Superman “The Two Faces of Superman”
The blurb on the splash page says that if you read in the paper that Superman is now a criminal you wouldn’t believe it. As someone who has read a comic or two my response is more, k its a fake or a clone or he’s brainwashed or blackmailed. So let see which we are dealing with eh?
Two men stand on the sidewalk, just going about their day when they see Superman speeding toward a bank near them. They figure there must be a bank robbery and take shelter. When the man of steel crashes through the bank wall they wonder just what is going on though, surely he wasn’t in such a hurry he couldn’t use the door. He doesn’t just stop with the outer wall, but crashes through to the vault. Two other men inside the bank grin, one telling the other that he knew Superman could do it. They take out their guns and walk out with bags of money.
Superman wakes on the ground, head spinning. He doesn’t recall how he goth there nor why he would be sleeping on the ground. The only clue he has is the piece of metal caught on his costume that has the letter ‘t’ on it.
Later the police force ask to see Superman at the robbed bank. Of course he goes, only to be asked for his alibi. The cop figures that it was a robot that was painted to look like him. Superman however was blacked out for the time in question as we know. He tells the cop this, and well Superman is very well-known and the officer says there must be a trick or explanation and Superman can likely find it. He speaks like he wants to believe it but isn’t quite sure.
As he is leaving he hears the cops talking about how if it were anyone else they would have taken him in on suspicion. The other says it wouldn’t be any use for what jail could hold Superman if he truly went bad? He inspects the ruined vault and finds the place where his ‘t’ fits, and knows the damage is something only he could have caused.
He returns to being Clark but even then he can’t escape the story if his possible switch to crime. Lois shares Professor Watkins’s theory on it with Clark, explaining the psychologist believes Superman to have a Jekyll and Hyde type problem. But Clark starts feeling strange and so leaves the office as this is the same time he blacked out the day before. When he is alone he changes to Superman and he sets out to prove, at least to himself, that he doesn’t help criminals while blacked out.
He picks up some steel girders and goes to a mountain top where he wraps himself in the steel. He hopes when he wakes the metal will still be around him, not torn from him freeing himself to commit crime. And when his eyes open his hopes have been fulfilled. He goes at once to the police to give the chief his good news, but while he was out ‘Superman’ had committed another theft. Simply punching his way into a jewelry store and getting in a waiting car with the gems.
Professor Watkins is in the room and Superman is asked for an alibi again and he tells them about his mountain/steel experiment. Watkins isn’t convinced that his theory is wrong, and thinks the bad side merely has developed enough to try to keep the truth to himself. After all, how could a fake break the wall? (I suspect this Watkins guy) Superman asks why they don’t take him in, if they are so sure and is told that he would just break out when he became evil, possibly hurting many. It is up to Superman to figure out a way to stop his change.
Superman flies over the city, trying to stay high in case the prof is right. When he sees a robbery though he can’t help going down to assist the cops. They wave him away, under orders not to let Superman near criminal cases. Superman respects their wishes and leaves. It isn’t long before he sees something he can help with. A house is burning, and the flames have taken too much for it to be saved. So Superman takes an abandoned water tower tank and puts it over the house, cutting off the air supply.
Four o’clock hits, and with it the blackout. Superman falls to the ground and knows nothing else. Superman breaks through the concrete into a bunker full of valuables that a millionaire keeps. Criminals gather up the goods. He wakes up underground and when he flies away people call him a thief and he feels shame. He finds that he is covered with concrete dust and figures the whole thing is true. He goes to Lois for help.
He asks her to bring kryptonite to the cove, and when she arrives he pulls her out in a boat. He lets himself rest on the bottom of the ocean and has Lois reel the radioactive element on top of him for the time he blacks out. After the regular time she can pull it back up. It all goes according to plan, except when he gets back to the city ‘Superman’ has struck again. Not quite sure what to think of this, he still goes to the sound of an explosion the next day when it is almost four.
Two men laugh as Superman falls out of the sky, saying they don’t know why he blacks out but their plan is working out well. They lure Superman to them and then use his body to smash by shooting it out of a cannon. The times they couldn’t get him they went to places they weakened with acid the night before and smashed them while disguised as Superman. They shoot him at a warehouse, but Superman has been faking and swings around and captures them. He then goes to the police and the men confess. Superman explains how he figured out the gig.
First he needed to figure out why he was blacking out, and he finds an asteroid orbiting the moon. Between the orbits of the asteroid, and the Earth it showed over Metropolis at around four each day. Which meant it must be full of kryptonite. He takes another piece of space debris and tosses it at the satellite, crushing it to dust. All that remained was to fake his next blackout and listen.
Green Arrow “The Joust of Jeopardy”
We open upon a battle between two figures clad in armor, but the caption on the panel tells us it is still 1954. One of the men is about to kill the other when an arrow with green fletching knocks the flail from his hand. Green Arrow and Speedy run up to the men, and tell them they are there to prevent the men from following their Uncle’s will. He apparently wanted them (and another one who had been waiting in the wings) to duel to the death for his castle and other possessions.
Green Arrow reminds them that death duels are illegal and they say they will not fight each other. However the archers aren’t so sure about this quick turn around and decide to keep an eye on them. While the drawbridge is raised GA makes a ladder for his ward to climb up and peer in at the cousins. They are putting away the weapons, so GA says they will come check up on them in a few hours.
When they return they find the arrow ladder has been taken down, and GA says he doesn’t have enough arrows to make another so he sends up a reflector arrow, which is an arrow connected to a small parachute with a mirror on the bottom. By looking in the mirror they are able to see over the wall and see the cousins are preparing to joust. They get in the arrowcar and use the catapult to launch themselves over the walls, but the men are already charging. While falling through the air GA sends an arrow on to one of the horses reigns, and drags him to the side. The man on the horse falls off and hurts his arm.
The heroes fall in the fountain and GA begins to climb out when the men take apart their lances to reveal tommy guns. They put GA in the dungeon, and go to continue their contest, with plans to take care of Green Arrow and Speedy after. Speedy will be used as a servant during the joust. The man with the hurt arm complains the fight must happen now, but he is told his right to the inheritance would be waived if they didn’t fight that day. But the injured man remembers that he is allowed to hire a contestant, and due to his skill they make Green Arrow forgo a shield and tie one arm behind his back. Of course if GA is told he must comply or Speedy will be killed.
But he flips the lance in his hand to use the base as a shield before swinging it around to unseat the other man. The injured man is pleased with his victory and now the last man must fight GA with battle axes. He makes Speedy his champion and tells them that should they not fight to the death he will kill them both. They are given ten minutes to do so. They fight onto the drawbridge, and Speedy forces Green Arrow off of it into the moat. He sinks into the water, and the man who hired Speedy declares himself the winner. The others protest saying they were swindled and they all run for the title papers.
They fight among themselves while Speedy mourns his friend, knowing that Green Arrow could have beaten him, but didn’t as he wanted Speedy to live. The winner in the cousins grins in victory and heads up the stairs and Speedy snaps out of his depression and knows he must take down this one last crook, for the sake of his partner.
We cut over to the man as he reaches a chest and it slides back so he falls into a pit. The uncle comes out, explaining he faked his death to get revenge on his nephews for planning to put him in the mad house. The uncle is about to kill the last of his nephews when GA comes in the window. Speedy comes up the stairs and is thrilled to see that Green Arrow is safe and seemingly unharmed. The uncle has fled out the window onto a lower section of the roof and the archers chase after him while GA explains how he had crawled along the bottom of the moat til it was safe to surface.
The uncle gets to a crossbow and unleashes flaming bolts after GA and Speedy. They duck beneath them, but the uncle doesn’t fire them for long as he continues along a wooden bridge that connects two parts of the castle. He looks sick, and dizzy. The rope bridge begins to tear and Speedy nails it back up with arrows while Green Arrow retrieves the man. The man has passed out, and will go to a mental institution, while the three cousins will all go to jail (apparently they aren’t dead).
Tomahawk “The Burning of Bonnville”
Bonnville is your normal New England town during the day, but at night it runs a great smuggling ring to get supplies to the American Troops. In this story Tom and Dan have been asked to help escort some of these secret wagon trains. They have just completed one shipment, but Tom worries the next won’t be as easy as he found a reward poster offering 500 pound to anyone who can bring information on the smuggling.
The men aren’t worried about the masses but only about a certain man; Abner Weeks the shopkeeper. He is apparently a Tory, and cares for naught but money. A bystander mentions he never give money to the cause, though he is rich, and Abner happens to be walking by as they speak about him. He tells the men that they are ruining him, by buying things on credit and spending their money on this fool errand. They rebels don’t take lightly to this interpretation of the war and want to run him out-of-town. Another suggests that they put him in the stocks instead, as if run out of town he might go to the redcoats.
Tom steps in front of Abner, reminding the men they are fighting for the right to believe and think what you want as long as it doesn’t trouble others, it would be different if he was actually planning to rat them out. and that very night Abner goes to do so, hating the townsfolk, and wanting the money and protection the British promise. Tom sees him leave and he and Dan tail the man, not wanting to leap to conclusions but also not wanting the information to get to the British.
The man ties his horses outside of Fort Blight, and the frontier men peer in the window to see Abner reporting to the men inside. He is told that he will get his money after they see the contraband weapons, and Abner agrees, as long as they protect him. Abner heads back to Bonnville and Tom pulls him off his horse and Tom and Dan take his steed. Making the captured man walk behind them they alert the town of the incoming redcoats (they are coming in the morning).
Tom sends a man to get the nearest American troops, and orders the rest of the men to dig as they bury all the powder and have fuses tied to them. At dawn the redcoats come and order a search, but by then the contraband is hidden, as well as Abner. The redcoats vow to search til an hour before sunset and says that if they find nothing, and no one confesses than they will burn the town down. Tom jokes to Abner, who is hidden between two barrels of gunpowder, how hard that would be on him.
Tom and Dan then take to the trees and drop in through the roofs to take down the searching redcoats. As the others get separated from the group the rest of the town also takes them down. When the redcoats notice the number of missing men they start the fire at once. Tom shows up on one of the roofs and shows he has their Captain captured, and the rest of their men are in the burning houses. He also tells them the ground beneath their feet is mined.
They don’t believe him, thinking he’s just trying to scare them off so some of the men blow up the ground beneath them. Tom slides down a rope to fight the redcoats before telling Dan they need to get back on the roof with their prize hostage. (why did you go down then…) When he gets back up there though he sees that Dan has been captured. The Captain thinks this is brilliant and tells his men that he is going to count to three, and if he is not released by then to kill the boy and burn the town. As the last number leaves his lips Tom agrees after trying to think of a way out of it.
The Captain free the redcoat continue with burning the town, but Tom was not taken hostage and he goes back to blowing up the buried kegs of powder. This sends the redcoats out of formation as the America troops arrive. The leader tries to flee when he sees his men have fallen but Tom recaptures him. He then tells the man he really let him go because he had seen coming troops from the roof, and didn’t want the British to know. Also if they hadn’t been coming he would have tossed the man off the roof and jumped down to fight for Dan.
Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder “The Crime Consultant”
A construction crew is outside of Gotham drilling when the suddenly find Batman and Robin underground and figure they must have found the cave. Batman tells his partner to load up the batmobile with their lab equipment as the cave is no longer safe. Batman flies the Batplane out of the new opening. Reporters come to explore the site and find one of the exits that lead into the nearby mansion and soon the town is abuzz with the identity of their dark knight.
We turn back the clock to discover how this had come to be and find our boys on a stake out. They are watching a well respected man’s house as they had tracked a couple of criminals there. As they watch a criminal leaves the house and they decide to follow him. They find the parked his car among a bunch of factories but it is empty so they begin to search for the man. As the clock chimes Batman notes the first gong was louder than the rest and goes to investigate the watch company which housed the large city clock. Of course the safe has been blown but thanks to the speed of Gotham’s heroes the thief had time to hide but not escape.
They find the man hiding inside an over large clock and Robin had to stop the gears as Batman headed into the machine to get the crook. The crook laments that he should have waited until one as he had been instructed. Batman asks if the man whose house they had been before earlier, Jay Varden, had planned the theft. He refuses to give him up however and Batman reminds Gordon that this isn’t the first man to attempt clever crimes lately, and like the man who was just brought in had refused to talk.
Batman confronted Varden but as he had no proof he was asked to leave Varden’s property. Batman knows it and so wants to get the criminals to think Varden had set them up. So they make a fake Batcave with a tunnel back to Varden’s house. News got out, reporters go to question the man, and Bruce and Dick work to make sure Varden can’t disprove the story by walking out of Vardan’s house in full costume to the Batmobile when Varden was trying to sneak out. Then they went along the road Varden had left by and offered him a ride. He got in before noticing who was driving and what the vehicle was. Batman was not in the car and so when Robin drove through town it was another tick in the ‘evidence’.
Finally Robin let Varden out, and Batman came out of hiding from the trunk to follow the man to his underground contacts. He runs through the streets, being greeted as the hero he is not by the criminals there. They held him at gun point and he tries to explain the truth of the situation, only for something in his pocket to sound off, with Robin’s voice, calling for Batman. Desperately the man says they can prove he is not Batman by capturing the real one. The men he was talking to took a bit of convincing for obviously if Varden wasn’t Batman, Batman was after him.
Watching via a mirror from a nearby rooftop Batman sees them moving out and decides that he needs to call Robin. instead of using their radios (maybe because they put on it the guy’s pocket?) Batman makes a Batsignal by standing in front of a moon shaped advertisement. Robin drives by with the car and Batman swings into his seat from the roof. They follow Varden and the other men to a spotlight factory, which would hold many valuable metals.
As we know this is a trap, and the criminals are waiting to blind the heroes, their own eyes protected by sunglasses. But the vigilantes don’t rush in and they see the glasses on the crooks and know their plan. Batman doesn’t want Varden to be seen with him, or else their ruse will be exposed and he and Robin come up with a plan.
Robin appears in the doorway and the crooks shine a search light upon him, and the boy is blinded and dazed. The criminals are about to jump him when they see that the lights outside are also on, and the cops must surely be on their way to the blazing scene. With all the bright and power lights on the fuse blows and Batman drops into fight as Varden runs away. A cop sees him fleeing the scene, and Varden uses the fact that people think he is Batman to ask the cop to let him leave.
Back with the others Robin is tying up the last of them and Batman pulls off his mask to show that he looks like Varden. The criminals are pissed and they plan to testify that Batman gave them plans to commit crimes, so Batman knows that Varden will go to jail. He still has to be captured though, as he was let through by the cop. But by taking a truck with a search light on it Batman and Robin are able to find the man in one panel. At home later Batman laughs about how well the plan went as the reporter on the tv explains that Varden is not Batman.
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