Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1
Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1 is one of the most singular objects in the history of American comics publishing: a black-and-white, Xeroxed ashcan assembled on DC's own office equipment in the summer of 1978 specifically to preserve copyright on stories that were killed mid-production by the catastrophic contraction known as the DC Implosion. Because it existed in an edition of roughly 35–40 copies and was never offered for public sale, it stands as a direct, physical document of the moment DC Comics lost nearly 40% of its publishing line overnight. It preserves the only completed version of what would have been Firestorm #6 — introducing a distinct original iteration of the villain Typhoon whose origin differs substantially from the character's later, canonical debut — making it an essential artifact for understanding how DC's Bronze Age heroes were being developed before the ax fell. The volume's sardonic title, a play on DC's own Golden Age anthology Comic Cavalcade, was itself a wry act of institutional defiance by the young staffers who quietly assembled it.
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After DC president Jenette Kahn's 'DC Explosion' initiative collapsed in June 1978 under the weight of poor distribution, brutal winter weather disrupting newsstands, and a parent company (Warner Communications) demanding drastic cutbacks, stacks of finished and nearly-finished comics were left with nowhere to go. DC staffer Paul Kupperberg took the initiative of gathering the orphaned material, arranging it into two volumes, commissioning new covers from Al Milgrom (issue #1) and Alex Saviuk (issue #2), and bringing the pages to the Warner Communications print shop in the basement of 75 Rockefeller Center, where a technician credited inside as 'Neil of the Magic Finger' produced the bound Xerox copies. Paul Levitz reviewed the contents and advised against including a handful of stories deemed too weak to preserve even in this limited form. The stated official rationale was copyright protection and providing contributors with reference copies of their work; Kupperberg has acknowledged in print that the real motivation also included a youthful spirit of creative defiance and the deliberate creation of a collectible.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date of June 1978; produced as an ashcan in an edition most sources cite as approximately 35 copies (Kupperberg's own account specifies 40), none of which were distributed for public sale — copies went to contributing creators, DC library, the Library of Congress, and DC president Sol Harrison.
- The issue was physically assembled by Paul Kupperberg, with Paul Levitz advising on content selection; it was printed and bound in the Warner Communications print shop at 75 Rockefeller Center. The title is a deliberate tongue-in-cheek reference to DC's 1940s Golden Age title Comic Cavalcade.
- Al Milgrom drew the cover for issue #1, depicting the cancelled titles' heroes lying defeated on the ground — a visual metaphor for the Implosion itself.
- Contents of issue #1 include: the completed but unpublished Firestorm #6 (written by Gerry Conway, art by Al Milgrom), Black Lightning #12 (story later reprinted in World's Finest Comics #260), Claw the Unconquered #13–14, The Deserter #1 (a Gerry Conway western series that had also been planned for Showcase #107), Doorway to Nightmare #6, and two Green Team stories (#2 and #3) by Joe Simon, Jerry Grandenetti, and Creig Flessel — stories from circa 1973 that pre-dated the Implosion by years.
- The Firestorm story introduces Typhoon in his earliest-known version: here Jonathan Shine, a mob scion, is bathed in radioactive water from a cracked submersible and gains storm-based powers. This origin and secret identity differ substantially from the character's canonical debut in The Flash #294 (1981), where writer Conway reworked the concept with a new alter ego; DC continuity treats the Flash appearance as the official first appearance.
- The Firestorm #6 story was later reprinted in color in the 2011 trade paperback Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, giving it its first mass-distribution printing more than three decades after it was produced.
- The Green Team stories collected here (labeled as #2 and #3) are the only additional installments beyond the team's sole published appearance in 1st Issue Special #2 (1975); writer-creator Joe Simon produced them, and they were written off on November 30, 1977 per a stamp visible on the interior pages.
- Because the volumes were bound photocopies rather than conventionally printed comics, bootleg generational photocopies of CCC began circulating through fandom, meaning that while originals were extraordinarily scarce, the contents became known to collectors through these unofficial copies.
Cast · 38 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Aaron Hope rides into Cooper's Canyon and makes an impression on the sheriff and his daughter Marcy-Anne due to his refusal to use a gun. The sheriff tells Aaron how Jase Carson is buying up land at Dry Water and chasing off those who refuse to sell. After Aaron heads to Dry Water, Willie Dredge who is looking to turn in Aaron as a army deserter, arrives. Meanwhile, Aaron tells the residents of Dry Water that the railroad will come through their town and they rally against Carson. As a last gambit, Carson snatches Marcy-Anne and tries to flee, but Aaron saves her and puts Carson down.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).