All Those Kids Came to See a Show, and by Heck, They're Going to Get It!

Before we leave it, let's finish our look at Master Comics #23 with the Bulletman story:

This is actually the first appearance of the Weeper.  You may recall that we've followed his exploits in Bulletman Comics.  But here we'll see he was a pretty awesome villain from the get-go:

Yeah, he hated happiness so much that he'd kill people to put an end to it.  And by the end of this story, he'd kill several people.

He'd even kill a circus clown:

Hmmmm... the Weeper prefers all this blubbering to happiness?  He was a twisted dude!

Well, true... life can be a kick in the crotch sometimes.  But you don't have to contribute to the misery.  Maybe that's a better lesson.

Anyway:

Hmmmmm... Jim and Susan were pretty quick to put themselves at center stage after the clown died.  I'm just saying.

You bet we're having fun!  We can hardly see the dead clown in the center of the ring when we look up at you!

Okay, fast forward to Susan being taken hostage.  Because you know it's going to happen.

Ah, there it is.

Anyway, Jim put in elaborate death trap, Jim escapes elaborate death trap and...

Jim fights Weeper's henchmen (his gang was called "The Bittermen," trivia fans!) and Susan...

... throws wreaths.  And we all know that would have delayed the gangsters about two seconds, but these are comics.

Okay, enough of that.  On to this:

Not the best plea for clemency I've heard in a courtroom, but I appreciate his candor.

Hoo boy... that's not going to look good on a transcript if someone decides to appeal that sentence.

Anyway...

"When a man's dead - He's DEAD!"

Judge Kalo has clearly never read a comic book in his life.

Thusly:

And moving on to the Companions Three story:

It really wasn't much more than a Random Slap! (tm!), but I never pass up a Random Slap! (tm!)

And finally, here's a joke I don't get:

Okay, I'm missing it entirely.  Someone help me out here.

See you tomorrow!

Captain Marvel Jr. vs. Captain Nazi! The Wave of Awesome Continues!

You know what I've been reading for the last couple of months?  Spider-Girl.  And it's actually pretty dang good if you like the early Amazing Spider-Man kind of vibe.

But let's take a lookity-loo at Master Comics #23, with its rather awesome cover:

Kudos to artist Mac Raboy for something that would have looked totally at home on a The Power of Shazam! comic fifty years later.

Anyway, the awesomeness continues because we've got Captain Nazi popping up by page 3:

I'm not sure yelling out a magic word that makes puts you at Superman-level powers is an act of courage so much as an act of self-preservation, but I'll only cast so many aspersions on Junior.

Anyway, there's the lighting:

I'm not saying lighting is yellow (from what I've seen, it's white), but that's the first time I've ever seen green lighting.  Yes, it's magic lightning, but have you ever seen the magic lightning as anything but yellow?  And why make it green when that's what Captain Nazi wears?  Questions abound!

Anyway, there's Junior:

And by the look on his face, he brought a six-pack of whoop-ass.  Thusly:

Hmmmm... that sound effect had me thinking we had a Random Slap! (tm!), but that's a closed fist.  Between that and green lightning, I'm having all kinds of logistical issues with this story.  But it's a Captain Marvel Jr. story, so we'll just point it out and keep moving.  Why?

Because it's Captain Marvel Jr. beating up Captain Nazi, that's why!

And then there was this:

So we've established that Captain Nazi is admittedly a pretty tough dude in his own right and Captain Marvel Junior will carry people around for no reason.

Then this happened:

At first, I was thinking that dragging out the plan rather than just shooting the guys (as would be a lot more practical) was a plot device to give Junior time to show up and save the day.

Turns out I was wrong.  Captain Nazi was just dragging it out to be cruel.  That was rather bone-chilling!

And then:

The President is at the Chicago K-Mart?

If you don't get that joke, use The Google and look up "blue light special."

Less bad joking!  More punching!

Again with the inappropriate sound effects.  But it ends in a splat, so I suppose that's okay?

The end of Captain Nazi?  I don't think we're going to see the end of Captain Nazi until WWII is officially over.

Yeah, that was a good day's work, Freddy... but why don't you stay as Junior and fly home instead of walking down railroad tracks in the middle of the night?

Then again, they never made a comic about my exploits, so what do I know?

Let's just finish with this random panel:

There we go!  Ready for the day!

See you tomorrow!

And Yes, One of the Companions Three was Named, "Nifty."

We're not quite finished with Master Comics #22, my lovelies!  Check out some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue (tm!) from the Minute-Man story!

Yeah!

And if you could get your minds out of the gutter for a second, check out the Hawk!:

Well, he's got a pretty unnerving look for him, I'll give him that.

But check this out:

Talons?  Hawks have talons.  That makes perfect sense.

But then:

Why does a guy called "The Hawk" have wings like a bat?  I'm guessing they were afraid someone was going to scream copyright infringement... that someone being DC/National, who owns the Hawkman character and was busy suing everyone they could out of existence.

Moving on to the Companions Three:

First, could they have picked a less masculine name for their little group?  This is what you call a group of guys who travel around rating bed and breakfast establishments on Yelp.  And the shirts with the names on them are not helping their image one bit.

Anyway, they encounter this woman:

I'm not an artist by even the most charitable of definitions, but why is Sue Belle drawn as an eight-foot woman here?

That's not where her eyes are, Don.  Granted, you have to look way up to see them, but don't worry: She'll be normal-sized in a page or two.

And then there was this:

Yeah, that'll go over really well with Dad.  My dad would have yelled at me for (a) still reading comics and (b) writing on his memo pad.  My dad was not a patient man.

See you tomorrow!