Westworld poster from Australia, 1973. Art by Neal Adams.

Beyond his art, Neal Adams is rightfully remembered as an eternal champion of creators’ rights and for the part he & his work played in the Comics Code revision of ‘71 but his contribution to John Stewart’s creation is -- I think --  a rather underrated aspect of his career, especially as it’s such a great reminder of the kind of person he was. Taken from an interview conducted and transcribed by Allen W. Wright over at the Green Arrow: Bold Archer fansite, here’s Neal discussing John’s beginnings (x).

Batman No. 255, dated April 1974. Cover by Neal Adams. DC Comics.

(1971)

Green Arrow by Neal Adams

Batman by Neal Adams

"Hippie Olsen's Hate-In!" Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #118 (1969) Cover by Neal Adams

X-Men vs. Sentinels by John Byrne (2004) with colors by Thomas Mason (2023) in a piece inspired by the cover of X-Men Classics #1 (1983)

Neal Adams' cover for Justice League of America (vol. 1) #67 (December, 1968).

This was an 80-Page Giant, and reprinted the three stories that added Green Arrow, Hawkman, and the Atom as members of the team.

This was also the last issue that featured Mike Sekowsky's pencils (even though they were in reprinted stories). Sekowsky had been the JLA's penciller since the team's first appearance in The Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #28 (March, 1960).

Longtime comic artist Dick Dillin premiered as the JLA's artist in issue #68. Dillin would continue his run for twelve years, until his sudden death in 1980. His last issue was #183 (October, 1980), the first of a three issue crossover between the Justice League, The Justice Society and the New Gods.

There are some things in DC's voluminous back catalog that they ought to properly reprint because they're good — gems of past eras. However, there are also some things they ought to properly reprint because they're delightfully stupid, like the Superman/Batman team-ups from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS. DC has actually reprinted all the stories from the '50s, through about 1961, but a lot of the '60s material has only been reprinted in the B&W SHOWCASE PRESENTS books, which is a shame.

The WORLD'S FINEST team-ups went through several distinct phases. Superman, Batman, and Robin had shared the covers of WORLD'S FINEST COMICS since 1941, but it wasn't until 1954 that shrinking page counts obliged them to actually share the lead feature. The '50s stories are pretty good of their time, with some lovely Dick Sprang art, and the presence of Superman meant the drift into science fiction was less jarring than in the contemporary Batman books. In 1964, editorial control of WORLD'S FINEST passed to Mort Weisinger and it became a Weisinger-era Superman book that happened to have Batman and Robin in it. Starting in 1967, though, things started to get stranger and stranger as Weisinger's stable of sci-fi veterans like Edmond Hamilton and Otto Binder gave way to Bob Kanigher, Cary Bates, and Bob Haney, who turned out some exceedingly weird material. Stories like the two-parter about Superman having died and willed his super-organs to various people (#189–190) aren't quite as ghoulish as the covers suggest, but their inexplicable weirdness is emblematic of the period.

For a little while in the early '70s, DC evicted Batman from the series, making WORLD'S FINEST a general-issue Superman team-up book. (DC reprinted those issues in trade paperback in 2020.) This apparently wasn't a big commercial success, but rather than immediately returning to the expected Superman/Batman format, WORLD'S FINEST began to feature the Super-Sons, the teenage sons of Superman and Batman in a hazily defined parallel reality — written by Bob Haney, whose stories consistently evoke the sensation of mild concussion. The "real" Superman and Batman also returned, although they had to alternate with their hypothetical future sons, appearing roughly every other issue through 1976. From 1976 to 1982, WORLD'S FINEST once again became an oversize anthology book, with a Superman/Batman main feature backed by a variety of other characters like Green Arrow and Hawkman. The stories in that period are not quite as ludicrous as the late '60s (although if you see Bob Haney's name in the credits, you know you're in for a wild ride), but even the soberer installments are consistently very silly, full of nonsense like Kryptonian lycanthropy and the return of some especially ridiculous older villains like the Gorilla Boss of Gotham City and Doctor Double-X.

It wasn't until issue #285 that Superman and Batman again had the book all to themselves. The late period dials back the zaniness and has mostly uninspired plots, but writers Doug Moench and David Anthony Kraft compensate with some eyebrow-raising and apparently deliberate "Superbat" ship-bait; my personal favorite is Kraft's "No Rest for Heroes!" (a short story in the back of WORLD'S FINEST #302), where Superman and Batman go to a dive bar in the middle of nowhere to talk about their relationship and Batman ends up throwing a knife at someone.

Very little of this stuff is actually good by any normal standard — although the 1964–1967 period is no more or less weird than any other Weisinger Silver Age Superman stories — and the artwork is only occasionally better than passable. However, it's so stupid and so ridiculous that it's consistently fun, in a way DC doesn't really do anymore, at least not on purpose. Assembling all the Superman/Batman stories (leaving the Super-Sons to their own TPB), omitting the various backup strips, and giving it decent color reproduction would make for a nice package, and the presence of Superman and Batman would make it more commercially viable than some of DC's more artistically worthy back catalog material. Low-hanging fruit, if you ask me.

Superman #233, January 1971, cover by Neal Adams

House of Secrets #91 - DC, May 1971.

Cover art by Neal Adams.

-- Neal Adams

There's just something about Hal's look here, like the ground has just shifted under him.

(1972)