Back to the back pages of DC Comics Presents now, for another Whatever Happened To...? and this time it's a double bill of semi-forgotten Silver Age characters, as we welcome back Rex The Wonder Dog & Detective Chimp!
And in case you all think I've gone mad, check it out:
Rex comes with a dynamite, you should excuse the phrase, pedigree having been occasionally written by Bob Haney and drawn by both Alex Toth and Gil Kane, and Bobo, the Detective Chimp? He's a chimp. Who's a detective. The defence rests.
Of course, Bobo has been re-updated, resurged and re-booted now, but I'm not sure Rex has had the same kinda luck, and certainly back in the Bronze Age, no one gave a stuff about our hirsute heroes.
Rex & Bobo shared a respectable 46 issue run in the '50s, with The Wonder Dog getting top billing, and getting up to all sorts, including facing off against dinosaurs:
Becoming a Red Indian chief:
And even teaming up with Bambi:
But both Rex & Bobo seemed to spend most of their time hanging round the local circus, as in these two tales starring each battling beastie:
I've seen those, but never read them. Same with Tomahawk, My Greatest Adventure, Herbie the Fat Fury, and other silver age DC comics.
ReplyDeleteGene Poole
Most of those are here actually, Gene. I don't need much excuse to push the Bronze Age back into the Silver...
ReplyDeleteIt seems the general consensus is that the Bronze Age began in 1970, perhaps with the publication of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Chris A.
I'd agree with the 1970 cutoff, not only for GL/GA but also for the first issue of CONAN. In my view this is the first time the Big Two made a concerted effort to tap into the adolescent market, whose dollars they may've decided were more reliable than those of the kiddies. SAVAGE TALES debuted the next year, and was allegedly dumped because Martin Goodman didn't want to swim in the deep end of the pool. However, he left Marvel in '72, and after that Marvel went whole-hog into the B&W magazine business, though not a lot of the material was as racy as SAVAGE TALES or the undergrounds.
ReplyDeleteOf course there were foretastes of the approaching Bronze Age in the Silver days, like the unusually gritty DEADMAN series. I can't speak to the Warren mags, since I've read only a tiny fraction of them. What I've read gives me the impression that the content wasn't much more "adult" than the EC horror-mags, and that Warren was stronger on art than on story. But whatever adult inroads Warren made, those too I'd probably deem as more "foretastes."
Warren in the '70s had great stories by Bruce Bezaire, Bruce Jones, Budd Lewis, Greg Potter, & Jim Stenstrum, to name a few.
DeleteSuperb writing.
Regards,
Chris A.
For 1970 being the start of the Bronze Age, add in Mort Weisinger ceasing to edit the Superman titles and Jack Kirby leaving Marvel.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I love those old Detective Chimp stories; Rex had some pretty good stories too.
I'd probably go with '70 too, though bear in mind that Denny O'Neil has gone on record as saying that GL/GA was a '60's book really. Warren's an interesting one - I'm not sure when the Spanish artists fully came in, probably '74 or so? That's the real Warren for me, as I've said ad nauseum ( I do tend to repeat myself on here a lot, I find! )
ReplyDelete