Fiction Foundry 12

Despite his total lack of anything approaching an interest in sports, Mike was decent in math.  It seemed to him the calculus of the situation was pretty straightforward:  attractive new girl + weirdo brother + Mike = Mike Carson for the Win!

"Oh, ummm...actually, Mrs. Potain, I don't like most sports...but I'm a huge baseball fan."

"Really, well that's fabulous, isn't it kids?"

Big Mike cocked an eyebrow and shot his son a "be-careful-what-you're-getting-yourself-into" look.

"Who's your favorite MLB team?" Mary quizzed.

"I...uh...don't really have one. I mean, how can you pick just one, right?"

"Mine's the Cardinals," the girl announced in an authoritative staccato.  "Who do you think is the best pitcher in the league this season?"

The noose was tightening.  Just when it looked as if Mike was going to get busted, he was saved by the beaming Pastor Leedle.

"Looks like you folks are closing down the church today!  I guess fellowship is alive and well." The portly cleric waddled up, light reflecting off of his shiny bald head.

Midnight: racist superhero?

It's universally recognized that Jack Cole's Midnight began as a knock-off of Will Eisner's The Spirit, when the latter (who had atypically negotiated the reservation of creator rights) was deployed during World War II.

Midnight

The Spirit

Similarly, it's universally acknowledged that Eisner's work--particularly as personified in The Spirit's sidekick, Ebony White--at best partook of a sort of benign racism all too common in the 1930s and 1940s.

                   

It's sometimes argued--for example on the excellent Comic Tropes YouTube channel--that Gabby was no less offensive of a character since he supposedly represents, "casual racism." (start at about the 3:52 point)

Since Chris, the Comic Tropes host, is clearly far more knowledgeable about comics history than I am, I want to be cautious about disagreeing with him, but I'm not sure that Gabby does represent casual racism.

Isn't it at least possible that Jack Cole should be given the benefit of the doubt?  Given that so much else of the Spirit was copied pretty much directly (e.g., the fedora, the suit color, the domino mask, etc.) the fact that Cole deviated from strict adherence to the Eisner sidekick formula seems significant to me.  Isn't it possible to argue that Gabby represented not an implicit assumption that black people were "merely monkeys" but rather a passive-aggressive resistance to perpetuating the kind of racist caricatures exhibited by Ebony White?

Again, I want to be cautious about disagreeing with Chris.  I haven't even made it all the way through the original Midnight comics yet, so there may be future Cole stories that blow my sympathetic thesis about the guy out of the water.  However, to this point the only instance I've run across where Cole explicitly drew black people was in "The Circus Mystery" (Smash Comics #24), wherein the unnamed black boy does exhibit stereotyped language (e.g., "Sho!!") but also the boy is depicted as reliable, trustworthy, and competent.

So, what say you?  Is Chris right, or should we be a bit more sympathetic to Cole?  Was he perpetuating racism, or trying to push back against it?

Fiction Foundry 11

"Desmond.," Mrs. Potain said with the soft-but-firm tone moms use when they're a little embarrassed, "that's not very friendly."

"Sorry. Hi." Desmond said and offered the briefest wave in Mike's direction. (Actually, it looked like he was shooing a fly away, as much as anything else.)

After an awkward moment, Mrs. Potain continued: "Ah...Mike, do you like sports?"

"Not particularly, ma'am," Mike replied.

"Oh. That's too bad.  Claire and Desmond were planning to go to the baseball game this afternoon.  I thought it might be nice for you to join them.  I would so like for them to make new friends here."

Claire sighed and rolled her eyes--the universal teenage "DANGER: lame parents!" signal.  Desmond gave no indication he'd even heard the comment, instead staring at (almost into) one of the sanctuary's stained glass biblical scenes.

Re: Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and wiretapping

As fortune would have it, I just happened to be reading the Secret Origin of Miss America (h/t The Dork Review) when news stories broke about the machiavellian spying operations undertaken against the Trump campaign by the federal government.

I'm just gonna leave this right here:

 

What were Midnight's (and Jack Cole's) politics: the confrontation with the Ghost of Robin Hood

In Smash Comics #27, Cole returns to using antagonists nearer to what we might think of as "supervillains."  As the story opens, Big City is experiencing a rash of murders directed specifically at the "idle rich."  

Both the use of this language, and the artistic depiction Cole gives of what he must've presumed was the stereotypical "idle rich" leads me to wonder about his politics.  Was he into left-wing causes, or was this sort of language simply in the air of the 1940s as a result of Roosevelt and his New Deal propaganda?

One after another, the city's millionaires are cut down by an arrow-wielding "maniac" known as the Ghost of Robin Hood.  

Once again, Team Midnight utilizes the visoscope to get a lead on the case.  While surveiling a Mr. Van Topps, Wackey spots a suspicious figure with a bow and arrow, also stalking the Big City patrician. 

When an arrow comes whistling through the air and dead centers his head Team Midnight assumes the Ghost of Robin Hood has added one more notch to his bow.

They're shocked to discover, however, that this time the arrow features only a suction cup head. (Van Topps had simply fainted out of terror). 

 Attached to the arrow, is a note threatening Van Topps to, "Walk through the park tomorrow with one million dollars in a bag, or the next arrow will have a steel tip!"

The timid blue blood immediately exclaims his willingness to meet the demand, but Midnight intervenes and says he'll do no such thing.  Rather, Midnight will take Van Topps' place in order to lure the assassin out and (hopefully) bring an end to his reign of terror.

 



The following night as Midnight executes the plan, Gabby is shocked when an arrow burrows into the back of the faux-Van Topps.  Thinking his pal has been killed the monkey blows the operation by rushing up to see if Midnight is okay.  

When he realizes that some sort of trap has been set, the Ghost of Robin Hood flees the scene. (Meanwhile, much to Gabby's relief, the crimefighter reveals that he expected GRH would assassinate "Van Topps" regardless of the latter's response.  Consequently, he came prepared wearing a steel corset with a cork lining).

Displaying a penchant for gimmicks beyond simply the bow and arrow, GRH flees in a car equipped with giant tacks. (Holy patented trademark violation, Batman!)  Though the tacks perform their purpose of flattening all the tires on the pursuit car, being the single-minded junkyard dog of justice that he is, Midnight doesn't let that slow him down.  

Around a blind curve, GRH stashes his car in a secret garage built into the hillside.  Finding no sign of his quarry as he exits the curve, Midnight reasons that the villain can't have gotten far.  He parks the rim-mobile and heads up to investigate a dilapidated old house.

Leaving Gabby on the porch to stand guard, Midnight enters the structure only to have the door slam shut and lock behind him!  A magnetized plate in the ceiling yanks the vacuum gun from Midnight's hand. A small panel on the wall slides back and the face of GRH mocks Midnight for having foolishly walked into his "super trap."

In another of the plot holes peppering Golden Age comics like my brother on a bowl of pinto beans, it didn't seem to occur to Cole that if the super magnet in the ceiling picked up the vacuum gun, it would probably pick up the steel corset Midnight announced he was wearing on the previous page. 

The crimefighter charges, attempting to bust through the wall to his tormentor, only to discover he's now stuck fast to the wall by some sort of super adhesive. 

Rather than simply dispatching his foe. GRH decides to make a big show of his superiority by taking the time to outline Midnight's form with arrows.  By the time he finally gets around to taking a killing shot, the villain is stopped at the last moment by a doorknob to the base of the skull!

The next thing we know, it's Gabby to the Rescue! as another door knob strikes GRH square in the head (like some latter-day David and Goliath scenario).  GRH stumbles backward and into the adhesive wall of his own trap. 

After freeing himself with a "herculean effort," Midnight unmasks GRH to discover the assassin is, himself, a former millionaire.  

This panel raises some questions in light of the anti-rich impression that could be left by the opening panels of the story.  Did Cole intend to be sending any political message(s) with this story?  If so, what were they?  Was he "anti-rich" in the vein of Huey Long and (to a lesser extent) FDR; or was he critiquing the tendency of some political elements to wrap themselves in Robin Hood myths simply as a front for their own greed?  I'd appreciate hearing from any others who might be able to shed light on these questions. 

Fiction Foundry 10

"Kids, this is Mr. and Mrs. Carson...and their son Mike."

Had someone set out to produce the most anxiety-heightening situation possible, Mike doubted they could match the panic unleashed upon him by this normal social ritual, for it turned out that one of the people he was about to meet was his "angel" from the sermon.

"Nice to meet you." Mary said.  The words were normal enough.  What caught Mike off-guard was how they were paired with a quick slug to the shoulder. At the risk of looking weak in front of the pugilista, he resisted the urge to rub his deltoid.

Her brother's response was...decidedly different.  "Okay." he said as he stared off into the distance.

It's a (Hawk)man's world

Can't recall if I've mentioned it before or not, but as a kid Hawkman was one of my favorite superheroes.  This was because I didn't really start reading comics until about age 11 or 12, so virtually all of my early exposure to superheroes came through movies and cartoons.

I especially enjoyed Challenge of the Superfriends with its large ensemble of heroes.  I suspect Hawkman appealed to me because he looked so different from the other characters (maybe the same reasons I like Apache Chief and Black Vulcan).  

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/7041883047

In any event, I've had a soft spot for the character ever since.  Through the 90s it felt like being a fan of Hawkman was almost something to be ashamed of.  Perhaps there never was the widespread judgy animus against Hawkman that I perceived. (I was a teenager after all, and that leads to all sorts of social anxieties...some of which are even real.)  

At any rate, today I get the sense that Hawkman is starting to get a little more respect again.  In part this is because I'm finding interesting character stories like Dan Greenfield's "Thirteen things you didn't know about Hawkman."    

Fiction Foundry 9

Wrapping his arm around a slender woman at his side, the man continued:  "This is my wife, Joyce."

"It's a  pleasure to meet you, ma'am," said Big Mike.  "This is Jeanine, my better half...and,our son, Mike, Jr."  "These are the Potains.  Jim is one of our new floor supervisors," Big Mike said by way of explanation.

"Good to meet you, young man." Jim said with a wide toothy grin as he thrust a freckled hand towards Mike.  "Your dad tells me you're about the same age as our kids.  Actually, that's them right over there.  Mary...Desmond...c'mere.  I want you to meet some people!" Jim hollered across the largely empty sanctuary.

As Mike turned, his face suddenly grew hot and his heart felt like the wagon sounded whenever his dad revved the engine.

Getting caught up in the Web

Once again the Time Bullet blog reminds us of a superhero from the Golden Age--MLJ Comics' The Web.  While I'd heard of DC's parallel hero, the Tarantula, the Web was previously unknown to me.  I guess I hadn't realized before how much "house styles" could influence a character's presentation.  The blog makes the point that the Tarantula used lots of gadgets (more like a Batman) whereas MLJ tended to rely more on action, melodrama, and good old-fashioned fisticuffs.

While the name...could be better.  And the color scheme is...not exactly what I would've gone for...the story of "The Web and the Book" is actually decent.  I encourage you to give it a read.  Once I finish reading all the old Midnights...The Web is serious contention to be my next superhero of focus.

Midnight's Origin: take 2

Any reader of the Spring Road Superhero Review knows I'm a fan of Midnight (fedoras are just cool, there's no two ways about it).  The very first post on this blog explained that Midnight was created by a guy named Jack Cole around 1940 for Smash Comics.  Thanks to sites like the Digital Comics Museum, anyone with an internet connection can locate and read the golden age adventures of Midnight.

At some point,the rights to the character were purchased by DC Comics, who further developed the Midnight's back story.  Though I could piece some of the DC additions together from entries and other things I'd read online, there was always a blind spot because I'd never read Midnight's re-vamped origin story from Secret Origins #28 (July 1988).  Thanks to The Dork Review, however, that's no longer the case.

There are some notable differences from Cole's story--most of which I'm guessing DC supplied to fill plot holes in the original.  I had hoped to post a full-review of all the differences I spotted for today, but life got in the way, so I'll mention only the first two.

In DC's version, Dave Clark had come from serving as a stand-in for a radio serial about a fictionalized crime fighter named Midnight.  It was this that gave him the idea and name for the moniker her later adopts.

In the original, Clark was just happened to witness a building collapse on his way home from work, and there's no particular explanation for why he chooses the name "Midnight."

Smash Comics #18

Secret Origins #28

Additionally, in Cole's original story, the first person to address Clark as "Midnight" is some random woman at Morris Carleton's penthouse, whereas in the DC version, Clark identifies himself as Midnight.

Secret Origins #28

Smash Comics #18

Secret Origins #28

Sadly, that's all I have time to include for now.  Hopefully, I'll return to this topic and flesh it out later. In the meantime, take a trip over to The Dork Review and enjoy the goodness!