Green Team (comics)

Last updated
The Green Team
Greenteamdcu0.jpg
The Green Team from 1st Issue Special #2 (May 1975), cover art by Jerry Grandenetti.
Publication information
Publisher DC Comics
First appearance 1st Issue Special #2
(May 1975)
Created by Joe Simon
Jerry Grandenetti
In-story information
Member(s)Commodore Murphy
J.P. Huston
Cecil Sunbeam
Abdul Smith

The Green Team is a fictional comic book team of rich-kid adventurers published by DC Comics. The team debuted in 1st Issue Special #2 (May 1975), and was created by Joe Simon and Jerry Grandenetti. In its initial appearance, the group was subtitled "Boy Millionaires". In 2010s comics, a revamped version of the group appeared in a series subtitled "Teen Trillionaires", thus adjusting for both inflation and the declining popularity of boy adventurers.

Contents

Publication history

The Green Team's first adventure appears in 1st Issue Special #2 (cover-dated May 1975), an anthology comic. [1] For many years, this would be their only conventionally published appearance. Not long after their debut, a regular Green Team series went into production, but the DC Implosion prevented it from reaching store shelves. [2] Two issues had been completed at the time the series was cancelled, and these saw publication of a sort in the first volume of Cancelled Comic Cavalcade (Fall 1978), a two-volume collection DC Comics printed on photocopiers to secure copyrights on the stack of unpublished material left over after the DC Implosion. In the first of the two unpublished adventures, the boys are pitted against giant lobsters and the Russian Navy. In the second, the Green Team faces a villain called the Paperhanger who has special wallpaper that grows plants and trees, and who is a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler. [3]

In subsequent decades, the Green Team appeared in one panel of Animal Man #25 (July 1990), and a single page of Adventures of Superman #549 (Aug. 1997), in which the boys meet the Newsboy Legion and Dingbats of Danger Street, financing a youth center for the two street gangs. Writer Karl Kesel explained that he was a fan of the Newsboy Legion, and brought in the other two boy groups as a counterpoint to the Newsboys, since all three were created by Joe Simon and/or Jack Kirby. [2] Cecil Sunbeam and Abdul Smith, two members of the Green Team, appear in Ambush Bug: Year None #1 (Sept. 2008).

As part of The New 52 reboot of DC's continuity, the Green Team and its sister book The Movement were re-established in 2013. [4] Written by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, and drawn by Ig Guara, the first issue debuted in May 2013 and focused on teens who use their financial resources to purchase power in the DC Universe, including super powers. This run lasted 8 issues and concluded in January 2014.

Fictional character biographies

The only prerequisite for joining the Green Team is possession of at least one million dollars, primarily in cash. The boys pay fortunes to anyone who can offer them a worthy adventure. In their first story, they fund the "Great American Pleasure Machine", a sort of roller coaster ride that brings so much pleasure, it drives the villain of the piece insane.

A text page in 1st Issue Special #2 (May 1975) explains, their jumpsuit uniforms have many pockets for money, with special locks, and they carry ticker-tape wristwatches, a chain of keys that unlock any of their many labs and money vaults in far-flung lands, and a quarter-million dollars each.

Membership

Original

The New 52

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Simon</span> American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher (1913-2011)

Joseph Henry Simon was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.

<i>All-American Comics</i> American anthology comic book series

All-American Comics is a comics anthology and the flagship title of comic book publisher All-American Publications, one of the forerunners of DC Comics. It ran for 102 issues from 1939 to 1948. Characters created for the title, including Green Lantern, the Atom, the Red Tornado, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Sargon the Sorcerer, later became mainstays of the DC Comics line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Toth</span> American cartoonist

Alexander Toth was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work included Super Friends, Fantastic Four, Space Ghost, Sealab 2020, The Herculoids and Birdman. Toth's work has been resurrected in the late-night, adult-themed spin-offs on Cartoon Network’s late night sister channel Adult Swim: Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prez (character)</span> Comics character

"Prez" is the name of several characters appearing in comics published by DC Comics. The original was Prez Rickard, the first teenage President of the United States, who appeared in a short-lived comic series by writer Joe Simon and artist Jerry Grandenetti in 1973 and 1974. Similar characters have appeared since then, revisiting the concept or paying homage to the original character. In 2015, DC published a miniseries about a teenage girl named Beth Ross who is elected President via Twitter in the year 2036.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Comics Group</span> American comic book publisher

American Comics Group (ACG) was an American comic book publisher started in 1939 and existing under the ACG name from 1943 to 1967. It published the medium's first ongoing horror-comics title, Adventures into the Unknown. ACG's best-known character was the 1960s satirical-humor hero Herbie Popnecker, who starred for a time in Forbidden Worlds. Herbie would later get his own title and be turned into a "superhero" called the Fat Fury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newsboy Legion</span> Fictional kid gang in the DC Comics Universe

The Newsboy Legion is a teenage vigilante group in the DC Comics Universe. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, they appeared in their own self-titled feature which ran from Star-Spangled Comics #7 to #64. In 1970, Jack Kirby introduced a new Newsboy Legion, made up of the sons of the original Golden Age characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dark Circle Comics</span>

Dark Circle Comics is an imprint of Archie Comics Publications, Inc. Under its previous name, Red Circle Comics, it published non-humor characters, particularly superheroes in the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shield (Archie Comics)</span> Character in Archie Comics

The Shield is the name of several superheroes created by MLJ. Appearing months before Captain America, the Shield has the distinction of being the first superhero with a costume based upon United States patriotic iconography. The character appeared in Pep Comics from issue #1 to #65.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boy Commandos</span> Fictional organization of young boys fighting Nazis in DC comics

Boy Commandos is a fictional organization from DC Comics first appearing in Detective Comics #64 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. They are a combination of "kid gang" characters, an international cast of young boys fighting Nazis — or in their own parlance, "the Ratzies".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dingbats of Danger Street</span> Fictional comic book gang of kids published by DC Comics

The Dingbats of Danger Street are a fictional comic book gang of kids published by DC Comics. The Dingbats debuted in 1st Issue Special #6 and were created by Jack Kirby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genius Jones</span> Comics character

Genius Jones is a comic book character from the Golden Age of Comic Books who first appeared in the DC Comics published, Adventure Comics #77. He was created by Alfred Bester and Stan Kaye.

<i>Star Spangled Comics</i> American comic book anthology series

Star Spangled Comics is a comics anthology published by DC Comics which ran for 130 issues from October 1941 to July 1952. It was then retitled Star Spangled War Stories and lasted until issue #204.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air Wave</span> Fictional superhero in the DC Comics universe

Air Wave is the name of three superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The first two were active in the Golden Age of Comic Books. The third appears in comics in the 21st century.

<i>The Unexpected</i> (1968 comic book)

The Unexpected is a fantasy-horror comics anthology series, a continuation of Tales of the Unexpected, published by DC Comics. The Unexpected ran 118 issues, from #105 to #222. As a result of the so-called DC Implosion of late 1978, beginning in 1979 The Unexpected absorbed the other DC horror titles House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, and Doorway to Nightmare into its pages. Horror hosts featured in The Unexpected included The Mad Mod Witch, Judge Gallows, Abel, and the Witches Three.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Win Mortimer</span> Artist

James Winslow "Win" Mortimer was a Canadian comic book and comic strip artist best known as one of the major illustrators of the DC Comics superhero Superman. He additionally drew for Marvel Comics, Gold Key Comics, and other publishers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magazine Enterprises</span> American comic book company

Magazine Enterprises was an American comic book company lasting from 1943 to 1958, which published primarily Western, humor, crime, adventure, and children's comics, with virtually no superheroes. It was founded by Vin Sullivan, an editor at Columbia Comics and before that the editor at National Allied Publications, the future DC Comics.

Novelty Press was an American Golden Age comic-book publisher that operated from 1940 to 1949. It was the comic book imprint of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post. Among Novelty's best-known and longest-running titles were the companion titles Blue Bolt and Target Comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Baltazar</span> American comics artist and writer

Arthee "Art" Baltazar is an American comics artist and writer who currently works for DC Comics.

<i>Hangman Comics</i>

Hangman Comics was the name of an American anthology comic book series published by MLJ Magazines Inc., more commonly known as MLJ Comics, for seven issues between Spring 1942 and Fall 1943. It featured MLJs costumed vigilante The Hangman, and "Boy Buddies", featuring Shield's partner 'Dusty the Boy Detective' and Wizard's side-kick 'Roy the Superboy', throughout the series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franco Aureliani</span> American comic book writer/artist

Franco Aureliani is an American comic book writer/artist, best known for writing the DC Comics series Tiny Titans, for which he won two Eisner Awards in 2009 and 2011. Tiny Titans also won a Harvey award in 2011. He was also nominated for another Harvey in 2013 for another project from DC Comics, Superman Family Adventures. He and longtime writing partner and friend, Art Baltazar, won their third Eisner in 2014 for the Dark Horse Comics children's series Itty Bitty Hellboy. He also teaches art at Carmel High School.

References

  1. Markstein, Don. "The Green Team". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 Abramowitz, Jack (April 2014). "1st Issue Special: It Was No Showcase (But It Was Never Meant To Be)". Back Issue! (71). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 40–47.
  3. Back Issue Magazine #18, TwoMorrows Publishing
  4. Young, Brian (February 7, 2013). "Exclusive: DC Comics Reveals Two New Politically-Charged Books". The Huffington Post . Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Rogers, Vaneta (February 24, 2013). "Art & Franco See GREEN TEAM as 'Most Outrageous' DC Book". Newsarama . Retrieved May 6, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 Ig Guara ( p ),J.P. Mayer ( i )."Riot Arc"The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires,vol. 1,no. 1(July 2013). DC Comics .