Lex Luthor Is A Terrible Hypnotist!!

It's really too stupid complicated to explain here...

...but Lex Luthor is trying to get Black Canary and Green Arrow to kill each other!

How?

But it turns out that Lex picked the wrong JLAer to hypnotize!

What the how, now?!?

Hells, yeah. So stand by for several pages of Dinah kicking Luthor's bald ass!

Sadly, Luthor used to invisibility watch to escape. But on the good side, that was enough to break the spell!!

Awww...

From Action Comics #458 (1976)

Friday Night Fights--Save The Polar Bears Style!!

Time for more "man-on-animal action" in this week's Friday Night Fights. Or, to be more precise, woman-on-polar bear action!!

We begin with a scene not quite as dramatic as this...

...but c'mon, any scene with Black Canary parachuting in is pretty cool, right?

She's come to the Arctic to visit Kal-El for some girl talk...

...but she needs to pay some more attention to her surroundings!!

Wait...how does the bear know who her boyfriend is?!?

Again, the bear trash talks Ollie!

MORAL: Even if you're a polar bear, don't keep bringing up your opponent's boyfriend during a fight!!

Spacebooger is very glad Superman showed up to save the poor bear:

Superman saves the species from extinction (temporarily) in DC Comics Presents #30 (1981), by Gerry Conway, Curt Swan and Vince Colletta

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Black Canary parachuting...what else do you need? Now go and vote!!

Picture This Scene With Jimmy Stewart And Kim Novak!!

Count Vertigo has Black Canary pretty flummoxed in his first appearance...

Still not as good as Hitchcock...

From World's Finest Comics #251 (1976), art by Trevor Von Eeden and Vince Colletta

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Another Way Millennial Are Spoiled!

It's 1942 on Earth-2, and Wonder Woman is trying to sneak Black Canary into a Nazi fortress.

Oh, that's "our" Black Canary, Ollie's girlfriend. This tale involves time travel and dimension-hopping and threats to all existence and stuff. Sort of a proto-Flashpoint.

Anyway, Wonder Woman is trying to sneak Black Canary into a Nazi fortress:

OK--I would pay any amount of money if the second Woman film shows us Amazons shooting bullets at babies. Or is it babies shooting bullets at each other?!?!?!

Even allowing for dramatic license and exaggeration, we still need to see Bullets-And-Bracelets with children. No wonder Amazons were so tough. You don't see today's kids doing that.

But..."we" play it in "infancy"? How many infants did the Amazons have? So confusing...

Aside: If Themyscira (and/or Paradise Island, since we're on Earth-2) was hidden away from the world of man for so long, where did they get revolvers? And bullets?

From World's Finest Comics #250 (1976)

April Madness Round IV--The Weakest Link!!

It's the final preliminary battle in The Seven Justice Soldiers of The Victory League Society!! Which grouping of heroes will reign supreme?!?

This is the most fascinating battle of all the first rounders, featuring

vs.

Now, Flash and Zatanna are pretty powerful. I toyed with making them a higher seed, but...well, there's Red Tornado.

You know with all your being that, at some point, Red Tornado is going to start crying, or self-destruct, or get taken over by someone. Everyone knows this:

It's just a question of whether it happens during one of our battles our not. So our third seed has a significant handicap.

Then again, so does the other team.

More than one of you suggested that the Thunderbolt is so powerful, his team should just win automatically. As commentator Mista Whiskas put it, "The Thunderbolt could just will all the teams out of existence, right?"

Well, yes...except for one thing. The Thunderbolt can't operate independently. He has to wait from order from Johnny Thunder, who is, well, as stupid as a bag of stupid hammers:

I mean come on, you're saying plenty of two and three syllable words, but the hiccups mean you can't get out "Cei-U"?!?!?

It's an illustration of snell's Third Law Of Comic writing: The more powerful your character, the STUPIDER the obstacles you have to create to keep him from solving the dilemma in one panel. So, Thunderbolt is powerful, yes. But wielded by a moron.

Which means this battle goes about as you'd expect. Zatanna immediately shuts Johnny up ("!htuom s'ynnhoJ no raeppa gaG"). Flash creates a speed vacuum so no one can hear Canary's scream. And hey, Red Tornado doesn't malfunction this time around, deflecting all of Ollie's arrows with his wind while Flash gives him a love tap.

Team Flash/Zatanna/Red Tornado is pretty powerful...but can they take on Batman's group? Find out tomorrow, as we head for the semi-finals!!

The Best Cover You've Seen: Brave And The Bold #197 (1973)

OK, OK, you almost certainly have seen it before...

But three reasons to run this today:

A) Still in low content mode, as my recovery had a minor setback, and my phone bricked, and life sucks.

B) It is one hell of a piece of perfection, isn't it? The woman in fishnets parachuting into the desert behind Batman, Batman with his-oh-so-clever masterplan and he's so brilliant except he doesn't realize that there's a gun pointed right at his crotch. Jim Aparo at his absolute best!

C) The story is brought to mind the the recently published Batman in The Brave & The Bold: The Bronze Age Omnibus (Batman: the Brave and the Bold - the Bronze Age).

I don't know what the deal is. but even though it's a $125 list, Amazon has been selling this guy for $46.39?!? That's a whole lot of quality DC comics there, guys.

Have a nice day. I'll try to be productive tomorrow.

Manic Monday Bonus--Why Comic Book Terrorists Hate Comic Book Americans!

It turns out that we have no idea how the 1% lives, at least in the DC Universe.

Katma Tui was injured by some cosmic space thingie, and is recovering at Carol Ferris' mansion while being tended to by Green Arrow and Black Canary.

A doctor is finally summoned, and after the decision is made to take her to the hospital...

Bad move, archer!!!

Why?

"Those rich Americans are always being carried!"

Man, I guess the income gap is even worse than I imagined, because somehow I had no idea about this phenomenon!!

Then again, judging by their behavior, these aren't the brightest terrorists:

Well, that's really all I had. Let's just watch Ollie and Dinah kick some terrorist ass:

So, rich Americans--avoid having anyone carry you, because that will just make you a target for terrorists. That means you should go easy on the litters and such, as well...

[Note to Sally--Hal was on Oa, being Hal, when this was happening...]

From Green Lantern #97 (1977)

DC's Perverse Fountain Of Youth

Congressperson Barbara Gordon is on a groovy sight-seeing trip...

Got that? That's about as clear a statement as you can get pre-Crisis: Barbara is in Congress, Dick is in his freshman year at Hudson University. And Babs is at least 6 years older than Dick--perhaps more.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's precisely the opposite of what nu52 DC has now, right? Grayson is now the confident adult, while Barbara is the barely-competent-just-in-college hero.

I have no really deep thoughts here, except to note that when you take the "Burnside Batgirl" and the DCYou Black Canary, you might get the impression that some comic companies would rather feature feckless girls as heroes rather than competent women...

From Batman Family #10 (1977)

Hawkeye Is Better Than Green Arrow--Proven With SCIENCE!!!!!

Some people, it seems, disagreed with my statement yesterday that "there is no possible universe in which Green Arrow will ever be as cool as Hawkeye."

Well, not to stir a tempest in a teapot, but my statement was empirically, objectively, logically and certifiably true.

 VS.

Let's go to the science, shall we? [FYI, we're going with comic book incarnations here. Which actually levels the playing field a bit, as MCU Hawkeye blew up Loki with an exploding arrow]

ORIGIN:
Oliver Queen is the original 1%-er, a billionaire. Not a particularly good one, as he's lost and restored his fortune more times than DC has announced and changed plans for a Wonder Woman film. He became a hero because that's what billionaires did back then.

Hawkeye was an orphan who ran away and joined the circus. Literally. And was taught to be a marksman by a super-villain.

Easy win for Hawkeye.

COSTUME:
People like to make fun of Hawkeye's purple outfit.

And that's OK. Because the thing actually looks pretty good in the hands of a good artist:

And most people forget about this one:

PHWOOOOAARRRRRR!!!

I'll take that over ersatz Robin Hood any day.

OTHER POWERS:
Green Arrow fires arrows. And more arrows.

Clint Barton, however, also was...

GOLIATH.

Another clear decision for Hawkeye.

HOTTER GIRLFRIEND:

I'm not sure that this is a valid criteria, but let's play anyway.

Sure, Oliver has had, in some continuities, a long-term relationship with Black Canary.

Of course, despite having a hot girlfriend, Green Arrow has had multiple (multiple) infidelities, and a string of illegitimate children (apparently he never packed the condom arrow). And Dinah dumped him (more than once).

And I really think you're selling Hawkeye's hot girlfriend/wife short:

And let's not forget--Clint Barton has probably the ultimate tie-breaker:

So, yeah...Black Widow AND Mockingbird. Pretty clear win for the Hawkster.

SIDEKICK:

I'm pretty sure that this hasn't happened to Kate Bishop yet:

Another win for Hawkguy!

GREATEST TRIUMPHS:

Well, Hawkeye once beat the Collector, all by himself, after all of the other Avengers had been captured.

Oh, yeah, and Hawkeye also once beat the Grandmaster all by his lonesome, after all of the East and West Coast Avengers were all killed (they got better).

Meanwhile, Green Arrow had a tough time with this guy.

This is getting repetitive. A win for Hawkeye!!

LEADERSHIP: 

Hawkeye was chairman and founder of the West Coast Avengers.

Hawkeye was leader of the Thunderbolts for quite awhile, getting super-villains to go straight, and turning them into effective heroes.

Green Arrow once led...well, he once...well, erm...as near as I can tell, Oliver Queen has never been in charge of anything (except for failing businesses). He's more interested in reflexively arguing with whomever is in charge...

I think you know where this is going...

RANDOM POINTS:

They both died and came back. A toss-up, unless you want to give Ollie demerits for being revived by the Hal Jordan Spectre.

Hawkeye went back in time to ye olde West, and fought Kang with the Two-Gun Kid.

Green Arrow had an Arrow Cave and an Arrow-Mobile and an Arrow-Signal...and obviously the world's biggest case of Batman envy.

Green Arrow's beard, man...that chin hair...

Green Arrow has killed crooks. A lot. Big demerits in my book.

Well, none of that is enough to sway the final results: Hawkeye 1,000,000,000 and Green Arrow 0.

Sorry, Green Arrow fans--it's science!