[Greg has a contest, due to some of the negativity he’d been seeing in the comics blogaxy in those days. But negativity fuels us, man!!!! The questions went up on 25 February 2012, and you can find them here, and Greg posted the answers on 2 March. Edo gets a shout-out, as he was the only one who knew that Grant Morrison was a character in the Nathaniel Dusk mini-series from the mid-1980s. How odd! Enjoy!]
Hey, it’s another contest!
See, I’ve been feeling a bit grumpy about the comics industry for the last couple of weeks. What with the court judgement against Gary Friedrich, and the flap over Before Watchmen (and the fact that in both cases there was an inexplicable amount of nerdrage directed at the creators rather than the corporations that screwed them) … and then all the deeply insane responses to our own Kelly Thompson pointing out things so blatantly obvious they shouldn’t even need pointing out … and then there was this I-give-up article where I found almost nothing to disagree with … then there’s the whole Comic Book Men squabble about “making us look bad” where the elephant in the room is that a lot of us really are that bad … it had reached the point where I thought this week’s column would be an angry screed along the lines of, “What the hell is WRONG with so many of you?” It would have been an easy column to write and God knows, after over a decade moderating over at the CBR forums, I’ve got a bunch of fandom horror stories of my own to add to all the ones in the press the last couple of weeks.
Here’s the problem, though. Sure, columns like that are controversial and they get a lot of traffic, but I don’t particularly enjoy writing them. And they’re a waste of time. After all, it’s not as though the fans that need to grow up ever actually do it just because someone tells them that they need to. Show of hands — how many of you out there reading this have wasted more than an hour of your life trying to correct someone’s thinking on the internet? More than three hours? How many have wasted a day? And here’s the key question — did it work? Did you actually get the other guy to concede the point?
Yeah, that’s what I figured. The prosecution rests.
So I thought, “Instead of bitching for 2500 words and accomplishing nothing, I should lighten up. A column about something amusing, trivial and fun –” and the word trivial did it. A trivia contest. I haven’t done one of these in a while and they’re always a good time.
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This time out, I decided that the theme would be non-powered, street-level heroics. The hard-boiled detectives, vigilantes, and pulp avengers that have kept the urban jungle safe for the rest of us, from the Golden Age to the present day.
The Rules:
Don’t put your answers in the Comments section! If you do that, I will delete them and make cruel fun of you. Email them to me at ghatcher79 (at) gmail.com.
In the case of a tie, the winner will be the email with the earliest timestamp. Decisions made by me are final.
Deadline for entries is Thursday March 1st, midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
As always, Google is frowned upon. Anybody can enter a phrase into a search engine. Feel free to look things up but do it by actually reading your real comics.
Also, don’t put your answers in the Comments section. Seriously.
And what are they playing for, Johnny?
The second season of Columbo.
Yes, the entire season on region 1 DVD. (I know, it’s not comics-related at all, but it’s a cool set. Somehow we ended up with two of them, and this is a lot more fun than just giving it away to a friend at work or something.) Anyway, this is all eight of the Season 2 TV-movies, brand-new, still in the shrinkwrap. Shipped free to wherever you are.
Okay? Everybody ready? Here we go.
1. How did Misty Knight lose her arm? And who replaced it with a bionic one?
2. Who teamed up with hard-hitting private eye Slam Bradley in his first POST-Golden Age appearance in DC Comics, in the early 1980s?
3. What’s the name of the show hosted by TV detective Roy Raymond?
4. Name Ms. Tree’s colleagues at the Tree Detective Agency.
5. How did Shang-Chi, master of kung fu, first meet Black Jack Tarr?
6. The Shadow teamed up with Batman, twice. Who was the villain of the piece the first time? And the second?
7. What was the name of the cop in the bowler hat that often worked with the original White Tiger?
8. Which of the original Avenger pulps were adapted for comics?
9. According to Denny O’Neil, how did Vic Sage meet Aristotle Rodor?
10. Why were so many Modesty Blaise fans angry about the final story in the book collection Cobra Trap?
11. Who was the comely redheaded girl that befriended Val Armorr in 20th-century New York, back when he was starring in his short-lived 1970s solo title?
12. What’s Jigsaw’s real name, and who teamed up with Frank Castle to beat him in his first appearance?
13. Why did patrolman Jim Harper originally decide just being a policeman wasn’t enough, so he would have to become the Guardian?
14. Mark Valley wasn’t the first actor to portray Chistopher Chance, the Human Target. Who was?
15. What’s the name of the adulterous husband whose angry wife hires Nathaniel Dusk to get divorce evidence on, in the first issue of his miniseries?
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There you go. That should keep you busy for a while. Remember, using Google is for sissies! [Edit: Come on, Greg!]
Back next week with the answers and a winner.
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Well, it’s a week later. Whose nerd-fu was mightiest?
I really thought this particular quiz was easier than previous ones I’ve put up, but I’m clearly the only one. This had the fewest entrants of all, only five, but every last one of them eschewed using the internet. Though a couple confessed to looking things up AFTER turning in their answers, they did not actually even put those answers in the responses they emailed to me!
I love that everyone was so scrupulously honest. Thanks to Edo Bosnar, Greg Geren, Eve Mathides, Jorge Mendes and Barry Watkins for being such good sports, and boo on all the other cowards who mentioned here or on Twitter that they were thinking about trying, and then talked themselves out of it. Shoulda cowboy’d up and taken a swing, because it was anybody’s game right up to the end! (Winner only took it by two points.)
Anyway, let’s get to it. Here are the ANSWERS!!
1. How did Misty Knight lose her arm? And who replaced it with a bionic one?
As recounted in the Claremont-Byrne Iron Fist, Misty lost the arm while she was still a cop, in a terrorist bombing.
Eventually her friend and future partner Colleen Wing persuaded Misty to rejoin the world …
And Colleen trained Misty to be a kung fu badass, even though Misty had to execute her ninja badassery with just one arm.
Then Misty acquired her bionic arm and together she and Colleen formed their private-eye firm Nightwing Restorations, or as Marvel billed them, the Daughters of the Dragon.
But who actually arranged for Misty’s bionic arm replacement and built it?
No one knows. As far as I can tell, that story has never actually been told. Reed Richards rebuilt it once …
And Tony Stark upgraded it.
Since Tony’s comments suggest that he has actually upgraded Misty’s bionics more than once, I think it can be safely deduced that it was indeed Tony Stark that arranged for Misty’s new arm. This is the common assumption, and I gave credit for that answer. (I would have taken “Reed Richards,” too, since the actual credit’s a bit murky and we have seen him building Misty an arm as well. But no one gave that answer.) However, as far as I know, the actual story of why the NYPD’s Misty Knight was first singled out for bionic help from Stark International has yet to be told.
2. Who teamed up with hard-hitting private eye Slam Bradley in his first POST-Golden Age appearance in DC Comics, in the early 1980s?
That would have been “The ‘Too Many Cooks …’ Caper!” by Len Wein and Jim Aparo in Detective #500.
In that story, Slam was helped by Pow-Wow Smith, Christopher Chance, Jason Bard, Roy Raymond, and Mysto the Magician. Too many cooks indeed!
3. What’s the name of the show hosted by TV detective Roy Raymond?
“Impossible But True!”
4. Name Ms. Tree’s colleagues at the Tree Detective Agency.
Those colleagues would be Roger Freemont and Dan Green, also licensed detectives, as well as their trusty secretary Effie.
Dan was injured in a bombing in #7, as pictured above, but he was back on the job not too long afterwards … wielding a hook where his left hand had been. And I think Ms. Tree’s teenaged stepson Mike Tree Jr. has helped out the firm once in a while as well.
5. How did Shang-Chi, master of kung fu, first meet Black Jack Tarr?
In combat!
Tarr was assigned to protect Sir Denis Nayland-Smith, and he thought Shang-Chi was an assassin sent to kill Smith; really, all Shang-Chi wanted was to talk to Smith about Fu Manchu, since he’d just discovered that old Fu was really a bad guy and thus Smith was actually a GOOD guy. Eventually it was all straightened out.
6. The Shadow teamed up with Batman twice. Who was the villain of the piece the first time? And the second?
The first time, in Batman #253, it was a counterfeiter named Bammy.
The second time, in Batman #259, it was a thug named Willy Hank Stamper (although the page reprinted below says he wasn’t “the thief,” he was still the villain. I won’t spoil the story by saying who did in fact nick the tiara in question, but it was done with noble motives.)
Greg Geren answered this one with, “a group of counterfeiters and unmemorable thieves,” and since he had the issue numbers, and he’d clearly read the books, I gave full credit. Because it’s true. They aren’t terribly memorable villains.
7. What was the name of the cop in the bowler hat that often worked with the original White Tiger?
That was Blackbyrd.
I know there are licensing issues with Shang-Chi, but really, Marvel, the Deadly Hands of Kung Fu stuff is just sitting there and you just launched a new White Tiger not that long ago … she’s still around, she was a supporting character in Shadowland. So why can’t we get an Essential Sons of the Tiger/White Tiger? Or even just Essential Deadly Hands of Kung Fu? Then you could throw in the Iron Fist and Daughters of the Dragon and even SwordQuest stories that appeared in the book too. I’d be so all over that …
8. Which of the original Avenger pulps were adapted for comics?
No one got this one — including, as it happens, ME.
I was thinking, of course, of DC’s version of the Avenger that appeared in the 1970s. It only ran four issues.
The first adapted the first of the pulps, “Justice, Inc.”
The second adapted “The Sky Walker.”
The third and fourth issues were originals.
And I figured that was it. But I found out researching this that there was, in fact, one more comics adaptation taken from the original Avenger pulps. Way back when Street & Smith published a companion line of comics along with their line of pulps, there was an adaptation of “The Yellow Hoard” that ran in Shadow Comics #2 back in 1940.
According to the Grand Comics Database it was a backup story that was 8 pages long. So I’m guessing it was a pretty loose adaptation … but it still counts! I’d have given full credit just for the first two, but no one even tried guessing for this question. I’d think #1 — the origin — was a gimme at least. But I guess nobody liked the old DC version of Justice Inc. but me.
As for why I ran the paperback covers here instead of the actual pulp covers? Because I never miss an excuse to run 70s pulp paperback covers, that’s why. Because they are AWESOME. Here’s three more for the hell of it.
These particular cover paintings for the Warner Paperback Library editions of The Avenger were all done by a man named George Gross, and you can see more of his work here.
9. According to Denny O’Neil, how did Vic Sage meet Aristotle Rodor?
This is a tricky one. Most people would assume that it was at the onset of the Question’s first real case, where Aristotle Rodor needed Vic’s help with his corrupt partner, Arby Twain. But no!
It’s a throwaway mention in the Ditko original version of the origin story that Vic was once Professor Rodor’s student back when Vic was in college. When Denny O’Neil retold the story in Question Annual #2, he honored that concept … but he added the wrinkle that Tot was Sage’s philosophy prof. Philosophy played a pretty big role throughout the run of the O’Neil Question series, so it’s not a very surprising retcon.
Either way, nobody got the right answer, which was, “When Vic was in Tot’s philosophy class,” or even just, “Back during Vic’s college years.” Although a couple of people mentioned Arby Twain and I gave half credit for that.
10. Why were so many Modesty Blaise fans angry about the final story in the book collection Cobra Trap?
Because it was the last one. Both Modesty and her partner Willie Garvin died at the end.
The Modesty Blaise comic strip continued after Cobra Trap was published, and many fans declared that only the comic strip version of Modesty counted as ‘canon,’ so she wasn’t really dead.
When Modesty’s creator Peter O’Donnell ended the comic strip a couple of years later, he gave fans a happier ending …
As you can see, in the comics Modesty and Willie literally got to go off into the sunset.
11. Who was the comely redheaded girl that befriended Val Armorr in 20th-century New York, back when he was starring in his short-lived 1970s solo title?
Ah, that would be schoolteacher Iris Jacobs.
She was briefly morphed into the villainess Diamondeth at one point, but fortunately it didn’t last. (I mention that just as an item of interest, the Diamondeth factoid wasn’t required. All anyone needed to get credit for this one was “Iris,” that would have been plenty. These are for the real hardcore trivia hounds out there, yes, but I’m not a monster.)
12. What’s Jigsaw’s real name, and who teamed up with Frank Castle to beat him in his first appearance?
Before Frank Castle threw him through a plate-glass window, Jigsaw was known as Billy “the Beaut” Russo.
As for who helped Frank take him down, quite a few people guessed Spider-Man … but everyone somehow missed the other guest star, even though he was on the cover and everything. It was Nightcrawler from the X-Men.
This was still early days for the new X-Men, back when Dave Cockrum was still on the book. So Wolverine wasn’t really making the rounds yet. Nightcrawler was the bigger X-star.
13. Why did patrolman Jim Harper originally decide just being a policeman wasn’t enough, so he would have to become the Guardian?
Believe it or not, because none of the crooks in Suicide Slum took him seriously as a cop. So, y’know, Harper decided to go with the blue tights and the crash helmet. Because that’s MUCH scarier to a criminal than an armed police officer.
Ah, the Golden Age. Simpler times. The main reason this question is in here is because I’ve been reading DC’s lovely hardcover collection of the Newsboy Legion and I really recommend it. It’s great fun.
14. Mark Valley wasn’t the first actor to portray Chistopher Chance, the Human Target. Who was?
Surprised more people didn’t get this … after all, many of the regulars around here remember all the other crappy TV adaptations of comics, up to and including the Reb Brown Captain America and the Sam Jones Spirit.
But everyone’s apparently forgotten the Rick Springfield Human Target, from 1992.
Although, in fairness, it wasn’t terribly memorable. It was a summer-replacement series that only ran seven episodes.
It was from Danny Bilson and Paul DiMeo, the same fellows that adapted the Rocketeer to the movies and the Flash to prime-time television. Something the Springfield version kept, that the later Valley version did not, was the idea that Christopher Chance would actually assume the identity of his client to draw the villain out into the open. On the show he did it with the aid of whiz-bang super mask computer technology.
But the bottom line was, the show really wasn’t that good and deserved its early end. The Mark Valley Human Target, despite its premise being further away from the comics, is a vastly superior endeavor. I suspect even Mr. Springfield would agree. (Although I always thought it would be cool if Springfield guested on the Mark Valley show … say, as an aging rock star on the casino circuit needing protection from a psycho stalker, or something. Writes itself, really …)
15. What’s the name of the adulterous husband whose angry wife hires Nathaniel Dusk to get divorce evidence on, in the first issue of his miniseries?
Edo Bosnar was the only respondent to get this one. It certainly was a name that should have stuck in the minds of the regulars around here, but apparently no one’s really up on their Nathaniel Dusk. Pity, because it’s a good book. It deserves to be collected in paperback along with its sequel mini-series … preferably re-colored, as long as I’m daydreaming.
Anyway, that errant husband was …
… Mr. Grant Morrison.
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And our winner, with nine out of fifteen, is …
… Mr. Greg Geren! Let’s everyone give him a big CBR round of applause! Well done sir! Your DVD set will be on its way to you as soon as you tell me where you want it sent. Check your email.
And there you have it. Even though we didn’t have that much participation, I always get a kick out of writing these; I hope you all at least enjoyed kibitzing.
Thanks again to all those who did try for the prize, and I’ll see you next week.
I knew like one and a half, one of which was the Rick Springfield one. In that provided screenshot, it looks like Christopher Chance is taking on the identity of Scott Paulin, the guy what played Italian Red Skull in Albert Pyun’s underrated Captain America movie!
It is; he was in the pilot., though I would prefer to remember him as the barely seen Deke Slayton, in The Right Stuff than the accurately rated Albert Pyun Captain America.8)
Yeah, besides Grant Morrison, I think I only answered two more correctly: the name of the Roy Raymond TV show and Blackbyrd. And I only recalled that the first name of the Karate Kid supporting character was Iris (that one was frustrating, because I used to have the whole run of that series was I was kid, and remembered what she looked like and that she turned into a diamond – and even that she made a cameo appearance in Legion of Super-heroes).
I would have had 4 right and a trio of partials. I knew the first meeting of Shang Chi and Blackjack Tarr. I also knew Blackbird. It helps that I reviewed the entirety of Master of Kung Fu and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, on the Classic Comics Forum. I knew Modesty Blaise, as I still have the book. Quite frankly, the books ending (or rather, the story within the books, as it is an anthology of short stories, like Pieces of Modesty) as she goes out in a blaze of glory, as was befitting the character and Willie was faithful to his Princess. I knew the Human Target because I had the DC one-shot that tied into the show and I watched the pilot, when it aired….which was why I didn’t watch the other 6 episodes. My memory is that the show was delayed in airing, which didn’t help matters and the DC tie-in came out far earlier. Might be off on my timeline, though.
I knew Misty Knight lost her arm due to a bombing, but didn’t recall, for sure who created the bionic one and just guessed Stark. I read the second of the Shadow & Batman team-ups, back in the day (and acquired it, later, in my collecting days); but could not recall the villain or the main plot, just memories of scenes with Batman covering his ears as guns blazed and refusing the Shadow’s offer of a pistol. I knew Justice, Inc was adapted, as I was the other fan of the series, but didn’t recall the title of The Sky Walker. I had no idea about the Street & Smith comic adaptation. I knew the Punisher teamed with Spider-Man, as Jigsaw was a Spidey enemy; but, I did not recall that it was the issue with Nightcrawler and the Punisher, shown above….and I read that one! My Cousin had a copy of it. I never reacquired it as an adult, as prices for early X-Men appearances were getting out of hand, by that point. Of course, Cockrum used Nightcrawler as he created the character, as part of his Outsiders project, along with Storm.
Shouldn’t Roy Raymond’s tv series be “Improbably, But True?” If it was impossible, it couldn’t be true, and if it is true then it was improbable, not impossible.
I should have known the Question, but could only recall the images of Tot and Vic in conversation, before he goes out to face criminals and gets shot with an air gun and then ends up recovering and training with Richard Dragon. I loved Denny O’Neil & Dennys Cowan’s Question series.