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.

Marvel Masterworks: The Black Panther, Volume 1 by Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, et al.

Marvel Masterworks Presents The Black Panther, Volume 1: Collecting Jungle Action Nos. 6-24

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 1973-76
Read: February 2023

Writer: Don McGregor

Pencilers: Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, Gil Kane, Keith Pollard
Inkers: Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, Pablo Marcos, Dan Green, Billy Graham, Bob McLeod, Jim Mooney, Keith Pollard
Letterers: Tom Orzechowski, Dave Hunt, Art Simek, Joe Rosen, Charlotte Jester, Karen Mantlo, Janice Chiang, Denise Wohl, Harry Blumfield, Irving Watanabe, Shelly Lefferman

The second installment in my series of Black Panther posts brings me to the Black Panther's first ongoing series, a run in Jungle Action by Don McGregor, which is made up of two stories: Panther's Rage and The Panther vs. the Klan! The first story takes T'Challa back to Wakanda after his sojourn to America, along with his girlfriend Monica, who I guess must be from some Avengers stories I haven't read. Panther's Rage inspired the Black Panther movie, as it's about an attempt by Erik Killmonger to depose T'Challa from the throne of Wakanda.

At the same time he wrote this, Don McGregor was also writing Killraven, of which I am a big fan, and this is very similar: wordy and portentous, perhaps verging into pretentious, with a large emphasis on character and theme. Like Killraven, it has a lot of the trappings of superhero comics, but it is not one. Panther's Rage is a war comic, a war in a nation, a war in a people, and a war in one man. He fights grotesque villains working for Killmonger, but it's more like a fever dream at times, surreal battles that are really there to illuminate what's happening inside T'Challa.

I'll take all the Black Panther vs. vicious monsters you've got.
from Jungle Action vol. 2 #10 (art by Billy Graham & Klaus Janson)

I can't say I always liked it. It gets a bit repetitive at times, and the ongoing plot doesn't move very quickly. Sometimes there were just so many words. The series had eleven different letterers across its eighteen issues, and I can see why: why do more than two issues of this when you can go letter some Captain America comic with half the dialogue and none of the narration? But Billy Graham and Rich Buckler capture power in their layouts and art, and sometimes the thing whole rises to poetry.

Monica wears the hippest outfits.
from Jungle Action vol. 2 #15 (art by Billy Graham & Dan Green)

McGregor builds up a recurring cast around T'Challa, and I look forward to seeing if future writers keep these people's lives going. Indeed, if the story has a single success, it's in convincing you that though Wakanda is a strange place, it is a real place. It is a country with people and history and geography and conflict. I suspect that will be its legacy.

Maybe my favorite part of the whole run: Killmonger's two dopey followers that the Black Panther is forever getting the drop on.
from Jungle Action vol. 2 #12 (art by Billy Graham & Klaus Janson)

This makes it all the more inexplicable that for its second arc, McGregor had T'Challa go to the American South with Monica to investigate the apparent suicide of her sister. The Ku Klux Klan plays a big role, as does a not-the-KKK organization, the Dragon Clan. Gone are all the characters and history he had so painstakingly built up; T'Challa himself suddenly feels less plausible as he for some reason never takes off his Black Panther outfit. There are still fun parts—Monica's solitaire-obsessed father—and interesting imagery, but the investigation moves at a crawl, and nothing has really happened at the point where the story suddenly ends because the book was cancelled for low sales.

The Dragon Clan outfits lack the effective simplicity of the real KKK.
from Jungle Action vol. 2 #19 (art by Billy Graham & Bob McLeod)

Don McGregor and his collaborators would be soon replaced by Jack Kirby. I will be curious if Kirby's return to the character he cocreated keeps any of McGregor's innovations, but I fear I already know the answer...

(Somewhat weirdly, Marvel would actually get another writer and artist to finish the Klan storyline in three issues of Marvel Premiere, over three years after Jungle Action was cancelled. Like, why? If it wasn't worth doing at the time, why was it worth doing years later? I cannot imagine a comics publisher nicely capping off a mediocre run like this now. Those issues of Marvel Premiere are in another Marvel Masterworks Presents The Black Panther volume, but alas that one is not on Hoopla.)

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Houses of Mystery and Secrets, Part IV: Showcase Presents The House of Mystery, Volume One

Comic trade paperback, 552 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 1968-71)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2013

Showcase Presents The House of Mystery, Volume One

Written by Joe Orlando, Sergio Aragonés, Jack Miller, Bob Haney, Marv Wolfman, Charles King, Howie Post, Neal Adams, E. Nelson Bridwell, Jerry Grandenetti, Gil Kane, Mike Friedrich, Cliff Rhodes, Otto Binder, Robert Kanigher, Jack Oleck, Joe Gill, Gerry Conway, John Albano, Len Wein, Lore Shoberg, Virgil North, Alan Riefe, John Costanza

Art by Lee Elias, Doug Wildey, Joe Orlando, Sergio Aragonés, Bernard Baily, Carmine Infantino, Mort Meskin, George Roussos, Jack Sparling, Sid Green, Bill Draut, Neal Adams, Jim Mooney, Win Mortimer, Jerry Grandenetti, Bernie Wrightson, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Frank Springer, Alex Toth, Wayne Howard, Al Williamson, John Celardo, Mike Peppe, Tony Dezuniga, John Albano, Leonard Starr, Tom Sutton, Ric Estrada, Frank Giacoia, Jim Aparo, Lore Shoberg, Gray Morrow, Don Heck, Russ Heath, Jack Kirby, John Costanza, Nestor Redondo

This volume of House of Mystery is where Cain, later of The Sandman fame, got his start. Unlike with House of Secrets, there's no set-up for the series: we simply launch into "The Wondrous Witch's Cauldron" (writer unknown, art by Lee Elias). The second issue collected here does have Cain briefly introduce himself before launching into a story, but it's just a page-- the origins of the House of Mystery aren't delved into at all.

That said, we do get bits of history that are built on. "The House of Gargoyles" (written by Bob Haney, art by Jack Sparling) is about a former boarder at the House of Mystery, in this case a fellow who was being pursued by gargoyles. The inhabitants of the nearby town are repulsed by them (House of Secrets will later tell us this town is located in Kentucky), but when the gargoyles get their man, they leave. However, they leave a little gargoyle behind who becomes known as Gregory-- and appears not only in this series, but in The Sandman (I think he might have birthed Abel's pet gargoyle, Goldie). Several other stories are about boarders at the House of Mystery, past or even present, such as "Boom!" (written and illustrated by Jerry Grandenetti), where a dead parachuter spends the night there, or "Dark City of Doom" (written by Gerry Conway, art by Tony Dezuniga), about a guy who travels through time to ancient Egypt.

In "Turner's Treasure" (written by Jack Olek, art by Alex Toth), we even learn that before coming to the House of Mystery, Cain was the building custodian of the Philosophy Department at State University. Does this mean Kentucky State University? Why was this never mentioned in The Sandman? Maybe he left the Dreaming during Dream's long absence to take a new job?

Other good stories included "The Roots of Evil!" (written by Marv Wolfman, art by Jack Sparling), about two rival plant scientists, "The Game" (written and illustrated by Neal Adams), an atmospheric tale about a kid who shelters from a storm with a ghost kid, "What's the Youth?" (written by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by Win Mortimer and George Roussos), where a creepy guy buys a youth potion to hit on a younger woman, and "Dark Night, Dark Dreams!" (written by Gerry Conway, art by Bill Draut), a great first-person story about a woman on the run seeking refuge. As you can see from the credits, the book is blessed with some first-rate talent, and I suspect the black-and-white reproduction makes the art even better than it'd've been on original publication.

My favorite part of these early House of Mystery issues is "Page 13," a recurrent feature on (duh) page 13 of each issue. Here, some demon has a new message or game or token for the reader every week. Things like membership cards you can cut out, letters giving the owners bad luck, paper dice, and so on. In one case, a story is too long and runs onto page 13, so it's all messed up, with the demon chortling about the "dumb editor." Another starts on page 13-- with artist Gil Kane being sucked into it! He ends up being attacked by his editors, who are demons, and trapped inside the House of Mystery forever. There's a lot of fantastic black humor, and it's a real shame that this feature fades out.

The best is the second one, where you drop a pencil onto a circle containing a number of possible fortunes, including "You Are Drafted," "That Trip Will Cost You" (complete with psychedelic lettering on "trip"), "Your Father Found It," and "You Will Be Caught in the Dormitory"! I never expected to see even covert references to drug use, pornography, and masturbation!

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.