#253. TV Tornado 59

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TV Tornado 59 City Magazines (UK)



All credits to unknown Scanner & original Uploader only.

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Single Issue Review: House of Secrets #61

House of Secrets had long been the home base of Mark Merlin, an investigator of the supernatural; in fact the letters column was simply called Mark Merlin's Mailbox. The backup stories were the usual mixture of monsters and science fiction.

At the end of 1961, DC increased its cover prices from 10 cents to 12 cents. The result was pretty painful. House of Secrets lost 20% of its circulation. With the DC superhero books showing less dramatic declines, it's not surprising that the company started looking at putting superheroes in some of their other titles. My Greatest Adventure picked up the Doom Patrol in June 1963; House of Secrets added Eclipso with this issue (July-August 1963).

The timing was pretty good; much of North America experienced an eclipse of the sun on July 20, 1963, with parts of Maine and Canada having a total eclipse.

The Mark Merlin story leads off the issue. It picks up with the story from the last issue, where Merlin had been transformed into a cat:



As he and Elsa chat, a repairman indicates he's fixed the light in Merlin's bedroom. Later that night, someone steals the jawbone of a dinosaur; Merlin remembers while reading about the story in the papers the next day that the jawbone is an ingredient in a magical formula. The next night we see Merlin himself under the control of some mysterious voice:



The next day, Elsa and Mark learn that he is the one responsible for the recent crimes. Since somebody seems to be using him for their dirty work, Merlin decides to transfer himself into the cat, and follow his body when it goes out that night. Sure enough, it leads him to the castle of Dr 7, his new enemy.

When Merlin transforms back from the cat, he regains control of his body and the two sorcerers have something of a battle:



But Merlin's assistant gets taken over by Dr 7, and helps to trap her boss. Fortunately, Mark can still transfer to the cat, which reverses the spell:



Comments: Not a bad story, especially given the continuity from the prior issue. Merlin appears to be something of a Dr Strange-type without the cape; of course Merlin predates the Marvel character by several years.

The second feature is the Eclipso story. Dr Bruce Gordon is about to celebrate his greatest triumph: the dedication of an entire city run on solar power. But as he makes the last minute adjustments, an eclipse far away causes bizarre changes:



His evil self unleashed, Bruce changes into a bizarre costume and reveals knowledge that Gordon himself did not know. He devastates the Solar City:



His mentor (and father of his girlfriend), Professor Bennett discovers that Eclipso is secretly Bruce Gordon, when he changes back into his normal self. When they try to figure out where Eclipso came from, Bruce tells a rather silly story about some volcano god from South America who tried to kill him and failed, but cut him with a black diamond. No, I am not kidding:



So now Bruce and Professor Bennett have to find some way to prevent him from wreaking havoc again. They get the smart idea of locking him in a wind tunnel from which he can't escape during the next eclipse, but:



Fortunately Bruce has planned ahead to prevent Eclipso from making good on his escape:



Comments: Obviously a swipe of the Incredible Hulk/Bruce Banner bit, although making the alter-ego a villain rather than a misunderstood brute is a pretty interesting twist. Plus it's drawn by Lee Elias, a long-time favorite of mine. Eclipso was not destined for glory, but the origin story mostly works.

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#252. TV Tornado 37

TV Tornado 37 City Magazines (UK)



All credits to unknown Scanner & original Uploader only.

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Sprang Tributes?

My buddy Snard pointed out one in the chatroom the other day, from Detective #441:

This comes after the credit in Batman #238, so it's pretty obviously a recognition of Dick Sprang, the longtime (1943-1963) artist on Batman.

But then what do we make of this panel from Marvel, circa 1969:

Either of these would be early easter eggs, certainly. One is completely explicable; the other is completely out of the clear blue sky.

So I'm going to assume that the name Dick Sprang was well-known to comics aficionados before his first original credit, and that this actually, and surprisingly to me, is his first official Easter Egg Credit. I was blown away by the Detective #441 Easter Egg, and then I happened to be reading the Iron Man story for yesterday's post and blinked when I saw the sound effect there.

Update: I just realized the common element that seals the deal. Guess who wrote both stories? Archie Goodwin. So there you go; the first Dick Sprang tribute comes in Iron Man #14, written by Archie Goodwin, and the second in Detective #441, written by Archie Goodwin.

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Iron Man Run, Part 12

We pick up with Iron Man #12, where we finally learn Vincent Sandhurst's secret. He had clashed with his brother, an inventive genius, and a resulting accident had effectively made Boris Sandhurst an invalid. Wracked with guilt, Vincent had embezzled significant sums from Janice Cord and her father, in order to help his brother with his experiments. Boris has discovered a way to harness the power of other people to overcome his body's limitations, and is now prepared to break loose.

Meanwhile, Iron Man has quickly gotten control of his Tony Stark robot and convinces the ambulance drivers that he doesn't need to go to the hospital. He decides to retire the robot forever as too risky. He's still planning on buying out Janice Cord's factories, although he senses that Sandhurst is just a little too eager.

However, Vincent has disappeared and Janice and Tony visit his hometown. There, they learn that everybody has been taken control of via a metal disk on their foreheads. The Controller (Boris Sandhurst) attacks and takes control of Janice. Iron Man fights back, but eventually he too is controlled by the metal disk:

In the next issue, the Controller decides to take Manhattan. He commandeers a train, and loads the Absorbatron (by which he harnesses the power of other people) onto it. Will he get to NYC and gain the power of millions?

There is a long battle between Iron Man and the Controller, but in the end, the Big Apple is in sight. Fortunately, during the battle Jasper Sitwell did what was needed:

But afterwards Tony is conflicted about Janice. Can he continue to romance her, knowing that at some point he might have to make a tough decision to save her or to save a city like New York?

He goes off to the Caribbean, to investigate an attack on one of his plants there. He discovers an opponent to his employing the locals, a wheelchair-bound man named Travis Hoyt:

It turns out that Janice is staying with Hoyt. But Hoyt has discovered a fountain of youth-type pool that has restored his ability to walk, and given him great powers, even if it has scarred him horribly.

Hoyt is angry because the pool is drying up due to development on the island. He intends to bathe Janice in the waters, so she will be like him. But Iron Man comes along in time to save the day and Hoyt dies as the pool is sucked into the ground.
In Iron Man #15, we learn that the Unicorn had indeed survived diving off the cliff back in IM #4, and that he has been nursed back to health by the Fantastic Four's old enemy, the Red Ghost. Typical Marvel villain team-up; both of them spend the time insulting each other:

But as the Red Ghost has a formula that will help to keep the Unicorn alive, they reach an uneasy truce. The Ghost wants him to steal another one of Tony's inventions, which will bring about the battle the Unicorn desires with Iron Man.
Meanwhile, Janice Cord has decided after consulting with Tony to reopen her father's plants. They will be in friendly competition with each other. Archie Goodwin (the writer) makes sure to introduce the newest plot development at this point:

It's not hard to guess that Niven will turn out to be a bad apple.

The next day, as Stark and Sitwell are jetting to a test site with Tony's newest invention, the Unicorn strikes. Sitwell pushes Stark out of the plane, but before Iron Man can save the SHIELD agent, the plane crashes. Iron Man battles the Unicorn, but in the meantime, the Red Ghost has used the new invention to give him enhanced powers. Oh, and he was lying about the injections saving the Unicorn's life:

The Red Ghost blows up his own laboratory, trapping Iron Man and the Unicorn inside. As it happens, neither is able to escape on his own, so they have to combine forces:

The Red Ghost has attacked one of SHIELD's laboratories in the African jungle, using his pet apes (who have also gained new powers. Somehow Iron Man and the Unicorn track him down, but the Unicorn behaves in typical Marvel villain fashion, failing to plan. As it happens the apes make fairly easy work of the new allies, and it looks like the Red Ghost will surely succeed. But one of his apes has gained intelligence and rebels. The Unicorn grabs the Ghost and escapes, vowing to make the Soviet scientist find a real cure for his death curse.

Comments: A so-so run of stories; I liked the two Controller issues, but was bored by the last three issues. Archie Goodwin seems to be having a tough time figuring out what to do about Janice Cord; she's obviously well-suited as a mate for Tony and yet he keeps thinking about the risk that she's in with him. And virtually every storyline starts out with an attack on one of Stark's factories and/or one of his new inventions. Indeed, that's one of the reasons I liked the Controller issues, because Stark had almost nothing to do with the plot.

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#251. TV Tornado 23

A unique book & comics which contains lot of famous comics' heroes like Phantom, Flash Gordon, Tarzan etc in one issue.


TV Tornado 23 City Magazines (UK)



All credits to unknown Scanner & original Uploader only.

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Batman And the Aliens: 1960

Continuing our backwards trek through the Schiff era, we come to 1960. The Pittsburgh Pirates stunned the baseball world by defeating the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series, behind Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Green Bay Packers lost their only championship of the Vince Lombardi era to the Philadelphia Eagles and Norm Van Brocklin. Cathy's Clown by the Everly Brothers was the #1 pop music hit, while Gunsmoke was the top-rated TV show.

In Batman #130, Batman and Robin faced The Hand From Nowhere, which was controlled by two apparent aliens:



Status: Fake aliens; in fact it's a criminal gang led by longtime Superman foe, Luthor.

In Batman #132, the dynamic duo meet a man from Mars:



Status: Another fake alien; Karik was actually an actor playing a part who suffered the dreaded "blow to the head" that made him think he was really from Mars.

In Batman #136, Batman and Robin repel an Vordian invasion force:



Status: True aliens, human sized and yellow in color. Two Klaatus out of a possible five.

In Detective #277, an alien ship crash-lands on Earth:

Status: True alien, human-sized and orange in color. His crash landing frees the Jigsaw Puzzle Creature. Three Klaatus out of five.

Detective #279 features these:

Status: A very tough call. The robot-looking thing is a robot and the orange and pink creature is a beast, with only rudimentary intelligence. In addition, they are from another dimension, which also makes things trickier as I've not included Bat-Mite, for example, as an alien in my schema. I'm going to rule against the true alien nature here as even a robot has no real intelligence.

In Detective #282, we first meet Batman's Interplanetary Rival, Tal-Dar, chief of the Interplanetary Space Police:



Status: True alien, orange and human-sized. As the only alien who appeared in two separate Batman stories (other than Superman of course), Tal-Dar, who later popped up in Batman #142 gets the full five Klaatus.

We also meet another alien race in the story:



Status: True aliens, human-sized and green. Two Klaatus.

In Detective #283, a crooked scientist summons an alien to Earth with a machine:



Status: True alien, white and human-sized. Three Klaatus for DC daring to reuse the Martian Manhunter's origin in a Batman story in Detective.

It certainly looks like 1960 was another banner year for aliens in the Batman canon. Summary for 1960:

Batman #130: Fake aliens
Batman #132: Fake aliens
Batman #136: True aliens, yellow and human-sized
Detective #277: True alien, orange and human-sized
Detective #279: Not a true alien, rather alien robot and alien beast
Detective #282: True aliens (two races): one orange and one green, both human-sized
Detective #283: True alien, white and human-sized

Overall for the year: Four stories with true aliens, one with an alien robot and an alien beast, and two stories with fake aliens.

1961:

Batman #137: True alien, white and human-sized and true aliens, yellow and human-sized (two separate stories).
Batman #140: Superman appearance; not counted in the tabulation, and true aliens, green and human-sized.
Batman #142: True alien, orange and human-sized.
Batman #143: Not a true alien, an alien beast.
Batman #144: True aliens, yellow and human-sized.
Detective #287: True aliens, one white and the other yellow, both slightly smaller than humans.
Detective #291: Not a true alien, an alien beast.
Detective #292: Superman cameo, not counted in the tabulation.
Detective #293: True aliens, pink and oversized.
Detective #295: True aliens, yellow and human-sized.

So in total we have 8 stories with true aliens (counting both stories in Batman #137), two stories with alien beasts and two Superman stories.

1962:

Detective #299: True aliens, several, green or white, human-sized.
Detective #303: Fake aliens.
Batman #148: True aliens, green and human-sized
Detective #305: True alien, orange and human-sized
Batman #152: Fake alien.

Three real aliens, two fake aliens.

1963-1964:

Batman #153: True aliens, green.
Batman #153: True aliens, multi-colored.
Batman #156: Fake alien (dream sequence)
Detective #320: No alien visible but implied.
Batman #160: Fake Alien

Two real aliens, two fake, one not seen.

I try to mention when I remember it, that these types of posts are very much inspired by H at the Comic Treadmill, whose terrific prop stars series are highly recommended.

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