Number 960
Needlenoodle strikes back
This is part 2 of the final issue of Black Hood Comics, #19 from 1946. For part 1 scroll down to yesterday's posting.
Number 960
Needlenoodle strikes back
This is part 2 of the final issue of Black Hood Comics, #19 from 1946. For part 1 scroll down to yesterday's posting.
Number 959
Needlenoodle needles Black Hood
Today and tomorrow I'm showing the two parts of the last issue of the 1940's Black Hood. They're from issue #19, 1946. The Black Hood gets his secret identity exposed, so he drops his costume and goes into business as a private detective. And that villain, Needlenoodle! To form his skull into such a monstrosity his parents must've used a vacuum cleaner hose on his head every day from birth.
A lot of comic book costumed heroes weren't selling after World War II, and the comic book industry was changing. The company known as MLJ Comics became Archie Comics, and replaced its original MLJ logo with the Archie Comics colophon on issue #17.* It could be that MLJ/Archie was trying to save the Black Hood comic by dropping the costume, and perhaps introducing villains that wouldn't be out of place in the Dick Tracy comic strip. If that was the plan, then despite the try it didn't work. Black Hood dropped out of sight for about 20 years.
This is part 1 of the story. I'll give this tale credit for energy in its storytelling, and also for the artwork by Irv Novick, who went on years later to draw war comics and Batman for DC. That's also another story.
Come back tomorrow for part 2.
*Black Hood became Laugh Comics with the next issue, #20.
I showed the Black Hood's origin in Pappy's #382, and his second story in Pappy's #467.
Again, I'm not sure what to think yet. I'm not sure anyone can be.
My worst-case scenario is that DC is going to reboot all of their titles back to the beginning. Superman fights an all-new Parasite for the first time; Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad save R. J. Brande's life and become the Legion of Super-Heroes; Green Lantern re-discovers the threat of Parallax. This becomes an opportunity for writers to basically tell the same stories over again with just slightly different trappings.
Other worst-case scenarios, solicited on Twitter: kanenwriter, that Superman might end up in a relationship with Wonder Woman; ElfGrove, that what emerges might be a less diverse DC Universe; SpeedsterSite, TheFlashReborn, Bullseye1984, and TomatoSurprise are concerned for the fate of the Flash family, Oracle, Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes, Question Renee Montoya, Batwoman Kate Kane, Batgirls Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, and others. All perfectly valid fears.
My "ah-ha moment" about my own worst-case scenario was that my worst-case scenario was personal to me. Of course I'm concerned about a line-wide DC Comics reboot; I'm a big continuity fan. And so I took what little information DC has released about their post-Flashpoint plans and concocted a surety in my own head that the very worst thing I could think of (comics-wise) was absolutely going to happen -- and I even considered, momentarily, whether my own comics reading time was at an end.
But the bottom line is, I realized, that I just don't know whether DC is restarting their continuity or not. We don't really know a lot of anything. It sure seems that Firestorm and Hawkman and Green Arrow are all starting from scratch. Then again, Booster Gold and Guy Gardner in Justice League International look pretty much the same, and I'd be pretty surprised if Batman Inc. goes under, or Gates of Gotham doesn't lead to anything, or the Batwoman series never emerges. Let alone the sheer inexplicability of the forthcoming Chase collection if there's no more Cameron Chase, or a new edition of Batman: No Man's Land if "No Man's Land" never happened.
So this is my statement of waiting and seeing, in essence. Most certainly there will be more to discuss, even perhaps by the time this post sees light, and I'll be back on this topic with a more trade-waiting-centered post not too long from now too (along with your weekly business-as-usual dose of reviews and analysis). And I'm eager to hear your takes on all of this as DC's news unfolds -- your worst-case scenarios, your hopes and fears for the new DC Universe, and your own take on all the hoopla; please chime in below.
Fingers crossed, folks. Just imagine.
UPDATE: This morning, DC has released information on the Green Lantern family of titles that really seem like continuations of the previous books, plus Geoff Johns's statement to the Associated Press that "Green Lantern #1 picks up a few months later" from the previous issue of the book. So maybe my fears were indeed unfounded ...
Number 958
Gray Morrow back-to-back
Gray Morrow was a terrific illustrator. I noticed his fine black line work in Creepy and Eerie in the '60s. Morrow was the artist who did the first non-Frazetta cover on Creepy, issue #8. I look at his moody painting and think how tough it must have been to follow Frazetta.
For Creepy #3, from 1965, Morrow did these two 6-page strips, which ran together in the issue. What fascinates me today is the same thing that fascinated me when I first saw them: he drew them with totally different techniques, both of which work exceptionally well with the material he's illustrating. These two stories are good examples of how versatile he was.
Sadly, because of illness Morrow took his own life in November 2001, reminding me of the tragedy two decades earlier of Wallace Wood, another artist whose physical disabilities kept him from earning a living at what he did best.
Steve Thompson has a fine blog, Shades of Gray, devoted to Morrow.
[Contains spoilers]
The previous volume, Power Girl: A New Beginning, felt light to me perhaps in part because it was mostly set up for what was to come in this book. Here, we learn the identity of Power Girl's stalker, and all the heroes and villains from the past twelve issues converge -- Terra, Satanna, the Ultra-Humanite, the trio of alien women, and more. This puts Aliens and Apes ahead of its predecessor -- at least the stories don't feel as much like disconnected one-off issues -- though I still didn't feel the stakes were very high for our hero.
Perhaps the highlight of the entire Power Girl series so far is the first two issues, where Power Girl has to fend off both the advances of the alien Vartox and fight the monster Vartox inadvertently lets loose. Power Girl's combination of humor and action works perfectly here; Vartox is a clown, but the reader feels the romantic connection between the characters. What's at stake is not whether Power Girl can defeat the monster -- we know she can -- but whether she'll agree to help "fertilize" Vartox's planet (and what that means ...). The story is funny, but it has importance as well.
This is contrasted, however, with the revelation of Fisher, Power Girl's stalked, just a kid that wants to blackmail Power Girl to help make him more popular. This is cute -- if perhaps playing too much to the same comic book fan stereotypes that a book like Power Girl otherwise helps to break down -- but it's also anti-climactic. This is hardly a Power Girl-level threat, and I know Power Girl's going to be able to handle the kid, so there's not really suspense to keep me interested in the story. Bryan Miller's Batgirl is funny, but that humor comes from the characters' interactions and not the situations, as is also the case in Power Girl's Vartox issues; when Power Girl deals with Fisher, or fights Satanna's Rhino Men, however, things get a bit absurd.
Also, the fact that Gray and Palmiotti have to end their run at twelve issues, seemingly a little unexpectedly, doesn't do the book any favors. They wrap up the Ultra-Humanite storyline nicely, but the subplot regarding Starrware employee Donna and her megalomaniac ex-husband falls by the wayside; neither does Power Girl ever really make anything of the Starrware company. Most unfortunate is the fate of Satanna, who appears here after her role in Gray and Palmiotti's Hawkman series: as Satanna takes her revenge for Power Girl's treatment of the Ultra-Humanite, Power Girl blasts off her arm; later Satannta sleeps with Dr. Sivana supposedly in exchange for more power, but he has her thrown out a window. When given some thought, Gray and Palmiotti probably don't mean the dismemberment and prostitution of a villain as startling as it comes off, and likely with a few more issues Satanna would have had her comeuppance instead of being tossed to the ground.
I recognize that the intention is for the Power Girl series to be sweet, and in that the authors succeed. As in the last book, Power Girl routinely redeems, rather than incarcerates, her enemies; Ultra-Humanite seemingly gets a second chance at life, and Power Girl of course befriends Fisher (it's only poor Satanna who gets a raw deal in the end). The last issue deals as much with Power Girl and her friend Terra just hanging out as it does with the villains or Vartox's one last hurrah; undoubtedly the friendships is what Power Girl is meant to be about (special mention of Dr. Mid-Nite's appearance, drawn as only Amanda Conner draws him; am I the only one who saw him as a romantic interest for Power Girl?).
Ultimately I think this kind of "sitcom" comic book just isn't for me; I much prefer darker fare like Manhunter, where Kate Spencer's son nearly blows himself up with her untended weapon, than I do Power Girl and Terra lying around on an underground beach. To each their own, though -- Gray and Palmiotti's Power Girl is a respectful take that this character has long deserved, and I'll be sticking around to see what one of my favorite writers, Judd Winick, will do on the series next.
[Contains original covers]
A whole bunch of Batman-y goodness coming up next week, and maybe some words about recent DC Comics news ... see you then!
Number 957
Volcano Demons
I haven't seen too many original 1940's Golden Age Canadian comics, not of original material, anyway, but what I've seen I like. I showed a Commander Steel story from Grand Slam Three Aces #54 in Pappy's #844. I commented that the publisher, Anglo-American, was the Canadian publisher of Captain Marvel, and that the Commander Steel strip looked like it was drawn in a Fawcett Comics-Captain Marvel style. This strip, "The Crusaders," is also drawn in a Fawcett style, but in content reminds me of a Planet Comics-Flash Gordon mix.
There's a cliffhanger ending, but sorry...I don't have the next episode.
From Grand Slam Three Aces #48, 1945:
