Here at last is the concluding chapter of the sprawling Golden Age Timely tale "The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf" from All-Winners #21. Captain America, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, Toro, Whizzer, and Miss America have saved the continents of Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and North America from the specific threats from Future Man and Madame Death. Now they join forces as the assembled "All-Winners Squad" to put an end to the menace once and for all.
The finale was written as always by Otto Binder and drawn this time by Vince Alascia and Al Avison. Prepare for the "War Between the Worlds".
I hope that was fun. As I've said before, this is arguably my favorite Golden Age story and that has a lot to do with it being among my very first ones no doubt. But it's all here in this one, the wild and varied heroes, the globe-spanning scale of the threat, and the ending that shows that in fiction at least there is a happy ending.
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It's a shame that the Squad only had two adventures together. I wonder what the reasoning was for them holding off banding together their heroes into a team for so long, and cancel them so quickly? Has anyone asked Stan the Man or Roy the Boy?
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out there has been a new All-Winners adventure just recently. I'll have more on that tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer your question, I'm reckoning that this is the bitter end of superheroes in the Golden Age we're witnessing.
There's some speculation that the missing issue of All Winners between issue #19 and #20 was in fact All-Teen #20, a sure sign of the changing interests in the marketplace.
Cap would keep his own book a few issues longer, but soon enough his title would give way to horror stories.
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Somewhere in the course of reading this, it struck me the plot worked exactly like one of those epic multi-chapter Marvel Family stories -- if you substituted Sivana for Future Man (and teamed him with his daughter Georgia or something) up against Cap, Junior, and Mary, it's the same fundamental story structure. But that's hardly surprising, given the presence of Otto Binder as creator of both. I'm pretty sure Sivana concealed his HQ in a black cloud a few times, for that matter...
ReplyDeleteEven when I read this as a kid, I thought there was a fatal flaw to Future Man's plan. Wipe out the ancestors, and there will be no descendants! Sort of like that going back in time and shooting your grandfather paradox...
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