Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Action Comics #372

Action Comics #372 (On Sale: December 31, 1968) has a cover by Neal Adams.

We begin with "The Grappler of Steel" by Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Jack Abel. Continuing from last issue, Superman resumes his quest to find out his own secret identity. When he learns that a wrestler known as the Masked Superman is missing he thinks that he is the wrestler. Superman takes up a wrestling career and stops a group of racketeers in the process. Eventually he finds the real Masked Superman on a desert island. Superman brings the wrestler back to civilization then resumes his quest.

The back-up Supergirl story, "Linda Danvers -- Movie Star" is by Leo Dorfman and Kurt Schaffenberger. Linda Danvers appears on a game show and wins a date with director Brand Burton. The director takes Linda to Hawaii and gives her a role in his latest movie. The lead actress Zita Monroe becomes jealous and attempts to sabotage Linda. When Linda avoids trouble, Zita begins to suspect that she is Supergirl. Linda throws off suspicion by faking a poison ivy rash. Zita apologizes and renews her romance with Burton. This story was reprinted in Superman Family #176.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.

1 comment:

Dave said...

This comic has some of my favorite cover dialogue. "I'll crush your skull like an eggshell!"

A few years back, when I interviewed our pal Tony for the public-access cable wrestling program I work on, I had a montage of wrestling-related comic-book scenes (which I included as part of my tenuous excuse to talk about comics on a wrestling show), and this was one of the shots I used.