The Quarter Bin

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Sorcerer of the Sea!"

2011-07-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

This next story in the collection, starring Aquaman (from Adventure Comics #245- Feb. 1958), is, by far, one of my favorites in the book- or anywhere else, for that matter! I've been looking forward to blogging this post since I've started re-reading this book!

Aquaman holds a unique place in the history of comic book super-heroes. Along with DC's holy trinity and a half of super stars (Superman, Batman and Robin, and Wonder Woman) and fellow back-up feature star Green Arrow, he was part of the only fraternity of heroes who were continuously published from the beginning of the Golden Age of comics through the dark days of the 1950's right into the Silver Age Renaissance. Comic book politics may have played a hand in both Aquaman's and Green Arrow's survival into the dawn of a new age.

The man who had a hand behind both of their creations (both first appeared in the 1941 issue of More Fun Comics #73), Mort Weisinger was editor of the Superman stable of comics, including Adventure Comics which featured Superboy, after his move from More Fun Comics. Both Aquaman and Green Arrow had made that move also. Another of his creations, Johnny Quick, a superior knock-off of the Flash, made it well into 1954- but just short of the finish line.

Aquaman's stories through his early years were for the most part rather routine. He adventured around the world and, of course, the sea- fighting Nazis and modern-day pirates and saving lives along the way. Originally, Aquaman was the son of an American scientist who discovered the lost underwater city of Atlantis and who spent his life studying its scientific secrets and haunted remains, passing all that knowledge along to his son. Aquaman's sense of history, though, was rather non-existant, each story ignorant of, and never referencing, those before it. I doubt anyone reading any Aquaman story after his first appearance ever really knew how the orange and green clad hero came to be. He just was, doing his thing, helping people out at sea. No back-story needed!

His first ten years of publishing history followed this pattern. In 1951, one thing did change- the art. A newly graduated Parsons art student, Ramona Fradon, through a friend of her husband (New Yorker illustrator, Dana Fradon) landed a gig drawing a Shining Knight story. She did an alright job and was soon given the regular assignment of drawing the sea-adventures of Aquaman. She was a rare gem in the comic book field. At that day and age, females were even more difficult to be found working in the industry than today. Her clean, slightly cartoony artwork stood out from the pack, it's bold fluidity perfect for the King of the Seas.

The stories still followed the same pattern, however, they were now beautiful to look at! What I enjoy about these tales is that Aquaman was not a super-hero per se. He was an adventure-hero appearing fittingly in a comic called Adventure Comics. (It is here where I'd like to explain the misguided perception that Aquaman is lame. Aquaman wasn't meant to be a super-hero, really. He was the King of the Seas, having fun in his dominion, keeping all those safe within his realm. He didn't fight super-villians, just those imprudent enough to not follow his sea rules. He was a benevolent man of action who showed up, with a golden smile, to help things go smoothly.)

It was during this time, under Fradon's pen, though, that the perennial back up star's life started to evolve a bit. The Silver Age was starting and the various characters were getting their modern mythologies, as we know them now, built. Superman gained Krypto the Superdog, Supergirl, Brainiac, the bottled city of Kandor, and Bizarro. Batman and Robin gained Ace the Bat-hound, Batwoman, the first Bat-girl, and Bat-Mite. Wonder Woman gained a crazy cast of multiple selves! Up until this point Aquaman, for the most part, operated alone. In 1956 he gained an underwater ally in the poly-dexterous Topo the Octopus. In 1959, Aquaman was given a proper background story and origin, the union of a classic love between a lonely lighthouse keeper and his mermaid soulmate. After this Aquaman's life kind of hit a fast-forward button. He gained a partner in the young Aqualad, helped form the Justice League of America, and soon graduated into his own comic book after rediscovering Atlantis. Ramona Fradon didn't follow Aquaman in this move; however Aquaman soon gained another woman in his life, in the form of Mera- his soon to be wife and mother to his son.

What I like about these stories, like "The Sorcerer of the Sea!" is that we get a chance to see Aquaman enjoying his comic-book bachelorhood before he was given a chance in the big-time. Before familyhood and kinghood took over his life, before the Super Friends cartoon, and before the underserved fish-out-of-water bad reputation that has persisted for years and years (which I'd like to report is finally now being debunked and laid to rest, following an amazing Aqua-renaissance!).

Behold: "The Sorcerer of the Sea!"

PS: I am soooo knocked out by the amazingly vibrant color palette of this printing! So vivid and sweet are the colors, I want to eat it up!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Superboy and the Sleeping Beauty!"

2011-07-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

This next story in the collection, originally from Superboy #22 (Sept/Oct 1952), really highlights the crass douche-baggery of the young Superman. Panel by panel, let's get right into it!

Hmmmm. "Congo Gold." I'm thinking Smallville meets Heart of Darkness. Watching Lana Lang look deep into her own tortured, vaccuous high-school girl soul should be thrilling, but I doubt the school board is going to want to explain the play's racial undertones to the public.

Wow, Lana just strolls into school...with a spear... and a knife... and a frickin' blowgun dart!

"I didn't mean to bring that!" Yeah, you meant to leave it in your locker and secretly use it on some other Smallville chick who happens to look at Superboy!

Superboy"s first dick move in this story. Instead of using his super breath to simply move the falling dart away from Lana, he stands there and reads the supplemental note. Then he thinks about using "quick action!"

So Superboy wears his costume under his other costume.

Glad he finally took off the Thurston Howell threads.

Oooooo, perfect! Lana passes out from some roofie dart and Superboy suddenly shows up to carry her away!

So Superboy "streaks" out of school again, this time with a passed out girl in his hands...

Then he likes to use his powers in order to peep and eavesdrop!

Mr. Lang, you shouldn't keep African tribal weapons lying around your house. Haven't you read the statistics on tribal weapon accidents in the home???

Mr. Lang, what do you choose??? Your daughter's life or the secret government-sponsored coup in some unnamed African country? Oh, you do not realize it, but you have no choice. Superboy will control all actions and outcomes, while the entire world is ignorant to his mastery and manipulation.

Speaking of which...

"Ok, guys! With one day to go, we're going to scrap the ENTIRE play! We'll make it up as we go! I've been hanging out with this one guy, Ed Wood...it's gonna be great."

Um...kids, Superboy doesn't seem to grasp that people over 8 aren't going to be flocking to see a Snow White play; and he doesn't seem to know the difference between Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, or the difference between dwarves and midgets...you might not want him to direct your high school play...just saying!

PS: Lana might be dead for all we know. This is where is could turn into a good "Weekend at Bernie's" story!

This was all a ploy for Clark (Superboy) Kent to change the play! Switching out the dark and primitive African jungle for fanciful European civilization. Look how he quickly he decimates the environment of Africa and replaces it with a looming manicured castle. This story is rife with Platonian political, racial, and colonial overtones!

Super-liar! Prevaricator! (I just wanted to use this word in a blog, and now was my chance!)

Lies on top of lies!

Oooo, midgets? Everyone gets excited for midgets!

Watch out, little people! Superboy is on a quest to round you up!

"They're in 'short' supply..." works on so many levels.

Midgets are probably in short supply because of some other disastrous scam Superboy dreamed up and thought it had to include them.

Org and Norg: are they brothers or little lovers? Hiding out from the watchful eye of society.

So, the hearts of little people are enlarged, and yet he wonders why they are in short supply for his schemes. He's kinda killing them off!

Axel, Maxel, and Jaxel??? Is it a law that if you give birth to little people, that you must give them ridiculous rhyming names???

Workers of every sort, beware! Superboy has the capability to replace you and the rest of your fellow work crew! His output is about 10,000% times more productive; plus, he never has to work overtime, nor does he tire, nor need a vacation, nor even a lunchbreak (he doesn't have to eat).

Ooooo, watch it Mr. Lang. Those "funny midgets" Org and Norg will cut you in the school-alley afterward for laughing at them.

This is soooo "Weekend at Bernie's!"

The whole day has passed and Lana has been in a coma the entire time. After rewriting the play, redecorating the stage, auditioning a crew of midgets, Superboy finally decides to start working on finding a cure for Lana. Lucky girl.

Always go with your first guess! Be afraid- Superboy is a demon! He will control the events of your life. He may even make you act in a play while you are in a coma!

Oh, I love the witch doctor's reaction! "He's just a boy, a human boy....SHOOT him, because that's what us primitive people do, wamba wamba!"

Haha, Superboy doesn't correct them! "Yep, I'm a demon." Probably the first time he hasn't lied or went out of his way to deceive someone.

Superboy, answer your cellphone! Monsanto (big,evil corporate farming giant) wants to hire you and make use of your unorthodox growing techniques!

Wow! What teenage boy doesn't dream of having a "super-friction" super-power??? Go at it, Superboy!

The people of Smallville have no cultural taste. Look at all of them, at the drop of a hat, sitting there. The play could literally be the instruction guide to my Casio Exilim digital camera, and Superboy would be standing up on stage and reading it in mis-pronounced Spanish, and they'd still flock to see him. Media whores. (If this was taking place today, the entire crowd would be waving their iPhones in the air taking vids and pics.) I hate them.

This is soooo Being John Malkovich! Human Puppetry!!! Themes of identity and control!! Are we who we think we are, or who others think we are?? Is it Lana that is the actor, or Superboy who is pulling the strings??? Is Lana just sleeping through life as Superboy controls her every move???? Do any of us have free will??? Argh!!!!

I'm intrigued that no one has realized that Clark, one of the key cast members, has been missing this entire time.

Slip her some untested drugs, then the tongue. I like your style, Superboy!

They'll probably win a few Tonies for this theatrical tripe!

Mr. Lang tries one more time to take Lana home...and fails.

And finally, the story ends with Lana, who was essentially a human prop in the play gets all smug with Clark because she got some public sedentary action from a super control freak. If I was him, I'd be, like, "Bitch, please!"

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Raid on Blackhawk Island"

2011-07-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

The Blackhawks was originally an elite air squadron composed of the most heroic pilots from the countries fighting the Axis during World War II. After the war, and a later publishing switch-over from their home at Quality Comics over to DC, the flying aces liked each other soooo much they stuck together in the name of high-flying adventure! I have to admit I was never really interested in them (they all looked the same to me, even though each character was some sort of national stereotype), but I decided to give this story a try!

Reprinted from Blackhawk #109 (Februrary 1957):

The gist of this story is that their leader, Blackhawk is apparently killed and suddenly some mysterious jerk comes to Blackhawk Island, raids their Blackhawk war museum, and takes command of the super-weapons and tries to murder them all! Can they persevere without their commander???

The story starts off with the saucy caws of Blackie, of whom I first thought of as a sassy, noisy crow, but after I mulled it over, realized he/she is black hawk. Duh!

The next morning, the day starts off like any other, in their overcrowded, smelly bedroom with all of them jumping out of bed in their Blackhawk underwear.

There has been a raid, and Blackhwawk (the main one) is dead! And some guy who calls himself the Question Mark (Riddler, call your lawyer!) is out to annihilate the rest of them!

Blackie won't stand for it!

So all the remaining Blackhawks are almost all maimed and killed throughout the rest of the story. The Question Mark dude has taken control of a War Wheel and an actual flying tank!

But the killing spree is halted! Why?

Because the whole time it was Blackhawk!!! What the....!!!!

Apparently, Blackie was spazzing out like a fiend the whole time! Nothing can fool that bird!

Soooo, Blackhawk pretended he was dead, disguised himself in a laaaaame costume, raided the super-weapons, went on a rampage on the Island, destroyed a bunch of property, nearly killed everyone on the island, and then they all end up in a group hug!!!

That asshole better make everyone breakfast!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Top Secret!"

2011-07-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I've been looking forward to posting my review of this story! I don't think there was a single DC comic in the 1950's with a female in it that wasn't darn right crrrrrazy!!!

This one is a Wonder Woman tale published a mere two issues after the forced departure of original iconic Wonder Woman artist H.G. Peters. The talented Ross Andru and Mike Esposito took over the art chores, and the illustrations are like cotton candy- pure bliss! The story, however, is whack-a-doodle-doo!

The change of creative direction threw out many elements, that until then, defined the Amazon princess as Wonder Woman! Gone was her mythological origin, any references to World War Two, and her original purpose. Just a crazy super chick dealing with relationship issues and the dimwitted schemes of the oh-so handsome Colonel Steve Trevor!

With that in mind, check out Wonder Woman #99 (July 1958):

The splash page diptych is gorgeous! But we find out that the origin of Wonder Woman's alter ego Diana Prince is about to get revamped!

The story starts off like a comic book remix of old letters to the Ladies Home Journal with the gossipy banter of "Steel Magnolias!"

Scarf??? Why the heck does Wonder Woman even own a scarf??? Maybe that's a tale for a later issue!

Wow, what luck, Col. Steve Trevor! Your wing just "snaps" off. A clear symbol of emasculation.

Wonder Woman "firmly" holds Trevor's broken appendage into place until he's made his landing.

The stunt is done. There is photographic evidence, and it will show up when least expected. Wonder Woman better have an agent...

Ok! Here's the conflict of this story (and many others to come): Steve Trevor has co-dependency issues, while Wonder Woman "explains" that she can only be with him once WORLD PEACE is at hand. Trevor, she's just not that into you!

Col. Trevor, are you a starry-eyed, high school freshman??? Such poetic whining!

Wow. Mc-Schemey! Look at all that CRAZY going on in those eyes! Wonder Woman! Dump. His. Ass. NOW!

OMG. He already has a goddam ring. Look at Wonder Woman's cold, wooden, lifeless expression. She wants to run, but just took a dump in those blue, starry wonder-shorts of hers.

One of my favorite comic book panels of all time! MILLIONS of bathers at this beach! That's a lot of sun-tan lotion! Check out the plus-sized manatee in the hat! You can tell the artists had fun drawing this one!

First of all, Wonder Woman at a beach. How amazingly perfect! She wears a swim-suit, like every single day!

Ok. This is where I gush about the cinematic style of this triptych. This sequence is expertly choreographed. The three panels are practically the same, except that in each one Steve Trevor gets eerily and eerily closer. Such a stalker!!! And Wonder Woman is so stunned her face is frozen in place. She can not believe the level of crazy.

Whew! What a relief, Wonder Woman! That roller coaster conveniently needs fixing! Who the heck are the contractors in this town? The planes' wings just fall off. The roller coasters crash into pieces. The workmanship isn't what it used to be!

This has all the makings of a bad Lifetime movie!

I could stare at this panel for ages! Check out all those interesting costumes! It's like a set of some crazy Hollywood musical! Cleopatra, Lady Luck, the Egg Lady! Amazing, there's also Bugs Bunny and Minnie Mouse!

I'd love to see Wonder Woman at the costume shop deciding on this one!

Ooooo, look at look of despair and pure dread on the princess' face! Her nightmare has shockingly come true!

Sigh! Another chance to get away from him! Hey, Trevor, you should step back and reconsider your relationship with someone who would rather take the chance of being struck dead by lightning over being your wife. Kind of a subtle clue.

Ahhhh, Steve your desperate plan just flopped. Maybe next time you should just fake a pregnancy to get her to marry you.

Ooh la la! A bevy of attractive hot-nerd applicants and an oral examination. Make sure it's thorough!

Underwater??? What kind of secretary position is this, anyway???

So...it's come to this. Steve Trevor is such an annoyance and disruption in Wonder Woman's life that she is now taking time out of her busy crime-fighting and earth-protecting time to secretly keep tabs on his every stupid, scheming move. Funny, she would rather dress up as a nerd and take orders from him as his work underling, but she won't marry his ignorant ass. It's like the saying goes, keep your friend close, but your enemies closer. And to think all this time, I believed the Cheetah to be Wonder Woman's arch foe, when it was Steve Trevor the entire time!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Riddle of the Crystal Ball!"

2011-07-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

The next story in this collection is from Western Comics #72 (December 1958), and it stars one of DC's old cowboy heroes, Hannibal Hawkes, aka Nighthawk! Art by Gil Kane, a job sandwiched between his run on the Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog and his career defining runs on the new Green Lantern and the Atom.

I admit I haven't read many western comics before this. So, I took what I knew from watching old reruns of the Lone Ranger and the Rifleman TV shows, and pretended the cowboy gear was substitute super hero/villain costumery. Worked pretty well for this story!

Basically, some dumb crooks are in town, and are convinced by a "gypsy" that Hannibal Hawkes is Nighthawk and that that night is a good time to rob the local church bazaar. It's all a plan by Nighthawk to get those thieves just where he wants them.

Interestingly, all those men are pulling a Brokeback, trying to catch a Nighthawk peepshow in the crystal ball! Gypsies can con you into doing almost anything!

Ahhh...the reveal!

Kind of like...

Tommy Sands, aka Floretta, the Gypsy in Drag in Babes in Toyland (1961). [I saw this one in my church's basement as a kid...)

Here's one of only six panels in the story where he's dressed as Nighthawk.

He might want to also try this look...

Gypsy, the Cyndi Lauper-styled, homeless and barefoot member of the Justice League when it was headquartered in Detroit during the 1980s!

Well, in the scheme of the DC universe of heroes, readers later find out that Nighthawk is one of Hawkman's past lives. Yep! Originally, Hawkman and Hawkgirl were an Egyptian royal couple, killed and cursed to keep living Romeo and Juliet lives throughout the rest of time, usually becoming different DC universe heroes in one life to the next. So it kind of makes sense. Hawkman. Hannibal Hawkes. Nighthawk. And both Hawkgirl and Cinnamon, Nighthawk's lady friend are angry fiery redheads. Roar!

Anyway, here's Nighthawk later being wiped out of existence by an earth-consuming wave of anti-matter:

Guess, he didn't see that one in that ol' crystal ball!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Devil's Island in Space!"

2011-07-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

This tale features one of the very few original post-Golden-Age super-heros DC created in the early 1950s---Captain Comet, a mutant born with abilities of humans 100,000 years in the future!

Intro: Captain Comet!

Long before the whiny, angst-ridden X-men of Marvel Comics fame, there was Adam Blake. A son born to a kindly midwestern couple, John and Martha Ke....oops, Blake. When he was being birthed a comet flashed above (could it have been the baby Superman's spacecraft???) and triggered a genetic change in the baby's mind. As he grew up, he discovered he could just know where to find any lost item, read entire encyclopedias and memorize them word-for-word, play every instrument in a band without ever knowing the song, and perform every single sport beyond Olympic capabilities. With all these abilities he felt...different; and as he grew up he logically fell into the librarian field. It wasn't until he was hanging out with and gaining the guidance of some older physicist, Dr. Zackro that he discovered the truth about himself... and just in time, because some criminals had a beef with the professor! After defeating them with his amazing powers of the future, he decided to become a hero when pretty much the rest of the DC Universe was quitting.

This age of comic books was the awkward stage for super-heroes. The Golden Age of heroes was over and being taken over by other story genres. The Silver Age of super-heroes wouldn't be in full force until the end of the decade. Some have called this the "Atomic Age," a time of few new heroes. Captain Comet was pretty much sitting alone at the junior-high lunch-table of comic book characters!

"Devil's Island in Space!" takes place a bit later after his first appearance, in Strange Adventures #28 (January 1953), and fittingly to the zeitgeist of the age relies heavily on the use of the H-bomb in the plot. The story is beautifully rendered by master artist Murphy Anderson!

Creeeeeepy! Those alien creatures look like invisible sexual predators, all horned up after a sitting in their communist, alien sauna! Watch out, Captain Comet!

The story starts off with a the US military about to happily test the crap out of some H-bomb on some dumb Pacific island.

We find out those perverted-looking aliens were actually prisoners sent from another planet to live out their sentences here on Earth, in a bunch of caves. Man-caves. Anyway, what do these aliens do with their time? Create an invisibility mechanism out of cave rocks so they can secretly lurk about in lockerrooms across the world.

And to use their keen alien intellect to walk about and carry an H-bomb away by hand.

Captain Comet uses his keen mind of far future:

Oh. He followed their footprints and their wheel marks. Brilliant.

So he captures the alien creeps and delivers them back to their home planet.

Hey, Planet of Labia! We don't want you dumping your sexual offenders and criminals on our beautiful Earth. We love our planet! We want it safe, so we may blast it away island by island with our H-bombs!!! Yay, Captain Comet, the man whose mind has the same half-life as uranium!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Gorilla City!"

2011-07-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Ahhh! This story features Congo Bill!

Before I talk about the story in this book I must go back a bit. When I was a teenager, I first discovered Congo Bill in a comic book quarter bin (yay!) at a flea market. In this particular issue, a team-up story of Superman and a bunch of lost-to-time second-banana comic-characters, Congo Bill appeared as a later version of himself: the ape with his human mind- Congorilla!

I found this tale fascinating! Long before the internet, it was always and adventure finding out who these "forgotten heroes" were. You have several layers of characters in comics. You have your heavy hitters, the ones everyone knows: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Then you have your minor league characters who, if you are just a casual reader, you'd come across quite regularly, like Zatanna or the Elongated Man. Finally, there are the ones you could find in the back of dusty, smelly comic boxes in some nerd's basement, who may have been popular at one point, maybe even had their own comics- but have since become relics of history. Congo Bill was one of those! And like I said just before, getting to know the background and history of characters like him posed a challenge at the time. No wikipedia or google search engine to type into. You had to piece it together only using comics that became available by chance.

So who is this Congo Bill???

He was your basic jodhpur and pith helmet-wearing jungle-adventurer with a mustache who just happened to be published in one comic or another by DC Comics for more than 20 years. He first appeared in an issue of More Fun Comics in 1940 and then jumped around title to title.

I guess he was popular enough, or the right person liked him, that he even starred in his own 15-part motion picture serial, released by Columbia Pictures in 1949.

In 1954 Congo Bill even had his own comic title for a while, and gained a partner in Janu, the Jungle Boy who was living wild in the jungle since the death of his jungle guide father. Bill's life changed dramatically in 1959, the new age of super-heroes, when he was given a ring by a dying tribal chief that gave him the power to switch bodies with a giant golden gorilla!

For the next couple of years he was known as Congorilla, and he would defend Africa against evil by locking himself in a cage, rubbing his gorilla ring and telepathically swapping bodies with that golden beast! Janu would babysit his human body, which now had the mind of that gorilla! I hope Janu got paid well and got a chance to raid the fridge!

Although, originally published in Congo Bill #6 (June/July 1955), "Gorilla City!" took place before all the late 50s Congorilla zaniness-- Congo Bill still seemed to have one wacked-out life! Basically, all you need to know is that Congo Bill and Janu see something light up the sky one night, are kidnapped by gorillas the next morning, find out the gorillas can talk and fix clocks, help their captors find a radioactive box, and after the gorillas leave realize that they were really Martians!

What interests me about this story in particular is the appearance of Janu. First of all, I must mention, the story is illustrated by the great Nick Cardy, who later went on to draw the Aquaman and Teen Titans series in the 1960s. Here Janu looks a whole lot like Aqualad (who would be created a few years later)! But what I noticed is his skin color. I was reading this tale on a bus-ride home, and as I was reading something didn't seem quite right. It wasn't until I got home, and googled Janu that I could put my finger on it:

Janu kind of changed races!

As originally printed,in Congo Bill #6 (June/July 1955)

The recolored version in the 1990 edition of the Greatest 1950 Stories Ever Told

I already figured out that all the stories have been re-colored and appear differently than when they were first published; however, this must have been some editorial edict saying Janu is from Africa, he must appear African- even, if he was drawn Caucasian. Anyway, whatever! Black or white, Janu steals the show with his dim-witted jungle-talk comedy:

Ending this entry with some jungle humor:

Watch out, newly black-Janu!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Mystery of the Giant Arrows" and "Prisoners of Dimension Zero!"

2011-07-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

This entry is not about one story but two! Rare for the time, this Green Arrow back-up story continued into the next issue. Also in the vein of a true epic, it was illustrated by comic book king, Jack Kirby!

Green Arrow, up until this point, was always a second rate Batman rip-off. Instead of a utility belt that contained any gadget needed to fight off criminals, he had his arrow pouch with an unexplainably infinite number of different arrows specific to whatever he needed it for. A boxing-glove arrow, an antidote arrow, a net arrow, etc. Green Arrow was also the proud owner of the Arrow-car, the Arrow-Cave, millions of dollars, and an orphan ward and sidekick in Roy Harper, aka Speedy. Batman-lite, so to speak!

For a brief time comics pioneer Kirby, desperate for work, took over the strip. Hoping, that if he spiffed up the strip a bit, that the series would get its own title and thus possibly guaranteeing a regular future paycheck for himself. He gave the detective character more of a science fiction, fantasy element as seen in these stories reprinted in this book.

These comics sere some of the best DC was putting out at the time, but alas, it was not to be. Mort Weisinger, co-creator of Green Arrow and one of the DC big-wigs, and a group of other established industry workers were none to pleased with the new amazing direction of his character and voiced their concerns loudly. Kirby's editor caved under their demands and told Kirby to go back to the old way. The King of comics was rightly disgusted, picking up and leaving DC Comics. He ended up getting some work with Stan Lee--- and making comic book history by creating the Marvel universe of characters and toppling DC with their new style of comics. Green Arrow went back to being some hum-drum, second-rate Batman knock off- and stayed that way for years until the late 60's when the writers gave him a bold new direction; losing his millions, becoming a social liberal, growing the Robin Hood goat-tee and donning a new costume, and ultimately finding his young partner Speedy shooting up heroin!

Anyway, here's a bit of amazing Green Arrow renaissance material from Adventure Comics # 252 and 253 (Sept./Oct. 1958):

This is no regular detective story! GA and Speedy, you will soon be pondering existence itself! Get ready for an epic ontological experience!

This epic tale begins with the masses coming into contact with the unbelievable!

Mother Earth is about to become "pregnant" with the notion of other realities! Green Arrow and Speedy are about to get to get the call to become unknowing mid-wives!

So many questions!!!! (And, at this point, I question the crazy coincidence of the earth getting pummeled by giant arrow-shaped missiles and Green Arrow being the lone hero who shows up...)

This panel is awe-inspiring! Kirby creates the feeling of earth-shattering helplessness by including our hero down on the ground amongst the throngs of the utterly clueless and frightened masses!

I'm impressed with Arrow's concern for Speedy's hearing! If only he were that caring years later (maybe Speedy wouldn't have become a raging drug addict).

Oh my god! The suspense keeps building! How is a small-time hero like Green Arrow going to handle this??? Look at the look of helplessness of that cop as he's pretending to keep it together! Check out the report of that newsman, and imagine a big-time reporter today like Anderson Cooper not being able to give the viewers a clue!

With the aid of Science, Green Arrow comes in contact with the Gods!

And we're left with the cliffhanger as Green Arrow and Speedy are whisked off into the unknown (and hoping there is oxygen there!), realizing that they may never return!

We begin again, with Part 2, and already the very existence of Earth has shattered as timelines collapse. Within a span of panels, history has already been rewritten to where Green Arrow and Speedy didn't come across the giant arrow at the observatory, as we just saw, but as they were driving out from the Arrowcave! Did any of the events from last issue transpire at all????

Green Arrow has spiraled into the Unknown!!!

I wish Green Arrow had a special autograph arrow!

Soooo, they landed in a Chuck Jones' Dr. Seuss world! Look at those characters' features!

They come across the unimaginable---A giant techno alien elf version of himself! I wonder what "Xeen" means?

How flabbergasting to meet your dimensional "double" and then to speak telepathically with him! How utterly mind-blowing!!!

So with the help of his other-worldly giant doppelgänger, Green Arrow and Speedy are shot home on another giant arrow! Will it destroy Earth? Oh, ok, no problem. Attach some parachute arrows and somehow move it into your Arrowcave, put on your millionaire robe, light a pipe, and then don't bother to tell anyone in the rest of the world (who are going absolutely nuts about those other giant arrows striking their cities) about what happened!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Girl in Superman's Past"

2011-06-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

The Superman universe of comics exploded in the mid to late 1950's, developing into what we know of it today. Supergirl. Krypto the Superdog. Brainiac. Kandor. Streaky the Supercat.

Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet cub reporter and Superman's pal got his own comic book earlier in the decade. Lois Lane later got the same treatment, first through a try-out in DC Comics' "experimental, will-it-sell?" comic Showcase in 1957. The Superman comics were always good at bringing in the unbelievable- the writers were stuck with a super-godlike character that couldn't just fight normal villains and have normal adventures, so they went completely over-the-top, to the point of completely messing with their readers. But, with this in mind, Lois Lane comics somehow brought this type of story-telling to a whole new nth level of ridiculousness! The Lois Lane comics are completely and utterly saturated with "what-the...?" moments.

A good deal of Lois Lane comics dealt with her obsession of finding out who Superman truly is, usually with some out-of-this-world schemes, or, with her obsession with MARRYING Superman, which usually involved some other woman getting in the way! Sometimes, she would get Superman to marry her, but the reader would find out that these were "imaginary stories," a brand of what-if situations where things would go dramatically wrong!

This particular story brings the grown-up Lana Lang into the world of Superman. When Superman was a boy living in Smallville, he operated as Superboy- and Lana Lang was his double-L-initialled girlfriend. What would happen if she were to suddenly show up again??? Let the crazy begin!!!

From Showcase Comics #9 (June/July 1957):

First of all, this story must be read as a story of two snarly drag-queens catfighting it out over some poor guy! Mreeeeeow!

"Hussy!" Way to go, Lois! That's a word that ain't used enough!

Lana seems like a cat that won't stop rubbing up against you no matter how many times you kick it!

Super-sweat!

Clark looks deformed in that first panel. And more Super-sweat. I love sweat-beads in comics! Especially, when Superman doesn't break a sweat pushing planets around- yet, these two in a room together will make sweat buckets!

Lois is already scheming...look at her eyes- soooo cold.

Lana casually applying lipstick. Cold.

Clark Kent (alias Superman), it's your own damn fault for getting these scheming bitches together in one room!

More Super-sweat, he's been sweating up a storm since this story started!

Those crazy queens are talking smack and comparing suspicions! It's like Clark wants to be found out!!!

PS: The gay waiter is a nice artistic addition to a bunch of hags reminiscing over their plans of outing Superman.

Lois is keeping her enemies close, real close!

Lana, you moved to Metropolis without a job or place to live???

Hmmmmm....I wonder what people would think of all the pictures of super-heroes I have up on my walls? Would they jump to conclusions and think we're dating?

Lois is touching and caressing Lana's drag costume.

Watch out, Lana! Lois is about to show you her man-parts!

So Lana moved to Metropolis without a job or a home and basically has nothing, yet she still carries around a framed love note from when she was a kid, and brings it out any chance she's got.....that sound's healthy!

Lana, you better get that wig back into place!

Oooooo, here's they get all "Sex in the City!" "He never kissed you--did he?????"

"Of course!" Lana, you hussy!

By the way, Lana you are looking soooo Vertigo Kim Novak- those hefty caked-on eyebrows!

The claws are coming out! Lois, I hope you can match the crazy stalker tenacity of Lana!

Lana, acting all cool again! Reapplying that lipstick again! Signature move!

As you will see, Superman loves to sit down and have a hearty meal!

"Green Horse" Inn? That sounds grosssss. Luckily, Superman can eat anything, as you will see later!

Who's paying for this meal? Superman, you have no place to put a wallet. And Lana, you have no job!

Oh by the way, bitch, you wore that same skanky-ass outfit yesterday!

Superman, you need to stop going out to eat all the time. You are getting fat. You have that big old body and that tiny little head. Too many lunch dates at the Green Horse!

Likely story, Lois. Way to be professional!

What the heck is that junkman doing with his junk-truck in front of the Green Horse Inn??? What kind of place do they run??? It's funny, Superman never has to pay for anything!

That's got to be good advertising for one's restaurant. Superman comes and eats at your place, yet he'd rather chew on some garbage from the passing junk-cart!

Lois, don't you be letting him do you that way! Tie you to a kite, what????? I don't care how sturdy it is! Have some dignity!

Now that is what you call a job for Superman....a blow job! (so sorry...)

Lois, no matter how high in the air you are, you are at a new low. Although, being flown on a kite is probably something no other drag queen has ever done before!

Surprise! Superman is eating out again.

Oh, and look, Lana is wearing that hideous outfit for a third day in a row. Must not have had any room in her luggage for clothes with all the Superman relics she brought along.

Superman looks like he needs some Gas-X.

Lois and Lana, you're about to see he hates you equally.

Superman, the one who started de-forestation.

A cool parlor trick---flying with a woman in one arm, and a completely set dinner table in the other, and not dropping either!

What???? A cooking program??? How 1950s of you, Lana! At least you know the way to Superman's heart. Look, that ass is outside your fake studio window, somehow floating in the air and EATING.

Uh-oh, so they realize that he was being nice to both of them! So they are going to take their insidiousness to a whole new level! Well, I hope they at least change their clothes tomorrow!

Nope, same nasty-ass smelly clothes again! Four days in a row.

Dude, don't let them touch your remote controls!!!

Um, if the steamroller and glider are remote-controlled, why do they have drivers' seats???? What are this guy's credentials????

Girls, pretending that you are in trouble is really going to make you look good. "Remember that time we pretended to be in danger and got Superman to "save" us. And then that orphanage burned down because he wasn't there! Hahahahahahaha!"

Superman's about to bring the smack-down!

Drama/Drag queens just hate it when they aren't getting the attention they desire! So mopey! "Oh, he wouldn't care if we lived or died!!!" Boo-hooo! Get a job!

Lois and Lana, Superman likes Jimmy Olsen more.

Ok, Superman, like I've said before, you've only brought this upon yourself!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "Escape to the Stars"

2011-06-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

The third story in this book features an early tale of the Martian Manhunter, one of DC Comics' supposed heavy-hitters- a displaced, pea-souped-colored alien who wears a kinky outfit.

J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter made his first appearance in a back-up story in the November 1955 issue of Detective Comics (#255), one of the homes of Batman. In that particular tale, he is accidentally teleported to Earth by an elderly scientist who almost immediately dies of shock when he sees what he has done. The alien, trapped on Earth, decides to use his superb martian powers to fight crime until the time that martian technology catches up and is able to bring him back to his home planet. He has incredible martian morphing abilities and disguises himself as a human being and takes a job with the local police force as Detective John Jones.

So far, as I've been reading along in the collection, I've taken note the importance of how either identity or role play out in these comic stories. The first story involved Superman and Batman playing out a role-reversal as Superman loses his powers and Batman gains super powers. The second tale I blogged about dealt with the frontier hero Tomahawk disguising himself and posing as the villain as a use of subterfuge. Then with John Jones, there's the whole idea that there is someone amongst us, hiding, who is unknowingly, yet incredibly, alien.

The Martian Manhunter was literally a manhunter in his early stories. He was one of us, hunting down criminals. Rarely did he revert to his original martian form. It's important to note he appeared, along with Batman, in DETECTIVE comics. It wasn't until the dawn of the new sleek and sciece-based super-heroes, like the Flash and Green Lantern, that J'onn J'onzz started fighting crime as his super martian self, not as a disguised human. He was then seen flying around his city protecting it like Superman.

The Martian Manhunter is a creature of duality. He is Batman, the detective; and he is Superman, the alien powerhouse. He just happened to be super-heroing at the right time, being one of the only seven super-heroes appearing in DC Comics in early 1960, that he got to become a founding member of their super-hero team, the Justice League of America.

DC was worried, at first, that having Batman and Superman appear in too many of the JLA stories would overexpose them, and so used the Martian Manhunter as a substitute Superman, and Green Arrow in for Batman. However, as the 1960s moved on and the big two started to appear more and more often, it made those other two a bit redundant- and in the case of J'onn J'onzz, he fell entirely off the comics radar. It wasn't until the mid 1980s that he significantly appeared again, as a sort of a respected, elder amongst super-heroes.

"Escape from the Stars," first printed in Detective #228 (Feb 1956), is one of his earlier tales, printed at a time that comics weren't doing super-hero so much. As I read this story, I kept in mind some of the 1950s(ish) political and cultural subtext of the time. The House of Un-American Activities. The golden-age of television. The written works of James Baldwin. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. The alien movie genre: War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Godzilla. I think so many of these concepts can be applied to an alien being transported to a land he does not belong to, however, I think I may be elevating the comic material just a bit! Anyway, that's in my mind when I think of the Martian Manhunter...(although Darwyn Cooke gets him spot on in his series "DC: The New Frontier," which I MUST spotlight here in my blog- as soon as I get a new copy or get access to all my comics and books in storage...)

In this tale, John Jones is told to get a lead on some thief, Alex Dunster who has eluded the entire police force, his super-self included. He uses his powers to find him but is discovered because Dunster was using a super-giant hearing aid to hear Jones walking through walls!

Jones has to start over, but soon his manhunt leads him down a dirt road to a cabin (because its in the middle of the woods that the most amazing scientific discoveries are made as you can see...)

The machine that first brought him to Earth!

He has a chance to get back home!

But his nobility and a simple little glass test-tube destroy his hopes!

No way!!!! That's how we got stuck with the Martian Manhunter...

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Black Cougar!"

2011-06-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

The second story in the collection is a Tomahawk story drawn by the great Frank Frazetta! In the 1950's comic book companies were relying less and less on super hero stories and were putting more effort into other genres. Tomahawk is a fine example of the frontier comic. I guess he's supposed to be like the legendary Daniel Boone with the coon-skin cap and all. He's got a side-kick named Dan....hmmmmm, maybe in the DC re-writing of history, Daniel was his boy wonder!

This tale is about an evil, two-faced warden who works secretly with the criminals he's supposedly capturing, and who, at the same time, is also dressing up in a giant black blanket or cloak as the Black Cougar to run guns to stereotypical Indians. He does this by placing them secretly into the contents of covered wagons that Tomahawk is leading. Tomahawk and his little buddy Dan figure this out, but they don't figure out that the warden, the insidious white guy with a mustache and goat-tee, is the evil trouble-making Black Cat, someone who would sell his fellow palefaces out to the easily upsettable Indians.

What I enjoyed most about this story was the use of the term "black cougar" and the ferocious little portrait that went along with it in the panel above!

The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told: "The Super Bat-Man!"

2011-06-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

"The Super Bat-Man!" is the first story in the collection of DC's Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told, and, oh boy, what a great one to start off with! The premise of the story is that Superman loses his powers, while Batman gains super-powers! The fifties were secretly, or not so secretly, a time of identity flip-flopping!

Here's the cover of the issue it was originally printed in, World's Finest Comics #77 from July/Aug 1955 (art and cover by the late great Curt Swan):

The story starts off in Metropolis where Clark and Lois are going off to get some grub, when all of a sudden Clark (Superman!) overhears some hooligans talking about some professor and a machine he made that will "fix" Superman. Of course, as Clark is listening Lois thinks she's being ignored by him,and so she has a hissy fit and conveniently walks away! Anyway, after a quick change Superman is off to find this Professor Pender who has set up shop in some seedy part of Metropolis. You would think that with his super planet-crushing abilities he had back then, that Superman would have been procured by the city planning department to work on 1950 urban renewal plans! Well, bam, Superman walks (I mean busts a brick wall down) into a trap and gets zapped and loses his powers. Coincidently, Batman and Robin show up at the same time and Batman gets in the way of a power-ray that was meant for the professor and becomes overwhelmingly strong!

So the story is set up. Superman falls out a window because he doesn't realize he's lost his powers and Batman has to fly out and save him from splatting!

(Way to go Batman, saying things you can't say in today's comics!)

Since Batman is all super and stuff he decides weakling Superman needs a car to get around and gives him the Batmobile, newly customized and pimped up as the "Super-mobile!" He also punches out a cave for Superman to hide in. Batman loves caves and is grateful for any chance he can create one for someone else!

Superman doesn't stay in the cave, however, smugly cruising the streets of downtown Metropolis in his new Super-Mobile. Lois, sees him driving around, and of course wonders why he is driving a car! She's always so suspicious!

And while Superman is driving his un-super self around in a convertible in broad daylight, what is Batman doing? You know, because he has SUPER POWERS? Well, he decides to sit at home in his millionaire robe drinking tea! He can't handle his powers properly and breaks the table, making Alfred the Butler to clean up the darn mess.

Before he gives Alfred a stroke, he finally decides to head out to find this Pender fellow to fix things up and to put him in jail. Well, being ever vigilant, he overhears that a powder arsenel has caught on fire and is about to blow up. He flies on over throws the entire fricking building in the air as it explodes! Well, then he realizes all the flaming material is going to hit the city below! So he creates and dons a pair of giant metal bat-wings to flap the material away so the ignorant people below wont realize that explosives were about to rain down and them!

Meanwhile, Superman hasn't performed a super-stunt and suspicious Lois is hounding him. Of course she gets in the way of him rounding up some crooks and almost gets her ass killed. Oh by the way, she is saved because we find out that Superman's suit is still super.

There's a great scene with Batman moving an entire orphanage to a new site and there's Robin jumping out the window as Batman is putting it down. Kind of ironic, since both Batman and Robin are orphans!

Anyways, a bunch of other stuff happens where we find out that Superman was only zapped with a fine-kryptonite ray. As long as Superman kept wearing the same clothes that got blasted with the ray he had no powers. So he changed into a spare costume (glad he did his laundry!) and flies Robin around for awhile and finds a cave where Pender and his henchman (I'm guessing poor graduate students) are about to try and give themselves powers. Well, too damn late. Batman shows up, and even though his powers are fading he, Robin, and Superman knock the crap out of them.

To end the story, Lois gets in their faces and says she knows the two were up to something, guessing they were dressed as each other for the day! Superman and Batman smile knowing what a fool she really is.

The art in this story was incredible. But every page and panel is packed TIGHT! Lots going on, and so much dialogue! The word bubbles take up a lot of real estate! Today's comics pages have moved towards a much less dense of a page. Stories like these back then were usually six to eight pages; nowadays, 22, and then will probably continue into another three or so issues after that. As I blog about these stories, I know it will be a bit of a challenge to "decode" and break them down- but, I'm up to it!

Next: Tomahawk by Frank Frazetta!

Summer Reading: The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told

2011-06-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Now that I've restarted "The Quarter Bin," a review dump of the comics that I've read and own, I have hit a bit of a quandary: i.e. my vast comic collection from which I'd like to work from is in storage all the way back in Milwaukee, hundreds of miles from Pittsburgh!

For my drive here, I had thrown in the back of my truck a few of my possessions- a couple of which, luckily for the purposes of this blog, were some extra beat-up hardcover books that collected stories from old comic books. The one I've started reading this week is the one pictured above: "The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told!" A reprint collection put out by DC Comics presenting a wide variety of stories that they published back then.

Comic books enjoyed their glory days during the 1940s, but by the early '50s they were under attack from multiple directions: the newfound popularity of television, suburban sprawl and the lack of comic-selling outlets nearby to children, and dubious federal government committees on delinquency of those children! In order to survive, comic book companies were forced to experiment with the stories they told and sold. Once popular super-heroes were seemingly breathing their last and were quickly being replaced by westerns, romances, and for a while crime comics. Super heroes only seemed to survive because of the television medium. When the "The Adventures of Superman" starring George Reeves started appearing on the sets across America, there was a renewed interest in the printed tales of Superman. Of all the hundreds of super heroes that fought during the war years, only five continued being published on into the 50s, all of them at DC: the popular Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman- and by fluke, back-up story characters Aquaman, and Green Arrow.

The boundaries of the comic book medium were expanded at this time. The careers of many great artists and writers lifted off during this time, and their work is well-represented in this collection. Murphy Anderson, Ross Andru, John Broome, Ramona Fradon, Frank Frazetta, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Robert Kanigher, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Shelly Mayer, Dick Sprang, Curt Swan, and Alex Toth are many of the top talents of the day whose work appear within.

With the efforts of these creators, the medium of the comic book survived its struggle for existence and ushered in a new Silver-Age for itself. By the end of the 1950s, new updated versions of older characters such as the Flash and Green Lantern, based on the marvels of science, were introduced to the reading public and became extremely popular. The comics that are being read today are still based on the innovations of the 1950s.

With that in mind, I've decided to focus on the stories within this collection to examine for my blog: an exciting world following the 1950s four-color exploits of the Big 5 and the Flash and Green Lantern, as well as Captain Comet, Martian Manhunter, the Shining Knight, the Phantom Stranger, the Viking Prince, and many others! The next bunch of posts will be me sharing my reviews and insights on each of the individual stories. I have to say, this book is quite enjoyable, especially as I imagine that these tales were once gobbled up by millions of readers all over the country- on vacation, at camp, and under bedsheets with flashlights!

Aquaman Illustration by Steve Rude

2011-06-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been QUITE A WHILE since I've last blogged here at the Quarter Bin! Since I last signed in and posted something here, I've gotten two degrees: one, an associate's in architectural drafting; and two, my master's in urban planning. I've moved from NYC to Madison to Milwaukee and now I'm in Pittsburgh for the summer interning in the city's planning department with the public art manager.

Anyway.... I've had the week off (my boss is at a conference in San Diego), and of course, it's been rainy. I've been spending some time in the house I'm renting a room in looking at how very little I have here. Only three or so comics, and nothing at all on the snot-colored walls! Usually, wherever I'm living, I'll have my framed comic posters and original comic art up. One of my favorites is a piece I commissioned from Steve Rude, a comic book artist most known for his crisp, clean artwork in the Nexus series that harkens to the classic age of American illustration.

Steve Rude came across my comic-book reading radar, not from Nexus (which is great stuff, btw), but from a three-issue "prestige" (meaning, more pages, better page and print quality, and card-stock style covers) mini-series for DC starring the World's Finest team of Superman and Batman. In 1990, the DC comics universe was still slightly fresh after a company-wide shake-up of their super-hero worlds. Superman and Batman had been revamped, to the point where they worked using different crime-fighting techniques. Once where they had been best friends, they now seemed to look at each other with suspicion. Anyhow....blah blah blah...the point is Rude illustrated these differences beautifully- Superman in his sunny Golden-Age, Fleischer-esque glory and Batman as a thrilling vigilante of the night. To this day, these are my visions of the two heroes.

Come October 2008. I got a chance to meet Steve Rude at a comic signing at Westfield Comics in Madison. I just went to say hello and to maybe have him sign a copy of one of my World's Finest issues. Surprisingly, not a lot of people were there. But, Steve was gracious nonetheless and shared stories of his career, as well as drawing techniques. We got to talking and the subject of my cultish fascination with Aquaman came up. Mr. Rude, thought for a moment and realized that he had never drawn the King of the Seas before! Using the cover of a "Showcase" collection of Aquaman stories as reference he hunkered down and put together this amazing drawing!

Super Heroes: Cookies!!!!

2006-11-25T17:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure exactly how I got my hands on this, I wasn't one to bug my parents for things at the store (mostly, because I knew I'd never get anything!), and I know I didn't buy it myself. Oh well, I'm glad that I kept this part of the box. The cookies, didn't keep for long and the collector card was soon thrown out. Not a big fan of the Penguin, I suppose.

These product endorsements of the 1970's really have shaped my view of DC Comics characters. Nowadays, I really want to see a well-told collection of stories focused on these core characters. It's probably close to impossible because it always seems that one or more of these characters is being "revamped" or "killed" or "replaced." Guess, I'll just have to create and write those stories myself.

My list of my picks for core characters and what's been done to them nowadays:

-Superman: has been revamped about 20 times or so in recent years. Every creative-team has to "mix things up." Yawn. The original Superman died this year in the Infinite Crisis debacle. The Superboy of Earth Prime is murderous lunatic who rips off the heads of other super-heroes. Great job, DC. Way to show off your super-characters as role models.

-Wonder Woman: has she been replaced? Not sure, her monthly comic has only come out three times since May or so, anyway, I forget.

-Captain Marvel (Shazam): has been deemed in need of a total "makeover." i.e. a complete, unrecognizable makeover written by some guy who was on the Real World. "Captain Marvel isn't selling. So let's make him into a generic magic character who fights demons! And oh yeah, let's kill a character that's already dead (the old wizard Shazam), replace him with Captain Marvel and give him white hair, and then make Captain Marvel Jr. the new Captain Marvel and give him hipster facial hair! Oh yeah, put Mary Marvel in a coma. And more demons and more sassy characters who are "cool."

-Batman: just make him a total psychotic jerk who drafts plans to murder other super-heroes, just in case THEY go rogue.

-Robin: I have no idea. There have been a bunch of Robins.

-Aquaman: decide that he can't have a happy life ever and then replace him in his own comic-book with some character who has practically the exact name and then make sure you give the old Aquaman a squid-face, yeah, a SQUID-FACE!

-Batgirl: she gets shot in the back by the Joker, otherwise she's still pretty cool leading the Birds of Prey from her wheelchair as Barbara Gordon.

-Supergirl: introduce about a dozen different new versions of her, the newest one is a fifteen year old girl who wears a Kleenex for a skirt and tries to have sex with Nightwing, the original Robin now grown-up. She now feels comfortable posing for Maxim magazine.

-Plastic Man: give his character his own funny book that gets lots of critical acclaim but gets cancelled because not enough readers buy it. A sad commentary on the state of comic-book readers.

-Hawkman: I have no idea where to start here. His character has been "revamped" soooo much, even I, one of the biggest DC geeks, has no clue how to explain Hawkman to anyone. Who is he??? I dunno. What's his story? Does anyone know for sure? Nope!!!!

-Green Lantern: his city was NUKED! Then he went insane and murdered almost all of the other Green Lantern characters! Then he became a super-villian who tried to wipe out history!!!! Then he died!!!! Then he became some kind of ghost!!!! Now he's alive again!!!!! What????

-Flash: died and was replaced, then the replacement just "died" or something, and was replaced by a kid who's all of a sudden now an adult, just like in the soap-operas.

-Atom: his wife killed another super-hero's wife and now he disappeared and has been replaced!

-Firestorm: this is getting monotonous-killed and replaced.

Man, do I miss classic stories- thank god, for my reprint books and back issues!!!!

Hawkman's Internet Pen-Pal!

2006-11-18T13:49:00.000-08:00

From a book I've been reading lately, "Chip Kidd (Work: 1986-2006) Book One":

Hahaha! Ohmygod, I can't stop laughing at this!!!!

First of all, I should tell you, this picture is from a book that's an auto-biographical album of sorts put together by world-famous book designer, Chip Kidd. His work is pure genius and anyone who gets him to design for them is blessed. "What has this got to do with comics?" some of you may be asking. Well, Chip has been doing a bunch of work with DC Comics in the last couple years designing covers and layouts for books about their super-heroes. He did the covers and layouts for each of the trio of books written by Les Daniels about the history and cultural impact of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. With Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer author and artist of "Maus") he wrote and designed "Jack Cole and Plastic Man" (with a real plastic book cover!). He was also the man in charge of "Mythology: the DC Comics Art of Alex Ross," a beautifully photographed collection of Mr. Ross' artistic output towards my favorite super-heroes.

Well, this is all to say that Chip Kidd, through the nature of his work, has many varied connections. A couple years ago, he asked Daniel Clowes (one of my favorite all-time comics creators: writer and artist of independent comic "Eightball" and creator of "Ghostworld") to do a mock-up of "Bizarro Comics", a anthology book featuring stories written and drawn by "alternative," non-mainstream comics-people. Anyways, Dan Clowes put this cover together, but DC Comics ended up rejecting it! I've always wondered how DC Comics characters would look under the hand of Mr. Clowes, and now, years later, I finally get to see. Man, each panel is effing hilarious!!!!

Aquaman Money!

2006-11-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

If there really were super-heroes would we put their images on our money?

Super Powers: Aquaman

2006-11-09T11:48:00.001-08:00

In 1984 Kenner Toys put out the Super Power line, a group of action figures based on the great characters of DC Comics. It wasn't until a year later when I found a copy of Super Powers #1 (the second series drawn by the late, great Jack Kirby) that I realized there was a toy line too. Their ads were on the back of every DC Comic that summer. The novelty of these action-figures that they weren't just figures that stood there and did nothing. These had "super-powers" that would present themselves when you squeezed the figure's legs or arms together. Superman punched. Green Lantern raised to his arm to aim his power ring at you. Aquaman made swimming movements!

Each character figure came with his (or her, in the case of Wonder Woman) mini-comic book.

On each package there was a collector card that you, if you were a dumb kid and not some hardcore, nerdy collector, would cut out and read. Look at this great artwork!!!

Some facts about Aquaman!

I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have an action-figure of my favorite hero and character. My little Aquaman kind of became a little plastic idol for me. How devout I felt! It's weird though, I can barely remember getting him. My memory is hazy, I vaguely recall getting him at some drugstore in some other town miles from home. Must...wrack...brain...

From Leaf Candy: The Secret Origin of Aquaman

2006-11-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

1980. Kay-Bee Toy Store in the East Towne Mall. One of the semi-annual trips to the big city of Madison from little ol' Beaver Dam. Imagine my glee when my little sister and I were actually allowed into a toy-store instead of being dragged into some stupid shoe-store or that woman's clothing store that had the worst problem of discharging the most menacing static charges ever. Then imagine seven year-old me when I found this display:

Ohmygod! Packages of gum with mini-comics featuring the secret origins of DC super heroes! I HAD TO HAVE THEM! After all my years of watching the Super Friends I was finally going to find out how all these heroes got their starts. But when I asked for some money (a real rarity, since my parents had us trained never to ask for anything, ever.) I was told I could only get one. So with 63 cents in hand I got this one:

What a story! Whenever I watched the Super-Friends I always wondered about Aquaman. What was he like outside of the group? How did he get his start? Now I knew! And how romantic! Aquaman was the product of a love affair between a lighthouse keeper and the woman he saved on a dark and stormy night! This comic formed the basic shape of my idea of love for years to come. And the artwork! Even at the age I was, I knew this was top-notch. Now that I'm older and know more about comics (i.e. I'm a nerd) I've narrowed down the artwork to these three artists: Romeo Tanghal, Dick Giordano, or Jose Louis Garcia-Lopez.
Anyways, this was the start of my Aquaman fetish. Although, anytime my family would go back to the mall in Madison I would race past all the other shoppers to Kay-Bee to see if they had anymore of the other characters' mini-comics for sale. I would never find anymore there and I would often daydream about them knowing there were more secret origins to discover. Thanks to Ebay many, many years later, I finally got my hand on the rest. But upon closer inspection, none of the others were as well written or drawn as Aquaman's. I got the gem of the group!

Batman and Wonder Woman Etch A Sketch Action Pack

2006-11-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

Like I mentioned before, when I was young (way back in the 1970's and early 80's) it never occurred to me that super-heroes were featured in comic-books you could buy at the local drug or grocery store. They were characters on tee-vee. So when I would catch them on anything else other than the tube I would be astounded. You could imagine me on Christmas Day circa 1980 when I opened up a box with an Etch A Sketch accompanied by this Super Heroes Action Pack! This set had my imagination racing for a long time!

This last one really got my curiosity. Robin interacting with someone other than Batman???? He had to save Wonder Woman before his mentor. I just thought of the possibilities there!!!!

Super Heroes: "The Secret of the Sinister Lighthouse!"

2006-11-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a scan of the first comic book I ever had! It's basically a Super Friends mini-comic that was a giveaway in boxes of General Mills cereals that were shipped out in 1980. Mine came from Honeycomb! (Years later, the smell of its sweetness was still lingered upon the comic.)
I remember reading and re-reading this comic over and over again. I used to go through the comic and tally the number of times each character was drawn into the story. Aquaman was used quite a bit (nine times), I thought, and quite effectively too!
How lucky I was to get this comic. My family was poor, and it would have never occured to me to go and buy comic-books. Super-heroes were characters I could follow on the tee-vee on Saturday mornings for free. Thank you, the powers-that-were in 1980 at General Mills and DC Comics that put this giveaway mini-comic together and slapped them into the cereal boxes of poor wretches like me!

Aquaman at the Post Office!

2006-11-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

As I was sending something off (um...to no one in particular) at the post office today I finally decided to purchase the set of stamps commemorating DC Comics super-heroes that came out this last summer. All my favorites are on it! Here's a pic I found of them on the web (I scanned them in, but thought I'd get in trouble for posting them on the net, since they're considered legal tender...):

Here, though, is a scan of the backside (pause), that I was incredibly happy and surprised to discover:

A pop quiz on these DC legends may be given at any moment- so read up!

Okay, now that you read all the mini-bios on Superman, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, etc. I have to impart upon you all my giddiness for what I found next at the post office! Wow, oh wow!!!!! It was like a dream, slow-motion and all, I was completing my transaction and I kinda turn to the left, and there up over on the far wall are a bunch of matted pictures, and this was one of them:

Whoop-whoop! My soul lit up on sight- Happy Day!!!! It's drawn by either Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dick Giordano, or both. I know both of these men were the masters of DC's promotional art of the late 1970's and early 80's. Any product: t-shirts, stickers, lunchboxes, beach-towels. Their art was what you saw. I love it!
Extra bonus! This, what I think is an envelope, is on the bottom of the matted picture (scanned separtately cuz my scanner isn't big enough). It has the postmarking of the stamp, this case Aquaman; but what I'm really grooving on, again, is the art!!!!! This is my idea of what comic art is all about. Crisp and fun!

I'll be back!

2006-07-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

Just moved back to Wisconsin and I'll return to reviewing my wonderful collection of comics when I'm all settled and connected to the wide world web! Thanks for being patient!

This Last Week in DCU Hair:

2006-07-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think our heroes are in need of some hair therapy!

Donna Troy in "52", issue 8:

What is that in her hair??? Does she have a stellar case of dandruff? The Donna Troy that I know would NEVER mismanage her hair in such a way.

Captain Marvel in "Brave New World":

Yeah, what IS happening?

Captain Marvel, does the fact that DC has no idea how to set up good stories for you and your family stress you out? Well, it shows.

JLA Classified #23

2006-07-05T13:54:00.001-07:00

Wow - that was quick! Guess this book is coming out twice a month, yay! I love those kids of JLA Detroit!

So, Gypsy, quit touching Vixen's ass-button! Can't you tell she's in heat?

Vibe is the BEST dancer in all of the DC Universe! Oh yeah, was. He's been dead for awhile now.

While the rest of the Justice League members are out camping, enjoying the beautiful outdoors, Aquaman stays inside addicted to MySpace.

"Who Haunts This (Crack) House?"

2006-06-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a little review of a comic I found being sold at one of Brooklyn's famous stoop sales: DC Comics Presents # 19 (March 1980). Every issue of this series showcased Superman teaming up with a different DC character, this issue it was one of my favorites - Batgirl! It's about time he hung out with her. Really. He hangs out with Batman all the frickin' time! Those two can't seem to be separtated. But if you were Superman and you had your choice of either hanging out with some jerk with personality issues or a flashy ravishing redhead who's out fighting crime for excitement, who would you choose? Batgirl, of course. She's fun! And if Superman was gay (things he did Pre-Crisis sure make you wonder...) he'd just want her around because she's such a FAB ICON!

Anyways, DC listened to its fans and gave us what we all wanted:

The set-up for their meeting is a party. A good ol' fashioned end of the 70's drug and sex binge in the style of the infamous Club 54! The Comics Code Authority did a good job of dusting up any clear clues as to what really happened at this Caligulian drug-fest but you can still read between the panels quite well!

It starts off with some kooky prospector coming across a mirage that turns into an abandoned Victorian (and Russian-style?) mansion in the middle of the desert.

He lays claim to it, sells off a bunch of its contents and decides to hold a celebrity-fueled mega-event to celebrate. As you can see there is the Queen of Disco herself, Donna Summer!

Lots of ugly old men would hold these types of parties so they could get laid. This one's been in the desert a long time.

Then there's party animal Clark Kent and librarian-turned-congresswoman Barbara Gordon. Um, real lives of the party - yep.

Well, Barbara, you BETTER get some time to get down on that dance-floor and enjoy the throbbing disco-beat while you can. The 1980's will not be kind to you (and your spinal chord)!

Things start to go wrong!

Someone must have spiked the booze. They think they're drinking blood now. Disco-trippy!

Whoa! This party is getting out of control!

Obviously, they're all totally jealous of Batgirl!

Keep yapping, old man. Batgirl's even starting to feel it!

So who sold them all the bad coke? Superman thinks he gets his answers during this particular bad-trip!

Obviously the kid that owned this comic at one time had a strong reaction against colorist Jerry Serpe's use of pink.

And it ends in a head-throbbing coke come-down:

Added Advertising Bonus!

Thanks, Superman and friends. Guess you aren't called the World's Greatest Superheroes because of any of your overwhelming environmental concerns. Superman, do you really need to have FOUR vehicles when you can fly to wherever you need to go?

I see the Joker and Penguin have their own vehicles too. Nicely detailed with their logos so they can't be missed when they're trying to make their getaways. That's probably why they're not in the picture. Batman and Robin repossesed these wheels after throwing their self-promoting asses in jail. You would think with all his money though, Bruce Wayne would get them repainted or something. It would be real embarrassing if you were Robin and you got pulled over because you were mistaken for some evil-doing arch nemesis of Batman.

Wonder Woman, naturally, the princess that she is, has the hottest car of all. I'd like her to give me a spin sometime!

Captain Marvel, don't fret. I like yours too. But I'm a little worried that when you say your magic word that your pimp-mobile's gonna turn into a Gremlin or some soccer-mom's van.

Superman, as I've noted before you have a lot of wheels. Too bad , they all suck. I thought you'd have better taste. Really, that van of yours is shit.

And I see that these cars are being advertised as being "great fun in your pocket." Vroooommm!

"Is that a Corgi superhero car in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Forget the rest---You've found the best, Mnemonic Kid!

2006-06-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

From "The Little Clubhouse That Could" in Secret Origins #46 (the same story that also introduced us to the spectacular Arm Fall-off Boy):

She's got spunk, I like her!

DC should bring her back --- I can think of a few storylines that I would gladly let her forever wipe from my mind! Any of you got any suggestions?

All Time Favorite DC Characters!

2006-06-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

What can I say? I love my DC Comics! My love affair with its characters started at an early age thanks to hours and hours in front of the teevee watching shows like the Super Friends, the Shazam!/Isis Hour, Batman (both the camp live-action show and the Filmation cartoon), and Wonder Woman. At that time I really didn't know what comic books were, I just got all my super-power dosage from the old boob-tube! It wasn't until I discovered the Super Powers series I mentioned in my first blog that I even really knew what comic books really were. (I was deprived, wasn't I?) 1985 proved to be a good year to get into DC. Crisis, Super Powers, and Who's Who all came out displaying the wealth of characters DC had. Oh boy, what fun, I was soon indoctrined in as a DC whore!

Here's a list of my favorites with my reasons why they are:

Aquaman, Aqualad, Mera: Aquaman was my favorite Super-Friend when everyone else seemed to deride him. Characters and people who get the fuzzy end of the lollipop always seem to draw my attention, so when Aquaman became my favorite and I discovered he had a family (how cool!) they were included by default onto my list.

Krypto the Superdog: He's so cute and loveable. I like that he just romps about space. Superboy must have thought he was above obeying any leash laws!

The Wonder Twins: Everyone hates them. I love them.

Brainiac: I'm attracted to his green skin and his li'l pink outfit. I love him for his mind too.

Dr. Fate: He lives in a tower without any doors and windows and he wears a golden helmet over his head. I relate to his insecurity issues. His adventures are some of the downright wackiest, arcane stories I've ever read.

Supergirl: While she's the cutest of the cute, she also has a true and noble heart. Plus her stories are some of the most f-ed up that I've ever read. She would date her super-horse sometimes because he had the ability to become a dreamy guy for a day every 1000 years. Classic!

Rex the Wonder Dog: Who can't love a dog who can ride a horse or do complex calculus?

Wonder Woman: She was always very nice! She would give rides to Aquaman when nobody else would.

Batgirl (Barbara Gordon): She's the Batman with flare!

Vixen: Grrrrrrr!

Justice League Detroit: Heck, I love 'em all! (even the dead ones...)

Hawkwoman: I have a thing for hot red-headed supercharacters. (Mera, Batgirl, and now Hawkwoman - roar!)

Atom: I look out for the little guys.

Captain Marvel (Shazam): The most underrated DC character out there. I'm awfully scared DC's gonna screw this character up real soon...

Shining Knight: Gotta dig Frank Frazetta's run on this series. Got into him because of my love for the All-Star Squadron.

Robotman: Jimmy Thompson, who wrote and drew Robotman for awhile, is a god.

Doll Man: He's the first naked super-hero I've seen. Check out his little ass in Secret Origins #8!

Isis: She's DC, shut up.

Air Wave: I got all the back issues of Action Comics in which Alex Saviuk did the art chores for the back-up features. Air Wave would alternate issues with the Atom or Aquaman. Every third issue two of the characters would team up before one of them replaced the other the next issue.

Congorilla: This man can switch minds with an ape!

Driq: During the Millenium toward the end of the 80's, this Green Lantern character shows up. He's dead but his ring won't let his spirit go.

Nova Woman: An imaginary lover for Superman in a back-up story in Action Comics right before he got the ol' reboot! She was also an imaginary librarian. Question: Why is Jimmy's dream date the drag version of himself, and what did "she" do to his eyes?

Captain Comet: He has such a cool name! That's why.

It's Gypsy Month!

2006-06-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

Gypsy hasn't seen a lot of action since the Detroit version of the Justice League bit the big one in 1987. She's played minor roles in the DC universe here and there after a bunch of her buddies were killed off, but this month she's already appeared in two comics (that I know of)! One was in the Justice League Classified issue I just blogged about, and the other is the latest issue of Justice League Unlimited a series aimed at the younger audience. Actually, this series has always been one of the better comics DC puts out each month. It's story and character driven opposed to being caught up in the continuity claptrap DC's forcing us to acknowledge in all its other books.

Gypsy has one of the greatest costumes ever! She's got the thrift-store aesthetic. Kind of a mix of the early-to-mid 80's Cyndi Lauper and Madonna looks. The patchwork skirt and all the hoopy-type jewelry everywhere really works for her, and look: barefeet! Who needs super-hero boots when you're sneaking around everywhere? In a world of spandex, Gypsy was often misunderstood and underrated, but she lives by her own rules and isn't scared to be herself (even though it is her power to blend in...).

Gypsy rocks!

Best New Character of 2006!!!

2006-06-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

Has got to be the Mother of Champions who just appeared with her fellow members of the Chinese super-team "The Great Ten" in this week's copy of 52 (#6). Way to go DC!

The press on her states that her super-power is the ability to give birth to a litter of 25 super-soldiers every three days.

Ohmygod. That has to be the most thought-provoking power ever. And from what I hear, her children are full-grown? Soooooooooo many questions!!!

How does she produce these children?
Does she eat a lot of pickles?
Stretchmarks?
Baby books?
Is she married? If so, who's the lucky, lucky guy? (Happy Father's Day!)
Does she have a lot of baby showers?
Does she give her children names or does she just number them?
How many litters has she had?
Boys or girls?
Does she believe in birth control?
When will she join the Justice League?
When will we get an action figure? (Will it be a box set?)

JLA Classified #22

2006-06-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

This issue begins an untold tale of the Justice League when it was headquartered in Detroit during the 1980's- one of my favorite incarnations! Aquaman had disbanded the original group of the "World's Greatest Super-Heroes" and reformed it with a cast of characters who would always be there whenever needed. Second-stringers like Elongated Man, Zatanna, and J'onn J'onnz were joined by new untested characters like teen runaway Gypsy, Latino street dancer Vibe, hot-headed man of metal Steel, and beautiful fashion model with animal powers Vixen! Everyone vehemently hated them, but I loved them. Letter columns to the comics were always filled with readers ranting about the roster and how they would like the Justice League ranks to be filled. I always root for the underdog!

For some reason this grouping has been brought back twenty years later. Here's a shot of Aquaman swimming toward Detroit in lovely Lake Erie!

Welcome!

2006-06-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION

When I was a young little misfit going to junior high during the height of the 80's, I discovered the colorful world of comic books. Alone, as I often was, I'd take my hand-me-down banana-seat bike on explorations of my small midwestern town. This was before the rise of the big-box grocery store that would later dot the outsides of towns like mine, so during my little jaunts I was still able to stop at any one of the locally owned little groceries around town whenever I felt I was getting thirsty and buy myself a Jolly-Good. It was on one those summer bike-rides that I happened to be searching the magazine racks, probably looking for something on Madonna or, more likely, the Goonies (I was obsessed that summer!) and came across a bunch of comics.

I never really paid much attention to them before, but as I was leafing through one I saw this amazing group shot of all these super-heroes I knew from the Super Friends standing around greeting each other. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman, and a bunch of others I didn't recognize.

A couple pages later, there was Aquaman - my favorite Super Friend!

I guess he couldn't make that great meeting a couple pages earlier because, as I read along, he was already over in England investigating...the Seeds of Doom! Wow! I was reading the first issue of a new six part mini-series called Super Powers! The greatest heroes of the time had gotten together to fight the power of an evil spacelord named Darkseid who was trying to conquer and remake the earth in his image by using these giant destructive seeds that could protect themselves by transporting anyone who messed with them back into time! Aquaman and some green guy (no, he wasn't the Hulk - he was the Martian Manhunter!) were sent back to King Arthur's time. Because of their super powers they were mistaken for witches, and therefore, were going to be burned at the stake! What was really helpful, and in turn quite instrumental in transforming me into a true comic-geek, was this section after the story which featured biographies of different characters so new readers, like me, could know what the heck was going on. With Super Powers #1, an obsession was born.

Now, I came from an upper-lower class, blue collar family and I didn't get much of an allowance. Actually, my mom was notoriously stingy, and I remember I only got a quarter a week back then (though I remember being grateful to get even that). New comics cost 75 cents plus tax. An early obsticle to a burgeoning hobby. Luckily, for me, my parents dragged my sister and me to flea markets and local antique malls so my mom could buy all this boring junk that teenage boys have no interest in whatsoever; however, certain dealers, to my utter glee, had quarter bins of old comics out to be sorted through. This is how my love of comics started and grew.

Soon, in order to get my hands on more comics, I concocted a plan when school started in the fall. Luckily, my family was poor enough that we were getting government assistance and I got free hot lunch tickets to use at school. Every week I'd pick up these tickets and sell them to the other kids who were too impatient to wait in line themselves. I'd go across the street to a small grocery and buy new comics. With what I had left I would spend at the flea markets on whatever I found in the bins. My abuse of the system worked pretty well. I was becoming immersed in the likes of Aquaman, the Justice League, the All-Star Squadron, Superman, Donald Duck, Scamp (the naughty puppy from Lady and the Tramp), and whatever else (except Marvel for some reason). A growing demand for more and more comics plus the fact that I was starving soon put an end to my white-collar criminal antics and I soon got myself a real job as a paperboy. What I bought back then became the foundation for my love of the four-color medium, and therefore, I dedicate this blog to those quarter bins of yore.

GOAL

This blog is an offshoot of my main blog, "Bull Roar!" where I can go off on whatever subject on comic-books that I want to, without having to bore my non-comic-following readers .

It is with this blog that I'd like to present a discussion and review of comics that I've been reading, old and new. I especially hope to compile a chronological listing of such favorites of mine: Aquaman, Walt Disney's Scamp, Harvey's Black Cat, the Super Powers mini-series, and whatever else strikes my fancy. At the moment I'm without scanning equipment, so the graphics, unfortunately, may be kept to a minimum. I'd like that to change within a few months. Hopefully, I'll be able to present a forum that will keep your interest regardless of the number of images I'm capable of posting.

Happy Reading - here's to the quarter bins!