Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Dial E For Eternity--The Kid Gets An Education!

Kid Eternity is pretty gosh-darned powerful. He can someone anyone, real or legend, from the afterlife to help him in his current mission.

But if you think about it, there's a potential drawback: Kid has to somehow know which historical/mythological figure would best be able to help resolve the problem he's facing.

Otherwise, you might get a situation like we face in this issue's splash panel:

Well, that could be a problem.

Our story begins when Kid is just too dang lazy to study...

Oh, Kid, that will never come back to bite you.

Meanwhile, they stumble upon some goons about to ambush a lovely young couple:


Let's give a hearty Slay Monstrobot welcome to our first repeat summons of the series...

Samson!!

Sure, he looks completely different than the last time Kid called upon him. You could attribute that to a different artist, but the fanboy-who-overcomplicates-everything in me likes to believe that Kid just summoned Samson from a different point in his life. No-Prize me!!

Also, we've got to give kudos to the writers--who would have believed that they could go nine stories without repeating a summons? No easy way out for these hard-working scribes!

Finally, perhaps this is a testament to Kid's education. He's what, 10 or 12? But he always seems to know what character to summon for which situation. Until later in this story...

Meanwhile, Samson kicks some ass...


You have to love a guy who brings his own ass' jawbone with him from the afterlife!

But Samson was a little overenthusiastic...

After much screwing around, it turns out that the young couple, the Adams, own some land in Oklahoma, and they just struck oil there! They're rich!! But someone wants to keep them away...

Yes, the bad guy in the story is named Sam Skink. And he's trying to swindle the Adams out of their land!



It's nice to see the Kid showing some restraint, and allowing mere humans to at least try and settle some of their own problems.

But the henchman gets away, and steals their car!!


"Flying Murphy" is Charles Minthorn Murphy, and he was indeed the first to break one-minute mile on a bicycle, in 1899.

Just one problem, though...Murphy was very much still alive when this story was published. He didn't pass until 1950!! That's at least the 3rd time that Kid has called upon people who are still alive!! How does that even work?!?!?

Anyway, a trumped up survey makes it look like the courts will rule in Skink's favor in the land swindle:

Who?!?

George Washington?!?!?

Well, it turns out that George did indeed start out as a professional surveyor, and a particularly successful one! Thanks for teaching me something new, Kid Eternity!

George backs up the story of the good guys--and come on, what court is going to rule against George Washington?

But, not surprisingly, the bad guy still want to put up a fight. So...


Another obscure boxer!! Tom Hyer was a bare-knuckle boxer back in the 19th century, and he did indeed have a fight that lasted 101 rounds!! Men were men, in those days!!

Hyer beats down the henchman, but boss Skink decides to blow things up good!



Which brings us back to where the splash panel started.

In a 40-years-of-hindsight-and no-pressure-of-actually-having-to-rescue-someone mode, I could suggest that Kid should have summoned, oh, Poseidon? Thetis?

And given that Kid knows all sorts of pretty damn obscure historical stuff--obscure to me, at least, 70-some years later--there must have been some famous fireman or rescue guy he could have called.

But then again, that's the point of the story--Kid should have a freakin' rolodex in his head of people to call in almost every situation. But he's been neglecting his studies!! Shame on him!!

To his credit, though, Kid doesn't dwell on his failure--he leaps right in personally to try and rescue Mrs. Adams:


But...


Mercury!! Another returner!! (And still with no damn pants!!)

But how did he show up?


Way to go, Mr. Keeper!!

But what of the Adams' rapidly burning fortune?




Yay, neighbors!!

And so Kid leaves--and hits the books!!

That's a nice lesson for all of us.

So, after 9 stories, the roster is:

Achilles 1
Antony, Marc 1
Barry's father 1
Blackhawk 1
Columbus 1
Corbett, Jim 1
Don Quixote 1
Griffiths, Albert 1
Hercules 1
Hickok, Wild Bill 1
Holmes, Sherlock 1
Houdini 1
Hyer, Tom 1
Jeffries, Jim 1
King Arthur 1
Leander 1
Mercury 2
Murphy, Charles 1
Napoleon 1
Noah 1
Nobody 1
Pheidippides 1
Plastic Man 1
Robin Hood 1
Samson 2
Solomon 1
Sullivan, John L. 1
Thurston, Howard 1
Vercingetorix 1
Washington, George 1
Zbyzko, Stanislaus 1

Don't worry, there will plenty more repeaters in the near future!

Next: There's gold in them thar hills, and the Kid takes requests!

From Hit Comics #33 (1944)

1 comment:

Warren JB said...

Shady capitalists alliteratively named after lizards:

1) Gordon Gecko
2) Sam Skink
3) Murph Monitor
4) Frank Fiji banded iguana