I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of March 4, 1982.
Arak Son of Thunder #10: Thomas and Colon/Acala have Arak and Valda head striking out over land now, still trying to get to Constantinople. They run into some scuzzy Byzantine soldiers and then a couple of mythic beings: Valda is bewitched by a satyr's pipes and Arak fights a centaur. The centaur then shows our hero the strangest thing of all: his face carved into a mountain! In the Viking Prince backup by Kanigher and Duursema, the Prince has his arm back, but it won't work, so he runs out into the snow to commit suicide by engaging wolf pack, weaponless. Seeing his dwarf court jester fighting the wolves, though, shames him out of self-pity, and the Prince returns to heroic form. He and the jester travel to the Castle of Krogg the Red, where his sister is being held.
DC Comics Presents #46: Bridwell and Saviuk bring back the Global Guardians from the Super-Friends series. Interestingly, because Super-Friends isn't considered continuity, the fandom wiki lists this issue as the characters' first appearances, but Superman has clearly met then before. Anyway, Dr. Mist summons Superman to help the international heroes of the Global Guardians stop a band of evil magic types from raising an evil sorcerer from the dead. There's globe-trotting artifact collecting to resurrect the sorcerer, necessitating several team-ups. In the end, Dr. Mist and Supes have outsmarted the villains and their apparent victory isn't.
Fury of Firestorm #1: Because Gerry Conway (at least) demanded it, Firestorm has got his own series again with Broderick and Rodriguez on art. Firestorm will make his debut in the Super-Friends cartoon in 1984, so maybe there was already talk of that? Anyway, this issue introduces the Native American shaman villain, Black Bison, when an ancient talisman causes teacher John Ravenhair is controlled by his great-grandfather who wants to get religious artifacts back from the Museum of Natural History.
The possessed Ravenhair steals the Bison headdress and coup-stick. Calling himself Black Bison, he uses the magic of the coup-stick to animate the taxidermied animal displays causing them to run riot throughout the museum. While Firestorm is saving visitors from the stampeding animals, Bison animates a white steed and declares revenge upon all those who have desecrated the sacred tradition of the Bison Cult. He makes good his escape while Firestorm is distracted, and we last see him in front of the house of a senator.
Justice League #203: If this issue were a TV show, Conway and Heck would have served up a backdoor pilot for a Royal Flush Gang series. Instead, it's just an issue where we get more on the origins of the members of the new Royal Flush Gang then we perhaps wanted or needed. At sea, Aquaman is enjoying a day of hazing the new kid, Firestorm, when the two encounter a hydrofoil piloted by the Jack and Ten of Spades who nearly kill them. Wonder Woman is headed to the hospital to mee those two when she is ambushed and defeated by the King of Spades. Meanwhile, at the Royal Flush Gang's headquarters, the Jack discovers that the Ace, who recruited the other members, is secretly a robot reporting to a mysterious superior he calls "Wild Card."
Weird War Tales #112: Kanigher and Spiegle give us the silliest Creature Commandos story yet. The Commandos are in North Africa and are forced to hide from the Germans inside(!) a pyramid, where they find the tomb of a Medusa. In a D&Dish twist, the Commandos (minus Dr. Medusa) partake of some old wine in the tomb and have a trippy experience--where the actually shrink down to like a 3 inch size! Dr. Medusa is forced to carry her tiny comrades in her snake hair (where they are bitten) and complete the mission on her own, though the Tiny Commandos do group together to provide supporting fire. Somehow, the bite of Medusa's hair's causes them to grow back to normal size.
That's followed by a story of the French Reign of Terror by Newman and Matucenio where an army officer sends his superiors to the guillotine for personal gain, only to be beheaded by their headless ghosts. Finally, Kasdan and Zamora reveal the fate of G.I. who saves an old witch's cat from the Germans and is gifted with nine lives. He uses eight of them being a reckless gloryhound, but the last he sacrifices to save a green kid, earning himself instant reincarnation as a cat.
Wonder Woman #292: Levitz/Thomas and the artistic team of Colan, McLaughlin, and Tanghal continue the Amazon Princess' conflict with the Adjudicator. Wonder Woman doesn't actually appear much this issue. Instead, we get Black Canary, Huntress, and Power Girl defeating Plague at the CDC (or Disease Control Center as it's called) in Atlanta. Supergirl and Madame Xanadu head to war-ravaged Earth-X to team-up with Phantom Lady and confront the personification of War.
The Furty of Firestorm was a lot of fun when Pat Broderick was drawing it. Less fun under lesser artists.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Rafael Kayanan who penciled a lot of issues between #20 and #50, and did 4 annuals did great work on the title.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Gil Kane immediately followed Broderick and Denys Cowan followed Kayanan, so I think I'm going to just generally disagree! :D
ReplyDeleteYeah, I liked pretty much all of the Firestorm book's run, at least art-wise. I was young enough that the "high school kid gets powers" thing was pretty appealing too, even with a more mature partner/guide personality in symbiosis. Or maybe I just always liked that sort of thing - Prime was still pretty appealing years later.
ReplyDelete"Anyway, Dr. Mist summons Superman to help the international heroes of the Global Guardians..."
Rats, no Godiva or Tasmanian Devil. They were my favorites. Such a huge group eventually that you never see all of them, much like the Legion of Super-Heroes at their peak membership.
Godiva might explain my fondness for Bayonetta, now that I think about it.
"Justice League #203:"
That's really striking cover, even outdoes Firestorm's.
"Finally, Kasdan and Zamora reveal the fate of G.I. who saves an old witch's cat from the Germans and is gifted with nine lives. He uses eight of them being a reckless gloryhound, but the last he sacrifices to save a green kid, earning himself instant reincarnation as a cat."
That's kind of cute, actually.
Godiva was great. I'd forgotten that the grand all-female team-up over in Wonder Woman was fighting the four horsemen of revelations. Would love some subversive creative team somewhere to revisit that one with a chauvinist version of Apocalypse in the Adjudicator role . . . since they've retrofitted a vindictive ex-wife and an enchanted island history for him, he might have a history with the Amazons.
ReplyDeleteDumber Amalgam Comics tangent, we were just talking at breakfast about how Hippolyta is actually from the UK and is only cosplaying the ancient space Greek bit, which sets up an obvious parallel to what they've done with Nova Roma on the Marvel side. Do we have reliable evidence that Paradise Island was around before modern times? Could it be a utopian colony founded by suffragettes with advanced Victorian technology?
Interesting theory! The Perez Wonder Woman gives us the origin of Paradise Island--or rather, Themiscrya, but I don't know that Marston ever did.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, really? Marston established that Hippolyta is the one from Greek myth, no cosplaying Brits involved. The entire origin of the Amazons and Paradise Island is right in issue #1. You can read it for yourself:
ReplyDeletehttps://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/CB/WW_1942_2.pdf
From the casual way she dropped that "ancient scroll," we just assumed it was bait for the hoax!
ReplyDelete