Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
...OR: "SECRET
SHAMES
OF THE SILVER AGE OF COMICS"
(PART TWELVE)
... and then, sometimes -- every so often; every now and again -- there are
those singular storytelling instances (increasingly rare nowadays, what with
simple, light-hearted four-color "fun" having long since been eschewed by the
greater portion of the readership in favor of dreary, wearying breast-beating
and angst) where "silly" actually works, by golly! 
I'm ending this lengthy 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published section with an entry which, when taken on its own storytelling terms -- i.e., "Fun For Fun's Sake, and Niggling Fanboy 'Continuity' Be Damned" -- offers a four-color reward the likes of which one seldom sees even decently acknowledged anymore.
Back in the day, my children... we had a word, we readers, for this all-but-vanished meta-fictive virtue.
We used to call this sort of thing: fun.
"The Great Super-Star Game" [DC SUPER-STARS #10; December, 1976; Bob Rozakis, author; Dick Dillin, penciler] opens up with what your local beat cop would most likely term "a domestic disturbance in progress": specifically, a knock-down, drag-out, Katie-bar-the-door knuckle-duster betwixt hubby-and-wife super-criminal teammates The Sportsmaster and The Huntress.
"What will it take to convince you," a frustrated Huntress fumes, brandishing a chair by way of emphasis; " -- super-villains never win! No matter how you stack the cards, the good guys always beat them!"
"So you're going to give up your life of crime and become a super-heroine?" a furious Sportsmaster retorts. "Over my dead body!"
[The management for THE CHEEKS THE TOY WONDER HOME PAGE -- "Kitties Ask For It By Name!" -- would like to take this opportunity tto note the following observations, before advancing further:
[A.) The Golden Age lame-o-saurus known (and routinely mocked) as "the Sportsmaster" was -- and remains -- the single most moronically conceived "super-villain" in all of DC Comics history... pre- or post-
CRISIS.
[His meta-criminal "M.O." (such as it was) involved the planning and execution of low rent "crimes" revolving around the acquisition and/or deployment of...
[... sports equipment.
[No. Seriously. Sports equipment.
[That's it. That's all.
[You could take this bozo out.
[I could take this bozo out.
[Your little baby sister could take this bozo out.
[Hell... your little baby sister's pet hamster could probably make
him blubber and grovel, two falls out of any given three.
[If you'd spent the better part of your adult life yoked in failed
attempt after failed attempt to knock over the local "QuikiMart" with this mesomorphic
goober as your co-conspirator of choice... you'd wanna give the whole
"costumed super-villain" shtick the finger, too. Believe
me.
[B.) ... not that an aging bimbette tarted up in one of Wilma Flintstone's old "Frederick's of Bedrock" bondage frocks -- complete with cute li'l kittycat earsies -- is in any real position to criticize, mind.
[I'm just sayin', is all, really.]
In any event: DC's spandexed answer to The Lockhorns continue their fractious dialogue, as follows:
HE: "Honey... don't be so violent! Give me a sporting chance to prove I'm right! Let me show you we bad guys can win!"
SHE (dubiously): "Just what do you have in mind?"
HE: "A 'friendly' baseball game! You pick a team of heroes... I'll make mine up of villains! If your team wins, you switch to being a crimefighter... [and] if mine comes out ahead -- and I'm sure it will -- you stick with me!"
[Writer Bob Rozakis is just darned lucky, in clear-eyed retrospect, that he hadn't opted to utilize your nakedly opportunistic Unca Cheeks in place of (*snicker*) "the Sportsmaster" in this storytelling particular... because here's how that very same exchange would have played itself out, had it been me standing in his stead:
[SHE (dubiously): "Just what do you have in mind?"
[HE: "A 'friendly' game of strip poker! You
pick a team of heroines... I'll make mine up of villainesses!
If your team wins, you switch to being a crimefighter... [and]
if mine comes out ahead -- and I'm sure it will -- you stick with
me! Either way... just so long as I gets to see Poison Ivy
and Hawkwoman nekkid nekkid nekkid! WHOO-hoo-hoo-hoo-- !!"]
Well... sick and disturbingly fetishistic fantasy scenarios aside: the Huntress goes along with her hubby's silly stratagem, and -- with no more preamble or explanation than that -- the pair sets out to kidnap themselves eighteen or twenty spandexed uberpeople.
For a baseball game, mind.
By God, but that there "Rozakis" fellah had himself some king-sized
storytelling cojones, didn't he, though...?
We watch as the Batman, Green Arrow and Black Canary are shanghaied in a bowling alley (!!), along with their opponents of the moment, the Matter Master and the Joker. Said abductions are effected from afar by means of a teleportation device, which the married malcontents just happen to have handy because... well... just because, really.
(Why anyone in their right minds -- or even these two idiots, for that
matter -- would covet the aging Matter Master, or the spindly-limbed
Joker, as potential athletes falls squarely under the heading of One Damned
Good Question, certainly. I mean... why not go after the Penguin,while you're at it? At least he might come in handy as one of the
bases -- !)
The same scenario is played out once more -- this time at a charity-sponsored celebrity tennis match -- with a perplexed Superman (for the heroes); Lex Luthor; and Amazo (both for the villains); and yet again, at "the United Nations soccer championship," netting two more players for each: Plastic Man and Wonder Woman for her, and Chronos and the Weather Wizard for him.
(I make the confession both freely and forthrightly: it certainly helps, throughout all of this lunacy, if the reader is anything like as rabid and unrepentent a baseball junkie as is; was; and always will be your horsehide-loving ol' Unca Cheeks. I mean: basketball's all right, I suppose; I can sit through a good half-hour or so of football before the finger-tapping and the restlessness grow too intolerable; and hockey would doubtless intrigue me a good deal more than it does were the game rules either lucid or less self-contradictory...
(... ahhhhhh... but baseball, on the other hand: pitcher's duels... stolen bases... grand slam home runs... two on, two out in the bottom of the ninth...
(... well: there are sports... and then, by God and by damn, there are sports.)
(It has not escaped your Unca Cheeks' attention that there are those misguided few who regard this noblest, most fascinating of games as "slow-moving," or [the saint's preserve us] "dull." Neither has it escaped his attention that a great many people out there possess only moderately greater cranial capacity than that of the average blowfish.
(I'm just sayin'. That's all.)
In any event: that's six "players" apiece, with another half-dozen still unaccounted for, total...
... so: it's a final stop at the Saratoga Racetrack, where a pair of Teen Titans (Kid Flash and Robin, specifically) are in hot pursuit of long-time super-embarrassments Dr.Polaris and the Tattooed Man. Throw ultra-
obscure Golden Age hero Uncle Sam and umpteen-time bad guy loser Felix Faust into the resulting Chex mix, and...
... well: do the words "Play BALL!" mean anything to you...?
Once the avatar assemblage has been gathered together at "New York's Crandall Stadium" (probably sees a whoooooole lotta Big-Wheel Tractor Pull action during the off-season, ol' Crandall Stadium), the Sportsmaster runs down the whys and the wherefores of the situation for all and sundry.
"... so I propose a friendly game of baseball," the steroidal stinker explains; "... to prove that the bad guys can win."
"Great idea!" an eager Lex Luthor exults, the smell of newly-mown stadium grass making him just a wee little bit crazy nutty kookoo.
"We'll cream 'em!"an enthusiastic Joker seconds, fairly champing at the bit to increase his hard-won Arkham Asylum All-Stars offensive stats.
"Let's get to it!" that world- renowned batsman Felix Faust concludes, visions of an .800 on-base percentage dancing in his pointed little head.
"And who's gonna umpire this game," a querulous Green Arrow demands of the pair. "You two -- ?"
"Hardly," the Huntress replies, coolly. "We are playing on opposite sides! Each team will choose one of its own to act as umpire!"
"Our choice is obvious," Wonder Woman responds. "Uncle Sam will represent our 'league'! [...] He's the most honest, trustworthy man alive!"
"Shucks, ma'am," a blushing Uncle Sam mumbles, scuffing a toe in the stadium dirt. "I'm just a red-blooded American... that's all!"
"I can't vouch for Amazo's honesty," a smirking Luthor points out; "... but --" [Pick One]:
A.) "... since he's an android, he'll have to call them as he sees them!"
B.) "... if you can't put a little faith in a crazed, homicidal cybernetic killing machine... well, good golly! Who can you trust -- ?"
C.) "... since I just spent the last five minutes re-programming him to lie like a United States Senator and cheat like my last five ex-wives combined: we'll take our chances."
D.) "... given that I'm playing on the same team as the Tattooed Man
and that p-whipped feeb-ola the Sportsmaster... whatthehell: we're
gonna get our spandexed hinders stomped like narcs at a biker rally,
anyway. Want I should just go ahead and bend over right now,
and save us all a little time and trouble...?"
Well: eight innings into the ESPN-style proceedings, the scoring is all tied up at eight runs apiece; and the Sportsmaster decides that now's the time to try a little Whitey Herzog-ish motivational dugout speechifying.
"Team," he rumbles to the players on his team still riding the pine. "We've got to win! I don't care what you do... or how you do it... just don't let them score!"
"You're telling us to cheat?" an incredulous Tattooed Man retorts, visibly shaken by the effrontery of the suggestion. "Use our powers?"
Why, yes; that's exactly what the darned irrepressible li'l pixie is
telling them, as a matter of fact!
That particular suggestion, however, doesn't effect much in the way of meaningful strategic change, ultimately... except to place what was previously a nail- biter into the far outermost stratospheric reaches of Planet Asswhup, as the super-villains manage to pull such boneheaded maneuvers as muffing easy pop flies (the Tattooed Man) and attempting to "bean" the most indestructible creature on the face of the planet (the Sportsmaster, re: Superman).
With the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, Robin the Boy Strike-Out whiffs on three straight pitches; and Black Canary gets thrown out at home plate, attempting to leg out a wimpy Kid Flash infield knock.
Obviously, then: this is a job for the one, sole player on the heroes' team who actually has some business being on the playing field in the first bloody place.
This is a job, in other words, for --
... the BATMan!
Staring down the Sportsmaster with that patented "Gotham-Is-My- Town-You-Vermin" thousand yard stare of his, the Darknight Detective works the big suzie for a bases-loaded walk, driving in the go-ahead run and making the score 9 to 8, good guys.
That part was all right, mind.
It's the bit where Rozakis and Dillin have the Batman skipping his way to
first base; warbling a merry, tuneless rendition of the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself"
that seems a little... well... off, actually.
A screaming single to far right, courtesy of Green Arrow, provides an additional pair of "insurance" tallies; and then it's the bad guys' turn to swap their final three outs for some runs.
Lex Luthor uses his super-scientific genius to coax a lead-off walk out of opposing pitcher Superman, in the bottom of the ninth.
A single by follow-up batter the Weather Wizard, however, results in the baddies' bald basher being forced out at second. (First "out" of the inning)
The Joker bunts his way safely to first, scooting Weather Wizard over to second. Chronos sacrifices the runners over to second and third, respectively; tagged out at first, himself, by a quick-thinking Kid Flash. (Second "out" of the inning)
The Matter Master singles to left, driving in the Weather Wizard; and... and...
... omigawd...
... it's first and third, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth...
... and:
the
entire
freaking
game
is
riding
onnnnnnnnnn --
... that spandexed Sultan of Swish; the Doofus of the Diamond; the only known super- criminal ever to be apprehended by the two-fisted kids of the Muskogee Mudwumps "Pee Wee League" team: the Sportsmaster!
"Sportsmaster comes to bat," the very next caption informs us, in hushed, reverent tones; "... and slugs a long fly to deep centerfield!"
Said longball manages to drive in the Joker, for yet another scoreboard tally, true...
... but it's a cunning, last-ditch ploy effected by (who'da thunk it?) the cheerily anarchistic Plastic Man which brings about the third and final out of the inning, bringing the game to a close with a final score of 11 to 10, Good Guys. The story concludes with all heroes, heroines and villains being (inexplicably) teleported right back to where each and every one had been instants before this whole business started; their respective battles and skirmishes to satisfactorily conclude.
A quick gander at the accompanying "score card" for said game, incidentally, reveals the following batting averages. Just in case anyone's interested in seeing where their own particular favorite(s) ranked in the overall standings:
PLASTIC MAN (1st base; .200); WONDER WOMAN (2nd base; .333); KID FLASH (short
stop; .400); GREEN ARROW (3rd base; .600 [!!]); ROBIN (left field; .333); HUNTRESS
(center field; .250); BLACK CANARY (right field; .600 [!!]); SUPERMAN (pitcher;
.500); THE BATMAN (catcher; a big, fat, honkin' 1.00,
bay-beee! Somebody sign this big lug to a major league contract -- now!)
...........
The unregenerate baseball fanatic in your pennant-waving Unca Cheeks compels him to point out that -- between the three of 'em -- the Batman/ Black Canary/ Green Arrow troika was responsible for more than half of the total hits for the heroes' side; only a madman or a fool would place anyone other than either the super-fast Kid Flash or hyper-ductile Plastic Man in center field, f'chrissakes; and the (apparent) casual relationship between accredited JUSTICE LEAGUERs bumping uglies and a fat, healthy batting average is one which -- really and truly -- ought to be investigated by a competent, baseball-related outside authority.
I mean: just imagine the results of inducting (say) St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire into the JLA; leaving him alone in the team's "Watchtower" HQ with Wonder Woman for a few hours; and then letting him take his hacks versus the very next opposing pitcher he happened to meet.
Just imagine.
"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 TWELVE
"The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published": PAGE THIRTEEN
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