Seeing Carol Tilley lecture at the National Archives on the letters kids wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Special Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 defending comics books turned out not to be the only comics-related thing in my life this afternoon. Because as I was heading back to Union Station for my train home, I came upon the following street art which made political statements by tweaking actual covers from old comic books.

Here are the four I saw, accompanied by the original covers I tracked down.

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I love timelines, particularly when they’re about something I already know. Reading them is an exercise in recognition, in remembering, in reliving. But every once in a while, there’s that odd factoid that seems to have slipped through from an alternate universe, that causes me to go—”Huh? I don’t remember that!”

So it was with the page below, plucked from Jimmy Olsen #100, and originally published in March 1967. As I read it, I thought—

Return of Krypto? Check! Remember that.

Jimmy teams with Superman to become Nightwing and Flamebird? Check! Remember that, too.

Jimmy turned into a werewolf, and only brought back to normal thanks to the intervention of—Mr. Mxyzptlk’s girlfriend, Miss Gzptlsnz?

Who? What? (more…)