The Living Assault Weapons!

I very much remember anticipating this "return" of the Action-Heroes under the hand of Dick Giordano and Bob Layton. This project apparently was stalled a few times before it finally came out from DC at the very beginning of the current century. Like most of the product of that time, it was hooked into the JLA, a major seller for DC and the source of countless spin-offs and one-shots. L.A.W. was seen by many as just one more of those.

But for Charlton fans it was special. It featured the return of the "original" Action-Heroes. Sarge Steel, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, The Question, Nightshade and a new Peacemaker all play roles in the story, but the story itself was sculpted around the return of Rip Jagger, The Judomaster. This is a Judomaster story, though I will confess that focus does get muddled a bit as the story unfolds.

A powerful enemy named The Avatar (take that James Cameron) unleashes demons on the Earth and locks up the JLA in a dimensional trap. He seems unstoppable, but then Sarge Steel is put in charge of a group of heroes including Blue Beetle and the Question to battle the threat. He finds himself working out of a sprawling new project which gives birth to a new Peacemaker, a doctor. This force seeks out the Avatar's threat despite the lurking of traitors inside the project. Meanwhile Captain Atom has become a power source for the Avatar and will remain like that through much of story being reborn in a new costume before it's all over. Blue Beetle reveals a hidden guilt and the Question must come to terms with his lack of power in this battle against great evil. Nightshade is the most changed and seems literally to be battling for her very soul in the story. Sarge Steel is seduced and given the chance to be made whole again, but must stand strong. All the heroes seem to have an internal struggle alongside the external threat.

That threat is posed by Avatar who it is revealed relatively early is actually Tiger, formerly the partner of Judomaster who in a fit of teenage pique rejects the tutelage of his master and begins his fall into villainy. Judomaster meanwhile has obtained nirvana in Nanda Parabat but must give that up to rejoin the world and confront his corrupted partner. His struggle is the heart of the story.

This is a very uneven story though I'll have to confess despite my affection for it. It seems it was done in at least two stages looking at the artwork. The story itself is an a bit of a mishmash, offering many interesting angles and solving most of them, but not always convincingly.

I want to adore the L.A.W., but alas I only like it. I do recommend that you seek it out if you can find it. It's never been collected alas. It should be, everything else is available for heaven's sakes.

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Beware The Creeper!

Beware The Creeper the title says and it's no small warning. The Creeper was one of Steve Ditko's remarkable and memorable additions to the DC universe when along with other Charlton talents such as Dick Giordano, Pat Boyette, Sergius O'Shaugnessy, Steve Skeates, and Jim Aparo landed on those halcyon "House of Krypton" shores. The cover above is my favorite image of the Creeper, his posture all bent and the water oozing and dripping, a deadly "Menace" looming behind him. Ditko did his heroes proud with this one especially Will Eisner. 

But before that debut issue, we were first told to Beware the Creeper in Showcase #73. In this issue WHAM tv reporter Jack Ryder runs afoul of a bunch of thugs led by Angel Devlin and in the course of his adventures gathers the odd bits of his bizarre costume and meets Professor Yatz who is the man who uses his new inventions to give the Creeper his new powers. A fluid is injected into the wounded Ryder to save his life and a device is implanted beneath his skin which allows him to alter his appearance with the press of a button. 

I'd seen the Creeper in other comics drawn by Neal Adams and Dick Dillin, but the first time I was able to read this debut story plotted and drawn by Ditko and written by Don Segall was when it was reprinted in on of those juicy giant 100-Page Detective Comics issues which made DC so alluring at the time. 

It would many a few decades before I got my mitts on the Showcase issue itself as well as the original Beware the Creeper run. 

The Creeper's main enemy in most of the issues of the original series was Proteus. Proteus was a man who could be anyone, could alter his features and sneak up behind you at a moment's notice. Proteus seems to have been killed after their first encounter but that doesn't prove to be the case and in stories written by Sergius O'Shaugnessy (Denny O'Neil).

"The Isle of Fear" finds the Creeper on a long-lost island remarkably close on which an old society has been put upon on modern criminals eager for a safe haven from the law. 

As Creeper's fight against Proteus continues he gets new cast members such Rip Cord who join regulars his boss Bill Brane and self-absorbed weathergirl Vera Sweet, who sometimes afflicts Jack and at other times gives him a hand in his investigations. 

It's notable that Denny O'Neil seems to take on more of the plotting and scripting control as he sheds his "Sergius O'Shaugnessy" identity. Inkers join up such as Mike Peppe and give Ditko's pencils a different and frankly less effect look. For the most part, this era of Ditko always looks better when he inks himself.

In the sixth and final issue of the original run under this handsome Gil Kane cover we have only a part of a Ditko issue with journeyman Jack Sparling finishing up this final Beware the Creeper tale, at least for the time being. I an only imagine that Ditko has once again sought greener pastures as he leaves Hawk and Dove too, in the capable hands of Gil Kane it's to be noted. 

But Steve Ditko will return to DC and to the Creeper, but more than a few years will pass. 

In 1975 the mavens at DC Comics decided to give The Creeper another try-out on the newsstands and to that end the seventh issue of 1st Issue Special was pressed into service. This featured a story drawn by the Creeper's creator Steve Ditko. One curious detail about the cover above is the tiny detail of the dog and fire hydrant. (You can almost see them.) This cover was designed by Carmine Infantino and handed to Ditko to finish and to show his displeasure with such an arrangement he has that pup show its disrepect to that hydrant in the natural and time proven fashion. 

In this singular issue Creeper finds himself battling the Human Firefly, a hood just busted out of prison and aching to remake his reputation. The Firefly was a vintage Batman villain first and last seen in Detective Comics #184 from 1952, about the time Ditko was first breaking into comics. The script for the story was by Michael Fleisher, and Mike Royer inked Dikto's pencils. But Ditko wasn't done with his creation, he had more Creeper stories to tell. 

The try-out sparked a revival in the back pages of World's Finest beginning with issue #249. 

The Creeper was rarely featured on the covers, though his smiling yellow mug and lustrous green motop was nestled alongside the logo with the other back-up features face in this densely packed dollar comic. All the stories were written and drawn by his creator Ditko. 

The stories in these issues have a much broader comic feel than the original series had shown nearly a decade before. The Creeper is working for Cosmic Broadcasting as part of a security team. 

Joining his cast are his boss Sam Hagen along with spry blonde dame named Fran Daye and a galoot named Dump. One odd detail is that a fly always seems to be hovering around Dump's head. 

The Creeper comes up against new baddies like The Disruptor and a lug called simply the Monster. He also has to deal with the return of Angel Devlin who was instrumental in the origin of The Creeper in his very first story. 

Apparently there was some thought to busting the Creeper out into his own comic again, but the infamous DC Implosion put the skids to that idea. The issue of Showcase #107 would have allowed The Creeper to return to his place of birth but it was only seen in the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 for many years. Creeper does rate an appearance on both of the CCC covers though. 

This is a wild wild issue with two double-page splashes and a cameo by Ditko's Odd Man. (The Odd Man was touted to have a back-up feature, but the implosion ended that aspiration.) 

And that's a wrap on The Creeper, at least as produced by his maker Steve Ditko. The Creeper did prove somewhat popular and did get around for some time by dint of other talents. 

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The Hawk And The Dove!

A comic for a our times, ripped from the headlines of the day. The Hawk and The Dove was a curious piece by Charlton alumni Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko, a tale of two brothers caught in a struggle which was at that time both private and public. The United States warred with itself about the war, the Vietnam War (we just called it "the War" back then) about the validity of it and even more about the sacrifice of life for a cause which seemed abstract and remote. We fight today across the globe, but because we don't demand the that the youth of our time commit to that struggle, we are able to glide along calm cool and collected that others will do the fighting we deem necessary. It's an eternal debate, not that war is a necessary evil, but that we need advocate evil here and at this time.

That was the battle between the brothers Hall. Hank was a "Hawk", an advocate for violent intervention and his brother Don was a "Dove", one who argued for peace in our time. They were split ideologically and when they were offered the chance to acquire the power to pursue their beliefs by the supernatural powers of Order and Chaos they do so, becoming two sides of a coin dedicated to justice. In the debut issue in particular, one can see Ditko's Objectivist philosophy informing the desire for logic and not passion to dictate society. 

According to reports, Steve Skeates wanted to show that both methods could reap justice and that Dove's peaceful approach was often as effective as Hawk's more aggressive approaches. But he claimed that editorial often switched it up so that Dove came across as not just regretful for violence but downright weak in the face of a threat. Instead of showing a balance between two attitudes, each with some measure of merit, it became in the eyes of Skeates a rejection of peace and a advocacy for violence.

Skeates worked with Gil Kane when Ditko left DC and after Skeates left the book, Kane wrote as well as drew it. After the book's cancellation Hawk and Dove became a sometimes part of the Teen Titans lore and many years later things changed even more, but that' s for another day.

For all their flaws these stories deserve a place on the modern bookshelf. It seems they have been collected in an enormous Teen Titans volume, but I'd love to see them available for a less impressive price in a more easily read tome. With work by giants of yore like Ditko and Kane and Cardy, it seems an easy bet to me.

Here are the covers.

Steve Ditko left the book after the second issue. He also left DC entirely after an all-too brief tenure. 

Gil Kane and inker Sal Trapani join forces with Steve Skeates to keep the series alive and running. To be honest I think Kane's more fluid version of the duo is actually more visually interesting than Ditko's. 

Gil Kane becomes both the writer and artist on the series. This issue was inked by Wally Wood. 

In an apparent attempt to help the Hawk and Dover comic gain traction with readers, the duo crossover with the Teen Titans both written and drawn by Neal Adams. 

After rescuing their dad from a kidnapper, the team question whether continuing as Hawk and Dove is a useful thing. This is the final issue. 

(All the early Hawk and Dover stories are contained in this handy paperback.)

(This collection only contains the three stories Ditko worked on.)

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Hands Of Steel!

Here is a delightful drawing of Judomaster and Tiger (along with the Smiling Skull and Blue Beetle as well) by Frank McLaughlin, the creator of the "Scarlet Smasher". He produced this gem for the Charlton Neo folks. It was printed in The Charlton Arrow #2.

The image combines elements of two of McLauglin's finest covers for Judomaster, as well a dandy cover image from Steve Ditko. 

Here is a gem of an image from 1987. Frank McLaughlin's Judomaster seems contented in this scene alongside Dick Giordano's Sarge Steel. The duo is a small part of a panorama of DC superstars from many original sources as can be seen in the fantastic poster below.

I'm lucky to have a reprint of this mighty image in The DC Vault: A Museum-A-Book which came a few years back. There's a true who's who of industry giants (both fictional and real) in this delightful image.

This month is all about Judomaster and Sarge Steel, two characters who are closely linked in the heyday of the Charlton Action-Heroes. 

But don't worry Ditko fans, as he will be getting some attention as well, as we take a look at his brief but impactful tenure at DC in the late 60's. 

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