Justice Society of America (vol.3) #13 (April, 2008)
"Thy Kingdom Come, Supermen"
Story - Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Penciller - Fernando Pasarin
Inker - Richard Friend
Colorist - Alex Sinclair
Letterer - Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor - Harvey Richards
Editor - Michael Siglain
Cover Price: $2.99
Now, there's the cover I've been waiting for...
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Jakeem Thunder is back in the brownstone... and he ain't happy. Ya see, the Justice Society has swelled in membership to the point where he's having trouble finding a bedroom to crash in. He decides he's just going to "take" a certain room, kicking in the door... only to find, Black Lightning's family, including young Jennifer who he's immediately taken by. It's pretty cute, he introduces himself by saying "I got a genie." Jeff leans in and offers him a "hands off". It's really a funny little scene.
In the monitor room, the new Mr. America is being given the once-over by Dr. Mid-Nite. He's going to survive. They discuss the carving in the subway pillar from last issue which read... GOG. Mr. America asks if that means anything to any of them... which is overheard by Superman-22, who it happens, has experience with not Gog, but a... Magog.
After a biblical history lesson from Dr. Mid-Nite about the origins of the names Gog and Magog, Mr. Terrific reveals that Superman (the real one) had a run-in with a man calling himself Gog not too long ago. On this Earth, Gog isn't a God... but a dude named William Matthews who was once a missionary that disappeared while in Africa. It's a reference to, of all things, a Chuck Austen story that ran through Action Comics... which isn't the first thing I'd think Johns would cite! Anyhoo, Superman-22 decides to pay our Superman a visit to chat.
On the way to Metropolis, Superman-22 overhears much of the hub-bub going on at the Daily Planet... and thinks to himself how this Earth's analogues aren't all that different from the ones he knew and loved. Everything's going well until he catches a glimpse of Lois Lane... this throws us into a Rossian flashback to Kingdom Come wherein he found his friends and wife murdered at the hands of the Joker. Worth mentioning that "our" Lois has a rather off-putting and very Joker-esque smile on her face during this scene. That couldn't be intentional, could it?
Anyhoo, Clark notices that Superman-22 is loitering about, and heads to the skies to inquire as to why.
The pair share their Goggy stories, and finally Superman-22 comes clean about what happened to Lois Lane on his Earth. But that's not all, he also shares what happened to the Joker at the hands of Gog's successor Magog. He warns that they need to put a stop to this Earth's Gog's antics before such a time where he picks a successor of his own. So, basically... we're trying to stop the events of Kingdom Come from ever happening. Decent enough premise to go on! They pick up some Goggian noise emanating from Gotham City... and off they go!
There they find Hercules... getting his butt whupped by Gog! Well, they don't exactly see Gog, they just see Herc flying out of a building and crashing into some stonework.
Now, Hercules in the DC Universe isn't a "thumbs-up chucklehead" like Marvel's, here he's a bad dude and thorn in the side for Wonder Woman. Upon seeing the Supermen, he winds up...
... and swings for the fences...
Whoops. The Men of Steel thrash him with the quickness. Afterwards, they head inside to confront Gog... just in time for him to teleport away...
... to somewhere in the Congo. We join him as he walks down a flight of stairs that have been carved into a mountain. All the while he vows to put an end to all the false gods that walk this Earth in order to pave the way for the one true savior! We end with him kneeling before a giant purple head.
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A solid issue that I might have found just a bit less enjoyable than what came before. Not sure how much of that is due to the art making this feel a bit less important, or just a bit of Gog-fatigue.
Let's address the art so we can move it out of the way. Yeah, I was disappointed not to see Dale Eaglesham's name here. That's not to say Pasarin is untalented, or turned in poor work... he's actually really good, he's just not Eaglesham. I wanted to see Dale's take on the Supermen meeting, and was a bit let down that it wasn't him.
Okay, with that behind us... let's chat up the Supermen meeting. A bit... underwhelming. I suppose if their chat wasn't so Gog-centric, it would have been a bit more interesting, but considering that we're in the middle of a Gog story, I can't really fault them. It's just that, while Gog and Magog pretty much define Superman-22 (and his Earth), Gog was just someone that Superman-1 fought this one time. Their stakes just don't feel comparable.
I did appreciate Superman-22 getting stuck in voyeur mode though. That made a lot of sense to me... and is really quite heartbreaking. It's hard to think of an analogy... so I won't. Just couldn't imagine seeing people I loved, who I had failed... back living their lives, happy as clams. Though, I gotta say, this would have likely been more powerful a scene under Eaglesham's pencils.
I gotta admit I will never not like someone winding up and socking Superman with all of their might... only for it not to affect him in the slightest. That always tickles me... and likely always will.
Silly as it may sound, the strongest scene here for me was the brief opening bit with Jakeem, Courtney, and the Pierces. I guess I'm just a sucker for these little character moments. They're really what makes this volume so special to me.
Overall, this still gets a high recommendation. There is a ton to enjoy here, and despite it not being Eaglesham, it's still a rather pretty book to look at.
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Green Lantern (vol.2) #60 (April, 1968)
"Spotlight on the Lamplighter!"
Writer - Gardner Fox
Art - Gil Kane & Sid Greene
Cover Price: $0.12
Today we're going to discuss a special issue... not so much for the story (just wait!), but for the fact that this was the first Silver-Age issue of a comic book that I've ever bought!
Picture it, Autumn, 2001... a much younger (and thinner) Chris enters a comic shop in downtown Phoenix, and is shown a box of "reader copies" of Silver-Age DC Comics. I was on a pretty big Green Lantern kick at the time, and was trying to back-fill my Kyle Rayner appearances, before tackling pre-Emerald Twilight. When I saw this, I figured... hey, why not? And for the price they're asking... man, only $7.50. Lemme tell ya, the fact that I paid that makes me squirm in my seat a bit... my "limit" these days is far lower. But, whattayagonnado, I was 21... and had some cash burning a hole in my pocket.
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We open at Quickway Loan Company, where accountant Arthur Blount is preoccupied by his pending death. Ya see, he has an unnamed disease... and his only hope of survival is raising enough dosh to fly to Rome to be operated on by a specialist. As he continues to write in his ledger, his movements become more forced... almost as though he's fighting off paralysis. Well, actually that's exactly what he's doing. We see him seize up just as... *snicker* the Lamplight arrives on the scene! Looks like he's behind the paralysis... and to be fair, if I saw this geek I'd probably freeze up myself. Anyhoo, he melts his way through the vault door to loot the joint. After swipin' the stuff, he asks Mr. Blount to tell the world that the Lamplighter was there! Several minutes later, Blount is once more able to move.
We jump to the following morning at the Evergreen Insurance Company, where "Ace Claims Adjuster" Hal Jordan is getting an earful from his boss. News of the Loan Company robbery has hit, and da boss wants Hal to get to the bottom of it before they pay out. It's so funny how Hal jumps from job to job here... so weird.
Anyhoo, Hal pays Mr. Blount a visit to... well, interrogate him. He flat out asks if he stole the money... but he's only doing so so he can use his ring as a lie-detector. He concludes that Blount is telling the truth about everything... and sets out to track down this strange "Lamplighter". Oddly, the ring-sling energy is... invisible during the sweep.
We jump to a jewelry store where well-to-do Mr. Talbot is looking to purchase a whopper of a ring for... well, that's something we'll talk about later. Anyhoo, he sends mousy shopgirl Cindy to the vault for something "more expensive". Then, suddenly... the Lamplighter shows up! He traps the patrons within diamonds, and makes Cindy beautiful... stunning her before a mirror! Luckily, Green Lantern quickly makes the scene.
What follows is... a weird fight. This is like watching two kids play-fighting. I've used this analogy before, but it's like one kid pretending to shoot another, only to learn he's wearing a bulletproof vest... then the other uses a "flamethrower", only to learn the first is wearing flame retardant underwear... and so on. Hal and the Lamplighter keep one-upping one another, and it's pretty kooky. It's like, LL makes the air "solid" and changes his atoms to helium to float out of the range of a punch.
After some more back 'n forth, Hal creates a... er, lampshade with a very Jordanian theme to trick the Lamplighter... and it works! This ends the skirmish (it really just ends with a punch), but for whatever reason, Hal doesn't get to apprehend the baddie.
We pick back up with old miser Jabez Morley. He's busy counting his money, while outside a long-sunken pirate ship is being raised from the drink. In the crowd is... (duh) the Lamplighter, and he's here to rob the ship of it's doubloons!
Back at the Insurance Company, Hal is working with a client. His ring lights up indicating that Lamplighter has resurfaced... and Hal makes like Don Knotts, before running off to do the oath and confront his foe.
Here's where it gets weird (yeah, I know)... The Lamplighter has trapped all of the passersby in gold, sorta like he did (in diamond) with the jewelry store patrons earlier. After recovering from a punch from Green Lantern, he encases our man Hal in gold! Uh-oh... yellow! Well, just wait.
While Lamplighter begins robbing the boat, he is once again attacked by... Green Lantern. B-b-b-but how? He was encased in yellow! Well, I'm glad you asked... he used his power ring to... shrink himself down to microscopic size, and slipped between the molecules of his golden candy shell. Wait, what? That's a thing he can do? Hmm... okey dokey. Anyhoo, Lamplighter attempts to change Hal's fists into feathers with his staff... but misses! Instead the beam goes into the Miser's apartment, transforming all the cash into feathers!
The confused Miser... throws the feathers out the window. Wha? Okay... that's random. At the same time, Green Lantern uses his special finishing move... a punch to the face. I guess we can assume this time around he actually managed to arrest the Lamplighter.
This issue wraps up with an epilogue... Arthur Blount visits his doctor and learns... he's completely cured! The Lamplighter-induced paralysis somehow flipped the "diseased elements" of his body to healthy ones. At the jewelry store, Mr. Talbot visits shopgirl Cindy, who is back to her mousy self... and proposes to her! Was the expensive ring for her all along (no)... did he dump his girlfriend for Cindy (maybe)... is he just a collector of expensive jewelry (probably)... who knows?
Finally, the Miser... the feathers he tossed have turned back into cold hard cash... and the folks on the street are pocketing it. We're not supposed to feel bad for the Miser, are we? Anyhoo, that's it!
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Well, that was weird!
Not much to unpack, while at the same time... a bunch of silliness to address. Something I left out of the synopsis were multiple "blindness" puns... hinting to the fact that the Lamplighter is blind. While that explains his outfit, it kinda gets lost amid the wackiness of making constructs, flying, and being tricked by Hal's optical illusions. I mean, Hal made a lampshade that tricked him... which wouldn't be a thing if he were blind... right? Maybe they just forgot... or maybe he's just really near-sighted? I dunno. Whatever it is, it didn't work for me.
Hal being a claims adjuster... I dunno, it just makes me giggle a bit. Not that being a claims adjuster is anything to scoff about, it's just not what I'm used to from Hal. I'd love for him to go back to drifting from job to job and place to place... seems like a fun concept for a superhero book. Just a drifting dude/dudette taking odd jobs and trying to start over every few issues... I could really get into something like that.
Now, Hal's powers are always a bit convenient... but I never really call them on it. The ring is an easy way to change the direction or tone of a story... battles and events can begin and end with a flick of the ring. We know that, we accept that. Buuuuut, I didn't think it could shrink it's wearer down to a microscopic size. I mean, that's a pretty awesome power... one that you'd figure Hal and others would use with regularity to get out of a jam. Just such a weird thing to happen for a quick throwaway scene. I dunno... far be it from me to question Mr's. Fox and Kane... but, still... so weird!
We get a bit of a morality play here... I guess? We meet three rando's in Evergreen City, two of whom are "good" while the third isn't? Not really sure what the point of any of that was. It didn't add all that much to the story... besides a couple of pages. Blount gets cured... but we don't know anything about him other than the fact that he was sick to begin with. Outside of basic human empathy, there's nothing explicit to root for here. Shopgirl Cindy didn't strike me as a particularly "good" person either...she came across as vain and narcissistic. Her ending has her making out with an equally vain and narcissistic beau. So, uh... let the punishment fit the crime, I guess? I dunno. The old Miser... I mean, we don't know him from a hole in the wall either... all we know is that he kept his money in a mattress because he didn't trust banks. Outside of basic human jealousy, there's nothing explicit to root against here. I guess this is just playing to our baser emotions... who knows?
Otherwise... this was a weird, but fun issue. A bit formulaic, and featured some oddly convenient "upping the ante" style fight scenes... but, I definitely enjoyed my time with it. Overall, if you're into Silver Age weirdness, this is certainly one to check out. It has been reprinted in SHOWCASE Presents: Green Lantern, Volume 4 but has not yet been made available digitally... and I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless Lamplighter becomes a recurring villain on Arrow or something. Fingers crossed, I guess...
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Metal Men #48 (October-November, 1976)
"Who is Bruce Gordon and Why is he Doing those Terrible Things to Himself?"
Script - Martin Pasko
Artist/Co-Plotter - Walt Simonson
Colorist - Carl Gafford
Letterer - Gaspar
Editor/Co-Plotter - Gerry Conway
Cover Price: $0.30
It's weird the trends you notice when you trawl the cheap-o bins with any regularity. I mentioned last month that I'd never seen a copy of Outsiders #5 without some "spinal damage", and that's still true... just this weekend I found another, with the same splitting.
Well, on the other hand... I've yet to come across a 1970's issue of Metal Men that is in less than pristine condition! If I were a betting man (and thankfully, I'm not) I'd wager that these Metal Men have never even been opened! They look crisper than most new releases!
Do I have a point? C'mon, do I ever? Let's just get to da book.
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We join the Metal Men and Will Magnus in the lab, where the latter is attempting to build a better "responsometer". Apparently, something had happened to Tina (Platinum) in an earlier adventure that the Doc is trying to keep from reoccurring... something about "making eyes at anything in rivets"... hmm, maybe the Doc's feeling a bit jealous. Either way, they call it quits for the day. The Metal Men decide to go see a movie, and Mercury reminds us (for the first time today) that he's liquid at room temperature... and throws in his atomic number (80) for good measure.
Before they can hit the town, a trio of women burst into the lab... one of which is sobbing uncontrollably. Her name is Mona Bennet, and she is desperately in need of Magnus's help. Ya see, it has to do with her fiance... Bruce Gordon! We might know him by his snazzier name... Eclipso!
She shares the story of Bruce being nicked by the black diamond, fighting the Justice League, and ultimately trying to "burn out" the Eclipso persona by inventing a ridiculously powerful tanning bed. It doesn't work all that well... and the high-intensity lamp shatters. Eclipso then begins creeping around Mona's home... finding an unopened letter from her father, Dr. Simon Bennet. It's a letter addressed to Bruce informing him the answers he requires are located at Georgia Augusta University Library in Gottingen, West Germany. Wow, "West" Germany... I remember being such an annoyed and dumb eight year old knowing that I had an "out-of-date" globe in my bedroom when they took the wall down... funny the stupid things you remember. Anyhoo, Magnus decides he and his Metal Men are Germany-bound.
Mona shares some more information from "Daddy". Back in the yesteryear, the Spanish Inquisition (who no one ever expects) arrived in Peru, somewhere near Machu Picchu. They procured some parchments... and burned them as heretical texts. One parchment, however, was smuggled out before the torches were lit. If we're going to Germany, why are we talking about Peru? Hmm...
Bada-bing, bada-boom... we're in (West) Germany, and the Metal Men are already confronting Eclipso. That was quick... though, to be fair, they did have his exact destination. Eclipso holds his black diamond to his left eye... and, wrecks Mercury! He then beats the hell out of the rest... before bathing the crew in blackness and ducking away.
After gathering themselves, Magnus and the Mets notice a librarian writhing around in pain. The Doc heads over, and is directed to some paperwork on the desk. The librarian dies right afterward. Gold finds a map with an X marking the spot somewhere in the Peruvian Andes. Oh! That's why we were talking about Peru!
Along the way, Will welds Mercury's arm back on... and Merc takes the opportunity to remind us that he is liquid at room temperature.
It's not long before they arrive in an "unspectacular" clearing... which, I dunno... looks pretty spectacular to me.
Anyhoo, they land the saucer... and are almost immediately attacked (and thrashed) by Eclipso.
It comes down to Eclipso and Tin. Tin is the stuttering, kinda nebbish Metal Man... but perhaps the one with the most heart. He takes to hiding in the saucer... and when Eclipso comes a'calling, he Tin blasts him in the face with Magnus's welding torch! This burst of light is enough to revert ol' Moonface to (an apologetic) Bruce Gordon.
When the dust settles, the crew notices that a stone structure attached to the temple appears to be pointing to a mountain pass just off the mainland... on Diablo Island! Surely nothing too ominous about that.
One quick flight later, and we're on Diablo Island. They enter a cave (which Gordon has apparently already visited back in House of Secrets #67). Inside is an alter... on the alter, a tablet... on the tablet, an inscription of an eclipsed Sun! Iron snags it, and a cave-in commences!
The group flees, tablet in hand. Outside, the Metal Men's saucer flies overhead and... blocks the Sun, giving the look of a solar eclipse. Uh-oh! Gordon reverts to his two-tone form and snatches the tablet. He then hustles up the side of a cliff to begin chanting the words inscribed!
The Metal Men try and stop him, however, before they can reach the clifftop, Eclipso hurls the tablet into a just-arrived storm cloud. Mercury and Iron team up to get the drop on the Moonfaced creep, but it's too late. He's already awakened... Umbra!
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Well... I really wanted to like this more than I did, but couldn't help but to be a bit bored throughout. It actually took me several attempts to get through this one.
I don't have much of a connection to the Metal Men. I think they're cool to look at, have some neat character quirks, and work quite well as guest stars... their solo (so to speak) adventures always leave me a bit cold. Not even the threat of Eclipso could fix this for me.
There really isn't all that much to say here. Everything "worked", just didn't "work for me". I thought Simonson's art was really nice, so there's that. I liked the non-action bits where we could really key in on the Metal Men's idiosyncrasies... Tin's stutter and insecurity, Platinum diggin' on "darling" Will Magnus, Mercury reminding us over and over that he's liquid at room temperature. That stuff I was pretty entertained by. The action scenes and globe-trotting... ehhh...
Eclipso can also be a tough baddie to really invest in. His powers are just so... I dunno, cheap? It's like at any given moment he can switch... which you'd figure is a great thing for building tension, but with him it's an expectation. We know it's going to happen... and it's always going to happen at the most inopportune time for the heroes. Eh, it's kind of his thing, so whattayagonnado?
Overall... to me, this is a very pretty book with a few neat character moments. Unfortunately, I was pretty bored/underwhelmed by the rest.
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