This is a feature called "Win What's Never Been Won." This is about looking back at the history of comic book contests and showing who the winners were of the various contests (if we can tell who the winners are - I don't think anyone will ever know who won that Clark Bar Superhero Sweepstakes from the late 1970s).

Today, we look at the winners of "The Great DC Contest," which was infamous for the fact that DC screwed up their own contest (I did this as a Comic Book Legends Revealed last year)!

In 1964, DC Comics had a fun contest in Superman #169 in the following story by Jerry Siegel and Al Plastino...

The trick in the story is to find the appearance of the letters D and C in the story. They should each appear just once.

This was back when DC still had their logo on the top of every page...

So you'll notice that they even removed the logo from the tops of the pages as part of the contest!!

That fact was a bit of a hint as to the twist with the story. Since they alluded to the fact that stuff outside of the story was open for grabs (like the DC logo at the top of the page), it was a hint that the d and the c were going to be in something other than the traditional part of the comic.

In this instance, the answer is actually hidden in the "Continued on the next page" notation...

Sneaky, right?

However, the more amusing thing is that they goofed and included an extra D in this panel where they have a Bizarro say "Goodbye"!!

Even more amusingly, over the years, the story has been reprinted a number of times and it seems like every time that they reprint it, something goes wrong, like a proofreader will say "Hey, why did they omit 'Daily' from this mention of the Daily Planet? I'll add that in there to fix it!" or it will sometimes get reprinted in a trade paperback and since it was no longer in the comic book format, someone would "helpfully" removed the "Continued on the next page" box, thereby rendering the entire bit pointless!

Anyhow, here are the results of the contest in Superman #174...

It is kind of crazy to think of how they used to treat original comic book art back in the day. I mean, at least here they are making it the grand prize in a contest, but we're also talking TWENTY-FIVE Curt Swan Superman covers! That's insane!

I believe DC used to give out Swan original art fairly willy-nilly. Swan probably could have made so much money later in his life had he been given his fair share of his original art.

Okay, folks, I am sure that you have suggestions for notable comic book contests! Heck, maybe you WON a notable comic book contest! That'd be awesome. I'd sure love to know who won that darn Clark Bar contest that no one can figure out (it might be the toughest mystery in comic book history)! Whatever the case may be, whether you just want to suggest a contest or if you won one, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com and I'll see if I can't use your idea!