Wednesday, November 21

The Spider #6: The Citadel of Hell (March 1934)

Screen shot of the ePub format
viewed through iBooks
on an iPhone 4S
By Norvell Page writing as Grant Stockbridge. Originally published in The Spider Magazine, March 1934. Republished by RadioArchives (2012) in the ebook series, “Will Murray's Pulp Classics.”

As I've probably mentioned, I returned early last year (2011) after many years to a genre that I read fairly heavily in during my youth, which corresponded with the waning years of its earlier revival during the 1960s and 1970s, that of the 1930s and '40s pulp heroes. One series that I had only heard of, never read all those years ago, was The Spider: Master of Men! The current pulp heroes' revival is being greatly facilitated by the easy availability of ebook editions, some authorized, some unauthorized. Distinguishing between “authorized” and “unauthorized” can be rather dicey, I gather, because a great deal of pulp fiction has lapsed into the public domain. Such seems to be the case for the first five or so of this series, because I found them readily available in multiple locations around the Internet. I burned through them pretty quickly, pretty much in order – not that it matters that much for The Spider because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of carry-through of plot elements. As far as I can tell, with only a few minor characters or story elements coming or going into the series as exceptions, an early Spider tale is much like a later one. So when I found the next readily available source for the series to be in the randomly published Pulp Doubles series from Girasol, I started picking those up and reading them in a rather haphazard fashion, and by no means continuously as I'd read the first through the fifth stories.

Then, earlier this year RadioArchives announced the appearance of its ebook editions, complete with series introductions by one of the pre-eminent historians of the pulp genre, Will Murray. I purchased and read a couple, but still at first they were in random sequence. And I have a fair amount of other things I'm also reading, as you know. At some point, however, RA went back to the beginning of the series and started publishing them in order, and filling in the gaps around the ones they'd already released. Finally, in late August or early September, I believe, they announced the “Total Pulp Experience” upgrade to their “Will Murray's Pulp Classics” line, whereby not just the lead novel from each magazine would be included, but also the short stories that usually appeared as back-of-the-book features, along with original editorials and letter columns. All that are missing are the ads and the original interior illustrations. And the process of getting the books onto an ereader device has been streamlined so they are direct downloads from the RA website rather than the previous, rather cumbersome, zip-files containing the ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats together. They are also available directly through the Kindle book store, the iBook store, and the Barnes & Noble book store, in their respective formats.

RadioArchives has been steadily churning “Will Murray's Pulp Classics” out for the past several months, so that at this point virtually all of the legendary Captain Future series by Edmund Hamilton are available, as well as the first couple dozen Operator #5 pulps, a smattering of offerings from other series, all in addition to a couple dozen Spider issues. This link [ here ] should take you to the current titles. All at a very affordable price – about $4 apiece – considering what you would pay for any of these original pulp magazines if you could even find them in readable condition – or the hard copy reprints or facsimiles that are still being published, which range from about $15 all the way up to $35 or $40 apiece. Those are also available through RA, by the way [ see here ]. But for my money, the ebooks are the way I'll be going in the future as I slowly work my way through these great old stories.

Which is a very long introduction to my review of RadioArchives' “Will Murray's Pulp Classics” ebook edition of The Spider Magazine for March 1934, containing the sixth recorded adventure of “The Master of Men” (I still don't know exactly where that subtitle comes from, but was on the covers from the beginning), entitled The Citadel of Hell, written by Norvell Page under the series' pen-name Grant Stockbridge, along with two short stories – “Killer's Knout” by Anson Hatch and “The Standing Corpse” by G. T. Fleming-Roberts. All things being equal, despite the relative lack of any sequential continuity to the series, I would rather read the stories in their original publication order, so the earliest in sequence that I had not read last year seemed like a good place to take the series back up again.

Each issue is fronted with an essay by Will Murray, “Meet the Spider!,” offering a brief introduction to the character, his place in the history of pulp heroes, and his significance in a wider context, including as part of Stan Lee's inspiration for the Amazing Spider-Man. This essay is a series introduction, not an issue introduction, being the same from issue to issue, but does make for a good entry for someone picking up any of the stories at random for their first exposure to the character.

The Spider in The Citadel of Hell, by “Grant Stockbridge”

Fire bombers target New York City's food supply, leading to famine and starvation. To what end beyond creating chaos and a monopoly that they control I'm not sure, but you don't necessarily read the adventures of the Spider for rational, well-thought-out villainous plans. You read them for the driving, outrageous, over-the-top narrative that renders such trivial details of little concern, only occurring to the reader afterward. It makes for a typically frenetic tale that is quite hard to put down, but even harder to abstract.

Here is a very poor attempt. The Food Destroyers' foul plot progresses far along as they proceed virtually unopposed when the Spider is wounded and almost killed in a confrontation with law enforcement, managing only with nail-biting difficulty to reach safe haven with his scientific guru Dr Brownlee where he spends weeks convalescing. That's something I've noticed in several of the stories I've read, that the narrative seems to encompass well more than the month that separated the publication of the pulp magazine issues. I suspect that if you built a comprehensive time line based on the internal evidence of the passage of time as given in the stories themselves you would end up with the Spider's career spanning quite a bit more than the ten or so years that the magazine was in publication, from 1933 to 1943. But thinking too hard about that is as unprofitable as considering how many scores, hundreds, or even thousands of New Yorkers met their dooms in typical issues, as well as the wholesale destruction of large parts of the city including well-known landmarks, that frequently occurred. In the end, all would apparently be well and – more importantly – reset to the status quo ante for the next adventure to wreak similar havoc.

In any case, Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick comes closer than ever, here just half a dozen episodes into the hundred-plus adventures, to proving that his good friend Richard Wentworth is indeed the Spider whom he is sworn to bring to justice. “Kirk” nevertheless (as always) recognizes the nobility and good that the outlaw accomplishes, and – not for the first nor the last time – essentially lets him go in the end. In this story, however, the Spider is hounded by a new (I believe) antagonist among New York's law enforcement officials, District Attorney Glastonbury, who keeps Dick's fiancée and accomplice Nita Van Sloan off-stage for most of this story, in jail and accused of being the Spider's henchwoman. There is more of a sense than I've ever gotten from earlier or later stories that Dick is a hunted fugitive, which culminates in a preliminary hearing where he outwits the DA and would seem to make a bitter enemy of him. Is Glastonbury a recurring character? – I don't remember him from earlier adventures, but it's been a year and a half or more since I read them, nor do I recall him from the scattering of later stories that I've read.

An unusual twist in the usually formulaic stories is that a girl who comes into and out of the narrative, who believes that the Spider murdered her boy friend at the beginning of the issue, does not as I expected eventually realize the hero's innocence, become his ally, and end up reunited with her miraculously still-living beau. No, the boy friend is well and truly dead, and she is herself ultimately killed in the final confrontation with the evil mastermind in the story's climax, which sees the girl and the mastermind – who really killed her lover, of course – plunging to their deaths together as a fiery comet from the dirigible mast of the Empire State Building. It's quite a memorable scene.

According to the short summary of the tale given at The Spider Returns website, one notable aspect of this story is that this is the first time that the Spider, a master of disguise among his many other talents, uses the identity of the old violinist Tito Caliepi to pass unrestricted here, there, and yonder while the Spider and his true identity of Dick Wentworth remain in hiding.

Killer's Knout” by Anson Hatch

Whether the protagonists of this and the other short story are one-time characters or part of back-up series of short stories that appeared in multiple issues, I don't know at this time. All I know is that they are all new to me. Frankly, there's not a whole lot to recommend – or distinguish – either story. They seem to be typical albeit very short examples of the same brand of bloody pulp heroic adventure as marked the magazine's lead feature.

Basically, in “Killer's Knout,” the hero, criminologist Oliver Hazard, and his police ally Inspector Brunt, have been working to thwart an evil figure known only as “Number One,” who has been mercilessly working his way through wholesale torture and bloodshed to control of the city. They are presented with a new clue – a ruined victim of Number One's torture who is delivered to Brunt, along with the message that Hazard and Brunt “shall be as he is.” When Brunt is shortly thereafter kidnapped, Hazard desperately searches for him, finding him just in time even as the police inspector is being hideously tortured – by a “friend” of Hazard's whom the criminologist had long suspected of being the true identity of “Number One.” Part of his reasoning demonstrates a virulent example of overt 1930s racism: “I suspect Number One [to be] of Asiatic origins for several reasons. His insatiable thirst for personal power, for one thing. And then, his methods of revenge are carried out with refinements of cruelty of which an Occidental would hardly dream.” The “friend” is indeed a mysterious “Mongoloid” Russian, Basil Marakoff – as Hazard proclaims, “There are other Oriental nations than the Chinese.” And the knout is a Russian implement of torture, a form of whip that could inflict a degree of flogging that could result in death, that Marakoff had been so brazen as to boast of to Hazard. Of course, Hazard manages to defeat Marakoff and save Brunt.

The Standing Corpse” by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

On the verge of committing suicide by casting himself from a bridge, newly flat broke millionnaire wastrel Nick Bower is interrupted in his intention when he finds a corpse standing against the railing – a corpse from which the brain has been removed. Through a series of circumstances thereafter, Bower ends up confronting and thwarting the Brain Thief – a stereotypical mad scientist who believes the murders he is perpetrating are for the greater good of mankind. He means to avert the human race going collectively insane by studying the brains of healthy people – that he must harvest for himself: “While other scientists seek to fathom the mystery of insanity by examining the brains of ordinary cadavers, they forget that men who insist on becoming cadavers are not men after which to pattern a race. Only by studying the brains of the normal people can we hope to breed a normal race! That is why I, the greatest brain specialist in the world, shall continue my 'mad scheme' of obtaining perfect specimens of the human brain!” You can't beat logic like that! In any case, Bower prevents him from continuing his "mad scheme," and one senses that in so doing the destitute millionaire finds the will to live despite the loss of his riches.

The Web – A Department”

The issue closed with what seems to have been a place-holder for a letter column, announcing that more and more letters are coming in praising the series and its hero, but even moreso seems to have had as its purpose flogging a new product being offered by Popular Publications, a SPIDER ring “of non-tarnishable white metal, with an inlaid spider of red enamel against a black enamel field,” purchase of which gains membership in the SPIDER LEAGUE FOR CRIME PREVENTION, an organization “devoted solely and exclusively to law-enforcement and the suppression of crime.” Available by returning the enrollment page printed in the original magazine along with a paltry 25 cents. Wow! I bet they cost more now! If you can find them!

Cheers! – and Thanks for reading!

Friday, November 16

Dynamite Comics – Dec 2012

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the Dynamite Entertainment comics that were released during October that I received at the beginning of November. Caution: Spoilers ahead.

Cover C (25%) by John Cassaday
The Shadow #6 [ link to previous issue ]
The Fire of Creation: Conclusion”

Everything that has happened is part of the Shadow's plan – of course. Lamont Cranston has been acting as an agent of US military intelligence to successfully get the vital weapons-grade mineral Uranium 235 out of China and into US hands. I misread the dumb-ass Finnegan as British – he's actually American, but just as dumb-ass. He's serving a purpose as well, however, providing cover and a diversion for Cranston. The plan, of course, meets with success, with plenty of Japanese blood being spilled along the way. The main Japanese villain Kondo gets away, but the epilogue shows him being caught unawares in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

I'm sure there are a lot of Shadow fans who are really enjoying this series, and it has been good enough. But it's not really for me. It's obviously based more on the radio version of the character, with plenty of tweaks even from that, I'm sure, but even though I've not read all that many of the pulp novels, those are my Shadow. I won't be continuing with this series from here on out.


Cover B (50%) by Paul Renaud
Lord of the Jungle #8 [ link to previous issue ]
Just Take It: The Concrete Jungle 2 of 2”

The villainous Canler, having been humiliated by Tarzan, kidnaps Jane and her father to lure him into a trap. The confrontation goes about as you would imagine it would. In the end, the only reason Tarzan does not kill him is because he is trying to be “civilized,” for the sake of Jane, so he leaves him strung up for the police to find. He lives, I'm sure to return to Dynamite's adaptation/expansion of the original Burroughs novels at some time in the future. He's basically a blank slate as Burroughs never did anything with the character after his minor role in the first novel.

As for Jane and Tarzan, this is of course not enough to bring them back together – that would be too radical a departure from the books, and we're not to that point in the saga yet. Jane is, however, upset because her fiancé Cecil Clayton has been acting differently since they were in Wisconsin. In a flashback, we see why – he found and read the discarded telegram to Tarzan from d'Arnot, revealing that Tarzan is indeed his own cousin and the true Greystoke heir.

This was probably my least favorite of all the Dynamite issues thus far. I found the art noticeably lower in quality. The story is so-so, mainly redeemed by the intriguing fact that it is the longest (albeit non-canonical) look at Tarzan's first time away from the jungle, during the period between the end of the first book and the beginning of the second.


Cover A (50%) by Paul Renaud
Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #17 [ link to previous issue ]
[“Vampire Men of Saturn, Part 1 of 3”]

We find that Dejah Thoris has been taken prisoner by the mysterious air ship she spied upon emerging from the cave in the frozen north of Barsoom – and has been transported all the way to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, or rather Vano, the largest moon of Strio, as her captor calls it, or rather Xasoom as the Barsoomians call the ringed planet. She is in the hands of one of the Vathek, a race of vampires intent on conquering Mars. With the help of a fellow prisoner – one of the Palidors, a race kept by the Vathek as cattle, sources of blood – she escapes on a flying mount, but a lucky shot by their pursuers leaves her plunging toward the ground from a height that even her increased relative strength imparted by the relative size of Barsoom and Vano will not save her from.

Frankly, this story is doing little more for me than the “Boora Witch” story arc. I find the art strikingly bad, although the story on my second reading turns out not to be as bad as I found it at first. At least there is a pseudo-scientific reason for the Vatheks' vampirism rather than being supernatural.


Cover A (50%) by Paul Renaud
Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #18
[“Vampire Men of Saturn, Part 2 of 3”]

Opening in mid-fall, we find that Dejah Thoris has not only super-strength because of the lighter gravity of Titan as compared to Mars, but she can all but fly like Superman! Actually, “That wasn't flying! It was falling with style!”
In any case, Dejah Thoris and her new pal Svero reach his people, and she enters into an alliance with them to carry out a plan that will rid not just Titan but also Saturn of the Vathek entirely. Wholesale genocide! You go, girl! Then victory becomes crucial when it transpires that the Vathek are even now carrying through with their invasion of Barsoom and have deployed a device that will destroy the Atmosphere Factory. Dejah Thoris attacks the control tower for the device – but is then betrayed by Svero himself!

Ditto comment from issue #17.


Cheers!, and Thanks for reading!

Thursday, November 15

DC Comics Covergirls (2007) – The Cardy Women Addition

Art by Alex Ross
By Louise Simonson

I picked this book up – actually in its 2012 Barnes & Noble reprint edition – last weekend off B&N's bargain shelves. It's interesting – full of the various beautiful women of DC Comics as they have appeared on covers through the years – Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, and so forth. Not just heroines – anti-heroines such as Catwoman, and even villainesses such as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, get sections or at least notice thrown their way.  Many are oversized, full-page reproductions.  There is plenty of commentary as well, sometimes humorous, putting the covers into their historical context both in comic-book and wider societal developments.

There is a glaring omission, however. Partly it arises from considerable bias toward the more recent period with only a relative few scattered from before the past couple of decades of DC Comics' now 75-plus-year history. And, partly, that's understandable. Artists such as Adam Hughes, who figures prominently and writes the foreword as well, have provided a great many cover images guaranteed to make any red-blooded male fan's eye linger a bit overlong. But I would say that there is at least one artist from several decades ago, mainly the late 1960s and early 1970s, who deserves more than the one or two examples that appear scattered through this book. For a period in the early 1970s Nick Cardy seems to have been DC's cover-artist of choice. And even before that, his renditions of Mera in the pages as well as on the covers of Aquaman, as well as Donna Troy Wonder Girl in Teen Titans, fed many pubescent fantasies of this Absent-Minded Professor-to-be. Donna Troy is given a few covers in the “Wonder Woman” section of this book. Poor Mera, however, is confined to one (p. 205) – unless I missed some more – and not even a single one by the great Nick Cardy, who made her look so perfectly luscious!

Text edited by myself
I consider this to be enough of an injustice that I have now spent considerable time collecting a fairly exhaustive gallery of cover images that I wish to present as sort of an unofficial addition to Simonson's DC Comics Covergirls volume. It is arranged somewhat along the same lines as the book, but Cardy's body of cover illustration does, in my mind, necessitate the addition of a couple of sections.  But within those sections, the freedom of the Internet allows for a more comprehensive presentation than the necessarily selective limitations imposed by the print medium.  So here are virtually all of the covers that Nick Cardy drew for DC Comics prominently featuring what have become known and admired as "Cardy Women."

First, a couple of links: The Wikipedia article (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cardy) gives a good quick overview of Cardy's life and career. A fan has created an homage website which can be found here: http://nickcardy.com/ .

The first major section in DC Comics Covergirls as published is devoted to Wonder Woman, the “third person” of the DC Comics “trinity” – Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. She is, of course, Princess Diana of Paradise Island (also known as Themyscira). Well, in her own realm by right, as well as being the wife of Aquaman, the King of Atlantis and “of the Seven Seas,” Mera is a Queen … and so deserving priority.  Therefore I begin with a section devoted to her.


MERA

Aquaman #11 (Oct 1963)
Mera is not actually Atlantean.  She is native to an other-dimensional water world.  Even in this, her first outing from the pencils of Nick Cardy, one of the distinctive elements of Mera's appearance was present.  In a relatively primitive age of four-color printing when shading and a sense of depth and texture were imparted most often by means of sketchy lines, the intricate design of her costume allowed for her bodily curves to stand out in a way that was absent from most other characters.  Perhaps the best example can be seen on Aquaman #18 below.
Aquaman #13 (Feb 1964)
Aquaman #14 (Apr 1964)

Aquaman #16 (Aug 1964)

Aquaman #17 (Oct 1964)
  
Aquaman #18 (Dec 1964)
Aquaman #19 (Feb 1965)

Aquaman #22 (Aug 1965)

Aquaman #23 (Oct 1965)

Aquaman #24 (Dec 1965)

Aquaman #26 (Apr 1966)
Aquaman #27 (Jun 1966)

Aquaman #34 (Aug 1967)

Aquaman #37 (Feb 1968)

Aquaman #40 (Aug 1968)

Aquaman #46 (Oct 1969)

Aquaman #55 (Feb 1971)
Aquaman #33 (6/67)
Another young Atlantean girl associated with the Aqua-family was Aqualad's girl friend Tula, also known as Aquagirl.

Aquaman #48 (Oct 1969)

Teen Titans #30 (Dec 1970)
Aqualad being a founding member of the super hero sidekicks known as the Teen Titans, Aquagirl would occasionally appear in that title as well.

WONDER WOMAN

Surprisingly, Nick Cardy did not provide more than a handful of covers featuring Wonder Woman herself.

Secret Origins #3 (Aug 1973)
Nevertheless, Cardy's cover for the representation of the Amazon Princess' origin story deservedly attained iconic status, appearing on a variety of merchandising.

Wonder Woman #205
(This image is included in DC Comics Covergirls, p. 55, as an example of the frequent association of the Amazing Amazon with missiles ... interpreted as having phallic symbolism.)

Wonder Woman #206 (Jun 1973)

Wonder Woman #216 (Mar 1975)
However, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cardy was the main artist depicting the female Teen Titan, Wonder Woman's foster sister Donna, who took the surname Troy and the heroic identity of Wonder Girl.  (Since Simonson groups Donna Troy's covers with Wonder Woman's in DC Comics Covergirls, so do I here.)
Brave and Bold #60 (Jul 1965)
Although she did not appear in the fledgling team's first outing, in Brave and Bold #54, Donna seems very happy to be invited on their second mission a few months later.

Teen Titans #16 (Aug 1968)

Teen Titans #21 (Jun 1969)

Teen Titans #22 (Aug 1969)

Teen Titans #23 (Oct 1969)
Another of the few covers by Nick Cardy included in the Covergirls collection (p. 48), this introduction of  "the new Wonder Girl" likewise became iconic and has been reprinted many times.

Teen Titans #26 (Apr 1970)
... And yet, almost as soon as she took a new costume, it seemed like Donna was discarding it.  She and her team mates, however deeply affected they were by the traumatic failure they had suffered (in issue #25), soon found reason to assume their heroic identities once more.

Teen Titans #27 (Jun 1970)
Teen Titans #31 (Feb 1971)

Teen Titans #34 (Aug 1971)

The Brave and the Bold #102 (Jul 1972)

Teen Titans #43 (Feb 1973)

Teen Titans Lost Annual 2008
As evidence that forty or fifty years have not diminished his artistic skills, Cardy provided this retro cover just a few years ago.  Having seen Donna grow up in Cardy's pencils, it was a refreshing glance back at a younger, fresher time.
Teen Titans #33 (Jun 1971)
Donna Troy Wonder Girl was not, of course, the only young lady associated with the Teen Titans.  Besides the occasional appearance of Aquagirl noted above, in the later issues of the run there was the mysterious Lilith.

LOIS LANE

Somewhat surprisingly, Nick Cardy provided few covers prominently featuring the women in the Man of Steel's life.

Action Comics #445 (Mar 1975)
This one, however, from the last couple of months of Cardy's association with DC Comics before moving on to an illustrious career in advertising, shows him at the height of his art -- and just how wonderfully curvy Cardy women could be! -- and without becoming distorted caricatures such as prevail in modern comic art.

Superman #281 (Nov 1974)

Superman Family #169 (Mar 1975)
SUPERGIRL

DC Special #3 (Jun 1969)
I hesitated to put this under the "Supergirl" heading even though she is front and center because I believe she was drawn by Neal Adams.  Credit for the cover is, however, given to Nick Cardy, and all the other figures, both male and female, are obviously from his pen.  It is, regardless, a great image of the Maid of Might!

Superman Family #165 (Jul 1974)

Superman Family #168 (Jan 1975)
GOTHAM GIRLS

Superman #279 (Sep 1974)
Batman #208 (Feb 1969)

The Brave and the Bold #91 (Sep 1970)

 NEW GENERATION

Superboy #197 (Sep 1973)

Superboy #200 (Feb 1974)

Superboy #203 (Aug 1974)

DC did not introduce its "Vertigo" imprint until much later, but during the Silver Age and early Bronze Age super-heroes were not the only genre you could find on the spinner-racks.  DC published many titles in both the horror and romance genres, and Nick Cardy contributed a great many covers to both throughout his career.  Therefore, I would add those sections as well.

HORROR

The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #4 (Apr 1972)

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #5 (Jun 1972)

Ghosts #1 (Oct 1971)

Ghosts #4 (Apr 1972)

Ghosts #14 (Apr 1973)
The House of Secrets #95 (Jan 1972)

The House of Secrets #114 (Dec 1973)

Secrets of Sinister House #5 (Jul 1972)

Unexpected #127 (Sep 1971)

Unexpected #132 (Feb 1972)

Unexpected #134 (Apr 1972)

Unexpected #145 (Mar 1973)
Weird Mystery Tales #3 (Dec 1972)

The Witching Hour #20 (May 1972)

The Witching Hour #32 (Jul 1973)

The Witching Hour #46 (Sep 1974)

ROMANCE

Falling in Love #79 (Nov 1965)

Falling in Love #112 (Jan 1970)

Falling in Love #113 (Feb 1970)

Falling in Love #119 (Nov 1970)

Falling in Love #120 (Jan 1970)
Girls' Love Stories #139 (Nov 1968)

Girls' Love Stories #148 (Jan 1970)

Girls' Romances #144 (Oct 1969)

Girls' Romances #147 (Mar 1970)

Girls' Romances #148 (Apr 1970)

Heart Throbs #121 (Sep 1969)
Young Love #107 (Jan 1974)

Young Romance #157 (Jan 1969)

Young Romance #163 (Jan 1970)

MISCELLANEOUS

Action Comics #415 (Aug 1972)

Aquaman #39 (Jun 1969)

Aquaman #51 (Jun 1970)

The Brave and the Bold #92 (Nov 1970)

The Brave and the Bold #101 (May 1972)

The Brave and the Bold  #103 (Oct 1972)
Bat Lash #1 (Nov 1969)

Bat Lash #3 (Mar 1969)

Batman #257 (Aug 1974)

Congo Bill #1 (Sep 1954)
These three are the earliest Nick Cardy covers for DC Comics of which I am aware.

Congo Bill #2 (Nov 1954)

Congo Bill #3 (Jan 1955)

Justice League of America #107 (Oct 1973)This cover holds a good bit of significance for me because it is the first time I ever laid eyes on the beautiful Phantom Lady.  Her costume made quite the impression on me!

Superman #261 (Feb 1973)

The Spirit #31 (Sep 2009)
This is the latest published Cardy cover of which I am aware.

Strange Adventures #241 (Apr 1973)
And there you have it, an all-but-complete gallery of covers prominently (and sometimes not-so-prominently) featuring the lovely women of DC Comics as drawn by my all-time favorite artist, Nick Cardy.

Cheers, and Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you've enjoyed the show!