RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Classic DC "What the Fuck?"s

I like the story in PLOP # 7, where Cain, Abel and Eve jump off a cliff where they know Superman will fly to rescue them, but it's a ploy to get Superman to listen to each of their stories, and at the end of the issue, they ask Superman to judge who told the best story.

And amusingly, Superman is clearly nauseated by all he's heard, and has an unexpected reaction...





[ spoilers: ]







Superman flies to the top of the cliff they jumped off of, drops all three, and lets them fall to the ground as if he never rescued them !






[ /spoilers ]





On the Marvel side, this one really threw me for a loop.
Not a dream !
Not a hoax !
It really happened...

This guy recently discovered the Haney "World's Finest" run and is spending a few days cataloging just how big a "WTF" the entire series was when Haney wrote it. For example:

Comics 101 just did a piece on the "in continuity" story where Superman supposedly died and had his organs harvested, only to have them transplanted by Luthor into criminals who developed superpowers as a result:

• in order to catch some fairly run-of-the-mill criminal punks, Superman is willing to order one of his seemingly sentient androids to commit suicide, then have its body harvested and butchered so that these same punks can undergo unnecessary, disfiguring and life-threatening surgery, in full knowledge that the surgeries will be ultimately unsuccessful and lead to their demise.
  
  Does this seem like overkill to anyone else? Hey, here's an idea, Superman: when you had all four of them come in for surgery, why not arrest them before Luthor started chopping off hands and digging out lungs? Just sayin' is all.

Cool. Thanks. If that was out for Christmas it would be on my list.

Hail Slavia!!

Haney seemed to have a thing for superheroes "defecting." In Brave and Bold 134, Green Lantern supposedly defected to the USSR, due to the inability of Hal Jordon to find civilian employ (a fact mentioned by the Soviet colonel in charge of testing Hal, which would seem to imply they knew his secret ID).

And what did the Reds want with Green Lantern? Their own commie superhero/defender? No! U.S. Aeronautical secrets! Which would seem, again, to imply they knew his secret ID (though Haney never made that explicit).

This time, Batman was the one the feds sent to bring back the defector. With instructions (which Batman willingly agreed to) to capture or kill GL (see, they didn't like each other very much pre-spacebug either).

Unfortunately, for Bats, however, the Ruskies subjected him to some sort of brainwashing/torture called "the demolishment," which would reduce him to a "wimpering pup."

First they tried drugging Batman, but that didn't work. Why? Because "Batman has long been immune to drugs...he had special nerve treatments to guard against criminals using drugs on him..."

(Yeah, we all knew that. That's why he wasn't being regularly drugged or gassed by the Penguin's Umbrella, Joker nerve toxin, Poison Ivy's lips, etc., in all the other bat-titles of the previous forty years )

Then, they tried putting him in an isolation tank, but Batman kept his sanity by repeating the phrase "Joe Chill" over and over (arguably one of the cooler moments in the story).

(Meanwhile, the commies had taken Hal's ring and beaten him up. But, for some reason, they didn't "demolish" him, even though it would supposedly would have been a good way to get the "aeronautical secrets" out of him)

Ultimately, Batman was "demolished," leading to the scene on the cover:



And how did Batman get out of this one? What did he do to avoid his vow against using firearms and shooting GL point blank?

Nothing. He fired three times directly at Hal. (Again, proving Batman never really liked GL)

Fortunately, however, the gun...had blanks in it!

With Batman broken, GL decided to confess that he had never really intended to defect and that it was all an elaborate ruse to learn about "the demolishment" techniques.

So, the Russians, rather than say "great...so let's do it to YOU too," took GL and Batman back to the Colonel's office to make a confession.

Oops! Guess where GL's ring was! That's right!! The tea kettle in the colonel's office!!!

So...now that GL was close enough to activate his ring (and apparently this was all part of the master plan), he whispered the oath, grabbed the ring and flew himself and Batman out of the country (in a glowing green hot air balloon because he was "too groggy from the beating" [which had, according to the story, occurred at least two days' prior] to use his normal powers of flight).

Once safely past the Iron Curtain, GL revived Batman, who explained that, even though he was "close" to being "demolished," had assumed the gun had blanks in it (sure, Batman, surrreeee.....why do you hate Hal so much?).

W....T....F?

Friends only let friends fire at them with a gun full of blanks, that they might have intended to be actual bullets !

Another Bob Haney defection story:


Nick Cardy did art on 92-96, this last issue is the one I liked the best.
These stories are always fun to read.
And I agree, from about BRAVE & BOLD 100-130, Aparo's art was some of the best in the field, Novick/Giordano, Adams/Giordano, and Aparo all gave us the definitive Batman.

Don't forget Marshall Rogers

Anyway, back to Haney/Aparo: I picked up one of those phone book sized "Showcase" volumes of their stuff today. Aparo's stuff still looks great, even in black and white on cheap paper.

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Yeah. There's a new hardcover collecting all of Rogers' BATMAN work in a single volume. But I'm not eager to purchase it, because the consensus seems to be it's haphhazardly thrown together.

• LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT: MARSHALL ROGERS

My favorites by Rogers are his run with Englehart in DETECTIVE 471-476, and the earlier lighter Calculator villain stories in 466-468 (468 being the first Rogers/Austin collaboration).

Also an O'Neil/Rogers story in DETECTIVE 481. And while less than Wein's best, the Clayface story by Wein/Rogers/Giordano in DETECTIVE 478-479.

And the golden age Batman origin story in SECRET ORIGINS 7 (1986) by Roy Thomas/Marshall Rogers.

I thought the 6-issue BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE follow up about 5 years ago (to DETECTIVE 471-476) was very third-rate and substandard.

All collected in the new hardcover.

But I prefer the material collected in BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS trade.





Regardless, you're right that Marshall Rogers is one of the definitive Batman artists, alongside Neal Adams, Irv Novick, Dick Giordano and Jim Aparo.

For DETECTIVE 443 and 450 alone, I almost want to add Walt Simonson to that list. But those were two beautiful issues, not a sustained and influential run.
Which are different enough from Batman's normal portrayal of the time to almost qualify as WTF material. I understand DC's management didn't care for Simonson's art in 450, much looser than the ACBA award-winning story in 443.

Crap, I didn't know that there's more to Rogers's Batman than BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITIONS and DARK DETECTIVE. I thought the HC just collected those two together.

Classic WTF of DC bringing back Barry Allen just to appease LLANCE!

Franta Claus told me that LLANCE has been a very naughty boy this year! And how!

Yeah, Rogers' Batman began with DETECTIVE 466-468(backups only in the first two, full story in 468), 471-476, 477 (3 new pages of Rogers + Neal Adams reprint of DETECTIVE 408), 478-479 (Wein/Rogers/Giordano Clayface story), 481 (O'Neil/Rogers)
All 1976-1979.

SECRET ORIGINS 7 (Thomas/Rogers golden age Batman origin, 1986)

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 132-136 (5-part "Seige" by Goodwin/Rogers)

and

BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE 1-6 (2005, Englehart/Rogers continue their original DET 471-476 storyline)

As I said prior, I only liked the 70's DETECTIVE stories. Rogers' art remains nice in the later work, but the post-detective stories are all pretty lackluster, even Englehart/Rogers' new storyline.

But I loved all the earliest stories.

Jack Kirby's The Black Racer, from NEW GODS 3 and 11.

For those who have read it, no further explanation necessary.
The goofy costume, the skis...