Has anyone around here mentioned Marvel's GA hero, The Whizzer? A guy in a yellow costume and winged headpiece who gains superspeed from an injection of mongoose blood. That's right - mongoose blood.
Speaking of Marvel, the fact that Dr. Spectrum has his own series also goes on here.
I'd like to see a Whizzer story where he's arrested for urinating in the street (i.e., whizzing in public). Having a yellow costume would only add to the urine-gag. The Whizzer must have appeared elsewhere, but I only recall him from the 70's run of THE IINVADERS, outside of the Golden Age. And in AVENGERS and SQUADRON SUPREME. Although I'm sure he's appeared in other titles beyond that.
"The Super Sons" run in World's Finest in the 1970s. Teenaged sons of Superman and Batman who, according to the editors, were not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story, but simply an heretounexplored aspect of our heroes' multi-faceted lives.
WTF?
Eventually, realizing that this facet should REMAIN unexplored, the writers and editor concocted ANOTHER WTF, explaining the sons away by stating they were a Fortress of Solitude computer simulation that Superman and Batman would sit around and watch for hours on end (yeah, that's MY idea of entertainment).
WTF?
Yep. I remember that one. Still have the issue of the latter. The sons found out they were creating all the disasters on Earth and simply jumped in a core of burning energy and that was that. Batman was crying at the end of the story...WTF? Indeed!!!
I just read this story for the first time over the weekend, in WORLD'S FINEST 263 (July 1980, story by Dennis O'Neil, pencilled by Rich Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano ). I was surprised to see a story of this substandard quality from the pen of Dennis O'Neil. It didn't add any originality to the story that multiple panels of Buckler's art throughout were swiped from several Neal Adams BATMAN stories (particularly BATMAN issues 232, 243, 244 and 245, B & B 79, and possibly other Adams books I'm less familiar with) A bit corny, but still fun reading.
The end kind of reminded me of the last 10 minutes of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where the Super-sons willingly go to their final fate.
The first "super-sons" story was in WORLDS FINEST 215, so this story vehicle lasted roughly 50 issues, although many issues in this run featured Batman and Superman without the super-sons.
I dug these out of my collection recently and was looking at them again. There were a total of 12 "Super Sons" Batman/Superman stories,and here's a link to each of the complete individual issues :
215 by Haney and Dillin/Scarpelli, Jan 1973 216 Haney and Dillin/Anderson, Mar 1973 221 Haney and Dillin/Anderson, Feb 1974 222 Haney and Dillin/Colletta, Apr 1974 224 Haney and Dillin/Colletta, Aug 1974
228 Haney and Dillin/Blaisdell, Mar 1975 230 Haney and Swan/Blaisdell, Mar 1975 231 Haney and Dillin/Blaisdell, July 1975 233 Haney and Dillin/Calnan, Oct 1975 238 Haney and Dillin/Calnan, Jun 1976
242 Haney and Chan/Calnan, Dec 1976 263 O'Neil and Buckler/Giordano, Aug 1980
Especially compared to the other collected reprint books of Moebius' work. While designed with such a sophisticated look, the cover is so... well... phallic !
WB: My nominee WTF storyline was where whoever was scripting the book around 1988-1989, (Tom Defalco? David Michelinie? ) revealed (in total contradiction to all the past clues given to the character's identity) that Hobgoblin was [ XXXXXXXX ] (issue 289 )
.
GAH! Spoiler warning! .
Ooops !! Sorry TTT.
Since it's a story that's over 15 years old, I didn't put up the usual spoiler warnings.
In the future, I'll be more careful, for anyone who hasn't read a story referred to yet.
Believe me when I say your money is better spent elsewhere than on AMAZING SPIDERMAN 289.
Roger Stern eventually came back to Marvel and finished the story HIS way, but it was still pretty lame, and not up to usual Roger Stern standards. (In a three-issue HOBGOBLIN LIVES miniseries. Really dull, about two thirds of the series is incredibly dull and wordy flashback sequences, that really suck away any ability to get into the story.)
First book editor Danny Fingeroth drove Roger Stern away, ruining the original intended revelation of the Hobgoblin's identity by Stern, the only writer who really knew how to tell the story in a compelling and satisfying way. Then Tom Defalco tried to salvage the plotline and take it in a new direction. Then Jim Owsley (apparently a pen name used by Chris Priest in his early years as a writer and editor) took it in a completely different direction than Defalco intended, just to spite Defalco, who for some reason Owsley hated. And Tom Defalco never trusted Owsley, so he didn't tell Owsley who he really intended to reveal as the Hobgoblin. So when Owsley revealed the Hobgoblin's name in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 289 (and in Owsley's pre-emptive reveal before issue 289 in the SPIDER-MAN VS WOLVERINE one-shot), the joke was on Owsley, because Defalco never intended it to be that character, Defalco just misleadingly told Owsley that was who he intended Hobgoblin to be. And then future writers and editors tacked band-aids on band-aids on band-aids, trying to re-tell the Hobgoblin storyline into something salvageable, that could never in retrospect be salvaged.
I've always hated storylines hammered out by a committee of editors and writers, and crossover stories that run through multiple titles featuring the same character by multiple writers and artists. It only works when orchestrated by one person or creative team that truly care about the series and characters, such as Jim Starlin's CAPTAIN MARVEL and WARLOCK, or O'Neil/Adams' BATMAN, or Levitz/Giffen LEGION, or McGregor/Russell KILLRAVEN, or Jack Kirby's Fourth World series and KAMANDI runs.
Would that Roger Stern could have carried it out in his intended 26-issue storyline, as Stern originally planned. A great waste, because Roger Stern's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 224-251 is one of the best written and most engaging storylines I've ever read in 50 years of collecting. I couldn't wait for each new issue to come out during that run. When Roger Stern was driven off the series prematurely, readers were deprived of having that fantastic run reach its full and satisfying intended conclusion. I'll always remember what might have been.
BATMAN 59, June-July 1950, Lew Schwartz/Charles Paris cover art. Batman and Robin flying through space in a Bat-rocket-ship, who see a beacon from Earth shining a bat-signal on the moon, letting them know they're needed back on Earth ! It's just so whimsical and Silver-Age. https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-1940/Issue-59?id=17648
"The Super Sons" run in World's Finest in the 1970s. Teenaged sons of Superman and Batman who, according to the editors, were not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story, but simply an heretounexplored aspect of our heroes' multi-faceted lives.
WTF?
Eventually, realizing that this facet should REMAIN unexplored, the writers and editor concocted ANOTHER WTF, explaining the sons away by stating they were a Fortress of Solitude computer simulation that Superman and Batman would sit around and watch for hours on end (yeah, that's MY idea of entertainment).
WTF?
Yep. I remember that one. Still have the issue of the latter. The sons found out they were creating all the disasters on Earth and simply jumped in a core of burning energy and that was that. Batman was crying at the end of the story...WTF? Indeed!!!
I just read this story for the first time over the weekend, in WORLD'S FINEST 263 (July 1980, story by Dennis O'Neil, pencilled by Rich Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano ). https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/23/25/e32325d9169097ce6106eb7deef31b23.jpg www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=97494828320%20263 I was surprised to see a story of this substandard quality from the pen of Dennis O'Neil. It didn't add any originality to the story that multiple panels of Buckler's art throughout were swiped from several Neal Adams BATMAN stories (particularly BATMAN issues 232, 243, 244 and 245, B & B 79, and possibly other Adams books I'm less familiar with) A bit corny, but still fun reading.
The end kind of reminded me of the last 10 minutes of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where the Super-sons willingly go to their final fate.
The first "super-sons" story was in WORLDS FINEST 215, so this story vehicle lasted roughly 50 issues, although many issues in this run featured Batman and Superman without the super-sons.
I dug these out of my collection recently and was looking at them again. There were a total of 12 "Super Sons" Batman/Superman stories,and here's a link to each of the complete individual issues :
On page 19, panel 3: "Ohhhh --it's been a long time since I was butt stroked. I'd forgotten how much it hurts. Sun's coming up. I've been out for hours."
The sheriff is face-down on the ground. In the previous panel, he was clubbed on the head with a rifle butt. Needless to say, that dialogue is open to... a different interpretation in the modern era.
Especially compared to the other collected reprint books of Moebius' work. While designed with such a sophisticated look, the cover is so... well... phallic !
I periodically look for a physical copy of this one, and can vouch for the fact it isn't easy to find. So here's a way to read it, whether you can get a copy or not.
Batman's penis ! Elecktra nude. And other oddities.
I read the Alan Milgrom one 20 years ago, his celebrational dig about Bob Harras being fired, drawn into some panel background book titles on a shelf. I also own the CRISIS hardcover mentioned with the error panel. And the MATRIX pre-movie anthology advance release.
There's another one not mentioned that I learned about during a brief period I worked for Tekno Comics, an issue of the Leonard Nimoy-created PRIMORTALS series, where a cover artist secretly drew a penis into a freaky looking alien's head, so Tekno withheld and shredded most of the copies, and did a new printing with another cover. But I saw copies in the company's own inventory files that still existed, after the shredding. https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=146601
The penis-cover is on issue 4. Both that one, and the alternate replacement cover for issue 4, are shown at the above link.
Publishers keep copies of their comics issues on file, to give prospective advertisers, to show how ads look in their published titles. And they offered me to take and keep copies of any of their titles I wanted to have. I took several dozen issues on their offer, and I don't think they would have cared if I took a few hundred, they had thousands more to spare.
I also met Mitchell Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers, the two lawyers who started and owned the company. Prior to Tekno, they were copyright lawyers who with their legal experience started the Sci Fi channel and made a fortune. They next decided comics were a growing field and invested in starting Tekno Comics as their new venture for a few years. But they lost a good percentage of what they made on the Sci-Fi channel on their Tekno venture. They closed in 1996 or early 1997, which as you may recall was roughly the same time Marvel also filed for bankruptcy. It was a bad time for the industry as a whole, with distribution problems, and too many titles on the stands, many of them of low quality. Hence, the market collapse.
BATMAN 59, June-July 1950, Lew Schwartz/Charles Paris cover art. Batman and Robin flying through space in a Bat-rocket-ship, who see a beacon from Earth shining a bat-signal on the moon, letting them know they're needed back on Earth ! It's just so whimsical and Silver-Age. https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-1940/Issue-59?id=17648
Man, there was a lot to wade through at that link.
But in a nutshell...
Quote
Ok, let’s step even more firmly outside the realm of plausibility.
The most powerful laser on Earth is the confinement beam at the National Ignition Facility, a fusion research laboratory. It’s an ultraviolet laser with an output of 500 terawatts. However, it only fires in single pulses lasting a few nanoseconds, so the total energy delivered is about equivalent to a quarter-cup of gasoline.
Let’s imagine we somehow found a way to power and fire it continuously, gave one to everyone, and pointed them all at the Moon. Unfortunately, the laser energy flow would turn the atmosphere to plasma, instantly igniting the Earth’s surface and killing us all.
But let’s assume that the lasers somehow pass through the atmosphere without interacting.
Under those circumstances, it turns out Earth still catches fire. The reflected light from the Moon would be four thousand times brighter than the noonday sun. Moonlight would become bright enough to boil away Earth’s oceans in less than a year.
But forget the Earth—what would happen to the Moon?
The laser itself would exert enough radiation pressure to accelerate the Moon at about one ten millionth of a gee. This acceleration wouldn’t be noticeable in the short term, but over the years, it adds up to enough to push it free from Earth orbit.
… If radiation pressure were the only force involved. [ etc., etc. ...]
So basically, a laser powerful enough to even be seen on the moon, let alone be viewed in a rocket ship flown by Batman and Robin in space flying near the moon, a laser light that strong would burn away the Earth's atmosphere and kill everyone on the planet.
And maybe push the moon out of its orbit as well.
Definitely stuff that could not have been even imagined at the time that cover was drawn in 1950. A Bat-signal visible on the moon is still a no-way scenario even in our era, but we at least have lasers now approaching that level of power, and can at least conceive what that level of power could do to the Earth's atmosphere, and to the moon. Which definitely ups the WTF-factor.
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