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1st ISSUE SPECIAL #5 / Aug’75 – “MANHUNTER” / “THE ELECTRIC HEAD” / “NEW WARRIOR”

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“In the far and distant corners of the Earth, there are fearsome criminals who hide in vain from justice... and a NAME which has HAUNTED their kind through the ages... THIS IS HIS STORY!! This is the origin of... MANHUNTER”

In a place called “The Cave of the Talking Heads”, a man in a red costume with a pale blue mask enters in search of someone named “Chopper”. First he’s greeted by a literal talking head, decapitated and hanging by its hair on a wall. Chopper himself, who looks like some big-headed alien, stands behind protective glass. Manhunter tells him, “There are TEN dead people are crying out for JUSTICE... they want their KILLER brought to trial! You know I always get my man!” It’s interesting he should phrase it that way, as his mostly-red costume reminds one of a futuristic Canadian mounty’s uniform.

“Like its spider counterpart, each homicidal minds spins endless death traps to claim its victims. It is the eternal RISK of the adversary who dares to enter the deadly web. Above the Manhunter, death descends!! CHOPPER’S DEADLY INVENTION... THE ELECTRIC HEAD!” Like some monstrous, oversized warrior’s battle-helmet, the device fits over Manhunter, covering his entire head and shoulders. “Fry, Manhunter! Not even YOUR protective suit can withstand that VOLTAGE!” I can’t shake the feeling that this device was something they would have dreamed up on Apokalips—like the “shock boots” seen in MISTER MIRACLE #9.

As he struggles, Manhunter manages to fire his “Baton” weapon, looking for all the world like a miniature version of Big Barda’s “Mega-Rod”, its chemical bullets penetrating the glass shield and striking their target. Removing his huge, oversized head-mask (a non-lethal counterpart of the deadly Electric Head), Chopper, fighting against the onrush of paralysis, picks up an axe to directly attack his hunter. Manhunter just barely manages to get the Electric Head off, as his equally-shaken foe raises the axe to strike. But Manhunter lifts Chopper’s own techno-weapon to block the axe, and the impact sends enough electricity to kill Chopper instead. It’s fascinating, looking over such a brief, seemingly simple fight scene, how many parallels were going on between the two combatants.

I’d like to admit at this point that I don’t actually have a copy of this comic. But thanks to the wonder of the internet and various other comics fans, I was able to find 11 of the story’s 18 pages! So I’ve got a pretty good gist of what’s going on, even though I’m still missing some chunks of it. The easiest way to fill in what’s missing is to quote ONE paragraph from the “Manhunter” page at Wikipedia:

“Mark Shaw was a public defender, unhappy about how easily criminals manipulated the system and got off without punishment. Shaw's uncle Desmond introduced him to an ancient sect of crime fighters called the Manhunters. Shaw contacted the Grand Master, the sect's leader, through a magical lion medallion. Shortly, he assumed the Manhunter name and costume from a previous Manhunter.”

Amazing that that doesn’t even touch what I already described above, isn’t it?

In Jack Kirby’s story, Mark Shaw’s uncle tells him, “Nobody knows when the “Shan” was organized, but it’s a VERY old sect. The ORIGINAL members were warriors who fought the BARBARIC injustices of the warlords.” He goes on, “The “Shan” are INCORRUPTIBLE, and take vows of lifelong dedication. When a Manhunter tracks an elusive quarry, he NEVER fails to bring him in.”

Eleswhere, in a large temple decorated with lion iconography, we learn that Manhunter is the LAST of his kind, as he speaks with his “Grand Master”. The scene, in a way, reminds one of various scenes in Universal’s MUMMY movies of the early-1940’s, as a new High Priest takes over from the old, dying one. (Except, in this case, it’s good guys involved, not baddies.) “Fate has always been our friend. A NEW warrior will arise. He will CALL in this time of need.”

And sure enough, Mark uses the Lion medallion in his uncle’s collection, and before long, wears the Manhunter uniform—just in time for his uncle’s house to be attacked by thugs hured by the gangster Mark Shaw has been fighting as a lawyer! Before it’s over, he’s taken out the entire group of thugs, and vows to track down their boss. “I’m going after Al Beefer, The HOG, and his organization!” “Be CAREFUL, Mark. It’s a mighty big target. GOOD LUCK!”

As one can see from the Wikipedia Manhunter page, there have been many different characters from DC Comics using that name. To start off, there was “Paul Kirk, Manhunter” (who didn’t actually use the name “Manhunter” in the stories), an “independant investigator” (gee, is that anything like Denny Colt’s “criminologist” title?) who appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS #58-72 (Jan’41-Mar’42) and was the work of Ed Moore.

The 2nd version was introduced by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby and ran from ADVENTURE COMICS #73-92. Rick Nelson was a big game hunter who donned a colorful costume to track criminals. Although it was clearly intended to be a different character, a few episodes in, the editor changed his name to Paul Kirk! (I wonder, did Roy Thomas ever explain this as being some kind of alias—one way or the other?)

Decades later, Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson created a 3rd version for DETECTIVE COMICS #437-443 (Oct’73-Oct’74). Although not originally intended to be the same character, at some point in the storyline it was revealed that the new Manhunter was actually Paul Kirk, who’d been killed in the 40’s, yet somehow preserved in suspended animation ands brought back to life by a group known as “The Council”, who wanted to use him as an ASSASSIN. He rebelled against this and eventually brought down The Council, with the help of Batman, but died in the process.

Considering Jack Kirby’s NEW version of the character wore a costume closer to the 40’s version than the Goodwin-Simonson one did, it would seem Kirby may have intended the new series as a continuation, expansion and explanation of his earlier one. Yet, we never learn the name of the aging Manhunter from the beginning of his story. Perhaps he intended it to be Paul Kirk, UNAWARE of the Goodwin-Simonson storyline? In any case, Kirby’s “Shan” can easily be seen as a altrusitic, heroic counterpart to Goodwin’s “Council”. Whereas Goodwin & Simonson took the character down a dark path (to a degree), it’s clear Kirby expanded on the idea, only put the “Shan” FIRMLY on the side of right and justice. One may presume that, had further installments been produced, we might have learned that the old Manhunter either was Paul Kirk, or perhaps a son, nephew, or other protoge, and that Rick Nelson / Mark Shaw’s taking up the identity of “Manhunter” was in some way directly tied in with the ages-old “Shan” legacy.

But alas—IT WAS NOT TO BE!!! Only a year-and-a-half later, in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #140-141 (Mar’Apr’77), in a pair of double-length episodes, Steve Englehart, Dick Dillin & Frank McLaughlin did a sequel, “NO MAN ESCAPES THE MANHUNTERS” / “NO WORLD ESCAPES THE MANHUNTERS”. Perhaps it was a reflection of the 70’s in general, or perhaps it was some kind of anti-Kirby backlash, but in Englehart’s story, we learn that The Manhunters were actually a group of androids, created “billions of years ago” by the Guardians of the Universe, before they ever created their Green Lantern Corps, to be a police force for the universe. However, they became corrupt, power-mad, and rebelled against The Guardians. They were defeated, and those remaining went into hiding. For BILLIONS of years. Yeah. RIGHT. You know, in the 70’s, Steve Englehart was my favorite comic-book writer (who did not also do artwork). And he was THE reason I started buying DCs in the late 70’s, when I followed him from Marvel to DC. And I have to admit. I LOVED this story when I first read it (at the age of 17). I haven’t read it since, and I really should make up for that one day. But looking back on it, and writing what I just did above... the whole things just sounds so “WRONG”!!!!!

Think about it. How could a group of power-mad robots spend “BILLIONS OF YEARS” either in hiding, or, pretending to be a force of “justice” in the universe (or even on Earth), and how could they do this while they were also supposed to BE in hiding? What sort of mindset would it take to accept a story idea like that, anyway?

The whole thing just makes a complete farce of what Jack Kirby wrote in this one comic. In some ways, it’s more of a slap-in-the-face to Jack than Jack’s BLACK PANTHER was to Don McGregor’s version of that character.

To add injury to insult, several years later, Steve Englehart (AGAIN!) brought back The Manhunters for DC’s 3rd consecutive yearly “company-wide crossover”, MILLENNIUM, which tied in with virtually every single book they published over the course of 8 weeks. The way Steve structured the crossover, for the whole thing to make sense, you actually were supposed to read EVERY SINGLE tie-in, in a specified sequence. By the time that horrific mess was over, I was totally sick to death of The Manhunters, which had SEEMED like a cool idea back in 1977. And I never, ever, EVER wanted to read their slogan, “No one escapes The Manhunters!”—again.

Steve’s 2-part JLA story was actually adapted (rather faithfully) as a 2-parter on WB’s JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoon series in the 90’s (with John Stewart filling in for Hal Jordan, who was “dead” in the comics at the time). The strange thing, considering just how many comics were a sequel to this ONE story Jack Kirby did, is that this issue has (to my knowledge) NEVER been reprinted.

Maybe it’s just as well. Kirby’s MANHUNTER, while it was no doubt more ambitious and potentially more exciting than the previous versions, didn’t seem AS inspired as several other projects he did in the early 70’s. As I noted with the use of technology similar to that seen in issues of MISTER MIRACLE, it’s possible MANHUNTER was a watered-down variation on common Kirby themes, as he struggled to find something LESS ambitious that the small-minded powers-that-be at DC might have found more “acceptable”.
(9-18-2012)

And now, something a bit different...

JUSTICE INC. #1 / Aug’75 – “THIS NIGHT, AN AVENGER IS BORN!”

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“He’s known as The AVENGER-- deadly leader of—JUSTICE INC. In the roaring heart of the crucible, STEEL is made! In the raging flame of PERSONAL TRAGEDY, men are sometimes forged into something more than HUMAN! Thus is was with DICK BENSON... a man transformed into a figure of ICE and STEEL.... more PITILESS than either!”

Somewhere outside New York City, Dick Benson, his wife Alice and their young daughter Alicia quickly board a plane against protests. “Hey! You people can’t come aboard!” “If this kite is heading for MONTREAL, we’ve GOT to—my wife’s mother is DESPERATELY ill! She NEEDS us TONIGHT!” As they board, the man who objected reaches for a gun. “Should I...?” “Too many WITNESSES! We’ll handle it in the AIR!” After introducing themselves to Arthur Hickock, who recognizes Benson as a “famous EXPLORER and ADVENTURER”, Benson goes back to use the wash room. On his return, Hickock, his wife and daughter are all gone—and the other passengers claim they were never on the plane! A fight breaks out, and Benson is knocked unconscious. He awakens three weeks later in a hospital, his facial muscles almost paralyzed, and his hair and skin turned white. Told he may revert to normal in a month or two, in insists on leaving immediately, once again, against protests. “Doctor, I’m GRATEFUL to you, but if you value your LIFE... stay... out... of... my... WAY!”

Returning to his penthouse, Benson arms himself with his special gun (“Mike”) and throwing knife (“Ike”) then heads for the airfield, where he finds the plane his family vanished on. He fends off an attack by a large man who, it turns out, is a fugitive who mistook him for a policeman. Algernon Heathcoate Smith, alias “Smitty”, is a Doctor of Physics who’s been framed of a crime he didn’t commit, and found himself doing unskilled manual labor while on the lam. They decide to team up, after discovering a trap door in the floor of the plane, and, being attacked by two thugs out to silence them. Using makeup, and the discovery that his facial muscles can be rearranged manually, Benson sneaks aboard the next flight of the plane, when he overhears the thugs planning to “dump” him—which is what they did to his family!

The only other passenger, elderly Mrs. Van Dunce, is forced at gunpoint to don a parachute, then shoved thru the trapdoor. Benson, disguised as an elderly hunchback, is also shoved thru—without one. Or so they think, his “hump” actually a hudden chute. On the island below have been assembled the owners of the Acme Motor Company, who are being forced at gunpoint to sign papers handing over ownership of the firm to the murdereous gangsters. Benson attacks, with the help of Smitty, who’s discovered the island is owned by Hickock—the only “missing” passenger not among the group of kidnap victims. Benson nearly strangles him before Smitty stops him. The two decide to seek out and enlist others whose lives have been destroyed by violent crime, to create a force of JUSTICE.


Richard Benson, THE AVENGER, was a pulp magazine hero created by Paul Ernst for Street And Smith in 1939, the same publishers who gave us THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE. According to several different articles I've found online, it's felt the series began "too late", at a point where pulp heroes were beginning to lose their charm and popularity, partly due to the newer comic-book costumed heroes. It seems to me that THE AVENGER was to pulp heroes what STARMAN was to super-heroes in the early 1940’s. One more character, cynically created “by committee”, without any characteristics that made him stand out from the pack.

More than 30 years later, in the wake of Marvel's DOC SAVAGE and DC's THE SHADOW, DC decided, once more "late in the game" to adapt THE AVENGER to comics. Renamed JUSTICE INC. so as to avoid confusion with Marvel's superhero team THE AVENGERS, the series, as before, failed to catch on. Perhaps the same sort of cynicism was at the root of it.

Denny O’Neil had started out writing dialogue at Marvel, and his own stories at Charlton, before being brought over to DC with Dick Giordano by Carmine Infantino, who was eager to raid Charlton for their best talent. Indeed, I’ve read that despite Giordano being the editor and a key part of the deal, Infantino actually disliked Giordano and held his work in contempt. Making his mark on BATMAN and GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW, two “dark” reinventions of classic characters, O’Neil virtually became DC’s version of Roy Thomas, the “go-to” writer for new projects. This included THE SHADOW, their revival of the pulp character, no doubt intended as DC’s answer to Marvel’s DOC SAVAGE revival. While Thomas’ specialty seemed to be a fascination with literary characters, World War Two and historical trivia in general, O’Neil’s “thing” seemed to be darkness and “dark” stories for their own sake.

Alden McWilliams’ specialty apparently was science-fiction, as he worked on the TWIN EARTHS newspaper strip in the 1950’s, various sci-fi stories in Warren’s CREEPY magazine, a 2-year run on the SPACE CONQUERORS! strip in BOY’S LIFE magazine, and, much later, the 1979 BUCK ROGERS movie adaptation. I suspect he may forever be dismissed as a 2nd-rate Al Williamson, both because of his name and similar art style, but I like his work. He was actually one of the reasons I spent a couple months cleaning up the entire run of SPACE CONQUERORS! for my blog (before I found out that the artist who did the strips I’d read when I was younger was actually Gray Morrow!).

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Somehow, while “nice”, this issue just strikes me as uninspired. Perhaps McWilliams is out of his field here, doing a 1939 pulp adventure story (and not the most inspired story to begin with). The art, which actually reminds me a lot of the work of Tom Palmer or Frank Springer, just doesn’t have much “zing” to it. Such a shame, to be this disappointed after I was looking forwrd to it, once I heard McWilliams had done it. And, perhaps I’m spoiled after the last 16 months of reading stories written by Jack Kirby, but O’Neil’s narration and dialogue in this just seem to banal and dull by comparison. Even the story title rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps that’s because it’s so similar to one I came up with myself when I was in my early teens, when I was probably trying to sound “dramatic”, but what came out was, instead, “pretentious”. The original title of the pulp story was simply “JUSTICE INC.” What was wrong with that???

And, for that matter, WHY describe the set-up of “JUSTICE INC.” on the 1st page of the story, before readers have even had a chance to read the story that leads to its formation? Further, it bugs me how the text on the splash page overlap the artwork, when there is so much blank space on the page it could have fit easily. We’re talking BAD DESIGN here. But then, “bad design” was the standard for 1970’s comic-books.

Frankly, the cover by Joe Kubert—another DC mainstay—is nothing to brag about either. I tend to wonder, WHY not have the artist who illustrated the story also do the cover? It always seems like “false advertising” to me.

Even Alan Asherman’s editorial is boring beyond belief, consisting entirely of describing elements of the series we’ve either already seen in this issue’s story, or those they haven’t gotten around to introducing yet. What a major come-down, after Jack Kirby’s various thoughtful, philosophical discourses.

Denny O'Neil wrote all 4 issues, the first 2 being adaptations of novels (one can see the patent absurdity of trying to adapt an entire novel in only 18 comic-book pages), the other 2 being original stories. There is so much in this story that is left totally unexplained. The year it takes place is in never even mentioned! And while I’m sure they were supposed to be intereting and exciting, both Benson and Smitty just seem dull, or worse—annoying.

This proved to be McWilliams’ only issue in the short run. I wonder why? He seemed to be doing the odd comic-book job here and there around this time (even inking John Byrne on IRON FIST—can you believe that?). Perhaps it was just “filler” work for him. Thing would definitely improve next time.
(9-21-2012)

JUSTICE, INC. #2 / Aug’75 – “THE SKYWALKER”

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After the 1st issue, in a wild move, Jack Kirby & Mike Royer were brought in to do the art of the remaining issues. So far I’ve only seen the cover and 2 interior pages, but these totally blow away the tepid efforts of the 1st issue. Denny O’Neil presumably worked full-script on these (the standard method for DC writers at the time), and adapted the 3rd AVENGER novel from November 1, 1939, once more in a measly 18 pages. The switch in art to Kirby & Royer was just what this series needed, as they managed to take what was, quite frankly, a 2nd-rate (3rd-rate?) pulp series and inject it with high-octane visual EXCITMENT. Opinions I've read vary drastically, but it's my feel that Kirby & Royer did some terrific work here, capturing the feel of the 1940's better than most, and, I'd say, they did better work, and were a BETTER FIT, than any of the artists I've ever see do DOC SAVAGE in the comics! A shame they were doing the wrong book!!!

Perhaps they were already too little too late, though, as that 1st issue may have turned off enough people to doom the project from the word go.

Incidentally, with all the elements from various Jack Kirby comics that apparently found their way (along with everything else) into the STAR WARS movies, it’s funny that the title of this comic’s story should be among them (never mind that it actually was from a 1939 pulp novel, the comic version no doubt came out while George Lucas was putting together his movie—and I have definitely heard that “Skywalker” was NOT the original name of his film’s hero).

In addition to some minor “filling in” on the bottom & right edges, and fixing some white gaps in the colors, the biggest challenge of cleaning up this cover image was that the paper was obviously SO THIN the printing from the other side was showing right thru. I had to find a smooth patch and replace the entire pale blue sky background. This now looks MUCH better than the actual comic did when it was new!
(9-22-2012)

OUR FIGHTING FORCES #159 / Sep’75 – “MILE-A-MINUTE” JONES!”

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A truck full of G.I.s on the wrong road get slaughtered by a Nazi paratrooper squad, except for one black soldier, who runs like the wind to escape. But a Nazi races after him. “Both runners break into STRIDE and cover distance with AMAZING swiftness--- Neither man slows his pace--- neither man loses stamina--- it’s an almost dream-like replay of a marathon run in some phantom stadium--- It seems NO LONGER part of the war--- The runners are caught up in the sound of their own footfalls, racing, NOT to kill—but to WIN!!”

The “spell” is broken when the German fires his gun. The G.I. stops, and can’t believe his eyes. Both men—Henry Jones, and Bruno Borman—competed against each other in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The situation is beyond bizarre, as the two have an almost friendly reunion—but not without a dispute. “Chust like in the OLD days, eh, Henry! Like ven ve run in Berlin, at der Olympics---“ “...like when I beat you in the mile run?” “NOBODY beats Bruno Borman—I am der BEST--- You are a good runner--- for a BLACK man, Henry! But I win der race---“ “Not that day, Bruno--- NOT THAT DAY---“ “Dere vas BIG fight--- lost of noise--- der crowd on der track, ven ve cross der line--- BUT I VIN, SEE?” Typical Nazi arrogance, blinding himself in the face of historical facts. I’m actually reminded of the sort of attitude and behavior I ran into back in public school, especially in gym class. It wasn’t enough for one team to win—they had to BEAT the other guys, and belittle them afterwards. Probably one of countless reasons I never liked “competition”.

Surprisingly, despite a “no prisoners” order, Bruno says, “COME, HENRY--- ve go back--- I see dat you STAY ALIVE--- COME---!” Which is the exact moment he feels a rifle barrel at the back of his neck. The Losers have overheard the conversation, and Henry is now part of THEIR mission. Both they and the Nazi paratroopers are in the area to get their hands on General Kessel—one group to rescue him, the other to capture him and take him back to the Allies. Held at gunpoint, Kessel displays more Nazi arrogance. “What a PITY—you could STAYED for tea--- now you’ll go out--- and get yourselves SHOT!” “—“US”, General! It must be evident that YOU’LL be sharing the SAME hazards—I trust that your troopers give this proper consideration---“

As it happens, Borman had the map, which is why the Nazis take longer to find Kessel’s villa. Jones locks the guards in the basement, and the squad leave with their prisoner, but Kessel escape using a hidden razor blade to cut himself free. Racing on foot, he outflanks our heroes to reach the approaching Nazis. Seeing him, Jones sets out on foot after him. Another race is run, once more for life or death for many others. Jones makes a leap for Borman, but misses, and falls to the ground, just as Borman reaches the squad. They see the G.I.s in the distance, and armed to the teeth, run toward them... straight into a mine field, where they’re blown to bits. Jones is shocked. When he ran earlier, he followed a white line on the ground, as if it were a lane marker at a stadium. In truth, it marked the edge of the mine field. Incredibly, he & Borman ran right past it without realizing it was there. Borman & his fellow Nazi soldiers weren’t so lucky coming back.

Just then, more Nazis arrive—but so does the U.S. aircover. The Germans are slaughtered, the plane lands, and picks up The Losers, Jones and Kessel... “Sputtering plane engines break into a roar, moments later--- The dead men IGNORE it--- They’ve absorbed with ETERNITY--- on a ravaged field--- Bruno Borman has crossed the FINAL finish line--- The question of “winning” is still in doubt--- It can only be answered by LIVING men--- Henry Jones is STILL alive. He and The Losers are in that plane, en route to further trials--- new experiences that will TEST their courage and spirit--- But there is a SPECIAL sadness in losing a competitor whose passing ERASES a need so necessary to the athelete--- the need for CHALLENGE!”

Wow. Who the F*** ever said Jack Kirby couldn’t write?

Henry Jones is based, of course, on real-life athelete Jessie Owens, who did compete in the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin, where he made a fool of Adolph Hitler and his “Aryan superiority” in front of the entire world. A pity that couldn’t have been the final word on the subject.

The art by Kirby & Royer is positively BRUTAL this issue, on every page, rough, crude, savage, as if it were not only depicting wartime events, but drawn DURING them by someone there at the time. Except for the cover, which looks like Mike Royer inked a rough sketch instead of finished pencils. It’s interesting (if no doubt baffling to some) how Kirby’s art style could be so flexible, to change that much from story to story, depending on the content. This is GREAT stuff. And I don’t even like war stories, generally. Gee, isn’t that what someone said about SGT. FURY?
(9-25-2012)

THE SANDMAN #4 / Sep’75 – “PANIC IN THE DREAM STREAM”

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From the GCD: “Aliens led by General Quark try to infiltrate the dreams of Earthlings via the Dream Stream in order to kill them in their sleep.”

That description could save me a lot of time. Inter-dimensional aliens who somehow have no knowledge or concept of what sleep or dreams are learn of Earth, and decide if they can enter the nightmares of sleeping people, they should be able to invade Earth and conquer it easily. Meanwhile, as things have been “quiet”, Sandman happily sees off Brute and Glob who leave to attend a family reunion. I find it strange how they’re described as having joined Sandman to become full-time helpmates, when they’re constantly imprisoned in his Dream Dome. But then, there’s a lot about this series that makes very little sense, if you think about it... at all.

The alien fleet inrterrupts the family picnic and imprisons all the “nightmares” under an energy dome, then proceeds to capture the “Nightmare Wizard”. Next, out of all the people on Earth, the aliens decide to invade the dreams of Jed, who we haven’t seen since issue #2. Sandman, monitoring his dreams, suddenly realizes it’s not strange birds he sees but an invasion fleet, and causes Jed to wake up just before the boy is murdered by a fission bomb. I have to wonder—is there some special relationship between Sandman and Jed that none of these stories ever got around to revealing? Apart from Jed being involved in the plots of the first 2 issues and this one, WHAT is it about him that seems to make him special, that things like this should keep happening to him, specifically?

Sandman goes to free the Nightmare Wizard, but is clobbered and finds himself a prisoner as well. “So you’re the famous SANDMAN, are you? Our scholars encountered MENTION of your name while studying EARTH, but we assumed you were only a FAIRY TALE!” As the General leaves, he says, “You might try counting SHEEP! I understand it’s really quite RESTFUL!” “Very funny!” With the help of the Nightmare Wizard, Sandman is able to use his Hypnosonic Whistle to awaken Jed, and bring him into the Dream Stream. Once there, he encounters a bizarre landscape that would do Steve Ditko proud. (In a way, it also sort of reminds me of some of the locations seen in the Gray Morrow SPIDER-MAN cartoons.)

Jed finds Sandman in the cave he’s been imprisoned in, frees him, then uses his yo-yo to knock out the General, who returned a moment before. Sandman then uses his whistle to crack open the energy field imprisoning his “Nightmare” helpers,.and a violent free-for-all erupts, as Brute, Glob and many others take down the alien invaders. Brute in particular displays an affable, likeable personality during the fight, coming across like a pro wrestler who enjoys having an adoring public, and even gets to shout “It’s CLOBBERIN’ time!” (Gee, where have we heard that before?) After, Jed is returned home, where his Grandfather sees him sleeping peacefully.

With this issue, Jack Kirby returned to do the art for the series. By a very wide margin, I’d say this episode was the single most imaginative and visually stunning in the entire 70’s SANDMAN run. The question I have to ask myself is, did Jack Kirby simply take a Michael Fleisher script and go totally wild with it, or did he add or embellish it beyond the plainly obvious spectacular visuals? Either way, this continues to be one totally INSANE series, somewhere between a horror-fantasy and a 1970’s Saturday morning kiddie show. The letters page this time out consists entirely of an autobiographic piece written by Fleisher. I’m also still wondering who really designed the Sandman’s outrageous costume. I suspect it was Jerry Grandenetti, since he was slated to draw the initial episode that was conceived and written by Joe Simon. I can’t help but feel that if Jack Kirby had created this series concept & design from scratch, it would have been a lot better, and a lot more sensible. Then again, I also can’t help but wish he’d spent his time doing something else—like more issues of OMAC.
(9-26-2012)

Okay, this one's a bit overdue...

IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB #1 / Fall 1971

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When Jack Kirby signed with DC Comics in late 1970, one of the ideas he had in mind was a series of magazine-size periodicals that would be aimed at a more adult audience. Among the titles were IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB (a return for Jack to his own days doing violent crime comics in the late 1940’s), SPIRIT WORLD (a look into all things supernatural), SOUL LOVE (a romance comic aimed at black readers) and TRUE DIVORCE CASES. In order to deal with more “mature” themes (and get past the Comics Code) these would be magazine format, like MAD magazine, or NATIONAL LAMPOON. Jack envisioned them as being done in color on glossy paper, with himself as editor and others doing the bulk of the writing and artwork.

However, so typical of DC’s timid, narrow-minded management, they saw Kirby as more sellable as an artist than an editor, and so scaled back his concepts before they ever had a chance. Only one issue apiece was ever published of IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB and SPIRIT WORLD, with Jack doing all the writing and art, they were done on regular newsprint, in black & white, with gray tones added. All of this made them more like the horror magazines of Jim Warren or Skywald, or Marvel’s own later B&W magazine line, than HEAVY METAL (which came about 6 years later). To make it worse, their distributor didn’t seem to know what to do with the books, despite the already-existing presence of MAD, CREEPY, etc. As a result, many who might have wanted to buy them didn’t even know they existed.

The book had a “host”, quite common in EC Comics of the 1950’s, but “WELCOME TO HELL” acted as a “framing sequence” that carried all the way through the magazine, which made it more like one of Milton Subotsky’s anthology horror films from Amicus. One could easily see this entire magazine adapted verbatim into a feature film! Oddly enough, the 3 main stories were all ones that Jack Kirby had done earlier versions of decades before. Of course, it’s quite common for Hollywood to recycle stories with remakes, but in this case, Jack was doing new and very different versions of stories he’d already done himself. (This would put him more in the class with Dan Curtis, who did 3 different versions of the “Barnabas Collins” story in DARK SHADOWS over the years.)

For quick reference...

“MA’S BOYS” was a remake of “Mother Of Crime” from REAL CLUE CRIME STORIES v.2 #4 / Jun’47

“BULLETS FOR BIG AL!” was not a remake, but featured Al Capone, as did “The Case Against Scarface” from JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY #1 / Oct’47

“THE KANSAS CITY MASSACRE” was a remake of “The Strange Aftermath Of The Kansas City Massacre” from HEADLINE #26 / Sep’47.

Jack finished the entire 2nd issue, but it was never published, apart from excerpts that appeared in THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS fanzine. I’d love to see both issues put out as a single oversized book, in color, the way Jack originally intended.

While the book has never been reprinted, I found no less than 3 different blogs which have posted virtually the entire magazine online. Of the three, in my view, the BEST-quality scans posted at the BEST size for reading can be found at The Comic Reading Library. Go there, NOW!

http://comicreadinglibrary.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-days-of-mob-1.html

For more (including links to several other articles and individual stories), go to my blog page. ENJOY!

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2011/07/fourth-world-part-3.html

(9-27-2012)

1st ISSUE SPECIAL #1 / Sep'75 -- "DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET"

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From the blog:

Apparently, the first thing Jack Kirby did after the cancellation of MISTER MIRACLE was DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET, a brand-new "kid gang" strip. They were the latest in a long line, which included The Young Allies, The Newsboy Legion, Boy Commandos, Boy Explorers, Boys' Ranch, Challengers Of The Unknown (never mind they were adults), Fantastic Four (well, they often acted like kids), Avengers (ditto), X-Men (at least they were teenagers), The Howling Commandos (was there really that much difference between them and the Boy Commandos?), and, at DC again, The Forever People. All going back at least to The Dead End Kids / East Side Kids / Bowery Boys for inspiration. As one might expect with the way Kirby would get inspired and excited about a new project, he got 3 whole issues done... but instead of DINGBATS being his newest book, DC shelved it unpublished. Which no doubt "explains" the 6-month stretch where the only Kirby books DC published were new issues of KAMANDI.

This also, no doubt, "explains" why both ATLAS THE GREAT and MANHUNTER only had one issue apiece done (unless there's more that has never surfaced). ATLAS was particularly frustrating for me, as I really got a huge charge out of that story, except for the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger, obviously being intended as a 2-parter. One can only surmise that after DINGBATS got shelved the way it did, Kirby didn't want to waste time doing a 2nd (or 3rd) issue of anything else, UNLESS DC actually indicated they were actually going to put the thing out. So, the next new series to see the light of day was OMAC-- and even there, it was only done as a bi-monthly, another decision by DC that irks me no end.

So, when Carmine Infantino, desperate to find something, anything that might be a hit, hit upon the idea that "1st issues" sell better than 2nd issues, he concocted a new version of SHOWCASE named 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL. Unfortunately, the bulk of the run seems to have been not so much a launching pad for new ideas as a graveyard for already-rejected inventory ("unsold pilots", the TV networks call 'em). And so it was that ATLAS, MANHUNTER, and, finally, DINGBATS saw the light of day. 2 other issues of DINGBATS are known to exist, possibly more. But only one ever came out... (And yet, they put out 6 issues of THE SANDMAN. The mind boggles!!)

Note that on the following pieces, "Non-Fat" is clearly black, while "Good Looks" could be black, Spanish, or even Middle Eastern. Another thing DC vetoed...

DINGBATS concept sketch
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DINGBATS 1 cover pencils
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cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer
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1st ISSUE SPECIAL #1 / Sep’75 – “DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET” / “MEET THE GASSER”

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The 3rd (and final) “rejected” series of Jack Kirby’s to turn up in 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL was actually the first one he started on. On the surface, it’s the latest in a long line of “kid gangs” created by Jack, but this one has more of a humorous slant than most. It has been compared by some fo the TV series WELCOME BACK KOTTER, which debuted on September 9, 1975. However, as the comic came out at least 3 months before that, it’s unlikely Jack was aware of it, unless he was following Hollywood trade news and was aware of its production. However, when one takes into account that Jack came up with his series in early 1974 (right after the abrupt cancellation of MISTER MIRACLE), one might begin to wonder if the TV series was inspired by Jack’s still-unpublished comic! (Mark Evanier, after all, has a long-standing career in Hollywood. Who knows what informatinm might have been passed around?) Despite the resemblance of “Good Looks” to John Travolta’s character “Vinnie Barbarino” (the eyes and the hair!), it seems more likely that DINGBATS may have been inspired by the highly-successful Saturday morning Filmation cartoon series, FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, which debuted on September 30, 1972!

Unlike the Bill Cosby cartoon, Jack Kirby’s series was meant to feature a multi-racial cast. That is, if you look at the concept drawings.

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While “Bananas” remains Chinese, and “Crunch” looks vaguely Norwegian, “Non-Fat” was clearly meant to be black, while “Good Looks” looks either Middle Eastern or perhaps Spanish (Puerto Rican?) or Italian to me. In the published book, we somehow wound up with 3 white characters, and the change in “Non-Fat” (both his facial features and his skin tone) is particularly ridiculous, since anyone READING the story would quickly realize he was supposed to be a BLACK kid!

WHY would someone at DC do this? Then again, WHY would they reject something that was this much FUN? Personally, I suspect it may have been the title that turned someone off. I’m reminded of THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI, a film whose studio had no idea how to promote, and whose title left me seriously disinterested. Until I found myself in a theatre with my best friend, watching it. As soon as the film started, I suddenly understood what it was about, and it went on to become my favorite movie of 1984. Had the film had almost any other title, it might have been a huge success! I feel the same way about DINGBATS. I’d never read this until a few weeks ago, but as soon as I started, I LOVED it. It may be the single most fun comic Jack Kirby did during his entire time at DC.

Kirby actually did 3 entire issues of DINGBATS before he found out that DC decided not to publish it. It’s no wonder on other projects, like ATLAS of MANHUNTER, he only did one episode apiece, despite both pretty much screaming for next installments. This is a real tragedy, and shows just how confused and directionless and lacking in confidence those in charge of DC were. DINGBATS is so much better than, say, THE SANDMAN (a disaster from beginning to end, yet it lasted 7 episodes, 6 of which actually got published before someone pulled the plug).

I’d love to see someone reprint this story, AND include the other 2 stories with it. And if they ever do, I’d love to see Mike Royer “restore” the art so Non-Fat looks black like he’s supposed to be, and is colored that way as well. The world can always do with more laughs.
(10-16-2012)

I know, I usually include a (very detailed) sypnopsis. Not this time. READ the entire story at the Diversions of the Groovy Kind blog. You'll have a blast!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/04/sunday-funnies-jack-kirbys-dingbats-of.html

OMAC #7 / Oct’75 – “THE OCEAN STEALERS!” / “I SPY-- YOU DIE!”

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“ATOMIC BLACKMAIL in the world that’s coming may have NOTHING to do with bombs. Playing with atoms may create a threat unforseen until now.... THE TOTAL THREAT!! THE THREAT TO EARTH’S “LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM”! Listen... the FIRST warning has come. It says... “WHERE HAS ALL THE WATER GONE???” And on the scene to investigate is... OMAC ONE MAN ARMY CORPS”

OMAC find himself walking on the floor of a lake from which, “Every drop of water has VANISHED from this lake... its marine life lies exposed and CRUSHED!!” He then finds a mysterious metal box which is slowly sinking into the ground under its own weight. Incredibly, he finds he can’t lift it, until he’s charged up by Brother Eye in orbit. Even then its massive weight causes him to begin sinking into the ground. From high above, Brother Eye contacts him. “I’ve been analyzing the object! I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!”

Elsewhere, a strangely-designed flying craft drops a rectangular “bar” similar to the one OMAC had so much trouble with into another body of water. In minutes, it causes the atoms of the water to be compressed, until all of the water shrinks and is collected inside the tiny receptacle. It’s then lifted into the flying craft with the aid of a “weight neutralizer” by the villain of the piece—Dr. Scuba. “MADRAS BAY! ...jammed into a HAND-SIZED bar. THINK OF IT! By neutralizing the weight of its compressed atoms ...I CAN LIFT A MILLION TONS OF WATER! They’re MINE for the taking! Lakes... rivers... bays... man’s basic source of survival... water! Yes, the world will PAY to get it back! ...and my price will be HIGH!” His next target to convince the nations is The Atlantic Ocean.

Recovering from his ordeal, OMAC is filled in by a Peace Agent. “A Doctor SANDOR SCUBA! His case history is one of “LONE WOLF” atomic research. He’s a genius... AFFLICTED by an age-old SICKNESS. What Hitler COULDN’T do with great armies... Scuba CAN do with his devilish bars!” “He can FORCE a thirst-parched humanity to its KNEES!”

OMAC leaves in a new craft with unlimited range and no need for re-fueling, completely powered by Brother Eye. Many hours pass as Brother Eye finally gets a fix on Scuba’s possible location, a large volcanic rock in the middle of the ocean. (Oddly enough, it looks just like the hideout of the villain in Jack Kirby’s final JIMMY OLSEN story!) But as he approaches, his vehicle is shattered and twisted by some force, and he leaps out and plunges into the water below. (The sequence actually reminds me of a similar scene in the film BATMAN AND ROBIN. I strongly feel Hollywood loves ripping off Jack Kirby, but without ever acknowledging the source material.)

Scuba has been tracking OMAC’s approach and continues to do so, identifies him by the destroyed aircraft as a being from the Global Peace Agency, and tells his daughter and son-in-law that HE will deal with the intruder himself. His “indicators” also tell him, “Someone ELSE has been working with atoms. I don’t know who it is... BUT I CAN TELL YOU THIS... our visitor is like YOU TWO!! A creature of MANIPULATED, UNSABLE ATOMS.”

As Scuba continues to follow OMAC’s progress on a wall-sized screen (which is very reminiscent of “Number Two” on THE PRISONER), he aims a “sinister machine” at the image. “A little adjusting... a little refining... of power intensity... that’s ALL it should take. Then the same thing will happen to HIM... as it would to YOU TWO! A REVERSION TO ORIGINAL FORM!” OMAC crawls over the rock as Brother Eye continues to scan for signs of Scuba’s whearbouts. “Suddenly a powerful electronic shock wave surges from the rock and engulfs Omac!!! Omac’s body becomes a JAGGED sheet of internal FIREWORKS!” When it’s over, OMAC has become Buddy Blank again—with no memory of ever being OMAC, and no idea where he is! (HORRORS!!)


I recently read a fascinating, if long-winded, yet very downbeat and disturbing blog article about how the Global Peace Agency “murdered” Buddy Blank when they turned him, against his will, into OMAC. I wonder if the person who wrote that review of OMAC #1 ever read this far? Jack Kirby had already hinted in an earlier letters page that OMAC might turn back into Buddy Blank at some point. Well, now it’s happened!

Two different fan letters this time touch on the problem of people having trouble finding copies of OMAC on the newsstands, perhaps due to “fans” buying multiple copies of the first issue and not leaving any for “casual” readers.

This continues to be my favorite of all Jack’s early-70’s DC work. I really wish DC had made it a monthly. It’s criminal there’s so few issues, while Kirby continued to crank out so many other things, including a growing number of books written by other (and vastly-inferior) writers.
(10-18-2012)

THE SHADOW #11 / Jul’75 – “THE NIGHT OF THE AVENGER!”

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“There are many forms of EVIL and many forms of GOOD in the world! At some point, the difference between the two becomes LOST in a nebulous CLOUD of idologies! On THIS night, it will be difficult to PIERCE that cloud-- villain will claw at VILLAIN... crusader will clutch at crusader! On THIS night, the UNKNOWN will merge with the MACABRE! On THIS night-- THE NIGHT OF THE AVENGER!”

In Chinatown at night, someone runs carrying a message. They’re shot in the back while passing it on to a cab driver, whose cab is smashed into by another car as he’s driving away. Someone else grabs the message from him, and, “seconds later, in a place that men say DOESN’T exist”, it’s handed to The Shadow. (“SECONDS later”???) So much for the first page of the story—which is told in such choppy shorthand, you just know there’s too few pages to do whatever story this is going to be any justice.

Munitions are going missing, and the rumor is someone is putting together an “underground army”. As The Shadow briefs his top agents, their meeting is interrupted by machine-gun fire. Using his mind-control power, he causes two of the thugs to leap in terror thru a window to their deaths. A third is revealed to be “Smitty”—the right-hand of The Avenger, who seems to be in a trance.

Elsewhere, Richard Benson talks with his aide, MacMurdie. A General Milberg has informed him of missing weapons, just before they’re attacked by a woman who also seems to be in a trance—Margo Lane.

The trail leads to the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, where a crew of Asians are looking over a stockpile of torpedoes, planning to use them on the Brookyn Navy Yard. The Shadow bursts in, and confronting one of the thugs at the top of the lighthouse, the man tries to see who he’s really fighting, and is suddenly terrorized by something he calls “The Dark Eagle”—before leaping to his death in fear! Below, The Shadow tells his men to prepare for the arrival of a submarine. At that moment, The Avenger and his group, Justice Inc., arrive, and the two sets of vigilantes get into a struggle. (Gee, it’s MARVEL TEAM-UP all over again!) On finding his foe has a “face that is mallable like clay”, The Shadow realizes he’s fighting with Richard Benson, a fellow crime-fighter. He introduces himself... “I am... The SHADOW! I destroy CRIME!”

Ordering both captives brought forth, The Shadow uses his mental powers to pierce their minds, and discovers they’re being controlled by someone else, who knows of his powers. Just then their foe reveals himself—Shiwan Khan, who gained powers in the far East just as The Shadow did. A shootout erupts between Khan’s men and the combined forces of the two vigilante groups. The Shadow grabs Khan, and the pair vanish in a bright explosion of light! Benson tosses a grenade into the open hatch of Khan’s sub, blowing it sky-high. No one’s sure what happened to The Shadow, though some suspect they didn’t see whatever it was that really happened. Minutes later, he walks from the water.

“Khan—is he DEAD?” “I would be a CYNIC to say NO... but I would be a FOOL to say YES!” “KHAN’s scheme for military DOMINATION MUST be kept in check! My people will maintain that VIGILANCE!” “There is MUCH EVIL in the world! DESPITE your approach, you can be of help! You MAY continue your operation, AVENGER!” “MAY?! He MAY?! WHO do you think...” But The Shadow has vanished!

“The NERVE of that man! He’s NUTS, I tell ya! He’s plain NUTS!” “Maybe... I only HOPE that he doesn’t OVER-STEP the bounds of justice with his BRUTAL man-hunt... or else, insane or NOT... he will have to be STOPPED by JUSTICE INC.!”


While the character of The Shadow really got its start as a pulp magazine series, its greatest fame was no doubt as a radio show. I recall reruns of the radio show airing on a local station here in the early 70’s, around the same time as DC Comics was doing their version. I bought very few DC’s at the time (mostly BATMAN reprints from the 40’s & 50’s), but I do remember seeing it on racks at my drugstore. My first encounter with the book was when my best friend Jim loaned me his copy of issue #6, “NIGHT OF THE NINJA”. (He was big into the martial arts fad.) DC’s series ran a mere 12 issues, and some years later I managed to pick up the complete run, CHEAP! I even got a copy of BATMAN #253 (Nov’73), a crossover that came out the same month as THE SHADOW #1, as a promotional tie-in.

Which brings me to issue #11. One month before, JUSTICE, INC. #1 had debuted. In between that and issue #2, The Avenger and his people (most of whom had not been introduced in his own book yet) appeared in this crossover, once again as a promotional tie-in. Oddly enough, between Joe Kubert, Alden McWilliams, Michael Kaluta and E.R. Cruz, 4 different artists had drawn The Avenger before Jack Kirby took over his book with #2.

My own feeling is that THE SHADOW didn’t last because it failed to maintain a consistent creative line-up (the sort of thing DC was known for in the 50’s & 60’s, but which virtually vanished in the 70’s). While Denny O’Neil (DC’s “glory boy” in the 70’s, as their main Batman writer) edited the entire run and wrote 10 of the 12 issues, Len Wein wrote dialogue for one of his, while Michael Uslan filled in with stories for 2 others. In addition. While Michael Kaluta was the book’s main artist, doing 5 out of its first 6 issues plus covers, 3 others were by Frank Robbins, while the last 3 were by E.R. Cruz. Now, going from an artist with a style like Kaluta to someone like Cruz, or Berni Wrightson (who inked #3) might have made sense for visual consistency, but tossing Frank Robbins into that pool was madness incarnate. It would be like going from Dick Sprang to Neal Adams—or vice versa. The change was just TOO jarring to accept!

Further, trying to do complex stories in a mere 20 pages (or 18 in the case of the last 4 issues) is also foolhardy. Stories tend to be choppy, cramped, borderline-incoherent and just plain unsatisfying on every level. Plus, as seen by the samples I included above, the dialogue in this thing is just AWFUL. (And hey, after reading the story, I realized there was no scene in it where “villain clawed at villain”. Did Denny O’Neil bother to read the story he wrote?) I’ve seen people rave about how “brilliant” Will Eisner used to for telling such complex SPIRIT stories in a mere 8 or 7 pages, but that’s avoiding the fact that in his particular, peculiar format, he HAD to. With a monthly comic-book, this was no longer the case. It’s no wonder at this point, Marvel was kicking DC’s ass.


I was about 75% done cleaning up my scan of the cover when I noticed that the sky background was NOT black, but more like a 95% gray. What the heck was the point of that? I’ve seen several covers from this period where the background colors got SO dark, it obliterated background line detail. In this case, the only thing blotted out by this excessively-dark graytone, apart from the solid BLACK borders around the logo lettering, was Kaluta’s signature. (It’s no wonder there was such confusion at the GCD site over who the artist was! I could see the signature—JUST BARELY! But I doubt anyone else did.) As I’ve done before, I went in on a separate layer and CRANKED up the background color, which turned out to be a very deep red. It may not be “accurate” to the actual printed book—but it my opinion, it’s BETTER, and it’s how the thing probably should have looked if someone in DC’s production department hadn’t screwed it up in the first place.

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Further, the text, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”, by rights, should have been white or yellow letters over the dark background, NOT black letters in a pale yellow box. DC’s covers around this time were a nightmare of “bad design”—and in mid-1975, they got even worse! But another design snafu cropped up here. After I cranked up the background color, I kept staring at the upper-right area of the cover, wondering, WHAT THE HECK was that yellow area there for? At first, I thought some colorist had REALLY screwed up. But then it hit me... it’s the LIGHT from the LIGHTHOUSE! Why did it take so long for me to realize this? Because the top of the lighthouse, the lamp itself, was completely COVERED over by the book’s LOGO! Plus, the light itself has the Comics Code stamp on top of it. Bad, BAD design!!! And in this case, it’s all Michael Kaluta’s fault.
(10-22-2012)

JUSTICE, INC. #3 / Oct’75 – “THE MONSTER BUG!”

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“In a world teetering on the bring of WAR... there are many unscrupulous men willing to take advantage of the world’s misery... None are more evil than COLONEL SODOM, once defeated by the SHADOW, now determined to RETURN --and clash with JUSTICE, INC.”

Colonel Sodom barges into the drugstore owned by Fergus MacMurdie, a Nobel Prize winner who shuns the spotlight. Knowing he’s a genius, Sodom insists MacMurdie analyze a sample of germ warfare he has, so Sodom can manufacture more. Refusing, a fight breaks out, which is interrupted by The Avenger, who says he’s been on Sodom’s trail ever since the “mercenary and murderer” escaped The Shadow’s agents (in THE SHADOW #5). Seeing as The Avenger never even heard of The Shadow until THE SHADOW #11, I figure any continuity in these books is loose at best. When Sodom threatens The Avenger with the test-tube containing his germ culture, Benson doesn’t seem to realize the danger, and MacMurdie interrupts, prompting Benson to ask, “Are you insane?” Just then Fergus’ wife steps between them, the test tube falls, shatters, and the woman instantly mutates into a horrible monster!! As she attacks Sodom, he shoots her point blank, killing her.

As Sodom escapes, MacMurdie vows revenge. Benson introduces him to his friend, Josh, and tells him, “We’re part of an ORGANIZATION, JUSTICE, INCORPORATED! Our mission is to DESTROY crime-- ALL crime! You could be a PART of us!” He accepts, and is soon at the headquarters, working in a lab to create an antidote to Sodom’s germ culture. As he does, he, Josh and Josh’s wife Rosabel compare notes on MacMurdie, and on Richard Benson. The Avenger’s dug up info on Allan Ash, another of the world’s leading chemists, who he believes will be Sodom’s next target. Perfect bait to catch the baddie, so Benson disguises himself as Ash. He, Josh and Smitty then attend a widely-publicised auto show, and sure enough, Sodom makes a play to kidnap “Ash”, not knowing his target is an imposter. A scuffle erupts, another test tube shatters, and this time, several members of the crowd are all turned into monsters. (Looks to me like The Avenger is almost causing more harm than good in this story!)

Leaving the scene before the cops arrive, the group manages to grab one of Sodom’s men, who spills that he’s hiding at Tiro’s Gun Shop on Madison Ave. Sodom sends two thugs to grab Ash, but they run into Josh instead. The well-spoken Smitty asks him how such a highly-educated man can “pretend to be stupid”. Josh replies, “I’ve had plenty of PRACTICE! My people have been practicing for TWO HUNDRED YEARS!” Now that sounds like Denny O’Neil’s writing. Leave it to him to include heavy-handed moralizing of this sort, even in a story set in the 1930’s where it comes across as totally anachronistic.

Soon, Benson & MacMurdie have spotted Sodom outside the Gun Shop, in the only visually spectacular Jack Kirby cityscape panel in the entire book. A quartet of thugs tries to ambush them, but Benson’s ready with his miniature gun “Mike”, “creasing their skulls”, as he puts it, because he prefers to avoid killing whenever possible. If only they could have avoided those supposedly “cute” nicknames for his weapons, I find them somehow very annoying.

Sodom also tries to ambush the good guys, but MacMurdie, enraged over the death of his wife, charges, and catches a bullet in his arm. Benson hurls his throwing knife, pinning Sodom’s arm momentarily to a wall. Sodom hurls his last test tube, which has no effect on the heroes, as MacMurdie had succeeded in finding an antidote to prevent it having any effect on them. Yanking Benson’s knife loose and charging, Sodom’s less lucky, as he runs right thru the fumes, turns into a monster himself, goes insane, and dives thru an open window to his death. It’s very odd how the fight supposedly took place on the 2nd floor, yet the view of him falling makes it looks like the window was several floors higher than that.

With this issue, Denny O’Neil elected to start writing original stories rather than trying to continue adapting novels into 18 pages. The change definitely helps, though the ending on this is so abrupt, it feels like there’s a a page missing, and all the small panels continue to show that trying to do complete stories with a cast this size in only 18 pages is still not working. On the plus side, I definitely feel Jack Kirby & Mike Royer are doing terrific work here, far better than what I’m seeing on OUR FIGHTING FORCES, KUNG FU FIGHTER or THE SANDMAN. After 4 other artists on The Avenger between his own book and his guest-shot in THE SHADOW #11 (Joe Kubert, Alden McWilliams, Michael Kaluta and E.R. Cruz—if you count the covers), Jack Kirby’s work totally blew away all previous versions of the characters. His Smitty is a HUGE improvement over the one by McWilliams and Cruz. They made him seem overweight and rubbery, almost like “Flouder” from the movie ANIMAL HOUSE. Kirby’s Smitty is big, and looks strong enough to be someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.

As I said before, JUSTICE, INC. is so obviously a 2nd-ran series, I think Kirby’s art and visual storytelling (cramped as it was) was a much-needed shot-in-the-arm to try and bring some life, some pep, some zing, some excitement to this concept. On that score, I’m reminded of Jack’s late-50’s run on GREEN ARROW, where he described his ambition to “make something workable out of this thing”. I still wish Kirby had done DOC SAVAGE instead. I can’t shake the feeling he’d have been an even better fit on that, and probably would have put to shame every other artist’s version seen at Marvel in the 70’s. I wonder how this might have been if Jack had done the writing himself?
(10-24-2012)


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The best cover image I could find for this was from Heritage Auction, but the entire thing had somehow gone very "green", and it took some careful adjustments to get the colors to look reasonable decent. On top of that, the thin paper caused ink from the other side to show thru, making most of the pale blue background look "dirty". It took a lot of "copy and paste" to fix that. Ditto the dark blue in the logo area, which had a lot of white specks from color drop-outs. Oh well, MUCH better now!

THE SANDMAN #5 / Nov’75 – “THE INVASION OF THE FROG MEN!”

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Jed and his grandfather are out on the old man’s fishing boat. Grandpa explains to Jed how he follows flocks of birds who feed on small fish to know where the bigger fish are also to be found. But moments after making a big catch, their boat is wrecked by what can only be described as a sea serpent! (Oddly enough, as there is no narration on the splash page, and that page depicts what appears to have happened in between pages 1 & 3, I suspect someone may have reversed the pages for publication.) Seeing his friend in trouble, Sandman enters the real world and tries to save the pair. Jed makes it safely to shore, and Sandman eventually manages to scare the monster off, but too late. By the time Sandman gets the old man to the beach, he’s dead.

Oddly enough, there is no explanation for the existence of the sea monster, or why it happened to attack their boat, or what happened to it after it swam away. Are we to assume there are things like that just swimming around the DC universe, and nobody takes much notice of them?

Later, as Jed reminisces about his grandfather, Sandman gives him one of his “special” whistles, saying if he ever needs his help, to blow it. He then departs. Days later, he’s surprised by a visit from his Aunt Clarice and Uncle Barnaby, who have never taken the time to visit the island before. From the first, Clarince seems like a nasty, mean-spirited person, as she keeps referring to the boy’s grandfather as “frittering his life away” and calling him a “good for nothing old man”. Hardly the sort of person one would want to spend time with, and yet on hearing the terrible news, insists the boy can’t continue living alone on Dolphin Island. She tells him about their farm, and their two children about his age and invites him to come live with them.

It quickly turns into a nightmarish living hell on Earth. The two kids, Susan and Bruce, turn out to be surly, insulting teenagers who put down Jed at every turn. The family eats their fill of good food while Jed is forced to eat nothing but oatmeal. Jed’s forced to do more than his “share” of farm chores while Bruce claims he’s hurt his ankle, and Susan is excused for being a “mere girl”. And then Bruce obsesses on Jed’s whistle. “Hey, JED! What’cha wearin’ around your NECK? Can I SEE it?” “I-it’s nothing, Bruce! Just an old—“ “”Why, it looks like a WHISTLE! A NEAT one! I WANT it!” “Leave it alone, Bruce!” “You’re SELFISH! It’s not FAIR for you to have shiny whistle like THAT one while I haven’t got ANY!” “Now LOOKS, Bruce! You let GO!” “If you’re not going to let me HAVE it, I’m going to TAKE it!” “Wha--?” “There! Now I’VE got the whistle and I’m not going to give it back, EVER!” What is this guy—some kind of inbred mental retard? When Jed defends himself from an attack by knocking Bruce over, Aunt Clarice accuses him of “senseless violence”. She sets him the task of chopping an enormous pile of wood, with the threat of no dinner that night if he doesn’t finish.

Somehow, it was one thing to see this kind of mental and physical abuse on children in Granny Goodness’ “orphanage”. Here, in a more “real world” setting, it seems somehow even more repellant and unpleasant. While Jack Kirby tended to populate his stories with characters of all stripes, somehow, when it comes to Michael Fleisher, he just writes nasty, unlikable characters for the sake of it.

Jed’s only reprise comes when he falls asleep, and The Sandman arrives, asking for his help on a mission—to asnother planet! “Within moments the tiny island kingdom of the peace-loving winged people is embroiled in mortal combat with the forces of the viscious frog men---“ They take the battle to the frog men’s undersea kingdom, and eventually triumph. You know, if the whole book was like this, I wouldn’t have minded. But then Jed wakes up—and as far as we can tell—just like the MGM film version of THE WIZARD OF OZ—it was all a dream! His Aunt Clarice accuses him of falling asleep on the job, until she sees the entire massive wood pile has been chopped up and neatly stacked, a virtually impossible job. “How on Earth did you EVER manage to CUT ia all?” Her question exposes the fact that she intended it to be imposible. Unseen by both of them, Brute puts back the axe he borrowed, and he and Glob laugh together.

This was just one extremely unpleasant, thoroughly pointless comic-book story. I know Michael Fleisher has some fans out there, but I wonder if any of them ever read these books? Or if they even have any decent taste, for that matter? All I know is, just about every Fleisher comic I’ve ever read has been nasty and mean-spirited, with virtually no positve elements to balance it out. This includes his famous (or is that “infamous”?) run of THE SPECTRE, done with artist Jim Aparo, which consisted of issue after issue of villains getting hacked to pieces in various gruesome ways.

The art from Jack Kirby & Mike Royer is very nice, considering the story content. How on Earth Jack Kirby found himself teamed up with Fleisher, in this situation, is beyond me. How on Earth DC continued to publish this book (well, for awhile, anyway) while MISTER MIRACLE was cancelled, DINGBATS was relegated to a single apearance in 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL, and OMAC remained a bi-monthly, is also baffling beyond belief.

Incidentally, the Frog Men, though they played only a tiny part of the story (and it would appear did not really exist except in Jed’s dream) remind me a bit of the Toad Men from THE INCREDIBLE HULK #2.

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(10-25-2012)

OMAC #8 / Dec’75 – “HUMAN GENIUS VS. THINKING MACHINE” / “PLACE OF FEAR”

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“A YOUNG MAN CRIES FOR HELP! He has awakened and found himself in a nightmare situation--- his plea is picked up b a great orbiting satellite high above the Earth--- it is the most advanced machine ever built by man--- it knows his problem and can help--- this and MORE can happen in--- THE WORLD THAT’S COMING”

“It is the age of atom manipulation--- and this is one of the many functions of the satellite “BROTHER EYE”. It moves within one of its mechanical divisions and emerges with a molecular “STRUCTURE PRINT” of OMAC, THE ONE-MAN ARMY CORPS.”

“STAND BY! This “structure print” will CHANGE you--- and give you NEW memory and strength!” Below, OMAC has been reverted by Dr. Skuba back to Buddy Blank, with no memories of his entire time as OMAC. He stands atop a rocky crag in the middle of the ocean. Suddenly, Buddy’s atoms are manipulated further, and he sinks straight down into the rock itself. From above, the electronic beam sent by Brother Eye arrives too late. Sensing this, the satellite prepares to make new calculations.

Below, Buddy solidifies, a “guest” of Dr. Skuba, his daughter and her husband Apollo. The pair take Buddy on a guided tour of their base, hidden inside the rock. “Poppa is the SMARTEST man in the world! That’s why he wants to RUN it--- all by himself---“ “B-but that’s IMPOSSIBLE--- NO man has ever done it---“ “Poppa can do ANYTHING he wants to—“ Meanwhile, Brother Eye has made visual contact—but Skuba has noticed. “WHO ARE YOU? I KNOW you’re monitoring us, my indicators tell me so! ANSWER ME! Identify yourself and tell me how you PENETRATED my atomic hideout!” Brother Eye answers... “YOU’RE A TRAITOR TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, SKUBA! YOU’VE USED YOUR SKILLS TO BLACKMAIL MANKIND AND BRING IT TO ITS KNEES--- BUT ALL THAT IS AT AN END NOW!” “You DARE to speak this way to ME--!?” “SURRENDER TO THE GLOBAL PEACE AGENCY--- OR MY WORDS SHALL SOON BE FOLLOWED BY ACTION! You have ten minutes to decide---“ Skuba’s computer soon reveal that his enemy is a machine...

Buddy is shown a collection of monsters, which Apollo says used to be human. Skuba’s daughter reveals that she and her husband also had “atomic manipulation” used on them, which angers Apollo. “Your father’s a twisted old FIEND!” “Is that so? Well, after what he did for you and me, I’d HARDLY call that gratitude!” “It’s a high price to pay for marrying a “FEATHER-BRAIN” like you--- at least these men had the COURAGE to turn you down—“ Clearly, more is going on here than is obvious.

Skuba interrupts, with a gun. “I-I’ve done nothing to harm you-- ! ---NOTHING!” “I DON’T fear what you are, Buddy Blank--- but what you can BECOME is ANOTHER matter! You can be made into a POWERFUL instrument for what I detest most! --the law and order of LESSER men! Your allies will NEVER get the chance to CHANGE you into a power!” But before Skuba can fire, an invisible beam destroyes his pistol. Buddy runs for it! As Apollo gives chase, Brother Eye sends out his “FINAL untimatum”. “SURRENDER, Skuba!” “I’ll see you in HADES first, ---machine!” “Then I MUST get you ANY way I can! My weaponry is now primed to PENETRATE your atomic shield! Prepare for the END, Skuba!”

Brother Eye uses a magnetic wave to hurl heavy metal cannisters at Skuba, barely missing killing him! “Doctor Skuba is beset by danger from every direction---!” “My equipment has been turned AGAINST me! They’ve become weapons of DEATH!” Whoa. Brother Eye isn’t messing around here. But Skuba’s computers trace the source of the beam, and he knows his enemy is orbiting in space. Using his equipment, Skuba strikes back. Beams sent into space attract meteors and space debris... “The huge satellite is subjected to a MURDEROUS bombardment! Swarms of space rock gather and fly in a CONTINUOUS rain! Brother Eye has becme a GIGANTIC magnet which is ATTRACTING its own destruction! The satellite is soon COVERED by crushing rock! It is BLIND and fighting to survive--- Suddenly, a beam of SOLAR intensity roars out from Earth--- it HEATS the stones which cover Brother Eye--- what was space rock becomes a molten, seething, FIREY mass--- It finally cools--- Brother Eye is now HELPLESS and SILENT, in a prison of slag---“

HOLY S***!!! What a cliffhanger!!!!!


What an wild, intense, exciting comic-book. We got to see more of the inner workings and design of Brother Eye than ever before. And with OMAC out of the picture for the entire issue (the nerve!), that wondrous hunk of machinery took on more personality than in any previous episode. As the story expanded, and we got to see more hints of what Dr. Skuba is about, the battle of wits—and technology—raged more and more. It’s interesting that while the Global Peace Agents go to great lengths never to take a human life, Brother Eye apparently has no such scruples, especially if the stakes are high enough. I think Jack really succeeded in making a “character” out of Brother Eye this time, a fitting, and far more dynamic and exciting successor to “HAL 9000” from 2001, or “S.I.D.” from UFO.

The sequence with the boulders being attracted to and covering Brother Eye remind me of a similar scene in the 1st season of STAR BLAZERS (which would have aired in Japan a year before this, but been totally unknown un America—or was it?), and also, of another scene in the Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO story, “UNDERWORLD”. In this case, though, you’re really left wondering, HOW will Brother Eye get out of his / its predicament?

What’s that? You say I’m forgetting something? Oh yeah... Jack Kirby left DC before finishing what was OBVIOUSLY a 3-part story. You’d think somebody at DC would have realized what was going on and switched assignments around, so Jack could have done one more issue of OMAC, instead of some of the other books he was doing at the time. I doubt anyone would have missed an episode of THE SANDMAN, for example. Anyway, with the knowledge that Jack was leaving, and that OMAC was not selling that great (WHAT did they expect from a BI-monthly???), someone decided to replace the LAST panel of the story. What we wound up was the following... “But below, the effort has caused an overload in Dr. Skuba’s equipment... the island EXPLODES in a gigantic fireball...” “WHAROOM” “...and his very success brings destruction to the evil Skuba!” “Is this—THE END?” REALLY. Are we supposed to believe that Brother Eye is permanently out of action—and that Buddy Blank was KILLED along with the baddies? All without us learning more of what else was going on down on that island? What a load.

To add insult to injury, the final issue has one really UGLY Joe Kubert cover, which, as someone online said, just does not fit the look or style of this book.

The letters page has the following: “Unfortunately, this issue wraps up the saga of the world that’s coming. Jack will be moving on to other companies and other projects, and OMAC will be going on the shelf.” Also... “Just before Jack decided to leave we began to plan a revival of the NEW GODS, and those plans will still be going ahead. Watch for NEW GODS #12 at your local newsstand sometime this winter.” This makes me wonder... was Jack part of those plans? Of course, once he left, DC went on without him. A massive shame, considering how unusual and “personal” the entire overall story was.

As for OMAC... I’ll jump ahead here to say that he WAS revived, as it happens, in the very last issue if KAMANDI. DC had huge plans for what they called “The DC Explosion”, which involved adding new back-up features to most of their books, upping the page count and cover price in the process. I guess it was fitting that OMAC be revived as a back-up in KAMANDI. Editor Jack C. Harris had already spent a number of issues of KAMANDI trying to tie in the future worlds of both series (despite the high probability that they were always intended to stand entirely on their own). The man involved was Jim Starlin, who’d made his mark at Marvel turing CAPTAIN MAR-VELL into a “Fourth World” swipe, and WARLOCK, which continued the adventures of another character originally created by Kirby, along with a villain who many have compared to Marvel’s version of Darkseid.

Insanely, Starlin elected to pick up EXACTLY where OMAC #8 left off, then steer the series in an entirely new and different direction. While impressive, in retrospect it was just “wrong” on so many levels that these days I tend to wish it had never happened. And to make things worse, after only one episode came out, business reversals caused “The DC Implosion”, as around half their line was cancelled overnight. Starlin had done 4 episodes before he got the news. The other 3 finally saw the light of day 2 years later, as a back-up in Mike Grell’s WARLORD series. Following those, newcomers Dan Mishin, Gary Cohn & Greg LaRocque (along with our old buddy Vince Colletta) attempted to continue. Again, in retrospect, I realized they were trying to steer the series—by force—BACK to Jack’s original intention. But between being totally at odds with the Starlin episodes they followed, and the new guys just not quite being up to it in the talent department, the series was doomed. OMAC later turned up in a Superman crossover by Len Wein & George Perez, before John Byrne put his trademark stamp on a 4-issue prestige format mini-series, which, depanding on your tastes, was either fabulous, or the final nail in the coffin. I have to shake my head at someone who keeps thinking they know how to handle various series better than the people who orignally created them.

In recent years, the concept of OMAC has, in one form or another, been kept alive (no doubt for Trademark purposes), but each use of the name and idea seems a further bastardization than the one before it. With ONE exception, which I’ll be getting to soon, when I cover Dek Baker & Davis Morris’ 2002 FANZINE.
(10-27-2012)

JUSTICE, INC. #4 / Dec’75 – “SLAY RIDE IN THE SKY”

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Commercial airliners have been crashing. Richard Benson, with Josh & Fergus MacMurdie, are following one in their own plane, when they see a squad of sea gulls attack the plane in front of them. Incredibly, it explodes, and then the remaining birds attack their own plane with the same result. After bailing out, they swim toward the wreckage of the first plane, hoping to help survivors. A speedboat arrives, but the men onboard machine-gun those in the water! The trio manage to climb onboard and over-power the killers. One of them reveals they were paid to shoot the surivors and make off with any loot they could find. Josh & MacMurdie search for clues.

Later, at the HQ of Justice, Inc., in his lab, MacMurdie discovers the explosive used was tintabulum, a brand-new compound made by Olympia Laboratories, and not even on the market yet. Benson & Smitty pay a visit to Jason Lynn, the company’s owner, who admits he’s sold small qualtities of the material for test purposes. Before he can say more, birds attack his office, killing him in an explosion. But Benson finds in the company records that the customer was Trans-Am Airlines, the very company whose planes have been destroyed. Disguising himself as Lynn, Benson next pays a visit on Rufus Comb, Trans’Am’s chairman. He tries to bluff Comb with a blackmail demand, but Comb gets the drop on him, having expected his visit since Lynn’s secretary was on his payroll!

Benson & Smitty find themselves prisoners onboard Comb’s private blimp, where he reveals that his company was in dire financial trouble, and the insurance money from the destroyed planes is going to set him up on Easy Street. As he leaves to escape via biplane (with no concern that his own men will be killed along with Benson & Smitty), the pair gets loose and a fight breaks out. Benson grabs hold of the biplane just as it tears out of the airborne hangar, and he & Comb struggle for control of the aircraft. Smitty dives out of the blimp as it explodes from the latest bird attack, and Benson pilots the biplane under him to stop his fall. But in doing so, Comb is hurled out and falls to his death. Not even an epilogue marks his death.


It strikes me that Denny O’Neil, realizing the extreme limitations of only 18 pages to tell a story, combined with Jack Kirby’s hyper-exciting artwork, demanded that he SIMPLIFY the stories he was telling. He succeeded admirably in this issue. For the first time, Jack Kirby had room enough to do bigger panels and show off what he could do with action. Had the series continued, we might have seen some terrific stuff. Instead, when Kirby departed, DC cancelled the book. I still feel it was sabotaged from the beginning by trying to cram too much story into too few pages, and artwork that was both cramped and pedestrian. By the time Jack Kirby came onboard (the 2nd issue but already The Avenger’s 3rd DC appearance), he was already the 5th artist to draw the character, and the damage had probably already been done. How do you start a new series WITHOUT bothering to get a creative team committted to doing it long-term? DC did this a LOT around this time... as did Marvel.

Comparing this issue to some of Kirby’s other work done at the same time, I have to say, this was some of the BEST-looking Kirby-Royer art I’ve seen since the “Fourth World” books were cancelled. The two were really kicking ass, and I have to figure Jack was inspired to be doing a book set in the 1930’s without any long-underwear types around. And as I’ve mentioned before, his Smitty is much more impressive (and tolerable) than the version done by McWilliams or Cruz. I have to admit, this time out, even Joe Kubert’s cover wasn’t bad, one of his better efforts from around this time, where he’d taken over doing more than 75% of Kirby’s covers.

It’s too bad this didn’t last longer. Around this time, Marvel was regularly in the habit of doing long, continued storylines, while DC seemed to focus almost exclusively on short, complete-in-one-issue stories. It would have been nice to see a JUSTICE, INC. story given 2 or 3 issues to “breathe”.

If memory serves, the next time The Avenger and JUSTICE, INC. surfaced in comics was in the late 80’s, in a 2-issue prestige format mini-series done by Andy Helfer & Kyle Baker, fresh from their wild (if somewhat disastrous) run on THE SHADOW. I loved their work on THE SHADOW, but their JUSTICE, INC. left me cold—especially the bizarre, “vague” paint style Baker used, where you could hardly see what you were looking at in any of the panels.
(10-29-2012)

Nick Caputo does a terrific blog post on THE LOSERS. Check it out!!!


http://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2012/10/kirbys-losers-personal-journey-into-hell.html

THE SANDMAN #6 / Jan’76 – “THE PLOT TO DESTROY WASHINGTON D.C.”

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Jed has a nightmare about drowning, which The Sandman picks up in his Dream Dome. (Doesn’t this guy have anything better to do than monitor the SAME kid every night?) His monitors show it’s coming from an “unauthorized source”, and he enters the fantasy world of Jed’s nightmare, only to find an android in place of the real Jed—one which explodes, leaving him floating unconscious in water.

The villain of the piece turns out to be Dr. Spider, who’s operating out of a large submarine disguised to look like a sea monster (which anyone who saw the cover already knew). His men capture Sandman, then replace him with an android duplicate, who’s sent to lure Brute & Glob to the same fate. But Brute figures out something’s not kosher and stays behind. Spider explains to Glob that his “Dimenso-Craft” is capable of moving between reality and the dream dimension. With the Sandman’s hypno-sonic whistle in his hands, he plans to contact the President with an ultimatum...

Meanwhile, Jed continues to be worked like a slave by his relatives. They plan to visit a carnival, but tell Jed “Someone has to stay BEHIND and mind the FARM! Maybe NEXT year when the carnival comes BACK again!”, before laying out an endless list of chores for him to do, all by himself. Bruce offers to led Jed go in his place, providing his gives him his whistle. (What IS it with this brain-dead idiot’s obsession with Jed’s freaking whistle???) Later that night, Bruce gets what’s coming to him, when he steals Jed’s whistle, then blows it—and suddenly, Brute appears, with a sack full of “vile things” that scare the living hell out of the creep!! (Good for him.) Brute then wakes up Jed, and recruits his help.

Dr. Spider is infuriated when, on the news, the report of his ultimatum to Gerald Ford is treated like a joke! (Nobody believes in something as silly as “The Sandman” or his “whistle”. WHO WOULD?) “I’ll show them what it means to TRIFLE with a true MASTER of EVIL!” Spider plans to use the whistle to destroy Washington, D.C.! Sandman breaks free of his glass prison and tackles the baddies, but is overcome, tied up and tossed into the ocean, where a hungry shark approaches....

Brute & Jeb arrive, and Brute tackles with the fake Sandman, before Spider captures both of them. The real Sandman, however, has gotten loose, fought off the shark, and made his way back, crashing in and freeing Brute, Jed & Glob. Spider sics a robot on Sandman, but the power of his whistle melts it to slag! Spidey then escapes in a missile. Despite Glob’s urgings to destroy it, Sandman declines. “It’s always WRONG to take a human LIFE, even when it’s an EVIL lifge like DOCTOR SPIDER’s!” “Dope!”, replies Brute. (No kidding.) At the farm, everyone scoffs at Bruce’s story about the monster that terrorized him the night before... except for Jed, who for once has something to smile about.

Another ridiculous story in an entire series of ridiculous stories. This one, I must admit, was a bit more tolerable than most, no doubt due to the presence of Wally Wood! 5 years earlier, when Jack Kirby arrived at DC, Wood actually requested to be assigned to ink one of Jack’s new books. Just think—the team that did CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and SKY MASTERS OF THE SPACE FORCE could have been reunited to do NEW GODS, or, more likely I would have thought, FOREVER PEOPLE. (Why have Wood on a book without a pretty woman in it, like Beautiful Dreamer?) But Carmine Infantino TURNED HIM DOWN, saying he had “commitments” to Vince Colletta. (GRRRRR.) Finally, 5 years later—and on one of the LAST books Jack did for DC before going back to Marvel—we finally got to see Kirby inked by Wood again. Although Wood has often been described (or accused) of being “over-powering”, I never saw that as a problem on his 2 previous Kirby projects (or with anyone else for that matter). I still recall thinking that when he was teamed with Don Heck, there seemed more Heck in the art than Wood. But this time, it looks more like 25% Kirby, 75% Wood. It makes me wonder if Jack didn’t just do very rough layouts, knowing Wood could pick up the slack? As much as I love Kirby’s work, I think in this case Wood was actually a BETTER fit for this series. Somehow, all the main characters just look better than ever before—including Sandman in that ridiculous costume he wears, or, for that matter, Brute or Glob. (Nothing can help Dr. Spider... but whatever.)

There was one more Kirby issue of SANDMAN finished at this point... but when Jack left, someone decided to pull the plug, even though the next book was already done. It would not see the light of day until a full 6 YEARS later, in the digest collection, THE BEST OF DC #22, “Christmas With The Super-Heroes”, released for Christmas, 1981!

This version of THE SANDMAN would, incredibly, return, in Roy Thomas’ run of WONDER WOMAN, at which point Roy attempted to “explain” the entire character and series in a more “logical” and less “fantasy” fashion. (More or less.)
(10-31-2012)

KOBRA #1 / Mar'76

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From the blog:

And now, we come to the LAST of Jack Kirby's new series to see the light of day at DC. KING KOBRA was no doubt intended as an update on DR. FU MANCHU, the evil Asian scientist-criminal mastermind, who was forever being chased by his Scotland Yard nemesis, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, and which was proving so successful for Marvel's MASTER OF KUNG FU series. Like MOKF, Kirby's version would take place in the modern day, and in an interesting twist, the book's hero and villain would be twin brothers! (Perhaps this was meant as a variation of MOKF's villain & hero being father & son?)

However, before it was published, the concept was seriously tampered with. It was decided to make the hero a college-age character, completely innocent of the existence of his evil twin, before the start of the story. This meant the villain was also in his early-20's, rather than both having decades of experience and emnity between them. As the first episode was completely finished before this crucial decision was made, artist Pablo Marcos was brought in to REDRAW all the figures of both characters, while writer Martin Pasko completely re-wrote every word of Jack Kirby's dialogue & narration from scratch. (Comparing the two, as I suffer thru Pasko's version, the phrase "awkward and stilted" comes to mind. I mean, it's just BAD.)

This might have made some sense had Marcos stuck around, or done the cover, but instead, Ernie Chan did the book's first 3 covers, and the interiors went thru a DIFFERENT penciller every issue until Mike Nasser arrived in issue #6. One wonders WHY this book was even put on the schedule at all under such conditions? The book did not achieve any stability at all until the Paul Levitz took over as editor from Gerry Conway. Finally, the book's name was shortened to simply KOBRA... despite there already being a Swiss anthology comic of the SAME name that started only a year before.

unused cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer
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original splash page by Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry
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altered splash page by Jack Kirby, D. Bruce Berry & PABLO MARCOS
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published cover by ERNIE CHAN
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KOBRA #1 Postscript: I forgot to mention... in a strange case of history repeating itself, one of Jack Kirby's last books before leaving DC centered around a plot involving twin brothers, one good, one evil. In both cases, before the story was published, it was BUTCHERED almost beyond recognition, with altered plot AND artwork, and, had a TERRIBLE cover slapped on it. (5 years earlier, it was the story he did for FANTASTIC FOUR #102, which was instead published in greatly altered form in FF #108.) Isn't that bizarre?

The Legacy Of OMAC

When Jack Kirby left DC to return to Marvel for a 3rd run there, the last story he started in OMAC, a 3-parter, was left unfinished. This was a case of history repeating itself, as 6 years earlier, Jack had begun new stories in both FANTASTIC FOUR #102 and THOR #179. Unlike those 2 books, OMAC, a bi-monthly, had not been selling that well, and someone at DC decided to pull the plug. Considering all the books Jack was working on near the end, it burns me that nobody thought to make sure he did OMAC #9, instead of some of those other, arguably far lesser items.

On the last page of OMAC #8, Dr. Scuba’s machines had caused Brother Eye to be buried under a barage of meteors, which were then fused together into a solid mass, cutting off all communication between the Global Peace Agency and their orbitting satellite. Clearly intended as a cliffhanger, this was derailed when someone replaced the final panel with an explosion, and text indicating that Scuba’s entire base and all within it were destroyed in a massive feedback explosion. Was this the end of OMAC? It would be several years before anyone found out.

In mid-1978, almost 3 years after the last issue of OMAC, the series was revived as a back-up feature in KAMANDI #59 (Oct’79). The editor in charge was Al Milgrom. Writer-artist Jim Starlin, who had gained such notorety on MASTER OF KUNG FU, CAPTAIN MAR-VELL and WARLOCK, proceeded to take on another Kirby character. With inker Joe Rubinstein (who first teamed with Starlin on AVENGERS ANNUAL #2 and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #2), he picked up exactly where OMAC #8 left off... or, I should say, where the published version left off. The opening pages showed us that Dr. Scuba’s lab and all within it had been destroyed, except for Buddy Blank, who had been transformed back to OMAC by Brother Eye at the very last second. We also learned that Brother Eye had sustained irreparable harm, and would only be able to serve as counsellor and guide from now on. OMAC’s strength, while still super-human, now had limits.

The next thing we learned was the the Global Peace Agency had been wiped out as part of a first-strike by the forces of a corporation intent on conquering the planet at all costs. It also turned out that under those featureless masks, the GPA members were actually aliens from another planet. OMAC was captured by the corporate army, and in an amazing scene, convinces the head of the company to put HIM in charge of their army, in order to bring the corporate war to an end as quickly as possible. The next episode was a veritable bloodbath, with Starlin’s patented sense of extreme exaggeration showing OMAC at the end resting on top of a literal MOUNTAIN of dead bodies.

I admit, this impressed me at the time... but then, I was a big fan of Starlin, and I’d never seen OMAC before.

As it happens, one month into the much-touted “DC Explosion”, the company suffered a turnaround, and wound up cancelling half their books in one go, including KAMANDI, which had managed to last longer than any of Kirby’s new books. As a result, Starlin & Rubinstein dropped off OMAC after only 4 episodes (described above). The remaining 3 eventiually turned up when DC began to expand again 2 years later, as a back-up in WARLORD #37 (Sep’80). When the Starlin episodes ran out, the series continued with writers Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn, and artists Greg LaRocque & Vince Colletta. They did 6 installments before the series was cancelled. At the time, I was not too impressed. Not long after, I got ahold of all 8 issues of OMAC by Jack Kirby, and was so totally blown away by it, it became my favorite of all of Kirby’s early-70’s DC work. I also realized that Jim Starlin’s new direction, while impressive, was actually completely wrong-headed and character-destructive, its sense of ultra-violence at odds with the more balanced approach Kirby handled his creation with. By comparion, I suddenly realized that Mishkin & Cohn had attemped to drag the series, by force, back toward the feel Kirby had given it. They just didn’t have the skills to pull it off successfully. Also, it was probably too much of a radical shift in tone from the Starlin episodes—even though Starlin had already done the same thing.

After that, OMAC made a guest-appearance in DC COMICS PRESENTS #61 (Sep’83) by Len Wein, George Perez & Pablo Marcos. 8 years later, John Byrne did a 4-issue prestige format mini-series (in B&W) which began as a “Twilight Zone”-style “What the hell is going on here?” scenario, which turned into a time-travel story, proceeded to reveal heretofore unknown facts about “The World That’s Coming”... and then meandered to an ending that I found completely confusing and impenetrable, even though I’d just read the whole thing. (And still struck me that way when I read it again.) Byrne got into the habit in the 90’s of having the attitude that he was the “only” writer who knew the “right” way to handle certain characters—and in his mind, that included those characters’ original creators. That, combined with a writing style that was increasingly composed of nothing but gimmicky and confusing storytelling, caused me to slowly lose interest in his work.

Since then, EVERY use of the “OMAC” concept from DC has been further afield from what Kirby did, each one more and more of a bastardization of what started out as a really brilliant series. With ONE notable exception...

(to be continued)

OMAC #9 / 2002 – “IS THIS THE END OF OMAC?”

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In 2002, 2 fans in the UK, Dek Baker & David Morris, decided to do their own mini-comic fanzine, OMAC #9. I read about this in an issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, and sent away for a copy. What a blast! Their 22-page story picks up exactly where Kirby’s story originally ended (before the last-minute editorial tampering), ignores every single “OMAC” appearance that followed, and finishes Jack’s intended 3-parter.

The inside-front cover kicks things off with “Previously in OMAC...” An interesting thing brought up here concerns how Buddy first became OMAC. “Unfortunately, when Buddy’s life was endangered, they had to transform him into Omac, without any preparation. Buddy’s personality was completely buried by the shock. Before he could address this, Professor Forest was assassinated at the orders of the villainous billionaire, Mr. Big. The Global Peace Agency attempted to take care of Omac’s social needs as best they could, but did not dare tinker with his psychology.” One particularly negative review of OMAC #1 I found online focused almost entirely on the way Buddy had been “murdered” by the GPA in order to create OMAC, and that Buddy was “gone forever”. This flew in the face of the last 2 issues of the book. But this introduction followed up on the idea, mentioned in one of the letter columns, that Buddy might not always be OMAC, but more, that his mental state might be something that could still be addressed. It also expanded on the circumstances in OMAC #1 where Buddy was transformed rather abruptly, in order to save his life.

“IN THE WORLD THAT’S COMING, mankind will face many new threats... threats like ECO-TERRORISM! A maverick genius is BLACKMAILING the planet by holding its WATER HOSTAGE! The Global Peace Agency must try to stop him... but first, can they FIND their GREATEST AGENT?”

In a scene mirroring some from NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD in STRANGE TALES, we see the GPA communications center, located high in the Himalayas, a hub of activity as the crew of technicians try to re-establish a link with the disabled Brother Eye. After Scuba contacts them directly with his ultimatum, one of them orders a space shuttle prepared. Scuba, in his hidden base, subjects Buddy to painful cellular analysis, which renders him unconscious. In that state, Buddy has visions of all the enemies he’s faced as OMAC—as then sees Brother Eye as well. He remembers everything that happened since his transformation. When he awakens, Scuba quickly realizes what’s happened, and orders him locked up.

Meanwhile, in orbit, the GPA member sets explosive charges to free Brother Eye from the rocky cocoon, sacrificing his life in the process. Below, Buddy find himself surrounded by monsters who were once men, all victims of Scuba’s atomic manipulation experiments. In a near-replay of the 1st issue, Brother Eye sends the “structure print” to change Buddy, just in time to save his life again. “Welcome back, OMAC. I regret the damage I have sustained may limit the degree to which I can aid you.” “I think I can live with that.” This rather mirrors the situation from Jim Starlin’s 1st episode, except that with the GPA still intact, I’m assuming they could send another space shuttle crew up to make more extensive repairs, once this situation was taken care of.

The climax has OMAC facing down Scuba, who’s used cells taken from Buddy to effect his own transformation into a being of “vast physical power”. As they fight, Scuba reveals that his previous experimental subjects were unstable, and all of them, including his own daughter, will die within the next few hours! Just then, Brother Eye tells OMAC to clear the area. “Shouldn’t I ARREST Scuba?” “Ideally, but our priority is recovering the world’s water and others are taking action NOW!” While OMAC makes his escape via Scuba’s aircraft, his daughter and son-in-law, knowing their fate, unleash the waters of Madras Bay-- “millions of tons of water”—the sudden force of which completely destroys Scuba’s base and all within it.

“Apollo and Seaweed are revenged!” “Too bad about those two. They didn’t seem EVIL, just greedy and WEAK.” “But it was that SELFISHNESS that blinded them to the DANGERS of helping SCUBA!” “I suppose we’ll be needed until ALL see an alternative to MEAN DESPAIR.” The final shot is of Scuba’s airship flying off toward the horizon, a virtual replay of the last page of Jack’s final issue of JIMMY OLSEN.


WOW. It's NOT by Kirby... but while the art is crude, it captures the look and feel of Kirby the way early Barry Smith did. Still, it's the writing that really pushes it over. You'd almost SWEAR Kirby did it himself.

I understand Baker & Morris only ran off so many copies of this, but I wish they'd do more. More, I wish DC would cut a deal with them and include it in any future reprints of Kirby's run. IT'S THAT GOOD.

That 2 "fans" should do a BETTER job capturing the look and spirit of Jack Kirby & his concept than anybody (and I mean anybody!!!) at DC has ever, ever done since, is bizarre. To me, it is the ONLY "legitimate" continuation of the character ever done.

Since the fanzine mini-comic is out of print, HERE it is in its entirety. ENJOY!
(11-16-2012)

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2012/11/omac-9.html

1st ISSUE SPECIAL #13 / Apr’76 – RETURN OF THE NEW GODS / “LEST NIGHT FALL – FOREVER!”\

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Somewhere on Earth, Orion crashes into a warehouse being used as a base for Apokalips soldiers, led by Kalibak. Despite apparently being killed in their last encounter, Kalibak is still very much alive, and Orion demands to know the whereabouts of Darkseid. In a flashback, Highfather, Scott Free, Barda & Metron greet Orion, returning from a scounting mission to Apokalips, who reports they are definitely preparing for war. A moment later this is confirmed as Apokalips warriors attack, before being driven off by Metron’s use of a Boom Tube. Back on Earth, Orion causes the floor beneath Kalibak to collapse. He’s then confronted by Granny Goodness, whose own men subdue Orion and take him prisoner. Metron uses a Boom Tube to spy on Darkseid and Doctor Bedlam. On Apokalips, Orion recovers, escapes, battles Kalibak, then confronts Darkseid, who tells him what Highfather and Metron already know. Darkseid’s scientists have managed to somehow attune his heartbeat to Earth’s sun, so that if he dies, the sun will go nova, destroying Earth’s solar system in the process. With a stalemate, they leave, while Darkseid vows he will rebuild his damaged organization .


Jack Kirby’s most “personal” project was NEW GODS. It really hurt him when it was cancelled in mid-story, and there’s every indication he hoped to continue it eventually. But things at DC just weren’t going right, and he wound up accepting an offer from Stan Lee to return to Marvel. Ironically, one month after his last DC book, NEW GODS was revived in the pages of the last issue of 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL. Before my current re-reading project, I’d only read this story once, sometime in the early 80’s. I wasn’t too impressed with it then, even when compared to later issues of the revived ongoing. But reading it again now, so soon after plowing thru all of Jack’s early-70’s books, I think I’m in state of shock. This is one of the WORST comics I’ve read in years!

Let’s start with the cover. Dick Giordano does a perfectly serviceable, if rather stiff, shot of 5 characters flying through space. However, at no time in the past have we ever seen Barda, Orion, or Mister Miracle flying under their own power (like Superman). Nor has Barda gone into action as such in a bikini, rather than her armor. Also, down in the lower-left corner, they list 5 characters—including Darkseid (who is not pictured), but not Lightray (who is!).

The splash page gets things started on the wrong foot, as some character, off-camera, yells out, “It’s ORION of the NEW GODS”. Nowhere in any of Kirby’s stories did any of these characters refer to themselves or each other as “New Gods”. The story title, “Lest Night Fall – Forever!” is one of those really stilted, psuedo-Shakespearean-sounding things, and the lettering for the title is so small, crammed into a corner, like an afterthought.

The dialogue in this comic is abysmal. For some years now, I’ve run across many references to Jack Kirby’s dialogue & narration being “awkward and stilted”, or “unnatural”, yet apart from a tiny handful of instances, most of what I read was powerful, dramatic, gripping, poetic, and memorable. Not this stuff. This is just bad on top of bad. And there are multiple examples of thnings that just do not sound like anything these characters would ever say, like when Orion calls Highfather “Wise one”, or Metron says to Orion, “Dear friend” (he’d be too detached for that sort of familiarity). On page 5, Highfather asks, “Metron—is your MOEBIUS CHAIR fully CHARGED?” When did he ever have to “charge” it? And how about this exchange on page 8 between Orion and Kalibak-- “You hurl ASTRO-FORCE at me?” “Not AT you, brother mine—UNDER you!” “Brother mine” sounds like something Roy Thomas would have used. On page 9, Granny Goodness says, “You DO remember me, don’t you, dear boy?” Apart from a cople panels of MISTER MIRACLE #18, when did Orion ever encounter her? Her words seem like they shuld have been aimed at Scott, not Orion. Even Darkseid sounds completely uncharacteristic, when he speaks to Highfather, saying, “...he HAS overheard it through Metron’s BOOM TUBE—HAVENT’ you, dear Izaya?” “Dear”???

When Jack Kirby was working on this series, he did the initial concept, the story, the layouts, and the dialogue, so it was all “ONE” creation, consistent, each element supporting and enforcing the others, even before the actual illustration (which could have been done by someone else without really changing things that much). Here, the story, the layouts and the dialogue are being done by THREE different people—Gerry Conway, Mike Vosburg, and Denny O’Neil—and each of these elements seem to be working at odds with the others. Nothing is really “clicking”. As for the art itself, I never saw this before, but Mike Vosburg’s art and rendering here reminds me of 2nd-rate Joe Kubert art (maybe 3rd-rate). Editor Gerry Conway, from the moment he took over from Kirby, apparently favored Kubert art on the covers, so I suppose this explains why the art looks this way. (But then, why have Dick Giordano doing the cover, and a cover which does not really reflect the story’s contents?)

Next, what was the point of completely re-designing Orion’s outfit? Instead of the “science-fiction warrior” look he had up until now, here, he looks like a “generic super-hero”, right down to a face-mask, and an “O” on his chest. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s also Kalbak. Under Jack Kirby, Kalibak reminded me of Ulik, the troll from THOR. In most of his appearances, he wore a tunic and cape, as if he stepped out of some Roman Empire epic. In his final appearance, he went bare-chested, like a Roman gladiator. Here, his entire physique has changed. He looks taller, thinner, and appears to be wearing a sleeveless t-shirt. He looks less monstrous and more like a pro wrestler.

On top of anything else, there are just too many characters in this story, especially as it’s only 18 pages in length. The editorial page, which attempts to recap things and bring new readers up to speed, is so awkwardly and confusingly written, I can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t already a Kirby fan plowing through it and wanting to go any further. In effect, this entire magazine seems less like a “relaunch” and more like an attempt to finally drive the last nails into something that DC didn’t like in the first place. Why? Why did they even bother???

Oddly enough, a revival of MISTER MIRACLE was announced, to be done by writer Martin Pasko, artists Ric Estrada and Joe Staton, and editor Joe Orlando. As far as I know, this never happened. (Unless there’s a never-published comic sitting in some drawer all these years?)

What a complete waste of paper!
(11-17-2012)

SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #1 / Jul’76 – “ATTEND --OR DIE!”

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We follow a number of mostly well-known DC villains commiting crimes and escaping the law, then receiving invitations to join something called the “Secret Society”. They meet at a place referred to as the “Sinister Citadel” or the “Citadel Sinister” (somebody’s not being consistent), which is in the top floors of a 100-story tower in San Francisco. A cross-section diagram details various rooms, in the fashion of several similar views of “The Baxter Building” seen over the years. The lobby itself appears to be the one from the Hyatt Embarcadero on Drumm, as seen in both THE TOWERING INFERNO and HIGH ANXIETY.

As the baddies meet, they’re attacked by members of the Justice League! No, it’s not a trap, but rather a test, as the heroes turn out to be only be robot replicas, which are easily defeated. The meeting is then presided over by Manhunter (the Archie Goodwin-Walt Simonson version), who then sends several of them on another “test”, to steal a sphere of solid plutonium from a scientific outpost housed in a remote lighthouse. During a scuffle with secuirity guards, Copperhead accidentally drops the sphere in the water offshore, and is left behind by his escaping comrades.

The 70’s were certainly a strange time for comics, and entertainment media in general. A certain downbeat aura seemed to overshadow most things, as movies had bad endings, characters’ lives seemed to be forever falling apart, “disaster” movies were a huge, successful fad, and comics flirted with several series that focused on villains, rather than heroes. While Marvel had SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP, DC had SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS. In charge (at least at the beginning) was Gerry Conway (you can tell it’s him, the book has zero sense of humor, and the narration often describes in overly-serious tones what you’re already seeing in the visuals). The art on the 1st issue was by Pablo Marcos and Bob Smith. It’s not particularly “bad” – but nothing really stands out as excessively “good” either.

Most of the baddies here I’ve seen or heard of, including Mirror and Master, Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd (all FLASH baddies), Sinestro and Star Saphire (both GREEN LANTERN villains, although Star Saphire is not the original but a new “replacement” version), The Shadow Thief (longtime HAWKMAN villain), The Wizard (Earth-2 JSA villain--what's HE doing here?) and Copperhead (originally a Batman BRAVE & THE BOLD villain—I guess this would be scraping the bottom of the barrel). Oddly enough, Catwoman is mentioned in one narration box, but does not appear in that panel, or on that page, or anywhere in the comic at all. Looks to me like Gerry Coinway needed an editor. It was later revealed that the Paul Kirk Manhunter was not the one who died at the end of the Goodwin-Simonson story, but a clone. That makes at least 2 characters in this story who are new versions of earlier characters, a recurring theme in many Gerry Conway stories in the 70’s.

It strikes me that the SECRET SOCIETY may have been one of the inspirations for THE LEGION OF DOOM on the 1978-79 episodes of CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER-FRIENDS.

Ernie Chua (who later changed his name to Ernie Chan) provides one of the sloppiest covers I’ve ever seen from him. He did a ton of DC covers around this time, but before long would move over to Marvel to become a long-running “finisher” on CONAN THE BARBARIAN.
(11-22-2012)

BRAVE & THE BOLD #128 / Jul’76 – “DEATH BY THE OUNCE”

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Gotham’s finest are sweeping for crime, intent on making the streets safe for the visiting Shah of Karkan, scheduled to sign an important oil treaty with the Feds. Batman investigates the condemned sports stadium, rumored to be “haunted” and finds what he thinks is someone trapped in a sack being hurled to their death. But it’s really Mister Miracle, practicing a new escape act. It seems he & his wife Barda have returned to Earth following their wedding, and re-teamed with Oberon to get the excape act started up again.

All this sounds fine; I never thought his leaving Earth made much sense in the first place, especially given what must be HUGE “issues” between Scott and his father, who he had not seen since he was a very young boy. But Scott’s motivations for returning do not sound right here. “Back here on Earth, people called me a charlatan... a cheating trickster! I had to come back to PROVE myself! To triumph and silence the doubters!” This is the 2nd time Bob Haney & Jim Aparo have featured Mister Miracle in B&B, and both times I find myself wondering if Haney ever even bothered to read any of Jack Kirby’s stories.

Batman has concocted an elaborate ruse to get the Shah from the airport to his hotel, by substituting an imposter in the heavily-guarded limo, while the real Shah hides in a laundry truck Batman drives himself. Yet on arrival, the Shah has vanished, kidnapped while Batman was only a few feet away. “OOPS!!!” To prevent an international panic, and keep the kidnappers off-guard, he has Gordon lie to The President by saying the real Shah is still safe, since he found a bugging device on Jim Gordon’s telephone.

Returning to the stadium, Batman tries to convince Scott he needs his help. “Sorry, BATMAN! I helped you once—but now my OWN life comes first! I must practice! I’m almost ready for my comeback!” Good grief, this can’t possibly be the same person who fought against totalitarianism and evil in general. Is Bob haney just TRYING to make Jack’s character look bad?

Batman appels to Scott’s “professional pride”, proposing a duel of escape arsists. The cover shows an very evil-looking Barda &v Oberon spraying Batman & Mister Miracle with liquid ice, as if they’d turned evil—I wonder if someone came up with this “hook” first, they had Haney write the story to justify it? Batman winds up escaping before Scott does, using a heating device in his utility belt—how very like the sort of thing we’ve seen Scott do many times in his own book.

Batman impersonates the Shah himself this time, and in the middle of the night, he’s kidnapped—along with his bed—right out of the hotel suite via a cargo helicopter also designed for underwater action. Inside the sunken and converted heavy cruiser “Gotham City”, he’s taken to the real Shah, and meets the person behind the kidnap—Granny Goodness. It seems the entire plot involves Granny wanting to be young again. She’s made a deal with “America’s rival power”, who have a sciewntist, Dr. Kiev, who’s developed a youth-giving serum, which he will give her in exchange for kidnapping the Shah and disrupting the treaty. All of which sounds completely outside the scope of anything I would expect Granny to be involved in.

As it turns out, Scott was hidden in the base of the bed (what would he have done if they’d just taken Batman, and left the furniture behind?), and he, Batman & the Shah escape, Scott staying behind long enough to cause the sunken ship to explode, hopefully taking Granny with it. Scott laments that he pulled off a fantastic escape for his comeback, but nobody got to see it. Bats responds, “Maybe it was for the best! After all, what could you do for an ENCORE?”

Par for the course for Haney & Aparo. As usual, not bad, but not great either. I guess sometimes, especially in comics, that’s better than most. This was the first B&B guest-appearance by one of Kirby’s new creations following his departure. It would not be the last!
(11-18-2012)

SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #2 / Aug’76 – “NO MAN SHALL I CALL MASTER!”

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A now-obscure super-hero from the 1950’s, Captain Comet, returns to Earth after decades in outer spece, and promptly, on seeing Green Lantern fighting several members of the SSoSV, decides GL is using his much-greater powers to “attack” his lesser foes. Now, I ask you—I know space is vast, but this is the DC Universe. How is it even possible that someone like Captain Comiet could spend decades in DC Universe outer space, and have NO IDEA who the hell the Green Lantern Corps are?????

CC rescues “Jack” (formerly of The Royal Flush Gang) and Gorilla Grodd (who looks more like one of the man-apes from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY than any gorilla I ever saw), and the trio are soon at the “Citadel Sinister”. While blanketing the entire room with a mental block to prevent CC from reading their thoughts, Grodd has read CC’s mind and relates his origin to the group. With a skeptical Captain Cold abstaining, they vote CC as a new member of the “Secret Society”, figuring they can dupe him into helping them in their schemes.

Later that night, Manhunter confronts CC in a quiet part of town, and discovers that CC actually realizes the “Society” is composed of baddies—all except Manhunter, a clone of Paul Kirk, who was the only survivor when all the rest of Kirk’s clones were killed, and the only one who wasn’t evil! But just as a new secret alliance is being formed, Mantis, last seen in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World books, appears, and declares that for their “treachery” they must die! This would seem to indicate WHO was backing the SSoSV. After all, if you’re supplying an outfit like Inter-Gang, what’s a super-villain group? (Just in case anyone was wondering WHY I’m including this series in my “Fourth World” review series.)

Although Mantis is driven off, Manhunter decides to take the aggressive stance, and leads the members of the Society to one of many secret scientific labs spread all across the world, the work of “the true face of evil”—DARKSEID. Just then Mantis and some underlings arrive and attack the entire group. In the midst of the melee, he orders them, “Either SURRENDER—or DIE!”

Someone online (I think) suggested that whatever direction this book was intended to go in somehow got derailed only 2 issues into its run. The letters page reveals that there was, in fact, a different, UNPUBLISHED version of SSoSV #1, which wound up being run in the mail-order-only AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #11. As for SSoSV #2, I can only suppose someone at DC figured that, for the sake of the Comics Code (or perhaps simply as a matter of “drama”), it wouldn’t be right to do a series that focused on a group of Super-Villains without having someone on the opposite side to balance things out. After all, most DRACULA stories have Professor Van Helsing (or some wimpy “hero” filling in the slot), and seemingly every FU MANCHU story has Sir Dennis Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. Here, we have a clone of the Goodwin-Simonson MANHUNTER, and, CAPTAIN COMET. Hmm. Oddly enough, I mostly remember CAPTAIN COMET from the late-80’s series, L.E.G.I.O.N. which told the adventures of an interstellar police force, run by “Brainiac 2” (ancestor of “Brainiac 5” of the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES), who was so nasty and viscious and utterly ruthless, including with his own people, that you were often hard-pressed to think of him as any kind of a “hero”.

Behind-the-scenes, on the creative side, things are ALREADY changing, which is usually not a good sign with a brand-new series just getting started. Creator, editor & writer Gerry Conway apparently got the flu and was only able to dialogue the first half of the book. Leaping into the breach is David Kraft, who they announce will be taking over the book with the next issues. This is interesting, as not too long after this, when Conway briefly went to Marvel, one of the books he took over was THE DEFENDERS—and once he returned to DC, the guy who took over the book was David Kraft!

Meanwhile, it’s a funny thing. I’ve never been a fan of Bob Smith’s inks, yet here, he seems to be almost invisible, as, if they didn’t list his name in the credits, I’d have sworn Pablo Marcos did the whole art job himself. Apart from his usual awkward figure-work, the heavy-duty lines looks EXACTLY like solo Marcos, which I’ve seen in Marvel B&W horror & S&S mags, and in Warren horror books by the ton.

The cover for this issue is by Dick Giordano & Terry Austin (though you couldn't prove the inks by me). Apart from the horrific amount of text and garbage clogging up the top half of the cover, I'm also bugged by the awkward composition with all those people running in the background, and the really lame coloring job which tends to make things confusing to look at. Let me put it this way-- if Stan Goldberg had colored this piece, you can bet he'd have done some kind of "monotone"-ish effect in the background, to make the 2 foreground figures (CC & GL) stand out from everything else. I mean-- people got PAID to do work this bad???

As an aside-- looking at the linework and the background figures in particular, it's just possible this cover may answer the question of WHO inked those pages of MISTER MIRACLE #1-4 that I thought looked so much like "later" Klaus Janson. Since the figures HERE look identical to what I saw there, it strongly suggests those really "ugly" pages were the work of either Dick Giordano, or some assistant OTHER than Frank McLaughlin (the McLaughlin pages were more obvious than the Giordano ones)-- and, just possibly, Terry Austin! (Unless someone finds out that Austin wasn't in comics by this point, either...)
(11-29-2012)

AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #11 / Apr’76 – “BEWARE THE BROTHERHOOD OF CRIME”

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Fresh from a successful jewel heist, a very annoyed Captain Cold is kidnapped by teleportation beam to the HQ of a group of super-villains who invite him to join. The group discovers the brains behind their outfit is none other than Darkseid, “Prince of Apokalips”. Following a brief run-down on his background and activities, he leads them on a raid on a military base to steal cannisters of “Wargas 94—the deadliest nerve gas in the world”, with which they intend to “blackmail the Earth”. After some squabbling and in-fighting to get their hands on it, Manhunter points out that Darkseid has been using them, as his real intentions are to turn all of Earth into a slave-labor camp. No sooner has it dawned on them that his behavior in this raid has been completely out-of-character than “Darkseid” is revealed to be a robot. It’s almost as if Gerry Conway were writing Dr. Doom instead of Darkseid when he did this. The villains elect to stay together as a “Secret Society” to fight Darkseid’s ambitions while continuing to pursue their own criminal agendas.

According to Paul Levitz’ introduction / editorial, editor & writer Gerry Conway put this book together before finding out that publisher Carmine Infantino had other ideas in mind. Rather than fine-tune as they went, the decision was made to completely do the entire book over from scratch. So certain members of the group were replaced, and artists Ric Estrada & Pablo Marcos were replaced by Pablo Marcos & Bob Smith. I find it ironic that what may be possibly one of the worst-ever depictions of Jack Kirby’s vilain, Darkseid, should get published, if only in DC’s mail-order-only magazine AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS, while genuine Kirby books were left sitting in storage, some of them never published to this day.

I wonder how they wound up with Dick Dillin doing the cover?

This entire story (along with the entire issue it appeared in) can be read online at the AMAZING BLOG OF DC COMICS blogspot!

http://amazingblogofdccomics.blogspot.com/2009/03/amazing-world-of-dc-comics-11-april.html

(11-30-12)