The Groovy Agent's Birthday Comics, Part 2

And the birthday hits just keep on comin'! This time, let's travel back to 1973, when Lil Groove was turning ten and knew how to handle getting comics for his birthday--find the biggest, most expensive one ya can, baby! This time, it was DC 100 Page Super-Spectacular #22 featuring the Flash, and it was a gasser!

Back then, the only way to get to read classic blasts from the past was with reprint comics, but there were tons of them back then (book reprints were scarce, usually paperbacks, and anything like the Essentials, DC Showcase, Archives, Masterworks, etc. that we have today hadn't been dreamed up yet). The best reprint mag going was DC's 100 Page Super Spectaculars (we called 'em Super-Specs). 100 pages (counting covers) of ad-free comics for fifty cents. Editor E. Nelson Bridwell was great at picking the best of the best from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, so every Super-Spec was a real treat.

Little did I know that this particular gem would mark a turning point. It was the last of ad-free issue, as well as the last to actually go under the Super Spec title; each succeeding 100 pager would be an extra-sized issue of an existing title, like Detective Comics, Justice League of America, Superman, etc. (If you're interested in more info on the Super Specs, visit Brian G. Philbin's awesome 100 Page Super-Spectacular Site!)

This issue had some really cool stuff in it. Besides such John Broome/Carmine Infantino goodness as the Flash teaming up with the Elongated Man to battle Captain Cold (from Flash #134) and "Secret of the Three Super-Weapons" (from Flash #135) in which Kid Flash got his unique gold/red costume, we got a sweet Elongated Man solo tale by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson (from Detective Comics #359) and a Golden Age Johnny Quick with amazing Mort Meskin art (from Adventure Comics #129). the biggest thrill of the issue, though, was the Golden Age Flash reprint by Gardner Fox and E.E. Hibbard (from All-Flash #13) "Campaign Against the Flash" in which the Flash mixed it up with a baddie called the Djinn and a mystery man called (how's this for originality) Muscle Man! What was so cool was that it was a full-length Golden Age gasser (40 pages!) featuring the Flash's goofy side-kicks, Winky, Blinky, and Noddy (the DC Comics equivalent of the Three Stooges). The whole mag was tons-o-fun and a true birthday treat!

Groovin' Back in Time: Summer, 1973, One More for the Road

I don't know why I didn't think of this comic when I was compiling my (short) list of the great comics of the summer of 1973! I mean, this is the Summer of the Bat isn't it? The Dark Knight is blowing everyone away on the big screen (and yeah, Heath Ledger as the Joker is especially awesome), and the origin of Two-Face (marvelously portrayed by Aaron Eckhart) plays a major part of that mega-flick. So it's only fitting that we turn the Waybac machine back 35 years one more time for a look at this particular gem...

DC 100 Page Super Spectacular #20 starring Batman was one of those nifty 100 page reprint comics DC was putting out for a measly fifty cents (the price of two-and-a-half comics at the time). The "Super Specs" as we called them were always a special treat, and this one was extra good, as Nick Cardy's beautifully creepy cover promised. The majority of the back-up strips, Black Canary, Dr. Mid-Nite, the Spectre, Starman (don't let the red and green costume fool you; Starman worked at night against some very creepy villains), and Wildcat were perfect for a moody, mysterious super-hero comic, and complemented the lead Batman stories magnificently. The only square peg was a Blackhawk strip, but it was such a great story (it introduced a nifty femme fatale in the Will Eisner tradition called Fear) that I was glad it was in there.

The main event, though, was the re-presentation of the first three Batman vs. Two-Face strips from the 1940s. The only time I'd ever read a Two-Face story was a nifty Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams collaboration (Batman #234) that had come out a couple years earlier. I thought Two-Face was creepy-cool, but after reading the stories in this Super-Spec, I saw that Two-Face was really a great, memorable, and very sympathetic villain. He leapfrogged from "a cool villain" to ranking with the Joker and Ra's al Gul as a member of Batman's top tier of villains.

The first story is actually the two-part debut of Two-Face. In about three-dozen pages, we're shown how heroic the up-and-coming D.A. Harvey Kent (later changed to the more familiar "Dent"--wonder why, Clark?) was, as well as his vanity over his "Apollo" appearance. After having acid dashed in his face by a baddie on the witness stand (partially deflected by Batman so that it only ate away half his face), Harvey goes off the deep end, smashing half of anything of beauty he can get his hands on, hiding from his friends and loved ones (mainly his fiance) for fear of their reaction to his half-destroyed face, and finally, thanks to a decision made by tossing a two-headed coin, embarking on a life of crime. Batman catches up with him and Two-Face actually gets the better of the Dark Knight. With Batman at his mercy, Two-Face plans to let his coin decide if our hero lives or dies. He tosses the coin--and we pick up the action in part two. As the second story starts out, the fateful coin lands on its edge, forcing Two-Face to decide how to handle Batman on his own. Batman takes advantage of his enemy's indecision and gets away. More fighting ensues, but of course Batman always wins in the end. He captures Two-Face, but rather than leaving the former crusading D.A. to rot in prison, the courts have mercy on him. Bruce Wayne pays for Dent to have plastic surgery, and thanks to its success, his sanity is restored. Harvey agrees to pay for his crimes as Two-Face, his fiance promises to wait for him, and we fade out to a happy ending. The third Batman/Two-Face story shows us that Dent goes back to his crusade against crime after he's released from prison, but once more, tragedy strikes. An explosion destroys the plastic surgery, driving Dent even more deeply into insanity than before. This time when he's captured by Batman, there is no hope for Harvey Dent to return to his old self. We're left with an angry Two-Face behind bars, swearing vengeance on the Caped Crusader.

The scene that really stands out to me is in the first two-parter. Trying to reclaim his sanity, Dent uses make-up to cover the scarred side of his face and then meets with his fiance. Things seem to be going well, when the heat from a candle (darn those "romantic" candlelight dinners) causes the make-up to melt away. With his scarred side revealed, Dent's worst fears come true as his fiance can't bear to look at him. While these strips (written by Bill Finger with art by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson) were charmingly crude and simplistic by today's standards, they captured a real feeling of pathos. These stories are nigh-unto unbeatable when it comes to touching the reader's heart.

Groovin' Back in Time: Summer, 1973, Part 2

Welcome back to the summer of 1973! Click on the Playlist player on the left to get in the mood, and let's dive right into the wonderment that Mighty Marvel (plus a surprise publisher) was dishing out to us four color fanatics!

First up, we have one of the coolest things to ever happen in comics, writer Steve Englehart's innovative summer long "team-up" (everyone knows that in Marvel Comics, "team-up" means fight a while, then go after the baddie) between the Avengers and the Defenders. Oh, there had been crossovers before, with a story starting in one title, then ending in another, but this was to be an epic that spanned both titles for the entire summer! (Yeah, comics publishers have milked these "events" for all their worth since the 80s, but we're still in 1973, so it's cool, baby!) Englehart's premise was to have uber-villains Loki and Dormammu team up against their arch-nemeses (Loki hated Thor and the Avengers, Dormammu was steamed at Dr. Strange and the Defenders) and trick the two teams into thinking they were enemies. The bad guys accomplished this by telling the Defenders that a contraption called the "Evil Eye" would change their pal, the Black Knight, from his stone-statue form (another story, maybe later...) back to human. They then tricked the Avengers into thinking that the Defenders had gone bad and wanted the Evil Eye as a weapon for world domination. As usual, Marvel heroes always think the worst of each other, so the battle was on! And, oh, what epic battles they were! Vision and the Scarlet Witch against the Silver Surfer! Iron Man versus Hawkeye! Captain America battled the Sub-Mariner! Thor in a smack down with the Hulk! Valkyrie crossed swords with, well, the Swordsman! Dr. Strange against Mantis and the Black Panther (well, they couldn't ALL be awe-inspiring)! After several issues of big fights, our heroes learned who the real villains were and ganged up on 'em, natch. The art on the Defenders was by the always awesome Sal Buscema, while dull-but-dependable Bob Brown handled the pencils on the Avengers. All those heroes! All that fighting! Fun, fun, fun in the sun (for the readers, not our heroes)!

Marvel was also shaking up a couple titles over the summer of 73. The Sub-Mariner suddenly became the Savage Sub-Mariner, though it took writer Steve Gerber and artist Don Heck three issues to get him angry enough to be called a savage. The while Namor was battling an extra-dimensional demoness called Virago, an especially vile type of nerve gas was unleashed upon the citizens of Atlantis, placing them all in a coma, and upsetting Subby's body chemistry so that he had a hard time surviving on land or in water. After getting help from his sometimes friends, sometimes foes, the Fantastic Four--namely a sleek new "life preserving" costume courtesy Mr. Fantastic (which made Namor seem LESS savage than when he wore his green swimming trunks...)--Subby declared war on the surface world (again) and vowed to never rest until his people were revived and his kingdom restored. Sadly, it was too little too late, as his mag only lasted 5 more issues, leaving Sub-Mariner in limbo until he was revived in Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up months later.

Another Marvel hero was going through a more successful, subtle, and much more substantial change. Jim Starlin had taken over the art and plotting of Captain Marvel, pitting the good Kree Captain against Thanos and his minions, giving the strip a much more sci-fi, and yes, "cosmic" bent. With issue 29, Starlin took over the writing and things really got wild! Judo Jim had to have been smoking wildwood weed or licking postage stamps, because he put Mar-Vell in some kind of limbo/head trip that had him battling his own demons (literally!) before being given a subtle costume change (the star on his chest became more streamlined, the design of his boots and gloves were swapped out, and his hair turned from silver to blond) and the gift of "cosmic awareness" (I'm still not sure what it was, but it was a really cool effect when he used it--stars and planets appeared on his face! I kid you not!). Also, when Cap flew, he left a trail of "cosmic dust" a la Captain Atom (of whom Starlin was a big fan, hence a bit of homage). I didn't really know what was going on, but the art was awesome, the Avengers guest-starred a lot, and the fight scenes were incredible. Starlin became my favorite writer/artist, and has pretty much held that title ever since.

Just as summer was coming to a close, Charlton Comics, a publisher whom I pretty much ignored since they published "kiddie", "scary", and "romance" comics (none of which I had any interest in at the time), knocked me out with a new super-hero title. I was about to get in the check-out lane when there on the floor was a pile of new comics waiting to be placed in the spinner rack they were lying beside. On top of the stack was E-Man #1. The bright blue background and E-Man's orange costume grabbed my attention, and I grabbed the comic off the stack, got in line, pulled a quarter out of my pocket, handed to the cashier, and waited for my change (change from a quarter! Those WERE the days!). I plopped in the back seat of the car and began reading. It was one of the craziest comics I'd ever read. It was funny, thanks to the scripting talents of Nick Cuti, who knew how to do humor while keeping a straight-forward superhero tone. The art by Joe Staton wasn't as slick as Marvel or DC, but it was very cool. I was so enamoured with sci-fi (thanks to Starlin) that E-Man quickly became one of my favorite comics. How could you not love a sentient star who takes the shape of a human to battle evil and date an exotic dancer? (I had to ask my dad what an exotic dancer was. His response was, "What in the world are you reading?") E-Man was the stranger in the strange land, the innocent abroad, and his girl, Nova Kane (yeah, puns abound in the strip) was his link to humanity. (Hey, Mork and Mindy was a rip-off!) I didn't know at the time, but E-Man owed more to Golden Age comics like Jack Cole's Plastic Man, the original Captain Marvel, and Will Eisner's The Spirit than to Stan and company. All I knew was that it was a cool way to end a truly groovy summer!

Groovin' Back in Time: Summer, 1973, Part 1

Has it really been 35 years since Watergate, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Smoke on the Water, Delta Dawn (listen to 'em--along with a ton more hits from July, 1973 with the player on the left!), Match Game, the Waltons, American Graffiti, Enter the Dragon, Live and Let Die, and Paper Moon? Sheesh, I suppose it has. Well, if you were a kid like me back during that scintillating summer, all of that was just in the background. We kids had more important things to think about like...COMICS!

The summer of 1973 was a good one for comic fiends like me. It was truly a summer of milestones, for instance, Detective Comics #437. That issue looked different from the past year or so. Moodier, darker, scarier. Archie Goodwin had taken over editorial duties from Julie Schwartz and immediately put his experience at editing Warren horror mags to good use. He brought back the original logo, added a Jim Aparo bust of Batman scowling at us to it; hired Aparo to do the art while Goodwin himself handled the scripting--that was awesome enough. BUT, Goodwin wasn't satisfied with simply stunning us with a cool and moody Batman. Nope, Archie hunkered down with a newcomer named Walt Simonson to create a new back-up feature called Manhunter. The strip was a continent hopping mystery with enigmatic characters and slickly detailed cinematic art. It was like no other DC strip I'd ever seen and I was hooked from page one. Evidently a lot of folks were, as the Manhunter is a legend to this day, winning gobs of awards during its short run.

That wasn't enough. In the pages of the JLA, Len Wein and Dick Dillin, were giving us the latest of the summer team-ups between our heroes of Earth-1 and their Earth-2 counterparts, the Justice Society of America. For a change, this wasn't a cosmic, world shattering storyline. It wasn't an extra-special superheroes beat down supervillains romp. This issue took us to Earth-X, where a group called the Freedom Fighters (Quality heroes Uncle Sam, the Ray, Dollman, Phantom Lady, Black Condor, and the Human Bomb) are the last heroes on earth. The other heroes weren't wiped out by cosmic, sci-fi, or supernatural means. They had been annihilated by the Nazis who had won WWII! Tons of superheroes fighting Nazis in 1973? Two more dimes for DC!

My dad used to tell me about the radio shows he listened to as a kid. He made them sound so cool, especially the Lone Ranger and the Shadow. When I saw the ads for DC's new Shadow comic, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. When issue number one hit the stands, I wasn't disappointed in the least. Batman writer supreme Denny O'Neil was on hand to provide the taut, atmospheric scripting while mystery/horror mainstay Mike Kaluta turned in some of the most detailed, atmospheric, and beautiful art ever to grace a comicbook.

For a few months, a slick new Legion of Super-Heroes strip had been running in the back of Superboy. With scripts by Cary Bates and gorgeous art by (yet another newcomer!) Dave Cockrum, I was back in the habit of buying Superboy comics. Issue 197 gave us a longer tale with Superboy shoved to the back, and man, did I think that was cool. Imagine my ecstatic response when I cracked open the covers of issue 198 and found that Bates, Cockrum, and the Legion had taken over the entire issue of Superboy! Legionnaires in their cool new costumes fighting their greatest foes, the Fatal Five, in a battle that takes them back in time to Superboy's Smallville made for a rollicking great comicbook experience!

Finally (for this installment), from the twisted minds of Steve Skeates, Sergio Aragones, and Joe Orlando sprang the one and only magazine of weird humor, PLOP! From the freaky Basil Wolverton cover to the final page (with no ads to interrupt my reading pleasure!), I laughed, I groaned, and I held down my cookies (Skeates' and Bernie Wrightson's "The Gourmet" was so cool/gross!). I'd never seen anything like PLOP! before, with its mash up of DC mystery, Mad Magazine style irreverence, and downright strangeness, I doubt I'll ever see anything like it again.

Okay, okay. So DC put out some real winners in the summer of 1973. Didn't anybody else publish comics then? Glad you asked! In Part 2, we'll take a look at what Marvel was dishing up to help us beat the heat. Oh, and I'll fill you in on something a little company called Charlton sprang on us then, too.