Category: Elongated Man

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DC Finest: Super Friends – The Fury of the Super Foes


By E. Nelson Bridwell, Denny O’Neil, Ramona Fradon, Kurt Schaffenberger, Ric Estrada, Alex Toth, Joe Orlando, Bob Smith, Vince Colletta with Dick Giordano, Curt Swan & Geoge Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-316-3 (TPB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Evergreen Superhero Sagas For All… 9/10

Once upon a time comics were primarily created with kids in mind. Whilst I’d never advocate exclusively going back to those days, the modern industry has for the longest time sinned by not fully addressing the needs and tastes of younger fans these days. By that I mean less tie-ns and more accessible standard stoires like Marvel Adventures material or this stuff here.

Happily, DC has latterly been rectifying the situation with new and – most importantly for old geeks like me – remastered, repackaged age-appropriate gems from their vast back catalogue.

A superb case in point of all-ages comics done right is this tome celebrating the joys of childhood when comics and TV shows were interchangeable in kids’ head. It was all one great big dangerous fun world to save or conquer…

DC Finest: Super Friends:- The Fury of the Super Foes gathers comic book tales spun off from a hugely popular Saturday Morning TV Cartoon show: one that, thanks to the canny craftsmanship and loving invention of lead scripter E. Nelson Bridwell, became an integral and unmissable component of the greater pre Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe.

It was also one of the most universally thrilling and satisfying superhero titles of the period: featuring the smart, witty, straightforward adventures people my age grew up with, produced during a period when the entire industry was increasingly losing itself in colossal continued storylines and bombastic, convoluted, soap opera melodrama.It’s something all creators should have tattooed on their foreheads: sometimes all you really want is a smart plot well illustrated, sinister villains well-smacked, a solid resolution and early bed…

TV show Super Friends ran (under various iterations) from 1973 to 1986; starring primarily Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and a brace of studio-originated kids as student crimebusters. The cast was supplemented by guest stars from the DCU on a case by case basis. The animated series made the transition to print as part of the publisher’s 1976 foray into “boutiqued” comics which saw titles with a television connection cross-marketed as DC TV Comics.

Child-friendly Golden Age comic book revival Shazam!- the Original Captain Marvel had been adapted into a successful live action series and its Saturday Morning silver screen stablemate The Secrets of Isis consequently reversed the process to become a comic book. With the additions of hit comedy show Welcome Back Kotter and animated blockbuster Super Friends four-colour format, DC had a neat outreach imprimatur tailor-made to draw viewers into the magic word of funnybooks.

At least that was the plan: with the exception of Super Friends none of the titles lasted more than ten issues beyond their launch…

This massive mega-extravaganza collects Super Friends #1-26 (spanning November 1976 to November 1979), includes promo comic Aquateers Meet the Super Friends and reprints material from Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41 and C-46.

The fun begins a crafty 2-part caper by the wondrous E. Nelson Bridwell and illustrators Ric Estrada, Vince Colletta & Joe Orlando. ‘The Fury of the Super Foes’ finds heroes-in-training Wendy & Marvin – and their incredibly astute mutt Wonderdog – studying at the palatial Hall of Justice, even as elsewhere, a confederation of villains prove imitation is the sincerest form of flattery… if not outright intellectual theft. Having auditioned a host of young criminals, The Penguin, Cheetah, Flying Fish, Poison Ivy and Toyman are creating a squad of sidekicks and protégés to follow in their felonious footsteps. Now Chick, Kitten, Sardine, Honeysuckle and Toyboy are all ready and willing to carry out their first caper…

When the giant “Troubalert” screen informs our heroes of a 3-pronged attack on S.T.A.R. Labs’ latest inventions, the team split up to tackle the crises, but are thoroughly trounced until Wendy & Marvin break curfew to help them. As a result of the clash, Chick and Kitten are brought back to the Hall of Justice, but their talk of repentance is a rascally ruse and they secretly sabotage vital equipment. Thankfully, Wonderdog has seen everything and quickly finds a way to inform the still-oblivious good guys in issue #2, but too late to prevent the Super Friends being briefly ‘Trapped by the Super Foes’…

Aided and abetted by inker Bob Smith, the incomparable Ramona Fradon (Aquaman; Metamorpho the Element Man; Brenda Starr, Reporter) became penciller with #3, as ‘The Cosmic Hit Man?’ sees 50 intergalactic super-villains murdered by infernal Dr. Ihdrom, who then blends their harvested essences to create an apparently unbeatable hyper-horror to utterly overwhelm Earth’s heroic defenders. However, he falls victim to his own arrogance and Wendy & Marvin’s logical deductions…

‘Riddles and Rockets!’ sees the Super Friends overmatched by new ne’er-do-well Skyrocket whilst simultaneously seeking to cope with a rash of crimes contrived by King of Conundra The Riddler. Soon a pattern emerges and a criminal connection is confirmed…

Author Bridwell (Secret Six; Inferior Five; Batman; Superman; The Flash; Legion of Super-Heroes; Captain Marvel/Shazam!) was justly famed as DC’s Keeper of Lore and top Continuity Cop thanks to his astoundingly encyclopaedic knowledge of its publishing minutiae and ability to instantly recall every damn thing! ‘Telethon Treachery!’ gave him plenty of scope to display it with a horde of near-forgotten guest-stars joining the heroes as they host a televised charity event. Sadly, money-mad menace Greenback lurks in the wings, awaiting his moment to grab the loot and kidnap the wealthiest donors. Then The Atom (Ray Palmer) plays a crucial role in stopping the depredations of an animal trainer using beasts as bandits in ‘The Menace of the Menagerie Man!’ before a huge cast change is unveiled in #7 (October 1977) with ‘The Warning of the Wondertwins’…

You all know TV is very different from comics. When the next season of Super Friends aired, Wendy, Marvin & Wonderdog were abruptly gone, replaced without explanation by alien kids Zan & Jayna and their elastic-tailed space monkey Gleek. With room to extrapolate and in consideration of fans, Bridwell explained the sudden change via a battle to save Earth from annihilation whilst introducing the newest student heroes in memorable style. At the Hall of Justice Wendy & Marvin spot a spaceship hurtling to Earth on the Troubalert monitor and dash off to intercept it. Aboard are two siblings from distant planet Exor: a girl able to transform into animals and a boy who can become any form of water, from steam to ice. They have come carrying an urgent warning…

Superman’s alien enemy Grax has resolved to eradicate humanity and devised a dozen different superbombs and attendant weird-science traps to ensure his victory. These are scattered all over Earth and even the entire Justice League cannot stretch its resources to cover every angle and threat. To Wendy & Marvin the answer is obvious: call upon the help and knowledge of hyper-powered local heroes…

Soon Superman and Israel’s champion The Seraph are dismantling a black hole bomb whilst Elongated Man and titan-tressed Godiva perform similar service on a life-eradicator in England. Flash (Barry Allen) and mighty-leaping Impala dismantle uncatchable ordnance in South Africa before Hawkman & Hawkwoman join Native American avenger Owlwoman to crush darkness-breeding monsters in Oklahoma, whilst from the Hall of Justice Wendy, Marvin and the Wonder Twins monitor the crisis with a modicum of mounting hope…

The cataclysmic epic continues in #8 with ‘The Mind Killers!’ as Atom and Rising Son tackle a device designed to decimate Japan, and in Ireland Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Jack O’Lantern battle multi-hued monstrosities before switching off their technological terror.

In New Zealand, time-scanning Tuatara tips off Red Tornado to the position of a bomb cached in the distant past whilst Venezuela’s doom is diverted through a team-up of Batman, Robin and reptile-themed champion Bushmaster. And in Taiwan a melding of sonic superpowers possessed by Black Canary and the astounding Thunderlord harmoniously saves the day…

The saga soars to a classic climax with ‘Three Ways to Kill a World!’ in which the final phases of Grax’s scheme fail thanks to Green Arrow & Tasmanian Devil in Australia, with Aquaman & Little Mermaid sorting out the embattled seas off Denmark and Wonder Woman & The Olympian preserving modern Greece.

Or at least, they would have if the Hellenic heroes had found the right foe. Sadly, their triumph against Wrong-Place, Right-Time terrorist Colonel Conquest almost upsets everything. Thankfully, the quick thinking hero-students send an army of defenders to Antarctica where Norwegian novice Icemaiden dismantles the ultimate booby-trap bomb.  However, whilst the adult champions are engaged, Grax invades the Hall of Justice seeking revenge on the pesky whistleblowing Exorian kids. He’s completely unprepared for and overwhelmed by Wendy, Marvin & Wonderdog, who categorically prove they’re ready to graduate to the big leagues…

Thus with Zan & Jayna enrolled as latest heroes-in-training, Super Friends #10 details their adoption by Batman’s old associate – and eccentric time travel theoretician – Professor Carter Nichols, just before a legion of alien horrors arrive on Earth to teach the kids that appearances can be lethally deceiving in ‘The Monster Menace!’ In #11, ‘Kingslayer’ pits the heroes against criminal mastermind Overlord who has contracted the world’s greatest hitman to murder more than one hundred leaders at one sitting…

Another deep dive into DC’s past resurrected Golden Age titans T.N.T and Dan, the Dyna-Mite in ‘The Atomic Twosome!’ These 1940s mystery men had been under government wraps ever since their radioactive powers began to melt down, but when an underground catastrophe ruptures their individual lead-lined vaults, the Super Friends are called in to prevent potential nuclear nightmare. Then the subterranean reason for the near tragedy is tracked to a monstrous mole creature, and leads to the introduction of eternal mystic Doctor Mist, who reveals the secret history of civilisation and begs help to halt ‘The Mindless Immortal!’ before its random burrowing shatters mankind’s cities. From here, Bridwell would build a fascinating new team concept that would support decades of future continuity…

Super Friends #14 opens with ‘Elementary!’; introducing four ordinary mortals forever changed when possessed by ancient sprits. Tasked by Overlord with plundering the world, Undine, Salamander, Sylph & Gnome are defeated by our heroes yet retain their powers and so become crimefighting team The Elementals. Also on view is a short back-up illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger & Bob Smith. ‘The Origin of the Wondertwins’ at last reveals they are Exorian genetic throwbacks (despised outcasts on their homeworld) who fled from a circus of freaks and uncovered Grax’s plot before taking that fateful voyage to Earth.

Big surprises come in ‘The Overlord Goes Under!’ (Fradon & Smith) as the Elementals begin battling evil by joining the Super Friends in crushing the crook. All those superheroes are blithely unaware that they are merely clearing the way for a far more cunning and subtle mastermind to take Overlord’s place…

‘The People Who Stole the Sky!’ in SF #16 is a grand, old-fashioned alien invasion yarn, foiled by the team and the increasingly adept Wonder Twins whilst ‘Trapped in Two Times!’ has Zan & Jayna used by the insidious Time Trapper to lure their adult mentors into deadly peril on Krypton in the days before it detonated, and future water world Neryla in the hours before it’s swallowed by its critically expanding red sun. After rescuing the kids – thanks largely to Superman’s legendary lost love Lyla Ler-Rol – the Super Friends employ Tuatara’s temporal insight and Professor Nichol’s obscure chronal methodologies to hunt the Trapper in a riotous yet educational ‘Manhunt in Time!’ (art by Schaffenberger & Smith), by way of Atlantis before it sank, medieval Spain and Michigan in 1860CE: all to thwart a triple-strength scheme to derail history and end Earth civilisation…

SF #19 sees an encore for Menagerie Man in ‘The Mystery of the Missing Monkey!’ (Fradon & Smith) as the animal exploiter appropriates Gleek: intent on turning his elastic-tailed talents into a perfect pickpocketing tool, before Denny O’Neil (as Sergius O’Shaugnessy) teams with Schaffenberger & Smith for a more jocular turn. Here, chaos and comedy ensue when the team tackles vegetable monsters unleashed after self-obsessed shlock-movie director Frownin’ Fritz Frazzle uses Merlin’s actually magical Magic Lantern to make a “masterpiece” on the cheap in ‘Revenge of the Leafy Monsters!’…

Bridwell & Fradon bounce back in #21 where ‘Battle Against the Super Fiends!’ has the heroes travelling to Exor to combat super-criminals who can duplicate their power-sets, after which ‘It’s Never Too Late!’ (#22, O’Shaugnessy, Fradon & Smith) reveals how time bandit Chronos subjects the Super Friends to a chronal-delay treatment rendering them perennially too late to stop him… but only until Batman and the Wonder Twins out-think him.

The Mirror Master divides and banishes teachers from students in #23 but is ultimately unable to prevent an ‘SOS from Nowhere!’ (Bridwell, Fradon & Smith) to the Flash. This episode also spends time fleshing out the Wonder Twins’ earthly alter egos as Gotham Central highschoolers John & Joanna Fleming…

With O’Shaugnessy scripting, ‘Past, Present and Danger!’ sees Zan & Jayna’s faces found engraved on a recently-unearthed Egyptian pyramid. Upon investigation inside the edifice, the heroes awaken two ancient exiles who resemble the kids, but who are in truth criminals who fled Exorian justice thousands of years previously. How lucky, then, that the kids are perfect doubles that the villains can send back with the robot cops surrounding the pyramid – once they’ve got rid of all those busybody Earthling heroes…

Enjoying promotion through treachery, habitually harassed Underling has seized power at last in Bridwell’s ‘Puppets of the Overlord’, and then employs forbidden technology to mind-control adult and junior heroes. Happily, international champions Green Fury (later Fire), Wonder Woman’s sister Nubia, Tasmanian Devil and Seraph can join Green Lantern and Queen Mera of Atlantis in delivering a liberating solution, after which this splendid selection of super thrills pauses with SF #26 as Bridwell, Fradon & Smith bring back some old friends and enemies for ‘The Wondertwins’ Battle of Wits!’ when a scheming former Bat-foe enacts an infallibly murderous plot…

Rounding out the frenetic fun is a features section that includes the Alex Toth cover from Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41  and new material from sequel C-46. These include a comic strip collaboration with Bridwell on introductory tale ‘Super Friends’ which was a star-studded framing sequence for a big reprint issue of Justice League classics. The wonders are further augmented by Toth’s comprehensive pictorial essay on creating ‘TV Cartoons’ (with contributions from Bob Foster), plus his ‘The JLA on TV’ model sheets, and designs of ‘The Hall of Justice’ by Terry Austin. As you of course know, comics legend Toth was lead designer on the characters’ transition to TV animation…

The extras include mini-comic Aquateers Meet the Super Friends – a 1979 promotional giveaway included with every purchase of Super Friends Swim Goggles. An uncredited framing sequence (which looks like a Continuity Associates project that Dick Giordano & Frank McLoughlin had a hand in) segues into ‘The Greatest Show on Water’ – an Aquaman short by Fradon originally published in Adventure Comics #219, (December 1955).

The bumper fun wraps with Alex Ross’ painted cover from 2001 book collection Super Friends!

With covers by Fradon, Smith, Schaffenberger, Colletta, Ernie Chan and more, this hopefully initial compendium is superbly entertaining, masterfully crafted and utterly engaging. It offers stories of pure comics gold to delight children and adults in equal proportion. Truly generational in appeal, they are probably the closest thing to an American answer to the magic of Tintin or Asterix and no family home should be without this tome.

Sadly, this masterful mystery megamix is not yet available digitally, but we live in hope. In the meantime, if you prefer your cartoon crimebustng computer collated you could access 2020’s Super-Friends: Saturday Morning Comics volume 1.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2001, 2025 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1697, Willam Hogarth was born. Notionally adding to the comics lustre and significance, in 1918, Howard Purcell was also added to the planet’s roster, as was Neil Gaiman in 1960. In the exit column for today, in 1993 we lost astounding illustrator Alberto Breccia, and in 2006 immortal sci fi writer Jack Williamson. All those other guys you can find in old posts here, but I particularly recommend Beyond Mars – The Complete Series 1952-1955.

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Superman: Phantom Zone


By Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Rick Veitch, Tony DeZuñiga & Bob Smith (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4051-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today would have been Steve Gerber’s 78th birthday. For no appreciable reason, he would have found that to be quite funny. You should go read more comics by him. Here’s some many people don’t immediately think of when listing his so-many sublime star turns…

Once upon a time for fans and comics creators alike continuity could be a harsh mistress. When maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for made-up worlds we inhabited was paramount, the greatest casualty of semi-regular reboots and sweeping changes, often meant some terrific tales suddenly never happened. Everything goes now of course, thanks to parallel world-ery, but way back whenever, it was a most painful time for me…

Many examples of this wholesale binning of entire charm-drenched mythologies happened but the convergent growth of graphic novels fortunately provided a sanctuary of sorts, such as this paean of pictorial praise for the mythology had evolved around Superman in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.

Thankfully DC has always understood that a good story is worth cherishing. This slim, trim spectral selection gathers superb 4-issue miniseries The Phantom Zone (originally appearing from January to April 1982) and includes the very last pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Zone yarn as first seen in DC Comics Presents #97 (September 1986). It also simultaneously celebrates the stylish and enthralling scripting of unique comics voice Steve Gerber and his most ardent collaborator Gene (Howard the Duck, Stewart the Rat) Colan.

Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of comic book continuity minutiae with dark, irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reigned-in imagination and boundless bizarre surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of any mainstream company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties as thinly-veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

This riotous recapitulation of all that lost Man of Tomorrow ficto-history begins in ‘The Haunting of Charlie Kweskill!’ as the eponymous Daily Planet paste-up artist collapses at work. The solitary little dweeb has been sleeping badly, plagued by nightmares of a life on long-gone planet Krypton. His dreams detail how brilliant scientist Jor-El devised a non-lethal way to deal with Krypton’s most incorrigible criminals: human monsters such as Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Dr. Xadu, sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul, potential dictator General Dru-Zod, and even Jor’s own bad & crazy cousin Kru-El…

Many lesser menaces like psionic aberrants Az-Rel and Nadira were also banished to the misty twilit realm, as well as stranger outcasts like callous biological experimenter Nam-Ek, but the one who most catches Charlie’s attention is fraudster Quex-Ul; a Kryptonian who appears to be Charlie’s doppelganger…

Of course, the dreams are all true: telepathic broadcasts beamed at Charlie by Zone inmates from within the plane of timeless intangibility. Quex-Ul had been one of them, surviving long after Krypton died, but was innocent of his crimes. He had been framed and mind-controlled by a mastermind who had deservedly perished when the Red Sun world detonated. Once Superman corrected the injustice and released the poor dupe, Qwex-Ul had saved the Man of Steel from a Gold Kryptonite trap, thereby losing his inherent Kryptonian abilities and memory in the process. The grateful, heartsick Action Ace had found the amnesiac a job at the Planet and almost forgot his alien origins in the years since. Charlie’s former fellow inmates had not…

Their telepathic onslaught turns Kweskill into a somnambulistic slave, unknowingly spending his nights breaking into labs and stealing high-tech components. Superman, slowly putting the puzzle pieces together, is just too late to thwart the stealthy scheme, and as he bursts into Charlie’s apartment a hastily cobbled together Phantom Zone projector hurls him and the hapless mind-slave into the ghostly region, whilst simultaneously freeing a legion of the cruellest and most bored criminals in existence…

The saga expands with ‘Earth Under Siege!’ as Superman and Charlie helplessly watch Zod, Jax-Ur, Va-Kox, Faora and Kru-El immediately undertake the next stage of their plan, leaving passively nihilistic Az-Rel and Nadira to negligently torture monstrous Nam-Ek with their psychic talents when not mocking the ranting liturgies of religious zealot Jer-Em, whose manic bigotry and fundamentalist isolationism caused the death of every person in Argo City…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on the city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the doomed world detonated. Eventually, Argo turned to Green Kryptonite like most of Krypton’s detonated debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished. On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the wider world whilst she learned all about her new home… and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.

As the emotionally disconnected, disaffected and doubly alienated youths laconically saunter through Metropolis; casually slaughtering cops and citizens, Zod’s more motivated cronies have reached Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and destroyed the only means of returning them to their extra-dimensional dungeon.

The next move is attacking the Justice League satellite, hurling it and occupants Flash, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm & Aquaman on a non-stop trajectory out of the Solar System. Rampant Kryptonians destroy Earth’s communications satellites and trigger a mass launch of nuclear missiles, leaving Wonder Woman and Supergirl to narrowly avert atomic Armageddon whilst the frantic Man of Tomorrow can only watch in horror…

Not every Zone inhabitant is a criminal. For instance, Daxamite Mon-El was exposed to common lead in ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp in June 1961’s Superboy #89) when his lingering, inexorable death was only forestalled by depositing the dying alien in the Zone until a cure could be found. Now, as Green Lantern faces the Zod Squad on Earth only to be soundly beaten and have his Power Battery stolen, Mon-El informs Charlie and Superman of a possible back way out of the realm of hellish nullity…

On Earth, as Wonder Woman subdues Nam-Ek, Supergirl checks in with Batman, desperately trying to ascertain where Superman has gone. As the Dark Knight heads to Metropolis to investigate, Kara returns to the Fortress and is ambushed by Kryptonian escapees and beaten near to death…

With no other choice, Charlie and Superman reluctantly pass through a dimensional portal even the obsessed villains were too scared to risk, encountering surreal madness in ‘The Terror Beyond Twilight!’…

Back in the physical world of touch and time, Supergirl saves herself from ghastly atomic disintegration as Charlie and Superman pass through stormy turbulence and a tedious waiting-room-realm before arriving on a peculiar plane where they are confronted by luscious sirens with impossible riddles and exploding heads. Their narrow escape from the Priestesses of the Crimson Sun only leads to Kryptonian wizard Thul-Kar who magicked himself into the Zone in ages past and now slavishly serves an erratic, malevolent sentient universe named Aethyr. It wants to consume Charlie and Superman but only by passing through it can they reach the physical world again…

On Earth, chaos reigns. Batman is utterly unable to pacify extremist Jer-Em, who deems the planet impure, unclean and unholy. He would rather die than soil his Kryptonian purity here.

… And high above the world, other freed villains have their own plan to fix the situation: a gigantic Phantom Zone Cannon to inexorably and eternally banish Earth into the twilight dimension in the course of one full rotation…

The drama comes to a tragic conclusion in ‘The Phantom Planet!’ as Az-Rel and Nadira, having found kindred spirits amongst Metropolis’ disenfranchised Punk Rock counterculture – before killing them – encounter Jer-Em in martyr mode. The now-suicidal cleric is quite keen on taking the rest of the apostate Kryptonians with him…

As the world turns into intangibility, in France, Faora has briefly resumed her passion for murdering males (before they’re all gone) whilst in Aethyr’s universe an appalling sacrifice enables Superman to return to physicality just in time to lead a last desperate charge, saving the day and putting the villains back where they belong… those still alive, that is…

The remainder of this fantastic collection recounts the tying up of all those intriguing concepts and loose ends in a spectacular sidebar to the end of DC’s original universe.

In 1986 the company celebrated its 50th year with groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths: radically overhauling a convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending a back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology. One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of DC Comics Presents (#97) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foes.

Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to imminent multiversal annihilation, this dark yarn built on Gerber’s landmark miniseries and revealed that the dread region of nothingness was in fact a sentient echo of a dead universe which had always regarded the creatures deposited within it as irritants and agonising intruders.

Now as cosmic carnage reigns Aethyr, still served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, causes the destruction of the Bizarro World “Htrae” and the deification/corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk, as well as the subsequent crashing of Argo City on Metropolis. As a result Zod and fellow immaterial inmates are freed to wreak havoc upon Earth – but only until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merges with and absorbs the felons, before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Krypton…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and Gerber’s takes on these timeless tales of charm, joy and wholesome wit are unique and more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of wonders still to come…
© 1982, 1986, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: The Flash – The Human Thunderbolt


By Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, John Broome, Gardner F. Fox, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Murphy Anderson & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-836-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This is another of the first tranche of long-awaited DC Finest editions: colour continuations of their chronologically curated monochrome Showcase Presents line, delivering “affordably priced, large-size (comic book dimensions and generally around 600 pages) paperback collections” highlighting past glories. Whilst primarily concentrating on the superhero pantheon, there will also be genre selections including horror and war books, and themed compendia such as the much anticpiated gathering of early ape stories (brace yourself for DC Finest: The Gorilla World in July!).

Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

The Silver Age of US comics is formally and forever tied to Showcase #4 and the rebirth of The Flash. The epochal issue was released in the late summer of 1956 and from it stems all today’s print, animation, games, collector cards, cosplay and TV/movie wonderment. No matter which way you look at it, the renaisance began with The Flash, but it’s an unjust yet true fact that being first is not enough: it also helps to be best and people have to notice. MLJ’s The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The US industry had never really stopped trying to revive superheroes when Showcase #4 was released. Readers had already been blessed – but were left generally unruffled by – such tentative precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955); Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955) and a full revival of Timely/Marvel’s 1940s “Big Three” – Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and aforementioned Captain America (from December 1953 to October 1955). Both DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until May 1969, and almost the end of superheroes again!) had come and been barely noticed. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was… well, everything!

Once DC’s powers-that-be decided to seriously try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner, fellow editor and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age: aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the prior incarnation. The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in exploding chemicals from his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry (a lifelong fan of comic books) took his superhero identity from his favourite childhood reading – and now his notional predecessor. Once upon a time there was a fictional scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of Hard Water and became the “fastest man alive”…

Wearing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent approaching his artistic and creative peak), Barry became point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and an entire industry. This splendidly tempting full colour paperback sublimely displays Infantino’s talents and the tone of those halcyon times. These tales have been gathered many times but still offer punch, clarity and the ineffably comforting yet thrilling timbre of those now-distant times. Conversely, you might be as old as me and it was only the day before yesterday. This is what a big book of comics ought to feel like in your eager hands…

Collecting all four try-out issues (Showcase #4, 8, 13 & 14) – and the bombastic, trendsetting continuance into his own title (The Flash volume 1, #105-123) the contents span cover dates October 1956 to September 1961 with the high-speed thrills beginning in Showcase #4’s ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!’ Scripted by Kanigher, it sees Barry endure electrical metamorphosis and promptly go on to subdue bizarre criminal mastermind and “Slowest Man Alive” Turtle Man, after which ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!’ – scripted by the brilliant John Broome – finds the newly-minted Scarlet Speedster batting a criminal from the future. A furious fight and battle of wills sees Allen accomplish the impossible by returning penal exile Mazdan to his own century, proving the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power.

These are all slickly polished, coolly sophisticated short stories, introducing a comfortingly ordinary, suburbanite superhero and firmly establishing the broad parameters of his universe. Showcase #8 (June 1957) opens with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’ is a perplexing if pedestrian mystery, with veteran Frank Giacoia returning as inker. However, the real landmark is Broome’s thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’. With this yarn he confirmed and consolidated the new costumed character reality by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of memorably outlandish but stylish supervillains. Unlike the Golden Age, modern superheroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again even as Broome went on to create every single member of Flash’s pantheon of classic super-foes….

Joe Giella inked both tales in Showcase #13 (April 1958). Kanigher’s ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes!’ demonstrates Flash’s versatility as he tackles atomic terrorists, battles Arabian bandits, counters an avalanche on Mount Everest and scuttles submarine pirates in the specified time slot. Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements!’ then premiers bizarre bandit Mr. Element, utilising the periodic table as his formidable, innovative arsenal…

Showcase #14 (June 1958) opens with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’: a masterful fantasy thriller and a worthy effort to bow out on as Barry and journalist girlfriend Iris West encounter extra-dimensional invaders with the strangest life-cycle imaginable. The issue closed with a return engagement for Mr. Element, sporting a new M.O. and identity: Doctor Alchemy. ‘The Man Who Changed the Earth!’ is a classic crime-caper with serious psychological underpinnings as Flash struggles to overcome the villain’s latest weapon, mystic transmutational talisman the Philosopher’s Stone. When the Scarlet Speedster graduated to his own title, Broome became lead writer, supplemented by Gardner Fox. Kanigher would return briefly in the mid-1960s and later write many tales during DC’s ‘Relevancy’ period…

Taking its own sweet time, The Flash #105 launched with a February/March 1959 cover-date – so it was out for Christmas 1958 – and opened with Broome, Infantino & Giella’s sci-fi chiller ‘Conqueror From 8 Million B.C.!’ before introducing yet another money-mad super-villain in ‘The Master of Mirrors!’

The next issue premiered one of the most charismatic and memorable baddies in comics history. Gorilla Grodd and his hidden race of telepathic super-simians instantly captured fan attention in ‘Menace of the Super-Gorilla!’ Even after Flash soundly thrashed the hairy hooligan, Grodd promptly returned in the next two issues. Presumably this early confidence was fuelled by DC’s inexplicable but commercially sound pro-Gorilla editorial stance. In those far-ago days for some reason any comic with a substantial simian in it spectacularly outsold those that didn’t; here the tales are also packed with tension, action and challenging fantasy concepts.

By way of encore there is also ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’: a mesmerising musical criminal mastermind, stealing for fun and attention rather than profit…

The Flash #107 led with the ‘Return of the Super-Gorilla!’ by Broome, Infantino & Giella: a multi-layered fantasy taking our hero from the (invisible) African city of the Super-Gorillas to the subterranean citadel of antediluvian Ornitho-Men, before closing with ‘The Amazing Race Against Time’, featuring an amnesiac who could outrun the Fastest Man Alive in a desperate collaborative dash to save all of creation from obliteration. With every issue the stakes got higher whilst the dramatic quality and narrative ingenuity got better!

Frank Giacoia inked #108’s high-tech death-trap thriller ‘The Speed of Doom!’ with trans-dimensional raiders stealing fulgurites (look it up, if you want) before Giella returned for ‘The Super-Gorilla’s Secret Identity!’, wherein Grodd devises a scheme to outwit evolution itself by turning himself into a human…

The next issue saw ‘The Return of the Mirror-Master!’ with the first in a series of bizarre physical transformations that increasingly became a signature device in Flash stories, whilst the contemporary Space Race provided an evocative maguffin for a fantastic undersea adventure in the ‘Secret of the Sunken Satellite’. Here Flash befriends an unsuspected subsea race on the edge of extinction whilst enquiring after the impossible survival of an astronaut trapped at the bottom of the sea for days after splashdown. The Flash #110 was a major landmark, not so much for the debut of another worthy addition to the burgeoning Rogues Gallery in ‘The Challenge of the Weather Wizard’ (inked by Schwartz’s incredibly versatile artistic top-gun Murphy Anderson) but for the introduction of Wally West, who in a bizarre and suspicious replay of the lightning strike that created the Vizier of Velocity became a junior version of the Fastest Man Alive. Inked by Giella, ‘Meet Kid Flash!’ debuted the first teenage sidekick of the Silver Age (cover dated December 1959-January 1960 and just pipping Aqualad who premiered in Adventure Comics #269’s February off-sale date).

Not only would Kid Flash begin his own series of back-up tales in the very next issue (a sure sign of the confidence the creators had in him) but he would eventually inherit the mantle of the Flash himself – one of the few times in comics where such torch-passing actually stuck.

Anderson inked #111’s ‘The Invasion of the Cloud Creatures!’, which successfully overcomes its frankly daft premise to deliver a taut, tense sci-fi thriller nicely counterpointing the first solo outing for Kid Flash in ‘The Challenge of the Crimson Crows!’ This folksy parable has small-town kid Wally use his new powers to rescue a gang of kids on the slippery slope to juvenile delinquency. Perhaps a tad paternalistic and heavy-handed by today’s standards, in the opening months of 1960 this was a strip about a boy heroically dealing with a kid’s real dilemmas. The occasional series would concentrate on such human-scaled problems, leaving super-menaces and world-saving for team-ups with his mentor…

Flash #112 – ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man!’ – introduced an intriguing super-stretchable newcomer to the DC universe, who might have been hero or villain in a beguiling tantaliser, after which Wally tackled juvenile Go-Karters and corrupt school contractors in the surprisingly gripping ‘Danger on Wheels!’

Mercurial maniac The Trickster premiered in #113’s lead tale ‘Danger in the Air!’ whilst the second-generation speedster took a break so his senior partner could defeat ‘The Man Who Claimed the Earth!’: a full-on cosmic epic wherein ancient alien Po-Siden seeks to bring the lost colony of Earth back into the galaxy-spanning Empire of Zus. Next, Captain Cold and Murphy Anderson returned for ‘The Big Freeze!’, as the smitten villain turns Central City into a glacier just to impress Iris West. Meanwhile, her nephew Wally saves a lad unjustly accused of cheating from a life of crime when the despondent student falls under the influence of the ‘King of the Beatniks!’

Flash #115 offered another bizarre transformation, courtesy of Gorilla Grodd in ‘The Day Flash Weighed 1000 Pounds!’, and when aliens attempt to conquer Earth, the slimmed-down champion needs ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon!’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. Once again Anderson’s inking gave over-taxed Joe Giella a breather whilst taking art-lovers’ breath away in this beautiful, fast-paced thriller. The big science concepts kept coming and #116 introduced‘The Man Who Stole Central City!’ with a seemingly fool-proof way to kill the valiant hero, requiring both time-tinkering and serious outwitting to thwart, before Kid Flash returns in ‘The Race to Thunder Hill!’: a father-son tale of rally driving, but with car-stealing bandits and a young love interest for Wally to complicate the proceedings.

‘Here Comes Captain Boomerang’ (inked by Anderson), introduces a mercenary Australian marauder who turns a legitimate job opportunity into a criminal career in what is still one of the most original origin tales ever concocted to lead off #117 before ‘The Madcap Inventors of Central City’ sees Gardner Fox (creator of the Golden Age Flash) join the creative bullpen with a perhaps ill-considered attempt to reintroduce 1940s comedy sidekicks Winky, Blinky and Noddy to the modern fans. The fact that you’ve never heard of them should indicate how well that went although the yarn, illustrated by Infantino & Giella, is a fast, witty, enjoyably silly change of pace.

The Flash #118 highlighted the period’s (and DC’s) obsession with Hollywood in ‘The Doomed Scarecrow!’ (Anderson inks); a sharp, smart thriller featuring a minor villain with a unique reason to get rid of our hero, after which Wally West and a friend must spend the night in a haunted house for Kid Flash chiller ‘The Midnight Peril!’ In #119, Broome, Infantino & Anderson relate the adventure of‘The Mirror-Master’s Magic Bullet!’, which our hero narrowly evades, before ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap!’ introduces the stretchable sleuth’s new spouse Sue Dibny (née Dearbon) and sinister alien subsea slavers in a mysterious and stirring tale.

These earliest stories were historically vital to the development of our industry but, quite frankly, so what? The first exploits of The Flash should be judged solely on their merit, and on those terms, they are punchy, awe-inspiring, beautifully illustrated and captivating thrillers that amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old devotees. The title had gelled into a comfortable pattern of two tales per issue alternating with semi-regular booklength thrillers such as the glorious example in Flash #120 (May 1961). ‘Land of Golden Giants!’ is a minor masterpiece: a fanciful science fiction drama wherein a small private expedition of explorers – including Iris, Barry and protégé Wally – are catapulted back millennia to the very moment when the primal supercontinent (or at least the parts that would become Africa and South America) begin splitting apart.

Flash stories always found a way to make cutting-edge science integral and interesting. Regular filler-features were numerous speed-themed informational pages which became a component of the stories themselves via quirky little footnotes. This collection includes them all. Peppered throughout the dramas are numerous examples of ‘Flash Facts!’, ‘Science Says You’re Wrong if You Believe…!’, ‘Amazing Speeds!’, ‘The Speed of Sound!’, ‘Fastest Creatures on Earth!’, ‘Wonders of Speed!’, ‘Comparitive Speed Records!’, ‘Jet Speedboat Ace! (Donald Campbell)’, ‘Solar System Speeds!’, ‘Our Remarkable Bodies!’ and even a few assorted ads of the era. How many fans turned a C to a B by dint of recreational reading? I know I certainly impressed the heck out of a few nuns at the convent school I attended! (let’s not visualise; simply move on)…

The Flash #121 saw the return of a novel old foe on another robbery rampage when ‘The Trickster Strikes Back!’, after which costumed criminality is counterbalanced by Cold War skulduggery in gripping, Anderson inked thriller ‘Secret of the Stolen Blueprint!’ Another contemporary zeitgeist undoubtedly led to ‘Beware the Atomic Grenade!’, a witty yarn premiering a new member of Flash’s burgeoning Rogues Gallery after career criminal Roscoe Dillon graduates from second-rate thief to global extortionist The Top by means of a rather baroque thermonuclear device…

In counterpoint, Kid Flash deals with smaller scale catastrophe in ‘The Face Behind the Mask!’ A pop star with a secret identity (based on a young David Soul who began his career as folk singer “the Covered Man” because he performed wearing a mask) is blackmailed by a villainous gang of old school friends until whizz kid Wally steps in…

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic closing this tome: a tale that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds!’ introduced the theory of alternate Earths to the continuity and, by extension, resulted in the pivotal multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas that grew from it. And, of course, where DC led, others followed…

During a charity benefit gig Flash accidentally slips into another dimension to find that the comic book hero he’s based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure Barry absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men chums on (the controversially designated) Earth-2. Locating his idol, Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains – The Shade, Thinker and Fiddler – make their own wicked comeback. And above all else, Flash #123 is a great read that still stands up today.

These tales were crucial to the development of our art-form, but, more importantly they are brilliant, awe-inspiring, beautifully realised thrillers to amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old lags. This splendid selection is another must-read item for anybody in love with the world of words-in-pictures.
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