World's Finest # 214, November, 1972

Well, that didn't take long at all. Here we are already at the last issue of the non-Batman team-ups. It's a pretty good one though, of fly crediting Skeates with two parts of the story and O'Neil with two more.We start with a cover where Cardy's werewolf is much scarier than Dillin's inside, though. 

Never understood why DC made the decision to revive Vigilante in an Earth 1 version in JLA a couple years before this but I did like the character and Gray Morrow had a field day drawing some of his adventures. Vig would return to the WF pages as the title continued to evolve.

Let's see, with Batman cameos, returns and reprints, it's almost like he's never really been gone.

And here we have the big problem with reviving vigilante. He uses guns and kills people. Here. it's a werewolf so they rationalize it but the Code frowned on killing from comic book heroes.

On to next issue and the return of Batman! Well...that's not all we get starting next ish. Sigh...

World's Finest # 213, September, 1972

We lose the cool Golden Age reprints starting this month as we go back down to twenty cents. We also go to straight bi-monthly rather than 8 times a year. We start off with a colorful cover by the recently deceased (in 2013) Nick Cardy, soon to be THE DC cover artist of the decade.

It's a good story, too, from Elliot S! Maggin. I particularly like the private life of Clark Kent details.

Noting panels like the two below, I'd swear someone other than Giella worked on this one as well.There a re  couple more later on like that one. Looks more like Giordano than Giella...but only a  few panels.

The artists draw themselves in an obvious cameo.

So hey save the day and we end up back home for a punchline.

Kirby was on the wane at DC already as the 4th World titles faded out to be replaced by others. The first couple--THE DEMON and KAMANDI would be quite good but then thugs would change. Even his worst creations from the seventies--like OMAC and KOBRA--would end up with long-lasting implications at DC.

World's Finest # 212, June, 1972

Here we have yet another chapter in the endlessly convoluted continuity of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Written out of the JLA, he had several false starts at comebacks, most of which, as here,  offered continuity implants that mucked things up. 

Once again, Superman loses his powers. A point mentioned often around this time was that the character had gotten TOO powerful and that one simply couldn't write for such an all-powerful character. Still, if one is constantly taking AWAY all his powers, it seems like it might just as well have been any other hero. It didn't need to be Superman.

I had enjoyed Howard Purcell's art at Marvel a few years earlier but I hadn't realized until this reprint that he'd been around that long. I had thought him to be a new artist.

Like most fans, I hated George Roussos' inking on Jack Kirby's FANTASTIC FOUR. I believe the reprint below was the first time I had seen his excellent Golden Age pencils. Blew me away. 

World's Finest # 211, May, 1972

A great if misleading cover from Neal tops a particularly good Denny O'Neil story that would have been right at home in a mid-sixties Weisinger issue. I would have loved to have seen this tale drawn by Swan and Klein but the current team, Dick and Joe, do some of their best work. 

We start with the old cliche of the friendly aliens arriving on Earth searching for an escaped criminal from their world. Then Denny gives it a "relevant" twist. 

The Golden Age Green Lantern is one of my favorite forties heroes and this was one of the earliest times I saw one of his original solo appearances.