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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 1, 2021 17:58:20 GMT -5
In 1987, DC was feeling it oats, charging ahead after the triumph of Crisis on Infinite Earths and some game changing comics, like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. A lot of new blood entered DC and not just from old rival, Marvel. They also attracted a lot of talent, from the indie world. One of the people responsible for that was Mike Gold, who came back to DC, after a stint running the fledgling First Comics, which made huge waves in the industry. one of the talents he discovered was a Chicago writer and actor, by the name of John Ostrander, who wrote some of First comics' adaptation of the Warp plays, as well as Starslayer and his own series, Grimjack. Ostrander came over to DC and he conceived of a really great idea: The Dirty Dozen, with super-villains. Just imagine, a team of super-villains, given a chance at freedom, provided they carry out a suicide mission. It's a great premise to build a series and also allows you to kill off weak villains, just to show the stakes are high. The result of this was The Suicide Squad, a successful series that combined Ostrander's writing with the moody art of Luke McDonnell (and later, Geoff Isherwood) and a core team of surprisingly engaging super-villains and a rotating guest cast of potential victims. It made a big splash, then settled in as a solid mid-range title, before eventually coming to an end. The name was reborn several times; but, I am just looking at that initial, groundbreaking series, from John Ostrander. However, before we get there, we have to look at the original Suicide Squad, as it helped lay a foundation upon which Ostrander could build. So, we head back to 1959 and Brave and the Bold. Brave and the Bold #25I see one of our team members is clad as any sensible 1950s adventurer would be: tight skirt, heels and pearls. Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer/editor, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters Synopsis: A massive seaquake is registered at a seismic lab, on the East Coast. We see some kind of red wave develop, which causes marine life to flee the vicinity. The wave moves inland and comes ashore along the New Jersey coast (I think, based on how it is drawn), witnessed by some "polar bear club" members.... The wave comes ashore and fuses the sand into class and sets the wood of the steps and wharf on fire. The fire department comes out to battle the blaze, but the intense heat turns the water to steam and melts the firehoses. The military is called in and bombers drop fire-suppression foam bombs onto the mass, but it has no effect. Several aircraft are brought down by flamespouts. the government calls in Task Force X. A special "flying laboratory" aircraft is dispatched, piloted by USAF Col Rick Flag, who has been briefed about the red center of the wave and has a flashback to WW2, when he was the lone survivor of his TBF Avenger squadron, after an attack on a Japanese carrier, where Kanigher and Ross Andru have the torpedo bombers executing dive bomber maneuvers, showing that neither was Sam Glanzman! Rick returns to the present and we are introduced to the other members of Task Force X, aka The Suicide Squad: medic Karin Davies (renamed Karin Grace, in subsequent appearances), physicist Jess Bright and astronomer Hugh Evans. They arrive at the target area and move in to observe, but the super-heated air is filled with turbulence and the plane is knocked around the sky. Karin flashes back to the war, when she was a nurse, on a C-47 that went down at sea. She survived, while clinging to a wing section of the plane, but another survivor couldn't hold on and drowned. She later became a specialist in flight medicine, including observing KC-135 "Vomit Comet" flights, used to train astronauts in Zero G, where she met Rick Flagg and fell in love. Rick drops a load of bombs to break up the turbulence (somehow) and is able to regain control of the aircraft. The decide to move in again for another bomb run, to deliver bombs that will create Absolute Zero cold. Somehow. Science! The bombs succeed and the team lands to analyze the core. Evans and Bright examine that, while Flagg and Karin check out a rocket, being prepared for a test flight to the moon, with a dummy crew. They rejoin Evans and bright, where we learn that the other two Y chromosome carriers are also in love with the XX member. Ain't it the way? The love triple axis is interrupted by a monster emerging from the ice, where the red mass once stood.... Something familiar about that..... After firing a few rounds from his sidearm, Rick gets the plane airborne. The monster hurls a frozen submarine at them and they fire a nuke at it... The eggheads tell Flagg to douse the area in salt, to lower the freezing point and he just happens to have a concentration of it onboard (the man likes to season his food!). He drops it and it succeeds in obliterating the ice, but the monster starts sucking up chlorophyll from surrounding plants, leaving them pale and lifeless. it reminds Evans and bright of a nuclear test that destroyed the control station, where they missed being, because of a jeep breakdown. Flagg has an idea and they make for the rocket launch site, luring the monster into following. they toss out the dummies and initiate launch sequence from inside. the monster hops on the rocket and it launches into space... They alter course towards the sun and dump the monster at its edge, leaving it in perpetual orbit around the sun. They turn back to Earth to land. Somehow. ignoring the actual distance between the Earth and the sun (93.797 million miles, vs 238,900 miles to the moon, which still took the Apollo astronauts 3 days to reach). This being 1959, I assume the went to the bar for martinis and high balls, then a steak and potatoes. Thoughts: Well, ignoring the ludicrous science (Kanigher was no Otto Binder and certainly not an EE Smith, who was at least a chemist), we get a decent monster/sci-fi tale, with a group of scientists and adventurers in the grand Atomic Age tradition. Each is a sole survivor of a tragedy, leading them to take risky missions, which is the basis of Task Force X. They dub themselves the Suicide Squad, because their missions may be one-way tris, which feeds their survivor's guilt. Characterization is fairly one-dimensional, with Bright and Evans being scientists who are experts at everything outside their own field. No explanation as to why an astronomer would have been involved in a nuclear test, in their back history or why one is necessary to investigate a terrestrial phenomena. Wouldn't a seismologist or vulcanologist make more sense? Or a Marine biologist? Heck, a paleontologist, even. Don't know how many constellations Evans is going to map on ice, on the Jersey Shore. A physicist makes sense, as does a pilot and a medic. Regardless, it is typical of these things for scientists to be knowledgeable in multiple disciplines. Just ask Prof Roy Hinkley! The monster is a bit derivative and Godzilla predated it by 5 years and 2 movies. The constant adapting to the new stimulus never fully gets explored, which further demonstrates that science wasn't Kanigher's forte. As far as the characters go, Rick and Karin get the most development, which indicates they are obviously Kanigher's favorites and the focus of the stories. Andru and Esposito are serviceable, but they are not necessarily my go to team for a monster story. They handle the drama well and the technology. The Task Force X flying laboratory appears to be a B-47 Stratojet.... Interestingly, a B-47 was involved in a nuclear mishap, in 1958, when a bomber collided with an F-86, during an exercise. The B-47 pilot was forced to soft drop its nuclear warhead off the coast of Savannah, GA. The bomb was never recovered, after a 9 month search. You can see from the photo that the aircraft wasn't as big as either the B-36 Peacemaker or the B-52 Stratofortress, making it an odd choice for a "flying laboratory," but, I suspect Andru was able to find plenty of reference for it. Considering the number of war comics Kanigher wrote, you'd expect him to know the difference between a torpedo bomber and a dive bomber (like the SBD Dauntless). Of course, you'd also expect him to address the lack of oxygen for a rocket that is flying mannequins into space (though they do mention animals, which are never seen). So, this is our initial group and their first mission. The will return for the next two issues, then come back for 3 more issues, from BATB #37-39. We'll look at those adventures, before moving ahead in time to see Rick Flagg put together the next Task Force X, to stop Darkseid's agent, Brimstone, during the Legends mini-series. That will lead into the regular series.
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Post by MDG on Sept 2, 2021 8:49:26 GMT -5
A friend got me the hardcover Suicide Squad collection (I think it was an Ollie's purchase) and it seemed pretty by-the-numbers, even for 60s DC.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 2, 2021 10:41:31 GMT -5
A friend got me the hardcover Suicide Squad collection (I think it was an Ollie's purchase) and it seemed pretty by-the-numbers, even for 60s DC. Once the Challengers got their own book in February 1958, DC threw every variation of an adventure team against the wall in rapid succession. Rip Hunter started the procession in March 1959, Suicide Squad followed in June, and the Sea Devils and Cave Carson premiered in May and June 1960 respectively. And DC kept trying, as the last issue of Cave Carson appeared in January 1964.
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 2, 2021 11:14:41 GMT -5
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 2, 2021 21:22:35 GMT -5
Now see, I had a life in that time period. No time for this internet thing. My, how times have changed. I will address that when I get my 90s hairline back!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 3, 2021 6:33:47 GMT -5
I definitely was a rec.arts.comics guy.. bought some back issues from people there too.
I have that hard cover collection (also got from Ollies)... I agree its pretty standard DC in the early 60s, though they do try to get action, romance, and giant monsters all in there in every 10-12 page story, which is kinda neat.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 6, 2021 15:10:26 GMT -5
Brave & the Bold #26I'm sure this issue's cover and plot was in no way inspired by Richard Matheson's 1956 novel, The Shrinking Man or the 1957 film version, The Incredible Shrinking Man. Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer/editor, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters Synopsis: Hey, wait a minute, they're floating on a different brand of matches inside.... Somebody didn't get the memo, about the sponsor! Heads will roll! Probably would have been Diamond Matches, anyway........ The gang is rocketing back to Earth, after dumping Goshzilla in orbit around the sun. They have to plot an exact course or miss their target; but, hey, they have matches if they lose power! Hey, they'll quickly burn up oxygen, if they lose power, but that is a small price to pay to have a smoke in space! Rick and Karin are keeping their love for each other a secret from the other two; and, if this story was being done today, the reverse would probably be the subplot. Karin checks everyone out for the effects on cosmic radiation or solar rays, but they are fine, since this is DC. They report in and watch meteors go by (asteroids, actually), but the ship is equipped with meteor bumpers to push them aside. Do they look like these? (Technically, those ae fenders) They don't see Mercury and Venus, since they are millions of miles away, on the other side of the sun. No mention is made of the fact that the Earth is over 93 million miles away from the son, itself. They near the Moon and Evans reveals that their velocity is too slow to intercept the earth. Rick has an idea and turns of the meteor bumpers, to let the meteors collide and accelerate the rocket (yeah, that'll work!). They reach the speed they need, but worry about the rocket's hull. They are on target and as they near the Earth, they feel strange and they start to shrink. It must be unknown cosmic forces, but they are too small to reach the controls. They make like a circus act to build a pyramid to the controls.... They still aren't close enough and Karin has to climb to the top of the pyramid (in heels!) and they tip her towards the lever. She catches it and switches on the autopilot and they form a human net to catch her. The ship crashes in the water. The rocket breaks open and they have to swim for it. They avoid being eaten by fish, but discover Commie submarines secretly moored, to launch an atomic sneak attack on The Good Old US of A! They have to figure out how to sabotage them, but, first, they need to get out of the water and climb onto the floating matchbox (which is somehow not getting waterlogged and deteriorating, despite not being wrapped in wax or being waterproof matches, or anything like that). They are then dive bombed by Commie seagulls and strike a match to fend it off.... They still need to deal with the Commie subs, from the Wolf Socialist Republic. I think that was somewhere near Albania. Rick reminds them that they need positive proof that they are going to atatck first, because that is the American Way. Spain and Mexico would like a word about that and Great Britain is harrumphing a bit. They spot a jet powered Wolf seaplane and overhear the crew yapping about celebrating their impending sneak attack, as they head ashore. Flag has his proof and spots oil drums and looks for a way to dump their contents on the lake and set fire to it. He spots a machine gun nest, where the Commies have an outdated (Commies always lag behind American technology!) water-colled machine gun. They take out the gunner and spin the weapon around to point at the oil drums. Flag jumps on the trigger..... and the recoil of the firing does not knock the barrel around and the bullets tear open the drums and also spark enough to ignite the fuel and set the lake ablaze, with burning oil. The team escapes on the highly combustible box of extremely flammable matches. They row to the seaplane and climb in and the shrinking effect just happens to wear off, restoring them to normal size, so Rick can fly them out of there. They do have to radio interceptors not to shoot them down, somehow convincing them they are not Commies, either by citing the previous 8 World Series winners or by ratting out 10 of their colleagues. But, wait; that's not all! After their harrowing return and anti-Communist adventure, the gang gets a furlough and heads to Paris. Rick is in his Ike Jacket, instead of Class A uniform, which I'm pretty sure is a uniform infraction. They see the sights, including Leftist painters, outside Notre Dame (artist are always Com-simps). Karin wants to be alone with Rick, for a little voulez-vous coucher avec him; but, he doesn't want to hurt the other guys' feelings. THAT MAN IS NOT A TRUE MEMBER OF THE ARMED FORCES! They go for a ride on the Metro, where there is a soldier sleeping next to them..... (Terri Nunn is in love with a guy who wears more make-up than her?) There is also a serpent slithering next to the train and it is not swimming through apologies.... It headbutts the train and it is on! Rick tells the passengers to help the injured back to the station, but the French passengers refuse to acknowledge instructions in English. Rick is packing heat and fires on the giant snake but it has kevlar scales, or something. It headbutts the train again and the French Army finally turns up and surrenders to the serpent. I kid, I kid. They are actually defeated by an insurgency of smaller snakes, with greater determination. The Squad gets above ground and heads for their hotel to get their gear, because everyone comes to France with weapons and scientific equipment to fight giant serpents, while on furlough. It's on page 2 of Baedeker's France on .45 Calibers Per Day!The serpent is attacking the sightseeing boats, on the seine, so the team gets their diving gear, which they have been using in the hotel bathtub. They go out, armed with spear guns, because they will have higher velocity and penetration than .45 ACP bullets. They use high pressure air guns to attack the snake with blasts of air, which surprisingly doesn't work. Flag then has an idea and a plastic factory is put to work making a giant Ziploc bag, but the workers go out on strike, to protest De Gaulle and smoke Gauloises. The snake slithers up the Eiffel Tower and the team parachutes from a helicopter and captures the head of the snake in the giant Ziploc. They suffocate it and then the various restaurants turn out to serve giant reptile avec creme at ridiculous prices. The team goes off to the Crazy Horse to see the ladies dance around with their croissants out. Oh, and Robert Kanigher warns children not to play with plastic bags. It is okay to play with the BB guns, offered as prizes for selling Cloverine Brand Salve, which cures the Mange! Thoughts:Isn't science amazing? Meteor bumpers, rockets with endless fuel supplies, unexplained shrinking and growing, giant serpents that can breathe underwater, despite being reptiles, and factories that can knock out giant sandwich bags in the time it takes a huge reptile to slither around a steel girder structure, while spectators drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. The space voyage is ludicrous enough, but we will give them a pass, since it is all in the grand tradition of space opera, going back to EE "Doc" Smith and his Skylark series, among others. However, conveniently landing in a lake with a secret Commie sneak attack base is a bit hard to swallow, even foe a 5 year-old! How did submarines get into a lake? Even traversing a river, from the ocean, would be a pretty hard thing to accomplish, without either being spotted on the surface or colliding with the riverbed, in shallower waters. Meanwhile, where exactly is this lake, where they have built a secret base and land seaplanes, while avoiding radar installations? Bad science is one thing, but you just can't add anti-Communist paranoia on top of things. Pick a fantasy and run with it, I say! Obviously, no one involved has ever fired a machine gun. The recoil tends to swing the barrel in the opposite direction of the ejected rounds, not to mention the repeated motion of the bolt cause is to jump up. You have to hold on tightly to keep it aimed at the target. Rick jumps on the trigger (which is drawn accurately, as it is a thumb lever), but no one is holding the handles, to keep the weapon pointed at the drums. It would most likely swing off target, after a few rounds. Also, just because the bullets pierce the drums does not mean they would ignite the oil. If it was an anti-aircraft machine gun, loaded with tracer rounds, then maybe. The fact that Kanigher wasn't able to concoct enough natural threats to the shrunken team and resorted to Commie saboteurs underlines some of what was wrong with DC, in this period. Someone like Simon & Kirby would have been more imaginative, like Richard Matheson, in his novel (I would say Jonathan Swift, who was imaginative, but was focused more on metaphor than wonder, though he achieved both). Kanigher goes right to Cold War paranoia, even in a science fiction story. Okay, Fantastic Journey does the same thing, but that is a spy on a secret project, not a secret nuclear attack force. The second story is a little more of what I was looking for in the first, though there are just way too many plot conveniences. The team is on furlough, yet they carry around all this gear, with their luggage, and store it in their hotel? Bond travels armed but even he would find that ridiculous. The plastic bag factory bit is even more mindboggling; how long would it take to make the giant bag? And how long to transport it to an airfield, load it into a helo, figure out how to deploy it and anchor it around the snake's head? If I'm a kid reading science fiction stories, I am likely to be a bit inquisitive and am going to question this stuff. If it is a monster movie, and the visuals are good, or extremely laughable, I'm going to be too enthralled to care. Andru's art isn't spectacular enough to make me ignore that and have fun, though it is so ludicrous I have fun with the impossibility of it all. So far, these stories are the comic book equivalent of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which is fun. Task Force X gets one more outing, before they get displaced for some drivel about costumed heroes fighting a giant starfish. Yeah, like that will be more successful! The Squad will eventually return for 3 more adventures, before the book is turned over to Cave Carson and his Studebaker drilling machine (that's what it looked like, to me, on the cover of BATB #40) ps Terri Nunn was almost Princess Leia! Well, she was one of the actresses who tested for the part, as did Sissy Spacek. Fred Roos was casting both Carrie and Star Wars and many actors tested for both, including William "Greatest American Hero" Katz, who was in the alternate group of actors, as Luke. Had she got the part, I think the romance with Han would have been steamier, given some of Berlin's music (and the fact that she posed for Penthouse, while still a minor) Hope she had some double-sided tape!
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 9, 2021 18:17:13 GMT -5
Brave and the Bold #27Is it just me or should DC/Warner revive Brave and the Bold as a soap opera spoof, with various DC characters as the cast? Have them as various soap opera types, but in costume. Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer/artist, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters. Synopsis: After their group furlough in Paris, and Rick Flagg's visit with his older brother.... ...the group is back at work, at Mirror Lake. They are watching a test of the next weapon that should make war obsolete..... ...'cause nothing makes war less likely than new super-weapons that give you an advantage over your opponent! The team flies off to their next location, at Ghost Lake, and runs into Mothra.... Flag rams Mothra with the Stratojet and then executes a quick landing at Dr Duane's airstrip. They go looking for the scientist, but do not find him. his lab s smashed up and they look through his notes. The professor was theorizing about a creature from within the Earth. They go off to look around, ignoring a caterpillar that had been licking up a chemical solution, which starts to mutate. Pretty soon, they can't ignore the caterpillar.... Karin is grabbed, then Rick, but he orders the other two to stay back. He unloads his .45 into the monster and it drops them. they run to the Stratojet and take off, hitting the caterpillar with their afterburners. They radio in and then Kanigher engages in his love quadrangle soap opera, which drags down the book. HQ radios back a message that they believe the Commies got prof Duane and they are at Condition Blue, because Condition Red sounds too Commie. Condition Blue apparently consists of masquerading as vacation goers at a resort, on the government's dime.... Must be a congressional office behind this! Rick and Karin go water skiing, when the monster from the professor's notes turns up... Dick Dale kicks up some music and Rick Flag punches the monster, under water, to get it away from Karin. The men all surface, but Karin is missing. the others stop Flag from diving back down. They go and get scuba gear and come back to search, while not evacuating the resort to protect people from the monster, because operational security comes before protecting the public from angry monsters! They dive down and find tracks that lead them to a cave tunnel. They follow along and end up in Mirror Lake, where the monster is wading, with Karin in one hand and the second atom bomb, in the other. They check in and learn of another dual bomb test, with part one et to go off in an hour and part 2 four hours later. They get hustling to rescue Karin. They swoop down in their Stratojet, buck get swatted out of the air. Flagg pulls out of a dive, at the last minute. Flag flies between the creatures legs and gets him to follow. the monster heads into deeper water and gets pulled over by an undertow. Flag orders knockout gas to be dropped, so they can defuse the bomb. It doesn't work and the creature climbs a suspension bridge and makes like King Kong. Flag parachutes down and starts defusing the bomb, getting the initiator out at le last second. Karin is freed and the monster loses its grip on the bridge and falls into the water. A tug is called to haul it out to sea and is then sunk, taking the monster down with it, where the explosion occurs, deep underwater, saving everyone. Thoughts: More mutually assured destruction paranoia and scenes swiped from Toho. The monster is more like a skrull, crossed with the Abomination, rather than a Godzilla lizard monster. Again, pointless romance wastes panels between the monster fighting. Sad thing is, the monster fighting isn't that spectacular, which makes the badly written soap opera that much worse. Can't understand why this didn't go to series. The other two members of the team continue to be pointless extras, there only to complicate Rick and Karin's relationship. They don't even contribute much science (such as it exists in these things) as Rick does more by punching, shooting and ramming the monsters with his plane. Heck with science, just fly bombers into monsters. Why didn't the JDF do that in Godzilla? No idea why we get the nonsense about Commie agents and Dr Duane, when we never turn up any Commie agents or the professor. Looks like Kanigher lost that plot thread while working out the monster fight. In the end, he mostly swipes from King Kong, but without tragedy. Well, the writing was pretty tragic, but on a technical scale, not a thematic one. Suicide Squad gets nudged out of the book by something about baseball for lawyers......a justice league or something. They will return, after Joe Kubert draws some Hawk goodness. Why is likely because Julie Schwartz turns the book back over to Kanigher. Schwartz livens things up a bit with more superhero experiments, before Cave Carson takes them back into sci-fi territory (under Jack Schiff's editing), before Schwartz returns with more superheroes. Quite frankly, this series would have been more fun if they had gone the Simon & Kirby route of making it a tongue-in-cheek spoof of sci-fi adventures, with Commie monsters, then trying to do a "serious" story. At least it would be fun! The next batch of stories has the team facing dinosaurs, which sets up with it being tied to The War That Time Forgot, in official Task Force X history, in the Secret Origins issue, spun off from the Ostrander series.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 13, 2021 22:45:03 GMT -5
The team is back for more hijinks and tomfoolery! Brave and the Bold #37Karin has been mistaken for Jean Grey! Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters Synopsis: Task Force X was apparently disbanded (must have been budget cuts or too much room service, in Paris) and they are back at their old jobs. Rick Flag is ejection seats on rocket planes, Evans & Bright (who is called Evans' assistant, by why would an astronomer be an assistant to a nuclear physicist?)are busing nuking things to discover new elements (like Sivanium or Marvelium), and Karin Grace is busy painting things. Karin feels some outside force take over her hand and she paints a pterodactyl flying off with the Capitol Building. Didn't know dinosaurs were political! She continues the Toho series, adding Godzilla stomping through town and a derelict and deteriorated New York (that one is just a premonition of the 1970s!). The Brass seem to think this is a job for Task Force X and summon the rest of the team to Karin's studio. gen Brent, the boss, thinks it is the work of some dangerous force, either Commies or Western Union. He wants the team to find out who caused Karin to paint them and why. At no point does anyone consider that Karin made the whole thing up to get the band back together, especially Rick. Rick asks Karin for a clue, but all she can think about is how long they have been apart, which proves my point. Evans tries a test and holds up a dollar bill and asks if anyone can read the serial number. Bright says they are too far away and then Karin recites it. Evans believes it is ESP (and not extremely acute vision). Rick says she is an ESPA, but she doesn't look like an Italian motor-scooter (oh, wait, that's Vespa) and she suddenly gets a message and starts painting again. This one features a herd of dinosaurs making a beeline for a saucer craft (a sitting saucer, rather than a flying one), which is just her illustrating her ridiculous theory about how dinosaurs died out. They still believe this is some kind of threat and Karin wonders if she can reach the intelligence behind the images. They all stand around, while Karin stares out into space. then, Rick tells her to focus on the painting, that it is the station she needs to attune. Rick needs to read more books and watch less tv. Karin tries it and they end up inside the painting, on a parallel world, or caught up in Karin's fantasy; take your pick! A T-Rex speaks telepathically to them and says dinosaurs rule this Earth and developed giant brains. They will take over their world, next. The t-rex then breathes on them, with halitosis so bad it turns Karin's green sweater black. Rick thinks it destroyed chlorophyll in her sweater and that all life has chlorophyll. You get the feeling that Kanigher just looks at the pictures in Scientific American? They toss hand grenades at the t-rex and scoot. They then run into another species (I'm not up on all of my various dinosaur species, but he looks like a dilophosaurus or corythosaurus,; on of those with a cranial fin that would make Yondu envious), which rips up the pier they are standing on and they start sliding towards its jaws. They form a chain, but are getting weak, when Karin is told to drop her grenades on it. They go in, but away from the dino. Rick says there is no grean in the water and says the chlorophyll must have been drained out of it, too. I assume he means out of the phytoplankton in the water. They get snatched up by a pterodactyl, and see the other dinos enter the saucer ship and then bomb it with more grenades, from somewhere other than pouches on their gear, because they didn't have any pouches, when they arrived there. They destroy the saucer and the alien intelligence that controlled the dinos and the various species turn on each other. Karin thinks them back to their world, before they get eaten. The second story has the team at an exhibition of Karin's paintings. She wants the painting she did of the team be a wedding present, to Rick, but he won't hear of marriage, as it might upset the balance of the team. Look, sister; either he is scared s@#$less at the thought of commitment, or he is gay. Or he just gets his kicks by their relationship being a secret. They are summoned to a military hospital, where they are briefed about the pilot of a plane of weapons, being delivered to a friendly government, that was mysteriously brought down. they see the pilot and he describes what happened and Karin draws what he describes: a cyclops! Someone on the team believes it is Polyphemus, from The Odyssey. Couldn't have been Rick, since he just watches tv and doesn't read classic literature. The team are sent out on their mission. They fly to the crash site and execute a freefall parachute jump, from the belly of a jet plane, rather than a cargo plane. As they freefall, they see a giant geyser stream fly up into the air, then hit the silk and see a cyclops, as they approach their landing site. The winds pull them away from the giant and they land near a cave and follow wild ponies into it, out of reach of the giant. He still peers in and they stare back, but don't see a reflection of themselves, but images of the past. The lip movements do not match the dialogue and Atho looks like he is into bodybuilding. The queen looks like Karin. The Cyclops tries to grab Karin and Rick jabs him with a stalactite arrow. They then take a page from Homer and leave the cave, hiding behind the ponies (instead of sheep), as the run out of the cave. They head for a nearby temple, where they can see the wreckage of the plane and Karin goes inside to find the missing weapons and finds the Nike Hercules missiles neatly stacked against a wall. They set demolition charges to destroy the missiles, but Bright and Evans are caught by the cyclops. Rick runs away. He and Karin hide behind statues and the cyclops starts smashing them and finds Karin. Flags runs away again, because he isn't a Navy man! The cyclops throws boulders at him and misses, but one lands on the geyser hole. rick jumps on it, goads the cyclops into trying to grab him, and jumps off as the geyser blows and shoots the boulder into the cyclops' face. Karin is freed and the others join them and then the cyclops starts throwing missiles at them, like lawn darts. They have nowhere to run and dive onto the ground. The boobytrapped missiles explode and blow up the temple and the cyclops and they survive and wait for a seaplane to pick them up. Thoughts: Okay, the dinosaur thing was ludicrous and Kanigher really knows nothing about basic science. I can only imagine the letters they got about that. Science fiction fans will swallow a lot, but he really pushes the boundaries. Anyway, alien ESP from a parallel world, causing Karin to recreate scenes from popular Japanese monster movies, but with dinosaurs. I can buy that, to a point, but the whole thing reads like a rejected Night Gallery episode. Also, no idea where they are carrying these concussion mines/hand grenades and armored piercing shells, since they are carrying no gear and just popped into the parallel world, via some psychic method. I think they were taking some of them mara-ju-wana pills and got goophy! The second story is all over the place with its mythology. Get the feeling that Kanigher only read the Cliffs Notes. Roy Thomas would have read the original source! The parachute jump was interesting, as they go through a hatch in the belly. the British paras used to do that, during WW2, dropping from Wellington bombers, especially SOE agents. However, the US military primarily used cargo planes for parachute drops, even in 1961. You could do it that way; but, they would need oxygen, unless it was a lower altitude jump. The dialogue says they are near enemy territory and can't stick around or they will be spotted on radar. However, there is no indication that the plane crash was across the border, in enemy territory. as such, they wouldn't need to move at high speed. They would just execute a normal freefall. HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) parachute jumps had been tested in 1960, so they would have likely jumped from C-130 Hercules of a C-119 Boxcar, which were both used as paratroop delivery transport, in the time of the story (the C-130 first flew in 1954, and the C-119 in 1947) (or the C-123). Guess Kanigher thought it looked more spectacular. The really ridiculous part is that you see Karin in a jumpsuit; but, once they are on the ground, in the cave, she is back to pencil skirt and high heels! Heaven forbid we show a woman in trousers! Even June Cleaver would be wearing jump boots and utilities, if she is parachuting into wilderness, looking for a downed aircraft (probably Beaver's fault and he will have to speak to Ward, when he gets home)! The romantic element again falls flat, in both stories and, quite frankly, Rick sounds like he is 13 an awkward around girls. I would say gay and closeted, but then he would be more likely to want to broadcast the relationship, if he is trying to conform with societal expectations of 1961. Evans and Bright only flirt with Karin in one panel, so they don't seem to be great rivals, in their own minds. This just seems like some child's fantasy that heroes have to stay away from icky girls. If Flag said Karin had cooties, this stuff would make a heck of a lot more sense. You can see why this series never caught on; the writing is cliched and the characters fairly one-dimensional. The plots aren't gonzo enough to be truly memorable. It's hard to believe this is the same Robert Kanigher who wrote Enemy Ace and Sgt Rock. Perhaps he felt that the audience for war comics were older and more mature and he didn't try writing down to them, because that's what it feels like here. Two more adventures (both with dinosaurs) and then we head into the future, for some good writing, with a new Suicide Squad.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 18, 2021 19:26:27 GMT -5
Brave and the Bold #38The guys all seem to have uniforms (Rick Flag is the only actual military type, though) and Karin is still trapesing around in a skirt and heels. You know, if she had hidden gas bombs or something, in her strand of pearls, I'd almost give Kanigher a pass. Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters Synopsis: Somewhere on the suicide Squad's "secret grounds," Karin shoots candid photos of Rick Flag pursuing falconry, while his falcon doesn't actually kill its prey, since this is a Code book... Neat trick; like to see how he manages that, with razor-sharp talons and beak. Somehow, they gang gets permission to shoot photos on top of the Statue of Liberty (where Karin is standing on Liberty's forehead, with no discernable safety gear), when a pterodactyl attacks them. They fire at Rodan (or his American cousin), to no effect, then try mini-fragmentation grenades. The dino seems to leave, then attacks a conveniently nearby B-58 Hustler. It grabs it in its talons and flies off into a large cloudbank, which then moves away swiftly, despite a lack of wind. Flag calls in a helo to get them off the statue and follow, but they lose sight of it. They try to locate it and the dinosaur is next seen, at sea, over a pod of whales. It starts to carry off a sperm whale, when Flag fires air-to-air missiles at it. He hits the dinosaur and it drops the whale. The dino again disappear into a cloud bank and the track it, eventually finding two of the creatures attacking a lighthouse. They dinosaurs carry off the lighthouse and disappear into the cloudbank. Flag follows them and tells everyone to get into crash suits and strap into their ejection seats. He follows the dinosaurs right into some kind of aerial craft, where they see the B-58, tanks, ships, houses and other things... It turns out that the dinosaurs are "falcons" for a giant scaly alien. The alien sends the dinos after the Stratojet and everyone punches out and drifts down to Earth. The plane has been boobytrapped and it explodes, taking down the dinosaurs and the alien, making the world safe for democracy, apple pie, and redistricting. Story two find Karin in trousers! She'll be drummed out of the Mamie Eisenhower Society! They are out riding in the desert and the spot an oasis (or a Blur), which they think is a mirage, but turns out to be real. They crash into the water and plunge underneath, where strange alien beings slap breathing helmets on their head, while they abduct them. They are a trio of finks and cackle at the Squad. They are then put into a competition and do the Lady & the Tiger bit. They are pitted against duplicates of themselves, but they figure out which are phony, with a lot of talk about the heart, and the aliens let them go, but it was all a mirage. Or was it? Yes, yes it was! Unless it wasn't. But it probably was. Maybe. Thoughts: Meh. Not gonzo enough to be fun, not imaginative enough to be engaging, not intriguing enough to be classic. The first story could have been a nice monster fest, but it is too abrupt and the falconru bit seems out of left field. The mirage thing is just bad, cliched sci-fi. Rod Serling would have sent that back for at least 8 rewrites. Flag still wants to hide their romance. Guy's two-timing her, I bet. One more issue of this stuff, before we get to the good stuff.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 23, 2021 14:29:20 GMT -5
Brave and the Bold #39Creative Team: Robert Kanigher-writer/editor, Ross Andru-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Gaspar Saladino-letters Synopsis: Flag is flying the Stratojet through an electrical storm (stupid Zoomie!) and they get hit, because he's a moron and they crash in an un-named "desolate area," where they spot the skeleton of a dinosaur and a derelict robot.... Probably Godzilla and Mechani-Kong (too humanoid for Mecha-Godzilla). They poke around, go through a tunnel and find a lake, go for a ride on a log, and nearly get eaten by some pre-historic creature.... They are swallowed, but end up on a beach of an island with dinosaurs, which makes no sense, but neither has anything else in this series. Karin gets nabbed by a pterodactyl, because it is hard to run in a pencil skirt and high heels (should have kept the utilities and jump boots) and the others get grabbed by a tree-dwelling dino. They kill it with flak cartridges, from a high tech Mauser and get free. They then discover the monster has portholes, which let in the sunlight. They think it is a spaceship. They then find a t-rex smashing a robot and get caught by it, despite the short arms. They fire nerve gas into its mouth, but it takes time to work. it goes down, they find Karin in a nest, get her free, but get nabbed by Turu the Terrible... Turu gets munched by a bigger dino, but they get safely dropped on the beach, by their log. They paddle back out of the "spaceship" but end up escaping through blowholes, before the ship takes off, leaving them still stranded, because Rick is a lousy pilot. However, Kanigher has them repair the plane, off-panel, and somehow get airborne. 2nd story-The team has been turned into gold statues, by some sculptor and we get told how, eventually, in flashback. They meet the sculptor, who is a nutjob with statues of criminals, then they get briefed about the disappearances of crime fighters and crooks. They are sent after a gangster, Sneeko (seriously?), to draw out whoever is behind this. They find him hiding out as a clown, at a circus, then get fooled when they try to catch him and get sprayed with the liquid gold (which would be hotter than hell). The sculptor has them and takes them to a tropical island, for display. A local native girl and a gorilla take Rick away, but a volcano just happens to erupt and Rick gets hit by lava and the gold melts off. The girl helps him try to rescue the others, the crooks catch him, fire his gun at the statues, but they have heat cartridges, which melt the gold and release the team and they catch the crooks. Thoughts: And thus, the Suicide Squad comes to a merciful and deserved end, despite Kanigher's desperate pleas to write in for more stories. 6 badly plotted adventures were enough, from characters with no development whatsoever. One can only imagine what Kirby would have done with this. I'm not wasting any more breath on it, because I want to get to the memorable series. So.......
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 23, 2021 15:29:01 GMT -5
Brave and the Bold #39 The big plus to this issue is that it's a "dinosaur dentistry" cover.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 23, 2021 16:11:48 GMT -5
Legends #1-6Creative Team: John Ostrander-plot, Len Wein-script, John Byrne-pencils, Karl Kesel and Dennis Janke-inks, Steve Haynie-letters, Tom Ziuko & Carl Gafford-colors, Mike Gold-editor Synopsis: After the events of Hunger Dogs, Darkseid is back in control of Apokolips and he decides to F with Earth. He sends a techn-seed into a nuclear reactor and creates a monster, called brimstone, which goes on a rampage. Firestorm tries to stop it and gets his butt whooped. meanwhile, Wally West, aka the Flash, captures Deadshot, while in the process of committing a robbery.... meanwhile, Glorious Godfrey turns up on tv, spouting about the dangers of superhumans, but Billy Batson isn't up to the task of calling him out on the subject. The broadcast is interrupted by a power outage, caused by a giant in a Galactus rip-off costume, called Macro-Man, who destroys via macrame, or something. Wait, that would be Macra-Man. macro-Man destroys via boring lectures on the theories of Macro-Economics (don't get me started!) Billy changes into Captain Marvel and fights him, and, on live tv, fries him with magic lightning, killing the villain. Billy is horrified and goes off to mope. Meanwhile, Col Rick Flag, USAF, meets Amanda Waller, aka "The Wall." Task Force X is being reactivated, using super-criminals as expendable agents, with the promise of an amnesty, if they survive the mission. That sounds vaguely familiar... Meanwhile, Brimstone continues to wreak havoc and a time travelling Cosmic Boy and the Detroit JLA prove unable to stop him. Issue 2 finds Billy hiding, traumatized, while the JLA fail, because this is the Detroit bunch and not the real JLA. Vibe's breakdancing and Gypsy's disappearing prove useless. While this tomfoolery occurs, Maj Reisman.......I mean, Col Rick Flag visits Wadislaw....er, Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot....... He offers amnesty, in exchange for working for Task Force X, assuming he doesn't die in the process. Lawton asks what is supposed to make him do the job, instead of escaping and is introduced to Ben Turner, aka Bronze Tiger. Lawton is in and suicidal missions sounds fun. Meanwhile, Batman & Robin break up a robbery and get attacked by an angry mob, and Bats gets separated from Robin, who gets F-ed up. Blue Beetle screws up a drug bust and has to flee. Guy Gardner saves a plane but creates a nuisance and doesn't take criticism well. Issue 3 finds an angry mob protesting outside Titan's Tower and Sarge Steel inside, telling them that they will stand down, for the public good. Wally argues, to no avail. Elsewhere, we are introduced to the rest of Task Force X.... ...Captain Boomerang, Blockbuster and the original Enchantress (not the blond chick). Boomerang gets mouthy and Waller grabs him by the ascot and threatens to stick his boomerangs where even the miners of Coober Pedy wouldn't find them. Flag enters with Deadshot and Bronze Tiger and Boomerang is introduced to their added incentive: explosive wristbands which will eliminate their need for a pair of gloves. Waller then displays their target, Brimstone. All of this is viewed by Darkseid and the visiting Phantom Stranger, as Darkseid crows about villains doing the heroes' job. Billy is still moping, but is found by a little girl. Task Force X meets up with brimstone, at Mt Rushmore.... I think Cary Grant is hanging around in the background. The team distracts Brimstone, while Deadshot waits to blast him with an experimental laser weapon. Blockbuster smashes, Boomerang throws boomerangs and Enchantress transmutes fire into harmless things, while she seems to suddenly become a lot more....assertive? Bronze Tiger directs her efforts. Batman visits Robin (well, Bruce visits jason) in the hospital and Robin thinks people hate them, but Bruce is out to prove them wrong. brimstone flashfries Blockbuster, creating our first casualty..... Deadshot gets his target and fires and Brimstone's containment field is breached, releasing the full energy. Enchantress transmutes it to snow, but the excessive use of magic is driving her nuts and she goes postal.... Bronze Tiger takes her down with a Vulcan Nerve Pinch and Boomerang rants at Flag, only to find out that he is just as expendable as they are and shuts up. Superman accepts President Reagan's order to stand down and Billy witnesses his new friend's father overreact to the image of heroes. Darkseid then unveils his Warhounds, to make things worse. Issue 4 finds individual heroes carrying on with their work, despite anger from the public, including Black Canary, Batman, Blue Beetle, and Guy Gardner, while Dr Fate watches from his tower, then heads off to deal with things. Amanda Waller is looking to renege on the deal with the criminals and Flag holds her to it... True to his word, Captain Boomerang goes walkabout. Meanwhile, Glorious Godfrey continues to make like Jerry Falwell (despite being patterned after Billy Graham) and introduces the warhounds, which are piloted by ordinary people. Boomerang goes on a crime spree, but runs into Flash and Changeling, when a pair of warhounds turn up to queer the deal. Issue 5 has Billy and his friend witness a battle and the girl gets hurt and Billy finally mans up and calls on Captain Marvel. The Wisdom of Solomon kicks in and he realizes he has been conned. he tries to calm a crowd and is mobbed, then Dr Fate magics them still and calls CM away. He then collects Black Canary, Guy Gardner (who is messing with a metaphor for Jim Shooter's last fiasco, at Marvel), Blue Beetle and Batman. Boomerang, Flash and Changeling deal with the mob and the warhounds, but the heroes are pulled away and Boomerang is left with his Aussie hanging out. Superman is also collected, while Boomerang is hauled before Hitler....Godfrey, who puts him against a wall for a firing squad, created by warhounds. Boomerang speaks to a live camera feed and says he better be rescued or he will spill the beans about Task Force X. Waller orders Flag to rescue or eliminate Captain Boomerang. The crowd is getting wild, when Dr Fate turns up with his new Justice League.... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Issue 6 finds the JL fighting warhounds and the suicide Squad rescuing Boomerang, though Deadshot was going to off him, from the start... Flag stops him and sends the team in first, to attempt rescue. They free him from warhounds and Bronze Tiger chases down Godfrey and corners him, but falls to his spell. Meanwhile, Godfrey had previously summoned a Boom Tube and parademons, who are wreaking havoc, including stealing the Helmet of Nabu from Kent Nelson's head. Wonder Woman aids the JL and Martian Manhunter impersonates Ronnie, to intercept a team of terrorists (working for Godfrey). The JL deals with the threats and lands, but is surrounded by the angry mob, who Godfrey orders to kill them. Then, little kids turn up and stop them, because they still believe in heroes and clap their hands, so Tinker Bell will live...or something. Billy and his friend are among them, as is Robin, on crutches. Godfrey picks up the little girl (Billy's friend, not Robin) and smacks her and the crowd starts to come out of their spell. he tries to don the Helmet of Nabu and gets mind whammied and the spell is completely gone. Bronze Tiger wakes up and makes an exit, stage right. The new Justice League is introduced and this comes to an end. Thoughts: Legends was the follow up to crisis on infinite Earths and the marketing made it sound like another epic "crisis" tale. However, the basic concept was just to serve as an introduction to new titles that were being launched, focusing on those specific characters, including the New Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League, the Cosmic Boy mini-series, the new Flash series, Shazam: A New beginning, and Suicide Squad. superman and Wonder Woman appear, because, but they are not going to be major players in those other books and aren't the end all, be all here. Their books were still in the midst of new revamps and Superman faces an attack by Darkseid, through this, as he battles on Apokolips, facing Amazing Grace, Glorious Godfrey's sister (Rather than Inky Tammy). Quite frankly, they did no favors to Captain Marvel, but establish the idea that Captain marvel retains the mind of Billy Batson, which flies in the face of the Fawcett comics, but they don't care. The formation and first mission of the Suicide Squad is the highpoint of an otherwise disappointing mini-series, as they steal the show (much as they did in their episode of JLU, a couple of decades later). The concept is simple and it works and Ostrander assembled an interesting mix of characters, and introduces his own creation, Amanda Waller, who has grown a life of her own. Ostrander deliberately wanted the head of the team to be African-American and a woman, since both were under-represented in comics. he and Mike Gold talked about the idea and both reflected on protests and activism, in Chicago, based around the notorious Cabrini Green housing project, which was predominantly minority and the center of some of the most violent crime in the city. The neighborhood was a mix of substandard construction, ghettoization, and predatory crime and despair and Gold had been part of protests related to the site and Ostrander was familiar with it, too. They built a backstory into Waller that reflected the tough, often middle aged black woman who were often at the heart of neighborhood activism. They decided she was shorter and overweight, but tough as a brick wall and took no s#$% from anyone. She got where she is, a senior position in government, by working harder than everyone, taking crap from no one, and backing down from no fight. The perfect person to head up a secret supervillain Dirty Dozen. The original idea had been a revival of Challengers of the Unknown, but the project was spoken for and Ostrander got the assignment to revive the Suicide Squad. He hated the name and wasn't fond of the original (who was?), but thought about who would willingly accept suicide missions and came up with the same conclusion as EM Nathanson: condemned criminals. However, this is comics, so substitute supervillains for convicted murderers and rapists. It would also allow some lesser villains to be cannon fodder, to cement the "suicide" nature of things and actually make you wonder if everyone would survive. Blockbuster got to be cannon fodder for this mission, largely due to the fact he hadn't been used much in recent years, aside from adding muscle to the Secret Society of Super-Villains. A new Blockbuster was introduced not too far down the road. If you were to book odds on the characters, though, I would have picked Enchantress as the favorite to die. The character was introduced in Strange Adventures, in the mid-60s, but never really caught on. She is June Moon, who went to a costume party and came out of it with magical powers, to fight evil (there was a magical being at the party, in an old castle). She got a couple of stories, then a couple in Superman Family, with Supergirl, then a heel turn, as her evil side took over, and she became part of the Forgotten Villains, in DC Comics Presents. However, Ostrander saw something in her that he planned to use. Deadshot had debuted in the 50s, as a rival to batman, who turns out to be a crook and is defeated by the Caped Crusader. Then, Steve Englehart revived him and Marshall Rogers gave him a cool costume and wrist guns and the rest was history. Deadshot already skirted the edge between hero and villain, so he was perfect for this, as Ostrander hints that he has a death wish. Bronze Tiger had recently been mind controlled by the League of Assassins and had murdered Batwoman, Kathy Kane. he had been a hero, who was controlled and turned into a murderer. So, he makes for a duality. Digger Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang is a pure thief, who had fought the Flash. he just wants money, so he makes for an interesting chaotic element to the team. Flag is the connection to the original and the one to keep them in line, on missions, as Waller isn't going to be in the field. The survivors are our core team and will be the ones we follow through their new series, which would soon follow. However, before we get to the team's first adventure, we will need to visit the new post-Crisis origin of the team, which means a visit to Secret Origins #14, which just happened to be a Legends tie-in. As for Legends, itself, the mini-series was kind of "meh," after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Nothing of consequence came out of the plot and it mostly just served as an introduction to the new titles and an excuse to do another crossover event. For my money, the Suicide Squad central chapter (issue #3) and the Superman linked story (in his three titles), on Apokolips, were the only parts worth reading. JLA used it as the transition into their final story, where most of the team is killed off, while the new team debuts here, then meet up in JL #1. Only certain titles had links to the mini, compared to the entire line, with Crisis. Still, it beat Millennium!
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 29, 2021 17:03:27 GMT -5
Secret Origins #14, The Suicide SquadSo, DC used this as a preview for the new Suicide Squad series, as it hit the stands two weeks before the team's series. This will set the history for the Post-Crisis Task Force X, tying in some other short-lived features, as we will see. It will also give us the personal history of Amanda Waller, who we have only seen as the hard-nosed boss, in Legends. Creative Team: John Ostrander-writer, Luke McDonnell-pencils, Dave Hunt-inks, Albert De Guzman-letters, Carl Gafford-colors, Robert Greenberger-editor Synopsis: Our story is told through a meeting between Amanda Waller, Sarge Steel and President Ronald Reagan, to determine if they proceed with Task Force X, in the aftermath of events of Legends. Sarge Steel is arguing that it would be a PR disaster, if it became public knowledge that the US Government was using convicted super-villains for special missions. Waller argues that they did the job and did it well. Reagan says he is on the fence and wonders if the US should be involved in something like this (yeah....right! Iran-Contra was going to explode a little later....). Waller has some ammo and presents Ronnie with a dossier, detailing the history of Task Force X. We begin in WW2, at a place called Dinosaur Island, with a group called Squadron S, who have been assigned to operations on the island, in an action code-named "The War That Time Forgot." I think that was the Korean War. Oh, wait....that was the war America Forgot! My mistake. Anyway, this was considered a one-way mission and the group called themselves the Suicide Squadron and they were a bunch of meatballs, screw-ups and broken men, much like the Black Sjeep Squadron or the Devil's Brigade, if you believe Hollywood, instead of the memoirs of the actual Marines and soldiers who served in those units. Anyway, discipline sucks, so they send in Gregory Peck.....or the closest approximation available, to sort them out. The job is assigned to Richard Montgomery Flag (cute!). His torpedo squadron is wiped out attacking a Japanese carrier, probably because they are trying to dive bomb, while carrying torpedoes, but that was Robert Kanigher's fault, not Ostrander & McDonnell. He arrives and finds the group's quonset hut and then Gunny Highway smacks some people around..... (WARNING: NSFW potty-mouth and dinosaur homophobic insults) He wins their respect, they work as a team, yadda-yadda-yadda. The Gipper thinks it would make a great movie (or about a dozen of them) and he should have been the star (uh....no....). he survives the war, marries Sharon Race, the cousin of JEB Stuart, of The Haunted Tank and then gets reactivated for Korea. Then, Simple J Malarkey...I mean Sen. Joseph McCarthy goes after the JSA and they flip him a power ring-induced bird, which Amanda calls shameful and Reagan (who had a friendly history with McCarthy and his bunch) says "Now, now....). Truman has a problem about dealing with unusual threats that the JSA handled and turns to Control, former spy boss at the OSS, and Gen JEB Stuart..... Control was frozen out when the CIA was formed, but, he will head the domestic side of Task Force X, to be code-named ARGENT (for some reason), who will deal with home threats. Stuart will handle the military end, which deals with international threats and he knows just the people to recruit. They report directly to the President. ARGENT locates, exposes and neutralizes threats from super-criminals, to the point they mostly disappear; but, they seem to fall off the radar in 1960 and no one knows what happened to them. Stuart reactivates the Suicide Squad, still under Flag and they fight more dinos and such. Meanwhile, Sharon Flag gives birth to a son, Richard Rogers Flag (Oh, come on!) and pappa teaches him to be a dedicated hero-worshipper and good soldier. When Rick is 8, he is blindly helping his mother carry groceries to the car, from a supermarket and he doesn't see a car coming towards him. Sharon leaps forward and knocks him out of the way, but is killed after the car hits her. Rick Sr hardens and becomes distant. Someone brings out a new War Wheel, the former bane of the Blackhawks, and Flag leads the Squad in an aerial attack, in F-86 Sabres. They weapons are having no effect and Flag orders them to pull back, then does a kamikaze run on the weapon, disabling it. Rick Jr grows up and graduates top of his class at the US Air Force Academy, then becomes a hotshot fighter pilot and test pilot, flying with Ace Morgan, eventual member of the Challengers of the Unknown. One day, Maverick and Iceman....I mean Flag and Ace, decide to have a little friendly dogfight and then get chewed out by their CO..... (That film hadn't actually been released, yet, when this was published, but it's an old aviator trope) Flag finds out he has been assigned to astronaut training, despite hotshotting, which did not win favors with NASA. He ends up on the Vomit Comet (the KC-135 Stratotanker, which flies parabolic arcs to simulate a zero G environment), where he meets flight surgeon (instead of nurse) Karin Grace. Grace was the sole survivor of a plane crash, after her boyfriend sacrificed himself, so she wouldn't die trying to keep him going. They don't hit it off, at first, but when he hears Karin's story, he uses it to tell her his own story (of his father and mother) and they bond and fall in love. Then Stuart revives Task Force X and calls up Rick and Karin joins him. We then get the adventures of Kanigher's bunch. The team's missions become secondary, after the re-appearance of superheroes and, during a mission in Cambodia, they run into a yeti and discover the same golden temple that the Blackhawks find, in Mike Grell's revival story, in Action Comics Weekly. Um, Cambodia lies in the tropics, guys, and doesn't get snow, even in the high elevations. I think someone mixed them up with Tibet. Regardless, Flag gets injured, Karin shows more concern than usual and Bright and Evans twig to the fact that they are an item. They don't like being played for saps, and are quitting, when the mission is over. However, the Yeti turns up again and Bright and Evans sacrifice themselves so that Flag can get Karin out of there (after first slugging her...) Karin goes Section 8 and something breaks in Rick and that is the end of Task Force X. he ends up hooked up with the Forgotten Heroes. That team broke up when Immortal Man died in the Crisis and he did a few covert ops after. Amanda Waller then tapped him to lead the Squad. We then get to Waller's story, as Ostrander takes a shot at Reagan's publicly acknowledged naps (though not the privately concerned ones about his health and mental state, especially in his second term). Amanda Blake.... and Joseph "Medium Build" Waller decide to raise a family and marry and do so, in the notorious Cabrini-Green Housing Project, in Chicago. They lose a son in a gang shooting, after he fought off a mugging by a member. They lose a daughter, Damita, to a (implied) rapist and murderer, called Candyman, (5 years before the film, set here) who the cops can't touch, since no one will come forward as a witness. joseph goes to exact justice, but dies in the gun battle. Amanda is left with 3 kids and is their sole means of support. She puts them through school, then finishes her own education, with a degree in poli-sci. She talks her way into a position with Congressional candidate Marvin Collins and gets him elected. She then became his Congressional aide, leading to her discovering the Task Force X files... Waller then makes her final pitch.... Steel argues that captain Boomerang nearly broke their cover and questions the morals of a team of super-criminals acting in secret. Waller counters that the chosen individuals are bent and broken people, who are looking to fix themselves and that is moral and ethical. She convinces Reagan and he greenlights the program, provisionally. Waller leaves and Steel and Reagan confer and Ronnie reveals an ulterior motive, to help get Congressman Collins out of his hair, by keeping his top aide focused elsewhere, so he can get more of his agenda through Congress. Waller and Flag meet up and she gives him the news and they go off to get started with the job, which will lead to their first official mission, in 2 publishing weeks. Thoughts: There is a lot going on in this issue, which was expected. Not only did Ostrander link the new Squad to Flag's old one, who took it further back to The War That Tome Forgot, from Star Spangled War Stories, another Kanigher/Andru/Esposito feature. In that series, a PT Boat squadron takes a professor to Dinosaur Island to study the animals, but deal with pterodactyl and other dinosaur attacks, plus a giant ape that would likely have interested RKO and Toho, who is depicted fighting a T-Rex (King Kong vs Godzilla was released a year before the comic story). So, Ostrander makes that Suicide Squadron the precursor to the later Task Force X "Suicide Squad." He also takes rick Flag's previous wartime history (which never made sense, since he would be a naval aviator to fly TBF Avengers, yet he is an Air Force colonel, in the Suicide Squad stories and neither bunch deserted flying one for the other, though some officers and enlisted did transfer between branches). There is also a link to JEB Stuart and the Haunted Tank, to bring some of the other war comic properties into this. Given the combined history, it kind of works, as it explains who filled the gaps between the Golden Age and the Silver Age, especially since the Trinity do not appear until the Silver Age, in the new history. They kind of split things between the original bunch and the team from the Brave & the Bold stories, and also tie in the post-War Blackhawk comics, to feature War Wheel, since the Blackhawks had been turned into Steve Canyon, by Grell, then a sort of Air America, in the Martin Pasko and Rick Burchett series. Essentially, this is mostly a secret origin for Rick Flag and Amanda Waller, with the Suicide Squad and war That Time Forgot histories as the framework. Flag gets de-aged, since it is his father that served in WW2, not him, though he appears tied to early Vietnam, himself, and seems a bit too young for that, in the series. Comics! Amanda Waller gets fleshed out and we see what Ostrander and Mike Gold had in mind for her. Cabrini-Green was a housing project in Chicago that became notorious for exceedingly high crime rates, especially violent crime. In the late 70s and 80s, it was a political battleground, with then-Mayor Jane Byrne staging a PR event, by staying in an apartment in one of the buildings, for 3 weeks, to call attention to its problems. In the previous 3 month period, there had been 37 shootings and 11 murders. Police had already raided buildings and evicted 800 tenants, for harboring gang members. On her first night, a police raid nabbed a gang that was planning a shootout in the Mayor's building. The place was a long political battleground and tenants formed their own neighborhood activist groups and fought the Chicago Housing Authority to fight the violence within, improve the conditions of the building, and then later fight attempts at gentrification. One of the most noted activists was Marion Nzinga Stamps, who was instrumental in getting Harold Washington elected as Chicago's first African-American mayor. Stamps had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement, in her native Mississippi, under the tutelage of neighbor Medgar Evers, as well as Mahalia Jackson. She moved to Chicago, in 1963, and became involved in civil rights issues, within the city, especially relating to public housing rights and issues. She had 5 daughters who all became teachers and activists. This woman, and many like her, were the template for Amanda Waller. Ostrander and Mike Gold are both Chicagoans and Gold was involved in political protests related to conditions in Cabrini-Green. They sought to bring the spirit of these women into comics, to present a type of character we hadn't seen before. In doing so, they established a legacy that has spread into wider media, through Amanda Waller's presence in DC-based tv shows and movies, portrayed by actresses like CC Pounder (who voiced her in Justice League Unlimted), Angela Bassett, Pam Grier, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Yvette Nicole brown and Viola Davis in cartoons and live action productions. The fact that she is treated seriously in all versions is a testament to the depth of character that Ostrander and his co-writer wife, Kim Yale, gave to The Wall. Personally, I thought CC Pounder captured all aspects of her best, in JLU, including the end, involving Batman Beyond, as she relates Terry McGuinness' connection to Bruce Wayne (beyond taking up his mantle) and the respect she had for Batman. Some of the names are eyerollers. Richard Montgomery Flag is a nod to painter/illustrator James Montgomery Flagg, who created the famous recruitment poster, with Uncle Sam (which drew inspiration from a British poster, with Lord Kichener). Richard Rogers Flag is a nod to Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers & Hammerstein fame, who created the musical South Pacific. Then, we get Amanda Blake, which is also the name of the actress who portrayed Miss Kitty, on Gunsmoke. Joseph Waller is not taken from Fats Waller, whose name was Thomas; but, it wouldn't have surprised me if Ostrander had gone with that. Control was a character featured in the very short-lived OSS feature, which debuted in GI Combat 192, and which got featured in the final issue of Showcase (#104), though the bulk of the stories continued, sporadically, in GI Combat. The concept of ARGENT, as a covert government team that neutralized super-villains, is new, here, and is a set-up for the regular series, though it was a while before they pursued the storyline about what happened to them. The name was a nod to John Le Carre, as Control was the head of The Circus, the organization the George Smiley works for, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. He was also a character played by Stephen Fry, in a series of sketches on A Bit of Fry and Laurie... So, a little past history, a little hisotyr of a new character and a set up for future storylines. That also includes Waller's line that the criminals are "bent and broken people," who have come to them for help. That is specifically about Enchantress, who is trying to maintain sanity and control over her persona, and Bronze Tiger, who is trying to ensure he is free of the brainwashing by the League of Assassins. The series will further establish Deadshot's past and flesh him out a bit. captain Boomerang will get more of a personality, beyond stereotypes, but won't necessarily be humanized. Luke McDonnell debuts on art and he will handle the bulk of the series, before Geoff Isherwood takes over, near the end. McDonnell came with a bit of controversy, from fans, with some not caring for his moody art; but, it really fit the feature and he was good with both the action and the character drama. He was especially good with the psychological elements, giving them a visual angle. In regards to jokes above, the feature obviously owes inspiration to the novel and film, he Dirty Dozen; but, the Suicide Squadron but, with Rick Sr, smacks far too much of Clint Eastwood, in Heartbreak Ridge, which came out this same year, as did Top Gun, which features similarities to Rick Jr and Ace Morgan's dogfight bit; except, both films were released after this issue came out. Unless Ostrander got sneak peeks from two production companies, it is more due to this and those films carrying forward Hollywood stereotypes. There have been numerous features about a tough leader (officer or NCO) who leads a rag-tag bunch of cutthroats and turns them into effective soldiers, through tough leadership. It's as old as military fiction and factors into such things as Baa Baa Black Sheep (about the Marine fighter squadron, VMF-214, in WW2, led by Greg "Pappy" Boyington), The Black Devil's Brigade (First Special services Force, a joint US-Canadian special warfare unit, featured in the William Holden film, The Devil's Brigade), The Dirty Dozen, Battle of the Commandos (an Italian war film, with Jack Palance) and others. The Gregory Peck gag is in reference to the film Twelve O'Clock High, where Peck is an Army Air Force general who takes over a B-17 squadron, with low morale and survival rate and whips it into shape, before suffering a nervous breakdown. that later spawned the tv series. Top gun carries on similar tropes about fighter pilots as being cocky daredevils who flaunt authority. while fighter pilots tend to be Type A personalities, Hollywood exaggerates it to absurd levels and such undisciplined fliers would be grounded as a danger to others. maverick would have never gotten out of Flight School, let alone be selected for Fighter Weapon School (the "Top Gun," of the title). Still, damned if Navy recruiting didn't love that film! The Marines weren't quite as happy with Heartbreak Ridge (which started out as a script about an Army squad), despite giving cooperation, after some script changes. Ronald Reagan is portrayed even handedly, though Ostrander makes both subtle and overt references to criticisms of the administration and man, from the era. McDonnell's likeness of the man isn't particularly great, but it gets the point across. Reagan was about to be embroiled in the Iran-Contra Scandal, illustrating that his administration went in for covert shenanigans and something like Task Force X (apart from super-villains) isn't that much of a stretch. This was DC, though, not Eclipse, so Ostrander couldn't push things too hard, no matter how much he or Mike Gold might want to. Reagan doesn't really factor into anything, going forward and is there to represent the audience, as the concept is pitched. Waller will represent the government interests, throughout the series, though she will prove willing to defy it, too. Contained in the comic was the ad for the upcoming series, which helped sell it well.... That is where we will pick up things, next time, as we meet our new mission team and have them face a terrorist threat.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 6, 2021 12:25:37 GMT -5
Suicide Squad #1Always loved this cover! Nice, simple layout, eye-catching image, stood out on the stands. Plus, it sells the idea well. Creative Team: John Ostrander-writer, Luke McDonnell-pencils, Karl Kesel-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Carl Gafford-colors, Robert Greenberger-editor Synopsis: Hub City Airport. Air Force One has been cleared for landing. The Mayor and the Governor of the State (which, since Hub City is based on East St Louis, would be my home state of Illinois) are there to greet him. Inside the terminal, we see a dark-complected man scan the crowd. He wears a red shirt and spots another man, of similar skin tone, also wearing a red shirt and they lock eyes. The second man has a goatee. he sets down his bag and Walkman, then walks away. The first man, who has a horseshoee mustache, speaks into a small transmitter, affixed to the inside of his index finger. He says one word: "Now!". Suddenly, a portal opens up and a man with a javelin and a large leonine humanoid come rushing through. Thety start attacking the crowd, killing indiscriminately. A woman appears in the portal and calls out "Clear" to Horseshoe Mustache and he jumps through the portal. An explosion goes off and the Walkman turns out to be some other kind of device and a seemingly holographic figure emerges and calls itself a djinn. The being is able to kill two cops by strangling them. The leonine man is impervious to bullets and fires either energy or bullets from his fingers. Goatee garottes the Mayor and knifes the governor, then kills a Secret Service agent. The tower warns off Air Force One, but Horshoe Mustache appears from a portal on the tarmac and materializes an energy scimitar. He slices the undercarriage of AF1 and then the port wing. he calls for a recall and disappears back down the portal. AF1 crashes. Inside the terminal, Goatee collects the djinn and he, Javelin and the Leonine Man leave through a portal. We see the bodies of the dead and wounded strewn about. Three men walk through the terminal and survey the damage. they are pleased. The team is called Jihad and they performed well. They are terrorists-for-hire and a general has just purchased their services. This was a test run on live targets: criminals, artists, intellectuals, dissidents and actors hired abroad. Life is cheap, in Qurac. We cut to Belle Reve Federal Prison, in Lousiana. Warden John Economos shows reporter Vicki Vale around the facility. it is a special maximum security prison, designed for super-powered individuals. We see the Parasite, in a cell, kept docile with minimal life energy to feed him, from rats. Vicki is a bit shocked. The warden is nonchalant. When she departs, the warden tells his aide that they are in the clear. The aide alerts Amanda Waller, who tells Dr LaGrieve and Ms Herrs to begin their assessment of the psychological fitness of the Suicide Squad, who they watch through a two-way mirror. Rick Flag briefs the team, consisting of: Bronze Tiger, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, Enchantress, Plastique and Mindboggler. Flag is described as motivated by guilt and they recommend counselling. Waller says later, he is operational. Deadshot has a death wish and figures the Squad may achieve it. June Moon is looking for a way to keep her evil side, Enchantress, in check. Bronze Tiger has partial amnesia as a result of his conditioning, by the League of Assassins. Waller wonders if he is totally free of their control. They mention Boomerang, but give no psychological assessment. Inside, Plastique and Mindboggler are briefed on the wrist bombs that will leave them with the nickname of Lefty, if they disobey orders. Assuming they survive the mission. Boomerang gets one to, after his little fiasco previously (Legends). They are briefed by Waller, who shows them footage of jihad's test run. She identifies them. Horshoe Mustache is Rustam, the leader; Iraqui or Iranian (there is a big difference, but, comics), materializes an energy scimitar. Djinn is a digitized man, reduced to binary code and stored in a magnetic bottle, the size of a Walkman. Can disrupt electronics, rip out a throat, phase through walls. Does children's parties and bar mitzvahs. Leonine Man is Manticore; genetically modified, lion battlesuit, high velocity claws fired from gauntlets, grenade launcher in his scorpion tale. They drug him into a killing frenzy and let him loose. Javelin is Jaculi, has different javelin weapons. Female is Chimera, who creates the portals that transport the team. Goatee is Ravan, a thugee, who worships Kali. Murder is a form of worship. They operate from Qurac and are the pet project of its resident. he hired international terrorist Mushtaq to run the team. They operate from an old German fortress, called Jotunheim, built into the side of a mountain. Air strikes can't reach it and the only way in is via a hydraulic draw bridge. Nuke is discounted as not being a sure bet and conventional assault is not politically expedient. Solution is the Suicide Squad, who are all expendable. If they are caught, they are on their own. if they die, they are just another dead supercriminal. If they complete the mission and survive, they are freed and pardoned, provided they keep shtum. Flag reveals they have an insider, who provided the footage and will get them inside Jotunheim. Boomerang flirts with Plastique, who tells him to get lost. We switch to Yeager Field, where they Squad assemble for transport. They have a high tech assault helicopter, code named: Sheba, built by Ferris Aircraft. Their transport is Flag's old SS-1 airplane, which carried the original Squad. He goes inside for a nostalgic look around and runs into ex-flame Karin Grace. The reception is not warm. Boomerang keeps haranguing Plastique and Mindboggler hits him with a nightmare vision that has him on the ground. He gets up and fires a boomerang at her, but Bronze Tiger intercepts, calmly walks over to Boomerang and tells him to cool it. Boomerang starts to give a racial insult when Flag shuts him down and tells him he uses his weapons only on Flag's orders, or the wristband goes off. Boomerang obeys and they load up. Synopsis: The issue hits you fast and hard, with an opening teaser of the airport dry run, which is like the opening teaser of a Bond film. We meet the Jihad and see their capabilities. It is impressive. We then learn they are a mercenary terrorist squad, a Suicide Squad on the other side. We then contrast them with the American (and Canadian and Australian) team. We also meet some of the support staff, who will be regular supporting characters: Warden Economos, Dr LaGrieve, Ms Herrs, Brisco (Sheba's mechanic). We see their base of operations, Belle Reve Prison. It's all introductory and there is a lot of expository dialogue; but, the opening attack has you receptive to it, as we learn more about the Jihad and why the Squad is cooperating with the government, except for Boomerang. The others have psychological reasons for cooperating; Captain Boomerang just wants out of jail and a bit of fun. Plastique and Mindboggler are the new recruits, specialists for this mission. The cover leads us to believe that one of these people will die. Care to make bets? I give 100-1 odds on Deadshot and Captain Boomerang, 75-1 on Bronze Tiger, 50-1 on Flag, 10-1 on Plastique, 2-1 on Enchantress and even money on Mindboggler. Deadshot is a Batman villain, with a cool costume and a good hook for the series. he's also a core member, introduced in Legends. Same for Captain Boomerang, except longtime Flash villain and s@#$-stirrer for the team. Bronze Tiger got a makeover and has an intriguing hook; Ostrander isn't killing him off any time soon. Flag is the leader, but human and has mental issues. However, the addition of Karin Grace, as combat medic, says they want to explore their past. Plastique is a lower level villain, but a key enemy of Firestorm, whose book was selling well. Enchantress is an old minor character so she could die early; but, I'm betting they want to explore if she has Multiple personality Disorder, or is actually controlled by an evil force. Mindboggler is a recently introduced villain, with a very 80s look and a mediocre reception in fandom. I wouldn't decorate her room, just yet. The cover indicates an eighth member and the image is Nightshade, from the Charlton Action Hero line, recently purchased by DC and debuted in crisis, but unseen since. DC had plans for the Charlton heroes, so she will survive, but, we haven't seen her. Is she the inside person? She was a government agent, at Charlton (kind of; worked with Captain Atom, who was). Ostrander's writing is dense, as in deeply layered and he immediately shows his ability to create interesting characters and plots. Luke McDonnell is not a slick superhero artist, but has a grittier style that really works well with this bunch, since they are a nasty collection of murderers and thieves, forced to work for the government on one-way missions. McDonnell captures that dark world well. he also has a decent handle on facial expressions and body language, which aids the action and storytelling. Kesel adds a bit of slickness to him. The team gets an attack helicopter that looks like a cross between the UH-60 Blackhawk and Airwolf (which is deliberate, as Greenberger is a fan). That gives Flag something to pilot and a unique weapon. He might want to rethink the yellow shirt, for covert missions (not to mention the other costumes). Belle Reve is an interesting design; a concrete L-shaped building, set on columns, so the bulk of it is off the ground. We see it functions as a real prison, as well as a base of operations. This is the device to feed cannon fodder to the team. Dr LaGrieve is named for Simon Lagree, from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Lagree was the evil plantation owner who buys Uncle Tom and Ememrline, a female slave, after their original owner's wife sells them to cover their debts. Variations of the name have been used in comics, cartoons, movies and tv. The name conjures up Louisiana's slave legacy and we will learn that belle Reve is built on what was the LaGrieve family plantation. Ostrander originally pitched a revival of Challengers of the Unknown, for DC, while talking with Greenberger, at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, in 1984. DC also had a proposal from mark Evanier and went with it, but never went beyond a Secret Origins story with that idea. Greenberger and DC like Ostrander's work and wanted him on board and Greenberger slipped him the idea of reviving the Suicide Squad. Ostrander didn't care for the name, but he hit on the Dirty Dozen idea and the ideas for the characters. Luke McDonnell was chosen to draw and he added his own ideas. Karl Kesel had inked Legends and loved the Suicide Squad segment and wanted on board. he had ideas that he contributed. So, just about everyone involved was contributing ideas for the series, which is reflected in its depth. Next issue features the mission to neutralize the Jihad and we see who won the pony!
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