I Was the Reader Without Animal Powers

I was 11 when those aliens gave stunt man Buddy Baker his animal powers in DC’s Strange Adventures 180 (Sept. 1965), courtesy of writer Dave Wood and artist Carmine Infantino.

I enjoyed his adventure then and in The Return of the Man with Animal Powers (Strange Adventures 184, Jan. 1966), despite the fact that his super powers caused cognitive dissonance even in a child.

For example, how could you “borrow” the flying ability of an eagle without also acquiring wings or an avian bone structure? Superman’s powers — mostly amplifications of human abilities — seemed almost plausible by comparison.

But Infantino’s clean-lined, graceful art was always refreshing to the eye, and I also found it refreshing that Baker chose to go into super-powered action without fancy dress. Much as I love superhero costumes, the cliché was already becoming a bit shopworn by 1965. I had been attracted to Gold Key’s quasi-omnipotent Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom in 1962 in part for that reason, and my interest waned when he put on red spandex in his fifth issue.

I breathed another small sigh of regret when, in Strange Adventures 190 (July 1966), Baker put on his super suit. I didn’t read him much after that. In part it was because with the Batman craze in full swing, we had an embarrassment of superheroic riches.  Just as we have today.

The Second-Best Spaceman in the Universe

Even when I was 6 years old, in 1960, I was clear on the fact that Space Ranger was only the second-best spaceman in the DC universe.

Over in Mystery in Space, Adam Strange had the advantage of stories by Gardner Fox and art by Carmine Infantino (who could not only make you believe the unbelievable, but make you believe the unbelievable to be sleek, tempered and elegant). Space Ranger, the lead feature in Tales of the Unexpected, was delivered with the workmanlike art of Bob Brown and goofy-fun stories by Arnold Drake and Bob Haney.

DC’s two spaceman superheroes — one operating in the present, the other in the future — were actually created to be rival concepts and placed with rival editorial teams.

“Two sci-fi heroes came out of a 1957 editorial conference — Space Ranger and Adam Strange,” comics historian Don Markstein noted. “They were assigned to successive runs in Showcase, the comic book where new concepts were tried before committing the publisher’s capital to a full-scale title launch. Editor Jack Schiff took Space Ranger, while Julius Schwartz took Adam Strange.”

Space Ranger, like many another minor DC hero, was originally set up to resemble the popular Batman, with a secret identity (wealthy playboy Rick Starr), a secret cave headquarters (inside an asteroid), a flashy, speedy vehicle (the scarlet spaceship Solar King) and a sidekick, his small, adorable alien friend, Cryll.

Like Batman, Space Ranger had no super powers, but Cryll did, being able to transform himself into any animal, like the later Beast Boy. Since Cryll had the whole densely inhabited universe to choose from, he could essentially transform himself into anything. The Martian Manhunter’s super-powered alien pet/pal Zook was similar.

In place of powers or a utility belt, the yellow-clad, translucent-helmeted Ranger had his all-purpose multi-raygun which seemingly could emit any kind of beam: heat, ice, disintegration, and so forth, anticipating Space Ghost’s multi-beam power bands.

By the time I started reading Space Ranger, his secret identity had been largely abandoned as superfluous (a character who was always on yet another weird planet hardly needed a disguise). He kept the 22^nd century safe from the likes of  The Army of Interplanetary Beasts, The Invasion of the Jewel-Men, The Menace of the Sun-Creature, The Beast from the Invisible World and The Menace of the Alien Indians (don’t ask).

Once Upon a Very Strange Time

Imagine, if you will, a 12-year-old boy in 18^th century Amsterdam who is whisked away to the mansion of the richest woman in France, where he is enrolled in the best boys’ school, given jewels and clothing and a pony.

A fairy tale? No, it’s history, and a rather sad one. The boy was the son of Teresa Imer, a former lover of Giacomo Casanova and the half-brother of Casanova’s illegitimate 5-year-old daughter. Casanova took the boy to live with the 63-year-old heiress Jeanne de Lascaris d’Urfé de Le Rouchefoucauld.

The Marquise d’Urfé entertained such purportedly uncanny figures as the Conte de Saint-German, who claimed to be several hundred years old; Franz Anton Mesmer, the pioneer in hypnosis; the Conte di Cagliostro and Casanova, who claimed magical powers derived from the ancient Hebrew secrets of the Cabala. Giuseppi Imer was obtained and pampered because the Marquise was convinced Casanova could help her transplant her soul into the body of a young boy and thereby make her immortal.

No wonder France had a revolution.

The Yin and Yang of Ravens

A white (not albino) raven and his counterpart on Vancouver Island. Native American legends about white raven legends talk about them being the bringers of light and tricksters.

White flight

The Shadow of Hawkman's Ghost

The Gentleman Ghost, a character created by Robert Kanigher who first appeared in Flash Comics 88 (Oct. 1947), was an elusive and recurring mysterioso foe of Hawkman throughout the late 1940s. Here, we see him in Flash Comics 92 (Feb. 1948),

When Hawkman received his jet-age reboot as an alien police officer from the planet Thanagar (Brave and the Bold 34, Feb.-March 1961), I suspect writer Gardner Fox, wanting to recapture some of that old magic, created a similar arch-criminal whose powers would be super-scientific rather than supernatural. In both cases, Joe Kubert did the art.

So Carl Sands, after saving alien explorer Thar Dan of the  Xarapion dimension, was rewarded with a Dimensiometer, a device that transformed him into the intangible Shadow Thief. Hawkman’s mission to capture Sands was more urgent than he realized, because only comic book readers knew that overuse of the Dimensiometer would wreck human civilization by causing global climate change.

How Fox News Wrecked the GOP — and the U.S.

"(M)ake no mistake, spewing hate has a significant impact upon society,” wrote journalist Cody Cain. “It is the equivalent of modern-day propaganda where the population is barraged with a stream of consistent messaging. As ordinary people go about their daily lives, they are exposed repeatedly, day in and day out, to the same messages in numerous forms and by numerous people. Pretty soon, these messages begin to sink in and take effect. The audience begins to adopt a worldview consistent with these messages, regardless of the degree of truth. It is a remarkable phenomenon.

"From Nazi Germany in the 1930s to Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s, history is replete with examples of propaganda’s effectiveness as a tool for shaping public opinion. Propaganda is powerful stuff. Many people are susceptible to it and can be swayed by it, especially the less educated.
"In America today, right-wing media is engaged in this very same activity through Fox News and extremist talk radio. This network is constantly barraging its audience with a stream of consistent messaging. And this messaging is overwhelmingly negative and destructive."

Miss Liberty: The Surprising Superheroine of 1776

I have an affection for obscure superheroes, in part because the very idea is incongruous — a world-saving champion whom virtually nobody knows. And you’d hard-pressed to find a superhero more obscure than DC’s Miss Liberty, in part because she turned up in a title where she had no place being.

“Tomahawk” was Thomas Hawk, a Revolutionary War-era pioneer woodsman created just as superheroes were fading in 1947. The character anticipated and undoubtedly got a boost from the Davy Crockett craze of 1954-55.

Graduating from a back-up feature to his own title in 1950, Tomahawk evolved along the lines of DC’s Batman. With his boy sidekick, Dan Hunter, he fought British troops, Indians, aliens, giant apes, dinosaurs, a frontier Frankenstein monster, tree men and alien Indians (don’t ask). Like Batman, he occasionally gained super powers and encountered a female masked champion of justice — Miss Liberty.

“In 1960s DC comics, the superheroes were back — and lo and behold, one turned up in Tomahawk,” comics historian Don Markstein noted. “Miss Liberty, who represented that segment of the superhero population which wrapped themselves in the American flag like a cheap politician (as did, for example, The Shield and Fighting American), debuted in #81 (August, 1962), and was a frequently seen supporting character thereafter.” Bess Lynn, a nurse, donned mask, wig, cape, tricolor costume and tri-corner hat to ride out on heroic missions. She armed herself with powder horns, essentially using them as frontier hand grenades. Unlike many superheroes, she had a credible reason for keeping her identity secret. Her brother was still in England, and reprisals would be taken against him were she to be exposed.