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Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 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 January 6, 1983. 


Blackhawk #257: We get a Chaykin cover on this issue. He'll go on to do some good stuff with the Blackhawks later in the decade. For now, Evanier and Spiegle are continuing the story from the last couple of issues. The Blackhawks manage to track Merson to Zurich and strongarm him into creating an antidote for the Ubermeister transformation. Four Blackhawks fly to Paris to get von Tepp. Chop Chop is guarding Merson but gets ambushed and outfought by Domino.

In Paris, Blackhawk is captured by von Tepp and his monster. Von Tepp steals Blackhawk medallion as a trophy. He doesn't know it's the nightmare medallion, and his will being somewhat less than our hero's, is overwhelmed and he dies of psychic distress. Blackhawk shoots the monster with von Tepp's luger not knowing it is his friend Stanilaus. It's not too late to save him though. as the rest of the Blackhawks show up, and they administer the antidote to Stanislaus, who (in the following few days or weeks) recovers.
 

DC Comics Presents #56: The most notable thing about this issue is the cover by Kane that prefigures the iconic cover to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. The story by Kupperberg and Swan is less memorable. Superman and Power Girl are teleported to another universe that is ruled by some be-permed jerk named Maaldor, who forces them to compete in gladiatorial games or see the people of that universe destroyed. The Swan's art renders a story staid that in the hands of a Marvel artist of this era would have at least been dynamic. I do kind of like the usual Bronze Age Superman ending where Supes has to kind of trick the badguy rather than beat him up.


Fury of Firestorm #11: The Hyena bugs me because her/his (there are two now) whole deal is really just a werewolf schtick and Broderick draws the creature as a wolf person not a hyena person and the colorist goes along with it. We learn Summer infected her Arizona doctor with the Hyena curse, and Ronnie is apparently also infected but holding it at bay with Firestorm powers, I guess. There's a fight atop the World Trade Center, where Firestorm blasts the Summer hyena, sending her falling presumably to her death, but it's continued next issue. Also, Stein's ex ostensibly enlists Ronnie's help to try to convince Martin to get back together with her. 


Justice League #213: After a lackluster arc the last two issues, Conway and now Heck/Tanghal bring something that starts out a bit more interesting. In fact, it's very Marvel-y, like a combination of Hank Pym's recent (in 1982) woes and weirdly, Ant-Mam & Wasp: Quantumania. Due to some career setbacks, Ray Palmer suffers a nervous breakdown and, when his wife Jean and Hawkman attempt to help him, he rebuffs them and vanishes into an unexplored, sub-atomic world--the Microcosmos. Using one of Ray's inventions, the Justice League follows him, but they lose their memories in the process. They encounter a mysterious woman called Wanderer and have to fight reptilian humanoids she calls Devil Guards, minions of Goltha, the micro-world's tyrant whose symbol is curiously like the Atom's. The heroes go with her to the capital city, unaware that the Atom, now a comparative giant, is a captive there, Gulliver-and-the-Lilliputians style, just behind a castle's walls.


Wonder Woman #302: Mishkin and Colan bring the Artemis story to a close. Wonder Woman spends much of the issue chained in a dungeon which provides plenty of time for flashbacks to tell Artemis' origin story: how she was Hippolyta's best friend and the first chosen "Wonder Woman" emissary, but then was corrupted by Man's World and defied Athena's will. The skeletal Artemis is out to kill Hippolyta, but Diana manages to escape just in time to stop her. In one-on-one combat, she defeats the original Wonder Woman by stealing her sword, the source of her unlife. Artemis's skeleton crumbles to dust. Elsewhere, Circe, the sorceress responsible for reviving Artemis, watches and vows revenge.

In the Huntress backup by Cavalieri and DeCarlo/DeZuniga Helena thwarts a D-grade villain called Pat Pending whose gimmick he uses a lot of novelty gadget inspired stuff, but he uses a drug to (I guess) slow his respiration and heart to fake his death--and sets Huntress up to look like a murderer. How he wakes up and escapes before an autopsy is performed, I hope gets explained next issue, but I'm not holding my breath.


Arak Son of Thunder #20: It seems like the Thomases and Gonzales/Alcala are sort of padding out the issue count on this journey to White Cathay. This issue, as Arak and his companions cross a vast desert led by the priest Johannes we get fantasy desert danger buffet including a sandstorm, sinkholes, a giant antlion, and undead warriors. Meanwhile, the sorceress Angelica watches it all, and it gives her a chance to fill Malagigi in on the history of her land. The city is currently besieged by tartars, and Angelica seeks the answer to a riddle which will bring a powerful demon to her side. Malagigi, knows the answer, but refuses to tell lest it lead to harm for his approaching friends.

In the Valda backup, Valda is on the hunt for Pip, the son of Carolus Magnus that got disowned last issue. She has to fend off a pack of wolves, but eventually she finds the hunchback prince hiding in a graveyard. She gets him to shelter, then she hears a ghostly evil voice...

7 comments:

  1. That Arak issue was something of a filler story, yeah.

    Only book I remember from this lot, never even saw the others. Pity, the JLA one sounds pretty intriguing and I'd likely have bought DC Presents just for the Gil Kane cover and Power Girl appearance.

    Strange cover on Wonder Woman. It's not bad per se, but it's very generic and doesn't have anything to do with Artemis as far as I can see. The photo background (right?) is a weird choice, and slightly reminds me of Kirby's experiments with photo collages.

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  2. I agree with Dick on that WW cover. It seems like something that would be good for an anniversary issue or something special like that but for just an ordinary issue it is really generic.

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  3. That WW cover seems fine to me. Very Ed Hannigan-y. More symbolic and designy than showing what is in a particular issue.

    I prefer this cover approach to the heavily word ballooned approach of a couple of years earlier.

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  4. The terrible frustration of getting excited for a werehyena story and just getting werewolf art! I remember that JLA cover but nothing about the issue! Shrinking seems to have correlated with mental distress in that era . . . Pym particles, Jean Loring's initial "nervous breakdown" back in the Super-Team Family era, arguably the subatomic Hulk. Maybe as you get that small every minuscule imbalance in the mind can become overwhelming.

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  5. Well, if we go back to The Incredible Shrinking Man, shrinking has been manifestation or literalization of certain anxieties.

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  6. "Shrinking seems to have correlated with mental distress in that era . . . Pym particles, Jean Loring's initial "nervous breakdown" back in the Super-Team Family era, arguably the subatomic Hulk."

    Not sure I wholly agree. Pym particles driving you nuts is a relatively recent thing, although it might back to the 80s and I just missed it. OTOH, going farther back Dollman's initial shrinkage caused a very brief violent episode blamed on resizing his gray matter, which lasted all of about a page and then never got mentioned again. That might be the grandfather of the concept in writers' subconscious. And Psycho-Man with his emotional manipulation schtick has been around for ages, and he comes from the Marvel microverse, so there's a sort-of connection.

    I don't recall any of the Micronauts being especially unstable. Maybe growing is healthier than shrinking. :)

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  7. Pym particles driving you nuts would be a literal way shrinking harmed your mental health. What I'm saying is the The Incredible Shrinking Man uses shrinking as an allegory to explore a man's place in a changing society and shrinking characters in comics as of the 80s seem to have a lot of "nervous breakdowns" or mental crisis. Not all, but a lot.

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