Thanks to writer John Broome, the Flash’s archenemies often had singular, quirky and engaging motivations.
Captain Boomerang was originally just a talented Australian hired by the Wiggins Game Company to promote a toy craze. Captain Cold was a romantic, forever falling haplessly in love with various women. And the 64th century magician Abra Kadabra also just wanted to be loved — but by an audience.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote — a fact that renders Abra Kadabra’s career dreams hopeless in his own era, obviously.
Remarking on the super-villain’s origin (The Case of the Real-Gone Flash, The Flash 128, May 1962), comics historian Michael E. Grost observed that it’s “…more pathetic than sinister. His various thefts are done not for gain, but to try to publicize his stage act. His need for applause and public celebrity strikes a familiar Broome theme, the corrupting side of the search for fame.”
“Trickster characters like Abra Kadabra often cause difficulties for authority figures, in fiction books and comics. And they are often shown enjoying doing this. However, that is not shown as a motive for Abra Kadabra ... He is instead interested exclusively in fame and applause.”
And if applause isn’t forthcoming, the ovation-obsessed outlaw can compel it with futuristic mind-control technology.
Abra Kadabra travels back to the 20th century to wow audiences, and repeatedly runs afoul of the Flash, returning in The Plight of the Puppet-Flash (1962) and The See-Nothing Spells of Abra Kadabra (1967).
“Kadabra never deigned to work with the rest of the Flash’s Rogue’s Gallery,” observed Kelson Vibber in The Flash Companion. “He rarely worked with allies of any kind — willing ones, anyway — and Central City’s other criminals were beneath his consideration. They would only hog the limelight.”
Bob Doncaster wrote:
ReplyDeleteComics themselves were magical in the Silver Age. They made my meager allowance disappear.
Bob Bailey wrote:
ReplyDeleteThat was such a great story. And the cover was so eerie and cool.
Bruce Kanin wrote:
ReplyDeleteI was always mystified as to how powerful Abra Kadabra was. I mean, he turned Flash into a puppet (really, a marionette), for goodness sake. Could he not have done anything he wanted?
As for "He is instead interested exclusively in fame and applause", AK sounds a lot like a disgusting Orange Blob that we hope is indicted soon.
Paul Zuckerman wrote:
ReplyDeleteJohn Broome was an amazing inventive writer and he gave his characters distinctive personalities -- none of that cardboard cut characters that too often distinguished DC in those days. And his tongue was often firmly in cheek, but not enough for a young reader like me to fully realize. He wrote his stories so they could be taken seriously, if absurdly, but as I got older, I picked up on the satire and humor more and more.
Perhaps his most serious work for the 60s was on Atomic Knights, befitting the nature of the series.
Broome's work was exceedingly hopeful. His future earth was often utopic -- Kadabra needs to go back to our time because his time is too boringly perfect -- and, as in the Atomic Knights, when dealing with disasters, he stressed cooperation and rebuilding of civilization.
While I am sure Broome had true magic in some of his stories, he tended to give things an SF explanation, unlike Gardner Fox, who would go full tilt into the arcane and mystic. And Abra is a good example of Broome's super-science approach.
I think DC has moved away from that for Kadabra, which is too bad -- it is one thing that made him unique.
Broome flirted with the unknown in the story called Doorway to the Unknown, but it was more of a religious flirtation; he did similarly in the Secret Origin of the Guardians when a figure that could easily be God creates the Universe. Mostly, he stayed away from that and religion. (What I find interesting and somewhat problematic is that comics seem to subscribe to the Devil and pantheons of other gods while staying away from the Judeo/Christian/Moslem God, leaving a universe full of hells and other unhappy afterlives and rarely showing a positive one.)
Another aspect of Broome's work is that the bad guys are not hardcore. Sure, they put the Flash into death traps that could kill him, but it is almost like a game for Broome's bad guys. None of them are malicious or random killers. Many of them are in it for the thrill. Captain Cold, as you note, Dan, fancies himself a lover. And a few -- most notably Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy r-- eformed. The most maliciously evil was the Reverse Flash, who wants to take on Barry Allen's life to the point of marrying Iris!
Mark Engblom wrote:
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Carmine Infantino’s career-best work was for the Silver Age Flash. From his streamlined interior design and architecture (including his endearingly suburb-less cities on vast empty planes) to the varied and eccentric cast of friends and foes, it epitomized the 1960s superhero like no other.
Abra Kadabra is a perfect example of Infantino’s high water period. Angular, rail-thin (much like The Flash himself), wearing white to the traditional magician’s black, and a spectacular comb-over that not even 64th century science could cure, Kadabra was walking cartoon of vanity and neurosis.
Mark Staff Brandl wrote:
ReplyDeleteBroome and Fox had very enlightened, complex personality traits in their characters and their plots often had very humane resolutions, not just good vs evil punch em ups.