Aside from the cover, what I recalled most about this issue was a crack from Mark Waid in the letter column of Secret Origins #37: "I could beat Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys." A weird quote out of context, so here goes! From 1988, Flash #12, "Light at the End of the Tunnel" Written by George Broderick Jr, pencils by Gordon Purcell, inks by Timothy Dzon.
When prison officials decide Dr. Light isn't dangerous enough for maximum security, the super-villain is being moved to another prison. Hopefully not into gen pop, since they would eat his Colonel Sanders-looking ass alive...Through a combination of hidden tech, luck, and incompetence; Light escapes to the small town of Radiance, PA: once out of the prison bus, he conks a townsman on the noggin and swipes his clothes; and the prison guards take the townsman, thinking him to be Dr. Light under a hologram! Emboldened, Light decides to make the most of his newfound freedom, and after a few small heists for equipment and a new costume, he takes over the entire town!
Light then makes the town's undesirables his personal police force; but didn't plan for the appearance of the town's own legacy heroes: Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys! That might be over-hyping things a bit: three kids realize not only were their parents (more likely grandparents, since they were active in the 40's and this was 1988) costumed heroes as kids, but that maybe Dr. Light was a strawman: no way he could've built any sort of laser weapon with the equipment he could get in town. Jamming the radio signal Light used to set off explosives, the kids trip him up, and that's that. The story ends with Light typing a letter to Amanda Waller; I have a good feeling about that.
Also this issue, the main story, "Velocity 9" Written by Mike Baron, pencils by Mike Collins, inks by Larry Mahlstedt. This was early in Wally's run on the book, and he was rich, was involved with a married (separated) woman, and had his terrible, terrible mother living with him. Seriously, she's awful. She might've been fleshed out or less shrill later, but here, man.
Sooner or later we're probably going to get to the Bonus Book from Warlord #131, featuring very early Rob Liefeld art! And we saw the Jim Balent drawn one from Power of the Atom #4. Looking up the other Bonus Books, I know I had both pairs from Detective Comics and Justice League International, so I've read maybe seven out of thirteen? Something to keep an eye out for, then. The artist on this one, Gordon Purcell, would go on to do about a million Star Trek comics, various incarnations for various companies!
The worst offense Light committed in this issue? No, not looking Col. Sanders/Uncle Sam's bad apple of a brother. Nope, quoting the Golden Girl. Makes the gay reveal later on even less surprising.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, while there's nothing wrong with having had watched the Golden Girls (I did as a kid living in Germany, but in my defense, we only had 1 American tv channel) it kind help further cements for me how much of a bad-ass criminal, he WASN'T.
The funny thing is that's not even his logo. It's the other Doctor Light (the lady from Crisis)'s. His is yellow block letters. Too plain for a Bonus Book, I guess.
ReplyDeleteThat has to sting. (In-story, the townspeople are confused by the old guy calling himself Dr. Light, since they thought she looked more feminine on TV...)
ReplyDelete