Justice League of America #103Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Dick Dillin-pencils, Dick Giordano-inks, Julie Schwartz-editor
Synopsis: In Rutland, VT, some crazy old lady spouts about the deaths of the Justice League members. The Phantom Stranger, in his decade too late clothes, hears it and buys into it and mysteriously summons the Justice league to meet on their satellite, them feeds them the line of nonsense and about evils walking the Earth on Halloween.
Sigh...........................................
So, off they go to Rutland, to hang out with Tom Fagan's annual party, which includes people from DC and Marvel.....
The JLA scout around, then Batman leads them to Fagan, where they meet Len Wein, Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, and Glynis Oliver Wein. And, so the 13th Annual Halloween Parade goes off, with all kinds of trademark violations and some real superheroes....
Now, Stranger warned about Felix Faust being involved and, sure enough, the other floats disappear and the crowd is mesmerized, while the JLA can still interact. and Flash and Hawkman go scouting and get attacked by Adam Strange, Supergirl and Commando America....................who are all fans in costume. They are being inhabited by Faust's demons, who are controlling their actions. The heroes job to the demons and Stranger shakes his head in disgust. He walks away from their cries of help, as Faust crows "2 down, 4 to go!"
Spider-Man and Thor attack Batman and Green Lantern and Batman holds his own, while the theoretically infinite power of GL proves no match to a fake hammer to the noggin. Batman taps out to a fake Robin, though. Stranger leaves them, like before.
Superman is busy fighting Captain Marvel...
...while Green Arrow battles Jay Garrick, the Flash. Supes and The Big Red Cheese are evenly matched, until Captain Marvel invokes magic lightning to the fight and the Man of Steel is down. Green Arrow got wiped out early on. Stranger slaps his forehead and walks away, again.
Turns out, the Stranger swiped possessions from each Leaguer, to break the spell and they are all alive. The demons leave to Halloweeners, and the writers confront Felix Faust. He jumps out a window and steals Englehart's car and then Glynis turns u, in Supergirl's hotpants and points out the fight between the JLA and the demons. The cops nab Faust for a faulty muffler and he is hauled off to jail, since his powers are spent. The JLA defeats the demons and Len asks Glynis if she would wear the Supergirl outfit when they get home. Stranger buggers off to have a pitcher of martinis and listen to lounge music, in his wood paneled den, with shag carpeting and egg chairs.
Thoughts: fairly lame store, by Rutland standards and Len puts himself, the wife and friends into the story, just like previous Rutland Halloween stories. This really isn't a Captain Marvel appearance, since it is a parade goer in costume; but, it invokes enough Captain Marvel and served as a teaser for what was coming in December...
For the unitiated, Tom Fagan was a fan, with a big old house, who presided over an annual Halloween party and parade, in Rutland, VT. Staffers from DC and Marvel used to attend, in costume (and in civies) and then put the whole thing in comics, allowing for unofficial crossovers. These ranged from pretty good stories, like the early Defenders story, "Night on Bald Mountain," (with Roy and Jean Thomas involved) and the "Night of the Reaper" story, in Batman (with O'Neil and Adams doing the story, and guys like Alan Weiss, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein. this actually picks up from Amazing Adventures #16, where Juggernaut stole Englehart's car. It picks up again in Thor #207, where Englehart finds the car gone.
So, really, this has F-all to do with Captain Marvel and not even a stand-in, like Captain Thunder. I know some hate these stories as self-indulgent and I would agree on this one; but not the Defenders or Batman ones, which are good stories that happen in and around Rutland, while the celebration goes on and people make cameos. Don't know how these guys missed out on doing one of these and have the Rutles turn up, aside from the fact that Eric Idle didn't do that until 1975. Still, you'd think someone would do it after that.
I also get tired of the whole evil unleashed upon the land bit about Halloween. Revisionist nonsense. The Gaelic Samhain featured a lowering of barriers and the
sidhe walking the mortal realm, for one night. The
sidhe were not monsters, but the race before the Celts, who were like gods. They had multiple attributes and were not monsters. They fought monsters, like Balor the One Eye, of the Fomor, a race of giants from another land. Like most pagan traditions, it got morphed when the area was Christianized and the earlier customs were given new meaning, when they were unable to stamp them out. Thus, the Samhain became All-Hallows Eve and instead of the
sidhe walking the Earth it was evil spirits and demons (which is how the
sidhe and the
Tuatha de Danann were treated by the Christian officials). However, the Irish bardic tradition helped keep the stories of the
sidhe and the
Tuatha de Danann fairly strong and many of these and other Celtic legends (especially the Welsh) greatly influenced later Arthurian lore. Of course, that didn't stop later occultists from appropriating the stuff for their stuff, as well as horror movie creators. Hollywood could really use someone who would turn this stuff into great drama, as has been done with the Greek gods and other pantheons. Even Thor never got very deep in the Celtic groups, since no one at Marvel ever seemed very familiar with this stuff (I think Gruenwald used Balor, in an Avengers story). There s a wealth of material, from the
Tuatha de Danann, the Feinian Cycle (the legends of Finn MacCumhail or MacCool), the Ulster Cycle (including Cuchulainn). Kenneth C Flint (aka Casey Flynn, for a few novels) had a pretty good series of fantasy books, with a portion of that, with his Sidhe novels covering the
Tuatha de Danann, a trilogy about Finn and a novel about Cuchulainn.
Back to real Captain Marvel, next time.