Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCancelled Comic Cavalcade #1 is one of the most singular objects in the history of American comics publishing: a black-and-white, Xeroxed ashcan assembled on DC's own office equipment in the summer of 1978 specifically to preserve copyright on stories that were killed mid-production by the catastrophic contraction known as the DC Implosion. Because it existed in an edition of roughly 35–40 copies and was never offered for public sale, it stands as a direct, physical document of the moment DC Comics lost nearly 40% of its publishing line overnight. It preserves the only completed version of what would have been Firestorm #6 — introducing a distinct original iteration of the villain Typhoon whose origin differs substantially from the character's later, canonical debut — making it an essential artifact for understanding how DC's Bronze Age heroes were being developed before the ax fell. The volume's sardonic title, a play on DC's own Golden Age anthology Comic Cavalcade, was itself a wry act of institutional defiance by the young staffers who quietly assembled it.
In "Lure of the Magnetic Menace," Aaron Hope rides into Cooper's Canyon with a quiet resolve, refusing to draw a gun despite the frontier's harsh code. As tensions rise over land grabs by Jase Carson, Aaron's promise of a railroad stirs hope in Dry Water—until a deserter's betrayal and a desperate kidnapping test his courage. Written by Gerry Conway and brought to life with sharp, dynamic art by Dick Ayers and Romeo Tanghal, this standout tale from the free 1978 Cancelled Comic Cavalcade features a cover by Al Milgrom that captures the story’s rugged, suspenseful tone.
In the quiet aftermath of a chemical fire, the Ray drifts in Gotham Bay, his mind caught between the present and a memory of the day he became a hero—when a strato-balloon ride and a cosmic storm first unlocked his light-based powers. As he watches a truck plunge into the water, his thoughts return to that fateful moment, the past and present blurring in the stillness.
Claw, haunted by the demonic power of his severed hand, reluctantly joins Trysannda on a journey to Ravenroost, where the wizard Dalivar holds the gauntlet that once shielded him. As the past and present collide, the two travelers must navigate treacherous paths and ancient magic, bound by a debt neither fully understands.
In "When the River of Ravenroost...Ran Red," Claw and Trysannda face escalating dangers in the cursed castle of Ravenroost, where the Earth elemental's defeat only deepens the mystery. As Claw battles the rodent guardians and escapes the dungeon, he and Trysannda must press onward into the dark underbelly of the fortress—where a new threat looms, and the path forward grows ever more treacherous.
In "The Deserter," Aaron Hope rides into Cooper's Canyon with a quiet resolve, refusing to draw a gun despite the frontier's harsh rules. As tensions rise over land grabs by Jase Carson, Aaron’s presence stirs hope in Dry Water—until Willie Dredge arrives, seeking to expose him as a deserter. With the town’s future hanging in the balance, Aaron must prove his worth not with violence, but with courage.
In "Tapestry of Dreams," Stephen Prince finds himself drawn into the surreal realm of Laurel’s dreams after Madame Xanadu reveals that their neighbor, Mr. Hazel, is an incubus weaving deadly tapestries from stolen visions. With the fate of his loved ones and others caught in the dreamer’s web hanging in the balance, Stephen must navigate the shifting landscape of sleep to break the spell before it’s too late.
In "The Typhoon Is a Storm of the Soul!", Professor Stein’s experiments with Firestorm take a sudden turn when mob scion Jonathan Shine, reckless and desperate, ventures into a storm-tossed sea in a fragile submersible. When the vessel fails and he’s drenched in radioactive water, Jonathan awakens transformed—his rage and grief given form as the storm-wielding Typhoon, drawn toward the city and the family he blames. Firestorm must confront the tempest not just as a villain, but as a man undone by his own storm of emotions.
When the Green Team launches a rescue mission, they call on the Paper Hanger to redecorate the operation’s base—only to find his wallpaper begins spreading with a life of its own. A strange, escalating situation unfolds as the walls start to move, and the team must navigate a house that’s no longer just a structure, but something far more unpredictable.
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After DC president Jenette Kahn's 'DC Explosion' initiative collapsed in June 1978 under the weight of poor distribution, brutal winter weather disrupting newsstands, and a parent company (Warner Communications) demanding drastic cutbacks, stacks of finished and nearly-finished comics were left with nowhere to go. DC staffer Paul Kupperberg took the initiative of gathering the orphaned material, arranging it into two volumes, commissioning new covers from Al Milgrom (issue #1) and Alex Saviuk (issue #2), and bringing the pages to the Warner Communications print shop in the basement of 75 Rockefeller Center, where a technician credited inside as 'Neil of the Magic Finger' produced the bound Xerox copies. Paul Levitz reviewed the contents and advised against including a handful of stories deemed too weak to preserve even in this limited form. The stated official rationale was copyright protection and providing contributors with reference copies of their work; Kupperberg has acknowledged in print that the real motivation also included a youthful spirit of creative defiance and the deliberate creation of a collectible.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date of June 1978; produced as an ashcan in an edition most sources cite as approximately 35 copies (Kupperberg's own account specifies 40), none of which were distributed for public sale — copies went to contributing creators, DC library, the Library of Congress, and DC president Sol Harrison.
- The issue was physically assembled by Paul Kupperberg, with Paul Levitz advising on content selection; it was printed and bound in the Warner Communications print shop at 75 Rockefeller Center. The title is a deliberate tongue-in-cheek reference to DC's 1940s Golden Age title Comic Cavalcade.
- Al Milgrom drew the cover for issue #1, depicting the cancelled titles' heroes lying defeated on the ground — a visual metaphor for the Implosion itself.
- Contents of issue #1 include: the completed but unpublished Firestorm #6 (written by Gerry Conway, art by Al Milgrom), Black Lightning #12 (story later reprinted in World's Finest Comics #260), Claw the Unconquered #13–14, The Deserter #1 (a Gerry Conway western series that had also been planned for Showcase #107), Doorway to Nightmare #6, and two Green Team stories (#2 and #3) by Joe Simon, Jerry Grandenetti, and Creig Flessel — stories from circa 1973 that pre-dated the Implosion by years.
- The Firestorm story introduces Typhoon in his earliest-known version: here Jonathan Shine, a mob scion, is bathed in radioactive water from a cracked submersible and gains storm-based powers. This origin and secret identity differ substantially from the character's canonical debut in The Flash #294 (1981), where writer Conway reworked the concept with a new alter ego; DC continuity treats the Flash appearance as the official first appearance.
- The Firestorm #6 story was later reprinted in color in the 2011 trade paperback Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, giving it its first mass-distribution printing more than three decades after it was produced.
- The Green Team stories collected here (labeled as #2 and #3) are the only additional installments beyond the team's sole published appearance in 1st Issue Special #2 (1975); writer-creator Joe Simon produced them, and they were written off on November 30, 1977 per a stamp visible on the interior pages.
- Because the volumes were bound photocopies rather than conventionally printed comics, bootleg generational photocopies of CCC began circulating through fandom, meaning that while originals were extraordinarily scarce, the contents became known to collectors through these unofficial copies.
Cast · 30 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Comic Reader #161 (1978), The Unexpected #190 (1979), World's Finest Comics #260 (1979), Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #[nn] (2011), Black Lightning #1 (2016)
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