Spring Road Super Review

Though the Swordsman was long gone from active duty Avengers roster when I entered comic-dom, the character appealed to me from the moment I first saw his headshot in one of those "all-time Avengers" compilations that would occasionally crop up.

Part of it was that I tended to like any skill-based hero (e.g., Captain America, Hawkeye, Batman, etc.). Second--as the existence of this blog attests--I always favored the marginalized or "second-string" characters.

Avengers Spotlight #22 (SEP 1989)

So perhaps you'll understand how underwhelming it was when I finally got to read a Swordsman story (in Avengers Spotlight #22). Initially, I thought this might simply have been a one-off origin stinker. (After all, I think it's pretty difficult to make an origin story really engaging.) But alas...the more I read about Jacques Duquesne, the less..."heroic" the hero seems.

It's not just that Swordsman is an anti-hero in the mold of Punisher, Lobo, Paladin, etc., but rather that he just seems to have no core convictions at all. Just read the Comic Vine entry on the guy and look at how many times he tried for the Avengers, got rejected, committed some crime in response, latter joined, then got kicked out, etc. It's a terrible farce.

If they weren't going to make Swordsman heroic, I like to think he could've at least been interesting. He might've worked as the superhero version of having an addict in the family...someone who struggles, really tries to do right, but just keeps failing and failing. Increasing nuance and complexity in how the Avengers (both individually and as a team) chose to respond to their dysfunctional comrade might've made an interesting commentary on enabling, intervention, etc.

But instead, I feel like we just got a poorly-written, second-tier guy with a sword...and then he died.

Anyone care to disagree? I'd love to be shown "the error of my ways" on this one.

Smash Comics # 46 (September 1943)

Twelve Hours to Live! [Midnight Feature]

This is perhaps the best story intro I've read since I started working my way through the original Golden Age corpus of Midnight stories. It seizes the reader's attention right away with a normal existential question: What would you do if you only had twelve hours to live? How would you spend your time? If only the story ended with as promise as it began.

We open on a lonely man mourning his late felines.

The distraught mourner ends up fleeing the graveside pledging vengeance on all enemies of cats. The would-be avenger is briefly sidetracked, however, by illness and decides to stop by a doctor before launching his crusade.

He winds up at the offices of a Dr. R. X. Diapetos who--following a thorough 2 minute examination--diagnoses the patient with, "an acute case of galloping gout with definite complications of syntoretic albireses and a slight touch of pendimitis of the redonder."

The Good Doctor goes on to explain our grief-stricken fellow is destined to die in exactly twelve hours. (It's remarkable the degree of diagnostic specificity that's achievable when using made-up illnesses.) In light of this, he explains that he'll be charging the dying man $50 for this visit, rather than the (apparently) standard $1.50 check-up.

Even our shyster surgeon is taken aback, however, at his patient's response:

I guess the ol'boy has had a full-on psychotic break, because right after he brutally stabs the quack for not liking cats, he sits down with a notepad to write out an explanation, "so the world will know and remember the fate of those who are unkind to cats."

Meanwhile at station XABC, radio man Dave Clark had scheduled a program with the rapidly-assuming-room-temperature Dr. Diapetos, who was supposed to regale audiences with the wonders of Vitamin Q and it's advantageous effects as part of the 79-day diet. (Yep. That sounds exactly like something Dr. Diapetos would be involved in.) When Diapetos fails to show, a raging, cigar-chomping boss-figure orders Dave go drag the doc to the station.

Dave, Gabby, and Doc arrive at Diapetos' office shortly after the killer has completed his manifesto. He ducks behind a screen thinking to hide, but Dave notices the silhouette and attempts to apprehend him. As the fanatical feline-loving felon flees (that one was for you, Stan Lee) Doc Wackey finds the note. At this point we learn the demented little man's name is Cyril Potts.

Wackey recognizes the name and informs Midnight where Potts lives. Dave charges Wackey and Gab to get the police on the scene at Diapetos' office, while he heads to intercept the killer.

Though Midnight corners Potts at his apartment, the latter evades capture by leaping from a window. Certain that a fall from such a height will be fatal, Midnight races downstairs expecting to find "nothing but a hank of hair and a piece of bone."

Utterly implausibly--and without any narrative attempt at explanation--Potts does survive without even so much as a turned ankle! After summoning the various strays of the neighborhood the murderous cat-whisperer confides in them his next intended victim.

Midnight overhears Potts' plan but is again stymied in his attempt to stop Potts, this time by an onslaught of alley cats who are (somehow?) fully under Potts' sway and doing his malevolent bidding.

Once freed from the felines, Midnight arrives at the home of the Potts' target, only to find the victim's head has been bashed in with a statue. Pott's has yet another note announcing his next victim. The cycle repeats five more times, always with Midnight arriving just a hair too late. The stakes reach maximum height when Doc Wackey is named Potts' target. Despite having stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, poisoned, hacked, and strangled men this evening, Potts announces that he wants to find a more "novel" way of executing our favorite inventor.

After organizing cats into "squads" for a "real military engagement" (because why not? Sure alley cats will do this just because some little dude with catnip went psycho), Potts dispatches his forces to take down not only Wackey, but Gabby as well!? En route to aid his friends, Midnight purchases a bucket full of "fresh" herring, mackerel, and flounder with which to tempt the kitties.

Naturally--because we're nearing the end of the page count--the fish ploy works. Midnight announces to his de-clawed foe, "You're going to die for this rampage you went on!" Potts mockingly bets he won't see the hangman's noose. As the final moments til twelve tick off a mantle clock in the background, the little killer doubles over dead...right on time.

And that's the frantic last-page resolution to this story. Honestly, this story was a train wreck. It started with such promise and just petered out into a steaming pile of hog poo. The final two panels don't even make sense...at least to me.

If anyone can explain why Midnight asks, "Who said that?" when he's looking right at Gabby, or how Gabby's observation could be logically explained as "the cat's meow," I'm all ears...