Friday Night Fights--Olsen Style!!

It's Olsen vs. Superman week here at Slay, Monstrobot, so we've got to keep the theme running, don't we? Of course we do!! So here's Jimmy Olsen kicking the living crap out of Superman!


Boff! Whamo! Splatt (with two "T's"!) Krak! Thud! Oh, yeah!!!

OK, I'm obliged to note that a) It wasn't really Superman, it was a thug dressed up like Superman; and b) Jimmy was under the influence of Maximo's "psycho-gas."

But don't let that make you think that Jimmy can't hold his own!! Because when Jimmy finally gets his chance to take down Maximo, leader of Assassins Anonymous, he pulls the same ass-whooping:


Lesson: Don't mess with a red-head.

Hong Kong Bahlactus, number 1 Superguy has commanded, we all obey.

Jimmy's sound-effects laden fighting skills courtesy of Jimmy Olsen # 103. Don't make Olsen angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Olsen Vs. Superman Week--Murder Most Foul!!

We should point out that, while Jimmy Olsen is Superman's Pal, he is not Clark Kent's Pal. As is demonstrated by:

Well, this scene really does happen!! Jimmy kills Clark (or so he thinks), and tries to conceal the crime. And he's ready to use the "gamma weapon" on Supes.

Of course, this is DC, so there's an excuse that let's Jimmy off the hook for killing Clark--he was controlled by Parallax!!! Oh, wait...no, he thought Clark was Maxwell Lord...no, wait...

No the real story here is that a secret criminal "assassination gang" is forcing Jimmy to work for them. How secret??

SPOILER ALERT: We eventually learn the organization is named "Assassins Anonymous"...I guess there was no real need for all the secrecy, huh?

Anyway, they use both mind-control gas AND an electronic mind-control set of laurel leaves (?!?!) to brainwash and control Jimmy. They send him to the Daily Planet, because Clark has hidden in his desk a list of "secret kryptonite caches." Question 1: why???? Question 2: if it's so secret, why does everyone, even the criminal element, know that Clark has the list??

Clark walks in on Jimmy rifling his desk, and:

Now, a nanosecond after shooting Clark, Jimmy's brainwashing wears off. You'd think he would do the responsible thing, and alert the authorities and Superman. After all, he wasn't in control of his actions, and in DC good guys are never responsible for their bad actions.

But never forget, Jimmy Olsen is a selfish, cowardly bastard who tries to hide his crime like a 6-year old who broke the lamp:

Way to man up, James Bartholomew Olsen. Of course, Superman tries to get Jimmy to 'fess up:

So, does Jimmy lay it all out for the Man of Steel? What do you think?

But a sudden pang of "conscience" makes Jimmy change his mind. He instead sends Supes off into the death-trap AA has prepared for him, involving a sexy French scientist, a time machine, kryptonite, and the abominable snowman (please, don't ask, you're better off not knowing).

So let's sum up: under mind control, Jimmy murders Kent. No longer under mind control, Jimmy doesn't immediately seek justice for Clark, or turn over the AA, or stop the plot against Superman. He just tries to protect his own skin. He's even seriously tempted to kill Superman just to cover his tracks!!

Fortunately for all, through an elaborate counter-plot involving finger-tapping Morse Code, a felt-tip pen, a fake circuit burning out, and double exposure (please don't ask) Jimmy and Dr. Sex Kitten eventually save Superman and foil the AA. And apparently, Jimmy is going to win the Pulitzer for being a murderous, cowardly bastard:

As a final question, just what would that "gamma weapon" have done, anyway:

Oh, man, they had this and gave us that craptacular story instead??? What a rip-off...

This full-length epic was presented in Jimmy Olsen #103. Clark never stopped looking over his shoulder afterwards...

Olsen Vs. Superman Week--I Promised You Monkeys

If there is one thing we have learned during Olsen Vs. Superman Week, it is this:

When Jimmy turns on Kal-El, the consequences are pretty steep: murder, torture, the unmasking of Clark Kent. But Superman is the Ashton Kutcher of this relationship. Whenever he turns on Jimmy Olsen, it's almost, well, a mild-mannered punking. "Sorry, Jimmy, you have to live in a slum. Ha ha!" "Sorry, Jimmy, someone else is my best pal now." No death, no torture...just a (relatively gentle) tweaking.

Which brings us to:


My oh my.

Allow me to assure you, this scene actually happens. Really. 100% accurate. I'm in heaven!

Now, I'm not going to go into too much depth about this story. I don't think we need a deep examination of the story's...um...outdated views of Africans. Suffice it to say:

• Once again the Daily Planet has an apparently unlimited budget, as they send both Clark and Jimmy to "cover the background story" of a "jungle epic" that is being filmed in Africa.


• The local tribesman worship Bruna, the ape, as a goddess.


• After viewing King Kong, Bruna is inspired to save Jimmy and take him as a mate.


• Whenever Jimmy tries to get away, Bruna goes berserk.


• After witnessing Superman's strength and flight, the villagers decide that "with such powers, he must be the greatest witch doctor in the jungle!"


• The local witch doctor is sick, so the chief asks Superman to perform the wedding ceremony for Bruna and Jimmy.


• By getting Bruna to view another movie, wherein a gorilla throws a man off a cliff, they trick her into throwing her off a cliff, and Superman catches her, and everyone goes home. LOL!
  

So that's it. Lame, occasionally offensive, and fairly inconsequential. But "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy" (or at least the cover they chose to use) reinforces this dichotomy: when Superman acts out, he's just a prankster older brother. When Jimmy acts out, he's a selfish homicidal maniac.

Which leads to tomorrow: MURDER MOST FOUL!!!

Spine-meltingly great cover from Jimmy Olsen #98, December 1966. Remember, if you marry a monkey, get a pre-nup. Jungle lawyers are tough.

Olsen Vs. Superman Week--When the Covers Are Lies

Earlier during Olsen Vs. Superman Week I discussed how, despite being "pals," a healthy percentage of stories turned out to be Jimmy Olsen trying to bring down Superman, or Superman trying to punish Jimmy. These two characters constantly expressed a fair amount of resentment towards each other, and I wondered if maybe this was a very real "other side of the same coin" to the reader identification character Jimmy is.

Sure, every reader wanted to be Superman's pal. But, apparently, a substantial number also felt that one or the other needed to be taken down a peg; either Superman was too perfect or Jimmy too obnoxious. Why else would the editors keep running these stories, and keep making them the cover stories?

In fact, even when the stories involved NO Olsen vs. Superman at all, DC still ran covers portraying the stories as such. That must mean these covers moved issues, right?

Example one: Jimmy Olsen #135, January 1971.


Great cover. But the flipping scene never happens...not even close!!

This was one of the earliest of the Kirby issues, the one that introduced Cadmus, and maybe the editors had no earthly idea how to market such oddness. But the cover is so completely unrepresentative that I had to read it twice to make sure I hadn't missed something. Specifically:

• There is no Jimmy attacking Superman, at all



• The title of the story is the "Evil Factory," but it's not Jimmy's; it's talking about Cadmus



• We do see some miniature-clone type Supermen (along with Olsens and Newsboy Legionnaires), but they're controlled by Darkseid's droogs, and they never attack Superman.
  

In other words, the cover is almost as large a lie as possible while still maintaining some shred of connection to the story. When they don't know how to sell it, the editors default to convincing the public that it's an Olsen Vs. Superman story.

Example two: Jimmy Olsen #109, March 1968.

What the cover bills as a "shockumentary" is really an imaginary story. Sigh. But even worse, the scene the cover depicts doesn't actually happen! It's just a dream that the imaginary Luthor has!! A dream in an imaginary story. This is an extra silly story. Basically, "several years ago," Luthor uses a time viewer to see that Jimmy Olsen will become Superman's pal, and instead he contrives to rescue Jimmy from an accident so Olsen will become Luthor's pal, and help him to unknowingly destroy Superman. This involves hypothetical identical twins, sisters with psychic powers, and both Luthor and Jimmy behaving so stupidly that you hope that this was the first universe consumed in the original Crisis.

But in the story, Jimmy never turns on Superman, never schemes to unmask him, never becomes evil. Luthor just tries to arrange it so Jimmy unknowingly and accidentally kills Kal-El. Only in Luthor's odd three-panel extraneous nightmare does Olsen turn to evil. SO it was an even more imaginary bit in an imaginary story!!

So of course, since those are the panels that are least representative of the story, one of them is chosen for cover glory. Because apparently, kids loved to read about Olsen Vs. Superman.

By the way, they're both great covers, but LIARS!! LIARS!!

Bonus panel: this is only an imaginary story, I know, but what exactly is Lex revealing to us here? Too much information....

Olsen Vs. Superman Week--Superman's Revenge

OK, so I lied about the monkeys coming today. Later this week, I promise. Meanwhile...yesterday we looked at what a dickweed Jimmy Olsen could be to his supposed pal. Today we visit what happens when Superman abuses the friendship:

Once again, we have a cover that's completely true. This scene actually occurs (more or less), and isn't a dream or a red kryptonite hallucination. Which leaves us with one conclusion--Superman is a jerk.

For reasons beyond the ken of mere mortals, Perry White has assigned Jimmy Olsen to do a major expose on Metropolis' slums. This is kind of interesting, because a) Perry gives the same assignment to Lois Lane 6 months later, and b) unlike Lois' trip to "Little Africa," when Jimmy investigates, the "slums of Metropolis" are occupied by 100% white people. Hmmm...

Anyhoo, after Clark declares that Jimmy's story is soooo good that "it could mean the Pulitzer Prize," Perry White shows he skipped a couple of days of journalism ethics class:



Despite Perry kow-towing to The Man, Jimmy is undeterred, and takes his own life savings ($300!) to rent an apartment in the slum. He plans to write a book, and a "publisher friend promised to print it!"

But, Jimmy is a pretty big pussy. Despite the fact that this "ghetto" is filled with lily-white old folks, groovy college kids, and no minorities whatsoever, he freaks out, and commits the single most unjustified use of the signal watch EVER:

What next? "I can't find my remote control...Zee zee zee zee?"

Well, Superman does show up to help, although he can't help making a snide remark about Jimmy's living conditions:


Now, maybe Kal-El is a bit peeved at Jimmy calling him for no good reason. But when Jimmy asks for help, Supes shows what a petty dweeb he is:

OK, so you only help Jimmy out when he consults with you on what projects he does? C'mon, dude--Jimmy is trying to expose a slum lord and help people improve their living conditions (which is more than you're doing), and you refuse to help because he didn't get the Superman seal of approval?? Even after you, as Clark, praised him for how important this story was? Oh, Superman, you've crossed over into dickweedery, haven't you?

Now, I'll grant you, this is better than the cover, which implies Superman is punishing Jimmy for being a "wise guy" by forcing him to live in a slum. But not much better. Jimmy's taken on a hard and icky case, and the Man of Steel can't be bothered to get his fingers dirty (see below).

Even worse, Superman "carelessly" exposes Jimmy to great danger:

Smooth move, Man of Tomorrow! Fortunately for Metropolis' downtrodden, Jimmy perseveres. Without any help from Superman, he gets gets kidnapped, has his head shaved (!), and tracks down and exposes "Mr. Squeeze," the mysterious slum lord. But in the end, Superman swoops in and tries to claim all the glory.
So, to summarize: Jimmy writes a story Clark seems to be jealous of; because Jimmy doesn't "consult" with Superman first, Kal-El refuses to help him out; and only after Jimmy does all the hard work does Superman actually do anything to help anyone. Verdict: Dickweed.

I must note though, that Superman usually isn't as big a dickweed as Jimmy. When Jimmy goes Hal Jordan on Superman, it's usually major and life-threatening: revealing his secret identity, helping villains kill him, murdering Clark Kent. Superman's betrayals are usually much milder, and involve leaving Jimmy in embarrassing situations or treating him like dirt. And then there's the monkeys...

Today's humiliation of Jimmy comes from Jimmy Olsen #127, March 1970. True Fact: this issue was the inspiration for the show Good Times.

Bonus panel with inside mouse-over joke only for MST3K fans:

Olsen V. Superman Week--Jimmy Is a Dickweed

We all know that one of the reasons for Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen was to provide some identification for the younger reader--let them feel that, even young, disrespected and powerless, they can contribute to Superman's success.

But man o man, armchair psychologists who spend too much time reading Jimmy Olsen stories quickly realize that there is also a huge undercurrent of tension, resentment and thinly-concealed hatred between these two "pals."

So let's start off Olsen vs. Superman Week with one of the more egregious examples of Jimmy being a colossal dickweed:



Yup, this story really happens, and the cover is 100% accurate. It starts as Superman is saving the world from some space-termites, when:

Unfortunately:


Things don't look good for our Pal Jimmy:
Now, in no big surprise, Jimmy manages to stage a miraculous recovery. But, dickweed that he is, he decides to use his illness to betray his "best friend":
Now, obviously, this kind of behavior should immediately disqualify you the position of "Superman's Pal." It's bad enough to pretend to be dead without letting your friends know you're alive. But to pretend to be dying, and use that to extract your best friend's most precious secret, for personal gain--well, that's dickweedery*, pure and simple.
Of course, Jimmy maybe has some reason to treat Superman like this. After he checks out of the hospital, he observes this:
So, Superman definitely earns some of Jimmy's dickweedery* this issue. Unless there's some contractual clause that requires the position as "Superman's Pal" to be filled at all times, why in the world couldn't he have waited until after Jimmy's funeral to replace him?? And "I've had my eye on you as a replacement??!!" The context of the story makes clear that all of this happens during a 1-day period. Does that mean that Supes was planning on replacing Olsen even before this incident?!?! We'll never know, and we're left with one of the greater DC mysteries...what ever became of Carl Bentley, Superman's Best Pal In Waiting??

Anyway, Jimmy can't wait to twist the knife:

Yup. "Sweat, you Benedict Arnold." Of course, Jimmy was going to betray you even before he knew you were going to bertay him, so I guess you both suck, huh?

Now, in a series of page-filling coincidences both tedious and unbelievable, Jimmy comes to believe that Superman has been lying to people all day. So when we get to the big TV show:


D'oh!!

What an ethical swamp we have here. Jimmy recovers from an illness, but pretends to be ill to get a big scoop by punking his best friend! But it turns out Jimmy's best friend couldn't wait for him to die, and was going to replace him!! But then Jimmy reveals that he's still alive, and makes his pal sweat as he pledges to reveal the secret to the world! Jimmy then, somehow, manages to "deduce" that he was wrong, so he can't go through with the unmasking. BUT it's not because he is convinced that the unmasking itself is wrong--he just believes he has the wrong info!! Meanwhile, despite a narrow and undeserved escape, Clark laughs and laughs and leaves Jimmy to twist in the wind. And thanks to unbelievably stupid "deduction" Jimmy makes, none of these issues are at all resolved

Zoinks! This is what passes for friendship in Silver Age DC?? Yes, yes it is. Friendship back then was merely a seething cauldron of hatred, resentment, gamesmanship, trickery and humiliation. Only random chance, chicanery, coincidence and stare decisis kept men folk from devolving into constant physical battle and, probably, cannibalism.

And that's just day 1 of Olsen Vs. Superman Week. Tomorrow: monkeys!!

All panels from Jimmy Olsen #121, 1969. 

**"Dickweedery" is copyright 2007 by Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep. No, it's not a swear word. Feel free to use it in front of your mom.

Great Moments in DC Science

From Green Lantern #6, 1961:


Hmmm....maybe it's because this is a reprint, but the monster does sort of look yellow to me. Anyhoo, it turns out there's a really good reason why Hal Jordan's ring can't effect this (apparently) non-yellow beast:


Oh, where to start? It's not enough that you had to give your hero a fairly ridiculous weakness, like yellow. A color. Whatever. But apparently, that wasn't enough, and by issue #6 they were having to invent things like "infra-yellow" in order to make enemies that GL couldn't beat in 3 pages. Infra-freakin'-yellow. An entire nation of youth is drowned by scientific illiteracy.

Still, it's better than the "yellow is the color of fear" crap they've given us this decade.

Friday Night Fights--Gandhi Style!!

Sometimes it's not how hard you hit. Sometimes it's how you take a punch.

Sure J'onn J'onzz needs to man up occasionally. But when he's fighting a normal human, watch out, brother!

Situation: J'onn is undercover, posing as a UN official while investigating a reported alien killing. Local law enforcement, however, is not being cooperative. J'onn is the dude wearing sunglasses:


OUCH!! That's a faceplant!! But this is J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter, so one punch ain't enough. You gotta keep pounding away...



The end result:


That's right: the winner of Friday Night Fights is the cat who didn't throw a single punch!! J'onn J'onzz knows how to take a beatdown AND still win the fight!!

Now if only he could have done that against Doomsday...

Bahlactus went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal...

Passive resistance footage from JLA Annual #1, 1997, beatdown art by Ariel Olivetti

Pig Biting Mad

It's a sad, sad day:


Weekly World News has ceased paper publication. It will still be available as an online entity, but that hardly the same thing.

Oh the hours I amused myself in grocery checkout lines with WWN. No celebrity pap...no Bradgelina, no TomKat, no LiLo. Just good, hard news.

What, you don't believe the stories? Well, as I always tell my skeptical friends, they wouldn't print it if it weren't true, would they?

So farewell, Batboy. Au revoir, Manigator. Sleep well, Avocado Baby. Time Travel Dog (from the Future!), you will be missed. Alien who endorsed George W. Bush, please don't lose touch.

And Ed Anger. Most of all Ed Anger. Keep writing those frothy editorials. Please. Please don't ever stop being "pig-biting mad" or "angrier than a beaver in the desert."

I'm sure I'll try to check in online occasionally. But it just won't be the same... there won't be the element of surprise we had every week, while I waited for the foolish person in line ahead of me to challenge the cashier on the price of EVERY SINGLE ITEM in her basket. And the only relief available was reading about diet secrets from the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the government plan to make all our money radioactive to track terrorists, or...Sigh...

So, who's getting custody of Britney's kids?

Why Unleaded Gasoline Is a Terrible Idea

Let's see ethanol or bio-diesel save Superman's life...the ban on leaded gasoline is clearly a Luthor plot...

SPOILER ALERT: Just so you can sleep soundly, I will reveal that Jimmy Olsen did NOT "die for this," despite the guru's threat. Whew!!

Bizarre scene from Jimmy Olsen # 118. Much much more about this story, including why Jimmy is all scruffy, the guru mastermind, and the kryptonite love beads (seriously) in next week's exciting series of posts...

We Interrupt This Broadcast--

Can't post now. Busy playing.....

Konitinuity Kop--Skrulls??

OK, once again this one might not be an actual continuity error. But since it involves some characters being incredibly, well, ill-informed, I'm running with it anyway.


Let's go to this panel from "New" Avengers #32:

Now, if this looks familiar, it's because the last two issues of new Avengers have been absolutely nothing except our heroes sitting around saying "Are you a Skrull?" "Why no, are you a Skrull??" Seriously, aside from a plane crash, the past two "action-filled" issues have been nothing but a snore-inducing paranoid "Who's a Skrull?" parlour game.

Of course, none of this is necessary. Aside from the fact that it doesn't make sense for one of them to be a Skrull (after all, they just exposed and killed a Skrull agent, Elektra, so you wouldn't expect a Skrull to be doing that), there's another fact they're forgetting. Skrulls can't do super-powers.

Sure, they can change shape. But aside from the Super Skrull, they can't mimic super-powers. Marvel's own online encyclopedia tells us,"Skrulls only take on the appearance of an object or person and none of that object or person’s characteristics." In other words, except for the Super Skrull, they don't do powers. And the Super Skrull could only do it after massive biotech surgery AND the deployment of a special power broadcast asteroid.

Now, certainly Skrulls could impersonate someone non-powered. And surely some powers could be mimicked with advanced technology. But it seems to me that, rather than question everybody's motives and alibis, a more reasonable first step might be "who's been using their power?" Wolverine and Luke Cage should be smart enough to know this. So should Bendis.

So, maybe not a continuity glitch. But characters (and an author--I'm looking at you, Bendis!) who should have known better. And good lord--if Marvel is going to keep let Bendis write the Avengers books, could someone please explain the concept of pacing to him?!?

Picture from Avengers #32

What's the Better Way to Die

Since the universal consensus is that Superman #666 rocked the house, it's time for this week's poll.

Question: if Kal-El were to go nuts, and go on a killing spree, and he were going to kill you, how would you rather he did it?

First up is the super-loogy:



As I see it, Pros:
*Quick and relatively painless
*Cool sound effect

Cons:
*Embarrassing as hell to acknowledge that someone spit you to death
*"Eeewwww" factor

Than there is the super-whistle:

Pros:
*Not as gross as being covered with Kryptonian spit
*A definite "coolness" factor while repeating the story to others in Hades
*Sorta like Scanners!
*Poetic justice for Jimmy!

Cons:
*Looks pretty damn painful
*Very unpleasant sound effect
*Inevitable Krypto jokes when discussing your demise with smart asses

Me, I think I'd prefer the loogy. But everyone please vote, so when Superman does go beserk, you can help him out by having your method of execution ready to go.

Long Live the 70's

Ahhh, "relevancy." Remember those halcyon days, back in the 1970's, when DC decided to be all hip and trendy and make some of their comics more "socially" relevant?

Oh, not the main titles, of course. You can't have the Flash or Superman worry about housing for the poor while pounding on bad guys--that would spoil the escapism.

But the "side" titles...that was fair game. And while Jimmy Olsen spun off in the direction of super weirdness, (mainly thanks to Jack Kirby), Lois Lane decided to get all socially conscious on us.

It made sense...Lois was a reporter, after all, when she wasn't hounding Kal-El to marry her. That put her in touch with a lot of the "issues of the day." And with E. Nelson Bridwell editing, Robert Kanigher put out a string of some of the most spectacularly "PC" comics ever.

Let's start with #106, November 1970. Let's note for the record that the cover is 100% accurate, and the title of the story (unfortunately) is "I Am Curious (Black)."


Aside: Those of you old enough will remember that I Am Curious (Yellow) was a fairly infamous Swedish film of 1967, that was banned and seized by U.S. customs for nudity and "explicit" sex. It surreptitiously made the rounds of both art and porno theaters, and was quite famous for a film no one ever actually saw (even Gwen Stacy mentioned wanting to see it once!). So why, exactly, DC decided that made a good basis for the title of this story I'll never know (aside from the obvious color pun).


Anyway, the splash page declares "It's Today! It's Now! It's The Moment Of Truth!" Lois has been given the assignment of her life: to get the scoop on "Metropolis' black community." Gee, maybe the fact that Metropolis's' black community (there's only one?) is called "Little Africa" might be a reason for some of the resentment, eh?

Lois is unable to make any headway, because not one single black person in all of Little Africa will even speak to her. An activist dismisses her as "Whitey." Even an old blind woman walks away from her because (and I swear I'm not making this up) "When she heard me speak...she knew I was white!"

So, this being DC, Superman lets Lois use his "Plastimold" to make her a black woman, so she investgate the "nitty gritty" in Little Africa. And learn she does. With all the serious earnestness of an ABC Afterschool Special, Lois a) learns that ghetto landlords suck, b) gets close to the activist who called her Whitey, c) saves his life with a blood transfusion, d) learns that it is indeed hard out there for a pimp...oops, sorry e) and the activist learns that all white people aren't devils.

I'm damning this story with faint praise. It's actually pretty good, and 37 years ago it must have seemed pretty radical to some in it's audience. And while it comes off today with somewhat of a smug botique liberal attitude, it never oversells its points. SPOILER ALERT: We never find out if Lois gets her Pulitzer.

Far less successful, was #110:

The cover is much more symbolic this time, perhaps a sign that we're not going to get as good a story. Lois never dresses up in Indian clothes (although she should--that fringe is driving me wild!! Rrrrrrrr). There are protestors, but they never come close to stoning her. And Superman is mostly non-existent in the story, and certainly never urges Lois to give up "that Indian papoose."

She does, however, end up foster mother to a papoose. Really. The Daily Planet's budget must have been enormous, because they send Lois out to a "parched reservation near Santa Fe" to cover a Pueblo rain dance. Nice use of resources, Chief.

She ends up, though, covering the conflict between the Pueblo and evil land developers who are going to flood out their village. Singing Rain, the chief's sister, dies after hitting her head on a rock, and makes Lois promise to raise her infant, Little Moon, as her own (Little Moon's father, you see, is MIA in Vietnam). Lois promises, and takes the child back to Metropolis, where she gets all kinds of protestors: people saying single women shouldn't be raising children, American Indians (protesting in full tribal outfits) that "you stole our land--now you steal our children." It's a mess.

Then, on a bridge, a skidding "army truck" forces Lois' car into the water. With her last breath she shoves Little Moon to the surface to save him. But then, a GI from the truck dives in and saves her. Holy Coincidence, it's Joseph Bright Wing, Little Moon's father!! He had just escaped from a "VC prisoner of war camp!" He was on that truck, on his way to a "discharge center." At the exact time Lois was going off the bridge with that baby. Uncanny.

Again painfully earnest, this one lacks the impact of "I Am Curious (Black)" for a couple of reasons. It seems far more cartoony in its portrayal of Native Americans and their problems. And aside from Superman and Lois, virtually every white person in the book is virulently, stereotypically racist. Among our winning quotes:

It gets worse from there. We get it: white people suck.

Still, I shouldn't grade too harshly. The issues heart is in the right place. And again, for 37 years ago (sheesh, I'm old) it was probably ahead of its time.

Special Bonus: Clark Kent's kicky cravat. Long live the 70's, friends. Long live the 70's.