Early Black Comic Book Heroes: Mal Duncan (4/4)

Teen Titans (1st series) resumed publication in November 1976 with issue 44 (cover by Ernie Chan & Vince Colletta), the revival lasting only 10 issues, with cancellation coming after issue 53. The greater struggle of these issues to re-establish the title is reflected in Mal Duncan's equally tortuous battle to carve out a super hero identity. Teen Titans 44 ("The Man Who Toppled the Titans" by Paul Levitz & Bob Rozakis, art by Pablo Marcos) begins with the Titans summoned by Mal Duncan in response to an emergency message. There's some bitterness on Mal's part, as the Titans haven't bothered to keep in touch with him while their team activities were suspended. Mr. Jupiter is no longer part of the picture. As the Titans realize they've all been lured into a trap, the architect of that trap, Dr. Light, appears on the scene.

Dr. Light kidnaps the Titans one by one, until only Mal is left. He doesn't bother to capture Mal, thinking him beneath concern.

Mal laments his lack of super powers. Going through stuff stashed at the Titans' HQ, he comes across the costume of The Guardian, and a captured exoskeleton. Combining the two, he gives himself a superhero identity - the new Guardian, with enhanced strength. He then uses a rocket ship to get to the JLA satellite in orbit above Earth, where he hopes to get some help.

It just so happens that Dr. Light's plan includes taking over the JLA satellite. He's there ahead of Mal, and subdues the Flash. Light then brings the captive Titans to the satellite. This is the situation Mal (now The Guardian) finds when he docks with the satellite. Dr. Light ends up ruing his earlier decision to ignore Mal.

Teen Titans 45 (by Bob Rozakis, art by Irv Novick & Vince Colletta) begins where 44 left off, only Mal is quickly unsettled by Speedy's dig at his lack of super powers. Strange, because both Robin and Speedy don't really possess super powers either, although they do have established costumes and superhero identities that are their own. This is a sensitive issue for Mal, as it has been ever since his introduction into the series. As a results of the jibes, Mal seems to abandon the Guardian identity he adopted in the battle with Dr. Light.

The story in issue 45, "You Can't Say No to the Angel of Death (Or Can You?)" features a Gotham street gang from the past, bent on thwarting developers intent on bulldozing their home turf. Mal now has a girlfriend, Karen Beecher, who tries to calm Mal when he vents his frustrations over the phone. Mal leaves the phone booth still fuming, and blunders into a bomb explosion caused by the street gang. This seems to be Mal's moment of death, and Azrael, the Angel of Death, appears, ready to take him to the beyond. Mal's determination to remain in his Earthly existence results in Azrael offering him the opportunity to fight him for his life.

Mal goes the round with Azrael and wins the bout. Azrael doesn't like that Mal beat him, so he adds a condition to Mal's continued life on Earth - if he's defeated in a single battle, he's dead. The referee of the bout, the angel Gabriel, balances things by giving Mal his mystic ram's horn, which when blown will even the odds if Mal's in a fight.

It turns out that this horn will summon the Titans to Mal's aid. Mal explains what he's learned about the gang that's bent on destruction.

One group of Titans exits to the Wayne Foundation to prevent an explosion there, while Mal's group seeks the street gang's base in Clemont street.

So Gabriel's Horn seems to have taken Mal's identity off in another direction. By issue 49 ("Raid of the Rocket Rollers", Aug 1977, by Bob Rozakis, with art by Jose Delbo & Vince Colletta), we find that Karen Beecher has made herself into Bumblebee, a new African American DC heroine. Mal gets a new costume designed by a reader, and becomes Hornblower.

By the end of the issue, Mal has resumed his Guardian identity, partly because his horn is now missing, taken by somebody he knows not who. For now he keeps that bit of info to himself, and rationalizes his decision to the Titans by explaining that the public knows that Mal Duncan is Hornblower, and so he'll have to retire that identity.

Issue 50, "The Coast to Coast Calamities" (Oct 1977, script by Bob Rozakis, art by Don Heck with Joe Giella inks) picks up where 49 left off, but we don't get to find out what happened to the Horn. Guardian and Bumblebee work together as partners within the Titans team, as they go to face Captain Calamity.

Issue 51 concludes the battle with Captain Calamity, in which the shield-slinging Guardian and the buzzing Bumblebee play their part. By now Bob Rozakis seems to have gone as far as he is able with the characters of Guardian and Bumblebee (art is again by Don Heck, this time with Frank Chiaramonte inks).

The character of Mal Duncan started with some potential, but this seemed to fizzle out with the change of writers working on the Teen Titans series following his introduction. What happened to his kid sister? What about his parents? What do we know, after 25 issues, about this hero?

We know he grew up in a lower-socioeconomic, deprived inner city environment. He's grown up subjected to racial harassment, and sometimes, as a result, expects discrimination even where none exists. He's had to do a lot of fending for himself. He feels inadequate as a Titan because he possesses no super powers. This constant theme of feeling like he has to prove himself perhaps reflects a real societal phenomenon, of African Americans sometimes (as a result of institutional and individual racism) being obliged to prove themselves in situations in which, if they were white, their competence might be assumed. And maybe even then not be accepted on equal terms. If Bob Kanigher, who created the character, had continued to write Teen Titans, then it might be possible to say for sure that this is the message here. While Bob Haney was writing the Titans, the character did develop. After the cancellation, the revival issues had more superficial plots, and I'm not at all surprised that the series was canceled again, with Mal Duncan going round in circles in an identity crisis, nowhere at all really. The original Teen Titans concept had been exhausted of potential overall, and it would take George Perez to breathe new life into it a few years later.

Who Is The Artist?

 

I was sorting through my comics and flicked through this one when I came across it: First Kiss 4 (Charlton, July 1958). The content of the cover, by Jon D'Agostino, has no connection with any of the stories in the book. Nothing particularly unusual there! The first couple of stories did make me stop and look at them more closely. They reminded me of work that I've assumed was by Vince Colletta, although the inking seemed light, even for him. So I've scanned them both (only 5 pages each) so that you all can take a look at them and tell me what you think. Are they Colletta pencils, inks, both, neither?

The first story, "Party Girl" - is standard romance comic fare - the girl who loves to party isn't considered a contender for a serious relationship, certainly not marriage. [I'm sure I've seen that last panel on page 4 on a Colletta Atlas romance cover! Something very like it anyway.] When the hard truth hits home, it's time for Barney to come forward and reveal the feelings he's had for Dory all along!

"Made for Romance" is a career girl romance. Pam Foster works in advertising, and is good at her job. Allan Kane, an artist for the company, thinks glamor is the future of advertising, and wonders how plain Pam made it so big in the business. Enter the boss's son, Harry, and of course Pam falls for him although he apparently doesn't notice her, because she's not glamorous! Allan organizes a complete makeover for Pam. It takes a week, but it appears it was worth it. Personally I thought Pam was pretty fine in the first place, but there you go. But all the effort was for nothing - Harry announces he's getting married. The strange thing is, now Pam doesn't care. That week doing the makeover with Allan has done something special for both of them. So all's well that ends well.

 

For comparison, I'm adding a panel from Gorgo 8 (Charlton, August 1962) that was definitely drawn by Joe Sinnott and inked by Vince Colletta or someone in the Colletta Shop (this information was provided to me by Ramon Schenck, who had access to Joe Sinnott's notebook via his contacts with Joe's family). I see similarity between this Gorgo panel and the second panel on page 3 of the "Made for Romance" story above. Note the angle of the man's head in his approach to the woman to kiss her, his jaw line, the way the ears are drawn, and his lowered eyelids. I've added this to support Apocolyte's suggestion in the comments below, that these stories could be examples of Joe Sinnott pencils with very rushed Colletta or Colletta Shop inking. John Lustig ("Last Kiss") also provided detailed information in the comments below, establishing that the work was fully Colletta Shop, adding that Joe Sinnott did work for the Studio. Here's that panel from the story above as well, for ease of comparison. If this identification is correct, the Gorgo panel gives a hint of what these two First Kiss stories could have looked like.

 

I love Hal's optimism there in the Gorgo 8 panel.

Inter-Racial Hospital Romance: Young Romance 194 - "Full Hands Empty Heart"

The July/August 1973 issue of DC's Young Romance features a tale of inter-racial love in a hospital setting. It's interesting that it's an anti-racist piece again written by Bob Kanigher, this time illustrated by John Rosenberger and Vince Colletta. African American Nurse Phyllis Carter is a gorgeous but single woman, lacking confidence that she will ever find a partner to love her. She even helps other couples get together, like the wheelchair-bound lovers at the hospital, who provide a brief reprise of DC's phase of increased disability awareness. But then out of the blue she falls straight in love with a doctor new to the hospital, when she finds herself assisting him with an emergency.

 

While not a problem at all for these two love birds, the fact that they are representatives of different racial groups doesn't sit well with their respective sets of friends, nor with the rest of the hospital staff. The couple go through their own version of Columbia's "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" (Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton, 1967).

 

The story gives a sense of the strength of the couple's love, that continues despite hostile social environments everywhere they go. Tragically, it comes to an abrupt end when Phyllis's doctor takes a knife thrust to protect her from a drug-crazed patient she's caught trying to steal medications. As sometimes happens, the knife gets something vital and the doctor expires in the arms of his love. Poor Phyllis has just lost her life as well, and dazed but in an angry phase of grieving, she doesn't hold back in letting the prejudiced staff know her feelings - "We're finished. Are you satisfied now?" But her boyfriend's last wish was that she didn't go sour on the world, and quickly she composes herself and morphs her anger into a philosophical stance with the line, "If we don't learn to love each other, the world will always be a jungle!"

Phyllis's parting line, as she accepts her loss and walks off to continue tending to the sick, is, "In some worlds there's no color, only people..." Although this stance is sometimes criticized nowadays for being color blind and non-PC, I don't equate color blind with culture blind, and I don't think the intent of this story is to negate appreciation for different cultural groups within society. I think Kanigher, through Phyllis, is saying that skin color isn't a criterion by which a person's worth should be judged, and that's true to Dr. MLK Jr.'s philosophy. So I'm definitely with Phyllis on this one and I say, "Amen to that, sister!"

I'm wondering, after reading this, when the first inter-racial kiss happened in comics. Does anyone know? The first inter-racial kiss on television, between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner, was on Star Trek in 1968. This issue of Young Romance was three years later. Were there any earlier inter-racial kisses, romances, or relationships, especially between an African American and a Caucasian, anywhere in comics before this?