Book Review: Showcase Presents Bat Lash

You don't see a lot of western comics anymore. DC Comics' made a bold move with All-Star Western in the "New 52" revamping, and a few years ago Marvel had a fifth-week even that showcased some of their westerns. DC also had a few series of Jonah Hex under their Vertigo imprint. Marvel also put out the excellent limited series Blaze of Glory, which featured nearly all of their name western characters. But that's about it. But you don't see a lot of straight, old-fashioned western comics.

The genre once outsold super-heroes by a wide margin. Back in the fifties and early sixties, especially when TV westerns were the rage, publishing a western comic was money in the bank for a publisher. But times and tastes change. The character of Bat Lash was one of the attempts to try to move along with those changes.

"Will he save the West ... or ruin it?" was the promotional line used in advertisements for Bat Lash's first appearance, in the original Showcase #76. It was also on every single cover of his short-lived comic book. It was a bit over-reaching, no matter how you looked at it. Bat Lash was not out to save or ruin the West. He was out to make a comfortable living doing the least he could. Bat Lash was Bret Maverick and Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name rolled together with a dash of Don Diego. Bartholomew Lash was raised by an authoritarian father and a very educated other, becoming a smart and resourceful individual as an adult. He was by trade, most of the time anyway, a gambler. Most of his recorded adventures have him also playing the role of the dilettante; Bat Lash enjoyed the finer things in life and did his best to get them when he could. Almost every story has the seemingly foppish cowboy picking a flower for his hat, which was a symbol of life and what he was struggling for.

Bat Lash was created by the odd partnership of artist Nick Cardy and cartoonist Sergio Aragones. You probably have never heard of Nick Cardy, but Sergio Aragones came to the spotlight by his many humor pieces in Mad Magazine - he's the guy who draws the "Mad Marginals", those little cartoons in the margins of the pages. He also became known in comic books for Groo the Wanderer.  Nick Cardy was one of those artists you've probably seen the work of, but never knew who he was. He did a lot of work for DC in the sixties and seventies, having particularly long runs on Teen Titans and Aquaman. He drew the covers for almost every DC comics series in that period at one time or another. For Bat Lash's short-lived comic book, Denny O'Neil, best known for his award-winning work with Neal Adams on Batman, Detective Comics and Green Lantern-Green Arrow handled the scripts. The book also has a Bat Lash story from the omnibus title DC Super-Stars and the three-issue back-up feature from Jonah Hex.

Bat Lash was a character cut from the cloth of TV's Maverick. He was the quick-witted, flowery-talking not-quite-a-con-man who tried to do right when the situation presented itself, but remembered that his own survival was at stake as well. "A guy's gotta eat" he often thought to himself, and that bit of the scoundrel was always part of him.

I think most comic book readers would enjoy Showcase Presents Bat Lash. It is one of the cheaper volumes in that series at under ten bucks, and the black-and-white reprinting really allows the great ink work of Nick Cardy to shine. I've always thought the mark of a good comic book artist was if he work looked just as good when printed without color. Nick Cardy's definitely does so, and I think the stories, which are only slightly dated, are worth a good read as well.

Book Review: Showcase Presents Metamorpho

Like a lot of folks, the first volume I purchased in DC Comics' trade paperback reprint series Showcase Presents was the first Superman book, since I saw it at the bookstore (back when we had one in this county) for only $9.99.  That was a pretty good book, so I went looking on Amazon.com for others, and the next one I snagged featured nearly all the sixties' appearances of one of my favorite super-heroes: Metamorpho the Element Man.

Metamorpho was part of a metaphorical second wave of creative endeavors that flourished in the Silver Age of comics over at DC Comics. The first wave had such luminaries as the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman, and the Challengers of the Unknown joining the DC universe. I've always thought Metamorpho heralded second wave of heroes, along with the likes of the Metal Men and the Doom Patrol.

For those unfamiliar with the character, Rex Mason was a soldier-of-fortune who delighted in taking the money of entrepreneur Simon Stagg and then showing him up, all the while romancing Stagg's beautiful daughter Sapphire. Stagg and his musclebound henchman Java (a formerly petrified caveman) got their revenge by trapping Mason in an Egyptian pyramid. Inside, Rex was exposed to the radiation of a strange meteor, which changed him into the freakish-looking Element Man. Because of his love for Sapphire, he could wreak vengeance on Stagg, but continued to work for him while the man supposedly tried to find a cure for Rex's condition.

The series was created by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon and Metamorpho's first two adventures were really the only stories to interrupt the long-run of team-ups in the pages of The Brave and the Bold (the team-up format ran from issues #50 to #200). This book reprints those two stories, along with his next two appearances in the title, with the Metal Men and Batman. The rest of the book is devoted to Metamorpho's seventeen-issue comic book, along with his pivotal appearance in Justice League of America #42, in which he became the first hero to turn down membership in that elite organization.

The artwork is primarily done by Ramona Fradon, a rare and talented female comic creator of the era. She had a very comical, almost cartoony style that fit in well with the camp-edged environment of sixties' comic books. Joe Orlando and Sal Trapani also take turns at the artistic helm, as does comic legend Mike Sekowsky in the team-up with Batman and the JLA story.

The stories are typical sixties' DC fare. You can really feel for Rex's predicament in the early stories, but can see him gradually get accustomed to his new abilities. The tales have just the right amount of angst-to-action. The last few tales have Rex being joined by Element Girl, his female counterpart. Element Girl went on to a much more glorious fate at the hands of Neil Gaiman's Death in the pages of the award-winning Sandman in the late eighties.

Metamorpho hasn't yet appeared in the "New 52" continuity of modern DC Comics, at least to my knowledge. Hopefully they won't completely revamp Rex Mason beyond the point of recognition when he does make that first fateful appearance.  Showcase Presents Metamorpho is a good reprint volume and a fun read for any comic fan of the Silver Age who enjoys good, reliable story telling with just a hint of comedy.

Book Review: Showcase Presents Ambush Bug

When reviewing the names of super-heroes and super-villains that everyone knows, there's a select group that comes to mind: Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Hulk, Ambush Bug, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Silver Surf ... umm what? You don't know Ambush Bug? But I'm sure Ambush Bug knows you. And Showcase Presents Ambush Bug is the only collection of his original adventures that we're probably ever going to see.

Ambush Bug knows most comic book readers because he's one of the few characters that knows he's in a comic book. Before getting all meta on us, the character began as somewhat of a throwaway villain in DC Comics Presents #52, facing off against Superman and the New Doom Patrol. He was created by Keith Giffen and Paul Kupperberg. Back then he was a happy-go-lucky (and slightly murderous) bad guy who could teleport using these little bugs. It was a few months later, in #59, when Ambush Bug was steered into a more comedic role, when he inadvertently went to the 30th Century with Superman and was engaged by the Legion of Substitute Heroes. Back then, the Subs were thought of in the same vein as the Legion of Super-Pets in sheer usefulness, so hilarity reigned.

Ambush Bug made several more appearances in Supergirl, Action Comics, and DC Comics Presents before he earned his first mini-series, which was so popular he got a Stocking Stuffer special followed by a second mini, a Secret Origins origin, and a second special before comic books turned all dark, grim and serious again.

All of these funny books (and for once that phrase is truth-in-advertising) are reprinted in Showcase Presents Ambush Bug, another volume in DC Comics' black-and-white series of trade paperback reprints. The stories all have an element of humor to them, and Ambush Bug, knowing that he's in a comic book, does his best to strain all the conventions of comic books that existed back in the eighties, the era of the DC fanboy and the Marvel zombie. It's fast-paced comedy, like if SCTV was combined with Cracked.

Showcase Presents Ambush Bug is an excellent read, both as a reprint volume and just as something to page through when you're bored and want to snicker a little now and then.