It's that time of year so I figured I'd do a little search of my silver age stacks to find comics with a Christmas theme. I was surprised to find only one book with a Christmassy cover. Why weren't comics exploiting the most commercially exploitable holiday of the year?
Perhaps it’s because all that cheer and goodwill cramped the style of super-villainy. Perhaps mayhem takes a holiday. Perhaps Christmas is merely mentioned as opposed to cover material (as in Action Comics #289 “When Supergirl Played Cupid” – on a trip to the future Superman and Supergirl attend a Christmas party thrown by the adult Legion of Superheroes. It’s worth a read for the silly futuristic Christmassy things alone. Well, that and it’s a great story. If you want to see some panel scans I covered this story on my Comic Books Revisited blog). Or perhaps I just don’t own the right comics. After all, my collection has gaps you can drive a sleigh and 8 reindeer through.
Whatever the reason, only Teen Titans #13 leapt out at me as a purely Christmassy issue. After all, the cover has a Christmas tree made of trash, a lovely wreath surrounding the words “A Christmas Happening!” and a character named Scrounge. Hmm... to which traditional Christmas story will this one pay homage? I wonder...
It’s Christmas of 1967 – you all remember that, right kids? After all, it’s only 41 years ago! I guess that explains all the uses of “groovy” and “It’s like nowheres!”. To get you in the mood, swingers, I’m going to lay a quiz on you. It’s hip and mod and happening and very relevant. (Well, not really, but I got such a big kick out of it I simply had to inflict it on you). Ready? Here we go.
Do you have problems communicating with the establishment?
Do you find older people bug you about your long-haired friends?
Do you have problems when it comes to borrowing your dad’s set of wheels?
Do grown-ups cop out on the clothes you wear?
Are you still looked upon as a gawky adolescent when you try to express your hang-ups?
That was a quiz from an ad for “Teen Beam” magazine in full groovy color. I flunked. Happily I nailed the class “How to paint protest signs using daisies as a peace motif.” Now if I can just ace Teen Titans #13, with a script by Bob Haney (with thanks to Charles Dickens) and art by Nick Cardy, I’ll be grooving!
After a self-referential opening that shows the Titans reading the comics of their associated adult characters while Robin reads a little Dickens, “The Swingin’ Christmas Carol!” really gets started when we meet Ebenezer Scrounge, proprietor of Junkorama. He gives off a few Bah Humbugs to his shivering assistant, Bob Ratchet as he insists Bob work on Christmas day.
You can almost figure out what’s going to happen:
1. Bob has a son, Tiny Tom, who’s in a wheelchair.
Tom, a handsome teen who is approx. the age of the Titans, isn’t the emotion-evoking Tiny Tim of Dickens’ masterpiece. Instead, he’s a go-getter who turns to the Titans for help. Tom’s father wants to buy his son an electric wheelchair, which is why Bob Ratchet is willing to put up with Scrounge’s excesses. Tom isn’t as willing to see his dad hurt, so he calls the Titans.
2. The Titans dress up as the ghosts from Christmas past, present and future..
Kid Flash takes on Christmas Past and vibrates through a wall to give that extra measure of spookiness. Christmas Present appears to be Aqualad. He adds to the guilt burden begun by Christmas Past. The stage is soon set for Christmas Future. In flies that very spirit, but dressed in a modified Santa suit. It’s Wonder Girl (the only Titan who can fly, of course) and it appears that she must always be dressed to show plenty of leg and chest (must be in her contract) and thus, the dippy Santa costume. She does not fare as well as the others because she’s shot down by:
3. A gang of thugs who smuggle junk in from Europe and then shine a ray on it that transforms it into valuable stuff.
Oh, that last part of “A Christmas Carol” is new to you? Yeah, it was new to me, too. This isn’t your Daddio’s Christmas Carol. It’s a weird hybrid full of slang, Dickensian riffs, dramatic inking, gripping art, Titanic junk piles and outrageous dialogue. “Suffering Sticklebacks! They’re yanking Miss Ponytail out of our ever-lovin’ hands!” cries Aqualad. Or how about, “You’ve gloated your last gloat, Gloater!” from Kid Flash. Or the single word “gear” as an equivalent to “cool”. Or Tiny Tom’s patented farewell, “Best wishes to all – for a swinging and groovy new year... and bless us everyone!” Wow, that is soooo gear.
This isn’t even satire – it’s that DC attempt to be hip, gear, and groovy. Out of sight, man! If only they were battling the Scorcher or the Mad Mod in this issue, it would be perfect in every way (because the only thing better than the hip Titans are the hip Titan villains, ya dig?).
The end of the story has the usual aha moment from Scrounge where he mends all of his evil ways in one weirdly-shaped panel (most of the panels had to be weirdly shaped in Silver Age Teen Titans. I believe it’s considered hipper to use triangles as opposed to rectangles. I was naïve enough to think geometric shapes were about equal on the hipness register but the Titans proved me wrong).
In later years, superheroes acknowledged Christmas in many ways. For me, the insanity of the futuristic Christmas in Action #289 and the outrageously mod 1960’s Christmas Carol riff in Teen Titans #13 fill me with holiday cheer. They also make a lovely stocking stuffer – as long as they’re in a CGC slab because the actual stuffing of a Silver Age gem into a stocking is considered a crime in 27 states.
“Best wishes to all – for a swinging and groovy new year... and bless us everyone!”
Joanna Sandsmark — A former writer for DC Comics and TV’s Weird Science, Joanna Sandsmark is also the author of The Wisdom of Yo Meow Ma, A Girl’s Best Friend, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Cat, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Dog and Explore Your Destiny With Runes. If you’d like to learn more, including a detailed bio and more information about Joanna’s books please visit her Web site or visit her blog.
This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.
