Thursday, January 30, 2014

Ol' Groove's Request Line: "Who Stole My Super-Powers?" by Shooter, Swan, and Roussos

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! A short while back, Groove-ophile Dave B. sent Ol' Groove an e-mail that read thusly:

"I know sometimes you take requests, so maybe I'll get lucky if I hit you with the right pitch. One of the funnest comics I ever read as a kid was SUPERMAN # 220, a sort-of team-up with the Flash titled, "Who Stole My Super Powers?" For my money it was the last great story Mort Weisinger ever edited. Even though it doesn't have Murphy Anderson on the inks (George Roussos inked Curt Swan, and he was just so-so on the Master's pencils), the story itself is wall-to-wall fun, with humor, mystery, suspense, the whole nine yards of grooviness.

"And here's the thing: I no longer have that comic and I can't find the durn thing anywhere! It was never reprinted except it one of those digests that are even harder to find than the original. So you'd be doing a public service good deed by making that comic available to the masses."


Answering requests for true-blue Groove-ophiles, bringing back fond comicbook memories, public service good deeds--yeah, that's what Ol' Groove's all about! So here ya go, Dave! Written by a young Jim Shooter (one of the last assignments of his first tenure at DC), from August 1969 here is..."Who Stole My Super-Powers?"
Cover art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson





















And all of Groove-dom thaks ya, Dave!

6 comments:

  1. Always loved thus era as well. A lot of Super tales of the Man of Steel! With covers by Neal Adams & Nick Cardy alone how can you go wrong! Anyone remember this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXd_gDDFkgM

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  2. Thanks a lot . . . Really appreciate this . . .

    JB

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  3. Thanks a million for posting that, Groove! Man, it's been a long time since I read that story, but it still holds up to this very day. I think Mort Weisinger should've hung 'em up right after this issue was published because while he stuck around DC for another year, nothing he published came anywhere near to being this fresh, exciting and just plain fun! I love all the sight gags that Curt Swan worked into the story, and you can practically feel the cigar spittle spewing out of Perry White's mouth when "Clark" tells him there was no story because the groom didn't show up. Classic stuff!! Thanks again!

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  4. Seconding Dave Blanchard's wise words. I've also remembered this story vividly for all these years. The young Jim Shooter had an innate sense of pacing and story structure, and this story is a perfect example.

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  5. Speaking of Shooter's sense of pacing and story structure... on rereading this story again, I think there must be a page missing as there's a jarring interruption in story flow right after "Flash" runs the rich guy off the road. On closer examination, it looks like page 11 is missing.

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  6. Wow that was fun. It's nice to be reminded that the Flash can do something Dupes can't do (vibrate) . Thanks for posting this Groove! I also love stories with a bit of mystery where you don't quite know what's going on.

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


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