Action 566 – the last Captain Strong story

Captain Strong, the version of Popeye introduced in this book in the early 70s, makes one final appearance, in Action 566 (April 1985), by Craig Boldman, Ron Randall and Karl Kesel.

Lois Lane and Clark Kent join Captain Strong and his love, Olivia as they sail out to find the Fountain of Youth – not that Lois and Clark knew that was the plan.

There is an evil old woman, cloaked in purple, who is the villain of the story.  I don’t know if she is based on a Popeye character, but his long-lost Pappy certainly is, and a similar character appears in this tale.

And just to get the cover image in, the old witch conjures up a Superman apparition, which Captain Strong defeats after eating sauncha.

Not a great story, but it’s nice to see the character one last time.

 

Action 565 – Wizard City returns, and Ambush Bug ends

The third and final Ambush Bug cover on Action Comics 565 (March 1985).

Superman does get the lead story in this issue, by Mort Todd and Kurt Schaffenberger, which brings back Wizard City, a fabled Kryptonian town that landed intact on Earth in Superboy’s day, long before Kandor was introduced.  I talked about the Wizard City story when I covered Adventure Comics in the previous blog.

It has been discovered, and looted, by a thief who is making the most of his stolen Kryptonian tech.

Jimmy Olsen’s father, who was a young man in the original story, returns with information linking the criminal to the site.

The thief tries to kill Superman with a Kryptonian virus he found in the city, but Superman prevails, and buries Wizard City deep int he Earth’s crust, never to be seen again.

Ambush Bug has his final outing in Action, with Giffen, Fleming and Oskner finding exactly the right angle for the character.  This story introduces some of the odd supporting cast, as well as the plot device of having Ambush Bug travel from hero to hero during the course of the story.  Peabody, of Peabody, Dicker and Pending, opens the story with his Ambush Bug merchandising plans.

Lots of great references to old goofy stories as Ambush visits Superman.  All but one of the stories referenced in this bit have already been covered in this blog!

While the Inarticulate Bug would not return, satirizing Jack Kirby would become a staple of the series.

Giant penny!

The Uh-Oh Squad also make their first appearance in this story. The title is clearly a reference to the Suicide Squad, a team which had not had a strip since the early 60s.  The logo chosen is that of The Omega Men.  This always puzzled me, and did Giffen know of Ostrander’s upcoming Suicide Squad book?  Or is it just coincidence?

And as he visits with Wonder Woman, Ambush Bug demonstrates that there is no lie he will not tell in order to get a hero to guest star in his strip.

And some nice meta-stuff, just to top it all off.

Such a great strip.  Ambush Bug returns in a couple of months in a DC Comics Presents team-up with Superman against Kobra.

Action 564 – Superman trapped in a new life

Kupperberg and Saviuk are joined by Mike DeCarlo as the Master Jailer pulls off a devious attack in Action 564 (Feb. 85).

The Master Jailer had been introduced in the late 70s, and appeared a few times, but this marks his first time in the pages of Action.  Carl Draper usually has a psychological element to his attacks on Superman, as well as the physical side, and this time he traps him in a completely different identity, Mike Barton, with no awareness of being Superman, or even Clark Kent.

The Monitor and Harbinger appear, as Draper got the tech for his attack through them.  The Monitor warns Master Jailer that Superman’s memory might return if he sees anything familiar.  Draper keeps the costume, and thinks that everything will be fine – but of course we already see the story’s “out.”

But for a while, Superman enjoys the simple, blue collar life of Mike Barton, while Master Jailer runs wild, with the invulnerable costume under his.  Must be sooo hot in all that.

The scene eventually comes in which “Mike” has to wear a Superman costume.  As soon as its on, he remembers everything, and takes out Master Jailer.

This is the final appearance of the villain.  There were a few post-Crisis attempts to revive him, but like Terra-Man, he failed to gain the status he had at this time.

 

Action 563 – Ambush Bug loses his suit, Mr. Mxyzptlk wants his own show, and Jimmy Olsen becomes a blob

Three stories in Action 563 (Jan.85), all represented in Giffen’s great cover.

Ambush Bug gets the lead story in the issue, by Giffen, Fleming and Oskner.  Clark Kent is around, in his newscaster guise, and as Superman, but Bethany Snow, from New Teen Titans, and Jack Ryder, better known as the Creeper, also cameo on the first page.  Ted Baxter, from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, almost appears.

There is some degree of story in this one, as Ambush Bug works on his suit, and shorts it out.

A running gag with the character is the origin story, which always involves a person named Irwin Schwab, but otherwise is a pastiche of other heroes origins.  Ambush Bug relates one of these absurd stories to Superman.

Superman dismisses it as nonsense, until he realizes Ambush Bug just told him his own origin.

E. Nelson Bridwell, Alex Saviuk and Dennis Jensen give Mr. Mxyzptlk a yen for the boob tube in the second story in this issue.  The 5th dimensional imp demands his own television show on WGBS, but Morgan Edge refuses.

So Mr. Mxyzptlk wreaks havoc with the networks programming.  Although the story posits this as a bad thing, in reality I’m sure the ratings went through the roof, as everyone tuned in to see what crazy shit was going to happen.  Anyway, Mxyzptlk has made saying, or even writing, his name backwards impossible for anyone.

Superman gets around this by thinking of his Bizarro World counterpart, Kltpzyxm, when setting up his trap.

The issue is rounded out by a Jimmy Olsen adventure, by Craig Boldman, Howard Bender and Pablo Marcos.

Hoping to save a falling girl, Jimmy drinks from an old vial of his Elastic Lad serum, but it turns him into a big blob instead.

He is unable to speak, and is treated as a monster, even by his date for the evening.  Superman figures out what has happened, the serum was corrupted by a radioactive substance it sat next to.  He cures Jimmy in time to still have his planned date, but the girl’s reaction, freaking out just because he metamorphosized, makes it clear this woman is not up to Jimmy Olsen’s speed.

Action 562 – Queen Bee meets King Alexander

Alexander the Great, aka the Planeteer returns, now calling himself King Alexander, in the Rozakis, Schaffenberger and Hunt story in Action 562 (Dec. 84).

The story has a subplot about Steve Lombard,who was fired from WGBS by Morgan Edge in the pages of Superman.  He is starring in a production of Damn Yankees, and has sent opening night tickets to Clark, Lana, Jimmy and Perry White.  Perry actually winds up stopping a pair of robbers during the show, and his wife Alice gets a small role.

Queen Bee gets most of the attention in the story.  She has been causing magnetic anomalies throughout Metropolis.  She has found an immortality serum that needs a constant recharge of magnetic energy to allow her to stay mobile.

And who should also be back in Metropolis but the magnetically powered Alexander?

They hit it off, and Alexander thinks its true love and world conquest, unaware that he is being drugged, and his power drained, by Zazzala.

Mind you, even when Superman explains to him what is going on, he just chooses not to believe it.  He has fallen hard.  Superman uses the couple’s magnetism against them.

This is the final appearance of Alexander the Great aka Planeteer aka King Alexander, and the Queen Bee is next seen in the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

And Steve Lombard’s revival of Damn Yankees closes after one night.

Action 561 – Toyman’s trivia contest

The pre-Crisis Toyman gets his last major appearance against Superman in Action 561 (Nov. 84), thanks to Kupperberg, Schaffenberger and Jensen.

The Toyman gets released from prison, and insists that he has gone straight.  Superman has his doubts, Schott went straight once before, and that didn’t last.  The Toyman has spent millions getting air time for a game show, in which contestants answer questions about the Toyman’s career.

Superman watches the show, and is amazed at how much the contestants know about the Toyman.

When none of the finalists can answer the final question, about the first toy Winslow Schott built, but a man in the audience can, Superman gets very suspicious, particularly when the man is carried away by toys.

It turns out the entire contest was a set-up for Schott to find this guy, a childhood rival, who stole his first toy.  Schott actually expects to get it back, but of course the guy threw it away years ago.

We also learn that the other contestants were just toys that Schott had built.

Toyman makes one further pre-Crisis appearance, in the pages of Blue Devil.

 

Action 560 – Superman vs John Doe, and Ambush Bug begins

Ambush Bug steals the Giffen cover of Action 560 (Oct. 84).  Oh, go and sulk, Superman, it’s not as if you have a minimum of three other cover appearances this month.

The Superman story in the issue, by Kupperberg, Saviuk and Hunt, is decent enough.  John Doe is a former prisoner, who feels he was wrongfully jailed.  It sounds good at the start, but as the tale progresses we get the sense that he was guilty, and just refuses to take responsibility.

At any rate, with some nifty energy cuffs he is able to destroy the buildings of the justice system, and send Superman flying.

John Doe has acquired these through the Monitor, one of his many cameos in the months leading up to Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Of course, once Superman is prepared for the effect of the cuffs, he is able to withstand it, and shatter them.

But who cares about that story?  Ambush Bug steals the interior, the same way he stole the cover, in this story by Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming and Bob Oskner.  This is Ambush Bug’s first solo outing, although Superman appears throughout the story, an follows his appearance in Supergirl a few months earlier.

Ambush Bug has opened a detective agency in Metropolis, and Superman comes to check it out, as Clark Kent.

Ambush Bug sees through that disguise right away, although he doesn’t actually deduce that Clark Kent is his secret identity.  The story strikes just the perfect notes of chaos and comedy.

And though Superman is the butt of much of the humour, the story is not demeaning to the character at all.

Ambush Bug makes his first appearance as Ginsu the ninja as this debut installment comes to a close.

Ambush Bug gets two more back-up stories in Action Comics within the year.

Action 559 – The Yellow Peri comes back

The Yellow Peri, a magic user that had caused problems for Superboy a couple of years earlier in his book, returns to cause trouble for Superman in the Rozakis, Schaffenberger and Hunt story in Action 559 (Sept. 84).

Loretta is now married to Alvin Grant, a real creep who married her to win a bet with his friends.  her magic book just comes out of the sky, crashing through their ceiling one day.  With the book in her hands, she can make pretty much anything happen.  Alvin thinks of all the money he can make off of her.

She believes that they are going around being helpful, stopping disasters and cleaning up polluted areas, but Alvin is exploiting everything to make money.  It’s not illegal, but it goes against the normal code of heroes.  Superman is watchful.

Trying to get him out of the way, Alvin makes it look like Superman is trying to kill him, in hopes that Loretta will kill Superman.  But that doesn’t work.

It’s like a bizarre version of Bewitched, but not a funny one, though I think it’s trying to be.

Not having broken any laws, nothing happens to Alvin, and the couple return a few months down the road.

Action 557 – Terra-Man gets bored

Kupperberg, Swan and Hunt give Terra-Man his last major pre-Crisis appearance in Action 557 (July 1984).

The story begins with a wild west showdown between Terra-Man and Superman, although we learn that this is just a robot in a robot town, which Terra-Man uses to amuse himself.  But he is bored, and comes to Earth to perform a series of pointless robberies, stealing the same paintings over and over, just to bait Superman.

Terra-Man leaves word as to where the paintings are located, and then, while Lana Lang broadcasts their retrieval by Inspector Henderson, Terra-Man bursts in to steal them again, live on tv.

The mid-air robbery is fun, and I wouldn’t have minded this sequence extended to be a story unto itself.  At least it serves as the climax to this tale.

Terra-Man has only cameos between now and the reboot of Superman.  And despite a couple of efforts at re-booting this character, the original remains the best.

 

Action 556 – Superman vs Vandal Savage

The Vandal Savage storyline is brought to a conclusion by Wolfman, Swan and Schaffenberger in Action 556 (June 1984).

The story recaps the various attacks Savage has made on Superman, both direct and indirect.  While the hero is still alive and well, Savage’s plan to tarnish his reputation has gone much better.

Savage uses another of his high tech machines to affect Superman’s hearing, sending him out of control.  He then sends out more of his Superman robots to bring him under control, once again making the hero look bad.

Superman is not sure what to do against Savage, whose actions have largely been legal, if evil.  He consults with Batman, and meets Jason Todd, the new Robin.

And as Clark Kent he has a heart-to-heart with Lana Lang, who has become so mature and compassionate that Lois seems like a cold and calculating bitch by comparison.

In the end, it is brains, not brawn, that decide the battle between them.  Superman goes to confront Savage, who is more than happy to brag about his schemes, and how he has succeeded at turning the people of Metropolis against Superman.  But Superman has been broadcasting the entire meeting.  With his true nature exposed, all of Vandal Savage’s actions become worthless in defaming the hero.

It’s a mild let down after such along running story.

Vandal Savage is next seen in the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths.