World’s Best Comics: Golden Age Sampler

    (DC, 2003)
™ and © DC Comics, Inc.

This is basically an advertisement for DC’s spectacular Archives series, but with four complete stories for less than a buck, it’s hard to pass up — especially for fans of Golden Age material who can’t afford to fork over $50 a pop for the hardcover collections (much less the fortune it would take to purchase original copies of the comics themselves). The reprinted tales include a story apiece from Superman (1st Series) #6, Batman #5, Sensation Comics #11 (starring Wonder Woman), and Police Comics #11 (starring Plastic Man).

The package is educational as well as entertaining. Those largely unfamiliar with comics of the era will learn of the fun (if clunky and naïve) story-telling skills of such legends as Jerry Siegel and Bill Finger, the ahead-of-their-time renderings of the great Jack Cole, the smooth artistry of H.G. Peter, and the fetishistic quirkiness of psychologist-turned-writer William Moulton Marston. (Wonder Woman’s astral body travels to the planet Eros, where people love bondage and prison.)

Modern readers will marvel at the differences between the original versions of these characters and their present-day counterparts. For example, in his early comic-book years, Superman leaped about from place to place (as opposed to flying, which was introduced in The Adventures of Superman radio program), and Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson lived in an apartment (as opposed to stately Wayne Manor).

— Brett Weiss
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  NotesWriterArtist
#1

December, 2003
Cover Price: $0.99
6 copies available from $1.99 		Jerry Siegel, Bill Finger, William Moulton Marston, Jack ColeWayne Boring, Bob Kane, Harry G. Peter, Jack Cole