Friday, March 28, 2008

Detective Comics #375

Detective Comics #375 (On Sale: March 28, 1968) has a cover by Irv Novick.

"The Frigid Finger of Fate" is drawn by Chic Stone and Sid Greene. Pete Maddox discovers that when he sleeps in cold temperatures, his dream reveal the future. He uses this new ability to win money at the track. However, things go wrong when he tells people about the dreams. If he does, the dreams no longer come true.

Pete hires some crooks to rob a diamond exchange. Batman apprehends the crooks, who believe that Pete set them up. Pete then dreams he kills Batman. However, the crooks come after Pete. He tries to stop them by telling them about his plan to kill the Caped Crusader. By informing the crooks, Pete is no longer able to kill Batman, who apprehends the crooks.

Pete continues to use his ability, but he requires a colder temperature each time. When he tries to sleep in a butcher's freezer, the cold kills him.

The Elongated Man back-up, "The Face That Stopped Clocks," is by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and George Roussos. Ralph Dibny meets a man who claims that his face can stop clocks. He demonstrates this ability by stopping Sue Dibny's wristwatch and a wall clock. The man dons a mask, then leaves. Ralph follows his cab, but the man disappears leaving the mask behind.

Ralph finds an address on the mask which leads him to a robbery scene. Ralph stops the crime, then realizes that he got the address backwards. He then goes to the correct address where he finds that Sue has put together a birthday party for him. The clock stopping man was a fake that Sue arranged as a mystery for Ralph's birthday gift.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.

1 comment:

rob! said...

i don't think i've ever seen that one; superbly designed and executed.