Gone & Forgotten

Defenders Week: The Essential Elf With A Gun

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:49:00 +0000

I will be perfectly honest with you: the sole reason I started Defenders Week - heck, the sole reason I went back and started reading The Defenders from the start in the first place - was because of Steve Gerber's classic nihilistic, existential theatre of the absurd interlude drama, The Elf With A Gun Saga.

Intermittently throughout his groundbreakingly awesome run on The Defenders, Gerber would draw attention away from the primary plot for a seemingly unconnected series of vignettes in which otherwise ordinary people caught in the midst of doing nothing spectacular were suddenly set upon by a homicidal mythical midget intent on shooting them down like wooden ducks on a fairway ...

The implication was, of course, that the Elf With A Gun was ultimately to somehow cross over into the primary Defenders storyline, and frankly wouldn't have seemed out of place considering that Gerber's other contributions included an evil possessed deer, a personality cult centered around a cosmic being masquerading as an abusive schlep, and about all the Jack Norriss you can handle.

In fact, the one occasion when the Elf got within some sort of proximity to the main story seemed to be teasing a confluence.

Fantastically though ... IT NEVER DID. Gerber offed the Elf suddenly (see below) in its final appearance.

A hundred issues after the Elf's debut, series writers J.M.DeMatteis and Peter Gillis revisited the idea with something approaching a conclusion. As an authority in the overwhelming epic that is the Elf With A Gun saga, I give it a thumbs-down. Gerber wrote an amazing story about a serial killer master-of-many-disguises elf and how he got killed by a truck, and I dare anyone to put a better coda on it than that.

Defenders Week: Hellcat is a little bit forward.

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:49:00 +0000

Defenders Week: This Deer? It is evidently something or the other...

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:01:00 +0000

This deer? It is evidently evil.

This deer, it is evidently evil.

This deer is evidently evil!

THIS DEER IS EVIDENTLY EVIL!

Defenders Week: Everyone Loves Forcing Themselves on Valkyrie!

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Welcome to Defenders Week here at Gone&Forgotten (By “week” I mean “the next several articles, whether they happen to come out within a seven-day period, but let’s face it, they won’t, so anyway what I mean is here’s a bunch of subsequent articles on the same topic”). It’s Defenders Week (see previous note) because I’ve recently taken advantage of this near-complete Defenders run I’ve had sitting around for forever and a day to sit and read pretty much the whole catalog in a few sittings.

Here is what I basically learned about the Defenders; the entire concept (of a loosely-affiliated team unlike the tight-knit Avengers and X-Men) is a lot more fun and neurotic than an organized team, that Steve Engelhart and David Anthony Kraft clearly wrote the best issues, and – most importantly – EVERYONE LOVES FORCING THEMSELVES ON VALKYRIE.

Valkyrie has the dubious honor of being Marvel’s first “liberated female” superhero, except that she actually was the Enchantress in a secret super magical disguise and was using women’s lib as a tool to trick the female Avengers into turning against their male partners. Listen, hey, I’ve read those old Avengers comics, I’m 100% behind Scarlet Witch and the Wasp slipping Ben-Gay into Black Panther’s speedos, those guys was DICKS.

Anyway, many a years later, Doctor Strange transferred the soul of a woman named Barbara Norriss – who had been trapped in an alien dimension and driven totally bazonkers – into the body of the Valkyroe FOR SOME REASON, from which point on Valkyrie became essentially the first dedicated member of the Defenders.

Valkyrie was supposed to be a new vanguard of female character, was probably a transparent piss-take on Wonder Woman (who’d been lauded earlier by Gloria Steinem and either awkwardly or ironically embraced by the feminist movement even as she was sort of a palsied mess of a character in the Seventies), and was the model of the self-possessed Seventies’ woman – except mostly she just got made out on by all her teammates when she wasn’t looking.

Unsurprisingly, the first guy to take advantage of Valkyrie was then-ex-Avenger Hawkeye, a guy you can imagine eats every meal at Hooters and has a subscription to both Maxim AND Stuff.

Naturally, Val ends up sort of liking the attention, because that’s … I dunno, irony? Base condescending tripe? Something?

Next up is teammate Nighthawk, who has to ruin a nice moment by reminding us all that he’s the privileged son of a billionaire and he can do whatever he wants.

Valkyrie starts to finally get sick of dudes cramming their tongues down her gullet like they’ve got worms on the end of ‘em and are angling for sturgeon in her abdomen. Problem is that this time the tonsil-hockey all-star in question is Barbara Norris’ (that’s Val’s braindead host body) estranged husband and full-time schmuck Jack.

Jack trying to get into Valkyrie’s pants turned into one of the single most annoying subplots in Defenders history – and this is the comic that brought you the elf with a gun (see a later entry) and an evil deer (ditto). Nick Fury eventually showed up to induct Jack into SHIELD, and then ideally shot him on the way back to that magic barbershop where SHIELD used to have their headquarters, and fed his body to the Hulk. I can dream.

Engelhart was hilarious enough to acknowledge that his “Valkyrie trapped in a women’s prison” storyline was directly lifted from exploitative B-Movie dreck, and where would those films be without the warden trying to make it with the fresh meat?

Lastly, Valkyrie ends up hanging out with - as near as I can tell – an extra-nerdy film school dropout version of John Byrne and hanger-on Jim Shooter, meaning that she’s been so soured on all experience with men that she’s just giving up. This doesn’t stop the advances of exciting new villain LUNATIK, whose primary weapon is … LOVE.

Now, see, the thing is, there might be more occasions of dudes getting in cheap tongue-locks on Valkyrie, but these are all the incidents from the issues I’ve read so far. Who else tried to slip her one, do you think – Hulk, Doctor Strange, Namorita? They’re all possibilities, because if I’ve learned anything from the Defenders it’s that … EVERYONE LOVES FORCING THEMSELVES ON VALKYRIE.

Stumbo, the Giant Racist

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:34:00 +0000

I consider myself something of an aficionado of the L-for-R transposition in fictionalized Chinese and Japanese speech. It's a time-honored gag, and whether it's used obliviously for the simple comedic flair of incomprehensibility, or manipulated in the masterful hands of a young Benny Hill, one thing is for sure: It's pretty darn racist.

Rather than dragging out any thousands of Blackhawks or Crimson Avenger panels with which to offend, I bring you what may be the single most egregious use of the transposition, courtesy of an old Harvey Comics story in which Stumbo the Giant has misplaced his diminutive duchy Tinytown, and searches for it in - amidst other places - a hollowed-out mountain where he sometimes keeps stuff. You know, like living beings.

FACT: THERE'S NOT EVEN AN R IN "STUMBO,"SO WHAT THE FUCK STLUMBO???

Crime Was Different Back In The Day (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:22:00 +0000

Once again, this is from Captain Marvel and the Good Humor man

Crime Was Different Back In The Day (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:31:00 +0000

From Captain Marvel and the Good Humor Man

Super Friends, After Dark

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:22:00 +0000

I’d mentioned previously that E.Nelson Bridwell, while taking on writing chores for the Super Friends comic (and doing a surprisingly decent job for what was essentially a tie-in to a Saturday Morning Cartoon – Bridwell certainly knew he had here the opportunity to work not only on the Justice League but to do so against a practically clean slate ) indulged in the opportunity to develop a backstory for Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins.

The Twins took on secret identities in order to attend school and learn about their adopted world, and in doing so piqued the curiosity of some of their classmates. In Super Friends #29, some of the disguised Twins’ classmates took it upon themselves to discreetly follow the pair after school, to sneakily uncover what appeared to be an aura of strangeness about the two of them. Of course, the Wonder Twins were trained in surveillance and evasion by Batman, and trained in killing dudes by Amazon soldiers, so they just slaughter their classmates and bathe in their blood.

OH NO WAIT, I got distracted. Knowing that they’re being followed (by a different classmate every day), the Twins come upon a plan -a weird plan, I admit – to baffle their classmates. Each day, they lead the pursuing classmate to an alley into which they duck, and by the time the classmate turns the corner, they’ve used their transformative powers to become something weird to blow their minds.

Like, one time Jayna becomes an elephant with butterfly wings and Zan becomes, I don’t know, a spittoon which sings opera. Something useless. Or Jayna becomes a pterodactyl and Zan becomes novelty ice cubes made of blood, I don’t recall, Zan is boring.

And then, the last time, they become the following:

Super Friends. The comic where Jayna showed her tits to some chick. Subscribe now!

Super Friends #11: Never Mind Joker's Boner, Here's The ...

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:24:00 +0000

It’s pretty clear to me that E.Nelson Bridwell looked at his 1976 assignment to write the companion comic to the popular Super Friends Saturday Morning Cartoon as one fuck of an opportunity. He extrapolated on the premise of the team, worked in references to contemporary continuity in the DC comics universe proper, and featured guest appearances not only from other DC heroes but the occasional oblique cameo from a Marvel character or three. Bridwell also introduced a long-running storyline pitting the Super Friends against an evil mastermind, created what may be the first international and multi-ethnic team of super heroes by the way of the Global Guardians, and created an extensive backstory and developing story arc for Wendy, Marvin and the Wonder Twins. Oh, and also this:

Yes, Superman. You. Uh. You blew that job. One might actually call it a … well, they’d just call it that is what, Superman.

The Red Blazer! Zooom!

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:38:00 +0000

I have a new favorite superhero, another “Red-“ prefixed Golden Ager who is supplanting the place originally held in my heart by Quality Comics' The Red Bee (“He fights crime with the power of – a BEE! Just one! Which lives in his belt!"). My new guy is The Red Blazer, late of Harvey Comics back in their pre-Richie Rich days of Glamorous Detective Stars, girl commandoes and other utter superheroic bugshittery.

I like the Red Blazer for two reasons: First off, no matter how tacky a red blazer might actually be, it's nothing compared to the collection of Cirque de Soleil castoffs which ended up in this cat's hope chest, to wit:

Secondly, there is his origin story, which conveniently occurs in his first appearance (Harvey's Pocket Comics #1) The origin story serves an important purpose in comics – besides providing motivation for the character, it gives context to whatever it is the holy hell this guy in short pants and a Lone Ranger mask is doing shooting fire from his buttcheeks. Context is valuable. It keeps credulity from being sprained worse than a girl scientist's heel in a 1960s monster movie.

The Red Blazer's story starts in the wide open plains of Wyoming where one Doctor Morgan is returning from his sold-out forty year tour of Mars. Morgan is returning by way of an enormous spaceship that must have had cowpokes and ranchers across three states shitting themselves with a force so profound that it could be emblazoned over the archway entrances to many better universities.

Accompanying Morgan is his Martian assistant Kagah, who embraces the beauty of the vast, awe-inspiring prairie by promptly kicking the bucket on his first lungful of Earth atmosphere.

Doctor Morgan takes it upon himself to bury his beloved assistant, which is when random cowpoke Jack Dawson stumbles upon the scene. The cowboy code – and I know this, you may not know this, this is something I know – clearly states that anytime you find a stranger in the middle of the plains burying a dude, you just take him at his word that it was an accident. If you're trying for your “No Body, No Evidence" merit badge, you be an extra good scout and help the guy with his burying. According to the license plates, Wyoming is the “Thousands of Dudes Buried In Unmarked Graves" state.

Dawson's apparent absence of guile also leads him to unquestioningly accept the what I believe to be the utterly insane ramblings of Doctor Morgan, who fills Dawson's ears with some nonsense about returning from space with special magic technology to help mankind be more awesome. This is in spite of having just offed a guy. He must be a hell of a public speaker, this Doctor Morgan.

Morgan goes on to reward Dawson for all his help and faith by slipping him a roofie and stuffing him in the trunk of his intergalactic pedo van.

Dawson awakes, alone, in Liberace's swimsuit, apparently on a cot in the boiler room of Doctor Morgan's spaceship – oh, which Morgan set on automatic pilot and sent hurtling into the path of some space rays. A trustworthy sort, this Doctor Morgan.

The radiation bath – and I'll bet a million dollars that wasn't the only bath Dawson got when he was unconscious – not only gives him the fashion sense of a mime smurf but also the power of “ASTRO-PYRO RAYS." And possibly a rash. The Astro-Pyro rays not only improve Dawson's cornpoke dialect but knock him up the evolutionary ladder “a few pegs," making him “the perfect man." The perfect man wouldn't wear his collar up, I know this for a fact.

From there, the story takes the usual Golden Age vigilante track – Red Blazer declares a war on crime, employs a probably-unnecessary level of brutality, terrorizes some hoboes and generally just kills a whole bunch of fuckers without ever so much as looking back. At the end of the story, Doctor Morgan – whom we last saw wandering off into the empty plains of Wyoming in no particular direction – suddenly shows up on a video monitor to gleefully congratulate his mutated research subject on orphaning all kinds of kids. Go Red Blazer! I like to think that during his off-screen time, Doctor Morgan was off exposing more Martian housemaids and butlers to Earth atmosphere and watching them drop like flies. I bet he found it funny, and still laughs when he thinks of fields of freshly upturned, bumpy earth stretching out as far as the eye can see …

Speed Comics #35 (Not to be confused with Uppers Adventures or Tales of the Amphetamine)

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:47:00 +0000

I’ve spent the last few years divesting myself of my gargantuan comics collection – I’ve dropped from 15,000 comics to eleven, so you know I’m serious. If I ever did take up collecting again, though, I think I’d have to make the theme of my collection Comic Book Covers Where Whoa Damn Too Much Shit Is Going On Seriously Now.

What I don’t get about this cover is what the Girl Commando down in the bottom right hand corner is doing with that rifle. Was she trying to break the winch? Because if she did, you know, *bloop* goes the Black Cat right into the acid. “Like I even care,” I imagine her saying, “Bitch dresses like a whore.” *smash*

They're coming in on the whoozis whatzis now?

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:25:00 +0000

(Pep Comics #65, 1948, when it was okay to show picutres of hands holding wieners in comic books ...)

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Dingbats of Danger Street

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:52:00 +0000

Note: As with many things, the temperance of time has mellowed my feelings towards the Dingbats of Danger Street (This article's several years old, I believe it's circa 1999 or 2000). They've grown on me in some reluctant fashion, so you can take some (but not all, mind you) of my vitriol with a certain grain of salt. Also, as time has passed I HAVE managed to find artifacts of Kirby verbally bashing Lee, in some uncertain and frankly uncomfortably angry terms. It's a shame, no one wants to see their childhood idols at each others' throats, but it's simply unreasonable to expect a human being to keep all their frustration bottled up forever. Aw well. It doesn't do much to diminish my respect for either of those men ...

Anyway, the article ...

Hey! I'm Red Raven, and I keep bob-bob-bobbin' along! I honestly don't know what I - and about a zillion other forgettable Golden Age characters - would have done if it weren't for Roy Thomas. He brought me back from my sole appearance in my very short-lived 40's self-titled book - and what kid wouldn't fall all over himself to plop down ten cents for the magic and adventure that the title "Red Raven Comics" promises - for a Marvel Premiere story featuring the Liberty Legion! We were such a force for good that we were led by Bucky! A sixteen year old kid!

Anyway, speaking of sixteen year old kids, let me introduce you to four guys too young to drown their sorrows in the Comic-Book Loser Afterlife Bar and Grill (Happy Hour every Tuesday from four to eight, karaoke every Wednesday)...

Oh, I've been wanting to do these fellas for the longest time. I've always been a fan of Kirby's sensawunda boy's adventures, like the Newsboy Legion, and - as I'm sure you've figured - I love really crap comics. And Look! Both at once!

Yeah, I'm hard on this book, but it's pretty indefensible. First off, even though Joe Simon brought us the Outsiders, he did have a great hand at team books back when he and Kirby were an item. Unfortunately, Simon was nowhere near this project when it was green-lighted. Secondly, the book really lacks a clear focus as far as story and characterization - hell, even consistency what with super-villains bounding and leaping and passing gas (and all this without Kilgore Trout penning a word) in the center of an urban slum. So, not only is this not exactly Fantastic Four, I perceive it gets partially derailed by a sort of abortive Stan Lee parody.

The situation between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby really is a bit nebulous, even to the most dedicated insider (which
I am certainly not. And neither are you, so shaddup). Whereas they had a very final split, it was never a very vocal one, at least on behalf of the Man and the King.

By some records, it was a hateful parting between the two old collaborators, but you'd be hard-pressed to find either of them saying a bad word towards the other. Stan has never failed to praise Kirby, and the King's always looked
ahead; he had little to say about past slights, and always an excitement about the future.

The Stan/Jack split plays a big role in this story because of the character, Jumpin' Jack, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lee. Course, I didn't see much of Lee in the character beyond his Stan 'stache and his Marvel-like moniker, except for an occasional quote that seemed to swipe a little at Lee. Like this one, sparing us any more of Jack's "quotes."

Lest the anal legions come pouring over the ramparts at the omission, I will take a moment to mention Kirby's piercing and flamboyant Stan Lee parody, Funky Flashman. A staple of the Mister Miracle books, Flashman was at once both a model of base human desires used in contrast to the godly
concerns and morality of the New Gods, and an exaggerated caricature of Stan Lee. Blustering, bombastic, deceptive, short-sighted and glory-hogging, Flashman was a constant thorn in the side of the messianic and ever-patient Scott
Free, as well as to Kirby's common clay everyman (and alter-ego, perhaps?) Oberon.

But, as Flashman's schemes wore on, he inevitably ended up (reluctantly, of course) benefitting the common good. Likewise, though he was a well known con man and thief, Oberon and Free tolerated him time and time again. In fact, as I do maintain that Oberon was Kirby's "voice" in these books, just as Flashman represented Lee's, and Miracle constantly kept a peace between the two of them which inevitably resulted in Flashman's humiliation and Oberon's humbling. And then they'd start it all over again. And since Miracle represented the unfettered spirit of man, and he was the peacekeeper between the two of them ... well, what does this say about Kirby's feelings for the Man?

I know a lot of you are disappointed that this review isn't mean yet, but COME ON, we're talking about the KING here!

Alright, anyway, back to the Dingbats.

"Look out for these lovable dum-dums." I didn't write that. "Their parents don't want them! Their friends don't want them! Society doesn't want them!" Heck, I don't want them, but here they are!

I hope you got all the characterization you wanted out of that prelude, cause that's all there was. From those opening words, the comic goes on to present an unconvincing series of idiosyncrasies and unmotivated character traits.

We start with ... "I'm Good Looks! -- Know why I'm laughin'? 'Cuz in a minute there'll be NUTHIN' to laugh about." And boom, that's about it for Good Looks. He doesn't even get the screen time that Tommy got in the Newsboy Legion. Or Proty got in the Super-Pet Legion.

Looks is backed up by the team brute, Krunch, who shops for belts at the same place Thor does.

Then there's the team nut ball, Bananas, who I THINK is supposed to be telling jokes and wise-cracking throughout the book, but nothing he says really makes sense. "Flap off," he tells adult
authority figure Det.Mullins, "Yer jail needs a sweepin'." Uh, okay. And then there's Non-Fat.

Okay, I don't really get what Non-Fat's role is supposed to be, except maybe he's the team anal-retentive or anorexic or something, and I've got NO idea how that fits into the classic team dynamic (Mister Fantastic, The Human Torch and Karen Carpenter? Rocky, Prof, Red and Callista Flockheart?). His shtick is that he has this hot dog, and he's not letting go of it. Nope. Alright. Oh, but he's gonn eat it too. And he's skinny. And his name is Non-Fat, but hot dogs are pretty much ALL fat.

And and and Non-Fat is pretty clearly MEANT to be black, but instead turns up white through out the entire book (for that matter, I suppose Bananas is supposed to be Asian, judging from his gross caricature. At least he didn't end up with the bright yellow skin so common to Asian characters in the Seventies). I'm not sure if the coloring choice was an editorial edict or a simple mistake, but the effects are eerie; Non-Fat is deeply and reflectively shaded, huge oily pools of blackness stick to his hands and face. And you know, that'd work fine with your usual black character from the Seventies (Black Lightning, Luke Cage, etc), but on a white guy it's WEIRD.

I mean, if I'm wrong, let me know, but why does Non-Fat gets his ridiculous hat in a twist when he hears someone call him "boy?" And why does Krunch warn Bananas not to let Non-Fat call him "Snow White?" It's so puzzling.

So the character concept is weak, and Non-Fat is all about food but he's incredibly skinny, and beyond that, they're all colossal fuckups and have no personality. And somehow they get involved in industrial espionage and capture two super-villains, but I'm not denying you a thing by skipping the content of the story.

But how about this edgy, youth-oriented slang? "We don't want to be hassled..." and "they're hassled by weird characters..." and "Man, reading this book was a real hassle." Also, you have to love that this obviously kids-oriented book starreda group of kids who'd named themselves "Dingbats," a term which, at the time, was only in popular use by middle-age, white Irish-American blue collar television icon Archie Bunker.

Plus, overall, what seems like the majority of the book is given over to the lame storylines involving industrial espionage, the super-villainous threat of Jumpin' Jack and the Gasser, and Det. Mullins either doing the traditional tough-guy comic cop routine or pondering the fates and psyches of the Dingbats, rather than the Dingbats themselves. And in case you didn't catch that, I said there was a super-villain called "The Gasser." THE - GASSER. Let me spell that for you, jee-ay-double-ess-eee-ar, GASSER! One who gasses!

The Next Issue box asked for folks to write in if they wanted to hear the "tragic stories" of the Dingbats. And I'd like to offer a deep and heartfelt thanks to everyone who failed to write in. I liked the Green Team better.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Superboy Spectacular 1980

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:32:00 +0000

Note: This article was written back when Smallville was in its first season, just to give you some probably-not-necessary background. The only difference it made was that I was not yet aware that Kristen Kreuk is an actress only in the same regards that Hitler is some sort of cuddly bunny, and as an actress actually resembled something less like an actress and more like a horrible odor that clings to your curtains and you don't know where it came from but you spray and spray with Febreze and it never gets any better so you replace the curtains finally and the smell lingers on and then it turns out that it's a dead raccoon in the heating vent. Seriously, she is not very good.

Anyway, the article ...

Yo, is it warm in here or is it just me? Anyway, I'm the Man O'Metal as I'm sure you could probably have deduced from my very metal-appearing blue skin and my flaming shoulder which just SCREAMS "metal." Yes, ever since I fell into a vat of molten metal, I've been encased in metal and on fire ... pretty much like would happen to ANYone who fell into a vat of metal. Difference is, I can still wear pants, breathe, and survive.

But neverminding what appears to be the most insane and haphazardly put together Man of Steel, here's a Man of Steel in the making, plus his dog of steel and planet of idiocies. Was that mean? It might just be that MY EFFING SHOULDER'S ON FIRE! Yow! It makes me testy!

What with the WB Network's upcoming "Smallville" TV show, I thought it appropriate to take a look at the kind of young Clark Kent we frankly will never see again. Back before every young Superman had to have a six pack that'd take top honors at the Arnold Classic, doe eyes, artistically tousled hair, and a pouty mug hanging from a set of cheekbones that'd make Linda Evangelista weep, we had a very earnest, round-faced farmkid in a set of fancy pajamas. And a six pack that'd take top honors at the Arnold Classic - jesus, you'd think with all the times Clark visited the "ol swimming hole" with Lana and the kids from Smallville High, they might've noticed that their pet bookworm was built like Lee Haney, only mildly paler.

Anyway, I was recently able to get my hands on a
Superboy Spectacular from 1980, which overall reads like "Superboy's Most Embarrassing Home Videos" - seven "classic" stories, one of which was a brand new fable letting us in on YET ANOTHER chance meeting of the teenage Clark Kent and teenage Bruce Wayne before their adult super-careers. These two kept meeting long before forming the World's Finest team, and each meeting was a triumphant exercise in stupidity, pretty much.

I should stop and point out here that my affection for the superman Family is unchecked: I love me some Superman. I love me some Krypto. I love me some Nightwing and Flamebird, some Supercar, some Bottle City of Kandor and, to a degree that worries my wife greatly, I love me some Supergirl. But Lord,
some of these stories.

The opening tale, for instance, relates the oft-flashed-back-to origin of Superman's costume, which was called during his Superbaby days (I kid not) his super-playsuit. That's right, Superman isn't flying around in his pajamas, he's not flying around in his underwear ... no, folks, he's flying around in the playclothes he wore as a toddler and which were woven from his swaddling blankets. Inspired personally, I now wear footed fuzzy pajamas to the office.

Some people say the Crisis On Infinite Earths was a bad thing, what with decades of admittedly haphazardly assembled canon taking a fucking savage beating in the name of revisionism. Personally, I think that when you've got a secret origin for your UNDERWEAR, you're criminally overwritten anyway. Like, I'm pretty sure the St.John's Bay jeans currently shielding my chair seat from the unfettered superpowers of my ass just came off an
assembly line in Botswana. I don't need to know how the threads were individually unravelled in order to appreciate that these are pretty nice pants.

One of the best parts of these old Superbaby stories, besides the infant Superman's charmingly retarded personal twist on baby speak - "This am not ice cream cone! Me sad! Waaaaah!" - was that Ma and Pa Kent honestly called him "Superbaby." Occasionally "Clark," sometimes "Son," probably - off-panel - they may have called him "Oh please stop beating me with your super fists, I'm sorry I said you couldn't have a cookie before bedtime," but predominantly they refer to their bundle of pride and joy as "Superbaby." I don't know what to make of that, but I think I would have gotten a little bit of a kick out of it if my parents had called me "Humble G&F Editor Baby," myself.

Second story in this tome introduces one of my favorite Superboy villains, the "Kryptonite Kid," and his immensely more brilliant partner ... "KRYPTONITE DOG!" If the odds of Superboy's pet
dog making it to Earth from his random path through space were already long, add to it the factor of a criminal from another planet being sent into space on a deadly experimental mission where he AND THE BULLDOG THEY SENT WITH HIM fly through a kryptonite cloud and gain amazing powers and then go to Earth to fight boy-on-boy and dog-on-dog with Earth's Mightiest Teen ...
in the Silver Age DC Universe, it's about a two-to-one chance. Odds are even in an 80-page giant.

Kryptonite Dog is pretty much the most cruel and amazing villain EVER in the Superman rogues gallery - yes, even more so than Zha-Vam, Terra Man and the Puzzler COMBINED. Don't believe me? Well, dig this ... At one point he maliciously lures Krypto to a tasty pile of bones which he then TURNS INTO KRYPTONITE BONES for NO other reason than to rub it in Krypto's face. He doesn't even fight Krypto, or try to kill him or whatever. He just teases him for not having any tasty bones. Wow! That's some complex motivation for a freaking bulldog, kryptonite or no.

The whole thing ends with Superboy and Krypto getting their impervious asses saved by Master Mxyzptlk, the teen version of ... man, if you can't figure out who he's the teen version of, me changing one freaking vowel in his name isn't going to help.

The absolute winner of this collection is a clumsy and inarticulate "Life On Krypton" story where Superboy uses some kind of mind ray device to recall his infant memories of his home planet. What we learn is that life on Krypton is nothing but a series of unconnected and unconscienably stupid vignettes, and that "Me want ice cream" is still retarded baby speak, even on a world light years away.

Actually, the highlight of this epic adventure into rambling pointlessness is Jor-El's FIRST accidental launching of Krypto into the icy grip of certain death deep in space. That's right folks, Krypton's greatest scientist doomed his boy's favorite pet not ONCE, but twice! The greatest mind on Krypton, folks. Personally, I think maybe Jor-El was just getting tired of finding his anti-grav slippers chewed down the atomic generator, or 'accidents' all over the Phantom Zone controls. Kal-El would've come home from space-school one astro-day to find science-dad saying "We gave Krypto to a family of cosmic farmers, son. He'll be happier there ..." and then a couple days later Kal-El notices Krypto's collar in the garbage on the curb. "Me want dog him no at space farm ice cream! WAAaah! Gargle!" he'd bellow, typically.

Not-yet-Superbaby's mom Lara is so incensed at Jor'el's attempted canicide, she actually LEAVES Jor-El. Why this gave me such inordinate pleasure, I cannot say, but on some levels it seems to me she probably should've seen the writing on the wall when Jor-El was firing every living creature he could get his hands on into space. "He might have a mean streak," I'm sure she found herself thinking on occasion.

So she ups and takes baby Kal with her, and to help keep his mind off their current troubles - you know, his dog is dead, his dad's fucking insane, the planet is doomed - she takes her beloved boy on a tour of Krypton's recreational marvels, ending in what I THINK is supposed to be comical mischief on the part of Kal-El, but really just comes off as pointless stupidity that filled ten pages the same way a stopped toiler can fill a bathroom. At a "robot showroom," Kal accidentally gets locked inside a robot and almost chokes
to death on robot farts, or whatever was going on. Then mom send Baby Kal on an underwater rocket into the midst of a battle between sea monsters. Maybe to teach him not to climb inside any more damn robots.

But oh, the finest moment occurs when Kal visits the "Hall Of Worlds," where donning a cape and rocket pack, he zooms around among the exhibits of life on other worlds, including a life-size diorama featuring - you guessed it, because you can sense stupidity as well as I can - Kal's future adoptive parents, complete with name tags. Awesome. Good lord.

Getting back to the Crisis On Infinite Earths, briefly, is there even the most die-hard fan out there who honestly thinks it benefits anyone to keep that kind of nonsense in continuity? That kind of nonsense is what precipitates ... bitter and profanity-laden articles like this one. Let's stop the cycle
of hate.

Anyway, more stupidity keeps abounding until Jor-El's public humiliation inspires Lara to return to her man, while along the way Kal inadvertently saves Krypto from endless decades trapped in the cold, unforgiving void. Until the next time it happens.

The next half of the comic wraps up with some pretty standard classic tales from a number of Superboy's creative eras, beginning with one where Superboy rather graphically demonstrates to the town of Smallville why he shouldn't be asked to compete in high school sports like football - in not so many words, but rather eloquently spoken after atomizing a tackle dummy in his demonstration of his gridiron skills, Superboy seems to tell the crowd of hicks: "I'd fucking kill everyone."

Then there's Superboy on a "To Tell The Truth" type panel show, and fighting ANOTHER damn Kryptonian - Last Son of Krypton my ASS, the only Kryptonians who didn't escape that planet's destruction were ones who'd deliberately been tied down to the planet's core, and shot in the fucking face before the explosion. It all ends with the aforementioned meeting of teen Clark and teen Bruce Wayne, one of the small legion of meetings between Superboy and the teen versions of his Justice League pals - remembering that Hal Jordan, Aquaman, and Oliver Queen ALSO met Clark as teens, and so did Lois Lane, Braniac, and for all I know, me.

In closing, though, I leave you with this: Best wishes from Superboy and his friends. You know, like Mxyzptlk, and the Kryptonite Kid who, earlier in that very issue, was trying to kill superboy to death via the loss of his life. Here, he warmly places a hand on Pete Ross' shoulder and smiles
gently. Ah, how time has tendered us all.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Skateman!

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:34:00 +0000

HELLO (Head Enlarged Looks Like an Ovum!) I am the artist formerly known as MODOK! (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing!) I was designed by the scurrilous rats at AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) as part of their many PLOTS (Plan Leveraged to Overthrow Tons of Stuff) for world domination. My role in the secret, scientific army? I'll let you guess. Yes, that's right, KILLING! Heck, it's all I was designed FOR! (Formal Operating Reason)

This started to cause problems during periods when there wasn't particularly anything which needed killing. And at the company picnics? Forget about it! "Hey MODOK, we need a sixth for basketball ... AAAGH, I've been killed! Why are you killing us? Basketball is for playing basketball, not for killing!" and I'd be all "Do I LOOK like a Mental Organism Designed For NOT Killing and Playing Basketball Instead (MODONKPBI)?" No, it was a mess all around.

Luckily, I've been reprogrammed as a MODOHBCRF (Mental Organism Designed Only for Hosting Bad Comic Related Features) ... so, settle back, kick off your in-lines, and ENJOY (Entertainment Now ...um ... no, Naively Just ... um ... Over ... shit, I'm out!)

Sometimes, you get thrown a curve. I returned from San Diego with a big, brassy and beautiful copy of Superman vs Muhammed Ali in my mitts. My intentions were good, as I intended to take this treasury-sized edition of Superman and - neverminding he was the greatest boxer of all time - what amounts to a fragile sack of boxing Earth-flesh, and relate to you in microscopic detail what surely was going to be a four-color anatomical study of Superman putting planet sized holes in Ali's ribcage, merely by forgetting his lines. I expected - nay, anticipated even - a really crappy comic ... and for that matter, it was, like, FIFTEEN TIMES LARGER than a regular comic, so it should be exponentially worse than even the worst comic, right?
Well, damn, it turns out that Superman vs Muhammed Ali is not only NOT a crappy comic, it's a downright GOOD comic. In fact, one of the best I've read in YEARS. Excellent pacing, nice and completely contrivance free plot twists and gimmicks, lots of empathy for ALL the main characters, and Adams' art was at an absolute peak. A four-star project, despite its somewhat flimsy premise.

And as screwed up as this is, the joy of reading a really good comic was almost overshadowed by the realization that what I expected to be a real prize for G&F had slipped out of my fingers. Luckily, while at the Con, I ALSO came across a copy of SKATEMAN, considered by many to be one of the worst comics ever done. One of those many is me, now. Wow. This comic. If a future civilization were to come across only copies of Superman vs Muhammed Ali and Skateman as the last remnants of our world, they'd think Neal Adams was a schizoid maniac, or our god of duality, or Two-Face. Whatever, as far as this book goes, Neal flipped the coin to the scarred-up, "let's make a book that sucks" side.

Actually, there's no clear indication that Adams wrote and drew this. Sure, it's in his style, but Neal oversees a lot of kids who work in his very imitable technique. Of course, Neal's name appears proudly (or, as proudly as possible, given the circumstances) right above the character name, although that could just as well imply Neal's proud ownership of the property. I really should've asked him while at the Con, but I was either drunk or apathetic, I can barely recall from the hazy obfuscation of miles of fanboy-flesh squeezing out all traces of oxygen and good taste.

But to the book! Skateman opens with a blinding action sequence, dropping us unceremoniously smack into the middle of an ongoing story. This is alright because the damn thing's gonna end right on the climax, more about that later.

The very first thing you notice about the book - besides the fact that you're laughing at the idea of a hard-boiled vigilante who kicks people with his roller skates - is that the cover is reproduced on the interior as the splash page. Always a sign of quality, that. Of course, they added dialogue, which includes Skateman's dynamic introductory line in his crimefighting debut:

"Hands off, jerkhole! ... We're forming a union! My foot and your face!"

So, you can see why I love this book.

It goes on from there, Skateman beating the hell out of some faceless thugs and ... of course ... skating the hell out of everything. During a hazy flashback (brought on by taking a damn 2x4 across his mug), we get a glimpse into the complex work of art that IS Skateman.

The story starts with Billy. I forget his last name, honestly, and I neglected to write it in my notes. I'm pretty sure they mention it in the book, but c'mon, I had to read this thing, like, EIGHT TIMES already, so have some pity on me. Anyway, it starts with Billy - a lifelong martial arts enthusiast - coming back from his Army stint in Vietnam to a new career as a - - - wait for it - - - ROLLER DERBY athlete! Yes'm, Billy finds fame, glory, and more as the star of the Roller Derby circuit. Unfortunately, it all falls apart for him when his best friend - and fellow Roller Derbier (what do we call these guys, anyway?) - "Jack" (Way to work those names, gang) is KILLED ... his death possibly owing to Billy's carelessness (but more likely to a gangster plot), Billy retreats into shrieking depression, cared for by his girlfriend Angel.

AND IT KEEPS GOING! Billy also befriends a local neighborhood "Beaner" (his words, not mine, folks) Paco, whom he teaches to "defend himself AND ride a skateboard." Teach what you know, I guess. This starts to help Billy out of his depression, until BIKERS KILL ANGEL! Thanks for being in the Dramatis Personae, hon, we really cared deeply for you as a character.

This sends Billy over the edge, and inspired by Paco's comic book collection, our flaxen-haired derby jockey adopts a disguise to strike terror into criminal's hearts - assuming the criminals live in Venice Beach and are easily scared - SKATEMAN!

Point of order. Here are the three things which have defined your life up to this point: You have studied martial arts for years, you served in the Army during the Vietnam War, and you roller skate. Which do YOU choose as the central theme for your career of masked vigilantism? Roller-skating? You're an idiot, someone please call Daredevil.

Let's fast forward to get through this. Billy is romanced by a girl named Jill, whose "personal brand of rock 'n' roll" - and a No-Prize
to whomever can explain what that means - and slavish devotion touch his
tender heart. Jill gets abducted by bikers, who apparently are in league with migrant workers to bring "shit" (according to the only black man who gets a speaking role in the book - I think he's
Rudy, from Fat Albert) into the country. Billy slaps on a pair of cotton briefs and a scarf around his head and rollerskates FOR JUSTICE, and is aided by a Newsboy Legion of
skateboarders.

As an aside, all the hispanic people in this book are apparently migrant workers. This alone is just not right. Then all the white people are either bikers or disco dancers. And all the black people in this book aren't anywhere to be seen at all. (Okay, except for Rudy). This is just one of many things that are chronically not right with this book.

Anyway, here's my favorite part of this book:
The thing ends on a climax. Like, the last thing we see is Skateman rescuing Jill from a massive explosion at the evil bikers' hideout, barely keeping ahead of the flame and shockwave, while Paco cheers on from the sidelines, shocked and amazed, and then the word "Finis" is on the page. Boom. The end. No plot strings tied up, no "to
be continued" (Though it pretty obviously was intended to be), no questions answered, no satisfaction delivered.

I'm not sure I have the words to describe how jarring it is to have a story end on the climax. Like, try to picture this; Luke Skywalker flies into the Death Star trench, Vader follows him, Solo ambushes Vader's TIE fighter and Luke drops in the blast that destroys the Death Star ... the Death Star EXPLODES ... freeze on the explosion, roll credits. Boom. The end. Unsatisfying, right? How about - Indiana Jones is tied up at the post, the Nazis open the Ark, they all melt - freeze frame, roll credits. Agh! Or, here's another example: This book sucks.

But Skateman sure doesn't fail to deliver! No, rather than leaving with us with a story which abruptly ends at no logical point, it brings us THREE stories that fail to end in any satisfactory manner.

The first backup is "Futureworld," featuring art by Andy Kubert from back when he used to draw a lot like his father, and less like not any good whatsoever. The story focuses on a post-apocalyptic future where a single brave youth - Korlak - must brave the wastelands and terrible dangers of two panels worth of flying a big zeppelin to get to "The Great Machine."

The "Great Machine" turns out to be an old Nuclear Power Plant, which we know because Korlak exclaims, upon seeing it, "Th-the Great Machine! It lives! A WORKING ATOMIC REACTOR!" ... Of course, in his very next word balloon, he muses "I have never seen such contrivances." Then how did you know it was a nuclear power plant, you dope? Korlak broke kayfabe. The rube.

The next story is "The Rock Warrior," which is what I'm gonna name my first-born. Here's the plot, as figured out following somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth read: Edgar is a boxer. Om is an inventor. They used to be partners in adventure until Edgar settled down, married, and had a daughter - Angie. Om accidentally drops his new invention - a handheld personal teleporter - while rushing to get some free lunch. The infant Angie grabs the thing and sends her and her father on a wild tour of dangerous spots throughout the universe. Along the way, Angie and Edgar meet the Rock Warrior, Om's twin (apparently fraternal) brother who fights crime with a space guitar. After a near miss rescuing Angie from a death ride in a giant missile, the duo come home, safe and sound.

Now, here's what the story felt like during the first eight thousand exhausting
efforts of making heads or tails of it: This guy with the stripes and this
guy and he has a teleporter, right? Then the baby grabs it and the guy I don't remember who go through time and the Space Warrior plays his guitar
and then they have to stop the missile so they go into space and they fight
it with lasers and then it's over and they're back home and the guy with the stripes, he says "should we tell them" and the baby says "Wok! Wah Wah!"

I hate to admit I enjoyed the whole Skateman experience - Rock Warrior and Skateman more than "Futureworld," just for the former duo's excessive incompetence and insanity - but I get to qualify it by saying I enjoyed it in the same manner as I enjoyed Manos, The Hands Of Fate, or groin injuries on America's Funniest Home Videos. On a final note, Skateman ends with this
line, tacked on to the end of the Rock Warrior story:

"Ok, readers. Do you want to see more of Rock Warrior? It's up to you, then. Write in!"

I can't resist when creative teams beg for support. Needless to say, I have pen in hand as we speak. How many "R"s in "Warrior?"

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Super-Heroes versus Super-Gorillas

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:25:00 +0000

I'm the FACE! Cut off your nose to spite me, that's my dare to you!

Okay, that was the worst joke I could think of right away, but get this, here's an even WORSE joke: Criminals were afraid of me! Yes, that's right, they feared me because my face was horrible and green and awful and obviously a mask, really. Rah! There, I scared you, too, didn't I? Time to give up that life of crime, if I can say so myself.

I like to think I provide an important lesson to all would-be superheroes out there, and that's that you don't need laser beam eyeballs or super strength or a belt full of fancy gadgets to be a REAL Hero ... all you really need, deep down ... is a gift certificate to Spencer's at their post-Halloween clearance sale.

DC Super Special #16 - this thing is the BIBLE of Super-Heroes Battling Super-Gorillas! Which, I realize is a statement dependent on the bible being a book about how monkeys come from space and they conquer us or kidnap our women or solve crimes, in the best of circumstances. Maybe it is about that, like I have time to read the Bible when I've got all these super-ape comics lying around.

"Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorillas" is a collection of four classic struggles between the forces of justice and the forces of apes. Now, this'll help me cover a good assortment of some classic simian characters who've graced DC's roster over the last sixty years, but it's barely the tip of the huge, hairy iceberg. For instance, it leaves out that gorilla who was made an honorary Marine sergeant in one of DC's
war books. Or Detective Chimp, who was a smart monkey who'd solve crimes his idiot owner would neglect. (Every episode, hewould attribute Detective Chimp's amazing discoveries to pure chance. "By pure luck, Bobo has accidentally mixed the precise chemicals necesary to make this invisible ink visible again!" ... "Bobo's clumsy antics have caused this diary to fall open to a precise
page which describes a likely motive for the murder" ... "Bobo's comical monkeyshines have linked the DNA evidence to the accused and invalidated his alibi, and his monkey chattering sounds enough like testimony to convict the accused for a hundred years!").

And then there's Monsieur Mallah, an enemy of the Doom Patrol, and Congorilla, who was a pal of Congo Bill (Like Arctic Ice Cap Carl would hang out with Arctic Ice Capybara - used that joke before, sorry), and Beppo the super-monkey who shouldn't hold his breath expecting a revamp like Krypto got, plus SO many more. But patience, we have time, and we have more than enough to deal with here.

The book opens with the classic Batman tale "Batman Battles The Living Beast Bomb," which is a title that honestly makes the reader ask some important questions, right?

Scrawny scientist Walter Hewitt creates a device which gives him animal powers (animals have powers?), but it all goes wrong when a gorilla he's shooting radiation at for the purpose of gaining APE STRENGTH ends up getting Hewitt's intelligence instead, AS - WELL - AS mental powers which he uses to command Hewitt to steal things. Like ... whatever a gorilla would want to steal, I guess. Bugs. Bananas. Tricycles.

So anyway, the gorilla invents a bomb that will destroy Gotham City, but not him (they don't explain how) and he wears it like a belt ... or a fanny pack, really ... and fights Batman as the bomb ticks down, and Batman knocks out the gorilla, and then it turns out the bomb slows down the farther away from earth it is (again, don't know why or how), so Batman military presses the big gorilla until the bomb runs out.

Many many many stupid things here. Usually, it's Superman who forgets that he has super powers, Batman and Robin are always right on the spot with whatever gadget they need from their belts. This time, they forget they have belts, and spend some time being amazed that their shorts stay up.

See, Robin shows up to help Batman keep this creature up in the air, and Robin decides to help by ... lying on his back and putting his feet in the air. No, Robin, not now! There's this stupid frigging tree RIGHT IN THE SHOT during most of the fight between Batman and the evil gorilla scientist mental power genius bomb beast, and at no point do Robin or Batman figure out it'd be easier to tie one end of a Batrope to the gorilla, the other to the Batmobile, throw the rope over
a tree branch and pulley him up above the ground. I am so not the world's greatest detective, and I got that!

The next story is "Wonder Woman -
Gorilla," which I guess is what the liberated amazon's name would be if she married Mr.Martin Gorilla. The whole story takes place on Amazon Island, and if you don't think they're
awful concerned about men setting foot on their island home, then you just don't know amazons!

I am so fucking puzzled by this story. I'll keep it short: Space Gorillas come to Earth to get mates, but not gorilla mates! No, human mates! Human
women mates! Why? Because they're unique! So the king of the space gorillas turns Wonder Woman into a gorilla girl, changes her back because he liked her better as a human girl, then changes himself into a human guy with his changing-people ray so he can be a unique mate to Wonder Woman's unique not-being-a-girl-gorilla status, and then Wonder Woman kicks him in the nuts and yanks his underwear up his crack.

Of course, here's why I'm puzzled. They value uniqueness. Human girls are unique. They have a ray that changes gorillas into apes and back again. Solution: Get some damn girl gorillas and make them human. The end. I am matchmaker to space gorillas.

Onto a Flash story featuring the "Reign of the Super-Gorilla," starring probably the most succesful gorilla-character in DC's history, the Super-Gorilla Grodd
(That is, by the way, his official villain name: Super-Gorilla Grodd. Imagine how screwed the Man of Steel's secret identity would be if he was required to call himself Super-Man Clark Kent - used that joke before once as well, sorry again)

This story hinges on the fact that Grodd escapes from jail (and the human body he was stuck in - don't ask), returns to Gorilla City (a super advanced
scientific community of hyper-intelligent gorillas hidden in the depths of Africa), where he sees a beautiful young gorilla girl and falls instantly in love. Learning that she's engaged to his arch-enemy Solovar, KING of the hyper intelligent gorillas, he creates a ray that makes himself incredibly likable, thereby stealing Solovar's throne of power, his fiancee, and eventually, the wills of the people in Flash's hometown of Central City where he intends to run for Mayor in a bid to control the world.

Look at that, not one intentional joke in the above paragraph, and see how it still ends up sounding?

Superman fights Titano, the super-ape, in a closing story they had to call "Titano, the Super-Ape," because of a bizarre policy at DC in the 1960's, where every fucking story had to have the name of the villain, the hero's hometown city, or the adjective "Super-" in it somewhere. Like, "The Mirror
Master's Two-Sided Crimes" or "The King of Gotham City" or "Lex Luthor's Super-Plot to Destroy Metropolis." And so on.

I'll spare you the specifics of the story, like how Superman once again cuts off the super-blood-pressure to his super-brain so he can super-be a super-fucking moron and cause great tragedy to befall Metropolis (in this case, by bringing Titano to modern-day Earth from the prehistoric era to which he had been banished), and instead pose this important question: How did Titano get to be a gorilla?

The origin of Titano is that he was a famous chimpanzee who did stage shows (this was the Fifties - chimps could be famous. It's perfectly reasonable that a succesful, well-to-do businessman
could come sweeping into his gentleman's club with a pair of tickets in his hand, just beaming with glee, and when one of his fellows puts down his brandy to ask what the tickets were for, the lucky man could reply happily "I got two tcikets to see the famous Toto the performing Chimpanzee. Then all his welathy, soecity friends would congratulate him on his good luck, and quietly form a seething ball of jealousy and resentment that they'd drown in cheap alcohol and mistresses. Like I say, the Fifties...). For some reason, the government decides to rocket him into space, possibly so as to test the effects of weightlessness on celebrities, paving the way for James Garner, Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland to return to space in 2000's smash hit, Space Cowboys, now available on VHS and DVD, check your local retailers. Space Cowboys - Boys will be boys! A Warner Brothers film, directed by Clint Eastwood.

In his hapless orbit, Toto withnesses a meteor of PURE URANIUM crash into a meteor of PURE KRYPTONITE, causing a STARTLING change in him when his capsule safely returns to Earth (and by the way, did you notice that Jor-El, Superman's father from a highly advanced civilization on a futuristic world, was basically incapable of safely sending a living creature into space without its orbit going haywire, meanwhile we "backwards" humans get Toto back, never minding a near-hit collision. Jor-El so tore through his test animals, including the poor, traumatized Beppo, that he resorted to using his SON'S BELOVED PET DOG as a test animal for his rockets! Yo, Jor-El! The ex-nazis the US government smuggled to White Sands figured it out! Here's to your super-advanced technology!)

Anyway, Toto returns to Earth where he undergoes that aforementioned STARTLING
transformation - to wit, he grows to a King Kong size. Now, here's my question - how'd he become a gorilla? Gorillas are not just bigger versions of
chimpanzees, they're a whole different species! It's like, you know Colossal Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes? Or Black Goliath? When they grow big, they become big humans, NOT giant marmosets, or koalas, or some dopey shit.
How'd Toto's transformation hop the species barrier? Questions abound, readers,
questions abound ...

Okay, also, this very story breaks the rules of physics it established by itself: To wit, Superman, at one point, flies up in a lead suit to fight Titano (The big ape has super-eyes of kryptonite ray shooting, in case I hadn't mentioned that before). Supes flies so fast that the air friction reduces the lead suit to slag. However, earlier, they flash back to Superman throwing Titano so fast the the ape "travelled through the time barrier," which is presumably much faster than it would take to melt lead. Haha. That bit about sending Titano through time was probably just the story Superman told everybody, like how your mom probably told you that your dog went to
a nice farm while you were away at Summer camp.

I have the original comic where the Titano story appeared, as an aside (all these stories in the special were reprints). Neat thing about it is a backup story where Superman dresses up in a devil costume to scare some criminals out of their nefarious plans. Personally, I'd just put my index fingers through the boss criminal's temple, boom, I bet the other crooks'd be pretty much scared out of a life of crime. Anyway, the important thing is that Superman took full advantage of his makeshift Halloween costume to create a devil motif ... i.e., skull cap, sissy Van Dyke, red leotard and cape ... Oh man. And he kept using his fantastic powers to do stuff like create smoke effects, and pretend to become invisible. This was in the stead of using his tremendous super powers to punch everyone unconcious and fly the crooks to jail.

Nothing to do with Super-Gorillas, just a weird aside ...

•Grodd's Got Gas!
•Jesus Christ, Lois! You're right! Why this observation deserves an exclamation ...

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Strange Sports

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:34:00 +0000

Splish splash, I've been taking a bath ... a BATH of JUSTICE, that is! I'm Hydroman, the hero who came in convenient buckets for easy carrying!Yes, I fought crime with an arsenal of super-powers as impressive as --- turning to WATER! Yes, DANGEROUS, CRIMINAL-STOPPING water! I could HOP OUT of GLASSES and SOAK criminals ... with JUSTICE! I could drench their shirts and ruin their suede jackets ... with SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY! And if my ability to convert my body into water wasn't enough, I also had ... these nice red shorts! Yes, and also, the spectral power of my boyto- ... partner, Rainbow Boy! So look out evil, you're about to get WET and SHINED UPON ... BY JUSTICE!

Well, folks, what we're looking at here comes to us from the pages of DC Super Special #10, and in this case, I'm pretty sure they mean "special" the
same way the Special Olympics and Seanbaby do. I don't even feel qualified to determine if this was a good or bad comic ... I'm still stuck in the "what the hell were they thinking" phase ...

The short version of this comic is "Super-Villains challenge Super-Heroes to a baseball game." The long version begins with "Ah, I KNEW you wouldn't be satisfied with the short version..."

To elaborate, the scene opens on Golden Age villains and long-time spouses Huntress and Sportsmaster in a ... let's call it "heated" ... discussion about their future career paths. Huntress is considering a switch to the side of good, because "good always wins." After beating her against the side of a doorframe with a tennis racquet, Sportsmaster convinces her to give him the opportunity to prove her wrong by, of all things, challenging the combined forces of good in the universe to nine innings of America's pasttime.

And so they kidnap nine super-heroes and villains and a stadium full of baseball fans. Way to start that path of moral righteousness. I still don't get why the first thing the heroes did after the game wasn't throwing Huntress' tuckus in the pokey for fifty-thousand-plus counts of
kidnapping. Ah well, my rational mind and the trouble it gets me into ...

Luckily, it's easy to kidnap them all, as the opposing forces of good and evil are engaging in several spots of conflict around the globe ... at charity sporting events. Nice theme. The villains encounter the heroes by chance at a variety of sporting events, an exercise which eats up a half dozen pages of story and already bores me to death.

Green Arrow, Batman and Black Canary are all together at a charity bowling event, and say that one to yourself a few
dozen times before you figure out why a pair of billionaires would sponsor the national game of Wisconsin retirees (No hate mail, please, I bowl too. I'm just saying ...). Additionally, among the other sports-themed events attended by the heroes, Kid Flash and Robin are naturally to be found at the horse track. Of course. What sport is more "with it" among the hip kids of today than horse racing? Nothing, that's what. And if you don't believe me, check out X-Treme Horse Racing over on ESPN 2. It'll be on at about 3:15 Wednesday morning.

We catch up with Superman playing with himself ... I'm sorry, I mean "playing A GAME OF TENNIS with himself," using super-speed to cover both sides of the court. What was the Seventies' fascination with drawing the super-heroes playing fucking tennis against themselves? "Look, Flash is running so quickly that he's playing a GAME of TENNIS against HIMSELF!" Great. I can do that too, assuming I have a brick wall handy.

Back to it, Sportsmaster and his confused wife assemble the assorted heroes and villains together in a purloined baseball stadium, give them the low down on the moral dilemma at stake, and make with the "play ball." Uncle Sam plays umpire for the good guys, Amazo for the bad guys, all on Lex Luthor's recommendation. Sure, trust Lex.

This is one of those stories where Superman forgets he has every super power ever plus five more you never heard of, and they're all jacked up on creatine and atomic energy. He keeps getting defeated by the villains' superior "logic." He poses to Sportsmaster the very question I'D ask, namely, why the heroes should bother to play when they could just whompass on the villains. Sportsmaster replies that he and Huntress will see to it that the sixty-six thousand hostages in the sports arena will be kept there "forever," by some undefined and ambiguous
means. Superman sort of shrugs and grabs a pitcher's glove.

Here's a little peek into the alternate universe where
I wrote the script to this comic:

PAGE SEVEN

Sportsmaster: Now super-heroes, you will play a game of BASEBALL against our combined villainy! We picked first, you can have Tattooed Man if you want. He's only good for far right field.

Tattooed Man: Hey, shut up, matey!

Superman: And what if we don't play along with your little game?

Sportsmaster: Why, my wife will see to it that these sixty-six thousand baseball
fans stay here for all ETERNITY!

Superman: Hm. Actually, how about I just use my heat vision to tattoo pictures of genitals on your foreheads, and all these nice people can leave through the big doors. (SFX:"BZow!")

So the game begins, and we're treated to what feels like seventy million pages of indecipherable baseball action courtesy of veteran artist Dick Dillin. And if you thought super-heroes looked gay already, try to picture them playing baseball in their little costumes. It's about as gay as two men having sex with each other, and THAT'S PRETTY GAY!

Eventually, the rule about not using your powers gets thrown out the window, and both sides start to slip in a little magic, elasticity, and sharp arrows piercing your braincase. Mind you, even though the basic tenet of the game - not being allowed to use your powers - has broken down, they still CONTINUE TO PLAY THE GAME! It occurs to me that if Luthor is throwing you a cybernetically enhanced red solar baseball stuffed full of Kryptonite bees, you probably have carte blanche to beat him to death with that Louisville Slugger in yer mitts. Why not? It's against the rules? So is using microwave beams to explode Kid Flash's intestines, but does that stop Matter Master? Probably not, I frankly don't remember ... the book gets all hazy around this point.

In one of my favorite scenes in the book, Plastic Man successfully disguises himself as Wonder Woman's magic lasso. Even as a kid, reading this, I remember thinking:

(A) Way to go, Plas!
(B) How did Wonder Woman not notice Plastic Man replacing her lasso right
on her hip?
(C) Why is Plas glowing? Well, as I think about it, rubbing up against Wonder Woman's satin, star-spangled fanny would probably illuminate even the most stoic among us.

Anyway, the thing ends with the heroes winning, and I guess Huntress becomes a super-hero, or not, and I fall asleep. Oh, and the cap to this tale is a
full page of text describing play-by-play action of the baseball game. Fascinating stuff. Lots of questionable editorial decisions (I suspect they worked all of this out on one of those plastic-and-cardboard ball-bearing
tabletop baseball games they used to make in the Seventies. My dad and I
used to play that game, only we never found ourselves flicking the lever and saying "Okay, this one is Doctor Polaris batting southpaw against Superman.")

There are things like Batman taking a walk, and useless-for-shit-all characters like Tattooed Man making dramatic short-stop plays against WONDER WOMAN, who could still hit a grounder like a total girl and end up ripping your
arm off and atomizing your hand if you try to catch that thing. Oh, and "Superman flies out to left field?" What? What about "Superman drills the ball through Chronos' ribcage?"

And we're OUT!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Mighty Comics

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:26:00 +0000

Hi! I'm Rainbow Boy, and if you think you see me shooting a cascading beam of colors out my ass, brother, are you ever seein' RIGHT! I'm making an appeal to all gay rights organizations to accept me, Rainbow Boy, as the official spokesperson for your group or organization. I mean, come on ... Ra-ai-ai-inbow! A-a-a-asssss! I'm everything you're looking for! And don't be put off by my apparent youth! I'm well over sixty years old, having debuted in the early forties! Now come closer, lemme show you how this rainbow ass power of mine works ... hey, what? Get your hands off me! Hey! Fine, if that's the way you want it, I'm leaving ... but you'll never see another piece of ass like this again ... not one that shoots rainbows!

It's the Sixties, and for fans of the bad comic ouvre, there is only ONE word that drives this decade: Batman. Alternatively, Zonk! Or Pow, Bam, Wap, Zowie, et al.

A lot of comics suddenly found themselves under editorial scrutiny at this time, and dozens more which debuted here angled to distinctly take advantage of the camp grandeur of the Batman television show. There were the Harvey Heroes, featured a few months back, as well as fellow newcomers like the Inferior Five, or nice tries like the second generation Plastic Man. These were a mixed bag, especially compared to the unkillable mainstays of the Archie super-hero line, the Mighty Crusaders.

From the Crusaders, we have here the Web, the Shield and Black Hood, bypassing for right now their fellows Hangman, the Fly, Jaguar, the Comet and many others (Cause I don't have THEIR comics). The whole lot of them debuted in the long-ago-renamed MLJ comics, debuting along their most popular property ARCHIE ... in fact, these superhero stories ran right alongside Archie and Pal's high school hijinx in the pages of Pep. Since then, the property has been liberally passed around, and the characters have been under the guiding hands of at least a half dozen different sub-contractors - to name a few, there's Red Circle, DC's ill-fated (but generally likable) Impact line, and a modern reinterpretation going on back inhouse at Archie Comics ... oh, and plus these guys.

Under the heading of "Mighty Comics," the mid-Sixties Radio Comics (no, not that one) brought back these classic Golden Agers as "Go Go Do-Gooders" for the "Action Generation" to "go ape
over." Liberally mixing in Marvel Comic's editorial style and humanist superhero formula with grade-C Batman tv show camp, they reintroduced these characters to a world consumed by a comic craze.

Oddly enough, this theme should have worked and is, in general, a pretty good idea. See, not only did these characters have a driving gimmick which fueled their super-hero identities - they had a driving gimmick in their CIVILIAN identities. The Shield, for instance, couldn't manage to hold down a job for more than a day at most, and sometimes not even that, hindered by his responsibilities as the Shield. The Black Hood, as officer Kip Burland, was wanted by his fellow officers following what I can only describe as one of the least competent frame-ups in the history of everything. And the Web was accurately described as the "hen-pecked hero," being as it was that his wife pretty much got to lay down the law on his spandex antics, gender-bent Bewitched style.

Getting back to the Black Hood's frame-up just for a second, let me expand on this. In his identity of motorcycle cop Kip Burland, the Hood follows the sounds of gunshots to find his "best pal" Pete Hannigan shot dead in front of a bank. Kip is clocked in the back of the nog while leaning over his dead pal's body, and the bulgy-eyed killer (thereafter cleverly dubbed "Bulgy Eyes") stuffs a few stolen dollars in Kip's pockets and hits the bricks. Kip is discovered by ANOTHER "inseparable" pal, Mark Brodie, who does the math (in the same way a retarded terrier might do the math) ... Kip unconscious + Pete dead + bank robbed = KIP KILLED PETE AND ROBBED THE BANK!

Never mind it doesn't explain how Kip got blackjacked on the back of his head while Pete got shot dead while SITTING ON HIS MOTORCYCLE. Or why the few thousand dollars hastily stuffed in Kip's pockets don't total the amount actually STOLEN from the bank. No, it explains nothing, but WHO CARES, because from that moment on Kip Burland is a wanted man!

I'm serious, man, I didn't leave out a BIT of that hardcore detective work. Well, except that Kip, rather than pointing out any of these glaring indications of his innocence, BOLTS from the scene and begins living the life of a fugitive ...

Moving on to the aforementioned Web, the Bewitched premise is pretty much spot-on. Professor John Raymond is a veteran, semi-retired super-hero who decides to get back into the game. Despite his "rusty reflexes," he becomes "one of the most fab crime-crushers on the current scene," much to the consternation of his fussy and emotionally manipulative wife who threatens him with divorce, infidelity (no kidding. Subtle, but there nonetheless...), and probably refuses to play the sausage game, if you follow.

Naturally, most of her appearances are spent brow-beating her put-upon husband until he either acquiesces to her face
but sneaks out the back for some super-heroing, or cracks under the pressure and shows her the back of his hand. "Bitch!" he yells in one scene, "I done TOLD you once already!"

No, wait, I kid. It almost always ends with a sort of maudlin, gag-like scene as with this one.

And that brings us finally to the Shield, the lovable loser among these recycled heroes, only he's not lovable at all.

Bill-or-Joe Higgins (depends on the story) is the Shield, and also a guy who is all-around apparently no damn good at anything. Except beating people up. For Justice, mind you, but still ... Joe's shtick is that he keeps getting fired from his back-breaking blue collar jobs on accounta the fact that no matter WHAT he's doing, he sees a crime occurring and figures he better change into the Shield and stop it. He's washing windows, he sees a cop being held at gunpoint. He's building a railroad, he sees known criminals drive by. He's cleaning the grease trap at Arby's, he sees someone whizzing in the condiment tray. This is a job for the Shield!

The Shield also got to experience that sort of white middle-class it's- the -Sixties -but -not -the -socially -freaked -out -yet -Sixties American poverty, by which we mean he had a nicely appointed apartment and his only evidence of financial woe was that he was often hungry (which I imagine is because you burn a lot of calories fighting crime) and that he can't afford to repair his television. In fact, if he would just take on a freaking roommate
instead of paying for a three-bedroom apartment on an imaginary salary, he
probably could have made it just fine.

I leave you with this shot of the cover to Black Hood #50. You can't see it terribly well, but check out the tank on the "hoodcycle" there ... not only does it feature a lovely portrait of the Hood himself, but you can just barely makeout the handwritten "Hood Cycle" next to it. This is what we had before Lo-Jack.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Secret Wars II

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:26:00 +0000

"Yo yo yo, check it out, boy-eeee! We're
representin' from the Golden Age, don't front or you will know our rage, patriotic boy toys from the Forties, chug our forties, and the ladies like to suck it cause we taste so sweet, take it Dandy!"

"Yo Yank, you know my glock goes ackackack, and all you sucka DJs betta step back back back, when we busta rap even the japs know it's like When Animals Attack!"

"I'm DJ Yank, y'all. Gimme your thanks, y'all. I take it to the bank y'all, with my homie, you call him 'Dandy.' and he say 'Hooop! Dere it is!'"

"Hoop! Dere it is!"

"Peace out, y'all."

Here it is, finally, the followup to Marvel's wildly succesful Secret Wars miniseries, brought to us by then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter - the man famous for being able to say "The last thing this industry needs is another superhero comic" and "I'm writing a new superhero comic" in the same breath, and G&F alum (for his thick-necked brushstrokes on Kitty Pryde and Wolverine), Al Milgrom.

Props where props are due department, Shooter may never go down as one of the great writers of mainstream comics, but he'll always be at the very least one of the more dependable workhorses. Usually, you can depend on him for an entertaining story, often a very well-done story, and only occasionally a terribly awful bad nine-issue miniseries. Al, as mentioned earlier, is a heck of an editor and cleanup inker, but inexplicably was allowed to pencil this, ANOTHER high-profile Marvel miniseries which would've benefitted from a gentler touch. Young Steve Leialoha, a current fave of mine, provides halting and seemingly confused inks.

The story picks up on what no man can call an "unresolved plot thread" without breaking into riotous laughter - or bawling in horror. The Beyonder, an omnipotent being peering into our universe by means of a spontaneously generated cosmic peephole, kicks off the original Secret Wars series abducting Earth's greatest heroes and villains and having them play out the plateau of their eternal morality play for him. In this sequel, his curiosity about humanity left unsated, he ventures to Earth in a human disguise. hoping to learn about us by living among us.

Abstractly speaking, it's an interesting enough premise for a story ... a being of virtually limitless power and no moral barometer to speak of is driven to Earth by his one human characteristic - curiosity - to learn by walking among them what it is precisely that makes humanity so unique. It's a very Seventies story, very Green Lantern/Green Arrow, except that if Denny O'Neil had been writing it, it would've wrapped up in twenty-five pages, and the kicker would've been that the alien ends up finding happiness and contentment being a hobo.

Sadly, this thing is a plodding brickhouse of overdone monologues and tiring existentialism.

By contrast to Secret Wars I, where the mightiest heroes and viallins on Earth fought a cataclysmic war of mythic proportions, Shooter brings us in the sequel such riveting scenes as: A television cartoon writer gaining trememndous destructive powers and blowing up a McDonald's, the Beyonder destroying the earth, and it gets fixed immediately (that happens like FIFTEEN times or something), and the Beyonder looking at all the STUFF he has. Over and over again.

I'm not one of those guys who thinks every book needs to have a fight scene, but I do consider myself something of a fight scene snob in that I want any fight scene I DO see to at least be ... any good at all. Whereas this book did have three battles per issue, or thereabouts, they all went like this: (A) group of super heroes leaps out from behind a billboard, parked car, toaster oven, etc (B) they whup on Beyonder for about two or three panels and then (C) Beyonder basically yawns and walks away.

Boom, THREE TIMES AN ISSUE! And theoretically all the heroes of Earth had been alerted to the Beyonder's presence, and to the terrible destruction he could cause, but rather than - say - make a plan or come up with some inexplicable scientific gadget to defeat him ... you know, the stuff they do every issue of their own comics and have done since the beginning of time ... they just like to leap out from behind the bushes and try to jump on his head. It's about as effective as putting a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep, except that this way the Beyonder doesn't even get POOP ON HIS SHOES!

To illustrate this point, let me recreate a particular scene for you: The Beyonder hooks up with Boom-Boom*, a character who debuts in this series though eventually ends up with X-Force. Boom Boom separates from him at some point and rats him out to the Avengers. The Avengers gather their whole roster, Dr.Strange, and the Fantastic Four. They jump out of the bushes and stumble over each other for four panels. Then the Beyonder walks away, and they LET HIM GO despite being there to defeat him in the first place.

But wait, there's more. Noticing that the Beyonder seems a little depressed, the heroes decide to ask Boom-Boom if she knows why, only she's slipped away in the confusion. So they write her off.

That's right, using only the amazing power of her OWN TWO LEGS, she left the scene of the battle which only lasted about a minute and a half, meaning she is CLEARLY lost for good. How could the heroes possibly hunt her down knowing that she's gone a full HUNDRED YARDS or more away from her last known location!? If only someone there had some kind of super-advanced armor which could track people, or was a super-brilliant scientist who could create a vanilla-pudding sensing hemmorhoid pillow using only a tin can and a plastic spork, or was the GODDAMN MASTER OF THE MYSTIC ARTS and had an ALL-SEEING
EYE AMULET right on his goddamn lapel!

This is only one of dozens of scenes that actually had me yelling at this comic book. Not just shouting in frustration or incredulousness, but also trying to force it out of existence using only my voice, like that one groovy black Legionnaire. I used persuasion where I could. "Staples! Jesus Jumping Cats, how can you stand to hold together a book this awful? Fall apart! Now!" and "Paper, you dishonor your noble tree ancestors by holding onto this image. I demand that you reject the ink that created it, NOW!"

It didn't work.

Also weighing the book down like a pork-stuffed redwood log were the endless FLASHBACKS and RECAPS. Lord, you really didn't have to worry about missing the original Secret Wars story, because they recapped it for you ... in every issue. Okay, that's not precisely true; they stopped doing it around the fourth or fifth issue ... at which point they offered recaps of the previous issues of THIS miniseries. Hell, sometimes they went for the threepeat and would recap the first series, the previous issues of this series, AND any important events from any of the eight hundred CROSSOVER
books they did. If you buy one Marvel comic in 1985, make it Secret Wars ... because it blows the plot of every other book they produced that year.

The thing also failed to follow the "show, don't tell" rule of good comics - "failed" in the same sense as when you say something like "The pilot failed to adjust his trajectory and crashed his missile-laden jet first into the children's hospital and then smack dab into the main gasline for the town." The average panel in this book is anywhere from one-third to THREE-FOURTHS dialogue, and at one point there becomes such a critical struggle between
allowable text space and cramped art that the hand-letterer gives up and they have a typography machine add in text in a smaller typeface to several panels.

Not that every word was pure gold ... far from it. Most of it was sort of endless, over-obvious mewling about the varied state of the human condition - some of it sounding all the world like Steve Ditko grabbed the pen and wrote a few pages. Other parts would be the heroes or narrator taking a moment to describe what was happenin before their very eyes. No kidding. Lots of "Look out, he's shooting energy beams" and "those shards of glass are coming right for us!" ... stuff that the artist should've been able to represent without the writer feeling he had to mention it.

To wit: Captain America explains, as the Beyonder
vanishes in a flash of yellow light, "He disappeared!" Yes, thank
you Cap. You roided out imbecile.

I swear there's more to loathe, but to document every failing in the book would be to REPRINT this book. Suffice it to say, the heroes unveil their boots of clay as they make a resolution to actually go kill the Beyonder (say it with me ... "!!!"), and then end up changing their mind, because he turned himself into a baby. That the heroes, all of whom abide by that hoary old comic standard, the Code Against Killing (could be worth fifteen points in Champions), decided to off the super-omnipotent being but then change their minds when it's a super-omnipotent alien BABY being kinda puts
a lie to any moral standard they're supposed to represent. Mind you, if these had been TEXAN super-heroes, that baby would've been frying in an electric bassinet before we had time to blink.

There's so much more in this series, like the fact that it was the awakening maternal instinct of the female heroes who kept the good guys from killing the Beyonder baby, or how the Beyonder comes to earth and ends up looking like a white Michael Jackson (that was back in the days before "White Michael Jackson" was such a redundancy), or how ONCE AGAIN Stan Lee pops up in a guest shot in a book we review (And why is he always so evil?)

Enjoy Byrne/Austin here ... and suffer the inside art

*Boom Boom makes her first appearance in Secret Wars 2 #5. I called Bob Rozakis night and day at his home number, trying to figure out how much a mint edition copy would get me. He would just say stuff like "Professor Zoom, the reverse-Flash, is Eobard Thawne" and "Man-Bat #1 is worth thirty cents in good condition" and "Leave me alone or I'll have you arrested."

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The 60's Harvey Superheroes

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:48:00 +0000

A-Hem. "Bwa-hahahahahaha!" Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I do ... for I am the Shadow! No, seriously, I am ... knock it off!

Like a lot of characters, I made a comeback during the flood of Batman popularity in the mid-1960's. The costume was part of the package deal. Hey, stop laughing, Archie comics really treated me well.

What? What!? Archie is a perfectly respectable publication for super heroes to appear in. I mean, they have the Shield, the Jaguar ... um ... look, I'll be honest, by the time the 60's ran around, I really torn through my vast personal empire. I was lucky to get this gig. And at least I wasn't as bad off as these guys...

Back to the mid-1960's, we find another comic book company putting together a hasty super-hero line in order to cash in on the success of the campy Batman tv show.

What's a real shame is that Harvey didn't break out its already existing stable of characters in the persons of Shock Gibson, Stuntman or Hollywood's "Glamorous Detective Star," The Black Cat. There were, additionally, another two dozen or so Golden Age Harvey superheroes including the Red Devil, the Zebra (I kid not) and one of my personal favorites, Pat Parker - War Nurse, none of whom made it to Harvey's silver age enterprise.

Undoubtedly, legal hurdles kept them off the roster. At this point, Harvey is very successful publishing its Richie Rich, Casper, Sad Sack titles, among spin-offs and others. It was probably easier for Harvey to create all-new characters rather than revive their admittedly successful World War II-era roster ... even if the new characters were big balls of suck.

Bee-Man has absolutely got to take the cake. Billed as one of the two main features in Double-Dare Adventures (On the cover of which he famously admonishes army men "We double-dare you to resist the attacking bees!"), he's actually a completely insane villain rather than a hero of any sort.

It all begins when Barry E.Eames - and note the clever comic book logic acronym of his name, there - is attacked by giant insects from outer space. Somehow, Barry finds himself imbued with bizarre "bee-like" tendencies. Eventually he is captured by a race of super-advanced aliens who tell him that, because of the stinging assault of the alien bees,
he is, like them, a super-advanced bee alien. However, he cannot be trusted to keep the super-advanced bee alien population a secret, so he is confined to the limits of their futuristic space base. Then he wakes up in the middle of the desert and solemnly swears to never do more than a single dry ounce of 'shrooms ever again

No, seriously, he immediately escapes the civilization (therefore kind of putting a lie on how advanced they're supposed to be) and begins to rampage Earth, stealing gold to hide in his "Honey Pot" home - and also stealing honey, because a mouthful of the sticky stuff returns him to full powers whenever he begins to wane.

There's a confusing, kind of insane text piece immediately following Bee-Man's origin tale where we theoretically learn more about his motivation. "My worthy deeds will force all Earthlings to surrender to my SUPERIOR WORLD. Many of your great scientists have predicted that ONE DAY INSECTS WILL RULE THE EARTH. You laughed and called them crazy, but I shall prove them RIGHT. The day is not far away when INSECTS WILL INDEED RULE THE HUMANS OF THE EARTH. You will become our slaves and solve many of our problems
- one of which is labor. The entire human race, what is left of it, that is, will become SLAVES TO MY RACE. You will fulfill the duties of our 'worker bees.' You will become MY SLAVES. Any questions?"

No, you pretty much covered the prurient points. This is
like the best paranoiac raving the internet has to offer, only thirty years earlier! Harvey, you were ahead of your time.

Bee shares the book with the Glowing Gladiator, who is actually the President and head Troubleshooter of Adventure Unlimited, Harry Barker. AU's job is to "fulfill unusual requests," which leads Barker to go off and find the Amulet of Hannibal on behalf of the mysterious and evil Mr.Destiny.

Falling into a deep pit, Barker is met by the ghost of Hannibal himself, who grants him a golden raiment in which to garb himself and golden weapons with which to uphold the cause of justice. Actually, it's Hannibal's own stuff, and this leads to perhaps the most unique scene in any comic in history as Hannibal actually undresses and hands his clothes to Barker while describing their functionality. "And the underwear of Hannibal keeps the bollocks of Hannibal from hitting the side of the shower stall. Wear them in pride."

The only thing that bothers me about the otherwise unremarkable Glowing Gladiator is that they keep calling his costume "Golden," but it's pretty plainly Red and Blue. It's red and blue! Gaddamit, people!

Following a couple of minor features, including a Kirby short story, we meet the "MagicMaster." I'm actually not certain who the Magicmaster is, to be perfectly honest. See, there's a magician who gets killed, and it's actually kind of likely that he is indeed the Magicmaster of the story's title. But then, there's his kid, who has learned all his dad's misdirection and prestidigitation, so he might be MagicMaster. But then there's this blue-skinned genie (not Robin Williams, though) who knows REAL magic, and he PROBABLY is the Magicmaster, but I just don't know. God, what a boring story.

The hook of the thing was that Jimmy, the kid, and Shamarah, the genie, used to help each other get out of dangerous situations, Jimmy with his tricks and Magicmaster with his ... um ... magic. Oh, and Jimmy would occasionally hijack the story to bring us how-to tutorials on doing simple magic tricks. I can now make a key disappear into nothingness. _I_ AM MAGICMASTER!

Jack Q (The Q is for Quick) Frost was this amazingly lame secret-agent super hero - I love this - had the ability to shoot ice from his hands AS WELL AS was armed with a gun that shot ice. What? He can shoot ice from his hands, but they also gave him a gun that does the same thing. That's like giving you or me a gun with a boxing glove on a spring over the barrel.

Actually, JQF answers that particular question for his inquiring public. "That is my ice pellet gun, fellows. I use it when I must send my ice pellets great distances. It is also more accurate." You suck, Jack Quick Frost.

SpyMan is most famous for being what is likely the earliest Jim Steranko work on any comic. Like Jack Q Frost, Spyman fought the forces of evil with his robot hand. For our edification, we're given numerous cross-sections and product descriptions for the robot hand - it's got the rudimentary laser, the communications equipment, the camera, 32M of RAM and 4 gigs of storage, but it doesn't have a floppy disk drive. But I've heard the customers really like the color selection.

Over in Unearthly Spectacular, fans were
promised the appearance of the uperheroic Tiger-Boy from Twilight. Nestled in the midst of a bunch of pretty terrible short sci-fi "shock ending" pulp tales was a story called "Will Power," featuring a boy (Paul Canfield) who had incredible powers. From infancy, he was mentally and physically superior to humans. As time passed, he developed incredible powers which included letting him travel anywhere in the universe instantaneously, changing shape,
rearranging matter on a molecular level, reversing gravity, levitating shit and so on. At the very end of the story he turns into a tiger with a human head - once - and then announces his desire to take over the world!

His parents then reveal that they are from Jupiter, where everyone has these amazing abilities, so maybe Paul oughtta shut up about being so great and everything all the time.

And then he's mowing the lawn. And that's the end of the story. The Hell? No superheroic adventure, no identity chosen, no mission to fight crime - in fact, Paul's parents put the kibosh on his powers and that's the end, pretty much ... Harvey! You suck!

There's more - like Miracles Inc, the Man In Black Called Fate and the Three ocketeers - but I wanted to end on the best Harvey characters ever.

Colonel Gary Jason of the U.S.Space Force is a victim of the most traditional unfortunate circumstance to occur in comic book space travel. Crashing in space, he's rescued by aliens who then proceed to rebuild his body from its shattered components. Not being familiar with human anatomy, they hook him up with synthetic tendons that allow Jason to stretch, twist and elongate himself in the most disturbing way ever - with plates of his flesh "floating" on the elasticized tendons. The is Jigsaw. God, he's disturbing.

To make it up to him, the aliens hook Jason up with an alien guide - the beak-faced Si-Krell - and encourage him to go traipse about the universe, representing Earth in unique events like the Interplanetary Olympics.

What amazes me is that - well, you'd think that if you had your entire body rebuilt to resemble Stretch Armstrong, you'd eventually develop a sense of humor about the situation ... isn't that traditional with comic book stretchers? Not with Col.Jason, who deadpans his way from wonder of the galaxy to
awe-inspiring alien horde with little more than a legless, himpering zinger on his lips. He's a square, a straight, he's downright dullsville daddio. And this was supposed to appeal to the camp Batman audience.

But never mind that, here's the Man from S.R.A.M., my all-time absolute favorite from this run of characters. The Man from S.R.A.M. is, in actuality, a cop from planet Mars ... see, that's S.R.A.M. spelled backwards ... who comes to Earth to capture a deadly agent of F.I.N.K. ... that's the Fiendish Interplanetary Nasty Killers ... and generally just acts altogether Yllis ... which is Silly spelled backwards!

For some reason, the Man keeps reversing words in his dialogue, then pausing to tell us what it means the right ways around. And he fights a tentacled alien horror by turning himself into a lemon and squirting it in the eye. And he flies either in his OFU - Object Flying Upsidedown - or on his UFOR - Unbeatable Flying Oriental Rug. And he turns a klieg light into a giant pink feather so when the alien hits him in the head with it, it doesn't hurt. And when a director says "We're going to shoot 'Man from Mars,'" the Man from S.R.A.M. pulls a gun and says "Me? No you won't, chum!" HAHA! Man from S.R.A.M., you so Crazy! I meanm, "Yzarc!" I love you, Man from S.R.A.M.

But not the rest of Harvey's Heroes. They knits.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Human Fly

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:38:00 +0000

Edit: I know, and my face is redder than Rick Rojatt's - despite my skepticism and harsh words, the Human Fly was a real guy. I feel like a dope, but nonetheless, here's the article as it originally appeared...

Eep Eep! All hail Brak! Um ... hold on, wait a minute, I'm not Brak I'm ... well, at my best guess, I'm a weightlifting orangutan in a Beatles wig. All hail DC's line of G-ed up Science Fiction comics. I appeared in an issue of Mystery in Space or Strange Adventures or Spacey Weirdness or Galactic What The Hell? or something or other as an alien creature in an interplanetary zoo! And what made the rubes line up to see my act? The innate human curiosity to see an orangutan in a Beatles wig lift weights. Come on, admit it, you'd wanna see it too.

After the zoo folded, most of us got sold to labs for cosmetic experiments. Not me, though ... after all, I'd spent my time in captivity buffing up and shooting steroids. I tore through my captors like I was busting through a soggy napkin. Their gory entrails stained my orange pelt a brackish red. All hail Brackish Red! Since then, I've shaved myself and now I compete on the Weider circuit. I'll see you at the next Arnold Classic! But until then, we present...

By gum, it's yet another Fantastic First Issue from Seventies Marvel ... well, actually, according to the cover, it's a "First Fantastic Issue," implying that other fantastic issues will be following. Ha ha, this is a lie.

This is the Human Fly, the character promoted as "The Wildest SUPER-HERO Ever -- Because He's REAL!" "Real" being comic book code for "Pretty much we largely made him up just about in entirety."

The premise of the series is that an anonymous young man is involved in a terrible car accident which apparently shatters every bone in his body, to judge from the full body cast he's shown in immediately afterwards. Despite being told by doctors (whose bedside manner could use some work) that he's going to be a cripple for the rest of his life, the Fly spends every waking hour rebuilding his body through secret exercises, until not only does he return to his former state of health, but he develops amazing additional new agility and strength. Oh, and the doctors gave him a steel skeleton.

Which means he can't produce platelets anymore, and he's gonna die if he ever gets cut. But I digress.

Deciding to be symbol for the disabled, he collects assistants from the ranks of other accident victims. This includes Ted Locke, a brilliant engineer who lost his hands in an explosion while trying to save a woman and child from a bridge he'd rigged to explode. Um ... oh, and this was in the Vietnam War, so it wasn't just a case of Ted blowing up bridges for no reason. Anyway, having lost his will to live (and his HANDS, ha ha!), Ted is given a cause to fight for when the Fly recruits him for his team. I like Ted because he has claws for hands. Raar!

Then there's Kendall Blaze, the beautiful and daring pilot whose terrible disability is ... that ... um ... well, she doesn't have any. But, she WAS in a terrible accident, and ALSO had her confidence shattered, and was even in one of those full body casts for a while, so she counts. Kendall's backstory was that she was a co-pilot on a commercial airliner which went into a vicious dive when the pilot - a misogynist who didn't put much faith in female co-pilots - had a sudden heart attack and collapsed. Kendall pulls the plane out of its dive at the last second, and although it still crashes, there isn't a single loss of life. Except the pilot, I guess, whose heart exploded at 15,000 feet. Unfortunately, they don't clarify that point for us.

Looking back on the thing, I'm not precisely sure why the plane had to crash in the first place. The pilot had a heart attack, and then the plane went into a dive, and Kendall crashed it. Maybe she does suck at flying. Nonetheless, this does lead to my favorite two-panel
transition in the history of comics. Panel One, Pilot says 'You know, I don't believe a lady pilot can fly a plane," Panel Two, Pilot says "Oh Christ, my heart!" HAHAHA!

The Fly and his team (including ever-so-Yiddish publicity agent Arnie Berman, whose endless use of the word "boychik" makes me want to pummel Bill Mantlo to death) are bedevilled by investigative reporter Harmony Whyte, who has a name more suited to getting dollars stuffed in her pants than in anchoring a news program. Harmony is dedicated to finding out the Fly's true identity, ostensibly so she can reveal him for the glory-hungry hypocrite she suspects him to be ... and why finding out his real identity would help her do that, I dunno. I also have a hard time imagining her pitching this idea to her editor. "I need the company to expense me travel around the world with a full camera crew so I uncover the true identity of this guy who walks tightropes and jumps pools of fire. What's that? No, why would I want cover the hostage
crisis or the SALT talks? I've got a stunt man to expose!"

Author Bill Mantlo offers a text piece to explain the background and genesis of the Human Fly (As an aside, I always consider a text piece explaining the concept of the character to be a sign of trouble. Also, if the character drives around in an RV, that's trouble too. And if they have both ... well ...) He starts off with "The Human Fly is me," which to my mind kills all the suspense regarding the Fly's secret identity. Oh wait, there's more...

The whole text piece is done in earnest, Mantlo claiming straight-faced through the entire article that the comic was entirely based on the story of triumph personified by a "young Canadian man" who, like the fictional Fly in the comic, endured a crippling injury, overcame it, had his skeleton replaced
with a steel skeleton, then fought beside Spider-Man.

Mantlo really tries to sell the text piece, claiming that the real-world analog of the comic book character had been praised on television around the world, and had even landed the appellations "space-age daredevil" as well as "the living bionic man," and furthermore had been favorably compared to Spider-Man and Captain America (?) in the news media. Worse yet, he gives
the 'real-world' Fly actual quotes, such as "I've got 50,000,000 kids out there depending on me. I've got as lot of people to support...youngsters in hospitals, struggling against cancer, polio, cerebral palsy or whatever. I've got a lot of people to support."

Polio? Isn't that .... cured .... now? Ah, probably not back in '77 .... me, I had a cousin who suffered from 'whatever,' so I know how serious that is.

Mantlo is pretty freely mixing pop culture with urban legend and outright fiction, not to mention that he's trying way too hard to sell the 'real story' of the Fly in that damn text piece. Of course, the inspiration for the character is largely based on the attention-seeking daredevils who populated the airwaves
and newspapers in the late Seventies ... see "Real People" and "That's Incredible!" for a plethora of examples ... along with a real-life inspirational story. Some of our more veteran (By which I mean "Old") readers will remember
the news stories of a young man, crippled by only possessing one leg, undertaking a cross-country run for the purpose of showing the world what the disabled could really do ... and that man's name? Of course, it was ... Forrest Gump.

The Fly is surely the most earnest super-hero of the Marvel Universe, as he lays all his motivational cards on the table
at every possible opportunity."After expenses, any money I make goes to charity ... to help the disabled." he tells the tv cameras on more than one occasion. Likewise, the Fly is focused on creating an example for others survivors of deabilitating accidents. And this is hard to make fun of, so I won't. But moving on ...

Art chores on the series were provided in part by Lee Elias, well-known to Golden Age enthusiasts for his Black Cat work. I really love Lee Elias' work, and I'm only sad that the Human Fly never gave one-page tips on performing "Judo Tricks."

Seventy-Seven, the year of the Fly's debut, is also about the same time that Marvel created regionalistic super-hero Captain Britain for its Marvel UK comics line. Considering that as well as the Fly's Canadian origin and distinctive white-and-red costume, I can't help but wonder if he was intended to be a regionalistic Canadian hero. I find myself thinking about this somewhat idly, but even so I propose that the baton was a concession to French-Canadian interests. Ha ha.

On a costume note, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what doesn't work on the Fly's costume. The flared gloves might be a little much, also the extravagant caplet or the bizarre white piping that bisects his body at several points. Or it could be the the flared eyehole designs which make him look like he's wearing immense albino fake eyelashes. Or the baton. Probably the baton.

Actually, the two things which stand out for me are the rocket design on his belt (why a rocket? What does a rocket have to do with being a human fly? I'm so confused) and the fact that, in closeups, the Fly is pretty clearly wearing Chuck Taylor's Converse All-Stars canvas tennis shoes.

Most puzzling to me is that the Fly had two guest stars in his first two issues, but only one of them gets any cover credit at all, much less an appearance. The two guest stars in question were Spider-Man and the Ghost Rider, and the guy who gets the cover appearance is ... Ghost Rider. Spidey plays a pretty pivotal role in the climax of the first issue, but not only doesn't show up on the cover, he isn't even mentioned on the cover. in fact, there's no HINT from the cover that there's even a guest star in that issue, much less Marvel's flagship character. So much for Marvel's merry marketing machine ...

The only final note I can think to leave you on in terms of Human Fly is the fact that Bill Mantlo, at one point in the third issue, referred to the Fly as a "manchild." That's a term you don't usually hear without the words "lumbering" or "hapless" preceding it.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Captain Marvel

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 01:06:00 +0000

Alright, alright, calm down a minute and I'll try to explain. I am Captain Thunder, the Black Power of Shazam. And if you have never seen me before, that's okay, cause I only ever made one appearance anywhere before ever, and that was in an article for the Comic Buyer's Guide.

See, Roy Thomas, the Dr.Moreau of rehashed golden-age superheroes, brought me out to DC as a proposal for the introduction of Captain Marvel to the DC Universe. Actually, I was Captain Thunder, the Earth-1 equivalent - I was even secretly newspaperboy Billy Batson, although I looked like Rudy from Fat Albert.

This is a proud tradition in comics known as "Throwing the minorities a bone." Sometimes me and the second Dr.Mid-Nite and the second Wildcat and the second Mister Miracle and just about the second everybody would get together and hang out at Steel's place. This was before he got big. Back then, we just called him ... the second Superman.

Speaking of seconds, allow me to present ...

Why, it's Captain Marvel! We all love Captain Marvel, don't we? Yeah, WHIZ radio! Shazam! Tawky Tawny! Big Red Cheese ... Of course, THIS Captain - despite his red suit and magic word - is just a wee bit different.

You're looking here at the second Captain Marvel, a character completely unrelated to the original Fawcett creation of the Forties and who pretty much reeked like wookie ass. Rather
than an orphaned boy granted terrific powers in order to defend justice, this Cap was an amnesiac robot with loose limbs.

Cap debuts in a story which bears the legend "Based on a character created by Carl Burgos," which lends even more confusing twists and angles to his existence, inasmuch as he curiously has few ties to the company or creator of the original character. Burgos was, as you may know, the creator of the original Human Torch - also a robot with a human identity and a nondescript red jumpsuit.

We first catch up with our hero as he wanders a dark house, suffering a complete memory loss. This is NOT a good start, in my opinion. As he paces the house, bits and pieces of his memory return, escorting us back to his origin . (In the second story of this issue, Cap AGAIN has a blackout. He has more blackouts than a Kennedy. I wonder how often this happened to him. And how long it's gonna take before one of these blackouts ends with him standing in a strange motel room with a dead hooker on the bed and four kilos of pure heroin in his overnight bag)

We're taken to an alien world where a group of scientists has created Captain Marvel, The "Human Robot" - which I think works on the same level as "Meatless Burger" - for the "good of man." And BOY, is he ever handy to have around.

Check this out:

Marvel is instructed to utter the word "Split," which he does even though I think if I were in his situation - no memory, wakes up on a table surrounded by men in hospital gowns, being told I'm a robot - I'd be hesitant to jump when the enigmatic bossguy says so. Anyway, for his willingness to participate, Marvel is rewarded by having his arms and legs fall off. Obediently uttering the word "Xam!" - which I guess isn't really a word, so much as "Split" is - Marvel finds himself spontaneously reattached to his disparate parts. "Hello again, toes!"

He's told that the reason he can split is to "make repairs to your body..." (The hell?) and to - and this is a favorite of mine - "to prevent an attack from more than one person." That seems overly optimistic to me. "Blast, there's more than one person, but luckily fewer than four people, attacking me right now. Haha, the joke will be on them. HERE COME MY LIMBS!"

"HERE COME MY LIMBS" would've been my first choice for Captain Marvel's battle cry, by the way.

Actually, Cap could dissect himself into a startling array, basically at every joint and then some. Every finger could split independently at the joint, the arm at the elbow, wrist and shoulder, his pelvis could detach, his legs split at the hip, knee and ankle .... heck, I suppose his toes could probably separate independently, too. Oh, and his head could fly around independently too, just like Sir William Gull at the end of From Hell. XAM!

Cap's got that "magic word" weakness of having a common term as his mantra. If I knew the guy, I would've abused it. "Well, time for dessert Captain. Which would you prefer, salted liver with anchovy gravy or a banana split?" ... "Um, the one that isn't the liver." ... "You want the liver? No problem! Eat it all up!" ... "No, I want the other one. The thing with the bananas" ... "Say it Cap." ... "Alright. I want ... the ... banana SPLIT (THUD)."

Anyway, shortly after building him, Cap's native world explodes and he non-chalantly rockets to Earth (Says he, witnessing his planet's destruction "Now I'll have to find a new home." No kidding) where, once again suffering a terrible loss of memory, he is taken under the wing of an Earth boy. The writers were surely aware of Cap's shared namesake, evidenced if only by the presence of Marvel's young ward. Introduced in the first story only as "Billy...from the USA" (I swear), he's later given the full name of Billy Baxton, a short hop-skip-and-jump from the original Marvel's identity of Billy Batson.

Besides his handy ability to draw-and-quarter himself at will, Marvel can shoot laser beams from his eyes, fly, deflect bullets, emit electric shocks from his body, use some kind of half-assed telepathy and probably more; he's one of those characters whose powers were so poorly defined as to make him effectively omnipotent. But turning back the page for a moment, note that he can shoot electricity AND laser beams, but his only reputed defense against an attack by more than one person is to haphazardly fling his limbs at them.

Also, his powers stem from a magic element he keeps in his flat, completely non-medallion-looking medallion. The element is called "X" ... not "Element X," not "Chemical X," not "Cherry flavored X-Pops" ... Just "X." It is clearly identified in the medallion by the large letter "M" emblazoned on the front.

The stories in the first issue have that sort of meaningless Golden Age "twist ending" feel - well, except for the first story which is just Captain Marvel walking around the house losing body parts until Billy brings him his Ritalin. The first story starts with
Cap being involved in a plane crash (Which his super powers are apparently useless to avert. Or his super-powers might just be useless), then falling under the sway of evil "invisible" aliens (pictured above, and as you can see, they are not only visible but bear some resemblance to Milk&Cheese. "I'm an invisible alien of hate!") who kidnap everyone on the plane and plan to kill them, but then change their mind and ask Marvel to help them return home, and they go, and Cap has another blackout, and then I don't remember a damn thing about the story.

The last story in this issue continued the comic's newly-found tradition of swiping popular characters' names, as they introduced Plastic Man - their version lacking every bit of inventiveness
that made the original so appealing.

In this tale, the Captain is bedevilled by aliens (not invisible, but blue this time) who come from Venus but who live underwater, and have come here
to destroy us, then send Cap to meet his doom at the hands of a native Venusian "Gronk," to wit Plastic Man, and then the twist ending is that the aliens actually came here to warn us that nuclear bombs were polluting our atmosphere, and the Venusian who did all the killing and destroying was only pissed because his parents had been killed by a rogue Gronk a couple of days before the mission started. This Venusian went on to become ... Bat-Man. No, I kid.

Changes abound between issues as Cap goes from sandy brown hair to blonde, from a magenta jumpsuit to a red one, puts on a mask and has his medallion change from a mere insignia to something actually resembling a medallion. Of course, nothing can change the subtle way he's won our hearts.

He also changes identities from "Mister Marvel" (brilliant) to "Roger Winkle" (haha), now a college professor at Dartmoor, as well as something of a comical euphemism for the penis. He's also, by this point, gained a useless love interest and some supporting cast.

I thought I pretty much had this company pegged as some hack penny press which survived by harvesting the names of
popular characters from defunct publishing houses - this comes from a bat-eared, gargoyle-looking villain called The
Ray, which had prepared me for a total rape of the Quality Comics line. Of course, they derailed me with the use of TINYMAN for the nom de guerre of a shrinking District Attorney who uses his puny weakness to fight crime.
Somehow.

In any case, he was the perfect target for a second-hand DollMan tag, but I'm guessing the book's creative staff thought that was too femmy. Thus, Tinyman. Much better.

On a final note, the first issue is also one of the most catastrophic
cover scenes in the history of the medium. Not only is young Billy tied to a dangerous machine, but that machine is clearly reading that it is ready to blow even as an electrical monster of some sort is rising from it and reaching towards Billy with scary lightning mitts, all the while he's surrounded by menacing alien robots with terrible facial hair while Captain Marvel bursts into the ship only seconds away from a raging wall of water under the baleful gaze of ANOTHER type of alien, armed, watching the events below unfold through the UFO's canopy while even MORE UFO's fly in the skies in the background. Jesus. What, they couldn't light Billy on FIRE, too?

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Green Team

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:55:00 +0000

Alright, hey there, howsit going? I'm thinking of a number between one and ten ... hey, good one! I'm a Kryptonian Thought-Beast, a pretty popular bogie-beast who made it into a lot of the Silver Age Superman stories. On my native Krypton, I and my race evolved the incredibly handy facility of having our primitive, reptilian thoughts broadcast on a big screen on our heads. Which usually meant the creature we were about to eat saw a picture on my viewscreen of my thinking about eating them. So all our prey knew when we were going to eat them. Well, they saw it on the viewscreen and also we were charging at them, roaring, with our tooth-filled maws wide open, so if they couldn't guess what was going to happen, then the screen would fill in the blanks for them.

In any case, we went extinct when the Kryptonian humans taught us the game of poker. I guess they could see right through us. We gambled into bankruptcy and then had to hock our screens for cash. Many of us died impoverished, a Sony black-and-white 7" portable TV strapped to our foreheads with duct tape...

Great Day, it's the bookend boy team from First issue Special, the Green Team! They're a foursome of Richie Rich wannabes and ... oh yeah, they suck!

The book opens with Abdul Smith, a poor black shoeshine boy who desperately wants to join a club (considering the shabby treatment he receives from Whitey in this book, may I suggest the Black Panthers? How about the Nation of Islam?). Anyway, for some reason he wants to join the Green Team (among others), but falls somewhat short of their patently exclusivist "million-dollar gross worth" limitation. In fact, Abdul's only got thirty-two bucks, and an apparent brain injury that forces him into this neurotic obsession with joining some damn group.

Luckily, stupid comic book coincidence jumps to his rescue; depositing his weeks' earnings (five whole bucks! He should show that to the Fast Willie Jackson gang!), a creepy bank teller accidentally enters the deposit as $500,00.00 (happens to me all the time. You?). Shining shoes at the tock
Exchange, Abdul shows a broker his checkbook, and soon finds himself the owner of some fast-rising Aerospace stock, earning him enough money to meet the Green Team's million-dollar height requirement even after the bank corrected the mistake (for which they probably fined Abdul's checking account twenty bucks, too). So, Abdul brings his million-dollar bankbook along to join the Team, only they kick him out for being black.
No no, I kid, he gets in for some reason, and then is promptly shoved to the backdrop of every discussion, action scene and plot point (even crammed in the corner of the cover, as if a last minute addition). Once his little human interest story is done, Abdul becomes persona non-grata in the Team. I can only imagine that the mere addition of Abdul to the team was a concession of the part of the writer to editorial concerns for ethnic representation.

I don't even know why Abdul would want to have anything to do with the Green Team anyway, considering how poorly the other team members treat him during the course of the book.

The other members consist of The Commodore (Shipping Tycoon), a femmy little twerp in a yachting uniform, and J.P.Houston (Oil Magnate), a gangly cowboy-regalia-bedecked Texan with an obnoxiously feathered hairdo. These two are pretty much the stars of the book, as they get the choice lines and the prime roles in the adventure. Or maybe it just seems that way compared to how Abdul gets shoved to the back of every scene and how one-dimensional the last team member is played...

He's Cecil Sunbeam, the Starmaker, and he's GAY GAY GAY! Or at least, really annoying and effeminate and flamboyant ... Like Elton John, Paul Lynde or Rip Taylor, so you see my reasoning. Sunbeam is a Hollywood producer/director for the "Now" Generation ... which is, these days, the "Then" Generation. We initially catch up with him diving two-fisted
into his remake of "Merchant of Venice," showing his street-gang cast first-hand how to throw down during a rumble (all the while under the approving leer of his disturbingly criminal-looking adult assistant). I've heard Oliver Stone does the same thing.

Halfway through the book, the cast established, the adventure beings. Well, actually, the adventure
was foreshadowed on the splash panel with the words of Missy, the Green Team's secretary, announcing "Professor Dinkle is here with a model of his GREAT AMERICAN PLEASURE MACHINE." Fuck! That really disturbs me. Any guy named "Dinkle" with a "Pleasure Machine," well, I don't need to see that shit.

Not that it matters much anyway, Dinkle reappears a little later demoted from Professor to "Mister," and no longer bearing his Great American Pleasure
machine but rather a scale model of a proposed North Pole colony built with insulating french fries .... I kid not ... Instead, Professor APPLE appears out of nowhere with the Great American Pleasure machine, but then again that doesn't matter much either because Professor Apple completely disappears after introducing the damn thing and then never reappears.

During the construction, Broadway producer David D.Merritt gathers together an evil marching band to destroy the G.A.P., as it'll drive all entertainers out of business what with its ability to deliver pleasure. Next, they go after the high-class hookers!

This threat prompts the boys to dress up in their Action Andrew Jackson gear, fancy little green Dickies with four combination-locked pockets used to carry CASH MONEY! Like these guys never heard of a gold card ... Each member carries about a quarter million dollars on them at all times, and then use them for such daring and innovative escape-plans as ... throwing it all on a roof and then running away! (this is true). I think this is their secret plan to immediately divest Abdul of his million-dollars so they can kick him out and get back to telling jokes like "What would you call the Flintstones if they were black?" "Haw haw, good one Cecil!"

They're also armed with a completely unimaginative set of accessories, including the keys to the locks which protect their various fortunes, and a tickertape watch which reads out news flashes for each of them. I get that on CNN.com, myself.

I'm glad this thing ended. Pretty much the only adventure I'd wanna see the Green Team participate in ever again would be a story where the Dingbats
of Danger Street kill them with shivs.

During the course of the story, they actually advertised themselves with massive billboards reading:"WANTED - Adventurous boys to join the GREEN TEAM" and then by way of small print, "Must Have A Million Dollars" all of which sounds suspiciously like a really transparent NAMBLA scheme. "Clean-Limbed boys wanted for big, exciting adventure. Must have million dollars, be willing to travel to Thailand. Orphans with no kin preferred."

Oh, here's some more text from other billboards scattered throughout the issue ... "Boy Millionaires seek ACTION!" ... "One Million Dollars (or more) Available for thrilling ACTION projects requiring participation of adventurous boys" and finally, my personal favorite, "MONEY for THRILLS! ... We Pay for Play!"

There's a poorly-thought-out text piece in the back
which explores the backstory of the Green Team, and which doesn't clarify a single thing about the characters or their motivation. Supposedly, the Green Team was founded by P.T.Green, formerly a poor boy from New York's lower east side who, as an adult, made it big and rich. Upon amassing his fortune, the adult Green thinks back on the hard life he and his pals had in the mean streets, rumbling with other kid gangs to protect their turf. He decides he wants to form a gang of his own to make up for the hardships he endured, so he inexplicably founds a gentleman's social club.

Disappointed with the turnout of rich, old white guys (he was expecting what, precisely, from a Millionaire's Club? Street Fights? The Jets and Sharks?), he founds ANOTHER group, this time an adventurer's group for millionaire teenagers. Fucking what? Millionaire teenagers already HAVE their own groups. They're called "Kennedys." Why Green, in his nostalgic pique, didn't provide some sort of funds for underprivileged kids living in the same slums where he grew up, but instead created an organization for kids who already had every advantage possible is totally beyond me. I can't tell if Simon was going for social commentary again, or if he's just an idiot.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Four

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:26:00 +0000

’Allo everybody, I am Fuzz-ee, the comical French Floating Space Head! Oui Oui! Sincèrement, I actually do not HAVE a name! I merely appeared in une single issue of Mystery In Space. But I am tres freaky-loooking, non? What evolutionary advantage do you suppose my big dewey eyes and comical handlebar mustache grant me, ohn ohn ohn?* Now, s’il vous plaît, enjoy the most recent installment of Gone & Forgotten. I must partez rapidement, as I am late for my Madballs audition. Ohn ohn ohnnnnn!"

_{*Say that like Maurice Chevalier. "ohn ohn ohnnnn"}

By Ironjaw, I’ve had it! This is the last Atlas article! Reading these
things is like sucking down a balloon full of sulfur and lemon juice! Let’s
get it done!

Wulf the Barbarian, the second of Atlas’ barbarian line, was - more or less - spared the Third-Issue Switch largely by dint of it never having had the same creative team twice. And if you think that may have really hurt the book’s continuity and focus ... man, are you ever right.

Rather than IronJaw’s post-apocalyptic barbarian future, Wulf took place in Earth’s distant, shrouded past. There were liberal mixings of J.R.R.Tolkein and Conan both in this book, with perhaps a pinch of Beowulf, all hindered by the constant mix of creative teams and how none of the issues were really all that good anyway.

I’m not even sure if there were any continuing characters or storylines from one issue to the next. Larry Lieber scripted one that was pure Tolkein, complete with fakey made-up names
for all the people and places. "Lord Tyrkna the Enlightened of the Plains of Hufgth has the Sword of Farrth, and he’s bringing it to the Temple of Rwwtah which is guarded by the Priests of Huybnom who possess the mighty powerful Disc of GtrhhbojfpnnakptangyakPOWwoop!"

Larry Hama gets his foot in there, too, with a more Conan-esque story and Klaus Janson puts pencil to paper for a lushly illustrated story, all of which would have come as a surprise to anyone who judged the book by the cover (which, not unlike many Atlas comics, was wholly unrelated in terms of design
and content to the story inside).

I do not own a copy of Midnight Madness or Thrilling Adventure Stories, and I suspect that they actually never came out, though Mike Kaluta assures me that he did finish and send in the story they commissioned from him. He never got it back. In any case, like Devilina, these were black-and-white magazine sized books. And like Devilina, they only existed so the stories could include more titty.

Tigerman was apparently intended to be another one of Atlas’ big central books, as he was pretty focal in the print advertising. You can almost say he had one hellabad costume going on, but the fact remains that it made him look like a brunette tiger in legwarmers. Cause, man, nothing goes with tiger striping better than BLUE PIPING! That just SCREAMS "tiger!"

Philanthropist doctor Lancaster Hill journeys to deepest darkest Africa to get high on native serums and wrestle with tigers. And
as I think about it, I’m not actually sure they have tigers in Africa.
In fact, let me engage one of the hoariest old chestnuts in comedic writing and have you wait a moment while I go check this out ...

Okay, the answer is "no." There are no tigers in Africa. All the Tigers are
closer to China where, ironically, there are no polar bears. That’ll
make sense as you read further on.

Anyway, so there are no tigers in Africa except for one in a bamboo cage in the aboriginal village where Dr.Lancaster Hill is making some damn serum or another out of tiger juice because he thinks a tiger’s natural instincts may be the product of some natural curative in their genetic structure.

I, too, have deep-bred instincts, and those instincts tell me that tiger juice isn’t gonna cure any damn disease. Where’d this jackass go to medical school? "You know what would cure cancer? A keen sense of smell!"

I know that comic book science is often spurious at best, but when did it become full-fledged dyed-in-the-wool ON CRACK? even author Gerry Conway causes his lead character to pause for a moment in reflection and admit to himself that it was only "for some reason," he thought his plan would work.

Anyway, T-Man was cut very liberally from the Peter Parker cloth, a comparison only helped by the omnipresent Steve Ditko doing his art thang. Besides an animalistic set of powers, Doctor Hill was, like Spidey, torn between his super-hero career and personal life, often wondered if something was mentally wrong with himself and used his crime-fighting as a good way to ’work out the cobwebs.’

Only other thing worth mentioning is that his big enemy was a similarly powered villain, a native of the village where Dr.Hill gained his powers, by name of the Blue Leopard. Now, on the cover of the book, he sure was blue, alla blue, very blue. Inside? He had blue Y-fronts and a leopard-print costume. Man, Atlas.

Police Action had two features, starting with Lomax (Or, I should say "Lomax, N.Y.P.D.!"), an effort drawn by the usually-better-than-this Mike Sekowsky, and which is otherwise intolerable. Lomax bites down grimly on his ridiculous cigar and beats the hell out of suspects, witnesses and passers-by alike. Luckily, he’s a New York cop so one imagines the legal
ramifications will be minimal.

Luke Malone is done by the improbable team of Mike Ploog and Frank Springer, two fellas who, when working singly, I can’t stand. Nonetheless, there’s something appealing about this feature ... probably it’s obvious and persistent Eisner/Spirit influences. The murder victim around whom the story revolves even gets a Spirit-esque name, as he’s a boxer named Randy McNally ... nicknamed "Atlas" in the ring.

Yeah, his name was Atlas and he was shot dead in the first month of Atlas’ publication. Ha ha.

I have to kind of point out that I got a ... vibe ... from the Luke Malone story. I’m actually talking to a crowd of comic readers somewhat older than myself, but do you remember the first time you saw Northstar (of Marvel’s Alpha Flight) in a book? Remember how you got a ... hunch ...
about the guy? You kind of suspected ... you know ...and then fifteen years later, in a story which could earn a G&F by itself, he comes speeding out of the closet. So, I got this same feeling about Luke Malone, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. It may have something to do with him turning down his willing and sexy young stripper neighbor in this
bitchy final panel to the story.

Anyway, I’m gonna go suggest that to the
Gay League of America website.

Oh, but, by GOD this series wouldn’t be complete without a kung fu book!

Yes, as the cover of The Hands of the Dragon tells us, "From the holocaust of an ATOMIC EXPLOSION comes the TOUGHEST KUNG FU fighter of them all!" I don’t know about tough, but he’s sure the most lurid of all time. Right on the splash panel, the Dragon’s "lightening" feet kick out in flying vengeance at the loinclothed, tattooed Dr.Nhu ("the patron saint of all things sinister") while a crowd of hippies scatter wildly before the Doc’s blazing machine gun and the lifeless body of the Prime Minister of Japan hangs from the rafters of the stage behind them.

Yeah, this comes from the pen of Ed Fedory (who?) and Jim Craig (who?), and it starts just after World War 2 as a Japanese man carries his two twin grandsons to a monastery in China, where he hopes they’ll be raised away from the horror of war. But, whoops, the old fucker hadn’t anticipated this: there’s an undetonated American atom bomb resting in the hollow of the
crest of Mt.Fuji, which he must scale (!!) before reaching the sea to get his ass to China.

Likewise, he didn’t count on it being sensitive to the presence of twins. BOOM! Inexplicably, it goes off in his face and, at the recommended safety distance of twelve feet, he gets quite a start. Also, one of the twins is HORRIBLY SCARRED! Yes, I cannot stress this enough, he is HORRIBLY SCARRED!

Oh, but the old man’s travails aren’t near over yet, for as he gets to China, he sets up camp for that night, and he’s attacked by A POLAR BEAR! In China! Not long after an atom bomb went off
when he was comfortably hiking up Mt.Fuji. Jeezus.

Anyway, the kids get raised by monks, only the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother is evil and vicious. So they leave the monastery, and the unscarred one goes
to fight crime, while the HORRIBLY SCARRED one goes on to be a master criminal.

Then there’s an assassination attempt, a ghostly figure gives a cheap-ass disco medallion to our dizzy, hospitalized hero and the series ends.

I only hope the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother got some kind of help for his HORRIBLE
SCARRING.

The efforts of our brave men and psychotic vermin at war was represented by the dual offerings of Blazing Battles Tales (featuring Sgt. Hawk) and, of course, Sgt.Stryker’s Death Squad, the latter of which you may know from their annual Christmastime toy drives.

First, let’s bring on the Blazing Battle Tales, all one issue of it! Ostensibly an anthology book (bound under a very Joe Kubert-esque cover courtesy of Frank Thorne), the lead feature is Sgt.Hawk, which they may as well have called it Sgt.Rawk cause, man, that’s precisely what they were aiming for.

Who are Sgt.Hawk and the men of the Killer Platoon? Why, they’re a "confident bunch of sore-footed dogfaces, spoiling for a fight, any time and any place." By no means were they "combat happy joes." Oh no. Heavens forfend.

The Sarge is backed by a multi-ethnic platoon of two men. There’s Goldberg ... WHO’S NEXT?!?! And then there’s White Cloud, and they’re not gonna let you forget it. "Come with me, White Cloud. Stay here, White Cloud. What’s the situation here, White Cloud?" Jeezus Sarge, you’ve only got two men in the platoon, must you always address them by name?

The Killer Platoon’s mission is to rescue
a captured and eroti-sadistically tortured French Resistance fighter named Yvette, cause MAN is she ever French. She’s also a "doll," and I know this, because that’s all Sarge ever calls her. "We got the doll, and since we had the doll we knew the Nazis would be after the doll, so we had to get the doll to safety so the doll could go back to France. White Cloud, go get the doll!"

Backup stories included a swell John Severin/Alan Kupperburg two-pager about some guy who really really hated the Germans a whole lot, and then a sort of forgettable EC-inspired ace fighter story called "Sky Demon," and the only reason I mention it is because the hero’s name was "Vip Gunner," and I can’t believe someone named their kid "Vip."

Sgt Stryker’s Death Squad was the lead feature in Savage Combat Tales, and I hate to say this about any Atlas book (though I did say it for Scorpion), it kinda isn’t that bad. Oh, it’s not GOOD! No no no. Of course not. Silly reader. I mean, at the end of the series I was
still left longing for more competent war stories, such as ... oh, I dunno, that one DC comic where a trained gorilla became a Marine sergeant, or the Creature Commandos ... nonetheless, it was readable.

Sgt.Stryker starts off as the gentle son of a life-loving country doctor, stationed in the same unit as his girlfriend’s little brother. He’s uncomfortable with the idea of killing, but like a lot of other guys in wartime, learns that he prefers it to dying. Anyway, Stryker gets to watch his entire battalion absolutely
demolished by the Nazis - including his girlfriend’s little brother - but yet manages to save four men, the four worst, most savage men in the entire army. Who were all stationed together. By luck.

Okay, truth time? It’s Dirty Dozen, only with four people. See, the Sarge and his boys discover that they’re absolutely the best killers the army ever had, so the top brass arranges to send them on special missions where ... um ... they kill people. Savagely. In combat. And then we hear tales of it. Savage Combat Tales.

Courtesy the usual type of idiosyncratic characters who end up in war stories like this, the Death Squad is composed of: Ice, a former gangster. Not a lot of those guys went to war, so his squad should feel blessed. Turk, a big, bald professional wrestler whose handlebar mustache, I’m certain, must break some army regulations. Then there’s Duke, some jerk they
picked up along the way, and finally, Shigeta, who doesn’t get a peppy, butch nickname cause he’s a DIRTY JAP! No, sorry, wait, he’s a Nisei, which they never let us forget. And because he’s Nisei, he knows ... say it with me ... all the martial arts!

So, Shigeta’s supposedly there for the ironic-twist/lesson-in-humanity role. You know, "We’re fighting the Japs, but look, we’re also fighting ALONGSIDE a Jap! And he’s a regular joe, just like us!" kind of mentality.

Of course, even as we were supposed to feel the deep humanity of this character, he WAS colored a pale candlewax yellow. Jesus A. Sammich, as I am inclined to say. Why not just give him a cleaver and buck teeth?

The back-up stories in Savage Combat Tales were usually these EC-inspired and oft-Archie Goodwin-scripted war tales with ironic twist endings. They’re pretty standard fare, and you could find yourself a handful of ones done better in Our Army At War or Combat! or your drunk great-grandfather
going on and on and the Nazzees.

And here comes some Western Adventures! And the art in the lead story is by ... Doug Wildey! Wow! Cool! And the writing is by ... Larry Lieber! Shit! No!

This is Kid Cody, sort of a hollow experience for all involved. Eastern family comes west to start a farm, evil cattleman kills the hero’s family, hero hooks up with a drunkard ex-gunslinger who teaches him the works and then the hero goes out for vengeance.

What I wonder is what does the fella do NOW? He killed the bad guy, he’s
a badass with the gun, he’s got all that land his dad bought ... does he go farm? No, not according to the end of the story ... he wanders off to fight more evil land barons. I suppose. I don’t really care.

Backup feature stars the Comanche Kid, which is brought to us by Steve Skeates and Jack Abel and features the inking props of Al "Lay ’Em Down Thick" Milgrom himself. I can summarize this one faster than Kid Cody. Ready? "Abducted white boy raised by comanches becomes a wandering force of justice, like hundreds of others." Boom. The end.

So, on the cover of Western Adventures, there’s a little panel that declares that this issue is "introducing ... the Renegade." But actually, it isn’t. The guy they picture is the Comanche Kid, and there’s no story about a renegade anywhere in the
book.

They probably SHOULD have called Comanche Kid "The Renegade" so that you didn’t have a title with two "Kid"s in it. "Kid Cody and the Comanche Kid." Terrible.
Still, I’d like to see a story where their descendants team up. "Kid Cody’s Kid and the Kid of the Comanche Kid in ’The Kid Gloves Are Off’."

Speaking of which, envision if you will a world where Atlas survived its first year of existence. You KNOW they would have eventually had a team book. Tiger-Man, Cougar, the Brute and Phoenix the Protector are ... um ... The Avenginators!! And a team-up book, too. Ironjaw meets the Tarantula. Sgt.Stryker meets the Bog Beast. The Dragon meets Morlock 2001.

By far the greatest of the third-issue switch victims, Morlock 2001 starts off not only borrowing its title from two popular science fiction movies (Morlocks from "The Time Machine" and "2001:A Space Odyssey"), but borrows its premise from Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451, the Incredible Hulk and SWAMP THING! ... Once again I’m amazed at how close to dadaistic divinity these books
came ...

Anyway, the plot here comes to us courtesy Michael Fleischer, and goes something like this: Reclusive scientist is killed by government thugs to repress his free-thinking ways (and it works, too). In his labs, the police find a weird plant-man whom they discover can kill people with a touch. So they make him a government assassin, only he suffers a plague of conscience. To keep an eye on his rebellious nature, the secret police assign a female cover agent to keep an eye on him, and cause you KNOW that Fleischer just LOVES AND RESPECTS women like nobody’s business, she gets to die hideously. Cause, you
know, she betrayed Morlock’s trust. So she dies.

Anyway, blah blah on the run from the government blah blah futuristic world blah blah "Ahhh, I’m a plant guy" blah blah. Third issue comes around, and doing his filling-in thing, Gary Friedrich pens the THIRD ISSUE SWITCH with Steve Ditko along for the art chores ... and I do mean "chores."

Now called "Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men," the book centers more around an intellectual revolutionary named Whitlock who was burned over his whole body during an attack by the secret police. But he
survives. Of course ... he’s .... HORRIBLY SCARRED! Whitlock assembles a rebel army, hides Morlock away as a secret weapon, and then breaks it down old school style to give us some ’man is born to be free’ speeches
while Friedrich recaps.

Oh, but the secret police attacks and, as the issue ends Whitlock fatally
shoots the suffering Morlock RIGHT IN THE GADDAMN FACE, killing him right out. Yay! Then he whips out a detonator and tells us he’s gonna blow up his secret headquarters, killing everyone including himself. Yay! More!

I’m only slightly sad to say that I don’t have a copy of Fright (featuring the Son of Dracula) to which I can refer for this article, but be assured, it stinks like baboon ass stuffed with burning tires. It comes close on the heels of Marvel’s "Son Of Frankenstein," which makes me wonder if Larry and Stan used to sit around their house back in the twenties or eighteen-nineties or seventeenth century of whatever and make up imaginary friends together.

And then if ANY Atlas book deserves to go on the rosters of THE MOST unforgettable hunks of steamy dog poop ever printed, it must be Planet of the Vampires! Here’s a Larry Hama effort with art by a somewhat stiff but still presentable Pat Broderick.

There’s a heck of a misnomer in the title, by the way. It’s not exactly a planet of vampires. In fact, it’s pretty much just one apartment building. I mean, sure, it’s the Empire State Building, and it’s BIG and all, but still.

Alright, the plot borrows a little from Planet of the Apes (no! you say in shock and amazement) and Omega Man, the adolescent last-man-alive fantasy film by Chuck Heston. Basically four American astronauts (well, two married couples, actually, and another guy ... and an invisible guy, and I’ll get to that in a second) return from a lengthy mission in space to find that
not only has Earth been ravaged by nuclear war, but it’s largely reverted to barbarianism!

Yes, the streets of New York are flooded with thick-armed thugs who constantly fight and rumble in the streets and ambush strangers and steal anything worth taking. Um. Wait, I know there was something different about this ... oh, yeah, since it’s in the future, the cars can FLY!

Anyway, the startled - and ’hip,’ boy are they ever ’hip’ - astronauts manage to escape a terrible experience with the local freaks and ruffians and make their way to what appears to be the only remaining bastion of civilization in America - the Empire State Building. Hm. Okay. Anyway...

Turns out all the greatest scientists of America flooded to the building, rather than hole up somewhere near all the scientific equipment. Go figure. They build a force shield around the place, set up a well-armed militia and power elite and ... and this is the important part ... they capture the uncivilized grubs down on the street below and harvest them ... FOR BLOOD! They hook em up to big, fakey looking machines and drain the blood from them for nourishment. So, repulsed, the astronauts break out of the building, get split up, hook up with the barbarians to form a rebel army. Blah blah blah.

Two of my favorite parts of this story: First off, although they ARE trained astronauts, the women are totally useless. They just cry and wail and worry and let the men make the decisions. I’m gonna make a guess and say that their designation on the mission was "Official Military Mattressback Advisors." Also, late in the book, the black couple gets separated and disappears in the city. And the big, dumb, white hero of the book proposes that his black male counterpart will be all right because he has an abundance of "street smarts." Not because he’s a military-trained USAF Colonel, or a NASA-trained astronaut. No. Because he has street-smarts.

Anyway, according to the cover of the book, it’s six astronauts who return to Earth to find blah blah blah, however, inside the book, there’s actually only five (the odd man out, a balding old man, gets offed by a barbarian spear after the crew lands). To rectify this discrepency, I consider the Colonel’s amazingly large afro to be an official crew member all by itself.

Oh, it’s over. My long, sequential nightmare is over. I’ll never have to read this crap again. At least, not until some Gen-Y jackoff buys the rights and publishes a grim-n-gritty rewrite of it all. Heavens Forfend.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Outsiders

noreply@blogger.com (Calamity Jon) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:13:00 +0000

H-A-! I am JIGSAW, and MAN am I ever DIS-TUR-BING! I was one of Harvey's attempts to cash in on the super-hero craze that followed the Batman TV show, and Good Lord, was that a weird group. There was me - the man whose limbs were barely attached - and Bee-Man and his giant bees, and Magicman who would stop fighting crime in the middle of a battle to teach magic tricks ... there were more, but kids your age probably wouldn't know them. Every now and again, you can catch them hanging out at Boat Shows, still trying to buddy up to Adam West or peek down Elvira's cleavage It's sad. Personally, I'm glad I was able to break into gay porn.

Alright, let's check out this month's Gone & Forgotten...

Nope, not the one with Batman and Metamorpho and Black Lightning and everybody ... neither is it Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Hell, it's not even Matt Dillon or that weird, white, bumpy thing Alfred Pennyworth changed into for those coupla issues of Batman back in the Fifties. Nooo, it's ... something else altogether.

First Issue Special was DC's 1970's answer to Showcase, the rotating feature book of the Sixties which introduced Green Lantern and Flash and a passel of other DC staples. I don't think ANY First Issue Special alumni made it past their feature appearance, least of all this messy group.

Outsiders comes from the same folks who brought you Prez, Joe Simon and Jerry Grandetti, though what they were trying to accomplish in the way of social commentary - if anything - is vague at best.

The cover of the book may be my favorite part, as it was apparently handed to Ernie Colon WITHOUT giving him any reference to the characters appearing inside the book. Besides Doctor Goodie's hair going cropped and platinum blonde, the silhouettes for the Outsiders represent five figures we don't even come CLOSE to seeing inside the book.

The story itself is told recursively -- it begins at the denouement, then proceeds to the climax and resolution, THEN goes back and gives us a prelude (complete with expositionary flashback) and catches right back up with the denouement. This is handy, inasmuch as since the story loops itself, it's a closed system and implies that IT'LL NEVER BE CONTINUED IN ANY FASHION ANYWHERE EVER! YAY!

The premise goes something like this: Doctor Goodie, the world's greatest ... doctor. Doctor of what, I dunno. Anyway, he's asked to accompany an astronaut on an important trip into deep space, to identify the source of myterious lasers which can cure cancer. I don't write this stuff, folks.

Anyway, the space vessel crashes, the aliens save Doctor Goodie and perform reconstructive surgery on him ... but since they've never seen a human being, monitored the plentiful television broadcasts bouncing around space, caught Voyager's act or have advanced enough technology to do what reconstructive anatomists do every day on good, old, primitive backwards Earth ... they make him look like a guy from that one Twilight Zone episode where the pretty
lady goes through plastic surgery to look like a frog person. You remember that one, right? Right.

So, to get over his terrible disfigurement, Goodie wears a plastic mask and performs amazing surgery by day (with the aid of the
alien-implanted cybernetic nervous system), and by night, removes his mask and joins his adopted menagerie of a family as ... Doctor Scary.

It's somewhere between the X-Men and Big Daddy Roth.

We're introduced to the gang by a "theme song" in the splash panel, "Hang in there Billy, it's us, it's us...we're the Outsiders!Lizard Johnny, the Amazing Ronnie, Hairy Larry, Ol' Doc Scary & Mighty Mary" Plus Harry Carey and Cheri O'Teri.

Billy, by the way, is an orphaned freak with a tremendously tough and huge head. I would be too, but Mom and Dad are alive and kicking to this day.

One of the great injustices of the early days of Gone&Forgotten was that the Fast Willie Jackson article - one of the favorites, according to the survey results so far - was posted without any graphics In order to better illustrate this fine document, we bring you ... The Fast Willie Jackson Chronicles:

• Jamar and Jo-Jo trade the infamous banter regarding the existence of a mythical currency that white men call "A five-dollar bill."

• "The fat on your head." that sounds grotesque.

• It's just lately that I found out black is beautiful.

• Jabar in a full-page strip - "The One and Only." What exactly is the message of this book again?

• Can you dig it, disembodied head of the white kid who doesn't appear in the book?