Only one of the late, great Sean Connery's James Bond movies was adapted into comics...
Published in England as part of Gilberton's Classics Illustrated series, it was considered too lowbrow by the publisher's American editors.
They shopped it around to US publishers, almost all of whom passed on it...except DC Comics, who ran it (with Comics Code-approved changes) as part of their Showcase anthology comic!
Ironically, DC released the comic in January, 1963...but the movie wasn't in American theatres until May, 1963, by which point the bi-monthly comic was off the newsstands two issues and four months ago!
Remember, no internet, streaming video, DVD/BluRays, or even video cassettes at that time!
As you may have guessed, it sold poorly, and DC never picked up the option to do other James Bond movie comics...though their contract gave them the rights for a decade!
(Haven't you ever wondered why Gold Key, the leading movie-tv comic adaptor didn't do 007 comics?)
But that didn't mean Sean Connery (or his likeness) didn't appear in DC books!
In 1965, DC launched a futuristic spy series, Interplanetary Investigations in Mystery in Space.
Though the lead character, Jan Vern, was a typical blond, square-jawed comic hero (who looked in some panels like Robert Shaw, Connery's nemesis in From Russia with Love), supporting character Agent X aka Damos was a dead ringer for Sean...
Sadly, the never-reprinted series ran only two issues, but you, dear fan, can see them
HERE and
HERE!
(and, yes. both chapters feature Damos!)
In the early 1970s, Connery's appearance as Zed in the movie Zardoz...
...inspired (if that's the word) the look of a new Superman character...
...Vartox, a hero from another planet, who, after the misunderstanding on the cover of DC's Superman #281 (1974) was cleared up, became a staunch ally to the Man of Steel!
He's guest-starred ever since in various DC titles in basically the same outfit!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
