Retro Thursday: Christmas comics
With the DCU Holiday Special hitting stands this week (written by, among others, Sterling Gates), I thought I’d rerun this column from Dec. 2001 in which I talked about the Christmas comics available that year, and some classic Christmas comics from years past.
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For years, DC’s superheroes have celebrated the Christmas season with comics such as “Christmas with the Superheroes,” “Superstar Holiday Special,” and “DCU Holiday Bash.” And often, when superheroes meet Santa Claus, wackiness ensues.
This year, in issue No. 60 of the “JLA,” the Justice League of America teams with Santa Claus to stop a deadly menace.
And, in the “DC Universe Christmas” compilation, readers can relive Christmas memories from the Golden Age of comics to recent years with 17 classic holiday stories.
In “JLA” No. 60, Plastic Man tells his partner’s nephew about Santa Claus being elected to the Justice League.
“JLA” No. 60 is written by Mark Waid and is the final issue of his run on the best-selling title. Waid will begin writing “Fantastic Four” in February and continues to write the detective series “Ruse” for CrossGen Comics. Art is by Cliff Rathburn and Paul Neary.
“DC Universe Christmas” leads off with a story written by Denny O’Neil, the longtime editor of the Batman line of comics, and drawn by Frank Miller, the best-selling writer-artist of “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” and the recent “Dark Knight Strikes Again,” the first issue of which is on sale. In their contribution, “Wanted: Santa Claus – Dead or Alive!,” first presented in “Super-Star Holiday Special (DC Special Series)” No. 21 from the 1979 Christmas season, an ex-convict changes his stripes after playing Santa Claus in a department store and gets a new perspective on life.
Another well-remembered story in the volume is “Billy Batson’s X-Mas,” first presented in “Captain Marvel Adventures” No. 69, on sale during the 1946 holiday season.
In this six-pager drawn by Pete Costanza, Billy Batson must get a present for his alter-ego, Captain Marvel. This cute story recalls many of the things that were great about the 1940s’ Captain Marvel – a sense of fun was always predominant in the adventures of the “Big Red Cheese.”
Emmy-award winning producer Paul Dini gets into the act with “The Harley and the Ivy,” a Christmas tale featuring Batman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, from “The Batman Adventures Holiday Special” from 1994. Dini wrote many episodes of and produced the “Batman Adventures” cartoon series.
In this tale, the two femme fatales kidnap Bruce Wayne – to take him on a shopping spree. Can Batman rescue his alter ego from the pair before his credit cards go bust? It takes a little Christmas good fortune to get Batman out of this mess.
The volume closes with a story by the co-creator of Superman, Jerry Siegel, with art by Jack Burnley. In “Superman’s Christmas Adventure” in 1940, two grumpy old men – Mr. Meaney and Mr. Grouch – show the bad form of trying to stop Santa Claus and Superman from delivering Christmas presents. Superman and Santa put a stop to that, of course, and show the two men the error of their ways. At the same time, they show a spoiled boy named James that it’s not the cost of the present, it’s the joy of giving that makes Christmas special.
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