80-Page Thursday: World's Finest Comics #249!

I'm really tempted to just post the cover from this one: whatever you imagine from it, is probably way better than the actual story! How do you have the "vampire of steel" and the Phantom Stranger and still drop the ball? From 1978, World's Finest Comics #249.

The only fun bit in "The Vampire of Steel!" is Superman repeatedly choosing to hang out, but seemingly decline to help Batman, based on his code to "never give super help to corporations or private persons--even friends!" The rest is squandered, like mythical undersea vampire creatures, a Jacques Cousteau-style undersea conservationist who you know is going to be the bad guy--he's named 'Kalamari,' for pete's sake. Batman is about as mysterious as a kid wearing his underroos and almost as effective, and the Phantom Stranger can apparently breathe and talk underwater, yet never visits Aquaman. Jerk. On to the next one! (Story by Bob Haney, pencils by Kurt Schaffenberger, inks by Tex Blaisdell.)

I thought we had blogged either the prior or next chapter of this Green Arrow/Black Canary serial, "Will the Costume Make the Hero?" Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Trevor Von Eeden, inks by Vince Colletta. Ollie had been ruined financially by Deleon, who added insult to injury by buying his old mansion, then finding the Arrowcave, proving Ollie was...Batman? I think I missed one of Deleon's steps there, but he needs 'Batman' to defend him against Hellgrammite, who has Black Canary captured. She manages to shatter her prison, and beat down the bug baddies's men, but gets knocked out again. Hiding in the shadows, his beard anyway, Ollie makes a convincing Batman, until he goes into action: he has no idea what's in his utility belt, since it's not labeled, and gets tangled in the cape and falls over!

Knowing Deleon was probably going to go to Hellgrammite--part of his scam, supposedly giving old gangsters new lives--Ollie thinks his career is probably over, but Hellgrammite forces Canary to call him for help. Even webbed up, though, Canary is still fighting to free herself: she does like a challenge. Hellgrammite turns on his men and Deleon, intent on covering his tracks and stealing the Green Arrow's identity, but still dressed as Batman Ollie manages to stop him. Deleon was killed, and Canary wonders if Ollie couldn't get his money back, but he claims he doesn't need it, then acts a little too possessive with Canary and pushes her away. Did I say a little? He's being a jerk.

Next, the Creeper's World's Finest debut! I think he'd stick around maybe seven issues, but here in "Moon Lady and the Monster" Jack Ryder and his supporting cast are security for a network's Elvira-like horror host as she's stalked by an old partner. It's a bit of fun, but I don't think sticks the landing--I wanted Moon Lady to go on, but apparently the ratings got her.

Then, an unexpected lead (that's on the cover...) and an unexpected guest-star: Wonder Woman, with Sgt. Rock! With Rock hypnotized by Doctor Psycho! And aliens! The latter are 100% unneccessary, as I'd rather see Rock and WW kicking Psycho back and forth. I don't know if he very much resembles later versions of the character, though.

Seriously, they could beat on him for chapters, I'll allow it. Another DC Necronomicon, though. Read more!

"The End" Week: DC Super-Stars #18!

The joke has been made before, but they are probably more than a few people legitimately afraid the clock is going to roll over to 13 o'clock or December 32 tonight. Maybe the Phantom Stranger and Deadman can help! From 1978, DC Super-Stars #18, written by Martin Pasko and Gerry Conway, pencils by Romeo Tanghal, inks by Dick Giordano and Bob Layton.

Phrasing, Deadman! I know nobody can hear you, but come on. 

This wasn't set on New Year's, but Halloween: another one set during the annual costume parade at Rutland, Vermont. The festivities may be dampened by the kidnapping of a local girl, but they get an extra hour to party! As the gargoyles create a 13th hour to open the gates of hell, which honestly seems almost inevitable at this point. Rama Kushna puts Deadman on the case, but his powers may be limited: he's still able to fly and possess people, but is no longer an intangible ghost, which would hamper his search for the gargoyles' lair. He does get there, but only after some had already hatched: a search party, that had been looking for the girl, gets torn up by the gargoyles. Deadman becomes intangible again before he can grab the girl, so he tries to possess one of the searchers--who had already been mortally wounded, and dies after Deadman enters him!

Deadman is barely able to move his corpse-host, but manages to get it into position that the demon Qabal thinks he is the sacrifice, and feeds on it instead of the girl. Qabal enjoys it at first, but then realizes it was a trick with no life for him, and seemingly dissipates. Free to possess the girl, Deadman frees her with his gymnastic skill, then gets a torch to a convenient natural gas source, blowing up the cave and the gargoyle eggs. The girl is returned to her family, while Rama explains the 13th hour business disturbed the dimensional alignment or whatever, making Deadman exist in two planes at one, but that wouldn't happen again. Neither of them seem to realize, Qabal still lives.

Elsewhere in Rutland, 'ghostbreaker' Dr. Terrance Thirteen and his wife Marie have arrived late; although the Phantom Stranger arrived ahead of them and suggests they consider themselves lucky. Dr. Thirteen isn't having it, since he had long before lost any patience for the Stranger's schtick. Marie tries to make apologies for him, but the Stranger warns her to leave that place, or her husband could get involved in something that could lead to his death. Of course, he also promptly disappears without explaining any of that. The Stranger may have a good reason for a change, as he is then confronted by a mysterious woman, who had plans for Qabal, and would not let "her love" interfere!

Dr. Thirteen had a meeting scheduled with some "disreputable folks," namely Tom Fagan, Gerry and Carla Conway, Marty Pasko, Paul Levitz, and Romeo Tanghal! They had seen weird crap in Rutland before, but don't agree with Thirteen that the Stranger was behind it. They are interrupted by a local cop, warning Tom of doings up at his place: lightning striking his house, and the Stranger seemingly hanging in midair somehow! Thirteen doesn't believe in any of this, so charges in headlong, even as the Stranger warns him. Tom is dismayed to find his house transformed inside, but perhaps it's not his house: the hypnotic Quinton Abel greets them, and asks them to join him for a drink. Thirteen realizes the drink is blood, then notices a dark mirror, showing the truth of Qabal! With Fagan and the cop hypnotized, the Stranger tells Thirteen it's up to him to act: he may have meant to show Qabal the mirror, not smash it over his head, but that works too. Qabal dissolves again; as the cop and Fagan return to normal (with Fagan again dismayed, this time that the lightning destroyed his house!) and Thirteen tries to convince himself this was just a hallucination, a lightning induced nightmare.

Deadman returns to Rutland, and isn't pleased to see the Stranger, apparently having a beef with him from an earlier issue. (Per the footnotes, Phantom Stranger #41, the last issue of that series.) The Stranger calms him down since he knows Rama Kushna had just sent Deadman back there, and while Qabal was gone, they had a greater threat: "Tala! Queen of darkness, mistress of the macabre!" Neat; I remember her from episodes of Justice League Unlimited, but I'm not sure I've ever read a comic with her. Dr. Thirteen had inadvertently freed her, and she had clashed with the Stranger many times since. She had built up more power, and had planned on sending Qabal to torment the earth, then offer herself as earth's savior in exchange for eternal worship. Still, it's a much-too-quick fight, with Tala unable to comprehend how she isn't winning: with Deadman giving his strength to the Stranger, they were able to imprison Tala again. Deadman splits, creeped out by the Stranger, but both their battles would continue...here and there. We mentioned before, this was another casualty of the DC Implosion, but it was by no means the last time we'd see of either of them.

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That's crazy, everyone knows Black Orchid's origin is...um...

Honestly, I'm not sure Black Orchid had a dozen appearances at that point. Did she even appear in Crisis? (Yes!) Well, she's in today's book as well: from 1985, Blue Devil Annual #1, "The Day All Hell Broke Loose" Written by Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin, pencils by Paris Cullins, inks by Gary Martin and Bill Collins.

Lost and confused, reporter Jack Ryder finds himself being chased by the Man-Bat! Ducking into a mysterious-but-conveniently-open shop, Jack meets both Madame Xanadu, and the Phantom Stranger; who seem to have a little tiff over who has jurisdiction. That doesn't go very far, before Etrigan the Demon also shows up. Meanwhile, in California, Blue Devil is testing some new special effects robots for the upcoming Blue Devil II movie; when of course they start to rampage, courtesy of Felix Faust, who is after something in Dan Cassidy's workshop. BD tries to fight the robots without damaging them--they were $2 million a piece!--before Etrigan shows up to 'help,' smashing them to bits. After a brief encounter with Faust, Etrigan ends up with the bauble he had been looking for, and refers to it as an egg!

Meanwhile, in a cab there, Ryder tells Xanadu his portion of the story: the Creeper and Man-Bat had been taken over by Faust, but changing back into Ryder broke the control. Xanadu and Creeper free Man-Bat, while the Demon is positively drooling at the first egg, which spills out little monsters that he finds delicious. The Stranger gives an enchanted butterfly net to Blue Devil to gather up the creatures; while Xanadu does the same for the Creeper in NYC, but the creatures lump into one big one! Luckily, the Black Orchid arrives to help. Confused, Creeper asks Xanadu about her, and Xanadu dishes the previously unknown origin of the mysterious crimefighter:

The heroes join up in the desert (although, Orchid apparently arrives separately, under her own power) to stop Faust, who takes control of Blue Devil briefly. Black Orchid arrives in time to seemingly drop Faust off a mesa; and BD asks the Stranger about her, so he spills:

Those both seem familiar somehow...After Faust is finally beat, the Creeper suggests maybe they were all there for a reason, and suggests maybe they make the team-up a regular thing. It goes over like the proverbial lead balloon; but the name probably didn't help.

I guess if they had called Justice League Dark "John Constantine's Mystic Punters" that wouldn't have caught on either. Although she would have a few appearances with the Suicide Squad, it would be three more years before Black Orchid would get an origin, courtesy of Neil Gaiman.
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I thought if you gave godlike power to someone who already had super-speed, they'd get more done.

Well, he still manages to do a ton of damage: from 2002, Impulse #87, "Crisis on Impulse's Earth, part two" Written by Todd Dezago, pencils by Carlo Barberi, inks by Greg Adams.

The Phantom Stranger seemingly implores the reader to "observe your boy" as this one opens: using a newfound time-travel power, Impulse had stopped the mystical entity Bedlam by taking those powers himself. (As opposed to letting a more troublesome host, Matthew Stuart, take them.) With near-infinite power, and absolutely no foresight, Impulse starts with fairly innocent changes like bringing back his dad and aunt and grandpa--the Tornado Twins from the 30th century, and Barry Allen! Then he gets down to the business of making the world a better place: fixing the hole in the ozone, making cars fly and run on water, giving dogs the power of speech; and a few selfish ones like outlawing asparagus and making the school week two days.

Bart's friend Carol points out that Bart's changes are all having unintended consequences: even saving the whales has messed up the food chain. Worse, the Twins and Flash point out, they died heroic, necessary deaths: if Bart took them out of the timeline, was that going to cause problems? Luckily, the Phantom Stranger hadn't been talking to the reader about fixing this, he was talking to Max Mercury! Who helps convince Bart to give up the power, then disappears since with the magic removed retroactively, Bart didn't save Max from the Rival. Still, Bart does think ahead at least a little: writing a note to himself on his hand, he uses one of his time-travel "scouts" to plant Carol's notebook on the Stranger, so he can retrieve it after his magic and his memories of it are gone. The Stranger doesn't seem to notice, but Bart seems to have something in mind...is the idea of Impulse with a plan terrifying anyone else?

The Phantom Stranger of course may have since gotten into "hop hip," we've seen him drop some rhymes. The medallion should've been your first clue...There were only a couple issues of this series left, and I think it may have ended with Max still possessed by Rival or something; a leftover from some crossover. Without looking I'm honestly not certain if Max Mercury has returned in the New 52, since a mentor figure like him would be seen as taking away from "Saint Barry," but then again I know there's like 90 speedsters out there, too...
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80-Page Thursdays: Countdown Special: Eclipso #1!

The last of the Countdown specials I have: from 2008, Countdown Special: Eclipso #1, featuring stories by Robert Loren Fleming and John Ostrander, with art by Colleen Doran and Ray Kryssing and Tom Mandrake.

Huh, for some reason I thought this was going to have a reprint of Eclipso's first appearance, but we saw that in another 80-page reprint several years back! Instead, this one leads with a highlight of Eclipso's 90's book, "Black Pieces," featuring a chess match with Eclipso vs. Darkseid! (Which reminded me of an old Thor Annual with Odin playing Dormammu, and man, I've been blogging a long time.) Moreso than the actual match, the conversation is key: Eclipso tells that story about Noah's ark again, which Darkseid probably doesn't believe. Darkseid reveals the secret origin of Desaad, which may or may not be true either, but is genuinely disturbing. Eclipso explains a little about his black diamonds...and why he can't kill his former host Bruce Gordon, or Bruce's long-suffering girlfriend Mona Bennet. Yet. And before the game ends in a draw, Darkseid confesses why he had his own mother assassinated: revenge, for her murder of Darkseid's first wife and only love. (Of course, consider the sources: any or all of the above could be lies. Or retconned.)

Next we have a two-parter from the 90's Spectre series: "Into the Dark Side" and "Final Judgments." On the cover for the latter, the planet-sized Spectre appears to be giving earth the People's Elbow...That would be entirely too playful and fun for this series, yeah. As occasionally happens, long-time ghost Jim Corrigan has had it up to here with being the Spectre. He wasn't able to save the life of the woman he loved, and the general ongoing awfulness of humanity has gotten on his last nerve. This leaves him open to possession by Eclipso, who argues that he's been where the Spectre is, and humanity isn't any more worth saving now than when he was God's angel of vengeance. The Phantom Stranger puts together a mystic all-stars team to confront the Eclipsed-Spectre--the Demon, Zatanna, and the female Dr. Fate--but snubs Madame Xanadu, for telling him his terrible plan won't work. Xanadu then, with Father Richard Craemer and Ramban, pulls the spirit of Corrigan out of the Spectre, leaving him soulless and completely controlled by Eclipso! This seems like a ridiculously bad idea, and the Stranger's team gets clobbered.

Even released from Eclipso's power, Corrigan doesn't want to become the Spectre again, but Father Craemer convinces him not to doom the earth out of grief and loneliness. While Eclipso possesses Zatanna and the Demon, and nearly gets Dr. Fate; when Corrigan comes back it's over pretty quickly. The Spectre imprisons Eclipso in his black diamond, then seemingly crams his black fortress in there as well, and then reduces all of it to ash. Afterwards, it's difficult to tell if the Spectre is chagrined or unrepentant, but he declares he can not judge humanity as a whole, only one by one, as he finds them. I believe that would be the last (in-continuity) Eclipso appearance for almost a decade, until an altered (and ultimately unsuccessful) version appeared in 2004's JSA #56.
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