Tom vs. the Freedom Fighters number three, or it's time to invest in a red, white, and blue jet. You're listening to Around Comics. Welcome back for the July-August 1976 issue of The Freedom Fighters, a story it's got no title. But it was written by Marty Pascoe. And it's quite the tale. Penciled by Ramona Frayden. Gotta love Ramona Frayden. Inked by Juan Canale. Colored by Liz Berube. Edited by Jerry Conway.
so yeah it's been a while sorry y'all oh i've been busy i recorded this once and it sounded all staticky it sounded terrible so i had to do it again and then i just didn't get around to doing it again so now this is me doing it again whoa What a story to come back to. The wheels are kind of coming off this comic pretty early in its run. You might remember, the Freedom Fighters had a run-in with the Silver Ghost. They killed him.
We find that out later in the issue. Yeah, they killed him. They short-secreted him. They killed him. Now they're hiding out inside a deserted mansion. Obviously, there's these type of places all over New York. There's certain mansions that you can hide out in. The cops have the building surrounded. Everyone thinks the Freedom Fighters are teamed up with Silver Ghost, who's trying to chase people out of New York.
Please have the place surrounded the freedom fighters who just, you know, like, what have they, have they been in New York for, I don't know, 36 hours or just already wanted people. They're freaking out. They don't know what to do. They're trapped in there. They decide to make a break for it, right? They're going to fight for their own freedom. Human Bomb takes his glove off, blows up the mansion, causing every blinding flash and earthquake. They jump out. They're free. They're going for it.
The raid travels down one of, like, the light beams from one of the spotlights that the cops have brought in. Because, you know, you have... somebody trapped inside a mansion you bring the spotlights you shine them all over right it's a big it's a big to do the ray can ride those light beams and then again he introduces a new power they're just introducing tons of power he can suck up
the light uh from the spotlight and throw it at people and inevitably he throws it directly in their eyes blinding them so we get a woman of a police officer just yelling my eyes as you know he's blasted with light So while that's happening, Phantom Lady uses some of her blackout light to cover the rest of the Freedom Fighters' escape. Huge problem. Huge... logistical problem for the freedom fighters is they got no vehicle man black condor is like carrying all of them except for
Ray, like you guys, you got to get a car. You got to get like something. You should have stolen one of silver ghost ships. It's just it doesn't work that great. Right. So they use her blackout ray, black light ray, I should say, which.
obviously works great on posters to get their getaway now but the thing is they can't go back to the armory which was their headquarters for i don't know maybe seven or eight hours uh that was the one that the district attorney gave them which is you know district attorney has a type of
power uh so freedom fighters escape we're outside the mansion cops are all over one guy's blinded district attorney pearson is there he's been knocked over the police are angry at him like why why would they bring these freaks here You know, to which the district attorney brings up the good fact that the immigration laws on Earth 1, they don't cover...
You're traveling over from Earth X, right? They got no jurisdiction. He can't do anything, right? He doesn't have any power to do it, which at this point the cops say, well, there are laws against destroying municipal property and they're going to apprehend the freedom fighters even if they have to kill them to do it. Again, a bit much, but we'll leave that for now. We now make one of our whiplash turns in this story. We go to the New York suburb of Larchmont. It's early morning.
12 hours ahead. Again, kind of doesn't totally make sense. But we'll see. We got a new cast member here. Arthur T. Somar. Ted to his friends. Got a wife. He's got children. He's on a board director for a bunch of major corporations. He's in a nice house. Goes to church. Kind man. Marty Pascal wants us to know he's also a homicidal maniac.
uh you can see from his crazy eyes and um the reason he's crazy is because uh his wife is making him crazy and uh this is a touch of massage in here as it's solely blamed on his wife who you know has got a terrible voice and is annoying the shit out of him and that's what's finally tipped him over into homicidal maniac because he takes his briefcase and uh beats her to death with it yeah he beats his wife to death with the suitcase
This is the kind of common thing you would just have in a comic book in 1976, including an extremely weird frame, right? So this is very dark. It's like a horror comic, right? Caption says, Midge, as she watches the last of her life seep onto the floor, we're talking about blood. We don't see blood, but right? That's it. I realize that both of them have finally gotten what they always wanted. She wanted to die?
This is crazy. This is from horror comics. This guy beats his wife to death. Come back to our patriotic superheroes. We're on West 29th Street. What has been happening to the Freedom Fighters since we lost Asylum as they escaped? They now have a brand new headquarters. They've signed a second lease. It's insane. Yeah, they found a real dump.
Loft with an open furnace right in the middle of it, which I would laugh at except the first apartment I had in Chicago had like a weird ass like open flame furnace in a couple of the rooms cheapest apartment in bucktown it was great for a bunch of people who had no money and no prospects right so they're all hanging out they spent the uh the last of their money
on renting this place you got i mean instead of clearing your name they were out looking for headquarters right Uncle Sam brings up the excellent point of like, maybe it's bad that we left our backs where we're heroes because we've gone poorly, which is true. and the silver ghost can't convince them i can't tell the cops that they weren't part of it because they killed them you know when they stopped them right
So they need to find some of the henchmen, but they can't wear their costumes because everyone's looking for them. So they have to go out and their civilian identities, which is a great point brought up.
by the phantom lady but the problem is doll man brings up you know he went to the post office there's a bunch of wanted posters for them because they told the district attorney their names and stuff right even surprised he spelled their names right i mean he probably wrote them down as they say either his office was bugged or the dude has a real sharp memory or he just remembered these six fairly easy names to remember right
here there's a guy who's always in a protective suit his name is the human bomb it's a big problem they can't go out and they can't go out everyone knows their names what are they gonna do well guess what doll man's got a solution to this
He had a little bit of money, stopped at a radio shack and picked up some stuff to help him. He's going to make a little bit of tinkering and a little bit of use of different people's powers. He's going to get a transfusion of phantom lady's power and a little bit of...
power from the rain he's gonna mix them together and a thing again you got it uh you know it's one of those static electricity globes that's probably involved in it a lot of diodes a lot of like showy stuff uh to create um essentially Combining Ray's light absorption with Phantom Blade's ability to become a phantom to give them a cloak of invisibility. So they're all invisible.
Cool. So now they can go out and look for the silver ghost's men. Of course, they've just turned invisible. They're hanging out in their loft, and a crime's going on across the street at a sporting goods store, which seems to be being robbed by a criminal gang. Dressed in short shorts, roller skates, carrying bowling bags, wearing ski masks, and using ski poles as weapons.
Common crime, just an ordinary heist at Foster's Sporting Goods. So, of course, Freedom Fighters go into action. The bad guys can't see them, though. They got the invisibility cloak. Black condors, judo chopping guys in the throat. Ski poles are snapping over Uncle Sam's arms. The ray, once again, blinding people, throwing light directly into their eyes.
I do believe Black Condor kicks one dude in the nards. It looks like it. Well, this is all happening. Our friend Arthur T. Somar, homicidal maniac from Larchmont, steps out of a subway station just in a daze as the Freedom Fighter. are just really taking out this bowling bag group that they're fighting. While this is all happening, there's also a UFO hovering above. Again, Marty's throwing a lot of stuff in here and it's...
It's from the antimatter world of Quard, right? Common foes of the Green Lantern. Well, it's like the Quardian equivalent of the Boy Scouts, right? You know, every, you know. Quad is the opposite. So the Boy Scouts and Quad are evil and they've come to Earth to do some evil projects. Right. And they see that.
The freedom fighters are stopping these crooks, and they've got to do something. So they use a little bit of their power to hand what they call a strazer to the bad guys, to even the odd. You know, a strazer, a strafing laser unit, of course, right? So they beam this from their ship.
down to earth it's like as marty says it's not solid or liquid or gash it's it's all three except it misses the bad guys hits arthur t somar a different bad guy homosomaniac covers him and it starts to uh transform him his uh His briefcase becomes some type of sled with a gun on it. He gets a crazy costume. His hands disappear and they're replaced with lasers. And he's got a name now. He is now Scrag the Super Sniper.
This is sort of the crazy stuff that happens in New York City, and he goes nuts. He unleashes the fury of the damned. He's hitting buildings with laser beams, including the sporting goods store the Freedom Fighters were fighting at, just causing everything to crumble. Freedom Fighters are trapped underneath the rubble. Uncle Sam thinks maybe the human bombed him. But Eamon Bob didn't do it. Black Condor in the rear there. They don't know what happened to Dollman or Phantom Lady.
They just know they got to handle this dude who's blasting everything. So they found the beam to where Scrag is. He's on top of a building. He's blasting the World Trade Center. Well, you know, 1976, that would happen again. Black Condor is carrying everybody. Oh, I'm sorry. No, he didn't get the World Trade Center yet. He starts with Rockefeller Center.
So they think they're going to sneak up on him because they got their invisibility cloak, but it turns out Scrag can see them. Blast Black Condor, who drops the rest of them. That's the main problem with having, you know, your only mode of transportation is being carried by some other dude. so black condor goes to grab a few of them that he dropped ray is carrying the human bomb racing right up scraps beam which is made out of light
What does he do when he gets up there? Human Bomb takes his glove off, causes a little explosion. Standard move, Blind Scrag, which seems to be his major ability that he does.
Scrag's decided. We find out where Dollman was. Dollman was hiding in Scrag's boots. Miniature size, waiting for a chance to be helpful. Uses it to judo chop him in the ankle, causing Scrag to fall. No, Black Condors saved Uncle Sam, picked him up, and Uncle... sam's ever deliver a knockout punch to scrag as he's falling back at their downtown loft 20 minutes later i mean across the street the uh the the sporting goods store has been destroyed but they're just hiding out here
Still don't know where Phantom Lady is. Huge problem. But they're just trying to handle what's going on with Scrag, right? And they're talking to this guy. It's not a costume. They're trying to take his costume off. It's not a costume. It's grafted onto his skin. And he sort of wakes up. He sort of remembers who he is. He's worried he lost his hands and they're now lasers. He says his name is Arthur. He doesn't.
remember destroying any buildings human bomb wants to give him over to the cops uncle sam's reading him his rights which he knows because he's a lawyer uh so he says ah here let me make a phone call gets on the phone and the operator has an annoying voice like his wife which causes scrag to flip out misogyny the greatest trigger of evil i guess uh so he freaks out he starts
cutting loose with his blaster hands, his sleds flying around, knocking into things. He jumps on. Black Condor chases him, carrying everybody with him. They're chasing him down as he heads towards the World Trade Center. Scrag blasts human bomb, which causes his heart to stop. Big problem. Uncle Sam grabs a cigarette billboard to try and use it. Tall man punches the dude. You know, he gets down real small and punches him in the eyes. Always going after the eyes, right?
Scrag blasts through the billboard. Human Bomb saves himself by using his own explosive ability as a defibrillator to start his heart again, thus allowing him to blow up Scrag's sled. Scrag is hanging out of the sand of a building. He doesn't have any freaking hands. This is going to be bad. Ray reaches out to help him. I accept that Ray's hand becomes immaterial and passes directly through it, causing Scrag to fall, which...
was part of the power transfusion. Again, Dollman got all this stuff at Radio Shack. Maybe we got a little bit too much of the phantom stuff, right? You know, the phantom juice. I mean, you know, in a crisis, kind of phantom out. The human bomb back to the loft because he had a heart attack and his heart stopped, which is a major problem. Daryl does a little bit of research and figures out that Scrag blew up all the offices of corporations where Arthur served as a director.
you know a little bit of uh a little bit of revenge there and finally uh phantom lady shows up and where is she she's buried under bricks At the place across the street. They never stopped by. She was buried under there for the longest time. She couldn't phantom through the rock, you know, because of the power transfusion. Once again, thanks, tall man. Not quite right.
Tallman then remembers he also signed for the lease with his real name, which means the cops will find him soon. They're not cut out for this, right? Phantom Lady again says, we just need to go to a place and explain. Uncle Sam Furious says there must be some... where the freedom fighters belong. Go back to Earth X, my man. You guys were heroes there. Why? Why did you leave? Well, next time we'll see Wonder Woman and we'll see what happens.
Well, I guess we might see the last of Scrag. I don't think Scrag shows up again. I hope not. The character is very of a time. So thank you guys so much for listening. Of course, if you're hearing this, you contribute to the Around Comics Patreon. Really appreciate it. Helps us put out the show. And I'm happy. to put this out you'll get the next one way faster if you have any questions or concerns or you
I guess, I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh on Scrag. You can contact me at tomcaters at gmail.com. I'll talk to you guys soon. Good night.