The Glass of Poison, Part 3: Java Jive

Having Seen The Body and Alerted the Authorities, proceeds to dictate reality to the Lesser Beings.

Yeah, McGonigle, you're an idiot, and that's not your job.  I mean, who wears THAT to commit suicide and drinks prussic acid from a CHAMPAGNE GLASS?

You know what else leaves the odor of bitter almonds on your breath, Speed?  An Amaretto Sour, an Almond Negroni, an Alabama Slammer, or any of the host of cocktails you'd make with orgeat syrup or amaretto.  Sure, it would be a little odd to be drinking any of those from a champagne glass, but NOT AS ODD AS PRUSSIC ACID.

"Your petty administrative procedures do not concern me, CLYDE.  Just do as I say while Saunders-Girl  and I capture the MURDERER, you cigar-chomping clod."

TO THE SPEEDMOBILE!

Is the Speedmobile, which has always been a hard-top, a convertible now? Must be a nice night and Speed simply WILLED it to be a convertible.

A-ha! They are off to confront BETTINI. 

Wait, who's Bettini?

Editor's Note: this scene has been rendered in sepia tone to indicate a flashback!

Oh, right; the gangster who is the Prime Suspect.  Carry on, then.  You know, without six months of previews, vlogged rumors, promos, a 24-issue arc and a company-wide crossover, it can be a little hard to keep pace with these old Golden Age stories.  

Rather than use the door, Speed travels via his shadow-form with Saunders-Girl (we can't keep calling her "Betty"; it's too confusing, what with them saying "Bettini" in every sentence now) so as to easily pass through walls and windows.

"BY JASPER, JAVA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING GADDING ABOUT IN YOUR PYJAMAS? FIND METAMORPHO! AND STOPPING PUFFING THAT RIDICULOUS CIGARILLO!"

The gangster Big Shot Bettini appears to be some sort of educated missing link creature or a relative of that caveman of song and story, Alley Oop.

Which, believe it or not, is STILL BEING PUBLISHED.

I'm afraid I find it difficult to trust you, Mister Oxmyx.

I assume what Fred Guardineer was going for here was a Sheldon Leonard type, a "Runyonesque" character; the over-obvious thug with pretensions who uses elevated language to disguise his unseemly origins.

"Will this take long?  I've a corn-rowing at the Ancestral Strands Salon in an hour and I'm loathe to no-show, being that appointments are so deucedly hard to obtain."

I love how Speed asserts "I'M ON MY OWN" while Saunders-Girl is standing RIGHT beside him. Apparently Useful Female Informants don't count as people, even when they are the ones holding a gun on the villain.

What Speed means is the Lesser Authorities are not aware of his visit, which is not on their authority; this is hilarious for two reasons. First, Speed needing the police's, or anyone else's, authority is laughable since Speed in the very instantiation of the Platonic Idea of "Authority".  Speed SWEATS authority, or he WOULD, if he ever sweat (and if he did, the LAST thing Speed would sweat would be... authority).  Second, he specifically told Clyde Homicidedivision what he was going to do just five panels earlier (no flashback here, just arrow up if you need to see it again).

There are SO many things going on here, and I don't know what ANY of them are.

 Tomorrow we'll see what amazing discoveries come out of Speed's fisting Bettini's wastebasket.

The Glass of Poison, Part 2: Seeing The Body (a.k.a. Death In The Living Room)

Following her dramatic introduction, Betty The Secretery (sic) accompanies Speed Saunders downstairs as he proceeds to ace-investigate Death In The Living Room, which I'm sure Agatha Christie would agree would have been a much better title for this story.  

First, they See The Body.

And what a body it is! Va-va-va-DOOM!

The world would be a better place if we all just admitted that one caption like "In the living room below lies - DEATH!" is worth ten thousand pictures of people shooting energy beams from their body parts.

Not wanting to waste time calling a doctor (since it's obviously too late to have anyone's stomach pumped, which is the only reason Speed ever calls a doctor), Speeds then uses his Face of Judgement It's one of the abilities that can arise from enough reading of Detective Comics well after midnight.

"Possibly while also being tickled to accelerate oxygen loss, her voluptuous bodily writhing in an unnatural and overwhelming conjunction of pain and pleasure which brought her to unknown heights of ecstasy even as it plummeted her in darkness. Perhaps."

Sometimes the role of a Useful Female Informant is to receive information rather than give it. Such is the case with Betty The Secretery (sic), who makes sure to destroy any notes CONTAINING the information afterwards, as is her professional responsibility.

"The cause of her poisoning? Well ... poison, ma'am. Perhaps at the hands of GYPSIES. Where were YOU at the time of the murder, and how do you know when that was unless YOU killed her?"

"Digitalis prussic acid, veratrim (sic) viride, and any number of other poisons."  So just.... any poison then.  "She may have eaten an undercooked roast scorpion in Chinatown, where I frequently encounter Oriental Artifacts. Perhaps."

It happens, you know.

Speed, perhaps realizing that this case is insufficiently bizarre for him or hoping to wrap things up before his morning breakfast reservation at a Chinatown roast scorpion restaurant, decides to lurch toward the surreal by suddenly accusing some nearby stemware of being the murderer.

I'm surprised it doesn't shatter at the undoubtedly rapid vibration of the Finger of Judgement.

Betty now has to make a dumb comment that allows for Speed to explain his behavior to the readers (as if readers have ANY expectation of understanding Speed's behavior).

"There may be fingerprints, which, fortunately, I, as an Ace Investigator, am capable of SMELLING."

Look, Betty; Speed's usual outfit is that puce Glenurquhart Estate Check jacket with an orange trilby. "How Funny He Looks" is NOT one of Speed's concerns.  Realizing that Betty is clearly too stupid to appreciate his methodologies he arranges from some minor authorities to serve as a proper audience to his ace-investigation skills.

One of the most charming aspects of the Saunderverse, which I've never mentioned before, is that it's FULL OF FLOWERS.  Really, it must be a LOVELY place to live until you're murdered.

Speed, who is, of course, on a first name basis with the Homicide Division, orders a few Boys and a Man to Take A Chemical Report, whatever that means.  Reminder: the "Ace" in Ace Investigator is isn't an adjective of quality; it's a RANK, because Speed automatically outranks any authority figure he encounters. It saves time figuring out who's in charge,  because it's ALWAYS Speed.

Back off, Betty; you don't rank a fourth-wall address. Leave transquartomuralism to the pros.  Nobody at a crime scene needs the opinion of a bare-shouldered gypsy with hickies, unless that crime was a lock-picking.

Betty, whose rich and layered portrayal allows her role to evolve with each panel, now serves as a more jaded and promiscuous Aqualad, telling us What The Inevitable Negative Outcome Will Be and How Not Even Aquaman Can Save The Day.

And Aquaman probably could not because Aquaman is only superhuman.  But this is SPEED SAUNDERS we're talking about here...

The Glass of Poison, Part 1: Enter... The Mysterious Gypsy Lady!

Let's check in on everyone's favorite Golden Age detective, SPEED SAUNDERS, Ace Investigator.

"The Glass of Poison". Phew, this promises to be more normal than the average Speed Saunders story. Certainly as compared to "The Mystery of the Lost Ape", "The Voodoo Vengeance", or "The Bowling Ball Bombers".

And it guest-stars one of Speed's best friends!

This story is best read well after midnight, so if it's NOT well after midnight, this is the point at which you may wish to consider holding off on reading the rest of this post until it IS well after midnight. And do you own a smoking jacket? It's not necessary, but it certainly helps.  

Engrossed in his story. HIS OWN story, no doubt.  I bet he doesn't understand them any more than we do.

So, if I asked you to picture a man smoking a pipe and reading Detective Comics "well after midnight", I'll wager that somebody like smoking-jacketed Speed Saunders is not what you would picture. But such is the Golden Age.  As riveting as watching Speed reading is -- wait, that's actually ironic, since, if he has to stay up well after midnight, he is definitely slow-reading. Anyways, what happens next is:

SPEED IS ATTACKED BY A PROP FROM THE HORROR FILM "TALK TO ME" (2023)! DON'T LET IT IN, SPEED!

Uh-oh; Speed's newest client (?), threat (?), or Useful Female Informant (!) appears to be an itinerant hand model.

"It seems that my investment in a subscription to the Gypsy Woman of The Month Club has paid off handsomely!"

Whether this particular woman be Gypsy, Tramp, or Thief (based on that dress I have my own suspicions), she must have a reason for breaking in on Speed (who apparently doesn't lock his door) like this.

THAT old chestnut.  Ixnay those crocodile tears, lady; I bet the door WAS locked and you picked it. That's a thing gypsies do, I think.

Speed, having corralled his teeny floating pipe back into his mouth, decides to ASSERT how reality will be in order to force it to his will and, as usual, it works. He supposes that Madame Rose here is going to Tell Him All About It, and, sure enough, she does!

But what sent Madame Rose here to THAT chair?  Probably trying to hide the broken zipper on her dress before the dang thing FALLS OFF her.

That was some pretty fast exposition by our Mysterious Gypsy Lady, telling us:

• there's been a murder and 
• who the victim is and 
• what they did for a living and 
• why that endangered their life and 
• who the mostly like suspect is. PHEW!

Nevertheless. That's not fast enough for SPEED SAUNDERS, who WILLS HIMSELF into a new outfit ... and MORE!

"She lives below me  you are Betty Palmer, her secretery (sic), AND I'M SPEED SAUNDERS."
That balloon really deserved to include that last part.  Speed probably skipped because it saved time and because everyone KNOWS he's Speed Saunders.

A secretery (sic), by the way, is kind of like a secretary, but instead of taking notes, they destroy them, keeping information secret.  It's a Golden Age thing, like Mysterious Gypsy Ladies, Oriental Artifacts, Residential Hotels, and Never Needing a Search Warrant.

So, the victim lives -- okay, LIVED -- immediately BELOW Speed Saunders?!  That's... eerily and improbably convenient. And weird that Madame Rose here buried the lede and didn't just burst in saying "THERE'S BEEN A MURDER DOWNSTAIRS, HELP!" like a normal person in a non-Speed Saunders story would do.  

But I have a theory.

I suspect that author Phillippa Rowen did NOT live below Speed Saunders... UNTIL HE SAID SHE DID.  

Remember, it's well after midnight and Speed hasn't finished his comic book so his tolerance for delay has gone way into the negative.  He needs this particular murder dealt with STAT, so he simply ANNOUNCES that Phillippa Rowen lives below him and that this is Betty Palmer, her secretery (sic), and then THAT BECAME REALITY.  She WAS a gypsy cleaning woman named Esmeralda Rose, perhaps, but NOW she is Betty Palmer, secretery (sic), because that's who Speed Saunders damn-well SAID she is, and this is a Speed Saunders story, and he calls the shots.

And his next shot is Seeing The Body, because if there anything Speed Saunders enjoys looking at more than comic books, it's dead bodies, which we too will look at tomorrow.

Gods bless Mark Waid for....

...remembering that even though Aqualad is a heartthrob he is STILL

 an easily overwhelmed, fearful purple-eyed big-headed FREAK.

With Due Respect to Paul Lekakis

Sometimes our entertainment media from the past have built-in limitations.

Say, for example, you, having succumbed (DESPITE MY WARNINGS) to the soul-eroding lure of surrealism, wanted a big-ass eye-popping hi-def repro of a Dali for your dorm room.  Because obviously if you want a big-ass eye-popping hi-def repro of Dali in your living space, you are in college.

Probably "The Persistence of Memory". If you were cool, it would be something more like "The Temptation of Saint Anthony'. But it you were that cool, you wouldn't want a big-ass eye-popping hi-def repro of a Dali on your dorm wall to begin with.

Well, too bad. I've been to the Dali Museum, and I can confirm you can't have one, for a very simple reason.

Good luck looking for a signature, bub.

"The Persistence of Memory" is a very small painting.  You can't just "zoom and enhance" like a future-computer; any attempt to do so is just a hornswoggling boondoggle.  All you're going to get is an increasing fuzzy-looking version of "The Persistence of Memory".

A result surely intended by the waggish artist as a visual satire of the elusive vagueness of actual memories, which resist any efforts to force them to resolve into clarity, even when they persist.  
Or, you know, just because it's small.

I have some "cleaned up" versions of some classic pop tunes, ones where modern technological techniques have been applied to bring clarity to the voices of the original singers, historically buried under the mud of the limitations of the means of recording available to them. And it is eye-opening.

Unfortunately it is also ear-closing.  Turns out there is a REASON that Toni Basil is a world-famous CHOREOGRAPHER.  Being able to hear her singing voice more clearly emphatically does NOT make "Hey, Mickey" a more enjoyable song. It ruins it, in fact, and you have to try to block it from your mind anytime you hear the original version again, lest it destroy your ability to enjoy that, too.

Pictured: Eye-opening.
There are times when the persistence of memory is a downside.

And the less said about the cleaned-up version of Boom Boom Boom by Paul Lekakis, (whom I met during an eventful weekend at Rehoboth during his floruit), the better.

Some memories are best left uncleaned, like Paul Lekakis saying "Let's go back to my room."

So it is with that I mind that I confess to you my utter inability to understand anyone's excitement about the announcement of a 4K remastered version of "Mask of the Phantasm".  

This is not because I am not a fan of "MotP".  Quite the opposite. I cannot imagine it looming larger in anyone's memory than it does it mine.  

In late 1993, all four of my jaws were broken simultaneously and i spent quite some time with my faced bloated, bruised, and wired-shut, subsisting only on Ensure-based milkshakes laced with horse-strength painkillers, sipped through a post-dental straw.  I spent Thanksgiving that way, and, since most of my friends don't know Sign Language, I had to communicate the entire time through a 1990-style laptop that someone loaned me so that I could type out conversation on it.

This is about what that looked like, in case you don't know.
It's a memory whose persistence definitely has a downside.

On December 25, 1993, I had not left the house for at least two months.  A snowstorm began to hit Washington DC that day. Not as bad as the historic "Superstorm" in March, but still nothing that anyone in their right mind would choose to go out in.

And yet.

A friend came and trundled me into an uneasily-procured cab, immobile face and all, and accompanied me on the trek to a small now-long-closed cinema in upper NW DC so that I could see "Mask of the Phantasm" on its opening day.  I had a large Cherry Coke and had skipped my painkillers so I wouldn't be foggy for the experience.

I wanted to make sure my memories of the event persistent and weren't fuzzy.

It still remains the happiest Christmas I have ever had and I am very very fine with that. I cannot imagine any single day making me happier than I was getting out of the house for the first time in two months, into a blinding snowstorm, to sit in a nearly empty cinema, watching that film.  I remember how much I enjoyed it as if it were yesterday.

What can "4k" add to that?  Greater "clarity"? It's a broad scope cartoon; there are no 'details' to see.

I... don't think I'm missing any useful details here.  Does the Joker have something stuck in his teeth I can't see? A piece of scenery, I'm sure.

Like the Golden Age Batman comics it was modeled on, BTAS (even big-screen Mask of the Phantasm) isn't about 'visual detail'. It's all simplification, abstraction, and chiaroscuro.

This panel still remains my perfect example of the power and virtue of the Golden Age art style.

Perhaps Fleischer's Superman cartoon benefit from such a treatment.  But those are a different animal indeed.

I mean, they used roto-scoping, for pete's sake.. Doug Jones went BACK IN TIME to do mo-cap for those robots.

4king "Mask of the Phantasm" just seems like throwing tech at something simply because you can.

And just possibly because you can get people to give you additional money for something they've already seen and own.

4K isn't going to help me, at least, enjoy "Mask of the Phantasm" better. Certainly not better than that Cherry Coke did.

DEATH IS THE PRIZE:Cliff and Steve

 So would WROTE this thing ("Death Is The Prize"), anyway?

Oh. Well, then.

"Cliff & Steve". Yeah, well, I guess if I wrote Golden Age Green Arrow stories, I would have been too embarrassed to put my name on them, too.  

But even this I believe is a DECEPTION. Cliff & Steve were the artists; the unnamed writer for this story was almost certainly regular Green Arrow writer Mort Weisinger (whose crimes against humanity are legion, but who invented, among other things "The Imaginary Story", so if you ever enjoyed an Elseworlds tale, you have Mort to thank).

Almost certainly Cliff is Cliff Young and Stete is Steve Brodie.  Both were Golden Age G.A. artists, not writers.  

A Cliff Young drawing.

Cliff Young did write a book on Drawing Drapery which you can still buy today at Target, believe it or not.

 

You cannot buy his other book "Figure Drawing Without a Model", because it's out of print.

Good luck sleeping tonight.

It's also not available because
it's SHEER PORNOGRAPHIC FILTH.

This, of course, is "Top Light", Green Arrow's underappeciated (and underdressed) female Golden Age villain.  Rather a free spirit she was.
"Would you like to see more of Top Light? Write and let us know!"

Steve Brodie was a weirdly-built daredevil/bar owner who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and lived.

They don't make 'em like that any more.

But that's not the right Steve Brodie. Neither is Steve Brodie, the doughy movie star whom you remember from "Donovan's Brain" (1953).

They don't make 'em like that any more.

No, Steve Brodie The Artist is a MYSTERY man. No photos, no bio.  There's really just ONE thing I know about Steve Brodie: he created exactly ONE character for DC Comics.

LEAPO THE CLOWN A.K.A BULL"S-EYE, GREEN ARROW'S GREATEST VILLAIN

And that's all I need to know for Mystery Artist Steve Brodie to be one of my Golden Age Heroes.

DEATH IS THE PRIZE: Trigger Happy

When we last left Olle and Roy, Green Arrow had intentionally missed the crook's target so as not to give himself away as the genuine article, having been warned by Roy The Underage Adult, that to do so would ensure his death at the hands of St. Louis Louie and his tie-wearing gang. As long as the last guy (whom we've dubbed "Hillbilly Arrow") doesn't hit the target everything will be fine: all the contestants will be dismissed as fakers. That way, Ollie can call the police to mop up the gang while he's at home in his smoking jacket or off fishing.

Not only does this guy look like Green Arrow (although his hair is now suddenly colored brown), he's every bit the overconfident jackass that Ollie is.  He's Oliver's Paul Sloane, apparently.

Fortunately, there is no way this arrogant poseur can hit that target. Intentionally.

Chance of doing it UNintentionally, however, is 99%, because Golden Age Green Arrow is a sitcom where hijinx WILL ensue.

A blow on the head! This is definitely where this (still unnamed) guy wakes up convinced that HE is Green Arrow and for the rest of the Golden Age, Oliver is hounded by this deranged wannabe, set on killing Ollie and taking his place as Roy's lover, er, I mean, Green Arrow.  What would you name this guy? "Preen Arrow"?  Nah, let's call him "Green Harrow".

At least, that's what would happen in Gotham City. But this is Star City, so he just gets dumped in the back of a plum Studebaker on his way to sleep with the fishes.

"Why not capture them now, G.A.?"
"Because we've got two and half more pages to go. Besides, we haven't used the catapult yet."

Well, as we can now confirm, this is still the era where the Arrowcar is called the Arrowplane, for no other reason I have ever been able to discern.  Maybe the "aeroplane" pun was too good to pass up and Ollie's fortune wasn't thought of as large enough at this point to justify a plane? Or he hadn't yet gotten permission to station a giant yellow jet on his apartment building's rooftop? I mean, it's bad enough that the ArrowCAR takes up eight parking spaces in the garage.

"Besides, this will give us the excuse to use the catapult when we get to the docks."
"But they could kill him and just be using that to dispose of--"
"I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THE DAMNED CATAPULT, ROY!"

The journey, during which none of St. Louis Louie's gang of seasoned criminals notices a GIANT YELLOW JUGGERNAUT WITH A DORSAL FIN tailing them, ends at Star City's legendary Small Craft Cove.

"Waiting until they actually THROW him into the water, G.A.? Doesn't that seem like an ill-advised and unwarranted--"
"I SAID READY THE CATAPULT, ORPHAN WHO IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON MY LARGESSE FOR FOOD AND SHELTER!"

Per usual, Roy realizes that Oliver's plan is terrible and bravado-based, but he's too cowed by the prospect of possible penury to press his objections.

Pictured: Showboating.

I really wish the artists (whom we'll discuss tomorrow) would have taken the time to show two grown men landing feet first on a small rowboat, without it breaking or capsizing.  I guess Green Arrow is just THAT good a shot <eyeroll>.

Okay, "Tell it to the marine animals" is pretty funny, especially for the Golden Age. I can see why St. Louis Louie, comedically large bowtie and all, is still one of Green Arrow's best known and beloved adversaries today.

St. Louis Louie is sufficiently genre-savvy to know that G.A. calls the ropes he ties to arrows "Arrowlines".  If this were the Bronze Age instead of the Golden Age, you just know that "ArrowLINES" would be the name of the letter-column. Also, the incompetent criminal lieutenant who was running the contest (a Lieutenant Louie?) is, surprisingly, a sadistic psychopath.

But not to fear; none of that will avail against the avenging bane of ALL Star City criminals:

"THE GREEN ARROW'S KID PAL."
See? I'm not the only one who can't remember his codename.

Meanwhile, Green Harrow learns a lesson; everybody hates Green Arrow and wants him dead.

The start of Ollie's weird doppelganger fetish.
"Well, here you are, Gee-Ay.  Soaked from Small Craft Cove, trembling in fear, and bound helpless, while wearing my costume, in a small rowboat that won't capsize no matter HOW hard two grown men slam into it. I'm going to enjoy this...."

Naturally, the criminals misinterpreted the situation as Red Arrow having rescued Green Arrow because, well, that's how things work in Star City and Occam's Razor and all that.

Note that the gang has zero qualms about being able to handle Green Arrow.  It's SPEEDY they are afraid of. Oliver's oblivious to this as always. What Uncle Gadget doesn't know, won't hurt him (as long as Penny is there to protect him).

St. Louis Louie reminds us about the time recently he almost killed Green Arrow just by bouncing an empty revolver off his skull, because that will remain the pinnacle of his career.

This MIGHT have been our chance to be rid of Oliver once and for all and let Roy take over. But, no.  Golden Age Green Arrow is a systole and diastole between Ollie The Impetuous Imbecile and Green Arrow the Demigod-like Odyssean Archer.

That's the most ridiculous Green Arrow thing I've ever seen.
And I've seen the Plastic Cat Arrow.

There is just SO much wrong with that panel that to discuss it would take longer than recapping the entire story.  

The rest of the story is just skippable mop-up ops, including the Golden Age finishing trope of the Chastisement of The Foolish (usually reserved for the villain but sometimes bestowed on a Well-Meaning But Misguided Civilian, as in this case).

While Roy nets the Lieutenant Louies, Ollie is ALREADY planning his next fishing trip with Hillbilly Arrow.

Of course you "ain't" in a class with those two fellows, you stupid hick; you're a risible hillbilly and they are well-heeled urban sophisticates who fight crime AS A HOBBY.  I suppose this is why the Lieutenant Arrows were never seen again; they would have sullied Green Arrow's legendary dignity.