Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 15, 2015 | 2 comments

Dear DC: Artist Sandy Jarrell has given you a head start…

I’m flipping through Facebook and I come upon a post by Chris Kemple — artist, all-around cool dude and Friend o’ 13thD.

Always nice to see Chris in action but I couldn’t help but notice Sandy Jarrell‘s banner right next to him.

It looked like this:

Whoaaaaa.

This, of course, is a dandy riff on the cover of Batman #180 — a comic that, despite its personal resonance with me, was a pretty obscure part of Batlore until Chip Kidd let American audiences in on the secret of Jiro Kuwata’s Batmanga.

Kane/Anderson magnificence

Kuwata adapted the comic, giving the book’s villain an honorific — making him Lord Death Man — and capturing the imagination of the producers of the Brave and the Bold cartoon and Grant Morrison, who cast him in Batman Incorporated.

Cult status achieved.

Then along comes the Batman ’66 comic and Jeff Parker introduces Lord Death Man to that whole world (Earth-66, anyone?).

Mike Allred cover

The penciller? Sandy Jarrell.

So Sandy brings it allllll full circle with the print. (By the way, make sure you hit up his website where you can buy original art and commissions and stuff.)

BONUS: The Neal Adams tribute in the top left panel.

Actually, it turns out that Sandy originally did the image with Robin but then changed it to Batgirl when the script called for the Dominoed Daredoll to accompany the Caped Crusader to Tokyo in place of a sidelined Boy Wonder.

All this got me to thinking: With DC embracing themes for their variant covers and the show celebrating its 50th anniversary next year, what if the publisher recast a bunch of its Silver Age covers in Batman ’66 fashion? They did a Batman ’66 Month last year with Mike Allred but those were original images (groovy as they were).

What I’m proposing is that DC “cover” a selection of covers from roughly the same period as the show, 1966-68, give or take a couple years, when the wacky Silver Age was at its swingingest.

Artists besides Sandy have already toyed with the idea, including Allred …

… and Jerome Opena.

There’s also Bill Walko, who gave Batman #197 a makeover of his own.

So here’s a roadmap, DC! 13 Silver Age Covers That Demand the BATMAN ’66 Treatment (in addition to Jarrell’s and Walko’s, which should totally be published):

Oh, hell, I’m gonna cheat and add these too …

A little old, I know. But it really fits and this is the issue the Sanders episode was based on …