My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around January 22, 1981.
Action Comics #518: I feel like it's been a while since we had a "good" issue of this title (and I'm trying to judge by the standards of the era), and Conway and Swan fail to deliver one here. A big claw comes out of the sky and steals a dam. Superman is contacted by an alien prince, Karmault, who explains that his people's telekinetic powers have been waning, so they need technical know-how they never needed before. Karmault states he merely wishes to meet with scientist and acquire knowledge, but his brother Farlung stole the bridge and plans to keep taking stuff. When Superman confronts Farlung, it turns out Karmault has played them both, setting Farlung up to steal stuff as a distraction while Karmault siphons the knowledge of Earth scientists. Superman sets them both straight.
The Aquaman backup continues the DeMatteis/Heck storyline. We learn that Ocean-Master was working with the (maybe?) Greek gods, Amphirite and Poseidon. Meanwhile, Aquaman is trying to puzzle out how Orm got his hands on advanced Atlantean tech when Poseidon shows up. Poseidon proves to be Aquaman's superior in commanding fish, and Aquaman is pummeled to unconsciousness by their onslaught. Poseidon saves him from being killed, though, explaining to Cal that he is Aquaman's father.
The Aquaman backup continues the DeMatteis/Heck storyline. We learn that Ocean-Master was working with the (maybe?) Greek gods, Amphirite and Poseidon. Meanwhile, Aquaman is trying to puzzle out how Orm got his hands on advanced Atlantean tech when Poseidon shows up. Poseidon proves to be Aquaman's superior in commanding fish, and Aquaman is pummeled to unconsciousness by their onslaught. Poseidon saves him from being killed, though, explaining to Cal that he is Aquaman's father.
Adventure Comics #480: More stories of heroes (and villains) submitted by the readers in Dial "H" for Hero. Chris and Vicki become Mr. Mystical and Molecular Maiden to help out the alien Sphinx in the first story and become Star Flare and Hypno Girl to take on the pirate Thunder Axe in the second. In the third story, it takes two sets of heroes, Solar Flare and Midnight Wisp and Strato-Girl and the Wrangler, to stop the Battering Ram at the circus. All of these are written by Wolfman with art by Infantino. Wolfman's writing is notable for the vicious retorts Vicki gives an annoying classmate. The character submission form is printed in the back of this issue, and it's surprising blatant marketing research.
Brave & the Bold #173: Conway and Aparo team the Dark Knight with a Guardian of the Universe and Green Lantern. The Guardian shows up in Gotham and tells Batman that there is an imposter within the Guardians. He follows Batman through some routine crimefighting before Batman agrees to go with him to find Hal Jordan. Jordan doesn't remember that he's a Green Lantern. It turns out the culprit and imposter is Sinestro. The three take off to Maltus to try to find a way to stop him. This is an unusually cosmic Brave & the Bold. I miss this Bronze Age Batman that would deal with this sort of stuff without being all grumpy about it and acting like it was a waste of his time when he could be stopping street crime in Gotham.
The Nemesis backup by Burkett and Spiegle has the vigilante in England, on the trail of a chess grandmaster, Noel Chesteron, who's on The Council. For some reason, Chesterton is trying to kidnap Sir Robert Greene, a Knight of the Garter. Utlimately, Nemesis fails and finds himself facing an officer of Scotland Yard who thinks he was in with the kidnappers.
The Nemesis backup by Burkett and Spiegle has the vigilante in England, on the trail of a chess grandmaster, Noel Chesteron, who's on The Council. For some reason, Chesterton is trying to kidnap Sir Robert Greene, a Knight of the Garter. Utlimately, Nemesis fails and finds himself facing an officer of Scotland Yard who thinks he was in with the kidnappers.
Green Lantern #139: Green Lantern has been split into a good and evil parts by Eclipso. The villain leaves evil GL to take care of the good one. The evil lantern has red power, so Green Lantern figures he's vulnerable to purple and uses that to defeat him. Green Lantern manages to fight his way into Eclipso's "murder moon" where the villain plans to use solar power to free himself from Gordon once and for all and achieve greater power. GL has messed with his computer though, and Gordon asserts control again. Meanwhile, someone is forcing Carol Ferris to plant bombs at Ferris Aircraft.
In the Adam Strange backup by Laurie Sutton and Rodriquez, Strange is returned to Rann by the zeta-beam, but separated from Alanna. Searching for her, Strange encounters a queen of the Mer-People. The mer-folk need help dealing with a warlike machine, which Strange surmises is some sort of ancient weapon of war. Tracing it back to it's origin, the two explore an old military installation and encounter a robot who seems to be protecting it. This sort of planetary romance stuff is exactly what Adam Strange should be doing.
House of Mystery #291: Two vampire stories this month. DeMatteis and Sutton continue Andrew Bennett's adventures in I...Vampire. Bennett is trying to take down Emil Veldt, a vampire using heroin-addicted labor to unload his shipments of illicit drugs. It turns out Veldt is also a heroin addict, as he has been feeding his workers. Heedlessly running into the sunlight to get his fix, he's killed. DeMatteis and Ayers present another vampire story about a vampire on a derelict sailing ship getting on to a new vessel to feed. One sailor opposes and ultimately kills him, but is turned into a vampire himself, and the cycle begins anew.
The authors of the last two stories need to be reminded this is a horror title. Barr and Tanghal/DeMulder present a "humorous" short about an unscrupulous lawyer looking to swindle Cain out of the oil rights to the land under the House of Mystery. Cain transports the guy to the age of dinosaurs so he can get the fossil fuels while they're fresh. The last story by Gill and Zamora tells the tale of an author who throws away his dedication to the noble and decent in life to write tales of depravity and immorality--and gets successful doing it. Then, he commits suicide when he feels like he's gone to far, and his previous wholesome work gets respect after his death.
The authors of the last two stories need to be reminded this is a horror title. Barr and Tanghal/DeMulder present a "humorous" short about an unscrupulous lawyer looking to swindle Cain out of the oil rights to the land under the House of Mystery. Cain transports the guy to the age of dinosaurs so he can get the fossil fuels while they're fresh. The last story by Gill and Zamora tells the tale of an author who throws away his dedication to the noble and decent in life to write tales of depravity and immorality--and gets successful doing it. Then, he commits suicide when he feels like he's gone to far, and his previous wholesome work gets respect after his death.
Unknown Soldier #250: This is a special issue with the sort of craziness only Bob Haney could bring to it. The Unknown Soldier appears to have turned traitor! He and Hitler are inseparable in their bromance and every step of the way an all-star group of U.S. troops and allies are out to kill the turncoat. We get assassination attempts by Mademoiselle Marie, the Haunted Tank crew, the Losers, and finally Sgt. Rock and Easy Company. I guess Haney ran out of pages so he couldn't include the Viking Commando? Maybe he wanted to keep it "realistic?" Of course, it's all very silly, but Haney makes it work. It turns out, naturally, that the Soldier is only pretending to join the Nazis so he can get his hands on their frightening new bioweapon and destroy it.
2 comments:
Unknown Soldier sounds like Haney at his most inspired. Always loved his work when the editors really let him off his leash.
In "Dial H for Hero", it would be kind of interesting if we got to see multiple different kids all turn into the same hero in different situations. Obviously you wouldn't want to over-use that conceit, but there could be a single issue where the same hero transformation recurs in all three stories, and/or, you could have the same hero show up for different kids across different issues, so that fans might look forward to seeing them again.
I usually love a good "person gets physically split into different facets of their personality" story, but it sounds like Green Lantern mostly used it as an excuse for color-based hijinks, which seems unfortunate if true.
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