Action Comics Weekly #612 (1988)

Action Comics Weekly #612 (June 21, 1988)
Green Lantern: “Mind Over Matter”
Secret Six: “Out of the Frying Pan… Into the Fire
Deadman: “Take Us to Your Leader”
Superman: “Where Lurks the Evil?”
Catwoman: “The Tin Roof Club, Part Two”
Black Canary: “Bitter Fruit, Part 4”
Writers – Peter David, Martin Pasko, Mike Baron, Roger Stern, Mindy Newell, & Sharon Wright
Pencils – Tod Smith, Dan Spiegle, Dan Jurgens, Curt Swan, Barry Kitson, & Randy DuBurke
Inks – Tony DeZuniga, John Beatty, Bruce Patterson, & Pablo Marcos
Letters – Albert DeGuzman, Carrie Spiegle, Steve Haynie, & Bill Oakley
Colors – Anthony Tollin, Carl Gafford, Liz Berube, Tom Ziuko, Adrienne Roy, & Gene D’Angelo
Edits – Dan Raspler, Denny O’Neil, Dick Giordano, Barbara Kesel, Mike Carlin, & Mike Gold
Cover Price: $1.50

It’s like the end of an era this week, as we bid farewell to a couple more of our “original six” features, in Deadman and Secret Six.  They’ll be back soon enough though, in fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll eventually hit a time where ACW will consist entirely of the “original six” features once again!


Let’s take a look at our cover, which stars one of our departing features, rendered by Paul Gulacy.  It’s a heckuva nice, stylized cover… almost reminds me of those old Steranko Nick Fury covers.  Before ya freak out on me, remember I said “almost”.  I like it, and it’s a neat “send-off” for the Sixers.


Now, let’s look at last week’s Poll Results!

Heckuva turnout this week… best yet!  Big thanks to everyone who voted and shared the poll around!  Catwoman knocks it out of the park with her first chapter… it’s actually the feature I voted for too (I didn’t forget this week)!  Black Canary is our only “goose egg” feature, which I believe is rather fitting… it was the weakest of all the stories last week (even Superman).  Speaking of Superman… for the first time in around ten weeks, dude finally got some votes on the board!  How ’bout that!


My Ratings for last week’s stories (#611) would be:
1 – Catwoman
2 – Secret Six
3 – Green Lantern
4 – Superman
5 – Deadman
6 – Black Canary


Speaking of Polls… it’s with this issue of Action Comics Weekly that DC finally gives us the results of their very first poll (ACW #601)!  I’d never have imagined it would’ve taken twelve weeks to get here… but, here we are!


Let’s compare their list… with ours, shall we?

Wow, not much in common there, eh?  Worth noting that the bottom three features in our list were tied for having the least votes… annnnnd, there might’ve been a little bit of funny-business regarding Deadman winning the day.  Ya see, this is before I put some “controls” on the voting, and somebody had a little “funny, ha-ha” and voted for ol’ Boston over ten times in a single minute.  Future comparisons should (in theory) be a bit more legitimate… and, hopefully a bit more fun to compare with the original results.


So now, here’s this week’s poll!  Vote in good health!

Shareable Poll Link: https://linkto.run/p/S8UR9NYR


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Picking up where we left off, Hal has been zapped by that “Mind Games” satellite, just as Lt. Rensaleer finds the “Mind Games” note!  A maddened Hal lunges at the Lieutenant, and pins him to the ground.  Rensaleer strikes back with an ear-clap, that puts a bit of space between them.  Hal points his ring in his direction… emerald energy pouring off of it.

Back at the station, that modelling agent is still trying to sell Arisia on signing on with her agency.  In order to “seal the deal”, she suggests Arisia could become the next Cory Anders.  Hey, we know her!

Back in the alley, Hal goes to blast the Lieutenant… but his ring doesn’t seem to want to cooperate!  He’s certain that it’s charged, but for whatever reason, it refuses to fire.  Hal then freaks out, and begins flapping his arms… as though he’s trying to fly, and forgotten how!

Rensaleer chases Hal out of the alley, tackling him.  A stray dog wanders over to the Mind Games note… and, uh, lifts his leg over it.  At this point Hal goes back to normal, and hasn’t the foggiest clue what’s been going on.

After cooling their jets for a bit, Hal and the Lt. catch the evening news broadcast.  Some nutjob busts in on the station, and demands $500,000 on behalf of… Mind Games.  To prove his power, he claims that, for a two-minute period, Mind Games will turn one-tenth of Chicago’s population insane.  I feel like there’s a real easy joke to be made there, but we’ll let it go.

Those two-minutes begin, and one of the “crazies” turns out to be, Cynthia Whatsherface, the modeling agent!  While out to dinner discussing the finer details of a potential modelling contract, she lunges across the table at Arisia, and attempts to stab her with… a spoon.  Well, that was a lucky break!

At this point, Hal realizes that he could just use his ring to track where the crazy beams are emanating from… and follows them to a large satellite dish, which he destroys.  He enters a nearby building, and runs into a man… who we can only assume is Mind Games.  Ol’ Emm-Gee hammers Hal with a mind-blast!

—

I’m going to give y’all a peek behind the curtain here.  I’ve had this synopsis written for like a week… and have just been dragging my feet in writing up my thoughts and “review”.  There’s just nothing really to say, is there?  It was my hope that something would come to mind… some sort of discussion thread would reveal itself… buuuuut, nope.


I mean, we’re building to something… and next week’s installment will be a ton more interesting than this… but for now?  It’s just kinda “there”.  I suppose we could wonder why Hal never thought to follow the psycho-waves before now?  Why the ring didn’t pick up on a “disturbance in the force”… but, yawn, why?


It is what it is… and what it is, is kinda weak.  Don’t worry though, next week we will kick things up a notch, and have quite a bit of fun digging around in Hal’s dome!


—
—

We open with Vic and Luke at Sunnydale Farms, and learn about a fella named Jack Poundstone.  He learned about the leaner-meated (though, virally contaminated) minipigs that were being bred for medical research (at Jefferson University) and bought himself a male and female in order to get ta reproducing.  The University rep, a Stephen Traeger, was supposed to destroy the pigs, but figured there’d be little harm in making a few bucks on the side.  A pair of good ol’ boy security guard bust in on our Sixers, but get beaten up pretty easily.

Meanwhile, we see that Ralph Dorn, C.E.O. of Farmer Ralph’s was the “VIP” who was about to be fed the tainted meat at the end of the last chapter.  I had assumed it was going to be Rafael DiRienzi… guess that’ll teach me for assumin’.

Though, speaking of Rafael… we rejoin him, still held captive at the posh hotel.  He is awakened, and placed before a television set.  On the screen… Mockingbird!  Looks like everything is going according to Emm-Bee’s plan!  DiRienzi insists that there will be people looking for him… which, turns out, is all the better!

Back at Secret Six HQ, we learn that there might be a connection between Jefferson University’s Science Department and… TechnoDyne?  I thought we were through with those guys!  Anyhoo, DiRienzi’s pal shows up… just as predicted, and after a brief skirmish, is able to convince Maria and Mitch to hear him out.

We shift scenes to Washington, D.C., where they’re still investigating the VTOL crash.  It’s assumed that all of the passengers had perished.  It’s also assumed that OG Sixer, August Durant was responsible for the whole thing… and, later in the conversation, he is linked to… Jefferson University.  Uh-oh.

Back with the Six, Rafe’s pal tells his tale.  Turns out he was the Manager of the Enchanted Forest… but knew very little about the Secret Six.  All he knows is that the VTOL crashed, and that Rafe suspected Mockingbird was behind it.  He confirms that the club was later burned to the ground to “send a message”… and states that he’d received Rafael’s communication device in the mail with instructions to visit Frisco (they hate it when you call it that).

We wrap up, with the revelation that Mockingbird could only be… one of the original Secret Six!  Rafael’s pal offers to become the New-Sixer’s “secret agent”, trying to peel back the layers of this mystery… while giving them all deniability (and thus, holding on to their “gifts”).  I think it’s a pretty big assumption that Mockingbird doesn’t have this entire place bugged… but, we’ll play along.  Anyhoo… this is how we end things.  We won’t be discussing the Secret Six again for… seven weeks!  Yes, really.

—

So…


Twelve Weeks, Twelve Chapters… probably, three or four too many, if I’m being honest… annnnnnd, this is the “ending” we get?!  It’s… it’s not even an ending!  Heck, it’s hardly even a “new wrinkle”… the Sixers already knew Mockingbird probably shouldn’t be trusted.  Ay yai yai.


“Ending” aside… what else we get?


Well, we’ve established a Sunnydale Farms, Jefferson University, and a TechnoDyne link.  Also, that original Sixer, August Durant has links to potentially all three as well.  It’s actually all quite interesting… though, at this point, probably should have been explained to us several weeks ago.  These aren’t “Senses-Shattering” revelations, and the fact that we’ve had to wait so long to get ’em takes even more of the “oomph” out.


Rafael is still being held hostage, and it looks like he’d best get comfortable.  “Farmer” Ralph Dorn is dealt with… fed a platter of his own tainted meat… which, if I’m remembering right, is more or less exactly what Mockingbird intended to happen.  Hmm… maybe there’s more to this “connection” than I’d originally thought!


Overall, as a chapter… it’s a darn good one, though perhaps a bit “info-dumpy”.  As a concluding chapter, however… ehh-ehh, nope.  I get wanting to leave the people wanting more, but this kind of kicks dirt in the faces of all of us who were expecting just a little bit of resolution before the hiatus.


—
—

Okay, so when we left off Talaoc was on his way back to Earth in that odd spherical spacecraft that busted out from the Mayan Pyramid.  Y’all remember that?  I don’t blame you if you don’t.  Anyhoo.  Major Kasaba, some bald guy, Deadman, and… Satan are watching this unfold on the monitors.  After a bit of a playful argument between the dead-guys, Boston hops into the body of the bald fella in order to communicate with their pending visitor.  Oh, and there are a few jokes about President Reagan being asleep… can’t forget about that!

After Deadman-as-Bald Guy talks to Talaoc, they agree to meet up.  Upon landing, Talaoc exits the craft… but doesn’t do so alone.  He is surrounded by several spectres (thankfully, not that Spectre) of “his people”.  It’s worth noting that he is also “see-thru”.

Talaoc’s ghost demands all of their weapons and artifacts returned… or else, they will possess all of the Earth’s leaders and plunge the planet into a horrible war.  Major Kasaba’s all “We don’t negotiate with… uh, dead alien… god… things”, which really isn’t the best play.  Deadman bodyhops from Bald Guy to Kasaba in hopes of smoothing things over…

… only Kasaba’s already got an inhabitant!  That’s right, it’s Satan!  Deadman pops back into the Bald guy, and backhands Kasaba good.

He instructs a soldier to fetch the Alien Weapons… and, after a few words with Talaoc, blasts the devil out of Major Kasaba.

Then, like a Ghostbuster had just thrown a trap, D.B. Cooper/the Devil evacuates Kasaba’s kasabod… and (somehow) gets sucked into a containment unit.

Talaoc and Company collect the “specimen”, and load it on their ship.  It turns out that “Satan” was actually the original leader of Talaoc’s men, driven mad from all his time on Earth.  I know the feeling!

We (finally) wrap up with Major Kasaba waking up… and convincing the bald fella that they’d just undergone a “bad trip”, courtesy of the United States government testing a new hallucinogen.  She suggests they sue, as Deadman takes his leave. 

—


And so ends our time with Boston Brand.  Kind of a convenient capper, but certainly not the worst ending I’ve ever read.


I feel like that’s one of the biggest problems in comic book storytelling today, writers are afraid to… or unable to “stick” the landing to their epic stories.  So often, endings are so weakly written… such a letdown, that they manage to retroactively taint the rest of the story.  Or, they’re being written as a “bridge” to the next “senses-shattering, everything you thought you knew was wrong” crossover event.


This Deadman ending… well, it worked.  Didn’t rock my socks, didn’t put a smile on my face… but, it worked.  All of the disparate story elements and characters came together, and nothing was left worse for wear.


As an arc, while overlong and dragging in parts, I feel like this had more hits than misses, which is more than I can say about most things!  Deadman was a “net-positive”, and if you’re a fan of the character, I have little doubt that you’ll dig this storyline.