COMICS HISTORY | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Sep23

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: X-Men vs. Doom Patrol

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Sep 23, 2021

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: X-Men vs. Doom Patrol

FRED VAN LENTE pits the Silver Age freaks against the Silver Age freaks… Hey, it’s a new installment of Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH, in which our fearless columnist takes two related-but-opposing titles, chooses a bunch of issues covering several years, reviews them, and then, using a completely infallible set of criteria, decides which is better. It’s your foolproof way of ending any and all such comics arguments — a service from 13th Dimension! This time around it’s Silver Age Doom Patrol vs. Silver Age X-Men, seeing as how the new season of HBO Max’s Doom Patrol is upon us. So let’s have at it! By FRED VAN LENTE Let’s get ready to reeeeeeead cooooooooomics! Greetings, Retrofolk, and welcome to another thrilling installment of COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH, where we pit two contemporaneous runs of semi-related titles against each other and determine which one is better under a totally arbitrary criteria determined by me, because it was my idea, tough. I am going to make the bold statement that My Greatest Adventure #80, featuring the first appearance of the Doom Patrol by writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani, is up there with, say, Amazing Fantasy #15 as one of the greatest origin stories of all time. We are deftly introduced to Rita (Elasti-Girl) Farr, Larry (Negative Man) Trainor and Cliff (Robotman) Steele; the accidents that turned them into superpowered freaks; and the mysterious, wheelchair-bound Chief, who brings them together and inspires them to win back society’s approval by fighting on their behalf. They then immediately launch into a race with a great, memorable villain, General Immortus, to salvage an alien spaceship. It’s a deft 25-page classic done-in-one that could really use, I dunno, a remake as a prestige Black Label series (DC, you know where to find me). As it turns out, series co-creator Drake was really impressed by what those Marvel guys were doing across town and, when asked to create a regular feature for My Greatest Adventure, decided to try a strip in the style of the House of Ideas. With the constant interfamilial bickering of its hero quartet and epic storylines, Doom Patrol resembles nothing less than a weirder version of Marvel flagship Fantastic Four. But it would appear that Marvel knows how to read other people’s comics too, because just a few...

Sep22

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite E. NELSON BRIDWELL Projects

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Sep 22, 2021

PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite E. NELSON BRIDWELL Projects

The celebrated Mr. K pays a birthday tribute to the human comics encyclopedia… By PAUL KUPPERBERG Nelson Bridwell (Sept. 22, 1931 – Jan. 23, 1987) is a name that should be familiar to every fan of DC Comics’ Silver and Bronze Ages. Starting at DC in 1965 as assistant to Superman editor Mort Weisinger, Nelson would spend the next 30 years helping shape the adventures of the Superman family of characters as both an editor and a writer. Nelson had an encyclopedic mind and was an expert on not only DC’s history and continuity, but the Bible and the works of Shakespeare as well, but we knew him mainly as the company’s Chief Continuity Cop. Nelson was one of the first professionals I ever met, in 1971 when Paul Levitz and I went up to DC to gather news for our fanzine Etcetera (which would become The Comic Reader). Later, he would serve as my collaborator or editor on two of my early high-profile assignments (more on them below), but he was always on call to answer those tough Kryptonian trivia questions, such as, “Hey, Nelson, where was the habitat of the Thought-Beast?” and, “What was the name of Jor-El’s nasty cousin when he was a boy?” (The Scarlet Jungle and Cru-El. For real.) Coincidentally, I posted about Nelson recently on my website in a short piece (from which I cribbed some of this intro) accompanying a 1981 interview with Nelson from the fanzine Comics Feature, so please do check that out for more of his story in his own words. Which leaves me nothing left to say except I hope you’ll join me in remembering Nelson, who was born 90 years ago, and enjoy these, MY 13 FAVORITE E. NELSON BRIDWELL PROJECTS, in chronological order: — Mad Magazine #38 (March 1958). The funny thing about Nelson was that upon meeting him, “funny” wasn’t your first impression. He was a roundish man with a crewcut and horn-rimmed glasses in a black suit, with a shy demeanor and friendly smile, so you had to really listen to realize how funny he actually was. Or have read his body of work, especially from the 1960s, in which for three years running he created a new humor title… or dive back into the 1950s, when the young man from Sapulpa, Oklahoma, made his first...

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