Give the fish-man his due – Super Friends #27
Not too long ago I posted a Super Friends cover that, to put it bluntly, made Aquaman look like a bitch. A whiny, scaly little bitch, pleading with Superman to save his bitch ass from a water-borne menace (“Why exactly do we keep you around, Arthur?”). Even if he redeemed himself in the interior story, the cover still left him looking like a super-powered wastrel.
As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
I felt it was important to post this follow-up. Not only is Aquaman shown stepping up the plate, but he’s going above and beyond the call of duty. He’s grown a set of balls. The tables have truly turned. Everything’s topsy-turvy.
To quote Bill Murray in Ghostbusters: “Dogs and cats…living together…mass hysteria!”
I guess The Electric Company was still around when I was a kid, at least in reruns. It was part of the gradations of children’s educational programming, with EC taking the torch after the simpler (but much more indelible) Sesame Street. The only thing I can recall about it is being very disappointed by the silent Spider-Man as he was portrayed on the show. Even my young eyes saw he was a skinny dude in ill-fitting pajamas, acting more like a mime than a heroic web-slinger. It would be a long while before the Sam Raimi version would wipe that live-action image out of my brain.
Here’s the bit that introduced Spider-Man to the Electric Company world — it’s a hell of an added bonus that Morgan Freeman, as the Easy Reader, was the one making the introduction:
When Mason Reese is being name-dropped, you are in a dark time in our nation’s history. Pilgrims in an unholy land, as it were.
I never knew that there was a tie-in comic to go with the Spider-Man/Electric Company fusion until relatively recently. It’s an interesting series. Most were blessed with Romita covers, and the stories inside were simplified and made kid-friendly. Most older comics — including those back in ’70s — seem relatively kid-friendly, so I’m not sure of the wisdom of making the reading chores simpler. It’s not as if you’ll see words like “quotidian” or “perspicacity” rear their ugly heads in the normal ones. There’s something to be said for helping kids develop their reading skills, but there’s also something to be said for having a higher bar for them to reach for. If there’s one thing I think I know, it’s not to talk down to kids. They can see through that nonsense pretty quick. Talk to them like contemporaries, minus the innuendo and cussing, of course. It seems to work pretty well.
Then again, I have neither children nor a teaching degree. Perhaps I should just shut my mouth. Or still my fingers (and don’t hold your breath waiting for The Blog into Mystery Guide to Parenting). I will say that I think as a kid (even a little one) I would have read these Spidey books and tossed them aside. “Where’s the real Spider-Man?” I would have asked.
That’s the point I’m driving at — if you simplify things too much, kids get a bit squirmy, like their cheeks are being pinched by some ugly, ancient aunt. I’m not sure that these comics truly cross that line, but let’s take a look at what’s inside this one. You can judge for yourself.
Ralph Macchio and Kolfax Mingo wrote this issue, while Winslow Mortimer and Mike Esposito took on the art chores. In the first story (“Trapped by the Collector”), poor Spidey is out slinging around when he’s dragged into the Baxter Building by an irate Thundra. She’s been assigned the task of guarding some machines for the Fantastic Four, but they’ve gone missing — seeing Spider-Man going past the window, she assumed he’d taken them.
Women…
They wrestle around, perhaps fulfilling some “small masked man, large woman” fetish, and Spider-Man shoots her in the eyes with his goo — rereading that, maybe they need to rethink the whole Rated G business, though it really isn’t as bad as it sounds:
It’s revealed that the machines were teleported away by the Collector, and he soon tries to add Spidey and Thundra to his holdings. Not so fast, bub — and let’s sprinkle in some weak dialogue while the comeuppance is ladled out:
I’m getting a real “See Spot run” vibe here. You?
The Collector’s means of escape was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in recent weeks:
Apparently the Elders of the Universe had a clown college.
The story wouldn’t be complete without one final groaner:
The next story (“Humbugged!”) involves a villain whose main power is — wait for it — humming. Since this one was kind of done on the TV show, in the interests of brevity (and perhaps my sainity), I’ll just give you one panel and an embed:
The last ditty (“Time Trapped” and “King Kang”) is a bit more fun. It has Lockjaw. It has Kang. And they go together like Tango and Cash, baby. If you’ve ever wanted to see Marvel’s big tuning-forked not-a-giant-bulldog-even-though-he-looks-like-one bite the Conqueror on the ass, this, my friend, is your lucky day.
Peter’s heading to meet Mary Jane to go to a costume party (he’s pretty lazy in his costume selection — one hint: he’s wearing it) when Lockjaw appears and Shanghais him:
They travel to a future where humanity has been enslaved by Kang and forced to wear Spider-Man costumes. I shit you not, folks. I’ll leave it to Kang to explain this mishegoss:
This shall not stand. Remember that ass stuff I promised? Here it is!:
And now for the denouement:
Mary Jane hasn’t worn the Spider-Man costume many times over the years, but I find it very becoming on her when she does.
While I’m still ambivalent on whether or not these things have educational value (and the jarring use…of ellipsis is pointless and…drives me nuts), it’s hard to knock some of the silly, childish humor. I begrudgingly cede the fun of that stuff. These Spidey comics also have a degree of collectible appeal. They’re not often seen and when they’re spotted they’re not usually in great shape, so when they do turn up I always give them a good hard look. The little kids they were aimed at, being kids, apparently didn’t take the best care of them, hence their frequently dilapidated condition. Or maybe they kids just thought the things were supid baby crap and junked them. Who knows?
In one final aside, I was scanning the skeletal entry for this issue in the Grand Comics Database website and noticed that there was some question as to whether Jack Kirby might have pencilled this particular cover. The John Romita influence is quite obvious, but I think I might see some Kirby in the Collector’s head, not to mention Thundra’s pose. Maybe not.
Anyway, it’s some food for thought. Which can’t really be said (fairly or not) for the contents of this comic.
Buy me some peanuts and that other stuff
Opening Day is Thursday. As a frequent attendee out at Nationals Park here in DC, I’m psyched up. On rare occasions I allow myself some Cracker Jack while I’m at a game, and oddly enough it’s one of the healthier ballpark foods — everything else seems to be an overpriced varation of fried lard. “Antioxidant” is a term that ceases to exist once you go through the turnstiles. In that realm a caramel-coated confection almost counts as a salad.
I can’t wait.
Who are you callin’ a dummy, dummy? – Sgt. Rock #349
The adventures of Sgt. Rock and Easy Company often had a stark realism about them, a quality that made me avert my youthful eyes. I never cared much for this genre, but I’ve gron to appreciate it in this thing called “adulthood.” War isn’t pretty, and Rock and his boys often saw ugly stuff in stories that frequently had the comics equivalent of cinema vérité.
This is not one of those stories. The cover says it all. You wouldn’t think that ventriloquy and front line combat would go hand in hand, but who am I to argue?
Ready yourselves for the usual jokes about Minwax and sawdust.
“The Dummy” (Script: Bob Kanigher, Art: Frank Redondo) opens with a new G.I. joining Rock and Easy Company in the European Theatre’s combat zone:
Despite Rock’s misgivings about whether or not this guy (these guys?) is (are?) going to fit in, things take a welcome turn when the dummy starts cracking wise:
Notice how different this dummy is from Joe Kubert’s cover dummy. This one seems more a small wooden caricature of the Japanese enemy (something that’s never commented on), while the cover has a more Caucasian (or Dennis Kucinich) look. Just something to ponder.
Anyway, rather than the dummy getting his head ripped off by surly and bullet-frazzled troops, he instead quickly becomes a big mouth mascot for Easy Company. But make no mistake, this duo can pull it’s own weight, as the flesh and blood half mans a B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle — yes, I had to look it up). His mettle is proven when he helps down a strafing fighter plane, and later he’s the last line of defense when advancing Germans are threatening to cross a bridge and crush the pinned-down soldiers:
The Huns are driven back, but at a tragic price. The new G.I. has made the ultimate sacrifice before we even learned his name. Easy Company erects a final, improvised tribute, one that’s simultaneously sad, funny and creepy — a lot like vent figures, come to think of it:
There are several other stories in the issue — two more downbeat affairs and one humorous story that isn’t all that humorous. I thought the following Kanigher-scripted minor key short, “Taps for a Bugler,” about buglers seizing common ground across the chasm of war, was kind of neat. An American bugler in Korea is having a hard time hitting the right notes, and when the enemy attacks he has some grudging admiration for his counterpart:
After the battle the buglers connect with one another:
Not bad. It helps make this issue a little heavy on the pathos, but not in a terrible way.
There’s a bit of Batman’s Scarface in the feature’s handler/dummy pair, with the former the completely silent partner among the two. Maybe there’s even a little bit of Mel Gibson in the upcoming The Beaver in there as well, though there’s no indication that this fella ever hurled slurs at highway patrolmen and hot Russian exes. In any case, though Sgt. Rock wasn’t on my “pull list” as a kid (as if I ever had a pull list at the newsstand), reading this one was rather fun. It’s really hard to look at a DC war comic in which Joe Kubert’s involved in even the most miniscule of capacities and not find something to enjoy, but this one had more than just something. Silliness, yes, but a good kind.
If there’s one conclusion we can draw from the feature’s outwardly odd fusion, it’s this — wouldn’t the ending of Saving Private Ryan (i.e. the bridge/Tom Hanks/tank/sidearm scene) have been better if our dying star had had a dummy on his other hand? And the dummy was talking as Hanks drew his last breaths, in a morbid takeoff of the old “glass of water” bit? A boy can dream, can’t he?
See? We have cool stuff too. Right?
I pulled this house ad out the Son of Vulcan book from a few days ago. Bless Charlton for trying, but this can’t really hold a candle to those three-cover Marvel promos, the ones where the coming of Galactus would be placed alongside whatever wonders Romita was cooking up in Amazing Spider-Man and another random book that would wipe the floor with any of these lesser titles.
At least Sarge Steel had this moment in the sun. I doubt that he was ever again among “The Greatest Action Heroes of All Time!”
Where exactly would you get one of those serviced? – Warlock and the Infinity Watch #12
I bought into The Infinity Gauntlet heavily back in the day. Its willingness to dispatch Marvel superstars in assorted horrible ways was a new thing to my young eyes. Jim Starlin’s art has never done it for me, but there was a time when his cosmic scripts could really grab you — and I’ll refrain from making the obvious play on words possible with his last name. It’s not always easy to get you care about nigh-omnipotent beings whose voices somehow carry in the vacuum of space (apparently none ever came across the Alien marketing campaign), but Starlin pulled it off.
For a while.
The diminishing returns on my dollar-plus investment that was each issue of the later Infinity War and Infinity Crusade and Infinity Stooges (maybe not the last one) crossover series is a topic for another time. Actually, it’s probably more like a topic for never — if I live a thousand years I doubt I’d ever dig that deeply into the archives. At any rate, those came well after the point where my illusions were fatally shattered.
I had read each issue of IG backwards and forwards countless times, to the point where the covers were almost coming off from the constant opening and closing. I salivated for each new issue, yearned to see what havoc Thanos would unleash, and daydreamed about whether the resurrected Adam Warlock could stop his pruney-chinned machinations. And before the series ended I saw a solicitation for a new ongoing series that would continue these doings. Its title? Warlock and the Infinity Watch.
My reaction was two-fold. There was at first much rejoicing at the thought that this Infinity stuff would carry on in its own title, and not just be re-relegated to being a part of The Silver Surfer.
But…
Infinity Watch?
All I could think of was hour and minute and second hands and the Gems in place of the quartz or something. In retrospect it’s quite obvious that “watch” was used in its “guardian” sense, and not the Rolex/Timex/Swatch/etc. sense. But considering that we were coming off a series that paired “Infinity” with an accessory (a more exotic term for a glove), I think you can understand my confusion. And to this day, whenever I come across one of these comics in a bargain bin (and you’re never going to find them anywhere else, except perhaps on the verge of being thrown into an incinerator or a refuse heap), my mind pictures an Infinity Gem-encrusted timepiece.
It sounded lame then. It sounds lame now. And it was lame.
I think I lasted two issues. And with this one, twelve in, you can really see that this title was going nowhere. They took the most powerful weapon in the universe and split it up and entrusted the six components to the blandest characters you could ever conjure. Alan Moore would have struggled to snap this book into shape (though his alchemy managed to turn Rob Liefeld’s manure into gold). Even Neil Gaiman, whose work with his Endless makes me think he might have been the most likely candidate to draw blood from a lifeless stone, would have had a hard time defibrillating this D.O.A. corpse.
Led by Warlock, not exactly The Most Interesting Man in the World (stay thirsty, my friends) by any stretch, the team all went downhill after him. Drax was a one note big dumb strong guy. Pip was a hairy dwarf that smoked cigars and hid his gem in a secret place — it was actually teased that he had shoved it up his ass. The Infinity Suppository. Ugh. Moondragon was a lady that looked like Sinead O’Connor but with a lot less clothes and enormous bolt-on breasts (She was actually the reincarnated form of the human wife daughter [see comments] of Drax’s former human self. What’s that? You don’t care? Neither do I). Gamora was a blue-green chick that seemed to mope a lot.
Thanos had the sixth gem, but sadly he — for obvious reasons — wasn’t a very big part of the “team.” It would have been good to have his spice around — his refreshing brand of evil, which, though crazy, is calm, self-assured and almost debonair, stands in stark contrast to many of the cackling twits of the Marvel Universe. All too often they sound like this douche:
Not Thanos.
What goes on in this issue, the one (#12) where any title should really be hitting its stride? Nothing. And I mean nothing. Moondragon laments the fact that she was the one who gave Drax the Rose Kennedy treatment, Pip sits around smoking one of his goddamn cigars like a miniature Man With No Name, and Gamora watches over a comatose Warlock, whose bed-ridden state is perhaps the best symbol of what this comic was all about:
Zzzzzzzzzz.
Oh, and the Hulk shows up at the end to fight Drax. There’s nothing like the need for a guest star to really drive home the impression that a series is sinking and sinking fast. Apparently Ghost Rider, Cable, the Punisher and Wolverine all had prior commitments.
I’ve liked a lot what Jim Starlin has done, and the artists on the book (Tom Raney in this issue) did creditable work. But this thing was a misfire. The team was a watch. They weren’t avenging anything. They weren’t seeking justice. They were supposed to protect the Infinity Gems. That’s all. That’s passive. That can be hard to make interesting. It’s easy to make boring.
It was boring.
I was stunned to learn that this series LASTED FOR 42 ISSUES. Perhaps I quit too early. Perhaps its storylines flew over my head. I doubt it. And when #43 failed to hit the shelves I doubt that there was much gnashing of teeth. Starlin never really got me back after this. I followed along for a time, keeping up with the crossover events and coasting on the fumes from IG, but never again would I care all that much about the ultimate weapon in the Marvel U.
I guess the Gauntlet is going to have a cameo in the new Thor film. That’s cool. But if Pip shows up I shall first vomit into my popcorn, then calmly march out of the theater and demand my money back. I won’t even care about the weird looks from the poor minimum wage soul in the ticket booth when I start ranting about Infinity Suppositories.
Yes, it was roughly a year ago that I started this thing. More on that in a moment — and don’t worry, you won’t have to read much self-congratulatory, horrifically solipsistic wanking. Enough of that gets done in regular posts. More like some observations and resolutions on what I need to do better.
We’ll start with the lesser of the comics in this celebration twofer, the more recent one. I plucked it out of the archives mainly because it makes a fitting bookend to my maiden year of blogging. In one of my very first posts I took a quick look at a Jack Kirby-infused Super Powers book from the ’80s, one that had Easter Island statues climbing out of the ground and bedevilling DC heroes. This Gil Kane Thor cover is very reminiscent in composition, but, though I like it’s more ominous color pattern, the baby arms on its statues can’t compare to Kirby’s rocky paws.
The interior art (script: Doug Moench) is oddly un-Kane-like (unKaney?), and his Moai take on a very un-Easter Island appearance when they come alive thanks to some Norn stones:
Still, you have to like Thor’s Whac-A-Mole method for defeating them:
There. Now that there’s a little symmetry to for this debut year we can get to the main event, a comic from a character whose original book gave me the title of this blog.
Could this be the very best Jack Kirby Thor cover every forged? It’s possible. There’s some stiff competition, but there are so many magical elements working for this one: the humongous Odinsword, a cowering Volstagg, a defiant Thor, a giant, unseen, looming menace. Pure greatness.
Thor #156 (inked by Vince Colletta) is in the middle of one of the better storylines in the Silver Age run. The gigantic, over-powering Mangog, a proxy for a tyrannic-race long ago eradicated by Odin, is moving inexorably towards Asgard. Once there he (it?) plans to draw the Odinsword and bring about Ragnarok. The stakes are high and so is the drama, with every player in the Thor mythos (from Queen Karnilla to Heimdall) making their presence felt. Let’s look at some of the best moments.
If there’s any hero that doesn’t know how to give in when confronted with an unbeatable foe like the Mangog (and is also unafraid to vocalize that determination), it’s Thor:
Stan really knew how to write this stuff, didn’t he? From now on I’m going to repeat “The Sinews of Thor! The Sinews of Thor!” over and over again while I’m doing bicep curls. It shall be my mantra. Can’t hurt, can it?
While everyone else is out battling this direst of dire threats, Loki is where you’d expect him to be — playing around in Daddy’s chair:
What do Larry Craig and Loki have in common? They both have a wide stance on the throne. Hah!
In a classic case of counting his chickens before they hatch, Loki’s already revelling in having all this power to himself. After all, Thor will be killed by the Mangog and Odin’s taking an Odinsleep power nap, so no one will be in his way. And his sorcery and loyal forces will surely shield him from harm at the hands of this Mangog gent. The bank will never call in this mortgage, right?:
D’oh!
Thor and the Warriors Three spend most of their time getting their asses handed to them. Still, in the midst of that desperate chaos there was something in this one panel that made me laugh out loud:
If Volstagg had said “Feets don’t fail me now!” I might have shot whatever I was drinking out of my nose. Or crapped my pants. One or the other. Thank you Stan and Jack. This little bit made my day.
As Mangog draws closer and closer to his goal, a chesty Sif takes up a position as the Odinsword’s last line of defense. The huge blade in question looks more like a parked Millennium Falcon than a weapon one would wield, no?:
And, speaking of the Falcon, though I like the Lee dialogue spilling out of the Recorder’s (a cross between Uatu the Watcher and Machine Man) mouth, I couldn’t blame Sif if she switched him off like an exasperated Han Solo with C-3PO.
Ahhhhh. Wasn’t that great?
I’ve droned on before about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the Norse magic they created with Thor. I won’t go through that again. But I’m struck how, every time I read one of these Silver Age gems, my 33-year-old self is almost compelled to pick up the carpenter’s hammer I keep around for small projects and twirl it around my head. Maybe even tie a red blanket around my neck. Making deities underdogs against an unbeatable foe is so hokily stirring. I love it. The characters in Thor were the most fantastic (sorry, FF), but they were also in some ways the most fleshed out and were without doubt the most colorful. I pray that the Kenneth Branagh Thor doesn’t suck, but if it’s as tenth as good as these Lee/Kirby efforts it’ll be sublime.
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Now for the purely self-centered garbage.
I’ve very much enjoyed doing this thing, and plan to keep doing it into the foreseeable future. A few quick observations…
1. I hate scanning comics and then editing the picture files. It’s monotonous. It takes time. It takes patience. I have little of the first, and absolutely none of the second. It is the price paid for more robust commentary. I will continue to pay said price, but I do so under protest. Perhaps I need a Kramerica-type intern.
2. I’ve done a horrible job of joining the broader comics blogging community. I don’t read and comment enough on other people’s blogs, many of which I’m sure are vastly superior to my own. I don’t know if that’s going to change much (that time thing again). But I’d like for it to.
3. A thank you to those who’ve stopped in to read what I’ve written, those who’ve left a comment or two or many more, and those who’ve linked to my blog. All three things are truly very much appreciated.
4. Perhaps the best thing to come out of this is that I’ve become more more omnivorous in my comics acquisitions. Instead of focusing solely on the big gun titles in the quixotic quest to fill out complete runs, I’m now much more willing to pick up comics off the beaten path, with the thought of “This might make a good blog entry…” flashing through my several brain cells. When I come across certain comics now I can almost see the titles and contents of entire posts. That’s fun. It makes me wish I had started doing this sooner.
5. I like writing the posts. It’s all as simple as that.
Enough wanking. One year down, an unknown number to go. Until next time, true believers.
Place H.G. Wells in bowl. Stir in Kryptonian. Bake. Serve. – Superman: War of the Worlds
There are certain combinations that are hard to foul up, even if in lesser hands than those of the ever-capable Roy Thomas. This is one of those meldings. Like chocolate and peanut butter, putting the Man of Steel and giant tripods in the same story is about as safe as you can get.
Published in 1999 — yes, before the Martian-driven League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II came out — the story is about what you’d expect, and that means that it’s rather good. Set in the 1930s (this may be the only comic in the history of the universe to reference FDR’s original Vice-President, “Cactus Jack” Garner), an S-emblazoned hero makes his big debut at about the same time that the Martians launch their invasion. There are opportunities aplenty for callbacks to the Superman #1 and Action #1 covers, and there’s also some nice irony around Earth’s champion, the only person able to defeat the aliens, being an E.T. himself. As Superman says in his final lines of the book:
I had to fight the aliens, but I realized that we’re both aliens here. I felt sorry for them. I myself came from space. For all I know, my world is dying like theirs. It may already be dead. If the Martians hadn’t come, the people of Earth might have been running from me.
It should be noted that it’s the Golden Age Superman we’re dealing with, too — the “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound” model and not the “fly rings around the Earth so fast time is reversed” version. Otherwise this story would be a pretty quick one, with Kal-El twirling those three-legged fuckers around like a rhythmic gymnast’s ribbons.
If I have one beef, it’s one that doesn’t spring organically from the story itself. It seems that so many of these Superman Elseworlds things have Lex Luthor turning up as the villain. Everyone in the stories is always shocked by this, and here’s the problem — WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SURPRISED TOO. WHICH IS STUPID. BECAUSE WE HAVE SEEN THIS LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF TIMES BEFORE.
There’s that same problem here, as Sexy Lexy fills the Invisible Man/Quisling role. Who woulda thunk it, huh? All that said (or ranted), Luthor is the A-1 Superman villain, and I understand that he’s hard to steer around in a one-shot. We can at least be thankful that he wasn’t doing a real estate swindle writ large in this instance. I swear, if that Christopher Nolan-overseen and Zack Snyder-helmed Man of Steel has Luthor trying to make money like a Century 21-themed super-villain, I’m going to have an aneurysm. But I digress.
Michael Lark’s art here is very reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s, and since Gotham by Gaslight, the first Elseworlds book, has become by default my standard by which all other alternative reality tales are judged, that’s a good thing. There might be a little David Mazzucchelli/Batman:Year One in there too — also a good thing. The shadows and somewhat faded color palette give it that old-timey feel that seems to be necessary to really drive home the “this happened in the 1930s, okay?” setting.
Good times all around.
As much as I enjoyed parts of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (did that really come out almost six years ago?), the addition of Tim Robbins completely pulled the ripcord on my suspension of disbelief. Every time I see his aging “Nuke” LaLoosh mug I remember his virulent advocacy of liberal causes, and that reduces his performance (unfairly, I know) to nothing more than a simple-minded “The-aliens-are-Republicans-because-they-have-us-living-in-fear-blah-blah-blah” rant. I can’t help but believe that the whole enterprise would have been spruced up by his removal and the insertion of a certain red and blue blur.
Let’s sidle up to the old Victrola and have a listen
Another piece of life that’s gone the way of the dodo.
I had a few book/record combos back in the day, mostly rehashes of movies like The Dark Crystal and the Star Trek films. Ah, the glorious days before my house got its first VCR. As unbelievably silly as these might seem to modern iPhoners, sometimes the original stories featured in them had a lot of quality. I fondly recall a couple of ditties (Planet of the Hoojibs and Droid World) whose sound effects and distinctive music combined to set my young imagination afire. R2-D2 beeping to cue you to turn the page was one of those little touches that I remember to this day, and C-3PO’s voice somehow made everyone’s favorite protocol droid sound even more effeminate than usual. I swear, whoever did Goldenrod’s voice in those was to Anthony Daniels what John Inman would have been to Clark Gable.
I feel so old talking about having owned records. Tomorrow I’ll be walking with a cane, chugging Metamucil and telling neighborhood kids to get off my fucking lawn. Or so it seems. Time flies when you’re having fun.
I’d love to get my hands on the comic character versions in the ad above, just for the curiosity factor alone. You really don’t see more ephemeral stuff like this much. They’re not purely comics, they’re not purely records, they’re not purely books and therefore they’re collectible orphans.
And now you’ll have to excuse me, because I need to go look in a mirror for a quick wrinkle check.
No, not Spock – Son of Vulcan #49
A couple of weeks ago I was buying some comics and couldn’t help but overhear a conversation that a dealer was having with someone else — I wasn’t eavesdropping, I swear. They were reminiscing about buying comics in the ’60s, and how their tastes had evolved and changed along the way. What struck me funny was when the dealer, when describing how he was a pure DC man (mainly because there were no Marvels sold at his local newsstand), would only buy a Charlton title if their was nothing — and that means NOTHING — else new available. I can’t really convey the tone of his voice. There was almost a sound of horror in it, you know? Like having to slum around with Charlton was the worst thing in the world.
It couldn’t have been that bad, could it?
Well…
Son of Vulcan was one of the lesser Charlton figures, ranking well behind the dudes — like the Blue Beetle and the Question — blessed with the Steve Ditko touch. He was among the arsenal of characters whose rights DC purchased, but, unlike those aforementioned heroes and others, he’s yet to really make much of an impact in his new universe. He’s shown up a couple of times and he’s had a miniseries in the past decade, but that’s about it for the guy.
Here’s his backstory in brief. Johnny Mann was a reporter who was crippled, and when he cursed fate for his injuries Vulcan heard his cries and agreed to bless him with the capacity to do good. To that end he was gifted with an arsenal of powers based on the abilities of the Roman gods.
Handy.
Sounds kind of interesting, right? It can’t be that bad. Can it?
Here’s my verdict. It’s not “cover your eyes” bad. But it ain’t all that great.
“The Diamond Dancers” was scripted by Joe Gill and illustrated by Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico, and, in a footnote, this was the first issue of Son of Vulcan as an eponymous book. Before the series had been entitled Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds, and with this installment our hero shucked off his old environs in much the same way that Thor got rid of the Journey into Mystery label with issue #126. Also, Dave Cockrum designed SoV’s new look costume (per the notation on the cover).
Enough trivia. Dr. Kong, an old enemy of SoV and a terrible racial caricature, has opened up a Chinese theater next to a jewelry storehouse and is using it as a front in his efforts to steal some diamonds. Mr. Mann sniffs out that something is up, and accordingly makes his identity change:
He’s immediately bested by Dr. Kong’s electrified sword, and his life is only spared when Mars, a banished god and another old enemy, shows up. Mars isn’t so keen on cold-blooded murder, but allies himself with Kong in the theft scheme and helps dispose of SoV’s unconscious body. Where, you ask? Beneath a driven pile on a construction site:
Ten points for originality.
SoV wakes up and prays to Vulcan for a power boost, and said prayer is granted. When he busts out he heads back to foil Kong and Mars, but this time he’s gassed and sealed in a vault. Strike two for SoV. Not only is Mars sporting a Wesley Dodd Signature Brand Gas Mask, but he also knows his welding:
Vulcan taught him modern blowtorch welding techniques? Are we going to learn later that Neptune taught him how to be a longshoreman?
SoV has to call on big daddy Vulcan to bail him out yet again, and this time the God of the Forge has to outsorce the assistance to no lesser personage than King Midas himself:
Mars and Kong have been busy double-crossing each other, and though Mars eventually makes a clean getaway (sans diamonds), SoV sinks Kong’s escape submarine. We’re left to ponder:
I’m not sure that all these questions were definitively answered since the next issue was SoV’s last. Arrivederci.
I have some sympathy for folks who got stuck buying one of these suckers back in the day. The story clunks along, the hero looks like Marvin the Martian, he’s bested at every turn, and characters like King Midas appear out of the newsprint ether to leave us scratching our heads while asking “Huh? Really?” It’s no surprise he’s remained deep on the back bench all these years, and he’ll likely remain there for many more to come.
I know Charlton has its supporters, and I confess to finding some of the material that they churned out intriguing. But much of their superhero stuff… Woof. My heart goes out to the young version of that dealer, standing in front of the newsstand and seeing only D-list titles staring back at him. I’m not old enough for Charlton, but I gather that the equivalent disappointment from my era would have been having to buy books from Malibu or their ’80s/’90s like, i.e. the stuff that’s lining birdcages as we speak.
The horror…
They say that you’re a man with true GRIT.
Did you know that GRIT is still being published? I didn’t. But it is. That seems rather surprising, especially since these old ads make it seem like the “for kids” version of Amway. I wonder if any Fortune 500 CEOs had their origins pawning a crummy magazine to unsuspecting relatives…
Probably not. Maybe the Enron guys, though.
I’m not a fan of Plastic Man. There’s something about him that really, really creeps me out. If someone told me that an unnamed DC superhero had to register as a sex offender, my mind would immediately dart to Plas. That said, I don’t quite know what exactly it is about him that skeeves me so. It could be an amalgamation of things. It might be those dark glasses/goggles (what’s he hiding?), or perhaps it’s his grabby maneuvers, which usually look like he’s trying to cop a feel on whomever he’s grasped. But I don’t get that vibe from Elongated Man or Mr. Fantastic, so it has to be something with his look.
I guess it could simply be his tight, revealing costume. It reminds me of Howard Stern Show wack packer (and cross-dressing ex-con psychopath) Elegant Elliot Offen:
Seperated at birth. Riiiiiight?
I was going to give you the credits for this issue’s “Brains Washed While U Wait,” but I’ll let Plastic Man handle it in his usual idiotic manner:
While our “hero” is out doing his thing, a local crime lord is introducing the new boss in town:
I find that imagining an underworld figure is speaking with Edward G. Robinson’s voice always heightens my reading pleasure. Try it yourself, and maybe sprinkle in the occasional “Yeah, see?!” as necessary. Here’s a clip to help tune that mental instrument:
Back at the home office, Plastic Man and his sidekick, Woozy Winks, get a new assignment — a scientist has gone coocoo, and Plas needs to find the weapon that he was working on:
SEE THAT POSE? See what I mean about this guy? I feel the need to avert my eyes. Or maybe the DC editors should have put a black bar over his suggestively spread nether regions. Just saying. I suppose we can all be thankful that the panel was a wide shot, and not a close-up of his accentuated batch.
Instead of finding just the weapon, Plas and Wozzy stumble upon that new big bad, Kolonel Kool (who needs just one more “K” to have one hell of an offensive monogram). Kool zaps Plas with a ray gun and thus renders him a subservient simpleton. The ray is the weapon that the scientist was working on, and when Kool takes the boys back to his hideout, he reveals his true identity — a rogue fellow agent, one that’s gained super-strength as a side-effect of the ray and has grown tired of all of Plastic Man’s practical jokes:
It turns out that simple water is the magic antidote to the ray’s effects, and a spilled glass frees the will of Kool’s boss underling:
Woozy gives Plastic Man a little spritz, and he does his rubbery thing to save the day:
They’ve officially been “bonked.”
There was a time in my life when I actually liked Plastic Man. I guess I outgrew him as I got older. You know, when I reached the ripe old age of five or six or so. The story in this issue has that insipid quality of the Golden Age, the one that makes so many of those sepia-toned stories hard to read here in the 21st century. Perhaps that’s a big part of Plastic Man’s problem. He’s had a terrible time breaking out of his Police Comics origins.
There’s something in him that might make for a decent character if done right (you can say that about so many dud characters) — his status as a reformed crook would be step one on that path.
Maybe if he just dressed a little more modestly. And was a little more willing to keep his hands to himself.
I’m sure she’s devoured a bunch of these. Sure.
Having a goddess with a perfect physique in an ad for Hostess cupcakes is a bit odd. It’s the inverse of having Shirley Hemphill do a commercial for rice cakes, no?
Did Infantino run this puppy into the ground? – Nova #18
A friend of mine, one who’s about ten years older than me, once expressed his distaste for Carmine Infantino because of his tenure on Marvel’s Nova. I was singing the praises of the man, and my friend — who owns a comic shop that I frequent, so I give his opinion an appropriate amount of weight — listened patiently, and then calmly explained how he loathed what Infantino did to that particular teen hero back in the day. My friend had been a big Nova fan, and then Carmine rolled into town and his favorite title was cancelled not long after. And he thought Infantino’s art at that time blew.
The man can hold a grudge, what can I say?
This talk intrigued me, because I’ve never made any secret of my metaphorical Infantino hard-on. But my love is not unquestioning, and I can perhaps be persuaded to reevaluate my amour. I thought that if any Nova comic could turn me off, this one, with its stereotypically insulting villain, would be the one. It’s even entitled “The Final Showdown,” which is oddly appropriate given the personal stakes it’s taking on for me.
Marv Wolfman wrote this story, while Infantino was inked by “The Tribe,” an umbrella term for Marvel’s stable of embellishers. Incidentally, “The Tribe” was my father’s (unflattering) moniker for my mother’s side of the family, but that’s neither here nor there. If anyone out there has any idea who might actually have inked this one, feel free to chime in.
The story finds Nova battling the Yellow Claw, while the grizzled Nick Fury rassles with a tidal wave that threatens to consume New York City (a scenario that seems much more chilling in light of recent events in Japan). I like how Infantino deployed a “split-screen” on this page to show the two battlefronts:
The Yellow Claw plunges Nova into a delusional state — no one could draw the craziness of the mind like Steve Ditko, but I think Infantino, with his enveloping lines, does a decent job:
Nova manages to wake up, and, meanwhile, Nick Fury defuses the wave:
“YAHOOOO!” doesn’t sound like a Nick Fury line — he looks more like a “FUCK YEAH!” type of guy. And he should also be chomping on a lit cigar, despite his recent submersion. Those are my editorial notes for the day.
Oh, and check out how the New York skyline has been “Infantino-ized.”
The Yellow Claw’s not done with his mind tricks. He makes Nova think that he’s on fire (a kind of box-less “Gom Jabbar”), but when Nova bursts out of YC’s ship to get to water he makes sure to go through some vital systems, thus blowing it up:
Surely the Yellow Claw is gone forever, right? Fury knows better — he’s been around this block a few times:
After this there’s a brief follow-up story entitled “Beginnings.” It’s filled with stuff from Richard Rider’s personal life which all seems pretty boring to me, but one little bit, with Richard and his girlfriend, adds weight to my half-assed thesis that all comics published in 1977 after the release of Star Wars had to mention that film at least once:
Remember Norm MacDonald’s old “Germans love David Hasselhoff” SNL/”Weekend Update” schtick? This is my equivalent.
What’s the verdict, you ask? Was my friend right? I’m afraid that I’m going to be a bit wishy-washy here, as I’m not really sure that I can draw any conclusions on Infantino’s culpability in the demise of Nova. I’ll admit that it’s always jarring seeing him playing in the Marvel titles during his DC exile (and perhaps the inking here is a bit dodgy at times), but that’s about the only flaw I can see. His use of perspective and “camera angles” is, as always, without compare, not to mention his overall story sense. Nova’s a somewhat lame attempt to recapture the Peter Parker/Spider-Man magic, with another symmetrically syllabic, alliteratively named alter-ego teen, but (Get this, kids!) with a zippy flying twist. If anything, seeing Infantino working his magic made me almost (almost, mind you) care about this guy.
Then again, that old amour might have blinded me after all, and I really can’t be objective. The Infantino Nova might really suck. It’s hard to argue with results, and the axe fell while he was pencilling the title. And my bias might have made this brief exercise a complete waste of time.
Oh well.
Free lip gloss and eye shadow? Sign me up!
“Margie” seems like the sort of girl — a Suzanne Somers-y ditz — who will one day, in her old age, fall prey to a driveway paving scam.
Jared
blog into mystery 