Everybody Hates Us Because We're Scientists

This afternoon's post picks up my examination of DC's early-70s Wanted series once again, with no. 8 from the summer of 1973.  The first thing that strikes you is how the red cover would "pop" on the spinner rack. I remember reading this one as a ten-year-old in a cafe on Bridge Street in Strathaven one afternoon; my mum was probably killing time while we waited for the bus.

The Big Freeze: a rematch from the autumn of 1963 for the Fastest Man Alive and his frigid foe. The story is gorgeously pencilled and inked by Infantino and Anderson. Here, the villain sets his cap very aggressively for Iris Allen. It's a brief tale but an effective character sketch of the antisocial Captain, who's been retooled for the New 52. 

Cold is more iconic than Batman's "cool,cruel" Mr. Freeze: never interesting until Bruce Timm 's series gave him a tragic backstory.

Mr. Who: This "sinister Lord of the Underworld"  was a "hopeless cripple...derided, the butt of boys". Er, awkward. Anyway, the cravat-wearing super-criminal created the Z Solution, granting him renewed youth, regenerative, chameleon and size-changing powers. Mr. Who uses these abilities for art thefts and jewel heists. A Golden Age analogue of both Marvel's Mr. Hyde and the Lizard, he's a bit of a comedown for the Masked Mage. 
 What a decline in the fortunes of the Wonder Wizard! This was the first time I'd ever seen the truncated helmet. Roy Thomas came up, of course,  with a reason for the change of headgear in All-Star Squadron (The Helmet of Nabu was sublimating Nelson's personality.) Here, all the grandeur and mystery of Fate is lost. His Unique Selling Point -the isolation of being the last line of defence for humanity against Lovecraftian cosmic horror - was implied in certain runs of Dr. Strange. (Similarly, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor became a super- being who gave his enemies one chance before he unleashed his powers. Wisely, that's been scaled back; the Last Time Lord is no longer the Lonely God but a Madman with a Box.) But by 1941, poor Dr. Fate is basically a flying strongman who trades a few Tough Guy quips with crooks: "Don't give me any sass". Did Mr. Who really return, as implied in the final caption? (other than in the aforementioned A.S.S.?) Who cares.

One correspondent on the letters page, somewhat ironically, predicts that sales of the title must be healthy. He goes on to suggest an all-female issue, with The Cheetah, Catwoman and Poison Ivy. We could also have seen a GL/Harlequin story or Silver Age GL and Star Sapphire;  this is an appealing idea but it won't happen. Another letter refers to issue 1's hint about new material. Again, it won't happen until the Secret Origins of Super Villains special of 1977. As ever, there's a request for a JSA reprint- they were extremely popular, probably because they only appeared once a year in a summer JLA "Crisis".
For many years, I assumed Wanted 8 was the last issue but I was mistaken, as we'll see in an upcoming post.

 This seems as good a place as any to look at a recent ebay purchase: the second issue of the short-lived Legion of Super-Heroes reprint series from the spring of Seventy-Three. 1965's The War Between Krypton and Earth is a wild sci-fi yarn: the Legion spilts into two feuding factions as they travel back in time and encounter a colony of ancient  Kryptonians, at war with a rival alien civilization. The Cardy cover excitingly re-imagines the Adventure original . It also features two of the Legion's lesser lights : Star Boy and Phantom Girl. Oddly, Lightning Lad is mistakenly given two robotic arms.
 The Legion are responsible for infesting Earth with giant reptiles- Colossal Boy gets to do some dino-wrangling - and Star Boy sinks Atlantis! It's a hugely high-concept adventure and like Adventure's previous "Super Moby Dick" story, it gives the LSH a mythic scope. But yet again, it's pencilled by John Forte with stiff, Classical formality. By comparison the Tommy Tomorrow back-up by Jim Mooney, is dynamic and exciting to read. 


There's a one-page text feature, part two of The LSH Membership List, with a panel of Superman and some familiar commemorative statues.  My ten-year-old mind would have gone foom (pun intended) if I'd finally caught a glimpse of the Adult Legion and the monuments for Reflecto and Shadow Woman.The text feature also includes Erg-1 as a KIA  honorary member (at that point, he had yet to return as Wildfire) and correctly places Star Boy and Dream Girl as former Substitute Heroes.


I'll focus on three 1977 LSH books on Materioptikon in the near future, so look out for that. In the near future, here on Place, I'll also be returning to ERB's Barsoom....


Next: Virgin Worlds


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