The 6 Long Lasting Originals

In the Golden Age there were a LOT of superheroes and mystery men introduced, hundreds really, and they almost all went just as quickly away.

Even some still around today (mostly in other forms,) such as Green Lantern, The Flash, and Captain America, only lasted 8 or 9 years.

There were a few they tried to revive in the 50’s, such as the Commie fighting Cap and Sub-Mariner that lasted for all of 4 issues, but for the most part even the famous fell by the wayside before they could make it to 10 years.

Many of these characters that were introduced, or remade and reintroduced in the Silver Age of the 60’s, such as the space traveling version of Green Lantern, and the red suited Flash are still around today after more than 40 years, but despite the same names these were really new characters.

However of the originals from the Golden Age starting the 40s there were only six who generated the interest to last 13 years or more, still published even with the bottom falling out of interest in the superhero genre in the mid 40s, and the rise of Horror, Western, War, & Romance comics, and anti-comic campaigns at the start of the 50s.

Those six were Superman & Lois, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, The Marvels, Plastic-Man and Doll-Man & Doll-Girl.

I imagine some deep psychological truth can be discerned from the reason those six stayed so popular for so long, I’ve read speculation that Superman was so popular because he was somehow perceived by the public on a subconscious level as the embodiment of the New Deal Era in one persona, at the time heroic female figures in popular media were thin on the ground so that explains Wonder Woman, and Batman… well is Batman, Plastic-man ran on the power of Jack Cole’s creativity, the Marvel family was fun, and back then superheroes were allowed to be fun. As for Doll-Man… you tell me, I guess it was something in the era he was sailing along on, and whatever that was seems to be gone now, because while they have half-heartedly tried to bring him back, they just can’t bring themselves to really try.

Today of course Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are still going and doing quite well, and there are versions of Cap, Cap Jr. Mary Marvel and Plas at DC, but more out of sheer stubbornness on their part than real popularity, as for Doll-Man and Doll-Girl? Well sure, what’s not to love about two people whose sole ability is being able to shrink themselves down to six inches in height so they can go charging into battle on the back of a Great Dane? I mean it worked from 1940 to 1953.

I guess you had to be there. 

He ain't heavy, he's a guaranteed boost to sales this month!

The fireman's carry is one of the easiest ways for a person to carry another person without assistance, the superhero carry however is something else altogether.*

The earliest example I can find is in Batman 156, ever the iconoclast Bats does it with the head of Robin, the Is He Dead Again? Wonder, facing to the right.

It has been used a lot after that, from the 50s to I don’t… next week?

Some we have here are

Sergeant Rock in an unusually touchy feelie mood while DC’s Go-Go Check of the time watch on.

Superman practicing with Lois in the 70s with Lois as a stand-in for Supergirl in the future.

Marvel’s Captain Marvel (not be confused with the REAL Captain Marvel!) in a pose I’ve seen somewhere else. Oh yeah, I know, on the cover of an early graphic novel, but I used this one as the earlier version was a little to cluttered for my taste.

See… that practice from the 70s paid off.

Worked so well that it keeps rising from the ashes like a phoenix. Ah heh

They killed Robin again? You bastards!

Still there is just something familiar about this pose… have I seen it somewhere before?

Ooooooh yeah.

* by the way, just for the record, carring someone in the manner above is bad both their and your back.

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

My Superpower? Why Rollering Skating of Course!"

The idea of putting wheels on your shoes and rolling about on them is, if you really think about it, an odd, bordering on stupid, idea, but we as a people have been doing it for a long time.

No one knows who the first person was to come up with the idea, but it’s been around since the early 18^th century, and the first recorded person to try to improve the whole concept was one John Joseph Merlin in 1760.

And like the original Merlin roller skates have been turning up, if not regularly, at least often enough to get noticed in comic books.*

And despite the fact that comic books are often filled with representations of odd looking humans, in odd looking costumes, when roller skates show up it still looks… well… odd.

For examples see below from World’s Finest Comics in 1948, a one shot from the 80s Black & White mistake… err… explosion featuring a hero called “Skate-man,” Ironman using his always vaguely silly looking armor skates, Barbie on skates (perhaps the only one who pulls it off), a comic from 1957 featuring “the Secret of Roller Skating” (ssssh, don’t tell anyone but `it’s don’t fall down and even a dweeb like that guy can get girls to do stuff like that.’) and the always forgettable Dazzler and her high-heel roller skates, showing that her greatest mutant ability was being able pull off things like that and not regularly break both legs.

*   (You like that? I’ve been practicing my segues)