I had forgotten that a long time ago I bought digital versions of Strange Tales #147 to #150 on Comixology. So I read those over the last few days. The villain in the Doctor Strange stories is Kaluu, and he’s not such a bad villain, especially as drawn by Bill Everett.

Over in the Nick Fury side of the book, A.I.M., not yet identified as a villainous group, is plotting against Fury, who suspects they are an organization with evil intent, like Hydra or THEM or the Secret Empire.

There are some surprises in the text boxes in these Fury stories. Jack Kirby gets credit for the script in one. And Ogden Whitney is the credited penciller on the next issue.

And I’m up to Avengers #36.

The last few issues have been enjoyable for the Don Heck art, the character moments, the inclusion of the Black Widow and the return of Wanda and Pietro. But the bad guys have left a lot to be desired. We’ve had the Keeper of the Flame, the Living Laser and some generic aliens who use an army of artificial creatures called Ultroids to do their dirty work.

My only other comment is ... Hank needs to give the Black Widow a break! Lighten up, High-Pockets!

My Grandma, who was my last remaining Grandparent, died recently. So, I decided to dig out two or three old Superman comics that were among a small collection that she bought for me from a jumble sale as a kid, and re-read them as a sort of nostalgic reminiscence of her.

The three issues in question were DC Comics Presents #35, Superman #383, and Action Comics #543...




Of the three, DC Comics Presents #35 is the best, not least because it features good old Kirk Langstrom himself – the Man-Bat! The story centres around Superman helping Man-Bat to find a cure for his daughter Rebecca, who was born with a mutation – likely as a result of the bat-serum Kirk and his wife Francine took – which makes her hearing so sensitive that she cannot sleep. Supes has an alien device in his Fortress of Solitude that he thinks might cure the girl's condition, but unfortunately a D-list super-villain named the Atomic Skull and his girlfriend Felicia attack the fortress in revenge of an earlier defeat the pair suffered at the Man of Steel's hands. It's all rip-snorting fun, with a ridiculous and action-packed conclusion, in which the Skull's girlfriend is shown to actually be an alien rodent creature. She dies of old age (seriously!) and the Atomic Skull plunges to his death from his flying saucer craft during a fight with Superman.

There's also a nice little Gil Kane-pencilled back up story in this issue titled, "What Ever Happened to Rex the Wonder Dog?", in which it's explained that Rex and the chimp detective Bobo both unknowingly drank from the fountain of youth during a caper in which they apprehended some hoods who had stolen money from a circus. Basically, it feels as if the story is primarily designed to explain how Rex and Bobo could still be having adventures decades after their first appearance (which was back in the 1950s, I believe). It's goofy as all hell, but it has a certain charm.


Superman #383 opens with the Man of Steel flying through space and into a strange energy cloud, which he determines is not a threat to any nearby planetary systems, so he heads back to Earth. Meanwhile a millennia old robot named Robrox emerges from the ground beneath a Metropolis construction site and immediately starts battling Superman. After a series of encounters, it's explained that Robrox was placed in stasis beneath the surface of the Earth by an alien race thousands of years ago in anticipation of a threat that could wipe out all life on Earth. That threat has now manifested in the shape of Superman because the strange interstellar cloud that he flew through earlier has altered his heat vision to the point where, had the Man of Steel used it, he would've irradiated the whole planet and killed everybody on it! It's a ridiculous premise for a story, of course, but the Cary Bates/Curt Swan team deliver it with enough panache to make it a fairly entertaining read.


Action Comics #543 contains a Marv Wolfman and Curt Swan tale in which we find Superman at the parole hearing of the super-villain Neutron. The Man of Steel opposes his imminent release because he is sure that Neutron will return to his life of crime, making him a serious threat to the people of Metropolis. The parole board ignores Supes' concerns, but only days later, Neutron does indeed seemingly return to crime, when he demolishes a downtown building. Superman arrives on the scene to apprehend the villain, but is made to look like a jerk when it is revealed that Neutron has been hired by the Abraxas Corporation run by Vandal Savage in order to help the city with its demolition and construction work. Infuriated, Superman confronts Savage in his office, where he is taunted by the villain and ultimately has to leave humiliated, with Savage's laughter ringing in his ears.

Thanks for the comics, Grandma!

That's an interesting choice of words: "slice-of-life". "Greater than life" also comes to mind, which is what I never liked about melodrama. Something about overplaying the theatrical side of things, like in the Opera, silent movies or traditional Chinese theater... rubs me the wrong way. Eisner is no different; great storyteller, poor choice of a genre vehicle.

That DC Comics Presents issue is one of my favourites, perhaps most likely due to the novelty of a Superman/Man-Bat team-up.

I like it when comics can do something fresh, whether it be heroes facing a villain they’ve never encountered, or a team-up that has never occurred. I mean, you can find hundreds - if not thousands - of Superman/Batman team-ups, or Spidey/Human Torch, but I like it when two rather disparate characters are put together. Superman and Man-Bat are like chalk and cheese, but that team-up worked well.

Wasn't that called The Spirit? I haven't read those in a while.