest stars included Blackhawk, Blue Devil, Mr. Miracle and Firestorm right before he joined the JLA.

It started out much like World's Finest did. With one of the classic races between Superman and the Flash. It was, if I remember correctly, the only continued story in the entire series. The rest were self-contained one issue stories.

The high point of the series for me was with issue #17. It was in that issue that he met up with one of my favorites at that time. It was Firestorm. Firestorm was still fairly new to the DC universe and it was a vote of confidence for his fans that he would be around for years to come when at the end of the story Superman suggested that he should join the JLA. Firestorm jumped at the chance and soon he was shown off to the JLA who elected him as part of the team. Apparently Firestorm learned from the mistake of Black Lightning who kept turning them down until the 21st century.

I didn't read every issue of the series but I enjoyed those that I did. It was a treat to see Superman with a team up book again. His run on team ups in World's Finest gave us a taste of how well he could be with this genre. For some reason the series ended with issue #97. Why wouldn't DC just let it run 3 more issues to let it finish with 100 issues. To have let it end sooner then that is a slap in the face to a legend of a superhero like Superman.

The title was brought back years later as title that paid tribute to editor Julie Schwartz. New creators remade classic tales that Julie edited. It was a tip of the hat to the great editor.

World's Finest Part 2

I have to extend this team-up week by one day as I just realized that World's Finest should count not once but twice as a team up book. You see in late 1969 DC changed the format of the book to make it more of team up book for Superman alone. Gone were the monthly team ups with Batman and Robin. Now he was free to join others in their fights against crime. Usually he was teamed up with other members of the JLA but back then that was pretty much all DC had that were hits. Still they could have shown some light on recent flops to let readers know they had not forgotten them. It would have been interesting to see him team up with the Creeper, Hawk and Dove or the Inferior Five. That last one would have been very interesting in a strange sort of way. Perhaps they were thinking of heading in that direction towards the end as in the last issue he is teamed up with the Vigilante. I don't think anyone was that familiar with him at that time. I know I wasn't. With issue #215 the book focused on the super sons of Superman and Batman. I haven't read many of those but they were pretty good but should have been imaginary stories but we aren't here today to discuss those issues.

The new direction for the series actually started off with a bang as its first two issues was a two part story with the now classic race with the Flash. The second team up was with Robin. Why team him up with Robin or Batman so soon? It should have been another member of the DC Universe. However, it was the 200th issue so I suppose they wanted to make sure that for the sake of continuity they made sure it was a member of the old team.

This format only last a short 17 issues for Superman. Sales must have fallen as during that run he teamed with Batman 3 times and Robin once. While I have always love the regular World's Finest team this short run holds a special place in my heart. These were the first time I ever saw Superman team up with anyone other then Batman.

Brave and the Bold

While Batman was helping Superman in Worlds Finest he was also moonlighting by helping others by fighting crime in Brave and the Bold. Like Worlds Finest the early issues were an anthology to showcase the lesser characters that DC published like Viking Prince, Shining Knight, Robin Hood etc. Eventually they started showcasing more major heroes in the book and was the first book to show the Justice League of America and the Teen Titans. Thus the book made two contributions to the comic book pop culture early on. With issue #50 the book did its first traditional team-up with Green Arrow teaming up with the Manhunter from Mars. After that the series would team up heroes more frequently. However, they needed a heavy hitter to be there every month. Eventually they team-up Batman with other DC stars but then were back to random team-ups for a couple of months. Then with issue #74 Batman was the regular star of the series. It was a fun series to read and I was never disappointed with any story. However, I always wondered why Batman. They teamed-up Flash with a few early on so I think he would have been just as well. Superman didn’t have a team up book at the time so why pass him over? Others who I don’t think they owned at the time, Captain Marvel, Plastic-Man and the Spirit, would make great stars of team-up books today.
The book was canceled with its 200th issue. It was replaced by Batman and the Outsiders. From time to time DC has kept the name of the series alive by having brought it back to random team-ups of current DC heroes. They even used it as a min-series to show the early adventures of the Flash and Green Lantern.
Recently they have brought Brave and the Bold back again with more random team-ups. Another that Marvel also brought back recently in the same way is Marvel Team-up with we will talk about later. I hope it works. If it doesn’t the day of the team-up book may be passed.

caption contest

Ok if you can come up with a funny caption for this photo and post it on your site let me know and I will post a link to your site here.

World's Finest

This week is team up week here at On My Mind. Five days of Team up books. The first of these would have to be World’s Finest. It started out as a special issue as the New York World’s Fair Comics in 1939 with Superman as the star. A year later it was released again in 1940 with Superman and Batman but in separate stories. It was made a regular series and early on had various titles like World’s Best. Soon it settled on World’s Finest and an anthology series was born. Yes it was an anthology series. It had various characters and its stars were Superman and Batman together. However, they were in different stories. The series ran for the entire 40’s and a few years in the 50’s before they hit on the winning combo of Superman and Batman. Actually it was Superman, Batman and Robin. If you only bought books for the characters this was a winning deal. It was 3 for the price of one. Now the timing of this was great. Batman started out as the dark avenger of the night. He even shot people in his early days but then took a vow to not do that again or even carry a gun. He did violate that vow once in the 1960’s but to my knowledge has not done it since. Anyway by the 1950’s the comic book industry was under fire from the government as being bad for kids. So Batman was softened up and by 1952 his demeanor was much like that of Superman. They became fast friends and even shared in keeping each others secret identity after they accidentally found them out. Over time a fourth character was added into the mix from time to time. After all Batman had Robin helping him so sometimes Jimmy Olsen would come to help Superman. The 1960’s is the era that I am most familiar with. It was probably boosted by the popularity of the Batman series and reruns of the Superman series. They did a lot of “imaginary” stories with the most memorable being the Kent’s adopting both young Clark and later a young Bruce Wayne. They were raised together as brothers. At first Superboy thinks that the new Batboy who is in town is a super villain and tries to stop him. Soon he realizes that he isn’t the villain and discovers who he is. They team up to become a crime fighting team. In another story, to show that comic books were still fighting WWII in the 60’s they team up to fight a Nazi who was still running a concentration camp. For a time there were even stories of there super sons fighting crime. At the time these were not called imaginary stories but I have considered them that. It was probably the first time anyone had seen the art of Neal Adams and I loved the stories that had them fighting the Superman-Batman Revenge Squad.
These were fun to read for me but by the time the mid 1970’s came around I stopped reading them. Not because I didn’t like World’s Finest but because I hardly ever saw it for sale. The only time I did see it when I bought it at a King Kwik Mini-mart and it was a reprint of one from the 1950’s. I felt cheated as I was hoping for a new story but I did enjoy it. So I guess I wasn’t cheated after all.
The series was running on fumes by the 1980’s and was soon canceled. This was during the pre-crisis days at DC. Batman has changed to being the dark avenger once again and while Supes and Bats are still friends it had been uneasy since then. The book has since been published in prestige format with some success but no monthly on going series has been published since then.

The Griffeys

Here is a photo where I colored the background. It is of the two of them when they were on Seattle together in the early 1990's.