CURT SWAN, JIM APARO and the Oddball Oddities of the Bronze Age

Plus Superman goes to Europe!

An infrequent Jim Aparo Superman

Hey, folks, we’ve got another glimpse at an upcoming Back Issue for you — Issue #134’s “Bronze Age Rarities & Oddities” spotlight.

Even the cover is offbeat — an uncommon Superman illustration by the great Joe Kubert (see below).

Dig the official description from publisher TwoMorrows:

BACK ISSUE #134

April 2022 – 84 FULL-COLOR pages

Bronze Age Rarities & Oddities, spotlighting rare European Superman comics of the 1980s! Plus: Curt Swan’s Batman, Jim Aparo’s Superman, David Anthony Kraft’s Marvel custom comics, Michael Uslan’s unseen Earth-Two stories, Leaf’s DC Secret Origins, Marvel’s Evel Knievel and Kool-Aid Man, early cover variants, and more! Featuring Eduardo Barreto, Paul Kupperberg, Alex Saviuk, and more. Superman cover by Joe Kubert. Edited by Michael Eury.

A few thoughts:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Curt Swan did the art for Mego’s Batman Fist Fighting line.

— The issue is priced at $9.95 and is due March 16, 2022.

— As always, it will be available at comics shops and magazine sellers but you can already pre-order directly from TwoMorrows. (Click here.)

— Right off the bat — no pun intended — I really want to see what editor Michael Eury has up his sleeve on Curt Swan’s Batman and Jim Aparo’s Superman. Plus, I am a sucker for non-American comics starring American superheroes. (I should probably write more about that myself.) This looks like a really fun ish.

MORE

— Retrospective on DC’s STARMEN Coming in 2022. Click here.

— MARVEL’s 1980s Limited Series Get Renewed Spotlight This Fall. Click here.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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10 Comments

  1. I love stuff like this! And yes, I have long speculated that Curt Swan did all the packaging for the US domestic Fist Fighting Mego figures of Batman, Robin, Joker and Riddler. I have never seen it completely confirmed by anyone, but I am totally convinced it’s Swan.

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  2. That is without question BASED on a Curt Swan drawing, but it looks like it was redrawn (as most of Mego’s box art was) in-house, and it kind of rings a bell…. if I’m not mistaken, it was someone else swatting Batman in the original artwork, which I will now waste precious time trying to find.

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    • (Also, I can’t WAIT for this issue, and I’m happy to say that I’m in it as well!).

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    • I think you’re both right. It’s probably a lift job that started with Swan art. I doubt he actually produced the box art himself.

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  3. Didn’t Superman appear in Brave and Bold #150, drawn by Jim Aparo?

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    • Yes, in fact that’s where the flying image comes from. But other than covers, he hardly touched the character.

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