The Black Dragon versus The Atom

"Ripsnorting?"  Spy rings are not "ripsnorting".  Fraternity parties; saloon fights; supercell tornadoes; political harangues; brimstone sermons; these are things that can be "rip snorting".  Spy rings are not rip snorting, not even ones that intend to blow up San Francisco.

Well, this seems like The Atom's speed. Just find a bunch of Black Dragon guys and beat them up one by one, which is exactly the kind of thing he does. This particular Black Dragon cell has stolen a powerful micro-explosive with which they fiendishly intend to blow up San Francisco.

You know: the only major American city that's already proven it can bounce back from having its entire downtown destroyed.

Once again, the Black Dragon's plan is fiendish, but not necessarily well-considered.

Just like the other heroes, the Atom is assisted by someone who simply walks up and tells him where the bad guys are.

The guy in the green suit.  The second guy, I mean.

The Atom, who is not known for his delicacy, handles the situation with his characteristic aplomb.

Didn't even hear him?
HE WAS SHOUTING YOUR NAME, you NIMROD.

Well, I'm sure Al "The Atom" Pratt recovers from this awkward meet-rude gracefully.

"Good boy! Who's a good Jap? You are, yes you are! Have a Jap biscuit!"

I suppose we should at least be grateful for the well-meant attempt to show that "not all of Them are the same!"  I kind of draw the line, however, at "The Good Boy" calling others "Japs", which seems rather unnatural.

You know, I can't tell whether people REALLY talked like the JSAers did in the '40s, or whether it's just an artifice of contemporary pop culture.  Regardless, it seems like Snapper Carr would have fit in much better as a mascot for the hep-talking JSAers rather than the straight-talking JLAers, who never had any idea what he was talking about.

So through this sequence I learned that The Atom will believe absolutely anything you tell him and that leading him into a death trap would therefore be the easiest thing in the world if that Good Boy were, in fact, a member of the Black Dragon.

By the way, ever notice that The Atom looks like he was kit-bashed from three other, unrelated heroes?  Maybe it's just me.

Fortunately for Al Pratt, the Good Boy is in fact on his side.

Four panels of dental jokes, Atom? Look, I can handle some Golden Age pun-ishment during fight scenes, but not when you are obviously just doing it for YOURSELF.

The Atom: when subterfuge and delicacy are not called for.

I think it's the REPEATED "bam" that makes that panel so sickeningly violent.  But Al's gonna Al, after all.  At least he knows himself well enough not to try anything stealthy or tricky.

Oh. My. I... I seem to have spoken too soon.

Um...yeah. 

Al Pratt is, remember, only 5"1", which he (and the writer) thinks makes him a perfect candidate to infiltrate the Black Dragons in "yellow-face".  Yikes.  That's so absurd it almost completely eclipses the insanity of the throwaway line, "Am I glad I learned to talk Japanese".  When'd you learn to do that, Al? On the drive over?  Anyway, if yellow-face worked for Mickey Rooney, I guess it'll work for Al Pratt.

Oh, wait, that's right: it  DIDN'T really work for Mickey Rooney, did it?

I guess the tunnels are pretty dark, because Al pulls it off well enough to confirm the Black Dragon's plan to blow up San Francisco from below.

Land of the Rising Headlight

Where is Aquaman when San Francisco needs him?!

Washing his hair, of course.

Mercifully, after a few panels of gauging the extent of the tunnels, Atom gives up on infiltration and just starts pummeling the tunnelers. But not before we are treated to this gem:

まさにその通りだ！
(masani tonõrida!)
I mean, I just ASSUME Al's talking Japanese here.

Anyway, back to punning and punching.

It's really just wise-cracking.  Al's a physicist and really doesn't even have enough wit to make a pun.

The one (relatively) clever bit is this Horatius-at-the-Bridge scenario: the tunnel's being narrow keeps the Black Dragons from ganging up on the Atom, which allows him to punch them into oblivion one at a time.

The Atom, of course, beats everyone unconscious, so there's no one to give him any further information about the operation, which is really kind of sad, since,  you know, he went to the trouble of learning to talk Japanese and all.

Fortunately, help arrives immediately in the person of

THE GOOD BOY!

Omitting a few more panels of Dragon-pummeling, we catch up with the Atom as he locates the explosive and threatens to blow them all to kingdom come.

The Mikado comment is a joking reference to the legendary bloodthirstiness of the character from the eponymously-titled Gilbert & Sullivan comic operetta, a reference which apparently the writer assumed all 1940s American elementary-schoolers would understand.

The Atom having accomplished his object all sublime, the explosives are returned to Uncle Sam and the WPA sets up to fill all the tunnels with cement.

The Atom's a hero and the Good Boy never even gets a name.  Thank goodness for the Atom's Olympic-level yellow-face skills!

Tomorrow, you may want to hit the ground because Starman is up and this is going to be OOPMHY.

Yeah, the Black Dragon doesn't stand a chance against the DRAMA of Starman.

The Black Dragon versus Sandman

Immortal gods, I ask of you one boon alone: PLEASE don't let there be a "Japanese Sandman" joke in this story.

Fire Island, I assume.

This is the poseur version of Sandman, after he ditched his pulpy get-up for this skin-tight superhero number just because his new gym routine paid off.  It's very try-hard and screams "I'M NOT A GEEK ANYMORE!"

He's been assigned to recover the inventor/invention of modern "Greek Fire" (a famously lost ancient incendiary formula that burned in defiance of water, which was very effective against ships). So... Sandman is being sent to the beach.

The "Sandcar"?  Give me a minute for my eyes to roll back out of my head.

Fortunately, the Feds have done the advance work and pretty much know just where to send him.

As a great man once said,
"SHUT UP, Wesley!"

The writers give Wes the opportunity to use that damnable "wirepoon" of his.

It's much cooler when Batman starts using it as a "grappling gun".
Everything is cooler when Batman does it.

Shut UP, Wesley.

For the most part, all these Golden Age heroes had interchangeable personalities.

"No, you jack-@$$, I'm the goddam DOCTOR LIVINGSTON!"

And Gardner Fox is listed as writing EACH of the sub-stories, so that makes some sense. The heroes were distinguished by their costumes and their gimmicks; differing personalities would have been gilding the lily!

Mad? Just because he was kidnapped by foreign agents who stole his invention and tied him to a bed?  How sensitive!

But I don't think I'm imagining it when I notice that

Gardner Fox wrote Sandman to be PARTICULARLY insufferable.  As if he too thought Wesley Dodds was just a nerd trying to pretend he was one of the Cool Kids now that he got yoked.

Well, at least he didn't do a Japanese Sa--

DAMMIT, Wesley!

As we know, hubris precedes a fall and Wesley's comes hard upon.

Specifically, with a rock bouncing off his skull.
Nighty-night, Sandman.

I'm beginning to think Peter Parker got all his smack-talk skills from being a Sandman fan.

After a desultory demonstration of Modern Greek Fire, the Black Dragoneers get to what we've all be waiting for:

Killing Sandman.
P.S. Shut up, Wesley.

At least being in a death-trap, brings some SMALL sense of seriousness to Sandman.

Just pick one and die, Wes.

Naturally, Sandman uses the flames to burn off his bonds, and then ... ACTUALLY uses his SAND.

I don't think I've ever seen Sandman USE sand to good effect. You win this round, Sandman.

Now freed, Sandman disarms his captor and incidentally sets the whole place on Greek Fire.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Killing a great many people, I might add.

And so Wesley saves the Inventor, the Invention, and the day.  By burning a lot of people to death.  Yay?

Tomorrow...

Well, it's the Atom. And I guarantee you are NOT ready for it.  

WE guarantee it.

The Black Dragon versus Hawkman

Okay, let's see what Hawkman is up against in his assignment to stymie the Black Dragon's pl--

WT-Flying-F? BWHAHAHAHA

Okay, even for a Golden Age JSA story, that is exceptionally ridiculous.  And defiant of more than one law of aerodynamics.  

It's the windows that really sell it, though.  Eat your heart out, Iwao Takamoto.

Pictured: A Nearby State.

To save time, the injured inventor of the Giant Aero Prop straight just tells Hawkman where the villains are. Naturally, they holed up in the same kind of weird castle-tower-monastery place that Hawkman stories often take place in, because his uppity creative team were always going for that faraway Prince Valiant vibe.

That's how Hawkman became a weird, occult thing with mysterious artifacts from distant temples rather just a shirtless gym bro in an anti-grav belt and a downy security blanket.

And just in time, too, as Japanese Klunk is explaining how the Giant Aero Prop works.

"Whatdidhesay, whatdidhesay?"

Hawkman cracks some heads, as is his wont.

He snatches the Master Plans for the propellor, hurls some Black Dragon goons to their doom, then resolves to take the propellor itself.

"And just when I thought I'd never have a more absurd means of flying than the one I regularly use!"

I believe that's comic book Japanese for "uh-oh".

"... so are the Days of Our Lives." 
< insert haunting theme>

But like Icarus before him, Hawkman is felled by his own hubris.

Those bullets can harm you. 
Your wings are not a shield of steel!

This is why Batfink got 100 cartoon episodes and Hawkman three.

The Black Dragoneers craft a fiendish plot: tie Hawkman to the propellor, then fly the device until he falls to his doom.

Hey, I said it was a fiendish plot, not an intelligent one.

Yes, you heard that right. Their plan is to kill a man whose ONLY ability is flying unaided by tossing him from a great height. 

Gives you a clearer sense of why they lost the war, doesn't it?

Despite the obvious flaw in their plan, it goes pretty well.

With Hawkman apparently disposed of, the Black Dragoneers whirl away to chop the tops of off NYC's skyscrapers.

Would it had KILLED them to add "It's a plane?"
That saying was ALREADY well known by this point, believe it or not.

Naturally, Hawkman does NOT fall to his death because not-falling is his superpower, and he wings to New York to stop the giant propellor with the aid of some hawks.

I guess they gave up on the picturesque but probably self-defeating idea of lawnmowering the New York skyline.

Naturally, since this is NYC those are Peregrine Falcons, but when you are Hawkman, whose girlfriend kicks more ass than he does, you are not fussy about what help you can get.

The birds stop the bombs off-panel, while Hawkman, wrapped in his comforting security blanket, confronts his captors.

One of whom, despite being "An Oriental", is clearly an avid student of Western philosophy's Aristotle.

Hawkman delegates the disposition of the de-planed Dragons to his horde of hawks.

Sorry, but "peregrine falcons" is insufficiently alliterative.

Well, at least we escaped the preposterous sight of mid-air lawnmowering.

I guess I spoke too soon.

So much for Hawkman. Buy some No-Doz pills for tomorrow, when we join the garishly dressed Sandman as he searches for the (re-)inventor of Greek Fire!