Month: February 2022

Untold Tales #508 Hawkman vs Synn

Sometimes you’ve just gotta play the cards you’re dealt, and this covers an example of that.

Random Retrospective #7 – JLA #73

I know we had an issue of JLA a couple of weeks ago, but as these posts are looking just at my comic collection, there’s a fair bet it’s going to be DC heavy so expect some titles to crop up more than once.

Joe Kelly’s run on JLA was probably, for me at least, dominated by this storyline, The Obsidian Age, where the JLA go to Atlantis in the past and end up being killed, forcing Batman to enact a Plan B which saw Nightwing lead a bunch of mostly second string heroes as a reserve JLA to beat the bad guy and bring the main team back. That reserve JLA included a hero called Faith who, I think, got on to the League for the same reason that Naomi has these days – she was the creation of the writer.

The team travel to Atlantis in the present because some crazy old witch has moved most of the Earth’s water from one side of the planet to the other, destabilising the orbit. The find and confront the witch who really has bonded with her native land:

And despite holding the upper hand for about two seconds, the League are defeated by the witch just before the island is bombed by the air force on the command of Lex Luthor (as he’s President of the US at this point.)

That explosion is a new form of bomb which provides enough energy for the ring-generated energy form holding the spirit of Green Lantern (stay with me, people) to grab the team and protect them. He introduces them to Manitou Raven and says they’ve been waiting for 3,000 years in order to work out a plan to go back in time and save everyone.

I remember thinking at the time that The Obsidian Age probably went on a couple of issues too long – it was a prelude and seven issues – and re-reading this one still has me feeling that; it’s too drawn out when it should have been tighter. Can’t help thinking that it was waiting for a trade collection, to be honest.

That said, I enjoyed Kelly’s run on the whole and I think it gets forgotten a little as it follows Morrison and then Waid on the title, which is a shame.

Untold Tales #507 Cosmic Boy vs All Star Squadron

What’s caused Cosmic Boy to turn against the heroes of World War II? Of have the All Star Squadron committed some crime?

Yet Another Mystery Solved

Close on three years ago, I mentioned finding an issue of DAREDEVIL that resolved a mystery that had been hanging around in my head since I was a kid of seven or eight. If you’ll pardon me for quoting the start of that post:

Way, way, way back in the late 70s when I was about 7 or 8, I had what my ailing memory informs me was an INCREDIBLE HULK annual. Over here in the UK, Annuals were about A4 sized, hardback, and usually released in the run-up to Christmas. British kids’ comics like THE BEANO and THE DANDY were staples for years, and as I got older, I’d get the 2000AD annual and even an ACTION annual which was the first time I read about Hook Jaw. But at some point, I had that INCREDIBLE HULK annual which contained a selection of stories.

I’m pretty sure there was one involving the Fantastic Four, possibly transporting the Hulk by plane; definitely one with the Hulk who ended up fighting some huge pink-skinned creature with yellow, fly-like eyes. The Hulk thought he was protecting the nearby mining town from the pink guy but it turned out the pink guy was welcomed in the town and was one of them, leaving the Hulk alone and rejected. (If anyone knows what that story is, let me know)

Sadly, no-one has let me know about either of those stories, but never fear – with the wonders of the internet, I’ve come across the Hulk vs the pink guy story!

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #179 from 1974 and that “huge pink-skinned creature with yellow, fly-like eyes” turns out to be a character called the Missing Link.

Finding that issue online and re-reading it, I was surprised (much like the Daredevil story in the post linked above) just how much I remembered, with even specific panels sticking in my head.

Hulk crashing to the ground after falling from a spaceship and being struck by a missile (all of which happened in the first three pages!)

The first meeting between Banner and Lincoln:

So much came flooding back! As to the story itself, despite his initial reservations, Banner comes to like Lincoln and enjoys a peaceful couple of weeks with the family until one of the young boys becomes ill, suffering from radiation sickness, caused (unknowingly) by proximity to Lincoln. Banner tries to do the right thing and tell Lincoln he should leave town to stop harming the people who have given him a home and the big guy reacts as you’d expect.

All of which leads to the inevitable fight between the two as they hurl machinery and all manner of vehicles at one another.

They fall into the mines and, for some reason, Lincoln’s radioactivity kicks in, giving him the opportunity to realise that Banner was right before he explodes, wrecking the mine.

But as we’d seen earlier in the issue, the Missing Link is able to reform despite being blown to pieces, and it’s probably this final page that has stuck with me the most since I read it way back in the late 70s:

If the people of Lucifer Falls are so friendly and willing to forgive, if they took in Lincoln when he arrived as a misshapen stranger, why don’t they extend that same hospitality to the Hulk? Why do they happily rescue Lincoln, but not the emerald giant as well?

Man, you gotta feel sorry for the big guy . . .