"I Spy... A Comic Book!"

DC's Showcase #50(6/1964) I thought had one of the best covers of any of the silver age comics. It was the re-intro of an early 1950's DC character, "King Faraday", and it sported a beautifully composed drawing of the character parachuting into danger towards a castle, a spotlight shining on him as he shot into it. Little did I know back 44 years ago when I first purchased that comic that it was actually a reprint (even though it did have 4 new pages by Infantino/Anderson/Fox), or that this was a redoing of the cover from the original title in which Faraday appeared, Danger Trail (five issues of which were published in 1950).

When the Faraday stories were reprinted, DC chose tales from Danger Trail #'s 1 & 2, but reprinted them out of order in whcih they originally appeared. So the first SA app. of Faraday in Showcase 50 was actually reprints from Danger Trail #2, and the stories from Showcase #51 reprinted his first story from Danger Trail #1.

Above I have posted the original DT #2 cover, then below it, the SC #50, just for comparison sake. There's also another thing I didn't know. DT #3 is considered one of the most rare DC comics ever to be found from the early 1950's, and even the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide lists it as rare (10 copies of less known to exist)!

I was at my regular comic book shop the other day looking through the back issue long boxes and found that copy of Showcase 50 at what I considered a reasonable price and grabbed it up for my current collection. Great early stuff drawn by Infantino!

Other comics I picked up were issues of the current Supergirl title bringing my set to date thru #27 (save for a #24 that somehow I didn't pick up), The Spirit (DC) up thru #13 and the current JLA title up thru #19. After I've read these I'll give them a review.

Oh yeah...I also found a copy of DC's Sword and Sorcery #3 (1973) to complete that 5 issue run. Nice early Howard Chaykin work from 1973 with a cover inked by Berni Wrightson.

The only Marvel comic I got was the current Fantastic Four (#554) which I was surprized and pleased to see now being done by Mark Miller, Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary The FF hasn't looked this good in a long time and I'm glad that I started rebuying this title some time back as I'm sure I'll quite enjoy their run on the title.

Titles I've given up on include Wonder Woman and Superman Confidential (now that Tim Sale's not on it), altho I "may" regret that later. WW couldn't get any worse, and SC have at times been pretty decent even without Sale's work.

And this rain (Ghod!). I think we've had our fill of it here in South-Central, KY. now enough to last us a couple of months. Weather reports are that we'll get close to 5" before it finally stops tomorrow night, but then it looks like more in the forecast for next week! It's already made me miserable.

I awoke to what is either a severe sinus condition, or a cold, one or the other I'm not sure, yesterday morning. IF it's a sinus condition it usually lasts about three days (I've already gone thru two of those). But...if it's a cold it'll last probably off and on for ten days. I wouldn't put it past being the latter as my wife is now starting to sneeze somewhat and usually if one of us gets "something" they pass it right along to the other. (Pray for me.)