Adventure Comics No. 467 Covers by Ditko, Cockrum, Giordano & Aparo

Before Adventure Comics No. 467 finally reached the newsstands, it went through a few different packages.

Dollar Comic – Art by Jim Aparo

Starting with No. 459, Adventure was published in the Dollar Comic format, and 467 was initially set to follow that packaging.

Thanks to some online friends, I’m able to add where the stories intended for this issue saw print:

• Aquaman in World’s Finest No. 267
• Atom in Detective Comics No. 489
• The Flash No. 293
• Green Lantern No. 128
• Wonder Woman No. 455 & 456

Here’s Jim Aparo’s unpublished cover formatted for publication.

Scan of a photocopy from somewhere on the web.

Art made production ready.

Colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

Downsized to a Regular Comic – Art by Dave Cockrum & Dick Giordano

At first, this cover was supposed to be a revival of Strange Adventures. For the details, we need to draw upon the knowledge of Brian O’Neill in the TwoMorrows Back Issue group on facebook:

“World’s Finest was supposed to downsize to 32 pages for 40¢ effective with No. 259 in 1979. It was even advertised to be in that format. But when 259 rolled around, it was still a Dollar Comic. Finally in No. 260 they explained what was going on: The World’s Finest backups at the time – Green Arrow, Hawkman, Black Lightning and Shazam, along with one more new series – were going to be in a Five-Star Super-Hero Spectacular Dollar Comic, and Plas was going to be the other star. But, at the last second of the last minute, they decided to leave World’s Finest alone, forgot about launching another Dollar Comic and instead they downsized Adventure and put Plas in that book.

“As for Adam Strange, shortly before all of this DC planned to revive Strange Adventures as a Dollar Comic, and there was talk of Adam appearing there. I believe he was supposed to have been in Star Hunters, before that book [was cancelled as part of the DC Implosion]. But that Dollar Comic became Time Warp instead. Adam made a single appearance in World’s Finest No. 263. It was framed as a Hawkman story since the two had teamed up in the previous issue, but it was basically just Katar and Adam sitting around the JLA satellite catching up as Adam talked about a recent adventure. Finally, Adam got a [back-up] series in Green Lantern in 1980 when the price and page count increased, although I think those stories were mostly stuff that had been in inventory from the unpublished series in ’78 and ’79.”

Here’s the Cockrum cover as something that might have been. The Adam Strange figure eventually saw print on the cover of Green Lantern No. 136.

Scan of the alternate cover art via Heritage Auctions.

The Adam Strange half was an homage to the classic Mystery in Space No. 90 cover by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.

Art made production ready.

Colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.

The Published Comic – Art by Steve Ditko, Dave Cockrum & Dick Giordano

Cover dated January 1980, Adventure Comics No. 467 brought back Plastic Man and introduced a new Starman created by Paul Levitz and Steve Ditko. The Plastic Man half of Cockrum’s cover saw print, while Ditko and Giordano provided the Starman side.

I’ve extracted the Ditko art from the published comic.

As published.

Different scans combined.

New colour version

Re-created trade dress added.

Your Bottom of the Page Bonus: House Ads