#078.Indrajal Comics 32

Dear Divish,
Look
Outside
It's So
Pleasant !
Sun
Smiling
For
You !
Trees
Dancing
For
You!
Birds
Singing
For
You !
Because,
I told them
All To Wish You..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Ajay's son Divish Misra is going to be 6 years on 15th November.
Mostly AJAY's scans either Divish or Parishi (his daughter) sends me, he just opens his mail, rest work they do.
Studying in class 1st, DAV , Dayanand Vihar, Delhi.
Hobby - Just playing and sending me comics by email, very good spoken English, knows computer very well.
He loves Phantom very much because of his Guns. Likes very much FREW specials or Annuals which are very special in their cover / thickness etc.

Hindi version is already posted in blog. It was reprinted as "V24N51-1987-Phantom-Return of the Dead Genuises" which is already available online.

184-1973-Phantom-The Brain Seller

It's an Ajay's contribution.








This is a new & complete version.

262-1976-Phantom-Merchants of Death Part 1(new)


It's an Anonymous contribution.












This is a new version.

263-1976-Phantom-Merchants of Death Part 2 (new)


It's an Ajay's contribution.








V20N15-1983-Mike Nomad-Splinters of Rage



It's an Anonymous contribution.






Some more coming attractions:

* by Anonymous





* by Ajay

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Bloggy Comic Book Goodness Elsewhere

It's been awhile since I've pointed out the excellent posts going on around the comic blogosphere, so here's a taste:

Mark Engblom's got a pair of posts up on his ten favorite comic book robots of all time. I'm disappointed that neither the Doom Patrol Robotman or the Star Spangled/Detective Comics Robotman made the cut, but he did include the Metal Men. The Vision is a bit of a cheat (he's an android, not a robot), and I was inclined to feel the same way about his #1 selection, until I watched the little video that he included with the post. Okay, he qualifies!

Booksteve's Library has a post on a series of Bob Hope shows in Cincinnati. Which reminds me, I really should put together a post on the Bob Hope comics of the Silver Age. I'm not sure how much involvement old "ski-jump" nose had with the comics that bore his name, but they're actually quite funny and entertaining.

The Groovy Agent has a post up on Don Newton and the Phantom that I recommend. Newton's art was unfamiliar to me, even though he apparently worked on Batman at one point, but it is indeed beautiful.

The Fortress of Fortitude points out a Charlton comic where Steve Ditko reprised his Doctor Strange character (albeit with another name). Ditko has always been one of my favorite artists, and it is my opinion that his Dr Strange stories were among the most beautifully illustrated books in the Silver Age, so it's a real treat to read a "new" Ditko Dr Strange. Note: After clicking on a page, click on the magnifying glass, otherwise the text is hard to read.

Four Color Media Monitor has a post on the demise of several Batman-related books (Birds of Prey, Robin, and Nightwing) and speculation on the upcoming Batman, RIP series. If you want to know why I pay almost no attention to current comics, it's because of what DC has done with Batman over the last two decades. I focus on the Silver Age because it's the last era in comics where heroes were worth emulating and provided their readers with a strong moral code.

Along the lines of my recent post about defining the Silver Age, I Believe in Bat-Mite has a post defining the 1950s Batman as extending to the end of Jack Schiff's run as editor in May 1964. This is a good argument and one that I essentially agree with. I've been meaning to put together a post on the four distinctly different Batman eras of the 1960s; maybe this will get me busy on the topic.

Note: Friday Trivia Quizzes will return, although maybe not every week; I just felt like I was running out of good questions.

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Number 412


II from WWII


The second bananas filled up the comics during World War II, and like the main superheroes they fought the enemies of America. They took their lumps and doled out plenty of punishment, but never made it to the lead spot. This pair, the Vision and the Patriot, are a good example of those back-of-the-book types: "They also serve who don't make the cover spot." At the time in Marvel Mystery Comics, where these stories are from, Alex Schomburg was doing the covers, which usually featured Human Torch melting through a wall and about to fry some Japanese or Nazis.

I scanned these two backup stories from a reprint, Captain George's Comic World #23 & #24, a double issue from 1969. George was a Canadian store owner and publisher of old comics material. These are from Marvel Mystery Comics #41, March 1943. The artwork, according to the Grand Comics Database, is credited to Syd Shores. The Sub-Mariner story from that issue is here.

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Single Issue Review: Star Spangled War Stories #132

In honor of Veteran's Day, I thought I'd cover one of DC's war comics. Star Spangled #132 has the oddball distinction of being one of those rare comics that actually was printed twice. Star Spangled Comics started out as a superhero book, featuring the adventures of the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy. When that feature proved insufficient to sustain sales, DC added the Newsboy Legion, a Simon & Kirby creation. Eventually interest waned there, and DC began a series of (terrific) stories featuring Robin, the Boy Wonder. In the late 1940s SS fronted Tomahawk, a western feature that quickly graduated to his own magazine; then in the early 1950s DC pushed "horror" stories in keeping with the trends. Eventually the book switched to a war format, and became Star Spangled War Stories with #131. That lasted until #133, when DC, for reasons unknown, decided to reboot the numbering, although even there they screwed up as they started with #3 even though there had been three issues before that.

The end result is that there are two separate comics known as Star Spangled #132, the one issued in 1952 and the one issued in 1967. The one I am going to talk about actually falls outside the Silver Age, being published in September 1952.

The cover story leads off the issue, and it's terrific. Hank Miskov is a major-league hurler who won game seven of the World Series in memorable fashion, tossing the first no-hitter in the history of the fall classic (this was before Don Larsen accomplished that feat for the New York Yankees). However, his elation turns to disappointment as he's drafted into the army to do his part in World War II. He's worried (as shown on the cover) that he'll ruin his arm. Fortunately he meets a fellow recruit named George Harris who's a big fan and who volunteers to do the risky work for him. Miskov quickly earns the scorn of the rest of the soldiers for his refusals to risk his arm, but Harris still idolizes him. Inevitably:



Well, you can probably guess the rest of the story right there; inspired by George's sacrifice, Hank becomes a lean, mean, fighting machine, wiping out Germans by the score with his throwing arm and a box full of grenades, and when the war is over, he has the inspiration he needs in a jam:



Comments: A wonderful and inspirational story. About the only flaw I can see is that they show Miskov throwing grenades overhand, which of course probably would have ruined that million-dollar arm. Because (at the time) DC's war stories were almost exclusively one-shots, they needed terrific characterization presented very quickly, and this tale delivered it in spades.

The next story in the book is an offbeat number called Suicide Detail. Trip-wire Wiggins is the army's best man at laying anti-tank mines, but he's also something of a jitterbug and loves to listen to popular music, which drives his commanding officer batty. But things turn grim as his company is trapped by the Germans and the only way out is through a minefield that Wiggins had laid earlier. He can't remember the pattern he used until he hears a fellow soldier playing guitar. This jogs his memory and he successfully leads the men through the mines.

Comments: Cute little story and a good change of pace.

The Braggart of Company B is the third yarn in the book, and it concerns George Pringle, a PFC who continually regales his squadron with tall tales about his heroism in action. But in a twist on the old "boy who cried wolf", when Pringle actually does do something courageous, nobody believes him.

Comments: Okay story, nice art by Jerry Grandinetti, one of DC's top war artists.

The text story is a good one, about the training fighter pilots undergo at the old Williams Field Air Force Base in Chandler, Arizona, written by Air Force Lieutenant Joseph Jarrett.

The final story concerns a mail clerk in the army who never receives any mail for himself. This is another aspect of the war stories that DC published; they tried to cover every occupation in the military, not just the fighting men. In this one, a soldier is anxiously awaiting news of the birth of his first child, but the mail never seems to come. Finally a postcard arrives for the soldier; it's a boy! But the proud papa is under fire on the front lines, and the mail clerk decides to risk his own life to deliver the message.

Moved by his bravery, the rest of the company decides to see to it that the mail clerk gets some mail of his own:



Comments: Another wonderful and heartwarming story.

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Number 411


See some evil, hear some evil, speak some evil...


Al Williamson drew this curious fable for Boris Karloff Tales Of Mystery #11, September 1965. I say curious because it wants to be a cautionary tale using the familiar "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," but strains credulity for a moral. Despite that, Williamson's artwork is always worth a look.

This is for reader Juan, from Spain, who wrote me recently with some requests. I find requests hard to do because I don't have a lot of what people are requesting. But Juan said he really likes Williamson, so here you are, my friend.

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My Favorite Batman Story

Well, actually I have two of them, and although they appeared within nine issues of each other, one of them is in the Golden Age (Detective #211's The Jungle Cat-Queen) and the other is in the Silver Age (Detective #220's The Second Batman and Robin Team).

They're both terrific stories but while The Jungle Cat-Queen has been reprinted numerous times, The Second Batman and Robin Team has not appeared in print for 53 years. And that's a shame because it's a gem of a story.

It begins 700 years in the past, when famed scientist of the Middle Ages, Roger Bacon, notes a curious coincidence. He discovers that two strangely-garbed males (Batman and Robin) had appeared three times in the past and excited much comment. The oddity is that the places were separated by thousands of miles geographically and centuries in time; once in Ancient Greece, once in Ancient Rome, and a third time in the medieval Viking era.

Of course, he is referring to three Golden Age Batman stories; It Happened in Rome from Batman #24, Peril in Greece from Batman #38 and Batman and the Vikings from Batman #52.

Bacon deduces from these three appearances that Batman and Robin must be from the future, and further that this indicates that scientists in the future have learned how to travel through time. He puts his mind to the task and shares the results with two of his pupils, brothers Marcus and Guy Tiller (who happen to resemble Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson:



Arriving in the future Gotham City, Marcus and Guy gape a bit at the skyscrapers and cars, and mistake a plane for a dragon. But they quickly realize that they are the only people dressed in strange costume. A policeman advises them that the Bat-Signal is in the sky and tells them to go to police headquarters. Commissioner Gordon notes that the pair talk a little oddly and have medieval weapons with them, but... well, he's learned not to ask too many questions, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the real Batman and Robin arrive just in time to see their counterparts entering Police HQ. Changing quickly to Bruce and Dick, they rush inside to see what the fake Batman and Robin team are up to. Commission Gordon tells the ersatz duo that the Speedboat Bandits are going to rob the Dock Street Bank, and that they should apprehend the mob.

The medieval pair head off in search of the Dock Street Bank, with the real Batman and Robin trailing behind. They are sure that the fake duo must be intending to help the crooks, but sizing up the situation quickly Marcus and Guy decide to foil the robbery. They succeed but are kayoed in the effort by a blast. Batman and Robin take the pair back to the Batcave, where they learn the true story. The Great Question comes up again:



This is a form of foreshadowing, of reinforcing in the reader's mind that they want to hear the Great Question. We sense that a climactic moment in the story will be when the Great Question is finally revealed.

Batman and Robin suggest to their new friends that they remain in the Batcave while the Dynamic Duo wrap up the case of the Speedboat Bandits. But:



As it turns out, Batman and Robin had tricked the crooks, and the medieval pair end up alerting the villains, who were hiding out in a lighthouse. With the dual teams trapped nearby, they turn to the old methods, using a trebuchet (similar to a catapult) and a mantelet (a covering to prevent fire from above) to attack the lighthouse, and eventually defeat the villains. And in the end we learn the Great Question:



Wow. Now that is a Great Question, and a great answer. And the final panel does not disappoint either:



Note that despite the obvious "fish out of water" plot, the focus is not on what a pair of buffoons Guy and Marcus are. They are not played as the Beverly Hillbillies, but as good men from another time whose knowledge and experience may be different from ours but valuable nonetheless.

GCD tentatively credits the script to Bill Finger. The artwork of course is by Dick Sprang at his absolute peak.

Update: I'm going to tentatively credit the script to Edmund Hamilton. Note the very similar sentiments expressed by Batman in that panel and by Bruce in this one:



That's too close to be coincidental. That comes from The Caveman Batman in Batman #93, which GCD says was by Hamilton.

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