And Now A Word From Our Sponsor...

What pops into your mind when you think about ads in comic books?  If you've only started reading comics in the last decade or so, it's most likely slick full page ads for video games.  But if, like me, you are a child of the Bronze Age, the images that come to mind are pages of ads for cheap novelty items, Charles Atlas bodybuilding courses and, of course, Hostess pastries.  Anyone who writes about the comics of the Bronze Age will eventually have to address those ubiquitous Hostess ads.  They are an essential part of what made the comics of the era so special and so fondly remembered today.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that, with their outlandish stories and silly villains, these ads were basically quintessential Bronze Age comics boiled down to one page.

The ads, which ran in DC and Marvel comics for about a decade beginning in the early 70's, featured the company's super-heroes in one page adventures that inevitably involved Hostess Cupcakes, Twinkies or Fruit Pies.  The hero most often would use the treats to distract the villains long enough to allow them to be captured.  There were also ads that appeared in Harvey Comics featuring that company's characters, but, like the books in which they appeared, they are far less memorable.

The biggest portion of the DC ads featured the original Superfriends quartet of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.  Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Batgirl and Captain Marvel starred in a couple of adventures each, and villains the Joker and Penguin even got into the act.  There were also a trio of ads starring some of DC's lesser known, less popular heroes such as Red Tornado, Plastic Man, and Green Arrow.  

In his adventure, presented below, GA uses Fruit Pies to distract a group of kids from the fact that they are seconds away from falling to their deaths, while he works to prevent that from happening.   Then, as required by the conventions of these ads, he ends the adventure with a terrible pun.  

I have no idea who might have written this ad, but it's glaringly obvious that it was drawn by Curt Swan, who did quite a few of the DC ads.

 (Click on the ad to be able to read it)

We know return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

Green Arrow in The Brave and the Bold (Part 4): Volume 2

Nearly a decade after the end of the original The Brave and the Bold, DC revived the venerable title as a six issue mini-series written by Mike Grell and Mike Baron, drawn by Shea Anton Pensa and Pablo Marcos and featuring Green Arrow, the Question and the Butcher.   The story has no title other than The Brave and the Bold and the individual issues are simply identified by chapter number.

GA and the Question teamed up several times during Grell's tenure, but I believe that this is the only of those meetings that Grell actually had a hand in writing. Ollie and the Butcher act as if they've met before.  If you're unfamiliar with the Butcher, that's understandable.  The character, created and owned by Baron, made only a handful of appearances in the early 90's.  Previous to B&B vol 2, he debuted in an eponymous mini-series, then appeared in a two part illustrated text story in the pages of Ms. Tree Quarterly. Following this series, he was never seen again.  He did get an entry in Who's Who, which describes him as "free lance spook" John Butcher, Lakota Indian and former Army Ranger and CIA operative.

As the story begins, Green Arrow stumbles upon a Native American separatist movement with apparent ties to the Irish Republican Army which Butcher has infiltrated.  The Question becomes involved while investigating the murder of lumber baron Owen Hester, who was scalped in an apparent attempt to implicate Indians in the crime, as reporter Vic Sage. Together, the trio uncover a plot to foment a Native American uprising at a Mohawk reservation in Montreal.  The man behind the plot is revealed to be part Indian British Lord Sir Arthur Youngblood, head of the conglomerate that owned Hester's company.  His plan is that the uprising will cause the Canadian government to shut down the reservation, allowing him to swoop in and claim the land for a massive industrial and residential development project.  Naturally, of course, Green Arrow, the Question and Butcher unravel the plot, publicly expose Youngblood's duplicity and save the reservation.
A couple of years later, in an editorial in Shaman's Tears #1, editor Mike Gold wrote :

"...perhaps we should have reconsidered that Brave and Bold series when we knew it wasn't working out.  No knock on Mr. Baron; he did excellent work.  The idea was a good one, but no matter how hard we tried, Grell's style and Baron's style just didn't mesh."

Though it starts off well enough, the story never does quite gel.  Butcher  himself says in the story, reporting back to Sage and Ollie after attempting to infiltrate and gain intelligence on the Indian uprising, that he discovered "Bits and pieces, but they don't quite make a whole," which sums up the series better than anything I could could come up with.
While Pensa does a fine job on most of the faces and figures, his backgrounds are a bit crude and blocky.  I'm not a big fan of the way he draws Ollie, specifically, Ollie's beard and mustache.  He uses squiggly lines that just don't look right to me. It also seems that Pensa had some trouble making deadlines.  That's just conjecture, but it would explain why Pablo Marcos steps in to draw #5 and inks Pensa, who had handled the first four issues solo, on the final installment. At least in #6 Green Arrow's beard looks right.
In the time honored Brave and the Bold tradition, there are apparently some continuity issues surrounding this series.  According to the DC Data Base entry for Charles Victor Szasz (a.k.a. Vic Sage or The Question), because Butcher was a creator owned character who is no longer part of the DC Universe, it is "unclear" whether the events of this story still fit into continuity.

New Web-Comic Mocks Sheen and Keane

I'm taking a break from my posts on Green Arrow today to tell you about a blog I just happened upon this afternoon.
The latest media obsession to distract the nation's easily diverted collective attention from such frivolous issues as the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and revolution in the Middle East has been provided over the past couple of  weeks by my "evil twin," Charlie Sheen.  I have been referring to him that way since I discovered that he and I happen to have been born on the same day, September 3, 1965.  Recently, though, he has certainly been going out of his way to live up to the "evil" part, granting interviews to several news and entertainment programs and providing them with a seemingly endless supply of bizarre, but eminently quotable, statements.  Okay, maybe he's not exactly "evil."  Honestly, "pathetic" is probably a better word.  "Insane" certainly fits.

Sheen's recent rantings actually provide a unique challenge for the nation's comedians and satirists.  How can they make Charlie's lunatic ramblings any funnier than they already are? Well, two bloggers known as Jon L. and Chris D. have managed to do just that on their blog The Sheen Family Circus  by combining Sheen's mad mouthings with another pretty easy target for mockery, long running comic panel The Family Circus.   They take old Circus panels and replace the original warm and fuzzy, family friendly and, frankly, not very funny captions with a quote from Sheen that perfectly suits the image.  In doing so, they have crafted an original and hilarious web-comic. 
It's definitely worth reading and I hope they keep it up for awhile.  They've certainly got enough raw material, both in the form of Sheen's blathering and more than fifty years of Family Circus panels, for quite a lengthy run.

Green Arrow Helps "The Cop Who Lost His Nerve"

When I posted about Showcase Presents Green Arrow, I dropped a reference to a story featuring a "stuffed cat arrow" and mentioned that it deserved a post of its own. My friend Mike Carroll, whom I encountered while I was leafing through that volume at the comic shop just prior to purchasing it, appeared to believe that this one six page story alone was reason enough to justify spending seventeen dollars on a five hundred page book.  I wouldn't go that far.  There are plenty of reasons to buy the book, many of  which I covered in my previous post.  However, it is one of the quirkiest and most original of Green Arrow's Silver Age adventures.

Originally published in World's Finest Comics #121, "The Cop Who Lost His Nerve" is the only Green Arrow story written by long time Flash and Green Lantern writer John Broome,  and is drawn, as are the bulk of the stories in the Showcase Presents volume, by Lee Elias.  Broome and Elias team to introduce us to Fred Jenkins, whom the opening caption describes as "...the top rookie on the police force--the most promising patrolman ever to walk a beat."  Later, Green Arrow recognizes him as having been "...top student at the Police Academy."  However, we are also told that Jenkins has "...a terrible secret" that threatens his future on the force.

Green Arrow and his ward Speedy first encounter Jenkins when they are summoned by the police, via the Arrow Signal, to deal with a robbery in progress.  When they arrive, they at first conclude that their super heroic services won't be needed after all, as Jenkins has apparently captured the perpetrator.  However,  Jenkins becomes paralysed with fear when a cat suddenly appears seemingly out of nowhere, allowing the thief to make a break for it. Fortunately, GA and Speedy are still on the scene to capture the crook using their boomerang arrows.  

After the Ace Archers deliver their prisoner into the hands of the authorities, Jenkins confesses his "terrible secret" to them.  As a child, Jenkins had been badly injured and almost killed in a terrible automobile accident.  Just before losing consciousness, the last sound he heard was the meowing cry of a cat.  Since that time, he has had a paralyzing fear of felines.  

Jenkins' revelation is overheard by a hood called Weasel.  Weasel takes this information to a crook named Artie who immediately begins to plan how he  can use it to his advantage.  While this is taking place, back in the Arrowcave, Green Arrow is preparing a special arrow to help Officer Jenkins.

The next night, Fred comes across some suspicious looking characters carrying a sack and loitering in front of the Sports Museum after hours.  When he questions them, they literally let the cat out of the bag.  When the rookie officer once again becomes frozen with fear, one of the thugs grabs his gun.  Just as this is occuring, GA and Speedy happen by in the Arrowcar. Suddenly, there's a loud "ME-EE-EOW" and another cat leaps out of nowhere,  knocking the gun out of the crook's hand.  Fred recovers from his paralysis, retrieves his firearm and aids Green Arrow and Speedy in capturing the gang. 

In the next to last panel, Green Arrow is shown holding what appears to be a cat with an arrow sticking out of its butt.  (...and where else but in a blog about comics would I ever get an opportunity to write a sentence like that?)  He explains that the cat which attacked the crook was actually a dummy attached to an arrrow.  The meowing was produced by a fluted arrow fired by Speedy.  GA had reasoned that the way to cure Jenkins' fear of cats was to arrange for a cat to save his life.   The logic of that sounds a little shaky to me, but it works.  The story ends with the now cured rookie petting the very cat the criminal gang had sicced on him earlier.

Now retired, former police officer Fred Jenkins lives by himself in a trailer with three dozen cats and a ferret named Speedy. 

Green Arrow Showcased

Showcase Presents Green Arrow  collects the Emerald Archer's Silver Age adventures in one five hundred thirty page black and white volume.  Beginning with the first  Green Arrow story illustrated by Jack Kirby, the book brings together stories from World's Finest and Adventure Comics with Green Arrow's early appearances in The Brave and the Bold with his initiation into the JLA in Justice League of America #4. 

We've all heard it said that prior to his revamp in B&B #85, Green Arrow was a Batman wanna-be without much of a personality.  That's true as far as it goes.  Like Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen is a millionaire with a youthful ward who fights crime along side him.   All the faux-Bat accoutrements are on hand, as well, including the Arrow Cave, the Arrow Car, the Arrow Plane and the Arrow Signal. As far as the lack of personality goes, to be fair, most of  these stories were only eight pages long and it is hard to squeeze a complete story and characterization into that short a space.  The stories themselves tend to be formulaic and a bit repetitive.  There are two separate stories in here where GA meets a circus clown who parodies the archer in his act.  Of course, those stories were originally published several years apart and the writer probably never foresaw that they would end up collected in a book together.  

What imagination did go into these stories seems to have been mostly directed to coming with the wide array of trick arrows that Green Arrow and Speedy, and occasionally their female counterpart Miss Arrowette, use to help them catch the bad guys. There were, of course, the ubiquitous net, and handcuff arrows as well as the infamous boxing glove arrow.  Among some of the more unusual were:

• cloud seeding arrow
• hypnotic arrow
• rain arrow
• aqualung arrow
• short circuit arrow
• fountain pen arrow
• two stage rocket arrow 
• tumbleweed arrow
• sun arrow 
• antler arrow
• needle arrow
• baby rattle arrow
• bubble gum arrow
• chimney sweep arrow
• salt arrow
• inflatable Green Arrow and Speedy dummy arrows
• combination boomerang-balloon arrow
• cobweb arrow
• bloodhound arrow
• paintbrush arrow
• anchor arrow
• avalanche arrow
• mummy arrow
• 2 way radio arrow 
• fire extinguisher arrow
• blackout arrow

In one story, the Battlin' Bowmen take to sea equipped with an "aqua bow" and special aqua arrows that include:

• octopus arrow
• glowfish arrow
• jellyfish arrow
• electric eel arrow

Coming from Miss Arrowette's quiver are:

• hairpin arrow
• powder puff arrow
• lotion arrow 
• mirror arrow
• hair tint arrow
• kerchief arrow
• hair net arrow
• bubble bath arrow
• nail file arrow

Then there's the stuffed cat arrow.  But that really deserves a post of its own.

In the final analysis, for what they are, which is basically short adventure stories meant to entertain kids for a few minutes, these stories really aren't bad.  They also feature some pretty good art.  After the Kirby issues, most of the stories are drawn by Lee Elias.  Elias started his cartooning career as an assistant to Milton Caniff, and the Caniff influence is clear in the characters' faces and Elias' use of shadow.  Other artists represented include original GA artist George Papp, Mike Sekowsky on the JLA issue, and Neal Adams on the groundbreaking B&B #85.

Overall, this is a volume that I would recommend to any fan of Green Arrow or Silver Age Comics in general.

Green Arrow #9

In the interest of getting the unpleasant part out of the way as quickly as possible, I'm going to kick off Green Arrow Month 2 by reviewing the latest issue of the current Green Arrow monthly series.  I picked up #9 last week just to see if the series was still as bad as it started out last year.  Of course, I could have saved myself the three bucks by simply looking at the cover and seeing if J.T. Krul was still the writer.  I'll give Krul the benefit of a doubt and concede that he may, in fact, be capable of writing a decent comic book story.  It appears, however, that said story would not be one featuring Oliver Queen.

For those of you who've wisely avoided the Arrow's latest adventures, let me hit you with a little set-up before we get to the review.  After killing the villain Prometheus for destroying a huge chunk of Star City at the end of Justice League: Cry for Justice, Ollie turned himself over to the authorities to stand trial.  Found not guilty by a sympathetic jury of Star City residents, Ollie was nonetheless ordered by the judge to leave Star City and never return.  In Brightest Day #0, a magical forest suddenly sprang up in the devastated area in the center of Star City.  Defying the court order, Green Arrow returned to Star City and took up residence in the forest.  Since then, he has been joined by "Knight of the Forest" Galahad, who may, or, of course, may not, be the Galahad of the Camelot legends.

As Green Arrow #9 begins, GA and Galahad have, in turn, been joined by Etrigan the Demon and Jason Blood, magically separated by the power of the forest, and the Phantom Stranger.  This issue is marginally better than the first couple, but that is damning with faint praise, as the poets would say. Issues #1 and #2 were ineffably awful, whereas #9 is simply terrible. 

By the way, speaking of poets, J.T. Krul is most definitely not one.  His dialogue for Etrigan is clunky and has no flow or rhythm whatsoever. Maybe he should have gotten Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn to write some limericks for the Demon, as they did in Blue Devil Summer Fun Annual #1 back in 1985.  Then at least something in this issue would have been worth reading.

After spouting some lines that I suppose are meant to be cryptic but come off more as simply utterly nonsensical, the Stranger bows out.  He contributes nothing and I'm not sure what the hell he was even there for. Compounding the problem is the fact that artist Diogenes Neves draws the Stranger without ears.  I know that the Stranger's face is traditionally shrouded in shadow, but in Neves' rendering it doesn't just appear as if you can't see his ears, but as if he doesn't have any.  In the final panel of page three, the Stranger looks like one of those grey aliens you used to see meeting with the Presidential candidates in The Weekly World News, but with a hat.  Other than that, though, the art isn't all that bad. Not great, but not bad, either. 

After the Stranger splits, Etrigan's evil begins to infect the forest, causing it to turn dark and attack Ollie, Blood and Galahad.  As they struggle to protect the White Tree at the heart of the forest, Galahad is swallowed up by an evil tree and Arrow find himself battling giant magical spiders.  

That last paragraph perfectly illustrates my whole problem not only with this issue, but this entire series so far.  The premise is all wrong for Green Arrow.   I could certainly see Ollie taking the Robin Hood schtick to its logical extreme and hanging out in a forest, but not a magical forest populated by demons and giant spiders.  Green Arrow is a character who works best in more down to earth settings and stories.  Not to mention the fact  that the stories are just plain bad.  I know I've said that several times over the course of this post, but it seems I just can't emphasize enough what a mess DC has made of Green Arrow over the course of the last year.

Green Arrow Month 2

You might have noticed that March is upon us once again, and, just as I did last year, I am unilaterally declaring this Green Arrow Month, in which I shall post a series of entries paying tribute to the Emerald Archer.  

Why  am I doing this again?  

Well, there are a couple of posts I meant to do last year before I kind of ran out of steam, and there are several Green Arrow comics that I've read in the intervening year that I feel are worth writing about.

Some of the topics I'll be covering in the days to come are:

• Green Arrow's appearances in The Brave and the Bold volumes 2 and 3
• a review of Showcase Presents Green Arrow
• Alan Moore's Green Arrow story from Detective Comics #449 and 450 in 1985
• Green Arrow's Hostess Fruit Pie Ad
• Green Arrow meets Jon Sable...sort of 
• a review of the latest issue of the current Green Arrow series

We'll kick off the festivities officially tomorrow with that review of the current issue.  See you then.