Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1980 (wk 1, pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of July 10, 1980. 

Batman #328: Wolfman takes over as writer, and his first story is a nice little mystery, marred only by the fact that it's a pretty obvious one. A killer taunts Batman with a video where he confesses his guilt. The problem is, he's already been tried and found not guilty, so there's no way he could be touched legally. Batman vows to bring him to justice somehow by discovering why he committed the murder in the first place and how he got away with it. Meanwhile, the killer is wooing Harvey Dent's ex, and the man he murdered was supposedly the killer of Dent's former assistant. Already, I'm suspicious about the killer's identity. When a frantic visit to Two-Face's former plastic surgeon leads to the killer committing another murder in anger...well, his identity is certain. And we've still got a part two to go! The backup story teams Wolfman with Newton, and reveals something of Gordon's early days on the police force and a little bit about the origins of the batcave (that it was part of an old subway line). Both of these things will be rendered "noncanon" post-Crisis.

DC Comics Presents #26: Wolfman and Starlin give us a team-up of Green Lantern and Superman. This is interesting because we get two DC big guns, which is rare for this title. Jordan responds to a distress call from another green lantern, but it's a trap by a rather second rate Starlin cosmic baddie (something like a b-grade Eon in design). The creature steals Jordan's form, but then Superman shows up and defeats it, though he needs Hal's help to deal with some Kryptonite. Still, Superman is pretty dismissive of the power of the creature and the Green Lanterns. He calls Jordan's ring a "little green trinket." Starlin's art here is not up to his usual standards and his round-faced Superman is off-model, but it's not a bad story--though the New Teen Titans preview that follows by Wolfman and Perez really outshines it in terms of visual storytelling and interest. It's really just a tease, though.

The backup of is "What Ever Happened to...Sargon the Sorcerer." It reminds me of the "continuity clean-up" stories Roy Thomas did in Solo Avengers/Avengers Spotlight, undoing things done by other creators or otherwise reseting a character. It does explain Sargon's recentish appearances as a baddie, but it feels like it was written just for that purpose.

Flash #290: As is not uncommon with these Bates/Heck stories, the reveal of why Fiona Webb, Barry Allen's neighbor, thinks he is trying to kill her is both sort of convoluted and not as interesting as the setup. It seems Webb saw a mob hit and has under gone some extreme form of witness protection courtesy of King Faraday, where her memories of her previous life as Beverly Lewis were suppressed. Not suppressed enough, apparently, because the guy she testified against looked like Barry Allen, so when a master of disguise hitman named Saber-Tooth (no relation) comes after her, she attributes the danger to Allen. This story does have an interesting bit where Flash as to enter a computer to make its circuits print out the punch card on Beverly Lewis because the computer has (as apparently have all in U.S. law enforcement) been programmed not to release that info. 

The backup story by Conway and Perez/Smith continues Firestorm's origin and recent history. There's not much to it beyond the recap.

Ghosts #93: I feel like this title is declining in quality, but maybe its just in a temporary slump. It probably doesn't help that a couple of the stories feel like reprints due to using Golden Age artists Charles Nicholas and Jack Sparling on the stories. Both of these stories were written by Carl Wessler, whose work also dates back to the Golden Age. The first is about a boy and his ghostly grandfather teaming up to use a toy train and sympathetic magic to save his father from death on a sabotaged train track. The second is about a sadistic prisoner guard who takes a job at an old mental asylum only to find all the patients are ghosts. Only marginally better is the David Allikas/Tom Mandrake story about a fraternity hazing incident leading to a death and a plan to make the instigator of that death confess by means of a fake ghost ploy that turns out not to be fake! Wessler is back a third time with Henson for "The Flaming Phantoms of Frightmare Alley." The story is a confusing and ultimately pointless tale of a reporter that falls in love with a ghost then becomes a ghost himself in a car crash and the bystander that relates the story. It in no way lives up to its title.

G.I. Combat #222: We have the usual 3 Haunted Tank stories from Kanigher and Glanzman. "For Sale: 1 Tank Crew" sees our heroes at the mercy of black marketeers in occupied France who in the end have a change of heart. "God of Steel" has Bedouin raiders trying to use the tank and crew to take out a fort--which they are happy to oblige with when they find out its occupied by Germans. "Cold Meat--Hot War" has the Haunted Tank improbably plunging into the sewers after been blocked in by Drachenzähne and German artillery. Kanigher is always inventive and Glanzman's art is on point, but I'm just not much of a Haunted Tank fan. 

The other stories are a bit better, though none are really outstanding. "Angels--of Death" by Jan Laurie and Alfredo Falugi has a group of Pacific Theater nurses pitching in to launch a torpedo on a beleaguered sub. Boltinoff and Catan shift the action to Korea and have a group of Marines allowing themselves to get frozen in a river so they can use the ice as cover for a surprise attack. Despite the unlikely premise it's probably the best story of the issue. Control coldly sends a couple of trapeze artists on a suicide mission in the O.S.S. installment "Death is an Old Friend" by Kanigher and Cruz.

Jonah Hex #41: Again Fleischer's story has a TV Western morality play feel. Hex brings in the Jody Randolph gang and they're to wait in jail for the arrival of "Hanging Harrow" the local judge. The judge turns out to be a woman who feels she has to be stern in the enforcement of the law to prove yourself qualified for her position. Her real challenge at this point, though, is from her son Rodney who is smitten with a saloon girl, Vanessa. Ostensibly to get money for diamond earrings, Vanessa enlists Rodney in a plan to free the Randolph Gang for $10,000, but it's a set-up: Vanessa is actually the girl of Jody Randolph. Rodney accidentally kills a deputy in the jailbreak and so is forced to stay with the gang even when the truth is revealed. Hex shows up to kill the Randolph gang and apprehend Vanessa and Rodney. Judge Harrow presides over their trial, showing her usual lack of mercy even for her son. Hex rides out of town as Vanessa and Rodney swing from the gallows. Ayers is inked by De Zuniga here so that its hard to see much Ayers in it.

In the Scalphunter backup, man who tried to kill Scalphunter last issue is revealed to be a college professor interested in excavating a burial mound or "ghost hill" as Scalphunter calls it. His assistants proved unscrupulous and tried to kill him once they found valuable grave goods. Scalphunter is none too happy with the mound excavation, but helps the professor stop the thieves--but perhaps ultimately they are slain by the ghosts of the mound, as the ending is ambiguous. Conway's story here feels padded as last issue turns out largely to be filler.