Action Comics (1938 Series) #517

December 17, 2011

Title: The War For Peace

Writer: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Curt Swan
Inks: Dave Hunt
Colorist: Gene D’Angelo
Letterer: Ben Oda             
Cover Artist: Ross Andru
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Publisher: DC Comics

The cover of Action Comics #517 bills the issue as “the strangest Christmas story ever told.” I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but it is rather out of the ordinary. Superman is called away from the Daily Planet Christmas Party when he spots an out-of-control alien spacecraft about to plunge into Earth’s atmosphere. Saving the alien, it begs Superman’s help in recovering a strange artifact called the Grayl, an ancient religious totem stolen from his people by another alien race who seeks it for its monetary value. Superman gets caught up in a strange sort of holy war in space.

This is not, to be frank, a subtle comic book. Gerry Conway really lays on the story thick, without shying away from the real-world parallels to the middle east. In the end, it may go a little too far, with any specific Christmas message being lost in an overall plea for Peace on Ea… well, peace in the universe. It’s an okay story, but it strays from its claim of being a Christmas story early and never really comes back.

There’s also a back-up story here that has nothing to do with Christmas, but what the heck, let’s look at it anyway.

Title: Brother Rat

Writer: J.M. DeMatteis
Art: Don Heck
Colorist: Jerry Serpe
Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Len Wein

This second tale stars Aquaman, in a desperate battle against his old foe Black Manta… or so he thought. Turns out this Manta was merely a robot. Aquaman and Mera set off for New York to investigate the corporation that was supposedly behind Manta’s efforts, only to find an even more unexpected foe – Aquaman’s half-brother, the Ocean Master.

The story is perfectly serviceable, but it doesn’t really grab me. Aquaman is a character who gets too much crap from the mainstream, but he’s also one that doesn’t work except with certain writers. As well as he’s being handled right now, this book reminds us that it wasn’t always that way.

All in all, this comic really could have been better.

Rating: 6/10

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Flash (1959 Series) #281

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: Deadly Games

CREDITS:
Writer: Cary Bates
Pencils: Don Heck
Inks: Frank Chiaramonte
Letters: Ben Oda
Colors: Gene D’Angelo
Editor: Ross Andru
Cover Artist: Dick Giordano
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: The Flash is that guy who runs really fast, right? Either that or the dude that Queen asserts will “save every one of us.”

IMPRESSIONS: This comic book starts off with the Flash being told over the phone that someone named Yorkin didn’t kill someone named Iris. This is evidently shocking, but not as shocking as when people start shooting at the guy on the other line. The Flash shoots his costume out of a magic ring, then saves his informant, but lets the bad guys think they killed him for his own protection. As it turns out, this “Iris” they’re talking about is the Flash’s wife, and if Yorkin isn’t the one who murdered her (while she was, for some reason, wearing a Batgirl costume), who did? Call me crazy, I’m thinking this Professor Zoom character, the one who is wearing a reverse version of the Flash’s costume and seems to hate him for some reason, may have something to do with it.

I’m kind of surprised here. I’ve heard that recent comics have tended to get all dark and gritty, but I would have thought that back in 1979 when this was published it still would have mostly been lighthearted kids’s stuff. The idea of the Flash trying to avenge his wife’s death (which evidently happened just two issues ago, not back during his origin story or something) is much darker than I would have expected. We don’t see this Professor Zoom (who, it turns out, is a time-traveler) until the last few pages before the book races (get it?) into a cliffhanger, but he seems nasty enough to have killed the Flash’s wife. And now that I think of it, couldn’t someone from the 25^th century have possibly found out historical facts about a hero from the 20^th century and used that as a weapon against him, “secret identity” be damned?

It’s not a bad story, but the book seems to want to walk the line between serious issues and silly stuff like Zoom splitting in half, which is kind of goofy when you get right down to it. It’s not bad, but it’s not great.

GRADE: B-

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Superman (1939 Series) #204

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: The Case of the Lethal Letters & The Fortress of Fear

CREDITS:
Writer: Cary Bates
Penciller: Ross Andru & Al Plastino
Inker: Mike Esposito & Al Plastino
Editor: Mort Weisinger
Cover Artist: Neal Adams
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: It’s Superman – strange visitor from another planet, and all that. And “LL” – well, I suppose they mean death because he pissed off Lex Luthor again, right?

IMPRESSIONS: In “The Case of the Lethal Letters,” we see Clark Kent on TV being interviewed by some ambush reporter who is claiming that the Daily Planet is only successful because it manages to get a lot of news about Superman. Geez, how do you think they pull that off? But suddenly, the reporter gives a brainwashed message from some villain promising to bring disaster to people important to Superman if he doesn’t retire. They go after another TV reporter, Lana Lang, first. (I vaguely remember her – she’s from Smallville, right? Clark’s girlfriend from high school?) Then, after he doesn’t quite have what it takes to save her, he starts to worry about his old girlfriend Lori Lemaris, the mermaid, and his current squeeze Lois Lane.

Okay, so evidently Superman is a pimp. But only with girls whose initials are “LL.”

The reveal of the villain is kind of cheesy, and the plan to take him out is incredibly poorly thought-out. It’s almost like someone drew the cover first then had to come up with a story to justify it.

There seems to be a second story here, “The Duplicate Superman,” but this old copy of the comic only has the first page of that one – two Supermen shaking hands – before there are a bunch of missing pages. Darn cheap bins.

The third story is “The Fortress of Fear.” Superman heads to his mysterious fortress, hidden away from the world, and decides to relax with a game of chess against a supercomputer. (Exactly why Superman chooses to house that computer in a giant robot that can hurl life-size chess pieces around is completely unclear.) After the robot goes berserk and starts hurling around life-sized chess pieces (who knew?), we see some scientists from a place called Kandor trying to warn him about some undefined danger. He starts to fight pretty much everything in his fortress of rest and relaxation, which seems to be populated entirely by things that can kill everybody else on the planet, before he finally figures out what the problem is. The Kandor guys never show up again.

This one is weak. There’s a basic understanding here just because it’s Superman, and everybody knows who Superman is, but both of the complete stories in this incomplete copy of the comic book seem to be predicated on a lot of knowledge of backstory, stuff that Joe Average has never heard of. Why all these “LL” girls are in love with Superman, what Kandor is and why the caption refers to it as being “bottled,” and why Superman decides to build a vacation resort full of deathtraps. Hard to really recommend this one.

GRADE: C+