Russ Heath – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Russ Heath — The Bat, The Cat & The Endless Tease

September 23, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight # 48, August 1993

Will they… or won’t they?

Doug Moench and the legendary Russ Heath have some fun with that question in this well-done four-part tale entitled “Heat” from Legends of The Dark Knight in 1993. The page itself is one of the best from this third part of the story, in which the frenemies team up to stop a serial killer.

Did Batman become permanently romantically entangled with Catwoman? No spoilers from me, but since the Bat and the Cat didn’t get engaged until more than 25 years later, that might provide a clue in itself.

The real question? When are these and other stories from LOTDK going to be collected? Many great talents contributed to this series, and very, very few have been reprinted. It’s a lot of material, but a series of compendiums could do the trick.

As for the history of their on and off again romance, this DC blog entry offers an insightful —if not incomplete — look at 85 years of will they or won’t they:

https://www.dc.com/blog/2022/03/03/the-forbidden-love-of-batman-and-catwoman

The story of Earth-2’s (successful) romance between Bruce and Selina is told in The Brave and the Bold #197, from 1983.

Russ Heath — Watch It!

November 11, 2024 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Battlefront #17, March 1954

Here’s a terrific early and rare Atlas war page form the legendary artist, Russ Heath.

This page’s great dogfight reminds me of some of Russ’ later DC work, including the classic “Aces Wild” in All-American Men of War #89, otherwise known as Roy Lichtenstein’s favorite comic book. Lichtenstein, the renowned pop art pioneer, “appropriated” (swiped / repurposed / purloined — take your pick) two Heath panels from that story, as well as others in that issue. (See below.)

Those paintings are worth millions of dollars. Multi-millions.

The best 12¢ anyone ever spent.

Happy Veterans Day to all who served!

Fun Fact: Russ, a veteran, used himself as reference for the role of Major Leo Grabeski (also below) in this extremely multi-cultural group of airmen.

Two Heath panels from the same page from “Aces Wild” story (All-American Men of War #89, 1962) became the basis for two well-known Roy Lichtenstein war paintings: “Brattata” and “Blam.”.

A panel from an Irv Novick’s story in the same issue was the basis for Lichtenstein’s “Whaam.”

Russ Heath — The Devil For Dinner

May 20, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

G.I. Combat #131, September 1968

Roy Lichtenstein never met a DC war stories artist he didn’t like — including Russ Heath.

More accurately, Lichtenstein probably never met a comic book artist he didn’t like.

Lichtenstein, the legendary “Pop” modern artist of the 60s referenced much of his work from contemporaneous romance and war stories. The critics raved, and art fans swooned, but hardly anyone paid much attention to the original source material.

That changed, but only (and slowly) over time. To this day, there’s never been an official Lichtenstein catalog that identifies all the source comics. In many cases, the works are only occasionally acknowledged.

There is a great website about all this, although the author is reluctant to share the specific issues and dates. Still with all the examples visually presented, it is pretty mind blowing. It’s nearly impossible to find an original Lichtenstein without a corresponding comic book reference.

But as always, we digress.

Behind Joe Kubert, Russ Heath is probably the single artist most identified with DC’s classy war books of the silver and bronze age.

He was a terrific artist, who could accomplish inventive storytelling, polished lines and wonderful detail.

And he was quite the character too. But those are stories I will save for another day… Except…

When Russ was dealing with some health and financial issues the Hero Initiative stepped in and provided some much needed support. In return, Russ created this special strip below to pay tribute to that support.

Sounds good. Except…

Heath choses to reference Lichtenstein’s “Whaam” a DC war panel that was actually created by Irv Novick. Russ’ art is the inspiration for “Blam” an equally powerful, but lesser known painting. (Both are originally from the same issue of Men of War.)

That is an odd one.