[wiki] Prince Ra-Man is a fictional comic book magician published by DC Comics. Mark Merlin first appeared in House of Secrets 23, and was created by Mort Meskin. Prince Ra-Man first appeared in House of Secrets 73, and was created by Jack Miller and Bernard Baily.
A blue suit and black bow tie-clad supernatural detective who lived in the small suburban hamlet of "Cloister" in a mansion on "Mystery Hill" that he had inherited from a stage magician uncle of the same name, Mark Merlin used its vast collection of occult literature and artifacts to battle those who would use the occult for evil ends with...
...the assistance of his beautiful blond secretary/fiancee Elsa Magusson and his black cat Memakata who he found in the tomb of a pharaoh of the same name and whose body he could transfer his mind into with the help of an ancient cat-headed amulet.
When Mark Merlin is banished to the other-dimensional lost world of Ra... a scientist-sorcerer ... uses a potion to reincarnate Merlin's spirit and memories in the body and brain of a long-dead young wizard named Prince Ra-Man.
S2E2: Ordway School for Children refers to Jerry Ordway, primarily a Silver Age (maybe Bronze?) inker, but involved with most aspects of comics for decades.
S2E3: The Shade is as dangerous as they say. IIRC, since I can't check print editions anymore, he killed the original Starman and his older-of-two sons; his daughter took up with Jack, the less-conventional third Starman (not including Sylvester) in very complicated ways. Let's go to Wiki and double-check!
That was all the Mist, yes. The Shade is much less malevolent and, in that series, much more interesting a person. And then his reappearance when they did Starman 81 during Blackest Night gave us some lovely bits, including an excellent entrance AND a scene of him absolutely enraged.
I gotta say, I am so impressed by Trae Romano, playing Mike. He's such a... phrasing, um... mature performer? I was surprised to find out he was born in just 2005. He's got the presentation of an older actor, easily.
Courtney's used bookshop: The original Silver Age series ran 80 issues, from November/December 1956 to September/October 1966, introduced the characters above; its companion title was House of Mystery, and in the 1969 revival introduced a 'host', Abel (his brother Cain was over at House of Mystery).
Cain and Abel eventually showed up in Gaiman's Sandman as members of The Dreaming. The House of Mystery seems to be maintained by John Constantine in the animated Justice League Dark, which also folds in the Black Orchid in a curious way.
The original Silver Age series ran 80 issues, from November/December 1956 to September/October 1966, introduced the characters above; its companion title was House of Mystery, and in the 1969 revival introduced a 'host', Abel (his brother Cain was over at House of Mystery).