Great Moment In Comics History No. 8: Holy Crap, Kal-El!

Not really that far back to be considered 'history' but check this out:


Jay Garrick gets struck by lightning and what does Superman from Earth-22 do? He jumps in and punches away the lightning bolt!!

That is hardcore.

From Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, Part Three by Johns, Ross, Eaglesham and Pasarin (DC, 2009)

Great Moments In Comics History No. 7: German WW 1 Fighter Aces Are BAD ASS

Here's the situation: Rittmeister Hans von Hammer, "Enemy Ace" to the Allied forces, finds himself in a bit of a pickle over the skies at the Western Front. His tri-wing Fokker has been riddled with bullets and he's going down in flames. Is this the end? The hell it is!







The "Enemy Ace" saves himself from being a burnt smudge on the ground by grabbing hold of the axle of another airplane and hangs on for dear life while British fighters chase after him and his saviour over the skies of France. Just try to wrap your head around that one, will you?

This classic scene of bad-assery can only come from the mind of Robert Kanigher and the pencil skills of Joe Kubert. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: Enemy Ace (DC, 2008).

For more of DGR's Great Moments..., click the appropriate label below.

Great Moments In Comics History No. 6: Lezzle Pon

Just wanna chime in and just repeat what most fans have already known for several months now (hey, I don't buy floppies anymore so I'm always late): The Sinestro Corps War is damn bloody awesome! Lots of punching, kicking, zapping and not really introducing anything new by the story's end. Oh sure, there's all that new spectrum of Lanterns, but really, what the fans wanted was the illusion of change and this storyline delivered.

I particularly like this one scene when Guy Gardner is infected by a microscopic member of the Sinestro Corp called Despotellis. This parasitic bastard doesn't need a ring to kill you. It just swims in your bloodstream for a few hours and you'll melt from the inside. Nice.

So how do you fight a virus?



By siccing a super-intelligent smallpox virus bent on revenge on it, that's how!

Great Moments In Comics History No. 5: Snowblind

In issue #6 of Alpha Flight entitled, "Snowblind", there is a fight scene between Alpha Flight's Snowbird and Kolomaq, an embodiment of winter. So what follows are 5-pages of absolute white except for captions and word and thought balloons. At first, I thought John Byrne was taking the piss but upon reflection it was quite clever. They are fighting in a blizzard after all. Click to enlarge.










From Alpha Flight Classic trade paperback.

Great Moments In Comics History No. 4: Frog Thor!

Mentioned briefly here, I thought I'd elaborate more on the time Walt Simonson got out of bed and told his editor he wanted to turn Thor into an amphibian.

Simonson's run on Thor was the bestest and funnest run of Thor adventures I ever read and seeing how I never read any Thor comic before or after the Simonson run, clearly my claim means absolutely nothing. But it would take a truly bad, bad person with a heart of coal to dismiss Simonson's work on Thor. C'mon, to turn a Nordic Thunder God and a card carrying member of the Avengers at that, into a frog? You come up with a better idea.

But even in amphibian form, Frog Thor (Fror? Throg? Kermit?) is no slouch in the kick ass department as these rats find out:



That is one bad ass frog!

But a frog besting some rats tend to garner attention even in New York, and Frog Thor's exploits caught the attention of some wino with a magical flute living in the sewers. What do you mean you don't believe me? It's in issue #364 of The Mighty Thor, dang you! This guy plays his magic flute and alligators, yes, frickin' alligators!, come to his aid. Simonson had one too many the night before when he wrote this I think.

So what happens next? Find out yourself. These issues and more are collected in Walter Simonson THOR Legends volume 3.

Suffice it to say that this strange episode in Thor's life gets the DEM'S GOOD READIN' award for Great Moments in Comics History. Take a bow Walt Simonson!

(Click on 'Great Moments' in the Labels down there to see the previous three entries)

Great Moments In Comics History No. 3: Superman Does Porn

Hi! I'm back from the holidays and it's time to dust off the cobwebs from this here blog. So let's go with the third instalment of Great Moments of Comics History (the first is here and here's the second).

This time, it's Action Comics #593 by John Byrne and in this issue Superman and Big Barda starred in a porn movie. Mr.Miracle was a bit upset when he found out.

"Scott! That's your wife! She's dancing provocatively in a sewer!"

However, it appears that Big Barda was actually under the psionic control of Sleez, one of Darkseid's minions who was exiled to Earth after Darkseid thought Sleez's actions were getting too depraved even by Apokolips standards. That's like Hitler telling Himmler to chill out and stop gassing all those prisoners. Anyway....

If Yoda ever joined the Dark Side and became a pimp, he would so totally look like Sleez. So it appears that Sleez went into the superhero porn business (a lucrative but risky venture) in order to make oodles of money to form an army. It was never explained why he needed an army, though. Perhaps he wanted to go back to Apokolips but really, when you can control the minds of others including superheroes and force them to star in porn movies and make mucho dollars, why do you need an army? He's not very smart, this Sleez.


But before we get to see any hot action, Mr. Miracle crashes in to save his wife's honour and maybe Superman's

I like the looks Superman and Barda are giving each other. We were doing something, weren't we? It was weird but kinda fun, wasn't it? I don't remember much, Barda, but I have such a hard on. And Mr. Miracle's face? Priceless. He's wearing a mask and we can still see a pouty face.

"Until we meet again, Superman....(after I've made sure my wife is in another dimension)".

Great Moments In Comics History No. 2: Doom Refuses To Pay

Hey there and welcome to another presentation of Great Moments in Comics History. The first one was about a month ago. This time, it's Luke Cage, Hero For Hire. Unlike the other superheroes, this dude offers his services to anyone who can pay. Man's gotta eat after all. Only in issue 8 of his own comic (volume 1, 1972) he was hired by none other than Doctor Doom and well....Doom is a tightwad.


But first a little background: Dr. Doom, through one of his cronies, hires Luke Cage for $200 a day to track down some robots of Doom that decided to go rogue. These robots have disguised themselves as black men, for some reason, so Doom reasons he needs a black man who can take care of himself to go hunt down these robots. Cage does as he's told and ends up destroying all of Doom's rogue robots because they tried to kill him. Silly robots.

However, when he returns to the Latverian embassy to collect his two hundred bucks, Doom's gone. Oh, you do not welch on a deal with a poor, hungry black man. Especially if he has a skin that is impervious to bullets. Doom is as dumb as his robots it seems.

Most people would probably just chalk this up to experience and move on. Not Cage, oh no. He goes rampaging into the Baxter Building and practically demands the Fantastic Four to loan him their rocket ship so he can fly to Latveria and claim his money (issue 9, Luke Cage: Hero for Hire, volume 1, 1972).

Well, he actually arrives at Latveria and after the required six-page fight with Doom's minions, Luke Cage once again faces Doom:


I'm so gonna use that line whenever someone owes me some dough. "Where's my money, honey?" before I give them an atomic wedgie. Cage and Doom are interrupted by some weird alien something or other wearing a large fish bowl over his head but Cage quickly kicks that guy's ass. Doom is grateful. Which is very uncharacteristic of him.

Is Doom laughing? Was he on medication at this time? The man never laughs. But yeah, in the end Doom does part with $200 and this crazy episode gets a Great Moments in Comics History award.

Great Moments in Comics History No.1: One Punch

Justice League #5 (DC, 1987). The first half of a two part story. The baddie is called The Gray Man, some ancient mystic who has kidnapped Dr. Fate and unleashed his Gray Man clones all over a small town in Vermont and turning the populace into zombies. Or something like that. Frankly, no one cares about that issue's baddie of the month because whenever you show the cover of this comic, those who were fans will remember only one thing:

Guy Gardner gets bitch punched by Batman.

Hell, even the comic creators think that's a more important event than the main plot. Look at the cover. Any mention of the Gray Man? Nope. Any prone bodies of our heroes lying unconscious on the ground as the bad guy laughs triumphantly? Nada. Instead we get the Martian Manhunter and Captain Marvel trying to hold Guy Gardner back with the words "Batman vs Guy Gardner: SHOWDOWN" on the top of the cover. Yup, back in the 80s, you knew what you were getting with your comics just by looking at the cover. I miss those days. But this momentous event only took three pages of the entire comic. Three pages. And it's these three pages that people remember most in this issue. If that doesn't deserve a Great Moment in Comics History tag, I don't know what does.

Here's the setup:

Gardner thinks he should be the League's leader instead of Bats. Batman, being the gentleman that he is, suggests that the Green Lantern is acting like a mongrel. Oh, it's on, baby!


I like the look on the heroes faces there. Mr. Miracle is irritated. Booster Gold and Capt. Marvel are just shocked, shocked that someone not called Superman dares to point a finger at Batman. That takes balls. Or a high level of insanity. Either one.

Captain Marvel tries to butt in because he's....well, stupid. Batman agrees with me, so there.


Captain Marvel walks away sulking. That was something you don't see in comics before or since. Just another reason why the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis JUSTICE LEAGUE was such a fan favourite. When everyone was writing dark, moody stories, Giffen and DeMatteis gave us Captain Marvel in a hissy fit.

Anyway, Guy opened a can of whup-ass.

And gets a big BONK of a punch from Batman:


That's all he wrote, Suzie! One punch and Guy Gardner's down for the count.

Batman is like, "So, anyway....let's start this meeting". Bad ass. And that's why this episode gets this blog's first ever "Great Moments in Comics History" award.

Resulting effects: Guy Gardner becomes a peace loving hippy. He doesn't turn back to normal (or abnormal, if you prefer) until issue 18 when Lobo crash lands on Guy's head.