Iron Man Makes His Debut - Tales of Suspense #89

When Iron Man first debuted in Tales of Suspense #89, two things about the story were remarkable. One, Iron Man looks like a guy made out of Iron. Two, it was topical. Tony Stark finds himself kidnapped in Vietnam, the prisoner of a band of "Red guerrillas". Doubtless, if DC had done a story like this in 1963, the protagonist would have been the prisoner of purple gorillas. Also, the technology behind Iron Man's amazing suit of armor is based in the real world. Sort of. Seems that Stan Lee and his brother, Larry Lieber, are very excited about that new technological breakthrough, the transistor.

From Wikipedia:

In electronics, a transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current flowing through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be much more than the controlling (input) power, the transistor provides amplification of a signal.

The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is used in radio, telephone, computer and other electronic systems. The transistor is often cited as being one of the greatest achievements in the 20th century, and some consider it one of the most important technological breakthroughs in human history. Some transistors are packaged individually but most are found in integrated circuits.

In fact, they're so excited about transistors, that they mention them 12 times within the 12 pages of this story. Transistors were a revolutionary piece of technology at the time, replacing the much larger and more fragile vacuum tubes and making it possible for teenagers to irritate people at the beach with portable radios.

It should be noted, however, that attaching a transistor to a big horseshoe magnet will not make it fling peoples' rifles away.

The artwork by the much unappreciated Don Heck, is gorgeous.

Anyway, If you haven't already seen the movie, Tony Stark is a weapons manufacturer/inventor who goes to Vietnam to test out some new transistorized small arms he's developed for the U.S. Army. He's wounded and captured by Communist insurgents. The Commies want him to build them some weapons before he dies of the shrapnel he took in the chest.

With the aid of a captured scientist, Stark builds the Iron Man armor from scrap iron and transistors, including the chest piece which keeps the shrapnel from reaching his heart. Transforming himself into the cybernetic superhero Iron Man, Stark defeats the Reds and acquires a new mission in life.

The Legion of Super-Pets. No. Really. I Swear It's For Real.

Frankly, I don't know what I could say that would make the above image any funnier.

I suppose I could ask just what constitutes a job for the Legion of Super Pets, but I'm not sure I really want to know. When I was little, I would've been all over this comic like Green Arrow on singles night, but now... Well, I guess I still like Krypto. And Streaky's okay (That's the cat). Comet the Super Horse has a really creepy extra ability to turn into a teenage boy who's in love with Supergirl. Made all the creepier by the fact that she rides him when he's a horse.

A super monkey is just a BAD idea. When monkeys reach sexual maturity, they become very aggressive. The last thing anyone wants is an invulnerable, super humanly strong primate humping people's legs and flinging indestructible poo at people he doesn't like.

Wow! This one just makes my head hurt.

Coming next week-

This week was a little off the cuff. Next week, I will give you readers (is anyone reading this??) articles on Supergirl, The Doom Patrol, Aquaman, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman... In no particular order. Also, I may riff on Green Arrow's fabulous trick arrows.


And, the last week of October, look for Hallowe'en- themed entries.

Riddle Me This- How Smart is The Riddler, Really?

So let's say you're a smartass with criminal tendencies who loves puzzles, riddles, games, crosswords, cryptoquips and even occasionally doing the Jumble in the local paper. So, you decide to launch a career as a super criminal. Now, first of all, being a super criminal is a losing proposition anyway. Any good crook knows the key to continued success is in NOT letting anyone know that YOU committed a crime. But, you have a huge ego, so you decide the costumed, attention-getting criminal career is right up your alley.

But then, you're not content to just commit riddle-themed crimes or steal Fabrege jigsaw puzzles or something. No, you want EVERYBODY to know that you're smarter than Batman. With me so far? Good, 'cause here's where this all goes south.

It's one thing to simply commit crimes and outwit Batman. That would be hard enough to do that word would surely get around and everyone would know you were clever. No, the Ridller's problem is that he wants to prove he can beat Batman, EVEN IF HE TELLS HIM WHAT HE'S GOING TO DO.

Let's back up a moment. Within the context of Batman's fictional world, the Caped Crusader is THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE. So, he's already smart enough to figure out where most bad guys are going to strike next by act two in just about every story. But to actually feed the guy clues...

I'm not sure how you get to be one of the most famous super crooks by announcing where you're going to strike next.

There's a reason why The Joker, not The Riddler is Batman's #1 foe.



"Turn your head and cough, Batman"

Bizarro am Sucky- Bizarro is Awesome!

Batman has always had the best, most interesting group of villains in comics. Superman, even though he debuted before Batman and was, in fact, the reason anyone bothered to create Batman, falls a little short in the bad guy department. Oh, sure, he has Lex Luthor- the evil genius who uses his incredible and sinister intellect to outwit The Man of Steel. And yeah, he has Brainiac- evil genius super-computer in an android body and hot pants who uses his incredible and sinister intellect to outwit The Man of Steel (Hey, is there a pattern here?). And, of course, he has the Toy Man -the evil genius who uses his incredible and sinister intellect to outwit The Man of Steel... with toys. But Superman seemed to be lacking anyone who could go toe-to-toe with him in sheer superness. Enter Bizarro.

Bizarro is an imperfect duplicate of Superman who was created through an accident with a duplication ray. Although the ray reproduced Superman's costume perfectly (the "S" wasn't orignially backwards) it had a little trouble with Supes himself. Like a bad scan of a bad Xerox, Bizarro is a lumpy, angular mess of a guy, with a childlike intellect coupled with the powers of a god. He speaks a weird, broken English that would make Tonto blush with shame.

Bizarro does "everything" Superman would do, except "backwards". Let me explain. The writers insist that Bizarro and the Bizarro World (we'll get there-) do everything the opposite way we do on Earth. Sometimes this is a stretch. Eventually, unable to fit in on Earth, Bizarro turns the duplication ray on Earth and makes an imperfect copy of our planet. Superman makes the planet square instead of round to make the Bizarros happy-which, I guess would make them miserable?- (and it's not square, it's cubical-although the writers always call it "square") Officially referred to by it's inhabitants as Htrae (Earth spelled backwards) it is more commonly known as Bizarro World.


Bizarro World is populated entirely by bizarro copies of Superman and Lois Lane. The original Bizarro wears a big medalion which says "Bizarro #1" to keep it clear that he's the "real" Bizarro. Eventually, there is a bizarro Krypto (who wants to be ignored and neglected) and a bizarro Lex Luthor (who wants to do good). Bizarros throw away gold and jewels and prize trash. The sanitation workers spread filth all over the city. They go to bed at dawn and get up at sunset ( but not consistantly) They say good-bye when they greet and hello when they leave- you get the idea:


All this begs a few questions. When Bizarro pointed the duplicator at Earth how come Htrae didn't already come populated with bizarro copies of everyone on Earth?? If Bizarro thinks that ugly is pretty and bad is good, then why does he make such a point of talking about it to himself all the time? It's like he's really straining to remember the rules rather than following his (un)natural tendencies. Shouldn't Bizarro Lex Luthor be not only noble, but unbelievably stupid??

Anyway, Bizarro stories are always loads of fun and rank among my favorite Superman stories.

Killer Moth... REALLY?

I'm feeling a bit lazy tonight, so I'm going to let Wikipedia do a little bit of my work for me:

"The original Killer Moth is a prisoner identified only by his prison number, 234026. While in prison, he reads a newspaper article about Batman and decides to set himself up as the "anti-Batman," hiring himself out to Gotham City's criminals to help them elude capture by police. Upon his release, he uses the hidden proceeds of his crimes to build a "Mothcave", modeled on the photos of the Batcave in the newspaper article he read.

Killer Moth also establishes a false identity, as millionaire philanthropist Cameron van Cleer. In this guise, he becomes friends with Bruce Wayne. Meanwhile, he promotes himself to Gotham's criminals using his identity as Killer Moth, giving them each an infra-red Moth-signal. In his first job, he rescues some criminals from the police and then uses his Mothmobile to defeat and capture Batman and Robin. The duo escape and lead Killer Moth to a climactic battle on Gotham Bridge, which ends when the villain plunges 1,000 feet into the river and disappears.

In his second appearance (Batman #64 March 1951) Killer Moth kidnaps Bruce Wayne and learns his secret identity. However, he is shot by other criminals and the resultant cranial injury causes amnesia. He remains a persistent enemy appearing through the Silver Age of comics. He is frequently remembered as being the first criminal Batgirl encounters in Detective Comics #359. "

So basically, this guy dresses up as a MOTH and hires himself out to crooks as an anti-Batman. A moth. You know what bats eat? Moths. You know how stupid moths are? They're so stupid they think your porch light is the sun and yearn to be near it. There are so many tougher animals, even tougher insects this guy could have been. And that costume is so... garish. It's just sad. I take back every mean thing I said about Sinestro, Black Manta and Brainiac. Killer Moth, you just suck. I hope you get eaten by Man-bat.

Sinestro. Why the #$@! Is He Right-Handed? a rant

Okay. This is nit-picky. Even for me. But come ON folks, the guy's name is Sinestro. Clearly derived from sinister. And if you didn't know the origins of sinsister, here's Meriam Webster's take on it:

Main Entry: sin·is·ter

Pronunciation: \ˈsi-nəs-tər, archaic sə-ˈnis-\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English sinistre, from Anglo-French senestre on the left, from Latin sinistr-, sinister on the left side, unlucky, inauspicious

Yep, that's right, sinister means "on the left side". I mean, you go to all the trouble to name a guy whose super powers come from his power ring Sinestro, you think you would've thought to add a little pinch of extra flavor and have him wear his power ring on his left.


I dunno, maybe John Broom intended Sinestro to be a south paw and Gil Kane didn't catch it. I really have no idea. Also, no matter how many Green Lantern comics I read, I still don't get how GL can beat Sinestro in a straight-forward ring fight. Green Lantern's ring (as mentioned in a previous, time-wasting rant) is powerless against anything yellow. Sinestro's ring and the constructs it makes are yellow. I don't care how cool Hal Jordan is, that's like having a superpower where you're magnetic, and your bad guy wears plastic armor.

Anyway, Sinestro should be a lefty.

'Nuff Said.