INVADERS #39

"BACK FROM THE GRAVE!"
Concept/Editor: Roy Thomas | Writer: Don Glut | Artists: Alan Kupperberg & Chic Stone
Lettering: Tom Orzechowski | Coloring: Carl Gafford | Consulting Editor: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Captain America and the Human Torch arrive at the Santa Monica Pier to find U-Man standing over the defeated Kid Commandos. U-Man knocks out Cap and absconds into the sea with Golden Girl. Unable to pursue underwater, the Torch rouses Cap and the kids, then he and Toro take to the skies to search for U-Man. Meanwhile, the villain emerges from the water elsewhere, and brings Golden Girl to Lady Lotus inside a warehouse.

Lady Lotus awakens Golden Girl and entreats her to join forces and destroy America for its practice of interring Japanese citizens. Outside, the Torches find a suspcious plane and go to get Cap and the Kid Commandos. Meanwhile, in England, Brian and Jacqueline Falsworth, on a hunch from Brian, don their costumes of Union Jack and Spitfire to go patrol the Falsworth Estate. In America, Golden Girl refuses to join Lady Lotus, and resists Lotus's mental control. When U-Man and Lotus's men attack her, Golden Girl evades U-Man and knocks out all of Lotus's soldiers. Cap, the Torches, and the Kid Commandos arrive a moment later, and U-Man and Lady Lotus escape in an experimental plane, too fast for the Torches to follow.

At the Falsworth estate, Union Jack and Spitfire find Japanese soldiers in the cave where Baron Blood died, working to remove the boulder pinning a stalactite in the vampire's chest. The heroes intervene, but in the ensuing struggle, one of Union Jack's electrical zaps goes wild and inadvertently frees Baron Blood, who attacks the heroes.

Continuity Notes: A footnote tells us that Cap and the Torch found the Kid Commandos thanks to Cap's and Bucky's phone conversation last issue. A few pages later, another footnote to last issue reminds us that Golden Girl fainted when U-Man grabbed her.

Speaking of footnotes, it never ceases to fascinate me how comics of this vintage will often drop multiple references to things that just happened in the previous month's installment, and would therefore be fairly easy for new readers to figure out via context, but they often do not footnote things that happened further in the past. Case in point: there's no reference to Baron Blood's previous appearance when he shows up! That seems like something a newcomer might like to check out. (Granted, there probably will be footnotes to that storyline next issue, but still.)

Lady Lotus reveals her backstory: born with psychic powers, she trained herself in her native Japan, but eventually moved to the United States. When the U.S. began interring Japanese citizens, she vowed revenge. Honestly, clearly evil though she is, it's hard (or even impossible) to argue with her motive, if that's truly all there is to it!

Bucky and Toro both have the hots for Golden Girl, but while Bucky embraces her after her rescue, she only has eyes for Toro.

The Japanese soldiers working to revive Baron Blood reference doing it for their "mistress", so they're pretty clearly working for Lady Lotus as well. Also, when Blood awakens, he believes Union Jack to be his brother, and doesn't recognize Spitfire -- which makes sense since he was "dead" when Brian took over the family mantle and Jacqueline adopted her super-identity.

My Thoughts: So last issue I said I was going to talk a bit about Lady Lotus here. Honestly, I don't have that much to say about her, other than that I like her archetype. As with the "Yellow Peril", which I've mentioned several times as a favorite, the "Dragon Lady" is another one that tickles my fancy. Honestly, the Dragon Lady type is basically a distaff version of the Yellow Peril. They're pretty much always presented as "sinister Asians" out to destroy the west. Though, as I mentioned when discussing Fu Manchu in relation to the DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU material I looked at last year, I don't like the archetype because of its "Asianness". I just like the "mysterious, manipulating schemer out to sow chaos" type -- and at her core, that's what a Dragon Lady is.

Where am I going with all this? I guess the point is that I like Lady Lotus! In the absence of the Red Skull, who has been criminally underused in this series, she gives the Invaders that "manipulating schemer" villain(ess), which is something all super-teams (indeed, all super-characters) need.

Now, let me quickly discuss Golden Girl as well. I didn't mention it last week, but as described above, she fainted when U-Man grabbed her. Her male teammates all got to try and fight the guy, and were all knocked out. But Golden Girl just straight up passed out because he was so scary. It... wasn't great. I was pretty disappointed with Don Glut in that moment. But, whether by his choice or at the direction of Roy Thomas, Glut makes up for it here. Golden Girl overcomes Lady Lotus's mental power (something U-Man has been unable to do), dodges U-Man so he basically stuns himself, then easily dispatches all of Lady Lotus's trained Japanese soldiers with her own martial arts skills and not her super power. We even have a moment where Cap, the Torch, and the boys show up and express their astonishment that she held her own so easily. So overall, I'd call this an excellent rehabilitation of last issue's distasteful moment.