Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Green Arrow: The first Federal edition


Federal Comics published two eponymous Green Arrow issues. The first of these is cover-dated April-May 1983:


The cover is from DC Comics Presents #20:


Note the CCA stamp is also on the cover, as it was on other Federal Comics in this period.

The contents:

Inferno From The Sky!, originally published in DC Comics Presents #20, April 1980
The Falcon's Lair!, originally published in The Brave and the Bold #185, April 1982
A World Gone Mad!, originally published in World's Finest Comics #270, August 1981
A Bloody Crown for a Cold Corpse!, originally published in World's Finest Comics #272, October 1981
Assault on Kastle Vertigo!, originally published in World's Finest Comics #273, November 1981
Shackles of the Mind!, originally published in The Brave and the Bold #168, November 1980
I Shot an Arrow into the Air, originally published in World's Finest Comics #266, December 1980-January 1981


Here's the first three pages of The Falcon's Lair! as they appear in The Brave and the Bold #185:




These three pages were condensed into two pages in the Federal version. The first page was modified by taking advantage of the space reserved for the indicia and slotting in the title at the top of the page:


The next two pages were crammed into the second page with all manner of reformatting including cropping, resizing, reshaping and some omission:


A Bloody Crown for a Cold Corpse! was also heavily edited. This is the splash page from World's Finest Comics #272:


The top tier Green Arrow origin banner has been omitted and the caption box and speech balloon  slightly adjusted in the panel:


However this is a minor outpatient procedure compared to the radical surgery on the next page. Here's the next two pages as they appear in the DC comic:



These two pages are represented on one page in the Federal version:


Six of the ten panels are omitted, and the remaining four panels - the first two and the last two - have art extensions.

There may be slight modifications to some of the other stories but these are the two conspicuously altered by the page count.

This issue is cover-dated April-May 1983 but I think it may have been on the stands late March 1983.

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