Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #491

Comic Book Review: Adventure Comics #491 edited by Dick Giordano & Carl Gafford

This is the first digest-sized issue of Adventure Comics, which had been on hiatus for a bit, with this relaunch trying to cash in on the supermarket checkout line market. Most of the features were reprints of characters that either started in Adventure or were strongly associated with it. Let’s take a look at the contents!

“The Confederation of Hell” writing by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Don Newton and inks by F. Chiaramonte, stars the Marvel Family in the only new story this issue. It followed on from their short run in World’s Finest, where a new member had been added. Kid Eternity was Kit Freeman, a boy who had died before his time, sent back to Earth with a ghostly Keeper and the ability to summon historical, legendary and even mythical heroes to assist him. He’d been retconned into being the long-lost brother of Freddy Freeman, Captain Marvel, Junior.

The story opens with Satan summoning four villains who owed their careers to him. Ibac, petty thief “Stinky” Printwhistle, who has the combined evil strength of Ivan the Terrible, Borgia, Attila, and Caligula. Sabbac, criminal Timothy Karnes, who has the combined powers of Satan, Any, Belial, Beelzebub, Asmodeus and Craeteis. Master Man (no name given), who can summon any historical or legendary villain. And Darkling (no name given in this story), a villainess with a magical cloak of darkness. Satan wants them to finally, finally deal with the Marvel Family once and for all with their combined powers.

Billy Batson, Mary Bromfield, Freddy Freeman and Kit Freeman are enjoying a day out walking through nature. Slowly, so that Freddy can keep up okay. Suddenly, it gets very dark. Is it Darkling? The Marvel kids try their magic words, but to no avail. Darkling’s darkness is so complete that it blocks sound from getting out of it. The villains capture their opponents thanks to Satan giving the ability to see in Stygian darkness, with Master Man gagging Kit before he can say “Eternity.”

Fortunately, the Confederation of Hell is still afflicted with their usual vices, and the kids are able to trick Sabbac into burning off the gag on Kit, who becomes Kid Eternity and summons Zeus to zap the other three with Shazam’s lightning. The Marvel Family quickly overcome Ibac, Sabbac and Darkling, but Master Man summons four “gods of evil” to assist him, Set, Ahriman, Cernobog and Tezcatlipoca. Cliffhanger!

“The Legion of Super-Heroes” story by Otto Binder, art by Al Plastino, is the first ever story starring that group of teenage heroes from the future. One day, Superboy is surprised when three strange teenagers appear in Smallville who know the secret of his double identity as Clark Kent. They reveal that they’re from the future and introduce themselves as Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Boy. (For this outing, they wear outfits with their names on them which are never seen again.)

The future kids invite Superboy to their 30th Century hangout, and offer to make him a member of their superhero club. If he can pass a few tests first. Each time, Superboy is distracted by an emergency and is outdone by a Legionnaire. Failing to prove himself, Superboy is rejected and tries to hide his bitter disappointment. Then it turns out this was actually a hazing prank, with the emergencies deliberately engineered by the Legion. They were always going to let him in the club. Then Superboy uses magnetism, lightning and “mind-reading” to handle a crisis to the Legion’s delight.

There’s a lot of “early installment weirdness” here, including the shadowy figures of other LSH members who would get filled in later.

“Sorcerers of the Sea” script by Steve Skeates, art by Jim Aparo, is a book-length adventure of Aquaman and his supporting cast. Aquaman, Mera, Aqualad and Aquababy are out for a swim when suddenly underwater whirlpools appear, blinding them with bubbles and weakening their powers. Aquaman spots mysterious blurred figures capturing Mera, and is knocked out by one of them who’s wearing an odd ring.

Aquagirl notes that the royal family hasn’t come back to Atlantis for an important meeting and goes to check. Aqualad has managed to hold on to Aquababy, and they’re able to waken Aquaman.

While the King of Atlantis has no idea where to even start a search, he isn’t going to sit around and wait for word of Mera. He and Aqualad go out searching, and eventually find a weird underwater village that shimmers as though it isn’t really there. The visitors disguise themselves and investigate, discovering that the locals worship their queen, who appears to be Mera! Unfortunately, the intruders are discovered and captured, with Aqualad being severely injured.

Aquaman manages to escape and take Aqualad to Atlantis for treatment before returning. This time he knows that the town is ruled by “sorcerers” who use their “magic” to cow their people. Forewarned, he’s able to overcome a sorcerer and finally contact the queen…who turns out to just be a lookalike for Mera. How will he find his true love?

“Black Canary” script by Denny O’Neil, art by Alex Toth, takes place when Dinah was still relatively new to Earth-One. She doesn’t have a flower shop yet, and wants to support herself rather than just rely on the Justice League (especially as this is when Green Arrow was broke.)

Just as she bewails the lack of jobs for someone with her…unique…skill set, Dinah sees an ad seeking a female martial arts instructor. This turns out to be an outfit called Women’s Resistance League, which is clearly into that Women’s Lib stuff. Dinah passes her audition (being attacked by a large man.)

Bertha Kane, the leader of the group, wants the Black Canary to skip the introductory history and philosophy and move straight into teaching the group members how to kick ass. She soon discovers that the women, while untrained, are plenty tough and willing to learn the physical side of judo.

While on break, Black Canary sees what looks like masked criminals holding the class at bay. When she intervenes, Bertha saps her from behind. In fact, they’re a criminal gang, and now that they’ve leveled up, it’s time to kill the teacher! Cliffhanger!

Very distinctive art, one good combat sequence.

“The Man Who Couldn’t Sleep!” by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is a Golden Age Sandman tale. It contrasts two guest stars, Felix Black, a millionaire with a medical condition that prevents him from sleeping, and Nick Parks, a would-be private eye who sleeps on the job. Mr. Black has been driven kind of nuts by his inability to fully rest, so he decides to go into crime. He hires a gang to pull robberies in the dead of night, with loud noises to roust the normal population from their sleep so that they too can suffer wakefulness.

Nick, a friend of Wesley Dodds, has put up his shingle as the “We Never Sleep” detective agency (a shoutout to the PInkertons) but is caught napping when The Man Who Never Sleeps gang robs the jewelry warehouse he was supposed to be watching.

The Sandman and Sandy decide to assist their friend secretly. Meanwhile, Mr. Black discovers that being a dilettante in crime is a bad idea when his gangster minions decide to take over the show. In the ensuing battle, Mr. Black takes a grazing bullet to the head, curing his sleeplessness, and Nick gets the credit for bringing in the gang so now he’s too busy to sleep.

A good example of the “hourglass” plot structure, and early Kirby art.

“Prisoner of the Super-Heroes!” writer unknown, art by George Papp, has Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy return to Smallville, now in their classic Silver Age costumes. But this isn’t good news for Superboy. The future heroes take over the job of protecting Smallville, while the people there turn against Superboy, even Ma and Pa Kent. The last straw is when Krypto the Superdog shuns Clark to fawn on the newcomers.

Superboy leaves Earth and is lured to a “Superboy Planet” where he’s imprisoned by the Legionnaires. Turns out they’d initially come to the Twentieth Century to build Superboy Planet as a tribute to their inspiration only to see on their “Futurescope” that Superboy would shortly turn evil. Saturn Girl had used her telepathic powers to brainwash everyone in Smallville into hating Superboy so that they could lure him to this Kryptonite jail.

An explosion wrecks the jail and puts the Legionnaires in danger, so Superboy saves them. Then it’s revealed the Futurescope is defective, showing events that had already happened, and Superboy was doing those awful things at the secret behest of the President of the United States, and for a good purpose. The Smallville residents are un-brainwashed, and everything returns to status quo.

It’s honestly not a very good story which perhaps is why the writer never claimed it. But at the time comic book reprint volumes were not really a thing, and which stories did get reprints was kind of random, so it’s a rare treat here.

“War That Shook the Universe!” story by Gardner Fox, art by Murphy Anderson, was the first tale in the Sixties revival of the Spectre. Captain of Detectives Jim Corrigan is assisting psychic Stefan Miklos to help heiress Millicent Olcott find her deceased uncle’s money, which has vanished. We learn that it’s been twenty years since Corrigan last became the Spectre, as his powers just suddenly stopped working one day. (This story was, logically, set before appearances the Spectre had made in earlier-written JLA/JSA crossover stories.)

Miklos isn’t getting anything, so they decide to hold a seance to boost his powers. During said seance, Corrigan suddenly feels the Spectre slipping loose from his body to prevent a bomb from coming in the window and exploding. The excess supernatural energy allows Miklos to sense where the money is.

The money turns out to have been stolen by rival gangsters as part of an elaborate plan to lure Jim Corrigan into places they could kill him for revenge. But now that the Spectre is loose again, that doesn’t work out so well for them.

Okay, but why was the Spectre trapped inside Corrigan’s body for twenty years? Turns out it was the accidental byproduct of astral villain Azmodus possessing a body on Earth. Because of their very similar powers interfering with each other, both the Spectre and Azmodus were trapped inside the bodies they were inhabiting and unable to affect the outside world.

Azmodus has linked himself to a new host, and come up with a plan. If he can force Corrigan to shoot his new body with a cursed silver bullet, that will free Azmodus to take over the world while the Spectre is trapped inside Corrigan forever. A massive parallel battle ensues, the Spectre and Azmodus hitting each other with comets and the like while Corrigan and the possessed criminal trade fisticuffs, made more difficult because Corrigan has to not press the trigger on the gun he can’t just drop.

Corrigan knocks out the crook, allowing the Spectre to get the better of Azmodus and render him inert. But the villain gloats that his actual master plan is still in effect….

Exciting stuff, but most Spectre fans more fondly remember the run where the vengeful spirit got to turn criminals into wood and run them through a buzzsaw. This Spectre is careful not to gratuitously kill opponents.

Overall, a fun collector’s item, but most of these stories can be found elsewhere. Must-have for the Legion fanatics.