Detective 402 – Man-Bat returns, and Robin helps reform school kids

Man-Bat returns in Detective 402 (Aug. 70), although it’s Frank Robbins scripting Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s art.

Batman responds to an alarm at a laboratory, and finds Man-Bat already there, having taken down the men trying to rob the place.  Batman and Man-Bat fight after Man-Bat tries to take a serum, and Batman discovers that his appearance is real, not a costume.

There’s a good shot of the 1970 Batmobile, and just below that, the introduction of Francine Lee, Kirk’s fiancee.  She doesn’t do much besides weep in this story, but she does give Batman the needed background on Kirk Langstrom.

Batman chases, and Man-Bat runs, until the spectacular sequence in which he gains wings.  He makes the mistake of fleeing into the Batcave though.

It’s a great fight, as Batman tries to help the poor man, who is simply freaking out due to his animal nature.

Batman finally takes Man-Bat down with the Batmobile.  He doesn’t look in great shape as the story ends, but Batman is determined to cure him.

It’s a few more months before the final chapter of this introduction to the character appears.

Speedy guest stars in this Mike Freidrich story, with art by Kane and Colletta.  The story takes place just after Robin rejoins the Teen Titans, after briefly leaving.  Roy and Dick discuss these recent events as the story opens.

The story sets up the next issue, introducing us to a program at Hudson U. to help out kids who had wound up in reform schools and such, in the hopes of making university available to them.

Roy is pretty subdued through the story, which culminates in Dick pondering changing his name from Robin to something more adult.  But his Nightwing days were a decade away, and he proudly stays as Robin.

More Fun 107 – Green Arrow, Superboy, Johnny Quick and Aquaman end

More Fun 107 (Jan/Feb 1946) was the last issue of the book to feature heroes.  With the following issue, Green Arrow, Superboy, Johnny Quick and Aquaman were all gone, moved en masse to the pages of Adventure Comics.  The comedic strip Dover and Clover was the only one to stick around, being joined by numerous other “funny” strips.

The last adventure for Green Arrow and Speedy in this book have them struggling against a mathematical genius who is trying to help them with their case, unaware that the archers are intentionally laying a false trail to decoy the thieves.

It’s a decent story.  The Arrowcar gets wrecked at the end of the tale, but it’s all fixed up (or replaced) by the time Green Arrow’s series in Adventure begins.

Johnny Quick’s final tale gives Tubby Watts the larger role, and has excellent art by Mort Meskin.

Johnny and Tubby are on a riverboat cruise, when Tubby falls overboard and winds up in the hands of gangsters, who hold him for ransom.  He is blissfully aware of the alligators menacing him.

A fun little tale.  Glad this series carried on.

Joe Shuster returns to the pencils for the last Superboy story in More Fun, which also finally gives young Clark Kent glasses.

It’s a dynamic story, that has Superboy aiding a boy in a soap box derby.  Though you do have wonder what age he and his friends are – soap box derbies, marbles championships and yet a high school new editor!

Similarly, if he is in high school, why is he punished by writing lines on a blackboard?  But ignoring the age issue, it’s a fairly good story.

Aquaman’s final outing is bookended by an entertaining bit in a classroom as a teacher explaining that Aquaman never comes to the inland part of the USA.

He is searching for a lost seal cub, and tracks him through the St. Lawrence Seaway, into the Great Lakes and over Niagara Falls.

Overall, this issue is actually much better than some of the ones preceding it.  Likely why these series were all kept, rather than cancelled.

More Fun 101 – Green Arrow drives the Arrowcar, Superboy debuts, and the Spectre ends

Green Arrow and Speedy share the cover to More Fun 101 (Jan/Feb 1945), with no hint at all that this issue also includes the debut of Superboy.

An unusually dynamic splash page for the Green Arrow story in this issue.  The story deals with a formula for synthetic silk, and hoods trying to steal it.

What makes this story worth inclusion is something else entirely.  Catch the upper panel in which the car is called the Arrow Car, instead of the Arrowplane!  It was a long time in coming, but from here on the car is always called a car, not a plane.

Towards the end, the phrase arrow-lines is used again, to describe the ropes attached to the arrows.

Superboy makes his debut in this issue, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.  This brief story just details his origin.

We get to see a bit more of the planet Krypton, rarely shown in these early days, as well as Jor-El and Lara.

The elderly Kents adopt the young boy, and the story cuts to Clark looking maybe 10 or 11 years old.

Up to this point, there had never been the notion that Clark used his abilities before becoming an adult, and the Superboy character is the first step towards the notion of multiple, parallel, universes within the DC Universe, as this Superboy must be a different person to the Superman currently appearing in Action Comics and his own book.

The story ends with young Clark showing off by lifting a car – the same activity as the cover of Action 1, which I doubt was just coincidence.

To make room for the new Superboy series, the Spectre’s strip was brought to an end with this issue.  A year or more too late in my view.

As had become the norm, this is primarily a story about Percival Popp and some wacky mix-ups with real gems and fake ones.

The Spectre was no longer a part of the Justice Society by the time his series was cancelled, and his return had to wait until his appearance in Showcase in the mid-60s.

More Fun 89 – the origins of Green Arrow and Speedy, and the returns of Black Jack and Dr. Clever

Green Arrow and Speedy have their origins told for the first time, in More Fun 89 (March 1943).  Oliver Queen’s story is very, very different from the later tale, but there are notable points of similarity in Roy Harper’s.

Lost Mesa is the location that eventually brings the two heroes together.  Roy arrives first, as his father dies in a plane crash, and he is trapped there, along with an old native guide Quoag.  The notion that Roy was orphaned during a fatal accident, and then raised by natives, would remain in every variation of his origin story.

Oliver Queen is introduced as a wealthy collector of weapons.  Criminals attempt to rob him, but instead succeed only is destroying his collection.  Oliver has heard of Lost Mesa, and intends to re-stock his collection with weapons from there, which he terms “a gold mine.”  The bad guys overhear this, take it literally, and head there themselves.  Lost Mesa is apparently not that lost.

Entertainingly, the two men do not hit it off at all when they meet, Roy mistaking Oliver for one of the gang.  They both get captured, but free themselves.  In plotting their revenge against the hoods, they adopt the basic guises and nicknames that would define them as heroes.

As a plus, they discover that there really is a treasure horde of gold in Lost Mesa.  As a minus, Quoag dies trying to help them.

And though a rope attached to an arrow is not at all beyond the normal scope of archery, the fact that he brands it an “Arrow-line” makes this an early trick arrow as well.

Black Jack returns again in this story.  He has a modern, oil-burning watercraft as his pirate ship, and that seems enough to warrant a story.  It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill affair for the most part, except when it gets down to the fight.

Black Jack captures Aquaman at one point, and intends to suffocate him by withdrawing the oxygen from water.  The “scientific” discussion between the men is so awful even I can tell it’s complete nonsense.

Aquaman uses whales to create a distracting rainfall, as well as to propel him and some eels up to the villain’s lair.

The eels in turn function as ropes.  From simple commands, Aquaman’s power to control and manipulate sea creatures has jumped to the staggering level it would remain at.

Mort Meskin brings back Dr. Clever in this Johnny Quick story, but the character really doesn’t have that much to do with the story, and appears only in a few panels.

Tubby Watts gets a larger than usual role, as he and Johnny Chambers spend some time as guests at a training camp.  It’s really not clear in the story if they are they just in order to make a newsreel, or if visiting the camps was a normal activity at the time, part of the recruitment process?  Certainly Tubby is not treated as a man doing a job by the military at the camp, but more like a potential soldier.

While Dr. Clever schemes sabotage off to the side, Johnny races around doing all manner of tasks that soldiers in training do.

 

More Fun 87 – Green Arrow fires a rocket-arrow, Dr. Fate – doctor, Aquaman meets Atlanteans and Tubby Watts gets paid to do nothing

Johnny Quick gets his second cover appearance on More Fun 87 (Jan 43).  He still doesn’t get the lead spot, and Green Arrow resumes his cover features with the next issue.  This is also the final issue with a Radio Squad story, the one early series that stuck around.

Green Arrow and Speedy wind up in a complex case, which builds to a big prison breakout attempt.  But the plot is not the important thing here, it’s the arrows.

Up until now the arrows have always been used in the acceptable variety of ways arrows are used – like setting them on fire, or shooting them up as signals.  But in this story, it stretches a little further.  In order to sneak into the prison to get information on the villain’s plans, Green Arrow and Speedy shooted hooked arrows at convicts, reeling them in almost like fish.

Towards the end of the story, the duo fire off rockets, but Green Arrow specifically calls them Arrow-Rockets, name branding them a la Batman.  But also making this the first trick arrow.

Some really nice art by Howard Sherman on Gardner Fox’s latest Dr. Fate story.

Dr. Fate is pitted against a rival, but the doctor is a phony, as Kent susses out in his medical day job.  This issue shows him as a doctor, while most of the issues simply refer to his occupation in passing.

Some of his powers seem to be back, as he is immune to bullets, and he’s pulled his crystal ball out of storage!

There are even a couple panels of Dr. Fate underwater, drawn in Sherman’s unique way of expressing that.   A better story than most of the late Dr. Fate tales.

Atlanteans get introduced in the Aquaman story in this issue.  The ark-type ship shown in the splash page is run by thugs in biker jackets, gathering rare creatures from around the world.  They find an Atleantean man, beat the crap out of him, and throw him in a  cage.

The reader is treated to a fairly standard telling of the destruction and sinking of Atlantis.  The art makes ancient Atlantis look pretty urban and bland.

Aquaman discovers Atlantis and meets its inhabitants for the first time – the previous notion of him living in a temple in the abandoned ruins can easily be blended with this.  He mistook an abandoned out-lying settlement for Atlantis proper.

He frees the captured Atlantean, and throws the men in cages to be displayed to the Atlanteans.  Just temporarily.  So he says.

 

Tubby Watts gets a more important role than usual, in a convoluted story that sees him paid by criminals to do nothing, part of a scheme to steal a farmer’s land that has oil on it.

Tubby gets the plot-line, but after a page of being Johnny Chambers, Quick gets into action.

Meskin is now making the most of the multiple images visual, which also appears on the cover.

Drawn this way, Johnny has finally become a visually distinct character from the Flash.

 

 

More Fun 84 – Green Arrow goes to war, Aquaman defends Atlantis, and Johnny Quick puts out a fire

Green Arrow goes to war in this story from More Fun 84 (Oct 42).

The story begins simply enough, as Green Arrow is challenged to prove his might by making headlines without using his arrows.  Nothing very out of the ordinary.

Then the story abruptly shifts to deal with a Japanese invasion, which Green Arrow and Speedy now have to fight off without arrows.

They succeed well enough to blow up a Japanese ship.  The hand reaching out from the water is fairly extreme for the era, but this was produced shortly after Pearl Harbour, and clearly reflects that.

Aquaman finds himself defending the ruins of Atlantis, but becomes the prize himself in this story.

The villain runs an aqua-show, and is looking to raid Atlantis for something spectacular to draw in crowds.

This is the first glimpse we get of Atlantis from the outside, just a crumbled wall.

Aquaman gets captured, to be the star attraction, but his abilities with the fish allow him to take down the entire show and escape.

The bulk of this Johnny Quick story is a “task” story, as Johnny single-handedly makes a movie, putting thousands of pictures in front of a camera at super-speed.  But that’s not where the important sequence lies.

There is a fire as part of the set-up, and Johnny races to put out the blaze.  In this panel, Meskin uses multiple images to show Johnny’s speed.  The earlier time was part of the stylization throughout the page, but here it is clearly intentional.

More Fun 82 – Green Arrow meets Robin Hood, Dr. Fate vs the Lucky One, and Aquaman lives in Atlantis

The first of many, many versions, Green Arrow and Speedy meet Robin Hood in More Fun 82 (Aug 42), which also sees the logo shrink and move to the corner of the cover.

Speedy is the first to travel back in time, popping some experimental “time pills.”  Oliver follows quickly after.

The story then has the two heroes join forces with Robin Hood and his Merry Men.  As there are no trick arrows yet, Green Arrow is really not much different from Robin Hood in the story.   The two would meet again and again over the years, every time as if it were the first.

Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman give Dr. Fate an interesting villain in this story, although his name, the Lucky One, leaves something to be desired.

He runs really large and elaborate cons, convincing people he has great luck.  As usual, Kent and Inza learn of him through society friends, and Dr. Fate goes into action.

In the top two panels it really appears that Fate is flying, yet by the bottom of the page he seems unable to do so, in order to avoid the card trap.

Aside from that, this story has much better visuals than any story in while.  Still no magic from Fate, but that was far in the past now.

The villain does not appear again, but certainly seems to be cut of the same cloth as later JLA villain Amos Fortune.

Aquaman’s story slightly resembles his fight with the King of the Sargasso Sea, as a man takes kingship on an island of convicts (cleverly called Convict Island).

What makes this story significant is a very brief scene in which Aquaman takes a man he has rescued to his place of residence (apparently).  A temple, sealed against the water, in the ruins of ancient Atlantis.  Sadly we see almost nothing of the temple, inside or out, or the ruined city.  But it is the first mention of Atlantis in the Aquaman series.

More Fun 81 – Green Arrow goes bankrupt, Dr. Fate can no longer fly, but Johnny Quick can.

Oliver Queen goes bankrupt in the lead story in More Fun 81 (July 1942).  Interesting, in light of the fact that 25 years down the road, it would happen again, with character-changing effects.

In this story, it`s simply a plot device that enables us to laugh at Oliver as her tries to find a suitable job, and admire Roy’s dedication to trying to help out.

And there is crime along the way as well.  And wouldn’t you know it, solving the crime brings back the “lost” fortune.

Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman give Dr. Fate a new villain, the Clock, whose face resembles a dial.

The Clock is passing off one of his men as a violin instructor, to gain access and knowledge of society people.  He comes into contact with Kent and Inza at a party, but Kent shows off some honed observation and deduction skills in exposing the man.

At one point, the Clock manages to capture Fate and has him tossed down a well.  Fate has to rely on ingenuity to survive – but in earlier days he simply would have flown out.  Even after he got the half-helmet, he was still flying around in stories.  Now, even that is gone.

No mistaking that it’s World War 2 in this story.  Aside from the swastika-coated splash page, this Mort Meskin story has Johnny working with US codebreakers on cracking a Nazi code.

The story is far more serious in tone than any of his previous outings, and instead of panels devoted to the words “suddenly,” or “swish, an entire panel is devoted to the codes.

And while a number of panels in earlier stories have implied it, this issue makes it unmistakable that Johnny Quick’s speed formula endows him with the power of flight.

More Fun 80 – Green Arrow plays William Tell, Dr. Fate vs the Octopus, Aquman talks to fish, Johnny Quick loses his voice, and the Spectre vs the King of Color

The cover of More Fun 80 (June 1942) actually corresponds to the story inside!  It was not standard practice yet, but always a pleasant surprise when it does.

The story is the first of countless Green Arrow tales that play on the William Tell idea.  I suppose they could be counted, but even I am not inclined to do so.  This tale has Green Arrow and Speedy hired to be stunt archers in a film on that topic.

Oliver Queen and Roy Harper apparently lounge around the balcony to their apartment in suits when not on a case.  They head to Calfornia by Arrowplane.  Which still means the Arrowcar at this time.

The film set is plagued by “accidents,” and the archers discover that there is a gold mine on the property, and the crimes were intended to drive the crew away before they could discover it.

Dr. Fate is pitted against a large, green mobster, called the Octopus, in this Gardner Fox/ Howard Sherman tale.

There is nothing nautical about the Octopus’ criminal endeavours.  He leads a gang who run a carnival, at which they rob the patrons.  Kent Nelson and Inza come to visit, and get caught up in taking it down.   Howard Sherman really seems to have given up on this series.  Inza, hanging for her life, looks completely resigned to dropping to her death.

The Octopus tries to gas Fate to death, but fails, and Dr. Fate beats the crap out of him.  A disappointment.

Black Jack returns, getting a job on a pleasure yacht, and then convincing the rest of the crew to mutiny and hold the guests for ransom.

But it’s not the plot or the villain that makes this story mandatory for inclusion in my blog.  We see Aquaman still needs to beat up sharks to make them do what he wants.

But we also see him converse with a fish for the first time, getting the information needed to track down Black Jack.  This scene is very casually introduced, as if it were no big thing, but it’s a major development in the scope of his powers.

Aquaman catches up to Black Jack and beats the tar out of him and his men.  No fish for the final battle.  Black Jack is not done, though, and returns a few months later.

Johnny Quick deals with a crooked gambler, the Adder, who tries to manipulate a charity event Johnny is racing in.  Once again, it’s the superb art by Mort Meskin that makes this tale.

The whole things plays out almost like a situation comedy.  Johnny innocently agrees to take part in the race, unaware of the villain’s schemes.

But on the day of the race, he wakes up with laryngitis!  Oh, no!  Clever Johnny uses a loudspeaker to broadcast his speed formula loud enough that it can be heard, though he disguises it amid gibberish.  And of course, he triumphs.

But the story does raise a curious point.  Why is the volume the speed formula is said at significant?  Is there a “speed god” who needs to hear it?

Percival Popp faces off against the King of Color in this Jerry Siegel/Bernard Bailey story, and the Spectre is kind of involved as well.

I like the bizarre globe helmst the King of Color wears, and although it’s exact attributes are never specified, it can create hypnotic effects, and also read emotions!  Could have been an interesting villain.  Clarice Winston returns in this story.  Earlier I said she made no further appearances in the strip, but obviously I was mistaken.

It’s Jim Corrigan who saves the day, really.  Not the Spectre or Percival Popp.  Corrigan simply goads the King of Color, pretending to get captured in order to learn his plans.  Jim almost falls under the color spell, but the Spectre force enables him to resist and escape.

More Fun 79 – Green Arrow vs the Boomerang, Mr. Who’s last battle with Dr. Fate, Aquaman fights Nazis, Johnny Quick vs Mr. Meek, and Percival Popp takes the lead

Green Arrow gets a new villain with a lot of potential in More Fun 79 (May 1942), but it seems they didn’t see it.  He doesn’t make it onto the cover, nor did he appear again.

The Boomerang is pretty much what Captain Boomerang would become, although much lower tech, appropriate to the era.

He uses boomerangs as, essentially, a hit man, giving people revenge killings.  Oliver Queen gets alerted to this through his friends, and Green Arrow and Speedy hunt him down.

No trick arrows, but a giant boomerang!

Mr. Who escapes from prison thanks to his “Z” formula, but overall it doesn’t help him much in this Gardner Fox/Howard Sherman story.

Mr. Who breaks into a millionaire’s home, and the formula allows him to take on the man’s identity, as it did with the mayor many issues ago.  Kent and Inza are friends with the impersonated man, of course.

Mr. Who’s own formula gives him away, making him grow large when Dr. Fate approaches him while he is in disguise.  The last we see of Mr. Who, he is in prison.  One would have thought he’d stay there, as he did not appear again in this series, but he did make a return, in a story set very shortly after this one, in All-Star Squadron in the 80s.

The only thing particularly noteworthy about the Aquaman story in this issue is that he is fighting Nazis.  I think this story is still too early to have been written and drawn before the attack on Pearl Harbour, so it’s a bit surprising to see Aquaman being so aggressive with them.

The story has him helping survivors of a Nazi U-boat bombing of their ship, while it was in protected US waters.

Aquaman identifies first and foremost as an American.  Which, of course, he is at this time.  Odd to see a pre-Atlantean Aquaman though.

Mort Meskin’s art does a lot to make this story, which pits Johnny Quick against Mr. Meek, work as well as it does.

Mr. Meek has the clever plan to film Johnny reciting his speed formula, so he can learn it and use it himself.  Nicely ironic, as Meek is unaware that Johnny Chambers works making newsreels.

The ending challenges Johnny’s wits, as he has to figure out how to use speed to escape a locked vault in a burning building.

After a couple of issues that made it seem like the Spectre was taking his series back, Percival Popp moves solidly into the lead in this tale, by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Bailey.  The Spectre isn’t even clearly seen on the splash page!

Percival takes a job spending money – the unwitting dupe of counterfeiters.  Jim Corrigan acts as his sidekick in this tale, until the Spectre is needed.  Then Jim changes form and devotes the rest of the tale to getting Percival out of trouble.

Percival even gets to take credit for busting the ring!  I feel sick.