Will you look at those Christmas covers! I doubt anyone reading this was buying in the Forties and Fifties when these books appeared, but if you were, please say hi. I imagine it must have been wonderfully cheering to see so much festive joy on the spinner racks. Christmas covers nowadays are rare things indeed, pretty much confined to anthologies such as the recent DC Rebirth Holiday Special. At Marvel, the neverending cycle of non-events means there little time to pause for festive tales - a Captain Marvel a couple of years back, a Guardians of the Galaxy this very week, these are very much the exception. In the Nineties DC had a nice run of sentimental snow-capped tales in Superman, Flash used Christmas for the marvellous Return of Barry Allen storyline, and I'm hoping the looser nature of the line post Rebirth allows room for future Christmas crackers. For now, I'm happy to gaze at these four-colour wonders from simpler times. Well, that's the myth - we know that back then, as now, many people were suffering due to war, poverty, difficult domestic situations and the other ills that are always with us.
Superman meeting Santa, Robin cheering up a fan's Christmas, such stories provided distractions from the dark days, perhaps even offered hope. And for those people lucky enough to have been living a happy, settled life, they added a bit more fun.
I don't know what you'll be getting this year, but hopefully a pressie or two will come down whatever passes for a chimney in 2016. Maybe something of the comic book variety. I wish you all the best for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza - whatever you're celebrating. And if you're not marking any religious occasion, have a wonderful December 25 anyway, and may the year that follows be good to you and yours.
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