Tuesday, October 26, 2010


I didn't think I had any Jemm, Son of Saturn comics, but I found issue #4 in my Superman box, since it guest-stars, well, duh. My impression of this series, without having read much of it or really remembering this issue, is that it was more or less "E.T. in the DC Universe," and maybe.

Young orphan Luther Mannikin and his newly found alien friend Jemm are taken in by street person Crazy Freddie, who looks like he's going to molest the hell out of both of them. No, Freddie is just collecting children for his band of pickpockets, which seems positively wholesome now. While Jemm and Luther play jacks, rogue C.I.A. agent Dade and Superman track them down: Dade because he lost his fiance and forty soldiers to aliens (who were robots that didn't look anything like Jemm) and Superman's trying to see what's up with all this Saturnian talk, since he knows there's no life there. (This might be pre-Crisis, so Supes might be able to see it from there.)

Superman is able to knock out Jemm, and Dade then attempts to execute him with a stolen C.I.A. superweapon called the "Krypt-Kicker." Supes stops him, pointing out that he's an alien himself, unwisely. The xenophobic Dade shoots him, but before he can finish Jemm, the robots that previously faced him return, capturing Jemm, and killing Dade. Supes regains consciousness, knowing he dropped the ball; and Jemm and Luther now face...a White Saturnian, Synn.

There's also a subplot, barely, with the little girl offering Jemm a flower up there. She's psychic, and is introduced and dies over the course of this issue. Not great, and it reminds me of E.T. for some reason too.

I know I've read more of his Marvel work, like Daredevil and Tomb of Dracula; but Gene Colan did a batch of DC as well, didn't he? I know I have a good chunk of his Detective Comics and Nathaniel Dusk. Odd that I've only one issue of this, though: "The Hunting" Written by Greg Potter, art by Colan and Klaus Janson.

Short one today, since I had to do some cleaning, and watch the Cowboys game, which is so frustrating it makes me want to cut myself. Not really. Maybe.

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