DC Finest Science Fiction: The Gorilla World by John Broome, Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson, et al.

DC Finest: Science Fiction: The Gorilla World

Collection published: 2025
Contents originally published: 1953-54
Acquired: December 2025
Read: February 2026

Writers: John Broome, Gardner Fox, Sid Gerson, Mann Rubin, Edmond Hamilton, Arthur Wallace, Jack Miller, Otto Binder, Sid Miller, Jerry Coleman

Pencillers: Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Mort Drucker, Henry Sharp, Jim Mooney, Carmine Infantino, Alex Toth, Frank Giacoia, Jerry Granedetti, Sy Barry, Virgil Finlay, Howard Sherman, Irwin Hasen
Inkers: Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Sy Barry, Bernard Sachs, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, Ray Burnley, Joe Giella, Virgil Finlay, Howard Sherman, Carmine Infantino

Letterers: Gaspar Saladino, Pat Gordon

Early solicitations of this DC Finest volume—which collects a bunch of science fiction tales from various DC titles from 1953 to '54—indicated it was about a "gorilla world." Someone on Reddit posted a complaint that he had bought the book for gorilla action, and that there are just two gorilla-related stories in its 600 pages. Instead, he had to read about some guy called Captain Comet!?

Well, suddenly I was interested. I became a fan of Captain Comet with his starring role in the 2007 Mystery in Space miniseries, and have enjoyed some of his other appearances in series like L.E.G.I.O.N. and R.E.B.E.L.S.; back in 2012, DC solicited an "archive edition" of Captain Comet stories, which I did preorder, but it was cancelled.

This volume contains sci-fi material (normally I try to say "sf," not "sci-fi"... but this material is definitely sci-fi, not sf) from Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space, and Action Comics. Mostly they are standalone one-off tales; if you've read any of DC's horror anthologies from around the late 1960s and early '70s (e.g., House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Witching Hour), as I have, you'll recognize the format. There are a few recurring features: in addition to the Captain Comet stories from Strange Adventures, there are also stories about Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers from Action, "Interplanetary Insurance, Inc." from Mystery in Space, and the very first "Space Cabbie" story from Mystery in Space #21 (by Otto Binder and Howard Sherman), which would go on to become a recurring feature.

I have enjoyed some archival Captain Comet stories I've read (e.g., those reprinted in DC Super-Stars of Space), but these struck me as rather anodyne. Later creators would do good stuff with this setup, but here, the character is pretty bland. The most interesting ones here are definitely Strange Adventures #35, where he meets the "Guardians of the Universe" (writer John Broome clearly beginning to iterate concepts he would crystallize much more successfully in Green Lantern a few years later; art by Murphy Anderson) and #39 (by John Broome and Murphy Anderson), where he testifies against a murderous sapient gorilla (mostly because I enjoyed how this one started in medias res with a whole implied adventure beforehand).

Did no one ever retcon these guys to somehow be the same at the Green Lantern Corps's Guardians of the Universe? I am surprised.
from Strange Adventures vol. 1 #35 (script by John Broome, art by Murphy Anderson)

The Tommy Tomorrow stuff, though, was even worse. This guy has no personality and, as far as I could tell, no consistent supporting cast or worldbuilding from story to story. He's very very occasionally been brought back, but I assume only because later writers would have read these stories when they were five. Outside of indiscriminate nostalgia, I don't see what you could enjoy in these tales. 

The only person who has less of a personality than Tommy Tomorrow is one of Tommy Tomorrow's subordinates.
from Action Comics vol. 1 #195 (script by Otto Binder, art by Jim Mooney)

On the other hand, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the stories of "I.I.I.": Interplanetary Insurance, Inc. I don't know why someone at DC Comics thought kids would love stories of an interplanetary insurance fraud investigator, but it's the exact kind of mixing of the mundane and the fantastic that I enjoy. The stories don't always make a lot of sense on their own terms (maybe you should investigate the life-cycles of newly discovered aliens before selling them life insurance?) but the idea was wacky enough to be delightful. Similarly, the one "Space Cabbie" story here is good fun, and you can see why DC picked it up to be a recurring feature later on. DC has brought back Space Cabbie occasionally, but where is my return appearance for Bert Brandon of I.I.I.!?

My seven-year-old kid read the book after I was done with it; when I asked what they thought of the I.I.I. feature, they didn't even remember it. (Captain Comet was their favorite.) I can't imagine why not!?
from Mystery in Space vol. 1 #18 (script by Sid Gerson, art by Carmine Infantino & Sy Barry)

Outside of those features, this is entirely done-in-one standalone tales. Like I said, it reminded me a lot of the DC horror anthologies I've read... but those were much more consistently enjoyable than these. Is horror an easier genre to get right than sci-fi? Or have 1960s horror trappings just dated less than 1950s sci-fi trappings? The stuff here is largely pretty cheeseball. Lots of bug-eyed aliens and mad scientists who invent amazing technologies but can't think of anything better to do with them than petty theft. Every now and then there was a good one in a sort of sub-Twilgiht Zone kind of way. My favorite was probably "The Eye-Dropper World" (from Strange Adventures #42, by Otto Binder, Murphy Anderson, and Joe Giella), where a guy evolves a species of oversized paramecium to sentience in his backyard with tragic results.

I was going to ask if this guy had institutional approval, but actually, if they're not vertebrates, you can do whatever you want!
from Strange Adventures vol. 1 #42 (script by Otto Binder, art by Murphy Anderson & Joe Giella)

So, overall, this is fine in terms of actual reading experience. But it's great in terms of the archival experience: I suspect most, if not all, of these stories have never been reprinted before; the "DC Finest" volumes have given us some sure things, like "triangle era" Superman and the Jim Shooter Legion and Mike Grell's Green Arrow, but I appreciate very much their commitment to more forgotten aspects of DC's long publication history. I doubt this well sell as well as any of those, but I hope we get more volumes of Silver Age sci-fi.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness, Volume Two by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Paul Levitz, Steve Ditko, Frank Chiaramonte, Bruce Patterson, Carmine Infantino, et al.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness, Volume Two

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 1980-82
Acquired: February 2022
Read: October 2023

Writers: Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Paul Levitz

Artists: Jim Janes, Steve Ditko, Frank Chiaramonte, Bruce Patterson, Carmine Infantino, José Luis García-López, Dick Giordano, Howard Bender, Rodin Rodriguez

Containing Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #272-83, this collection fills in the last part of the gap between the last of the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives and The Great Darkness Saga deluxe edition, meaning that DC has collected a full run of the Legion from 1958's Adventure Comics #247 to 1984's Legion of Super-Heroes #313, which is quite frankly astounding. (Now all I have to do is track down the last four archives I need...) As a friend of mine has pointed out, there's no series other than the Legion where DC kept going once the archives sputtered out.

What is less astounding is the actual stories collected here. While volume one had a certain madcap old-school sci-fi charm, thanks to that volume's main scripter Gerry Conway, this one was much more the typical pedestrian Legion of the 1970s. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of the typical Legion melodramatics here, including an extended storyline where Ultra Boy seemingly dies but actually loses his memory and becomes a space pirate. But I found it hard to care, you know? The characters seemed to lack the solid grounding that makes the best Legion stories sing. I found it really hard to care about Reflecto or the Time Trapper here. Perhaps part of the issue is that none of the regular artists are among the Legion greats, even when they've done good work elsewhere.

I always enjoy some Blok.
from Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #272 (script by Gerry Conway, art by Steve Ditko & Frank Chiaramonte)

The one thing you can say in favor of this saga is that it does also explain away Brainiac 5's turn into villainy and murder way back in Superboy and the Legion volume two. Perhaps we'd have been better off ignoring that, to be honest, but I guess it's good for one of our heroes to not be murdering women in squalid apartments, even when insane. This volume has a lot of the slow-simmering background plotlines that would be perfected during the Levitz and Giffen era, but they aren't so effective here; eventually I started to wonder if there would ever be any movement on the "Colossal Boy's mother is president of Earth" and "maybe Timber Wolf is going to leave the team" threads that never seemed to go anywhere.

It works well to find out Wildfire's bluster is balanced out by deep-set self-loathing.
from Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #283 (script by Roy Thomas, art by Howard Bender & Bruce Patterson)

My favorite story was a small one, and surprisingly the work of Roy Thomas. I mean, I enjoyed Roy's work on DC's Earth-Two stuff, but I don't feel like he has a particular aptitude for the Legion. But he gives a solid and keen look into the origin of Wildfire, showing the insecurities of the Legion's most blustering member. Nice stuff.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 2

Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years

Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years

Collection published: 2015
Contents originally published: 1941-2012
Acquired: December 2019
Read: December 2019–September 2023

Writers: Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher, John Broome, Dennis O'Neil, Paul Levitz, Roy Thomas, Len Strazewski, James Robinson, David Goyer, Geoff Johns & Alex Ross

Artists: Everett E. Hibbard, Martin Nodell, Bernard Baily, Howard Sherman, Chad Grothkopf, Sheldon Moldoff, Ben Flinton, Irwin Hasen, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, John Belfi, Frank Giacoia, Arthur F. Peddy, Bernard Sachs, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene, Dick Dillin, Joe Giella, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Jerry Ordway, Arvell Jones, Tony DeZuniga, Mike Parobeck, Mike Machlan, William Rosado, John Dell, Ray Kryssing, Stephen Sadowski, Michael Bair, Dave Meikis, Paul Neary, Rob Leigh, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham, Ruy Jose, Drew Geraci, Nicola Scott & Trevor Scott

When I began my JSA journey way back in December 2019, this 2015 volume had been put on sale on Comixology, so I picked it up; it contains a sampling of stories from across seventy-five years of the Justice Society, ranging from the first original story of the team in All Star Comics vol. 1 #4 (Mar./Apr. 1941) up to its then most recent incarnation in Earth 2 #6 (Jan. 2013). Some of it was redundant with material I was going to read anyway, but it was a good source for stories I would not have otherwise have read, and I sprinkled those among the other tales of my four-year Justice Society marathon. I'll review those ones here, but also point out where you can find my comments on the other inclusions.

All Star Comics vol. 1 #4, 37, & 55 (Mar./Apr. 1941–Oct./Nov. 1950)
These are three classic JSA stories. All Star #4 wasn't their first adventure—but it was their first adventure as a team. The first three issues of All Star had the JSA regaling each other with tales of solo adventures; this one has them all working together, though though do the traditional thing of splitting up to handle their own aspects of the case, and the individual parts are even drawn by each character's usual artist. All three are Golden Age comics: more interesting for what they do than the crude way in which they do it. But I did enjoy the sprawling nature of All Star #4 in particular; it's a whopping sixty pages!

from Justice League of America vol. 1 #82
(script by Denny O'Neil, art by Dick Dillin & Joe Giella)

Justice League of America vol. 1 #21-22, 30, 47, & 82-83 (Aug. 1963–Sept. 1970)
Of course, you couldn't have a Justice Society history collection without JLA #21-22, the story that reintroduced them as denizens of Earth-2 during the Silver Age. But I don't really get what the other ones are doing here; I didn't really enjoy them when I originally read them in the various Crisis on Multiple Earths volumes, and I didn't enjoy them here. It would have been better to use some of the stories that tap into the idea that the JSA has its own history where characters can really grow and change, like JLA #171-72.

Adventure Comics vol. 1 #466 (Nov./Dec. 1979)
This is the Silver Age version of the JSA's disbanding, which I already reviewed as part of All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever, and which was also included in Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice.

from Justice League of America vol. 1 #193
(script by Roy Thomas, art by Rich Buckler & Jeremiah Ordway)

Justice League of America vol. 1 #193 (Aug. 1981)
This fourteen-page backup serves as a prelude to All-Star Squadron. It probably reads weirdly on its own, to be honest, but if you're going to read All-Star Squadron afterward (and I did), it provides excellent context for issue #1. If A-SS is ever collected, I imagine this will be included, but there's no sign of that thus far.

All-Star Squadron #67 (Mar. 1987)
The post-Crisis origin of the JSA, which I already reviewed as part of All-Star Squadron. I would have preferred to see an actual A-SS story, but this is fine.

Justice Society of America vol. 2 #10 (May 1993) / All Star Comics vol. 2 #2 (May 1999) / JSA #25 (Aug. 2001) / Justice Society of America vol. 3 #10 (Dec. 2007)
A number of modern age revivals and/or flashbacks that I've already reviewed: the 1990s one, an installment of The Justice Society Returns!, an issue of JSA (included in JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Two), and an issue of Geoff Johns's second Justice Society revival. For every single one of these series, I would have picked something else. I was glad to see the 1990s revival here, because it's often overlooked... but surely the first issue would make more sense than the last. The installment of The Justice Society Returns! included here doesn't even make sense in context, much less out of it; literally any other issue of the event would have been better. The JSA issue is part of a tedious crossover with Hawkman; there surely must have been a better option. And the last inclusion here is from another big event, Thy Kingdom Come; I would have picked Johns's last issue on the series, "Happy Birthday Stargirl!"

from Earth 2 #6
(script by James Robinson, art by Nicola Scott & Trevor Scott)

Earth 2 #6 (Jan. 2013)
I mean, I guess they had to include some issue of Earth 2 here, and someone must like it, but this just confirmed to me that everything I suspected about the series was true. This has character names from the JSA, but making them contemporary characters battling the apocalypse means they lose everything that makes the JSA interesting and enjoyable.

Overall, a pretty mixed bag, to be honest. Some necessary inclusions, but some pretty questionable ones, too.

This post is the penultimate in an improbably long series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Power Girl Returns. Previous installments are listed below:

Exploring the Universe with the DC Super-Stars of Space: Adam Strange, Captain Comet, Space Ranger, and more!

My recent reading of all sorts of DC space comics has taken me to the 1970s DC Comics anthology DC Super-Stars. This ran from March 1976 to January/February 1978, and mixed issues of new material with reprints, in an oversize format (issues were around fifty pages). Four issues in the run had the cover title of "DC Super-Stars OF SPACE," and reprinted material from DC's Silver Age space comics.

The main feature across all four issues was Adam Strange, the man of two worlds. Adam Strange is a human archaeologist who travels to Rann in the Alpha Centauri system by being in the right place at the right time to be hit by zeta beams, which transport him across space. On Rann, he fights evil and romances the beautiful Alanna, but once the zeta radiation in his body dissipates, he returns to Earth, meaning he can never make a home or a family on this distant world. I've read some of the modern takes on Adam, and I own the Adam Strange Silver Age Omnibus, but I haven't gotten around to reading it, so this was my first real exposure to the original adventures of Adam and Alanna.

I enjoyed reading them a lot, more than I anticipated, which I guess bodes well for my eventual reading of the Silver Age omnibus. They're kind of dopey in the typical Silver Age way at times (one has a bad guy threatening Rann with monuments stolen from Earth, including a lake?), but Gardner Fox clearly read a science textbook at some point, and even though the science is fanciful, using concepts like the Roche limit makes it feel "real" in a way Superman's science does not.

The basic set-up of Adam Strange also has a pathos that puts it above other stories of its era: Adam has found his place, but he can never keep it, and even in just these four stories, Fox provides permutations on it so it never gets stale. Alanna is pretty awesome, too: she's not an equal co-star with Adam, but she is smart and cool, and works to get herself out of trouble as often as Adam does. These were fun, and I look forward to rereading them (with better printing) and reading the others.

Other features (most just appearing once) included:

• The Atomic Knights. After a nuclear apocalypse, a group of survivors uses medieval armor to battle would-be warlords. This was okay, nothing special, and a little contrived even by its own standards.
• Knights of the Galaxy. Futuristic space knights. Pretty bad, to be honest, with a weird dose of sexism.
• Space Ranger. Pretty generic stuff, with the usual Silver Age wackiness you'd expect of a subpar Legion story. (Space zoos and shit. Like if a guy can hypnotize all animals, surely he can come up with a better way to make money than this.)
• Captain Comet. I think my enjoyment of these stories (such as it was) is more due to retcons: the post-Crisis DC universe had the Golden Age heroes out of commission by the 1950s, but the Silver Age ones not in place for some time, leaving "throwforward" Captain Comet as one of Earth's only defenders in the 1950s, which gives a little frisson to the loneliness of a man born too early.
• Tommy Tomorrow. The way DC kept tweaking this character over time sounds fascinating, but going by this one story he wasn't a very skilled crimefighter. I'd love to read an omnibus of all his adventures, but it seems unlikely.
• Space Cabby. Funner than I expected.
• Star Rovers. The actual story here was poor, but I loved the basic premise of the Star Rovers: three highly competent people who meet up only to brag to each other and argue. Karel Sorenson is great; you can see why Howard Chaykin made her into a space goddess.

There are some other nice touches, like an in-character letter from Captain Comet in issue #2 (actually by assistant editor Jack C. Harris). The editorial in issue #8 includes promises about what will come in the next issue, #10, but #8 was actually the last DC Super-Stars of Space installment, as the alternating plan went away, and #10 was actually "Strange Sports Stories." Finally in issue #16, we got another science fiction story with the first installment of Star Hunters, but as that launched a series of its own, I'll cover it in another post.

DC Super-Stars of Space appeared in issues #2, 4, 6, and 8 of DC Super-Stars (Apr.-Oct. 1976). The original stories were published in various comics from 1951 to 1964, and were written by Gardner Fox, John Broome, Bob Kanigher, and Otto Binder; penciled by Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Jim Mooney, Bernard Sachs, Bob Brown, and Sid Greene; and inked by Murphy Anderson, Joe Giella, Jim Mooney, Sid Greene, Bernard Sachs, and Bob Brown. The reprints were edited by E. Nelson Bridwell.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXVII: 52: The Companion

Comic trade paperback, 224 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 1962-2006)
Acquired March 2013
Read June 2014

52: The Companion

Writers: Mark Schultz, Gardner Fox, Dan Jurgens, Jack Miller, Greg Rucka, Steve Ditko, Grant Morrison, Steve Gerber, David Goyer & Geoff Johns

Pencillers: Doug Mahnke, Carmine Infantino, Dan Jurgens, Alex Toth, Kano, Steve Ditko, Chas Truog, Murphy Anderson, Walter Simonson, Leonard Kirk
Inkers: Tom Nguyen, Carmine Infantino, Tim Dzon, Alex Toth, Stefano Gaudiano, Steve Ditko, Doug Hazlewood, Murphy Anderson, Walter Simonson, Keith Champagne

52 is, as you might know, an 52-part series filling in a year in the DC universe where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are all gone. It draws on DC's vast tapestry of characters and concepts. 52: The Companion helps illuminate those backstories, making it useful preparatory reading for 52: here we see Steel's relationship with his daughter, Elongated Man solving a mystery, Booster Gold telling Blue Beetle his origin, Rip Hunter on a mission through time, Renee Montoya dealing with the death of her partner, the Question standing up for his principles, Animal Man on a trip to Paris with his wife, Adam Strange battling a threat to the planet Rann, the deaths of the Metal Men and the breakdown of their creator, and Captain Marvel learning the tragic history of Black Adam.

I'm about halfway through 52 now, and I can tell that some are directly relevant to it (Will Magnus's breakdown, Black Adam's past, Renee's emotional state, Booster's origin), while others are more general, just letting us see those heroes in action in younger days (Steel, Elongated Man, Rip Hunter, Adam Strange, the Question, Animal Man). But I find myself making note of things I learned from them frequently, so the time reading them was well spent. Also appreciated is the commentary from Mark Waid on why the characters were picked for 52, their place in DC history, and why the stories were picked for this volume. (Isn't Mark the greatest at continuity? It always feels like a useful foundation in his hands, never a prison.)

They're not all great stories, but most of them are good, and they reveal the breadth of what the DC universe has to offer at its best.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part III: Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume Two

Comic trade paperback, 199 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 1965-68)
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2013

Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume Two

Writers: Gardner Fox, John Broome, Mike Friedrich
Artists: Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Sid Greene

I liked the first volume of Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups all right... the second one is much less successful. Can we all promise to never speak again of the two John Broome stories here that make use of Doiby Dickles? Ugh. Other than that, there's a couple good Flash stories here (Fox and Infantino are pretty dependable) and some so-so stories about the Atoms of Earth-One and Earth-Two. Not much else of interest, except for that beautiful Murphy Anderson art of the ever-lovely Black Canary.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part I: Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume One

Comic trade paperback, 223 pages
Published 2005 (contents: 1961-68)
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2013

Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume One

Writers: Gardner Fox, John Broome
Pencillers: Murphy Anderson, Dick Dillin, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane
Inkers: Murphy Anderson, Joe Giella, Sid Greene 
Letterer: Gaspar Saladino

Having finished Birds of Prey, it's time to move on to my next comics-reading project: Project Crisis!, which is a journey through the spine of the DC Universe, its various "crisis" crossovers. Starting with the old "crises on multiple Earths," I'll then move on to Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and Final Crisis. There's a lot there, and much of it is well-regarded for what it did, not how it did it, so I'm curious to see what I'll think of it all.

Before all those big, multiverse-shattering mega-events, though, comes the stories collected in Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume One. Here we have nine single-issue stories, most of which are about superheroes crossing the dimensional boundaries between Earth-One and Earth-Two. These stories aren't exactly the most sophisticated by modern standards, but there's a certain thrill to them-- Gardner Fox correctly identifies, I think, that the idea of there being multiple Earths is just fun, and working your way through all its various permutations is guaranteed to be interesting.

"Flash of Two Worlds!" of course introduced all this parallel-Earth malarkey to DC, and is justly famous, but I also enjoyed "Double Danger on Earth!", where Jay Garrick crosses from Earth-Two to Earth-One in pursuit of a vital meteorite that was destroyed on his world but might still exist on Barry Allen's, or "Invader from the Dark Dimension!", where strange creatures from a dimension outside of both Earths, made up of pure darkness, menace our heroes. Fox never really repeats his old triumphs, continually aiming to do something new and unusual.

The only story here not written by Gardner Fox is "Secret Origin of the Guardians!", John Broome's somewhat overcomplicated tale of the two Green Lanterns meeting one another. It lacks the energy that Fox brings to his stories-- not to mention that delightful Carmine Infantino art that features in all the Flash stories.

Interestingly, there are also a couple stories here that don't feature trans-dimensional team-ups, but team-ups isolated to Earth-Two.  "Solomon Grundy Goes on a Rampage!" and "Perils of the Psycho-Pirate!" feature Doctor Fate, Hourman, and the Earth-Two Green Lantern in somewhat typical superhero team-ups, while "Mastermind of Menaces!" does the same for Starman and the Black Canary. Then there's one last story, "The Hour Hourman Died!" which has no team-up element at all, but it's called a "bonus feature," so I guess that's okay. Most of these stories are fine, but lack the certain frisson that comes from the parallel-Earth setup. "The Hour Hourman Died!" is pretty neat, though-- a clever concept.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Star City, Part XX: The Black Canary Archives, Volume 1

Comic hardcover, 227 pages
Published 2001 (contents: 1947-72)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2010

The Black Canary Archives, Volume 1

Story: Robert Kanigher, Gardner Fox, Dennis O'Neil
Art: Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Bernard Sachs, Murphy Anderson, Alex Toth

Collecting all of Black Canary's solo adventures, this volume mostly concerns the character we now know as Dinah Lance née Drake, mother of Dinah Laurel Lance, the Black Canary who ultimately became involved with Oliver Queen. The character is actually somewhat impressive for a 1947 comic book character: after her early adventures with the "humorous" Johnny Thunder, she acquired her own setup, a mild-mannered florist secretly fighting crime with her judo skills at night, much to the consternation of Larry Lance, private detective-- who could never one-up the Black Canary, nor get a date with her. It's an inversion of the good old Clark/Lois dynamic, and it works wonderfully for it. Except not quite: Carmine Infantino's introduction to this volume claims that Dinah Drake "spent much of her time yearning for a good lucking detective whose only interest was in her alter ego", but that's not actually the case; Dinah taunts Larry and never shows a sign that she's interested in him romantically. She's no milquetoast like Clark Kent can be! This unusual setup (and some sharp art) raises Robert Kanigher's twenty-two 6-10-page stories out of the repetitive rut they could easily fall into (see Showcase Presents The Green Arrow). The plots are typically contrived, but I enjoyed the tales nonetheless, especially once Johnny Thunder was nixed in favor of Larry Lance.

Two longer stories come from later in the Black Canary's lifespan, after Dinah Drake has married Larry Lance. "Mastermind of Menaces!" and "The Big Super-Hero Hunt" by Gardner Fox unite Black Canary and Larry Lance with fellow Justice Society member Starman in a pair of stories that are fairly enjoyable, especially the former one. These stories manage to balance all three protagonists well-- Canary isn't sidelined in favor of the male hero in Starman, and even Larry Lance gets to be a semi-competent detective for once.

The last story, "The Canary and the Cat!" by Denny O'Neil is the only one in the book about the second Black Canary... and it shows that O'Neil doesn't really get her character beyond the fact that she knows judo and is in love with Green Arrow. Would Dinah ever sit around thinking about how great Oliver is for fighting crime? Seems unlikely. "I'm an expert at judo... that's all!" she thinks. Geeze, what happened to your floral business, Dinah? Or your own crime-fighting abilities? She does get to kick some butt, though, and Alex Toth's stylized artwork is very nice to look at.