Friday, June 26, 2015

In Which I Develop a New Respect for the Black Rat


Let's take a Bulletman break, courtesy of Bulletman #6!

I guess it was decided the Bullet had enough of a rogues gallery that we could see them teaming up.  So, the Revenge Syndicate was born:


The Black Rat and the Murder Prophet were covered in previous posts.  The third guy, the Weeper, had given the Bullets some grief over in Master Comics, which I don't think I have access to.  So, if you know of anyone who has any issues of Master Comics, please send them my way because I loves me some Captain Marvel Jr.

Anyway, the Weeper was arguably the most entertaining:


You see, the Weeper was sad all the time.  Even when he was successful, he saw the down side of it.  But he was a true "misery loves company" kind of guy, because he wouldn't put up with anyone else being happy, either.  The guy just hated happiness.  He kind of reminds me of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

Here was an interesting side of the Black Rat:



You know, I would have expected the guy to just say something along the lines of "Awesome!  More money for me!"  But he actually saves his allies.  I'm not saying that makes him a great guy, but I don't see Victor von Doom doing that very often.  Basically, if you were under a car at the bottom of the river, Vic decided you were too useless to live.

Anyhoo:


I know what you're thinking from what he just said: The Black Rat is going to keep them around as long as he has use for him, but then he's going to bump them off.  The thing is, he doesn't.  We don't see so much as a single thought balloon that the guy has any intentions of betraying his alliance.  That kind of honor is downright strange among bad guys in comics.

This tickled me:


See?  I'm actually taking a shine to the Black Rat.  I didn't see that coming.

Anyway, this version of the Weeper isn't the Weeper I first knew about from Justice League of America #136 (volume 1) or this issue of The Joker:



And no, it isn't because the Weeper was originally a Fawcett character.  Nope.  In fact, the original Weeper returned in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold in 2011:




Because Batman: The Brave and the Bold was all kinds of awesome.

So, what happened?  Well, you can look it up, but I'll reveal all when we get around to the original Weeper's final comic book appearance in Bulletman #10 in the next couple of weeks.

Longtime reader pal Wayne Sallee has sent a few choice panels we'll be looking at over the next few days.  Here's some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue (tm!) from what I believe is a Silver Age Captain Atom comic:


"Weirdo" is a term, you didn't see a lot in comics.  The trick now is that the next time you give a toddler a juice box, you're going to have resist the urge to say, "Let's see how you like juice, weirdo!"  I'm not at all sure I can do that.

Let's finish things up with another installment of Well... Touche! (tm!) taken from today's ish of Bulletman:



Well.... Touche! (tm!)

See you Monday!

7 comments:

Cflmaior said...

Dear Adam: I couldn't conclude whether you're referring to the actual (printed) issues of Master Comics, but if your yearning is satisfied by scans, many issues (from 1940 to 1953) are available at http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1258.

maw maw said...

Winnie the Poof?

Adam Barnett said...

Nice! I'm not proud! I'll use whatever I can get my mitts on. Thanks, Cfl!

Adam Barnett said...

Whoops! I should have been suspicious when spellcheck didn't have a problem with "Pooh." Thanks, maw maw!

Doppelgänger said...

Have you ever tried http://digitalcomicmuseum.com?

Adam Barnett said...

You're right! Master Comics is there as well as at Comics Plus! Thanks, gang! I didn't know if they were public domain, but those sites are pretty careful about that. Awesome!

Evil said...

You know I disagree with you about Doom. Yes, he's ruthless, but he possesses a sense of honor.