Paul Reinman was an American comic book journeyman who was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. at a young age. He worked in comics from at least the early forties to the mid-seventies. His work is instantly recognizable, and he drew thousands of pages over a long career.
Green Lantern was one of the features he worked on during his time at DC in the 1940s. This entertaining story, which takes place in the time of King Arthur, is a pretty good example of the DC superheroes of the era whose time ended in 1949, only to be revived in different form about ten years later. By then Reinman was long gone from DC, working at Marvel, ACG and Archie. Reinman died in 1988, at age 78.
Doiby Dickles was Green Lantern’s sidekick, supposed comic relief. I find the character annoying, like I did the Three Stooges knockoffs who showed up with The Flash in his comics. I suppose they were there so the main character had someone to talk to, like Woozy Winks in the Plastic Man stories. The difference was Woozy Winks was actually funny.
From All-American Comics #72 (1946):
Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 1, 2012
Number 1081
"Youse don't haveta encourich me, Lantrin!"
Journeyman artist Paul Reinman's work is all over the history of comics, from 1940 until the mid-1970s. His work shows up at many comic book companies, including Atlas/Marvel, ACG, and Archie Comics. It was at Archie that he and writer Jerry Siegel created the "Mighty Heroes" superhero comics, featuring characters from that company's 1940's past as MLJ Comics, including Black Hood, the Web, Steel Sterling and others.
Reinman was doing superhero comics in the 1940s at DC, where he had a longtime association with Green Lantern. This story, from All-American Comics #69, was published in 1945 under the All-American logo, when founder M. C. Gaines broke off his association with DC Comics. DC bought him out and continued his popular features.
Comedy sidekicks were popular in that era, and for Green Lantern it was the English language-mangling New York cabbie, Doiby Dickles.
Reinman died in 1988, a few weeks after his 78th birthday.
DC Retroactive: Green Lantern The '70s - #1 2011 | English | 51 pages | CBR | 47.1MB DC Retroactive is an exciting event honoring the defining eras of DC's core heroes, featuring an original story by the legendary writers and artists who helped mold the characters! The 1970s were a time of spacefaring thrills for the Emerald Knight! Now, writer Dennis O'Neil returns to the character for a brand-new epic starring Hal Jordan! Plus: Following the 26-page lead story is a classic tale originally published in the '70s, also written by Dennis O'Neil! Download MIRROR #1
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. when I was assembling my collection, I picked up most of my early-mid 1960s DC from a friend of mine named Jon, and his neighbor, Eric. They had long runs of the comics they were interested in, but every now and then there was an issue or two missing. I don't have a clue as to why; perhaps they had just forgotten to go to the newsstand that month, or perhaps they had been broke, or perhaps they had just used the money for a new baseball mitt or something else.
This was one of the issues I never found, and since I wasn't fanatical about completing my Green Lantern run like I was about Batman, it was only a few years ago that I finally found a low-grade copy cheap enough to justify the purchase. IIRC, the first story was reprinted in the 1970s, but I don't think that cover story was until the relatively recent advent of the Archive and Showcase Editions.
The first story is The Shark that Hunted Human Prey. An accident in an atomic station on the coast led to a sudden emission of radiation that hit a passing shark: Now of course, as far as the science goes, that's absurd. Evolution is a slow, torturous process with many missteps along the way. Still, it's in keeping with the science of comic books, in which Ben Grimm can turn into a pile of orange rocks (and occasionally turn back again).
The Shark discovers he has extraordinary powers, but he retains his essential nature: After dropping the heavyweight champ without raising a fist, the Shark uses his awesome mental powers to locate a foe worthy of his abilities: The Shark contacts Hal mentally and issues a challenge. Hal quickly changes into his fighting duds and recharges his ring in the locker room, but: And for much of the battle that ensues, the Shark maintains his desire to induce fear in Green Lantern. He demonstrates that GL's ring has no power over him as he can block it with his mind. Indeed, his mental powers seem unlimited: GL realizes that the air in the room is not colored yellow, so he stuns the Shark with a bolt of compressed air. But the Shark recovers and ups the stakes: His intent was to make Hal afraid, but instead the threat just redoubles GL's resolve to win. He condenses the water vapor in the room and creates a block of ice with which to kayo the villain. Then he uses his power ring to devolve the Shark back into his normal state: Comments: I found the concept of a shark evolved into a human somewhat ludicrous, and that costume is inane. However, that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the character development was excellent and the story itself, with the threats to those Hal holds near and dear, is compelling.
The second story is the cover one, and it is pretty simple and straight-forward. While traveling through space, Hal encounters the planet, which suddenly forms a continent that looks like him. It shoots a rocket at him and one grazes him, forcing him to the ground. He encounters visions of Pieface, and several of his enemies. Finally the planet itself finds a way to contact him directly: It was an intelligent planet who had searched the stars for more intelligence, and GL was the first it had ever encountered. It just wanted to make a friend, but couldn't find a way to express that at first. GL helps it by removing a volcanic core that was causing earthquakes, and they part as buddies.
Comments: Cute story, and the concept of a living planet would be "borrowed" a few years later by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the Mighty Thor series.
I confess I had not read this story in decades and it didn't make much of an impression on me back as a teen. But re-reading it last night, I have to confess I was flabbergasted.
The story starts with the Golden Age Green Lantern protecting Gotham City from a falling meteor. As it happens, the meteor hits a tree, which is about to fall on Doiby Dickles' taxi, Goitrude. GL is shocked when his protective beam deflects the tree, as his power ring has never worked on wood. He has an idea: But when he reaches Hal Jordan, it turns out that his beam still doesn't work on wood. Hal suggests that he get the ring to tell him what really happened. It turns out the meteor wasn't a meteor, but a disembodied mind inside a packet of pure energy that was ten billion years old. The ring contacted the mind and learned it was from the planet Oa. The Oans were immortal and used their time to learn things: But there was one forbidden subject: And right there I came to a screeching halt. The pursuit of knowledge about the Oans had led to the invention of evil? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the "reasoning" behind it is the classic fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). Krona insisted on continuing his pursuit of the origin of the Oans, and so they: Since one of their fellows had unleashed evil on the universe, they started the Green Lantern Corps to battle the malignant forces.
When the GA Green Lantern's power beam contacted the mind of Krona, he used it to free himself and followed Alan Scott into our universe. The Oans, alerted to the danger, warn the two GLs that they cannot locate Krona by normal means, but to expect an outbreak of evil nearby. Sure enough: After handling the various crises, the Oans summon the two GLs to their home planet, where the cover scene takes place. Hal does not accept his demotion gracefully: And yet, a moment later he seems surprised that Alan's not laying down for him: Via a flashback, we learn that Alan's body has secretly been taken over by Krona, and that the Guardians are being controlled by the GA Green Lantern's ring. But (and this is a key point) Hal doesn't know this yet. So his revolt against the Guardians and his battle with Alan are not excused by this knowledge.
Krona erects a yellow shield to protect himself and then kayos Hal, after which: We can see that Krona is rather reckless with other people's lives but not his own.
But Alan's disembodied mind contacts Hal, wakes him up, and the two combine their willpower to defeat Krona, with the aid of some trickery; Hal uses the GA power ring rather than his own so that yellow won't work against it. Krona is sent back on his endless journey, but this time the Guardians make sure his orbit will never intersect any planet or star.
Comments: The story can be taken as an allegory to the book of Genesis, with Oa before Krona as the Garden of Eden, and Krona as Adam releasing evil by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. According to the letters column in GL #43, that was the way writer John Broome intended it: But you can also read it as anti-science, and anti-Darwinian. That the Oans turn out to be correct in their ancient superstition against studying the origin of their species is hardly surprising. It's a basic principle in fiction that the Cassandras of doom are always proven right (as was the original Cassandra, who warned the Trojans against bringing the wooden horse into their walls). But I have a hard time believing that the Oans were justified in their original banishment of Krona. Given what happens in this story you can argue that the subsequent exile was merited, but you can also argue that ten billion years as a disembodied mind might be the cause of his callous disregard.
With the release of the Green Lantern movie, I thought I would talk about GL's main enemy, Sinestro. Sinestro first appeared in GL #7 as the renegage Green Lantern. This was during the brief period when GL was not aware that he worked for the Guardians, and so they summoned his "energy duplicate" to fill him in on Sinestro's origin. He was originally another member of the Green Lantern corps, until the power infected him: The Guardians stripped him of his ring and power and banished him to the evil anti-matter universe of Qward (which Green Lantern had battled previously in GL#2-4).
Sinestro comes up with a plan that basically involves him saying evil a lot: But as it happens GL misses his appointment in Valdale, and thus, unlike the 100,000 citizens of that fair metropolis, is not teleported to Qward. At the end of this back story, the Guardians decide to allow him to know that he works for them.
Hal makes it to Qward, but Sinestro plays his trump card; unless GL surrenders, he will kill the Valdale residents. GL agrees and is imprisoned in a yellow globe. Sinestro has an eeeeevil plan: But GL manages to fool him by pushing the clock ahead a few minutes. He escapes from Qward, leaving Sinestro imprisoned in a green bubble. But when Sinestro returns in GL #9, we learn that he must have been a Boy Scout, for he believes in the motto, Be Prepared: This time around he comes up with a scheme to siphon off the power from Green Lantern's ring to enhance his own. Once he succeeds in doing so, he imprisons GL inside a cage and goes off to a meeting of the other GLs where he again steals their power. He then zips to Oa to attack the Guardians, but Hal has gotten free by now and hits on a Silver Age cliched way to defeat him: The Guardians put Sinestro in a capsule and launch him on an 18,000-year orbit of the universe.
In GL #11, Sinestro returns. It seems the Guardians forgot to check his heel, where he stored a backup power ring. He returns to Qward, where he uses a mind-control device to cause Green Lantern to screw up several times on the job. Then, at a trial held by the other Green Lanterns, Hal pleads guilty and requests to be sent to Qward (again by the force of Sinestro's mind control). Fortunately the other Green Lanterns were only agreeing to find out who was behind the plot, and after a brief subplot where Hal uses some high school chemistry to escape from a death trap, they use Sinestro's mind control machine on him: But in GL #15, Sinestro escapes. Once again, thinking a step ahead of the Green Lanterns, he had set the mind control device so it would not work on him. He's back on Qward, competing in the annual "Most Evil Citizen Contest", with a sidekick that should be familiar to Golden Age fans: Yep, that's Doiby Dickles (although Sinestro calls him Magot in this story and the next). Sinestro has a plan to win the contest; he'll trap GL on a world where everything's yellow, and that's not all: It's all terrifically eeeeevil, but Sinestro makes one mistake; he decides to televise GL's death, and the beam he uses to do it turns out to be purple, giving Hal his one chance at escape. He fixes the mind control machine so it will work on Sinestro, and locks the villain away.
Except that Sinestro again had planned ahead for this eventuality. We learn in Green Lantern #18 that he placed a hypnotic suggestion in GL's mind, instructing him to turn the mind control device off at a point in the future. Sinestro's again in the contest for "Most Evil" and after getting Hal to Qward without his power ring, he reveals his diabolical plan: Well, it turns out that GL had anticipated all this (two can think ahead!) and only faked not having his power ring. He uses Sinestro's own plot against him: Having made five appearances in less than a year and a half, Sinestro now went into hibernation for over four years. In his next appearance he came back as a car (Doiby Dickles taxi, Gertrude). This of course is a nod to the insane 1960s TV show, My Mother the Car:
This time his plot is to steal the giant power lantern on Oa, but Green Lantern foils the plot with the assistance of the Golden Age GL and Doiby Dickles. Sinestro returned one final time in the Silver Age, in GL #74, in which he teams up with Star Sapphire.
Overall, the qualities that I would associate with Sinestro and hope will appear in the movie, are his preparedness, and his desire for revenge against GL and the Guardians.
