Werewolf by Night (1972) #12

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Don Perlin makes his first appearance in the Werewolf by Night credits, and I felt the tinge of inevitability. He’s inking Gil Kane’s pencils; about the only okay thing ends up being Wolfman Jack. Kane and Perlin’s regular people are pretty bad, Perlin’s fault, but Kane’s layouts for the action aren’t very good, not Perlin’s fault. But the real disappointment this issue is writer Marv Wolfman. He’s got absolutely nothing going with the main plot, the new villain, the Hangman. And then the subplots stumble too.

The main plot fails because the Hangman doesn’t turn out to be a very good villain for Werewolf. Since Wolfman Jack can’t understand what’s going on—he’s found a Christian fascist psychopath vigilante with kidnaps the women he saves—writer Wolfman compensates with lots of monologuing from the Hangman. It’s not good monologuing, especially since at some point the Hangman becomes afraid of the werewolf, only we never see that moment occur in the comic. Somewhere between the werewolf dodging a blow and the Hangman outrunning the cops, he becomes terrified. Only Wolfman doesn’t write the monologuing like he’s terrified, just fanatical. Maybe Wolfman thinks he’s doing a transition, but he’s not.

Of course, the Hangman monologues are much better than the regular people’s dialogue. Wolfman’s Jack Russell is an entitled white bro asshole who’s potentially racist to the first regular Black character in the book. Maybe the guy is being a dick to him, but Jack’s barbed responses don’t not seem racist. Luckily, there are two girls who think he’s hot stuff, and he spends the day flirting with them, even though—the comic reminds us—he’s technically got a lady.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old (or younger) sister Lissa has told mid-forties Buck about Jack’s lycanthropy, and Jack blows them off for the chicks after his fight with the Hangman in front of them. Plus, step-dad Phillip is still off being tortured. Wolfman revved all the existing subplots only to let them go cold again, an issue later. He really was just keeping the pans hot.

Strangely, Wolfman’s Jack Russell narration is fine, sometimes near good—it can’t quite get there because the plot’s failing—it’s some of the best Jack narration in ages. We also get the first mention of Marvel superheroes existing in the real world. Jack thinks about how he’s not Spider-Man.

Anyway. I was expecting the art to be the most disappointing thing, but it’s the writing. Bummer.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #11

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It took Marvel until Werewolf #11 to get Marv Wolfman writing the book. Just the credit alone is worth it, which they seem to get—the credit reads: “finally a Wolfman written by a Wolfman.” Wolfman does get to create a new villain—The Hangman; I’m pretty sure he goes on to more in Marvel. The Hangman’s a fascist vigilante who goes around with a noose and scythe, killing bad guys.

Oh, he also kidnaps all the women he saves, taking them down to his sewer lair. Presumably, a different sewer liar than the last villain in Werewolf. Thank goodness L.A.’s so big.

Gil Kane and Tom Sutton do the art; Kane penciling, Sutton inking. Wolfman Jack Russell is great. The rest varies from okay to good. Sutton inks Kane’s faces wrong. At their best, Sutton’s inks feel like they’re bundling and intensifying Kane’s pencils. At the inks’ worst… well, Sutton takes too much out of the faces. He flattens too much and leaves the eyes and mouth floating. It’d be okay a couple times, but it’s most times.

The issue opens not with Jack or the werewolf but with Jack’s kidnapped step-father, Phillip Russell. It’s a torture scene. The shadowy group of evil white men—I think the Council but so many of these comics had them—is willing to forgive Russell’s still unrevealed transgressions if he’ll just give them his stepson. We found out last issue the bad guys know Jack’s a werewolf. Also, last time they wanted Jack’s younger sister, Lissa, who hasn’t become a werewolf yet.

Russell won’t give Jack up, so they have to keep torturing him. It’s weird to have some dad getting tortured in a Bond villain lair but… fine. What’s weirder is how writer Wolfman does a bunch of work on the running subplots. The comic introduced them way back in its Marvel Spotlight days, then forgot about them until a few issues ago when original writer Gerry Conway returned. Conway lined some pieces up, and now Wolfman’s doing the finishing touches?

I don’t know if Werewolf needed a more constant writer, but it definitely needed better plotting. There’s decompressed storytelling, then there’s taking two years to get to a basic reveal.

Wolfman also gets to send Jack out on his own; he has a big scene telling Buck and Lissa he’s moving out on his own (he’s got his trust fund). Given we’ve seen Buck and Jack hanging out half a scene in ten issues, it’s not the last episode of “Friends.” Then there’s the on-the-nose moment where the Hangman sees Buck and Lissa together and is like, that old man better not be messing with that teenager.

There are a few good plot points opened up for next issue; Buck finally sees the werewolf, there’s the big cliffhanger with Hangman, and Phillip’s still kidnapped. But waiting ten issues for anything whatsoever to happen with the character arcs is way too long.

Even for the seventies.

Batgirl: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 (1969-70)

Batgirl Omnibus 1

Maybe I shouldn’t have complained so much about Gardner Fox.

After approximately a year off (or just appearing as a guest star in Batman or Detective and not getting an Omnibus reprint), Batgirl’s started getting backups in Detective. Gil Kane came back to do the pencils, but with Murphy Anderson on the inks and—outside the occasional eyes—the art rarely looks like Gil Kane. Anderson seems to have entirely erased and redone the faces, which leads to some strange face placements on heads. So outside the curiosity factor of seeing pencils and inks not going together, Batgirl’s going to need some good writing to get through.

Starting with Mike Friedrich, it’s pretty clear she’s not going to get any good writing. Friedrich takes Fox’s bad flexes—Barbara Gordon’s female vanity and her professional indiscretions as a librarian—and streamlines them into a tale of Barbara stalking a handsome customer. The first part of the story is just her deciding when he doesn’t come into the library at the regular time she needs to go to his home, where she finds another woman, so then we get Batgirl stalking the dude while being jealous of this other woman. It’s fairly obvious how the resolution is going to work but along the way there’s some constrained action—Batgirl fighting random thugs, who always manage to get the upper hand, which really reminds of the old Batman serials where the heroes would get beat up the entire fight scene and then succeed through a cliffhanger reveal. Unfortunately, Batgirl getting beat up because she doesn’t pay attention or just isn’t, you know, as good a fighter as a random college student maintains through the different writers.

One of the few things writers Friedrich, Denny O’Neill, and Frank Robbins are all going to agree on is Batgirl not actually being a competent crime fighter.

Robbins takes over after Friedrich’s first two-parter and has Barbara stumbling into some kind of plot because she wants a cheap apartment. It opens like it’s a Red-Headed League homage–oh, there’s another thing they all agree on: fetishizing Barbara being a red-head. Anyway, it’s not a RHL homage, instead having Barbara at a costume ball as Batgirl fighting with crooks dressed as other superheroes. Arguably the Anderson inks on the Kane pencils never work better than with the pseudo-superheroes. They’re at least effective. The resolve has what should be a gloriously silly resolution but it just doesn’t play; some of it is how Kane breaks out the action, so it’s not all on Robbins or Anderson. A lot of it is on Robbins and Anderson, obviously, but not all of it.

The next story introduces Jason Bard, an amateur detective who can’t be a professional because he’s got a bad knee, which may or may not have happened in Vietnam. He definitely was in Vietnam, but where he hurt the knee is immaterial or so I’m going to keep telling myself because I clearly skimmed that exposition dump. Though Bronze Age so there will be plot-changing details revealed in six words in a tiny thought balloon in the top right of an action-packed panel.

Barbara and a work pal are gossiping about customers—it’s just what librarians do, the pal tells Jason, silly ladies—and they set their sights on him. He’s in the library doing his amateur criminologist research and now he’s going to go out and investigate and prove his methods correct, starting with a mugging turned murder in Central Park. Gotham Park. Whatever. They both have Taverns on the Green. Jason makes quick work of setting a lunch date with Barbara and soon they’re investigating together, except she’s doing it behind his back as Batgirl while telling him how cool it must be to be an amateur criminologist on full disability. Jason Bard’s a weird character.

But his first appearance is nowhere near as cringe as his second, when someone at DC told Robbins to up the Vietnam references so nearly every panel in the second half of Bard’s intro mentions Vietnam or war, including something about Bard’s amateur criminology being “his new war.” It’s a lot. And a fairly blah resolution anyway.

Still better than the next one, which has Batgirl trying to take down a lonely hearts killer. Here’s where we find out Robbins thinks Barbara is homely (whereas Friedrich made sure to establish she was ogle-worthy).

I can’t imagine how these would read as backups, what with the very iffy art and the bland action. This two-parter is just more Batgirl fighting random thugs in alleys. It’s bland stuff. And then Jason’s hanging around because Barbara’s doing the Sea of Love thing, obviously, not Batgirl so Jason’s got to stalk his love interest because romance. Maybe if Robbins had committed and done Jason as a creepy vet stalker but he’s just there to remind Barbara she’s his lady whether there’s a ring on it or not.

I don’t even remember if he unintentionally fumbles through a fight scene to deus ex something. In his first story he falls down some stairs and it saves the day.

Vince Colleta takes over the inks for the O’Neill-written two-parter, which promises to be the first time Robin ever teams up with Batgirl. Clearly O’Neill hadn’t read the second or third story in the Batgirl Bronze Age Omnibus where Batgirl and Robin very definitely team-up… maybe they mean without Batman at all. Or maybe they mean with some flirting. There’s this really weird bit where Batgirl flirts with Robin in the last panel and there’s no time for a reaction from him. And as a late nineties Oracle/Nightwing shipper, it’s fine? But maybe it’s just the art. The Batgirl and Robin adventuring scenes are about as good as you’re going to get, even if it’s just a page.

O’Neill’s writing is… not great. His mystery—an homage to Edgar Allan Poe and some other mystery writers—would probably not make Poe blush. At some point you’re wondering if O’Neill realizes there can’t be any question of the villain’s identity because there are only five characters in the story, two of them are superheroes and two of them are dead. Or something along those lines. I was too busy appreciating decent movement for once in the comic. Oh, but funny thing about the Batgirl and Robin team-up—no Robin in the first part. Total bait and switch. You get a two panel Dick Grayson cameo without Batgirl knowing Dick Grayson is Robin. Then O’Neill switches over to Robin’s perspective for most of the second part.

Robin, it turns out, is just as bad a criminal investigator as Batgirl, so at least there’s consistent incompetence to Gotham’s best funded paramilitary enthusiast organization.

Wait, are the Bat-family just larpers at their core?

Then Robbins does a story about an Andy Warhol analogue getting murdered. Well, combination Andy Warhol (Billy Warlock—wait, isn’t that the guy from “Baywatch”) and underground pornographer. Maybe. I’m not sure what Robbins means when he talks about “x-epics” and it’s not worth trying to figure out. Frank Giacoia’s inks aren’t great. They don’t clash as much as Anderson’s—and initially the art seems like it’s going to be all right, the inks giving Kane a cartoon-y quality—but no. Jason Bard’s also back for this one and there’s—maybe—the first appearance of Commissioner Gordon in the backups. He was too busy in the features to bother making an appearance apparently.

The cliffhanger (since I’m cutting off at a year mark) has Colleta inks again—who knew you could be so happy to see “inks by Vince Colleta”—and involves Batgirl using her knowledge from library to hunt down random citizens again. But this time she’s after protestors and they know their rights so we get a scene where someone’s like, “Get your vigilante ass off my porch,” and we’re supposed to be siding with Batgirl harassing the person. Who she only knew to target from the library. Will Batgirl be able to save the day against the hippies who say they aren’t violent but really are? Hashtag peace is for pansies apparently.

Batgirl 1969 and Batgirl 1970 aren’t a complete waste of time—I’m also curious how Kane’s original pencils look—but given the best thing about a hundred or so pages of comics is a dozen panels with Batgirl and Robin doing acrobat stuff thanks to Vince Colleta inks? I mean, it’s pretty close to a complete waste of time then, isn’t it.

Batgirl: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 (1967-68)

Batgirl Omnibus 1

The strangest thing about the first five stories in Omnibus Volume 1 isn’t how writer Gardner Fox uses Barbara Gordon’s position at the Gotham Public Library to explain how she somehow targets criminals. She violates professional privacy standards—if not laws (it was the late sixties, who knows)—to figure out where the bad guys are going to strike so she can go out and beat them up before Batman and Robin get there.

I’m going to assume Fox just didn’t know anything about the library profession (were there Ph.D.s in library science in the late sixties or is Barbara’s doctorate just there to be something else for her father not to be impressed with) and not it being some kind of statement on how we should all be a little more fascist when it comes to enabling women (and men) dressed as bats.

The strangest thing is how it takes Fox until the last story to explore how Barbara’s inherent femininity as expressed with concern for her appearance, her deference to men, and her propensity to scream at inopportune times is going to be a problem for crime-fighting. The collection opens with a foreword from Gail Simone talking about how the character—as created—didn’t have much to offer the female readership but reading Fox’s stories?

It’d be worse if he thought there were a female readership. Sure, he’s telling little boys how to be both misogynist and ignorant, but at least he’s not telling little girls their value is only as sex objects for boys? Probably? Like, Fox’s Batgirl isn’t really cheesecake though artists Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene do employ some cheesecake, but there’s this definite undercurrent with Robin lusting after her. But in late sixties Code comics so it’s simultaneously subtle and grossly overdone.

Anyway, why Fox waited until the last story to remind everyone girls are better to look at than anything else—it’s also an about face from earlier stories where Batman tells Robin they have to respect Batgirl even though she’s, you know, a girl–is the strangest thing about his stories. They go out on a low; already brought down by a two-part Catwoman story (Frank Springer pencils the second half; it misses Infantino) where Catwoman is jealous of Batgirl and wants to force Batman to put a ring on it ASAP.

The most amusing part of that story is Fox finding an honest moment with Barbara, who’s surprised and perplexed why Catwoman is all of a sudden pissed off at her.

Aside—it seems like Selina Kyle is publicly infamous costumed criminal Catwoman? Or at least Bruce Wayne knows about it? Even acknowledging these comics require a profound willful suspension of disbelief, but at some point, Fox is responsible for things not making logical sense. And they can’t be too steeped in continuity because this Bat-era is when they were introducing characters from the TV show to try to get TV viewers to read the comics.

Then again, Barbara very obviously should’ve figured out Bruce’s secret identity in one of the stories and there’s even a hint about it, but it goes nowhere. Because Fox’s stories get worse as they go along, as Batgirl is more and more the guest star. At least in the origin story she’s something of a protagonist.

Though she’s the protagonist in the story about her worrying about her hair too much to stop bad guys from trying to kill her.

I thought about writing this post with abundant alliterations but decided against it. Outside keeping a dictionary (or thesaurus, really) handy, there’s not really anything to talk about regarding Fox’s use of alliteration and adjective. I mean, other than to track if it was ripped off from Marvel at this point. Similarly, the frequent sports metaphors in Batgirl’s thought balloons had me expecting her to talk about loving jazz at any point.

But leaving these first five stories—the character’s foundation (Barbara was a new character at this point, right?)—there hasn’t been much in character development or even establishment. Fox avoids Commissioner Gordon conversations with his daughter other than to chastise her for not being more like Batgirl; otherwise, Gordon just speaks in transitional exposition to his daughter. Fox does firmly establish Batgirl’s got no romantic interest in Batman and vice verse (despite Infantino pencilling otherwise at one point), which ended up just making me remember that terrible Killing Joke movie.

It’s not the worst thing it could be. At least until the last story and then, really, the Catwoman ones foreshadow it, but even then it’s not like Batgirl quits being she’s too sexy by far. No, she’s going to keep crime-fighting and use that sexy, just like Batman says.

Ew.

There’s a little of Robin being the sexist teen and Batman having to tell him not to be—within limits—but then there’s also the Robin as Batgirl’s partner thing. It’s a complex web of mediocre comics writing (see how I qualified that one), misogyny, patriarchy, and lots more. Lots of good Infantino art, with Gil Kane pencilling the last story in a way almost indistinguishable from Infantino. The Springer you can tell, but the Kane seems just like more Infantino.

Though it is just cheesecake when Barbara is hanging out in the library after work in her Batgirl costume, which definitely seems like someone—Infantino or Fox—really wants to fetishize it.

So much of these comics should’ve gotten a “No” even in the sixties but—I just realized—they’re objectively a lot less misogynist than DC output from forty years later. It’s a definite flex to present these stories without contextualizing the rampant misogyny because outside the art, any reading of them has to be either subjectively, nostalgically influence or you just have a terrible taste in comics and bad critical thinking skills.

That statement made… obviously I’m going to keep going. Even on sale the book wasn’t cheap.

Atari Force 5 (1983)

49386 20130522174834 large Even with some great Gil Kane art, the last issue of Atari Force is a tad meager a finish for the series. Kane doesn’t have to suffer through a lot of video game-type space action, but there’s some and it’s too much.

Worse is the romance. Thomas and Conway promote it to a full-fledged subplot for the issue–worthy of a real flashback, then don’t give it one. Instead, the flashback is to these alien pacifists. That element of the story–intense non-violence–is kind of nest in a comic about blowing up Cthulhu-like space monsters, but it’s underdeveloped too.

The issue ends with a promise of another series, which might explain some the problem with Conway and Thomas’s script. They’re already looking ahead instead of concentrating on what’s going on here. Or maybe they just made things so big they’re unmanageable.

Still, gorgeous Kane art.

CREDITS

Galaxian; writers, Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas; penciller, Gil Kane; inker, Dick Giordano; colorist, Adrienne Roy; letterer, John Costanza; editor, Andy Helfer; publisher, DC Comics.

Atari Force 3 (1982)

2334 Even though the characters are still visually bland, Atari Force gets Gil Kane on the art and he knows what he’s doing. It’s a big read instead of a long one. Writers Conway and Thomas split the issue into three chapters, but it’s more like two–there’s even a cliffhanger mid-point.

For this issue, there are no more flashback introductions. Instead, there’s a somewhat weak flashback explaining the alien planet they find. It’s bumpy but passable.

Conway and Thomas to continue their rather serious look at what should be a goofy comic. One of the characters is a pacifist, burnt out by all the warring on Earth, and he doesn’t give up his convictions. There’s not a lot of fallout from it, but the writers do return to it a few times and the guy does turn out to be right.

With Kane, Force is all around competent now.

CREDITS

Enter — the Dark Destroyer!; writers, Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas; penciller, Gil Kane; inkers, Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo; colorist, Adrienne Roy; letterer, John Costanza; editor, Giordano; publisher, DC Comics.

Marvel Premiere (1972) #2

Marvel premiere 1972 2

Ladies and gentlemen… the writing stylings of Roy Thomas! Yay! Yay!

Oh, wait. Umm. No. Not yay.

I suppose if someone wanted to read some really bad seventies young person counterculture dialogue, he or she could read Roy Thomas’s Adam Warlock story. It’s painful to read. And eventually painful to see too.

It’s another issue where Gil Kane’s art falls apart after a certain point. There’s this private detective who Kane draws terribly, but also disturbingly. He looks like an evil, poorly drawn Peter Lorre.

Oh, and the villains. The villains are these giant animals–a rat, a snake–and Kane butchers them. It’s like he can’t draw anything but regular people. Worse, the art all starts good and then plummets.

It’s a confusing story. Thomas loves to overwrite.

There’s a Jimmy Woo backup too, from Jack Kirby. It’s not any good, but it’s mildly interesting as a fifties relic.

Marvel Premiere 2 (May 1972)

Ladies and gentlemen… the writing stylings of Roy Thomas! Yay! Yay!

Oh, wait. Umm. No. Not yay.

It’s a confusing story. Thomas loves to overwrite.

There’s a Jimmy Woo backup too, from Jack Kirby. It’s not any good, but it’s mildly interesting as a fifties relic.

Creatures on the Loose 17 (May 1972)

For some inexplicable reason, probably because he liked to read himself (I don’t think Marvel paid by the word in the seventies), Roy Thomas has his protagonist spouting expository dialogue every panel.

Thomas and Gil Kane do the feature, Guillvar Jones, and it’s beautiful to read. Kane eventually does have some weak panels, but most of them are fantastic. Lots of fluid movement. Just great.

And Thomas doesn’t do bad with the first person narration. It’s fine. All the expository dialogue (protagonist talking to himself) is terrible and narratively pointless, if not incompetent.

The issue also has some old reprints. There’s a pretty good giant sea monster one from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. The twist is the sea monster is intelligent, but Lee doesn’t explore that point enough. Nice art.

The other reprint is sci-fi (from Lee and Don Heck). It’s fine until the moronic ending.

Ka-Zar the Savage 12 (March 1982)

Jones finishes up his Inferno homage–he confirms my plotting suspicions too… again, it’d be a great movie. Because kids need to read Dante.

There’s a lot of action as Ka-Zar goes it alone (Shanna and his friends are brainwashed) against various demons and the big bad Lucifer stand-in.

Armando Gil takes over inking Anderson to great effect. Having seen Anderson go through two and a half inkers, it’s clear Gil is the one adding all the detail. He brings out what Anderson has started–even though they’re in the pits of Hell, Anderson has a lot to draw.

The issue’s particularly impressive because it’s all Ka-Zar’s show, something the comic hasn’t been since the first one. Shanna’s not an active participant. Jones casts Ka-Zar as Conan against the (more demonic than Cthulhu) Elder Gods. It works.

The backup’s a perverted Disney movie about Ka-Zar’s tiger. Gil Kane does fine.