Well, I couldn’t find the next Superman Sugar Smacks comic…at least the one I was looking for from the 1960s. Found a 1980s one I need to research. At any rate we’re still going DC but instead of the Man Of Steel it’s the guy a version of him once put a fist-sized hole through. I guess this counts as payback?
For those of you who missed our previous trips into this toyline’s minicomics, Super Powers was a Kenner produced line based on the DC Comics superheroes, made popular for kids thanks to Superfriends and being more fun. The last two seasons of Superfriends even rebranded to help push the toys, first as “The Legendary Super Powers Show”, the last season to be titled Super Friends, and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, an end of series rebrand with upgraded animation and new character models but retaining the same actors and what little continuity this series ever had. (Although Adam West took over as Batman for these two seasons while previous Batman Olan Soule took on the role of Professor Stein, one-half of Firestorm.)
“Blast it, this is Harley’s perfume! I’d smack her for the mistake if she had been created yet!”
Each action figure, hero and villain alike, received their own minicomic and we’re up to the seventh in the series, focusing on the Clown Prince Of Crime himself, the Joker. (He would have his only appearance in the show in the last season, but he spent most of it playing a different character.) So what is the villain up to since he appeared in the Batman minicomic? Let’s find out. Once again, no credits so let’s hop into the action.
We start on the Joker robbing a bank using his regular laughing gas, and not the Jokerizing gas from the last time we saw him. At least he’s back on brand. He loads it into his Jokermobile and speeds off, but one of the tellers manages to stop laughing in his thoughts long enough to hit the silent alarm, which brings the Gotham City PD. Yeah, right. This is when the cops were still incompetent in Gotham City instead of corrupt so it’s actually Batman who answers the call. Maybe they knew the Joker was planning this and Batman was ready? You can never tell in Gotham, where the villains love giving clues to where they’re going to be next.
The thing is I can’t find any evidence of a Jokermobile being made for this toyline, just design sketches for the toy and a fan-made kitbash. The Kitbash doesn’t look like the one in the comic but the official sketches do, meaning the artist for the comic at least knew what he was supposed to be drawing. That’s a good thing because most of this comic is just Batman in his Batmobile chasing Joker in his Jokermobile. This appears to be pushing the cars more than the action figure. I guess it’s silly to promote the toy you own and this is still a story that focuses on the Joker as he tries to escape Batman. However it doesn’t show off Joker’s action figure feature, allowing him to smack people with a mallet that went over the heads of the other figures as if he hit a bit too hard.
“By all that’s hilarious…” The Joker should have used that exclamation more often.
This strangely makes me want to see the Joker versus the Mask. The movie/cartoon version of Stanley Ipkiss, not the murderer of the original comics. Then again there could be a story there as well.
After using the toys cars’ battering rams to bust through a totally abandoned building wink wink, the Joker finds himself on the docks but his car (called a van in one panel) has a submarine mode, which puts him one up on Inspector Gadget. So he drives into the drink only to get caught by Aquaman as he and Batman were apparently ready with a plan to steer the Joker here and get caught. Maybe they DID know about the robbery beforehand? We only saw this story from the Joker’s perspective.
These are all short comics as they wanted to fit it into the size of the action figure plus the Joker figure itself and his mallet. This one does make decent use of the limited time. While it comes off more like an ad for a toy they didn’t produce and the Batmobile it’s a decent car chase for the panel space they had available and overall a decent short story. Also, Aquaman will be the next Super Powers minicomic we look at.
It will not be the next minicomic we look at for Free Comic Inside though. According to the rotation it’s finally back to Atari’s Swordquest comics for the next exciting chapter. Pack your fireproof outfits for this one.
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