One of the nice surprises about rereading the Silver Age is when comics series I don’t care for deliver a good issue. Three of the stories I’m looking at here are such happy events.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times how insufferable I find Stan Lee’s writing on Silver Surfer but #6 worked for me. After physicist Al Harper’s gadget fails to punch through Galactus’ barrier, Norrin Radd hits on a new angle: travel into the future and see if the barrier has faded away (I’d think traveling back to a week before the Surfer arrived on Earth would be guaranteed to get him free, but never mind). He discovers it does, but Earth is now dead — darn those humans, ruining their planet like that!
Discovering every planet in the universe is similarly lifeless and ravaged forces the Surfer to cut off his usual preaching. The villain responsible is the Overlord, a mutant born with godlike powers and an obsession with killing everyone and anything so that nobody can ever be powerful enough to threaten him. It turns out even the Silver Surfer’s punching out of his weight class facing this guy, so he flies into the past and presents the radioactive accident that messed up the dude’s genes. No mutation, no Overlord. This leaves the Surfer free to sail space again, but next issue he’s back on present-day Earth, trapped inside the barrier, without explanation (at least based on a cursory glance at the issue)
I’m not a huge fan of Bat Lash either but #5 (plotted by Sergio Aragones, written by Denny O’Neil, drawn by Nick Cardy) worked very well. Batton Lash robs a banker only to learn the man has already been robbed by the Mexican bandit Sergio Aragones. Lash goes to hunt him down, the two men wind up saving each other’s lives and vow eternal friendship — never again will they raise a hand against their new buddy. That lasts exactly as long as it takes them to learn how big a price the other has on their head. On top of which some of the supporting characters, including the requisite pretty woman, are equally keen on double-crossing.
It’s full-on spaghetti Western in the vein of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name yarns and it works.
Hawk and the Dove shifted to Gil Kane scripting as of #5 and unlike his work on Captain Action, things improved. The brothers’ arguments feel less canned and more natural, they show some brotherly affection to go with it and Dove is getting into the superhero game, though still refusing to hit anyone (instead he’s finding ways to use their strength against them — I think that’s straining the definition of pacifism but it’s not a hill I’d die on. At lest today.).
It didn’t save the series. As I’ve said before, these were hard times for DC, which was canceling a lot of books as the 1960s reached its end (Marvel, meanwhile, has turned Dr. Strange, Captain Marvel and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD into bimonthlies). Still, Kane’s writing made for a stronger book, though the boys’ father still comes off as a jerk.
I can understand the judge disapproving of vigilantes. But “they’re worse than the guy who tried to kill me” makes me roll my eyes.
I’ll wrap up with Justice League of America #72 by Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin (cover by Kubert). O’Neil’s scripting has improved from his horrible first issue but even with a serviceable plot — an alchemist accidentally unleashes a plague of demons on Midway City — he still can’t pump any energy into the story. The standard defense is “yes, but he gave the team characterization which Gardner Fox never did.” True, but as in his first issue, the characterization is awful. Red Tornado arrives from Earth-Two to enlisth their help and their responses—
As Le Messor has sometimes complained about Silver Age Marvel, O’Neil seems to think “characterization” means “acting like jerks.” They continue in this vein through the rest of the issue, refusing to stop and listen to Reddy’s news. Maybe if they had, they could have stopped Aquarius the living star before he kills Larry Lance in a couple of issues (I appreciate Reddy during Len Wein’s run pointing this out).
#SFWApro. Art by John Buscema, Nick Cardy, Kane x2, Kubert, and Dillin x2.
If I remember right, I fully agree with you that the Red Tornado’s appearance was one of those stories where the reader spends the whole time thinking ‘Just say something!’