Richard Diamond: "The Barton Case" (aka "Diamond in the Rough")--5/1/49
The series got off to a strong start with this premiere episode--it establishes Diamond's smart aleck character while thrusting him into the middle of a dangerous case.
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I stumbled upon a four book series written in the late 1960s pretty much by accident about a year ago. And, by golly, it was a really fun series.
The Glasshouse Gang (1967),
by Gordon Landsborough, kicked off a four-book series with an interesting
premise. The main characters begin as inmates in the Glasshouse, a British
military prison located in Egypt during World War 2. The prison is a brutal
place, with the inmates treated in a violently sadistic manner. When former
officer John Offer gets out after a term for theft, he wants revenge.
With other former inmates, he forms what comes to be called
the Glasshouse Gang Commando Unit. They track down and beat up several of their
former guards and eventually even stage a raid on the prison itself, exacting
vengeance on the prison's commanding officer and recruiting more members.
In the meantime, Offer has shown his intelligence and
audacity by hiding the G.G.C.U. in plain site, setting up tents and supplying
themselves via night-time raids on depots and pay centers. They thus blend in
with the myriad other British units in the area.
Eventually, the military police get suspicious and the gang
shifts location out into the desert, where several of the gang are captured by
Germans. A rescue mission is necessary, leading to a very exciting climax
involving a machine-gun equipped truck being chased by a number of machine-gun
equipped German vehicles.
John Offer is an interesting protagonist. There are
sociopathic aspects to his personality, but he's also a good leader, able to
plan missions and improvise under pressure. The book draws on the same
anti-authoritarian vibes that classic WWII movies such as "The Dirty
Dozen" and "Kelly's Heroes" used so effectively. There's a
counterpoint to this, though, as Offer also has to depend on giving structure
and order to his gang of thugs so he can ensure their freedom and survival.
There's a real tension there--Offer earns the respect of most of the men, but a
number of hardcases don't take orders willingly. This becomes an increasingly
important plot point as the story progresses and brings an interesting sense of
irony to the book's anti-authoritarian attitude.
But, though the novel does have some depth in both theme and character, it exists mostly for the action. And, as the series progresses through three more novels, that action gradually becomes more intense and more exciting. Over the next few months, we'll take periodic looks at the rest of the series.
Gee whiz, Sinestro is a big meanie! Over the past two issues, he's been responsible for knocking Guy Gardner into an apparently permanent coma. Now he's using his own dad to set another death trap for Hal Jordan!
Green Lantern #124 (January 1980) has writer Denny O'Neil and artist Joe Staton & Frank McLauglin continues Hal's feud with Sinestro. Hal had already stated his intention to track down his arch enemy, but Sinestro attacks first, destroying a museum of space exploration that was just opening. Hal manages to save all the civilians, but the building is a total loss.
So Hal takes the battle to Sinestro, flying to Sinestro's home planet of Korugar. Once there, he summons Katma Tui, the planet's GL.
But Korugar has a dumb rule that prevents Katma from herself attacking Sinestro (I think because he's a fellow Korugarian) as long as the villain isn't directly threatening the planet. She does show Hal a place to start looking for Sinestro, though. Sinestro's dad runs a sleezy business involving Null Chambers. Residents of Korugar use the chamber (which uses yellow null rays) to have their life force slowly drained from them, keeping them just barely alive. For Korugarians, this is an addictive experience.
It turns out, though, that Sinestro's dad ISN'T Sinestro's dad! He's Sinestro wearing a Dad Mask. The bad guy has tossed his own father into the null rays to set up a trap for Hal.
Trapped by the yellow rays and hallucinating that the women he has loved are beckoning him to his death, he manages to send off a signal with his ring. This brings Katma back, who can now act because Sinestro is threatening an innocent visitor on the planet. She smashes the null ray generator and Hal starts beating up Sinestro. But a null ray addict gets in Hal's way, allowing Sinestro to depart for the dimension of Qward.
This is a pretty straightforward chapter in the ensuing epic tale, which will eventually lead up to a massive battle involving the entire Green Lantern Corps. The story moves along quickly and the art (along with Anthony Tollin's colors) effectively brings an alien world/culture to life. The null ray chamber is downright creepy and makes for a unique death trap.
Next week, we'll visit Thor and the Thing in the Marvel Universe. So we'll jump back to the DC Universe in two weeks to see how Hal is doing in his search for Sinestro.
Bold Venture: "Murder in the Yucatan Peninsula" 9/24/51
Shannon and Sailor agree to help a man find his missing wife. But there are those willing to kill to make sure the woman is never found.
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"The Planet That Time Forgot," by Donald A. Wollheim appeared in the Fall 1940 issue of Planet Stories.
It's set entirely on Planet P, a large newly discovered planet outside the orbit of Pluto. But there's a human civilization on Planet P, despite what SHOULD be freezing cold temperature. The first half of the story is set amidst that civilization.
We discover that the despotic ruler of Nimbor has invented a heat ray of some sort and is planning on conquering the freedom-loving nation of Toom. Toom's beautiful queen Oomith refuses to give in and announces that the people of Toom will fight rather than submit to tyranny. But Oomith is kidnapped and, well, Nimbor has a heat ray. The poor Toomians seemed doomed.
But then weird stuff starts happening Oomith has a brief vision of a man she doesn't know. Then she suddenly finds herself back home in Toom. The heat ray mysteriously appears in Toom as well, giving the good guys a sudden advantage in the Planet P arms race. To top it all off, the rulers of Nimbor appear in the dungeons of Oomith's castle. The good guys win, but have no idea how.
The second half of the story takes us aboard an Earth spaceship on its way to explore Planet P. We're told this is a flashback. Well, I think to myself while reading the story, that's it. The Earthmen will reach the planet, figure out what's going on and use some sort of teleportation technology to save the day.
But I was wrong. The twist--involving what exactly the expedition discovers on Planet P and the method through which they help the nation of Toom--is cleverer than that. I don't want to hint at it, because I don't want to spoil anyone's fun in reading it. You can read the story for yourself HERE.
If anyone reads this and DOES figure out the twist, let me know. I freely admit I didn't see it coming and had a lot of fun being fooled. But another, perhaps more attentive reader, might catch on quicker.
In 1975, Marvel Comics was publishing a black-and-white magazine featuring the adventures of 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage. Marvel used this opportunity to bring the good Doc into the Marvel universe. He appeared in Giant-Size Spider Man #3, which I review HERE.
That story, though entertaining, did not include Doc actually MEETING Spidey. It was essentially a two-part adventure, with half taking place in the 1930s and Spidey cleaning up loose ends in 1975. A year or so later, Marvel actually managed to get Doc and a couple of modern Marvel heroes into the same place and time. This is what transpires in Marvel Two-in-One #21 (November 1976), written by Bill Mantlo and with superb art by Ron Wilson.
As the story opens, Doc Savage and Ben Grimm are seperated by four decades. But each is experiencing parallel events. In 1976, Ben and Johnny are visited by Janice Lightner, who has concerns about her twin brother Tom. In 1936, Doc and his crew are visited by Janice's mom, who has concerns about her husband Raymond.
I love the way the book handles the exposition. For several pages, the events of 1976 are shows in a right-hand column, while the near-parallel events of '36 are shown on the left.
Both ladies have pretty much the same problem. Raymond evented a device that can collect stellar energy, which he plans to infuse into his own body. In '76, Tom Lightner wants to continue his father's experiment and do the same thing.
When the heroes "simultaneously" arrive over the Lightner mansion in their own respective vehicles, both those vehicles are disintegrated and the timelines warp together. Ben, Johnny, Doc and Doc's crew are all suddenly in the same place.
Raymond and Tom have been drawn together across space and time, becoming a villain named Black Sun. There's a fight scene, in which the good guys are not doing well.
But Black Sun can't handle the amount of stellar energy being drawn into him and he falls unconscious. Time resets itself and Doc fades out to return to 1936, leaving behind an aggrevated Ben, who never got a chance to get his autograph.
I'm torn about this issue. The exposition is done in such a clever way that it's fun to read, but it takes up a huge chunk of the story. So the ensuing fight scene is very short and the good guys win by default without really doing anything effective, leaving us with an anti-climactic ending. This is a case where Mantlo and editor Archie Goodwin might have wanted to stretch the action out into another issue.
But this does lead into a story arc of sorts. Ben and Johnny promise to take Tom Lightner to the best doctor in the city--Don Blake. That leads to a two-part story guest-starring Thor. We'll begin a look at those issues in two weeks. Next week, we'll return to the Green Lantern and his search for Sinestro.
Night Beat: "The Will of Mrs. Orloff" 6/1/51
Randy gets stuck with the task of telling a man his mother has died. She was a dirt-poor cleaning woman, so it's something of a surprise when a bank book in her name with $50,000 in the account turns up.
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The third Tom Corbett novel--"On the Trail of the Space Pirates," by Carey Rockwell--was published in 1953. And, by golly, it's a fun one. Of course, it features Space Pirates, which means it is legally required to be fun. But, as with the first two Corbett novels, Rockwell (whoever he or they really were) does great job of telling a fast-paced Space Opera.
The book begins with what should be an easy mission. Captain Strong, along with the three cadets he commands, are ordered to bring the Polaris to an exhibition on Venus that is designed to show off man's latest scientific achievements.
Whether it was a good idea to bring all man's latest achievements to one spot is open to debate. Especially since two men manage to steal a device that allow them to access any vault or cargo hold on any ship that plies the spaceways.
The two escape from Venus and go a-pirating, concentrating at first on stealing weapons from other vessels to arm their own ship. The identity of the pirates are known, so Strong and the boys take on the guise of criminals, visiting the sleazier neighborhoods of Luna City, Marsopolis and other cities to try to get a line on the pirate hideout.
They learn that one of the pirates is connected with a ruthless crook named Bull Coxine. Bull is currently a prisoner on the appropriately named Prison Asteriod. Strong and the cadets head there to question him, only to witness a pirate attack on the prison. There's a mass escape, with Bull leading the prisoners aboard the pirate ship. Tom, thinking quickly, puts on a prisoner's uniform and joins the escapees.
Bull takes over--in fact, he's been the brains of the operation all along, smuggling out messages while he was a prisoner. He plans on looting everything that can be looted. Working from a hideout located somewhere in the asteroid belt, he begins out smarting the Solar Guard on a regular basis. Tom, working from the inside, tries to find a way to sabotage the pirates, but he's soon forced to flee.
Eventually, the Solar Guard tries to lay a trap, luring Bull into attack a ship the pirate thinks is carrying the 20-million-credit payroll for workers on Titan. But Bull is still one step ahead of the good guys. He ruthlessly sacrifices one of his men to spring the trap, then goes after the real payroll, being carried aboard the Polaris by Tom, Roger and Astro.
Tom soon finds himself forced to choose between betraying the Solar Guard or watching his two friends die. All that might save him is if one long-shot trick he set up just before capture pays off. It it doesn't, then Bull Coxine will be able to carry out a plan that might garner him his own fleet and perhaps even take over the Solar System.
The novel often plays out like a hard-boiled detective novel, with the good guys going undercover and following up what clues they can find to stop Bull. But, as it usual with Tom Corbett tales in any medium, the tale emphasizes not just the need for courage, but for intelligence, training and the ability to think under pressure. The Tom Corbett novels are now at 3 wins and no loses.
With Green Lantern #123 (Dec. 1979), Green Arrow disappears from the book after getting a few panels in which G.L. tells him that its too dangerous for him to go to Qward. Green Lantern must go alone. After nine years and 47 issues, writer Denny O'Neil breaks up the team.
But why is Hal going off to Qward? Well, he's actually very well travelled in this issue, as O'Neil and artist Joe Staton begin the action on Earth, but soon have Hal using the Phantom Zone Projector to try to rescue Guy Gardner from the Zone Criminals.
There's a brief Lantern vs. Lantern battle--not as epic as last issue but it only lasts a few panels before G.L. shows that he came prepared. He's brought a lead box with him, inside of which is anti-kryptonite. This particular brand of kryptonite only affects Kryptonians with no superpowers, which apparently includes the Criminals while in their ghostly form. This gives Hal a chance to save Guy, but a yellow power beam zaps Guy away.
Hal gathers up the anti-kryptonite to keep from killing the Criminals, then heads back to Earth. But he knows where he needs to go next--a yellow beam means Sinestro and that means a trip to the anti-universe of Qward.
This is where he breaks the "you can't come" news to Ollie and thus regains a solo title. He then finds an entry way into Qward (the Guardians have several pinpointed throughout space) and enters that weird dimension.
He is soon ambushed by Guy, who is now being controlled by Sinestro. Poor man can't catch a break.
As did Don Heck in the previous issue, Joe Staton provides us with some fun images as the various opponents in the ensuing fight summon up various types of contructs. Sinestro finally just threatens to kill Guy outright if Hal doesn't surrender.
Hal, though, belatedly realizes that in Qward, there is air in space. So he smashes some asteroids and summons up a cloud of dust to blind Sinestro. He then starts beating the snot out of the villain.
So its back to Earth again, this time with a catatonic Guy Gardner in tow. Guy remains in a coma until GL #190, when the Crisis of Infinite Earths spoiled the DC Universe forever. But in 1979, Hal still has stuff to do. He vows to find Sinestro.
As with the previous issue, I like this one a lot, based mostly on the imaginative depictions of Hal, Guy and Sinestro using their rings. The overall plot, with Hal hopping from one dimension to another, drips with entertaining Comic Book Science. It was a fun time to be reading Green Lantern comics.
And we'll keep reading them. In two weeks, we'll begin a look at Hal's quest to find Sinestro. In the meantime, next week will see Ben Grimm and Doc Savage mixed up in some time travel shenanigans.
The Six Shooter: "Escape from Smoke Falls" 11/15/53
Britt gets involved in tracking down an escaped prisoner. This job soon ends up involving two other men who are ready to come to blows over a woman.
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I just acquired a digital reprint of the January 1938 issue of Adventure Novels and Short Stories and, being a huge fan of Dumas' Three Musketeers, was immediately drawn to read Peter B. Kyne's tale "Three Modern Musketeers."
It's a seafaring tale and, though the three protagonists' personalities don't parallel Athos, Porthos and Aramis, each of them has a distinct personality and they share a fire-forged friendship.
Though the story actually starts with them going their seperate ways. Merchant captain Scraggs, his first mate Gibney and chief engineer McGuffey argue over money and the trio splits up.
Scraggs suffers some financial setbacks and is forced to lay up his ship. But things look up when he's hired to run guns to Mexican revolutionaries. (The year this story takes place isn't firmly established, but its mentioned that the Panama Canal is still under construction, so it is set during a time of revolutionary violence in Mexico.) This lets him refit his ship. A cargo of rifles, machine guns and a couple of cannon are brought aboard.
During the journey south, stuff happens and both Gibney and McGuffey rejoin Scraggs. A battle against a gunboat is won, though the Maggie (Scraggs' ship) is shot to pieces before the gunboat is captured. After collecting their fee for gunrunning, the trio uses the gunboat as their new ship and recruits the small crew needed to work it. They christen it Maggie II and decide to give a life of smuggling and piracy a try.
Their first venture involves sailing to a Pacific island Gibney knows of, where they will harvest Black Coral (used to make jewelry), though they might have to fight off a native cannibal tribe to do it.
It's at this point in the story that "Three Modern Musketeers" dates itself. The N-word is dropped frequently when referencing the natives and MacGuffey proves to be an unrepentant, hard-core racist. (Though it should be pointed out that Scraggs and Gibney are mildly critical of him because of this.)
They arrive at the island. The natives claim to be reformed from cannibalism and invite the three men ashore for a feast. Scraggs and Gibney attend over MacGuffey's objection. The irony is that MacGuffey's fears that the natives are still cannibals, based purely on his bigotry, prove to be true. Scraggs and Gibney soon find themselves the intended main course and make a last-minute escape only after MacGuffey begins to rake the island with an anti-aircraft gun.
When running across racial stereotypes in a pulp-era story, I'm generally able to recognize this as a function of the time it was written and, if the story is fun and the racism not an important plot point, then I can still enjoy it as a work of fiction. A story can go too far with this--to use a film example, it's pretty much impossible to enjoy the 1915 silent movie Birth of a Nation because the plot is built on racism and the KKK are the good guys.
For me, "Three Modern Musketeers" nearly crosses this line. MacGuffey's loud and persistant racism during the climax is just annoying and gets at least partially in the way of enjoying what had up to then been a fun adventure story. But I still like the story overall. The well-written action scenes, the irony of MacGuffey being right about the natives for all the wrong reasons, and at least some criticism of his bigotry from the other two protagonists got me to the end of the tale and left me more or less satisfied.
Sadly, as far as I can determine, this is the only published adventure of Scraggs, Gibney and MacGuffey.
You can judge the story for yourself. It can be found online HERE.
It'll take a moment to set up the background for this issue (Green Lantern/Green Arrow #122, November 1979). Back-up Green Lantern Guy Gardner had supposedly been killed in a Power Battery accident six issues earlier. Guy had been friendly with a gypsy named Kari Limbo, who had psychic powers. Since then, Hal Jordan has gotten friendly with Kari. So, as writer Denny O'Neil and artist Don Heck begin this issue, Hal and Kari are going to the chapel and are gonna get married.
But on the way into the church, Kari has a vision and draws a picture of a Phantom Zone projector. This sends Superman--a guest at the wedding--off to the Fortress of Solitude to check on his projector. Once there, though, he is pulled into the Phantom Zone by what looks suspiciously like a Green Lantern-created construct.
Hal and Kari, meanwhile, are soldiering on with the ceremony. But when they get to the "I do" part, Kari goes into a full-on trance, mumbling about Superman, a power ring and darkness. This pretty heavily implies that Superman is in danger and that it is Green Lantern related.
Well, you can't marry your gal while she's in trance and besides, helping the Man of Steel seems to have become Hal's responsibility. He flies to the Fortress. Unable to get past the security features, he uses his ring to fish up the Phantom Zone projector. Then he recharges his ring and enters the Zone.
What follows is a Lantern vs. Lantern fight, with both GLs using their rings in clever ways. The other GL, to no one's surprise by this point, is Guy Gardner. The accident that supposedly killed him threw him into the Zone, where he's been watching Hal play footsie with Kari. Also, the Phantom Zone criminals, led by General Zod, are controlling him and lending their own will power to his ring. Also, Superman has been beaten unconscious and is being held by the criminals.
APRIL IS MARVEL MONSTERS MONTH!
This 1973 cover is by Rich Buckler, with alterations to the woman done by John Romita.
Cloak and Dagger: "Norwegian Incident" 8/20/50
Two men are smuggled into occupied Norway to contact the Resistance and blow up a bridge. At first, the mission goes smoothly. At first....
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I'm having a minor surgery on my shoulder. It's nothing serious, but it will put my arm in a sling for at least a few days. That makes typing a really annoying task. No Wednesday or Thursday posts this week and perhaps not next week, depending on how well my physical therapy goes. Sorry. I know my posts are the only thing that keeps many of you going from day to day. I'll be back as soon as possible.
MARCH IS BORIS, ROD AND RIPLEY MONTH!!
Another wonderful George Wilson cover, this one from 1968.
Mysterious Traveler: "I Died Last Night" 4/25/50
A man obsessed with studying life after death gets an unexpected opportunity to experience the matter personally.
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Louis L'Amour is, of course, most famous for the many, many excellent Westerns he wrote. But he did write in other genres. For instance, early in his career, he wrote a series of stories set in the South Seas, with his own experiences as a merchant seaman giving those tales authenticity.
The protagonist in these stories is a "Ponga Jim" Mayo, who is the master of a tramp steamer and who has a penchant for finding trouble. One of Ponga Jim's adventures is recounted in the October 1940 issue of Thrilling Adventures.
"On the Road to Amurang" has Ponga Jim taking his ship, the Semiramis, on a cargo run to several islands. But World War 2 is raging in Europe and one side effect of that is to make the British and Dutch-controlled islands in the Pacific a dangerous place to be.
Jim finds that out when his ship is hijacked by gunmen led by a big guy (and I mean a BIG guy) named Job Dussel. Jim knows that he, his ship and his crew are doomed unless he does something fast.
He sees a chance to make a break for it and then finds an unexpected place to hide while Dussell's men are looking for him. When he has a chance, Jim jumps a guard, gets a gun and frees a few of his crew.
From there, the action picks up to a lightning pace. Dussell and his surviving men are forced to steal a lifeboat and leave the ship, but a (persumably German) cruiser is nearby to pick them up. Jim has a gun mounted on the Semiramis, but can't outduel the bigger vessel. But Jim knows the waters here better than anyone and he might still have one last trick up his sleeve.
Besides, he doesn't want to miss a chance to find out if he can take Dussell in a fist fight.
"On the Road to Amurang" is a great example of how much fun the Ponga Jim stories are. It's short, but packed with captures, escapes, gun battles, ship-to-ship combat and a brutal fist fight at the climax. You can read it online HERE.
Our Army at War #214 (January 1970) is a story that is pretty predictable in every story beat it hits. But it's still enjoyable in that Bob Kanigher (who is probably the writer) organizes those beats skillfully and Russ Heath (the artist) provides his usual magnificent pencils.
Easy Company is searching through the rubble of a shelled-out town and taking some casualties doing so. Fortunately, they get a replacement. Unfortunately, that replacement is a bit of a jerk.
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Hogan, we learn, grew up in the slums of New York and he's used to watching out for himself. In fact, he declines to tag along with one of the patrols checking out the town, deciding he's better going it alone.
There's a brief battle scene in which Easy Company charges into the Germans and mops them up. Hogan is wounded, but alive and starting to learn that he doesn't have to win the war on his own.
As I said, each beat of the story is predictable. We know that Hogan's loner tendency is going to get him and Easy into trouble. We know that Hogan will redeem himself in the end. I think the only part that isn't predictable is where Hogan is alive and learning his lesson, or if he's dead but redeemed by his courage. Either ending would have worked and--as I said--skillful storytelling and great art keeps us engrossed in the tale from start to finish.
Next week, we'll visit with Green Lantern.
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