Super Toiletries

These fine additions to anybody’s grooming collection are from Avon.  The Interweb says that the Superman hairbrush is from 1976.

          We have the brush, but no packaging.  From elsewhere, here are photos of the box it came in:

           From a different thrift store and a different time, we have an Avon Wonder Woman hand mirror.

         It’s from 1978, and the mirror was missing when I found the thing.

          There are good and bad points in regards to grooming with the Superheroes.:

Pros:  When brushing your hair, you can sneak a peek at Superman’s buns.

Cons: While gazing into the mirror, reflect that you can never be as beautiful as Wonder Woman.

          And on the third hand, you may see some Wonder Woman scissors, also from 1978.

          While perusing this blog may or may not give you “hours of fun and educational for children and grown-ups too” (read the scissors’ card), I hope to provide you with a few moments’ bemusement.

See you next Monday!
  

Lipton Family Size Iced Tea Bags … Featuring The Beatles!

I admit it. my brain is wired weird.  It makes strange connections.  Here is one of the latest ones …

When I make a batch of tea in the microwave, I use two “family size” tea bags and two quarts of water in a Corning Ware pitcher.

Each bag is in its own little sleeve.  The back side of the sleeve looks like this:

Now, something funny happens in my brain every time I make tea, when I set the sleeves on the counter after removing the tea bags.  I glance at the tea bag sleeve …

 … and see The Beatles!

specifically, I see this:

  

… and I think of this:

This probably says something unsettling about my psychology, doesn’t it, Doctor?  Is this related to the fact that every time I see a wet mop, I think of Cthulhu’s face?

   

More oddball ramblings next Monday, campers!

 

See You Monday, April 4th for April Foolishness 2016!

Action #305: The End

After all the battle's won, when the hurley-burley's done, we have the ads that fill up the rest of this issue.

The Space Game on the top appealed to the upper crust, both forward-thinking (outer space) and solvent ($1.98).  That was the entire "Game."  The "toys only" cost $1.50.  And just when I thought that the entire package would consist of cheaply printed cardboard, in the fine print of the ad we are assured that "All the 3-D toys above are made of unbreakable plastic."

Ah, the unordered merchandise of youth!

Likewise, the lower ad featured a bunch of stuff you could order as a "war game" or just the toys.  And wouldn't you imagine that both "Helen of Toy" and "Five Star Toys" were probably the same storefront?

Now the Army Men were the real deal!  I still have one creeping guy, bought from the downtown Kresge's as part of a big haul.  Regarding this bunch, I would suppose that the "footlocker" was probably pressed pasteboard.  Anybody know for sure?

And the knights' "Treasure Chest Case"  -- who knows?  It looks like Olde Oake, but that's the wonder of "depictions."

Inside the rear cover we have the omnipresent "mine-your-acquaintances" ad for either greeting cards or seeds.

The outside rear cover features a glorious depiction of a Revolutionary War set.  Remember when the bad guys were trying to make us pay a tax on tea?  We weren't revolting against bankers or anti-pot laws.

Should we lament the passing of the simple conflicts of the Silver Age?  Thanks to the storytelling customs of those days, a bad guy was often easy to spot as he kidnapped a child or robbed a bank or threatened to steal a da Vinci.

Nowadays the good guys are tainted; the bad guys have "justifications."  However ...

In your daily life, friends, you often have the chance to help somebody.  And if you look for those chances, you can probably distinguish them without too much difficulty.  Let somebody onto the on-ramp?  You can do that.  Pick up a stranger's dropped book?  Go ahead!

Wasn't that easy? 

Thanks for joining me on this page-by-page journey through Action Comics  #305, the issue cover-dated October, 1963.

See you again on April 4th for the beginning of April Foolishness, 2016!

 

Action #305: Karen Apologizes for Hating Supergirl

Now , through a flashback-via-chronoscope, the resentful Karen Blair has seen for herself that the catastrophe which put her brother in a wheelchair and ended her father's life WAS NOT caused by the coincidental arrival of Supergirl's rocket to Earth.

The thing that zapped Dr Blair's observatory was an

Alien Space Bat.

If Dr Blair hadn't been a'shootin' those cosmic rays out inta space to talk to some other aliens, his equipment's space buzzin' wouldn't have disturbed that critter.

Soon all is forgiven ... the same Super-Memory that Karen didn't trust to remember Supergirl's rocket arrival now is good enough to get Dr Blair's gizmo "registered."  "Famous" surgeons are working to fix Bill Blair's legs; and Karen Blair now has a new ideal.

This filler page contains a fun Super-Turtle strip.  Note that Super-Turtle's first instinct isn't to just rescue the guy from the desert.  No, instead he's got to build a long pipeline to bring some water!


And the house ads for new-and-upcoming books includes one comic dear to my memory.  The middle issue being promoed is Superboy #108, on which I reminisced briefly in May 2008.  That comic was the only one to which I wrote a fan letter -- at the age of seven!  I only know about it because my Mom didn't mail it!  Once again, READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE.

See you on Friday for the wrap-up of out page-by-page tour through this fine Silver Age comic.

 

Action #305 : Supergirl Didn't Do It!

After missing last Friday (sorry), we continue with the tale from October, 1963's Action Comics.  We've learned the reason why "The Girl That Hated Supergirl!" does so -- she blames the arrival of Supergirl's rocket from the dying Argo City for the destruction of her father's observatory.  The conflagration killed her father and left her brother paralyzed.

Supergirl has been recounting her origin in Argo City and how at its destruction, she was sent Earthwards to join her grown-up cousin Superman.

Contra the CBS TV show and other more recent retellings, the Silver Age Supergirl arrived on Earth to be a junior partner for her cousin, the long-successful Superman.  While she learned Earth customs and mastered her powers, she remained in a Secret Identity as Linda Lee at the Midvale orphanage, and was later adopted by Fred and Edna Danvers.

Now, Supergirl is narrating to a resentful Karen Blair how her trip to Earth ended.  The last thing we saw was the take-off from Argo City.

As we can see, Supergirl's rocket came to Earth in a nice- controlled descent.  It was under positive control the whole way!

(Never mind that in Action #252, her actual arrival was depicted with a little more ... um. force!  It's still purple, but the landing is a little .. less .. directed.)

But no matter how Supergirl tells the tale, Karen refuses to believe her.  As a final irrefutable resort the Maid of Might takes Karen to Superman's Fortress of Solitude,  which as we know has a handy-dandy Time Viewer.

We establish the scene of May 18, 1959, with the last seconds before the disaster.  The black shape appears -- the beam of light -- destroying the lab -- dooming her father -- maiming her brother -- it wasn't Supergirl's rocket at all!

It was an Alien Space Bat.

(Note three separate links in this phrase, folks!)

Thereby we learn that Supergirl DID NOT perpetrate this evil.  This catharsis leads the way to a possible reconciliation, as we we'll see on Wednesday.

Its cartoonish aspects aside, we must admit that artist Jim Mooney does indeed do a fine job conveying the emotions of the characters in this tale, from Karen's anger and Supergirl's puzzlement in earlier pages, to Karen's surprise in the central panel here, and supergirl's commiseration in the last panel seen.

See you Wednesday.

Action #305: Karen Blair's Family Tragedy, Blamed on Supergirl!

As we've learned in this tale from October 1963, Karen Blair hates Supergirl.  Now we learn why, in this flashback.  A few years ago, Karen's astronomer father was giving her brother a tour of the observatory, from which he had recently communicated with space aliens, when a shadow passed by in space that fired some sort of energy beam at the building.  Our story continues ...

As you can see in the third panel, DC hereby established a hard date:  Supergirl's rocket arrived on Earth precisely on May 18, 1959.

Arguing from the typical logical fallacy Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Karen therefore blames Supergirl's rocket for the fire.  In response, Supergirl narrates for her, and us the readers, the story of her origins.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, that never to himself has said, "I know Supergirl's origin story"?  If so, here's a refresher!

Isn't it handy that the domed Argo City was well-equipped with those handy-dandy Air and Food Machines?

 However, the ground (not anything else, I guess) became deadly Kryptonite due to the explosion.  So wasn't it also handy that Zor-El (brother of Superman's dad Jor-El) happened to have enough rolled-up lead sheet -- just kicking around in his lab -- to cover THE ENTIRE CITY!?@?

Then, after Kara has grown to young womanhood, meteors smash through the sheeting, exposing the inhabitants of Argo City once more to the deadly kryptonite rays.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that no mention is made of the fact that, before puncturing the lead ground covering, these meteors PUNCHED HOLES IN THE DOME?  Well, a later tale sort of addresses this question.  More on this, possibly, anon.

As you can see in this flashback, Supergirl's parents sent her to Earth after discovering that her cousin Superman was there serving as Earth's champion.  We're supposed to believe that this advanced race, home to food machines and air machines and super-telescopes, a people with enough resources to pave a city in lead sheeting -- these guys could only come up with a puny rocket able to carry ONE FREAKIN' PASSENGER to safety?  Ah, the Silver Age!

And as Argo City sinks slowly into the west, we leave this flashback in midflash, to be continued on Friday.  Supergirl's rocket is on its way to Earth, and next she will try to explain to Karen Blair that it couldn't possibly have caused that deadly fire.  After all, Supergirl is one of the GOOD GUYS.

 

Action #305: Karen Blair Tells Her Story of Super-Resentment

Linda Lee (Supergirl) Danvers can't figure out why fellow Midvale teen hates the Girl of Steel so much.  Instead of leaving this state of affairs alone -- depriving us of a story -- she pursues Karen in a ttempt to ghet to the bottom of things.

Unfortunately, Karen almost gets to the bottom of a car crash, but for a puff of super-breath.  Then she lays the whammy on Supergirl, blaming the Kryptonian Kutie for the death of her father and her brother's future life in a wheelchair.

Let the flashbacks begin!

Our remembered tale begins as Dr. Blair is showing Karen's brother Phil around the old place, describing his latest project.  Turns out that Daddy Blair was trying to communicate with space critters.  Does he use light flashes, a kind of space Morse code?  Does he use radio pulses to try and impart universal mathematical concepts that will be recognized by minds across the universe?

No ... he tries a light show.  He turns his observatory into the equivalent of a planetarium laser light show.

There are several unforeseen downsides to this idea. 

1.   The aliens might not have color vision
2.   With distance, there is a pronounced color shift, so the message won't stay "true"
3.   In 1963, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon is still a decade away from release!

But miraculously, the aliens of Daxnar III not only receive and decode Blair's message of friendship -- they reply!

But, heck darn it!  Just as Dr. Blair was fixing to reply to the Daxnarians, a strange winged shape flew across the night sky just above the observatory.  Worse, it seemed to have zapped some kind of energy beam into the lab, setting it ablaze!

Soon Supergirl will share her own flashback.  See you on Wednesday!

Action #305: What Part of "I Hate Supergirl" Don't They Understand?

Linda Lee Danvers spotted a local girl going over the falls in her canoe, and rescued her.  But instead of saying "Thanks," Karen Blair says she'd rather die than be helped by Supergirl.

Why?  Obviously, Karen lashed out from a feeling of inferiority, "some sort of girlish jealousy," Supergirl figures.

Coincidentally, this is Supergirl Week in Midvale, celebrating the anniversary of her arrival on Earth.  Linda and her adoptive mom, Edna Danvers, find that downtown is so crowded, they can't get a good parking space. 

(By the way, Mrs Danvers's car, as depicted, is a small-to-midsize car, for the times.)

However, let's be honest -- doesn't Linda's trick cause as many problems as it solves?  I mean, how're they going to get the car OUT of this space without MORE super-shenanigans?  And what about the traffic cameras?  Won't they catch this little lagniappe? 

Oh, yeah -- this is 1963.  No cameras.

Anyway, in the local grocery store, they're giving away Supergirl statuettes with every $5 purchase.  Back then, folks, you got A WHOLE SACK OF GROCERIES for five dollars.

The part about "all profits go to the orphanage" seems wonky.  They're giving away something extra.  How does this generate a profit?

In the bottom panel, we see more evidence that the creators of the comics were of a previous generation than the readers.  "She's my ideal!" the little girl squeals about her statuette.

This is a reference to a song from Maurice Chevalier's 1930 movie Playboy of Paris. "She's My Ideal" remained in the popular songbook, played in the 1940s by Glenn Miller and recorded in 1955 by Bing Crosby. 


In the final panel of the page, we see racial tension rear its ugly head, in Karen's ethnic slur about giants from Poland.

Poor Supergirl!  Like me, she can't understand why everybody doesn't love her!  What's not to love?

Not Supergirl's honesty, to be sure.  In a bit of ballot-rigging, Supergirl cheats and draws Karen's name from a big basket of entries for a super-flight tour of the area.  How many children or adults had their hearts crushed when Supergirl ignored each of them?

You'll note that Karen hates the Maid of Might, yet she still showed up at this ceremony.  And she's so upset when her name is called that she dashes for the PASSENGER SIDE of her car.  Does she think she can get away faster by opening the wrong door and sliding across the seat?

Tune in Monday and you won't find out!  But you WILL get the next couple of pages in this Silver Age saga of angst, tragedy, and -- perhaps -- reconciliation.

 

Action #305: The Girl Who Hated Supergirl!

'The Girl Who Hated Supergirl!" appeared as the second story in October, 1963's Action Comics.  The script was by Leo Dorfman.  This tale established a canonical date for Supergirl's arrival on Earth: May 18.

This story's splash panel demonstrates the kind of chronal vacuum present in many comics stories.  Supergirl/Linda Danvers's hometown, Midvale,  is a typical small town, in which "everyone else" is Supergirl's friend.  So, shouldn't these two people (three if you count Secret Identities) have crossed paths before?

The story begins with a pastoral scene in which Linda (Supergirl)  Dancers and her boyfriend Dick Malverne are riding through the sward (like Dennis Moore), when Super-vision sees a girl in a canoe about to take a tumble.

A little augmented equestrian jump over a hedge, and Linda Lee Danvers is free to switch to Supergirl and rescue the girl.

Only problem is, Karen Blair freaks out at the sight of Supergirl.  She evidently would rather have taken her chances on the rapids than accept aid from the Maid of Might.  Why?

Come back Friday to begin unraveling this psychological mystery!

Happy Birthday, Supoerman! -- Action #305: Filler

Yes, it was established in a 1967 comic that Superman's birthday (not Clark Kent's) was to be celebrated on February 29, Leap Day.   Here's an article about it.

Today's page-by-pages from October, 1963's Action Comics #305 Come just past the staple -- we're halfway through!

I guess these ads might have been effective in shilling the poor kids of their allowances -- these come-ons were seen every month in a wide range of titles.  If I had to guess, I'd venture that the planes were probably the outlines or line drawings of aircraft, maybe printed on a square card or rounded bit of pressboard like a milk-cap insert.

And who would want a bunch of old stamps, anyway, where there were bubble-gum monster cards to be had, and marbles to be played?

Now, I do have this Flash Annual, but it doesn't count since I bought it only twenty years ago or so.  Do you suppose very many kids actually pinned up the portrait of the Flash?

See you on Wednesday, when we'll start the second story in this issue, "The Girl Who Hated Supergirl!"