Yuku free message boards
Username or E-mail:
Password:
Forgot
Password?
Sign Up
Grab the Yuku app
Search:
RSS
Email
Collected Editions Discussion Forums
>
Collected Editions Discussion and Review Board
>
The DC Comics Time Capsule: August 1961
1
Point
Search this Topic:
«Prev
1
2
3
4
Next»
Jump
Forum Jump
Masterworks Message Board
DC Archives Message Board
Crisis On Infinite Comics!
BLAMMO! Message Board
Uncollected Editions: The Homegrown Hardcovers Binding Forum
Polling Central
CE Watchdog: All-Purpose Collected Editions Complaint Forum
Collected Editions Discussion and Review Board
The Vault
Binding Vault
<< Previous Topic
Next Topic >>
Re: The DC Comics Time Capsule: August 1961
Author
Comment
Commander Benson
Justice League of America # 7 (Oct.-Nov., 1961)
#1
[-]
Posts
: 249
Aug 17 11 4:31 PM
Reply
Quote
More
My Recent Posts
“The Cosmic Fun-House”
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Writer: Gardner Fox
Art: Mike Sekowsky (pencils); Bernard Sachs (inks)
Honorary JLA member Snapper Carr and his girlfriend, Midge, attend the grand opening of a new amusement park in Happy Harbor. As soon as the local mayor and city councilmen are admitted, Snapper and Midge enter. Skipping the other rides, the teens “beat feet” for the fun-house. After progressing well into the attraction, Snapper and Midge pass through a rotating wall---to find themselves transported to an alien world, populated by bizarre, and most definitely savage, animals.
Snapper activates his JLA emergency signal. The three space-capable Leaguers---Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern---speed to the youngsters’ rescue, while the remaining members head for the Secret Sanctuary (which, contrary to popular belief, was
not
anywhere close to Happy Harbor, at least not by what we were told in the Silver Age; nor was there any reason for it to be). The Man of Steel and the Amazing Amazon and the Emerald Gladiator arrive in time to defeat a charge of attacking creatures. Then they pluck up Snapper and his girl and whisk them back to Earth.
Joining the rest of the League at its hidden headquarters, they listen while Snapper relates what had happened. What little he can explain, anyway. They swiftly realise that something isn’t so fun at the Happy Harbor fun-house. Assignments are handed out.
Superman will transport the Batman and J’onn J’onzz back to the alien world to rescue any other fun-house victims who may have been transported there, as Snapper and Midge were. To avoid tipping off whomever is behind the villainy, the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the Green Arrow will investigate the fun-house in their secret identities. Meanwhile, Aquaman, who has no civilian identity, remains behind at the Secret Sanctuary, with Snapper, to report on any rising developments.
Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Diana Prince, and Oliver Queen arrive at the amusement park. Per their plan, Barry is the first one to check out the fun-house. After passing by several displays, he arrives at the rotating wall that had sent Snapper and Midge into interstellar space. Barry pushes the wall, but instead of walking into what lies beyond, he vibrates himself into invisibility---and is stunned to see a double of himself emerge from the other side of the wall. Donning his Flash costume at super-speed, the Scarlet Speedster secretly follows the Barry Allen double. However, he is quickly captured by alien devices disguised as fun-house spectacles.
“Barry Allen” explains that he is one of the inhabitants of the planet Angellax, who were defeated in a space-war one hundred millennia earlier. Seeking vengeance on their foes, the disarmed Angellacans launched a space-probe set on a galaxy-wide course. The probe’s instruments would record the technical knowledge of all the inhabited worlds it passed, in hopes that one of those worlds possessed a super-weapon which the people of Angellax could duplicate and use to destroy their enemy. Since the probe would take 100,000 years to complete its journey and return, the Angellacans placed themselves in suspended animation.
So far, so good. However, when the Angellacans revived, a few months ago, they discovered that somebody goofed. Instead of returning to their world, the space-probe is due to land on Earth, in Happy Harbor. In order to retrieve the probe without alarming the forces of Earth or the Justice League, the aliens constructed a cosmic fun-house and teleported it to the location of the amusement park.
The “cosmidoor”, which Snapper, Midge, and various other park guests passed through, was fitted with both a teleportation device and a matter-duplicator. Each person passing through the door would be instantly whisked away to that distant world, while one of the Angellacans would be transformed into that person’s duplicate.
One of the effects of the duplication was to imbue the transformed alien with all of the knowledge held by his human template. Thus, the Barry Allen alien now knows of the Justice League’s plans.
In short order, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are also ensnared by the otherworldly devices in the fun-house and other Angellacans are turned into their doubles.
After imprisoning the four super-heroes in a death trap, the Barry Allen and Hal Jordan aliens switch to “the Flash” and “Green Lantern” and signal the other Leaguers to return to the Secret Sanctuary. Once together, the other members listen to “the Flash” and “Green Lantern” feed them a phoney story, naming the League’s old foe, Xotar of the year A.D. 11,960, as the mastermind.
The “heroes” send Superman, Batman, and the Martian Manhunter on a wild goose chase, to find Xotar in the year 11,961. Meanwhile, they will take Aquaman back to the fun-house to “destroy” the teleportation device. Once back at the amusement park, the phoney Flash and G.L. lure the Sea King into the fun-house on a pretext.
Unknown to the aliens, the four captured JLAers have escaped their death-trap. Racing to put paid to the Angellacans’ scheme, they pass through a series of fun-house mirrors which physically distort their bodies in the same fashion in which they appear in the glass. The bizarre shapes of their bodies prevent them from effectively using their super-powers.
At the same time, the space-probe lands on the grounds of the amusement park, and “the Flash” and “Green Lantern” enlist the help of some bystanders---actually, other Angellacans transformed into Earth people---to appropriate it.
The aliens’ success seems to be in the bag. The distorted Justice Leaguers are helpless to intervene. Things take a big twist, though, by the timely arrival of---Aquaman. Quickly, the four altered members fill him in on the real scoop, and then the Marine Marvel goes to work! The distorted Flash’s legs are too thick and ponderous for him to run, so Aquaman gives him a spin with enough momentum for his super-speed to kick in. Wonder Woman has become so morbidly obese that she cannot lift her arm, so Aquaman lifts it for her, enabling her to toss her magic lasso. Similarly, the Sea King uses other tactics to help Green Lantern and Green Arrow use their abilities.
In short order, the Angellacans are thumped down real good. G.L. uses his power ring to change all of them back to their true forms and then puts the aliens in another 100,000-year sleep before sending them on a one-way emerald rocket-ride back to Angellax. The Leaguers place the space-probe in the Secret Sanctuary’s trophy room for safekeeping, just in time for Superman and Batman and the Manhunter to return from the future and ask “Wha’ hoppen?”
Once all the displaced Earthlings are returned and the alien devices destroyed, the Happy Harbor amusement park re-opens as a legitimate attraction. In a cute, but ‘way too coïncidental coda to the tale, we see the individual Justice League members, in their civilian identities---except for Aquaman, who’s left out in the cold, again---taking in the fun of the park, accompanied by their significant others. Amusingly, they pass by each other in the crowd without realising it.
________________________________________________________________________
For those who had been fans of the Justice League of America since its debut in
The Brave and the Bold
# 28 (Feb.-Mar., 1960), this story was a real change-of-pace.
From the group’s inception, writer Gardner Fox had scripted his JLA adventures using one reliable formula for distributing the action among the various members. (Eventually, Fox would go on to develop
four
distinct formulae for employing the League membership, but at this stage, he was still relying on his original format.)
With an occasional minor deviation, the formula worked like this: The Justice League would become embroiled in a case. However, some excuse would sideline the World’s Finest Team---Superman and Batman---from the main action, reducing their presence to little more than cameos. A couple of times, they wouldn’t even show up at all, such as in
JLA
# 6 (Aug.-Sep., 1961) and # 8 (Dec, 1961-Jan., 1962).
That left a core group of five heroes---Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onzz, and Wonder Woman (six, after Green Arrow joined the team)---to confront the menace. The threat would always present itself early on in separate, smaller versions, forcing the Leaguers to divide into three sub-groups. Each sub-team, receiving a chapter of its own, would face the lesser menace, and then the smaller teams would regroup in the end to square off against the main villain.
As I mentioned, every once in a while, Fox would tweak this pattern, but just a little. A few times, the League divided into two groups, instead of three. And Superman and Batman actually got to play with the rest of their buddies in
JLA
# 1 (Oct.-Nov., 1960) and # 2 (Dec., 1960-Jan., 1961).
It’s a credit to Fox’s writing skill that he actually re-ran this formula over and over for two years and still kept the fans eager for more. Truth to tell, though, he got a great deal of momentum out of the fact that, at this early stage of the Silver Age, it was a novelty for comics fans to see their “favorite heroes banded together to stamp out the forces of evil.” (Just imagine!)
“The Cosmic Fun-House” was the first JLA adventure to distinctively break out of that formula. There was no “dividing into three sub-teams of heroes” business. Smaller groupings of heroes
did
appear, but for reasons that made sense. The three JLAers who rescued Snapper and Midge from the alien planet were the three members capable of travelling through space on their own. When the Justice League decided to investigate the fun-house in their civilian ID’s, Aquaman, who didn’t have one, remained behind. (Why the Sea King couldn’t have just put on a suit and gone with the others, well, I don’t know---but leaving him behind made comic-book sense, anyway.)
More evident that the usual outline was being tossed aside was the fact that the chapters weren’t broken down to give each smaller group its own section. Instead, the composition of heroes actively involved in the case at any given time shifted as the dynamics of the case did.
Granted, some aspects of Fox’s original formula remained in place. Superman and Batman quickly got shunted away from the main action. Twice! The Martian Manhunter also got the short shrift in this tale, but that was necessary. The big finish involved Aquaman aiding the distorted JLA members in using their powers to defeat the aliens. With his natural ability to change shape, the Manhunter wouldn’t have been affected by the fun-house mirrors, at least, not for long. And that would have undone Aquaman’s contribution to the doings.
Let’s talk about the Marine Marvel for a second. Even this early in the series’ run, Gardner Fox was discovering that Aquaman’s presence in the JLA was becoming a difficult fit. In order to give Aquaman something to do, a plot had to contain at least one chapter involving the ocean or some other large body of water. That was becoming more and more of a restriction on Fox’s scripts. He couldn’t even take the JLA out into space on a case without allowing for some sort of water-action, along with accounting for the Sea King’s inability to be out of water for more than an hour at a time.
Even so, Fox managed to include a suitable environment for Aquaman in his stories all the way through to 1964. (Significantly though, even though the final
JLA
issue written by Fox was # 65, the last time he depicted Aquaman in action underwater occurred in issue # 50---almost two years before that!)
“The Cosmic Fun-House”, then, was also notable for featuring no water-related scenes, but still including Aquaman, and having him make a significant contribution, to boot. True, most of what Aquaman did to get his afflicted buddies into action could have been accomplished by any ordinary Joe Doakes. But, in the case of the distorted Green Lantern, the Sea King was able to restore the Emerald Crusader’s use of his power ring by employing knowledge only gained through his association with G.L. in the League.
I found Fox’s use of Aquaman in this story pleasing and a good answer to anyone who thinks that Aquaman is useful only for talking to fish and collecting shells off the sea bottom.
Last Edited By:
Commander Benson
Aug 18 11 6:46 AM. Edited 6 times.
<< Previous Topic
Next Topic >>
Forum Jump
Masterworks Message Board
DC Archives Message Board
Crisis On Infinite Comics!
BLAMMO! Message Board
Uncollected Editions: The Homegrown Hardcovers Binding Forum
Polling Central
CE Watchdog: All-Purpose Collected Editions Complaint Forum
Collected Editions Discussion and Review Board
The Vault
Binding Vault
Share This
Email to Friend
del.icio.us
Digg it
Facebook
Blogger
Yahoo MyWeb
«Prev
1
2
3
4
Next»
Jump
Collected Editions Discussion Forums
>
Collected Editions Discussion and Review Board
>
The DC Comics Time Capsule: August 1961
Click to subscribe by RSS
Click to receive E-mail notifications of replies