Diana's New Rigg

The worst character lasting the duration of the Silver Age is pretty easy to pinpoint. Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince, had a lost decade and a half. The stories from that era are so easy to lampoon and so tedious to read that it's hardly worth the effort. In 1966, DC tried a brief reversion to Golden Age style stories, but that didn't work either. So in 1968, we were assaulted by the "all-new, all-now Wonder Woman".

Steve Trevor's in a coma, the victim of an assassination attempt. Wonder Woman learns that the Amazons must "journey to another dimension" to replenish their magic, so she will no longer have her super powers. She must learn to fend for herself in the world of men. Fortunately, she meets an inscrutable Oriental named I-Ching, who teaches her the martial arts. Together they decide to tackle Doctor Cyber, the evil genius who plans to take over the world.

Wonder Woman's real role model in this instance was undoubtedly Diana Rigg, Mrs Peel from the Avengers. Unfortunately for DC, the secret agent fad was already on the wane as this series began in Wonder Woman #178, Sept-Oct 1968. The series also drew the short straw on artistic talent, as Mike Sekowsky was assigned to those chores. Sekowsky was easily DC's least interesting artist of that era.

In #180, we meet Tim Trench (could they be any more obvious with that last name--Trenchcoat, you mean?), who turns out to be Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon:



In defense of Denny O'Neill, who scripted this, it's fair to assume that not a lot of people who were reading Wonder Woman at the time had seen the Maltese Falcon.

Steve croaks in WW #180, and although we get one bit of Diana kicking butt on his killers, that's pretty much it; no mourning of one of the longest running sidekick characters in comic history at that point. Steve was the male version of Lois Lane in the comics; the goofy foil who retains solid qualities.

Did I mention that Diana ran a boutique? Yeah, she became a real savvy capitalist; spending all her time gallivanting all over the world fighting evil and still somehow selling enough groovy threads to make a living:



Cute skewering of some aging hipsters there, and the plothole is not likely to occur to most of the readers of this mag at the time, even when they find this on the next page:



Well, of course let's go to Europe. After all, Diana's only living in a crummy apartment that even Trench wrinkles his nose at:



Okay, I'll ignore the obvious money problem from now on.

Doctor Cyber is dramatized a bit unfairly I would say. Check out this from WW #179:



But then we get the big reveal in WW #180:



Which gets even harder to square with this:



Okay, a man/machine combo who turns out to be a woman, but not apparently a machine. And suddenly Ching himself knows this:



Except that at the time, Ching has nothing to tell him other than what he was saying a few issues ago, that Dr Cyber was a man.

Reportedly, the feminists were not happy with the makeover, probably because Wonder Woman went from being a confident, self-reliant woman to a gal with two guys bossing her around. Trench was something of a male chauvinist:



And yet, inevitably:



No, it doesn't make you fickle, it makes you fall in love with total losers. In WW #182, Tim absconds with a batch of Dr Cyber's jewels. But not to worry, in that very same issue, Di meets and falls in love with Reginald Hyde-Whyte, a charming and wealthy Brit who of course turns out to be yet another rat.

Apparently the series went on for another few years in this vein before Wonder Woman returned to the red, white and blue swimsuit. I confess to lacking the fortitude to continue.

Update: Fortunately Marionette read the entire series.

Comic Characters Mentioned in songs from the '50s to the '70s

It's very common these days for comic characters to appear in pop songs, but it was not common prior to the 1980s, so I thought I would start compiling a list:

1. Alley Oop, by Dallas Frazier, first recorded by the Hollywood Argyles:

There's a man in the funny papers we all know
(Alley Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
He lives 'way back a long time ago
(Alley Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
He don't eat nothin' but a bear cat stew
(Alley Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
Well, this cat's name is-a Alley Oop
(Alley Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)



2. Sunshine Superman, by Donovan

Superman or Green Lantern, ain't got a-nothin' on me



The girl shown in the video is Sue Lyon, best known for her portrayal of Lolita in the 1960s Stanley Kubrick film, who apparently dated Donovan around 1965.

3. Bungalow Bill by the Beatles:

Deep in the jungle where the mighty tiger lies
Bill and his elephants were taken by surprise
So Captain Marvel zapped him right between the eyes
All the children sing

Not sure who was zapped right between the eyes; one of Captain Marvel's best friends was a tiger named Talky Tawny.

4. Part of the Union by the Strawbs:

I'm not too hard but the sight of my card makes me some kind of Superman.



Perhaps a good indication of why England's economy almost collapsed in the late 1970s?

5. Wish I Could Fly Like Superman by the Kinks:

Superman, Superman, wish I could fly like Superman
Superman, Superman, wanna fly like Superman.



The song also evokes the old Charles Atlas ads, which were also mentioned briefly on the album The Who Sell Out.

6. Superman by the Clique:

I am, I am Superman, and I know what's happening



I suppose the Hitler stuff is in there to kind of reflect the Superman/master race idea. This song was more famously covered by REM in the 1980s.

7. Guitarzan by Ray Stevens



Stevens did mostly did comedy/novelty songs like this, although he had a monster hit with "Everything Is Beautiful" in 1970.

Any others from this era? I'm not including theme songs (like the Spiderman song or the Batman theme).

Update: Here's a huge list that includes more modern songs. Hat tip to commenter Michael Grabois.

Here's a whole album of Marvel-related songs by a group called Icarus. Interestingly, two musicians appearing on that album were part of the Strawbs and were co-writers of Part of the Union, discussed above. Hat tip to commenter Matt.

I thought of another three songs after making the post. The Royal Guardsmen had three terrific hits with their Snoopy Versus the Red Baron, the Return of the Red Baron and Snoopy's Christmas.



Apparently there was a Snoopy for President song as well, appropriate this year:



Update II: Remembered another one. Apparently Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart recorded a song called "Metal Man Has Won His Wings". This was inspired by a comic they found lying around in the recording studio which had an ad for two DC issues: Hawkman #1, which said "Hawkman has won his wings!" along with an ad for an early Metal Men issue. I'll see if I can locate the ad in question.

If Ever If Ever a Wiz There Was....

One of the more durable villains in the Marvel Universe was the Wizard. He first appeared in Strange Tales #102, where we learn that he's fabulously wealthy from the inventions he's created, that he's a master chess player, and an accomplished magician. But as with many villains he longs for a challenge:



He creates a situation where only the Torch can rescue him, and in apparent gratitude, invites Johnny to his home. But once there he uses a water cannon to douse the Torch's flame, then imprisons him in an asbestos-lined room. Then he commits a series of crimes while disguised to look like the Torch. Johnny manages to get away, but he is apparently stymied when the Wizard shows him photographs revealing that the Wizard was actually behind the crime wave. But Sue helps out her brother by stealing the photos, thus clearing him.

This is something of an oddball story in that the Wizard is apparently well known by that name (indeed, we do not hear his real name in this story), but nobody supposedly knows the Torch's real identity, which was never hidden in the Fantastic Four series.

The Wizard returns in Strange Tales #105. After breaking free of prison, he resolves:



This is the sort of feedback loop that commonly exists between villains and heroes; hero defeats villain, villain must get revenge. It's extraordinarily common in the Marvel superhero mags of the 1960s and allows the writer to quickly set the stage for the inevitable battle.

The Torch and the Wizard battle it out for a few pages, before Johnny's sister, Sue Storm, arrives. After trapping her, the Wizard forces the Torch to join her, where a peril awaits:



These kinds of deathtraps became something of a cliche in the 1960s, even forming the centerpiece of the Batman TV series. At any rate, Johnny manages to disarm the trap and capture the Wizard.

The Wizard's next appearance is indeed a key story, as he teams up with Paste-Pot Pete, another villain from the Torch's rogues' gallery. This pair (with Pete renamed the Trapster) would later join up with the Sandman and Medusa (of the Inhumans) to become the Frightful Four, whom I discussed previously.

However, as in all such teamups the bickering between the two villains is intense:



The Wizard has a cameo appearance in two panels of Strange Tales #112, then returns for real in ST #118. This time he has invented an antigravity device which allows him to fly:



This invention became a staple of the Wizard's, appearing in many stories and giving rise to his more alliterative nickname, the Wingless Wizard.

After that, the Wizard mostly appeared in Fantastic Four issues, starting with the original Frightful Four appearance in FF #36.

Was the Torch a Flamer?

Did he have a thing for the Thing? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

From Fantastic Four #65, August 1967, comes this amusing scene:



And check out this bit of them disputing who gets to use the bathroom first:



Okay, I'm just having a little fun here. As usual with these sequences, they arise out of a plot need. Stan has to have Johnny and Ben discover that they had the same nightmare, so he had Jack put them in bed together. I assume that the CCA wouldn't have allowed Reed and Sue to be shown that way, even though they were married. As I discussed in an earlier post, it was a similar situation in a Batman story that led to the famed scene of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (apparently) in bed together.

It is amusing though, considering the constant bickering between the two; isn't that the way it always is with couples? We all knew Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books were destined to marry by the way they quarreled, right?

Turn of the Cards

This is a rather odd cover; the obvious "puzzle" would have been Lois getting the high card and choosing the new guy.

In Superboy #148, Kal-El gets just one card:



The Justice League face a full hand:



And here:



Of course, all card-type villains probably go back to this guy:

When I'm the Evil Genius

I will not conceive a still greater revenge:



Entire When I'm the Evil Genius series, click here.

Bottoms Up!

One of the odder bits in the Silver Age seemed to be the obsession with spanking.

There were a lot of comics that featured some form of smacking of the rear, frequently with a hair brush. Professor Lang barely remembers in time that his daughter's a little old for a bit of corporal punishment here:

Pa Kent tried a "paddle wheel" on Supertot:

Pa Kent apparently forgot this lesson later:

And:

Ah, but every boy grows up to be a man and must discipline his own son, as Clark does here:

Lois and Lana take (unsuccessful) turns here:

And more:

In all the spanking sequences this is one of the few that actually resulted in pain to the recipient:




Update: Some amusing letters on the topic of spanking:



Note the interesting arguments: She deserves it versus Superman would never hit a woman. Important social lessons being taught there. I'll have to look around for the baby Lois spanking bit.

This letter and the response drew a reply from the North Shore Corporal Punishment Fan Club a few issues later:

Random Cover of the Day: Detective #406

This is actually the last issue of Detective in the Silver Age, dated December 1970. For those who weren't around then, this was the heyday of the Jesus freaks, and DC, spotting a teenage trend that they hadn't exploited yet, hopped on the bandwagon. Here's the cover over of Flash #198 from earlier that year:



Not saying there's anything wrong with religion in comics, but these were extremely rare examples of it anywhere in comics of the Silver Age. Even Christmas covers and Christmas stories which had an honored history in the 1940s were gone.

Jimmy Olsen #74

Jimmy Olsen was a durable character in the Silver Age. He did not appear a lot in the Golden Age comics, although he was a regular on the Superman 1940s radio series and later on the 1950s TV show, which was why he got his own book. Olsen allowed the DC editors to touch (rather awkwardly) on teenage culture of the time, with Superman as Olsen's regular deus ex machina to get him out of the innumerable jams.

His rather nerdy and unattractive red-headed appearance appears likely to have been aimed at the Archie audience, perhaps as a bridge to bringing them into the Superman fan club. But Jimmy was an interesting character because he combined elements of both Goofus and Gallant. Capable of doing the dumbest things, he could also suddenly perform nobly and well when the situation warranted.

The first story, however, features Jimmy doing a lot of the wrong things. He turns his girlfriend, Lucy Lane, into a midget, swells Lois' head up like a balloon and turns Superman into Cluck Kent:



Of course, it's just a gag by Mr Mxyzptlk who has managed to take over Jimmy via a machine. But the lad figures out a good way to exorcise his demon:



In Jimmy Olsen and the Forty Thieves, our boy is transported back to ancient Bagdad (sic), where he had an unfortunate discovery:



Jimmy is eventually captured and sold into slavery. But there are only two possibilities for a Silver Age character sold into slavery. Either he will be sold to a hot slave-owning babe:



Or the evil villain who's also hiding out in the past. Guess which?



Luthor uses Jimmy to lure Supes back to the past, but his plot to kill the Man of Steel falls apart when Jimmy uses some nifty footwork here:



Jimmy Olsen's Secret Love begins a series of pretty embarrassing stories. The premise for the series is that both Jimmy and Lucy Lane, his girlfriend, are working undercover in disguise when they meet and fall in love. Jimmy is Magi the Magnificent, a stage magician, while Lucy is Sandra Rogers, a beautiful starlet.

Well, the negative with that humorous plot is that it makes both Jimmy and Lucy look pretty boring and unsophisticated versus the fascinating and cultured people they play in this story, as you can see from their rather pedestrian thoughts.

There was at least one more Magi and Sandra story after this.

Look Before You Leap Day

Here's a humorous Peg short from Superman #136 on a leap year tradition:



This sequence from Lois Lane #19 might be a little surprising:



In the story, Lois has been hypnotized into forgetting about her affections for Superman and decides that maybe her co-worker deserves a shot, alarming the heck out of Clark.

Update: In Green Lantern #3 (Nov-Dec 1960) Green Lantern experienced the Leap Year Menace:

Double Trouble

One of the more durable plot ideas of the 1960s was the concept of the doppleganger, the criminal version of the hero. The appeal of these doubles to writers and editors is pretty obvious. Having created these extraordinary characters with "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men", the creators found it difficult to present them with a real challenge. What better solution than to have them face villains with similar qualities?

The concept is not original with superheroes; Sherlock Holmes had his Moriarty, the crime-creating mastermind to his crime-solving genius. Going back further, God found himself in constant battle with the fella with the horns. We've already talked quite a bit on this blog about Bizarro and
SuperMenace, two memorable DC knockoffs of Superman.

But there were many other dopplegangers. Green Lantern had Sinestro:



Sinestro was a renegade Green Lantern who had abused his power and had his ring and lantern taken away by the Guardians. At some point he acquired a ring that emitted a yellow light and thus was invulnerable to Green Lantern's own beam.

Hawkman had the Shrike:



The Shrike was an interesting double in that his powers were similar to Hawkman's (although the lightning-shooting wings were a significant difference) but his origin resembled that of another DC hero:


Instead of landing in Kansas, this rocket landed among a grudge-bearing tribe of Indians who dreamed of the youngster restoring them to glory, which led to the Shrike (initially) being a criminal, stealing back ancient treasures.

Well, if a doppelganger works, then why not a doppelgang?

The Legion of Super-Villains was a twist on the Legion of Superheroes and specifically the original three members of that group, who were similarly seen voting down Superboy on the famed cover of Adventure #247. This particular concept for a cover (which looks like a game show) was also used in Action #296, and Jimmy Olsen #87, making it something of a doppelgang itself.

Over at Marvel, the Frightful Four were a similar but different version of the Fantastic Four. The Justice League of America had an even more similar opponent in the Crime Syndicate of America of Earth-3.

Two of the more interesting duplicates of the Silver Age were Amazo and the Composite Superman. Amazo debuted in Brave and Bold # 30. He was an android who had been given the powers of the members of the Justice League of America (not counting Superman). But World's Finest #142 introduced a character who topped even that:



The Composite Superman was Joe Meach, a failed high-diver who after being saved by Superman, was offered a position at the Superman Museum as a janitor. But instead of being grateful, Meach resented his lowly status. So when a freak bolt of lightning hit the statues of the Legion members at the Superman Museum and gave him virtually limitless power, he used it in an evil way:



Fortunately his powers turned out to be temporary as is his memory of the experience and so he ends up back where he started, pushing a broom.

Oddly enough, a similarly menial position was the origin of a reverse doppelganger, The Leader. While working a mindless job at a chemical research plant, he was exposed to gamma radiation that amazingly stimulated his brain, making him a being of great intellect but little physical ability, the exact opposite of the Hulk as he mentions here:



Some other famed doubles: Crimson Dynamo/Iron Man/, Titanium Man/Iron Man, Gas Gang/Metal Men. Many superheroes had some sort of real duplicate created by a ray or magic or red kryptonite, so we'll ignore those. I don't see a real Reverse Spiderman or Reverse Daredevil or Captain Russia out there, and while you can argue Loki as the anti-Thor, I don't buy it. That's more a personal rivalry that doesn't really imply similarity in powers. For the same reason I'd argue that Dr Doom is not Mr Fantastic's double, nor is Baron Mordo the equivalent of Dr Strange.

Atom battled a few small villains but I don't think any of his villains really mimicked him beyond that. There were of course several Kryptonian criminals who appeared in the Silver Age as doubles of Superman or Supergirl.

Any others?

Update: Kyle points out Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash. He was in the original post, but somehow an editing mistake left him out. Good catch!

Update II: Here's a different take--multiple androids with the combined powers of the Avengers: