"MAKE MINE A DOUBLE!" - PART EIGHTEEN Of FAVOURITE COMICS Of The PAST...

Copyright DC COMICS

Continuing our look back at some of my favourite comics of the past, we now turn our attention to SUPERMAN #198, which I first spied in my local Barber's in 1967 or '68 when my father took me for a haircut one day.  (This was before he acquired the 'amazing' RONCO home haircutting device a few years later.  This was a small plastic item with a razor blade at each toothed end, which, magically, could make hair fly from your head in all directions at once, merely by being waved anywhere within a two inch vicinity of it.  At least, that's how it seemed to operate - it was lethal!)

As I awaited my turn in the chair (if only it had been electric, some of you are doubtless thinking), I read the comic so thoughtfully provided by the barber for the entertainment of his younger customers.  Needless to say, I was entertained.  So much so, in fact, that, seeing I didn't want to relinquish it from my grasp, he let me take the comic away with me, nice man that he was (and hopefully still is).  The premises remained a 'hairdressing salon' right up to a few short years ago, when someone else acquired the lease and turned the place into a Delicatessen.

The first story in the mag was drawn by AL PLASTINO doing a pretty fair imitation of CURT SWAN, and the second tale is by the great man himself.  Both strips later turned up in the monthly SUPER DC, a British anthology reprint mag that lasted for 14 issues.  However, whenever I look at my replacement copy of Superman #198 today, I'm back in that barbershop getting a short back and sides, and thrilling to the amazing adventures of the mighty Man of Steel.  If only such establishments were like that today, I'd doubtless get my (luckily luxuriant) hair cut more often.  (Sawdust on the floor or not.)