My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around March 11, 1982.
Batman #348: Conway and Colan/Janson are back, and we've returned to the ongoing storyline with the "Batman Family" returning to Wayne Manor. There's an amusing bit where Bruce and Dick lose control of the giant penny while moving it. Anyway, Conway's looking to tie up the Man-Bat story, so the Man-Bat is lurking about, just as Langstrom's wife, Francine, and kid show up to accuse Wayne (somewhat rightly) of not fulfilling his promise to help them. Batman makes the questionable to decision to take Langstrom's little girl with him into the caves where Man-Bat may be hiding to deliver the new antidote (that may be lethal) to him. In the end, it works out, though not until after some serious child endangerment. Meanwhile, Vicki Vale has told her editor she thinks she might know Batman's identity, and that information gets to Rupert Thorne.
Flash #309: Bates and Infantino/Jensen have Barry and police colleagues forced to attend the birthday party of Willard Wiggins' son, which is a great opportunity for Colonel Computron to attack again. The Flash thwarts the attack, but Computron escapes. Again, we get Basil Nurbin and his wife watching the news and lowkey accusing each other of being Computron, but now a college age daughter is added to the mix. Then, Captain Boomerang shows up, looking to help Wiggins out for giving him his start, but then Computron makes him a better offer.
The Dr. Fate backup continues in the hands of Gerber/Pasko and Giffen/Mahlstedt. Nelson's again seeing visions of doom in the Orb of Fate, so Dr. Fate must investigate, and Inza again isn't happy, which I suppose is realistic, but seems a bit of backsliding from the resolution of the last story. Fate investigates an Iowa farm and gets blasted by a farmer who is more than he seems. Meanwhile, Inza agrees to have dinner with Vern Copeland, a museum director who's been trying to get in touch with Nelson.
G.I. Combat #242: Perhaps in an effort to modernize the title, Kanigher and Catan introduce the Mercenaries feature. These characters are an American (Gordon), a Brit (Prince), and a German (Horst) who are ex-members of the French Foreign Legion, now become mercenaries. In this first story, they are fighting to defend a democratically elected African leader from a General and his forces trying to take over the government in a civil war. The story reveals their code (they refuse to work for the General who's willing to pay more because they've already got a contract). In the end, they don't get paid at all because they fail to bring the General in alive.
We get two Haunted Tank stories. In the first, they do mail delivery and then take over defense of a hill for a unit already dead when they arrived. They sit down to answer the dead men's letters. In the second, pretty ridiculous story, Jeb is found wandering and raving, and he's put in a psych unit. Still raving, he becomes the leader of the other patients, and leads them in an escape. They head out and rescue Jeb's crew, only then does he come to his senses and recall what the "green umbrella" he's being yelling about is: the camouflage cover of a German installation. In the end, all this nonsense has cured the other psych unit escapees.
Nothing special in the rest of the stories. Allikas and Glanzman/Ayers have a blacksmith getting back at a deserter in the Sino-Japanese War by sabotaging a horseshoe. Kashdan and Ayers have a photographer turn his camera into a smoke bomb to help defeat a German pillbox. The second story from this team has a black cat being good luck for a squad of American G.I.s.
Jonah Hex #61: Jonah and Mei Ling sent by the Warlord to infiltrate the Imperial palace so Jonah can assassinate the Emperor. Mei Ling is smuggled into the seraglio, while Jonah has to sneak in on his own. Unfortunately, after the agent of the Warlord that helped them is captured and tortured by the Emperor's forces, things get tough, and Jonah appears to be likely to get captured.
Saga of the Swamp Thing #2: Photo cover on this one, a still from the movie that opened less than a month before. Swamp Thing and the little girl, Casey, are captured by goons working for Sunderland Corporation. A man with mechanical hands, Grasp, plans to torture Swampy to get the secret of the bio-restorative formula. Somehow, Casey manifests psychic abilities that saves Swamp Thing. They escape and Grasp doesn't survive.
New Teen Titans #20: Kid Flash writes a letter to his parents, filling them in recent events in the lives of himself and his friends: a new super-villain calling himself the Disruptor attacks members of the team; the Titans throw a surprise birthday party for Cyborg; and Kid Flash himself is captured by the Disruptor and his demanding father, a forgotten Batman villain, "Brains" Beldon. The Titans run to the rescue, but the Disruptor keeps disrupting their powers until he is defeated by Raven's soul-self. The "day in the life" framing Wolfman and Perez chose for this issue works well and gives the Titans more depth and personality than was typical of supers comics of this era, outside of the X-Men.
Superman #372: This is a crazy one from Bates and Swan. Scientist Mason Strath threatens to destroy the world with a sphere of anti-matter if Superman doesn't go back in time and save his kids from drowning in a "tidal wave." Superman takes him back in time to prove the past can't be changed, but he discovers that the kids were just robots! It turns out his work has made Strath radioactive, and the government removed the kids to protect them and replaced them with robots. When the robots got washed out to see in the tidal wave, they just figured they'd let Strath think they died. Superman creates suits to protect the kids from the radiation and reunites father and kids. Also, he stops the anti-matter that slipped Strath's control.
Rozakis and Kane bring back "Superman 2021." Jimmy Olsen's grandchildren are kidnapped by two extortionists, so old man Jimmy improvises a new secret signal to call Superman III for help. It's amusing how "futuristic" the 2021 clothes look.
2 comments:
"In the end, it works out, though not until after some serious child endangerment."
It's Batman. His entire IP is built around child endangerment.
"We get two Haunted Tank stories. In the first, they do mail delivery and then take over defense of a hill for a unit already dead when they arrived. They sit down to answer the dead men's letters."
That actually sounds kind of cool in a grim sort of way.
"Kashdan and Ayers have a photographer turn his camera into a smoke bomb to help defeat a German pillbox."
I've seen old film burn. That could actually work if there was enough of it, it smokes and stinks something fierce.
"A man with mechanical hands, Grasp, plans to torture Swampy to get the secret of the bio-restorative formula."
Regrowing your missing hands seems like a pretty reasonable motivation by villain standards.
"Superman creates suits to protect the kids from the radiation and reunites father and kids."
Wouldn't making a suit for Strath be a better idea for everyone involved? I mean, if you can keep this weird "only hurts other people" radiation out, you can presumably keep it in just as easily. Also, shouldn't an antimatter-based Superman blackmail scheme still involve some jail time, tragic robot kid excuses notwithstanding?
One would think! But apparently, Superman operates on a different morality, and the government that needs his research so badly they build advanced robots to replace his kids doesn't want to rock the boat.
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