Note to self: you have all of Camelot 3000. Stop buying it.

I was positive, but this cover didn't look familiar, and it was a buck, so here we are: from 1983, Camelot 3000 #8, "Judas Knight" Written by Mike W. Barr, pencils by Brian Bolland, inks by Terry Austin.

Morgan seems to have a lock on convincing Tristan to betray the Round Table: the knight had been reincarnated in a woman's body, and wasn't thrilled about it, as it was keeping him from his lover, Isolde. There was a lot of betrayal going round, though; as Arthur was currently moping over learning about Lancelot and Gwen. Overdramatically, he intones everyone had betrayed him, except his brother Kay. Yeah, you can see it coming in three, two...

Kay tries to get Merlin to talk to Arthur and break him out of his melancholy: it's out of his element, but Merlin agrees to give it a try. Then, unseen, Morgan's agent sneaks into Merlin's quarters, and smashes a pyramid-shaped charm. That charm had been all that was keeping Nyneve away from Merlin; and with it gone, she was taking him back! (I don't know much about that aspect of the Arthur legends, but without context, it looks like Merlin was being taken home and was about to get rocked.) Furious, Arthur checks Merlin's room, and finds Tristan standing over the smashed charm. It looks bad, but she swears she didn't do it, even if she was tempted.

Arthur circles the wagons, calling in Lancelot and Gwen, to get to the bottom of this; telling Tristan "...the sword Excalibur may cleave truth from falsehood," and would kill anyone who lies while holding it. Tristan swears she did not betray Merlin, while Lancelot and Gwen are able to say the same, but Kay hesitates. He had betrayed Merlin, but with good intentions: he had overheard Morgan and Tristan before, so he approached Morgan, asking for nothing for himself, hoping seeing Merlin betrayed would shake Arthur out of his depression. Of course he also thought Merlin would be able to resist Nyneve...and that Arthur wouldn't kill him for this betrayal.

Kay is sentenced to die at dawn, but is saved by an attack from Morgan's forces. Momentarily: he then sacrifices himself in the battle, to save Arthur. (If Morgan had waited a moment, for Arthur to execute Kay, she probably could've demolished the demoralized Round Table right there.) Thomas, who had first found Arthur, is badly injured; and made a Knight himself; as a new quest begins: to find the Holy Grail, to use it to save him from radiation poisoning. Morgan, watching them through her crystal ball, wants the grail for herself: she was infected with a lichen-looking growth. Tristan swears she'll force Morgan to make a man out of her; while Lancelot asks if Excalibur could offer them more divine guidance. Arthur confesses, while mighty, the sword didn't have any truth powers...but Kay didn't know that. 

I should take this afternoon and re-read the rest of this series; get it back in mind before I end up with another set of it.

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If Madame Xanadu seems annoyed, so am I: I can't figure out where I read this one before; which means I probably have another copy somewhere. I wonder if I didn't like it then, too. From 1981, Madame Xanadu #1, "Dance for Two Demons" Written by Steve Englehart, art by Marshall Rogers. Slightly-altered cover by Michael Wm. Kaluta.

A junkie breaks into Madame Xanadu's store, but his heart really isn't in it: Xanadu probably doesn't need powers to see right through him, he wants to get clean but can't. Xanadu steers him into rehab, then the next day is visited a young woman from South Dakota, who says her aunt had known a Madame Xanadu...forty years ago! She wanted advice, since she had got into said aunt's old witchcraft stuff after being told not to, and after swiping a spellbook her aunt's house burns down, with her in it. She may want reassurance more than anything, that it was a coincidence and not her fault, but gets really defensive when Xanadu doesn't immediately take her side. Their conversation is interrupted by the return of the junkie, who gave rehab a day--well, a few hours--but that wasn't working, did she have anything else? The junkie and the yokel are immediately smitten with each other, and I wish Xanadu took the old EC tradition and let them hang themselves; they were terrible. But, they keep digging in, dragging the neighborhood into a masked ball that summons Ishtar and Tammuz, which would grant them a foothold in this realm; but Xanadu manages to convince them the real magic was inside themselves. Xanadu isn't as showy as a Strange or a Fate, or even Constantine: she works in a way like God, leaving you to wonder if she really did anything?

Also this issue: "Falling Down to Heaven..." Written by J.M. DeMatteis, art by Brian Bolland. On an alien planet, an alien finds a crashed human, and takes him home to tend to him. His ailing wife hates the humans for the deaths of their children, and thinks her husband should kill him then and there, but probing the human's thoughts, he realizes he hadn't had an easy time of it, either. He had protested the treatment of the aliens, and was left alone to monitor the planet as punishment. This is just a little 7-page number, that wouldn't have been out of place in 2000 AD, but Bolland draws the hell out of it. Read more!

One of the things I think I miss most about Vertigo is the little anthology miniseries they put out here and there: later in the run they went more with 80-page specials like Unexpected, Strange Adventures, or Time Warp; but I preferred the miniseries. Although, doing the math: for this series, there was a title page and an amusing creator profile page each issue, then 22 pages of story: minus the title and profile pages, the whole thing was maybe one story away from fitting into an 80-pager. From 1999, Heartthrobs #1, featuring "The Princess and the Frog" Story and art by Brian Bolland; "Genes and a T-Shirt" Written by Robert Rodi, art by Phil Jimenez; and "Diagnosis" Written by Steven T. Seagle, art by Tim Sale. Cover by Bruce Timm!

Brian Bolland opens with a princess determined to find her frog prince, and it is funny. Bolland's art is just pristine as always, and the tale is narrated in a cheerfully meandering manner. There's actually a second story in there as well, that might be a spoiler, so I won't say. In "Genes and a T-Shirt," after a bad breakup, a young man decides to have an operation, to cut the gay out of him: the excision of the gene that "predisposed him to homosexuality." It may not be as easy a switch as that, though; but he does have some success on the pick-up scene, with a woman who wonders if he wasn't what she was looking for all her life, "a heterosexual queen." Then the boyfriend shows back up...This a fun short that thankfully doesn't go into the usual Vertigo horror territory.

Seagle and Sale's "Diagnosis" does, though: a handsome young surgeon has married his beautiful bride, and all he can think about was cutting her open. A cancer specialist, he was preoccupied with tumors, and was convinced there was some inside her. Was there only one way to find out? The bride gifts him a gold scalpel, which also seems like an invitation...The scalpel imagery of course brings back Face to me, but not bad. I picked this issue up recently, but I think I had the rest of the series already; but I don't recall if it was as strong on the art front. Read more!

Karma might get you for stealing Etta's salad, Wally.

This copy is mildly well below mint, but still a nice Brian Bolland cover: from 1993, Wonder Woman #78, "The Fast Contract" Written by William Messner-Loebs, pencils by Lee Moder, inks by Ande Parks and Aaron McClellan.

Even though she was currently broke and living in a tiny attic apartment (with a landlady who may have been a silent movie actress) Wonder Woman is still pretty upbeat. Out to help her friend Etta Candy pick out her wedding dress--she was marrying Steve Trevor, although I'm pretty sure that either didn't go through or was walked back later--Diana notices her friend had lost some weight. Etta doesn't feel like she'd lost enough, though, even when she gets a little dizzy and collapses, having not eaten since yesterday's breakfast! Over a salad, Etta says she'd "just once in my life, I'd like to look like you!" In the kindest possible manner, Diana explains that might not be happening; when for good measure the Flash shows up and helps himself!

Flash explains he's there as Diana's bodyguard, since there was a contract out on her. The hired gun was Mayfly, and while this was her first appearance she tied into fairly recent Flash continuity, from when Messner-Loebs wrote his book! He still wrote Wally like a bit of a cad, though. Back to Mayfly: she had been a Velocity-9 super-speed junkie, given powers by the gene-bomb from Invasion! Teflon bullets and super-speed made her a prolific hitter, but Flash explains it was dangerous for her as well: she was a hemophiliac, and a scratch could kill her. The cops wanted her alive to testify against mob bosses, and maybe find out who wanted Diana dead; so Flash goes to stop her...and gets shot in both legs, multiple times! Diana tries to use some strategy, activating the sprinklers, but Mayfly already has the drop on her and Etta...!


I don't know if Wally redeems his poor showing next month; it could take me a while to find the next one.
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Stuck today, so please enjoy a classic Future-Shock from Tharg and Brian Bolland:

Reprinted in Quality's Time Twisters #14, from 1978's 2000 AD #52, "Solo Flip" Written by "Jack Adrian" (Chris Lowder) with art by Brian Bolland. I'm almost always up for an old Quality reprint, if you should happen upon some...have a good weekend!
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If Looker's action figure came with this, it would be worth the deluxe price...

I picked this issue out of the clearance bins for fifty cents, because the cover featured Jim Aparo and Eclipso, but the real draws weren't listed: from 1987, the Outsiders #18, "...Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light!" Story by Mike W. Barr, art by Jim Aparo.

The South Pacific island of Diablo...ugh...is ground zero for this issue's weirdness; namely, an eclipse that won't end. Most of earth's heroes are running relief efforts against tidal-caused disasters, but Batman and the Outsiders are on Diablo facing Eclipso and his darkness-worshiping cultists. While the heroes are no match for Eclipso, Batman is able to hold him off by threatening to kill his former host body, Bruce Gordon. Eclipso still holds all the cards, though; and plans on murdering Gordon, Batman, and the Outsiders before taking Bruce's girlfriend Mona as his bride! The high priestess of the cultists is a little put-out by that, but Eclipso couldn't care less.

In the end, after being zapped with Geo-Force's null-gravity, a Metamorpho-powered light blast, and sliced up by Katana's sword; a weakened Eclipso is trapped once again in Bruce Gordon's body. (Where I'm not sure he'd be seen again until 1992's Eclipso: the Darkness Within event. No, hold the phone: Eclipso shows up just prior to that in the last couple issues or so of the Will Payton version of Starman.) Batman tells the Outsiders they've done well for themselves...but could maybe do better back with him!

Still, that's but a prelude to the main event: "Freeway of Fun Fear!" Written by Mike W. Barr, art by Brian Bolland! In her civilian identity of model Lia Briggs, Looker is appearing on the game show Freeway of Fun; with Metamorpho and his gal Sapphire in the studio audience. But a power-up that's supposed to give her go-cart a smoke screen instead delivers an oil slick and nearly kills her, so Lia re-enters the race as Looker...with a replacement go-cart:

OK, this story's a total bit of fluff, but Barr can just sit back and let Bolland draw the hell out of it. And Metamorpho is so friggin' great, I swear. Why the New 52 didn't feature a Looker/Metamorpho Wacky Racers-type book, is just another missed opportunity.

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The cover more than carries this one.

Not that the interior art is terrible, but it's a Brian Bolland cover, so c'mon. From 1986, The Outsiders #18, "The Firefly's Blaze of Glory" Written and edited by Mike W. Barr, art by Jerome Moore and Al Vey and Jan Duursema.

As the Outsiders practice and have a few laughs in their off-brand Danger Room (they aren't the only DC characters to have swiped one!) in L.A. a prison transport is loading, and the guards and other prisoners are also having a laugh, at the expense of one Garfield Lynns, a.k.a. Fruitfly. Er, Firefly. Although soundly mocked by all, he is able to escape from the transport with an "equalizer beam" that blended the gray of his uniform with that of the truck. At a newspaper, Firefly tries to get a classified ad to threaten the Outsiders, and is about to get bounced by security, once they stop laughing at his costume. Still, FF--that's actually on his costume, his chest logo is FF--zaps them with an illusion ray, and makes a pretty effective escape by blinding drivers with red lights.

The Outsiders aren't taking Firefly very seriously, but do want to make sure no one gets hurt. Katana deduces the clue he was trying to place in his ad, that FF was going to attack Dodger System on "Light Night," a flashlight giveaway. (Which sounds like a good way to get batteries thrown at ballplayers, but what do I know?) When Firefly sucks all the power out of the stadium, the Outsiders take him down easily, but he manages to suck the light out of Halo, including her powers! Firefly turns the tables, then escapes again; but Halo is weakened and near death.

As the rest of the team falls into a obvious trap trying to find Firefly, FF hits the Outsiders' headquarters, planning to finish Halo off and keep her powers. Still, when tricked into trying to use all Halo's powers at once, Firefly loses them: that was how Halo transformed into her civilian identity Gaby. A very protective Katana threatens to kill Firefly if Halo dies, but she recovers. Firefly gloats that he might've got beat, but he had his moment in the sun, and they can't take that away from him. Unless a telepath like Looker wipes his mind, which she does, which seems a little harsh.

We don't see this version of Firefly much after this: eventually, the Batman: the Animated Series version of a pyromaniac with a flamethrower gun and maybe jetpack wings would become the standard. Probably just as well: the light-controlling version seems interchangeable with the first Doctor Light. Both had science that should've changed the world, but instead used it to be punched in the face repeatedly by super-heroes, and both were mindwiped to forget a victory...uh-oh.
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Everything I know about nuns comes from old westerns. Whores too, come to think of it.

Ty Templeton knows the score: writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray worked with a friggin' ton of great artists on their Jonah Hex run, and I think most of their issues were one-and-dones. So if you randomly come across one, duh, grab it. This issue has a Brian Bolland cover, for god's sake: from 2006, Jonah Hex #6, "Goin' Back to Texas in a Box" Written by Palmiotti and Gray, art by Luke Ross.

Hex finds a dying man, outside the town of Salvation. A guard at the outskirts of town says it's the plague, but they have no medicine since the Apache won't let anyone through. And a pair of nuns plan to "inspect" Hex, to make sure he doesn't bring plague to the children of Salvation. Hex goes to the local saloon, but is told Salvation is a dry town; so he goes to wash up accompanied by the town, well, whore. She seems preoccupied with her nails, until she gets offended that Hex isn't interested, and that's when a nun pulls a shotgun on Hex and events really start to go sideways. Suffice to say, there's a good nun, a bad nun, a whore without the prerequisite heart of gold, and a lot of corpses before the end.

I've never read Jonah Hex regularly, unless you count the Vertigo mini-series. But Hex comics are like Groo for me: I have a pile but nowhere near all of them, and even randomly picking up an issue it's never going to be a bad read.
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"Continued on 3rd Page Following," is just one of the reasons I should get this in trade...

There are more than a couple old DC miniseries that are probably far better remembered as trades, than as single issues. I have a random single issue of Dark Knight Returns floating around somewhere, and how many people read that in singles? Ditto Watchmen. Today's book isn't as well known, but at the rate I'm piecing together the run of it, it could take me a millennium: from 1983, Camelot 3000 #9, "Grailquest 3000" Written by Mike W. Barr, art by Brian Bolland, embellishments by Terry Austin.

Actually, I kind of like that it's taking me forever to randomly find issues of this series (I found #9 here bagged in a dollar store with the Path #3) since it took a long time to be published, starting in December 1982 and running until the twelfth issue April 1985! On Wikipedia's article on the book, Barr mentions it took Bolland nine months to draw the last issue, at least in part from an urge to top himself every issue. And it looks really sharp, even though it now seems a fairly traditional Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere triangle, set in a sci-fi future that wouldn't have seemed out of place in classic DC space comics. There are some mildly subversive gender identity issues--the knight Tristan is reincarnated as a woman, which poses some problems with his lover Isolde remaining a woman--but while somewhat tame, it's done quite well.

Camelot 3000 has been collected a few times...but while I enjoy it in random bursts, I would just have to find the trade by chance as well, rather than just getting it on Amazon or something. The hunt is kind of adding to it...
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Y'know, that first panel would look great as a Lichtenstein.

If Lichtenstein wasn't a thieving bastard, of course. But it would look nice on the wall: from 1999, Strange Adventures #1, with "The Kapas" by Brian Bolland, "Immune" by Robert Rodi and Frank Quitely, and the above from "Riddle of the Random Realities!" by Dave Gibbons.

This is another of those posts that serve as a reminder: I still need issues #3-4 of this one. #2 was pretty good as well, though. Still, I tend to doubt Vertigo is ever going to get a good anthology book going again like this or Weird Western Tales or Gangland. Crap, now I'm wondering if I had all of those, either.


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Not very prepared today:

I wish I could remember where I saw a review of DC Universe Legacies, since I picked up a couple from the marked-down box. #6 has a nice George Perez Crisis cover, but the issue itself isn't great. (The gist is, nobody remembers the Crisis the same way, but continuity is sketchy in-story.) #6's backup is a Legion story with Giffen art...that's just a shaggy dog story.

#7's opener, with Bane and Doomsday, is also weak; but the backup is better: the Atom's friend Professor Hyatt pulls a coin with Morgaine le Fey's face on it, out of his time pool. The Atom goes back in time to investigate, and gets a front-row seat to the fall of Camelot. Featuring the Silent Knight, the Shining Knight, the Demon, and Merlin and Arthur done in the style of Camelot 3000. Fitting, with artist Brian Bolland! So, great backup, even if the Silent Knight has to announce himself for like a panel and a half.

Recently at Battlegrip, there was a post on Solomon Kane: Castle of the Devil; and I then lucked into a copy of it and the first issue of Marvel's Solomon Kane limited series from 1985. Which I still need to sit down and read. Still, looking forward to it, and it was less than four bucks for both!

I did read some other stuff, though; we'll see if I'm back on track tomorrow. Page from DC Legacies #7, "Snapshot: Reunion" Written by Len Wein, art by Brian Bolland. And "Red Shadows" page, adapted from Robert E. Howard's story, script by Ralph Macchio, pencils by Steve Carr and Bret Blevins, cover and inks by Blevins.

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Judge Dredd with a tommy gun, because tommy guns are awesome.

Eagle Comics Judge Dredd #8 was the first Dredd story I ever read, and it was jumping in with both feet. The opener says it's part four of the Cursed Earth, and it is and it isn't. In the original presentation in 2000 AD, this issue was probably about part 16; and a couple of chapters have never been reprinted due to a lawsuit. (Check out the wiki link there, while I lament not having the chance to see Dredd vs. Ronald McDonald...Luckily, Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep! covered that very prog not too long ago!)

When a mutated flu virus (amusingly named "2 T (fru) T," which suggests to me that Mills or Wagner may have been fans of Romero's the Crazies) hits Mega-City Two and turns its victims into violent psychopaths, the Judges of Mega-City One develop an antidote. But with the airfield (no typo, I think MC2 may have only had one drokking airfield...) swarmed and unsafe, the only option is a land journey, across the radioactive wasteland of the Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd takes a few judges, robots, and a perp by the name of Spikes Harvey Rotten. Spikes was a biker and smuggler, familiar with the threats out there, and is conscripted as a guide.

By this point, Dredd and Rotten have picked up an amusing furry alien named Tweak, and made it all the way to Las Vegas, which is almost an oasis of civilization. Well, it is crammed full of gambling and the mob-Judges rule; but Dredd enters the yearly gang-fight for the title of God-Judge. Winning, he turns the city over to the League Against Gambling, and sets out on the final leg of the journey, through Death Valley.


On a brief stop for repairs, Rotten tries to teach Tweak basic math, only to discover the alien is far more intelligent than he let on. He explains that when humans reached his world, he used his precognitive powers to see what would happen if his people made contact with the humans, and saw that it probably wouldn't go well. But then, Tweak's children, and then wife, were captured by the humans, leaving him a terrible choice: tell the humans they are intelligent, and possibly open the door to humans overrunning his planet...or pretend to be dumb animals, and be taken to their terrible homeworld, earth.


Taken to earth, scientists test the aliens, and while their instruments show them to be vastly intelligent, Tweak and his family continue to play dumb. Really dumb. Eventually, they are sold into slavery; with Tweak's children as pets to a spoiled little girl. Mistreated, they fight back, and Tweak only escapes after his family's death.

Rotten, rather unsympathetically, tries to get mining rights for Tweak's planet; Tweak surprisingly obliges. Dredd wonders why he would go through so much to keep his secret to tell them now: what's stopping Dredd from sending miners to his world? Tweak explains, he trusts Dredd; and Spikes won't be around long enough to tell anyone: he will die in Death Valley.


On day fifteen of their journey, Dredd and company reach Death Valley. Dredd stops to pay his respects to the fallen of the Battle of Armageddon: one hundred thousand Judges and Mega Troopers dead, lost in the final battle against the last President of the United States, "Bad Bob" Booth and his robot armies. (Although it's not spelled out here, the former government was irredeemably corrupt, and had to be replaced with the harsh but fair rule of the Judges.)

Unfortunately, a lot of those robots turn out to still be functional...so many that you wonder how the Judges won the previous battle. In short order, it's down to Dredd, Tweak, and Rotten. Make that just Dredd and Tweak.


Dressing Rotten in a spare uniform, Dredd and Tweak both take a package of vaccine, then send Rotten out in style on Dredd's Lawmaster bike, the set-up for that killer Bolland cover. The distraction covers their escape, but now Dredd and Tweak have to cover the last sixty miles through Death Valley, on foot, in three days or the vaccine will go bad. Dredd loses Tweak in a sandstorm...

Judge Dredd #8 ends on a nail-biter; but it would be years before I'd get to read the conclusion: I kept reading Dredd, but that issue kept eluding me. Worse? There was only like seven or eight pages left 'til the end! But I'm still OK with this being my first Dredd read: nothing wrong with starting strong. Written by John Wagner and Pat Mills, art by Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland, and Dave Gibbons.

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Admittedly, kind of a dick choice for the week after Thanksgiving.

Long time readers know I love me the reprints, and why not? They're usually cheaper than new books, they're often available in a variety of formats, and they open the door to a larger world of comics. Reprints of sixties era Superman or Legion of Super-Heroes opened my eyes and helped me put together what was going on in the then-current books, and made me realize I've read only a fraction of the material that's still out there. Hell, I've read an assload of Judge Dredd (for an American) and I don't think I've read a tenth of the series.

The Titan Books/Fleetway Publications collection Judge Dredd vs. the Fatties strings together several strips featuring some of Mega City One's biggest criminal offenders...pound-wise, anyway. As the opener, "The League of Fatties!" explains, over the years many of MC1's citizens turned to gluttony as a hobby, but after the Apocalypse War came food shortages. The skinnier portions of the populace turned on the fatties, while the fatties lamented they were "wasting away." Of course, keep in mind some of the fatties weighed in the neighborhood of a ton--first in pounds, then in metric.

John Wagner and Alan Grant's deadpan narration is a perfect counter-point to the absurd nature of the story. Two sample captions: "The situation escalates when a group of heavyweight citizens march on temporary Justice HQ--the fact that the route is twenty kilometres long can only be put down to bad planning." For his part, Judge Dredd cares about the fatties as much, or as little, as he does the rest of the people: as long as they don't commit crimes, they're not his problem. Of course, some of the fatties do turn to crime, with spectacular results. As in, spectacular failure, since while a stampede of fatties could be deadly, they weren't exactly built for fleeing the scene of a crime.

In the end, for their own protection, the fatties are segregated to their own blocks, under house arrest until they get their weight under 300 KG, about 661 pounds. Wagner and Grant and artist Ron Smith also foresee the talking scale:


Collecting the fattie stories in one volume makes Dredd seem like a particularly harsh physical trainer, but the next episode, "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (with art by Dredd's co-creator, Carlos Ezquerra features one of my favorite cold opens, and while it predates C.S.I. by years, all it needs is a "yyyyyeeeeaaaah!"


The discovery of a one-ton corpse puts Dredd on the trail of illegal eating contests, which seem like they should be a victimless crime. Except for food hording during a famine, illegal gambling, negligent homicide, and a couple of accidental ones. Yeah, forget the victimless part.

A fun little book, and a great way to check out the more humorous side of Judge Dredd comics. That said, I would've loved to get the Judge Dredd vs. the Dark Judges paperback, still a great batch of action stories; or vs. Chopper, the stories that made me realize Dredd wasn't a very sympathetic lead in his own book.


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And then there was the time Clark Kent's head exploded on live TV.

...except it wasn't Clark Kent, it was a robot. And not even a Superman-robot; just an alien robot scientist who had lost his memory upon transporting to earth and Supes asked him to cover for him...wow, Crisis on Infinite Earths couldn't come soon enough, sometimes.

This is towards the tailend of the Silver Age, when a lot of the situations Superman got into probably could've been avoided with a few moments of thought, but his powers always enabled him to snowplow his way to a solution. Other people have probably pointed this out, but "work harder, not smarter" seemed like Superman's mantra, even if he did do a lot of the work in the blink of an eye with his super-speed.

While I'm not so much a fan of decompressed storylines, every so often a comic can cram in too much for a single issue. Action Comics #571 has got the aforementioned alien scientist robot, who's trying to save his planet but got amnesia on his trip to earth; a Professor Alice Herman, who creates life in the lab, that then gets all out of hand, but she's too busy getting pissed off about being snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee; oh, and Superman, who almost seems like he's trying to get Clark's identity blown.

(Incidentally, wasn't part of Lex Luthor's silver-age origins, that he created life in the lab? Either that's not all that impressive in a world that has Superman, or Supes will go out of his way to step on that.)

Superman asks his new robot pal to cover for him as Clark, but his interview with a droning city councilman blows. His. Mind. (Sorry.) Supes then has to swoop in, repair his friend, and later stage another news story with Clark demostrating a new android created by Superman; before the robot heads home to save his people. Man, Clark made up an assload of news in some of these comics, but he's never going to get that pundit job now.

Meanwhile, Dr. Herman ends up in ladies' prison...for something. I don't care enough to go back and figure it out, but Supes visits her with a gift: a book, "Winners of the Nobel Prize." Dick...Dr. Herman asks why Supes is being so nice to her, and Supes says self-interest.

I can just hear Batman: "Oh, yeah, Clark: having your parents murdered before your eyes certainly is a 'disappointment.' Especially compared to losing your hair."

From Action Comics #571, "Mission to Earth!" Written by Elliot S! Maggin, pencils by Alex Saviuk, inks by Dave Hunt. A typically great cover by Brian Bolland, and I thought he had done more Action Comics covers, but he did have a nice Superman one...

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Where Judge Dredd and Brian Bolland part ways:

I was introduced to Judge Dredd around 1986 or so, mostly via the incredible art of Brian Bolland. (Which is both a pro and a con: it's good stuff, but then it took me a while to fully appreciate Mike McMahon and Carlos Ezquerra.) I can remember a copy of White Dwarf (a RPG magazine) that I picked up just for the Bolland cover. The thing of it is, that probably wasn't new art; and Bolland probably hadn't drawn Dredd in a couple of years by that point. Maybe. I've been trying to figure out exactly when Bolland quit drawing Judge Dredd, since I know he went to DC Comics around 1979 or so for Camelot 3000. (EDIT: Actually, Bolland may have been 'discovered' by DC in 1979, Camelot 3000 was a twelve issue 'monthly' miniseries that ran 1982 to 1985. Ouch. Still, he beat Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk.)

This page is from Fleetway/Quality's Judge Dredd #44, and from GCD we find it originally appeared in the "2000 AD 1988 Judge Dredd Annual." (Between the reprints and the numbering of 'progs,' I lose track.) It's easy to see how Bolland could want to do something else after being so closely associated with Dredd; and currently he's probably best known for his cover work for DC, particularly Jack of Fables. I've seen one or two of his experimental Mr. Mamoulian strips, in Negative Burn, which I bought primarily for a new Milk & Cheese strip. Hey, comics anthology editors: I would have bought that Kramer's Ergot thing if it'd had a new Milk & Cheese strip.

(That may not be true, but I would've considered it.)
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Just Long Annotations: another big Justice League of America post:

Comics were delayed at my local shop a couple of weeks back (they were mistakenly sent by train, apparently) so they had a 15% off sale on back issues. I probably could've rooted around in the boxes for hours, if the kids hadn't been squirrelly as all get out. The Oldest likes to go to the shop, but gets what he needs and then is ready to go. The Youngest was trying to climb a shelf.

I did find an old Justice League of America with Adam Strange, but this makes at least the second time I've picked up a JLA back issue with Adam, only to get part 1 of a story, and to never find the conclusion. And I like Adam Strange, but he's played for a bit of a punk in both of these issues, presumably to triumphantly redeem himself, somehow, in the conclusion.

Then I found Justice League of America #200: a good copy, so it wasn't out of my comfort pricing. I was always a sucker for the double sized issues, and this one would've made it home on the strength of the artists alone, including Gil Kane, George Perez, Joe Kubert, and just to make you miss his interior work, Brian Bolland. Bolland's section, where Batman schools Black Canary and Green Arrow, is, well:

I don't usually run two pages together, but...

Holy hell, Brian Bolland can draw. Somewhere, I have a Judge Dredd reprint with a short Bolland page about why he doesn't draw Dredd anymore; and if he was burned out he at least had a sense of humor about it. Weirdly, I also picked Hellstrom: Prince of Lies #15 out of the quarter box the same day I bought this--I'm a big Ellis fan, and Leonardo Manco should be a bigger name. #15's cover was crap, but the letter's page promised a Bolland cover for the next issue, and it was featured on his entry in Wikipedia. Seems odd that Hellstrom and Lady Blackhawk are featured there rather than, say, Wonder Woman or Batman, but nothing wrong with that.

I love the Bat-dummy, too; it may be the Sensational Character Find of 1982. Green Arrow tries to play it off like they would've had Bats without the diversion, but I imagine he was long gone, and left the dummy just to mess with them. Whenever Batman doesn't seem to be doing much in a story, figure he's subbed in the dummy, and ditched out to get some real work done.

Aside from that, I was a little disappointed with this issue; if only because I've seen the Appellaxians, done better, at least three other times: I loved JLA: Year One wholeheartedly, the Secret Origins version is funny and charming, and both have the more endearing Black Canary instead of Wonder Woman, who appears in the original Justice League of America #9. (I only have a reprint of that one, of course, probably from a digest.)

Yes, I called Canary more endearing. Tell me Wonder Woman would be more fun to hang out with than Dinah, and I will call you a liar.

Back to the Appelaxians: usually I'd have no problems with the return of a bunch of cranky, warmongering aliens that included a tree guy and a blob-of-mercury guy. It's just that their return in this one is so...dumb. Even for comics. And they have kryptonite meteors and eyebeams because...because...Also, since their whole reason for coming to earth was to fight out who got to rule their homeworld; considering one Appelaxian is diamond and another is fire, the two that got glass and wood either drew the shorter straws, or were handicapped going in.

I have no problem with the original Leaguers hypnotised and fighting the others, though: I'm a Marvel fan, and that's practically mandatory. Hawkman gets the shaft on this one: he's supposed to stop Superman. Alone. Where's Shayera?

Hmm, I might not want my wife to see this, either, even if Joe Kubert drew it:

Hawkman takes out a couple Superman robots, before the big man himself knocks "the bird-man" into the stratosphere. Pretty sure a punch that hard would've turned Hawkman into a smear with feathers, except, um, doesn't Nth Metal give him a healing factor or some damn thing now? He didn't have it in the stories then, but OK...anyway, in low earth orbit, he's hit by a zeta-beam, and zapped to Rann.

Yeah, this is just to get Adam Strange a little page time in this issue, but he comes off as a little harsh: referring to the first Rann-Thanagar War (which I'm not sure I even knew about before) Adam beams Hawkman back "somewhere in earth orbit, near your satellite." Near? Ah, close enough. It gives Elongated Man a chance to shine, but there are a lot of questions: Can Hawkman survive in space? Would even a hypnotised Superman potentially kill someone? The very other issue of JLA I bought mentioned there were no more zeta-beams being sent to earth, so why did one hit Hawkman? (That was an older issue, Rann could very well have started again.) I like Adam's costume, but does he have to wear it all the time? (On further thought, yeah, I would too.)

It keeps coming: why doesn't Firestorm, or Professor Stein at least, recognize the Martian Manhunter? You'd think his picture would be there somewhere, or they'd mention the history of the League during orientation. Wasn't Snapper living in shame after betraying the League, yet he's back this issue like he'd just been out for coffee? The hypnotised Aquaman didn't remember his brutal recent past: losing his wife, son, etc. Wouldn't he be crushed, or super-pissed, when it came back to him?

In the end, the JLA splits into smaller teams, as usual, and kicks the hell out of the Appelaxians pretty quickly, as usual. On the last page, as J'onn J'onzz and Snapper Carr depart again; Green Arrow has a change of heart and rejoins the League. So, there's at least one (semi-)lasting change this issue at least.

From Justice League of America #200, "A League Divided" Written by Gerry Conway, framing sections art by George Perez and Brett Breeding, and Roy Thomas credited as technical advisor. Individual chapters by Jim Aparo, Terry Austin, Brian Bolland, Pat Broderick, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, and Joe Kubert. Read more!