Mar 1977
No Man Escapes the Manhunter!
by Steve Englehart, Dick Dillin, Frank McLaughlin
Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary
Green Lantern calls an emergency meeting of the League at Bruce Wayne’s penthouse. A manhunter crashes the meeting before it begins. He kidnaps Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Green Arrow. Green Lantern puts up no resistance but the other two fight back and are knocked out by the Manhunter. He takes them to a hidden city in the Himalayas.
Batman tried unsuccessfully to stop the Manhunter from escaping with his teammates. Superman, Wonder Woman and Flash show up too late to help prevent the Manhunter from disappearing with their friends. Flash uses his super vibratory powers to track the Manhunter to the Himalayas.
The Manhunter delivers the trio to his boss the Grandmaster. Black Canary and Green Arrow attack while the Manhunter is talking to the Grandmaster. The superheroes are quickly subdued and placed in the Turbo-Lok, a holding cell. Green Lantern apologizes to the other two. He seems to know what this is all about but refuses to tell them. He claims his ring is out of power and that he is no longer a Green Lantern.
Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Batman race to the Himalayas. They are confronted by the Grandmaster who locks them in an Annihilogram, a shrinking power cube. Superman’s strength alone can't break them free from the device. Working together, Superman and the Flash are able to free them from the shrinking box of certain death. The Grandmaster concedes and takes them to see their teammates.
The Grandmaster explains that the Manhunters are not policemen. They hunt men on behalf of others, or as Batman puts it, they are bounty hunters. Green Lantern explains why they came after him and why he hasn’t resisted: he destroyed a world in the Procyon System: Orinda. He was trying to prevent what looked to be a natural disaster but he misjudged and instead his actions caused the planet to explode.
The Manhunters won’t let Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Green Arrow leave but Superman and the others leave to investigate what actually happened. They fly to the Procyon System via rocket ship. It takes them just 90 minutes to get there. Superman has been there before and seeks out an old acquaintance. Before they find him they find a Guardian of the Universe on the planet Pinola. The Guardian is surrounded by a hostile looking crowd. Governor Tozad shows up just after they rescue the Guardian from the crowd. The Governor is convinced that Green Lantern is guilty of destroying Orinda.
Mark Shaw is the Manhunter who kidnapped Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Green Arrow. He is angrily telling the captured heroes about his frustrating past life as a public defender when another of the Guardians of the Universe appears behind him. The Guardian knocks out Mark Shaw and orders Hal to charge his ring and get his friends out of there. Hal hesitates at first but complies with the order.
Governor Tozad, the Guardian that Superman and the others met on Pinola, and the other Leaguers travel to the moon of Orinda. Things are not quite what they seem. They battle a magnosaurus, a giant green lizard like beast, which turns out to be an illusion. It isn’t until then that they realize that the moon is still in the same place as it was before Orinda was destroyed which implies that Orinda is still there but camouflaged. The Guardian tears open Governor Tozad’s shirt to reveal something else that is hidden: the fact that the governor is also a Manhunter. Tozad curses them before disappearing.
The team splits up at this point. Superman, Batman, and the Guardian take off after Tozad. Flash and Wonder Woman Head back to Earth to help their other teammates.
I don’t think I’ve ever read this story before but I’ve been meaning to read it for quite some time. It is the inspiration behind a Justice League cartoon that I will soon be watching. The cartoon isn’t a scene for scene remake of the comic book but most of the basic elements are there. I am pleased that I enjoyed this story as much as I did. It is much more involved than I feared it would be.
The art surprised me. I was expecting a much rougher looking story considering that it is penciled by Dick Dillin. Maybe Frank McLaughlin, is responsible for the relatively polished look of the art.
Notes
Reading this story has piqued my curiosity. I have read very few stories involving any incarnation of the Manhunters. The Manhunter who was also known as Paul Kirk had a back up feature in Detective Comics 437-443 (1973-74) by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. The original issues are not inexpensive but the entire run has been collected a few times. Mark Shaw first appeared in a one shot-story in First Issue Special 5 (Aug 1975) which was written and drawn by Jack Kirby. In the late 1980s this Manhunter had his own comic book.
There are couple references made to appearances of the Guardians of the Universe that were not in a Green Lantern comic book. The first was in Flash 168 (Mar 1967) which guest-starred Green Lantern. The other was in Superman 247 (Jan 1972).
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