THE GOLDEN AGE 1938-1956
Artist: Bob Kane
Along with Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27 ranks as one of the most important comics in DC’s history: the debut of Batman (or “the Bat-Man”, as he is identified inside the issue). Conceived and drawn by Bob Kane, the Batman’s pointed ears and cape were suggested by writer Bill Finger, who established many of the character’s early traits and supporting cast.
DETECTIVE COMICS #1 March 1937
Artist: Vincent Sullivan
Detective Comics was the final DC title to be published under the aegis of entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler- Nicholson (following New Fun Comics and New Comics). Issue #1 features among its offerings P.I. Slam Bradley, conceived by Wheeler-Nicholson and crafted by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The racially insensitive cover may be problematic to modern eyes, but is notable as the first to be devoted to a single subject.
Artist: Bob Kane
Batman’s third appearance on the cover of Detective Comics is also among the most iconic covers ever created. Now garbed in a more familiar cape as opposed to stiff wings, and towering over villain the Monk, Batman’s gothic appearance here has been referenced by among others Matt Wagner, Klaus Janson, and Neal Adams (twice).
This issue also sees the debuts of the Bat-gyro (Batplane) and weapons known as Batarangs.
DETECTIVE COMICS #69 November 1942
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Co-creator of The Joker with Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson helped establish the classic look of the character, exemplified here by the villain’s second Detective Comics cover appearance (later referenced
by Walt Simonson and Bruce Timm). As well as the joker in a deck of cards, Kane and Robinson supposedly drew inspiration for the character from actor Conrad Veidt in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs.
DETECTIVE COMICS #38 April 1940
Artists: Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson
Robin (alias acrobat Dick Grayson) made his debut in this issue. Bob Kane stated that he was based on Robin Hood, something that can be seen in the lettering of the character’s name and his costume design. Interestingly, co-creator Bill Finger believed artist Jerry Robinson named the character by lopping off the end of his own surname.
DETECTIVE COMICS #168 February 1951
Artists: Lew Sayre Schwartz and George Roussos
More than a decade on from his first appearance, The Joker’s origin is revealed in this issue, detailing his former guise as the Red Hood and his disfigurement in a chemical vat. Along with this sole Detective Comics cover, artist Lew Sayre Schwartz produced only a handful of Batman covers, but he estimated that he drew roughly 240 interior pages a year for Bob Kane.
ACTION COMICS #1 June 1938
Artist: Joe Shuster
It could all have been so different. When publisher Jack Liebowitz was looking for an exciting cover for the first issue of his new title, deadline pressure prompted him to pick an image from a previously rejected, since-reworked strip about a superpowered alien. It was, said Liebowitz later, “pure accident”. Thus, Action Comics, Superman,
and the Super Hero were born.
ACTION COMICS #7 December 1938
Artist: Joe Shuster
Jack Liebowitz’s co-publisher at DC, Harry Donenfeld, did not realize they had struck gold with the vivid, super-strong hero created by Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel; while Superman would appear inside Action Comics, for a time he did not feature on the covers. However, when DC realized the title’s phenomenal sales were due to the Man of Steel, he returned to the cover with Action Comics #7.
ACTION COMICS #61 June 1943
Artist: Jack Burnley
When Jack Burnley arrived at DC in 1940, he had spent the last 15 years as a sports cartoonist (having been hired by King Features Syndicate at the age of 14). The company at first didn’t know where to assign him – until a Superman sample page landed him a lead story in Action Comics. He went on to draw around 100 covers for DC, including this dramatically lit classic.
ACTION COMICS #101 October 1946
Artists: Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye
As the atomic age dawned in the wake of World War II, comic books responded with a succession of explosive, nuclear-focused covers. One of the earliest was Wayne Boring’s cover for Action Comics #101, which shows Superman filming an atomic test. It is an effective demonstration of Boring’s minimalist style and his regular inker Stan Kaye’s sharp, bold embellishment.
ACTION COMICS #89 October 1945
Artists: Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye
This aptly kaleidoscopic cover illustrates a story in which Superman uses his powers to turn the streets gold, the Moon green, and Metropolis blue. Jack Adler’s experimental colouring offers a glimpse of Wayne Boring’s draftsmanship; one of the earliest artists to assist (and then succeed) Joe Shuster, for many fans Boring drew the definitive form of Superman.
ACTION COMICS #108 May 1947
Artists: Jack Burnley and Stan Kaye
Similar to the cover of Action Comics #61, here Jack Burnley again utilizes a fiery glow to brilliant chiaroscuro effect, as Superman uses his body to protect steelworkers from a crucible of molten metal. Inked on this cover by Stan Kaye, whenever Burnley filled that role himself, he had his brother and sister, Ray and Betty, assist on backgrounds and lettering respectively.
SUPERMAN #12 September 1941
Artist: Fred Ray
With World War II in full swing (albeit at this stage with America yet to enter the fray), patriotic covers were commonplace in the early Golden Age. Fred Ray’s arrangement of Superman linking arms with the servicemen and striding toward the viewer was echoed four years later by Dick Sprang and Ira Schnapp on the cover of Batman #32
SUPERMAN #1 June 1939
Artist: Leo O’Mealia and Joe Shuster
Among the most recognizable of all comic book covers, Superman #1 was only intended to be a one-shot (hence the lack of a “No. 1” on the cover), until phenomenal sales turned it into an ongoing title. For the cover, artist Leo O’Mealia reproduced Joe Shuster’s first panel from Action Comics #10, adding the ornate decoration.
SUPERMAN #14 January 1942
Artist: Fred Ray
Fred Ray’s most memorable cover for the title, Superman #14 is not only a paragon of patriotism, but also a masterclass in form and shadow. Ray was hugely influenced by Noel Sickles, creator of the Scorchy Smith newspaper strip (as were Ray’s artist friends Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia); here Ray adopts Sickles’ self-styled “chiaroscuro” inking technique.
SUPERMAN #24 September 1943
Artist: Jack Burnley
Taking a cue from Fred Ray’s cover for Superman #14, here Jack Burnley taps into the prevailing patriotic fervour by having the Man of Steel wield the stars and stripes. A former sports cartoonist and co-creator of Starman, Burnley was only active in comics from 1940 to 1947, when he elected to return to newspaper work.
SUPERMAN #32 January 1945
Artist: Wayne Boring
Wayne Boring began drawing the Man of Steel in the Superman newspaper strip in the late 1930s, before becoming one of his main artists in comic books in the 1940s and 1950s. This, one of his earliest Superman covers, was referenced by Adam Hughes on the variant cover of Superman #5 (2018), with the dialogue, “It still tickles!”
SUPERMAN #38 s January 1946
Artists: Jack Burnley and George Roussos
Quite apart from its comedic approach (and the attendant question it raises, namely, just how does the Man of Steel get his hair cut?), this cover is amusingly self-referential: Superman is reading Batman #32 (published the month before), the cover of which owes a debt to the earlier Superman #12!
ADVENTURE COMICS #40 July 1939
Artist: Creig Flessel
Though he didn’t create Sandman (that was Gardner Fox and Bert Christman), Creig Flessel did draw many of the crime fighter’s early adventures, including this, his first Adventure Comics appearance. Flessel’s cover captures the essential strangeness of the gas-mask-wearing, gas-gun-wielding mystery man (alias Wesley Dodds), reflecting the artist’s background in pulp magazines.
ADVENTURE COMICS #73 April 1942
Artists: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
The partnership between Jack Kirby and Joe Simon had already produced Captain America by the time the pair arrived at DC. Given the freedom to create whatever they wanted, Kirby and Simon came up with a radically reworked version of preexisting plainclothes detective Manhunter, turning him into a masked big-game-hunter- turned-crime-fighter, beginning with this issue.
MORE FUN COMICS #52 February 1940
Artist: Bernard Baily
Designed by artist Bernard Baily, The Spectre was dreamed up by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. Imagined by the writer as cop Jim Corrigan, who is murdered by gangsters then resurrected by a mysterious power to fight crime, The Spectre barely appears in this issue, the first part of his origin story. He is seen only on the title page and evocative cover.
MORE FUN COMICS #104 July 1945
Artists: Henry Boltinoff and Stan Kaye
Created by Jerry Siegel, Superboy was the junior version of Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman. He debuted in More Fun #101 in a story that worked him into the Man of Steel’s origin. For his first cover appearance, Superboy is drawn by Stan Kaye (better known for his inking), while comedy duo Dover and Clover are drawn by their creator, Henry Boltinoff.
FEATURED ARTISTS
GOLDEN AGE ARTISTS
DETECTIVE COMICS #33 November 1939
EVERETT E. HIBBARD
With a background in commercial illustration, Everett E. Hibbard (1909–1998) brought an artistic and technical proficiency to comics that marked him out in the Golden Age. At the same time, he possessed an understanding of the dynamics of comics – especially storytelling and character expression – that many artists who came from a similar illustration background struggled to master. Hibbard got his start at DC
on Flash Comics in 1940, drawing the title character – an association that would last the rest of his comics career (he retired from the field in 1947, subsequently achieving fame as a wildlife artist). His covers for Flash Comics, All-Flash, and others were characterized by fine rendering and a way with shading and shadow, but his greatest comics claim to fame is as the first artist to draw the Justice Society of America. His cover for the JSA’s debut in All Star Comics #3 seated the original Super Hero team around a table, a trope that would be used repeatedly thereafter.
COMIC CAVALCADE #12 September 1945
BOB KANE
If Bob Kane’s sole claim to fame had been the creation of Batman -one
of the most popular fictional characters of the last 100 years – he would already have earned his place in history. But Kane (1915–1998) didn’t just stop at the Dark Knight, he also generated the greatest Rogues Gallery
in comics: The Joker (with Jerry Robinson), Two-Face, The Penguin, Catwoman, and more, not to mention the Boy Wonder himself, Robin (also with Robinson). A graduate of Max Fleischer’s animation studio, Kane entered the comics field in 1936, working on humour and adventure strips; three years later, Batman – created in response to Superman’s debut in 1938 – elevated him to stardom. His best covers were his earliest – Batman swinging over the city (Detective Comics #27) or looming over a castle (Detective Comics #31) – dark, powerful compositions that have stood the test of time and seared themselves into the imaginations of generations of artists and fans.
HARRY G. PETER
By the time he came to design Wonder Woman in 1941 at the age of 61, Harry G. Peter (1880–1958) had already been active in newspaper cartoons and illustration for 40 years. Beginning with the San Francisco Chronicle at the turn of the century, Peter contributed to a variety of periodicals (sometimes working with his cartoonist wife, Adonica Fulton), notably illustrating “The Modern Woman” column in the suffragette-supporting Judge magazine. After entering the comics field in the early 1940s, Peter worked with William Moulton Marston to create Wonder Woman, establishing the Amazon’s look and drawing her adventures from her first appearance in All Star Comics #8. Adopting an Art Nouveau style, Peter’s covers for Sensation Comics and WonderWoman were naive but undeniably energetic, exemplified by WonderWoman #1, featuring the Amazing Amazon on horseback leading a tumbling charge over wartime trenches. Wonder Woman’s primary artist for 17 years, Peter drew almost every Sensation Comics and WonderWoman cover from 1942 to 1949.
WONDER WOMAN #5 July 1943
SUPERMAN #57 March 1949
While Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman and established his original iconic look, for many, Wayne Boring (1905–1987) was the artist who did most to define the Man of Steel in the Golden Age. Responding to an advert in Writer’s Digest in 1938 for assistants for Shuster – who was increasingly in demand for new Superman material – Boring began working uncredited on Action Comics, Superman, and the Superman newspaper comic strip. He went on to become the primary artistic chronicler of the Man of Steel into the 1950s, drawing what many see as the quintessential Superman, possessed of a bulky, towering, imposing physique. Boring’s best covers were simple, striking affairs, such as Superman filming an atomic test on Action Comics #101 (p.17), or being struck by lightning on Superman #32 (p.20). He continued drawing the character well into the Silver Age – in the process establishing a fruitful creative partnership with inker Stan Kaye – leaving an indelible mark on Superman that is still referenced by artists today.
WAYNE BORING
FLASH COMICS #1 January 1940
Artist: Sheldon Moldoff
The Golden Age kicked into high gear with the arrival of anthology title Flash Comics. As shown on the cover in simple but striking fashion by Sheldon Moldoff, the first issue saw the debut
of not only The Flash – alias college student Jay Garrick – but also Hawkman and Johnny Thunder. All three characters were future JSA members.
FLASH COMICS #28 April 1942
Artist: Everett E. Hibbard
Demonstrating Everett E. Hibbard’s background as a trained illustrator, the portraits of Hollywood stars behind The Flash on this cover are terrific examples of his fine draftsmanship. Hibbard drew around two dozen Flash Comics covers, and also another dozen covers for All-Flash, the dedicated title for The Flash that launched a year after the speedster’s debut.
FLASH COMICS #37 January 1943
Artist: Sheldon Moldoff
While this wasn’t Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s first starring appearance on the cover of Flash Comics, it is arguably their best, with a wonderful level of detail on the background birds. The chief chronicler of the characters in the Golden Age (with writer Gardner Fox), Sheldon Moldoff was key in developing Carter “Hawkman” Hall’s love interest Shiera Sanders into Hawkgirl.
FLASH COMICS #92 February 1948
Artist: Carmine Infantino
Debuting in a Johnny Thunder story in Flash Comics #86 as “the most fascinating crook of all time”, Black Canary – alias Dinah Drake – had assumed a more heroic countenance by the time she graduated to her own feature in this issue. Carmine Infantino’s cover pays homage to Robin’s debut on the cover of Detective Comics #38, and was itself later referenced by Klaus Janson on Detective Comics #554.
BATMAN #8 January 1942
Artist: Fred Ray and Jerry Robinson
DC’s Golden Age covers could be action-packed and patriotic, but also sometimes playful and challenging to convention. Ray and Robinson’s cover for Batman #8 utilizes the Droste or “infinity” effect, whereby a grinning Batman and Robin are repeated on the cover of the comic book in their hands – perhaps the earliest example of the recursive effect in comics.
BATMAN #1 March 1940
Artist: Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson
BATMAN #9 March 1942
Artist: Fred Ray and Jerry Robinson
Primarily known for his Action Comics, Superman, and Star Spangled Comics covers in the Golden Age, Fred Ray
also created a handful of Batman and Detective Comics covers, usually working alongside Jerry Robinson. This classic composition captures Batman and Robin in a spotlight, the Dark Knight drawing his cape across his face – a pose referenced multiple times since.
BATMAN #10 May 1942
Artist: Fred Ray and Jerry Robinson
Breaking the fourth wall – characters looking directly at the reader or referencing their own fictionality – is a common characteristic of many DC Golden Age covers. Here, Fred Ray and Jerry Robinson depict Batman and Robin not only hailing the reader, but holding the ink brushes used to create the comic page they’re standing on!
Batman shares his first appearance in his own title with the first appearance of his ultimate nemesis, The Joker – co-created by Jerry Robinson, here inking Bob Kane’s cover pencils – and also Catwoman (still called “the Cat” at this stage). Ironically, given his subsequent longevity, The Joker was almost killed off in his debut outing, until editor Whitney Ellsworth intervened.
BATMAN #15 March 1943
Artist: Jack Burnley
War effort covers were a frequent feature of the Golden Age, so the sight of the normally firearm-averse Batman and Robin manning a machine-gun isn’t as incongruous as it might appear; other war-era covers saw the pair engaged in jungle combat and riding a giant eagle. This was the first of six Batman covers drawn by Jack Burnley from 1943 to 1947.
BATMAN #31 October 1945
Artist: Dick Sprang
This cover is remarkable for the treatment of the logo, an “infinity” effect bringing to mind Fred Ray’s cover for Batman #8. Dick Sprang, the fifth artist to work on the character, was known for his expressive faces, as demonstrated by the horror-struck crook that Batman and Robin are advancing upon.
BATMAN #32 December 1945
Artist: Dick Sprang
Referencing Fred Ray’s cover for Superman #12 , here Dick Sprang uses the same pose to show Batman and Robin linking arms with a musketeer (illustrating a story in which the heroes’ minds are sent back to the 17th century). Sprang spent 20 years at DC, during which time he only ever worked on Batman and Superman titles.
BATMAN #42 s August 1947
Artists: Jack Burnley and Charles Paris
Jack Burnley’s final Batman cover (he left DC, and comic book publishing, in 1947) is also Catwoman’s first cover appearance; though she had debuted in the first issue of Batman as “the Cat”, it took until
this issue for her to feature on a cover. Burnley finds a novel way to reveal her, having Batman turn back the corner of the cover.
ALL-AMERICAN COMICS #16 July 1940
Artist: Sheldon Moldoff
Created by cartoonist Martin Nodell, the Golden Age Green Lantern (alias engineer Alan Scott) was inspired in part by Aladdin and his magic lamp, and in part by a lantern-waving railway engineer Nodell had encountered. While Sheldon Moldoff illustrated the cover, for the story inside Nodell used the pen name Mart Dellon, as he didn’t intend to make comics a long-term career.
GREEN LANTERN #1 November 1941
Artist: Howard Purcell
The famous flaming emerald logo adorning the first issue of Green Lantern’s own series actually debuted inside All-American Comics #31 the month before, though this was its first cover outing. Cover artist Howard Purcell, who had already depicted Green Lantern on half a dozen All-American Comics covers, here displays the influence of Alex Raymond and Hal Foster.
ALL STAR COMICS #3 December 1940
Artist: Everett E. Hibbard
Boldly proclaiming “the first meeting of the Justice Society of America” on the cover, All Star Comics #3 introduced the notion of the super-team, bringing together The Atom, Sandman, The Spectre, The Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, and Hourman for the first time. The concept – and artist Everett E. Hibbard’s device of seating the team around a table – would prove profoundly influential.
ALL STAR COMICS #8 December 1941
Artist: Everett E. Hibbard
Everett E. Hibbard brought a level of draftsmanship, detail, and experimentation to comics that his Golden Age predecessors often lacked. A trained illustrator, one of Hibbard’s hallmarks was the dramatic use of shadow, as seen on this cover, depicting Dr. Mid-Nite and Starman joining the team.
ALL STAR COMICS #36 August 1947
Artist: Win Mortimer
Though Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman had all appeared alongside the Justice Society prior to this point, this issue marks the trinity’s first joint appearance. Heroes holding flags or banners aloft (usually the American flag) are a frequent feature of Golden Age covers, but here artist Win Mortimer cleverly incorporates All Star Comics logo onto the banner held by Green Lantern.
SENSATION COMICS #1 January 1942
Artists: Harry G. Peter and Jon L. Blummer
Having debuted in an eight-page insert in All Star Comics #8, Wonder Woman graduated to the lead feature in Sensation Comics one month later. Conceived by psychologist (and pioneer of the lie-detector test) William Moulton Marston, the character was illustrated from the off by Harry G. Peter. Here, he bases Wonder Woman on his own splash page from All Star Comics #8, while the rest of the cover is by Jon L. Blummer.
WONDER WOMAN #1 June 1942
Artist: Harry G. Peter
Cover and interior artist Harry G. Peter designed the look of Wonder Woman, responding to William Moulton Marston’s direction that she should be “as powerful as Superman, as sexy as Miss Fury, as scantily clad as Sheena the Jungle Queen, and as patriotic as Captain America”. Aptly, earlier in his career Peter had drawn pro-suffrage cartoons for Judge magazine.
WONDER WOMAN #6 s September 1943
Artist: Harry G. Peter
Harry G. Peter was in his 60s by the time he co-created Wonder Woman. He had been a newspaper cartoonist for most of his career, but adopted an Art Nouveau style for his Wonder Woman work, as seen on this cover. Issue #6 features the first appearance of another Peter creation: The Cheetah, perennial nemesis of the Amazon princess.
WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #37 November 1948
Artist: Win Mortimer
Playful and inventive, this decorative cover is akin to the repeating pattern of wallpaper or wrapping paper, and reflects Win Mortimer’s background as a wartime poster artist. He was one of DC’s most prolific cover artists: from 1946 to 1955 he produced around 350 covers for World’s Finest Comics, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, Batman, Superman, and Superboy.
WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #7 September 1942
Artist: Jack Burnley
Jack Burnley can lay claim to fame as the first artist to depict Batman and Superman together, on the cover of New York World’s Fair Comics #2 (1940). His first World’s Finest cover, #7, is a testament to his skill as an artist; here he uses dynamic perspective to show the heroes astride a battleship’s gun barrels.
WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #66 September 1953
Artist: Win Mortimer
Win Mortimer attended the Art Students League of New York after high school, studying anatomy under George Bridgman, who also taught Spirit creator Will Eisner and author and artist Norman Rockwell. Mortimer’s anatomical expertise is evident on this cover, which also demonstrates a keen sense of composition, the rescue scene tilted for dramatic effect in an unusually modern manner.
ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN #103 November 1948
Artists: Alex Toth and Frank Giacoia
In response to the increasing popularity of western comic books, All-American Comics was retitled as All-American Western, becoming DC’s first western comic (it would be retitled again four years later as All-American Men of War). The lead feature in this first issue was gunslinger Johnny Thunder, beautifully depicted literally stepping out of the comic by co-creator Alex Toth.
MYSTERY IN SPACE #1 April 1951
Artists: Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia
One of DC’s earliest dedicated science fiction comics, Mystery in Space was edited by Julius Schwartz, who also edited its sister title Strange Adventures. With his background as a sci-fi literary agent, Schwartz managed to attract the best writers and artists. The cover for the first issue, featuring Lyle of the Knights of the Galaxy, gives a taste of the title’s interplanetary flavour.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #1 December 1951
Artists: Win Mortimer and Charles Paris
DC’s first horror title, House of Mystery, started life as a supernatural anthology series – until the advent of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 prompted a shift in emphasis to science fiction and suspense. Win Mortimer and Charles Paris’ cover for the first issue – featuring Wanda the werewolf – was inspired by a 1930s Weird Tales pulp magazine cover.
GIRLS’ ROMANCES #13 March 1952
Artist: Alex Toth
Alex Toth had been drawing interiors for DC’s romance titles since the late 1940s, but this would be his only romance cover. While Girls’ Romances covers were generally chaste affairs (and were actually photographic for the first six issues), this one is notable for the passionate clinch between rich society girl Alison and penniless seaman Joe, taken from the issue’s splash page. DC Comics Cover Art
Written by Nick Jones
Penguin Random House, 2020
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