Super Friends #38 - Nov. 1980

Comics Weekend "The Fate of the Phantom Super Friends!" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Vince Colletta.

With still no Aqua-centric New 52 books to look at this week (Great Neptune, it feels like its been months!), I thought we'd once again dip back into the pool of the Super Friends:

Later, two of the crooks make a grab at an art gallery. When the cops show up to arrest them, they find that the crooks are intangible! When they reach for their guns, they find those are intangible, too!

This case makes it way to the Super Friends, who discover the same thing when they split up to apprehend more of the crooks. First Superman, then Batman and Robin, and then Aquaman:

Wonder Woman fails to nab her targets, as well. She returns to the Hall of Justice where the rest of the team are trying to figure out how the crooks are pulling this off.

Diana gets an idea, and asks Zan and Janya to try and activate their powers, only to see they are intangible to each other, as well. Superman then spots Grax right outside, aiming some strange device at the Hall of Justice. They head outside, but:

Superman uses his super-breath to freeze Zan and Janya's hands, which allows them to transform when they touch. They in turn help the intangible and gravity-less Super Friends:

...The End!


Nice to see Aquaman get such a big sequence, even if he is pretty ineffectual at the end. I also particularly enjoyed how humiliatingly the Super Friends regard Grax at the end of the story.

Inker Vince Colletta was (in)famous for erasing backgrounds, presumably to get whatever book he was working on in on deadline; this issue seems to be one of those times: page fourteen, for example, looks like a coloring book, with its utter lack of any background detail.

Super Friends #37 - Oct. 1980

Comics Weekend "Bad Weather for Supergirl!" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Vince Colletta.

With no Aqua-centric New 52 books to look at this week, I thought we'd dip back into the pool of the Super Friends, featuring guest star Supergirl:

Linda takes off to change into her Supergirl costume, just in time for The Weather Wizard to show up!

Creating a ski slope made of ice, WW dives right into the hotel where the convention is being held (I did that at San Diego once), but before he can grab any loot, he's stopped by another WW, Wonder Woman!

Wizard knocks Wonder Woman off her feet, long enough to grab some items and take off. Wonder Woman trails behind him, with Supergirl now arriving to help out. They manage to grab the stolen items back from the Wizard, but he gets away.

A crowd of onlookers ask Wonder Woman for her autograph, while ignoring Supergirl, which hurts her feelings. Back in her identity as Linda, she subtly tries to figure out why the Maid of Steel was barely noticed, and the kids say that's because, where they're from, they see Supergirl all the time--Wonder Woman, though, is a big deal!

Suddenly Supergirl's pity party is interrupted again by the Weather Wizard, who sweeps in with a mini-tornado of his creation. The winds cause the hotel's roof collapses, and why Supergirl is busy rescuing victims, the Weather Wizard gets away. Or does he?

The Weather Wizard manages to elude all the Super Friends (must be because the SF are not used to fighting in such close quarters--yeah, that's it), until he is grabbed by Janya (shape of...an elephant!) and tossed into the bitter, bitter arms of Supergirl.

Later:

...The End!


Who knew Kara/Linda was so insecure? I thought that was Babs' side of the street!

Aquaman doesn't get a whole lot to do, but he does at least get to be seen mobbed by fans, as well as probably breaking Weather Wizard's jaw, something I always enjoy!

Super Friends #35 - Aug. 1980

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!

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:

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:

...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!

Super Friends #29 - Feb. 1980

Comics Weekend "Invisible Defenders of Earth!" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Bob Smith.

While Wonder Woman is on Monitor Duty at the JLA Satellite, she and The Wonder Twins (who are visiting; oh joy) see something startling on the viewscreen:

...I love how ticked off Wonder Woman gets. Get off of Earth's lawn, you aliens!!

Anyway, WW calls the Super Friends, just as the alien ship gets to Earth and starts to attack. It emits some sort of beam that kills all the organic life surrounding it!

Wonder Woman arrives, and hatches quite a plan: using her Magic Lasso, she vibrates the exposed parts of her body (and that's a lot!) into another dimension, leaving only her disembodied costume behind!

The rest of the team arrives, and are of course a little shocked to see Diana in such a state. Before she has the chance to explain, she does the same to Superman, and then the rest:

The bodiless Super Friends dispatch the aliens, and Wonder Woman returns them all to normal. She then takes care of the Kryptonite-lined force field machine, which enables Superman to carry the whole thing back into space:

...wait, that's it? Nine pages?

Yep, that was it--this issue's SF adventure is a mere nine pages. Following this the Wonder Twins get a solo adventure, and with comics page counts being what they were at the time (17-18 pages, the lowest in the history of the medium, I believe), that meant that if you were gonna do two stories in one book, they had to be short.

I decided to dig up an old issue of Super Friends because there's no Aquaman content in this week's New 52 books, and I wanted the Sea King to have some presence today. But little did I realize how a small a role he has here--he has exactly one line (page 5's "What an eerie feeling!") in the entire adventure!

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

Super Friends Special #1 - 1981

Comics Weekend Super Friends Special!

Since there's no Flashpoint stuff to cover, and this is the last Comics Weekend before DC's New 52 kicks in--which will keep the Shrine busy for the foreseeable future--I thought it'd be fun to take a look back at a beloved comic from my childhood--1981's Super Friends Special!

This is a 48-page book, with no ads, that was given away (I think) in boxes of Post Cereal. Maybe it was a mail-in thing; I don't remember and I couldn't find out for sure after researching it.

The inside covers feature black-and-white versions of two SF covers (#s 19 and 28, respectively). The first story is "The Mystery of the Missing Monkey", by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Bob Smith, from the aforementioned Super Friends #19. Its an unusual SF adventure, in that it opens with Aquaman!:

In this adventure, the Super Friends tangle with The Menagerie Man, who is not one the DCU's most fearsome foes. When he sets a bunch of animals loose at an auto show, it's up to our heroes to save the innocent and contain the animals without hurting them:

The Menagerie Man finally gets defeated by The Wonder Twins and Gleek, something he never quite lived down.

In the middle of the book is a rather extensive fun and games section, with all the Super Friends getting a couple of pages to themselves--plus The Flash!:

The second half of the book features another reprint, "Warhead Strikes At Gotham", by Bridwell, Fradon, and Vince Colletta, from Super Friends #36:

As a kid (and even today), I loved Plastic Man, and was thrilled to have him guest-star in one of my favorite comics. This is a fun story, even by Super Friends standards: in between fighting the Dick Tracy-esque villain Warhead (who looks like Beldar Conehead), Plastic Man learns that he and the Super Friends just get in each other's way:

They finally manage to defeat Warhead, but Plas resolves to just work with Woozy Winks in the future!

There's an ad for the Superman Club (which I can't believe I never joined), and then a cover gallery on the back:

This book, like so many things, was better in my memory than it is in reality--after all, its just two reprints sandwiched between two covers with some puzzles thrown in--but as a kid I loved these special editions, they were, well...special!

Super Friends #23 - Aug. 1979

Comics Weekend "SOS From Nowhere!" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Bob Smith.

With "Flashpoint" kicking into high gear very soon, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to cover a bunch of one-shots, guest appearances, and team-ups for the next couple of Comics Weekends.

To that end, it's been a little while since the Shrine looked at an issue of Super Friends, so let's see what happens this time:

Let's flashback to how the Super Friends found themselves in this predicament: The Wonder Twins, in their human identities of John and Joanna Fleming, are having lunch with some friends.

Janya's Super Friends bracelet goes off, indicating trouble. They make a Peter Parker-esque excuse as to why they have to leave so abruptly, and change into a crow and a bar of ice in a back alley.

They get a message from Superman, telling them to go to the Gotham Plaza Hotel. But when they get there, they can't find the Super Friends, nor do they see any signs of trouble!

But...we also see the Super Friends, in the very same hotel, wondering where the Wonder Twins are! What's going on here?

The Super Friends check the hotel registry, and find out that all the guests who have been robbed have kept their valuables in their suites, not the hotel safe. To prove that, the desk clerk (who strangely doesn't seem to know who the Super Friends are) opens the safe, showing all the riches inside.

But just at that moment, The Flash appears, attempting to vibrate into the safe! Wonder Woman stops him with her magic lasso, and Superman uses his x-ray vision to see that this is not the real Flash.

Meanwhile, the Wonder Twins are talking to the real(?) Flash via the Troubalert, and they report that the Super Friends have disappeared, right after being seen at the hotel. When they mention that another message was left for them telling to investigate the Gotham House of Mirrors, The Flash realizes who's the likely culprit behind the mystery: his old foe, The Mirror Master!

The Super Friends examine their prisoner, and see his fingerprints are backwards--in fact, a number of things in this world are (say it with me) mirror images of the world they know. They're in another dimension!

Superman uses super-speed to find the energy trails The Flash leaves behind, and:

The Super Friends go back to the Hall of Justice, where The Flash (who is on monitor duty on the JLA Satellite), clues them in to where the Wonder Twins went.

Meanwhile, the Wonder Twins find themselves in the hall of mirrors, surrounded by half a dozen Mirror Masters, who want to try and find a way to steal their powers! But...

...The End!


Other than punching one Mirror Master right in the kisser (see top of page sixteen), Aquaman doesn't get much to do in this issue--but then, almost none of the Super Friends get much to do, since this story is so focused on the Wonder Twins.

But what the heck--any issue of Super Friends drawn by the incomparable team of Fradon and Smith is always worth a look!

Super Friends #40 - Jan. 1981

Comics Weekend "Menace of the Mixed-Up Senses" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Kim DeMulder.

As I've mentioned before, I buy these issues of Super Friends on eBay based almost entirely on cost: I find the cheapest ones I can find, eager to see how much Aqua-content each of them has.

But this one I bought partially because of the cover: sure, it looks like it focuses on Wonder Woman, but I simply love the composition of it so much it made me want to get it. I love the tilted angle--combine that with the unusual situation (a pre-Maxwell Lord-murdering-Wonder Woman being arrested?) and it makes for a wonderfully compelling image. Ramona Fradon don't make no junk.

So imagine my delight when, upon opening the book, to see that it kicks off with four straight pages of Aquaman action!:

...before we follow the thoughts of our bad guy, I just want to mention how personally satisfying I found Aquaman ordering Superman around in the above pages to be. I bet Arthur really enjoyed that.

Okay, anyway, we see that our bad guy is your typical super-genius who's not great with people: as an experiment, he uses his monocle on his elderly father, causing his brain to "see" an image of his dead wife. The father subsequently dies of the shock, and our erstwhile bad guy realizes how powerful his invention is.

After more experiments messing with people's heads, The Monocle--as he christens himself--decides to try it out on the Super Friends. Now, having seen that it works on The Man of Steel, The Monocle moves onto Batman and Robin, where he embarrasses the Dynamic Duo by making them cause a scene downtown.

He then turns to Wonder Woman, who thinks she's stopping a runaway truck, but in reality is attacking an armored bank truck, full of cash. The Wonder Twins, watching nearby, can't understand what she's doing. Afterward, they all return to The Hall of Justice:

On the news, The Monocle sees that Wonder Woman is being arrested for "robbing" that armored truck. The Monocle, not knowing when he's ahead, shows up to watch Diana get carted off to the hoosegow.

The Wonder Twins, not victims of the Monocle's, er, monocle, spy him nearby and apprehend him. As he comes to his senses, the other Super Friends tackle him and find his powerful weapon:

...the end!

Kind of a weird ending, and if you want to read it as such, a little darker than your typical Super Friends story. The Monocle is just nuts, all his plans leading to nothing, really, and at the end of the story he's laughing maniacally to himself. I see a stint in Arkham Asylum in his future.

I first thought this Monocle guy was perhaps the same--or some Super Friends version of--another supervillain called The Monocle, who appeared in the JLA/JSA crossover in Justice League of America #s 195-197. But after doing a little research, I see that it isn't--this is just a one-off bad guy, who as far as I know was never seen again.


Fun Fact: This issue is inked by long time comic pro Kim DeMulder, who was one of my instructors at the Joe Kubert School. Kim was an easygoing, fun guy, and I distinctly remember him going over my (and others') inking homework and counting the number of protruding female nipples I left off from the original pencil pages. True story!


There's a wonderful little surprise waiting for us Aqua-Fans on the letters page of this issue, a missive from future F.O.A.M. member Russell Burbage:

...I love that Russell was defending Aquaman--in print and directly to DC--as far as back as 1981. Now that's a Friend Of AquaMan!