DC Comics Presents #39 The Thing That Goes Woof in the Night! / Whatever Happened to Richard Dragon Kung-Fu Fighter

Issue Description

The Thing That Goes Woof in the Night!

Plastic Man assists Superman with a burning truck, holding up traffic. Returning to his hotel room, Superman spies his old arch-enemy, Winslow Schott, alias The Toyman, entering a toy fair. Just down the street, at the Acme Express Company, the criminal Fliptop is on hand, to witness a malfunction taking place with the bank's vault door. Fliptop reports on the possible opportunity to his associate, Dollface. Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen take in the toy fair, hoping to get an angle on a news story about the Toyman. The next morning, Plastic Man, and his associate, Woozy Winks, are called in to investigate the murder of a security guard, at the toy fair. The guard's skull was cracked wide open by an iron weight, hidden inside a child's teddy bear. A miniature tape recorder has been adhered to the dead man's neck. Pulling the ring on the tape recorder plays one of eleven different baby doll messages, the calling card of Dollface. Placing Winks out on the window ledge to keep him out of harm's way, Plastic Man searches the hotel, finally spying Dollface, and Fliptop, in Schott's room. Plastic Man keeps Dollface from killing Schott. While Dollface and Plastic Man struggle over Schott's sleeping form, Fliptop brains Plastic Man with a blackjack, rendering the Amorphous Adventurer unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, Plastic Man awakens Schott. A quick search of his belonging reveals that a prototype toy is missing from Schott's suitcase.

Back in Metropolis, word of the robbery reaches Kent and Olsen, at the Daily Planet. Olsen heads out to interview Schott. Upon entering Schott's workshop, Olsen finds Schott in full Toyman regalia, while also triggering the Toyman's Tinker Trap. The cage that falls over Olsen is constructed of electrified Tinker Toys. Olsen activates his signal watch, summoning Superman. Superman arrives just as the Toyman is exiting his workshop. The Toyman is able to keep the Man of Steel at bay, momentarily, with a kryptonite yo-yo, until Superman snaps it's string with his heat vision. Pulling a wind-up fire-breathing dragon from his bag of tricks, the Toyman sets his own workshop afire. Superman is forced to rescue Olsen from the burning workshop, while the Toyman makes good his escape, on a rocket propelled tricycle. Olsen informs Superman that the Toyman is on the hunt for Dollface. Superman enlists Plastic Man's help in locating Dollface, knowing that the Toy Man won't be far behind. Winks races after Superman and Plastic Man, tripping over his chair and the phone line. Winks is pitched out the hole in the wall Superman made entering Plastic Man's office, and falls, seemingly to his death. At the Acme Express Company, Dollface and Fliptop use the Toyman's prototype to open the bank vault door. Dollface, who had been in attendance at the Toy fair, was on hand for the toy's demonstration. When Fliptop informed Dollface of the bank door's malfunction, during the demonstration, she realized that the toy emitted the same frequency as the computer that unlocks the vault.

With the vault door open, Dollface and Fliptop are in the midst of their robbery, when they are taken unawares, by the Toyman. Holding the pair at gunpoint, the Toyman demands a cut of the profits. Dollface and Fliptop agree, just as Plastic Man appears. Superman slams the vault door shut, trapping the three criminals inside with Plastic Man. Fliptop cuts through the vault door with a high powered acetylene torch. The Toyman fells Superman with a kryptonite top, then pastes Plastic Man to the wall with an egg of expanding silly putty. Superman uses his super-cold breath to freeze the silly putty, until it is brittle enough for Plastic Man to break free. Plastic Man then disposes of the kryptonite top. Out on the street, Olsen, who has impossibly saved Winks' life by catching him within the canvas roof of his convertible, cuts off the criminals escape route. Plastic Man shapes himself into a battering ram, which Superman then hurls at the the three crooks, taking them all out. Superman returns to Plastic Man's office to repair the hole he punched in the wall. Winks debuts his Plastic Man signal watch, modeled after Olsen's Superman signal watch. Olsen, Superman and Plastic Man exit the office without offering a response.

Whatever Happened to Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter?

Richard Dragon recounts his history. Dragon, a young thief, had broken into a Japanese temple to steal a priceless jade Buddha. Encountering the O-Sensei, and his student, Ben Turner, Dragon resolved to murder them both. Turner, however, humbled Dragon with his budding martial arts mastery. Rather than turning Dragon over to the authorities, the O-Sensei took him in, trained Dragon in the martial arts, and set Dragon on a different path. Dragon and Turner opened a martial arts school together, in New York, occasionally offering their kung fu skills to Barney Ling, leader of the spy organization, G.O.O.D. On one such assignment, Turner went missing, only to turn up, out for Dragon's blood, as the Bronze Tiger. Shortly thereafter, people close to Dragon began having accidents, sometimes fatal. To prevent any others from coming to harm, Dragon left the country, holing up in a Shaolin monastery. Meditating on the Dragon's Claw, a mystic talisman given to Dragon by the O-Sensei, Dragon's mind's eye opened, giving him a vision of Turner, as the man responsible for all the violence surrounding the Kung Fu Fighter. Dragon returns to New York to enlist Ling's aid in finding Turner. Kicking in the door of Ling's office, Dragon finds Ling and Turner, as the Bronze Tiger, working together. Dragon and the Bronze Tiger battle it out, while Ling reveals himself to be the mastermind behind all of Dragon's ills. The Bronze Tiger lunges, but Dragon dodges. The Bronze Tiger's momentum carries him into Ling, who crashes through the window, falling to his death. With LIng dead, the Bronze Tiger has no reason to continue the fight. At Ling's gravesite, Dragon speaks of Turner's recovery, and apologizes for Ling's accidental death. As the gravediggers lower LIng's coffin into the ground, they suddenly lose their grip, and the coffin crashes to the ground. With the lid knocked ajar, the gravediggers can see that the coffin is empty, begging the question, "Whatever Happened to Barney Ling?"

Notes:

"The Thing that goes Woof in the Night!" written by Martin Pasko, penciled by Joe Staton, inked by Bob Smith, colored by Gene D'Angelo and lettered by John Costanza."Whatever Happened to Richard Dragon Kung-Fu Fighter" written by Mike W. Barr, penciled by Alex Saviuk, inked by Vince Colletta, colored by Gene D'Angelo and lettered by John Costanza.This issue contains the Hostess Superhero Ad, Red Tornado in "Clean Sweep".

DC Comics Presents (1978)

Publisher

DC Comics

Volume Description

DC Comics presents ran for 97 issues with 4 annuals and featured Superman in team up adventures with characters from across the DCU.

Collected EditionsShowcase Presents: DC Comics Presents - Superman Team-Ups vol. 1 (1-26)Adventures of Superman: José Luis García-López (1-4, 17)New Teen Titans Volume One (26)Showcase Presents: DC Comics Presents - Superman Team-Ups vol. 2 (27-50 & Annual #1)Superman vs. Mongul (27-28, 36 and 43)Jack Kirby Omnibus vol. 2 (84)(All versions of) DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore and Across the Universe: The DC uinverse Stories of Alan Moore (85)

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