Danger Street Signs - Code Name: Assassin!

In anticipation of a review of Danger Street by Tom King, Jorge Fornes and assorted cover artists I am representing my thirteen reviews of DC's 1970's Showcase-style comic 1st Issue Special. The books by King and company make use of ALL of the sundry heroes and heroines who appeared in these pages. So, let's continue. 

When Jack "King" Kirby departed Marvel to land at DC it was blockbuster news. Some years later when young but up and coming writer Gerry Conway did likewise it was less so, but DC still treated Conway a great deal of respect and gave him not insubstantial control over his projects. At Marvel Conway had written most of the top titles at one time or another, and while he was scripting The Amazing Spider-Man he had the Wall-Crawler battle a grim and gritty type called The Punisher. The Punisher was a hit and returned in the pages of Spidey again and again and again, eventually getting some solo adventures here and there before becoming in the 80's one of Marvel's most profitable characters. Well Conway clearly wanted lightning to strike twice when he concocted Code Name: Assassin for DC. Alas the lighting missed quite badly. 

Conway taps Steve Skeates to script this effort with the Redondo Studio doing the penciling chores for 1st Issue Special #11. Al is tapped to ink this effort which put me in mind of Frank Robbins in many respects. Assassin is the orphan Jonathan Drew who had been subjected to experiments by a Doctor Stone, experiments which went wrong but ended up giving Johnny telekinetic powers. Later Johnny's sister Marie is killed by the gangster Victor Grummun, who she had been working for to pay for Johnny's education. So using his new powers Johnny adopts the guise of "Assassin" to seek revenge on Grummun. Grummun enlists the aid of two enforcers named "The Snake" and "Powerhouse". The former has amazing agility and flexibility and the latter is strong and immune to electrical shocks. The story ends as these two face off against Assassin. 

It's a ho-hum effort for the most part. For whatever reason I'm never convinced of Johnny's desire for revenge, it seems somehow just a plot device and lacks emotional resonance. That's what made Frank Castle so effective, the way his internal pain maddened him and his relentless and ruthless manner. Assassin seems just like anyone and not truly driven. 

Next time we take a look at these specials it means the arrival from the stars. 

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The Good, The Bad, And The Brightly Clad!

This vintage Fred Hembeck cover from those long ago days of 1980 is a crack up of the highest order. Three brilliantly and blindingly hued heroes joined to create a crisis of color in the Hembeckian world at large. It's genius!

Jack Kirby and Mort Meskin

Captain 3-D, created for Harvey Comics during the Atomic Age by the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby duo is the oldest of this trio of colorful protagonists. Created to take advantage of a fad which seems to reappear every several years, Captain 3-D is a surprisingly serious character with echoes of Fawcett's Captain Marvel bonded with the more surreal elements of later comics. Here's a glimpse.

The Prankster is from the final throes of the Silver Age, a one-shot hero created by Denny O'Neil in his guise as "Sergius O'Shaugnessy" and top flight artist Jim Aparo.

Created for Charlton Comics, this futuristic gadfly battles an oppressive and humorless government in the distant future city of Ultropolis.

Pat Boyette

Never cover-featured, the Prankster made his one and only appearance in the tenth and final issue of Thunderbolt, the original Charlton run.

 And perhaps most obscure of all is Steve Ditko's Odd Man. The Odd Man was a truly bizarre creation.

Scheduled to debut in the pages of the ninth issue of Ditko's Shade the Changing Man, the exotically hued hero made his first actual appearance in the dubious offset rarity Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, a victim like so many of the infamous " DC Implosion" of the late Bronze Age.

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Thankfully though he did get a colorful presentation when that story was dusted off, revised and presented to a broader reading public in the pages of Detective Comics.

As you can see, Odd Man is perhaps the biggest eyesore among these disparate brothers-of-the-brightly-clad, his whole look seemingly designed to create a clash.

Only Fred Hembeck would think it a good enough joke to dig out these most obscure heroes (remember it was in those halcyon pre-internet days) for his devoted audience. Good show Fred on a true classic gag!

This Hembeck classic is reprinted in the awesome The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, though I fear the color might be missing. I hope not.

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Charlton Premiere Presents Trio - The Tyro Team!

Today begins a three-day celebration of the debut issue of Charlton Premiere. The comic book was a try-out which last a mere four issues, but the first was a doozy. It had three distinct features and we'll look at them all. And that brings us to Steve Skeates' The Tyro Team. The artwork on this feature is the always reliable team of Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. Below you'll find a text piece from the issue discussing the way these stories came to be gathered together under one cover.

 I'll get to The Spookman and The Shape in due course. And now let the stories begin The Tyro Team.

 That was fun. Tomorrow it's The Spookman. 

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The Hawk And The Dove!

The Hawk and The Dove comic was the absolute exquisite product of a powerful moment in American history when the nation was torn about wars abroad and the youth culture of the time was demanding accountability and a new way forward. The schism in the society of the day was between those who had long trusted their government to prosecute necessary wars in the defense of the nation and those who felt that the government had violated the trust of the average citizen by pursuing a war by means of deception. The argument waged between the brothers Hall, who are the titular heroes Hawk and Dove was an argument raging in many if not most households across the nation in the day.

Steve Ditko had left behind his co-creation of Spider-Man and found at DC under editor Dick Giordano, at least momentarily, a haven where he could produce the kinds of politically sensitive stories he craved to present. His Beware The Creeper showcased his long-standing complaint against personal cowardice in the news media and here we see his take on the war debate. He didn't last long on the book, producing only the first three issues (one the Showcase debut issue). Gil Kane with writer Steve Skeates picked up the reins and later Kane himself wrote the stories. The duo also made a guest-starring appearance in the Teen Titans by Neal Adams and Nick Cardy. This led to more appearances in later years and the brothers Hall were considered members of a sort. 

The collection is highly recommended and sits on the very tip top of my reading stack.

The United States is undergoing the greatest stress to its character since those now seemingly far-off days of the Vietnam War. A pirate has swindled and lied his way into the White House and he and his minions seem intent on not just lining their own pockets, but they are breaking the peace of the world to do it. The struggle for the soul of America is far from over. The current powers of the opposition have not fully grokked the nature of the threat, or they hide cowardice and timidity behind parliamentary procedure. New leaders are rising even now, and again it's among the young. The inevitable success of that struggle might well not end in my lifetime, or it might end more quickly than we imagine. These are unprecedented and troubled waters we sail on today. 

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Beowulf - Dragon Slayer!

Beowulf - Dragon Slayer adapts the famous Old English epic poem into comics form. It was not first to do so and far from the last. Michael Uslan and Ricardo Villamonte are the creative team on this effort. Save for Beowulf getting a strange superhero-like visual treatment (his helmet is supposedly a minotaur skull), the story begins much like it does in the original Anglo-Saxon poem. A monster named Grendel assaults the hall of King Hrothgar and when Beowulf gets wind of this, he heads out to help. 

Once again, this series was part of DC's attempt to grab some of the Conan the Barbarian business with a raft of heroes from various mythological settings. Beowulf stands up quite strong amongst this company which saw most all of them gone after a year. 

The one previous attempt to adapt the poem was Thane of Bagarth by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo over at Charlton comics. The setting of this back-up series for the Hercules comic was after the events of the Anglo-Saxon epic. The adaptation has quite a legitimate feel, not unlike that of Prince Valiant. But eventually it gives way to a science fiction influence. The same thing will happen at DC. 

Beowulf and his men along with Nan-Zee head off for a quest into Hell where they fight all manner of creepies and even a tame dragon and ultimately do encounter Satan. The point of this meandering lost on me, save that it prolongs the story. The upshot is that he is sent on a quest by Satan to find two things to perk him up sufficiently to defeat Grendel. 

The quest through Hell continues. Grendel is still threatening Hrothgar's kingdom while Beowulf and his compatriots confront sundry menaces including a serpent. It is from this serpent's venom that Beowulf derives some powers enough to face Grendel, almost. Now he must find called Zumak. 

Having survived the rigors of Hell, Beowulf and his band run into warriors dedicated to fighting Vlad the Impaler and they get swept up in that conflict. They discover that the Zuman is not there. 

The introduction of flying saucers well and truly jumps this little series off the rails. Not unlike the earlier Charlton series we get sci-fi tropes dumped into a Beowulf environment. Strange to say the least. In this instance we get Atlantean servants of the space gods who pick up Beowulf and Nan-Zee just in time for the to witness the destruction of the advanced city. Beowulf even meets another epic hero from an even earlier tradition. 

Cast adrift the pair eventually arrive in Crete where they are led to the famed Labyrinth in which they find a Minotaur and ultimately the Zumak. Beowulf is now fully-charged and ready for Grendel as he and his gal head for Heorot at last. Meanwhile Grendel who is plotting against Satan. The arrival of Ric Estrada on layouts made this the most readable issue of this benighted series. 

This little series was a major disappointment for me. I'd hoped they had told a good yarn about the great Anglo-Saxon hero, but that's not what happens. Uslan's script is meandering, and Villamonte's artwork is at times bewildering. The addition of Nan-Zee affects the story not at all, save that it gives Villamonte the chance to draw a chick in a bikini for the entire brief run. The character I'm most interested in is Grendel, who we do get at length dragging away victims and bellowing about his sad lot to Satan. One character called the Shaper is a magician and some of his spells are fun to decode as they are the same variety as what Zatanna uses. One reads "Happy Birthday Cindy".

But comics were not done with Beowulf. 

Beowulf is one of those pieces of classic literature to speaks to my fanboy heart. Not unlike the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or the Nordic sagas, we have a story which bonds reality with myth in a way which makes it immediate and potent. The poem serves a lot of masters, but at its core it's the story of a noble man who wants to defend people from predators and who wants to make the society better. The story has not been adapted to comics all that many times. Classics Illustrated never touched it (to my knowledge). But the first time I ever chanced across the poem itself being adapted to comics was when Jerry Bingham produced it for First Comics as their initial graphic novel in 1984.

I've never been completely satisfied with the result. To be fair, I'm not a huge Jerry Bingham fan, always considering him a workmanlike talent who was able to produce pages which successfully evoked both Neal Adams and John Buscema without the immediacy or drama of either. But compared to the soulless stuff I see on the stands today, he was a master. Still, he was above average of the day, and I like his stuff more and more as the years grind away. It turns out Beowulf was a labor of love, produced by Bingham pretty much on spec and finding a home at First Comics when he bargained to draw some of their books for them. I like that a lot. 

Bingham discussed the "graphic novel" several years ago on his blog here. He discusses how he came to be aware of the poem and how he finally was able to bring this remarkable work to fruition. He also discusses some of it weaknesses, weaknesses I agree make it less than a work which was completely successful. To my mind it lacks the grit and necessary darkness of the poem, allowing superhero tropes to overwhelm a story which is at its core a horror tale. You can also see quite a bit of the artwork from the series.

But whatever the deficiencies might have been to my mind, Jerry Bingham was able to bring Beowulf to the page and then bring it to the newsstands and that's no mean accomplishment. I congratulate him and wish him well. He seems to have done well for himself outside the world of comics and for a guy who I considered a middle of the road talent has become quite a compelling painter. But when the name Jerry Bingham comes up for this comics fan, the first thing I will think of is Beowulf. I rather think he'd like that. 

Here are later adaptations of the poem that I've come across. 

(2006)

(2007)

(2008)

(2016)

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