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John Broome (1) (1913–1999)

Forfatter af Showcase Presents: Green Lantern, Vol. 1

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112+ Works 1,533 Members 15 Reviews 3 Favorited

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Image credit: From Comic-Con International Eisner Award Hall of Fame page. http://www.comic-con.org/awards/hall-of-fame/john-broome

Serier

Værker af John Broome

Showcase Presents: Batgirl, Vol. 1 (2007) 80 eksemplarer
Green Lantern Archives, Volume 1 (1993) 65 eksemplarer
The Flash Archives, Volume 1 (1996) — Writer — 53 eksemplarer
Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume Two (2007) — Writer — 42 eksemplarer
The Flash Archives, Volume 2 (2000) — Writer — 40 eksemplarer
All Star Comics Archives, Volume 9 (2003) 39 eksemplarer
Green Lantern Archives, Volume 2 (1999) 36 eksemplarer
The Flash Archives, Volume 3 (2002) 33 eksemplarer
The Green Lantern Omnibus Vol. 1 (2010) 31 eksemplarer
The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 1 (2016) 28 eksemplarer
The Flash Archives, Volume 4 (2006) 27 eksemplarer
DC Comics Classics Library: The Flash of Two Worlds (2009) — Illustrator — 26 eksemplarer
Green Lantern Archives, Volume 5 (2001) 22 eksemplarer
Green Lantern Archives, Volume 4 (2002) 22 eksemplarer
The Atomic Knights (2010) 21 eksemplarer
The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 2 (2017) 20 eksemplarer
The Flash Archives, Volume 5 (2009) 20 eksemplarer
The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 4 (2019) 13 eksemplarer
The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 3 (2018) 12 eksemplarer
Letters from Dad: Lessons and Love (1996) 11 eksemplarer
Flash vs. The Rogues (2009) 10 eksemplarer
Green Lantern Annual, 1963 (1998) 9 eksemplarer
The Flash Chronicles Vol. 2 (2010) 7 eksemplarer
The Flash Chronicles Vol. 3 (2012) 5 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 355 (1937) 3 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 327 3 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 341 (1965) 2 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 357 (1966) 2 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 330 2 eksemplarer
The Flash [1959] #155 (1965) 2 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 370 2 eksemplarer
Strange Adventures [1950] #240 (1950) 2 eksemplarer
The Flash [1959] #173 (1967) 1 eksemplar
The Flash [1959] #182 (1968) 1 eksemplar
DC Special, No. 20 (1976) 1 eksemplar
Big Town No. 20 1 eksemplar
Big Town No. 28 1 eksemplar
Big Town No. 46 1 eksemplar
Big Town No. 48 1 eksemplar
Big Town No. 50 1 eksemplar
Batman Vol. 1 #172 1 eksemplar
Batman Vol. 1 #186 1 eksemplar
The Flash [1959] #167 (1959) 1 eksemplar
The Flash [1959] #132 (1962) 1 eksemplar
The Flash [1959] #147 (1964) 1 eksemplar
Strange Adventures [1950] #237 (2007) 1 eksemplar
Strange Adventures [1950] #232 (1971) 1 eksemplar

Associated Works

Showcase Presents: The Flash Vol. 1 (2007) — Bidragyder — 67 eksemplarer
Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume One (2006) — Bidragyder — 61 eksemplarer
Showcase Presents: House of Mystery, Vol. 3 (2009) — Bidragyder — 31 eksemplarer
Mysteries in Space: The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics (1980) — Bidragyder — 23 eksemplarer
Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years (2015) — Bidragyder — 20 eksemplarer
The Flash: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 3 (2018) — Bidragyder — 15 eksemplarer
Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (2021) — Bidragyder — 11 eksemplarer
Detective Comics # 359 (1967) — Bidragyder — 4 eksemplarer

Satte nøgleord på

Almen Viden

Kanonisk navn
Broome, John
Juridisk navn
Broome, John
Andre navne
Osgood, John
Meritt, Edgar Ray
Fødselsdato
1913-05-04
Dødsdag
1999-03-14
Køn
male
Nationalitet
USA
Dødssted
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Priser og hædersbevisninger
Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing (2009)

Medlemmer

Anmeldelser

The first three years of the 2nd Flash, 1956-59 and the '49 issue where the torch was passed.
 
Markeret
ManWithAnAgenda | Feb 7, 2020 |
My new year’s resolution is to read my stack of ‘DC Showcase’ at the rate of one comic magazine per day. As they usually contain over twenty issues I should get through one and a bit per month. I can’t do more than one a day as they tend to blend into each other in a foggy blur of pseudo-science which makes individual issues hard to remember. This volume runs from Green Lantern # 18 (January 1963) to Green Lantern # 38 (July 1965) so it’s two and a half years worth of comic books.

The thing with Silver Age DC Comics is that nothing changes in the life of the characters. When this volume starts Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) works as a test pilot for the Ferris Aircraft Company run by Carol Ferris who likes Hal but loves Green Lantern. He is assisted by a ‘grease-monkey’ called Thomas Kalmaku – nicknamed Pieface, an Eskimo who knows his super-hero identity and keeps a file of his cases as Doctor Watson did for Sherlock Holmes. Jordan is a member of the Green Lantern Corps founded by the Guardians of the Universe who occasionally summon him to help out on another planet. By the end of the book, none of this has changed.

As most issues contain two stories there are nearly forty tales here so the thing to do would be to pick out the highlights. There aren’t any highlights. One yarn is pretty much the same quality as any other. Partly that’s because they were all written by either John Broome or Gardner Fox. Both have a way with science that is less than accurate but generally, Fox takes it to greater extremes of fantasy. He writes every issue from # 32 onwards but before that, it’s more or less fifty-fifty between these twin titans of the tall story.

Lacking highlights I will, in a good-natured way, pick out the worst science. Not that I know much science but a clever ten-year-old could see through most of this hokum. In ‘Green Lantern vs. Power Ring’ (GL#18) Hal is practising controlling the ring at a distance through rock when he is separated from it by a cave-in. A hungry hobo picks it up and thinks he fancies a melon. A melon appears! But the ring cannot work on anything yellow ‘due to a necessary impurity’ so how can it create melons? In GL#24, ‘The Shark That Hunted Human Prey’, a tiger shark is evolved into a human and then beyond by a freak nuclear accident so that with ‘mind power’ it can do anything. An ‘invisible yellow aura’ protects it from Green Lantern’s ring. How can something invisible be yellow? In ‘The House That Fought Green Lantern’ (#28) the ring is useless because it’s affected by the vibrations of a grandfather clock. In ‘This World Is Mine’ (#29), an evil force animates a giant papier-mâché model of Green Lantern and uses it to destroy fairground rides. Steel is generally reckoned to be stronger than papier-mâché and able to resist it. In ‘Three Way Attack Against Green Lantern‘ (GL#34), villain Hector Hammond uses his super-brain to create an ‘energy duplicate’ of a Guardian of the Universe to defeat Green Lantern. This is from Gardner Fox who had someone use ‘tornado power’ to create duplicates of the Justice League of America to defeat them. How can you create things more powerful than yourself? Oh, those duplicates!

Part of the problem is that the power ring can do anything. In ‘Secret Of The Power-Ringed Robot’ (GL#36), it transforms Hal’s flesh into a robot body, allowing a spectacular cover in which his arm comes off. In another story, ‘The Spies Who Owned Green Lantern’ (GL#37), it turns him into a letter and Pieface posts him to the criminals' hideout. It frequently reads minds and there’s a microworld inside it where Abin Sur trapped a villain called Myrwhydden in ‘World Within the Power Ring’ (GL #26) as you do.

On the credit side, a few ideas here seem to precede similar stories over at the Mighty Competition, a company whose oeuvre I know well. ‘Parasite Planet Peril’ (GL#20, April 1963) is a kind of highlight because it’s of ‘novel’ length and teams GL up with Flash. They are both shrunk down to a microworld. Something similar happened in the world’s greatest comic magazine in July 1963, though to be fair, the microworld idea is older than that. In fact, it dates back to ‘Out Of The Sub-Universe’, a 1928 story by Roman Frederick Starzl. In ‘The Strange World Named Green Lantern’ (GL#24, October 1963), the emerald crusader meets a living planet, a whole world that is one single entity. Perhaps lacking a big ego (geddit?), it calls itself Green Lantern after the hero it so admires. Research indicates that the notion of a living planet dates back to Nat Schachner and Arthur Leo Zagat’s 1931 short story ‘The Menace From Andromeda’. There are probably few far-out ideas that weren’t explored in the first three decades of American Science Fiction magazines.

In a few of the adventures, our hero wins when all seems lost because he had, with unusual prescience, done something earlier to foil the villain’s final attack. In ‘Master Of The Power Ring (GL#22), he had ordered the ring to drain itself of energy if another mind took it over. In ‘The Defeat Of Green Lantern’ (GL#19), he had previously created a globe of green energy to rescue him in time of need. Perhaps he read the script first, like Colombo.

As for the art, Gil Kane pencils are constrained by the DC house style and the inks of Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson up to issue #28. In number #29, Sid Greene takes over the inks and there’s a bit of a step up in quality, I think. Not a giant leap, the other two are worthy professionals, but he seems to put in more blacks and generally give it a more solid look. Kane’s pencils still keep the house style but there are odd flashes of the more dynamic poses and knobbly figures he developed over time. Personally, I prefer the restrained stuff to the unleashed Kane of later years. All the art is fine and much of it is first class.

Some of these reprint editions are being sold at ludicrous prices but this one is still available for a few pounds or dollars. A reasonably good read if taken in small doses and not too seriously. The art is a treat and the stories are good for a laugh. The science should be taken with a pinch of salt. No, an oil tanker of salt. I’m off to have dinner now. I shall eat beans and then use the wind power generated to create an energy duplicate of Superman who will conquer the world for me.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
… (mere)
 
Markeret
bigfootmurf | 2 andre anmeldelser | Aug 11, 2019 |
Beautiful actress Yvonne Craig passed away in August 2015. She played the slave girl Marta in classic ‘Star Trek’ episode ‘Whom Gods Destroy’ (1969) but was best known for playing Batgirl in the third and final season of the camp/pop-art 1960s ‘Batman’ television series. That being so, I thought a review of the ‘DC Showcase’ edition of Batgirl would be an apt tribute. Rumour has it that she cared enough about the character to protest to DC when Alan Moore had her brutalised in ‘The Killing Joke’.

The stories in ‘DC Showcase Presents: Batgirl’ are lighter in tone than that, certainly at first. She didn’t get her own strip to start with but featured in those of other heroes, usually ‘Batman’. Her first appearance was Detective Comics # 359 in a tale entitled ‘The Million Dollar Debut Of Batgirl’. Barbara Gordon, daughter of the esteemed Commissioner of Gotham City, is a quiet librarian. For a costume party, she makes herself a Batgirl outfit but, en route to the do, she happens across Bruce Wayne being attacked by Killer Moth and his gang. They are running a protection racket where they beat up millionaires. The ‘masked maiden’ saves Bruce. Later the ‘dominoed dare-doll’ gets more involved in the case and acquits herself well enough to earn Batman’s respect and approval. Gardner Fox wrote the script and the assorted soubriquets for the heroine. Carmine Infantino drew her shapely form.

Her ‘shapely form’ was useful in issue Detective Comics # 371 ‘Batgirl’s Costume Cut-ups’ when she used her legs to distract a criminal fighting Batman. The overall tone of this story is not one likely to win approval from modern feminists. Batgirl fails to catch bad guys because she is distracted by mud on her uniform or her mask slipping or some other ’womanly’ concern The splash page for it makes the cover of this ‘Showcase’ edition. It’s probably worth mentioning that Neal Adams did the art for World’s Finest # 176, a four-way team-up with Superman, Supergirl, Batman and Batgirl.

Batgirl featured in Justice League of America # 60’s story ‘Winged Warriors Of The Immortal Queen’. It’s the usual Gardner Fox routine of splitting the JLA into sub-teams to perform individual missions but I thought Mike Sekowsky’s art was a bit influenced by Gil Kane, some of the figure poses being similar. Gil Kane was the first artist when Batgirl got her own strip in Detective Comics # 384 (Feb. 1969) and did his usual stylish job, beautifully inked by Murphy Anderson. This was a fairly regular 8-page back-up strip with one story normally spread over two parts. Most of the scripts are by Frank Robbins but Mike Friedrich started it off and Denny O’Neil contributed a few. These pages by Kane and Anderson are definitely the artistic highlight of the book as they do beautiful work. Kane is also inked by Vince Colletta, who does a good job in his own restrained manner. Frank Giacoia does a couple of issues but his heavy style doesn’t really suit Kane‘s pencils, though he’s an excellent inker for many and my favourite on Kirby. Don Heck took over the pencils from Detective Comics #408 (Feb. 1971), initially inked by Dick Giordano but later doing it himself, as he preferred. Heck isn’t on anyone’s list of all-time greats but he was a pro and turned in a competent job.

The stories are the usual crime and detective stuff, small-time gangsters rather than big-time super-villains. They are dated in the sense that the concerns of the time are reflected. A big-time gangster from a bygone age is fictionalised in a film called ‘The Stepfather’ in 1970. It took me 0.0001 seconds to get that reference. There are also a couple of yarns which feature rebels who want to bring down ‘The Establishment’. Denny O’Neil is sympathetic to the revolting students in Detective Comics # 400-401, while Frank Robbins is not to the gun-happy cop-haters in # 416-417. The former adventure closes with hints that Batgirl might want to get to know Robin better but nothing comes of it, at least, not in this book. The other contemporary concerns that get an airing are drug smuggling and corrupt politicians. The Batgirl back-up strip concludes with her leaving Gotham City to become a member of the U.S. Congress.

The last three stories are from ‘Superman’ and ‘The Superman Family’ with art by Curt Swan, who was getting pretty good by this stage in his career and scripts by a fan turned pro Elliot S! Maggin. Batgirl teams up with Superman, Batman and Supergirl in various adventures. They were okay.

Sometimes you hear a film is rubbish, watch it and are pleasantly surprised. That was my experience with ‘DC Showcase: Batgirl’. I read it with low expectations but they were exceeded. Not something to rush out and buy but if you like Silver Age DC and happen across a copy, it’s worth considering.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
… (mere)
 
Markeret
bigfootmurf | 1 anden anmeldelse | Aug 11, 2019 |
GL is really a stupid concept if you think about it. Hal Jordan has a magic ring that essential functions like Aladdin's genie, but rather than simply scooping up the bad guys and hauling them to jail, GL makes his ring form all kinds of silly shapes and snares. I guess it was done to keep things interesting but it reminds me of the old Popeye cartoons where a hive of bees would shape themselves into the form a pair of scissors and cut Popeye's clothes to pieces.
Still it does have Gil Kane's wonderful art so it's not totally bad.… (mere)
 
Markeret
jameshold | 2 andre anmeldelser | Jul 22, 2017 |

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Associated Authors

Gil Kane Illustrator, Cover artist and illustrator
Carmine Infantino Cover artist, Penciller, Artist, , Illustrator
Murphy Anderson Inker, Illustrator, Artist
Sid Greene Illustrator, Artist
Joe Giella Cover artist, Inker, Illustrator
Neal Adams Illustrator, Artist
Mike Sekowsky Illustrator, Penciller
Irv Novick Illustrator
Ross Andru Penciller
Joe Letterese Letterer
Digital Chameleon Color reconstruction

Statistikker

Værker
112
Also by
10
Medlemmer
1,533
Popularitet
#16,783
Vurdering
½ 3.7
Anmeldelser
15
ISBN
105
Sprog
2
Udvalgt
3

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