John Romita had been working at DC Comics for 8 years on their romance comics. DC eventually cut back on Romance after they found an inventory of unused work and Romita was out of work. He asked DC Editors for work on a superhero title but got none. Romita then left comics to work in Advertising. Stan Lee reached out to Romita (who worked at Marvel in the 50's) and he agreed to do some inking for Marvel, while continuing to do his day job. Stan Lee then convinced Romita to come back to comics full time, promising to match his advertising job salary and a place within Marvel offices to work as John requested. Romita first job was to take over Daredevil with issue #12 (November 1965) after Wally Wood left. Jack Kirby helped Romita by providing breakdowns for the early issues which taught Romita how Stan liked the stories done. Later on when Steve Ditko left Amazing Spider-Man, Romita would drop Daredevil and take over the title (issue #39, May 1966). Romita's work on Daredevil was also a preparation for Spider-Man as Stan had the character appear in a couple of issues to see how Romita handled it. Steve Ditko and Stan Lee's relationship was deteriorating to the point where they were not speaking to each other and Lee likely knew that Ditko may quit sooner or later. During the Romita run on Spider-Man, he changed the look of the book to fit his own romance comics sensibilities. Peter Parker went from an awkward, skinny, nerdy looking teenager to a confident, good looking college student. The female characters looked much prettier and the stories had more romantic elements and romance comics pacing. The Romita-Lee run saw the creation of some notable new characters like The Rhino, The Kingpin, The Shocker and he also drew the first Mary Jane Watson, who would eventually go onto become Peter Parker's main love interest and wife from 1987 to 2007. Romita's version of Spider-Man would be the most well-known and was an inspiration for virtually all artists who drew the title after him.

With John being in the office Stan often went to Romita for art corrections. Romita would eventually become official Marvel's Art Director in 1972. He would have a hand in designing the covers of Marvel Comic Books and also some new characters (Wolverine and The Punisher are among them). He would still occasionally ink and draw some Marvel stories, but he would work on many other special projects from Colouring Books to a 4 year stint as the Amazing Spider-Man comic strip artist. In 1984 John set up an apprentice program (called Romita's Raiders) which taught young artists how to make art corrections. The artists would work at Marvel for around minimum wage for 6 months and it would be very good training for their careers. Many former 'Raiders' became popular artists. John's wife Virginia also came to work at Marvel Comics, being their traffic manager. Her job was to make sure that work (art, scripts, etc..) coming in got to the proper editor, which was a very important job as Marvel's comics expanded rapidly and titles creative teams and their editors would fluidly change from month to month. It was also her job to call freelancers who's work didn't show up when it was expected to be in. Virginia would eventually become Marvel's Production Manager. Both John and Virginia would retire from their staff positions in 1996. One of John's sons, John Romita Jr. would also become a very popular comic book artist that works primarily for Marvel and had a long and successful run on Amazing Spider-Man, among other titles.

          Enemy Ace was a German WWI and WWII pilot that became a popular anti-hero. His first appearance was in Our Army at War #151 (December, 1965). Despite being the enemy, he followed the pilots code of honor, giving him some redeeming qualities. Like many DC War stories, they showed the horror of war and how it negatively effects people. The character was created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert and was based off the real life Red Baron. The character appeared in a variety of war related titles including Men of War, Showcase, Star Spangled War Stories and Unknown Soldier. His last regular comic book appearance was in Unknown Soldier #267 (1982). He would eventually make appearances in other comics and be brought back in mini series, and in graphic novels.

          In Fantastic Four #48 (December 1965) the Silver Surfer made his first appearance. This issue started a storyline that made a very big impression on readers. In it a giant, powerful alien named Galactus comes to earth with the intention of eating it's "life force" and rendering the planet uninhabitable. While we humans viewed that as evil, Galactus saw life on planets as insignificant. He gave us as much consideration as we might give ants. Oddly enough, Silver Surfers appearance was not planned by writer Stan Lee. He gave Kirby a very bare plot (reportedly, "The Fantastic Four fights God") as was his usual method at this time. Kirby figured a powerful god like being as Galactus would have somebody going around finding the "edible" planets for him and created the Silver Surfer for that role. Stan liked the character and he quickly became one of his favorite heroes. In the story Silver Surfer realizes exterminating all life on our planet is not a good thing and turns on Galactus and helps the Fantastic Four stop him. Galactus would punish the Surfer by creating an invisible barrier around the Earth preventing him from leaving.

Silver Surfer would get his own series in 1968 but it would only go 18 issues. Stan Lee took a more direct hand in this title, scripting it and filling it with his philosophies on human society. Silver Surfer was a favorite character of Stan and he wrote it using John Buscema as the artist. Jack Kirby did not like the direction Stan was taking the character in and only worked on the last issue of the series, using it to showcase The Inhumans, another family/team of powered characters he created in Fantastic Four and had just become the lead feature in Amazing Adventures that Kirby was plotting, scripting and drawing. For a very long time nobody else at Marvel was allowed to write a solo Silver Surfer story except for Stan Lee. The character could and did make appearances in other titles, but it wasn't until the 1980s that Stan gave his approval for other writers to do a solo Silver Surfer book written without his involvement. In 1987 the Surfer had a much more successful series that would go 147 issues. Both before and after the two series he would regularly appear in other titles and numerous one shots.

          Also in December of 1965 Marvel published Fantasy Masterpieces #1. This was primarily a reprint title but at one point it had a few significant original stories that introduced new characters to the Marvel Universe. The title was changed to Marvel Superheroes with issue #12 (October 1967), but Marvel had published a Marvel Super-Heroes Annual #1 in June of 1966. The purpose of this reprint title was two fold, first it was easy money for Martin Goodman as long as the title sold. Marvel did not pay creators if their stories were reprinted so there were little to no creative costs in producing the book. The second reason was to re-establish the copyrights on the characters. At the time the copyright laws gave whomever owned the copyright a 28 year "lease" on it and after that it could be renewed for another 28 years. After 52 years the character would go into public domain (until future legislation would extend the ownership period even further). There was some confusion as to who had the right to do the renewal, the original creator or the publisher that had assumed ownership. In 1962 Jerry Siegel unsuccessfully attempted to renew the Superman copyright in his and Joe Shuster's name, which lead to him no longer getting work from DC comics. Within Fantasy Masterpieces / Marvel Super-heroes Goodman had the golden age stories featuring the Human Torch, Captain America and Namor the Sub-Mariner reprinted with no creator credits in an effort to maintain his assumed ownership of the characters.

          The Original Human Torch was brought back in Fantastic Four Annual #4 (August 1966). Carl Burgos was interested in reclaiming the copyright on his original Human Torch and was aware of the new Human Torch. Carl was the artist for Strange Tales #123 (May 1964) featuring the Fantastic Four's Human Torch and worked on a few other Marvel Comics too. It's not fully known what if any legal action Burgos took, but his daughter Susan said at Carl did see a lawyer and his situation was not resolved to his satisfaction. Susan said she remembers in 1966 Carl angrily took his comic collection into his back yard and destroyed it.

Did you know? - Carl Burgos would co-create another super character in Strange Tales #123. He was Abner Jenkins, aand was a long time supervillain named The Beetle who fought The Torch, Spider-Man, Daredevil and The Avengers. In 1997 new superhero team came dout call the Thunderbolts, one of which would be a guy in a new high tech armour called Mach-1. It would be revealed that he was really Abner Jenkins only pretending to be a superhero along with his team mates who were also former super villains under new heroic guises. Abner along with some of his team mates would decide to become an super hero for real. He would later up the number of his superhero name (Mach-2, Mach-3, etc..) as he made more upgrades to his armour.

Regarding Marvel's other big Golden Age character, the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett had no intentions of suing Marvel to regain ownership over the characters he created. Bill worked with Marvel in the 1940s and again in the 1950's when they made another attempt with the The Sub-Mariner. Even though his 3rd attempt to come back with Daredevil didn't work out well, Bill would be welcomed back with open arms a couple years later and would continue to receive work until the 1970s. Another factor in this was Marvel owner Martin Goodman loaned Bill Everett some money at one time and was told he didn't need to pay it back if he didn't attempt to reclaim ownership of the character. Bill Everett would die in 1973.

          Carl Burgos would end up competing with Marvel Comics though. He teamed up with former golden age comic artist turned publisher Myron Fass and produced Captain Marvel #1 (Cover date, April 1966) under the company name M. F. Enterprises. The comic featured an alien android who is sent to Earth. He loses his memory but quickly regains it. The android has the ability to shoot apart his limbs by yelling Split! and having them all return by yelling Xam! He can also shoot laser beams from his eyes and has other assorted powers. Marvel Comics did not like another publisher having a comic book in the stands with Marvel in its' name. They believed fans would buy it thinking it was one of their books. With Captain Marvel they created several other characters that were extremely similar to other superheroes. Examples include a Plastic Man, but his name was changed to Elastic Man by the 2nd issue. The 3rd issue had a character named The Bat, but his name was changed to They Ray by the 4th issue. They also had a character named Dr. Fate and another named Tiny Man who had similar powers to Ant Man. I think it's fair to say that Burgos felt he'd been ripped off by comic publishers (particularly over Human Torch) and decided what was good for the goose was good for the gander. In all there were 4 issues of Captain Marvel and 2 Captain Marvel Presents the Terrible Five issues, the last of which had a September 1967 cover date. These comics did not last very long and are regularly panned by comic readers who've read them. M.F. Enterprises also produced 7 issues of Henry Brewster (1966 - 1967) by Bob Powell that was very similar to Archie Comics. Bob Powell passed away from pancreatic cancer on October 1st 1967 at the age of 51.

          M.F. Enterprises would have more success with their Horror comic magazines. They were in a race with Jim Warren over the name Eerie for a magazine but lost as Warren very quickly got an ashcan of Eerie #1 put together and distributed (and sent to the U.S. Copyright Office). Myron Fass, his partners Stanley R. Harris and Robert W. Farrell instead created Eerie Publications and began with Weird Vol. 1, #10 (cover dated January 1966). Farrell used to be a comic publisher and still had his inventory of horror stories. Weird was a mix of Farrell reprints and original stories. Eventually they began to swipe pre-code horror stories from other publishers, with the original creator credits removed. The reprinted art was often altered in places to make it gorier. Carl Burgos was the editor and contributed his art to the magazine. Weird would 67 issues and ended with issue Vol. 14, #3 (cover dated November 1981). In 1968 Eerie Publications would start to publish other horror comic magazines, they started with Tales from the Crypt but it changed to Tales of Voodoo likely due to Bill Gaines still owning the Crypt name. In 1969 they published Terror Tales, Horror Tales, Witches Tales and Tales from the Tomb. These all went between 32 to 46 issues. A few other titles started between 1970 and 1971 but they were very short lived. Myron Fass and his partner Stanley Harris would have a falling out (reportedly after Fass tried to shoot Harris in 1976) and they would split the large number of magazines between them. In 1977, Harris Publications would become the new publishers of the horror magazines. Burgos, who had been let go a couple of years earlier would come back to work on them until their end. Burgos died in 1984 from colon cancer.

          In April 1966, the Black Panther made his debut in Fantastic Four #52. He was the first black superhero in any major comic book publisher. He was a king of a hidden African nation called Wakanda with very advanced technology that utilized an alien metal called Vibranium that had landed in their nation a long time ago. The Black Panther would show up in various Marvel titles and would get his own series from 1977 to 1979. Marvel would publish several other solo Black Panther series starting from the late 1990s. He has also been a member of the superhero team The Avengers. The Black Panther was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

Behind the Scenes - The OTHER "First" Black Superhero - In the very same month, a new masked hero named Ferro Lad was created and joined the Legion of Superheroes. This happened in DC's Adventure Comics #346. He would die soon afterwards in issue #353 without much being revealed about him. What readers didn't know was that 13 year old writer/penciler Jim Shooter - who was doing Legion of Superheroes intended the character to be black. He wanted to create the first black superhero. What Jim wanted to do was have the character unmask in front of the other Legion members and... nothing would happen. They wouldn't bat an eye or be surprised that there was a black superhero. He'd just be one of them without any drama over his race. This didn't occur as intended. Adventure Comics editor Mort Weisinger told Shooter that if they had a black superhero distributors, particularly in the southern states, would object and boycott DC titles. He put the kibosh on the plot and Jim just killed the character off.

Did You Know? - Child Labour at DC Comics. Jim Shooter is known for breaking into comics at age 13 with that same issue of Adventure Comics. He wasn't the only youngster to be working in comics at that time. Cary Bates was another 13 year old writer working for DC Comics. Like Shooter he also worked for Mort Weisinger, but Bates worked on a variety of Superman stories while Shooter did a mix of both Superman and Legion of Superheroes. Even more impressive was prior to becoming a paid writer for DC, he was sending in cover ideas and plots at the age of 9 and they were getting used. DC wouldn't be the only publisher to have young teenagers working on their comics. At Charlton, Dick Giordano was using scripts from a 14 year old Willy Franz. He wrote war stories that veteran Sam Glanzman drew. According to Giordano, he did some uncredited work for DC as well. A 12 year old Joe Kuburt got his start at MLJ Publications in 1939, doing various minor tasks for the crew of artists working there. He would work for a variety of other publishers before getting his first work at DC Comics in 1942 at age 17.

          The Unknown Soldier was an intelligence agent who unfortunately had a disfigured face so he often wore disguises. One way you can tell it was him was he'd be scratching his face as his scar tissue would itch when in contact with the mask and makeup. When he wasn't in disguise his face was usually in bandages. He was inspired by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which represents soldiers who died but were unable to be identified. The character was created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert. He made his first appearance in Our Army At War #168 (April 1966) in a Sgt. Rock story. Kanigher felt the character was strong enough to be the regular feature in Star Spangled War Stories. He was the main feature from issue #151 (April 1970) and with issue #205 (January 1977) the title changed to The Unknown Soldier and remained that way until it's cancellation (issue #268, July 1982). The character has since made appearances in various comics. In 2008 there was a new Unknown Soldier comic with a new character being the Unknown Soldier. It went 25 issues.

In 1966 Joe Simon sued Marvel over Captain America's copyright renewal. He claimed he was the sole creator of Captain America and thus the copyright was his to renew and not Marvel's. In its defense Marvel claimed that the character was a work-made-for-hire and thus, Marvel owned the character. To help bolster their case, they made a deal with Jack Kirby. The agreement was that Kirby would claim he co-created the character and that the work was done as work-for-hire. The idea was this would force Simon to settle and Marvel promised that whatever amount Simon agreed to, they would also pay Jack. It's believed Jack agreed to this because he wanted to credit for co-creating Captain America, felt Simon was also cutting Kirby out of any financial gain from the character. Jack also needed to keep working at Marvel. Kirby was still blacklisted at DC and all other publishers either paid significantly less than Marvel or required artists adhear to a 'house style' that was not well suited for him.

Simon's first filing was in state court, the following year he filed again in federal court. In 1969 Simon and Marvel agreed to settle the case out of court. It is believed that Simon was paid $7,500 in the settlement. Marvel didn't follow through on their agreement to pay Kirby what they paid Simon. Kirby was very upset about this. It should be said that owner Martin Goodman had sold Marvel Comics to Perfect Film and Chemical in 1968 and the new owners felt no need to honor agreements that the previous owner made. Later in 1999, Joe Simon would take advantage of the 1976 copyright law revisions and file with US copyright office to terminate the transfer of the Captain America copyright from him to Marvel, giving him back the copyright to the character. Marvel filed suit to stop this and the two sides came to a settlement in 2003. Joe Simon reportedly gave half of the settlement money to Jack Kirby. Later when Captain America appeared in Marvel movies, Joe angrily insisted that Jack Kirby's name be listed along side his as Captain America's co-creator. Kirby and Simon remained friends throughout their lives.

          Barbara Gordon would debut as the new Batgirl in Detective Comics #359 (November 1966). She was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino. According to editor Julie Schwartz, Executive producer of the popular 1966 Batman TV show William Dozier suggested giving Police Commissioner James Gordon a daughter and making her Batgirl. They wanted to use the character for the 3rd season of Batman to help it's ratings. It was decided to make Barbara James Gordon's neice/adopted daughter. Unlike previous Batgirls or Batwomen Barbara Gordon remains popular and a fairly regular part of the Batman supporting characters to this day. She has also had multiple solo titles devoted to her.

          In Fantastic Four #66-67 (June-July 1967) Jack Kirby would create another character simply titled HIM, a super powered 'perfect man' that 3 sciensts created via a cocoon to do their bidding. The character decides the scientists intensions are evil and defeats them and flies away. The ending went against what Kirby wanted for the character. Kirby's original idea was that a team of rogue scientists created a superior human being and that being would believe in Ayn Rand's ideas regarding doing things for your individual benefit is moral and helping anybody else was immoral. It's possible that Stan wasn't enthralled with writing dialogue for an Ayn Rand objectivism character after the breakdown of his relationship with Steve Ditko who strongly believed in those philosophies. Jack Kirby did not subscribe to Ayn Rand's views. Due to a comibnation of Stan's handling of HIM, The Silver Surfer (having him give long philisophical speaches about the state of humanity), a 1965 article in the New York Herald Tribune that glorified Stan and insulted Kirby and Martin Goodman's refusal to honor his agreement to share licensing money - espeically from the 1966 Marvel Superhero catoons that used Jack's actual art with minimal animation - Kirby decided to stop creating any major new characters for Marvel. Kirby does use HIM again in Thor #163-166 (Febuary-May 1969) and the the character would later reappear in Marvel Premiere #1 (November 1971) as a superhero named Adam Warlock. He would continue to be a superhero that appeared in various titles and occasionally in his own title from time to time.

          Star Trek #1 (July 1967) appeared on the newsstands from Gold Key. The comic was done by writer Dick Wood and artist Nevio Zeccara. The comic went 61 issues ending when Gold Key stopped publishing newsstand comics in 1979. This would be the first of many, many Star Trek titles published by many different publishers. Among them would be DC, Marvel, Malibu, IDW and more. As Star Trek came back with The Next Generation and other spin off series, those too became licened comic book titles for various publishers.

Did you know? - Star Trek artist Nevio Zeccara didn't know what Scotty looked like when he started drawing Star Trek as he did not get a publicity photo of him.

          Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (October 1967) would be the debut of Marvel's 1st of many characters with the name of Captain Marvel. He was a member of the military for the alien Kree race who were secretly observing Earth. The character was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, although Gene did not like the green and white colours used Captain Marvel's costume. Captain Marvel would move from Marvel Super-Heroes to Marvel Spotlight (issue 1-4), then to Marvel's Space-Born Superhero! Captain Marvel (issue 1 to 6) which was renamed to simply Captain Marvel with issue #7 in 1968 (August).

In Captain Marvel #17 (July 1969) the character would be changed by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane. Now the character was in another dimension called the Negative Zone and he wore Nega-Bands which gave him super powers. Captain Marvel is able to temporarily switch place with Rick Jones (from The Hulk comic) by banging the Nega-Bands together. This new version was not that popular with fans and the title would be hiatus with issue 21 (May 1970). What did stick though was the new costume designed by Gil Kane.

When the title came back with issue #22 (June 1972) it was being done by Writer/Artist Jim Starlin. The character was revamped again in issue #25 (December 1972). Gone was being trapped in the Negative Zone dimension and the needing to trade places with Rick Jones. Now he had Super Strength, Flight, The ability to absorb and project solar energy and cosmic awareness. He was also the designated "Protector of the Universe" by Eon, a cosmic entity. This version of the character stuck and he remained that way until he died in the early 1980s. The Captain Marvel title would go 62 issues, ending in 1979. The character would be the main feature of Marvel Spotlight (V2) in 1979 from issues 1 to 4. Other characters have taken on the Captain Marvel name until a derivative character Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers character took the name in the 2012. Marvel has been keen to keep the Captain Marvel trademark.

Marvel had been steadily getting agreements from Independent News to let them publish more titles. By 1967 they were publishing up to 16 titles a month. Come June of 1967 restrictions were lifted and Marvel was publishing up to 27 titles a month. A lot of popular characters got their own titles or had titles that they were only half-feature in turned into their solo title. Among them were Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer. The first 3 of those titles did quite well with very long runs.

          Gold Key decided to experiment with a new format for comics with Walt Disney Comics Digest #1 (May 1968). It measured 4.75" x 6.5", contained 192 pages and sold for 50 cents. With issue #11 it would be reduced to 160 pages but kept the 50 cent price. The format was successful enough that they followed it up with Golden Comics Digest #1 (March 1969) and Mystery Comics Digest #1 (January 1972). All 3 titles would eventually be reduced to 128 pages but still sold for 50 cents. The page count would stay the same but the price would raise to 59 cents briefly, before being raised again to 69 cents a few months later. The titles would end in late 1975-early 1976 with the Disney Comics Digest going 57, Golden Comics Digest 48 and Mystery Comics Digest 26 issues. The Disney title was mostly reprints from various Walt Disney Comics and the Golden title were mostly reprints of various cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvesters, Beep Beep the Road Runner, Porky Pig, Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Droopy, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Space Ghost and Tarzan. Mystery Comics Digest reprinted stories from their popular line of horror/strange/mystery lineup of Ripley's Believe it or Not, Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery and The Twllight Zone. Other publishers would copy the digest sized format with various levels of success.

          Marvel would introduce other space based heroes in what were short lived runs at the time, but would later become much more popular. In Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (October 1968) the Guardians of the Galaxy made their first appearance. This was hero team from the 31st Century where Earth had colonized all the planets in our solar system. An Invading alien race called The Badoon has wiped out nearly all life in our solar system and the lone survivors of planet Pluto (Martinex), Jupiter (Charlie-27), Earth (Vance Astro) and Centauri IV (the first planet Earth colonized outside our solar system). Each member has their own powers. Martinex is crystal based being that can blast cold or hot out of each hand and is the team's scientist. Charlie-27 is super strong and is the team's pilot. Vance Astro has telekinetic powers and is a 1,000 years old and his body is sealed in a suit that keeps him alive. He was an astronaut who was sent to the Alpha Centauri solar system (Yondu's Centauri IV) but upon arriving found out Earth had come up with quicker modes of transportation during his travel and had long been on the planet. Yondu shoots arrows made out of a Yaka metal that can be controlled via sound waves (normally controlled by Yondu's whistling). He is a spiritual warrior/hunter of the group. He has a limited empathic ability to connect with other life forms. He is also an aboriginal life form of Centauri IV and not from the Earth colonized life forms that were living on the planet.

The group would pick up new members soon. The two main new characters were Nikki (from Mercury) and Stakar/Aleta (from Arcturus IV), a Husband Wife team that would share the same body and switch back and forth. Nikki has the ability to withstand extreme heat and ultraviolet radiation and see clearly in intense light. She is also a gifted acrobat and sharpshooter. Aleta has the ability to manipulate light. Stakar became the avatar of Acturus IV Hawk God and took the name Starhawk. He had the ability of flight, energy manipulation, invulnerability and was called "The One Who Knows" because after the he dies, he travels back into time and relives his life, retaining the memories of his previous life. He had been through many lifetimes when we meet him and seen history repeat itself over and over again.

Vance Astro, Charlie-21, Martinex and Yondu was created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Gene Colan. Nikki was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Al Milgrom. Stakar/Aleta/Starkhawk was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Sal Buscema. After their original appearance they would bounce around showing up in other characters' titles. They had a run as the main feature in Marvel Presents from issue 3-12 (1976-1977), which was primarily done by Steve Gerber and Al Milgrom. They would get their own popular title in the 1990s that went 62 issues. In 2008 The Guardians of the Galaxy name would be used for a new team of characters. The popular Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy of movies was based on the 2008 version of the team, with the addition of an alternative version of Yondu. The original team were used in a series called Guardians 3000 that went 8 issues between 2014 and 2015.

          Popular artist and creator rights advocate Neal Adams began working for Marvel with X-Men #56 (March 1969). When he worked on this issue he was asked if he wanted to use a fake name, but he declined and used his real name on the work. This was breakthrough for the time as DC Editors often felt 'ownership' over the freelancers working for them and not wanting to lose work at DC many creators used a fake name when they did work for Marvel. Neal was the first to refused to do this, which eventually allowed the other freelancers to drop the practice as well. The other thing he did was request to colour the comic himself and in doing so he used a technique to increase the expand the amount of colours available to him. At this time comic publishers didn't see the need to do this, feeling the limited colours they were using for years were sufficient for their needs. Once the results came in and everybody saw the benefits of using an expanded colour palette others in the industry started asking to do it too and it eventually became the new industry standard.

Behind the Scenes - Among the pen names that freelancers used were:
Arnold Drake = H. E. Arloff
Denny O’Neil = Sergius O’Shaughnessy
Frank Giacoia = Frankie Ray
Gene Colan = Adam Austin
George Roussos = George Bell
Gerry Conway = Francis X. Bushmaster
Gil Kane = Scott Edward
Jack Abel = Gary Michaels
Jerry Siegel = Joe Carter
Jim Mooney = Jay Noel
Mike Esposito = Mickey Demeo
Robert Bernstein = R. Berns
Werner Roth = Jay Gavin

          Martin Goodman would sell Marvel Comics to Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation in 1968. The company would change it's name to Cadence Industries. Goodman continued to work as Publisher. Marvel then left Independent News and signed a distribution deal with Curtis Circulation Company. In July of 1969 (cover dated October) all their titles were being distributed by Curtis to the newsstands. The first of their comic books to show the "CC" symbol was Captain America #118.

There was a lot of turnover at DC and an influx of new creators at Marvel in the mid to late 60s. At DC a number of older writers lead by Arnold Drake approached DC Management as a collective and requested better page rates, reprint fee's, health insurance and a profit sharing plan. DC management wasn't interested and those writers discovered their work dried up soon afterwards. Replacing them was younger writers who grew up on comic books and were eager to get into the business. Artists were also being replaced by younger talent too. Neal Adams in particular was a very popular new artist and artists who didn't draw in his more illustrative style were being let go. Steve Ditko was given work and when asked, he had suggested Charlton editor Dick Gordiano as a good editor. Gordiano would replace George Kashdan.

DC was perplexed by the success of Marvel Comics, they had felt the art and stories of Marvel were inferior to what DC was producing, yet Marvel sales was going up and catching up to DC Comics titles. They had started to look into why Marvel Comics was selling better and beleived the answer to be Marvel Comics covers were more action packed than DC's covers at the time. This lead to DC Managing Editor Irwin Donenfeld believing that 90% of the reason for a comic book's success had to do with how good the covers were. Carmine Infantino covers sold very well and he talked Irwin into an Art Director's position at DC which gave him a good salary to design all of DC's covers and make suggestions on the interior artwork.

With the success of Batman on TV and Marvel's increasing sales and their characters appearing in cartoons bigger companies began taking an interest in comic book publishers. At the same time the founders of said companies were nearing retirement age and knew that now was the time to sell. Comic sales had been steadily declining for many years and the recent upsurge and interest increased the companies value. In 1967 the Kinney National Company began their purchase of National Periodical Publications (AKA DC Comics). The purchase was completed in March 1968. Jack Liebowitz secured himself a spot on the board of directors of the Kinney, but Harry Donenfeld did not, due to his background with gangsters. Somehow Liebowitz own background with them wasn't an issue. Harry's son and longtime DC Editorial Manager Irwin Donenfeld was given a position on a newly created Junior Board and suddenly wasn't working on anything comic book related anymore. He was upset regarding broken promises and quit the company when it was decided they were moving the business to a different building. Replacing him as Editorial Director was Carmine Infantino.

As editors began getting older, they too got replaced. Carmine continued the trend started by Irwin of replacing them with artists instead of writers. Robert Kanigher was replaced as editor by Joe Kubert. Kanigher still got work writing for DC, doing a lot of it for his former freelancer Kubert. Editor Jack Schiff left in 1967. Joe Orlando became an editor in 1968. The idea of artists as editors is they would improve the visual element of the comics and hopefully make them sell better.

          Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (February 1969) would feature the first comic dedicated to a supervillain (Dr. Doom). The first half of the story was written and drawn by Larry Lieber (Stan Lee's brother). The 2nd half was done by Roy Thomas and Frank Giacoia when Larry was unable to finish it. The comic also reprints the stories of The original Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America from Young Men #24. This Dr. Doom story would be reprinted and used to start a Super Villain Team Up title featuring Dr. Doom and Namor and eventually other supervillians. Marvel Super-Heroes issue #21 to 105 the comic was reprints of a variety of characters, but they were primarily Hulk, Daredevil, Namor the Submariner, Iron Man, X-Men and other random 1950s Superhero and Sci-fi stories.

          With Vampirella #1 (July 1969) Warren Publishing began publishing their most successful title devoted to a character. Vampirella was a female vampire from the planet Drakulon. She has many of the supernatural abilities of a vampire including super strength, senses, agility, stamina, healing, the ability to grow bat wings and fly or turn into a bat and fly, put humans (especially males) into a hypnotic trance, some telepathic abilties and is immortal. She was in created by Forrest J. Ackerman, Trina Robbins, Frank Frazatta and Tom Sutton. Jim Warren was having a difficult time explaining to Frazatta (who was providing promotional art to advertise the new character) how he wanted Vampirella and her costume to look like. Trina began sketching what Jim was describing and when Jim saw the sketch, he got excited saying "That's it!" and handed Trina the phone to describe to Frank in detail how the costume looked. Tom Sutton would draw the first story fleshing out the details of Vampirella and her world. Trina would later go on to say that Frazatta (and subsequent artists) made her costume much skimpier than she originally drew it. The magazine would go 112 issues ending in late 1982 when Warren stopped publishing. Issue #113 (1988) would be done by Harris Publications. In the 1990s Harris would do new Vapirella stories in comic book format. Eventually Dynamite Entertainment would get the rights and continue doing new Vampirella comics.

The Losers were an unusual team of characters that appeared in various war stories, all written by Robert Kanigher. Some of them even had their own short lived solo books. The group of them as individuals had failed their mission but working together, and calling themselves the losers, they combined their talents to accomplish what they could not alone. The group consisted of: Captain Storm (Captain Storm #1 -18 (March 1964-1967)) - co created with Irv Novick(?) Captain Johnny Cloud (All-American Men of War #82-115 (September 1960-1966)) - co created with Irv Novick(?) Gunner (Mackey) and Sarge (Clay) (All-American Men of War #67 (January 1959), then Our Fighting Forces #45-94 (May 1959-August 1965)) - co created with Ross Andru (?)

          As the Losers the group made their first appearance in G.I. Combat #138 (August 1969), in a Haunted Tank story. The group then became the lead feature in Our Fighting Forces with issue #123 (November 1969). Robert Kanigher was the primary writer of the comic but Jack Kirby had a short run (issue #151 - 162) with the title as well. The title would end with issue 181 (1978). Kanigher's final story originally planned for issue 182, was printed in The Unknown Soldier #265 (1982). The Losers appeared in a few different comics after their run ended, the story usually showed all the characters be killed in different ways. In 2003 a new Losers comic was created with a new crew and it ran for 32 issues.

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