It all started with the Big Bang! Part 9 (Issue #12)

Skipping more issues BECAUSE I CAN. Also, I kind of wanted to get to this, the start of a Savage Dragon crossover, right away. I'm no massive fan of Dragon, I've read little of his comic, but I watched the cartoon as a kid, I enjoy what I've read of it, and I think I understand Dragon's character more or less.

Similar to the Knights of Justice origin issue, this one comes with a pre-packaged gimmick, and as such it's a really goddamn amazing comic. Basically, Dragon warps back and forth between various eras, and his encounters in those eras are based on the comics that were around at the time. Each story has its own art style, too.

The story gets underway with a secret meeting of the Society of Evil Minds, the equivalent of the Monster Society of Evil. Its members include Hy Q. Binana, Cortex, the Wicked Worm (who survived his bisection in BB #1 and is now, uh, two worms), and two new guys: Baron Brain and Dr. Nirvana, Mighty Man's archenemy. The art here is really emphasizing the Sivana angle for not just Binana and Nirvana, but also Cortex

So this is taking place on Earth A, with Binana still able to travel between the worlds at his leisure. Although I guess this takes place before the Criss-Cross Crisis storyline. Of course, I have to wonder why he would bother at all if their plan couldn't affect Thunder Girl. Anyway, the Wicked Worms ask if this is about some stock market scam, and while cursing himself for missing that obvious idea, Binana says he's after more than money -- he wants to take the strongest, nastiest creatures from the future and use them to crush their heroic foils. And for starters, Officer Dragon looks like just the type. Looks like, of course.

To that end, Knight Watchman baddie Grandfather Clock has devised, uh, something like a time machine, sort of. See, this is why they need a big monster for the mission; the only thing Grandfather Clock could find that could produce the energy to break the time barrier was a uranium bomb, albeit one that can explode again and again. With the remote control, the Society of Evil Minds can send him to any time they like. 

As it turns out, Dragon is fighting Mighty Man because MM is possessed by the Wicked Worm (who is actually thousands of worms at  this point), and the Wicked Worm deliberately lured Dragon to a certain location to get him to jump on the time bomb.

Yeesh, is Dragon hairy. You know he's not a reptile? Erik Larsen told me on twitter so you know it's true. anyway, 1963 Mighty Man shows up to blow the SoEM's good time, and Dragon drops a bomb on them when they order him to do their dirty work: Mighty Man is a good friend of his, he's a police officer, and they're all under arrest. These guys are so racist, just because he's green he's the bad guy. He also explains why he was fighting Mighty Man in the future, because of course that came up.

In a panic, Binana splits for Earth B, while Grandfather Clock hits the remote to send Dragon back to his own time. The remote is broken in the explosion, meaning his time jumps are random from here on. Oh, man, this is the best Quantum Leap/Savage Dragon crossover since that fanfic I wrote.

Dragon arrives, seemingly, just a few years later, where the time bomb explosion chips away part of the "Coolidge Dam", a possible disaster that is naturally responded to by the Round Table of America.

Some items of note: Hummingbird, Mr. Martian, and Mike Merlin all put in their first appearances in this story. Hummingbird is sort of Hawkman and kind of the Atom; Mike Merlin is Snapper Carr with a bit of Zatanna (and after a magic sex change, full Zatanna as Ms. Merlin); and Mr. Martian is, duh, the Martian Manhunter. Anyway, the RTA fixes the dam up like new, and I discover that I hate Mike Merlin. Seriously, Snapper Carr is awesome, this guy is insufferable, even with amazing magic powers.

Dragon is saved by the Atomic Sub, and attacks Mr. Martian as soon as he comes to. The RTA has Mr. Martian's back, but Dragon mentions a Martian invasion in 1996, which I guess is a reference to the movie Mars Attacks! and the comics Image published that tied into it. It turns out htis is '65, so shortly before the Atomic Sub's death, by the way. Dragon tells his story, and the Knight Watchman picks up on Grandfather Clock's involvement immediately, but the bomb goes off seconds later.

Dragon lands in a Golden Age Dr. Weird story, where his explosion causes a house fire. Weird saves the people trapped inside, and goes to fight Dragon, but ends up hearing the guy out.

Dragon explains his predicament, and Weird can mystically tell he's being for real. Luckily, time travel is something he's familiar with; he was a scientist from the future who came back to the past and was killed, and whose spirit can't move on because he hasn't been born yet and thus shouldn't exist. Weird tries to set the time bomb to send Dragon to talk to his mentor, but when it blows, he ends up a little too far in the future.

Dragon pops in just as tryouts start, but Pantheon founders Jupiter Boy, Gravity Girl, and Clone Boy think he's one of the hopefuls and don't realize he needs help. Clone Boy's initially kind of interested in the explosive powers of this "Bomb Boy", but they don't allow people without inborn powers, and he's way too old anyway. 

Next it's 1962, at Midway City's football stadium, where the Midway Monsters are playing the Empire City Titans for the championship. Among the spectators: Reid and Jerry Randall, the Knight Watchman and Kid Galahad. A game winning field goal is shot out of the air by Grandfather Clock, who runs off with the championship trophy and prize money.

The Knight Watchman and Kid Galahad foil him, blah blah, and Dragon bursts into the picture. He yells at Grandfather Clock, who has no idea who he is or what he's talking about since this is before the Society of Evil Minds meeting. The 'misunderstanding' worsens until it's boom-boom time once more.

Yeah, it's the future. Er, the old future, at least; sometime in the 80s. An Ultiman robot brings Dragon to meet an aged, retired, powerless Chris Kelly. The robots do all the work these days, dispatched by Chris from his Command Center to deal with crises. Oh, and he's married and has a kid, and his wife is totally not Lori Lake. Is that why he moved out of the Secret Citadel, because his family couldn't live in a volcano? I just hope he still has his trophies. Anyway, Dragon asks if he can help him out, but Chris says he already has; Dragon made a jump to the 70s and there was some business with Venus that ended with the RTA getting him back to his own time. And, you know, kaboom, he's gone.

Now he's in a Brave and the Bold story. Or, uh, "Free and the Brave"; obviously the 70s, but not quite when the RTA has figured out how to help him. And this story is obviously to be continued in a later issue, as we're running out of pages pretty quick. You know, I once had a conversation on deviantArt with artist Shawn van Briesen about his work on this story, and in particular the Aparo aping.

The Knight Watchman and Dr. Weird are going to break into Grandfather Clock's place to find a remote for the time bomb. When they get there they find nothing... except for two Grandfather Clocks! He's since perfected the time bomb travel thing, you see, and even has the remotes. Both are immobilized by shock and considering how old and fat they are, probably also having heart attacks.

Weird uses one of the remotes to send the traveling Clock back whenever he came from, and tries to do the same to Dragon, who realizes this can't be the end because he hasn't met Venus yet. Throughout this whole story, Dragon's been a real cut-up, commenting sardonically about everything that happens as if he's resigned to the fate of Sam Beckett-but-not-really. This one ends with a classic: "THE END? Only time will tell!"

It all started with the Big Bang, #1 pt. 1!

Big Bang Comics is one of those things that I like a lot, but can't begin to explain or understand just why. Basically, they're straight pastiches of Silver- and Golden-Age DC comics, with a handful of Marvel influences vaguely scattered in there. I remember Alan Moore, whose Supreme run had a lot of similar themes to this, saying this was one of the few comics he eagerly looked forward to every month, though.

Big Bang Comics was first published by Caliber Press, in a six-issue limited series that was meant to be a larger take on the various "ages" of comics -- gradually, the stories went from Golden Age to Silver Age to Bronze Age to "Dark Age." When the Big Bang ongoing turned up at Image, this was no longer the case, with the focus being solely on aping Golden and Silver age material. After issue #6, the comic was in black-and-white; evidently it wasn't selling enough for colors (!). During and after the ongoing were several one-shots featuring teams from the setting, particularly the Round Table of America. When Big Bang left Image, they started self-publishing Big Bang Presents In any case, I liked it, though VERY few of the names you'll see under the writing and art credits are going to be very familiar, I can promise you that.

The Image series made sporadic use of Image characters; in this issue, Mighty Man shows up in a Captain Marvel-esque story, despite the role of Captain Marvel being ably filled by Thunder Girl, In a later issue, a fake Silver Age Shadowhawk, along with his sidekick Squirrel, teams up with the Knight Watchman and Kid Galahad; Batman and Robin teaming up with Batman and Robin, basically. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose comic license Image had at the time, guest star in one issue, with a grown-up Kid Galahad appearing in their book as well. Savage Dragon was involved in the only plot thread that continued from issue to issue, as he traveled through time in the Big Bang universe and met up with almost every BB hero.

I'm doing the Image issues first, because at least those start with colors. Not to sound like a complete moron (too late), but black-and-white isn't my thing if I could have colors.

Anyway, Big Bang's big trademark, so to speak, was how slavish the imitation of SA/GA comics is and was.  I don't doubt that somebody out there read a Knight Watchman story and thought it was a Miracleman-style reprint of Batman. And, as you'll see, a layer of metafiction -- Knight Watchman stories are attributed to "Tom King", a fictionalized version of Tom Kane. This is taken to extremes in the three "History of Big Bang Comics" issues, which are text-based and document the fake history of the fake company and its fake characters.

Okay, before I turn this into an even more didactic lecture, let's just get underway. I'm going to try not to be too exhaustive/summarizing, but we'll see.

After an introduction by Terrence Griep, Jr., we open with Mighty Man as he watches clothed funny animals robbing a bank. The lion in the suit is obviously based on Captain Marvel's old pal Mr. Tawky Tawny. As with a lot of stories from the period this is imitating, this is sort of a "clip" edited together from beats that occur later in the story -- our first stop chronologically is at a radio station, where the young Bobby Berman ends his program and is handed a check by his employer Phil. T Luker (oh do you see what they did there ahaha). Let me just say, kind of disturbed by the blond, blue-clad Billy Batson that is Bobby, my mind is going right to Miracleman, which is pretty much the opposite of this comic.

Anyway, Billy goes to the bank to deposit his check, only to find  that the long-haired gentleman in line in front of him is a talking lion, who holds the place up! Billy taps his wrists together, transforming into Mighty Man in a thunderous explosion. I'm not a huge massive fan of Savage Dragon (though I AM a fan), but is that always how that worked, was there always a dual Captain Marvel reference? Because, you know, Mar-Vell would tap his nega-bands together to switch places with Rick Jones. Incidentally, I can't help but notice that the bank teller saw Bobby turn into Mighty Man (or at least, saw Bobby disappear in an explosion that Mighty Man came out of). Probably one of those "not supposed to think about it" things, I guess.

Mighty Man catches up to the lion and gives him a powerful punch. Afterwards, however, the creature starts acting, you know, like a lion, walking on all fours and trying to get out of the clothes it's wearing. Upon closer inspection, Mighty Man finds a radio receiver around the lion's neck. He decides to head to the zoo to get the whole story.

And, uh, the trip to the zoo isn't shown to us. In fact, it's implied that he ended up going twice, once as Mighty Man and then as Bobby, to ask employees questions and snoop around for clues, fruitlessly. Well, thanks for not showing us the pointless dead end lead, I guess.

In any case, a dejected Bobby bumps into a man while walking down the street. Turns out it's another thief, who stole a priceless painting. Turning into Mighty Man to give chase, he discovers the thief is another animal in clothes, this time a kangaroo. Oddly, the creature seems to recognize him.

As before, one punch renders the animal speechless, and returns it to its natural state. However, Mighty Man sees it also has a radio around its neck. Obviously, these thefts are connected -- though, if you think about it, it would have been a lot more bizarre if they weren't. Mighty Man flies the kangaroo to a veterinarian, who says that the kangaroo's larynx is normal; it couldn't possibly talk!

As Mighty Man flies back into town, he hears a cry for help, and bitterly notes that he may NEVER get to deposit that check. Such a selfish kid. A jewelry store is being robbed by a "big ape", who naturally really is a big ape, the gorilla from the first panel. Once again, the talking animal recognizes Mighty Man, who naturally doesn't understand what that's even about. The gorilla lays it on him, throwing punches and hitting him with furniture, but it's as if he were hitting Mighty Man with feathers!

After one blow from Mighty Man, the gorilla is a regular gorilla again. Mighty Man finally figured it out -- someone is controlling these creatures and doing the talking for them! It turns out to be a tiny "brain sucking leech" on the gorilla's neck

I was kind of curious about how you could alter Mr. Mind's character design, and the answer isn't JUST different eyes, no glasses, and big lips -- obviously making it a psuedo Nazi worm leech whatever was the way to go, replete with pauldrons (for no shoulders) and a gun he couldn't possibly use.

The Wicked Worm escapes Mighty Man's grasp by biting one of his fingers, and hides in a fruit bowl. Mighty Man starts juggling the fruit to scare him out, but the gorilla grabs the exact banana the worm was hiding in and bites him in two as he eats it.

With that, the adventure closes. Mighty Man brings his ape pal back to the zoo, and muses that now they'll never know what the hell was up with that worm. We'll see about that...

Tune in next time, when I check out the second half of Big Bang Comics #1, starring the Knight Watchman! I know Dr. Weird was also on the cover, but his feature's just a text story so whatever man.