All Star Comics #59, 1976
All Star Comics, featuring The Justice Society, returned for the first time in 25 years, and the legendary Wallace Wood returned to superheroes for the early issues as well.
“Return” for Woody is a bit of an overstatement, since outside of his own creation, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Wood’s work in superheroes was limited. Ironically his most lauded superhero work in the DC universe is Superduperman, an EC Mad Comics parody from 1953.
In All Star, editor Joe Orlando (and Wood’s former protégé at EC) provided Woody the chance to play with many of DC’s classic characters, including Superman, and he was given a chance to help set the look and feel of at least one enduring new one, Power Girl, the “Supergirl” of Earth Two. On this great battle page, we have Hawkman, The Star-Spangled Kid, and Doctor Mid-Nite in all out action.
As demonstrated by the art itself, Wood is responsible for the pencils and inks on this “second” issue, with Rick Estrada providing rough breakdowns and receiving credit as “designer” on this issue.
Woody left the title after less than a year’s worth of issues, but the work he left was behind was definitely “all star” material.
Fun fact: Hawkman was the only original member of the JSA to appear in every issue of the original All Star comics as part of the team.
Fun fact: Despite the fact that All Star had originally continued as All Star Western in 1951, DC re-started the series using the Golden Age numbering. Today it would be #1 issue with more than a few variant covers…
Fun fact: “Super Squad” is just… ugh.
