POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! The Fantastic Four, The Flash, Fools Face, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, and Funnyman

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is another installment of The Everlasting First, with Quick Takes on my introductions to the Fantastic Four, the Flash, Fools Face, the Four Seasons, the Four Tops, and Funnyman.

It's odd how little I've written about some of these. The Four Tops will have a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), while a Four Seasons chapter was written but is not included in that book's current plan. On the other hand, my fond recollection of the Fools Face album Tell America prompted me to write this piece for inclusion in the 2005 book Lost In The Grooves, a book which also presented my celebration of Subterranean Jungle by the Ramones, but the editors declined my offer to write about Elevator by the Rollers (the artists formerly known as the Bay City Rollers).

Moving from music-makers to comic-book crusaders, the Fantastic Four were a (small) part of my Everlasting First memory of discovering Marvel Comics, and the only other thing I've written about the Flash is a brief bit about his role in The CW's Crisis On Infinite Earths TV event.

Ah, but then there's Funnyman. I haven't written much about the Daffy Daredevil either, but there is this:

"Funnyman was Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's attempt to create another super-sensation after their ugly, ugly split from DC Comics in the late '40s. (I was going to say "after DC unceremoniously kicked 'em both to the curb, penniless, as the company went on to make millions off their creation," but no one likes negativity). By 1976, although it would be a stretch to say that all was forgiven, DC had made some amends with Siegel and Shuster, at least enough that Jerry 'n' Joe agreed to appear as guests of honor at the Super-DC Con in New York that February. I met Siegel and Shuster at the convention, and I also picked up my copy of 1948's Funnyman # 5 in the dealers' room. Funnyman, which comes across as a superhero Danny Kaye, was not a successful title, and it's not remembered with much fondness by fandom. But I liked it, and I wish I'd had the presence of mind to have Jerry and Joe autograph my copy."

I posted the public-domain Funnyman # 1 here. But Funnyman's largest role in my work was his alter ego Larry Davis' appearance in my make-believe 1958 beat musical film Jukebox Express. The fake movie's fictional players were annotated here. Jukebox Express was a joy to write, and I think it remains a fun read, imagining characters from Funnyman, That Thing You Do!, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, Room Service, King Kong, Marvel's Agent Carter, The Monkees, Singin' In The Rain, I Love Lucy, My Favorite Year, Ellery Queen, The Rocketeer, and more, all working together to make a movie I would love to see (if it actually, y'know, existed). I'm insanely proud of this gathering of the talents of Ginger Grant, Leather Tuscadero, Troy Chesterfield, Sophie Lennon, and a cast of many...none of whom ever really lived. Just imagine!

And imagine that my knowledge of Funnyman, the Four Tops, the Fantastic Four, Fools Face, the Flash, and the Four Seasons hadda start somewhere. Those stories serve as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

Jukebox Express star Leather Tuscadero and a friend in Milwaukee

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

**SPOILER ALERT** The CW's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS

Today's blog includes SPOILERS for Crisis On Infinite Earths. Don't want to see spoilers? Please read no further. Otherwise? Up, up, and...y'know.



I'm not going to attempt an analysis or critique of the first three parts of Crisis On Infinite Earths, The CW's five-part DC Comics TV superhero event. I prefer to let an awed WHOA...! stand as my review of the story so far.



For those unfamiliar with the event: Crisis On Infinite Earths was originally a twelve-part comic book maxi-series published 1985-1986, designed to simplify the DC universe by destroying everything and starting over. Writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez crafted an epic tale in which the multiverse--the infinite alternate Earths across creation, including Earth-One (home to the contemporary Justice League of America, with the familiar Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc.), Earth-Two (home of the original 1940s-era heroes of The Justice Society of America, including the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc.), Earth-X (where the Axis won WWII), Earth-S (protected by the original Captain Marvel and friends), and so on--was systematically wiped out by an evil threat called The Anti-Monitor. Red skies heralded the death of each universe. A more benevolent figure called The Monitor assembled heroes from across the multiverse to combat this threat, but the multiverse was ultimately doomed. In its formerly infinite space stood a single new universe with a single new timeline. Worlds lived. World died. And the DC Universe would never be the same. That was the goal, anyway.



Both Supergirl and The Flash perished in Crisis, and although both were eventually revived, the deaths were intended at the time to be permanent. When the success of The CW's Arrow TV series (based in the DC hero The Green Arrow) prompted more CW superhero shows, the very first episode of The Flash in 2014 teased a future newspaper headline: FLASH MISSING, VANISHES IN CRISIS. Crisis was baked into expectations from the show's beginning. As additional DC superhero shows--Supergirl, DC's Legends Of Tomorrow, Black Lightning and Batwoman--formed an Arrowverse, crossovers of some of these shows became an annual event. The current Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover is the biggest yet. 



And man, my inner twelve-year-old is beyond thrilled.

There were so many moments, big and small, scattered throughout the first three parts of this crossover, which concludes with a two-part finale on January 14th, three days before my 60th birthday. No, you grow up. The cameos by actors who've played DC characters in the past have been effective and pleasing, starting with Robert Wuhl as reporter Alexander Knox from 1989's blockbuster film Batman. The cameos of The Ray (from a previous CW crossover, Crisis On Earth-X) and Hawk and Robin (from the DC Universe streaming series Titans) led to a welcome scene of Burt Ward--the Boy Wonder from the 1966 Batman series--looking up at his world's impending fate and exclaiming, "Holy crimson skies of death!"




One of my favorite scenes featured the return of actor Tom Welling, who played a young Clark Kent on the 2001-2011 series Smallville. In that scene, the Arrowverse's Lex Luthor (played magnificently by Jon Cryer) appeared at the Kent farm with the intention of continuing his serial killing of Superman again and again across the universes. But Luthor's Kryptonite had no affect on this Clark, who we learn had given up his super-powers to live a normal life as a husband and father. A disgusted Luthor lashed out, and our Clark clocked him with one human-strength punch. As the evil genius retreated to another universe, Clark's wife Lois Lane (again played by Smallville's Erica Durance) also appeared, and the couple went back into their house to see their daughters. I wish Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville's Lex Luthor) had also been involved, but I can't complain about such a perfect scene as this.



(A random thought occurs to me. Rosenbaum has said that the producers of Crisis did approach him to reprise his role as Luthor, but that he felt the offer was insufficient, so he declined. That is likely true. However...in the rush of publicity, hype, and speculation leading up to Crisis, we were told that characters from Titans would definitely not appear, and that Tom Ellis would definitely not appear as Lucifer [from the Netflix series of the same name, also based on DC Comics], and yet there they were, in Crisis. I don't think we'll see Rosenbaum in Part 4 or 5, but man, it would be cool.)

Two Lex Luthors, Michael Rosenbaum and Jon Cryer

Batwoman (Ruby Rose) meets the alternate Earth version of her cousin Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy)

Brandon Routh as an alternate Earth Superman

Brandon Routh, who also plays The Atom on Legends Of Tomorrow, was fantastic in his return to the role of the Man of Steel, whom he previously played in the 2006 film Superman Returns. Kevin Conroy, the voice of The Dark Knight in Batman: The Animated Series, played an older, broken, bitter Bruce Wayne to chilling effect. TV's first Flash John Wesley Shipp (from the 1990 series) was key to perhaps the event's biggest emotional payoff, as he forced The CW's Flash Grant Gustin to the sidelines, perishing in his place. As the Flash of the '90s died to save the sole remaining universe, the scene incorporated a clip from that earlier series, showing actress Amanda Pays as The Flash's love Tina McGee, telling The Flash that she would always believe in him.




Sniff. 'Scuse me a sec.

This is all wonderful superhero storytelling. The cameos and returns of past actors enrich the overall experience. We've been promised more cameos in the two remaining chapters. I hope we'll see Lynda Carter--TV's 1970s Wonder Woman--in some capacity. There are so many others who could still be included, however unlikely they may be: Jackson Bostwick and Billy Gray from the 1970s series Shazam!; Cathy Lee Crosby from the failed '70s TV-movie Wonder Woman; Justin Hartley, who played Green Arrow on Smallville and Aquaman in an unsold pilot; Mark Hamill, who played The Trickster on the '90s Flash, and was the voice of The Joker on Batman: The Animated Series. I hope we'll see more of Robert Wuhl and Burt Ward (even though their characters seem to have been killed by The Anti-Monitor), more of Brandon Routh's Superman, more of Cress Williams as Black Lightning, more of John Wesley Shipp.




We may not get any of that, and if not, that's okay. I'm pretty certain we'll get a satisfying conclusion with Gustin, Cryer, and The CW's Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), Batwoman (Ruby Rose), White Canary (Caity Lotz), Martian Manhunter (David Harewood), and the now-deceased Green Arrow (Stephen Amill), who appears poised to become the ghostly avenger The Spectre. Are things what they seem? Will the multiverse be somehow restored, or will we see a singular universe with a new history? Well...we'll find it January. I'll be watching. 

To be continued....

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Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying it from Futureman.

(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).

100-Page FAKES! presents: DC SPECIAL # 14 [Wanted, The World's Most Dangerous Villains]

100-Page FAKES! imagines mid-1970s DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars that never were...but should have been!



Okay. If our assembled gang of DC Comics fans will forgive me for channeling a guy who worked for the competition: Face front, true believers! This one's got it all!

A previous edition of 100-Page FAKES! presented an expanded edition of 1972's Wanted, The World's Most Dangerous Villains # 4. Today, we go back a little further: DC Special # 14 (September-October 1971), which was the second of two DC Specials that introduced the Wanted theme. What Wanted theme? Yeah, it was just an excuse to reprint a bunch of stories of superheroes battling super-villains. I had no problem whatsoever with that idea.

DC Special # 14 was the next-to-last issue in the title's original 1968 to 1971 run; it returned in 1975, and we've already done a 100-page FAKE! of that "Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorillas" spotlight. (The original run ended with an all-Plastic Man issue that was just sublime.) Those final issues in '71 overlapped with the dawn of the 100-Page Super Spectaculars, so why not take this opportunity to make DC Special, y'know...spectacular?

To the original DC Special # 14 line-up of Superman versus The Toyman, The Flash versus Captain Cold and Heat Wave, and Batman and Robin versus The Penguin, we've added adventures starring Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, Aquaman and The Atom, Doll Man, and The Star-Spangled Kid and Merry, Girl Of 1000 Gimmicks:

Superman vs The Toyman in "The Toyman's Castle!," Superman # 47 (July-August 1947)
Wonder Woman vs Dr. Poison (untitled), Sensation Comics # 2 (February 1942)
The Flash vs Captain Cold and Heat Wave in "The Heat Is On...For Captain Cold," The Flash # 140 (November 1963)
Plastic Man vs "United Crooks Of America," Police Comics # 7 (February 1942)
Aquaman and The Atom vs "Galg The Destroyer!," The Brave And The Bold # 73 (August-September 1967)
Doll Man vs The Flame (untitled), Doll Man # 28 (May 1950)
The Star-Spangled Kid and Merry, Girl Of 1000 Gimmicks vs The Rope in "The Adventures Of The Rope!," Star Spangled Comics # 83 (August 1948) Batman and Robin vs The Penguin in "The Bird Sayings Crimes!," World's Finest Comics # 55 (December 1951-January 1952)

Although the Boppinverse plays fast 'n' loose with real-world chronology, I resisted the temptation to include any stories starring the original Captain Marvel, a character DC wouldn't acquire for another year or so. Don't worry--we'll see Cap and the rest of The Marvel Family soon enough. All characters are copyright DC Comics Inc. The Plastic Man and Doll Man stories are public domain, while the rest can only be shown here in representative pages. I do share the whole 96-page shebang with my paid patrons.  Listen: we all know that DC is special. Let's put that in the title, and let's make it spectacular, too.

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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here. A digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) is also available from Futureman Records.

COVER GALLERY