100-Page FAKES! presents: SUPER-HERO GRAB BAG # 1 (with THE SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY)

100-Page FAKES! imagines mid-1970s DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars that never were...but should have been!

I am fully aware of the fact that I was never Nick Cardy or Neal Adams, thanks.

Well, it took over 45 years, but I've finally returned to my very first 100-Page FAKE!

I drew this mock-up of a cover for an ideal DC 100-Page Super Spectacular somewhere in early 1973, when I was thirteen. The real Super Specs had just returned to newsstands, and I was stoked, because once again I'd be getting 96 pages (plus covers) of vintage DC superhero action for a mere fifty cents. Each of the Super Specs was designed to showcase one particular lead feature--Superman, The Batman, Superboy, The Flash, Justice League of America--supported by other characters in back-up strips. Me, I still missed the free-for-all aspect of the "World's Greatest Super-Heroes!" format of the first Super Spec I ever saw, way back when I was eleven in '71. When 100-Page Super Spectacular # 18 published a letter from Richard H. Morrissey suggesting a "grab bag" Super Spec, perhaps headlining The Seven Soldiers of Victory, I was on that idea faster'n a speeding bullet.



(Incidentally, I still agree with DC's reasons for not reprinting "Captain Marvel And The Monster Society Of Evil.")

Inspired by Richard's suggestion, I drew this cover. In 2018, I decided to make it (sort of) real.

The Seven Soldiers of Victory had fascinated me for years. I first heard of this 1940s super-group in a text page that DC had run in its comics in the late '60s, and in a gorgeous portrait of the group, drawn by Murphy Anderson and published in a Justice League Of America Giant. The group returned in a memorable three-part serial in Justice League Of America # 100-102 in 1972, and that tale by Len Wein remains my all-time favorite JLA story.

Thirteen-year-old me had no idea how long a book-length adventure from the Golden Age of Comics would be, so I blithely slapped together a poor imitation of a Nick Cardy Super Spec cover, with our Soldiers supported by Wonder Woman, The Golden Age Flash, The Golden Age Atom, and The Marvel Family. And I betcha I figured there'd still be room for Spy Smasher or Kid Eternity.

But lo and behold, as I pursued the goal of assembling a 96-page package of stories that would match what I conjured so fancifully near the beginning of Richard Nixon's second, truncated term, I found that everything filled the space exactly as it should. I had to use one of the shorter Marvel Family stories, but it all fit. It...it...

It worked!!

I'll be 59 in January. I still read comic books. I still listen to rockin' pop music that some might dismiss as juvenile. I don't care. I like what I like, and I can articulate why I like what I like (though it's really more fun to just tell naysayers to go climb their thumbs anyway). And I can't deny that I feel a tingle of satisfaction from at long last completing this silly little notion I began in 1973.

The Seven Soldiers Of Victory (untitled), Leading Comics # 1 (Winter 1941-42)
Wonder Woman in "The Secret Of The Amazing Bracelets!," Sensation Comics # 86 (February 1949)
The Golden-Age Flash in "Haunted Halloween!," Flash Comics # 78 (December 1946)
The Golden-Age Atom in "The Atom Vs. Nick Crock," All-American Comics # 57 (April 1944)
The Marvel Family "The Land That Never Was," The Marvel Family # 57 (March 1951)

All contents are copyright DC Comics Inc., and can only be depicted here with a few representative pages. I share the whole 96-page package with my paid subscribers. And now, Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) is proud to present a 100-Page FAKE! more than forty-five years in the making. Was it worth the wait? I believe it really was.

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