Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Continuing through the Hard-Traveling Heroes Omnibus...

The Flash #226
March-April 1974

The Powerless Power Ring!
Script - Denny O'Neil Pencils - Neal Adams, Dick Giordano Inks - Dick Giordano

I have to disagree with the caption box that opens this story. "Exploits" is not the word I would use to describe it. At first glance it might be exciting to have Neal Adams back on Green Lantern, but "The Powerless Power Ring" and a terrified Hal Jordan about to fall to his death doesn't promise a great adventure...

As the story opens, Hal is out hiking and camping in the mountains. He's still unemployed and still broke, griping about the sorry state of civilization. Yep, it's a Denny O'Neil script all right. He makes Oliver Queen's chili recipe and adds some mushrooms to it. Time to charge up the power ring, which he does in uniform, and then after seeing a mysterious flash of light which he can't explain, GL settles down to sleep. Everything's great until a bear wanders up and GL tries to remove it with the power ring, only for the beam to malfunction. He tests it on a tree and it doesn't do what he wants. The ring is malfunctioning yet again, and GL does not know why.

Just then he hears a scream, and sees a mountain climber in serious danger. Afraid to use the power ring, he climbs the cliff himself to go and help her out. This ultimately leads him to where we saw Hal on the splash page, clinging to the cliff for dear life. But when he falls, he is of course able to make the power ring work as it should, saving his life and the life of the climber. They settle at his campsite, where GL asks if she saw the flash of light last night. She did and thought it was great. She sees his open can of mushrooms and asks if he's been eating them. Turns out that brand is dangerous, causes weird things to happen to people. Yes, Green Lantern's great enemy this issue was... bad mushrooms. How low can O'Neil drag the character?

What a waste. A waste of Neal Adams's talent, a waste of the eight pages of space, and probably a waste of my time to read it. O'Neil seemed far more interested in humiliating the character than in telling fun and interesting sci-fi adventure stories with him. Hal is essentially homeless, jobless, and half the time he lacks the self-confidence needed to be a good Green Lantern. And now brought down by bad mushrooms. This may genuinely be one of the worst Green Lantern stories I've ever read.

[Ursus mellifera]

Damn, that's a bummer. I LOVED Neal Adams on the Silver Age X-Men. He's amazing.

[andersonh1]

I'm mainly familiar with Neal Adams from the first run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and from 1970s Batman, but I agree with you that he's probably one of the best artists to ever draw comics. His panel layouts are so inventive and the way he draws people are miles ahead of everyone else at the time, and many now. I haven't seen any of his X-Men work, but he drew a few of the post-Kirby issues collected in Thor omnibus vol. 3, and the art is great there.

This turned out to be a three issue storyline, and of course since they're short, 8 page backups, it would all have been a single issue of a regular comic. Can part two or part three save the awful "Hal vs. bad mushrooms" plot? Stay tuned....

The Flash #227
May-June 1974

My Ring... My Enemy!
Script - Denny O'Neil Pencils - Dick Dillin Inks - Dick Giordano

Your bucolic waltz is over, clods! I'll take you to safety... though you don't deserve the effort!

This story picks up where the last left off, recapping the end of the issue. Green Lantern carries the woman he rescued closer to civilization and sets her down. She thanks him, but he goes hilariously bad-tempered and sexist on her. "Don't go rock-scaling alone again! That's downright stupid, especially for a woman! In case you haven't gotten the bulletin, the fair sex belongs in the kitchen!" The woman storms off and GL wonders why he made such a stupid remark. He decides that he's tired and needs a nap, after a ring recharge. But he kicks the lantern in frustration, tired of the whole routine. Just then he spots a helicopter in trouble, so he brings it to the ground, and when the pilot tries to thank him, GL punches him in the jaw. Okay, it's pretty obvious that Hal is not himself here, and if the title of the story can be trusted, the ring is still malfunctioning.

Turns out the chopper was on the way to fight a forest fire, so GL goes instead. He's still rude and obnoxious to everyone but he gets the results. He finds a plane in the midst of the forest fire, and rounds up some crooks who had robbed an armored car that GL noticed back when he discussed the situation with some forest rangers. He takes the thieves back, but when one of the rangers complains about his attitude, GL starts beating him up. Realizing at last that something is seriously wrong, he attributes the problems to that yellow flash of light from last issue. Every time he uses the power ring, it affects him. He determines that he can't use it until he corrects the problem, only to be told that some kids and a camp counselor are trapped by the fire, and he's the only one who can save them...

Now this is at least far more entertaining than bad mushrooms, though I'm already tired of a malfunctioning power ring. But Hal in a bad temper giving lip to everyone for the terrible job they're doing, supposedly, made me laugh more than once. It's so over the top it's funny. And of course it's obvious that he's being influenced and is very much out of character. So even though it's hardly stellar drama, this is a definite improvement over part one of this storyline.

[andersonh1]

Continuing GL's solo adventures in the Hard Traveling Heroes omnibus...


The Flash #228
July-August 1974

My Enemy... Myself!
Script - Denny O'Neil Pencils - Dick Dillin Inks - Frank Giacoia

Finishing up this three part story, we finally get the cause of most of Hal's problems: two aliens who attempted to drain all the energy from the Green Lantern ring, but instead damaged the ring in such a way that it's turned him into the jerk we saw last issue. Green Lantern is getting worse, and he realizes it, but he still feels an obligation to rescue those people trapped by the forest fire. He does so, making sarcastic quips the whole time, and when the people he rescues thank him, he's seriously considering killing them. But the story cheats a bit here by pulling a reveal that wasn't set up earlier that GL had given his ring a command to restrain him if he went too far, and put up a dome to protect everyone from the fire. It's kind of hilarious to read GL ranting at his own power ring here. "Ring! I'll get you for this, ring!"

But things are not all as they seem. The people he rescued are strangely distorted. I attributed that to Hal's state of mind, but no, it turns out they're not real. They're projections by the two aliens. I'll admit, after two chapters making Hal look bad, having him put a contingency into place to deal with his ring-related problems and having him figure out the scam by the aliens puts him in a better light. Sadly, the bad mushrooms were genuinely the cause of his earliest problems back in Flash #226, so there's no retconning that bit of nonsense away. But everything since was the fault of the two aliens trying to drain the ring's power and remove Earth's Green Lantern so they could have free run of the planet. Hal's ring is out of power at this point, but he's had plenty of practice with his fists and takes out both aliens. The Guardians will take the aliens into custody and repair Hal's damaged ring, and the story ends with Green Lantern reciting his oath proudly, once again himself.

If GL had been regular monthly series at this point, this would have been a single issue story rather than split up over three backups. This is a case where the end of a story mostly makes the rest of it work. I still think the bad mushrooms making the ring malfunction was a dumb idea, but the rest of it pretty much works for me. Aliens try to drain a power ring so they can kill the Green Lantern, it goes wrong and makes him mean instead. I had to laugh at many of "evil GL's" bad tempered remarks, and I did genuinely like how he put a contingency plan into place to stop himself from going too far. He's used the ring to plan ahead in other storylines, both before and after this one, and it's a sensible use of the ring's capabilities. I'll never call this a great Green Lantern story, but while it started out bad, it ended up fairly decent and entertaining.

[andersonh1]

Continuing through the Batman Silver Age Omnibus...

Batman #101
August 1956
Cover art: Sheldon Moldoff

The Vanished Batman
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Stan Kaye

I had read this story before I bought the omnibus. It was reprinted in the DC Classic Comics Library Batman Annuals #2. That splash page of Robin driving his own red car with a big yellow R on the front is pretty distinctive. I guess if he's old enough to fight crime, he's old enough to drive. Batman has vanished and Robin is working solo, with not only his own car, but a Robin signal as well. The citizens of Gotham are puzzled, and the press reason that Robin wouldn't be working alone unless something had happened to Batman, but I the reader immediately suspect some sort of ploy. The story plays it straight, with Robin meeting alone with Gordon, capturing a couple of fleeing crooks on his own, and even fighting a high-rise fire by spraying chemicals from a Robin-plane. You know, vehicles like the car and the plane aren't just created in a few nights. This operation must have been planned for a long time. Pack Purdy, underworld crime boss, knows what's happened to Batman. He's been "put out of the way for good", or so his henchmen claim. The news in Gotham eulogize it's "greatest citizen" and review just a couple of incidents of his long and stellar crime-fighting career on behalf of Gotham.

It's a nicely written setup, with some good attempts to take the premise seriously, but it was never going to be convincing because we all know Batman is alive and well somewhere. So this is pretty much a story about the how and the why. And the flashback on page four tells us that Batman was lured into a trap where a truck attempted to run him off the road and over a cliff. Batman survived and after interrogating John Vair, a crook who works for Purdy, decides to fake his death and take Vair's place, with the goal being to capture not just Purdy, but the other gangsters coming to help him. Robin's high-profile solo appearances in town in his own Robin-themed vehicles, are an attempt to sell Batman's apparent demise to the general public and to the underworld.

The plan works. The other crooks come in and the nature of the test that Purdy gives them, demonstrating how well they can swim, lets the disguised Batman know what crime he's planning. Five million dollars is abord the ship Natonic, and Purdy plans to cut through the hull and steal them, thus bypassing the heavy security on the dock. Batman's plan to let them get to the ship and then trap them works perfectly. The crooks are rounded up, the money is safe, and all is back to normal with the Batmobile patrolling the streets of Gotham.

Going into a story like this we all know Batman isn't dead, and the story becomes as I said before about how we got to this point and why Batman is missing. I suspected a ploy and I was right. It's nice to see Batman's disguse hold up and not be discovered, given that some of his disguises have failed in the past, and that his plan to give Purdy's men enough rope to hang themselves also went off without a hitch. I'd have liked a few more pages of Robin operating solo to really show how he was coping, because there is some good material there that doesn't last very long. This is pretty much a standard "Batman vs. the Underworld" story that's the character's bread and butter, and it's not half bad. The premise didn't convince me, but the story worked regardless, and shows the trust Batman has in Robin to take care of himself on his own while the scenario played out.

[andersonh1]

The Six Strangest Sleuths
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson go to a benefit show for a vaudeville relief fund. That alone dates the story. I'm passingly familiar with vaudeville because I watch old tv and movies, but I looked it up to see when it was popular. Seems to have been from roughly the 1880s to the 1930s, when radio and movies became more prominent for entertainment. We have a show to raise funds for stars whose heyday has passed them by. I immediately figured that their skills would help the inevitable crime be solved. We've seen a couple of stories that champion the skills of those past their prime, such as the old pilots in "The Dawn Patrol Crimes" from Detective Comics #123, or the retired performers in "The Stars of Yesterday" from Batman #51. And I note in my review for that story that Superman had a similar plot, so we've seen variations on this idea before.

Crooks working for mob leader Jay Jandron use stage magician Scortini's props to panic the audience and they make off with the gate recipts. Batman examines the crime scene and determines that one of the thieves was a man with theater experience, so he recruits various old vaudeville stars to help him catch the crooks and get the money back. There's the magician, the strongman, the india rubber man, the ventriloquist, the tightrope walker, and the impersonator. Each plays a part in Batman's plan to flush out the crooks, follow them to their hideout, arrest them and recover the stolen money. It's a team story, with specific tasks tailored to each of the entertainers' specific skillset. I had expected Batman to recruit these men to show them how useful they still were or something, but there's nothing like that indicated.

It's a fun little feel-good story with a Batman who has no problem recruiting help or sharing the credit. I appreciate his lack of control-freak tendencies during this era. There's nothing new here at all, so there's no novelty to make this stand out from the stories around it, but it's enjoyable enough.

The Great Bat Cape Hunt!
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

I have a hard time believing that Batman would take chances and keep a patch on a spare cape and cowl stating "Bruce Wayne is Batman", even if it is a souvenir of a memorable case where someone deduced his identity. And after all these years and hundreds of stories, why have we never seen Batman's cape and cowl blown off by wind before? I know it's a hurricane, but he's been in one several times before and this didn't happen to him. And doesn't Bruce fasten the cowl to his head somehow? And would Batman really go out in a hurricane without a very specific and dire reason? He's only human, after all. I was just not buying into the setup of this story at all. Now it does improve a bit and become the sort of human interest story we haven't seen for a long time in this series as various people each find the cape and cowl and their lives are affected in some way. A stuntman wears it to audition and gets a job that he wanted. A couple avoid being robbed in an alley because the crooks spot the shadow of the cape and cowl hanging on a signpost and think it's Batman. (Nice to see another rare use of the Batman's reputation used to scare crooks). But then someone finds it and reads the note, but the story does not tell us who this man is just yet. He hides the cape while he goes to a fire, thinking it will be safe, but while he's gone a dog finds it, and then a homeless man on skid row who wears it, wishing he had Batman's nerve. When a little girl begs him for help rescuing her cat from a ledge, he can't turn her down, and it gives him back his confidence.

All this time Batman and Robin have been trying to track down the missing cape and cowl. When they finally find it, Batman is shocked to see that the writing revealing his secret identity is gone. The mystery man who found it walks up just then, and in a nice surprise, it turns out to be Clark Kent, Superman himself. He destroyed the writing with his X-ray vision before hiding the cape. He was in town to cover fires started by the hurricane, and lucky for Bruce that he was! "We dual-identity characters have to protect each other, don't we?" I like these guys as good friends, no doubt about it.

I liked the way the cape and cowl helped the three men who found it. I always used to enjoy the human interest, "ordinary person makes good" stories back in the 40s, when we saw them more often. So that appealed to me. But I have to say, Batman's security is appalling, and he does not look at all competent in this story, chasing a windblown cape all over town with a note spelling out his secret identity that should have been destroyed the moment he obtained it. Thank goodness Superman was there to save him from his own bad choices. I like Batman to be clever and capable, and he is neither in this story, sadly.