Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #497 by Various Creators
For a while in the early 1980s, Adventure Comics was turned into a digest format by DC Comics, with more pages but smaller ones, and multiple series represented, a mix of new and reprint stories. Let’s take a look at this typical installment.
“All Together Now!” written by Bob Rozakis with art by Alex Toth & Dan Adkins, stars the Challengers of the Unknown. Four men, pilot Ace Morgan, diver Prof Haley, boxer Rocky Davis and acrobat Red Ryan, survived a plane crash intact with only their watches stopping. Since they were “living on borrowed time,” they decided to dedicate their lives to challenging the unknown. This story is the last part of a retelling of their origin. It turns out that the crash was caused by a mobbed up casino boss in Las Vegas who’d been trying to welch on a large debt owed to one of Red’s friends.
A bomb had been placed in Red’s luggage to blow up his friend in flight, but Red had been diverted to Ace’s plane instead, causing the crash. The newly-formed team confronts the mobster, wrecks his casino, and the friend is still out his winnings. This story is way more down to Earth than most of the Challengers’ adventures, and Prof doesn’t get a chance to show off his skillset.
“The Boy With Ultra-Powers!” written by Jerry Siegel, with art by Curt Swan & George Klein, is a Superboy tale. Ben and Gary Crane arrive by train in Smallville, seemingly another of the many visitors drawn to the community by its connection to Superboy. And indeed they are here to see Superboy, but only so that Gary, secretly “Ultra Boy” can learn Superboy’s secret identity on behalf of “headquarters.”
In aid of this, Ultra Boy uses his “penetra-vision” for various feats. It’s even more powerful than Superboy’s “x-ray vision” in that it can see through and melt lead. Gary is misled by the actions of Pete Ross, the one boy in Smallville that secretly knows Superboy is Clark Kent, but this is cleared up by the end. Ultra Boy is not an enemy, but a young hero undergoing an initiation test to join the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Ultra Boy reveals that his birth name is Jo Nah, and he was given ultra-powers when swallowed by a radioactive space whale. Yeah. He would go on to become one of the mainstays of the Legion. Pete Ross, meanwhile, gets to be an honorary member for keeping Superboy’s secret.
“The Explanation” written by Steve Skeates, pencilled by Jim Aparo and inked by Frank Giacoia, is an Aquaman, or more properly, a Mera story. The two have been reunited after several issues apart, and Mera tells her side of the story. After being separated from Aquaman by the maelstrom, she’d been captured by exiled Atlantean criminals who delivered her to pirates. These pirates were in league with Narkran, the usurper who’d set up the entire series of events to draw Aquaman and his allies away from Atlantis long enough for him to consolidate his rule.
The pirates held Mera in a special cell designed to thwart her hard-water powers so that she could eventually assist them in a robbery. Some days later, Aquaman had attacked the pirates for unrelated reasons, Mera was able to make her escape, and then save Aquaman from his own peril. And there you are.
Meanwhile, Tula (Aquagirl) discovers that the young hotheads of Atlantis want to revolt against Narkran and are keen on using violence to do so, and there’s a panel of Aqualad fighting a sea monster as a teaser for next issue. At this late date, this story suffers from only being a middle part in a longer tale.
“The Mighty Marvels Join Forces!” is the first appearance of Black Adam originally printed in The Marvel Family #1 in 1945. Fawcett Comics was doing well off the exploits of Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel, so a title was launched for the entire Marvel Family to join forces. Naturally, for the first story, an opponent was needed that justified the team-up. So it was revealed that Billy Batson had not been the first hero empowered by the wizard Shazam. 5,000 years ago in Egypt, Shazam had chosen Teth-Adam to become “Mighty Adam”, protector of the land. Mighty Adam had gotten drunk on power, assassinated the Pharoah, and took over Egypt with the aim of world conquest.
Shazam was understandably upset, but could not withdraw his power or kill Mighty Adam. He did, however, change the killer’s name to Black Adam and exiled him to “the farthest star in the universe.” Rather than try to make a life among the stars, Black Adam chose to make a beeline back to Earth, and after five thousand years, has finally arrived.
Black Adam starts his new reign of terror by nearly killing a police officer who annoys him, but the Marvels soon interrupt. Since his powers come from the same basic source as the Marvel Family’s, and are equal to them, they cannot harm Black Adam and vice-versa. The stalemate is broken when Uncle Dudley, a “lovable old fraud” who poses as “Uncle Marvel”, tricks Black Adam into saying Shazam’s name and depowering himself. The villain is punched out before he can repower, then his five thousand missing years catch up to him, and Teth-Adam ages to dust.
It’s not a very good story. Much of it is taken up by flashbacks to the various characters’ origin stories, there’s surprisingly little superfight action, and it ends abruptly with a kind of copout. It was Black Adam’s only appearance in the Golden Age. But the concept of an evil prototype of Captain Marvel was strong, and he was a striking image, so Black Adam was brought back by mad science for the 1970s revival. In the post-Crisis era, Black Adam’s backstory was given more nuance, and he gradually shifted into sometimes being in “anti-hero” territory, culminating in the recent movie.
“The Face Behind the Lead Mask!” written by Jerry Siegel with art by John Forte, was the first time the Legion of Super-Heroes was its own feature in Adventure Comics. But it didn’t stray far from its roots, with Superboy beginning his perennial permanent guest star status. In this case, Superboy is summoned to the Thirtieth Century by a handful of Legionnaires whose powers have been going out of control. The World-Wide Police will exile them from Earth if they can’t figure out what’s going on and cure it.
The first mystery is almost immediately solved when the heroes are attacked by a lead-masked being named Urthlo. He has the ability to turn off or overload the Legionnaires’ abilities seemingly at will, and Kryptonite vision to keep Superboy at bay. His goal is to get the Legion as a whole banned from Earth to satisfy an unexplained grudge.
Saturn Girl finally comes up with a plan involving some more Superman lore, and another special guest star. “Urthlo” is revealed to be a robot built by the young Lex Luthor in the image of what he might look like as an adult and projected into the future to destroy Superboy’s friends the Legion. I love that the robot is programmed using “hate tapes” to make sure it’s hostile.
This story also has the habit of recapping everyone’s origin story, so it’s a good thing the cast was kept small. Another story that’s more important for being a first than actually good.
“Stop That Kid..Before He Wrecks the World!” story and art by Neal Adams, closes the issue with a tale of the Spectre. The Spectre was police detective Jim Corrigan before he was murdered by a mobster. As he was headed for the world beyond, Corrigan was sent back as a ghost to act as the agent of God’s vengeance in the material world. The Spectre’s powers have waxed and waned over the years, going anywhere from “can walk through walls” to “smash planets over monsters’ heads” with a sideline of “turn criminal into wood and run him through a band saw.”
At this point, Jim Corrigan and the Spectre are technically two separate personalities. The Spectre rests in Corrigan’s body between adventures, but they separate whenever there’s the need. In this adventure, Jim Corrigan is investigating the disappearance of a little boy. The Spectre soon discovers the child creating magical disasters. He’s been possessed by an evil entity, but the Spectre isn’t able to separate them due to the entity having its hooks in, so simple exorcism could kill the child.
The Spectre splits himself into two slightly less powerful Spectres and one of them traces the entity back through a long line of planets where the inhabitants all killed each other, as though they’d been infected by evil. Ultimately, the Spectre must make a hard choice, but will he choose correctly?
This one plays nicely with our expectations of how the Spectre handles difficult situations, and has plenty of well drawn action. Best story in the issue.
Physical copies of this issue may be hard to find, but I believe that DC now has an app you can look at to see if it’s included. It’s got a couple of important reprints.
