You keep asking, and I keep answering…114 times and counting. Hello, I’m Alex Jaffe, known to the DC Community since 2018 as HubCityQuestion. Every month—almost every day, in fact—I make it my mission to come to you with solutions to the greatest DC problems your minds can conjure. Directories, histories and mysteries abound anew in each installment of this column I call ASK… THE QUESTION, and this month is no different. Let’s see what I have for you all this time around.
SILVER FOR FIRST
Rex Rebel asks:
DC’s Silver Age saw the reintroduction of many Golden Age heroes, like the Flash and Green Lantern, but who was the first brand new hero/villain of the Silver Age? Set whatever parameters you feel are appropriate for answering.
As I’ve covered in the past, defining exactly when the “Silver Age” began is something that varies from title to title, as each caught up with the zeitgeist at its own pace. But the most agreed upon starting point is July 1956’s Showcase #4, featuring the debut of Barry Allen.
The first villain in that issue, Turtle Man, is also a legacy character, inspired by Jay Garrick villain the Turtle. But the backup story, “The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier,” featured a super-thief from the distant future named Mazdan. Not only does time travel already feature into The Flash by Barry’s very first issue, but it also gives us our very first original Silver Age villain. Not one to let an OG go unrecognized, Cary Bates would bring Mazdan back years later for a two-part story in 1977’s The Flash #254-255.
READING FRENZY
Chain_Twix asks:
What are some good must-read storylines with King Shark?
As arguably the breakout character of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, I’m not surprised you’d like to know more about this half-god shark-man. Since his introduction as a Superboy villain in the ’90s, King Shark has sported a remarkably vast array of personalities, from the jolly nerd of the Harley Quinn animated series to the scheming underworld figure of Aquaman. For a representative sampling of all Nanaue has to offer, I’d drop the following reading list on the hook:
