Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #499 edited by Carl Gafford & Nicola Cuti
I managed to find another issue of the digest-sized Adventure Comics from 1983. Let’s take a look at the treasures inside!
“Plastic Man” (no chapter title) written by Len Wein, art by Joe Staton and Bob Smith features the obvious character. Plastic Man was Eel O’Brien, a petty criminal, before he was injured in a shootout and doused in some unknown acidic compound. He managed to get to a monastery before collapsing, and the monks nursed Eel back to health. He discovered that his body was now stretchable to the point that he could assume any shape he wanted. Inspired by the kindness of the monks, Eel decided to switch sides and become a crimefighter as Plastic Man.
Since stretching is a silly-looking power, the stories tended to have a lot of sight gags even within more serious plotlines. Plastic Man soon acquired sidekick Woozy Winks, a chubby pickpocket who is cursed/blessed with the “protection of nature” to shield him from serious harm, but unreliably at best. He’s only mostly reformed and a bit of a coward.
As of this point in their publication history, Plastic Man is an agent of the National Bureau of Investigation, and Woozy is his tagalong, not officially an employee but not usually barred from meetings. Which brings us to this story. Agent Cyfer has been found murdered in his hotel room, the third NBI agent to die from a severe beating within a short period. The body is covered in bruises that look like footprints–with an unusually elongated big toe.
Woozy lifts Cyfer’s wallet (not like he was going to need it, right?) but Plas is more interested in the ballet tickets inside, which matches the Bolshevek Ballet poster in Cyfer’s belongings. That’s a bit odd given that the late Agent Cyfer was vocally not a fan of ballet. Time for our heroes to dress in formalwear and take in some culture!
At the next performance of Swan Lake, the male lead is one Dmitri Dervish, who’s been compared favorably to Nijinsky. While his dancing is excellent, Plas’ attention is drawn to Dervish’s feet. The man has to wear custom ballet slippers due to his abnormally long big toe. Having established their suspect, Plastic Man and Woozy head backstage.
Plas searches Dervish’s dressing room while Woozy stands guard. He finds nothing incriminating, but when the dancer enters the room, he is able to disguise himself as a leotard and listen in while Dervish activates a transmitter hidden behind the mirror. Dimitri reports into his “master” and reveals he’s going to steal a final component from Acme Labs tonight.
Sure enough, that night Dimitri Dervish breaks into the lab complex using his superior leaping and body flexibility. Plastic Man and Woozy Winks follow to catch him in the act. When confronted, Dervish reveals that he is a master of savate, French foot-boxing. Plas’s rubbery body is highly resistant to pummeling, and he’s able to bring down the dancing assassin.
But before Dervish can reveal the name of his employer, he sprouts a knife in his back, and the component is missing! To be continued.
“The Fantastic Spy!” story by Jerry Siegel, art by John Forte, is the first Legion of Super-Heroes reprint in this issue. Sun Boy and Lightning Lad have been injured in a spaceship crash, and Cosmic Boy and Brainiac Five go to visit them before their operations. Brainy’s evil ancestor Brainiac and his shrinking technology are mentioned (this is before it was “revealed” that Brainiac was in fact a sophisticated robot and Brainiac Two was adopted.) A Dr. Landro, specialist in fourth-dimensional surgery is introduced, enthusiastic to volunteer to operate for no fee. He inserts healing capsules in the afflicted areas.
Back at Legion H.Q. a week later, the two former invalids are introduced to new member Matter-Eater Lad. Due to the harsh conditions of his home planet Bismoll, all the inhabitants developed the ability to eat any form of matter without harm to themselves. It’s a pretty silly-sounding ability, but M-E Lad has learned to eat at an accelerated rate and can chew through basically anything you try to imprison him in.
The Science Police want two Legionnaires to escort a disguised shipment of valuable Energite. Lightning Lad and Bouncing Boy volunteer. But a pirate ship disguised as a space monster manages to hijack the shipment and speed off in the general direction of Bismoll. Since the Science Police only told the Legion about the secret plan, this must mean that one of the Legionnaires is a traitor! Matter-Eater Lad worries that his “new guy” status makes him the primary suspect.
A bug sweep reveals no hidden microphones in the HQ, so the next meeting is held in darkness in case there’s a sight-based espionage device in operation. This time, the Legion will be delivering a “doomsday bomb” that’s tiny enough to be handheld but powerful enough to destroy the world. To minimize the chance of transportation accidents, it will be sent through an Earthtube that goes directly through the planet’s molten core from Metropolis to the city where the Science Police weapons storage facility is.
Cosmic Boy and Chameleon Boy pose as newlyweds, Chameleon Boy shifting to look like a pretty human woman and holding the bomb in “her” purse. There’s a brief period during the trip where the passengers have to be knocked out to protect them from the core heat, and somehow the bomb is stolen during that moment.
Thinking that perhaps they’re being spied on telepathically, the Legionnaires then put on lurium mindpower-blocking helmets for their next meeting. Their next mission is to escort the alien criminal Meglaro to a time machine to exile him to the future. (Brainiac Five hasn’t yet developed his own model that’s strong enough, so they’ll have to use a government one.) Meglaro (the yellow guy on the cover) has sealed himself inside a protective sphere filled with a liquid that amplifies his awesome mental powers to planet-control levels. However, the liquid also causes him to hibernate from time to time, and that’s how he was captured. He needs to be sent off before he wakes up.
Brainiac Five, Sun Boy and Lightning Lad take on the mission, still wearing the lurium helmets in case Meglaro wakes up. As they’re carrying the bubble, Sun Boy has a pain in his ankle, and stumbles. Meglaro awakens, and attempts to mind control the Legionnaires into letting him escape. Doesn’t work of course. But then, a saucer craft appears and blasts the Legionnaires with Z-rays, the one way to dissolve lurium. Meglaro is able to levitate away and joins up with the saucer.
Okay, there is definitely a traitor. Brainiac Five is working on a “guilt detector” but Matter-Eater Lad is concerned that he might have turned evil like his ancestor. Brainy’s device fingers M-E Lad as the culprit, and the rookie eats his way to freedom, loudly declaring his innocence. Brainy vows to hunt down the renegade, explaining that now the Legion will never be trusted to guard the galaxy’s greatest treasures, currently being stored on the planet Umrax.
Brainiac Five returns a few hours later, Matter-Eater Lad in tow. However, it turns out that none of the Legion were traitors! There’s a tiny spy inside Sun Boy’s ankle placed there by Dr. Landro who’s been transmitting all the Legion’s plans to his confederates. As for Umrax, that was a trap due to its atmosphere that knocks people out. Brainy summoned Superboy to be there to pick up the unconscious villains. Meglaro is safely transported to the far future, whence he never returns.
As for the spy, a genuine fourth-dimensional surgery removes him from Sun Boy, and he is enlarged so he can be imprisoned with his confederates.
Points of interest here are the introduction of Matter-Eater Lad and saving Superboy for an extended cameo at the end rather than having him be front and center as usual. The “who’s the traitor?” plotline would be used multiple times in later issues, perhaps best by Jim Shooter.
“A Kingdom to Re-Build!” by Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo and Dick Giordano, is the conclusion of the Aquaman plotline we’ve seen bits of. Aquaman and Mera join Aqualad in battling the Bugala Beast. Even with their combined powers, they’re only able to drive it off. They take off without talking to the locals who’d abducted Aqualad to draft him into fighting the monster, and the local king admits that perhaps relying on others to fight their battles was a losing strategy to begin with.
Back in Atlantis, revolution runs rampant in the streets! In the palace, the young leader of the rebels faces off against the dictator Narkran. He’s armed with a chair, and the tyrant with a sword, but it’s clear who’s scared here.
Aquagirl wakes up in the infirmary. Science guy Vulko fills her in on what’s been going on, though he has been too distracted to find the cause of the earthquakes.
The wanderers finally arrive back in Atlantis, and Aquaman is able to quell most of the fighting just by telling the factions to stop. He is, after all, the true king. But as the trio approaches the palace, Narkran’s top henchmen attack, realizing that if Aquaman gets back in charge, their goose is cooked.
Our heroes each take out their counterpart. Vulko arrives to explain the plot to any readers who’d missed an issue or three.
The rebel leader has finally cornered Narkran and is about to “sic semper tyrannis” him when Aquaman shows up and forbids killing. Narkran immediately goes into “blame everything on the rebels” mode, but a new earthquake gives Aquaman the opportunity to sock him one. Narkran attempts to plead his loyalty, but Aquagirl shows up to testify to his treachery.
The rebel leader is then scolded for the whole revolution thing, he should have trusted the king to return and set things right, instead he caused a lot of unnecessary violence and injury.
Finally there’s time for Vulko to complete his research. Turns out the quakes are part of an ongoing process that will eventually, many years from now, raise Atlantis to the surface of the ocean. Aquaman decrees new building codes to help make sure structures can withstand the frequent quakes; there’s a kingdom to rebuild.
“The Talking Tiger” art by C.C. Beck, story by Otto Binder, is the first Captain Marvel story in this issue. It’s the first appearance of beloved supporting character Tawky Tawny. In a jungle somewhere, a hermit is complaining about the ills of civilization, which is why he’s living in this isolated area instead. His conversational partner, a tiger, thinks that the not-awful parts of civilization the hermit has spoken of might be worth it.
The tiger makes his way to the coast and stows away on a ship bound for America. Seasickness is not something that the tiger was expecting, but he somehow survives. Once the ship docks, the tiger disembarks under cover of night. Not only can he talk, but he can walk bipedally, but the first person he meets is afraid of tigers.
Billy Batson becomes aware there’s a tiger on the loose and turns into Captain Marvel. He ignores what is obviously a hallucination that the tiger is talking and knocks it out. By the time the tiger awakes, he’s been imprisoned in the zoo.
His rage is awakened and he’s able to break the bars (apparently he also has thumbs now?) The tiger is able to evade Captain Marvel and start exploring. Ice cream is nice, as is steak, but now it’s time for clothes. He somehow manages to find a snappy suit that fits.
Now that the tiger is wearing clothes, this allows Captain Marvel to see him as a sentient being and actually listen to him talk. They come to an understanding and Tawky Tawny (who’s quite well educated) is able to get a job at the natural history museum as a guide. At the end, Billy suddenly realizes it’s never been explained how a tiger can talk in the first place!
Tawky Tawny has gone on to a long career as one of the more interesting Shazam! supporting cast, though various retcons have tried to explain him away rather than just having him be an actual talking tiger.
“The Villain from Valhalla!” by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is a tale of the Golden Age Sandman and Sandy. The Sandman was known for his sleeping gas gun and frequent dream imagery in the stories. this one is after he’d switched to a more conventional superhero costume than his original gasmask one.
At the beginning, Sandy Hawkins is reading a book about Norse mythology and Thor, god of thunder. He kind of wishes he could take on such a powerful foe. (The monkey’s paw curls a finger.) Across New York City at the docks, a longboat appears. A massive red-bearded man disembarks and stomps a guard.
This figure decides to rob a bank with his mighty hammer Mjolnir, and since he’s bulletproof, no one can stop him. Even when Sandman, Sandy and a full squad of cops arrive to take him on, Thor easily trounces them all, and sends Sandy to the hospital.
Back at the ship, Thor rendezvous with his crew. He drops the odd speech and lights up a cigar, discarding his transparent bulletproof shirt. Turns out this entire “Viking” theme is a scam so once the gang shaves off their beards and puts on regular clothes, no one will be looking for them.
But now Sandman and an entire army of police officers have arrived and the gangsters don’t have time to don their bulletproofing. The pitched battle goes on for quite a while, but the result is inevitable. Sandman has defeated Thor!
The crook turns out to be criminal metallurgist “Fairy Tales” Fenton, who probably could have made way more money patenting his transparent (but uncomfortable) bulletproof shirts and the electrical marvel Mjolnir instead of just robbing banks. Sandy is a bit disappointed.
“The Stolen Super-Powers!” story by Jerry Siegel, art by John Broome is another Legion of Super-Heroes story. It’s election time, and Saturn Girl is the first to arrive at the clubhouse. She finds a message and destroys it.
Saturn Girl then demonstrates her potential as a supervillain by mind-controlling the Legion members into voting her in as leader. She uses a rare metal trophy donated to the Legion for their heroism to make medallions for each member to wear constantly.
In a dictatorial fashion, the telepath then tests each member’s powers, finding excuses to ground them from action. What she fails to mention is that the medallions allow her to tap into their powers to use them for herself. Soon, she is the only active member of the Legion.
When the call comes that space criminal Zaryan the Conqueror is active, Saturn Girl flies off solo. But by the time she’s engaging the criminal, Lightning Lad shows up. He knew something was up from her atypical behavior, and was able to get the scoop from Mon-El, who at this point was still stuck in the Phantom Zone.
The message at the beginning had revealed that one of the Legionnaires was fated to die in the battle against Zaryan, so Saturn Girl created this entire wacky scheme to make sure she was the one to die. But Lightning Lad refuses to let her be the only one in danger. Sure enough, although he’s able to help her bring down Zaryan, Lightning Lad takes a fatal wound.
Lightning Lad dies, and a funeral is held, including Superboy and Supergirl just now arriving. He’s interred in a special crystal crypt, and the United Planets mourn.
This was the first Legion death, and it stuck for a while. Lightning Lad was replaced by his previously unmentioned twin sister Lightning Lass before finally being revived.
“The Man in the Moon” (no credits, but likely C.C. Beck and Otto Binder again) is also a Captain Marvel story. This one involves lesser-known supporting character Doc Quartz, an eccentric inventor whose day job is running a pharmacy. His shop has been closed for a week, the sign reading “out to lunch.” Then Billy Batson gets a radio distress call from Doc, who is on the moon!
Turns out the pharmacist has been in communication with approaching aliens, and wanted to use his atomic rock drill to carve out a welcoming monument on Luna to greet them. Captain Marvel gets him out of his current fix (never go to the moon alone) and assists in completing the project. Sadly, while Doc Quartz is a heck of an inventor, an artist he’s not, and the giant Rushmore-style head of Captain Marvel is hideously distorted.
However, it’s at this point that the oncoming aliens reveal that they’re actually hostile invaders who only broadcast messages of peace and friendship to put the Earthlings off guard. “We’re close enough now that it’s too late for you to prepare!”
Captain Marvel rushes back to the moon, fixes up the face so it actually looks like him but frowning, and includes a warning that he protects Earth. The alien fleet sees this, realizes they’ve made a hideous mistake (Captain Marvel has a reputation) and retreats in disorder, smashing several of their own ships in their haste.
Doc Quartz is thrilled that his atomic rock drill and monument have helped save Earth, and now maybe people will recognize his genius. Except that the carving is on the far side of the moon, never visible from Earth. The inventor’s next project? Revolving the moon!
A silly but fun story.
“Pilgrims of Peril!” story by Gardner Fox, art by Jerry Grandenetti and Murphy Anderson, closes out the issue with a tale of the Spectre. One day, the inhabitants of the “Old Quarter” in Gateway City are startled by the appearance of four undead-looking men in stereotypical “pilgrim” outfits. The pilgrims chase all the civilians out of the area, except one small boy who needs to find his water pistol.
Jim Corrigan arrives, but thick fog now surrounds the quarter, and Billy can’t get out. The boy is swept away to…elsewhere. The Spectre splits off from Corrigan to follow, while the police detective will have to deal with the menace on the ground.
The Spectre and Billy arrive in the dimension of Geimpo, which is ruled by the demon lord Nawor. Nawor’s rule of Geimpo is so complete that nothing of that dimension can harm him. So the Spectre has to use the contents of Billy’s pockets, like marbles and twine, to defeat the demon.
We then have an extended flashback. The “pilgrims” are actually demon-worshippers who’d been trying to get Nawor to grant them power in exchange for bringing Earth under his control some three centuries prior. Patriarch Zebabeb Dodson discovers that they will need certain ancient talismans to complete the ritual, not available in England, so they’ll need to go to the colonies. The cult masqueraded as Pilgrims to secure passage to the New World.
Once in North America, the cult moved well upriver, away from other colonists, to a place they called Rood Point (the future Gateway City.) They pretended friendship with the local Native Americans to filch the ancient talismans they needed. Naturally, this caused the tribe to attack. There was a magical battle between the native shaman and Zebabeb. Most of the cult fell, but Nawor was able to keep four of them suspended so that they could return to Earth one day in every century.
It took several tries, but at last the pilgrims have all the talismans back and can begin their summoning ceremony. They free Nawor from the Earth twine and get him to Earth.
Now the Spectre struggles against the mighty demon, who seems invulnerable to most anti-evil substances. Meanwhile, Billy uses his water pistol to free Corrigan of firey bonds, and the policeman interrupts the summoning ritual, lessening Nawor’s invulnerability. The Spectre realizes that Nawor spelled backwards is rowan, and it turns out that the demon’s one weakness is the rowan tree, a.k.a. mountain ash.
With Nawor banished back to Geimpo, the pilgrims no longer have protection against time, and crumble to dust. Case closed!
Two important Legion stories, and an assortment of other interesting tales. Best luck finding this collectible!
