A half-century after writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams’ history-making run on “Green Lantern/Green Arrow”, it’s easy to see those thirteen comics as being more of one piece than they actually were. The run is well remembered, and rightfully so, for its consistent emphasis on social issues; but while it’s true that “relevance” was the watchword throughout the O’Neil-Adams tenure on Green Lantern, it’s worth noting that the expression of that guiding principle varied quite a bit over the two years of the project’s duration — as did the kinds of stories within which the writer-artist team couched their social commentary.
When it first began in February, 1970, “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” was about as grounded as a comic book featuring two costumed superheroes could be. Starting in issue #76 and continuing on through #79, the emerald duo set out on a quest to “find America”, taking on the likes of a greedy slumlord, a crooked mine owner, a charismatic cult leader, and some racist lumbermen as they crisscrossed the country in an old pickup truck. But as realistic and contemporary and, yes, relevant as these conflicts were, generating narrative suspense was a challenge, given that one of the two “hard traveling heroes” possessed an incredibly powerful magic ring that should by rights be able to make quick work of such mundane foes.
The series took a new tack beginning with issue #80 (coincidentally, the first O’Neil-Adams issue purchased by your humble blogger). In that book’s opening pages, the creative team deep-sixed the pickup truck (literally), then sent their heroes off into outer space — virtually as familiar a milieu for Green Lantern adventures as Earth had been, prior to #76 — for an adventure that used an extraterrestrial stand-in to comment on the American judicial system in general, and the recent trial of the Chicago Eight/Seven in particular. The next issue employed a similar strategy, with yet another distant planet’s population explosion serving as an allegorical foretaste of what might be in store for our own world. Following that, with issue #82 the series returned to Earth — though with significant portions of the story taking place in a mystical dimension, from whence came mythical females –Amazons, harpies, and Gorgons — whose militant misandry was evidently intended to evoke the era’s Women’s Liberation Movement.
Arriving a full year after the beginning of O’Neil and Adams’ run, issue #83’s “…And a Child Shall Destroy Them!” in some ways split the difference between the relative realism of the first four issues and the outright fantasy of the last three. The tale had a thoroughly Earthbound setting, with nary an alien or myth-derived being in sight; nevertheless, it also included a fantasy element, featuring as one of its two human antagonists a little girl with formidable mutant powers. Additionally, the story continued the series’ recent trend towards making its points about the “real” world through allegorical or other indirect means; in this instance, that means was broad political satire, as O’Neil and Adams cast, in the roles of the two villains of their latest tale, the (then) current Vice-President and President of the United States.
The presence within the comic of Spiro Theodore Agnew, or at least a dead ringer for him, is clearly indicated by Adams’ cover.* On the other hand, the role of Agnew’s boss, Richard Milhous Nixon, is only hinted at; but perhaps this is appropriate, considering that (as we’ll soon see) it’s the Agnew surrogate who calls the shots within the story, despite “Nixon” actually being the one with the power.
This may seem a bit backwards to readers of our current era, in which Agnew is generally seen as a figure of much less importance than the 37th POTUS (though the fact that he’s remembered at all gives him a leg up on many other Veeps). Yes, both men were forced to resign their respective high offices under a cloud of scandal; but the complex of offenses we remember as Watergate represents a watershed moment in American public life, while the details of the unrelated bribery scandal which brought down Agnew are barely remembered today (though they’ve gotten a little extra attention recently, thanks to Bag Man, a podcast [and companion book] from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow).
In a 2010 interview, Adams explained how he saw the relationship between the two leaders:
Agnew was a dingbat, who used the power of the president to beat up on the press, and make a very successful smokescreen for the crap—pardon the expression—that Nixon and his cohorts were left free to perpetrate. On a personal note, I believe Agnew encouraged Nixon far more than he would have been, because for the most part, Nixon was an honorable man, right up to Spiro Agnew’s running interference for him.**
In actuality, Agnew seems to have wielded very little real power, or even influence, in the Nixon administration. Writing in his 2015 book, Spiro Agnew and the Rise of the Republican Right, about how Nixon effectively sidelined his Vice-President in the early months of their shared first term in office, historian Justin P. Coffey states:
For the next five years Agnew remained away from the center of power. When it came to the major decisions he was simply frozen out. Nixon never consulted Agnew about domestic policies. Agnew never had the chance to weigh in with his thoughts about Vietnam.
Caricature by Edmund S. Valtman of Spiro Agnew as “hatchet man”, from the collection of the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
But one of the qualities that had made Agnew attractive as a running mate for Nixon in the 1968 presidential election — a reputation as a strong proponent of “law and order”, (earned by his strongly negative response to protestors during his time as Governor of Maryland), which made him attractive to conservative voters who might have found Nixon too moderate — would turn out to be extremely valuable to Nixon politically. Agnew eventually became Nixon’s point man (or, if you prefer, “hatchet man”) in defending the administration’s policies, especially in regards to the Vietnam War, by going on the attack against the critics of those policies — most notably, those within the news media and on college campuses. His speeches soon became known for the memorable, alliterative phrases (generally supplied by such White House speechwriters as William Safire and Pat Buchanan) that he used in assailing such critics — “nattering nabobs of negativism”, ”pusillanimous pussyfooters”, and so on.
In the fall of 1970, Agnew gave many such speeches as he traveled the country, stumping for Republican candidates ahead of the midterm elections in November. His efforts ultimately weren’t all that successful, at least in political terms — the Democratic Party would retain its majorities in both the House and Senate — but they gained a great deal of press along the way. Almost certainly, they would have come to the attention of both Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams — and were likely on the creators’ minds as they each worked on what would become Green Lantern #83’s “…And a Child Shall Destroy Them!”
On the other hand, they probably gained little purchase in the young mind of my thirteen-year-old self. Certainly, I wasn’t mulling over the Vice-President’s way with words on whatever day it was in February, 1971 that I pulled GL #83 off the spinner rack. Rather, while I’m sure that I was curious about the fact that the bad guy on the cover was the spitting image of the VP (I wasn’t completely clueless), I believe I was ultimately a lot more interested in learning who the mysterious shadow belonged to. Who, after all, could strike such fear into the hearts of our two emerald crusaders?
I’d only have to turn to the first page to find out…
As already noted, I’m pretty certain that I understood “Grandy” to be a caricature of Ted Agnew from the get-go. I’m just about as sure, however, that I didn’t recognize “Sybil” as Neal Adams’ take on what Dick Nixon would look like as a little girl. I would eventually get it, of course, but I think it took me several years (and even then, someone may have had to point it out to me). In hindsight, it’s hard to see how I could have missed it — I mean, just look at those jowls… the ski-slope nose… even the hairline!
In the 2010 interview referenced earlier, Adams suggested that working Nixon into the story was his idea: “Denny was after Agnew in the book, by having him use the little girl’s power. I extended that to going after Nixon, as the character that held the power that he wielded.”*** Again, it may seem odd from our contemporary perspective to depict Agnew as manipulating or using Nixon, rather than the other way around. But in late 1970-early 1971 — well over a year before the June 17, 1972 Watergate break-in, and a time in which Nixon had still managed to largely stay “above the fray” of directly attacking his political opponents (though he’d waded in a bit in the run-up to the midterms) — it wasn’t all that unreasonable a point of view.
Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t recognize the three folks in the panel above (as unlikely a prospect as that seems), they are, from left to right: Dinah Drake Lance (Black Canary), Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), and Oliver Queen (Green Arrow).
Since making her first “GL/GA” appearance in the run’s third issue (#78), Black Canary had been featured in every installment but one; by this point, she had effectively become an unofficial co-star of the series.
O’Neil and Adams are upfront in acknowledging their indebtedness to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds for the sequence just concluded, to the point even of giving the director himself a cameo as Meadowhill School’s mailman — a nod to the director’s own habit of making such appearances in his movies.
As they leave the school, GA asks his friend about Jason Belmore; GL is evasive, explaining that he’s never met the guy: “He’s… just someone whose name I’ve heard!”
Then, approaching their parked car, they notice what appears to be a strange woman crouching by the vehicle…
From Green Lantern #49 (Dec., 1966). Text by John Broome, art by Gil Kane and Sid Greene.
From Green Lantern #73 (Dec., 1969). Text by Mike Friedrich, art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson.
I can distinctly recall my surprise in 1971 at the revelation that the unfortunate young woman who’d been assaulted by Grandy and Sybil on page 1 was Carol Ferris. Carol had been a mainstay of the series when I picked up my first issue of Green Lantern back in 1965, and I’d never been sure exactly what had happened to her; not ever having been more than a semi-regular reader of the title, I’d missed issue #49, which is where she’d told Hal she’d become engaged to the “handsome and wealthy” Jason Belmore (just as Hal was about to propose to her himself, poor guy). She’d made several appearances since then — including in issue #73 (another one I missed), where she’d informed GL she’d broken things off with Belmore, implying it was because of her unresolved feelings for our ring-slinging hero. (Yes, it was your classic “gal digs superhero, but thinks his secret ID is a drag” trope, cribbed straight from the Superman-Lois-Clark triangle.) But the couple hadn’t gotten together at that time, and as of #83, Carol has clearly had second thoughts about her rejection of the evidently very patient Mr. Belmore.
After pausing to give his ring a recharge, Green Lantern whisks himself, Green Arrow, and Carol back to the grounds of Meadowhill School. There, they’re forced to take refuge from a sudden downpour within an abandoned barn; when Carol expresses surprise that GL doesn’t simply use his ring to create a shelter, the hero explains that he can no longer count on an unlimited supply of energy from the ring’s creators, the Guardians of the Universe:
One physical feature that Grandy possesses, but which Spiro Agnew did not (at least, not in 1970-71) is an ever-so slightly twirly, pencil-thin mustache — which, in certain panels (such as the next-to-last one above) gives him a certain air of Vincent Price-ean villainy. Interestingly, it’s not visible on Neal Adams’ cover — which makes me wonder if it was added to the interior art by Dick Giordano, at the inking stage. (The cover, unlike the story, was inked as well as pencilled by Adams.) Could editor Julius Schwartz have been trying to “disguise” the Agnew caricature, if only minimally?
Deciding to investigate the strange goings-on at the school as Black Canary, Dinah changes into her fighting togs (and dons her blond wig). As soon as she steps out into the hallway, however, she’s accosted by Grandy, Sybil… and Jason Belmore:
Black Canary’s brief expression of unease regarding her enjoyment of violence may be barely more than a throwaway line, but it’s still an interesting bit of characterization — and the sort of thing you’d have been very unlikely to find in a DC superhero comic just a couple of years earlier.
Once the Canary is unconscious, Grandy takes a closer look, and discovers that she’s really the new Phys. Ed. teacher. He then orders some of the students to drag her to the school’s cellar — and zombie-like, they comply…
“…I’m a person who wants order! I despise messiness… and nothing is as disordered as the average school!” In statements like these, O’Neil and Adams’ casting of Spiro Agnew in the role of Grandy is shown to have true satirical purpose, and not to simply be a matter of, “hey, let’s have our villain look like a politician we don’t like”.
To appreciate what the creators are up to here, one needs to be aware that Agnew regularly railed against permissiveness as the wellspring of all of America’s social ills. In the Vice-President’s view, the root cause of unrest on the nation’s college campuses, or in its inner cities, wasn’t any of the things that people were actually protesting about — such as the Vietnam War, or racism — but rather a failure to respect (or to exercise) what he called “sensible authority”. Agnew saw the problem as beginning in the home; in particular, those homes where parents followed the advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose best-seller Baby and Child Care was first published in 1946 — plenty early enough to have influenced the rearing of the “Woodstock Generation”.
The voluble VP expounded on this theme at one of his midterm campaign trail stops, in an address given in Milwaukee, WI on September 25, 1970, that the Washington Post described as “sounding more like a sermon than a political speech”:
Agnew used as an example of everyday permissiveness a parent who permits a young child to come to the dinner table in dirty clothes, his hair unkempt and hands unwashed.
“Who do you suppose is to blame when, 10 years later, that child comes home from college and sits down at the table with dirty, bare feet and a disorderly face full of hair?” he asked.
He also cited an example of a college administrator who does not suspend or expel a students [sic] who deliberately breaks a window.
“Who is to blame, months or years later, when that student participates in the burning of a ROTC building—or even worse?” he asked.****
I’m not certain that Agnew ever spoke directly to the subject of K-12 education, but it’s not too hard a stretch to imagine he would have sympathized with Grandy’s disdain of the “disorder” of the “average school”. (Which shouldn’t be taken to mean that I believe that Agnew would have used a mutant child to mind-control young students if he’d had the chance, let alone that he’d murder a superheroine via a swarm of wasps. [Or WASPs, for that matter.] This is satire, folks, remember?)
Meanwhile, Green Lantern and Green Arrow — having left Carol waiting at the barn — break into the school building via a window (an action that the still straight-laced GL frets about). Then, almost immediately…
Belmore leads the heroes past the dining hall, where the students are presently having a meal (under Grandy’s supervision, of course). But although the trio tries to sneak by as quietly as possible, the hapless headmaster steps on a squeaky floorboard, and…
At Grandy’s command, the kids begin pelting the two “outsiders” as well as their headmaster with crockery. GL immediately responds with a ring-generated force shield, which Grandy counters by ordering Sybil to “make them sorry!” And we all know what that means…
This tableau, with its eerily-lit, unnaturally silent children, evokes the 1960 science fiction horror film Village of the Damned and similar works, and fits comfortably with the story’s earlier references to The Birds.
GL and GA race to the cellar and break through the locked door, and GL uses his ring to capture all the wasps and seal them back in their nest. Black Canary is unconscious, but alive.
(It’s a little disappointing to see Dinah reduced to being something of a damsel-in-distress here, especially considering that in the previous issue — the “Women’s Lib” one — she’d made all the right calls throughout, and saved both the guys’ bacon. Unfortunately, it’s also not terribly surprising.)
Green Lantern’s linking of what he and Green Arrow just went through with Carol’s “seizure” (as she called it back on page 6) of four weeks ago seems a little bit of a stretch — but, hey, maybe there was an off-panel conversation where she gave the guys more deets about her traumatic experience (like, who was around at the time). Yeah, let’s go with that.
“The whole west wing [italics mine] is in ruins!” Get it?
My thirteen-year-old self was surprised by Hal’s sudden decision to reveal his secret identity to Carol (though probably not quite as surprised as I would have been if I hadn’t read Marvel Comics’ Daredevil #57 about a year and a half earlier; a young comics fan can become jaded so quickly…). But I recall being even more surprised by the creators’ decision to leave Carol still without the use of her legs as the story ended; I had blithely assumed that she would be “restored” with the defeat of Grandy and Sybil, and the fact that she wasn’t was a striking, if minor, piece of realism. (As things turned out, Ms. Ferris’ condition would not in fact be permanent; nevertheless, the situation would not be resolved for some time, and not until after the conclusion of O’Neil and Adams’ “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” run.*****)
As for Sybil — despite the low-angle shot of her (?) shoes in the final panel, and the question mark following “The End”, she would not make another appearance in Green Lantern, or, indeed, any other comic. The latter, of course, could not be said of her real-life inspiration; but discussion of the further comic-book adventures of Richard M. Nixon will have to wait for future blog posts.
History does not record whether or not Agnew or Nixon ever saw a copy of Green Lantern #83, let alone what they thought of it; nevertheless, DC did receive a bit of blowback on the political front. As Neal Adams told the story to Allen W. Wright in 2016 for the Interviews in Sherwood web site:
We got a letter from the governor of Florida who wrote a letter that said “How dare you insult the Vice President of the United States like that! That’s the most outrageous thing I ever seen in a comic book. It will ruin children’s minds. If you ever do such a thing again, I will see to it that DC Comics are not distributed in the state of Florida. So the governor sent a letter and the executives that owned DC at that time, I forget — they were funeral owners or whatever****** — they came to see me… and they said “Look at this letter” and handed me the letter. But of course I resisted breaking out in laughter. I said “Yeah, I noticed they didn’t notice that the little girl is Richard Nixon”… “She was?” “Yes, she was.” Apparently they didn’t notice that. They said “Well, what are we going to do about this?” I said “Well, I guess we’re not going to do it again.” [rich laughter] You idiots.
Vice-President Spiro Agnew and Governor Claude Kirk in Jacksonville, FL, October 15, 1970; from the collection of the State Library and Archives of Florida.
According to comics historian John Wells (Back Issue #45, p. 46), the “governor of Florida” referenced by Adams was actually ex-governor Claude R. Kirk, Jr., a Republican who’d just left office in January, having lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger Reubin Askew. Kirk was evidently angling to stay relevant, as he’d have had no real authority to make trouble for DC by the time Green Lantern #83 arrived on stands.
In any case, to the best of my knowledge, Green Lantern continued to be distributed in the state of Florida — all the way up until the title’s cancellation. That latter event, however, is obviously a topic for another post; one that at this writing is, thankfully, still one full year away.
*Agnew wasn’t actually the first real-life person Adams had caricatured in “GL/GA” for satirical effect; he’d done so at least once before, when he based the judge in Green Lantern #80 on Julius Hoffman, the jurist who presided over the Chicago Eight/Seven trial. Still, since Hoffman was not nearly so well-known a public figure as Agnew, it didn’t have quite the same impact as this parody of the Vice-President.
**John Wells, “And Through Them Change an Industry”, Back Issue #45 (Dec., 2010), p. 45.
***Wells, p. 46.
****William Chapman, Washington Post (Sept. 26, 1970), p. A2. (Subscription required.)
*****Carol remained a wheelchair user through the last issue of the O’Neil-Adams Green Lantern, #89 (Apr.-May, 1972); by her next appearance (Superman #261 [Feb., 1973]), however, she was once again ambulatory. To the best of my knowledge, this full recovery was never explained; I suppose we’ll just have to assume that Sybil’s whammy eventually just wore off. Or something.
******DC had been purchased in 1967 by Kinney National Services, a conglomerate whose various businesses did indeed include the Riverside Memorial Chapel funeral home chain, at least in February, 1971. (For the record, Kinney sold off Riverside in June of that year. Now you know.)
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 
Another great post Alan– you’ve answered a few questions I had about this issue, and I bow to your superior knowledge on all things Agnew. Like you I racked my brains somewhat on the idea of Agnew being in control of Nixon– I think the way you’ve dug out some of Neal Adams’ own comments makes several ideas more easily understood.
I will admit that before reading GL #83 I’d never actually heard of him (or maybe that’s not true, doesn’t The Thing mention ‘Spiro’ in an issue of FF?). So, it was something of an education for me to do a bit of research on the guy, and to read that he’s considered by some to have been the architect of what eventually became Trumpism.
But I’ve been looking forward to reading your post because I’m aware that as a Brit just too young to have any recollection of this period of US history my own views might be a bit skewed.
For me, the whole ‘Silent Majority’ concept that Agnew and Nixon made use of seems especially pertinent to this story, what with Dinah commenting how quiet the kids at the school are, and how they are used to suppress dissenters. But that’s possibly just me reading too much into the story!
There are also a few details you bring up which I missed on my reading, like the WASP reference and the West Wing connection. I’ll put it down to the fact that here in the UK these are less familiar terms than they are for you! When you read my take on this issue you’ll see that I had a slightly different understanding of the wasps– yours makes a lot more sense, maybe mine is stretching the point somewhat!
A lot of people seem to see the Agnew caricature as more Vincent Price, and I think Adams’ likenesses aren’t always that great. I didn’t pick up on the Nixon likeness at all on first reading, I just thought “Wow, that’s an ugly kid!”
I hope you don’t mind me dropping a link in here to my own post on this issue, and I invite any of your regular readers to take a look at my thoughts, reading this book for the first time this week rather than 50 years ago:
https://whisperstothesurface.blogspot.com/2021/02/green-lantern-83-may-1971.html
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No worries about sharing the link to your blog here, Andrew — as you may have noticed by now, I did the same thing over at your place (and I didn’t even ask permission)! I thought it was interesting how we took similar general approaches but still managed to come up with different specific insights. As for my picking up on “WASPs” and “West Wing” when you didn’t — OK, sure, but you’re the one who connected “Grandy” with the “Grand Old Party”. How’d I miss that?
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Must’ve been something about that name – in Wonder Woman #203 (December ’72) Diana faces off against the management of Grandee’s Department Store, managed by a fellow drawn by Dick Giordano to resemble somebody, but I’m not savvy enough to make an ID.
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‘Twas DC’s head honcho at that time, Carmine Infantino, according to the Grand Comics Database (and my eyeballs). https://www.comics.org/issue/25615/
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For what it’s worth, Iron Man mentions “Spiro making another speech” as cause for gloom at Avengers Mansion in *The Avengers* #79. (No, Shell-Head, it’s the fault of the Man-Ape and the Lethal Legion.)
I don’t remember the Thing referencing Agnew, but he does excitedly point out to Mister Fantastic that President Nixon is on a monitor screen in *F.F.* #103 (the President apparently looks to Tricia for advice).
If memory serves me correctly, Nixon turns to Agnew to make an announcement in *The Hulk* #139.
In 1972, Jules Witcover published a book called *White Knight,* about Agnew’s career. (Agnew in 1968 was initially for Rockefeller, who left the race unexpectedly; when he returned to it, Governor Agnew was no longer supporting him.)
After the Vice-President’s resignation in 1973, he co-wrote *Only a Heartbeat Away* with Richard M. Cohen.
My feeling is that people saw Nixon using Agnew as Eisenhower had used Nixon in his Presidency: he was the pit bull who did the dirty work for him, thus allowing him to remain above the fray; if he’d been asked, as Eisenhower was in 1960, to give a list of major decisions Agnew had had a hand in making, he might have echoed his old boss and said: “Give me a week and I might think of one.”
Jokes like this didn’t happen in 1969-74:
Eisenhower’s health in his two terms was sometimes shaky, and one friend said worriedly to another:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if Eisenhower died and Nixon became President?”
To which his friend said:
“Wouldn’t it be worse if Sherman Adams died and Eisenhower became President?”
(Adams was Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff from 1953-58 until a scandal involving a vicuna coat caused him to quit.)
In recent years, we’ve become very aware of who the Vice-President is, but I’m not sure when that precisely started. In a biography of Truman, the author records someone learning of Franklin Roosevelt’s death and thinking that Henry Wallace (Roosevelt’s second Vice-President, then serving as Secretary of Commerce) is now the Chief Executive; someone has to correct him that the new President is “Senator Truman.” Alben Barkley, Truman’s Vice-President, was known nationally as “the Veep,” but subsequent Vice-Presidents are remembered mostly for becoming Presidents in their own right…or failing to become President.
It’s certainly been easier to know since Dick Cheney.
Finally…
I didn’t register Sybil as Nixon when I caught up with this issue in 1987. By then, he had managed something akin to what Herbert Hoover had after left office in 1933: he’d become an elder statesman. He didn’t do it as adroitly as Hoover, but Hoover had ten years longer to “outlive the bastards” than Nixon did, and foreign affairs hadn’t distinguished his administration as much as the Great Depression.
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Well, I’ll say one thing about comics back in the day, they could be used to tell many different kinds of stories and express many different viewpoints, but the one thing they weren’t was subtle! While I’m sure many of the objects of parody in this issue went right over my 13-year old head, it’s certainly not hard to see them now, especially when O’Neill and Adams are hitting you in the face with them on practically every page.
That said, the one nit I have to pick with this story has nothing to do with it’s more satirical aspects. Early in the story when Hal and Ollie and Dinah arrive at the school, the first question I have is why? Why do Ollie and Hal accompany Dinah to her first day at her new job? I mean, I can sort of see it with Ollie, since he’s her boyfriend and all, but still, it seems a bit much and only serves the purpose of getting our heroes onsite which could have been handled in a much more logical way. The second “why” is “why do they have to change into the costumes to deal with a flock of rabid birds?” Aren’t they worried about the whole “Black Canary and her two green friends showed up on the same day and at the same time as the new teacher and her friends. Coincidence? I wonder…” And then, for “why” number three, “why didn’t Hal and Ollie change back into their civvies to go into the school?” It just makes the likelihood of their identies being discovered even greater, doesn’t it? I realize we’re talking comics logic here, but I remember even at thirteen scratching my head in disbelief at some of the illogical things my heroes got away with, simply because they weren’t germane to the story, or at least, the part of the story the writers wanted to tell.
My last “why,” is “Why does Hal have to realize his mistake with Carol and propose so quickly? As best I can remember, they never got married, so there was no rush to the altar and there was a lot of good dramatic story material that could have been mined from watching Hal and Carol discover one another again. I hate it when stories drag this stuff out for no reason, but I’ve always hated it just as much when they skip over miles of character development just to get to a particular place for a particular character. And wasn’t Star Sapphire still a thing in the seventies? Didn’t Hal know Carol and Star were the same person, even when she didn’t always know it herself?
As for the satire, the only thing I knew at the time was that Grandy was Spiro; nothing else landed with me at the time, but despite coming from a seriously Republican household in a what was becoming a seriously Republican part of the country, I don’t remember being offended by it. As for the reaction of the former Governor of Florida to the story, yeah, well, as a current resident of the Sunshine State, let me just say that, when it comes to governors, we find it best to keep our expectations low…subterranean, actually…and let it go at that. Thanks Alan.
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Don, I agree with just about all your “whys”, but I’m going to push back gently on a couple — the first one and the last one, as it happens.
Regarding why Hal and Ollie both accompany Dinah to the first day at her new teaching job — well, the school seems to be out in the boonies, so I can see her needing a lift. Sure, Hal seems to be the odd man out here — but as best as I can tell, the guy hasn’t had a steady job in quite a while, so what else does he have to do with his time? (Come to think of it, how is Ollie making ends meet since losing his fortune? Hmm.) But yes, the rationale for them changing into their costumes — and staying in them — is pretty damn flimsy. No argument there.
As to why GL suddenly unmasks and proposes to Carol — um, he doesn’t actually propose marriage, does he? He just declares his love, for the first time as both Hal and GL. So it feels like a natural development to me (to the extent that the whole trope of his having kept his secret from her for years, so that she would fall in love with him as plain ol’ test pilot Hal Jordan rather than the heroic Green Lantern, was ever “natural” to begin with).
But as for Star Sapphire — well, you’re on your own, there, pal. Maybe it’s because I missed all of those seminal Silver Age stories when they first came out, but even after 50-plus years, I still have trouble keeping her story straight.
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Well, in that case, my apologies. In my head it certainly read like a proposal. Mea culpa. But can we add a couple of points to the “ick” factor with the line “Can you forgive rich, naughty, silly…me?” That sounds half like a sorry/not sorry and the other half as a flirty innuendo-laden come-on. One of those things that comes under the heading of “I don’t think we’re hearing that the way you intend it.” At least not fifty years later.
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Yeah, I agree — that line has not aged well (and it was probably a little icky even by 1971 standards).
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This is another book that I know I read but I don’t remember at all. I immediately recognized “Spiro Agnew” on the cover this time and almost certainly did in 1971. While just turning ten, I did follow the news somewhat then and, perhaps more importantly, I was an avid reader of MAD magazine, which constantly parodied Agnew (and yes, in response to a comment above, The Thing had mentioned “Spiro” somewhere). While I picked up on “NIxon” immediately this time, I almost certainly did not in 1971 as it wasn’t as direct. I missed out on all the other references both this time and obviously then (West Wing, Wasps, Grandy–although the last this time did make me think of the future, namely future Republican Congressman Fred (Gopher on the Love Boat) Grandy). As for Agnew manipulating Nixon, that puzzles me still because no one ever even joked that this was true. Now if the story were written 35 years later with Dick Cheney as Grandy and George W. Bush as Sybil, that would have been perfectly understandable.
By the way, while the use of the wasps as a weapon was clever, I have to give Stan Lee and Jack Kirby even more credit for creating a super hero named the Wasp, whose powers are like the insect but whose real identity is a stereotypical, wealthy, materialistic, bubbleheaded WASP with the WASPy name of Janet Van Dyne.
Anyway, while you and others have pointed out some credibility issues with the story, I have two more to add. We have been led to believe that Carol became engaged to Jason Belmore because he was (in Carol’s description you showed from an earlier issue) rich, powerful and glamorous. Well, if he’s so rich, powerful and glamorous, then why is he running a small boarding school for kids? This isn’t Mr. Jupiter or Charles Xavier (althoug poor Sibyl would have been much happier with Xavier of course). It just looks like an incredulous vehicle to bring Carol Ferris back into the picture.
I haven’t read any interviews with O’Neil or Adams about this, but I imagine that making Carol disabled was another way of making the overall comic more realistic, relevant and (by 1971 standards) gritty. However, even the crippling scene on page 1 is incredulously random. At first I obviously did not think that the woman was Carol. Then, when it appeared that the woman was Carol and she was talking about her fiance, I assumed that she knew who Grandy and Sybil were because her fiance was their employer and it must have happened at the school. Does she live at the school? If so, why? Was she just visiting? If so, how did she get there given that she can’t drive anymore? Why would Jason give her a ride out there or want her to visit given what’s happening? Despite all this, Carol is completely clueless about Grandy and Sibyl to the point of not connecting them with Jason’s odd behavior. If she didn’t know them at the time she was crippled by Sibyl (which beggars belief), she must have recognized them later through her fiancee (even if she did not watch the TV news).
On the other hand, I see nothing odd about Green Lantern revealing his true identity to Carol at the end. I suspect that he probably played this scene over in his head hundreds of times after he lost Carol as to what he would do if somehow he had a second chance.
One last thing: I reread this book on D.C. Universe right before I read your blog entry and I see that you did not post the picture of Dinah changing clothes showing her bare back, although you did reproduce the very sexy panel of Dinah when she thinks “That man gives me the instant creepies! And he sounded like he meant to really punish me!” This matches up well with those Black Widow panels you were writing about from “Amazing Adventures” awhile back. It looks like Adams and O’Neil weren’t only hiding political content in this issue.
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I always had the vague sense that Carol’s initial encounter with Grandy and Sybil occurred when Jason first went to work at the school, and Carol hadn’t officially met them yet. Also, that she and Jason are both residing on the school property (as you suggest), but that nothing overt has happened since the original incident to lead her to finger the weird cook and “his” little girl. As for the “rich, powerful and glamorous” Mr. Belmore being reduced to serving as a headmaster at a private school — well, I figure he must have met some financial misfortune since the last time his name had been mentioned in the series. (That actually could help explain why Carol has gone back to him, after previously calling off their engagement.) Am I doing too much of O’Neil’s work for him with all this supposing? Possibly, yeah.
As for my skipping the Dinah-stripping-down panel — I guess that one just didn’t float my boat at age 13 in the same way the Widow shower scene had a few months before (or even as much as the Dinah panel that immediately preceded it). But if you have a hankerin’ to see that panel featured in a blog post, Stu, your fellow commenter (and my fellow blogger) Andrew J. Lewis (aka whisperstothesurface1909) will fix you right up at https://whisperstothesurface.blogspot.com/2021/02/green-lantern-83-may-1971.html 🙂 .
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Thanks Alan for the link, another great blog to read! Also, Andrew includes books that he didn’t buy originally. 😀 For example, he includes the Sub Mariner issue from 50 years ago last month where Lady Dorma is killed. When I reread that issue last week, it posed the question in my mind of why do I hold such a nasty grudge aganist Gerry Conway for killing off Gwen Stacy while I let Rascally Roy skate by for killing Lady Dorma–a much stronger and better character than Gwen Stacy–among other Namor loved ones? But, of course, that is not a question for me to discuss in your blog. However, you’ll just have to wait until I reread Thor 188 on Marvel Unlimited as part of my own personal nostalgic exercise and then read your blog post from today to see my (rare) scathing remarks on Stan Lee for that story arc.
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Stu, if you’re interested in even more perspectives on fifty-year-old DC and Marvel Comics, I recommend checking out the Forums at Collected Editions (start at https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/ ). Both the DC Archives Message Board and the Masterworks Message Board feature new threads each month focused on the books hitting the big 5-0 within that given period. Andrew and I both hang out over there, but there are some other posters almost as smart as the two of us 🙂 . (Not that I want you to stop commenting here, or anything…!)
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it’s depressing to now look back on this period and realize this was the beginning of the Republican Party’s embrace of racism, their weaponization of the so-called culture wars, their claims of being “the silent majority,” and their frequent utilization of dog whistles such as “law & order,” all of which, half a country later, has ultimately led to the GOP’s transformation into a cult of conspiracy-obsessed white supremacist fascists.
On the more positive side of things, the artwork by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano in this issue is superb. Adams’ storytelling here is highly effective and dramatic. Giordano is probably the best inker Adams ever had. Having seen Adams somewhat variable inking his own pencils over the past quarter century, I really appreciate what Giordano brought to the finished artwork back in the early 1970s. Giordano is no longer with us, but I wish Adams would consider collaborating with the still very active Tom Palmer, who was his second-best inker.
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Ben, I agree — the prospect of a contemporary Adams-Palmer collaboration is very intriguing. Maybe it’ll happen yet.
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The panel with the children looming over the stricken GL & GA was censored. The kids were originally holding knives or other weapons (hence their now odd-looking stances – either going ‘rock’ in a game of ‘rock/paper/scissors’; or something ruder, maybe it’s my dirty mind!). I gather someone (most likely editor Julie Schwartz) must have thought this image was a little too strong for an early 1971 Comics Code-approved book.
Bear in mind the “Speedy is a Junkie” drugs 2-parter is just around the corner. Therefore maybe Schwartz thought, in a classic censor-dodging move, that if he could curry favour with the Code on one matter then he’d be given a smoother ride on the drugs issues (a potential minefield – Stan Lee had just published the Goblin/drugs trilogy in Amazing Spider-Man without the CCA seal and the Code was being revised/relaxed re: narcotics).
I can’t remember where I read about the altered panel but I guess it could have been another online interview with Neal Adams.
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Thanks for the additional information, sportinggeek157875814! I just took a look at the fourth issue of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow reprint series from 1984 — and sure enough, in recreating that scene for the book’s cover, Adams has put long, shiny knives in the hands of every one of those kids! Check out the GCD’s scan at: https://www.comics.org/issue/38172/cover/4/
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I really enjoy the mix of review, story pages, nostalgic perspective and peripheral history you provide on your blog! And the discussions in the comments, as well. If what you speculate is correct, Schwartz’s instruction for a pencil moustache was a horrible idea. It’s clearly an Agnew analogue, weirdly and unnecessarily morphed into a generic villain. Although, Nixon, per Adams, was even more weirdly morphed into a little girl. Ahh, the 70’s. I’m 58, btw, and your blog is entering my comic buying heyday as a kid.
Also, page 13 (John Costanza?), I like seeing Black Canary in costume with her own natural black hair. It’s so weird to see her put on her blonde wig later, albeit to protect herself from wasps. I suppose a blonde wig equals Clark Kent’s glasses in comics’ secret identity chicanery, but even so.
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Glad to have you aboard, Bill B! I appreciate the kind words, and I agree wholeheartedly that we are fortunate to attract a high caliber of commenter. 😉
And you’re right, John Costanza lettered the issue, according to the Grand Comics Database. His “negative thirteen” is, as usual, as reliable as an actual signature.
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Already aboard 😀 for a couple previous comments. I had the avi of Mister Miracle and changed it. I used it on a whim after enjoying a collected edition of Kirby’s MM, but I think commenting on a comic book blog would lead people to think MM is my favorite character. I like MM and the Fourth World, but not favorites, so I thought I’d divert from that misinterpretation.
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Well, that explains it, Bill B — I didn’t recognize you without your Mister Miracle mask on! Guess I’m better with faces than with names… yeah, that’s the ticket. Anyway, I hope you’ll simply consider yourself doubly welcome ’round these parts. 🙂
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I have a contrarian take on the whole Adams/O’Neil Green Lantern run.
I’ll say one positive thing about it: Penciller Neal Adams brought his A game to the series and turned in some of the best art of his career.
Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way I’ll rip into it.
At best the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series was a lame attempt to “jump the shark” on par with the regrettable Blackhawks as superheroes debacle that ended that title’s run:
https://www.comics.org/issue/20791/cover/4/
At worst it became a soapbox for Denny O’Neil to preach to the reader on DC’s nickel.
If a writer wants to preach sermons there is a right way and a wrong way.
Steve Ditko did it on his own time with a character (Mr. A) that he owned.
(Full disclosure: Yes, my own views are closer to Ditko’s than to O’Neil’s.)
Shazam Award? Big deal.
It’s just as well that the book got cancelled after #89.
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You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, sockamagee, though I feel obliged to push back on the idea that O’Neil’s use of GL/GA as a “soapbox” was somehow inappropriate; I don’t think any topics should necessarily be off limits for comic book writers, even in a “work for hire” context. As for Steve Ditko, I suspect the main reason he did Mr. A on his time, with a character he owned, is because he had no other option. If Charlton had allowed him full control on the Question feature, he’d have made the same political points there. (And that would have been fine, as far as I’m concerned.)
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Fair enough. O’Neil couldn’t have done it without approval from his bosses (Schwartz and Infantino). So they also share in the culpability for the title having to be canceled. (Of course one could also point out that it was on the verge of being canceled before O’Neil took over. Perhaps the inevitable was being delayed?)
Personally I prefer four color images with word balloons to be escapist fantasy; a brief refuge from “real world” problems and deep weighty issues. There’s a time and place for everything. But when it comes to the “real world” stuff I look to other media besides comics.
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To each their own, sockamagee. 😉
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