"CALLING THE KID COMMANDOS!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists/Artisans: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colors: George Roussos | Letters: John Costanza
Consulting Editor: Archie Goodwin
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists/Artisans: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colors: George Roussos | Letters: John Costanza
Consulting Editor: Archie Goodwin
Meanwhile, Bucky, Davy, Gwenny Lou, and the recovering Toro finish off the henchmen. The Invaders return moments later with Axis captive and Doctor Sabuki rescued. Soon after, Bucky, Toro, Davy, and Gwenny Lou board Namor's flagship with Doctor Sabuki and set out for the Sandy Flat internment camp. En route, Davy and Gwenny Lou don costumes and christen themselves the Human Top and Golden Girl, respectively. At the camp, Agent Axis reappears and the kids defeat him, after which camp commander Captain Simms allows Golden Girl to depart with Bucky and company, while Doctor Sabuki remains behind.
Bucky and friends bring Axis back to the other Invaders, where the villain reveals himself as Namor in disguise, having pulled a fake attack in order to give the kids more credibility with Captain Simms. Then, as the adult Invaders return to England, Bucky, Toro, Golden Girl, and the Human Top opt to remain in the United States and fight on the homefront as -- the Kid Commandos.
Continuity Notes: Davy and Gwenny Lou get their costumes from a trunk aboard Namor's flagship, filled with random Atlantean clothes (one of which looks like a golden kimono with a sun on its belt, which is rather, uhh, convenient for Golden Girl). Why Toro doesn't borrow something from the trunk, so he can stop running around in nothing more than underpants and boots, is unexplained.
My Thoughts: Because you can never have enough Golden Age super-teams running around, Roy Thomas has seen fit to introduce a group of junior heroes, the Kid Commandos. I must admit, I'm not sure how this team fits in with the Young Allies, which I seem to recall being a thing that featured Bucky and Toro as well, but that's neither here nor there. With the advent of the Kid Commandos, Bucky and Toro will drop out of sight for a while (sort of; we'll see them in flashback next issue), turning the action over to the adult Invaders for the forseeable future.
But even without Frank Robbins, we've still got another twenty or so issues of INVADERS to get through! Beginning next week, Alan Kupperberg will be our new regular penciler, with guest-writer Don Glut filling in for Roy for a little while.
ReplyDeleteI’d swear Namor’s ears got even bigger.
// Why Toro doesn't borrow something from the trunk, so he can stop running around in nothing more than underpants and boots, is unexplained. //
Ha! Maybe rustle up a set of hair clippers while he’s at it, because there’s no way Namor keeps that ’do naturally.
I think the Kid Commandos were meant to supplant the Young Allies. Roy at the time was very much not taking the Golden Age comics as gospel, but rather using them as guideposts in revealing what “really” happened in-universe. Later stories both hewed to old Timely stuff more closely and diverged even from Invaders.
Although now I recall an early issue, maybe even Giant-Size Invaders #1, referencing Bucky and Toro having met one another in Young Allies, so a version of that happened at least. Whatever the case, and despite no suggestion of Davy and Gwenny Lou having an iota of combat training to supplement the powers they just got that day, it’s a good way to write the sidekicks out of the series for a spell.
You're right; I think it is G-S INVADERS #1 that mentions YOUNG ALLIES. So I guess some of their adventures must have happened before INVADERS began.
DeleteAs far as our completely untrained new kids go -- that is sort of a superhero trope, though a nonsensical one. Nearly anybody with newly manifested super powers is instantly proficient in their use!
I think Gwenny Lou is stated to have some martial arts training, though, in a later story. Which is incredibly stereotypical since she's an Asian character, but that's sorta how things rolled back then!
Davy, on the other hand, seems to have no combat skills of any sort!
I think that if I got beaten up by the Human Top, I'd retire from the super villain business.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered how Roy Thomas inventing a new WWII superteam every issue would have gone if, from the start of the book, he'd had to run it by Jim Shooter first. "Roy. Roy. That makes what, fifteen World War II super teams?"
Come to think of it, Shooter probably would have seen the flaw in the story where CAPTAIN AMERICA walks away from the Warsaw Ghetto for it to suffer its fate a few years later, so maybe the Invaders would have been a vastly different book for more than one reason.
Yes, at least early on, I think Marvel needed Shooter. It's too bad he couldn't rein in the ol' megalomania a bit more over the years!
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