Incognito (2008) 2

Incognito (2008) 2

Feb 2009

Part Two

by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Val Staples

Zack recalls how his brother was killed and how he wound up in the witness protection program. Zack continues to moonlight as a vigilante. Zack makes a friend, a coworker named Farmer, who is crazier than Zack but is lacking superpowers. 

Zack saves Amanda, his coworker. She offers to reward him. Resistance is futile. He gets in trouble with his parole officer who suspects that he’s the new vigilante in town. More people start to crawl out of the woodwork looking for Zack. 

Zack gets Farmer to be his alibi but Farmer wants something in return. He wants to rob a bank with some help from Zack. 

Batman Annual 11 (2)

Batman Annual 11

1987

Villains in Love! (2nd Story)

Love Bird

by Max Allan Collins, Norm Breyfogle, Albert DeGuzman, Adrienne Roy, Denny O’Neil

Batman unsuccessfully tries to stop the Penguin from getting out of prison on parole. The Penguin is in love with Dovina Partridge, a woman with whom he has been corresponding. He promises to renounce his life of crime. He tries but ultimately he is sent back to prison for violating the terms of his parole, namely for associating with other parolees, while he was trying to get an umbrella business up and running. Batman pleads with the parole board to make an exception for the Penguin but Batman’s pleas fall on deaf ears.

Fantastic Four 221

Fantastic Four 221

Aug 1980

Tower of Crystal… Dreams of Glass…

by John Byrne, Joe Sinnott, Jim Novak, Carl Gafford, Jim Salicrup

Reed, Ben, and Johnny fight with the aliens' worker robots while Sue meets with the aliens themselves. She convinces them that they should not destroy the Earth. 

Thoughts

This is the last story in Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 0. 

I guess Reed was right about the Earth being serious danger.

Incognito (2008) 1

Incognito (2008) 1

Dec 2008

Part One

by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Val Staples

Zack Overkill, aka Zack Andersen, and Xander, his twin brother, used to be supervillains. Xander is dead now and Zack is in witness protection. He is forced to take drugs that suppress his superpowers. He languishes in a pointless office job. His new handler doesn’t go easy on him. Zack wants out and turns to illegal drugs.

The illegal drugs numb Zack but then he also discovers that they also counteract the drugs that the Feds have him taking which suppress his superpowers. He decides to dress up and experiment with his reawakened abilities, not realizing that doing so brings him to the attention of the doctor in whose lab he and his brother grew up.

Secret Origins (1986) 13 (3)

Secret Origins (1986) 13

Apr 1987

The Secret Origin of Johnny Thunder

by Roy Thomas, Mike Clark, Dave Hunt, Augustin Mas, Carl Gafford, Robert Greenberger

9 pages

Johnny Thunder was abducted when he was just a baby by Bahdnisian people who believed that because he was born at 7 AM on July 7, 1917 he would have the power to rule the world when he turned 7 years old. They snuck him out of the United States and took him to Bahdnisia where he remained until he was about 5 years old. 

Chance brought him back to the United States before he reached his 7th birthday and back to his parents. Bahdnisian agents caught up to him eventually but not until after he had grown up. Luck brought him in contact with the living lightning bolt just in time to save himself and his coworker. 

Fantastic Four 220

Fantastic Four 220

Jul 1980

…and the Lights Went Out All Over the World!

by John Byrne, Joe Sinnott, Jim Novak, Irving Watanabe, Bob Sharen, Jim Salicrup 

The Fantastic Four fly to the North Pole after the power goes out briefly all over the world. They find aliens building something big at the North Pole. 

Thoughts

This is part one of a two-part story. According to my research (see comics.org) this story was originally intended to be part of a promotional comic book for Coca-Cola.

John Byrne wrote and penciled this story. He managed to squeeze in a one page retelling of the team’s origin, even though this story is just 16 pages long.

Mars 4

Mars 4

Apr 1984

Dead Artists & Talking Dinosaurs

by Mark Wheatley, Marc Hempel, Kathryn Mayer, Mike Gold

20 pages

Fawn finds a confessional tree, interfaces with it, and comes out of the experience  changed. She looks the same but her manner of speaking is different, closer to Morgana’s.

Morgana and Fawn meet a couple dead artists, Norman Rockwell and Vincent Van Gogh. The artists are naked but the fact that Morgana is clothed doesn’t seem to phase them. There are dinosaurs in the area and some artists willingly walk right up to large reptiles and allow themselves to be picked up and eaten by the dinosaurs.

It turns out that the artists and the dinosaurs are both guises worn by beings of “pure mental energy”. They thought that Morgana was like them. When they realize that they were wrong they depart leaving Morgana (and Fawn?) alone. 

Secret Origins (1986) 13 (2)

Secret Origins (1986) 13

Apr 1987

The Secret Origin of the Whip

by Roy & Dann Thomas, Mike Gustovich, Augustin Mas, Carl Gafford, Robert Greenberger

9 pages

Professional polo player Rodrigo Gaynor assumes the identity of the Whip in order to save an innocent man from mob justice.

Thoughts

This is more or less (according to my research) a retelling of the first published story of the Whip. All of the supporting players in the original story are also in this story.

Amazing Spider-Man 230

Amazing Spider-Man 230

Jul 1982

To Fight the Unbeatable Foe!

by Roger Stern, John Romita Jr., Jim Mooney, Joe Rosen, Glynis Wein, Tom DeFalco

Spider-Man chases down the Juggernaut who is headed back to Black Tom Cassidy’s yacht. He catches up to him and tries to stop him but that proves to be almost impossible. Spider-Man tries removing the Juggernaut’s helmet but it is welded in place so precisely that Spidey can’t get it to budge.

Spider-Man hurls first an I beam and then a wrecking ball at the Juggernaut but neither object does any good. He drives a fuel truck into the Juggernaut which has a similar effect on the villain and causes a huge fire. The story ends with the Juggernaut trapped in a block of concrete. Black Tom Cassidy is left wondering what happened to his comrade. 

Terry and the Pirates (37)

Vol. 6: 1945-1946

By Milton Caniff

The Taking of Lolo Island

May 24 - Sep 2, 1945

This is the eleventh of twelve stories in what Carl Horak, author of the Terry and the Pirates Companion, considers to be the fourth era of Caniff’s run on the strip. This era began in late Jan 1942 and ran through early Nov 1945 and is called The War Years in the companion book.

The Wikipedia article on Terry and the Pirates breaks the entire series down into 60 arcs. It breaks this arc down into the following arcs:

53 - "Marines to the Rescue" (5/19/45 to 9/2/45)

06/25/24

May 24-26, 1945 - Terry, April and Hotshot wash up on a beach. They go looking for shelter and find a cave.

Mars 3

Mars 3

Mar 1984

Transformer

by Mark Wheatley, Marc Hempel, Mike Gold

20 pages

Morgana, Teezy, and Fawn arrive at a mostly abandoned city. There they meet Milos, one of the other crew members. Morgana is very tired and needs to rest. Things get weird. Morgana is still sleeping so Teezy carries her as they race through the caverns beneath the city.

Large creatures with pincer claws attempt to keep them there.  Milos seems to have set himself up as a god of sorts. Fawn and Morgana make it out of the caverns but Teezy falls from a collapsing bridge while holding back the large creatures. 

Batman Annual 11 (1)

Batman Annual 11

1987

Villains in Love! (1st Story)

Mortal Clay

by Alan Moore, George Freeman, John Costanza, Lovern Kindzierski, Len Wein

Clayface (Preston Payne) lost Helena, the love of his life, but then finds her again. They have three blissful months together until something leads him to believe that she is cheating on him. He kills a security guard, thinking that he’s the one Helena has been seeing. The death of the security guard brings Batman on to the case.