Okay, here's where teh comic book makes an error or typo, and it took me along time to figger it out from the chrnology: despite what it says in the first panel, this is not October 3. It's still October 2, based on the narrative progression. Later on teh date does switch to Octoebr 3, and it's indicated correctly there.
In the meanwhile, here on October Second:
from House of Secrets (1996 series) #18 (DC/Vertigo, April 1998), script by Steven T. Seagle, pencils and inks by Teddy Kristiansen, colors by Bjarne Hansen, color separations by Heroic Age, letters by Todd Klein
from "Auld Lang Syne" in What The--? #11 (Marvel, March 1991*), script by Scott Lobdell, pencils and inks by Rurik Tyler, colors by Kelly Corvese, letters by Jade Moede
*Therefore, nine months before New Year's Eve 1991. I bet they meant 1990.
from Doomsday Clock #8 (DC, February 2019), script by Geoff Johns, pencils and inks by Gary Frank, colors by Brad Anderson, design by Amie Brockway-Metcalf
Today! It's the very birthday of the Legionnaire you can open up with a can opener, Ferro Lad! That's "Andrew Nolan" to you and me who surely have all the ciiviian names or the Legion memorized. Reep Daggle? Imra Adreen? Jenni Ognuts? Yeah, you know 'em all, and how! (Jo Nah? See, that one was easy!)
Anyway, Andrew Nolan, sealed forever inside an iron suit moresuitable for storing pork and beans. Mmm, delicious, delicious pork and bears. But it's just him inside! I know, yu're disappointed too. Luckily the Iron Suit also gives him the power to iron to the core (and I think we all know how inconvenient that can be, especially when he's your water polo partner at the far end of the pool. "Marco!" you shout, gearing the pony to rear up in the pool, but all that happened at the other end is a series of slow bubbles from the bottom. I'm getting ahead of myself because for his birthday (and hey, one day beyond it!) we're going to look at how Andrew Nolan, Ferro Lad, showed his mettle metal by taking on the deadly and dangerous Sun-Eater! ("No man can escape the Sun-Eater," is its guaranteed slogan to you, the buyer!)
Remember that chilling, dramatic opening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Sure you do! You hadn't fallen asleep by then yet.
But, if you're at all familiar with the history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, you can stand up in your seat back there in 1979 and proudly shout to the annoyed masses: "Comics did it first!" And while they're bodily kicking you out of the movie theater, you can be proud that you were right.
from The Legion of Super-Heroes stories in Adventure Comics #352-353 (DC, January-February 1967), script and layouts by Jim Shooter, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by George Klein, letters by Milton Snapinn
Now play Jerry Goldsmith's spaceariffic Star Trek movie theme while we do our opening (comics) credits and introduce our amazing cast from one thousand years in the future! (uture uture uture uture) But grife, what are the Fatal Five doing there getting star credits alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes? Inconceivable! I keep using that word and I think it means what it is! Why, that would be like, as the narration tells us, not dating the story at all, U.N.C.L.E. making a pact with T.H.R.U.S.H.! Or CONTROL teaming up with KAOS! Or S.H.I.E.L.D.* being controlled by HYDRA...um, well, maybe not that last one.
ONE OF THESE PEOPLE WILL DIE! (flashing arrow pointing directly to
Ferro Lad
) This is a good example of early Legion stories making great use of the Mission: Impossible concept: a specific but small group of Legionnaires pitted against a villain rather than all six hundred and eight of 'em. In this case, however, the villain is about as big as they get: a cosmic entity searching for sustenance throughout the galaies, but instead of jus' stopping by Hardee's in the Alpha Centauri Spacemall like you or I would do, it eats stars. What's more, it operates purely on instinct and is completely mindless. So, it's sort of like Galactus after a huge fraternity kegger party.
The Sun-Eater is (gasp! choke!) heading directly towards Earth's sun, apparently bypassing some other, meatier, tenderer stars on its way from the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. It's like when you want White Castle and nothing else will do. Superboy runs a PowerPoint he's prepared earlier to show the Legionnaires what they'll be up against: victory is a totally utter, impossibility. For the Legion of Super-Heroes, this is Tuesday.
WHY ARE THERE ONLY FIVE LEGIONNAIRES AT HQ oh wait Superboy (and Jim Shooter) casually explain that the other Legionnaires are away in Dimension QK-51 (home of the Superman Meets the Quik Bunny crossover). That must be some doozy of a mission that makes them keep only five members in reserve (granted, one's Superboy; on the other hand, Projectra and Ferro) on Earth. I mean, they coulda left behind Matter-Eater Lad, the greatest Legionnaire, who would have handily ate the Sun-Eater. Burp!
Surely, you say, there must be other heroes in the galaxy considering there are entire planets whose biospheres support magnetic control or intangibility or extreme! computing!power! Well, sure there is, and stop calling me Shirley. But nobody, not the Heroes of Lallor, not the Wanderers, not even the Tiny, Tiny Avengers of Imsk (they're so cuuuute!) can come to the Legion's aide. And then there's these buncha jerks! They think they can get out of helping to save Earth just because they are only disembodied floating heads!
Incidentally, note the first caption in the panels above. A rare sliparoo from Shooter on which century LSH takes place in! (the Thirtieth). WHOOPS.
With a Legion consisting only of Superboy (almost infinitely powerful), Cosmic Boy (pretty darn powerful), Sun Boy (a dangerous thing to be around a Sun-Eater), Princess Projectra (ummmmm...) and Ferro Lad (.........), the Legion of Super-Heroes is in dire need of allies to battle the Sun-Eater. So they find and deputize the Fatal Five: Tharok (unstoppable cyborg), the Persuader (he'll beg the Sun-Eater to leave), the Emerald Empress (she'll keep an eye out for you), Mano (The Hand of Fate), and Validus (who, when he's not freaking out, has a tragic and yet-to-be-told Legion origin story!) This quintet of quirky quacksalvers are promised amnesty from their crimes if they help stop the Sun-Eater. That doubles the defense force and allows Jim Shooter to nod his very tall hat at a plot device from The Dirty Dozen Time for a soundtrack cue!
First up on our Star Search stage: Sun Boy! He's hot and fiery and full of cosmic gas! All the powers of a raging star and the ability to stand on a giant compact disc! But no savior of the universe he! So, they all give up and go home.
Now, Tharok and Validus try chopping at it and throwing lightning at it! But what works in Kitchen Stadium is ineffective in space, and they can't truly stop the unstoppable thing which cannot be stopped! Are ya sorry ya didn't go to Dimension QK-51 yet, Legionnaires?
Well, here comes the galaxy's most powerful hero (in handy compact boy form): Superboy! I dunno, Clark, use your Krypto-vision to shoot small dogs at it, or maybe super-ventriloqism to convince it our sun is out of business and not worth heading for. Because only Superboy can stand up to the power of a billion suns projecting yellow, orange, green, blue rays...D'OH! RED SUN RAYS!WHO COULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT?
Cosmic Boy / Cosmic Boy / He has got a cosmic ploy / Is he magnetic? / Listen, Jim / He'll attract any metal / Except aluminum / Alas / Sun-Eater's not made of metal / No joy
Emerald Empress and her Eye stare at it! Aside from the Sun-Eater feeling momentarily self-conscious about its weight, it does no damage.
Eh, what the heck, let's let the Princess take a crack sending illusions at it. It surely couldn't get worse. (beat) AIEEE! It got worse!
Mano! The man with the hand that destroys everything it touches! How he goes to the bathroom we'll never know. Ah, Mano, thank you for making us laugh at "Ehahh!" again.
Well, that's everybody from both teams, so Earth's gonna die, uh huh. I would kiss your loved ones and maybe eat that ice cream in the fridge before it goes to waste...oh yeah, Ferro Lad! Forgot about him! As is often the case in the Legion, a member you don't think is gonna pull off a mission is absolutely successful! Yay Ferro! I-RON-na give you a big hug!
Now that they know the thing has a brain that looks like a mascot from the 1964 World's Fair Let's Get Charged for Electrons pavilion, they can destroy it! Tharok quickly whips up a bomb out of ordinary household items you probably have lying around your place, but who will carry it into the heart of the storm? Aw, c'mon...if you didn't know the ending of this story, turn in your Comics Predicting Badge. Even Brainiac Minus-5 saw that coming, and he's the Dumbest Guy in the Galaxy three years running from 2964-2967.
I've poked gentle (well, except for Projectra) fun at this story throughout, but in terms of emotion and defiance, the sacrifice of Ferro Lad ranks very high on my list. This tale — and this first panel showing Ferro Lad flying into the heart of the Sun-Eater to ignite the bomb himself — is justifiably iconic in comics history, and the first "real" death of the Legion (altho' Lightning Lad had died before, he came back or Proty had babies with Saturn Girl, however you wanna think about that). I admit I cried...just a little...when I first read this story, lowering the value of my copy of Adventure #353 from VG to G: waterstained.
We salute you, Ferro Lad! We will miss your honor, your bravery, your ingenuity, and your ability to hold our grocery lists using fridge magnets.
Ferro Lad, we will not see your type again. Because Shooter killed you off on purpose because you couldn't have been black.
When Jim Shooter first created the character, he intended Ferro Lad to be black, but editor Mort Weisinger vetoed the idea, saying "we'll lose our distribution in the South."
This was in fact why Shooter chose Ferro Lad to be the one to die in the Sun Eater story. "Ferro Lad, I killed because my plan was that he was a black guy, and Mort said no. Then I said, "Well, let's see. I've got this idea for a story, and someone needs to die...Ah-ha! Him!" So basically, I killed him off because it annoyed me that I couldn't do with him what I wanted." — Wikipedia
Say, remember that whoops! caption above that said "Time: The twentieth century?" Well, in a way Jim Shooter could
have never predicted, it eventually wound up being true when the story was retold in Post-Zero Hour 1996. Tune in tomorrow to find out how, why, and when! (Oh, 1996. Ignore that last one.)
Cover of Legion of Super-Heroes (1989 series) #86 (DC, November 1996), pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer, colors by Patrick Martin
*Sun-Eater Heading Into Enormous Lightyear District
Panel from Peter Parker: Spider-Man (1999 series) #36 (December 2001), script by Paul Jenkins, pencils by Staz Johnson, inks by Wayne Faucher, colors by Transparency Digital, letters by Richard Starkings
Panels from "A Day at the Races!" in Fantastic Four #543 (April 2007), script, pencils, and inks by Paul Pope; colors by José Villarrubia, letter by Rus Wooton
Incidentally, judging from the context, I think that Rus Wooton made a minor lettering typo in the last word balloon, so I took the liberty to correct it in Photoshop above. Here's what it actually looked like. Whoops!
Seconcidentally, does Johnny Storm really have big hair? Well, sorta.
Whatdaya have to say to that, Peter Parker?
Man, everybody's kinda hung up on Johnny Storm's hair in this comic.
We're about halfway through Marvel's gynormous Secret Wars mega-event, or as I prefer to call it "You liked the Age of Apocalypse? Well, here's fifty of 'em!". Although they're kind of using up their "What If?" quota for the 2010s pretty fast, I'm enjoying a lot of the series, especially Planet Hulk, X-Men '92, Runaways, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Ghost Racers, Giant-Size Little Marvel, Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps, and the "nontinuity" of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars flashing back to the original Secret Wars. And last week's Howard the Human was as delightfully surreal as I had hoped, with glorious art by Jim Mahood, reminding me of Mark Martin's Gnatrat from the 1990s. (And yes, that's a big compliment from yours little stuffed truly.)
Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby
Yeah! Don't forget Heck and Lieber, guys!
Sadly, though, the credits pages of Armor Wars #2 continued to insist
And #3 and 4 averted redressing the problem by avoiding any "created by" credit whatsoever:
C'mon, Marvel! You've got one issue of Armor Wars left in the miniseries to give Heck 'n' Lieber their due. especially since you'd gotten it right up until that point, as seen in tehthecredits of Superior Iron Man #9:
Heck, if you can get this guy's credit right...
That's about all I need to say right now about Secret Wars: Fight for the Right to Party, except for this...
Panel from "Misty and Danny Forever" in Secret Wars: Secret Love #1 (October 2015); script by Jeremy Whitley; pencils, inks, and colors by Gurihiru; letters by Clayton Cowles
…which is set on a realm of Battleworld so bizarre that Colleen Wing's apartment door opens outwards (even though its hinges aren't on the outside). Are they on the same world as Mystery Science Theater 3000's "Gunslinger?"
If so, I so wanna see the Daughters of the Dragon fight Roger Corman!
(And remember:)
Iron Man created by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby
So, let's take a look at the brand-new, surely-not-released-just-to-tie-in-with-a-major-motion-picture Marvel Avengers graphic novel, in which they face off against their deadliest robot foe at a late-night electronic/dance party with lots of young people on Ecstasy! Oh, wait, no, that's Rave of Ultron. What we're perusing tonight is Rage of Ultron.
Panels from Avengers: Rage of Ultron graphic novel (June 2015); script by Rick Remender; pencils by Jerome Opeña; inks by Pepe Larraz with Mark Morales; colors by Dean White, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Dono Sanchez Almara; letters by Clayton Cowles
As in, man! That Ultron is certainly raging! Right in Manhattan, home of the Mighty Avengers! Circa the period when Hank McCoy, the Beast, was on the team, also known as The Best Era of the Avengers. Captain America is right there, to help evacuate the city by telling the panicking crowd to make their way peacefully and patriotically to the bridge. (Say, Cap, which bridge? Ah, he'll tell ya, just hang around.)
The panel above gives only a rough guesstimate of where the destruction is a-happening, but I'd place it as roughly in Midtown Manhattan, which is pretty much where all the destruction in comics books tends to occur. We're not told the precise location in the comic, but I'm making an educated guess that it's Times Square, mainly because of the sheer excess of X-rated movie theaters there. So: they're in Times Square in the 1970s!
Also, because Times Square is pretty much the only place in New York that has a street area that looks half a mile wide.
To be fair to Times Square during the seventies, it wasn't all girly theaters. Just around the corner on 42nd Street is located revival house the Gem Theater, where on the fourth floor you can find the offices of Luke Cage: Hero for Hire! (More recently, the Gem has served as the HQ for Luke's Mighty Avengers team! Who says this isn't the bountiful Bully age of edifying enlightenment? Except I can't explain why Luke Cage isn't running up to help fight Ultron, too. Maybe it's during that glorious issue where he flew to Latveria to demand of Dr. Doom "Where's my money, honey?"
Panels from Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #2 (August 1972), script by Archie Goodwin, pencils by George Tuska, inks by Billy Graham, letters by John Costanza
By the way, check out which mildly magnificent Marvel mag is being perused by ticket taker Bertha!
Cover of Our Love Story #18 (August 1972), pencils by Gene Colan, inks by John Romita, Sr., alterations by Marie Severin
Anyway, my point, and I do have one, is that Captain America does direct the fleeing crowds of civilians to evacuate Manhattan by heading east to the George Washington Bridge.
Um. Cap. The George Washington Bridge is west of Manhattan. (And, pretty darn far north of Midtown.)
Cap's sorta of between a rock and a hard place here even if he wasn't directing panicky people in the wrong direction. There's no easy escape route from Midtown that doesn't involve going into tunnels (the Lincoln Tunnel to the west of Midtown, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the east, both in orange), which I can't imagine is the best place to send folks during a crisis. But honestly, Cap? "Keep moving downtown on Broadway, head for the Manhattan Bridge." would probably be the fastest evacuation he could hope for.
Y'know, it's too bad Spider-Man wasn't an Avenger during this era, because if Spider-Man knows anything, he knows where the George Washington Bridge is.
Panels from Amazing Spider-Man (1963 series) #121 (June 1973), script by Gerry Conway, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by John Romita Sr. and Tony Mortellaro, colors by David Hunt, letters by Artie Simek
Then again, that's probably the Brooklyn Bridge that's pictured there, but improperly described as the George Washington (especially since he's show swinging downtown from the United Nations). Does no Marvel Manhattanite know the bridges of New York?
But hey, it's not like Steve Rogers was born in New York City or has lived there ever since he got de-Cap-sicled. Oh wait. Yes, he has.
Panels from Captain America (2013 series) #25 (December 2014); script by Rick Remender; pencils by Carlos Pacheco with Stuart Immonen; inks by Mariano Taibo with Wade von Grawbadger; colors by Dean White, Veronica Gandini, and Marte Gracia, letters by Joe Maramagna
I've been reminded that the covers of the L.L. Miller Captain Marvel books were in color and that's likely what Gargunza was looking at here. I still stand by my decision to poke some fun at Marvel, though!
So here's a panel from the original black-and-white version of Marvelman in the UK's Warrior:
Panel from the Marvelman story "A Little Piece of Heaven" in Warrior (Quality Communications 1982 series) #20 (July 1984), script by Alan Moore, pencils and inks by Alan Davis, letters by G. George
Now can you predict what Marvel did when they recolored the art for their recent Miracleman republishing? Why, of course you can.
Panel from the Miracleman story "A Little Piece of Heaven" in Miracleman (Marvel 2013 series) #7 (August 2014), script by Alan Moore The Original Writer, pencils and inks by Alan Davis, colors by Steve Oliff, relettering by Joe Caramagna
D'OH
(Not that the 1987 Eclipse version did it any better...)
Panel from the Miracleman story "A Little Piece of Heaven" in Miracleman (Eclipse 1985 series) #5 (January 1986), script by Alan Moore, pencils and inks by Alan Davis, colors by Ron Courtney, letters by G. George
So that's why I'm going to introduce a new feature I like to call
Here, Fixed That For You
The moral of the story is HIRE A LITTLE STUFFED BULL TO WORK AT YOUR COMIC BOOK COMPANY.
Over on Twitter, Avram Grumer makes the excellent point that this could well be the cover of an L.L. Miller Captain Marvel comic, which would have been in color.
I stand by my decision to make fun of Marvel, though.
Today! It's the very birthday of the Legionnaire you can open up with a can opener, Ferro Lad! That's "Andrew Nolan" to you and me who surely have all the ciiviian names or the Legion memorized. Reep Daggle? Imra Adreen? Jenni Ognuts? Yeah, you know 'em all, and how! (Jo Nah? See, that one was easy!)
We're about halfway through Marvel's gynormous Secret Wars mega-event, or as I prefer to call it "You liked the Age of Apocalypse? Well, here's fifty of 'em!". Although they're kind of using up their "What If?" quota for the 2010s pretty fast, I'm enjoying a lot of the series, especially Planet Hulk, X-Men '92, Runaways, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Ghost Racers, Giant-Size Little Marvel, Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps, and the "nontinuity" of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars flashing back to the original Secret Wars. And last week's Howard the Human was as delightfully surreal as I had hoped, with glorious art by Jim Mahood, reminding me of Mark Martin's Gnatrat from the 1990s. (And yes, that's a big compliment from yours little stuffed truly.)
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