Atom #33 (On Sale: August 1, 1967) has a cool cover by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. I never did trust a praying mantis after seeing this cover!Inside we have "Amazing Arsenal of the Atom-Assassin" by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene. Bertram Larvan is serving a prison sentence for his crimes as the Bug-Eyed Bandit. Though he learned the Atom's secret identity during his capture, his memory was wiped out causing him to forget the Atom's identity and his own criminal past. However, his time as a model prisoner ends when during an accident in prison, Bertram is struck in the head restoring his memory. He then makes his escape.
Memory restored, the Bug-Eyed Bandit sends mechanical bugs to kill Ray Palmer. He believes that they have succeeded when Palmer is reported dead. However, the Atom has shielded himself from the radiation Larvan is using to detect his presence.
While trying to stop one of the Bug-Eyed Bandit's robberies, Atom is captured by one of the Bandit's bugs. The Bandit believes the Atom is a robot, but soon discovers that he is the real thing. With the Atom held captive, Larvan tries to learn the secret of size control.
Edited by Julius Schwartz.
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1 comment:
I'd just like to point out that Larvan never actually called himself "The Bug-Eyed Bandit" — at least, not in his original appearances in The Atom. In fact, in his initial appearance in issue #26, no one ever calls him that; neither the dialogue nor the narrative captions. The phrase is only used in a blurb on the cover. Somehow, though, that cover blurb seems to have stuck, as in this rematch in #33, others refer to him by this silly name (perhaps they saw the cover of #26 during a visit to Earth-Prime), but Larvan never uses it himself.
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