Sunday, February 5, 2012

Superman, Batman & Robin Playerz of 1948.

While as characters they have little in common, one being the fantasy embodiment of hope and optimism and the other being a quai psychopathic obsessive perfection / justice freak with a fetish for a Halloween image (seriously enough already with the bat symbol on everything, I bet he even pays the Charmin people big bucks so he can have toilet paper with it on the rolls in the john in the Bat-Cave even though only he, and perhaps Alfred, ever see it.)

They being the two most popular and iconic characters at DC Comics, and pretty much the only popular characters they have that originated at the formerly named National Periodical Publications, most of the others, from Wonder Woman to Captain Marvel, having been obtained from other companies, (DC sort of being the imperial Rome of comic companies) it stands to reason that they would want to figure out ways to put them together.

In recent years this was complicated by the two just not getting, along and while this in no way stopped DC from still publishing Superman/Batman, the relationship was at best strained.

Contrast this to the 32 years they spent in World’s Finest comics, starting in 1954, where they were best buds. How things will be depicted in DC’s new 52 era remains to be seen.

However there is another era in the relationship between Superman and Batman that even the most dedicated comic book fan is unaware of, taking place from 1947 to 1948, seven years before their official team-up, this took place not in stories, but only on the covers of World’s Finest Comics.

At the time the comic was twice as large as a regular comic and cost 15 cents, and was made up of separate stories featuring various DC characters such as the Wyoming Kid, Green Arrow, and others. However it’s main draw were stories with Superman and Batman in them.

To showcase this they were featured on the covers in images showed up nowhere on the inside, and such images they were, I give you.
Superman, Batman & Robin Playerz of 1948.

All of them showed the Dynamic Duo and the Man of Steel being very undynamic  and non-steel like, mostly just larking about at State Fairs, giving shoe-shine guys a hard time by their red, blue and green boots, and at swimmin' holes, many however show them apparently trying to impress or pick up girls.



Superman can fly faster than the speed of light and make it to moon before and back 523 times before you blink twice and Batman can thread a needle from 100 paces away in the dark using a batarang while doing two other things and yet they feel the need to form a human chain? They were just giving the boy a chance to cop a feel.

So there you have it, the first team-up of Batman and Superman was not them saving the world, but going out on a double dates… unless this was just a publicity campaign by DC to provide beards for them!
Oh my

1 comment:

  1. Fantastic! Photography is one of my main things right now, so I will be visiting your blog a lot.

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