Welcome to the wrap-up for 1978, which also marks the end of my first year of blogging. The end of the year is traditionally a time for looking back (as with this olde-tyme photo of Gulliver), but I’d also like to look ahead. 1978 has been fun and there were some pretty cool stories, but I’m looking forward to reviewing some 1979 comics. Because of the DC Implosion in late ’78, DC canceled a bunch of titles and cut the page counts of their existing comics drastically. So 1979 is a pretty stable year, at least for my purposes; I’ll be reviewing thirteen titles, all but one of which were monthly (the sole exception being Detective Comics, which was bi-monthly, but mega-sized). I’ll be reviewing three comics per post (except for the posts with Detective Comics, where there’ll be four), so it’ll be easier to keep track of when your favourites will be reviewed. As for specifics, keep reading. Continue reading “Year End (P)review”
Category: Comics Reviews
Comics Reviews: Flash 268, Wonder Woman 250, Green Lantern 111
Flash #268 – “Riddle of the Runaway Comic” – Cary Bates/Irv Novick/Frank McLaughlin
This is one of those fake-out issues where they show you the “guest stars” on the cover, but they never appear in the actual story. You’ll see what I mean as we go on. This issue starts with Barney Sands (twelve year-old neighbor of Barry and Iris Allen) looking all over the place for an old comic he lost. Elsewhere in Central City, Flash is tracking down someone named Griselda, who turns out to be a bear that escaped from the zoo. Griselda almost wastes Flash, but he uses super speed to dig a hole in the ground and trap her. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Flash 268, Wonder Woman 250, Green Lantern 111”
Comics Reviews: JLA 161, Superboy & the Legion 246, Warlord 16, Jonah Hex 19
Justice League of America #161 – “The Reverse Spells of Zatanna’s Magic” – Gerry Conway/Dick Dillin/Frank McLaughlin
This one starts with the JLA (all 13 of them) taking a vote on electing a new member—Zatanna. Green Arrow is taking it pretty seriously, but Zatanna shows up before they can count the votes and blasts the ballots to ashes. (Any readers paying attention will notice that Zatanna recites her spells normally, instead of backwards like she always has before. That is what’s known as a “clue”.) Zatanna tells them she doesn’t want to join their lousy club and the more they try to reason with her, the snottier she gets. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: JLA 161, Superboy & the Legion 246, Warlord 16, Jonah Hex 19”
Comics Reviews: Superman 330, Action 490, DC Comics Presents 4
Superman #330 – “The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis” – Martin Pasko/Curt Swan/Frank Chiaramonte
Have you ever wondered why nobody can tell that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person? After all, a pair of glasses is hardly a convincing disguise. We’ve all laughed about it at some point, and we’re not the first ones to do so. I can only imagine that this particular story was cooked up in response to all the people saying “Glasses? That wouldn’t fool anyone!” We start with a satellite falling from orbit and heading straight for the WGBS Building. Lois Lane, Lana Lang, and Jimmy Olsen urge Clark to change to Superman and stop the satellite from killing them all. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Superman 330, Action 490, DC Comics Presents 4”
Comics Reviews: Batman 306, Detective 481, Brave and the Bold 145
Batman #306 – “Night of Siege” – Gerry Conway/John Calnan/David Hunt
This one starts with some shifty dudes unloading boxes from a boat in the middle of the night … definitely suspicious behaviour. Batman seems to agree, since he shows up and beats the hell out of them. The boxes are full of heroin and Batman realizes the boat is from a ship called the Golden Girl II. He goes to check it out, sneaking aboard the ship and cornering the owner, Hannibal Hardwicke. Apparently Hardwicke has been suspected of being behind the heroin traffic around Gotham for a couple of years, but he always managed to wriggle out of the grasp of the law. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Batman 306, Detective 481, Brave and the Bold 145”
Comics Reviews: Flash 267, Wonder Woman 249, Green Lantern 110
Flash #267 – “Heat Wave’s Blaze of Glory” – Cary Bates/Irv Novick/Frank McLaughlin
This one starts with Heat Wave giving us a recap of last issue: Heat Wave went to a criminal shrink and found out he had a phobia about cold because of a childhood incident. He overcame the phobia by breaking into the home of an Arctic explorer who’d been cryogenically frozen, then luring Flash there and swapping him for the frozen explorer. So now Flash is trapped in a cryo-tube, not due to be woken up for decades—or longer. Heat Wave also unmasked Flash, but didn’t recognize him as Barry Allen (though he thought there was something familiar about him). Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Flash 267, Wonder Woman 249, Green Lantern 110”
Comics Reviews: JLA 160, Superboy & the Legion 245, Jonah Hex 18
Justice League of America #160 – “Crisis From Tomorrow” – Gerry Conway/Dick Dillin/Frank McLaughlin
This one continues from last issue, which was pretty wild. Apparently the Lord of Time built a kick-ass computer that’s so powerful it can actually stop time; unfortunately, he didn’t realize what a monumentally stupid idea that was until after he built the computer. Now he wants to shut down (or destroy) the computer, but he’s afraid it’ll go all 2001 and kill him if he tries, so he’s worked out some convoluted plot to have the JLA and JSA do it for him. He’s calculated that if the JLA/JSA are defeated by five heroes from the past (Jonah Hex, Miss Liberty, Enemy Ace, Black Pirate, and Viking Prince) they’ll come back stronger and more determined and be able to smash his time-threatening computer. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: JLA 160, Superboy & the Legion 245, Jonah Hex 18”
Comics Reviews: Superman 329, Action 489, DC Presents 3
Superman #329 – “I Have Met the Enemy—And It Is Me” – Martin Pasko/Curt Swan/Frank Chiaramonte
This one starts pretty much where last issue left off, with Superman wrapped up by a lamp-post. We get a recap of what led to this moment: years ago on Krypton, Superman’s father helped create some nanobots to aid people with disabilities, but the nanobots gained sentience and started taking over the people they were in contact with. The nanobots were frozen and shot into space (which seemed to be Krypton’s solution to everything) and ended up on Earth, where they thawed out and merged with a Superman robot. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Superman 329, Action 489, DC Presents 3”
Comics Reviews: Batman 305, Detective 480, Brave and the Bold 144
Batman #305 – “Death Gamble of a Darknight Detective” – Gerry Conway/John Calnan/Dave Hunt
This one starts with Batman rushing to the site of an explosion. The scene of carnage is STAR Labs, where a paramilitary gang are stealing something, using the explosion and a bunch of smoke grenades as cover. Their leader (Thanatos, who wears a skull mask) seems to have been expecting Batman and tells his soldiers to attack. Batman does pretty well, using the smoke to his advantage, but gets knocked out by a concussion grenade. Thanatos and his gang get away and Commissioner Gordon revives Batman. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Batman 305, Detective 480, Brave and the Bold 144”
Comics Reviews: Flash 266, Wonder Woman 248, Green Lantern 109
Flash #266 – “Heat Wave Plays It Cool” – Cary Bates/Irv Novick/Frank McLaughlin
This one starts with Heat Wave and three of his henchmen pulling a Trojan Horse; they want to rob an exhibit of Egyptian artifacts at Central City Museum, so they hide inside a pyramid replica that the curator is bringing in to give the exhibit some extra Egyptian flavour. When the exhibit opens, Iris is there to cover it for Picture News and Barry’s tagging along. Heat Wave and his boys emerge from the pyramid and disable the guards, but Barry changes to Flash and takes out the three henchmen by getting them in a slipstream and slamming them into the wall. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Flash 266, Wonder Woman 248, Green Lantern 109”