Bye-bye, Batman! (above) World’s Finest #199 featured this fullpage house ad drawn by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson touting issue #200’s team of Superman and Robin. Scan courtesy of Andy Mangels. (inset) The Neal Adams cover for that bicentennial issue. (right) From World’s Finest #201. TM & © DC Comics.
52 • BACK ISSUE • Team-Ups Issue
Joe Giella provided the artwork, and would illustrate all the WFC Superman team-ups under Schwartz’s watch. In late 1970, Superman also teamed with Robin (WFC #200), written by Friedrich. Comics’ short-lived relevancy period was well underway when Schwartz took over WFC, most notably in another Schwartz book, Green Lantern/Green Arrow. In #200, America’s involvement in the Vietnam War had sparked student protests at Hudson University where Dick (Robin) Grayson attended classes, although it wouldn’t be long before more traditional science-fiction trappings propelled the tale. “At the time,” remembers Friedrich, “I was very concerned about social issues and wanted to bring them into the stories I wrote. It was a culturally and politically turbulent time, and in my small way I was part of it. I’d been brought up reading superhero stories where ‘good wins out over evil.’ What I wanted to address as a young writer was the question of what was evil: It wasn’t about robbing banks and jewelry stores, it was environmental degradation, war, and prejudice. “Julie actually seemed to encourage the social commentary, but always pushed me to incorporate it into the traditional good guy vs. bad guy conflict format—that is, there had to be a physical battle of some sort every couple of pages. If I could make that battle about a current social issue, that was a bonus. I was inspired by O’Neil’s work for Julie, though I was a lot more raw (and perhaps more radical) than Denny.” In 1971 Superman teamed with Green Lantern (WFC #201), written by O’Neil; Batman (#202) by O’Neil; Aquaman (#203) by Skeates; Wonder Woman (#204) by O’Neil; the Teen Titans (#205) by Skeates; Batman (#207) by Len Wein; Dr. Fate (#208) by Wein; and Hawkman (#209) by Friedrich. Relevancy was not at the forefront, yet there were some wild and interesting highlights. “Punish me, Daddy! I deserve it!” wailed an ashamed Superman in WFC #201, draped over the giant knee of his father, Jor-El, as the angry, apparently alive (in enlarged form) Kryptonian scientist viciously spanked his son. It remains a disturbing image, although once the Man of Steel realized it was an illusion, the situation improved as “Daddy” faded away and Superman and Green Lantern thwarted a dastardly plan by evil magician Felix Faust. O’Neil utilized relevancy in a creative way in #202, positing that mankind’s pollution problem adversely affected the Man of Steel’s fleet of Superman robots, so much so that Superman was forced to scrap them all. One remained at large, however, causing havoc in the Middle East for Lois Lane and Batman. The highly acclaimed Aquaman series by Skeates and artist Jim Aparo may have been canceled at the beginning of 1971, but Skeates still had a Sea King tale to tell in WFC #203. Next up, on a ravaged Earth in a possible future came the plea of a desperate robot to Superman and Diana Prince, Wonder Woman in WFC #204: prevent the death of an unspecified individual at a campus riot in 1971 or watch helplessly as the robot’s world comes to be! When one man’s racism, male chauvinism, extreme desire for law and order, and egomaniacal tendencies were absorbed by an alien computer and disseminated amongst the townspeople of Handley Park, including the visiting Teen Titans, Superman came to the rescue to defeat the menace and set everyone back on the straight and narrow. This tale in WFC #205 is an interesting take on the complex nature of man, complete with a fire-breathing dragon.