House of Mystery #166 (1966)
by Dave Wood & Jim Mooney
Why are you shooting at his belt instead of basically anywhere else!? Doesn’t look like the best stretegy.
We begin with Suzy returning as a supporting character, much to Robbie’s delight. At least with her new hairstyle and color she looks less like a Supergirl clone.
Jumping ahead a bit, Robbie’s first appearance after the classic run will be a Plastic Man story that reveals he stopped being a hero because he was too interested in girls once hitting puberty.
I think we can see the first signs appearing.
On a school trip, Robbie hears about a (rather lame) local legend about the Cougar Man.
Of course this COULD be a real life legend that I’ve never heard about.
It is kind of hard to make the Cougar Man sound scary when he’s howling “Aaarrrooo!” all the time.
Of course since this is a superhero story, if you mention a legend it HAS to be true.
And then Robbie transforms into *sigh* Yankee Doodle Kid.
“Shades of Uncle Sam” indeed.
A better name would’ve been “Fourth-of-July Kid” because he has fireworks powers.
An even better idea would’ve been to use anyone else.
Yeah I don’t mean to dwell on this, but… Yankee Doodle Kid SUCKS.
Heat vision is cool and all, but I don’t know if shooting fireworks from your eyes is a good idea.
Also he can create holograms. We’ve seen Robbie create telepathic illusions before, but this is a new one.
Robbie originally saw Cougar Man come out of a portal, which for whatever reason he has decided it’s a Time Warp. And he leads the creature back into it.
The day is saved and Robbie can return to crush on Suzy.
You know, there really isn’t much of a reason why he can’t tell her about the transformations, it’s not like it’s easy to prove his secret identity.
We could end the story here, but instead we discover what’s behind Cougar Man.
Apparently a guy has invented a machine that can make legendary creatures real…
…and the best use for it is apparently renting it to mobsters? WTF!?
Also, if you had ONE legend to choose from… would anyone seriously choose the GIANT BIRD!?!?
Has Jim Mooney ever SEEN an albatross?
Robbie overhears the “Monster Albatross” terrorizing the town and so he turns into *sigh* Chief Mighty Arrow.
Please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist…
Oh, well, he’s basically Flying Native Hawkeye. Could’ve been worse.
The bird would take him to the Time Warp…
…if it wasn’t for his JET-PROPELLED FEATHERS.
Robbie’s feathers and not, you know, the giant bird’s feathers.
That would’ve been silly.
And he stops the criminals who were going to take advantage of the chaos surrounding the giant bird by enlarging his axe.
Which only sounds like an euphemism.
Call me overly optimistic, but I think the machine could’ve been used for something a little less stupid.
Historical significance: 2/10
Suzy is here to stay and, sadly, Chief Mighty Arrow WILL return more than once.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Dial S for SOCKAMAGEE! : 65
Seven uses of the catchprase, including one “Double Sockamagee!”
(no I’m not counting that twice)
Dial I for superhero identities: 29
I don’t know which one is more disappointing, Yankee Doodle Kid or Chief Mighty Arrow.
Dial C for the superpowers count: 50
Yankee Doodle Kid has several names for his lame powers; for the most part they’re basically all energy blasts which were already added to the list by House of Mystery #163, but he also has heat vision which feels different enough to count. Plus he can create holograms.
Chief Mighty Arrow, however? I’m going to consider the horse is part of the transformation, as hilarious as it would’ve been to have “horse creation” as a superpower. His arrows don’t do anything that isn’t already covered by a different power, but the jet-propelled feathers and his ability to make objects grow are different enough to count.
That means Robbie has JUST surpassed Jimmy Olsen for number of superpowers!!!
How high will this count get?
Interesting letters: more theories on how the H-Dial works.
Sounds legit.
Believe it or not, Chief Mighty Arrow makes a re-appearance in the new 52 series “Dial H” # 6. The issue deals very specifically with the problem of the dial generating a culturally insensitive character. Until this moment, I did not realize that was a direct call-back to the old series, I just assumed the character was created for that story.