The Great Wonder Woman Readathon

[destro]

I just bought 6 random WW issues for a buck each from the period you have reviewed Scott. You were much kinder to these than I would have been.

My overall impression, one that I generally feel for 90% of DC's 70s superhero output (leaving out the obvious high points, and nice work on some of the non-super hero titles) is that many of the creators and editors seem extremely jaded and just didn't really give a s--t about the titles they were working on. I can't prove that and don't even really want to think it's true, but I can't deny having that impression.

I'm usually more on the side of seasoned pros working on books, and against the 2nd and 3rd generation fanboy creators ala Marvel, but damn some of DC's books during this period like Wonder Woman make a valid argument towards putting a fanboy on the book, since at least they would care about what they were doing.

It's kind of damning that Marvel was still pushing some boundaries during this time, love it or hate it. Meanwhile DC seemed to be languishing in mediocrity on books that should have been flagship titles.

[Scott Harris]

And I was really pulling for this comic. So every time I saw them doing something right, it felt like a major victory.

I am really pulling for it too, which is one reason I am finally starting to lose my patience a little bit. How they can keep screwing up this badly over and over is beyond me. I do have hopes for the soft reboot in #269 because I know that Len Wein took over as editor and implemented some changes. He's not always great, but I have more faith in him than in what has come so far.

Looking at what other great comics were on sale at the same time isn't helping me form a good opinion of these issues, though. They just could have been so much better.

I should say (or maybe should have said up front at the start) that other than the I-Ching era and maybe two or three Perez issues, I've never read any Wonder Woman comics before. So I'm coming into this as someone who is a fan of the character but is completely new to the series. And it really has been as disappointing as everyone said it would be.

This should be, and should have been at the time, one of DC's flagship books. Only gross incompetence explains it not reaching that status.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I just bought 6 random WW issues for a buck each from the period you have reviewed Scott. You were much kinder to these than I would have been.

My overall impression, one that I generally feel for 90% of DC's 70s superhero output (leaving out the obvious high points, and nice work on some of the non-super hero titles) is that many of the creators and editors seem extremely jaded and just didn't really give a s--t about the titles they were working on. I can't prove that and don't even really want to think it's true, but I can't deny having that impression.

I'm usually more on the side of seasoned pros working on books, and against the 2nd and 3rd generation fanboy creators ala Marvel, but damn some of DC's books during this period like Wonder Woman make a valid argument towards putting a fanboy on the book, since at least they would care about what they were doing.

It's kind of damning that Marvel was still pushing some boundaries during this time, love it or hate it. Meanwhile DC seemed to be languishing in mediocrity on books that should have been flagship titles.

In terms of writers and in terms of some editors on Wonder Woman, they seem to be fanboys to me. What's lacking from Wonder Woman is the hand of experience. These guys like Pasko, Conway, Levitz and Harris are not very practiced at their craft when they are doing WW. The problem at DC at this time is that most of their old pros had retired or been fired. The only senior editor left is Schwartz. A lot of young, new talent is being hired, because they will work cheap. And Marvel is stealing all the good talent.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #264
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta



Synopsis: Wonder Woman is tied up with an electric lasso, but Gaucho doesn't have time to waste, so he just chucks her off his flying horse and goes to find his target. Wonder Woman breaks free of the lasso and saves some bystanders.

Meanwhile, in the river nearby (or... something) The Prime Planner is piloting a giant submarine that acts as his base. He's got a jerk on board who hired him to kill the senator last issue; since Wonder Woman screwed up the hit, he wants his money back, but Prime Planner says no. Gaucho will finish the job, don't you worry.

Diana consults with a lawyer about getting the files on Wonder Woman from the government through the freedom of information act, but the lawyer says only Wonder Woman herself can request them. Diana gets even more irritated over the red tape and leave sin a huff to go kick Gaucho's butt, since he's attacking again.

his plan is one of the dumbest in comic book history, as he has a giant flock of reahs, which are like ostriches. They are running around D.C., except some of them are robots with built in bombs. Didna realizes that all of them are also male, so she flies off to the zoo, grabs a female reah, brings it back and watches as all the real male birds chase the female one down the street. Then, with just the robot ones left, she scoops them all up and renders them harmless.

This was all just a distraction to let Gaucho get to his target, but instead of actually killing his target, he's just screwing with them, playing cat and mouse. So Wonder Woman busts in and punches him out with one hit. Bam! And since he didn't have time to eat his amnesia capsule, this time Diana thinks she'll get info on the Prime Planner. To be continued?

Notes: So. Dumb. Again, I liked the subplot with Diana trying to get the government files and being irritated at all the legal red tape. It fits with her outsider status, as she is getting frustrated with "man's world" and how they do business.

I also appreciate on one level that this Prime Planner storyline is finally unfolding for real. However, the actual details of this storyline are beginning to seem, well, downright stupid. The two assassins we've seen so far have both been ridiculous caricatures (though bushmaster was okay in his first appearance when Levitz was writing him). They are also terrible assassins. If they are two of the world's best, then apparently nobody in the entire world knows how to assassinate people, because Gaucho doesn't even manage to kill the senator when he is alone in a room with the guy, with a gun aimed at his head for several uninterrupted minutes. That's what you get when you hire an egotistical Argentinian cowboy to kill people I guess.

The bit with the birds was almost stupid enough to be entertaining. It was very close to being that funny. But Gaucho and the Prime Planner's goofy underwater base were so tedious that even the silliness of the birds couldn't rescue this.

I should have mentioned earlier that when Jack C. Harris finally stopped doing the lettercolumn (after the letters for his issues stopped), the column was taken over by someone named Nellie Rooke, who I have never heard of. Anyone know who that is?

Also: Another cover with Wonder Woman in mid-air. Seems like half the covers have her either in mid-air or in space or something.

My Grade: C-. Would have been worse without the ridiculous bird sequence. At least that gave me a bit of a smile. A WTF moment is better than no moment at all.

Other, better comics you could have bought this month instead: ASM #201 (Punisher, just a month after he appeared in Cap. They trying to push the character?), House of Mystery #277 (Ditko horror cover), She-Hulk #1, Thor #292 (the epic Ragnarok storyline is getting underway), X-Men #130 (first Dazzler)

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #265
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta
backup story: E. Nelson Bridwell, Ric Estrada and John Calnan



Synopsis: The opening page declares this to be an untold tale from Diana's time at NASA. Why?! The tales that were told from that era pretty much all sucked!

Whatever. Anyway, Diana shows up late to a test of the Space Shuttle, but they end up launching, only to have the shuttle grabbed by a tractor beam and pulled back down to Earth. The g-forces knock out Mike (aka the Ten of Spades), so Diana turns into Wonder Woman and safely lands them. To her surprise, they land inside a jungle filled with dinosaurs. Odd.

Diana meets up with a scientist who has been trapped there for a year and he gives some mumbo jumbo about dinosaurs being in this valley for at least 200 years, so he came to investigate and got himself stuck. Why is he stuck? Because there's a tribe of lizard-man aliens who keep him there by force. To be continued!

Backup story: Donna Troy is approached by a lawyer who tells her that Teen Titans benefactor Mr. Jupiter has died and left her all his money. She looks at the will and sees a blatantly obvious "secret" code in it that reads "Not dead, get Wonder Girl." She heads to his funeral and realizes that the body in the coffin is quite obviously a wax dummy. So she wraps up the lawyer with her lasso and he reveals the real mr. Jupiter is alive and being held inside a fortress. She travels there and finds him, only to fall through a trapdoor. Admiral Ackbar says: it's a trap!

Notes: The good: Having a Donna Troy backup story is a really good idea. not sure why they didn't do this earlier, to be honest. The actual back-up story, mind you, is a bit goofy, as the "clues" Donna tracks would be blatantly obvious to even a three year old. But, whatever. You won't catch me saying anything bad about E. Nelson Bridwell.

The main story, on the other hand, sucks. There's basically just one redeeming note, which is that when Wonder Woman sees the dinosaur jungle, she immediately thinks it might be connected to the War That Time Forgot. So that was a nice shout-out to what was a long-dead series at that point. However, everything else about the story is terrible. There was no reason I can see to set this during her NASA days, other than to have an excuse not to interrupt the Prime Planner story in continuty. Of course, the story is being interrupted in reality, but by setting this in "the past," Diana can technically go from the end of the last issue to the beginning of the next Prime Planner arc without having any time off. it's just a really stupid meta reason to set this during the NASA days, but there's no other reason to do it; Mike, the only other character form this period who is in the story, spends the whole issue unconscious.

And they even manage to screw up setting it at NASA, because when she sees the dinosaur, Diana immediately thinks it might be connected to her battle against Multi-Man, who turned into a dinosaur. Except, that fight happened after she had quit NASA and moved back to New York, something you would think they'd remember since it only happened like 7 issues ago.

Bad.

My Grade: D for the main story, B- for the backup.

Other, better comics you could have bought instead: ASM #202, Daredevil #163 (Miller!), MTU #91 (Ghost Rider!), MTiO #61 (Her and Warlock storyline), Thor #293, X-Men #131, Jonah Hex and Unknown Soldier - Santa covers! Warlord #31, cool cover with Warlord fighting a giant pre-historic Roc type bird in mid air -- in other words, basically the same cover as this issue of Wonder Woman, except much better done in a title where the story actually makes sense

[Scott Harris]

By comparison, here's the Warlord cover from the same month, with the same basic idea:



Which title would you buy? Was Wonder Woman deliberately trying to grab a little Warlord mojo this month with the pre-historic world motif for their story? Warlord was one of DC's top two or three selling titles at the time, after all.

[Cherokee Jack]

Wonder Woman #264


I should have mentioned earlier that when Jack C. Harris finally stopped doing the lettercolumn (after the letters for his issues stopped), the column was taken over by someone named Nellie Rooke, who I have never heard of. Anyone know who that is?

According to an old Bob Rozakis column, "Nellie Rooke was a DC staffer who asked that her real name not be used in the books. It was not that she was actually someone whose name you would recognize, she merely preferred to remain anonymous. She long ago left DC and the comics industry."

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

Nellie Rooke was the nicest letter column editor. I remember her especially from the Jonah Hex letter column. She was always so encouraging and kind. It was a real treat to have her answering the letters.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #266
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta
backup story: E. Nelson Bridwell, Ric Estrada and John Calnan



Synopsis: Trapped in a world she never made, Diana comes face to face with some lizard men aliens. She fights them, but they zap her with a pain beam that knocks her out. When she recovers, Dr. Exposition explains that the lizard men crashed on Earth two centuries ago, but a weird radiation caused most of the crew of their ship to devolve into dinosaurs, hence all the dinosaurs. Diana basically is like, who cares, and then leads him in an escape attempt.

They come across the aliens mind-probing the captured astronaut Mike (aka the Ten of Spades) and Diana agin fights them. This time she wins and they scoop up Mike, then head to the Space Shuttle. Diana posits that the aliens have been mind-probing humans in order to learn telepathy so they can teach mankind higher scientific principles in order to get someone to finally build a space ship they can escape from the planet on. Dr. Exposition doesn't like this idea and Diana is like "yeah, I am just screwing with you." Then they try to fly away in the Space Shuttle.

The aliens, of course, intercept them because they need that shuttle to end their centuries-long exile. Diana, however, lassos them all up and throws them into the radiation field, devolving all of them into dinosaurs. Then they fly away. The end!

Backup Story: Donna Troy gets captured by a hot blonde lady who calls herself Perfection. Full of yourself much? Turns out Perfection faked Mr. Jupiter's death in order to lure Wonder Girl to her base so she could learn the secrets of the Amazons. Donna, however, has tricked them all by using a fake lasso, so even though she is tied up with her own "lasso," it doesn't do anything. She breaks free, clobbers everyone and rescues Mr. Jupiter. The end!

Notes: Last issue I complained that there was no good reason to have this set during the NASA era, but here Conway tries to give a reason: The aliens need the space shuttle to escape. Okay, I guess. I still think he could have done this same plot and set it in current continuity, as Diana is constantly going into space anyway, plus she still has one astronaut friend from that era, so it could have just been Shiela getting zapped by a tractor beam and Diana going to save her. But, whatever.

A much bigger problem is how bad this story sucks. I have a couple problems. A) Dr. Exposition is just that; he serves no purpose int he story except to give pages and pages of exposition. I initially thought there must be a twist where he was with the bad guys or something, but no, he's just a boring plot device. B) here's the big one, Diana not only callously devolves the aliens into dinosaurs, which seems pretty darn mean of her after they've been stuck on Earth for 200+ years, but then she just flies away, leaving a horde of dinosaurs roaming a random section of the Rocky Mountains. I guess she doesn't care much if untold numbers of hikers get eaten by dinosaurs over the coming years. Neither of these decisions seems remotely like something the compassionate, wise Wonder Woman would do. Frankly, it's horrible.

The backup story is marginally better, mainly because it doesn't have enough pages to truly be bad. I did think Perfection's plan was really dumb; a wax dummy, a fake will and a high profile kidnapping, all to get Donna there. My question: if you want to know more about the Amazons, why not jst ask them? Wonder Woman's whole mission in life is to teach the Amazonian ways to the world. So...?

In the lettercolumn, Nellie Rooke has probably her only even remotely snippy response in all of her lettercolumns. Someone wrote a fairly rude diatribe basically castigating everybody involved with the book for making it so bad. Nellie replied by asking "what do YOU do for a living?" Well, whoever this guy is, Nellie, he doesn't make comics as bad as this one, so that's one point in his favor.

This issue also has a statement of ownership in it. Average sales for the past 12 months: 157k. That's up more than 30k copies per month from the last statement of ownership, which had it at around 122k, meaning the book has had a 25% increase in sales over the last year. God only knows why. Must be the TV show boost?

My Grade: Main story gets a D- for being crap on a shingle, backup story gets a C+. not quite Perfection after all.

Other, better comics you could have bought instead of this: DC Special Series #21 (the holiday spectacular!), Green Lantern #127 (classic cover!), MTU #93 (Hawkeye!), Warlord #32 (first appearance of Shakira!), X-Men #132 (The Hellfire Club!)

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #267
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta



Synopsis: Wonder Woman has followed clues from her interrogation of Gaucho to a replica of the African veldt which for no apparent reason is in the middle of a California desert. She is attacked by a jet plane, which she simply rams with the invisible plane, as apparently it is indestructible. Who knew.

The pilot ejects and Diana is surprised to see him caught by Animal Man, whom she does not recognize. So she lands and the two of them have one of those superhero mistaken identity fights before they sort things out. Animal Man then explains who he is and demonstrates his powers, which causes Wonder Woman to literally burst into laughter at him. Wow, that's just really rude and uncalled for. Not everyone is given magical powers by the gods themselves, lady. Stop being such a snob.

Anyway, Buddy explains that his best friend was framed for a murder that was actually carried out by Prime Planner and his five deadly assassins, so he tracked them here. They quickly deduce that the base must be under the vledt, so they dig down and burrow into the underground hideout. They quickly kick everybody's butt, except Prime Planner and his five deadly assassins are nowhere to be seen. Instead, they have left a map for Buddy and Diana to follow. A challenge! To be continued!

Notes: Len Wein takes over as editor this issue and it's clear he wants to tie up loose ends, as the title page announces this is the beginning of the conclusion of the Prime Planner storyline. This story has now been going on for almost an entire year, give or take random crappy interruptions, so it's about time. There's also a letter in the lettercolumn from someone complaining about the lack of direction, and whoever answers it (it doesn't appear to be Nellie Rooke, as she signed her name and initials and this person is anonymous) says that new editor Len Wein is going to craft a definite direction for the title. This is good.

I like them dragging Animal Man out of obscurity for this story, even if they treat him like a complete joke throughout. I don't think Animal Man had appeared in over a decade when this came out, so he was ripe for the picking. The actual story is a bit of a whatever, as a lot of it is spent explaining to the reader who Animal Man is and why he's here, but hell, we've seen much worse from this team.

Next issue promises to end the Prime Planner saga, so that's a damn relief at this point. Bring it on!

My Grade: B-. Animal Man elevates -- and then bogs down -- what otherwise would be just another chapter in the Prime Planner non-saga.

Other, better comics you could have bought instead: Avengers #195 (cool story that also includes a typo where they call the new Ant-Man "Scott Harris"), Captain America #245 (good holocaust story), Daredevil #164 (more Miller), Elfquest #7, X-Men #133 (Wolverine goes berserker for the first time)

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

The DC Implosion came about because Warner Books (the division of Warner that was in charge of DC Comics at the time) pulled the plug on the DC Explosion (which would have had many new titles and extra pages and who knows what other glorious things--maybe even money for better writers and artists???). The bean counters had looked at the sales records for the previous quarter--which would have included the winter sales months--and they were shocked by the low sales figures. But as Bob Rozakis has explained, there had been a big winter storm which prevented DC from getting out its books--and so they had unusually low sales for that period, which averaged out makes it seem like the sales are bad across the board. The department heads at Warner Books didn't take these variables into account and just cut DC off at the knees. Of course, for them comic books were not their main product, so they decided to cut their losses. But you have to wonder why Warner would commit to a DC Explosion (on the strength of the Superman movie--which did make them a large profit) and then so easily turn around and torpedo these plans. One hand did not wash the other.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #268
Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta



Synopsis: Wonder Woman and Animal man are relaxing on a beach in France in their civilian i.d.s, shadowing a guy who they think is the next target of Prime Planner. Sure enough, a tank rolls up out of the ocean and tries to kill him, so Wonder Woman and Animal Man jump into action, take out the tank and save the target. They then fly off with the target in the invisible jet.

Prime Planner watches this from his dopey submarine base and gathers together the remaining three deadliest assassins in the entire world, who now are revealed. Remember when I said I was sure they would all be offensive cultural stereotypes? Well, we have here Red Fang, a "renegade Mongol tribesman" who knows kung-fu and wears razors on his arms; The Changeling, a European doofus whose costume appears to be a house painter's drop cloth; and Lumber Jack, a ferociously mute Canadian serial killer who wears flannel and a toque and wields a giant axe. Whew, looks like I was worried for nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most dangerous assassins in the world!!!

Back at the ranch, the target is stonewalling Diana, so she wraps him up in her lasso and commands him to speak. Turns out he doesn't now anything anyway, but just then, the three deadliest assassins in the world attack. Animal Man manages to save the target, but Diana and the target's daughter are both snatched and flown off to Prime Planner's submarine. The deadliest assassins in the world don't kill Wonder Woman, though, they just drag her in front of the Prime Planner who is, of course...

...MORGAN TRACY!!! Oh, my head.

Anyway, Diana was playing possum, so she busts free, grabs the kidnapped kid and smashes her way out of the submarine. It sinks, of course, and Tracy is captured by the authorities and hauled off to jail. THE END!!!

Notes: One way you can tell Wein wanted to tie up everything is the fact that, out of nowhere at all, the Prime Planner turns out to be U.N. security chief Morgan Tracy. It seems obvious that they wanted to just kill two birds with one stone, so they made him the Prime Planner in order to really tie up everything that had been going on in every subplot simultaneously. It makes no sense whatsoever from a story perspective, of course, but it does help clear the decks. I don't like it when those kind of decisions are so obvious in the story; it's nice to feel like the writer is making decisions for creative rather than logistical reasons, but all too often stories ar driven by needs other than actually making a good story.

This is a bad ending to a bad storyline that was never going anywhere. It also introduced the world to the five stupidest assassins in the history of comics. When I think of assassins, I think of secretive agents who can kill without being detected. I don't usually think of deranged lumberjacks or Argentinian cowboys riding flying robot horses. The tradition of Wonder Woman having the worst rogue's gallery in all of comics continues unabated.

Also, Animal Man is totally useless in this issue. During the fight with the tank he immediately gets knocked out by an electric field and has to be saved from drowning; then, during the fight at the manor, he only escapes being killed by taking on the powers of a mole and burrowing in to the ground to hide. He looks like a jackass in this issue. Why bring him back if you are just going to make him look stupid?

In the lettercolumn, Len Wein begins answering letters, and he quickly throws cold water on everybody by saying that all the people writing in about a Sensation Comics team-up book should just stow it because sales on Wonder Woman suck so bad it's never going to happen. He basically says that "you guys are great at writing all these letters but no so good at actually buying the comics." Honestly, it seems a bit rude considering the idea was brought up by the previous editor who encouraged people to write in in support of the idea. So for len to just tell everyone to shut up is a bit odd here. It was DC's own idea, bro!

Len also answers another letter that complains about Diana's uneven characterization by saying they are going to settle things down beginning next issue. As part of this, they are bringing in a new inker: Wally Wood. Has there ever in comics history been an upgrade as drastic as Vince Colletta being replaced by Wally Wood? Honestly, I didn't even know Wood was still alive in 1980. I'm curious to see what Delbo's pencils look like when someone good is inking him.

My Grade: F. The fact that this terrible year-long nightmare is finally over doesn't actually elevate the story itself, because trying to tie things off made the story even worse. Only of interest to Animal Man completists.

Other, better comics you could have bought instead: Avengers #196 (first Taskmaster!), JLA #176 (Firestorm joins the team!), X-Men #134 (Dark Phoenix!). Plus, of course, any issue of Jonah Hex or Unknown Soldier or Savage Sword of Conan would fit this category every month.

[Scott Harris]

Okay, I am up to the long-awaited, much-anticipated, somewhat-hyped soft reboot of #269 by Conway and Wein. Will it revitalize the series? Can the series be revitalized if the team of Conway and Delbo, who have been on the book for a long time off an on, are still on it? I'm almost hesitant to find out.

One positive sign, in a very weird way: This was one of the harder issues of the run for me to find. not that it's hard to find, but everything else was pretty much easy to get dirt cheap, while I had to root around for this one. I'm hoping that means something good, like this book is still in demand by Wonder Woman fans because it starts something that doesn't suck.

We'll see.

[Scott Harris]

Wonder Woman #269
Gerry Conway, Jose Deblo, Bob Smith and Wally Wood



Synopsis: Okay, here we go. Are you excited? I'm excited!

A kid is shoved in front of a moving train. Wonder Woman saves him, then catches the thugs who shoved him, but the cops make her let them go because confession-by-lasso is inadmissible in a court of law. Diana is really frustrated by this.

heading home, she's met by neighbor Tod, who offers to cook her dinner. he does so. While he is doing this, Diana falls asleep and has nightmares. She's really tense, and Tod planting one on her doesn't help. She's still all wound up over Steve Trevor. She tells Tod to leave.

Trying to unwind, Diana turns on the television and is bombarded with one terrible news story after another, as people around the globe die and kill each other in horrible ways. Everything comes crashing down on Diana; She just can't take it any more, so she jumps in her invisible jet and flies home to Paradise Island. She arrives there just in time for a big volcano to erupt. Trying to limit the damage, Diana rushes to the volcano, only to be confronted by a giant fire salamander. Gathering her Amazon warrior sisters, they battle the salamander and Diana finally is able to hurl it into the sea, which dissipates it.

Diana then announces that she just can't take it in man's world any more, she wants to come home. So she quits as Wonder Woman and Hippolyta is very happy to have her daughter back. The End!!

Notes: So, the big reboot begins here. All the frustrations Diana has been dealing with over the past dozen or so issues come to a head and she finally just quits. On the surface, this is a bit disappointing, as she's Wonder Woman and she is usually so put together, focused and on mission. But they handle it really well, you can see how all the constant negativity really gets to her mentally until she just can't stand being in man's world any more. I like how they play up the real differences between her mindset and that of the modern world. For me, that's usually a sign of a good Wonder Woman story.

I was looking forward to seeing new inker Wally Wood in action, but he apparently only did a few pages -- if that -- before turning it over to Bob Brown. Next issue: Vince Colletta is back. Damn, what a tease that turned out to be.

There's a full page ad in this issue hyping the new direction for Wonder Woman. So far, so good. The full reboot takes several issues to really get established, but this is a nice start and a good, reasonable way for her to cut ties with her past -- what very few ties she has at this point.

In the lettercolumn, a new guy named Ted P. Skimmer is answering letters, and he again shuts down someone writing in about the proposed Sensation Comics reboot, saying that no matter how many letters the previous editors ran about it, it wasn't ever going to happen until sales on Wonder Woman go way up. They kind of toss the previous editor under the bus on this one. The whole Sensation Comics thing really seems like them jerking fans around, to be honest.

My Grade: A-. Well done. Here's hoping Wein can keep Conway's feet to the fire.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

Of course, you mean Bob Smith (not the late Bob Brown). Too bad it wasn't Bob Layton or Dan Adkins, since they both assisted Wally Wood at one time in their careers. But any inker was an improvement on Vin Colletta.