The Suicide Squad & The Origin of Darwyn Cooke's "The New Frontier"

Anyone who’s read Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier knows that it is an affectionate retelling of the early Silver Age stories from DC Comics. Cooke deftly came up with a story that retroactively (for this book) melded together the significant elements from the various DC heroes earliest outings into what amounts to an(other) origin for the Justice League.

Older readers enjoyed seeing characters like The Challengers of the Unknown and The Losers in a story that does justice to the stories we remember from our youth (vs. the bland stories that many actually were).

Cooke gave The Suicide Squad and ‘Dinosaur Island (form the “The War That Time Forgot” stories in Star-Spangled War Stories) pivotal roles in The New Frontier, and revealed a keen knowledge of the early Silver Age DC Universe.

The story presented here (Raid of The Dinosaurs!) is The Suicide Squad's 4th outing in The Brave and The Bold (#37). It reveals some of the bigger plot threads for The New Frontier, e.g., the dinosaur invasion and the seemingly unified mind behind their intelligence. Read the story then check out a few of the homage-like panels that I picked out of the story.

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A few similarities between B&B #37 and TNF:



1. Prehistoric super intelligence wants to destroy the world.



2. Giant pterodactyls attack big buildings.



3. Shiny red disc plane.



4. A thoughtful Major Flagg.



5. Psychedelic adventures.



6. Watch out for those darn pterosaurs!



7. Dinos attack!



8. Shiny red space ship bites the dust.


The Suicide Squad © DC Comics.
Story by Robert Kanigher. Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.


9. Actually the cover for the next issue (#38) but shows the origin of the SS's aerial battle about the Statue of Liberty.

King Kong Illustrated by Richard Powers

Here’s a King Kong item that I was not aware of until it was presented to me by a good friend (thanks M.M.!) – the original novelization illustrated by the legendary SF artist, Richard Powers. You probably don’t recognize the name, but if you’re a fan of 1950’s SF or related art then you’ve seen the surrealistic cover art he provided for seemingly hundreds of pocket books.

This Kong book seems to have been produced in conjunction with the DeLaurentis production of Kong that came out in the mid-70’s. By the looks of the art I suspect that Powers produced these pieces very fast. They’re reproduced in green in the book (see the image below) making them look decidedly cheesy. For this blog entry I’ve converted them back to B&W where they regain some real power – the image of Kong first appearing over Fay Wray tied to the alter is particularly evocative.

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Futura from Planet Comics

The Atomic Surgeons had planned a long post on the "Futura" series that ran from the early 40's to the mid-50's in Planet Comics only to discover that the "Lady, That's My Skull" blog had already done it - or at least the 1st eight stories. If they don't don't finish up the series we will later this Fall. Go read the adventures HERE.

How To Kill A Zombie Ant

When a carpenter ant is infected by the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, it compels the ant to climb from its nest high in the forest canopy down into small plants and saplings in the understory vegetation. The ant then climbs out onto the underside of a low-hanging leaf where it clamps down with its mandibles just before it dies.

After the ant dies, the fungus continues to grow inside the body. After a few days, a stroma—the fungus's fruiting body—sprouts from the back of the ant's head. After a week or two, the stroma starts raining down spores to the forest floor below. Each spore has the potential to infect another unfortunate passerby.

Researchers found that temperature, humidity and sunlight in these spots are apparently optimal for the fungus to grow and reproduce. When the researchers placed leaves with infected ants at higher locations, or on the forest floor, the parasite failed to develop properly.

"The fungus accurately manipulates the infected ants into dying where the parasite prefers to be, by making the ants travel a long way during the last hours of their lives," Hughes said.

As the fungus spreads within a dead ant's body, it converts the ant's innards into sugars which are used to help the fungus grow. But it leaves the muscles controlling the mandibles intact to make sure the ant keeps its death grip on the leaf. The fungus also preserves the ant's outer shell, growing into cracks and crevices to reinforce weak spots. In doing this, the fungus fashions a protective coating that keeps microbes and other fungi out. At that point, it can safely get down to the business of claiming new victims.

The mechanisms and cues the fungus uses to control an ant's behavior remain unknown. "That is another research area we are actively pursuing right now," Hughes says. Whatever the mechanisms, this much is clear: O. unilateralis has evolved highly specialized abilities to get unsuspecting ants to do its bidding. link

Ref.: The Life of a Dead Ant: The Expression of an Adaptive Extended Phenotype. 2009. S.B. Andersen et al. The American Naturalist