DC Database
Don't have an account?
Register
Advertisement
Register
DC Database
DC Database
127,497
pages
in: Dick Giordano/Cover Artist, Bill Finger/Writer, Lew Sayre Schwartz/Penciler,
and 73 more

Limited Collectors' Edition Vol 1 C-39

Sign in to edit

"Batman: "The Man Behind the Red Hood!"": This story is reprinted from Detective Comics #168.

Limited Collectors' Edition #C-39 is an issue of the series Limited Collectors' Edition (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1975.

Synopsis for Batman: "The Man Behind the Red Hood!"

This story is reprinted from Detective Comics #168.

The state university invites Batman and Robin to be guest instructors. After a month of preparing a crime class in crime-fighting techniques, Batman decides to give the class a test case for a crime he never solved. The case was about a master criminal by the name of the Red Hood who escaped Batman and Robin by diving into a vat of chemicals from the Ace Playing Card Company and disappeared before he was ever caught.

The university crime class makes headlines by reopening the ten year old case which in turn prompts the Red Hood to come out of retirement and rob the campus payroll office. The Red Hood escapes Batman and Robin by exiting the campus through a gas main pipe. Batman and Robin deduce the Red Hood had a breathable gas mask that allowed him to survive the gas.

Later that night, the Red Hood strikes the university again by trying to steal from the museum exhibit. When Batman and Robin give chase, the Red Hood again appears to escape when Batman and Robin accidentally tackle the school gardener, Earl Benson, thinking it was the Red Hood in the dark.

Batman decides to set a trap for the Red Hood by planting a false school newspaper story to entice the Red Hood to rob the university again. When the Red Hood takes the bait, Batman and Robin blind the Red Hood with red beams of light and catch him to reveal his identity as Earl Benson.

Joker (Earth-One) 005

The Joker's origin

Batman explains to the college crime fighting class that Earl is only an imposter. Earl explains how he stole the costume from the real Red Hood after he caught him escaping the university from the gas pipe. He tied the real Red Hood up in the tool shed for a reward but instead decided to use the Red Hood identity to commit crimes and not get blamed for them.

Earl brings everyone to the tool shed where they discover the Joker tied up. The Joker reveals to everyone that he was a lab worker who decided to steal $1,000,000 and retire, so he became the Red Hood. After he dived into the vat of chemicals those many years ago, his hood helped him survive the swim, but the chemicals drastically changed his appearance to look like an evil clown. Realizing he could terrify people with his new appearance, and also paying tribute to the card company that helped the transformation, he called himself the Joker.

Appearing in Batman: "The Man Behind the Red Hood!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Dean Chalmers (Single appearance)
  • Paul Wong (Single appearance)
  • Jimmy Kale (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:


Synopsis for Superboy: "How Luthor Met Superboy!"

This story is reprinted from Adventure Comics #271.

Superboy meets and befriends Lex Luthor, a brown-haired teenage scientist who is his biggest fan, after Luthor saves him from a Kryptonite meteor. The Boy of Steel creates a modern laboratory for Luthor, in which the latter creates a simple form of protoplasmic life and uses it to make an antidote for Kryptonite. But, when Luthor accidentally starts a fire, Superboy comes to the rescue, blowing out the blaze. The blast of air knocks an acid bottle into the bottle containing the life-form, destroying it and creating a gas which causes all of Lex's hair to fall out. Enraged at the loss of the life-form, the irreplaceable formula for its creation, and his hair, Luthor vows vengeance against Superboy. He traps Superboy with a Kryptonite meteorite, but the hero survives by inhaling the last few drops of Luthor's antidote. Superboy declares that they are even now, and he owes Luthor nothing, though he refuses to take him to jail and tells Luthor to straighten out. Luthor vows that he will someday become more famous than Superboy, and will destroy him.

Appearing in Superboy: "How Luthor Met Superboy!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Krypto
  • Mayor of Smallville
  • Mr. Wade (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

Synopsis for Flash: "The Coldest Man on Earth!"

This story is reprinted from Showcase #8.

Len Snart was a down on his luck guy until one day, after reading a newspaper story that theorized that a cyclotron could possibly stop the Flash, Snart breaks into a science lab and uses the Cyclotron on a weapon of his own devising. Mostly by accident, Snart creates a freezing weapon that leads to the birth of his costumed identity: Captain Cold.

As Cold, Snart hopes to use his cold gun (and its abilities to create mirages) against the Flash and defeat the worlds fastest man. Going up against the Flash, Captain Cold's weapon works at first disorientating the Flash. However, Flash figures out the truth behind Cold's powers and is able to stop him by spinning him around at super speed, and turns him over to the police.

Appearing in Flash: "The Coldest Man on Earth!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Stan (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • None

Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "The Origin of Dr. Sivana"

This story is reprinted from Whiz Comics #15.

Billy SHAZAMs himself up into Captain Marvel, puts on a tuxedo, and escorts Beautia out to a night club. They encounter some thug trouble, so Marvel SHAZAMs himself down to Billy size, and they flee the place amid the stormy side effects of the transformation. At first they are pursued by Rocco di Bota's thugs, but in a Chinatown alley they encounter the almost legendary Ruler of Chinatown and Boss of All Rackets, the venerable Footo Yu, who orders the thugs to depart, which they hastily do. But the wizened Celestial then locks all the doors, and uses an electronic device to cancel out the sound of Billy's magic word. Footo Yu is Sivana in disguise! After attaching this Ultra-Frequency Oscillator device to Billy's neck, with an arc-welder, Sivana flies Billy and Beautia to Central America, which takes the whole rest of that night.

Somewhere in those jungles, Sivana has a hidden series of incubators, in which he is breeding Venusian life-forms, including "Glompers". Back on Venus, Beautia's palace servants and soldiers had all been Glompers;[1] she speaks their language, and they idolize her. Billy befriends one young Glomper, naming it "Gloppo". Two weeks go by.

Billy Batson sneaks out of the camp one night, is discovered and shot at, but succeeds in stealing Sivana's super-powered airplane and flying away. Gloppo has also escaped the camp and rides away with Billy. After about an hour, Sivana himself pursues them, in one of his 7000 mph rocketships. The bigger faster ship knocks the plane into a hillside for a completely destructive crash, from which Billy and Gloppo are very luckily thrown clear. Even more luckily, Billy hit a tree, hard enough and at just the right angle, to break the U.F.Oscillator on his neck, but not his neck, SHAZAM.

Sivana lands his rocketship and Magnificus disembarks, launches himself at Captain Marvel, tackles him in mid-air and begins a lengthy hand-to-hand struggle with the superhero. They seem to be almost evenly matched! Their battle causes a landslide, in which the elder Sivana is hit with a boulder and nearly killed. Marvel knocks out Magnificus, but expects him to rally back up at any moment.

Captain Marvel loads the Sivanas and the Glompers into the streamlined interplanetary rocketship, and again abandons them on Venus. For the Glompers, suffering greatly in the relatively frigid climate of Earth, this is a great kindness. Beautia tells Marvel the story of Sivana's early career in Europe and on Venus, and reveals that she and Magnificus are Sivana's children.

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "The Origin of Dr. Sivana"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Dr. Sivana (Origin) (Flashback and main story)
  • Rocco di Bota, shady restaurateur
    • his thugs

Other Characters:

  • Sivana Family
    • Beautia Sivana (Revealed in this story to be Dr. Sivana's daughter) (Origin) (Flashback and main story)
    • Magnificus Sivana (Beautia's brother, Dr. Sivana's son) (First appearance) (Origin) (Flashback and main story)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

Aliens

  • Venusian Glompers (man-sized frogs with man-like hands)
    • Gloppo, Billy's friend

Synopsis for "The Origin of Terra-Man"

This story is reprinted from Superman #249.

Jess Manning, an Old West outlaw, is killed by an alien bandit called the Collector who adopts his young son Toby. The alien raises Toby to be a super-thief, giving him the ability to breathe in space, outfitting him with super-weapons that resemble six-shooters, a lariat, and chewing tobacco, and helping him acquire a white, winged space-steed named Nova. Since Toby is a man of Earth, the alien dubs him Terra-Man. But Toby has learned that the alien killed his father, and shoots the alien dead as soon as he learns all the latter can teach him.

Appearing in "The Origin of Terra-Man"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Nova (Origin)
  • Jess Manning (Single appearance; dies)

Antagonists:

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:


Notes



See Also

Recommended Reading

Links and References

  1. ↑ Whiz Comics #3B
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms
Advertisement

Fan Feed

More DC Database