[5] On a summer vacation in Charlton, Aparo ran into Dick Giordano (τhe future executive editor of DC Comics) who saw potential in his work.

"[9] Over the next few years at Charlton, Aparo drew stories in many genres—Westerns, science fiction, romance, horror, mystery, and suspense.

[7] Eventually Aparo resigned his assignment on The Phantom and worked almost exclusively for the remainder of his career for DC Comics.

[12] During the more than 10 years as the artist for The Brave and the Bold, its bimonthly frequency permitted Aparo to do many other significant works for DC (it became monthly in Nov. 1978).

In addition to numerous covers, he served as the regular artist for a notorious series starring a ruthless avenging ghost called the Spectre, which ran in Adventure Comics,[13] and which in 2005 was collected in a trade paperback edition (ISBN 978-1-4012-0474-7).

[20] It would run for several years, continuing with a Baxter paper spinoff titled The Outsiders[21] that did not include Batman and introduced Looker.

Aparo's next major work consisted of pencils for Batman and Detective Comics, where his art was almost always inked by Mike DeCarlo.

The "A Lonely Place of Dying" storyline crossed over with The New Titans title and introduced Tim Drake as the new Robin.

During this time, he was the regular artist on Batman when Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back during the "KnightFall" storyline.

His published work in the late 1990s and early 2000s include a Batman Annual inked by former Marvel Comics mainstay Sal Buscema, a G.C.P.D.

miniseries, a Speed Force Special featuring the Flash, an issue of a Deadman miniseries that revisited his "Death in the Family" story, and a single page of Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame written by Neil Gaiman in which he had a final opportunity to draw the Phantom Stranger for publication.

In 2006, previously-unpublished Aparo art depicting the unused, alternate ending of the storyline "A Death in the Family," in which the Jason Todd Robin lives instead of dies, appeared in Batman Annual #25.