Tag: JLA

Love of the Golden Age

On January 18, 2025

In 2025, Blog, Blog writing, Comic Book Writer, Comic Books, ToastMasters, Toastmasters 4 Writers, Toastmasters Speech

It first began by reprinting newspaper comic strips, and then it illustrated adventure stories had previously been in pulp novels and magazines, then the detectives put on masks and a man could leap tall buildings in a single bound. It was the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Golden Age of Super Heroes.

As mentioned previously, though I had read a few other comics, the first series I was committed to reading every issue was All-Star Squadron. A book that took place during that “Golden Age.”

I would discover and read other books at that time, some Justice League of America, Brave & and the Bold which would be replaced by Batman and the Outsiders, and The New Teen Titans.

The Titans became a representation of the “Present Day” comics for me, while The Squadron was the represented a modern telling of those original heroes of the Golden Age. I was far more interested in them than any of the new characters and teams that were showing up.

That was the world that I fell in love with. The world of ‘Earth 2’. (I’ll discuss my thoughts on parallel worlds in comics in another post.) But because of this I would become curious and want to learn more all about the heroes of the Golden Age, even those not at DC Comics. I began to do research, with great enjoyment, on all these comic book heroes and heroines of the 1930s and 1940s.

I remember in school one time; I had some graph paper and I attempted to create a crossword puzzle out of the name of every super hero I knew. Wasn’t easy since so many of the names ended in ‘man’.

I read books about comics of the period, and even bought a small “price guide” (Not Overstreet, because I couldn’t afford it), to find out what issues of what comics each hero first appeared in. I loved discovering all those long-lost characters, there are many more I’m only discovering recently and it is still fun. It was that fun that kept me going. Not only enjoying the comics I read, but discovering characters I might never be able to read their stories.

When DC Comics celebrated their 50^th Anniversary they released a monthly series called WHO’S WHO IN THE DC UNIVERSE. Page after page, issue after issue of hundreds of characters from across the DC Comics universe and history. It was fantastic to read, but it didn’t’ include all the heroes I had discovered. I kept exploring, finding reprints to read when I could.

There are so many heroes that are lost to time. Some survived by being bought up by the bigger surviving publishers. Examples of what DC bought:

Fawcett Publishing: the original Captain Marvel, Bulletman, Spy Smasher, and more

Quality Comics: Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, The Ray, Black Condor, Human Bomb, and Phantom Lady.

Charlton Comics: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, The Question, Nightshade, and Peacemaker

Each of these purchases have stories in their own, but for the sake of this blog I’ll mention one. Plastic Man would find his place at DC Comics, but the other Quality Comics character get introduced into the DC Universe on another alternate universe. In Justice League #107 and #108. Only a few issues after the grand #100 which was the digest reprint that had started my love for super heroes, the JLA and JSA once again team up to discover that on Earth X Uncle Sam lead a team of Freedom Fighters that included Black Condor, The Ray, Doll Man, Human Bomb, and Phantom Lady that were still fighting the Nazi’s decades after America lost World War II. The Freedom Fighters would get their own comic series out of that, where they would be joined by another Golden Age character known as Firebrand.

When Roy Thomas wrote the All-Star Squadron years later, he included these heroes into the team, but also showed how they ended up on a dystopian world later. I’m still not certain if that was a good idea, but I’ll get to that and other alternate world issues in another blog entry.

The pantheon of heroes grew, and I wanted to know them all.

A lot of that was the foundation on which I began to build my own world of heroes. More on that later.

I still love to discover lost heroes from the past.

This is a continuing series on comic books as part of an assignment for Toastmasters which will result in a speech on the top of these blogs.

Len Wein – Soldier of Victory

By kevinpsb4

On November 28, 2017

In Uncategorized

This evening my wife, author Shannon Muir, and I will be attending the 2017 Animation Writers Caucus Annual Meeting and Award Presentation at the offices of the Writers Guild of America in Los Angeles. Events like these have always been special to us because at first it was a chance to meet our creative and literary heroes we have looked up to, then becoming fellow animation writers, and in some special cases becoming close friends.

At these annual meetings we honor a writer who has truly added to the animation industry as a writer and creator. This year our presentation must also be a memorial as the award is being given posthumously to writer extraordinaire and friend Len Wein.The outside world knows him best as the creator of Wolverine and Swamp Thing, but he is so much more especially to a little boy who had to sit for hours in a hospital lobby while his grandparents were being taken care of upstairs.

The hospital chaplain took pity on the little boy who had nothing to do on those old vinyl couches than his homework and so gave me two comic books, Superman and The Flash. They were great, and that gift meant a lot to me, but it wasn’t until I wandered into the hospital gift shop that my life was changed forever.

Along side the magazines the small shop had a few very small comic books for sell. One of which, with the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA logo on the top and text at the bottom that read “33 Super-Stars in One Epic Adventure!” with dozens of those heroes jumping of the front and back cover, had my full attention. I convinced my mother to give me the 95 cents to purchase this copy of DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #11.

Opening those four-color pages I found myself tumbling into a wonderful world of super heroes. Yes, I knew of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman from television and cartoons, but there were so many many more. Here I learned not only about the Justice League but also the Justice Society of America, and that there was an Infinite number of parallel earths where more heroes resided.

I was definitely hooked and the DC Universe was my playground from then on.

This digest turned out to be a reprint of JUSTICE LEAGE OF AMERICA #100, 101, and 102, about our heroes on a quest to find seven more heroes lost to the ages.

This great story, that put a boy on a quest to discover all the heroes of the golden age of comics, was written by the great comic book author Len Wein. I would soon be reading many more.

(An interested side note is that Len also edited the Blue Ribbon Digest that it was reprinted in.)

I was not the only one influenced by this comic; fellow comic book writer Gail Simone also marks this story as what began her path into comics.

I learned just the other day that Len himself fell in love with comics as a child while he was in the hospital as well. Though for him it was for medical treatment, but he has stated that those comics and super heroes got him through it.

Now that little boy who sat quietly in the hospital lobby wants to pay his respect to the man who sent towards a career as a comic book and animation writer. I honor you Len for all the stories you have brought to the world, and for being a friend.

Thank you.

Kevin Paul Shaw BrodenFour Names of Professional Creativity