Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Dial E For Etermity--What The Hell Is In The Case?!?!?!?!

I've gotta confess--this is a pretty bad Kid Eternity story.

Oh, it starts off well enough:

Great panel, great premise, great potential title--Murder In The Sky Itself!!

Sorry, it's all downhill from here, guys.

It does indeed start with murder--on an airplane!!


Kid and Keeper show up investigate, just as the killer jumps away:

They follow the D.B. Cooper wannabe down to the ground, where we find the origins of Uber:


Geez, you were sort of asking for that, greedy rural person!

Kid and Keeper follow, and Keeper is unwilling to stop the guy, because maybe "the victim was in the wrong" and the killer was doing "simple justice" and he "just didn't have time to bargain with a skinflint."

So remember, if you murder a man in cold blood, steal his briefcase, jump out of the airplane, and than steal someone's car, Mr. Keeper is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt!! He'll suggest it's the victims' fault! Swell guy!!

They follow the gunman to his crib:

Now, look. There's absolutely no reason for Keeper to stay outside, except to artificially separate them so Kid can lose his powers for a bit, and we can use that to pad out the story for a few more pages.

Kid follows the "fat man," but...


But Kid is sharp-eyed (and Mr. Ongoust pretty dang careless):


Kid Eternity--Quality's Hal Jordan!!

Meanwhile, Keeper's just hanging around...

...and is apparently completely unsuspicious of people hauling a Kid Eternity-sized bundle into the stolen car he was watching!!

Yup, leave your charge behind!!

Fortunately, despite his stupidity, Keeper ends up in the right place.


François Villon!! He was the most renowned poet of the French Middle Ages, but he was also a bit of a low-life scum, frequently convicted and exiled for crimes, including running a burglary ring, and manslaughter.

I'm also fairly confident that he didn't go around speaking in rhyme all the time...especially English rhymes.

Still, he's good at the lock-pick part:

Meanwhile, the cops (I guess) are working on the case!


"Mr. Commissioner" shows up at the apparently not-very-secret HQ of the crooks...

Why be coy? Name his agency, or make one up!! Don't leave us hanging!!

And who is our master villain?


Look, if you don't know his nationality or source of income or his methods, then how do you even know that he's a crook?!?!

BONUS: Someday, I want to describe myself by saying, "Nobody knows anything about me! There are only dark, unfounded suspicions!" Maybe next time I update my resume...

Well, you may be smart, Gargot, but don't try to hide something from a 15th century French poet!

My God, is he Etrigan?!?! Enough with the rhymes!

But the cops are no smarter than Kid...



Any siege? Perhaps you speak too quickly!

You have guns on them!! They're unarmed!!! I can already think of a "practical way for them to die"!! SHOOT THEM!!!

But now, you give Kid a chance to summon...

The Light Brigade? Seriously?!?!

Issue #1--Kid Eternity has just summoned 600 people at once--plus their horses, weapons, etc. That's pretty impressive. Just how powerful is Kid? Could he summon entire Roman legions? The whole Greek army from Troy? A million dead soldiers, all at once?!? Narrartively, that's pretty much cheating.

Plus, how do I count that? I'll just do as a do with most group summons--it counts as 1. But still, this can lead to confusion in all my Kid Eternity paperwork. Stop it, Kid!!


Issue #2--Tennyson's romanticism be damned--the Light Brigade failed, accidentally sent on a suicide mission. Over half of them were killed, wounded or captured. Laud their courage, but they're maybe not the most successful group Kid could have called again.

Then again, their were facing 3 armed crooks, not an entire entrenched Russian army with massive firepower. So, yeah, they're gonna win this one:


OK, so now we can finally find out what this was all about, right?


Wait, what?!?! 

Look, I know it was just a McGuffin. But this ain't no Hitchcock movie, and you're obligated to at least explain a tiny bit to us. You've got to tell us more, unidentified man from an unidentified federal (presumably?) agency!! What the hell is in the briefcase? Nuclear plans? Gwyneth Paltrow's head? Marsellus' soul? TELL US!!!

Nope.

Pshaw. Silly padded story, with only 2 summons, one of them blatant cheating, crooks whose plan we never knew, and a lame-ass McGuffin. Humbug!!

This is the 43rd Kid Eternity story, and the standings are thus:

Abu 1
Achilles 4
Antony, Marc 2
Aramis 1
Arnold, Benedict 1
Arthur, King 2
Astor, John Jacob 1
Athos 1
Atlas 3
Attila The Hun 1
Attucks, Crispin 1
Baker, Lafayette 1
Barry's father 1
Barton, Clara 1
Bernhardt, Sarah 1
Bertillon, Alphonse 1
Blackhawk 1
Bluebeard 1
Bolivar, Simon 1
Boone, Daniel 1
Boyd, Belle 1
Brady, Diamond Jim 1
Breitbart, Zishe 1
Bucephalus 1
Bunyan, Paul 2
Byron, George Gordon 2
Caesar, Octavian 1
Cagliostro, Alessandro 1
Calhoun, John C. 1
Canary, Martha “Calamity” 1
Cannon, John W. 1
Capulet, Juliet 1
Carden, Foster 1
Carpenter, Daniel 1
Cherry Sisters 1
Clancy, Patrick 1
Cleopatra 1
Cody, “Buffalo” Bill 2
Colt, Samuel 1
Columbus, Christopher 2
Corbett, Jim 3
Crockett, Davy 1
Cronson, Gerald 1
Crusoe, Robinson 1
Custer, George Armstrong 1
D'artagnan 2
de Bergerac, Cyrano 1
de Leon, Ponce 1
de Rais, Gilles 1
Decatur, Stephen 1
Discus Thrower 1
Dockstader, Lew 1
Dracula 1
Drake, Sir Francis 1
Dupin, C. Auguste 1
Edison, Thomas 1
Emery 1
Ericson, Leif 2
Frankenstein's Monster 1
Franklin, Ben 1
Galahad 1
Gotch, Frank 1
Gothicus, Claudius 1
Grant, Ulysses S. 1
Greb, Harry 1
Griffiths, Albert 1
Hamilton, Alexander 1
Hatfield, John 1
Hauser, Kaspar 1
Henry, Patrick 1
Hercules 2
Hermann, Alexander 1
Hickathrift, Tom 1
Hickok, Wild Bill 1
Hippocrates 1
Holmes, Sherlock 2
Hopkins, Matthew 1
Houdini 2
Houston, Sam 1
Hyde, Edward 1
Hyer, Tom 1
Jackson, Andrew 1
James, Jesse 1
Javert 1
Jeffries, Jim 1
Jones, John Paul 1
Jove 1
Khan, Genghis 1
Kidd, William 1
Lafayette, General 1
Lancelot 1
Laughing Cavalier 1
Leander 3
Lee, Robert E. 1
Legree, Simon 1
Leonidas 1
Light Brigade 1
Lincoln, Abraham 1
Lister, Joseph 2
Marable, Fate 1
Masterson, Bat 1
Mercury 4
Milo Of Croton 2
Minutemen 1
Mix, Tom 1
Montague, Romeo 1
Montezuma 1
Morgan, Henry 1
Mulgrew, Jason 1
Murphy, Charles 1
Napoleon 1
Nation, Carrie 1
Nightingale, Florence 1
Noah 1
Nobel, Alfred 1
Nobody 1
Nostradamus 1
O'Brien, David 1
Oakley, Annie 1
Og 1
Osceola 1
Paddock, Charley 1
Penelope 1
Pheidippides 1
Pinkerton, Allan 1
Plastic Man 1
Porthos 2
Post, Wiley 1
Prometheus 1
Quixote, Don 1
Revere, Paul 1
Richard the LionHeart 1
Rin-Tin-Tin 2
Robespierre, Maximilien 1
Robin Hood 2
Rogers' Rangers 1
Russell, Lillian 1
Rustum 1
Ryan, Paddy 1
Samson 2
Sandow, Eugen 1
Sayers, Tom 1
Schleyer, Johann 1
Siegfried 1
Silver, Long John 1
Skunk, Jimmy 1
Socrates 1
Solomon 1
Sullivan, John L. 2
Tecumseh 1
Tell, William 1
Thalfi 1
Thor 1
Thumb, Tom 1
Thurston, Howard 1
Tiglath IV 1
Tuck, Friar 1
Tut-ankh-amen 1
Twain, Mark 1
Ulysses 1
Uncas 1
Vercingetorix 1
Villa, Pancho 1
Villon, Francois 1
Vulcan 1
Washington, George 2
Webster, Daniel 2
Xanthippe 1
Zbyzko, Stanislaus 1


NEXT--Again with the pirates?!?

From Kid Eternity #7 (1947)