Number 2595: The great lover, Jon Juan

Jon Juan, is, as today’s title declares, a great lover. In the story we are told he is a man who gets what he wants.

Jerry Siegel and Alex Schomburg are the writer and artist who did this story of a gallant gentleman/sex addict. Jon is not only the world’s greatest lover, he can fight, too. Swordplay! Even a scene of knife fighting! To Jon Juan a kiss is worth risking a fight with armed interlopers. He is immortal. On the make and doesn't die. A longtime dream of many men...although 'tis just a fantasy. 

The story was originally published in Toby Comics’ one-shot, Jon Juan (1950). I got it from a 1958 IW reprint, Dream of Love #8. I showed the story previously in 2011.

Number 2554: Having the time of his life...or death

I like stories about time travel, aliens from other planets, dinosaurs, and Murphy Anderson’s artwork. So we have all of those elements in “The Cycle of Time.” A driver hits and kills a man with his car, some alien scientists land and claim they are from Alpha Centauri. The aliens and the hit-and-run driver then all go back in time.

Those alien “scientists” say that Alpha Centauri is “a solar system trillions of light years away from the Earth and the sun.” I looked it up: Alpha Centauri is a galaxy, not a solar system, and it is 4.367 light years away, not trillions. Some scientists, eh? At least they have a time machine. (Note: I neglected my homework. Go to the comments below and read the corrections for my errors about Alpha Centauri. Chagrined, but glad to be set straight. Pappy)

Artist Murphy Anderson was one of my favorite artists in DC Comics, and I liked his work on the series, Atomic Knights, in early '60s issues of DC’s Strange Adventures. During his career Anderson did a lot of science fiction, including a couple of stints as the “Buck Rogers” artist in newspapers.

There are no writing credits for “The Cycle of Time,” but Jerry Siegel was the editor, and a guess would be that he may have written some of the stories.

From Weird Thrillers #2 (1951):

Number 2145: Stars and Stripes and Siegel and Sherman

The Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy were a twist on Batman and Robin. Sylvester Pemberton was a rich kid, and Pat Dugan was a large adult who teamed up with him and went after the bad guys. Pat started out as an auto mechanic, then became a chauffeur. The team was featured in Star Spangled Comics after an introduction in Action Comics #40 (1941):

Despite being created by Superman’s co-creator, Jerry Siegel, the feature wasn’t a real big hit. It was cover featured for the first six issues of Star Spangled, then was replaced on the cover by Simon and Kirby’s Newsboy Legion.

Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy artist, Hal Sherman, normally drew humor features, so his work has a cartoonish flair. That wasn’t different than almost all of the DC superheroes, where realism in the art wasn’t required. Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy also appeared as members of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in Leading Comics, a second-tier super group modeled after the Justice Society of America. When the strip ended in 1948, Jerry Siegel was gone from DC in a dispute over Superman, and other hero characters were giving way to funny animals, crime and love, as the tastes of the readers changed.

I am not sure how many adventures of the duo Siegel wrote. He is not credited for this story from Star Spangled Comics #13 (1942), where Hal Sherman got the sole byline.

Number 1827: “...a very strange enchanted boy.” Nature Boy

Nature Boy was a short-lived superhero, appearing in three issues of his own comic in 1956-57. He was created and written by Jerry Siegel, and the origin story issue was drawn by John Buscema.

David Chandler, aka Nature Boy, got his powers from some gods no one has ever heard of. Well, except for Neptune, but the rest of the pantheon was unknown before Siegel invented them. In the first issue we even see a god named “King Blasto, the monarch of explosives” (!) which, if nothing else, showed Siegel still had a sense of humor.

I’m showing the entire Nature Boy contents of the issue (there was also a Blue Beetle reprint, which I’m not showing). There is an odd two-page feature called Nature Man, which appears to be a grown-up Nature Boy. Nature Man did not appear any other time. Since Nature Boy’s creator was Jerry Siegel, my opinion is he included a short Nature Man feature in case Nature Boy became a success, so no one else could create a Nature Man to compete. It may seem far-fetched, but it happened to Siegel and his partner, Joe Shuster, when DC introduced Superboy, kicking off Siegel and Shuster’s long series of lawsuits against their publisher.

From Nature Boy #3 (actual #1), 1956:

I believe Nature Boy was inspired  by the 1948 hit song by Nat King Cole, which was written by proto-hippie eden ahbez (spelled with no capitals). Read more about ahbez and see a video of the song in this post from Insomnia Notebook.