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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 20, 2014 21:20:27 GMT -5
I got Showcase Presents: Superman, Volume Three, from the library a few days ago. It's all 1960 and 1961. I think I'm really gonna like this one! (The Wonder Woman Showcase volume was a bit of a fiasco.) I flipped through and there's at least three or four stories that I've read before and loved.
My favorite Superman characters are here! Supergirl! Prison uniform Lex Luthor! Krypto! Brainiac!
The best Superman creators! Wayne Boring! Al Plastino! Curt Swan! George Papp! There's even a John Forte story! Also, Jerry Siegel! Edmond Hamilton! Robert Bernstein!
This volume starts off great! The War Between Supergirl and the Superman Emergency Squad! GAWD! I love the Superman Emergency Squad! I saw them once in a Supergirl story but didn't like it too much. But here they have a bigger role and are drawn by Wayne Boring and that makes all the difference!
The Superman Emergency Squad is a bunch of little dudes from the bottle city of Kandor. When needed, they can dress up as Superman, then they leave the bottle city and get exposed to a gas that makes them grow from microscopic size to about four inches in height. Because they're all Kryptonian, they get all the same powers as Superman!
Yes! That's right! This was a thing! The Silver Age DC Universe had a squad of highly trained tiny Supermen ... but only for emergencies!
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Post by earl on Oct 20, 2014 22:20:17 GMT -5
I'm slowly working my way through Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and reading Dr. Strange Marvel Masterworks volume 1. They are some pretty psychedelic comics and are pretty good to go back and forth between. I read the 70s Dr. Strange but other than maybe some of those 80s baxter reprints had not read much of Ditko's run on the character. George Bell's inks give Ditko a more streamlined look and I think the clean white paper makes the artwork pop off the page. There are definitely some pages where you can see a very direct line between Ditko and say Steve Rude in the artwork. I've read a bunch of Morrison's later comics but this is the first time through the Doom Patrol run other than maybe the first arc that I read back when new. 'The Painting that Ate Paris' is a really great and very unique super hero comic story. I haven't re-read it all, but I also just got a copy of Jack Kirby's "The Hunger Dogs". I read it back in the 80s. There are some flat out awesome pages and panels in that one. If I was doing a story with Darkseid at some point every issue I would reference that panel with the eyes.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 20, 2014 22:54:41 GMT -5
That Mistah Dahkseid is so CRA-ZEEE!
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 21, 2014 1:08:41 GMT -5
Read issue #117 of the Aparo/Haney B&B Batman run. This was another of Haney's wacky Sgt. Rock stories. What is it about Sgt. Rock that made Haney even more insane than normal? Anyway, Easy Company enlists Batman aid to help get Rock out of a dishonorable discharge wrap...by jumping him in an alley, knocking him out and putting him on a plane bound for Germany because they couldn't chance that he'd say no! (Because Batman is known for casually saying "no" to adventures that involve helping old pals in serious trouble.)
*SPOILERS*
It was a surprisingly complex plot, though very convoluted, involving a WWII episode where Rock and Easy Company were forced to become a firing squad ordered to execute a soldier charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy.The cowardly soldier turns out to be a U.S. spy, who Rock sees by chance in a German pub years later. Thinking he's seeing a ghost, but having to find out the truth, Rock chases after the spy and is accused of being unfit for duty/nuts. Batman finds out that all of Easy's bullets were blanks during the firing squad and uncovers the truth; it's a U.S. plot to fake the spy's death so he can continue a top secret mission. After Batman and Rock foil the plot of a German spy that had infiltrated Easy Company (after a fun ride into Eastern Germany) the story ends.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,090
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Post by Confessor on Oct 21, 2014 3:20:03 GMT -5
Yes! That's right! This was a thing! The Silver Age DC Universe had a squad of highly trained tiny Supermen ... but only for emergencies! Never heard of the Superman Emergency Squad, but like you, I think that's pretty cool.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 10:49:17 GMT -5
I'm reading the first Martian Manhunter Showcase, and it's certainly not what I expected. I thought his John Jones identity was just an occasional thing, but I'm ten stories in and he's appeared in his familiar form once (first appearance/origin). Flipping ahead it looks like that pattern holds for the first 300 pages or so.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 21, 2014 11:00:34 GMT -5
I'm reading the first Martian Manhunter Showcase, and it's certainly not what I expected. I thought his John Jones identity was just an occasional thing, but I'm ten stories in and he's appeared in his familiar form once (first appearance/origin). Flipping ahead it looks like that pattern holds for the first 300 pages or so. This is the series in Detective Comics, right? How far into the Detective run does it get? I'm a huge fan of the J'onn J'onzz series in Detective, but I've only read about 15 issues of the series after #300. Zook is hilarious and Diane Meade also cracks me up, but they weren't in the series until it had been around for a while.
I've only read a few of the pre-Detective #300 stories. The first three were reprinted in World's Finest during the 100-Page Super-Spectacular days. I think Captain Harding was around that far back. In the later issues, he's this huge fat cop that never leaves his desk. There's something funny about the whole set-up in the later issues. Was Harding the only supporting character in the early days?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 11:09:41 GMT -5
I want to say that with both volumes they cover all the Detective run, but his wiki is showing up blank for me now, so I can't check. I do know the first volume has 70 or so stories. Zook doesn't appear until the second volume, and I'm anxious to get there.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 21, 2014 12:45:01 GMT -5
I just looked at the Comic Book Database and it says Diane Meade's first appearance is Detective #246, so you'll be getting to her pretty quickly.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 12:55:15 GMT -5
The 2 Showcase volumes cover all of the Martian Manhunter Detective appearances and most of, if not all of the House of Mystery appearances too.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 12:56:59 GMT -5
The last story I read last night was the best so far. J'onn saves a drowning dog (a young hound perhaps) while chasing a crook and the dog keeps following J'onn and blowing his cover while pursues the crook. At one point he ties the dog to a radiator in his apartment, but the dog breaks the window and uses the broken glass to cut the rope and track down J'onn just in time to foil J'onn. Then J'onn makes a spherical cage out of golf clubs, which the dog escapes by rolling down a fire escape and causing the cage to break. This ends up being good, as he manages to save J'onn from a burning building.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 16:26:58 GMT -5
The 2 Showcase volumes cover all of the Martian Manhunter Detective appearances and most of, if not all of the House of Mystery appearances too. -M I just checked, and yeah it's all his HoM appearances too. How prominent is he in the first sixty issues Justice League? I have the fourth through sixth Showcases (#61-132), but haven't bothered tracking down the first three, but if J'onn is around a lot I may make them a priority.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 22, 2014 17:18:15 GMT -5
I read another great story in Showcase Presents: Superman, Vol. 3.
It's "The Super-Rivals!" from Action Comics #279.
Superman seems to be kind of sick of hearing Lois and Lana go on about how they want to marry him, so he goes back in time and gets Hercules and Samson and brings them to the present to court Lois and Lana so they will leave him alone.
(And just in case you think it's too CRA-ZEE for canon, it's labeled an Imaginary Story. Personally, I don't see why this was considered too CRA-ZEE for regular continuity.)
After meeting and falling in love with Lois and Lana, Samson and Hercules get signed up for a movie deal and get some serious advance cash, but Lois and Lana spend all the money in about a day. And you should see the scene where Hercules and Lois buy a house, but Lois doesn't like it's location so she gets Hercules to pick it up and put it on the other side of the property. And there's about four panels of Lois pointing and saying, "That's not quite right. A little further back." The last panel is captioned: "And when night falls ..."
There's further shenanigans of this type. I especially love the bit where Hercules gets Lois a pet ostrich (he steals it from the zoo) and when Lois finds out ostriches are susceptible to colds, she makes Hercules give up his hammock and his blanket. There's a hilarious panel where Hercules is trying to sleep in a tree (for some reason) and you can see the ostrich wrapped in a blanket, all warm and comfy in the hammock, and he's snoring! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Then there's the bit where Samson gets gum in his hair and Lana grabs the scissors and cuts off a huge clump of his hair before he can stop her and tell her that his strength is in his hair! Oops! Didn't she go to Vacation Bible School back in Smallville?
Beautifully drawn by John Forte. The writer is listed as "unknown."
I shouldn't laugh. The casual sexism is actually kind of frightening. But let's look at the bright side: Lana and Lois weren't raped and killed just to provide a dramatic motive for the male hero!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 17:52:39 GMT -5
Man, I have really got to track down those Superman (and Family) Showcases.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 22, 2014 18:14:27 GMT -5
Man, I have really got to track down those Superman (and Family) Showcases. It's wall-to-wall insanity.
I didn't even mention the one where Krypto goes to dig up a bone and he finds out the bone was crushed to powder by Titano's big feet the last time Titano somehow time traveled to the present from the time of the dinosaurs. So Krypto goes millions of years into the past just to play mean pranks on Titano until Titano gets the better of Krypto because Krypto forgot that Titano has Kryptonite-vision!
Take that, smart guy!
That one was written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Al Plastino.
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