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The ARCHIE Comics "Mighty Crusaders" Super-Hero Characters of the 1960's: Part Four
Oh, yeah.
I'm going to enjoy writing
this one. 
God alone knows what sort of audience the character of the ever- hapless "Professor John Raymond" -- a.k.a., the hen-pecked hyper-hero better known (if seldom actually respected; either by costumed criminal recidivists or the ARCHIE readership, overall) as the Web -- was meant to reach, sales- and/or apppeal-wise.
From Rovin: "When
John [Raymond] was a child, his brother Tom was a juvenile
lawbreaker. Tom continued his wicked ways and ended up in jail, while
John -- trying to understand what made his brother evil -- studied psychology
and criminology. Unsatisfied simply lecturing about crime, he became the
Web, snaring criminals in events of their own making." (Well... that
certainly seems like quite the precipitous response to a little occupational
ennui, I dare say.)
"He possesses no abilities beyond his criminology training and physically fit physique. The Web is married to the former Rose Wayne who, in the '40s, forced him to give up his super-heroic career. But he compulsively returned to it in the '60s, and -- since then -- his forays into crimefighting have bbeen the source of frequent domestic squabbles."
Good heavens.
Okay: obviously, it would be sheerest intellectual sophistry of the rankest "P.C." sort to hold aging comics scribes of the early and mid-1960s to the same standards of gender awareness one might readily expect from today's working professionals. One doesn't criticize, after all, when an old wine bottle is corked and decanted; and wine of a corresponding vintage issues forth.
Each and every storytelling medium and/or genre, ultimately, is the product of its respective time and place.
(Your Exasperated and Eye-Rolling
Unca Cheeks, in fact, actually knows of one such online message board
habitué so ideologically [one might even venture so far as to
term it fascistically] inclined; a multi- venued poster whose online
"rep" -- such as it is -- is actually predicated upon "proving" such
knock-kneed "kook"isms as [say] "All Silver Age comics scriveners were women-loathing
maggots"; or that "All LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES scribes have been race-mongering
swine." Thereby proving essayist C.S. Lewis correct, ultimately, when
the learned sir opined that: "Yes; there are genuine sins of the
intellect.")
Nonetheless: I think it fair and reasonable to point out that -- even so early on in this nation's history as the Johnson administration -- the story detailed below was just....
... well: just plain ol'
wrong, is all.
"The Web Vs. the Viperous Villains" [MIGHTY COMICS #43; February, 1967; and I don't even wanna know who wrote and/or drew the friggin' thing, awright...?] opens up with the infamous Olympic Dish-Tossing sequence, reproduced above.
"A hundred times," an enraged Rose Raymond hisses at her spandexed spouse. "A thousand times... a million times... I've begged you to junk this compulsion of yours to resume your career as the crusading Web! [...] I'll stop you, even if I have to knock you out... for your own good!"
"I've learned where that diabolical crook Mr. Scare is pulling his latest caper," the heroic hubby explains, lovingly twisting his wife's throwing arm up and back behind her head. "I've got to foil him! 'Bye, Rose!"
Launching himself through the open living room window like a blonde, superbly-muscled lobbed brick, the Web vaults into high-octane super-hero action; pausing only long enough to initiate massive internal hemorrhaging in the corpus of the luckless neighborhood mailman.
"Oh-oh!" the Web muses, mournfully. "The mailman! It's amazing how often he keeps getting in my way, whenever I leap into action!"
"Sorry, friend!" the hot-footed hero tosses over his shoulder, by way of explanation. "That was strictly unintentional! You have my sincere super-apology!"
Only Page Three... and,
already: we are deep, waaaaay deep into The Valley of the Shadow
of the Goober, here.
"A little later, before a bank" the following caption instructs; "... a man in a bizarre elf-costume distributes marbles to a group of eaager youngsters."
I know; I know.
Not exactly Secret Society of Super-Villains territory, is it...?
"Marbles from Mr. Elf to you!" the Ross Perot lookalike coos silkily to the eager, shoving throng of little crumb-snatchers surrounding him. "Have fun, little chums!"
No mere comics scribe could possibly be expected to maintain a storytelling pace so breakneck and heart-stopping as this for long, naturally; and so our auctorial focus shifts to a nearby bank robbery, where the heist-meisters in question are using the nearby rugrat ruckus as impromptu "cover" for their vehicle-less getaway.
Quickly dispatching the runaway robbers by means of a handful of marbles, the keenly-intuitive Web immediately turns his antagonistic attentions towaards the aforementioned "elf" and his jumpsuited ally; opining, in mid-tackle, that: "I'm sure that your causing the gathering of all these kids during the progress of a hold-up was much more than mere coincidence!"
(There's no way any of us can
ever be absolutely certain of such a thing, of course... but: the
foregoing may well stand, unchallenged, as the single most hopelessly knock-kneed
and inelegant attempt at expository sentence structure in the history of the
comics medium, entire. Quite the enviable little linguistic feat,
really; given that we are talking about the same field of meta-fictive
endeavor which blessed us with the auctorial likes of Mike Friedrich
and Joe Simon. I'm just sayin', really.)
"Ah-HA!" Our Hero exults, tearing away the elf-guy's rubber mask to reveal [Pick One]:
A.) "I was sure that elf-mask hid the features of Mr. Scare, the wily gangleader!"
B.) "I was sure that elf-mask hid the features of Mitch Miller, the wily bandleader!"
C.) "I was sure that elf-mask hid the features of Suzie Rabinowitz, the wily high school cheerleader!"
D.) "Omigawd! It's...
my mailman! And he's packin' hisself an Uzi! No! NOOOOOOOO
-- !"
Unfortunately for our arachnid action hero, however: Mr. Scare really and truly is a wily sort of fellow; as amply demonstrated by his having the felonious foresight to tote along a genuinely super-powered accomplice, in the form of the jumpsuited Stunner.
Momentarily immobilizing the Web with but the merest touch of one of his "paralyzing stun-gloves," the Stunner helps Mr. Scare to effect a hasty escape; thereby giving the green-and-yellow Gilgamesh a nice, round, fat batting average of 0.00, nabbing-the-bad-guys-wise.
Wending his webbed way homeward once more, our hard-luck hero arrives just in time to be greeted by both a beatifically-smiling Rose and the hearty, heady aroma of home-cooked noodles.
["Noodles: the He-Man
Dinner Supplement Endorsed By Eight Out of Ten Spandexed, Self-Aggrandizing
Nutbars! Noodles Really Satisfy! Try Noodles -- Today!
N-O-O-D-L-E-S!"]
"I cooked them exactly the way you like them, dearest!" the winsome Rose all but purrs, in wifely solicitude. "I even added a rare, exotic seasoning I'm sure you'll adore!"
Said "exotic seasoning," apparently, is a little Betty Crocker-ish something my mom used to refer to -- with a twinkle in her dear little eye; not the glass one; the other one -- as: "third degree burns a la mode."
"ROSE -- !!" a bizarrely blase Raymond under-emotes; his brand new noodle "do" making him look disturbingly like pop chanteuse Sheryl Crow. "What an unfortunate accident!"
That's not the only "unfortunate accident" awaiting discovery hereabouts, however.
Not with five pages yet to go,
in this tawdry, fetid little five-finger four-color exercise.
"John doesn't tell me everything," a tight-lipped Rose fumes to herself, mounting a particularly seamy-seeming staircase on the "bad" side o' town. "Well... I have my little secrets, too!"
A mere heartbeat later: a worn oaken door swings open with an anguished shriek of tortured hinges... and we see the Fly-Man. Nekkid. Except for his socks, and a wide, expectant grin of commingled lust and --
... all right. That one
was way, waaaay out of line. I can admit that much.
In actual point of fact: Rose has -- inexplicably -- been training "under the supervision of an expert instructor, [practicing] a series of athletic feats and judo manuevers that would amaze her husband, could he but observe them..."
"Mrs. Raymond," the lady's aforementioned
"expert instructor" enthuses (we know he's her instructor, see; thanks
to the bright yellow INSTRUCTOR sweatshirt adorning his beefy, muscular
frame); "... you're terrific! These weeks of training have turned
you into the best I ever had! You are tops!" [Insert
Tasteless Joke Here.]
Okay. I haven't felt the actual need to issue one of these things, these past few months or so...
... but: right here --
-- right NOW --
... any of you relentlessly masochistic li'l poindexters reading these words out there wanna bail: now is most definitely the time. And then some.
All right, then. Just
so long as my conscience is clear, at any rate.
Spying upon her couch-banished hubby later that same evening, Rose watches with narrowed eyes as the good (if mildly obsessive) professor slips out into the night, suitably spandexed for yet another go-round versus the still-at-large Mr. Scare.
"And now," the very next caption breathlessly informs us; "... another secret of Rose becomes known to you ardent fans of the Web and his family...!"
... and with no more preamble
than that: fully half of Unca Cheeks' readership found themselves mysteriously
transformed into pillars of salt.
"The costume of Pow-Girl!" a smug Rose muses inwardly. "For that's what I've decided to call myself, in my secret identity! Since my darling insists on taking crazy chances as the Web, somebody's got to look after his safety!"
My God, but I love the
Silver Age of comics!
We finally get to see something a little more action-packed than toppled-over mailmen or near-lethal bowls of noodles, as the Web tracks down and beards the dastardly duo of Mr. Scare and the Stunner in their larcenous lair.
"Remember always," a solicitous
Web counsels, whilst sending hood after cheap hood tumbling ass- over-teakettle
during the ensuing melee; "... that it was your own trail of evil
that led to your undoing!" (Ohhhhhh... go to bed, old man!
Go to BED -- !)
Just as they did the first time, however: events reach the perilous pass whereby a smirking Stunner is but scant heartbeats away from quick-frying the Web's nervous system to a crackly crunch...
... whennnnnnnn: along comes... POW-GIRL!
(You know... there's absolutely
no way in hell to type something like that without it sounding just as
brain-dead as the yodeled chorus of your average Beastie Boys song.
Just. No. Freakin'. Way. At. All.)
"Pow-Girl is the name!" a domino masked Rose coyly informs her still-brawling hubby, effecting a personal introduction between a startled Stunner's head and the nearest floor.
"Yeah? You weren't misnamed!" a grateful Web responds. "Great fightin', ma'am!"
(It's sort of like an episode
of McMillan and Wife, I suppose. Only with... like... spandex.
And goofy "code names." And moderately less coherent storytelling.)
"Now that I've tipped off the police," an exhausted Web concludes, in the post-battle afterglow; "... I must go!"
"Wait!" a scheming Rose/"Pow-Girl" entreats him. "I think you and I have the makings of a great crime-fighting team! Shall we seal our new partnership with a kiss?"
("I'm sure he loves me," the masked minx rationalizes to herself; "... but there'll be no harm done if I make this little test!")
"Did you say... a kiss??!!" the Web stammers, swallowing past the beach ball-sized lump of frozen terror suddenly lodged in his throat.
(You know: I'd be willing
to lay 8-to-5 odds that this poor guy's bedroom sees less "action" than a copy
of GQ Magazine at Dennis Rodman's house. Especially when you pause
to reflect upon what we've seen of his sorry homelife up to this point.)
"Sorry, Pow-Girl!" the Web manages to blurt out, before swinging out and away into the night. "I'm a loner, and not a super-hero playboy! I gotta go now! Thanks again for saving me from destruction!"
Let's try that last bit again, after processing it through the handy-dandy Unca Cheeks Dialogue Codex... shall we? ;))
"Sorry, Pow-Girl! I'm a [p-whipped uberwuss, who's reduced to channeling his seething, continually sublimated sexual energies into violent, nighttime vigilante-slash-quasi-fascistic activities], and not a [well-adjusted individual who ought to be left alone with small children]! I gotta go [take a very long, extremely cold shower] now! Thanks again for [allowing me to drool over more shapely female flesh than my own wife has flashed me with in the last month, f'chrissakes]!"
The Unca Cheeks Dialogue
Codex: "... because with great power... comes great responsibility!"
The story (I'm in a good mood, tonight; I'm feeling charitable, overall) ends with one of those cutesy little I Love Lucy/I Married Joan-style "moments" so common to (and beloved by) both television sitcoms and super-hero comics of the period; with Rose all but winking and mugging at the audience, and a concluding caption hectoring and huckstering the reader, re: this whole sordid "Pow-Girl" business. ("How about it, Mighty readers? Should Rose quit hen-pecking the Web? Should she on occasion, or even frequently, become Pow-Girl again?")
In actuality: the only
bloody thing they had any business asking their readership for, after
this fetid little four-color folly, was forgiveness.
Be here bright and early next week, people.
After a solid year and a half: I finally have a comic book quantifiably worse than the nigh-legendary DOUBLE-DARE ADVENTURES ("starring Bee-Man!") to share with the whole, happy lot of you.
Oh, yes.
Oh, yes indeedy.
The Archie Comics MIGHTY CRUSADERS of the 1960s: PAGE ONE
The Archie Comics MIGHTY CRUSADERS of the 1960s: PAGE TWO
The Archie Comics MIGHTY CRUSADERS of the 1960s: PAGE THREE
The Archie Comics MIGHTY CRUSADERS of the 1960s: PAGE FIVE
The Archie Comics MIGHTY CRUSADERS of the 1960s: PAGE SIX
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