Such an arrangement, I submit, would have been A Very Good Thing for two equally compelling reasons:

1.) Mike Friedrich really and truly was an inventive comics plotter; and --

2.) It would have kept him busy enough, in the natural scheme of things, so that he might never again need to try his auctorial hand at either dialogue or prose.

"The Private War of Johnny Dune" (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #95; December, 1971; the magnificent and under-appreciated Dick Dillin. penciler) is only marginally a JUSTICE LEAGUE story at all, really. Friedrich's focus, throughout, is on the aforementioned Johnny Dune: a young, inner-city black man recently discharged (honorably) from the United States Army, and returned home from a tour of duty in Viet Nam.

"You had a gift of gentleness, though," Friedrich's caption solemnly intones. (... and why -- so long as we're on the subject -- is Friedrich addressing the character, anyway?) "... and a piece of wood that sang soothing sounds when you stroked it."

(For those of you out there who might well be excused for wondering what that last bit was all about: Mr. Friedrich is referring, in this instance, to a guitar; NOT a prosthesis. Filthy-minded little devils.)

In any event: Johnny Dune is pinned down, and then grievously wounded, by a fusillade of enemy machine-gun fire. And: "In that moment of extraordinary pain-stress, a new channel opened, spilling out raw-gut [sic] feelings... feelings that could only be expressed in a SCREAM -- "

... well. A little bit of this stuff goes quite a long way, don't you think?

Johnny Dune discovers that he now possesses the (heretofore latent) mutant ability to control the wills and actions of others, by means of the spoken word.

"Back home again -- " (Mr. Friedrich is still, at this point, in the grasp of Auctorial Affectation; telling his protagonist what the latter [assuredly] already bloody well knows) " -- you find society hasn't much place for an out-of-work rifleman. A blaze of bitterness smolders, then kindles within your soul..."

Okay. That should be enough, I think, to render the point well and truly manifest.

Mike Friedrich's tenure as a comics scripter was pretty much all of a piece, so far as this sort of thing was concerned. Prostelyzation was his first and truest love; the music and nuance of clean, clear prose came in a distant second (if that).

However: Friedrich was also, in many ways, the prototypical "young turk" comics scrivener, circa the late '60's and early '70's. In his calculated attempts to render his little morality plays (the comparative impenetrability of his prose kept them from becoming actual stories, outright) more "relevant" and "with it" than those of the older craftsmen who'd preceded him... his stuff, as lugubrious and heavy-handed as it undeniably was, carried with it a certain totemic primacy -- an immediacy; a snapshot sense of the now -- that lent it just enough power to remain (even now) of substantial interest to the careful reader.

It wasn't good comics storytelling, God wot...

... but: it was (and remains; much like the earlier examined efforts of Steve Skeates) uniquely of its time and place.

Soldiering onward, however: we cut to a scene of the Atom and Green Arrow (the logo on the comic's cover did mention something about the Justice League making a brief, cameo appearance hereabouts), providing some free entertainment, via a display of their respective abilities, for a municipal park crammed full of restless inner-city teenagers.

(Responding to one of the Atom's jibes as to whether or not the pair's presence at such a function serves any worthwhile purpose or no, Green Arrow responds with a curt: "Okay, okay... I've got better things to do than argue politics!" Which, doubtless, must have come as something of a shock to fellow DC scribe [and premiere Green Arrow interpreter] Dennis O'Neil. I'm just sayin'.)

"Now, straight from our own South Side," a smarmily-attired Stan Lee lookalike unctuously announces; "... topping every soul and pop chart in the country... soulful JOHNNY DUNE!"

Out strides Our Johnny, gigged up in the silly, retina-scarring sort of all-polyester ensemble that was (I can but hang my head in abject shame) actually considered au courant, Back In the Day. (... and don't none of you whippersnappers reading these words go falling out of your chairs, tittering hysterically, neither. Twenty years from now, you're gonna have to explain that whole dopey "Goth" thing to your kids. Oh, yeah... payback, baby.)

Keeping the kiddies quiet and complacent, however, is the very last thing Johnny has on his mind, just at the moment. "Hear me, all you brothers and sisters," he exhorts his adolescent audience. "... blue-eyed, slant-eyed, Afro or WHATever! Are we fed up with this here city and this here country? Lemme here ya say YEAH!"

Blithely ignoring the fact that their self- appointed messiah has just ripped off a line from Stevie Wonder's immortal Fingertips (Part Two), the crowd roars out in the affirmative... and Johnny promptly directs them to attack the two Justice Leaguers, en masse.

The Atom and Green Arrow make it take several pages for them to do so... but: eventually, the crowd of a thousand or so manages to overcome the pair, by sheer weight of numbers. Just before slipping into blessed unconsciousness, however... the Atom manages to send out an emergency S.O.S., via his JLA signal device.

It's the team of Black Canary and the Batman who respond to the urgent summons for assistance. A gleeful Johnny sets his mesmerized minions against them, expecting a quick replay of the earlier Atom/GA scenario... but the Bats/BC combo (being, y'know, two of the most adept hand-to-hand combatants in the DCU entire) calmly proceed to buzzsaw their joint way through the mob with an almost eerily surgical precision.

Rattled by this unexpected set-back, Johnny commands Green Arrow and the Atom to: "Attack Batman! Attack Canary!"

"I... can't fight... Oliver!" an uncharacteristically meek Canary sorrowfully muses, just before Green Arrow applies a left hook to her pretty jaw.

Even more gape-inducing, however, is the sight of the Batman -- the Batman, for pity's sake! -- calmly offering the Atom his chin and thinking: "Go ahead, little chum... you must have your reason." (!!) [See panel reproduction, below]

(What the Real Batman Would Have Done, in this situation: "Sorry, Ray --" [swats the incoming Atom groundward as hard as he possibly can] " -- but you're obviously not in your right mind, just now. Don't bother to get up." I'm just sayin', is all.)

After having all four JLAers securely bound and helpless, Johnny then commands his (mentally) flatlined flock to march alongside him... out and away from the city.

(It's never made entirely clear just what Johnny intends to do with his newfound disciples/militia/what-have-you. March on Washington? Establish a youthful independent city-state, up in the mountains? Storm the nearest Burger King and demand "four thousand Whoppers with cheese... to go"? Your guess is as good as mine, really; or, at least, as good as Friedrich's.)

Unfortunately, Johnny's control over a group this massive and rebellious is nowhere near "total," and his mobile "youth army" begins to splinter off in twos and threes along the way, wreaking indiscriminate sorts of low-grade havoc. The angry young mutant commands Green Arrow to "use your amazing trick arrows to herd those kids back in line!"; a task which the Emerald Archer easily accomplishes...

... but which also, in turn, affords him the opportunity to (waaaaiiit for it) "stick some stuffing from this boxing glove arrow in my ears!"

"Power without justice is tyranny!" Green Arrow informs a startled Johnny, just before shutting the other's yap with what would appear to be the dreaded (and -- mercifully-- seldom utilized) "Bathroom Plunger Arrow." "Filthy, grimy TYRANNY!"

Johnny's sudden bout of Severe Unconsciousness frees the other three Leaguer's from his domination... but (inexplicably) causes all of the kids to sign up for a semester of Berserk Rampaging 101, at the same time. The JLAers set about the grim task of subduing as many of the hyper -aggressive Teen Zombies as they can, without inflicting any permanent damage in the process

The battle is still raging, however, by the time Johnny regains his senses once more. "My God," he thinks to himself. "It's turned into a riot!"

Pitching himself headlong over the cliff of auctorial restraint, Friedrich has Johnny -- now posed in dramatic silhouette, with a Lo!-He-Is-Risen! nimbus of light coruscating about him -- bellow to the rampaging crowd: "Here me [sic]... ALL OF YOU! Direct your anger at ME! I am the one you must attack!"

The crowd roils and surges towards him, chanting: "... Friedrich... Friedrich... HE is the one we must attack... !"

... well... no. Not really, they don't. But: allow this old man his dreams, won't you...?

However: the crowd most assuredly does hackeysack the young mutant around until the majority of his interior organs are three feet to the left of the rest of him; the Justice Leaguers redblanket Johnny to the nearest ER, stat; annnnnnnnnd --

... CUT TO: the final page, where Johnny is shaking Green Arrow's hand and announcing his intentions to make amends for all the damage he's caused by "going into politics."

"My mutant power faded away in that final scream," he confides to the assembled heroes; "... so I'll have to win votes the hard way... the CLEAN way."

(You know... if Friedrich had been possessed of even the faintest scintilla of irony -- the ability not to take his self-aggrandizing polemicizings so bloody seriously -- this would have been the stone perfect moment for a thought balloon, with Johnny adding, sotto voce: "... and you all believe me, too, don'cha? You big, dopey ubergoobers, you. Gimme your wallets, while you're at it. And the mama in the fishnets." I'm just sayin'...)

We'll be taking a gander at one more representative sampling of Mike Friedrich's work from this period -- this time, for one of Marvel Comics' major characters -- on the following page of our POLITICCAL DISSENT IN THE COMICS OF THE SILVER AGE.

Then we can all pass summary judgment.

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE ONE

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE TWO

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE THREE

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PART FIVE

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE SIX

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE SEVEN

Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE EIGHT
Political Dissent In the Comics of the Silver Age: PAGE NINE