Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1981 (wk 1 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around  February 5, 1981.



New Teen Titans #7: Trigon dealt with (for now), Wolfman and Perez get the group back to trying to figure out if they can trust Raven as a part of their team. Meanwhile, the Fearsome Five infiltrate the Titans' Tower in an effort to rescue Psimon from where Trigon left him. The Titans break into their own base and take down the Fearsome Five. We also get Cyborg's origin revealed. All and all, this is a nice 80s style hero team versus villain team slugfest.  


Secrets of Haunted House #36: Mister E is hired by some kids who saw their dad doing a demon-summoning ritual. E goes to investigate and catches the man in the act--then helps him finish the ritual. It turns out demons summoned to two places at once get destroyed, and there was a coven across town trying to summon this demon, so the Harvard librarian took it upon himself to counter them. 

In the cover story by Wessler and Hampton, a man murders his rival for the affections of a young woman only to discover she's the sea hag in disguise as she drags him to his watery death. Ms. Charlie Seegar presents "Sister Sinister" with interesting art more reminiscent of some of the romance comics of the 70s by Bender and Malstedt. When a woman's sister is murdered, she finds a spell to turn herself into a werewolf, then prowls the night to get the killer to strike again, so she can have her revenge.


Superman #359: This story doesn't quite live up to its weird cover, though that scene does occur in the issue. When a fighter jet crashes mysteriously, Superman investigates and finds a desert town hidden by its inhabitants since they developed advanced telekinetic powers after contact with a device from the future. Superman is able to figure out the location of the invisible device using "trigonometry" and destroys it. In Star Trekian fashion, the increase power was affecting people's personalities, and they become much friendlier once it's destroyed.

The backup is by Rozakis and Swan and begins a chronicle of Clark's life once he leaves Smallville, but before he becomes Superman. In this installment, Clark decides to go to Metropolis after the theft of his slice of Smallville going away cake leads him to a kidnapped boy.


Superman Family #207: Why must Superman Family have so many pages? Harris/Thomas and Mortimer/Coletta have Supergirl dealing with the apparent return of Argo City, but in the end it's all a trick by Universo. The Legion makes a brief guest appearance. This story suggests Supergirl's super-vision is so good she can see the bodies rotating around the red sun of Krypton while standing on Earth.

The Mr. and Mrs. Superman story has Lois getting Clark's powers temporarily with predictable results. The Rozakis/Tuska Private Life of Clark Kent story is sort of amusing in that it has a guest appearance by Oliver Queen who at every turn seems to be trying to out Clark as Superman. In the end it's revealed that George Taylor, in an effort to out Queen as Green Arrow, spiked his coffee with a truth drug. Goofy, perhaps, but if you're going to have big anthology books stories like this that revel in the shared universe seem a good way to go. 

The Conway/Oksner Lois Lane story is sort of amusing too, but with less charm. Lois loses an award to another woman reporter she thinks is a lightweight bimbo, so she puts herself in ridiculous danger to prove she's the real investigative journalist.  In the Jimmy Olsen story by Conway and Delbo, Jimmy runs afoul of the IRS, but then has to clear his name as a suspect when the IRS agent is murdered.


Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1: This issue is better than most of the Green Lantern issues since I started this. Maybe it's just that it seems more modern. Wein and Barr and Staton and McLaughlin, bring the entire Green Lantern Corps to Oa on an emergency call, which gives an excuse for Hal Jordan to fill in new GL Arisa on both his origin and the origin of the Corps, beginning with Krona's transgression. It turns out that's more than ancient history, because Krona has been freed from his prison by some mysterious master and is on the loose in the universe. The stakes get raised when the central power battery explodes. The Guardians disappear to seek out and confront Krona's master while the Corps--with only 24 hours of ring power energy each--vow to seek out and confront Krona.


Weird War Tales #99: Kanigher and Cockrum and Ordway bring back the War That Time Forgot with a B-52 crew dealing with all sorts of oversized dinos. In the end, the skipper is hauled off for his outrageous claims of dinosaurs and the crew deny any of it happened to avoid the same fate.  Kasdan and Estrada bring light to the perils of colonialism, as a cruel English governor in Bengal takes a wife who turns out to be Kali. In another story by Kashdan with art by Ditko, a K-9 soldier is reluctant to put down his dog after it's bitten by vicious guinea pigs from the biowarfare experiment. He finds the contagion can not only be passed to dogs, but to humans too. The final story by Barr and Amongo has the ghost of a Japanese pilot in WW2 saving his younger brother from dying in a kamikaze attack.


Wonder Woman #279: Conway and Delbo open this one in media res with an injured Wonder Woman staggering into the shop of voodoo practitioner, Mother Juju. Etta Candy appears to have been kidnapped by a demonic cult. Through the use of Juju's magic, Wonder Woman is able to track the cultists to a "government-funded think tank on Chesapeake Bay." She breaks in and finds Etta--in the hands of demonic creatures! This story almost feels like a throwback to a lot of Marvel stories of the 70s. It remains difficult to get a handle on just what Conway thinks Wonder Woman's powers are. Certainly he doesn't portray her as a real heavy hitter in terms of strength or invulnerability.

In the backup, Huntress is still on Gull Island dealing with the prison's takeover by the inmates. She challenges Lionmane to a one on one fight. This has some interesting parallels with the first fight between Batman and the mutant leader in The Dark Knight Returns.

4 comments:

Dick McGee said...

Actually bought several of this batch back in the day, which is better than average for me. Titans and the GL book were both pretty good as I recall, I'm a sucker for implausible Weird War dinos, and I think I got Haunted House as the middle comic in one of those damn polybagged three-packs the local drug store used to sell. Can't imagine buying it deliberately. :)

"It turns out demons summoned to two places at once get destroyed, and there was a coven across town trying to summon this demon, so the Harvard librarian took it upon himself to counter them."

That borders on genius. Stealing the concept for any of a variety of RPGs. Might do something less extreme - maybe instead of being destroyed, each summoner gets *part* of the demon, and the thing is largely helpless until someone re-unites its bits. Alternately each summoner gets a copy of the demon but it's functioning at a fraction of the power expected, to everyone's annoyance. And of course there could be more than just two simultaneous summoners, particularly if this is being done deliberately to ruin the demon's day.

"This story suggests Supergirl's super-vision is so good she can see the bodies rotating around the red sun of Krypton while standing on Earth."

That might have been really outlandish in the 80s, but we've got orbital telescopes that can detect extrasolar planets with ease. Kara being able to do it through the Earth's atmosphere is still well beyond us, but give it another fifty years and it wouldn't shock me if we find a software solution that makes surface observatories capable of similar feats. If a Supergirl can't do better than mere 21st century technology she's a lot less super, isn't she?

"In the end it's revealed that George Taylor, in an effort to out Queen as Green Arrow, spiked his coffee with a truth drug."

Boy, that could get awkward. "Hey Clark, did I ever tell you Dinah likes it when I wear fishnets too? Got a pair on right now."

"Conway and Delbo open this one in media res with an injured Wonder Woman staggering into the shop of voodoo practitioner, Mother Juju."

Yeesh. Calling that character (this is her first appearance, with her last being the next issue) a bit problematic in 2022 is an understatement.

"Etta Candy appears to have been kidnapped by a demonic cult."

I feel like that's not the first time this has happened to Etta - although at least it's not Nazi demon cultists this time around. Just good old American government funded ones. :)

Anne said...

The non-superhero titles of this era often seem to have the best covers, and "Secrets of the Haunted House" and "Weird War Tales" are definitely the standouts this week. That sea hag is especially enthralling.

My understanding of human psychology suggests that the formerly telekinetic townspeople might not be so quick to forgive Superman for taking away their powers...

I had thought that Krona and his Big Bang era mistakes were something created specifically for "Crisis on Infinite Earths," so I was quite surprised to learn that both Krona and his backstory were already established years earlier!

Trey said...

Yes, much earlier: Green Lantern Vol. 2 #40, October 1965. Though in that story and here, it is not Krona's actions that created to multiverse, but rather introduced evil to it. The multiverse angle is a retcon that first appears in Crisis.

Dick McGee said...

@Anne "That sea hag is especially enthralling."

It is, isn't it? Has me looking at my sculpting putty and unfinished minis pile with an eye toward doing a homebrew conversion for 13th Age or D&D or somesuch. :)