Intravenous Squadron: In futurum videre

Unlike the syncretic interplay comics, animation, film and TV properties experience today, the 1960s more often saw editors and publishers exploiting whatever trendy pop cultural reference might grab the casual newsstand browser. This purest form of chutzpah cherry-picked a flattering array of influences, bestowing characteristic takeoffs on literature and myth, as well as movies and TV, particularly in Mort Weisinger’s attempt to legitimize his Superman Family with the masses.

Audacious cribbing was required to achieve this goal. When in doubt, a simple homage could catch the random eye of a passerby, yet the guts of a farcically skewed plotline from nowhere often required suspended disbelief beyond the call of duty. High literary and scientific standards need not apply: Just a liberal dose of narrative tropes dressed up in the spandex of the day.

Where does DC archivist and Mort Weisinger’s right hand man, E. Nelson Bridwell (see Greg Hatcher’s tribute here), get off channeling Jerome Bixby (writer of It! The Terror from Beyond Space, “It’s a Good Life,” Fantastic Voyage, and “Mirror, Mirror”)?

Probably at the subway station, where one of the Silver Age’s most infuriatingly screwball mash-ups is inadvertently created - the crossroads of the History of Science Fiction and Lexington Avenue! The signpost up ahead reads…

You guessed it, The Legion of Super-Heroes, whose 50th anniversary many of us are celebrating, once-again becomes the recipient of this dubious honor. The Comic Treadmill does a fine job lambasting its editorially-driven plot, as Adventure Comics #350 sports a weepy ostracized Super-cousins cover, branding Supergirl and Superboy “The Outcast Super-Heroes!” Unca Cheeks even elevates the story to one of “The 12 Silliest DC Comics Ever Published.”

I am more concerned with shrinkage.

Reportedly Bridwell and Weisinger felt emboldened enough to trade off the Kryptonian contingent for some hastily healed reinforcements in the very next issue. That is, until the bosses vetoed Superboy’s banishment, requiring the golden shoehorn, rife through the goofiest stories of the day.

With the commonplace cry of deus ex machina rearing its ugly head, no wonder Silver Age Legion fans often abandon all hope convincing their peers to love these kids, too. We all know how rarely retcon devices are used today. Chameleon Boy’s snarky comment about the web-slinger will have to speak for itself.
MAD-contributor Bridwell is well-known for his hilariously surreal contributions to DC humor (the Alley award winning Inferior Five, Showcase 62, June 1966 or Angel and the Ape, Showcase 77, September 1968), as well as his wholly original spy-mystery, Secret Six. These sensibilities are at play in the 30th century as a bridge between Jim Shooter’s toe-dipping debut (Adventure Comics 346-349, 1966) and show-stopping space opera (introducing the Fatal Five in Adventure Comics 352-353, Jan/Feb 1967).

For that matter, where does award-winning science (fiction) author Isaac Asimov get off trying to steer the Hollywood ship of lowest common denominator moments? I need to re-read the original Fantastic Voyage novelization, published 6 months before the movie, in order to determine if the biochemistry professor or comic hack is more true to his art. Hmmm! Sci-fi Smackdown: Asimov or Bridwell.

That done – after saving Harry Kleiner’s Swiss-cheese script, only to create the novel Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain from the detritus – Asimov’s street cred should be at a premium. Throw down your bets!