Superman-Batman Heft 8 (April 1976)

After a long blogging break, I'm posting a bunch of German reprint editions of DC Comics today. This here is a reprint of 1974's The Brave and the Bold #114 by Bob Haney & Jim Aparo published in a Superman series that was later conjoined with Batman by its publisher, Ehapa Verlag GMBH. Since this isn't a 100 Page reprint-packed edition, the cover art is rendered full bleed, instead of the shrunken version on the original U.S. edition. The story starts on the inside front color, which unlike what we'd expect domestically, is in full vibrant cover. Actually, this edition is what they call "self-cover," meaning all the pages are the same stock. The paper is thinner and flimsier than the U.S. version, but also glossy in a way we'd rarely see before the 21st Century. There's only one full page advertisement, for some sort of kid-friendly Kodak camera.

I already talked about Aquaman elsewhere today, and this is a Tiny Titan blog, so know that the back-up feature was "Up Pops the Atom" from 1973's Action Comics #430. The German version drops inker Dick Giordano from the credits, only offering Elliot S! Maggin & Dick Dillin. Those colors really pop in this version, and dig those crazy fan art submissions from the inside back cover!

1986 FPC DC Comics Calendar Poster

Fellow children of the '80s likely longed for this swell looking calendar, featured in ads across various DC titles. It looked like a normal calendar, with 12 rectangular images of swell characters by top talents, incorporating the monthly calendar. There was a couple of cheats, in that the George Pérez New Teen Titans image was "zoomed in," obscuring six other partially visible sections, and obliterating a second. Further, all of those other images were barely more than postage stamps, and all of them were in black and white. It was a tantalizing tease though, including a Gil Kane Sword of the Atom (featuring Princess Laethwen;) a Joe Kubert Sgt. Rock & Easy Company; a Luke McDonnell/Jerry Ordway group shot of Green Lantern John Stewart, Firestorm, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter; Keith Giffen Christmas with Ambush Bug & Cheeks; plus a very licensing on-model Superman (Ross Andru?)

It was produced by FPC, or The Federal Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., who distributed black & white DC Comics reprints in the Down Under. In fact, the ad running, in the original U.S. comics, added the unusual shipping penalty of $1.50 extra outside Australia-- which is, y'know, all of us buying the original North American editions. Like, almost everybody on Earth is somewhere besides Ozzieland, which has less than 27M population, only 0.33% of the global population. I live in the state of Texas, with nearly 31M, and that's only one (admittedly populous) of 50 United States, and these things went to Canada, too (40M.) At $6.50 in 1985 dollars, that's $19.00 today, including shipping, which actually isn't that bad when I consider it. But it's pretty hefty for something expected to be thrown out on a year, which might be why I've never seen one in the wild. But also, it's a one-sheet poster, not a flip calendar, with the Marshall Rogers Batman & Robin crowding into four of the other images (molesting a small portion of the previously unobscured Titans portion.) Other characters revealed in the final release are Blue Devil & Amethyst by Paris Cullins, and... wait... that's it? A twelve month calendar with only eight images, because several months do double duty, and one triple. What a rip-off.

Captain Atom #3 (May, 1987)

On an analogue for Nightline, Captain Atom appeared for a television interview, where he revealed his "secret origin." In actuality, he retold his Silver Age origin, and retconned his Charlton published stories into a government crafted cover story for public consumption. The major difference was that Captain Atom was supposed to have been acting in secret within the DCU for years, "training" to be a super-hero in his old gold costume. As his powers developed, he switched to a red and blue costume that incorporated his silver skin, and fought covert (fictional) villains like Dr. Spectro, Drako and the Fiery Icer. However, Atom retired for three years after meeting and loving a terminally ill wife, Eve. On her deathbed, she made him swear to go public as Captain Atom.

While the taped interview was being broadcast, military brass ordered Captain Atom to clean up after a nuclear submarine. Adam refused, using the incident as a bargaining tool to force Eiling into finally allowing him to be reunited with his children. His grandstanding called into question Eiling's control over the project in front of Admiral Place, but Eiling stood firm. "If the problem here comes down to your denying the Captain the right to see his children-- you're going to have some serious explaining to do to the Joint Chiefs!"

Goz found out the travel itinerary of Adam's daughter Peggy, and Captain Atom flew to Dulles International Airport to greet her as Captain Cameron Scott. Margaret Eiling no longer went by "Peggy," and wasn't interested in some military man trying to hit on the General's daughter. Adam was left standing alone, sickened by his own daughter having sized him up as dating material, all the while the spitting image of her dead mother.

Feeling naive and stupid, Captain Atom realized his kids were adults only a few years younger than himself. They had been raised by Eiling, and would never accept Adam as their father again. Feeling depressed and out of place, Atom journeyed under the ocean to take care of the submarine situation. However, he ignored Dr. Megala's warning about absorbing the energy slowly and from a safe distance...

"Blast From The Past" was by Cary Bates, Pat Broderick and Bob Smith. This was the true continuation from the first issue, with the best art and character development so far. Captain Atom's straight-faced b.s.ing of Ted Koppel on national television displayed a comfort with reshaping the truth uncommon in DC heroes. His willingness to play hardball with Eiling also spoke to previously unseen gravel in his guts. The reworking of Charlton continuity was equal parts clever and galling, as was the co-opting of recently minted storytelling innovations by Miller and Moore in service to an unapologetic super-hero plot. Exploring the loss of Adam's relationship with his still-living children offered much greater pathos than yet another hero kneeling at the gravestone of a loved one. At 28, Adam is old enough to have been invested in his family, but young enough to be attractive to his daughter and (by implication) return the sentiment while seeing what was essentially the reincarnation of his bride. Yes, it's icky, but it's also ambitious, a hallmark of this period that helped set Captain Atom apart from all the cosmic-powered Peter Parkers before and since.

Captain Atom #2 (April, 1987)

After a few weeks of strategic immersion into the history that had passed him by, Nathaniel Adam was given the new cover identity of Cameron Scott, while "Captain Atom" was bandied about in the media. Batman was dismissive of another new super-hero following the G. Gordon Godfrey crusade, while Superman was ever optimistic. Blue Beetle felt a weird kinship with the new guy, while Firestorm saw competition. "From what I've seen and read about him so far, this chrome-plated 'Captain...' is nobody I couldn't burn atomic circles around any day of the week!"

Adam was letting Cameron Scott roll around in his brain as if it were "James Bond." Military intelligence had given him his first mission-- infiltrating a Quebec secessionist terrorist cell. Scott was initially accepted by the group's leader, a beautiful redhead, but ended up stripped nude and left in a death trap. Adam's sweat would trigger a bomb strapped around his waist, as he'd been informed by a video left by Plastique. Dig how the plot was pure Dr. Evil, but the medium was them newfangled VCRs Adam was just learning about.

Adam managed to turn into Captain Atom before triggering the bomb, and even managed to fly fast enough to grab some secret plans Plastique had left behind to get blowed-up. Très commode! In a twist almost as jarring as when it turns out the SWAT team isn't busting into Jame Gumb's house as Jodie Foster approaches the front door, Cameron Scott isn't surprised when Plastique is undercover as a reporter at a press conference with President Ronald Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He's not even there. Instead, he had run into his best friend, Sergeant Jeff Goslin, after eighteen years. Goz didn't recognize Adam at first (White hair? Sunglasses? Comic books.) but they were soon hugging in reunion. It was cut short when Captain Atom was needed elsewhere.

Atom finally figured out that the location designated on a map he'd seen related to a suicide bomber's planned position. Atom saved the guy, then tortured him for seven seconds with molecular heat to dope out the next target. It was a granny packing a bomb in the Statue of Liberty. The Captain saved the monument, but not the terrorist. Finally, Captain Atom confronted Plastique at the press conference, who must have been part anime heroine by managing to change into a skimpy costume between panels, but not kill the president or P.M. Captain Atom absorbed her energy blasts, then knocked her out with one punch for the cover of Life. Batman reconsidered his earlier criticisms, while Superman and Blue Beetle were validated. Firestorm? "I was the first one to fight Plastique! If I had been on the case-- she never would've gotten near that press conference! You're still a small-time hero, Captain Atom... and someday Firestorm will be the one to prove it! Maybe someday soon."

"A True American Hero?" was by Cary Bates, Pat Broderick and Bob Smith. The art was much better this time, but still not quite up to Broderick's usual standard. He clearly relished drawing Plastique and her cleavage again, but her appearance was a sticking point. The first super-villain the new Captain Atom fought was a minor Firestorm sparring partner whom he beat in seconds. That's not very respectful of the source, and makes Atom seem like a spin-off besides. Captain Atom's real foe at time was his own gullibility, and he's carried over Firestorm's signature underachievement by taking on generic bad guys he clearly outmatches. Also, his primary characterization remains a lame sense of humor, so the appeal of the new character is all in the visuals.

Captain Atom #1 (March, 1987)

A brown-haired man sat nearly nude in a silver pod being lowered miles below the Earth's surface. Electrodes strapped all over and cameras trained on him, Adam told bad jokes to calm his anxiety. Dr. Megala was sympathetic, but Colonel Eiling reminded "Nathaniel Adam was found guilty of treason and sentenced to die. If he survives this experiment, the government has agreed to commute his sentence and make him a free man. That prospect does not 'amuse' me..."

Encased in seemingly indestructible metal taken from a downed alien spacecraft, Adam hoped to soon return to his loving wife and young children. If not, he'd made Eiling promise to deliver a letter that the Colonel instead ripped up. A multi-megaton bomb was detonated, leaving no trace of Adam, the extraterrestrial pod, or even any remaining radiation...

Jeff Goslin was Adam's best friend in the military, and passed along what information he could to his wife "Ange." The UFO had crashed in Nevada a year earlier, and the presumed dead "little green men" inside were put on ice. The ship was immune to the most powerful weapons around, and Nate was being used to determine its outside extremes. "Lissen up. This is the same Cap'n Adam who went down with his plane 30 miles inside Cambodia and managed to walk out again a week later. The man's a natural-born survivor..."

An amorphous pink humanoid form appeared from nowhere in the desert, and unintentionally brought down a jet fighter with its energy beams at Winslow Air Force Base. Conventional weapons bounced right off it, but the creature eventually laid down on its own. Taken into custody, military scientists observed the creature slowly absorbing outer layers of mass into itself, becoming more human in appearance. It turned into a silver-skinned human male. General Eiling wanted an up close look as the creature opened its eyes. "Eiling... What happened to you. You look so... old!!"

Eiling cleared the room, then hammered at what appeared to be Nathaniel Adam. "I remember your sense of humor, Captain. I still do not share it." Eiling told Adam about his rise in rank, and the deaths of John Wayne, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, Jack Benny, Anwar Sadat, Indira Ghandi and John Lennon. "Your wife is dead too." Adam was sufficiently provoked, so Eiling hit him with nerve gas and claimed he was an inhuman creature that attacked him. No one was to get near the thing without his orders.

Eiling next consulted Dr. Megala, who had deteriorated physically from needing leg braces to a fully automated body. Megala believed the alien metal had needed sufficient time to absorb the explosion, with the excess energy it could not immediately absorb used to fuel a "quantum leap" through years of space-time. Eiling feared what Adam represented, and had no intention of allowing Megala further access. Instead, he had Adam stuffed into a rocket meant to launch a new communications satellite, and ordered Megala's death.

Babylon, Megala's brawny Black aide, injected the assassin with the potassium chloride intended for the doctor. Both men went into hiding. Captain Adam also escaped death by using his energy powers to explode the rocket within the atmosphere, and learned to fly to safety under his own power. Adam traveled to his family's home, but found it vacated, with Dr. Megala and Babylon anticipating his arrival. Adam agreed to join Megala in hiding, so that his powers could be studied and a means found to restore his full humanity before reuniting with his wife.

Government agents found Megala's hideout, and observed from afar. Tests found that Captain Atom's skin was impervious to injury, and that he could access "quantum potential" to fire unlimited energy at will. His silver skin could absorb and repurpose energy as simple as flames or as complex as lasers. Adam could effect his field of gravity to allow for flight propulsion, and he had incredible strength. Finally, Adam managed to reclaim his human form when desired.

General Eiling followed this progress, and when the time was right, alerted President Reagan. Eiling's forces took over Megala's home, and the General had Adam fly them both to the grave of Angela Eiling (1938-1982.) After mourning for three years, Ange married Wade for eleven years before dying one night of a heart attack in her sleep. "Perhaps our years weren't as idyllic as the years of young love she shared with you... More mature, certainly less passionate, perhaps." Wade had raised Adam's children. "Margaret is 23 next month. Randall is 26." Ronald Reagan was under no obligation to honor any agreement made to Nathanial Adam in 1968, but in 1986 would allow him a measure of freedom if he acted as a deep cover agent and public super-hero...

"Point of Origin" was by Cary Bates, Pat Broderick and Bob Smith. For an extra quarter, the book ran forty pages without ads, and obviously took advantage by spanning eighteen years and dumping loads of exposition. For the times, it was somewhat decompressed, since the heroic Captain Atom wasn't really introduced and didn't get to fight a super-villain. Still, it told a fairly complete origin story with lots of subplots generated, a wealth of supporting characters, and an antagonist to truly make the blood boil. The art was somewhat off in its weird proportions and general inconsistency, which may be due to the page count or the collaborative process. That would improve with time, just as did the main character and stories.

Power of the Atom Podcast #613

Mightier Than the Sword!

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• Domestic dispute!
• By Roger Stern, Graham Nolan, & K.S. Wilson!
• From DC Comics's April 1989 cover-dated Power of the Atom #11!

Among the most famous maxims of Hillel the Elder was "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?" It's a recognition that a person must take care of themselves and their individual interests while also observing the needs of their community, with an emphasis on urgency over complacency and unrealized "good intentions." Meanwhile, some common advice given to authors includes “write what you know” and "“write for yourself." The assumption is that your writing will be more authentic and better informed if you're working from a place of utmost expertise, from within the self.

Aside from being the fourth best Superman writer in the glory days of triangle numbering, Roger Stern is most known for his Marvel Comics work, especially a lengthy tenure on The Avengers. To my knowledge, he's been married once since 1982, no divorces, and he cannot alter his size and density with a belt composed from white dwarf matter. I therefore find this comic perplexing. You would think that spending an entire issue on the beef between Ray Palmer and the man his ex-wife committed adultery with would perhaps come from a personal place. Yes, Ray abandoned Jean Loring after discovering the affair, and she went on to marry Paul Hoben, who proved to be much more inclined toward jealousy and domestic violence. There's some interpersonal drama to mine there, and Stern is oft-acclaimed for finding the humanity in super-hero stories like "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" and "Under Siege." Yet, this issue is like a four color episode of Thirtysomething, which hadn't even been invented yet.

Two issues earlier, Ray and Jean had shared a hug in the kitchen, as Ray was still dealing with grief over the destruction of the alien tribe he'd joined, including his yellow-skinned rebound chick that didn't play at all like some sort of "gone native" post-Vietnam narrative. It was sort of a macho '80s "Eat Pray Love" with frog steeds; these jaundiced little people soothing the savage breast of a white boy in crisis, literally existing only so long as Ray needed warm bodies to stab with one implement or another. I don't know how long that hug in the kitchen with Jean lasted for, but both Jean's second husband Paul Hoben and Ray's prospective love interest Enrica Negrini managed to individually walk in on them and have baby breakdowns over it. One of them getting the wrong idea would be understandable, but for two separate individuals to come to the same conclusion, I think this may have been less Rashomon and more Fear of Flying. To paraphrase SisQó, Jong Y-Jong, Jong, Jong.

Both Enrica and Paul individually interrogate and instigate, feeding especially into Paul's deep insecurities, until he's hurling accusations of infidelity and donning a spare shrinking belt Ray had given him before returning to the Amazon in one of the Sword of the Atom specials. Most likely, this whole thing was an excuse to amend that bit of ill-considered continuity, but having Paul travel through a phone line to assault a sleep-deprived Ray Palmer was more a compounding than correction. Of all the shrinking characters, Ray is the only one that travels through phone lines, but now we get to add an asterisk "also his ex's side piece." Further, the fight starts on page six and ends on twenty-one. In a book that's been notably light on action, thirteen pages go to the epic battle between a super-hero and an attorney-at-law. Even with a host of handicaps, like Ray's only getting four hours sleep from spending the day studying Humbug's synthetic skin, or not wanting to hurt Paul, and being overconfident in handling Paul with kid gloves but still, that's... a lot of pages. Surely an untrained fighter using a shrinking device for the first time time could have been subdued with a quickness, but instead things escalate from home invasion and assault to attempted murder when they begin to sword fight with a busted pair of scissors.

Ray has a 'Nam flashback and almost kills Paul while seeing him as a Boundsman of Morlaidh, just as police show up to investigate. Regardless, it's played as Paul was being a big dumb jerk who tried to wreck Ray's lab and cut up the Humbug skin over a silly misunderstanding. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here in 2023 wondering why Paul wasn't even a suspect in Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis. They could have dubbed him "Red Flag" and had him team-up with Buzz Baxter in DC vs. Marvel. But also, the same Jean Loring that told Paul that if he left the house with the belt, he shouldn't bother coming back, then drove partway to Ivy Town in a sheer nightgown with a cutout from the cleavage to the navel held together by fishnet. Girl could get arrested running around like that, and did, when she got busted speeding with "I'm a super-hero's ex looking to break up a fight in my négligée" as her excuse. Grrrl, you all about that drama. Ray and Paul had to phone into the police station to get her released, with a sad little panel of Paul surrendering the belt for bad measure.

Returning to the opening quandary, who was this for? Was there a little seven year itch in Rog's life he was working out in print? Was he writing what he knew, or was what he knew the loosey-goose handling of domestic violence from period network television? Stern thankfully, blessedly takes the next couple issues off, returns to wrap up some storylines for another couple issues, and then abandons the troubled series he launched to die three issues later. Was this issue just vamping to fill space and sorta kinda not really resolve a subplot? Didn't this book launch on the premise that The Atom was returning to super-heroics in a Post-Crisis bold new direction that would see him pursuing the shady government faction responsible for destroying Morlaidh for reasons unknown? A year later, and the series is about negotiating book tours and resolving marital strife? If this was a series Stern was writing for himself, reflecting his life, what he really needed was couples counseling. If he was writing for the market, it's no wonder work started drying up in the '90s, with the Superman titles continuing to serve as a de facto welfare state. "Hey buddy, the comic industry doesn't have pensions, but we do have Action Comics. Want to write by committee a weekly adaptation of ABC television's Lois & Clark for half-a-dozen years? I think maybe it's the lead-in for Thirtysomething? Boy, I sure like me some Timothy Busfield dramedy." There was a whole article in Amazing Heroes #162 about course-correcting this title after Invasion! to be more action-oriented, but we're right back into The Big Chill with aging boomers crying about their Ivy League educations and publisher's advances and having to choose between a genius scientist and a lawyer. I guess somebody thought that was an audience worth chasing, but it was stinkin' thinkin'.

Jean Loring,POTAcast,Power of the Atom,Ray Palmer,

Power of the Atom Podcast #612

Bah, Humbug!

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• Recurring villain debut: Humbug!
• By Roger Stern, Graham Nolan, K.S. Wilson and more!
• From DC Comics's March 1989 cover-dated Power of the Atom #10!

A bald Caucasian mercenary with bushy inward-slanted eyebrows under sunglasses listened to a disembodied electronic voice give him orders to target Ray Palmer in Ivytown. Wearing a fashionably formal all black leather outfit with gloves, broken up only by a fuchsia ascot with black polka-dots, the villain rose from a futuristic chaise lounge to view a circular screen projecting footage of the Atom in action. Mimicking the Mighty mite move-for-move like a depilated Taskmaster, this so-called Humbug was chastised for not paying attention. Able to chew bubblegum and jump snap kick at the same time, Humbug was well aware that Ray Palmer jad vanished eighteen months prior, only to spring up in the past six weeks to become a hang-up in someone's master plan. At one point, Humbug removed his sunglasses, revealing pupil-less eyes and that he had been wearing a fake nose to cover the smooth patch down to his lipless, toothy grin. He them bent a wrench in his bare hands, demonstrating great strength, not that we could possibly take him seriously going forward now that we know he's basically wearing a Groucho Marx novelty disguise. Say, did you ever notice that Peter O'Toole is a duophallic name?

At the home of Professor Emeritus Alpheus V. Hyatt, Ray Palmer was demonstrating density-control enabled one-armed push while topless for Ricki Negrini, who he's totally not trying to smash. There's a demonstration of how the Atom can don his costume automatically by shifting it onto his body from another dimension, and Negrini questioned whether the intermittent light show was dependent upon his mood. Norman Brawler showed up to has out the details of their travel plans to New York for a meeting with Warner Books to sign contracts and negotiate promotion for the upcoming revised paperback edition of his biography. Norman would have to catch a plane alone, because Ray intended to literally phone in for his part once all the arrangements had been made so that he could continue researching his enhanced abilities. Also, his fellow scientists had to help talk him into going forward with the new edition, after all the headaches the hardcover had caused upon his return. As the punchline to a thing that in theory resembled a gag, the scientists also threatened to go on tour with an a cappella rendering of the 1909 hit "By the Light of the Silvery Moon." Boy, it's a good thing the average comic reader of 1989 was up on references to a 1953 Doris Day musical. DC Comics: Please share us with your grandparents! We'll take what audience we can get! Yes, comic books are a dollar now! We know you're on a fixed income, but maybe you can haggled for a discount at your local comic shop! We know gas is currently 66¢ per gallon and burning it in a drive would take longer than reading this comic. Look, can you just give it back to little Timmy? What do you mean he's reading The Punisher?!? What kind of grandparent are you? You took Timmy to see Death Wish 3? No yes, of course we'll miss the Gipper, too. You know, this is a long distance periodical, we'd better go before the rates go up again.

In Calvin City, Ray's ex-wife and her new husband argue about having caught her in a kitchen embrace with Palmer as she was consoling him over the deaths of Princess Laethwen and her people in Morlaidh. Paul Hoben's insecurity will be referenced again at the end of the issue, as he determines that the only way to win back Jean Loring's heart is by digging an old Atom belt out of the basement and perform some size-alterations himself. I don't think it's a pee-pee thing, but when you use a size-altering belt as a marital aid, it seems like maybe it's a pee-pee thing. I mention it now because I don't want to have to set this stupid subplot up again because we're all going to forget I'd mentioned Paul Hoben by the end of this thing, and these synopses are only about five minutes long. It's not the length of the podcast, it's the snore of a subplot.

Since the C.I.A. had been covertly monitoring Ray Palmer's movements, Humbug arranged to impersonate their superior on a telephone call, then orders the agents to Salt Lake City. I guess that means he's a master of impersonations, at least. Continuing that theme, Humbug next served as Paul Hoben's can driver, as a window washer outside Warner Books, and finally as a gopher bringing coffee into the meeting. Ray is pushed through the phone line by Professor Hyatt singing the 1939 duet "Deep Purple" by Nino Tempo & April Stevens, in case Little Timmy wants to ask Great Uncle Jedidiah about this comic bo-- little Timmy never picked the book back up again, did he? This is how we get cancelled in the same number of issues as Wasteland and how Doc Savage outlasted us, isn't it? This is why the Blackhawk revival is more fondly remembered? Because on page 14, after spending three pages on details of the book publication contract, the bad guy finally attacks the good guy with pink gas pellets?

The Atom shrank to avoid the knockout gas, but immediately got suckered into growing and coughing, but shrank again to escape. There was a running fight through bland office spaces across routine five panel pages of serviceable art involving the Tiny Titan landing a punch that knocked the stupid glasses/rubber nose combo off. Atom noted Humbug's resistance to the gas, great strength and endurance, and finally his vanishing into himself, leaving a full body husk of probably artificial skin. Oh, and Humbug was still in disguise the whole time, wearing a green windbreaker, khakis, and white sneakers. Appropriate, since Power of the Atom is the khaki of comics. Humbug was back in his cruising dandy outfit to be berated by his anonymous boss over the unauthorized, high profile attack, but Humbug was rude and kooky and a tad insubordinate while swearing that he's get 'im next time. Yep, just a big ol' pile of khaki right here.

Jean Loring,POTAcast,Power of the Atom,Ray Palmer,