How Many Ways Is This Wrong?

Let me get this straight; you feel more secure about your gold having it in a place that only Superman can reach? And while you're transporting it across the country, you've got it in trucks marked "GOLD"?

As it turns out, this has almost nothing to do with the plot; it's a way of explaining why Superman and Batman are away from Earth for a few days.

Trivia Quiz #39 Answers and Prize Awarded!

Wow, once again my readers amazed me with the depth of their knowledge, and three correspondents got all the answers correct, which meant that I had to go with my predetermined tie-breakers.

#1. What color was the Joker's suit?
I had decided prior to the contest to accept purple as the color, since I believe I have mentioned that color a few times myself. However, this was the tie-breaker, as while researching the Joker's history I discovered that it was a very distinct shade of purple:


#2. Who was the son of the Joker?
Although he was never named specifically, in the story The Son of the Joker, he was described as the Joker's protégé.

#3. What crime boss willed his fortune to the Joker?
William "King" Barlowe willed his fortune to the Joker in The Joker's Millions (Detective #180). However, it turned out to be a trick, as Barlowe had placed a large amount of phony money and jewels with only a small amount of the real stuff as a gag on the Clown Prince of Crime.

#4. It is well-known that the Joker appeared in a story in the Golden Age which also featured the Catwoman, and another story where he teamed up with the Penguin. Who was the next super-villain to team-up with the Joker?
Lex Luthor teamed up with the Joker in the appropriately-named "Superman and Batman's Greatest Foes" in World's Finest #88.

5. Who was Gotham City's police commissioner in the 21st century?
Gotham City's police commissioner in the 21st century was Commissioner Rekoj, a descendant of the Joker who was as good as his ancestor was evil.

6. How did the Joker get his distinctive appearance?
In Detective #168, it was revealed that the Joker had gotten his bizarre look when he jumped into a vat of chemicals at the Monarch Playing Card Company to escape the Batman.

7. Was there a Bizarro Joker?
This was a tricky one and all my correspondents got it right for the wrong reason. There was a Bizarro Joker in the modern age, as revealed in DC Comics Presents #71. However, even before that the Joker was an honorary Bizarro. From World's Finest #156:


8. Who was the Joker's diminutive sidekick in the Silver Age?

Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy, better known as Gaggy, was the Joker's vertically challenged person of hench:


Aaron of Silver Age Gold, and "Jim" got all eight answers correct, as did Commander R. A. Benson, but only Commander Benson got the bonus point for coming up with "lavender" as the color of the Joker's suit, so he wins the tee shirt.

Thanks to Melanie of Nerdy Shirts for offering the prize; if you're looking for a cool, yet nerdy shirt, they're your source!

Edited Reprints: Supergirl and the Legion

I just noticed this today due to a discussion at Commander Benson's Deck Log about Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. In Action #267, Supergirl first meets the Legion, although not that Legion:

As I remarked a few years ago, Weisinger obviously recognized the problem with introducing Supergirl to the same Legion that Superboy belonged to; that would mean that Superman would not be surprised when Supergirl landed on Earth, since he'd known of her eventual arrival since his teenage years. So he took care of the problem, except that when the Legion became a continuing series he and his writers obviously wanted to include Kara in their adventures. So, as discussed by Commander Benson:

Weisinger’s explanation became official with the next issue, # 334 (Jul., 1965). “The Unknown Legionnaire” was one of those rare Legion adventures in which Supergirl played a large part, and it didn’t take long after the super-cousins appeared side by side that a footnote was inserted, establishing that Supergirl had implanted a post-hypnotic suggestion in Superboy’s mind so that he would forget her existence when he returned to his own time. Thus, paving the way for his total surprise as an adult when cousin Kara landed on Earth.

And so, when Weisinger reprinted this story in Action #334, the dialog was rewritten:

Note that this also gets rid of a bit of Lysenko-type science. Lightning Lad acquired his powers after a run-in with a lightning beast; there would be no reason to expect his son to inherit that genetically. Of course, there are many examples of this assumption appearing in the comics, but realistically the only parents who could give their powers to their offspring are those that have them from birth.

Some other examples of edited reprints in (or of) the Silver Age:

The second origin of the second Two-Face. The second Two-Face was Paul Sloane. In his original appearance in Batman #68, the hideous side of his face was the result of a jealous husband; when the tale was reprinted in Batman Annual #3, it was caused by an accidental explosion. I suspect that the CCA wanted the love triangle edited out of the story.

The Death of Ma and Pa Kent. When the story was originally published in Superman #161, the Kents were an elderly couple. But in Superboy #145, the Kents were transformed into thirty-somethings by a bottle of youth elixir. Thus, when the story explaining their deaths was reprinted in Superboy #165, their bodies and faces were redrawn to make them look younger.

Anybody aware of other changes? I seem to recall that the cover of JLA #2 was redrawn for the Archive Edition.

Trivia Quiz #39: The Joker. Tee Shirt Prize!

The kind folks at Nerdy Shirts have offered to give the winner of this trivia quiz a tee shirt featuring the Costumed Crime Clown. Because of the prize, this post will not allow comments; send me your answers via email. The contest will end at 11:59 PM on Tuesday. Note: Some of these questions involve the Golden Age Joker as well as the Silver Age version.

#1. What color was the Joker's suit?

#2. Who was the son of the Joker?

#3. What crime boss willed his fortune to the Joker?

#4. It is well-known that the Joker appeared in a story in the Golden Age which also featured the Catwoman, and another story where he teamed up with the Penguin. Who was the next super-villain to team-up with the Joker?

5. Who was Gotham City's police commissioner in the 21st century?

6. How did the Joker get his distinctive appearance?

7. Was there a Bizarro Joker?

8. Who was the Joker's diminutive sidekick in the Silver Age?

Hot Links

New blog noted: Blog Into Mystery. Not entirely Silver Age, but several of the posts do relate to that era. I like his comparison of the cover to Batman #165 and a mid-1980s Flash issue; I would never have caught the similarities, but it is clearly Infantino using key elements from one of his earlier covers.

Dick Giordano's passing gets tribute from Gorilla Daze. Giordano came to DC in the late 1960s and took editorship of several titles, including Teen Titans and Aquaman, among others. Giordano was at least partly responsible for bringing some of the younger talent to DC, including Denny O'Neill, Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo and Mike Friedrich. He was a long-standing penciller and (mostly) inker as well for DC. although I confess I don't recognize his work automatically, like I can with many of the other artists.

Booksteve has more on Giordano, particularly relating to Batman:

Dick Giordano drew a unique type of comic book realism. His superhero women were not the supercute, overly busty fanboy favorites. He didn't draw girls--he drew adults. He drew women who looked like women and looked genuinely heroic. He drew city scenes that looked more like real cities than anyone since Will Eisner (with the possible exception of the late Marshall Rogers). He drew a BATMAN who was a sane grown-up who would save me if I needed saving and do so for all the right reasons. He drew MY BATMAN.

Sounds like I need to do a post on Giordano for Nothing But Batman.

Silver Age Gold features a full Jack Davis story called Betsy from Two-Fisted Tales. Brilliant sequential artwork; Davis turns a pretty dull story into a breathtaking adventure.

Jacque Nodell scores an interview with Susan Loeb, an advice columnist for Marvel's romance comics. Is it too much to hope that someday she'll actually locate Marc, on the Man's Side?

Super ITCH has the background story on some sensational Golden Age original artwork featuring Jack Kirby on Captain America. I don't want to think what that first page, with Bucky and Cap in fine form is worth; I'd guess I could almost retire on it.

Lois Lane #13

This is a classic example of Weisinger's puzzle covers. The idea was to present a startling situation on the cover, with the hope that the kids would be compelled to pick up the comic and leaf through it to find out what shocking secret had compelled Lois to wear a lead mask. Weisinger knew through focus-group type studies that he had done that kids who actually picked up a comic and flipped through it were much more likely to purchase that actual issue, and thus his goal was to get them to grab the issue off the spinner rack.

The first story features a visit to Lois' hometown of Pittsdale. The local newspaper, where she got her start as a reporter, is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Perry kindly gives her the weekend off, but when she checks for a flight, she finds that the Metropolis Airport is all fogged in. Fortunately Superman takes pity on her and flies her back to Pittsdale. He agrees to stay the weekend:


Pop Lane realizes what a great son-in-law Superman would make when the Man of Steel helps out with some of the chores:

But when he pitches the idea, Superman demurs with the usual, "She'd make a wonderful wife, but my enemies would attack me through her," line. Unfortunately, a local snoop heard only the first part of the conversation and the rumor that Superman and Lois are getting married spreads like wildfire. And, as must happen in all comedies, it is decided that it would be too embarrassing to admit the truth, and thus they pretend to be ready to go through with it. Lois gets a visit from a former beau:

Yes, I am sure that Hector was once a hunk, before he started wearing the Joker's outfit. Pop Lane is generous to a fault:

But just as it looks like the wedding is inevitable:

Remember, Superman had to leave at six to photograph those stars, so the wedding has to be called off until the next time they're back in Pittsdale.

Comments: An extremely silly, slapstick story, that mines a lot of the same ground used for the rural comedies at CBS (Andy Griffith, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction) in the 1960s, although this November 1959 issue actually predates those shows.

Next up is Alias Lois Lane. Lois visits a western US town with the intent of getting a photograph of a TV star who's on his honeymoon. She dyes her hair blond to disguise herself, but a couple of crooks realize she's the spitting image of the famed girl reporter;

They blackmail her into helping them out (although she really goes along with their plot to get a scoop). Of course, they want her to imitate Lois Lane, but while her appearance is successful, she's nowhere near as smart or sophisticated as the genuine article:

But through effort, they teach her to recognize Lois' friends and to mimic her voice:

Hmmm, anybody hearing echoes of, "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,"?

But she enjoys ticking them off by getting things wrong, to the point where they're ready to give up hope. But then she manages to get saved by Superman:


Yep, it seems pretty obvious that an inspiration for this story was My Fair Lady, as one of the key songs in that Broadway play (and later movie) was "She Did It!" at any rate, the crooks now reveal their plot; they will have Lois photograph Superman with a special camera that contains Kryptonite, letting them steal a valuable mouse. Mouse? Superman explains:

As I have discussed before, animals being shot into space was a hot topic around then.

Comments: Cute take-off on the My Fair Lady theme. One interesting note: In both this story and the previous one, the pretext for the initial situation gets ignored the moment the real plot is introduced. Remember, Lois went back to Pittsdale for the 100th anniversary of her newspaper, but that never comes up once they get to the Lane family farm. Ditto with this tale, in which Lois never gets the photograph of the TV star and his blushing bride.

The finale is the cover tale, and it reveals the downside of puzzle covers; the story they represent is often wacky and filled with incredible coincidences. So it is with this tale, which starts out with Superman saving Lois and expressing exasperation with her curious nature:

The next day he spots her car crashed into a tree and rushes to the Daily Planet to see if she's okay:

He suspects that she was badly disfigured in the car crash, but that turns out to be wrong. Instead, Lois had attended a nightclub the evening before, where she watched a magic act:

And sure enough the first two people who see Lois the next day react oddly. When she looks into a lake:

She wraps herself in bandages, but realize this will not conceal her from Superman, so eventually she gets a welder to fashion the lead mask. Yet when Superman later removes the mask, it turns out her face is perfectly normal; all the magician had done was to plant a hypnotic suggestion in her mind that she would look like a cat the next day. But what about the people who reacted so strangely to her?


Comments: Clearly one of those stories where Weisinger came up with the cover idea and then assigned his writer the chore of creating a story where it happened. Incidentally, Lois got the head of a cat in another story appearing in Jimmy Olsen #66 a few years later.

Dynamo #1

In addition to launching the THUNDER Agents as a group, Tower also published a few solo books for Dynamo (four issues) and NoMan (two issues).

This one starts out with a Wally Wood-illustrated story. Somebody is bombing radar installations and space observatories. We can rule out the commies:

So it appears to be coming from space. They decide to send NoMan on a one-way trip to the moon, as he can always beam his mind back to another android body on earth. This is an imaginative use for NoMan's powers. They've even planned for the possibility of the rocket crashing early:

However, he does not report back immediately, and so Dynamo volunteers to go on a second rocket:

Just after he blasts off, NoMan returns. He radios Dynamo to land on the light side of the moon, as the dark side is crawling with aliens. However, even on the exposed side there's a welcoming committee:

Using his strength, he hurls a boulder at the alien ship. When robotic tanks arrive, he hops into one of them and gets a ride to the alien HQ. But he is captured and imprisoned in a glass tank without a helmet, so he can't escape. But NoMan pops back up to his android body that is already on the moon and gives him a helmet. Dynamo defeats the aliens and rides back to earth on one of their flying saucers.

Comments: An entertaining story featuring good use of the NoMan character.

The second story is A Day in the Life of Dynamo, drawn by Mike Sekowsky. Len Brown wakes up and decides to ask for a raise due to all the risks he's taking as Dynamo. His boss sends him via a teleporter to Hong Kong, where the local THUNDER office turns out to have been taken over by a communist hero:

The reds have planned this so that Dynamo will be unable to prevent a giant robot from running amok in New York City. But then some apparent THUNDER Agents come up through the floor and chase off the communists. Unfortunately for Dynamo, they're not really with his group:

They have an old acquaintance of his with them:

But when she learns that the Subterraneans' plan is to start a global thermonuclear war, the Iron Maiden frees him. She sends him back to New York via a missile, and he defeats the robot to save the city.
Here's a little cultural reference that non-Boomer readers might miss:

In the 1950s and 1960s, "Made in Japan" meant that the product was shoddy and of inferior workmanship. Of course, ironically in the intervening years it became synonymous with high quality and dependability.

But he gets little respect from his boss:

Comments: Clearly intended to be an off-beat tale. Len never does ask his boss for that raise.

We get a super-villain team-up by Crandall and Wood in the next story, as Demo and Dr Sparta meet:

Dr Sparta's assistant has an interesting way of springing them from jail:

The villains manage to send Dynamo to a valley that time forgot, with cavemen and dinosaurs. But he convinces the cavemen that he's a legitimate god with the strength he gets from his belt and they show him the way out of the valley to where Demo and Dr Sparta are.
Comments: Solid, entertaining story and Crandall and Wood work well together.

The fourth story came as a bit of a surprise. Here's the splash:

I have to admit, I was unaware that Ditko worked for Tower. What a treat the art is in this story! We learn that 20 years earlier, the Subterraneans had captured a human orphan, and raised it to have incredible strength and mental abilities:

But despite his supposed cold-hearted nature, he reacts instinctively to save a young woman:

Who just happens to be a THUNDER agent, getting him into the headquarters, where he attacks Dynamo:

And Dynamo looks doomed until:

Andor returns to the Subterraneans, where he kills the scientist responsible for raising him.

Comments: Beautiful art and an entertaining story. There are hints that Andor might return, but if he did, it was not during the 1960s run, according to the GCD. Correction: As pointed out in the comments by Earth-Two, Andor does return in Thunder Agents #9 in a Lightning story. Discussion here.

The final story is another offbeat tale about Weed, a THUNDER agent with no special powers. He senses this is causing him trouble with the ladies:

Fortunately for him, it's an urgent call requiring the services of Lightning, who was just about to drive away with his "beautiful chick". She decides to go out with Weed instead, and they stop at a nightclub for a magic act:

The magician is a hypnotist, and convinces Weed that he has super-powers like flying and enormous strength. Obeying the comic book law of delusions, the other THUNDER agents humor him:

They follow him back to the hypnotist, but a caught off guard by a sleeping gas.
Meanwhile, Weed has discovered that he doesn't really have super-powers. But:

He rescues Dynamo and Lightning, and in the end he even gets the gal:

Comments: Amusing ending. Weed must surely be one of the very few heroes to smoke cigarettes.

Trivia Quiz #38: Answers

1. Which of Jor-El's official duties did he hate?

Jor-El hated being Krypton's official executioner. Of course, by "execution" what they meant was putting the prisoner into suspended animation and shooting him into space. It was his distaste for this duty that led to him inventing the Phantom Zone projector (aka Punishment Ray).

2. When the young Jor-El was cramming for his exams, what trick did he use to maximize his study time?

Jor-El used the Time-Stretch Globe.

3. What invention of Jor-El's led to him being elected to the Science Council?

The Phantom Zone projector (aka Punishment Ray) resulted in Jor-El's election to the Science Council.

4. Jor-El was stuck in the Phantom Zone twice when the projector failed to bring him back. What two people repaired the projector on those separate occasions?

The first time, Lara repaired the machine, from which baby Kal had removed a necessary part:

The second time, Lex Luthor (temporarily reformed by a ray that Jor-El had invented) saved him:


5. When Jor-El first got married, where did he work?

Jor-El worked at a missile base.

David got part of #4 correct. Blaze contributed the other part of #4 plus #2 and #5. Michael Rebain gets #3 plus part of #4. I stumped my readers with #1, although Michael Rebain was close.