Legendary comic book artist Neal Adams inspired and trained a generation of new artists to be better and more productive, and fought for the rights of comics creators to be paid fairly and to own the characters they created.
But he also drew and often co-wrote some of the most iconic storylines for Batman, Green Lantern, the X-Men, and Avengers, many of which still resonate today and inspired many of the cooler on-screen visuals and storylines in recent movies.
Taking over penciling duties from co-creator Arnold Drake, Adams got to fully flesh out the character of Deadman/Boston Brand, an acrobat who died and then was “resurrected” by the Hindu goddess, Rama Kushna, who gave his spirit the power to possess any living being.
Despite DC comics' reality existing in a parallel universe to our own – Gotham is Chicago, Metropolis is New York, etc., in the 1970’s Superman interacted with a slew of celebrities, including JFK, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Pat Boone.
But his most fabulous face-off was with Muhammed Ali. The once and future heavyweight champion of the world agrees to an alien demand that he fight a depowered Superman to prove who is truly the greatest of them all.