I know I tried the first two issues of DC experiment with weekly comics, but I can't recall: was it available in newsstands, or direct-market only? At a glance, the covers didn't have barcodes. Well, I just asked on BlueSky, we'll see if anybody knows! So, this was the third issue of the weekly experiment, thus it's the third chapter of everything.
This was post-Green Lantern Corps #224, a last issue I've never blogged, because I. HATE. It.. Hal Jordan was one of a very, very few GL's left; and his teammate and friend, Katma Tui, had been killed by Star Sapphire, who had been Carol Ferris, but Carol didn't seem to be home right then. Sapphire wanted revenge for the loss of her subjects, the Zamorans, who had left the universe with the Guardians of the Universe in GL #200, an issue I love! Hal manages to disable her, by snapping the ring setting of her gem; which is like using the Force to turn your opponent's lightsaber off mid-fight; then by punching her a bit. Hal moves to summarily execute Sapphire, but his ring won't do it--either because a lack of will, like he really didn't want to kill her; or something else--but after the cops show up, Sapphire zaps everyone, and now passes sentence on Hal...I haven't read all of this run, and Peter David would take over for a bit shortly, while Priest would have a couple Green Lantern Specials later; all of which seemed to have interesting ideas or moments, but maybe didn't entirely work for me. (Art by Gil Kane.)
Secret Six was an interesting idea: six injured specialists are given mechanical aides, uniforms, and gear, to serve as a Mission: Impossible-style vigilante team. Their benefactor, Mockingbird, was masked and unknown; and might not have been revealed until just before the serial ended, and isn't connected to the later team of villains. (Written by Martin Pasko, art by Dan Spiegle.) Then, in the Yucatan, Deadman tries to deal with the ghost Mayan Talaoc, the Central Intelligence Agency, and a stockpile of weird alien anti-ghost weapons. (Story by Mike Baron, pencils by Dan Jurgens, inks by Tony DeZuniga.)
Superman had only a token presence in Action for this run, a two-pager reminiscent of classic newspaper strips. I think the rationale was, Supes had two other books, right? (Written by Roger Stern, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by John Beatty.) Wild Dog was next, and possibly a bigger draw at the time than the rest; coming off a pretty successful mini-series. So, of course we don't get to see him today; as a pro-censorship/anti-porn group blows up a book store in Jack's neighborhood. I don't think I'd seen Wild Dog without his mask often, and without it he seems like an amiable goof; which might be a good cover for a hardass killer. (Written by Max Collins, art by Terry Beatty.)
Finally, a plot-heavy installment of Blackhawk, as Ms. Hastings--who's pretty likely CIA herself--approaches Janos with an offer, to go after gold lost by the Japanese post-WW II, that probably fell into the hands of druglord Red Dragon. I think Blackhawk might've been the first Action serial to get spun off to a new title, but it only lasted 16 issues? Huh, I thought it ran longer. (Written by Mike Grell, pencils by Rick Burchett, inks by Pablo Marcos.)
4 comments:
Didn’t know Peter David wrote any GL stories, but given his proclivity for writing Sci-fi that makes sense. Was his run any good?
Ok, I’ll bite, why don’t you like #224?
“Deadman tries to deal with the ghost Mayan Talaoc, the Central Intelligence Agency, and a stockpile of weird alien anti-ghost weapons. “
That sounds like any random month's worth of news headlines in 2024 honestly 🤷♂️
Speaking for me, if you’ve read GLC #224 you know why. Also, Peter David’s run- not that great (maybe because it was so grounded and super-focused on Hal).
I’m a bit more sympathetic to the Action Comics Weekly experiment (except for Black Canary- that was horrible through and through). I believe it was available at newsstands though I can’t remember how they dealt with no barcode. The early issues were somewhat middling but things really picked up about halfway through. It was already doomed by then but that’s how these things tend to go.
GL was basically like this one the first Priest run, and then went in the total opposite direction after Peter David’s stories. I think Mockingbird was revealed in the second to last storyline but the final one was pretty short. Deadman had a surprisingly long run- Kelly Jones did his first couple Deadman stories here. Wild Dog was probably my favorite too, and used the format best- the last story leaned a bit too much on the ‘DC’s version of Punisher’ idea though. Blackhawk had two or three volumes that spun off from this version, but at least one was a mini-series and the continuing was a prestige bimonthly or quarterly so that’s probably why it felt like more.
More grounded you say? Like his run on Spider-Man grounded? Just seems weird to tackle Hal that way.
Never read his Spider-Man run but I’d assume so- no other GLs at all, and I think Hal only used his ring for something other than flying three times.
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