This ad from a 1976 Superman comic brought back a lot of
memories.
Whenever I see something like this, I can't help wondering
how many kids mutilated their comics to take advantage of
the deal. Usually I'm thinking "those poor saps, they
ruined what could have been valuable old comics," but
if you check out that list, you'll see there really wasn't
a whole heck of a lot going on in terms of quality reading
back in '76. I doubt the collecting world really mourns
the loss of a few copies of Freedom Fighters, Blitzkrieg
or Claw The Unconquered.
Notice DC required kids to buy at least 25 of the titles
listed, making it impossible to get the buckle without expanding
your reading horizons just a bit. An all-superhero diet
wouldn't do it; you'd have to branch out to at least a couple
war, western or horror titles. And who knows, maybe you'd
even like them? You can call this a cheap trick to force
people to buy books they ordinarily wouldn't, but isn't
that what they do all the time now with company-wide crossover
events? The only difference is these days you don't get
a buckle to show for it, nor exposure to any new genres.
But why a belt buckle, you ask? Well, I can't speak for
the rest of America, but in my neck of the woods belt buckles
were HUGE in the 70s, as popular as bell-bottoms, CB radios,
mood rings and disco records. Truck drivers, country-western
singers and rock stars all sported impressive buckles, often
one-of-a-kind. My own personal paragon of style was bionic
beefcake Lee Majors, who accessorized his stylish leisure
suits with a wicked cool buckle as The Six Million Dollar
Man. And even that didn't hold a candle to the Mother-of-All
Buckles worn by Lee's pal Elvis Presley.
I recently found a box with my old buckles from the 70s;
I had a Star Trek buckle (shaped like the Enterprise),
a US Air Force buckle (jets and a flag, in gloriously gaudy
color) and of course a Superman buckle. But not the one
DC offered; no way I was going to cut up my comics, or buy
Tarzan Family. And to be honest, I don't even think it looks
that good.
Aside from this clipping, the buckle remains largely mysterious
to me. In all the times I've searched for "Superman
buckle" on eBay, I've never spotted one that looked
like the one in the offer. If anyone reading this managed
to snag one, I'd love to hear from you.