World's Greatest Super Hero Cups - Mission Accomplished

In my last post, I mentioned how I'd searched for any information on these 1.5" plastic cups I would get from the vending machines at Ames, during my childhood in the late 70s/early 80s. But I always came up blank. And for a long time I figured that maybe they all had just been destroyed or lost. They were terribly fragile, and so many items of my youth went MIA with no discernible reason that it seemed plausible. Until early this year, when I finally unlocked the Google Search Code [TM]. 

Then I started scouring eBay and Etsy and Google, hunting down any of these cups I could find (knowing, as revealed in the previous post, that there were 12 total to acquire). I quickly managed to snag 10 of the 12. Unsurprisingly, the two that were proving elusive were the female characters -- Wonder Woman and Batgirl. Now, there was a Batgirl cup for sale on eBay, but it was priced at $99.99. I had been paying between $3-7 each for these cups; no way was I shelling out a hundred bucks for Batgirl. It was a quandary . . . 

I continued to do my searches, though, and discovered an eBay listing for the full collection of only 12 stickers, plus 4 stickers from the Marvel cups offered in 1978. These were priced at $244.95. Ha! No way! But . . . that got me thinking I should search for the stickers, because it would be nice to have a full set of those, in addition to the cups. This turned up a listing at the Superman Store for the full set of stickers -- 10 bucks on sale; done! At this point, a plan started to form in my brain. 

I decided to order two sets of the stickers from the Superman Store, which was still less than 10% of the cost for the full set on eBay, and less than a dollar per sticker -- so, a good deal. I then put in an offer on a listing of a pair of these cups with characters I already had, and the seller accepted. Once those two cups arrived, as well as the sticker sets, I put my plan into action. Peeling the stickers from the duplicate cups, which was surprisingly easy, I then applied the Wonder Woman and Batgirl stickers to the now naked cups, and voila, a full set was born. 

I gotta say, putting together this small set of cups from when I was seven years old was incredibly satisfying. I'm so happy to have them as part of my "full-to-bursting" collection of comics, Star Wars toys, statues, posters, prints, original art, et al. 

Excelsior!

All Star Squadron, by Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, et al.

 So, since early in the COVID quarantine, my buddies and I have been doing weekly video calls to talk some classic comics. We've read Geoff Johns's initial FLASH run, THE NEW TEEN TITANS by Wolfman & Perez, and the QUESTION by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan. Now, we're reading Roy Thomas's paean to DC's golden age, ALL STAR SQUADRON. This week, we're reading issues 14-20, plus JLA 207-209, and I wanted to share some panels from these comics that brought a smile to my face. 

From All Star Squadron #17, by Thomas, with art from Adrian Gonzalez & Rick Hoberg.

This issue was a trial to determine if Robotman was human or merely a mechanical facsimile that should be melted down for slag. The turning point comes when the courthouse begins to collapse and Robotman must break from his chains and use his super strength to save those within, most especially the lawyer who brought suit against him. Revealing his humanity, he is deemed human and free to go. But how can he speak to the judge at his bench when the building collapsed????

From All Star Squadron #15, by Thomas, art by: Gonzalez & Jerry Ordway

Per Degaton, the villain of this 5-part crossover with the JLA, is going to "conquer an earth!" Melodrama aside, I love the reactions of the henchmen in the background -- genuinely funny stuff. I wish there was more of this in these comics.

From All Star Squadron #16, by Thomas, Gonzalez & Hoberg. 

  

I gotta give points to Nuclear, the Magnetic Man (no, I'd never heard of him before either) using Robotman's arm as a weapon against the other All-Stars. Well played!

Another from All Star Squadron #15: 

Luckily, Superman and Dr. Fate have super voices and are able to utilize the very, very few oxygen molecules in space to speak with one another. 
I . . . don't know if that's how that would work. But, it's comics!

And, from JLA #209 by Gerry Conway & Don Heck, more fun with oxygen

    

If Per Degaton is without oxygen (read Zatanna's spell backward, to see what she did to him), then how is he still speaking?!!? 

Another from JLA 209

This should have been the opening page, rather than a couple of pages of backstory exposition. (I know, I know! It was a different time, when exposition was the way things were done in comics . . . except that Larry Hama was doing it with far more aplomb in G.I. Joe, the same year this was published, and Alan Moore was beginning his legendary run on Swamp Thing that same year as well. So, there were other ways of doing it.)

Again, from All Star Squadron #16

Wonder Woman claims she's never needed the help of other heroes. But, she worked with the JSA and All Stars in issues 1-3 of this series. AND THERE'S AN EDITOR'S NOTE TO THAT EFFECT. Why doesn't she remember?!!? And why does Roy Thomas, who wrote all these comics, make her not remember?!!? What the hell is going on?