G’Day, Mate! This month, Paul welcomes Australian podcaster Brento3000 to DC SpecialCast! Our Patreon supporters spoke, and we listened! Brent and Paul cover DC Special Series #10: Secret Origins of Super-Heroes! This comic has origins of Doctor Fate, Black Canary, and Lightray. We had a great time talking about it and Australian reprints of American comics, so give it a listen!
This month’s instocktrades.com selections:
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/dec207095/black-canary-bird-of-prey-tp
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/feb257256/doctor-fate-by-jm-dematteis-tp
For Australian reprints, check out: https://ausreprints.net.au/issue/1509/9430
For Mike Vosburg: https://vozart.com/
And for the Secret Origins episode originally covering this comic:
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“Cloud Dancer ” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Another great episode of this fantastic show.
Although I do listen to each month’s podcast,
I don’t comment on each one because usually when I read the comments,
everyone else has already said what I wanted to say – but I know that that won’t happen THIS month.
When Paul was talking about reading the words ‘origin’ and ‘asylum’ and using his own pronunciation for them I thought about how when I would read the word ‘Zatanna’ I’d think it was ZaNtanna – I’m sure that was because of the music group Santanna (and maybe even because of Robert Urich on Vega$ – Dan Tanna) –
don’t try to tell me that Brett Young is going to write in and try to say the same thing!
Regarding the table of contents page – given the titles of the first two stories, ‘This Immortal Destiny’ and ‘This Light A-Borning’
I think that the third story should have been called ‘THIS Canary Is A Bird Of Prey’.
got a bunch of comments
1 DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER Black Canary started as Johnny thunder’s Catwoman?
2 they fiddled with a BATMAN BLACK Canary romance for two whole issuses I like the idea for two reasons A who’s gonna choose Green arrow over BATMAN? B from Batman’s prospective “She’s like CATWOMAN that never tried to kill me!
3 nobody ever brings up DR FATE BEING WERIDLY AGED UP
This origin of Dr. Fate clearly states that his origin took place in Sumeria, not Egypt. Someone ask Paul Levitz about that!
I’m reading the issue 73 more fun comics facsimile
And in that comic Dr fate acts more like Robin . Making jokes and pulling off acrobatic moves .i think it maybe his childhood personality returning .
I may have got the issue number wrong . As it’s the one where aqua man and green arrow and speedy first appearance. Also is Elsa a
Cougar considering Dr fates original age .
Fun show, as usual.
I’m particularly glad you gave that little shout-out to Mike Vosburg with the bio; I’ve always liked a lot of his work, meaning mainly the stuff you could tell he enjoyed doing, like the short-lived sword & planet Starfire series from DC, the Marvel/Epic series Sisterhood of Steel or this Black Canary story (one rather telling throughline: all involved many images of attractive women, as one or both of you pointed out). And yes, his website is well worth visiting.
Great show, Paul and Brento! I especially like hearing my own name and podcast mentioned so often on a show I have nothing to do with. More of that, please.
Considering I covered this Black Canary origin twice–once on Secret Origins Redux and once on my Black Canary blog, I’m really irritated with myself that I didn’t say more about Mike Vosburg on my recent appearance on Fantastic Four, where Brett and I talked about a Vosburg-drawn issue of G.I. Joe. I was very excited to see his name credited when I read that issue, remembering him from his run on Joe (I didn’t read this Secret Origins comic until 2012 or something). While some of his figure work can be questionable in the story, overall I like his sleek look for the characters and the energy it evokes. You mentioned his Retrowood comic; I read that several years ago and liked it quite a bit. Basically a Chandleresque private eye comic set in an alt universe Hollywood.
Fun listen, as always! I hope (expect) you and Chris mention my horror comics coverage on the next episode.
Nice to hear Brent on the show!
I know only I am fascinated by this stuff, but I am genuinely interested how DC arrived at this weird line-up: two JSAers and…Lightray? I know these Secret Origins-themed issues would often feature very different characters jumbled together (see: Huntress/Green Arrow/the Legion) but to be so close to a theme issue and then throw in what was clearly an inventory piece from the cancelled NEW GODS reboot? How odd. Still, looks good thanks to the incomparable Don Newton.
Some of the anatomy on the Black Canary is a bit wonky, to be sure. No offense to Mr. Vosburg, but I bet Terry Austin as inker really helped pull the pages together visually.
Another great episode. The cover makes me think Lightray needs to eat more fiber.
It is an odd mix but that what these issues were for, introduce people to all the corners. If you don’t like the JSA you might skip an ‘only JSA’ book. But if you like them, you might buy this for the Fate and be introduced to the Fourth World. I wonder if that is why there is so much Metron and Orion in here, to sort of give a sample of that universe.
I am usually a Vosburg fan, specifically in the oft-mentioned Starfire book. And that run on American Flagg was pretty racy, even for a Chaykin book. But here most of the pics look like Canary has been pulled by a taffy machine. It is a shame. And while busy I do like the Toth-story logo but probably like the host because I love that story so much.
Hey, I believe that I had this one! I definitely remember the Doctor Fate and Lightray stories. I had picked up my first issue of the New Gods series around the same time and it just happened to be the final issue of the series #19. I was only 6 or 7 years old so, of course, I was utterly baffled as to who these people were and what was going on. The Lightray story featured in this episode helped give me a little bit of context.
And while Canary looks great, if a bit lanky on the first page of her story, she does look a little elongated in the scenes from her childhood. Maybe, she also liked that gingold soda that was such a hit back in the day.