Although this cover has seen better days it still stands as a landmark in comic book publishing, a radical departure from the usual spandex and capes fisty-cuffs that have blighted the genre and allowed non comic readers to consign it to simply kids stuff.
That it came out of DC, a somewhat conservative publisher, at the time, is quite astonishing. Marvel where the perceived 'up-starts' and more likely to push the genre. But no, stuffy old DC let rip in 1971 with this tale of drug abuse and death set in the once comfortable world of superheroes. Credit goes to the books editor Julius Schwartz, writer Denny O'Neil and art team of Neal Adams and Dick Giordano for the realism and not shying away from the issues.
The times were certainly a changing, as the 70's progressed, for comic books to break cover from there boundaries as kids things into a bigger and wider world.
Just before I go though, there are only three comic books framed and hanging in our house at the moment and this is one of them. Social history doesn't get any more marked than this.
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