Price paid new: $1
Price paid used .75
Adventure Comics began its run in 1935 as New Comics. Originally a humor comic it quickly became home to Hourman, Starman, and Manhunter. After World War II, it became famous as the home of Superboy and eventually the Legion of Super-heroes. Over the years the format changed a few times and by the late-1970s it was a jumbo sized dollar comic and #459 was the first issue of the new anthology style format.
So put yourself in my situation. You've got a dollar and you can buy maybe two regular comics, or one issue of Adventure Comics that has like six stories in it. What do you do? To me to choice was obvious, and it didn't hurt that Adventure Comics had Darksied on the cover.
Story #1: The Crimson Comets of Fallville High
The story begins with the Flash rushing to save a falling parachutist.
Which he does easily, leaving the parachutist without explanation. (I have it on good authority that because of this, the parachutist thought himself indestructible and died tragically next week trying to wrestle alligators.)
After saving the parachutist the Flash continues on his journey to ... his high school reunion. I guess if you have super-speed you really don't need to take a plane.
At the reunion Barry's old classmates describe him as slow and lazy.
You get it. It's funny because he's really the Flash. By the way Rachel. Barry's a police scientist. I don't think you get to that position by being "lazy."
But then the mood has abruptly turned far from festive!
Yes, Rachel has E.S.P. and she believes one of their classmates is the Flash. So based on nothing but Rachel's gut feelings, Tony Stark, I mean Tony Larson sets fire to the school. You, know just to see if the Flash was really here or maybe to kill everyone. Who knows. By the way Rachel, nice with the "all telepathy is mental" dig, we already know Tony isn't the one of Farmville's brightest alums.
Luckily Barry puts out the fire and with Rachel's feelings confirmed Tony after a mysterious and collect long-distance phone call, comes up with a plan.
Poor Tony, he guesses the wrong classmate. He kidnaps Nathan and drives away in Nathan's 911 with Fuchs wheels (nice job artist). By the way Barry's super reflexes have to be his most inconsistant power.
Tony then spills his guts about being in debt to the mob and using the identity of the Flash to make good. Unfortunately, Nathan whom Tony thinks is the Flash, is in fact an actor that's been hired to play the Flash on TV (that's what you call a comic book coincidence kids). Being a method actor Nathan thinks of himself as the Flash causing Rachel's E.S.P. impression. He even goes so far as to pose in front of the mirror dressed as the Flash "every chance he gets." Sure buddy, that's why you do that.
Barry, hearing this, then decides to grab the Nathan's Flash costume and then for some reason puts it on his classmate and use him as a super-speed puppet.
I have no idea why he would do this.
Story #2 Murder Haunts the Midway
The second story stars Deadman who's hanging around his old circus.
Cleve who has replaced Boston Brand as Deadman is performing one of Boston's signature tricks. Boston decides to jump into Cleve's body. But as he's performing the trick, Cleve is shot. Holy flashback Deadman, that's just how you became Deadman. So we then get a sequence to bring you up-to-date on Deadman's origin story. Deadman spots the attempted assassin and uses a passerby to subdue him.
The Assassin is too much for a middle-aged man in a hat so Deadman then jumps into the assassin's body but find himself unable to prevent this...
Why? Why?? The story ends with Cleve recovering and Deadman's old girl blaming herself because she brought the wrath of the Eastern Europeans down on the circus. Those darn Eastern Europeans.
Next we have a Green Lantern story.
The Call of the Cosmos..which begins like this.
Hmmm.... A Green Lantern story that begins with an alien woman. You don't need a crystal ball to figure out how this one ends.
Is she crying out of joy or fear of some space STD? The End.
Now we get to the good stuff. The New Gods.
Story #4 Climax of Chaos
Here's the thing. I love the New Gods. I always have but they've never really lived up to their potential even under Kirby. (HEY DC I WOULD WRITE A NEW GODS SERIES FOR FREE) This story continues from where New Gods #19 left off. Orion saves a group of Earthlings that had ben kidnapped by Darkseid.
After freeing the humans they promptly threaten to beat up Dessad, who when faced by the awesome fist of a human in a black shirt, spills Darkseid's plan.
Yep, Darkseid has the anti-life equation. So while Darkseid has the power to learn the ultimate secret of the universe, the High-Father decides to make a speech.
Meanwhile on Earth, it's basically Final Crisis.
Everything old is new again.
The other New Gods fly off to face the Antagonist, who is in Washington to start a nuclear war.
Yes it's up to Lightray to save President Carter who seems rather blasé about these two fighting in the Oval Office.
Cut to space... where Orion and Darkseid face off.
I believe this is the first appearance of Orion's true face.
Darkseid offers Orion to join him in his conquest.
Orion politely refuses setting up the confrontation for the next issue.
Next Issue= The End!
Story number five is an Elongated Man story. The Case of the Fortune Cookie Fortune which I probably didn't read as a kid because I thought the Elongated Man was lame, a boring Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man. I think EM's one of those heroes it takes a certain maturity to appreciate which I did not have in 1978.
That being said, this story is not one of his better outings. Let me just give you the rundown. Jack Benny is posing as a waiter so that he can secretly repay $30,000 he stole from his home town. Yeah, you read that right. The plot is built around Jack Benny being a crook and secretly repaying his hometown.
The story begins with Sue and Ralph stopping in Sutterville for dinner. They're greeted by the mayor who happens to own a Chinese restaurant and wants to make them the guest of honor.
At dinner with Sutterville's more prominent citizens the Dibney's dining companions are shocked to find a $1,000 bill in the fortune cookie.
In fact everyone in the restaurant got a grand in their cookies. This starts Ralph's nose a twitching and luckily he's wearing his super-suit under his clothes.
Ralph goes into the kitchen to investigate where he discovers that the waiter Benny purchased all of the fortune cookies and now he's fled.
So Ralph chases him all over town only to discover he's boarded an airplane to flee. Luckily the ductile detective decides to risk his and everyone on the plane's life by throwing his arm into the propellor.
On the plane the Jack Benny character spills the whole scheme and Ralph decides hey whatever dude, at least I got to solve a mystery.
So yeah, that happened. I really don't know what to make of this story. It makes no sense on so many levels that it almost makes sense.
Finally we have the most disturbing story of the bunch. Wonder Woman vs. the Shark.
The Story is titled, The Sharks Dark Demand. Let me go ahead and spoil it for you. "Dark demand" means sex.
We begin with Hippolyte explaining why Wonder Woman is so great.
The Shark confronts Wonder Woman who helps out the reader by running down the Shark's origin and past conflicts with heroes. Look at those cold lifeless eyes, I mean Wonder Woman not the Shark.
After a quick skirmish the Shark is knocked underwater and Wonder Woman thinks of the Shark's challenge as a compliment. But while she's thinking the Shark is approaching Paradise Island.
Remember at the time if a man stepped foot on Paradise Island, the Amazons lost all their powers and their immortality.
The Shark then uses his mental powers to tie up Wonder Woman with her own lasso. Luckily she still retains mental control of her plane which she uses to dump the Shark in the ocean. But he's not done yet.
Oh no! He's bound her bracelets together so now she helpless. And then the unpleasantness begins.
Yep. Here's there to take Wonder Woman as his mate. It gets worse. But first it gets strange. You see instead of actually struggling against her chains, Diana has to think about the fact the Amazons didn't lose their powers when the Shark stepped on Paradise Island. So...
Now here's where get strange. Diana decides to basically magically lobotize the Shark by forcing to return to his shark form and never transform back.
So under Wonder Woman's command the Shark de-evolves and returns to the sea probably to wind up in a bowl of shark fin soup.
Yes, that's compassion, taking a sentient being and turning into a mindless animal. Nice job.
I found the art in this story to be particularly bad, especially compared to the other stories in the issue, it's like Hanna-Barbera animation quality.
Not the greatest stories but 68 pages for $1. Yeah it was worth it.
Next time: Golden
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