Ted's big adventure - Adventure Comics #464

To Everything There is a Season

Adventure Comics #464

Cover Dated: July / August 1979
Released: 12th April 1979

A quiet issue between two big stories, and very Bronze Age at that, it would be easy to bundle this with another issue. Especially as the main focus is on Wildcat and Kara only appearing in a few panels at the beginning and end. But this is it seems my only chance to talk about Charlie Bullock an African-American character that will go on to take up the mantle of Batman on Earth-2, even if he takes on the identity of Blackwing (it was apparently a 70s thing). 

Kara, Helena and Dick, rocking a sweet medallion, are going out for a night on the town but Ted grant (Wildcat) refuses (politely), instead choosing to go check out the old neighbourhood where he used to hang out before joining the JSA. 

Initially, he's a little despondent by how the neighbourhood has changed for the worse, wondering if he really should have closed his boxing gym he left the place to join the JSA. Our precocious Charlie, being about ten-ish (comic book age and all that) asks him if the place will reopening, saying his older brother used to train there before joining the army. Ted shut him down with the whole people change speech and Charlie slouches off despondent.

Ted is about to slink off when he hears a fight in a nearby alley, putting on the Wildcat costume he rushes to help a businessman (though the size of the case could mean he's about to go on holiday) being hassled by four thugs. Wildcat gives a good fight against the thugs but eventually, three of them managed to hold him down whilst the leader breaks a bottle and is about to cut up Wildcat.

That's when Charlie steps in and decks the lead thug, allowing Wildcat to finish off the others. It's implied that Wildcat could have taken them all down but was playing possum, though I don't really buy that here. he's really off his game having only really started to recovers from the incident that almost killed him a few issues ago. Charlie goes from a pre-teen earlier to an older teen for the fight, which must be the quickest example of comic book time I've ever seen!

Being really impressed with Charlie's fighting spirit he reveals his identity to the young man, seeing in Charlie the fighting spirit that caused him to take up the mantle of Wildcat in the first place. When Kara et all return at about 3am Ted is all packed up and ready to move out, having decided to leave the JSA and help train the next generation of heroes.

It's weird as this Wildcat, the trainer of younger heroes is the Ted that I know from later comics and other media, so it's a little strange to see the beginning of this process. I wonder how it would have stuck if the JSA had carried on longer, with only two more Adventure comic appearances and then just the annual JSA / JLA team-ups until the dread Crisis!

As light as the whole thing is, it's an enjoyable issue and I for one will miss the classic Wildcat / Power Girl bickering of her early days.