#Sagebush 'n' Cactus

[sebeth]

Who's Who In The DC Universe #1: Intro, Abel, Abnegazar, Rath, & Ghast, and Abra Kadabra

When I was young, there was no internet. If you lived in small towns, there was no comic book store. You had to settle for the comic books that could be found in the spinner racks found in drug stores, grocery stores, etc.  You may not get every issue of the series. The internet didn’t exist so you couldn’t jump online to ask questions. You had the actual issues, the letter pages in the issues, and your own imagination to fill in the gaps. There were also a handful of series that I bought religiously (and were always available at my local spinner rack) that were essential in building my knowledge of the DC and Marvel Universes. The series were:

Who’s Who In The DC Universe

Secret Origins

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

Marvel Saga: The Official History of the DC Universe

Seriously, the number of characters I decided were my favorites after a one/two-page entry! I’m on a nostalgia kick for my childhood comics and the vastness of the DC Universe before the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Don’t get me wrong, I love characters from the various reboots – Tim, Conner, Kyle, Bart, Helena B, the various post-crisis JSA legacy characters. I simply don’t think DC needs to “Crisis-reboot” every few years, make a new continuity “to make things easier for new readers” only to re-insert old characters and storytelling elements into the new continuity thus complicating the new continuity and causing another “Crisis-reboot). But I’m beginning to veer off into a lengthy rant about what I don’t like about modern DC/Marvel comics and this post is about nostalgia.

Let’s crack open the first issue of Who’s Who in the Dc Universe, published in 1985. In retrospect, its hilarious that DC was putting out these 24 issues in the midst of the Crisis of Infinite Earths series, considering the Crisis would retcon most of these entries. Maybe should have started a few years earlier. Oh well.

The inside cover features a brief history of the beginning of DC Comics. The highlights:

February 1935: New Fun Comics is introduced to the world. Six months later, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster would create (no, not Superman) Doctor Occult.

December 1935: New Comics was published. Twelve issues later it became New Adventure Comics and later simply Adventure Comics. The series featured characters like Sagebrush ‘n’ Cactus, Jibbly Jones, Sir Loin of Beef, the Federal Men and others. I consider myself to be very well-informed of the comics from the Golden Age to the Final Crisis era but if you are familiar with those characters of New Comics, I salute you as a comic book expert.

March 1937: Detective Comics, the first all-new comic based on a single theme is published. Simon & Schuster again created the debut characters of Slam Bradley and Spy. Simon & Schuster are most well-known for their creation of Superman but they deserve credit for their non-Kryptonian DC creations. Slam Bradley, original star of the Detective Comics title would later be integrated into the Gotham titles, most notably in the Catwoman series written by Ed Brubaker.

April 1938: Action Comics #1 was published and featured Simon & Schuster’s most famous creation: Superman

Marv Wolfman than states that Superman was quickly followed by Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, etc.

Not mentioned is DC buying out various companies in the 1970s/1980s: Charlton, Fawcett, Quality, etc that led to the acquisition of characters like the Shazam Family, the Blackhawks, Plastic Man, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Peacemaker, Judomaster, Nightshade, the Question, etc.

The inside cover also contains a pronunciation guide for the characters with entires.

The entries:

Abel by Joe Orlando

Caretaker of the House of Secrets, somewhere in the Kentucky Hills

The House was built by the mysterious Senator Sandsfield who swore that no one but a pure-bred Kentuckian would ever live there

Sansfield’s wife went insane within months of living there, he sold the house

The next four owners, “none of whom were of pure Kentucky stock” fled the house within three months’ time

The house’s next owner attempted to move the house across the state line, the house itself rebelled (!): “tearing itself free of the trailer and forcing itself over a cliff, before finally coming to rest beside a cemetery less than 200 yards from the state line

The only other house in the area is the House of Mystery, standing just across the cemetery

Little is known of Abel’s life before he became the caretaker for the House of Secrets except that he was a solitary, lonesome man, with an imaginary companion named Goldie

Abel was recommended for the job by his brother Cain, the caretaker of the House of Mystery

This is what modern comics is missing – sentient houses that rids itself of unwanted owners via insanity or old-fashioned murder! I never read much of the House of Secrets/Mystery titles so I don’t know if the series played up Abel and Cain’s biblical connections. I do remember the duo making an appearance in a Secret Origins issue and the fratricide was jokingly mentioned. Late 80s/early 90s readers will recognize the duo from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Gaiman did have Cain murder Abel (don’t worry, he gets better). Modern viewers will know the duo from their appearance in the Netflix Sandman show.

Abnegazar, Rath, & Ghast by Craig Hamilton & Dick Giordano

The trio inhabited Earth a billion years ago, “using their magical powers to spread evil over the planet’s prehuman population.

The trio was banished to internal imprisonment beneath the earth by the Timeless Ones.

The trio had created talismans – the Silver Wheel of Wyorlath, the Green Bell of Uthool, the Red Jar of Calythos – and had hidden them beneath the earth’s surface

Felix Faust conjured the spirits of the trio in the 20th century in an effort to gain more power. The trio informed Faust of the talismans but warned they were guarded by magical creatures.

Faust decided force the Justice League to unearth the talismans, setting events in motion that would free the trio in the past

The Justice League, already on a mission in time, defeated the freed trio

The JLA would battle the trio on three other occasions.

The trio is goofy looking, Each one wears nothing but purple briefs and pixie boots. All three are pink-skinned. One looks human except his skin is covered in circles. Two are bald but the third has a mohawk, One has huge pointed ears and another has oversized eyes. I was always “meh” on the trio. They are also known as the Demons Three.

Abra Kadabra by Carmine Infantino & Frank McLaughlin

A stage magician from the 64th Century, frustrated by the lack of audience acceptance as the super-science of the time made his tricks seem commonplace.

Kadabra stole a time machine and journeyed to the 20th Century where he still failed as a stage magician.

He decided to use his futuristic scientific knowledge to commit a series of robberies, forcing his victims to applaud his actions.

His crimes led to repeated confrontations with the Flash (Barry Allen).

Abra needs to accept that he sucks as a magician. He had all the future knowledge and tech and he still couldn’t succeed? He should have been blowing Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, etc, out of the water! The various Flashes have such an extensive Rogues gallery and Abra Kadabra is important part of it but I’d put him at the “C” level.