Notes about this comic review: As an amateur script
writer, cartoonist, and Sunday School teacher, I grade against the
curve I know. You may ask what the Sunday School teacher grades
against. I’m not trying to be the CCA. As a Sunday School teacher I
use metaphors to bridge the gap in our understand of God. My Sunday School
grade is based on how good of a Sunday School lesson I could pull out
of the story.
COVER GRADE: B
Penciler:
Nick Cardy
I much prefer the story telling element to this cover than
to last month’s issue. While the event on this cover is inaccurate to the plot in a similar manner to the previous issue, this one is not as far off. Perhaps because this cover captures more of a simple moment than a major plot point, I feel less of a divergent from the story. Looking back on my last few grades, I can quickly tell that simplicity to the cover is a key draw for me. The cover art also portrays a fun element to this
Popeye parody which is missing in the story.
Here I think the art embraces the ridiculousness of a real-life Popeye whereas the
story almost takes itself too seriously. Before now I didn't think it was possible for a book based on a humanoid alien with every superpower to be taken too serious.
STORYTELLER'S
GRADE for "The Fantastic Feats of Captain Strong": C
Writer:
Cary Bates
This issue begins with Billy Anders telling Clark Kent
a story…
For those of you up on your Superman comics trivia, this
issue marks the fourth appearance of Billy Anders…
…and the first appearance of Captain Horatio Strong (although
you won’t hear his first name until a later appearance). Cary Bates created the
character to fulfill his curiosity of what would happen if Superman met Popeye.
Make no mistake about it, Captain Strong is a Popeye knock-off from the mostly
bald head, to the anchor tattoo, even down to getting his strength from eating
his greens!
So as the story goes, Captain Strong has found this
special spinach…err…I mean sauncha that gives him super strength. He talks to
the head of Glute Foods about mass marketing sauncha, but it doesn’t go so
well.
Mr. Glute overhears that Captain Strong is waiting for
an autograph of Superman. So Mr. Glute sends a fake Superman to exchange the
autograph for a sample of sauncha. But Captain Strong gets wise to the trickery.
There's are cover moment, but as you see it's not the real Superman in that phone booth. Props to Cary Bates for the plot point to match the cover but not cause major issues for Superman's secret identity.
Captain Strong goes into a powerful rage to attack Mr.
Glute and Billy gets the help of Superman just in time.
Impressively Captain Strong and Superman go at it head
to head. At one point Captain Strong even hits Superman so hard he speaks in the third
person.
Mid-fight, Captain Strong runs out of his
super-spinach.
Following Captain Strong to the source, we find out that sauncha is actually a special seaweed
that he has been pulling from the sea 12 miles outside Metropolis
Harbor.
As Superman has deduced, saucha has drug like side effects
that had created a mind altering addiction in Captain Strong. After releving Captain Strong of his last fix, Superman rushes him off to the hospital to detox.
What a happy ending where there are no consequences
for a drug induced rage where your destroy a multi-million dollar office and nearly
kill the CEO! And thus ends another forgetful tale of Superman.
STORYTELLER
GRADE for "The Headline Maker!": D
Writer:
Elliot Maggin
Let me begin by saying that I know very little about the Green Arrow so my first impression of this story may be more based off of what I think of the character than the actual merits of this story.
After a very interesting theater rescue, Oliver Queen arrives late to help his lady friend, Dinah Lance, prepare for the grand opening of her new flower shop.
Oliver Queen runs off to make the news.
Through a short subway chase, Oliver Queen forces mob hit man Lucas Branson to get off at the subway stop just in front of Dinah Lance's Free Bird Flower Shoppe.
My preconceived notions were that Oliver Queen (a.k.a. Green Arrow) was based off the Robin Hood character with a mix of modern social activism. This story made the Green Arrow look more of a wealthy playboy perhaps only surpassed by Tony Stark at his most extreme. I know I'm in the minority for my dislike of antiheroes so I'm sure that gives this story a grade reduction. I'd prefer more Green Arrow and a lot less Oliver Queen the next time he appears in Actions Comics.
ARTIST
GRADE for Superman: C
Penciler:
Curt Swan, Inker: Murphy Anderson
In
an almost surprising change of pace, this issue doesn’t start with a title
splash page. The introduction is an eye catching layout utilizing the entire height of the
sheet in order to add some depth and distance to the peril of Billy’s
situation.
I
especially love that Billy, famous for his encounters with Superman, is instead
playing pretend as Batman. Billy’s costume is fun and wonderfully drawn as a
bit too big for the boy.
The problem is that this is the last time this story does anything interesting with the layout. Every other panel is blocked out like a newspaper strip and most often it’s simple squares.
On the whole, the art is okay, but the feel seems to straddle between cartoons and realism. This has been a problem with previous issues, but perhaps it is more apparent here than most issues since they’re attempting to create a realistic interpretation of the Popeye cartoon character. There’s something about Captain Strong’s head that I can never take seriously.
There is one other thing hidden in the art that interested me. There's a cab that Clark Kent is riding in with suspicious information.
ALM-72 is not a legitimate license plate number so that has to be some kind of artist call out as initials and a date maybe? I'm also surprised that the phone number doesn't start with 555, but it's tough to track down without an area code.
ARTIST
GRADE for Green Arrow: A
Penciler:
Sal Amendola, Inker: Dick Giordano
Where Oliver Queen's story lacked substance, I think the art brought beautiful depth. There was a lot of fun with the panel layout as you see in the initial splash page shown in the Story Grade.
One of the things Sal Amendola did the best was taking clean shortcuts. With the frequency that comics are produced, obviously you can't take hours and hours on every single panel so some of your panels won't be as detailed or refined as they might be in a perfect world. Let's take the following page for example to see what the art does right.
Only in that last panel do you get the finer details of Oliver Queen, but everywhere else just the right lines are drawn to imply the details so that your brain fills them in. In panel one, Green Arrow has a decent amount of detail, but the other man is well place to not need to show much detail work. Panel 2 is the right distance away to express a cool action sequence while needing almost no detail to the Green Arrow and minimal detail to the background. Did you notice in panel 3 that all of the onlookers are incredibly poorly drawn? Probably not because the lines that are drawn are just enough to imply what you need while pushing all of the focus to be on Green Arrow and the man talking to him. Panel 4 was basically nothing before the colors got to it, but in the same simple way as the last panel it provide a neat out of focus perspective to the background while the action in the front is rapid and choppy like a superhero escaping from a crazy solicitor trying to capitalize off his fame. Excellent work done simple!
SUNDAY SCHOOL
TEACHER GRADE: C
I wasn’t blown away by any spiritual truths this issue. After mulling it over for a week, I was pretty much stuck with this being an anti-drug story. Sauncha was a quick ends to great strength with big negative consequences. Don’t take steroids, kids! But as I pondered this simple message, I recalled that at first I didn’t know that sauncha was causing Captain Strong’s aggressive behavior. It wasn't until after he had almost finished consuming all of it that we knew it was bad. So that brought up an interesting question for me as a Christian. If you are supposed to be relying on God for blessings, how do you know the difference between an ill-chosen shortcut that you need to avoid and a God-given blessing that you need to grab on to?
I think the first couple self-checks are obvious: Is what I’m doing illegal? Will my success in this area negatively impact other people? Will this have long-term negative consequences for me? Now it’s possible that you could say yes to any of these questions and it still be God’s plan for you, but that’d be the exception not the norm.
So let’s assume you’ve said no to all those questions above. Now what? Well you should be praying about it. That's where you'll get your ultimate answer. As you pray I believe there is one more question you can ask yourself that supersedes all others. I found this question by looking at two statements Jesus makes about what we should do with our success.
John 15:7-8 “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (ESV)
Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (NIV)
A true blessing from God will always result in God getting the glory.
To me this whole idea is summed up in a quote from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Long story short, our hero, Indy, is searching for the Holy Grail. Along the way a religious sect sworn to protect the Grail shows up to chase Indy away. Needless to say, our hero prevails, but he lets his attacker go free. As the man leaves he has a question for our hero: “Ask yourself, why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?”
I think the first couple self-checks are obvious: Is what I’m doing illegal? Will my success in this area negatively impact other people? Will this have long-term negative consequences for me? Now it’s possible that you could say yes to any of these questions and it still be God’s plan for you, but that’d be the exception not the norm.
So let’s assume you’ve said no to all those questions above. Now what? Well you should be praying about it. That's where you'll get your ultimate answer. As you pray I believe there is one more question you can ask yourself that supersedes all others. I found this question by looking at two statements Jesus makes about what we should do with our success.
John 15:7-8 “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (ESV)
Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (NIV)
A true blessing from God will always result in God getting the glory.
To me this whole idea is summed up in a quote from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Long story short, our hero, Indy, is searching for the Holy Grail. Along the way a religious sect sworn to protect the Grail shows up to chase Indy away. Needless to say, our hero prevails, but he lets his attacker go free. As the man leaves he has a question for our hero: “Ask yourself, why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?”
CLARK
KENT’S MONTHLY GOOF:
In
a wonderful turn of events, Clark Kent didn’t goof this month!
EXCESSIVE
USE OF FORCE:
In yet another surprise for this issue, it's not Superman that displays an excessive use of force but Captain Strong. You may have been wondering earlier how Captain Strong was able to chase after Superman midair. Well guess what! Captain Strong is so strong he can fly!
I considered diving into how ridiculous this whole idea is from a physics angle, but I don't think that's necessary. I guess maybe it's less ridiculous that Captain Strong uses a swimming motion than if he would have been flapping his arms to fly. Actually I've changed my mind. Let's see Captain Strong flap his wings.
Dear Editor (seen in #425)
Dear Editor (seen in #425)