Reign of the Supermen #239: Dinosaur-Sized Superman

Source: Superman vol.1 #302 (1976)
Type: TransformationLeaving the Silver Age for the Bronze Age, I'm afraid science and common sense may not suddenly appear. Exhibit A: Elliot S! Maggin and José Luis Garcia Lopez's "Seven-Foot-Two... And Still Growing!" This is the story of Lex Luthor growing Superman's body to the huge size above, while keeping Superman's brain at its normal size. The plot: To force Superman's little brain to sacrifice reasoning just to keep his huge body coordinated. Before you start thinking this could work, let me first say that Luthor does this with a "gland control device". Why am I not 20 feet tall by now? Underachieving glands?

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Superman doesn't become a pea-brained dinosaur overnight. No, overnight, he just gets a little too big for his jam-jams.
As the morning progresses, Supes gets as big as 9 feet tall and he's in danger of not showing up for work on time. Who's he gonna call? Who else? The Atom! If only he can dial Ray's number with his massive pinky!
Imagine doing that on an iphone! The Atom is full of smarts and he helps Clark Kent save his tv career, encouraging the rapidly deteriorating Clark to interview his alter ego at super-speed.
There's a whole thing with him convincing Morgan Edge that he's got the scoop of the century (that oooh, it's not true he's grown in size! Ratings ahoy!), having Steve Lombard deliver the cameras but run away at the sight of a giant Clark Kent (yet blaming some kind of LSD flashback), and the talking to himself on giant chairs despite having great difficulty focusing. And we know his brain is tiny because he looked at himself in a lead-backed mirror with x-ray vision, bouncing the image into the television for Ray Palmer's inspection. I don't even know.

After a fierce battle with Lex Luthor and his amazing helicopter backpack, Superman and the Atom lure the evil genius to an open air "television studio" rigged by the Atom to shrink along with Superman, but leaving Lex full-size. He believes he's been "infected" and fearing for his own mental deterioration, he turns off the gland control machine.
(Lopez makes a rare mistake here by forgetting to show the props that are apparently also shrinking, so the scene's a little mystifying.)

So does this tale make any more sense than those Silver/Stone Age stories? I'll let you decide for yourself.

Suicide Squad Retirement Files 040-043

We are very close to the end of the first series now, but there are still several of Amanda Waller's files from this period to disclose...
Files 032-035 - File 036-039 - Previous

Subject: Sportsmaster II
Profile: Obscure Manhunter villain
Powers: Sports equipment-related gimmicks.
Mission: During the event known as the "War of the Gods", collect intel from the island fortress of the sorceress Circe.
Chance of survival going in: Low. With only one appearance under his belt, and in a Suicide Squad cousin book - Manhunter - Victor Gover had little chance of continuing his copyright infringement on the Golden Age model, "Crusher" Crock.
Retirement: RELEASED. Sportsmaster escaped Circe's island unscathed and was by all accounts released with a full pardon. (Suicide Squad #58)
Final report: Gover later tried his luck against Wildcat and ended up bruised, battered, and forced to retire and join Gamblers Anonymous. You don't mess with Wildcat!

Subject: Major Victory
Profile: Obscure patriotic hero
Powers: Suit that gives him super-human strength and toughness.
Mission: During the event known as the "War of the Gods", collect intel from the island fortress of the sorceress Circe.
Chance of survival going in: Low. Prior to joining the Squad, Major Victory had only ever been seen with the Force of July, most of which were massacred during the Janus Directive. In other words, none of them had any depth and were considered expendable. Since the Major had effectively quit just as the Squad was dissolved, his return during the War of the Gods might have been his blaze of glory moment.
Retirement: QUIT. America sells out. Was offered a leadership position with the Captains of Industry and jumped at the chance to leave an organization he was never truly comfortable with. (Suicide Squad #59)
Final report: In his next appearance, Major Victory joined the Shadow Fighters, a group of heroes assembled to fight Eclipso. Most were massacred, the Major among them. His name has since been used by at least two other heroes.

Subject: Atom III
Profile: Suicide Squad original character
Powers: Shrinking.
Mission: As part of an extended mission to pose as Ray Palmer in order to attract the Cabal's attention, allow himself to be captured by the Cabal's Micro Squad
Chance of survival going in: Fair. As usual, character specifically developed for the Squad are labeled as expendable, though there still seemed to be some juice in the character of Adam Cray, not least of which a fateful meeting between him and Deadshot over the shooting of Senator Cray. It is possible that the powers that be needed Ray Palmer's Atom to return, requiring this legacy hero to die prematurely (sound familiar?).
Retirement: DECEASED. Nailed in the back by Blacksnake, a member of the diminutive Micro Squad. (Suicide Squad #61)
Final report: Adam Cray was raised from the dead as a Black Lantern and finally destroyed in Blackest Night.

Subject: Atom II
Profile: Classic DC hero
Powers: Shrinking.
Mission: Escort Blacksnake to jail.
Chance of survival going in: High. Though Ray Palmer agrees to help the Squad for a little while, there was little chance that this Silver Age legend would die, especially this soon after the death of another Atom.
Retirement: ASSOCIATION ENDED. After a single mission (to protect Quraci president Marlo from assassins), Ray Palmer left the group. He may have been injured when Cabal assassins hit Blacksnake, forcing his hand in the matter. (Suicide Squad #64)
Final report: Jumping from title to title, from crossover event to crossover to event, from paradigm to paradigm, the Atom went on to almost rejoin the Justice League, get regressed to his teenage years, found a team of expendable Teen Titans, and most recently be the object of a search through the multiverse.

Next time, the books close on the Suicide Squad's first volume.

Reign of the Supermen #89: Birdman

Source: Action Comics #314 (1964)
Type: Alternate timelineAs shown last Amalgamonday, there was this story in which Jor-El used a gadget to preview what Kal-El's life would be like if he sent the rocket to different planets. Turns out each world turns him into a different member of the Justice League. Would he have been better off?

This week: Becoming the Atom
Landing site: Xann, a planet of giants
Adoptive parents: A young reddish-blond couple who teach him their language but forbid him to reveal his powers.
A new life: Kal-El is generously described as a "pygmy" and grows up a biological anomaly to those around him. When criminals take hostages, Kal dares to raid their base, but can't show his face. He dresses up in a colorful costume and flies into the base with a flock of birds. No worries about his secret identity - though the hostages immediately think he's as tiny as Kal-El the Pygmy, they're also convinced it can't be the same guy because this one has terrific powers! (So if you thought the glasses were stretching it...) Kal goes on to become Xann's premiere superhero, "Birdman", but because of his size, can never marry and have kids. For that reason, Jor-El looks elsewhere.
Final score: C+

Next Amalgamonday: Jor-El gives the Great Computer Forecaster another spin!

Brightest Day... Oh, You're Being IRONIC!

I know they're putting the Brightest Day banner on anything and everything that features one of the characters returned from the dead, and the Titans-Villains for Hire special features Osiris, but it's more than that, isn't it? Brightest Day tags the books that are leading to the eventual return of the Bronze Age current DC writers love so well. (Guys, I started reading comics in the Bronze Age. Have you LOOKED at those issues with your adult eyes lately?) I suppose there's a cost in blood for returning to those "brighter days".Now regardless of the "white washing of the DC Universe" killing Ryan Choi has become a part of, I quite liked the All-New Atom. More than I ever liked the Silver Age Atom. His adventures were wild and wacky, and his version of Ivy City was one I wanted to come back to again and again. And now he's dead, and for what? Just to set Ray Palmer back up as the Atom. No other reason.

The evidence:
-My interpretation of the Brightest Day "event" stated above.
-Here's an entire "special" that has no other function except the murder of Ryan Choi at the hands of people who have no personal connection to him (the fact the contract was paid for by lame-ass villain Dwarfstar is doubly insulting).
-Each time Ray Palmer is mentioned, they make sure to put him on a pedestal compared to Ryan.

You know what this means...
The jury...
Comics Alliance
CSBG Archive
Trusty Plink Stick
Angry Asian Man
Read/Rant
Second Printing
Reappropriate
CBR Review
Rich Lovatt
Last of the Famous International Fanboys
Bookhound

The verdict..?

Bottom Line (in tiny script)

Ant-Man may have won the Comic Treadmill's Scaled-Down Smack-Down against the Atom, but you know what?"But most of all... it smells like a huge fart!"

Ants stink and they're stupid. That's right. He said it.

Le Brave et le Bolde

One of my pet peeves is bad French in American comics. Only one of many, I assure you, but important to me nonetheless. French characters spouting remedial French at best, and Babel Fish at worst. So here's a quick correction, if you will indulge me, or the otherwise entertaining Brave and the Bold #9. Master Waid and Mistress Buscema (I should think proofreading is part of "assistant-editing), attend:

So the trouble has to do with the two Andrés in the Blackhawk/Boy Commandos team-up, of course. Let's call them Big André and Little André. It all starts when Little André comes out of a pyramid shouting:"Une maman a Brooklyn!" Ok, let's look at this, shall we? "Maman" is the equivalent of "Mom", so it's really a pun. A mummy has Brooklyn, in the "are you my mummy?" sense. Of course, it's not a pun in French, it's just nonsense. Mummy (the Egyptian undead extensive care patient type) in French is "momie". I'm giving Waid a pass here, hoping he knows he's making a joke.

What about Big André's French?
Ah yes, Big André has mangled syntax syndrome. He should be asking "Qu'est-ce qui s'est produit?", but he sidesteps the normal interrogative for a literal translation of "What has happened?" It's more like he's saying "The thing that's happened?" which gives it a demanding tone, but is ridiculously awkward. This is a fail. Now, what about Big André's translation?
It's a good thing he can read speech bubbles, because it sounds to me like Little André is saying "A mom in Brooklyn" or say we ignore the pun, "A mummy in Brooklyn". There's a homophone at work here, you see - "a" means "has", but "à" means "at" or "in", and they sound exactly the same. Given Brooklyn's a place name, Big André should probably be hearing the wrong thing. But he sees there's no accent on the "a", AND gets the pun, AND knows there's a Boy Commando called Brooklyn, so everything's fine.

Little André's story about the stone door, etc. is surprisingly clear, and Big André translates it well. (Well, there's a confusing pronoun use, but this is how a person would talk.) And then little André makes an unforgivable gender mistake. In French, you'll remember, all nouns have a gender. This is a particular difficulty to second-language learners because there's no real rhyme or reason to which are masculine and which feminine. "Pierre" (Stone) is feminine, by the way, so Waid correctly says "Cette pierre" using a feminine demonstrative adjective ("Ce pierre" would have been a mistake). However, he goes on to use the masculine pronoun "celui" to refer to that stone in the next bit, instead of "celle". Ah well.

Total score: 4/10. Mark will have to take the course again.

Counter Argument of the Gods

B&B #9 does have a lot of cool stuff on offer, so you shouldn't listen to Siskoid and his amazingly anal pet peeves (see, I can make French puns too!). Some of the best bits include:
-Robby Reed!!! (I'm a big Dial H fan.)
-Platinum reminding Mercury he's not the only liquid metal at room termperature.
-The Warlock of Ys! (I love it when pouring over my Who's Whos every night pays off.)
-The Atom narrating his story, just like in his own title.
-Between B&B and Booster Gold, the few series I'm reading at the moment are really giving me a tour of the entire history of the DC Universe. What's not to love?

B&B 2-in-1 Round 11: Thor vs. the Atom

We can't seem to get away from that tie for long. It's 5-5 for both Batman and the Thing, kids. Who gets a slim lead this time?

In the orange corner... it's the Thing and the mighty Thor, written by Steve Gerber and Chris Claremont and drawn by Herb Trimpe and Joe Giella, Marvel Two-in-One #9, When a God Goes Mad!

In the black corner... we've got Batman and the Atom, written by Bob Haney and drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, Brave and the Bold #77, So Thunders the Cannoneer!

Advantage... Thor? DING DING DING!

The Stars
The Thing's back to babysitting Wundarr, "a starborn superhuman with the mind of an infant [and showing more chest skin than Power Girl]". Truly, the worst character find of 1974. This time out, he's taking the kid to a puppet show. God help me. If that wasn't bad enough, indignity is piled on indignity when 1) a bunch of little kids take down the Thing and rip his clothes to shreds, and 2) the Fantasticar gets a parking ticket.Well, that's what you get for double-parking, Ben. He does get to fight a Puppet Master-controlled Thor to a standstill, but it's Wundarr who saves the day, first by absorbing the radiation powering the voodoo dolls, and then by being the one who bitch slaps the Puppet Master into next week (as far as I can tell, he is killed, but they don't show the body so...). Like I said, indignity. +2 points

I'm glad to see Batman do a little legwork for once and actually be proactive. See there's this train called the Brotherhood Express that's gonna travel the country with each country's greatest treasures. Each car represents and a country, and you can easily tell which because there's, like, a miniature London Bridge on top, or whatever. Instead of waiting for a crook to loot the train, Bats scouts ahead and prevents at least two hijacking plots and has the Commissioner change the train's route. Why yes, it's just a matter of laying new track, right? He's not just well-prepared, he's got a lot of guts too:
After ripping the be-moustached Mona Lisa in half, he proceeds to punch off Michelangelo's David's head off. Hey, they're all fakes anyway. Sure, he's a good detective, but can he fight? Glad you asked. Batman scores extra points for using the Holland car's windmill to batter crooks off the moving train (calling himself "Gotham's big wind" may not be the best PR move however) as well as surviving being shot from a cannon. +9 bat-points

The Guests
Thor spends half his time as a puppet of the Puppet Master, which is easy to see because he-speaks-with-dashes-between-each-word, so this is a classic Marvel team-up where the heroes fight each other. Not that he's safe to be around when he's NOT controlled. For example, he nearly hits the Fantasticar in New York's crowded skies.
The Puppet Master then uses him to attack the Fantastic Four, which he accomplishes in short order. The Invisible Girl's the last to fall, but a bad headache knocks her out.
I guess she wasn't just saying that for Reed's benefit. Only then does the God of Thunder snap out of it long enough to turn back into Dr. Don Blake. That severs the link to the Puppet Master's voodoo doll, but Blake can't leave well enow alone and summons Thor again. And again he falls under the spell. And then not only doesn't he soundly beat the Thing, but Wundarr steals his killing blow and all his XP! +3 points (mostly for trashing the FF)

The Atom gets called in to help Batman because part of the great train robbery plot must've required a tiny person, about which he is an expert. It's Bob Haney's version of the Atom though, so instead of riding the phone call to Gotham, he jumps a bumper and hopes for the best.
In the Haneyverse, the Atom can shrink to a size of about 6 inches and that's about it. Never smaller, no cool tricks or physics knowledge. And when he meets a woman his size, he goes all mushy inside as if he wasn't 6 feet tall in real life. Maybe he just always wanted to do it on a stack of Kleenex or something. If I were using the Treadmill's criteria from their Scaled-Down Smack-Down, then I'd have to give props for the tiny battle that ensues, which uses sharp skates, a tulip, perfume, scotch tape, and more. And I guess I AM using those criteria. +5 bat-points

The Villains
Though believed dead, the Puppet Master returns disguised as Howdy Doody.
I'm not kidding either. His door actually says "H. Deuty - Puppeteer". You know what? Screw how ridiculous the Howdy Doody thing is, this is a puppeteer with an OFFICE. Anyway, his shtick, as ever, is to use his Secret Wars action figures to control superheroes. Thor would normally be out of his range, but he's got a radioactive guy called Radion, funnily enough, to help power the process this time. Radion spends most of the issue with a box on his head, either because he's going on a ninja mission later, or to make me think he's the Mad Thinker's Awsome Android. Maybe that IS the ninja mission. When Wundarr makes Radion sick (I'm sure he must get that a lot), it's all over for that particular plot. +4 points

The villain-du-jour in Brave & the Bold is the Cannoneer, and what a convoluted plot he's masterminded. Bear with me - other blogs have avoided going into details for a reason...
First, this guy is a circus human cannonball who has turned to crime. He has his minion launch him great distances and always lands on his feet. Check out his precision as he blasts into the Commissioner's office:
Note also his helmet which is great for giving headbutts. Points off for having stolen it off Bulletman. The Cannoneer also makes use of a number of circus people as minions/pawns. More on them later. Now, his evil, evil plot:
1. In order to steal the world's great art treasures from the Brotherhood Express, he hatches a plan involving a fake stretch of track and a civil war ironclad. Batman stops him before he can begin.
2. He steals the train's new itinerary from the Commissioner's office.
3. Then, he drugs the circus' most beautiful midget, shrinking her to a few inches in size so that she can set up tiny gas cannisters inside the train to put the guards to sleep (they have no recollection of having falling asleep, mind you) while the treasures are replaced by fakes.
4. Where does he get all those fakes? Easy. His circus has created an exact replica for touring purposes. Of course, the Cannoneer places all the real treasure aboard the fake train, just to make it easier to find.
5. The minion that mans his cannon is Dum-Dum, a superstrong but apparently retarded man-ape. When the Cannoneer is discovered, he tries to flee with the train, but Dum-Dum's sleeping on the tracks preventing the train from moving. Our villain shows how evil he is by shooting Dum-Dum with a sandbag. Next thing you know, though, he's on top of the train fighting Batman. Circus folk loyalty knows no bounds, I guess.
6. When it looks like he's gonna lose, he remotely blows the tracks up ahead. If he can't enjoy the world's art treasures, no one will! Thankfully the circus folk rebuild the track just in time with the help of an elephant!
7. His weakness: An irrational fear of ripping his shorts.
8.Batman saves him, cuz you know, he's a good guy, and the Cannoneer repays him by shooting him off the train. It all devolves into a pretty exciting hand-to-hand fight, which he will lose. So close! +7 bat-points

Odds vs. Ends
From Marvel Two-in-One:
Wundarr saves the day penalty: -2 points
The art in this thing is ROUGH. I really expected more from Herb Trimpe. Aside from the overly-caricatured Puppet Master, we get things like this:
In many ways, he tries to be Jack Kirby and fails dismally. Don Blake in particular seems to have a bad case of Kirby hands.
-3 points, +1 point for the Kirby hand

From Brave and the Bold:
Of all the nations represented on the Brotherhood Express, the Netherlands ("the land of dikes") is the saddest. Among their greatest treasures is a wheel of gouda cheese that almost kills the Atom.
Somehow, I'm giving this a bonus point. +1 bat-point
I think it actually makes sense that in a universe with superhumans, many of them would gravitate to the circus. Spandex coolness without the responsibilities of a superhero. +1 bat-point
This issue is pretty dense (in every way). Not only is there a lot of action, but Haney finds time to indulge in a thought-provoking subplot about a beautiful French midget who's about to lose her place to another who's an inch shorter. The antidote to the Cannoneer's shrinking drug makes her a giant at issue's end, which is great because now, Tex the World's Tallest Cowboy can finally ask her to marry him. +2 bat-points
The midget's name is Lili de la Pooche. Being French is no excuse. -1 bat-point
Hey, that damned "Read 'em ever, miss 'em never" tagline seems to be gone for good! I can start to live my life again. +1 bat-point

Farewells and Scoring
Unfriendly Farewell translated from the pidgin Shakespearean: "Hey Benji, sorry the Odinson trashed your home and almost killed you and your family, but I gots shit to do."
They keep brushing him off and he keeps taking it. I'm just waiting for the day when he LOSES IT!!! +3 points

It never gets friendlier for Batman than when a Justice Leaguer drops by and they can yuck it up with all their inside jokes, and make you feel like you're not in the gang. Oh, is that just me and Snapper Carr then? Very well.

(With appologies to the Treadmill, but the B&W wouldn't scan well... do check out their review of this comic.)

The Atom catches a train to Ivy Town this time. Never let it be said that superheroes don't travel in style. +2 bat-points

Results please... Oh ouch. The Atom proves that size doesn't really matter as he blows Thor right off the mat, 27 to 8! That puts Batman 1 point ahead of the Thing and 26 points ahead of the struggling Tom Cochrane Band*

Be here next time for the all catfight round!

*Really, Tom Cochrane shouldn't have even entered the ring with these guys. I don't know what he doing here. Life isn't a highway, it's a railroad.