Saturday, June 23, 2012

Good Shooting

Back in the mid to late 70s, DC Comics launched a number of short-lived pulp and fantasy titles, among them Justice Inc., pictured above. Named for the 1939 story that featured the first appearance of Richard Benson, The Avenger, Justice Inc. came and went in just four issues. The first issue is astonishingly creepy, though; Benson, his wife and child make the mistake of barging onto a flight bound for Montreal, and while Benson is in the washroom, his family vanishes. Everyone on board the plane claims Benson's loved ones never boarded at all, and the shock of his loss transform's Benson's skin ghost-white and leaves his face malleable, plasticized. It doesn't make a lot of scientific sense, but it's pretty creepy, even more so in DC's 1989 adaptation of the same story.

In any event, it's a pretty good comic, but the panels above strain suspension of disbelief pretty hard. You'd have to be an incredible shot to deliberately graze the skull of a moving target in such a way as to merely knock him unconscious!
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4 comments:

  1. Stephen FitzpatrickSunday, June 24, 2012 12:30:00 pm

    The 1989 story, is that the one in The Shadow where he got taunted for naming his gun an knife Mike and Ike?

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  2. Earl J. WoodsSunday, June 24, 2012 4:52:00 pm

    The Shadow doesn't appear in the 1989 miniseries, but at the time both characters were being written and drawn by the same team - Andy Helfer and Kyle Baker. Really great comics.

    The Avenger's weapons were indeed named Mike and Ike, however. Perhaps The Avenger appeared in The Shadow series, and that's what you're remembering? It's been too long since I read Baker and Helfer's The Shadow, so I don't recall.

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  3. Stephen FitzpatrickMonday, June 25, 2012 7:55:00 pm

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Stephen FitzpatrickMonday, June 25, 2012 7:57:00 pm

    Yeah, The Avenger showed up in The Shadow, and there was a funny bit where he got punched in the chops and his plasticized face was all deformed and knuckle-printed. I didn't realize the character had his own comic around the same time.

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