DC Special #13

DC Special #13 (On Sale: May 4, 1971), has a Strangest Sports Stories Ever Told! cover by Murphy Anderson. OK, I was never a fan of this strange genre of story, but Julie Schwartz sure seemed to love them.

We begin with "Warrior of the Weightless World" by John Broome, Carmine Infantino, and Joe Giella and reprinted from Brave and the Bold #49 (1963). Spaceball was a new sport of the future, combining zero-gravity with basketball. Cray Duncan was a great player, but he didn't really like the game. When war broke out between Earth and the Creon Empire, Cray enlisted himself to fight. Little did he know that his knowledge and expert abilities in Spaceball would help the army win the war.

Next up is "Super-Athlete from Earth" by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, and Bernard Sachs and reprinted from Strange Adventures #125 (1961).

That is followed by "The Fishermen of Space" by Joe Millard, Carmine Infantino, and Bernard Sachs and reprinted from Strange Adventures #94 (1958). 

Joe Millard was a comic book writer during the 1940s and 1950s, mainly at Quality where he wrote Blackhawk, The Barker, Plastic-Man, and Doll Man, and at DC, where he wrote 13 Sierra Smith stories in the late 40s and seven science fiction stories in the late 50s. In the 60’s Millard left comics and began to write paperback originals the most well regarded of which was a science fiction novel, The Gods Hate Kansas, (filmed as They Came From Beyond Space), and a series of novels based on Clint Eastwood’s character The Man With No Name, first doing novelizations for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and For A Few Dollars More, then following that with four more novels unrelated to any films in which he gave "Blondie," abilities that seemed to come straight out of the comics.    

Next, is "The Martian Horse" by Manny Rubin and Howard Sherman and reprinted from Mystery in Space #9 (1952). Manny Rubin wrote 18 stories for DC between 1951 and 1953 before leaving the business for film. He wrote "The Best of Everything", "Brainstorm" (the 1965 film starring Jeffrey Hunter, not the Christopher Walken film), "Warning Shot", "The First Deadly Sin, and "The Human Shield".  For TV he wrote for many shows including Studio One in Hollywood, Tales of Tomorrow, Dynasty, The F.B.I., The Feather and Father Gang, The Fugitive, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Perry Mason, Quincy, M.E., The Rockford Files, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky & Hutch, and Dragnet. He died in 2013.

We next have another tale written by Manny Rubin. "The World Where Dreams Come True" is drawn by Alex Toth and Sy Barry and reprinted from Mystery in Space #7 (1952).

We end with "Saga of the Secret Sportsmen" by John Broome, Carmine Infantino, and Murphy Anderson and reprinted from Brave and the Bold #47 (1963). The world of the 30th Century has embraced a laid-back lifestyle, thanks largely to an invention called the Sportscaster, which lets the user play virtual sports games from the comfort of their own home. Real sports, in fact, have been outlawed altogether for the danger of being too physical. But beings from Uranus have begun an invasion of Earth, and only a secret organization of real sports-lovers have the will to stop them.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.