Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1985 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I read the comics released the week of November 8, 1984. 

Tales of the Teen Titans #50: Wolfman and Perez bring their series to its 4th anniversary and the Titans to the wedding of Donna Troy and Terry Long. Like most comic book weddings, it's a "star-studded" affair with appearances by Diana, Clark, and Bruce, as well as pretty much every character that has been a Titan over the years. It provides an opportunity for some light retconning or at least lampshading as Dick points out to Duella Dent that she's too old to be Two-Face's daughter, and a joke is made about how Hawk and Dove aren't as old as the person greeting them thought they would be. There is a lot of nice character stuff here, with Gar running himself ragged to get the wedding right, Vic worrying about standing out as a cyborg, and Donna and Dick having heart-to-heart conversations with each other and their individual mentors. What we don't get is a villain attacking, though there is a tease that winds up being a bait and switch.

All and all, this was a well-done issue. One of the best in the Titan's run so far, and another which will make the Year's Best Comic Stories digest.

Amethyst #2: While Amy Winston's parents try to rouse her on Earth, Amethyst is stumbling around Gemworld. She gets upset when she sees her beau Prince Topaz kissing Princess Turquoise after a rescue, but there are bigger troubles brewing. Fire Jade is stirring up rebellion in the Aquamarine Archipelago, and unnatural events are occurring, including the disappearance of Castle Sardonyx.

The Monitor and Lyla also make their cameo, with them intrigued by the power readings they are getting from Amy Winston even though she isn't a superhero.

Arak Son of Thunder #41: Responding to a question posed in the letter column, Thomas reveals that it has been his plan to leave the series with issue 50 and at this point, the plan is to just end the series then. He says sales took a bit of a dip when Colon left the book, and they never recovered.

Arak and friends are on the Karama being taken back to North America at the order of the Caliph. Arak and Valda have a hard time staying together. A storm sweeps her overboard and she's presumed drowned. However, an island comes into view in a place where none of the experienced sailors have seen one before. Arak and Satyricus go ashore to investigate and wind up in an arena fighting a large bull side-by-side with the very much alive Valda. The trio is able to kill the bull, but then there's a small earthquake. The ground opens up, and Valda and Satyricus fall in. Arak is confronted by the priestess who's running the show and is shocked to find she's his old foe, Angelica.

Batman #380: Hoberg joins Alcala, taking over for Newton who passed away in August. Unfortunately, his debut is marred by Moench providing a ridiculous plot twist. With Fang's hired assassins having failed three times to kill Bullock, a panicked Hill agrees to let Fang out so he can do the job himself. First, Fang plans to get Batman, but he's not the only villain on the prowl. Night Slayer is headed straight for Nocturna and Jason. Those two, Batman, and the two villains all collide in the penthouse of the Ritz-Carlton. There, Batman deflects Night Slayer's pistol shot enough that he kills Fang, but not before grazing Batman's temple and giving him a concussion. In his addled state, Night Slayer switches clothes with him, convincing Batman that he is the Night Slayer. Horrified by what he believes he has done, he runs off into the night before Jason can stop him.

Flash #342: The trial of the Flash drags on with some conceptually, at least, interesting stuff showing how trials would work in a superhero world. For instance, Rip Hunter is called as an expert witness to opine on whether a time traveler can be killed before he's born. 

Most of the issue is given over to the typical superhero stuff and the fallout from last issue. The Flash's face and Big Sir's brain are repaired by the apes of Gorilla City, then the Flash and Big Sur set a trap for the Rogues. 

G.I. Combat #274: Finally, we get our Monitor appearance in this book in the first Haunted Tank story. J.E.B. Stuart is watching and commenting on the Haunted Tanks travails with Attila the Hun, when suddenly he feels a strange presence. He turns to see the Monitor standing behind him the ghostly realm. The Monitor doesn't say a whole lot, other than he's new to this world of "blood and death" and then he's gone. Meanwhile, the tank's crew have got themselves in real trouble, so Stuart appeals to Alexander the Great for permission to help his guys. Alexander grants this but also allows Attila to help the Germans. Just for grins, Alexander doesn't tell them they must inhabit human bodies when they do. So, Stuart plays Italian partisan leading the tank crew to G.I. POWs on the march, and Attila becomes a German take commander who has got around the grooming standards.

Next, there are 3 more World War II stories. In a "Women at War" piece, a female Soviet soldier goes to respect an American ship captain on a perilous run across the North Atlantic carrying supplies. In the Pacific Theater, Gunner and Sarge rely on pooch to save them from the Japanese when they are both injured. In a humorous one-pager, POWs rig a baseball bat to take 3 Japanese soldiers.

The Mercenaries are in the Western Ghats and seem like they stepped back in time to the 19th Century in the anachronistic portrayal of India, as they help two young lovers against the Raj.

Jemm, Son of Saturn #6: Potter and Colan/Mcloed spend much of the issue with Jogarr and Superman. We learn that he is Jemm's cousin, exiled because of his democratic ideas. Ultimately captured by White Martians and forced to labor in a mine for the element used to power a super-weapon. He and his fellow miners were survivors of the holocaust. He hates Jemm because he represents the monarchial government that exiled him. Superman convinces him to give his cousin a chance. 

Meanwhile, Tull has his ally, Senator Berkley assassinated, planning to pin it on Saturnians, and Jemm is forced to destroy a White Martian pursuit craft in his escape.

Omega Men #23: The reports of the exit of Moench and Smith/Maygar were a bit premature, as they finish out their story this issue. With Primus and Felicity out of comission, Shlagen tries to stop the Dredfahlians from destroying Nimbus's body. Meanwhile, the other Omega Men fight Branx demons of Nimbus' mind to save their friend's soul. In the end, Nimbus makes peace with the demons of his guilt and integrates them back into his self, regaining his full power and his will to live.

Next issue is promised as a done-in-one from Wolfman and Kevin O'Neil.

Star Trek #11: Kirk and crew of the regular universe waste no time in escaping the Imperial controlled Excelsior to the Mirror-Enterprise and making a run for it. Stiles remains a jerk, and Kirk has to punch him out and throw him in a warp shuttle to send him to warn Starfleet. Mirror-Kirk has the same cunning as his counterpart, though, and sends a message to Mirror-Enterprise's computer to start a self-destruct sequence!

Meanwhile, the transfer of Spock's katra to his new body hasn't been going well, and it seems he may die. Mirror-Spock with Mirror-Chekov and Sulu supporting him, shows up on Vulcan. He mind melds with his counterpart, and that may be helping to heal his damaged duplicate. Barr and Sutton/Villagran deliver another issue that feels of a piece with cinematic Trek.

Superman #404: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner present a story clearly marked as "imaginary" where Clark lost his powers in a battle with Lex Luthor as Superboy, and in adulthood is married to Lana with a son and the owner of a chain of supermarkets. When Lex is released from prison and goes on a rampage, Superman has to make his debut, mimicking some of his Superboy powers with technology powered by Kryptonite.

This is a pretty good story as "What if?" type stories go, but it feels out of step the more serial storytelling in vogue in the era (and now, for that matter).

Gardens of the Moon

After a hiatus, our Land of Azurth 5e game continued with the party arriving at the Moon looking to meet with the Bright Goddess and get one of the crystals, supposedly the tears of Azulina. 

Whatever they were expecting, it probably wasn't what they found. The structures of the Goddess were contained in a large, walled garden of what marble and coral stone with silver-tinged moon flora. Once they got pass the silver-armored rabbit folk guards at the entrance (who let them pass easily), they found the garden almost eerily empty. The encounters they had were not with rabbit folk, but things stranger.

They had been warned the garden was a faerie place, but that hadn't quite prepared them for the ice cream ooze they had to battle or the annoying rust hornets that degraded Erekose's and Dagmar's armor. The close harmony singing of some living hothouse flowers or the philosophizing of a praying mantis-appearing visitor from the astral plane was also strange but less threatening.

The session ended with the party still no closer to the rabbit parties they are looking for.

On Magitech

I'm going to define magitech for my purposes here as technology (in the sense of items that appear industrial, mechanical, or electronic) that is powered by magic. I tend to like magitech when it is done well, but I find it often isn't done well, in my judgement. I've spent some time thinking about what for me constitutes "doing it well" versus not.

There are, I think, different types of magitech in media, and the one that almost always works for me is what I would call naive. Naive magitech occurs when the portrayal of something mythic, fairytale-like (and I think those are the two most common modes) just happens to feature some trappings of technology. Stories with naive magitech give the impression the technology they feature is just assumed in the same way Medieval or early modern tech is just assumed in traditional fairytales. Baum's Oz includes elements of this, but so do the New Gods related series from Kirby, or other works  of later creators working in a Kirby mode.

I revisited the Blackstar (1981) cartoon series not too long ago, and it has a great example in the episode "Lightning City of the Clouds." Crios the Ice-King is trying to stop Spring from coming to the Planet Sagar, keeping the planet in eternal winter. He attempts to steal the key to springtime with his fortress that flies on a cloud and appears to be made of ice. That fortress also has a futuristic-appearing control room (draped with icicles) complete with a video screen where he can talk to his boss, Overlord.

It's a setting that makes no attempt separate science fiction and fantasy. We might well call it science fantasy, though that term also covers works that include things clearly defined diegetically as scientific, but are utterly implausible. What I'm interest in here is fantastic technology that is understood within the story as magical or at least implicitly such.

Other examples of magitech, what is more traditional meant by that term, occur when magic is used to replicate something close to modern or science fictional technology. Unlike the naive magitech, it is often part of a rationalized or systemized portrayal of magic, but not necessarily. It's this sort of magitech that can often go wrong because it ends up with obvious cliches (magic carpet taxis, magic wands for guns) or the Rube Goldbergian devices on Flintstones or Gilligan's Island where it becomes a joke based around, "just how are they gonna build this device?"

I find both of these approaches unsatisfying because not only are they often silly (intentionally or unintentionally) but because they make the fantastic mundane. 

I think good magitech ought to aim to do the opposite: make the mundane fantastic.

How does that work? Well, I think magitech should general not be identical to a scientific technical solution to the problem. There ought to be new (and interesting) complications and implications. I'll give a couple of examples: In the comic book series The Outer Darkness, the starship is powered by a captive god who demands sacrifice. This has all sorts of implications for how one might coax more power from the engines or what an engine breakdown looks like. A containment breach becomes a whole different sort of danger.

In my Weird Adventures setting there are radio para-elementals. Their existence suggests something about the physics of the setting, making it more aligned with fantasy, but also brings up interesting complications for radio operation.

There are lots of other examples, but you get the idea. In summary, I guess my pitch is: if you are going to include magitech, think about what it implies about how the world is different from the one we know. That doesn't mean you need a rigorously worked out "magic system." It just means putting though into how technology and the world it exists in are of a piece.

Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1985 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands in the week of November 1, 1984. 

The "Meanwhile..." column in this month's comics eulogizes Don Newton who had died August 19.

Superman: The Secret Years #1: Nice Frank Miller cover on this one, though the interiors by Swan/Schaffenberger mark this series as part of this era's "stuck in the Silver Age" version of Superman. It's a continuation of the "In-between Years" backups that ran in Superboy. Rozakis' story, though, has some surprises. Sure, Clark is mostly acting like Superboy Clark, and Lex has just escaped reform school for the last time using bedsprings on his feet, but in-between all of that Clark is still dealing with his grief over the loss of his adopted parents, and his roommate Ducky has developed a drinking problem, culminating in a drunk driving accident that leaves him seriously injured.

It's an odd mix! One foot in the more Teen Titans-style character drama, and one foot in the old Superboy schtick. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Jonni Thunder #1: The Thomases and Giordano develop an idea initially conceived by Thomas and Conway. The brand-new character utilizing the name of an old one is a long-used tactic in comics (it's the root of the Silver Age, after all), but it's really going to take off post-Crisis. This Jonni Thunder is a hard-boiled P.I. in Los Angeles. She returns from her father's funeral to find a dead man in her office and then an insectoid robot out to kill her. It all seems to relate in some way to statue of a woman, apparently looted from South America, that her father had received and had had turned into a lamp. What's so important about the statue isn't clear, but it does impart the power to Jonni to generate a being of energy out of herself, which comes in handy stopping a guy trying to kill her.

Atari Force #14: The Scanner One is out in the multiverse, trying to figure out if there's some place they can return too. Dart has been convinced by a dream that she has to give Blackjack another chance, though she is being cautious about it. Pakrat discovers Taz has been beat-up by a stowaway: Kaarg. He runs for his life and escapes to an airless planetoid in a shuttle, only to be rescued by his brother Rident who has been (I guess) hidden in the landing bay all this time? I suspect Conway forgot about him, and Baron is tying up that loose end. Anyway, Rident announces his intention to take them all in to face justice while Martin tries to convince him New Earth was destroyed.

In the backup by Manak and Klaus Janson, we get a solo Babe story from before he left Egg. He wonders away from Mama briefly and gets involved in a conflict with an alien and the alien's diminutive foes intent on eating him.

DC Comics Presents #78: This is an issue my brother and I had as kids. The obscure (in real world terms) villains from last issue unite to form the Forgotten Villains, though they don't really use that name in story. Superman beats the Faceless Hunter, but Immortal Man is killed saving Dolphin. It's ok, though, because he just returns for another life in a kid's body. Kraklow and the Enchantress have a third member of their sorcerous cabal on a distant world, and the Heroes must travel their to defeat them. Space Cabbie gives them a ride, but the magical villains make them crash on an unstable world, necessitating another helping hand from Chris KL-99 and friends. Now, both of these characters are technically from the future, but Wolfman and Swan don't let that stop them.

When the Heroes arrive at their destination, they find the planet is the third sorcerer--Yggardis. Things aren't going well for the good guys, until Atom-Master and Mister Poseidon realize the Enchantress' plans don't leave much run for them, and use Ultivac to attack her, providing room for the Forgotten Heroes to save Superman and the day.

In the coda, the Monitor says he can't find Kraklow or the Enchantress, but he can't waste time on that now. There's something happening on Earth-Three that needs his attention. He informs Lyla that he's dropping his connection to the villains; he's studied them enough in the guise of helping them. The blurb promises this will be continued in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Fury of Firestorm #32: Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier step into writing duties this issue, and Alan Kupperberg is on art. The ghost of "Shoe" Shine, the gangster that tried to kill Ed Raymond, ousts Stein from Firestorm so he can live again in Stein's body. When the Phantom Stranger shows up and explains to Ronnie what's going on, Ronnie again forms Firestorm, but that allows Shine to take over their hero-form. Phantom Stranger has to take more direct action to help the young hero out. I guess this was a seasonally appropriate story, but not much to recommend it otherwise.

Justice League of America #235: Conway and Patton continue from last issue with Vixen sought by the police, and Aquaman and the new members of his team at odds about what to do about it. After a couple of panels that make it look like Aquaman somehow used his aquatic telepathy to de-escalate Steel, the young hero storms off. He meets up with Gypsy outside, and they are attacked by Fastball of the cadre. The villain disappears as quickly as he came, and the team heads off to New York where they hope to stop Vixen at the M'Changan Embassy. They show up in time to save Vixen from her uncle and his men. The cops arrive, but Maksai refuses to press charges, and Aquaman won't let the cops take Vixen in for what happened in Detroit. That move, Zatanna tells Steel, was likely the wrong one and will have consequences. On the flight back to Detroit, their transport plane is teleported to a mountain in the Arctic, where the team encounters the Overmaster and his Cadre.

Wonder Woman #323: Feels like after putting off the mandated inclusion of the Monitor (mentioned in the editorial column this issue), Mishkin and Heck go all in because that mysterious observer is all over this issue. Dr. Psycho calls him to get a new ectoplasmic extractor, which the Monitor asks Cheetah to steal. Silver Swan calls him wanting to find Captain Wonder, and the Monitor directs her to Dr. Psycho's hideout. Etta Candy and Howard Huckaby are caught in the middle of this villain drama, as Cheetah happens to capture them, then they are at Psycho's hideout when Silver Swan shows up and thinks Captain Wonder is cheating on her with Cheetah. Then, Angle Man is calling the Monitor wanting to power up a new Angler. These Wonder Woman villains are a needy group!

Anyway, thanks to Howard's crazy idea, they are all convinced Etta is Wonder Woman which puts the two in even more danger. Etta uses Psycho's ectoplasmic device to power herself up into an ersatz Wonder Woman. She fights the good fight, but it's the arrival of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor that sees the villains defeated. Howard proclaims his love for Etta, Steve and Wonder Woman are back together--and Griggs is interested in exploring his and Diana's connection, with drama sure to ensue.

Vigilante 14: Von Eeden is on art this issue. While Adrian Chase waits to see if he is appointed a judge and what that will do to Vigilante's career, the businessmen Hammer and Hammett, actually brothers, have been engaged in an escalated game of one-upsmanship. Hammer, with the aid of a high-tech shadow suit, is about to commit murder to win. Vigilante tries to get in the man of his plans, but the new tech gives Hammer such an advantage that Vigilante is forced to kill him. Later, Hammett reveals that he had orchestrated the situation to lead to Hammer's death by his own hand, but Vigilante proved a convenient substitute. 

New Teen Titans #5: Wolfman and Perez come to the end of Trigon/Raven storyline, but as this issue opens, things look bleak for the Titans. They are all that's left of a transformed Earth and staring down a giant Trigon. They attack but are swatted like gnats and appear to be killed. Lilith is all the while making portentous but vague statements and trying to get Arella, grieving over her dead daughter, to help her with Raven's rings. As Trigon opens a portal to his home dimension, and the Titans mount a desperate delaying action, the power of Azar manifests through Raven's soul-self and grows large enough to envelope and destroy Trigon. Everything returns to the way it was, with only the Titans, Lilith, and Arella remembering what happened.  This was kind of Wolfman/Perez's "Dark Phoenix" story, so it will be interesting to see what comes after.

Weird Revisited: Alternate Ravenlofts

The original version of this post appeared in 2016... 

Jack Shear brought to my attention an idea Kreg Mosier proposed of a Southern Gothic Ravenloft. Which is a great idea! It also got me to thinking about other settings where Ravenloft could be repurposed:

Planet of Vampires

A commercial cargo-hauler spacecraft responds to a call from the Demeter from a nearby planetoid, and finds an planet shrouded in eerie mists. The Demeter's crew have undergone a frightening transformation into the undead. At the center of all this strangeness is a weirdly earth-like castle and its master.

Inspirations: Planet of Vampires, Alien, and the Star Trek episode "Catspaw."

The Creepy Castle

Teenagers returning from Spring Break have their car break down in an eerie fog somewhere in Appalachia. Going the the forbidding European-style castle for help seems like a good idea...

Inspirations: any number of horror films including Texas Chainsaw Massacre; Scooby Doo, and for more of a tripped out euro-feel, things like Nuda per Satana and Requiem pour un Vampire.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1985 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on October 25, 1984.

America vs. the Justice Society #1: This feels like the title Thomas was born to write: It combines the Golden Age characters he loves with extensive continuity patches and retcons. There are even notes about where things are drawn from. He's joined by his wife in plotting, and by multiple artists (Kayanan, Buckler, and Ordway) and inkers (Alcala and Collins). In the story, the discovery (and subsequent publication by Clark Kent's Daily Star) of a diary written in Batman's own hand naming the Justice Society as conspirators with Adolf Hitler causes Congress to summon the team for a hearing, and Robin and the Huntress find themselves working as legal counsel on opposing sides. While of course they aren't going to turn out to be guilty, it isn't immediately apparent where the story might be going, so that's kind of interesting.

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Arion Lord of Atlantis #26: The demon god Kr'Rth is marauding through the city, and Arion is in the thrall of his high priestess who plans to make the mage her consort. Arion is just faking though. As soon as he can, he slips out to borrow magic from his deceased dad to send Kr'Rth back into darkness. Even though he probably saved Mara's life, she is in no way greatful, still holding a grudge for what happened in his absence.

Kupperberg and Duursema give us a Chian solo story. After being nearly hit by an arrow while riding through a forest, she meets a girl named Lyla who has run away from her responsibility to fulfill her people's obligation by being placed in a temple. Lyla's story reminds Chian bitterly of her own childhood. Soon, Lyla's father and other hunters catch up, and both Chian and the girl are taken prisoner.

All-Star Squadron #41: Firebrand, Green Lantern and Hawkman save an unconscious Starman from falling to his death, giving Thomas/Kupperberg and Jones/Collins the excuse they need to tell his origin, courtesy of Tarantula's book on super-heroes. After giving Batman and Robin a bit of help at a robbery and acquiring the nonfunctional gravity rod designed by Professor Davis from his cousin Sandra, Ted Knight powers Davis's rod with "unknown cosmic rays", makes a costume, and offers his services to the FBI as Starman.

Detective Comics #546: Moench and Colan/Smith are still plugging along. Anton Knight is still recovering with the blind woman. Jason is settling in to living with Natalia, though he doesn't buy for a minute she just wants to be his mom. After Batman's last issue, Hill retaliates by framing him for a crime, suspending Gordon, and sending Gotham PD after Batman. Gordon tells Batman to look out for Gordon, who needs looking out for, because another assassin takes a shot at him. Fed up, Bullock heads over to Hill's mansion to confront his former boss. After Bullock delivers his threat, Hill pulls out a gun and shoots him, claiming self-defense.

Spanner's Galaxy #2: Cuti and Mandrake have Spanner castling (teleporting) onto a ship that's just been overrun by pirates. He helps the crew retake the ship, then agrees to help a young woman he calls "Icy Rivers" get to her fiancé at port. Apparently, they are both specially engineered perfect specimens of their race on their way to a new planet called Paradise. Spanner helps the couple and meets a diminutive alien with a knack for engineering. After various trials, including saving the girl from a premature autopsy and escaping the hunters pursuing him, Spanner castles off-world, one step ahead of the law.

Sun Devils #7: Conway and Jurgens/Mitchell continue this space opera saga with the revelation that the scientist the team recently liberated from the Sauroids has know-how to build a super-weapon that could end the war. The weapon, by disrupting a sun, would kill millions, and that sits uneasily with some of the team, including Anomie. Rik feels like obtaining this weapon for Earth and her allies is the only way. The team flies off to harvest the necessary neutronium from a nebula, but command intercepts a message and realizes there's a traitor among them. The Sun Devils run into an ambush, and Rik and Anomie must escape their destroyed ship by donning spacesuits. They run right into Drakon, the elite sauroid warrior leading the assault.

Tales of the Legion #319: Levitz and Shoemaker/Kesel follow up on last issue with group of Legionnaires dealing with a frenzied Mon-El dealing with the memories of Phantom Zone confinement. Meanwhile, Shadow Lass is forced to fight for her life against Lady Memory. She wins that battle, then the cavalry arrives to defeat the Persuader and Lady Memory's rebel army. The solution to Mon-El's mental state proved to be snapping him out of it by recalling his greatest trauma, so Superboy brought out the Phantom Zone Projector for that purpose.

World's Finest Comics #311: Nice cover by Cullins and Janson. Cavalieri and Woch have the Monitor (this guy again!) testing Superman's and Batman's abilities, by giving a teenage computer hacker (previously attempting to hack into Phil Foxman's computer and read as yet unpublished New Teen Tyros stories) access to the Fortress of Solitude, where he unleashes monsters from Superman's zoo and giant combat robots carrying kryptonite. Working together Batman and Superman manage to contain the emergency as Superman deals with the monsters and robots and Batman finds the source of the problem and presumably gives the kid a stern talking to. The Monitor, not satisfied with the results, contacts a group of villains called The Network (who got teased in the DC Sampler) for a go against the heroes.

Action Comics #563: This issue is a bit of a departure from the norm, having 3 humorous short stories. The first brings back Ambush Bug and unites the team of Fleming and Giffen that will be responsible for his limited series. It's really the first appearance of the character as he'll appear there: fourth wall breaking, referencing of comic book events (in this case, Secret Wars and Spider-Man's symbiote suit) and very silly. He plays a short of Daffy Duck character, though that would make Superman his Porky Pig straight man. Thankfully, the story doesn't overstay its welcome by going on too long.

The second story features Mr. Mxyzptlk and is by Bridwell and Saviuk/Jensen. Mxy demands Morgan Edge make him a media star, and foils plans to send him home by making it impossible for people to write or say any name backwards. Superman eventually figures out a way to send the imp home and it's a bit of a cheat, referencing for no real reason Bizarro Kltpzyxm, but it works. 

The last story by Boldman and Bender/Marcos harkens back to those classic Silver Age Jimmy Olsen yarns. Needing to rescue a young girl, Jimmy drinks his Elasti-Lad formula but becomes a blob instead of merely stretchy. Unable to communicate, most people think he's a monster, but Superman comes to his rescue (eventually).

Weird Revisited: Down in Troglopolis

As I was working on the Land of Azurth comic story (with art by Mike Kazaleh), I got to the page which gives a bit of an introduction to Subazurth. It reminded me of this post from 2014 where the region was introduced...

   

The vast system of caverns and passages that riddle the underground of the Land of Azurth are a realm unto themselves, known as Subazurth. Parts of Subazurth are wild and dangerous and in the hands or claws of monsters of various sorts, but other areas are quite civilized and organized into petty kingdoms and even cities. The greatest of these is Troglopolis.

 Troglopolis is a large city, perhaps not so grand as the Sapphire City of Azurth but hardly unimpressive. Most of its inhabitants are pale, large-eyed humans called Underfolk. They busy themselves with the same sorts of tasks that occupy those on the surface: they cultivate mushrooms and lichens, fish underground lakes, mine metals, raise bats and train them to carry messages, drain goblinic slime pools for public safety, and engage in commerce--some of this with the surface world.

The practice of religion is found amongst them, as well, of course. They know of Azulina and her handmaidens, but they also venerate relics they find in their caves. These anomalous items do not seem to have come from Azurth above--in fact, they sometimes seem of more advanced manufacture. The Troglopolitans view these as gifts from the gods.

A page from the Azurth comic, highlighting some dangers of Subazurth

Humans aren't the only inhabitants of Troglopolis and the civilized regions. There are little folk like in the world above, though there are some varieties not found in Azurth proper. The troglings (or troggles) are furred and tailed humanoids who typically live rather shiftless lives amid ancient ruins of a pre-human civilization.

There are also the diminutive but industrious deep gnomes (sometimes called red gnomes, for the color of their caps). They enlarge passageways to standard sizes, shore up caves, decorate areas with blocky, angular sculptures, and even cultivate the grow of crystalline rock candy outcroppings that so many creatures use for sustenance. It is quite likely that a great under-city like Troglopolis would not be possible but for their efforts. Deep Gnomes are collectivist, owning everything in common and valuing the public good above all. Other species are sometime derisive of them, even destroying the gnomes’ work when it suites them, but the deep gnomes seem oblivious to such affronts, wholly content in their labor.