The Golden Age Starman is Ted Knight, rich hypochrondriac, who has invented a device called the Gravity Rod which does whatever the writer wants it to do. As Don Markstein has described it, Knight "decided to use his invention for the benefit of mankind---not in any ordinary, time-tested way like founding an industrial empire to hire thousands of workers and create billions of dollars in new wealth, but in the rather inefficient way of keeping it to himself and becoming a superhero." The Gravity Rod can do almost anything, despite the lack of visible controls, and is powered by starlight. Or cosmic radiation. Anyway, it won't work when the sun is out (even though the sun is just a star, too) but will work underground (at night, perhaps in the daytime?) and during solar eclipses. Oddly enough, this limitation only seems to come up when a solar eclipse is impending.

Obviously, there's not a lot of tension or excitement from watching someone wield a handheld device that can do whatever he wants, including incapacitating one or many villains. So, especially as the series progresses, Starman becomes more and more physical, taking on entire armed gangs with his fists, even when the Gravity Rod is at his side. And yet Starman has no superpowers; he's just a normal man in excellent physical shape (with more than his share of luck).

A general nit for the series: Starman's costume has no mask. The artists do a great job of giving Ted Knight a bored, tired, or sickly expression while Starman always wears an alert, interested expression, but. . .c'mon. . .this guy puts on red pajamas and his own fiance doesn't recognize him?

Starman operates out of Gotham, which is interesting in that a) he never seems tin interact with Batman or any of his crowd and b) this means that the director of the FBI lives in and has his office in Gotham, rather than Washington, as one would expect.

NANJAO: There are two really irritating stylistic issues with these comics. First, the dictum "show, don't tell" is ignored to a ridiculous extent. Exposition is clunky and unremitting, Starman is forever talking to himself (even just to exposit on what we can clearly see him doing from the picture), and too many plot points are simply stated. The most egregious example I could find is The Case of the Luckless Liars, where the final two panels are simply filled with Starman expositing the villain's motives and methods. Second, (almost) every line of dialogue that doesn't end with a question mark or an ellipsis ends with an exclamation mark. This is not natural! It looks really weird when you read the dialogue!

The Amazing Starman (first published in Adventure Comics #61, April 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Here, Woodley Allen is introduced as "ace trouble-shooter of the FBI". Later, Allen is the chief of the FBI.

When Woodley Allen summons Starman, they meet "Far away, in a shack atop a craggy cliff. . ." Why not just meet in Allen's office, or in some discreet safe house in Gotham? Starman can travel really really fast, but Allen can't.

Mysterious goings-on are going on. Next thing you know, Allen is briefing Starman on the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron and their plans. How did he learn about the Brotherhood?

A flunky says Dr. Doog kidnapped Professor Davis six months ago. Starman finds Professor Davis tied to a chair. Why not in a cell? He couldn't have been tied up for six months. . .

In the end, Starman seals up Dr. Doog's mountain lair. Did Starman seal all of Dr. Doog's thugs up in the mountain?

Mysterious times not to be holding the Gravity Rod:
While falling down a steel tube/trap in Dr. Doog's lair.
While fighting Dr. Doog's thugs.
While watching Dr. Doog fall (To his doom? But Starman survived a similar fall. . .)

The Menace of the Lethal Light (first published in Adventure Comics #62, May 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
In the first comic, Ted Knight calls Doris Lee "Miss Lee" (after knowing her for several years). Here, it's "Doris".

In his first appearance, the Light uses a shrinking ray (never seen again) on his enemies.

Why did the Light capture Doris?

Why doesn't Doris recognize Starman?

While confronting the Light, the Gravity Rod mysteriously shifts from Starman's right hand to his left hand (and maybe back again; it seems to fall from his right hand).

After being shrunk, Starman tells a thug to "Restore us to our normal size with the reverse ray" What reverse ray? Where did that come from?

The Adventure of the Earthquake Terror (first published in Adventure Comics #63, June 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Doris Lee is Woodley Allen's niece? This is new. They didn't indicate (or refute) this in the last ish (where the two met on the Light's ship).

At all other times, Allen's signal to Starman tells him to meet in the shack on the cliff. This time, Starman homes in on Allen's approximate location in South America.

On a remote South American plateau, Starman is attacked by some natives (with the immortal line "Ugh---we kill!"). His response: "I've heard of the cruelties of these Aztec savages!" No, the Aztecs lived in North America. . .

Why does Starman leave Vurm free?

Mysterious times not to be holding the Gravity Rod:
While confronting an eight-foot-tall, sword-wielding "Kiler of the Dungeon".

Starman stands on the wing of Allen's plane and guides it safely through the clouds through which he barely made it earlier.

The Mystery of the Men with the Staring Eyes (first published in Adventure Comics #64, July 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Mysterious times not to be holding the Gravity Rod:
While fighting a staring-eye bandit. (He was holding it when the bandit came through the window. . .)
While crashing through a mysterious, locked room.
While stepping through the door of an incinerator tube (stepping out of the tube), with no floor behind him.
While fighting at least seven staring-eye bandits at once.

While examining a staring-eye bandit, Starman says "This fellow is no zombie. . .The pupils of his eyes are rolled back. . .That must mean that he's under a SUPER-HYPNOTIC SPELL!" If the staring-eye bandits have rolled back pupils (which is consistent with how they're drawn, with solid white eyes) how can they stare, let alone perform acrobatic feats of ledge-crawling?

Who is the mysterious man (wearing overcoat and a hat) who Doris follows, endangering herself? He's dressed the same as the staring-eye bandit who stolen the Flame Diamond, but Doris's next line is "He's putting on a black hood! Why. . .it's. . ." and the guy in the hood was not one of the staring-eye bandits.

Captain Ryan gets the drop on Starman, who is holding the Gravity Rod in his right hand. In the next panel, Starman's right hand appears to be empty (it's at the bottom of the panel, but he usually holds the Gravity Rod by the base) and his left hand is hidden. In the following panel, he holds the Gravity Rod in his left hand.

The hooded villain tells a staring-eye bandit to "use the high-powered machine-gun" on Starman. The bandit to whom he talks doesn't actually seem to have a machine gun, though; just a submachine gun that looks rather like a Thompson.

Starman says "I warn you---Don't shoot that gun if you want to keep your health!". The narrator then says "The power of the Rod causes the hail of machine-gun bullets to spray back upon the thugs" (note that earlier in the story the Gravity Rod was able to deflect bullets, not just reflect them) and Starman says "Your brought this on yourselves! I told you not to shoot!" Reality check, Starman. 1) Only one of the staring-eye bandits is shooting, but you are redirecting the bullets back into all of them. 2) You've already established that the staring-eye bandits are under a "SUPER-HYPNOTIC SPELL"; having been told to shoot you, the staring-eye bandit will do so, regardless of what you say or his own will. They didn't bring it on themselves; they're being sprayed with bullets because you want them to die.

Starman jumps out the window to save Doris, who has thrown herself from a high window, with the Gravity Rod in his right hand. By the next panel, he has grabbed Doris with his right arm and is holding the Gravity Rod in his left hand.

In the last panel of the story, Starman flies off into the night (talking to himself). Shouldn't he be going back into the mansion, to resume his secret identity?

The Mystery of the Undersea Terror (first published in Adventure Comics #65, August 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
"F.B.I. chief Woodley Allen is appointed head of the U.S. Defense Division." What's that?

An admiral tells Allen "Some unknown terror is attempting to destroy the lanes of commerce and cripple America's shipping! You're our greatest crime investigator, Allen---it's up to you to locate this invisible menace or resign!" Why is it up to a crime investigator---these are acts of terrorism and/or war? And why is an admiral delivering this ultimatum? Only the Attorney General or President should be able to ask for Allen's resignation as FBI Chief, and only the Secretary of War or President should be able to ask for Allen's resignation as "Head of the U.S. Defense Division", whatever that is.

Allen tells Starman that an organization called "the League of the Octopus" claims responsibility (via short-wave) for disappearing ships. Somehow, Starman divines that the responsibility really lies with "the Octopus League", as he uses the latter name repeatedly before the League's leader uses it---in a short-wave broadcast announcing the League's latest attack.

Starman disguises himself as a sailor and easily obtains a position on board the next ship to sail into danger. Since no one knows how the ships are disappearing, shouldn't the crew---especially new hires---be carefully screened to try to find saboteurs and pirates?

Starman's disguise includes a green and black sweater, which he pulls over his head. On the next page he takes if off by opening the front, even though there was no sign of buttons or other fasteners on the front. He is wearing his Starman costume under the sweater, even though the costume has a high neck that should have been visible (the costume also has a cowl, but he could have pulled that back).

Starman flies around the freighter with the Gravity Rod in his left hand, but as he lands he carries it in his right hand.

Starman thought that the only man who had any of the Purple Flare---a knockout gas produced exposively from a blue dust---was the Light. When did he learn about that? His previous encounter with the Light lasted onlyu a few minutes and was entirely concerned with the Light's shrinking ray.

He flies to the League's fortress with the Gravity Rod in his right hand, but as he lands he carries it in his left hand.

Trapped by the League, Starman must battle a "man-eating sub-octopus". A what?

Starman swims or levitates to the hole in the top of a water tank with the Gravity Rod in his left hand. He rises through that hole out of the tank and the Gravity Rod is in his right hand.

The Case of the Camera Curse (first published in Adventure Comics #66, September 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
The narrations says "Allen's niece, Doris Lee, is amazed to see him rise and leave the house clad only in robe and pajamas...". Allen's pajamas are interesting: the top---which could pass for a shirt---is white, while the bottoms are brown. Perhaps someone should have told the colorist that they were pajamas. . .

Allen's robe is green with shiny black trim on the cuffs and collar/lapels. As he approachs his car, his right cuff is black but his lapels and left cuff are green.

Starman confronts Cuthbert Cain with the Gravity Rod in his right hand, and gestures with his empty left hand. Cain suddenly throws a bowl of acid at Starman, who has suddenly switched the Gravity Rod to his left hand. Fortunately, in the next panel Starman makes the acid explode harmlessly in midair---having had time between panels to move the Gravity Rod back to his right hand. As Cain tries to run, Starman gestures at him with the Gravity Rod in his left hand. In the next panel Cain is held in the air by the Gravity Rod. . .in Starman's right hand. (Ted Knight must really like juggling.)

Starman says "I read in one of his [Cain's] books that if the user of these powers [voodoo/black magic] allows his picture to be taken, he disappears!" Starman was in Cain's library for about as long as it took Allen to drive from his house to Cain's. Apparently he spent that time reading Cain's books, and read enough to find that one relevent fact.

The Menace of the Invisible Raiders (first published in Adventure Comics #67, October 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
The comic opens with Starman hanging by one hand from a sideways stalagmite (huh?) with the Gravity Rod in his right hand illuminating (and revealing) some invisible men. He flies down to them (with the Gravity Rod in his left hand) and pursues them on foot. . .with the Gravity Rod in his right hand. He catches up to one and grabs his neck with his left hand. Between panels, Starman puts the Gravity Rod in his left hand and grabs the invisble man's neck with his right. Then he releases the invisible man's neck and again holds the Gravity Rod in his right hand. The invisible men grow tired of the juggling act and throw Starman to the ground, knocking him out. As they do so, we see (plot point!) that the Gravity Rod is strapped to his right wrist. (In a later flashback, the dialogue for the beginning of this scene is different and Starman jumps down the invisible men after seeing them while keeping the Gravity Rod in his right hand.)

The invisible men operate out of Gigantic Cave in Kentucky. The first comic established that Ted Knight and Doris Lee live in Gotham. Yet Ted and Doris just happened to be visiting Gigantic Cave on the same day the invisible men make a nuisance of themselves in Woodley Allen's office (in Gotham).


The leader of the invisible men, the Mist, takes Doris to the edge of the abyss and tells her to join him or be thrown in. She chooses the latter. After she is tossed, the narration says "Returning to his den, the Mist turns on a queer, bluish light, revealing his invisible servitors!" Then he says "I have painted my giant bombing planes with the inviso-solution! You men will man them and fly over Pittsburgh, Bethlehem and [sic] other big factory districts! No one can see you! DROP YOUR BOMBS!" Where to start? First, I realize the Mist has a grudge against the United States, but he seems to have no trouble recruiting at least four men (pilots, no less) who are willing to betray the US to the Axis. How did he find them? Why is he operating out of Kentucky when he plans to bomb Pensylvannia? And to be really nitpicky, at the moment he says "No one can see you!" he can see his men, and they can see each other, because of the "queer, bluish light" he just turned on. By the way, it is later revealed that the Mist wears a cloak painted with inviso-solution, yet the "queer, bluish light" that reveals the invisible henchmen leaves the Mist as a dismbodied head and hand.

Starman was thrown into an abyss, but since the Gravity Rod was tied to his right wrist he is able to fly up again. On the way he encounters "giant, prehistoric Demon Bats" which attack him. He takes a shot at one with the Gravity Rod---after, of course, switching it over to his left hand. As the Demon Bats go after their fallen comrade, Starman moves the Gravity Rod back to his right hand and finds Doris falling. He catches her arm with his left hand (somehow not dislocating either of their shoulders) and, of course, moves the Gravity Rod back to his left hand before flying out of the abyss. (Yes, he can not only juggle the Gravity Rod, but the Gravity Rod and Doris at the same time! While hanging over a miles-deep abyss!)

After Starman brings Doris back to solid grond, she tells him about the Mist and they have the following exchange:
Doris: Then the Mist said, as I was dragged out, that he had some bombers!
Starman: So that's his plan! To cripple the country's industrial regions! I've got to catch those invisible planes!
Let's see. . .Doris wasn't dragged; she was tossed right off the edge. She wasn't anywhere around when the Mist started talking about his bombers. Doris didn't tell Starman anything about bombing industrial regions or making the bombers invsible. Oh, and of course Starman flies off and finds the planes---even though he shouldn't know where they are going.

The Mist not only has invisible henchmen in invisible planes---he also has a space-ship (not, oddly, invisible). He also has a pistol. Yet, after recapturing Doris and watching Starman burn into his space-ship, he never bothers to use his pistol to, say, hold Doris hostage. Instead he points it at Starman and says "Stand back or I'll shoot!" To that, Starman says "That gun will do you know good. . .The Gravity Rod repels lead. . ." Then what does Starman do? He puts the Gravity Rod away and socks the Mist in the jaw. For some reason, besides knocking out the Mist, this makes his invisible cloak become visible.

The Blaze of Doom (first published in Adventure Comics #68, November 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Starman, flying with the Gravity Rod in his right hand, sights a car carrying escaping arsonists. He swoops down, and the Gravity Rod has jumped to his left hand. The car loses control and goes off a cliff, so Starman uses the Gravity Rod to raise it back up. As it gets close to the edge of the cliff, Starman has the Gravity Rod once again in his right hand. When it comes time to confront the two armed thugs inside, Starman puts the Rod away and resorts to his fists. Then, after he subdues them and gets them to tell him who gave them their orders, he leaves. No attempt to tie them up or contact the authorities.

Starman jumps in (flys in?) on Classy, a big lumberjack carrying an axe. Starman takes him down, breaks his axe (with his bare hands), and then takes out at least four more lumberjacks (most armed) who attack him all at once. All without using the Gravity Rod.

While flying off to rescue Doris (who's been captured again) the Gravity Rod shifts from Starman's left to his right hand. . .again.

The Adventure of the Singapore Stranglers (first published in Adventure Comics #69, December 1941; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Saboteurs have been damaging ships at the Gotham docks. Chief Allen says that the saboteurs "have been able to slip past all our guards". But when the saboteurs next strike a ship that only has one guard (because it's a trap set by Allen) they don't slip past him; they knock him out.

Flying with the Gravity Rod, Starman descends upon at least four saboteurs (well, three if one of them has a turban that spontaneously changes color). In his usual fashion, he puts the Rod away to take them all on at once barehanded, although he takes out the Rod briefly to melt an acetylene torch.

Inches away from being dragged into the whirling blades of a ship's propellor, Starman takes the time to move the Gravity Rod from his left hand to his right hand between panels.

The narration refers to "the atomic energy of the Rod". I thought the Gravity Rod was powered by steller radiation.

Starman seems to know who Captain Fujiyama is without anyone saying his name. (Maybe he read the narration?)

When one of the Singapore Stranglers goes to a munitions plant to blow it up, a guard confronts him. His response? A "chloroformed hankerchief". That seems rather restrained. He's going to blow up the whole plant, killing everyone there!

The Adventure of the Ring of Hijackers (first published in Adventure Comics #70, January 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
It's the usual scene as Starman interrupts a truck convoy hijacking: he flies to the location with the Gravity Rod in his right hand, alights on a truck with the Rod in his left hand, and puts the Rod away while he takes on at least seven thugs---all armed with pistols or tommy guns.

Doris is tied up in a room that has three tommy guns poking through the wall. Starman enters with the Gravity Rod in his right hand and the guns open up. In the midst of a hail of bullets Starman knocks her to the floor and moves the Gravity Rod to his left hand (for a change, he doesn't mention that the Gravity Rod is deflecting bullets, but I think it must be assumed when three automatic weapons are firing at him from five feet away in a steel-lined room). Then he puts the Gravity Rod away so he can bend all three gun barrels with his bare hands. 1) Why not neutralize the guns with the Gravity Rod? 2) Those barrels should be hot and Starman doesn't wear gloves. 3) This is yet another feat of superhuman strength from a guy who doesn't have any superpowers.

Then Starman pulls out the Gravity Rod to melt a hole through the steel walls---and puts it away again to use his bare fists on the three baddies who were shooting (one of whom still has a pistol). One of those three, by the way, is hit so hard by Starman that the cross hatching seems to have been blown off his hat between panels, and indeed his jacket spontaneously flies off before the next panel.

The Invaders from the Future (first published in Adventure Comics #71, February 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
The Gravity Rod switches from left hand to right and back to left as Starman battles a lightning storm. Then he flies off to trace the source of the lightning (an electro-thunder cannnon, natch) and the Gravity Rod again goes from left to right to left to right while he flies and lands. Of course, he then puts the Rod away while he wades into a brawl with three thugs.

As a time travel sphere materializes in front of him, Starman has the presence of mind to have the Gravity Rod out in his right hand. And he still has it out when several "helmeted man-monsters in bulky,padded suits ermerge" (well, in his left hand). But then he puts it away before starting to fight them.

Starman is tied up. An eclipse occurs (recharging the Gravity Rod) and he can spontaneously burst his bonds. Huh? And he then holds the Gravity Rod in his right hand to deflect the Light's bullets, but immediately gets rid of it so he can land a right cross on the Light.

Case of the Magic Bloodstone (first published in Adventure Comics #72, March 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Woodley Allen says "This is one mystery I'm going to solve without Starman's help! I'll prove that I can track down the criminal myself!" So he became chief of the FBI purely because he knows how to call Starman? Hilariously, having decided to catch the criminal himself, FBI Chief Allen asks for help---from his niece!

Starman lands on a roof with the Gravity Rod out. He is shot at through a window, so he puts the Gravity Rod away, dives through the window, and chases the shooter down a hall and a flight of stairs. Why not just use the Gravity Rod to capture the shooter as he fled, like he did in the past?

The shooter, obviously a Punisher-wannabe, has a picture of a white skull on his chest. In the first and last panels where the skull is visible, it is on a black disk. In the middle two panels where it is visible, it is on a white disk.

Confronted by a giant grizzly and a tiger, Starman jumps over them, grabs the tiger by the tail, and swings it around and into the grizzly, knocking both out. Starman, remember, who has no super powers, but does have the Gravity Rod handy if he needs it. . .

The villain opens a wall safe, and according to the narration "a jet of lethal gas spurts out, stunning him!" Well, if it were lethal, you would expect it to kill him. But no, it just knocked him out. In fact, the gas was a trap set by Allen. So why did Allen set a lethal trap, and why didn't it kill?

The Case of the Murders in Outer Space (first published in Adventure Comics #73, April 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Allen summons Starman to their meeting place. The narration says "Meanwhile. . ." and starts at Ted Knight's estate, whence Ted, Doris, and his horse travel to the Hunt Club. Only as Ted readies himself for a steeplechase does the Gravity Rod begin to vibrate. Shouldn't Allen's summons be almost instantaneous?

Here's the narration's explanation for how the space gun gets rockets to travel vast distances: "This space gun fires a rocket out into space. The Earth turns beneath it at the rate of 1000 miles an hour---when the rocket falls back to Earth, it lands thousands of miles from the point of discharge, due to the Earth's turning on its axis!" Of course, this isn't going to work, any more than tossing a ball into the air while you're driving down the freeway is going to make it slam into the back of your car at sixty miles per hour.

Starman, bound with chains, is trapped in a rocket and shot into space. "In his rocket, Starman finds that freed of the great gravity pull of Earth, his muscles are a thousand times mighter than normal!" and he breaks the chains. Is comment really necessary?

The Case of the Monstrous Animal-Men (first published in Adventure Comics #74, May 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
A guard's corpse is found inside the Federal Reserve vaults. The FBI lab says that the guard was killed by a panther. Woodley Allen's comment: "The bank was robbed! Can there be such a thing as a panther with human intelligence? I've got to call Starman in to solve this mystery!" Having thus despaired of solving the case with the meager resources of the FBI, Allen's briefing to Starman consists of "A panther killed the watchman, but a panther can't rob a bank! I want you to handle this case--". Has Allen read the title of this story? Why else would he keep trying to wrap his brain around the idea that the panther that killed the guard also robbed the bank, instead of a more obvious hypothesis---such as that the bank robber brought along a panther, which he used to kill the guard?

The story is full of coincidences, some unnecessary. Ted Knight and Doris happen to be visiting the same clinic where a mad scientist, Ivan Caroff, is turning men into half-men---but this has no bearing on the story. After being briefed by Chief Allen on an attack involving a panther, Starman happens to see a werewolf, and even after being informed that the werewolf is an actor Starman follows him back to the clinic so that he can discover Caroff's plot. In the end, Caroff, in the tradion of so many of Starman's foes, trips over a wire, falls against, and is destroyed by his own infernal machine (which has not at any other time exhibited the ability to kill).

Starman hurls himself through a window, and I suppose the Gravity Rod in his left hand is protecting him from being cut to ribbons. But why does he switch the Gravity Rod to his right hand by the next panel, while he is still in the process of flying through the window? And why does Starman put away the Gravity Rod while he tangles with Caroff and two of his heavies?

Starman is bound to an examination table with white ropes and Caroff uses his machine to give him the head of a lion. For some reason, this gives him the ability to burst the ropes. Said rope have now turned brown.

After Starman subdues Caroff for the second time, Caroff comes back with "Ha! So you realize that you are in my power! The police know that a giant cat with human intellience killed the bank watchman! I can pin the guilt on you---a lion-man!" Well, no, the police have no reason to think that the big cat that killed the watchman had human intelligence. But they were quite specific about it being a panther that killed him, so why would they suspect a man with a lion's head?

On the last page, Dr. Carl Carey, owner of the clinic, pops in and reveals that Ivan Caroff is his son. Earlier, Caroff called Dr. Carey "Carey", and sons usually have the same last names as their fathers. There's a mystery here, but it must not be very important, as Carey's revelation has no further impact on the story; he doens't even seem particularly upset when Caroff manages to kill himself.

The Case of the Luckless Liars (first published in Adventure Comics #75, June 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
Ted Knight receives a phone call during the night. He is in bed, wearing a white shirt which is open at the neck. In the next panel, he is in his Starman costume, except for a white shirt which he appears to be removing from his right arm and shoulder. Half of his right forearm is visible. The inference is that he was wearing the Starman costume in bed under his white shirt. But the Starman costume includes a cowl that covers the front of his neck to his chin and the sleeves go to his wrists; it should have been readily visibile under the white shirt he wore to bed.

Starman flies into the night and approaches a mansion with the Gravity Rod in his left hand. He flies in a set of French doors (a thigh-high balcony railing is clearly visible through the doors, which reach from almost the ceiling to below knee level) holding the Gravity Rod in his right hand. There, confronted by a police officer who wears a holster on his right hip and who is pointing a gun at him with his right hand, Starman flies out. One would assume that he flies out immediately, but the Gravity Rod is in his left hand and he clearly flies out of a top floor window without a balcony. The police officer pursues him on foot---still with his holster on his right hip, but now carrying his gun in his left hand.

Everts, a banker, worried that he might shoot himself, "starts to empty his gun by firing the bullets into the fireplace. . ." It would be faster (and less noisy, and less likely to damage his fireplace) if he just ejected the clip from his semi-automatic. Sure, the bullets will still be around if he wanted to load the gun, but surely he has extra bullets in his house for his own gun anyway?

Later, Starman brings the gun in question to the police ballistics lab. As he hands it to a man in a white coat, he says "That's the gun that shot Everts! I want to know if the bullet really came out of this gun!" There's only one gun out, so both "that" and "this" refer to the same gun. He calls it "that" gun when he might be holding it, and "this" gun when he isn't. The white coat guy isn't helping by saying "That gun is a .45 calibre. . ." as he has it in his hand. Anyway, what Starman really means is "This is the gun that Everts thinks shot him; I want to know if the bullet really came out of this gun." The other man in the lab says "The doctors reporrt that the bullet that hit Everts is a .44 calibre! That gun couldn't possibly have shot him!" Well, actually, I think it could have. Coversion kits that allow .45 semi-automatics to fire .22 ammunition are common (since .22 ammunition is cheaper and more comfortable to shoot than .45 ammunition). It is not impossible that someone could make a conversion kit that would allow a .45 calibre semiautomatic to fire .44 calibre bullets. Unlikely, sure. Not impossible.

The Case of the Sinister Sun (first published in Adventure Comics #76, July 1942; reprinted in The Golden Age Starman Archives, Volume I
The story opens with the Sun and his gang (the Moon, Saturn, the Comet, and Mercury), in costume, inside their secret base, spouting some of the worst cabbegism ever.

The Sun: Nobody knows we're the Moroni Gang, see? We got these swell weapons from that professor---he didn't know the heat was on us when he took us into this secret layout where he worked!
Saturn: Sure! Didn't he invent that rocket-ship we're goin' to use?
The Moon: And our weapons as well?
The Sun: It was tough for him. He passed out, see? But it's our good luck---from not on, the Moroni Gang is The Sun and his satellites! Now---let's get busy! The cops are after us, so we'll pretend to be interplanetary robbers!

Also some of the lamest dialogue ever. It looks like an editor gave the writer two panels to explain where the bad guys got their fantastic equipment and why they chose their costuming. Ignore the fact that all of them should have known everything they're saying before they decided to put on their costumes---who decides to lay low from police pursuit by pretending to be "interplanetary robbers"? Their costumes and gimmicks are designed rather to draw attention to them. Moreover, how effective can their costumes be as disguises when none of them conceals the face of the wearer?

Having been told by Woodley Allen that a police officer reported seeing a rocket ship near a busted-into bank, Starman rushes to the scene. There, a generic scientist (he has a magnifying glass, so he must be a scientist, right?) says of the rubble "Great heat has been applied to this marble---rocket blasts would do it!" To this Starman replies "Then that police officer told the truth! It was a rocket ship." No, there may have been a rocket ship, Stars-for-brains.

Starman wanders off to look for a rocket ship (specifically, "a place large enough to house it", although earlier the rocket ship seemed to fit comfortably in part of one large room in the bank). He randomly spots some burned grass near a mountain and says (to himself) "Burned grass! If rocket jets were used to start the ship, they'd be used to stop it, too!" Why?

Then Starman comes across a large metal door in the side of the mountain (yes, Starman did manage to find the secret hideout, basically at random) and, while melting through it with the Gravity Rod, says "A concealed doorway! A hanger under the mountainside! An ideal hangout!" So now he's not only talking to himself, but he's talking gibberish sentence fragments to himself. The doorway is not at all concealed, and since he hasn't burned through the door yet he doesn't know that there is a hanger under the mountainside.

Starman comes across the Sun (who has not introduced himself as such to anyone but his gang) and says "Here's where you go into an eclipse, brother!" and in the next panel "Here's where the Sun sees stars!" How does he know the Sun's handle? Incidentally, he says this while taking on the entire gang with his bare hands, instead of using that superweapon he carries at his hip.

The Sun introduces Starman to the Moon: "Meet the Moon! He's the proud inventor of a weapon that shoots sheer cold and encases any object at which it is aimed. . .in ice!" This disagrees with the origins of the gang's weapons previously given, but maybe the Sun is lying. But how does a gun that shoots "sheer cold" (that is, cold unadulterated with anything else. . .like water) encase objects in ice? Where is the water for that ice coming from? We're not talking about a light coating of ice that might have precipitated out of the surrouding air. The Moon encases a burning match in a cylinder of ice a good inch or two in diameter.

Saturn's weapon is the lamest: steel rings which he throws like quoits about people, pinning their arms to their sides. But unlike the other Satellites' weapons, which basically confer instant supervillain status, Saturn's rings require skill and practice to use. That doesn't square with the idea that the gang got their weapons from some "professor". (Well, the professor could have made steel rings for some reason, but Saturn had to have learned how to throw them ahead of time.)

Starman is saved when an eclipse re-energizes the Gravity Rod. The exact same thing happened five months earlier, in The Invaders from the Future. Gotham sure gets a lot of total solar eclipses. . .

Doom Patrol was a team of mutants... whoops sorry, wrong group. The Doom Patrol was a group of freaks who fought to save the world that rejected them. Led by the Chief, wheelchair bound genius, the team consisted of Robotman, human brain in a robot body; Elasti-Girl, former actress who could shrink or expand her body; & Negative Man, a radioactive man who could project a black energy being from his body for up to a minute.

Despite the similarity to a certain merry Marvel mutant mob the Doom Patrol appeared three months earlier. Just another of the fun little coincidences that pop up in the history of comics.
(Two others being Swamp Thing & Man-Thing appearing within months of each other & a British & American Dennis The Menace showing up in the same week.)

The Incredible Origin Of The Chief Original publication not listed but probably an issue of Doom Patrol Reprinted in Super-Team Family #9
The Baron has interrupted a TV broadcast to say where & when he will be striking next & daring anyone to stop him. Surprisingly the only heroes who show up are the Doom Patrol.
What would The Baron have done if Superman or Flash or any number of other heroes had shown up?

NANJAO. Is it really wise for a superheroine who fights in a short skirt to grow to giant-size? One can only imagine the number of up-skirt shots of Elasti-Girl that exist. Hope she was wearing panties.

The policeman at the entrance says, "No one enters or leaves this place until tomorrow morning! Commissioner's orders". Then we see inside and the Gem Center has workers & possibly customers.
Wonder how they feel knowing that they are locked in there until tomorrow morning?

Elasti-Girl catches The Baron & his gang, but he says that he has planted explosives in the subway where it goes under the river & if he & his men are not back in five minutes his man will set off the explosives. Negative Man thinks they have no choice, but to let The Baron go.
I was wondering why didn't Negative Man zip down the tunnel & knock out any man who was near an explosive device?

NAN but it amused me. The Chief is telling his origin to the Doom Patrol & one flashback shows him experimenting with bringing a rabbit back to life & thinking, "Oswald--you're going to be the most famous rabbit in the world!"
What amused me is that one of the early animation stars was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (done by a young Walt Disney.)

The Man Who Lived Twice Original publication not listed but probably an issue of Doom Patrol Reprinted in Super-Team Family #10
The flashback rewords some dialogue from the first part.

Page 4, Panel 3. The Chief (okay, he's not the Chief yet since this part is set in the past, but I didn't want to confuse people by calling him Caulder) calls his Robot-Assistant 2, "R-2", but later on refers to it as RA-2.

The Chief has RA-2 destroy his laboratory so General Immortus can't learn any of Caulder's secrets. Then he shoots RA-2's electronic brain for the same reason.
Perfectly sound reasoning actually, but since the Chief has recently lost the use of his legs wouldn't it have made more sense to have RA-2 carry Chief to someplace far away before doing this?
I mean if General Immortus' men were to show up then the Chief wouldn't get very far away crawling on his hands now would he?

Page 14, Panel 1. The caption reads, "The locomotive's front end swings open", but it's drawn like the front end was burst open.

The New Doom Patrol was an attempt to revive the old group. Robotman, the only survivor of the explosion that destroyed the old group; Celsius, able to generate ice & fire blasts; Tempest, able to fire lethal powerblasts; & Negative Woman, who can turn her body into a feminine version of Negative Man. The revival was pretty much cut short because of the DC Implosion. The new characters were eventually killed off.

Untitled Showcase #95
The flashback to last issue rewrote some dialogue.

Celsius' backstory of being the widow of The Chief is questionable, even if it doesn't actually violate what the Chief said of his past in a previous story. (Although I understand that a later writer decided that the marriage was all in Celsius' head & not real.)

Here Celsius took an immortality solution developed by the Chief. Except that all the Chief's research into preserving life from the original Doom Patrol story (reprinted in Super-Team Family's 9 & 10) seemed to involve an electronic ray.

The caption telling of next issue's story calls it, "From Russia With Death!", but the actual story is called, "Defection!"

Black Lightning #10 ("The Other Black Lightning")

The splash page shows Black Lightning and his impersonator, a dumb football player* held in place by some of the Trickster's green concrete solution (or whatever it is). An elephant is charging at them. This scene does not occur in this story. The elephant charges at the real Black Lightning only.

The Trickster is being escorted aboard the longest jet I've ever seen going to California to face some charges there. When the cops escorting him check the bathroom, we see what has to be the biggest bathroom in any jet on Earth. I mean, I've been on airplanes before and the john's just not that spacious. They tend to give a whole new meaning to the term "cramped".

Apparently, these idiot cops allowed Trickster to wear his costume while taking him to California. They not only deserve having him escape from them, they were practically asking him to escape.

In real life, a law enforcement officer would have been in the toilet with Trickster to ensure that he doesn't try anything to escape. Or at least the door would have been opened so the cops could watch him. And why is he being carried on a jumbo jet? A dangerous villain like that, you'd think they'd charter a smaller craft to do the job.

The escape is facilitated by an illusion-device the Trickster got from the Mirror Master. Didn't these cops search him?!? Why bother getting him on the plane? Just drop the Trickster wherever he wanted to go and say, "See ya later, pal!"

The Trickster somehow finding a parachute, somehow rigs the cargo door of the jet to close after he jumps. Uh huh. Right. And how would he do that?

After landing, Trickster thinks, "I timed my jump to put me within yards of my spare costume and equipment." Good thing the wind wasn't blowing too hard that day. He might have been thrown way further off course than that. How'd he know how fast the plane was flying to time his jump? The plane's exact course? How'd he have the foresight to stash all that stuff in that area? Did he know that far in advance which flight he'd be taking to California?

This isn't a nit, but it is a bit of an inside joke. The Trickster, deciding to take a little vacation, decides to join the Bewsima Circus. The circus is displaying a diamond given it by a sultan one of the owners did a favor. The sultan insisted the diamond be displayed before every show.

Now the circus is run by a pair of brothers, one of whom is Silvio. The other brother, driven by worry that the diamond would be stolen (thus starting an international incident), went "right over the edge". "Now he sits in a small room and draws strange pictures all day." Silvio says he's thinking about taking up a pencil, too. In case you can't figure it out, the Bewsima Brothers are a tribute (if that's the right word) to Sal and John Buscema.

While fighting Black Lightning, the Trickster pulls out a rubber chicken filled with some gas. Where'd he keep that chicken hidden?

Black Lightning #11

The backup story stars the Ray. Deciding he no longers wants to be a superhero, the Ray removes his costume. I don't know how the Ray got his superpowers, but judging by the full frontal nudity in this issue, it rendered him as sexually neutered as a Ken doll. I mean, either he's doing a Jame Gumm** and has it tucked between his legs while flying or this man is truly "d*ckless".

Later, when the Ray decides to help stop a fire, his costume suddenly appears on him. If the costume can appear and disappear like that, why he need to rip it off earlier to show off his short-comings?

Y'know, the funniest thing about this issue occurs at the end. It's a one pager for "The Answer Man's Guide to the DC Explosion!" It lists all the DC titles the company was planning to publish. What's funny (and ironic), is this page appears in the last issue of Black Lightning, a victim of the infamous DC Implosion.

*How dumb is he? He tackled his own quarterback in a game, that's how dumb he is.

**A Silence of the Lambs reference, in case you didn't get it.

Excelsior!

I don't know how the Ray got his superpowers
If I recall correctly "Happy" Terril was on a balloon measuring cosmic rays & he got zapped. (Holy Reed Richards!)

IIRC The Ray could change himself to pure energy & back & I believe in The Ray miniseries of the '90s he explained to his son (the new Ray) that the power allowed them to create things like costumes. (A running gag was that up to that point Ray II was ending up in various places pantsless.)

What I wonder is why someone decided to use The Ray as the backup feature for Black Lightning? That makes about as much sense as putting Iron Fist in Luke Cage's book. Oh, wait a minute...

Star Hunters was a short-lived science fiction series DC published & canceled one issue before they could have ended the first storyline.

In some respects the series has a few things in common with the British TV show Blakes Seven, although I'm not certain if B7 was even on the air when the first issue of this story was published. According to the Story behind the Story feature an earlier version of this story had been discussed as a possible comic a few years earlier, so any similarities seem to be just a coincidence.

Star Hunters DC Super-Stars #16
Plot: Donovan Flint and 5 other people have their genes mutated by the Corporation that runs Earth and are given a ship, the CSV Sunrider, so they can find the other half of the Sornaii Artifact, an ancient relic that supposedly tells of a race that seeded the galaxy, including Earth, with sentient life. (The truth is revealed in later issues.) Upon leaving the solar system they find themselves attacked by an automated drone which almost destroys them.

The caption says that space is pulling at the contents of the ship.
Guess writer David Micheline didn't know that space doesn't $uck, but that atmosphere blows.

Page 24, Panel 1. Donovan's bare arms are colored blue.

In retrospect the whole attack drone plotline doesn't really make much sense. The Corporation certainly wouldn't have wanted the Sunrider destroyed. Possibly the ship could have been built by the Sornaii, but since we find out the Sornaii are on the side of good, seems unusual. The only other possibility would seem to be the Annihilists. Random destruction seems to be their forte. However no reason was ever given in story.

Junkworld Star Hunters #1
Plot: They find the second half of the Sornaii Artifact. Is this plot moving fast or what?

Donovan explains that a 100 years or so ago Earth realized that they were running out of room for their garbage, & that in a rare moment of do-gooding the Corporation dumped Earth's garbage on the planet Merdd.
1. The year is 2127, we were told in DC Super-Stars #16 that the Corporation took control of Earth after the Panic of `93, so if the Corporation started dumping Earth's garbage on Merdd in the 2020s or 2030s it would seem to be before they took power of Earth. Therefore one would expect the Corporation to be more, apparently, benevolent then.
2. Why dump the garbage on another planet when it could simply be dumped in the sun?

The Annihilist Factor Star Hunters #2
Plot: A crewmember suffers an inexplicable epileptic fit & the Corporation knows they have the second half of the artifact despite no one telling them. They are ordered to the Homeworld, but enroute they suffer a power drain and stop at the world that is causing it.

The new artists draw the Sunrider differently.

Emmett Dobbs tells them that this is a nightworld with nights 20 hours long.
Even as a kid this statement bugged me. Shouldn't the days & nights of a planet be more or less equal? Well, okay you could have more hours of daylight if there were multiple suns, but how could you get more hours of night? The planet is shown to have multiple moons, but nothing is mentioned about eclipses.

Also, even if the planet could somehow have longer nights than days wouldn't that make it much colder? Yet no one complains about the cold.

Page 16, Panel 7. The caption reads, "No, not long all...".
Seems to be a missing `at'.

The Sowers Of Holocaust Star Hunters #3
Plot: Still on Darkever, Commander Darcy Vale has been captured by the Annihilists who plan to destroy Earth. (The device they'll use was responsible for the power drain last issue.) Donovan Flint & the others destroy the device & capture the Annihilists, but they discover that the Sunrider was damaged by the weapon. Donovan goes up to evacuate Dr. Sellars & Mindy and has them take the shuttle down while he goes to grab the Sornaii Artifact. Just as he reaches the Artifact the ship explodes. Duh duh DUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The insectoid Zadads are winged, except when the artists forget.
Page 1. One Zadad seems to be wingless, but there are some lines drawn that could have been wings, however the colorist assumed they were lines on the building behind.
Page 2, Panels 2 & 3. Flint's fighting a wingless one.
Page 4, Panel 2. All are wingless.
Page 5, Panel 1. A flying Zadad is suddenly wingless.

First Blood! Star Hunters #4
Plot: The late Donovan Flint meets the Entity which tells him he's the chosen of the Sornaii and he gets resurrected. The team takes possession of the Annihilists' ship which they name the Sunrider II, it's learned that Mindy Yano has an organic transmitter in her head causing her epileptic fits and letting the Corporation know what's happening and the ship is attacked by Corporation forces.

The captured Annihilists are going to be held prisoner by Emmett.
Yeahhhhhhhh, right. A handful of anarchic killers guarded by one 73 year old man

A Death Of Tiny Voices Star Hunters #5
Plot: The Star Hunters destroy a vital communication station. This story in particular has a Blakes Seven feel (because they had an episode or two featuring an attack on a communication station) & one line seems lifted from Star Wars (The commander asking for his shuttle to be prepared.).

The Sonora Station is on an asteroid that has engines so it can move around. Donovan & Jake have destroyed those engines, but the caption says, "the now-immobile Sonora Asteroid".
Okay, it may not be able to control where it is going, but that does not make it immobile. Especially in space.

With the engines destroyed, Donovan uses the ship's powerful repulsor beam to push the asteroid into the sun.
Okayyyy, I seem to recall some discussions on the Star Trek boards about the improbability of an object with less mass affecting an object of greater mass, IIUC unless the Sunrider II is more massive than the Sonora Asteroid the repulsor beam will push the Sunrider more than it will push the asteroid.

Avernus Uprising Star Hunters #6
Plot: Donovan Flint and Dr. Sellars arrange to be captured by the Avernus prison colony to attempt to gain recruits for the battle against Earth.

Page 1. Dr. Sellars' left sleeve is colored flesh-colored rather than brown.

Homecoming Star Hunters #7
Plot: Taking control of the prison, the Star Hunters begin plans for the attack on Earth. Donovan reveals that the Entity told him that the Corporation is working for evil entities that want to control the universe & that he was chosen to fight for the good entities. The attack on Earth begins and Donovan ends up crashing on Earth. Then the DC Implosion happened and the next issue never saw print.

At the end of last issue the atmosphere plates behind Donovan were shown to be off. At the beginning of this issue they are on.

The flashback to last issue colors Dr. Sellars' uniform green instead of brown, his bare legs green & his brown hair black.

Page 8, Panel 3. The Warden's uniform is colored green instead of purple.
Anti-nit. It is on a monitor screen so maybe someone was playing around with the color balance? ;-)

Page 7, Panel 4. The trim of the Warden's collar is colored green instead of light blue.

Page 10. Charlie Bane's orange hair is blonde.

Page 10, Panel 1. Terrence's skin is pink instead of brown.

Page 10, Panel 2. Visilith, Prince of Bones, white helmet & blue skin is colored pink.
Also Visilith seems to have bulked up since his previous appearances. (Steroids?)

NANJAO. This issue ties Star Hunters in with two other David Micheline books, Claw The Unconquered & Starfire. Both characters are seen in the flashback to what the Entity showed Donovan.
IIRC Claw The Unconquered was set in a multiverse with 9 Earths, 4 ruled by evil, 4 by good & 1 being fought over, which means that Star Hunters is not part of the main DC Universe with it's infinity of Earths.

When they encounter a fleet of ships guarding Earth Donovan seems surprised and guesses that Sonora must have gotten a message off before she burned.
Well, duh. They knew that in issue 6. Also they knew that Sonora personnel had escaped from the station before it burned up so they could also tell Earth what happened.
For that matter in issue 4 Donovan said they were going to Earth just before Mindy had an epileptic seizure which was a sign that the Corporation had just been downloading what she knew.
Frankly there's no good reason why Donovan or Darcy should be surprised at the fleet guarding Earth.

Donovan says that he warped in a 100 yards over Earth.
It looks higher up than that.

---

Rereading this after all these years I have to say that I find it disappointing how some of the lesser characters just got shunted off to the background as the series went along.
Mindy last said anything in issue 4 & after that was only shown in isolation & we heard second hand that she had decided to have the bugging device removed.
Possibly Micheline may have known that he would be leaving the book and handing it over to Gerry Conway (who would have written issue 8) so maybe he just decided to focus on the main 'fight the Corporation' angle while he could, or maybe he just got bored with those characters & it was easier to ignore them than to develop them.
Just a pity that they never played a bigger role toward the end.

The Daily Planet Extra was DC's way of plugging other books that the company had coming out. (The previews were written like newspaper articles.) For a while Bob Rozakis had an Ask The Answer Man column in the extra. In the extra edition for the week of November 28, 1977, he gave the location of 5 DC cities.
Metropolis & Gotham in the vicinity of New York across the bay from each other. (Although this had been indicated & shown for a while in several comics.)
Coast City in California. (Well, duh.)
However, he also mentioned that Midway City (Hawkman & Doom Patrol) was in Michigan. (Not quite the Chicago substitute I thought it was, but close. Certainly punches a hole in idea that it's a substitute for St. Louis though.)
Also Central City (Flash) is in Ohio. (Not Kansas as I believe the Post-Crisis Central City is.)
Interesting. Now if I can just find out where some of the other fictional cities were? (I swear that I read somewhere that Smallville was also in Ohio. If only I can find that source.)

Smallville is in Kansas! I guess the Daily Planet wasn't as reliable as we thought.

Emmett Dobbs tells them that this is a nightworld with nights 20 hours long.
Even as a kid this statement bugged me. Shouldn't the days & nights of a planet be more or less equal? Well, okay you could have more hours of daylight if there were multiple suns, but how could you get more hours of night?

Tilt of the planet axis? As in, close to the north pole you have 6 months of daylight and 6 months of darkness, and only at the equator day and night are both 12 hours? Or a planet which faces the same side to the sun all the time has permanent night, but an additonal light source might shorten that? They live on a twilight border?

Okayyyy, I seem to recall some discussions on the Star Trek boards about the improbability of an object with less mass affecting an object of greater mass, IIUC unless the Sunrider II is more massive than the Sonora Asteroid the repulsor beam will push the Sunrider more than it will push the asteroid.

Isn't action= reaction, so both should be pushed in opposite directions? But the ship can fly close again and push repeatedly, and since no other forces slow the asteroid down, many, many small pushes would add up to a big push. (That's what all the physicists complain about Star Trek ignoring Newton's law of inertia!)

Ccabe, I didn't say the Daily Planet Extra said that, I said I thought I read it somewhere.

Besides IIRC Smallville first appeared in Kansas in Superman The Movie & then in John Byrne's Post-Crisis reboot of Superman. The Pre-Crisis comics usually didn't mention states for where the fictional cities were. Some people who are familiar with the original Superman stories say that Metropolis is more like Seigal & Shuster's hometown of Cleveland, then New York, so it would make sense for Smallville, which I believe was said to be near Metropolis (Pre-Crisis) to be in Ohio.

constanze - Tilt of the planet axis?
Thought of that, but still came up with an even amount of night & day.

Isn't action= reaction, so both should be pushed in opposite directions? But the ship can fly close again and push repeatedly, and since no other forces slow the asteroid down, many, many small pushes would add up to a big push.
But that's not what's shown. The Sunrider II uses its repulsor beam, then the asteroid is shown tumbling into the star.
Course even if they did push multiple times off-panel I'm wondering if Sonora's final plunge into the star would happen as quickly as it seems to happen here? I don't remember if a time was mentioned, but it doesn't seem to take that long. Maybe several hours, if it took days or months I would expect Corporation ships with tractor beams & weapons to show up & try to rescue Sonora.

Ccabe, How Clark Kent Met Lois Lane from Adventure Comics #128 (May 1948) said that Smallville & Metropolis were near each other. A little hard to do if Smallville was in Kansas & Metropolis in New York.
(Now maybe if Smallville were in New Jersey...? ;-)
Joisey Superboy: Hey, yo, Lutha! Stop buggin' me or ah'll rip ya haih outta ya head!)

Course even if they did push multiple times
Donovan mentions "that repulsor beam" which indicates one burst.

I don't remember if a time was mentioned
Time isn't mentioned but the montage of the asteroid going into sun & voiceover implies very little time.

Daily Planet Extra for the Week of January 24, 1977
The headline on the promo for Justice League of America #142 reads, "Search For 8 JLAers".
Actually it was 3 JLAers not 8.

Zatanna is the daughter of the 1940s comic hero Zatara, both are magicians who perform magic by speaking backwards.

JLA: Zatanna's Search is the collection of the original Zatanna stories published in various comics through the 1960's as well as an origin story written years later.

The back cover blurb reads "she is aided by some of the most powerful people in the DC Universe - Batman, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman and the Elongated Man."
Okay, Green Lantern is powerful, but the others???

Cover. NAN but an odd contrast to Justice League of America #51. Batman is not shown here, but he was the most prominent on the JLA cover. (Actually Batman's inclusion in the Zatanna storyline seems more like a retcon because of his popularity from the Batman TV show.)

Bob Kane is listed as one of the pencillers. However the Batman story looks too well done for Kane to have penciled any of it & IIRC Kane no longer had anything to do with Batman save have his name on it at this time.

Cover Gallery
The covers of 5 of the six issues that Zatanna's search ran through are reproduced.
Presumably Detective Comics #355 wasn't reproduced because the Elongated Man was a back-up feature that wouldn't have been represented on the cover, however the cover of Hawkman #4 deals with another story that ran in that issue & not the story that introduced Zatanna.

The Secret Spell Originally printed in DC Blue Ribbon Digest #5
Plot: Zatanna discovers her father is missing, reads his diary and learns how to do backward magic and begins her quest to find Zatara.

This story is set before Hawkman #4, but it shows a grown-up Zatanna who's father has just disappeared a few days earlier, not the 20 years Zatanna said it's been since she saw him in Justice League of America #51. (Not unless she's a lot older than we've been led to believe.)

The Tantalizing Trouble Of The Tripod Thieves! Detective Comics #355 Reprinted in JLA: Zatanna's Search
Plot: Some crooks are robbing a jewelry store when they suddenly start flying through the air. The Elongated Man spots them and tries to stop them only to have them involuntarily fight back. When he recovers he discovers that the pearls the crooks were stealing glow when held in the air at the right spot so he follows the path the glowing pearls indicate and comes to a prop shop where Zatanna had cast a spell to bring the crooks to her because they had stolen the Ting Tripod an object she was unable to track magically, but needed to find her father.

Opening caption says the Elongated Man spotted crooks swimming through the air. No they were flying against their will and not making any swimming motions.

The magic book of I Ching & the black magic of Ching's book prevented Zatanna's white magic from working.
Yeahhhhhhhh...
As I understand it the I Ching is just a method of fortune telling, although in the `70s Wonder Woman did team up with a blind Chinese man named I Ching. So in the DC Universe I Ching does seem to be a person's name.

All-American Comics #8
NANJAO. The girl on the cover is wearing what appears to be a metal brassiere with nipples...
1. I didn’t realize they could get away with that back then.
2. If it is metal, why would it need nipples?

JSA: Classified #2
Most inane explanation for a costume's look I have ever read!

Yeah, I heard about that explanation in a discussion on a thread on another site. And I agree, it's pretty lame.

"Excelsior!

What a tasteful title for that thread.

I keep reading about Wally Wood drawing PG's breasts bigger & bigger each issue, but I really didn't notice much change when I was rereading All-Star Comics a while back. It seems to me that they started out big & stayed that way.
(Time to pull out those issues & doublecheck, I guess. *sigh* The life of a nitpicker...)

Now they did seem to get bigger when Joe Staton took over, but then Joe was a more cartoony artist.

Also IIRC the hole in her costume lasted 2 issues, then she had the solid white outfit until she got a new costume in IIRC Justice League Europe.

Still the idea that she left the hole because she didn't know what to put there... yeesh! Gee, your name is Power Girl, how about PG in an oval?

Of course Pre-Crisis PG got ticked at the Star Spangled Kid when he made her a symbol for her costume, so I guess it's just the Post-Crisis PG who's an idiot.

Must be because she's blond* that she can't think of a symbol

* as in "stereotypical-dumb-blond-jokes"

The hole in Power Girl’s costume lasted for 6 issues, not 2

From what I could tell her breast size seemed consistent during Wally Wood's tenure. While there might have been an occasional panel where Wally drew her breasts larger than panels 1 & 2 on page 16* of issue 58 that seems to be as generally big as he ever drew them. (So while it’s a cute story it seems to be made up.)

* Not counting the cover she first appeared on page 15.

While Power Girl was the biggest breasted heroine of the ‘70s if Wally Wood were alive to draw her these days I wonder if some editor would say, “What is she 13? Come on Wally, give her some knockers so people don’t think she’s a boy!” ;-)

Steel, the Indestructible Man #4

Man, whoever did the word balloon placements in this ish, did a horrible job of it. On page 2, panel 6 is a word balloon that says, "Strange...For just a moment while we were kissing, I felt Hank go so cold, as though he'd turned to ice." Problem is, the word balloon indicates that this is Hank Hammond (Steel's secret i.d.) thinking. It should be Hammond's girlfriend, Gloria Giles thinking it.

On page 6, panel 3, Steel is talking to Edward Runyon, who runs an influential newspaper. In panel three is are a couple of word balloons that say, "Runyon, I'm not asking you to print something you don't believe. I'm not asking you to distort the truth or twist the facts." Nothing wrong with those statements. Except the words balloons are pointing to Runyon.

No wonder this book was a casualty of the DC Implosion.

Excelsior!

Showcase Presents: Metamorpho
Not really a nit, but I find it interesting that the collection is titled Showcase Presents even though Metamorpho never appeared in the original Showcase comic.

The Back Cover blurb calls him “The freak of 1001 elements”.
Well that’s interesting. There were only around a 100 elements known at the time the series was written & an earlier Legion of Super-Heroes story indicated that by the Legion’s time Element 256 had just been created. (The stories themselves usually say “the freak of a 1001 changes”.)

The back cover also says the stories were written by Bob Haney, but the JLA story was written by Gardner Fox.

The last 3 stories are The Brave And The Bold #66 & 68 & Justice League of America #42. Problem is this puts them out of chronological order. JLA #42 would have appeared between issues 4 & 5, while B&B #66 should be between issues 6 & 7 & B&B #68 should go between issues 8 & 9.

The Table of Contents lists the cover of The Brave And The Bold #68 as being done by Mike Sekowsky & Murphy Anderson, but the reprint of the cover says Sekowsky & Giella.

One funny thing is how often Metamorpho is referred to as E-Man. If the book hadn’t have been canceled would the boys at Charlton Comics have had to come up with another name when they created their E-Man?

The regular recurring cast of characters:
Metamorpho - the star
Sapphire Stagg - his fiancee
Simon Stagg - her father & Metamorpho's employer
Java - million-year old caveman that Stagg revived who loves Sapphire, hates Metamorpho & works as Stagg's bodyguard


The Origin Of Metamorpho originally printed in The Brave And The Bold #57
The Orb of Ra is the only thing that can control Metamorpho so why does Simon Stagg hide it in a shark tank? If he needed to grab it quickly that shark would make it tough to get for Simon.

The Junk Yard Of Doom originally printed in The Brave And The Bold #58
How does Maxwell Tremaine know that Metamorpho is now called Metamorpho? Sapphire Stagg only came up with the name on page 6 & there doesn’t appear to have been any public unveiling of the name prior to Metamorpho’s kidnapping on page 7.

Page 10, Panel 9. Metamorpho’s waistband now features a box shape that was missing in the previous 2 panels. It’ll disappear again page 11, panel 2 & page 13, panel 1.
(Oddly enough this box is where the covers have shown the M that he won’t add till the next story.)

Nations dumped their weapons that didn’t work right into a valley in Africa.
Yeahhhhhhhhh, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

Tremaine wants Metamorpho to use his powers to make the weapons work. Metamorpho refuses & Tremaine uses the weapons against him.

The Dragon-Fly Death’s de-moleculizer completely disintegrates Stagg’s plane except for Stagg, Sapphire & Java.

Attack Of The Atomic Avenger originally printed in Metamorpho #1
Page 13, Panel 3. The caption says that Stagg gave Java life. Actually he freed Java from a state of suspended animation.

Vornak can convert an object into a simpler chemical compound and he turns a rug into... yarn?

Terror From The Telstar originally printed in Metamorpho #2
Why is the government asking Metamorpho to go into space to fix Telstar? Was Superman busy?

Java’s spacesuit is lacking gloves.

To protect himself & Java from burning up on re-entry Metamorpho forms a heat shield of cobalt & magnesium.
Wouldn’t using magnesium in a heat shield be self-defeating?

Of course Java would still be in danger of burning up since Metamorpho hasn’t covered him over. Friction with the atmosphere should still be going on.

Who Stole The U.S.A.? originally printed in Metamorpho #3
T. T. Trumball has built Science Station Alpha in the Grand Canyon.
How’d he get permission from the National Park Service???

Page 10 Panel 2. T.T.T. refers to his plan as Operation Super-Colossal, but previously it was just Operation Colossal.

Page 15, Panel 3. Metamorpho is sliced up by laser beams, but the artist forgot to draw it so it looks 3-dimensional.

A tank fires a missile that blows up the robot, but doesn’t destroy the cable the robot was following?

Will The Real Metamorpho Please Stand Up? originally printed in Metamorpho #5
Stagg Building is designed to change from say, a flat-topped heliport to handle a busy city’s airport commuters or it can be turned into a covered dome stadium.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to build a heliport on top of a stadium???
“Okay, time to change the building into a stadium! Get those helicopters out of here by the time I count to ten or they all go crashing to the ground!”

Edifice K. Bulwark says, “They sneered at the man who designed the pyramids -- yet they still stand!”
Okay show me the hieroglyphics that says people sneered at the man who designed the pyramids.

Metamorpho: I thought only characters in brand eccch comics talked that way!
Wasn’t Brand Ecch a Marvel comic?

Terror From Fahrenheit 5,000! originally printed in Metamorpho #7
Opening caption has Metamorpho saying, “Thanks for swinging with me for a dozen adventures”
A dozen? 7 issues of his own book, 3 issues of The Brave And The Bold, 1 issue of the Justice League of America comes to 11 issues. Was his next B&B appearance supposed to come out before this issue?

Why is Metamorpho taking Sapphire along? He knows he’s heading into trouble.

Page 6, Panel 3. Cute in-joke. On the wall of the cave is carved “Cave Carson was here” Cave Carson is an earlier DC character.

Metamorpho shatters a door of solid amber with a pointy iron toe.
Amber is soft, not glass. Cutting through it or burning through it yeah, but shattering it?

How Stagg & the other volcanologists were floating through the air is never explained.

Page 9, Panel 3. The final caption for this part reads, “Which explodes on the page following” only The is in very thin lettering with a big space between it & Page. almost as if there should have been a 2nd or 3rd in that space. Looking at previous captions when they mention the story continuing it always says the next page. I wonder if these are reprinted exactly or if changes have been made since TPBs have no ads?

Seashell II, a scientific platform for drilling the mohole, the first penetration of the Earth’s crust.
Sounds like something you’d think Aquaman would be interested in since it involves the sea.

Metamorpho: Now I want words with that guy Von Stuttgart!
Shouldn’t there be a comma between Guy & Von?

Element Man, Public Enemy! originally printed in Metamorpho #8
I wonder if this nit was intentional? This band is singing a song and one line is, “Get hot like an acid”. On the one hand it’s a nit, but on the other it was ‘written’ by a songwriter, not a chemist...

The Valley That Time Forgot! originally printed in Metamorpho #9
Metamorpho can’t act up against El Matanzas because he holds Sapphire hostage, except that on page 16 Metamorpho, Sapphire & Stagg are quite a ways away from El Matanzas & Metamorpho should be able to get them away.

The Sinister Snares Of Stingaree! originally printed in Metamorpho #10
How did Urania Blackwell know how Rex Mason became Metamorpho? Rather foolish to let people know how someone got super-powers isn’t it?
Also in issue 5 Stagg duplicated the experiment with Edifice K. Bulwark, but the effect was only temporary, presumably because Rex took a pill before he was changed, but Element Girl seems to be permanently Element Girl.

Pages 3 & 4 show Urania to be barefoot, the rest of the time Urania is usually shown wearing shoes.

They Came From... Beyond? originally printed in Metamorpho #11
Flying saucers and they call... Metamorpho?
Was Superman &/or the Justice League busy?

Stagg seems to think that it will be a historic moment to look upon beings from space.
Uhhhh... what about Superman or the Martian Manhunter? (Not sure if Hawkman & Hawkgirl had revealed their alien status at this time or not.) For that matter issue 9 featured the gang meeting alien machines & Metamorpho fought aliens in JLA #42.

Vrag-Kol doesn’t seem to realize that aliens have come to Earth before this time.

For some reason Metamorpho falls to pieces when the missile crashes, but nothing is shown slicing up his body.

The Trap Of The Test-Tube Terrors! originally printed in Metamorpho #12
Despite the story starting off with Stagg offering a one million dollar prize for finding a cure for Metamorpho, surprisingly no mention is made of Doc Magnus’ cure in The Brave And The Bold #66.

Sapphire: One of those men may have your cure -- so we can be married at last
Uhhhh, Sapphire, you & Metamorpho were almost married 2 issues ago

The Return From Limbo originally printed in Metamorpho #13
Page 1 lists the cast of characters including a silhouetted girl that reads “Mystery guest-star!” except that the cover gave away who it is.

Element Girl: When Zorb returned to the lab, something he was carrying gave off powerful waves that weakened me from the state I was in!
I believe that should be wakened, or awakened, not weakened. (After all she was dead, & that’s about as weak as you can get.)

Stagg has an interesting elevator in his building. Hit all the buttons and it goes up & down at top speed. Cut the cables and it falls down the shaft.
Safety inspectors living up to their usual high standards, I see.

Enter The Thunderer! originally printed in Metamorpho #14
Metamorpho gets split in two here, but recombines easily. Unlike previous stories were he needed an electrical charge to recombine.

Caption: The Thunderer? Who’s he? Has a villain from Brand ‘M’ slipped over into our magnificent mag?
*snicker* Of course The Thunderer was a Timely (pre-Marvel) hero. Also a somewhat ironic comment as Bob Haney writes
Metamorpho in a Stan Lee style.

I get the feeling Bob Haney was poking a little fun at Galactus & the Silver Surfer here with the Thunderer & Neutrog.

Hour Of Armageddon! originally printed in Metamorpho #15
The splash page has Metamorpho posed different & facing the other way from last issue when the Thunderer blasted him.

The French ambassador saying “Never surrender”???
Clearly this isn’t set in the real world. ;-)

Jezeba, Queen Of Fury! originally printed in Metamorpho #16
Mr. Shadow... I wonder how the boys at DC avoided a lawsuit with this homage?

How is Urania able to grab the Orb of Ra? Shouldn’t it affect her the same as Metamorpho?

Jezeba (who believes Metamorpho is her 2,000 year old lover Algon): How could there be two men of the elements?
Metamorpho: Search me, doll
Let’s see Rex knows how he became an element man, he probably knows how Stagg turned Edifice Bulwark into an element man & he knows how Urania Blackwell became Element Girl. Yeah, it’s a real puzzle alright. *rolls eyes*

Last Mile For An Element Man! originally printed in Metamorpho #17
Flashback to previous issue a little different.

Why was Stagg serving as Metamorpho’s defense attorney??? Even if Stagg was an attorney he is the father-in-law of the deceased & the father of Metamorpho’s main accuser.

---

Fadeout For A Freak Action Comics #414
Technically this nit should also go in Action Comics #413, but I don’t have that issue.
The bad guy has got Metamorpho in a vat a acid which is dissolving the Element Man. Problem is in the very first Metamorpho story Stagg exposed him to acid with no problem & in issue 5 the second Metamorpho used acid and Metamorpho dealt with it easily.

A general nit for Metamorpho is how Metamorpho’s chemistry knowledge seems to come & go as the story requires it.

Time Warp was a short-lived (5 issues) SF anthology series from the late '70s. No continuing characters or series, just standalone stories.

Time Warp #1
If The World Had To End Twice...
Jacob Saturn uses the lasers from the Chronos satellite to wipe out the invading Scrells & all humans on Earth & later says he "killed five billion living beings".
... well, I'm sure that seemed like a big number in 1979, but...
The living beings comment would seem to include the Scrells along with the humans (although given that he also destroyed most if not all plant & animal life...)

Were all the Scrells on Earth? We do see one on the satellite & killed, but one would assume that there must be others on ships or on their home planet.

At the end of the story, after 15 years of being a frozen ball, Jacob uses the laser to thaw out a portion of Earth so that a 20(?) year old boy & a 15 year old girl can live.
1. How is Jacob so certain that the area will stay thawed?
2. Given the firestorms that covered Earth from the laser barrage & the 15+ year long ice age it would seem very few plants & animals would have survived, so what will Billy & the girl eat?
3. The assumption is that Billy & the girl will be the world's new Adam & Eve, rather ignoring the possibility of the inbreeding that will result.

The Survivors
Plot: Humans have set-up a colony on Myrg where the Smellies keep humans isolated, so the Humans & Smellies are at war. Laurel is turned into a Smellie and she infiltrates their ranks. she learns they have already planned a fatal attack on the humans, she decides to get revenge and destroys the Smellies. The gas which killed the Smellies turns her back into a human. She returns to the colony to find that her lover, Brad, was a Smellie disguised as a human (who changes back because of the gas which killed the humans) and the story ends on a hopeful note as Laurel tells Brad they have a world to rebuild.

The same volcanic gas seems to kill both humans & Smellies, but only changes the altered versions back to their own species. Huh?

That rebuild the world comment seems very hopeful, but how will one human girl & one Smellie male (I assume) do that? Use the equipment to change one into the other's race?
There was a comment that there were others converted so possibly there could be some other survivors we just don't see.
Of course, even if there were other Smellie survivors, Myrg was the Smellie's home planet while it was just a human colony. Not good news for any smellie survivors.

The Man Who Could See Yesterday!
The world of D'fya has a race of people who can see the future, but have trouble remembering their predictions for more than a day or two. This lack of a memory has held them back until the capture a human who will be their memory.
Problemn is, if these people have no memory how can they have a spoken language? It takes more than a day to develop language & some words don't get used all that often so their language should be very, very simple.
Of course if they had just learned to write they wouldn't need a human to remember for them.

Time Warp #1
Actual nit or just a variation of PAL?
The ad for issue 2 shows a cover that was later used for issue 3. (They did explain in issue 3 that at the time of the ad that was to be the cover for 2, but they decided that it didn't match any story in the issue so they saved it for 3 where they felt it better matched one, or more, of the stories in that issue.)

Cultural Exchange Time Warp #2
Spaceship mysteriously stops, the crew walks outside, without any kind of spacesuit, and one guy says the atmosphere is so alien his analyzer is not responding.
Say what???
1. Shouldn't they have tried analyzing this atmosphere before they left the ship?
2. Wouldn't spacesuits have been a normal precaution?

The Dimensions Of Greed Time Warp #3
Page 7, Panel 1 is a repeat, from another angle, of Page 1, Panel 4.
1. Steve Ditko drew Leo & Dick on the wrong sides of each other.
2. The 'guards' are dressed completely differently.

What's an "alien atmosphere", anyway? Is it alive? Does he mean that the mixture of gases is different than on Earth, and not breathable? Why can't his gadget identify the gases?

Or does he mean the atmosphere contains alien, i.e. unknown on Earth, gases? That would be extremly unlikely, I think.

1. Shouldn't they have tried analyzing this atmosphere before they left the ship?

It looks like an atmosphere, so it's breathable.

2. Wouldn't spacesuits have been a normal precaution?

Real heroes/Man (TM) don't need spacesuits! Spacesuits are only for sissies!

The guy just says it is so alien his analyzers are not responding (probably forgot to change the batteries).

It looks like a bunch of thick clouds. Not the sort of thing I would go wandering in without a spacesuit.

BTW the ship mysteriously stopped in space on what turned out to be a microscope slide from another dimension. Which could be one reason the analyzer didn't respond.

Rites Of Spring Time Warp #3
An all female civilization, but they wear high heels & skimpy clothing.

One old looking gal explains that another younger looking gal hates men (who were all killed in a war) because she needs them but can't have them.
The impression is that this civilization has been around for some time so why would this woman "need" a man? Don't they have strap-ons?

Or cucumbers?