Phantom Zone? What Kind Of A Comic Book Is That?

I still remember the cadence with which my dad said that when I was nine. It was a day I was really sick and was following this DC Comics series called Phantom Zone, staged around a mass breakout of various criminals from Krypton (Superman's birth world) out of this other-dimensional netherworld, and he had to go out for something and I asked him to pick up the latest issue of this for me. To be dad. Well, he didn't and I ended up following the four-issue story out of order – essentially, the mass breakout throws Superman into the Zone and with a former inmate he has to fight his way out, while the rest of the Justice League is either on a satellite thrown out of the solar system (yeah, everyone from Krypton on Earth has the same powers Superman does but the Zone denizens are far less likely to use them for truth and justice) or bringing down missiles launched by the then-superpowers (hey, this series is cover dated the first third of 1982) at each other.

“What's wrong with these people?” Charlie wonders – meaning, how can a civilization so outwardly advanced produce such a collection of fiends?

Why do I bring up this stroll down amnesia lane? Because when I was in Grand Slam Gaming, Cards & Comics a few weeks ago I remembered seeing these four comics in a box marked priced at 99 cents each and bought them on my lunch break yesterday to reread them. And I think what caught my attention more were the ads for the likes of Bubble Yum bubble gum, Fast 111 toy cars with the one-of-a-kind license plates, Hostess ads in one-page superhero stories … don't get me wrong, I love a good story, but especially with reprints you don't get the ads that give you a feel of the time. And for ME, I was nine thirty-two years ago. Not so long ago now (actually Friday), I got the chance to pick up seventy-one books for nine dollars, the last day of a bag sale at Minot Adult Learning Center where I pick up yet again more than I will ever possibly read, but I need to sort it out. Besides this Phantom Zone series, I read a few of those over the weekend.

I can't bear to watch this …! [pause] That's the worst part of exile in the Zone – you don't have any choice.

Bull Run – I guess this would have been Manassas had Paul Flesichman been a Southerner in keeping with their tendency to name a battle after the nearest human settlement, not a natural phenomenon – has an interesting feature besides sixteen first-person viewpoints ranging from “a war-fevered boy, a disillusioned doctor, a slave woman, a sketch artist, a lover of horses, [to] a black man determined to shoulder a gun”. Accompanying each entry in Bull Run (ISBN 0590474081) is a drawn woodcut with the person's initials. Then there's the one-act play by G.M. (Bud) Thompson, One Day At The Zoo (ISBN 0871297418) set in the Ridgeland home of Glenn, Monica, and their teenage children Becky and Ryan … soon after the play commences you learn this isn't in their home, but rather their cage – the Ridgeland family members are the featured specimens of the Earth Family Natural Habitat Display in the Intergalactic Zoo, some 450 million light years from Earth. How does a family stay together in this?

The incredible strength … heat generated from the eyes … the reference to “Rao” … It's safe to assume we've got a very deranged Kryptonian on our hands.

I ask the same question some days … not about the Kryptonian, but the family. But you know, then I hear something that surprises me. Last night I'd picked up the kids when it was raining out, and we're starting to pack their lunches so I needed to stop at a local supermarket to pick up some supplies. We were about to make – nah, I'll save that story for Ensign this Friday. As I write this I just got a text from Martha who's been having a hard time walking with an ingrown toenail on her left big toe, and it got removed. I am happy she'll be walking without pain, but not so happy that she's working tonight. Though this will be the last Tuesday she does work at McDonald's her second job, as she will be getting Jeffrey to his Tuesday night Cub Scout meetings and picking him up instead of her mom having to. And now for the first day of October, the last quarter of the year, Lord help me do ONE RIGHT THING before I die. In the meantime, help me do something!

David