DC Comics took five issues of The Brave and the Bold to experiment with an unusual merger of science fiction and sports called “Strange Sports Stories.” From Gorillas using baseball for world domination, to 24th-century Martian golf tournaments, editor Julius Schwartz and artist Carmine Infantino crafted unique and entertaining short stories. Let’s check them out!
Collector’s Guide: From Brave and the Bold #47; DC Comics, 1963. Reprinted in DC Special #9, 1970.
Read a more detailed history of Strange Sports Stories from Mike Grost, who knows all the writers and all the dates, and a solid memoir from BuckBokai.
This Brave and the Bold series should not be confused with DC’s 6-issue revival of the concept in 1973. You can read some of those stories at Diversions of the Groovy Kind, or buy them here: Strange Sports Stories.
Several of those 1973 stories appear in DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #13. That tiny tome also reprinted a baseball game between DC’s heroes and villians that originally appeared in DC Super-Stars #10 in 1976. Thanks to Gutter Talk for helping us re-locate that lost treasure!
Mars Will Send No More 
Awesome!
The cover was in a Mystery In Space collection from 1980, but the story wasn’t. I wondered about the story for years as a kid. It’s neat to finally have access to it!
Thanks!
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Our pleasure, Mickey! We’re glad you’ve been enjoying our posts recently. Every now and then, our excavation of comic book history turns up someone’s lost or forgotten treasure.We’ve already lost count of the times our fellow fan bloggers have returned that favor.
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Did Murphy Anderson ink this?
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Mickey, we don’t have any information on the inkers or colorists for these stories. The most thorough source we found was http://mikegrost.com/sport.htm
That page at least identifies the writers (John Broome and Gardner Fox in addition to Julius Schwartz.)
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Thanks for the link!
I shared the Sports story with my dad and we weren’t sure who the inker was – a common debate among fathers and sons!
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