A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

© DC Comics

This is one of my favorite comics, ever.

Dick Dillin was the artist, with John Calnan inks.

Dillin’s barrel chested, solid-as-a-rock men remind me very much of Alex Ross’s aesthetic, only Dillin also created impossibly beautiful women whose hair always looked as if it was made of plastic. It just never really got messed up.

This issue was the first I read and I loved it, even though I now acknowledge that it is as ridiculous as an issue of Prez.

Dillin is the first artist I noticed who made a point of trying to give characters individual faces. When he got bad ink jobs it was hard to see, but he got a terrific ink job on this comic. Young Clark and Young Bruce are both dead handsome, and most artists wouldn’t bother to try to vary their facial shapes or noses, but Dillin did here, and that made me sit up and go, “Hey! What a great idea! People should have different faces!”

Duh.

Clark had a younger, smoother face with a little nose like Dean Cain and Bruce was more chiseled and patrician.

Even Dillin’s gorgeous women got attention as some had little button noses and some aquiline. I know this sounds like a dopey minor point, but it set the gears to rolling in my noggin since individualizing women’s faces was something a lot of artists weren’t doing.

This Super Sons adventure was howlingly goofy. Bruce and Clark are out for a jaunt like the hip young guys they are and they run across a gorgeous woman working in a blacksmith shop, hurling a hammer and anvil.

That’s so not normal.

Bruce (who is a sexist pig) bounces up to help the glamorous chick with the hot tongs and the anvil, and she reacts with fury.

Clark (who has better manners) admonishes Bruce to move along and get over rejection, so off they go, driving their studmobile into town…a town populated entirely by gorgeous women!

Jackpot!

While Bruce tries to get over his case of Tourette’s Syndrome (he cannot seem to utter two sentences together without calling someone “babe” or “chick”), Clark plays peacemaker.

But none of the glamorous gals are having any of it! No sirree! Despite the fact that Clark and Bruce look like young Greek Gods, these women will have nothing to do with them and try to run them out of town!

What, are they lesbians or something?

No, worse!

They’re FEMINISTS!

That’s right, they have decided to live in a World Without Men! And yet, none of them look like Andrea Dworkin, they all look like Charlie’s Angels! They wear mini-skirts, makeup, and they have perfect hair.

OK, maybe they are lesbians, but one thing’s for sure, if a town full of gorgeous women won’t have anything to do with Bruce Wayne, then something must be wrong with them!

And women are mysteriously disappearing in the Southern swampy swamp! What could it be?!?

YIKES! It’s an alien invasion! An alien with a feminist agenda!

This big lizard alien thing has an enormous eye and is really ugly. I am not giving away any big scene spoilers because the brain trusts who edited this book show you the damned thing right there on the cover.

Anyway, the alien hates beautiful women! Because, see, she’s really ugly and has been rejected by everyone! One ponders – but only for a moment – exactly why a big scaly one-eyed alien would even begin to consider American chicks the pinnacle of beauty – even if they are Southern – but that’s the plot, so there you go.

And to take revenge, she has lured all the most beautiful women to her town to create a World Without Men so she can manipulate them, make them call each other “Sister”, force them to wear spiked heels and false eyelashes even when they are working in a smithy, and then kill them one by one! It’s a diabolical plot indeed!

But it is stopped by our noble Super Sons, of course.

The loutish Bruce Wayne JR, then encourages the gorgeous gals – now free of alien influences by big scaly aliens who read too much Gloria Steinem – to line up for their dose of smootch medicine from the Doctor of Love, for they must have been fretting having to be away from hunkalicious guys like the Brucester for so long!

Clark Kent remains in background looking exasperated. What a Boy Scout.

This is one of the best bad comics ever.

c

From the old blog, regular Donna noted in the comments: “I guess I have to be the one that points out that there is a BIG ONE EYED MONSTER on the cover of this comic. I mean seriously people, did no one else spot that yet?”

I have had that comic for years, and I never noticed it. Now that Donna has pointed it out, I can’t see anything else.

For more fun and games with classic, goofy comics, Check out Allan Harvey’s blog Gorilladaze. Enjoy this PREZ flashback.

Here’s another classic: Superman plays Witch Doctor Priest at the wedding of Jimmy Olsen and a gorilla.

Jimmy even has to rub a body part with his bride during the honeymoon. Good Lord.

c