Sunday, February 4, 2018

Superboy does a Houdini

Here's a page from Adventure Comics featuring Superboy performing Houdini's Walking Through A Brick Wall. What interesting is that it's performed here pretty much just as Houdini did it with two screens on each side. I don't know the year of this, but it fun to think the writer or artist might have seen Houdini do it himself.


Below are links to a few other Houdini superhero encounters.

Related:

4 comments:

  1. Looks like it's from Adventure #122, from November 1947: https://www.comics.org/issue/6291/#63179

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    1. Thank you, Dave! I was hoping someone would be able to identify the issue.

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  2. Assuming Dave is right, the script for the story was written by Bill Finger. Finger was five months old and living in Denver when Houdini did the effect, so it is unlikely that direct memories inspired the story (although I suppose he could have seen Hardeen or someone else do it later, after he moved to NYC).

    What I think is more likely is that Walter Gibson may have been involved. Gibson also wrote comics for DC in the 1940s. Gibson and Finger may have known each other that way; there are issues of Batman comics that have stories by both of them (Finger was a co-creator of Batman).

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    1. Thanks Bill. Or Finger might have just had a copy of Kellock handy that gives a pretty accurate illustration of the effect, screens and all.

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