If the plan is to steal gold, why are you shooting it at the nearly invulnerable guy?
Captain Atom #89 [FINAL ISSUE]
Charlton Comics Group (December, 1967)
“Captain Atom Meets The Thirteen”
WRITER: Dave Kaler
PENCILER: Steve Ditko
INKER: Frank McLaughlin
even until the end, no love for the colorist or editor
LETTERER: Herb Field
Nightshade: “Masque Of Mirrors”
WRITER/CREATOR: David A. Keller
ARTIST: Jim Aparo
A strange missile is found, and both the Ghost and a new threat in the form of the mysterious 13 and his talking cat Faustus want it. Captain Atom is caught between them, fighting all three, but in the end 13 and Faustus are successful, meaning the Ghost wasn’t able to retrieve it for his followers as The Faceless Ones. So the warrior women of the council that controls Ghost’s lands decide that Captain Atom should be brought to them. Apparently nobody was told this was the final issue.
What they got right: Until the end, 13 and Faustus made for an interesting threat to Captain Atom, as did the Ghost.
What they got wrong: So apparently 13 was one of the good guys, an agent from the future who somehow talked the President into setting all of this up, including a fake fight with Captain Atom, because the missile contained devices from the future despite being many years old. At some point somebody just gave up on a reasonable explanation.
In Nightshade’s back-up story, Jewelee shows up at a part Eve is attending with her dad. Nightshade manages to defeat her and her men with gadgets and not her powers. It’s almost like they didn’t really matter. We also learn that Eve was trained in martial arts by Tiger, Judomaster’s old sidekick now grown up. It was okay but necessarily short.
What I think overall: Not a great story to end the series on for the main story. The back-up is okay but Nightshade never did get her own comic. That does it for the both of them. Next time our pre-DC journey takes us to meet the original version of Peacemaker.
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