A
comic review of art, storytelling, and theology.
Cover
Dated: May 1974
COVER
GRADE: B
Art:
Nick Cardy
I
love the simplicity and power of this image. It has great details in the force
of the fists crushing the planet and spraying water and land off into space. I
also appreciate the way the angry expression is drawn on Superman’s face.
But
the tag line is too long and clumsy. You could remove the “Look out, earth!”
part and “Superman” would look better using the same font as the rest of the
text. I appreciate that the image is metaphorical in the sense that Superman
isn’t crushing the earth with his bare hands as if he’s some cosmic
super-giant, but the more I think about it, I’d rather see a realistic image of
Superman destroying the earth.
On
the whole it’s a great image, but in the back of your mind it just feels like
there a little something missing.
STORYTELLER'S
GRADE for "<Superman Title>": B+
Story:
Cary Bates
This
is the conclusion to Action Comics 434. (Check out the link for the details of backstory although it lost points for
too many dead ends. But it’s worth it just to see the cover alone.)
Superman
knows that Dr. Xadu and Zeda have somehow hypnotized him to force him to destroy
the planet. Each time he tries, at the last minute, his super-will power allows
him to undo his damage and save the world. Xadu and Zeda watch on excited that
everything is going according to plan. In his third attempt, Superman releases
an astro-germ to consume the earth. Xadu and Zeda see Superman is not stopping
the astro-germ and must use their cosmic grip power to destroy the astro-germ.
Superman confronts them and reveals that he has removed the device implanted on
him by Xadu. It was a special battery that was storing the energy from Superman
resisting Xadu and Zeda’s control. With their plan thwarted, Xadu and Zeda use
their cosmic grip power to shoot an energy blast at Superman. As Superman is
being overwhelmed by the blast, he charges a rock with static electricity and throws
it at Xadu and Zeda. The positive charge on the rock repels the negative charge
from the cosmic grip. The explosion knocks out Xadu and Zeda. To stop the
cosmic grip, Superman takes Xadu and Zeda to different prisons in different galaxies.
The
twist that Xadu and Zeda don’t actually want to destroy earth in the story is clever.
It’s mentioned early on so you have time to wonder about their ultimate goals. The
concept of Superman trying to destroy the world only to come to his senses to save
it again at the last second is a little silly, but it’s still entertaining. The
story also demonstrates once again that two part stories, while providing
longer story, don’t make a deeper or better story. The extra time spent is
completely unnecessary. We saw the same thing in Action Comics 430 and 431 where the second issue wraps it all up nicely without really needed the first.
This
story falls short of a higher grade because the villains end goal is a little
odd (see the “Excessive Use of Force” section below) and Superman is a
depressing mess when isn’t trying to destroy/save the world. It’s not enjoyable
to ready and it makes the story feel slow.
ARTIST
GRADE for Superman: F
Art:
Curt Swan, Vince Colletta
This
has to be the worst art I’ve seen in this run of Actions Comics. I’ve said
before that I give the art in these comics leeway in consideration for how long
ago they were created, but this issue reminds me of the quality in Action
Comics #1.
Is issue 435 better? Yes, but not by much. I’d
like to think that we’d made more artistic progress in over 35 years.
It
wasn’t all bad though. I enjoyed the action lettering on this page to express
the tuning fork ripping the earth apart.
It's a great example of using letters to express the action.
STORYTELLER
GRADE for "The Unmasking of the Atom": C-
Story:
Elliot Maggin
Ray
Palmer decides it’s time to cash in on his brilliant invention he uses to become
the Atom. He will give up his time as a superhero to marry his girlfriend Jean
Loring. Before he can tell her over lunch, the courtroom Jean is working in is
overrun by gangsters. The Atom arrives to save the day. On the way to lunch,
Jean tells Ray how important it is to have superheroes like the Atom so Ray
decides not to follow through with his plan.
When
the story starts up I was a little upset at the machismo of Ray Palmer’s plan.
It starts okay with his desire to sell
his shrinking device so he can finally marry his girlfriend. But it goes bad
quickly. Here’s the direct quote: “More often than not I’ve used my powers to
help Jean along in her career as a lawyer. A career that’s always come FIRST
when I wanted to talk about settling down!” Then he has a day dream of how his
plan will go: He’ll tell Jean that they are both quitting their jobs to get
married – she as a lawyer, he as a superhero. What’s that you say, Jean? You
didn’t know I was a superhero! Well in fact I’m the Atom. And then Jean will
get all starry-eye and she’ll be happy to spend the rest of her days as the
wife of the genius Ray Palmer who used to be the Atom.
I’m
not making any of that up. It’s all in there. Then I realized, as a man, I often
can’t help but to have the same kind of dumb, manly daydream only to have it
backfire in my face in an obvious but unexpected way. Is it absurd? Yes. But I
never can quite control what testosterone does to my daydreams. So anyways, I
was back onboard, excited for the downfall of Ray Palmer as promised in the opening
headline “his plan is easier thought that done.”
Everything
is going perfect until page 6 of the story. The Atom stops the bad guys by
dropping a bunch of pill bottles on the floor and they all trip on them. Really?
Yes, really. Then as Ray is taking Jean to their special lunch announcement,
she talks about how great the Atom was and that the world needs guys like them.
Then she talks about her next case for a former professor at Ray’s university
that got rich by selling one of his inventions. She asks Ray why, if he’s known
as one of the smartest guys around, why hasn’t he invented something. Ray sadly
replies, “Some of us have it and some of us don’t.” Jean asks about the
important thing he wanted to talk about. He replies “Oh…nothing, Jeanie…nothing
important! Let’s eat!”
What?
Why did he back out? First off Jean is all about the Atom. Then she basically
begs him to sell an amazing invention! She sets him up for exactly what he
wanted to do with perhaps an exception of not being able to quit being the Atom
since Jean thinks it’s so important. But I bet when Jean finds out his secret
identity, she’d be happier to have Ray safe. Instead Ray just gives up on the
whole idea. I don’t get it.
How
I’d fix the story:
Keep
everything exactly the same up to page 5. So far the Atom has tricked the
gangsters into entering the courtroom by taking over their headset communication.
The bad guy in the court room is upset that his men entered the courtroom
because no one was outside keeping the cops away. Now for the change… On page 6,
the Atom enters the courtroom with the police. The cops have everything handled
until the bad guy threatens Jean. The Atom jumps in and knocks out the bad guy
but accidentally knocks down Jean too, twisting her ankle. The police take all
the gangsters into custody. As Ray helps a hobbling Jean to the hospital
instead of their lunch date, she complains about the Atom stepping in
unnecessarily. The bad guy that threatened her didn’t even have a gun and the
police had everything under control. Now her case will be postponed for months.
She explains that the bad guy originally invented a water analyzing machine (mentioned
in the original comic), but got rich by suing to prevent its use in poor neighborhoods.
Only people that could pay big bucks could use it. Jean tells Ray that if he
ever invents something that he should let it be enjoyed by everyone and not be
stingy and keep all the money to himself.
This
sets up the perfect lose-lose situation. Ray can’t reveal he’s the Atom and he
can’t sell his shrinking device for millions because Jean hates both of those
right now. Everything his bull headed ego thought was going to impress her has
now blown up in his face. Boo-YEAH! Now that’s a punchline! You’d need to
soften the blow with some comedy to his downfall, but that’s the big picture
idea.
ARTIST
GRADE for the Atom: B+
Art:
Dick Dillin, Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin
The
art is crisp and clean and overall very good. I can't find any obvious
mistakes. But it falls short of an A grade because there’s nothing that pops
out at you. Perhaps that’s the fault of the author having the climax being that
the Atom beats the bad guys with pill bottles.
THEOLOGY
GRADE: B
The
big thing that stuck out to me from both stories was relationships. In the
Superman story, Dr. Xadu and Zeda are able to “almost” defeat Superman due to their
partnership. Their bond is so powerful that Superman has to separate them in
different galaxies. In the Atom story, Ray and Jean are NOT on the same page,
and it turns out terribly for Ray’s plans.
If religion
is defined as the interaction with a deity, then for religion to work you
better have the right relationship. For many Christians, their relationship is
based only on rules they’ve heard from a pastor or someone other “more-religious”
person. Lots of Christians claim that God is their Heavenly Father, but they
don’t actually hear from Him. To me that sounds like a dead beat dad that only
talks to you through parole officers and lawyers. I believe that God wants to
have a direct relationship with you. You talk to Him and He talks to you. You don’t
just guess what He wants based on a set of pre-defined rules. You hear from Him
directly. “Come close to God and He will come close to you.” James 4:8.
So
here we are with two very different types of relationships with God. One of
them is correct. One of them is not. One is the appropriate way to form a
strong, inseparable bond. One of them will make you look like an idiot when the
time comes. Which one is it? I can only tell you what I believe.
CLARK
KENT’S MONTHLY GOOF:
Apparently
Clark Kent has a sweet tooth. In a weirdly appropriate bookend to the story,
Superman originally got into this mess with Dr. Xadu and Zeda by eating chocolate
that was planted by the baddies to give Superman a toothache. It ends with Kent
buying girl scout cookies that knock loose the device Xadu planted in his
tooth. It’s a bit silly that Superman solves the problem by accident, but I
guess it has some beautiful symmetry.
EXCESSIVE
USE OF FORCE:
I
mentioned before that the villain’s goal was a little odd so here it is…
Moving
earth to where Krypton used to be doesn’t make it Krypton. It just is a moving
nightmare. You have Superman hypnotized to do just about anything. Why not use
that somehow? You’re already super powered like him AND have the cosmic grip.
Just take over earth and be content with that. So yeah it’s stupid, but is it
excessive? Oh yeah. There is no way you could knock earth out of orbit and move
it to where Krypton used to be with some major consequences. Depending on what
you think is canon, the trip could be 27.1 light years or well over 1 million
light years. So needless to say, it’s going to take a while. Plus just google “what
happens if earth…” and Google can autofill in all the bad changes to earth’s
orbing or rotation or axis that will basically kill all life on earth instantly.
True that some of them take a while for us to die…like less than 2 months…but
the positioning and motion of earth is shocking precarious in just about every
way. But, hey, if you’ve got a super battery that is powerful enough to move
earth out of orbit, hopefully you’ve thought about that before you get started.
DEAR
EDITOR (seen in #439):
In an
interesting note, a reader was demanding Murphy Anderson back for the art on
Action Comics, but apparently he was involved in a publication for the U.S.
Military. A quick search shows that he was working on PS, The Preventative
Maintenance Monthly. It’s a comic book style manual for the military. While
Anderson would do a lot more work for DC, he only worked on 4 more issues of Actions
Comics and two of those were milestone issues where they purposely brought back
famous writers and artists. All in all, he worked on 42 issues of Action
Comics.