As you can see, the art on this is fantastic. These issues were Mike Grell's initial comic-book work, so they were obviously dynamic and exciting. This was before he went on to fame on Legion of Super-Heroes, Green Lantern, and The Warlord.
However, two things happened that stopped me from buying Adventure Comics #438 when it was first published. First, the story was not illustrated by Mike Grell. Seeing this ad above, wouldn't it be safe to assume that Mike Grell would be the artist on the Seven Soldiers story? To a ten-year old boy it seemed obvious, anyway. But when I saw the issue but noticed that the art was by JLA illustrator Dick Dillin and some guy I had never heard of named Howard Chaykin, I demurred. And secondly, as mentioned above, I was not a huge fan of this particular version of the Spectre. He was too morbid and macabre and I just didn't like him. So....I was not keen on picking up this issue. I let it pass.
Fast forward six months, and the new lead of Adventure Comics is now Aquaman! As he's my favorite character, I of course picked up Adventure Comics #441. In the back-up position is The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, chapter 5 of the seven part serial.
I get the remaining chapters of the story (because Aquaman remains in the lead position) but it always tugs at me that I never picked up the first four chapters.
Eventually I add these three issues of Adventure Comics to my "must hunt down and find" list. But life gets in the way, and I never make acquiring these issues a priority. Finally, this year, I managed to acquire all three of them.
If you are not familiar with the Seven Soldiers of Victory, they are the Crimson Avenger (DC's first masked crime-fighter), Green Arrow and Speedy, the Shining Knight, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Vigilante. Oddly enough, the Crimson Avenger's oriental partner, Wing, attended all the meetings and went on adventures with his boss but was not considered an official member. Racism? Or just that "The Eight Soldiers of Victory" doesn't have the same alliterative appeal as "Seven"? Or maybe a bit of both....
In the 40 year interim between when these books were published and when I managed to find them all I read some "behind the scenes" information on this series. It turns out that during the office move that DC Comics did in July 1973, assistant editor Paul Levitz found an old, never published script by former Seven Soldiers writer Joe Samachson. This story had evidently been intended for the next issue of their title, Leading Comics #15, in 1945. However, they had been bumped from that series and fell into limbo after their adventure in #14! So this script was bought and paid for, but never used.
The Seven Soldiers had recently "returned" to the DC Universe (in the classic JLA-JSA team-up in Justice League of America #s100-102 in the summer of 1972). Paul hit on the idea of commissioning artists to draw this unpublished script, and to then use the story in the back-up spot of Adventure Comics. For more detailed information on this whole situation I recommend you pick up a copy of BACK ISSUE #64, which includes an interesting article on this series by Jack Abramowitz. You can pick up a copy here.
Which brings us to today. To help celebrate my being able to read this whole story in one sitting, and as a public service for those of us who have no new comics to read right now, I am going to re-present each chapter here, one chapter each day for the next week.
Come back tomorrow for the first chapter of Joe Samachson's story, The Seven Soldiers of Victory in "The Land of Magic!"
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