Magnus, Robot Fighter #22

One of the longest running dramatic comics of the Silver Age that was not published by DC or Marvel, Magnus, Robot Fighter debuted in February 1963, and lasted until issue #28, November 1969. After a two-year hiatus, Gold Key started it up again and it lasted another 17 issues before finally biting the dust in January 1977. It has been revived a few times since then, most notably by Acclaim, which published 65 issues in the 1990s.

As you can see, although this is issue #22 in the Gold Key series, it is also a reprint of the very first issue. The comic was drawn for most of its initial 28-issue run by Russ Manning, who also did a long stint on Tarzan for Gold Key and also did the Tarzan daily strip for the newspapers.

Magnus was kind of a future Tarzan himself; he had been raised apart from the human society of 4000 AD by a robot (named 1A) and trained to battle the evil robots who had arisen when mankind became too dependent on them. Magnus has two main powers: incredible strength, and the ability to intercept the robots' radio signals.

In the first story, Magnus observes a robot tearing up a book that two kids were reading, about Adolf Hitler, after they observe that the robots are becoming Hitler-like. The kids are enraged that the robot did this, and:



Some polrobs (police robots) try to arrest the kids, but Magnus intervenes:



Magnus learns that the robot behind the evil robots is the polrob chief, who orders both humans and robots to capture Magnus, or he will kill all the humans in the sector. Meanwhile, Leeja, the daughter of a Senator, decides that she too is tired of obeying robot orders:



They join forces and enter the Central Rob (police station) under the supposed control of a robot that Magnus has rewired to accept his instructions. They encounter the evil chief polrob:



Now that's pretty interesting. Neo-nazis today use the term "88" as a code for "Heil Hitler", as "H" is the 8th letter in the alphabet. Given the earlier mention of Hitler in the story, it's hard to believe that this is a coincidence. H8 reveals that he lost his inhibition against harming humans due to a radiation incident years ago.

Magnus learns that one of H8's secret weapons is a computer bank of human minds, to which H8 intends to add Magnus and Leeja. As Magnus battles H8, the human minds assist him, and when H8 has been destroyed, he frees them. However, he learns that H8 is not the only evil robot and that others have been made evil by individual humans for their own purposes.

Comments: Solid introduction to the series, with terrific art and interesting characters. Leeja is drawn, well, rather enticingly for a female character in 1963:



Then again, Gold Key was not hamstrung by the Comics Code Authority. I will have to dig up some other Magnus Robot Fighter issues and see if the quality continues at this level.

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Ponytail #1

As I often mention, superheroes were only one small segment of the comics back in the Silver Age. DC, the company that started the Silver Age as the only comics company doing superheroes, dedicated only about a quarter of its output in the 1950s to the men in capes and tights, and while that increased to about half in the 1960s, that still means that the bulk of their product was non-superhero.

Dell Comics specialized in licensed products, like the Disney characters which they produced comics for for several decades. Ponytail was a comic strip that Lee Holley had started in 1960 and which had proven very popular. Ponytail Johnson is a typical, pretty but slightly ditzy teenage girl whose life revolves around high school and her boyfriend, Donald Dawson. The artwork may look somewhat familiar to those of you familiar with Dennis the Menace:



Holley had been an assistant for Hank Ketcham from 1959-1962, and he clearly learned Ketcham's loose, expressive style. In the opening story, Ponytail is thrilled when Donald compares her teeth to pearls. But shortly after she encounters a few of the girls who now have braces, and realizes that they're a new status symbol:



So she's gotta have them, perfect teeth or not. But now she's concerned about her date with Donald; will he like her with braces?



Well, as you can probably guess, Donald's gotten braces too, and when he finds out that Ponytail's metal-mouthed, he decides this indicates they're really made for each other.

In the second story, she's upset that all the girls are clamoring for Donald's attention after he sank the winning bucket in a basketball game. Her girlfriend suggests a new hairstyle, but as that would change the name of the comic book, they decide on a new perfume instead.

Because her mother's perfume bottles are all almost empty, Ponytail and her friend decide to mix them all together. At first this seems successful, as a bunch of boys start following them. But unknown to the girls, they are actually following a car that has a sign offering free baseball tickets. Then Donald starts following them, but by this time the gals are convinced that the perfume they've created is bound to make them millions. But:



In the third story, Ponytail is embarrassed by her parents casual attitude and clowning around when they have Donald over for a barbecue. Of course, Donald enjoyed himself thoroughly and when he gets home he gripes about how different it is with his parents:



So Donald's parents decide to invite the Johnsons over for a barbecue to see how casual is done. Of course, Donald is urging his parents to loosen up, while at the same time Ponytail is insisting on formal wear and no jokes. This results in some comic moments:



So the Johnsons find a pretext to scramble back home and change into less formal wear, but in the meantime, the Dawsons have dressed up. But things loosen up a bit:



And before you know it, both Ponytail and Donald have gained a new appreciation for their parents.

In the third story, Marcia Morgan (clearly a villainess) has coaxed Donald into a date after school. But she's annoyed to see that Ponytail and Donald are passing notes in school so she decides to get Ponytail in trouble. She gives her a bubble wand and fluid and Ponytail accidentally fills the air with bubbles, resulting in her being sent to the principal's office. The principal is in a hurry as the new superintendent of schools is arriving shortly, and when he hears what Ponytail did he gets the hiccups. Casting about for something to drink, he grabs the bubble fluid and chugs it down with predictable side effects. He tries to hide, but:



And when bubbles start coming out of his mouth, people assume the principal's gone mad. But Ponytail explains the bubble fluid and the superintendent is fascinated, thinking this would be a great toy for his grandchildren. When her teacher realizes this, she retracts her complaint and makes it sound like Ponytail was educating the rest of the class:



But Marcia, jealous of the attention, insists that she was the one to bring the bubble fluid to class. The principal, hearing this, assigns Marcia to detention while Ponytail goes out for pizza with Donald.

The fourth story is a short gag about Ponytail trying to attract the attention of the captain of the baseball team. She tries out a formal dress, but he ignores her. Then she sports a swimsuit, but no sale. It's time for drastic measures:



In the finale, Donald has made the mistake of scheduling a drive in the country with Marcia the same afternoon that he promised to take Ponytail to a movie. The only solution is to let the weather decide. If it's nice, Marcia gets the ride, while if it's rainy, Ponytail gets to see the new Gregory Peck movie. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, Ponytail resolves to wash the car, since nothing is guaranteed to start a rainstorm like a clean car. As her father's car isn't home, she washes Donald's car, and since the engine's dirty as well, she washes that. Sure enough the rains come and she heads to Donald's for their date. But:



The inside back cover has what appear to be four of the single-panel comics from the newspaper strip. Here's my favorite:



Comments: I didn't think too much of the two opening stories, which seemed overly long for a single gag, but the later stories in the book were terrific and funny. As it happens, I'm not the only person blogging recently about Ponytail; Sherm Cohen wrote three posts about her, focusing on the sixth issue in the last few days.

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Single Issue Review: Superman #175

As you can see, this is one of the famed "Imaginary" stories from the Weisinger era. Lord only knows why Lex thinks that Lois will be fooled by him wearing Clark's clothes.

The story begins in the Superboy era, with Ma Kent coming down with a cold just as the family was planning a vacation to the Caribbean. This seems a disappointment to them, but we know that during that vacation, Ma and Pa Kent would contract the illness that killed them, so secretly this is very fortunate.

Lex at this point has lost his hair, so he still despises Superboy and has a plot to discover his secret identity. He causes strange attacks on various friends of the Lad of Steel and tracks Superboy's movements. Meanwhile Pete Ross (who doesn't know Superboy's secret identity in this story) tries to save Lana from the attack, but when it's over, she only has praise for Superboy:



So now we have a pretty good idea who the villain of the story will be. Luthor's pretty sure by now that Clark Kent's Superboy, the Lad of Steel decides he must run away from home to protect his parents. Superboy announces to Lana and Pete that he's going to dedicate his time to locating Clark, and he leaves Smallville.

Lex is still suspicious, so he decides to ingratiate himself with the Kents. He takes Clark's job in the general store. Using his scientific genius, he automates things:



After dinner, the Kents decide they like Lex so much, they're going to adopt him. Lex accepts as it will make it easier to discover if Clark really is Superboy, although he does feel a little twinge of guilt. Later, when he sneaks down the stairs to search for Superboy's secret tunnel exit from the house, the Kents tell him to feel free to raid the refrigerator for a snack, and suddenly:



Superboy uses his distance vision to see that Ma Kent is still heartbroken that he left. He returns for a quick visit, but:



Since there is now no risk to his secret identity, Clark and Superboy return home. Incidentally, that scene on the cover? It turns out to be imaginary too, as it's a daydream that Lex has about how he's going to help his brother out in the future. But Pete Ross is not happy to see them, and vows revenge on Superboy for keeping Lana from returning his love.

An aside: The letters column includes this missive and response:



The anecdote about Grost is true; he pops up frequently in discussions of extremely brilliant youngsters, and Time Magazine profiled him in 1964, with the comic books prominently featured:

Michael Grost was pretty downcast. His parents had promised him ten Superman comic books if he got an A in school. Instead, he got only a B+ and five comics. But Mike's parents were delighted, for the course was Contemporary History of Europe and Asia, and the school Michigan State University. Mike is ten. As a special-status student at M.S.U. last year, the Lansing prodigy scored an A-average while amassing 38 credits in math, humanities, history and science.

Grost retained his love of comics; his web page on the classic comics of the 1950s and 1960s is here. See the end of this post for Grost's take on this story.

In the second part of the story, Lex gets an appointment as a research scientist in Metropolis, while Clark has been accepted as a reporter with the Daily Planet. Rather than break up the family, Ma and Pa Kent retire and move to Metropolis as well. The Kents play matchmaker, but Ma wants Clark to marry Lana, while Pa sees that his son prefers Lois Lane. Meanwhile Pete Ross has moved to Metropolis as well, and is still bitter that Lana prefers Superboy to him.

A crime wave starts in the city, which uses fantastic Kryptonian machines that could only have come from Superman's Fortress of Solitude. While battling the machines, Superman is affected by Green Kryptonite, and falls on Lois, nearly killing her in the process. This convinces him who he really loves:



Lana (the girl shown entering the room) realizes that she's lost, and resolves to keep Clark's secret. She marries Pete Ross on the rebound. But when she discovers the plans to the Kryptonian machines that carried out the attacks in Metropolis, she realizes her husband's a crook:



Pete plans a trap for Superman. He kidnaps Lois and uses her signal watch to summon Superman to his lair:



Lana, whom Pete has locked in their penthouse, manages to escape and get to the Kents. Lex has been working on a machine that will give him super-powers, but it's faulty. In the battle that ensues, Lex saves Superman and Pete is killed. But the victory does come with a price:



Comments: I've always enjoyed the imaginary stories, and this is no exception. The redemption of Lex seems a little incredible, and it's likely that Pete would have dropped his vendetta against Superman when he got what he wanted, Lana's hand in marriage. But aside from the weak motivations, the story works quite well, and Curt Swan's art, as always, is visually appealing.

Michael Grost's take:

Clark Kent's Brother; The Defeat of Superman; The Luthor-Superman (1965). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Young Lex Luthor is adopted by the Kents, and becomes Superman's brother, in this book length tale. Hamilton manages to reweave the entire story of Superman's life, in this imaginary tale depicting an alternate unfolding of Superman's story. This tale is like "Superman's Other Life", in that it creates a whole alternative history for Superman, showing what his life might have been like if it had taken a very different course. It differs from many Imaginary tales in the Superman family, in that it does not present a possible future for the characters, but rather an alternative past and present. "Superman's Other Life" showed an alternative life for Superman on Krypton; here we see a reworking of Superman's life on Earth, concentrating on the non-superpowered humans he encountered in Smallville and Metropolis. This emphasis makes this one of the least sf oriented tales in Superman, just as "Superman's Other Life" was one of the most. However, both tales share a high level of imagination, looking at alternative lives for their hero. Some of the developments here involve Hamilton's personal theme of characters taking on roles and locations associated with others: for example, Lex Luthor becomes a member of the Kent family. This story is one of Hamilton's most imaginative and intricate embodiments of his role-assumption structure.

Update: See also this post at Random Longbox on another imaginary story featuring yet another hospital bedside proposal.

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Captain Marvel Versus Superman

Superman Fan covers the oversized comic from the 1970s featuring the battle between the Big Red Cheese and the Man of Steel. But before that matchup ever took place (indeed before DC began publishing Shazam!), there was another tumultuous pairing between Supes and somebody who quite clearly was inspired by Captain Marvel:



In the splash page to Action #351, we learned what his name stood for:



And in Whiz Comics #2, we found out what Shazam stood for:


(Image lifted from the late, lamented Comic Coverage)

Except for Solomon and Atlas, the names are the same, although some of the locations and attributes are different.

In the story, the United Crime Syndicates needs a new boss, their old one having been jailed by Superman. A newcomer appears offering to lead them:



No surprise, the gangsters accept Zha-Vam's leadership eagerly. And apparently believing in the dictum to "Never steal anything small", they attack Fort Knox. Superman arrives and finds himself in quite a tussle:



In the middle section, Zha-Vam delights in forcing Superman to press one of the buttons on his belt, which turns him into still different gods of the past. For example, the "G" button transforms Zha-Vam into Gorgon, in which guise he turns Superman to stone. Supes recovers when he manages to attract lightning to himself. Later, Superman presses the "P" button, and turns out all the light in the word, as Pluto replaces Zha-Vam. Superman must grovel:



Superman's computer reveals a possible way to defeat Zha-Vam; his Achille's heel. But it turns out that the Greek God has planned ahead for this eventuality:



In the final issue, Superman returns from space to discover that Zha-Vam has placed the Shield of Orion around the Earth, and that he cannot get past it. He decides to go backwards in time to evade the shield and while he's at it, he takes a sidetrip to ancient Greece, and Mount Olympus. There he learns that the gods are angry that modern folks no longer worship them:



In response, they come up with Zha-Vam and send him to the future to humiliate Superman and remind people of their awesome powers. Meanwhile, Superman talks to the Oracle and learns there's another set of gods who are rivals with the Olympians. They even the score by giving Superman his own belt, leading to the climactic battle:



In the end Zha-Vam loses his cool and decides to simply use his Kryptonite sock to kill Superman. But Supes uses his belt to call Atlas (for once he's not changed into the hero himself) who opens a can of whoop-ass on Zha-Vam, getting rid of the sock in the process. And Supes uses his belt again, as a whip on Zha-Vam's exposed heel:



This takes the fight out of Zha-Vam, and Supes deposits him back in time to Mount Olympus. The gods, realizing their folly, turn Zha-Vam back into clay, and Superman indulges himself in a little side trip to Mount Olympus of modern times:



Yep, only one god on DC's green Earth in the Silver Age. Comments: Entertaining story and Boring's art works perfectly for Zha-Vam; he's really got it going here. The concept of the old gods being upset that Superman has replaced them is a clever but creepy motivation, although of course thinking it through would reveal that the Greek Gods had been dead for millennia before the Man of Steel came along.

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Hansi, the Girl Who Loved The Swastika

This one's a little outside my normal bailiwick, having been published in 1976, but it's such a wild issue that I couldn't resist sharing some parts with you. First, imagine being Jewish, walking past the local Christian bookstore, and seeing the cover of that comic through the window. You'd likely think that the local Christians were a bunch of skinheads.

The comic tells the story of Hansi, a young Czech girl who becomes enamored of the Nazis and the new opportunities for her to advance her education. She wins a scholarship:



As you can see, her mother (far right) is a little less thrilled about that prospect, and urges her to never forget Jesus. She arrives at her new school and learns about the Jewish Question:



Although Hansi never expresses anti-semitic thoughts in the book, she does become gung-ho about the Third Reich and discards her religion:



But as the war turns against the Germans and the Russians take Czechoslovakia, Hansi is imprisoned in a labor camp:



Deciding to break out, she tells her friend that they will go to West Germany, where the Americans are:



She makes it across the no-man's land into the American territory. At first she's suspicious of the young GIs:



But they win her trust and respect. In the postwar era she becomes a teacher in West Germany, and is eventually reunited with her childhood sweetheart. But something is missing in their lives, and eventually her husband finds it:



Well, you know Hansi, she never does anything half-hearted, and so her faith and her family increase over the years. Finally they emigrate to the USA:



Of course that's a bit of comic art license, as Hansi, a young woman during WWII, would be unlikely to have small children in the mid-1970s, when that kind of scene would be taking place. Hansi becomes a teacher in the United States, but she feels a calling to open up her home to young people who are in trouble and convert them to Jesus. She also takes her ministry to the local prison, where she gives a very inspiring speech:



Oddly, the speech is all about America, not about God, perhaps indicating that she's ready to put some faith in her country as well as in her religion. She does muse a bit earlier about how wrong she'd been to place faith in Nazism, so perhaps this is a turning point for her.

Comments: Hansi is certainly a very interesting and strong character, and Al Hartley draws her superbly. The story is based on the actual life of Maria Anne Hirshmann, originally with the same title, but apparently at some point changed to the less likely to mislead title of Hansi, the Girl Who Left the Swastika. Although obviously Christians would be most likely to enjoy this comic, it's quite entertaining just from a story-telling standpoint.

The cover still strikes me as crazy.

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#257. TV Tornado 64

According to Deepwoods, 88 TV Tornado softcover & 2 hardcover annuals were published only.

This time #64 from e-collection.

TV Tornado 64 City Magazines (UK)



All credits to unknown Scanner & original Uploader only.


While you are downloading comics, may be like to watch this clip.

I was searching some videos, this one forced me to watch several times. It's a short video about special effects' evolution from beginning.

Enjoy!

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