Man, me and my big mouth. I was so pumped for STAR WARS DAY that I totally forgot that there are two comicbook related birthdays on the 3rd of May. Thankfully I have enough material to do posts for both of them.
And since he is the older one we start with Denny O´Neil. As usual I have selected the best original art I currently have for this so it leans heavily towards his work on GREEN LANTERN / GREEN ARROW with Neal Adams.
Which is not a bad choice for a spotlight post about Denny O´Neil´s work.
Not only did these comics change the playing field you know that something is a classic when there is a clear line between before and after. Or when you know what people are talking about with " the drug issue ".
I´m not going to try to explain why these issues were so important as people much smarter than me and more knowledgeable about comics have already done so and when you are really interested in that you can find it in the links of this post. Because it would also blown up the size of this post. Anyway, to Today´s readers the issue above may be a bit hamfisted in how it tackles drugs but when it came out it was one of the two issues that talked about drugs at all. What is now known as the Hardtravelling Heroes were some of the first comics to incorporate real world problems and Neal Adams´ realistic style was perfectly suited for this story type.
If you are a fan of the current ARROW show, it was in this run that the character of Green Arrow begun to emerge with an identity of its own away from the Batman - with - a - bow that he had been up to this point.
The stories also introduced the first black Green Lantern John Stewart who is the Green Lantern from the JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoons. He has come a long way from the stereotypical black dude with an attitude he was in his first appearance. Just wanted to throw that in there for all the comic readers who think the black Captain America Falcon was a big deal.
Denny O´Neil also worked with Neal Adams on the Batman books and apropos bats I always found his Man - Bat stories especially exciting.
And for me the grand opus of these is the story with Ras Al Ghul. A lot of people say Batman´s arch nemesis is the Joker because he´s his opposite like the Flash´s Reverse Flash. But when you really look at it the Reverse Flash is more a dark reflection of the Flash because he has the same powers like the Flash but is evil. Likewise Ras Al Ghul is as smart, rich, resourceful or driven as the Batman but he uses his abilities for evil.
And Ras Al Ghul was not only Batman´s equal, he was his better. He defeated Batman in a duel to the death ( okay, the scorpion is the one who really offed Batman ) and he had the Lazarus Pit to heal himself whenever he was killed. The story also gave us bare chested Batman.
Another reason why I always liked this story is that it reads like a James Bond movie. And Batman is so outclassed by Ras Al Ghul that he has to gather a special team to go up against him. You also get the feeling that Batman might loose which is something that didn´t happen that often.
tempus fugit
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April 28th Lee Falk Mandrake the Magician The Phantom
May the 1st Tim Sale 64
May the 1st Phil Foglio 64
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