Are Firecracker Arrows really the best ordinance with which to fight Dinosaurs?

cover art by Curt Swan

If you live in a comic book universe, you don't tempt fate. You simply don't. For instance, let's say you own a plantation on a tropical island. If the natives say that a huge monster will rise up out of a local volcano when that volcano erupts, then don't dismiss this as nonsense. That's just asking for trouble.

As proof of this, we have the story "The Creature from the Crater," (World's Finest #108--March 1960), written by Ed Herron and drawn by Lee Elias. When Oliver Queen and Roy Harper are visiting a plantation-owning friend, that friend falls right into this trap. Of course, as soon as he finishes dismissing the monster-from-the-volcano story as nonsense, the volcano erupts and a monster emerges. Duh.

The monster is a fire-breathing T-Rex, which presents a challenge for Ollie and Roy. They change into Green Arrow and Speedy, but they don't have an anti-dinosaur arrow. They really don't have anything that packs enough punch to take down Rex. But then can at least distract it, using firecracker arrows to do so and allow the plantation workers to escape.

This does allow the workers to escape, but Arrow and Speedy are scooped up by the monster. They soon discover that the dinosaur is a giant robot, referred to by its mad scientist creator as "Iron Rex." The motive behind letting Iron Rex loose on the plantation is to scare everyone off and then loot the place.

Why the scientist didn't just make a fortune giving rides to kids inside Iron Rex is beyond me.

Up to now, this has been a fun story with some nifty visuals. The short length (7 pages including an introductory splash page) hurts it at this point as Arrow and Speedy get the best of their captors in just a couple of rushed panels.

But, heck, even if the story is flawed, we get to see the above image: a cutaway schematic of Iron Rex. Something like that is always worth the price of admission.

That's it for this week. Next week, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin join the circus.