Showcase Corner - Rip Hunter...Time Master!

It's all about the art. Like so many delightful features, Rip Hunter Time Master debuted in the late 50's when DC Comics was exploding with new concepts and fresh revivals of vintage ideas. The Flash was reborn and could run faster than ever, Green Lantern was given a mission from wise men in space, Hawkman with Hawkgirl by his side used ancient weapons to fight modern enemies, and the Atom could shrink into the very matter beneath his feet. The Challengers of the Unknown were using their precious borrowed time to help fend off weird threats to the world's security. Adam Strange and Space Ranger defended mankind and other kinds across the depths of space. And likewise, Rip Hunter and his three allies used a time machine to solve secrets make solutions in the modern world. All of these characters have one thing in common, they all debuted in Showcase. 

( Alex Toth)

In the case of many of the characters I mentioned above, they were treated to great art from the hands of DC's excellent talent pool. In the case of Rip Hunter, the artwork kept changing and seemed only to go from strength to strength. The list of talents who drew the earliest adventures is most impressive. Ruben Moriera kicks things off, then he's followed by Mike Sekowsky. The great Joe Kubert is around for the follow up two issues a year later. When Rip Hunter gets his own title Ross Andru and Mike Esposito are the regular team. They are followed for a few issues by Nick Cardy, and he was followed by Alex Toth. Finally a regular artist named Bill Ely took the helm, but even his work was in a class with what had come before. 

The Rip Hunter stories remind me of Dr. Who tales. Rip Hunter stories are not content to have the team of Rip, Jeff, Bonnie and Corky travel to the distant past, but they have to find some weird menace as well. Aliens are good bet, but just as often it is magic. (Like the TARDIS, Rip's "time sphere" apparently had a device that enabled translation.) The quartet is maintained as in the Challs, the Suicide Squad, and so many other teams of this time. The writer of these offbeat adventures was Jack Miller, a mainstay talent at DC who also gave the world Sgt. Rock. He didn't create Rip Hunter, that was Dave Wood (at least according to the GCD), but he wrote almost all of the subsequent stories. Other sources give the creation nod to Miller. 

Below are the covers of the comics contained in this Showcase Presents tome. 

It's of note that Rip Hunter and his colleagues will get snappy green uniforms in the very next issue of the series, which alas is not included in this Showcase Presents volume. 

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The Sunday Funnies - Tarzan Versus The Nazis!

 Burne Hogarth is front and center in Tarzan Versus The Nazis, the third volume in Titan Books' series dedicated to the vintage comic strip series. Don Garden had been the writer of the series from the very beginning, working first with Hal Foster and then with Hogarth when he took over the artistic reins. Now he was called away to military service in 1943 and Hogarth became both the writer and the artist of the high-profile comic strip. 

Hogarth's first storyline was "Tarzan Against Kandullah and the Nazis". It's a tale that calls upon Tarzan to help his old allies the Boers who are now facing a threat from Nazis who are stirring up the black natives yet again to take up arms against the white settlers. The next story is "Tarzan Against Don Macabre" and it brings in a villain who is at once suave and deadly, a sophisticated Spaniard who uses his charisma as well as violence to maintain his power. The centerpiece of this story is Tarzan's battle against a ferocious bull. Macabre also keeps a "Garden of Death" filled with deadly flesh-eating plants. Tarzan is able lead a small insurrection against Don Macabre before he heads off to battle with Nazis again in "Tarzan and the Nazis". This time he has as an ally a white ape named Bulak. It turns out the battle is against both the Nazis and the Japanese as both have representatives using locals to fight for them. When they prove unreliable modern troops are brought in but Tarzan is able to deploy a small army of wild animals to help quell the threat. He leads the forces into a trap where he destroys their munitions in a mighty panel. 

"Tarzan Against The Gorm-Bongara Monster" has the Ape Man once again battling a deadly dinosaur, a variation of the T-Rex this time but drawn in Hogarth's distinctive style. Hogarth's animals often don't look exactly like you'd expect but they are brimming with power and speed. In "Tarzan and the Tartars" Tarzan once again is battling to return a rightful heir to the throne. He seems to do an awful lot of this in the series but then he does so in the novels as well. This time the saga takes on echoes of King Arthur with a magic sword and scepter being retrieved by our hero to prove the bonafides of the heir apparent. There's even a wizened old man guarding them in the manner of Merlin. The art begins to slide during this period and eventually Hogarth steps aside for the artist Ruben Moreira who signed his work here as "Rubimor". Rumbimor is decidedly less impressive than either Foster or Hogarth and the series takes a tumble in quality as the stories themselves seem perfunctory. But most of Rubimor's work is not collected here since the focus is on Hogarth. 

The last story in this collection is "Tarzan on the Island of Ka-Gor" which begins with scripts by a returning Garden with art by Rubimor who was wrapping up his tenure on the strip. Then Garden continues in tandem with Hogarth until Hogarth takes over in the third and final part of this tale, which is neatly divided into three in the collection. Tarzan battles all sorts of critters in this tale which ends with a triple volcanic eruption.  And for the first time in the Hogarth era, we meet Jane though she doesn't stay around long as a young woman wants Tarzan to find her diamond-hunting father. Tarzan recovers from an illness in the last part of this tale and is cared for by the animals of the jungle. 

Don Garden it seems has wrapped up his tenure on the strip, but more on that next time, as well as sme of Hogarth's greatest work. 

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Showcase Corner - Showcase!

Comic book lore informs us that DC's Showcase was the birthplace of the Silver Age of Comics. After a robust Golden Age bristling with all manner of superhero types, the tastes of the populace had changed and other genres such as war, romance, and humor had taken over the field with only a few vestige heroes such as Superman and Batman still running along. But in the pages of Showcase which was designed specifically to test new comic book ideas it was thought (after quite a bit of time actually) that maybe it was time to check the waters again and see if maybe, just maybe heroes were once again the order of the day. After much hemming and hawing it proved that they were, but in its earliest days that's not what showcase really showed. 

The first three issues of Showcase are pretty forgettable events. They are not bad comics by any means, in fact they are very well produced comics in a variety of genres which might well be called in the light of the modern day a bit mundane. Fireman Farrell was a brave sort who wanted to be a fireman like his dear old Dad and does just that. We are treated to three stories by Arnold Drake and John Prentice that are exceedingly well crafted but dull as dishwater. They read like episodes of Dragnet, the Dragnet of the 60's with all the moralizing. Then the second issue gives us trio of stories about critters by artists who at the time mostly did war stuff. Joe Kubert, Ross Andru and Russ Heath make some beautiful stories and the one about the runaway bear is quite entertaining, but it's pretty low octane. It's gets better in the third issue drawn by Heath when we get a full-length tale about a young man wanting to be a frogman and earning his way through some downright suicidal missions. But it's not anything new. 

Supposedly its's the fourth issue that marks the beginning of a new way forward. But I'm not convinced actually. Yes we get a "new" superhero in The Flash and it does indicate a conscious break with the past since the original Flash from only a few years before is now relegated to the comics pages of the comic story. The stories aren't anything really to get all that  excited about though. The Turtle, the first Flash villain is actually quite lame. It's mostly science which is on display. 

Following the Flash we get yet another familiar format with some crime tales all cobbled together under an unconvincing "Manhunters" title. If Showcase is supposed to quicken the audience for new things, this seems a particularly poor effort to do that. 

In the next two issues of Showcase though things begin to heat up. Jack Kirby was dabbling at DC at this time making some fine art for some heady science fiction stuff and then he and writer Dave Wood come up with the Challengers of the Unknown. And for my money it is the debut of the Challs that marks the real beginning of a new age, one that will one day be dubbed "Silver". The Challs are fresh and their adventures are delightful blend of science fiction and a little sorcery bonded onto a high adventure format that sings. These are full-length stories which is important in order to give the Challs time to show themselves as the plucky blokes they are, able to fend off fear and threats with equal aplomb.  

The Flash is back for another go and despite the arrival of a for real rogue in Captain Cold it's still less impressive to my eyes than the new look that Kirby brought to the Challengers stories. 

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane debuts in her own series and while they prove successful as most things "Super" did back then, the stories are decidedly old-fashioned and despite competent art by Al Plastino and Wayne Boring among others there is no sense of anything new. 

The Challengers return in the nick of time for two more titanic issues, and prove to me that they are the breakouts in this series so far. They feel new and crisp and offer stories which I'd argue appeal to a wider ranger of readers than either the Lois Lane stuff or the Flash really. There's a hint of the war format found in "Frogmen" but blended with raw gleaming science fiction. The Challengers will break out into their own title, only a month after Lois Lane did likewise. They are the first truly new feature to do so. 

The Flash is back yet again for another try-out and it's really to Julie Schwartz's credit that he kept banging along on this. Ultimately he will be proven to have been right, superheroes were wanted again, but as Schwart clearly also knew science ficiton was what sold. 

And that is evident by the next three new characters to debut in the pages of Showcase. Space Ranger is a likeable comic with a familiar format which feels like a superhero story though it is set in the future. He has a secret identity as the son of a rich industrialist and along with his lovely secretary Myra and his shape-changing alien sidekick Cryll battles crime across the solar system and beyond. He has a good and sturdy rocket called the Solar King and he's one hundred percent good guy. His pulp roots are all too evident. 

But fresher than Space Ranger is Adam Strange. Adam is an archeologist who is whisked to the distant planet Rann by a random Zeta-Beam and he quickly finds a girl in the lovely Alanna and a purpose when he is called upon again and again to save all of Rann from all sorts of threats and disasters. He quickly dons a sleek and handsome suit and takes is place among the best heroes ever concocted. The artwork by Mike Sekowsky isn't as sleek as what will come with Carmine Infantino when Adam gets his own ongoing series, but it's very modern compared to the competent but somewhat lackluster efforts by Bob Brown for Space Ranger. The "Adventures on Other Worlds" feel more sophisticated and they are. 

This volume ends with yet another sci-fi concept given form with Rip Hunter Time Master. Rip and his allies Jeff Smith and Bonnie and Corky Baxter ride the time sphere back to prehistoric times and mingle with criminals and dinosaurs. It's old-fashioned adventure with a sci-fi garnish. The second adventure has the team tumble back into time finding Alexander the Great, Circe the Sorceress and even seeing the demise of Atlantis. Jack Miller wasn't stingy with the concepts and the artwork by Ruben Moreira in the debut and Sekowsky in the follow-up is fine. But this isn't as strong as Adam Strange or the Challs. 

But it does show that was was selling was science fiction, and the superheroes who would dominate many of the future issues of Showcase were as much science fiction concepts as they were superhero ones. Green Lantern, The Atom, Sea Devils, and The Metal Men will dominate the next many issues and like what preceded them the common factor is science fiction. 

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The Master Of Time!

The DC Showcase volume for Rip Hunter, Time Master is one I've been very eager to see. I've read only a tiny few Rip Hunter stories, but they always seemed like good solid pulpish adventure written by the criminally neglected Jack Miller.

But when I finally got my mitts on a copy and got to leafing through the pages, I was blown away by the extreme high quality of the artwork. Ruben Moreira kicks off the series in Showcase and is followed by Mike Sekowsky and Joe Kubert. Then in the regular series the Ross Andru and Mike Esposito team take several issues before giving way to Nick Cardy for one and Alex Toth for two. Then a new name appears, at least a name I've never encountered to my memory. William "Bill" Ely takes the reins and I must say this veteran artist is rock solid through the balance of the stories in this collection.

Given the range of artists, this is one of the strongest Showcase volumes I've seen. The Alex Toth pages are utterly gorgeous and look outstanding in black and white. And I can't really say I see a weak page in the whole five hundred plus page package. That's simply amazing and speaks to the extremely good talent DC employed once upon a time.

I've not read a single page yet, but just looking at them, I have to highly recommend this classy reprint package. Below are the issues included in the volume. Ironically titled, this package is a trip back in time, to a period when DC Comics was at the top of its game.




















And here the rest of the Rip Hunter covers. These issues are not yet collected, but hopefully they will be sooner than later. Note how in these issues Rip and his gang have adopted ginchy green uniforms, making them visually more like the Challengers of the Unknown and The Blackhawks.















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