Continuing... Some of the Greatest Comic Book Stories Ever!

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Continuing in no particular order...

"The Legion's Super-Secret / Trial of the Legion Five"

sc: Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway. art: Mike Grell, George Tuska (inks Vince Colletta) - Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #235 - DC Comics, 1978

I hesitate to include this because this was published at a time when DC was experimenting with more pages, sometimes resulting in longer stories or, like here, two separate, more-or-less feature-sized stories in an issue (one 20 pages and the other 14 pages). My own rule was to not include double-sized stories, but this isn't...this is just two regular-sized stories, and each one is sufficiently good on its own that, combined, they makes this a noteworthy issue. The first has Superboy (back when he was Superman-as-a-teen and hanging in the future with a 30th Century super-hero team) suspecting that his team mates are secretly brainwashing him, but for what reason, he doesn't know. It's a nice adventure, with a nice core of sinister paranoia (no, no, it doesn't turn out they're planning a surprise birthday party or anything), some memorable character bits (a downcast Cosmic Boy expressing reservations about what they're doing) and a good "revelation" ending, all delivered by Paul Levitz and artist Mike Grell (an uneven artist, but here in top form), both of who had a past association with the book, and were pinch hitting here (Levitz would later return as regular writer). The "back up" tale, by Conway and the under-appreciated Tuska, has members of the Legion on trial, while, through flashbacks and differing perspectives, we see what led to the trial. It's an interesting narrative structure, well-handled (albeit, one has qualms with the cavalier way the characters need to kill a creature in order to extract a medicinal cure from it -- I guess "environmentalism" was an abstract concept back then). The story hinges on injuries Wildfire sustained at the end of the previous issue, but it's basically a self-contained tale. Both artists are inked by Vince Colletta, a guy with more than his share of villifiers, but his work here is sympathetic to the pencillers, adding mood. These are well told, well paced stories, with some nice emotion and clever plot twists.

"The Planet of No Life"

sc: Arnold Drake. art: Al McWilliams - Star Trek #50 - Gold Key, 1978

The TV series Star Trek has seen many comic book incarnations, by many different comic companies, and not too many would seem likely candidates for a "best of" list -- especially Gold Key's. Yet this issue has always stuck with me. The starship Enterprise comes upon a supposedly inhospitable planet that's been settled by a nomadic people who the Enterprise had previously encountered. The Enterprise had driven them away when they'd tried to reclaim their ancestral planet which had since been populated by a new people (flashbacks to an earlier issue -- which almost caused me to bump this as it threatened my "self-contained" rule). Anyway, Captain Kirk finds the settlers torn between trying to make a home on this new world, and radical militants still bitter at the Enterprise for having deprived them of what they see as their "real" home. Although I wasn't a big fan of McWilliam's art as a kid, I like it more now: he captures the actors well enough, and models the figures with shadow giving them a rounded, moody look. There are some interesting conceptual scenes to the story -- particularly a certain eeriness as Kirk and a crewman are exposed to the planet's lethal radiation, causing their flesh to turn transparent, revealing the bones beneath. I'm not sure what the scientific rational behind that was, but it was sure creepy as a kid. The story has hints of real world issues (think of Israel, or Palestine, or anytime you have two groups arguing over whose land is whose). But what sticks with me is the portrayal of a supporting crewman, Lt. Jinz, recently assigned to the Enterprise, who didn't want the position and whose story, and human fraility, forms an emotional core of the issue. Sure, the story is corny and scientifically suspect in spots, but Drake and McWilliams do a decent job of making you think that this really could have been an episode of the TV show -- which is kind of the goal, ain't it? Although the portrayal of Scotty and McCoy are maybe a touch more belligerent than in the series (in their attitudes toward Lt. Jinz).

"The Cry of Night is - 'Kill!'"

sc: Mike Friedrich. art: Bob Brown, Joe Giella - Detective Comics #387 - DC Comics, 1969

For Batman's 30th anniversary, DC produced this reinterpretation of the very first Bat-Man story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate", where the whole idea was to blatantly update it to then-contemporary times, of student radicals and social turmoil. The basic story remains the same -- someone's killing members of a chemical research team -- but in this version, the chief suspect is a hippy radical (a son of one of the scientists) who objected to the project on political grounds. Commissioner Gordon and Robin are convinced of his guilt, but Batman's not so sure -- this is a Liberal, level-headed Batman who, if a movie had been made of this story, probably could've been played by someone like Henry Fonda. Sure, it's obvious and heavy handed, but there's some effective moodiness to the art and colour (the story takes place all in one night), and I sometimes enjoy stories that root themselves in their time and place. And I liked the extra dimension given the story by the ideological debates/arguments between Batman and Robin. This was later reprinted in Detective Comics #627, along with the original story and two new interpretations by Marv Wolfman-Jim Aparo and Alan Grant-Norm Breyfoygle -- and though Wolfman and Grant were working with 22 pages each (as opposed to Friedrich's 17), Friedrich's story still seemed to have more to it. The reprint, obviously, will be cheaper to collect. It was also reprinted in an old Best of DC digest (#2, featuring all-Batman stories -- a good collection).

"A Midsummer's Nightmare"

sc: Ralph Macchio. art: Tom Sutton, P. Craig Russell - Dr. Strange (1970s series) #34 - Marvel Comics, 1979

Dr. Strange is abducted to the dreamplane by his old foe, the lord of dreams, Nightmare, to battle Cyrus Black -- another, minor foe Nightmare has tutored in order to give him the power to kill Strange. Yeah, on the surface it's just an "old foe(s) seek revenge on hero" story -- but told with weird, ethereal, head-tripping imagery by the unusual but brilliant art pairing of Sutton and Russell, and abstract, semi-profound dialogue from Macchio. Just what you want from a Doc Strange story. The conflict between Strange and Black is intriguingly handled, emphasizing the difference between the two -- even as Black seems the more powerful, Strange remains the more confident, suggesting true strength is strength of character, not might. Weirdly esoteric and, ultimately, just a little poignant.

"The Circus of Lost Souls!"

sc: Len Wein. art: Sal Buscema, Ernie Chan - The Incredible Hulk #217 - Marvel Comics, 1977

Wandering the countryside, the chronically friendless Hulk befriends some carnival misfits (a dog faced boy, a fat lady, etc.) on the run from an evil circus (the Ringmaster's gang) -- all because they're trying to protect an enigmatic, sickly young woman from the Ringmaster. By nature of the Hulk leaping about from place to place, Hulk comics (at least circa the 1970s) probably offered more relatively stand alone tales than a lot of titles -- still, this one sticks out in my mind. It's a quintessentially melancholy, bittersweet Hulk fable (though why Hulk doesn't turn back into Bruce Banner when he's calm I'm not sure), buoyed by Wein's literary, almost poetic captions, and the deft way he creates distinct personalities for the Hulk's travelling companions with just a few lines of dialogue. Chan's inks over Buscema's pencils add a lot of texture and elegance to the images (though he does mute some of the primal energy one generally associates with Buscema's depiction of jade jaws).

More to Come...

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