Hot Wheels #3

Hot Wheels #3  (On Sale: May 19, 1970) has an adequate cover by Neal Adams, but it gives the book a tone that does not in any way match the interior. It puts the emphasis on the bad guys and relegates the heroes to very small heads in the police car and, of course, the obligatory headshots running down the left panel.

Now this may seem like a minor criticism, but this book was really Alex Toth's baby, and he had a particular product that he wanted to sell, and it was about the characters and their interaction with their cars. Alex had done a number of car books by this time and he knew how to deliver one of those, but I think he was aiming for something more accessible to kids than what DC had in mind.

Nothing points that out clearer than the cover by Alex that was rejected by DC. It puts forth the same idea, that the kids are working with the police and are being shot at. However, it changes the emphasis, moving it away from the bad guys and putting it clearly onto Jack Wheeler.

Alex even employs the unusual design choice of having Jack's head in the left margin do the talking. This moves those obligatory headshots from static window dressing to active participant in the cover. It is a brilliant idea on Toth's part. I just have to wonder what Dick Giordano's problem was with Toth's ideas here.

The book begins with "Stakeout," a 13-pager by Joe Gill, Alex Toth and the horrific Vinnie Colletta.  Colletta could destroy just about anyone's pencils and he certainly sucked the mood right out of Toth's work here. Toth demands a broad, assured stroke and Colletta was never in possession of one. The only bright side to the artwork on this issue is that it is the last time that someone else will ink Toth's Hot Wheels pencils and that is a very good thing.  When some bank robbers are making their getaway in what appears to be an old clunker, but is actually a "funnycar," Jack and Janet come upon them and take off in hot pursuit. Jack ends up flipping their dune buggy, but luckily land in a junkyard's pile of old tires. When the police arrive and ask the two to describe the car, Jack informs them that was a '55 Chevy, but since it was actually a funnycar, they can swap out the bolt-on body and might be any other car the next time the see it.

 Sure enough, across town the gang is picking up their girlfriends and the '55 Chevy is no more. Back at Wheeler Motors the kids talk it over with Jack's dad and decide to stake out the four largest banks in town to see if they can catch the gang in the act. They need to be in police cars to do it, so they go to the Commissioner with a plan to soup up four police cars so they can keep yup with that funnycar. The Commissioner agrees. Besides making the cars faster, they paint them and remove the roof lights. Jack, Tank, Kip and Mickey are joined by plain-clothes officers and the stakeout begins.

Days go by but finally an old pickup pulls up to one of the banks, and, yes, it is the robbers. Jack and his companion, Detective Ross, take off in hot pursuit, but have to drop back as one of the robbers is in the back of the pickup shooting at them. The gunman is tossed out of the truck on a tight turn and Jack notes that they are heading out of town on Monument Road. Tank blocks the road in his car, but Jack warns him that they are coming too fast to stop and a change of tactic is needed. Tanks zig zags his car in front of the truck slowing them down and the other cars converge, capturing the thieves.  Wheeler Motors offers to soup up all the police cars if the Commissioner approves.

This is followed by a two-page Racing Album by Jack Keller highlighting the 1956 Daytona race a one-page text story featuring the Hot Wheels gang entitled "Not Too Bright!" and one page of gags, "Car Toons" by Henry Boltinoff.

The back-up story is  "The Raid of the Red Baron," an 8-page tale drawn by Ric Estrada and Dick Giordano. While dune bugging across the desert to Sweet Springs for a picnic, Janet and Jack are bombed with  a flour sack by resident asshole Dexter in a WWI Fokker. Dexter then chases them down, causing them to flatten in the dust before finding Mickey and Ardeth in their buggy and strafing them. Dexter then has engine trouble and crashes the plane on the edge of a cliff. Dex is fine, but copilot Ferdie has been thrown from the plane and needs a doctor. Jack and Dexter head for the nearest town and retrieve a doctor, who examines Ferdie and the gang help get him back to town.

Ardeth then douses Dexter with her now sandy potato salad. The art in this one is a little strange. The first few pages are dramatic and then as the story wears on the art becomes much more cartoony.  I think Ric was having an issue with what type of tale he was illustrating.

The book was edited by Dick Giordano.