BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #192

I remember that I passed up this issue of SUPERMAN FAMILY for weeks after it first came out, and for the most minor of reasons. I was a fan of the New Doom patrol, who were guest-starring in the Supergirl story across these three issues. But in this middle one, the chapter is only a short 10 pages in length, and the Doom patrol only show up for half a page. I saw that and I felt cheated by it, and so I kept skipping this issue whenever I saw it on the racks (despite the presence of my favorite obscure character, the Human Cannonball, in the Lois Lane strip.) Eventually, though, well after I’d already bought and read the subsequent issue I gave in and dropped a buck for it. I seem to recall that I bought it not at my regular 7-11 but from some other further away outlet, so this could have been a situation where I had an opportunity to pick up a comic book, this was still on the stands, and I’d gotten everything else I wanted already. Either way, it eventually ended up with me.

The Dollar Comics format was a good idea in terms of providing value to the retailer and giving them a better reason to stock the comic, but they were a mixed bag for the reader. I can’t really say that there are many (any?) great Dollar comics issues, the quality of what each release contained fluctuated wildly. This issue leads off with a Superboy adventure written by Tom DeFalco and illustrated by Joe Staton in which the Boy of Steel takes on a new costumed villain called Stasis and breaks up a protection racket that’s terrorizing Smallville with the help of the community’s citizenry. It’s a good, well-told tale, but ultimately pretty forgettable.

Next came that short Supergirl installment, written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Arvell Jones. Unless I miss my guess, I seem to recall that this story had originally been intended for the now-cancelled SUPER-TEAM FAMILY series, and was repurposed into a three-part Supergirl adventure. If so, that helps to explain both why this particular chapter is so short relative to the others as well as why the Doom Patrol are barely in it. As a story, it’s a bit of a mess, all meaningless middle, and almost skippable–I didn’t miss its events when I read #193 and could follow the story without any difficulty. It concerns two rival scientists-turned-super-villains are causing gravitational upheaval with their powers as they rocket towards one another for a showdown. By the end of the ten pages, they’ve joined forces against Supergirl, and the Doom patrol haven’t done anything. A bit of a bust all around.

Next came an even shorter Krypto story, one that wrapped up the running series in which the Dog of Steel had adopted the cover identity of Kapper, a stray, in order to covertly help out detective Ed Lacy in his efforts to track down his missing nephew, getting into scrapes and adventures along the way. In this installment, Ed finally locates Tommy, who himself has been on the run trying to chase down the person who committed the murder that he’s on the hook for. It only takes Ed and Krypto a couple of pages to sort through all of this, bring the real killer and his employers to justice, and wrap up Ed’s story so that Krypto can get back to romping across the stars again. This entire series was an odd mix of attempted grounded relevance and absurd talking animal fantasy, and while I didn’t hate it, I never really warmed to it either.

The following story was a Jimmy Olsen adventure, and clearly where editor E. Nelson Bridwell was focusing much of his attention. According to writer Tom DeFalco, he had a deal with Nelson whereby he’d do all of the continuity-intensive storytelling that the editor wanted in the Jimmy Olsen feature if he could produce just straightforward stories for the Lois Lane feature. This chapter features a ton of elements from across the DC cosmology, including the Newsboy Legion and the DNA Factory, an army of Jimmy Olsen clones and Speedy of the Teen Titans–who, it turns out, is the nephew of the Guardian, the mentor of the Newsboys. It’s the latest installment in the Legion’s quest for the missing Guardian, and it ties together a bunch of stuff, albeit a bit awkwardly. Artist Kurt Schaffenberger, though, made everything look clean and inviting.

Gerry and Kurt return at this point for a Superman tale that’s actually an imaginary story that Superman programs for himself on his Fortress of Solitude computers. It conjectures what would have happened had Krypton been destroyed before Kal-El himself had been born–a strange thing for Superman to be wondering about, no matter how Conway tries to justify it. It focuses on Superman’s grandfather, Jor-El I, and by the end of it, both Jor-El II and Lara are rocketed to Earth independently, with the possibility existing that they’ll one day get together and have a child. It’s a fun bit of conjecture though it stretches credibility beyond the breaking point. But that’s what these imaginary stories were for, after all.

True to his agreement, Nelson okayed the next story, a Lois Lane adventure in which she and her dopey quasi-sidekick the Human Cannonball work to prevent an attempt to sabotage a U.N.-sponsored peace conference. This puts them up against a hired killer known as the Butcher, who has a fake arm that can be fitted with any number of weapon prosthetics. In the end, Lois calls in Superman, who saves the day, though she’s shown herself to be tough and formidable along the way. And it’s just a straightforward story, with no connection to the larger DC Universe.

And the issue wraps up with an adventure featuring Nightwing and Flamebird, the Batman and Robin of the Bottle City of Kandor. In it, Ak-Var, Flamebird, is captured and brainwashed into hating his partner Van-Zee, not realizing that he is secretly Nightwing. Nightwing, meanwhile, spends the story searching fruitlessly for the whereabouts of his missing friend and partner. So again, it’s a whole lot of middle, without any great amount of forward story movement. As I’d already read how this all worked out, it was a bit dull to me. I did find it amusing how often Kupperberg attempted to pepper his dialogue with Kandorian slang, each use requiring an editorial note to explain it. Did you know that, on Krypton, Scientists were referred to as Wire-Twisters, and criminals were known as Law-Jumpers? Now you do!