Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #503

Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #503 edited by Nicola Cuti

All good things must come to an end, they say, and this digest issue was the last one of the original Adventure Comics run. (It would be picked up again as a title 2009-11 before being cancelled for the New 52 reboot.) At the end of this issue, the first cover from when it was published as New Comics, a cover from when it was renamed New Adventure Comics with the “new” in larger font, and another with the “adventure” emphasized are reprinted. The “new” was dropped as of issue #32 as the contents shifted from primarily comedy to, well, adventure. Let’s take a look at the final issue!

“The Mutiny of the Legionnaires!” story by Edmond Hamilton, art by John Forte, begins with Cosmic Boy and Sun Boy returning from a difficult mission. Sun Boy has been overextending himself with back-to-back long, arduous missions and is looking forward to resting a bit. But in a relatively remote part of space, the pair receives a distress signal from planet Xenn.

It seems a chain reaction in the planet’s core is going to make it explode within a few weeks. The Xennians aren’t spaceflight capable, but knew about the outside universe and have been broadcasting that signal for quite a while in hopes of rescue. Good news: as there are only a few thousand inhabitants of Xenn, it will be relatively easy to evacuate the entire population in time. Bad news: their alien metabolism means they can only live on planets with a high concentration of xenon gas in the atmosphere, and inhabitable worlds like that are extremely rare, transporting them to one will take weeks. Sun Boy rashly promises that he, personally, will head up the evacuation mission.

When Sun Boy and Cosmic Boy return to Earth to recruit help, it’s learned that most of the heavy hitters that would shortcut the plot are off on other missions. In particular, Superboy and Mon-El are again trying to break the Iron Curtain of Time set up by the Time Trapper. This is the first time we “see” the Time Trapper, although since that person is a shadowy figure in full hooded robes, we don’t learn much about them.

Thus the team chosen for this space ark mission is: Sun Boy, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Light Lass, Star Boy, Matter-Eater Lad and Triplicate Girl. The people of Xenn will be in the sealed main area of the ship with an atmosphere breathable by them, while the Legionnaires and the robot crew will be in the flight deck. The robots, while humanoid-shaped, are not self-aware and are programmed to obey the leader of the expedition. Cosmic Boy tries to gently suggest that Sun Boy may want to let someone else lead so he can rest a bit, but the valorous young hero will have none of that. It’s on his honor now to personally complete the mission.

While rushing to pick up the refugees, it becomes more evident that Sun Boy’s temper is fraying even as he demands the others show him proper respect as captain of the ship. Cosmic Boy was chief navigator, but Sun Boy decides he can do that job just fine himself. As the ship heads to the new planet, Cosmic Boy realizes the course is wrong, and tries to tell Sun Boy about this. Paranoid, Sun Boy claps his comrade in the brig.

Convinced that Sun Boy has lost his senses, the other Legionnaires mutiny, but have no way to stop him from melting the ship with his powers if they continue. Sun Boy strands the mutineers in a tiny lifeboat with no food, no radio and a tiny amount of fuel, far from any habitable world.

The Legionnaires must use teamwork, clever applications of their powers, and their knowledge of the universe to survive and eventually reach a populated world.

By the time they can reach the refugee ship, it’s been trapped in a space vortex, and Sun Boy is comatose so could not give orders to the robot crew to escape. The Xennians are saved and brought to their new world. Then Sun Boy is brought to doctors to have his brain pressure relieved by scalpel-rays and take a long rest. The Legion Constitution is amended to require mandatory breaks between missions.

We’re beginning to see more individual personalities from the Legionnaires, though it would take a while for this to truly take hold. Still, we’ve now established 2/3rds of the classic line-up, and a lot of the basic ideas that will be mined for years.

“Plastic Man” written by Martin Pasko, art by Joe Staton & Bob Smith, concludes the Brickface story. After a quick recap of the previous chapter, Woozy Winks reveals to Brickface the state of the investigation so far.

Cindy Bloch does the same for Plastic Man, admitting that she’d been blackmailing Brickface and the Trowel for the murder of rival building contractor Van Rivett. Now that the corpse had been found, they had no reason to buy her silence and decided to kill her and flee the country.

Terry “Brickface” Cotta explains his motivation. He’d developed a new cheaper but better-looking way to create brick facades for buildings, and it was cutting into Van Rivett’s business. So the other contractor turned to his Mob connections, who smashed Cotta’s face with his own machine and mangled Stucko’s hand so badly it had to be amputated and replaced with a deadly tool.

It only made sense to murder their tormentor and hide the corpse in a construction project. But now the truth is out. And since Woozy knows too much, it’s time to drop him off this forty-story construction site.

Fortunately, Plastic Man has arrived and saves Woozy, then spins Brickface into submission. A couple of bad jokes ends the case.

“The Big Pull” story by Steve Skeates, art by Jim Aparo, is our Aquaman tale. We pick up immediately after the previous chapter with Brother Warnn, despite his imposing appearance, being utterly useless. He has no concept of anything but the City and the Wilderness.

Aquaman decides to leave the communication sanctuary and return to the Wilderness to search for other places that might lead him back to Atlantis. The woman from the City objects strenuously. Believing in other cities is blasphemy. Aquaman points out that he comes from Earth, where there are many cities. They’re telepathically overheard by a Supreme Brother, one of the few citizens legally allowed to send telepathic messages outside the sanctuary, and he’s obviously alerting the guards.

Sure enough, though Aquaman is able to coldcock the still groggy guard he’d knocked out to enter the sanctuary, he’s soon pursued by more guards and their bubble guns. He figures out a way to scrape off the strength-stealing bubbles, and outdistances the guards temporarily. He ambushes one of them and uses the fellow as a human shield while making his way to the border between the City and the Wilderness, beyond which they will not pursue.

The City woman does follow, though. And then we learn that the City has other methods to deal with fugitives, including a projector that sends out a painful telepathic signal designed to cripple or even kill anyone in the Wilderness. Despite the pain, Aquaman is able to move himself and the woman out of range. (He’s dealt with telepathic attacks before.)

Back in Atlantis, Mera and Aqualad fret about the missing Aquaman. We get a flashback to Mera interrogating Ocean Master, who admits that he hired the people who “eliminated” Aquaman through a third party in Florida, and doesn’t actually know who they are or how they “eliminate” people. Once he regained his memory of being Aquaman’s brother, he went back to cancel the contract but could not locate them or the middleman. He then swims away to mourn.

In the present, Aqualad spots Black Manta’s ship approaching Atlantis, and it’s speculated that he’s somehow responsible, although with how often he attacks, it could be complete coincidence. Mera wishes strongly for Aquaman to return.

In the Wilderness, Aquaman suddenly senses a pull suggesting he swim in a certain direction. It’s weak, but he doesn’t have any other clues. The woman has recovered enough to swim on her own, and now that she’s a fugitive, chooses to follow Aquaman.

Neither realizes they are being observed by miners named Jimm and Steev, who work for a Dikk. Jimm is aware of who Aquaman is and that Earth exists, but it’s impossible for people from Earth to be here. Steev points out that it’s none of their business and they’re on a schedule. This metajoke is not followed up on.

Aquaman and the woman come upon a new outpost of civilization, though the buildings are more cave-like and the people dress more “primitively.” They are openly communicating with each other, which enrages the woman, who draws her weapon. While Aquaman manages to spoil her aim, the arrow comes close to hitting a child, so the inhabitants of the settlement swarm towards the intruders.

Abruptly, we cut to a spaceship of “super-intelligent” (big heads) aliens, and their slaver ship. (So much for their intelligence.) They are relevant as their ship happens to be flying near the cave colony, and they observe two figures holding off an attack by multiple opponents. Those two would probably make strong slaves!

Aquaman and the City woman are caught in a tractor beam that protects them from the cave people but also paralyzes them and draws them towards the ship. The cave people evidently have been visited by the slavers before and scatter.

Aquaman spends a page flashbacking to the events so far as he’s sealed into a tube for transit. By summoning his vast reserves of will power, Aquaman is able to move his fist and break the tube. (Remember, he’s very strong.) Then he overpowers the bridge crew and steers the ship back towards the cave colony to investigate why he felt that pull.

Just as he’s about to rescue the City woman and the other tube captives, the bridge crew starts coming to, and Aquaman has to bail out. Away from the ship, the locals start attacking the King of the Seven Seas again, and manage to get in a lucky shot. They’re convinced he’s an invader from another colony, and prepare to take him to the Chamber of Extermination.

Back in Atlantis, Black Manta’s ship has been just floating there for several hours, but at last his minions come out and head toward what seems to be a random part of the ocean floor nearby. He’s refusing hails, so what he’s up to is still a mystery.

Aquaman comes to just as his captors get him to right outside the extermination chamber. He realizes that this location is exactly where the “pull” was guiding him all along. He fights off the cave people carrying him.

Mera demands that her husband return to her. He suddenly finds himself growing uncontrollably, and pops out of Mera’s ring. Turns out that the “elimination” was him being shrunk to a subatomic world and her mental energy had enough effect there to pull him back. The couple swims out to confront Black Manta, but that’s where we will leave them, and I don’t think the subatomic world here was ever followed up on.

“The Tower of the Dead” written by Len Wein, art by Gray Morrow, catches us up with Zatanna. She and Jeff Sloane, her manager, have been transported to another dimension by her father Zatara who was acting way out of character. The dimension’s nature has dampened Zatanna’s powers enough to make her unable to return them by herself. They’ve been captured by the natives.

The pair are taken before the local “king”, Varnu. He has an–eh–verbal tic. He owes a favor to someone on Earth, and will be discharging it by killing Zatanna. He’d rather–eh–do other things with Zatanna, but a promise is a promise. The execution ground is some distance away, so the riding animals are summoned.

The destination is the titular Tower of the Dead, so called because no one who enters comes out alive. Varnu again apologizes for this–eh–inconvenience, but his regret matters little.

Once inside the creepy tower, Zatanna can again exercise her limited powers and summons a torch for light. Soon the pair are beset by twisted warriors with faces like stone, but they’re not all that fearsome, with Jeff able to hold them off with his Hollywood sword skills. At the top of the stairs, they find this dimension’s dimensional juncture, which can be used to transport them back to Earth.

But first, they’ll need to deal with Gorgonus, the master of the tower. He’s a seven foot tall fellow with snakes for hair, and an ogre’s taste in food. Jeff is no match for Gorgonus, whose gaze turns him to stone. Zatanna fares better, using multiple images to trick the monster into the unfocused juncture to fall through the dimensions forever. (He’s fine, and shows up again in a story we saw in an earlier issue.)

Zatanna tunes the juncture to the correct warp coordinates, and summons a mage hand to carry Jeff with her through the portal. They end up back on Earth in the Zatara mansion, and the journey has cured Jeff of his petrification.

They’re not out of the woods just yet, as the pair is set upon by cat-sized purple demons. It’s a pretty easy victory, and Zatanna gets some information out of the last survivor. Time to confront Zatara.

The master magician is in New York City, summoning the giant monsters sleeping below Times Square. There’s a big fight which ends when Zatanna orders Zatara to die and he does. Jeff is appalled, as is Allura, the evil spirit that had been possessing Zatara. Once Allura is imprisoned, it’s revealed that Zatara wasn’t really dead. Zatanna had used a sleight of hand trick to inject him with paralytic toxin to simulate death.

The sort of stage magic Jeff is bored by, but sure comes in handy. All’s well again, and smoke takes the three home after Zatara magically fixes all the property damage.

“The Newsboy Legion” by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is the very first appearance of these likely lads. And also rookie police officer Jim Harper, who’s been assigned to patrol Suicide Slum, his old neighborhood. Today was slow, with only a brick thrown at him. After changing to civvies, Jim decides to take in a movie.

For some reason, local hoodlums decide to jump Jim for a quick beating. He decides to do something about this…extrajudicially. He jimmies the lock of a costume shop and grab a yellow crash helmet, yellow shield, and blue and yellow clothes that will be easy to move in, including a blue mask. He muses that this makes him look like a comic book character.

Jim tracks the hoodlums to a local pool hall, curbstomps them thanks to his protective gear. It turns out they have money from a recent kidnapping case, so that’s something solved. He more or less adopts the name “Guardian” when explaining why he beat up these guys.

We then check in with four newsboys, Tommy the leader, Big Words the book-smart one, Gabby the loudmouth, and Scrapper, the small but fierce one. Business is not good. This is, after all, the poor side of town and there’s lots of competition. Their clubhouse (which is basically where they live) is dilapidated and drastically needs repair, but the funds just aren’t there. Tommy comes up with a plan.

It isn’t a good plan. They put on roller skates and zoom into a local hardware store for high-speed shoplifting. Officer Harper happens to be nearby, hears the shopkeeper shouting, and shoves a cart in the boys’ path. At juvenile court, the judge, citing the boys’ long history of petty theft, individually and as a group, decides to put them all in an institution until they’re twenty-one (then the legal age of majority.) It’s a harsh sentence, especially for Scrapper, who can’t be more than ten.

Jim steps in. He notes that this trial didn’t even have a defense lawyer (not required in juvenile court in those days) and wants to speak on their behalf. He’s familiar with these children, who are all orphans who’ve had to fight and steal not to starve. Jim thinks that they’re basically good kids and sending them to reform school to rub elbows with more hardened criminals will just cement their antisocial behavior. He offers to be the boys’ guardian.

The judge is skeptical but intrigued, giving Officer Harper a few months to try to turn the boys around. The Newsboy Legion is not cooperative. They know from long hard experience that ACAB, and the offer of a whole dollar for the four of them (rookie cops didn’t earn much in those days) does nothing to win their affections. They have…other ways to make money.

Jim contemplates returning his costume, but thinks it’s fun enough to hang onto.

The newsboys have decided to strip a car and sell the parts to Frankie the Fence. That gentleman declines as they’re “hot” on probation and possibly tailed by the police. He does however have an opening with easy money.

Officer Harper is reassigned to the “bright lights” district to cover for a sick colleague, and is relieved when he sees the boys busking for spare change, a relatively harmless activity. But it turns out Frankie told them to set up at that particular location so that the crowd would be between the stickup gang robbing the box office and any passing police. The boys observe that Officer Harper hesitates to shoot into the innocent crowd, but the robbers have no such compunction about anyone blocking their way. Jim follows them and overhears that Frankie had set this job up.

He quickly changes outfits to the Guardian so he doesn’t have his hands tied by police regulations, and arrives just in time to save the newsboys from being shot by the fence for outliving their usefulness. He and the boys hide nearby so that when Frankie comes to, they can follow the fence to his boss in the rackets.

When Frankie gets in a boat, the Guardian insists on proceeding alone, but the boys refuse to miss out, so convert an old wagon into a rowboat.

Turns out the gang’s hideout is an active lighthouse (the keeper being one of the gang.) The bright light catches the Guardian off guard and he takes a blow to the back of the head. When he wakes up, it turns out the head of the gang is Chips Carder, one of the many small mob bosses of the time. Spotting Big Words lurking outside, the Guardian uses some ten dollar language to give the Newsboy Legion instructions.

Most of the boys take some of the gangsters by surprise and start fighting them, and the distraction allows the Guardian to get loose and start beating up crooks himself. Meanwhile, Big Words paints the light red, and this attracts the harbor police. With legitimate law enforcement on the spot, the Guardian slips away.

The next morning, Officer Harper checks in with the boys, who notice that he seems awfully informed about their adventures, and has a bandage on his chin just where the Guardian had an injury during the lighthouse battle. Jim congratulates himself on keeping his double identity secret, but the boys are already catching on.

Decades later, Jack Kirby would bring back the Newsboy Legion (now respectable scientists) and their clone sons, as well as a cloned Guardian, as supporting characters for his Jimmy Olsen run. And speaking of Jimmy….

“Elastic Lad Jimmy and his Legion Romances!” story by Jerry Siegel, art by John Forte, starts with the cub reporter waiting in his apartment for a date with Lucy Lane, Lois Lane’s stewardess younger sister. I think I have mentioned this before, but early Silver Age Lucy Lane was not a pleasant person. Jimmy was clearly far more attracted to her than vice versa, and she generally treated him like dirt. The only reason they dated was that the Superbooks were heavily invested in status quo, so the couple was doomed to keep getting back together by inertia. (You may have known a couple like this.)

Jimmy’s blown his money on a new stylish dressing gown and expensive food, is playing soft music on the stereo and has the lights down low. It’s snowing heavily outside, so Jimmy is hoping the romantic mood is set so Lucy will stay the night.

Lucy thinks the robe is tacky, the champagne is sour, and the meal, while expensive by Jimmy’s standards, is crude compared to what she got last week from a rajah. She dismissively asks if Jimmy plans to take her to a movie, as compared to the classy private floor show the rajah had put on for her. Jimmy hadn’t budgeted for entertainment, so suggests watching a monitor of the Legion of Super-Heroes which he as an honorary member has.

At this point, a Time Bubble arrives on the balcony, with Ultra Boy and Sun Boy inside. They explain that Jimmy is needed in the future for a mission. Sorry, Lucy can’t come, but she can watch it on the monitor. The Legionnaires explain that honorary members must go on at least two missions a year to keep their membership, and it’s time for Jimmy to contribute.

You might be thinking, “I don’t remember that rule.” And you’d be right.

Once in the future, Jimmy is handed a dose of his Elastic Lad serum, which temporarily allows him to stretch like the Elongated Man. The Legion also provides him with a copy of his Elastic Lad costume.

He must now go on three team-ups with Light Lass, Saturn Girl and Triplicate Girl. Elastic Lad does pretty well on each, and each female Legionnaire indicates that his competence really turns her on, complete with an actual hug. At the end, the three girls argue about which of them should be dating Elastic Lad, but he points out that he has to return to his own time.

Once Jimmy is in the time stream and the girls have moved into a monitor-proof room, it’s explained that they set this whole thing up to prank Lucy Lane and boost Jimmy’s bruised ego as she’d be seeing the whole thing and seeing how much other women liked him.

Except that Lucy got bored and slept through the entire thing, so she doesn’t believe anything about Jimmy’s future adventure. And the monitor doesn’t have a record function, so he can’t prove anything. Lucy demands he call a taxi as “baby it’s cold outside” won’t convince her to spend another minute with this loser.

The Legionnaires groan over all that wasted effort but interacting with Jimmy was fun and they look forward to another visit.

Not perhaps the most inspiring tale to end this Legion reprint run.

Barring any sudden discovery of the missing issues, this concludes my look at the Adventure Comics digests. What did you think?

Mostly this is collectible due to being the last, but the Guardian reprint is rare, so maybe look for that.

Also, it’s coming up on my 65th birthday, so if you’d like to help me celebrate, or want to support the blog, here’s an Amazon wish list: Amazon.com