World’s Finest 59 – Luthor makes Superman hold up the world, Manhunters Around the World begins, and the Joker has a world of riches

I hope Superman paid for that.

Luthor and the Joker both appear in World’s Finest 59 (July/Aug 52), although in different stories.

Finger, Boring and Kaye have Luthor trick Superman into holding up a globe of the Earth, one that Luthor has rigged with explosives, and a super-magnet that pulls it towards the Earth.  If it touches the ground, it will explode.  Superman therefore has to either keep holding the globe up, or find ways to keep it temporarily in the air while he performs super-deeds.

It’s not a bad story for this era.  Luthor creates all sorts of problems and diversions for Superman, whose ingenuity is challenged every time he has to let go of the globe.

The Daily Planet globe makes a rare appearance for the period, part of the skyline of Metropolis, used at the story’s climax.  Superman gets Luthor onto the globe-bomb, threatening to let it explode with Luthor on it.  Luthor gives in and defuses it.

Manhunters Around the World, which had run in Star Spangled Comics for a couple of years, begins again in this book, with a story by Chad Grothkopf that deals with the Bush Trackers of Australia.

The story deals with a counterfeiter whose gang hides out in the Australian outback.

I enjoy this series, despite the lack of continuing characters, because of the detail the stories have, from the different countries they are set in.  How accurate they are is difficult to gauge, especially as they describe the world from over 60 years ago.

There is not a lot of originality in this Joker story, by Reed, Schwartz and Kaye.  The Joker sets off on a crime spree that spells his name out.  Again.  He really gets off on spelling his name.

A glimpse of the Joker’s lair makes one wonder why he is even bothering to commit crimes.  It’s not about the money, obviously.  Maybe it is all about the spelling.

The high point of the story sees the Joker use a female impersonator to distract Batman.  It fails, Batman spots that he’s really a man within seconds.

The aces referred to in the title are only used in the vaguest way, the notion of having “an ace in the hole” to pull off “impossible” crimes.

 

 

World’s Finest 4 – Superman and the streetcars, the Crimson Avenger vs Methuselah, Young Doc Davis ends, Hop Harrigan guests, Sandman takes on the Society of Six, and Lando hunts for a radium mine

Superman, Batman and Robin chase a murderous bunny rabbit through the snow on the cover of World’s Finest 4 (Winter 1941).  Maybe that’s not what the artist intended, but you can’t prove me wrong.

Public transportation is at the core of this Superman story, by Siegel and Nowak.  Streetcar accidents are becoming common, and the owner of the line is rude and argumentative when Clark Kent writes a story on it for the Daily Planet.

A young red-haired man appears in this story, working for the Planet.  He is not named, but this is one of those cameos that are easy to ascribe to Jimmy Olsen.

This story is also notable for the brief appearance of the Daily Planet globe.  I find it curious how it significantly failed to grab the interest of artists on the Superman series all the way until the late 50s.

The streetcar owner, as aggressive as he is, is not actually the villain of the story.  Instead, it’s the man who owns a bus fleet.  He wanted the streetcars to lose the city contract, and get it himself. Kidnapping Lois Lane and throwing her off a cliff is just a standard act for villains in Superman stories.

Even though Wing is now being played for racist comedy, this story, by Lehti and Paris, has one of the best plots of any Crimson Avenger tales.  He faces a man named Methuselah, who has the ability to rejuvenate old men.

There is a lot going on in the tale, with Methuselah exploiting the aged dreams of wealthy old men, and getting them to commit crimes for him.  But the real plot, which Lee Travis uncovers, is to steal a man’s identity and wealth.  Methuselah is actually a young man, the nephew of an aging millionaire.  He plotted to kill off and replace his uncle, using the Methuselah potion as an explanation for his “newfound” youth.

Young Doc Davis has his final adventure, by Henry Boltinoff, in this issue, which opens with a magic trick gone wrong, as a woman gets shot onstage.

The magician insists there was no bullet in the gun, but the police do not believe him.  Davis looks into this a bit further, and finds proof that the actual shooter was the girl’s greedy fiancee.

So what happened to Young Doc Davis?  Well, after four such impressive criminal cases, I expect he was recruited by the some secret government organization, for his blend of medical and deductive thinking.

Hop Harrigan gets a one-off tale in this issue, which brings along much of his supporting cast from All-American Comics.  Ikky Tinker and Miss Snap are there, but the important one for the story is his sort-of girlfriend, Geraldine.

Hop’s feats have earned him a gaggle of adoring females, to Geraldine’s dismay.

While many stories at this time have Geraldine flirting with other men to make Hop jealous, in this one she fights for her man, even though Hop shows no interest in the other girls.

The Sandman gets a decent tale in this story, largely because of the creepy art and odd variation of his costume.  Cliff Young does the art as Wesley Dodds and Dian Belmost drive through a fog that makes their skin burn.

Wesley gets into a rubber sealed Sandman suit, and comes across a gang called the Society of the Six.  Also garbed in costumes to protect them from the deadly fog they release, Sandman finds himself fiighting against all six of them, but still manages to prevail.

Chad Grothkopf takes over the art on Lando, Man of Magic, and gives a very different look to the series.  Lando is in Mexico in this story, likely heading back north after his adventure in Panama.  He faces a monstrous creature, referred to as a gargoyle, although it looks nothing like one.

Once again, there is the exploitation of natives, which Lando cares nothing about, and the perils of the mine owner and his daughter, which he does.

 

World’s Finest 3 – Johnny Thunder ends, Young Doc Davis in the operating room, Sandman begins, Lando grows some facial hair, and the Scarecrow debuts

Superman, Batman and Robin play baseball on the cover of World’s Finest 3 (Fall 1941).  Most of the covers will feature activities like this, building the notion of the friendship between Superman and Batman, even though the book contains no stories in which they meet, for many years.

Wentworth and Aschemeier conclude Johnny Thunder’s run in this book with a story in which Johnny proposes to Daisy, but she defers marriage until he gets a good job, and suggests he attend night school to improve his education.

Despite the great dragon in the splash, the story never gets around to including one, as Johnny winds up playing football against a rival school, and winning, thanks to the Thunderbolt.

Johnny Thunder’s series ends in this book, but he continues to appear in Flash Comics.

Young Doc Davis enters the operating room in this story, by Henry Boltinoff.  Hoods enter the room as well, kidnapping the patient in the middle of the surgery.  Although presumably they wait until he gets sewn up.

The ransom note appears to have been written by an illiterate, but Davis smells iodoform on the note.  This makes him suspect a doctor is behind the kidnapping.  When he approaches the surgeon to share his views, he gets rudely dismissed.  Sure enough, Davis is on the right track, and solves the kidnapping.  The motive, beyond greed, remains opaque.

Sandman begins, in a story by Craig Flessel and Grothkopf, that takes Wesley Dodds and Dian Belmont to the opera.  The singer gets booed and humiliated by the audience, even though she is not a bad performer.  Wes is very suspicious, and gets into his Sandman gear to investigate.

It turns out to be a nasty version of a protection scam, with artists threatened with a disruptive audience unless they pay off the gang.

Lando, Man of Magic now has a moustache and goatee, adding an air of maturity to the character, and making him distinct from DC’s other stage magician/hero.  Howard Purcell remains the artist.

The story has Lando in Panama, where he has to deal with the Hood, another magic user who takes control of the natives and makes them revolt against the plantation owners.  There are some good magic scenes, even if the story is a little uncomfortable, considering the horrible way native workers were treated on the plantations.

Finger and Kane are joined by Jerry Robinson as they introduce the Scarecrow, the only major Batman villain to debut in this book.

Jonathan Crane is an odd and reclusive professor, who thinks nothing of firing a gun in his class to illustrate the effects of fear.  Curiously, that has nothing to do with the reason the other academics shun him.  They think he spends too much money on books, and not enough on clothing. This must be a very fashion-conscious university.

To get more money to feed his love of literature, Crane adopts the identity of the Scarecrow, and hires himself out as a hitman.

The rest of the story has Batman and Robin pursue and capture the Scarecrow.  There is no fear gas, or any of the other attributes that would later accrue to the character.  Really, the best thing in the story are the first few pages, with him scaring the students.

The Scarecrow would make only one more appearance in the 1940s, a couple of years down the road in the pages of Detective Comics.