Action-Plus: Green Arrow/Black Canary (AC456 – 1976)

Action-Plus: Green Arrow & Black Canary (February, 1976)
“Bail Out the Nutty Kid!”
Writer – Elliot S! Maggin
Art – Mike Grell
Edits – Julius Schwartz
From: Action Comics #456


Welcome to another Action-Plus “test” post.  I’m all about multitasking… and so, I get to “pilot” this little project by repurposing some old content… the very same week I’d smacked with a number of final assignments for school!  Though, the fact that creating the cover template took this goofball the better part of four hours kinda makes up for that!


This is a bit of a short one, but it’s pretty fun!  If you didn’t read this back when I reviewed the entire issue (back on May 27, 2017)… it’s new to you!


Lemme know how (or if) you’re digging these peeks into the “b-sides” of DC Comics, and also if there are any specific ones you’d like me to cover here at the site!


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Today’s “Action-Plus” features Green Arrow and Black Canary.  At this moment, Ollie’s held up at a telethon being hosted by Jerry Lew… er, Danny Harris.  A group of clowns have infiltrated the studio, and demand people continue to pledge money… only it will go in their pockets instead of to the needy… or disabled… or whoever this telethon is for.

Dinah Lance is watching the telethon, and despite Ollie’s words to the contrary, suits up to perform a daring rescue.  She zips over to the station on her motorcycle, and delivers one helluva kick to a guard-clown.

At that very moment, Ollie tricks the clowns into letting him go into another room by faking a panic attack.  Seems silly, right?  I mean, is that all ya gotta do to get away from armed hostage holders?  Anyhoo.  He Arrows up, and leaps into action for some emerald justice… or something.

The clowns attempt to escape to the helicopter they have parked on the roof… however, when they lift off they learn that their driver is actually… Black Canary!  The chapter wraps with Dinah staring down the barrels of a few guns.

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This one felt much shorter than backups usually do.  So often they feel like a plodding drag… however, this one was relatively breezy… I’d almost swear it was a few less pages than they normally are, but I neglected to count.  The story here was pretty neat, and featured some early Grell-Arrow, which is always neat to see.  He also contributed the cover, which is perhaps the high-point for this issue.

I was a bit disappointed that the telethon host wasn’t Jerry Lewis… especially seeing as though Jerry Lewis very clearly exists in the DC Universe.  I dunno, probably rights issues got in the way.  Too bad though, it’s a missed opportunity to show the Nutty Professor Kid back in action.