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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 4, 2021 12:26:43 GMT -5
ACTION COMICS #406 On sale in September, 1971 Cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson Another safe bet, trying out the Superman solo feature in ACTION COMICS. From my experience, the reputation of Superman as the "gateway drug" into superhero comics for kids of my generation is validated, as almost every comic I've tried in this first weeks of comics collecting has had ties to the Superman corner of DC's universe: Jimmy Olsen, Superboy, JLA, the World's Finest team, and now Superman himself, with Supergirl soon to follow. Let's see what I got for my quarter... “Master of Miracles!” By Dorfman, Swan and Anderson Clark’s “mysterious boss”, Morgan Edge, turns Clark on to “the fad that’s sweeping the counter—a way of life called communes”. In particular, Edge wants him to investigate “The Sanctuary”, which is recruiting science and math experts in service to their guru, “The Master”. The Master is reputed to have powers beyond those of Superman himself! On his way to The Sanctuary, Superman saves a busload of new recruits from a flash flood, but The Master is on hand to turn the flood into ice with a gesture of his hand! The newcomers have been summoned by inexplicable voices to serve The Master, and Superman’s x-ray vision shows him life at The Sanctuary: scouring the mountains retrieving litter? As Clark, he dons the group’s garb and blends in with the recruits, gathering glass, which the Master melts with a wave of his hand. The Master speaks of a “Doomed Outer World”…what’s all this about? Next, The Master changes the molten glass into a giant dome, a refuge from the pollution of “this doomed world!” When Clark attempts to follow the cult into the dome, The Master stops him, revealing knowledge of Clark’s secret identity: The Master’s “prophet-power” directs Clark to a train-load of poison gas trapped by a forest fire outside Metropolis, and as Superman, he heads off to handle it, leaving, for the moment, The Master’s prophecy of “a catastrophe that will kill off every living thing on the face of the planet!” Superman handles the emergency in super-fashion, then heads off to his Fortress in the Arctic to set his “hyper-computer” to the task of figuring out The Master’s secrets. Then, the miniature people of Kandor raise an alarm: their census analyzer has been malfunctioning since Superman’s last visit. This interruption with a trivial problem ticks Superman off: His response? Subject Kandor to a “blackout ray” to cut off all communications! Another alert, more serious, comes in for Superman: a new jetliner is shattering every window in Metropolis as it comes in for landing! Now that’s an emergency worthy of Superman’s attention, and along the way, he observes, with disgust, the polluted river from which he salvages the scraps of junk boats to form a floating jetport at which the poorly designed jetliner can land. That will spare the city from the noise pollution, but “planes are still spewing smoke into the sky! And our ships are befouling the world’s seas!” Now Superman heads back to The Sanctuary, in time to watch The Master walking barefoot over the molten remains of discarded cans! He prevents the cultists from attempting to duplicate their leader’s supernatural feat. During the commotion, The Master has mystically erected a tower behind them, “the last wonder I will create for my brethren on this Earth!” Clark drinks the Kool-Aid and submits to the superiority of The Master: Trapped inside the tower with the rest of the followers, Superman watches as The Master reveals the truth: His people came from another planet aeons ago, bringing the last survivors of a dying planet, Homo Sapiens, to become a part of the Earth’s fauna. Over the millennia, they have watched as the transplanted humans have spoiled the planet. Indeed, a radioactive chain reaction is foreseen three days from now, and it will erase all life. Hence, these followers are to be transplanted again, to a better world. Escaping the spacecraft, Superman encounters The Master outside, and bows down, begging to be brought along. The Master refuses, urging Superman to stay and do what he can in the planet’s last hours. But in kneeling, Superman has been confirming his suspicions: those sandals are made of servron, a Kandorian plastic! This is no alien..well, at least not one from the planet Alvar! He’s the Kandorian scientist Van-Tarr. He sabotaged the census analyzer so he could sneak out along with Superman. The census analyzer is intended to “keep anyone from fleeing the bottle”, since they become super-powered outside it. Standard Superman-style powers accounted for most of his miracles, along with the “polarizing beads” he invented to exert extraordinary mental powers. Van-Tarr’s plan is to transport the cultists to another world, where he, Van-Tarr, will be the new Superman. But through the plot convenience of “energy overload feedback” the polarizing beads fail, draining Van-Tarr’s powers. Superman rescues the followers, who have overheard the truth about “that power-hungry idiot”, who have learned their lesson: “you can’t make a better world by running away and hiding…miracles won’t cure Earth’s ill! Only hard work will do that!” It’s back into the Kandor bottle with Van-Tarr, and in the wrap-up, Morgan Edge covets the polarizing beads that Clark Kent returns with, but they turn to dust thanks to Clark’s booby-trapping them. “Edge rules his business empire like a king…and yet he wants the powers of a god! …Why?” Clark thinks. The concluding caption replies: “Clark! You’ll regret the fearsome day you find the answer to that question!” As a child of the 70’s, I was well accustomed to the ubiquitous anti-pollution message, so the heavy-handed implications that “if mankind keeps spewing poisons into the air, sea and land…the world’s doom is sealed!” were something that I’d dutifully assent to. The examples did get a little out of hand and hard to swallow; as an adult working in the aerospace industry, a jetliner that would only be discovered to break all windows during a test flight over a major city is implausible. This was also my introduction to solo Superman stories as produced in the 70’s, with Kirby’s Superman in JIMMY OLSEN somewhat anomalous. The story would have introduced me to the Fortress (of Solitude—that last part wasn’t mentioned) in the Arctic. Even at that age, I was fascinated by unusual facilities, like atomic power plants, submarines, Egyptian tombs, so this would have seemed really cool to me. I don’t recall what I made of the bottle city of Kandor. From this story, I’d only have gathered that he kept a city full of miniaturized Kryptonians in a bottle, refusing to allow them out lest they become like unto him. Did the parallel between this and the story of Genesis occur to me? Was I disturbed by Superman’s peeved response to the pleas of his tiny charges, or the irrational punishment of cutting them off from his presence with a “blackout ray”? Between that and the portrayal of a cult with religious overtones, including displays of miracles, god-like claims of being the originators of human-life on Earth, the promise of reward in a better place by the believers who outlive the destruction of their planet, this is a heavy (and heavy-handed) package, but as a not-particularly-religious kid, despite knowing my Bible stories, I probably just took this all as a wild little adventure story with a pro-ecology moral and plenty of demonstrations of the varieties of super-powers available to Kryptonians on Earth. I would have brought my knowledge of Morgan Edge and Clark’s new job over from my experience with JIMMY OLSEN, where I already knew to view Morgan Edge with suspicion. But who wouldn’t want to have the mental powers of the “polarizing beads” (and you’d think such an invention could have served Kandor well, if Van-Tarr had been satisfied to stay “in his place” and not aspire to the potential inherent in his body should he escape his prison)? Next comes some really good stuff: The Atom and the Flash team up in… “The Challenge of the Expanding World” Written by Bob Haney, drawn by Alex Toth, lettered by Stan Starkman, reprinted from BRAVE & BOLD #35, originally on sale in February 1964. Two of my new favorite superheroes from the issue of JLA I bought the month prior, together in one cosmic adventure! I’ll forgo recounting the plot in detail. I recommend the discussion between @crimebuster and MDG in the podcast at this installment of the Classic Comics podcastif you want to get a more thorough take. For me, this would be my first exposure to the traditional comic book team-up; the World’s Finest stories were in a rather different vein, since they were regular occurrences, not special event crossovers like this one was, between two heroes who didn’t routinely work as a pair. The story gave me a more classic approach to The Flash, and considerably more feeling for The Atom, with impressive renderings of super-speed and shrinking. Particularly memorable for me was Toth’s depiction of The Atom traversing the lines in Barry Allen’s palm flesh: Shrinking down to microscopic size would have appealed to my youthful interest in science, and the sub-atomic civilization would be icing on the cake… …which I wouldn’t be able to eat because the story is cut off: “The explosive conclusion in next month’s issue!” Would I get that issue and read the finish? We’ll see… Finally comes the cover story, labeled “An Untold Tale of Clark Kent”… “The Ghost That Haunted Clark Kent” by Geoff Browne (an alias for Leo Dorfman) and Swan and Anderson. Here’s what I had to say about this story back in November 2019: Synopsis: We open with the cover scene, as Clark Kent, doing a TV special in London, comes face-to-face with one of the headless phantoms the guide claims haunts the walls, this one a "spectre of Superman!"
Note that in the story, Clark thinks: "Impossible! Ghosts are the spirits of the dead! But I'm Superman! And I'm alive!" Back on the cover, Clark's shouting: "But that's impossible! Ghosts don't exist..." Superman's met too many ghosts in his career to be a non-believer, but he's playing the skeptic for the cover pitch!
Clark flees the scene, feigning cowardice, and with his x-ray vision, sees the phantom passing through walls into a lab, where he replaces his head and transforms into "another Superman...in the flesh!"
As Superman, Clark bores through to the "ghost's" underground lab, where he is greeted by a shriveled Troy Magnus, a London physician of 1665. He had developed an alchemical cure for the plague which protected him as he treated patients. Before he could make cures for the populace, the elixir appeared to fail him. But instead of dying, he changes to a ghostly form, then back again.
Thinking he was indeed cured, he resumes treating patients, but now all his patients die--even those who didn't have the plague to start with! Troy begs the guards to kill him before he wipes out the city, but his body instinctively reverts to its phantom form upon threat of death.
Like Poe's Fortunato, Magnus is sealed up alive in the walls of the building, and he spends the centuries undying, doing transmutation experiments. He discovers he can control the transformation to spirit form, allowing him to safely explore the outside world.
And tonight, he spotted Clark Kent changing to Superman, and made himself appear as a doppelganger in order to lure him in. Superman is invulnerable to his deadly presence, and with his superpowers may be able to help Magnus die. Superman refuses, and Magnus understands, asking the Man of Steel to seal up the cracks he's left with his entry, lest the plague escape.
Using his heat vision to seal the cracks, Superman accidentally zaps some of the mirrors Magnus has been using. When the rays are reflected back on him, his spectral transformation does not protect him--only mortal weapons were harmless to him, but Superman's "super-weapon" is strong enough to grant him the death he wanted.
Superman bricks up the corpse, leaving us with this parting thought about the man who spent his trapped years of loneliness attempting to transmute lead to gold:
"The poor man didn't realize that atomic scientists of our age transmuted metals long ago..."
Thoughts: Wait, what? Our atomic scientists have long since transmuted metals?! I think you're misunderstanding something, Superman. Radioactive decay does indeed result in elements changing into different elements, but don't imply that we've mastered the art of changing lead into gold, man!
So here's a classic example of taking a cool cover image and coming up with a story to explain it, and I've gotta say it doesn't do a very good job of it. In particular, the impersonation of Superman was an unnecessary and unconvincing component of the alchemist's plan. Surely Clark would have been just as interested in tracking down an "ordinary" ghost? I can also imagine this story being told in reverse in the Silver Age: why is this 17th century corpse discovered bricked up in the tower of London wearing a Superman costume?
For one of my earliest comics purchases, this story didn't have much long-term impact. Reading it again now doesn't bring back any memories other than the cover, which I've seen many times since.
And it's a real cheat trying to pass this off as a "Clark Kent" story. Clark's in seven panels, not even as much as I'd expect in a typical Superman story.
MONSTER APPEAL: The headless ghost of Superman on a moody castle wall would have been a strong selling point, but the delivery would have been disappointing. 1 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: This would have given me even more grounding in the Superman Family of titles, encouraging further exploration in this and other titles, such as Supergirl's series in ADVENTURE COMICS. 2 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: First exposure to Alex Toth probably wowed me. 3 out of 5! LORE: Kandor, the Fortress of Solitude, the notion of "Clark Kent" backups, more on The Atom and The Flash, and B&B-style team-ups gave me some important foundations in following DC superhero comics. 3 out of 5!
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Post by Rob Allen on Aug 4, 2021 14:58:17 GMT -5
the “laws of androidonics”: “No android may harm its creator!” (I think Arthur C. Clarke was cool with others adopting his Laws of Robotics, so there was no need to disguise it, Leo Dorfman!) The Laws of Robotics were Isaac Asimov's, not Clarke's. In your next review, the Action issue, that Atom & Flash reprint is from a Brave & Bold issue that I bought when it was new. I remember liking the art - one of the few Alex Toth superhero stories from the 60s - but I knew enough astronomy at that point that random planets wandering around didn't make sense.
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 4, 2021 18:33:49 GMT -5
the “laws of androidonics”: “No android may harm its creator!” (I think Arthur C. Clarke was cool with others adopting his Laws of Robotics, so there was no need to disguise it, Leo Dorfman!) The Laws of Robotics were Isaac Asimov's, not Clarke's. In your next review, the Action issue, that Atom & Flash reprint is from a Brave & Bold issue that I bought when it was new. I remember liking the art - one of the few Alex Toth superhero stories from the 60s - but I knew enough astronomy at that point that random planets wandering around didn't make sense. Duh, of course! Asimov! Embarrassing mistake, but thanks for the correction, Rob!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 19, 2021 8:25:17 GMT -5
WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #207 On Sale in September 1971 Cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson I continued to stick with the Superman family of titles from DC, safe and generally familiar territory. I must have enjoyed last month’s WF Giant reprint, and now it was time to sample the modern-day approach to the World’s Finest team. I don’t recall the absence of Robin making any impact on me, despite the character’s persistent presence in all the stories from the previous issue. I think I had picked up on the idea that Robin was no longer a requisite participant in all of Batman’s adventures. “A Matter of Light and Death” by Len Wein, Dick Dillin, Joe Giella The story opened with a grabber of a scene, the significance of which wouldn’t have eluded me: Clark Kent meets some shady types at a closed gym, offering them a suitcase full of money to murder Superman…before Superman murders Clark! Following that, I do get some important new information: there is no more Kryptonite in the world, and Superman is vulnerable to magic. Clark reassures the thugs that he can supply a magic weapon with which they can kill the man of steel, and demonstrates the reality of magic by chanting a spell (“Abracadabra…Hocus-Pocus…”) and disappearing. In his Clark Kent guise, he flies to the Arctic to retrieve the “Satanstaff”, a weapon capable of killing Superman, and hides it under a boulder in Metropolis, later to deliver it to the hired killers. I’d have been intrigued by this puzzle, understanding there must be some mystery explaining this behavior. Clark next returns to his senses on a park bench, remembering only that he is involved in a plot to kill someone, and decides to turn to the Batman for his aid in solving the puzzle. At this point, the story turns to a scene of Batman resolving a case by apprehending a group of crooks, assisted in mopping up by the newly arriving Superman. Next thing, Batman’s on the case, shadowing his partner until they can figure this all out. After a while, Clark finally zones out in his apartment (344 Clinton, another new bit of lore to absorb). He decks the Batman and takes off. How can Batman track his superpowered ally? Well, he’s planted a tracker, that leads him to the gym, where Clark is gifting the Satanstaff to his hired assassins. Clark disappears just before Batman arrives. After a tussle, one of the thugs finally gets the Satanstaff working, and it wraps Batman in a magically-empowered net (as seen on the cover). The thugs corner Superman at the Metropolis Planetarium, where he’s preparing a special presentation on the flora and fauna of the planet Krypton. The Satanstaff gives them the advantage, and they animate an image of the Kryptonian Leech Lizard to challenge Superman. This creature “survives by absorbing the life-force of others!” It does just that to Superman, whose lifeless corpse is then magically encased in amber, and flown, magic carpet-style, back to the gym where Batman is still trapped in the net. The killers are awaiting payoff from a man who can no longer arrive, but guess who does show up? A bearded villain in a white costume, Dr. Light—“the hombre what keeps tryin’ to bump off the Justice League!” Apparently it’s all been part of Light’s plan, but the boys don’t want the pay-off, after all; the Satanstaff is worth more than any cash he could offer! A deal’s a deal—or it should[/b] be, according to Dr. Light! He zaps the assassins into nothingness and reaches for the Satanstaff, but Batman has escaped his trap and he grabs it first. The Satanstaff fires light bolts, which prove ineffective against “the master of light”, so he just hurls the Satanstaff at the villain, who then magics himself away, with a warning that Batman is the next on Light’s enemy list slated for elimination! Smart timing, because now Superman has revived and escapes the amber prison. What happened? Let’s let Batman explain: Not exactly clear, but a look back at a previous panel sequence helps a bit: Back in the gym that he’s turned into his lair, Dr. Light ruminates on his achievements, conveniently working in a barely-related recollection of Zatanna, allowing the editor to hype her upcoming backup feature in ADVENTURE COMICS: Superman arrives to take on Dr. Light, and his heat vision destroys the Satanstaff. Light shoots him with red sun light, which seems to do the trick of defeating Superman, but Superman plows into the ground, evading the beam and popping back in to take out the supervillain. Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne then take in a performance by Zatanna, and Bruce closes by filling in the last plot gap: he used yoga techniques to contract his muscles to escape the trap. Next issue: Superman and Doctor Fate! OK, in 1971 I wouldn’t have been sophisticated enough to recognize this convoluted plot as the mess that it was, resorting to dialogue to explain what the heck was going on, struggling to insert (hypothetically) visually interesting elements like the Leech Lizard, shoehorning in an irrelevant character to promote her upcoming appearances. The pay-off to the intriguing set-up was meager, and the artwork was bland, but it did at least stay mostly faithful to the promises of cover, even down to the cowboy fashions of one of the anonymous gang of hired killers. While I may not have consciously had the negative reaction I had on reading this story fifty years later, I can say with certainty that while the following issues of WF that guest-starred other heroes like Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Atom, Vigilante, and Metamorpho got my coins, the semi-regular returns to the Superman/Batman team-ups didn’t (at least until the baffling arrival of the Super-Sons!). Now come the reprints, starting with: “Galloping Gold” Reprinted from Star Spangled Comics #11, 1942 Art by Ed Smalle This introduced me to The Tarantula, a nondescript costumed mystery man in purple and yellow who used a web gun and walked on walls with “vacuum disk” boots. Labeled as “Bureau of Missing Heroes”, the presentation includes the character’s first and last appearance, his civilian identity, and the publication from which this tale was taken. If I paid attention, I noticed that this guy apparently only had 19 appearances over a 2 year period. The story is set in a Western environment, with horses, wagons, ranchers, and rustlers, as John Law, mystery writer, vacations in cattle country seeking inspiration for his novels and suiting up as a hero to battle the criminal activity going on in the town. Aside from some dialogue details and the presence of the “original web-slinger”, as the cover declares him, this story seemed nothing more than a conventional old West yarn. That was something I had no interest in, and the Tarantula didn’t do anything to engage my interest enough to overcome my distaste for Westerns. The final tacked-on panel promises “Coming soon—an exciting companion feature…Bureau of Missing Villains!” Even then, such a promise would have struck me as being of even less interest than this was. The last reprint, under the banner “Fiction is Stranger than Truth”, was: “The Cosmic Idiots” Reprinted from Strange Adventures #30 1953 Writer: Sid Gerson Penciller: Gene Colan Inker: Joe Giella I was favorably inclined to science fiction, but this Cold War tale (about a rocket pilot captured by commies who defeats his captors by infecting them with a cosmic ray-triggered disease that is killing him anyway) probably had zero impact on me. The disease turns people blue. And now, flipping back to the letters page, I get to see comments on issue 203’s team-up between Superman and Aquaman, which I much would have rather read. I probably noticed that the page offered a mix of favorable and unfavorable reviews, which might have surprised me. MONSTER APPEAL: As I recollect, the cover had me expecting/hoping that Batman had been wrapped up by a giant spider. I certainly would have skimmed the issue before buying it and been disabused of that notion. There was the Kryptonian Leech Lizard, but that wouldn’t have satisfied my monster cravings. 0 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: Well, as I mentioned, it inspired me to avoid Batman/Superman team-ups for a while, and although I would eventually try more, I don’t recall any ever being among my favorites. 0 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: You couldn’t avoid Dick Dillin at DC back then. Might as well get accustomed to him. And Joe Giella…well, let me just say this: my old pal Chris Khalaf once looked up Joe Giella’s phone number and gave him a call from Texas in about 1994. Chris said he was one of the most gracious, friendly pros he’d talked to since we met Jim Aparo together. He talked to Giella for about three hours and apparently both had a great time discussing old comics. Ed Smalle was not a memorable Golden Age artist, and the few samples of his work I saw never made enough of an impression for me to remember his name or his style. Gene Colan, though, that’s another matter, but to learn anything about his style, well, it wasn’t going to happen from a 1953 job inked by Giella. 1 out of 5. LORE: If there was any benefit from this comic, it was the modest increase in learning DC lore. I learned about Superman’s weakness against magic, met Zatanna, learned about Dr. Light, who would be a frequently recurring villain, and got introduced to the Tarantula, who I’d then immediately forget until ALL STAR SQUADRON #1. 1 out of 5.
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 19, 2021 17:06:48 GMT -5
We're youreading Marvel too? Or mostly DC?
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 20, 2021 14:37:10 GMT -5
We're youreading Marvel too? Or mostly DC? The first couple of months I stuck to DC, but I'm about to branch out and sample the competition. I made some surprising choices for my first Marvel comics in October, November, and December 1971, and some obvious ones. Coming soon!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 23, 2021 20:14:43 GMT -5
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #94 On sale September 1971 Cover by Neal Adams The last comic from my second month of collecting found me going back to the JLA. Last month I’d read reprints of two of the team’s early adventures; now it was time to sample the contemporary stuff. “Where Strikes Demonfang?” By Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, and Joe Giella, with guest artist (on select pages) Neal Adams Page 1, Adams’ portrait of a sinister Asian, bowled me over. I was yet to start being discriminating about comic book art, but I could see that this was something remarkably more sophisticated than what I had seen so far. But from there, we move immediately into the more mundane art of Dillin and Giella, with the trio of Batman, Green Arrow, and Aquaman at a dark seaport, targets of an assassination attempt by a black sharpshooter, M’Naku, who finds the JLAers able to defend themselves. M’Naku is taken captive after the first failure in his man-killing career. He refuses to talk, but Batman suspects bigger threats lie ahead of them. Adams takes over the art, as the guy from the splash pages is recruiting “Merlyn the Magician”, an archer assassin. There’s conversation about “The Demon’s Head” and “Darrk” that meant nothing to me, but I got the bottom line: Merlyn is tasked with killing a JLAer. He’s eager to take on his rival Green Arrow, but he’s also to be given weapons capable of dealing with Superman and The Atom. Friedrich doesn’t make it quite clear that only one of the team is the true target, but that’s implied by the closing caption. Is it Green Arrow? Dillin and Giella take us to Clark Kent and the Atom. Clark’s assigned to do a segment on pollution control, and Atom is along for the ride, since this will take them to the last known location of Batman, Aquaman, and Green Arrow. The pair are attacked en route by Merlyn, whose gimmicked arrows do in fact prove capable of taking down the two JLAers. The scene of Atom suffering the sonic attack of a rigged arrowhead stuck with me: Merlyn leaves the two—Superman weighed down by a gravity-increasing arrow and Atom still suffering a sonic brain scramble. Bats, Aquaman, and GA have turned over M’Naku to the authorities, having failed to extract anything from him, even though, as Aquaman says, “…we’ve zigged and zagged through every port this side of Nanda Parbat…and uncovered nothing!” Batman laments that they still have no clue which JLAer is the target (maybe I missed something in a previous installment about an assassin out to kill a specific team member, because that hasn’t really been established clearly this issue). M’Naku is himself killed with an arrow in custody, and Merlyn leaves a note with the corpse: “The price of failure in the League of Assassins is death! Beware—the price of success is the same! (signed) Merlyn, Magician” Turns out GA has some history with this guy, who was able to beat him in an archery demonstration. GA’s ready for a rematch, and the World’s Greatest Detective is able to lead his allies to Merlyn’s lair, which proves to be booby-trapped. They evade the deathtraps, but Aquaman drops, out cold. Back to Atom and Superman, who escape their own deathtraps by heroic effort. Supes is so messed up from the ordeal, they resort to hitchhiking into Porttown, where the other three Leaguers are. Assuming Aquaman has exceeded his one-hour air-breathing limit, Batman dunks his team-mate in a fountain, and he revives…but Batman keeps a firm grip on him. How could Aquaman have forgotten his own limitations? Batman’s got the answer, based on “Aquaman’s” mention of Nanda Parbat, a place that only two other people know about—one of whom is a “dead man”. No time to hash it out, though, because Green Arrow is trapped in a clear tube, and the heroes find it difficult to secure his release. Fortunately, Superman is watching from a distance with telescopic vision, and he hurls The Atom into the glass imprisoning Green Arrow, freeing him. GA’s freed, but now Batman is trapped, and Merlyn is taking aim. It’s a high pressure rematch between Merlyn and GA, and GA’s arrow meets and deflects Merlyn’s before it can penetrate the Batman. Merlyn flees the scene via rocket pack, and the Leaguers head home…all except for Batman and Aquaman, who now has a shining halo around him. Neal Adams takes over for the epilogue, and we find that Deadman has been possessing Aquaman. Deadman had been told by a “Rama Kushna” that a JLAer was targeted for assassination, and thinking it might be Superman or Green Lantern, he infiltrated the team to help identify and protect the target…who turned out to be Batman. Back on the JLA satellite, Black Canary (not identified by name, unfortunately for me) gets alarmed that Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern (not actually shown) don’t appear in the HQ after beaming up in a new, larger capacity Thanagarian transporter. A cliff hanger for next time, but there’s room for one more Neal Adams page, where Batman explains what happens to a very confused Aquaman, and the Sensei plots a future revenge against Batman, to be detailed in forthcoming issues of BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS. I remember feeling very lost reading this issue, and looking back, I can certainly see why. Mike Friedrich’s script was a mess. It appears to be random assassination attempts against the JLA, but apparently it was a targeted attempt to kill Batman, although how this was deduced didn’t seem obvious. Deadman’s role was awkwardly justified and seemed completely irrelevant. I didn’t know anything about Sensei or Ras al Ghul. I did like Merlyn, and Deadman blew my mind: a superhero who’s power is that he’s dead? But I couldn’t deny he looked incredibly cool. I wanted to know more, and I soon would…and I would fortunately discover that most Deadman stories were far superior to this one. Next up, the D.C. Hall of Golden Age Heroes, a.k.a. the reprint section: As a kid, I was fascinated by facilities; I knew that the Hall of Golden Age Heroes probably wasn’t a real place, but my imagination did bring it to life. Even at this stage of my collecting, I recognized the special appeal of an origin story, and now I was about to get two: Sandman and Starman. I’d never heard of either of these guys, of course, but I was intrigued, especially by the guy in the hat and the gas mask, who was first at the grand opening… “The Sandman” by Larry Dean (Gardner Fox and Bert Christman), from ADVENTURE COMICS #40, 1939 I could immediately see that this art was cruder and more old-fashioned than what I had been seeing, but that didn’t put me off, as I dove into the newspaper headlines announcing that “The Tarantula” was holding actress Vivian Dale for $500,000 ransom. Wesley Dodd is discussing the case with an older man (“Tom”) who can’t understand how The Tarantula spirited Miss Vale from her highly secure estate. When Tom departs, Wesley places a curious doll in his own bed, and with a “Good night, Mr. Wesley Dodd—Sleep tight”, Dodd enters his hidden lab to prepare chemicals for his gun before donning “distinctive apparel”: a green hat, purple cape, orange suit, yellow gloves and a gas mask, and then enters Miss Dales home in a striking panel: The household is full of suspects, held by police investigators who have been warned by The Tarantula that he will be returning to the scene. The guests and employees are confined to quarters, but the Sandman is roaming the mansion. Sandman sees the Tarantula arrive to leave a message, then tracks him down a hidden passage where he finds Vivian being held in the basement. With a shot from his gas gun (which smells like violets!), Vivian’s guards—and Vivian herself--go unconscious. Sandman explores the many secret areas of the mansion, and finds an empty guest room with Mr. Crossart’s cane—Crossart was an angry guest who objected to his detainment. The Tarantula, in a face-covering hood, arrives downstairs to see that everyone is asleep. He recognizes the violet scent and the sand sprinkled on the floor as the mark of the Sandman, and goes off to bump off the crimefighter…but the figure he shoots proves to be but a dummy waring the Sandman’s hat and cape. Attacking from behind with his gas gun, Sandman unmasks Mr. Crossart. The next morning, Tom breakfasts with Wesley, discussing how the Tarantula was found tied and asleep, with sand sprinkled all over him. The Sandman’s signature! Starman’s story, by artist Jack Burnley and writer Gardner Fox, is reprinted from ADVENTURE COMICS #61, 1941. FBI man Woodley Allen summons Starman with a radioactive capsule that emits ultra-short-wave emanations. Ted Knight, a sensitive playboy type, is escorting his date, Miss Lee to dinner. She insults the foppish Knight’s manliness, and Knight begs off to “go to a sanitarium for a while”, needing rest. As they part, the lights go out, and Ted Knight sees his gravity rod vibrating at the signal from Woodley. He changes into his Starman garb, and with the aid of the gravity rod, heads to meet Allen, who is…in a shack on a craggy cliff?! Starman’s off on his first (published) adventure, to deal with the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron, who are sabotaging the nation’s communication and light facilities. As he seeks them out, he demonstrates that pointing the rod forward allows him to fly, while holding it horizontally (that is, perpendicular to his line of flight) allows him to hover. A mysterious electrical discharge leads Starman to the Brotherhood’s mountain hideout. The gravity rod melts the still door, draws a fleeing thug back via magnetism, and convinces his captive to lead Starman to the “ultra-dynamo”, the source of the Brotherhood’s sabotage. But the Brotherhood’s leader, Dr. Doog, sees them coming via the Electric Eye. Starman finds a hostage, but is interrupted by the arrival of Doog: A vigorous fight ensues, ending with Dr. Doog plungin into a pit. Starman seals the mountain passages behind him, and as bored playboy Ted Knight, returns to his girlfriend’s home, to be greeted with more emasculation. Although the Sandman and Starman stories were primitive, they excited me more than the lead feature. I remember feeling like these were the kinds of characters that I could and would come up with, and for that reason I had an immediate fondness for both of them, and I quickly started dreaming up many a ___-man superhero of my own. The stories were clear, they were atmospheric, the costumes were memorable. I thought these were great, although I did wonder how Starman was supposed to have a secret identity with a costume that left his entire face exposed. No, they turned out not to be true “origins”, and that disappointed me a little, but not much—I was too taken with both of these heroes to care much about that. In the letters page, I get some commentary on issue 90, a vicarious glimpse at an issue prior to me beginning my journey. Unfortunately, none of the letters gave me any indication of what had actually happened in that issue. MONSTER APPEAL: While the cover did imply a spooky ghostly possession, there was no real monster content. 0 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: Despite the disappointing lead story, the appeal of seeing DC’s major superheroes as a team was appealing enough to bring me onboard with every JLA issue I could find for the immediate future. 1 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: My first look at Neal Adams at the peak of his powers, and a couple of Golden Age artists capable of very evocative work made for some important lessons. I don’t specifically remember thinking about the quality disparity between Adams and Dillin/Giella. To be fair, Dillin did do a few panels that I found very memorable. 2 out of 5! LORE: My intro to three of what would be favorite characters: Deadman, Sandman, and Starman. I was wowed by the Deadman costume, and I’m still awfully impressed with the darker crimson color used on Deadman’s outfit. I know I’m not the only one who preferred Sandman’s awesome gas mask/business suit costume to the generic yellow-and-purple I’d find out about later. DC apparently knew this reaction was common, as Sandman would appear in this outfit for most of the annual JLA/JSA crossovers. In month 3, young Mike goes Marvel!
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Post by berkley on Aug 24, 2021 13:26:40 GMT -5
Nice image of Zatanna in one of the panels sampled above. I haven't seen a lot of Dick Dillin's work and up to now have never thogut of him as an artist who was good at drawing pretty girls but I like that one.
Looking forward to seeing the Marvel comics coming soon!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 27, 2021 12:33:11 GMT -5
As I move into my third month of comics buying, in October, 1971, I find myself struggling to understand why I not only had not sampled any Marvel comics yet, but why I don’t remember noticing any that were on the stands alongside the comics I did buy. It wasn’t an issue of familiarity alone. I had watched Spider-Man and Fantastic Four on their 60’s Saturday morning cartoons. I had really wanted to see the Grantray Marvel Superheroes cartoons, but since they aired locally during my school hours, I rarely saw anything except the advertisements for them, but I remember the appeal of Captain America’s shield-slinging, Thor’s cane-striking transformations, and the Hulk’s…well, the Hulk, period. Iron Man and Sub-Mariner didn’t have as much appeal. I remember disliking men with mustaches, and Subby didn’t have a proper enough costume to strike me as a real superhero. It wasn’t a matter of distribution. I can be confident that there were as many Marvel comics on the Memphis spinner racks in August and September as there were in the following months when I did begin to sample them. It may be that I flipped through Marvels and rejected them because they always tended to be continued stories. I know that my habit was never to buy a comic without skimming to see what I was in for. It wasn’t a need to make quick selections, I don’t think. I believe I usually had plenty of time to pore through the available offerings. But I probably didn’t see all of what was on sale these two months, since my purchases were probably limited to 4 or 5 visits to the spinner racks. It may have largely been a lack of monster appeal. Marvel had plenty of “creatures on the loose”, although their superhero line did not play up the monster vibe as much as DC did in that era. Looking at Marvel’s August ’71 offerings, I see Morbius “Vampire at Large” on the cover of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #102, but from the back, he just looks like another super-villain. INCREDIBLE HULK #145 has a giant concrete-looking monster called “Colossus” as the threat of the month. IRON MAN #43 has the hero struggling with some dragon/serpent/lizard-like monsters. The SUB-MARINER SPECIAL #2 has a horde of vaguely-depicted grey underwater seamonster-y looking guys. The following month, I see another giant monster on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #103, and MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #2 has Werewolf By Night. Both months had some monster-themed reprints like MONSTERS ON THE PROWL and CREATURES ON THE LOOSE and FEAR, but, curiously, those didn’t appeal to me (nor did DC’s spooky titles like UNEXPECTED and the pair of HOUSE books). For super-heroes in monster/horror situations, DC was stronger. As for not remembering any of the offerings, there are a lot of DC books I don’t remember seeing, either. And I have a really good memory. So I think ultimately, it’s just that I wasn’t yet seriously engaged in this hobby, and what I didn’t buy didn’t matter. I wasn’t invested enough yet to feel like I was missing out by passing something up. But I was getting there quickly. I was now invested in the Superman family, Superboy in particular, and I had good feelings about the JLA, my introduction to the concept of the super-team drawn from other titles. I was beginning to see the depth of characters out there, with long publishing histories, series that had come and gone, an intertwined fictional history. Yeah, this was starting to look like something I could get deep into, and my limited budget was about to get tested as I got sucked into two super-hero domains. And so, among my October 1971 purchases, I selected the closest equivalent to DC’s JLA: AVENGERS #95 Cover by John Buscema and Tom Palmer “Something Inhuman This Way Comes..!” By Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Tom Palmer My initial browse of this issue would have started with this: OK, page 1 probably sold me, with the sea monster-looking Triton, and the impressive work of Neal Adams, who I would have remembered from the Deadman pages of last month’s JLA. That’s an unforgettable image—let’s see how the rest of the issue would have looked to a Marvel Universe neophyte! In a silent, sparsely-captions 12-panel page, Triton is pursued through the city and escapes into a sewer. Cool so far! He emerges in the garden of Avengers Mansion, where the team is fighting “mandroids”. Captain America and Thor I recognize, but the bare-chested giant man and the red-faced flying character in green and yellow are new. The encounters is being monitored by Nick Fury and what appears to be his boss, and I learn that one of these guys is called “Vision” and Iron Man is there but down (even though I haven’t seen him depicted yet). Oh, there he is, rising to his knees to zap the mandroids with those cool looking pads on his hips! With the mandroids defeated, Triton (“the second hand Sub-Mariner”, according to the giant guy) tells his story. He was looking for the Fantastic Four (who are out of town, according to some regular looking guy who is just hanging out with the team, a guy I would later learn was Rick Jones. If the JLA could have Snapper Carr, why wouldn’t the Avengers have a civilian hanger-on as well, I must have figured.). Triton gives us a synopsis of a series I’d never heard of, AMAZING ADVENTURES #5-8, about the Inhumans and their king Black Bolt, who’s wandering San Francisco with amnesia. Will the Avengers go to help Triton find their king? The Vision says no, reminding his team-mates of: • Captain Marvel, being held captive by his people’s bitter rivals the Skrulls • “Wanda” and “Pietro”, Avengers also being held captive, although the picture shows Vision with them. The big guy (“Goliath”—thanks for that info, Cap!) stops the argument regarding who to help first. They’ll split up, and the Vision, who has a “computer-mind” (thanks for that info, too, Cap!) decides that Cap, Goliath, and “Rick” (thanks for that info Vision!) will help Triton, while the rest go into outer space to deal with the other problem. Next, we’re in San Francisco with Black Bolt and his little pal Joey, threatened by some gun-wielding thugs who want Black Bolt to help them go on a looting spree—“same as you did them Blacks, a while back.” Hunh? I don’t remember how I processed that weird summary of Black Bolt’s previous activities, but I hope I figured out it was a distortion of whatever really happened. The thugs take Joey captive, holding a gun to his head (kind of a shocking scene, looking back!), but before Black Bolt can do anything, Captain America arrives, and pretending to discard his shield, actually sends it on a boomerang path to whack the hostage taker on the back of the skull. Reunited, Triton has the Avengers take him, Black Bolt, and the orphan Joey to the Inhumans’ “Hidden Land”. On the flight, Black Bolt reminisces a convenient flashback for the reader, explaining how, in the days of his youth, his brother Maximus was caught collaborating with the Kree for co-rulership of the planet Earth. The brothers battled, until Black Bolt unleashed his heretofore unseen superpower, a devastating scream that drove his brother mad. The same scream brings down the Kree spaceship on the Inhumans’ palace, killing their parents. Switching the scene back to Avengers Mansion, the left-behind heroes are cleaning up the disabled mandroids (revealed to be piloted by humans), when Vision changes his mind, and the three superheroes head off to join the rest of the team helping Triton. To do so, Thor uses his whirling hammer to open a mystic gate leading to their colleagues, wherever they may be—something I didn’t know Thor could do (and still don’t quite buy that he can!). They arrive at the Great Refuge, but can’t penetrate its defenses: When the others arrive, Black Bolt shows them how to do it, with a shout that topples the black dome protecting the Inhumans’ city, and then its our guys vs. Maximus’ army of Inhumans. The battle rages on—for one plot-advancing panel!—and then Black Bolt announces himself to his kingdom with what is to him, a whisper: “Hear me, o my people! I am Black Bolt, your rightful ruler! Lay down your weapons—and obey!” With the arrival of their true monarch, the Inhumans turn on Maximus, who has quartered Kree invaders in the palace. It’s an easy victory for the good guys, but Rick Jones is taken and transported by a fleeing Kree soldier to their flying saucer. Maximus returns to his stuporous insanity, and Black Bolt boards the Avengers’ ship to relay the message to his cousins in America that the Inhumans’ Hidden Kingdom is free again. Closing with a reminder that Captain Marvel, “Wanda” and “Pietro” are still in the hands of the Skrulls, and a glimpse of the bizarre “Supreme Intelligence” of the Kree, the Avengers vow to come for both the Kree and the Skrull…next issue! Whew! OK, I think it’s pretty apparent that this was not an ideal jumping-on point for a newcomer to Marvel. It was at least a story that had a conclusion, although appreciating what went on was highly dependent on having background knowledge of two different series, since this was wrapping up the cancelled Inhumans feature run from AMAZING ADVENTURES. I never did get the proper superhero names of this “Wanda and Pietro”, or understand what powers this Vision guy had beyond flight and a computer brain. Visually, it was a treat, with lots of stylish costumes, high tech goodies, and dramatic staging. I remember liking Black Bolt the best of all the characters. I guess I have a fondness for men of few (spoken) words, like myself. It was a unique super power he had, and one of the coolest costumes I’d seen. So while I recall being dissatisfied with a story that was beyond my full grasp, I was satisfied in the variety of characters on display, and I was interested enough to being open to Marvel comics, even though at the 20 cent price point, as opposed to DC’s 25 cents, there was less content per issue. MONSTER APPEAL: I liked Triton’s “Creature from the Black Lagoon” look enough to be drawn in to buying, so it had a bit…but just… 1 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: Credit for being a gateway into Marvel, although far from an ideal one. 2 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: My first full issue of Neal Adams art was probably enough to make him the second artist whose work I could identify at a glance (after Jack Kirby). 3 out of 5! LORE: I was thrown into the deep end. There was a lot here of major significance to the Marvel Universe: Captain Marvel, Kree, Skrulls, Rick Jones, the Inhumans, four new Avengers I didn’t know about before. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough context for me to get a good grasp on things like powers, secret identities, and relationships. You’ve gotta start somewhere, and as it turned out, I would be able to catch up on most of the important details in the months ahead. 2 out of 5!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 27, 2021 20:46:28 GMT -5
FLASH #211 On sale October 1971 Cover by Dick Giordano “Flashing Wheels” by Cary Bates, Irv Novick, and Dick Giordano Barry Allen is waiting for his wife, Iris, outside the Roller Derby stadium, looking at a poster of the newest Roller Derby sensation, Kate Krasher. Barry goes in and takes his seat, but Iris isn’t there—she’s on skates in the match! Barry’s concerned that Kate Krasher, who Barry estimates at 300 lbs, although Novick doesn’t draw her anywhere near that big. Krasher drives Iris over the rails, where the dazed Iris gets a vision that she tells barry about: she saw Krasher as a hideous pink monster! Barry brushes this off as a nightmare. The next night, upon leaving work, Central City is struck by a violent earthquake, and Barry releases his costume from his ring to suit up as the Flash and survey the damages. It’s all centered around the business district, the buildings of which are deserted this time of night, but there are still victims for the Flash to rescue: on group clinging to the edge of a fissure, and, in the opposite direction, a skyscraper under construction toppling onto bystanders. How can the Flash save them both? By whirlwinding an updraft around the falling beams of the skyscraper, then propelling them over to the fissure, where they wedge the gap, preventing the fissure from closing. (In 1971, young Mike would have just gone with this, but in 2021, this strikes me as an outrageous extension of believable application of super-speed. I’ll buy the whirlwind slowing down the collapse of the trusses, but I can’t buy Flash’s wind guiding them precisely into the gaps, where they’d be far more likely to flat-out kill the people hanging on there.) Barry spends another minute making rescues, until the quake subsides. He’s left exhausted; as he notes to himself, he may be as fast as Superman, but he’s not as strong! (That, I must say, is a refreshing acknowledgment of the limits that would have to apply to his super powers.) The scientists in the Science Institute can’t explain the event, since the surrounding geology makes earthquakes in Central City impossible, but they can locate the epicenter, in the middle of the city. Comparison with a city map shows that it is exactly at the Roller Derby Stadium! Time to investigate! At the darkened, empty arena, Flash sees a mysterious glow in the locker room, and discovers hidden machinery in the players’ skates! But Flash is immediate knocked out by a pink monster in a Roller Derby uniform wielding a pipe wrench, and he comes to suspended in a tight net. Kate—actually an alien invader—explains the plan: her world is dying (“from natural…and unnatural causes!”). Her race intends to siphon new materials and minerals from “this sphere’s polluted surface”. The rink is actually powering a drill (or “energi-coil”) through to the Earth’s core. After it’s fully charged with enough roller races, it will shatter the planet, allowing her race to harvest the debris for rebuilding their own planet. And tonight she’s going to finish that charge, with the Flash hanging as an onlooker to destruction! Right, as if a net could hold the Flash, when he can super-friction his own molecules to heat up the air inside the trap, causing it to expand and release him. Scientific principles suggest the obvious solution: the Flash straps on skates and goes in the opposite direction of Kate, de-activating the energi-coil by going faster than Kate could, and undoing the months of energizing that the Roller Derby teams have been unwittingly performing. Good plan, Barry, but first Kate drops her human image and latches onto Barry—she’s evidently played him good! Thinking back, he remembers that the Derby girls were going counter-clockwise when Iris got hurt; Kate was skating in the wrong direction, to get Flash skating in the correct direction to power the energi-coil faster than she ever could herself! To undo the damage, Flash runs to the locker room and gets 10 pairs of the special skates and puts them all in motion—counterclockwise, this time!—joining in to keep them all going at Flash-speed! The skates trip up Kate Krasher, who is taken into custody by the police, but Flash figures he hasn’t see the last of her “or her race of determined Earth-killers!” Looking back at this and the previous issue, I see that Cary Bates wasn’t so good at the finish. Both issues resolve suddenly and leave some details unexplained. What is Kate charged with, for example? Do the cops know she’s a monstrous alien? How can Flash just leave these aliens to try again to destroy the planet? Did he finish deactivating the energi-coil? What did he do about this deadly mechanism (and how the heck did the aliens install this thing in the first place)? In the reprints for this issue, I got a real goodie: “The Rival Flash!” from FLASH COMICS #104, 1949, by Bob Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, and Frank Giacoia. This was the final solo adventure published starring the original Flash, and recapped his origin, with the addition of a “Rival” who was able to recreate Jay Garrick’s origin via “hard water” gases, thanks to the loose lips of Jay’s girlfriend Joan, who knew the secret. The Rival wears a darker version of the hero’s costume, and a black face mask to hide his identity. Rival manages to remove Jay’s super-speed, but Jay is able to re-enact the events, renewing his powers with more hard water gases. He captures the Rival, who is an old man, a chemistry teacher who overheard Joan telling a fellow student about the Flash’s origin, and retrieved what was left of the hard water in the lab. Fortunately, his formula only granted super-speed for a short time, and he wasn’t sharp enough to figure out it was Jay Garrick who became the Flash, assuming it was some other student who sneaked into the lab after Jay was taken to the hospital (after inhaling the fumes that granted him super speed). A pretty cool story, but one that I forgot about as the years went on and my copy of FLASH #211 wound up on the bottom of the pile of my collected comics. By the time I saw this story again in THE FLASH ARCHIVES VOL. 1, I had no memory of having seen it before. Next, a Kid Flash solo story, “Is This Poison Legal?”, by Steve Skeates, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano. Kid Flash has been visiting friends living on “Peace Farm”, a hippy commune outside the poverty- and disease-stricken village of Greenvale. As he’s racing back to Blue Valley in costume, he passes through Greenvale, wishing he could do something for them, when a couple of kids beg for his aid: their mom is sick! Well, Kid Flash discovers it’s a little worse than that—she’s dead, from malnutrition. Or at least, the official death certificate says so, but Kid Flash is dubious. At the funeral, Kid Flash notices all the attendees look pretty sick, except for his pal Jeremy from the Peace Farm. The deceased was his sister, and Jeremy blames the local grocer Sampson for murdering her. Kid Flash remembers hearing talk at the commune that the villagers were being poisoned by chemically treated food, but he wants evidence. It’s not just the food, Jeremy explains. Samson owns half the town, and it’s the poultry farm, with its chemically-dosed chickens that he thinks are to blame. That night, Kid Flash catches Jeremy breaking into the poultry farm, and he stops Jeremy before he can set fire to the place. He explains that since Sampson hides his poison chemicals when the state inspectors visit, this is the only solution. The debate is interrupted by gunfire—aimed at Jeremy—but Kid Flash pushes his pal down to evade the speeding bullet. With super-speed he spirits Jer out of there, while Sampson fires at them—legal in this county to shoot at someone who endangers your personal property, so it seems! Kid Flash’s solution: summon a state investigator, and try to catch Sampson moving his poison before the investigator arrives. The next morning, the hippies from the commune are parked with a truckload of produce outside of Sampson’s grocery, giving away free food! Sampson figures they’re not calling the inspector, after all; they’re fighting back another way. Sampson tries to stop them from obstructing the entrance to his store, but since it’s not open yet, they’re breaking no laws. At 8:02 a.m., the store is open and the sheriff’s forcing the hippies out, but by now Kid Flash has already escorted the state inspector around Sampson’s chicken farm, and they’ve got the goods to arrest him. OK, here’s another story that young Mike would have accepted without objection, but that leaves 2021 Mike with questions. Is Sampson literally poisoning the chickens? Or is he just giving them “poison” in the sense that the nutritionally conscious hippies would consider chemical additives to be? Because straight-up poison seems like a bad business idea, even if it fattens up the chickens to make them more sellable. Killing off your customer base is not a logical move. And I can’t picture how Kid Flash, in his super-hero identity, became close friends with hippies on a commune. Wally West, maybe, although Marv Wolfman would later characterize Wally as a conservative type, but hey, people do change sometimes as they grow up. So both of the new stories were steeped in 70’s concerns, with the Flash story fleetingly referring to pollution, Kid Flash bringing up communes and unhealthy meddling with the food sources. The lead story also gave us Roller Derby action, and I remember syndicated Roller Derby being a popular tv attraction around this time. From the lead story, you’d never know that there were also male Roller Derby participants, and that jibes with what I remember—the female teams were the bigger draw. I don’t know if Roller Derby was ever so popular as to merit its own stadium, but I can accept that as a storytelling convenience. MONSTER APPEAL: A single alien doesn’t count for much in young Mike’s book. I certainly didn’t buy this for the monster appeal, I bought it because, despite the low quality of the stories, I liked the look and the concept of Flash and Kid Flash. 0 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: I was now, at least for the time, a regular reader of several comics, on my second consecutive installment of The Flash. That counts for something. 2 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: More Irv Novick, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano, competent but unexciting. I think seeing some of the more pedestrian work primed me to be more receptive to the more daring and impressive art I would be seeing in the months ahead. Carmine Infantino, whose more recent style I’d seen in the previous issues, was not identified as the artist in the Golden Age story, so all I’d have gotten from this is another sample of the typical 40’s DC work. I wouldn’t have picked up on the Caniff influence that was so prevalent, but exposure would prove valuable. 1 out of 5! LORE: The main addition to my catalog of DC lore would have been the Golden Age Flash, my first sampling of seeing an Earth-2 predecessor to one of the familiar Earth-1 characters in solo action, and in a historically significant reprint, to boot! I think this means I knew Jay Garrick’s origin before I knew Barry Allen’s, something that faded in my mind as I had more and more exposure to the contemporary version of the character. I also got a bit more info on Kid Flash, a character that held a lot of appeal thanks to a very cool costume. 3 out of 5!
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Post by Rob Allen on Aug 27, 2021 21:23:01 GMT -5
In the early 70s it took me a while to distinguish Novick's art from Dillin's. When I got good at telling which was which consistently, I started to consider myself a competent art spotter.
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 27, 2021 22:04:27 GMT -5
In the early 70s it took me a while to distinguish Novick's art from Dillin's. When I got good at telling which was which consistently, I started to consider myself a competent art spotter. I'd never thought of it like that Rob, but yeah, Novick and Dillin have almost identical vibes. They were about the most interchangeable artists around at the time, and it seems like they were always inked by Giella, McLaughlin or Giordano, further clouding the differences. I don't know if I could pinpoint when I felt like a competent art spotter, but I was picking up speed rapidly in those first few months. I do remember feeling some pride when I could first start identifying inkers, thanks largely to the highly distinctive--some might say overpowering--ones like Colletta, Abel, Anderson, and Wood.
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 28, 2021 8:38:37 GMT -5
Novick and Dillan were the epitome of the "boring" DC style to my 15 year old eyes., when I first started collecting. I am still not a fan of either.
Very early on, I could recognize artist styles and inkers.
As to Avengers #95, I started with Avengers #93, the story was less confusing to me than M W, but I was absolutely hooked by this issue with Adam's art and the scope of the story. I mean, it was the freaken Kree/Skrull War, a classic to this day. Also, per Stan's mandate, it was much easier to follow the story because Thomas did try to inform you of all the players and the back story as he went along.
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 30, 2021 14:34:52 GMT -5
Superboy #180 Cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson “Prince of the Wolf-Pack” by Bob Haney, Bob Brown, and Murphy Anderson A probe from outer space lands on the moon. Jonathan Kent, in Smallville, hears what he thinks are wild dogs howling, so he goes out with his rifle to shoot them (!). Not dogs, after all, but wolves. And lurking in the shadows, Adrian Lykan, who is pleased to see that Pa Kent, someone he has come to “destroy”, has killed the leader of a wolfpack that had borne Adrian a concerning threat. Wasting no more time on this story, we see Superboy taking on the manner of a wolf under the full moon and becoming the new leader of the wolfpack, under the apparent influence of the crashed moon probe: The mayor and police chief of Smallville agree there’s something ominous about the wolf corpse Jonathan dragged in; “the wolves have returned” to town! Even worse, a look outside shows that Superboy is now leading the wolfpack, just like on the cover! You think that’s weird? You can’t imagine what’s coming next… Because Lykan meets up with Pa Kent as he leaves the station in pursuit of Clark. Lykan wants his money: Jonathan Kent owes him for “delivering on that Smallville public labor contract” by bringing Mexican laborers to the work site! Kent repays him from his own wallet—“As town treasurer, I can refund myself later!” What?! None of this sounds remotely above board: Jonathan Kent paying a shady operator out of his own pocket to deliver a load of (presumably undocumented) Mexican workers?! OK, wait, turns out Lykan is a warlock who has intentionally acted to corrupt “Smallville’s most moral citizen”. Lykan changes form so that Superboy and the wolfpack won’t recognize him as they trot around the corner. Meanwhile, the townspeople form a mob, armed with Kryptonite bullets (!), ready to take out this savage Superboy! Jonathan heads out to the work camp. “If I can save Smallville money using foreign labor, so much the better!” At the camp, Manuel finds the story of “lupos lead by Super-Muchacho” hard to believe, but Jonathan assures him it’s true. Nearby, the wolfpack is under attack, but Superboy protects his canine comrades. Or he would if his mysterious change hadn’t robbed him of this usual superpowers! He can’t uses his heat vision to melt the bullets, which are, of course, Kryptonite. Superboy awakens in Manuel’s cabin. Manuel, who acts as his people’s doctor, has extracted the Kryptonite bullet. Lucky for Superboy, the loss of his powers have also taken his vulnerability to the glowing green mineral. Superboy insists that the Mexicans leave the camp, and that they not trust Jonathan Kent. At the Kents’ place, Lykan (in his new form) arrives to show Jonathan that the papers showing the Mexicans are “legal” were forgeries. “Good heavens! I never noticed! But this could ruin me…leave me open for prosecution!” The disguised Lykan proposes a deal, but Kent refuses to be blackmailed. Kent goes to tell the workers they’re “illegal” and ties them together in the back of a truck, in order to claim they are a prison work gang should they be caught. Super-muchacho told Manuel not to trust Kent, but they go along with this plan, until Lykan manages to get the truckload of workers dumped out off the bridge into the river! Don’t worry, Superboy and the wolfpack to the rescue, diving in, biting through the ropes and bringing the men to the surface! Kent, meanwhile, is under arrest. I’ll let the dialog do the speaking, racist epithets ahead: To wrap this madness up, the mayor hires “Yancey”, a professional bounty-hunter, to exterminate the wolves—and Superboy, too, arming him with Kryptonite bullets. Yancey, of course, is actually Lykan, and the police chief has left Kent’s cell open. In a local cavern, Lykan and Superboy do battle, Superboy without his regular powers but with “the strength of a full-grown timber wolf” (which is apparently capable of shattering stalagmites). Superboy’s lupine brethren prove the deciding factor, though, and Lykan transforms into a bat to escape them. As Superboy dies in his father’s arms, the batteries in the space probe die, and Superboy’s powers and invulnerability return. What caused all this? Clark and his pa will never know… If I hadn’t told you up front, I think a lot of you would be saying “Bob Haney.” This must have been one of my first doses of his bonkers writing. In retrospect, this seems like one of his sloppier jobs, with inexplicable changes triggered by a random alien spacecraft, warlocks, lycanthropy, and, most curiously, particularly adult concerns that would have been of little conceivable interest to the typical Superboy readership: undocumented Mexican laborers exploited by civic authorities to save money?! Humiliation by exposure of public corruption and fiscal irresponsibility? Somehow, SUPERBOY became a favorite of mine in 1971, and I still can’t figure out why. Looking back, it’s a very strange series. It had monster/horror/sci-fi-themed covers, always delivering the cover scene in the stories (it very much feels like the covers were leading the scripts, as in this issue when Haney scrounges up a non-explanation to justify Superboy leading a wolf-pack). The Smallville locale made things seem small-scale and low stakes, but Smallville always had everything the story called for--prisons, museums, mountains, caverns, lakes—and the actual stakes were often claimed to be high, indeed, apocalyptic, even. Next up, the issue’s reprint feature, Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes: “The Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy” by Jerry Seigel and John Forte, reprinted from ADVENTURE COMICS #301, 1962 I was certainly up for another serving of Legion, and in this issue’s reprint, I got the origin of one of the group’s most absurd characters! On the splash, the Legionnaires are rejecting Bouncing Boy from membership, because he doesn’t “have mighty powers which can be used to battle evildoers!” As the story begins, the Legionnaires are dealing with fans gathered outside their clubhouse, using futuristic tech like the “dupli-writing stylus” to sign thousands of autographs simultaneously. Once the meeting’s underway, Saturn Girl activates the clubhouse force-shield, discouraging the crowd from lingering. Cosmic Boy gives the team an update on what’s keeping absent members busy, like Colossal Boy battling a giant on the planet Grykk. After that, it’s time for the main topic: evaluation of new applicants, only one of whom can be selected. The process is interrupted by the arrival of Lester Spiffany, whose super-power, like the Snyder Justice League’s Batman, is “I’m rich”. He’s immediately dismissed, and appears to bear a grudge over the rejection. Applicants include Storm Boy, whose storm-calling power is revealed as a technological gimmick (grounds for disqualification!). The applicants are given a tour of the trophy room, and then, to serve as inspiration, the team’s Selector Machine picks a team member at random to give a presentation on how they joined the LOSH: Bouncing Boy shares his origin story, in which he was assigned to deliver super-plastic fluid to to the Science Council, but took an unauthorized break to enjoy a robot gladiator tournament. Instead of the cold soda (50 cents!) he bought, he chugged the fluid and blew up like a beach ball. Unable to control himself in this form, he bounced onto the gladiator field and spoiled the match. He reverted to his normal form and headed to the doctors, who declared that the power to transform into a super-bouncer at will was permanent! But his dreams of using that power as a Legionnaire were dispelled when the team decided his power was not practical for crusading against evil. The applicants are shocked, but Bouncing Boy continues his tale: he embarrassed himself “defeating” what turned out to be an advertising “missile message”, but then caught a thief in a rubber costume stealing the Healing Urn, the radiations from which can cure almost any illness. While Bouncing Boy pursues the crook, Saturn Girl arrives and is taken out by the thief’s electrical charge. But Bouncing Boy takes him out with a ricochet bounce, avoiding the shock since he wasn’t grounded by contact with the Earth. And that gets him in the club, inspiring hopefulness in the applicants. Unfortunately, the story ends before we get to see whether any of these applicants make the grade! “Clark Kent, Madcap Millionaire!” by Geoff Browne (Leo Dorfman), Bob Brown, and Murphy Anderson From the story title (since I didn’t remember this story at all), I assumed this would be a reprint of a wacky early Silver Age Superman story. But it’s all new, and it starts with Clark and Ma and Pa Kent visiting Clark’s wealthy uncle Kendall… Wait. Hold on. Lemme check something…nope, it’s “Geoff Browne”, not Bob Haney introducing a new close relative to the Kent family that we’ve never heard of before. Uncle Kendall, at his mansion, muses that he wishes the Kents would let him adopt Clark, send him to the finest schools, to travel the world, and to inherit his fortune. Clark’s having none of that, but he appears to change his tune when Uncle Kendall tempts him with a sweet convertible sports car, which Clark immediately takes for a joyride straight into the estate wall! “Madcap”, indeed! Clark takes his uncle up on a “trial adoption”, and the disappointed foster parents sadly allow the super-brat to move in as his uncle’s ward. The estate has amenities like an artificial lake stocked with rare fish, but the scuba diving Clark finds his dip interrupted by an emergency in town, so it’s a quick change to his super-suit and off to stop some hot-rodding teens by bending streetlight posts into the road! Back to the lake, where Clark mischievously punctures his uncle’s inflatable boat with a harpoon causing it to rocket to shore, then blows up the lake’s dam with a hurl of his oxygen tank! OK, something fishy is going on, and it’s about time you let the reader in on it, Mr. “Browne”. Seems Superboy has figured out that his uncle is a target for murder, and the car wreck, boat malfunction, and lake draining have been to spare his uncle from attempted killings. After his misbehavior, Kendall’s personal lawyer Larry tries to get him to call off the adoption, but Kendall is adamant on keeping the boy, next taking him to see his antique train collection…we’re talking full size steam trains on a private track! X-ray vision spots trouble on the rails, so Clark pushes his uncle out of the cabin and goes on a solo train ride. Uncle Kendall’s had enough, and he uses an automated system to remotely lock the train’s brakes right when it’s crossing a bridge. That’s right where the trouble should have happened, but didn’t…Clark gets to work before his uncle comes. Having been sent packing back to Smallville, Clark fills in his parents. X-ray vision has revealed it’s Larry, who’s been embezzling, behind the murder attempts. A quick change to Superboy, and he’s back at the estate in time to rescue Kendall from the bridge that didn’t collapse back when Clark had expected it to. And there’s Larry, caught in the trap Clark left behind on the bridge rafters, where he was trying to finish the job. Larry’s off to the Smallville jail, and Kendall laments that his nephew isn’t as noble, brave, intelligent, and modest as Superboy. OK, it wouldn’t have hit me at my first reading, but here’s what it boils down to: Superboy saw that Larry’s first attempt to sabotage the bridge by sawing through timbers wasn’t thorough enough, so he figured Larry would try again (having seen by Clark’s experience that the bridge was still too strong to collapse). So Clark sets a trap that will pen Larry under the trusses when he tries to finish the sabotage, then let the bridge fall with Larry trapped beneath it. This sounds like a death trap to me, since Clark is shown arriving as the bridge is falling apart. Larry could easily have been dead by this point, and at the very least he would have suffered a period of utter terror, trapped and awaiting his own dirty work to do himself in! Ghastly! While Clark has spoiled his chance at adoption, it’s weird to think that he had a millionaire uncle (living close enough to Smallville that that’s where he delivered Larry to the law). With no other heirs, apparently, you’d think the Kents would have inherited the riches, if Kendall died before they did. But maybe this whole event drove a permanent wedge between them, and they never spoke again, leading to Kendall’s leaving Clark out of his will. Or maybe he went broke and lost it all, and was too proud to crawl back to…well, I’m presuming he was Martha’s brother, so, his sister, hence his never coming up again in Superman lore. MONSTER APPEAL: Non-zero, since there’s some werewolfery of a sort, and a warlock who can turn into a bat. 1 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: With my third consecutive issue, I was a Superboy regular. The Legion reprint primed me to be an enthusiastic LOSH fan in the coming months, when the Legion returned to new material. 2 out of 5! ART-SCHOOLING: Nothing I hadn’t seen before. This just reinforced my impressions of Brown, Anderson, and Forte. 1 out of 5! LORE: It was cool to see the Legion application process and meeting structure, plus an origin. Remember that at this point, I hadn’t seen many origins recounted, so this was filling in some important detail. 2 out of 5!
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 4, 2021 9:43:27 GMT -5
Brave & Bold #99 On sale in October 1971 Cover by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano Today, most superhero comics fans are very familiar with the origin of the Batman—who he is and how he came to be—but as of September, 1971, young Mike’s knowledge of Batman was based on a couple of issues of JLA and World’s Finest, the Adam West tv series, and the Saturday morning cartoon. None of those had gone into Bruce Wayne’s childhood, so just picture an 11-year-old boy who didn’t know about how Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered, leading young Bruce on a path to becoming the World’s Greatest Detective, much less that Thomas was a doctor, or even that he had a secret lab in his vacation home where he researched forbidden methods of returning the dead to life by piercing the veil between our world and that of the deceased. Fortunately, I had Bob Haney to fill me in on that critical bit of back story in “The Man Who Murdered the Past”, drawn by Bob Brown and Nick Cardy. Batman, in full costume, takes the Batmobile on the ferry to an island in New England, where he has fond memories of tennis and fishing at the Wayne Family Summer Home. The memories are bitter-sweet, and are stirred stronger by the urn containing his parents’ mortal remains, mingled together in death as they were joined in life. (Keeping his parents’ ashes locked up in an abandoned summer home rather than Wayne Mansion didn’t faze me, because I was too freaked out at my first exposure to the tradition of keeping cremated remains, period.) Batman suddenly takes on a new mannerism, walking with a stiff-leg through the storm to the local drinking establishment, which serves only soft drinks, not the rum he demands in a voice reminiscent of local legend Old Manuel the Port-a-gee, the wooden-legged sailor who died in just such a storm as this 50 years prior. Batman recovers his senses and returns home, only to see what appear to be his parents’ ghosts! The next day, as he strolls in costume through town (the locals know Batman is “renting the old Wayne house”), Batman seizes the harpoon from a statue and hurls it accurately into the hanging sign of the Whale Inn, demonstrating Old Manuel’s harpooning prowess, before stiffly heading to the nearby lighthouse. Thinking himself to be “Manuel”, he clocks the constable who came to get the trespasser away from the beacon, and finds himself in court. Fortunately his comrade Barry Allen has arrived to bail him out. What’s Barry doing here? Seems his police scientist gear picked up some “strange vibratory signals”…”probe rays…from another dimension…a world beyond our own!” That’s some fancy police science gear they have in Central City! Those rays all converge on the Wayne Summer House, which bears some investigation, but Barry recommends that Bruce stay in costume at all times; if Bruce Wayne showed up acting like Old Manuel, it would give away his secret ID to the locals! It’s that night that the phantasm of Thomas Wayne summons Bruce to a locked basement in which he was never allowed as a child, and it’s here in the secret lab that he finds his father’s research into raising the dead! Batman is actually quite reassured to know that they “haven’t really died…that these ashes are not your final form!” He also figures that the apparent possession by Old Manuel is Mom and Dad’s way of communicating, using the dead sailor to open the way for them to follow back to the land of the living. Well, of course. I never would have thought of that, but then I’m not the World’s Greatest Detective, am I? Houseguest Barry Allen can’t talk Batman out of his plan, which requires something he must do at the lighthouse while possessed by Manuel. What that is, his father’s notes don’t quite make clear. No problem, just wait to be possessed and let Manuel figure it out! Eventually just that indeed happens, and Barry must don the garb of the Scarlet Speedster to retrieve Manuel/Batman, who’s caught in the process of tinkering with the lighthouse beacon. Batman refuses to give up his unholy experiment, so, as the Flash, Barry looks for the “special object” that is the focus of those strange rays he detected. That object turns out to be a door, so he grabs Batman in his arms, starts jiggling their molecules, and the pair run through the door… It’s the Valley of Limbo, where the spirits of sinners linger, locked out of the Land of Eternal Rest. Sinners including the peg-legged Old Manuel, who announces that his servant, the Batman, is working to free them to return to Earth in new, living bodies! Also in attendance are the spirits of Thomas and Martha Wayne, but Barry yanks them back to the real world before Batman can reach them. None of this has discouraged Batman; he just needs to make sure that only his parents make it back through. Flash needs another angle to stop this unnatural meddling with things best left undisturbed by the living, so he visits Caleb Bronson, an old family friend of the Waynes. Unfortunately, the old man’s non-communicative, having suffered a stroke. He can’t tell Barry about Thomas’s plans…but he can scratch out a message with his fingernail… In that night’s Batman possession, security at the lighthouse has been tightened, but that doesn’t stop Batman with his rope, climbing up the side of the lighthouse to reach the top, where he does…something…and then flees, with the guards firing. Even walking stiff-legged, the Batman escapes easily! The townspeople have had enough, and are working up a torch-bearing mob to take care of Batman, who’s possessed by “that dead devil, the Port-a-gee!” Flash arrives, bearing something in a sack that he thinks will be “the answer”, and suddenly the long-unused lighthouse beacon shines again! The dead approach, using the beacon as their pathway to the land of the living: Batman is at first in denial, but then is horrified at the approach of the specters to the door of his home. He begs the Flash to do anything necessary to stop him, should he move to open the door, even killing him! (Again, fulfilling the promise of the cover…mostly.) The Flash thinks destroying the Waynes’ urn is necessary, but Batmanuel is having none of that, and conks the Flash with a silver candlestick, then heads off to open the door! Smashing the urn left behind, Flash finds an Egyptian figure inside with the ashes, carved from black diamond. This is what was drawing the probe rays from beyond! A super-speed pitch and up into outer space goes the artifact, cutting off the path between worlds. Turns out old Caleb managed to scratch out the hiding place of the statue (Haney has Flash call it the “ankh”, but that’s not what Brown drew). It’s a little hard to square such highly detailed communication with the fact that Brown drew Caleb scratching with his fingernail on the armrest of his chair, but I’ll assume he just spelled it out, didn’t literally scratch it into the leather. So are the Waynes trapped in limbo with pirates, all because Thomas dared to tamper with the unknown? Nope. The urn with the “ankh” was a phony, and smashing it freed the Waynes, or, so say their spirits: Next, a “Surprise Special” reprint of “The Secret of Odin’s Cup!”, a Viking Prince story from Brave & Bold #20, 1958, drawn by Joe Kubert from an uncredited Bob Haney script. As a kid, I was into mythology before I was into superheroes, so I probably enjoyed this tale, in which Jon, the Viking Prince and his mute bard see drawings in a cave wall depicting a beautiful maiden fleeing enemies, carrying with her Odin’s Cup, possession of which means conquest of all enemies. But Jon actually prefers the maiden! Jon decides to search the cave for the maid…and the cup, although the mute bard knows that this is the gate to Wotan’s underworld, from which no return is possible! Jon battles Wotan himself and survives to reach an underground sea where he fights monstrous giant fish, and finally finds the maiden stranded on a boulder jutting from the surface of the surrounding sea. With her on the rock—Odin’s Cup! The cup, though, is washed from the Prince’s grasp, and Jon makes his way to Wotan’s underground castle, where he somehow now has the maiden, the cup, and the bard—and a check of the original shows that nothing was cut from this reprinting, it all happened between panels. Jon surprises his foe, fights for the cup, loses the cup in the sea, and escapes, although, in the climax, he has to fight a giant statue of a warrior brought to life by Wotan, in a scene reminiscent of a Harryhausen stop-motion film sequence: In the Brave and the Bold Mailbag, I got another taste of editor Murray Boltinoff’s unique approach to letter columns, incorporating snippets from many readers, listing the names of those whose letters were unpublished, and providing some valuable insights into how these comics are produced, something I really appreciated as a curious new reader. Among the comments are a few teases of characters I’d seen in house ads, like Kirby’s 4th World characters, some I’d already met, like Zatanna and Deadman, some intriguing names like Plastic Man, and some fella named Mark Waid suggests teaming Batman with a character called “Bernie the Brain”! I didn’t know Bernie, but I did remember seeing a neighbor with an issue of SUGAR AND SPIKE. MONSTER APPEAL: Fairly strong, with a Jekyll/Hyde style cover and threatening ghosts inside, plus some fantasy threats like the giant statue in the Viking Prince story. 2 out of 5! COLLECTING INSPIRATION: This ranks high, being my first exposure to THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. The Flash probably drew me to this issue, since I still wasn’t all that keen on Batman, so thanks, Flash; B&B was soon to become a big component of my comics habit! 4 out of 5! ART SCHOOLING: I’d already had exposure to Bob Brown and Nick Cardy (as an inker), so not much new there. Joe Kubert wasn’t yet on my radar, so this was some valuable exposure to the work of a master, since I wasn’t inclined to pick up any of the war comics where most of his work was then appearing. 2 out of 5! LORE: I’m tempted to give this a negative score, since Haney’s characterization of the Waynes is way out of sync with the canonical one. And one bit I still recall from a later letter column: a reader will write to complain that Bruce has been shown many times at the graves of his parents, so how could they have been cremated? Boltinoff will argue that many cremated people have also had monumental gravestones placed in cemeteries. News to me, but so was this whole thing about keeping ashes in your personal possession.
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