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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The Secret of the Sinister Lighthouse - 1980

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Watch the Super Friends (simply called "Super Heroes" here) discover "The Secret of the Sinister Lighthouse"!

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Oh...this is plot of Dr. Light's? Don't anyone go anywhere, this will probably only take a couple of pages...

Anyway, we find Batman and Robin in the Bat-Plane. They see a light in the sky, initially thinking it's the Bat-Signal. But it isn't: it's a ray of light that is mysteriously drawing the Dynamic Duo in like a magnet! Over in Metropolis, the same thing happens to Superman, followed by Wonder Woman and Aquaman: 
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Superman finds himself trapped inside a Red Sun bubble, nullifying his powers. Wonder Woman too finds herself helpless when a ray of light binds her invincible bracelets together. Batman and Robin are dragged out of the Bat-Plane by another beam, and Aquaman is plucked out of the water by a ball of flame!:
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Superman remarks that Dr. Light is "Fully capable of destroying us all", clearly confusing him with someone else. At that same moment, Aquaman is already thinking up a plan, like a boss:
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The water pressure crushes the Red Sun bubble, freeing Superman. He then heads to the surface, and helps his fellow Super Friends escape from their prisons of light. With the heroes now free, capturing Dr. Light is as easy as a toss of a magical lasso:
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We'll be back after these messages!


Okay, some of you may be wondering just what the heck this is. "The Secret of the Sinister Lighthouse" was a mini-comic given away by General Mills in various boxes of Kellogg's cereal, back when comic book companies did that sort of thing on a regular basis.

This was one of a small line of such mini-comics, featuring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in solo adventures plus two Super Friends adventures. The first one "Prisoner of the Stars", was fairly humiliating for Aquaman, but this one was a nice change of pace: it's his action that starts the ball rolling, and ends up leading to the Super Friends defeating Dr. Light. Yay Aquaman!

I haven't been able to suss out any credits for this comic, story or art. The inking looks like Vince Colletta to me, but the pencils remain a mystery, much like Dr. Light's career as a super-villain.

(h/t: Scans courtesy The Quarter Bin blog)

 

4 comments:

Earth 2 Chris said...

Hmm...just a guess here, but he pencils MAY be by Romeo Tanghal, who penciled the Super Friends title around this time when Ramona Fradon left. Of course he's more famous for his inks over Perez on NTT, but he did do pencil work too.

DC was all over cereal back then. They had several post promotions going around the same time as well!

Thanks for sharing Rob. This is really neat!

Chris

Anthony Durso said...

These are neither General Mills nor Kellogg's...They were released by Post Cereal.

Randy Meyer said...

I was thinking Romeo Tanghal as the penciller as well. The art is very reminiscent of Superfriends comics I have from the end of the series. I was just rereading some the other day!

J.P. said...

Thanks for the h/t, Rob! Your blog is amazing, I'm so happy that I could help you out in any way!