Covers.

Yesterday I was writing about the darker side of Stan Lee, but I have to admit his Marvel Comics were eating DC's lunch in the mid to late sixties. It took a while for DC to realize that older kids were reading comics, kids who wanted more serious plots and characters, and Marvel gave them what they wanted while DC was still giving them the Legion of Super-Pets. 

One of DC's approaches to fix this in the late sixties was to elevate the role of artists, for more dramatic stories and covers. Results were mixed. But I loved the issues where they would play with the superhero logos. They looked great and told the reader that they were trying to be more interesting, to drop off some of the moribund and silly business that had accumulated on DC's popular heroes in the forties and fifties. 

I always liked the Blockbuster. DC has never done much with him, though. Well, he's pretty dumb.

Classic evil triumphant pose. Not the first appearance of Black Manta, but an especially villainous one.

The Flash has one of the best rogues' galleries in the business. Batman and Spider-Man are the only heroes with a better corps of enemies. 

This last one was of particular interest -- the large Justice League shield logo was removed, the letters squashed above a triumphant Superman. Of course everyone always thought Superman could beat up the whole League by himself; Jerry Seinfeld even got a whole bit out of Superman's superiority (used in the "Stand In" episode of his sitcom). And some covers in the series showed hero-vs.-hero fighting. But this was the first one where we actually saw the whole League's collective crap beaten out by the Man of Steel.

And best of all was the villain of the piece -- who else but the Key? 😀

Mwah ah ah!