Green Lantern #43

GREEN LANTERN vol2 #43 (1966)
by Gardner Fox & Gil Kane

Major Disaster has the perfect Silver Age supervillain name: it’s right in the middle between being a genius pun and a stupid idea.

Green Lantern and Flash have always been a popular team-up, so it’s suprising to see there was a three year gap. Whether it was “well worth waiting for”…

…how could it NOT be, when this is the face that greets you on the teaser page?

I haven’t covered much Green Lantern, so here’s a refresher: his boss Carol Ferris is in love with the hero, NOT the secret identity. So it’s quite a shock for him when she asks out Hal Jordan.

Ah, Gil Kane reaction shots, how much have I missed you.

Turns out someone has outed Green Lantern!!!

And that’s not all: the Flash’s girlfriend Iris also knows his secret identity now.

This is in-character for the rather self-centered Carol, but I’m calling bulls##t on Iris.
She’s a journalist who wouldn’t use this kind of information just to show off with a friend: she’s not Lois Lane! And unlike both Lois and Carol, Iris is in love with just Barry Allen… she’s not in love with the Flash and doesn’t worship him like other Silver Age girlfriends, so WTF!?!?

Seriously, these reactions are killing me.

Come on, this is straight up something out of the Lois Lane series. These characters are not typically THAT self-centered!

Having Green Lantern around during an earthquake sure is helpful.

So you have technology that can create earthquakes AND to protect you from any accident, and the way you use that to make money is… robbing a bank.

Sounds legit.

Bonus: it also protects you from superpowers!

It’s now that we learn Major Disaster is behind this. And the teaser page didn’t lie, he DOES have that goofy expression on his face in the story as well!

You probably expect Major Disaster being behind the girlfriends discovering the secret identities.
And you’d be right, but probably you didn’t anticipate WHY.

So… let me get this straight: THIS was Major Disaster’s plan?
1) discover the secret identities of Green Lantern and Flash, SOMEHOW
2) inform their girlfriends about said identities
3) assume they would tell each other (WTF!?)
4) assume they would they would show up at a specific place (double WTF!?)
If all you wanted was to have both heroes at the same place at a specific time… couldn’t you just blackmail them into showing up!? “Be here at this time or I’ll expose your identity” would’ve been SO much easier!!!

BUT WAIT, there’s more!!!

Yep. Major Disaster’s scientists have developed Stress-Null-Beam-Rays™ that can do four things that have almost nothing to do with each other!
A) create earthquakes
B) create storms
C) give Green Lantern’s powers to the Flash
D) give the Flash’s powers to Green Lantern

What kind of scientist did Major Disaster hire anyway!?!?

Also:

Both heroes don’t know they actually have each other’s powers, believing they’ve just lost them.
There’s SOME attempt to match Iris with her typical characterization, but it’s a little late.

Major Disaster’s rays can ALSO summon meteors (????), and apparently switching the heroes’ powers had the unintended result to make them immune to the disasters.
SOMEHOW.

The fact that Flash doesn’t currently have super-speed results in one of his most hilarious fights.

Our supervillain, ladies and gentlemen.

You might have wondered: how in the world did an idiot like Major Disaster manage to deduce the secret identities?
Like most Earth-based problems in this series, it’s all Hal Jordan’s fault.

That’s right, Hal mindwiped his friend to erase his knowledge of the secret identities… BUT he kept around the book that details them.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

The comic does acknowledge this was a mistake on Hal’s part, sure, but I’m still not buying it.
There is NO REASON for him not destroying the casebook.

On a positive note, someone finally remembers that Barry Allen is a forensic scientist.

Once Green Lantern gets around to recharge his ring, he ends up powering up Flash… and he has super-speed now.

It is kind of hilarious that an absurd villain like Major Disaster gets caught because he left his fingerprints.

THAT is who Major Disaster is: a regular thief who got his hands on Green Lantern’s casebook.
SERIOUSLY.

So let me get this straight… THIS is his path to supervillainy:
1) read Green Lantern’s adventures
2) ???
3) convince scientists to give him all kinds of technology

Sounds legit.

Major Disaster recides to retaliate against the heroes with a lightning storm and an avalanche, so that’s EVEN MORE effects of his absurd rays.

And then the two heroes switch back to their original powers… somehow!?

Major Disaster will later turn into a joke villain, so you might be wondering: considering he has some very impressive technology in his arsenal, how did he end up that way?
I have a solid theory. HE’S A COMPLETE IDIOT.

Green Lantern has used his ring to wipe people’s memories so much that even HE is tired of it!!!

But the writer sure loves his amnesia plots, because FOR NO REASON AT ALL everyone in the city has lost his memory!!!

And so we end with Carol going back to not having any interest whatsoever in Hal Jordan.

UNTIL THE VERY NEXT PANEL.

I swear Carol turning into Star Sapphire is the least of her mental problems.

---

Historical significance: 0/10
When introducing Major Disaster is your major contribution.

Silver Age-ness: 15/10
I feel you, Flash.

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
There’s some good action here and there, but… man was this rough. The girls’ characterization was abysmal, the science made no sense even by Silver Age standards (WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING), the villain was incredibly lame and his plan made even LESS sense.

Ridiculous Flash feat of the day

---

How close is this to the modern character? 3/10
To me, Major Disaster will always be a Karate Kid villain. You might remember he was in the story that included the most bonkers Legion moment of all time…

…but you might have forgotten he ends up being blown up by his own technology in that issue as well, which I now realize is a character trait that goes back his first appearance.

But backing off a little: how DID Major Disaster survive his first story? Because it turns out he had an Anti-Disaster Gadget™ to protect him!!!

His power was also vaguely redefined as being “disaster energy” which he could direct towards inanimate objects.

But he also later gave himself the power to cause disasters. Which for a while was more dangerous for him than for anyone else.

Major Disaster’s claim to fame… or the closest thing to fame he could hope for… was during the Giffen & DeMatteis era Justice League International, which saw his evolution into a joke villain as leader of the unbelievably incompetent Injustice League.

I didn’t find that era as funny as most readers seem to, but the Injustice League was hilarious!

The Injustice League proved popular enough to be reinterpreted as wannabe superheroes.

These guys were sincere about wanting to be heroes but were too incompetent for any actual team, so they ended up forming the Justice League Antarctica… yes, really.

Things didn’t work out for the team… shocking, I know… and the story ended with Major Disaster deciding to become a dentist.

So we have an over-the-top goofy character with a brief stint as a joke hero. Naturally, the best way forward was turning him into an actual superhero in the supposedly super-serious Justice League Elite, a.k.a. the “we don’t own the rights to Authority just yet” team.

Yep, this guy in the laziest “costume” possible is supposed to be Major Disaster.

I haven’t read any story with this version of Major Disaster, and nothing I’ve seen gives me any incentive… he really doesn’t fit into the role, AT ALL.

But there is one positive note here: the 2018 Harley Quinn series gave us his daughter, Minor Disaster… who uses her disaster-making technology to ruin people’s reputation on social media.

Now THAT is exactly the blend between genius and stupidity that Major Disaster SHOULD represent!!!