Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #492 edited by Dick Giordano & Carl Gafford
My goal is to get all of these digest issues reviewed here before I retire. Let’s see how close I can get!
“Battle with the Gods!” written by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Don Newton and inks by John Calnan is the only non-reprint, starring the Marvel Family and Kid Eternity. Last issue, tired of his minions getting defeated separately, Satan sent his four top supervillains, Ibac, Sabbac, Darkling and Master Man as a team to destroy the young heroes. Despite getting the jump on the kids, three of the villains were quickly defeated. Outnumbered, Master Man decided to summon help, four evil gods!
Set of Egypt goes up against Captain Marvel, whose invulnerability allows him to endure the jackal-headed god’s punches. Chernobog of the Slavs picks on Captain Marvel Jr., who is not as weak a stripling as he seems. Tezcatlipoca of the Aztecs is overconfident against Mary Marvel, a huge mistake. Meanwhile, Kid Eternity and the Keeper face off against Ahriman of Persia, the most powerful of the group since he still has modern worshippers.
Kit opts not to summon yet another god, but does turn to his spirit form, immaterial and invisible to mortals. Ahriman, being a god, is still able to see Kid Eternity and Keep. But that’s part of the boy’s plan. He taunts Ahriman into following him back through time, to a time when darkness covered the universe. Ahriman chortles as he’s strongest in the dark.
But his laughter soon dies, for Kid Eternity led Ahriman back to just before the Big Bang, the greatest explosion of light in creation. This knocks the dark god out but Kit and Keep are immaterial, so unharmed. They then head back to 1982.
The Marvels also win their fights, since they have the powers of six gods and heroes to each god’s just one. Master Man sends his summons back to Stygia, and Kid Eternity is able to just punch him. Satan recalls his minions for punishment, and Captain Marvel assures us that he and his allies will ever stand ready against the return of evildoers.
This is, I think, the last “new” Shazam! story before Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted them. It’s not the greatest story, but a decent farewell to this version of the characters.
“The Trail of the Ring!” script by Steve Skeates, art by Jim Aparo, is our Aquaman installment. He’s returned to Atlantis alone, and is too wrapped up in his own thoughts to listen to scientist Vulko tell about his success in finding a way to turn the Atlanteans back into water breathers. Aquaman checks in with his first deputy Narkran, who has moved his office into the throne room. Distracted, Aquaman doesn’t notice anything odd about this. (And in fairness, Narkran doesn’t show any other warning signs of turning into a dictator in this chapter.)
Finally, the King of the Seven Seas remembers that he does have a clue. The odd five-sided stone ring one of Mera’s kidnappers wore. He checks in with elderly former explorer Zancol. Zancol says this kind of ring is common in the land of the Marzons. The superstitious savages there consider them powerful charms against evil. Problem! The Marzon homeland is at least three days’ swim away…unless you cut through the unexplored Depths! You can guess what Aquaman decides to do.
The first hazard in the depths is telepathy-resistant piranha, which Aquaman manages to elude by going deeper into the Depths than they’re willing to follow. This brings him into a dark and cold area that rapidly saps his endurance. He sees a light in the distance, which turns out to be a city.
The city looks peaceful, with happy people coexisting with glowing monsters that provide heat and light. Until Aquaman sees one of the monsters about to eat a citizen. He intervenes, using the creature’s own tusk to kill it. Aquaman is immediately arrested and taken for trial. With the help of a mind probe device, he’s forced to learn that the citizens are in fact okay with being eaten by the monsters who are their only source of light.
While Aquaman can’t really give any good arguments that their culture is wrong, he doesn’t feel obligated to be condemned by their laws and escapes. At last he is about to leave the Depths.
“The Three Super-Heroes!” story by Jerry Siegel, art by JIm Mooney, is the first of our two Legion of Super-Heroes stories. Linda Lee is on her way to a fair honoring Superman with her fellow orphans when there’s a problem with a bridge. She secretly switches to her Supergirl identity (at this point no one on Earth is supposed to know she exists) to solve the problem.
At the fair, situations keep coming up that might expose her double identity, but each time she is saved by a teenager with superpowers. It turns out that these three are members of the future hero club known as the Legion of Super-Heroes. (In a weird bit that promptly gets ignored in all subsequent appearances, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy claim to be the identical children of the trio Superman knew as Superboy.) They invite her to come to the 30th Century.
The future teens show Kara around future Metropolis, then take her to their upside down rocket clubhouse. There she meets Colossal Boy, who can grow to immense size; Invisible Kid, who can turn invisible; and Chameleon Boy, the first obviously alien Legionnaire, who can shapeshift.
To join the Legion, you must be under 18 and have innate superpowers of some kind. As it happens, the annual new member selection time is almost up. Supergirl decides to try for the slot, and digs a transit tunnel through the Earth.
Sadly, she’s turned down, as she was exposed to Red Kryptonite during the feat, causing her to temporarily age into an adult. (It’s not very much of a change, just a couple of lines around her eyes.) Better luck next year, Kara!
It’s a cheap way to keep Supergirl out of the Legion, honestly. But yeah, teenagers can be petty.
“Black Canary” script by Denny O’Neil, art by Alex Toth is the conclusion to a two-parter. In part one, Black Canary was hired to teach judo to a women’s self-defense group. Unfortunately, it turned out they were actually criminals and she’s been knocked out from behind.
Sub-leader Bertha decides not to kill Dinah right there as she may come in handy as a hostage later, they can kill her after freeing “the boss.”
They pack her in the back of a van and head out on the long journey to the rendezvous point. Black Canary wakes up, and to keep them distracted while she attempts to free herself, gets Bertha monologuing. The plan is to intercept a prison car carrying the leader of the gang and spring her. And while Bertha hasn’t decided how just yet, Black Canary will be dead.
Dinah attributes her not giving up just yet to advice from her sweetheart Green Arrow (ugh to this) and keeps sawing at her bonds. The snatch attempt is already underway by the time Black Canary frees herself. Once she’s got her hands free, though, she makes short work of the gang.
We find out the “boss” is Catwoman, who for some reason is being transported in her costume from one prison to another. Black Canary asks the guards if they know of any open jobs for judo experts.
Notably, this story simply never mentions Dinah’s sonic scream, even as an option she can’t use “because.”
“The Unholy Dreams of Gentleman Jack” by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is a Sandman story. “Gentleman Jack” Jarvis is already in prison as the story opens. He’s been having a recurring dream in which his prison cell has become a luxury suite, with a comfy bed and gourmet food. In his dreams, Jack is able to treat the guards as his personal servants, like the ones he employed back in his salad days. But every time the Sandman comes to drag him out of his sweet dream and back to harsh reality, just as the hero caught him in the first place.
Gentleman Jack still has a bunch of money stashed from his previous robberies, and decides to make his dream come true and get revenge on the Sandman.
A year later, Wesley Dodds, wealthy man about town, and his young ward Sandy Hawkins see an ad in the newspaper. It invites the Sandman to meet a prison guard at a certain corner to make an old friend happy. Wes decides to tackle this request solo, much to the disappointment of Sandy.
The guard directs Sandman to a nearby concrete house that is designed to look like a prison building. Inside, Gentleman Jack greets the hero from his cell. He explains that the grim surroundings make his actual luxurious lifestyle more satisfying by contrast. The prison bars are actually made of rubber so he can “escape” at any time he pleases.
But the reason he’s explaining all this is to set the Sandman up for a sucker punch. When the hero awakens, he’s in a solitary cell with an extra-thick glass door window. Gentleman Jack reveals that it’s rigged to slowly remove the air from the small space…very slowly. The Sandman will slowly suffocate, eventually dying alone.
However, Sandy has decided to disobey his mentor, suit up and tail the Sandman. He muffs the stealth part of the rescue, but is able to crack the cell glass with a wirepoon, allowing the hero to break free.
They then proceed to crush Gentleman Jack’s dreams, putting him back in real prison. “There is no land beyond the law where tyrants rule with unshakable power. ‘Tis a dream from which the evil wake to face their fate–their terrifying hour! The Sandman.”
The imagery of the luxury prison is the niftiest thing about this story.
“The Army of Living Kryptonite Men!” Story by Jerry Siegel, art by George Papp, is our second Legion story…barely. Clark Kent is talking to his adoptive father Jonathan Kent about the various people in his life who have the initials “L.L.” Lightning Lad is mentioned as an example.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor has built a “mind-helmet” to increase his brainpower. This gives him a form of geokinesis, where he’s able to control minerals as though they were “alive” and his slaves. He uses this to control an asteroid to fly towards Earth, and assemble a giant hand made of loose rocks.
This draws Superboy’s attention, and when he approaches, the hand forms itself into a fist. This distracts the young hero long enough for Luthor to spring his trap. The asteroid is littered with Kryptonite meteorites, which Lex animates from his lab on Earth into humanoid shapes that start assaulting Superboy.
There’s a brief interlude where Lana Lang, the hottest girl in Smallville, breaks into Lex’s house to see what he’s up to this week. She sees a lever and internally debates pulling it, but decides not to when a fuse blows. (This would have caused the mind-helmet to self-destruct.)
Lex fixes the fuse and continues his long-distance assault. Krypto the Super-Dog attempts to help his master, but is also vulnerable to Kryptonite and is soon beaten like Superboy. Lex then just buries the Kryptonians in poison meteorites and turns away from his monitor to take a moment to gloat about his triumph.
But then Superboy and Krypto show up, with a special guest star. It turns out that the Legion had happened to be monitoring events in the future, and Lightning Lad volunteered to head back and save his friend. Garth Ranzz got them away from the Kryptonite just before the asteroid was destroyed by other forces so he didn’t technically change history. He then zaps Luthor’s machine, which had some irreplaceable parts. Lex once again vows vengeance, and speculates that there must logically be a Legion of Super-Villains in the future as well. He’s right, as was revealed in a later story.
(The Paul Levitz text page notes that there was a spate of stories where a Legionnaire would show up as a last-page surprise–it was decided to skip most of these in this reprint series to get to the “good” Legion stories faster.)
“Beyond the Sinister Barrier!” story by Gardner Fox, art by Murphy Anderson, finishes this issue with the Spectre. This time the baddie is Shaithan the Eternal, who was created during the Big Bang. When the matter universe came into being, an opposite reaction created the psycho-matter universe of Dis, which is the true home of evil. Shaithan was worshipped by lesser demons, and became the ruler of Dis.
Not content with ruling one universe, Shaithan has been trying to get a foothold in our universe, concentrating primarily on the focal point of Earth. Azmodus paved the way by creating just enough weakness in the barrier between dimensions for Shaithan to exert his influence.
Shaithan’s been making deals with mortal humans about to die, asking for their shadows in return for not dying. This part is actually pretty interesting as he specifically does not want their souls. Instead, he’s able to use his ownership of the shadows to control the humans and force them to summon him bodily to the Earth.
Naturally, the Spectre follows clues to figure out what’s going on, and there’s a huge battle between him and Shaithan. It ends when the Spectre pulls them both back to the Big Bang again, which explodes the would-be conqueror at light speed. (Two stories in the same issue using the Big Bang to stop a villain–weird.)
JIm Corrigan is barely in the story, busy fighting some normal human criminals that have nothing to do with the Shaitan stuff.
Another fine issue, most of interest to Marvel Family collectors.
