World's Finest # 100, March, 1959

Well, here it is! The issue that was on the stands when I was born in January of 1959! For the longest time, this was also the oldest issue I owned! What? Oh, yeah, it IS issue # 100, isn't it? Too bad this was before the comics companies started making a big deal about such things. Nothing special to see here. Move along.

This issue's lead story has Lex Luthor re-creating Brainiac's shorn ray to shrink himself and his minions so they can take over "Krypton City" in Superman's fortress. This, of course, is odd because we all know the shrunken bottled city as Kandor. 

Basically, Superman follows them and then Batman follows him and they try to stop the gang in the bottle. 

 When the gang leaves the bottle and returns to normal size, even a shrunken Supes is able to put the kibosh on them. 

There was one thing of some importance, in my opinion, this issue. That's the debut of former Harvey artist Lee Elias, a prolific comic book artist in the Milton Caniff mode, on GREEN ARROW. Elias would prove to be my favorite GA artist, actually. He would later tackle TOMMY TOMORROW, ADAM STRANGE and ULTRA, THE MULTI-ALIEN for DC. Still later, he became an early instructor for the Jor Kubert School. 

World's Finest # 99, February, 1959

This one is not really one of the best-remembered Batman/Superman tea-ups but it's kind of fun. Essentially a variation on the classic BREWSTER'S MILLIONS (later done well in a JIMMY OLSEN comic of the sixties), Batman has to spend $1,000,000.00 in 24 hours as a secret proxy for an injured man. Superman and Robin think he's flipped as he isn't allowed to tell them so they secretly work to MAKE him money from his seemingly frivolous spending!

Flash now had his own magazine. Things were changing rapidly.

Here we have a pre-Odd Couple odd couple in a classic sitcom-style moment.

Kirby, Kirby, Kirby!

World's Finest # 98, December, 1958

This time we get a great Swan/Ray Burnley cover with some great Sprang/Kaye insides. The story features a Jekyll/Hyde astronaut as villain in what must be one of the earliest moon-centric tales. This type of thing would be common in the Apollo years.

BLACKHAWK was one of the titles DC picked up from rival Quality when it went out of business. The title had been Quality's best-selling ones and, in fact, one of the best-selling comics of all for a few years. So DC continued it as essentially a sci-fi title well into the sixties.

World's Finest # 97, October, 1958

A typically enticing cover lately and the story's kind of fun as well but it's another of those where the World's Finest team sets up a complicated sting to capture a criminal when there surely HAD to be simpler ways to do it. 

The Superman TV series had ended by this point but as superheroes began to rise again in popularity, Superman was more popular than ever and was appearing in 7 titles.

More Kirby. As readers of our DAYS OF ADVENTURE blog will recall, Jack was drawing the GA stories in ADVENTURE COMICS at this time, too.