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Sunday, February 09, 2014

Brave and the Bold #29 - April 1960

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Comics Weekend "Challenge of the Weapons Master!" by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, and Bernard Sachs.

It's Adventure Sunday!

Aquaman's busy as a four-eyed flounder in 1960! He's having his own adventures over in Adventure, where he's just adopted a kid sidekick, as well as taking on world-threatening foes alongside the Justice League of America!
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In the year 11,960, an arch criminal named Xotar finds himself under the thumb of the Interstellar Police, who attempting to get into his super-secret lab. Xotar has made many different wondrous weapons, but doesn't know which one will work best! Using his time-traveling robot, Xotar goes back in time with a plan to use each of these weapons on the Justice League of America! Whichever one works best is the one he will use against the police. Sounds like a perfect, not-needlessly-complicated plan!

Xotar arrives in 1960, and using his robot he goes after Snapper Carr, because of course any machine that can defeat the mighty Snapper Carr is an invention to be reckoned with:
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The Flash defeats Xotar's gravity ray, but he manages to escape, hopping back into the time stream to try out the second:
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Having been defeated again, Xotar summons Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern to fight him above "The living stone of the ring-necked pheasant!" Batman is dubious ("Sounds like kookie talk to me!"), but nevertheless they head out, wondering where their seventh member, Superman, is!

Turns out Xotar means the battle is taking place in South Dakota, at Mt. Rushmore. He is defeated once again, but he still has one weapon left to try. Speaking through the annoying lips of Snapper Carr, he summons the entire JLA to Alaska, where they are teleported to an alien planet filled with towering monsters! Or so it seems...turns out the fourth weapon is an illusion-maker, which makes the JLA think they are fighting fearsome creatures.

It's at this point Superman finally bothers to show up, destroying the illusion maker and preventing Xotar from escaping again:

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...and so ends another adventure for the Justice League of America!
 
Aquaman gets a bigger part to play this time around (yay), teamed with Martian Manhunter, beginning what many writers would later develop as a friendship between the two within the JLA.

I like on the cover how all the JLAers are trying to defeat Xotar's robot using their own special set of skills, but for some reason Aquaman brought a sledgehammer.


6 comments:

The Daily Superman Podcast said...

Haha! A fun adventure with some hilarious commentary. Snapper Carr has always driven me crazy, I'm not sure what role he serves, other than reemphasizing that if you don't have powers you can either be a) Batman or b) ,annoying & worthless.

And I can't help but laugh at the location of the gun on Weapon Master's exo suit. Nice gun placement. He is obviously trying to compensate for something.

Anthony said...

The Zoo Crew comic in the 80s had a parody of the cover---a duck version of Xotar vs the Justa Lotta Animals, Aquaduck included... minus the sledgehammer (though entirely in the robot's grip) ;-)

Joseph Brian Scott said...

The teletubbies will be influential in giant robot design in the far future.

Unknown said...

Viva Adventure Sunday!

Graphic evidence that Aquaman was the most practical JLAer by miles: Everyone else forgot to bring their sledgehammers to the fight.

Gotta love the lengths they would go in the name of teamwork: Jonn could have just flown Aquaman to the fight.

Sekowsky's work looks better to me as I get older. I always thought of him as clunky (same with Ross Andru). But I think he does okay with Aquaman. He seems better with swimming than he does with flying.

James Chatterton

r duncan said...

Re: sledgehammer. At least he wasn't propelled into the air by a broken fire hydrant.

Chris Franklin said...

Of course this cover was a homage to All-Star Comics #43, also edited by Julie Schwartz!

http://www.dcindexes.com/gallery/!dc/allstar/allstar43.jpg

I really like the art in these early JLA tales. Sekowsky is less...wonky than he got later on. Maybe he was into it more. Sachs inks were smoother and reined him in more than Sid Greene as well.

Chris