Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Wally eating huge amounts (to sustain his metabolism) was a thing up in to the 90s.

Yep, and they've imported it into the current Flash tv series. But it began with Wally's series I believe. I don't think it was ever an issue for Barry Allen when he was the Flash originally.

[138 Scourge]

One of the early Wally Flash Annuals had, I think, one of the McGees comment about how weird it was in retrospect that Barry didn't need to eat like Wally did. So for what that's worth, I think the speedster diet started with Wally..

...at least as Flash comics go. The first speedster that had to eat like a maniac to sustain himself was MarvGreenwald, from the New Universe comics. It fits pretty perfectly with their stated mission of realistic (sorta) superhero stuff. I don't know if it was just two writers having the same idea, or if Messner-Loebs borrowed the idea from Gruenwald.

Man, as much as I'm starting to grudgingly like a version of Barry on the TV show, every time i think of how good Wally's Flash comics were i just start disliking Barry all over again.

[andersonh1]

One of the early Wally Flash Annuals had, I think, one of the McGees comment about how weird it was in retrospect that Barry didn't need to eat like Wally did. So for what that's worth, I think the speedster diet started with Wally..

...at least as Flash comics go. The first speedster that had to eat like a maniac to sustain himself was MarvGreenwald, from the New Universe comics. It fits pretty perfectly with their stated mission of realistic (sorta) superhero stuff. I don't know if it was just two writers having the same idea, or if Messner-Loebs borrowed the idea from Gruenwald.

It was actually Mike Baron who introduced the idea. I think he only wrote the book for the first 14 issues though, so it's easy to think it was Messner-Loebs, who probably did more with it than Baron.

Man, as much as I'm starting to grudgingly like a version of Barry on the TV show, every time i think of how good Wally's Flash comics were i just start disliking Barry all over again.

It's hard not to be a bit resentful. I didn't mind Barry coming back until it was clear that he was completely replacing Wally. I don't have much of an opinion on Silver/Bronze age Barry since I've read so little.

I always liked that Waid added Jay and Joan Garrick as supporting cast in his Flash run. I think that's what started me down the road to appreciating the legacy heroes so much, getting to watch a couple of generations of Flashes interact on a regular basis. There's no reason they couldn't have done that when Barry came back as well.

[andersonh1]

The Return of Barry Allen
The Flash 73-79
Mark Waid and Greg LaRoque

This is possibly the best known story in Mark Waid’s time as writer of the Flash. To summarize: Wally and his girlfriend Linda are having Christmas dinner with Jay and Joan Garrick, when there’s a knock at the door. They open it and there’s the long-dead Barry Allen, miraculously restored to life. And for a few issues, it appears that there are three Flashes active in Keystone and Central City. Wally is glad to have his mentor and hero back, but despite Hal Jordan’s GL ring confirming that this guy is Barry, something isn’t quite right. Wally and Jay both realize it, though both react in different ways.

Wally is suspicious at first, though he soon gets over that and works with Barry on various problems around town. In the meantime Jay is nowhere to be seen, and Wally figures he’s off with the JSA since “those old guys stick together”. It turns out that Jay has noticed a growing problem and is preparing for the worst. He has recruited Johnny Quick and Max Mercury in case the worst happens. Which it does, very quickly. Wally and Barry are caught in a trap, and Barry leaves Wally to die, screaming that his legacy as the Flash was wiped out, and he’s going to make everyone pay. Wally barely manages to escape with his life, but at this point he’s crushed and angry, and is hiding away after the betrayal, wondering what the point is in going on as the Flash, when he did it to honor Barry’s memory. And now Barry Allen is bitter and angry and going on a rampage.

The story kicks into high gear here, with Jay, Johnny and Max confronting Barry near the site of his latest rampage, a building construction site. They each put up a good fight, but between his generally superior speed and using civilians to shield himself and distract them, Barry manages to outfight all three. In the meantime, Wally goes to the alley where Barry first appeared in the present day, and finds a book from the future that Barry left behind, which answers all the questions he had and turns everything around. He meets with the three older guys, and each of them try to offer him some way to increase his speed, because of course Wally is still limited to a few times the speed of sound, meaning he’s nowhere near as fast as Barry or Jay. And here is where Waid finally provides an explanation for why Wally is slower, an explanation that dovetails nicely with what Baron and Messner-Loebs had written: Wally has been holding himself back. Not consciously, but on some level he’s always been afraid that if he’s as good as Barry and as fast, he really will replace him in the mind of the public. Wally dismisses the idea angrily.

Of course, if you’ve read the story you know that it was never Barry Allen at all, but Eobard Thawne, the reverse Flash. He had travelled to the past from the 25th century after figuring out a way to give himself super speed, and after a lifetime of hero worship. He hoped to meet his hero Barry Allen, but his first attempt at time travel left him amnesiac and confused. He ended up on a fugue state, genuinely believing that he was Barry Allen. Thawne is a pretty twisted man though, and his true nature kept coming out. He tries to kill Wally, and in the end, Wally is forced to admit that Max was right. As he tells himself, “Max was right. I was afraid of replacing Barry Allen. But I’m more afraid of letting Thawne replace him!” And suddenly the blocks on his speed are gone. Wally’s back to where he was as a kid, able to go as fast as any other Flash, and more importantly he’s a match for Thawne’s speed. It’s a fair fight, and Wally wins it. With a little taunting and goading, he gets Thawne to use the cosmic treadmill to return to the future so that past encounters with Thawne and Barry can play out as they have to. And with that, Wally has finally recovered his full speed and stepped up to become an equal with Jay and Barry.

Quite simply, this story couldn’t be told today. It’s heavily dependent on legacy and continuity to work. And yet it’s in no way complicated or difficult to follow. I think this may well have been the first Flash story I ever read, back when it was originally published, and I had no problems with it. I love the different approaches that the older, vastly more experienced Jay and the younger Wally take to the problem. I love that Waid brings back Johnny Quick and the very obscure Max Mercury, originally known in the 1940s as Quicksilver. I’ve actually read one Quicksilver story and a couple of Johnny Quick stories, and I always enjoy seeing characters brought back from obscurity and given strong roles in modern stories. This was one of the storylines that really made me appreciate the legacy aspect of DC’s universe.

There’s a sense in which, like Kyle Rayner, Wally West will always exist somewhat in the shadow of his predecessor, because his origin is dependent on what came before. But Waid makes a valiant effort here to both acknowledge where Wally came from, but also to move him forward and make him an equal to Jay and Barry, and he largely accomplishes that goal. Wally defeats one of Barry’s most dangerous enemies (albeit when Thawne is younger and less experienced) and shakes off what had been slowing him down, but at the same time the past is respected rather than dismissed. Waid doesn’t tear Barry down in order to build Wally up; even though up until the reveal of Thawne it appears that he’s going to take that route. Jay, who has been calling Wally “junior” for a number of issues, starts calling him Flash, saying that he’s earned it and that he calls people by their names. And that’s before Wally stopped Thawne.

This story has just about everything I enjoy in a superhero comic: good character work, multiple generations of heroes, good action and adventure, and plenty of emotion and drama. It even has a few things to say about idols and role models in life, and how much they can affect us. The much abused "nothing will ever be the same again" would actually be appropriate for this story, as it's a major turning point for Wally West that isn't undone. He will never again be "the slow Flash", limited to the speed of sound and living in his mentor's shadow. It deserves to be remembered as a classic as far as I’m concerned.

[andersonh1]

One of my sources of enjoyment that comes from reading old comics is that I get to see how and when certain familiar concepts were introduced. When it comes to Superman's origin, a lot of the familiar elements that we all know about did not originate in the comics. Action #1 has a very brief summary about how Superman was the last survivor of a destroyed planet, and then Superman #1 expands on that slightly by detailing how he was found and how he spent some time in an orphanage before being adopted. But that's all.

The full origin isn't detailed until the third telling for the newspaper comic strips. It's there that we finally get the familiar story of Jor-L (not Jor-El) learning that Krypton is doomed, and how he fails to convince the science council to evacuate the planet. He decides that he, his wife Lara and baby son Kal-L will escape, but he only gets the test rocket built before the end comes, so there's only enough room for the child, not the parents. We even get some detail about the rocket's trip to Earth, and how it narrowly avoids being destroyed several times before reaching Earth.

And the newspaper strips follow their own continuity. They don't make any attempt to coordinate with the comics. The origin adds details, but we get a completely different version of how Clark Kent got his job at the Daily Star. But just like today, there was cross-pollination of ideas between different media, and these names and details would be adopted into the comic book continuity down the line.

[andersonh1]

Batman: The Silver Age dailies and Sundays vol. 1 1966-67
Here's another book that got my interest during my most recent visit to the library. Batman ’66 may mimic the Adam West tv show almost 50 years after it originally aired, but the Silver Age Batman newspaper strips collected in this book are the genuine article, created and published contemporaneously with the show. You’d think that they would be as much fun as the modern comic, but while there’s plenty of absurd humor (Batman tracking down the Joker to his hideout, but going to get a search warrant before entering comes to mind, because the law is what makes our democracy work, Robin!), these strips lack a more modern sense of self-awareness. They’re fun, but hobbled by being much more earnestly straightforward than the plots that Jeff Parker comes up with every month. There’s no King Tut zombie apocalypse here, for example, nor could I imagine the writers of the time coming up with that type of crazy storyline.

No, it’s generally rather ordinary theft that drives most of the plots in these newspaper strips. And usually it’s the usual suspects: the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, etc. Poison Ivy makes an appearance, and apparently she was a relatively new character at the time, and she’s associated with Ivy League schools, which is an odd connection that I’ve never heard anyone make before. There are also some new (and fairly uninspiring) villains like some guy who thinks he’s Napoleon, or “Jolly Roger” the pirate.

It’s the straightforward plots that make these strips less fun than they could otherwise be. Batman and Robin are just as absurd as the Adam West and Burt Ward versions, so the potential for humor is there. The whitebread, straight-laced, patriotic and almost naïve characterization of Batman is there, along with the insane deductive skills. The absurdity needed to be pushed a bit more to really make these more humorous. As it is, they’re a weird mix of tones that aren’t quite pure humor or pure adventure. They’re interesting as a historical curiousity since Batman is such a different character and almost unrecognizable when compared to the popular modern day incarnation, but otherwise fairly forgettable.

[andersonh1]

Adventure Comics #61
April 1941

“The Amazing Starman”

When we hear the name “Starman”, the first thing that probably comes to mind with regard to comics is James Robinson’s 1990s series featuring Jack Knight, son of the original. Robinson’s series really showed the value of DC’s long history and legacy characters, and it was built on the foundation laid down by the original Starman feature in Adventure Comics. Theodore “Ted” Knight was the first Starman, and his series in Adventure Comics ran from issue 61 in April 1941 to issue 102 in February 1946. That’s only 41 issues and a little less than five years, but thanks to his association with the Justice Society of America, he didn’t stay in comic book limbo, but returned along with the rest of the team and was allowed to grow old and have a long life, which is something that few comic book superheroes get to experience.

His first appearance in Adventure Comics #61 sets up the premise of the series. Major power outages are occurring all over the country, so FBI troubleshooter Woodley Allen contacts Starman, the one man who he knows can help with the crisis. He has a signal device that contacts Ted Knight via Ted’s gravity rod. Starman is one of these characters like Green Lantern who has no inherent superpowers of his own. His powers all come from what is essentially a piece of technology of his own invention, the gravity rod, which (somehow) draws great energy from starlight and is able to manipulate and redirect that energy for various uses. It allows Ted to fly, project heat or light, put up what are essentially force field barriers, and whatever else the plot might require really.

Ted is out on a date with his girlfriend Doris Lee when the signal from Allen arrives. Now I tend to laugh a bit at Clark Kent’s feigned cowardice as part of his disguise, but that’s nothing compared to Ted Knight’s act. Not only does he play the coward, but he’s a terrible hypochondriac as well, complaining of the slightest discomfort as though he’s about to die from it. Doris tells him that she’s not sure why she keeps going out with him, and I tend to wonder the same thing. My guess is that Ted’s rich, and Doris is hoping to cash in on his wealth. I’m not sure it’s a topic that stories in this era would address, but we’ll see.

So Ted fakes feeling ill and leaves Doris to go change into his Starman costume. He heads out to meet Allen, who tells him that the power outages are being caused by the… um… “Secret Brotherhood of the Electron”, which in modern terms would be a terrorist group. Ted goes to confront them and ends up in a confrontation with their leader. In the archive introduction, artist and co-creator Jack Burnley says that he initially named the character “Dr. Doom”, but that for some reason, the editors changed the name to … Dr. Doog. Yeah, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. But Starman fights him and ends the threat. Dr. Doog dies when he falls into a trap he had tried to use on Starman, and the Brotherhood of the Electron are all arrested. Later Ted tells Doris that he feels much better, and the reader is told to come back next month for more amazing adventures.

Hey, they only got nine pages. They had to wrap this thing up quickly. And it’s worth noting that anyone who tells you that all golden age comics had poor art has never seen Jack Burnley’s artwork. It’s really good, and a lot more realistic and better proportioned than just about anyone else from the era.

[andersonh1]

The Jack Kirby Sandman volume has been interesting. The Wesley Dodds Sandman started out in his green suit, gas mask and fedora and would sneak around in the shadows. He would use his gas gun to knock out crooks and was hunted by police while dating the DA's daughter Dianne Belmont. But at some point prior to Kirby and Simon taking over, Dianne seems to have vanished, Wesley switches to a purple and gold outfit and gets a sidekick, Sandy (who would lead the JSA for awhile in the 2000s, interestingly). The series becomes essentially a Batman and Robin clone. One could easily substitute the Sandman and Sandy with Batman and Robin and the stories wouldn't have to change a bit. They even operate out of Gotham and have a cozy relationship with the police.

On the other hand, it's easy to see why Kirby's art is held in high regard. His figures aren't "realistic" in the slightest, but his use of panels is miles ahead of a lot of the other artists. Rather than tons of square panels and medium shots with a few close ups on faces, Kirby goes for round panels and lots of motion and many different angles, not to mention people going over the edge of the frame from time to time. He's definitely got a very distinctive style, particularly for the 1940s.

[andersonh1]

Dick Tracy collection vol. 1
Having been drawn sideways into newspaper strips through reading the Superman reprints, I had enough interest to check this out of the library and see how IDW treated other comic strips. I’ve never been a follower of the strip, but of course Dick Tracy has been in the comic pages for as long as I can remember. And what surprised me, among other things, was how brutal the strip can be in its depiction of violence. I’m so used to the comic page in newspapers containing 99% humor strips that I don’t expect anything else, especially going back to 1931.

But it’s there from the start. Tracy’s motivation to go into police work comes from what is essentially his origin story. He’s having dinner with his girlfriend Tess and her parents, who live over the delicatessen they own. While he’s proposing to her, two men rob the place, shoot and kill Tess’s father, kidnap her and injure Tracy. There’s swearing in the strip, though it’s not explicitly spelled out, being the old symbols for profanity (@#%%$!) or spelled first letter, blank line (h____). People commit suicide with a gun to the head. Tracy is tortured at one point with a crook burning his feet with a blowtorch. There’s even partial nudity from time to time. The goal is clearly to depict a hard hitting crime drama and police procedural using the format of a daily newspaper comic strip. It’s so far removed from today’s newspaper comics as to be almost unrecognizable. I don’t know how common this was at the time, but as I’ve said, I’m accustomed to comics been pretty light, inoffensive fluff. Maybe “Seduction of the Innocent” in the 50s had a similar sanitizing effect on newspaper strips as it did on comic books.

The goal, as Chester Gould admits in an interview included in the volume, was to sell papers. And he wanted people to buy the paper ever day because they wanted to see what happened next. Crime and police drama aren’t really genres that I enjoy, so my interest in this was mainly historical. It’s certainly interesting to read. And once again, it’s a library book so it costs me nothing but time to read it. And it must not be just me who found this series interesting, because I checked and IDW is up to 17 volumes in the series and have reached the 1950s. Someone’s enjoying a trip through these old newspaper comics. I doubt I’d be interested enough to collect them, but if the library has more, I’d certainly keep reading.

[andersonh1]

One of the things I enjoy about old comics is learning the answers to questions about a character's past. It makes sense that a man of Clark Kent's age and physique would have been drafted into WW2, right? It turns out that he did attempt to enlist, at least in the newspaper continuity (which I still think differs from the comic continuity in a number of ways). Clark heads down to get his physical exam. He has trouble with the blood sample due to his invulnerable skin, but what actually gets him classified 4F is his vision. He makes a stupid mistake while reading the eye chart and ends up reading the chart in the next room using his x-ray vision, so the military decide he's blind as a bat and won't let him retake it.

Logically, if a being like Superman existed, he could have ended WW2 rather quickly. Obviously Siegel and Shuster couldn't have him do that in the comics while the war kept going in real life, so the solution was "Superman's service to servicemen" where troops in the field would actually write in with problems for Superman to solve, and Siegel and Shuster would craft a story out of some of these requests. So Superman spends the war helping make things better for the fictional troops, based off of letters from real-life soldiers. That's pretty awesome actually, and a nice way to have Superman involved in the war without having him end it.

Of course, there is a short comic from a contemporary magazine that asks "How would Superman end the war?" in which he simply flies to Germany, kidnaps Hitler, then goes to Russia and kidnaps Stalin. He takes them to the UN, drops them off for trial, and the two men are found guilty of war crimes. If only it was that simple, right?