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.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Black Panther, Volume 1 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Buscema, et al.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents The Black Panther, Volume 1: Collecting The Fantastic Four Nos. 52-54, 56, Tales of Suspense Nos. 97-99, Captain America No. 100, The Avengers Nos. 52, 62, 73-74 & Daredevil No. 52

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 1966-70
Read: January 2024

Writers: Stan Lee, Roy Thomas

Pencilers: Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Barry Windsor-Smith, Frank Giacoia
Inkers: Joe Sinnott, Syd Shores, Vince Colletta, George Klein, Johnny Craig, Sam Grainger, Tom Palmer
Letterers: Sam Rosen, Art Simek

I've been reading Black Panther comics in original publication order, but read this out of sequence because it's a collection of material from 1966-70 that wasn't released until after I'd read other material from this era. I didn't discover it until I'd got up to the early 2000s; I jumped back to read it after finishing Christopher Priest's run. Confusingly, it's called Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents The Black Panther, Volume 1 but the stories collected are totally different to those collected in Marvel Masterworks Presents The Black Panther, Volume 1. Not sure why Marvel would have two so similarly titled reprint series, but I'm sure it must make sense to someone. (Note that the marketing calls this volume Claws of the Panther, but that title doesn't actually appear on the cover, title page, or copyright page of my digital copy from Hoopla.)

The story collects the Black Panther's original two appearances in Fantastic Four #52-53 (which I had already read, so I did not reread), plus the half of #54 where he appears (which I had not), and then goes on to reprint early guest appearances alongside the FF, Captain America, and Daredevil, as well as a few of his appearances with the Avengers. The first few stories are all Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, then Roy Thomas takes over as writer with John Buscema on pencils.

Playing baseball against Mr. Fantastic doesn't really seem fair.
from The Fantastic Four vol. 1 #54 (script by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott)

Fantastic Four #54 and 56 are largely curios. It is neat to see the Black Panther play baseball against the Fantastic Four, but you have to suffer through a lot of blather about the Inhumans even though it's only ten pages long; the Panther doesn't really appear in #56, which is about Klaw returning to bedevil the Fanstastic Four. This has some amazing Kirby art but the writing is not Stan's finest, with a pathetic Sue and some pretty random resolutions. The Captain America comics didn't do much for me either, they are very much Captain America stories with Black Panther as a supporting character who could pretty much be any other hero, though I guess it shows that Marvel were interested in keeping the character going.

Who was this loser, anyway?
from The Avengers vol. 1 #52 (script by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema & Vince Colletta)

Then Roy Thomas takes over, and he clearly is very interested in the character because we suddenly get him and his world fleshed out a lot more. The Avengers stories weren't great, but were noteworthy. We get the story where Black Panther joins the team, the first appearance of Man-Ape, and a two-parter that introduces singer Monica Lynne, Panther's future fiancée who would play a big role in Don McGregor's and Christopher Priest's work. The story where T'Challa joins the team is weird; it has him in a mask where his lower face is visible, and he's not called "the Black Panther," his codename is just "the Panther." Clearly this minor attempt at a revamp did not stick—to the extent that in that in one of the later stories we're told he deliberately hides that he is Black so that he can avoid judgments on his skin color! The story has him being framed for murdering the Avengers, but the eventual explanation for what happened makes little sense. It is pretty easy to read this story with Priest's retcon that T'Challa only joined the Avengers to spy on them in mind, too.

You would've been happier in the long run if you'd stayed out of it, Monica.
from The Avengers vol. 1 #74 (script by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema & Tom Palmer)

The two-parter was pretty interesting at first; Black Panther and Monica get mixed up in the attempt of white nationalists to stir up racial animus. Initially, it seems like it's about them taking down the kind of people who might say things like "pointing out racism is the real racism!" Pretty woke, Roy Thomas! But then we learn that the white nationalist demagogue and the Black anti-racism crusader are part of the same evil organization, working together to undermine America. Not so woke after all. But you can see why Monica stuck around; she instantly pops off the page.

Is this that "concrete city" they're always talking about?
from Daredevil vol. 1 #52 (script by Roy Thomas, art by Barry Smith & Johnny Craig)

The best story here is the Daredevil one. It's a bit nonsensical in parts, but it's a neat story about the police trying to find Daredevil (he's been poisoned) but mistaking Black Panther for him, and so T'Challa helps them find Daredevil. Barry Windsor-Smith does some of the best non-Kirby art in this book, good atmosphere. We don't learn much about Black Panther here but it is well told.

So overall, a decent collection to read if you want a sense of where the Black Panther came from.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

The Origins of the Black Panther by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Frank Giacoia, et al.

from Fantastic Four vol. 1 #52

A couple years ago, I picked up a number of Black Panther comics for free from comiXology in the wake of Chadwick Boseman's death. I tend to read digital comics over breakfast when I don't have some kind of hard copy comic to hand, but at the time I was already reading Titan's Doctor Who comics, and then I moved onto The Wicked + The Divine. Now that I'm done with both of those, I'm turning my attention to the Black Panther comics. They aren't comprehensive, but they are pretty close, and it gets even closer if I supplement with what's available on Hoopla. I'll be reading and reviewing in publication order, though moving things around slightly so that I read series in chunks when two series were released simultaneously.

from Black Panther: The Sound and the Fury #1

The three earliest comics in the sale were Fantastic Four #52-53 from 1966, which introduced the Black Panther and provided his origin, and The Avengers #87 from 1971, which recapped and expanded on his origin, and it's those I'll be reviewing in this post. The two Fantastic Four stories, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, have the Black Panther luring the Fantastic Four to Wakanda and then battling them; it turns out he did it as a final challenge to himself. He then recaps his origin, where his father was killed by the villain later known as Klaw, and then Klaw turns up and everyone battles him. (In between all this, one is subjected to pages featuring the Inhumans.)

It's Lee and Kirby at their peak, so it has potency and power—and excess. You can see there's a lot here to run with, but I don't know that I enjoyed it so much as I appreciated the inventiveness of it all. Lots of crazy ideas, but also lots of exposition, and no one ever accused Stan Lee of being elegant. I also have these issues in a Fantastic Four Omnibus that I haven't got around to reading, and I wonder if I'll appreciate them more in their original context whenever I get around to that.

from Marvel Tales: Black Panther #1

The issue of the Avengers is from when the Black Panther was a member of the team; in classic Roy Thomas fashion, he decides to tell everyone a very detailed version of his backstory. This expands on what was told in Fantastic Four #53, adding more details to how T'Challa grew up partially outside of Wakanda, and giving him a friend who (of course) ultimately betrays him. Again, it fills in a lot of backstory for T'Challa (sometimes since FF #53, he'd gotten that name too), and I'm sure there will be a lots of future callbacks to it, but it's not so much a story in itself.

Overall, these three issues make a useful foundation, and I'll be curious to see where we go from here.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

"The Black Panther!" was originally published in issue #52 of Fantastic Four vol. 1 (July 1966). The story was scripted by Stan Lee, illustrated by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnott, and lettered by Sammy Rosen.

"The Way It Began..!" was originally published in issue #53 of Fantastic Four vol. 1 (Aug. 1966). The story was scripted by Stan Lee, illustrated by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnott, and lettered by Artie Simek. It was reprinted in Black Panther: The Sound and the Fury #1 (Apr. 2018), which was edited by Mark Basso.

"Look Homeward, Avenger!" was originally published in issue #87 of The Avengers vol. 1 (Apr. 1971). The story was written by Roy Thomas, illustrated by Frank Giacoia and Sal Buscema, lettered by Mike Stevens, and edited by Stan Lee. It was reprinted in Marvel Tales: Black Panther #1 (Nov. 2019), which was edited by Jennifer Grünwald.

Fantastic Four #52 was the only one of these three offered in its original format; the other two were in reprint comics. Note that The Sound and the Fury #1 also contains an original story, but I'll read that when I get up to 2018's comics in this readthrough. I have the other three issues in Marvel Tales: Black Panther #1 in other forms, so this is the only comic from it I'll be reading directly.

What Is... The Gothic?

This is a question I've been thinking about recently, because I'm reading a book about "Gothic science fiction," but I'm not convinced that I have the world's strongest grasp on what the Gothic is, beyond a genre where vaguely spooky things happen.

That's not quite true. Like many things literary, I was forced to confront its nature by teaching-- though I prepped a discussion on the Gothic that I didn't actually end up teaching, because my class turned out to have plenty of other things to say about Frankenstein, and so we didn't get to it. But on my PowerPoint slides, I wrote stuff like "Elements of the supernatural" and "Wild and desolate landscapes, ruined abbeys, feudal halls, medieval castles with dungeons" and "Refuses to resolve contradictions or settle ambiguities; leaves the contradictory and paradoxical, finding only unresolvable moral and emotional ambiguity" and "Renegotiates the line between 'good' and 'evil'." (I suspect a lot of this is probably derived from The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, which has turned out to be quite a useful investment as a teacher of literature.)

Interestingly, when looking up my Frankenstein slides, I also found where I discussed science fiction, and let me tell you, these two definitions of sf seem a little strange juxtaposed against one another:

“…[L]ess congenial to SF is the fantasy (ghost, horror, Gothic, weird) tale, a genre committed to the interposition of anti-cognitive laws into the empirical environment. …[T]he fantasy is inimical to the empirical world and its laws.” --Darko Suvin

“Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode.” --Brian Aldiss

The emphasis here is mine. There's a very big divide there as regards the interaction between science fiction and the Gothic! Something to ponder in my review of this Gothic science fiction book, perhaps.

Anyway, the real problem is that it's just a genre I haven't read very much of; a look of the top items tagged "gothic" on LibraryThing, for example, reveals a mix of books I haven't read and books I think are more Gothic-influenced than outright Gothic. I've never read The Castle of Otranto or The Monk or any of those V. C. Andrews novels where a woman's face appears through a cutout on the cover. (I think my mom owned a number of these.)

What I have read, though, is comics. Specifically the complete run of The Sinister House of Secret Love, a short-lived DC comics series of Gothic romance tales from the 1970s. It lasted for four bi-monthly double-sized issues from Oct./Nov. 1971 to Apr./May 1972 before being retooled with issue #5 as Secrets of Sinister House. That version actually lasted until issue #18, but from #6 onward it was a pretty generic 1970s horror anthology comic, featuring a number of eight-page stories in each issue. It's those first five issues that are something special:

Such glorious covers! They're real treasures of 1970s comics, with art by heavyweights such as Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, and, best of all, Alex Toth. They all draw such lush imagery, dripping with atmosphere. (And, of course, the ladies are all good-looking, and typically end up experiencing adventures in their flimsy nightgowns.)

from Secret House of Sinister Love #3
script by Frank Robbins, art by Alex Toth & Frank Giacoia
courtesy The Alex Toth Archives

You gotta love those 1970s fashions! (Surprisingly, I think, for the Gothic, I'm pretty sure all the stories are set in the present day, despite the present scarcity of ancient families inhabiting medieval castles.) This is actually the first time I've seen one of these in color; the reprints in Showcase Presents The Secrets of Sinister House were in black and white, and probably all the better for it-- Toth and Giacoia have amazing linework that really stands on its own without the colors.

These Gothic romance comics have very same-y plots: a young woman travels to a distant location, usually on a promise of romance and/or to get a job (typically as a governess). Something sinister is secretly going on-- usually the romantic figure is evil. There are minor variations; for example issue #4 takes place in India, and I have a vague memory that in one of the stories, the innocent girl is actually a reporter who knows a fair bit more than she's letting on. What makes them so worth reading is not the stories, but the artwork. I'd love to own these, but even at its cheapest, a single issue is at least $10, if not $30 (and, of course, the Alex Toth one is nigh-unavailable).

from Secret House of Sinister Love #4
plot by Mary DeZuniga, dialogue by Michael Fleisher, art by Tony DeZuniga
courtesy True Love Comics Tales

Do these stories have "Elements of the supernatural" or "Wild and desolate landscapes, ruined abbeys, feudal halls, medieval castles with dungeons," or do they "Refuse[ ] to resolve contradictions or settle ambiguities; leaves the contradictory and paradoxical, finding only unresolvable moral and emotional ambiguity" or "Renegotiate[ ] the line between 'good' and 'evil'"? Kind of. These definitely have the former of those: all the stories imply the supernatural even when natural causes are revealed in the end. I don't think they really feature the project of the Gothic genre, though, just the features: they're pretty, well, generic.

I was surprised to recently come across an instance of the genre recently, however, in the pages of the 1972-73 Marvel series Night Nurse. Night Nurse was another short-lived, four-issue series, this one about three nurses from diverse backgrounds trying to make it in the big city. It's basically exactly what you'd imagine: lots of melodrama (usually with men telling the nurses they can get married... if the women give up their careers) and hostage crises. In the 2000s, one of the nurses was repurposed as a character running a free night clinic for injured superheroes, which inspired an appearance by Rosario Dawson in a similar capacity on Netflix's Daredevil series.

"This is Daredevil, Matt Murdock. This is serious. We don't have time for jokes!"

I guess because of this, Marvel released a reprint volume containing all four issues of Night Nurse, plus one of the modern issues of Daredevil where the character appeared. Imagine my surprise, though, when after three issues of hospital drama, issue #4 turned out to be a stereotypical Gothic romance comic!

In issue #2, Christine Palmer-- who gave up a life as a Midwestern debutante to be a nurse-- fell in love with a gifted surgeon who turned out to be an alcoholic and was stealing drugs to pay off a debt and committed a hit-and-run on the daughter of his best friend, the police commissioner and botched the surgery that should have save her life. Also her jerk dad turns up and pressures her to come home even though in issue #1 he said he'd let her do her own thing. In issue #3, Chris is nowhere to be seen; one of the other nurses mentions she disappeared after all the brouhaha of issue #2.

In issue #4 you find out what she did: answered an ad for a live-in nurse at a creepy seaside manor! She has to walk there in a storm because none of the locals will come close; there's a sexy heir in a wheelchair, a creepy aunt, and a creepier butler; mysterious lights blink at night; and did that seaside railing just happen to collapse... or is someone trying to kill her!? It has very little to do with nursing, but is a perfect example of the Gothic romance comic. (Though Winslow Mortimer is not quite the right artist for the project. It's hardly his fault; his clean linework and straightforward style was really well-suited for the naturalistic tone of issues #1-3. He does manage to work in the obligatory gratuitous nightgown shot.)

from Night Nurse #4
script by Jean Thomas & Linda Fite, art by Winslow Mortimer
courtesy Sequential Crush

I don't know why this issue exists. Was it a desperate attempt to save a sinking series? Night Nurse #4 came out in May 1973, long after the retooling of The Secret House of Sinister Love ought to have shown there really wasn't a market for this kind of thing! And would sales figures for issue #1 even have been in before production of issue #4 began? Maybe scripters Jean Thomas and Linda Fite just really liked Gothic comics and thought they were a logical inclusion in a series about urban nurses?

If anything, it's even more generic than those issues of Secret House of Sinister Love, but its very incongruity contributes to it being a delight. The other Gothic romance comics I know of have never been collected: DC's The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love (1971-72) and Charlton's Haunted Love (1973-75). I hope that happens, and I hope I come across other Gothic tales as unlikely as that of Night Nurse.

Also I hope I figure out exactly what the Gothic actually is someday.