My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around April 9, 1981.
Justice League of America #192: This is a pretty good issue from Conway and Perez. Red Tornado shows up and tries to kill the JLA, injuring Batman (imagine a Justice League issue that treats Batman as more fragile than the rest of the team!) and the Flash. They destroy that one, but then another attacks and this one has Kryptonite, and is only defeated when the Flash gets out of the bacta-tank (well, that's what it looks like) to save Superman. All of these Reddy duplicates come from T.O. Morrow who retcons eh, explains, why it is he's still alive when we saw him die a few months ago in World's Finest. It's Marvel retcon convoluted. Anyway, it turns out none of these Red Tornado's weren't the original, but now Morrow has gone after him, too.
New Teen Titans #9: HIVE is out to steal promethium from Changeling's adopted father's company, and they send the Puppeteer/Puppetmaster (not the one you're thinking of) to take out the Titans. Over half the team is controlled by the Puppeteer, but the other manage to defeat. Nothing noteworthy about this issue, but it's not bad.
Secrets of Haunted House #38: This is a pretty good issue art-wise. Story-wise, it's lackluster. In the first story, a Native American legend about a cave full of gold where a demon was unleashed draws in two criminals. In the end, it turns out the legend had a kernel of truth as the men are killed by a torrent of oil unleashed by their searching. The second story, written by Ms. Charlie Seegar, doesn't make a lot of sense, but has grotty art by Jodloman. It involves a sweatshop owner making a deal with the Devil for slave labor, only to have men wearing the Satan-imbued jackets his factory made come to kill him so the Devil could claim his due.
The Mister E story by Rozakis and Spiegle has E on the trail of Judge Kobold from his first appearance, but Kobold has apparently disguised himself as one of a group of business men. This installment is probably the weakest Mister E story was far.
Superman #361: Captain Strong (DC's Popeye stand-in) guest stars, which distracts a bit from the fact that this is yet another "never to be seen again alien coming to Earth with a problem" story from Bates and Swan. The alien is transforming into all sorts of creatures, including a Kryptonian beast Supes needs Strong's help to defeat, but ultimately she's just trying to feed her starving people. It turns out Strong's sauncha seaweed that gives him his strength is just the thing.
The backup is more forgettable than the main tale, as most of these "Superman of 2021" stories seem to be. Superman has a second secret identity as some sort of future sports star. Step up your game, Rozakis!
Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3: After their defeat last issue, the Corps is ready to pack it in and go home to spend the last days of the Universe with their families, but Jordan rallies them to do their duty to the last. The Corps arrives at the riff to Nekron's realm and the battle is again joined. One of Krona's minions is inspired to by the Lanterns and is given a ring by Jordan to become one himself. Jordan flies through the riff and recruits dead Lanterns to fight, and they over-power Nekron, but Jordan is trapped in his dimension. The other Lanterns get him out, and the day is saved. The Guardians offer to make Jordan head of the Corps, but he declines. A satisfying finale from Barr/Wein and Staton.
Weird War Tales #101: G.I. Robot makes his debut in a story by Kanigher and Casares. In the standard "robot partner" sort of story, a loner sergeant is initially skeptical of having a robot partner, but learns the power of buddy-dom from his more-human-than-expected companion. It's the best story of the issue for all its formula.
Kashdan and Taberna present a story of child soldiers, who it turns out are only taking part in a game to scare (more like traumatize) them away from war forever. A ex-Nazi gets what he deserves as a member of the French Foreign Legion when he is betrayed by the ghost of a man he spared in return for betraying his neighbors in a Jewish ghetto. Kashdan returns for the last story with Vicatan Jr. It's a story of a calculator device found by some G.I.'s that seems to predict successful battle tactics, but in the end only brings misery.
Wonder Woman #281: Conway and Delbo/Hunt send Wonder Woman and the Demon through a weird, mystical dimension to rescue Etta Candy from Baal-Satyr. Delbo does okay mystical realms, but his Demon his pretty rough, which brings down the issue for me. In the end, they rescue Candy, but they appear to be trapped in the netherworld.
In the Huntress backup by Levitz and Staton/Mitchell, it turns out Helena Wayne's DA beau wasn't killed by the joker venom, but he's in the hospital. Next, the Joker gets Commissioner O'Hara. The story ends with one of those nonsensical hero moves you sometimes see in comics: Huntress breaks her own dart-firing crossbow in half--because the Joker is firing darts at people? Doesn't make much sense to me. Anyway, she vows "the gloves are off!" There's also a panel in this issue where he appears that Staton has drawn Helena Wayne in a parted robe that appears to show public hair. Surprised he got that one by the Code Authority!
This week was good for inspiring future cartoon episodes!
ReplyDeleteRed Tornado has an interesting arc in the first season of "Young Justice," where there's a similar story about TO Morrow and his various Red robots (Red Torpedo and Red Volcano are the only others I can remember off the top of my head) reprogramming Red Tornado and siccing him on the other heroes.
And the first season of the "Teen Titans" cartoon has an appearance by A Puppeteer, (although maybe a different one?) where the boys all get mind-controlled and sent to fight Raven and Starfire. That one actually has some good character development because the two girls end up mind-swapped, so Starfire comes to appreciate how Raven has to control her emotions in order to control her dangerous powers, and Raven learns that Starfire has to feel her feelings strongly in order to use hers.
Having seen the Huntress panel in question, I wonder if the censors mistook Helena's hair for some modesty-providing shadow? I made the same mistake at first glance, but I think you're right about the artist's actual intent.
Yeah, I think just glancing at the page, it could pass for a shadow (and actually looks more like "just a shadow" in the collected edition that is cleaned up but not altered really). The way the shadow was drawn, though, makes we think Staton was having some fun.
ReplyDeleteI did a blog post on the Huntress trade paperback with a few page scans. Even in a short run, there was some memorable salacious material with Helena.
ReplyDeletehttps://jdh417.blogspot.com/2020/10/comics-review-huntress-trade-paperback.html
Buy, you aren't kidding. Helena sure does spend a lot of on-page time in or just out of the shower, doesn't she? They did that to Dinah Lance a few times too - I have vivid memories of getting yelled at by the parent for buying porn because she beat up a werewolf while sort-of-wearing a towel.
ReplyDeleteFunny how that crap hardly ever happens with male capes, ain't it? I suppose Travis Morgan's costume does its best to even things up but he's only one man. And what a man! Rowr. :)