Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
EXHIBITION THREE:
(This section of the DC HALL OF SHAME is dedicated
-- with limitless love and devotion -- tto unindicted online co-conspirator John
Davoll. See what happens when you push me, man...?) 
The first two "wings" comprising this particular Atrocity Exhibition were
merely the warm-up exercises. Here, now... the real horrors.
First at-bat goes to the in-all-other-respects-exemplary Silver Age Green Lantern, and his boxing ring showdown with the tres tackily-attired alien strongman known the galaxy over as... Brutus Force. [See cover, accompanying]
The only thing even remotely "right" about this entire exercise is the typically show-stopping artwork of noted comics impresario Gil Kane, who lends this project whatever meager glamour it may rightfully claim as its own. In every other respect, however -- concept; content; execution; and the way the guy at the printing plant arranged the staples along the spine -- this dreadful little comic (wherein the aforementioned "Brutus" challenges Green Lantern for the bragging rights, re: "All-Time Champeeeen Heavyweight Pugilist of the Known Universe") is as empty and addle-pated as a Pia Zadora music video.
However: the not-quite-coveted award for "All-Time Silliest Alien Being In DC Comics History" cannot -- in all fairness -- be awarded to poor, put-upon Brutus, here. Not while the gypsies still breathe-- in awed, hushed whispers -- the legendary awfulness of "Ultra,the Multi-Alien" around their campfires in the chill gloaming, at any rate. [See cover at right, accompanying]
I'm not entirely certain which posse of pinheads should be held ultimately accountable for this particular four-color flop of a comic (although the artwork herein -- to my jaundiced eye, at any rate -- bbears a marked similarity to that of the late Lee Elias). Perhaps 'twould be simplest and fairest to lard the blame evenly over DC Comics, entire; someone, after all, might reasonably have been expected to stand up, during that month's editorial meeting, and declare, in ringing tones: "No, gentlemen. Small and impressionable children will be buying this book... and I, for one, simply don't need the twelve cents, American, that damned badly."
Oh, yeah; the series "concept." Rock-jawed and resolute U.S. astronaut goes up into space; becomes a walking, talking amalgamation of four entirely separate alien beings, due to the occurrence of an even-dopier-than-the-comics-norm "freak accident," while thus occupied. Even the sort of kid who perpetually falls for the old "pull my finger" gag wouldn't swallow this sort of hokum, apparently; the "Ultra" series endured for less than a year's worth of MYSTERY IN SPACE, all told.
In cold point of fact: a fair number of the "lesser" DC titles of the day were having difficulties, of one stripe or another. Some of these successfully managed to re-invigorate themselves for the better (the BATMAN line of comics being the most praiseworthy example, here); others... didn't. The legendary aerial aces of World War II -- "the Blackhawks" -- pratfell with a noisy and embarrassed whooop squarely into that second camp.
(And -- speaking of my favorite Caped Crusader -- check out his way
harsh assessment of Those Fabulous Fighting Guys: "It's fact, sir: the Blackhawks are washed-up has-beens; out of date antiques; a danger
to national security! To put it bluntly -- they just don't swing!"
Oh, Batman... you hepcat, you.)
Now: a lesser comics company, surely, would have sought to remedy lackluster
sales on the part of such a long-lived "flagship" titleby...
I dunno... a change in creative teams, maybe. A particularly innovative
and/or momentous storyline, making deliberate usage of the series' inherent
strengths (i.e., WW2 setting; heavy emphasis on teamwork; Dick Dillin artwork);
Some judicious employment of "in-house" advertising, to cue the DC readership
of the day that BLACKHAWK was a title they needed to check out once more,
if it had been a while since they'd last done so. Stuff like that,
there.
Point being: turning The Stalwart Seven into a brace of the most flagrantly asinine
"super-heroes" in the length and breadth of the medium entire ("The Leaper";
"The Listener"; "M'sieu Machine"; etc.) probably -- in all likelihood -- would
not make the "short list" for most working writers or editors with enough
smarts not to eat soda with a fork. That's all I'm saying, here.
The year, year-and-a-half of BLACKHAWK issues wherein the boys are forced
to flounce about in some of the most spectacularly ill-advised spandex you can
possibly imagine are nothing short of legendary, in comics circles today.
They're just not "legendary" in any sense of the word that their creators would
have appreciated, is all. Remember that journeyman ballplayer Bill
Buckner became a "legend," too, during the seventh game of the last Mets/Red
Sox World Series.
There is also "legendary" in the sense of "poor taste," or "boorish behavior" to contend with, as well. Bigotry -- regardless of its origin, or its designated target -- is always inherently swinish enough to merit inclusion in this category.
I know of no more naked or indefensible example of such behavior in comics, really, than DC's own modest contribution towards 60's "Cold War," anti-Communist China paranoia and jingoism: the robotic "so solly, Amellicans" caricature known (as God is my witness) as "Egg Fu." [see page, accompanying]
This sequence, by the way, is from the the issue of THE METAL MEN entitled
"Birthday Cake For a Cannibal Robot." (Yeah, yeah... I might have
waited another five, ten minutes for inspiration to strike on that front, as
well.) Egg Fu's "master plan," here, is to cybernetically force the robotic
heroes to shout "Down With America!" at a youth rally; thus (ostensibly) cruelly
crushing the red, white and blue spirits of good, clean American youth the nation
over. Kinda sorta makes AND NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON look subtle
by way of comparison, doesn't it...?
(Unintentional Funny Dept., however: the very notion that a
bunch of robots have been chosen to act as the designated "mouthpieces"
for pro-American proselytising is -- in its own way -- as illustrative
of the follies of the extreme right-wing mindset as anything even Robert Crumb
might have come up with, back during his Haight-Ashbury days. Proving
-- once again -- that one really does need a working sensahumor in order
to convincingly carry off any satire or japery more sophisticated than, say,
a whoopee cushion.)
Very nearly as offensive -- in its own bedraggled right -- was the odious Joe Simon attempt to "co-opt" attitudes and platitudes(to say nothing of the loose pocket change, thereof) of a 60's youth movement for which he clearly felt nothing but the most naked sort of antipathy, in the pages of the kitsch classic, BROTHER POWER, THE GEEK [see cover, accompanying].
("HERE" -- the cover to the first issue brethlessly proclaims -- "is the REAL-LIFE
SCENE of the DANGERS in HIPPIE-LAND!" Well, good golly;
sign me up for a five year subscription, gents...)
The title character in question was a magically animated thrift shop clothing mannequin, who wandered hapless and starry-eyed through the barrens of a "counter-culture" landscape that was lifted whole, apparently, straight out of the pages of one of the more hysterical READERS DIGEST screeds of the day. Lots of scruffy, shoeless longhaired kids who just sorta drifted aimlessly from panel to poorly-composed panel, sagely intoning such platitudes as "faaaarrrr out" and "like... cosmic, mannnnn." And this, mind you, from the (justly) fabled co-creator of CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE NEWSBOY LEGION and THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN.
This is precisely the sort of expired equine one simply cannot derive much real, gut-level pleasure from flogging, overmuch. The flagrant and ruthless willingness to pander to a readership which -- in all likelihood -- would have been appalled and outraged by its grossly insulting existence renders the entire two-issue exercise as pathetic, ultimately, as the notion of an eighty-seven year old harlot, attempting to seduce the unwary by tarting herself up in Fatima cheesecloth and bunting. No more need be said on the matter, surely.
The DC Comics HALL OF SHAME
"MORE COMIC BOOKS," YOU SAY...?
The DC Comics Sub-Directory
The Marvel Comics Sub-Directory
The Miscellaneous Comics Sub-Directory
The "Gotta Find That DC Character" Menu
The "Gotta Find That Marvel/Miscellaneous
Character" Menu