Black Condor
A full year had passed since Father Pierre nursed Richard Grey Jr. back to health and taught him to speak, nicknaming him “Black Condor.”
One day, as he returned from a long flight, Black Condor felt an ominous twinge…
Inside, he found his mentor wounded and dying…
Do good in the world, my son, for you have a gift no man has ever had!
And the years following Father Pierre’s death are filled with a name… across the East and over the continent swooped a mighty figure – the Black Condor!
Zatara
When Giovanni Zatara turned 15-years old, his grandfather, the famous state magician Luigi Zatara gave him a box of tricks from his act.
Giovanni’s fate was sealed. This would-be shortstop would become a magician!
Flashback: Jim Corrigan
As a child, Jim Corrigan’s father had the fear of God beaten into him by his mother and grew up to be the Reverend Jebediah Corrigan. Jim grew up on a farm while his father was “on the road with his tent show.” The child of the family’s housekeeper, Rafe, was his best friend.
One night the boys witnessed Jebediah forcing himself upon Rafe’s mother, Rose. They agreed to keep it a secret, but when Jim’s mother inevitably found out, Rose and Rafe were forced to leave with nowhere to go.
Rafe believed that Jim broke their promise and told his mother about the incident. Then, when Rafe was drowned in a storm, their friendship officially ended.
Jim blamed his father, and at Rafe’s funeral when Jebediah told him that it was nobody’s fault, that it was just God’s will…
As a young man, Jim lied about his age so he could fight in World War I.
I thought it would be glorious. It was just mad and cold and death and fear.
After the war, he came back to the United States and worked “on the docks.” For a while, he was also a boxer, but when he was told to throw a fight, he walked away. Finally, he realized the world was a “dirty place” and sought to “clean it up” by joining the police…
Crack Comics #1
May 1940 (March 27, 1940)
$0.10
“The Man Who Can Fly Like a Bird”
7 pages
Writer: Will Eisner
Artist: Lou Fine
Editor: Edward C. Cronin
Secret Origins #21
Dec. 1987 (Sept. 8, 1987)
$1.25
“The Secret Origin of the Black Condor”
19 pages
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Murphy Anderson
Editor: Roy Thomas
Secret Origins #27
June 1988 (Feb.16, 1988)
$1.50
“A Symphony of Shadows”
48 pages
Plotter: Ehrich Weiss
Plotter: Roy Thomas
Scripter: Robert Loren Fleming
Penciller: Tom Artis
Inker: P. Craig Russell
Penciller: Grant Miehm
Inker: Fred Fredericks
Editor: Mark Waid
The Spectre (vol. 3) #52
April 1997 (Feb. 26, 1997)
$2.50
“Retribution”
22 pages
Writer: John Ostrander
Artist: Thomas Mandrake
Editor: Dan Raspler
The Spectre (vol. 3) #60
Dec. 1997 (Oct. 29, 1997)
$2.50
“Within”
22 pages
Writer: John Ostrander
Artist: Thomas Mandrake
Editor: Dan Raspler
Eastern Color published another collection of Sunday comic strip reprints in May of 1934; however, the 48-pages of this one, Skippy’s Own Book of Comics, were devoted to one strip: Skippy.
The positive reception for these publications led M.C. Gaines and Eastern Color to release a comic book for newsstand distribution. With a cover price of $0.10, Famous Funnies was the first regularly published comic book, eventually running for 100 issues. However, it still contained only Sunday comic strip reprints.
Also in 1934, a retired cavalry officer named Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson formed his own printing company, National Allied publications…
CODEX OMNIVERSA 