LOIS LANE #111 / Jul’71 – “THE DARK SIDE OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!”
At the same time that Jack Kirby was doing his thing in JIMMY OLSEN, the rest of the SUPERMAN books were also undergoing their own little Rennaisance, each one under a different editor, apparently. According to the indicia, E. Nelson Bridwell has SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE. Right off the bat, Lois has a better logo than Jimmy. Also, from what I know about Lois in the 60’s, it seems they tried to upgrade her hairstyle, her wardrobe, and her personality. If you look around online, you’ll find a ton of LL stories where she is—to be it lightly—a SHREW. The be-all and end-all of her entire existence seemed to revolve around trying to PROVE that Clark Kent was Superman, so she could proclaim it on the front page of The Daily Planet. Never mind how this would destroy his effectiveness as a crime-fighter, allowing super-criminals world-wide to attack Clark, the Planet, all his friends... gee, even HER!
Well, the 70’s Lois seemed to get a hefty dose of brains, and sensitivity. Like a number of TV shows I remember from the same period, she became a “kindler, gentler” Lois. She was in love with Superman—and acted like it! He was also in love with her—but could not marry her, for fear it would put her life in danger. I’m not sure this makes any more sense, since it seems everyone in the world KNOWS they love each other. Of course, it never seemed to occur to Clark back then to TELL her his secret, then have THEM marry, leaving Superman, to thre eyes of the public, a confirmed bachelor.
Anyway... I have the strongest feeling the cover of LL #111 was another one of those where someone came up with a cover idea, then wrote a story based on it. The cover shows Lois, in a red-and-black tiger-skin bikini, laying on her back, sleeping on the beach... while miniature versions of the Justice League of America stake her down to the sand! Yep, it’s a scene right out of GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. How did this happen? Wouldn’t you like to know? Well, then—buy the comic! That’s what the cover was created for. The thing is, the cover scene takes up so little of the story, it feels like a rip-off... like the vast majority of Superman-related comics from the 50’s & 60’s no doubt did.
The story opens with Lois, on her way to beach, ignoring wolf-whistles, and eager to relax and “dream about SUPERMAN... in private.” (What, she couldn’t have done this at home?) No sooner is she asleep, then the min-JLA appears, ties her down, and while she’s helpless, the mini-Black Canary uses an eye-droper to coat Lois’s lips with some chemical that will prove deadly to Superman. Then, they free her, and leave. She’s back at the office by page 4, with NO knowledge of what happened. You SEE why I think the cover is a CON—and was done FIRST?
While this is going on, the writer explains—in narration, and in some very awkward dialogue, that the mini-JLA are the result of DNA samples donated to The Project by the JLA when Superman took them there for a visit, and which were then stolen by Mokarri & Simyan, and used to create mini-clones. This is a LOT of explanation for not a lot of payoff. In effect, this is the kind of writing that made Marvel fans look down their noses at DC at the time. It’s... it’s... it’s like the comic was done in a BANK, or something.
And who is responsible for this exercise in tedium? Why, none other than that DC legend himself, Robert Kanigher. I’ve read a lot about this guy. Some say he was extremely talented, some say he was a monster to work with. All I know from this is, his writing is BORING.
Back at the office, Lois leaves for a story, and Clark finds she’s left a sheet of paper in her typewriter, which reads “I love Superman!” over and over and over and over. Shades of THE SHINING! Touched, he takes it and thinks, “I’ll keep it next to my heart.” Won’t she wonder who stole it?
While interviewing a group of mothers in need of a day-care center so they can get jobs, an armored car driven by crooks almost runs down the group. After saving them, Superman flies off, leaving love-sick Lois in tears. Two of the women she’s intrerviewed encourage her that he’ll be back. Later, when mysterious statues of wild animals go wild (and prove to be robots), Lois manages to plant one on Supes... who immediately goes crazy and starts wrecking things. “The touch of my LIPS... seems to have DRIVEN SUPERMAN MAD!” (It is Lois, it was bound to happen... hee hee.)
Now it seems Lois was ALSO taken by Superman for a visit to The Project, and she calls them on the phone for help. I ask you... HOW likely is this? Supers went to such lengths to keep Jimmy out of the loop, but he takes the world’s number one busybody to visit a top-top-top secret government-military research complex? The Commander tells her to go to her office and wait for a package to arrive. It does—but before she can open it, the mini-JLA attacks her! And then, we find that The Project hase sent a squad of mini-LOISes, to do battle with the mini-JLA, each one with special skills or weapons designed to take out a specific member. If you think it’s awkward trying to describe this, you should try reading it. When it’s over, Superman is cured by another chemical-enhanced kiss, and remembers nothing. Now Lois has to start on her campaign to get him to marry her ALL OVER AGAIN. Oy.
The art on this book is “nice”... but nothing to brag about. Dick Giordano does the cover, while the story is illustrated by TWO of the guys who were doing X-MEN before Neal Adams ran it into the ground... I mean, took it over. Yep, it’s Werner Roth and Vince Colletta! The one word that best describes Roth’s work tends to be “NICE”. His Lois is very pretty, and Colletta, who spent most of his time doing romance comics before being forced into the superhero genre, seems a perfect fit. Still, I’m not too sure about that. Without Don Heck’s dynamic layouts (which helped to “crank up” Roth’s work during the latter part of his X-MEN run), the layouts and storytelling are... there’s only one word for it... DULL. And Colletta’s inks do NOTHING to “jazz it up”. I don’t think they’re doing any harm, but they’re not helping much either.
The feeling I have is, these guys might be much better if they were actually doing a ROMANCE comic, instead of a SUPERMAN comic trying to pass itself off as one.
The back-up is a ROSE AND THORN story, once again written by Robert Kanigher, with art by GRAY MORROW! Wow. I’d completely forgotten about this. Morrow has a “realistic” style that is gorgeous to look at, and quite on the “moody” side. Unfortunately, the story and writing on this is a DULL as the lead story is! Just a lot less complicated and awkward. Looking at these pages, I’m reminded again that Morrow supplied the storyboards for the 2nd & 3rd seasons of the SPIDER-MAN cartoons (1968-70), but years later, was TURNED DOWN by Marvel art director John Romita when he tried to get on the SPIDER-MAN comic-book, because Romita felt his style “wasn’t dynamic enough”. Just think... if it wasn’t for Romita’s narrow-mindedness, we could have had Gray Morrow on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN... instead, we got Ross Andru. (WRETCH! GAG!) Many years later, Morrow did a 2-issue LOIS LANE mini-series. I can’t remember much about it, but it HAD to be better than anything in this issue.
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MISTER MIRACLE #3 / Jul’71 – “THE PARANOID PILL!”
“It’s a simple trap!! A fifty-story building—with doors, windows, exits—and people!! Can he leave it—ALIVE?? DR. BEDMAN tests MISTER MIRACLE Super Escape Artist Between him and escape are—FIVE THOUSAND SCREAMING MANIACS!” Wow. What a cover.
A Boom Tube deposits several featureless humanoid beings called “Animates” in a room somewhere, and a “Mind-Force”—a “living, thinking being that exists as pure energy”—is transmitted to one of them, which takes the form and features of Doctor Bedlam. This refugee from Apokalips is after our hero. “NOTHING can be hidden from one such as I, SCOTT FREE! Your telephone number is known to me.” There’s just something kinda funny about going from this fantastic situation to having the baddie pick up the phone.
At home, Scott is trying out yet another impossible escape trap. How he gets out of those heavy-duty metal restraints and escapes being crushed by a huge granite block—“by a FULL SECOND”-- is anybody’s guess.
Naturally, the phone rings while Scott is trying to esape his own death trap. After, he takes the call—“that voice—I’d know it ANYWHERE—it’s like the sound of RATS digging beneath the floor!” He accepts a challenge to meet Bedlam, then reluctantly tells Oberon what he’s up against. Based on what Scott tells him, Oberon concludes that Bedlam is “some sort of SUPER-HYPNOTIST” who attacks the mind, and that without a Mother Box, anyone would be helpless. Scott demonstrates what Bedlam can do, and the mental images conjured up are terrifying—and, according to Scott, “real”. He leaves to face Bedlam alone.
On the top floor of The Chandler Towers, Scott confronts Bedlam, who advises he surrender himself for punishment, for having “dared to reject the powers that rule his world”. Bedlam reveals that the entire building is the trap—and to defeat him, he must merely “descend to the lobby level and exit to the street”. But then Bedlam drops a “paranoid pill” into the building’s ventilation system, “vapor that will turn every human between you and freedom below—into a HOSTILE, DANGEROUS, RAVING MANIAC!” Scott clobbers Bedlam—only to find his force has gone, leaving only the “animate” behind.
Sure enough, everyone in the building starts acting crazy, paranoid and attacking whatever they fear—including him, mostly because of the strange costume he’s wearing. He flies over a crowd of them, makes it to an elevator, but is cornered by a gun-toting maniac before he can get more than 5 floors down. As he escape the elevator, he’s grabbed by another mob, and locked inside a trunk. He hopes to rest until they calm down, but it’s not to be—as the trunk is encircled by heavy chains, punctured by a sword, rolled end-over-end, and then—HURLED down into an open staircase!
“DIE, DEMON, DIE! Send him back to Hades! TOSS HIM DOWN! This is the LAST of you, demon! You’ll NEVER trouble the world again! LOOK OUT BELOW! Satan is waiting to RECEIVE his own! GOOD RIDDANCE! We’re SAFE!” While, inside the trunk... “I waited TOO LONG! The chances of my escaping from THIS—are ten past ZERO!”
Talk about a cliff-hanger!! As with FOREVER PEOPLE, after 2 stand-alone introductory episodes, Jack Kirby now expands MISTER MIRACLE to his first 2-parter. And this one is like something straight out of a 1930’s action movie serial. My favorite part of the book may be the blurb on the letters page. “Next issue, Scott Free and Oberon encounter the one-and-onlyh Big Barda! Even Jack Kirby had to read this one twice... He didn’t believe it the first time and he wrote it! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”
Once again, I see at least 3 different inkers at work here. The cover, pages 1-3, 7 & 18 scream Frank McLaughlin to me. Intense, and a lot of fat holding lines. Page 4-5, 9-16 & 19-22 all look like Vince Colletta to me. Very nice work from him too. Now, pages 6 & 17 each look like someone else, and not necessarily the same someone else. Some of the detail on page 6, especially Scott’s sideburns, look too “fine” to be any of the other guys’ work, while page 17 almost seems a patchwork of 3 different inkers on the same page. Page 8, however, looks like Klaus Janson again, especially if you look at Scott’s face in panel 1. There’s a very Giordano/McLaughlin-like intensity to the linework on this page, but somehow darker, rougher.
As for Jack, he did some of his most expressive people in this issue. Check out Oberon on pages 5-6, Scott as he confronts Bedlam on page 11, or how about Scott at gunpoint in panel 4 of page 17! What a fun book! I’m dying to read the next one.
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JIMMY OLSEN #141 / Sep’71 – “WILL THE REAL DON RICKLES PANIC?!?”
“RUSHING toward the GREATEST climax ever seen in comics”, it says here, as we see Superman and The Guardian (with Jimmy and Goody behind them) running straight at the readers holding a big round something with Don Rickles’ smiling face on it. WTF, you say? KIRBY SAYS: “Don’t Ask! JUST BUY IT!” I think that says it all. The NERVE of some guys!
The story opens with 3 consecutive pages of photo-collage depicting the tiny vessel Clark Kent is trapped in journeying thru “a strange galaxy never before seen by man!” “Unable to CONTROL his capsule-prison, CLARK KENT gazes HELPLESSLY as he drifts past awesome wonders that STAGGER all imagination!” Hey! I just got it—this whole sequence is a tribute to the “Star Gate” sequence from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ! Mind you, Gary Friedrich already did that in CAPTAIN MARVEL—twice!! (Issues #11 AND #15. Some nerve!)
Back on Earth, Jimmy, The Guardian and Goody have been dumped on a street by Ugly Manheim, after being fed a lunch laced with a deadly chemical that will IGNITE in 24 hours, killing the trio in horrible fashion. Suggesting Jimmy & Goody get back to the Network office, The Guardian races across rooftops trying to catch up with Manheim’s mobile home HQ. This scene may be the closest Jack got during his 3rd DC run to drawing CAPTAIN AMERICA in action.
Meanwhile, the eagerly-awaited Don Rickles arrives at the Network, and is assualted by a mob of fans. “Oh, INSULT ME, DON! Say ANYTHING! A sentence—a word!” “Okay! HERNIA! Get off me, you RUNAWAY LOCOMOTIVE! Go out and sit on the CHICAGO BEARS!” Morgan Edge breaks it up, then invites Don into his office. “SAVAGES! I’ll send you thirty pounds of RAW MEAT tomorrow morning!” Don meets the ever-smiling Miss Conway... “Who’s THIS broad? What is she playing?—“NURSEY-NURSEY?” “You’re GREAT, honey! You’re WASTED here! You deserve something BETTER than a typewriter and this sneaky crumb! Get yourself a bikini and start a chain of HEART ATTACKS at a garden party!” Then Don turns his attention to Edge... “I heard about’cha! Mister Smoothie on the outside—“MAC THE KNIFE” on the inside! Be YOURSELF, lad! Say something FILTHY!” “MONEY! LOTS of it!” That’s gotta be my favorite exchange in the whole book. You know, I can’t remember the last time anyone used the term “broad” in a comic-book.
Out in space (is it another star system, another galaxy, or another dimension?), Clark meets Lightray, who tells him he’s about to land on Apokalips! “WOW! That HARDLY looks like a desirable vacation spot!” He realizes he’s heard of this place before, from “some STRANGE KIDS” who also mentioned “DARKSEID!” (see FOREVER PEOPLE #1) As a group of “para-demons” approach (last seen in NEW GODS #1), Lightray says it’s time he got Kent back to Earth!
Back on Earth, Jimmy & Goody ride the subway, annoying most of the passengers, one of whom Goody calls a “HOCKEY-PUCK!” (I guess he doesn’t just LOOK like Don, he talks like him, too.)
In a 2-page sequence, The Guardian crashes in on Mannheim’s mobile-HQ, smashes up the place, and gets into a battle with a group of his thugs.
Back in Edge’s office, he & Don are working out contract details. “”Just one moment, Don! Let me try to SIMPLIFY my proposition!” “Yeah! DO that, o DEVIOUS one! You can hide a platoon of ASSASSINS in a complex deal!” Just then, Goody arrives, causing much confusion between him and Don, and giving Edge a headache. ALL the trouble Edge went thru just to have Goody, Jimmy & The Guardian bumped off, JUST to prevent this moment, and it happens ANYWAY. As Jimmy & Goody suddenly begin to flare up, Don wonders if he’ll get out of the office alive. Edge thnks, “UGLY MANNHEIM has made a SHAMBLES of my scheme to rid myself of these dolts! And this is a result of his DISOBEYING my orders to kill them QUICKLY!” Isn’t that always the way? A baddie just can’t shoot someone, NO, they have to get all FANCY-SCHMANZY about it! And sure enough, it backfires. Mind you, for a chemical that’s suppose to ignite in 24 hours, this feels more like many an HOUR, TOPS, has gone by.
Just then, The Guardian arrives—apparently having successfully beaten Mannheim’s thugs and gotten ahold of the antidote—and saves Jimmy & Goody’s lives. Next thing, Clark arrives via a Boom Tube, and he & Jimmy are about to finally confront Edge about everything they’re sure he’s done over the last 8 issues that involved attempts to KILL them, as well as destroy The Project (Jack doesn’t mention this in dialogue, but it’s pretty implied). Edge has the nerve to brush it off with a mere, “Fine, Kent! We’ll discuss it—LATER!” And just THAT moment, the bomb disposal squad arrives, too late to help—but Don races at them, insisting HE’s about to blow up, and gets them to remove him from the whole crazy scene. Figuring he’s gone nuts, one of the squad comments, “POOR GUY! With your routine—this HAD to happen!”
Well, THAT was fun. Amidst all this lunacy, I’m wondering, had Jimmy heard the phrase “Boom Tube” before? Also, it was a bit of a surprise NOT to see Ugly Mannheim and his men taken out. One more page with that would have been welcome. Also, I’m dumbfounded that after 8 issues of this, and despite Clark & Jimmy giving Edge the evil eye, he had the NERVE to just dismiss them so casually.
This was the month, presumably, that both Marvel & DC expanded from 15c to 25c. Although for DC it was their “SEP” issue and Marvel it was their “NOV” issues, presumably this is just Marvel having their comics advanced-dated 2 months more than DC.
Marvel went all-new, but DC padded out the bigger size with reprints—from the Golden Age. I can’t help but feel this was a serious mis-step. Here they are, presumably trying so hard to upgrade and modernize their image, and what do they do? Step BACK 30 YEARS. In this issue, we have a reprint of the very first appearance of THE NEWSBOY LEGION and THE GUARDIAN from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #7 (Apr’42), by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. But it’s such a drastically, shockingly-DIFFERENT Jack Kirby doing the art, it’s jarring, no matter how you look at it. Plus the line-reproduction is AWFUL (not to mention the art is shrunk slightly from its original print-size, NEVER a good thing).
I have to admit... I did NOT enjoy these reprints the first time around. Many years later, when I was still early in my chronological Jack Kirby re-reading project, I actually dug out all these Fourth World books JUST to re-read the Golden Age stories, all together in publication sequence. And I enjoyed them MUCH more than when I read them as back-ups in 1970’s Kirby books. I never like mixing new and reprint material. I’ve always felt, and still do, that you should have all-new, or all-reprints. A collection entirely made up of 1940’s Simon & Kirby stories, that I would have gone for a lot more than this. (Plus, every time they put a blurb on the cover advertising the Golden Age reprints, it just ruins the designs.)
On the letters page, Randy Hiteshew discusses the ramifications of The D.N.A. Project and their cloning people, without their knowledge or consent, and usually for questionable purposes. This was discussed at some length not that long ago at the Kirby-L yahoo group (now gone), and the main point seemed to be, it’s something that Jack Kirby should have been delving into deeper when he wrote the stories. Then again, considering it’s DC, and it’s JIMMY OLSEN, maybe what he did was already more and better than anyone had a right to expect?
Unlike several other Kirby books of late, this one seems to only feature the work of 2 inkers—Vince Colletta on every page (doing a very nice job as usual on this series), and Murphy Anderson (on Clark & Jimmy). Although Vince may be doing his best work from this time on JO, at times I kinda wish Anderson had done the whole book.
Before I go, something I forgot to mention last time... JIMMY OLSEN #139 was the first Kirby comic to feature the phrase “Kirby’s Fourth World” on the cover. As it happens, that issue also features a mention of “The Fourth Estate” in the story, a reference to the news media. Connection, or coincidence? You can try what I did, and look up both terms at Wikipedia. Each phrase has several meanings or interpretations.
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FOREVER PEOPLE #4 / Sep’71 – “THE KINGDOM OF THE DAMNED”
The last time we saw the Forever People, they were rendered unconscious and hauled away to Desaad’s concentration camp. The cover of FP #4 marks the 2nd time the phrase “Kirby’s Fourth World” appears on a cover. It’s folowed by, “Meet DESAAD! He KNOWS what he is—and LOVES it!!” It makes it sound like it’s his first appearance, but he’s already appeared in FP #2, NEW GODS #2 and FP #3 (which leads directly into this). The cover shows the teenagers being dumped into some sort of prison, by a pair of armored guards (who are, for visual interest, done with a “color hold” effect), as Desaad watches.
For once, the story title appears right at the top of page 1, though it may not be immediately obvious, as it’s part of a block of narration. We witness a group of innocent people who’ve been kidnapped from their homes in the previous issue, crowded together in a cell, while they pound their fists against a glass window and yell for help. In a jarring 2-page spread, we find the reason no one notices them is that their image is being distorted by the glass—and the window is part of a garish, cheerful display at an amusement park, named “HAPPYLAND”, filled with innocent paying customes, all unaware that the attraction hides a sinister secret. All the while, the entire scene in turn is watched over on a huge screen (which frames the 2-page panel) by Desaad’s technical crew.
Darkseid arrives via one of the rectangular hovercraft used to transport victims last time, and his craft landing and his stepping out as Desaad’s troops bow before him is very similar to the scene in RETURN OF THE JEDI when Darth Vader arrived at the 2nd Death Star to supervise its completion.
Page 5, as usual for Jack by this time, is where the story rerally starts, this time with a close-up of his 5 young heroes, and a lot of narrative text. The large blank BLACK area at the bottom suggests to me that someone in the lettering or production departments FORGOT to include the STORY TITLE!! Oddly enough, the “Forever People” logo at the top of the page is rather similar to the 4th “FANTASTIC FOUR” logo, the one used when George Perez was on the book.
Jack spends the next 2 pages filling us in on what happened last time, before the guards enter and use “vertigo grenades” to once again subdue their captives. The next several pages are among the most impressive of the issue, as Darkseid watches Desaad attempt to “murder” a Mother Box. The result is, it vanishes! Desaad insists it disintegrated, in effect, comitted suicide. But Darkseid points out that they hae no way to be sure! He decides to leave then, as, “When one campaigns for control of all living creatures, he DOESN’T stop to toy with a FEW!” He then brazenly walks thru Happyland, in full view of the paying customers, and proudly tells a father whose young grand-daughter is frightened by him that, despite the man’s doubts, “NO, Grandpa! I’m the REAL thing! All young humans RECOGNIZE the real thing when they see it. But you elders hide me with “COCK AND BULL” stories to keep the premises smelling sweet!” After the man and child have run off, he continues. “And still, the cosmic joke ELUDES him!! For how can he cope with me—by shunning me—HIS OTHER FACE.” And he laughs. Deep stuff, no doubt open to much interpretation.
The rest of the book is taken up with Desaad putting each of the young heroes thru their paces, as he presents various mental tortures designed to break down their defenses and possibly reveal the Anti-Life Equation, if it exists within them. This goes on until page 22, where we switch to somewhere else. The vanished Mother Box materializes out of thin air, and is found by a stocky, bald, Asian character, who senses the box somehow radiates awareness—and life—and is calling out for help! As Jack tells us, “You won’t forget his name, friends! He is what happens next to the FOREVER PEOPLE! Meet SONNY SUMO, The Banzai Express!” Yep. We’ve just run into the first 3-parter in the epic, and we’ll have to wait ‘til next time to see how this awful situation turns out.
This is the month DC expanded to 25 pages, and in addition to a Sandman And Sandy The Golden Boy reprint from ADVENTURES COMICS #85 (Apr’43), Jack has included 3 pin-ups: The Forever People, Beautiful Dreamer and Darkseid, and The Infinity Man! Spiffy.
As for the art... fine-looking issue, although as usual, I’m convinced there’s at least 2 different inkers on this, the other one possibly being Frank McLaughlin, who appears to have done the cover, pages 1, 6, 9-12, 15, and 17-18, with Colletta doing the rest. The difference in quality (and in some cases, STYLE) is just too noticeable. And if it WAS all the work of one guy, well, he wasn’t being very consistent, quality-wise.
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NEW GODS #4 / Sep’71 – “O’RYAN GANG AND THE DEEP SIX”
Not long before this issue came out, DC published a pair of B&W magazines put together by Jack Kirby—IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB, and SPIRIT WORLD. This was (more or less) around the same time that Marvel also took a brief, tentative stab at the B&W magazine market with SAVAGE TALES. Both companies backed off after only one issue apiece, due to spotty distribution. However, Jack may have really enjoyed returning to “CRIME” comics, a genre he excelled in back in the late 40’s while working at Hillman and Crestwood, in such series as REAL CLUE CRIME STORIES, PRIZE COMICS, HEADLINE COMICS, and JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY. The cover of NG #4 seems a cross between the crime and superhero genres, and spotlights “The O’Ryan’s Mob and the Deep Six!”
But the story opens, surprisingly, with a 4-page sequence in which Metron, the cold, detached scientist with the flying time-and-space machine “Mobius Chair”, is taking a young boy from New Genesis, Esak, on a visit to a prehistoric planet inhabited by both dinosaurs and warring ape-like humanoids. It’s like a scene out of Kirby’s later 2001 series. The pair return home just in time for High-Father to inform them that “The war to keep Apokalips from Earth goes badly! ONE OF US HAS FALLEN!”
Sure enough, on Earth, police are pulling the body of “Seagrin”, an apparently-aquatic denizen of New Genesis, out of the river. They’re interrupted by the arrival of P.I. Dave Linoln—and Orion, who gives an improptu eulogy from his fallen comrade, then steps back as the entire pier erupts in an explosion and fireball, as Seagrin’s Mother Box “takes him to—THE SOURCE!” As they depart, the cops see what they fail to—“leaping from the heart of the flames”—The Black Racer. Death has called again. He returns to Willie Lincoln’s apartment and sick-bed, where his sister is confused by the smoke and fumes his return has caused.
Unseen by all at the pier is its “EVIL ARCHITECT”—Darkseid. “Oh, how heroes LOVE to flaunt their nobility in the face of DEATH! Yet THEY know better than most that war is but the COLD game of the BUTCHER!”
Back at Lincoln’s apartment, Orion tells his new friends that Mother Box has computed that an “instrument” is shielding from her the movements of all those from Apokalips—and Inter-Gang is guarding it. He proposes they pose as a rival gang to infiltrate and find it, and suits up, in a scene not very unlike when Stallone prepared for battle as RAMBO. I’m afraid some of the dialogue of the Earth-people in this scene strikes me as VERY awkward and unnatural. It’s one thing to have alien gods from a planet in some other dimension speaking in a highly-stylized fashion—that fits. But normal people from New York City is a different matter. “But I’m Victor Lanza! An insurance executive!” He says this as if the other people in the room haven’t already known him for some time. “I’m CLAUDIA SHANE, simple but worried secretary! What am I involved in this time?—“ “And me, young but cool, HARVEY LOCKMAN!” Say what?? Critics of Kirby have complained about his writing for decades now. I really enjoy most of it, but there are rare instances—like these—where just the smallest amount of fine-tuning might have really helped.
“O’Ryan’s Gang” accosts a lowly Inter-Gang member, “Snaky Doyle”, telling him they’re moving in on his territory—then, follow him back to an old mansion perched on a cliff above the ocean. With the help of some paralyzing gas to get rid of the lookouts, Lanza goes in, posing as O’Ryan’s money-man. Unimpressed, the leader of the local branch, “Country Boy”, foolishly decides to show off the “Jammer”—a large computer-like device hidden behind a wall. At that moment, Orion reveals himself, flies in and TAKES OUT the Jammer. With it destroyed, Mother Box can now track the invaders from Apokalips—and he quickly follows a hidden tunnel down into the ocean, where he confronts “SLIG! Dog of Apokalips!” –the leader of The Deep Six (another clever name with a double-meaning). But before Orion can do anything, he’s ensnared by huge tentacles, while Slig reminds him they have the power to “MUTATE organic sea life so it does our BIDDING!” Orion’s Astro-Force barely allows him ot escape, however... “what he SEES when he wheels to attack is the SHOCKING, MIND-SHATTERING threat which The Deep Six have kept secret! WHAT DOES ORION FACE? IT HAS DESTROYED A GOD—AND THREATENS THE ENTIRE EARTH! DON’T MISS SPAWN”
Wow! And so, we begin on the Fourth World’s 1st 3-parter. This first expanded issue also features pin-ups of Lightray and Kalibak, plus reprints of the Manhunter story from ADVENTURE COMICS #73 (Apr’42), and “Coast Guard Reconnaissance” from BOY COMMANDOS #12 (Fall 1945).
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JIMMY OLSEN #142 / Oct’71 – “THE MAN FROM TRANSILVANE!”
“It’s the VAMPIRE bit! But like you’ve never seen it before!” --it says here. No kidding. On the cover, Supes faces the GOOFIEST-looking “vampire” ever seen, while a really, REALLY shaggy-looking “werewolf” is pawing poor Jimmy. It’s a JIMMY OLSEN comic, after all, not HOUSE OF SECRETS—or CREEPY. Hey—SUPER FRIENDS should have been THIS good.
A bit of background... the Comics Code DEMASCULATED comics in the mid-50’s, and between it and the “witch-hunt” that spawned it, nearly destroyed an entire once-thriving industry. Well, 15 years had come and gone, and it was decided to make some changes in the Code. One of those changes was to allow vampires, werewolves, mummies, and the like, all figures of “horror” which, originally, the Code had been apparently designed to stamp out! (They still refused to allow zombies—you had to draw the line somewhere, you see.) And so, there was a mad race by both Marvel & DC to be the FIRST to feature a vampire. Marvel had planned a DRACULA comic, and Gene Colan wanted it real bad. With the Code prohibiting vampires, it was planned as a B&W magazine. But when the Code was revised, and with the initial failure of SAVAGE TALES, they changed their plans, and decided to make it a regular color comic instead. However, the art needed to be re-formatted, and somehow, it must have seemed easier to put together a vampire story somewhere else.
Thus it was that while Stan Lee took a vacation from writing for a few months, Roy Thomas stepped in with “A Monster Called... Morbius!” in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101 (Oct’71). He just barely beat Jack Kirby (And DC) to the punch by a month or two (as I’ve realized, Marvel’s cover dates were 1 or 2 months ahead of DCs). Marvel’s TOMB OF DRACULA #1 finally debuted 6 months later, with an Apr’72 cover date. The writing was AWFUL—at first. The art was INCREDIBLE. Eventually, the writing would catch up. But that’s another story.
If Morbius was a “superhero” version of a vampire, Count Dragorin was more like a Saturday morning cartoon version-- like something you might see on SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? This comparison is quite valid, because you see, Jack Kirby, as possibly the single most creative person the comics biz has ever seen, had this amazing ability to take any idea, no matter how mundane, no matter how derivitive, and do something innovative and unexpected with it. And so it was here. As Jack puts it right on page 1, “But WAIT!!!!—Your writer advises you to expect something MORE than the same old routine”. See?
“The night is the SAME on any world, eh, Lupek?!! Ahead lies the city—and the ONE we seek!!” This is one strange-looking vampire—and strange, period, as beams shoot out from his eyes and strike the sleeping Laura Conway—leaving twin punctures in her neck. That’s not how Bela Lugosi used to operate!
The next day, Clark & Jimmy are once more being put off by Laura when they try to see Morgan Edge (who still has a lot to answer for, namely, trying to kill BOTH of them). But they sense something is wrong—her face has changed, her make-up has gotten weird, he teeth have become POINTED—and after she collapses, Clark, holding her in his arms, notices she’s not casting a reflection in a mirror! So when a BAT flies in thru the window, they’re not exactly surprised when someone calling himself “Count Dragorin of Transilvane” materializes in front of them. After using his power to knock Clark & Jimmy senseless, the Count awakens Laura, and begins asking of her the whereabouts of one Dabney Donovan, who Laura used to work for. All she knows is the NASA Science Research Center, which Dragorin suspects must have “records, files—a trail!!” “Donovan is an evil, clever one! But I’LL hunt him down!” Laura says she never met her previous boss, and only knew him by a voice on an answering machine. Just then Clark lunges, but Dragorin vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving Laura her completely her old self again.
What follows must have surprised EVERYONE who read this comic originally. Clark & Jimmy go to the Research Center, long closed-down since its heydey in the 50’s (back when they made science-fiction horror movies more than old-fashioned horror movies). Their specialty was “simulating conditions that might be found to exist on other planets”, or, “reproduce the atmosphere of Mars—right HERE ON EARTH!” I never picked up on what Jack was doing until I read this the 2nd time. Following a battle with Lupek, in which Supes appears and save Jimmy’s life, the pair sift thru the leftover ruins of a lab and file room. Supes explains “Anything that involves the SAFETY of man—involves ME!!” He goes on to say, “Dabney Donovan is the closest thing to a MAD scientist that we have!” Supes knows Donovan had a rep for hiding things in plain sight, and on a photograph of an alien planet, “Transilvane”, finds, like a micro-dot, a note about “Bloodmoor” being destroyed on a certain date. As it happens, Bloodmoor is a cemetery, and racing there, they brifly spot Dragorin. In a hidden room underneath a mausoleum, they also find—incredibly—“A SMALL PLANET! WELCOME TO TRANSILVANE, JIMMY!” And there, before them, is a miniature planet, about 20 feet in diameter, with what looks like film cameras—or projectors—aimed at it. The planet itself must be EVIL, too—‘cause it’s got HORNS!
Now allow me to explain what, to me, is the obvious inspiration for all this. A few years back, I was watching episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS on late-night cable, and ran across one I’m not sure I ever saw before—“WOLF 359”. From the IMDB: “A scientist creates a tiny model of another solar system's planet, seeding it with life, to study planetary development. The miniaturization allows the simulation's evolution to advance much faster. A ghostly bat-like creature hovers on the in-closed model watching the humans, while emitting waves of fear terrifying them.” By the wildest coincidence, I was also reading my copy of JIMMY OLSEN ADVENTURES, and the very next day, I got to THIS story!! I couldn’t believe it. A lot of Kirby fans are well aware of how, late in his run of FANTASTIC FOUR, he did stories inspired by THE PRISONER, and STAR TREK episodes “A Piece Of The Action” and “The Gamesters of Triskellion”. And here, so blatent, so obvious I can’t believe nobody has ever mentioned it before, was a tribute to a 2nd-season OUTER LIMITS episode. In many ways, this almost feels like it could be a SEQUEL to it!!
I mean look at this. You’ve got the research center, the miniature planet, the cameras pointed at it, the “bat-like creature”. And if that wasn’t enough, are you ready for this? One of the actors who appeared in it was DABNEY Coleman!!!
I bet nobody reading this comic expected it to start with Bram Stoker and wind up with Seeleg Lester (he wrote WOLF 359).
Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated sub-plot, The Newboy Legion reach the end of the underground river, find an opening with the help of Flippa-Dippa, discover a cylindrical elevator, and come up in the still-underground hideout of some gangland type, who, while talking on the phone (talk about INCREDIBLE timing), reveals that HE’s the one who shot and killed Jim Harper (the original Guardian). WHAT ARE THE ODDS??? Honest, the way the Newsboys sub-plots are plotted, Kirby’s entire run of JIMMY OLSEN feels like one SINGLE storyline, rather than several smaller ones. Which kinda makes it tough to fit it in with any of the other Superman books.
You know, this issue actually LOOKS to me like the whole thing was inked by Vince Colletta... except for the Clark, Supes & Jimmy faces by Murphy Anderson, and the Superman figure on the cover by Neal Adams. Oh, and the rest of the cover was clearly inked by Mike Royer—who, shortly, was to REPLACE Colletta on the bulk of the Fourth World books.
There’s a 2-page back-up, “Strange Stories Of The D.N.A. PROJECT!!”, this one, ““HAIRIE SECRETS REVEALED!!!” isn’t so much a story as a feature detailing The Hairies, The Mountain Of Judgement, and The Wild Area. This issue’s reprint back-up stars The Newsboy Legion and The Guardian in “LAST MILE ALLEY”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS # 8 (May’42).
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MISTER MIRACLE #4 / Oct’71 – “THE CLOSING JAWS OF DEATH”
“SEE IT!! In the heart of a great city—a medieval DEATH TRAP!!!” On the cover, we see Scott, in what looks like an ancient dungeon, bound by ropes and chains, and standing inside an iron maiden, whose spikes-laden lid is about to be slammed shut on him—and INTO him! Yikes!! But oddly enough, this hardly prepares you for what’s inside...
At the house, Oberon worries about Scott. Suddenly, an amazon-like armored warrior woman appears, claiming to be a friend. “I’m not so bad! –a little ROUGH, maybe—but once you get to KNOW me—I can be a real PUSSYCAT!” “The kind that stalks you in a JUNGLE, I’ll bet!” She reveals she’s “Barda!! Of DARKSEID’s female task force!” “Maybe a sandwich and some milk will make you purr! How come you’re all so MEAN?” When Oberon mentions Doctor Bedlam, Barda becomes very concerned, and uses her Mega-Rod to teleport herself to the office building where Scott is trapped inside a trunk that’s plunging 50 floors down an open stairway.
Incredibly, Barda catches the trunk, then tears it open with her bare hands—but is surprised to find Scott is no longer inside! Still tied up, he greets her from one of the balconies above, but is quickly grabbed by more of the crazed tenants of the building, intent on his death. Before long, he runs across a movie studio shooting a historical film, and is shoved into an iron maiden, complete with spikes. Barda uses her Mega-Rod to jet upward to the studio floor, and tries to rescue Scott, only to find he’s escaped another trap by himself.
Despite her amazing strength and tough demeanor, it’s clear Barda cares a lot for Scott, and was involved in his escape from Granny Goodness’ orphanage. “There’s lots to talk about, Barda—that is—IF we walk out of this building in ONE PIECE!” Instead of more raving maniacs, the pair find themselves confronting Bedlam himself, in pure energy form. And then, abruptly, they show up back at Oberon’s house, alive and intact. Scott explains how Barda helped him escape “Granny’s institution”, to which Oberon replies, “If you ask me, it would have done the girl a world of IMPROVEMENT if she’d left with you, Scott!” Barda seems ready to clobber Oberon, but Scott tells her, “This is a house of FRIENDS, BARDA! The strong DON’T rule here!”
Later, as the pair prepare dinner, Scott lays out a few hints about how he may have escaped the various death traps. Meanwhile, Oberon’s concerned about their new guest. “That female “ATTILA THE HUN” has really taken over here, Scott! If she decides to stay-—t may seem very IMPROPER—“ “Oh, Barda’s all right! She’s just a CHILD, you know! A POWERFUL, DEADLY child—playing soldier!” Scott doesn’t see her enter, wearing a revealing bikini whose style would not be out of place in a SINBAD movie. “What’s for CHOW, boys? Mmmff! Smells GOOD! In fact, it looks GREAT! Let’s EAT! I’m hungry as a BEAR!” “I take it all BACK, OBERON! That’s a big, BEAUTIFUL WOMAN playing soldier!” “Whoever made that gal wear a UNIFORM should be HORSE-WHIPPED!”
No question—this is my favorite issue of MISTER MIRACLE so far. Jack may have started this series out slow—setting the foundation for what was to come—but in the last 3 issues, he’s revealed details about Scott’s background, showed us the fiend that doubled as his warden and teacher—and now, very surprisingly, shown us a close friend who may prove much more. I have to admit, the first time I read these issues, I raced thru them too fast, and the impact they might have had was blunted further by comparisons with the late-70’s revival series by Englehart and Rogers, then Gerber and Golden. So it’s nice, especially after having read ABOUT these stories for decades now, to finally go back and re-read them, in sequence, from the beginning, and see everything from a much fresher perspective.
One big thing I wasn’t aware of in the old days was that Jack based Barda on a real person—singer & actress Lainie Kazan. It seems she appeared NUDE in the October 1970 issue of PLAYBOY, and that inspired Jack to create a character based on her. As it happens, just about a week before writing this review, I watched the movie LADY IN CEMENT again, where she appeared as a go-go dancer. While not that tall, she had a VERY voluptuous figure, and almost made Raquel Welch (who appeared in the same film) look like a BOY by comparison! With her mixed Russian Jewish and Turkish Jewish background, she had a very unusual look, and Jack became very concerned that whoever was inking the book NOT change her face to make her look “generic pretty”, but to keep the face Jack drew her with intact. I don’t blame him! Althought I’d seen the 1968 film way back, I first became aware of Kazan when she played the recurring role of “Aunt Frieda” on THE NANNY. If I hadn’t read about her, I might never have made the connection, as she changed a LOT over the years, including her voice. Anyway, it figures that Jack would cast a Jewish gal as his own version of a “Wonder Woman”!
This time around, the first 15 pages look like Vince Colletta’s inks to me. But after that, it’s either Giordano, McLaughlin, or Janson—or someone whose style looks a lot like that. Of especially bizarre note is page 16, where the figures are covered in so many shadows, facial features are completely blanked out. I mention this because Keith Giffen, that chameleonic goofball who includes Kirby in his repertoire of artists whose styles he’s done takes on, spent a couple of years doing a style that seems to have been based on this ONE dark, murky, UGLY page! (Somebody STOP that loony before he pencils again!!!)
On the letters page, Richard Morrissey complains about Jack giving Granny Goodness such an “imbecilic” name, while Mark Gruenwald, later to become an editor known for his outspoken attitudes and belief that he and only he knew the one and only “right” way to do comics, urges that DC make sure it keeps Jack’s universe “incorporated into the rest of the DC world”. Decades later, it’s all too easy to realize how this narrow attitude has done untold damage to countless series.
This issue’s reprints are “PIRATE OR PATRIOT?” from REAL FACT COMICS #1 (Mar’46) and the Boy Comandos story, “THE ROMANCE OF RIP CARTER” from DETECTIVE COMICS #82 (Dec’43). The latter is the one that features the bomber plane named “Rosalind K.”
[ July 09, 2011, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: profh0011 ]
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LOIS LANE #115 / Oct’71 – “MY DEATH ...BY LOIS LANE”
Kirby trivia question: who was the 2nd artist to draw The Black Racer? TIME’S UP! It was Werner Roth. No, really!
Lois visits Ray & Verna Johnson, in Metropolis’ “Little Africa”, saying she’s proud to help care for Verna’s brother Willie Walker, who was paralyzed while serving his country. As soon as they leave... Willie transforms into The Black Racer—“the one who is... DEATH!” – as he has another mission to carry out.
Meanwhile, Morgan Edge secretly gives Lois a new typewriter, which comes with a gift card that reads, “From a secret admirer—guaranteed to type scoops only”. To her astonishment, somehow, she’s compelled to type on it, and the result predicts someone’s death—which then comes to be! First a man plunged off a bridge, then a woman is found exphixiated in her apartment. Each time we see The Black Racer on the scene. Before long, Lois is drawn to the typewriter again—and seems to see tiny skulls where each of the keys are. This time, she types out her own obituary! She feels only Superman can save her, but he’s in the Arctic on a mission. Since her death is supposed to take place in her apartment, she goes to a movie theatre, intent on staying there until the time of her predicted death has passed. But a fire breaks out at the theatre, Lois is knocked out—and when she comes to, someone has brought her back to her apartment!
It’s at this point we learn the typewriter is part of an Inter-Gang plot, was created by scientists on Apokalips, and is part of a scheme to destroy Superman! (Well there had to be SOME logical reason for all this... however complex and convoluted.)
Fortunately, though groggy from the smoke, Lois is able to let Superman know about the typewriter. Sure enough, HE’s drawn to it, and it types his own obituary—from an explosion in Lois’ apartment. He suddenly realizes the obituaries typed so far had used every letter on the keyboard except “J”—and he was supposed to type a story about the fire at the Jewel Theatre. He quickly flies up and hurls the typewriter into the upper atmosphere, where it explodes harlmessly. Comforting Lois back at her apartment, Superman swears he’ll find the killer responsible. Meanwhile the Racer returns home, and to being Willie again.
It seems like other writers tried to incorporate some of Jack Kirby’s characters and concepts into their stories, but so far, at least in LOIS LANE, Robert Kanigher just isn’t cutting it.
Kanigher does it twice in this same issue. The Rose And The Thorn story, “THE COMPUTER CROOKS, PART I” involves a plot by Morgan Edge to “use” both Lois Lane and The Thorn to wreck “The 100” so he can secretly take over the city’s rackets. I’d say more, but having just read the story, the thing is so convoluted and confusing, it hardly seems worth it. Suffice to say it involves, among other things, a robot named “K.A.R.L.1” built of the same “living” technology used in Mother Boxes, and Poison Ivy. Dick Giordano’s art is nice, but as usual, Kanigher’s writing just does NOTHING for me.
Two reprints this time: Lady Danger in “THE SHAKESPEARE CLUE” from SENSATION COMICS #84 (Dec’48), art by Bob Oksner, and Lois Lane, Girl Reporter, in a story where she tries to save a heart-broken man from jumping off a building, from SUPERMAN #28 (May’44). It really says something about DC in general when stories from the 1940’s have more life, pep and general interest in them than “modern” stories from the early 70’s. I can’t help but note that Bob Oksner’s art reminds me a lot of several other artists’ work from the same period, including Carmine Infantino, Alex Toth and Frank Robbins, which tells me it must have been considered DC’s “house style” of the late 40’s.
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JIMMY OLSEN #143 / Nov’71 – “GENOCIDE SPRAY!”
Filling in for “Control Voice” Vic Perrin, Kirby says it better than I could... “Of all the early involvement in aero-space technology, the one most OVER-LOOKED was “E.T.A.S.” (EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ATMOSPHERIC SIMULATION!) In charge of it was one DABNEY DONOVAN!! A NEVER-SEEN, brilliant, WILD, WILD scientist! Forgetting him was a mistake!! FOR WHAT DABNEY HATH WROUGHT MUST NOT BE RENT ASUNDER!! OR MILLIONS WILL DIE FROM “GENOCIDE SPRAY!”
In a hidden chamber below a crypt in Bloodmoor Cemetery, Supes & Jimmy confront an unexpected sight. As Jimmy says, “Even LOOKING at it is a sensation with NO known frame of reference”. Kirby continues, “Well, now, dear reader! In this NEW era of REMOTE experimentation and ENLARGED bureaucracy, turn the page and see what the taxpayer’s money can pay for—in the day of the TRILLION DOLLAR NATIONAL PRODUCT!” “And HERE IT IS, FRIENDS!! Why bother experimenting with duplicating the ATMOSPHERE of another world—when you can get the money to duplicate ANOTHER WORLD?” As Superman observes, “TRANSILVANE! A REAL world—upon which REAL people have evolved! Only Dabney Donovan’s people look like the cast in a VAMPIRE movie!!” “Maybe those ORBITING CAMERAS have something to do with that!” Kirby replies, “You can BET your Aunt Mamie’s double-dyed doiles they have!! And that’s because scientists are HUMAN BEINGS!! And it’s when they play “GOD”—that human beings make their WORST mistake!!”
Talk about “high concept”. Even working on a book with a long tradition of being among DC’s lamest, JIMMY OLSEN, Jack Kirby threw in everything but the kitchen sink when it came to wild, unrestrained imaginative ideas. Really makes Robert Kanigher’s efforts in LOIS LANE seem EVEN LAMER than they already were, doesn’t it?
Who but Kirby would do a story combining elements of an overlooked 2nd-season episode of THE OUTER LIMITS with a tribute to 1930’s and 40’s Universal horror monsters? Jimmy & Supes confront creatures resembling Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man, Kharis the Mummy, Luna Mora (from MARK OF THE VAMPIRE) and the Executioner (from TOWER OF LONDON). And as usual with Kirby, he does it with an original twist.
The “monsters”, it turns out, are desperate to save their world and the lives of everyone on it. A truly “mad” scientist, Dabney Donovan created the miniature world of Transilvane, as well as those living on it—and by use of movie projectors casting images from old horror movies onto its atmosphere, caused them to evolve into the likeness of characters from the films. But he now desires to wipe the slate clean for a new experiment... except, the test-subjects he gave life to don’t want to DIE just because he’s bored and ready to move on. After being mistaken for an ally of Donovan, Supes manages to convince them of his sincerity in time to save the day from a flying, robotic “Demon Dog” armed with enough acid to wipe out all life on the miniaturized planet. Afterwards, the grateful denizens return home, via flying, shrinking coffins, and Supes replaces the horror movies in the projectors with something he hopes will bring a new tone to the planet... the musical OKLAHOMA.
This is the 3rd time I’ve read these JO stories, and only now is it occuring to me that in the “Transilvane” story, Jack managed to combine the themes of genetic experimentation he’d already explored in his Captain America stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE and his first 6 issues of JIMMY OLSEN with the longer-standing concept of the “Bottle City of Kandor” which became such an integral part of Mort Weisinger’s expanded SUPERMAN mythos of the 1960’s. In those stories, the miniaturized residents of an equally-tiny alien city, more and more as time went by, would grow to full size and have adventures in our world, before shrinking back to to return home. Combining this with the Universal monsters and the relatively-obscure “WOLF 359” episode of OUTER LIMITS made for one wild, roller-coaster ride of a story. The biggest surprise, for me, was the NON-appearance of Dabney Donovan, who was referred to throughout. He made frequent, increasingly-annoying appearances in Karl Kesel & Tom Grummett’s much-later 2nd run of SUPERBOY, much of which was inspired by and designed as a tribute to Kirby.
By comparison, the Newsboy Legion sub-plot, where they confront the killer of Jim Harper (who comes to a fitting end, blown to bits by an Inter-Gang bomb), seems superfluous and intrusive. Maybe the Newsboys should have been given their own spin-off back-up feature, so the two plots would not feel like they’re getting in the way of each other.
Back-ups this time include another installment of Strange Stories Of The D.N.A. Project, “THE ALIEN THING!!!”, about the very first result of their genetic experiments; and another Newsboy Legion reprint, “THE ROOKIE TAKES THE RAP”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #9 (Jun’42).
On the letters page, Gerald Triano says, “I went into near-convulsive hysteria. Don Rickles is my favorite master of insult, and I can’t wait till he appears next issue. Everything about Goody was appealing, from his references to John Wayne to that ridiculous costume.” However, future Marvel hotshot editor Mark Gruenwald said, “I am not amused. To say that JIMMY OLSEN #139 was a letdown is an understatement. To say I can’t believe Kirby would foist such an atrocious tale on his literate reading public is putting it mildly. To say that Kirby has betrayed my confidence in the fertility of his imagination is sad but true. The story in JO #139 was self-parodying, which is one of the worst possible sins for a serious fantasy comic. In the seventh Kirby-produced issue, Jack seems to be saying, “I don’t take my comic magazines seriously. They’re just a joke to me.” If the creator doesn’t take his work seriously, how can we be expected to?” It’s pretty obvious to me that this over-opinionated person doesn’t “get” that Jack was writing a COMEDY. Sheesh. He probably never read an issue of JERRY LEWIS in his life, either.
The inks this time looks to be Vince Colletta throughout, apart from the usual Murphy Anderson Superman & Jimmy heads, and possibly page 10, which looks like either a different hand (McLaughlin?), or, a REALLY bad stat. The cover was inked by Mike Royer, who was announced as taking over the 3 main Fourth World books this month, but not this one.
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“To oppose the power of evil gods—Mother Box finds the most incredible man on Earth!! SONNY SUMO!! For the first time!!! See THE ANTI-LIFE EQUATION in ACTION!” Whoa. With a teaser like that, how could I not be all worked up to read this?
Somewhere, muscle-bound “Sonny Sumo” prepares to do battle with “Sugatai”—a ten-foot-tall ROBOT. Al Fisher, a fight promoter, wonders, “It’s a good gimmick! But is there a SHOW in it?” It seems one-sided—in fact it seems downright SUICIDAL. And yet, after an absolutely incredible, astounding fight, Sonny Sumo emerges triumphant. Thru the sheer power of concentration and will, he causes serious injuries to vanish... at least, until it’s all over, then he has his manager call for a doctor. But before he arrives, the Mother Box that appeared in Sonny’s dressing room activates again, and permanently heals his wounds via atomic restructuring. It communicates with him, informs him of who (or what) it is, and that he’s needed. And then... the two VANISH from sight!
Back at Happyland Amusement Park, Desaad has all 5 Forever People completely in his power, and is taking great pleasure in dishing out his own brand of mental torture. He doesn’t even seem interested in finding what his lord desires anymore, he just seems to be doing it for its own sake. Until Sonny & Mother Box arrive, and one by one, rescue the teenagers from their predicaments. His equipment failing, Desaad quickly fathoms a Mother Box is at the root of it, and angered that he failed to destroy it earlier, decides to MURDER his prisoners, so it will self-destruct.
Things look really bleak, as our heroes are corned by an entire squad of Desaad’s armed, armored soldiers. Until, suddenly, still holding Mother Box, which begins smoldering, Sonny tells them, “LOWER YOUR WEAPONS!!” Then, with a crackling of energy, “SLEEP!” With that one word, the entire squad DROPS to the floor—UNCONSCIOUS! Seriafin & Vykin quickly note, “The OUTSIDE CONTROL of the mind!” “And we’ve just seen it HAPPEN! HE HAS THE POWER!” Big Bear continues, “Yes! Mother Box sought out and FOUND the man with the power! This man knows the ANTI-LIFE EQUATION! This man can control ALL living beings!” But Sonny is confused, and has no idea what they’re talking about. Beautiful Dreamer & Mark Moonrider explain, “Why, the very OPPOSITE of living! If someone possesses ABSOLUTE control over you—you’re not really alive!” “Without independant will—you may just as well be a ROBOT!”
Mark suggests the Equation is hidden deep in Sonny’s mind, and Mother Box helped bring it to the surface. Big Bear realizes that Sonny will now be at the top of Desaad’s “capture” list, and Vykin suggests they all get to know each other. As Big Bear explains their only objective is to live the way they choose, and stop the forces who won’t let them. Mark suggests they begin by freeing the rest of Desaad’s prisoners.
Not far away, Desaad and Darkseid watch & listen. “You know, Desaad, I must admit they have a point! We MUST be what we ARE! And of course—that’s the pity of it. It’s the very core of our conflict! To FULFILL ourselves—we must KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM! AND TAKE SUMO! I want the Anti-Life Equation!”
According to Jack, “What happens next will astound you! I’ve seen it—and I’m STILL shaking! In the Next Issue!! The OMEGA EFFECT!” Wow.
Re-reading all these stories, one at a time, carefully, in sequence, the development seen in this issue feels like it’s come at a perfectly natural stage of the game. I’ve seen too many “epics” where nothing ever seems to get anywhere—“problem-based” series where the writers are forever dancing in circles, held back by the knowledge that, if you ever “solve the problem”, the series will be over. I think that’s what sets Kirby’s Fourth World epic apart from most. He fully intended to work toward an ENDING, so the longer it went on, the more things developed. This was quite common in Japanese TV shows, and Patrick McGoohan managed it (almost by accident) in THE PRISONER. Even THE FUGITIVE reached a finale, despite its premise being dragged on at least a year or two longer than it should have (and the ending coming only when someone realized that nobody wanted to do yet another season). Glen Larson’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was another series that, to my shock on first seeing it, actually did evolve and develop as it went. That show has in common with Kirby’s story that, in both cases, they were cancelled before their creators were able to finish the story.
The characters and situations in Kirby’s epic have been revived—repeatedly—since its initial cancellation, but unfortunately, NOBODY seems to realize the initial story was meant to have a definite ENDING, and so they keep spinning more pointless episodes out, to no end, to no purpose, except to sell more books that usually aren’t even worth reading.
This issue contains the back-up, The Young Gods Of Supertown—“INTRODUCING LONAR”. “In all of New Genesis, HE alone shuns the satellite city and WANDERS continuously among the natural wonders of the mother world!!” Quite surprisingly, this includes the ruins of a city apparently left behind by the Old Gods, destroyed in the wake of the Great conflict. As Jack puts it, “the unbelievable survival of a small place of the Elder Gods!!” No kidding. My impression from NEW GODS #1 was that the entire planet was turned into a smoldering fireball, and SPLIT in two, to cool and form two NEW planets. For anything to be left intact, even in rubble, from that, is kind of mind-boggling. And among the ruins, Lonar finds the broken half of a sword—and, most curiously, a WINGED HELMET. Gee—where have we seen THAT before??? Lonar’s Mother Box locates something in the ruins, and generates small shock waves to free it. Abruptly, there’s an explosion of energy, and from it, a “Battle horse” emerges—alive—and Lonar mounts it and escape from a firey blaze the explosion started.
An all-too-brief episode (4 pages), with wonderous images and ideas. Where will this go? One can only wonder, as Kirby seems to have so many inter-related concepts to bring out, and slowly develop as time goes by.
I have to say it looksd like at LEAST 3 different inkers worked on this issue’s lead story (again). Some of it looks like “typical” Colletta, some of MUCH sharper, but then there’s the splash page, which looks like a much “softer” hand—it appears the entire page was done with a brush, not a pen. I’d almost guess page 1 was the work of Joe Rubinstein, exscept this was 6 years before I ever saw his work. Still, you never know. The back-up story, truth to tell, looks like a 4th inker’s hand was involved, a bit rougher, cruder than anything else in the book. And then of course, the cover was inked by Mike Royer. No mistaking that!
The Sandman And Sandy The Golden Boy reprint this time is “CRIME CARNIVAL”, from ADVENTURE COMICS #84 (Mar’43).
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“2 super-beings locked in battle! 1 must die!” You know, if this was the cover of a Marvel Comic, that would turn out to be nothing but meaningless hype in the long run. NOT HERE.
For the 2nd issue in a row, the story opens with Metron out in deep space somewhere exploring. This time, he’s headed to “The Final Barrier”—“The Promethean Galaxy—the place of the giants!!” He finds two huge beings who, like himself, driven by insatiable hunger for knowledge, tried to pierce the “barrier” and reach The Source directly. As our narrator puts it, “There were others with Metron’s boldness and hunger!! THIS one tried to engult the barrier by enlarging his own atomic structure! What happened is NOT known! He FAILED! He drifts endlessly—LARGER than a star cluster—FUSED! LIVING! Taking a BILLION Earth years to feel one heartbeat!! And somewhere BEYOND—lies The Source! THE GREATEST OF MYSTERIES!!” If this is accurate, then in the impressive 2-page spread, Metron’s Mobius Chair is really in the foreground, not the background as it seems, and the giant is an infinite distance away from us, while it takes up our entire view. Metron ponders that The Source, while “serene—omnipotent—all-wise”—does “make contact with us—in New Genesis”—thru High-Father’s Staff (to which he returns at that moment). Wild stuff.
Back in New York, Dave Lincoln is watching a film of Orion in battle in the company of Police Detective Sergrant Turpin— who prefers the nbickname “Terrible Turpin”. Stocky, middle-aged, cigar-smoking, dressed in a pin-stripe suit and derby hat, he give new definition to the term “hardb-boiled”. Between the film, the evidence found at the waterfront house seen last issue, and the statement made by one of his men, seriously injured in the hospital from an encounter with “a BIG fish—with a face like BLUE GRANITE”—Turpin believes a GANG WAR has come to his city—one between “super-spooks”. As he tells two of his men, “Those old times are BACK! They just look a little WEIRDER, that’s all!!”
In Lincoln’s apartment, the foursome, relieved to have come out of their encounter intact, still wondering what they can really contribute to the cause, go their separate ways until they hear from Orion again.
Meanwhile, “far beneath the Inter-Gang hide-out, in a cavern leading to the sea”, we find Orion a prisoner of Slig, leader of The Deep Six. Held prisoner in the grip of a giant mutated clam-shell, Orion listens while Slig shows off their prowess with mutating sea creatures. But as soon as Slig walks off, Orion uses the Astro-Force to ESCAPE—and begins wreaking violent, brutal havoc among his enemies. First the mutant clam is destroyed—then a half-man/half-shark is taken out. He then finds a gigantic harness—empty—which housed the monstrous juggernaut created by The Deep Six.
While this is going on, Kalibak, huge, muscle-bound, ugly-as-sin, brutal, arrives in the city via Boom Tube. I guess he got tired of being left being on Apokalips by Darkseid.
In the cavern, Slig returns to find the bodies of his soldiers strewn all over the place. What follows is some of the BEST dialogue I’ve read from Kirby yet! “Only ORION could have caused this carnage! But HOW did that savage free himself!!” “COME IN, SLIG! I was just RECLAIMING my equipment! One of your mutates FINALLY volunteered to show me where it was stored!!!” (“Volunteered”—oh, I love that.) “Allowing you to LIVE was a MISTAKE, Orion!!!” “How RIGHT you are, Slig!!! I HAVEN’T enjoyed being your guest!! This blast of ASTRO-FORCE is just a HINT of my displeasure!!” “AAAAAAA” “ZOM!” “That- didn’t-- --finish me—off—Orion!! I’m still going to get my hands on you! – and, then!!-- Then---!!” “HAHAHAHAHAH!!! THAT’s the kind of talk I LIKE to hear, Slig!! Tell me!! Tell me how I will DIE at your hands!” “BLAMM!” “Your reply is SLOW in coming!! Perhaps you need a bit of URGING!! Talk, slig, TALK!! You seemed so FOND of it when I seemed to be at YOUR mercy!!! You dogs of Apokalips are ELOQUENT when destiny FAVORS you!” Great, great stuff! I was enjoying this so much, I wound up going back and reading the scene over OUT LOUD. I could just picture what Orion’s voice would sound like, going into berzerker mode.
Ripping off Slig’s helmet, he finds Slig’s Mother Box inside, which, under pressure, self-destructs. Slig, still barely alive, notes that Orion love of destruction has “forced” his true face from hiding—as the fierce visage we saw briefly in NEW GODS #3 has returned. “YOU’RE A MAD, TORMENTED ANIMAL, ORION!!” ‘I WOULD be, Slig!! I would be! –if it were not for the MOTHER BOX!! Mother Box PROTECTS me! She CALMS and RESTRUCTURES and keeps me PART of NEW GENESIS!!” “HAHAHA!! ORION IS HIS VERY OWN MONSTER!! HAHAHA!!!” Then, as Orion once more uses Mother Box to restore his “beautiful face”... “That revelation shall DIE with you, Slig! --for between beings of POWER like ourselves—there can only be ONE survivor!!!”
Slig tries to attack once more, but to no avail. “Once STIRRED in the fires of HATE and INNER FEAR, there’s no stopping the arrival of DEATH!!!” Orion lifts Slig above his head, then hurls him into the depths of the caves below. “It’s DONE! Slig has PAID the price he exacted from others! It’s time to see what the HANDS of his kin have MOLDED!!” In anyone else’s book, one might expect Slig to have survived this episode. NOT HERE. This is WAR, and Slig, who was responsible for the death of Seagrin before last issue began, now shares his fate.
Orion mounts his harness, and, underwater, goes in search of the still-unseen monster. The next page reveals all. “And at that moment, the THING spawned by the powers of the Deep Six hurls itself into view, like an ARMORED MOUNTAIN given angry life!! --easier to revive the DREADED myths which have TERRIFIED sea-men since ages lost!!!” In one collosal full-page shot, we see it. And boy, is this thing UGLY! Like a huge magenta-colored sperm whale, only with HORNS—lots of them—and a stone-like battering ram somehow protruding forward from under its mouth. YEESH!
This issue’s reprint is a Manhunter story, “SCAVENGER HUNT”, from ADVENTURE COMICS #74 (May’42). And all the way in the back, where you might almost miss it, is another Young Gods Of Supertown spotlight, “INTRODUCING FASTBAK!" It seems the Forever People aren’t the only young residents of the satellite city, as we meet “Fastbak”, whose obsession is using flying shoes to zip around town thru the air at high speeds and cause a lot of consternation among others. As one puts it, “GROWING UP is more of a trial to the ELDERS than the young!” Pursued by uniformed “Monitors” (clearly the police force of New Genesis), he’s soon joined by others of his age, each using their own outlandish flying vehicle to race about town. Its like a “beach party” movie has crossed paths with a science-fiction/fantasy film. However, before any real harm is committed, Fastbak suddenly finds himself drawn against his will back down to the ground, where he’s quickly rushed into his duty as a lectern speaking on a podium. I guess even in New Genesis, they have Sunday services!
The big change this issue is the arrival of Mike Royer on both inks and lettering. A lot has been made about Vince Colletta’s work being rushed, making too many changes to Kirby’s art and sometimes leaving out details. Having re-read so many of these Kirby-Colletta books recently, what I see is more like some of Colletta’s best work ever—particularly on JIMMY OLSEN. But I’ve also noticed what few have ever mentioned—the glaringly obvious fact that Vince had SEVERAL different people helping him on these books, some of them with noticeably different styles to his. The quality has also varied greatly, sometimes from page to page. From here on, ONE person did the inks. And by all accounts, Royer’s main focus was to be as “faithful” to Kirby’s pencils as possible. After decades of inkers who took it for granted that their job included bringing their own style to inks, this must have been a SHOCK to many longtime Kirby fans. Apart from a coujple issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA inked by Dan Adkins, this may be the first time Kirby fans got to see what Kirby’s art REALLY looked like, without it being heavily filtered thru someone else’s style.
I’ll be honest... it’s a mixed batch. Some pages are STUNNING—but some are downright UGLY. In particular, the pages with “Terrible Turpin” look almost amateurish compared to just about anything I’ve seen over the course of this epic, so far. Some faces, and even moreso, hands, look so crude, it’s hard to believe any professional inker would have left them that way. And certain panels seem severely lacking in “depth”, everything, foreground, middleground, background, looking like it’s all on one level. But overall, most of the book looks very good, and I’m willing to give Royer the benefit of the doubt, considering this was his FIRST time inking a Kirby story. Still, some of the linework is so inconsistent, if I didn’t KNOW with some certainty it was all Royer’s work, I’d almost swear HE was using assistants, as Colletta had been. Incidentally Colletta did ink the back-up story, and he continued to do most JIMMY OLSEN issues, so he wasn’t gone entirely.
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LOIS LANE #116 / Nov’71 – “HALL OF 1000 MIRRORS”
It looks like this time—apparently—they got Werner Roth & Vince Colletta to do their own cover for once. What a concept! The same artists doing the inside and outside. This one, showing Supes getting pulled apart by a fun-house mirror, looks like “typical DC” nonsense to me. The surprise, this issue, is that this is the first 70’s LOIS LANE I’ve read that wasn’t bad.
Following a terrific splash page (much better than the cover), the story starts with Morgan Edge staring at a mirror... until he turns away from it. Except, the reflection doesn’t move as he does. WHAT’s going on??? We never find out this issue. Lois arrives to drive him to her latest “People U.S.A.” TV broadcast. En route, he asks where her “boyfriend” is, and she laments that she never knows when Superman will be called away on some emergency. Lois’ guest on the show is Dave Stevens, “the Daily Planet’s new crusading columnist”, who uses his appearance to attack “The 100”, the crime gang that’s running the rackets in Metropolis. The broadcast is interrupted when a pair of “100” hit men appear to put a stop to Stevens’ crusading—and again when Superman arrives in time to SAVE him! However, in the skuffle, Dave disappears, and Lois, Supes & Dave’s “right-hand”, Tina Ames, fly to a “teenage clubhouse” set up by Stevens to help keep young people from falling prey to crime. Outside, Supes stops a drug pusher, but just then, a bike gang attacks and kidnaps Lois.
Following the scent of Lois’ perfume, Supes tracks them down to—get this—Happyland Amusement Park, recently seen in FOREVER PEOPLE #4 & 5. It seems the bikers were agents of Desaad, and he uses scientifically-tricked-up mirrors to distort and torture Superman. He manages to break free, and rescues both Lois and Dave, but the baddies escape, leaving Superman wondering (quite inexplicably) if the “mastermind” behind this might be Darkseid. Desaad reports to his master, sitting in a large chair, who ponders that, “Perhaps, in the end, I shall have to deal with Superman!”
Since I’ve begun this project, it’s come to my attention that writer Robert Kanigher had been stripped of his editorial position, and that his editor on LOIS LANE, E. Nelson Bridwell, MAY have been driving the plots, and even re-writing the dialogue. Which makes it a real question as to who’s really responsible for the quality (or lack thereof) in some of the stories I’ve read in these books recently. Anyway, this one was FAR less convoluted and awkward, and as a bonus, Werner Roth did the NICEST job I’ve seen from him so far. He used more large panels this time out, and this issue kinda looks more like his X-MEN work than anything I’ve seen from him at DC so far. Was this his idea—was it suggested by the editor (because of the Jack Kirby plot elements), or was it simply spelled out in the script? Either way, this was a VERY nice-looking issue, and his Lois is certainly very pretty. I just keep wishing the guy in the blue suit and red cape wasn’t involved. (Oh, and unless I’ve missed something, this issue made Roth the 2nd DC artist to draw Darkseid!)
Rose and the Thorn this time is “COMPUTED TO KILL”, the 2nd half of the story involving The 100, the robot-computer named “K.A.R.L.”, and Poison Ivy, who seems utterly superfluous, as she doesn’t get to show off her usual gimmicks even once anywhere in the episode. An eccentric artist is employed in the murder-plot, as he puts out an offer to pay The Thorn for posing for a statue. This sounds like something that stepped right off the ’66 BATMAN tv show. Further, she’s doused in a clear yellow solution which is supposed to harded to form a mold from which her likeness can be cast. When it harded almost instantly (seriously, didn’t David Wayne to this to Adam West once?), she’s suddenly concerned that there’s not much air trapped inside—but since she was told it was suppsoed to take “hours” to harden, WHY didn’t that occur to her then? For that matter, WHY would a mysterious vigilante be interested in posing for a statue ANYWAY? There’s such a complete breakdown of logic here, it drags down any hope of the story being worthwhile. When, at the end, “K.A.R.L.” decided it wants its payment to BE The Thorn—and leaps into the river to rescue her from death—well, you begin to wonder who’s smoking what when they wrote this.
The art by Dick Giordano is nice, but I have some serious problems with his storytelling in spots. Curiously, the credits read, “with a special thank you to Jeff Jones”—was this for story or art elements? More curious is page 4—especially the last panel—which I would SWEAR was drawn by GIL KANE! I’m not sure the concept of this series or the characters are all that hot, but between the stories, the writing and the visual storytelling, it’s going NOWHERE—fast.
This issue’s reprint is the 1st installment of DR. PAT, about a woman physician, from SENSATION COMICS #94 (Nov’49). According to the GCD (info taken “from index of original printing”), this was written by Robert Kanigher, and if so, is by a WIDE margin the BEST thing I’ve read by him lately. Sad to think a guy should do such good work early in his career, then let it slide so badly years later. Art is by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia. Nothing flashy (heh) but nice, solid, low-key storytelling. The reproduction’s not so hot, but then NONE of DC’s Golden age reprints look that good. Apparently, nobody bothered to hold onto original stats or negatives back then, since, after all, for decades, comics were considered just “disposable junk”.
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JIMMY OLSEN #144 / Dec’71 – “A BIG THING IN A DEEP SCOTTISH LAKE!”
I really like the cover of this issue of JO, with a sea monster knocking the raft containing Jimmy & The Newsboys all over the place, while Supes flies overhead. Too bad about the logo & text. DC really had “bad design” back then.
Following a brief prologue in which a speedboat is destroyed in Scotland’s Loch Trevor, we cut to Morgan Edge’s office, where the Newboys finally report back to him after their adventure at The D.N.A. Project. The problem is, since The Project is top-secret, they can’t report the story. But Edge says if they want to “earn” The Whiz Wagon, he has another assignment for them—and sure enough, it’s investigating the sea monster. As Flippa-Dippa says, “Wouldn’t THAT be somethin’ else!! My scuba cells are VIBRATIN’, Jimmy!!” (Jimmy’s silent response is to cover his face and think, “Oh, no—“)
No sooner do they agree, and depart, than Edge contacts Inter-Gang, still bent on having them killed! “Listen, CLOSELY! They’re on their way!!! –and this time, do the job RIGHT! It’s a SIMPLE task! There’s NO reason to slip up!! So DON’T fail! Do you hear me? DON’T FAIL!!” (Gee—would YOU want to work for a boss like this?) Jimmy plans to “do a little MORE checking on Morgan Edge, himself” when they return, but it’s almost unbelieveable that he and Clark haven’t done so already, after everything that’s happened in recent issues.
Meanwhile, Superman and The Guardian, responding to a newspaper ad inviting them to a discotheque, the “Cosmic Carousel”, find it run by Terry Dean, who contacted them on Jimmy’s suggestion. After being mobbed for autographs, the pair take a ringside table and see “The San Diego Five String Mob”, a rock band who play VERY strange-looking, other-worldy instuments. Among the other guests is Dubbilex, who reveals he arrived by a tunnel beneath the building that stretches all the way back to The Project. Just at that moment, the band proves they’re not what they seem, when they attack Superman, their musical instruments turning out to be high-tech weapons!
Over in Scotland, the boys meet Felix MacFinney. It’s a humorous moment when he comes face-to-face with Scrapper, dressed in a kilt, and comments that the boy’s clothes are totally at odds with his accent. After meeting MacFinney’s daughter Ginny, the groups settles down for a dinner, while Scrapper advises Jimmy that Ginny is giving him the eye. “I t’ink she goes for you!!! Why don’tcha try DATIN’ ‘er!!!” “Why don’t you try a little more tact!! WOW! I just CAN’T want for you to grow up!!”
The next day, the group goes out on the lake in a raft, while far below, Flippa runs into an unexpected intruder, who tries to yank off his breathing equipment. Above, MacFinney reveals his true colors—he’s working for Inter-Gang, and has orders to kill the lot of them! They’re only saved when the unobserved Scrapper Trooper activates MacFinney’s “sonar whistle”—causing the sea monster to surface, knocking everyone into the water! Only MacFinney is a victim of the attack, and onshore, they find Flippa waiting for them, along with his assailant—Ginny, who’s NOT really MacFinney’s daughter, but his parter-in-crime. Baffled as to why Inter-Gang has twice tried to kill them, Jimmy resolves to stick around until he can figure out what’s going on.
Strange Tales Of The D.N.A. Project this time features “THE TORN PHOTOGRAPH”, a 2-page account of the time, years before, when the cave The Project was eventually built in was first being explored. A survey team, “Probe Six”, encountered an underground swamp, as well as some sort of “missing link” creature right out of the movie TROG. In defense against a mass attack, dynamite was set off, but unfortunately the entire survey team was lost in the process. A strange, tragic incident, and one I can’t help but feel would have been better served if it had been expanded to 4 or even 8 pages.
As usual, Vince Colletta is aided by Murphy Anderson on all the Supes & Jimmy faces. The rest all looks like Colletta to me this time, even though the quality is very inconsistent. Morgan Edge & the “band” are all on the rough side, while the 2 girls—Terry & Ginny—are both VERY beautifully rendered, which should put to rest any rumors that Jack Kirby couldn’t draw attarctive women.
By the way, I know the band were based on real comic-book fans, and MacFinney on a known comic actor (long forgotten by the time Kirby wrote this story), but don’t expect me to look up the exact into.
This issue’s Newsboy Legion & Guardian reprint is “KINGS FOR A DAY” from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #10 (Jul’42). On the letters page, Gerard Triano points out that JO #141 was the first time Clark Kent did NOT appear as Superman since a story in SUPERMAN #203 (Jan’68).
[ July 18, 2011, 05:18 AM: Message edited by: profh0011 ]
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“It’s like a diabolical CAR-WASH!! It traps you on the way in—and kills you on the way out! It’s mechanized murder!!” Holy cow! What a teaser.
Two guys deliver a Civil War-era cannon to Scott’s house, and are distracted by Barda exercising on the lawn. “What is it, fellas? Business, or GIRL WATCHING?” Annoyed at the “chatter”, Barda brushes them aside, grabs the cannon and single-handedly carries it to the house! “I could exercise until I’m MUSCLE-BOUND!! –and NEVER do THAT!!!” “This ‘woman’s lib’ thing is getting more SERIOUS than I thought!!”
Elsewhere, another foe from Apokalips has arrived to take down Scott—permanently. It’s Doctor Virman Vundabar, a short, stocky character with a monocle whose wardrome and manner seems to have stepped straight out of 19th Century-Prussia. Testing a “Centri-Spin” device designed to kill Scott, his sidekick, Hydrik, is “seriously impaired” when it explodes right next to him. “It’s just as well, Hydrik!! You know the PENALTY for IMPERFECTION!” Following an audible gunshot, Vundabar steps out of the lab and tells the two guards, “This section has FAILED! Order the laboratory CLEANED UP!!” “It will be SPOTLESS, excellency!”
While Scott & Oberon are practising a new escape routine with the cannon, Barda enjoys a momentary peace in a nearby pond. “Apokalips is TOTALLY devoid of spots like this!! I hope the people of Earth APPRECIATE these places! It’s a joy to be free of the grey and smelly air of a world filled with DESTRUCTIVE machines!! I’ve had ENOUGH of great Darkseid’s world! –they’ll have to FIGHT to get Big Barda to rerturn there!!” Sure enough, at that moment, a flying craft drops a squadron of soldiers, who approach with guns drawn. It’s at this point we learn Barda’s “side-clips” transform almost magically into her full armor and Mega-Rod! However, after a short battle, an “energy-dispenser” brings her down.
Scott explains to Oberon that the inmates of Granny’s orphanage all were given descriptive names not unlike those in the book OLIVER TWIST. On seeing the craft depart, Scott realizes that Barda has been captured, and further, that she was “allowed” to leave Apokalips, to serve as bait to draw him out. Using his aero-discs, Scott flies into a rugged canyon, where he finds Vundabar’s death-trap waiting. On a viewscreen, Vundabar invites Scott inside. “WHAT if I tell you to go blow your nose?” He finds a conveyor belt running down a long corridor, and the instant he steps on it, he’s encased in a titanium coffer, and held on the conveyor belt by foot clamps. “That little SWINE! He’s devised a trap that runs me through a murder-machine like an Earth-CAR WASH!!”
As the coffer goes down the corridor, it’s hit by multiple hammers, then has a pair of electrodes clamped on, which generate a “controlled atom blast”. As Vundabar and his sidekick Klepp watch, the captive Barda objects. “That’s why I deserted Apokalips! I can NO longer soldier in the company of TWISTED fiends like yourself—who worship their POWER—more than DARKSEID!” “SILENCE! I want no further BLASPHEMY!” At the end of the conveyor belt, the metal coffer sinks into a tank containing “the most POWERFUL of ACIDS”—and dissolves. HORRORS!!!
Klepp, Vindabar and one of the soldiers all laugh at the sight. As they do, they fail to notice the figure standing directly behind them, ALSO smiling—Scott! “How did you do it? How did you escape!?” Scott explains that he used powerful lasers built into his boots to burn a hole in the bottom of the coffer, and the conveyor belt beneath it, so that while all eyes were fixed on the front of the container, no one saw the gaping hole in the floor behind it. He then used the lasers to blast a tunnel underneath the conveyor, until he came up behind them. “There’s only ONE thing to do, excellency! GIVE US THE ORDER!!” “YES! YES! --at my command—SHOOT TO KILL!!—“ And at that instant, the floor beneath the villains collapses, taking them down with it. “As I said before, boys!! You SHOULD’VE been watching my FEET!! That tunnel is very DEEP!!!”
Scott lifts Barda in his arms. “SCOTT--!! Scott—forgive me!! I-I was AFRAID! –for US! I—A WARRIOR—“ “You’re BETTER than that, Barda!! You’re a WOMAN!!” Holding her in his arms, Scott flies the pair of them out and away.
But even greater horror may await... “-NEXT ISSUE- You know him!! I KNOW HIM!! EVERYBODY gets to know a “FUNKY FLASHMAN” The question is—“DO WE NEED HIM?” This can be a DESPERATE issue—if a “Funky Flashman” can decide your fate!!! WATCH MISTER MIRACLE GET TAKEN!!!--- by the con’s con-man!! – THE FUNKIEST AGENT OF THEM ALL!!!” This can’t be good...
Mike Royer takes over the inks this issue, and it looks to me like he did a better job overall than in NEW GODS #5. However, it seems Jack Kirby had a particular, severe problem with something Mike did. Jack based Barda on singer-actress Lainie Kazan, who has a very particular face—and it seems Royer CHANGED her face, in order to “pretty her up”. PISSED, Jack went back and RE-pencilled—and INKED her faces—himself! –pasting the results down over Mike’s work, and making sure Royer knew not to ever change the faces again. The results are a bit mixed, if only because the line quality on the faces tends to be thicker than on much of the detail in the rest of the book.
Meanwhile, this issue’s back-up feature is the first installment of “YOUNG SCOTT FREE”, detailing his younger days in Granny’s orphanage, where he was trained to be a soldier, and visciously brutalized for proving to be too human. It’s a very unpleasant episode, and adding to the it are the inks, apparently done by Jack himself! At the end of this installment, Scott, his face horribly disfigured from a terrible beating, witnesses the arrival of Metron on his Mobius chair, who he mistakes for one of “Darkseid’s heirarchy”. I’m reminded of a scene in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA episode “Greetings From Earth”, where a refugee from totalitarian-run “Luna Seven” mistakes the colonial warriors for members of the Nazi-like -Eastern Alliance—especially the civilian security team, who, like his real enemies, are dressed head to toe in black.
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All this time, I wondered how it would look if Murphy Anderson (who was inking all the Superman & Jimmy faces) inked the WHOLE thing. Now I know. People say Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott were “over-powering”. NAH. They’ve got NOTHING on Murphy Anderson! Unless I squint to see the layout, there’s NOTHING of Kirby here at all! It looks NICE... but, geez. I bet some guys at DC would have preferred if all Jack’s books had looked this way.
Still in Scotland, Jimmy & The Newsboys are shown by Scotland Yard Inspector Robert McQuarrie a variety of very strange animals found in the Loch Trevor area. They include a griffin, a chimera, a unicorn, an entire group of basilisks, and—most strange of all—something that defies description, which they’ve nicknamed “Angry Charlie”. No one knows where they come from, but their point of origin is referred to as “Brigadoom”, inspired by a Scottish fairy tale of a city that only appears once a year, then vanishes after a day. Figuring the sea serpent might point them in the right direction, they take the Whiz Wagon down underwater in Loch Trevor, and soon find themselves confronting the beastie again. Only, with the vehicle’s “mini-shock missiles”, they’re on more even terms this time.
As soon as I saw the Whiz Wagon dive, it hit me, they may be The New Newsboy Legion, but in spirit, they seem to be closer to Jack’s BOY EXPLORERS, a series cut short far too soon by bad market conditions in 1946.
Having split into two groups, one in water, the other on land, the latter consists of Jimmy & Scrapper, who’s brought the Scrapper Trooper with him. I dunno... there’s something CREEPY about the way Scrapper carries this minature “army”-style clone of himself around in a box, as if he were a pet frog or something. While napping, a strange “compressor ray” sweeps over the spot where the pair are sleeping... and when they wake up, find themselves SHRUNK to the size of Scrapper Trooper! As he puts it... “In short—you’ve been SHORTENED!!” But this may be a serious mis-step on the part of the baddies, for it’s only at this reduced size that they locate an equally-miniature scientific research complex, whose design mirrors that of The D.N.A. Project’s. Yep—after so many episodes, Jimmy & Scrapper have found THE EVIL FACTORY! But that’s when they’re knocked unconscious again by “paralysis beams”, fired by Mokkari, who, along with Simyan, are revealed to have been miniature in size all this time!
I’m reminded a bit of the 1969 SPIDER-MAN cartoon, “THE BIRTH OF MICRO MAN”, in which the villain, Professor Pretorius, had threatned to use his “Kingdom Come Machine” to blow New York City off the face of the map. It was revealed that both he and his machine had been miniatured to only a few inches in height, but, as Spidey explained, “When you’re dealing with atoms, size doesn’t matter!”
Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Superman & Terry Dean explore the tunnel underneath her now-wrecked club, and find Dubbilex, who has not only caught up with the culprits—but is exhibiting, for the first time, a strange “kinetic” power (not unlike that used by Marvel Girl of THE X-MEN). He holds the “band” aloft in mid-air, but on letting them free, the group suddenly cause a Boom-Tube to materialize, thru which they make their escape. Superman quickly figures they were connected with Apokalips, and Darkseid, while Dubbilex realizes from Supes’ expression that he must know more than he’s telling.
Back in Scotland, The Whiz Wagon and its occupants find themselves shrunk to the size of guppies, then make it inside a pipe which leads to the baddie’s shrunken lair. Scrapper & Scrapper Trooper find themself facing death by dinosaur attack, until the Trooper uses a mace dispenser hidden in his helmet to knock it out. But the worst is reserved for Jimmy. He’s strapped to a table, while a ray machine is used to perform a “gene nuclei” experiment on him, intent on regressing him backwards until he becomes a caveman! The scene mirrors at least 2 stories I’ve seen on TV—THE OUTER LIMITS episode “The Sixth Finger”, but moreso, the DOCTOR WHO story “Vengeance On Varos”, especially with the way Jimmy is subjected to it while strapped down against his will. (Maybe writer Philip Martin was a Jack Kirby fan?)
The inks appear to be all Colletta’s this time (barring the usual Anderson work). Once again, Terry Dean is a real BABE. One outstanding feature this time is, before they head for the Loch, the Newboys are actually wearing different clothes for once—INCLUDING Flippa-Dippa, who for the first time is not only seen wearing “regular” clothes (and very stylish at that), but is reffered to simply as “Flip” throughout the entire issue. Nice.
On the letters page, David Vereschagin had the following to say about Goody Rickels: “How the great Jack Kirby could produce something as lowly and insulting to his intelligence is beyond me! I felt like tearing up the whole issue there and then, burning all my Nationals and quitting comics for life.”
This issue’s Newboy Legion & Guardian reprint is “PARADISE PRISON”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #11 (Aug’42). The plot somewhat mirrors that of the 2nd Dead End Kids movie, CRIME SCHOOL, in that they get caught in the act of committing a crime and sent up the river... except, unlike those rotten scum in the movie (they really were, before they got better in later installments), here, it’s not what it seems, and The Guardian eventually figures it out.
Registered: Aug 2003
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