Holidays and comics join forces to fight evil and sell merchandise…
1930s
Cover by Craig Flessel (1939)
1940s
Cover by unknown artist (1942)
Cover by Frank Harry (1943)
Cover by C.C. Beck (1943)
Cover by Jack Burnley (1945)
Notice how Batman doesn’t help with the heavy lifting. That’s what sidekicks are for.
Cover by Wayne Boring (1947)
Helping Santa the Superman way – with brute force!
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Cover by Bob Oksner (1948)
1950s
Cover by unknown artist (1952)
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Cover by Ed Emshwiller (1951)
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Cover by unknown artist (1959)
1960s
Cover by unknown artist (1960)
Cover by unknown artist (1961)
The final issue of “Santa Claus Funnies.” It lasted longer than any comic starring Aquaman.
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(1964)
The comic adaptation of one of the worst movies ever made.
1970s
Cover by Neal Adams (1972)
Batman put no effort into that Santa costume.
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Cover by Nick Cardy (1973)
Cover by Nick Cardy (1975)
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Cover by Gil Kane (1976)
Cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (1978)
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Cover by Sheldon Mayer (1978)
I’m fairly certain that every single fictional character ever has starred in at least one DC Comic.
1980s
Cover by Alan Kupperberg and Mike Esposito (1983)
Yup. Santa is actually the Kingpin of Crime.
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Cover by Kyle Baker (1986)
The 80’s were a strange time…
Cover by David Mazzucchelli (1986)
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Cover by Stephen DeStephano and Larry Mahlstedt (1989)
Cover by Will Eisner (1989)
Contains reprints of older material.
1990s
Cover by Simon Bisley (1991)
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Cover by Bill Jaaska (1991)
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Cover by Mike Deodato, Jr. (1995)
Image Comics exists to make Marvel and DC look classy.
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Cover by John McCrea (1998)
Cover by Adam Pollina
2000s
Cover by Cliff Rathburn (2002)
Santa just can’t catch a break…
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Cover by Jose Garabaldi (2005)
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Cover by Greg Staples (2008)
Cover by Frank Quitely (2009)
Best to end on good ole’ fashioned, commercialized schlock.
Merry Christmas! And to those who do not partake – happy day off work!
Quick note: That Peter Parker cover is by Kyle Baker, not Rich Buckler.
Crap.
Okay, it’s been corrected. Thanks, Robert.
I’m pretty sure that 1975 Christmas with the Super-Heroes cover is by Nick Cardy.
And I think that the DC Christmas with the Super-Heroes ’89 cover is by Stephen DeStephano. (though Mahlstedt is likely the inker)
Roger that.
The Hulk vs Santa story– by Peter David– was particularly funny. Santa was in fact old Spidey and Hulk foe the Rhino hiding out.
More than Hulk’s punches, Rhino had to endure his quips. You see, this wasn’t the stupid Green Hulk, but the smart-but-thuggish Gray Hulk. The difference between them was caused by…a…
Heh.
Johnny- do you have a source for that? I can’t find any info for that one.
Chris K- the Internet hive-mind agrees with you. Corrected.
Alex- I’ll admit I don’t know shit about the Hulk, so I can’t be nerding out with you. Was Gray Hulk an 90’s thing, or did he come earlier?
I think gray hulk was 90s; it was Peter David’s run on the series. He sort of connected the different hulk’s to Bruce Banner’s childhood abuse, which wasn’t maybe ideal. I kind of liked those comics though; I remember the art being better than average….
David’s work on the all ages Marvel Spider-Man title is horrible though, so I’m a little worried that I wouldn’t like those old hulk comics nearly as much….
The Grand Comics Database lists him as the penciller (that’s all the “official” confirmation I can find in 10 minutes’ worth of Googling); he also seemed to draw 95% of DC’s covers in that period. To my eyes, it looks like a total Cardy job, but that doesn’t prove anything.
Johnny- good enough for me. Nick Cardy it is. I like that cover for Witching Hour better though.
Noah- Peter David seems hit or miss to me. A lot of people talk up his run on Aquaman. Then again, it’s Aquaman…
Gray Hulk was a nineties thing, but harking back to the character’s beginnings.
At the series’ inception, the Hulk was gray and talked like a thug. The greenie ‘Hulk smash!’ persona was rather late on the scene.
To be nerdishly precise, it was John Byrne, and, after, Al Milgrom who brought back the ‘gray thug’. Peter David took that and ran with it– there was a great run where Hulk was a legbreaker at a Vegas casino, dressing in thousand-dollar-suits and shtumping call girls.
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