Hello and welcome to another edition of Into the Bronze Age! While I know nothing can live up to the incredible extravaganza that was the Ten-Eyed Man’s return, I think we’ve got an interesting pair of books on tap today, including a fascinating first appearance. So, check out more of what May 1971 has in store for us!
If you’re new to this little journey, you can check out the first post to learn what it’s all about.
Roll Call
(You can see everything published this month HERE)
- Action Comics #400
- Adventure Comics #406
- Batman #231
- Brave and Bold #95
- Detective Comics #411
- The Flash #206
- Forever People #2
- G.I. Combat #147
- Green Lantern/Green Arrow #83
- Justice League of America #89
- New Gods #2
- Superman #237
- Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #110
- World’s Finest #202
Bolded entries are covered in this post, the others will be covered soon.
Detective Comics #411
“Into the Den of the Death-Dealers!”
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: Bob Brown
Inker: Dick Giordano
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Julius Schwartz
“Cut… and run!”
Writer: Frank Robbins
Penciler: Don Heck
Inker: Dick Giordano
This month we’ve got an uneven cover. It’s a bit oddly designed, with some wonky perspective, and the sword of the fellow in purple is misshapen. The concept is cool, however, and seeing Batman facing ninjas is always exciting. Inside is an important issue in the the Dark Knight’s history, introducing a significant character and advancing the League of Assassins plot that continues to develop across these books. Yet, as is so often the case, the significance of this story isn’t immediately apparent. It will take a little time for the groundwork laid here to bear fruit.
Our story starts with a nicely dramatic splash page, courtesy of Bob Brown. We see Batman perched atop the “Statue of Freedom,” which is totally not the Statue of Liberty, with Gotham spread out in the distance. I enjoyed this little touch of ersatz world building, though the Statue of Liberty is a bit too iconic for this to work. Their world is not our world, and I prefer it that way. Within the edifice, the Masked Manhunter has planned to meet an informant with information about the League of Assassins, but those same killers find the fellow first! The Caped Crusader fights off their followup attack, and we see some more of the ‘martial arts master’ Batman that would become the standard in following years, though the art doesn’t quite sell it.
Before he dies, the informant manages to give the hero a lead. With his last breath, he whispers that the nefarious Dr. Darrk will be on the Soom Express (totally not the Orient Express), and soon we watch as Dr. Darrk and a beautiful young woman board the train, followed by a mysterious old lady. As the train slows for a hill, Darrk and his companion leap off, and once more they are followed by the old woman, who throws off a disguise to reveal the Batman…who somehow hid his pointy-eared cowl under a mask and wig. It’s still a rather cool moment, despite its silliness. 
Yet, Darrk was waiting for him, and his assassins overwhelm the Dark Knight, beating him unconscious with bo-staffs.
When the Masked Manhunter awakens, he discovers that he is the un-masked Manhunter! The girl, who introduces herself as Talia, daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul (that’s right!), has taken off his mask to treat his injuries. She declares that Darrk had fallen out with her father, and he had taken her prisoner as part of their feud. Their conversation is cut short when Darrk leads them to what he intends to be their doom!
Talia is tied to a stake in the middle of an arena, while Batman is left free, free to face an enraged bull! The Crusader uses his cape to confuse and distract the animal before leading it into Darrk’s minions. Then, in an exciting display of resourcefulness and power, he rips Talia’s poll out of the ground and uses it to pole-vault into Darrk, where the villain watched from a balcony. With the bad Doctor in tow, the Dark Knight heads to meet the train, only to be blinded by a hidden weapon of Darrk’s. As the assassin master prepares to finish off his foe, Talia shoots him, and the villain falls into the path of the train, meeting a grisly end. The story ends with Batman comforting the traumatized girl, who was forced to take a life.
This is a good, solid adventure story, continuing to develop the threat of the League of Assassins. It seems like a fairly straightforward resolution to that arc, with a suitably dramatic and treacherous ending for the demonic Dr. Darrk, but there is, of course, much more going on here. O’Neil layers in some pretty good plot hooks for new stories, introducing Talia, casually mentioning her father, and the significance of these things is easy to miss.
Yet, the seeds of something great are already here. While the girl claims she cannot recognize Bruce Wayne’s face, she has seen it, which will open up possibilities in the future, and the way she speaks of her father makes it clear that he is a powerful and dangerous man. There isn’t much chemistry between our hero and this new lady in his life yet, but then again this is only their first meeting, a meeting under adverse conditions.
I imagine that O’Neil realized that he had something promising with the League of Assassins, but at the same time understood that Darrk, was not nearly an interesting enough head honcho for such an outfit. With this tale, he disposes of one functional if uninspiring villain and makes the way for a much, much better one. Next month, we’re going to meet on of the greatest Bat-villains of all time, and one who defines the Bronze Age of Batman! This story, however, is not quite so impressive as I remember that one being. It’s an exciting adventure tale, and Brown’s art is strong if not spectacular. I’ll give it 4 Minutemen.
P.S.: I realized after the fact that this story was actually loosely adapated into the Batman: The Animated Series episode, “Off Balance.” Thus, Timm and Co. actually adpated both parts of the introduction of R’as Al Ghul!
“Cut…and Run!”
Our backup this month is the continuation of last issue’s Batgirl yarn, and it’s a fun one. The Dynamic Dame was captured by the mod mobsters, the felonious fashionistas who were backing a clothier invested in the skir-craze. It was…an odd but entertaining plot. We join the gangster, ‘Serpy,’ as he straps Batgirl into an automated cloth cutter, and abiding by villain union rules, he leaves her to her fate. Things look grim for the girl detective, but she uses her head, or more specifically, her mouth! She rotates the pattern plate to stay ahead of the cutting blade, and when it reaches the end, it shuts off. This is a nicely clever escape, showing her resourcefulness.
Suddenly, Milt, one of the designers and fashion spies shows up, but he has had a change of heart, not being up for murder, and lets her go. The Masked Maiden tries to warn the gangster’s target, stylista Mamie Acheson, but the girl doesn’t believe her, so the heroine rushes to catch a plane in hopes of beating the assassins to the punch. On the Rivera, Serpy and his right-hand thug toss a helpless Ms. Acheson overboard, only to have the fashionplate rescued by Batgirl!
Then, the Masked Maiden tackles both killers and puts them on ice. Don Heck does a pretty nice job with most of the action, but there are some rough spots too. After her rescue, Mamie is feeling the weight of her decision, and after a comment from Batgirl about her beautiful legs (really Babs?), she comes up with a way out of the conundrum. She shows up on stage in a Batgirl inspired pants-suit, and surely fashion designers the world over started jumping out of windows.
It’s a cute ending to an off-beat story. I enjoyed the repentance of the felonious fashion designer, as it makes sense he would balk at murder, whatever lengths he might be willing to go to for his business. Batgirl’s dynamic rescue is good, but her escape from the deathtrap is my favorite part of the issue. It’s nice to see her recover from the bumbling bombshell she was last issue. The setup is still a bit odd, but the result is an enjoyable little story, so I’ll give it 3.5 Minutemen.
The Flash #206
“24 Hours of Immortality”
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Penciler: Irv Novick
Inker: Murphy Anderson
Cover Artist: Neal Adams
“Showdown in Elongated Town”
Writer: Cary Bates
Penciler: Dick Giordano
Inker: Dick Giordano
I’m not entirely sure why, but I really dislike this cover. For one, the frozen, blank-eyed expression on the girl’s face says less ‘absence of fear’ and more ‘presence of lobotomy.’ It just doesn’t really work for me. Other than the girl’s plunge, there’s nothing else to it, and the image just doesn’t quite capture her fall, nor the significance thereof. The same is true of the story within, another product of the unequaled master of the uneven, Bob Kanigher.
It begins with aerial daredevil Susan Logan and her son flying to the ‘Sky Devils Circus,’ while at the same time Neurosurgeon William Kandel and his wife are racing towards an operation on a famous scientist. Suddenly, Logan loses control over her plane, and she just happens to crash right into the doctor’s car. The son and wife are killed in the crack-up, but as the two heart-broken humans are left lamenting their lost loved ones, two strange, glowing figures appear out of the ether. They claim to be “aliens countless light-years advanced over” Earth, which doesn’t entirely make sense, and in their weird robes, they look more like bug-eyed spirits than advanced aliens. Nonetheless, they are apparently studying Earth, so in the interest of gathering data, they restore the two lost loved ones back to life in exchange for their relatives surrendering their lives in 24 hours. Until that time, the aliens declare that each of their future victims will be immortal.
Each pair rushes off to finish their business and spend their remaining time together, and each runs into trouble on the way. The doctor is caught in the crossfire between the Generic Gang and the Flash during a car chase, only to find that the rounds passed right through him. The surgeon begs the Monarch of Motion to help him get to his appointment, and then the hero chips in as his assistant to make the multi-hour procedure go faster and give the man more time to spend with his wife.
Afterwards, the pilot, Susan Logan, finds the location of the aerial circus aflame. The Flash is able to put the blaze out, but she still manages to get into trouble and nearly crash for a second time. I’ve got to say, at this point, I’m not sure this woman should be flying. We also get a really weird and random diatribe about forestry and forest fires, as the Flash has a page-long harangue against people whose carelessness starts fires, including a pointed visual reference to dead animals. I sympathize, having grown up in the ‘Smokey the Bear’ era, but this is just absolutely shoe-horned into this issue.
Get it? GET IT?!
Thanks to the Fastest Man Alive, Logan is still able to perform in the show, but she is on the verge of being beaten by the favorite, so she puts her immortality to the test, diving all the way to the ground instead of opening her chute. This seems like something of a cheat to me, but she’s doing it to provide for her soon to be orphaned son, so I guess we’re supposed to say it’s okay.
Finally, the two on borrowed time are taken back to their fateful appointment by the Flash, as he has decided not to let them give up their lives without a fight. He pleads with the two aliens in some rather painfully badly sentimental dialog, the usual ‘we have emotions and minds!’ routine. In response, the robed ones pretty much say, ‘eh, we’ll kill you too.’ They try a few different weapons, with the Flash escaping from each one, and then they literally disintegrate him. And that’s the end of the Flash. This is the book’s last issue! Next month we’ll put the Adventures of Kid Flash in this slot…
Ohh wait, no. Instead, Barry pulls a Doctor Manhattan, and literally reconstructs his body, molecule by molecule, with limbs, mind, that have already been disintegrated. Yet, while the insanely powerful, godlike Dr. Manhattan took months to do so, Flash does it in seconds. Because that’s a thing that he can do. Because that makes a lick of sense with this powers. At this point, the aliens essentially just give up with the murder and mouth some meaningless platitudes about how mankind is clearly more noble than they thought, possessing higher characteristics like selfless love. Except, they already saw that when A) the first two willingly offered their lives for their loved ones and again, B) when the Flash did the same for two strangers before they tried to melt him. It’s really stupid in context. Clearly Kanigher is hitting the conventional notes without bothering to tell a story that gets there naturally.
‘Farewell and a good life! Sorry about trying to murder you!’
So the end result here is a weird attempt at moralizing in multiple ways that bungles its payoff. The aliens are really random and don’t solidify as a concept, and the two different pairs of marked people mean that you don’t spend enough time with either one to really get invested in their story. Susan Logan just seems downright incompetent, and the doctor and his wife are given no real time to display any personality. Barry gets literally one panel of introspection with Iris as he tries to decide what to do, and the reintegration resolution is so ridiculous, that I had to read it twice to make sure I got it. I’ll give this half-hearted tale a weak 2Minutemen. It’s been done before, and done much better. Even the poorly developed Phantom Stranger tale with the needlessly Egyptian aliens (or needlessly alien Egyptians, depending on your point of view) was more dramatically successful.
“Showdown in Elongated Town!”
Yet again, the backup feature saves the day! This time, we get a really exciting event stuffed into the back pages of the Flash, the return of the Stretchable Sleuth, the Ductile Detective, the Rubberized Roustabout, the Elongated Man! Now, I’ve got a solid affection for this hard-luck hero, though I’ve read few of his stories. He’s just such a likeable character, and I love the ‘Nick and Nora’ vibe that he and his wife embody. It’s a charming concept, and it really sets him apart from the competition. I suppose this once again reveals my love of the underdogs.
This particular tale reintroduces the Elongated Man to the DC Universe and the pages of Flash in strange but memorable fashion. He the Stretchable Sleuth suddenly finds himself in a bizarre, fun-house version of a western town, hauling a wagon like a packhorse. Suddenly, his mystery-scenting noes starts twitching, and Ralph knows that something odd is afoot. A distorted gunfighter appears, and bizarrely, he fires a solar-powered six-shooter at the hero. With everything strangely distorted, the Ductile Detective has a hard time operating, and his efforts to capture his antagonist only net him a dummy!
Just then, he is beset by a stampede and a massive rattlesnake. Fleeing upwards, Ralph discovers a loudspeaker, revealing that these threats aren’t real. He makes his way inside one of the buildings, dodging more solar blasts, and, in a panel that I find a bit creepy, he pops a pair of contact lenses out of his eyes! Elongated Man has deduced that he’s been setup, and someone planned to cripple him by distorting his vision. Snatching up an old lever-action rifle, Ralph stalks into the street to confront the only man who could accomplish all of this, and he calls him out…the Mirror Master!
As the villain fires his mirror gun, the Stretchable Sleuth crams himself into the gun barrel, then springs out, surprising his foe and capturing him! It’s a nice resolution, an unexpected attack that makes a certain amount of sense as a way to take out the much more powerful opponent. The tale ends with the Elongated Man figuring out the mystery of his predicament and putting the pieces together. The Mirror Master hypnotized him and drew him to this ghost town in order to train himself for a clash with the Flash. To handicap the hero, the Reflective Rogue used special contacts to distort his vision. Apparently, ‘ol Mirror Master was a big western fan, and the trappings of the story were his way of living out a classic showdown fantasy.
This is a fun story and a decent reintroduction of the Elongated Man. He captures a much more powerful villain, taking advantage of the fact that he was underestimated, which is pretty well in character. I like the way he puts things together, and it is all relatively believable in context for the Ductile Detective. It’s cool to see Dick Giordano handling the art chores as well, and he does a fine job, capturing the distorted, bizarre landscape fairly well, and also doing a good job with Ralph’s stretching powers. I’ll give this enjoyable little backup tale 3.5 Minutemen. There’s nothing really wrong with it other than the slightly awkward device of the contacts. It seems like the master of mirrors could probably have come up with a simpler, more easily controlled way of doing the same thing.
That finishes up our books for this post, and all-in-all, a nice pair of comics they were! We’ve got some exciting events in the offing her, with the famous next stages of the League of Assassins story arc just on the horizon and the return of the Elongated Man to the pages of Flash offering some relief from the mediocrity of the main tales in that book. I am really looking forward to a change in pace for the Flash magazine. These are routinely among the weakest comics I read in each batch. These weird random stories have outstayed their welcome. I would really like to see a return to classic super-heroics. We’re still three issues away from the return of supervillains to an actual Flash story, and even then it is looks like it will be only a temporary revival. Whatever awaits us in the Fastest Man Alive’s adventures, we have two exciting new comics awaiting us next time. So, please join me again soon for another league in our Journey Into the Bronze Age! Until then, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
We’ve got a cool concept in this cover, as it tries to play with perspective, but the weird representations of the finger-eyes (feyes?) with little pictures of Batman don’t quite work, and the whole thing has to contend with the silliness of the basic concept, putting it at an immediate disadvantage. The result is a cover that ultimately suits the content within, a mixture of bad ideas executed relatively well. And the story inside is certainly something else, though not as over the top and silly as you might expect for a tale featuring such a ridiculous villain. Instead, Robbins plays it pretty much straight, adding realism and internal consistency, such as the Ten-Eyed Man, Reardon, having to wear gloves to sleep since he can’t close the ‘eyes’ on his fingers. That attention to detail doesn’t make up for the fact that he has eyes on his fingers, however. The seriousness of the yarn really makes it all the more hilarious, with the splash page positively screaming that Batman and the Ten-Eyed Man are “The deadliest enemies that fate ever brought together!” Forget that Joker guy! He’s old news! The new nemesis of the Masked Manhunter is the Prince of Perception (you thought I had run out of them, didn’t you!).
The Robin backup strip continues to entertain me, in contrast to this month’s headline tale. Mike Friedrich also continues to demonstrate his skill at cramming a lot of plot and even some character development into seven pages at a time, which is pretty impressive. We pick up with Robin after the apparent death of campus radical Hank Osher in the previous issue. I have to say, I’m surprised that Hank really seems to be dead and that the bombing plot actually was resolved with the explosion that claimed his life. I really expected there to be more to that, and I’m slightly disappointed. The way it stands, that arc ended a bit too abruptly. We’re left with the dangling thread of the orange shoed yahoos who jumped Robin, giving him the once-over. The story begins with Dick ruminating on his failure to save Hank and feeling rather down about the job he’s been doing as Robin. Suddenly, a knock at the door heralds the arrival of a pretty young girl named Terri Bergstrom, who apparently just ‘sensed’ that she and Dick had been matched by a computer dating service.
This girl could give Lilith lessons in being cryptic, as she seems to have a 6th sense about everything, but seeing as this is the first real inkling of anything unusual with her, I’ll give it time to develop before I make a judgement about how this works. The two set out for a date, swinging by her place to check movie listings, only to find her room has been ransacked. They check back at Dick’s room and find the same, with his valuables stolen. The young hero begs off the date and sets out to catch the thieves, reasoning that if anyone were spying on the computer dating service (common theme in these years, it seems), they could have known he and Terri were out of their rooms on a date. So, he heads to another member of the service who he knows is out on a date and finds a thief making his get away.
The crazy tale opens with Batman waltzing into the lobby of the “Big Double R,” the skyscraper headquarters of the richest women in the world, ruthless industrialist Ruby Ryder. The Dark Knight passes through security, emphasizing just how far this portrayal is from the still developing hero of the other Bat-books who broods in the shadows. After being approved (like he doesn’t have weapons in his utility belt? I’m thinking that guard should be fired), Bats strolls into Ryder’s office, where she tries to buy his services with a five million dollar donation to the charity of his choice. That’s already a bit odd, especially for the super-rich Bruce Wayne, but his dialog is even more out of place, as he tells her “That’s a lot of bubble-gum wrappers!” The lovely lady begs the hero to seek out her fiance, who has gone missing in South America, and despite the fact that the Caped Crusader tells her, “hunting criminals is my bag-not missing bridegrooms,” he agrees when she begs him on her knees.
Unfortunately, the reunion of the lost lovers isn’t quite what the Caped Crusader imagined. Ruby Ryder pulls out a pistol and shoots Morgan in cold blood, framing Batman for the murder…which seems like more than a little bit of a stretch. He’s found with the body, the gun, and the check, but he’s also inside her building. Either way, the Dark Knight escapes by diving through a high-rise window! Later, and quite ridiculously, Batman, dressed in a hat and trenchcoat, OVER his costume, waylays the fiery femme fatale’s lawyer at Morgan’s funeral to try to get some information. It’s a really silly image. Not so silly, however, is the fact that, unseen, the casket opens and something emerges! Dun dun DUNNN!
Well, Nasty follows her and watches whose room she enters. That’s it. That’s the discovery. It’s so blazingly stupid that I had to read the sequence twice to be sure I hadn’t missed something. This is an example of 
Needless to say, Pa Kent is rather shocked when an excited crowd shows up yelling about how his son has superpowers, but the new Smallville Spectacle explains things, pointing out that he’s happy he can help his father with his store. Apparently at this point, Pa Kent isn’t a farmer, instead owning a general store, which seems far less fitting, iconic, or archetypal for the character. After another series of super feats, Clark starts to get tired of the constant requests for aid and begins to realize the benefits of a secret identity.
Well, this story wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t exactly fantastic either. Dorfman wastes the chance to do some actual character work with Clark, botches his mythology, and throws in plenty of goofiness as well. The yarn is entertaining enough, and the section where Superboy gains the godly powers is an interesting change of pace. Yet, that is over in two pages, so we don’t really get a lot of opportunity to see the difference between those and his usual abilities. This story has some potential to be neat, but it ends up being fairly forgettable. I’ll give it 2.5 Minutemen, with the inexplicable ‘Super Clark’ costume costing it some points.
The Dark Knight goes to track Wiggins, but his search eventually brings him back to the sideshow gang in the abandoned town where they have set up camp. When he arrives, he discovers that poor Charlie Bones has been murdered, hung from the bell-cord in the empty town hall. Interviewing the other carnies, Batman finds that no-one seems to have seen anything, but Flippy, who is mute, draws a design in the dust, two circles linked by a line. Note the almost parallel images of Batman below. That’s some excellent visual storytelling. You’ll see why soon.
As Barbara Gordon heads to work in the library, a newsman asks her what her opinion on the mystery is, and she reveals that she’s playing it safe by wearing a pants-suit, which is a mildly clever bit. Things start happening once she’s inside, however, as one of the designers tries to bribe her to get access to another patron’s research books. She refuses, but out of curiosity, she looks herself, to see that the patron in question is Jules Thayer, the fashion icon’s personal couturier, or designer. Deciding that the crooked costumers might not give up so easily, Babs dons her on fashionable threads and heads to Thayer’s home to check on matters. Now, this is a pretty thin excuse to get her involved, all things considered. There’s no real reason to think that these clothiers would go as far as they do, at least not from that one interaction, but Robbins only has a few pages to work with, so it’s understandable.
The next day, Thaddeus dons his costume again to try another escape, but after Oberon sets a great boulder in motion, Steel Hand has a sniper shoot the old man, which happens on panel, something of a rarity. Scott leaps into action and somehow manages to deflect the massive missile with an energy bolt from his hand, revealing Kirby-tech winding up his arm. He removes what sharp-eyed readers of The Forever People will recognize as a ‘Mother Box,’ and uses it to comfort the mortally wounded Mr. Miracle, who passes away peacefully moments later. Honestly, it’s a fairly moving scene. Kirby has successfully made us care about this old man, at least a bit, and his death has an impact despite his brief screen time.
After Steel Hand smashes the bot, Mr. Miracle suddenly leaps through the window and challenges the villain to complete his bargain. Unfortunately, the gangster’s goons arrive, and Mr. Miracle falls prey to an old enemy of the superhero set, the classic headblow! That’s right, in his first appearance, poor Mr. Miracle joins the Headblow Head-Count. When he awakens, Steel Hand’s minions have chained him to a rocket at a secret Intergang missile site (!), where the gangster has prepared his escape-proof trap.
Arriving in Detroit, Aquaman finds the green gunk everywhere and decides to look up an old friend of his, a former police scientist named Don Powers, to try to get a handle on the situation. Meanwhile, we cut to a strange figure in a garish costume, and we’re informed that this bargain-basement Batman is ‘The Crusader,’ a superhero who is ignoring the growing plight of the city to chase a car theft ring. We get a nice action sequence as the Crusader jumps the gang he’s been tracking and barely manages to subdue them.
The tale picks up where 
In a very convenient turn of events, Supergirl just happens to hear a broadcast of the designer’s fashion show which is interrupted by the thieves, despite the fact that she’s just hanging out in the woods waiting for her powers to return. There had to be an easier and less ridiculous way to bring those plots together! Nonetheless, the Maid of Might rushes to the salon, and her powers return just in time to let her tackle the gang. Yet, Rodney’s sudden attack and his resemblance to the deceased Derek distract her long enough for her nemesis to escape. The Maid of Might becomes a mediocre maiden once more, and she plays a dangerous game with the berserk brother as the building burns, finally getting close enough to knock him out.
“Sinister Scream of the Devil’s Harp!”
Now we hit the one real weakness of the issue. For some reason, Nyxly feels the need to dress up in a Pan costume from his museum and take to the streets to steal the wealth he’s always coveted. O-okay? The story of this weak fellow’s corruption through power is actually pretty good, but the random choice of Pan as his costumed (sort of) identity is a really odd one, especially considering the fact that the Greek deity is associated with Pan pipes (which he’s credited with inventing) rather than harps! Logic aside, the flying soon-to-be felon zooms around the city before snatching some money bags from an armored car, only to be shot by one of the guards in a rather funny panel. As he falls to the Earth, Nyxly wishes for invulnerability, and when he hits, he smashes a hole in the pavement but emerges unscathed, flying away and happily ignoring the guards’ bullets.
“The Saga of the DNAliens”
Superman cleverly frees the young reporter from…well…himself, by collapsing the floor beneath them with subtle pressure from his foot, snatching his pal from the crashing creature. The conflict seems about to renew when suddenly a cloud of smoke explodes from the Incredible Olsen’s own head, and he collapses. The Legion and their allies are all befuddled by this sudden turn until the Man of Steel reveals a tiny antagonist hidden in the monster’s hair, a miniature paratrooper armed with gas grenades. Moments later, an entire company of teeny troopers float down around them and assemble a Lilliputian device that covers the creature in liquid nitrogen, freezing him. To top off the weirdness of this twist, these minuscule military men are all clones of Scrapper!
So, the Project created tiny paratroopers from Scrapper’s DNA? Were they trying to put the Atom out of a job? It’s so insane that I hardly know what to say about it, yet, in a certain sense, the idea works. It’s another of these utterly crazy concepts that Kirby tosses out left and right in this series. Such crumb-sized commandos would actually be pretty useful, and their role in defeating the monster is certainly an interesting twist in the story. Still, the choice of Scrapper, as with all of the Newsboy-derived clones, is baffling, though he himself seems thrilled by it, missing out on the existential angst of being cloned without his consent, just like Jimmy did last issue.
Meanwhile, back in the Project, the Legion is thrilled to meet the Guardian and ply him with questions, only to have their fathers reveal that this is not the original hero, but a clone created to replace him. Sadly, this doesn’t really get explored, but as Superman takes Jimmy on his promised tour of the facility, the young man at least voices some concerns over the dangers of playing God. I’m glad Kirby at least nodded at the moral and practical issues involved with these concepts, but the story still remains entirely too matter of fact about such things.
“A Prize of Peril!”
Superman’s encounter with his greatest fear is not quite so successful. Suddenly the Man of Steel finds himself confronted by the towering figure of his birth father, Jor-El, and the Kryptonian scientist tells his Earth-raised son that he is terribly disappointed in him because he’s wasted his gifts and not become a man of science. Okay, that’s rather odd. Superman’s greatest fear should really have involved either his abusing his powers or his not being able to save someone despite his powers. Those are really the things that worry the Man of Tomorrow. But he hangs his head and is ashamed of all the world-saving he’s done, because a father he never really knew yells at him. Yet, what really makes the whole situation go from strange to creepy is when Jor-El starts spanking his super-son, and the Metropolis Marvel begs him to continue, saying he deserves it. Yikes! I feel like we’ve stumbled into something that maybe O’Neil should have kept private!
“The Last Survivors of Earth!”
Finally, in California, Batman is left alone to confront the arriving Muian ship, and his valiant but foolhardy barehanded attack against the technological marvel, ends in defeat. It’s a shame he didn’t have an advanced jet with all kinds of weapons on hand. Once again, Green Arrow’s temper gets everyone in trouble. The League just might be better off without him.
Despite the slightly awkward ending, there are a lot of neat elements in this tale, interesting and thoughtful little touches, like having Aquaman be called in as an expert in lost civilizations, some decently graceful attempts at exposing readers to other cultures, and even a little romantic intrigue. The lost continent of Mu itself is a really fascinating concept, and it’s a shame it didn’t get a bit more development here, though that’s often the case for comics of this era. I’m curious if anyone else ever made anything of the seeds planted in this story. The threat the heroes face is one well suited to the League, and it’s an interesting change of pace that the team doesn’t actually save the day. Most everyone gets something to do, though Aquaman gets the short end of the stick, as usual. Dillin’s art is uneven in this one, alternately very strong and rather awkward, but for the most part he turns out a very pretty book. There are a few just strange looking panels, though, like Batman’s awkward run. In any event, this is an enjoyable read without the weirdness of the some of our previous issues. I’ll give this one a solid 3.5 Mintuemen.
“Orion Fights for Earth!”
The scholar warns the warrior of Darkseid’s plans, telling him that the Apokaliptian monarch even now works on a device that will allow him to search all of the minds on Earth for the mysterious and sinister ‘Anti-Life Equation.’ Before vanishing as mysteriously as he appeared, he also reveals that Darkseid began his search there on Apokolips with a quartet of kidnapped humans. The warrior frees the captives, and holding Kalibak off, opens a boom tube to Earth to help them escape.
Then to War! Wow! Summarizing this book was a real challenge. Since so much of this is new and since there are so many big ideas flying around, it is tough to be brief when talking about this story. In fact, I left some interesting moments untouched, like the glimpse of New Genesis’s culture revealed in Highfather’s reverence for the innocence of youth, which itself is an effective shorthand for his world’s love of freedom and for the stakes for which this galactic game shall be played. In general, this is a great story, though it will eventually be overshadowed by what comes after. Kirby’s art is a little rough in some spots, and of course Colletta’s inking doesn’t do him many favors. None the less, the visual imagination at play is wonderful, with both New Genesis and Apokolips fitting perfectly into their archetypal roles. Kirby’s imagination is clearly unleashed in this book, and the fruits of his labors are wondrous. There are Promethean structures everywhere, and many panels stress the scale of the world we’ve entered, as Orion is shrunk to insignificance before a starfield or an ominous edifice.
I’ve mentioned how archetypal this story is, and that is an important part of its success, as the King is essentially creating a new myth, working in the broad, bright colors of legend, evoking the eternal struggle of the Norse Gods, the Olympian war against the Titans, or similar cosmic conflicts. This is a larger scale, a much larger scale, than anything we’ve seen in DC Comics, and clearly already more fully realized than any similar worldbuilding we’ve seen in the last year. The only parallels can be found in Kirby’s own work in Marvel, but with the Fourth World the King seeks to surpass even those heights . Think about how astonishing this book must have been when it hit the stands amongst the mundane everyday stories filling DC’s books. Even this month’s Justice League tale, which has some measure of imaginative reach, feels positively cramped and halfhearted by comparison. Despite that, he’s doing some pretty solid character work even from this first chapter, especially considering the era. There are mysteries surrounding Orion, and a lot of personality at play in everyone we meet. The impression of depth is downright palpable, and you just know that this conflict sprawls far beyond the pages of this book. What’s more, we can see the lasting impact of this story in the fact that so many of its elements, even just from this first entry, have gone on to become central elements of the DC Universe. It’s a great beginning, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series! I’ll give this first chapter 4.5 Minutemen, as it loses just a little for the clunkier moments.
“The World of the Super-Ape!”
The Greylands 