Big Bang Presents: The Whiz Kids

After the end of the monthly Big Bang title, Big Bang characters continued to appear in a series of one-shots. There were only a handful of these: two each starring Ultiman and the Round Table of America, one Summer Special featuring the Knights of Justice, and this right here, the Whiz Kids. The Whiz Kids, as you might remember, are the Big Bang equivalent of the Teen Titans, and this issue has stories featuring both an Original-Titans style story and a New-Teen-Titans style one.

Starting with the Titans Classic, the Whiz Kids are chilling at their swingin' pad. The writing is intentionally hokey, with the Whiz Kids mostly talking in song lyrics. The art is shaky, and this is clearly not intentional, sad to say.

Anyway, the Whiz Kids head to Florida to Moray's beach house on her invitation, with Moray having retired to attend school full-time. She also has an asshole boyfriend that Cyclone doesn't get along with, a former Navy SEAL and underwater demolitions expert called the Aquamarine. Oh and there's been a rash of shark attacks featuring a huge black shark.

Cyclone survives an encounter with the beast, and the Whiz Kids soon divine that it's actually a robot that looks like a shark. Moreover, it doesn't eat people, it takes them to an underwater plantation where they slave away under the tyranny of a creep called the Great Black Shark. It's a Black Manta thing, and they really go the whole hog here with that theme.

I don't think Manta was ever a black supremacist, at least not to this degree, but let's all agree that enslaving whites isn't the way to make the world better for black people. GBS is one of very few black characters in all of Big Bang, incidentally, but that's a byproduct of BB's focus on adapting the notoriously whitebread Silver Age. Anyway, the action-packed conclusion is a little muddled and clumsily-excecuted, but they trick the GBS into blowing up his own underwater city and get all the prisoners out by way of the mechanical sharks. Moving on...

Above are the new Whiz Kids, or as the team would come to be known with their membership, the Whizzards (I know, awful). In this story, drawn by none other than Chris Samnee (!), the Whizzards face down a threat from Captain Nemo. This guy's backstory is boring enough to not bother you with, but as minor as his role in the story is I think he's one of the more interesting parts.

Gargoyla, Sheborg, Black Power, and (not pictured) Hot Pink join Cyclone in foiling his evil plot. Totem is somewhere else for all this. We get a look at these new characters, their powers, their personalities. They're all basically what you'd expect - Gargoyla is a shrinking violet, Hot Pink is a flighty showoff, Sheborg is cold and rational, etc. 

Yeah, "pep pills", sure. Black Power is half the Cyborg of the team based on appearance and demeanor alone, but his powers seems to come from that alpha-belt he wears, with which he can punch in various combinations to get different powers -- sort of like a voluntary Hero Dial. This strikes me as making him a little overpowered, but whatever. The Nemo plot thread is resolved fairly quickly, but internal strife (and the death of founding member Bubbles the chimp) take a toll on the team's veterans. Ultimately, this causes leader Cyclone to tender his resignation. This is the real "meat" of the whole issue, Cyclone talking about how stupid and awful he feels; I certainly care more about this than the Great Black Shark's white slavery ring.

Around this point it's revealed that, in case you were wondering, the founding Whiz Kids (and Thunder Girl) are nearing 30, though Thunder Girl's powered form still looks like the idealized version of her old teenage self. Cycolne nominates Sheborg replace him as leader, and after saying his goodbyes (and lamenting the missing Moray), Cyclone takes his leave. On that melodramatic note, the issue ends, but not without promise -- Thunder Girl and Cyclone leave together, though TG remains with the team

It all started with the Big Bang! Part 10 (Issue #14)

I'm skipping around a lot, but get real, this is the mind-bending conclusion to the Savage Dragon crossover.

As you may recall from last time, Dragon has a "time bomb" strapped to his chest, which can explode again and again, taking him to a different time with each kaboom. This is a convenient device for the superhero comic theme, as it allows him to explore the various eras of comics.

Dragon's lot is a sad one, though he knows an end does come when he meets Venus in the 1970s -- how long until then, however, no one can say. Also, it's so weird to see Kirby-style Ultiman like that. Kirby didn't draw Superman a lot, did he?

However, despite this, the story opens with Dragon popping back to Chicago on the very day he was taken by the Society of Evil Minds. But it's... different. Not his Chicago at all; he goes to the police station and nobody, not even his partner Alex Wilde, recognizes him.

That's when the cops call in the National Guardians to deal with this green monster. Who are the National Guardians?

Evidently this is the 90s of Earth-B specifically. Check out that gloveless Ultiman and the Earth-B Beacon. I don't get the third guy, though.I guess that makes sense, Binana had input on Grandfather Clock's time machine, no doubt it can travel between the worlds, too. Ultiman does recognize Dragon, but from a warp Dragon hasn't taken yet -- to the 1930s. Apparently they had some serious altercation, because Ultiman's been waiting nearly 60 years to pop Dragon in the mouth again.

There's more; Venus went back to the gods in '57, and Ultiman is married to Lori Lake, not that Arlene woman seen last issue. Or, she was, until she died in childbirth. I'd feel sorry for Dragon if he weren't being so slow on the uptake here, though I don't know how familiar he'd be with alternate universes in the first place.

A blow from Ultiman coincides with the bomb exploding again, sending him, funnily enough, to meet 1930s Ultiman. Dragon doesn't realize he's in a different time at first, probably because the art style changes are imperceptible to him. He doesn't get it until Ultiman mentions only getting his powers last week. Oh, and naturally there's the requisite Action Comics #1 homage, though in a somewhat novel move it's Dragon hefting the car.

Yeesh, you know, I never realized how uneven Dragon's proportions normally are until I saw this relatively realistic version.

Dragon thinks the time stream may have been corrupted after the last time he met Ultiman. Er, the last time he met Ultiman and they were friends, that is. Probably something to do with the temporal paradox caused by the two Grandfather Clocks in the Brave and the Bold segment that closed out the last issue. Speaking of, you may remember that Dragon got a hold of a remote to control the time jumps at the end of the issue, but being stuck in Earth-B means that hasn't been helpful. Anyway, their fight continues until Dragon's had his fill; he activates the time bomb without bothering to set it, landing in a US Army camp in 1952 Korea. 

An Army nurse talks to Dragon, and soon reveals herself to be Venus. Again, Earth-B Venus

That's a crappy excuse to get retired, at least old Ultiman got sick and lost his powers. Not gonna lie, this is the least eventful jump yet, and possibly ever. They just talk, really, I don't feel like I understand Venus' deal in the 50s any better.

She hears him out, and realizes what must have happened -- Binana can probably send Dragon back to his own world, and with the Earth-A/B time difference, he'll have the knowledge to do so in 1944, which is where (or when, I guess) he heads next. There (then), a trip to the hair salon for Molly Wilson proves to be a trap set by Dr. Binana, who apparently knows her civilian identity and, judging by the fact that he bound her arms, the "must touch ring to necklace" caveat of the Thunder Girl transformation. That's where Dragon comes in.

He frightens Binana into submission and frees Molly as insurance, watching her turn into Thunder Girl. I mentioned before that it's not much of a transformation, but Thunder Girl clearly looks taller and more muscular than Molly in this story, so whatever. Binana does some pretty funny sniveling to TG, so great is his fear of Dragon.

So they force Binana to let Dragon use his world hopping device, but Binana secretly pulls the plug halfway through sending Dragon home. This causes Dragon to be split between the worlds, literally. This ties into a Blitz story; The Silver Age Blitz and his sidekick Cyclone are headed to Earth-B for a wedding, that of Golden Age Blitz Mack Snelling and his pseudo-sidekick Speed Queen.

I should mention that Cyclone's relation to the Blitz isn't made very clear, but whatever. Anyway, as they vibrate their molecules to Earth-B's frequency, they get interference from Dragon blocking the way. 

The Earth-B Blitz sees his other half, and heads to Earth-A to investigate, but Dragon vanishes before he gets the chance to help. A mysterious force sets off the Time Bomb, sending him back to Earth-A in full... in 1965! There, he lands in the secret HQ of BADGE, based on SHIELD, which is one of a scant handful of Marvel-inspired things in Big Bang in general, including the original Badge and his Rookies. Wait, wasn't the Badge an Earth-B character? Eh, whatever.

BADGE, the Bureau for Advanced Defense and Global Espionage, is headed by the original Badge's former sidekicks Bobby and Trooper; Trooper was crippled in an accident at some point and is strictly an administrator, but Bobby is his top field agent. Oh, and they're brother and sister, in case you were wondering. 

Dragon's just trying to make sense of where he is, but can't get a moment's peace because all the BADGE agents think he's some spy or monster after the Infinity Orb. He even knocks out Bobby when she comes after him. It doesn't get much better when the Badge himself shows up. And he's throwing his shield now, having essentially gone full Captain America because the Guardian wasn't relevant in 1965.

Dragon has no clue what the Infinity Orb is, (though you and I know it's basically the Cosmic Cube), but some creep shrouded in darkness uses the confusion to steal it for himself. The bad guy flees into the time stream, and Dragon gives chase, hoping to be pulled by the other guy's wake. See, he recognizes the voice as that of the mysterious dude who saved him from the half-and-half Earth A/B thing a minute ago, and wants answers. The Badge, grabbing his leg, comes with him out of concern for the Infinity Orb.

Things don't go so great; Dragon thinks it's because he didn't set a destination, but he winds up in a crazy place with the chronometer reading all zeros. And then the time bomb and remote just turn to dust. Also, the Badge was killed on arrival, and turns out to have been a robot the whole time.

That's when he meets the end of time's inhabitants: the Time Being (Lord of Time) and Oblivia (the End of Everything). I don't think they're especially direct counterparts to anyone -- the Time Being is kind of a Kang/Watcher I guess. The Kirbyesque art in this segment is, really authentic looking, by the way, and I kind of wish Kirby Dragon happened more often.

The Time Being is the guy who took the Infinity Orb; by his reasoning, its power was never meant for mortal hands, in which it would only bring destruction and misery. He also fixed the Earth A/B mix-up, as it was causing a disturbance in the time stream. In any case, the Time Being offers to send Dragon back to his own time via his Time Tunnel, and invites him to look around his palace while he gets that ready. Dragon soon discovers something seriously weird while looking for a bathroom, though -- the Infinity Orb sapping power from several unconscious (or even dead) Ultimen. And on that note, we're done for now, with Part 3 coming in Big Bang #18. In color, no less!

It all started with the Big Bang! Part 7 (Issue #6)

This is the last color issue of the Image run; almost everything Big Bang self-published after leaving Image is in color. I'm not too happy about that, since obviously colors are way better than no color in Silver Age Superhero fare. Of course, no colors just makes it look that much more like a Showcase collection or something.

Also of note: this is one of the only Big Bang comics to feature just one story. If anything I'm reminded of the Metal Men, as this is an "amazing three-part novel" or "novel-length adventure" that would easily be a huge three-month, 20-title crossover today.

So, okay, this is technically a reprint of a story from the original Caliber Comics run, but whatever. Cover art by Curt Swan, though. I don't see why Golden Age Ultiman doesn't merit a credit on the Knights of Justice side of the cover, or where the Silver Age Knight Watchman is, though.

The Silver Age Beacon first appeared in this story, but the Human Sub had his origin story in Big Bang Vol. 1 #2. Basically, he's Dr. Noah Talbot, an aged scientist who designed a robotic full-body prosthesis that he was forced to transfer his own mind into as he suffered a heart attack. The robot body is powered by "hydro-glycerin" and needs to be submerged in water at least once an hour. His sidekicks are his granddaughter Mora, alias the Moray, and Bubbles, an amphibious chimp with hydro-glycerin for blood.

I'm guessing Swan's pencils for the cover were finished before they decided to change him to the Atomic Sub. Or even before they did the first Human Sub story; the first page has Swan's original art, with a totally different looking Human Sub. Cyclone's also an all-new character, but there's not a lot to say (or know) about him until the Whiz Kids get their own stories.

And see, look, Golden Age Knight Watchman isn't even in this, jeez. 

The story kicks off with the Blitz running late to an appointment at Round Table of America HQ. Apparently he lives in the Southwestern US, because that's where he's coming from. HQ is at "Capitol City" on the East Coast. So he really kicks it into high gear to make it in time, but once he gets through the door of the Hall of Heroes, he sees something so shocking he alerts the rest of the RTA for help. But when help arrives, the Blitz isn't there -- at least, not their Blitz!

As you can no doubt imagine, a fight breaks out, and oddly enough the Atomic Sub seems the most eager to teach the 'phony' Blitz a lesson. Yeesh, take it easy, old timer. Incidentally, the Beacon's powers appear to be similar to her Golden Age counterpart's; that thing in her hand gives off light in different colors, each with its own effect. Kudos for creativity, I think most people would have just given their ersatz Lantern regular construct powers.

The Blitz runs rings around the RTA members, but Ultiman manages to clock him one and knock him out. Almost immediately, Dr. Weird, the Spectre analogue, pops in to say he knows where the "real" Blitz is. From the other heroes' reactions, it looks like they've never met Weird before. 

Naturally, the Silver Age Blitz is at the Hall of Heroes on another Earth, where he's getting manhandled by the Knights of Justice. 

That blast knocks the Blitz right out, as well it should, but as before, Dr. Weird appears before the Knights of Justice. I'm referring to both groups as though they're the full team, but come on, these are abbreviated versions of the KoJ and RTA. 

It turns out Dr. Weird is talking to both groups at the same time, with each group not even knowing the other figures into it (except the Blitzes, I guess). The Beacon says that Dr. Weird is telling the truth, according to his power crystal; I guess he's the truth-detector because he's the only one with any super-equipment akin to WW's lasso. 

Dr. Weird exposits that there are two Earths, which split off from each other in the early 20th century: Earth-A, where it's 1965, and Earth-B, where it's 20 years earlier. He also makes note of the two Blitzes, two Beacons, etc., without really explaining what causes that. So it turns out someone opened a portal that the Blitzes accidentally traveled through, and if it isn't closed soon, both worlds are doomed. Weird has it stabilized for the moment, but can't keep it up much longer, and tells of machines on each Earth that are widening the portal. Both Ultimen independently decide to go give Weird a hand.

Meanwhile, apparently the other members of both teams (and the displaced Blitzes) know where to go to find their machine. I'm gonna go for the No-Prize and say Weird gave them the information telepathically. The KoJ arrive in Paris, where a huge robot gorilla and a crazy looking machine are on top of the Eiffel Tower. The Blitz rushes at the robo-ape, but disappears after it swats him away. While Venus and Thunder Girl distract the robot, the Beacon uses his red force beam to amplify his strength so as to destroy the machine. He does this by simply punching it, causing it to explode. When the dust settles, only Thunder Girl is conscious, and the Beacon is missing.

The RTA head for the Statue of Liberty's torch, which houses their world's portal machine thing. The Beacon is the first to notice it, and I'm having flashbacks to #4, when the Golden Age Beacon fought guys on Liberty's torch.

The Blitz runs afoul of another robot gorilla, identical to the one seen a second ago, and disappears after is blasts him with a ray. The Beacon tosses it into the water with her yellow levitation beam, and the Atomic Sub swims toward it to finish the job. Suddenly, the Beacon vanishes into thin air herself!

It turns out that the Blitzes and Beacons were simply pulled away by Dr. Weird, who needs more power to keep the rift stable. That this happened in conjunction with their fighting the robo-apes appears to be a simple coincidence. The Beacons join hands with their respective Blitzes, and discover that giving their energy to Dr. Weird hurts like crap. The Beacons are forced to sap power from distant stars in order to provide enough for Weird to go on. 

Meanwhile, a mysterious cloaked figure supercharges the Earth A robo-ape, which revives, knocks out the Atomic Sub, and grabs the machine before the Knight Watchman can take care of it. The Knight Watchman decides to call in reinforcements in the form of the Whiz Kids, who find the mystery baddie's lair on Ellis Island easily enough, but run into trouble fighting the robo-ape... until Bubbles starts messing around

After this odd scene, the robo-ape comes to its senses and knocks Bubbles into Kid Galahad, who accidentally crashes into the machine, sending both of them... somewhere when it explodes. That "somewhere" was Earth B, where they're met by Venus and Thunder Girl. Thunder Girl sees Bubbles' costume and realizes who's behind all this, and resolves to go to Earth A via the still-intact device in order to stop them.

Meanwhile, on Earth A, the big bad guy is holding both worlds hostage with the device, which is really more of a bomb and seems to be okay after colliding with Kid Galahad and Bubbles. At some point the Knight Watchman and Atomic Sub showed up.

Suddenly, Thunder Girl bursts through a small explosion, having traveled via the device as mentioned previously. She grabs the villain, revealing him to be her archenemy Dr. Binana, the talking chimp. Binana says he created the portal to plunder both worlds, but is willing to settle for destroying them both! After Binana activates the bomb, which is of course on a timer, the Atomic Sub grabs it, flies over the sea with his jetpack, and tries to bury it as far underwater as he can. Shortly after he leaves, the Knight Watchman gets word from Kid Galahad that they've disarmed the bomb on their end. This eliminates the threat to both worlds, as without the second bomb this is just any old bomb.

However, the Atomic Sub couldn't get far enough away from the explosion in time, and died trying to save two worlds. Everyone is automatically returned to their home Earth... except for Thunder Girl, who remains on Earth A. Dr. Weird says this has to do with her power source and origin, as she's a mystical being of two souls and whatever. We end on a somber note, with funeral proceedings dedicated to the Atomic Sub -- even on Earth B, which he'd never set foot on.

It all started with the Big Bang! Part 5 (Issue #4)

Back with more Big Bang! This issue is gonna be a real treat for me, because this issue is based on an early JSA story that I happen to have actually read.

Just over half of those are familiar faces to readers of the Image series - Ultiman, Thunder Girl, and the Knight Watchman. The rest (and you can figure out who is who pretty easily) are Venus, the Blitz, and the Beacon, ersatz Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern respectively. 

Dr Stellar, obviously the Starman of the KoJ, wonders how the team came to be. The Knight Watchman lays the background by saying it all started when scientists from around the country were headed to the Great Minds Summit in Washington, D.C. The Blitz takes over from there, and it becomes clear that this issue's gimmick is just like the earliest JSA stories -- the heroes don't really work together, but they tell of adventures that are connected in some way. Naturally, each segment is handled by a different writer and artist. I wish they had a Hawkman guy, since Golden Age Hawkman had unusually detailed art for its time and I'd love to see something in that style.

Now, if I'm remembering correctly, the Flash section of the JSA story I'm thinking of involved fighting a shark, so one can only hope it's something half as cool as that. 

Anyway, the Blitz is secretly newsreel reporter Mack Snelling, who was on his way to cover the summit via the powerful train Super-Chief. A freak landslide nearly causes a horrible crash, but Snelling clears the way with time to spare as the Blitz, and soon discovers it was a Nazi assassination attempt on one of the train's passengers, engineer and auto magnate Hank Fort.

An interrogation reveals that this was part of a larger plot to sabotage the Great Minds Summit. The Blitz heads back to Super-Chief, no doubt reasoning that if there's more trouble at the conference he should be there (and that arriving before the train he was on previously would probably blow his identity).

The Beacon takes the story from there. He'd read about the Great Minds Summit in the paper back in NYC, when he was on a ferry to Ellis Island. Due to some trouble at the Statue of Liberty, they had to turn back, but naturally this looked like a job for the Beacon. It turns out there's some kind of DEATH RAY coming out of Lady Liberty's torch, blasting boats as they pass. The Beacon does rescue work to ensure that nobody dies, using the light from his miner's cap to escort people to life rafts and seal holes in hulls. 

Golden Age Green Lantern's powers were so nebulously defined as to be nearly limitless; I remember a story in Batman Black and White where he mentioned he quit the superhero game because he felt too powerful, and Gotham needed a hero, not a god. The Beacon is more like Space Ghost, in that his light fires different beams for different occasions -- a tractor beam, a heat ray, that sort of thing.

After turning the culprits in, the Beacon meets with the captain of the ship he saved, as well as a notable passenger, famous inventor Tom Ettleson. The Beacon escorts Ettleson's car to Washington to make sure he arrives safely, and that's when his part of the story ends and the Badge's begins.

This seems as good a time as any to mention that Rookies, Bobbie and Trooper, are nowhere to be seen -- implicitly this takes place before their first appearance. 

This is all introduced in a clumsy enough way that I'd have trouble describing it succinctly, so the gist: the Badge, staking out a local slum, meets a man who falls unconscious and is taken away in an ambulance by a rude German medic. Various clues reveal the man's identity as Dr. Reinstein, a famous scientist bound for the Great Minds Summit, and that he had been drugged. The Badge also guesses that the German medic is evidence of a Nazi plot. He commandeers a police bike, catches up to the ambulance, and jumps onto its roof, forcing the driver to crash.

Citizen's arrest? So he's not really cop? Well, I guess the Knight Watchman isn't a real knight, either. The Badge frees Reinstein from the ambulance, but one of the Nazis steals Reinstein's briefcase, which contains a top-secret formula. The Badge does something I didn't really expect him to for some reason -- he throws his shield, nailing the Nazi thief in the back. The Badge then accompanies Reinstein to the summit to guarantee his safety.

On to Thunder Girl, who, like the Blitz, was already on her way to the summit in her secret identity. In this case, it was with her friend Dr. Eureka and his colleague Dr. Igorski, in their latest invention -- an electric gyrocopter. They're accosted by a massive Nazi zeppelin, housing soldiers open fire on them. Molly turns into Thunder Girl, who covers the scientists' escape and takes care of the blimp with a simple hairpin.

See, that was simple. These are three page stories, that Badge one was so dense and overwritten (although that might have been intentional for all I know, that's kind of the point of Big Bang). Anyway, she naturally follows the copter to Washington.

The Knight Watchman's story begins as his wrist-mounted "Watch-Alert", which is evidently like the Bat-Signal crossed with Jimmy Olsen's signal watch, goes off just after he's finished his nightly patrol. Dr. Igor Eisner, a friend of the Knight Watchman's who appeared in a previous story, reports a break-in at his lab -- by Nazis, as you can no doubt imagine.

After reaching the scene in the Watchwagon, the Knight Watchman fights his way through Eisner's home to discover the scientist isn't there. It turns out he's being transported to Germany. Thinking quickly, the Knight Watchman rifles through Eisner's inventions to find a rocket pack he'd tested just a week ago

He soon finds them, rowing out to a U-Boat. Attacking the U-Boat with a grenade, the Knight Watchman scares its crew into submerging, leaving Eisner's captors literally high and dry. Eisner is rescued, and naturally the Knight Watchman accompanies him to the summit in case there's any more trouble.

Venus takes over. It turns out she's literally the goddess Venus. So, she was in Philadelphia (which might be her normal stomping grounds), escorting the French chemist Madame Furie to the summit. Furie looks little like the real Marie Curie, who was kind of emaciated; instead she looks like Wonder Woman's Golden Age pseudo-sidekick Etta Candy.

Venus and Furie are visiting the Liberty Bell at the moment, where they're surprised by a Nazi spy known as the Temptress. Via a weirdo gun, the Temptress gets the Liberty Bell to ring, a sound so cacophonous it knock Venus and Furie right out. When Venus comes to, she sees Furie being taken away by the Temptress (and she was also chained to the bell and stuff, but frees herself pretty easily). Incapable of catching the Temptress' car, she instead summons Pegasus.

It's pretty lucky that Furie wasn't injured in the crash, huh? That's the second time our heroes have endangered an innocent by deliberately provoking a car crash. Venus and Furie head to the summit atop Pegasus afterwards. Dr. Stellar, clearly regretting that he ever asked, tries to be like "Oh wow so it was the Great Minds Summit, that's great, see you later", but Venus passes the story on to Ultiman.

I was kind of bored of the formula, so it's good to see Ultiman changing it up -- he was already in Washington at the President's request, to serve as bodyguard to Winston Churchill. Churchill takes the time to see the Washington monument shortly before the summit is to begin. However, once he's inside, a steel door slides shut! Ultiman tears through it easily, but then the Washington Monument shoots out of the ground, because it's been turned into a rocket!

Ultiman finds the culprit, who is remote-controlling the rocket and plans to crash it into the White House to demoralize the Allied Forces. Naturally, Ultiman easily overcomes him and smashes his equipment, but this leaves the rocket unguided and it starts flying into space. Ultiman manages to save Churchill by grounding the monument in a really silly way.

Okay, so the conference is finally set to begin. All's well, right? As if. Nah; at the Smithsonian, the evil Henry Hyde reveals himself as the mastermind behind the whole thing. Born in the UK, Hyde was a brilliant scientist whose work was ignored due to his physical deformities. He moved to the USA, and was crushed when he wasn't invited to the Great Minds Summit. He swore he'd sabotage it and force the Allies to recognize his genius once and for all. And he still thinks he can, using his Anti-Matter Raygun to give life to the Smithsonian's exhibits!

Though "pandemonium results", Hyde's anger causes him to overload the gun, which blows up in his face, killing him. With the gun destroyed everything reverts to normal. One of the attending scientists realizes there's been some mistake -- he was mailed Hyde's invitation as well as his own, meaning Hyde did all this for nothing.

Despite this tragic development, the heroes are lauded by those in attendance, including Churchill, who compares them to the knights of his country's past. The seven of them band together as a force for good -- the Knights of Justice!

It all started with the Big Bang, part 4 (Issue #3)

Back with more Big Bang; last issue was squarely 50s (the Knight Watchman story) and 40s (the Badge story), but we're moving into more solidly Silver Age material now with a classic "Superdickery" style cover.

Again, can't help but notice how much more purple the body of the Knight Watchman's costume is on these covers, I imagine that's very deliberate. Also, take note of the yellow outline around the shield emblem, which mirrors the yellow oval Batman symbol.

Table of contents includes a dedication to the then-recently deceased Curt Swan, incidentally; all too appropriate, given that this story is specifically inspired by the material of Swan's tenure drawing everything Superman. Also, there's no Dr. Weird text story this time, so the headlining Ultiman story is a little longer than the ones we've seen up to now.

This is the first real Ultiman story, even taking the original Caliber run into account; it's here that you learn all about his background and stuff like that.

For instance, Chris King was an astronaut who gained his powers when his space capsule was hit by a radioactive meteor. Coincidentally, this resembles the backstory of the original Ultraman somewhat, as he was a human astronaut who gained powers from anti-kryptonite. Anyway, Ultiman has worked for the government ever since. And while his identity as Chris Kelly is known to the public and his co-workers, he has another...

I have to hand it to writer Gary Carlson; most "Superman"-types are mild-mannered glasses-sporting guys who work some print job; the Samaritan is a fact-checker, the Sentry wrote encyclopedias, and Supreme is a comic book artist, for instance. And, however obvious this charade would probably seem in real life, I think it's sort of cute that "Carl" being Chris' identical twin explains away the resemblance.

Chris, as Ultiman, emerges from his office, and is informed by Gen. Black that a giant robot is robbing the Empire City bank. Ultiman surmises this is the work of his arch-enemy Dexter Cortex, who is essentially Lex Luthor and Brainiac combined into one. Meanwhile, Lori is upset that Ultiman is always ignoring her -- why can't he be the Kelly brother always asking her out?

Cutting to the bank, we see that "giant robot" is a pretty generous description of Cortex's machine; it's basically a tank with arms that end in simple pincer hands. It's also green and purple, no doubt in reference to Lex Luthor's color scheme of choice. Cortex is a bald, bespectacled, scientist who, as a caption informs us, went insane after hooking his mind up to a computer. This probably has something to do with the antennae coming out of his head.

I'm also seeing a bit of Sivana in Cortex, but I don't know if that's intentional. Sorry, this is going to be a longer one, since as I said this introduces you to everything you need to know about Ultiman. Cortex blasts him with a strange ray gun, but it seems to have no effect besides turning the wall behind Ultiman into a mirror-like surface. When Ultiman grabs him, Cortex explodes, having been a robotic double all along. Ultiman hints that he may have never actually met or seen the real Cortex. Ultiman leaves, thinking Cortex's "mirror gun" was harmless enough, though he does take it to his Secret Citadel for study. However, as he leaves, the bystanders looking at the mirrored wall disperse to reveal that Ultiman's reflection remains.

Naturally, what follows is a "Superman III" style "Evil Superman" plotline, although it's one that had been done many times in comics prior to that movie. There's several different versions of "Evil Superman", not even counting Bizarro.

This guy is kind of like Bizarro, though, except he's evil and looks just like Ultiman. Chris, as Carl, hears about this evil Ulitiman from a newspaper story, and knows the only way to clear his name is to venture out as Ultiman to get to the bottom of this. His first stop is his Secret Citadel, located in an active volcano and accessed via giant combination lock. There, he finds all of the evil Ultiman's stolen loot, as well as a busted up Ultiman robot

I feel like Ultiman is missing some key data, namely that he totally didn't do any of this stuff. I don't know about you, but I would suspect an impostor at this point. The Knight Watchman heads to the Citadel himself looking for answers, using the Flying Shield's laser to enter the door's combination, and in a classic "cover straight up lies to you" twist, he discovers Ultiman about to kill himself with the atomic chair. The Knight Watchman unplugs it before he has the chance, and vows to prove that his friend is innocent.

Just then, the other Ultiman, "Reverso", arrives at the Citadel to store more loot. Again, he looks identical to Ultiman, but it turns out he's "backwards" -- he's left handed, his fingerprints are backwards, and he even talks backwards.

Their fight eventually takes them to the original mirror wall. Reverso tries to smash the mirror, but Ultiman realizes this must be the key to stopping him. The Knight Watchman, lying in wait, shouts for Ultiman to duck as he fires the mirror gun. Naturally, Ultiman ducks, but Reverso doesn't, and he's sent back into the mirror, which Ultiman smashes before anything else has a chance to come out of it. Later, Lori receives flowers from Ultiman and jokes that if everyone had an opposite number, Carl's would be a real saint. "Carl" winks at the reader and the story comes to a close.

Time to move on with the Thunder Girl story

That's right, two consecutive "evil double" stories in this one. And I just want to say, I find Binana way too comical considering the fact that I'm older than 7. I also can't get enough of that "big green cheesecake" thing; naturally, it's something he calls Thunder Girl all the time. As it happens, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by explaining what all this stuff represents vs. Captain Marvel, since any braindead moron knows.

So the story opens with Binana behind bars -- at the zoo, naturally. They can imprison his body but they can't inhibit his intellect, so he's still a genius inventor and can still talk. He effects an escape by using a "brain extender' he created to control a nearby gorilla, forcing it to pry open the bars to its cage, and thereafter his. In his underground lair, Binana's mind starts working towards creating an enemy Thunder Girl can't possibly defeat.

Weeks later, high school student Molly Wilson witnesses notorious bank robbers Penny and Claude escaping from the scene of their latest heist. Naturally, she's Thunder Girl, and turns into her. 

A couple items of interest (in my opinion): one, the transformation is triggered by a magic word and a physical action, essentially a combination of Captain Marvel and Mar-Vell's transformation triggers. Two, I don't know that Thunder Girl is all that different looking from Molly, which is unusual for your Captain Marvel takeoffs. 

So when Thunder Girl catches up with them, they go through the old "shoot the invulnerable hero" bit and TG  effortlessly nabs Claude... only for Penny to seemingly conjure up strong winds and turn into th villainous Tornado Girl, seen two pics ago. A way too long flashback explains how Binana gave her the ability to turn into, uh, evil Thunder Girl. When the two come to blows, Thunder Girl goes down early and is brought to Binana's lab for, you know, research. Before she can be strapped to an operating table, however, she reveals she had been playing possum all along, and she quickly incapacitates Binana and Penny with a power that Captain Marvel doesn't have -- the ability to generate electricity from her body. Claude gives up, and soon Thunder Girl is hauling them to wherever they belong.