Category: silver age comics

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The Flash Silver Age Volume Three

This is a review of The Flash Silver Age Volume Three, written by John Broome and drawn by Carmine Infantino. Read my reviews of Volumes One and Two here and here. The Flash is of course the Fastest Man on Earth. Mild-mannered police scientist Barry Allen is struck by lightning, which grants him super speed. He can outrun bullets, time travel, and control every atom in his body! He has a fiancée, hen reporter (not a typo, Google it!)  Iris Allen; a young protégé, Kid Flash; a weird friend, The Elongated Man; PLUS a bow-tie, and he’s ready to go!

Know that this volume contains many erudite rogues, the type of blue-collar supervillain who will haul beer crates during the day and invent a perpetual motion machine during lunch break. Instead of selling their inventions and living the rest of their lives in luxury, they use their inventions to rob jewelry stores. They’re all the same character in that they are doing it for the kicks and not the money. We have an episode with the Mirror Master – I think it was the Mirror Master – breaking out of jail because his rogue rating went down in the prison newspaper, which I’m guessing is put out by his fellow cons. His rogue rating goes up and then tanks when the Flash flattens him.

There are also a few science fiction stories. I respect the fact that Mr. Broome always invents an explanation for his ridiculous Silver Age stories. In one story, the Flash time travels to the future to videotape the end of the earth for his girlfriend. He touches something, which is stupid, and ends up with Hands of Death ™. Everything he touches withers and dies. How to cure this? Just eat grain and oats, which I guess is immune to aging but will absorb the toxins in his hands and thus create an antidote when consumed. Simple!

The Flash’s supporting cast continues to expand. We meet Iris Allen’s brilliant professor father, who I’m sure wanders around asking people what day of the week it is, but almost deduces Flash’s secret identity using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. When Barry uses super speed, time slows down around him, and his watch slows down. That’s why he’s always late. He’s not a lazy bum after all! And we have The Reverse Flash, who hails from the 25th century and is destined to become the Flash’s greatest foe.

These comics were written in the 1960s for children and young teens, and now they are being made into TV shows and movies that make millions of dollars. How influential are these comics? Well, if the creative team wasn’t doing work-for-hire, they would’ve been millionaires before they died. The lesson: own your own intellectual property! If you are a fan of the Flash and Silver Age comics you will enjoy this.

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Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume Four

This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume Four. See what I thought of the first three volumes here, here, and here. A quick review of the first forty issues of the Avengers –started slow, but got better once the creators started making the team members fight each other more than the villains. Jack Kirby (comic creator) is gone, Stan Lee (writer) is leaving, and Roy Thomas’ (writer) time is upon us.

This volume, the roster expands as Hank Pym – aka Ant Man, aka Goliath, aka Yellowjacket, aka Ultron’s Daddy – and The Wasp rejoin the team. The Greek God Hercules, who at one point we see playing ukulele at a tiki bar, also joins after a mild misunderstanding – Herc tries to kill them all – gets ironed out. Hawkeye wants his girlfriend The Black Widow to join the team, also, and she’d be an interesting addition, but it doesn’t happen because reasons.

The tension between Hawkeye and Captain America is gone, replaced by tension between Goliath and Hawkeye. Goliath is written as a loose cannon. Besides that, he’s sort of a dick. He is also the team’s strong-man, which is weird considering he’s a scientist. What kind of scientist, do you ask? If forced to answer, I would call Pym a physicist, just because the power to grow and shrink seems to be quantum physics. What he has, of course, is a doctorate in handwavium.

The team fights the Sons of the Serpent, a two-issue storyline that today would be an 18 part event. The Living Laser storyline features one of the first realistic depictions of a stalker in comic books I’ve ever seen. There are Ultroids in Bavarian villages and yet another battle with the Sub Mariner, who manages to uncover the Cosmic Cube.

I have a confession to make. Sometimes reading 60’s era Marvel comics (besides Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) is a real slog, but I look forward to these volumes. After a rough first volume, this series is a must-read. Recommended!

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Marvel Masterworks: The Sub-Mariner Volume Two

This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: The Sub-Mariner Volume Two. You can read my review of the first volume, here. Warlord Krang, Namor’s archnemesis from the previous book, only makes a brief appearance. He’s replaced by Daredevil villain The Plunderer, aka Kazar’s Evil Brother, aka The Bad Seed, who wants to conquer the earth by arming his men with VIBRA-GUNS. Namor has a rock dropped on his head and then is buried in an avalanche, while Atlantis is destroyed for the second or third – or maybe the fourth – time. I lost count.

Prince Namor is as gullible and hot-tempered as ever. He has no control over his emotions, declaring war on the surface world in one panel and saving humans from certain death in the next. The meta-story revolves around his never-ending frustration with the surface world. He’s banned from Atlantis because of a stupid misunderstanding, and then leaves his people to fend for themselves after Atlantis is destroyed – when his subjects need him most. This is Namor’s fatal flaw, much like Magneto’s fatal flaw – his narcissism and anger ensure that it will always be about him. Namor must avenge this and wreak vengeance on that, blah blah blah. It’s a very childlike outlook.

The stories are less disjointed, but still way too reliant on coincidence, misunderstandings, and bad luck. The scene where Atlantis is destroyed is worth mentioning. The underwater city is carpet-bombed by a U.S. submarine; earlier, The Plunderer destroys a domed city full of humans. The visuals are striking, and makes me wonder if the creators were influenced by the footage and imagery of the Vietnam War. I don’t know if this is true, btw.

This volume should appeal to Sub-Mariner fans and lovers of obscure characters. Namor is interesting in that he’s a gray character – he’s fought alongside the Fantastic Four as well as Dr. Doom. Another possible draw is Bill Everett – the creator of The Sub-Mariner – doing the pencils and/or inkwork in a few of these issues. All in all, an interesting read about a flawed – but interesting – antihero.

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Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Volume Three

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This is a review of Marvel Masterworks Thor: Volume 3. Thor keeps getting better, which is a relief, because the first volume was one of the worst graphic novels I’ve ever read. When Jack Kirby took over Thor the second book improved, and now the third volume is hitting its stride courtesy of his great art and clever plotting. Read my reviews of the first two graphic novels here and here.

Jane Foster is in peril a lot in this volume. She’s kidnapped by Loki, menaced by the Grey Gargoyle, and then manhandled by the Executioner and the Enchantress. Don Blake gives the magic beans away by telling Jane he’s Thor, but All-Father Odin conveniently strips him of his powers so he can’t change forms, and she starts thinking he’s soft in the head. All part of Odin’s master plan to cock-block his mighty son!

Thor’s adopted brother, Loki, doesn’t want to mess with Thor’s love-life. He wants to kill him by proxy, using his sorcery to empower Crusher Creel, aka the Absorbing Man. When that fails, he makes a baseless claim against his half-brother. Even though Loki does nothing but lie, and Odin sacrificed an eye for divine wisdom (including the ability to see anything), the All-Father seems strangely clueless in regards to his sons. He sentences them to an ordeal in Skornheim. Loki wins, because he cheats. Loki always cheats, but he shouldn’t bother because Odin already knows he cheated. My theory is that it’s a bizarre sham put on by the All-Father, who must be bored out of his mind. What’s a war god to do in times of peace?

The best part of this volume is when Loki activates The Destroyer, which is more powerful than Thor, and then realizes that if The Destroyer kills Thor, Odin will blast him to atoms. This leads to a sequence where Loki tries in vain to awaken a sleeping Odin and ends up saving Thor’s life. The back-up feature, Tales of Asgard, is great also, heralding the first appearance of the mighty Volstagg, who has served as comic relief for lo these many decades.

Good stuff, especially if you like Jack Kirby and Thor!

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The Flash Silver Age Volume Two

This is a review of The Flash Silver Age Vol. 2. I’m not going to mention that I have a special place in my heart for the Flash, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned that in every Flash review I’ve ever written. Instead, I’ll talk about how DC’s Silver Age comics aren’t to my tastes – most of the ones I’ve read are written in a style I have trouble connecting with. True, comics of that day were written for kids, but many of them are just glorified science fiction tales with eye-rolling pseudoscience.

Luckily, this volume isn’t like that. True, the stories are formulaic and the ‘science’ is dopey, but that’s fine. The author usually manages to give them an interesting twist: witness Charm School Gorilla Grodd. Grodd is an evil super-intelligent, super-powered gorilla who wants to conquer the world. In this volume, the Great Ape uses his mental powers to make himself irresistible to everyone, including the Flash. We have the Elongated Man, whose stretching powers derive from drinking soda pop. And then there’s Kid Flash, the bowtie wearing teen who emulates his idol, the head square himself, Barry Allen (who is the Flash).

In this volume we meet Digger Harkness, aka Captain Boomerang. Digger covers for his crimes by getting a couple of geriatric criminals to pose as his dear old mother and father. Later, he creates a boomerang that can time travel – not bad for a guy who probably dropped out of school in the fifth grade – and unwittingly causes an alien invasion, as one does. Instead of shooting The Flash in the head, Captain Boomerang enjoys tying the Scarlet Speedster to enormous boomerangs which he blasts into outer space.

This volume also has Bill “Beefy” Lawson. Beefy is all his nickname implies. We meet him at a class reunion; unfortunately it’s only a single issue. DC really missed out by not giving good ole’ Beefy his own series – he could use the moves he learned on the football gridiron to take down evildoers. I’m firmly convinced the creators of Married With Children read this particular issue, because Beefy is a perfect stand-in for Al Bundy.

There are a number of team-ups in this volume. Flash teams with Kid Flash, the Elongated Man, Green Lantern, and Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth 2. I am unsure if the writer came up with the alternate earth gimmick, but it’s sure turned out to be a cash cow for the comics industry.

Recommended!