Fantastic Four Fridays: To Dream the Impossible Man...

After awhile, I'm sure that comic fans winced whenever they saw the word "offbeat" on a Marvel cover, as it seemed to indicate, "We ran out of ideas this month so we decided to try being funny."

As the story begins, we see more of the fourth-wall breaking that first appeared in FF #10. The new Fantastic Four issue is coming out and there's a line out the door of the newsstand as folks clamor for the latest story featuring their heroes. Kids play at being the various members of the team:


When the FF get to the Baxter Building, they find tons of fan mail, including a jack-in-the-box punch for the Thing from the Yancy Street Gang (their second mention). Later, Reed comes up with another serum to try to turn him back into Ben Grimm:

Not to ruin the suspense or anything, but it wasn't permanent. Via a flashback, we learn that Reed and Ben had been roommates in college. And afterwards:

Of course, back then (1962) you could argue that this made Reed and Ben merely in their late-30s; nowadays they would have to be geezers to have fought in WWII. We also learn that Sue was Reed's girl next door, although of course that's getting into some pretty murky territory. If Sue's as old as Reed, how can she have a teen-aged brother? Anyway, they go on to reminisce about their origin as the Fantastic Four, and then mention the adventures they've had. But Sue wails a bit that the others have had adventures, while she's been something of a fifth wheel:

It's a reflection of a debate that had been going on in the FF letters page about how useless Sue's invisibility power was. Which is certainly true; hence the force-field ability that she began to develop not long afterwards. But it's rather amusing to Reed and Ben defending her as a valuable member of the team to the readers.

And then it turns out that it's Sue's birthday, and Reed, Ben and Johnny have baked her a cake. Ben turns into the Thing again, and Sue realizes that her problems with the FF's readers are trivial compared to him turning into a pile of orange rocks. And the story ends on that note.

Comments: Certainly an oddball tale, but it does show that Stan and Jack were paying attention to the readers and trying to promote Sue as a more valuable member of the team than we might otherwise assume. IIRC, this is the only FF issue that features two different self-contained stories.

The second story is the cover one, and it's quite "offbeat". The Impossible Man comes from the planet Poppup in the Tenth Galaxy. He possesses amazing powers, including flight, teleportation, the ability to turn his body into steel, etc. He shows up at a hobo jungle and asks for some food. They tell him he has to get some money, so:

After robbing the bank, he grabs a meal at a restaurant where the FF encounter him. They discover his extraordinary powers. After some battling:

So he's sort of the Marvel equivalent of Mr Mxyzptlk or Bat-Mite. But Reed figures out how to get rid of him:

And that turns out to be the solution; the one thing the Impossible Man can't handle is being ignored.

Comments: Not Marvel's finest hour, by any means. The Impossible Man did not return for many years.

X-Men #14-16: The Sentinels

The long-running antagonists for the X-Men debuted in X-Men #14. An anthropologist named Dr Trask warns mankind that the mutants are among us and that they are a severe danger to mankind:



For starters, it seems unlikely that an anthropologist would be issuing this warning; anthropologists study other cultures and attempt to do so without making judgments about right and wrong (not always successfully, mind you). And later events in the story make the idea that Trask is an anthropologist very unlikely. For example, after Professor X demands a TV debate with Trask, the latter brings out his sentinels:



Okay, so now we've got an anthropologist who's skilled at making robots? Then again, maybe he's not all that skilled, for the Sentinels quickly turn against him:



This is possibly the biggest cliche of the Silver Age: robots and computers were constantly rebelling against their masters. Indeed, the series Magnus, Robot Fighter which I have discussed several times recently, is based on that premise. But there are many, many other examples, like Computo rebelling against Brainiac 5, or Wonder Man (one of Superman's robots) who briefly replaced Superman.

It also ties into one of the odder conundrums of the Silver Age. While there was enormous respect for "science", the writers were considerably more suspicious of technology (i.e., applied science). To a certain extent, this may be due to the shoddy workmanship of electronic devices of the time.

The X-Men race to the TV studio in response to a mental summons from Professor X. Most of the Sentinels leave with Trask, but one remains behind. The X-Men have a minor battle with it, when it inexplicably keels over:



Professor X hears the robot say something about a "Master Mold" before it collapses. He is also able to get an impression of the HQ of the Sentinels. The team heads there, but they get split up and the Sentinels start catching them:

Trask, now a prisoner of the Sentinels himself, learns of the real mission of the X-Men:

This story also tells us the origin of the Beast, aka Hank McCoy. His father worked at an "atomic project", as an ordinary laborer, which of course raises the question where Hank got his prodigious loquacity (of course, in the real world, he got it from Kirby's earlier "Big Words" character, who got it from "Johnny" in the Doc Savage series, who probably picked it up from somewhere else). Hank discovered that he had extraordinary agility, which he put to good use on the gridiron:

His extraordinary feats brought him to the attention of Professor X, who invited him to join the X-Men.

In the finale (X-Men #16), the team escapes from the prison where the Sentinels were holding them, and using teamwork are able to hold them off briefly. Meanwhile, Professor X has determined what stopped the original Sentinel in the TV studio; it was a crystal which interfered with the transmission signals from the Master Mold to the Sentinels. Professor X has the crystal flown to the Sentinel's headquarters. At the same time, the Master Mold is forcing Trask to create more Sentinels:

But at the last moment, Trask rebels:

Trask destroys the Master Mold and is killed in the process. The X-Men manage to escape the Sentinel's HQ via some solid teamwork.

Comments: A terrific and exciting tale with lots of excellent characterization. If the entire X-Men run had been as solid as this one, it would not have been canceled before the end of the Silver Age.

The stories described in this post have been reprinted here:

Untold Tales of Superboy #1

As Mort Weisinger took over the reins of the Superman family of magazines, he and his writers set about developing the Superman legend as it would come to be known during the Silver Age of comics. In the stories devoted to Kal-El as an adult, this took the form of the Superman family, with Kandor, Brainiac, the Fortress of Solitude, etc. In the Superboy stories, the focus was more on tales like this one, where we learned how the Lad of Steel learned to overcome some of the limitations and problems that arose from his powers.

As I have mentioned in the past, a lot of this was probably reader-driven. For instance, in this issue, this letter appeared:

In the story, Superboy remembers the first time he ever did his super-feats in public:

But the next day, as he walked to school with Lana Lang, a problem arose:

And:

So Lana is naturally suspicious of Clark from that moment on, and inevitably, he finds himself in situations where he has to use his X-ray vision to do something while in his civilian identity. He can't let the glasses melt, and if he takes them off, she'll be suspicious as to why. So:

And, improbably:

Now that's wacky! At any rate, Clark eventually realizes the only solution:

Now the only thing left is to quell Lana's suspicions about the earlier incident.

Silly story, undeniably, and yet it does help to establish a reasonably important point in the Silver Age Superboy and Superman. There were several other "Untold Tales" and I will discuss them in future posts.

Tomahawk #51

Tomahawk was a long-running DC series featuring the adventures of one Thomas A. Hawk during the Revolutionary War era.

American culture of the 1950s was dominated by the Western. Stars such as Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne rode tall in the saddle for much of the decade. Baseball historian Bill James once speculated that the reason TV shows like the Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres were so popular in the 1960s is that the "hicks" they featured were a dying breed in America. I suspect much the same can be said of the Westerns in the 1950s; by then the Old West was gone, and we missed it.

The Western was also enormously popular in the comic books of the time. DC published almost 300 comics with a Western theme during the decade, including All-Star Western, Hopalong Cassidy, Dale Evans, and Western Comics. In addition, Western characters appeared in other magazines, including Pow-Wow Smith (in Detective) and the Vigilante (in Action). These comics were so popular that even some of the horses got their own books; the Lone Ranger's Silver had 37 issues, while Roy Rogers' Trigger lasted for 17.

The opening story in this issue is General Tomahawk. Here's the splash:

That's obviously an homage to the famed painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware; according to the GCD the artist is Bob Brown. The premise of the story is stated here:

So General Washington grants Tomahawk a temporary commission in the Army so he can encourage the men to last out the bitter winter conditions. After sneaking past the redcoats, he encounters his men:

Things look pretty bleak indeed. But Tomahawk learns that the British Fort Royal is bulging with supplies and resolves to appropriate them for his men. He and his junior partner, Dan Hunter, get into the fort on New Year's Eve by pretending to be traveling troubadours:

They manage to sabotage the British troops and escape with some supplies. And in order to prevent the British from maintaining their positions hemming in the troops:

Comments: An entertaining and amusing story, and Brown's artwork is nothing short of sensational.

The second story is the one featured on the cover. A renegade band of Indians have planned to cut off America's lifeline to Great Britain by capturing a lighthouse, and turning out the light, leaving the British fleet to crash on the rocks. Tomahawk attempts to alert the governor:

Tomahawk persuades the captain of a whaling vessel to take to sea to try to stop the raid on the lighthouse, but they are too late. In order to save the British fleet, they set fire to the whaler, alerting the English ships to the danger of the nearby shoals. Then Tomahawk and his men strand the Indians on the lighthouse island by harpooning their canoes as shown on the cover.

Note: This story appears to take place prior to the Revolution, as Tomahawk and the British cooperate against the Indians.

Comments: A fairly pedestrian story lent some luster by Fred Ray's strong artwork.

In the third story, a traveling zoo is attacked by a band of Cherokee Indians, and the animals (including a panther, a lion, a water buffalo and a rhino) are released into the wilds of America. Tomahawk and Dan help the zoo-keeper recover the animals and defeat the Cherokee.

Comments: Solid entertainment.

Overall the artwork and stories were very good, but some of the details are a little shaky geographically. For example, in the second story, Tomahawk's renegade Indians are supposedly from the Chinook tribe, which was located in the Pacific Northwest, nowhere near Boston. And how far afield were the Cherokee, given that the other stories in this issue take place in New York/New England?

The later Tomahawk series (after Jack Schiff took over) was more the monster of the month club, but this issue shows that the earlier issues provided some excellent entertainment value.

Trivia Quiz #39: Answers

1. Who came from the planet Wexr II?
The Superboy (and later Superman) Revenge Squad originated on that planet.

2. Who came from the planet Staryl?
Luma Lynai, an adult version of Supergirl hailed from Staryl:


3. What was the name of the hover-car that Jor-El invented?
Jor-El invented the Jor-El (the guy wasn't too vain). I presume it was a cousin of Jor's who invented the Eds-El.

4. Who lived on the planet Htrae?
Htrae was the Bizarro world.

5. Why was Jax-Ur sentenced to the Phantom Zone?

Jax-Ur destroyed an inhabited moon of Krypton.

Jim got #2, #4, and #5 right. Michael Rebain got all five on the button. David apparently knew all five and contributed the additional information that the inhabited moon was named Wegthor. Jacque Nodell also got all five correct. Great job by all!

Kryptograms

For a long time the Superman and Action Comics issues featured an advertisement for the Supermen of America. Kids were supposed to send in a dime and they would receive in return a membership certificate a button, and the Superman Code, with which they could decode Superman's secret message which appeared alongside the ad. For example, from Action #287:

You may recall that a Little Orphan Annie decoder pin story became a key plot element in the movie, The Christmas Story.

The code here was fairly easy to crack, with the alphabet simply offset by a certain number of letters; in this case it's 3 letters, so that a D should be read as A, E as B, etc. A, B and C are X, Y and Z, respectively. So decoding the entire message in this issue reveals the following:

This summer we will publish a giant Superman annual featuring stories of the planet Krypton.

And, as promised:

Two months later, in Action #289:

In this one, the alphabet is offset by 5 letters, so that F is A, G is B, etc.

Ultra-Boy is the newest member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. See the July issue of Superboy.

The messages were not always advertisements of coming attractions; they were often inspirational statements about doing your schoolwork, or getting plenty of fresh air and exercise.  For example, from Superman #68 comes this tip: "Keep healthy, cultivate a sense of humor, and learn to see yourself as others see you."

As far as I can tell, the planets mentioned at the beginning of the code have no real meaning.

Update: Snard in the comments points to this scan of the actual code key. Anonymous notes that the planets correspond to the numbers (Mercury 1, Venus 2, Mars 3) in terms of their ranking in terms of proximity to the sun, with the rather odd exception that Earth is omitted and Krypton becomes number 9.

Trivia Quiz #39: Superman

1. Who came from the planet Wexr II?
2. Who came from the planet Staryl?
3. What was the name of the hover-car that Jor-El invented?
4. Who lived on the planet Htrae?
5. Why was Jax-Ur sentenced to the Phantom Zone?

Rock Against Racism

Sometimes I underestimate DC in the 1960s. Awhile ago I noted the absence of black characters in DC comics during the Silver Age, but as you can see, there's one on the cover of this mag, from November 1965. And he's even more prominently featured on the splash page:

The story starts off in a clearing somewhere in Western Europe. Rock, Wild Man and a new recruit named Jackie Johnson (the black guy) have been captured by a Nazi squadron, and the biggest German is having a bare-knuckled brawl against JJ, who refuses to fight back. Why? Rock knows:

In a flashback we learn of the first time Rock had seen Jackie Johnson:

Johnson indeed proved to be a comer, eventually winning the heavyweight championship. But he lost a crucial match against this same German:

This is a thinly-veiled retelling of the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling rivalry; more on this at the end of the post.

In the story, Johnson didn't get his revenge match against the Storm Trooper, who went into the German Army, so this was their first meeting since the heavyweight fight. Later, Johnson joined Rock's unit in the Army, but was still haunted by his defeat in the ring:

But it looked like there would be no chance for a return match; after all the German fighter could be anywhere from France to Russia. But as it turned out they did meet, under less than optimal conditions, as the Americans were captured by the Storm Trooper's unit. And:

Bringing us up to where the story began. The Nazis make it clear that they will kill everyone if Jackie defeats the Storm Trooper, so the black man holds back. But:

The Nazis cannot tolerate this, so they shoot at both fighters, critically wounding the German, although Jackie manages to avoid the bullets. Rock and Wild Man attack their captors and reverse the situation. But the Storm Trooper needs a transfusion if he is to survive, and perhaps inevitably:

And in the end, the German realizes he was wrong:

Comments: Wow! What a terrific story! Kudos to Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert for providing what must be considered one of the Silver Age's finest tales.

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. In 1936, Joe Louis looked unstoppable at 23-0. Max Schmeling was a former heavyweight champion, but he had won his title via a disqualification of when Jack Sharkey hit him with a low blow. So Schmeling was considered just a tune-up before Louis boxed for the championship. But Schmeling had trained hard for the fight and noticed a flaw in Louis' style which he was able to exploit in knocking out the Brown Bomber at Yankee Stadium in the 12th round.

Here's how kids were taught the story at the time, from a text story in Superman #118:

The reality is much more complex, as the Wikipedia entry on the rematch notes:

Schmeling did not relish being the focus of such propaganda. He was not a member of the Nazi Party and – although admittedly proud of his German nationality – denied the Nazi claims of racial superiority: "I am a fighter, not a politician. I am no superman in any way." Schmeling had a Jewish manager, Joe Jacobs, with whom he refused to part despite significant pressure, and, in a dangerous political gamble, refused the "Dagger of Honor" award offered by Adolf Hitler. In fact, Schmeling had been urged by his friend and legenday ex-champion Jack Dempsey to defect and declare American citizenship.

Nevertheless, the Nazi regime exploited Schmeling in its propaganda efforts, and took careful steps to at least ensure Schmeling's nominal compliance. Schmeling's wife and mother were kept from traveling with him to avoid the chances of defection. Schmeling's entourage also included an official Nazi Party publicist. The publicist not only controlled any possible contrarian remarks by Schmeling, but also issued statements that a black man could not defeat Schmeling, and that Schmeling's purse from the fight would be used to build more German tanks.

Both Louis and Schmeling did serve in their respective military forces in World War II, although of course they did not meet during those years, on the battlefield or elsewhere. After the war, they became close friends, with Schmeling serving as a pallbearer at Louis' funeral in 1981.

Update: Here's a video of the second bout: