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Tag Archives: Jim Aparo
Welcome to another edition of Into the Bronze Age! The world seems quite intent on falling to pieces around us, but let's take a little time to look back at a simpler era and a better class of comic. The big news in this edition is the finale of the (in)famous GL/GA drug story, but we've got a couple of other interesting books to keep that one company.
"They Say It'll Kill Me… But They Won't Say When"
That's right, at long last (longer because of my travels and distractions!) we come to the end of the GA/GL drug two-parter. It's a famous issue, and we examined why with the first one. As we saw, these issues certainly deserve their iconic status, whatever flaws they may have, and I was surprised by how much better the first issue was than I remembered. I was in for a similar shock with this story, which is a much more even-keeled offering than its predecessor. We don't have as many heavy-handed and goofy moments here as we did in the last one. Even the cover has a touch more dignity…which is not to say it isn't a bit over the top as well. In fact, it is wonderfully, ridiculously melodramatic, especially with its bold tag-line. I love Green Lantern's 'curse the heavens' pose as well. Still, it is effective, striking, and memorable, especially with the faces of the various drug victims making up the background.
Unfortunately, the touching image of Green Arrow carrying the fallen form of his ward isn't quite what greets us inside, where things start off with a bang…or more accurately, a backhand. Ollie follows up Roy's dramatic confession from last issue with a smack to the face and a heavy dose of vitriol. It's a really stunning moment, and O'Neil hits us with it right out of the gate. To see a hero, in his right mind, treat a faltering friend like this in 1971 was practically unprecedented. It serve's O'Neil's purpose, immediately casting the Emerald Archer's merciless dismissal of his surrogate son's suffering in the worst light. Unfortunately, he overplays his hand once more, and the result is a further stain on Ollie's already fairly blackened character, though it is consistent with the strong views he evinced in the last issue. It's just an ugly moment, not helped by the fact that Roy isn't at his most sympathetic after his weak story last issue.
Speedy mocks his mentor for his violent response, hitting him with a major guilt trip, and Arrow throws the kid out. Then we get a moment which ALMOST addresses some of the flaws of the previous story, as the Battling Bowman ponders the situation and points out that, even though he hadn't paid his ward much attention lately, the kid shouldn't have needed much at his age, being in college and all. Then O'Neil once again turns Ollie's jerk dial to 11, as, from that, he concludes that he is completely "innocent of blame," which is a self-righteousness and self-deception that is breathtaking, even for O'Neil's Green Arrow. Still, in all of this melodrama, there is some realism.
After concluding that he's father of the year after all, the Emerald Archer sets out to take revenge on the pushers who he blames instead, heading to the airfield where he previously traced their supply to pick the investigation back up. Meanwhile the two junkies who betrayed our heroes last issue come to Ollie's place looking for Speedy and, not finding him, decide to shoot up their reward. The drugs are pure, and one of them overdoses in what is, admittedly, a pretty good scene, though Adams perhaps overdoes the revelation a bit.
Later, we find Hal Jordan still running through previous events, unable to shake the feeling that there is something wrong with Speedy, and when he heads to GA's to check on the kid, he finds the junkie and begins his own investigation. Ollie, for his part, turns the table on a guard at the airport who gets the drop on him and is sent into a trap for his troubles. It's a nice scene, emphasizing both his anger and his skill, that he's still dangerous, even with a busted wing.
In the meantime, the Emerald Gladiator finds Speedy passed out in an alley and discovers the truth. They have an almost decent conversation, though O'Neil overdoes the youth's rhetoric a bit. The generation gap stuff he spouts is a little problematic given the fact that most of the members of the previous generation Roy knows are freaking paragons of virtue. Nonetheless, Hal's measured response and kindness is a very pleasant departure from his stupidity and naivete from early in the run. The ring-slinger takes the kid to Dinah's house for sanctuary.
On the docks, where the Battling Bowman has followed the guard's tip into trouble, he finds the thugs he tangled with at the airport last issue. We get a nice fight scene, with Arrow still holding his own, but it ends with him getting knocked out. When he comes to, we meet the man behind the drug operation, a wealthy socialite named Saloman, whose massive yacht, stuffed full of important people, is just leaving. He tells his men to dump the antagonistic archer into the drink as soon as he's away.
Adams gives us a fantastic image of Ollie's plight, as he's tossed overboard tied to an anchor, but the hero manages to grab an acetylene arrow and cut through the chains, making a desperate and dramatic escape. Just then, the Lantern arrives and disposes of the thugs with some green gorillas. As they pursue the head honcho, Speedy is busy going through withdrawals, aided by Black Canary's quiet compassion in another good sequence, improved by a lack of dialog.
In the Caribbean, Saloman Hooper visits his pharmaceutical lab, where he picks up a suitcase worth of dope (which doesn't seem like enough to justify the scope of his operation), only to be caught in the act by the Green Team. While Ollie takes out the mogul's minion with a one-armed arrow shot (shades of Dark Knight Returns!), Hal tosses his friend his ring in order to deal with Hooper with his own two hands. This is actually a pretty believable, satisfying moment, unlike the book's tendency to have the Lantern just decide that he needs to use his fists to feel like a man. He's angry, and he takes it out on this privileged punk, but he has enough self control to do it 'unofficially,' so to speak, like a cop putting aside his badge to do something that needs doing but which falls outside of the law. Notably, Arrow calls him on this afterward.
The issue ends with the funeral of the junkie who overdosed, where Hal and Ollie are joined by Dinah and a recovered Roy. Unfortunately, the newly clean Titan is in no mood to mend fences, and he lashes out at his former guardian, giving a speech about how people like him, who lack compassion, are contributing to the crisis that so many young people face. As Speedy walks away from the closest thing to family that he has, Green Arrow finds himself proud that the boy has become a man.
That final scene isn't as heavy-handed as I remember, though the melodrama still sets my teeth on edge a bit. What's worse, it leaves the situation between our hero and his surrogate son unresolved and embittered. That's a shame, and this story's consequences will be deep and long-felt. On the whole though, this is actually quite a good issue, sensitive and perceptive, but also an engaging and exciting adventure, with some real, if sometimes discordant, character development to go with it. Once again, the message of compassion and understanding towards drug addicts is powerful, and the theme of empathy, learning to see things from someone else's perspective, is effective and an interesting continuation of O'Neil's better efforts in this run. I think the story itself would have been a bit more effective if we had met our villain a bit earlier, as he's mostly just a convenient and morally acceptable punching bag, an outlet for outrage and despair. Still, O'Neil manages to make the guy loathsome in very little space. Roy's sudden and complete recovery is more than a little silly, in regards to the reality of addiction, but I suppose allowances can be made for the medium.
Adams' art continues to be beautiful and compelling, really capturing the emotion and the power of the moments he portrays. And yet, even with that focus on drama, he manages to give us some fun and funny moments, like with Ollie's expression during his impromptu dive. Once again, we see Adams' power with a more intimate, personal story. I just love his portrayal of Ollie. Characters of that scale are really what he excels at, which is part of why his Batman run is so legendary. All in all, this is a very good story, only slightly damaged by O'Neil's excesses and his lack of forethought. It is an important comic, culturally, and its themes and subject were incredibly groundbreaking in its time. Heck, we're still fighting some of these battles, and a story that reminds us of the humanity of those who are suffering is still relevant, perhaps moreso these days than in recent years. I'll give this milestone issue 4.5 Minutemen out of 5. It isn't perfect, but it really is a good one.
P.S.: To mark just how important his comic book was, it carries a copy of a letter from the Mayor of New York, commending the creative team for their work and pointing out the seriousness of the drug crisis.
Mister Miracle #4
"The Closing Jaws of Death!"
"The Romance of Rip Carter"
Writers: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
"Jean Lafitte: 'Pirate or Patriot?'"
Inker: Jack Kirby
We've got another marvel-packed issue of Mister Miracle here, and, as always, I was excited to read it, especially after the pulse-pounding excitement of last issue's Paranoid-packed pandemonium. Sadly, this one doesn't quite live up to the thrill of the first half, though it does introduce us to a wonderful character and an important part of Scott Free's supporting cast. It's got another great cover, like most of this series, though one wonders how our escape-artist hero gets from being locked in a trunk to tortured in a medieval dungeon. The answer is, of course, Kirby madness. Nonetheless, we get another death-defying scene in this cover, memorable and exciting, beautifully rendered by the King.
Inside, we don't start with the miraculous one plummeting to his death, still locked in that suitcase, but back at his home, where a fretting Oberon finds himself with an uninvited guest. A fierce and outlandishly armored warrior woman appears behind him, jarring the loyal fellow from his reverie rather violently. She declares herself a friend of Scott Free and demands to know where he is, mentioning they both come from Apokolips. When Oberon mentions Doctor Bedlam, the newly introduced Barda suddenly teleports after her friend, fearing for his life.
Now we pick up where we left off, and Scott's situation looks hopeless, but Barda appears in a flash of light and catches his suitcase in a feat of strength, casually ripping it apart, ropes and all, only to reveal that it is…empty! Wonderfully, we don't see how the eminent escape artist pulled off this trick just yet; instead, we see him perched on a balcony several floors up, where he is quickly swarmed by more crazed civilians. They think he is a vampire and attempt to stake him, but Mr. Miracle is too slick for them, and eludes his pursuers in several fun pages, even sliding down the banister of the staircase like Errol Flynn.
Suddenly, he's attacked by refugees from a Robin Hood picture, as a bunch of guys in medieval costumes capture the hero. They drag him into a dungeon, which turns out to be a set in the Galaxy Broadcasting TV studio, conveniently located on this level. Inside is a director, even nuttier than most, who directs his men to kill the interloper so that his death-throes can make for good television! Despite his struggles, Scott is forced into an iron maiden, and all seems lost as the lid slams shut. The whole scene is fun but utterly crazy. It reads like a Fantastic Four issue from the era where Stan and Jack weren't talking to each other and Stan was thrown into narrative gymnastics in an attempt to explain the bizarre and unrelated images Jack created as his imagination ran away with him. However, this time, there's nobody to blame for the sudden shift and strange explanation other than Kirby himself. I guess he just wanted to draw an iron maiden, so he shoe-horned the setting in, logic be darned!
Back in our original office-building setting, Barda is getting attacked herself. She casually rips a stone column out of the lobby and tosses it onto a half dozen men, almost certainly crushing them all to death. Despite Mr. Miracle's insistence that she stay out of this so that his deal with Bedlam could be honored, she is worried, so she pursues her friend, smashing her way through the overly-excited extras in the process in a really nice panel. Yet, when she pries open the torture device, it is empty, and Scott casually strolls up and greets her. Once again, we don't find out how he accomplished this yet, establishing a running joke in the issue.
The two press on, confronting the disembodied energy-form of their antagonist in another nice sequence. Bedlam promises to unleash the entire fury of the building's trapped inhabitants upon the pair, but the next thing we see is them teleport back home, greeting a worried Oberon and catching up. The dialog in this section is pretty rough and stilted, especially when Scott awkwardly declares: "Maximum is the word for you, Barda! I could never think of you without deep and genuine fondness." I know that line just makes the ladies swoon! From the start, Barda and Oberon are sparring verbally which, despite the dull dialog, is still fun. We learn that Barda helped her friend escape, but she didn't go with him, and now she's an officer in Darkseid's Female Furies, as everyone helpfully spouts exposition.
In a fun little scene, Scott takes the domestic roll, preparing dinner for Barda, which is really striking in a comic from 1971. That's honestly somewhat groundbreaking. I doubt you'd ever see Superman making dinner for Lois Lane! It also establishes the unusual dynamic between these two characters. As he works, the heroic homemaker reluctantly explains to his assistant how he escaped from the various traps he faced. We're introduced to the 'multi-cube', Scott's multi-purpose escape tool, which will become a common feature of his stories, if I remember correctly. Mr. Miracle used it to cut his way out of the trunk as it twisted in mid-air, which works pretty well as an explanation.
Unfortunately, the other stories aren't nearly as good. He used a fast-acting acid on the back of the iron maiden and literally just stepped through it, which apparently no-body noticed. Even more problematic, he literally presses the 'off' button on all of the panicked people in the tower, putting them to sleep with his multi-cube and just waltzing out the front door. Okay……why not just do that in the first place? That's a pretty massively unsatisfying conclusion, which is a shame, because this is otherwise a really fun issue. The yarn ends with Barda showing up for dinner, having changed out of her armor into something a tad more revealing, leaving Oberon picking his jaw up off the floor.
This is a solid adventure, despite its glaring deus ex machina, though it is primarily worthwhile for introducing Big Barda, who will eventually become Scott's partner and wife, creating one of the great comic relationships and partnerships. Mr. Miracle without Barda is like Nick without Nora, and she is, even from this first appearance, a unique and interesting character, further credit to Kirby's boundless creativity. In addition, I absolutely love Scott's laughing, devil-may-care attitude throughout the story, the extra element of flair and style to his antics, which really capture his personality and are part of why I love the character. I also quite like the running gag of not explaining his escapes right away, however flawed the execution is here. Hopefully Kirby will make better use of it in the future.
Art-wise, we're seeing some rough panels again with this issue, and I think Colletta's impact is still being felt. On the plus side, it seems we get a new inker next issue! Despite some weaknesses, especially with inking and coloring, there are some wonderful panels and some fun, dynamic sequences throughout. Ultimately, I'm quite torn on the score. This issue's flaws are significant, especially the dialog and weak conclusion, but it is also a lot of fun. I suppose I'll be generous and go with 3.5 Minutemen, as the comic is carried along by the interest of Barda and the fun of Scott.
"The Iron Messiah"
Colourist/Letterer: Jim Aparo
"I Battled for the Doom Stone"
Writer: Ed Herron
Inker: Alex Toth
"Satan's Sextet"
Penciler: Tony DeZuniga
Inker: Tony DeZuniga
"I Scout Earth's Strangest Secrets"
Penciler: Mort Meskin
Inker: Mort Meskin
What a wildly, wonderfully ridiculous cover image. It's gloriously strange and unusual and so very, very much something that could only happen in comics. We've got an African witch doctor raising a zombie…but not just any zombie, a ROBO-zombie, complete with stainless-steel robo-zombie Afro, all while the shadow of the Phantom Stranger looms in the background. It's a thing of mad beauty, and I love it. It's beautifully illustrated by Adams, and it absolutely grabs your attention. Could you honestly say you could see that image on the newsstand and NOT want to figure out what in the blue blazes is happening inside? If so, I can only assume you're an imagination-less wreck of a human being.
The story within doesn't quite live up to the glory of the robo-zombie cover, but then, how could it? It is an interesting and unusual one, though, and it begins, not with necromantic robotics (more's the pity), but with a young African scientist named John Kweli, who is returning to his native country after having been educated in the West. Suddenly, the train on which he's traveling derails in a fiery crash, and the brilliant man would have died, if not for a Stranger pulling him from the wreckage. Kewli awakens in the home of an old friend, Ororo (no, not that one). She has treated his injuries, but she also bears bad news, his father, the tribal chief, has died.
John is prepared to come home and take over his responsibilities as chief, but he's met with resentment for having gone away to be educated and built a life overseas. His people feel like he abandoned them, including the lovely Ororo. He also finds things greatly changed, with signs of unrest and oppression everywhere, barbed-wire and troops abound. Ngumi, the village shaman also rejects John, promising that Chuma, the Warrior God, will free his people without the young man's help.
Ororo tells her friend about what has happened in his absence, that though their country has been liberated, they are now enslaved to the interests of big foreign business. Driving away, John and Ororo encounter a lion and wreck their jeep. The young scientist bravely prepares to sacrifice his life to lure the beast away, only to have the Phantom Stranger leap out of nowhere to tackle the feline fiend in magical fashion.
The next day, Kewli goes to visit Amos Trent, the oil company's man on the ground, but Trent isn't interested in his pleas or his threats, so the young scientist decides to take matters into his own hands, so of course he builds a robot. Some time later, a group of soldiers who are abusing the villagers are scattered, not by John, but by "Chuma", the Iron Messiah, the android John has used his scientific skill to build in order to rally his people. Over the next weeks, Chuma trains the villagers in the ways of war, and Ngumi, the shaman is revealed as an agent of the oil company.
Unfortunately, even iron will can be bent by such a burden, and Chuma begins to develop human feelings…and human frailties. He declares his love for Ororo, and when she rejects him, saying she loves his creator instead, the Iron Messiah rejects his role as savior and leaves the people to the fate. It is here that the Phantom Stranger intervenes once again, convincing the automaton that the only way to prove he is a being with a soul is to choose to help his people, to be better than jealousy and spite. Back at the village, the government troops have attacked, and John has rallied the people, but they are losing without the power of Chuma to inspire and aid them.
Chuma charges into the battle, turning the tide, but his help comes at a terrible cost, as he shoots his creator in the back in a fit of jealousy, only to be witnessed and called out by Ororo. The people reject their Iron Messiah and destroy him, thanks again to the Phantom Stranger, who leaves, pondering the enigma that is life and giving a speech about not "tampering in God's domain."
It's…a little abrupt, really, and rather grim. These 14 pages pack a whole lot in, and Len Wein has a very interesting story to tell…I'm just not entirely sure he's finished telling it. We get a robot who develops human feelings, including hatred who turns on his creator, a full on Frankenstein, but it is also sharing space with a story about the exploitation of Africa. There's just too much in too little space. Chuma literally goes from his creation to his renunciation of his purpose in three pages, and John, who has until then been our protagonist, almost drops out of the story at that point. The Stranger's attempt at a moral just feels extremely tacked on, though it certainly has potential. In the end, what exactly was the point of the Stranger's intervention? Was it to free the natives from both the outsiders and from their superstitions? Whatever it is, it needs more development. The whole thing is cramped, but it is also intriguing in a number of ways.
It is really noteworthy that we have a story set in 'darkest Africa' where the natives are not portrayed as ignorant savages, despite their belief and hope in Chuma. Even more, the natives are not rescued by a white outsider. Instead, the hero is a black man, and a black scientist at that, who succeeds, not through brute force, but through intelligence and cleverness. That's still very much a rarity in any media in 1971, much more so in comics. We also have another example of the depredations of faceless corporations, as the oil company is pretty unambiguously evil here. That is a sign of things to come, I'd wager.
The whole tale is beautifully illustrated by Aparo, who is handling all of the art chores. He gives us some really striking panels and pages, and the art has a nice sense of drama, especially with Chuma. I'll give this rushed, slightly muddled story 3 Minutemen, as its strengths and weaknesses somewhat even out.
If you thought robo-messiahs were strange, you ain't seen nothing yet. Our Dr. Thirteen backup this month is in the style that I think works best, with the good Doctor doing his ghost-breaking on his own, without tangling with the Stranger. Nonetheless, this particular outing isn't exactly a home run. It begins promisingly and strangely enough, with a group of seemingly sinister musicians leading a line of dancers into the sea, where they presumably drown, only for the band to emerge later, still playing. Later that night, Dr. Thirteen happens to be driving along the beach when he sees a ragged, raving figure stumble out of the surf.
The man claims to be the wealthy Willard Wentworth, who has a home on the beach. He hired "Satan's Sextet" for a house party because he was lonely, but they hypnotized all of the guests and led them to a watery grave. Wentworth isn't sure how he escaped, but he stumbled out of the water sometime later, shaken and terrified. Thirteen agrees to investigate, but when they return to the beach house, they find it packed with people, a party in full swing. The owner claims not to know any of them and accuses the band of murder. Dr. Thirteen insists they stay and continue their investigation (Maybe he just wants to party!), and the pair are given love-beads.
Suddenly, the band's music becomes hypnotic, and they once more lead the party goers into the waves. Thirteen is forced to follow, but his mind is working all the while, and he deduces that the beads are responsible, and he removes his and Wentworth's necklaces. Returning to the house, he overhears the convenient exposition by the bandleader, whose motives are…well, as prosaic as his methods are insane.
Apparently, he's the millionaire's disowned son, who got plastic surgery and planned this whole thing to kill his father so he could get his inheritance. The beads had hallucinogens in them which were activated by the vibrations of the band's music. Ooookaaaay. That's pretty out there, even for comics. Entertainingly, Thirteen overcomes the band with a massive mounted fish, and the police arrive to tidy things up. Dr. Thirteen rides off into the sunrise, but not before laying some major guilt on Wentworth, pointing out that he must have really screwed up to raise a murderer! Ouch!
This is a fun concept that sadly doesn't really deliver a good story. The image of the Pied-Piper-esq murder is really neat and creepy, but the explanation and the motivations don't live up to the cleverness of the gimmick. I think this might have worked better as a Phantom Stranger story, with an actual supernatural explanation. Nonetheless, it's a decent enough read. The sequence where Dr. Thirteen reasons his way to the solution to the mystery is quite solid, and it has a nice sense of suspense and stakes as he slowly drowns. Tony DeZuninga's art isn't particularly impressive, but it does the job, though the inking is a bit overdone in some sections. He tries to create a somewhat psychedelic feel to the band's sections, and that is partially successful. I'll give the whole thing 2.5 Minutemen.
And with those maudlin mysteries, this episode of Into the Bronze Age comes to a close! It was a really interesting trio of books, flaws and all. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and please come back soon for another edition of Into the Bronze Age! Until then, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
Leave a comment Posted in Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Superheroes Tagged Black Canary, Denny O'Neil, Dick Giordano, Fourth World, Green Arrow, green lantern, Jack Kirby, Jim Aparo, Len Wein, Mr Miracle, Neal Adams, Phantom Stranger, Robert Kanigher, Speedy, Tony DeZuniga, Vince Colletta
"Ping! Ping! Ping!" Mother Box says, "Welcome to another edition of Into the Bronze Age!" Clearly New Genesis technology is so advanced as to have developed excellent taste. As proof, I've got a smattering of classic comics for you, including the next chapter in Jack Kirby's epic Fourth World Saga! It's an honestly intriguing trio of books on the docket in this bunch, so let's jump right in!
"The Paranoid Pill!"
We start off on a great foot, with this Kirby classic where the King is starting to hit his stride with his unusual superhero. Ironically, this is probably one of his Mr. Miracle run's weakest covers, while also being one of his more memorable stories. The crowd in the image looks suitably maddened, but the perspective is a bit wonky, and the coloring job lets it down, with the mixture of single color and full color characters being a bit distracting. And why in the world is our hero completely white? The composition feels unbalanced and crowded by the title, though it effectively captures the feel of the issue.
And the issue is definitely a good one, though it suffers from some of the Kirby-as-writer excesses we've been noting. Having learned at the Stan Lee School of Exposition, where the only thing better than text is yet more text, the King overwrites throughout, starting with the first scene. A number of silver androids, called "animates," swarm through a Boom Tube into an empty room, where they set up an office, and the caption declares that "Sometimes, there are things that take place in empty rooms that defy belief, and so go unnoticed!" Think about that for a moment, as written. I don't think that something taking place in an empty room is escaping notice because it "defies belief." It might just be because the room is…you know…empty.
Nonetheless, we discover that these silver creatures are artificial constructs, all animated by a single mind, a creature that was once a man but has now become a being of pure energy. This being is Dr. Bedlam, who slowly takes possession of one of his animates, molding it into the shape he wore in life. Despite the overwritten dialog, this is a pretty cool scene, and there is a nice air of menace to the whole tableau. What's more, while this type of sci-fi concept is pretty common in the genre today, popping up in modern shows like Babylon 5 and the like, it strikes me that it must have been much more groundbreaking in 1971. I can only think of one example in comics that predates it (though there may be more), and that is NoMan from the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and I can't think of any well-known sci-fi novels before this point that explored the idea of beings of pure energy inhabiting temporary bodies. The use of actual brain transplants and such parallels are much more common and date back to the beginning of the century, as early as the John Carter novels (1927). Yet, this seems pretty original. Once again, Kirby is just casually tossing out fascinating and innovative ideas that could easily support much larger works.
The unique Dr. Bedlam, after taking possession of his body, dismisses the rest of his animates and, with super overly dramatic dialog, picks up the phone and calls Scott Free! I quite like Bedlam's design, in keeping with many of the other Apokoliptians we've seen so far, but bearing his own sinister identity. His call finds Mr. Miracle in his usual position, strapped into an elaborate trap and preparing an escape. It's a great splash page of wonderful Kirby art. Scott and Oberon have a fun back and forth as the escape artist asks his assistant to get the phone, completely unconcerned about the nearness of a rather messy death. Poor Oberon. This job can't be good for his blood pressure. Casually escaping the trap with a full second to spare, the hero answers the phone and receives a challenge, which he accepts.
After the call, Scott tries to explain what Bedlam is, offering that he is pure mental energy, making him very dangerous, but adding that Mother Box is fortunately able to guard against such psionic assaults. What follows is a fairly cool sequence that doesn't get enough explanation. Mr. Miracle conducts a seance of sorts with Oberon in which he contacts Dr. Bedlam and experiences a mental attack, and using Mother Box, weathers the storm. It's a creepy and suitably imaginative scene, but the purpose and motivations behind it are really unclear. Does Scott do this to head off an attack he expects, or is this just a way to show Oberon Bedlam's power? Kirby's slightly muddy writing doesn't clarify. Yet, the scene does have the effect of establishing the power and threat of the bad Doctor, which is something.
After scaring poor Oberon half to death, Mr. Miracle takes to the sky and heads to a high-rise where he is to meet the Apokoliptian. There, Bedlam offers the escape artist a choice, either surrender to his citizen's arrest, or escape from a trap of his devising. It's never made clear why Scott would show up in the first place, but he is the kind of guy that likes to face danger head-on, so I can at least partially hand-wave that.
Anyway, the Dr. tells the slippery superhero that all he has to do is descend through the 50 stories of the building and walk out through the front door, but to make things interesting, he shows his foe the substance of his trap, a concoction he calls the Paranoid Pill, which he drops into the building's ventilation system. Soon the drug does its work, turning the everyday inhabitants of the office building into madmen, and the tower is full of "an army of unreasoning, unpredictable, unstoppable enemies!" Mr. Miracle lashes out, but Dr. Bedlam simply abandons his animate, which is a nice touch, a villain that cannot really be fought.
A great page, absolutely full of menace.
Kirby provides a wonderful illustration of the Paranoia Pill taking hold, with people panicking and running wild throughout the building, and it isn't long before a gang of maddened men burst into the office that traps our hero. Sensibly, Scott tries the window, only to find it charged with "cosmi-current," leaving him only one way out. He flies along the ceiling in a great sequence, dodging the ad-hoc attacks of the panicked populace flooding the halls. He narrowly escapes into the elevator, only to be attacked by a gun-totting citizen and forced to flee a host of ricocheting rounds on the 45th floor.
Unfortunately he leaps right into the arms of another crazed crowd, who, in their delusional state, mistake him for a demon. The carry him along and lock him into a trunk, which they bind closed with rope and chains before deciding to dispose of this "demon" by chucking him down the central shaft of the building. The comic ends on wonderful cliffhanger, with the trapped Mr. Miracle plummeting 45 floors to his doom!
This is a great issue, featuring a really unique and fitting challenge for the character. The tower-turned-death-trap is a big enough threat to fill the comic (and then some), and the trope of innocents turned into threats is always a good twist to throw at a hero. Kirby does a great job with the art throughout this issue, but his work on the crowds is just fantastic. They're individual and varied, as are their reactions to the gas itself. Mr. Miracle's desperate race through the high-rise makes for good action, and it's nice to see him use his wits to escape rather than just plot devices and "Applied Phlebotinum." Bedlam makes for a good villain, and his gimmick is suitably creepy and outlandish. Once again, I find myself in awe of Kirby's creativity and the casual way in which he pours out innovative concepts. Other than the overwritten sections and the lack of clear explanations, this is a good, solid adventure tale. I'll give it 4 Minutemen.
"The Shape of Fear!"
"Superman's Neighbors"
Penciler: Wayne Boring
"Superman's Day of Truth!"
Here we are at the penultimate issue of Denny O'Neil's innovative but rather weird run on Superman. This comic is no exception to that description either, featuring a strange mix of elements. Beginning with the cover itself, which is, of course, beautifully illustrated by Neal Adams, the issue is full of rather odd choices. I like the image of the monster dragging our defeated hero and his doppelganger away, but the design for the monster itself is a bit curious, with its tail coming out of the center of its back rather than out of its tailbone as you might expect. Also note the sign referencing New York. Randomly, this story seems to be set in New York rather than Metropolis, down to including several New York landmarks. Strange settings aside, it's a solid enough cover, if not exceptional. You can't help but wonder what could defeat two Supermen.
The story itself begins where last issue left off, with the former Man of Steel, now just the Man of Flesh, having defeated the Intergang assassins. I-Ching offers to complete the ceremony to restore the hero's powers, but Superman refuses! In a surprising and rather moving twist, Clark has a crisis of doubt. He's tasted what it's like to be a mortal man (ignoring for the nonce that he's experienced that TONS of times over the course of his career), and he sees now a chance to be free of the loneliness and crushing responsibility of being Superman. It's a great moment, but O'Neil doesn't give it enough space to breathe. No sooner does it begin than it is already ending. I-Ching emphasizes that "one does not choose responsibility! It is often thrust upon one!" and "To refuse it is to commit the worst act of cowardice." Despairing, the Kryptonian relents, and tells the old mystic to work his magic.
I-Ching draws Superman's spirit out of his body and sends it soaring off to find his dusty duplicate. When the hero's soul-form encounters his double, it drains the creature of its stolen powers, leaving it weakened and helpless. When his spirit returns to his body, the Man of Steel finds himself full powered once more and rushes off to test himself. He smashes a meteoroid, races around the Earth, and then spots a purse snatcher upon whom he can test his powers. Faster than a speeding bullet, or a running thief, for that matter, the Action Ace builds a complete jail cell around the startled man in the middle of the street. The people of Metropolis aren't too pleased, and thus begins a display of classic Super-dickery.
The hero has suddenly become overbearing, brash, and more than a little selfish, and he begins to handle even the most minor of crimes with outlandish responses, like when he picks up a speeding car and deposits it on top of the Empire State Building (like I said, we're suddenly in New York). He also meets I-Ching up there at the blind man's request. The mystic points out this strange behavior and tells Superman that he thinks the Man of Tomorrow suffered brain damage when he was mortal, which enrages the hero. Unable to convince the Metropolis Marvel that something is wrong, I-Ching turns again to magic, all the while talking about how it is a really bad idea because he doesn't really know what he's doing. I knew they should have contacted Dr. Fate!
The martial arts master conjures a spell to track the Sand Superman, and when he and Diana Prince find the weakened creature, they learn its origins. Apparently it's a being from the "Realm of Quarrm," which I-Ching helpfully describes as "a state of alternate possibilities! A place where neither men nor things exist…only unformed, shapeless begins!" Sure, why not?
The explosion that destroyed the world's kryptonite ripped a hole between dimensions between Earth and Quarrm, and the energy that leaked out mingled with that of Superman as he lay stunned in the sand, eventually giving form to the formless. Each time the two got close to each other, the Sandman gathered more and more power from his opposite number. In a desperate bid, I-Ching plans to use this creature to drain Superman once more, but unbeknownst to them, a new tear has opened, and more energy begins to leak into this world.
Sneaking into Morgan Edge's apartment (for some reason), Diana calls Superman to lure him into their trap. When he arrives, his dusty duplicate drains some of his powers, but the headstrong hero manages to escape. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure watches from a soundproofed room. Mysterious! Down on the street, fate takes a hand as nearby in Chinatown a parade is underway and the energy from Quarrm seeps into a statue of an "Oriental War Demon," which suddenly comes to life and runs amuck. The Man of Steel stops his flight in order to investigate, showing that he is still somewhat himself, only to be drained once more and fall from the sky, to collapse helplessly at the mercy of the Quarrm-demon.
There's a lot going on in this issue, and you have to give O'Neil credit for creativity. He's certainly telling new stories. Whether or not they're also good stories…well, that's a different question. In this case, there are definitely strengths that recommend this yarn, like the moment of mature emotion that grips Superman when he is faced with the prospect of a normal life. It's just a shame that this dilemma isn't given more (or any) development because it has a lot of potential. Also, despite how time-worn the Super-dickery trope is, at least it is given a fairly reasonable explanation here, as the Man of Steel took a blow to the head while he was vulnerable. How do you force a demigod to get help if he doesn't want it? There are some weaknesses here too, though, including a general sense of disconnectedness between the different elements of the plot. I-Ching's vaguely defined abilities and general inscrutableness don't help matters, really. The sudden return of Superman's powers once again illustrate how over-powered he is in the Silver Age. I find myself hoping that, once this arc is finished, O'Neil will leave him at least a little weaker.
Curt Swan's art is largely great, as usual, but I'm noticing that in the current iteration of Superman, he tends to draw the character's legs as too short and stumpy at times. His work on the demon is alternately nicely rendered or a bit cartoonish. The creature's design in general and the sudden injection of Chinese elements into the tale seems a bit incongruous, despite the involvement of I-Ching, because these events seem to have nothing to do with him. Thus, the fact that the Quarrm energy just happens to inhabit a Chinese demon statue ends up feeling rather random. So, in the end, this is a solid continuation of the story, even if it doesn't quite come together successfully. I'll give it 3.5 Minutemen.
"The Man with No Heart!"
Penciler: Jim Aparo
Inker: Jim Aparo
Colourist: Jim Aparo
"Spectre of the Stalking Swamp!"
What a cover! That is a wonderful composition, with the incredibly menacing swamp monster rising from the water, his shape only partially defined and gloriously creepy in its uncertainty and inhumanity. Apparently muck monsters are just in the zeitgeist over at DC at this time! It's a great scene, very fitting for a monster story with the blissfully unaware couple in the foreground, though I'm not entirely certain what I think of the Phantom Stranger's outline hanging out there in the background. This is especially true because, unusually, this cover does not relate to our headline tale. Instead, this is an image from the Dr. Thirteen backup.
Nonetheless, I think any kid with an interest in horror or the supernatural would be hard pressed to resist the lure of that image. Inside, despite the disappointment of not finding the Phantom Stranger locked in combat with shambling swamp monster, we still find a gripping and arresting story. It begins on a stormy night in New York (Again with New York! What happened to Metropolis or Gotham?), where the Phantom Stranger pays a visit to a somewhat Lex Luthor-looking fellow named Broderick Rune. Interestingly, Rune doesn't react the way most do when they see the Stranger, instead seeming positively pleased to see him, and as the mysterious wanderer steps into the man's penthouse apartment, we see why. Suddenly, the Spectral Sleuth is caught in a glowing pentagram, and "sorcerous fumes" knock him out!
A Hindu servant named Rashid arrives and we discover that this is all part of a plan, just as the wealthy rune topples over from what is described as "the final attack." Both the Stranger and his captor are rushed to a private hospital, where a hesitant doctor performs a bizarre transplant, stealing the Ghostly Gumshoe's immortal heart and giving it to the ruthless Mr. Rune. The procedure is a success, but while under, Rune dreams that he is confronted by the Stranger, who demands the return of what is his. There's a nice little back and forth about the importance of a soul above all else that is reminescent of Christ's question, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
When Rune awakens, he is panicked, but things continue to get more bizarre! Two thugs trying to dispose of the Spectral Sleuth's body, only to discover their bag is empty when they try to dump it. Just then, the Stranger appears behind them, and shock of the confrontation shatters their minds! Meanwhile, Rune recovers, but he is plagued by visions of his mysterious adversary. Finally, he decides to try and escape his guilt by heading to a castle in Europe.
This gambit seems to have worked for a time, but on another stormy night, Rune once again sees the Stranger stalking out of the darkness. In desperation, his servant, Rashid, who had originally trapped the mysterious hero, tries to conjure another spell to banish his spirit. Unfortunately, his power is not up to the task, and in the midst of his incantations, the Stranger appears! Despite the loyal Hindu's desperate efforts, when Rune flees out into the storm, the Spectral Sleuth follows, and the stolen heart stops beating! Finally, Rune's allies find him, dead, and lacking a heart!
This is a really good Phantom Stranger story, taking full advantage of the mysterious nature of the character and supernatural trappings of the setting. You can ask questions about how the Stranger's heart was able to be taken in the first place, but given the way things worked out, I'm rather inclined to think that this undertaking was always intended to end like this. The story tackles rather similar themes of guilt and conscience as the Edgar Allen Poe classic, "The Tell-Tale Heart," with its protagonist who is slowly driven to desperation by the knowledge of his crime.
Like Poe's own brand of Gothic horror, this tale is wonderfully atmospheric, with menacing oozing from every panel, and the oppressive threat of outer night seeming to press against every scene. Aparo's art is fantastic, bringing Rune's selfish self-confidence to life, as well as his growing terror. The looming menace of the Stranger is wonderfully rendered as well, and our mysterious hero has rarely scarier. It's short, but tightly plotted and effective. I'll give it 4.5 Minutemen, an excellent supernatural thriller.
"The Spectre of the Stalking Swamp"
Our Dr. Thirteen backup sadly doesn't live up to our wonderful cover either. It presents a rather unusual tale for the Good Doctor, though it is also a pretty entertaining one. It starts in the swamp, right enough, with a young couple out for a walk. The youthful Romeo's efforts are interrupted by a strange sight, a green monster arising out of the swamp! The creature scoops up the frightened girl and carries her off into the murk. The next day, the local sheriff, Rufus Taylor, explains the mystery to Dr. Thirteen.
The boy who witnessed the abduction is now comatose from shock, but he and the girl are not the only victims of this monster. Apparently people have been disappearing for weeks. According to local legend, a hundred years ago a settler got separated from his family and wandered off into the swamp, where the essence of the bog infused his body, turning him into the specter that haunts the silent spaces. Thirteen, of course, is having none of this, and he insists on going out into the wild to investigate.
That night, the monster attacks his boat, and the Ghost Breaker disappears, apparently broken himself! Despite his strict orders, his wife follows him, persuading the sheriff to help her, and they find the doctor's boat. Maria manages to convince Rufus to continue the search, even though he insists it's hopeless, and they stumble upon a strange sight deep in the swamp, a gleaming domed city. Finding their way inside, the pair discover the populace moving like zombies, blank-eyed and listless.
Upon a throne in the city's center, the encounter the swamp monster, actually a man called Professor Zachary Nail, who is wearing a suit designed for "protection against the filth outside–the polution that infects your dying world!" Nail has created his own Eden in the swamp and kidnapped the locals to populate it. When the sheriff bravely tries to capture the madman, the Professor shots him with a bizarre ray, which converts the lawman into a plant! Shades of Batman: TAS!
Nail takes the terrified Mrs. Thirteen for a tour of his city, explaining that the place is powered by a nuclear reactor (!), and that he has hypnotically controlled the populace so that they are utterly subject to his will. He then leads her to her husband, who is also under his power. The Professor orders Dr. Thirteen to take his wife to the "Submission Room" (which doesn't sound too pleasant), but the strong-willed Ghost Breaker resists his control. In an overly written sequence, Thirteen throws off the brainwashing and attacks Nail.
Just then, the foliage of the swamp starts growing exponentially and begins to smash the dome. The Professor runs off in an attempt to save his Eden, but the Thirteens have better sense and begin to evacuate the place. They get the placid populace out just in time, as the vegetation of the wilds reclaim the city, destroying it utterly. Know-it-all Dr. Thirteen theorizes that the waste from nuclear reactor must have caused the plants to grow super fast, but Maria thinks maybe Mother Nature was exacting her revenge "for the crimes he committed in her name!"
This is a solid and entertaining story, if quite rushed. It is not, however, really a Dr. Thirteen-style story. This character is best suited by relatively conventional mysteries with exceptional or sensational trappings, and this type of science fiction yarn is a little out of his wheelhouse. He doesn't even really solve the mystery here. The villain just captures him and conveniently explains his plans. The actual plot is an interesting one, and the eco-terrorist villain archetype is one that will emerge more often in the future, most notably when R'as Al Ghul is given his chance to shine in future issues. Clearly the concept of radical action on environmental issues was in the zeitgeist, which is interesting. I rather thought the spread of such characters was a more recent development.
Poor Sheriff Rufus, despite looking the part, surprisingly didn't conform to the usual trope of the small-town Southern sheriff. These characters in fiction tend to fat, incompetent, and corrupt. Rufus, on the other hand, was brave and apparently honest and dedicated, even losing his life trying to perform his duties. I'm so used to the tropes that I was surprised by this. We can give credit to DeZuniga and Wein for subverting expectations there. Wein, for his part, is a bit overly purple in his prose, especially in his narration, throughout, but the writing isn't bad. On the art front, Tony DeZuniga does a solid job, and some of his character work is really quite good. We don't really get a good sense of the city, though, which might have more to do with the lack of space than anything else. His design for the swamp monster is effective considering what we eventually learn of it, but it certainly isn't as cool as Adams' cover version, sadly. On the whole, I feel like his style is a good fit for these types of horror/suspense comics. So, all-in-all, I suppose I'll give this rather cramped and odd tale 3 Minutemen. It's enjoyable but forgettable.
P.S.: Notably, I think that this concept of a futuristic city hidden in the swamp will be recycled in the first Swamp Thing run, though I can't remember which issue. That run, of course, was begun by Len Wein, for a bit of synchronicity.
Eco-terrorists, Chinese demons, and energy beings, oh my! A fun set of books, these, and I had a good time going through them. There is certainly plenty creativity in this batch, whatever their quality. I hope that y'all enjoyed reading my commentaries and that y'all will join me again soon for another edition of Into the Bronze Age! Next post, we close out August 1971! Be there, or Mother Box will be disappointed! Until next time, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
3 Comments Posted in Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Superheroes Tagged Curt Swan, Denny O'Neil, Fourth World, Jack Kirby, Jim Aparo, Len Wein, Mr Miracle, Murphy Anderson, Phantom Stranger, superman, Tony DeZuniga, Vince Colletta, wonder woman
Hello readers, and welcome to another step forward in our journey Into the Bronze Age! We have a trio of comics here that are pretty widely varied in quality but all of them are quite interesting in one way or another. In particular, we've got a really thought-provoking (at least for me) issue of Justice League in store for us! I'm afraid I've got plenty to say about this one, and things get rather heavy, so consider yourselves warned! To round things out, we've got some more Fourth World goodness and some Phantom Strange…well, strangeness!
"Plague of the Pale People"
Cover Artist: Carmine Infantino
This comic is one of the clearer signs I've encountered of the intermediary stage we're in at this moment of our journey, here in 1971. It's a very mixed bag. It features attempts at world-building, more mature characterization, social relevance, and emotional impact, which are all commendable goals and will come to define the better works of the Bronze Age. However, each of those attempts is, at best, flawed, and Mike Friedrich makes a number of poor choices in order to accomplish his aims. The result is a very uneven book with a lot of potential that manages to fall frustratingly short on most every front. That really begins with the cover. It's a reasonably solid image, though the composition feels rather unbalanced. It conveys its message, but there's not a whole lot more I can say about it.
The story within begins, oddly, with a line from one of T.S. Eliot's most famous poems, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." (More about this at the end of my commentary.) Here we meet a conveniently named girl with the moniker 'Shally,' who, we're told, "sells seashells by the seashore," or did, because now she lies dying. In a cool bit of world building, we see that she was attached to the "Atlantean Cultural Exchange," whose existence makes perfect sense, though it gets exactly zero development. The girl herself is discovered by a young couple on the beach, soon joined by Batman himself, who notes that she seems to have been poisoned. He tries to contact Aquaman, but getting no response, he summons the rest of the JLA.
We flashback one month in the interim, as Clark Kent covers the disposal of a deadly chemical weapon by the military, who plan to scuttle the ship bearing the gas at sea, where it can't harm anyone. Of course, this is the DC Universe, where every square inch of land, sea, and space is crawling with strange, undiscovered cultures, and the deadly substance happens to rain destruction upon the undersea city of Sareme, home of the Pale People, a somewhat simple submarine race that Atlantis had recently raised to a high technological level (originally appearing WAY back in Flash #109, another bit of world building). They worship an ancient "wonder plant," the "Proof Rock" (get it?) which can detect dishonesty and perfidy, but the miraculous growth is smashed by the falling canisters, and in one fell swoop, the foundation for their culture is destroyed as well.
A charismatic leader, Prince Nebeur, arises among the Pale People and declares that he will be their new god and will lead them to conquest and glory. Then, without any preamble and completely off-panel…they defeat Atlantis. Just like that. The Saremites harness the chemical weapons that were dumped on their heads and turn them against their former benefactors. Apparently after a single skirmish, Aquaman, King of Atlantis, surrenders, saying that his people have no defense against the gas…though we will see in a few pages why this claim is ridiculous on the face of it.
Well…that was easy. And these sheep conquered Atlantis?
There are a few major problems with this scene and what it represents for our story. First, in it Friedrich breaks one of the cardinal rules of writing, telling rather than showing, as the defining moment comes and goes without us seeing even a glimpse of it. Second, and much more significantly, Aquaman simply…gives up. Without a fight, without a desperate counterstrike, without so much as throwing a single punch. He just gives up. He doesn't take the field like the warrior king he is. He surrenders, and in so doing, he submits all of Atlantis to the reign of a tyrant and an alien people.
Bad writing aside, check out Aquaman in that middle panel. Time to lay off the crab cakes, Arthur!
This scene and much of what flows from it are wildly problematic because of the philosophy that drives it. It is forged from a foolish, unworkable personal pacifism that was common in the Vietnam era, the type that can only exist in a free country that gives its citizens the leisure and convenience of such scruples (this is not all pacifism, of course, just impractical, irrationally demanding strains). It becomes unworkable the moment there is a true struggle for survival in the offing, and it absolutely cannot function at the national level. Even neutral nations like Switzerland will defend themselves at need, and in our fallen and fractious world, all nations sometimes face outside forces that want what they have.
The doctrine of Just War is an old and respected one (I ascribe to a fairly Augustinian version myself), but the spirit that leads us to seek out such philosophies is borne from the knowledge that some things are worth fighting, and indeed, dying for. There is a long history of such thought, but I think John Stuart Mill may have said it best back in the era of the great struggles for liberty:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. […] The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertion of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."
And make no mistake, that is precisely what is at stake for the Atlanteans: freedom. Yet, Aquaman, of all men, considers this too small of a stake for which to fight. Now, the text tells us that the Atlanteans don't stand a chance, so unconditional surrender is the only option, but that is simply not supported in the book. Here is where Friedrich's literary sin of 'telling' really hurts his tale, as the reader can't help but say, "Really? All of Atlantis and Aquaman can't do ANYTHING against these random guys who we've never heard of before?" It's a drastically unsatisfying explanation, and it makes the Sea King look more than useless.
Back to our story, the power hungry Nebeur, unsurprisingly, isn't satisfied with Atlantis, so he plans to conquer the surface world as well, with the help of the gas that the surfacemen themselves created. That's really all they've got going for them. Nonetheless, the usurper king shames Aquaman and pushes him around as he takes control of Atlantis, but fortunately the apparently pathetic hero has allies that are more useful than he is in this story. Batman tells his fellow heroes of his suspicions about the missing gas and the absent Marine Marvel, and they split into teams to investigate. The Dark Knight goes in search of the missing Flash, while Hawkman and Superman go hunting for the chemical weapons and Green Lantern and the Atom try to contact Aquaman.
I like Hawkman's pressure suit; the white looks good with his costume.
In a nice bit of detail, the Winged Wonder dons a pressure suit so he can travel into the deep, but the searching duo are attacked by the Pale People near their city. Superman saves a stunned Hawkman and returns to smash the Saremites' weapons, with a little help from his airborne ally. Having solved part of the mystery, the pair head to Atlantis to meet up with their teammates.
Things are tense in the undersea city, with the Atlanteans feeling justifiably a trifle antsy about the whole 'unconditional surrender' thing. Green Lantern and Atom are attacked as they approach by the occupiers, but Hal's power ring proves up to the challenge and silences the Atlantean artillery. When the heroes are attacked by gas shells (underwater, let's remember), the Emerald Gladiator manages to bottle up the toxin while the Atom disables the launcher and captures the guard.
Just then the other pair arrive, and the Saremites, in desperation, turn the water pumps of Atlantis into a weapon, which is actually a really clever idea and a great extrapolation of the extant material. They expel all of the water from the domed city in a massive, crushing torrent, and the heroes are blown and battered by the flood, even Superman. Now, that's a tad problematic, as anything that could take out the Man of Steel would probably kill the others, but I'll give Friedrich a pass because balancing these power levels has got to be tough.
This is a cool sequence, and it includes a pretty clever idea, but it also reveals a huge problem for the whole 'Atlantis is helpless against the gas' angle. The whole city is under a water-tight dome! All the Atlanteans had to do was sit tight, and the Saremite's weapons would have been completely useless. In a story where Friedrich is clearly thinking through a lot of his choices, this is a pretty glaring oversight. Nonetheless, the action doesn't end there, as the Emerald Crusader uses his ring to shield the Man of Tomorrow, and the Kryptonian smashes his way into the Atlantean control center and knocks out the invaders manning it. With the pressure released, the heroes storm the city and take out the Saremite troops in a decent, if not spectacular, splash page.
The tyrant, Nebeur, tries to flee when he sees his troops defeated, but Aquaman finally does something useful and decks the would-be conqueror. Finally, the crisis is over, and the heroes begin to celebrate, but the Sea King berates them, noting that a death toll of 43 makes this anything but a bloodless victory, and blames the surfacemen for instigating the tragedy in the first place by being irresponsible with their weapons.
What the heck is going on with Aquaman's face in panel #2? The Sea King just can't catch a break in this book!
This is an interesting scene, as it tries to deal with the realistic costs of conflict, which are always too high. War is always a tragedy, even when it is a just necessity. While Aquaman is rather unfair to his teammates, the real trouble is that the moment is somewhat undercut by the weaknesses of the story. The tone is rather heavy handed as well, which is no surprise considering who our author is, but that is nothing compared to the overblown narration that follows.
The League return the Saremites, including their dead, to their city, and the desperate, directionless people gasp in wonder as the 'Proof Rock' comes back to life when the heroes approach it. They beg the Leaguers to rule them as their gods, but Hawkman steps forward and responds with an honestly intriguing speech. He declares that they have placed their faith in external sources, which have failed them, so they must turn within in their search for meaning, a very existentialist sermon ("existence precedes essence"). The comic ends with a distorted recreation of the Christian rite of the Eucharist, as the Thanagarian hero takes pieces of the 'Proof Rock' and administers them to the Pale People, saying "Take and eat of it, for this is the food of life." Afterwards, back aboard the Satellite, the assembled League are discussing the case when suddenly Batman appears bearing a gravely wounded Flash! That's quite a note to go out on!
St. Hawkman of the wings
The Hawkman sermon is…well, a slightly sacrilegious ending, but that doesn't bother me too much since the symbolism is clear and clever (internalizing a once external source of meaning). It's a really striking, provocative conclusion, and I am impressed that Friedrich is able to deliver it after the uneven story that precedes it. Essentially, Hawkman attempts to give the Saremites a new belief structure to replace that which they lost, which is a pretty huge move on his part. I suppose that the JLA doesn't subscribe to the Prime Directive! Honestly, the gesture is quite fitting coming from the Winged Wonder, given the type of advanced, science-based culture that the Thanagarians evince, but I find myself a little troubled by it, purely on philosophical/theological grounds.
While I have a deep affection for existentialism, and I think it is a useful response to the weak, unexamined Epicureanism of the modern world, it is an ultimately flawed philosophy unless joined with Christianity, as in Kierkegaard 's work. When you remove external sources of objective morality, you're eventually left with nothing more than enlightened self-interest as an ethics that can be rationally defended. That is a pretty poor ethical standard, and the moral relativism of the modern world reflects the reality of such a stance (even when it masquerades under the guise of adhering to an objective morality).
In terms of Friedrich's references to Eliot's "Prufrock," I can't decide if they are asinine or brilliant. You see, the poem, like much of Eliot's work, is about the disillusionment, frustration, and indecision of modern life. The piece is one of the great standards of Modernism, capturing the ennui of the early 20th Century. Given the condition of American culture in 1971, with many people frustrated about the state of things but unable to decide how to get involved or how to create change, it is possible that this is a very insightful framing device…except for the fact that the story doesn't really capitalize on it, and the supplied line seems to be chosen because of its aquatic theme rather than any interpretative power. The use of the "Proof Rock" in the alien city also confuses the issue.
It's clearly a reference to 'ol Prufrock, but its significance in the story seems to have little to do with poem, except insofar as the Pale People are lost and directionless with its destruction, as is 'Prufrock' himself. One way or another, this is certainly not the clear and effective literary allusion we saw in the Avengers story from a while back. It feels more like Friedrich showing off, but perhaps I'm being unfair. The unmoored, directionless narrator of Eliot's poem certainly shares his uncertainty with the Saremites. Nonetheless, a much more effective allusion accompanies Hawkman's sermon, as Friedrich includes a passage from William Carlos William's "Spring and All." The line and the poem at large deal with the perennial regrowth of nature, the power of spring to transform even the ugliest and harshest landscapes, symbolizing the power of life to recover from even the worst shocks. It's a very fitting reference that adds to the scene. I'm not much for William's poetry, but this works.
So, what do we make of this very unusual story? It is an ambitious comic, and Friedrich is really striving to create something significant and provocative. He falls short of most of his aims, but we have to give him credit for his aspirations. Yet, in order to get the message he wants across, he wrenches characters and concepts out of shape, turning Aquaman into an appeaser and a z-list alien race into a major threat without proper development. In the Vietnam era, where American forces were literally burning down and defoliating entire jungles in an attempt to pin down the Viet Cong, responsible use of weapons and accountability for them was a pretty pressing issue. (It just so happens that it remains so in a world of robotic drones bringing comfortably distant death from the skies.) Clearly, there is an attempt here to encourage the audience to grapple with this issue, and that is valuable. Despite its glaring problems of structure, characterization, and logic, Friedrich delivers a very memorable and (relatively) thoughtful comic here. Dick Dillin's art is serviceable as usual. He renders the Pale People pretty well, but there are some awkward panels scattered about. There are a few places where the art doesn't quite serve the story, but on the whole, he does a good job. In the end, I suppose this issue deserves 3.5 Minutemen, as its flawed efforts raise it slightly above the average, though I'm inclined to be merciless because of what Friedrich does to my favorite hero, Aquaman.
"X-Pit!"
After the heaviness of the previous comic, with its ambiguous literary allusions and downer elements, this next issue of Mr. Miracle's rip-roaring adventures are a breath of fresh air. I've been looking forward to reading more of the super escape artist's escapades, and the King did not disappoint with this one. I'll save y'all the suspense: it's a great comic, as are the bulk of this run. Yet, this has what is probably one of the weaker Mr. Miracle covers. Kirby has created a composition that hearkens back to his days at Marvel. Just look at all that cover copy! The central image, our hero facing the flying blades is great, and the peril is palpable, but there's a lot of wasted space and cluttered text. Still, it is properly exciting, and the story inside lives up to its promise.
It begins the way this series often does, with Scott Free and his assistant Oberon working on a new escape for their show. At the moment, the pair are constructing an android, which the escape artist refers to as a "Follower," that can mimic his movements. Interestingly, this entire scene is framed with the most Kirby panel dividers that have ever existed. Some unseen foe watches the proceedings and reports to a superior with sinister intent. The trick in the offing involves explosives, and Scott is using his duplicate to help him test it, but then their uninvited guest, a strange looking robot named Overlord, strikes, with devastating results.
Fortunately, the android takes the brunt of the blast, and Oberon comes to his friend's rescue, fighting the resultant blaze. I've given Vinnie Colletta a lot of flak for his rushed and lazy inks on Kirby's books, but I'll give him due credit for this sequences, as he does a masterful job capturing the light and shadow of the flame and smoke. Amidst that obscuring smoke, Oberon discovers Scott, unharmed, thanks to the intervention of his Mother Box. The mysterious Mr. Miracle tells his friend that the box was hurt while protecting him, and he must help it heal by pouring "my love–my belief" into it. Okay? The machine remains an enigma.
What a fantastic page! It's great that Kirby gives Oberon a chance to shine, endearing this odd little guy to his readers.
Meanwhile, our scene changes to focus on a strange old woman surrounded by amazing machines and armored troops. When the soldiers question her about the mysterious machine, Overlord, she throws back her cloak to reveal battle armor and beats them viciously, declaring that the robot is precious to her. She adds that she wants to kill Scott Free and orders her troops to bring him to her. This is our first introduction to Granny Goodness, and it is fantastic. It's really striking and funny to see this old woman just wail on all these vicious looking warriors, and Kirby draws her as a grotesque, frightening in her ugly rage.
Scott, for his part, is testing another act, recreating the cover image as he is strapped to a board facing a trio of razor-sharp spears, narrowly avoiding their strike. After his escape, Oberon begins to question him about his origins again, and I quite like his line: "Level with me, boy! You're not from anyplace I ever heard of–are you–?" Their conversation gives us a nice touch of characterization for both of them, though it reveals little more about Scott, other than that he his on the run and arrived via 'Boom Tube.' Of course, folks reading the rest of Kirby's books would recognize that term. After their talk, Granny's soldiers arrive and, mistaking the android for Mr. Miracle, capture it and Oberon. Scott sees this and, recognizing the attackers, he takes off after them with flying devices called 'Aero Disks.' I've always loved this element of the character. When I'm walking a long way, I'll occasionally daydream about having a pair of these myself!
Back at Granny's base, her troops return with their catch, and you can imagine how well she takes it when she realizes they have been suckered. Just then, Mr. Miracle arrives in grand fashion and snags his assistant. Yet, their escape is short-lived, as Granny triggers a device, and the pair drop into something called….the X-Pit! The Pit involves a clear, glass-like cage bearing a number of buttons, which Mr. Miracle calls "a torment-circuit." Sounds lovely! Kirby gives us a bit of awkward, fuzzy dialog here, but the heart of the trap is a series of tortures corresponding to each button, including flames, electricity, and choking mud. It's a great sequence, and Kirby draws the heck out of it. The trap itself is pretty clever, as, each press of a button brings relief from one peril, only to replace it with another. That's an insidious type of torture, giving you control over your own fate.
As Scott and Oberon face their desperate struggle for survival, Granny celebrates by having 'Overlord' brought out of her vault. We discover that the strange device is actually some type of "fabber," or nano-fabricator, that can create nearly anything out of thin air. Think of the replicators from Star Trek. Of course, Kirby doesn't describe it in those terms, as the idea was much less common and established in science fiction back in 1971. It does highlight the incredibly advanced technology of the New Gods. I mention all of this, because the King often likes to make such imaginative concepts central elements of his stories, even when they don't have a major impact on the plot, and such is the case here.
Another fantastic page, capturing what is great about Mr. Miracle.
Granny's enjoyment of Overlord is rudely interrupted as Mr. Miracle makes another dramatic entrance, destroying the device. He explains that he kept trying different settings for the torment-circuit until he found a radiation attack, which he was able to channel into Mother Box to restore her power, and then he use her to send an energy spike into Overlord, who was hooked into everything in the X-Pit, frying him. Essentially thumbing his nose at the vicious old woman, the super-escape-artist takes off, admitting to Oberon that it was difficult for him to stand up to her…but we don't yet entirely understand why!
This issue is just a blast. It establishes the pattern that most of the Mr. Miracle comics will follow, where we begin with our hero practicing an outlandish escape, have him be challenged by some of Darkseid's minions and put into some type of fiendish trap, only to live up to his name and thwart their plans by escaping. It could get repetitive, but Kirby is endlessly creative and manages to throw so many strange and wondrous ideas at his readers that the formula doesn't get boring, if memory serves. This particular story is just a lot of fun, with all kinds of outrageous threats facing our hero, some nice character work, and a really bizarre and memorable villain.
Granny Goodness really is a great addition to Kirby's growing Fourth World. She's a reversal of the archetypal motherly/grandmotherly figure, with her deceptive saccharine sweetness and her vicious cruelty. She fits perfectly into Darkseid's world, and the fact that she is the model of how Apokolips interacts with the innocence and helplessness of childhood speaks volumes. The King's art is, of course, great throughout, full of energy and bursting with imagination. Other than some clunky dialog and the fact that what exactly is going on with Overlord is left quite fuzzy, the issue has no real flaws, so I'm going to give it a boisterous and exciting 4.5 Minutemen.
P.S.: We have another text piece in this comic, this one about Mr. Miracle himself and Kirby's prophetic imagination. It's an interesting read!
"A Child of Death!"
"The Devil's Timepiece"
Brace yourselves, guys. This promising mystery tale takes a really bizarre left turn, with Kanigher pulling a crazy third act reveal. It actually starts out a really strong, promising Twilight Zone-esq tale, but that doesn't last. Nonetheless, we've got a great cover for this one, creepy, mysterious, and intriguing. You've just got to pick this issue up and see what's going on with this weird little kid!
The story inside starts well enough, with a scene straight off of the cover, wherein a scientist working in a remote facility is burning the midnight oil when he is startled by his grandson's sudden arrival. The child points his toy pistol at the old man, says "Bang! Bang!" and suddenly the gramps crumples to the floor, dead! The narration is a bit heavy-handed, but the scene is pretty chilling, especially given the demonic cast Aparo brings to the boy's cherubic features.
The next morning, the boy's mother finds her stricken father dead, seemingly from heart failure, and we observe the fallout from his loss. He was the head of Project Thunderhead, some sort of nuclear weapons undertaking, and the team must choose a new director. There's a bit of politicking, as an aged German scientist named Heinrich makes a play for the position buts get shot down, starting a plot thread that goes absolutely nowhere. At the slain scientist's funeral, the Phantom Stranger appears, ruminating that there is a terrible secret in the grave. How mysterious!
A week later, the incident repeats itself, as the new head of the project, Dr. Kurasawa, meets the same fate when he visits the young boy, Freddy. Once more, Freddy points his toy gun and shouts "Bang! Bang!", and once more, a man dies! The kid then continues to just carry on with his playing, violently, and his unconcern is really quite unnerving.
Meanwhile, Dr. Heinrich, who seems to be losing his mind, ranting about how he should be the director and clutching a pistol, has a dramatic confrontation with the Phantom Stranger that results in a fight. The struggle brings the rest of the crew running, and they think Heinrich is hallucinating because, of course, the Stranger is nowhere to be seen when they arrive. The aged German is sedated, and we get a strange scene where a female scientist named Dr. Clair has an encounter with Freddy but seems immune to his "shots."
Three nights later, the boy creeps out of his bed once more, this time targeting his own father, the latest head of the project, but the Phantom Stranger intervenes, throwing his cloak over the child and pretending to be a newly arrived scientist. For some reason, the father doesn't freak out because this strange man has his son wrapped up in his cloak…and also, wears a cloak. We learn that Freddy is adopted and unusually intelligent, and the Spectral Sleuth gives the scientist a clue about the strange deaths, noting that a set of computer banks shorted out when the other scientists were killed and that Freddy was in the room for each death.
Suddenly, the boy runs off into the night, and his father chases after him. Out in the stormy desert, Freddy turns on his adoptive father, and invisible energy flashes from his eyes. Only the Phantom Stranger's intervening again saves the man's life. And, this is where things just get weird. "Freddy" begins to explain his origins, claiming that his people were an Adamic race, living in an Edeninc world, free from strife or suffering, living in peace with all.
When the Ice Age came, they were driven underground, and after millennia in a subterranean world, their physiology changed, causing them to cease maturing around 4 years old. The creepy child is actually an adult, a mutant of this society, who developed the ability to kill with a glance. When subterranean nuclear tests began, this underground race was imperiled, and they dispatched their mutated members to infiltrate the various nuclear nations and sabotage their efforts in order to protect themselves. The story is absurd, but Aparo's art is so lovely I almost want to see him draw a full comic about this craziness. Why didn't anyone ever put him to work adapting some Edgar Rice Burroughs stories?
But let's think about this plot for a moment. So…this guy somehow made his way to the surface, somehow ended up in an orphanage where the scientist and his wife just happened to come looking for a child, and somehow just happened to be adopted. It's…a bit of stretch, even without getting into the gonzo antediluvian child-culture that Kanigher pulled out of left field. Regardless of how silly or strange the setup is, the story doesn't end there. After his explanation, "Freddy" flees from the recovered Stranger, who meets Dr. Clair in his pursuit, only to have her revealed as Tala! She gives her usual 'join me and we shall rule the galaxy together' spiel, but he brushes her off. The Stranger chases his quarry back to the caverns from which he emerged, but the kid…err…guy, runs straight into a nuclear test! Despite the scientist's protestations that "we don't mean to kill," our mysterious hero responds with a weird, heavy-handed 'ye who are without sin, cast the first stone,' bit about pollution and such that doesn't entirely makes sense in context.
This is a weird one, and not in the usual and positive style of macabre mystery that suits the Phantom Stranger. There's just too much going on here. The bizarre, fun-sized subterranean race is just an odd concept that doesn't really work, at least without more space to breath, aside from how incongruous the whole thing is with the story actually being told. The slowly unfolding mystery of the kid's powers is really fairly exciting. It's just a shame it doesn't have a better payoff. The whole story just feels messy, with the random, dropped plot thread of the jealous German and Tala's equally random appearance. I'm also becoming fairly certain that the DC writers had never actually met a human child. The little boy in this story speaks in the same type of bizarre third person pidgin as 'Superbaby' from his ridiculous adventure in Action Comics #399, except that this is even worse, because this kid is supposed to be four years old! I don't think any child has ever actually spoken this way, but by four, I would hope that a kid would be a bit more clear-spoken than this!
Of course, the adventure isn't all bad, and it is notable for the fact that it contains a fairly decent, if oddly delivered, critique of nuclear proliferation. I was really surprised to see this type of social issue show up here, especially in 1971. I thought it would probably take a bit longer for the nuclear issue to really reach the zeitgeist the way it had when I was a boy. The whole M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) concept was everywhere in the 80s, so it's interesting to see it showing up this early, at least in some fashion. The message here is as messy as the yarn that carries it, but it does manage to make its central premise clear. 'If we have enough bombs to destroy the world, why do we need more?' Of course, it makes that point in a random aside with a minor character, so take that for what it's worth. This is certainly an unusual subject for a comic, so that's worth noting. Unfortunately, on its own merits, there isn't much to recommend this confused jumble of a story, even with Aparo's always-lovely art. I'll give it 2 Minutemen.
"The Devil's Time-Piece"
Dr. Thirteen continues to hold down the backup slot here, and he gets another solo adventure. I prefer these, on the whole, as using him too often in the Phantom Stranger's stories just tends to make him annoying and repetitive. On his own, he gets a chance to actually win a few rounds instead of constantly losing to and being embarrassed by his otherworldly opposite number. Kanigher's short adventures often prove better than his longer efforts in headline-tale, but this one isn't as clear cut a winner as some. It begins with Dr. Thirteen attending a secret occult auction, apparently just to mock all of the superstitious fools gathered to bid. One of his friends, Bentley, buys an antique clock with a Satanic theme, and the auctioneer offers some cryptic warnings about the object. Oddly, he also says that the clock needs to be wound every hour. What kind of a clock needs winding every hour? That would be maddening!
Nonetheless, upon winding the clock for the first time at home, Thirteen's friend sees a devilish figure leap out of the artifact and proceeds to plunge its trident into his chest! Later, the good Doctor arrives to find his friend dead. He investigates the scene, and in a nice piece of detective work, he reconstructs the setup, reasoning that Bentley wound the clock before he died. Doing so himself, Terry gets quite a surprise, as the same Satanic figure leaps out of the object and attacks him!
Disoriented, Dr. Thirteen realizes that the clock released some sort of gas, but he still manages to defend himself. Finally, his attacker falls upon his own weapon, dying, and the Doctor puts the pieces together. He realizes that this man was the auctioneer and that his father was sentenced to death on the strength of Bentley's testimony, so he was out for revenge. The murderer hid in the clock (which seems rather small for that) and rigged it to release a gas when wound. Wearing nose filters, he sprang out and killed his victim…and then, apparently got back in the clock, rather than making his escape…for some reason.
It's a bit of a stretch, this whole setup. Watching Dr. Thirteen solve the mystery is entertaining, and his fight with the demon-dressed villain is pretty good, but the murderer's plot is a bit out there. Apparently he posses as an auctioneer when his victim just happens to go to this random occult auction, or he actually is an auctioneer and takes advantage of the very unlikely coincidence of this fellow coming to his secret auction. Either way, it's a rather elaborate plan. Of course, to a certain extent, you can excuse that because this is a comic story, but Kanigher doesn't quite manage the great backup pacing he often pulls off. This one is just too rushed, with the fight and the explanation literally happening simultaneously. It must be easy to solve crimes when the criminals scream their confessions at you as soon as they see you. "I DID IT WITH THE CANDLESTICK IN THE LIBRARY! ARREST MEEEEE!" I suppose this is a moderately entertaining read, despite its problems, and the gas-induced devil hallucinations are rather cool, so I'll give it 3 Minutemen.
With Dr. Thirteen's capture of the crimson cloaked killer, we reach the end of this post. I found this trio of comics a particularly fascinating read, and I hope that y'all enjoy my commentary! We've got rather a lot of awkward social consciousness on display here, though it isn't as well done as that we saw earlier this month. I'm curious if the rest of the month will hold any more. Thank you for joining me, and please come back soon for another stop along our journey Into the Bronze Age! Until then, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
Leave a comment Posted in Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Superheroes Tagged Dick Dillin, Dr. Thirteen, Jack Kirby, Jim Aparo, Joe Giella, Justice League, Mike Friedrich, Mr Miracle, Phantom Stranger, Robert Kanigher, Tony DeZuniga, Vince Colletta
Welcome Internet travelers, to my examination of the highs, the lows, the greats, the not so greats, and everything in between of DC Comics in the Bronze Age! Today we've got a widely diverse pair of books with a quartet of quirky stories to quicken your pulses! Check them out below!
"Marry Me – Marry Death!"
"A Time to Die"
Writer: Jack Oleck
We've got another beautiful, dramatic, and striking cover courtesy of Neal Adams this month. It's a nice, spooky image, and it's well suited to the headline tale within. Indeed, this month our Phantom Stranger story is rather different than what we've encountered of late. Instead of focusing on the mystical heroics of the Stranger himself, this comic flips the script, and we see the story from quite a different perspective.
In many ways, this is a classic horror story, and it begins shortly after the wedding of Jason Phillips to his new bride, Wanda. He brings the blushing beauty to his mansion, where he suddenly spots a mysterious figure, the Phantom Stranger, but the next moment there is no-one there. Strange indeed! Recovering, he introduces his new wife and their guests to his old wife, or rather, her coffin!
Well, this seems perfectly normal and healthy…
He explains to the shocked well-wishers that he met and romanced the older and very wealthy Irina when he was a ski instructor. He discovered that she took nitro pills for a weak heart, and despite the fact that she felt she was too old and weak for him, he insisted on marrying her. A few years later, she passed away, but not before making him swear to keep her with him, always.
There's a very strange bit where she collected ancient Egyptian artifacts and learned about their embalming practices, insisting that they be used on her, but that doesn't really feature in the story (something of an unfired Chekhov's Gun…or at least an un-awakened Kanigher's Mummy.) Irina also left a clause in her will that all of her money would go to charity unless Jason kept her body with him always, which is pretty darn weird. Throughout the tale, Jason paints himself as the perfect grieving husband, but there is something strange about the whole story. This ominous note is strengthened when Jason once again sees the Stranger and begins to scream at him, only to have the figure vanish once more.
That night, the re-married millionaire awakens in the night to hear a creaking sound and investigates to see the cloaked shape of the Stranger standing by the the coffin as it is slowly opening. A voice tells him that he knows why they are here, but yet again, things are not as they seem, and when Wanda comes to investigate her husband's shouts, the coffin is still locked.
Suddenly, Jason sees Irina outside in a flash of lightning, along with the Supernatural Sleuth, who repeats his message. The maddened millionaire strikes him, sending the cloaked form flying off of the balcony, but once again, Wanda sees nothing. The next day as they are boating on a lake, the Stranger emerges from the waters. Still, Wanda sees nothing. She pleads with her husband to get rid of the coffin, but he refuses, citing his vow, yet even during their intimate moment of conversation, he sees Irina.
Finally, pushed to the breaking point, he confronts the Phantom Stranger over his first wife's coffin and attacks him with an axe, but the mysterious one forces him to think back over what really happened to his wife. We learn that Phillips tried to kill her, putting her in situations where her heart would give out, and when it finally did, he destroyed her pills and callously sat by and watched her die.
Jason thinks that the Stranger is just a blackmailer and attacks, but as his wild swings carry him outside, he runs towards a pair of advancing lights, only to be struck by a car and killed. Fittingly, the car had come to get his wife's coffin, though strangely, the name on the work order is Irina, not Wanda.
This is a great little horror yarn, and though that isn't really my favorite genre, Kanigher turned out a very entertaining tale here, continuing his inconsistency. It's either feast of famine with this guy! He handled the building tension and mounting clues quite well. There are just a few incongruous elements, like the Egyptian bit and the detail at the end with the conflated names. I'm not really sure what the purpose of that was. Still, the total effect is quite strong. Needless to say, Aparo does a masterful job with this book. His work is wonderfully moody and atmospheric. Every panel is draped in shadow or lit with the bright light of romance, and all of the characters are beautifully rendered. As much as I love his Aquaman work, let's face it, he was even more perfect for the Phantom Stranger than for the Sea King. All together, I'll give this chilling chronicle 4.5 Minutemen.
We have a solo Dr. Thirteen backup this month, and it's a rather nice change of pace. I like the interplay between the good Doctor and the Phantom Stranger, but a little goes a long way. It is good to give each of them room to grow. This particular outing is a respectable Dr. Thirteen mystery set in England, on the misty moors. The Doc and his wife arrive just in time to see a man drop dead at the stroke of midnight. 'Ol Terry is his usual charming self, talking down to his wife and immediately making friends with the natives. When the townspeople start talking about "the ghost of the Black Friar," the Dr. responds by saying "You men are acting like frightened fools." Astonishingly, this does not endear him to them, and they tell this rude American to butt out in no uncertain terms as they carry the body to the town doctor.
Incidentally, that is who summoned Dr. Thirteen in the first place. When they visit this fellow, Dr. Hall, he tells them that he's a man of science, yet he has spent much time investigating the ruins of the old abbey and believes that there is something evil there. He tells them the tale of one of the abbey's former inhabitants who turned to the black arts until he was convicted of witchcraft and burned in the 16th century. Before he died, he swore a curse on the town. Dr. Hall reveals that, since he is an old man, he'll shortly be replaced by a new young doctor, but before he retired, he wanted to see that the town was protected.
That night, Dr. Thirteen investigates, only to see the figure of the Black Friar but be unable to catch him when he vanished. Summoning the townspeople, they scoff, telling him that another man just died on the other side of town and the Friar couldn't be in two places at once…if he weren't a ghost! With Dr. Hall's help, the Ghost Breaker manages to convince the townspeople to help his investigation, but the next night, when they approach the abbey, a disembodied voice declares that, unless they run the strangers out of town, the ghost will take a terrible vengeance no them. The townsfolk tell Thirteen to hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no more!
Yet, Dr. Thirteen is nothing if not persistent, so he sneaks back into town after sending his wife to safety, and searches a house and the abbey ruins. Soon, he confronts the townspeople just at midnight and entreats them to follow him. Heading to the graveyard where he first encountered the Friar, they once more hear the voice, but the Ghost Breaker leaps forward and searches a tombstone for a hidden switch, revealing a secret passage and a robbed figure! The figure is unmasked to reveal….Doctor Hall!?
That's right, apparently Hall was just a tad bitter about being forced into retirement, so he used his scientific knowledge to construct a sonic weapon (fancy!), which he hooked up to the bell tower. Every night at midnight it would send out a sonic pulse, and if anyone was close enough and susceptible enough, it would kill them. Thirteen was suspicious of the old fellow, and when he searched his house, he found enough evidence to let him trap the doctor the the help of a micro transmitter that he used to track the fake fiend to his hiding place. That wraps things up rather neatly, if making it a tad Scooby Doo.
This is a decent little backup strip for Dr. Thirteen, if not one of his best. Hall's scheme is a bit too outlandish and the resolution is rushed, packed into one page, but that's to be expected when you've only got seven to work with in the first place. Both of the creators are new to me, but they turned in a perfectly serviceable story. We'll see if they show up in future DC Comics. Either way, this yarn earns 3 Minutemen, a solid if unremarkable story.
This issue also had a really excellent missive in the letter column, a thoughtful and insightful take on what makes Dr. Thirteen tick which is worth a read.
"The Super-Clark of Smallville!"
"Trust Me or Kill Me!"
Inker: George Tuska
Well, would you look at that! It's the totally original 'hero acting out of character' cover type! The cover is probably enough to make you want to know what's going on, and it's decently illustrated, but it's not all that interesting, really. One does wonder what exactly Clark is doing in that dorky outfit, though. Unsurprisingly with Leo Dorfman calling the tune, our headline tale is rather Silver Age-ish and goofy, as you'd expect from this cover.
The gimmicky tale begins in Professor Lang's lab, where the good doctor has what he claims is a jar of ambrosia, the food of the gods, from ancient Greece. He also happens to claim that ambrosia was what gave the gods their powers, which makes me wonder if this guy got his degree out of a Cracker Jack's box, as any school kid with an interest in mythology would know better. They got their powers by being, you know, gods. In some versions of the myths, ambrosia did have a role in their immortality, but that's really not the same thing at all. Yes, it's a comic book, but it's a comic book in a setting where the Greek gods actually do exist, so details like this matter a bit.
Well, one way or the other, Dr. Cracker Jack decides to test some of the powered residue within the jar, but when he tries to, it explodes! I hope they haven't given this guy tenure! The explosion wrecks the lab, but, of course, Clark is uninjured. He rushes to help Professor Lang, but Lana spots him hefting a bookshelf off the quack. At first she thinks this confirms her suspicions about him being Superboy, but seeing that he is holding the test tube and has traces of ambrosia on his face, she assumes that he ate the ambrosia, and thus gained the powers of the gods! With no real choice, supposedly, the Boy of Steel fakes the discovery of new powers, like Hermes' flight, as if he were a novice.
In a purely rational and not at all wacky and bizarre response to this discovery, Lana's first instinct is that Clark must show off to all of the bullies at school by going out for the track team. She even makes a costume for him, for some reason. This bit really makes no sense at all, in context. I guess because he's 'super' he needs a costume? But he isn't becoming a hero, just going out for sports. Oookay, Lana. Whatever you say.
You'll be the coolest kid in school…and you'll wear a dorky costume while you do it! It's foolproof!
Well, "Super-Clark" (sigh) goes to the track field and shows off his strength and agility. There is actually a great opportunity for some characterization here, for Clark to revel in the ability to use his powers in public and to enjoy Lana's attentions. Yet, Dorfman almost completely ignores that angle to focus on gimmicky situations for Clark's 'new' powers. My favorite is definitely when Clark rescues a bathysphere that got in trouble….in Smallville…Kansas. Sure! Doesn't your small farming town have bathyspheres on every street corner?
Needless to say, Pa Kent is rather shocked when an excited crowd shows up yelling about how his son has superpowers, but the new Smallville Spectacle explains things, pointing out that he's happy he can help his father with his store. Apparently at this point, Pa Kent isn't a farmer, instead owning a general store, which seems far less fitting, iconic, or archetypal for the character. After another series of super feats, Clark starts to get tired of the constant requests for aid and begins to realize the benefits of a secret identity.
Later on, a young, super-bald Lex Luthor comes back to town to get his revenge on the people who spurned him. He is thrilled when he sees the townspeople tearing down their Superboy statue, but he becomes less excited when he sees them replace it with a statue of (sigh) Super Clark. Man, Smallville residents are more fickle than Atlanteans! Lex is more constant, at least in his hatred, and using a new invention, a "power nullifer" which does just what the name implies, he shoots Superboy out of the sky once the young hero is back in costume.
The Boy of Steel crashes in a swamp and finds his powers gone. He rushes to the nearby ruined lab of Professor Lang, hoping to find some ambrosia on the off chance it will really give him powers. He finds the a note that was in the jar with the ambrosia and, conveniently, can read ancient Greek, which, you know, anybody can just pick up. He eats the note, hoping it absorbed some of the food of the gods and finds himself actually possessing the powers of the gods.
Using the Zeus's shape-shifting power and thunderbolts, the 'Phantom Vision" of Hades, and flight of Hermes, he manages to defeat Luthor's various gadgets and drive off his former-friend-turned-foe. The story ends with the godly powers fading and Superboy's own powers returning. When he tells Lana that his career as 'Super Clark' is over, she doesn't exactly take the news gracefully.
Well, this story wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly fantastic either. Dorfman wastes the chance to do some actual character work with Clark, botches his mythology, and throws in plenty of goofiness as well. The yarn is entertaining enough, and the section where Superboy gains the godly powers is an interesting change of pace. Yet, that is over in two pages, so we don't really get a lot of opportunity to see the difference between those and his usual abilities. This story has some potential to be neat, but it ends up being fairly forgettable. I'll give it 2.5 Minutemen, with the inexplicable 'Super Clark' costume costing it some points.
Our Legion backup this month is once again the highlight of the book. It's a fairly conventional identity mystery, the likes of which the Legion writers seem to love, but there are some neat details to it. The tale begins with the stalwart Cosmic Boy left alone in the Legion headquarters, as the rest of the team has gone off to get vaccinated against a new virus sweeping the planet, a vaccine he himself had received years ago. That's a reasonably decent excuse to get the rest of the team out of the way for this story, and in light of the recent vaccination madness here in the U.S., I can't help but smile.
Well, Cosmic Boy's sojourn is interrupted when, all of a sudden, his double in a mirror smashes through the glass and attacks him! Each claims to be the original, and they find themselves evenly matched in combat, knowing each other's moves. We also learn that Cosmic Boy knows a martial art named Ku-Jui, which he learned on his homeworld, a fun little detail and bit of world-building. They decide to call in help in order to figure out which of them is real, and they settle on Superboy, who they summon from the past. The Boy of Steel speeds through the Time Barrier (such a wonderfully comic book-ish concept), and joins the duplicated duo in the future.
Tuska really knocks the face-work on this story out of the park.
Once he arrives, he is confronted by a massive image of the Legion's most deadly foe, Mordru! The evil wizard informs the young Action Ace that this is all part of one of his schemes. Mordru has created a duplicate of Cosmic Boy, and if the hero cannot discover him, the double will secretly destroy the Legionnaires one by one. I know very little about this character, but I have to say, I like this little glimpse of him. George Tuska does a great job of making Mordru's image seem intimidating and ominous, while also giving him some good old fashioned villainous glee. His plan is really quite devious. It has the longshot possibility of destroying the Legion, but even if it fails, it promises to subject the team to terrible emotional strain as they face the possibility of destroying one of their friends in order to save themselves
Superboy tries to solve the mystery by quizzing the two Cosmic Boys, but each of them is able to answer his questions about their history. Realizing that the Legionnaires are on their way back , the Boy of Steel tries one last, desperate gambit. He flies off and returns with two massive iron boulders, hurtling them at both claimants to the Cosmic Boy title, saying that the real master of magnetism will be able to stop his rock.
Yet, when one of them fails to halt the hurtling stone, Superboy rushes to his rescue. The stunned youth wonders why, since he failed, but Clark explains that the rocks were actually plastic, and he counted on the fake Legionnaire using magic to simulate Cosmic Boys powers, rather than duplicating the powers themselves. Thus, they mystery is solved, and the story ends with Mordru swearing that the traditional vow of 'this isn't over' and Superboy headed back to his own time.
This little tale has a clever resolution in Superboy's plan. It's a good way to solve the mystery, and it does make a certain amount of sense. There isn't a whole lot to it beyond that, but we get some nice background on Cosmic Boy, and he gets a standard 'you have to kill us both, Spock' moment, though it is immediately countered by Superboy. Mordru's very brief appearance is fun, and I look forward to seeing a full story with him as the villain. George Tuska's art is bright and cheerful, and he really succeeds in making the protagonists look youthful, something not all comic artists can really pull off. His clean, expressive art is a nice fit for these characters. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing him stay on this feature. I'll give this little backup 3.5 Minutemen, as it makes for a fun read and has no real flaws other than its brevity.
And once again, we find ourselves at the end of a post. These stories present a widely varied whole, and they certainly illustrate how diverse an era we're working with. In just this pair of books, we go from the creepy horror story of a haunted killer to the goofy antics of a gimmick driven Superboy farce. As silly as the latter story was, it's an interesting and positive thing that both types of comic are being published by DC, a variety of tone and theme not seen after this era until very recently.
The Phantom Stranger tale is particularly notable for the overt use of horror elements and for the cold-blooded murder that actually happens on panel. It represents a darker type of story, one that had mostly passed out of mainstream comics with the dawning of the Silver Age and the rise of the Comics Code. The return of such storytelling marks the continuing shift across the genre to more mature and varied comics. Well, I hope that y'all enjoyed this read, and that y'all will join me again soon for the next stop on our journey, Into the Bronze Age! Until then, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
Leave a comment Posted in Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Nostalgia, Superheroes Tagged Bob Brown, Cary Bates, George Tuska, Jack Oleck, Jim Aparo, Legion of Superheroes, Leo Dorfman, Lex Luthor, Phantom Stranger, Robert Kanigher, Superboy, Tony DeZuniga
Into the Bronze Age: April 1971 (Part 2-Special Edition!)
This is a bittersweet post, and that touch of melancholy is part of what has made me slow to put figurative pen to equally figurative paper for this set of books. On the one hand, we are starting a new month, full of the promise of adventure, but on the other, this month also holds the final issue of Aquaman's solo series, the last solo Aquaman book that would be seen for six years until its brief revival, after which Aquaman would be absent from solo books until the beginning of the very divisive Pozner/Hamilton mini-series in the mid 80s, which, for whatever positive qualities it may have, is still guilty of starting the 'let's fix Aquaman' approach to the character that endured for decades. It's a crying shame, especially given the very high quality of this book and the incredible inventiveness of its creative team, SAG. Nonetheless, life, and comics, go on.
As I've mentioned before, the cancellation of this book was made all the more shocking and lamentable because it had much less to do with sales than with internal politics. It seems that then editor-in-chief Carmine Infantino didn't much care for Dick Giordano's style, so, when Giordano desired to leave editing and start inking full time, the head honcho took that as an opportunity to rid himself of the man. Now, Giordano was very fond of what he had created with Skeates and Aparo, so he offered to continue editing Aquaman freelance, but rather than agree to that or even replace him, Infantino just cancelled the book, despite the fact that it had maintained solid sales! The Aquaman Shrine has a great interview with Steve Skeates that reveals a bit of the behind the scenes drama.
However unjust the cancellation, it was presented as a fait accompli, and it was a shock to all involved and a major blow for the character. In fact, I would argue that it is this incident which crippled the character for years to come. It attached a stigma that his book couldn't sell, despite the fact that sales had very little to do with the book's fate. What's worse, it robbed the hero of the chance for development and growth during a very important time in comics history, as I've mentioned before. While Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and many others were being revamped and redefined in extremely influential ways, Aquaman is left by the wayside, with only the SAG team's incomplete efforts to support him. This is a situation that the character is only very recently starting to overcome, some forty years later.
Yet, not all is doom and gloom. As promised, I have a special treat for y'all today. You see, when the book was unceremoniously cancelled, Steve Skeates was left with a half-finished story. Yet, he was not one to be daunted by such a small matter as a cancellation, and he would eventually finish that story, but do so on the other side of the aisle. That's right, in a 1974 issue of Marvel's Submariner, Steve Skeates would pick up the dropped thread of this Aquaman adventure and finish the tale for Marvel's own sea king. I'll be covering that comic today, in addition to our usual fare. So, let's see what this month has in store for us!
"The Creature That Devoured Detroit!"
"The Cave of Death!"
Here we have one of the all-time great Aquaman covers. It's exciting, titanic in scope and promise, and other than the rather muddy colors, is pretty much a perfect composition. It's got an old-school monster flick feel, right down to the title, like a 50s sci-fi film…but unfortunately it also bears little in common with the story inside. Just imagine what could have been, a massive struggle between the King of the Sea and a colossal monster from the watery depths! Instead, we get an offbeat, if unquestionably interesting, tale. I imagine I might have been a more than a tad disappointed if that cover had persuaded me to pick the book up off the newsstand, only to find no massive monstrosity within.
Man, Aparo could pack personality into a page!
Instead, the final issue of Aquaman begins in rather simple fashion. A husband and wife bicker over the minutia that can grow into its own sort of monster in a marriage, but the debate is postponed by the tuning in of a television to the "Warren Savin Show" (interestingly, that's actually a pen-name that Skeates has used from time to time). The show promises to feature, of all people, the King of the Seven Seas as their special guest, but it is interrupted by a special report about a massive algae growth on Lake Erie threatening to consume the city of Detroit.
This bumper bloom seems to be caused by a mysterious satellite which is reflecting light onto the city and its surroundings at night, keeping the area in a perpetual daylight that has sparked this overgrowth. When the cameras cut back to the show, the Sea Sleuth is missing! The Aquatic Ace has rushed out of the studio to see what he can do about this threat, answering the call to action.
Too bad this is symbolic…
Arriving in Detroit, Aquaman finds the green gunk everywhere and decides to look up an old friend of his, a former police scientist named Don Powers, to try to get a handle on the situation. Meanwhile, we cut to a strange figure in a garish costume, and we're informed that this bargain-basement Batman is 'The Crusader,' a superhero who is ignoring the growing plight of the city to chase a car theft ring. We get a nice action sequence as the Crusader jumps the gang he's been tracking and barely manages to subdue them.
After we see the orange and black clad figure finishes his fight, we switch over to follow Aquaman as he goes to consult his old friend, now a successful businessman and scientist, and the Sea King finds him at his corporate lab, where the fellow is completely unconcerned with the growing green tide swallowing the city, instead bragging about the reduction in crime thanks to the perpetual daylight and revealing that the mysterious satellite is, in fact, his.
During their debate, Powers brings up the Crusader, and Arthur reveals that the League had refused him membership because he was considered unstable and too violent (He'd fit right in today, no doubt!), which is a fun little detail. When the Marine Marvel tries to take matters into his own hands, Powers and his flunkies jump him, and sadly, you guessed it, Aquaman earns another slot on the Head-Blow Headcount! Skeates really loved this device a bit too much.
With the real hero disabled, we watch as Powers slips into his private office and dons the costume of…the Crusader! In internal monologue, he reveals that he had an ulterior motive for launching the satellite. His low-light vision is fading, and he's willing to let the whole city suffer just so he can continue playing costumed crimefighter. He justifies his selfishness by arguing that the case he's working on is too big to abandon, and once he solves it he plans to destroy the satellite. Powers also thinks that this case will be his ticket into the big time, that it will help him prove himself. Now, just for some perspective, let's remember that the case he's trying to crack is no doomsday plot, no terrorist's master plan, no city shaking scheme, just a car-theft ring. Priorities man, priorities!
While the Crusader continues his…well…crusade, Aquaman awakens on a park bench, having been dumped there by Powers' goons, and before he can get back to the lab, he sees a young girl threatened by the growing green goo and rushes into the morass to save her. He does so without a second thought, putting her life ahead of his own, though the peril of the situation doesn't entirely come through as well as I imagine Skeates intended.
A bit of a disappointing confrontation, really, and the dramatic title doesn't help.
On his way back, he discovers a crowd surrounding a still figure on the pavement. The Crusader lies dead, not felled by an enemy's bullet or having met his death in the line of duty. He just tripped over a wire and fell to his fate on the street below, his eyes finally having failed him. He is the very soul of anti-climax. When his mask is removed, the Sea King recognizes his friend and things begin to become clear to him. Rushing back to Powers' building, the Marine Marvel smashes his way inside, taking no chances, and locks himself inside the control room until he can find the proper switch. The issue ends with the button pressed, the satellite destroyed, and the menace ended.
The title here, on the other hand, is pitch-perfect.
So, not exactly what one would expect from that cover, is it? This is a strange issue, but certainly an inventive and intriguing one. Skeates is doing what he has done all along, trying new things and experimenting with the medium. The story at the heart of this comic, the contrasting of two different concepts of heroism in the person of two very different heroes, is actually a great one. It's still quite pertinent today. It's the examination of the perennial conflict, between selflessness and selfishness. Aquaman's selfless conduct throughout, abandoning the TV show to help Detroit, putting his life in danger to save the little girl, and even risking who knows what kinds of consequences to destroy the satellite, stands in relatively effective contrast to the purely selfish motives of the Crusader. That myopic manhunter, for his part, ignores all other concerns in search for his own fulfillment and fame, endangering the entire city, a city that he supposedly protects, in order to continue his callous crusade. The concept is a fascinating one, yet Skeates' treatment thereof isn't entirely successful.
Remember these images.
The story is far too rushed. We meet the Crusader and see his futile death in just a few pages. He's not given the time to really develop the comparison appropriately, and compressing the setup and payoff into one book renders Aquaman's contributions fairly slight. Part of the trouble is that the threat to the city doesn't ever quite seem tremendous enough to justify everyone's concern. We see the sludge surge up and endanger one little girl playing too close to the water, but that's about it. Skeates commits one of the prime storytelling sins. He tells us about the threat rather than showing it convincingly. Now, part of the reason for that simply has to be lack of storytelling space. Nonetheless, this tale is certainly noteworthy for its innovation, and the central concept is worthwhile, despite its flaws. This was a remarkable plot for its time. Characters getting killed off was rare enough, but having a "hero" die, especially in the story in which he was introduced, was almost unheard of.
Of course, it almost goes without saying that the book is beautiful, with Aparo creating yet another cast of distinctive, interesting faces, lovely action, and rich settings. Perhaps the greatest calamity in the cancellation of the book is the fact that Aparo stops working on the character that he captured better than anyone else. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of four-color woe to be found in this comic's cancellation, so that loss has plenty of competition. Nonetheless, this is a fun and entertaining read. It may be an offbeat ending to the series, but at least it's an intriguing one. All things considered, I'll give this final Aquaman story 3.5 Minutemen.
This issue also contains a super brief backup with Aquagirl, where she rescues a little boy foolishly playing too close to an ominously named threat called 'The Cave of Death.' Something of a theme this month, apparently. It's only two pages, so really too brief to rate as a story by itself, but it's always nice to see Aquagirl in action. It seems clear that Skeates was setting something else up, and this is just one more way in which the sudden cancellation of the book is a shame.
The Savage Sub-Mariner #72
"From the Void It Came…"
Penciler: Dan Adkins
Colourist: Linda Lessmann
Letterer: Artie Simek
Editor: Roy Thomas
You can see what else Marvel put out this month HERE.
For our special feature, we once again pass across the aisle to Marvel comics, but this time it isn't ersatz counterparts we see but an actual story-line continued. It's a shame that the rest of the SAG team wasn't able to join Skeates for this revival of his Aquaman work, but he's creating with a new team. The results are surprisingly fitting for a Marvel comic considering the origins of this yarn over at DC.
While DC's Sea King is my favorite comic character, I've also always had a soft spot for Marvel's ocean monarch, Namor, the Sub-Mariner. He's not one of my favorite Marvel characters, but I've always liked him, and when I read through the classic Fantastic Four stories where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby brought him back, I really started to appreciate comics first anti-hero. Incidentally, Kirby's work on the history of Namor's Atlantis is one of the coolest things ever. While Namor's temper can wear thin after a while, I've always appreciated the unfailing regalness of his character. He's one of the few times where comics have captured the ideal of royalty. I'm just now starting to read his Silver Age solo series, and I'm only up to the 40s at the time of this posting, but I'm quite enjoying those adventures. For this outing, I'm skipping ahead a few years, so I'm reading this tale without much context.
It begins with the Sub-Mariner himself swimming through the terribly polluted waters offshore of a major city and commenting, in usual fashion, on how terrible us surface dwellers are. Notably, at this point Marvel's Sea King is wearing his more substantial costume that replaced his green trunks. It's certainly a more dignified look, and it's grown on me, though, being something of a purist, I tend to be biased in favor of original looks. Sartorial concerns aside, the Sub-Mariner takes to the sky, still meditating on the evils of the surface world.
Our narrative lens shifts, and we move into space two years previously where a strange green blob, some bizarre alien lifeform, drifts through the cosmos and lands upon a certain satellite, just before a (blue) gloved hand destroys its temporary lodging. Take a look at that image. Does it look familiar? That's right, Skeates intentionally evokes the last panels from Aquaman #56 in order to tie these two stories together in a subtle crossover.
The creature rides the wreckage down and splashes into the ocean nearby where Namor will come ashore. The being observes the sealife that passes by and decides to emulate those ocean dwellers by creating a body out of the slime on the seabed and the wreckage from the satellite. The process takes the intervening years, and we get a really nice series of panels as the alien heads to the surface to explore.
Meanwhile, the Sub-Mariner has encountered trouble in the form of a strange pair of humans. There's something just a bit odd about these guys, and you might not be able to put your finger on it. I wasn't, at first. Don't worry, we'll come back to that. These two toughs decide, with suicidal bravado, to pick a fight with Namor because he's different. It's a case of prejudice, and bizarrely, the attack is accompanied by a quote from Hitler which talks about the effectiveness of visuals in delivering messages. Oookay.
This looks like a cover for a Double Dragon game.
The Prince of the Blood, who, let's' remember, has traded punches with the Hulk, belts his normal human antagonist and somehow doesn't turn his head into a fine red mist, instead sending him flying into the drink. The thug's friend jumps Namor in reprisal, voicing a rather strange response to the attack, "You've probably ruined him for life!" How odd. As the two tussle, the curious alien being reaches the dock, and they smash into him, leading all three to tumble into the water. Interestingly, the narration notes that Namor has become somewhat unstable because of his constant battles, so that he meets the strange, monstrous newcomer with open hostility, just assuming that it's a foe, and thereby leaving his original human antagonist to his watery fate.
While the fellow's companion drags him to the surface, the Sub-Mariner and the star-spawned creature trade blows. Namor pours all of his rage, all of his frustration, into this fight, attacking blindly, but the creature literally blinds the Atlantean in response. Even that doesn't stop the Sub-Mariner, who grapples with his slimy foe.
Finally, having had enough of this whole 'body' business, the being launches itself skyward once more, though, having meant no harm, as it passes into space it uses its powers to restore life to the drowned man and even, surprisingly enough, restore Namor's sight. Skeates plays with superhero conventions here to some pretty good effect, raising some questions about the violent ways such characters tend to respond to the unknown.
For his part, before his eyes are healed, the Prince of the Blood realizes that his metaphorical blindness may have trapped him in literal blindness. His anger and rage kept him from trying to communicate with the creature and may have doomed him to perpetual blackness. It's an interesting and relatively effective message about understanding and tolerance of the "Other." And with that, Namor heads for sepulchral Atlantis (previously destroyed, it seems) while the two humans head home as well, with one of them saying, seemingly apropos of nothing, that he just got a new professional wrestling magazine. With these scenes, our story ends.
So, what was the discordant note that the two wharf rats kept striking? Well, these two toughs, Skeates later confirmed, were meant to be a gay couple. Hence the rather flamboyant dress of the first thug, who was, by the way, named Bruce, a moniker with some associations with the gay community at the time, as I understand. Now, you may wonder what in the world their sexuality has to do with anything in this oddball story, but it really does add a little depth to Skeates' treatment of the theme of intolerance and metaphoric blindness. You've got these two characters acting as bigots who have themselves suffered from intolerance, abuse, and bigotry, which is ironic. While it could just be seen as anti-gay, it could also be read as an indication of the depth to which distrust of the "Other" is built into human nature, how deeply the disease goes. Even those of us with reason to sympathize with societal outcasts can find it easier to lash out than attempt to act with understanding.
Nonetheless, that was certainly an unusual wrinkle for comics in 1974, when you could not present any openly gay characters. Once again, Skeates is experimenting with the genre. The story itself is solid enough. It's more effective in its delivery of its message than in telling a particularly compelling and enjoyable adventure yarn, though. Yet, I do enjoy the focus on Namor's reaction to the mysterious creature. It makes rather perfect sense given the Sub-Mariner's characterization over the course of his series and the endless series of conflicts and reverses he's faced. There's a very human element in his blind rage. Still, the story feels a bit disjointed, with the conflict with the two morons on the dock coming out of absolutely nowhere. I know people are plenty stupid, but who says to themselves, 'I think I want to pick a fight with that guy that can punch through steel!' In the end, I suppose I'll give this story a 3.5 as well. It's an interesting one, if not stellar.
P.S.: Oddly, this story, picking up from the final issue of Aquaman, falls on the final issue of the Sub-Mariner, who has outlived his distinguished counterpart by three years at this point but falls prey to a similar fate, and, ironically, with the same hand at the helm! Steve Skeates had to wonder if he was jinxed when it came to aquatic characters!
Poor Aquaman adds yet another appearance on the Wall of Shame. This really illustrates just how much Skeates relied on the head-blow plot device. Whenever he needed to remove the Sea King from the story for a few pages, it seems a sock on the noggin was the first club out of the bag. The results are self-evident, with Aquaman more than tripling the next most common resident on the wall in total head-blows. At least one benefit from the lamentable cancellation of his book is he won't be adding many more entries in this feature any time soon!
These two comics make for an intriguing pair, a unique case (at the time) with a story translating across both companies and years (Of course, the Marvel character Mantis will see a similar transition later in the decade). Even more unusually, the stories are very reflective of their universes, DC and Marvel, with each comic fitting surprisingly well into the style of their respective companies. The DC story is full of bigger ideas, while the Marvel tale is much more melodramatic and emotionally focused. The contrast illustrates Skeates' skill as a writer, as one of the great tests of an author's mettle is the ability to write well in different styles.
I'm really curious what shape the second story would have taken if it had graced the pages of Aquaman as intended. One wonders if the muck creature from the cover of #56 might actually have put in an appearance after all, perhaps on a much grander scale than Namor's unwitting sparring partner. If we assume that the alien creature and its curious attempt to explore our little globe was always the core of the concept, then perhaps it would make sense for all of that algae coating Detroit to be incorporated into the being's new body. We might have gotten a version of that massive monstrosity after all. Sadly, we'll never know what might have been.
That is, truly, the greatest misfortune to be found in the sudden and unlooked-for cancellation of the Aquaman book, the loss of what might have been. The SAG team had been paving the way for a whole era of stories, layering in hooks for coming arcs and continuing plot threads, setting up some really intriguing story possibilities, and creating a fascinating setting for the Sea King. There are too many lost opportunities and abandoned elements in this run to count, like the rabble-rousing politician and his bid for power, the rocky relationship between Tula and Garth, the myriad underwater civilizations we've encountered in the preceding pages of the book, the microscopic world in Mera's ring, Ocean Master's recovered memories, and so much more that could have been. I'll always wonder what plans the SAG team had, what heights the book might have reached in the years to come. How might the undersea setting have grown? How might the Aqua-Family have evolved? The possibilities really dazzle the imagination, don't they? Instead, we get this rather off=beat finale. The book ends, not with a whimper, but neither does it close with a roar worthy of what has come before. Instead, it slips away without fanfare or acknowledgement, without the slightest hint that this is the final issue.
It's one of the great comic calamities, and so it is with a heavy heart, that I bid adieu to one of the best Aquaman runs and one of my favorite creative teams. And it is also time that I say goodbye to this post. I hope you'll join me again soon as I resume our regularly scheduled Bronze Age browsing. Until then, keep the Heroic Ideal alive!
6 Comments Posted in aquaman, Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Marvel Comics, Nostalgia, Superheroes Tagged Aquagirl, aquaman, Dan Adkins, Dick Giordano, Jim Aparo, Marvel, SAG, Steve Skeates, Vince Colletta
Hello Internet travelers! It's been radio silence here on the Greylands for the last week. Lady Grey and I traveled to Iceland over spring break, and we were busy taking the advice of Granger from Fahrenheit 451, who said "Stuff your eyes with wonder […] live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories." We spent some time out there in this gloriously beautiful world, reveling in the unsurpassed glory of creation, and we had a great time.
We visited waterfalls, hiked on glaciers, and even snorkeled in a glacial river between two tectonic plates (and that was intense, let me tell you!). It was a really wonderful and necessary break, and sadly now we have to come back to the real world with all of its endless problems. At least there are bright and hopeful comics to keep us company! Today, I've got a pair of titles and a trio of stories. I hope y'all enjoy my commentary as we travel farther Into the Bronze Age!
Phantom Stranger #11
"Walk Not in the Desert's Sun…"
Writer: Gerry Conway
Underneath this suitably creepy cover, we've got about two-thirds of a really awesome comic that takes a hard left turn right at the climax. The resultant story is a bit odd, but it still ends up being an interesting read with surprisingly sophisticated handling of some rather unexpected themes. Gerry Conway makes his return to scripting DC books, and he is already displaying impressive maturity and skill. The growing seriousness of the Bronze Age is definitely on display in this issue as well.
It begins with the Phantom Stranger narrating a string of strange phenomena in the night sky over the western hemisphere, as people all over the world look up and see a sinister triangular shape of purple hanging framed against the stars. Three nights later, the police in New York try to talk a desperate woman down from the Brooklyn Bridge. She has just killed a man, and she screams that she will be her own master from now on. As she rants, she slips off over the side and plunges into the fog, only to vanish before hitting the water. Aparo gives us a wonderfully atmospheric two-page spread of the incident that adds to the mystery. The police are baffled, and the sudden appearance and cryptic warning by the Phantom Stranger doesn't do much to comfort them.
Meanwhile, apparently the Weathermen have taken their bat-guano insanity inter-planetary, as a pair of dropouts have somehow managed to hijack an Apollo spacecraft and are planning to crash it into Washington D.C. in protest of the space program's 'waste' of resources. Really? That's what you've got a problem with? Not the war in Vietnam, the race problems, or police brutality? I'm glad you boys have your priorities right. Despite the pleas of mission control, it seems like this inexplicably capable pair of nutjobs is going to make good on their threats, but the capsule suddenly goes off course and splashes harmlessly into the Atlantic, empty!
The Stranger has noticed all of these events, and after spotting a story about a glowing pyramid suddenly showing up in the Sudan, he decides to investigate. How does he get there? Why, by flying commercial, just like everyone else. It's a weird sight to see the Stranger just walking through the airport. Does he even have a passport? Or money? Either way, on the flight, he meets a young woman named Lynn Berg (Lindbergh reference?) who wants to talk to him because she gets nervous on flights. The Stranger's slightly odd response is perfect, as he says "Feel free to speak." Not the most warm and welcoming, is the Phantom Stranger.
You have to wonder if he uses his powers to skip the lines…
They arrive in Israel, and in a move that really surprised me, Lynn begins to talk about the current troubles in the Middle East, philosophizing about the conflict and war in general, wondering if there can ever be a right or wrong in such conflicts. Just as the Stranger begins to share his own critique of warfare, Lynn's brother arrives to pick her up, only to run right into a terrorist attack. The Stranger foresees it moments before it occurs but too late to prevent it. A pair of (presumably) Palestinians throw grenades, which kill Lynn's brother, shouting "for my dead father!"
In response, the young woman, consumed by grief and rage, chases after the pair, attacking them, wrestling a knife away from one of them and actually killing him with it! The Stranger sort of ineffectually calls after her and watches helplessly (which doesn't really make a ton of sense), as the dead terrorist drops the grenade he'd been holding, causing an explosion and apparently vaporizing Lynn. This is an incredibly effective scene. Just as the traveling companions are talking about war and the cycle of vengeance, that very cycle plays out before our eyes. In revenge for some unknown act that cost them their father, two men kill an innocent. In response, the dead man's sister is herself blinded by vengeance and kills one of them, dooming all three. It's a powerful and surprisingly subtle demonstration of the endless nature of revenge. The effect is rather arresting.
But, this is a comic, and we've got other, stranger fish to fry, so the scene shifts to that mysterious glowing pyramid our enigmatic hero read about. Inside, a masked figure in Egyptian regalia holds forth to a gathered crowd, explaining his evil plan, and evil it is. In attendance are all of those people warped by hatred and selfishness who were snatched away from their deaths, including the girl from the bridge and the two pseudo-astronauts. Evil-tut explains that he is the 'Messiah of Evil,' and has drawn all of them together in order to build 'an army of evil'! Strangely, Lynn Berg is in a cell there as well, drawn thither because her heart was filled with hate at the moment of her death. Suddenly, the Stranger is there in her prison, and he comforts the girl.
Just then, guards burst in, and when the Spectral Sleuth tries to fight them, he encounters a powerful force-field. What's more, they knock him out with just a touch, which also seems odd. The Stranger is brought before the fiendish pharaoh, who reveals himself to be…Tannarak! That's right, the promising villain from the last issue returns, and in grand fashion! Apparently, at the moment of his death beneath the falling statue, he was snatched away by powerful beings who called themselves the 'Gods of Hate,' who chose him as their champion, as the Messiah of Evil and charged him to build an army of the like-minded with which to seize power.
The Stranger shouts that such an agenda would "upset the very balance of the universe" and invokes the concepts of chaos and order, declaring "this must not be!" He strikes down the guards, somehow now able to do so, despite the fact that a few pages before he couldn't' even touch them, and then charges Tannarak. Yet, the sorcerer is not to be taken so easily, and he zaps the hero with a beam that turns his own hate and anger against him. The mysterious one realizes that his rage is self-defeating, so he calms his mind and strikes out, not in anger and not for revenge, but for justice, and delivers a great blow.
Yet, he and Lynn are still badly outnumbered, so they flee, and here is where things get weird. Well…weirder, in context. They race into a chamber filled with advanced machines, alien machines! They trigger a defense mechanism and are bombarded by terrible rays, but each selflessly tries to shield the other.
The apparently mechanical sentries of the machines note that they had thought Earth the perfect place to build an empire of evil, as they had found the planet's inhabitants purely selfish beings, but this act of sacrifice makes them reconsider. They decide that they must seek what they want elsewhere and decide to destroy their base, the pyramid, because their mission is a failure. When the rays shut off, the Stranger and the girl flee, leaving Tannarak and his minions to face a cataclysmic explosion! In a really surprisingly grim touch, Lynn is driven mad by the experience. As the Stranger says, her "mind has escaped whither they cannot follow."
Wow. Okay. Where to even begin with a story like this? It has some really fantastic elements, and the scene with the terrorist attack is unquestionably quite strong and touching. There's probably no clearer symbol of the endless cycle of vengeance in the modern imagination than the conflicts in the Holy Land, and that scene was handled with surprising maturity and subtlety. I love seeing Tannarak return as well. I think he's got a ton of potential, and his being chosen as a champion of evil makes perfect sense. After all, he was a completely selfish being, putting his own continued existence above every other concern, and what is evil but the ascension of selfishness, the triumph of will? At the same time, that's why the trappings of his 'army of evil' were slightly disappointing to me, as I'd have liked to see just a slightly more sophisticated treatment of their morality. Evil very rarely owns the fact that it is evil; instead, it is much more common for that type of utter selfishness to hold itself up as the greatest good, as it so often does in our own society.
Of course, then there's the alien element which just comes out of left field. Why not just have Tannarak's backers be mysterious and sinister beings? Making them some kind of aliens just doesn't fit with the rest of the story, and it certainly doesn't fit with the Egyptian motif without some type of explanation. Tannarak was raised in Egypt, so we could have just hand-waved the pharaoh act if left to his own devices. Add to this the different moments that just don't quite make sense, like the invulnerable guards suddenly becoming conveniently vulnerable and the Stranger's unexplained commercial flight, and you've got a very uneven story. All of those rough edges could have been smoothed over with a bit of thought (perhaps the Stranger took a dive in the first fight, and perhaps he was on the flight to keep an eye on Lynn), but we don't get any such attention in the comic. In the end, it's a story with a ton of potential, but the final result is just a bit too clumsy. I'll give it 3.5 Minutemen on the strength of its treatment of its themes, but it loses plenty because of its oddities.
"The Spectre Suitor"
"Mourn for the Thorn!"
Penciler: Ross Andru
Inker: Mike Esposito
We've got a super gimmicky cover, once again focused on a troubled wedding for the Man of Steel and the glamorous girl reporter, which seems something of a tradition for this book. While the story inside isn't quite as gimmicky as its wrapping, it is more than a little weird.
The strange tale opens at the home of Sir Noel Tate, a wealthy man who Lois is interviewing. However, when we join them, they have put the question and answer session on hold in order to investigate sounds coming from the old fellow's souvenir room. They interrupt a trio of thieves in the process of robbing the join who knock Tate out and begin to threaten Lois. The plucky girl reporter holds her own for a while, but just as one of the thieves is about to skewer her, mysterious things start to go wrong for him and his confederates. They're attacked by an unseen assailant and driven away. When Tate comes to, he tells Lois that she's in danger…from a ghost relative of his! Interestingly, Lois scoffs at the idea of ghosts, as if that's even slightly less believable than half of the ridiculous stuff she encounters on a daily basis.
Back at the Daily Planet, Sir Noel's efforts to warn the journalist are intercepted by an invisible presence. It apparently possesses Jimmy to lure Lois out of her office, then poses as her on the phone to Tate. Next, for some reason, it draws Lois into the slums of the city, where she observes an interesting scene. A desperate young man holds a slum-lord at gunpoint, and despite the fat-cat's pleas for mercy, the gunman insists that he's preyed on his tenants too long and too viciously to be spared. It's a scene somewhat reminiscent of the infamous Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76.
What makes this moment fascinating is the social commentary present in it. There's nothing really sympathetic about the slum-lord, despite the fact that he's got the law on his side in this encounter, and it is implied that men like him are the reason for the deplorable conditions in the slums. Before the would-be murderer can finish his grim deed, his landlord has a heart attack and dies, courtesy of the mysterious ghostly suitor, who is himself moved by the plight of this area. Cryptically, he mentions how it reminds him of London's East End from 83 years ago.
Meanwhile, Superman arrives for a romantic dinner with Lois, and we get one of the strangest scenes in the book. After the couple shares a kiss, the ghostly stalker realizes that he's got some pretty powerful competition. So, he uses the power of plot to conjure a vision of Kal-El's mother, Lara, in Lois's eyes. The vision is super vague, but it's presents the Kryptonian woman in horror at the approach of something, and this creeps the Man of Steel out. When Lois starts laughing uncontrollably, he freaks out and almost hits her! Horrified at his reaction, Superman flies away in disgust. The whole scene is just odd. It doesn't really make sense, at least in part because the ghost's powers are so vaguely defined that we're not sure what is his doing and what is reaction (or overreaction). The end result is just rather disjointed and seems like a clumsy excuse to get the Metropolis Marvel out of the picture.
That night, Lois has a nightmare about her wedding with Superman being interrupted by her spectral suitor, only to awake and find a letter from his ghostly hand that declares he's going to bring her to his spirit world soon. Despite her best efforts, the ghost prevents the desperate reporter from revealing her plight by stealing her voice and freezing her hands, and the next night, he summons her to Sir Noel's estate, where she steals the knight's nefarious ancestor's dirk. A frightened Tate calls Clark Kent in search of Superman, but before the hero can arrive, Lois is transported back through time to London's East End in the 19th Century, through the ill-defined power of the ghost and his dagger.
She arrives and is confronted by a mysterious figure emerging from the mist, but just as he's about to stab her, he declares that she's "not like the others." Lois realizes that her spectral suitor is none other than the ghost of Jack the Ripper! Just then, Superman arrives, having scoured time to find her (and I like the detail that he didn't know exactly when to look), and takes her home, where Sir Noel fills in the blanks. Apparently, his ancestor was driven mad by the deplorable conditions of London and set out to punish the women who represented those conditions, the prostitutes who walked the streets, which seems pretty monstrously unfair. The ghost sent Lois back so that his living self could kill her, but the Ripper realized that she was an innocent and couldn't bring himself to do it. Confused yet? Fortunately, the dirk was destroyed when Lois was sent back in time, so the spirit is now banished for good.
This is just a weird, wandering tale. It has some effectively creepy elements, and there is some definite menace as poor Lois is hounded by her invisible, unstoppable stalker. The fact that a story featuring Superman manages to conjure up that sense of helplessness is actually fairly impressive, but the plot is just too random and too rushed to be entirely effective. Even Werner Roth's usually beautiful art isn't quite up to the standards we've gotten used to in the last few issues. There are several spots where his figures seem awkward and stiff, especially his Superman. I'll give this one 2.5 Minutemen. It isn't bad per se, just a little off.
"Mourn for the Thorn"
Unfortunately, this issue's Rose and Thorn backup isn't much better. The usually impressive series suffers from some really goofy elements and an altogether rushed plot in this outing. It begins, strangely enough, with the strip's protagonist dead! Lois and Superman look on as the valiant Thorn lies dead in her golden coffin, apparently finally having fallen prey to the 100. We then get a flashback that tells us how the Nymph of Night met her fate. She cornered #24 on her hit parade and took him out in an alley, only to…die…somehow…because of car exhaust? It's an exceedingly silly scene.
Thorn is standing in an alley when the killer's partner backs his car towards her. Does he run her down? Pin her against the wall? No, don't be silly. He stops next to her and poisons her with carbon monoxide. Now, I know that emissions standards were worse in the 70s, but I'm still thinking that simply running your car in an alley didn't create the equivalent or mustard gas or anything. It's such a ludicrously impractical way to kill someone and so unnecessarily complicated that it takes you right out of the tale.
After the Thorn is killed, the 100 apparently take her body back to their funeral parlor front, not bothering with the authorities or anything, and nobody notices that there's a murdered woman just sitting in the front window. Later, a woman with the "Friends of the Friendless" comes to claim the body. She's a member of the 100 who is playing a part, despite the fact that the funeral parlor's owner is their leader, which doesn't make much sense. The whole sequence feels unnecessary, as the killers could have just taken her body and done whatever they wanted with it, skipping this whole dog and pony show.
The criminals bring the boxed Baleful Beauty to a sinister looking old house called 'The Mansion of Mourning,' which is an admittedly cool name. It's a front for the 100 as well, providing a hideout for their wanted members. As they prepare to plant the Thorn in a grave, her perfidious pallbearers drop the casket, and rain splashes on her face. Suddenly, the Vixen of Vengeance revives! She rises from the grave in a pretty fantastic panel that, if the story had more space, would have made a great splash page. Apparently, the vigilante took some medicine to fake her death when she realized she was trapped, and she claims she always wears nose filters which prevented her from asphyxiating. Ooookay.
Well, the Thorn makes swift work of the gathered hoods in a nice full-page action sequence and then drops another set of numbers on her newest catch. Returning home, she awakens as Rose, who finds herself weeping at the news of the vigilante's death, despite the fact that she doesn't know her.
This story has some great elements. In fact, the big reveal of the Thorn's return from the grave and the last moment with Rose's unexplained connection to her alter ego are both quite good. Yet, the story overall is a bit on the weak side. It's clear that Kanigher is really struggling with his page count in this one. While he's done a great job at creating condensed, simplified plots that worked remarkably well in only 8 pages, this issue's effort is just too convoluted. The silly method of the heroine's "death" combined with the unnecessary complications involving her burial and the funeral parlor break too much with verisimilitude without explanation or excuse and they take away from an interesting story idea. The resulting yarn is worth only a substandard 2 Minutemen.
I hope you enjoyed my coverage of these two comics. We're almost done with February, just three more comics to go! In the next post, we'll see what Denny O'Neil's got in store for his Superman revamp, which I'm excited about. I hope you'll join me again soon for my coverage of that and more! Until then, keep the heroic spirit alive!
2 Comments Posted in Comics, DC Comics, Into the Bronze Age, Nostalgia, Superheroes Tagged Cary Bates, Gerry Conway, Jim Aparo, Lois Lane, Mike Esposito, Phantom Stranger, Robert Kanigher, Rose and Thorn, Ross Andru, superman, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, Vince Colletta, Werner Roth
Welcome to part 2 of February 1971! We've got a good pair of books in this post, and I found plenty to talk about. I'm afraid I grow a tad long-winded on this one, folks, so be warned! Let's see what awaits us as we travel Into the Bronze Age!
"Return of the Alien!"
"Computer Trap!"
Man, I am LOVING these Nick Cardy Aquaman covers. They're always exciting, dynamic, intriguing, and just beautifully rendered. This is a particularly striking example. The story within is definitely worthy of such a great cover, and it returns to a plot thread readers must have thought abandoned back in issue #52. This tale takes us back to the strange microscopic world that exists within Mera's ring and to the brave girl who helped Aquaman during his sojourn there. I was really struck by the moral conundrum with which Skeates faced his character in that earlier story, as the Sea King had to choose between leaving his alien girl Friday in the clutches of slavers or risk her death at the hands of a hostile colony. While I understood Aquaman's choice to abandon her, it definitely seemed like an unresolved issue when he came back to the normal world. In this story, the Marine Marvel finally sets out to right that wrong. It's great that Skeates brought this thread back from three issues ago, despite there not having been a single mention of it since. That level of continuity was still rather rare in this era, and it's the smallest example of such in this issue.
The story itself begins with Dr. Vulko, playing his role as Atlantis's resident mad scientist, as he prepares a machine to transport the Sea King back to the microscopic madhouse. Apparently, in a fun little touch of universe awareness, Aquaman got advice from the Atom about how to build this shrinking device. Operating the machine, Vulko reminds Mera that she must concentrate, as she's vital to the procedure. As we discovered in that earlier story, the Queen can actually exert some form of telepathic control over the realm in her ring. There's actually room for a really interesting set of stories exploring that connection and the origins of this place, and I have to think that Skeates saw that possibility. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to investigate those mysteries.
Vulko throws the switch, and Aquaman shrinks back to the surreal, Dali-esq sub-reality. He begins to explore, but he encounters another one of those horrible cyclopean blob creatures that attacked him on his first visit. Realizing that there's nothing to be gained by fighting the monster, the Sea Sleuth evades it and continues his quest. There's a nice bit of characterization in that encounter, as Arthur evinces sound judgement but also shows some awareness of his public role as king, noting his subjects might not understand his actions. As it turns out, that's a thought that proves somewhat prophetic given the other events in this story.
With the telepathic guidance of his wife, Aquaman succeeds in locating the colony of the big-headed slavers of the previous story, and he just charges right in swinging. It's a pretty dynamic sequence, as the Sea King just smashes into their defenses. Meanwhile, back in Atlantis, Mera can sense that her love is in combat, and Vulko stresses that she must not think about wanting him to return to her or she'll bring him back prematurely. At the same time, Aqualad is observing a fiery speech in an Atlantean park, where a local nutjob has managed to acquire quite a following. The rabble-rouser, named Noxden, is stirring up resentment against the King by claiming that the destiny of Altanteans is to be air-breathers, and this is a destiny of which Aquaman robbed them!
I would NOT want to be in that guy's way!
All the way back in issue #35, the Atlanteans were converted into air-breathers, and their king restored them (in issue #43), because it's pretty stupid to live on the bottom of the sea if you can't breathe underwater. Yet, despite the utter absurdity of the fellow's claims, people are beginning to listen. There was a time when that would have seemed more far-fetched than it does today, I suppose.
Yet, if there's one thing that history teaches us, it's that a looney who shouts loud enough and provides a convenient scapegoat for people's problems will always be able to attract a following. Aqualad is disgusted by the raving rhetoric, seething at the idea that Atlanteans would be so ungrateful to the king who had done so much for them, and he heads out to tell Aquaman. Just at that moment, the Marine Marvel is getting overwhelmed by his alien antagonists and…oh no. Not again…that's right, the third head-blow in a row! Arthur gets conked on the noggin and he's down for the count!
Before we learn what happens with the Sea King, though, we have another stop. Subplots galore! In this case, we're touching base with Mupo, the fiery young man who led the rebellion against Aquaman's regent-turned-tyrant way back in issue #47. This book is just full of continuity! Mupo has been swayed by Noxden's speech, and he begins to spout some racist rhetoric, which Aquagirl calls him on. The Marine Mistress shows her class by storming out on the moron.
Meanwhile, Mera uses her connection with the ring-world to revive her husband, which si a nice touch and a way to give her more of a role. Aquaman awakens as he's being taken prisoner by the aliens and carefully times his escape, plowing through the guards that thought he was helpless. As he's swimming through the city, searching for a place to hide and make plans, who should he encounter but the object of his quest herself! The girl signals him and hides the hero while they talk. The Marine Marvel realizes that she's communicating with him telepathically, despite the fact that this was against her beliefs when they last met.
She explains that her captors have opened her mind and taught her to think for herself, strangely enough. Yet, even more surprising, when he tells the young lady that he's there to rescue her, she refuses, saying she's happy in her role! While she may be a captive, she is, in many ways, more free than she was in her oppressive home. It's an interesting wrinkle and an unexpected twist. Yet, it is also a bit unsatisfying. Our hero has gone through all of this to save her, and she doesn't want to be saved!
Stunned, Aquaman leaves, realizing that he's got twenty hours on the clock before he's due to be recalled and hoping he can find somewhere to hide and wait for his rendezvous. At the same time in Atlantis, our plot threads are converging, as Aquagirl encounters Aqualad, just as she's thinking over things with Mupo. When the young Aquatic Ace brushes her off in his hurry to see the King, she thinks that the more he ignores her, "the more attractive Mupo looks!" Uh-oh Garth, better watch out! You've got competition!
Nobody draws action like Jim Aparo.
Back in the microscopic world, Aquaman encounters another group of the aliens, and as he's tearing his way through them, he suddenly begins to grow, way ahead of schedule! When he arrives back home, Mera apologizes, realizing that her anxiety must have inadvertently led to her recalling him, but her husband stops her, saying that she came through at the perfect time. Just then Aqualad arrives and tells his tale, but Aquaman silences him as well, reminding his young charge that he respects free speech and isn't about to start censoring folks he disagrees with, which is a nice character beat. The story ends with a very striking image of Noxden, gesturing in a manner that is grimly familiar.
This is a very good tale, and it is absolutely packed full to the gills (if you'll forgive the expression) with plot. In fact, it's so stuffed with story that I had trouble summarizing it! Skeates is layering in storylines that could stick with the book for a long time to come, doing some worldbuilding, and in general giving Aquaman a more fully realized setting to inhabit. Of course, that makes the title's impending cancellation all the more heartbreaking. None of these plotlines will get resolved in the next and, as it happens final issue, leaving so much undone, so much potential wasted. I suppose I'll talk about that in more detail when I cover the final issue, but on this read-through, I'm really struck by how much this loss hurt the character. At the very beginning of the Bronze Age, where the DC Universe is evolving and growing, and when he had a fantastic opportunity to do the same, the powers that be cut the legs out from under Aquaman. That's just a crying shame, and it explains a lot of the problems the character has had since then.
Anyway, in terms of the story itself, it is a really enjoyable read. The quick cuts between the different plots keep it moving at break-neck pace. While the resolution of the plot of Aquaman's girl Friday is a bit of a letdown, the adventure that reunites the pair is pretty exciting. It does seem like the Sea King could have offered her a third option, or at least tried to do so. He could have sent the Atom in to bring her up to Atlantis, where she could have had her mental and physical freedom. Maybe that idea would have materialized in time, if Skeates had been given the opportunity. We'll never know now, I suppose.
I enjoy the mini-plots with Aquaman's supporting cast. At this time, the Marine Marvel is the only character that has his entire extended super family gathered around him, giving him unique story possibilities that other characters with similar supporting characters don't have access to at the moment. It's great to see Skeates take advantage of that. I also love seeing more of Tula in general. The character she developed into under Skeates' pen, capable, level-headed, independent, and still with a great sense of adventure, is one that I really love. The plot of the trouble-making politician that the young Aquatic Aces are mixed up in is certainly not a new one for Aquaman, but this time it comes with a new twist. Interestingly, part of Noxden's platform is a call for free and democratic elections, which is actually quite sensible and seems only natural to an American audience. After all, one of the central values of our culture is reverence for democracy. There is a lot of potential for some fascinating stories in the interplay between tradition and progress in Atlantis. Sadly, we won't really get to see Skeates develop that potential.
In the end, though this isn't a perfect story, it is a lot of fun and just full of intriguing beginnings. The SAG team has done a lot of experimentation, but I rather feel like, with this issue, they were settling into what would have been a very promising routine. I'll give it 4.5 Minutemen.
"Computer Trap"
We've got a very pleasant surprise this month in the form of an extra Aquaman yarn as a backup in this issue. This is a great little 7 1/2 page story that hits on some unexpected themes. The backup begins with Skeates doing a bit more aquatic world building, as the Sea King, returning from a mission on the surface, swims through a submarine ghost town. It's a forlorn abandoned city that rather gives our hero the creeps, and while he's pondering what happened to its inhabitants and how long it has lain empty, he suddenly detects a telepathic signal. Strange!
When he goes to investigate, he discovers an advanced computer, a self-aware machine that attacks his mind! The AI attempts to enslave his will, but Aquaman is no mental weakling, and his incredible willpower and mental strength hold off the telepathic attack. In the interim, we get treated to a flashback to this device's origins, and it's a pretty interesting story, the archetypal 'machines turn on their masters' setup. An advanced aquatic society built this powerful computer to help run their civilization, but, in a classic twist, the machine found the humans far too unstable and imperfect, so it simply took over.
In this case, the device actually dominates the minds of the citizens and turns them into efficient little worker-bees, creating more and more machines and more and more advancements, all in the name of 'progress.' That was the great ideal, progress for its own sake, and progress defined as technological growth, while all else in this culture decayed. In a really neat take on the concept, the machine can only control the minds of the adult society members because their brains are fixed and rigid, leaving the youth to grow disaffected and eventually to abandon the colony in search of a place that valued more in life than the endless pursuit of 'progress.' In a cool example of truth in fiction, the minds of young people actually are more flexible and less fully developed, so this is surprisingly believable on that score. Of course, there are also obvious social parallels as well.
Eventually, the machine's slaves grew old and died, leaving no-one to serve it. The computer plans to use Aquaman to attract a new population to pursue 'progress,' but the King of the Seven Seas is nobody's pawn. He stops fighting the device long enough to summon help, and though the computer invades his mind, the timely arrival of an electric eel breaks its control! To put an end to the menace of this mad machine, Aquaman summons a horde of his finny friends, and they collapse the cave it inhabits. Yet, Skeates leaves a note of mystery in the ending of this tale, as the machine may yet survive!
This is a quite a good story for as brief as it is. It helps that it fits into the end of the previous yarn, building off of its momentum, allowing this one to feel a bit more expansive than it really is. Skeates also deals with some really fascinating themes here, including the dangers of the rapid pace of technological advancement, one of the perennial subjects of science fiction. As long as man has built machines, there has always been a fear that they might somehow cost him his humanity. As it turns out, it's a fear well founded. We've begun to see that our hypertechnological society comes at a cost, with kids losing the ability to interact socially because of their addiction to social media and the like, not to mention the impact of information and sensation overload in the Internet Age. These are just the newest manifestations of an ancient phenomenon. Very little that we create comes without a cost, and it seems that those costs are growing more dear.
Perhaps the most interesting element of the story for me was Skeates' implicit criticism of the concept of progress as its own goal. C.S. Lewis described the origins of this tendency brilliantly in his essay "De Descriptione Temporum," where he wrote of the modern idea of a progressive, which is to say 'evolutionary,' view of history:
"that what has imposed this climate of opinion so firmly on the human mind is a new archetypal image. It is the image of old machines being superseded by new and better ones. For in the world of machines new most often really is better and the primitive really is the clumsy."
And he critiqued this view in his Mere Christianity, arguing that:
"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
There can be no progress without a concept of a destination, without an ideal and a goal, and you're either moving closer to that end or you're moving further away, so movement by itself is not necessarily progress. It's a useful lesson to remember, and, in its own small way, this little backup tale teaches it. The departure of the colony's youth makes the point rather well, as they are searching for the things that give a culture its soul, the things that make life worth living, like the sublime pleasures of art and literature. Of course, Skeates' story is so brief that it can do little more than gesture at its themes, but they are interesting enough on their own merits that they still add some flavor to the final product. I'll give this great little backup 4.5 Minutemen, as it gets extra credit for at least having the potential to be thought-provoking.
Of course, it hardly needs to be said at this point, but Aparo's art in this issue is as beautiful as usual. His depictions of the action scenes are particularly impressive, but I just plain love his illustration of the ring-world. He gives that place such a wonderfully insane feeling that it really adds something to Aquaman's adventures there. His Tula is a tad off this issue (she's probably the only Aqua-character for whom I really prefer Nick Cardy's rendition), but Aparo, as usual, also injects a lot of personality into the supporting characters. That last shot of the rabble-rousing politician is a bit chilling and instantly conveys the fellow's nature and personality.
"Asylum of the Futurians!"
"Temperature Boiling… and Rising!"
Not the most amazing cover we've had here, though I suppose it does do its job of making the reader curious about what's going on. And what is going on is rather weird. This isn't the type of terrible, lazy story we've encountered from Kanigher in the past, but neither is it the stronger type of tale he's been telling lately in our reading.
The yarn itself opens with a young woman running along a country road where she encounters the Batman, who has come searching for her and her husband. Her name is Laura, and how the Dark Knight knows her isn't explained. When she asks about his fortuitous arrival in the middle of nowhere and the middle of the night, he just says he'll tell her later. Odd. She proceeds to tell the Caped Crusader that her husband disappeared in the middle of the night, and when she found him, the scene she witnessed was almost enough to drive her mad!
Refusing to describe the source of her trepidation for fear he won't believe her, Laura leads Batman to an eerie, gloomy old house in the woods. Therein, they observe a scene out of an asylum, as musicians play on invisible instruments, waiters serve phantom food, and diners dressed in futuristic garb eat off empty plates. They observe Larua's husband, Stephen, a "famed photographer of psychic phenomena" looking on in befuddlement before he finally breaks out in anger, demanding to know the meaning of all of this. In response, the creepy lady in charge yells out that they thought he was "the Seventh Futurian," but since they were mistake, they must kill him! His work made them think that he'd be able to "hear" their music, and "taste" their food, things only a Futurian can do.