Miracles Inc., The Original Dispatch

A year before Super 6 and several decades before the Dispatch video game, the original idea of part-time heroes came from Miracles Inc. thought up first by Wally Wood who first introduced them in the second issue of Harvey Comics' Unearthly Spectacular in 1966. Wood wrote and drew the introductory chapter for this, but the next issue containing the more feature-length story was written by Joe Simon and drawn by Spirit artist Jerry Grandenetti, but why Wood wasn't available for the second installment is one of the great mysteries of our time. Coming out during the height of the campy hero craze thanks to Adam West, Miracles Inc. was a cacophony of Silver Age comic cliches which sprung up more superhero team spoofs than actually legitimate teams made of mismatched crimefighters. Set in a bustling midwestern town, the bewildered scientist and non-time lord Professor Who assembled his empowered employees to greet their unbeatable guest who manages to get passed all the other heroes to earn a spot on the team as Wizard with a genius IQ whose first assignment is mopping up the floor. The rest of Miracles Inc. consisted of the hairy ape-like Misfit, the lightning-fast Reflex, the temperature-controlling Thermo, the miniaturized Manlet, Una who can hypnotize people into loving her, and the mighty robot Klank who can be defeated with a simple math problem. The next chapter is a full-on adventure about Miracles Inc. opening their Rent-A-Hero service where you could order heroes like take-out to fit your personal perilous problems along with a huge billboard which also introduces their other member Super-Chef who is gourmet good guy. The team's collected mettle is tested with the arrival of a new supervillain team, The Gong Gang, under the leadership of the sound-blasting Gong who is a bad dude inside a giant bell costume, although the group is also called the Institute of Infamy, so I guess they kept a spare team name just in case there was already a copyright on one of them. The Gong Gang proves to be too much for Miracles Inc. so they send out their mysterious ace-in-the-hole hero used only as a last resort, Kaput-Prince of Jinx, a short hayseed who generates waves of bad luck that totally counteract anything the Gong Gang can throw at them. Who and Wizard chase down Gong after defeating the rest of his gang and lock them all away in a single cell. Miracles Inc. did borrow a little from unorthodox super groups like Doom Patrol and the original X-Men, but Wally Wood's original pitch and Joe Simon's additional input turned Rent-A-Hero in a one-and-done bit of fun.

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