Atom #7

In response to fan demand, DC liked to do team-ups with their heroes. Being DC, they tended to institutionalize the practice by making them annual events. Flash regular team-ups with Green Lantern, so it was a natural for Julius Schwartz to match his third GA reincarnation with his fourth.

The story, written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, starts with a bit of a puzzle. Some crooks had escaped from a tall building which was too far from nearby rooftops for them to have jumped. There was no sound of a helicopter, so how could they have escaped? They take the puzzle to local physics grad student, Ray Palmer who comes up with an answer:

In Gardner Fox's Wikipedia entry, there is this note:

A polymath, Fox sprinkled his strips with numerous real-world historical, scientific, and mythological references, once saying, "Knowledge is kind of a hobby with me." For instance, in the span of a year's worth of Atom stories, Fox tackled the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the space race, 18th-century England, miniature card painting, Norse mythology, and numismatics.

So it is no surprise that I was able to locate an article from Time Magazine in 1927 on the European fad of balloon jumping:

Walk along the ground with a breeze at your back, approach a fence, bend your knees, spring lightly into the air when you feel the tug of the balloon. You will sail over the fence so easily and land so gently that you will be surprised. Barns and trees can be surmounted with more vigorous leaps, usually requiring a light second push-up with the tip of the toe on the barn's roof or on the tree's outlying branches.

Balloon jumping is already a popular sport among the English gentry, and is attracting the attention of playful Long Islanders.

Later, while Jean and Ray are out bird-watching, they experience a strong earthquake. They also notice a bird that is out of the normal for the Atlantic Flyway.

Meanwhile, Hawkman has also noticed some birds out of their migratory routes. When he asks them why:

Using some special contact lenses he has designed, Hawkman is able to see the radiation is coming from the East Coast and:

We learn that explorers had found the Cosmitron on a world ruined by war. It gave off radiation, but aside from that the scientists from Thanagar could not determine the machine's purpose. Hawkman contacts Shayera, who is on Thanagar and tells her to check to see if the Cosmitron has been stolen. Then he heads east to find the source of the radiation.

The Atom is at the police station when a call comes in about the balloon robbers. He accompanies them to the scene:

Okay, now that's just a bit silly on Gil Kane's part; there's no way a couple of tiny balloons like those shown could lift even a fraction of a man's weight. Here's a look at what is actually required.

So the cop shoots Atom up into the air with the speargun, which is actually a pretty cool idea. He starts popping the balloons, but by the third crook they're over the getaway boat and so the man makes a quick getaway. Meanwhile, the Atom is so far out to sea that he wonders if he will be able to swim back to shore. Fortunately, he's plucked out of the air by... Hawkman!

The Winged Wonder and the Mighty Mite make short work of the balloon crooks, then Hawkman hurries off in search of the Cosmitron. He locates it lying on the ground in a woods, but as he approaches, tiny men in a space ship attack him:

The aliens manage to kayo Hawkman and get away with the device. Hawkman meets up with the Atom at police headquarters and tells his story. Meanwhile, the aliens are hovering above the Earth. We learn what the Cosmitron does:

They transmit a warning to the United Nations. They were the original rulers of our planet and they intend to resume control. If the UN does not capitulate, they will cause terrible disasters to strike our planet. Perhaps this is an optimistic view of the response of the delegates:

The aliens take a knife to the globe, causing a huge furrow to appear in the ground. We get a page or two of explication on the history of the aliens. They had used the Cosmitron to get control of many planets, but eventually the power (provided by earthquakes) ran out and the Thalens were overthrown. Many years later their descendants had recovered the Cosmitron and intended to resume their conquest of the galaxy.

Since Hawkman's spaceship is gone (with Shayera back on Thanagar), he cannot get to the alien ship, but the Atom can, in a model of Hawkman's craft. Once inside, he steals the Cosmitron:

And after a fairly easy battle, the aliens are defeated, the Cosmitron destroyed, and even the furrow repaired.

Comments: I loved the little bits of backup information that Fox provided, and the artwork is terrific. The Cosmitron is an interesting piece of technology. Atom and Hawkman had several other team-ups in the future and eventually shared the Atom's magazine towards the end of the Silver Age.

Let's Agree Never to Mention This Again

As I'm sure most of you are aware, Julius Schwartz was the editor for the revived All-American Comics during the Silver Age. The Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, and Hawkman all returned under his watchful eye, as did the Justice Society (rechristened, of course, as the Justice League) of America. Schwartz edited all those magazines from their Silver Age debuts (plus the New Look Batman and Detective) until late 1967. However, when the Spectre got his own (brief) series, Schwartz was relieved of responsibility for Hawkman effective with issue #22 (Oct-Nov 1967). The new editor was George Kashdan.

As was usual back then, a restuffing of the editorial chair also meant an entirely new direction for the series, including new artists (Dick Dillin replacing Murphy Anderson), and a new writer (Bob Haney filling in for Gardner Fox). In the opening story, it is revealed that Carter Hall is actually an alien from Thanagar:

Say it loud, say it proud, Carter. At first he is arrested, but when Hawkman defeats the villain of the issue, a grateful city hall has him released. What's that? You want to know how Hawkman could beat a villain while his real identity was in prison? Well, actually Carter was a Thanagarian android that Hawkman had sub for him.

Now, you might expect there to be one of those complicated excuses where it is then established to the public's knowledge that Carter was in fact an Earthman, and was only pretending to be an alien to further some goal. But no:

And you might expect lots of interesting plot complications in future issues as Carter had to deal with reactions to his alien nature. No to that as well. In fact, as far as I can tell it was never mentioned again, except for this note in the letters column of Hawkman #24:


By #26, Kashdan was out as editor, and Murray Boltinoff was in. Hawkman's solo series was canceled after #27, although he was combined with the Atom to form the Atom and Hawkman series for another year, where he was reunited with editor Julius Schwartz. However, I can find no other mention of Carter Hall being an alien.

Hawkman #13

I can tell this story tersely enough with just a few panels:






Comments: Overall an amusing story, obviously padded quite a bit to make a book-length tale. Murphy Anderson's art sizzles however, and Gardner Fox does redeem himself a bit with the ending. Hawkgirl had turned off a mind control machine that Queen Alvit had planned to use to force him to marry her, but Hawkman has a different explanation:

Very, very sweet!

The Mavis Trent Chronicles Volume 1

Hawkman was unique in the Silver Age among all heroes, as he arrived on Earth already married. From a writer's point of view, single characters are more interesting as they're free to form new romantic relationships, or continue old ones, while married characters have to be faithful to their existing partner.

Enter Mavis Trent. In Brave & Bold #34, Hawkman and Hawkgirl meet up with Commissioner Emmett and reveal their real identities as policemen from Thanagar, come to Earth, initially to capture a shape-shifting crook named Byth, but eventually to study our police methods. In fact, not only did they confide in Commissioner Emmett, but he was instrumental in giving them their secret identities while on this planet:



But when Hawkman (as Carter Hall) meets one of his employees, he picks up a clue:



It's such a rare bird that it doesn't exist on Earth, which is why Carter is interested, although it's pretty obvious that Mavis is interested in something else, and a publicity man suggests that Carter and Mavis go on an expedition together to track down the oddity. But Shayera scotches those plans:



But even after learning that Carter is married, Mavis is not deterred:



The subplot in that issue ends somewhat oddly, with Carter and Mavis exploring Hawk Valley (with Shayera as a chaperone) in an unsuccessful attempt to find the rare bird (which was the criminal that Hawkman and Hawkgirl had originally come to Earth after).

In the second tryout issue (Brave & the Bold #35), Carter is surprised when Mavis hugs him for sending her flowers (because he didn't). Shayera is not amused:



Mavis' photos of rare animals shows a chance of breaking into the big time in the second story in B&B #35:



So she's a catalyst for the stories, at the same time as she appears to be something of an antagonist to Carter and Shiera (as they are renamed by Commissioner Emmett. I should mention that although Joe Kubert makes Mavis look quite attractive, there is no hint that her desire for Carter is returned in the stories, and while Shiera clearly gets a little frosty at times, it's always directed at Mavis and not her husband. And at the end of the story, she's no longer quite so enamored of Carter, as the new man in town:



She continues her role as catalyst in B&B #36:



Later, it turns out that the guy she was suddenly snuggling up to in that sequence was after her ring, which leads to this bizarre bit:



Comments: The idea of a femme fatale in DC is pretty far ahead of the times, although I suspect kids were used to seeing this type of subplot on TV comedies (in which the husband/wife always remained faithful). Lois Lane and Lana Lang's rivalry is different, for the simple reason that Superman isn't married to either of them. In later issues (as we'll discuss in future volumes of the Mavis Trent Chronicles), DC did rectify this problem by having Commissioner Emmett tell Mavis that Hawkman and Hawkgirl were not married. But that is a tale for another day.

Where In the World is Midway City

This came up in a chatroom I was in the other day, and I thought it made an interesting and oddball topic. In the first Hawkman Silver Age tryout, we learned that they had followed a Thanagarian thief to Midway City, on Earth.

Now of course, the logical conclusion is that Chicago is Midway City; one of Chicago's major airports is Chicago-Midway. One assumes that Midway refers to halfway between New York and the West Coast. Which means it's a lie; in fact it's only about a third of the way.

Update: Looking at Wikipedia, it turns out that Midway was originally Chicago Municipal Airport, but was renamed Midway in honor of one of the key naval battles of World War II against the Japanese,

But... as you probably guessed, locating Hawkman's Midway City does not turn out to be that easy. The DC Wikia gives the location of Midway City as east of Sault Ste. Marie (Canada) on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Which is something of a joke. Here's a map of the area; Sault (pronounced Sue) Ste. Marie, Michigan is a town of 16,000 people, and while the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie has a population of 74,000, that's still way too small an area to be credible as Hawkman's home base. For example, the man they confide in, George Emmett, is described as Midway City's police commissioner; but in a small town like Sault Ste. Marie, they would just have a police chief.

And in the very first cover for Hawkman, we are shown the "Bi-State Tunnel":



A four-lane tunnel in each direction? Even the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels aren't that big. So you're going to tell me that East Nowhere and West Nowhere have a bigger tunnel between them? It's simply not credible. And look at that skyline in the distance; that's clearly not some small burg; it's a major metropolis.

Not to mention the obvious problem with the name "Bi-State Tunnel"; there's no other state in 100 miles of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Canada calls them provinces. It would be the "International-Tunnel" or the "Bi-National Tunnel". On the other hand, Chicago is very close to the border between Illinois and Indiana, and while there's no tunnel between them near that border, the rest of the setting clearly fits; we're seeing the Indiana side, Lake Michigan and Chicago to the right.

Still, we must look for further clues. From Brave & Bold #43 (the fifth tryout issue), we get some definite geographical markers:



Okay, so Buffalo is roughly due east. Here's a map:



There are a number of cities that are west of Buffalo but still in the United States. Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee strike me as the most likely candidates; as you can see, Buffalo is southeast of Sault Ste. Marie, far enough south that the idea of it being described as east is a bit ridiculous.

Here's another tantalizing clue from Mystery In Space #90's Planets In Peril:



They are on their way up out of the atmosphere, and where are they? Looks to me like somewhere south of Lake Michigan, and nowhere near Sault Ste. Marie (which is near the far eastern corner of the disappeared Lake Superior). They are reasonably close to Chicago; certainly closer to there than SSM.

So on the whole I would say for now that Midway City is Chicago. Now I will have to revisit this post in a week or so, because Midway City is not solely the home of Hawkman and Hawkgirl; it's also the base of the Doom Patrol, and evidence from their stories must be taken into account as well.

Zatanna and Zatara

There were two major stories in the DC Silver Age that crossed over into several titles. Nowadays these "events" are commonplace, but back then it was something very new.

Zatara had been a mainstay of DC comics in the Golden Age, actually appearing alongside Superman in Action Comics #1. He even made two cover appearances in Action #12 and #14. He appeared regularly in Action and World's Finest right up until 1949. His shtick was that he was a magician who could cause amazing things to happen by commanding them. But the key was that he had to speak his orders backwards:



In 1949, Zatara was eased out of his roles in Action Comics and World's Finest. In the former, it does not appear that he was removed to make way for a new character, but rather he was dropped and some of the existing features (notably Vigilante and Tommy Tomorrow) picked up some extra pages.

So things stood for almost fifteen years. Then, in Hawkman #4 (Oct-Nov 1964) we got an update. While investigating an oddball appearance of two items at the museum they run, Carter and Shayera discover a pair of women speaking very strangely:





In their spaceship, they do some detective work and:



Zatanna explains that she's looking for her missing father, Zatara. We learn that before he disappeared he was trying to capture an evil Oriental lama, and also that he battled against a "sinister being called the Druid."

Using the Absorbascon, a Thanagarian device that can learn any knowledge on Earth, Hawkman discovers that nobody on the planet knows the whereabouts of Zatara. Zatanna thanks them for their help, and continues on with her quest.

Her next encounter with a superhero went unannounced at the time. I have previously discussed Detective #336, which featured "Batman's Bewitched Nightmare". In the story Batman faces a witch who is helping some crooks with their larceny. At the end it is revealed that the Outsider was using them for his own purposes. But it turns out that the witch in the story was Zatanna, minus the fishnet stockings and good looks:



She returned in Atom #19 (June-July 1965). She believes that her father has vanished into a microscopic world inside his book of magic. Zatanna and the Atom shrink down to subatomic size and encounter the Druid mentioned in Hawkman #4. He captured Zatara by absorbing all his magical energy. Then he banished him to another realm.

At first, it appears likely that Zatanna will suffer the same fate:



But the Atom gets the brilliant idea of Zatanna tricking the Druid by using fake "magic" (i.e., a simple card trick). The Druid absorbs the fake magic and it sends him into a catatonic state. Unfortunately this means that Zatanna still can't find out where her father is.



The series continued in Green Lantern #42 (January 1966). Zatanna has discovered the secret entrance to Ys, a mirror world of Earth that is "steady-state", where nothing ever changes. A warlock on that world has tired of the lack of excitement, and decides to bring Green Lantern there so that he can steal the power ring and conquer our world. They defeat him, but he refuses to reveal where Zatara is unless GL hands over the ring. GL agrees and we learn that Zatara had been in Ys, but he had escaped by taking a crystal ball that the warlock intended to use to travel to Earth. Fortunately before GL hands over the ring, Zatanna places a hex on it, causing the warlock to freeze in place. Her quest continues.

Zatanna next appeared in Detective #355 (September 1966), this time popping into an Elongated Man adventure. She is looking for a missing tripod which was stolen from a store. She forces the thieves to come to her, not realizing that they were engaged at the time in a battle with the Elongated Man. The pair of them team up against the crooks and the storeowner (who turns out to be a criminal as well). At long last, Zatanna is ready for the final battle:



The saga ended in Justice League of America #51 (February 1967). Zatanna summons Batman, Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman to their JLA headquarters, along with the non-member Elongated Man.

We learn that she wants to thank them for helping her rescue her father. This creates a complex plotline as the story shifts back and forth from the present to the past. And of course it sorta gives away the ending, which makes it an odd plot design.

We learn at last that Zatanna was actually the Witch in Detective #336, thus tying her into the Outsider series in Batman. She got into trouble here:



It's a classic "Don't do it!" moment if ever there was one, but driven by her desire to find her father, Zatanna does. The spirit delivers Zatanna to "the land of Kharma", where she is beset by magically created creatures. She summons duplicates of the five heroes of the story to help her defeat them. But still the hordes come, and Batman figures it out:



Wow, pretty risky maneuver there, but we know he's right, and even if he isn't he's just a duplicate of Batman. With the spirit banished from Zatanna, we discover that the magic user fighting her was her own father. You see, Allura had cursed Zatara for imprisoning her in that sword, with a spell that would have destroyed both father and daughter should they meet. Hence Zatara's disappearance and attempts to prevent Zatanna from reaching him. But with Allura defeated, the curse no longer exists and we get the happy ending:



Obviously way ahead of its time, the series suffered from crossing over into many titles (as do all such stories) despite the continuity of editor (Julius Schwartz) and writer (Gardner Fox). The odds of a significant portion of the comic-reading cohort of the time having a complete collection approach zero, and of course at the time the idea of compiling the story into a trade paperback never occurred to anybody.

And the gimmick of saying your words backwards is annoying to readers, who have to stop and translate. The evil Oriental lama never appears in the story (after the mention in Hawkman), and although there were hints that the story will crossover into the Flash (at the end of the Atom tale), that never happened.

Still, a very entertaining saga.

Coming up next: Yet more fishnet stockings!

A Little Tribute to Murphy Anderson

Murph is probably my favorite artist of the Silver Age, since Dick Sprang was only around for the first half of the era. And among inkers, Anderson had no peers, only envious rivals.

Anderson was probably best known in the Silver Age for his work on Hawkman. Here's an example of his work from the first issue of that magazine:



Notice the intricate work that Anderson adds to his pencils; the inks on the jacket of the man in the background of the first panel really stand out. That's one thing noticeable about Anderson's artwork; he had lots of little bits in the background that make you feel like you're really there, like the hangars, the flight control tower, and the cityscape in the second panel. Of course, he does blow one small detail; more about that later.

Anderson was a master of sequential art; do we need any words here?



And look at the beautiful scenery in these panels:



Because Anderson was so solid at detail, he could draw smaller figures to give us more of a "wide-screen" feel to his panels:



In 1965, DC made an effort at bringing back some of the GA heroes. In Brave & Bold #61 and #62, we got a teamup of Starman and Black Canary:





You definitely get the impression that Anderson was a master artist working extremely diligently to make sure that everything is perfect. Notice the reflection of the house in the water. That is beautiful.

Anderson spent the early years of the Silver Age laboring on DC's science fiction magazines, mostly on one-shot stories and characters, although he did create the terrific Atomic Knights series.

Blown detail. Look at the second panel of the first picture I posted. Notice the plane coming in for a landing without its landing gear down?