Mid-1969 was during the few years I wasn’t buying comics so I had no idea DC made this announcement.
I had no idea of any of this in 1969. By the time I started buying comics again, DC cost a quarter and Marvel cost 20 cents. The price had already gone up a month or so before this issue (I forget what issue it was). Same at Marvel. I’d vaguely imagined DC floundering in this period while Marvel soared ahead, the House of Ideas wasn’t soaring either. Doctor Strange and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD had gone bimonthly; Captain Marvel would vanish for six months after #19.
That’s the change scomics faced in the real world. In the DCU and MU, change was afoot too because it always is. In my Silver Age reread I’ve already seen change hit the Blackhawks, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter. The Avengers. The Sea Devils. With comics struggling for sales, it’s no surprise 1969 gave us more.
Green Lantern had a major reboot in #49 of his series: Carol Ferris got engaged to someone else, Hal left Coast City and went looking for a new life. In #53 he stopped looking and went to work as an insurance adjuster in Washington state. Then came #69.
In “If Earth Fails the Test, This Means War” (by John Broome and Gil Kane), Hal decides that shuffling papers and settling insurance claims is no fit life for a man of action. Time for another reboot! We don’t what yet but Broome and editor Julius Schwartz either wanted to rule out a return to Coast City or see if readers responded favorably to that option. Carol shows up to reveal she’s having second thoughts —
— but Hal reflects on his old problem, that she loves Green Lantern, not Hal Jordan. He sends her packing.
As I’ve complained before, the team never seemed terribly committed to the reboot; here they don’t even mention Hal’s girlfriend for several issues, Eve Doremus. who made what turned out to be her final appearance in #68. Without thinking about Eve, Hal jumps into his new career as a … traveling toy salesman?
In fairness #70 does rationalize the switch (sort of): he sees too much destruction and tragedy as a Green Lantern to want to deal with people’s tragedies in his day job, whereas toys connect him with human innocence, the thing he fights to protect.
Over in Justice League of America #71, Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin give us a farewell to the Martian Manhunter (another development I wouldn’t learn about for a few years). J’Onn’s original backstory painted Mars as an enlightened, crime and war-free world. His subsequent adventures frequently ignored that to pit him against Martian villains such as “The Thief Who Had Super-Powers” in Detective Comics #231 and, of course, the first-ever Brave and Bold team-up story.
O’Neil’s story retcons the backstory further. J’Onn came from a Mars torn by war between the Desert Martians he led and the white-skinned Pole Dwellers. Now Ben Blanx, the leader of the Pole Dwellers, has wiped out both races except for a handful of Desert Dwellers who flee into space. J’Onn freaks out at the news, snaps and goes J’Onn Smash for a while, then the League help him bring Blanx to justice. J’Onn follows his people into space and out of Justice League of America (having already lost his backup feature in House of Mystery).
While J’Onn made several guest-appearances before returning to Earth for the Detroit League era, his exit story here kept influencing comics long afterwards. The idea J’Onn was a survivor of a dead world became part of his post-Crisis backstory. The Pole Dwellers, renamed the White Martians, have become recurring, formidable villains in the DCU. Blanx, however, hasn’t been seen since Justice League of America #144.
Teen Titans #22 resolves the teens’ struggle with the Dimension X aliens. More importantly, the backup by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane gives us “The Origin of Wonder Girl.” It turns out (as y’all probably know) she’s an orphan rescued by Wonder Woman, then adopted as an Amazon.
Whose daughter was she? What happened to her parents? Neither Donna nor Diana knows. It’s such an inviting mystery, it’s hard to believe nobody filled it in until “Who Is Donna Troy?” in New Teen Titans #38 more than a decade later.
Over at Marvel, Roy Thomas has been working on rebooting Dr. Strange for a while. In Doctor Strange #177’s “The Cult and the Curse” (Thomas, Gene Colan), Asmodeus, the leader of the Sons of Satannish, takes Stephen Strange’s form while Stephen’s trapped in another dimension. This makes it impossible for Dr. Strange to return because um, magical reasons won’t let him show his face while Asmodeus is using it. Stephen gets around that by wearing a mask so his face isn’t visible. It’s a total coincidence this makes him look more conventionally superheroic, honest.
#182 takes this a step further. When Nightmare attacks New York on New Year’s Eve, the crowds become convinced this Dr. Strange guy Nightmare is talking to must be involved somehow — maybe it’s time to organize a torch-wielding mob? After Strange helps Eternity against Nightmare, Eternity warps reality so that Stephen Strange, MD, is no more — his name out of costume is, and has always been, Stephen Saunders! Now he has a secret identity, maybe sales will take off?
Not so much (Doctor Fate did much better turning conventional superhero years earlier): the series died after another issue. I can’t say I like this reboot; Stephen was much more memorable as a known Greenwich Village guru and mystic. However I doubt sticking with the status quo would have done any better — for whatever reason, Doc wasn’t ready for prime time in 1969.
(Minor note, Thomas’ use of Eternity established the originally unexplained figure is an avatar of time. Steve Englehart would subsequently retcon that to make Eternity the avatar of reality itself.)
In X-Men #58, the second part of the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams Sentinels story, Thomas accomplished a minor retcon, revealing that Mesmero, introduced as Magneto’s acolyte in the Arnold Drake/Jim Steranko run, had never served or even met Magneto.
Given Thomas also wrote Lorna Dane (Magneto’s alleged daughter) losing her powers and shifting her romantic interest from Iceman to Alex Summers I wonder if Roy simply didn’t like Arnold Drake’s work on the book. Then again, this was an easy way to keep Magneto out of the Sentinels story — his power would have tilted the balance too much in the heroes’ favor, perhaps.
Marvel Super-Heroes #19 from early 1969 continues the book’s losing streak. It failed to get any traction for Medusa, Phantom Eagle, Guardians of the Galaxy or the Black Knight; now it fails with Ka-Zar in “My Father, My Enemy” by Arnold Drake/Steve Parkhouse and George Tuska (Captain Marvel went to series but Marvel had a vested interest in the trademark)
Since the last time we saw Ka-Zar and his brother Parnival “The Plunderer” Parnell, he’s become a pain in the butt to his neighbors, doing unconventional things like ruining a fox hunt. Ka-Zar’s also given up his title in favor of his brother, who’s been conveniently paroled from prison (given he attacked a military base, apparently the MU was in a soft-on-crime phase). And Parnival has decided his name is silly so now he’s Edgar.
Edgar still has issues. So does Ka-Zar, as his bro has convinced him their father was as diabolical a villain as Edgar is.
This takes one shit-ton of handwavium to buy but the idea of Ka-Zar being a constant thorn in the side of the local aristocracy has some potential. By the end of the story, however, Ka-Zar’s lost interest in living in his evil father’s castle and relocated to the Savage Land for good. That makes the whole thing pointless (I have no idea if Ka-Zar’s 1970 return in Astonishing Tales acknowledges any of this or not.
Green Lantern and Captain Marvel art by Gil Kane, followed by Dick Dillin x 2, Nick Cardy, Gene Colan, Neal Adams, Barry Windsor-Smith, George Tuska
