Reading Room MAN-BAT "Beware the Eyes of Baron Tyme" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Anti-Hero...

...Francine (She-Bat) Langstrom, wife of Kirk (Man-Bat) Langstrom is being mind-controlled by the evil mage Baron Tyme and used to murder his enemies in Gotham City!

This has, of course, attracted the attention of...The Batman...

In best super-villain fashion, Baron Tyme survived and returned to fight Jack Kirby's The Demon in a story arc pencilled and inked by Ditko!
Ditko keeps The Batman's face shadowed most of the time, showing only the eye-slits, giving him a really-kool look I'm sorry other artists haven't followed-up on!

For unknown reasons, the next (and last) issue of the series featured a totally-different creative team (except for cover artist Jim Aparo)!
Ditko kept very busy, doing projects like Stalker and one-off tales for the DC mystery and sci-fi anthologies as well as work for other companies like Atlas/Seaboard and Charlton.
He returned to Marvel in 1977, with the explicit mandate he not illustrate anything involving his co-creations Spider-Man or Doctor Strange!
But anything else was fair game, and he worked on everything from Machine Man and The Avengers to Chuck Norris: Karate Kommando!

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Steve Ditko Omnibus

Volume 2

(which reprints this tale as well as Baron Tyme's return story-arc vs The Demon, also illustrated by Ditko)

Reading Room MAN-BAT "Beware the Eyes of Baron Tyme" Part 1

Steve Ditko studied under Jerry (Joker) Robinson at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School...

...(now known as the School of Visual Arts), and here's the only time Steve illustrated an iconic character Jerry rendered numerous times!

...where Guess Who? is waiting...as you'll see tomorrow!

Ditko did a spectacular job on this tale, and was apparently very enthusiastic about doing the series.

His promo (and probably tryout) piece...

...is absolutely beautiful!

Al Milgrom, who is a longtime fan of Ditko's also threw himself into his work, turning in some of his best non-Jim Starlin inking!

(Milgrom was Starlin's preferred inker during the 1970s whenever Jim didn't ink his own work.

Their co-created covers are signed "Gemini".)

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Batman: Arkham

Man-Bat

(which reprints this tale)

Charlton Fools Day: SINISTRO: BOY FIEND "Too Many Happy Endings"

He could've been the typical All-American boy hero...

...but a cruel fate intervened to make him just the opposite!

The Boy Fiend's battle against all that is good and decent will continue in the near future.

Easily one of the weirdest strips to come out of the Silver Age of Comics, this never-reprinted tale from Charlton Premiere #3 (1968) by Grass Green (writer/layouts) and Henry Scarpelli (pencils and inks) could've been the Ambush Bug or Forbush Man of Charlton.
The highly under-appreciated Richard "Grass" Green was one of the first wave of fanboys-turned-pros which included Roy Thomas, Bernie Wrightson, and Barry Smith, and the only Black member of that august group of pioneers.
Though he did a lot of work for various fanzines in the 60s and 70s, Grass' mainstream professional work was limited to Charlton's Go-Go humor title and two issues of Charlton Premiere.
Green found a niche in underground comics in the 70s and 80s, creating Super Soul Comix and WildMan & RubberRoy.
He passed away from cancer in 2002.
HERE'S an extensive profile about Grass Green on the CBDLF website.

This post is part of an informal blogathon entitled

Charlton Fools Day

conceived and organized by Kracalactaka to bring attention to Charlton Comics, often considered the "runt" of the Silver Age comics litter.

Visit his blog HERE and see a list of other participants as well as his own contributions