The Book That Never Was - DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams - Vol 2

 by Ian Baker

©DC. Advance image of cover for Volume Two.

Back on January 13th, 2009, DC published what was to be the first of a series of three trade hardbacks (and paperbacks) of collected comic stories drawn by Neal Adams, bringing together his DC work beyond the realm of Batman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Deadman, which had already been reprinted as collections on multiple occasions 

The previous hardcover collections of Adams' work on Batman had been very successful, and so the decision was taken to curate three more volumes that would bring to light Adams' lesser known work on War, Horror, Western and Humour comics at National, dating from Adams first work for the company in 1967. Adams would re-colour the selected stories, as he had done (somewhat controversially) on the Batman volumes since their first publication in October 2003.

The first volume of DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams contained a mixture of war stories from Our Army At War and Star-Spangled War Stories, along with a few Super-Hero tales in the form of Teen Titans, Superman and Elongated Man. [Note: the list of stories on MikesAmazingWorld.com is incorrect]. The package was topped off with some sketches and public service ads to pad out the Superhero material in the book. No covers were reproduced, though, which I found to be a disappointment. The new cover drawn by Adams in 2009 focused solely on the Superhero content of the book, and is not one of my favourites. It went through at least one rejected iteration before the final cover of the first printing was agreed.The imagery is somewhat humourous, at odds with the war story content within. A subsequent printing of the book replaced the cover with an image of the Justice League, harvested from a Dollar comic - DC Summer Special 1977.

©DC. Unused Cover for Volume One. From Albert Moy website

©DC Final cover for Volume One

©DC. Second Print Cover of Volume One. Taken from DC Summer Special 1977

In discussion with Neal Adams at the New York Comic Con nine months later in October 2009 (see Superstuff blog Meeting Neal Adams), he mentioned to me that work was underway on the project to "collect together all the old crap" including early covers. He expressed dissatisfaction with the technical proficiency of some of his early work (although it all looks brilliant to me), and in his introduction to volume one he mentions "the quirky and terrible job" he did on the Elongated Man story in Detective #369. These books were an opportunity to rectify past illustrative mistakes (in his eyes), plus re-ink stories if needed.

The first volume of DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams sold respectably, but it was decided to put Volume Two on hold for a while. The second volume would focus on Adams' work on Supernatural hero material ; the proposed cover as shown in solicitations (see top of blog) highlights the Spectre, Phantom Stranger and El Diablo (a supernatural anti-hero with a Western slant). Work got underway, and an announcement was made in the trade press that the hardcover version of Volume Two would contain 192 pages, to be published on November 6th, 2012. An ISBN number was secured for the publication - 9781401225186 (ISBN10: 1401225187).

Somewhere along the line, the decision was made not to publish the book after all; perhaps sales projections were low, or perhaps Adams had not progressed sufficiently on re-colouring the stories. Which is a shame, as the proposed stories contained some of his very best work.

The proposed contents and running order of the book have not been made public, but a bit of analysis and educated guesswork leads me to suggest the following items. Certainly the proposed cover confirms stories about The Spectre, Phantom Stranger and El Diablo (from Weird Western Tales), composed of a collage of interior images from Spectre #5, Phantom Stranger #4 and Weird Western Tales #13.

Here is my suggested contents list:

• Assume 9 pages for introductions and forewords, mirroring the layout of Volume One - (Volume One story reprints start on page 10 (so 9 before)
• Spectre #2 - "DIE SPECTRE--AGAIN!" (Story: Gardner Fox) 23pgs plus cover
• Spectre #3 - "Hang 'Em Up Wildcat - You're Finished!"  (Story & Art: Neal Adams) 24 pgs plus cover
• Spectre #4 - "Stop That Kid..Before He Wrecks The World!" (Story & Art: Neal Adams) 23 page plus cover
• Spectre #5 - "The Spectre Means Death?" (Story & Art: Neal Adams) 22 pages plus cover
• Phantom Stranger #4 - "The Dead Don't Sleep Forever" (Writer: Bob Kanigher, Pencils: Neal Adams, Inks: Bill Draut)  23 pages plus cover
• Weird Western Tales #12 - "A Time To Die" (Writer: Cary Bates, Pencils: Neal Adams, Inks: Berni Wrightson) 4 pages 
• Weird Western Tales #13 - "Night of the Living Dead" (Writer: Cary Bates, Art: Neal Adams) 11 pages
• Weird Western Tales #15 - "Never Kill A Demon" (Writer: Cary Bates, Art: Neal Adams) 12 pages plus cover  
• Biographies of writers and inkers (3 pages)

The material above would cover 160 pages (or 154 pages if Adams' covers were not included). That leaves 38 pages to fill in Volume Two. 

If we assume that the theme of the future bumper final Volume Three would be "Humour and Horror", to include the Bob Hope & Jerry Lewis comics (186 pages) plus 90 pages worth from the titles House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Witching Hour, Secrets of Sinister House, that leaves these oddities for inclusion in Volume Two:

• Superman #249 'The Origin of Terra-Man'  7 pages
• Weird War Tales #8 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' 7 pages  (Adams inks on Crusty Bunkers' penciler Steve Harper) - unlikely inclusion - 
• Action Comics #425 'Human Target:The Short-Walk-to-Disaster Contract' 6 pages
• Hot Wheels #6 'The Humbug Run' - 14 pages

These add up to 34 additional pages (excluding Adams' cover to Weird War Tales #8). Alternatively, these four stories could be held over for Volume Three and replaced with the covers that Adams did for The Spectre and Phantom Stranger, all of which were absolute crackers.

The Spectre issues

The Spectre stories as drawn (and mostly written) by Adams are uniformly excellent. [ For an in-depth commentary on those issues, I refer you to Part One of Nigel Brown's article "The Spectre 1966-1975" as published long ago in SuperStuff #6 (Mar 21st 1976).]

©DC. Spectre #2 cover (courtesy of HotComics.net).

Issue #2 (above) contains a story by Gardner Fox with art by Adams. Great artwork, but uninteresting story. Adams really hit his stride with #3 (below), writing and drawing, bringing back Wildcat as the main protagonist, and really pushing the envelope of inventiveness on the artwork, incorporating collages, perhaps inspired by Jack Kirby.

©DC Spectre #3.

©DC. Interesting use of collage by Adams

Issue Spectre #4 hits the high point of the run with "Stop That Kid...Before He Wrecks The World!", again story and art by Adams.

©DC. Spectre #4

©DC. Sample page from Spectre #4. Such detail and care and dynamism.

With issue #5, Adams' last Spectre book, he intrigues us with a prologue that has later echoes of Batman's time in snow-clad Nanda Parbat, as well as treats us to what may have been Adams first double-page spread in a DC comic!

©DC. Spectre #5 - the template for the aborted TPB Volume Two

©DC Spectre #5 - the intriguing prologue

©DC. Double page-spread in an off-kilter angle city street style that Adams would return to a number of times in subsequent comics

Phantom Stranger

©DC. Phantom Stranger #4

©DC. Love the detail of the city skyline plus the up-angle and sky colouring of the bottom panel.

The Phantom Stranger #4 story is the sole time that Adams tackled the character in an interior story (despite drawing the covers for every issue from #3 to #19) , in a story featuring both the Stranger and Dr Thirteen.  I loved it.  The Stranger is much more of a protagonist than an observer. Adams set the artistic bar for the book so high following the workmanlike work of Bill Draut, that it was only when Jim Aparo took the artistic reins on the interiors with issue #7 that the book regained its stride.

El Diablo - Weird Western Tales

The three El Diablo stories contain some of Adams best work of the 70s...the detail is amazing and rivals the best of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman in this period. Was this only time that Adams and Berni Wrightson collaborated?

©DC, Weird Western Tales #12. Adams & Wrightson

©DC. Weird Western Tales #13. Pencils, Inking and Colours by Adams.

©DC. Weird Western Tales #15. The only El Diablo cover by Adams.

If by some chance Volume Two was published, or someone had an advance copy, I'd love to know the final content.