This is "I Remember Well," a brand-new feature spotlighting instances in which writers pull out long-forgotten plots or attributes of comic book characters. I have a similar bit called "I've Been Here Before" when writers pull out their own old plots/characters, but this is when different writers do it. I also have a bit called "Provide Some Answers," when writers resolve long-forgotten plots, but this is when writers don't resolve anything, they just bring back something that hadn't been used in a long time.

Today, we take a look at the surprising second wind in the comic book career of Professor Carter Nichols.

In the early days of superhero comic books, the name of the game was anthologies. Over-sized comic books packed with tons of stories, with each character getting their own feature. With a set-up like that, then you can generate a number of just basic stories for any given feature in each issue. However, some characters grew popular enough to get their own ongoing series and now suddenly these characters were not only appearing as a feature in a larger anthology, they also had to, in effect, star in their own anthology where EVERY feature was starring that one character. With a set-up like that, it is only natural that comic book creators would often look for any ideas that they could come up with for recurring features to fill up some space a bit more easily than having to come up with a new story idea every issue. That's what led to the introduction of the recurring feature in Batman's ongoing series where Alfred solved mysteries on his own on the side.

Another area where creators could look to find more features was to expand their TYPES of stories. In other words, if you have to tell a mystery in four different stories in every issue of a comic book, that might get to be a bit monotonous. So slowly, but surely, creators would come up with some more outlandish scenarios (heck, even back when Batman was just appearing in Detective Comics, Gardner Fox wrote a completely out there Batman story involving a man with no face) that could be repeated.

One of these ideas was introduced by Joe Samachson and the legendary Batman artist, Dick Sprang, in 1944's Batman #24. We met Professor Carter Nichols, a scientist who came up with this absurd form of time travel that really didn't make any sense, but once you got past the inherent illogical nature of the concept, it allowed Batman creators to tell time travel stories with Batman and Robin.

Once the proverbial gate was opened on these types of stories, the Batman creators leaned into them heavily and they did a BUNCH of them. Dick Sprang was also known for being an artist who loved to draw intricate details, with some of his later Batman prints (produced after he retired from regular comic book work) working as a sort of "Where's Waldo?" in terms of finding lots of little details in his work. He was a big fan of these time travel stories, as they allowed him to challenge himself by trying to get the details right in all of the stories as best as he possibly could. It was really like he was bringing the past alive in these comics (I wrote about his work on these time travel stories a while back).

Anyhow, as noted, Nichols was a regular cast member in the Batman titles for two decades, as whenever Batman needed to do some time-traveling, Nichols was on the job (he would even help Superman travel through time, as well, as Superman and Batman shared a team-up series, World's Finest Comics). However, eventually, after a long run as the editor on both the Batman titles and World's Finest Comics, Jack Schiff lost his job in favor of a new approach to the character by editor Julius Schwartz.

As a result, a number of Schiff's more outlandish concepts were jettisoned from the Batman books, with the last Professor Carter Nichols story appearing in late 1963's World's Finest Comics #138 (by Bill Finger and Jim Mooney)...

Like pretty much every other supporting character from before their tenure on the titles, Carter Nichols went into comic book limbo when Schwartz's reign began. About a decade later, DC licensed their characters to be used in a cartoon series for Hanna-Barbera called Super Friends. While it started slowly, it soon became a long-lasting success.

DC even eventually launched their own tie-in comic book series. The series was written by E. Nelson Bridwell, s DC assistant editor who had an enyclopedic knowledge of DC continuity. The Super Friends cartoons were obviously not intended to be part of DC continuity, but Bridwell made the comic work as if it was part of the regular comic book universe. To do so, he had to come with a way to work the "Wonder Twins," the two super-powered alien heroes that would assist the Super Friends (the Justice League) on missions, into the DC Universe and he revealed in 1977's Super Friends #10 (by Bridwell, Ramona Fradon and Bob Smith) that the Wonder Twins would stay with Professor Nichols while they were on Earth.

Interestingly enough, after re-introducing the Professor, it was not until Super Friends #17 that Nichols' time travel experience actually played a role in the comic book series, as the Time Trapper tried to sabotage Nichols' work and in the process sent the Wonder Twins lost in time. The Justice League showed up and Nichols helped them travel through time to help stop the Time Trapper as he was messing around with the past.

A few decades later, Grant Morrison also featured Professor Nichols in his run on Batman, where Morrison made a point of using pretty much every aspect of Batman's long comic book history in his run in some way, shape or form.

I'm sure you folks have other ideas for examples for this column, so send them my way at brianc@cbr.com! I'd love to get a month's worth of them up!