Showcase Corner - Legion Of Super-Heroes Three!

The Legion of Super-Heroes was immensely popular in the 60's with hardcore comic book fans. In those halcyon days when conventions were rare and fan contact was only beginning to take shape, the Legion fans formed devout clubs dedicated to the team. It was during the stories in this collection that the interest was likely highest. The youthful Jim Shooter was writing and laying out the stories for regular artist Curt Swan, with inks by George Klein. A few stories in this volume are by E. Nelson Bridwell, another fan turned pro who ambled the halls of DC. By the end of this tome we are getting some stunning covers by Neal Adams who is beginning to make his mark on the comic book world.

The membership of the team has been pretty well established, though Shooter did add Karate Kid and Princess Projectra to the roster soon in his tenure. Shadow Lass shows up and is inducted in later stories in this collection.  He also added Ferro Lad, a helmeted hero who could turn himself iron hard and was possessed of great strength. The death of Ferro Lad was a momentous event in the history of the Legion. Lightning Lad had died but then returned to life, and Proty, the pet of Chameleon Boy had also famously died, and Triplicate Girl tragically became Duo Damsel, but the death of Ferro Lad was something I'm pretty sure Shooter had in mind from the moment he was inducted and his death to my knowledge has never been undone. (At least in any version of the DCU I give a hoot about.) There is a great two-part tale of the adult Legion starring Superman. We get glimpses of the Legion's future and find many of the heroes have married and moved on to other careers. A few have died in ways not revealed and some have simply gone on to pursue a useful career. 

We also meet some intriguing villains. Dr. Mantis Morlo gives the Legion some trouble and in stories drawn by Pete Costanza looks more than a bit like an infamous Dr. Sivana of Marvel Family fame. Universo is a villain who brainwashes and hypnotizes his enemies and the Legion have to put his schemes to rest a few times with the help of his son Rond Vidar. We meet alien cultures like the Khund and the Dominators which will play crucial parts in the DCU in years to come. There's a viscous bloke called The Hunter who lives up to his name as he tracks down some of the Legionnaires. But easily the most significant addition to the rogues gallery of the 30th century was the Fatal Five. This quintet becomes the Legions most heinous counterpart and show up in two engaging two-part tales in this collection. We meet Tharok the half-man and half-machine villain, Mano possessed of a hand that can explode a world, the Emerald Princess with her Evil Eye, the Persuader and his atomic axe, and most incredibly the creature known as Validus, who is perhaps the deadliest villain in the Legion canon. (At least until Mordru appears.)

The Legion even gets a new headquarters in this volume after long years in their wacky inverted spaceship. 

Here are the covers in this Showcase volume. 

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Nemesis Archives Volume One!

Nemesis from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown is better than Forbidden Worlds Magicman. The reason is two-fold -- Nemesis is not encumbered with an outdated and unfunny sidekick and Nemesis is drawn mostly by Chic Stone. The series in much the same style and manner as he continued with on Magicman, but the strip was elevated immediately when the more dynamic art of Stone took hold. 

 

Nemesis is or perhaps better put was a detective named Steve Flint who is asked by the Justice Department to help some sabotage to the rocket program. Turns out the saboteur is a Mafia chief named Goratti who orders a hit on Flint (he's run over by a train). After he dies Flint finds himself in the "Unknown" the afterlife which is overseen by a hooded green chap named the "Grim Reaper" (the latest in a long line). Flint feels that his work is undone and he finagles the Grim Reaper into letting him return to Earth, but now armed with all sorts of ghostly supernatural powers as the hero called "Nemesis". Suffice it to say that Nemesis defeats Goratti who dies himself, but as  we'll see that's not the end of him. 

Goratti slips out of the Unknown and heads back to Earth along with a powerful creature called the "Elemental Force" who had been trapped in the bowels of the dungeons of the Unknown. Nemesis must battle the Elemental Force as well as Goratti as well as some dinosaurs just to keep it all interesting. Goratti is incarcerated again and awaits Satan's arrival to transport him as the story closes. 

Once in Satan's domain Goratti convinces the Prince of Evil that he'd make a worthy helper and begins to do just that with the malevolent assistance of Nazi scientist who is also of course in Hell. After failing to stop the plan at its source Nemesis returns to Earth and his identity as Steve Flint. He meets a brave young woman named Lita who is battling the Mafia for possession of her land and helps fend off several attempts on her life. Turns out Lita Craig is the spitting image of her ancestor who was beloved by of all creatures Satan himself. Nemesis rescues Lita from Satan's clutches and returns her home where after a kiss he leaves. The ghost has gotten himself a girlfriend. All three of these initial stories were written by Richard Hughes under the pen name of "Shane O'Shea". The first three Nemesis stories were drawn by Pete Costanza the artist who was also handling Magicman over in Forbidden Worlds. But after this issue Costanza will depart but Hughes will stay. The three covers for the series so far were done by Kurt Schaffenberger using the name of his friend "Pete Costanza" to fend off the wrath of DC's Mort Weisinger who detested moonlighting. 

With the fourth Nemesis story Chic Stone arrives to handle the artwork as I mentioned above. His work is just more exciting to look at than is that of the competent but somewhat dreary Costanza. Costanza's work feels like it's from the Golden Age of comics and Stone's has a more dynamic modern feel to it, perhaps owing to his stint as Jack Kirby's inker on many key issues of Marvel's Fantastic Four, Thor (Journey into Mystery), X-Men, Avengers and elsewhere. With the first Stone issue Schaffenberger changes his cover name to "Jay Kafka". Underneath this cover is a story in which Nemesis battles the "Tittering Texan" a rogue who plots to make the Superpowers to fight each other with nuclear weapons and then emerging as an atomically powered dictator for all of Earth no less. He has the classic island lair and it's all Nemesis can do to save himself and Lita when he arranges for the island to blow up good. 

With the next issue Nemesis is battling a clown who is just one of several disguises used by the villain known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces". All of this to help a poor bloke who turns up in the Unknown but doesn't seem to be as dead as he ought to be. 

Under a cover in which Nemesis is fighting a bear, just one of many ACG covers in which the heroes battle animals, we find a story in which Nemesis must go to Earth in the year 1850 to find out why an Indian maiden's beloved hasn't turned up in the afterlife. There's quite a bit of classic western action before Nemesis is able to bring about a happy result of sorts. 

The next issue finds Nemesis battling a folk singer who doubles as Smilin'Vic, the leader of a militant group called the "Nationwide Patriots" who want to make America great again. (That old chestnut...really?!) Before this one is over Nemesis is battling a menagerie of critters and fighting for his own sanity when he is forced relive his time in the Korean War. It ends up poorly for Vic in theend though. 

Lita is having trouble dating a ghost and demands some time with him so he takes her back through time to the era of the Arabian Nights. And of course has to battle imps, a magician, a Roc, and the obligatory Genie of the Lamp. Lita is well satisfied after this romp with her ghostly boyfriend. 

Chic Stone supplies a very dynamic cover the next issue which has Nemesis battling on the behalf of the Grim Reaper to keep his position as the head of the Unknown. An efficiency expert has recently died and he spends his afterlife picking at the way the heavens are operated. To help his boss out Nemesis heads to the Civil War and gets involved with the theft of the famous train The General. It seems the Union soldiers who stole that train got misplaced on the way to the Unknown and this clerical confusion must be fixed. While he's battling that problem he meets up with Madam Cobra, the Snake Witch who is an old enemy of the Grim Reaper, and a very nasty piece of work indeed. 

The next yarn finds Nemesis battling a villain called Melville W. Silk who is responsible for numerous murders and other crimes as well. Nemesis as Steve Flint looks like a boxer who Silk had killed and so he adopts that role to infiltrate the gang. It all goes way off kilter when Silk gets wise to Nemesis and arranges a magician named Doc Syko to attack him. Then it turns out that Silk works for Red China and the story takes a wild twist as the villain attempt to steal a top-secret U.S. battleship. To be honest this one read as if it were two stories welded together and unified only by a common baddie. Silk for his part escapes jail and promises more headaches for Nemesis. 

It's no less than Satan himself who is after Nemesis in the next issue when Old Scratch tries out a scheme to make more unredeemed souls by committing his own crimes as an example. It seems to work until Nemesis steps in and as a result Satan brings about a terrible creation he calls "Satania". She and Nemesis go at it and she proves even more than Satan can handle as the duo cook up a scheme to use forgotten dirigible technology to steal gold from Fort Knox. Nemesis is fighting right alongside his girlfriend Lita as they finally bring the plot to a watery end. 

The next story has Nemesis taking Lita up to the Unknown to show her around. This all brought to mind Thor's relationship with Jane Foster and the time he brought her to Asgard despite the objections of his daddy Odin. Despite not being dead Lita seems fine with the afterlife and tags along with Nemesis when he's sent into the Old West to check out what the truth is about a supposed outlaw named Tex Ransome. Despite some protestations to the contrary Nemesis actually interferes with the flow of history when Lita demands to see justice prevail. This proves to be Kurt Schaffenberger's final cover for the series which he had been signing as "Lou Wahl" for several issues. 

Nemesis is sent to deal with a mobster named Trigger Horton who unleashing a crimewave using the information gleaned from a computer. There are lots of hijinks in this one and a great deal of struggle as both Nemesis and Trigger find themselves in a fight (as they say) to the finish. He is forced to battle midgets disguised as babies and giant strong men as well as the usual assortment of animals. Nemesis gets some help from other spirits from the Unknown as well as a butcher named Shapiro. 

The final cover featured adventure for Nemesis is against a professor named Ivan Watusi gone rogue who works for the Commies and plots to steal most of the really good plutonium in the world. Nemesis is actually forbidden to go to Earth in this one and has to escape his own allies to come to the planet and battle against this threat. Nemesis seems to have had a rocky relationship with the authorities in the Unknown, sometimes getting along swell and others not so good. Ivan Watusi is set up like the earlier Melville Silk to return as a villain, but neither is ever seen again. 

Next Nemesis heads to the "Planet of Evil" in Adventures into the Unknown #168. Once again Lita wants to see the Unknown region but this time the Grim Reaper throws a fit and holds her hostage until Nemesis goes to the planet Paranoia. It's a wild place where the concepts good and evil are reversed as virtues and ultimately Nemesis makes a deal with the local Devil to right this reversal and get him a better (or worse) class of customer for Hades. In the next issue's story"Wanted: Hitler Alive or Dead", Nemesis is sent by the Grim Reaper into the past of World War II to check why it seems that the Nazis have won the day. It's a harsh reality he finds and thanks to his intervention history is returned to the course we are familiar with. Lita has disappeared from these last few stories as the page count has dwindled. In the last Nemesis story called "You Could Die Laughing" he comes up against a very powerful clown named Merry Andrew who is up to no good, even seeming to kidnap a young boy named Alonzo Bagby, the son of an industrialist. But all is not what it seems. 

Just like the Magicman Archive edition from Dark Horse not all of the covers are reprinted inside the volume though they do appear on the slipcover. This is a very very strange decision as there were text pieces that could have been shortened easily to make room. The missing covers are for Adventures in the Unknown issues #157, 163 and 166.  Overall, the storytelling in these stories works a bit better for me than the creaky Magicman material, though as the series rumbled along it did seem to lose its focus. Maybe Hughes playing with the premise to find a freshness, but there's a increasing wonkiness to the series. The big selling point is Chic Stone as I've said. His art is just more exciting to look at and so the weird stories can be tolerated with a bit more patience. One thing that comes ringing through both Nemesis and Magicman as well as Herbie is the absolute fascination ACG had with animals. Big cats in particular seem to jump out from every other door sometimes and other animals are in the mix often as well. Can't explain it. 

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Magicman Archives Volume One!

ACG's Magicman from the pages of Forbidden Worlds is a sometimes fascinating comic book from the 60's. Alas why there are several aspects of the strip which I find keenly interesting, I cannot really say this is a good comic book in most of the ways that matter. It's sure goofy and I like goofy and the craftsmanship is adequate if not inspiring. Pete Constanza who draws the interiors is a workmanlike artist who did good service on Fawcett's Captain Marvel and frankly this series reminds me a lot of those vintage "Big Red Cheese" comics. But that means the work here feels very dated and not of the era it was created in. This comic as written by Richard Huges (under the oddball pseudonym of "Zev Zimmer") feels a great deal like a later Golden Age comic rather than a sleep modern  (at the time) Silver Age comic. 

It all starts in Forbidden Worlds #125 in Vietnam where we find the Communist forces under siege from a new threat -- Magicman! We quickly learn he is the immortal son of Cagliostro who have lived many lives always taking care to keep his identity a secret. He joins the U.S. Military as "Tom Cargill" and ships out to Vietnam because as he put it "Well...Why Not?" He gets a rep as a magician and entertains his fellow troops and then a U.S. Senator is kidnapped and a buddy of his is killed and so he adopts the guise of "Magicman" and heads out to rescue the Senator and avenger his friend. He becomes a one-man army fighting against the "Reds" in Vietnam. 

In the very next issue he meets A-214, a deadly agent of the Communists in Vietnam. Turns out A-214 is a man who can pass for a small child and uses that bit of chicanery to steal secrets and assisnate targets. We also meet Sgt. Kilkenny, Tom Cargill's immediate superior who is mistaken for Magicman and taken captive. Magicman must rescue him and stop the plot against his own life. Needless to say his success as Magicman doesn't help Tom get any respect from Kilkenny. 

Somehow in the next issue Sgt.Kilkenny and Cargill end up on leave together and investigating the mysterious deaths of young vital men who in fact turn out to be old men made young as leverage to make them betray their country. This is a convoluted tale which sees Kilkenny (already a rather annoying addition to the stories) masquerade as Magicman and we follow him through some hapless love affairs. This is clearly an attempt to add humor but it all too often falls flat. 

Next Magicman travels through time and even enlists the help of his own dad Cagliostro to stop a magician who is stealing in the modern world of 1965 and making off with the goods in the past. Once again Kilkenny tags along and provides some help after creating many problems beforehand. Clearly Kilkenny is supposed to be some sort of modern-day Woozie Winks, but is sadly minus the charm to make his appearances something to savor. 

Next we find Magicman and Kilkenny as defacto partners helping the "Ministry of Space Exploration" deal with an alien invasion. After defeating alien infiltrators, the pair rocket to the planet of "Astra" to put the stop to the invasion of Earth. 

It's magic versus science as Magicman must try to quell the threat of the "Wizard of Science" a meek-looking villain who uses all sorts of mechanisms to defeat Magicman when Fidel Castro pays him  ten million dollars to do so. To my disappointment the cover of his issue is not included in the Dark Horse Archive collection, and I don't have any idea why not. For the record the covers for the Magicman stories in Forbidden Worlds were done by Kurt Schaffenberger under the names of "Lou Wahl" and "Pete Costanza" the artist who did the interiors. Clearly the quintessential Lois Lane artist did not want his editor Mort Weisinger to find out he was moonlighting at ACG. 

Next Magicman and Kilenny take on ghostly pirates and Dr. Oswald a parapsychologist who makes use of them for his own greedy ends. 

Tom and Kilkenny (we never learn his first name) are out of the army in this issue and are roommates. As civilians they take on the awesome might of a giant ape unfrozen from Arctic ice. He's so mighty that he seems an utter threat in the hands of a mobster until Magicman learns more about his origins. This one showcases some of the best action sequences in the series. 

Magicman meets Dragonia, the sorceress who is positioned to become both his love interest and primary rival in the series. Dragonia has the awesome power of a supernatural panther at her command and uses her powers to steal jewels and gold. The story flips into the past again as Magicman and Kilkenny try to find out what happened to a shipment of gold lost during WWI.

Sadly this cover is missing also from the collected edition and it's especially hard since it's one of the best done. (Note: There are small images of the two missing covers along with the Merlin cover on the back of the dust jacket for the tome.) Chang is a ultra-effective secret agent who has infiltrated the United States and is stealing secrets and killing top officials. The less said about this story the better as it offers some nice twists and turns. 

Magicman must once again travel through time to save his father Cagliostro from a deadly mystical enemy. The zany in the series, always pretty operating at a high level seems amped up even more in this one. 

Forbidden Worlds #136 finds the star of Adventures of the Unknown guest starring. Nemesis is a ghost who not unlike the Spectre from DC is sent back to the living world to bring justice to the people. He and Magicman mix it up when a robot duplicate of Magicman causes some trouble. The problems are cleared up but the story ends with neither Magicman nor Nemesis liking each other much. It doesn't help that Kilkenny made a play for the girlfriend of Nemesis either. (More about Nemesis next week.)

The goofy factor is elevated again when Magicman is brainwashed by aliens and becomes a legit menace to the Earth. It's up to Kilkenny to bring Magicman around in time to turn away the invaders and the means another mission into deep space. 

Magicman returns to Vietnam where he faces off against Dragonia again. She is now working for Mao Tse Tung. It's a wild ride but by the end we get the sense that Dragonia might be on the road to rehabilitation as a villain though her large black pussy is no less dangerous. The stories are getting less interesting to read as the words are being increasingly shoved into smaller panels. The out-dated Golden Age flavor of the art is only getting worse. Also sad is that this is the last issue of Forbidden Worlds to showcase Magicman on the cover, but it's a beauty.

Magicman has three more adventures in the series but all are increasingly silly. In "Dare the D-Dimension" he and Kilkenny shrink to microscopic proportions to find a cure for radiation sickness. In "Beware the Chinese Sorcerer" Kilkenny is finally squeezed out of the series due to lack of space as Magicman infiltrates a carnival suspected of espionage. And the final Magicman story titled "You Think It's Easy?" is an adventure told by Magicman to a hot dog vendor about how he broke up a theft ring. The series does indeed go out on a whimper. In only a few more issues Forbidden Worlds itself  will be cancelled as ACG Comics closes up shop. Aritsts Pete Costanza and Kurt Schaffenberger head over to DC and other locations for work as does writer-editor Richard Hughes. 

I wish Magicman was better than it is. Kilkenny is never as funny as the creators want him to be and his presence soaks up page time which might've been better spent sharpening Magicman's personality, which is stunningly bland for a guy who has lived for hundreds of years. Also unlike Herbie, this series clearly seems to have been written for one audience only -- kids.  I want it to be zany and capture some of the offbeat magic of Herbie perhaps but it just doesn't. It's goofy sure, but rarely clever and it seems lost in time as Magicman himself was so often in the stories. 

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