Unpublished Dynamic Classics #2 Cover, featuring the Phantom Stranger and Manhunter

Here's an unused cover from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. This was originally intended for Dynamic Classics, a reprint anthology that was cancelled in the infamous "DC Implosion". That comic, which was cancelled after a single issue, was scheduled to reprint the entire Archie Goodwin/Walt Simonson "Manhunter" in individual installments, with different lead features in each issue. This issue would have featured a reprint from one of Jim's Phantom Stranger issues, and he got to revisit the story with this nifty cover (I apologize for the quality; CCC scans always look awful, but there's enough left that one can see this would have been a really fine-looking cover). Unfortunately, DC was left with nowhere it could use this unpublished piece, since the "split-screen" image would only be appropriate for that particular reprint. About 15 years ago, Chris Khalaf asked around at DC and was informed that there were very few unused Aparo covers in the files; DC usually managed to find a home for everything he turned in. I've got another real winner of an unpublished cover coming up later, and those are the only two I know of right now.

Unpublished Deadman Art

The infamous "DC Implosion" was a cancellation of several mid-70's DC Comics series shortly after a highly-publicized expansion (officially called the "DC Explosion") of both page count and number of published comics. One of these cancellation victims was DC's recently-revived Showcase, which had been scheduled to launch a single-issue Deadman solo spotlight in issue 105.

Unfortunately for Aparo fans like me, Jim was the artist on that feature.

DC did later find a home for that story, which had been completed before the Implosion. It was published in Adventure Comics #454, a "Dollar Comic" with a larger page count than the standard comic book of the time, and featuring several different stories in an anthology format. Adventure had already been running a Deadman series by Aparo and writer Len Wein, but those stories were shorter than the Showcase spotlight had been scheduled to run. So when this tale found a slot for later publication, revisions were made from the originally-prepared story: the page length was shortened by a total of two pages. Today we present (from, I am sorry to say, less-than-high-quality scans) the unseen panels from the uncut version, as taken from DC's highly-limited release, the legendary Cancelled Comics Cavalcade.

The published version included the first two panels of this, page 4 of the story. It did not include the bottom four panels, where Deadman spots the "stupid kid" on the ledge.

The published version deleted page 5, seen above, entirely.

The published version deleted the first two panels, and joined the rest to the portion of page 4 that had been retained. That worked out quite neatly, removing Deadman's rescue of the boy (and, perhaps unfortunately, the demonstration of his supernatural abilities and acrobatic skills), and the absence of the sequence was indetectible. But I always wanted to see what was cut, and there it is.