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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2016 12:45:43 GMT -5
Before I review the next story I wanted to say back when I read these they were not labeled an imaginary story. I assumed that they took place on another earth. I was a BIG fan of DC's Multiple Earths so without any mention of other heroes I figured Superman & Batman were the only heroes on this earth. With the appearance of Robin in the next story (& later GA & Flash in another story) I was excited to see other heroes on this earth. Later on with comic stores & fanzines I remember readers putting Haney's World's Finest & Brave & Bold stories on Earth Haney. However DC had a different explanation that will be revealed in the last Super-Sons story.
As a kid this was my favorite Super-Sons story since it featured Robin (Dick Grayson) who is my favorite hero in comics. As you will see the heroes still act like jerks & are totally incompetent. And in addition to bickering between the dads & sons we have Bruce Jr & Dick bickering as siblings.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2016 13:20:27 GMT -5
 Crown for a New Batman Superman, Clark Jr & Bruce Jr discover Bruce Wayne dead on his patio with a knife in his back! They find a dried seal paw near the body. Then there are scenes showing news headlines declaring Bruce Wayne's death. Alfred puts away Bruce's Batman costume. When the sons discuss that Bruce Jr is now the new Batman Dick Grayson shows up for the funeral & states he should be the new Batman since he has more experience than Bruce Jr. At the funeral everyone is in their street clothes except Superman who appears in costume! At the reading of the will the boys are shocked that Batman does not name his successor. However he leaves his wealth to his wife, son, Dick & Alfred plus $5 million to a Simon Link? That night both Batman Jr & Robin go to Bruce's grave & agree that whoever solves his murder should be the new Batman. Then a harpoon is thrown onto Bruce's grave but the person that threw it gets away. The next day Simon Link shows up to claim his $5 million but there is a catch. To get it he must take Bruce Jr to Smoke Island in the Bering Sea & show him seal hunting (WTH?). As Bruce Jr & Dick go with Simon by plane he states an Eskimo named Malook may be Bruce's killer. Superman & his son fly up to Alaska also. They are called away to rescue Ice Station Easy which is in trouble. While they are gone eskimos attack Link. Link shells the island. The boys go onto the island to look for Malook & find villagers killing seals. However when they stop them the eskimo masks fall off revealing them to be Link's men. They continue tracking Malook & capture him. He reveals he is trying to kill Simon Link whose seal hunting has cut off the eskimo's food supply. Malook confesses to killing Bruce Wayne because he was Simon's business partner. Malook tells them he has proof of Simon's orders to kill the eskimos. It is on a paper of a dead man buried in an iceberg. When the boys confront Link he shells the iceberg to get the paper off of the body. But the dead man is really Superman in disguise! Link gets away disguised as a seal (another WTH moment)& gets eaten by a killer whale. then a plane lands on the ice & Batman steps out! Superman & Batman (with the help of Malook)faked Bruce's death as an elaborate trap to catch Link. And the dads tell the sons (& Dick) that they had to lie because the boys couldn't be trusted to play their parts without believing Bruce was really dead. The last panel shows Dick & Bruce Jr stating neither are ready to be Batman yet. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2016 13:25:48 GMT -5
Wow. All of them are complete idiots. The dads can't trust the sons. The sons can't even trust each other. Clark Jr had to be told about the elaborate ruse at some point to help his dad. And again someone dies & they just shrug it off. Hey our dads lied to us but that's cool because we aren't ready to be adults yet since we can't lie as well as they do. And even back when I was a kid I remember getting to the end & thinking wait - how did they explain to the world that Bruce Wayne wasn't really dead?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 19:19:45 GMT -5
 The Girl Whom Time Forgot. The story starts with the sons messing up their dads crime fighting deeds. So to get their sons out of the way the dads send them on an expedition with a Prof Hanson & his son Lance to some Mayan ruins. A beautiful girl appears & uses gestures causing accidents to happen to the expedition. Lance is lost & taken by the girl to her father who is angry that outsiders have disturbed the ancient Mayan temple. Although they look like ancient Mayans the two strangers speak modern English. Prof Hanson is captured & before the prof & his son are killed the super-sons stop the Mayan priest. However he is not a Mayan priest but Prof Hanson's friend Paul Somerset. Somerset reveals his plane was sabotaged & crashed there. His wife died giving birth to their daughter whom he raised away from the influence of modern civilization. Hanson & Somerset argue & the girl & Lance slip away. Before they fall off a cliff Superman Jr rescues them. Hanson confesses to sabotaging Somerset's plane & all is forgiven. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 19:27:07 GMT -5
Note: first super sons story that Dick Dillin did not draw. Curt Swan did the pencils on this one. Overall after the bickering in the first 2 pages the story wasn't bad. The sons worked together well & handled the situation better than their past stories. One thing I keep noticing...it feels like Haney abruptly ends his stories. I always feel like there should be one more page.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2016 10:11:11 GMT -5
 Hero is a Dirty Name After Superman & Batman are congratulated for saving an airplane a group led by Clark Jr & Bruce Jr protest their dads claiming they do it for the attention ignoring real world problems like war, poverty & hunger. Superman & Batman agree to be put on trial. The sons argue against their dads & win! As a result the dads agree to stay in a compound until the sons feel they have learned humility. Meanwhile a freak snowstorm occurs & the sons investigate. They discover some crooks are controlling the weather to make a profit. When they try to stop them Green Arrow & the Flash appear to lend a hand. The sons accuse GA & Flash of being their dads in disguise but when they check the compound their dads are playing a game of chess. Next while investigating an oil tower near the Texas coast Aquaman shows up to help & later GA & Flash show up again. The sons suspect their dads used androids to fool the sons that they were playing chess. When the sons go back to the compound the dads are gone. However the dads "broke out" to save people at a nearby subway fire. Next the sons help GA & Flash stop the crooks in the Artic & discover they are really GA & Flash. Back at the compound the sons free their dads telling them they were wrong. Their dads can't solve the problems of the world only society can do that. Away from the sons the dads admit to each other that they told a white lie. They stayed in the compound as Superman & Batman but "broke out" as Clark & Bruce. They used android doubles & impersonated Aquaman, GA & Flash. However the real GA & Flash were present at the Artic site. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2016 10:17:46 GMT -5
Comments: as a kid I liked the story because GA & Flash were in it. As an adult this was a bad story on so many levels. I realize Haney was trying to explain why heroes don't solve real world problems but it was done in such a contrived way that this message was lost. The trial. The sons accusing the dads of doing the same thing that they do. The dads deceiving their sons to get them to understand their POV. Again both the dads & sons were unlikeable jerks. The bad science controlling the weather.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 7, 2016 16:42:40 GMT -5
I love that in Haney world, the first thing the kids think when they meet other heroes is 'you must be androids built by our dads to trick us'... and they're right.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2016 19:48:23 GMT -5
 World Without Men The sons are traveling & discover a town named Belton that is populated by beautiful young women with no men anywhere. However the women are hostile & before the sons know it they are thrown in jail. Guess what? The jail is filled with men. Everywhere in town is an image of an all seeing eye...of Big Sister Sybil. The sons break out of jail & follow a funeral procession out of town. There they find a monolith with Sybil's eye on it. It commands the women to kill the sons. The women search for the sons & two of them hesitate while the others shoot at the sons. The sons escape & observe the two who refused to shoot being absorbed into the monolith. When Batman Jr goes thru he is brought out the other side in another part of the swamp outside of town. He sees two lizard like creatures drowning in quicksand. But they have the voices of the two women who refused to shoot the sons. Then Sybil reveals herself! She is a hideous alien. She has been changing the women into hideous creatures because she hates beauty. The only way to prevent the changes is a man's touch (holy stupid plot twist). Superman Jr traps Sybil in her monolith & she is returned to her world. Her punishment is she is surrounded by mirrors & has to look at her hideous reflection forever. Meanwhile the sons explain to the women what happened & line them up to kiss everyone of them to stop the change into lizard creatures. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2016 19:51:43 GMT -5
 As a kid I thought this was a dumb story. As an adult this was painful to read... |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2016 22:02:45 GMT -5
 The Angel With A Dirty Name The sons come across a girl being assaulted. They stop the muggers. The girl (Dora) states she entertains at schools, etc & the muggers were men that helped her & she couldn't pay them. The sons agree to help her. The next stop? A prison. After they put on a play the warden attempts to hold the sons. Why? Because Dora has left with Lex Luthor! The sons look for her & find out Dora is really Ardora - Lex's daughter from the planet Lexor (where Lex is a hero & Superman is evil). Ardora & Lex get into a hidden rocketship to go to Lexor & the sons go along hidden in the ship. On the way Ardora tells Lex how she fooled the sons into helping her so she could help Lex escape. The reason Ardora needs Lex is a plague that causes giantism has afflicted the people on Lexor. Lex's thoughts reveal he is the cause of the plague. He released it in case of his capture knowing Lexor would free him to cure the plague. Lex arrives & discovers his wife on Lexor has been afflicted. When the sons are found Superman Jr discovers he has no powers...Lexor orbits a red sun! Lex finds his lab is destroyed by a meteor. He can't make the antidote for the plague. His daughter arrives to help him & over hears Lex talking to himself confessing his part in creating the plague. His daughter is angry but urges Lex to make an antidote. However he needs an element to make it. This element is located in a part of Lexor that would require powers. Superman Jr agrees to help & Lex bathes him in yellow sun rays to give him his powers back. The sons venture into the Lost Zone. While there Superman Jr succumbs to the plague but shoves his arm into the jaw of the lizard whose venom can counteract the plague. With the venom in Superman Jr's blood Lex makes an antidote & cures the planet. Ardora forces her dad to go back to earth to serve his jail time. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2016 22:10:31 GMT -5
This story was pretty good. The sons were caring. They helped Ardora & Lex despite the way they were treated. No one died. The characters were actually likeable even Lex. Sure some of the situations were a little contrived but no more than other comics at that time. There were no silly generational conflicts. I wish more of the Super Sons were like this one.
So if you want to read a decent Super Sons story read this one! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2016 7:27:43 GMT -5
I hope to finish the last 2 reviews today. But first some observations/comments.
I was thinking about the Robin story & how that would have worked. Robin appears to be only a few years older than Bruce Jr but that doesn't make sense. Batman would have had to been married & Bruce Jr be about 8 yrs old when Batman took in Dick Grayson at the age of 12 ?
The stories in #238 & 242 were the "best" stories that Haney wrote but reading them now they could have easily been stories about the dads with a few minor changes.
#242 is the last Super Sons story written by Haney in World's Finest. The one from #263 was written by Denny O'Neil.
I know Haney wrote one more story that appeared in a special but I don't have it. If anyone has it (it is in the trade according to an earlier post) feel free to review it. Thanks.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2016 8:17:49 GMT -5
 Town of the Timeless Killers (pencils by Ernie Chua) The sons are "exploring" the west in an ATV. They drive thru a rock formation that they call "the needle's eye". On the other side of the rock formation they wreck the ATV & Clark Jr discovers he has no powers. They start walking & find a ghost town - Dry Gulch. In the town they come across Kid Bowie, Jack Slade & Lever Monroe. All 3 men try to kill them. The sons escape & hide out in the water tower. Without his powers Clark Jr is hurt so Bruce Jr goes out to investigate. He discovers a force field surrounds the town & the killers are over 100 years old. They have been kept young by the force field which is probably causing Clark Jr to have no powers. He also notes anyone that has stumbled into the town thru the rock formation has been killed. Then they hear cries for help. A girl has become trapped also. The sons decide to fight their way out somehow. The next day Batman Jr fights Kid Bowie & wins because Kid Bowie does not know how to counter Judo. Superman Jr stops Jack Slade by fooling him with a mirror. Batman Jr gets Lever Monroe to use all his bullets shooting cards out of his hands before he knocks him out. After the sons tie the 3 up they discover the girl has disappeared. She shows up with a whip. She is not a victim but is Belle DuBois another killer! However Superman Jr gets his powers back when he is standing on a certain grave (the fight takes place in the graveyard) & stops her. The reason Superman Jr gets his powers back is the dirt over the grave came from outside the town. It was shipped from "back east" at the wishes of the town's richest citizen. The sons put the 4 killers into a stagecoach & Superman Jr stands on the grave & leaps out of the town back thru the needle's eye. Once thru he closes off the needle's eye with rocks. When they go to turn the 4 killers in to the sheriff they discover 4 skeletons. The killers only had eternal youth in the town! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2016 8:35:53 GMT -5
 Other than the bizarre magic force field this story wasn't bad. The sons were competent. They acted as a team. It was entertaining. Haney finally had a formula for good Super Sons stories! But this was the last Super Sons story he wrote for World's Finest... Ernie Chua/Chan (or the inker) made the art look similar to Dick Dillin's style. It would be 3.5 years until the next (& last) Super Sons story. At that time World's Finest was published 8 times/year. It would become a Dollar Comic with #244. Bob Haney's last issue would be #255. Denny O'Neil became the new writer. #263 would be bittersweet. It would finally explain how the Super Sons "fit" into the DCU but it would also be the last story they were in. |
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