Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: 2001

Note: Keep in mind, I originally wrote this one in early 2002 - Your Humble Ed.

Hello earth-dwelling mud worms, I am MODOK ... no, wait, sorry, the air's a little thin this high up in the stratosphere, and it makes me loopy every now and again. I meant to say that I am the super-evolved 2001 Space Baby, not to be confused with the 2001 New Year's eve baby. First off, I am not a chubby cheeked cherub bedecked in diaper and year-bearing sash whose youthful ebullience seems to portend an upcoming year of renewed hopes and dreams. Secondly, I can destroy your brain with my space rays! BAM! SPLAT! Haha, I love that bit.

Anyway, with the closing days of the year upon us, I bring you
one honkin' big monolith of a weird-ass comic. And speaking of monoliths, I've been meaning to tell you - me and the other super-omniscient mysterious
forces of universal inscrutability must've left about a MILLION of those freaking monoliths lying around your planet, all over the place, just waiting for you to stumble across them and get all evolved and shit. And you dirt-jockeys DIDN'T FIND A SINGLE ONE! I personally put on
in the Mall of America with my own two hands, so I don't know what your problem was.

Anyway, 2001's over, so you lost out. Enjoy not being an all powerful Space Baby, I'm off to peek into the girls' shower on Rigel-4 ...

With the last few days of 2001 looming upon us - and no damn monolith in sight yet, screw you for lying to us, Arthur C Clarke - I thought it was a good time to get on to that review of the comic version of 2001 I'd been telling myself to do all year. SO I hunted down the individual issues - briefly puzzled over why I had three copies of the first ish - and set down to read them, coming across my first crisis of conscience in the history of this feature.

But first, to the backstory ... It's 1976, and Marvel releases the first issue of 2001:A Space Odyssey, with Jack Kirby helming the project. Thankfully not a movie adaptation, the series is actually some sort of thematic spin-off, initially telling stories
revolving around human beings who are suddenly and unexpectedly visited by the Monolith, and later telling the story of a purple robot with stretchy arms - which is SO Clarke's vision for the concept, I bet. Vive le difference.

You KNOW that Kirby had to be drooling at the idea of tackling this project, which admittedly fares a lot better than some of his other work for Marvel around the same period (Anyone want to debate for the Eternals? I thought
not). Here we've got a story about an enigmatic and omnipresent force which visits humans in the midst of important turning points in their personal and social evolution, and MAKES 'EM INTO SPACE BABIES! That's Kirby writ large, my friends.

So I read these things, and it leads to my earlier-mentioned
crisis of conscience - specifically, that they're not that bad. In fact, on more than one occasion, while ENJOYING the stories, I had to remind myself that I was reviewing these to lambast 'em on the site.

Such is my burden.

The stories work pretty well, particularly if you look at them as dipping into the tradition of the pulp era of Science Fiction stories and such writers as Ray Bradbury of Arthur C Clarke himself. The driving theme of the book - for most of its run, until Machine Man appeared and the feel of the book changed dramatically - was of human beings driven by desire and a deep sense of destiny meeting the monolith, and thereby becoming space babies. Vive le space babies.



The series is a fun read almost entirely because it's Kirby at the wheel, but this stuff is honestly not his best. Most hampering to the whole project is the fact that the dialogue keeps swinging back to the monolith, and to how human beings chase larger destinies, and then how eventually they change to space babies. In fact, the story keeps kind of changing course every five pages, I guess to simulate the format of the last few minutes of the film which inspired the stories. On top of that, Kirby had a way of using stilted language to emphasize that you were dealing with cosmic forces, and that way was to be fucking bizarre and confusing and to sort of make you feel small in comparison to the universe by the tried and true method of being largely baffling and non-euclidian.

This book was indeed space baby intensive. It was also, despite the fact that I DID enjoy it in the long run, really-hard-to-understand-intensive. And what made it even more confusing was that I started to read that one ad where Spider-Man and Captain America ride giant toy cars through a fakey net to save the president, or something, and I TOTALLY DIDN'T REALIZE THAT WASN'T PART OF THE STORY! Save us, Cap and Spidey! Break the web that covers Washington DC, and touch the monolith, and become space Spider-baby and space Captain America-baby!

Anyway, besides what can be called "occasionally trying dialogue," it also hurts the story a lot to compare it to the original film and book. When I read about Harvey Norton, citizen of New York 2040 AD, and about how he spends his free time pretending to be a super hero in a live action theme
park, then becomes an astronaut after a disappointing day at Coney Island, and rescues a big headed alien lady from big headed alien men and they go to a place where there's a thing, and then she goes far away and he dies, and he becomes a real super hero and then he gets real old and he dies, and then he's a SPACE BABY ... well, it makes me reminisce about Clarke's moralistic epic, and any comparison drawn is not flattering.

2001-the-comic didn't have much in the way of a regular cast, if you exclude the monolith and - you know - space babies. One issue would feature a clever neanderthal (in Kirby-speak, NEO-MAN) who hunted alone from his pack, the next a Bronze Age warrior seeking domination of a world, and the next CAPTAIN AMERICA AND SPIDER-MAN RIDING ROCKET CARS! VROOOM! All seeking the monolith to push them to the next stage of their evolution ... well, except Spidey and Cap, who sought Hostess Fruit Pies with which to beat villains.

Eventually, the book grows its very own recurring character,
just in time to end the series as a whole.

The series both picks up and starts to fall the hell apart around about the point they decide to change the format, switching it from a charmingly incoherent series about people talking to closet doors into a series about ... well, a Kirby hero. With all the glory and gaudiness that represents. God bless
'em.

Mister Machine debuts, known better to us now as Machine Man and not known to us at all back then whatsoever. The long and short of the story is that Mister Machine is actually military destroying-things-robot X-51, the last one of his project to be destroyed. They have to be eliminated, you see, because they tend to start questioning their purpose in existing, and then start beating the holy fuck out of everybody, making them dangerous. Indeed, I did the same during my first few weeks of Western Philosophy 101, Freshman year.

X-51 is special and totally-not-apeshit-and-killing-everybody because he was taken into the home of Professor Stack, head super-genius (but not space-baby) of Project Create-Robots-That-Destroy-Shit. Prof. Stack gives X-51 an identity, a warm and loving home, a sense of purpose, and a shiny purple jumpsuit. Despite his not-killing-everybody-and-being-apeshit status (and I think that'll be the last time I use the 'joined by hyphens' gag in this article), the military decides that X-51 better be blown up, but good, and begin pursuing him as he rushes into the real world.


Formula abounds as X-51, now calling himself Mister Machine ("I'm in mechanics," LOL) is sort of adopted by a young boy named Jerry, becomes part of a small family unit, and is pursued by an obese Green Hornet lookalike and devil-worshipper by name of Hotline. In fact, the series SO takes a twist away from the 2001 premise that X-51 actually tells the monolith to go jump in a lake, or words to that effect. Well, by
"to that effect" I mean "Not at all like that," but the message is clear:

"The monolith better go soak its head, Machine Man's on the scene!"

So the monolith disappears, Machine Man takes over the book, and there's no longer any reason to call the book by its current name, but we can't change history (We just become phantoms if we go back and try. And if you get the joke, you're a fucking geek). Eventually, Mister Machine ends up fighting - of all things - SATAN, who wants his ... mechanical soul .. .to learn how to ... subvert everyone's will ... and Mister Machine is dissected ... but his body parts attack his captors ... and ... um ... the ellipses represent that I don't understand what the hell is going on in this comic whatsoever.

And this is 2001:A Space Odyssey, the comic book. Much like 2001:The Real Goddamn Year, it started off fine, then made no sense, totally baffles everyone who lived through it, and sort of makes everybody sad until they realize that irony really isn't all that dead. Or at least, that's how I came out of it, you all may have different stories. And those stories may end with
you becoming space babies, which is great for you, but please resist the urge to share ...

•Your sticktuitiveness is your most admirable quality, Roy.
•The Con turns ugly.
•HUG ME, YOU RAT BASTARDS!
•Split!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Contest of Champions

What do you think of when you think of the Eighties? Big hair? Skinny ties? Family Ties?Awakening to strange, new urges while watching Van Halen's “Hot for Teacher” music video?Well NOT ME, no sir, I think of MARVEL SUPER-HERO CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS!(Haha, no I don't, I think of the Van Halen's “Hot For Teacher” video. Just like you)

Ooooh, it's one of those orange-flavored
chocolate balls! I love those things!

Contest of Champions was Marvel's premiere super-hero gangbang long before Secret Wars and the inevitable, all-inclusive, annual X-Men crossovers. Released in the Summer of 1982, the series was actually originally intended as a Marvel Treasury Edition (you remember those things, don't you? Oversized comics which were largely reprints and stood about half-as-tall as the average comics reader of the day. You could build a tree house with a half-dozen of the damn things and a stapler) meant to coincide with the 1980 Olympics. Or, you know, to replace …

For those of you weak on your Cold War playground politics, the USA (and five dozen other countries, but we're not talking about their self-indulgent comic book crossovers here) boycotted the Olympics, which were taking place in Moscow that year. In return, the Soviets and more than a dozen of their frat brothers boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Besides upending the playing field in favor of the host countries and earning each super-power enough gold medals at their respective events to make Richie Rich wet himself and fall down weeping, it also sort of soured the plans to release Contest of Champions as an unofficial Olympic tie-in.

"...Flamboyant Atomic Samurai?" Did Sunfire
write this himself?

So the whole thing got re-imagined as this self-proclaimed innovation called a “Limited Series!” There's an eidtorial blurb in the back of the first issue, touting Marvel's ingenuity at bringing the reading public a dynamic new series of comics which run a “finite” number of issues. This is as opposed to those comics which are running an infinite number of issues (PS - I understand that Fantastic Four #309,876,291 will be a special nine-cent promotional issue).

So YAY Marvel ingenuity, YAY dynamic new concepts, YAY - hold I, did I say Dynamic Concepts? I must've, cause to be fair, Marvel's competitor DC had already DONE the mini-series, as early as 1979, when Contest of Champions was only a glimmer in Marvel's editorial eye. The Distinguished Competition (I always hated that smarmy, too-clever moniker) had already released World of Krypton, as well as The Krypton Chronicles, The Phantom Zone, The Untold Legend of Bat-Man and Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes by the time C of C hit the stands.

Would ... would one really be better
than the other, Iron Man?

Oh, but wait, those're MINI-series, not LIMITED series! My bad! Carry on, Marvel …

So anyway, enough geo-political swaggering and funny book semantics, this isn't some sort of retarded McLaughlin Group (Actually, yes, yes it is).

C of C comes to us courtesy of the Dudley Boys of early Eighties comic writing: Steven Grant, Bill Mantlo and cruiserweight underdog Mark Gruenwald. This might be a lot of cooks for one stew, but outside of Roy Thomas, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have handling this glorious mess.

After a splash page exposition (and there will be a LOT of splash pages in this thing), letting us in on the fact that cosmic muck-a-muck The Grandmaster and a mysterious peer of his are engaging in a high-stakes game using the super-heroes of Earth, we find ourselves at Avengers Mansion. The local roster of Earth's Mightiest Heroes are about to get swept off, along with the rest of Marvel's superheroic spandex set, to the cosmic waiting room set up by Grandmaster and his pal in the floor-length hoody, but for now they're working out. Wonder Man's lifting weights, Beast and Wasp are jumping around, Vision and Iron Man are jogging …

Hold up.

Comics were stupid before this, and continued to
be stupid afterwards, but this moment of stupidity
holds a very special place in my heart, no doubt.

This one always stops me cold. See, Vision's an android, right? Mechanical, pretty much. So he doesn't really have muscles or a cardiovascular system, so jogging can't do much for him. And Iron Man, that peckerwood's got a robot jumpsuit that does all his heavy lifting for him. Thus I ask: JOGGING? Come the fuck on, people.

Anyway, the Avengers and all of Earth's other heroes are swept up by cosmic rays and transported to the Grandmaster's Cosmic Game Dome (renamed OfficeMax Arena two years ago), and apparently in such a way that it appears to have made the Falcon cry.

What follows is several pages of characters walking around and introducing themselves to each other, and the readers. Since there're so many goddamn super-heroes in this story, we get some wonderful dialogue exchanges, as everyone tries to find an excuse to use each others' names. It goes a little something like this:

Captain America: “IRON MAN, what's happened?”

Iron Man: “I don't know, CAPTAIN AMERICA. THE VISION and I were going to ask MACHINE MAN if he knew!”

Vanguard: “DARKSTAR, URSA MAJOR and I, VANGUARD, of the SOVIET SUPER SOLIDERS would also like to know! Let's ask our friends IKARIS and FIREBIRD!”

Ant-Man: “Sure, NAMOR, SPIDER-WOMAN, HAWKEYE, DR.STRANGE and THE THING were just asking SASQUATCH, RED WOLF, THE TEXAS TWISTER, BROTHER VOODOO and the pre-natal POWER PACK if they had any ideas!”

Iron Man: “And what was their answer ANT-MAN? Or didn't even REED RICHARDS of the FANTASTIC FOUR know?”

Thundra: “I, Thundra, have mighty strength greater than any man's!”

All: (pause)

Thundra: “Uhh … oh, such as THOR, STINGRAY, or … shit, I dunno, THE PROWLER! That guy, in the cape, whoever he is! That's the Prowler, right? Sorry guys.”

Whoops, Hulk farted!

Eventually, Hulk neglects to go apeshit and kill anyone, and the meet-and-greet settles down. Grandmaster and Darth Vader spill the rules, which are that each of them will pick twelve representatives from the gathered heroes of Earth, who will compete against one another in contests to locate the four segments of some big damn magic space-globe. Four segments. So it's best … three out of four, I guess, and in the case of a tie, it comes down to dodgeball.

Daredevil, you ASS!

So we're off to the races, and the entirety of the next issue and a good part of issue three are spent following eight teams of heroes at the four corners of the globe searching for galactic lemon wedges. We start off with Invisible Girl, Sunfire and Iron Fist up against Daredevil, Darkstar, and an aboriginal Australian superhero name of Talisman. You ever notice that Australian super heroes tend to be aboriginal? Considering what little I know of certain problems in that part of the world, I'd be one nervous white Australian if all my super-humans had been here before great-grandpa's ship docked. Imagine if the only folks who could chew steel and spit nuts and bolts in the U.S. were the same folks wondering who the pasty people in the funny hats at Plymouth Rock were …

Anyway, this first battle led me to repeat a mantra over and over in my head: namely, SHUT UP DAREDEVIL! The Man Without Fear is also The Man With Too Much Exposition Going On. His thought balloons, through the course of the story, fill us in that he's no longer in the space arena, Darkstar's a young woman, Sunfire's taking off, having people around confuses his radar sense, he's blind, he HAS radar sense, it's cold in the arctic, his dad was a boxer, the ice confuses his radar sense, the ice no longer confuses his radar sense, the water confuses his radar sense, SOMETHING confuses his radar sense, he has to concentrate, the prize is being lifted from his hands, and SHUT UP DAREDEVIL!

Well ... maybe I wanna

be your friend, baby,

know what I mean?

First round to Grandmaster's team, now we're off to some western Ghost Town where She-Hulk, Captain Britain and El Defensor face off against Sabra, Iron Man and the Arabian Knight. Sabra and the Knight get into a little snit here, because of the historic differences between Israel and … Arabian. Notice, however, that Sabra apparently has no problem being on the same team as BLITZKRIEG, a German superhero actually named after a Nazi war tactic! SURE WHY WOULD SHE??

Anyway, this one's got the hotbed of poltical and social activism at work, which is sort of a theme running through the series - you'll note, of course, the rather famous (as far as this site's concerned, anyway) casual confrontation between Shamrock and Captain Britain on the waiting room floor. Well, this chapter not only has Arabian Knight and Sabra acting like an old married couple, but Arabian Knight and Captain Britain through a few back and forth, and for the heck of it, She-Hulk and Sabra wax on male chauvanism. For an eight-year old, this is heady poltical awareness. Also, it's killing a couple panels before someone gets zapped by mind lasers POW POW BAWOOOM!!!

Arabian Knight colects one for "The Unknown's" team, and we're in China with Vanguard, Angel and Black Panther up against the Thing, Le Peregrine and Wolverine.

What's French for "Tool?" Le Tool?

Now, Grandmaster, he's supposed to be the universe's consummate gamer, right? Like, there's no sentient being in the universe with more strategic and gambling experience under his belt, he really knows how to pick his players and hedge his bets, right? So he had his pick of all of Earth's heroes - Thor, the Eternals, the Inhumans, all the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men - and he chose for his team -- the French guy who can fly, Le Peregrine.

CAN'T THEY ALL FLY? I mean, like, EVERY SUPER HERO EVER? Even the Atom can FLOAT, MAN! Sure, the Unknown picked the Angel, whose sole power at the time was ALSO flight, but why would you need to merely balance out the flying guy? Nighthawk has wing lasers, Dr.Strange can shoot mystic bolts out his ass, Namor's got super-strength, as does Wonder Man and Quasar and and and ... so anyway, yes, Peregrine and the Angel sure do indeed fight one another, and their sole contribution to this match was to get out of the way and let the other four GOOD PICKS do their job.Batroc the Leaper would've been better ...

Anyway, Thing wrecks a Chinese landmark for the sake of the Grandmaster, and we're off to the Amazon where Sasquatch, Captain America, and the wonderfully named Blitzkrieg - who I'm sure was really popular at those international gatherings of super-heroes - face off against Collective Man, Storm and Shamrock.

"...which I will do over here, far away from you two maniacs."

So, yeah, one second. Why exactly, I have to ask, did Grandmaster put the enormous shaggy creature who actually lives and operates in the frozen tundra of Canada - that's Sasquatch I'm talking about - in the fight in the AMAZON, while he sent a blind dude and a near-naked Australian magician to the North Pole? And for that matter, wouldn't the Collective Man, China's national hero, actually have had a home field advantage in the battle in China? Like I find myself asking most Monday nights, WHO BOOKED THIS CRAP?

Collective Man, for you fans of state-controlled birth allowance facts, has a really amusing power for a Chinese national - he's actually five identical quintuplets who can merge into one being. My guess is, you're a set of Chinese quintuplets, you LEARN to merge into one solitary baby boy FAST.

So anyway, besides being a national embarassment for all of Ireland, Shamrock also proves her use by basically dooming Captain America to death, and then grabbing the last magic lemon wedge for the Grandmaster's team! HOORAY! We were all rooting for the Grandmaster the whole time!

We get back to the intergalactic Staples Center where Grandmaster, having won, gets to have his brother The Collector brought back to life, as a prize. Well that's nice. Oh, but it turns out his unknown peer is Marvel's persistent cosmic hottie DEATH, and the only way she'll allow Grandmaster to return his brother to life is if he sacrifices his own life!

This image is ... disturbingly erotic,

and I really can't put my finger on why...

And the heroes of Earth react to this by ... standing back and letting it happen. hey, I'd be reluctant too, probably more than a little pissed off. Imagine, especially, if you're the Eternals or Inhumans, and you got sucked all the way across space just to sit in a room with a bunch of roid-tards in sweaty spandex and the Hulk babbling about kitties or bubble gum or something, and Machine Man's trying to get everyone to sing-along or have a dance party because he's trying to understand our difficult human concept of 'rocking out,' and in the end it's all only to just be sent home at the end. Yeah, fuck you too, Grandmaster, I'm glad you're dead!

So anyway, that is legitimately the end of the story - the super-heroes I guess esort of in their own way if you kind of look at it askew and squint a little .. WON! I guess. Ah, what the hell, it was neat to see Wolverine almost kill whole bunches of folks ...

In the back of each issue, there were abbreviated biographies for Marvel's super-heroic roster of the time, from Acroyear to Wonder Man. Most likely the larvel stage of information available for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which follows a year or so after C of C, the bios are cursory but pretty complete. They've generally got the hero's real name, civilian profession, nationality, very very brief description of their origin and powers, current whereabouts and first appearance. Indispensible stuff for the obsessive comic geek of the day, it was. Take a look here at a sample entry:

H - hold on. Black American? Well ... hey, Black Goliath kind of sounds like a bad guy at first glance, so maybe it's necessary to indicate that the "Black" didn't refer to his character, right? Like, other black heroes weren't identified as ...

Okay, now ... I mean, I'm sure the ethnicities of other super heroes are mentioned. Sure, Golden Girl is listed as Japanese-American, White Tiger is clearly identified as Puerto Rican, and the caucasian heroes must have ...

Oh, now, hold on for realsies.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe #3

The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe - Deluxe Edition

One of my favorite comics of all time is issue three of The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe - Deluxe Edition. Seriously, it's right up there with that superhero toy catalog comic drawn by the Kubert Academy, so it's got illustrations of velvet Frank Frazetta blacklight posters and Mego Star Trek figures as rendered by Steve Bissette, John Totleben and Rick Veitch.

I like it because it contains - moreso than any other volume of this series - some of the most appalingly horrid costume and character designs I've ever seen in comics. Let that sink in. EVEN BY COMIC BOOK STANDARDS, THESE DESIGNS ARE FUCKING HORRIBLE!

Admittedly, there are some classic designs in there, like the elegance of Daredevil's lines - uncomplicated by an embroidered pleather jacket, for crying out loud - or the regal imperiousness of Doctor Doom. And Darkstar of the Soviet Super Soldiers has a downright elegant, military-esque design - cause I gotta love me the vertical strip down the side of the leg.

But beyond those few selections, this book is amazing. I scanned in ten of the most outstanding freakshows - not all the bad costumes, just the ones which stood out, if you can believe it. I left out guys like the Controller, the Collector, and the Corrupter, who actually looks a lot like Nightcrawler at the Renaissance Fair. I even left out Doctor Demonicus, who is sort of all around - costume, character, gimmick and nemesis (Godzilla) - a total mess.

Cloud

Just so you know, you are indeed looking at what you think you're looking at here: A naked, underaged girl with wisps of tow obscuring her netherparts. If it makes you any more comfortable, though, she later one becomes a naked, underaged boy with cloudy protruberences hovering about his twig and berries. Or maybe the other way around, I can't recall. In any case, what's important to remember is that Cloud is actually for realsies an immense nebula of pre-stellar gasses which took human form to fight crime. Mm-hm, really. A magic box told him/her to do it. Mm-hm.

You know how sometimes I say hate comic books? Well, (A) I do and (B) that's why.

Adds my wife: "Man, that's a killer queef." Bam. haha honey, you win.

Colossus

Colossus is most famous, in comic book circles, for repeatedly nailing a 13-year old girl. Not to worry, he was only 19 at the time! Fuck! Chris Claremont, you retarded fuck. You know, the only time the other X-Men gave Colossus any shit for mowing that particular lawn was when he LEFT Kitty for a woman HIS OWN AGE. They gave him that retarded "You better not hurt her, bub" speech, meaning somehow after committing dozens of acts of statuatory rape and forcibly imprinting all over that kid's psyche, he should watch out for her feelings now...

So anyway, of COURSE this steel-plated pedophile has the dog collar outfit. Let's do a count - Neck, that's one, one on each knee and ankle, that's five, I think we can count the hefty bag plastic ties on his wrists as two ... that's seven ... you've been a bad girl, underage ladies, let Big Pyotr show you some discipline ...

Cottonmouth

Is it just me, or does calling a black guy "Cottonmouth" just SEEM like a racial epithet? I can't get over it ...

You have to love any costume which picks a theme and sticks with it til it dies or Jesus comes back. Cottonmouth's theme is "snake yaps," which he's got on his little purple beret, repeated in the flares on his gloves and boots, and then he's got a big evil snake face on his torso. I wonder if it looks like it's chewing gum when he does situps?

Cottonmouth's power, by the way, is that he can dislocate his jaw and eat you. SWEAR TO GOD! DC may eat a lot of shit for Matter Eater Lad (who I'm pretty sure was a Jerry Siegel creation, so to all his detractors allow me to say "Eat MY matter, you fucks!"), but at least Matter Eater Lad JUST ATE STUFF! Not people! Cottonmouth's OHOTMU-DE page even goes as far as to show a three-panel progressive diagram of his power in FULL EFFECT:

Notice that his little beret is designed to look like a snake with its mouth open. And then he ends up looking like a snake with his mouth open on his own. So what you end up with, at the denouement, is what looks like a big purple snake eating a black guy who's eating Captain America.

Crossfire

This guy's name is Crossfire. His real name is William Cross. I don't know if you can pick up on this really subtle character device, but this guy is really into crosses! It's totally his thing. It's what he does. He loves-a the crosses.

Major points to his nickel-chrome crucifix codpiece. "Protect me, o Lord, from all matter of groin injuries and savage Nut Monkeys, amen!"

Cyclops

Looking ... looking good there, Cyke. Very ... very leadership duds you got there. It's nice that your mom sewed in patches to keep your inner thighs from wearing out so fast.

SPECIAL FUN FACT: This is the only place this costume ever appeared - Cyclops was preparing for a run in X-Factor, and they hadn't quite settled on his new garb yet. This was used as an interim piece. MORE SPECIAL FUN FACTS: As there was an absence of images of Cyclops in this costume to use for his entry, images of Cyke in OTHER costumes were edited to reflect this monstrosity. Except the ones which John Byrne drew. That MEANS something, Gil Kane gets edited but John Byrne don't ...

Dazzler

Can you believe she was headlining her own book in this costume?

I'm no fan of Image Comics, but the one thing they DID do for the industry was put youth-aimed hipster costume and character design into the hands of people who were, y'know, actually young and hip. How many years prior to this were we getting the latest fashions for as perceived by 45-year old suits who had homes in Connecticut? This is why we still occasionally have common street thugs in comics dressed like the Fonz, or Johnny Rotten.

Anyway, nice asymmetry. If there's one thing the kids really like, it's spandex and assymetry. And fingerless gloves. And a headband. Oh, and that red band around her calf, it's not distracting, no-o-o-o-o.

Paul Chadwick didn't design this, did he? I have to punch my copies of Concrete if he did ...

Death-Throws

Man, check it out, just when you thought the Circus of Crime had covered all the clown super-villains you can manage ... These guys are jugglers, by the way. Criminal jugglers. One of them's even apparently a dwarf or something. I'll let you drink them in. Plus, you get a bit of Deathlok, the bugshit cyborg/mummy thing, as a bonus bad costume design up there in the corner...

The Scarlet Cameltoe

Haha, okay, she's actually "Diamondback," your 2001 World Series champs. I like how this costume has been specially created to make her hips and shoulders look enormous, while it makes her head and tits look like floating spheres. Also, nice stilettos. And flared gloves. Jesus, all that pink and sharp angles, you look like a gay street sign, honey.


Doc Samson

Speaking of which, how is it that Leonard Samson is a legitimate psychiatrist, but he doesn't know that he's flaming like a sack of crumpled newspaper? HOLY SHIT, NICE COSTUME MICHAEL JACKSON!

What makes it even better? That ain't short hair - that's a mullet! A corporate Eighties mullet! A coke dealing Yuppie fuck mullet! IT'S IN A PONYTAIL! YOU SUCK!

At least back in his original days, he had a corny retro-kitsch going on. I mean, he still looked like a total tool, but at least he looked like a tool who had a modicum of a sensayuma. Probably rocked out to Nugent in his van with the Frazetta painted on the side, and ten years later he's carrying a celphone and a briefcase and getting sucked off by prostitutes on a trading floor men's room stall ...

And finally ...

Doctor Druid

Only his footed pajames and indigo poncho could take Anthony's mind off of his tragic Male Pattern Baldness ...

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Marvels Unmasked

Your Humble G&F Editor, in his not-so-secret identity (Thanks, This American Life!), maintains hisself an online journal. Although the journal rarely touches on the topics of comics, I DID have an opportunity to dedicate an entry to a much-delayed and generally unintentional review of Marvels, the ground-breaking miniseries from Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross.

Before we get knee-deep in it, I'd like to point out that I considered myself quite a fan of the book, owned both the trade paperback collection and duplicate copies of the individual issues, and had pored over it extensively up to this point. What I hadn't done is take a look at it as hypercritically as I do the poor saps who end up on G&F.

Fatigue, a long weekend and enough alcohol to down a mule deer contributed to putting a new spin on what is arguably Busiek's defining work as a comics writer. It also contributed to the tone of the article. The not-nice tone. I called Busiek some names.

I swear, I'm really not a mean drunk. I just happen to be a bastard when sober.

In any case, the review proceeds, my apologies to Kurt and all offended for the whipping he takes, but the interpretation of the series stands. Ahoy, and enjoy ...

---

Had a chance this weekend to re-read Marvels, the much-ado-about comic which Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross helmed, back inna early 90's or so. It's not exactly Watchmen, or even "The Watchmen of its day," but I suppose it's still correct to call it "pivotal" since it spawned so many superhero stories told from the everyman's perspective (By which I mean "Everything Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid wrote after that, pretty much.")

For those of you who missed out, the book follows photojournalist Phil Sheldon through more'n three decades of living alongside and photographing super-heroes in action. Oh, and being outraged - OUTRAGED, I TELL YOU - at the lack of gratitude felt among the steak-and-potato set for the cape-and-cowl set.

I was impressed as hell when I read this thing the first time around. Alex Ross art aside (though I still think it woulda looked better on newsprint, retro-billy as I am), they did some interesting things - like the fact that Phil Sheldon's photographic portfolio is composed largely of famous covers and splash panels from assorted Marvel titles down the years, thus retroactively inserting him into these famous scenes and making him an essential element to their history. Also, that the mutant girl in issue two or three, I forget, is from this old EC Wally Wood story, but that's neither here nor there.

In any case, rereading it now, I find it pretty weak. Characters are one-dimensional, dialogue is flat, and I think it's inarguable that the whole story could have been told in a single issue. Mostly, though, this story is more of a superhero porno than Hustler comics ever was. If you'd like to see a comic fan whack off over his childhood idols (and adulthood idols, for that matter), this is the series for you.

Marvels spends an inordinate amount of time in abject idol worship. Whereas the dynamic established is between normal human and superhuman, the basic message of this book is "Anyone more powerful, glamorous or ostensibly superior to you should be lauded and glamorized without question or criticism." Or at least, "Fail to question authority, kids, anyone who claims to be working for your best interests deserves your undying gratitude!"

Let's face it, I love me some goddamn super-heroes. But in comic books, not real life, and there ain't no two ways about it. If they REALLY existed - and I'm talking about even established, captured-the-hearts-of-a-nation super-types existing, here - I'd be up in arms about 'em, presuming I found time to leave my bunker.

I mean, why exactly would I be head over heels for masked, anonymous vigilantes whose basic concept of 'justice' involves superceding or downright abusing three amendments to the Constitution? And should I be even more excited about the ones decked out in costumes promoting an ideology, or who represent the interests of a non-populist institution, all the while participating in public displays of force which one could only call "A tad intimidating?"

Top of my head, take Iron Man for example. Metal-headed motherfucker in question is the 'private bodyguard' of an old money playboy billionaire, and the head of security for his pet pocket multinational industrial munitions corporation - you know, the one with all the government contracts for developing weapons to be used by the top secret and wholly unaccountable espionage/anti-espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.

And hey, not only is he this corporate errand boy for a war profiteer, he's also a member of an organization which has access to classified government documents worldwide, and on which he serves next to a ranking American military officer and living symbol of the national policy. Oh, but hey, he saved New York from that guy who erases stuff with his magic gloves, so I shouldn't suspect his motives.

Put any of these guys in real-life analogs, and is it any surprise that the hoi polloi in Marvels give no love to the Avengers? Say you had a team composed of a one-man arsenal under the employ of Haliburton, a jingoist military figure, a representative of the same pantheon routinely invoked by batshit neo-Nazis, and then a pair of Westchester WASPs with a trust fund and a federal grant keeping them living la vida Kennedy, all of whom have the power to bust into your secret crime lab-slash-birthday party and arrest your ass ...

At one point in the story, Sheldon yells at superhero detractors in the street, something like "What do you want - THE WORLD TO ACTUALLY END?" Wow, good point Phil, except ... yes, the superheroes save the world from being destroyed, but the folks who're trying to destroy the world are pretty much the flip side of their coin. Even having lost an eye early in the story, I can't believe that Sheldon somehow neglects to notice that there are just as many super bad guys as there are super good guys. Shouldn't a trained, experienced journalist be able to draw from that a notion that the powers and costume alone do not make a saint of every one of these psychos?

But then, Phil Sheldon isn't a character, he's Kurt Busiek's personal science fiction fantasy twin. Sheldon is passionate, respected, experienced and widely-traveled, he's reported from the front lines in Europe, he's waded into riots and natural disasters, he's even sacrificed a part of his body to be 'where the action is.' What better waldo to send into a 'fictionalized world' where nobody respects super-heroes, am I right? Is Kurt Busiek writing a story about heroes and their role in respect to the common world, or is he writing the ultimate foot-stomping fanboy assault against a community which still thinks any man in his thirties who reads "Spider-Man" is a virgin, a loser and a 'tard whose home address leads directly to his parents' basement?

Clue: It's the latter. Phil Sheldon isn't proselytizing to his neighbors and peers, he's yelling at your mom.

Superheroes in comics are a fucking fantasy world, where noble actions are rewarded with glory and warm fuzzies, or at least they are when you tell the story from the superhero perspective. Tell the story from the perspective of the common man, and ... jesus Kurt, why didn't you just ask Ross to draw Sheldon sucking superhero cock. He can start with the C-List, Iron Fist and Ant-Man maybe, then move up to Captain Mar-Vell and Ghost Rider, the fan favorites. Issue four, it's a World's Greatest Superheroes/Largest Gangbang at the Baxter Building! Prince Namor, eh, and you say you're on the list? You're a friend of Magneto, you say? Mister Magnus didn't leave a guest pass for you ...

I sound like I'm angry at the book, which I sort of am. Maybe not at the book itself - which is, at the worst, a pale counter-humanist fable - but at the legacy of "realistic super hero" comics it created, and the collective insult to the intelligence which followed.

Mark Waid is the greatest offender, as the few normal human beings who manage to make their way into his comics (thanks for destroying the best supporting cast in comics, Mark, Flash became so much better when every issue guest-starred every fast super hero ever and a mouthful of pathetic psuedo-science about 'speed forces' ...) do little more than reassure the hero that he is loved, admired and necessary. Rain as much destruction on a city as you like, all the citizens care about is that you saved the day, Fantastic Four! Let's give them a standing ovation, we'll clear the bodies later.

Maybe this sticks in my craw because America, as a mass, seems to be losing its ability to generate even the merest spark of common humanity, empathy or community. Everyone thinks they're goddamn Stone Cold Steve Austin, that they're a loner badass and that common ethics and manners ain't nothing much more than the setup to the joke where they cram a beer can in your eye as a punchline. And when this cavalier irrelevance of humanism starts to infect the escapist fantasy which - in my youth, anyway - is supposed to ennoble selflessness, responsibility, and flat-out heroism in the minds of kids...

Well, man.

And Marvels. Man, Kurt, whatever it is you were trying to do, I have to ask ... "What have you done?"

(Coupla things I wanted to add, but I couldn't fit them in:

First, during Kurt's run on the Avengers, he added this character named Triathalon, who was a member of an Eckanckar-like organization called "The Triune Understanding." and even went as far as wearing their symbol as his insignia. And the crowds loved him. Nice one, Kurt - that'd be like having a Scientologist super-hero with ... whatever symbol a Scientologist would have, the head of L.Ron Hubbard or a dollar sign or something, on his uniform. How do you think the crowds would respond to that?

Secondly, Mark Waid did a Superman story, a few years back, in which Superman is mind-controlled by Braniac, then proceeds to entrap the city and wreck a bunch of stuff. At the end of the story, Superman goes on TV and says "Whoops, I was brain controlled by an alien, everyone, but I'm back to normal now!" and then everyone cheers, and goes back to work without a single one of them ever being concerned that this all-powerful maniac might drop another skyscraper on their heads. Killing tons of people and wrecking stuff is okay if you're a super-hero folks, and also this is why I just couldn't stand Mark Waid.)

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Planet Terry

Battlestar Pederastia.

Planet Terry, along with about a dozen other books, made up one of the first attempts of a major comics publisher (our old pals at Marvel) to create "imprint" presses with similarly themed books meant to attract a wider audience. They messed it up. Big time. More than Impact.

Marvel had already had a great deal of success with their Epic line, a series of creator-owned books aimed towards a more mature audience (which, back then, usually meant 'soft-porn.' But I digress). Rushing to the other end of the scale, Marvel made an attempt to corner the kids market (and we mean corner, inasmuch as several of these titles deliberately aped the successful and popular Harvey line of books - Richie Rich, Casper, etc.).

Star actually gave a good accounting of itself, and survived for something like two years - largely on the strength of their licensed properties. Nonetheless, they're a big joke to comic collectors and fans everywhere - the low and derivative quality of the stories left a lot of fans in the cold, and even kids couldn't get into the amateurish product. Beyond that, the storylines were often a bit on the heavy side - Terry, for instance (along with Irona the Maid, earning some extra dollars during the Summer lull acting as Terry's robotic sidekick Robota), was searching the roughest corners of the universe for his missing parents. Wally the Wizard routinely struggled against demons and devils, and Top Dog was concerned that should the government ever discover his heightened intelligence, they'd -- well, they watered it down, but the implication was that they'd imprison, dissect or kill him. Ew.

Among the other products of the Star line were a comic book version of the popular syndicated strip Heathcliff, toy licenses Strawberry Shortcake and Thundercats, Peter Porker - the Spectacular Spider-Ham (which holds a dear place in my heart), Star Wars' licenses Droids and Ewoks, and probably some others that I'm forgetting but frankly don't give a rat's ass about. Hoo-ha.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Killdozer

"Although I'm CALLED Killdozer, my real name is 'Gene'"


WORLDS UNKNOWN PRESENTS THE THING CALLED ... KILLDOZER

I don't know if you've ever had the chance to catch this ... this movie, but if you did, it probably means that you wake up really really early on Sunday morning with nothing better to do than watch the local unaffiliated station's lame sci-fi movie show. Film stars Clint Walker as some guy who gets harassed by a Bulldozer, and Robert Urich as I don't remember what,because I haven't bothered to watch this heap of failure a second time 'round.

The front cover of this book shows a glaring, sharp-toothed, flame red bulldozer screaming vengeance and lunging at Clint Walker with death in his voice. The book had no scene whatsoever like this ... and neither did the movie. Mostly, it's a bunch of jump cuts and a bulldozer lumbering around while people lamely run and occasionally bellow. The later part, the comic captures perfectly.

I think this must have been one of Marvel's first attempts at an official movie adaptation - I'm sure you've seen those, where the plot and dialogue are condensed in a ratio of one minute of screen time = one panel roughly a sixth of the size of the total page. Official movie adaptations could reduce "Gandhi" to a two-issue miniseries with a backup featuring "Wings of Desire."

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Hansi, The Girl Who Loved the Swastika

NOTE: This article has been on the web since 1997, and I will tell you this; I ain't even responding to any email about it ever again, no matter what. I do this for one simple reason; anyone who gets charged up about this article - positively or negatively - is a fucking idiot and maybe we ought to reopen the camps just for you.

I will tell you, besides the completely misguided "Oh my god you really showed it to the Christians (implicit therein: "...by making fun of a fucking idiotic comic book, PS I have no sense of perspective") folks, who are missing the point just as well as the other folks, I'm pretty exhausted with the "OMG, you clearly hate God, you oppressor you, because you thought this comic was dumb" routine. Some folks would defend a pile of shit trained to rape babies if it had a Jesus fish on the backside of it, this is what I've learned. THIS COMIC IS FUCKING STUPID, and if you feel you need to defend your God and faith or Hansi Ten Va-Voom of whatever her name is, I forget, there've gotta be bigger battles to tackle. And I hope you tackle them in the sarlaac pit, nerds.

PS - This comic is stupid. If you feel you need to reconcile that fact with your faith, I'd suggest you try heroin. Okay, buh-bye, thanks.

Acht Mir Schlessel!

HANSI:THE GIRL WHO LOVED THE SWASTIKA

Yeah, that Hansi sure loves the Swastika. Why, I don't think I've ever seen anyone who loved the swastika more than our girl Hansi. Boy, what a swastika-lover.

This chunky hunk of embarassment comes to us courtesy of Christian comic-book makers Spire Publications, who also brought us Hello I'm Johnny Cash and the comic-book adaptation of The Cross and the Switchblade ("I could kill you..." "Yes, you could Nicky! You could cut me up in a thousand pieces and every piece will still love you..."). Ideally, these stories are supposed to be inspirational and offer lessons in faith to the young reader. And with a cover like that, what kid wouldn't be inspired...?

Here's the story: 1938, the Nazis invade the Sudentenland and whereas everyone ELSE seems petrified and panicked, Hansi's absolutely thrilled that the Nazis have brought BOOKS ... cause they didn't have those in the Sudentenland, apparently. Inspired by that famous Nazi hospitality, Hansi partakes in, and wins, a competition which sweeps her off to Prague to study as a Hitler Youth leader. You go girl.

Now before taking off, Hansi's bedraggled mom reminds her "don't ever forget Jesus." Nonetheless, by the time Hansi's on the train, she wouldn't recognize Jesus if he were sitting next to her, still pinned to his sticks.

Hansi ends up as some kind of Gestapo Candy Striper, taunting injured German soldiers. "I lost MY ideals when I lost my eyes on the Russian front." says one poor kid. "We are nothing," snaps back Hansi, cheerfully, "The Reich is everything!"

Anyway, eventually Germany falls (my favorite line in the whole book "Germany surrendered! The dream ended! The nightmare began!" Unless you were a Jew, Communist, gypsy, homosexual or dissident, in which case, the nightmare had ended - the authors of this book, I can't believe 'em), and Hansi and her fellow nurses or schoolmates or whatever are captured by
the RUSSIANS! And dig this - every night, the Russians invade the barracks of the female prisoners to RAPE THEM - except Hansi, cause ... she's too skinny. I can't make this stuff up, folks. Now, despite hearing that Americans were gum-chewing gangsters (Which is apparently worse than being a tyrant and rapist....), Hansi and the girls make an escape attempt across
no-man's land (all the raped girls get shot to death. Hansi makes it across...the message here?), and then are greeted by Americans --- CHEWING GUM!

Eventually Hansi ends up as a teacher in the Bavarian Alps, meets up with her old love Rudy, and they settle down and get married. Unfortunately, the marriage is rocky until they introduce the Bible into it. Kay, whatever floats their U-Boat. Then, inexplicably, Hansi and her family (kids invisibly appear along the way) decide to emigrate to America, but it turns out to not be
as near as great a place as they'd heard.

Anyway, she sets up some kind of ex-Nazi self-pride Christian study group in various jails around the country. Wouldn't you?

Here's a couple things to consider about this book:

First off, is Hansi really the role model most Christians would want to have? She's the most gullible girl in the world! She believes anything she reads, f'r cryin' out loud. She starts off believing the Bible cause it's the only book she has, then some Nazi gives her ANOTHER book so SHE becomes a Nazi, then she hears the Bible's cool again, so she picks that up, then she hears
America's cool, and goes there, only it isn't .... MY GOD! Plus, the sublimated lesson here is "Read anything other than the Bible, and you'll become a Nazi." Nice, charming. Does that mean if I read Archie, I'll join a bubblegum pop band?

Secondly, Hansi escapes being raped. I puzzled this one awhile - after all, wouldn't it reinforce the wrongness of her abandoning Jesus and increase her reader sympathy if she HAD been raped? But then I got the message that all the girls who HAD been raped had gotten killed - you see, the comic's saying that Hansi could never have been a pure and good Christian if she HAD been. She woulda been tainted. And the girls who'd gotten killed escaping the camp were LUCKY to have been spared living with what was done to them.....

And folks wonder why I'm an atheist.....

• The original title was "Mitzi, the Girl Who Got Her Rocks Off To The Sauvistika"
• Actually, I think they're catching a flight to Amsterdam.
• This phrase alone tells you that this is a Christian comic.
• You can never be too thin or too chaste.
• Candy Sniper.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Karate Kid

"Dr.Venom bade me welcome you to this edition of Gone and Forgotten..."

"I am Jena, villainous lackey with a heart of gold and possible love interest for the hero of the eponymous and godawful story STAR-KING, the backup feature from Amazing Wahoo. I only appeared in the last three panels of the story, and even then I was so strung out on cheap talcum-cut cocaine that I barely remember it at all.

Hell, most of the Eighties are a total blur. I started off as Doctor Venom's receptionist, back when he ran an orthodontics practice in Burbank. We ended up in bed together, and he got me all swept up in his dreams of super-villainy, but he abandoned me on the movie set in Italy where we were doing "Star-King." I kinda let myself go wild, there - did a coupla spreads in European skin mags, ran heroin through the Netherlands. I'm going to night school now, and I've rejoined the Baptist church. I'm trying to find a man who doesn't drink or yell at me."

"Well, enough about me...There's a new comic to review ..."

...except Karate Kid (awww). From DC's on-again-off-again attempts of the Seventies, here's what I believe to be the only comic book featuring a kung-fu artist from the future ... though I expect to be proven wrong.

Our Karate Kid is actually Val Armorr, a citizen of 30th-Century Earth and a member of DC's perennial fan-favorite team book, the Legion of Super-Heroes. Feeling his "powers" don't quite match up to the earth-shattering abilities of his allies -- and how could he compare to super-powered teens who make "zap," "bam," "pow," and "bzzzz" noises with such relative ease -- he hops a Time Bubble and heads for an era where his intensive training in assorted martial arts could be put to better use.

The Boxer Rebellion!

No no, I kid. He goes to (naturally) 20th century Earth* where - instead of having to match up to human-powerhouses like Mon-El, genius intellects like Braniac 5 and energy wielding wonders like Sun Boy - he merely has to compete in the same arena with human-powerhouses like Superman, genius intellects like Batman, and energy-wielding wonders like Firestorm, the Nuclear Man.

Despite his timely themes, the Kid actually predates the martial arts craze that raged through comics in the mid-Seventies; he is far less contemporaneous with Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon than he is with Bruce Lee's Kato ... Karate Kid first appeared in Adventure Comics' Legion feature back in the Sixties.

However, Lee's seminal Enter the Dragon debuts in 1973 and by 1974 martial arts comic books are beginning to flood the market. As Marvel (and several 'upstart' companies) start to find a sufficiently profitable cult success with martial arts-themed books like Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu, DC promotes Karate Kid to his own title while creating another equally short-lived kung-fu book, Richard Dragon.

Karate Kid sure did try, and there's a few things I enjoyed about it. Like a number of DC's short-lived Seventies titles, the Kid got to test his skills out on perennial bad guys Neo-Nazis - in this case, the thinly-disguised snappy dressers in bright red costumes, the NuRike (One-half the calories of a regular Reich)!

Also - and this is wholly the effect of artists Ric Estrada (no, not that Ric Estrada) and Joe Staton - Val's New York is a cartoony, desolate landscape or surreal proportions. Buildings are terrific monoliths in an indeterminate distance, often lonely pillars against a red background unmarked by similar towers and buildings. And the splash panel of issue two is a dreamy Eisner-esque ... well, sort of, I guess ... liquid landscape that peels itself right off the page and into a Riverdance performance. It's bizarre. I kinda like it.

And although the splash page of the second issue promised "Martial Arts Action like you've never seen before!" it actually delivered Martial Arts diagramming like you've never seen before. Perhaps taking its lead from DC's long tradition of adding "scientific facts" to its stories (Anyone here remember "Flash Facts?" or those Planetary Science bits they used to run in Mystery In Space?), KK:the book doesn't actually so much show the martial arts action as it does an occasional diorama explaining the action

*Seems whenever a Legionnaire gets a mini-series, it's to introduce him to modern day 20th century Earth. Valor (nee Mon-El) started off as a twentieth century hero, and although his fan base was created in the pages of the futuristic Legion of Super-Heroes, his series placed Valor in the early Nineties. Cosmic Boy's mid-Eighties miniseries had him travel to then-modern-day America, and Timber Wolf - in a miniseries which ran shortly after Valor's - ends up in San Francisco, also modern day.

• Martial Arts Mayhem At Its Mightiest!
• Karate Comments? They couldn't come up with a better name?

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: When The Legion Was Innocent

When the Legion was young and innocent

Whoa whoa whoa, Mon-El, who the hell was talking about Hitler?

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Champions

Stan Lee Presents ... The CHAMPIONS

And stay down!

Actually, the "Champions of Los Angeles," and you can see by them running down a black man that they are indeed authority figures in L.A.

I really suppose this book doesn't belong here - most comic fans remember the Champions at least by name, if not having read the series altogether. Thing is, I was a big fan of this comic when it first came out - and it's sheer "D-List" quality still attracts my attention these days. The team roster included former Avengers Hercules (Marvel super-hero based on the Steve Reeves film version of the legendary Greek demi-god) and the Black Widow, former X-Men Angel and Iceman, and solo star Ghost Rider (to my knowledge, the only super-hero ever based on a common biker tattoo).

Right there is a great reason to love this team - it's got one Greek god, one female Russian spy, two mutants and a demon from Hell! Baby, these ain't your daddy's Fantastic Four! At the time, having a team without five male WASPs and their token girl was like having cake and no frosting. I, personally, loved it. Especially later when they added former Soviet Super Solider Darkstar to the mix, raising the roster to having TWO female Russian spies.And THEN Black Goliath palled around with them for a while, adding a black guy - dude, where have all the angry white men gone? (Black Goliath wasn't REALLY a team member, but he was in three consecutive issues and a cross-over, which totals like 20% of the total run of the Champions, so I'm saying he counts. By that logic, so does Godzilla.)

Along those lines, the Champions' two crossovers make my nose crinkle with hilaritiositude. Usually, crossovers are supposed to happen between a book that sells well, and a book that doesn't sell as well. So I don't know what went wrong at Marvel central, but they actually paired fourth-string book Champions with fifth-string book Black Goliath!! And then and then and then ..... oh, one of my favorite issues from Marvel's history, the Champions actually appeared in third-string liscensed property GODZILLA:KING OF MONSTERS! Bwa-HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sadly, they didn't live long enough to show up in Shogun Warriors, Micronauts or Werewolf by Night.

Other fondly remembered moiments from the Champions - John Byrne, at the peak of his powers, drew them for a while. Plus, the Champions introduced one of Marvel's greatest villains - Swarm! The man made of bees! See, he was made of bees, and when he'd get angry, he'd shoot bees at you...heh. Also, there was RAMPAGE, the Recession Raider, who was basically a disgruntled-ex-employee-turned-villain stereotype, but with more psychoanalysis. Other great moments of the Champions included ... nothing whatsoever

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Rob Liefeld's Captain America

"Welcome to the First Printing, Chromium cover edition of Gone and Forgotten, February edition, signed and numbered by me, Michael Flagherty..."

"Face front, true believers! Nuff Said! Ha Ha! I'm the good-looking, self-assured 'buddy' character from the truly awful comic The Amazing Wahoo - which you'll definitely see here in the next month or two. Although I look just like the All-American boy, I AM a mid-eighties comic book geek ... so as soon as I'm done here, I'll be off to masturbate to the pictures of She-Hulk in the Marvel Universe handbook. You can also bet your bottom dollar that I cried like a little girl when John Byrne killed off Vindicator in Alpha Flight."

"Enough about me, here's a really cool comic! I bought twelve copies of the first issue, both variant covers, and the signed and numbered copy through Dynamic Forces. It's Awesome! Excelsior!

---

When Captain America throws his mighty shieeeeeeeeld!
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yieeeeeeeld!
And they fight with the white and red or blue
with the blue has the through to the blue on you
When Captain America throo-oows his mi-ghty shieeeeeeld!

Those aren't the real lyrics.

Yes, well, you knew I would get around to it ONE day ... and today is that day! Couple years back Marvel Comics - at the time the market leader in comic book sales - decided to inject some life into properties which they feared were threatening to lose their competitive edge in the face of more 'modern' (and almost by definition, more cruel and less heroic) superheroes being published by such novice companies as Image Comics.

So Marvel lured Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld back to their company (They had left to form the very Image comics company that was giving Marvel the heebie-jeebies).

Keep in mind that it was an experiment. Marvel is a major entertainment company these days, with its multitudinous mitts dipping into television, motion pictures, interactive media, cards, CCGs, toys and action figures, as well as apparel, collectibles, art prints, and ... my personal favorite ... theme restaurants. They have subsidiary companies to handle all of these interests - except for comic books! Comic books are still written and drawn right in the Marvel offices. It's really their only tangible output not managed by a satellite company.

So Marvel wanted to test the waters. They put a handful of their traditional properties (Along with Cap, thus went the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Avengers, and a dozen or so auxiliary characters) in a "pocket universe" and left it entirely to the devices of the Lee and Liefeld's respective studios.

The stories were poorly-received, and even the large body of fans who stated that they liked the work had to qualify it as not being the best either creator had produced. But it DID bring new readers to the titles while taking the busy day-to-day management of the books' publishing out of Marvel's otherwise-occupied hands. In those terms, Marvel was thrilled with the results
and has again begun farming out some of its titles.

Ah, but onto the stories. I wish I could spend some time on Avengers, as well as Cap, since Avengers was ALSO under Liefeld's purview - but of the two, Cap is the greatest tragedy. Even before it got out of the gate, in fact ...

Liefeld was committed to drawing the story - Lord knows why - so previous artist Ron Garney had to go. Writer Mark Waid, recently wooed away from DC Comics, has no love lost for Liefeld and 'his ilk,' and so declined an offer to continue scripting the title. Other folks offered a spot on the title included Chuck Dixon and George Perez - both of whom reconsidered and passed on the offer. Reportedly, Avengers re-scripter Jim Valentino was offered to go on after eventual writer Jeph Loeb left the title, but ran into some money disputes with Liefeld's Extreme Studio.

THEN the first issue came out! Wow!

The story, in brief - dreary, fey factory worker Steve Rogers is plagued by dreams, dreams in which he bucks wild on what might be Nazi soldiers, only we can't really tell because their uniforms were so poorly researched. Meanwhile, some damn kid worries about her brother who loves Nazism and has a really stupid hairstyle. Then a size-changing black man gives Steve a "Ford in '72" button, and everybody breaks into a riveting post-apocalyptic dance routine while Steve's wife removes her face to reveal that she is --- Maskatron! Action Figure villain from the Six Million Dollar Man toy line.

And supposedly we're supposed to be freaked out by the tired villainy of an Aryan Superman named MasterMan, and his legions of malnourished idiots.

Right, that's it for the story! Let's check out this "Arte" (A trademark of Extreme Studios, not to be confused with 'Art,' an industry-wide standard of quality not subscribed to by Extreme Studios and its management). Here, one of my favorite scenes, the soon-to-be Bucky (Designed to look a heck of a lot like Carrie from Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns) confronts her brother and his friend, a tremendously-huge freak ... and no one seems to think this is weird. Check it out, looking at where 'John's' feet would most likely end, his pal is probably buried about three feet in the sidewalk. Not to mention that his gargantuan arms would easily scrape pavement were they ever in a relaxed position. AND on top of all of this, the stoop on which Bucky sits appears to go up about one story, officially making it the largest stoop I've ever seen ... and if that IS the entrance to their building, then having the stairs go up to the second floor kind of defeats the purpose of having first-floor apartments.

Here's another scene where MasterMan works his "crowd" into a furor. Notice, however, that not only did the artist choose to represent the crowd - a crowd numbering, as a whole, about fifty, maybe sixty people - in silhouette only, but he reused the silhouettes ... yes, folks, he just photostatted the same three or four silhouettes and repeated them among the page. That's laziness on an Olympic level.

Here's the best part, though. Captain America's shield, integral to the character's look, is apparently made of silly putty; from panel to panel, the shield changes size in proportion to its assorted wielders - I'm guessing Liefeld's compass is broken on one setting.

So, check this out: In the hands of Steve Trevor's ... no, wait, Steve Roger's dimunitive black stalker, the shield isn't much bigger than a record album, but WAIT! After enduring a surprise attack, Steve's shield fits comfortably in the space between shoulder and forearm, maybe 15 inches in diameter. Steve gloriously swings into high and starts hurting people, and notice that his shield is now as wide as the distance from the knuckles
of his hand to his shoulder - about 2-and-a-half feet in diameter, or so. Then Steve lets fly at some enemy agents, and his shield has ballooned to an impressive FOUR or FIVE feet wide - almost as tall as the guys it's knocking over. But if Steve was worried about somehow storing his gargantuan shield when he gets home - no worries .... It's just as big as a small pizza! Personal Pan Shield!

There's so much more crap in this comic, but I can't go on. Stories differ as to the exact reason why Liefeld's run on this book was ended prematurely, but it all comes down to a messed up product that was an embarassment overall for a number of people involved ... and even moreso for those who shelled out cash money for the product.

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• "Can't talk now, honey, I have to balance carefully on the invisible tightrope in the middle of our kitchen"
• Steve Rogers eats lunch like a real American - with a SPOON in EACH HAND!
• Steve throws all limbs akimbo whenever his son's right leg inexplicably vanishes into his pelvis. It's family fun!
• What the hell is up with these two?
• 1st Spectacular Issue!!
  

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Godzilla

"Wanna join our gear team?"
Considering the promotional mania which surrounded the release of the fairly reprehensible Summer "blockbuster" Godzilla film, I'm amazed that Marvel Comics didn't offer a bound, hard-cover, collector's edition trade paperback of these original Godzilla comic book stories. Then again, I'm amazed that Marvel hasn't turned half of their female characters into porno comics. Marvel blows my mind, sometimes.

Right about the time that Asian cinema was making its big fad crash here in the States, Marvel opted to cash in on the dough with some thematic books. "Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu" was their ... um ... kung-fu book, and a well-written, well-drawn (The Day Brothers, Paul Gulacy, etc) book it was. Godzilla was their Japanese monster book, and it was poorly written and poorly drawn. Thing is ... same writer on both books! Weird, but not impossible. I suppose mastery at the complex philosophies of Eastern spiritualism doesn't necessarily translate into city-stomping thrills.

One of the delights of the old Godzilla book was that it was completely unafraid of being garish; the cover colors on these things were astounding. Note the above example, featuring bright yellow and red. My favorite was the pea green and deep purple cover which stood out like a bocchilism accident from across the room.

The plot was that Godzilla (monster with a heart of gold) was wandering around the world, foiling the machinations of the gene-freaking Doctor Demonicus (who wore a purple and white costume with a deep blue cape and silver devil horns on his head. How come geneticists of our world don't dress like that?). Mind you, Godzilla wasn't doing it intentionally, but he was smashing Doc's stuff all the time anyway. Alongside this drama, Marvel's superspy organization SHIELD and their not-terribly-Hasslehoffesque leader Nick Fury were flying around trying to bag Demonicus and neutralize Godzilla. The Champions also got in on the act. I still think Godzilla should be an honorary member of the Champions.

Also worth mentioning here: Shogun Warriors - based on the Japanese children's toys - was a contemporary of big G's book, but just as horribly written and drawn. Ick.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Christmas With The Super-Heroes

The first ever audio Gone&Forgotten comes to you courtesy of a plainly horrible holiday offering which comes screaming from the heart of the Seventies - Christmas With The Super-Heroes.


Every Christmas with the Super Heroes starts out as smiles and gifts, but after a few holiday scotches, Robin's demanding a divorce from Batman, Superman's crying on the patio and Wonder Woman's locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of wine.



Man, good times.

If you grew up in the Seventies, or even the Eighties, you probably had a couple of these albums yourself, either the stand-alone albums or the ones which came with a horribly written comic attached to the sleeve. The art was usually stock, if I remember.

Nowadays, I have more than a dozen of these things - far more than I ever had as a kid, and this includes Reflections Of A Rock Super-Hero, which was this mixed-genre rock concept album that caused you to die of horribleness anew with each track. Then Stan Lee would do a spoken segment, and you'd be soothed back to life, only to be brutally killed again by the NEXT goddamn caterwauling. For more accurate description of this album, please see Dante's Inferno.

But back to this album, what we have are three Christmas-themed stories featuring the Kennedies of DC Comics, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Appropriately, they all deal with traditional seasonal themes, such as Santa Claus, charity, and nuclear missiles killing the merry fuck out of everything. HO HO HO!

Superman starts us off with "Light Up The Tree, Mister President," which is fun to sing along to "Turn Me On Mister Dead Man" or "What's the Frequency, Kenneth." Jimmy Olsen kicks off the scene, interviewing folks - like this excitable fella from the Pacific Northwest - at the site of the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the lawn of the White House.

Little does Jimmy know that a crazy-ass mad scientist-type has rigged up what is probably the least rational doomsday plan in the history of everything. A kidnapped Jimmy has the plan explained to him - via a series of images on television screens, very helpful for those of us LISTENING TO A RECORD, MAN! - by apocalyptically-obsessed madman genius Thurston Killgore, who probably wouldn't be half the menace he is had he been born "Ted" to Ira and Dianne Shelby.

In a flashback, we hear the once-respected Killgore addressing Congress with a program I believe he called "Operation Enduring Killing Everyone On Earth With Nuclear Bombs Until America Is All That's Left," and not to go all political here but I SWEAR some of the stuff he's bellowing sounds like it came straight from a Rumsfield press conference. Naturally, Congress would NEVER go along with any plan which involved America launching pre-emptive strikes on another country with weapons of mass destruction - right? Right - so they lock Killgore up in the nut pokey and forget about him.

But he comes back with a plan for revenge, based on the following logic - he wants the world to die in nuclear fire, right? Right. But the only man who can launch America's arsenal of nuclear weapons - in this story, that's FIVE - is the President, via the special button in his office. But Killgore has RIGGED the button which lights the Christmas Tree on the White House lawn so that IT launches the missiles when the President lights the tree! AND it explodes one that's hidden in the tree itself! It's DEVIOUS, and only about NINETY-PERCENT RETARDED, since you figure that if he could rig this freaking button to launch the missiles, he could go ahead and do it himself.

Only in comic books are the words "Evil Genius" and "Downs Syndrome" pretty much synonmous.

Fast forward to the end, Superman wins. Beats him up or something. NOW, two things stand out for me in this story. First off, at the same time that Jimmy Olsen is covering the tree lighting ceremony and Lois and Clark are watching Jimmy on WGBS' live feed, the United Nations is unanimously passing a worldwide resolve to ban all nuclear weapons forever. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the news business, myself ... in fact, I don't even watch television news, or read a newspaper, or in fact know HOW to read OR write, and instead rely on shouting at the keyboard in order to create these articles, BUT ... it seems to me that I'd have at least ONE of my three top reporters assigned to COVER THE GADDAMN UNITED NATIONS BANNING ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS! I don't care HOW pretty the lights are, man ...


There's no image here because bandwidth is more precious than gold, and these sound files take up enough space. Sorry, folks.

Second thing which stands out is a constant for this album - the sound effects. For some reason, the foley on this thing is flat-out bizarre, particularly when anyone takes a walk. Check out, for instance, this scene where Superman inquires as to the whereabouts of Jimmy Olsen and, upon receiving a clue, dashes across the quad in his brand new cordurouy pants.

Moving on to the Batman story - "The Christmas Carol Caper," this is where the album gets sort of ... unsettling. I was never the world's biggest fan of Batman, and maybe I'm not as hep to the mythos of the guy as some of you out there, but upon listening to this recording I feel I can say with some certainty: THIS IS NOT BATMAN!

Batman is an avenger of the night, a dark and brooding figure, and even at his worst a campy fat man with a stick up his ass. He is not a laid-back bon vivant with a song in his heart and singing telegrams coming in on his telephone! I'm not even 100% convinced that Batman should be answering his own phone, but I DO know for sure that Batman would NEVER say "HOW NICE!" or "SING AWAY", never mind ONE AFTER THE OTHER!!

This story starts off with Batman and Robin chilling at the Batpad on a quiet, crime-free Christmas Eve when the ... ugh ... when the PHONE RINGS AND BATMAN ANSWERS IT and it turns out to be A SINGING TELEGRAM ... OF DOOM!

Now, what I know of Gotham City villains is that they each have their own theme, right? Joker uses comedy-related stuff, Two-Face gets double-gimmicks, Riddler riddles, Penguin gets the arctic, umbrellas and birds, because who else will, right? Well, here's a little known fact - all OTHER non-gimmick Gotham villains are required to either sing or have Christmas related motifs. No, it's true! Why else would both the threatening voice on the phone sing a menacing version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" while Rodney The Red Nosed Hitman (I ain't kidding folks) fires away, singing "Deck Them All With A M3 Volley," just before Batman and Robin are almost run down by Maxy the Minstrel Man and Sammy the Southside Santa?

Seriously, the attempted hit-and-run is all Batman's fault, anyway. I'll let him explain, and I'll let you shudder at Batman singing a merry tune...

All this ends at the Southside Mission, where the famous Dr.John - probably not the one you're thinking of - manages his home for rehabilitated hobos. Secretly, one of these hobos is a terrible criminal who's there to kill Batman, which I think everyone should have expected because he refused