ACTION AND ATLAS...

Copyright DC COMICS

Since buying Action Comics #414 recently, I decided to purchase the preceding issue as it was the last of the 52 page comics in the series. and because I remember owning it back in the day.  Not so with First Issue Special #1, but I do recall browsing through it on the spinner-rack of a local R.S. McColl's newsagent's in my Town Centre one day, before deciding that it wasn't up to much and that Jack Kirby had passed his best.  Looking  at that top cover line (lower half of the post), it seems to me that 'Is He Man Or Legend?' would read better than 'Is He Legend Or Man?' - anyone else agree?  (Not that it matters I suppose.)

I have a reprint of the ish in a Kirby Omnibus volume, but nothing beats having the original, so because the comic reminds me of that long-gone shop, I decided to reverse my decision of 47 years ago and add it to my collection.  In memory, it seems that there was a light rain falling outside and the street lights were on as it was getting dark, but I could be confusing that particular evening with any number of other similar occasions in that McColl's during the '70s.  Again, not that it matters, but I prefer to remember the events of that moment so many years ago as rainy and dark, so who's to say me nay?

Action Comics #413 came out in 1972, and First Issue Special #1 in 1975, and I associate Action with the same McColl's, albeit a few years earlier.  I certainly recall looking at a Metamorpho strip in the shop, so it could easily have been this first instalment as much as any of the later ones, though I prefer to think it was this one.  The only thing that gives me cause for doubt is that the first two Element Man strips in #s 413 & 414 weren't drawn by Ramona Fradon, who I automatically think of as the artist on the character, so my increasingly 'come and go' memory may be letting me down in the recollection stakes.

But enough of my self-indulgent rambling, let's look at some nice pictures instead.  Ready?  Let's go - and if you remember either (or both) of these two comics, then share your memories and impressions of them in our ravenous comments section.

Posted in: Cartoons