Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 21, 2024 | 7 comments

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late writer, who was born 120 years ago…

By PAUL KUPPERBERG

Growing up as a comic book reader and fan in the early and mid-1960s, I didn’t know the name of writer Edmond Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977). Hamilton, a science fiction writer who began his career with a short story published in the August 1926 issue of the legendary pulp magazine, Weird Tales, went on to write dozens of novels and scores of short stories in that genre, including authoring most of the adventures of pulp science-fiction hero Captain Future, as well as Interstellar Patrol, The Star Kings, and others.

I didn’t know his name, but I sure knew his stories because around all those hundreds of thousands of pulp fiction words, Edmond Hamilton managed to squeeze in a fair amount of comic book work, all for National Periodical Publications—the company we’ve long known as DC Comics. One of Hamilton’s pulp magazine editors had been Mort Weisinger, who earlier had worked as a literary agent for science fiction writers with fellow Bronx friend and fan Julius Schwartz, and who made the move to editor at National in 1941 to work on the Superman and Batman titles.

Art by Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos

Hamilton began with “Bandits in Toyland” in Batman #11 (June/July 1942). His first story starring the Man of Steel was “The Task That Stumped Superman” in Superman #50 (January/February 1948), and for nearly the next 20 years, he scripted hundreds of stories featuring Superman (and Superboy!), Batman and Robin, Tommy Tomorrow, and Chris KL-99 in Action Comics, Superman, Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest, Adventure Comics, Strange Adventures, and others.

By the time I learned of Hamilton’s connection to my beloved Superman comics I had already begun reading his science fiction stories in anthologies and pulps and had several of his novels on my shelf. Still later, I would learn much more about the celebrated author, straight from the horse’s mouth, in this case the aforementioned Julie Schwartz, who had not only represented SF author Hamilton as his literary agent and been his editor at DC but had been a close friend as well. I had begun writing for Julie in 1981 and quickly learned that he was every bit the storyteller as his writers, except his stories were all true and usually involved the legends of science fiction and comics.

Art by Win Mortimer and Roussos

His favorite oft-told tale about Hamilton involved a summer vacation Julie spent with the writer and his wife that had the then-agent laying on a porch swing while Hamilton pounded away at a story on his typewriter nearby. For those unfamiliar with old-school typewriters, the paper was held in a moveable carriage that went from left to right and when the end of the line was reached, it rang a little bell to tell the typist it was time to make a hard return to the beginning of the next line.

An average line was 10 words, for which pulp writer Hamilton received one cent a word, or 10 cents for the line. Julie received 10% of that as his agent, so each time the bell would ring, Julie would exclaim, “Another penny!”

Speaking of the writer’s wife, in a 1989 interview, Julie told me, “(Science fiction author) Harry Kuttner felt that (his current agent) knew nothing about the market, so he contacted me, and I became Henry Kuttner’s agent. And then some young girl started submitting stories through (Kuttner’s old agency) and Kuttner thought they were pretty good and told me about her. Her name was Leigh Brackett. I had the privilege, in 1941 when I was out in California, of introducing Leigh to Ed Hamilton and they got married a couple of years later. Ray Bradbury was best man.”

Leigh Brackett, to remind you, was herself an author and screenwriter of no small repute whose credits included The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), The Long Goodbye (1973), and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

I worked on Nightwing and Flamebird — co-created by Hamilton and Curt Swan — in the ’70s, with Ken Landgraf.

One last Edmond Hamilton/Julie Schwartz anecdote, this from my recently published memoir, Panel by Panel: My Comic Book Life:

“(A) stream of consciousness plotting was Julie Schwartz’s preferred operating method with me. No matter what pitches I came in with, the assignment I walked away with was usually a very different story. I took careful notes, but I had to be careful. Julie’s ideas were so rapid-fire, he didn’t bother editing the stream and he was liable to suggest just about anything, from the nonsensical, such as ‘Mr. Mxyzptlk gives Superman the head of a donkey,’ to the weird but workable, such as the time he hit on the idea of naming a character after his old friend and one-time client from his science-fiction agenting days, Edmond Hamilton, creator of the pulp fiction hero, Captain Future. We worked out a story that incorporated both Hamilton’s name and, as his alter ego, Captain Future (appearing in Superman #378, December 1984), and as I was leaving, Julie stopped me and said, ‘On second thought, make him Colonel Future. After all these years, Ed deserves a promotion.’”

Here then, MY 13 FAVORITE EDMOND HAMILTON SUPERMAN STORIES:

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Superboy #1 (March/April 1949). The Boy of Steel teaches a lesson to “The Boy Vandals” in a swell little tale from the days when Superboy was actually a boy. Art by Ed Al Wenzel and (likely) Stan Kaye.

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Action Comics #138 (November 1949). Clark tries to break Lois of constantly putting herself in danger for the sake of a news story in “Superman Scoop-Parade,” art by Wayne Boring and Kaye.

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Superman #80 (January/February 1953). Superman recognizes his father’s Kryptonian handwriting on a note and concludes that the super-powered alien who’s landed on Earth is “Superman’s Big Brother.” Oh brother! Art by Al Plastino.

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Superman #156 (Oct 1962). Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! The Man of Steel lies dying (>Choke!<) while the whole world pays tribute in the classic “The Last Days of Superman.” Art by Curt Swan and George Klein.

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Superman #158 (January 1963). I have a special love for “Invasion of the Mystery Super-Men,” which introduced the world to Superman and Jimmy Olsen’s Kandorian superhero alter egos, Nightwing and Flamebird. A dozen years later, with Kandorians Van-Zee and Ak-Var wearing the costumes, the Nightwing and Flamebird feature I wrote for Superman Family (with art by Ken Landgraf) would be my first regular DC superhero assignment. Art by Swan and Klein.

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Superman #159 (February 1963). The shoe is on the other imaginary foot as Earth explodes and baby Lois is rocketed to safety to become “Lois Lane, the Super-Maid of Krypton.” Art by Swan and Klein.

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Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #69 (June 1963). Nightwing and Flamebird are back in action! Art by Swan and Klein.

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Superman #164 (October 1963). Imagine it’s 1963. Imagine you’re eight years old and you come across this cover on a newsstand. Pow! Yeah. That’s how I felt. “The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman.” Art by Swan and Klein.

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World’s Finest Comics #141 (May 1964). Jimmy and Robin fake their own deaths so bad guys can’t take them as hostages in order to force Superman and Batman to do their bidding. “The Olsen-Robin Team Versus the Superman-Batman Team.” Art by Swan and Klein.

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Action Comics #319 (December 1964). He’s dead, Jim! Superman accidentally kills Luthor when he tracks the escaped villain to the planet Lexor, where Lex is revered as a hero, in “The Death of Luthor,” a rare two-part story continued here in “The Condemned Superman,” as the Man of Steel faces execution for murder! Art by Swan and Klein.

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Superman #175 (February 1965). Young Lex Luthor is redeemed by the kindness and love of Ma and Pa Kent and becomes “Clark Kent’s Brother.” Spoiler. It is a dream. It is a hoax. It is an imaginary story. Art by Swan and Klein.

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Superman #181 (November 1965). How different is “The Superman of 2965” from original? Well, for one, he’s invulnerable to Green Kryptonite… and vulnerable to seawater! Radical. Art by Curt Swan and Klein.

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Action Comics #339 (July 1966). The adventures of the Superman of 2965 continue in “Muto Versus the Man of Tomorrow.” Art by Swan and Klein.

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MORE

— 13 SUPER STORIES: An EDMOND HAMILTON Birthday Celebration, by PETER BOSCH. Click here.

— 13 Groovy WORLD’S FINEST Stories: An EDMOND HAMILTON Birthday Celebration, by PETER BOSCH. Click here.

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PAUL KUPPERBERG was a Silver Age fan who grew up to become a Bronze Age comic book creator, writer of Superman, the Doom Patrol, and Green Lantern, creator of Arion Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion, and slayer of Aquababy, Archie, and Vigilante. He is the Harvey and Eisner Award nominated writer of Archie Comics’ Life with Archie, and his YA novel Kevin was nominated for a GLAAD media award and won a Scribe Award from the IAMTW. He also wrote an essay for DC’s Aquaman: 80 Years of the King of the Seven Seas. Check out his new memoir, Panel by Panel: My Comic Book Life. 

Website: https://www.paulkupperberg.net/

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