Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

I don't know how retro eleven year old Green Lantern comics are, but I've been enjoying the "Green Lantern by Robert Venditti" omnibus. Hard to believe that it's been 11 years since Geoff Johns's final issue and Robert Venditti taking over the series. I remember a lot of griping about the "Lights Out" story and the concept of an emotional reservoir that can be tapped dry, and I tend to agree that it doesn't really make sense. I would think all the various people in the universe would generate emotion, making an inexhaustible supply. Maybe the Lanterns were using it up faster than it was generated? But that aside, the story is good and Relic is a good antagonist, acting on what he thinks are good motives: trying to prevent the death of this universe for the same reasons his universe died. The omnibus includes both the Green Lantern issues, which I have read, and the Green Lantern Corps isses, which I have not, along with a few issues of Red Lanterns and New Guardians where they are apparently important to the storyline. I'm still not a big fan of the way Billy Tan draws Hal, but I like Bernard Chang's art on GLC. I wish they would get someone at his level to draw the current series. The art in the current book is not impressive at all.

The paper in this book is good, but the volume is noticeably thinner than many others on my shelf, despite being 850 pages. I can't complain, I like seeing less shelf space taken up. I think a volume two is on the way with the New Gods storyline and the Renegade story arc, and then hopefully we'll get Hal Jordan and the GLC collected at some point. I'm wondering if Lost Army and Edge of Oblivion will be in the second Vendetti volume since they were concurrent with "Renegade"?

[Sparky Prime]

I remember a lot of griping about the "Lights Out" story and the concept of an emotional reservoir that can be tapped dry, and I tend to agree that it doesn't really make sense. I would think all the various people in the universe would generate emotion, making an inexhaustible supply. Maybe the Lanterns were using it up faster than it was generated? But that aside, the story is good and Relic is a good antagonist, acting on what he thinks are good motives: trying to prevent the death of this universe for the same reasons his universe died.

I liked the idea of Relic. His backstory is a bit similar to Galactus, albeit without Relic being reborn as a force of nature compelled to consume life, flipped to trying to save this universe from the fate of his universe instead. But, yeah, the idea of the emotional reservoir didn't make any sense. Venditti obviously used it to walk back some of the concepts Johns introduced, getting rid of the Entities (minus Parallax) to 'refill' the reservoir. I'm glad the recent stories once again walked that back and restored the Entities... Including Parallax who apparently died in the meantime and the Entities fear made a new Parallax? The last reference I can find to the original Parallax was that he was captured in a Yellow ring by Superman.

At any rate... I'd love to see Relic appear again someday. Be interesting to see what else they can do with the character who is from a previous universe.

[andersonh1]

I remember a lot of griping about the "Lights Out" story and the concept of an emotional reservoir that can be tapped dry, and I tend to agree that it doesn't really make sense. I would think all the various people in the universe would generate emotion, making an inexhaustible supply. Maybe the Lanterns were using it up faster than it was generated? But that aside, the story is good and Relic is a good antagonist, acting on what he thinks are good motives: trying to prevent the death of this universe for the same reasons his universe died.

I liked the idea of Relic. His backstory is a bit similar to Galactus, albeit without Relic being reborn as a force of nature compelled to consume life, flipped to trying to save this universe from the fate of his universe instead. But, yeah, the idea of the emotional reservoir didn't make any sense. Venditti obviously used it to walk back some of the concepts Johns introduced, getting rid of the Entities (minus Parallax) to 'refill' the reservoir. I'm glad the recent stories once again walked that back and restored the Entities... Including Parallax who apparently died in the meantime and the Entities fear made a new Parallax? The last reference I can find to the original Parallax was that he was captured in a Yellow ring by Superman.

At any rate... I'd love to see Relic appear again someday. Be interesting to see what else they can do with the character who is from a previous universe.

I agree, I think there's potential there. Relic is hostile, but he has good motives for his actions. That's an interesting combination. When did we last see him? Was it when he was studying the Source Wall during the Renegade storyline?

I'm enjoying the omnibus. I really should have been reading Green Lantern Corps at the time. I was missing out on half the story. But at least it gives me something new to read now. I'm in the early stages of the Durlan plot to destroy the Corps, a storyline I enjoyed quite a bit. Chad and Mark over on the Lanterncast thought it dragged on too long, but it never bored me.

[Sparky Prime]

When did we last see him? Was it when he was studying the Source Wall during the Renegade storyline?

Yeah, I believe so. I haven't seen any references to Relic since then.

I'm in the early stages of the Durlan plot to destroy the Corps, a storyline I enjoyed quite a bit. Chad and Mark over on the Lanterncast thought it dragged on too long, but it never bored me.

It's been years since I read it, but I don't recall feeling like it dragged either. And that was waiting for each issue to come out every month.

[andersonh1]

It's been a while since we were reading Green Lantern, and I left it in what turns out to be the middle of a story, so on to the next part. Green Lantern is still a backup feature on Flash at this point, and it will be that way for a while, judging by the table of contents in the omnibus.

The Flash #221
April-May 1973

Death-threat on Titan!
Script - Denny O'Neil Art - Dick Giordano

Picking up where the last issue left off, Hal fought an alien as Green Lantern and discovered his name on a hit list. He decides his Green Lantern problems are more important than his lack of a job, but his ring is out of power despite being charged only 12 hours earlier. GL recharges his ring and gets it working again. He contacts the Guardians on Oa (said here to be "a tiny planet on the rim of the galaxy") to find out what the problem could be and finds that everyone on the list was a Green Lantern (I tried looking at the names on the list but other than Hal's name they're unreadable, both from last issue and this) and each had a power ring made of a special ore, mined on Titan, Saturn's moon. That's an interesting idea, I had always assumed (to the extent I had ever thought about it) that the ore for the rings came from Oa. So why would certain GLs have rings made of ore from Titan? What's special about it? Is this just a throwaway idea to service this particular plot?

Hal asks for and is granted a return to full duty status, and apparently he's been on leave for two years. No "comic book time" here. Hal heads out into space and is reminded of how amazing it is. He heads to Titan where he is attacked by a satellite built by the Conn Civilization, which wraps him up in a yellow binding and deposits him on the surface of Titan. Two aliens from the same race as the one who attacked him last issue carry a power battery and drain the energy from his ring. I guess it doesn't drain it all or else Hal would die pretty fast on the surface of Titan, but he gets in a fistfight with the aliens, only to be zapped by someone who turns out to be the one he was fighting last issue. These aliens hate the Guardians, who they say exiled them to Titan to mine the ore used in the power rings. They need the gems from the rings to carry out their scheme, to travel to Oa, drain the central battery and kill all the Guardians. Hal, despite being out of power (maybe the reserve is keeping him alive?) uses one of the raw bits of ore on the surface to get just enough of a construct to cut his bonds, after which his fists do the talking for him, as they so often do. He takes out the three aliens and presumably turns them over to the Guardians, though that's not shown here. The story ends with Hal creating a construct monument to the dead alien who tried to warn him last issue.

As a reader of modern Green Lantern, I'm well used to the idea of the Guardians being far from squeaky-clean, but would they really enslave some aliens and exile them to Titan just to mine ore? Maybe these guys were criminals and mining was their sentence. We never get the Guardians' side of the story here, so there's no telling how much truth their is in the accusations. But these blue aliens hate the Guardians and want to kill them, and they've figured out how to use the ore to travel and drain power rings, so they're fairly capable opponents for Hal. If I hadn't read so many of those late Silver Age stories where he deliberately didn't use his ring just because he wanted to punch out his opponents, I'd have enjoyed him winning while powerless a lot more than I did. Because it's always good to see that Green Lanterns are capable with or without the power ring, and that it's not just the power that makes them effective. But I'm done with Hal the brawler, I want to see some cool power ring usage. I did enjoy his awe at being back out in space after so long mainly on Earth.

It's not a bad story, though the ideas about the ore and the aliens who mine it is screaming for further elaboration. There are some big ideas stuffed into a short backup feature, and I'd like to see them revisited down the road.

[Sparky Prime]

and each had a power ring made of a special ore, mined on Titan, Saturn's moon. That's an interesting idea, I had always assumed (to the extent I had ever thought about it) that the ore for the rings came from Oa. So why would certain GLs have rings made of ore from Titan? What's special about it? Is this just a throwaway idea to service this particular plot?

This got me curious as well. Surprisingly, it doesn't look like a subject that is addressed on most sites, Google search didn't turn up much. The only thing I could find was a reddit post claiming the rings originally were made from rare material, then "Oanite" (Sinestro's original yellow ring being "Qwardamite") and now they're a form of pure emotion somehow processed into a solid form.

[andersonh1]

and each had a power ring made of a special ore, mined on Titan, Saturn's moon. That's an interesting idea, I had always assumed (to the extent I had ever thought about it) that the ore for the rings came from Oa. So why would certain GLs have rings made of ore from Titan? What's special about it? Is this just a throwaway idea to service this particular plot?

This got me curious as well. Surprisingly, it doesn't look like a subject that is addressed on most sites, Google search didn't turn up much. The only thing I could find was a reddit post claiming the rings originally were made from rare material, then "Oanite" (Sinestro's original yellow ring being "Qwardamite") and now they're a form of pure emotion somehow processed into a solid form.

That's one of the interesting things about these old stories, the facts and plot points that appear and then are apparently forgotten or retconned. It's definitely not world-building here, O'Neil just needed a threat and a motivation for his villains, he came up with this and then moved on. I don't know if we'll ever see either these aliens or hear about ore mined on Titan again.

It's like modern writers who talk about Hal wearing Abin Sur's ring, when he went through four power rings in the Silver Age alone, got a new one in issue #90, had one destroyed by Lord Malvolio in the Action Comics Weekly GL feature, and then that one was destroyed when he became Parallax and Ganthet remade it for Kyle. Hal hasn't had Abin Sur's ring in a long, long time!!

The Flash #223
September-October 1973

Doomsday... Minus Ten Minutes!
Script - Denny O'Neil Art - Dick Giordano

This story could immediately follow the last one or it could be much later. Hal returns from space, starts to recharge his power ring, and is attacked by a bug-like alien. An oddity here is that Hal thinks he can't communicate because he doesn't speak the language, because of course the ring should translate it for him. Only when he tries to form a construct does he realize that the ring is out of power, something the lack of translation should have clued him in on. Hal resorts to a fistfight and of course punching something with a thick carapace goes about as well as you might expect. The alien grabs the power battery, which he is able to see even though it's invisible, and takes off with it. With no power left, Hal has to take a flashlight from his car and follow on foot, tracking the alien through the woods.

He finds the battery sitting in a clearing and realizes too late that this is a trap. He gets knocked around pretty good in the resulting fight and plays possum, recharging his ring without using the oath, the first time he has done so. I think that's correct, I can't remember any other story up to this point without the oath being recited as Hal charged up. He fires a beam at the alien, who absorbs all the energy into a belt he's been wearing this whole time and leaves. The last page of the story lets the readers into the alien's thoughts, and it turns out his goal the whole time was simply to recharge his belt, which lets him travel through space, and he only got into the fight through misjudging Earth's gravity and feeling compelled by "his code" to respond to violence by defending himself. He found out he could not simply use the battery, he needed the energy channeled at him.

It all makes sense in the end I suppose. It's a fairly shallow plot and a quick read with a ridiculously melodramatic title, though I do appreciate the lack of hostile motives on the part of either character. "Conflict due to inability to communicate" sums up this story. I suppose otherwise the alien could have simply asked for a recharge, Hal would have obliged, and the whole thing would have lasted a page.

[andersonh1]

Batman #100
June 1956

Before we get into any of the stories, I wanted to pause and look at the cover. It's very rare for books in this era to look back, based on what I've read, and we didn't see anything like this when Detective Comics hit anniversary issues. Batman #100 gives us six past issues to wax nostalgic over (and isn't it great that all of these issues have been collected!):

Top row, l to r: Batman #1 - art by Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson
Batman #48 - art by Win Mortimer
Batman #47 - pencils by Bob Kane, inks by Charles Paris
Bottom row, l to r: Batman #23 - art by Dick Sprang
Batman #61 - art by Win Mortimer
Batman #25 - art by Dick Sprang

Looking at these thumbnails, these small reproductions are given an updated logo and are not always colored the same as the original covers. I'm guessing none of them are original art, but were probably traced and recreated? It's a nice selection of images and artists. We get the first issue of course, the Batcave, the Batplane, the origin issue from around the 10th anniversary, and a classic "Batman vs Joker" cover. Nice to see Dick Sprang and Win Mortimer represented on the cover along with Bob Kane. Jerry Robinson is there though only as an inker, and Charles Paris as well.

I wonder how many readers in 1956 had been around since the beginning, and how many had read some or all of those issues? Or were they already part of a legendary past, where readers of 1956 Batman would gaze at these covers and wonder what cool adventures were inside the issue? They make me want to go back and read them. I guess Batman had outlasted just about every other contemporary character from the 1940s other than Superman and Wonder Woman (with Aquaman and Green Arrow getting honorable mention), so he certainly warranted a celebration of that fact.

Batmantown, USA
Script: ? Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

The cover of the issue looks back, but the stories on the inside are very much of the then-present day as public figure Batman gets the town of Plainville near Gotham named after him. It's now "Batmantown" and everything in the town is Batman-themed, from the names of streets and businesses to Bat hood emblems on the police cars. How much did this small town spend on this? Batman doesn't have the heart to object, but he worries about how criminals will react to the name change. And indeed, they start moving to Batmantown with plans to take advantage of the situation. The Barsh mob has plans, and though Batman enters the pageant as an "impersonator", Barsh figures out that he's probably the real deal when he has to rescue a man from being hit by a car, a stunt that only the real Batman would likely be able to pull off.

Barsh plans to pull off his crime while the pageant is ongoing. Thanks to some spying by Robin, Batman figures out their plans and organizes the parade in such a way that the floats block the crooks from taking most of the main routes out of town when they try to leave. They had run the other crooks out of town and operated a warehouse where people could store their valuables in the "crime free" town, planning to take them all while the parade was going on. Batman and Robin round them up, and with the goods in their possession, there's no denying their guilt. The mayor figures the town had better change its name back, but Batman of course helps promote the town, so the whole incident may well end up benefiting Plainville in the end.

So as some of my comments in recent reviews make plain, I'm not a big fan of celebrity Batman, the public figure, which is what Batman is at this point in his history. It's not what the character was meant to be, and though he's evolved into a public figure, it never works for me. This is a story that could only be told during this era. I'm reminded of the very early Superman story where a con man tries to take Superman's name and image for product promotion and the very different tone of that 15 year old story compared to this, where appropriating Batman's name and likenesses is good-natured and well-intentioned and Batman goes along with the whole thing. It is convenient that he learns of what's going on in Batmantown by accident, but in an eight page story that sort of narrative shortcut is fine. Sometimes things just have to happen so the plot can keep moving.

The Hunters of Gotham City
Script: ? Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

A ship carrying animals for the Gotham Zoo crashes into the docks, allowing some of the animals to escape. Batman and Robin have to help recover them. That just about sums this one up. There is a smuggling plotline involving getting diamonds through customs that adds some interest to the plot, but I have to say that overall this story did next to nothing for me. I haven't written a story review this short since way back in the early days of reviewing these Batman omnibuses, but I found that not only is there not much to say about the story, I just did not care much at all about Batman and Robin rounding up escaped animals. There's not even any great art to salvage a dull plot. I wish they'd come up with something more interesting for the anniversary issue.

The Great Batman Contest!
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

The final story in Batman's 100th issue involves a contest where a scholarship will be awarded to the student who designs the best new "bat-weapon". Yes, it's public citizen celebrity Batman in action once again. Leaving that aside, this sort of work of building up the community is the kind of thing Bruce should surely be doing as himself, while Batman fights crime behind the scenes out of the public spotlight. Or I could see Batman trying out some new equipment that he had designed himself to see how well it would work in the field. But leaving his equipment design to schoolkids is a hard idea to take seriously. Batman and Robin's lives depend on reliable equipment after all.

But they evaluate and reject obviously flawed or dangerous designs, and set out to test the four most promising. The first three have some success, but ultimately fail at a crucial moment. I thought the third, the "portable tv walkie talkies" were an interesting sort of early version of today's video conferencing, decades before such things existed. I love the little handles to hold the screen and the tiny tv antenna on top! Naturally they're black and white since it's the 1950s. Invention #4, the winner, is the "bat-kite" which holds a miniature camera used for aerial photography. If it was today, Batman would be sending up drones to do this sort of work. The kite is a bit silly as a piece of crime fighting equipment, but the idea behind it is sound enough. And Batman directs Robin to use it to distract the crooks while he moves in to capture them, so there's a bit of aerial combat as well.

This one's a mix for me, and it's all down to how Batman should be characterized. I can believe Bruce Wayne would sponsor a scholarship for promising students, and I can see Batman designing and testing new equipment, I just don't think combining the two ideas works particularly well. But it's a decent enough story for the era, and it's fun to watch Batman try out these various ideas while fighting crooks.

And that's it for this omnibus. We've read and reviewed 611 stories in 10 omnibuses, and we've reached the (admittedly somewhat arbitrary) end of Batman's Golden Age! That's got to be some kind of record. The character has come a long way and evolved since Detective Comics #27, and while I realize the "Age" branding is just that, mid-1950s Batman barely feels like the same character as 1939 or 1940 Batman. I'm not sure all of the stories in these ten omnibuses belong under the same umbrella classification of "Golden Age stories". But then there's no clean break where we could say he's transitioned from one phase of characterization to another. It's all gradual evolution from how he began to how he is in these latest stories.

At any rate, I'm ready to move forward and start the Silver Age omnibus. I've read it once, back when I first bought it, so it will be good to go back and read through it a second time and review the stories this time around.