So there I was yesterday, browsing through old issues of Blue Devil for no good reason, when suddenly I was reminded of Amazons Attack.
How come? Read on, but beware of SPOILERS for AA #6 (oh, like you don’t know already)….
Back in his original series, Dan “Blue Devil” Cassidy hung around with a Rick Springfield-esque semi-talent named Wayne Tarrant. Wayne’s pop-star fame included dressing up like “Theseus, Prince Of Athens” and singing a song called “Pagan Love.” (I don’t know. It was the ’80s. Maybe it was a residual Ziggy Stardust thing.) Anyway, long story short, this earned him the wrath of Athena, who saw it as mockery. The goddess then learned that Wayne had broken the hearts of three groupies, and made said groupies into Furies, in order to kill Wayne slowly and painfully.
While no one has much sympathy for Wayne, Blue Devil and special guest-star Wonder Woman don’t want him dead, so they get the Furies out of the groupies. This calls out the Giant Athena Hologram, and that’s when I got the Amazons Attack #6 vibe.
Wayne gets off the hook, thanks to the de-Furied women forgiving him. He can’t do the Theseus act again, but no one really quibbles about that. Still, Athena reminds the “mortals” that “…the Furies are ever at my call!” Compare AA #6, which also ends with a Giant Floating Athena Hologram handing out judgment, deus ex machina style.
Now, who knows whether Blue Devil #10 is (back) in continuity. That’s not quite the point. Its Giant Athena Hologram, and her stern reprimand, would have been enough to get an ironic chuckle out of me.
No, the reason this merits a blog entry is the lettercolumn. Who’s written to praise Blue Devil #6? Why, it’s a Mr. Will Pfeifer, from Niles, Ohio, who I presume grew up to write Amazons Attack lo, these many years later. Crazy, man!
The substance of his letter isn’t especially relevant, but I do wonder whether Mr. Pfeifer stayed with Blue Devil at least through the issue which printed his letter. If so, maybe he filed some of its elements in the back of his mind for future use. It could be one of those subconscious, subliminable doohickeys. Or was it something more –?
In any event, I guess we’re lucky we didn’t witness Wayne disemboweled — or, worse, singing – in Amazons Attack….
["Hell Hath No Furies..." appeared in Blue Devil #10, March 1985, and was written by Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn, pencilled by Michael Chen, and inked by Gary Martin.]
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
What a crazy coincidence. The problem is that over time, memories blur, and what might seem like an original idea is actually an amalgam of many past ideas. I’ve had this happen many times, where I had a great idea for a story and then realized it was a rehash of “The Wizard of Oz” or something.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Missed the AMAZONS ATTACK books (as well as just about everything else DC has done for the last decade)…Will is a DC writer these days? Good deal. Dazzle ‘em, Will, and save some of those big bucks.
Wayne Tarrant’s moment of glory had been as a teen heart throb starring in a Theseus TV series…hence the costume, song and groupies.
We all lift from each other. Something makes an impression when you’re a kid…when you’re a pro, some elements of that impression recur, and they show up in something you’ve done, and you usually have very little recollection of where you got the idea. Most of the time you think you just kinda thought it up.
Anyway…it’s been two and a half years since you posted this, probably no one will see this response, but nonetheless nice to see some BD pages reproduced.
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