Superman Through the Ages! Forum

For those of you who might be interested, I've added a Joker comic to my Bronze Age Bat-Fan site:

http://batfan.superman.nu/villains/joker/cover.htm

It's sort-of Superman-related, as it's written by Elliot S! Maggin and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.  Enjoy!

I thought for a minute he was about to chuck Gwen Stacy off!  :shock:

"Help! Somebody! That poor girl's been caught like a flounder!"

Ah, the Joker.  Was he the only villain to have his own comic (besides Sumariner, Punisher, and Dr. Doom of Supervillain teamup?).

I love GA and Dinah so much it's hard to find fault with this story but the plot is too needlessly convoluted and the action stilted.  The Joker's motivations (I know, he's crazy) are obscure and poorly explained --why bring a prisoner along, just to kill her?  And why would anyone fall for a police call like that?  And why would the Joker expect a police call to clear out a flower shop?  And how would he know she listens to the police radio?  Cool car, though.  What does GA drive or does he just swing around Star City during the daytime like a turtlenecked Spiderman?  Where's the Arrow Car?

I hate tied-up girl stories as well --why does Dinah need to be rescued so much?  She is so kick-ass!

Whoa! I love the Joker's Joker-Face car. Can you imagine that conversation at a paint and body shop that he got this done? "Make my car look like me, please!"

I really can't imagine them telling a Joker story without thought bubbles, and this story proved it, with the "Well, I've got to either marry her or kill her" solliloquy. The Joker is all the more interesting if you KNOW what he's thinking, because his thoughts are so deprived of cause-and-effect, that they can do a job other than pass along exposition: they can be funny in and of themselves.

Man, Green Arrow's really in love, isn't he? Sometimes there's no sense of panic or fear with a hero when their girlfriend is kidnapped; they're used to this kind of thing by this point. GA on the other hand, overreacts here. They don't treat it like a game, so there's a lot of drama and desperation. Truly, one of the best "hero gets his girlfriend kidnapped" stories, along with that one in HAWKMAN AND THE ATOM where Jean Loring is turned into a space-empress.

Although I was under the impression that Dinah Lance, far from a ravishing beauty, in her secret identity is rather easy to pass by...until the blonde wig and fishnets comes on.

I think she's pretty hot as Dinah or Canary.

Everybody used to say a blonde wig wasn't much of a disguise, but they were missing the point.  The secret of any great illusion lies in the art of misdirection...and for that, nothing tops a bustier and fishnets!  :love:

Well...yeah. I always thought Dinah was a fox too, which is why the whole "wallflower" thing never really washed with me.

Maybe she's supposed to be unnatractive in a "Hollywood" sense. Meaning, she's actually really attractive, except she's wearing glasses and a severe pony tail.

god i love 70's joker... so over the top stupidly insipid.
i always thought they could have done these comics better like killing joke instead of focusing too much on joker vs. the hero.

joker has also had a rock flag made of him i have it on my wall.

"Why Priscilla, without your glasses, you're...you're beautiful!"

My favorite joke in this vein was in the "Get Smart" pilot.  When Max meets Agent 99 for the first time, she's dressed in a chauffeur's uniform...jacket, pants, boots and a hat.  Nearly 20 minutes into the 30-minute episode she takes her hat off and her hair falls to her shoulders, prompting an astonished Max to sputter: "You're a GIRL!"  :lol:

Doesn't it sort of rile you that Black Canary is so completely ineffectual in this story? Okay, so the Joker got the drop on her, and she's bound (and gagged, so she can't do her screeching thing), but still, she's a superheroine, dammit! If it were a solo Black Canary story, she'd wriggle out of her bonds or something and, you know, judo the Clown Prince of Crime's tuches.

The site looks great and I can't wait to read the Batman/Sgt. Rock team-up. Will you also include the Brave & the Bold team-ups with Hawk & Dove and Deadman? Please, you have to include the stories with Batman's brother Thomas Wayne. All of those wacky Earth B stories!

Until then you can read about Earth-E:

http://superman.nu/super-sons/