DC Finest: Team-Ups: The Impossible Escape

Born in 1926, Bob Haney grew up in Philadelphia and entered the comics field in 1948, writing war, crime, and western stories for a wide variety of publishers. Haney is perhaps best known for his role in the creation of Metamorpho, Eclipso and the Teen Titans, his long runs on Batman and Robin, Suicide Squad, Tomahawk and Mystery in Space, and his contributions to DC’s line of war comics.

Neal Adams was born June 6, 1941 in New York City. He attended Manhattan’s High School of Industrial Art and, while still a student, found work ghosting the Bat Masterson syndicated newspaper strip and drawing gag cartoons for Archie Comics. Neal received his own comic strip based on the popular TV series Ben Casey in 1962. The strip ran until 1965 at which time Neal made the move to comics for Warren Publishing and DC Comics. Neal’s realistic style on Deadman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow, at odds with the more cartoony comics of the day, made him an immediate star. He became DC’s premier cover artist, contributing radical and dynamic illustrations to virtually the company’s entire line. Neal’s work has also appeared in Marvel’s X-Men, The Avengers, and Thor, on paperback book covers, and on stage, as the art director for the Broadway science fiction play, Warp. In the 1970s, Neal and partner (and frequent inker) Dick Giordano started the art agency Continuity Associates out of which came, in the 1980s, Continuity Comics. Neal is the winner of several Alley, Shazam, and Inkpot Awards, and was inducted into the Harvey Awards’ Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.

A self-taught artist, Jim Aparo first attempted to break into the industry in the early 1950s at the legendary E.C. Comics group. When E.C. rejected his work, Aparo turned to advertising art in his native Connecticut, where he specialized in illustrating newspaper fashion ads while continuing his efforts to work in comics. His dream was finally realized in 1966 when Charlton Comics editor Dick Giordano hired him to draw a humorous character called Miss Bikini Luv in Go-Go Comics. Sharpening his skills on such features as the Phantom, Nightshade, Wander and Thane of Bagarth, Aparo followed Giordano to DC Comics in 1968 where he quickly gained notice for his smooth, realistic style on such titles as Aquaman, The Brave and the Bold, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre, The House Of Mystery, The House Of Secrets, Batman, Detective Comics, and Batman and the Outsiders. An artist whose work is still considered a high-water mark for the industry, Aparo died on July 19, 2005.