There have been a number of wonderful things written about Carmine Infantino since his sad passing. There have also been a few in need of some straightening-out…
- Carmine did not create or even co-create Adam Strange. That character first appeared in Showcase #17-19 and Infantino had nothing to do with those issues, the interiors of which were drawn by Mike Sekowsky with inkers Bernard Sachs and Joe Giella. The covers were penciled by Gil Kane but reportedly, the visual image of the hero was designed by Murphy Anderson when he drew a cover for Showcase #17 which was not used. Infantino took over the artwork when Adam Strange was teleported into DC's Mystery in Space comic as of #53. Carmine became the artist most closely identified with the feature but he was not in on its creation.
- Many folks are repeating Wikipedia which says at the moment that "In late 1966/early 1967, Infantino was tasked by Irwin Donenfeld with designing covers for the entire DC line. Stan Lee learned this and approached Infantino with a $22,000 offer to move to Marvel. Publisher Jack Liebowitz confirmed that DC could not match the offer, but could promote Infantino to the position of art director." For what it's worth, I don't believe that offer, which was about as much as Jack Kirby was getting at the time. That was largely a measure of how many pages he produced and I don't believe Infantino could have matched Kirby's output. He hadn't in his work for DC. Moreover, Stan had tried a number of seasoned pencilers who had not been able to give him the kind of work he wanted for the current Marvel line, some "bombing out" as of their first attempt. Infantino hadn't drawn one page yet for that line. Can we really imagine Marvel — then, a notoriously frugal outfit — giving someone a contract the equal of Kirby's when that someone had yet to prove he could work the way Stan insisted his artists work? I sure can't, though I can theorize Infantino told DC he had such an offer to pressure them into countering.
- Some obits say that it was Irwin Donenfeld who promoted Infantino to editorial director and the date is given variously as 1966, 1967 and 1968. It was the middle of 1967 and it was not at the choice of Donenfeld. Donenfeld had been editorial director. He was fired. Liebowitz, who was then ascending to the Board of Directors of the corporation that was then acquiring DC Comics, recommended Infantino for the position. Infantino was promoted to publisher in 1971. Also, Infantino did not bring in Dick Giordano as a DC editor. Donenfeld brought Dick Giordano in as a DC editor. Infantino got rid of Dick Giordano as a DC editor. The two men never did get along very well and one of the things Carmine was angry about after he was let go as publisher was that Giordano was later brought in to fill a job roughly equivalent to his old Editorial Director position.
Lastly: You see the cover to Flash #165 up atop this item? People keep reprinting that as an example of Infantino's superb work as a cover artist on that comic…and I think it's the only cover from the period when he was drawing the comic that he didn't draw. It was penciled and inked by Murphy Anderson. And you see the cover to Batman #180 right next to it? Infantino didn't draw that, either. That's Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. Carmine may have done rough sketches for one or both of these covers but if they'd been signed, they wouldn't have been signed by him.