Tag: DC comics

Fourth World Recap

Back to Supermans Ex-Pal Jimmy Olsen (they’re friends again) with The Saga of the D.N.ALIENS, which picks up right where the last issue left off; with a Hulk-like Jimmy Olsen clone fighting a Captain America-like Manhattan Guardian in the depths of The PROJECT, with the Newsboy Legion, Jimmy and an enervated Superman watching.

The Newsboys are transfixed, and Scrapper Jr. says “Take it from Scrapper, this is a Scrappers Scrap!” and I can’t really tell if I love or hate that line of dialogue.

Guardian and JIMMY HULK THE MURDER MACHINE are too evenly matched (one’s fast, one’s strong), but luckily the fight is resolved when a platoon of ant-sized Scrapper clones parachute in and drop bombs full of sleeping gas on HULK JIMMYs face, and then blasting him with enough liquid nitrogen to freeze him with ice as strong as steel. Regular Jimmy apologizes to Superman for being a jerk after Superman risks his life to protect him from the Kryptonite-powered HULK JIMMY.

Back at the Evil Factory, Simyan and Mokkari are getting chewed out by Darkseid, because every part of the Hulk Jimmy plan totally failed, and we’re also shown a whirlwind tour of the Evil Factory, and learn its purpose is to create specialized monsters and spies for Darkseids conquest of Earth (how “a factory that cranks out monsters every month” isn’t the driving force behind every superhero comic I’ll never know. Power Rangers does it!) and that it’s an Sinister Counterpart to the DNA Project. And I mean “Sinister Counterpart” as literally as possible. They took every inch of the place and mirrored it. Complete with it’s own Mountain of Judgement and Zoomway and Wild Area inhabited by a Biker Cult.

Unfortunately for Mokkari and Simyan, they’re not nearly as good at cloning as PROJECT is; as HULK JIMMY was as intelligent and useful a minion as they’d been able to create, so instead, in the tradition of all good and proper monster factories, they took a basic human template and set all the creation sliders to maximum and hoped that the resultant mutant would be enough to demolish PROJECT.

Meanwhile, at PROJECT (I’mma just call it Cadmus from now on. The all-caps is starting to wear on me), Superman gives Jimmy a tour, explaining that they’ve not only been able to create perfect human clones (in regular and fun-size. The Guardian is a clone of the original Guardian who died only recently), they’re mastery over DNA also allows them to create improved humans, such as the super-genius Hairies (so called because they have hair-trigger brains, not because of their pelts) and even edit it further to create creatures not recognizable as human; such as the head technician Dubbilex;

Despite looking like that, Dubbilex is, in fact, a good guy.

Back at the Evil Factory, the egg that Mokkari was bombarding with strange radioactive mists has hatched giving birth to The Four Armed Terror!

Which may be the least imaginative name Kirby ever came up with. And since this is a series with people named Scrapper Jr., Darkseid and DeSaad, that’s saying something.

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

The Time Trap

Buckle up kids, because things are about to get dumb.

Opening, as always, at Fort Vadershroom, this week it’s Bizarro doing the complaining. “Me sick of losing to Super Friends. Me going to back Bizarro World where everything backwards. There, Losing mean WINNING!”

Bizarro has the best dialogue in this show.

Anyway, it’s Grodds turn for expositing their evil plan this week, and he’s built a TIME MACHINE that looks like a key ring fob.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

The Superfriends receive a call form Black Manta, who announces that he is presently robbing a boat. It’s obviously part of a Legion plan to lure them away, but I like to think that Manta just calls them up to announce his evil plans from time to time just so Aquaman feels more helpful.

Anyway, of course it’s a trap, and Aquaman and Apache Chief (no idea why he came along), along with Black Manta and Giganta are all sent to 70-Million BC by Grodds Car Starter/Time Machine.

Apache Chief figures that they travelled through a time vortex and is immediately proven right when a WATER DINOSAUR (it looks like a pleisiosaur, except with vampire fangs) shows up to eat them! Manta and Giganta (or Gimanta. Ooooh, that’s a shipping name!) leave them to their fate to dig up buried prehistoric treasure!

Anyhow the dinosaur ceases to be a problem the moment Aquaman remembers that controlling sea creatures is, like, the only thing he can do. He also figures that the best way to employ this is to control all the nearby fish, rather then the dinosaurs for reasons that are best left to the imagination of the viewer.

Meanwhile, Manta goes ahead and starts stealing diamonds from the site of future diamond mines while the Super Friends are distracted. I’m not really sure if that counts as a crime? I mean, sure, the whole Butterfly Effect thing comes into play, but certainly no more severely then it would have for the dinosaur fight a minute ago.

Anyway, when a supervillain is doing anything, so a superhero has to stop them. So Apache Chief and Giganta fight. Or at least she knocks down some rocks and then she and Manta travel back to the present, leaving Apache Chief and Aquaman in prehistory.

MEANWHILE, AT MOUNT RUSHMORE

Captain Cold is going to… erm… steal… it.

He is going to steal Mount Rushmore, one head at a time.

Anyway, this time Samurai and Green Lantern are on the case, and again, they wind up falling into a TIME DOOR, winding up in Camelot!

Which is also in North Dakota? I guess?

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

Batman and Robin get word (from the chief of police, because Gordon was on lunch or something, presumeably) that Gorilla Grodd and Solomon Grundy are breaking into the Gotham City Treasury.

Anyway, it is YET AGAIN, a trap to leave several Superfriends in the distant past, this time, Ancient Rome (Which was DEFINITELY not in Gotham City) where Batman and Robin are immediately pursued by Legionary Soldiers. At around this time, the rest of the Superfriends realize that they’re co-workers have all vanished off the face of the earth.

MEANWHILE, IN THE TIME OF KING ARTHUR

Captain Cold and Sinestro sneak into Camelot and rob King Arthur of all his gold coins. Green Lantern tries to stop them but, well, he’s awful at his job, so he does not. Moreover, the Knights of the Round Table arrest him for the theft.
MEANWHILE, IN ANCIENT ROME

Grodd just stole a statue. Which is much less impressive then Cold stealing an entire mountain, five minutes ago, but it’s still a crime so Batman tries to arrest him.

Which of course, fails due to Grodds time machine and Batman too is blamed for the theft.

“Grodd did a masterful job of framing us” Batman says. And, you know, he’s not wrong. Green Lantern, sure, I could see him being mistaken for the thief since the odds of there being two brightly colored magic ring-wielding people running around Feudal England are remote. But it’s very difficult to mistake Batman for a literal giant gorilla who can talk.

Anyway, Julius Ceaser decides to sentence them to being eaten alive by lions.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Grodd is pretty pleased with himself, since his plan has managed to get the legion a mountain full of diamonds, chests full of gold and a statue, AND he managed to get rid of half the Justice League. Not a bad days work by any measure. But Grodd doesn’t like just call it a day when he’s done a pretty good job at crime, so he sends the Legion back in time to the Gold Rush and steals all of Californias gold!

MEANWHILE, IN THE AGE OF DINOSAURS

Aquaman actually manages to save the day when he and Apache Chief find the future site of the Hall of Justice, and Aquaman buries his communicator (with its one-hundred-million-year battery) in the ground with an alarm set to go off in 70,001,978 years and 252 days.

The Internet tells me that he set the alarm to got off on September 9th, 1978

Anyway, it works, and when Superman finds a buried radio he immediately figures that the Superfriends have been kidnapped and left for dead in prehistory. And, knowing that, Superman just zips around the planet so fast he winds up in 70 Million BC and rescues Aquaman and Apache Chief.

Which means that Bizarro can as well, so it’s a bit of a mystery why Grodd needed to build a time machine at all.

Anyhow, now that they know what’s happened Superman uses a Geiger counter to find the batteries in the Superfriends’ radios (which were presumably buried with them, wherever they died in the past?) in order to track them down, go back in time to save them before they died.

And if Superman can travel back through time this easily to right wrongs, then, well… it kind of raises some questions about how he chooses to operate.

Anyway, with the Superfriends reunited, the Justice League computer announces that the Legion is probably going to rob the gold out of California, so the Superfriends use Green Lanterns ring to go back there and thwart them.

Anyway, there’s the usual no-stakes-raised fight scene, and AGAIN, the Legion gets away (the Superfriends just plum forgot that Grodd had a time machine…)

Green Lantern just watches them leave (because he’s awful) and vows to stop them… in the future.

Fourth World Recap

The debut issue of Mister Miracle, The Murder Missile Trap (amazing) is… A weird one. If I weren’t already familiar with MMs whole thing, I’d wonder what it was doing as part of the Fourth World, based on the first story. This one is one of those Golden Age style first-issue, no origin type of debuts that Gone & Forgotten covers.

One day, a passing orphan, Scott Free is walking down the road when he sees the worlds greatest escape artist, Mister Miracle (and his assistant, Oberon) preparing for their next big show. He also misreads the situation and thinks that Mister Miracle has just been murdered by a flamethrower-wielding dwarf. No sooner does he realize his mistake than the pair of them are attacked by thugs sent by Intergang!

After Scott helps fight off the criminals, Mister Miracle (real name, Thadeus) gives his backstory (professional escape artist, dead son, planning a comeback tour, owes money to Intergang) and we also are introduced to the guy who put the hit out on Thadeus (Steelhand, so called because he has a hand that is made of steel. Seems to think this is a better super power than it is), after placing a bet about a deathtrap that even MM wouldn’t be able escape from.

After Scott Free shows off his own skill at escaping from traps (with explanations that nobody quite believes, but admit are only implausible, not impossible), he helps Thadeus set up the deathtrap to practice on. Steelhand, however, decides to hedge his bet and just shoots Thadeus from afar rather than risking losing the bet. Then he retires to his hideout where he wiles away the afternoon arm-wrestling robots.

After Scott eases Thadeus’ passing with the help of a strange machine he has strapped to his shoulder (a Mother Box), he puts on Thadeus’ costume and decides to scare Steelhand into confessing to murder. I guess… This part of the plan seems kind of ill-conceived. Steelhand instead captures Scott and straps him to the warhead of an ICBM that Intergang just happens to have lying around and shoots him straight into space in order to get rid of him once and for all (!!!).

Scott somehow manages to escape (again offering non-explanations for how he can pull off seemingly impossible escapes) and then proceeds to beat up Steelhand, since, again, having one metal hand is not a very good power, ultimately capturing m and throwing him off to the police, vowing to take up the mantle of Mister Miracle, and also the friendship of Oberon, in the fight against injustice.

Except for the presence of Intergang and a Motherbox, there’s little to connect the issue to the Fourth World. On the other hand, nothing else has done so good of a job of establishing why I love Intergang as an antagonist so much; they couldn’t possibly think any smaller. Intergang has an ICBM LAUNCH SITE and uses it to fix a bet.

Banded Together from Distant Galaxies!


The World’s Deadliest Game!

Look, I didn’t put that apostrophe there. If it bugs you, take it up with the Hanna Barbara of 1978.

As per usual, Fort Vadershroom emerges from The Dismal Swamp (with different stock footage!) and a new meeting of the Legion of Doom is called to order; and this time it’s Brainiacs turn to be the plan-guy; a plan that will kill the Super Friends and have everyone pay them to do it!

First, with Black Vulcan, Hawkman and Wonder Woman are building a space station for Nasa, in space, and Brainiac uses an Inviso-ray to make the entire Earth vanish and, while they’re distracted by that, The Toyman will lure them away to an ENTIRE PLANET HE BUILT! INSIDE A BLACK HOLE! FILLED WITH TOY-TRAPS!

I have no flippin’ damn idea how he managed to do any part of that!

And while THAT’S going on, The Riddler will lure all the rest out of the Superfirends on “a wild goose chase that ends OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE!”

So the Legion is definitely thinking big this week.

So anyway, phase one works fine, the Earth completely disappears and the three Superfriends opt to just head off in the direction of Toymans fake distress call rather then double-check to see if the Earths still there. I mean, the moon is still there, nothing changed its orbit or anything. And they’re able to move faster then the speed of light anyway, so its not like it would take long just to look around…

But anyway, the Superfriends travel to the distress call and SURPRISE it’s a black hole, and it’s got a planet in it. And that planet is full of deadly traps. Because the blackhole wasn’t good enough for Toyman.

“If my instincts are right, this must be the work of The Toyman” muses Wonder Woman, wandering through a giant, murderous pinball machine on a remote-control planet built into the middle of a black hole.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE…

The rest of the superfriends are getting worried since Hawkman, Wonder Woman and Black Vulcan haven’t been seen in hours, and also the Earth turned invisible for a short while, when The Riddler hijacks their TV to taunt them with a fiendish puzzle!

Riddler wasn’t trying very hard this time, so Batman pretty much figures out immediately that “A Million years ago it was a trickle, hurry or your friends won’t be worth a nickel!” means that they have to hurry to the Grand Canyon, and the nickel mine buried within it.

And so they rush off not thinking for one second that maybe, JUST MAYBE, Riddler wasn’t just tattling on the Legion for no apparent reason, and that leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mineshaft could possibly be a trap.

So anyway, leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mine was a trap, and Captain Cold and Scarecrow (why Scarecrow?) bury them all alive and also dump a tidal wave on them for good measure.

The Legion also forgot that the Superfriends have at least three super-strong dudes on screen at any given time, and one guy for whom “Swims real good” is his entire deal. And apparently the Superfriends did as well, since Green Lantern is the one who saves the day here.

After they escape, the Riddler offers his next sinister clue; “You better tighten your belt!”.

Which of course, means that the Superfriends are to travel to space and explore Orions Belt.

MEANWHILE, IN THE MYSTERIOUS BLACK SPACE PLANET!

The captive Superfriends are still exploring Planet Murder Toy when they come across a giant dollhouse which is, of course, home to a gigantic mechanical baby. They flee the Giant Mecha Baby by running into the house where Toyman shows up in person (somehow?!?) to taunt them; The black hole is about to close, trapping them on Planet Murder Toy… FOREVER!

MEANWHILE, ON ORIONS BELT, IN A PLANET ORBITTING ITS HOTTEST STAR

The rest of the Superfriends are having difficulty finding their captive pals since, well, they aren’t there. And The Riddler would never lie, so it can’t be that, but then they get help from Empress Zana, ruler of Orions Belt. Deadly help! For Empress Zana sprays them all with pollen that will turn them to stone! Luckily, The Flash and his molecules are too fast to turn to stone, so he spins around everyone until their molecules also speed up and then everyone leaves, like nothing happened.

What is even going on in this episode?

As they leave the not-even-pretending-there’s-drama-with-a-commercial-break-perfil of Orions Belt when the rest of the Superfriends run smack dab into a satellite with the Riddlers face;

“Follow your noses and you’ll hit your mark, somewhere out in the dark!”

So now everyone knows to start searching in black holes because why the hell WOULDN’T Batman just immediately guess the answer to the Riddlers puzzles, regardless of how dumb they are.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Lex Luthor calls up… the entire human race, and announces that he’s taken the Super Friends hostage, and he’ll free them in exchange for All the Money in Every Bank!

“And it won’t be PLAY money” cackles the Toyman, and I’m glad he doesn’t show up more often. His voice is really annoying.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN SPACE!

Superman and the Green Lantern just pop into the middle of the black hole like it isn’t any big deal and, using GLs power ring, they fuse together into Super Greenman (this is a thing Green Lantern can do?) and NOW they have enough power to just mosey on back out of the black hole.

Finally reunited, the Superfriends return to Earth, and visit the International Airport, where the Legion is having all their ill-gotten gains sent. There’s the usual non-violent fight (Superman picks up and throws the entire airport at one point), but Brainiac uses his inviso-ray to turn the Legion invisible so they all get away again.

Justice Has Prevailed! But… for HOW LONG!

Fourth World Recap

Kicking off The Forever People with In Search of a Dream. Forever People is also the one big gap in my Fourth World knowledge. My only exposure to them was in the one episode of Young Justice they showed up in, and all I know about the book is that it’s generally regarded as the lesser of the Fourth World series, though it has extremely good villains (including my favorite New God, Glorious Godfrey).

But none of that now, this is all about bringing in the Forever People themselves; who appear in Metropolis via a Boom Tube (which, for its first appearance, warrants two solid pages worth of onomatopoeia and Kirby Grandeur), and riding a futuristic vehicle; The Super Cycle. And we’re also introduced to the Forever People themselves, though they don;’t get much characterization in their debut issue; Big Bear is loud and excitable, Serephen is a telepathic cowboy, Vykin the Black is… black, and Moonracer is also a member of the team. And after they appear and nearly drive a pair of teenagers off the road in fright (saving them with the power of the living computer called The Mother Box), they announce that they traveled to earth from Supertown in pursuit of the fifth member of their band Beautiful Dreamer, who is being held captive by Darkseid somewhere near Metropolis.

Meanwhile, back at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent is feeling glum after conducting an interview with Rocky Balboa (!?!?) when he realizes (all of a sudden) that as he is a man with super powers, he simply can’t relate to an average man, like Rocky Balboa and is all alone with no one he can really consider a peer. Superman apparently forgot about, like, any of the people he hangs out with at his other job. And also forgot about the reason he has a mild-mannered reporter as an alternate identity.

Just then Jimmy Olsen (this story must take place just before the whole Wild Area thing) and reveals he just got a scoop about these wild space teens from a place called Supertown, and Superman decides, then and there, that there’s nothing in the world more important to him than moving to a town that sounds like it’s full of super powered people, and he flies off in pursuit of the FOrever People, unfortunately grabbing the attention of Intergang, and their (currently nameless) leader Bruno “Ugly” Manheim, who answer to Darkseid directly, and who has gifted them with weapons of otherworldly power.

The Forever People decide to trust Superman immediately once they see that Intergang is trying to kill him and that Superman is strong enough to withstand Apokoliptic weapons, and agree to take him to Supertown once they finish saving Beautiful Dreamer. Luckily, between the technology of the Mother Box, and Supermans abilities, they’re able to find the bunker where Dreamer is being held captive. Unluckily, the bunker is protected by lethal Radion Gas (a poison potent enough to kill a God) and also Graviguards; alien monsters adapted to life in gravity fields thousands of times stronger than Earths.

Things look dire until the Forever People use the power of the Mother Box to combine into one; Infinity Man (or possibly Infinity Man is a another guy who appears in exchange for the Forever People, it’s kind of vague) and Infinity Mans vague, but enormous power is enough to beat all the Graviguards, and also call Darkseid out of hiding, and admonish him for kidnapping Beautiful Dreamer and trying to use her unique brain chemistry to unravel something called The Anti-Life Equation.

Darkseid is happy to relinquish Dreamer as, while her brain is capable of understanding the Anti-Life Equation, it’s also impossible for him to use any of his machinery to extract that information from her, and there’s no point to using her as a captive any more, and departs for Apokolips. Darkseid also boasts a pretty different design than usual in this book. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed it didn’t stick around longer; dude looks good in a cape and long pants.

Anyway, true to their word, the Forever People open a Boomtube to Supertown for Superman to visit, which he almost does. But he reconsiders when he realizes that this Darkseid fellow has designs to attack the Earth and he can’t bring himself to leave it undefended from a menace like that for even an instant.

And, on the whole, I can kind of see how Forever People got its weaker reputation if this is the inaugural effort. It introduced a lot of pretty important bits of the Fourth World mythos, but none of the heroes made any particular impact and Superman acted kind of like a giant dingus the whole time through. Also; Infinity Man looked kind of stupid considering what a Big Deal he’s treated as.

And that one was short, so I’ll read the next issue too and…
Oh… wow

So next is the first issue of The New Gods, Orion Fights For Earth. And at first I was going to make some kind of goof about it sounding like a Little Golden Book title. And then I turned the page and saw this;

That’s Page One

And what followed was 23 pages of Kirby, at his Kirbiest, Kirbying harder than he’s ever Kirbied before.

This is the Superstar Ultra of Kirby, played on a pink DS. That’s how Kirby this thing is.

It’s also the best introduction we’ve had yet to the whole concept of the Fourth World, an introduction to almost all of the most important characters in the saga, and heaps of Orion just wrecking dudes. Also, reading this with Kirbys run on Thor still fresh in my mind, it is blatantly clear how much of it inspired this.

Short version of the BOMBAST illustrated above is that the Old Gods who represented Good and Evil had one final, apocalyptic battle that broke their world in half; the good side eventually reforming as the peaceful planet of New Genesis (very obviously Asgard. Like, straight up, “I think Kirby just reused some sketches of the place he already had), and the dismal perpetually on fire Apokolips (Hell… it’s just Hell)

Anyway, one day in space, Orion (God of War, and wielder of The Astro-Force) received a summons to his home world of New Genesis by his buddy Lightray (God of… just being everybodys pal?), as the leader of the Gods of Genesis, High Father (Odin, if he calmed down a lot) has found a prophecy written by a Giant Flaming Hand connected to The Source; the force that created the universe itself that is kind of implied to be capital G-God.

Remember what I said before about the Fourth World being a Space Opera that is also a Biblical Epic?

Anyway, Orion is pretty curious/enthusiastic about the prophecy (Which simply says “Orion will go to Apokolips. Then to Earth. Then to War”) but is also greeted by the laziest New God Metron (God of Being a Smarty Pants. And also slouching in a space-chair). Metron and Orion plainly don’t get along well, at all, but the reason for their animosity is left unexplained; save that Metron teases Orion about his heritage and his pursuit of knowledge unleashed some great threat.)

So Orion flies off to Apokolips, and then spends the next dozen-ish pages just beating the ever-loving hell out of armies of Parademons, and Darkseids dimwitted, but horrifically powerful son, Kalibak the Cruel. And he also finds that Darkseid and the worst of his generals have already left Apokolips for Earth.

Metron shows up again and explains that Darkseid has the knowledge that vestiges of the Anti-Life Equation, capable of eradicating free-will, can be found in the minds of human beings, and he’d been secretly abducting humans for years trying to find it, before deciding to expedite the process by conquering the Earth first. Orion frees the captive humans and helps them escape back to Earth via a Boomtube, but winds up trapped on the planet along with them, secure in the knowledge that Darkseid is somewhere on the planet and vows to find and kill him.

So…. yeah…

That’s a dang good bit of comic booking right there.

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

Invasion of the Fearians!

Opening as per usual, in the Mushroom-Vader Legion Base, Gorilla Grodd is complaining about Luthors leadership, and is bored with the boring and predictable crimes they’ve committed so far. Bear in mind that this is the second episode, and the first involved hypnotizing the entire Justice League to commit felonies so they’d be arrested, and using their absence to mutate/put a hat on every single human being so they could steal the entire planets commercial wealth.

So… Grodds got some pretty friggin’ high standards. But then again, he’s a super-intelligent ape from the invisible utopia of Gorilla City. So… I guess he has a different standard on what would be considered “imaginative”.

Luckily, Captain Cold has a solution to their problems, as he’s been in contact with the Fearians, the natives from the planet Venus. I… don’t know how or why he would be doing this. There’s a bunch of Legion members who hang out in space all the time, but not him. He just shoots ice at stuff.

Anyhow, the Fearians have some pretty simple requests; make the planet hotter, wetter and more full of vegetation, like Venus, so they can conquer it. more easily, and in exchange, they will help the Legion defeat the Superfriends.

The Legion was really only paying attention to those last four words, so they go right ahead with it.

Captain Cold starts off by building a giant version of his ice beam and uses it to freeze… like… the entire continental United States. Seriously, like, five or six cities encased in glaciers before anyone said “Hey… HEY! Quit it!”

Since Cold is Flashs enemy, he runs over and save the day by… well… running around everything really really fast until he changes theirs molecules. That’s pretty much all Flash knows how to do in this show, and BY GOLLY it works. “COMPLETELY UNAWARE”, says the narrator, whom I love, “THAT HE’S CREATING VAST QUANTITIES OF STEAM!”

And, of course, this was only phase one, phase two involves Black Manta… well… I’m not really sure how to phrase this… so I’m going to just come out and say it…

Black Manta sets… the pacific ocean… on fire

S-somehow?

So anyway, Aquaman leaps at the chance to be useful and, after crashing Mantas ship, he puts out the flaming water by using his AQUATIC TELEPATHY to summon whales to make tidal waves capable to extinguishing flames. Also, coincidentally, flooding the entire West coast.

That’s not me being snarky, this is literally what happens. This is plot-relevant. Aquaman destroyed the entire pacific rim.

The Superfriends are AWFUL at their jobs.

Anyhow, plan 3 involves Sinestro using his Yellow Power Ring to summon dozens of giant asteroids to smash the planet. And so, Hal Jordan, the one Superfriend who is vulnerable to the color yellow and one of at least four who can travel through space, decides to save the day. Because he’s a damn idiot.

Sinestro also locks Hal into a yellow-light prison and starts spinning him super fast because… he’s… a jerk? But this plan backfires because he got spinning so fast he entered blue-shift, so Hal could break free easily.

And I will tip my hat to you on that, Superfriends writers. That was nicely done.

Anyway, Hal still can’t do anything about the meteors so he just opts to use his ring to move the Entire Earth a a bit over so they miss it entirely. And then he forgets to put it back.

Man… Hal… man…

That ain’t like forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, you know?

Anyhow, back at the Hall of Justice, and after congratulating themselves for the worst imaginable job of saving the planet, the Superfriends realize that, no, they’ve actually been doing a terrible job of saving the planet this week, and they’ve successfully transformed the Earth into Venus 2. (The actual term used, and yet another reason I love this stupid show.)

“It’s almost as though we’ve been responsible for all that’s been happening” exclaims a shocked Aquaman.

Also, the Justice League Computer has a thermostat reading the current temperatures of Canada, Russia, Taiwan and New Jersey.

Hell of a thorough computer you built there, Batman.

Anyhow, making good on their end of the bargain, the Fearian leader shows up and encases the Superfriends in an indestructible force-field and just, you know, leaves them there while the Legion takes over Washington DC. Also, Brainiac made robot duplicates of all the world leaders… because… the writers wanted to remind the kids at home that the Legion has an evil robot man on staff?

Anyway, to make up for his gigantic idiocy from earlier, Hal uses his power ring to turn the Superfriends invisible, tricking the Fearian Leader into thinking they escaped, so he’d drop the forcefield. Which works, and he gets sent back to Venus. Also, not really sure if he suddenly became two inches tall, he’d always been two inches tall, or if the scenes perspectives just went screwy.

With the Fearian defeated, the Superfriends go about fixing all the damage they’ve done (and which they’re still blaming the Legion for) and they’ve ALSO rounded up and dismantled all of Brainiacs androids. Off camera. I have no idea why that plot-point was even introduced.

So anyway, there’s the usual G-Rated fight scene that follows, and then Luthor turns the dome of the capital building into a rocket ship and blasts off, leaving Superman to vow that justice will never rest!

But… for how long!

Fourth World Recap

Had a big meal today and that means I had time to read two issues of Supermans (ex) Pal: Jimmy Olsen, starting with The Mountain of Judgement! Which picks up right where the last one left off; with Jimmy leading the Outsiders to the mysterious Zoomway that leads to the Mountain of Judgement (“The Howling White Whale!” declares one of the Outsiders). Superman, again, tries to talk everyone out of traveling to the Mountain because they will 100% certainly die if they attempt to reach it. And the Outsiders respond, once again, by ineffectually trying to kill him, then remembering that Kryptonite exists, and then chucks some of that at him instead. Then Jimmy and the Outsiders leave before Superman convalesces.

Along the way, one of the Outsiders explains that, as a drop-out biker gang made of Mad Max villains, they naturally didn’t have the technical know-how to build all the lasers and missiles, and rocket-cars and Ewok cities that have been showing up, those all came from a group they reverently call The Hairies, who left all these mechanical wonders to the faithful and then disappeared. And before long they reach The Zoomway.

And learn that Superman was right to be cautious because the Zoomway is absurdly deadly. It’s a combination of race track and obstacle course (think; the Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads, if the obstacles were much more varied than mere walls). And while Jimmy and the Newsboys were able to get through the track thanks to the Whiz Wagon, the Outsiders weren’t nearly so lucky and most wrecked and/or died in transit.

Superman recovers, around then, and hastily flies to the Zoomway just in time to save the Whiz Wagon who have gotten past all the obstacles and faced the Mountain of Judgement itself; which it turns out is an absurdly huge mobile science lab, customized to look like a giant snarling demon. Luckily, the people piloting the Mountain (the aforementioned Hairies) knew Superman, and had no particular desire to run him or his friends over.

Furthermore, it turns out that the Whiz Wagon secretly had an Alpha Bomb hidden inside it designed to blow the Mountain of Judgement apart. Superman defuses the bomb (by… err… holding it tightly while it explodes) and together with the leader of the Hairies and Jimmy, they realize that Morgan Edge is an evil mastermind who is attempting some sinister plot!

Except that we then see Morgan in his office, sheepishly calling his superior to apologize for his grave failure, and then being reprimanded… in the first appearance of Darkseid! And even the narration box stops to say “Okay, seriously… Pay attention to this Darkseid guy, he’s going places.”

And that was a fun issue. Light in plot, but heavy in action, lots of Kirbys stylistic touches for handling big impressive setpiece sections (including one of those pop-art dioramas he uses to depict something inconceivable that I love) and the debut of one of, if not the, biggest comic villains ever. Not bad for a second issue.

And The Evil Factory is where things become BUGNUTS!

It begins in the titular Evil Factory (one of the best concepts Kirby came up with, and I am legitimately surprised it never came up again), where two masked scientists are handling fist-fulls of tiny, tiny clones of Superman, Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion, and expositing that their mastery over DNA molecules allow them to create bespoke creatures for any task they need to, then remove their masks to reveal that they are mad scientists from Apokalips, Dr. Simyan and Mokkari (so called as they resemble an ape, and created mockeries of nature, respectively). Furthermore, they are enaring the completion of their ultimate creation, designed to oppose and destroy Superman. They also ring up Darkseid to brag of their success and hope that he rewards them for their tireless efforts in creating monsters.

Darkseid responds by offering up a little speech about how much respect he has for evil (“And what of the power of the opposite? A horrible death eclipses a life. A great lie can destroy the truth. And the response to Superman is what you have created; an organic murder machine”) and then criticizes Mokkari and Simyan because a mindless killer as powerful as the thing they’ve created is impossible to control and thus worthless. Darkseid only cares about control.

Meanwhile, back at the Mountain of Judgement, Superman receives word that something terrible has happened, and wrangles up Jimmy and the Newsboys as it involves them too. Turns out that the Mountain was actually just another line of defense for the mysterious PROJECT (later called Cadmus. If you’ve seen/read anything from the DCU made in the past 15 years, you’ve heard that name), and PROJECT has had a a series of break-ins lately that has resulted in the loss of quite a bit of material.

This is a problem as the PROJECTs main goal is to perfect the study and manipulation of human DNA. And they’ve got a pretty darn good handle on that as, as it turns out, all the security staff in the Project is made up of clones of Jimmy Olsen! And there are also hundreds of microscopics clones of Jimmy Olsen wearing microscopic short pants, who are all dead, and which Superman keeps in a little drawer.

Oh, also the original Newsboy Legion from the 40s is also present in the base, working as the bases administration and support staff, and they’ve also cloned a golden age superhero The Manhattan Guardian back to life to act as head of security. But, frankly, that is way less shocking than the fact that Superman stole Jimmys DNA and cloned hundreds of tiny underpants-clad copies of his friend, whose corpses he keeps in a file cabinet.

THAT IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN FORCING JIMMY TO MARRY A GORILLA, CLARK! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?

Anyway, back at the Evil Factory, Darkseids worries wound up being justified, as the Organic Murder Machine wound up waking up prematurely and broke out of its holding pen, and began wrecking the place, forcing Mokkari and Simyan to use a matter teleporter to send it to the PROJECT base instead, unintentionally revealing themselves as the culprits in the thefts that brought Superman over.

Unfortunately, the Organic Murder Machine is extremely good at the job he was created to do, and he winds up nearly killing Superman immediately as, besides being freakishly strong, every cell in its body exudes Kryptonite radiation. Additionally, it, too, is a clone of Jimmy Olsen in short pants. Only the freshly cloned Manhattan Guardian stands against the monster.

Which is a match-up we’re going to have to wait to see the end of because the next couple issues are for other, non-Jimmy Olsen books.

Hi! I’m Octo! This is a segue!

If you forced me to choose one person to be my favorite supervillain, it would likely be this guy;

The reason being is simple; the point where just about any other supervillain would stop, hit their end game and just wait around for the next hero to come by and thwart them, Cobra Commander keeps going. Any plan, no matter how ridiculous, is just step one in an even grander, even more ridiculous plan. So, imagine my surprise that Cobra, at its best, is just amateur-hour BABY STUFF compared to these guys;

Like most people roughly my age, my first exposure to Superfriends was from Seanbaby making fun of Aquaman and cussing a lot (and also Harvey Birdman, which mainly made fun of the Token Minority Superfriends). But the franchise managed to endure for thirteen years despite its god awful animation and utterly baffling plotlines. And, for my money, the third season was the best of them.

Speaking of, for this season the Superfriends consisted of;
Superman (who has all the powers until Kryptonite shows up for some reason)
Batman (who… well… he tries)
Robin (who never shows up outside of Batmans supervision)
Wonder Woman (who, also does her darndest to be relevant)
The Flash (see above)
Stupid Ol’ Hal Jordan, Intergalactic Dipstick
Hawkman (who couldn’t actually fight anyone in this show, so he was Superman, but Suckier)
Aquaman (who… did not have his best showing here)
Black Vulcan (because Black Lightning wasn’t otherwise available)
Samurai (about whom the less said, the better)
Apache Chief (see above)

And rounding out the LEGION OF DOOM we have;
Lex Luthor (Back in his SCIENCE CRIME days)
Solomon Grundy (who, owing to the total lack of acknowledgement of violence on the shows part, is even more of a letdown then Hawkman)
Sinestro (Green Lantern, but BAD!)
Black Manta (because he was the only Aquaman villain without a goofy name)
Cheetah (Like Catwoman except with a stupider costume and vague magic powers)
Giganta (who is ALSO a Wonder Woman villain of some sort)
The Scarecrow (no complaints here, he works pretty well considering the shows format)
Toyman (who tries to kill superman with toy trains and I have never understood why)
The Riddler (because Lex surprisingly often needed someone to tattle on him)
Bizarro (because there are a LOT of Superman villains in this, cripes)
Brainiac (who, in this incarnation, is a Green Lex Luthor wearing bikini-briefs)
Captain Cold (professional criminal with an ice gun. I’m struggling not to make a “He’s cool” pun)
Gorilla Grodd (because when you have the choice between whether or not to recruit a telepathic gorilla from GORILLA CITY, you soon realize that there’s no choice at all)

So, a pretty big cast. And here’s their first episode:

WANTED: THE SUPERFRIENDS

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m excited

Anyway, we open in the Legion of Dooms Darth Vader-Mask headquarters; where Lex, after a roll-call that is a less-snarky version of what I just said, capitalized by the Legionnaires smashing part of their headquarters to illustrate their powers, and outlines his master plan; he’s built a Dream Machine which will seek out a sleeping Superfriends, wherever they are and bend their subconscious minds to EVIL ENDS.

Okay, good start there Lex.

And it works, too, since he immediately fires it up and convinces a napping Superman, just straight-up sleeping at his desk like Dagwood Bumstead, to change costumes and steal from Fort Knoxx.

Since it worked, he tries it again on Batman and Robin making them steal all the money in the US Mint. Whose guards… umm… scold them. I mean, the army brought tanks out to try to stop Superman, Batman just warrants a guard saying he’s not angry, just disappointed.

And so on it goes, with the sleeping Superfriends stealing, like, all the material wealth on the planet for the Legion.

So, like, not even five minutes into the first episode and Lex has All The Money and a machine that can control Superheroes. And we’re just getting started!

The next morning, at the Hall of Justice, everyone thinks its odd that they all had Criminal Dreams (also the name of my debut album) and slightly more odd that they’re also all in position of the worlds most valuable treasures. The Chief of Police (of… the world?) calls up the Superfriends to ask them to turn themselves in, and Superman agrees because, well, looks like the entire planet has a pretty air-tight case against them. And the Chief of Police locks them all in the same cell.

“I realize you can break out of this cell quite easily, Superfriends, but I’m relying on your integrity not to” says the warden.

“But with all the Superfriends in jail, there will be no one left to solve all the worlds crimes!” Batman responds.

At this point, the warden and his deputy take off their faces; revealing themselves to be Cheetah and Bizarro, and it’s not a jail-cell they’re locked into. It’s a Rocket ship! Headed straight for the sun!

“You’re on a one way doomsday trip to NOWHERE!” says Bizarro in what is likely the best line of dialogue ever written.

AND WE HAVEN’T EVEN HIT THE FIRST COMMERCIAL BREAK!

Back on Earth, the Legion breaks into the now-defenseless Hall of Justice and hooks Lexs Evil Mutation Ray into the Justice League Satellites, bathing the Earth in rays that will turn everyone into either a copy of either Bizarro or Cheetah! Which also causes everyone on Earth to immediately commit only the most profitable robberies!

WHAT?!?

Fortunately for the Superfriends, Lex (and, me) had forgotten that Wonder Womans lasso is telepathic, so she was able to use it to move the rockets on the cage-rocket and knocked the Ray Device that was stopping everyone from moving, letting Superman break free and bring everyone back to Earth. No idea how everyone was able to breath in spac all this time, either, but I can accept that all the Superfriends have some really impressive lungs.

Back on Earth, all the Superfriends try to round up… um… every single person on the planet and arrest them all for their various crimes(…?) while Batman and Robin try to find a cure for being Bizarro and/or wearing a kitty-hood, which they do despite Bizarro-Alfred trying to kill them with ropes.

Superman reverses the Mutation Rays and the Superfriends return to the Hall of Justice to defeat the Legion in one of the most G-Rated fight scenes ever witnessed, ending with Superman using The Dream Machine to hypnotize the entire Legion into going directly to jail where, presumably, the Warden will again, rely on their integrity not to escape.

Which wasn’t even necessary since the Dream machine doesn’t work on the Legion, they just, you know, walked away.

Justice has triumphed, but for how long

Jack Kirbys Fourth World Wrap-Up

 

First issue to kick off this whole brouhaha is, as noted, an issue of Supermans (ex)Pal Jimmy Olsen, with [B]The Newsboy Legion[/B]. Which opens with Jimmy receiving a special assignment from the Daily Planets new Editor in Chief (and obvious secret villain) Morgan Edge, who wants him to investigate the mysterious Wild Area, a counter-culture sanctuary whose residents kill anyone over the age of 25 on sight.

Clark Kent is obviously concerned for the wellbeing of his friend on such a dangerous assignment and expresses that concern to Morgan. Morgan assures him that there’s nothing to worry about, but he also calls up Intergang and has a hit put out on Clark so he doesn’t interfere with Jimmys investigation. Just in case it wasn’t incredibly obvious that he’s actually evil.

As for the investigation, Jimmy gets help from The Newsboy Legion, made up of the sons of the original Newsboy Legion, which I infer to be a long-forgotten comic book property from the 40s; made up of Gabby Jr. (Talks a lot), Big-Words (smart guy), Scrapper Jr. (Ben Grimm, if he was a newsie), Flipper-Dipper (scuba diver) and Tommy (He’s Tommy!), who have built a specialized, flying super car called The Whiz Wagon (looks, for all the world, like a cross between The Fantasticar and the Vic Viper) at Morgan Edges expense to investigate the Wild Area.

As soon as the Legion (plus Jimmy) arrive in the Wild Area, they’re attacked by Mad Max-esque bikers, whom Jimmy dispatches with a punch, which makes him the new leader of the biker gang called The Outsiders, as they respect him for knocking out their leader with one punch.

Back in Metropolis, Clark Kent survives the assassination attempt (secretly, he is Superman) and is growing suspicious that Morgan Edge isn’t on the up and up, so he suits up and follows Jimmys trail to the Wild Area. If anything, Supermans welcome is even worse than Jimmys, and every one of the Outsiders immediately tries to kill him with machine guns and poison gas. All of these attempts work exactly as well as you might expect, expat for a Kryptonite Laser, which manages to knock him out cold.

When Superman wakes up, Jimmy offers a sorry-not-sorry apology about shooting his best friend with a radioactive death ray, and then explains what his actual assignment is; Morgan Edge didn’t give a dang about the Outsiders living in the Wild Area, he was sent to investigate what’s inside the Mountain of Judgement deep within the Zoomway at the heart of the Wild Area. Nobody really understands what that sentence means, except for one of the Outsiders who immediately freaks out screaming that the Mountain of Judgement isn’t a place. And then the Wild Area undergoes an earthquake because the Mountain of Judgement, whatever it is, has just woken up.

That’s a hell of an intro to the series. Even ignoring the cliffhanger there’s a lot of pieces introduced in just the first issue to start keeping track of and plenty of mysteries yet to be answered. Still getting things geared up before the Fouth World really gets cooking, but it’s off to a really strong start, especially given how Jimmy Olsen comics usually go.

Only sticking point is that it’s really distracting lay obvious that Jack isn’t the guy drawing Superman. He looks so wildly off model compared to everyone and everything around him.