On a recent trip to the awesome comic shop that is The Outer Limits in Waltham, MA, I picked up three "DC Comics Millennium Editions" that were languishing on a bookcase near the back of the store.
Apparently, DC published 62 of these things back in the year 2000, but I just have these three...for now!
The first one I grabbed was the second one I referenced in this posts oh-so-creative title:
Yes, it's a reprint of "Plop!" #1, a title that my good buddy Rich and I have mentioned at least once on our own "Weird Warriors Podcast" which you no doubt already listen to and adore.
Anyway, anyone who's been around for me for any length of time knows that Sergio Aragones is my favorite cartoonist, and "Groo the Wanderer" is my favorite comic book series. However, I've never bothered to collect any back issues of this particular series.
Why? Back issues of it have always been hard to find, and damned expensive when I've found them. I love Sergio Aragones' work, but I am not, nor have I ever been, independently wealthy.
So, I grabbed this modestly priced unbagged comic off the shelf and figured I'd see what I'd been missing all these years.
The 5-page Sergio effort called "The Plague" was as entertaining as I'd hoped, and most of the short one-panel gags sprinkled throughout the issue were worth at least a smirk or a chuckle. "Kongzilla" by George Evans and Frank Robbins was a higher production value affair than I expected, even if the "gag" at the end jas aged a little poorly in this era of increased diversity in our understandings of sexual orientations. "The Message" was a cute, and very well drawn mostly "silent" two-pager by no less than Sheldon Mayer and Alfredo Alcala, and yes, even with the presence of Senor Aragones, the star of this issue is probably "The Gourmet" by Steve Skeates (more on him in my next post!) and Berni(e) "Freaking" Wrightson!
So, am I interested in acquiring the remained of the run? Yer darned Ploppin' I am.
Up next, is the final comic referenced in this post's title, and the meatiest of the three overall:
"Police Comics #1" had an original cover date of Aug 1941, and it featured the first appearance of Plastic Man, even if he is relegated to the role of "second banana floating head" on the above cover.
The great pink hope of this issue, and the cover feature as well as the first story contained herein, was "The Firebrand," he of the diaphanous (look it up, kids!) shirt and jaunty bandana/mask. As with the majority of the stories reprinted in this issue, the actual writer of the opening tale is unknown, but the artist is one Reed Crandall.
Whether Mr. Crandall designed FB's outfit or not, he certainly took on an unenviable task, having to effectively draw our hero's shirt AND his unclothed torso at the same time whenever some crime-fighting action was afoot.
And what kind of crime was being so diaphanously opposed, you ask? Why, it's a Window-Washing Racket! Sends shivers down your spine, doesn't it? To be fair, there's also some high-price burglary going on, and the 11-page affair is kept snappy and entertaining throughout.
Firebrand has no super-powers at all, but is a heck of and athlete, and he truly excels at beating the stuffing out of bad guys. Part of that is due to his being trained by his butler/confidant/sidekick, an ex-prize-fighter named, you guessed it, "Slugger," and the other part seems to be that Firebrand is one of the luckiest people that has ever lived on the face of the Earth.
Ironically, the police in Firebrand's city see him as a menace, and even suspect him of being behind the very crimes he's so snazzily stopping. For a comic with the word "Police" used for half of its title, the boys in blue aren't looking too great at the start of things.
Next up is "711," featuring what just might be the shakiest setup for any hero I've ever read about in a comic book, and folks, that is REALLY saying something.
Let me try to sum this up: Daniel Dyce takes the rap for his friend Jake Horn. The two men look so much alike that Dyce simply goes to court and stands trial as Jake. Given a life sentence, and an inmate number of, say it with me, "711," Dan settles in and prepares to wait for Jake's new baby to be born, after which ol' Jake has promised to turn himself in and come clean.
As if that plan wasn't shaky enough, Jake goes and gets himself run over by a car (and killed, too!) in his way to see the newborn babe in question.
But, okay, let me clear my head. Here we go: Jake Horn is identified in the newspaper as the person who was killed in the accident. This does NOT, however, trigger an investigation into just who the heck the local prison system has in custody under that name. Instead, Dan Dyce is simply screwed for life.
Dyce does use his time to tunnel out of prison, but he decides to STAY in prison because Daniel Dyce is surely "forgotten" by now. Long story longer, Dan then goes about engaging in a life of crime-fighting.
Yep. You heard me. But wait: it's dumber than you think! As simply "711," and wearing that very number on the back of his vigilante outfit's shirt, Dan Dyce escapes from prison through his tunnel, beats the bad guys, gets them sent to prison, and then he...returns to that same prison as Jake Horn, inmate #711.
How. HOW. How does this work, I ask you? I can accept a lot of things in my comic books. I mean, one HAS to. But this...this is pure madness.
Up next is "Eagle Evans, Flier of Fortune," an airborne ace hero type thing that is so forgettable and bland that its like they knew our poor logic centers needed a rest after that "711" insanity.
"Chic Carter" is mildly more interesting, if only due to its being credited to Will Eisner himself. The story is pretty much dishwater, though: Carter is a reporter who puts on a domino mask and a yellow shirt when he feels like calling himself "The Sword" to fight (and "accidentally" kill) the bad guys. It's not great, save for the art.
But, hold on, folks, we have finally reached the REAL reason for the reprinting of this issue: the debut of "Plastic Man!" In six brief pages, Jack Cole introduces one of the best characters in comic books, and does so in pages that feature charmingly kinetic artwork even with most of the pages sporting 9-10 panels each! I've never actually read the original Plastic Man adventures, but I really want to now. I bet most if not all of them are up on comicbookplus.com....
Up nest is "Steele Kerrigan," with really nice art by Al Bryant. Maybe the reason we don't know the name of the writer has something to do with the fact that this story pretty much stinks.
Kerrigan is just some seventeen year old kid that in the space of six pages gets imprisoned twice by some pretty mentally deficient and/or lazy cops. He escapes the second time, gets tangled up with the bad guys, and proves his innocence, kinda. The end. YAWN.
Another six-pager features "The Mouthpiece," a young D.A. who routinely interferes in police business in his civilian ID, and when he isn't breaking the law enough for his tastes, puts a mask on and for some reason calls himself "The Mouthpiece."
If it wasn't for this story featuring an "illegal immigrant smuggling" operation (timely!) run by an actual PEG-LEGGED PIRATE, there'd be nothing to recommend giving this one a read. Sorry, Fred Guardineer.
Well, okay, the pirate does at one point resort to hiding his alien cargo inside the corpses of freshly killed sharks, so there's that.
I didn't read the two-page text story that follows, but it apparently features a character called "Dick Mace," and DC Comics is just letting that name sit around and collect dust.
A six-page "Phantom Lady" story comes next, and it's nothing to write a blog post about, either.
A one-page "hillbilly humor" gag follows in the form of "Dewey Dripp," a "Li'l Abner" rip-off that is about as cringe-worthy as you might imagine, but the art by John Devlin is quite nice.
"The Human Bomb" wraps up the issue, and perhaps in an attempt to make up for only getting 5 pages to work with, features 11 to 12 panels on all but the first of those pages! HB's origin is pretty crazy, too, but it merely involves him swallowing a super-deadly explosive capsule in an attempt to keep thugs who are standing right there from "ever using it." It's no "711," but it's up there.
Most of the stories in this were duds, but I ended up being entertained by the read overall.
The same cannot be said for our third and final contender, which is the first comic mentioned in this post's title:
This one hurts, because the "House of Mystery" I grew up with was a favorite member of the "horror anthology" comics lineup that I so adored back in my "Yoot."
This, however, is a reprint of HOM #1 1951, and it sucks.
Every page of every single story is simply smothered in blocks and blocks of narrative captions, thought balloons, and speech bubbles that all but crowd the art completely out of existence.
This is even more of a shame since what we CAN see of the art is quite good.
None of the writers are credited, and I think that's for the best.
Okay, folks, that was a long one!
Do you have any of these Millennium Editions? If so, what do you think of 'em?
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