In my previous post, I told the tale of how I was infected by a love of comic books. Continuing the story of the progress of the disease, we come to approximately one month later.
Again, I was grocery shopping with my mother. As I passed the comic book rack, I spied the next issue of Action Comics (#434). On the cover, it showed Superman, sitting in a dentist’s chair. The dentist has some pliers in Superman’s mouth and was obviously pulling a tooth. Superman seemed to be in immense pain! How could this be? Superman was invulnerable to everything! How could he be in pain? How did he get in this condition? Well, there was no hesitating… I HAD to purchase this issue! I had to know!
On the way home, I started to read. The main story was called “The Krypton Connection!”. I won’t go into too many details but the situation was caused by two rogue Kryptonians who were plotting against the Man of Steel. At the end of the story, I encountered something surprising and frustrating. This was only the first part of a two-part story! I was going to have to wait another WHOLE MONTH before this story would be resolved! How could this happen? How was I going to survive? One thing I did know was that every trip I made to the supermarket, I was going to be checking the comic book rack thoroughly so I could satisfy my curiosity.
The second story in the book was a Green Arrow store entitled “Zatanna’s Double Identity!”. In it, I got to meet three characters that I didn’t know… Green Arrow, Black Canary and Zatanna. I enjoyed this story a lot too.
The Superman story was, again, written by Cary Bates and the Green Arrow story was written by Elliot S! Maggin.
After an excruciatingly long month, it was time for the conclusion of the tale I read weeks earlier. Action Comics #435 showed an obviously infuriated Superman crushing a globe of the Earth (or was it the Earth itself?). The cover exclaimed, “Look out Earth! It’s Doomsday when Superman screams… ‘I Want to Wreck the World!’”.
I had to buy the issue anyway, but if there had been any doubt in my mind, this cover would certainly remove it! Luckily for me, this was just a two-part story and the sweet resolution did come within those pages.
The “backup” story was, again, one starring The Atom and it was entitled, “The Unmasking of the Atom”. It was very enjoyable as I had begun to expect they always were.
The Superman tale was penned by Cary Bates and the one starring The Atom was done by Elliot S! Maggin.
Without even knowing what would be in store for me in the next issue, I did know that in another month, a copy of it would be coming home with me!
I was falling in love with comic books and didn’t realize it. I guess love works like that a lot of the time.