Comic Book Review: DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #22: Secret Origins of Super-Heroes edited by E. Nelson Bridwell
“Secret origins” are a big part of the superhero genre. Since, back in the day, most superheroes had secret identities, just how exactly they’d come to gain powers or the motivation to fight crime was also a secret to the public. But we readers got to be in on the secret, creating a connection between us and the heroes. This digest collected five of those stories (plus an extra chapter.)
“SOS Green Lantern!” written by John Broome, art by Gil Kane and Joe Giella, introduces us to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. Green Lantern was the second redesign of a Golden Age superhero at DC Comics after the new version of the Flash was well-received. So in Showcase #22 (1959) we got a new origin story.
Test pilot Hal Jordan is summoned by a mysterious green power to meet with dying alien Abin Sur. Abin Sur’s “power ring” identified Hal as “a man without fear” and the alien is pleased to determine that Hal is also an honest man. For reasons that will be expanded on in later stories, Abin Sur, a Green Lantern, had been using a spacecraft when an error sent him through yellow radiation surrounding the Earth. Due to a necessary impurity in the metal the ring is made of, it is powerless against anything yellow, and Abin Sur lost control, crashing on Earth and suffering lethal wounds.
Only the power of the ring itself kept him barely alive long enough to find a worthy successor to the ring and its associated “power battery” that looks to Earthlings like a green lantern. The ring holds only a 24 hour charge and must thus be recharged using the battery.
Honored by the request and impressed with the power of the ring, which he could use for good, Hal Jordan agrees. Abin Sur passes away, and Hal (per the alien’s last wishes) removes all traces of his body and spaceship wreckage. He then dons the alien uniform to become the new Green Lantern.
“Secret of the Flaming Spear!” by the same creative team, is Hal Jordan’s first public appearance as Green Lantern. It’s not clear how much time has passed, but Hal’s gotten a little training in and chosen an oath to use while charging the ring.
We are introduced to Carol Ferris, daughter and heir presumptive to the owner of Ferris Aircraft where Hal works as a test pilot. She’s busy with management stuff, but not too busy to flirt with him and accept a date. Remember, 1950s, different office culture.
A radio message comes in. Ferris’ latest test plane, the Flaming Spear, is in trouble! Hal ducks out of the room, becomes Green Lantern and saves the plane, informing the pilot of his code name. But the job’s not done yet. What caused the issue? Some form of radiation, invisible to the naked eye but detectable by the ring.
Hal traces the radiation back to the saboteurs who were using a “radiation caster” to interfere with the plane’s operation for reasons never discussed. They initially compare him to Superman, but his powers are very different, as the ring allows its energy to be used for multiple effects. However, Hal makes a rookie mistake, allowing himself to be knocked out by a yellow lamp. (The first of his many, many concussions.)
Recovering, Green Lantern pursues the criminals. He’s momentarily stymied by them being in a yellow car, but since that’s just coincidence, he’s able to flatten the car’s black tires and capture the lot.
Back at Ferris Aircraft, the owner has an announcement. While he used to be a sexist pig who was disappointed in having a daughter instead of a son, Carol has proved herself to have a fine business mind and to be a worthy successor. So while Mr. Ferris is still young enough to enjoy it, he and Mrs. Ferris are going on a two-year world tour leaving Carol Ferris as acting manager.
Carol immediately decides that because she must focus solely on business to make sure everything runs smoothly, she now has no time for romance and breaks it off with Hal. Hal reflects that his mighty power ring can do almost anything, but not get him the girlfriend he wants. This became something of a pattern with the Silver Age DC female love interests. They had reasonably successful careers and lives outside being just the love interest, an improvement over many of the Golden Age sweethearts, but their work would be used to interfere with the relationship so it didn’t progress too fast. Or at all.
“The Coming of the Costumed Incompetents” script by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by Joe Orlando and Mike Esposito, introduces the Inferior Five. Comedy superhero comics are a hit or miss thing, they’re fun to write and the fans who enjoy them like them a lot, but they’re not overall big sellers. So what we get is short runs of fondly remembered silly supers.
In the city of Megalopolis, a police informant overhears a mad scientist plotting to do evil. He informs the cops. Unfortunately, the police department shut down their mad scientist division when the Freedom Brigade defeated their last such foe, Dr. Evil, and then retired. That was twenty years ago, but perhaps one or two of the old heroes is willing to come out of retirement. Dust off the radio, and send a request on the secret frequency!
Cut to Cosmopolis, where Myron Victor is looking forward to moving out of his parents’ house to Megalopolis and a steady job. (The job is never describedin this story, he’s a comic strip artist.) He’s somewhat surprised to see them dressed in their old costumes as The Patriot and Lady Liberty of the Freedom Brigade. They were non-powered heroes who used their athleticism and fighting skills to do their part, and the Victor family has been in the masked hero business for the last 150 years. So now that the call has gone out for heroes, they expect Myron to don a costume and follow the family tradition.
Problem is, while Myron is technically trained in karate and judo, he’s a skinny wimp who does not have the muscle mass to effectively use these skills, despite his parents’ delusions. On the other hand, he’s quite bright, well-educated and has previously untapped leadership skills, and can’t say “no” to his parents, so tentatively agrees, especially when he learns that the other Freedom Brigadiers also had children who hopefully will carry him.
Myron Victor arrives in Megalopolis, and gets a jester costume from the Heroic Costume Shop. “If I’m going to make a fool of myself, I might as well look the part.” Then it’s time for the newly christened Merryman to meet his new allies at the Freedom Brigade’s old headquarters, now considerably run down.
The Blimp is the son of Captain Swift. A chubby fellow, he inherited his father’s ability to fly, but none of his speed, so most of the time floats at a slow walking pace. Awkwardman’s parents were Mr. Might and the Mermaid–he’s superstrong and can survive underwater, but on land is incredibly clumsy. White Feather is the Bowman’s son. He’s accurate with a bow and arrows when not nervous, and has a supply of trick arrows. Problem is that he’s an easily startled coward.
And then there’s the daughter of Princess Power, Dumb Bunny. She’s also very strong and durable, but dim-witted and an airhead. It was the Sixties, “dumb blonde” jokes were still marginally acceptable, and ableism was sadly way more tolerated. She’s had the most “how can we fix this while keeping the joke?” work done over the years.
Despite his misgivings, Merryman is convinced to help these losers as their leader, and they choose the name “Inferior Five.”
We catch up with the mad scientist, Dr. Gregory Gruesome, at his hideout in the Megalopolis junkyard. He gripes about how Lex Luthor never seems to have a shortage of materials for his death rays and other nefarious inventions. (And this was back when Luthor was a jailbird with no visible source of income!) He’s hoping his servant Hermes will be able to obtain a ruby,
Hermes is a tall drink of water who looks but does not talk like an aging beatnik. He’s having no luck panhandling on the street for funds to get the jewel his employer wants. Oh, there’s a ruby ring in that gumball machine. Having exhausted his penny supply, Hermes finally just breaks the machine open. It’s of course a plastic imitation ruby, but the thought counts.
The Inferior Five are called in to investigate the gumball robbery and admit this is about their speed, but Merryman does have a brain cell activated by the mention of a ruby.
Doc Gruesome builds a robot of junk to steal a real ruby. Several twists and turns later, the mad scientist is betrayed by his villainous instincts and helps defeat himself. Technically a win for our heroes!
It’s an amusing story, certain outdated attitudes aside, and it’s nice to see a superhero group that despite its flaws is supportive of each other in a way lots of modern superheroes aren’t.
“I Was the Man with Animal Powers” story by France E. Herron, pencils by Carmine Infantino and inks by George Roussos, is the origin of none other than Animal Man. Not that this was immediately obvious. Strange Adventures was an anthology science fiction series and many of its stories were one offs about men gaining temporary weird powers or equipment. In #180 (1965), we meet Buddy (family name Baker added later) when he fails to propose to his sweetheart Ellen. The next day he’s on a hunting trip when an alien ship explodes nearby.
By extreme coincidence, shortly before the explosion and completely unrelated, a circus train had crashed in the neighborhood and several animals escaped. The alien radiation has given Buddy all their powers combined, so he battles a tiger, gorilla and elephant to subdue them. Neat! However, there’s a report of something else attacking a logging camp.
This turns out to be an alien that was inside the exploding ship. The radiation has given it all the nearby animal powers at an even higher level than Buddy’s. Plus it has apparently natural destructive eyebeams. Worse, his powers are fading away. Buddy has to rely on his human intelligence and creativity to find a way to defeat the creature.
Back at Ellen’s place, Buddy manages to propose before fainting. Buddy’s powers returned in Strange Adventures #190, and he adopted the costume and name of Animal Man, appearing sporadically thereafter. He’s in this collection because he’d recently appeared as a member of the “Forgotten Heroes.” It wasn’t until 1988 that he got a continuing series written by Grant Morrison that made him a star.
“Black Lightning” written by Tony Isabella, art by Trevor von Eeden & F. Springer, is about exactly who you think it is, DC Comics’ first black superhero, first published in 1977. Why did it take until 1977 for DC to have a black superhero? Well, yes, racism. One contributing factor was that in the 1960s The Powers That Were had a dread of losing the Southern market. Back in those days, regional distributors were much more of a thing. If you wanted your comic books and magazines to be in grocery stores, newsstands and drugstores, you couldn’t anger the distributors. Most of the regional distributors in the Southern states were owned by white people, and they were notoriously triggered by any depiction of “race mixing”, that is, black people interacting as equals with white people. Best just not to bring up the subject, so DC creator proposals to add a black person or two to the mix got nixed.
By the 1970s, the political atmosphere in America had changed, and rival Marvel Comics had found some success with their characters Black Panther and Power Man. DC’s first planned “black” superhero would have been the tone-deaf “Black Bomber”, a white racist who turns into a black dude with powers when danger threatens. Tony Isabella, who’d worked on Power Man, suggested a slightly less offensive character he’d been designing.
We open in media res, with Black Lightning beating up some drug dealers. He demands information on their organization, the 100, to be delivered at midnight at nearby Garfield High School. He then scoots off to a tailor shop across the street from the school.
Black Lightning is secretly Jefferson Pierce, Olympic gold medal decathlete, and new teacher at Garfield High. He grew up in the Suicide Slum area of Metropolis, escaping its grinding poverty and endemic crime thanks to his superior athleticism. Jefferson became a teacher to give back to the community. While he was gone, a new even more vicious gang took over organized crime in the area, and they’re even pushing drugs in the school.
Jefferson manhandles the pusher and tells him to shove off. Later in the gym, the new teacher gets some attitude from a cocky student. The pusher comes back with friends, and Mr. Davis handily stomps them, impressing the students.
We see glimpses of the 100’s leader, who will turn out to be the albino Tobias Whale. He orders the pusher, Mr. Toledo, to send a message to the idealistic teacher. The gangsters mean to just beat up the cocky student, but wind up killing him accidentally, and figure that’s an acceptable message.
Jefferson Pierce talks to his mentor, tailor Peter Gambi. Clearly he can’t publicly stand against the 100 if they’re going to react this way. But maybe someone else can. And thus the Black Lightning disguise. For his initial run, he relied only on his athletic skills, but for the upcoming showdown, Black Lightning will need something extra. This is a belt that will give him electrical powers. We don’t see it this issue, as we’ve run out of pages.
Interesting bit: Black Lightning’s original mask included an “afro” wig, and he talked more “street” in costume to make it a bit less connected to highly educated and buttoned-down Jefferson Pierce.
“And Then There Were None!” story by Jim Shooter, art by George Papp, is unusual in that it’s not the introduction of Sun Boy. Dirk Morgna had been a Legion of Super-Heroes member since near the beginning, but had just been dropped in as a character who existed. This gave Jim Shooter the leeway to design any background he wanted.
At the beginning of the story, Superboy arrives from the past just in time for the leadership election. This was one of the fascinating bits of Legion business–there were more or less annual elections, and the fans were the ones who voted. This gave the fandom a strong connection to the stories, and often shaped the overall plot in unusual ways. In this instance, Invisible Kid is elected leader, with Superboy as his deputy.
There’s a subplot where Duo Damsel appears to have taken a romantic interest in Superboy, but it goes nowhere as it’s doomed from the start.
Today’s business is a charity show at the Metropolis Arena, in support of the Interstellar Orphanage. Eight Legionnaires are in attendance to perform, with the others off-planet on other missions. Sun Boy shows off his ability to project light and heat, while the others also demonstrate their talents.
There’s what seems like an earthquake, but Sun Boy is knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he is suffering from amnesia and flees the other Legionnaires. Also, there’s a report of a golden spaceship stealing Legion HQ right out of the ground!
We check in with the villain responsible, a man wearing golden armor. He gloats that he has the perfect plan to deal with the Legion, and the one person who could guess his true identity is without memories and thus cannot stop him.
Meanwhile, Sun Boy stumbles into a nuclear power plant and falls asleep in front of an exposed atomic pile. (Wow, they do not take radiation safety seriously in the future.)
In his golden ship, Dr. Regulus (now named) thinks about how he developed a way to harness the power of the sun through special radioactive gold coating. He decides to steal another building to lure the Legionnaires into attacking him. Sure enough, the seven available heroes soon catch up, though they lose their rocket in the process and must rely on their flight rings. Inside the ship, they discover that it’s filled with a maze-like structure, and split up to explore.
One by one, the heroes encounter robots designed by Regulus, and fall into traps designed to take each of them out. (Including Green Kryptonite for Superboy, natch. Good thing Dr. Regulus didn’t follow his theming and use Gold K.)
Meanwhile, the nuclear radiation has restored Sun Boy’s memories and he realizes who the villain must be.
The last of the Legionnaires is captured, and Dr. Regulus is about to annihilate them when suddenly his ship suffers a blackout. Sun Boy caused this. Regulus has a counter-attack, but the Legion is now free, and the villain is forced to flee. Just after Brainiac Five uses his 12th level intellect to restore the stolen buildings, a self-destruct blows up Regulus’ ship to prevent any more clues from being found.
And now, that origin story. Dirk Morgna is the son of Derek Morgna, head of an atomic plant where Dirk did odd jobs after school. One of the top scientists at the plant was Dr. Zaxton Regulus, who was obsessed with using radioactive gold to multiply solar power. Dirk and another errand boy walked in on one of his experiments through an unlocked door, and somehow the equipment exploded. The other errand boy was killed, and Regulus was fired, though he blamed the accident on Dirk’s interruption.
For revenge, he had a couple of robots beat Dirk up and dump him next to an exposed atomic pile. Instead of killing him, the radiation empowered Dirk, giving him his sun-like powers. Sun Boy promptly signed up with the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Elsewhere, Dr. Regulus lurks and plans to return for successful revenge.
There’s some pretty dubious stuff in this story, but Jim Shooter was still a teenager himself when he wrote this, and it’s a lot of fun.
Five origin stories, with tones from tragedy to comedy, and not just the usual suspects. Most of these stories have been collected in other publications, but this item is very collectible in and of itself. Happy hunting!
