Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Dial E For Eternity--The Kid Goes To Court!!

Well, this is a grimmer than usual problem for Kid Eternity!

YOW!! No panto there!!

Our duo is hanging around doing nothing...but somehow eternal being Mr. Keeper is getting a cold!



It's not the first time Keeper has pulled this "I'm taking away your powers" crap...but this time it gets someone killed!!

Two young lovers admire the man's place of work...

Ah, but all is not so lovey-dovey inside:




No joy, Kid!


Kid reads Keeper the riot act!

Well, Kid's first step is to confront the vile murderer:


Calamity Jane!!


Well, Kane is lying, of course, and turns Kid in to the police for being involved in the murder!


And how do you make the frame even more air tight?!?

Have the actually murderer serve as defense attorney for the accused!

Well, of course a jail cell can't hold folks who can turn intangible. But what's the next step?


Allan Pinkerton!!

But here's the interesting thing...



For the first time, we see the drawback in summoning someone from the past--they might not be hep enough to help solve modern problems!! I have to say, I really liked that perspective (even if the sequence did feel like story padding)!

Kid racks his brain...
While Kane does an inept job of defending Conroy!


Well, Kid has another solution:

Daniel Webster!!

But...



Once again, the Kid learns that someone from the past, no matter how successful they were back then, might not be as good in a modern context!!

Kane hires goons to detain Kid, to keep him from interfering further, but this time Kid summons more successfully!

Paul Bunyan!!


Finally--FINALLY--the Kid has the idea he should have had at the very beginning:


Summon the dead victim to identify the killer!!


Wait...


Man, do I smell an appeal coming...

Still, legal questions aside, you'd think Kid and Keeper would wander around solving unsolved murders, summoning victims to identify their killers and bring them to justice. Pushing Daisies 60-odd years early, as it were. Certainly, putting murderers behind bars seems a more important way to fight evil than stopping random con-men and robbers like you seem to do every month!

After 11 stories, this is where we stand:

Achilles 1
Antony, Marc 1
Barry's father 1
Bernhardt, Sarah 1
Blackhawk 1
Bunyan, Paul 1
Canary, Martha 'Calamity' 1
Cody, “Buffalo” Bill 1
Columbus 1
Corbett, Jim 1
Custer, George Armstrong 1
Don Quixote 1
Emery 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
Pinkerton, Allan 1
Plastic Man 1
Robin Hood 1
Samson 2
Solomon 1
Sullivan, John L. 1
Thurston, Howard 1
Vercingetorix 1
Washington, George 1
Webster, Daniel 1
Zbyzko, Stanislaus 1


Next month--witchcraft, arson, time travel, and the best Kid Eternity story yet!

From Hit Comics #35 (1945)

3 comments:

Green Luthor said...

Not being familiar with the old Kid Eternity series, this story kind of raises a question that I don't know would ever have been addressed. Kane threatens to re-kill the summoned Emery. So... is that possible, for one of Kid Eternity's summons to be killed? (Especially in the cases where the person summoned was still alive at the time.) I suppose either they couldn't be killed at all, or killing them would just send them back to wherever Kid summoned them from (though could Kid then just re-summon them?). Possibly some story ideas there (if it was never addressed before), not that it's likely to ever be explored.

snell said...

Fair question. And one I doubt will be answered, given the wonky and inconsistent universe they've established here. Kid Eternity himself cannot be killed, at least when Keeper isn't taking his powers away. Presumably, since everyone is being summoned from "Eternity," the same might apply? Plus, given Kid's propensity to summon fictional/mythological characters, those guys probably couldn't be killed. Then again, he has summoned people who are still alive (no doubt due to sloppy research, rather than an actual power?), so who the heck knows what would happen then...

Dr. Theda said...

An enjoyable read !! not familiar with this character though...