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WHO’S WHO: The Definitive Podcast of the DC Universe, Volume XXVIII: History of the DC Universe

Who's Who: The Definitive Podcast of the DC UniverseThe Fire and Water Podcast Presents… WHO’S WHO: THE DEFINITIVE PODCAST OF THE DC UNIVERSE, Volume XXVIII!

The twenty-eighth episode of our WHO’S WHO podcast is now available. By popular demand, Shag and Rob take a look at the two-issue mini-series The History of the DC Universe by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, including material exclusive to the deluxe edition! This episode sponsored in part by InStockTrades.com!

Be sure to check out our Tumblr site for several pages from this Who’s Who episode: FireandWaterPodcast.Tumblr.com!

Have a question or comment? Send us an e-mail at: firewaterpodcast@comcast.net

You can find the twenty-eighth episode of WHO’S WHO: THE DEFINITIVE PODCAST OF THE DC UNIVERSE on iTunes. Each episode is released as part of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST feed. While you’re on iTunes, please drop us a review. Alternatively, you may play the podcast using the player below or by right-clicking “download”, choosing “Save Target/Link As”, and selecting a location on your computer to save the file (116 MB).

Thanks to my co-host Rob Kelly, Sea King of THE AQUAMAN SHRINE, for doing all the post-production on this episode! Special thanks to Daniel Adams and Ashton Burge with their band The Bad Mamma Jammas for our fantastic Who’s Who theme song!

Below you’ll find the History of the DC Universe hardcover collection with a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!

History of the DC Universe Hardcover by Bill Sienkiewicz

Come back next time when we tackle the first issue of Who’s Who Update ’87!

Support Firestorm (and the WHO’S WHO podcast)! Fan the flame!

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27 Comments

  1. Xum Yukinori says:

    Great show again, Gentlemen. Allow me to fill in some of the gaps from the main History sections:

    The alien spacecraft that crashed into Mount Michelson was actually that of Azreal, from the New Teen Titans, a creation of Marv Wolfman.

    The guard of Nanda Parbat is named Taj-Ze, who was created by Neal Adams in Strange Adventures v1 #216. The spiritual entity is Rama Kushna, whom interestingly enough Boston Brand would refer to as a male in these Strange Adventures stories. This suggested to me that, while she had a female form, Boston could not see it and could only hear her voice, which must have sounded like a male…

    The “smoking hot” redhead with “I… Vampire”’s Lord Andrew Bennett was Mary Seward, also known as “Mary, Queen of Blood.” She first appeared in House of Mystery v1 #290.

    The bald man with the Injustice Society is the Thinker, a Golden Age Flash foe – sans his “thinking cap,” which I do not believe he had until the “Flash of Two Worlds” story in the 1961 Flash v1 #123.

    The two unknown All-Star Squadron characters are Magno the Magnetic Man (blond man with the blue cape) and the Invisible Hood (not the Silver Ghost, who was actually a villain that fought the Freedom Fighters). They and Hourman were part of an initial squad of heroes first recruited by Uncle Sam in a Roy Thomas story that led to the origin of the traditional Freedom Fighters team, as shown in All-Star Squadron #31-35.

    I suspect that the Brainiac narrative was to set up John Byrne’s new concept of Brainiac (which may have been initially different at the time and was later changed to the Milton Fine one), while still being able to keep the old Coluan version of Brainiac in order to maintain the link to the Legion’s Brainiac-5

    The Atomic Knight being “born from the nightmarish fears of nuclear destruction” may actually be from an attempted pre-Crisis retcon of the character in DC Comics Presents #57…

    On the Legion spread, I actually liked the fact that, while not necessarily his traditional power, Chameleon Boy’s purple uniform had made him blend into the purple background…

    Green Lantern indeed operated (or will operate) as Pol Manning in the year 5708. This was due to that future era government’s method of pulling Green Lantern Hal Jordan through time (to aid them with some disaster) would blank out Hal’s memory, so they filled it with a false one about space explorer Pol Manning. This particular scene in the History book with the Gordanians had taken place in Green Lantern v2 #136-137, which guest starred the Space Ranger and was written by (you guessed it) Marv Wolfman.

    I believe the Harbinger’s “History” sphere appeared next in Steve Englehart’s “Millennium” mini-series. It had supposedly given the Manhunters the information they needed to infiltrate the lives of various heroes (somehow – I do not recall time travel being involved…).

  2. Shag says:

    Before anyone else mentions it, I realized about 15 minutes after we finished recording that I forgot to mention the History of the DC Universe Portfolio. D’oh!
    http://dc1980s.blogspot.com/2013/04/1986-history-of-dc-universe-portfolio.html

    1. Joe X says:

      Line I almost added: “Aw man, we forgot the Portfolio!”

  3. It was worth it.

    I have that Graffiti hardcover. Had since it came out. I was 13 when it was released, and I scraped enough money together to order me a copy. This was the nicest book I ever owned. As such, I had no idea how to take care of it, and my dust jacket was soon ripped. It still is. But I’ve read and re-read this thing about a zillion times.

    This is definitely a DCU in a state of flux. Lots of anachronisms that would later be retconned away from the Post-Crisis continuity: the Silver Age Hawks, Batman as a founding JLAer, Brainiac’s skull ship existing at that time. I think that one was just trying to keep the Omega Men’s continuity intact. 5 seconds later, no one cared.

    But despite all that, this book is just gorgeous. I can’t really add anything to what either of you said, except to say the two splash pages of Superman and Batman (with Robin) are perhaps the greatest encapsulations of either character ever published. The text, along with the art, gives me goosebumps every time I read them.

    The “bonus features” in the hardcover really put the book over for me, and I learned a lot about DC’s history through this. I do think the Golden Age Superman art is actually the work of Fred Ray, but I believe DC screwed up with the credit there. Ray drew some of the most iconic Superman covers of the time, and famously drew the “S” shield that would later be adopted as THE look for the Earth-2 Superman. That Dick Sprang piece cemented my love for Sprang. He is to Batman what Carl Barks is to Donald Duck…The GOOD Batman artist. You guys will get to some Who’s Who work by him when you get to the DC Annuals from 1989!

    Great show as always guys. You did a great job tackling this very non-traditional comic/story book. Even without it in front of me (I’m at work, as always when listening to my podcasts), I could see every image and layout in my mind.

    Chris

  4. I started to listen without having my copies in front of me, and it was so frustrating to hear you talk about great illustrations without having the book in front of me that I stopped. I’ll find my copies and then go back in.

    I recognize that Sienkiewicz illustration as the cover of the DC History Portfolio “book.” Talk about wonderful art!

  5. Kyle Benning says:

    Great episode! I’m glad you guys decided to cover this one!

    Man these books are just gorgeous.

    Best line of the episode definitely goes to Rob with “Blue Weenie.”

    While this book and a few months of the early days of the Post-Crisis DCU had a few inconsistencies and stumbly blocks, this book still served as a fantastic guide and intro to the New Earth, post-Crisis era of DC. If nothing else, it forced the DC Editorial staff to sit down and map out a fairly strict guide of what stuff was in continuity so that all of the creative teams had a fairly solid grasp on where to build from going forward. I really think that DC should have done a book similar to this in 2011, post-Flashpoint. If nothing else it would have forced the DC Editorial staff to sit down and get their heads out of their asses and get on the same page by mapping out a history of the DCU in a meeting. I think that would have done wonders to eliminating the last minute micro-managing changes to stories by multiple editors which seems to still plague DC.

    Instead we just got the “5 year timeline” where apparently all of these events sorta happened but not to everyone involved, it just depended on what day and time you asked Didio on whether a certain event still took place. It’s really baffling why they didn’t do this, I mean in the pages of the 52 weekly series post Infinite Crisis we got that gorgeous Dan Jurgens drawn History of the DCU feature in the first 9 issues or so of the series.

    You’d think that doing a History of the DCU book right when the New 52 series launched would have done wonders. That and a Secret Origins book could have cleaned up so many inconsistencies, instead we never got a History of the DCU book and got Secret Origins 2 & 1/2 years too late.

    *End angry New 52 rant*

    Ha, just like Shag, everytime I hear “Metamorpho” I start singing the awesome song about the element man.

    The Atomic Knight/Atomic Knights just have a very strange history. Their intial appearances were based on a World War III that happened in October 1986 and lasted 13 days ending in the decimation of the world and a post-apocalyptic setting, as seen in their first appearance in Strange Adventures #117 (from 1960), which was reprinted in DC Super-Stars (of Space) #2 (which Professor Alan and I covered in episode 14 of my podcast King-Size Comics Giant-Size Fun). However in DC Comics Presents #57 (from 1983, just 3 years before this world ending nuclear holocaust was supposed to take place) they retconned it so that the events seen in the Atomic Knights’ adventures were actually just a computer simulation run by the real Gardner Grayle (the founding member & leader of the Atomic Knights). I think that here in History of the DCU #2 they are just re-iterating that computer simulation retcon as being the definitive version of the origin of the Atomic Knights.

    The Global Guardians would have a fairly major role in the early issues of the upcoming post-Crisis (Bwahahaha) Justice League series. They were among the many people who weren’t on board with this new inexperienced Justice League team that was formed and promoted around the world by Maxwell Lord. If I remember correctly, the Global Guardians were essentially disbanded to make room for the Justice League opening up embassies around the world, and naturally, some members of the team didn’t take that too well.

    With regards to Julie Schwartz and Alan Moore’s meeting regarding Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, their is a lengthy recap of that meeting in the introduction pages of the 1996 Prestige Format Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow release. That Prestige Format reprint marks the first time the story was ever collected and reprinted.

    A fantastic episode and a fitting wrap-up to the past volume Who’s Who and stellar intro into the next volume! Can’t wait!

    Fan the Flame and Ride the Wave!

  6. Kyle Benning says:

    Oh and with regards to the Portfolio, the “Freaks” piece by John Byrne marks the first appearance of his characters the “Next Men” that would be fully realized at Dark Horse as a part of their Legends imprint in the early 1990’s.

    Byrne had originally planned to make them a piece of the DCU (but still creator owned) but his work and development of the concept wouldn’t be until after he left DC, went back to Marvel, and then left Marvel again to find a home at Dark Horse where he was a founding member of the Legends imprint. There he and others like Mignola, Miller, and Art Adams released GOOD creator owned comics that may not have competed with Image in sales at the time, but definitely trumped them in quality.

  7. rob! says:

    It didn’t occur to me until after we had wrapped the show that, for all of history these books cover, there is not a single mention of some of DC’s biggest bad guys: no Luthor, no Batman villains, Cheetah, Black Manta, Flash’s Rogues, etc. The Joker had his own comic for pete’s sake, yet the Omega Men get, like, fifteen mentions.

  8. Joe X says:

    Graphitti also did deluxe editions of Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come.
    DKR was one of the few trades that DC had done by this time, along with Watchmen and Saga of the Swamp Thing.

    The Masterworks series was published by Seagate Distribution, Phil Seuling’s company.
    #1 and 2 reprinted Frazetta work, and #3 had Wrightson.

    That Pariah origin was also used as one of the variant Phantom Stranger origins.

    Marv also jammed the Omega Men into his run on Action Comics.

    (delete lots of stuff other have already said)

    He may be the Grim Ghost here, but he was the Gay Ghost back in the 1940s

    That WWI spread shows Kesel’s Kubert School influence, just like you said. A lot of the group shots show hints of their then-current artists.
    That’s the Seven, the group that gave Dr. Occult his powers, on his symbol.

    George Perez was doing lens flares when lens flares weren’t cool.
    Although he never was very good at drawing the Outsiders.

    The next Global Guardians appearance was in Infinity Inc, I believe.

    There was the Question issue with Rorshach. Vic tried to emulate him and got his ass handed to him. I guess O’Neil’s Question just wasn’t Absolutist enough.

  9. Anthony Durso/The Toyroom says:

    Glad you guys decided to tackle this one!

    I had the original two issue prestige mini series but still sprung for the hardcover compilation when it came out. For the longest time I kept it in the original cardboard box it came in.
    I never sent away for the poster…like an idiot I was more concerned on keeping the original postcard (since facismiles would NOT be accepted) as part of the book. I don’t know why I bothered because my book didn’t come with the History of the DC Universe logo pin like it was supposed to. A fact I didn’t discover until I got home.

    • I think Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers were mentioned because DC did publish Robin Hood adventures in early issues of “The Brave and the Bold” as well as “Robin Hood Tales” (which DC acquired from Quality Comics). The Three Musketeers showed up in DC Special along with Robin Hood reprints.

    • Regarding the holes in continuity at this point made glaringly obvious by the narrative in HotDCU…the post-Crisis DCU was kind of like trying to eat the JELLO that your mom just made and put in the fridge…not jelled.

    • I don’t think the villains were mentioned Rob because the whole shtickt with Harbinger doing this was what makes a hero. A few like Vandal Savage and the Injustice Society did get some play but I think that was more to help the flow of the script.

    • Does anyone know what method they used to plot this book? I assume there was a guideline/timeline that they told Perez to follow and then Wolfman came in after and scripted accordingly? Considering that they thought of this as an art book first. Or was Perez drawing to Wolfman’s script?

    • I also had the Portfolio. Some great pieces in there. But if I recall there’s only 13 pieces and I couldn’t figure out why they wasted the space (all things considered) on John Byrne’s “Freaks”.

  10. Michael Chiaroscuro says:

    Embarrassing confession: As a young boy I bought the first issue of this when it came out. Then for reasons known only to 11 year old me, I never picked up the second issue. Of a TWO ISSUE limited series! Oy. It certainly wasn’t a major commitment of time or money, so I’ll have to chalk it up to the vagaries of youth, i.e., the stupidity of the young comics collector. My collection is littered with the occasional anomalies like this – limited series where I collected all but one or two issues for some strange reason. I can only imagine it had a lot to do with a combination of being dependent on my parents to get me to the local comics shop and the LCS selling out of certain issues and then my young mind wandered and forgetting to ask if they ever got these issues back in stock. Ah well. Maybe I should rectify this by ordering the complete collection off Instocktrades.

    Anyway, I recall issue 1 being gorgeous – truly a perfect showcase for Perez. When I think of classic DC comics – which, for me, would be the 1980s when I first started collecting comics – I see the characters in my head as drawn by Perez or Jose Louis Garcia Lopez, Praise Be His Name. The two of them defined an entire era for me, and I’m sure most of the listeners to the FW Podcast.

    I remember loving the Hawks-Spectre-Thunderbolt-Hourman page back when I bought issue 1 (I was just getting into the Hawks at that time). Beautiful! But why is Shiera’s sports bra (let’s be honest, that’s what she’s wearing) red? It should be yellow, right? I consider myself a big Shiera fan, so this stood out as a potential coloring error to me.

    That Batman splash page is phenomenal!

    And Zatanna? Wowza!

    And while I’m discussing the art, I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw some love Bill Sienkiewicz’s way. He’s always been one of my favorites. His cover to the hardcover collection is stunning. I think I remember my LCS having a poster of this in the shop. Still no clue why I didn’t pick up the collected edition or the blasted SECOND ISSUE…if I had a way back machine I’d travel to 1986 and give 11 year old me the business over his lazy comics collecting.

    Thanks for spotlighting this series, guys.

  11. The Golden Age Hawgirl’s “sports bra” (yeah, that’s pretty much what it is) was actually red. It’s red on the GA covers I’ve seen, and in All-Star Squadron. It may have been yellow on occasion, but that became a thing with the Silver Age Version.

    Chris

  12. I would never say I’m not a fan of George Perez. However, there are times when his style does turn me off of a book. I will say I love his line work, but as often as not I am frustrated by his panel construction and layout. One of my problems with Crisis on Infinite Earths was his cramming 37 panels into a page. I’m much happier with his work on Justice League and early New Teen Titans (even though I dislike NTT for other reasons). I looked at his Avengers work with Kurt Busiek this weekend after watching Age of Ultron and I found myself a little annoyed by his need to cram every square inch of the page with detail rather than letting the characters breathe a little.

    Is it possible to love an artist’s form while disliking his style? Or vice versa?

    1. Shag says:

      No Drunkula, it’s impossible to dislike Perez’s style. You are disqualified.. from life.

      1. Disliking New Teen Titans is another banishable offense.

        Guilty! Guilty! Guilty.

        Chris

  13. Keith Samra says:

    I have the original book 2… And the trade with the Alex Ross cover… I hope one day I can own a Deluxe HC like you good folk.

    Love Perez artwork! Makes me want a monthly comic drawn by him… I don’t care what the book is… Throw in Wolfman as writer and I’ll gladly pay $7-$8 a month for it… (Damn you exchange rates)!

  14. Wolfgang Hartz says:

    Another fun episode, guys. Also, I have some questions.
    1. In 2003 DC published JLA-Z, will that be covered as well?
    2. Has the listener’s feedback section been retired? If so that’s a shame. There was something about hearing my comments being read that was exciting. But it is your podcast and you two can do whatever you want with it.

  15. Shag says:

    Need some help Nuclear Subs! Now that we’ve released our own HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE episode, I want to listen to others coverage. Can you help me identify which other podcasts have covered these issues? Here are a few I’ve identified:

    Views from the Longbox #146
    http://fortressofbaileytude.com/viewsfromthelongbox/episode-146-history-of-the-dc-universe/

    Fanholes Podcast #92
    http://fanholespodcast.blogspot.com/2014/01/fanholes-episode-92-history-of-dc.html

    Legion of Substitute Podcasters
    #316 http://paulfrench.ca/losp/?p=1171
    #319 http://paulfrench.ca/losp/?p=1179

    Thanks in advance for your help!

  16. Phylemon says:

    Excellent edition, gentlemen. I had a surprisingly large number of thoughts about the podcast. Let’s go:

    1. Concerning the “Film and Water” podcast: Rob, I’m assuming that my invitation to review Citizen Kane with you has been lost in the mail?

    2. Does the inclusion of the Manhunters as such a primary focus lay the seeds for the upcoming Millennium event? Or are we too early for that?

    3. My opinions on Brother Blood are the exact opposite of yours, Shag. I LOOOVE the character. Visually, he is one of the most interesting of the New Teen Titans’ villains, and I love the creep factor that comes from the religious cult gimmick (It is an overdone one nowadays, but at the time it was pretty innovative stuff). This page, however, left me a little flat. Beautiful, certainly, but you should get a full view of the Brother Blood outfit if you are going to give a page to Brother Blood.

    4. On the page with Destiny (which is beautiful, by the way), is the “meteor” shooting across the night sky baby Kal-El’s rocket? It is out of chronological order, but isn’t Destiny’s gift that he can foretell what will happen? Foreshadowing an event that will not pay off until the end of the book is a genius way to emphasize that ability.

    5. You mentioned it being weird that Hourman was included in the Freedom Fighters, but the whole FF section is a retelling (basically) of their story in All Star Squadron, and Hourman plays a large role there.

    6. Is the Atomic Knight reboot new here? I thought this was the origin from his appearances in the 70’s Wonder Woman stories. Personally, I love the original Silver Age Atomic Knight stories, and think making those all some scientist’s paranoia was a disservice to the characters. I’m excited for the real Atomic Knights’ appearance in Convergence. Hopefully they will be more than just cannon fodder for the LSH.

    7. Jericho makes an appearance in the History of the DC Universe!!! I’m sad that he did not get a full page exploration, as he rightfully deserved it as much as Batman and more so than Capt. Marvel (As a side note: Capt. Marvel will not “permanently” be known as SHAZAM. Shazam is the old guy with the beard that lives in the Subway tunnel). As Rob said (without a hint of sarcasm as far as I could tell), “What’s left to say after Jericho?”

    8. You are absolutely right that this is a Vibe drawing by George Perez! Wasn’t their an urban legend awhile back that Perez refused to draw the character because he was so offensively stereotypical? Or am I just dreaming that?

    9. I wonder if the Global Guardians full page spread was a set up for their role in the JLI. I can’t believe that Shag doesn’t like Little Mermaid! She’s not a smoking hot redhead, but she is certainly cute in an amphibious sort of way. Then again, maybe she is more Rob’s speed.

    10. I’m not sure that you are right, Shag, about it being a mistake that the book mentions multiple earths. I think this is a case of it being from Harbinger’s POV and certainly she remembers the multiple earths, right?

    11. I can’t give you a specific incident where Rorschach was drawn alongside of the DC characters, but I’m sure that it has happened. Does the Watchmen entry from the loose-leaf Who’s Who count?

    12. What, no listener feedback! I sat through two hours of you prattling on about these books waiting to hear my name mentioned and . . . just nothing! Looks like y’all are angling for yet another episode with nothing but listener feedback. You are doing everything you can to delay the update podcasts, aren’t you?

    Seriously guys, I enjoyed this episode very much. Looking forward to getting back into Who’s Who proper, though, so make it happen!

  17. Tim Wallace says:

    So…after posting a pic on social media of my Who’s Who updates and History of the DCU saying I was ready…I was completely unprepared when this episode hit! I didn’t have my copy of the trade in hand…and listening without it…well, like Russell said, it was frustrating!

    So, I’m re-listening WITH book in hand!

    1. What’s even more frustrating, is that I can’t find my copy of these books! I KNOW I have them, but I can’t find them. >–<

  18. Michael Chiaroscuro says:

    Interesting on the Golden Age Hawkgirl’s tank top (or, sports bra) being red. I have read some of those adventures but I was weened on the Bronze Age and modern Hawks so the yellow is just so ingrained in my mind that the red looked bizarre! Thanks, Earth 2 Chris!

  19. Martin Gray says:

    Fun episode as ever but Superman’s parents ‘Jor-El and Kara’? I don’t want to think about it.

    I can’t remember why I noted this down last week, but apparently ‘we need a Northwind and Fire series’.

    The original Ray, Happy Terrill, became a new Neon the Unknown a few years back. Not a lot ot people know that…

    Rob said ‘Khund’ tee hee.

    Ancient lettercols told me the colourist Tom Ziuko’s surname was pronounced ‘Zooko’. Wonder if he knew J’onn J’onzz.

  20. Frank says:

    1) I could have sworn I’d already left some initial comments here, but maybe it was one of those instances where my tablet “lost” them and I blew off re-replying for a month on the PC?

    2) I definitely have love for George Perez, as evidenced by my using a sketch he did for me (in Sharpee!) as my twitter icon, but for some reason I tend to take him for granted. He always does great work, and I’ve been exposed to it for about as long as I’ve read comics (Logan’s Run!) but he’s never been my favorite (yet there was a time Phil Jimenez was.) I think Perez is actually so good, he starts to turn back around the other way, like the Anti-Matter Universe “so bad it’s good.” Perez is so essential to comic books that he doesn’t register for me emotionally as he ought to, like gutters and z-formation panel layouts. He exists beyond subjective opinion as an ideal. Perez Is.

    3) “This book is number ___ of one thousand, signed and numbered by the author and artist” on a tipped-in plate featuring the trinity and their alter egos.

    4) Wonder Woman’s soul was that of a murder victim in utero, the last to reincarnate out of a race of resurrected rape/murder victims, with Hippolyta having derived from her Cro-Magnon mama. Thanks Greg Potter and George Perez. Oh, and you really have to look for that nipple in the spine fold.

    5) I definitely lost a comment somewhere, because I know I already wrote about how the Manhunter Cult debuted in 1975’s 1st Issue Special #5 where Jack Kirby created Mark Shaw, only for Steve Englehart to co-opt them for all in 1977 for The Privateer/Star Tsar and the Guardian’s homicidal robot corps in JLofA.

    6) Brother Blood is the Diablo of the DC Universe– an excellent character design that the writer fails to match with strong characterization. That’s why I have no use for any of the later Brother Bloods that depart from the design, since that’s the best part of the concept.

    7) Things I Don’t Miss From The Post-Crisis DCU: Byrne’s Krypton.

    8) Doll Man is the 5th super-hero now owned by DC Comics to debut after Superman/Zatara (behind Crimson Avenger, Batman, Sandman, and Blue Beetle.)

    9) Forgot to mention that the Alex Ross cover totally turns me off and that the Perez ones work best on the semi-floppies, but the Bill Sienkiewicz is best of all.

    10) Did anybody else hear “Child of a Lighthouse Keeper” by Luke Daab while looking at the Kal-El/Arthur page? Still prefer the Golden Age origin though, especially with Tom Curry depicted so easily confusable with Leonard McKenzie. Can’t believe “confusable” is a legit word that didn’t get red-flagged by spellcheck.

    11) Was going to cry foul that Kal-El and Arthur were babies before Captain Comet and Martian Manhunter were active until I remembered that they were in their thirties in the 1980s, so math. Anyway, Comet and J’Onn weren’t firmly established as being 1950s based Post-Crisis until the Zero Hour timeline was published (as American Secrets was presumed out of continuity.) Still waiting for a team-up of those two, even though the New 52 negates much of its potential novelty. Love Perez’s take on the Manhunter from Mars Silver Age origin (before it was negated by DeMatteis/Badger.)

    11) Robin deserved a full page. Was this the beginning of Robin being treated as less than one of the most popular and recognizable super-heroes on planet earth?

    12) Part of what I love about this book and the Post-Crisis DCU is the full integration of the Fawcett, Quality, and especially the Charlton characters into the shared continuity. Plus, they were still the Charlton versions, so their history is acknowledged before the heavy revisions soon to come. I don’t want to derail the company from its DC You initiative of allowing creators to (gasp) be creative, but would it be heretical to (as other commenters mentioned) hammer out a basic throughline of current continuity that better incorporates Wildstorm and maybe have Jim Lee draw a one issue HotDCU addendum?

    13) Jemm, Son of Saturn. Vestigial, Character of No Consequence. Only with Jemm could I be offended over a character illegitimately predating Halo and Shade, much less Captain Marvel.

    14) Speedy was in all those giveaway anti-drug and runaway comics. Agree that Perez and The Outsiders don’t seem to mix. I think they need to be more… um… impressionistic with those costumes. I much prefer his Detroit League, though they’re better with grittier artists like Luke McDonnell. I like the Global Guardians more than they deserve to be liked, and they should have come in earlier.

    15) Dig the two pages after Crisis devoted to stuff that barely mattered when Perez drew them, much less in the years that passed until the hardcover and later collections. Infinity Inc. only rated one panel? Not quite equal standing with the Wanderers, since they at least were in full figure instead of waist-up. Batman and Martian Manhunter are the only heroes to appear in each of the Justice Leagues.

    16) O hay, Wonder Woman makes her debut after the Suicide Squad on the last page of modern era history before leaping hundreds and thousands of years into the future? Thanks Greg Potter and George Perez.

  21. Frank says:

    Was going to take a break and come back for the essays, but those weren’t as involved as I thought, so I’ll jump to the jam piece…

    17) Didn’t realize Art Adams drew the isolated Cryll piece. Adams of course also drew the Martian Manhunter in the jam, although his connection to the character was and remains tangential (Armageddon: Inferno, Bloodlines design materials, house ads, etc.) God bless him, Adams drew a full figure Zook for me which thematically bridges his two pieces here.

    So many great, random artist/character inclusions here. Silverblade is so the Peter Nyong’o of this thing, and makes me long for Jemm or Nathaniel Dusk, a sentence no one ever has or should have written. Was Dave Stevens the only double contributor, and how awesome/disturbing that he used that opportunity to work in the full blown racist original Chop-Chop of all people? “Bob Kane” Batman, Curt Swan Superman and… George Perez blowing the flow with another “I am the be all of Wonder Woman?” Ross Andru, Dick Giordano, Mike Sekowsky… even Jose Delbo, but not Perez! I dig that Beto Hourman even more than Rude Mr. Miracle! Robin’s attention-grabbing local rocks, though look, a second “Bob Kane” credit. Kubert kills it on Hawkman. A glorious piece!

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