Skip Week

 

At the risk of leaving Western Civilization feeling as forlorn as this poor girl obviously is, several writing assignments (including one about Jack Kirby that requires a lot of research) AND being asked to teach at my church next week has made it necessary for me to skip the Wednesday and Thursday posts this week. I should be back next week.

Cover Cavalcade

 AUGUST IS DC 80-PAGE GIANT MONTH!!!

A Curt Swan cover from 1964.

What I Read This Month

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Shadow: "Death Triangle" 12/12/37

Three men are threatened with death by an escapee from Devil's Island. But the situation actually might be more complicated than it first appears to be.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Six Men of Evil

 

cover art by George Rozen

Six Men of Evil (from Feb. 15th, 1933 issue of The Shadow Magazine)

This is a weird one, even in the context of the Shadow's often weird universe. Six men, after an attempt to steal a priceless jewel from a remote tribe in Mexico, end up with identical faces. They plan to use this to commit crimes, establish perfect alibis for those crimes and frame someone else. Within a few chapters, they have murdered a man, stolen some valuable bonds, embezzled money from a bank, and pulled off a marry-the-rich-girl-then-murder-her scheme.

But crimes take place in different locations around the country, but the Shadow notices the pattern: Each time, the person arrested for the crime accusses someone who has a perfect alibi. The Master of Mystery deduces that the real criminals used doubles, though he doesn't at first know how this is possible.

The Shadow and his agents investigate. He eventually finds out how they all ended up with the same face--a process that would strain credulity in a more realistic universe, but makes perfect sense in a pulp universe.

He also discovers how the mastermind communicates with the other members of the gang, using this to track them down just as the next crime is about to be committed. This leads to an awesome car chase and the apparent death of the ringleader.

But the Shadow knows all. One last confrontation with the surviving Men of Evil takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown. 

This novel is a little lighter on action than most other Shadow tales, but it still has several great action moments. And the mystery is a good one, with the Shadow using clever and logical methods to track down the bad guys and figure out how they somehow become identical sextuplets.  The villians overlay the novel with a strong weirdness vibe that works quite well, giving this one an eerie individuality among other Shadow novels.

Borrowed Villains and New Heroes

 

cover art by Dan Heck

Avengers #47 (December 1967), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema, borrows an X-Men villain and begins the process of introducing a heroic version of the Black Knight to the Marvel Universe.

There are several subplots here, which we'll discuss first. Captain America quits and Hank Pym (currently called Goliath) is planning to rejoin the team. Also, Hercules is currently away, returning to Mount Olympus--which he finds deserted. This begins a subplot that will play out in a future issue.

The main plot begins with Magneto and Toad trapped on a deserted asteroid, left there by the cosmic being the Stranger in an issue of The X-Men. But Magneto is sensing magnetic waves arriving at the asteroid. 

These waves are coming from Earth. Dane Whitman, the nephew of the recently deceased villain The Black Knight, has set up an experiment in the family castle. He wants to redeem the family name by doing good and hopes to discover alien intelligence by magnetic wave communications.

This is an effective way of introducing Dane as a good guy. But a part of me wonders--in a universe where Earth has regular conduct with aliens, is there a lot of urgency in figuring out new ways to communicate with them. Will Dane run to the newspapers if he's successful and yell out "I have proved there is alien life!" only to be told by a bored editor that "We know that already, doofus. We were invaded by the Rock Men of Saturn just last month!"

Anyway, Dane is cursed not just with rotten relatives, but also with rotten lab assistants. When it looks like the experiment is about to be successful, his assistance knocks him out with a rock so that he (the assistant) can take credit for everything.

Then Magneto and Toad appear in the room. The science here isn't clearly explained--but then, Comic Book Science isn't something that CAN be clearly explained. Apparently Magneto was able to hijack the magnetic beam, teleporting himself and Toad across interstellar distances to Earth. This is well within the logical perameters of Comic Book Science and Thomas is wise enough to avoid bogging down the scene with technobabble, allowing us to just go with it and enjoy the story.

Magneto knocks out the jerk assistant, then locks both him and Dane in the castle dungeon. Then he works on putting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants back together. He is dismissive of Mastermind, but really wants Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch as members. We get to see how he met them in a flashback--how he saved them from a mutant-fearing mob.

He sends an anoynomous message to the siblings, luring them to the castle, then testing them by pitting them against a big robot. 

 They defeat the robot, but when Magneto confronts them, they explain they've become good guys and are now Avengers. Magneto doesn't take this well and, between a swarm of more robots and his own powers, manages to capture them both.

It's a well-written story with great Buscema art. Magneto is in full-on mustache-twirling mode, eithout any of the depth that Chris Claremont would give him. But his bombastic villain speeches are a blast to read, so I'm okay with his mustache twirling here.

It's also the beginning of a multi-part story arc that will cross over into the X-Men's book for several issues. I've always resented this--team-ups are great, but don't force someone to perhaps buy a book they didn't normally buy. Besides, in the days before comic book shops commonly existed, there was no guarentee you'll FIND the other title. It's just wrong.

But I'm nearly six decades too late to whine about this, so we'll continue to judge the story on its own merits, rather than by iffy marketing schemes. Next week, we'll see Dane Whitman enter the superhero business.

Cover Cavalcade

  JULY IS J. ALLEN St. JOHN VISITS BARSOOM MONTH!!!

St. John finished his 1941 visit to Barsoom with this October issue. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "The Gypsum Hills Feud" 4/16/55

While Dillon and Chester are on the way back to Dodge City, someone takes a shot at Dillon. Soon, he finds himself involved in a feud between two families.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

He Killed a Man in His Dream!

 

Stan Grayson has a nightmare in which he kills a guy and locks the body in a cubbyhole in a room with lots of mirrors. He wakes up to discover blood on his hands, bruises on his neck, as well as the key to the cubbyhole and one of the dead man's buttons both in his room.

Is Stan actually a murderer? He doesn't know!

That's the premise of the 1956 noir film Nightmare. It's based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich ("And So to Death" published in 1941) and its the second time writer/director Maxwell Shane adapted it into a movie. I haven't seen the 1947 version, titled Fear in the Night, but I did just watch Nightmare.

Kevin McCarthy plays Stan and does a great job with the part--a man with a conscience who is terrified at the idea that he killed a man--a situation made worse because he doesn't know who he killed or why. 

So he goes to his brother-in-law, Rene Bressard, who is a detective. Rene is played by Edward G. Robinson, which automatically makes this movie good. Whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, Robinson is always a pleasure to watch. 

Bressard dismisses Stan's concern. A dream is just a dream and he probably had the key and the button before and just forgot about them. Stan tries to investigate himself, but doesn't get anywhere.

Stan, by the way, is a clarinetist with a big band. His girlfriend sings for the band. This gives the movie an excuse to include a few minutes of really good music. Director Maxwell Shane also makes really good use of the New Orleans location.

It's when Stan, Rene and their gals are out on a picnic that things get weird. A rainstorm begins and the wipers on Rene's car won't work. But Stan suddenly "remembers" a nearby house and where the key to that house is hidden. They take shelter there and Stan soon finds the mirror room.

And they soon find out that not one, but two people were recently murdered in that house.

Rene is now convinced Stan is indeed a killer. He gives Stan a chance to make a run for it before turning him in. Stan opts to try to commit suicide instead, but Rene puts a stop to this.

And then Stan says something that clicks with the detective--something that might mean Stan is innocent. But in order to prove this, they are going to have to replicate the events of the night of the murder. This is something that Stan might not live through...

Nightmare is a very good film noir and definitely worth watching. Both the lead actors anchor the movie with great performances; New Orleans looks awesome in black and white; and the plot has a few nice twists in it. I'd like to talk about the ending a little more, but I don't want to spoil anything. You can watch it for yourself here:

Time Travel, Jesse James and a lot of Accidental Deaths (maybe).

 

cover art by Curt Swan

I'm okay with the rules about Time Travel--DC was reasonably consistent about that even during the often-inconsistent Silver Age.

But what the heck are the rules for Jimmy's Superman Signal wrist watch?

"The Gunsmoke Kid," a story from Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #45 (June 1960) raises this question. In fact, it does sort of raise a time travel question as well. The strength of the story is in the fact that we can still enjoy it as over-the-top fun and asking questions about internal logic just adds to the fun.

The story's author is unknown (though I would guess Otto Binder) and the art is by Curt Swan.

Jimmy and Clark are interviewing Professor Potter about his newest invention--a time machine. The professor hasn't perfected it yet--you can travel back in time, but he hasn't figured out how to return you to the present.

Jimmy, who is wearing a Wild West costume because he's attending a costume party later on, plays with the machine. This is unwise and after 45 issues of bizarre adventures and previous encounters with Potter's various inventions, he really SHOULD know better.

He's teleported back to the Old West. Here's where the time travel logic becomes a bit skewed. He appears in a prison cell and is mistaken for an outlaw called the Gunsmoke Kid. So did he replace the REAL Gunsmoke Kid? If so, where is the real Kid? And why didn't anyone recognize him as NOT being the Kid? Unless the Kid is Jimmy's double? Did the sheriff just decide to accuse anyone who mysteriously appears in his jail of being a dangerous outlaw? Is the sheriff just really bad at his job? WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

The Gunsmoke Kid--er, I mean Jimmy Olsen--is busted out of prison by Jesse James, who promises Jimmy a chance to kill the three most famous outlaws in the West: Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickcock and Bat Masterson.

Jimmy tries to miss on purpose all three times he ambushes one of the lawmen, but each time it appears that he's accidentally killed them anyways. He also is mysteriously able to cheat at poker (something he has to do to keep Jesse from shooting him), dealing himself four aces after dealing other players four kings and four queens respectively. Jimmy is both concerned that he's inadvertantly committed murder AND wondering if he's changing history.

It's at the poker game that the signal watch issue arises. The watch normally sends out an ulta sonic sound that only Superman can hear. But Jimmy uses it as an audible alarm to distract the losing poker players. So is there a second alarm set in the watch that is audible to normal humans--which I don't think was every mentioned either before or after this story? And wasn't the Superman signal able to penetrate the time barrier on other occasions, even though we are told here that it can't? (I can't think of an example--please comment if you do know of one.)

Eventually, the three supposedly dead lawmen are spotted. Jesse decides to kill Jimmy, but Superman does turn out to be nearby, blowing up a dust storm to rescue Jimmy without being seen. (The story is consistant with the DC Comics Time Travel rule that you can't change the past.)

It was Superman in disguise who posed as the lawmen and faked their deaths, as well as Superman fixing the poker game. He's recorded all this, so Jimmy has some awesome film foogage of himself to show at parties. I guess that was worth the mental agony of thinking you were a murderer, Jimmy? Superman? What about that, huh? Is emotional anguish a fair trade for party bragging rights?

I am, of course, making fun of the story. But I do so without rancor or any heartfelt criticism. With some comic books, imaginative fun should be preferable to narrative consistency. Superman's Pal is a prime example throughout its run of when this is true. Its a fun story and if I could time travel, replace Mort Weisinger as editor and change history--well, I just wouldn't. In Weisinger's universe, YES, mental anguish is a fair trade for party bragging rights! I mean, of course it is! The story is perfect just as it is. 

Next week, we'll begin a five part visit with the Avengers, then the X-Men, then (eventually) both groups.