Friday, February 8, 2013
Karate Kid # 3
"The Revenger", Barry Jameson Writer, Ric Estrada and Joe Staton Artists, Carl Gafford Colorist and Joe Orlando Editor.
Val and Iris are waiting in an extremely long line in a Manhattan Bank to cash the reward check that he was given after defeating Major Disaster two weeks ago, when a Costumed man calling himself the Revenger smashes through a window. He quick takes care of the guards and when Val tries to stop him he get knocked down with the Revengers Metal covered arm. The Revenger then Kills the Bank President William J Grant and leaves before Val catches up with him. Val finds a note on the deceased banker that reads:
"The Banker is one, Justice is done. When the Jeweler is through then there'll be two."
On the roof of the Universal Concept building we find Dr. Norman Grimes alias the Revenger taking care of his pet pigeons. In flash back we see Grimes going to work for Universal Concept, with the company giving him the penthouse apartment on the roof so he can keep his birds. The board of investors (Grant, Knight and Spencer) were interested in his Heavy metal formula, assuring the doctor that they shared his dreams of building Cities with indestructible material that would last for centuries and eliminate slims. Dr Grimes worked for years until he finally achieved success. Grimes thought the board was going to keep the discovery a secret until the best way to help mankind could be found, but they sold it to be used as war materials. He was furious and wanted revenge on the board. Using the companies own Laboratories he created the whip and power arm that would enable him to find Justice. Grimes talks to the birds about one of the thieves being dead and the others will soon follow.
Meanwhile to the south, Val and Iris are being shown an apartment for Val by a Mrs. Geichman, the apartment is pink with lots of hearts, Val wants to pass on it but Iris tells him it is cheap and he does not know when his next check will come in. Val signs the lease when the radio interrupts with a special bulletin, that the Revenger is rampaging through the jewelry district. Val Leaps out the window and somersaults to the ground and off he goes. Just as he catches up to Revenger he spots some looters, Val takes them out with his super karate, But the Karate Kid was delayed long enough for the Revenger to Kill somebody at Knight Jewels. A note has been left again, this one reads:
The Jeweler is through now there are Two. "When the Leader is three then settled we'll be!"
Val takes the note to the police, But on the Roof top of the Universal Concept building Grimes is telling his feathered friends that by Midnight tonight justice will have been served. Time passes... The Revenger breaks into D F Spencer's office at Universal concept, but instead of Spencer he finds, The Karate Kid. Val had the police run the Revenger's victims through the computers and the only thing they had in common was Universal Concept. The only surviving board member was Spencer so he is in protective custody while Val deals with the Revenger. After two pages of fighting Val follows Grimes to the roof and kicks him into the bird cages. Having his only friends hurt sends Revenger over the edge and he goes berserk on the Karate Kid. But during the fight the large sign in front of the cages gets broken and starts to fall over. Seeing this the Revenger runs to save his friends, he frees the birds but he gets squashed by the Sign. And now hopefully the Revenger can have the one thing he wanted out of this Peace.
No page by pages today.
I liked this it set up a villain that had motivation and was able to hold his own against the Karate Kid. We get introduced to Val's Land Lady and we also find out that Val spent two weeks living with Iris, i wonder if the Princess should be jealous. While this story is the best of the 3 we had so far, I think this is the last seperate post I will do on Karate Kid, unless we have the Legion show up or another Major guest star. Since this is a bi-Monthly book I will just post the cover and a brief summary about this with the Superboy post. And when they appear I will run the hostess ad's in their own post.
Next Time:
A Hostess ad starring Superman
After That My favorite Fatal Five story Superboy # 219
Snow
We are going to have a blizzard in New England this week end so I just wanted to Post and hope everyone remains Safe.
D
D
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Superboy # 218 Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes
"The Secret Villain the world Never Knew" Story Cary Bates' Art: Mike GrellWe see three rejected applicants leaving the Legion Citadel. Infectious Lass (first applied in Superboy # 201) complains that she found away to make her disease inducing power even stronger than before, she can now even cause epidemics, and they still do not want her. Quake Kid starts hitting on her offering her a ride in his Retro-Jetter when Infectious Lass's powers go out of control and makes him sick. Quake and Infectious leave arguing while the thrid reject stands there and thinks. "No wonder they were rejected... But I thought for sure I'd pass the membership tests! Instead they told me my special power is too limited." The disappointed stanger thought to himself.
Above the dejected applicants a new candidate arrives in a pne man ship. In the citadel, Brainiac-5 is showing Colossal boy, Element Lad and Light Lass how Tryroc came to be a Legion applicant. Brainiac-5 tells them that Tyroc passed all of their qualification tests and all that is left is his offical induction ceremony. Out of nowhere a sound that the 3 Legionnaires have never heard before. "Oyuuuuuu" it sounds again and the Legion's newest partner teleports into the building. Tyroc gives Brainiac a hip hand shake and tells him he has park his cruiser on the roof with all of his personal belongings on board because this time he is here to stay. (yeah, sure) Just as Brainiac is about to introduce Tyroc to some of his new teammates they see a man in a strange costume burn through the view screen. The man is called Zoraz and he appears to be an old foe of the Legion. The four Legionnaires attack with Tyroc hanging back. One by one he use the teams own powers against them. Colossal boy grows out of control and cracks his head on the ceiling. Light Lass is made weightless. Element Lad has the air around him turn to ammonia and he is chocking. Brainiac is unable to think straight, he claims Zoraz is telepathing millions of wild thoughts into his brain. Zoraz turns his attention to Tyroc and before he could do anything, Tyroc unleashes a blood curdling scream that cause an explosion around Zoraz. But Zoraz absorbs the force of the blast with out even feeling it just like a blazing sun can soak up the engergy of an atomic bomb. (this is straight out of the comic I could not make this up.) Tyroc prepares for a more drastic yell when an ear splitting siren goes off. Zoraz has blasted the alarm control with fire making the alarm go off. With the decibels levels increasing Tyroc uses his power to make the alarm explod. By the time Cosmic Boy and Superboy arrive Zoraz is gone. They help their fallen comardes to the infirmary and Superboy tells Tyroc they will be okay in a couple of days, Zoraz had depleted there energy. Superboy and Cosmic boy take Tyroc down to the legion Cell Bank and explain that Zoraz stole cells from every Legionnaire's compartment. Which after analyzing he develop the means to turn the Legion's own powers against them. They think that Zoraz is still in the building the Legion will make sure that someone is always on guard but Tyroc is the only member that can stand up to him since he does not have his genetic code. Later Tyroc and Shrikning Violet patrol the halls while they are being spied on by some one in the ventilation shaft. Dream Girl and Star Boy are making out in the hallway while Cosmic Boy and Sun Boy spy on them via the Legion's monitors. Just as Cosmic Boy is about to turn the monitor off Zoraz appears attacking Dream Girl and Starboy. Zoraz smashes a wall, Star Boy uses his powers to make things super heavy on Zoraz but it is turned back on Star Boy and he falls through the floor. Dream Girl's power is turned on her and she is having a nightmare in her own head. Tyroc arrives and uses his powers to make Zoraz spin, but he manuvers like a top and Tyroc has to follow him into the Gymnasium. Tyroc flies in and Zoraz uses Super-Breath to extract all of the air from the room creating a vacuum. Since sound doesn't travel in a vacuum Tyroc's super voice will not have any effect on him. Suffocating Tyroc activates his Legion Flight Ring, grabs a barbell and flies straight through the wall and into the fresh air. Crawling to his feet Tyroc is joined by Cosmic Boy and Sun Boy who arrived just in time to find an empty Gym. Not sure how Zoraz escaped the locked room but the pair of late arriving heroes vow to search every inch of the area after they get Tyroc to the infirmary. Inside the ceiling an unknown person hides and says that after seeing Tyroc in action twice he now knows how to defeat him. That night Tyroc is sleeping in his new Quarters when Superboy comes on the communication system and wakes him up, ordering him to report to the briefing room on the double. When he arrives Tyroc is startled to see the Legionnaires that Zoraz defeated standing around hale and healthy. Superboy asks Tyroc to look at the visi-tape that they made of Tyroc's first encounter with Zoraz. He watches to the end when Zoraz removes his helment toe reveal that it was Sun Boy in the costume. He then watches the 2nd fight and at the end it is revealed it is Superboy in the costume. Tyroc is pissed and wants to know what kind of freaky put on is this. Brainiac and Superboy explains that it was Tyroc's final test. They had to know how he would respond to severe stress so they invented their own villain. They made up the bit with the genetic codes, each Legionnaire made it appeare that their own powers were going out of control. All of the other things that Zoraz did were done by either Superboy or Sun Boy. Just then Zoraz enters the room and Tyroc tells Sun Boy he knows it is him, but this time it is not. The man in Zoraz costume removes the helment to revel the Legion Reject from earlier. The reject was upset that they told him that his unusual power wasn't important enough for a Legionnaire, rejecting him and accepting Tyroc. He decided to prove his value by sneaking into the citadel, waiting till he could go into action, hiding out in the same ventilation shafts "Zoraz" was suppose to be using. The reject contiues to explain that he watched Tyroc in action and waited till he could grab the Zoraz uniform and now it was time for him to prove that he is better than Tyroc. Superboy charges at him but the reject using Sun Boy's powers glows with the energy of a red sun causing Superboy to lose his powers. Note: when Superboy nears the rays of a red sun he becomes an ordinary mortal!
The reject then using Superboy's own strength smash the former teen of steel into the wall. Brainiac tells Tyroc that the reject is called Absorbancy Boy and that he can absorb residue energy left behind by super powers. Since he is wearing the same uniform that Sun Boy and Superboy wore it has given him their powers. Absorbancy Boy challenges Tyroc to a fight to see who is better qualified to be the next Legionnaire. Brainiac cautions Tyroc saying he is just as formidable as Superboy.
Tyroc faces his foe and Absorbancy Boy taunts the dark hero. Tyroc explains that he is using a yell at an ultra high frequency that only Superboy's hearing can pick up. Absorbency Boy is not impressed but when Tyroc unleashes the yell Absorbancy boy grabs his ears and falls to the ground even through nobody else heard a sound. Tyroc easily incapacitate the villain and explains that he figured AB would be inexperienced with Super Hearing and turn it on at full strength allowing Tyroc's ultrasonic cry to almost deafen him. Once Absorbency Boy is taken away they get on to the log awaited formal induction ceremony where Tyroc is officially sworn in as a full fledged member of the greatest fighting group in the galaxy The Legion of Super-Heroes.
Roll Call
- Brainiac-5
- Colossal Boy
- Element Lad
- Light Lass
- Cosmic Boy
- Superboy
- Shrinking Violet
- Dream Girl
- Star Boy
- Sun Boy
- Tyroc
- The other members of the Legion in the back ground.
- Flight Ring
- Infirmary
- briefing room
- Monitor room
- Cell Bank
- Gymnasium
- Tyroc's Quarters
- Absorbancy Boy
- Infectious Lass
Page 2:
- Nice call back to Superboy #201 with the use of Infectious Lass
- Tyroc arrives in his own personal Cruiser
- Brainiac-5 briefing members that missed issue 216
- Tyroc Teleports in to nice effect.
- Brainiac-5 thinks he is hip the way he shakes Tyroc's hand.
- "Zoraz" burns his way into the room and easily defeats four Legionnaires.
- Tyroc stands by while a villain takes out his new partners.
- "Zoraz" burns the control box, is any one seeing a pattern here?
- "Arrrhh!" Yell from Tyroc causes thing to explode
- Superboy and Cosmic Boy arrive Late, this will happen again with Legionnaires showing up after Tyroc had faced the bad guy.
- We see the 4 Legionnaires that were defeated by Zoraz lying in sick bay.
- They show Tyroc the Legion Cell Bank last seen in Superboy 206.
- We have a mystery man hiding out in the ventilation shaft.
- Star Boy and Dream Girl making out in the hallway.
- Cosmic Boy and Sun Boy watching them make out on the monitor.
- There is probably a few sex visi-tapes floating around the 30th century starring Dream Girl.
- Tyroc to the rescue.
- Zoraz using super strength.
- ZZZRRUGHHHH! make you spin round round like record baby.
- Zoraz sucking all of the air out of the room with Super breath. Hmmm
- Sun Boy and Cosmic Boy are a day late and a dollar short, or since this is the 30th century a credit Short.
- Superboy wakes Tyroc out of a sound sleep.
- Tyroc goes to the briefing room to see the injured Legionnaires up and around.
- Tyroc should be pissed to find out he was part of a fraternity prank.
- A 3rd person puts on the Zoraz suit, that thing must reek.
- How many Legion Rejects turn into villains. This Guy, all of the Legion rejects in 212. I believe radiation Roy and Spider-Girl. I will have to do more research but there has to be close to a dozen.
- Absorbancy Boy, his name is Absorbancy Boy, Cary, you are better writer than that your flash stories prove that, wait you came up with Big Sir, never mind.
- Tyroc tricks Absorbancy Boy into using Super Hearing to take him out.
- Tyroc get sworn into the Legion, this being the first of many stories of him with the team. Maybe not.
Great Story until the end, have to use Super hearing to have the guy take himself out seems a bit anti climatic. But the build up to the reveal of Zoraz being Superboy and Sun Boy was good. I like that they played a prank on Tyroc similar to the one Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy and Lightning Boy I mean Lad, played on Superboy in Adventure 247.
Good use of Infectious Lass even if it is only for a couple of panels, I always like when we can call back to passed issues. Absorbancy Boy is a little dumb but I will forgive it knowing now what Geoff Johns will turn him into.
Hostess Ad
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)