Not-So-Secret Origins of the JLA - Aquaman

Here we have it, the final entry in our Aquaman week. But the last is far from least!

Aquaman, like Wonder Woman already had an origin story from back in 1941. However, to bring him up to speed, the good folks at DC felt he needed a little "tweak". The following origin story was drawn by the absolutely incredible Ramona Fradon. Unfortunately, the writer's name is lost to time and uncertainty. From Adventure Comics #260, May 1959 here's "How Aquaman Got His Powers"








But wait! Apparently the Sea King was so awesome he warranted another telling of his origin a scant two years later. This time, the Atlantean angle is expanded upon and we learn more of Arthur's mother, Atlanna. From Showcase #30, January- Februay 1961 here's an excerpt from "The Creatures From Atlantis" by Jack Miller, with more art by the dazzling Ramona Fradon.

Not-So-Secret Origins of the JLA Week- Green Lantern

Imagine my surprise when I suddenly realized I did NOT actually own a reprint of this story! I have a reprint of Green Lantern's origin being abbreviated and recapped in Green Lantern #1, but somehow, I was unaware that this specific story was missing from my library.

In a state of panic, I went to the local, public library to check out Green Lantern Archives. Little did I realize they only had a copy of Green Lantern Archives vol. 6!

Thankfully, that blogger's blogger and all-around good guy Mykal Banta helped me out with a scan of this landmark story. Incidentally, If you're a big fan of Gil Kane's artwork, (and who wouldn't be?) you may want to check out Mykal's newest blog, "Kingdom Kane".

As I alluded to yesterday, the unbridled success of DC's remake of The Flash in Showcase #4 struck a chord with the powers that be at DC. It was decided to try the formula again, this time with another cancelled hero, Green Lantern. The original Green Lantern (created by Martin Nodell) had been a railroad construction engineer who found a mysterious and ancient lantern fashioned from metal from a meteorite. This lantern and the ring fashioned from it had almost magical powers, a sort of Aladdin's lamp.

Editor Julius Schwartz had come from sci-fi publishing and he liked the idea of modernizing DC's heroes with more "scientific" explanations. There were hints of that in The Flash's origin, but sci-fi takes a front seat in this, the debut of Green Lantern. From Showcase #22, September-October 1959 here's Green Lantern's origin from "S.O.S. Green Lantern" by John Broome, drawn by Gil Kane and inked by Joe Giella.

Not-So-Secret Origins of the JLA Week- The Flash

For many comics historians, Showcase #4, October, 1956 is the "Day the universe changed". Or at least one of them. The publication of this little number ushers in The Silver Age. The Flash is widely regarded as the first new superhero of the Silver Age. Especially by DC. I'm not sure why they withhold their love from poor little Johnny Jones, Manhunter from Mars. After all, he did debut almost a full year earlier than The Flash. Perhaps, as a back-up feature to Batman he just didn't bring in the sales figures of a coverboy like Flash.

At any rate, in Showcase #4, DC takes it's first steps towards creating a new age of heroes. And they did it by looking towards the past. The Flash was a remake of a previous DC hero from the 1940's whose book had been cancelled (in fact, Barry Allen is reading one of his comics in the story). This process is old hat these days, but in 1956, comics had only been around for 2 decades. As you'll see tomorrow, it was successful, because DC went back to the same well time and time again.

Enjoy the beautiful dynamic art of Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Kubert (more commentary after the feature) :
















I have to say, Barry Allen is a likeable guy. While The Flash is a very physical sort of hero, his alter-ego is a genuinely nerdy police scientist and comics geek.

There are many ways to show a man running fast but Infantino seems to have mastered the technique of depicting The Flash's speed through blurred motion lines, suggesting that he's moving faster than the eye can keep up with.

My favorite panel in this issue? Top of page 5, with the food floating in mid-air. Comics don't actually move, like film or TV, so it's remarkable how well Infantino captures the moment here. I think the coffee really sells it. It would have been very easy to draw this scene and simply rely on captions to tell you what was happening, but this picture actually tells you that everything is standing still except Barry.

Tomorrow: Green Lantern.

I Rann, I Rann So Far Away... Showcase #17

Adam Strange is an ordinary, everyday archaeologist. Well, more like a movie serial archaeologist who happens to discover a lost Incan treasure (without lifting a shovel) gets chased by hostile natives and leaps over a cliff. But that's not the far-fetched part.

As Adam makes his risky leap, he is teleported from Earth to the planet Rann, orbiting the "star-sun" Alpha Centauri- 25 trillion miles away. Strange finds himself in the company of a pretty young woman who takes him to see her scientist father. Their language barrier is overcome easily by hooking Adam to the "Menticizer" a "remarkable device that lets our children talk from the day they are born!" - I love how space people and people from the future always seem so excited by what are clearly mundane things in their own world. - Also, "children talk from the day they are born?". Really? What do they say? "Hungry!", "Wet!" "Sleepy!" "There you are!"... what a breakthrough.

Once Adam can understand Alanna and her father Sardath, Sardath explains Adam's bizarre arrival on the planet Rann. Apparently, Rann sent out radio beams to Earth a little over 4 years ago hoping to communicate with Earth. Somehow the radio beams were transformed into a teleportation beam or "Zeta-Beam". It took a little over 4 years because Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years from Sol.

Now I'm no astrophysicist, but firstly, do radio waves travel at light speed?? Not that I'm aware of. Secondly, if the "Zeta-Beam" travels at light speed and it took 4.3 light years to reach Earth... wouldn't it have taken another 4.3 years for Adam Strange to reach Rann????

Any way, despite Rann's superior, advanced technology it takes a clodhopper from Earth to defeat an alien invasion (don't you people rate a Green Lantern?). Which just happens to start right after Adam Strange arrives. Which is pretty much the theme of every Adam Strange story of the entire Silver Age.

Adam Strange is a likeable comic. It borrows heavily from John Carter of Mars and Buck Rogers, but has it's own, unique voice. The way each story ends with Adam being teleported back to Earth, away from a world of adventure and the woman he loves is somehow genuinely poigniant. Strange lives his life on Earth counting the days, hours and minutes until the next Zeta-Beam to Rann. I can imagine a few readers found themselves counting the weeks until the next issue of Mystery in Space.

“THIS IS IT...THE HOWLING NEW ONE FROM DC—WHICH ROARS WHERE OTHER JUNGLE BOOKS PURRRRR!” Guest blogger Michael Carroll takes on B'Wana Beast

Of course, howling roars could also suggest some sort of intestinal disorder, but more about that later.

B’wana Beast was a fabled character in my early fandom years. “Worst. Superhero. Ever.” Was the most uttered phrase whenever his name was mentioned, and this was before we started separating each word in those observations with punctuation.

By that time in my life, I'd co-founded a bad movies club in high school, and was much enamored of lesser known comic book heroes and obscure characters. The first time I recall seeing anything about B'wana Beast, he was featured as one of the potential new members for The Justice League of America, in a very funny Dateline: @!!?# strip by Fred Hembeck.

Learning that there was a bad movie equal in superhero comics...well, insert the head explosion footage from David Cronenberg's “Scanners” except that it's a happy splosion and not provoked by Darryl Revok.

I don’t remember the exact day I found Showcase issues 66 and 67, but it was at the Eastland Mall in Columbus Ohio on a weekend when they hosted a small comics convention. I do remember that I was out of high school, which goes to prove not all adult decisions are necessarily sound.

B'wana Beast was Mike Maxwell, who rejected working for his millionaire father in favor of joining his college roommate Rupert Kenboya as a game warden in Zambesi Africa.

Of course they don't get far. Their plane is struck by lightning and crashes at Mt. Kilamanjaro. I figure staying in America wouldn'tve gone well either. Having wealthy parents in a superhero comic book pretty much paints an origin target on your head.

Fortunately Rupert and Mike survive, finding themselves in the lair of a mutant red ape. Mike drinks some rainwater filtered through the minerals of the mountain. The ape returns to its den, and Mike, suddenly empowered by the mineral water, wrestles and defeats the ape. As a sign of submission, the ape presents Mike with an alien helmet that allows him to communicate with animals, and also enables him to combine two animals into one big powerful mutant animal. There are no intentional punchlines in this paragraph.

The two issues detailed the Beast's encounters with the 'sinister' Hamid Ali, aka “He Who Never Dies”. Halfway through the first is a notable smackdown between BwaBeast and HWND. It's memorable because ol' Hamid is piloting a giant gold dinosaur looking tank, and BB uses his helmet to merge a rhino and a buffalo, which I guess makes a 'ruffalo', and battles Tankosaurus Rex.

The second issue continued the running battle, and introduced a female photographer who intended to capture the elusive B'wana Beast on film. For all the great honking originality bleeding all over the pages of these comics, the best career they could manage for the female character is photojournalist. As if Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen had a kid! I might actually give them enough credit to have swiped the female photojournalist idea from the John Wayne film “Hatari!” rather than any other comics.

Heavily promoted(meaning it received half to full page blurbs in nearly all the DC titles published at the time), the ‘Beast arrived in early '67 courtesy of writer Bob Haney, who’d already given the comics world Metamorpho, and Mike Sekowsky, regular penciller of the Justice League of America.

According to Toonopedia.com there was supposed to be a third issue, but Sekowsky left over the racism in the concept. They never found a replacement artist, and the third issue never appeared.

Re-reading them this week, I repeatedly had to pick my jaw up off the floor over the frequent use of jungle adventure stereotypes that were dated by about 30 years when these comics were published...42 years ago.

Of my favorite moments from the books:

*The first big reveal of B'wana; his expression, stance, and a strategically placed fire give the appearance of him taking a flaming dump.

*The red ape, Djuba, racing to get B'Wana a drink of Mt. Kilamanjaro Dew. Djuba. Everyone's favorite simian Alfred.

*Beast's battle cry. “KI KI KI KIUEEEEEE!” Clearly a callback to Tarzan's yell, but when read aloud, sounds dangerously close to ca-ca oowee.

*The giraffe riding panel on page 16 of Showcase #67. Also a callback of sorts, this time to the opening of The Lone Ranger radio show. Starts off with the same dramatic rhythm as LR's announcer, becoming less daring and resourceful as it goes until it's finally punctuated by that caca yell.

*The B'wana Beast costume. An alien helmet, fur trimmed boots, and candy cane loincloth(?!?). Certain to strike terror in the hearts of poachers and superstitious natives, if by terror you mean provoking your enemies to both laugh AND point.

It would be almost 20 years before B'wana would appear again, this time in issue two of the notorious DC maxiseries, “DC Challenge”. He used his animal melding powers to combine an elephant and a rhino. You do the math.

Grant Morrison brought him back briefly during his run on Animal Man, and one other person in the DC Universe took the helmet and water and became another version of the character(recently killed off, along with Mike Maxwell a few years back), but BwaBeast's best work is in another medium, in memorable animated guest shots in Justice League Unlimited (the classic “This Little Piggy”) and in the opening teaser of “Enter the Outsiders” from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where he merged a horse and a spider. Whatever you call that, don't wear spurs.

Considering his merging powers, I think B'wana has just as good a shot as a commercial spokeshero as Hawkman did with Baby Ruth a few years back. I mean, can you think of a better superpower to promote Reese Cups?

I'm such a fan of the character that I got Sergio Aragones to sketch ol' B'wana for me in 1985 while attending my first Chicago ComiCon. Curiously, I don't think I ever attempted to draw him until this week. Certainly have enough fluorescent Batman doodles lurking in my sketchbooks.

With the right approach, the B'wana Beast concept could support a light and silly adventure miniseries. Okay, I just slapped myself. That'll be enough of that.

Thanks to Toonopedia.com, the Wednesday night gathering of Sunday Comix at The Crimson Cup, wikipedia, Sergio, and Aaron for offering the blog space and the inspiration to write this. Oh! And extra special thanks to Fred Hembeck.

Green Lantern's weakness: a rant

Green Lantern may be one of DC most iconic superheroes, but that won't stop me from airing my bemusement at what may be the lamest superhero weakness of all. See, in order for a superhero to be interesting and allow room for some dramatic tension, the hero has to have SOME vulnerability. Superman is vulnerable to the effects of Kryptonite and also to magic. Wonder Woman becomes powerless if you tie her hands together. Aquaman can only breathe out of water for an hour. Martian Manhunter becomes weak in the presence of fire. You get the idea.

Green Lantern, one of the most powerful heroes in the DC canon, has what may be the lamest vulnerability ever. GL can't use his virtually omnipotent power ring on anything yellow. I'll say that again. Green Lantern can't use his virtually omnipotent power ring on anything yellow.

Now, at first thought, that may seem perfectly reasonable. Everyone has something they can't do. But consider this: How subjective is the concept of "yellow". Never mind that the power ring and it's energy are green and that green is made by combining blue and yellow. Never mind that it might have made more sense if the ring wouldn't work on things that were red (the opposite of green on the color wheel). What is yellow?? Does the ring work on yellow green? How about yellow orange? How much blue or red have to be involved before something isn't strictly yellow?

Now, obviously, this weakness wouldn't be too big a deal. I mean, Green Lantern can still manipulate everyday non-yellow objects to, say, block a blow from a yellow folding chair or something. What's funny is how often important things in GL stories seem to just happen to be yellow. I mean, is he going around telling everyone that he's vulnerable to yellow? His lame vulnerability inevitably leads to situations like this:


Also, on the Super-Friends cartoons from the 70's and 80's, about 90% of the stuff Green Lantern picks up with his ring or even the stuff he makes with his ring seems to BE yellow. It's like the ink and paint department misunderstood the memo. "OH everything BUT yellow!! Boy do I feel silly!"