Red Tornado

The sorting has brought to the surface any variety of mini-series, including this one shining a spotlight on the Red Tornado in 1985. As the Crisis on Infinite Earths loomed, writer Kurt Busiek joined forces with legendary artist Carmine Infantino to tell us a story of the JLA's often-sidelined android member.

The thing about this android, though, is that he was created as the weapon of perennial mad scientist T.O. Morrow, but somehow managed to garner something like a human soul and contradict Morrow's evil programming. The long and complicated saga of Red Tornado, before and since this mini, is found here.

As this series opens, Reddy does battle against a rogue tornado tearing through the New Jersey countryside, saving many people in the process. However, the news coverage of the event cast him unfavorably, and then the android is confronted by the membership of the Justice League, who say they are tired of his screw-up and revoke his membership. Confused and uncertain, the Red Tornado considers his place in the world as the first issue concludes, unaware that all this has been carefully orchestrated by long-time JLA foe The Construct.




Not being able to fathom what he's supposedly done wrong, Red Tornado carries on as issue 2 opens. He is confronted by a Construct-controlled Superman, who tauntingly literally tears Reddy limb from limb for disregarding the League's suggestion, and throws Reddy's parts into the East River.







It's so sad. They always do this to Reddy. It's like the one thing writers can think to do with the robot: dismantle him. Ho hum. Think I'm kidding, check out what they did to RT in last year's 52, twenty-one years later.

Fortunately, his self-repairing circuits bring him back together only minutes later, but this latest confrontation with a so-called friend has him doubting everything. His lack of confidence drives him away from his girlfriend, Kathy Sutton and the negative public perceptions of him causes problems in his friendship with Traya the orphan.

All the while, the Construct gloats. The Red Tornado is the only member of the JLA, we learn, who is immune to the Construct's mind control, thus explaining his targetting for this special torment.



Issue 3 of the series finds most of the world under the Construct's controls, and Red Tornado has abandoned humanity, to sulk in fine emo hero fashion atop a windy mountain top, as befits his name. Kathy Sutton still believes in him, and is finding that she is the only person who has not succumbed to the Constructs controls. The Construct seems to underestimate her ability to sway Reddy, though, and apparently prefers gloating to her about how he could take her mind away through any piece of communications technology. Talk about your computer with an attitude.

Finally Kathy reaches Tornado and tells him about the Construct's plans and entreats him not to abandon mankind. He's playing all cold logical machine here, but she touches him by suggesting that if he ever suspected that he might be human, then the answer had to be yes. Suddenly, the memories of his other lives are restored to him and he can feel his soul and he races off to confront The Construct and save the World.



In the final issue, Red Tornado takes on the Construct head-to-head and they battle to a draw. Entreating the assistance of his creator, T.O. Morrow, Reddy manages to infiltrate The Construct's operating system, where he systematically disconnects the Construct's control over the telephone networks, the radio frequencies and so on, breaking his hold on humanity.

Its sort of a leap, since we've not seen Reddy do this sort of thing before...sort of an "inside the video game" thing, I guess, in keeping with the times. Of course, Red Tornado is victorious and saves the world. It bums me out a little that we never see a scene with the League where they disavow the things they'd said earlier...but I suppose the page count was running out.

On the whole, I really enjoyed re-reading this series. Reddy's a character I've always enjoyed, but not known too much about. I'd forgotten, actually, that he was one of a series of characters who began on Earth Two and migrated to Earth One and served as a member of both the JSA and the JLA.

Carmine Infantino's art is a pleasure here (though I still chuckle looking at that first cover image of the Justice League. Notice how Batman's height matches the tapering perspective of the others, but his legs disappear just above the boot, as though he were standing in a hole.).

It interested me to read in one of the letter columns (remember those?)the comments of a reader who didn't favor Infantino as an artist, stating that all his characters look alike (true enough). And I realized, having read this same opinion from other fans on the internet about contemporary artists, that some things just don't change.

League Dickery?

The Adventures of Superman #475, February 1991.

It looks worse than it is, of course. The Toyman, Intergang and the New God Sleeze wreak havoc at a new amusement park in Metropolis. Superman gets himself attacked by the animatrons from the park's Hall of Heroes. Also the issue where Jimmy Olsen decides to start wearing his Superman signal watch again.

Teen Titans

I can hardly believe I've been keeping this blog so long, and not yet given the Teen Titans a proper mention. I was very happy the other day, when I had a moment to slide this early issue from its plastic and give it another read. Being one of my earlier issues, Teen Titans #40 from July-August 1972 is easily one I've read hundreds of times...and it shows some. But how nice to revisit this old friend.

Being the early seventies, there's a real counter-culture feel to the story (or maybe its just that Bob Haney wrote it...whatta guy; his must be an interesting story). Even though they are in Scotland for this story, they're still riding around in a VW minibus with Peace and Love written on the sides of it (did they ship it overseas? Get it at a rental place? The T-Jet of today must be so much easier), and they refer to each other as "Flasher" and "Wonder Doll", which is fun in a silly sort of way.

Anyway, our story opens with the Titans (in this case, Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Wonder Girl and Mal Duncan, with their mentor Mr. Jupiter) on board a fishing boat on a Scottish loch, investigating reports of a deadly sea monster...and as you can see, before long, it appears.

Quickly, our heroes discover it is a gigantic metal robot operated by salmon poachers, but the mystery deepens when they see a ghost dancing on the loch waves and learn that Robin and Mal were attacked by water breathers while they were diving below. A second dive brings the water-breathers back, and after they've murdered the Titans' Scottish fisherman guide ("Gillkrankie"...you can't make this stuff up...but Haney could!)Robin announces with his usual flair for the dramatic that Aqualad was one of the attackers.


Outrage, shock, and drama follow before a quick investigation reveals that Aqualad is actually attending college classes in Scotland and they track him down, finding him in a kilt, with a new girlfriend, Nirka, draped on his arm(Despite the girl, the kilt just makes him seem more gay than usual...).

He offers his assistance, and quickly it is discovered that he's in Nirka's thrall and also that she is the daughter of the Black Earl of Moray (the earlier mentioned ghost), who raises his sunken castle from the depths of the loch once a century in hopes of trapping new souls upon whom he make practice his dark arts.

Here's Nirka and Garth out of their kilts, where we learn just what it is that she's offering to attract Aqualad to the doom offered by her father. Apparently, its her lips he wants, he needs, her lips that he must have. (Jeez, Garth, get your own. Sure, it'll be years before collagen injections and botox are all the rage, but surely you could suck on a blowfish or something and get your own voluptuous pair...)

Of course the Titans are able to rescue their friend and the story wraps up with him remembering nothing. Which is probably for the best.


I must have really enjoyed what I saw here(plus, "now only 20 cents!"), because I only waited a few months before picking up my next issue of Teen Titans, this one #43 (shame I couldn't get consecutive issues, but fortunately both of these were done-in-one stories), in which we get a slightly altered team here.

Mr. Jupiter and Mal are nowhere in sight, and now Lilith (the psychic/witch) has joined the team. They are on the craggy coast of New England and as this story opens, they are entreated by an old man to rescue his helpless grandchild from a quartet of demons who are playing catch with the child.

I won't go into as much detail about this story, which actually, isn't a bad take on the Titans going head to head with supernatural forces (or as the cover cries, "Whiz Kids VS. Witchcraft"). The art team for both of these issues was Art Saaf and Nick Cardy and looking back, I'm really pretty impressed with their work. There's a reasonable amount of detail, people look as they are supposed to (well, except for that kilt...but it IS Scotland, after all) and I really enjoyed it.

Issue #43 also includes a Lilith solo feature, in which she is crossing the country looking for her mother, and discovers a likely candidate on death row. Never able to resist a mystery and eager to reunite with her mother, Lilith reveals the true murderer, freeing the woman...who's real daughter appears to take her mother away from prison. Sad for Lilith.

I was always sorry we didn't see more of her when the Titans reunited in the eighties...and sadder still that when she did finally return to the team in the 90s, she was not only way younger than she should've been, but was killed so quickly by a rogue Superman robot.

We are not very kind to our minor characters.

And how could I talk about the Titans without discussing their rebirth as a team in 1980, at the able hands of Marv Wolfman and George Perez. Here's New Teen Titans #1, in which the mysterious Raven brings some of the old team together (Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash) with some new members (Cyborg, Beast Boy/Changeling, Starfire and herself) and the long run of fun had begun.

I think this might've been the issue that actually turned me into a mad collector for a while. After all, I bought it for 50 cents and within a few years, it was valued at $30 or better. I think the market's since leveled out and even if this one is still worth more, it's probably not representative of my overall collection, because the comic companies began glutting the market with so many issues, variant covers and so on.

Once we've completed the move, I'll have to begin the next part of the project for my collection, which will be doing some research into the over-all value of the thing, which is--in all honesty--immeasurable to me, anyway. But I'm also looking forward to a few lazy winter days, sitting by the fireplace and re-reading all those old Wolfman-Perez issues, which were so amazing.

In an interesting sidebar, I had already planned today's post when I read this morning at Newsarama that Judd Winick will be reuniting that classic team of the eighties in a new Titans East series. Should be interesting.