The Golden Age of DC Comics

The Golden Age of DC Comics by Paul Levitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Golden Age of DC Comics is a coffee table book covering the history of DC Comics from 1935-1956.

My wife and I were killing time, waiting for some friends of hers from college to arrive, when we wandered into Barnes and Noble. I saw this on the bargain table and snapped it up. When we got to the register, I was amazed when it cost the princely sum of $2.

I've got three other comics table books, all written by Les Daniels. This one is considerably lighter on text in the main body. There's an interview by Joe Kubert and Paul Levitz's chronicle of DC's history. That all ends on page 52. The rest of the book is page after page of comic covers, interior art, and photographs from the era covered, all with captions.

This is a gorgeous book, packed to the gills with interesting art. Jack Cole, Will Eisner, and CC Beck are given more attention than DC's regulars from the period, which I found surprising since they weren't actually DC books at the time. There are scads of iconic Superman and Batman covers, as well as Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and the rest of DC's Golden Age crew. There is also art from plenty of humor, science fiction, western, and crime books.

While I knew a lot about the early days of DC, there was still plenty of new info to be had. I never made the connection that Superman's home planet was called Krypton because the Mars of ERB's John Carter was called Helium by its inhabitants. I also never knew that Walt Kelly of Pogo fame did some work for DC in the early days. Mort Meskin's Johnny Quick outlasting the Flash during the Golden Age was something I didn't know but wasn't all that surprised by. Have you seen Meskin on Johnny Quick?

There's not a lot to find fault with in this. I thought Levitz glossed over some of the shittier business practices of the Golden Age, although he was probably still working for DC at the time he wrote this so that shouldn't have been surprising. Also, I know Superman and Batman are the straw that stirs the drink at DC but I could have used more art featuring other characters rather than page after page of the World's Finest heroes. There was only one page from Mort Meskin's Johnny Quick!

The Golden Age of DC Comics was easily the best $2 I've ever spent at Barnes and Noble. Now I'm hoping the other two Levitz books end up on the bargain table. Four out of five stars.

View all my reviews