Trivia Quiz #20: Grab-Bag DC

1. (Easy) True or False: Bruce Wayne was a star athlete in his college days.

2. (Moderate) Within 2 years, how old was Lois Lane supposed to be in the comics when Lois Lane #1 debuted?

3. (Tough) Name two Superman villains in the Silver Age of comics who obtained their power from green kryptonite.

4. (Really Tough) What woman did Batman rename the Batplane after?

5. (Tough For Some) During the Adventure Comics run of the Legion of Superheroes, what two LSH members were cross-dressers?

The last one may seem impossibly hard, but it was discussed yesterday in one of the blogs on the sidebar (and I'll give full credit in the answer post). Remember that my quizzes are based on the Silver Age, and in the Silver Age, nobody had ever heard of retcons.

Number 479


Fanthorpe comics


I've had this incredible web site bookmarked for several years, referring to it occasionally. It has some fantastic book covers, which apparently wrap around some of the worst science fiction of all time, courtesy of British author R. L. Fanthorpe, using his own and several pen-names. I haven't read any of the books, but according to the web site, Fanthorpe was a one-man industry.

It also includes scans from some of the comic books that were adapted from Fanthorpe's stories, and I've swiped a couple of them to share with you here. This is not top-of-the-line stuff here, guys...more like fanzine work. But it's fun in a twisted sort of way. Were these comics actually sold on British newsstands at one time? The page itself doesn't date the comics, since the authors of the site don't know. Maybe one of our British readers can shed some light on the Fanthorpe comics.

#131.The Rhino Trail

An unique contribution by Ajnaabi.

The Rhino Trail is the comic version of the Kaziranga Trail, a Children's Book Trust Publication, which won the Shankar's Award GOLD MEDAL in 1982.

The Story is based on Poachers Stalking the one horned Rhino for it's horn in the KAZIRANGA WILD LIFE SANCTUARY in the state of ASSAM (Northeast India).


The Rhino Trail Arup Kumar Datta (39.38 MB)

When I'm the Evil Genius

I will not prefer that my enemy live so that I can toy with him some more:



For the rest of the When I'm the Evil Genius series, click here.

Best Character of the Silver Age: Marvel Edition

This is not a terribly difficult determination. One of the things I look for is how well all aspects of the character are developed. Almost all superhero characters have a well-developed heroic aspect; it's the central focus of the series.

But most of them do not have a well-developed secret identity, as we shall see. For instance consider Thor. The Thor series has a huge cast of characters: Odin, Balder, Sif, Heimdall, Loki, Karnilla, etc. But whatever happened to Don Blake? On a regular basis, Blake interacts with the following people:



As if that wasn't bad enough, Jane Foster disappeared from the series in early 1967, leaving nobody for Don Blake to interact with. Okay, Don Blake is kind of an oddity, apparently never having existed before Odin banished Thor to Earth, so it's not like the human side of his character was real. But what about Daredevil's Matt Murdock?



This is actually not all that atypical; whom did Clark Kent interact with other than the people in his office? Lana Lang is about it, and even she was more involved with Superman than his alter ego.

A somewhat similar situation applies with Bruce Banner/Hulk, although he does have a few more people in his life:



Tony Stark is pretty much the same:



Some of the Marvel characters don't lend themselves to an analysis like this. The Sub-Mariner, for example, does not have an alter ego; neither, arguably, do the Fantastic Four or Doctor Strange. Captain America's real identity of Steve Rogers was pretty much forgotten in the 1960s. The X-Men were self-contained.

So who's left? Oh, yes, Peter Parker. Here are the people Parker interacted with regularly:




Not to mention Liz Allen, Fredrick Foswell, Anna Watson, Ned Leeds, Joe Robertson's son, and numerous other characters that we may not (yet) have noticed were in the picture like Dr Bramwell and Professor Warren.

Don't get me wrong here; it's not that all these people make Peter Parker a more rounded character than any other in the Marvel lineup in the Silver Age. It's that they reflect how well-revealed Parker was to us. He's got family (Aunt May). He's got neighbors (Mrs Watson and Mary Jane). He's got a pal (Harry). He's got a love interest (Gwen). He's got a rival/enemy (Flash). He's got people he works with (JJJ, Betty, Robbie, Foswell). And the people he deals with have friends and relatives of their own (Captain Stacy, Robertson's son, Ned Leeds, Norman Osborne).

And I am not criticizing the other Marvel characters in favor of DC, as we shall see when I analyze the DC characters. Whom did Barry Allen interact with in the Silver Age? Iris and Wally West, and even Wally quickly became more of a companion for the Flash than Barry.

There's a logical reason for this as well; the more effort you put into characterization, the less time you have for plot. I have griped when reviewing some of the Spiderman Silver Age that at times the "Archie" aspect of the character interferes with the superheroics, but that's a tradeoff Stan was willing to make and which paid off handsomely for Marvel.

Number 478


Handyman


How many times have we seen horror stories about the detached hands of killers wreaking vengeance? More than I can count, offhand (yuk-yuk).

I can add this entertaining entry, "Spell of the Hypnotic Chord," from Beyond #4, 1951, to that sub-sub genre of horror fiction. Sorry I don't know who the artist is, but the style seems familiar.

Silver Age Plot Types: The Three-Act Play

Modern writers often marvel over the compact nature of storytelling in the Silver Age. Every Batman issue from 1955-1962 contained three stories ranging in length from 6-10 pages each. Because of this marvelous consistency, I decided to examine the stories.

By far the most common plot used was what I call the Three-Act Play.

1. Batman and Robin battle some crooks, who get away (sometimes with the loot).
2. Batman and Robin battle the crooks a second time. The crooks get away, but never with the loot. Sometimes they kidnap Batman or Robin at this point.
3. Batman and Robin capture the crooks.

There is a solid logic to stories having three acts, because we are acculturated to the notion that the third event is the climax. Many jokes are effectively three-act plays; we understand that the third incident is going to be the funny one.

For an example of a three-act play, consider the story City of Heroes from Batman #116. Batman and Robin are after the Gimmick Gang, who are dressed up like Thor, Cyclops and Pan (yep, three villains), for an annual costume event in "Legend City". In their first encounter, Thor's hammer explodes near Batman and Robin, stunning them so to the gang can get away. In the second act, the villains have changed their costumes to Hercules, Medusa and Zeus. Medusa turns Batman and Robin "to stone" (paralyzes them with a gas). In the third act, Zeus tries throwing thunderbolt gimmicks at Batman and Robin but they outsmart him with their Batarangs and capture the gang.

The three-act play was used endlessly in the Silver Age in longer stories as well. Many of the stories that I have discussed in my single issue reviews are effectively three acts. In X-Men #8, Hank is defeated by Unus, then the rest of the X-Men are defeated by Unus, then Hank defeats Unus. The JLA/JSA teamups had a very similar structure. Indeed, DC comics often made the three acts explicit in their book-length stories with three separate splash pages leading off each "chapter".

The Batman/Joker stories in this era feature an unusual and interesting twist on the three-act formula. Some item of pop culture gives the Joker his inspiration for a new set of (three) crimes, which inevitably leads him to success on his first mission, more limited success on his second, and failure in the third. Some of these stories show real ingenuity despite the reliance on a formula.

A particularly amusing example comes from Batman #86 (September 1954), The Joker's Winning Team. The Joker is at a baseball game when the lightbulb goes on above his head:



The Joker gets the brilliant idea of trading some of his reliable henchmen for other gangsters who have the specific skills needed for upcoming crimes. In the first act, his getaway specialist helps the gang escape from Batman and Robin. In the second act, a military strategist and two acrobats manage to hold off the caped crusaders long enough for the Joker to get away. In the third act, a disguised Batman infiltrates the Joker's gang and foils the scheme. These stories typically end with Batman, Robin or a cop making a sarcastic comment based on the pop culture inspiration the Joker was using, as here:



Hence the "Bah!" response I pointed out a couple days ago.

#129. Adventures of Timpa

Post # 124 updated: There are new links for Indrajal Comics #328.

*************************************************************

Many of us remember Timpa - a teenager detective, created by J.P.Karewala & illustrated by Abhijit Chatterji. Indrajal Comics published his adventure as side story with regular heroes in 1988-89.

Did you read the followings?

Adventures Of Timpa - Operation Rescue (15.29 MB)

Adventures Of Timpa - The Legacy Of The Gods (11.1 MB)



Adventures Of Timpa - The Red Hooded Gang (13.1 MB)

Password for all: bookscomics.blogspot.com

These are Ajnaabi's works. All thanks & credits go to him.

The Illustrated Conversation From Batman #200

In Batman #200, DC did some very remarkable things. First was the commemorative cover shown above. They also had a reprint of the very first page featuring Batman from Detective #27, and a conversation between two longtime Batman fans, Mike Friedrich, who of course went on to become a comics writer and Biljo White, described at the beginning of the article as the number one all-time Batman fan.

I loved the conversation, but there was one problem. They were describing all these great books that I had no chance of reading at the time. This was in the dark ages, before Archive Editions and Masterworks, heck it was before Famous First Editions. Unless you got lucky and an annual reprinted a particular story, your only option was to buy the originals, and even with the lower prices back then that wasn't an option for me for any more than a few books occasionally.

But with the grace of computers and scanners, that's no longer a problem, and so I would like to present herewith an illustrated version of that conversation from the March 1968 issue:



White, of course, was the creator of the Batmania Fanzine in the 1960s.






And the mayhem Batman inflicts on the crooks responsible is excellent:


Public Enemy No. 1:



As you can probably guess the story's similar to the James Cagney movie, Public Enemy.

The hurricane scene from Batman #11:



And of course, the original Alfred appearance is the story that changed the Dynamic Duo's life.



I mentioned the Christmas Batman stories back around the holidays; as Friedrich says they were gems. It happened in Rome?



The Carter Nichols stories were terrific; I recently discussed the Tiger Man story in Batman #93, which was a Carter Nichols tale.

The Penguin-Joker "team-up" in Batman #25:



As you can probably tell, they're in a competition and whoever loses is supposed to vacate Gotham City. Eventually they realize that they should work together:



But they still come out losers against Batman and Robin.

Vicki Vale's first appearance:



Vicki hung around for a long time, but it would probably be inaccurate to describe her as comparable to Lois Lane as a snoop. For one thing, she was a much smaller character in the Batman series, often disappearing for years at a time.



1000 Secrets of the Batcave:



Birth of Batplane II is certainly in the top ten Batman stories of all time:





The Catwoman's reform era:



Killer Moth:



Killer Moth was definitely one of the oddball villains in the Batman rogues' gallery.



Here was a rare opportunity for me to smile back then, as two issues earlier, in Batman #198, DC had reprinted that story with this famous sequence:





Robin Dies at Dawn was an interesting story. Batman and Robin find themselves suddenly on an alien planet, being chased by monsters. This was not, unfortunately, an uncommon occurrence for them during that era. In the story, Robin is killed by a boulder thrown by a stone giant. Suddenly Batman wakes up. He's been in a chamber simulating space flight for the past few days and that's why he was hallucinating the whole bit with the monsters and the robot. But unfortunately, the hallucinations recur and cause him problems:



And no, those are not gorillas in that first panel, they're men in gorilla suits.

The first "New Look" cover:



The Zero Hour For Earth story:



The Riddler story:





Death Knocks Three Times is indeed an excellent story:



Comments: The interview clearly was focused on stories in the Batman title, so the Detective and World's Finest stories don't get mentioned. As you can see, there's a pretty huge gap between the Golden Age stories discussed and the first Silver Age stories mentioned; Robin Dies at Dawn appeared in 1963. I am not quite as thrilled with the "New Look" as Friedrich and White were; while it was an improvement over the Jack Schiff era, it was not enough of an improvement. I am much more impressed with what happened to Batman after this interview; the character's resurrection in the late 1960s and early 1970s was terrific.