Our journey through DC's Wanted: The World's Most Dangerous Villains! #1 (July-August 1972) continues with a reprint from World's Finest #111 (August 1960), in a story starring Green Arrow. It's our introduction to the minor-league villain Clock King.
Written by Ed Herron and drawn by Lee Elias, "The Crimes of the Clock King" is pretty straightforward. The new villain arranges for the lights to go out at a swanky costume party, allowing him to snatch up expensive jewelry before making a getaway. It's a nice touch, by the way, that he can simply hang out at the party until the right moment without anyone taking notice of him.
This story was written at a time when Green Arrow hadn't yet been given a distinctive personality and was pretty much treated as a Batman clone. He's summoned to the scene of the crime by the "Arrow Signal" and rushes there in the Arrow Car. But Clock King is one step ahead of them, putting his costume on a life-sized figure that comes out of a large clock at midnight. Arrow and Speedy waste their rope arrows on that while Clock King makes a getaway.
Clock King goes on a time-themed crime wave (for instance, robbing the Minute Man Bank), but the heroes soon get a line on him. He lures them into an hour glass death trap, but a suction cup arrow provide a way out.
The story looks cool, especially the vertical panel showing us the death trap in all its goofy glory. Clock King's costume is also a fun visual. But G.A. doesn't really get a chance to use any really unusual arrows and he himself was a pretty bland hero at that time.
On the other hand, we live in a world so infused with geekiness and nerdery that when we can see the hero use a suction cup arrow and think "well, we've seen that a hundred times before, haven't we? Yawn." In its own way, that's kind of awesome.
Next week, we jump from Green Arrow to Green Lantern.
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