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Saturday, September 24, 2011

Super Friends #35 - Aug. 1980

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Comics Weekend "Circus of the Super-Stars" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Romeo Tanghal, and Bob Smith.

For once, the circus is not some grim, sad repository of scary carnies, rigged games, and animal neglect, and that's because this circus features guest performances by...The Super Friends!
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Night falls, and the circus starts. Millionaire Bruce Wayne (millionaire industrialists love the circus, everyone knows that) and his youthful ward Dick Grayson are in the stands watching Batman and Robin perform some amazing acrobatics!

Meanwhile, across town, a gang of costumed crooks are attempting a robbery of valuable paintings, only to be stopped by...Batman and Robin! But how?!?

Back at the circus, the next act is going on: a death-defying high-dive, and that can only mean one man:
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Once again, we go back to the circus, where Superman and Wonder Woman perform acts of amazing strength, only to have them also on hand to stop another robbery miles away. What's going on here? Who are the real Super Friends?!?

We then see who is behind the threat to shut down the circus, or else: a shady thug who is about to set the main tent on fire! The Wonder Twins are there to try and stop him, but luckily the Super Friends are also on hand:
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...The End!


I love that the Super Friends were willing to risk the lives of their dopplegangers, sending them out to fight real crooks, just because they didn't want to be guilty of "false advertising." Seems like a kinda risky plan to me, but who am I to judge? I'm not a Super Friend!

With no back-up strip in this issue, each of the Friends got their own segment, and I loved Romeo Tanghal's pacing of Aquaman's word-less high-dive. I missed the great Ramona Fradon of course, but with Bob Smith on inks this issue looks pretty darn good.

Going by this issue's cover (by Fradon and Smith), I was worried this would be a totally Aquaman-free story, but this is one instance of the old cliche, don't judge a book by its cover!

3 comments:

Joseph Brian Scott said...

Fun issue. Imagine B&R re-enacting that cover today. Ah, yes; I remember the long-ago '80s, when kids wore plaid caps and rich people flaunted their top hats.

Russell said...

Yeah, this was the issue I got my LOC printed about in SUPER FRIENDS #40!
Aquaman's high dive was definitely the "high" point of the issue. :-)

http://www.aquamanshrine.com/2010/10/super-friends-40-jan-1981.html

Wings1295 said...

I was thinking the same thing, this was gonna be Aqua-free. But nope! Love the dive sequence, as well!