Showcase: Of Strange Suicide Squad Stories Inside Earth, Part 1
Continuing the index/history of the greatest comic magazine ever! ;-) I admit to giving legendary writer Robert Kanigher a hard time here. As far as I know he may have been as wonderful a mentor and humanitarian as he was a writer. Perhaps he did not have much to work with. Despite a distinguished career as a comic book writer; you have to admit, not everyone hits home runs every time ...
With issue #25 of The Brave and The Bold came a change of format. Why?
Perhaps the genre (swashbuckling adventure) was dying out in comics as
it was in movies and television. Plus
superheroes were exploding in popularity for the first time since World War
Two. The Superman television program
helped, as had the revival of the Flash and Green Lantern (National Comics
being nearly the only publishers still doing superheroes). National’s Showcase title was among its most successful – Flash, Challengers
of the Unknown, Green Lantern and Lois Lane
Even the appearance of the magazine
would change. Now the proud “Brave and
Bold” banner would be shrunk down and placed in the upper-left hand corner of
the comic to make room for the specific feature’s logo, which had been done
with the Viking Prince solo runs of #23 and #24. This has led to some confusion – “Viking
Prince #23” was recently sold on Ebay for $5.00 instead of ten to twenty times
that if properly labeled “Brave & Bold #23” (a hint to those looking for
back issues).
So the Viking Prince, the sole
survivor of B&B’s first four years, was quietly shelved (are there still
unpublished Viking Prince stories in a vault somewhere slowly crumbling to
dust?) and the magazine was thrust ahead 1100 years!
***
“Introducing America
Rick and Karin are in love of course (typical 1950s
science fiction – there’s always a woman and she and the leading man always
fall in love). However, Jess and Dr.
Evans love Karin too! So Rick and Karin
decide to keep their love for one another to themselves for the good of the team. A love quadrangle would only get in the way
of team missions! This was mentioned
every issue and was pretty much the sole character development.
The Suicide Squad was Robert
Kanigher’s attempt at “The Challengers of the Unknown”, with wonderful Ross
Andru/Mike Esposito art instead of wonderful Jack Kirby art! The art was typical 1959 – straightforward
and realistic-looking men, women and machinery.
Imaginations were let loose on the “perils” – gigantic aliens and beasts
attacked our heroes non-stop. While the
artwork was good, the storylines were for the most part … well … silly; even
for the times. The perils were usually
of the science-run-amuck-because-we-tampered-in-God’s-domain found in the “B”
movies of the time. One expected to find
Peter Graves or Leslie Nelson popping in to help!
In their first story (#25: Three Waves of Doom) an
earthquake awakens a dinosaur-like creature that sets fire to Tokyo er
Atlantic City, freezes metal and absorbs all chlorophyll! The Suicide Squad defeats it by tricking the
beast into grasping onto a rocket and shooting it toward the sun!
The stories seem to talk down to its youthful
audience. Facts are thrown in almost as
if the characters are showing off their intelligence (one character actually
says, “It’s a good thing we have enough sodium manganate on board!” What?!).
And in six issues we never learn Dr. Evans’ first
name!
The Suicide Squad was given three issues to do their
thing (#25 – 27) and another three-issue try-out later in 1961 (#37 – 39),
without success. The plots of the other
five issues read like an edition of Weekly World News:
1)
Radiation shrinks the Squad down to matchstick size, yet they must
still thwart a submarine attack against America
2)
Dinosaur-like serpent attacks Paris Seine and the Eiffel Tower
3)
Scientist turns
self into ten-story reptile – carries A-bomb into city! (#27: Creature of Ghost Lake
4)
Intelligent
dinosaurs from other dimension invade earth! (#37: Raid of the Dinosaurs)
5)
Planeload of
nuclear missiles land on island of Cyclops
6)
Alien giant’s pet
pterodactyls capture warships, planes, Statue of Liberty! (#38: Master of the
Dinosaurs)
7)
Other-dimensional
“mirage men” try to kill the Suicide Squad! (#38: Menace of the Mirage People)
8)
Gigantic
dinosaur-shaped spacecraft contains Jurassic zoo! (#39: Prisoner of the
Dinosaur Zoo)
9)
Sculptor-Sorcerer
kills scientists by turning them into gold statues! (“Mr. Kanigher? The attorneys for Ian Fleming are still
holding on line three!”) (#39: Rain of Fire)
The texts in the issues were interesting, albeit
soon forgettable: “real” sea serpents and dragons were examined, including the
one spotted in Gloucester Harbor , Massachusetts
Task Force X faded into obscurity for twenty-five
years. Keith Griffin brought back the
idea of a Suicide Squad in the late 1980s as a companion to his new “Justice
League” title. This time, Rick Flagg recruits
villains and minor superheroes (including fellow B&B alumni Nemesis) to do
battle with evil. Flagg even went
toe-to-toe with Batman to a mutual draw (not even Superman could do that in the
late 1980s!). That version of the Squad
was definitely more successful, being fully entrenched in the superhero
genre. But these six issues are the
originals and a fun read: just as the Thunderbirds TV show was some years later
– silly, but charming. Certainly the
quality of the Squad as a comic book paled in comparison to previous issues
with the Viking Prince and Silent Knight.
Overall, not a very good start to B&B’s “Showcase”-style format.
It would hit a home run next time.
Copyright (c) 2012 Michael G. Curry
Copyright (c) 2012 Michael G. Curry
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