Here's a recent oddity from the quarter bins: from 1973, (Beware! The Claws of...) The Cat #3, "From Far Beneath the Mirror of the Moon!" Written by Linda Fite, layouts by Paty Greer, inks by Bill Everett.
The costume looks like Hellcat, but it would be a few years before it would be given to Patsy Walker: here it's worn by Greer Nelson, who we know better as Tigra! She was still the better part of a year away from becoming a cat-woman, although it wouldn't be in this title; the next issue was the last. Here, she still had some powers like enhanced senses; as when she picks up a "mysterious, sonar-type signal" while scuba diving for fun in Lake Michigan. Returning as the Cat to investigate, she finds a mysterious undersea dome, which may be a secret government project, but could be the next lair of this issue's villain, Sub-Mariner bad guy Commander Kraken!
Yeah, I only know him as one of the several villains killed by the Scourge in the massacre at the Bar with No Name in Captain America #319. The Cat helps stop Kraken, although he would escape; and feels pretty good about herself...until the dome takes off into space, since it had really been manned by aliens! Hey, that was just the sort of thing that happened back then. Call it a wash.
Wow, that ink job by Bill Everett certainly is unmistakable.
ReplyDeleteBeing the incurable smart ass I am, if I was the captain in that one panel, my retort would have been "Reputation? What reputation? Dude, the only way anyone's ever heard of you is if by chance they walked in on a game of comic nerd jeopardy, and you were an answer to a trivia question. And even that's being generous. Seriously not even Google Earth could find your pathetic z-list ass."
And that's what I would have said, if I was there.
That and "Hey, aren't you late for your Pirates of the Caribbean audition?"
Strong case to be made Aquaman has better villains than Sub-Mariner. I love Tiger Shark, and Dorma's a hardcase; but Black Manta is easily better than Namor's entire rogues gallery.
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