A
comic review of art, storytelling, and theology.
October
1973
COVER
GRADE: F
Art:
Nick Cardy
Nothing
about this cover would make we want to buy it. The art is good, but well below
average for a cover. Most of the right side is literally white space. There's
no action, just a kid asking an odd question. The cover is so forgettable that
I even had to keep looking back at six or seven times just to write these few
sentences.
STORYTELLER'S
GRADE for "What Ever Happened to Superman?": A
Story:
Cary Bates
For
the best stories, I provide an extensive summary:
Superman
saves the day multiple times, but somehow Metropolis has been mass hypnotized
so that they cannot see him. Everyone can still see Clark Kent, but not when he
changes into Superman. As Superman prevents disasters all over the world, he is
invisible to all of the bystanders. The whole world has been hypnotized to
believe Superman has been gone for 10 years. Superman believes that only one
man is diabolical and genius enough to pull it off – Lex Luthor. But Superman
is surprised to find not only is Luthor still locked behind bars, but even his
worst foe does not see Superman. Superman is starting to become concerned that
either the whole world is crazy or he is. So Superman decides to take extreme
measures. As Clark Kent is anchoring the evening news, he rips open his shirt
to reveal his Superman costume hidden underneath, however the rest of the world
only sees a white undershirt. Clark is dragged off the set by his angry boss
for acting so crazy.
Elsewhere
Lex Luthor is chuckling in his cell. He almost laughed out loud when he had to
pretend he didn’t see Superman standing at this cell. Luthor is immune to the
mass hypnosis effect because he invented it. Luthor’s former cell-mate was the
recently released Zeke Corey who had also been apprehended by Superman (but
this must not have been shown in a previous comic book because this is the only
appearance of Zeke Corey in the DCU). Luthor trained Corey, a brilliant
engineer in his own right, to create the Super-Hypo Beamer (that’s Luthor’s
name, not mine) and attach it to a recently launched satellite in order to
hypnotize the whole world. His plan was to reduce Superman to nothing, first by
hypnotizing him out of the memory and vision of the masses, and then by
psychologically reducing Superman to nothing so that he can no longer receive
the praise and admiration of others. No matter how many good deed he performs,
no one will ever know.
Just
then, a new cell mate arrives for Lex Luthor. As the prison guard drops off new
inmate Phelps, he mentions that the cell has been empty for weeks. Phelps
enters without any recognition of Luthor yelling at him. In anger Luthor kicks
Phelps in the backside, but even that doesn’t budge his new, unaware cellmate.
And then it dawns on Luthor. He has been double crossed by Corey so that the Super-Hypo
Beamer also removes everyone’s memories of Lex Luthor. Luthor cries out in
anguish, “Just this once I wish Superman would have outwitted me so I could go
after Corey!” Just then Phelps says, “Sometimes wishes do come true, Luthor.”
Phelps pulls off a mask to reveal that he is Superman in disguise. Superman
just knew that Luthor had to be behind the plot using an accomplice on the
outside. All he had to do was get Luthor to think he was double crossed and his
temper and loud mouth would take over to reveal everything.
Superman
fixes the satellite, apprehends Corey, and even Clark Kent is let off from his
crazy on-air antics, because enough viewers called in to the station explaining
how much they enjoyed Clark’s April Fool’s Day prank just as Superman had
planned for an alibi to explain it all. Superman flies off as the crowd yells,
“It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Superman!” and Superman thinks “Ah that’s
music to my ears.”
GRADE:
The difference between a good story and a great one, is your response at the
end. A good story makes you happy while you’re reading it. You close the book
with a smile on your face. A great story adds one additional piece. As you
close the book, without the need for direct prompting, questions pop up in your
mind about the characters and the events. The questions extend beyond the pages
and pictures and make you think about your own life. We’ll dive into this in
detail in the Theology Grade, but it’s worth noting here to explain why I like
the story so much.
Last
month, a letter to the editor discussed two of the best Superman stories I’ve
read so far “The TV Show That Menaced Metropolis” (Action Comics 422)
and “The Man Who Never Lived” (Action Comics 427).
Where these two stories failed was the fact that for each, Superman was a
secondary character. You could fill in almost any other superhero without
changing the story. In this regard "What Ever Happened to Superman?"
far succeeds the previous ‘best’ stories because you can’t write this
high-quality story without Superman and Lex Luthor. The base dynamic of
Superman’s unparalleled fame and instant recognition combined with the
counterpoint in his most famous foe, Lex Luthor, are the unwritten plot pieces
that are required to move the story forward. With any other characters, too
much time would be spent on providing motive and background, whereas it’s
already built in with Superman and Luthor. And even if you tried to replace them,
I can’t think of any other characters that can drive the point home as
profoundly.
ARTIST
GRADE for Superman: B
Art:
Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson
Our
Superman story starts with an unintentionally eerie image of the Twin Towers on
fire.
Mind
you this story was written 28 years before 9/11. And even though it’s been a
long time since that day, it’s still a little shocking to see the twin towers
pop up in an unexpected place like this comic book.
This
story had a big feel to it and it took me a while to figure out why that was.
The story feels big because each panel is big. Most pages have six panels but
there are a several pages with only 5 panels and two pages use only 4.
That page above highlights the awkward use of fewer panels. The backwards “L”
shaped panel tries to seamlessly tie together 3 feats of Superman across the
world, but it’s not intuitive and it gets confusing.
I
enjoyed the use of some interesting “camera” angles.
But
there were also some big missteps. The coloring was misplaced in multiple
places like on these panels that also feature Zeke Corey’s oddly large forehead
and bride of Frankenstein hairdo.
On
the whole, although the story feels big, the art doesn’t ooze action. I like it,
but there’s something dynamic that seems to be missing.
STORYTELLER
GRADE for "The Plot to Kill Black Canary": F
Story:
Elliot Maggin
Oliver
Queen (Green Arrow) convinces the Black Canary (Dinah Lance) to public endorse a
new motorcycle for his Public Relations Agency. Green Arrow learns that two
local thugs (specifically Pete Larkin and Albert the Artist, although this is
their only appearance I can find in the DCU) decide to take revenge on Black
Canary for breaking up their counterfeit ring (an event that was never show in
the DCU). Green Arrow arrives at the stock car show just as the Black Canary
begins to perform some stunts on the motorcycle. Green Arrow apprehends one of the
thugs discovering he has planted a bomb on the motorcycle and it is already set
to explode. Green Arrow knocks Black Canary off the motorcycle just before she
can drive off a ramp and purposefully causes the motorcycle to explode while
jumping off at the last minute. The Black Canary confronts Oliver Queen in his
Public Relations Office later that day, furious that he didn’t simply tell her
about the bomb which she could have easily taken care of herself. A physical
fight ensues, ending with Queen immobilizing Black Canary with her arm behind
her back. Queen demands to know what is really bothering her. Black Canary responds
that she just figured out that she loves him. The story ends as Queen asks her
to talk about it.
This
is an unoriginal story that promises to feature both Green Arrow and Black
Canary which is technically true. However the Black Canary is basically treated
as a disgruntled damsel in distress. The big shame this story is a
disappointing and abrupt lead up to a pivotal moment in the Green Arrow + Black
Canary relationship. It’s like the creators knew that they wanted to end with
this big reveal that Dinah has realized she loves Oliver, but it’s such a knee
jerk reaction that it seems so out of place. Maybe that’s true to real life
relationships, but it doesn’t make sense in a crafted story. How does Green
Arrow knocking Black Canary off a motorcycle make her realize she loves him?
What normally would be a below average story gets an F grade because of a huge
missed opportunity tell one of the few stories in Action Comics that could have
been immortalized forever in the hearts and minds of Green Arrow and Black
Canary fans.
ARTIST
GRADE for Green Arrow with Black Canary: C-
Art:
Dick Giordano
There
is one moment of great action as Green Arrow clears a seedy pool hall…
…but
this story should have much more action with an exploding motorcycle stunt, but
it doesn’t deliver. Maybe that’s a fault of the script, but the artist can put
together more than a long lead up to a generic explosion.
The
final page is a good representation of the issue as a whole.
We
begin with an ok Green Arrow, but Black Canary is badly put together.
The
hair is very bad and the right eye is horrible.
The second panel has a horrible
coloring error on Green Arrow’s face which is seen through the entire issue.
The
second row of panels starts with some action, but then skips ahead to a moment
in time where the action has been resolved leaving you rather disappointed.
The final row of panels get their act together because something important is happening, although Black Canary looks different in every panel.
While
there is definitely good art throughout this story, it is far overshadowed by
the bad or weird stuff.
THEOLOGY
GRADE: A+
Why should
you do the right thing? For the good of others? Or for the praise of others?
It’s
a simple morality questions that seems to have an obvious answer, but maybe
Superman came out on the wrong side in this story. So let’s quickly recap: Lex
Luthor and Zeke Corey rig a satellite to wipe the memories of all of Metropolis
of the existence of Superman. It makes sense that Superman would stop them
because they are messing with people’s minds. Plus you need to stop them before
they do something worse with the mass hypnosis. But who was hurt by this
scheme? No one! In fact, they may have actually helped Superman! Think about
it. Everyone still sees him while he’s dressed as Clark Kent, and he can still
save the day as Superman only better. None of his friends would be endangered
on his behalf. None of his enemies would know he exists even when he’s punching
them in the face. He’s unstoppable! Now I can’t fault Superman for stopping
Luthor and Corey or the fact that at the end he’s relieved to be seen as
Superman again. Yet I wish Superman stopped to ask if maybe the world would be
better off without him in the public eye. Perhaps even Superman can’t help but
enjoy the praise. This is a tough question: Can we really do anything without
selfish motives?
This
relates to a conversation I heard from a famous author. I can’t find a
reputable source so I won’t mention any names. Having said that, the question
is still intriguing whether or not this famous person said it. There are two
adults in a non-monogamous relationship and one lover asks the other “In loving
one of those [other lovers], did you ever love anyone of them for themselves?” The
lover responds “No,” and the asker responds “Neither did I.” You could argue
that perhaps the lovers were expressing how their love for each other was
different that the others, but that wasn’t explicitly stated so it is more
likely that they had never loved anyone without selfish motives. Maybe we can
do some things selflessly in the moment, but when you think about it, you
probably still used them to your advantage later. Let’s say you gave money to a
homeless man. Even if you were completely selfless in that moment, it’s quite
likely you couldn’t help from telling someone about it later. Maybe you didn’t
talk about it, but did you think about it later to remind yourself that you’re
a good person? It’s almost impossible to do something good without twisting it
for your own gains at any point.
A
Christian’s answer to this problem is found in 1 John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let
us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a
child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for
God is love.” God is love. By loving God we learn what real love is and how to
love others. That’s not to say that Christians are good at selflessness. In
many ways, they are the worst at it. But I have experienced a relationship with
God who loves us and sometimes that’s as close as we can get to love in this
life.
CLARK
KENT’S MONTHLY GOOF:
This
month Clark fell down an elevator shaft. Granted this was on purpose in order to
change into Superman to speed off to save a runaway mounted police horse. But
the fact that none of Clark’s coworkers is surprised at an elevator fall is
telling of how much of a goof they’ve made Clark out to be.
EXCESSIVE
USE OF FORCE:
Superman
puts out the skyscraper fire by melting an iceberg over top of it. He explains
that he can’t just use his super breath because it the skyscraper will sway too
far (thanks for the teaching moment!) so instead he finds a nice sized iceberg
north of Newfoundland (remember, kids, eight-ninths of an iceberg’s bulk is
underwater! 2 for 2 on teaching moments just on this page! Although I’ve always
heard that over 90% of and iceberg is below the surface and 8/9=88.9% so maybe
they didn’t have the ability to measure icebergs in 1973 like we do today. What
do they use? Really big rulers?) Anyways, I’m curious what melting hundreds of
gallons of water over a building would do. This isn’t anywhere as extreme as
we’ve seen in the past, but maybe still a little excessive.
DEAR
EDITOR (seen in 432):
I was not
surprised that the readers enjoyed the Superman story (although one letter
complained about it, he’s rationale didn’t make sense to me). I guess I was not
surprised that people loved the Green Arrow story too, although the big moment
killed it for me, it gave the people what they wanted.
I
appreciated that the first reader asked about Clark’s April Fool’s Superman
shirt reveal. ENB’s response: (knowing it was April Fool’s Day) Corey might
have said, “How much better the gag would have been if people could see that Superman shirt Kent is wearing! But even
he can’t remember that he has it on! What a laugh!” A nice attempt, but I don’t
buy it.
Behind the Scenes at the DC Comic
World
In this
edition, DC reveals their plans to create a Superman theme park in Metropolis,
Illinois. It’s an interesting look into the advertising for the theme park that
never happened. For more information on what was planned and why it didn’t work
out, check out this article at Gizmodo.
Also there’s
a quick mention that Walt Simonson being selected to work on Manhunter which
many credit as his breakout role prior to his epic run in Thor. And I don’t
mean Martian Manhunter, just the regular Manhunter who was a guy killed on
safari in the 1940s, cryogenically frozen but then resurrected by a secret
society creating him as an assassin. As bad as that premise sounds, I’ve heard
very good things about the stories so I may have to check it out sometime.