Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

(This column was made possible by the matchless generosity of longtime site regular and Online Fount of All Revealed Knowledge QUENTIN LONG. Not that this is anything like the first time, either.)

Okay... so: there may well be two or eight or seventy-seven of you, out there, who feel that I was just a weeeeeeee li'l bit "tough" on the aged and venerable Joe Simon, during that whole unpleasant PREZ business.

Well: mebbe so... mebbe no.

During the mid-1970's, DC COMICS embarked upon an (ultimately) ill-

starred publishing venture by the name of FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL.

A "try-out" feature much along the same conceptual lines as the longer-lived SHOWCASE, the series allowed its publisher to test the sales waters, re: characters both familiar (MANHUNTER; METAMORPHO; THE CREEPER) and debuting for the very first time (CODE NAME: ASSASSIN; LADY COP; THE DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET; etc.).

With the sole exception of Mike Grell's luridly lowbrow sword-and-

sorcery pastiche WARLORD, none of the characters or concepts premiered within the pages ever graduated straightaway to their own ongoing series'; a perfectly understandable end result, given that the vast majority of these were genuinely insipid and awful in overall execution...

... and none of them more (with one sole exception; one we'll be examining, in its turn, a little later on) than Joe Simon's nigh-legendary mega-turkey: THE GREEN TEAM.

Trust me, people: this one makes PREZ #1 look like the best damned Alan Moore comic you never read.

"The Great American Pleasure Machine" (FIRST ISSUE SHOWCASE #2; May, 1975; Joe Simon and Jerry Grandenetti, writer/artist team) opens with our introductory glimpse of one "Abdul Smith": a pre-adolescent African-American shoeshine boy.

Ringing the doorbell of the blunt and unabashedly self- christened "Millionaire's Club," the young Abdul humbly entreats, whilst servicing one of its members: "I'd like to belong to a club. Could I join this club?"

"Gentlemen," the sneering and liver-spotted moneybags chortles to his fellow members. "Mr. Abdul Smith wants to join our club!"

"Ho, ho!" a second Captain of Industry responds, shuddering with poorly concealed mirth. "That's jolly!"

In the great poker game of life, you see: Abdul is (demonstrably; I mean... he is shining shoes for a living, after all) a busted flush. Bereft of even the most minimal amount of personal monetary wherewithal: he's a would-be entrepreneur, shackled to the service economy.

"Come back in a couple of hours, Abdul," a third codger counsels. "The Green Team is meeting here at noon! They could use an industrious lad like you!"

(... geez-o-pete... does this thing have a thoroughly unpleasant "Uncle Tom's Cabana" aftertaste to it, or what...?)

We take our collective leave of the luckless Abdul at this juncture, however; so that the always... ummmmmm... interesting Mr. Simon might introduce the remainder of his dopey dramatis personae all the more quickly. (Lucky us, huh...?)

The first of these is the self-aggrandizingly self-titled "Commodore" Murphy: a pint-sized shipping magnate possessed of some peculiarly spendthrift notions, re: How To Have Fun On a Sunny Saturday Afternoon.

"Will you look at that limousine, Ezra!" one of the toothless hick denizens of depressed Rockmuch, Oregon exclaims, upon espying the the pipsqueak potentate's ultra-swanky stretch vehicle hoving into view. "Gold-trimmed! What's a car like that doing in Rockmuch?"

"Why, that's Commodore Murphy, the Boy Shipping Magnate!" the wily Ezra shoots back, pausing only long enough to lob a gob of tobacco spit somewhere in the overall general direction of the floor. (In the wacky, wonderful world of Joe Simon, you see: Oregon is well south of the Mason-Dixon Line; and whittlin', cowboy-hatted hayseed caricatures are perfectly acceptable comics shorthand for Anyplace That Ain't New Yawk City. This is, I believe, what is commonly referred to -- in polite company, in any event -- as "The Hee Haw hsitorical model"; and is seamlessly and perfectly consistent, overall, with the chauvinistic sort of world view that could genuinely regard a black "shoeshine boy" by the monicker of "Abdul Smith" a darned good storytelling idea in the first bloody place. I'm just sayin', is all.)

Mini-mogul #2 is the similarly stereotypical J.P. Houston; a lean, lanky, slow-talkin' (and slow-thinkin', if I'm any judge of horseflesh) teen Texan with a decided yen for daredevil-type thrills... such as, say, sky-diving.

"Honestly, J.P.," the Commodore scolds, after the latter has effected a typically breakneck appearance in the latter's brand-new boat pond, by way of parachute. "You hassle me! I spend a fortune to build you a runway, and you pull this sky-diving act!"

"If you feel you've made a bad investment," the country-and-western Croesus counters, brightly; "... I'll buy this here set-up, Commodore!" (Oh, these crazy, nutty, koo-koo kids today! With their long hair, and their far-out "be-bop" music, and the way they buy; sell; and trade small American towns back and forth, amongst themselves! Now, I ask you: did Joe Simon have his arthritic fingers on the pulse of the "go-go" teens of today, or what -- ?)

Good News/Bad News Time, O Gentle Readers: the good news is -- we have but one final "Green Teamer" to shake paws with, at this point.

The bad news, however: you are -- all of you -- but scant heartbeats away from having your minds and memories forevermore scarred by the gape-inducing Cecil Sunbeam -- a.k.a., "The Starmaker."

Trust me: you'll all be bloody begging me for more "Abdul Smith," before another five minutes has elapsed.

"Sunbeam Studios," the following caption provides; "... foremost producer of the 'Now' Generation movies..." (I suppose it's just barely possible that -- to Mr. Simon -- " 'Now' Generation Movies" might have meant something along the cinematic lines of [say] EASY RIDER, or THE LAST PICTURE SHOW... but, in all likelihood: he was probably thinking of something more like The Monkees' HEAD.)

"That Cecil Sunbeam is a genius," a visiting reporter enthuses to a nearby starlet, eyeing a trio of young, shaggy and slovenly-dressed actors all slouching about a grim, decaying "urban street scene"-style set. "What epic is he shooting now?"

"Can't you tell?" said silken-thighed houri retorts. "It's Cecil's Shakespearean Festival!"

"Cecil never goes by the script," one cameraman enthuses, displaying a marked contempt for the written word which -- call me crazy, if you wanna -- doesn't seem all that markedly out of place, in this comic book. "That's how he built his family's failing studio into a million dollar business!"

"Here he comes now," the curvaceous camp follower gushes, as Sir Cecil strides his lilliputian way into the room. "What a man!"

(That. Is. Just. So. Sick. And. Wrong.)

Well: weirdly Freudian, pseudo-pedophilic psycho-sexual forays on the part of the story's author aside... each and every one of the three grade school Getty's we've met thus far drops whatever he happens to be doing and jets his respective way to "the Green Team skyscraper," in New York, in order to make one of their regularly-scheduled team meetings.

(You see: the trio of minuscule moneybags' meet on a weekly basis, in order to interview crackpot inventors; fast-talking fiduciary snake oil salesmen; and suchlike, in order that they might all the more readily rustle themselves up some [as Simons' super-heated prosey assures us] "thrilling action and ADVENTURE projects!" Although -- if it's really a fast, heart-stopping adrenal rush these little yipyops are seeking so desperately -- why they all simply don't stay home and take turns shoving live tarantulas down one another's shorts...)

"Avast there, mates!" the cheery Commodore chirrups, forgetting -- if only but for a moment -- that he is disembarking from a jet plane, rather than an ocean-going vessel.

"Howdy, podners!" J.P. replies, desperate not to fall out of the running this week in the Team's traditional (and hotly contested) Which-One-Of- Us-Is-the-Biggest-Stereotype? competition.

"Greetings, sweeties!" the beaming Cecil bubbles. (Look... I don't even wanna know, awright? Just so long as I don't haveta... y'know... watch, or nothin'...)

"In the Green Room of the Millionaire's Club," Mr. Simon winks at us, via accompanying caption; "... the weekly meeting of The Green Team comes to order!"

"Well, Missy," the Commodore inquires of their shapely teen secretary. "Do we have any interesting prospects for the next Green Team project?"

"The usual crackpot inventors and adventurers, sir," Missy responds, demurely. "I'll start bringing them in for interviews!"

(It occurs to your ever-thoughtful Unca Cheeks, at this storytelling juncture, that -- if a weekly parade of bug-eyed lunatics and confidence men is the "usual," thereabouts... then it is entirely possible that Our Little Missy is doing one piss-poor job of interviewing and/or screening said "prospects," whilst setting up the Team's weekly appointment calendar. But: mebbe that's just me.)

"Crackpot" -- as it turns out, from the examples prrovided -- isn't too strong or pejorative a description by half, as the adrenaline-starved lads are confronted by such gibbering, out-and-out lunatics as one "Mr. Dinkle," whose own peculiarly harebrained scheme involves colonizing the North Pole by means of "specially-constructed igloos made out of french fries." (!!)

Thankfully, we are spared contact with any of the other addlepated applicants ("Look! I've created the world's first turbine-powered ferret polisher!"; "Hark! I have devised a simple -- yet workable -- stratagem for transmuting small grade school children into solid GOLD!"; "Check it out, little dudes! And these hot little high school honeys are all triple-jointed, to boot!") by the sudden (re-)appearance of our old pal Abdul Smith.

"I didn't come here to shine shoes," Abdul whines piteously in front of the corporate collective. "I want to join your club!"

"Abdul, baby," Cecil simpers, giggling and winking like a junior high school girl on the make. "You've got to have money to join the Green Team!" (Well... either that, or else the negatives of those "art films" from Cecil Sunbeam's last "Secret Midnight Hollywood Nude Twister Frolic and Grope-A-Thon," at any rate.)

"Abdul," the Commodore concludes, imperiously; "... to become a member of this club, you nged a million dollars!"

Thus inspired by this paean to naked, grasping greed on the part of his penny-pinching peers (this book woulda been a sales piledriver during the Ronald Reagan '80's, by golly), Abdul wends his ragamuffin way to the bank, in order to deposit his weekly portion of tuppence.

A one-in-a-million (Get it? Huh? Get it...?) mechanical miscue on the part of said financial institution, however, transforms the former fiscal welterweight into a genuine player, with a personal net worth well in excess of half a mill large; all of which the plucky parvenu promptly multiplies three times over, simply by investing it in a handful of stocks selected completely at random.

Lookit, people: if I can type something like that without shrilly screaming myself into unconsciousness

"Welcome to the Green Team, sweetie!" an excited Cecil squeals, upon Abdul's re-application to the organization. (... and this, mind you, is the same beaming, willowy wisp of a lad of whom it was earlier remarked: "What a man!" Testosterone was scarcer than friggin' Kryptonite in the DCU, back in the '70's, boy. That's why the only DC super-hero from that period who's still happily married is the Elongated Man. I'm just sayin', here... )

Well: not even gargantuan and obscene amounts of ill-gotten lucre can vitiate the need for an actual, honest-to-Daddy-Warbucks plot indefinitely... and, so: the newly- reorganized quartet finds themselves approached by one "Professor Apple," who comes bearing schematics and assorted long-range pipe dreams concerning a cunning little notion he likes to call: The Great American Dream Machine! (Huzzah! Huzzah!)

"Don't you see, gentlemen?" the wizened old savant wheezes, in senile exposition. "Television is dull; movies are on their way out! Broadway is dark! In my Pleasure Dome, a person will come for weeks at a time, and take a timeless journey through the thrills of the universe stored in my computer banks! He will experience happiness never before known to Man!"

("... come for weeks at a time"; "... the thrills of the universe"; "... experience happiness never before known to Man." The so-called "Comics Code Authority" suuuuuuuurrrrrre was asleep at the proverbial wheel when this juvenile exercise in nudge-nudge, wink-wink was up for review, boy. Simon should just have gone ahead with his original notion, and called the blamed thing "The Great American Super-Orgasmo- Bang-A-Rama.")

The preternaturally pre-adolescent horndogs all think this is just a waycool and nifty-keeno idea, and agree to bankroll Apple's... ummm... well... whatever the hell it is he's peddling. (I'm thinking: "mondo tax write-off," actually.) Everything goes along smoothly enough whilst the G.A.P. is under actual construction...

... but: a renegade Broadway producer (and you all know what a bother and an impediment they've always been to groundbreaking technological advances, over the centuries) by the name of "David D. Meritt" stages one king-hell of an anti-G.A.P. demonstration, raging that the Green Team's latest joint investment "... will destroy our theatre, television, sporting events... even comic books!" (Although not this particular comic book, apparently. There is no "God." There IS no GOD -- !)

Faced with a violent and unruly mob comprised of (among others) Superman; the Batman; Spider-Man; and (inexplicably) film actor John Wayne -- hell, don't take my word for it, if you don't wanna; go back up and check out Page Fifteen again -- the four laissez-faire lads are sent scurrying towards the comparative safety of their cushy li'l "Filthy Rich Little Rascals" clubhouse.

Shortly thereafter, a tense tete-a-tete takes place betwixt Team and terrorist... including the following exchange:

MERRIT: "Fifty grand, and I'll call off my puppets, boys!" (... oh, dear God... that devil Merrit has Shari Lewis and Lambchop on his side --!)

COMMODORE: "So that's it! You don't care one bit about those poor jerks down there!"

HOUSTON: "No deal, podnuh!" (... lousy little two-bit Jonah Hex wannabe... somebody hold him down, so I can scar his @#$%ing face for him...)

... and: after that particularly unproductive business meeting -- with Merrit's militia having ringed the building, and (for all I know) waving pitchforks and torches -- Abdul ventures the not-altogether-unreasonable inquiry: "Why don't we call the police?"

"No," a grim Commodore responds. "Those poor suckers will only get their heads bashed in." (This is, you see, a job for professional troubleshooters; small children, in other words. Not full-grown adult men and women with, like, trained attack dogs and rifles and stuff.)

"It's just about completed, Sweeties!" Cecil enthuses, swanning his way back and forth in front of his compatriots in a stunning little sequined off-the-shoulder cocktail number. "Time to make our move!"

The assembled Green Teamers, by way of response, swing into manly, brawling, two-fisted action by lunging straightaway into [Pick One]:

A.) adorable little matching "action uniforms";

B.) another comic book entirely; preferably, one not written by Joe Simon;

C.) a gargantuan, atomic-powered meat grinder (subtract five points for "wishful thinking," if you selected that one);

D.) Each other. (Cecil's original plan, if the fannish scuttlebut of the day is to be believed)

As it so happens: it's "A" (God help us all). And -- oh, golly moses -- just wait until you've taken a good, long gander at this particular fashion mugging.

(... and: don't worry, campers... Your Long-Suffering and Ever-Vigilant Unca Cheeks has thoughtfully remembered to include the accompanying "text page" referenced here -- the one detailing the startling secrets of the Green Team's gape-inducing weapons arsenal -- at the very bottom of this page, even. Go ahead: feed those "inner fanboys," whydoncha...?)

There's some especially silly business involving the Team's attempting to thwart the machinations of Merrit's minions (say it three times quickly) by tossing several million dollars in loose greenbacks about, which -- quite frankly -- isn't even worthy of Unca Cheeeks' expending his precious, rapidly-depleting store of sarcasm and contempt, thankyouverymuch ...

(-- although, as long as we are on the subject: suppose -- oh, just suppose, mind -- that the unthinkable had occurred, and THE GREEN TEAM had become an ongoing DC Comics series. Given that these four spoiled, studiedly self-congratulatory little bratlings had zero zip nada in the way of actual and/or efficacious combat abilities between 'em... d'you suppose we would have seen that lame-o stratagem deployed, over and over and over again...? "Hey -- Darkseid! Here's my personal check for eleventy-gazillion dollars! G'wan and pester the Avengers for awhile, all right? There's a good chap.")

(It's a slippery storytelling slope, you see. Yessir: one damned slippery storytelling slope.)

... and then: the malefic Merrit stakes everything on one final, desperate roll of the super-villainous dice, by strapping himself aboard the only-just-now-completed G.A.P. machine ("If I can't get the loot... I'll have the pleasure!") and launching himself as its very first customer (read: "ambulatory crash test dummy")!

Wellllllllllll... yes. Yes: I suppose that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, actually... even by the strained and stunted meta-fictive "standards" of a Joe Simon-scripted comic book.

... and yet: I have naught to work with, ultimately... save for what I actually find, here on the page. I can't very well whip up a nice steak tartar out of a couple of moldy "McMuffins," you know.

In an ending effectively demonstrating that Simon was tiring of these silly characters no less rapidly than we, Merrit's ten-day long sojourn throughout the G.A.P. reduces him to drooling and incoherent imbecility; a situation with which I can most readily muster my own sympathies, having slogged my way through FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL #2 anew.

"What do you think, Commodore," a pensive J.P. asks, as the foursome trundles wearily home in the driving rain. "Can too much pleasure kill a man?" [Unca Cheeks' Silent, Inward Response: "... he isn't dead, you ridiculous, brain dead bumpkin...!"]

"It can sure drive a guy nuts," a solemn Commodore replies. "We learned that much!" [Unca Cheeks' Silent, Inward Response: "... that, and being forced to endure a 'fun ride' that lasts for ten freaking DAYS, sans food and water. What in God's name were you all thinking -- ?!?"]

It's more than passing difficult to ascertain to just whom, precisely, this comic book -- a sort of RICHIE RICH TIMES FOUR, if you will; lacking only the latter's cheerful bounciness; non-stop storytelling invention; and overall conceptual integrity -- was intended to appeal in the first place. This was, you will recall, The Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-five; was there anything taking up perfectly good"spinner rack" space during that period -- the same epoch during which writers such as Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber were having themselves a high old time, redefining the parameters of the mainstream American comics equation -- which might have bamboozled the reasonable man (or woman) into believing there was actually a market for this sort of shameless tripe...?

As unstintingly gawdawful as both PREZ and THE GREEN TEAM undeniably were, however...

... they both pale in comparison to the third (and worst) Joe Simon- spawned entry in this little online exhibition hall.

No. Seriously.

Be here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed next week, people...

... because: there's simply no way in hell you're ever gonna believe this next one, unless and until you've seen it yourselves; with your very own eyes.

You've. Been. Warned.

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE ONE

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE TWO

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE THREE

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE FOUR

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE FIVE

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE SIX

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE SEVEN

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PART EIGHT

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE NINE

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE TEN

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE ELEVEN

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE THIRTEEN

"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE FOURTEEN

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