Villain Profile: Count Vertigo

Count Werner Vertigo first appeared in World's Finest #251 (July 1978)in a Black Canary story "the Vertigo Version" by Gerry Conway with art by Trevor Von Eeden and Vince Colletta.

Count Vertigo suffers from an hereditary, congenital birth defect- a problem of the inner ear causing a loss of equilibrium or feeling of vertigo. To counteract this, a special, medical prosthetic was developed for him which sends sonic pulses to his brain, restoring his sense of balance.

Before taking up a career as a super criminal, Vertigo tinkered with his implant, modifying it so that, by pressing the device (located in his right temple) it sends signals out instead of in and creates-rather than negates- a sense of vertigo.

In his first appearance, Count Vertigo uses his powers in an attempt to steal back his family jewels,which were sold off after his family fled the Soviet occupation of their homeland at the end of WWII.

He is foiled by Black Canary:



In his next appearance, World's Finest #252 (September 1978), Vertigo has cast in his lot with Green Arrow and Black Canary's foe the Stinger. Stinger has hired Vertigo to capture Green Arrow while stinger's men round up Black Canary. When Stinger reveals his plan to exterminate his foes, Count Vertigo proves squeamish:


The Stinger's death trap (which involves sharks!) fails and Vertigo and Stinger are rounded up by Green Arrow and Black Canary who are now wearing earplugs and thus are immune to the Count's power.

The Count surfaces again in Green Arrow #2 (1983). He seems to have overcome his squeamishness about killing as he is now a hired assassin.


After a stint in the Suicide Squad, Count Vertigo once again crosses paths with the Emerald Archer in Green Arrow #22.



Vertigo, now a government operative, is obsessed with Green Arrow. Unable to perform his job until he confronts his old foe once more, Vertigo calls in some favors and tracks Green Arrow to Starfish Island, the place where he learned the skills that he would later use as Green Arrow.

When Vertigo finds his arch-enemy, Green Arrow is hallucinating from large quantities of jellyfish toxin he was envenomed with on his swim to the island. A fight breaks out:



Vertigo is defeated in a hand-to hand fight and is dragged to shore. Feeling he at last has closure, Vertigo treats Green Arrow's infection and departs to resume his work for the Suicide Squad.

While never an "A-list" villain like the Joker or Lex Luthor, Count Vertigo has stepped outside the bounds of the printed page on occasion, making a modified guest appearance on Batman: The Animated Series:



Oddly, he was dressed in all gray and used an eyepatch, but hey, Count Vertigo!

More recently, Count Vertigo appeared more true to model in DC Showcase Presents: Green Arrow:



Personally, I view Count Vertigo as Green Arrow's arch-nemesis. Apart from the Clock King, he was (apart from Merlyn the Archer) the only recurring costumed villain created entirely for Green Arrow until the last decade. There have been newer villains like Onomatopoeia and the Brick, but most of Green Arrow's rogues gallery seem to be loaners from other heroes (Riddler, Catman, etc.).

I will say this though: No offense to Trevor Von Eeden; I know that the concentric circles on Count Vertigo's chest are supposed to represent the sonic waves emanating from him, but it just seems like a bad idea to confront Green Arrow with a huge bullseye on your chest. :)

Trick Arrow Tuesday #5

The Mummy Arrow



I think it was probably the last try-out for it as well. I mean, they already had Net Arrows, Bolas Arrows... A lot of arrows meant to entangle and incapacitate. The Mummy Arrow seems like it would not only be redundant, but expensive to make and time-consuming to load. Still, I have to admit, that little, green sarcophagus is adorable!!!

You Won't Wear Out Your Green Crayon With This One...

I noticed my 6-year-old had left this out after doing some coloring. I vaguely remember snatching this up at a KayBee Toys closeout sale, but whatever initial thrill I had experienced about finding it had waned sufficiently that I let the kids have it.



Anyway, I flipped through it on the off chance there might be a little Green Arrow action and behold! G.A. appears on at least 6 interior pages! Of course, this was published in 1998, during the period when Oliver Queen was dead and his son, Connor Hawke was the new Green Arrow. Like most DC Licensed products, it's a little Superman/Batman heavy. For instance, we first see the "other" heroes on the monitor in the Batcave:


"I'll take center square to block, Peter."

I have two comments on the above picture: First, I refuse to believe that that's how Batman sits. Second, it really is pretty impressive that this coloring book includes not only a Green Arrow, but Docotr Fate and Impulse. IMPULSE fer cryin' out loud. I should note that it's a little insulting that Auqaman couldn't seem to get one flipper in this thing, but that's par for the course in '98.

Okay, this is the single biggest image of G.A. in the whole book. Get a good look, because you are gonna need your jeweler's loop to see the rest of his appearances...

Yep, there he is on the lower left, just behind Wonder Woman's thigh.

And there he is again as a floating head, just to the left of Nightwing's anachronistic mullet. Almost like an afterthought.


And finally, he gets a decent, central placement, although still pretty small. At least he's recognizable.

So this was a fun little post. check back next week for even More Fun (hint, hint)!

Green Arrow Wants You To Put Down This Comic and Read a Book!

So, funny thing about the 1950's. It seems that if you were reading comic books, no matter what your age or reading level, no matter what the reading level or sophistication of the comic book, you were somehow illiterate. At best you were sub-literate. You were probably also a juvenile delinquent. Comic strips in the newspaper, for reasons that have never made clear, were fine.

So, in order to keep parents groups, the Comics Code Authority and Congress off their backs, DC Comics ran a series of Public Service Announcements about literacy. Once again, people who were apparently able to read the comics these were published in were somehow a group that needed to be sold on the benefits of reading.

To be fair, the above PSA does suggest that if you like certain types of comics, certain genres of fiction might be right up your alley.

So, if for example, you thrill to the fast-paced, superhero-esque, often ludicrously anachronistic adventures of Tomahawk, you may also enjoy the ponderously long, painfully slow, woefully over-written Last of the Mohicans by inexplicably popular butcher of literature, James Fennimore Cooper.

If you like the Chivalrous (but largely fantasy-oriented and suspiciously Prince Valiant-like) exploits of the Shining Knight, you may very well enjoy reading... wait, that's not even a specific book like La Mort D'Artur or Ivanhoe or something. Just the "Story of King Arthur and his Knights" by no-one in particular. If I had gone to my school librarian with that I'd have been met with all kinds of scorn and gotten a lecture on the card catalog.

And frankly, Green Arrow can't be bothered to recommend anything specific either:



Sure. "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Do you mean the Errol Flynn movie or the TV Show with Richard Greene? Did the guys who put together this PSA read books? Or were they just able to remember who wrote Last of the Mohicans between cigarettes and slugs of scotch while thinking about how much better comics sold if they had purple covers with gorillas on them??

Where was I? Oh, right. Look, in today's world it takes like 10 seconds to find a list of likely books by typing something vague about King Arthur or Robin Hood into a search engine. In the 1950's, using only the Dewey Decimal system, these poor kids never stood a chance.

Thanks, Green Arrow!!

Saturday Morning Cartoons!

Here's a fun series of Green Arrow animated appearances I found on YouTube. I especially enjoyed the origin story as shown on The Batman. I found that show a little, well, not for me so I never made it as far as season 5 and had no idea Green Arrow had been on.

A little Alex Toth

Even though Green Arrow made only one appearance on the Super Friends, he still gets to appear in this nifty Super Friends comic (long with several other JLA-ers who never made Saturday Morning) By Alex Toth and E. Nelson Bridwell (The E. is for exposition).

Unfortunately, G.A. is mostly hidden behind Black Canary, who takes up a big chunk of the foreground. On the plus side, Black Canary takes up a big chunk of the foreground.



Not surprisingly, Marvin is into cosplay.

Green Arrow is the MAC #3

As you can see, Black Canary is not the only lady who can't keep her hands off of the Emerald Archer.

In fact, even though it turns out that this young lady is simply playing our hero to accomplish her own, nefarious scheme, she still has to admit it wasn't all an act:

Si, senorita! Es verdad!