When I first bought this comic, here’s the progression of thoughts I had as I looked over the cover’s personalities:
“Okay, Superman is doing his circus strongman ’check out my guns’ routine. Wonder Woman apparently spent time in the American Southwest twirling her lasso in rodeos. The Wonder Twins conducting an impromptu séance– barf. Batman signing an autograph is a hell of a get — like getting Pynchon to sign your copy of V. And HOLY GOD AQUAMAN HAS BREASTS.”
Look at him. Yeah, maybe it’s just an optical illusion. Maybe he really has his arms crossed — that’s what I think is supposed to be going on, but his left “arm” looks too bulbous down at the elbow. Maybe one of his puffer fish friends taught him a thing or two. But check out the girl’s face. She’s staring right at the chestular area with wide, utterly amazed eyes. “I want to have high beams just like yours when I grow up.” And Aquaman looks so proud. So satisfied.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON HERE.
Alas, there’s no solution to this mystery (not the first Super Friends Aquaman head-scratcher) within, though there is some nice Supergirl superhero envy in addition to the Irish backup story. In the E. Nelson Bridwell-scripted and Ramona Fradon/Vince Colletta-artified feature, Linda Danvers brings a bunch of her “New Athens Experimental School” (her place of employment in the 1970s) students to Gotham City for that burg’s Nostalgia Convention, a field trip that may make her the greatest teacher in history. She arranges for her Justice League pals to meet them there and make the kids’ day, which would definitely make her the greatest teacher in history.
She soon comes to regret her largesse, though, as the Weather Wizard shows up, tries to pull a series of capers, and Linda realizes how low her Supergirl alter-ego ranks on the young idol hierarchy. To put it in NCAA March Madness terms, her RPI is low, and she’s a bubble team at best.
Wonder Woman is the first to draw the admiration of the youngsters, though Linda had made a quick change into Supergirl to help save the day:
And it only goes downhill from there.
At the convention (which features a nice selection of comic books, I might add — and no know-it-all John Byrnes to kill the buzz) the kids only have eyes for the bigger Super Friends:
Aquaman apparently exchanged his Jayne Mansfield knobs for an utter lack of wit. (And someone page Jacque Nodell — I’m sure she’d like to go through the 1950s romance comics behind the pissed off Linda.)
Can’t get any worse, right? RIGHT?:
Okay, I’m with her on this one. If Zan and Jayna are stealing the limelight from you, then you, my friend, have every reason to be livid. ACTIVATE MY ASS.
The kids never do give a crap about Supergirl, even after she helps foil the Weather Wizard as he (*gasp*) tries to steal many of the valuable comic books on display. But she does get the newspaper headlines, which sets everything right in her self-centered worldview:
Linda Danvers does NOT come off looking the best in this. Like a spoiled brat. Let’s leave it at that.
Ah. Yes. The St. Patty’s day Irish stuff. When I started pulling out the few scans to illume this post, I had every intention of giving Jack O’ Lantern all the respect he so richly deserves as an Irish superhero on the most “KISS ME I’M IRISH” of holidays. I was even going to leave out the obvious jabs at an “Irish Superhero” — the power to be thrown through a plate-glass window, the ability to at will change your skin color to red, et cetera. But Daniel Cormac, whose powers derive Green Lanternishly from a pumpkiny lantern, has stuff like this in his life:
I don’t want to have to deal with leprechauns that look like Madame. Neither do you. Go enjoy a beer instead. First round’s on Aquaman’s cover boobs.
