Into the Bronze Age: May 1970 (Part 2)

Howdy folks!  Welcome back to the Bronze Age.  Join me for the next stage of our trip!

Roll Call (You can see everything published this month HERE)

• Action Comics #388
• Batman #221
• Brave and the Bold #89
• Challengers of the Unknown #73
• Detective Comics #399
• Flash #196 (Reprints, won’t be covered)
• Flash #197
• G.I. Combat #141
• Justice League of America #80
• Showcase #90
• Superman #226
• World’s Finest #193

Bonus!: Star Hawkins (for real this time)

Bolded entries are covered in this post, the others will be covered soon.

Challengers of the Unknown #73

Cover Artist: Nick Cardy
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: George Tuska
Inker: George Tuska
Editor: Murray Boltinoff

Now this is more like it.  While it’s got its weak points, this is a Challengers issue, hitting the notes that a good story of theirs should.  Interestingly, the editor includes a short missive in the letter column about the rotating cast of artists that the book has featured over the last few months, promising that they have finally settled on someone that they think is right for the Chals.  I have to say, George Tuska does a fine job with this story.  The art is good, but the layouts and general design is particularly impressive.  This is, of course, all the more bittersweet, since the book ends with the next issue.

This Challengers adventure begins with an out of control space capsule careening earthward and splashing down in the ocean.  It is immediately picked up by waiting support crews and landed on an aircraft carrier, which is depicted only in silhouette as dawn breaks over the horizon in a rather nice panel.

The naval crew find the pilot dead, not killed by the force of reentry or anything of that sort, but strangled while trapped alone in a sealed craft 10,000 miles from earth!  Dun dun DUN!  Now that’s a pretty good problem for the Challengers, something bizarre and inexplicable.  Again, Tuska’s art conveys the message in an interesting way.  Just the image of that arm sticking out of the capsule and the startled faces of the officers tells you just about everything you need to know.

We pick up with the Challengers who are camped out in Ace’s New York apartment, and we also pick back up with the old argument.  Red is an insufferable jerk to Corinna, again.  At this point, his boorishness is getting old, but the highlight of this scene is the return of the Prof!  He’s walking with a cane, but he is walking, and he’s back to his old self!  That’s a very pleasant surprise, as I rather imagined he’d been written out of the series permanently.

Of course, this prompts Red to begin picking on Corinna, wanting to throw her off the team.  Also predictably, Rocky steps in to defend her, since the lady Challenger apparently can’t stand up for herself.  This leads the two to come to actual blows, where both show off their expertise, the strongman throwing Red around the place, and the acrobat flipping and rolling to stay in the fight.  It’s a nice sequence, even if this whole love/hate subplot is getting old.

Ace arrives to break up the fight and inform the team about their mission.  Arriving at an air force base, the Chals meet a fellow named Major Cheever, an astronaut who will be their liaison during their visit.  Here is where things take a turn for the strange and we run into one of the only real problems with this issue.  Corinna suddenly receives “weird vibrations” and informs us that she is totally a medium, and she has absolutely been one all along.  This is definitely not a sign that O’Neil is making her character up as he goes along.  This is the problem with Corinna.  She’s really vaguely defined, and there is just no unifying concept behind her.

Well, she runs off to find privacy to employ the ability that she’s absolutely always had, and she brilliantly decides that the base vacuum chamber is the best place.  I’m sure you can see what’s coming.  Of course, someone slams the door on her and turns on the mechanism, sucking the air out of the chamber.  I’m sorry Corinna, but it’s things like this that make it seem like Red, as much of a jerk as he is, might just have a point.  I’m not convinced you’re really Challengers material.

She’s rescued by Rocky, who shatters the shatter-proof glass in desperation.  Corinna recovers, but the two guards who had been watching the facility have been shot!  Ace does some quick thinking and realizes that the guards have been staged to make it look like a murder/suicide, but apparently the killer is a moron, as the supposed suicide was shot in the back.  That’s not really all that much of a deduction there, Ace.  I guess you’re not exactly Sherlock Holmes, eh?

Later, the Chals hold a seance to contact whatever is involved in this mystery, an idea that, unsurprisingly, Red opposes.  Ace overrules him, and they actually manage to make contact with…something, an otherworldly spirit, but just as it is about to spill the beans, someone throws a grenade in the window!

The team scatters, but Rocky manages to smother the blast with a mattress, adding a nice line that it “takes more than a lousy hand grenade to do in a lunk like me.”  It’s a good moment.

The Chals head to the base and Ace, Red, and Corinna prepare to head up towards the Moon so they can challenge (sorry!) whatever is causing these problems.  They join Major Cheever, after Ace gives a nice little speech about how much still remains unknown about the cosmos to a dubious officer.

However, in space, the team is attacked by…Major Cheever!  Just then, a strange energy creature materializes in the capsule.  I really like the design for this being, amorphous and vaguely defined, fitting for an energy lifeform.  Having touched Corinna’s mind, the creature, named Machu, feels a connection towards her.  It resists Cheever’s orders, and it tells its story.  Apparently its race long ago came to the Moon looking for a new world to call their own.  This being was the guardian of his people, but because he failed in his duties, they were destroyed.  With his dying (what? breath? do energy beings breath?)…something, their leader cursed Machu, saying that he must stay in the cold emptiness of space until he destroyed two evil creatures as recompense for his failure.

It seemed that the “wild black” drove Cheever insane, and his meeting with Machu convinced him that space was too dangerous to humanity.  He has become certain that the alien life that man will inevitably encounter, like this energy being, will corrupt humanity and eventually destroy them.  Thus, he has manipulated Machu’s grief to sabotage the space program.  It was this creature that strangled the astronaut, and now Cheever sics him on the Challengers.  Yet, Machu has learned from his contact with our heroes, and he realizes that his understanding of man has been flawed.  He attacks the Major instead, in a really nicely drawn sequence, which ends with the astronaut’s death.

 

To atone for his mistakes, having killed an innocent man, Machu decides to end his own life to complete his mission.  Shocked, the Challengers begin their descent, coming back down to Earth and the end of their adventure.

So, this is a good story, just the right kind of tale for the Challengers, where they encounter something new and unknown and solve their problems with more than just brute force.  It is really only weakened by two things.  The first, as already noted is the fact that O’Neil just can’t decide who he wants Corinna to be.  Yeah, the whole mystical element of the last issue does lay some groundwork for this sudden turn at being a medium, but it is just too much of a stretch.  If she hadn’t been shoe-horned into the team in the first place, she might have been able to develop more organically.  The second issue with the issue (sorry again!) is that our villain, Major Cheever, just shows up out of nowhere.  A bit more setup would have done wonders for the effect of the story.  As is, I like the mystery at the core here, I like most of the character work, and I really enjoyed the art.  The Challengers are probing the unknown, and that’s the way it should be.  The story just needs a little more room to breathe.  I’ll give it 3.5 Minutemen.

Detective Comics #399

Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: Bob Brown
Inker: Joe Giella
Editor: Julius Schwartz

“Panic By Moonglow”
Writer: Frank Robbins
Penciler: Gil Kane
Inker: Vince Colletta
Editor: Julius Schwartz

This is a solid, enjoyable Batman tale, though definitely still a product of this intermediate era, like the other story of this month.  It gives you a look at Batman’s brilliance as a detective, as well as his mastery of martial arts.  It’s nice to have this balanced portrayal, though Bob Brown’s art doesn’t quite manage to match the action.  It’s always obvious when you have someone who doesn’t really know how to fight drawing a fight scene.  For super powered demigods slugging each other, that isn’t necessarily that big of a deal, but when you’re supposed to be seeing a martial artist in action, the results can look comical and awkward.

Nonetheless, the issue is fun, and it follows a pretty exciting cover.  I like its layered effect, Gordon’s arm, Batman crouched and ready, and the murderous Master Kahn (“Khhhhhhhhaaaaaaannnnn!”) behind him.  The story opens with Batman and a local martial arts master putting on a demonstration of close combat techniques for the police.  Now, clearly this is a bit of a holdover from the “policeman’s friend” Batman, but it isn’t too jarring.

The pair begin to spar, and the Masked Manhunter embarrasses the hot tempered Master Khan, and in response, the fighter pulls out a knuckle-duster and tries to put the hero down.  Batman flat out cold-cocks him, knocking the fellow unconscious.

This prompts a fit of whining from a fellow named Arthur Reeves, who is the “mayor’s new public works coordinator,” and something of a red herring in this story.  He doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to add some texture and lightness to the tale, but I suppose he is rather entertaining, being something of a bureaucratic antagonist for Batman.  Most notably, he gives us a funny scene where, after complaining that the Dark Knight shouldn’t be trusted because he wears a mask, and no-one who “pretends to serve the public has any reason to stay hidden.”  In response, Bats simply lifts off the fellow’s toupee.  It’s a legitimately funny moment., and if not entirely fitting for Batman, it doesn’t seem entirely out of character either.  Even the grim avenger of the night might happily puncture the inflated ego of such a stooge.  It’s also nice to see a sign that not everyone in power approves of the Dark Knight’s crusade.

Batman gets back to his crime-fighting efforts, and a month later, he answers the Bat-signal to discover that Khan’s dojo has burned down, and he seems to have died in the blaze.  “Seems to,” being the operative phrase, and I’m sure we can all see what’s coming.  Later, Batman and Gordon are called to a seance (a lot of that going around this month!) with the claim that vital information will be revealed to them.  On the way, a gunman tries to ventilate them with a Thompson, but the Caped Crusader manages to take him out by playing possum.

Heading for the seance once again, and now knowing that it is somehow involved in this setup, Batman and the Commissioner meet a former hood named “Big Dough” Joe, who claims to have reformed.  It ends up being another red-herring, but it helps this story to feel a bit more fleshed out, and there is a good touch of humanity in this fellow’s brief appearance.  He’s trying to turn his life around, even thanks Gordon for putting him away, and yet we can’t help but be suspicious of him.

Well, during the seance, a “medium” named “the Great Dilbert” (really dude?  That’s going to be your stage name?) puts on a show that features the “spirit” of Khan swearing vengeance on Batman from beyond the grave.  Interestingly, his plan is not to kill the Masked Manhunter, but to embarrass him as the martial artist himself was, by killing Gordon!  In response, the pencil-necked geek, Reeves, insists (how does he have any say in all of this?) that the Commissioner be locked in a vault and carefully protected where no-one can get to him.  In a solid display of the Dark Knight’s skills, the hero sneaks in disguised as a cop (somehow with his entire costume hidden under the uniform, cowl and all!), and then deduces that the Gordon they are protecting is a fake!

The imposter is revealed to be “Dilbert,” but just as he is preparing to confess, he dies mysteriously!  It seems his partner poisoned the mask he was wearing to ensure his silence.  His dying “words” are ‘D..do..j..jo…” which, of course makes everyone suspect our formerly felonious friend.  The Caped Crusader has other ideas though, realizing that what the fellow actually said was “dojo.”

He arrives at the ruined martial arts studio and discovers (gasp!) a very much alive Khan.  We get a nice, dramatic reveal as Batman confronts his adversary and they begin a duel, torch vs. katana, and then hand to hand.  It is an admittedly short fight.  Batman just straight-up outclasses this clown, and he drops him in relatively short order.

This issue is a good, solid Batman adventure, with a reasonable mystery, some action, and plenty of personality.  It’s a pleasant read, if a bit underdeveloped.  After all, it’s only 14 1/2 pages.  I think just another page of background or attention for Khan could have added a good deal to the whole thing, but nonetheless, it’s a fun story.  I really do love that panel of Batman silently de-toupee-ing the weasel Reeves.  I’ll give it four Minutemen!

 

“Panic By Moonglow”

Let’s see if Robin performs any better in this adventure than in the first part.  As we remember, he was knocked out with a head-blow (Holy Hannah!  How did I miss that!  I’m going to retroactively add it to the list!), and we join him this issue as he comes to, looking up into the face of Zukov, the Russian scientist who was lecturing at the university.  The quarantine is still in effect, so the good doctor offers his quarters for Robin’s recuperation, but the Teen Wonder has more on his mind than rest.

He is suspicious of Zukov, and he eavesdrops on his host.  It’s a good thing too, because the husky huckster is in cahoots with communist spies!  He lets them out of a trap door, and orders them to take out the “sleeping” sidekick.  Robin is way ahead of them, though, and he takes off to prevent the rest of their plan from coming together.  Apparently, they poisoned the student from the last issue with the aid of the soap the Teen Wonder discovered, but that was just to set the stage for their next move.  Once the boy dies, the Russians will use this to bury NASA under a storm of bad publicity for releasing a cosmic plague on the planet!

Robin takes off to retrieve the Moon rock as evidence, and an over-eager National Guard sentry takes a shot at him!  This is a really interesting bit of synchronicity, given the violent events at Kent State this month, especially considering that this issue would have been written well before that happened.  Clearly, there was tension in the air during this year.

Well, despite the sentry’s shot, our hero manages to reach the building’s roof, and the Russian agents attempt to intercept him.  Here Robin gets a better showing than the last issue, taking out two of his opponents in appropriately acrobatic fashion as he dangles from a rope.

Inside, he confronts Zukov, who has a tiny, hand-held laser, and it actually functions somewhat like an actual laser, rather than the variety most commonly found in comics.  Unfortunately, Robin has another unimpressive moment, as, startled by a shot, he crashes through the skylight and snags his cape on the edge, leaving him a sitting duck for the spy.  Obligingly, Zukov begins to monologue, graciously explaining his plan, and Robin uses the time to free himself, and, in an admittedly nicely drawn sequence, catch his rope and slide down into the darkened interior of the building.

A brief game of cat and mouse follows, and Zukov kills causes his own demise by slicing through one of the supports of the lunar lander module on display there, causing the vehicle to collapse and crush him.  Fortunately, the good guys find the antidote and rescue the poisoned dweeb, and all’s well that ends well.

All-in-all, this is a fair back-up story, and it is definitely an improvement over the first half.  We get to see Robin do some pretty cool stuff, using his brains and his training, and even his goof in this issue leads us to a good sequence that shows off his skills.  The Russian plot is actually fairly clever and subtle, by comic book standards, and the Cold War tensions, as well as the surprisingly apt presage of campus-bound violence makes this issue rather interesting in retrospect.  I’ll give it 3.5 Minutemen.

 

The Flash #197

Cover Artist: Gil Kane
Writer: Mike Friedrich
Penciler: Gil Kane
Inker: Vince Colletta

“To the Nth Degree”
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Penciler: Gil Kane
Inker: Vince Colletta

This is a fun all around issue of the Flash, especially considering how rough most of the issues I’ve read have been.  This set of tales takes advantage of the character, the supporting cast, and the powers.  Sadly, no ‘Lightning the Speedy Hound.’

We start with Barry Allen working in his police lab with his long-time partner (who we’ve never seen before, of course), who is working on cracking a case.  The pair have worked together so long that they’ve developed their own non-verbal shorthand.  With a series of gestures they hold an entire conversation, with Barry rubbing his nose to indicate approval.

Just then a call comes in that “Ice” King is in the middle of another robbery.  This is not a new supervillain, but a criminal of unlikely and fairly preposterous cleverness.  Apparently, Central City has been hit by heavy snowfall, and this creative crook has been making his getaways on skis to avoid the police on treacherous roads.

It’s silly, but it is quite fun, and Flash tries several inventive tactics to catch this chilly criminal.  Of course our hero could simply super speed punch this fellow into the next timezone, but it fits the character that he’s challenging himself to find creative, relatively non-violent solutions.  He finally chops the fellow’s skis into matchsticks with super speed, but the thief has a heart attack as he tumbles into the snow!  Or at least, that is how it seems.

Conveniently, there is an ambulance on hand, and they load him up and rush off.  Shortly Flash realizes that this was another clever plan by the “Ice” man (one wonders how long this run-of-the-mill crook could have operated in Central City before Captain Cold decided to show him who the real ice king is…).  Yet, this revelation comes from Flash’s crime lab partner, Charlie Conwell, and without thinking, Flash responds with the same gesture used by Barry Allen!

The Scarlet Speedster tries to cover the gesture by faking a sneeze, but a seed of doubt is planted!  Nonetheless, the thief made good his getaway.  We’re next treated to a charming little scene between Barry and Iris.  This little glimpse of their domestic life is just plain lovely.  This the texture and joy that’s lost because DC has apparently become terrified of marriage, not to mention the moral aspect of that loss.  Anyway, Mrs. Flash is filling in for the Picture News’s drama critic, and she encourages her heroic husband to take up amateur acting.  He agrees and auditions for a production of Hamlet being put on by the police department.  It’s a nice bonus that the minor supporting character Dexter Myles, former shakespearean actor, is directing the play.  Barry snags the part of Horatio, and already we’re seeing lots of Flash’s life outside of the mask, which makes for a fun expansion of his world and character.

Unfortunately, the cast all comes down with the flu right before opening night, but the Fastest Man Alive believes that “the show must go on,” so he decides to play all of the parts himself at super speed!  We get another of Kane’s odd collage panels, but this one actually works quite well, perhaps because all of the different elements work together to tell a single story.  After finishing his performance, the Crimson Comet is suddenly struck by that virus that hit everyone else, just as “Ice” King and his cronies show up, dressed as policemen, to raid the box office.  They decide to snuff the Flash because he seems helpless, but our hero super accelerates his metabolism so that the illness runs its course in moments.  It makes sense, in a comic book-y kind of way, and he’s able to roll with his assailants’ punches long enough to get back on his feet.

He takes out the gang in a nice panel, and then he heads home to the ministrations of his caring wife.   Yet, he’s interrupted in his recuperation by his old friend Charlie!  Knowing him to be suspicious, the Scarlet Speedster uses his speed to appear as the Flash and as a bed-ridden Barry.  This convinces the other scientist that he must have been wrong about the hero’s secret identity, and he leaves Barry to recover.

This was a fun, light-hearted story, which fits the Barry Allen Flash quite well.  After all, he’s not driven to be a hero by loss like Batman (despite later retcons); he does it because it is the right thing to do and, to a degree, for the fun!  He, like Aquaman, is an adventurer, but unlike the Sea King, his world is, for all of its color and charm, relatively normal.  Thus, it is fitting that we see a community of characters growing up around the Flash.

For all of their silliness, that is something that the Silver Age adventures of the Scarlet Speedster accomplished quite well.  Central City is an interesting setting, and Barry Allen is much more a part of it than other characters, like Bruce Wayne/Batman, are traditionally part of theirs.  Gotham may be central to who Batman is, but Bruce Wayne is a man apart, while Barry Allen is working with the police department, taking up hobbies, and living a domestic life.  It makes him a character that I’ve always really loved, even when his adventures were too silly for my tastes.  This one manages to maintain the charm without too many of the more Silver Age-y trappings.  So, I’ll give it a hearty 4 Minutemen out of 5.  What do you say, Mrs. Allen?

 

“To the Nth Degree”

You might think from the title that this story might have something to do with Nth Metal, but nothing of the sort.  Instead, this is another misadventure courtesy of Flash’s father in law, the absent minded Professor Ira West.  These are usually pretty goofy stories, and I’m not that fond of them in general.  This one, on the other hand, is actually quite fun.  It starts with the forgetful academic having perfected a new type of telescope, one which can “pierce hyper-space–see stars thousands of light-years away” because, sure, that’s how light works.  It’s a really goofy idea, not even workable with comic book science, and it’s one of two in this tale.  Still, I suppose they can be overlooked, as nonsensical as they are.

Prof. West mixes up his addresses, and sends this experimental telescope (really?) to Barry, sending the amateur telescope that was to be a gift for his son-in-law to the Astronomical Society by mistake.  How is this guy allowed to run his own life?  Anyway, Flash gets his gift, but when he looks through it he sees, not the Moon, but a distant world in the midst of a violent volcanic firestorm!  Barry is not one to let suffering go unanswered, and he feels like he must do something to help the inhabitants of this  strange planet.  Yet, he’s not Superman, so how is he to get there?  Well…he…flies…through space…on the light from the telescope.  Because, once again, that’s how light works.  This is that other silly idea, but the payoff is pretty cool.

He finds a planet populated by flame beings, and it’s a cool (sorry!) design.  Their world is breaking up, preparing to explode because of an overheated core.  The Scarlet Speedster leaps into action and begins to smother the overwhelming fires.  He even cools the core down with super-speed air blasts.

He makes his way back to the light beam by stepping on grains of sand!  He gets back to Earth, and our tale ends with the absent minded professor absentmindedly destroying the experimental telescope.  Sadly, he also lost the formula, so the technology is lost to the world.

This is a fun story with Flash doing some pretty cool super speed tricks to save the alien world, even if the deus ex-machinas that get him there are utterly ridiculous.  Prof. West is a lot more tolerable this issue, even rather likable in his brief appearance.  Silly in parts, but enjoyable overall, I’ll give this issue 3 Minutemen.

Well, that’s it for this batch of issues.  I hope you enjoyed this leg of the journey, and please join me next week for another chapter!

 

Happy Easter!

Also, it just so happens that this post falls on an important day, perhaps the most important day in history, so allow me to wish you a happy Easter!  Today the True Hero returned, the fellow who all true heroes emulate in that defining trait of heroism, selflessness.

 

Into the Bronze Age: April 1970 (Part 2)

Howdy readers!  I apologize for the long delay in posts, but the last two weeks have proven to be crazy busy.  I had hoped to get this post up by this weekend, but there was a pile of student papers that disagreed with me rather stringently.  Nonetheless, we are back on track now, and I hope to get back into the swing of things.

Time for another stride Into the Bronze Age!

Roll Call (You can see everything published this month HERE)

• Action Comics #387
• Aquaman #50
• Detective Comics #398
• Green Lantern #76 (First issue of Green Lantern/Green Arrow)
• Superman #225
• Teen Titans #26

Bonus!: The Space Museum (Rolled over into the next post)

Bolded entries are covered in this post, the others will be covered soon.

Green Lantern #76

Executive Editor: Carmine Infantino
Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: Neal Adams
Inker: Frank Giacoia
Colourist: Cory Adams
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Julius Schwartz

Well, here we are at last.  This story, more than any other single issue, defines the thematic beginning of the Bronze Age proper.  With this issue, Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams begin their famous run on this book, uniting DC’s two vermilion clad heroes to “discover America.”  This was a huge sea-change in comics.  We’ve already been observing the creeping turn towards social relevance and more serious stories, but that has been a fairly minor undercurrent in our readings.  It is the O’Neil/Adams tenure on Green Lantern/Green Arrow that brings those minor eddies into the mainstream in full force.

I’m afraid I’m probably not going to add too much that is really new to the discussion of these books, so be warned.  Their importance really shouldn’t be undersold, as this was the series that taught the industry that comics were a medium capable of tackling important social issues like poverty, racism, and drug use.  Of course, we’ll see the infamous issue where Green Arrow’s former sidekick gets addicted to heroin before too long in this title.  There is no doubt that this is an influential run, but my goodness, I really, really dislike it.  I understand its cultural importance and its status as a milestone for comics, but the problem is that these stories are all message and no subtlety, or perhaps more importantly, no joy.

O’Neil, as we’ve already observed, has a tendency to be a bit preachy, but in this book, that tendency is given full reign.  The result is an unbearably sanctimonious and mirthless series.  Reading about poverty, racism, and drugs sounds like a ton of furn, right?  Well, that’s part of the problem.  The joy and excitement of superhero tales gets left behind in the race to brow-beat the audience with this month’s message.  Now, this is not to say that comics shouldn’t deal with such issues, and I’m sure that there are a lot of folks running around today who had their eyes opened to some of our world’s problems by reading about them in Green Lantern.  Still, I think such tactics, much like the trends in modern comics, tend to miss the purpose of a world with superheroes.  Such a setting should really show us something to aspire to, something to hope for.  It can and should be a better world, though not a perfect world.

Of course, the main characters in this book suffer a similar fate to the stories themselves, quickly becoming entirely unlikeable.  Green Lantern loses all common sense so that he can repeatedly be taught lessons, while Green Arrow becomes O’Neil’s mouthpiece, and thus, intolerably self-righteous, with a certainty of his own sainthood magnified beyond all reason by the fact that the stories constantly bear him out as right.  The end result is a fascinating study of the time, but also a real chore to read these days.

All of a sudden, Green Lantern’s world takes a turn for the ugly, and it happens so quickly, it must have given long-time readers whiplash!  This issue famously opens with the Emerald Gladiator flying above Star City, when he sees a businessman being attacked by some street punks.  He swoops down to the rescue, sending the young aggressor flying off to the police station and helping the older citizen to his feet.  Having completed his good deed, Hal turns to accept the accolades that he knows will be forthcoming from the crowd, only to receive a shower of cans, bottles, and verbal abuse.

It’s a funny, surprising scene, and it certainly accomplishes its purpose, which is to knock readers off of their preconceptions.  It’s also a neat and unusual move, and it addresses a big problem with the standard practice of superheroes.  How much of the nuance of a situation can you absorb when you’re jumping down from rooftops and skulking in alleyways?  It isn’t easy to tell exactly what’s going on in every situation, and things like this would, in reality, probably happen quite a bit.  On the other hand, I don’t read books about invulnerable sun gods that can fly or men who fight crime by shrinking because I’m obsessed with realism.

Well, the Emerald Crusader turns to lash out at the crowd (!), but he is stopped by Green Arrow, who has observed all of this.  Already, Hal is coming off quite badly.  Ollie gives Hal a quick tour of the particular slum he’s blundered into and explains that the fellow he saved is actually the local slumlord.

That’s right, Arrow invoked Godwin’s Law way before the Internet

This is where we get one of the most famous, and infamous, moments from this book.  As the two heroes are taking in the squalor of their surroundings, an old black man approaches and asks Hal a question.  “I heard about how you work for the blue skins…”

Well, this leaves our hero utterly stunned.  He can think of nothing to say in response to this shattering critique of his career as a hero.  This is, of course, where most of us reading this book throw our hands up and say “COME ON!”  The obvious answer to this is, ‘Oh, you want to know what I did for the black skins?  How about the time I saved the entire planet, your skin included, from the Qwardians, or how about when I kept Sinestro from enslaving all of humanity?  Or how about any of the other hundred times that I have rescued every last man, woman, or child of every last race that is or ever will be on this spinning rock?’

Green Lantern is, quite literally, above such complaints.  His job isn’t just to catch bank robbers or to stop muggers, he patrols the freaking cosmos.  Ohh, I’m sorry that life is unfair, but let me ask YOU a question.  Is it better to live in a slum and be ALIVE, or is it better to be space dust because I was chasing around after a slum lord instead of stopping the latest plot by a world-destroying menace?

Gah.  It galls me every time I read this story.  Of course, the guy does have a point, and just about any other hero who ISN’T saving the entire freaking planet every day should probably be pretty convicted by this.  But Green Lantern doesn’t fit the bill.  I realize that this is part of what O’Neil is doing.  He wants this contrast of powers and perspectives, and he especially wants to play with the concept of the Guardians of the Universe.  It would have been a bit more palatable if Hal had kicked, at least a little, at this, because he has every right to turn this back on his interlocutor.

But no, he hangs his head as if he’s the worst man in the world, and he begins his guilt-ridden journey with Green Arrow.  The issue follows the Lantern as he attempts to make up for his mistake by persuading the slum lord to have a change of heart and spare the poor folks who he is about to force out on the streets, but, being a slum lord, the fat-cat has no heart.  Thus, the Emerald Crusader’s words fall on deaf ears, and for the second time this issue, we see our supposed hero display a deplorable lack of self-control.  I thought the whole ring thing was all about willpower, but oh well, O’Neil has a sermon he wants to preach…err…a story he wants to tell.

 

The Lantern prepares to lay this slimeball out, only to be stopped mid swing by non other than the Guardians of the Universe!  They tell him that the slumlord has committed no crime and order their ring-bearer to Oa, in no uncertain terms!  They refuse to listen to Hal when he arrives, and then they assign him a seemingly menial cosmic task, diverting meteors and then just hanging about in space.  Of course, this nicely illustrates why that earlier scene is so silly, as Green Lantern diverts massive chunks of space debris with a thought.

Meanwhile, the Emerald Archer tries a different tactic with our resident scumbag.  He takes a page out of fellow vermilion hero, Green Hornet’s, playbook, and Ollie pretends to shake down the slumlord, who promises, in turn, to meet with him later with a payoff.

Here we get a particularly nice sequence that displays Arrow’s skill, as well as Adams’ excellence, as two of the slumlord’s errand boys try to take out the hero, only to incriminate their boss by falling for a dummy in a darkened room while being far too talkative.  Unfortunately, the tape recorder Ollie hid next to the dummy, the target at which, we remember, he wanted the thugs to shoot, surprisingly got shot.  That part isn’t exactly the Archer’s finest moment.

Meanwhile, Hal gets feed up with sitting around in space and heads back, teaming up with Ollie to trick the slimeball into incriminating himself by impersonating one of his gunsels with the help of his power ring.  This time the ruse works, and despite some last minute hysterics involving a grenade (!), the slumlord is arrested.

It seems as if things will end happily ever after until The giant floating head of a Guardian crashes the party and starts chewing Hal out for abandoning his space-floating duties.  This prompts a ridiculously impassioned speech from Green Arrow, drawn with incredibly impassioned panels by Adams.  It really does look fantastic, but the melodrama of the moment just really drives home how goofy the exchange is.  Ollie demands that the practically omniscient alien come down off of his emerald tower and learn what it is really like on Earth.  The emotions of the scene are so visually exaggerated that the Archer looks like a Shakespearean actor in the midst of trodding the boards during the climax of “Macbeth” or “Othello.”

“Come off your perch!  Touch…taste…laugh!  And cry!  Learn where we’re at…and why!”  Ouch Ollie, just ouch.

Astonishingly, the Guardians don’t just vaporize this goateed goofball; instead, they take him seriously and send one of their number to join the two earthmen in a roadtrip across America, “searching for a special kind of truth…searching for themselves…”

Yikes.  Now, in general, I’m all in favor of earnestness in comics and in general, and I don’t like folks who react to all such honesty with a sneering, ironic disregard, but I have to say, there’s plenty to mock here, and justifiably so.  The silliness of these stories was apparent even to readers in the 70s, and it is perhaps even more so now.  I can imagine this story being appealing to an angry, angsty young man, as I was at 16, someone who is learning about how complicated the world is, and yet whose perceptions are still very simplistic.  I’m afraid I’m at least a decade too late in life for this story.

Nonetheless, it is an important issue, and it does help catapult comics truly into the Bronze Age.  Adams’ art is beautiful, and there is definite value in comics wrestling with cultural problems.  Green Arrow as the champion of the downtrodden is one of those great concepts that remain, sticking with the character forever more, even after the rough edges that attract criticism have been worn away.  We’ve seen his brash, self-righteous personality developing just in the few months we’ve been following him under O’Neil’s pen.  Even though this incarnation is too extreme to be truly likable, there is something good in that concept.  In the end, this is a story more valuable for its cultural weight than its literary value or even its enjoyability.  It is a flawed but fascinating beginning, and I give it 2.5 Minutemen, having taken points away for the glaring, galling ludicrousness of that exchange in the tenement building, as well as for Ollie playing the ‘Nazi’ card in his argument with Hal.

Superman #225

Cover Artist: Curt Swan
Writer: Leo Dorfman
Penciler: Curt Swan
Inker: George Roussos

Well, this is quite the weird story, and, honestly, I’m rather astonished that it got published.  It’s strangely, inconsistently, and thoughtlessly dark.  I can only assume that someone at the Comics Code Authority was asleep at the switch…or rock stupid.  You’d never guess from the fairly conventional beginning that this issue of Superman would end with a straight-up suicide, but it does.  You read that right, this Superman tale ends with a thinking, feeling being intentionally taking its own life, but I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.  Follow along, and see if you’re as amazed as I was.

In fairly typical fashion, the issue opens with a set of aliens plotting against Superman for no particular reason.  Interestingly enough, their plot entails creating a clone by scanning the Man of Steel as he passes by their world on his way home from a space mission.  In a funny little sequence that really marks the bipolar nature of this story, the clone figures out he doesn’t have any powers by attempting to fly and landing square on his head, knocking himself out.  The Super-copy believes himself to be Superman, and the aliens encourage this, telling him that the real Superman is an impostor that has stolen his powers, planning to use them for evil.  They assure their creation that he must destroy the “false” hero in order to reclaim his rightful powers and place, and they give him devices to aid him in this quest.

 

On the plus side, the aliens kind of remind me of This Island Earth…

 

Now, let’s get something straight.  This is not a robot, not an unliving or mindless contraption.  This is a living being they have created, with a mind and will of its own, and even though it is easily talked into attempting murder, it is not simple.  Keep that in mind.

After being sent to Earth, the clone encounters several situations during which it is affected by its environment as Superman never could be.  Because of an alien device implanted in its head, it transfers these effects, sniffling, sneezing, and other human reactions to Clark, causing him to feel everything the clone does.  This plays a role in the small secret identity farce subplot that seems to be a contractual obligation of every Superman book.

The real action of the story picks up when the imposter attempts to assassinate his rival with a kryptonite pitchfork at a costume parade, but because of the intervention of random partygoers, who apparently are quite willing to bodily drag a stranger around, just because they like his costume, the Metropolis Marvel escapes.  Thank heavens that Meteropolites are apparently the definition of ugly Americans…

Having lost his weapons, the clone heads to the Fortress of Solitude to retrieve new devices powerful enough to do the deed.  His counterpart, experiencing the intense cold of the arctic vicariously, makes an incredible leap in logic and deduces that it must, of course, be coming from his double, who he doesn’t really know about, and from the Fortress, which he has no real reason to think endangered.

Plot contrivances aside, The Man of Tomorrow manages to capture his double, and attempts to break his conditioning and figure out his story.

However, nothing works, so Superman turns him over to authorities, sends him home, or puts him in the Phantom Zone, right?  Nope, none of those relatively reasonable solutions are even considered.  Instead, our “hero” decides the the only viable solution, because his double transmits all sensations back to the original, is to keep him locked in a small cage, too tiny for him even to lie down in, for all of eternity.  ‘Cruel and unusual’ is for chumps!  That doesn’t apply to superpowered sun gods from space!

To make matters even worse, Superman seriously considers straight-up murdering the imposter in order to solve the problem, and the only reason he doesn’t is that he has “conditioned [himself] against killing for too many years.  It’s a good thing The Man of Steel’s moral code is so famously flexible, otherwise that might strike me as a bit off.

That’s right, Superman seriously considers flat-out murdering his double.

After what must be weeks of imprisonment, judging from the impostor’s super-beard, he realizes that his rival is, in fact, the real Superman, a shattering revelation.  The clone has a moment of clarity, and he figures out who and what he is, and he refuses to let the aliens use him to endanger the true Man of Steel.  So, how does he get out of this predicament?  How does Dorfman tidy up the Superman mythos and dispose of this duplicate?  Well, he has him commit suicide, of course, with a pistol-looking device, no less!  The double gets a Superman robot to give him a metal-melting ray, which is no threat to the cage or the bot, but the clone turns it upon himself, destroying the device implanted in his brain and killing himself.  He even wrote a suicide note for Superman!

How did this get published?!

That is freaking dark, and it is an incredibly incongruous end to this goofy story.  Superman’s tears at the end are poor recompense for the clone that gave its life to protect his.

Ugh.  I truly don’t care for this story.  This was way too heavy of an ending to be treated so cavalierly, and it threw the tone of the entire issue wildly off.  Unfortunately, this isn’t even the type of ham-handed attempt at depth that we just saw from Green Lantern.  No, this is just a tone-deaf train-wreck of a tale that seems completely oblivious about what it is doing.  I’ll give it a clumsy 1 Minuteman.

Teen Titans #26

Cover Artist: Nick Cardy
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Penciler: Nick Cardy
Inker: Nick Cardy
Letterer: John Costanza

Our vague and confusing adventure continues!  We have this lovely Nick Cardy cover with Titans abandoning their costumes and running towards a bold new direction!  Except, no-one really seems to know just what that direction is.  One thing is certain; it is just plain strange.  Inside, we pick up where we left off, with the robotic ‘man Friday,’ Angel, leads the Titans into danger.  To make his point, the robot obligingly gets its armed blown off by a laser.  This catapults the Titans into a series of death traps that they navigate without using their powers…for reasons.

When they manage to escape, they find mysterious Mr. Jupiter waiting for them, drink in hand, like he’s watching whatever happens to be the rich guy equivalent of a ball game.  There’s something off about this guy, seeing as he casually watches teenagers fight for their lives.  Having survived the obstacle course, which Jupiter unconvincingly claims was never really deadly, he orders the Titans to go into the inner-city neighborhood “Hell’s Corner,” not to be confused with Hell’s Kitchen, get jobs and blend in.  Their funds for this effort?  A single penny and another super helpful and super vague prophecy by Lilith.  Yes, thank you, that is just great.  You are a super valuable part of this team.

In Hell’s Corner, the Titans, in mufti, encounter a little girl selling lemonade, as well as rejects from every 60s biker movie ever.  The head biker punk, complete with scarf, goggles, and jodhpurs, wreck the kid’s stand, just to sufficiently illustrate how bad he and his friends are.

Not quite kicking the dog, but close enough

The Titans restrain themselves from delivering a richly deserved beating to the resident loud-mouth and his cronies, remembering the terrible tragedy caused by their last violent efforts, when the esteemed Nobel Prize winner died in a crossfire last issue.  A young man with no such hang-ups, piles into the punk.  He turns out to be the youthful Mal Duncan, the girl’s big brother, and he’s decided to put the overdressed bully, “Storm,” in his place.

As the gang prepare to “flatten” the fiery Mal, the Titans finally take action, whipping the biker-types in short order.  The young man is not terribly grateful for the help, and he tells the Titans that they are in the wrong neighborhood.

Nevertheless, the teenage heroes are determined to fulfill their mission…for more reasons, so they find various jobs around the area.  In a corny but funny montage, we see Hawk getting work as a boxing instructor at the neighborhood boys club while Don becomes the next Bob Ross, encouraging his students to “paint what you feel,” whether that be orange skinned people or happy trees.  It’s a simple but effective distillation of the personalities, though, I admit, peaceful ubernerd that I am, even I sort of want to dump Don’s metaphorical books, just for being such a touchy-feely wuss.

The club puts on monthly boxing matches to help kids work off steam in a controlled environment, something that I imagine schools these days might benefit from, but I digress.  Mal and the fashionable punk Storm square off, but the bully proves to be a sore loser after the young champion manages to knock him out.  The local gang decide to work Mal over after the fight, but the Titans intercede, putting the biker-flick rejects down for the second time.

Mal goes out with the team, and while dancing, they decide to recruit him.  That’s right, they decide to have this slightly above average kid who is a moderately competent boxer without any powers, training, or special skills, join their superhero team.  Once again, this is absolutely necessary…for reasons.  They put Mal through the totally-not-really-death-traps-I-promise, and he survives, rather amazingly, though by the skin of his teeth.  ‘Are you guys sure I don’t need any training or anything before I start dodging laser beams and blazing floors?’  ‘Nah, you’ll be fine.  You’re can box!’

Feeling understandably a bit outclassed and undeserving of a spot on a FREAKING SUPERHERO TEAM, Average Boy faces sleepless nights and self doubt, so he decides he must prove himself.  How will he do so?  Will he fight a villain, stop a crime, or maybe just overcome a training challenge?  No, don’t be silly, those obstacles are far too insignificant for mighty Average Boy!

No, instead, Mal decides to hitch a ride on a space rocket not designed to actually have a human pilot, because apparently it is super vital that NASA get human reactions from this space flight, and it isn’t like they have any trained astronauts whose job that is or anything.  The team is stunned to discover that Average Boy has done something so colossally stupid and so utterly necessary…for reasons once again, but Mal is happy.  He declares, in what would actually be a sort of cool moment if the story warranted it in even the tiniest fraction, “I’m in my own groove at last!  Doing MY thing!  And I’m a first!  A cat from Hell’s Corner reaching for a star!”  While the 60s slang is painful as always, the thought of a black astronaut, especially one from an impoverished background, breaking down barriers is actually really cool.

And that’s the problem with this issue, and this arc, in general.  There are some cool elements here, most notably Mal and the racial undercurrent he represents.  I like the character, especially as I’ve gotten to know him in other mediums, like Young Justice.  I think he’s got great potential, but this story makes no freaking sense.  There is not one thing about this plot that works logically.  Everything is happening because the plot requires it to do so.  I can’t stand that kind of silliness.  I’ll be quite happy when Aqualad shows up in a few issues to knock some sense into the Titans…at least, I hope that is what is going to happen, judging from the cover.  So, I give this irrational issue 1 Minutemen.

Final Thoughts:

Sheesh, this was an extremely dichotomous month.  We had three fairly enjoyable stories in the first half and three mediocre to detestable stories in the second.  I admit, part of the reason this post took so long to put together, aside from my being insanely busy, was that it was such a poor lot of stories that I had a hard time working up the energy to discuss them.  Still, we stand at an important moment, with the Bronze Age taking a big step forward with the start of the Green Lantern / Green Arrow run.  As much as that book gets on my nerves, I do believe it is going to lead us to bigger and better things…eventually.  One thing is certain, this month, short on books as it was through the vagaries of publication schedules, was certainly long on innovation!  We have the brilliant SAG team doing fascinating things in Aquaman with both story and art, we have Adams’ setting the comic world on fire with his beautiful, realistic pencils, and we had several plot elements that, however lacking they may be in logic or enjoyability, are certainly creative.  I suppose I can endure three bad books for three entertaining ones.  That still beats the proportions on student papers!

Well, that does it for this month!  I hope the next month has some better stories in store for us!  In an attempt to go ahead and get this post up, I’m going to cut out the bonus feature for this month and add it on to the coverage of the next.

The Head-Blow Headcount:

I somehow missed two new head-blows, but I’ve added them in.  Welcome Robin and the Phantom Stranger to the wall of shame!

 

 

 

Into the Bronze Age: March 1970 (Part 1)

Our trek into the Bronze Age continues!

And so does the evolution of this feature.  I’m going to add a little historical information to set the scene and provide some context for the comics I’m covering.  Each month’s first post will feature a couple of notable events and, stealing shamelessly from the ever entertaining and delightfully British Fantasticast, will also include that month’s longest reigning #1 single.

This month in history:

• Rhodesia becomes independent
• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty goes into effect
• The “Weathermen” domestic terrorist group bomb 18 West 11th St in NYC
• US lowers voting age from 21 to 18
• The film Airport is released
• Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere after 12 years in orbit
• Riots erupt in Belfast, Ireland

As you can see, these are turbulent times we’re touring.

And quite fittingly, this month’s #1 song was “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” As an aside, Garfunkel is a weird looking dude.  Just saying.  Now, to the comics!

Roll Call (You can see everything published this month HERE)

• Action Comics #386
• Batman #220
• Brave and the Bold #88
• Challengers of the Unknown #72
• Detective Comics #397
• Flash #195
• G.I. Combat #140
• Green Lantern #75
• Justice League of America #79
• Phantom Stranger #5
• Showcase #89
• World’s Finest #192

Bonus!: Star Hawkins

Bolded entries are covered in this post, the others will be covered soon.

Action Comics #386

Cover Artist: Curt Swan
Writer: Cary Bates
Penciler: Curt Swan
Inker: George Roussos

“Zap Goes the Legion!”
Writer: E. Nelson Bridwell
Penciler: Win Mortimer
Inker: Jack Abe

Wow, what a switch from the last issue and the first half of this story!  Don’t let that gimmicky cover fool you.  Even though this issue may have been born out of someone proposing the asinine question, ‘hey, wonder if there would be a retirement home for old superheroes?’ this story rises above such silly beginnings.  It looks like this tale is going to be exactly like its predecessor, rife with Silver Age silliness, but while there is certainly some of that to be found here, the whole actually hangs together remarkably well.  That’s the key difference between this story and its first half.  This one is surprisingly logically consistent.

We join our hero, the time-lost Man of Steel, still banished from his home time and seeking solace in the far future.  He leaps forward in time once more, this journey taking him to the year 121,970, where he finds a devastated world, poisoned by nuclear war.  Right from the beginning we see that this is a more interesting, thoughtful story than the previous offering from Action Comics.  Superman is wrestling with the unexpected loss of the life he knew, and in a fit of rage he destroys a cliffside that’s been fused into glass.  It’s a nice little moment.  He sees his aged reflection and is confronted with the reality of his loss, lashing out in anger.  That’s more emotion from the Man of Might than we saw in the entirety of the previous issue.  The Time Trapper observes this outburst with glee and reflects on the events of that past story.

Finding nothing to assuage his sorrow, Superman once more lives up to his more esoteric nickname, the Man of Tomorrow, by traveling further into the future.  There he finds an interesting world.  On the one hand, it’s taken right from the Jetsons, complete with skyscraper buildings that house humanity above a sea of poisonous atmosphere that blankets the planet.  On the other hand, the way the world got to this point is really quite intriguing and unusually thought-provoking for a story from this era.

Superman finds himself surrounded by strange floating robotic sentries that arrest him for using superpowers (!), hauling him before the leaders of the world.  They recognize him, but at least this time it is played as something of an unusual occurrence instead of having this 100 centuries old superhero instantly known by everyone in the future.  It is from the powers-that-be that Superman learns the sad history of this era, and an interesting story it is.  It seems that thousands of years ago a trio of super beings, much like Superman himself, came to Earth.  They were benevolent, protecting and caring for the people of the planet, and in turn the citizens showered them with love.  Yet, love was their undoing.  The three beings were two men and one woman, and the men fought over their female companion.  Theirs was a war that lasted only two days but which was so incredibly destructive, especially from the damage of their “proto-vision,” that it left the entire Earth poisoned in its wake.  The beings, the Naurons, fled, leaving the world a wasteland.  In response, the survivors banned the use of all superpowers, which seems like a fairly sensible precaution after such an experience.

This is quite the interesting little throw-away detail, or so it seems at the time.  It is a rare moment of perspective from a comic, especially a DC comic, of this era.  The presence of beings as powerful as Superman would be an incredible threat to the worlds they call home, and if they were any less careful and dedicated than he is, a tragedy would be inevitable.  This has been explored quite well in later years, of course, but the tale of the Naurons is certainly noteworthy in context.  It adds a different, though also somewhat sombre note to the story of Superman’s exile.

Well, Superman decides to explore this time a bit more, being careful not to employ any of his powers, and he happens upon the future incarnation of the Daily Planet, complete with nifty floating sign.  Inside he first discovers that it is no longer a newspaper; as the Man of Steel puts it, “the printed page must be ancient history in this era.”  This is another surprisingly thoughtful detail in this story.  While comic writers could easily imagine the future with flying cars and push-button houses, they often had some of the most interesting blind spots for other elements of life in such an era.

Next Superman happens upon the archives of the video-paper and learns what had happened to his friends after he disappeared from his native time.  We discover that Lois apparently never got over her thing for Superman, as she married the actor who portrayed him in the movies.  I think I’d call that unhealthy and more than a little creepy.  ‘Hey, you look like my vanished love, so I guess you’ll do.  Would you mind wearing his clothes too?’  Jimmy Olsen fared better, writing a best-seller about his adventures with the Man of Steel and finally finding enough dignity to call himself James…but not enough to stop wearing bow-ties.  Before he can learn anymore (one wonders what happened to Batman and the League without their heaviest hitter), Superman gets kicked out and goes back to wandering the streets.

He sees an accident about to occur, and unwilling to let any law prevent him from saving a life, leaps into action, only to be arrested again!  This time they have no mercy and banish him to another world!  Here is where we get to what on the cover seems like a goofy concept, but what, in context, actually makes sense.  It seems that this is a retirement center of sorts for aging heroes, men who could not fit into civilian life or who violated the law in their attempts to help.  In a sense, it’s a cushy prison for metahumans, a logical necessity if you’ve outlawed powers.

This places inmates are embittered, holding on to their past glories, but they immediately take to Superman, having long revered his legacy.  It makes sense that there would be somewhere to put heroes who broke the power laws, and it also serves to underscore Superman’s own sense of emptiness and uselessness, so this hero retirement home actually works in this story, strange as it may seem.

The Man of Tomorrow finds himself on this world only a short time before a dignitary from Earth arrives, begging for the help of the banished heroes.  They basically tell the guy where he can go, but Superman sways them with an impassioned speech…or rather, he basically says, ‘hey, come on guys…come on!’ and the heroes, apparently senile and easily influenced, immediately get on board.

They all fly to Earth where they discover that a storage silo for an incredibly powerful fuel that is inexplicably stored smack-dab in the middle of downtown future-Metropolis has become unstable and is going to explode!  One wonders why you might not want to store your super explosive materials somewhere else, but apparently safety concerns just aren’t that big of a deal in the future.  I wonder what future-OCSEA would say…

Anyway, heroes, weakened by age and sorrow, don’t think they can save the city, but Superman once again displays his quick wits, as well as his natural leadership abilities.  He leaps into action, deploying his super-powered squad all around the solar system in pursuit of various materials, which he uses to create blast shield that will focus the force of the explosion downward.  When the tower goes up, Superman uses his own impervious form, spinning at super speed, to further contain the explosion and turn the building into a rocket, sending it harmlessly into space.  It’s a clever solution, and it’s a nice sequence of pages, with the elderly champions chipping in to save the day.

Finally, the story ends with Superman journeying on further into the future, not even bothering to say goodbye.  As he flies, he ruminates on lost opportunities.  “Why didn’t I marry Lois?” he wonders as he is secretly observed by the sinister Time Trapper!  It’s a nice note to end on, keeping the melancholy undercurrent of the story alive, despite the seemingly happy conclusion of this adventure.

This is a really fun, surprisingly thoughtful and interesting story.  Now, I’m being generous here, as there are certainly silly elements and moments throughout it, but the whole thing holds together remarkably well considering its origins.  Pretty much every element that is introduced makes sense, and there are really thought-provoking pieces to this story, including the war of the super-beings and Superman’s own sadness at being banished from everything and everyone he knows.  While I’d hardly call this story soulful or truly melancholy, it certainly has elements that a generous imagination can magnify into more than the sum of their parts.  I also wonder if the concern with devastated, dead, or poisoned worlds might reflect the growing environmental consciousness being displayed in JLA this and last month.  I can’t say for sure, but it does seem like a curious bit of synchronicity.  All-in-all, I’ll give this tale 4 Minutemen out of 5.

 

“Zap Goes the Legion!”

That brings us to this month’s Legion backup.  For once, the backup doesn’t overshadow the feature, which seemed to be the trend for the last two months.  Still, this is a fine Legion tale, and it too features a neat, unusual element.  The adventure begins on the prison planetoid of Takron-Galtos, a Legion fixture I’ve encountered once or twice before.  I like recurring elements like this.  They make the universe of these stories seem more complete, more filled out and lived-in.  Anyway, we meet two prisoners who are due for release.  In a scene out of a Clockwork Orange (though, interestingly this comic predates that movie by a year!), both inmates are given “prism therapy,” which apparently brainwashes them into doing good.  Shades of Doc Savage!  The two prisoners claim to be transformed and to feel remorse for their actions.  The woman, Uli Algor, an old foe of the Legion’s, has actually faked her reformation and immediately sets out to destroy the heroes of the future!

The method by which she defeats the “prism therapy” is rather hokey, as she effectively just says, ‘hey, I used light to fight the Legion, so I made myself immune to all forms of light!’  Wow, I wish I knew it was that easy!  I’ve shot guns, so I should have just made myself immune to all metal!  Silly me!  Anyway, several of the Legionnaires are out on the town, viewing *sigh* a “time-scope,” showing a 20th Century prize fight and noting that the ‘barbaric’ sport of boxing has been outlawed for hundreds of years.  Remember that, as it will become strangely important later on.  Our uninterestingly named villainess challenges the heroes, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and even substitute hero Night Girl, to a fight.  She quickly dispatches each of the heroes by turning their powers against them with her advanced equipment.  Lightning Lad is short-circuited, Cosmic Boy is thrown into a wall with bone-breaking force, Saturn Girl is given wide-awake nightmares, and Night Girl is blinded!  All things considered, I think Night Girl got off rather easily by comparison.

I like that panel of Saturn Girl’s nightmares.  It’s pretty neat, and the menace is palpable.  No, here’s where we get something a bit unusual.  The heroes don’t just pick themselves up and dust themselves off.  No, they are well and truly defeated, and the next scene is Brainiac 5 and Karate Kid visiting them in the hospital where they are all entirely incapacitated.  It’s a surprising scene, showing the consequences of a loss for our heroes, and while they will all be okay, it is clear that they were hurt pretty badly.  I particularly like the image of the heroes in the pitch-black room, only their goggles standing out.  The whole scene has the effect of reminding us that our heroes are actually playing for high stakes and implies that their victory is far from certain.

The remaining heroes, Brainiac 5, Ultra-Boy, Phantom Girl, and Karate Kid, receive a a second challenge from Algor (not to be confused with another future-dwelling Al Gore), and they choose a junkyard asteroid as their battleground.  Despite Brainiac 5 preparing the ground and rigging the junked spaceships littering its surface to trap her, Algor manages to escape, inadvertently bringing Phantom Girl back to her hidden base.  The villainess is ready for the young heroine’s intangibility, however, and takes her out.  This enrages her boyfriend, Ultra-Boy, and he sets out to bring Algor down.  She plans how to counter each of his many superpowers, but is so wrapped up in what she’ll do in this, that, or the other circumstance, that she allows the fighting-mad Legionnaire to walk right up to her and belt her on the jaw.

She was prepared for any of his powers, but not for old-fashioned boxing, it seems!  Now, the story assures us Ultra-Boy isn’t using super strength, and it lampshades the fact that he is hitting a girl; yet, it is still a bit off-putting that he just straight-up socks this woman in the jaw!  It’s rather surprising in a 1970 comic book, and I have to admit that my old-school Southern gentlemanly upbringing quails a bit at that image.

The resolution is a bit silly, as even if boxing isn’t allowed as a sport, the Legionnaires clearly have some hand-to-hand training, so a punch to the face wouldn’t be quite as innovative as Ultra-Boy seems to think it is in this story, especially for someone like him, who often engages in fisticuffs.  Algor’s very convenient powers are another weakness of this story, as she seems to have the power of ‘plot.’  I imagine that is why she didn’t really become a major Legion foe.  That, and she doesn’t really have much personality, but there is only so much you can pack into an 11 page story, and master of continuity, E. Nelson Bridwell has already got this one stuffed to the gills.

Despite those few weaknesses, this is definitely a fun story, and the injuries sustained by the first tea of Legionnaires really helped to raise it above the herd a bit, giving the whole tale a more serious feeling.  I’ll give it 3.5 Minutemen.

Batman #220

Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Writer: Frank Robbins
Penciler: Irv Novick
Inker: Dick Giordano

This is a fine Batman tale, a good, classic style murder mystery, though the ending is a bit of a cheat.  We are back to the dark, brooding detective Batman once again, and that’s always a good thing in my book, though it emphasizes the unevenness of the character’s portrayal across the line at this time.  Our story opens with Batman rushing to a payphone where he hears the taped confession of a murderer, though the man says the Caped Crusader will never live to use it, as the entire phone booth explodes!  It’s a literal ka-pow moment and a nice beginning for our tale.

Cut to the previously discussed Victims Inc. office of Bruce Wayne, where he is visited by a strangely silver-haired Marla Manning, a young woman (and it rather bothers me that no-one comments on the fact that this 20-something woman has white/silver hair!) whose columns inspired Bruce to start his organization.  She is there because she was investigating a car bomb that claimed the life of a city clerk and she has received a warning to “lay off!”  Bruce goes to check his files, and discovers that this particular file has been stolen!

He tells her that this is now a case for Batman, which seems a bit cavalier with the whole secret identity thing, but not the worst offense we’ve seen recently. *cough*Superman*cough*  Then, properly attired in cape and cowl, the Dark Knight detective goes to interview the victim’s sister…by knocking on her door.  It’s a rather incongruous image, seeing Batman in 70s grim avenger-style art knocking politely at a door while standing in a well-lit hallway.

The sister isn’t talking, and Bats deduces that she’s being threatened, so he bursts in and disarms the gunman in a rather nicely drawn scene.  Irv Novick may not be in the same league as Neal Adams, who will shortly become THE artist associated with Batman in this era, but he’s no slouch either, and he draws a dynamic, powerful, and resourceful Caped Crusader.

Unfortunately, the killer gets away, leaving the Dark Knight without a lead to follow, so he reexamines the case and decides to investigate a construction company that won a bid the murdered clerk had been involved in.  While snooping through the company’s records (and unlike a true Silver Age story, we don’t get any tortuous justification for Batman clearly breaking the law to do so), our stalwart hero discovers that Zachary Nova, the head of the Nova Demolitions company has just the skill-set needed to handle the car-bomb, having been a demolitions expert in Vietnam.  Nova catches him spying, and gets the drop on the detective, but Batman is able to turn the tables on him, leading to a tense stand off involving some really rather casually stored explosives.  If Batman can’t pin a murder on the guy, at least he can totally get him for unsafe working conditions!

Nova, clearly more than a little crazy, threatens Batman with a bundle of TNT, and the Dark Knight leaves without finding any proof.  Next, the Cape Crusader rather blithely decides to put Marla Manning’s life in danger.  He has her print a story claiming she has some proof about the killer and making herself bait.  The reporter gets a call from Nova, who says he knows she doesn’t have any proof, but he’s willing to sell her some if she’ll meet him.  Batman insists on making the exchange, which brings us back to that deadly phonebooth!

After the Dark Detective’s seeming demise, Nova emerges and threatens Marla, but he is suddenly assaulted by his disembodied voice!  Nova panics and empties his gun, then Batman tackles him from the shadows.  That brings us to the rather cheap explanation of Batman’s survival.  Apparently he had a life-sized dummy UNDER HIS CAPE!  He threw it in the phonebooth and dove for cover.

Other than that somewhat silly explanation, this is a solid issue.  It isn’t great, but there is a fair enough mystery and Nova makes for an entertaining enough villain, even if there isn’t all that much to him.  The mystery would be a bit more substantive if there were more than one suspect, but it effectively wraps everything up in one issue.  I’ll give it 3.5 Minutemen.

The Brave and the Bold #88

Executive Editor: Murray Boltinoff
Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Writer: Bob Haney
Penciler: Irv Novick
Inker: Mike Esposito
Editor: Murray Boltinoff

We return again to the Brave and the Bold, the private comic fife of Bob Haney!  For all of his quirks, something Haney could do quite well was a character-focused story.  He was surprisingly good at turning in a tale bursting with genuine character development, where a hero or heroine went through a personal arc between the covers, but there was a catch.  The character being developed often bore little actual resemblance to the mainstream DC hero he or she was supposed to be.  What’s more, all of that character work was usually promptly forgotten by everyone, including Haney himself, about five minutes after the issue ended.  This trend gives rise to the old joke that Zaney Haney stories take place, not on Earth 1 or Earth 2, but on Earth H, for Haney.

Yet, despite the, well, zaniness of such stories, they are still noteworthy for providing real character growth and change (however short-lived) in an era where DC Comics very rarely engaged in any such storytelling.  Where Haney really shined is with characters that were, at the time, largely forgotten.  There was no real established continuity for him to flaunt, and thus no other writers to ignore what he had done.  Over the course of the next few years, Haney will produce several fairly interesting, though fittingly insane, stories about mostly forgotten characters from the Golden Age.  This is one such tale.

Our guest-star this issue, Wildcat, seems to have been one of Haney’s favorites, and he certainly makes a number of return appearances, most of them fairly good.  In this tale, which bears much more in common with that rather striking cover than you’d think likely, as we first find the former costumed hero down on his luck in a flophouse.  Bruce Wayne has come seeking the undefeated former heavyweight champion of the world, and he has found Ted Grant a shell of the man he once was.  Bruce asks the older man what happened, and Grant, in terse, bitter sentences replies that he had opened a gym to help underprivileged kids, but got drawn into the problems of the inner city.  He went into debt trying to help, and suddenly found himself quite alone when the money ran out.

Wayne offers to pay his debts, saying he has come to get Grant’s help.  It seems there is a youth Olympic-style set of games in the offing, and the U.S. of A. needs someone to coach the boxers.  Who better than the Champ?  Interestingly enough, Bruce himself is coaching the fencing team.  It makes sense that Bruce Wayne, wealthy socialite that he is, would be a fencer, but does it follow that he’d be good enough (publicly) to justify such a position?  Well, it’s a Haney tale, so we shouldn’t peer too closely behind the curtain.

Convinced that he has nothing to offer anyone, grant turns the job down, but when he hears Bruce getting jumped right outside his window, he leaps into action without a second thought, laying out the two thugs who were robbing the millionaire.  This gives him a dose of confidence, and he agrees to join the team.  As they leave, Bruce tosses a roll of bills to the two “thugs,” who he had hired for just that purpose.

Cut to Vienna, where the games are being held, and we find a very Rocky-esq twist in the plot when Grant is challenged and insulted by an Russian ex-boxer named Koslov, who claims the Champ was too chicken to fight him back in the day.  Interestingly enough, this comic predates the famous boxing film by six years!  Well, Ted brushes off the insults, and his young team begin to wonder if the Ruskie’s claims are true!

Just when I bet you’re beginning to wonder if any actual superheroes will make an appearance in this book, Batman slips over to meet with military intelligence in downtown Vienna.  They brief him on the mission they’ve asked him to perform, intercepting the plans for an armed satellite from a turncoat agent who is planning to sell them to the Russians.  To my mind, this gives us the real reason that Bruce got involved with these games, as it gave him an excuse to travel around in his civilian guise without being connected to Batman.  In costume, he starts his investigation, and back in the non-Olympic village, the Russian coach is stirring up trouble and continues to badger the Champ.  Afterwards, the veteran boxer confesses to Bruce that he may very well be afraid of Koslov.  After all, the fellow is younger and in better condition than he is, and his nom de guerre is “The Hammer!”  If you share a nickname with Charles Martel, you’ve got to be tough!  It seems that Grant’s confidence was shaken even worse than it seemed by his setbacks in life!

Finally, Koslov jumps into the ring with the retired hero and shoves him, at which point Grant slugs him.  This gives Koslov the excuse to challenge him to a fight, and in a funny exchange, Bruce tells Ted that he HAS to fight or he could single-handedly lose the Cold War!  I’m exaggerating a bit, but from the way the millionaire talks about this challenge, you’d think that the fate of the Free World hung in the balance.  “You’ve got to accept the challenge AND win it!” Bruce declares, “You’ve become part of the Cold War–like it or not!”  Way to lay it on thick, there, Bats.

Grant stalks off, saying he needs time to think, and Bruce slips away to continue his investigation.  He finds the spy, but the slippery fink catches sight of him and begins to run.  Fortunately, Ted Grant has donned his old costume and taken a motorcycle out for a spin to clear his head, perhaps secretly hoping for some trouble so that he can prove himself once more.  He finds it, helping Batman pursue the fleeing spy.  Yet, this fellow is one tough customer, and he manages to lose both of his pursuers, further dampening Wildcat’s spirits.

The trail gone cold for the moment, Batman decides to check in on his friend, and he finds him climbing onto a famous ferris wheel.  Knowing that Grant is waffling and in need of confidence, Batman decides to employ some tough love.  He scales the wheel and enters the Champ’s carriage where he declares that Grant MUST fight Koslov, but the fighter is still unwilling, so Batman does the only rational thing left.  He punches the boxer square in the face!  The Dark Knight swears that “only one of us is going to walk out of this car!” and an epic brawl begins as the wheel slowly turns.  When it finally stops, Grant staggers out, victorious!  Batman, looking quite the worse for wear, thinks that he “laid down a bit so Ted could win,” but considers that the aging pugilist is still quite a combatant.

So, Grant agrees to fight the big Russian (really?  Stallone must have been a DC fan, because this sounds quite a bit like Rocky IV!), and the two start training, but Batman, worried that Koslov might just beat his friend, decides to take out some “insurance.”  I love this.  Batman decides that there is too much at stake to just trust to Grant, so he rigs the lights and prepares to cheat so that the U.S. could come out on top!  It is both perfectly in and perfectly OUT of character for the Dark Knight Detective.  On the one hand, Batman is perfectly willing to cheat to win, providing the ends justify the means, but on the other hand, it’s sort of strange to look back and see this extremely political, patriotic Batman.  Could you imagine the modern Caped Crusader doing something this patriotic, if slightly unethical?

Anyway, after setting up his insurance policy, Batman heads back out on his investigation, but he is gassed and captured by enemy agents!  Meanwhile, the match begins, and the Champ comes out swinging.  For four rounds he “pounds the hulking “Hammer,” but after he has worn himself out, the Russian begins to clobber him!  As they tie up in a grapple, Koslov whispers in his opponent’s ear that his people have Batman, and if Grant doesn’t want to see him die, he’d better throw the match.  Just as things look grim, the lights go out, and Grant lands a knockout punch!

Now, here is the only really weak point in the story.  It is just so silly, so ridiculous, so very much Zaney Haney, that it threatens to undermine the rest of the tale.  Grant, having knocked Koslov out, quickly carries him out of the crowded stadium, throws him in a motorcycle, and proceeds to drive like mad until the Ruskie tells him where Batman is being held.  It seems that Batman is on a barge headed down the Danube.

Then, not even slowing down, Grant ramps the bike off a convenient bridge, runs over a crowd of enemy agents, and frees the Dark Knight.  One wonders how the devil he unties those ropes while still wearing boxing gloves, but that’s far from the craziest thing in this story.  The two fight their way out, side by side.  And, if that weren’t enough, they, with “The Hammer” in tow, race back to the arena, arriving JUST as the lights come back up!  Grant has, naturally, carried the unconscious Russian back into the ring just before, and they proceed to continue their fight.  All of that happens in THREE pages.

Batman locates the spy, who is there to make his exchange, and he sets out to capture the turncoat, but spares a moment and a hastily scrawled message on a batarang to give Grant the final push he needs.  When Ted sees “HAS BEEN” written on the batarang that lands in the ring, it lights a fire in him.  He struggles back to this feet, and he launches a last, desperate attack that puts Koslov down, fair and square.  Batman catches the spy, and the last scene is the two successful coaches watching their teams while Grant remarks that “the future looks bright for me!”

This is a great, though chock-full issue.  The ridiculous mad dash at the climax is goofy in the extreme, but the story moves so quickly that Haney gives you no time to consider it.  The rest of the tale is good enough that I’m willing to forgive that excess, especially considering the novelty of a flawed, broken hero who has a real arc of growth throughout.  Haney would go on to retell this story several times with several different characters, but I think this is the first.  It’s a really unusual story for this era, and it is fairly well told. Grant’s presence as Wildcat is negligible, but that’s because this is first and foremost a character piece, as I promised.  He is believable as a man broken by life, though that isn’t given as much space as it might have benefited from.  It’s a story we’ve heard before, but seeing it in this context is new and interesting.  It’s also just a good story, and it brings Wildcat back to the main DCU, rescuing him from obscurity, which is always great to see for a good character.  I’ll give this fast-paced story of redemption, this Rocky-in-a-cape drama, a 4.5 Minutemen out of 5.

 

“Further Up and Further In!”

-As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Last Battle, and that’s where we’ll be heading next week with the next installment of Into the Bronze Age, March 1970 Part 2!  I’m going to be doing 3 or so issues a post, as I think that’s a good reading length.  This should also allow me to keep up a schedule of one or two posts a week.  I hope you’ll join me for the exciting next issue!

 

Into the Bronze Age

Hello readers and internet travelers!  As folks familiar with my work and site likely know, I’m hip-deep (neck-deep?) in a doctoral program, and I find myself with very little time these days for Freedom Force projects.  I have no intention of abandoning the greatest superhero game of all time, but I thought that I might use my site for something a little different until I have more FF content ready for it.  I recently started a little personal project in my rare free moments.  To take a break from medieval texts and teaching, I’ve been reading through a broad range of DC comics from the Silver and Bronze Ages.  As my DC Universe According to Grey mod amply demonstrates, I have a deep and abiding love of the DC Universe, especially as it existed during the Bronze Age, which, despite having plenty of flaws, is for my money, the best, purest, most heroic, and most joyful incarnation of those characters and settings.

I’ve read through a lot of the Silver Age stories of most of DC’s major characters, and I’ve read through a few of the major books of the Bronze Age like JLA, but until now I’ve never read the bulk of DC’s books over this period.

As I’ve been reading these stories, I’ve been attempting to cast a wide net and get a sense for the development of the DC Universe as a whole and the evolution of the Bronze Age itself.  I’ve been noticing some pretty fascinating trends, and it occurred to me that other folks might find my little project interesting as well.  To that end, I’m going to start a new, semi-regular feature on the Greylands.  Every few weeks (maybe once a month or so), I’ll post a round-up of my thoughts concerning a wide selection of DC books from a particular month and year in the Bronze Age (for my purposes, roughly considered to be between 1970 and 1985).  I won’t be reading everything DC published every month, but I’ll be reading a lot of it.

If you think this sounds interesting, I invite you to join me in my quest for the elusive character of the Bronze Age.

First, a word about what I’ll be covering and what I WON’T be covering.  I’ll be reading most of the straight-up superhero books published by DC during this time, with a few notable exceptions.  I won’t be reading through Wonder Woman, as her solo adventures have never interested me much, though I am fond of her as part of the League.  Also on the cutting room floor are Superman’s supporting books like Jimmy Olsen (until Kirby takes over) and Lois Lane.  I’ll be reading the occasional alternative, non-superhero book as the mood grabs me.  I won’t be reading most of the western, war,  or romance books, but I’m going to try to get through everything that piques my interest and is part of the DC Universe proper.  If it showed up in Who’s Who, I’ll at least consider reading it (I’ve been inspired to do this partially by the Fire and Water Podcast’s Who’s Who feature).  I’m navigating by interest, so there will be things I’ll be skipping, but I’ll also be aiming for comprehensiveness.

I’m also going to do a semi-regular extra feature, spotlighting something neat I’ve uncovered on my march through DC that lies outside the borders of my little project here, so every issue or so I’ll include a discussion about a series or character from before or after the period I’m covering.

To start this week, I’ll begin with January 1970:

Roll Call (You can see everything published this month HERE)

• Action Comics #384
• Brave and the Bold #87
• Challengers of the Unknown #71
• Detective Comics #395
• G.I. Combat #139
• Green Lantern #74
• Superman #222

For the sake of my sanity, I’m skipping Adventure Comics until Supergirl gets a bit less Silver-Age-y.  I’m also skipping Metal Men #41, as it is the last original issue of the series, which seems like a poor place to start.

Now, without further ado, let’s begin our maiden voyage into the Bronze Age!

Action Comics #384

Cover Artists: Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson
Writer: Cary Bates
Penciler: Curt Swan
Inker: George Roussos
Editor: Mort Weisinger

I’m not a huge Superman fan.  I suppose I should confess that straight away.  Whenever he and Batman fought in the comics, I was always cheering for the Dark Knight.  I certainly identified more with the tortured, conflicted, and complicated Caped Crusader than I did with the bright, cheerful, and seemingly perfect Man of Steel when I was an angsty teenager with nothing to be terribly angsty about.  But, with luck, we all grow up.  I have a lot more appreciation for Superman these days, and even though he’ll never be the character I most enjoy reading about, I love his role in the DC Universe and the positive, heroic ideals he represents.  The core of his character, the concept that a man can choose to do right and live selflessly, even when it would be the easiest thing in the world to do otherwise, is a great message, one far too often forgotten in our relativistic, cynical world.  It’s as relevant today as it was in the Depression, if not more so.  Those hard times brought people together, whereas these hard times seem to drive us further and further apart.  These truths are precisely what Man of Steel and (as far as can be determined) the upcoming Batman V. Superman movie don’t seem to comprehend.

But that’s a rant for another day; we’re here to talk about comics!  So, as I said, I’m not the biggest Superman fan, and the stories I do like generally are Post Crisis (a rare exception for me).  I enjoyed the Man of Steel Byrne reboot, and I’ve read several Superman TPBs that I’ve really enjoyed.  I have an exceptionally low tolerance for Silver Age Superman stories, though.  In my opinion they tend to be the most Silver Age-y of all Silver Age comics.  They are goofy, childish, and bizarre in the extreme, with the rainbow kryptonite and the far too literal take on the concept of invulnerability generally making me want to dig my eyes out with salad forks.  I’m not much of a fan, is what I’m saying.

I have heard that Bronze Age Superman gets something of a soft reboot that leads to some good stories with the ‘Kryptonite No More’ storyline, but we aren’t there yet, and this particular tale is definitely full of Silver Age goodness.  It isn’t half bad as such things go, though it is a standard comic of the era where things happen at the speed of plot.

Two strange uniforms, glowing with eerie energy, show up at Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, begging to be put on by the Man of Tomorrow.  That would be pretty odd in most tales, but I have to imagine it’s just a Thursday in the context of the crazy stuff that the Silver Age Superman gets up to.  Anyway, it seems these two uniforms belong to two aliens, one a prisoner, the other a policeman, who died on-board a spaceship while locked in combat.  Their uniforms were doused with energy and preserved their minds…or something.  I think I’m already putting more thought into this concept than writer Carey Bates did.  To be brief, which is surprisingly difficult when giving a synopsis of a Silver Age story like this, which has tons packed into it, the evil prisoner’s uniform forces Superman to don it by…basically just asking in front of Perry White.  Perry, who apparently isn’t all that concerned with his employees’ wellbeing, orders Clark Kent to put on the strange, glowing alien costume.  Great Ceaser’s ghost!  I’m pretty sure that’s an OSHA violation!

Predictably, the uniform controls Superman and tries to make him do evil, but the Man of Steel is more than a match for any mere suit of clothes, and outwits the outfit by seeming to go along with the evil plans, all while setting up the acts so they can be countered by his allies.  That really is a nice little piece of planning on Clark’s part, and it reminds the reader that Superman has brains as well as brawn.  Yet, all that (seeming) evil-doing lands Superman in Dutch with the authorities, and just when things look bad for him, he’s rescued by a flying Perry White in the other costume!  ‘Thanks Perry, but I’m still reporting you…’

Supes eventually puts on the other uniform on top of the evil one and is able to free himself enough to fly into the sun, burning both into ashes.  We’re treated to the two…what are they, ghosts?  Mental impressions?  Really persistent and aggressive stains?  Well, whatever they are, the two uniforms burn away, and we come back to find Perry White in his skivvies.  Yikes!

This was a fair Silver Age-ish story, nothing particularly memorable or interesting, but not nearly as weird or goofy as you might find in such settings.  I enjoyed it pretty well, and I’d give it an average score of 3 Minutemen.

At this time, Action Comics is also running a Legion of Superheroes backup feature, and this was the standout for me.  It was an entirely conventional Legion story, with one Legionnaire being prophesied to die in the opening pages and what could kindly be called a ‘twist,’ but more accurately dubbed a ‘cheat,’ revealed to have survived at the very end.  Replace ‘prophesied to die’ with ‘accused of being a traitor,’ and it is just like a number of Legion stories I’ve read.  In general, I like the Legion, but it never grabbed me the way it has some folks.  Once again, this is a concept that has grown on me as I have gotten older, as I enjoy what it says about the grand sweep of the DC Universe, the hopeful optimism about science and human nature.  It’s an optimism I think completely unjustified, but it’s charming nonetheless!

Despite this particular story being entirely by the numbers, it has a few nice little moments that made it stick in my mind.  The doomed Legionnaire in this particular tale is Mon-El, who Dream Girl, well, dreams about.  She sees his death, vaguely but certainly.  Unfortunately, it seems that Dream Girl’s visions always come true, and there is no way to prevent this tragedy.  We get a couple of nice pages of Mon-El coming to terms with his fate, including my favorite panel of the book.  In it, we see Mon contemplate one of his last sunrises.  It’s a nice, quiet little moment that really adds to Mon’s characterization, illuminating his heroism, as he faces his death, but also a human side to him.  It’s small, but significant for a Silver Age-ish book like this.  After all, it isn’t all that often that a superhero at this time seriously considered his or her mortality, especially in DC, so it is nice to see how doing so makes Mon all the more aware of the little things in his life, all while bravely soldiering on and continuing to do his duty.

His home planet of Daxam offers to hide him away and guard him with their entire army (!), which is quite an offer, but Mon is not one to hide and refuses.  This leads us to the cheat that leaves both Dream Girl correct and Mon-El alive at the end of the issue.  Another Daxamite knocks Mon out and switches places with him, dying in his place, but not really, because his incompetence almost kills Mon anyway, and he gives his life to save his idol rather than by facing the danger they feared (an alien invasion defeated in a single panel).

It’s a good, quick story, even with the stock plot and deus ex machina.  There’s just enough heart and charm here to raise it above common quality.  I give it three Minutemen.

Brave and the Bold #87

Cover Artists: Mike Sekowsky, Dick Giordano
Writer: Mike Sekowsky
Penciler: Mike Sekowsky
Inker: Dick Giordano
Editor: Murray Boltinoff

Man, The Brave and the Bold…what a series.  This comic was almost exclusively written by Bob Haney, or as he is popularly known, Zany Haney!  Bob Haney seems to either be beloved or hated.  He wrote incredibly imaginative and, let’s face it, zany, stories that cheerfully ignored any and all previously established continuity and characterization.  It was entirely common to find characters acting in an entirely uncharacteristic fashion, meeting old friends never before or after mentioned, or suddenly finding themselves having relatives that have totally always been there, shut-up!  His stories represent the best and worst things about the Silver Age.  They are often silly and irrational, but they are also creative in the extreme, often tossing out concepts with the same speed and frequency as even the mighty team of Stan and Jack.  However, unlike Lee and Kirby, Haney’s great weakness, other than his seeming allergy to logical consistency and causality, is his lack of interest in recalling potentially successful concepts.  Everything is a one-shot in his books, for the most part.  Even good ideas almost never have a return engagement.  That’s a particular problem in Aquaman and part of the reason that the Silver Age, which produced the majority of the best villains, left that particular hero with a shallow rogue’s gallery, despite having lots of one-shot villains with potential.

I don’t have the unabashed love for Zany Haney that folks like Rob Kelly and the Irredeemable Shag of the Fire and Water Podcast evince, but I do often enjoy his stories now that I’ve acquired a bit more patience for Silver Age flavored tales, and ALL of his work is Silver Age-ish, even well into the Bronze Age.

This particular yarn is no exception, and it represents the strengths of Haney’s style.  It is packed to the gills with action, but it is actually positively restrained in terms of the number of concepts it throws at the reader.  The story opens with Diana Prince and her companion I Ching (of course) in Europe taking in the sights of a combination fashion show and auto race…because such things happen all the time, no doubt.

This is the late 60s, Kung-Fu, white jumpsuit Wonder Woman, an incarnation of the character that I really don’t care for.  The idea of stripping away all of her powers and mythic trappings makes her much less interesting and turns her into a second string Black Canary.  I think I prefer the character with deep roots in myth and magic.  Nonetheless, I have to say that Haney does a good job with her, giving Diana Prince just enough fresh-faced naivete for someone who is adjusting to a new way of life, all while moving through the plot at break-neck speed.  Still, all things considered, Black Canary would have been a much better fit for this particular plot.

The story itself is about a race in which Bruce Wayne is competing against a sinister German fellow who goes by the name of ‘Widowmaker’!  How very ominous!

Widowmaker, A.K.A. Willi Van Dornt doesn’t like the competition from Wayne, so he tries to sabotage his racer, which leads to a nice scene where Bruce Wayne discovers them and starts to crack some heads, only to be discovered by Wonder Woman.  This means Bruce has to take a dive, which he does, all while using his training and skill to avoid taking any real punishment.

It’s a nice little detail, that Batman is so good that he can fake a loss and stay in control.  Of course, if Wonder Woman is the warrior she should be, or even the martial artist she’s supposed to be here, she should be able to see through such a ruse.  Nonetheless, it makes for a fun few pages.  Bruce gets a bit banged up, and the real meat of the story begins as he pretends that he’s convinced Batman to race for him as a cover.  There’s some added backstory of this murderous racer being the son of a villain Batman had faced in the past, but that doesn’t amount to much.

Wonder Woman runs interference against Willi’s minions who try to ambush Batman’s car along the track, while Bruce pits his skill against Widowmaker’s dirty tricks.  It’s a really nice, exciting, quick-moving tale, shifting back and forth between the different perils the heroes face with much the same energy as an actual race.  The pacing is very good, and the series of challenges the heroes face is interesting.  I’m particularly fond of the ending, which involves Willi being hoisted on his own petard as his henchman springs one of his own traps on his boss.  Seconds later, Batman’s beaten, battered racer limps across the finish line.  It’s a little bit of poetic justice, and it is a good payoff for the tension of the race.

One other little point, this comic also included a text piece about the previous heroes of the Brave and the Bold book, including the likes of the Golden Gladiator, Robin Hood, the Viking Prince, Cave Carson, and the Silent Knight.  It includes short blurbs about some of their biggest adventures and poses the question about who is the greatest hero.  For my money, it is definitely the Viking Prince, but it is neat to see these guys mentioned again, and it makes me a little sad that their features have all faded into obscurity by this point.

Well, I give this not-all-that-zany tale 4 Minutemen out of 5.  It really is a fun story, and pretty well told, even if there isn’t a whole lot to it.

Challengers of the Unknown #71

Cover Artist: Nick Cardy
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: Jack Sparling
Inker: Frank Giacoia
Editor: Murray Boltinoff

This Challenger’s story  is the fourth in a set of connected tales, so I went back and read the previous entries in this arc before I got to it.  It seems clear that, here at the end of the run, the writer, Denny O’Neil seems to have been trying to shake things up.  The first story in this arc saw the brainy quarter of the Challengers get ‘possessed’ by an evil computer (don’t ask), and the second saw him seemingly mortally wounded.  They lost no time replacing poor Prof. with a random lady, in fact, the daughter of the evil genius who tried to kill him.  All of this coincides with a change in costume.  It seems clear that this series was on its last legs, which is a shame, because they were really onto something good with these changes.  In fact, this series would only last three more issues before the book was relegated to a reprint feature.

This story picks up where the last issue left off.  In the previous issue, the Challengers, fleeing from your average remote castle stronghold of your average mad scientist (in this instance with a super awesome old-timey mustache and chops, plus a sweet cape) stumble upon a plot by spore aliens (because of course) who want to conquer the earth.  They defeated the chief alien and his hillbilly cultists (nope, not kidding), and this issue opens with them stumbling into a small town, which the escaping spore alien has taken over (with the aid of a witch!).  The townspeople are forced to serve spore-y, and the Challengers, battered by their previous day’s adventures and on their last legs, are defeated and captured, only to be freed by Red’s little brother (and apparently a singing sensation?), Tino.  Apparently a bit has changed between the original issues I read and this point in the series.

Whew!  I didn’t intend for my recap to be that long!  O’Neil really packs a ton into this issue (and the previous ones as well), and you really feel the Challengers’ exhaustion and desperation during their final stand.  I do feel like poor Prof. got the short end of the stick here, but this issue ends with him making it to the hospital and getting medical help, sothe door was open to bring him back.  The new addition, Corinna seems fine, though she doesn’t have much personality.  She’s also disturbingly okay with the murder of her father.  ‘He’s evil, oh well’ seems to be about the extent of her mourning.  I’d keep an eye on her, Challengers.  Chances are, she’s a sociopath.

Yet, whatever she lacks in emotional depth, Corinna (what kind of a name is that?) makes up for by adding a nice little wrinkle to the Challengers’ dynamic.  She sets up an interesting conflict between Red and Rocky, with the acrobat constantly putting her down and generally being a jerk to her while Rocky moons like a love-struck schoolboy.  Interestingly enough, Corinna seems to only have eyes for Red, which says some rather disturbing things about her views on relationships.  Then again, her father was an abusive megalomaniac.  Sorry Rock, nice guys finish last and chicks dig jerks, apparently.

This shift in story tactics by O’Neil is an interesting one.  It adds some good characterization to the Challengers who, for most of their history, have been pretty one note.  It’s good to see these guys get some development, especially Rocky, who is more than just the generic strong man as he silently fumes over Red’s treatment of Corinna and laments his own lack of luck.  This was a wild but solid story, providing you don’t think too deeply about rapid change in plots.  There’s little denying it is fun, and the art is wonderfully atmospheric, beautifully creepy and well-suited for the tale.  The artist, Jack Sparling, does a great job of giving each of the Chals a unique face, which really adds to their individuality and characterization.

In general, this was a good example of a solid, exciting Bronze Age story.  It isn’t high art, but it’s the type of action-packed, not too ridiculous (for a comic) yarn that marks this era of evolving storytelling.  I’d give it 3 Minutemen out of 5.

Detective Comics #395

Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Penciler: Neal Adams
Inker: Dick Giordano
Editor: Julius Schwartz

For my money, I’d say Batman is probably the easiest comics hero to write, as he has a very strong setting, a great supporting cast, and the best villains in comics history.  He’s had, arguably, the most consistently high-quality runs of any mainstream character.  He and Superman are two of the purest, most archetypal, and most influential characters in comics history.  There’s a reason, or rather many, that Batman has had such enduring popularity, and one of the main ones is that Batman embodies the mythic elements that are inherent in the concept of the superhero. I suppose, then, that there is no suprise that Batman has always been one of my favorite characters, all the way back to the campy Adam West show and its cartoon counterpart.  As a kid, I loved those corny, goofy shows, and now my young nieces and nephews love them as well.  It’s clear that those shows and that tone (recaptured to a certain degree in the Batman: Brave and Bold show) are perfect for kids, however much they may gall adults.

When I got a bit older, I discovered the best of all Bat-worlds, Batman: The Animated Series, the greatest superhero show of all time.  That is, for my money, the best version of Batman, and Bruce Timm and co. made very intentional efforts to create a show that was the distillation of all that was best in Bat-history.  Many of the themes and concepts that were combined into TAS have their origins in the original incarnation of Batman in the Golden Age, but it is here, in the Bronze Age, where they make their return and the ‘real’ Batman that most of us think of actually comes into his own.

We’re not at the absolute beginning of this trend, but we’re not all that far off.  This period would see several definitive runs that reshaped Batman for the coming decades.  It is at this point that the campy Batman of the 60s fades and the shadowy Dark Knight Detective takes center stage thanks to the efforts of comics luminaries like Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams.

That’s the team behind this tale, which is indicative of the good quality of the story and its spooky, mysterious tone.  This yarn begins with a nice, moody establishing shot of Batman brooding over two empty graves.  He’s in central Mexico, attending an extravagant party of a wealthy and mysterious couple who have a macabre fixation on death, even hosting this party in their own family graveyard.  The plot centers around the couple trying to covertly kill an agent of the Mexican government who is investigating them, all while Batman works to save him.

That’s where the tale takes a turn for the strange, as there is a final confrontation in a ruined building where Batman discovers a secret field of flowers, which are apparently madness inducing…and also endow people with immortality.  That’s a twist worthy of ‘ol Zany Haney.  Still, despite the rapid-fire delivery of the exposition and the strangeness of the concept, it sort of works.  The couple, supposedly over a hundred years old, wither and die in moments, falling fittingly into their own, empty graves.  Their passing leaves behind a number of unanswered questions, but given the horror flavor of the story, it isn’t as big of a problem as it might seem.  This tale evokes the mystical, mysterious feel of the old horror books, where certain questions are left unanswered as part of there overall effect.

This is a good story, not the best of the Batman tales we’ll be encountering, but of the above-average quality that is, in fact, average for Batman books in the Bronze Age, especially in Detective Comics.  I give this one a solid 4 out 5 Minutemen.

Detective Comics had a backup feature for most of its history, and at this point it is trading off between Robin and Batgirl.  I’m a big fan of the Bat-Family, so I’m excited about reading these backups.  This one is the second half of a Robin adventure, with a nice framing device of being relayed through letters Dick sends home from college.  I love Robin, specifically, the only real Robin (where I’m concerned), Dick Grayson.  He’s one of my favorite characters.  The concept that created him, that kids would identify with and want to be him totally worked on me as a kid.  I was aware I couldn’t be Batman, but maybe, just maybe, I could be Robin.  I love him as a solo act, as well as with Bats, but at this point, going off to college and being almost a grown man, it is certainly way past time to give the guy pants.  I don’t understand how this went on so long.  He’s been older than is appropriate for his green trunks for years and years at this point.  The particularly bizarre thing is that they’ve had multiple stories that have provided perfectly viable costumes for an adult Robin, none of which they’ve bothered to adapt.  Aqualad has the same problem, but at leas the wasn’t as high profile as poor Dick.  So, that ridiculously outdated costume always takes a little something away from these Robin stories.

This particular tale involves Robin attempting to break up a communist plot (!) involving creating student unrest with fake accounts of police brutality in order to shutdown Hudson University (!).  It’s a very 60s style story, and not a terribly interesting one.  You have to think that the vague, unspecified commies would have better things to do with their time and money.  Nonetheless, Dick manages to break the case open, despite taking a beating and being captured for the second time in two issues.  He does manage a fairly nice escape, taking out two guards, all while handcuffed.  Still, it isn’t his most impressive showing.  I like the idea of having stories with him away in college, but I don’t think all the stories necessarily have to be set ON campus or deal with university matters.  It just limits the character way too much.

It isn’t a particularly impressive story, despite the cool escape, so I’ll give it 2 1/2 Minutemen.

G.I. Combat #139

Writer: Robert Kanigher
Artist: Russ Heath

I’m a big fan of the idea of the Haunted Tank, and by this point, Jeb and his boys have become the undisputed stars of this book.  Still, though I love the idea, what I’ve read from the Silver Age hasn’t electrified me.  I’m now skipping ahead about five years to this issue, and I definitely think things are improving.  The older stories were fine, but I just felt like they didn’t really take much advantage of the concept.  Lift out scenes with the General’s cryptic warnings, which had exactly zero impact on most of the plots, and your average Haunted Tank story could just as easily have appeared in any other WWII book.  There were exceptions, but that was my general impression.  What fun is that?  If you’ve got a Haunted Tank, you should really play that up or you’re burying the lead!

This story doesn’t break that pattern as much as I might like (J.E.B. appears a grand total of one time), but it’s just an enjoyable tale on its own merits.  The basic overview is that Jeb and crew are dropped into North Africa to stop a Nazi advance through a pass and attempt to rally the local Bedouins to the Allied cause.  On the way, the crew discover that their contact, Prince Akmed, has died, perhaps killed by “The Mufti,” a generically evil adviser sort who favors the Germans. In a scene ripped from the pages of Around the World in 80 Days, the ever culturally sensitive comic delivers us a tribe of Bedouins who are preparing to burn Akmed’s wife, Princes Azeela, on his pyre in the archaic Indian practice of Sati.

Jeb, being the gallant Southerner that he is, is having none of this and, extinguishing the pyre, rescues the girl.  He agrees to marry the girl in order to protect her from her people, and she rides with him to battle.  In a particularly nicely illustrated sequence, the Tank goes up against heavier German armor, manages to plug the pass with the first Panther, and then fights a despearate holding action until rescued by Azeela’s people, who have been inspired by her bravery.

Sadly, the Mufti kills her in revenge, and in a surprisingly touching series of panels, beautifully drawn and inked, Jeb returns his princess to her people…forever.

The Princess doesn’t really get much to do other than die to unite her people (this story is not exactly a beacon of feminism), but Plot, er, I mean Princess Azeela, does serve as a nice little subtle moral quandary for Jeb.  He saves her from the pyre, but then what is a good man to do?  He agrees to marry her to save her from further retribution at the hands of her people, and we’re given a tender little scene with Jeb comforting Azeela whose husband, let’s remember JUST DIED.  The concern on his face, the tenderness of that embrace, is pretty effective at conveying a good deal more than the dialog.  Taken all together, that little panel aptly demonstrates the strength of comics as a medium of storytelling.  There’s a great efficiency of narrative in that one little combination of image and word.

This was a good story, though it still didn’t really take advantage of the whole Haunted Tank concept.  I’ll give it 3 and 1/2 Minutemen.

Green Lantern #74

Cover Artist: Gil Kane
Writer: Mike Friedrich
Penciler: Gil Kane
Inker: Murphy Anderson
Editor: Julius Schwartz

Green Lantern…ohh Greeen Lantern…this series has given me fits.  I’ve read the whole run to this point, and I am somewhat amazed the book survived this long.  I love Hal as a character, and I love the concept of the Green Lantern Corps.  In fact, I love pretty much everything about the original setup of the Silver Age Lantern: Hal’s test pilot civilian identity, his relationship with Carol (who was a powerful, capable, career-minded woman in an age where that was exceedingly rare in fiction), and the setting being split between Coast City and space.  He had a reasonably strong rogue’s gallery, and he was all set to have an excellent hero career.  And then one day the creative team just decided to toss all of that.  They upended Hal’s life, had Carol suddenly agree to marry someone else off panel, and then Hal became a wanderer, a set of circumstances that would stick with him for years to come.  This is not to say that the early Silver Age GL comics were particularly good.  They’re about average for Silver Age books, which makes them pretty hard to read these days, but at least the concept was a promising one, and this shift…?  Not so much.

It’s an inexplicable decision to me, as they clearly had no real goal in mind other than to shake up the book and ditch Carol.  The unforgivable result of this path is that it made Hal Jordan, one of the coolest DC heroes in his civilian identity, lame and boring.  He went from being a hot-shot, devil-may-care jet-jockey to, wonder of wonders, an insurance salesman.  How does that make any kind of sense?  Over the next twenty issues Hal continues to drift from job to job and place to place, and the instability makes the character seem flaky and more than a little worthless.  This also removes the ability of the book to provide Hal with any kind of supporting cast other than his fellow Corpsmen, who are more or less dropped from the book as well during this period.

Of course, after those twenty issues the comic turns into the famed Green Lantern/Green Arrow combined title, and Hal goes from being someone who can’t hold down a job to an actual, jobless bum.  This run is widely praised and quite famous, standing as a seminal moment in the development of comics and the Bronze Age in particular.  Despite acknowledging its cultural importance, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the ‘hard traveling heroes’ run, but I suppose I’ll talk about that when I get there in a few issues.

As for the issue in question, it is the second part of a two part story wherein Hal heads back to Coast City and meets up once more with Carol Ferris, mysteriously still unmarried.  Their first encounter in the previous issue is really rather nicely done, but I imagine that this return home gave a good many readers false hope.  Sadly, it was not to last.  When Green Lantern goes to talk with Carol, she inexplicably transforms into Star Sapphire, despite not having access to the troublesome gem.  She somehow transports Hal into deep space, also conveniently stripping him of his memories of being Green Lantern.  This issue picks up where that one left off, with a rather pretty trap for Hal to escape.

Stranded in space without any of the knowledge he needs to save himself, this is an interesting premise.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really last very long and Hal is quite blase about the the whole thing.  ‘Ohh, I seem to be lost in the infinite void…ho-hum.’  It is a good chance for Hal’s natural fearlessness to shine, but it doesn’t quite come off that way, and the problem is a bit too easily solved.  This image also demonstrates a weird trait of the art in these issues, where Gil Kane stacks images upon one another to diverse and often not entirely successful, but always innovative, effect.

Once Hal gets back to Earth, he discovers the true cause of his current problems, Sinestro!  At this point, it has been a very long time since we have had any real supervillains in the book, especially any of Sinestro’s quality, so he’s a breath of fresh air.  For most of the last dozen issues or so, Hal has been suffering from boring stories featuring random, regular hoods.  Yep, they make a great challenge for the man with the most powerful weapon in the universe.  Sinestro, on the other hand, especially backed up by Star Sapphire, makes for an excellent antagonist, and this story has the renegade Lantern in particularly good form.  He’s ruthless, cunning, and completely self-assured.  He moves effortlessly from battling to manipulating Star Sapphire.  Together, they (a little too easily) take Hal out, and the Lantern is saved by…”Pieface” (the most offensively named supporting character in comics history?).  It’s nice to see ‘ol Tom Kalmaku again too, and both of these characters make me miss Hal’s old status quo.  The story ends with Hal defeating Sinestro…or does it?  He looks so wonderfully smug in that last panel.
Don’t you just want to pop him right in that red face of his?  That is a villain worthy of Hal.  Of course, Sinestro has a backup plan, and with the customary warning that “there is always a next time”, he vanishes!  This leaves Hal to try and explain the whole ‘Star Sapphire’ thing to Carrol…and, well, she doesn’t take it too well, running out of his life for a second time.

So, in the end, Hal is left more or less where he was to begin with.  He’s got no supporting cast, no stability, and we’re about to enter another long stretch without any villains to speak of.  This is a fine story, so far as it goes.  Isolated from the drudgery that is the rest of this run, it is pretty good.  Sinestro is fun in it, and his little character moments make some progress in identifying him as someone who is more than just an evil Green Lantern who is evil because he likes being evil…evily.  It isn’t a lot of progress, but it is progress, and you get a sense of his arrogance and pride.  The art is fairly weak, and the power ring battle, which should have been really visually interesting and exciting, is inexcusably flat and boring.  Kane is a very Silver Age-y artist, skilled and consistent, but Green Lantern could really benefit from someone with a more creative and energetic style.  Imagine what Jack Kirby could have done with a GL book!  In the end, I give this story 3 and 1/2 Minutemen out of 5, if only because it is such an improvement over what came before.

Superman #222

Writers: Edmond Hamilton and various
Pencilers: Al Plastino and various

This seems to be a collection of Silver Age Superman tales, and as such, exactly what I don’t much want to read.  I just skimmed these reprints and didn’t find much to catch my interest, though several of these could make excellent examples of the internet sensation that is Super-Dickery. Stories involve an ersatz lost brother for Superman, some hypothetical children for him and Lois, and various other familial and social complications.  The only one that stuck out to me was a tale set in Kandor, part of a story featuring two sons of Superman, one super, the other, not so much.  It cracks me up to see Superman running around, doing familial stuff in his costume.  I think I won’t cover reprints in any kind of detail.

And there you have it, folks.  Wow!  That missive proved much more massive than I intended.  Future iterations should prove to be much smaller as they won’t need all the framing and general discussion that this one sported.

This has been, more or less, January 1970 in DC Comics.  It was a pretty solid month, all told, but I’m looking forward to getting further into the Bronze Age, where more of the 60s Silver Age-ish tendencies will be shaken off.  Join me again, approximately whenever I get around to it, for the next month of books (probably next month).