Review of Showcase Presents, By Johnathan

Showcase Presents has lately been presenting some pretty awesome stuff, in the form of 500+ page reprints featuring comics of the 60s and 70s and I've been doing my part by buying a whole lot of them. It's time, I think, to pony up some reviews.

Showcase Presents: The Elongated Man

This was the first of these black-and-white beauties to cross my path and I was pretty glad that it had. It featured Ralph Dibny's start as a rival/partner to the Flash, followed by his marriage to Sue Dearborn and their subsequent travels around the world. Ralph's a very atypical 60s DC hero in that his identity is known to the world (and in that he's married instead of being in an extended engagement or flirtation). He and Sue encounter all manner of mysteries while being socialites, some of which are quite charming. Ralph also hits people with a disturbing array of pliable body parts. These early stories are a great illustration of the fact that even though the Elongated Man may have the same power as Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man, the way that he uses it is all his own.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Superman Volumes 1 and 2

This is some pretty great Silver age ridiculousness right here. You've got Superman obsessing over his secret identity, kryptonite simply everywhere, more mermaids than you can shake a stick at, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Clark Kent looking like Steven Colbert and plenty of aliens. Plus Volume 1 was one of the first of these bad boys out and so only cost $9.99.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Superman Family

This reads pretty similarly to just plain Superman, only with more Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy: a) has lots of different jobs. b) foils lots of gangsters. c) occasionally betrays/ is betrayed by Superman for dramatic effect. d) frequently develops superpowers - in one of the coolest stories he uses some of Superman's trophies to put together a super-powered crime fighting suit, then develops a 'best-buddies' relationship with a paper boy (who collects souvenirs of his exploits and summons him via a signal-pen).

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Green Lantern

Another $9.99 wonder. With this one I got an interesting look at just how different comic book series used to be from one another. The Elongated Man dealt with really intimate little mysteries, while Superman lived in a world that hovered between soft sci-fi and fantasy, genre-wise. Green Lantern was by no means hard sci-fi but it drew from some of its conventions (and of those of the classic space opera) to create a comic that took itself a bit more seriously. Some good, solid, fun comic yarns here.

Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold

Bob Haney writes Batman and guest. This was a terrific read, with lots of Haney lunacy. The guests included Metamorpho (good), Plastic Man (dismal), The Metal Men (terrific - everyone goes to a robot convention) and Deadman (two times!). The best issue involved Batman having Wonder Woman and Batgirl pretend to fall in love with him as part of a plat to catch Copperhead, then when the time came to nab him they really had, such is the power of the Bat-charisma. Copperhead escaped in the kerfuffle, but was nabbed later on. Duh.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Justice League of America, Volumes 1 and 2

Good solid Silver Age fun. The JLA whomp some aliens, Starro the Conquerer, more aliens, Dr. Light, and some aliens. Snapper Carr is surprisingly endearing, J'onn J'onzz is surprisingly pudgy. He also tends to use his "Martian Breath" almost to the exclusion of all of his many other powers, possibly to distinguish him from Superman.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Teen Titans

Another Bob Haney masterwork, featuring the sidekicks of various Justice League members. The Titans answer calls for help from teenagers across the world and so end up dealing with giant monsters, inter-dimensional invasions and submarine pirates. Also notable is Haney's mastery of contemporary slang (assuming that sixties-teens used 'fab', 'ginchy' and 'gear' in every other sentence) and creative use of nicknames (Kid Flash = 'Twinkletoes', Aqualad = 'Gill Head', Wonder Girl = 'Wonder Chick'). All this and the Mad Mod!

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes

My thoughts on this topic are already known.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: Metamorpho the Element Man

Bob Haney strikes again! This time out he's penning the adventures of Rex Mason, whose brush with an ancient meteor/artifact gives him a hideous appearance and the ability to change into any element found in the human body. This one's got great art, as well as my favourite Silver Age supporting cast: Simon Stagg, Rex's boss, famous scientist and so close to being a super-villain that his private security forces dress like Cobra Commander; his daughter Sapphire Stagg, Rex's fiance; Java, a formerly-frozen Neanderthal given a modern brain by Stagg - Java's in love with Sapphire and occasionally tries to bump Metamorpho off but is a colossal coward and so never succeeds; and Urania Blackwell, the Element Girl, Metamorpho's female counterpart. One sad thing: Metamorpho, like Aztek, had his comic canceled before its time and so you'll never learn just who it was that was plotting against the Element Man toward the end of his series.

JOHN APPROVED

Showcase Presents: The Phantom Stranger

I'm still reading this one, but so far it's great. The basic format involves a supernatural setup, followed by the appearance of both the Phantom Stranger and Dr. Thirteen, the Ghost-Breaker to lend a hand. The two squabble over the existence of the supernatural, then tell stories to illustrate their points. Then they solve the mystery. At the end of the story the Phantom Stranger disappears, which really ticks off Dr. Thirteen, and it seems to be cumulative, because in the last story I read he pretty much just punched the Phantom Stranger in the face as soon as he showed up. Also notable: four teenagers keep showing up and their names are Spartacus, Attila, Wild Rose and Mister Square.

JOHN APPROVED

Well, that's it for now. I'll almost certainly be getting more of these things and when I do I'll write about it on the Internet. I'm so cool.

Review of Subtraction, By Johnathan

Not the mathematical activity (although all math that I can do in my head is automatically JOHN APPROVED) but the editorial activity. Confused? You should be, because I'm not making any sense. Read on, and (hopefully) be enlightened!

A while back (say, January, 1964) The Legion of Superheroes had gotten big enough that somebody felt the need to give people a scorecard and so produced "The Origin and Powers of the Legion of Superheroes" and stuck it into Adventure Comics No. 316. Now, I would love to Take each of the little images in this thing and deconstruct them in a humourous manner, but my fellow Haligonian and nerdboy Ben has done that job first (and so well!) over at Good Book Readin'.

Instead (Curse you, Ben!), I'll present you with an interesting bit of editorial decision-making, as well as my theories on how it came about.

Okay, first let's look at the original "Powers and Origins" page 1:

And now here's the same page from Adventure Comics No. 365, republished (and recoloured) after the Legion had been growing for a few years and people had begun to get confused again:

This second printing featured all kinds of new Legionnaires like Karate Kid and Ferro Lad, but what really stood out for me was the little change that was made to page 1. See, things had changed a bit since No. 316 Triplicate Girl -

- seen here surprising some suitor who obviously had no idea who he was asking out - got into a bit of a scrape with a murderous, box-shaped Computo and ended up one-third dead. So now:

Duo Damsel! Duo Damsel, who had the amazing power to... be two people! I know that it's a better superpower than I'll ever have, but if she hadn't been the very first person to join the Legion after it'd been founded she wouldn't have stood a chance.

My theory about why Duo Damsel's picture is the same as Triplicate Girl's: Though it could've been deliberate on the part of the DC editorial staff, part of an attempt to show how losing a whole third of her being wasn't affecting her sunny outlook on life and tendency to pull the same joke on all of her dates (or maybe just on guys who suffer from short-term memory loss, if that's the same nebbish), I'm betting that nobody noticed that they had one purple-suited Carggite too many and sent the 1960s intern-equivalent scrambling to daub carcinogenic correction fluid onto one of them. Or someone just did a really half-assed job.

Either way, the whole business is

NOT APPROVED

Review of an Old Saying, By Johnathan

The saying in question is "Adding insult to injury", which actually is almost always used as part of a larger statement, so maybe this should be entitled 'Review of an Old Sentence Fragment'. Nah, it just doesn't have the same zazz that way.

In any case:

So I know that I've touched on the subject of Saturn Girl's horrible/ridiculous costume change, right? Quick recap - she went from this:

Which is if nothing else a respectable costume that certainly doesn't look at all skanky, to this:

Which is, uh... terribly terrible and oh-so-very Designed By A Dude. But fine, okay, I can deal. I can conjure up the suspension of disbelief necessary to reimagine a highly-trained telepathic futurewoman as the sort of person who would willingly wear a bating suit while fighting sentient planetoids and guys with robotic fish-men and goo-based space tyrants. Heck, every once in a while someone will do an okay job of drawing it -

- and I'll almost think that it looks good (Note however that whoever drew this - James Sherman and Jack Abel - managed to make even Cosmic Boy's horrid costume look good).
Sadly, this doesn't happen all that often. Usually her costume just makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me so sad that I have to write about it on the internet. This is one of those times.

Specifically, I'm sad about two trends that I've noticed regarding Saturn Girl's Atrocious Pink Costume. See if you can spot the first one in this picture:

If you guessed "Is it that Saturn Girl has no neck, you giant nerd?" you were correct! Hurtful, but correct. Yes, it seems that this costume brings out a profound neck-hatred in artists, causing them to portray her as having a head that is mounted directly on her shoulders. It's really creepy and definitely ruins the 'really really sexy' look that they were going for. (Note that Lightning Lad doesn't have one either but that he's obscenely musclebound in this issue so it doesn't look as bad). Honestly, I can't look at this picture for very long without getting uneasy and yet I keep looking at it. I fear the power that it holds over me.

The second trend isn't as eerie but it's there nonetheless. No guessing this time: it's a tendency to render her as if she were an R. Crumb character:

Seriously now. I can almost force myself to believe that she'd wear hot pants, but I know that she'd have gotten the right size hot pants.

The costume (again), the no-neck and the short-shorts are all:

NOT APPROVED.

This is totally the third post about this costume, isn't it? I promise not to do this any more. Really.

Belated Review of the Legion of Super-Heroes Cartoon, By Johnathan

I must have been assuming that this wasn't going to be very good, because I just watched the first episode tonight. Turns out it was terrific - great jazzy theme song, cool character design, excellent use of Triplicate Girl, etc. I won't go on as I'm sure that every nerd and his nerd-dog have already done so, all over the internet. Just wanted to confirm it:

JOHN APPROVED

Review of A Good Pal, By Johnathan

I can't quite bring myself to include this next character (and I do mean 'character') in the 'Superhuman Detritus of the 30th Century' series. See, way back in the day I loved me some comic books, even though I lived way out in the country and had no real way to get a regular fix. I had to content myself with reading the comics available through my local library as well as the few leftover scraps of my uncle's mid-seventies collection (Spider-Man and Nova vs. Some Guy! I loved it!). The real things that got me through until I had a job and a local comic bookshop were Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Superheroes and Encyclopedia of Supervillains. And the Encyclopedia of Monsters, to a lesser extent. They were chock-full of entries on hundreds of super-folk, with exhaustive info on their costumes and equipment and great catty comments afterward.

Even as a youngster, the Legion of Super-Heroes brought out the super-nerd in me, so it was a pretty damn happy day in the McJohnathan household when I learned that Jeff Rovin apparently loved them too - basically every hero that had ever appeared in a legion tale made it into the Encyclopedia, if only as a three-line blurb in Appendix C. I grew up knowing, for example, that a lot of guys with interesting names showed up in "The Super-Stalag of Space" but had no idea of the circumstances behind their appearance, what they looked like or - at the time - what a Stalag was.

Then I grew up, got some cash flow goin' and started reading all of the comics that I'd previously only read *about*. And that, in an extraordinarily roundabout way, brings me to the subject of today's post:

Blockade Boy. Blockade Boy was the friggin' king of the three-liners. He had a great alliterative name, he had a great weird Silver Age power, and he appeared in the oh-so enigmatic "Super-Stalag of Space". Plus, Proty II felt the need to adopt the identity of Blockade Boy 2 in a later story, so that's saying... something. I was totally curious about Blockade Boy for upwards of fifteen years before I actually saw him, and I was not let down.

Blockade Boy was one of many Legionnaires and Weird Future Silver Age Heroes that were rounded up and imprisoned by the evil, red, three-eyed Nardo, presumably to keep them out of his (terrible) hair while he was being nefarious. A big chunk of the two-issue story arc was taken up with various super-heroic escape attempts and the horrible consequences thereof.

Par example:
Matter-Eater Lad chews his way to freedom! Presumably with many bathroom breaks along the way, as that is a damn roomy tunnel. I'd move away from that rear end if I were you, Blockade Boy.

Sadly, the writers weren't about to have Matter-Eater Lad and Blockade Boy succeed where Braniac 5 and Superboy had failed, so the two of them get caught basically as soon as they emerge from the tunnel. However, in ignoble defeat Blockade Boy attained his greatest success.

Obsoive:
In two panels we have:

a) The first full-length shot of Blockade Boy, showcasing his awesome belt and wristbands, questionable boots and adequate shirt/pants combo. Bonus points for the flattop!

b) Blockade Boy's crazy Silver Age power - he can totally turn into a steel wall! I really, really wish that he had gotten a chance to tell his origin story. I bet it involved falling in a vat of some sort of liquid wall sealant, or possibly being exposed to radiations from an experimental space wall.

c) Heroism! Blockade Boy sacrifices himself to save All Good Persons' Fave Legionnaire, Matter-Eater Lad. If I didn't love him before...
Here's Nardo, acting like a tool. Note the man-breasts and barely-contained gut. Don't worry, Nardo gets his eventually.

So Blockade Boy is JOHN APPROVED.

PS: If you were wondering about Blockade Boy II:

He came about as part of a fight that the Legion of Super-Pets were having with their parent Legion. Proty II and Comet the Super-Horse joined the Legion of Super-Heroes under the names Blockade Boy and Biron the Bowman. Comet pulls a Karate Kid and manages to get in without having any actual powers, while Proty:
Pulls an amazing save! His costume, by the way? I find it creepy - it's more thematic, with it's riveted steel and such, but does it really have to include a giant metal diaper? The answer is no.

The best thing is that after all of this effort, Comet and Proty stayed in the Legion for about two pages.

Blockade Boy II is NOT APPROVED.

Review of Super-Human Detritus of the 30th Century, Part 6, by Johnathan

Just a quick one today, and mostly because I've been thinking about this character for a while - he's one of the inspirations for this series of reviews, along with Storm Boy and Infectious Lass.

His name? Rann Antar.

Rann Antar appeared in Adventure Comics #317, way back in the day, in the same issue that featured the first appearance of Dream Girl. Ol' Rann always stood out in my mind for a few reasons and because I'm too lazy to string them together into a proper paragraph, here they are as a numbered list:

1. Rann Antar is a keener. He showed up with roughly one thousand times the number of feathers required to demonstrate his 'discovery'. I can see his plan now: "I'll throw the feathers up in the air, then spray them with my formula. The Legion will give me a standing ovation as heavy feathers rain down upon them. The boy Legionnaires will go out to plan a parade in my honor while the girls wrestle for the right to kiss me. It will be the best day of my life."

2. Rann Antar was rejected from the Legion in the less soul-crushing of the two methods that were commonly employed during these affairs. Note how Saturn Girl refrains from shouting "What? Your power is useless! You, sir, are ridiculous! Rejected!" (this is the more soul-crushing method) and instead makes up some lame excuse about Star Boy being able to do the same thing, like they'd let him in in a shot if they had no 'heavy feathers' guy.

3. Rann Antar is desperate to join the Legion. Look, you can see it in his eyes and his posture - he just lunged forward with that wok full of feathers and blurted his little speech out in one breathless rush. I'll bet he waited outside all night plucking chickens. Further, I'd wager that that perm is brand new, and that if we could rotate him ninety degrees we'd be able to see an insignia on his shirt, something like a black arrow pointing downward with a feather inside.

4. Rann Antar is ridiculous. For some ungodly reason he's JOHN APPROVED.