"A Plague of Monsters" Justice League Vol 1 No 174 January 1980

• Black Lightining!
• Crazy villian scheme
• Letter's Page

6/10 Lightning Bolts

This issues is more or less a part 2 of the League's attempt to recruit the new super hero Black Lightning into the group and it continues the issue's big bad evil guy's would-be origin story. The story opens with Barnabas Boulton, aka The Regulator unleashing his evil plan and extracting his revenge against his former boss as Star Labs who had him recently committed. Barnabas can control rats with a helmet a la Ant-Man. Since rats alone suck as a real threat, and since just sticking it to your boss and wife for locking you in the asylum is not a great long term plan. The Regulator makes use of Star Labs mutation chamber and levels up a big ol' pile of rats. Then he launches into his plan which goes a long way to explaining why he was getting forced psychiatric help in the first place.

Gerry Conway presages the attitude of the modern online politics poster by half a generation

Meanwhile back at the Hall of Justice...

Green Arrow is pissed! Seems he is the one who nominated Black Lightning for the league, but Superman, Green Lantern, and Flash ham-handed the whole thing. Kind of no surprise there, those three are all have super square powers and no doubt acted like asses. Supes already acted like a jerk to Jon Stewart when they first met back in JLA 110, and you know a space cop and an actual cop probably came off poorly talking to the only black superhero they have met before. Ollie decides to pitch membership in person this time to correct the social blundering of his fellow heroes. 

This is maybe the biggest moment in the book to me. It's culturally poignant, and sadly despite being written in 1979 (Jan 1980 cover date) still relevant now. Ollie tells Supes off, by pointing out that intentions aren't enough to be an ally, action is what matters. Speaking of allies two Leaguers volunteer to keep an eye on Ollie lest he do anything rash (like talk to the black guy?). Elongated Man & Zatanna hop in the teleporter to Suicide Slums. It's too bad Conway doesn't give us a thought balloon for Green Arrow when he finds these two rookies have decided to come with on the mission uninvited. 

The trio arrives in Metropolis and doesn't have to wait long for the action. A distress call from Star Labs sounds like a good place to find the local hero at large. There is a really nice interlude with Black Lightning that give some nice insight into the character, and contains some good symbolism about being a black hero, but don't take my word for it check out Osvaldo Oyola's much more intellectual and better written blog on the subject.

Join the League and get shamed for taking vacay or sick days

Ollie and rookies are quickly overwhelmed by monsters at Star Labs which leads to a really weird interlude. For some reason Conway includes a bunch of Leaguers who won't be responding to the distress call for a number of reasons. It feels like he is shaming them a little bit or I don't even know what, humanizing them is probably his intention and also just making Dillin & McLaughlin draw more heroes. It breaks up the flow and just comes off as a non-sequitor, but comics.

the one time it's ok to be "that guy"

We do finally get some Black Lightining in action shots. Conway doesn't Sweet Christmas up the dialogue too much, but he does add some slang/jive to it. It could be argued that this is Jefferson Pierce using his unapologetically black voice. Powerful in costume he no longer fears being himself or conforming to the standards of the white majority. Notably Green Arrow also drops his "g" on "ing" words in this issue showing that in action and speech he is umm, down. I guess the kids still say that. Green Arrow only drops the lingo some of the time though, so it could be he is putting on a false mask too.

Briefly the League and BL are together, now with Bats and Wonder Woman adding some muscle to the crew. They get some info dumped on them about the Star Labs Genetic Research Project, which has recently caused other monstrosities to attack the city, big ups to Wonder Woman for pointing out the WTF??!!? this project has been a cluster in the past and is now the cause of this disaster, c'mon Star Labs do better. Anyway Black Lightning takes off on his own to confront Regulator, while the rest of the League do damage control.

Wonder Woman, notably is tasked with keeping the mutant rat hordes from spreading outside the slums. She uses her lasso to pull down a crumbling apartment building to block the creatures path across a bridge. This scene is strange for comic book reasons, the building is conveniently empty, close to the bridge, and the rat creatures apparently can't climb or something. Anyway she destroys a building and blocks a major access road. Hey, you gotta do stuff in emergencies there's no time for major forethought.

We catch Black Lightning as he catches Regulator in the most precarious and comic book villan of perches, atop a factory smokestack. There is a brief struggle before Black Lighting confronts the enemy with the old, your revolution is harming the people you hope to save speech. I'm not sure I understand the exact action next, but it appears Regulator squirms realizing he needs to correct his mistake, but instead falls down the smokestack, no one could have seen this coming.

That last panel is so dope I might blow it up and put it on a tee shirt

Normally this type of inadvertent death of the antagonist would have lead to much angst, but not here. Black Lightning gets all fired up and then is like whatever. No big deal for the guy who protects a neighborhood with a worse name than Crime Alley. This all part of his reality, we don't have the right to judge him here.

Anyway the mutant rats get rounded up, and packed into some big ole concrete containers so they can be un-mutated and returned to nature. Oh wait no that's not the plan at all. They are sealed in an hurled to "the outer reaches of the solar system." That, friends, is how you take care of vermin. Also Princess Diana does not play.

Both of these endings left me wondering about the fate of the baddies. In the case of Regulator, it seems pretty final. The flames leap up and its pretty likely he is dead (there is not a single other appearance of Barnabas Boulton or Regulator in any of the subsequent DC Universes). The rat though are on an elliptical orbit so while they will probably die up there they will def be coming back toward earth one day, and this being comics you can bet they will be ten times worse of a threat when the do. I don't know it seems like a poorly thought out plan again here.


At last the heroes get sometime to do what they came here for, recruit Black Lightning to the Justice League. Green Arrow finally gets to ask and again BL turns the league down. Ok, fine I guess, he has his "I'm a loner" reasons, sure. The good part here is there is no bargaining, shaming, or pleading by Ollie. Black Lightning says his peace and Green Arrow lets it go, very adult. It does lead to the most trill moment of the issue, which only would have been cooler if GA had just said "Bet."



Oh and that property damage that the League did fighting the crime bads, yeah that can wait because we're having moment here. Why is The Man always harshing everything out. Thank you Wonder Woman for letting him know. Unless maybe navy suit wants an elliptical trip to the outer reaches of the solar system.

Lastly we have a letter page!!!! Hooray!!! One of my fave things to do with old comics is to "Where are they now," letter writers. This issue does not disappoint. We get 7 letters in the double spread column this issue. Daniel S. Lee of San Jose draws a blank for me. It might be a dentist out there but I couldn't pin anything down specific on him. Brian Chafin of  Floyd Virginia also comes up blank. I did find a Brian Chafin who asks questions at public meetings of VA governemnt, and I'd bet that is probably him but can't be positive.

Ted P. Skimmer who it turns out is a fake, a big fat phony. Back in the day, they sometimes had staff make up letters to fill the space, ever wonder how some of them could be spot on with future story requests? Well, now you know. Ted Skimmer is a nom de guerre of Bob Rosakis.

Gordon Smith of Middlesex is also a blank on my search, but Sal Casente is no doubt Salvadore Casente, big time lawyer. He wrote his letter some time in his freshmen or sophmore year of high school and  it is about the courtroom and legality of superheroes. Casente goes on to graduate with honors from Harvard Law so he clearly knew what he was into for sometime.

Joseph Fabiszak is very likely now a CPA in the Baltimore ex-urbs. His question/comment about characters on the cover, but no being in that issue as a way to boost sales isn't entirely unrelated to his pedantic career.

Lastly we have Dave Elya of Cheboygan, Michigan. I didn't find Dave, but I did find someone who found Dave's hand drawn comics! Definitely worth checking this blog post out from ispeakcomics. Dave also was living the dream running a comic shop himself, God bless him, but a fire next door put him out of business. Sorry, Dave.

Overall the issue is just ok. It's better than average because of the Black Lightning appearance and the double letter page, but the art is inconsistent and the bad guy is pretty whack. I can't go higher then a 6 out of 10 and even that is a little generous.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Who doesn't feel this way from time to time?

In the 80's First Lady Nancy Reagan launched a drug awareness and abuse prevention program called by most "Just Say No." In an effort to reach out The Kids, she and her corporate sponsors commissioned some comic books, because The Kids love comics.

The book was a success, using the enormously popular Teen Titans to reach out to other kids worked, so two more issues were commissioned. To keep things consistent, Robin who had been reskinned as The Protector was used again in each issue. He had been struck from the first issue because the issues sponsor, Keebler, did not want to conflict with Nabisco's use of Robin in one of their products. Weird, but hey comics.

The current Titans team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez wrote and drew the series. They aren't terrible for educational books, and the Perez art is always so crisp and clean that it stands out against other comics of the type that might skimp on the art duties they enlist.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

The books were meant to be distributed to kids in school and other education programs so they feature some activity pages. Naturally if you give kids a blank space to fill in as they choose you'll get some odd answers.

I picked up this copy of the drug issue in a dollar bin in a Milwaukee, WI store. It wasn't a book I was searching after or anything, just a random buy. Turns out it was a worthwhile choice if for this page alone.

The issue didn't mention the use of silucnate or mosgniro specifically, but clearly they are not the appropriate drugs to use when you are gronnige. I'm pretty sure that last panel is a prayer to a great old one.

Feel free to download the image and white out the balloons and fill in your own answers.

DC Heroes Lego Pt 2

Yesterday I said there were two great sets from Lego DC Heroes, but I only got around to talking about the one, Green Lantern set. The other really cool looking and affordable DC set is called Brainiac Attack.  

This set is cool because of the mini-figs. Superwoman (girl? still? really?), Martian Manhunter, Supes, and of course Brainiac. Four figs is pretty nice, and the inclusion of B-Lister (sorry J'onn J'onzz) is fantastic. Usually you have to buy the big money sets to get those guys, like the Darkseid Invasion. That set features Green Arrow, Hawkman, & Cyborg, which would make for some pretty cool adventures, but the set cost $70.00 so out of reach for most. Brainiac on the other hand is $25.00.  

Oh and that Brainiac ship is pretty fierce looking. The other Superman adventure set from a couple of years ago, Superman vs Power Armor Luthor, was also cool for the exact same reasons as this Brainiac kit. The Luthor one featured Wonder Woman, and a bad ass Power Armor robot. 

As of right now the DC sets look fantastic, while Marvel really hasn't put anything of note out. Their Gaurdians sets have mostly disappeared from the shelves by now. They have a really cool X-men set, but it costs $50.00. The Age of Ultron/Avengers 2 stuff is leaked on the web, but nothing in there looks like it will be less than $30.00 except the little Iron Man vs Ultron bots. 

DC is really winning the fight in the Lego wars, even if Marvel is blowing them away in movies.