Comics Review: Flash 248, Wonder Woman 230, Green Lantern 94

Flash #248 – “Challenge of the Cardboard Criminal” – (Cary Bates/Irv Novick/Frank McLaughlin)

Barry and Iris are out shopping when Barry spots his childhood sweetheart, Daphne Dean. Before he can do anything, Heat Wave tries to rob the jewelry store, so Barry changes to Flash and pounds him. Later, Barry is going on and on about Daphne to Iris when a doctor shows up and says he’s been treating Daphne Dean (who’s apparently some kind of movie star now) for amnesia. He figured getting her together with old flame Barry would help her memory come back. Barry says to send her on over … he’s probably thinking “three-way!” Meanwhile next door, some kid is daydreaming about the perfect super-villain after seeing Flash beat Heat Wave on TV. The kid draws the villain, then falls asleep right before a disembodied alien shows up. The alien is trying to experience life or something (maybe it’s the Beyonder), so it uses the drawing and the kid’s imagination to become Master Villain. Daphne Dean shows up at Barry’s place and doesn’t remember him, so he and Iris take her out on the town. But Master Villain is out on a rampage, so Barry changes to Flash and fights him. Thanks to the kid’s imagination, the alien gives Flash a pretty tough fight, but ends up taking off, leaving Flash to wonder who he was (and why he sounded like a kid). We find out that Daphne is hiding something, and Barry’s neighbour kid realizes his bad guy came to life and fought Flash, so he vows to create a perfect superhero to fight Master Villain. We’ll have to wait till next issue for that.

Noticeable Things:

• At the start of the story, Barry waits outside while Iris goes into the jewelry store. Poor bastard really doesn’t have a clue, does he?
• I can’t tell if Barry genuinely believes Iris is cool with him hanging out with his ex-girlfriend or if he was just goofing around. Either way, I don’t think Iris is too thrilled.

  

• The alien says he’s already experienced human life as both sexes and that becoming Master Villain is experience #2862; I guarantee you that alien has been getting laid like crazy.
• I can’t look at Heat Wave anymore without hearing Dominic Purcell’s voice.

Wonder Woman #230 – “The Claws of the Cheetah” – (Martin Pasko/Jose Delbo/Vince Colletta)

This issue starts with Steve Trevor and Diana Prince attending a dinner for President Roosevelt. An isolationist newspaper columnist tries to kill the President, but Wonder Woman stops him. At the same dinner is Priscilla Rich, who has a weird split personality thing going on; she’s usually a nice, sweet socialite, but buried inside her is another personality, the Cheetah-who’s neither nice nor sweet. Seeing Wonder Woman triggers Priscilla and she goes home and turns into the Cheetah. She stages a robbery the next day to draw WW’s attention and hits her with a dart that knocks her out. Cheetah has figured out that WW must be associated with the War Department in her civilian identity, since she’s always solving cases for them, not to mention hanging out with Steve Trevor. Funny nobody else put that together. She makes a list of possible candidates and spies on them, finally noticing (through her special contact lenses) the invisible mark on Diana Prince left by her Cheetah dart. Cheetah plots to kill WW by inviting her to do a Public Service film for the War effort and rigging a bomb to go off when the “On Air” light goes on. She gets all fangirlish and writes it in her diary. But when she wakes up the next day, she’s Priscilla Rich again, who’s horrified at what Cheetah’s planning.

She invites Diana Prince to her place—not to seduce her, though a couple of panels kinda made me wonder—but to hypnotize Diana into forgetting that she’s Wonder Woman.

Priscilla must be kind of a dimwit (she is a socialite, I guess), because she just assumed that if WW didn’t show up for the filming that everything would be okay; but there’s still a fucking bomb in the camera! When Steve volunteers to take WW’s place, Priscilla realizes she fucked up and breaks the hypnosis on Diana (by showing her Cheetah’s darts, which she apparently carries in her purse). Diana changes to Wonder Woman, but that triggers Cheetah to re-emerge and they fight for a bit. WW breaks away long enough to save Steve’s ass and when Cheetah attacks again, WW pounds her. She uses her lasso to compel Cheetah to undergo therapy on Paradise Island.

 

Noticeable Things:

• The art on this issue is weird; it looks nothing like the previous issue, even though it’s done by the same guys. Maybe they were told not to hew so close to the TV show? Or maybe Colletta was just phoning it in.
• The colouring’s weird here too; Steve Trevor has red hair at the President’s dinner, but brown hair later.
• Diana seems genuinely jealous when Steve’s going on about about Wonder Woman; is she seriously jealous of herself? I thought Cheetah was the one with the split personality.
• I guess the isolationist guy who tried to kill Roosevelt was just some kind of nutcase; he doesn’t seem to be controlled or anything. It’s a bit weird … this issue is set about a year after Pearl Harbor, so most of the isolationist rhetoric should’ve died down by then.
• I don’t know where Cheetah’s costume came from, if Priscilla’s been “cured” for a while.
• The list of possible Wonder Woman candidates is hilarious; in addition to Dottie Woolfolk and Charlotte Moulton, we can see “feminized” names of other WW-related comics pros … Harriet Peter, Michelle Sekowsky, Jacquie Miller, Roberta Kanigher, Denise O’Neil, and Cathy Workman.
• At the TV studio, Priscilla Rich is dressed like Jackie Kennedy; did Halston travel back in time to outfit her?
• When Priscilla changes to Cheetah at the studio, the costume just seems to appear on her out of nowhere again.

Green Lantern #94 – “Lure for an Assassin” – (Denny O’Neil/Mike Grell/ Terry Austin/Dick Giordano)

This continues from last issue with Green Arrow being dragged off by the “FIA”. Green Lantern shows up and fights them off but suddenly keels over. Green Arrow concludes GL must’ve caught something when he was out in space (damn, he’s got the space-clap!) so he tells Dinah to call John Stewart so he can rush GL to Oa for some space penicillin. Arrow finds a map that one of the FIA guys (conveniently) dropped and decides to go after them—alone. Of course, Dinah changes to Black Canary and tails him. Arrow finds a house out in the country, pounds some guards, and disguises himself as one of them to get into the place. Dinah tries to follow, but falls into a trap. Arrow goes underground and starts kicking the shit out of everyone. Meanwhile, John and Hal are caught by a “fragment of a neutron star” which Denny O’Neil seems to equate with a black hole. Back on Earth, Green Arrow fights his way to the inner sanctum and confronts the head of the FIA, Colonel Krisp (I wonder if he’s related to Captain Crunch?) You can probably guess what happens next: Krisp wants Arrow to work for him, Arrow tells him to fuck off, Krisp threatens to kill Black Canary if Arrow doesn’t assassinate the U.S. President. You know, the usual stuff. Will Arrow do it? Maybe, if the President’s a Republican. But we’ll have to wait till next issue to find out.

Noticeable Things:

• Dinah apparently carries her entire Canary outfit, including the wig, in her purse.
• We see Dinah about to change from her party dress to her Canary costume … apparently she’s a very modern woman who doesn’t believe in wearing a bra under her party dress.

  

• John Stewart has a weird-looking poster in his apartment; it says “Warp” and seems to feature bikini-clad women fighting. I can’t figure out if it’s a reference to something (a comic, a movie, an album cover?); First had a comic called Warp, but that didn’t come out until ’83, Even DC’s Space Warp didn’t come out till 1979, so I don’t know what that poster represents. Maybe just something Grell made up? Anybody know the story on that?
• When GA decides to disguise himself as a guard, he has to shave his trademark beard and ’stache … with an arrowhead, using no shaving cream, water, or even a mirror! If he walked in with bloodied toilet paper all over his face, I guess that’d be a good disguise.
• I think the shaven Green Arrow really resembles the old Kirby Green Arrow from the Golden/Silver Age.
• Arrow says he knows the fence around the house is rigged because it’s “too tall” to be a wooden fence; because no one would build an eight-foot fence out of wood, right? That’s just crazy!
• John Stewart’s inferiority complex is really tedious (and gets even worse next issue).