The World's Greatest Superheroes was a newspaper strip produced by Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate which ran at the tail end of the 1970s, before morphing into a solo Superman feature. The initial story arc ran for three months beginning in April of 1978, and Vandal Savage was the featured villain. From what I understand, Savage had somehow lost his immortality, and sought to regain it by stealing the lifespans of millions of people he had arranged to kill through various disasters. Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Flash were on hand to stop him, although the Scarlet Speester was left the worse for wear. Barry grabbed the hilt of Vandal Savage's sword at one point, which was programmed to explode in the hands of any save his master. While the Flash was in a coma, he was replaced by Batman & Robin in the next adventure. Sadly, no Martian Manhunter, but that's to be expected.
Click on the links below to check out a couple of these strips:
Unpublished Sunday Strip
June 20, 1978
I've got the book collecting these! Really quite a good story, as I remember.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to read it sometime. I usually like Marty Pasko.
ReplyDeleteI love the pencils on that unpublished strip. I wish they ran superhero strips in newsapers in today's day and age.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be long before you can just say you newspaper strips-- period.
ReplyDeleteI never much liked super-heroes in strip form. You can't build up any steam in 3-4 panels, especially when one is devoted to a recap. The Spider-Man strip is as bad as Mrs. Worth, for my money. The Batman & Robin strip fared better, especially under Max Allen Collins. This DC strip looks pretty good, but I suspect it got tamed real quick.
Nice seeing Tuska's pencils before Vinnie Colletta got his mits on 'em.
ReplyDeleteI liked the art in Justice League of America #229 (Part One of War of the Worlds -- 1984), with Tuska inked by, of all people, Alex Nino.
I'm a Colletta apologist who never took to Tuska, but liked both examples here.
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