Buried Treasures - Super Powers Mini-Comics, part one

Doug: No review this week, kids. Busy, busy, busy with moving our youngest son out of the house (probably permanently) and on to graduate school, and school of my own just kicking my butt to start this year. So, although I meant to bring you something off my beaten path with a review of an old Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, it will wait until a later day. Instead... it's back to the auction block.

Last week we finished a look at some 4-panel comics that adorned the back of the packaging on Mattel's Secret Wars action figures. Now I'm selling my Super Powers stuff and what did I find but several mini-comics! Yay! For your discussing pleasure (but you'd have to leave a comment, you know) I scanned the seven comics that I had. Not all of them turned out perfectly, so we'll take a look at two of the better ones today, and another two at a later date.

I am frustrated, however, that I am having the same difficulty with these that I had with the Secret Wars comics -- who in the world created them? While both the Grand Comics Database and the Comic Book Database have entries, neither site lists creators definitively. So see what you can come up with as you read - recognize anyone's work? Looking through all of the comics, I sometimes got an Ernie Chan vibe; at other places I was feeling the work of Irv Novick.

Have fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who's the Best... Justice Society of America Member?

Discuss: Batman V. Superman -Spoiled

Karen: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has been out more than a week and I did go see it last weekend. The critics were not kind to it. Knowing this going in, I tried to both keep an open mind, and keep my expectations low. Honestly, based on the trailers, I was already feeling that this was not going to be the versions of Batman and Superman I was hoping for. But I was hoping to be entertained.

Karen: After seeing it, I felt that perhaps the critics had been too harsh. Certainly, visually, it has flair. On some level, I was entertained. But thematically, it was far from what I would have liked to have gotten from a film featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. It is -like Man of Steel and the Christopher Nolan Batman films -unrelentingly dark. It's obvious DC/Warners has decided they want to be as far from the Marvel movies as possible, and they've avoided humor at all costs. The movie is not only dark in tone but dark visually. The muddy appearance is disappointing. 

Karen: But what's really disappointing for me is the direction they've gone with our two main characters. I'm getting into SPOILER territory here, so you may want to stop reading. After the massive destruction of Metropolis in Man of Steel, we're told the public is divided over what to think of Superman -some worship him, while others fear him. But Superman himself is uncertain what his role should be and seems removed from humanity -after an incident in Washington, he visits Ma Kent and she tells him that he doesn't owe humanity anything. Really? He has a little existential hike where he sees the spirit/memory of Pa Kent, who relates a story to him about how he saved the family farm during a flood -and caused another family to lose their livestock. Really? So every good act is ultimately futile? This is the same 'let 'em die' Pa Kent from the first film and I have to say it was one of the things I couldn't stand about that movie either. Superman saves people. He is not above mankind, he lives among us and genuinely cares about people. He has hope. He IS hope. This movie makes Superman look like a miserable chump.I really would have liked to have seen a standalone Superman film where he deals with the consequences of the first movie, making restitution for the damage and essentially earning his place. But no dice, because Warners/DC was so hot to get to the other guy.

Karen: Batman may be worse. Yes, he is an older, disillusioned Batman. I get that. But would even that version of Batman go around killing people? Make no mistake, this Batman kills people. He has guns mounted in the Batmobile, and he uses them. He blasts away at Luthor's men during a car chase, and he uses the winch in the Batmobile to sling a car on top of others, surely crushing them. But even worse, in one fight sequence, he yanks a gun away from a bad guy and uses it to shoot other bad guys. Yes, Batman uses a gun. With bullets. To kill people. Oh, and he shoots a guy wearing a flamethrower, exploding his gas tank, setting him on fire. Oh, and he brands criminals. And this is the dude who thinks he has the moral high ground against Superman? Even Miller's Dark Knight Batman made a statement against using guns (see our recent review of The Dark Knight issue 4).  There's the implication at the end of the film that he's changed his ways. I hope we see this in the next movie.

Karen: The whole tone of the film places these super-beings outside the human experience - they aren’t living in our world, they live in their own, and our needs and concerns are not theirs. It’s cold and unpleasant. Wonder Woman is actually a bright spot - she's the only one acting heroically. 

Karen: The film is also over-stuffed, like a super-burrito, with elements from so many comics, that nothing has room to breathe, and much doesn't make sense. It's almost like they threw everything in because they thought they might not get another shot. I mean, they've got parts of the Dark Knight Returns, Death of Superman, the new 52 stuff, Red Son...there are little bits in the film that are meaningless, I'm sure, if you aren't a comics fan, and do nothing to help the film. Some times this is fun, but a little goes a long way. I like the Red Son story, for example, but the dream sequence or message here that Batman experiences doesn't seem to have a payoff  -especially combined with an awkward Flash appearance (from Flashpoint or something else I haven't read apparently). I suppose maybe they'll be used in a future film? The vignettes with the other Justice League members were the worst examples of this. 

Karen: The thing that's so maddening is the feeling that a good film could have been made. I liked the actors -with the exception of Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor, who seemed to think he should be acting like the Joker. Batman has never looked better. Much  of the film is visually stunning (even with the muddy tones). But the story is so muddled, and the characters -I can't call them heroes -are so far from what I expect...I just feel frustrated, because I know we're going to get more of this from DC. 

This Cover Made Me Buy This Book

Doug: Well, actually I talked my mom into buying it. I saw it at the grocery store of all places. The cover date of the book as listed at the Comic Book Database was August 1976. That would have been on sale in June, so I am wondering if maybe this was a gift for my 10th birthday. If you were to take a college course on the foundations of DC super-heroes, this would be your textbook. Released at the same time Marvel Comics was making their Origins of Marvel Comics series available, this was my primer to the DCU. The ten heroes pictured on the cover are all featured in this book, making it a tour de force of DC's Golden and Silver Ages. In cases where there are two heroes with the same name (think Earth-1 and Earth-2), both heroes' origins are featured.

Here are the contents (all links in this post take you to the CBDB) (NOTE: This post was updated 4-20-20; the Comic Book Database no longer exists, so all hyperlinks in the post have been removed.)

Action Comics (1938) #1
Adventure Comics (1938) #256
All-American Comics (1939) #16
All-American Comics (1939) #19
The Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis Edition (1973) nn
Batman (1940) #47
The Brave and the Bold (1955) #34
Detective Comics (1937) #33
Flash Comics (1940) #1
More Fun Comics (1935) #89
Police Comics (1941) #1
Showcase (1956) #4
Showcase (1956) #22
Showcase (1956) #34
WHIZ Comics (1940) #2
Wonder Woman (1942) #1
Wonder Woman (1942) #206

Doug: And oh, yeah... this still sits on my bookshelf (far left).

Batman v. Superman: Yawn of Justice ?

Karen: A new Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer came out late Wednesday, so if you want to stay unspoiled, just ignore this post. If you want to know what's what, proceed oh true believer...

Karen: Your hosts exchanged some email remarks about this trailer yesterday. Without ado, here they are, and please jump into the comments with your own thoughts.

Karen: Thoughts on the new trailer? I just find myself not excited for this one. I am wondering if I have prejudiced myself. But I look at it and I dislike Jesse Eisenberg's Lex greatly, I think Doomsday looks like uninspired, mid-90s CGI...I don't know. Curious what you think.

Doug: Ha! I was just texting with my son about it. I get pretty excited for the Marvel trailers (well, nothing related to Deadpool ), but all the publicity for BvS leaves me flat. The only positive I'd say is that for wanting the look for Batman of TDKR, they nailed it.

I admittedly watched the trailer without sound the first time, so will have to correct that. Not sure it will make a difference. And I'm still put off by the messianic imagery surrounding Superman. Just bugs me.

Karen: I only watched it once on my phone this morning, but I am just not sold on it. I ask myself if part of the problem is because I grew up a Marvel fan, but I honestly don't think so. I loved the JLA cartoons and I would welcome a well-done live action version of the DC characters. I re-saw a good chunk of Man of Steel over the weekend and although I like Henry Cavill, I felt they got just about everything about Superman wrong. That's the feeling I get from this trailer too. There's a sort of ugliness to it all that rubs me the wrong way.

Speaking of Batman's look, both my husband and I noticed that in this and the mini-trailer they put out a few days ago, Batman looks a lot like he did in the Red Son graphic novel. I wonder if they are utilizing that story or at least elements of it in some way?
Doug: Here is a text from my 24-year old son [Yeah it's just going to be bad]:

Blogger's summary of the trailer:

Act I: Bruce Wayne is Batman and makes his way to Metropolis where him and Clark Kent/Superman get feisty like two little school girls. Act II: Lex Luthor does something to make them turn against each other. It’s obvious Kyrptonite is involved or else Batman wouldn’t stand a chance. They even show Superman de-masking Batman, a detail that is so unnecessary to know going into the movie. Act III: They kiss and make up to defeat Lex Luthor’s monsters and have a beef off to see who is going to slay Wonder Woman.

Yes, that seems to be what I saw!

Karen: Your son is right to the point! My 20 year old nephew, who loves all  this stuff, also posted on Facebook "Wow, what an awful trailer." So I guess it's not just us old curmudgeons complaining.

Do you think part of it is that we really don't want to see our heroes fighting each other? But then, how do we explain the excitement over Civil War? I suppose you could argue that Marvel has built that universe up so that we have had many films with these guys on the same side, so we have an investment in the characters and it means more for them to be turning against each other. But I don't think it's that either.

I think it just doesn't look fun. It looks like it's going to be a slog through a dark, ugly, unpleasant world and I don't have much interest in going there.

Doug: One comment we made to each other was the continued destruction of cities in the DC films. I remarked that at least the Avengers felt guilty about it. This was one of our knocks on Man of Steel, if I recall.

It would not bother me to wait to see this. I felt strange about not going to see Fantastic Four -- shoot, is that even going to be released on video? Let's say I'm over it. I don't care if I ever see Man of Steel again, and the last Batman trilogy really wore on me. By the end they were not enjoyable. I don't think Batman should be portrayed on film as even close to the 1966 version; but c'mon -- the man could have at least a little personality. I guess I would have thought that grim-n-gritty would have gone out of style after 20 years.

And I'll admit to being ignorant on the following posit, but DC sure seems to find success in their television universe (which I don't watch). I'm just not sure why they can't translate that to big budget motion pictures.

And in regard to the basic premise of the heroes battling: I think we accept it in the Marvel Universe because that's the way it was almost from Day One. Witness the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch in the Golden Age, and at the dawn of the Silver Age the internal bickering within the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men. Stan tapped into that tension and played it for all it was worth. But the DC we grew up on, at least up to 1985, was unicorns and rainbows. So although Dark Knight, etc. was 30 years ago, it still seems out of place in the DCU to me.

Karen: Both film franchises find themselves in a position of having their characters deal with the repercussions of the massive destruction they have caused. Superman, for the destruction of Metropolis in his first film, and the Avengers, for what happened to Sokovia in Age of Ultron. Yet, as you mentioned below, with the Avengers, I always felt they were doing their very best to save everyone and minimize the devastation, whereas in Man of Steel, it never seemed like Superman gave a damn about the utter demolition of the city that he was contributing to. Never an effort to get people out of harm's way (maybe that one soldier) or to prevent the Kryptonians from destroying the city. So I sort of see Superman as part of the problem but I feel the Avengers really still are the good guys. I suppose we'll have to see how Batman v. Superman addresses what Superman/Clark has done to pay the city back. Assuming he does. Of course, the Superman I know never would be in this position in the first place.

I'd like to see a version of Batman similar to the one in the JLA or Batman animated series -a smart guy, a driven guy, but one who still has a strong sense of compassion at his core. That has been missing for me. And of course, no more grunting voices...Bat-fleck is also way too hulking but that's Dark Knight for ya.

I have been watching Flash, and still watch Supergirl, although I am not impressed with it. Flash at least has that sense of fun and heroism that seems to be missing from the Batman films and (so far) Superman. But the TV and movie DC universes seem light years apart.

Doug: You know, it's funny what you said earlier about investing in the characters, because although I've never been an Iron Man fan outside of the Avengers I have loved Robert Downey, Jr.'s portrayal of the character in the films. Portrayal only -- I really don't like the MCU Iron Man. I love Captain America, and Chris Evans has brought the character to life. Part of the draw for me from the Civil War trailer is Tony Stark's odd point of view that he and Cap had been "friends". I would certainly disagree with that in the MCU, so I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

So that Batman and Superman are going to fight... cinematically there's no investment in any prior relationship. One look at it and you know you're not dealing with "World's Finest". Do I really care that they are going to be at each other's throats?

DC should not neglect that they do a pretty good job of feature-length animated movies, and I'd argue that some of those are better than the live-action stuff. There's just no market for such things in the theaters.

Karen: We know Batman and Superman are going to fight, and then they (and Wonder Woman) are going to team up to fight Doomsday, but yeah, since we've only seen Superman in one film before and the  other two not at all, how much will we care? It will be interesting to see if DC can pull off this sort of reverse version of the way Marvel did things.

On this Civil War tangent -I do agree that the tension between Cap and Stark was always there, with little friendship evident. Maybe they had a form of mutual respect. But I was perplexed at the end of Age of Ultron when everything was hunky dory between the Big Three. I saw most of Iron Man 3 again over Thanksgiving (this is what you do when you're sick, watch TV), and while I don't hate it as much as I used to, Stark's never been a bigger jerk than in that film. He really is a selfish, arrogant ass most of the time! It's only Downey's charm that sells the character.

I watched the Batman v Superman trailer again, and I just want to say again I really dislike every scene with Jesse Eisenberg. I can applaud the idea of trying to come up with a different take on Luthor, but this Luthor is too crazy -he's like a Joker-Luthor. And must everything be so dingy? I miss color!

Doug: I have to admit that watching the trailer for the first time without sound -- I had no idea at first that it was Luthor! By the end of the clip I figured it out. So now we get maniacal Luthor, tattooed Joker... at least on Gotham I can see the Penguin in the portrayal.

Guest Review - The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Doug: It's a BAB Book Review today, kids -- and courtesy of Colin Bray.

‘The Secret History of Wonder Woman’ by Jill Lepore

Colin Bray: I read this book less as a collector of Wonder Woman comics and more through a fascination with feminist history. Which is just as well because this book is less a history of Wonder Woman than a revelatory account of her roots in the early 20^th Century feminist and bohemian movements. 

These roots are made more complex for being channeled through the rather unusual mind of William Moulton Marston.

The author, Jill Lepore, is a Harvard academic and staff writer at The New Yorker. And this book is clearly the result of a huge amount of research, much of it using primary sources. Lepore is the first person to have studied and written from the Marston personal diaries and family archive, and as a result the book feels genuinely fresh, like we are opening a new window onto the history of the 20^th century. The other dominant impression (and irony) from the book is that the psychologist inventor of the lie detector surrounded himself with so many lies and obfuscation.

How does Lepore demonstrate that Wonder Woman is inseparably entwined with feminist history and theory?

·         In 1911, Harvard (where Marston studied) was engulfed with debates about women’s suffrage – and Marston attended a sell-out lecture by Emmeline Pankhurst.

·         Olive Byrne, one of the three women in Marston’s life, was the niece of Margaret Sanger (America’s foremost birth control campaigner) and daughter of Ethel Byrne (the first early feminist to be force-fed while on hunger strike).

·         Marston’s wife, Sadie Holloway, was herself a feminist with a prominent career including a senior editorial position on the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

·         As can be seen below, the early feminist cartoonist Lou Rogers was an influence, not just on Marston but on Harry Peter, the artist on the Marston Wonder Woman stories - who himself was an early advocate for women’s rights.

·         And just one of many such smaller details - Wonder Woman’s bracelets are based on Olive Byrne’s bracelets which were probably a gift from Marston in lieu of a wedding ring (because he was already married to Holloway).

Marston’s personal and family arrangements were particularly complex, which was the cause of much of the secrecy and lies in his life. So too the paradox (contradiction?) of his genuinely progressive view of women and his parallel espousal of free love and bondage. Lepore is clear on these issues and their relationship to Wonder Woman without being at all sensationalistic.

I came away from the book feeling that Marston was a hugely flawed man, only partially redeemed by his progressive views. Any possible redemption is based on the fact he consistently stood by his personal philosophy, and his original Wonder Woman stories were genuinely radical for their time. But he was not an admirable man, ultimately a huckster and self-propagandist who got by with an excess of self-regard and charisma. 

The women in his life are as thoroughly explored (perhaps more so) as Marston himself, and the book contains lengthy passages exploring their dilemmas, not only within their personal context but also how these intelligent and educated women continued to balance the demands of family, personal ambition and a bohemian lifestyle with its own huge emotional cost.

Fascinating and informative as this book is, it is not a simple history of Wonder Woman outside of her political and social context. If you come to this expecting to find out about the second appearance of the Cheetah, or how the invisible plane works, you may be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want to understand how Wonder Woman was the previously unexplored missing link between the feminist first wave and 70s women’s liberation movement read on!

Discuss: Ambassador of Peace or Amazon Warrior?

Karen: Define this how you like -it could be "What should Wonder Woman's role be?" or "Which version of  the character do you prefer?" or "Can these two aspects (ambassador of peace/Amazon warrior) co-exist in the character?" -whatever ideas you have regarding these two seemingly-conflicting roles, go for it.

Smilin' and Stylin' in the 80s: The DC Style Guide by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Karen: You may or may not have heard about this, but we think it's kind of a big deal: DC super-artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez recently posted his work from the 1980s DC Style Guide on his Facebook site. Much of it is circa 1982, although some is from later. This guide was used as both a reference in-house by artists, and also as material for marketing and licensing purposes. Since Garcia-Lopez never drew a bad figure in his life, he was the perfect choice to handle such a task.

Doug: This series of images is certainly a feast for the eyes, and I'm sure many of us spied several renderings we've seen on various products. Say, did you notice Superbaby and Wonder Tot, along with Batbaby and whatever the heck they called Lil' Robin in the cover above? If memory serves, in the late 70s Mego or someone else was making baby dolls of these characters.

Karen: There's a whole bunch of Super Juniors in the character color guides towards the end of the gallery. I do remember seeing ads for sort-of Beanie Baby style dolls like that. What's fascinating to me is the window back in time the art provides. Heroes are shown smiling at the viewer (mostly -Batman is still a little glum); colors are all bright and vibrant. There's a sense of excitement and fun here. These were comic book heroes for a very different era -yet the whole 'grim and gritty' phenomenon was only a few years off.

Karen: It's hard to single out particular images but we'll pick out a few.

Doug: One of the things I noticed while I was saving all of the images (yep, all 194 of them - there were actually a few more that just showed the binder) was the difference in Mera between the B&W and color images of the Aquaman family. Take a peek below and see for yourself. There's is another B&W image of Aquaman and Mera that shows her feet the same way; regrettably, I'm not savvy enough to know which is the "correct" depiction. But as I was clicking back and forth this jumped out at me for some reason.

   
Doug: I don't know if I'm any more qualified to talk about this than is Karen, but another thing that struck me right away was Garcia-Lopez's treatment of women. While each of the women dealt with in the Style Guide is certainly pretty, none of them (in my opinion) was overly sexed-up. Even Wonder Woman, scantily-clad as she is, looks like a normal, fit, woman. I may have said this before, but one of my colleagues when speaking of the modern fashions of teens often invokes the phrase "cleavage in two places". Well there's none of that here. Garcia-Lopez's women aren't falling out of their tops, and everything else seems to be contained as it should be. So in regard to Karen's complaints about "butt floss", you won't find that here.

Karen: Compare how any of the women here are portrayed next to a modern comic. There's just a level of respect evident here that you don't find in current stuff. The women are beautiful, but they are allowed to be adequately covered, and they are not forced into strange contortions to ensure that their busts and behinds are both prominently displayed at the same time. They also don't have outrageous proportions. I look at Wonder Woman here, or Batgirl, and they are super-heroines, not stand-ins for porn stars. I like that.

Doug: However, I did remark to Dr. Oyola on Twitter (thanks for being my tip-off to this collection, Osvaldo!) that I thought it was slightly sexist that we see Batgirl's rear end and not other caped characters. But after having seen the entire Style Guide I know that's not true -- it was only true in the samples I saw from a comics news website.

Karen: As we discussed putting this post together, we both noticed that Garcia-Lopez re-creates some classic Neal Adams' Superman poses, as seen below. I wonder if that was specifically requested by DC or if he did it himself as an homage?

Doug: Not only did I find that particular image to be an homage to Neal Adams's iconic cover to Superman #233, I felt that Garcia-Lopez was up to something on a few other characters. I think if you look at Batgirl's face in the furthest left image above, you'll get a sense of regular Batgirl artist Don Heck. I also think if you check out the wonderful picture of Superman and Lois Lane below, you may get a George Perez vibe. What sayest y'all?

 

Karen: There are a number of images with big groups of heroes for the Super-Powers line, which I believe came from 1984. But for some reason I really liked this shot of the Justice League. I think it's because it's such a great grouping of characters and Batman is almost smiling -or at least, he's not scowling.

Doug: I'm not sure why J'onn is giving Barry the stink-eye. Maybe because Barry has Zatanna by the hand? I also liked all of the New Teen Titans pix, and some with the villains. I like how colorful the image below is, but I have to ask -- what the heck is Luthor doing?

Karen: Holding up the frame? No, wait, Brainiac might be doing that! It's a little awkward. And hey, it looks like Penguin is giving Sivana the boot! Also, I didn't realize that Zod, Non, and Ursa were so popular -I assume that is them in the mid-right.

Karen: Doug mentioned how colorful the villain image was -and all of the images really are colorful -how about this color guide? Again, I'm struck by the bold, bright, crisp color. There's nothing dark or gloomy here!

Karen: And how about the Teen Titans? They're splashed all through this, with several group shots too. This particular set of Titans was from around 1985, when Dick Grayson had transitioned from Robin to Nightwing, and included Jericho, one of the goofiest-looking Titans, in my opinion.

Doug: But Jericho wasn't goofier looking than Terry Long, that's for certain. 

Doug: You mentioned above that there's nothing dark or gloomy here, and that was exactly my sense as I looked through the Guide. I think this is where DC has lost their way today. Yeah, yeah, I know this is a business and not necessarily just an art form. But Archie doesn't try to be Marvel. So what's wrong with telling action stories without all the gloom and doom? And the movies, for crying out loud... I think Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy have proven that some four-color fun can even be had on the silver screen. Perhaps the masters at Time-Warner would be well-served themselves in leafing through this Style Guide from the pre-Dark Knight days.