The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1568: The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #9, July 1983

We finally get a good look at Tempest's origins in this issue, and of the origin of Reactron. It's easy to forget sometimes that the Vietnam War was still very much in the consciousness of America at the time that this series was being written. Both Tempest and Reactron have their geneses in the jungles of Vietnam, Krullen (Reactron)'s violence toward civilians causing the emotional catalyst that caused Tempest's powers to manifest. Josh is often called a mutant, something that is quite rare in the DCU, and the link of emotion to his powers manifesting definitely aligns with Marvel's mutants. Reactron, it turns out, is also a mutant of sorts, though his change comes from being a witness to atomic testing in his time in the service. I find it interesting that as culture moved further and further from the first nuclear weapons, and became more accepting of them, that the consequences of those weapons shifted quite radically. Think of the depictions of atomic mutants that we see in old pre-Code horror comics. Those creatures, though perhaps superpowered, were certainly not superheroes. And the changes they underwent resemble far more what exposure to radiation would actually result in. More so, for certain, than Reactron's abilities. Does it reflect the acceptance of nuclear power as an energy source that the shift in its comic book consequences is from destruction to elevation?

Looking ahead, aside from tomorrow's slight jump back in time, we're on to more solo Cliff Steele adventures in the company of the Titans, and then we get, for the first time ever, a number one issue of Doom Patrol. Though I may give myself a break before jumping into that series. There's so much else to read!

"Oh man, if there's anythin' better'n absorbin' this much radiation, I don't think I could stand it!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1567: The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #8, June 1983

I have somehow managed to misplace all of my old Supergirl comics. I had them up in frames for a while, and now I have no idea what's happened to them. Very odd.

The New Doom Patrol really are very mediocre. I've read a few bits and pieces of interviews with Paul Kupperberg of late, and even he acknowledges that he completely missed the point of the Doom Patrol. They were never just another superhero team, as the new DP are, but a support group that occasionally acted pretty heroically.

Today's issue is no exception. I really like Josh Clay (Tempest) in his role as team support in Morrison's Doom Patrol - here, unfortunately, he is a pretty bad stereotype, sporting many of the hallmarks of the Blaxpoitation movies that were de rigeur a few years before this comic came out. I had a similar problem with Val in the Showcase issues, in that she was little more than a cardboard cut-out Soviet defector. I have no problem with using some of these tropes, but that's not all the character should be. There is some attempt at development in the budding relationship between Josh and Val, but Josh's overtures verge on creepy (at least from a contemporary point of view), and Val seems only mildly interested in returning them.

I did realize as I was reading this issue that I made a chronological error. DC Comics Presents #52 comes before this story, and explains why Val is now bandaged like Larry Trainor was. I'll finish off this story and then jump back in time and read that one!

Another interesting thing I found out today is that in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the New DP's adventures with Supergirl are retconned to feature Power Girl instead. She shows up late in Paul Kupperberg's Doom Patrol, and represents one of the few changes to Doom Patrol history that is changed by the Crisis.

"The let's not just sit here like we was watchin' reruns of 'Star Trek'!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1566: The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #7, May 1983

I've said it before on this very blog, I'm sure - Carmine Infantino draws a very lovely Supergirl. I'm not 100% a fan of the rest of the fashions in this book, but Supergirl's look is fantastic.

The rest of the cast wear early 80s fashions, and they're just awful. I was talking to someone the other day about how 80s fashion is making a comeback. It stuns me. I really thought the decade's fashions were terrible at the time.

Today's comic is really more of a wrap-up of a previous adventure. Supergirl tears apart an underwater base for reasons I'm unclear on, and then runs into Negative Woman at a music festival a few days later. There's really not much of the Doom Patrol in this issue, though the focus on Val Vostok got me interested in seeing where the character ended up going, as I noted a few days ago. It turns out she does indeed maintain an existence post-Doom Patrol, carrying on through some of the more espionage-oriented titles in the DCU, such things as Checkmate and Vigilante. I may or may not track all of these down, as they're not really adventures involving the Doom Patrol. For much of them I'm fairly certain Val isn't powered, and it really does seem that she escapes the vortex of strangeness that is the Doom Patrol's existence.

"That woman -- I'm getting incredibly bad vibes from her --!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 913: Avengers v.1 #244, June 1984

What does one do when one's rocket base is overrun by shape-changing aliens determined to destroy humanity? Call the Avengers, of course! That's what they're for.

A really, really interesting part of this comic is a small, throwaway line that tells us that the Dire Wraiths are actually an offshoot from the Skrull race. This is kind of cool, in that it ties Rom and the Wraiths, who've always seemed a bit separate from the main Marvel U, into that continuity a little more fully. There are a few toy-based comics in this era that actually are fairly securely ensconced in the Marvel U, the other primary example I can think of being the Saga of Crystar series. Jonathan Hickman brings the Rom properties back into view, if only briefly, in his Infinity series, and the Wraiths are one of the races of Inhumans that arrive on Earth during his Fantastic Four run. The Crystar characters rejoin the Marvel U during the 2015 "Secret Wars" series in the pages of Weirdworld. It's nice to see that these properties, though primarily designed to advertise toys, still have some longevity to them.

The battle with the Wraiths seems to go well, though the Vision has a bit of a tantrum when it is suggested that the Avengers might need help from the federal government's forces. What is going on with our favourite synthezoid? We'll find out soon enough, I would think.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 838: Strange Adventures #201, June 1967

Just before we get to this comic, if you're interested on the brief thoughts I had about Animal Man's previous adventures, they're here:

"I Was the Man with the Animal Powers"
"Return of the Man with Animal Powers"
"A-Man, The Hero with Animal Powers" (Don't actually have this. Only one of the early adventures I've never read.
"Animal Man, Hero or Freak?"

So let's get on to the only one of his adventures not reprinted in the later Adventure Comics series.

Is it just me, or does that look like a very poorly put together Hank McCoy on the cover of that comic? Animal Man's early adventures were, to be blunt, pretty forgettable. Aside from his bizarre origin, which grows only more bizarre as Morrison gets his hands on Buddy, the stories are really pretty mediocre, which might explain the 13 year absence from comics following this story. (Well, not entirely true. His tales were reprinted in Adventure Comics, but when you're a back-up feature to Supergirl, who's going to notice anything else?)

Those reprints actually tell us all we need to know about today's A-Man story. It's so silly that they didn't even bother reprinting it, even though they'd reprinted every other Animal Story that had been written. Today's villain injects himself with...something that turns him into a gorilla with the brain of a human. Then he dresses in "mod" clothing and robs banks.

Can't wait for the gritty, Vertigo-esque reboot of the Mod Gorilla Boss - a grim tale of addiction to Quaaludes and going to too many The Who concerts.

The most interesting aspect of this story is the Carmine Infantino art. Infantino is famous for much of his work, and for me it's mostly his run on the later issues of the Barry Allen Flash series. But here we're seeing a much less-refined version of his art. Infantino has a very distinctive style, easily picked out from amongst his contemporaries. The art in today's comic isn't quite there yet, though the potential of what he was to accomplish shows through. There's some really great shots of Animal Man flying that speak to the draughtsman that Infantino would eventually become.

On to a couple more early adventures tomorrow. To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 753: Justice League of America #200

A lazy Sunday morning in bed reading an oversized Justice League comic and having a bowl of cereal. While outside, it looks like it might actually be Spring (I fool myself, but sometimes we have to).

Today's comic follows in that long tradition of comics about superheroes fighting superheroes. I'm not sure where this particular subgenre comes from. Sometimes I think that it has a lot to do with why diverse religions have battled one another over the course of human history. We place our faith in something and can't possibly understand how someone else could place something so important and vital in something different. Everyone has a favourite superhero, one that we place our faith in, so it's natural (?) to want to know who'd come out on top. My god is stronger than your god, I suppose.

On the other hand, it might just come from the idea that we want to see the cool characters duking it out with one another. Yeah, when they fight a villain, it's cool. But villains, by their nature in these kinds of comics, will always lose. If it's heroes fighting one another, who's the villain? Who's going to lose? Such contests offer a bit more suspense.

That aside, this was a fairly standard early 80s DC comic. The artists jam on the issue was pretty sweet, bringing together some of the truly great DC artists of the last few decades. It was also a nice hearkening back to the original JLA case from The Brave and the Bold, though how it would fit in with Mark Waid's retcon in JLA:Year One, I'm not sure. Though I'm fairly certain that's not canon anymore anyway. Well, given DC's propensity for multiverses, it's canon somewhere, I'm sure.

To be continued.