Tuesday, April 28, 2009

DC Challenge #6 (April, 1986)



  • On his deathbed in 1955, Albert Einstein solved "der great mystery! Der concept of der Unified Field. I am now unbound by der reschtraints of time!" This gave Einstein extraordinary power over reality, but unfortunately, he seemed unable to correct his terrible accented dialogue.
  • On the planet Rann, Batman and Hawkwoman wondered after Captain Marvel and Dr. Fate, even though the first pair's even knowing the second pair were on Rann was a bit of a stretch. Alanna was proactive, while her father Sardath became a real Negative Nelly. Batman, like the author, never clarified after repeated references that "Fate" referred to the Doctor, then stumbled into a warp hole. Hawkwoman went looking for Fate, Marvel, or at least her husband. The evil aliens in the distance were set on shooting her out of the sky.
  • Around 6th Century England, the writer confused the Greystone Castle where Sir Edwin Kent once ruled with the family name of "Young Brian, son of our late lord, Grayson the Just..." Also, the writer confused "Greystone" with "Grayson." Anyway, Brian was finally being crowned king, at which point he intended to reveal that he'd secretly been the Silent Knight for years to his people... except Einsten wasn't having that...
  • In the Plane of Holes, Deadman failed to possess the Anti-Matter Man. Albert Einstein then froze time, explained his new powers to Adam Strange and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, then assumed the role of deus ex machina in a bid by a really lousy writer to cheat the entire series into a premature wrap-up.
  • Rip Hunter, Time Master, was showing his Time Sphere to a Dr. Kemeny as Princeton University in hopes of legitimizing his remarkable invention. However, the pair passed through a warp hole while on a temporal spin.
  • Einstein brought Batman to the Plane of Holes "to make sure I could properly coordinate between planets dat are light-years distant!" Pull the other one.
  • Einstein directed the temporally displaced Rip Hunter to don the Shining Knight's armor and assume the role. Rip did, and when he and Kemeny appeared at King Brian's coronation, the new lord thought, "Apparently this magical suit of armor that gave me great power and taught me the proper use of weaponry... has chosen a new master! Well, good luck to him, whoever he is!" Either the writer was trying to sneakily allude to problems with Einstein mucking about with time, or he'd never read a Shining Knight comic in his life, since the character's armor was neither magical nor responsible for Brian's abilities.

    Regardless, the terrible writer then had Hunter and Kemeny stay in the past for several years, during which they did not age, and acted as mostly-mute heroes. The pair spent the rest of their medieval holiday trying to fix the Time Sphere. Instead, Einstein eventually returned, and sent them to kill the minor demon S'thulum, who had previously tried to eat Captain Marvel and Dr. Fate. As Kemeny cautioned, "be very careful-- never to underestimate an experienced dragon-slayer!"

    Hawkwoman, Alanna and Sardath raced to the scene, even though the other heroes shouldn't have been on Rann anymore after being taken to S'thulum's realm. The writer, whose work I've always hated, concluded that he had ended "after years of training, the suspension of time, and the solution of the Unified Field Theory-- the longest-resolved cliff-hanger in human history!" Um, did the guy who wrote many of the lousy Superman stories that led to the Byrne reboot mean "unresolved?"
  • Darwin Jones, Deadman, Bobo the Detective Chimp and Dr. Terrence Thirteen, Ghostbreaker were present for Albert Einstein's fixing of all the unresolved plot points in the series to date by shoving them into warp holes. Goodbye Uncle Sam, Aquaman, Zatanna, Superman, Captain Comet, invading aliens and all the rest!
  • One problem: an alien spaceship beat the Blackhawks back to World War II. Because "I cannot change a time und a place vhen I vas alife," Einstein bailed on Adam Strange and Jimmy Olsen. This left the pair stranded in a present world dominated by the Nazi Germany.
  • For no discernable reason, Einstein left Batman in a jungle, where negro savages attacked the Darknight Detectives with spears. Oy. Robin the Boy Wonder showed up on a Whirly-Bat to pick his mentor up, but turned out to be a demon in disguise, and dropped the Caped Crusader into an active volcano.
  • "A Matter of Anti Matter" was perpetrated by Elliot S! Maggin, Dan Jurgens and Larry Mahlstedt


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