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Welcome to episode four of SUPERMAN & BATMAN, featuring your two favorite heroes in one podcast together!
The show’s premise is simple: Each episode, host Michael Bradley celebrates seven decades of the World’s Finest heroes by looking at stories featuring the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight, chosen at random mostly from the pages of World’s Finest Comics.
“The Shadow of the Executioner”
ORIGINAL PUBLICATION: World’s Finest Comics #299 (cover date January 1984)
WHAT TO EXPECT: Superman and Batman against the Pantheon (or not)!
ALSO FEATURING: A non-sequitur David Bowie reference!
PLUS: A look at what else was on the stands!
DOWNLOAD: Directly or via iTunes
This issue contains this completely awesome ad for Superman Peanut Butter. The background art is by Joe Shuster and lifted from ACTION COMICS #1. But who drew the main Superman image? If you know, be sure to write in!
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My guess on the ad is Curt Swan on pencils and Dick Giordano on inks. The pose, the shape of the cape, and the shape of the “S” shield read Swan to me. The face looks a bit like Swan, but the scratchy look of the inks looks like Giordano. Some of the cross-hatching looks like his inks over Byrne’s early Superman work.
Chris
Hey Michael,
The direct download link doesn’t seem to be working?
Chris
Embarrassingly, Chris, I forgot to upload the episode this morning. It’s there now, though. Sorry! Hope you enjoy it.
Michael,
Hey no problem! I enjoyed the episode…but this era of WF wasn’t my favorite. I haven’t really re-read them, other than #300 which is pretty good, but the whole Pantheon bit didn’t appeal much to 8-year old me. In fact, the title as a whole is pretty lackluster from around this time until cancellation, IMHO. But I do enjoy hearing your synopsis!
MPC actually released Superman and Batman model kits the following year, tying into the Super Powers line promotion. They were reissues of the 60s Aurora kits with some modifications. I think Monogram and MPC actually merged at some point.
I think the Sgt. Rock line was 3 3/4″ size, so you could mix them with GI Joe: RAH. The Warlord toys were made to mix in with MOTU figures. Remco was known for it’s “me-too” psuedo-bootleg toylines.
Power Lords…man, this ad ran for what seemed like YEARS. I never had any of the toys, and recall only seeing them a time or two in stores. The property is actually making a comeback via new action figures sculpted by the Four Horsemen who also worked on the Mattel DC Universe Classics and MOTU Classics lines.
You REALLY need to read “Who is Donna Troy?”. The initial story is a done in one in NTT #38. All the later stuff is to try and explain away retcons, etc. They are all good efforts, but honestly, it’s a mess. But this is Wolfman and Perez at their very best, before their own later work complicated this one!
Looking forward to more next week!
Chris
So you know, based on this post, I just snagged NEW TEEN TITANS #38 on eBay (and cheap, too!). I didn’t know the basic story was a done-in-one. When I get it, I’ll read it and let you know my thoughts.
I want to say Ross Andru drew this, with Dick Giordano inks.