Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've got the comics at newsstands the week of March 10, 1983. 

Omega Men #3: Slifer, Giffen, and DeCarlo introduce Lobo, though as with many of comics character introduction, he really isn't much like hit character he'll become in the 90s. The Citadel is trying to conquer Euphorix (the last world standing against them), but they thwarted by its shield. Enter Harry Hokum, a human who claims he can help them. Presumably, at Hokum's urging, the Citadel sends out a false message that Euphorix's shield has fallen and it is under attack. Kalista takes the mothership rushs there, not waiting for Primus and the others to return. It's a trap, of course, and Lobo and Bedlam defeat the crew and take Kalista captive. 

Hokum, Lobo's employer, interrogates Kalista, demanding the secrets of Euphorix's defenses. He exposes Kalista to a telepathic creatue, the greeshagurt. The greeshagurt begins to physically merge with her, absorbing her bodily and mentally.

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing #14: Yeates is still on the cover, but there's a new team on the interior: Mishkin and Bo Hampton/Scott Hampton. This was the first issue of Swamp Thing I ever read, and my brother and I read (and re-read) this issue and the next many times in our preteens. It's structured, really, more like a Phantom Stranger story more than a Swamp Thing story. Nathaniel Broder, a genius working with a new electronics technology, transforms his body into a mass of living silicon crystal. Despite the parallels with Swamp Thing, they aren't the same. Broder seems corrupted by his power and turns both Swamp Thing and the Phantom Stranger into crystal.

Batman #360:  Moench takes over as writer. His run on Moon Knight will be coming to an end in a few months, but his long run on the Bat-titles is beginning. This issue really feels like it could have been a Moon Knight story: a knifing-wielding killer with a horribly scarred face, the Savage Skull, is killing cops--and Batman figures out Gordon is next on his list. It turns out the killer is a disgruntled former cop out for revenge. It's perhaps not a great issue, but it has several good attributes: it's got a nice gritty vibe, making Batman distinctly "street-level" and has him actually being a detective.

Flash #322: Continuing from last issue, the Reverse Flash is back and out for revenge, and Barry and Fiona seemed to moving (remarkably quickly) toward marriage. All of this feels like Bates building toward Zoom killing another spouse or at least almost spouse which seems really lazy storytelling. In fact, having Reverse Flash back from the dead seems sort of lazy to begin with. It hasn't been that long. Does the Flash have other worthy rogues? Granted, we haven't seen reverse Flash since 1980, so it's been a few years, and Bates may be going to swerve. We'll see. Anyway, Flash is caught between the Sabre-Tooth (or the Sabre-Tooth's apprentice, the issue suggests both) and the Reverse Flash, but isn't yet aware Zoom has returned.

The Creeper backup has Patton on art, and it looks amateurish. Cuti is now the writer. Everybody's passing this storyline around like a hot potato! Anyway. the Creeper invades the Kraken Clinic (the name's a bit on the nose, even for comics) to try and stop the spread of the monster drug and runs into more patients who become monsters.

 

G.I. Combat #254: The conceit of this issue is that it covers all the wars from World War I to Vietnam. The two Haunted Tank stories deal with Craig's service in the first World War and its relationship with the second, and they're okay. In the other two stories. dealing with Korea and Vietnam, Kanigher strikes a sour note. First off, there are a lot of racial slurs against Asians. Maybe this could be defended as authentic--maybe. But the stories fail to humanize the North Korean and Viet Cong forces. In fact, the point of the Vietnam story seems to be best to treat civilians as enemies because you can't trust anybody. This from the writer who has given us numerous "honorable Nazi" antagonists in other stories.  I don't recall previous stories by Kanigher dealing with Asian wars to know if these are anomalies, but they aren't great.

New Teen Titans #32: Two costumed youths calling themselves Thunder and Lightning wreak unexplained havoc in the streets of St. Louis on an urgent, but mysterious mission to find someone. The Titans respond and try to diffuse the situation, but wind up having to fight. Eventually, it's discovered that the brothers are from Vietnam and are looking for their father, because they believe he is the key to controlling their elemental powers. Wonder Girl tells them their father is dead (which isn't true, but he is missing) and promises to get them help at STAR Labs, ending the crisis.

Thunder and Lightning seem weird to me. I mean, I can explain their actions within the story, but why their costumes, why did this particular background and story seem the way to go? I suspect the answer is "Vietnam" seemed a much more dramatically laden concept in 1983 than it does today. 

A lot of this issue is team drama in the usual X-Men-ish fashion. Wolfman isn't adequately articulating whatever angst Robin is suffering, so it makes him come off looking bad, and I can't help but view it as just a means to an end to debut Nightwing. The Titans TV show had a similar problem making Grayson's angst sympathetic instead of annoying, but at least it made it understandable. 

Superman #384: Bates and Swan/Hunt continue their reshaping of Superman, and in this issue that means writing out Steve Lombard. Some sympathy is cultivated for the generally Flash Thiompson-esque jerky jock, Steve, as he is fired by Morgan Edge after being pummeled by his old college roomie has built a belt to get super-powers. The old roomie comes back to kill Steve, but Superman intervenes. Steve finally lets Clark know that he values his friendship before walking out of the book.

Xeno-File: O'omkaro

Art by David Monge Bustista

 O'omkaru are newcomers to interstellar civilization. They are often found accompanying other species from the Compact sphere. 

The word o'omkaro, though used as such by others, seems not to strictly be the species name, but rather denotes the spirit or mentality of the species or the species as an ideal. As best as can be determined, their modern government seems to be via some form of adhocracy, and in their interactions with each other and with other species they seem to place a great value on the debating of options and consensus. This is not to say they are particularly conformist by the standards of other species. To the contrary, they seem to have a great tolerance for eccentricity, displays of emotion and individuality. 

So far as is known they have two sexes. Bidirectional hermaphroditism occurs, so that an individual may switch sex several times in a lifetime. The triggers for these changes are unknown, and it seems to be a topic they are reluctant to discuss with other species. Personality changes occur along with their sex, and o'omkaro society accommodates this shift in its members, altering responsibilities and roles as needed.

Many o'omkaru are followers of cultural fads (especially those from other species) and many are collectors of some sort. Almost any new religion, political philosophy or art form they sweeps known space is guaranteed to count o'omkaro among its enthusiasts. O'omkaro history has been painted but historians of other species as a churn of secret societies, revolutionary ideas, and religious awakenings.

Got to Catch Them All

Inspired by Vance mostly, people have considered spells as living entities. It was discussed in the Gplus days, and it shows up in Eric Diaz's Dark Fantasy Magic. Back in 2011, before I had really read a whole lot of Vance, the Vancian magic of D&D and the film Pontypool got me imagining spells as a neurolinguistic virus or memetic entity.

Anyway, all that as preamble to a related idea which I'm sure someone has had before but came to me seeing my daughter play Pokemon Go. If spells are living things in some fashion and wizards are forced to adventure to find them and master them, aren't they kind of like Pokemon? Eldritch viruses or self-assembling arcane subroutines. Free-living (at least currently) cheat codes to the universe. Things to be captured and tamed and bent to will of the mage.

I think this sort of framing could make the finding and learning of spells on scrolls more interesting (or at least more challenging), and I think it would definitely suggest interesting things that could be used to develop the background the campaign world.

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 1)

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 March 3, 1983. 

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #2: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon bring Amy Winston back to Gemworld (they've got 11 more issues after all) and right into danger as Amethyst is captured by Dark Opal's son, Carnelian.  In a standoff, he forces Citrina to immobilize her defenders. He takes her cross country on his monochrome mechanical cat mount and again there's the threat of sexual assault, but its more subtle than last issue. Amethyst plans for an escape, but ultimate it takes the intervention of Amy’s dog comes for her to achieve her own rescue. 

The type of fantasy on display here is interesting. It has fairytale-ish elements like trees with faces and the mixing of technology like Carnelian's cat, and focus on princesses and the like, but it's not really kiddified or geared toward romance any more than the S&S comics on the stands. Colon's slightly cartoon art is a great fit for it, too.

Justice League #215: Great Perez cover here, as Conway and Heck continue the Microcosmos saga. The evil despot Goltha unleashes a crazed, amnesiac, and giant Atom against the city, leading Krystal Kaa to tell the JLA how Goltha usurped the throne years earlier by controlling the Atom's mind and using him as a weapon. (The Atom arrived in this world almost a century earlier than the rest of his team despite their having made the trip to the micro-world only hours apart.) The League and the Siren Sisterhood plan to sneak into the city through the sewers and recover Krystal Kaa's power-staff, but are stopped when they encounter Kass'andre, Goltha's daughter, wielding the staff against them.

Blackhawk #259: Nice Chaykin cover on this issue. Evanier's and Spiegle's many story is a sort of Eisner's Spirit riff of telling the story of a regular guy kind of character who happens to cross paths with the protagonists.  Winslow Shirk, a nobody who wants to be a hero, tries to seek out the Blackhawks, and gets too close to the site of their bombed, original island base. Thanks to the radiation, he's turned into an invisible man. He finally does catch up with the Blackhawks and ends up prevents the assassination of Winston Churchill but runs away before the team arrives. The Blackhawks are left with the mystery of just who the Blackhawk was that saved Churchill's life. Shirk's invisibility wears off, and he goes home, feeling better about himself.

There's a Chop Chop solo story with art by Ziegler. Chop Chop investigates a Chinese style villa in the Alps. There he finds Soong Kai-Sen, a formerly vocal Chinese leader against the Japanese. Kai-Sen wants to give up that role. Chop Chop tries to convince him to return home and resume the fight, but a ninja shows up that needs to be dealt with. That sorted, Chop Chop then makes a final plea to Kai-Sen, but the other man counters by questioning why Chop Chop isn't in his homeland. 

Arak Son of Thunder #22: The Thomases and Gonzales/Alcala open with Arak and friends caged in Albracca and awaiting execution. The wiles of the thief Brunello (from an installment of the Valda backup) and the distraction of the guards with the Tartar siege on the city walls gives them a chance to escape.

When they reach the walls, they see that Haakon has finally arrived with Kallinikos, the keeper of the secret of Greek fire. Arak is forced to join with Haakon to fight off the Tartar horde to order to protect Kallinikos. Once they get back over the wall, Arak and the others are recaptured.

Arak is given the chance to fight Haakon in a duel to the death. Their fight is interrupted by a revolt inside the city gates. The priest Johannes has revealed himself as the rightful king of White Cathay who was exiled by Angelica's father. He engages the sorceress in mystic combat, but when Angelica rains snakes on the citizen of the city, Johannes loses his power drawn from their faith in him. In a desperate "Hail Mary" to stop Angelica, Johannes constructs a pentagram to travel into Hell and bargain with the demon Baphomet for a Gog army. Malagigi and Arak impulsively join him on the trip.

 

DC Comics Presents #58: Barr and Swann/Hunt provide a triple team-up with Superman, Robin, and the Elongated Man. The three tangle with the Intangibles, four seemingly phasing crooks who are actually tricking the group to copy the Man of Steel" super-vision powers to use against him. Not bad for a slightly Silver Age-y one off.

Fury of Firestorm #13: I'm over this were-hyena stuff, and thankfully this seems to be the end of the saga. Firestorm flies off to Kenya in the hopes of finding a cure for the curse that is turning him into a were-hyena and now has Stein and Ronnie trapped in composite form. Firestorm meets with the president of Kenya and shows him the diary of Summer Day, hoping to get help. I guess he felt like he needed to go right to the top.

The president has a mystical ceremony set up to cure Firestorm of the curse. Before that can get done, the presiding shaman's former friend who is a guerilla revolutionary shows up and attacks. Firestorm is cured and captures the rebels, but the shaman is killed. Firestorm realizes that the only reason the president agreed to help him was that he wanted to maneuver Firestorm into fighting the revolutionaries on his behalf. Frustrated, Firestorm flies back towards the United States.

Back in Manhattan, Harry Carew tries to convince Quentin Quale to give Martin Stein his old job back without any luck. Then, he runs into Martin's ex-wife and maybe there are sparks? Elsewhere, Lorraine Reilly is being held bound to a chair in a small room by unknown captors. Oh, and at Bradley High School, Ed Raymond storms into Principal Hapgood's office demanding to know where Ronnie is, but nobody has any idea.

Wonder Woman #304: Mishkin and Colan/McLaughlin continue the fight with Dr. Polaris from last issue. Wonder Woman manages to save Griggs and Trevor from crashing, but Polaris demands that Green Lantern come fight him or he'll continue his rampage. GL is inconveniently exiled currently, but Polaris is having none of it. He flies off, and Wonder Woman figures that he has gone back to his polar fortress. With Steve disguised as a stand-in Green Lantern, suspended by a rope from the invisible jet, he can act as a decoy while she battles Polaris and Griggs booby-traps Polaris's fortress. The magnetic villain catches on, but too late, and he appears to be caught in the blast that destroys his base. Wonder Woman and friends return home.

In the Huntress backup by Cavalieri and DeCarlo/Marcos, our heroine manages to escape the Undertaker's crematorium deathtrap, and defeats him, but she's injured when the crematorium oven overheats and explodes, and is strapped to a stretcher and whisked off by another villain.  

Luna Blues

 

Last night, taking a break from 5e Azurth, we played a gaming using Peril Planet's Action Tales system (kitbashing rules from Star Scoundrels, Neon City Overdrive, and Terminal City) in the Buck Rogers-inspired setting I discussed last week. 

The year is 2979 and the PCs are the (former) crew of a corporate hauler doing a Luna-Ceres run. Finding themselves out of a job when their employer was bought out by Ares Corporation (the Martian baddies), they find themselves sitting in the Tycho City dive called the Free Fall Bar and Grill, listening to bad karaoke and spending their last paycheck. The characters are:

• Hesperos (Tug): Pilot from the Venusian Cloud cities.
• Ryne Ganult (Andrea): Engineer from the Belt.
• Zarek (Bob): Martian ex-soldier with a cybernetic arm.

The group is approached by a woman who gives her name as Chandra Roberts. She's a lawyer who needs a crew to fly a salvaged ship back to Earth. She's offering 1000 Martian Yuan for a one day job. It's good money, so the group says yes, but almost immediately things get complicated.

A guy and some goons come in. The guy claims to be a Lunar cop and places Chandra under arrest. Something smells fun, though, because why aren't these goons in uniform? And why doesn't the leader's uniform have identification? When the group balks, one goon draws a gun.

When Hesperos quick draws his pistol, a fight breaks out. In short order, the thugs are on the ground courtesy of the stunners Zarek and Ganult have, but the real cops are likely on their way.

They flee the bar and as soon as they get a moment, Roberts reveals that she works for ORE, the Organization for the Renewal of Earth, and the ship in question is a stolen yacht that once belonged to Ares Corp chairman, Alexei Loehr-Zau, and seems to contain a drive with sensitive Ares Corp data.

Roberts wants the crew to help her buy by the data (and the ship) from pirates.

TO BE CONTINUED

Encounters at Thono; Our Heroes Don't Get Baths

Bao dwek Thabub (art by Steven de Waele)

Our Gnydrion game in Grok?! continued last Sunday. The group was all there:

• Antor Hogus (Paul) - Vagabond on holiday. He wants to use that stun wand.
• Jerfus Grek (Jason) - Also a vagabond. Here, a large man at spycraft.
• Nortin Tauss (Aaron) - Dabbler in the arcane. He wears a star in the center of his tunic.
• Yzma Vekna (Andrea) - Teamster out of her element.

Ensconced in a suite in the Thono Inn, expensed to the Eminent Compulsor, the group enjoys a nice dinner and a bit of rest. The next morning finds them beginning their investigations to uncover the identity of Wol Zunderbast. In doing so they encounter (and are distracted by) some of the other guests: Bao dwek Thabub, typically pungent hwaopt scholar studying something called "fey vortices" in the area; Sula Av and Tharom Welk an overly friendly couple on holiday from Ascolanth.

Finally, after leaving a message at the desk in a failed stratagem to find Zunderbast's room, they encounter the man himself:

He's intense and no nonsense but arranges a meeting later that evening with Nortin to discuss the "item" further. He also invites in the game in the casino (five frond hokus or thari or even quorn lancets) but Nortin declines.

With the meeting set, the group decides to take advantage of the famous gas bathes fed by the eldritch substance of the Lake of Vermilion Mists. They head to the bathhouse, but they are told its out of order by the inebriated engineer, Ormuz Halx, who raves at them briefly about something in caves that wants to kill everyone. Before they can dig into these remarkable claims, Gris Samber shows up to usher Halx away apologetically, citing his drunkenness as the source of his odd behavior.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1983 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, we look at the comics hitting the newsstand on February 24, 1983.

This is a big week with 10 comics.

Weird War Tales #123: There is no G.I. Robot or Creature Commandos this issue, which turns out to be an ominous sign. This is the penultimate issue of Weird War Tales as I discovered in (of all places) the letter column of this week's Arion. The cover story by Mishkin/Cohn and Buckler/Giacoia is an homage to the Captain Video tv show (1949-1955) and perhaps to fandom in general. It ends with a thanks to Frank Hodge who played Captain Video from 1950-55 and who passed away in 1979. In the story, Earth is defenseless before an alien invasion, its secret protector who was more than a TV actor having passed away. It's up to the now adult fans of the show with their secret away equipment to rise up and save the day.

Next up, there's a one-pager about dolphins inheriting the Earth after doomsday. Kanigher/Estrada daring present a tale of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs that seems to question just whose "Savage Gods Remain." Finally, a star Hitler youth kid grows up to a SS officer adult and gets what he deserves when a statue of Moses holding all the commandments the young sociopath has broken, falls and traps him, leading to his death. 

Green Arrow #1: Barr and von Eeden/Giordano get Ollie out of the backups and into his own, admittedly limited, series. Oliver Queen inherits a fortune from a deceased friend, and elderly woman he had developed an unlikely friendship with in his younger days, but her other would-be heirs aren't happy. Someone is unhappy enough to target him for murder. Much of this issue is given to retelling Green Arrow's origin, which I haven't reviewed for consistence with the standard take, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least some streamlining from what was presented before. The next tweaking, I'd guess, would be post-Crisis. Von Eeden pencils under Giordano's inks look nice here and seem a good fit for the character.

Action Comics #543: Wolfman and Swan continue the Vandal Savage storyline, but with Savage being the manipulator of events. Neutron is released from prison, over the objections of the Man of Steel who sounds more like the Dark Knight with his skepticism about Neutron's reform. Then, Savage has set up frankly a really contrived context that manipulates Superman into fighting him when Neutron is not actually committing a crime, making Superman look bad in front of the people of Metropolis. I feel like this is the sort of arc that would be handled better today, but here it's a bit silly.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #7: Moench and Duursema/Mandrake pick up where last issue left off. After a battle with a demon, Arion and Chian have been transported to the Darkworld to the citadel of Caculha. Arion uses his magic to free Grondar from the demon's control. The three adventurers then enter the stronghold to take on the demon that controls it and find a mystic key.

Meanwhile, Wyynde discovers that Mara is a shapeshifter. When she turns into a winged dragon, the two enter the portal to the Darkworld to help Arion.

Ultimately, our heroes are victorious, and Arion then turns the citadel into a giant ship to sail back to Atlantis.  They may have found the weapon they need to defeat Garn.

All-Star Squadron #21: Thomas and Ordway/Machlan bring in the Earth-2 Superman who has the Powerstone with him he has recently taken from Alexei Luthor. He suggests the team makes the Perisphere their new headquarters. Not long after the team votes in Wonder Woman as their newest full member (redressing some Golden Age sexism), they are attacked by two new super-villains, Deathbolt and Cyclotron, and Superman's old foe the Ultra-Humanite (now in a woman's body).

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #15: The JLA and Zoo Crew team up continues, we the teams trapped in limbo. Alley-Kat-Abra gets them out, but theen they have to do the "split into smaller teams" thing to take on villains gathered by Feline Faust and Doctor Hoot who are currently striking in different parts of the world. Captain Carrot, Wonder Wabbit and Rubber Duck travel to Sowdi Arabia where Digger O'Doom is draining all the oil into diversion tunnels. Yankee Poodle, Fastback and Aquaduck go to the Palomino Canal to stop Armordillo. Batmouse, Green Lambkin and Alley-Kat-Abra head to Cape Carnivore to tangle with Amazoo. Crash, Super-Squirrel and Pig-Iron travel to Mosscow where the Shaggy Dawg is rampaging through the Gremlin.

I felt like whole list was necessary so you could all share in the puns. Anyway, the heroes are victorious, and everybody gets back to their own Earth.

Detective Comics #526: This is an anniversary issue (the 500th appearance of Batman in this magazine) with 56 pages, and Conway, Newton, and Alcala craft a story worthy of the expanded length. Joker has carried together a number of Batman's rogue gallery (including a number of now fairly obscure characters including Captain Stingaree, Signalman, and the Spook). with a plan to kill Batman and check the growing threat of Killer Croc. Catwoman, uninvited, eavesdrops on the proceedings and plans to stop them, while Talia (who was invited) wants no part of killing Batman and fights her way out.

After taking Jason Todd to Wayne Manor, Batgirl and Robin are trying to find the missing Todds. The GCPD bit them to it, discovering their gruesome remains in the reptile area of the Gotham Zoo where Croc had apparently been hiding out.

The Joker contacts Croc, offering a deal to help Croc kill Batman. Is he just double-crossing Croc or Croc and the villains he's supposedly teamed up with?

Anyway, the Bat Family, with the help of Catwoman and Talia, split up and take out the assembled villain before going after Croc and his men and the Joker. After a fight, Croc seems about to beat Batman again, but Robin jumps in at the last second and Croc is knocked unconscious. Jason Todd, who had hidden in the batmobile's trunk, emerges and stars beating the unconscious Croc, but he's restrained by the Bats.

Back at Wayne Manor, Dick takes responsibility for the death of the Todds and wants to adopt Jason.  Bruce doesn't like the idea. Instead, he decides to look after the young orphan, like he did years ago with another kid acrobat whose parents were killed by criminals.

Jonah Hex #72: At the end of last issue, things looked pretty bad for Jonah who had been forced to commit a crime dressed as Papagayo in order to get Emmy Lou back and wound up under the guns of the federales. He gets shot to hell before he can escape--or does he? Obviously, he does not. When Papagayo's thugs go to exhume Jonah's body and get the necklace, the very much alive Jonah ambushes them. It seems he and Col. Sanchez cooked up a little sting operation. Still, Papagayo's got Emmy Lou, so things don't go smooth. Our hero and his girl get tossed into a pit with a basket of tarantulas. 

Still, in the end, Jonah and Emmy Lou and reunited and Papagayo is breaking the fourth wall promising his return from a prison cell.

New Adventures of Superboy #41: Kupperberg and Schaffenberger continue the story from last issue and it's a really convoluted plot with Superboy quitting, Ma Kent blabbing his secret, and an alien invasion that in the end doesn't add up to much, and I honestly can't remember how it all fits together a week after I read it. It turns out the aliens are trying to transform Superboy into a living robot to control him (so none of that other stuff was even in their plan), but naturally Superboy is one step ahead. Aliens are defeated, status quo is restored.

In the Dial H backup by Bridwell and Bender/McLaughlin, the Silhouette takes control of billionaire Hubert Hess’s fortune and incriminates Chris' dad, but Chris and Vicki dial up justice as Glassman and Ms. Muscle.

World's Finest Comics #291: Simonson provides the cover this issue. Superman and Batman are at the mercy of Stalagron, who reveals his secret origin to them (he's a mutated spelunker) and tells them about his plan to revitalize his source of power: a hunk of green kryptonite, responsible for creating him and all his minions. His plan is to create a volcano, which will spew the kryptonite radiation all over, turning a lot more people into creatures like him and his goons. 

They plan to make Yumiko the first female of their kind, but she escapes and helps Batman and Superman to break free before she is recaptured. Stalagron and his crew succeed in creating the volcano and are placing the kryptonite in it, when the heroes arrive for another round. While Batman uses explosives to divert the lava, Superman fight Stalagron. The combatants fall into the lava, but Superman's strength carries the day.

With the kryptonite destroyed, the rest of the stalagmen are destroyed and the volcano collapses. Back at Wayne Manor, Batman and Superman play the switch identities thing once again to throw off Yumiko's suspicions about Bruce being Batman.