My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of April 7, 1983.
Camelot 3000 #6: Barr and Bolland are back after a couple of months with the wedding of King Arthur and Guinevere. Morgan le Fay and her allies (both alien and on Earth) are working behind the scenes to bring about Arthur's downfall. Morgan tries to turn Tristan with the promise to turn him back into a man. Tristan resists, but then Morgan throws the cover ball of putting the reincarnated Isolde at the wedding. That's after the former fiancé of the woman Tristan was before re-awakening kills Guinevere while trying to assassinate Arthur. Luckily, Guinevere is revived by Lancelot's love or something, which I'm sure has no implications for her marriage to the King. Bolland's art remains the star of the show.
Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #2: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon spend a lot of time this issue dealing with Amy's lengthy disappearance from our world, giving her parents more to do. We find out how Amy got adopted in the first place and that there was already so unusual stuff about her. Then, in the end of the story her father straight up catches her jumping through a portal to another world. While all this is going on, Citrina is pretty gullibly falling into a trap set by Dark Opal, and Granch is revealed as an exiled son of Dark Opal, and he sets out to save other captive sons.
DC Comics Presents #59: Giffen is still working hard to make Ambush Bug catch on. This story works better than the last one and also features other characters Giffen will return to (to humorous effect) later in the decade: the Legion of Substitute Heroes. Ambush Bug escapes from prison and attacks Superman at exactly the wrong moment only to end up in the 30th Century. With no one else to turn to and other time travel work to do, Superman drops him with the Subs. Ambush Bug plays Daffy to their Porky Pig for the rest of the issue. Reading this in 2024 and knowing where these characters are going, this is sort of fun, but I wonder what I would have made of it in'83?
Arak Son of Thunder #23: Arak, Malagigi, and Johannes go to hell and confront the demon, Baphomet. Johannes answers the demon's riddle correctly and Baphomet grants his wish to release Gog and lets him go. Arak and Malagigi, Baphomet plans to eat. Malagigi makes a play to answer another riddle and release Magog to counter Gog. Baphomet kicks the wizard out of his domain.
Back in White Cathay, Angelica follows Johannes into Hell. Meanwhile, Arak answers the riddle. The demon keeps his bargain by releasing the Magog and not killing them, but he won't let Arak go. He leaves with Arak stranded in hell with Angelica.
Blackhawk #260: Spiegle gets a break, only drawing the framing story this issue, while Evanier teams with other artists for three "Detached Service Diary" solo character shorts. Chaykin draws an Andre story, Rockwell a Hendrickson one, and Toth ends the issue with a Blackhawk tale. All of them are okay, but none are really a standout, though Toth's art looks great with the material, and I wish he had done more.
Fury of Firestorm #14: Stein and Ronnie are attacked while separated by the Enforcer who captures Stein. His ex plays a part in his capture, but it's still unclear who she's working for. Stein manages to escape well enough from the Enforcer to form Firestorm, but that was exactly what their enemies wanted. They're captured again and the mastermind behind this all is revealed as Multiplex. A better issue that the previous Hyena saga, I think, from Conway and Broderick/Rodriquez.
Wonder Woman #305: Mishkin and Colan/McLaughlin have Wonder Woman attacked in D.C. by transformed animal men, which really sort of gives it away that Circe is behind it all. The artwork in this issue looks particular nice, I think, though I can't really say why. Colan just draws a good animal man, I guess.
In the Cavalieri and Bair/Bryant Huntress backup, the Huntress has been captured and whisked off the Arkham which is apparently under the control of the criminal doctors Tarr and Fether. They are using the criminal insane to further their ends. They plan to lockup Huntress for good, but then there's a breakout on their "violent cases" ward.
Justice League #216: Conway and Heck wrap up the Microcosmos saga, and Conway says goodbye to the title. The Sisterhood with its allies and the League rout Kass'andre and her guards, but then the groups have a falling out over the fate of the Atom. Stealing into the city separately, they see there moment to strike when Kass'andre turns against her father and assassinates him. Krystal Kaa and Kass'andre battle and the villainess is killed, while Mother Moon uses her healing power to free the Atom of both Goltha's mind-control and his own madness. The new ruler of L'arra Sha sends the Leaguers home, where Ray and Jean Palmer are happily reunited.
The issue ends with "A Personal Note" from Conway saying he's enjoyed his "five-years and sixty-six issues" on this title, but it's time for him to move on. His run isn't necessarily a lauded one, but I think it's more good than bad, if seldom spectacular. It is also unfortunately under collected. You'd have to buy multiple collections and still not get everything after issue 181.
8 comments:
That seemed like a pretty weak week.
DC Comics Presents #59: To this day I cannot stand the way Giffen writes the Substitutes, and even Ambush Bug isn't really funny at this point, that's still a few years out when he gets his miniseries and stops being (supposedly) inserted into continuity.
Arak Son of Thunder #23: Reaper Miniatures sells an idol that strongly resembles the cover demon on this one, albeit in a more static pose since it's a statue. I've often wondered if it was a coincidence or if the sculptor had been an Arak reader back in the day. Sadly the darned thing is only available in metal and costs lot these days despite being a nearly perfect subject for casting in nice cheap Bones plastic.
Blackhawk #260: Toth's art is indeed a very good fit for Blackhawk. The subject matter suits his style and skill set well.
Wonder Woman #305: And yet another generic WW cover. What's it been now, half a dozen in the last year? More? How did I not notice this trend back in the day?
Justice League #216: I'm inclined to agree about Conway's run. He didn't knock it out of the park every time but there were more gems than stinkers overall and it would be nice if it was easier to get everything without resorting to back issue floppies. Certainly been worse runs on JLA over the years.
Digging back through to July 1982, Wonder Woman's had four consecutive "generic" covers and a fifth isolated one, so nearly half her covers weren't drawn for the story in the issue they're on. So not quite as many as I'd thought but not my imagination either. What was up with that, I wonder? A whole bunch of unused promotional art laying around that could easily be tweaked for cover art by adding the trade dress? It's almost a decade early for the "variant cover" scam to show up so it couldn't be that.
DC Presents: I loved this issue which (I think) was my first Ambush Bug comic. I found it pretty hilarious at the time. I also like Keith's squinty Superman a lot.
Camelot 3000: Looks better than it reads but it was fun and engaging at the time.
Amethyst: I bought this. I'd like to read the whole series some time.
Blackhawk: I'd like to read this some time.
Firestorm: Firestorm was a pretty good Marvel comic at this point. I liked it. My favorite thing that Pat Broderick drew. His cartooniness worked better here than it did for, say, Batman.
Justice League: For some reason I thought Gerry Conway wrote this up until almost the end of the Detroit Justice League. I know I bought this as a back issue but I don't remember anything about it.
DC's cover game here is great. A big change from just a couple of years before when most of their covers were cringey word balloon laden affairs. Is this Ed Hannigan at work? Dick Giordano? A new crop of editors?
Good question! Looking ahead, Conway is not as done with the JLA as he thinks. Though he isn't the consistent writer from this point on he does have some issues to come after a break.
I think the Blackhawk run is underrated, buy it's something I have to be in the mood for.
I'm not a big fan of Dan Spiegle's art in general, but I'd love to get a collected edition of this run of Blackhawk.
I think Marvel's covers had mostly abandoned word balloons at this point as well. Maybe it was something in the water.
Yeah, that Conway farewell feels weird when he shows up again a few months later. Maybe something fell through?
Mr McGee is dead on with the prevalence of "abstract" Wonder Woman issues. I don't know if the book was in any danger of cancellation but if they weren't planning far enough ahead to match covers with contents it's kind of a red flag.
FWIW I dug back through the last year of this article series and Wonder Woman's actually only had five of what I'd call "generic" covers, so not as prevalent as I thought. The last four in a row have all been in this week's style so their visibility is kind of inflated, and there was another one earlier with her playing bullets & bracelets executed in a different style.
Still kind of a lot considering none of the other books really have anything like those covers - some are deceptive but they aren't clearly generic - so I do (ahem) wonder why Diana was getting singled out this way.
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