Hawkman #17 (DC, December 1966, 12 cents)
"Ruse of the Robbing Raven!" Story: Gardner Fox, Art: Murphy Anderson.
The first of two stories in this issue, this 12-page piece riffs off of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven," featuring a Poe scholar named Eddie Powe and a silly villain called, well, the Raven. For 16 years, Joey Makk has nursed a grudge against Powe for showing "me up before my gang" and not letting him steal his family's rent money using a trained bird. Makk, now a costumed villain—"Now to put on this raven outfit I use to conceal my identify rom the gang I've gathered around me—so they can never betray me."—has given Powe a trained bird as a gift... and to eavesdrop on his activities.
Once Makk learns that Powe possesses a heretofore undiscovered Poe manuscript, he plans to steal it. Hawkman intervenes, and Makk embarrasses Powe on television, discrediting him as a scholar. Makk tries to sell the manuscript to a fence, but Hawkman—with the help of Makk's trained bird, oddly—intervenes again. The Poe theme is slightly off putting, but if it turned on at least one reader to check out Poe in 1966, more power to Fox. Anderson's artwork is able and workmanlike.
"Enigma of the Escape-Happy Jewel Thieves" Story: Gardner Fox, Art: Murphy Anderson.
Another 12 pager, this story features Hawkman and Hawkgirl's encounter with four thieves who seem particularly adept at eluding capture. In the end, it's as simple as hired decoys: "We're members of the City Cycle Club. Some man paid us ten bucks each to race to the Mumford Art Gallery—go in the doorway—then after a while race out and speed off in four different directions!"
The gang plans to kill Hawkman and Hawkgirl, but a jeweled pistol dropped by our heroes—and picked up by the villains—on p. 2 leads our crimefighters to the criminals. This series of crimes seems a little down market for a prince of Thanagar, but who can say. The issue also features a one-page letter column including four letters of comment.
Availability: Both stories were collected in Showcase Presents Hawkman TP Vol 02.
This issue comes from the Henry's Green Cape collection of comics. Thank you for your donation!
Showing posts with label Hawkman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hawkman. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Friday, December 22, 2017
An Odd Team Up
Super-Team Family Vol. 3 #12 (DC, August-September 1977, 60 cents)
"The Eternity Pursuit" Writer: Gerry Conway, Artists: Arvell M. Jones and Bill Draut, Letterer: Ben Oda, Colorist: Jerry Serpe.
This 30-page issue is "a new double-length novel" presenting Green Lantern and Hawkman plus the Atom. After a cover by Al Milgrom and Jack Abel, one might be disappointed by the interior art, but Jones and Draut, while unknown to me, do quite well. Not at all a drawback.
Nevertheless, it's an odd team up, and hardly the stuff of "family" as seen with the similarly named Batman and Superman titles of the time. The three begin the issue in hyperspace, "that peculiar dimension between universes where nothing may travel at less than the speed of light."
Seeking Jean Loring, the Atom's fiancee, they are attacked by aliens, the Dhrune, there to subjugate the Aurians, who had somehow been weakened by Loring's "unnatural scream," able to tear the actual fabric of reality. Hawkman and the Atom search for Loring on the planet below while the Lantern goes to another planet. There, he finds a battle underway between the soldiers of Brewtus the Black Duke and Prince Simax, regent of Titan.
Captured, Hawkman and the Atom are imprisoned, where they meet an old woman. The Atom escapes, and on Titan, the Lantern is forced to fight Brewtus—but without his ring. He struggles, but, reclaiming his ring, succeeds—to return to find the Atom, Hawkman, and the Aurians now free of the Dhrune.
Taken to Titan to find a new home, the Aurians realize the danger posed by the swollen sun. They "pool their common mentality" to push the planet back into its original orbit. All is well, but Loring remains missing.
The issue also includes a one-page letter column and the three-page "How Hawkman Won His Wings," written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Joe Kubert, reprinted from the 1962 Brave and the Bold #42. This is a wonderful short piece, worth reading on its own!
Interestingly, this issue and #11 were reprinted in 2007 as Countdown Special: The Atom #1 to highlight key events that tied into the Countdown event, or Countdown to Final Crisis. Other specials featured the Flash, Kamandi, the New Gods, Eclipso, OMAC, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew, and Jimmy Olsen.
Availability: While this issue hasn't been collected per se, related Atom stories can be found in Showcase Presents: The Atom, Vol. 1 and four volumes of Countdown to Final Crisis (1, 2, 3, 4).
"The Eternity Pursuit" Writer: Gerry Conway, Artists: Arvell M. Jones and Bill Draut, Letterer: Ben Oda, Colorist: Jerry Serpe.
This 30-page issue is "a new double-length novel" presenting Green Lantern and Hawkman plus the Atom. After a cover by Al Milgrom and Jack Abel, one might be disappointed by the interior art, but Jones and Draut, while unknown to me, do quite well. Not at all a drawback.
Nevertheless, it's an odd team up, and hardly the stuff of "family" as seen with the similarly named Batman and Superman titles of the time. The three begin the issue in hyperspace, "that peculiar dimension between universes where nothing may travel at less than the speed of light."
Seeking Jean Loring, the Atom's fiancee, they are attacked by aliens, the Dhrune, there to subjugate the Aurians, who had somehow been weakened by Loring's "unnatural scream," able to tear the actual fabric of reality. Hawkman and the Atom search for Loring on the planet below while the Lantern goes to another planet. There, he finds a battle underway between the soldiers of Brewtus the Black Duke and Prince Simax, regent of Titan.
Captured, Hawkman and the Atom are imprisoned, where they meet an old woman. The Atom escapes, and on Titan, the Lantern is forced to fight Brewtus—but without his ring. He struggles, but, reclaiming his ring, succeeds—to return to find the Atom, Hawkman, and the Aurians now free of the Dhrune.
Taken to Titan to find a new home, the Aurians realize the danger posed by the swollen sun. They "pool their common mentality" to push the planet back into its original orbit. All is well, but Loring remains missing.
The issue also includes a one-page letter column and the three-page "How Hawkman Won His Wings," written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Joe Kubert, reprinted from the 1962 Brave and the Bold #42. This is a wonderful short piece, worth reading on its own!
Interestingly, this issue and #11 were reprinted in 2007 as Countdown Special: The Atom #1 to highlight key events that tied into the Countdown event, or Countdown to Final Crisis. Other specials featured the Flash, Kamandi, the New Gods, Eclipso, OMAC, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew, and Jimmy Olsen.
Availability: While this issue hasn't been collected per se, related Atom stories can be found in Showcase Presents: The Atom, Vol. 1 and four volumes of Countdown to Final Crisis (1, 2, 3, 4).
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