Superman & Batman Magazine #1 - DC

This was an enormously fun magazine from 1993, put out at the height of the Batman: The Animated Series' popularity(funny then, that Superman gets top billing).

This was another one of those cases where I saw aboslutely no promotion for this thing, and just happened to come across it at a newsstand. I apparently wasn't the only one who missed it; S&BM wasn't around too long, something around eight measly issues.

The cover is by Ty Templeton, and folds out to become a poster, and on top of that, comes with a centerfold that you can match up with the cover to make one giant poster, which is a way-cool donnybrook featuring most of the biggest heroes of the DCU and their bad guys:

...I say "most of" because there is no Aquaman present. Hmmph.

Anyway, once I got past that, there are a whole load of fun features in this mag, starting off with a two-page "Daily Planet" supplement, featuring small, kid-attention-span-size articles about things in the news, a page called "Penguin's Puns", and then a six-page "Origin of Superman" comic sequence written by Karl Kesel and drawn by the late, great Mike Parobeck.

Next is an article on collecting trading cards, and then is "The Secret Origin of Batman", also by Kesel and Parobeck.

Some other members of the DCU get some love, as there's a two-page feature called "The Hero File" about Wonder Woman.

This awesome drawing is by Kevin Nowlan doing his more cartoony style, and I love this piece so much I think it could've been used as presentation art for a Wonder Woman cartoon series. Wouldn't you watch a show that looked like this?

Next is a two-page text story about Robin and the Huntress(written by Denny O'Neil, no less!), an article on the "Superman is Dead" storyline, and then a profile of Mike Carlin.

This makes for a really attractive, fun package, perfect for kids who are just getting introduced to these characters. I could never find the following issues at the time, but they're easily(and cheaply) found on ebay, and I plan to pick those up in the future.