TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : TIGER-MAN

No relation to Tiger-Boy.

Atlas/Seaboard comics (actually only ever published as “Atlas”, but comics historians have chosen to append “Seaboard” to the title in order to differentiate it from the monster-oriented comics company of the same name which preceded Marvel, and to acknowledge the parent company) is an interesting case, historically. According to the eyewitness account of some – but not all – of the individuals involved in the company, it was founded under a grudge by Martin Goodman, former owner of Marvel Comics, when the new owners ousted his son from an oversight position.

How Red Bull was invented.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that Atlas-Seaboard’s short-lived cast of characters – created and produced by an astonishing crowd of top-notch contemporary professionals – were meant to evoke the idea of prominent Marvel heroes, if only mixed liberally with other pop culture heroes of the day from the media of television and film.

Surely, for instance, Atlas’ equivalent to Spider-Man was meant to be Tiger-Man, a young doctor whose experiments with tiger hormones end up giving him the proportional strength and abilities of the wild animal from which he derives his name. Written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Steve Ditko (with the first issue art chores undertaken by Ernie Colon and the lettering borrowed from Charlton’s veteran “A.Machine”), the book seems an amalgam of hospital drama and the wall-crawler’s personal brand of self-recrimination and myopic, indulgent pity.

Tiger-Man is Dr.Lancaster Hill, a crusading young doctor whose youth is spent in Africa,dutifully extracting tiger hormone from African tigers in the hopes of finding the source of their ferocity – for medicine! Apparently tiger’s “instincts” are the key to some natural curative in their genetic structure, although we’ll have to take his word on that. Never mind that tigers are actually Asian and you’d have to be pretty lucky to find one on anywhere on the continent of Africa outside of a zoo, it’s still a helluva medical accomplishment!

Dr.Hill ends up injecting himself with the hormones and thereby granting himself the powers and abilities of a tiger, one of which is being native to India, but I guess we have to let that one slide. Hopped up on tiger juice, Doc Hill discovers that panacaeatic cure-all gives him tremendous super-powers – as he admits in a refreshing moment of seemingly meta candor - “for some reason” and so he’s quick to take to the streets of his urban hometown in New York decked out in ceremonial tiger skin so as to deliver street justice, comic book style.

Well, the whole book weren't no pile
of roses, I'll tell you that much

Like Spider-Man, T-Man was forever torn between his super-hero career and personal life, often blaming himself for the shortcomings he often confronted in the worst of mankind, and using his powers to “work out the cobwebs” as he indulged in a little tiger-like equivalent to web-slinging and wall-crawling.

Tiger-man ran three issues and took the time to face a pair of bona fide super-villains in the similarly powered Blue Leopard and the hypnotic Hypnos, whose big scheme was encouraging men to set themselves on fire. A Fourth issue was promised from the run but never materialized, another victim of Atlas-Seaboard’s aborted run at success.

GONE & FORGOTTEN REVISITED : SUPER-BOXERS

Okay, bear with me, what we've got here is a story about Boxers. Not enough? Okay, brace yourself … they're also Super! Super, hey? Yeah, yeah, I thought that might get your attention...

This Sienkiwicz cover fooled a lot of people, I guarantee it.

Super Boxers debuted in Marvel Graphic Novel #8, and I suspect it was the product of a last-minute script change from a 48-page story of the series of high-end, ambitious self-contained stories itself actually jumping a shark. That may seem mean, but I remind you that I end up re-reading these things four or five times prior to each article, and at this point I'm damn near ready to kill this book with a frozen pork chop (See, then I can cook up the pork chop and feed it to the cops, thus … but wait, perhaps I've said too much).

The other way that you totally know this is
the future is that it's apparently considered
kind of "street" to wear pale magenta girdle
and booties with bare legs and a pink,
translucent man-brassiere.

Super Boxers takes place in the future, and if comic books have taught me one thing it's that the future is never any damn good and we need to hire someone to do something about it. It’s ALWAYS dystopian, ALWAYS. Which shouldn't come as any particular surprise, inasmuch as the present isn't any great shakes and it's not like the past was all red hots and rollerskates either, no matter how much the cranks on the editorial page insist that the past was totally where it was at (my counterpoint is always - HITLER! It's not like there's Hitlers in the future, right? Right … oh, wait, shit).

The story kicks into gear after a fairly unnecessary full-page all-text prologue explaining that (a) it's the future, (b) that corporations run the planet, that (c) everyone is a corporate slave and (d) they kind of don't like it. All of this falls squarely into that "show-don't-tell" category of literary criticism - i.e., you probably could figure as much out from reading the book, despite the searing abdominal pain such a chore would undoubtedly cause you.

Anyway, from there we're into the comic, where there's an interesting stylistic device employed for the storytelling. This device is called “talking down to the readers.” Every caption is some curt, snarky direction - “Watch this man. Watch him. Do you see how he moves? How his every move is like a symphony? You didn't? I totally did. You're a fucking schmuck, chummy. I don't even know why I bother.”

Legit - and I'm trying to give the writer the benefit of the doubt; figuring that it's a narrative device which has some sort of payoff, that we'll discover we've been spoken to throughout the entirety of the story by one of the characters - maybe even an unexpected character, which boy, wouldn't that be a nice surprise. Well, no. Nothing. Except that the narration stops the same time that the one of the supporting characters dies, and now I know some of you are thinking perhaps “Oh, hey, well so that guy was the narrator all along and it's a nice symmetry,” except that the narration covered a lot of stuff that fella couldn't have possibly known, so no, let's let that thought fly free like a butterfly.

Now you're up to date: Already on the first page, we're being harangued into following disheveled proletarian behemoth "Max" as he makes his way through the dystopian "Underworld" he calls home (The Underworld is basically like a ghetto, but you get to say it in a totally awesome heavy metal voice, like "The Uuuunder-guh-ROUN-n-n-n-n-n-nd!" and you waggle your tongue and make the devil sign and stuff, so it's cooler).

Wake up, blondie!

Max is a participant in illegal, non-sanctioned underground Super Boxing matches, aided by his withered matchstick of a manager and trainer, inappropriately nicknamed "Strap." If you'd like to submit your suggestion on how "Strap" got his nickname, please write your idea in the form of a traditional sonnet on a 3x5 index card and cut yourself to death with it, thanks.

+One of the other problems with the book is that it often felt as though the letterer were scripting some entirely other story than was depicted by the artist. Y'ello, fella, who's cheering here exactly?+

Max's side of the story is no big shakes, he's a straight-laced fighter who has to deal with the corrupt local officials and the regional totally futuristic equivalent of the mob (called here, "The Mob"), and he pulls narrow victories out of his ass because he's honest or something. He's also, naturally, catching the eye of representatives of the Corporate tier of civilization (cleverly nicknamed "Corpies." I won't bother to tell you what their made up name for the addictive narcotic of the future is, but it's about equally ass-backwards, as it always tends to be in these stories. Also, there's a bar called Booz-O-Rama, so we're clearly dealing with a madman at the word processor), represented at first by this character "Rolf."

Rolf is disturbing for at least a pair of reasons - I mean, there's also an hilarious bit approaching the denouement of the book where Rolf declares to Max "I'm not Corp, I'm just a corporate lawyer. Sure I'm wealthy, but I totally root for you poor people" which frankly ought to have earned him a busted nose, but that's later on - First off, Rolf is almost always depicted looking straight at the viewer. Straight on, same pose, same lighting, every single time - chin up, eyes half closed, mouth shut. You might just get the idea that Rolf was consistently drawn from a single photo reference.

Other thing is that Rolf basically looks like John Byrne.

Oh, and while I'm holding that note, let me mention that the book itself was produced by Ron Wilson - in big letters - and John Byrne and Armando Gil in little smaller letters. Still, who handled what responsibilities exactly escapes me, all I know is they could have shifted everyone's job description over one person to the left and had just as coherent a product.

No, Familiar Face did not win.

Where the story ends up is that Max has come to the attention of Marilyn Hart, a Corporate power player in political struggle with another Corporate power player, whose eyes turn to Max on account of apparently the Corporations settle their conflicts and decisions by pitting their Super Boxers against one another. And that's some solid business acumen there, making major policy decisions based on which greased-up steroidal maniac in Optimus Prime underoos can beat up the other one harder. Sure, nothing's decided by the services they provide or the cash they're pumping around, but on whether one retard can knock another nimrod down. That’s your Laissez-Faire economy at work, friends…

I should probably take a moment to mention how Super Boxing works - despite the name, the boxers aren't super, and neither is anything else in the book. Basically, the two idiots in question get dressed up in leather-padded erector set bathing suits, outfitted with boxing gloves that sort of resemble cybernetic meatloaf with teeth, and have at each other in big dusty arenas.

Add into the equation their - I kid you not - hover-boots, and you've got what you got. What with all the racing around the shallow curve of the metal walls and the pounding violence and the global politics-meshed-with-corporate manipulation storyline, you basically end up having 1972's "Rollerball" with a smaller cast and John Houseman is made to be slightly hotter. SLIGHTLY. Just a little.Marilyn ain't much to look at.

On the other hand, with a head that small,
it must have been a very easy birth.

A lot of effort went into trying to make the Super Boxers' battles seem more gruesome than those of regular boxers - the punches send the combatants flying across the ring, they smash into high metal walls, they say enigmatic things behind each others' backs and it makes the other person wonder what they really meant, and feelings get brutally hurt - but the end result is it that the fights seem all the more antiseptic for the effort.

After even the BIG fight at the end of the book, Roman and Max walk off without broken bones, bruises, or even a little blood. Well, I should probably mention that Max ends up with a black eye, but it's only there for one panel and, honestly, it wasn't there for the panel before it. Or the panel after. And come to think of it, it might've been a shadow. BUT OMG THE INTERNET THE FIGHTS ARE TOTALLY BRUTAL. You want to know how to make modern boxing more brutal? Give the guys knives. You know what they got instead? Hover-boots.

Anyway, Max ends up falling in love with Marilyn Hart, is built up against the Corporate golden boy of the Super Boxing scene, "Roman" - who gets his own sub-plot exclusively about his terrible mopeyness and self-doubt, and in the end it's just ridiculous and has no impact whatsoever - and Max makes it to the big fight only to … win! Hooray! I didn't care.

Oh yeah, and Marilyn Hart is actually like ninety but uses futuristic science to make herself look younger, which is revealed at the end of the book as if it was a major story point, but again, it actually has no impact whatsoever on the story.

Super Boxers is incredibly frustrating on a number of levels, not the least of which being that it was the unfortunate hiccup in Marvel's otherwise pretty-darn-good Graphic Novel line, any one of which may merely have read like a VERY good contemporary comic from Marvel (given that the draw of the graphic novel, at least as it seemed from Marvel at the time, was that you could totally make a comic book but it's BIGGER than usual) but which were all better than this. All of them. Even the one you're thinking of, seriously.

Additionally frustrating is the unnecessary artifice of the endeavor - so it takes place in the future under the tyrannical heel of rich people who treat poor people like crap and the little guy makes good? And it's in the future because ... I would assume so the boxers in question could wear those ridiculous spiky boxing gloves instead of something actually scary looking.

The story could just as well have taken place in the 1930's, a fact of which the creators surely aren't unaware - a good eighty percent of the fashion, architecture and slang are deliberately made to evoke the idea of the 1930's, and then a robot happens. It detracts from a story which, frankly, can't survive detraction.

Also, let me step back a moment to re-address the "Booz-O-Rama." That made me put down the book - to me, not only is that indicative of a real lack of imagination (it sounds so much like a hooch clearing house that "Liquor Barn" sounds like "Studio 54" by comparison), it strikes me as the kind of a name for a bar created by someone who doesn't drink, has never had a drink, and doesn’t have a particularly informed opinion of social drinking. “Booze-a-rama” is not the name of a dive bar where the roughest and lowest of society drink, that’s place’s like “Irv’s” and “The Red Horse” and “Bar”. “Booze-a-rama” is a fun carousel for light alcoholics, it’s barely a thing.

Oh yeah, and one last thing about Super Boxers - apparently they've been trying to make this a movie for something along the lines of twenty years. I wonder how Doom's IV is coming along?

BATMAN LEADS AN INTERESTING LIFE : BATCHELOR PARTY

You mean "Batastrophe," Robin. Get out, you're walking.

Batman vol.1 No.214 (August 1969)

Batman’s a pussy magnet, there’s no use in denying it – he hardly has a female foe who hasn’t thrown themselves body and soul in front of the unstoppable freight train of his fight against injustice. Luckily for the most emotionally regressive of modern-day superhero fans, the threat of Batman ever settling down and getting married is nil to nuthin’, thanks to an editorial edict from his publisher’s current ruling caste which has muted the possibility of marriage and amped up the casual sex and frotting within its pages. Holy Prurient Interests, Batman!

However, the possibility of Batman tying the bat-knot was a regular go-to of the comics for a good forty years, primarily the material of imaginary stories, dream sequences and the occasional arbitrary look into the Caped Crusader’s future. In August of 196, however, it formed the premise of a plot to do away with Batman and the introduction of a term I’m truly glad was promptly discarded from the catalog of Bat-prefixed adages, “Bat-chelor”.

Er, were those all euphemisms?

The Sixties were still the days when Batman might offer himself up as the prize in a raffle, which is exactly what happens when one lucky female bidder manages to nab a dream-date with the Dark Knight in a charity auction. For a larf, try to imagine how that same storyline would work nowadays – dinner on the underside of a flaming zeppelin leaking Joker venom over the city, dancing at a ninja enclave where all the city’s infants have been ritually sacrificed to summon a demon god, drinks and soul-rending despair at the graves of his parents and son.

A clever con sees an opportunity in this, and turns Gotham’s well-meaning eligible gal population into a roving army by setting up daring, dangerous, lovely and lethal Cleo Starr, his accomplice, up as the agent of a “BATMAN MUST GET MARRIED” campaign. A million-dollar advertising project – on behalf of Women to End Batchelorhood”, ugh - gets the girls of Gotham up in arms – and placards – assaulting the Dynamic Duo everywhere they go, keeping them from defending the city from crime and, more than that, subjecting them to a veritable army of love-hungry dames. Ugh, girls, am I right? Luckily, Batman has a long history of enjoying the chance to slug slim-built women in the face – hey, don’t yell at me, yell at his writers! You think Poison Ivy’s a linebacker? Catwoman’s like 5’3”, Harley Quinn must weigh about one-ten, meanwhile they stack Batman like Refrigerator Perry built outta old radiators, that ain’t a fair fight.

Anyway, Cleo Starr manages to routinely save Batman and Robin from dying under a girl-wave, which is how I want to go, and moreso proves she has the chops to occasionally clobber actual crooks – it’s all part of the plan, because while her boss Starck wants Batman distracted to the point of assassination, Cleo’s in it to entice and entrap Batman into marriage – and it almost works!

Naturally, hustling Batman is a crime and Cleo has to go to jail with her criminal cohorts, even after she helps Batman reveal the plot and send them to the cooler. Luckily also being put away is the horrible portmanteau “Bat-chelor” which makes about a hundred appearances in this story and is accurately pronounced by dragging your fingernails across a blackboard made of cicadas playing bagpipes. 

Ughhhh...

TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : THE BLACK CAT

The Black Cat

“Hollywood’s Glamorous Detective Star”, as her covers declared, was secretly silver screen leading lady and former stuntwoman Linda Turner, a red-haired and rough-and-tumble glamour girl who balanced a ritzy but dull celebrity life by day with an exciting two-fisted fight against crime and injustice by night.

"In action" nothin', you're just sittin'
 on your moneymaker, honey.

Loosely built on the “idle playboy” model established by other heroes – The Shadow and Batman, not the least of which – her gender wasn’t the only way The Black Cat managed to invert the conceit of the vigilante superhero. Wildly – if briefly – popular in her day, The Black Cat remains a cult favorite with modern audiences (and has even found her way slyly into at least one ongoing series, despite the fact that – internet claims to the contrary notwithstanding – The Black Cat, unlike other Golden Age superheroes of her ilk, has not lapsed into the public domain. The estate of Alfred Harvey still owns the rights to the character), owing in no small part to her unconventional character.

For one thing, she was the dominant figure in her will-they won’t-they relationship with reporter Rick Horne (haha, more like “Dick Horne”, am I right?), a trait shared with very few other female heroes of the time. Likewise, her unlikely secret identity – she was a leading movie star in her civilian life, and even though her mask is prominent, it didn’t change her hair color or style, at the very least – was shared with her closest confidante, her father, cowboy star Tim Turner, who’d trained her in the ways of stuntwork.

Likewise, although the Black Cat only had her own solo book for a measly five years before it was converted to a cheap loft for cowboy and horror stories, she packed a lot into them: your average Black Cat comic would have a couple of daring adventure tales set in exotic locales or in the glamorous city against all sorts of deadly mobsters and enemy agents, followed up with an enthusiastic (and likely fatal, if exercised at home without supervision) Judo lesson from the athletic Miss Turner,  and then capped off with a light comedy piece – peppered with celebrity lookalikes – highlighting Linda’s exquisite Hollywood hobnobbing.

Pictured: Gary Crant, Hob Bope, Sank Frinatra, Dette Bavis, Goodie Jarland, and now I am tired of this joke.

Putting it in so many words, basically, the Black Cat was a comic that could appeal both to male and female readers, even in the clearly-gendered mid-40s - there was something for every reader, and it just seems like exactly the kind of character who could make a real go of things with a modern audience.

The Black Cat eventually picked up a kid sidekick, and didn't stray far from the Batman-Robin mold in doing so (her ward, Kit, is a former aerialist whose parents are killed by a murderous criminal), although mapping to the popular Caped Crusader tradition didn't help prolong her existence. Although a few revivals have been attempted, they’ve largely concentrated on reprinting the Cat’s original adventures – primarily those illustrated by Lee Elias, the artist most often associated with her stories – without recapturing the unique qualities of the character’s original and entertainingly unique run.

The best comic book panel in the world.

THEY'RE MANIAKS, MANIAKS ON THE FLOOR

Did he mention he shot a moose?

In the grand pantheon of DC Comics’ assorted teen-oriented humor mags and general laff rags, the Maniaks never seem to get much of a mention.  Invented by E.Nelson Bridwell and Mike Sekowsky, the mod rock-and-roll quartet debuted in Showcase, subsisted through three appearances in four subsequent issues (more-successful DC teen Binky shoehorned himself in between the second and third appearances), and even indulged a celebrity guest star in their last issue.

Yet, given DC’s copious supply of humor mags which populated their publishing schedule in the 1960s, the Maniaks tend to be overlooked in favor of the star-powered and Oksner-fueled hits like The Adventures of Bob Hope and The Adventures of Jerry Lewis, the Bilko books (my personal favorites), the stalwart comedy titles like Sugar & Spike or Fox & Crow, and the teen comedies like the aforementioned Binky or Date with Debbi.

The Maniaks ultimately are played in their first issue as a sort of crimefighting Monkees, taking the stage at Palisades Park (which was advertised, you might recall, in DC Comics with DC characters offering discount coupons) with a parody of “Last Train to Clarksville” - A parody of a mock band taking place at a sponsor’s site, headily meta stuff. Their adventures lose the crime-fighting edge promptly thereafter (which is a shame – the first issue introduces the best criminal mob I have ever seen in comics), with the quartet romping around celebrity, fame and fortune in equal aborted measures of daffy failure.

Enh, heard it.

The Maniaks are:

Jangle – real name, Gilbert Jeffries (I don’t know why we need to know that) who looks like Donovan and dresses like the late-season groovy cigarette-smoking version of Greg Brady and is a master of impressions, ventriloquism, and all sort of vocal trickery. He is not the singer, why would he be? No, the singer is…

Silver Shannon, the “Mod Miser” (they call her), a penny-pinching gold-digger whose lust for wealth is pretty much her only characteristic (not that any of the Maniaks get much in the way of character-building). The team’s leader, she also holds onto all the money and spurs the group’s second adventure solely by cynically finagling a wedding proposal out of the world’s wealthiest man, so I guess her thing is she’s fucking horrible.

Phillip Folger, aka Flip, is the band’s bassist and a boy acrobat, as comfortable climbing the outside of a building and doing backflips from a rooftop as he is not otherwise having much in the way of a personality, and lastly …

“Pack Rat”, Byron Williams, and now looking at everyone’s names in a list I begin to realize how much they sound like the kind of characters who might be low-powered adolescent mutants in a third-tier X-Men book circa 1988. Anyway, Pack Rat is a habitual collector of trash, junk, errata and garbage ALL OF WHICH he is able to engineer into assorted gimmicks, devices, tools and utilities, and therefore he’s the only member of the team who’d be worth hauling out of the ocean if there were ever a Maniaks-related disaster at sea.

The third appearance of the Maniaks in the pages of Showcase presented them in the company of now-controversial celebrity comic and filmmaker Woody Allen, a more retroactively-scandalous guest shot there had never been in comics except for that time Roman Polanski had a cameo in Stanley and His Monster.

Woody’s guest shot is pretty much limited to the role of gimmick, acting as the producer of a Civil War-inspired Broadway musical-comedy starring the Maniaks and narrowly-satirical willow-hipped British sex symbol Twigg(l)y.

Every word of this is gold.

Excepting a few soundbites from Allen’s standup routines – the bit about his pet ant, as a matter of fact, and unfortunately not a Sekowsky-illustrated tour de force following “I shot … a moose!” – Woody’s role is primarily as set dressing, a few quips on occasional panels and then backing off so that the “stars” of the book can indulge in a shit-ton of song parodies conceivably scripted by Bridwell and set to the tune of popular ballads of the day. Personally, I’ve never much enjoyed the “* sung to the tune of…” gag in a comic book, even when Mad Magazine did the ol’ business, it used to be a real drag to sit there and mentally transcribe the word balloons along with the music. And never mind the lighting!

Still, it’s the closest The Maniaks managed to get to the celebrity and fame they were seeking, although for all I know there’s a chance that, right now in the DC Universe, they’re being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe by Scare Tactics, if I may run the risk of getting too 90s for a second.

In the meantime, since I’m not gonna do it, here’s a blank space for you to write your own Soon-Yi and Dylan Farrow jokes:

[

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    ].

They were never heard from again.

COSTUME DRAMA : READER-SUBMITTED LEGION COSTUMES

If these are from the fans, imagine what their enemies would design. 

Adventure Comics #403 - besides being a giant-size issue reprinting several of the Legion of Super-Heroes' most dizzingly improbable escapades (complete with editorial footnotes gamely attempting to make sense of the mess - these poor old cats would've had heart attacks if they'd had to ride herd on Zero Hour ...) - showcases one of my favorite (and long forgotten) features in old school comics: COSTUMES SUBMITTED BY READERS! Madness given form in spandex and thigh-high boots, a cornucopia of bare midriffs and leisure suits with capes!

It's hard to do wrong by the Legion of Superheroes, a team of fashion-challenged tyros who often resorted to writing their names on their shirts, like a sort of Summer space camp near a gas leak. On a good Wednesday, the Legion is already home to a wardrobe full of waist-baring belly-covering cuts, flared shoulders, short pants with patriot boots and copious pinkness, so go ahead and bring your worst, fans, I say.

At least two of these costumes ended up getting long-term usage, and three others were used for a backup story, so if nothing else there was some longevity to them.

SPLIT!

Duo Damsel's bisected orange-and-purple costume advertises her love of Nerds candies and - when she activates her sole power of taking up more space than one person - also gets it rubbed in her face that her third body is dead dead dead.

Sockitome!

"Light Lass here..." to bring you an in-flight magazine! Here's Ayla Ranzz during her brief stint as the Legion Cruiser's first and only flight attendant. She made the peanuts float! I know that doesn't sound like much, but you really had to be there.

I guess we're uncovering the greatest flaw with the Legion of Super-Heroes as a concept, endemic to its very nature - how do you create a believable world of the distant future without defying contemporary concepts of fashion, style and design sensibility. Well, I'm sure that requires a complicated explanation, but I know for a fact that at least part of the equation is DON'T MAKE NONE OF THEM A GODDAMN HIPPY!

It's great that Shrinking Violet goes from the character too timid to speak up to being the character who goes on for hours about why brown rice is better than white rice and never stops quoting the Bhagavad-Gita.

The highlights of the costume parade, however, come courtesy of Paul Decker of Oconowomoc, Wisconsin

Paul starts by predicting the whims and tendencies of an entire internet subculture by hypersexualizing Phantom Girl. Or, to some perspectives, he merely crammed her into really unflattering Frederick's of Hollywood fashions. Either way, I really like slowly pronouncing Oconomowoc in my head every time I have to type it.

I'm not sure if it's the stockings or the absurdly gigantic disco medallion I adore more. All I DO know is that this is comics, and so that goddamn medallion would have been stuffed with crime-fighting gadgets and space cameras and nutrition pills and so on. I mean, if Daredevil's cane had a radio transmitter and speed jammed in the handle, this 30th-century eyesore's bound to have a flat HDTV screen, a couch and a butterfly vibrator.

Paul's Night Girl costume also evokes the idea of stripping for tips, or at least what a Go-Go dancer might wear to the opera. Is her abdomen in jail? Meanwhile, Chlorophyll Kid has a pouch that carries all his seeds, which is just Biology 101, man.

And lastly, here's Saturn Girl looking like she's in a tampon advertisement from the early Eighties:

"I like to stay active, but I also like to feel FRESH!"

The alternate Legion costumes make their debut - and, I believe, their only appearances, for these specific characters - in the back of Superboy vol.1 No.183 (March 1972) 

Oh boy!

The story starts with Princess Projectra, Shadow Lass, Mon-El and Karate Kid hitting the spacelanes to discover Space-America, wearing clothes so painfully hip that they won't even be fashionable until the 30th century - if then!

Comic books are full of smart advice for dumb kids.

In the middle of their space-jaunt, the crew of four are sideswiped by some strange alien force - which critically damages their ship and apparently burns all the sensible clothes they'd thought to bring with them.

"How's your dignity holding up?"

The quartet are subsequently possessed by the four space-ray-beam-people-things, because apparently that's the thing they do. Little time passes before the inexperienced, mind-controlling phony baloney cosmic phantom things find their host bodies in mortal danger from ... whatever this thing is.

Yeah, I don't ... I don't think that's what you're saying it is.

When azure-skinned hottie Shadow Lass is critically injured by the thing that is obviously a penis Vege-Demon, it shocks the phantomy-thingie beasts out of their host bodies, or possibly they passed a mirror and caught a good look at what they were wearing.

If this ain't terrifying it already,
no illusion's gonna make a diff.

Anyway, it all wraps up with this weirdly cheery half-huddle at the end of the story, which purports to 'explain' the things which 'happened' during the 'story'.

"Can we get out of these things, now?"

TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : TIGER-BOY

Tiger-BoyThis profoundly unusual superhero pops up in the pages of Harvey Comics’ Unearthly Spectaculars, by which I assume they mean Cirque De Soleil on the moon. Ostensibly a horror and sci-fi anthology title, the debut issue – which simultaneously introduces us to Paul Canfield, aka “The Tiger Boy from Twilight” (I don’t remember a Tiger Boy in Twilight, was he Teen Wolf’s cousin or something? Or maybe he was that Richie Rich-lookin’ vampire’s best friend from monster camp) in what was obviously intended as a standalone shock-tastic tale in the EC vein, but was clearly rejiggered at the last second to create a marketable superhero out of it. It failed to do so, I feel I should add.

Uh-oh, he just became everyone on the internet.

A physical marvel and musical prodigy from an early age, Paul Canfield also masters finance, politics, Boggle, pick-up techniques and craft brewery from a surprisingly early age - all of humanity’s most sought-after skills, seemingly inborn in his mind, much to the bafflement of the scientists who study him and even his own parents (which will turn out to be  super-dumb, stay tuned).

Paul’s unusual abilities grow exponentially until he’s not only able to leap tall buildings and bust out refined concertos with only his dick and a harmonica, but soon he finds himself teleporting all around the planet. Eventually he even makes it off world and discovers that his body immediately adapts to survive the environment. Of course, it’s when a teenager first discovers the secrets to “fitting in” that the trouble begins, and pretty soon Paul is turning gardens into gold and levitating chimneys and shoplifting gum and all sorts of typical teen rebellion.

See, I told you he became the internet.

It’s when Paul transforms himself into a winged tiger that his parents step in, apparently deciding that “furry” is where they draw the line, revealing that they too have Paul’s amazing powers because they’re all from outer space. That’s got to be a difficult conversation, but for space immigrants it’s just their equivalent of “the talk”. “When a glorpzon and a space snazzow fall in love, the glorpzon extends his ovipositor and deposits glank-gonks into the snazzow’s clum-gulley, and in fifteen space-varms a litter of mewling, violet-skinned gharps  emerges from their mother’s nutrient sack and devour her whole.”

This talking-to results in Paul settling his fucking omnipotent space ass down and getting busy mowing the lawn, apparently happy to be a normal human boy again because he’s realized he truly loves the Earth and everyone on it. This lasts for one panel.

When Paul returns in Unearthly Spectaculars’ second issue (as the facetiously titled “Tiger Boy and Co”, enjoyably illustrated by Gil Kane), he’s now raging with a simmering hatred of all humanity. Witnessing a crime, he launches himself into action as Tiger Boy, and then a bullet-chewing Steelman and lastly a flexible Rubberman, in what conceivably could have been a fetching take on the Dial H For Hero model.

His newfound superheroic identity/identities giving him the focus to overcome his raging hatred of all humanity, Tigerboy (and Co) is immediately thereafter derailed by his noodling, meddling parents. Apparently Tigerboy has a Tiger sister and if they ever meet, he’ll blow up. Enh.

Not that it matters, of course, because by the second issue of the title on which he once held the coveted cover spot, he’d been shunted to the side by even more absurd but more enjoyable Harvey Thriller heroes like Jack Q Frost, Pirana and Clawfang the Barbarian, and eventually Tiger Boy would cede the whole venture to Wally Wood’s far superior Miracles Inc.

It's called "Cancellation"

EMPEROR DOOM

Even the cover design looks like it was pounded out with a copy machine over a cup of coffee.

I had the distinctly unnerving experience recently of seeing this book – Emperor Doom, a one-shot Marvel Graphic Novel written by David Michelinie and illustrated by Bob Hall, and bearing all the hallmarks of a “major event” book, if just in terms of its packaging – discussed online by folks I know as though it were actually any good.

I was hearing it described as “a great idea” and “well-executed” and having an “innovative ending” but wasn't hearing anyone pledge to “do all things imperfekt” or paying coal to see the film negatives of a movie, so I suspected I wasn't on Bizarro World.

In pursuit of due diligence, I indulged myself in a re-read of the book and came to the only reasonable conclusion; clearly a second version of Emperor Doom was produced down the road somewhere and everyone else read that one while I read the one that stank on ice.

There’s a policy I prefer to maintain on this site, that I don’t write articles about books or characters which I didn't enjoy on SOME level – I USED to post articles about books I straight-up loathed, but I kicked those reviews off the site as they seemed uncharitable at best, and had a certain artist's fans and family members writing me angry letters, at worst.

Also the colorist for this book was a blacklight.

I choose to cover books in which I find something of merit, even if they’re poorly executed, poorly actualized, or are built around the emotional gravitas of the Red Tornado – anything, from stylistic lettering to attractive art to plain ol’ sufficient weirdness to be worth the attention. As far as goes Emperor Doom, I guess --- I guess I finally memorized how to spell “Emperor” correctly without relying on spellcheck, so that’s something.

The plot of Emperor Doom is straightforward – Doctor Doom, perennial and possibly preeminent Marvel baddie, would-be conqueror of the world and self-impressed technological tyrant - wins. He conquers the world, and establishes himself as the sole ruler of the Earth. Ta-da.

Doom accomplishes this by plucking a pube from Killgrave the Purple Man, an ages-old enemy of the swinging superhero Daredevil from so far back in the day that he might show up on Mad Men. Killgrave the Purple Man (not to be confused with Killellea the Pink Man, Kilpatrick the Chartreuse Man, Killgore the Plaid Man or Killkearny the Paisley Fella) has super-powered pheromones which allow him to mentally dominate anyone who, um, can smell him. Doom encases the mauve mesmerist in a giant gem (I guess he had one lying around) which weaponizes his stupefying stink for Doom’s benefit, and broadcasts his B.O. of mass destruction across the globe.

A little casual spousal abuse before the big game.

WHOEVER HAS A NOSE BOWS BEFORE DOOM, more or less, except anyone with a conveniently strong will. Namor the Sub-Mariner, as a for instance, is liberated from the effects of the world-blanketing ray of compliance (at first) and so, as his part of a bargain with Doom for control of the world’s oceans, becomes Doom’s errand boy. His task: Slap some science discs on a bunch of robot super-heroes and super-villains (who don’t have noses and therefore can’t be controlled) to bring them under control, i.e. “pad out the page count”. None of the robots put up much of a fight and then, later on, Doom mind-controls Sub-Mariner anyway, so you could be forgiven for sleeping through those bits.

Everything about Emperor Doom seems to cry out “inventory issues”, and the whole thing reads as a two-part adventure for the West Coast Avengers. For one thing, it’s super-fluffy. For the second, the West Coast Avengers star in it. Plus, at one point in the second half of the story, we’re treated to a flashback and a recap of the first half of the story, which certainly seems to imply this was intended as a multi-parter over at least two months.

Despite Doom’s name being in the title, the story is more about Simon Williams, Wonder Man, part-time stuntman/actor and ion-powered superhero who enters the story by being cheerfully dunked into a sensory-deprivation tank where he sleeps it out in a coma for a month. When he awakes, he happens to be one of those people who doesn’t bow to Doom’s mind-control ray (ionic beings can’t smell? I don’t know) and he leads a meandering, page-padding journey of self-discovery before he finds the impetus to rally other superheroes to his side.

My favorite scene.

I know it’s a sin to critique the story you wished you’d read instead of the one you did, but the device of Wonder Man’s induced coma is presented like a subplot in the book, when you would think it would be the primary gimmick of the story: The tale opens with Wonder Man going into the tank, you have a few panels of darkness, he comes out and Doom has in the blank interim become the beloved emperor of the world! Then you have a satisfying sixty-some-pages where Simon Williams – not exactly a detective, historically speaking – has to piece together what happens and mount a rebellion. Instead, we the readers are taken by the hand along every step of Doom’s plan as he does it, and when Wonder Man emerges from his coma, we get to walk through it all over again for the benefit of catching him up to speed.  Add to that the flashback recap which I mentioned earlier, and you have here a graphic novel which literally tells the same story three times.

And then there’s the conclusion – in the end, Doom allows the heroes to overthrow him because he didn’t expect there’d be so much paperwork involved in ruling the world. That’s the actual conclusion. Dr.Doom has mind-controlled an entire planet into immediate obedience and, by way of that obedience, eradicated disease, war, crime and famine, but he can’t mind-control anyone into taking care of his paperwork. He can’t mind-control a personal secretary; it’s the ONE FLAW IN HIS PLAN.

The ending is particularly dumb in the pants because you have to wonder about the character arc – the heroes of the story reestablish the status quo, Killgrave is freed, Namor is freed, all the robots are freed, everybody goes back to the world the way it was, as does Doom but didn't Doom just learn that he really doesn't want to rule the world? Didn't he just learn that his expectations and ambitions were wrongly engineered, that his entire life's goals have been a frivolous misunderstanding of his true dreams and needs? This story should have changed the nature of Doctor Doom forever, but it didn't, it's a blip and an oddity which clearly belonged in the monthly schedule somewhere but was wisely elevated to the Graphic Novel line where some level of non-canon deniability could be maintained, or so is my theory.

Anyway, in conclusion, Emperor Doom is not a well-done story and Tumblr should stop suggesting it is, the end.

"Also I clank when I need to pee."

BATMAN LEADS AN INTERESTING LIFE : A BIG HAND FOR BATMAN

Batman vol.1 No.130 (March 1960)

Surely there must be some sort of congenial prohibition among super-heroes, preventing them from idly snatching up their allies’ assorted nemesis without at least first-right refusal of a potential team-up, don’t you think? Well, if there is, Batman and Robin get themselves put on the Union’s shitlist for tackling the secret menace behind a giant green hand, and I don’t mean General Mills.

Ho ho ho.

In March of 1960, aliens in pink tunics whose faces resemble a cross between the Wicked Witch of the West and a placemat show up along the outskirts of Gotham, stealing precious and semi-precious industrial metals from mining and processing sites using the dimension-crossing extremity of a GNARL, evidently a giant green man-monster from a dimension sidling up against our own. Yes, some sort of cosmic gloryhole is opened between realities and – thank god – the giant GNARL chooses only to shove his mitt through. This could have been a specialist video and a half – the world’s biggest gangbang indeed!

Anyway, the GNARL and the GNARL-wranglers (that’s how they’re listed in the credits) strike at a number of sites around Gotham, attracting Batman’s attention and earning an opportunity to just shove the Dynamic Duo around like dumb fat babies. The GNARL’s biscuit-pincher is a powerful appendage indeed, and easily slaps the Batplane out of the sky and generally scrambles Batman’s and Robin’s individual eggs for breakfast. In fact, what with the aliens letting the pet GNARL happyslap the Caped Crusader in between grabbing mineral goodies with the universe’s longest boardinghouse reach, and their ability to vanish back into their home dimension in a blinding glare of light, it appears they’re downright undefeatable.

Batman doesn’t know the meaning of “undefeatable”, although he does know the Eskimo language, the canny use of which allows him to discern that the aliens are fakes and find their post-“Dimensional Disappearance” hideout with no problem – and there he finds LEX LUTHOR, Superman’s eternal nemesis, slumming it up with some hoodlum chums and a couple of fright masks so as to steal a couple mil in platinum.

Naturally, just clocking Luthor on the noggin wouldn’t contain sufficient ironic comeuppance, so Batman hijacks the GNARLy green monster hand that had been causing so much trouble in Gotham and uses it to frankly humiliate Luthor before arresting him. Justice is served – HANDILY. Haha. Awesome.

Is that a Smiths lyric? It sounds like a Smiths lyric.

TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : THE CANTON KID

Comics have a relatively small assortment of cowboy superheroes to their credit – the original Ghost Rider, for instance, DC’s cowboy crooner The Vigilante, the modern-day Texas Twister and a dozen others at most across assorted companies. Although both the western and superhero genres prove themselves remarkably flexible in accommodating elements from other genres, and despite the volume both have racked up as genres in the last seventy-five years of comic books, crossovers have been rare.

Dennis Yee’s 1984 offering into the ranks of cowboy superheroes is worth a particular note, however, because as aborted a run as the character of The Canton Kid had – a single issue during the midst of the black-and-white comic boom of the mid-1980s – he had a lot of interesting and very unique angles going for him.

Talky in a way only comics in the 80's were.

The Canton Kid debuted in DC Comics’ New Talent Showcase No.15, and interesting comic in and of itself. While its namesake, the original Showcase run, had been focused on highlighting new properties intended to be exploited by the company as part of their ever-expanding franchise, New Talent Showcase focused more on creator-owned and creator-inspired stories intended to elevate the profile of the writers and artists themselves.

One of the few Asian-American superheroes in comics in general, the Canton Kid was very likely comidom’s ONLY Asian-American cowboy superhero, full-stop -a first generation American living in Texas, the Kid’s Cantonese-born immigrant parents were pressuring him to join the family enterprise (predictably enough, a restaurant) in Los Angeles with the hopes that he would follow up on his commitment to college and pursue a reasonable career in law or accounting. The Kid, however, was drawn to his life’s mission – crimefighting and do-goodery – in the podunk border town of Davila (sic), Texas.

Assisting the Canton Kid were his partners in the super-trio The Desperadoes; Vapor, a backwards-thinking redneck who could transform himself into a skull-headed being of cold mist and Cracklin’ Rose, another first-generation American (her parents hailed from Germany) with energy-based powers of some sort. The three youngsters gained their powers from magical gems given to them by ghosts representing “the three guises of the Thunderbird” – there’s not enough space to show this, but we gain this knowledge via exposition – and find themselves facing foes ranging from garden-variety bigots to a complicated military-industrial mind-control scheme.

The Desperadoes fail to make a second appearance, although it’s up in the air whether they had enough going for them to warrant an ongoing series of adventures. As a single character though, if just for the sake of uniqueness, The Canon Kid had a lot going for him.

GONE & FORGOTTEN REVISITED : CHRISTMAS WITH THE SUPER-HEROES

Every Christmas with the Super Heroes starts out as smiles and gifts, but after a few holiday scotches,
Robin's demanding a divorce from Batman, Superman's crying on the patio and Wonder Woman's
locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of wine.

If you grew up in the Seventies, or even the Eighties, you probably had a couple of these albums yourself, either the stand-alone albums or the ones which came with a horribly written comic attached to the sleeve.

Nowadays, I have more than a dozen of these things - far more than I ever had as a kid, and this includes Reflections Of A Rock Super-Hero, which was this mixed-genre rock concept album which caused you to die of horribleness anew with each track, like Ringu but with proto-Prog Rock. Then Stan Lee would do a spoken segment, and you'd be soothed back to life, only to be brutally killed again by the NEXT goddamn caterwauling. For more accurate description of this album, please see Dante's Inferno.

But back to this album, what we have are three Christmas-themed stories featuring the Kennedy Clan  of DC Comics; Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Appropriately, they all deal with traditional seasonal themes, such as Santa Claus, charity, and nuclear missiles killing the merry fuck out of everything. HO HO HO!

Superman starts us off with "Light Up The Tree, Mister President," which is fun to sing along to "Turn Me On Mister Dead Man" or "What's the Frequency, Kenneth." Jimmy Olsen kicks off the scene, interviewing folks - like this excitable fella from the Pacific Northwest - at the site of the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the lawn of the White House.

Little does Jimmy know that a crazy-ass mad scientist-type has rigged up what is probably the least rational doomsday plan in the history of everything. A kidnapped Jimmy has the plan explained to him - via a series of images on television screens, very helpful for those of us LISTENING TO A RECORD  - by apocalyptically-obsessed madman genius Thurston Killgore, who probably wouldn't be half the menace he is had he been born "Ted" to Ira and Dianne Shelby.

In a flashback, we hear the once-respected Killgore addressing Congress with a program I believe he called "Operation Enduring Killing Everyone On Earth With Nuclear Bombs Until America Is All That's Left," and not to go all political here but I SWEAR some of the stuff he's bellowing sounds like it came straight from a Rumsfield press conference. Naturally, Congress would NEVER go along with any plan which involved America launching pre-emptive strikes on another country with weapons of mass destruction - right? Right - so they lock Killgore up in the nut pokey and forget about him.

But he comes back with a plan for revenge, based on the following logic - he wants the world to die in nuclear fire, right? Right. But the only man who can launch America's arsenal of nuclear weapons - in this story, that's FIVE - is the President, via the special button in his office. But Killgore has RIGGED the button which lights the Christmas Tree on the White House lawn so that IT launches the missiles when the President lights the tree! AND it explodes one that's hidden in the tree itself! It's DEVIOUS, and only about NINETY-PERCENT MORONIC, since you figure that if he could rig this freaking button to launch the missiles, he could go ahead and do it himself.

Only in comic books are the words "Evil Genius" and "Catastrophic Brain Injury" pretty much synonymous.

Fast forward to the end, Superman wins. Beats him up or something. NOW, two things stand out for me in this story. First off, at the same time that Jimmy Olsen is covering the tree lighting ceremony and Lois and Clark are watching Jimmy on WGBS' live feed, the United Nations is unanimously passing a worldwide resolve to ban all nuclear weapons forever. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the news business, myself ... in fact, I don't even watch television news, or read a newspaper, or in fact know HOW to read OR write, and instead rely on shouting at the keyboard in order to create these articles, BUT ... it seems to me that if I were the editor of a great metropolitan newspaper, I'd have at least ONE of my three top reporters assigned to COVER THE GADDAMN UNITED NATIONS BANNING ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS! I don't care HOW pretty the lights are...

Second thing which stands out is a constant for this album - the sound effects. For some reason, the foley on this thing is flat-out bizarre, particularly when anyone takes a walk. As just one f’instance, there’s a scene where Superman inquires as to the whereabouts of Jimmy Olsen and, upon receiving a clue, dashes across the quad in his brand new corduroy pants. *VWUP VWUP VWUP*

Moving on to the Batman story - "The Christmas Carol Caper," this is where the album gets sort of ... unsettling. I was never the world's biggest fan of Batman, and maybe I'm not as hep to the mythos of the guy as some of you out there, but upon listening to this recording I feel I can say with some certainty: THIS IS NOT BATMAN!

Batman is an avenger of the night, a dark and brooding figure, and even at his worst a campy fat man who can’t get rid of a bomb. He is not a laid-back bon vivant with a song in his heart and singing telegrams coming in on his telephone! I'm not even 100% convinced that Batman should be answering his own phone, but I DO know for sure that Batman would NEVER say "HOW NICE!" or "SING AWAY", never mind ONE AFTER THE OTHER!!

This story starts off with Batman and Robin chilling at the Batpad on a quiet, crime-free Christmas Eve when the ... ugh ... when the PHONE RINGS AND BATMAN ANSWERS IT and it turns out to be A SINGING TELEGRAM ... OF DOOM!

Now, what I know of Gotham City villains is that they each have their own theme, right? Joker uses comedy-related stuff, Two-Face gets double-gimmicks, Riddler riddles, Penguin gets the arctic, umbrellas and birds, because who else will, right? Well, here's a little known fact - all OTHER non-gimmick Gotham villains are required to either sing or have Christmas related motifs. No, it's true! Why else would both the threatening voice on the phone sing a menacing version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" while Rodney The Red Nosed Hitman (I ain't kidding folks) fires away, singing "Deck Them All With A M3 Volley," just before Batman and Robin are almost run down by Maxy the Minstrel Man and Sammy the Southside Santa?

Seriously, the attempted hit-and-run is all Batman's fault, anyway. I'll let him explain, and I'll let you shudder at Batman singing a merry tune...

All this ends at the Southside Mission, where the famous Dr.John - probably not the one you're thinking of - manages his home for rehabilitated hobos. Secretly, one of these hobos is a terrible criminal who's there to kill Batman, which I think everyone should have expected because he refused to sing Christmas Carols with the other hobos. Or, actually, he probably wasn't able to, since I don't think there were more than three voice actors doing this whole record. You could barely afford to have someone interrupt ...

The berserk-ass foley continues to meet my highest expectations -  the sound the Batarang makes as it whizzes in midair (that being a sound not unlike slide whistles in a washing machine ), or all the hobos' endless Christmas Caroling - ACTION PACKED! At the very least, I can share this much with you - Batman and Robin getting around Gotham via tap-dancing bat-ponies. Sorry Madam!

This all ends with Wonder Woman in "The Prisoner Of Christmas Island." This is probably the least of all three stories, cause whereas Batman's was sort of disturbing and insane and Superman's story was just flat-out mind-boggling dumb, Wonder Woman's story is only sort of obtuse.

Or hey, maybe it's me, I never quite 'got' Wonder Woman anyway. I mean, most other superheroes have a theme by which they abide, you know, Superman is 'Super,' Batman has a bat costume and bat-themed gadgets, Spider-Man has spider powers and Captain America is all about America, and so on. But with Wonder Woman, she's a little harder to define. Right off the bat, she's a patriotic polytheist from Sorority Island, not to mention being a D-Cup golem with a golden bikechain which makes you tell the truth, and who splits her free time between chucking bullets off her wristwatch and talking telepathically to her imaginary airplane. Danant danant dant danant!! WONDERRR WOMAAAAN!

Wonder, indeed.

Still, I don't think it's me. Dig this: Wonder Woman's story begins with an Ex-Nazi quisling kidnapping Santa Claus from his North Pole toystore on the orders of the legendary Valkyrie, Brunnhilde. This is a devious plan of the war god Ares, who is introduced to us while arguing with Aphrodite. Meanwhile on Earth, the President enlists Wonder Woman to save Christmas while news agencies around the world report of Santa Claus' sudden absence and orphans cry themselves to sleep at the prospect of a Christmasless winter. So, it's up to our heroine to return the jolly old elf in time to make his yuletide rounds or else the Third Reich rises again, and JUMPING JESUS ORANGUTAN, PEOPLE!! Confusing or not, all I know is that's a lot of myths, archetypes and cliches to pack into a fifteen minute adventure!!

At least they talk pretty in this one. Either that, or the narrator is practicing his sibilants.

Naturally, Wonder Woman comes out on top in this adventure - keep the dirty joke to yourself, friends. Nonetheless, her victory is amazing to me. Sure, in the comic book world, most supervillains may be nitwits, but even the greatest superhero has a greater-than-even chance of being a total mental zero. Take, for instance, Wonder Woman's musings on geography. I think she means it figuratively. Or, in any case, I can't help but find the way she says this ... oddly arousing. If I start writing erotic fanfic, please stab me in the eye with an icepick, please. Thanks.

Not to be left out, Wonder Woman also gets saddled with profoundly puzzling foley. Specifically, she's off to go cheer up the orphans - presumably by eating a straw hat. And that's what Christmas means to me, CRONCH CRONCH!


Transcriptions of the audio files ....

... this excitable fella from the Pacific Northwest ...
Jimmy Olsen: I'm Jimmy Olsen, WGBS TV, can I talk to you for a minute?
Man: Sure.
Jimmy Olsen: How do you like Washington?
Man: GREAT!
Jimmy Olsen: What do you think of that tree up there?
Man: FANTASTIC! I'M FROM OREGON!

... dashes across the quad in his brand new corduroy pants. ...
Superman: Did you see where he went?
Man: Last we saw, he went over to that van over there.
Superman: Oh, the WGBS Mobile Unit. Thanks. (SFX: Cordurouy pants on the move!)

... ONE AFTER THE OTHER!! ...
(Phone rings)
Batman: I'll get it. Hello?
Voice: Hello. Is this Batman?
Batman: Yes.
Voice: I have a singing telegram for ya!
Batman: How nice, sing away!

... explain, ... 
Robin: Don't you think it would be better to go the rest of the way by Batmobile?
Batman: Oh, I don't think so. With Rudy in jail, we shouldn't have any more trouble. Aaaand it's such a nice, clear night for walking. (Singing and apparently tap dancing) Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, da da da da deee, doooo...

... tap-dancing bat-ponies. ...
Batman: Now!
(SFX: Tap dancing ponies kicking up a storm)
Batman: GOTCHA!
Old Lady: AAAAAAH!
Batman: Oh, I'm so sorry madam ...

... talk pretty ...
Narrator: And like a grey-black ghost, her massive engines purring softly in the murky depths, the powerful sub sails silently South with its precious cargo ...

... Wonder Woman's musings on geography. ...
Wonder Woman: The ocean is so large and that island so small!

... eating a straw hat. ...
Wonder Woman: I'll do my best to cheer them up. (SFX Crunching taps...)