Summary
- The oldest Batman comic book story drawn by a living artist is The Brave and the Bold #57, released in February 1965.
- The oldest Spider-Man comic book story drawn by a living artist is The Spectacular Spider-Man, published in 1968
- Determining the oldest Superman comic book story drawn by a living artist is complicated due to the various satellite titles, but potential contenders include Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #146, Superman #289, and Superman #301.
Comic Book Questions Answered, is a feature where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com). Today, we look into what are the oldest Batman, Superman and Spider-Man comic book stories drawn by living comic book artists.
The legendary comic book artist, Ramona Fradon, is retiring from comic book art commissions at the age of 97. I thought it would be nice to commemorate Fradon while acknowledging the fact that, upon the recent passings of John Romita and Joe Giella, there is a bit of a question now, as to what is the oldest Batman, Superman and Spider-Man story drawn by an artist who is still alive (I believe Mark Millar brought this up on social media after Romita’s passing). Obviously, Romita was the answer for Spider-Man since the passing of Steve Ditko, and Giella was the answer for Batman before HIS passing, so what is the answer now?
Let’s take a look, while we also explore the definition of what it means to be a “Superman artist.”
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What is the oldest Batman comic book story drawn by a living artist?
This one is a pretty straightforward one. The Brave and the Bold had one of the odder evolutions as a comic book series. It began life as a historical adventure anthology (initially starring The VIking Prince, The Golden Gladiator and The Shining Knight), but during the Silver Age superhero boom, it became a superhero team-up series, then briefly a “try-out” series before then going back to being a superhero team-up series, finally settling as specifically a BATMAN team-up series following the “Bat-Mania” of the 1966 Batman TV series. Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon (and inker Charles Paris) launched the character Metamorpho in The Brave and the Bold #57, when it was a try-out series. They did two issues with Metamorpho in The Brave and the Bold before the character was given his own series. The NEXT issue of The Brave and the Bold, #59, was a team-up of Batman and Green Lantern, and it was drawn by Fradon and Paris…
Released in February 1965, it’s the oldest Batman comic book story drawn by a living artist (and I believe the only Batman comic book story from the 1960s by a living artist). It’s also the first Batman story drawn by a female comic book artist (Becky Cloonan was the first female artist to draw Batman in the pages of his flagship title).
Why Don’t Comic Books Do Recaps During the Stories Anymore?
Comic books used to include recaps of earlier issues within the story of each comic book. Why don’t they do that anymore?
What is the oldest Spider-Man comic book story drawn by a living artist?
In 1968, Marvel tried to launch a black and white superhero comic book magazine (in response to Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie black and white comic book magazines) with The Spectacular Spider-Man. The main story was done by Stan Lee and John Romita, but the back-up story, a re-telling of Spider-Man’s origin, was done by Stan Lee and his younger brother, Larry Lieber…
A few months later, Lieber also drew the story in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 that revealed the truth behind how Spider-Man’s parents died (the story that revealed that they were American secret agents)…
John Romita later noted that he went over each page with Lieber to make sure it looked right, doing layouts and assisting Lieber on the pencils. Still, it counts for Lieber, who recently got involved with some litigation with Marvel regarding the copyrights of some characters that he co-created for Marvel.
Where Did Sam Wilson Get His Current Shield as Captain America?
Now that Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers are both Captain America, Steve is using his original shield, so where did Sam get the shield he is wielding?
What is the oldest Superman comic book story drawn by a living artist?
Okay, here we go, the quagmire of “What is a Superman artist?”
You see, Curt Swan drew pretty much every Superman comic book for most of the 1960s and 1970s, generally inked by comic book greats like Murphy Anderson, George Klein and Bob Oksner. There really wasn’t much room for new comic book artists to break into the Superman titles, since Swan was just SO prolific. Ross Andru was the “back-up” Superman artist in the late 1960s, drawing some issues of Action Comics, and Dick Dillin and Jim Mooney drew some World’s Finest Comics issues, but generally, it was Swan on everything (and it worked, since Swan was amazing). So trying to find the first artist OTHER than Swan on these books is tricky.
Okay, my concern about the definition of what a Superman story is ties into the fact that there was a whole “family” of Superman titles, like Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Adventure Comics featuring Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Okay, let’s look at the Legion for a moment. As I’ve noted in the past, Jim Shooter famously didn’t know how comic books were done when he started writing for DC, so he would send in the entire comic book laid out when he wrote his early stories for the Legion of Super-Heroes. Mort Weisinger would then give the layouts to his artists and tell them to re-draw the story based on the layouts. So Shooter’s drawings wouldn’t appear in the actual comic book, except that the other artists would follow his layouts. Does that count as drawing a story? Probably not, right? Otherwise, we could look to 1967’s Adventure Comics #354, where Curt Swan used Shooter’s layouts for a story starring Superman teaming up with the ADULT members of the Legion…
Okay, so, again, probably don’t count that, right?
Next, we head to early 1971, where the brilliant William Kaluta drew a back-up story in Superman #240 about the past of Krypton…
Superman doesn’t appear in the story, but it’s in the pages of his comic. Is that a “Superman comic book story”? I say probably not.
That then brings us to December 1971’s Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #146, where Mike Royer inked Jack Kirby for the first of a few issues at the end of Kirby’s run on the title…
If you think Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen counts, then that’s your answer, Mike Royer.
Three issues later, Jose Delbo penciled an issue, if you’re looking for penciling over inking (inking obviously counts, though)…
It’s a good thing that Clark Kent no longer calls women “sneaky females.”
Okay, let’s say you don’t think Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen should count, nor a story in Superman without Superman in it, how about April 1975’s Superman #289, which features a back-up story by Curt Swan and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez about Clark Kent bowling?
If you’re still insisting on a story starring specifically SUPERMAN in one of his comics like Action Comics, Superman or World’s Finest, then you’d have to wait another year until April 1976’s Superman #301, where Garcia-Lopez not only drew the lead story in the issue, but also the cover!
So there ya go!
Good luck in your retirement, Ms. Fradon! You are amazing!
If anyone has a comic book question they’d like to see answered, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
