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“Semi-Imaginary” Stories (Part 3) |
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Written by Commander Benson
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Thursday, 28 February 2008 |
 As the Silver Age moved into the early 1960’s, Mort Weisinger’s concept of Imaginary Stories became established. Fans grasped and accepted the idea of a Superman tale that was completely out of continuity. All that was necessary to tell one now was to put a blurb on the cover and on the splash page declaring that it was an Imaginary Story. So, for the most part, Mort dispensed with the in-continuity framing sequences that explained the “imaginary tale”.
No other DC editor was so bold. In his recurring “Second Batman and Robin Team” series, Jack Schiff insisted on maintaining the conceit that those “Semi-Imaginary” tales were actually being written by Alfred, the
Wayne
butler. And for the other editors, the matter just didn’t come up that much.
Julius Schwartz was one of these. For one thing, he wasn’t bogged down by the same publishorial limitations that Weisinger and Schiff had been. Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman were locked into formats that had been place for nearly two decades, and they had grown stagnant. But Schwartz’s stable of super-heroes was brand new. More accurately, their names -- the Flash, the Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman -- were old, but Schwartz had revived them as new characters, with fresh identities and origins and settings. Schwartz was still building their histories; there hadn’t been time for them to get stodgy, yet.
 Schwartz had no need to resort to Imaginary or Semi-Imaginary Stories, but that doesn’t mean he never explored the concept. “They call me ‘B. O. Schwartz,” the Architect of the Silver Age would tell his writers. “The ‘B. O.’ stands for ‘Be Original’.” And that’s what the handful of Semi-Imaginary Stories put out under his auspice would prove to be: an original way of telling a tale.
That’s probably why the first one -- “The Origin of Flash’s Masked Identity”, from The Flash # 128 (May, 1962) -- caught the readers off guard.
It opens “shortly after the amazing accident which turned Barry Allen into the world’s fastest human”, and we find the easy-going police scientist reading an old copy of Flash Comics. Now that he is the Fastest Man Alive, Barry has designed his own Flash costume, a maskless one. Barry notes that the Golden-Age Flash got by without wearing a mask, yet somehow his secret identity remained safe. He ponders over the potential consequences, if the world should discover that the Flash and Barry Allen were one and the same, and he resolves to make a decision.
Shortly thereafter, Barry holds a press conference and publicly reveals that he has acquired the power of super-speed. When the conference is interrupted by a news bulletin reporting that a tornado is bearing down on Central City, Barry changes to his maskless Flash costume in front of the reporters and scientists. Then, the Scarlet Speedster uses his super-speed to destroy the tornado before it can strike the city.
That evening, the Flash’s feat, along with his photograph and real name, are plastered all over the front pages. The next morning, Barry discovers a throng of people around the entrance to police headquarters. Autograph hounds, pitchmen seeking endorsements, and screaming admirers swarm him. Barry pushes his way through the clawing crowd and he is forced to lock himself in his laboratory.
Minutes later, an emergency arises, and the scientist changes to his costumed identity. However, as he leaves the building, he runs into the same horde of fans. So densely packed are the people that, even at super-speed, it takes several seconds for the Crimson Comet to find his way clear. Because of those precious seconds lost, the Flash is almost too late to handle the emergency.
Clearly, it was a bad idea for Barry to openly reveal his identity. That much was obvious to my young mind back when I first read this story. The tough part was trying to figure out how Barry was going un-ring the bell and make his secret identity secret, again. Then I got to the last three panels and found out that my leg was being pulled the whole time.
Suddenly, we’re back to Barry Allen reading his comic book and we find out that the last six pages were merely a figment of his imagination, a spinning out of idle thoughts while trying to decide if he should wear a mask or not. “Yes, reader,” the caption informs us, “It was only a daydream, but it might have been true -- every word of it -- if Barry Allen had rashly revealed the truth about himself!”
Yep, it was the old “It was only a dream!” trick. What made it a bit different, though, was that it was not just an excuse to present a fanciful, impossible-to-believe-otherwise tale. Barry’s daydream had an impact on the real continuity, in showing, rather than telling, the reader why it was important for the Flash’s identity to remain secret.
It wouldn’t be the first time Julius Schwartz pulled the rug out from under his readers by revealing, at the last minute, that the story they had just read was Semi-Imaginary. But his writers would get a lot better at it.
 For example, when the Justice League of
America
ran up against the villainous Maestro and got the worst of it, JLA fans had no doubt their heroes were in deep kimchi. This happened in “The Cavern of Deadly Spheres”, from JLA # 16 (Dec., 1962). The super-heroes discover the threat of the Maestro while they are all travelling to the secret sanctuary to attend a regularly scheduled meeting. In three locations, separate trios of Justice League members are incapacitated by music. The music compels them to break out into dance, while near-by, hold-up men pull off robberies. Through teamwork, the JLAers are able to shake off the effects of the music and stop the crimes.
From the captured crooks, the heroes find out that the big boss, the Maestro, has invented a method of controlling people through music. The JLA also learns the general vicinity of the villain’s secret hide-out. Taking measures to protect their ears from hearing the Maestro’s music, the Justice Leaguers go off after him.
Bursting into the Maestro’s cavern lair, they are unable to capture the criminal; instead, they find themselves forced to dance again, even though they cannot hear the music. While helpless, the Maestro imprisons each JLAer in a transparent bubble. Each sphere has been specially gimmicked to prevent the hero inside from using his powers or weapons. Then, the Maestro reveals his master stroke:
“Other villains who have challenged you met their downfall because you always managed to come up with a counter-weapon to their weapon! My secret weapon is a high-frequency cosmic-radio beam! With it, I control the motor centers of your brains! But I cleverly disguised it so that you would not realize it was the cosmic-radio beam that was controlling you! You thought it was -- music -- which had nothing to do with controlling your motor actions!”
Leaving the Justice Leaguers dancing helplessly in the deadly spheres, ultimately to die of exhaustion, the Maestro detonates explosives, bringing the entire mountain down upon them.
Hoo-boy! It was white-knuckle time for this young fan of the Justice League! But, it was only page 18. There were seven pages left for the World’s Greatest Heroes to get out of this mess. But it was now that writer Gardner Fox was taking a good grip on the rug.
To a die-hard JLA fan, like me, most certainly page 19 would bring the usual Justice League teamwork sequence, in which one of the heroes would determine the weak spot of the death trap and, working in tandem with the others, exploit that flaw and lead the team to a triumphant escape. With Fox’s formulaic JLA plots, it wasn’t what was going to happen next; the fun was in how it happened.
So how come, in the first panel on page 19, we’re back at the Justice League HQ, with all the members sitting around the council table?
“What is this?? The Justice League members are back safe and sound in their Secret Sanctuary?! The astounding truth is that none of this ever happened! It’s all been a fictional account of their ‘downfall’ -- as read to them by Snapper Carr!”
To use a modern expression: psych!
 As the JLAers peruse through a pile of
Bristol
boards, honorary member Snapper explains to them that the illustrated story -- the one that we, the readers who paid our twelve cents, just read -- is the work of Jerry Thomas, one of their greatest fans. Thomas, who wrote and drew comics about his heroes for fun, discovered that, in his plot about the Maestro, he had worked out a way by which the Justice League could actually be defeated. In order to keep his idea out of the wrong hands, Thomas sent the pages to the JLA.
At first, the heroes agree with their young fan’s assessment and breathe a sigh of relief (probably just before suggesting that Green Lantern go visit Jerry Thomas’ house and power-beam him into the misty borderland between worlds). But then Snapper challenges them to find the flaw in the Maestro’s scheme. How they do that finishes out the story.
This adventure is squarely in Semi-Imaginary territory, and it’s a good one. First, because the last place one would ever expect to find one was in the ultra-serious Justice League title; thus, it comes as a genuine surprise. Second, because the in-continuity gimmick for presenting it is a novel one, including a nod to real-life Dr. Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas in the fictional JLA fan of “Jerry Thomas”.
And last, as in “The Origin of Flash’s Masked Identity”, the “real” portion of the story is more than just an excuse to present the “imaginary” part of it; the “real” Justice League directly responds to what happens to their “imaginary” counterparts.
Julius Schwartz inherited Batman and Detective Comics in 1964. They weren’t selling well, and the suits at DC eased up on some of the format restrictions for the Masked Manhunter. Schwartz couldn’t change their costumes (although he managed to stretch a point and got the yellow ellipse added to Batman’s chest insignia), and he had to keep Bruce and Dick and Commissioner Gordon. Otherwise, the new editor was free to cut and paste however he wanted. With new latitude, Schwartz was able to shake the Batman titles out of the doldrums without resorting to the gimmick of Imaginary Stories. But, as I’ve just demonstrated, give him a good one, and he would run with it.
 “The Strange Death of Batman”, from Detective Comics # 347 (Jan., 1966), was just such an example. Also written by Gardner Fox, it opens with a splash page of the Batman dying from a gunshot wound, accompanied by a blurb warning the reader not to peek at the last few pages of the “off-beat” story.
There is a new villain in
Gotham
City
: the Bouncer, a crook who wears a all-encompassing body suit made of a fabric of his own design. This material, called “elastalloy”, essentially gives the Bouncer the powers of the Legion’s Bouncing Boy with none of the embarrassing weight gain. And frankly, Batman and Robin don’t do too well against him. In fact, this tale Bouncing Boy fans should keep in their hip-pocket and pull out whenever someone makes jokes about how lame a character Chuck Taine is. Fox’s script makes the Bouncer plausibly formidable; you really can’t catch a man ricocheting off of walls at high speed. You don’t want to be standing in his path, either.
When the Batman comes too close to catching him on his last foray, the Bouncer decides to kill the Masked Manhunter on their next meeting, and to do this, he designs a special gun also made of elastalloy. Over on the home-team bench, Batman and Robin have collected enough information on elastalloy to be able to scientifically analyse it and determine its elastic limit. Once that is known, they can figure out a way to neutralise its properties. We don’t find out just how Batman accomplishes this until later on, but it is one of the best aspects of the early, pre-Batman television show, New Look. Fox would often employ real scientific principles and state-of-the-art technology in his plots. For the sceptical, he would usually insert a footnote referencing the book, article, or paper in which he obtained his information.
On their next encounter, the Bouncer squares off against Batman and pulls his elastalloy-gun trick. But because of the method that Batman and Robin are using to neutralise the effects of the elastalloy, the gun fails to discharge. And the Bouncer is now just a guy in a funny-looking suit. He goes down under a powerful left hook from the Cowled Crusader.
We’re only up to page 9, though, and the “3rd page following” doesn’t kick off a special double-sized Elongated Man mystery. Instead, it’s part two of the Batman story. Suddenly, the scene shifts to Gardner Fox at his typewriter, here in our real world, what would eventually be called Earth-Prime. Fox relates that the story we have just read, of Batman versus the Bouncer, is his latest script, freshly typed and ready for mailing to Julius Schwartz. Then he invites us to join him in his “what if” room.
The “what if” room, the writer explains, is the room where he relaxes after finishing a story and plays a mental game in which he asks himself questions about the script he has just completed and wonders what if he had written it differently. As Fox stretches out on the davenport, his thoughts turn back to the ending of the Dynamic Duo’s final confrontation with the Bouncer, and he wonders what if the criminal had known how Batman and Robin planned to defeat him?
We now revisit the scene of Batman’s defeat of the Bouncer. However, this time, due to a medical quirk (references dutifully footnoted by Fox), the villain tumbles to the scientific device being used against him and acts first. He hurls his elastalloy revolver with expert precision. The gun rebounds off a near-by wall and fires, sending a slug into the Batman’s heart. As Robin rushes to the mortally wounded crime-fighter’s side, the Bouncer escapes.
The Masked Manhunter dies. The Justice League arrives to console the grief-stricken Boy Wonder. The heroes offer to go after the Bouncer and bring him in, but Robin insists on doing that himself. Later, in the Batcave, with the elastalloy gun to study, the Teen-Age Thunderbolt tests its elastic fatigue, the point at which metal itself disintegrates under stress. Armed with this knowledge, Robin instals the necessary equipment on the Batmobile. On his next run-in with the Bouncer, Robin is able to induce enough stress in the criminal’s elastalloy outfit to make it crack apart. The Bouncer’s jaw cracks apart too, under the Boy Wonder’s haymaker.
Later, as the boy places the elastalloy gun in the Batcave’s trophy room, he is surprised to find the Batman waiting for him. Certain that he is facing an impostor, Robin challenges him. The intruder lifts his cowl and the Teen Titan is stunned to see the face of Bruce Wayne. He is Bruce Wayne -- the Batman of Earth-Two!
On Earth-Two, Robin is now an adult, and the parallel-Earth Bruce explains, “My Robin . . . has volunteered to carry on in my place as the new Masked Manhunter -- while I become the Batman of Earth-One -- if it’s agreeable to you!”
The Boy Wonder finds it agreeable, indeed, and then discovers another joyful surprise: the Alfred of Earth-Two! (The Alfred of Earth-One had been killed off a couple of years earlier, as part of Julius Schwartz’ housecleaning of the Batman format.)
Here is the unique instance of a multi-layered Semi-Imaginary story. We have the real world, Gardner Fox and his what if room, presenting the “real” continuity of Batman and Robin, which then segues into the “imaginary” death of the Batman. It succeeded on two fronts, by providing a satisfying defeat of the story’s villain; then, in steering into an otherwise-impossible plot development and exploring the pathos generated by the death of the hero. It was the most creative use of the Semi-Imaginary format to come out under Schwartz’ oversight.
The adventure of “Earth’s Other Green Lantern” didn’t use nearly as distinctive a method for presenting a Semi-Imaginary account. As seen in Green Lantern # 59 (Mar., 1968), it kicks off with Hal
Jordan
on Oa, getting a tour of the home office. One of the many scientific wonders shown to him by the Guardians is an electronic memory bank, capable of mental post mortems. It retrieves and stores data taken from human brains after death. The Little Blue Guys offer to show
Jordan
the recorded memories of his predecessor, Abin Sur, during his last hours on Earth.
Fans who came in late are then treated to a rehash of Green Lantern’s origin. But there is a twist. We discover that, when the dying Abin Sur commanded his battery to seek out a deserving Earthman to whom to pass his power, two suitable candidates were located. One, of course, was test pilot Hal Jordan. The other, it developed, was a high school phys-ed teacher named Guy Gardner. Both men were equally honest and born without fear.
Since time was of the essence, Abin Sur ordered his ring to bring to him to nearest deserving one -- Hal Jordan.
Learning for the first time that someone else might have had his job, Green Lantern wonders aloud what would have happened if Guy Gardner had received the power ring from Abin
Sur.
Naturally, the Little Blue Guys have the answer to that, too. They lead the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 to another sophisticated machine. This one can compose different probabilities, “based on alternate postulate of events”, and then presents the most likely outcome on a viewscreen.
Programming the proper information into the device, the Guardians and GL watch what most likely would have happened, had Abin Sur selected Guy Gardner. Guy receives the dying alien’s last words, then donning his costume, falteringly learns how to operate the power ring.
 With
East
City
as his base, the Guy Gardner GL distinguishes himself by being a more physical crime-fighter than Hal
Jordan
was in his early days. As befitting a physical-fitness instructor, Guy eschews the more creative uses of his ring that
Jordan
employed and prefers to mix it up with his foes hand to hand. Otherwise, the might-have-been career of
Gardner
as Green Lantern pretty much takes the same course that Hal Jordan’s did.
As they continue to watch the video of the computer projection, Hal notices that after
Gardner
’s first visit to Oa, he takes a different route back to Earth than
Jordan
did. Consequently,
Gardner
encounters bursts of high-powered energy emanating from an isolated planet near-by. Flying down to investigate, the Gardner-Green Lantern discovers the blasts of energy are stray fire from two robots in combat. Defeating both,
Gardner
learns that on this planet, Ghera, the only humans alive are children. Eons before, a yellow plague wiped out all Gheran adults. The Gheran children were immune to the disease, but it left them immortal and prevented them from reaching maturity.
Bored and hungry for recreation, the ageless children of Ghera had divided themselves into two camps and entered into an eternal game of war.
Gardner
determines to seek out the children and put an end to the constant warfare. Instead, he falls victim to the overwhelming mind control of the youngsters, developed over their countless years of existence.
Gardner
becomes a human ping-pong ball as his mind is, alternately, taken over by each camp of children, then sent to destroy the other. After bouncing back and forth a couple of times,
Gardner
finally breaks free of their mental commands. Coating himself with power-ringed armour to protect himself from any further telepathic assaults, he acts to end the warfare. His years of experience with high school teens enables him to swiftly work out a permanent peace between the children.
Within minutes after returning to Earth, tragedy strikes, as
Gardner
discovers that he has contracted the fatal yellow plague of Ghera. With his ring powerless to cure him, and only minutes left until he succumbs,
Gardner
orders his ring to seek out a deserving one, one who is honest and born without fear. The power beam summons . . . Hal
Jordan
!
The gimmick used to present the might-have-been life of Guy Gardner as Green Lantern was scarcely original. The probability-composing machine of the Guardians sounds an awful lot like Superman’s Super-Univac. And the end result that Hal Jordan would have wound up as the Green Lantern of Earth under either circumstance was right out of Mort Weisinger’s playbook. Hardly in keeping with what one would expect from “Be Original” Schwartz.
The redeeming element was the introduction of Guy Gardner. At the conclusion of “Earth’s Other Green Lantern”, Hal
Jordan
makes the acquaintance of the “real” Guy Gardner and a friendship forms.
Gardner
would pop up occasionally in the Bronze Age before graduating to major-player status in the 1980’s.
Imaginary Stories let a writer flex his creative muscles, give him a chance to create dramas and examine emotions that otherwise never could be. The drawback to a “pure” Imaginary tale, though, is that it risks losing the emotional involvement of the more continuity-minded readers. The events in the lives of familiar-yet-“imaginary” characters are too detached from the “real” settings. Especially for the more continuity-minded readers, who see their heroes in a continuum and find it hard to accept them when divorced from that continuum.
Semi-Imaginary Stories are easier for such fans to take. By grounding them with an in-continuity premise, there is an “excuse” for the fanciful story. Better yet, if the “imaginary” portion is shown to have an impact on the “real” characters; then the tale becomes part of the “real” continuity.
However presented, they were a hallmark of that time in comics history. Few things recall the Silver Age as viscerally as the words “Imaginary Story”. Even if they are only Semi-Imaginary.
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