The Revolutionary War Wheel--Tomahawk 102-118 Writers

In "The Attack of the 'Gator God" Bill Finger reuses not only the War Wheel that he originated in Blackhawk 56 (Sept/52) at Quality; his heroes use pretty much the same method to defeat it (and Tomahawk's is a little more ingenious, as he leaves footprints over the trap).

Most stories from Tomahawk 102 through 118 are drawn by Fred Ray, but for "The Attack of the 'Gator God" in #105 he only pencils; Bob Brown inks the story. Brown draws "Battle Hat" (#101), "The Frontier Frankenstein" (#103), and "The Ghost of Tomahawk" (#104) as well as the covers through #115. Irv Novick draws "The Mad Miser of Carlyle Castle" (#113).A letter column credits Jerry Grandenetti's pencils along with Joe Orlando's inks (credited for the only time in that combination that I'm aware of, after all the ghosting Grandenetti did for Orlando) on "Tomahawk: Guilty of Murder" (#118). Neal Adams draws the covers of #116-118.

The back-up stories not entered here are reprints; in "The League of Tomahawk Haters" in #113 (from #54), Dan Hunter has been minimally redrawn, recolored, and relettered into the young Ranger, Stovepipe.

Tomahawk 102-118
Writers (underlined=credited on story splash or in another issue's letters page)

J-F/66	#102	The Dragon Killers	France Ed Herron
		Bring Back a Prisoner—Alive	Bill Finger
M-A/	#103	The Frontier Frankenstein	Herron
		The Super-Ranger with Nine Lives	Herron
M-J/	#104	The Fearful Freak of Dunham's Dungeon	Herron
		Take Me Alive	Finger
J-A/	#105	The Attack of the 'Gator God	Finger
		Hold That Bridge	Herron
S-O/	#106	The Ghost of Tomahawk	Herron
		One-Man Fort	Herron
N-D/	#107	The Tribe below the Earth	Herron
		Last Stand of the 3-in-1 Ranger	Herron
J-F/67	#108	New Boss for the Rangers	Herron
M-A/	#109	The Caveman Ranger	Finger
		The Toy Tiger	Herron
M-J/	#110	Tomahawk Must Die	Finger
J-A/	#111	Vengeance of the Devil-Dogs	Herron
S-O/	#112	The Rangers vs. Tomahawk	Finger
N-D/	#113	The Mad Miser of Carlyle Castle	George Kashdan
J-F/68	#114	The Terrible Power of Chief Iron-Hands	Carl Wessler
		Traitor of the Totem Pole	Finger
M-A/	#115	The Deadly Flaming Ranger	Wessler
M-J/	#116	The Last Mile of Massacre Trail	Wessler
		The Making of a Hero	Wessler
J-A/	#117	The Rangers' Last Stand	Dave Wood & Murray   Boltinoff
		The Gauntlet of Doom	Wessler
S-O/	#118	Tomahawk: Guilty of Murder	Kashdan
		The Ranger Who Wouldn't Fight	Herron

Splash page credits begin consistently with #119; the one story thereafter presented uncredited (drawn by Frank Thorne) is this one:

M-A/70

#127

Big Anvil's Big Lie

Kashdan

Batman 121-130 Writers

Jerry Coleman wrote a lot more Superman stories for Mort Weisinger than Batman ones for Jack Schiff, but he did write Batman with Superman for Schiff in most of the heroes' World's Finest team-ups from late 1959 through 1962. Coleman's work calls attention to itself with the sound effects Whammp and Whapp, ones not used by the other Batman writers in this period.

Batman 121-130 Writers

Feb/59	121	The Body in the Bat-Cave	Bill Finger
		Crime Rides the Rails	Finger
		The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero	Dave Wood
Mar/	122	Prisoners of the Sargasso Sea	Finger
		The Cross-Country Crimes	Finger
		The Marriage of Batman and Batwoman	Finger
May/	123	The Secret of the Everglades	Finger
		The Joker's Practical Jokes	Finger
		The Fugitive Batman	Finger
June/	124	The Invisible Batman	Finger
		The Return of Signalman	Finger
		The Mystery Seeds from Space	Wood
Aug/	125	The Secret Life of Bat-Hound	Finger
		King Batman the First	Finger
		The Last Days of Batman	Finger
Sept/	126	The Mystery of the 49th Star	Finger
		The Menace of the Firefly	Finger
		The Batman Lighthouse	Finger
Nov/	127	Batman's Super-Partner	Jerry Coleman
		The Second Life of Batman	Finger
		The Hammer of Thor	Finger
Dec/	128	The Interplanetary Batman	Finger
		The Million Dollar Puzzle	Finger
		The Batman Baby	Finger
Feb/60	129	The Web of the Spinner	Finger
		The Man from Robin's Past	Finger
		Merriweather Jones—Crime Prophet	Coleman
Mar/	130	Batman's Deadly Birthday	Finger
		The Master of Weapons	Finger
		The Hand from Nowhere	Finger

J'onn J'onzz Writers: House of Mystery 143-158

J'onn J'onzz' name at this point in his career is pronounced John Jones, not a French-style Jean Jeans as per the animated Justice League. Not only that, he's an actual Martian, rather than a member of an extra-solar race residing on Mars, as later "realism" demanded.

Previously the series was titled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars, but Manhunter had to abandon his secret identity of Detective John Jones in his last story in Detective (#326, Apr/64), the introduction of the Idol-Head of Diabolu. The story-line of new menaces spawned from the Idol-Head with each full moon continued through HOM 158. (A few issues like #153 and 154 took a break from the ongoing Diabolu storyline.)

A new arc (vs. crime organization Vulture) began in #160 and ran for the remainder of the feature, through HOM 173.

So far the only two writers I've seen on Manhunter from Mars are Miller and Wood, although that's from only a sampling of the Detective run. If, as sheer rumor has it, Joseph Samachson had anything to do with the first story (in Detective 225, Nov/55), it was not in scripting it—Jack Miller did that, to judge by the style.

The artist on every story in the Manhunter from Mars series in the Fifties and Sixties was Joe Certa.

J'onn J'onzz, Manhunter from Mars in House of Mystery 143-158—Writers

June/64	#143	The Giant-Maker	Jack Miller
July/	#144	The Weird World of Gilgana	Miller
Sept/	#145	Secret of the Purple People	Miller
Oct/	#146	The Doom Shadow	Dave Wood
Dec/	#147	The Orchestra of Doom	Miller
Jan/65	#148	The Beings in the Color Rings	Wood
Mar/	#149	The Man-Thing That Unearthed Secrets	Wood
Apr/	#150	The Supernatural Masterpieces	Wood
June/	#151	The Doom from Two Worlds	Miller
July/	#152	Iwangis—Creature King	Miller
Sept/	#153	The Giants Who Slept 1,000,000 Years	Miller
Oct/	#154	The Mirror Martian Manhunter	Miller
Dec/	#155	The Giant Genie of Gensu	Miller
Jan/66	#156	Look What Happened to J'onn J'onzz!	Miller
Mar/	#157	Manhunter, World's Greatest Clown	Miller
Apr/	#158	Origin of the Diabolu Idol-Head	Miller

Cave Carson Writers

Cave Carson, master spelunker, Christie Madison, geologist, and Bulldozer Smith, ex-sandhog strong man, adventured inside Earth in the Mighty Mole, an update of Abner Perry's mole machine in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar novels. Instead of a mechanical screw, this one used an unnamed laser beam—a "thermo ray"—to cut into the rock of the crust. Their first adventure read like a novel itself when I found it as a preteen.

Upon their return in the Showcase run the team did without the Mighty Mole, and made do with mascot Lena the lemur. Bob Haney was credited in the letters page in Showcase 49: "Bob Haney now writes INSIDE EARTH." Note the "now"; he didn't write it before 1964. There was a change of editors: Jack Schiff on Cave's B&Bs, Murray Boltinoff on the Showcases. France Edward Herron is known to have worked on Cave; but a Ka-fuuush! in B&B 33 indicates Dave Wood, and In the next startling moment... and Tense hours elapse... point to Jack Miller in #41. There was only one more artist (four) than writer (three) on the five stories in B&B; Showcase stuck to the one creative team.

Cave Carson: Adventures Inside Earth
in The Brave and the Bold

A-S/60	#31	The Secret beneath the Earth	w: Ed Herron
			a: Bruno Premiani
O-N/	#32	The City 100 Miles Down	w: Herron
			a: Bernard Baily
D-J/61	#33	The Alien Robots from Inner Space	w: Dave Wood
			a: Baily
F-M/62	#40	Three Caverns of Doom	w: Herron
			a: Joe Kubert
A-M/	#41	The Raiders from the Secret World	w: Jack Miller
			a: Mort Meskin

in Showcase

J-F/64	#48	Killers of the Dead-End Maze	w: Bob Haney
			a: Lee Elias
M-A/	#49	The Fury of the Fiery Avenger	w: Haney  a: Elias
S-O/	#52	Prisoners of the Lost World	w: Haney  a: Elias

Writers: Batman 151-163

This is the Batman run that ends when the New Look takes over in #164.

One difference between Bill Finger and Dave Wood in a number of their scripts is that Finger calls Batman the caped crime-fighter and Wood calls him the cowled crime-fighter. Another is that Finger does not use "Great gosh" or "Great grief" as Wood does.

The art on these stories is by Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris, with one exception: Moldoff inks himself on "Bat-Girl—Batwoman II" in #163 (one of Alfred's imaginary stories of the future).

Batman 151-163 Writers

Nov/62	151	Batman's New Secret Identity	Bill Finger
		The Mystery Gadget from the Stars	Jerry Coleman
Dec/	152	Formula for Doom	Finger
		The False Face Society	Finger
		Memorial to an Astronaut	Finger
Feb/63	153	Prisoners of Three Worlds	Finger
Mar/	154	Danger Strikes Four	Finger
		The Amazing Odyssey of Batman and Robin	Finger
		The Strange Experiment of Dr. Dorn	Finger
May/	155	Batman's Psychic Twin	Dave Wood
		The Return of the Penguin	Finger
June/	156	The Secret of the Ant-Man	Finger
		Robin Dies at Dawn	Finger
Aug/	157	The Villain of the Year	Wood
		The Hunt for Batman's Secret Identity	Finger
Sept/	158	Ace—the Super Bat-Hound	Wood
		Secret of the Impossible Perils	Finger
		Batman and Robin—Impostors	Wood
Nov/	159	The Great Clayface-Joker Feud	Finger
		The Boyhood of Bruce Wayne, Jr.	Finger
Dec/	160	The Mystery of Madcap Island	Finger
		The Alien Boss of Gotham City	Wood
Feb/64	161	The New Crimes of the Mad Hatter	Wood
		The Bat-Mite Hero	Wood
Mar/	162	The Batman Creature	Wood
		Robin's New Secret Identity	Wood
May/	163	Bat-Girl—Batwoman II	Finger
		The Joker Jury	Finger

Batman Writers: Detective 301-326



"I must be a creatue of the night..."

This is Batman's best period for me, the one in which I first read him. It didn't hurt to have the original writer still working on the character. The Clayface and Cat-Man series where each story built upon the earlier ones, the Dr. No-Face and Flying Bat-Cave stories, didn't disappoint in the rereading.

The stories I've read now for the first time are just as good. "The Bizarre Batman Genie" stands out—it uses the strange-transformation trope of the period to turn the second half into a Robin/Bat-Girl story when Batman becomes an antagonist.

"Targets of the Alien Z-Ray" in #305 is the only story in this run to use the sound effects Kwoom and Crzzzz and the creature roar "Rawwwr" that Arnold Drake, and not Bill Finger or Dave Wood, employs.

Batman in Detective 301-326—Writers

Mar/62	#301	The Condemned Batman	Bill Finger
Apr/	#302	The Bronze Menace	Finger
May/	#303	Murder in Skyland	Finger
June/	#304	The Return of Clay-Face	Finger
July/	#305	Targets of the Alien Z-Ray	Arnold Drake
Aug/	#306	The Wizard of 1,000 Menaces	Finger
Sept/	#307	Alpha, the Experimental Man	Finger
Oct/	#308	The Flame-Master	Finger
Nov/	#309	The Mystery of the Mardi Gras Murders	Finger
Dec/	#310	Bat-Mite's Super-Circus	Finger
Jan/63	#311	The Challenge of the Cat-Man	Finger
Feb/	#312	The Secret of Clayface's Power	Finger
Mar/	#313	The Mystery of the $1,000,000 Treasure Hunt	Dave Wood
Apr/	#314	Murder in Movieland	Finger
May/	#315	The Jungle Man of Gotham City	Wood
June/	#316	Double Batman vs. Double X	Wood
July/	#317	The Secrets of the Flying Bat-Cave	Finger
Aug/	#318	The Cat-Man Strikes Back	Finger
Sept/	#319	The Fantastic Dr. No-Face	Wood
Oct/	#320	Batman and Robin—the Mummy Crime-Fighters	Wood
Nov/	#321	The Terrible Trio	Wood
Dec/	#322	The Bizarre Batman Genie	Wood
Jan/64	#323	The Zodiac Master	Wood
Feb/	#324	Menace of the Robot Brain	Wood
Mar/	#325	The Strange Lives of the Cat-Man	Finger
Apr/	#326	Captives of the Alien Zoo	Wood

Dial H for Hero and G for Ghosts

It seems Jack Schiff, some time after the Sixties, recalled that Jack Miller had written Dial H for Hero. But then, Julius Schwartz remembered that he himself had used Gardner Fox as one of his writers on Superman. The credits on the Superman stories he edited (and the timing of Fox's being let go from DC) show Schwartz was mistaken. The writing style of the uncredited Dial H stories suggest that Schiff was equally mistaken. Schiff also noted, if I remember correctly, that Bob Kane actually did all the Batman artwork he supplied DC; I hate to think how many attributions on the Grand Comics Database would have to be changed if Schiff's recollections are taken for gospel on all subjects.

Jack Miller certainly did write for House of Mystery when it carried Dial H, but he wrote the Martian Manhunter stories. He and Dave Wood share some ways of writing—both use "Great ghosts" and Tense moments later..., but they differ in other ways. Where Wood uses "O-oh," Miller makes use of "Oh-h-h-h." The first Dial H story, among others, has a couple of instances of Wood's pausing after a first word: "I'm...back to normal again!" and "He's...entering an escape hatch of some kind!"

The two Otto Binder stories contain his old standby "Ulps." The Bill Finger story uses "Wha-aat." The Dick Wood stories boast "Great suffering cats" and "Howling horrors." Since these are the only stories of his I've seen for DC at this time—he had moved over to Gold Key, King, and Harvey—I wonder if he ghosted them for his brother Dave.

And I believe the final Dial H for Hero story is another example of Charles Nicholas' ghost pencilling for Sal Trapani. The pose of the policeman in the middle panel is typical Nicholas.

Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery

Jan/66	#156	Dial H for Hero	w: Dave Wood  a: Jim Mooney
Mar/	#157	The Marauders from Thunderbolt Island	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Apr/	#158	Dial V for Villain	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
June/	#159	The Clay-Creep Clan	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
July/	#160	The Wizard of Light	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Sept/	#161	The Mummy with Six Heads	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Oct/	#162	The Monster-Maker of Littleville	w: Bill Finger  a: Mooney
Dec/	#163	Baron Bug and His Insect Army	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Jan/67	#164	Dr. Cyclops—the Villain with the Doomsday Stare	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Mar/	#165	The Freak Super-Heroes	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: George Roussos
Apr/	#166	The King of the Curses	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
June/	#167	The Fantastic Rainbow Raider	w: Otto Binder  p: Mooney i: Roussos
July/	#168	The Marauding Moon Man	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
Sept/	#169	The Terrible Toymaster	w: Binder  a: Mooney
Oct/	#170	Thunderbolt's Secret Weapon	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Dec/	#171	The Micro-Monsters	w: Dick Wood  a: Frank Springer
Feb/68	#172	The Monsters from the H-Dial	w: Dick Wood  a: Springer
Apr/	#173	Revolt of the H-Dial	w: Dave Wood  p: Charles Nicholas  i: Sal Trapani

Covers by Jim Mooney except #163: Carmine Infantino/Joe Giella; 171: Nick Cardy; 172: Frank Springer; and 173: Jack Sparling.