Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Considering that the current Superman storyline DC is publishing is all about Superman losing his powers and having his identity exposed, it's interesting to run across a newspaper strip storyline from 1948 in which it appears that Superman has lost his powers and to compare the public reaction. All the grateful people he's helped over the years immediately start thinking of ways they can help him out in his current supposed predicament. One guy is ready to drive him around the city since he can't fly. Another is ready to provide bodyguard protection. A lot of the ladies are lining up to marry him and "take care" of him. The crooks can't even pull a robbery successfully because of the citizen patrols organized to help keep an eye out for crime now that Superman can't be everywhere at once. And so on.

Sure, it was a less cynical time in comics. But you'd think the authors of today's Superman books could take some time away from having Superman ride his motorcycle and fight with police and show more than one neighborhood in Metropolis with some gratitude for all Superman's done for them.

[andersonh1]

I'm so used to superhero stories from the 1940s being fairly light in tone (mostly), that the third storyline from my recently purchased book of Batman newspaper dailies caught me by surprise. It felt a lot more modern in tone than I was expecting, and with a few tweaks in dialogue and characterization could easily pass for a modern Batman story.

Criminals are stealing valuable furs, and the Gotham police can't seem to catch them. The mayor is giving Commissioner Gordon grief over this when Batman and Robin walk into the office and offer to help. They do a little detective work and manage to intercept the next attempted theft on a road outside of Gotham, where a truck carrying furs is being hijacked. And here's where it gets interesting, because Batman gets shot during the fight. He puts on a brave face and sends Robin to follow the crooks and see where they go, but he collapses almost immediately after Robin is out of sight, thinking that he's taken four slugs and can't last long. He tries to get back to the road, but falls off a footbridge into a creek after he passes out. Robin feels bad for having left Batman and goes back, and it's only through the help of a couple in a nearby house that he is able to get Batman to safety and call in medical help to save Batman's life.

So Batman is out of the picture, and the story becomes about Robin, who has promised that he won't go after the crooks alone. That last word is key, so Robin goes and finds a Gotham police officer who has helped him and Batman in the past and convinces him to impersonate Batman so the two of them can go to the Silver Fox fur farm and investigate it. It works long enough to fool the crooks at the farm, though the guy who shot Batman is sure he got him and can't understand how he's up and about. Robin reports all of this to Batman, who decides that what Robin and the police officer saw was good enough to get Gordon to raid the farm.

The policeman decides that he hasn't done enough in the role of Batman, and decides to go back to the farm to scout it out before his fellow policemen arrive. Robin notices that he's gone and follows him, worried that he's the one who got the officer into this situation and so it's up to him to see that he lives through it. That does not happen... the officer gets in a gunfight, while still in the Batman costume, and dies in the shootout. Robin is, of course, guilt-ridden . He is forced to run for his life, and heads for the cabin to warn the couple who live there and warn the still very weak Batman. The final confrontation sees Batman bluff the crooks who, after watching him die, are shocked that he's alive. The police and Gordon arrive just in time, and Batman has Robin help him hide, because he doesn't want Gordon to see him in his weakened condition. The criminals are arrested and the theft ring is broken up.

Since this is a story from 1943, this is Dick Grayson in the Robin costume of course. But I could easily see a story like this working with Jason Todd, or especially Tim Drake. Normally in these old comics the worst thing that would happen to either Batman or Robin is that they'd get hit on the head and knocked out, or put in some over the top death trap. It's a rare thing, at least in what I've read, to see Batman shot during a gunfight and lying near death, telling Robin that "I guess I'm finished. Bleeding inside...". This is much closer in tone to the type of Batman story that I enjoy, and the black and white artwork suits it very well. And it's good to see Robin elevated to the protagonist and forced to make tough choices, and to see them go wrong no less. Good stuff.

[andersonh1]

Golden Age Green Lantern Archives vol. 1

All-American Comics #16
I think Alan Scott's origin story is fairly well-known to GL fans. In July 1940, young engineer Alan Scott is on a train, traveling with his friend Jimmy towards a trestle bridge that the engineering firm employing both has built. They won the bid over a rival company owened by a man named Dekker, and Jimmy is concerned that Dekker will do something drastic. Alan doesn't think so, but is soon proven wrong when the trestle bridge explodes and the train is derailed, killing all aboard... except for Alan, who can't understand why he's still alive. He is drawn to the light of a green lantern, and as he approaches it, it begins to speak to him and relate its long history.

The lantern originated as a meteorite that landed in ancient China, and the voice from the meteorite promised that it would bring three things: death, life and power. A local lampmaker fashions a lamp from the meteor, and when the superstitious locals kill the lampmaker, the lamp kills all of them, fulfilling the first promise. Centuries pass until the lamp falls into the hands of a man in an asylum, who refashions it into a more modern lantern. It restores his mind, giving him life. And Alan is the third individual, the one to be given power. The lamp advises him to use part of the metal to make a ring, and that he has to charge up once every 24 hours for the ring to remain powered up, and that Willpower is what will fuel him. Without will, he has no power. Alan takes all this in, and seeing all the dead bodies around him in the wreckage, including his friend Jimmy, is enraged and promises to kill Dekker. He makes the ring as advised, has time to cool down, and wonders how he could ever have thought murder was the solution. There has to be another way.

So Alan, still in the same clothes he was wearing when the train crashed, discovers that he can fly and heads for Dekkers. He is able to phase through the wall (something he refers to as "passing through the fourth dimension") where he finds Dekker and his cronies celebrating the train crash. They recognize him, try shooting and stabbing him and decide that he's the ghost of Alan Scott since he won't die. A wooden club on the back of the neck knocks him to the floor, leading Alan to decide that he must be immune to metals, but not organic objects. One of the things the lantern says is that its light is green, "like green growing things" (and this is probably where James Robinson got his ideas for the source of New 52 Alan Scott's powers), so it's possible there was meant to be a link between the source of the power and Alan's vulnerabilities. The story isn't explicit though, so it's hard to say.

Alan gets up and this is too much for the thugs, who run for it. Alan takes Dekker and flies him around, threatening to drop him if he doesn't confess. Dekker does and writes out a full confession, only to die of a heart attack from the shock of the night's events.

Alan muses that it feels like destiny has taken a hand in his life, and that he is meant to go on to do big things with the power he's been given. He decides to design a costume so that "once it's seen, it won't be forgotten!". And if you're familiar with the Golden Age Green Lantern costume, he certainly succeeded in creating something garish and colorful.

- Martin Nodell's art is probably the most crude of the Golden Age artists that I've seen. There is a redrawn version of this story in Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #1 that's very faithful to the original while being much easier on the eyes.
- Art aside, it's a very strong origin story, and the history of the lantern is something that is wide open for exploration. I find it interesting that even the original Green Lantern's power source is extraterrestrial, since the metal used to make the lantern came from outer space. Of course in the 70s Denny O'Neill would explain it was the Starheart, the magic from the universe that the Guardians had collected and removed from their universe, but here the source of the power is left vague, beyond allusions to "green growing things".
- There are no energy constructs. Alan uses the ring to fly (which does surround him with a green light in this origin story)and to pass through a solid wall, and it automatically protects him from bullets and knives.
- The first story, and they're already using the old standby of "the forced confession". I always wonder how well those will hold up in court.
- James Robinson borrowed elements of this story wholesale for Earth 2. He mainly used the train crash and the green flame appearing to Alan and offering him power afterwards, so the revised Alan's origin is much closer to the original than most other Earth 2 characters. (The exile of Grundy to the moon is from All-Star Comics #33).

[andersonh1]

Shazam Archives vol. 2 contains what may well be the first long-form crossover between two of a company's characters. It's not the first ever crossover, but it's a story that pits Captain Marvel against Spy Smasher over 5 months and 9 chapters. That's not the kind of thing you normally run across in the Golden Age, where plots are usually wrapped up in 6 to 12 pages. The crossover allows for more plot twists than normal, and for cliffhangers. I'm honestly surprised that publishers back in the 40s didn't try this sort of thing more often since it works very well.

It's essentially an early "Superman vs Batman" type of story with the very human Spy Smasher fighting the superhuman Captain Marvel, which he does by means of staying one step ahead of Marvel, or by misdirection, or other means that don't involve direct confrontation. I could easily see Batman employing the same methods against Superman, with all the tactics serving just to stave off defeat rather than actually being something to stop the superhuman opponent. The story blends the more down to earth art style and street level storytelling of Spy Smasher with the cartoony fantasy of Captain Marvel, but it generally works.

[Onslaught Six]

Split off from IDW TF thread:

"Watchmen" and "Sandman" are over-rated.

I was using these two titles as relatively accepted examples of "great comics that are well respected by many," as a tier above Marvel G1's writing level. (Originally I had written "Watchmen and Swamp Thing," but changed it to avoid having two books written by Alan Moore.) I think we can probably agree that this is an accurate assessment.

Watchmen I can probably give you. But Sandman, overrated? Sandman is probably one of the best comics period. When people who don't read comics regularly, or have never read comics, ask where they should start, I give two recommendations: Sandman and Transmetropolitan. Sandman is a perfect example of a comic creating a world that no longer needs its main character, for good reason. How many issues have a fucked up plot that's entirely unrelated, only for Morpheus to show up and deus ex machina things--for the greater plot that will occur later? You can argue that the deus exing is a shitty plot element but I disagree, because we're introduced to the concept so early on that it becomes an accepted piece of the mythology. The amount of re-inventing Gaiman does throughout, pulling in legit mythology and meshing it with 70s DC one-off horror characters and insane shit--there's an entire issue focusing on Prez FFS!--that I can't not love it.

[andersonh1]

"Watchmen" and "Sandman" are over-rated.

I still have not read more than a small part of either. I wonder if the impact has been lost, now that so many of the innovations of both have been adopted by other writers and are now part and parcel of comic book storytelling. If I'd read Watchmen when it was first published, or if I"d read the Sandman while it was being published, would I have a different view? It's entirely possible.

I did try reading Watchmen once, and I had a hard time getting into it. I didn't find it all that interesting. I was definitely wondering what all the fuss was about.

[Dominic]

In the 1980s, "Watchmen" was technically sophisticated. Moore was not necessarily the first writer to write from the assumption that comics should read well and look good, but was one of the first to push that idea aggressively.

Contrast Moore's clean, often stylistic, page lay-outs with the jumbled messes found in most Bronze and earlier comics. Similarly, contrast the lack of thought balloons and third person explication of Moore's comics with most everything else at the time. (Larry "GI Joe" Hama tried for the same standards, but rarely gets credit because he did his experimenting on a licensed series.) As little as I think of Moore personally (the guy is known for being a spoiled man-child), his skills were legitimate and (for the time) rare. Consider "Armor Wars". It was a decade ahead of its time, but is still embarrassing in some places.

But, that being said, Moore's virtues stand out as much for the deficits of his contemporaries than for his own qualities. I think that Prowl put it well enough when he said it was unfortunate that more writers did not look at "Watchmen" and consider writing their own comics "not retarded".


In terms of plot, "Watchmen" is over-rated. Gruenwald used the same ideas in "Squadron Supreme", though with less technical sophistication (note Gruenwald's derpy dialogue and explication, to say nothing of the jumbled pages). But, Moore wrote "Watchmen" like an R-rated movie, so he got points for being sophisticated....or something.


Tried getting in to Gaiman in high school (if only to see what all the fuss was about). Read "Death: the High Cost of Living", and had enough.

[Onslaught Six]

You read one of the Death books, instead of actual Sandman? This is the equivalent of watching "Dark of the Moon" and writing off TF entirely, or The Phantom Menace and writing off Star Wars. I will be the first to admit that she's the most pandery shitty character in the entire series, and many people latched onto her for the more obvious reasons than for any actual merit of quality. (She was a skinny goth girl in a comic book in the late 80s and early 90s. Enough said.) I would actually legitimately purchase and send you two or three trades if I thought you had the time to actually read them.

In terms of plot, "Watchmen" is over-rated. Gruenwald used the same ideas in "Squadron Supreme", though with less technical sophistication (note Gruenwald's derpy dialogue and explication, to say nothing of the jumbled pages). But, Moore wrote "Watchmen" like an R-rated movie, so he got points for being sophisticated....or something.

I'll admit ignorance in having not read Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme run, but we've all noted this in numerous toy reviews, comic and film discussions--art is one part idea and one part execution. Watchmen is just as important for the things you listed above. The plot is not typically what people write home to Watchmen about--while it is one of the earlier examples of its kind, there are others that predate it or are contemporary. I would easily say most of Watchmen's appeal is in having an original set of characters (or as original as the Watchmen crew are) and in its technical mastery of the form; the physical act of reading Watchmen is enjoyable and reads modern because it basically helped create how modern comics read. Squadron Supreme, as you claim, is less technically proficient, and suffers from using pre-existing characters who go on to have more bullshit happen to them way later. Poor moves by DC aside (that seem to have been thankfully forgotten by everyone), Watchmen is a self-contained entity that begins and ends.

[Dominic]

Thanks for the offer on the "Sandman" comics. But, really do not have the time to read them, and I am trying to reclaim space while purging my collection.

I would easily say most of Watchmen's appeal is in having an original set of characters (or as original as the Watchmen crew are) and in its technical mastery of the form; the physical act of reading Watchmen is enjoyable and reads modern because it basically helped create how modern comics read.

Fair point. But, the technical qualities of "Watchmen" are all but standard in modern comics (as the guys working on comics for the last 15 years or so have all at least been exposed to "Watchmen" as fans). And, I *really* dislike Moore for his generally whiny attitude about the industry.

Gillen's "Iron Man: Fatal Frontier" is an example of this. The "heist movie" chapter uses asynchronous store telling and fancy narrative tricks.....and it ain't no thang. Writers like Bendis smoothly jump from past to present as a matter of habit. Technical sophistication has redefined normal. Moore may have started it, but it is no longer unique.

Code: Select all

 Squadron Supreme, as you claim, is less technically proficient, and suffers from using pre-existing characters who go on to have more bullshit happen to them way later.   

Fair point again. Gruenwald is a product of the Silver Age, and thus his Bronze Age writing has not aged well. (Much of his work, both in concept and execution, is a good example of things that have been wrong with comics over the years. "Squadron Supreme" happens to be some of his better work.)

But, "Squadron Supreme" can be read as a self-contained series.

[andersonh1]

Comic Cavalcade #6
Green Lantern - "They Are Invincible"
Alfred Bester, Paul Reinman

Anyone remember the old "What if?" series that Marvel used to publish? I read the occasional issue back in the day, and the book would take some well-known Marvel story and then ask "what if it happened this way?" and the run with an alternate version of events. The alternate version would almost always end in disaster or have Wolverine save the day, but anyway... this Green Lantern story from the Spring 1944 issue of Comic Cavalcade is a "What If?". The author, an unnamed Al Bester (sci-fi writer from the 40s - 70s) speaks to the reader, saying that his wife complained to him that Green Lantern and Doiby Dickles always win through luck rather than by being smart, so he's decided to prove that the opposite is the case. He posits a "hypothetical story" to make his point.

GL and Doiby return from a case and head to the apartment building where they live. It's a densely foggy night, so they're a bit careless, and two thugs spot them entering the building. The thugs can't believe their luck... they think they'll be able to learn just who Green Lantern really is under his mask and put an end to his crime fighting. So they hang around waiting for the two men to come back out of the building, and once they do they follow them. Here's where the "what if" comes in, because Alan and Doiby reach an intersection where they can walk left, right or straight ahead. The story has them do all three. First they go left, and a sequence of events plays out. Then Bester winds back the clock and they go right, and again we see a different sequence of events. Finally they go straight, and a third sequence of events happens. Each time Alan and Doiby manage to beat the thugs and preserve Alan's secret identity, though circumstances are entirely different each time. Doiby even starts griping that the author won't let him punch out the thugs before switching narratives, and Alan tells him to just be quiet and pretend he doesn't know they're in a comic book story. You'd almost expect Deadpool to pop up and start talking about the little yellow boxes and how much he's missed them.

In the end, Bester insists that it's all been just a hypothetical story, and that Alan and Doiby never actually left the apartment. They were enjoying a hot dinner, courtesy of Alan's well-stocked fridge, and the two men that came out of the apartment were someone else entirely, so the thugs end up foiled. Bester's editor shows up, declares the story a failure and fires Bester. The end. It's a lighthearted and fun little story, and a nice change of pace from the stories with villains and death traps that Doiby wishes they were in.

Oh, and this is apparently the first appearance of the modern day Green Lantern oath, the one that Hal Jordan still uses to this day. "In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night..." etc. I knew it first turned up during the 40s, but wasn't sure when.

Green Lantern #30 - Feb/March 1948
"The Saga of Streak"
Robert Kanigher and Alex Toth

Alan, you shouldn't have adopted this dog as a pet. He's going to take over your book. It's the beginning of the end, pal.

I'm not sure this story was the best one to choose to represent the latter years of Alan Scott's run as Green Lantern. In any case, only in the 1940s would we get a story narrated by the dog, as Streak tells us the story of his life. He's not a talking dog (because that would just be silly, right?), but the book has his internal narration by Streak as we go through his life. He's the pet of brother and sister Luke and Sara Dale. He goes with Luke, and after some time witnesses Luke gunned down by gangsters. Enraged, he attacks them, only to be shot by the thugs, and then rescued by Green Lantern, who takes him to the vet to recover.

Through a series of events, GL learns that Sara Dale is being targetted by former Nazi scientist Dr. Malorgo, who puts him and Sara on a giant death trap. Yay for giant death traps... Streak attacks the guards and distracts them long enough for Alan to get free and take out the bad guys. Sara asks Green Lantern to take care of Streak for her, and he says that while he can't, his friend Alan Scott can. Streak is of course aware that Alan and GL are the same person, but he says he'll never tell...

I wonder what readers at the time thought of having a Green Lantern story that revolves around a dog that can think like a human? I think I'd have felt a little ripped off. A lot of the stories in the Green Lantern 75th anniversary book are of the "first appearance of..." variety, so maybe the editors wanted to put Streak's first appearance in the collection, regardless of the quality of the story. It's not a bad story per se, but it's hardly the type of thing you'd expect to see in a superhero comic. I think they were trying to adapt to whatever was popular at the time in order to keep these books selling, but the final issue of Green Lantern was a little more than a year later in 1949.