One Panel #334: One of the World's Best

From Superman: "Superman vs the Rainmaker" by Jerry Siegel, Wayne Boring and Don Komisarow, World's Best Comics #1 (March 1941)

As we move on to comics on the stands in February of 1941, there's a new addition from National/DC: World's Best Comics. This, friends, is the ancestor of World's FINEST Comics, the series' name as of the second issue. Today, we call Superman and Batman "World's Finest" (duo) because they both starred in this book, in solo stories at first (though they shared the covers), and later as a proper team. In these early days, the comic would also feature many other heroes from across DC's line, a kind of showcase for their various strips, probably hoping readers be lured by the bigger stars to jump to other books so they can follow the likes of the Crimson Avenger, Johnny Thunder, and King Standish. It was descended from World's Fair Comics which more or less pulled the same trick, though Best/Finest had fewer big names. The quarterly also had new stars like Lando the Magician, but none are remembered today.

Oh the reason for the name change, by the way, was because another publisher, Better Publications, already had a book called Best Comics. Cease and desist, DC!

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