Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Dingbats of Danger Street

Note: As with many things, the temperance of time has mellowed my feelings towards the Dingbats of Danger Street (This article's several years old, I believe it's circa 1999 or 2000). They've grown on me in some reluctant fashion, so you can take some (but not all, mind you) of my vitriol with a certain grain of salt. Also, as time has passed I HAVE managed to find artifacts of Kirby verbally bashing Lee, in some uncertain and frankly uncomfortably angry terms. It's a shame, no one wants to see their childhood idols at each others' throats, but it's simply unreasonable to expect a human being to keep all their frustration bottled up forever. Aw well. It doesn't do much to diminish my respect for either of those men ...

Anyway, the article ...


Hey! I'm Red Raven, and I keep bob-bob-bobbin' along! I honestly don't know what I - and about a zillion other forgettable Golden Age characters - would have done if it weren't for Roy Thomas. He brought me back from my sole appearance in my very short-lived 40's self-titled book - and what kid wouldn't fall all over himself to plop down ten cents for the magic and adventure that the title "Red Raven Comics" promises - for a Marvel Premiere story featuring the Liberty Legion! We were such a force for good that we were led by Bucky! A sixteen year old kid!

Anyway, speaking of sixteen year old kids, let me introduce you to four guys too young to drown their sorrows in the Comic-Book Loser Afterlife Bar and Grill (Happy Hour every Tuesday from four to eight, karaoke every Wednesday)...

Oh, I've been wanting to do these fellas for the longest time. I've always been a fan of Kirby's sensawunda boy's adventures, like the Newsboy Legion, and - as I'm sure you've figured - I love really crap comics. And Look! Both at once!

Yeah, I'm hard on this book, but it's pretty indefensible. First off, even though Joe Simon brought us the Outsiders, he did have a great hand at team books back when he and Kirby were an item. Unfortunately, Simon was nowhere near this project when it was green-lighted. Secondly, the book really lacks a clear focus as far as story and characterization - hell, even consistency what with super-villains bounding and leaping and passing gas (and all this without Kilgore Trout penning a word) in the center of an urban slum. So, not only is this not exactly Fantastic Four, I perceive it gets partially derailed by a sort of abortive Stan Lee parody.

The situation between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby really is a bit nebulous, even to the most dedicated insider (which
I am certainly not. And neither are you, so shaddup). Whereas they had a very final split, it was never a very vocal one, at least on behalf of the Man and the King.

By some records, it was a hateful parting between the two old collaborators, but you'd be hard-pressed to find either of them saying a bad word towards the other. Stan has never failed to praise Kirby, and the King's always looked
ahead; he had little to say about past slights, and always an excitement about the future.

The Stan/Jack split plays a big role in this story because of the character, Jumpin' Jack, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lee. Course, I didn't see much of Lee in the character beyond his Stan 'stache and his Marvel-like moniker, except for an occasional quote that seemed to swipe a little at Lee. Like this one, sparing us any more of Jack's "quotes."

Lest the anal legions come pouring over the ramparts at the omission, I will take a moment to mention Kirby's piercing and flamboyant Stan Lee parody, Funky Flashman. A staple of the Mister Miracle books, Flashman was at once both a model of base human desires used in contrast to the godly
concerns and morality of the New Gods, and an exaggerated caricature of Stan Lee. Blustering, bombastic, deceptive, short-sighted and glory-hogging, Flashman was a constant thorn in the side of the messianic and ever-patient Scott
Free, as well as to Kirby's common clay everyman (and alter-ego, perhaps?) Oberon.

But, as Flashman's schemes wore on, he inevitably ended up (reluctantly, of course) benefitting the common good. Likewise, though he was a well known con man and thief, Oberon and Free tolerated him time and time again. In fact, as I do maintain that Oberon was Kirby's "voice" in these books, just as Flashman represented Lee's, and Miracle constantly kept a peace between the two of them which inevitably resulted in Flashman's humiliation and Oberon's humbling. And then they'd start it all over again. And since Miracle represented the unfettered spirit of man, and he was the peacekeeper between the two of them ... well, what does this say about Kirby's feelings for the Man?

I know a lot of you are disappointed that this review isn't mean yet, but COME ON, we're talking about the KING here!

Alright, anyway, back to the Dingbats.

"Look out for these lovable dum-dums." I didn't write that. "Their parents don't want them! Their friends don't want them! Society doesn't want them!" Heck, I don't want them, but here they are!

I hope you got all the characterization you wanted out of that prelude, cause that's all there was. From those opening words, the comic goes on to present an unconvincing series of idiosyncrasies and unmotivated character traits.

We start with ... "I'm Good Looks! -- Know why I'm laughin'? 'Cuz in a minute there'll be NUTHIN' to laugh about." And boom, that's about it for Good Looks. He doesn't even get the screen time that Tommy got in the Newsboy Legion. Or Proty got in the Super-Pet Legion.

Looks is backed up by the team brute, Krunch, who shops for belts at the same place Thor does.

Then there's the team nut ball, Bananas, who I THINK is supposed to be telling jokes and wise-cracking throughout the book, but nothing he says really makes sense. "Flap off," he tells adult
authority figure Det.Mullins, "Yer jail needs a sweepin'." Uh, okay. And then there's Non-Fat.

Okay, I don't really get what Non-Fat's role is supposed to be, except maybe he's the team anal-retentive or anorexic or something, and I've got NO idea how that fits into the classic team dynamic (Mister Fantastic, The Human Torch and Karen Carpenter? Rocky, Prof, Red and Callista Flockheart?). His shtick is that he has this hot dog, and he's not letting go of it. Nope. Alright. Oh, but he's gonn eat it too. And he's skinny. And his name is Non-Fat, but hot dogs are pretty much ALL fat.

And and and Non-Fat is pretty clearly MEANT to be black, but instead turns up white through out the entire book (for that matter, I suppose Bananas is supposed to be Asian, judging from his gross caricature. At least he didn't end up with the bright yellow skin so common to Asian characters in the Seventies). I'm not sure if the coloring choice was an editorial edict or a simple mistake, but the effects are eerie; Non-Fat is deeply and reflectively shaded, huge oily pools of blackness stick to his hands and face. And you know, that'd work fine with your usual black character from the Seventies (Black Lightning, Luke Cage, etc), but on a white guy it's WEIRD.

I mean, if I'm wrong, let me know, but why does Non-Fat gets his ridiculous hat in a twist when he hears someone call him "boy?" And why does Krunch warn Bananas not to let Non-Fat call him "Snow White?" It's so puzzling.

So the character concept is weak, and Non-Fat is all about food but he's incredibly skinny, and beyond that, they're all colossal fuckups and have no personality. And somehow they get involved in industrial espionage and capture two super-villains, but I'm not denying you a thing by skipping the content of the story.

But how about this edgy, youth-oriented slang? "We don't want to be hassled..." and "they're hassled by weird characters..." and "Man, reading this book was a real hassle." Also, you have to love that this obviously kids-oriented book starreda group of kids who'd named themselves "Dingbats," a term which, at the time, was only in popular use by middle-age, white Irish-American blue collar television icon Archie Bunker.

Plus, overall, what seems like the majority of the book is given over to the lame storylines involving industrial espionage, the super-villainous threat of Jumpin' Jack and the Gasser, and Det. Mullins either doing the traditional tough-guy comic cop routine or pondering the fates and psyches of the Dingbats, rather than the Dingbats themselves. And in case you didn't catch that, I said there was a super-villain called "The Gasser." THE - GASSER. Let me spell that for you, jee-ay-double-ess-eee-ar, GASSER! One who gasses!

The Next Issue box asked for folks to write in if they wanted to hear the "tragic stories" of the Dingbats. And I'd like to offer a deep and heartfelt thanks to everyone who failed to write in. I liked the Green Team better.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Superboy Spectacular 1980

Note: This article was written back when Smallville was in its first season, just to give you some probably-not-necessary background. The only difference it made was that I was not yet aware that Kristen Kreuk is an actress only in the same regards that Hitler is some sort of cuddly bunny, and as an actress actually resembled something less like an actress and more like a horrible odor that clings to your curtains and you don't know where it came from but you spray and spray with Febreze and it never gets any better so you replace the curtains finally and the smell lingers on and then it turns out that it's a dead raccoon in the heating vent. Seriously, she is not very good.

Anyway, the article ...


Yo, is it warm in here or is it just me? Anyway, I'm the Man O'Metal as I'm sure you could probably have deduced from my very metal-appearing blue skin and my flaming shoulder which just SCREAMS "metal." Yes, ever since I fell into a vat of molten metal, I've been encased in metal and on fire ... pretty much like would happen to ANYone who fell into a vat of metal. Difference is, I can still wear pants, breathe, and survive.

But neverminding what appears to be the most insane and haphazardly put together Man of Steel, here's a Man of Steel in the making, plus his dog of steel and planet of idiocies. Was that mean? It might just be that MY EFFING SHOULDER'S ON FIRE! Yow! It makes me testy!

What with the WB Network's upcoming "Smallville" TV show, I thought it appropriate to take a look at the kind of young Clark Kent we frankly will never see again. Back before every young Superman had to have a six pack that'd take top honors at the Arnold Classic, doe eyes, artistically tousled hair, and a pouty mug hanging from a set of cheekbones that'd make Linda Evangelista weep, we had a very earnest, round-faced farmkid in a set of fancy pajamas. And a six pack that'd take top honors at the Arnold Classic - jesus, you'd think with all the times Clark visited the "ol swimming hole" with Lana and the kids from Smallville High, they might've noticed that their pet bookworm was built like Lee Haney, only mildly paler.

Anyway, I was recently able to get my hands on a
Superboy Spectacular from 1980, which overall reads like "Superboy's Most Embarrassing Home Videos" - seven "classic" stories, one of which was a brand new fable letting us in on YET ANOTHER chance meeting of the teenage Clark Kent and teenage Bruce Wayne before their adult super-careers. These two kept meeting long before forming the World's Finest team, and each meeting was a triumphant exercise in stupidity, pretty much.

I should stop and point out here that my affection for the superman Family is unchecked: I love me some Superman. I love me some Krypto. I love me some Nightwing and Flamebird, some Supercar, some Bottle City of Kandor and, to a degree that worries my wife greatly, I love me some Supergirl. But Lord,
some of these stories.

The opening tale, for instance, relates the oft-flashed-back-to origin of Superman's costume, which was called during his Superbaby days (I kid not) his super-playsuit. That's right, Superman isn't flying around in his pajamas, he's not flying around in his underwear ... no, folks, he's flying around in the playclothes he wore as a toddler and which were woven from his swaddling blankets. Inspired personally, I now wear footed fuzzy pajamas to the office.

Some people say the Crisis On Infinite Earths was a bad thing, what with decades of admittedly haphazardly assembled canon taking a fucking savage beating in the name of revisionism. Personally, I think that when you've got a secret origin for your UNDERWEAR, you're criminally overwritten anyway. Like, I'm pretty sure the St.John's Bay jeans currently shielding my chair seat from the unfettered superpowers of my ass just came off an
assembly line in Botswana. I don't need to know how the threads were individually unravelled in order to appreciate that these are pretty nice pants.

One of the best parts of these old Superbaby stories, besides the infant Superman's charmingly retarded personal twist on baby speak - "This am not ice cream cone! Me sad! Waaaaah!" - was that Ma and Pa Kent honestly called him "Superbaby." Occasionally "Clark," sometimes "Son," probably - off-panel - they may have called him "Oh please stop beating me with your super fists, I'm sorry I said you couldn't have a cookie before bedtime," but predominantly they refer to their bundle of pride and joy as "Superbaby." I don't know what to make of that, but I think I would have gotten a little bit of a kick out of it if my parents had called me "Humble G&F Editor Baby," myself.

Second story in this tome introduces one of my favorite Superboy villains, the "Kryptonite Kid," and his immensely more brilliant partner ... "KRYPTONITE DOG!" If the odds of Superboy's pet
dog making it to Earth from his random path through space were already long, add to it the factor of a criminal from another planet being sent into space on a deadly experimental mission where he AND THE BULLDOG THEY SENT WITH HIM fly through a kryptonite cloud and gain amazing powers and then go to Earth to fight boy-on-boy and dog-on-dog with Earth's Mightiest Teen ...
in the Silver Age DC Universe, it's about a two-to-one chance. Odds are even in an 80-page giant.

Kryptonite Dog is pretty much the most cruel and amazing villain EVER in the Superman rogues gallery - yes, even more so than Zha-Vam, Terra Man and the Puzzler COMBINED. Don't believe me? Well, dig this ... At one point he maliciously lures Krypto to a tasty pile of bones which he then TURNS INTO KRYPTONITE BONES for NO other reason than to rub it in Krypto's face. He doesn't even fight Krypto, or try to kill him or whatever. He just teases him for not having any tasty bones. Wow! That's some complex motivation for a freaking bulldog, kryptonite or no.

The whole thing ends with Superboy and Krypto getting their impervious asses saved by Master Mxyzptlk, the teen version of ... man, if you can't figure out who he's the teen version of, me changing one freaking vowel in his name isn't going to help.

The absolute winner of this collection is a clumsy and inarticulate "Life On Krypton" story where Superboy uses some kind of mind ray device to recall his infant memories of his home planet. What we learn is that life on Krypton is nothing but a series of unconnected and unconscienably stupid vignettes, and that "Me want ice cream" is still retarded baby speak, even on a world light years away.

Actually, the highlight of this epic adventure into rambling pointlessness is Jor-El's FIRST accidental launching of Krypto into the icy grip of certain death deep in space. That's right folks, Krypton's greatest scientist doomed his boy's favorite pet not ONCE, but twice! The greatest mind on Krypton, folks. Personally, I think maybe Jor-El was just getting tired of finding his anti-grav slippers chewed down the atomic generator, or 'accidents' all over the Phantom Zone controls. Kal-El would've come home from space-school one astro-day to find science-dad saying "We gave Krypto to a family of cosmic farmers, son. He'll be happier there ..." and then a couple days later Kal-El notices Krypto's collar in the garbage on the curb. "Me want dog him no at space farm ice cream! WAAaah! Gargle!" he'd bellow, typically.

Not-yet-Superbaby's mom Lara is so incensed at Jor'el's attempted canicide, she actually LEAVES Jor-El. Why this gave me such inordinate pleasure, I cannot say, but on some levels it seems to me she probably should've seen the writing on the wall when Jor-El was firing every living creature he could get his hands on into space. "He might have a mean streak," I'm sure she found herself thinking on occasion.

So she ups and takes baby Kal with her, and to help keep his mind off their current troubles - you know, his dog is dead, his dad's fucking insane, the planet is doomed - she takes her beloved boy on a tour of Krypton's recreational marvels, ending in what I THINK is supposed to be comical mischief on the part of Kal-El, but really just comes off as pointless stupidity that filled ten pages the same way a stopped toiler can fill a bathroom. At a "robot showroom," Kal accidentally gets locked inside a robot and almost chokes
to death on robot farts, or whatever was going on. Then mom send Baby Kal on an underwater rocket into the midst of a battle between sea monsters. Maybe to teach him not to climb inside any more damn robots.

But oh, the finest moment occurs when Kal visits the "Hall Of Worlds," where donning a cape and rocket pack, he zooms around among the exhibits of life on other worlds, including a life-size diorama featuring - you guessed it, because you can sense stupidity as well as I can - Kal's future adoptive parents, complete with name tags. Awesome. Good lord.

Getting back to the Crisis On Infinite Earths, briefly, is there even the most die-hard fan out there who honestly thinks it benefits anyone to keep that kind of nonsense in continuity? That kind of nonsense is what precipitates ... bitter and profanity-laden articles like this one. Let's stop the cycle
of hate.

Anyway, more stupidity keeps abounding until Jor-El's public humiliation inspires Lara to return to her man, while along the way Kal inadvertently saves Krypto from endless decades trapped in the cold, unforgiving void. Until the next time it happens.

The next half of the comic wraps up with some pretty standard classic tales from a number of Superboy's creative eras, beginning with one where Superboy rather graphically demonstrates to the town of Smallville why he shouldn't be asked to compete in high school sports like football - in not so many words, but rather eloquently spoken after atomizing a tackle dummy in his demonstration of his gridiron skills, Superboy seems to tell the crowd of hicks: "I'd fucking kill everyone."

Then there's Superboy on a "To Tell The Truth" type panel show, and fighting ANOTHER damn Kryptonian - Last Son of Krypton my ASS, the only Kryptonians who didn't escape that planet's destruction were ones who'd deliberately been tied down to the planet's core, and shot in the fucking face before the explosion. It all ends with the aforementioned meeting of teen Clark and teen Bruce Wayne, one of the small legion of meetings between Superboy and the teen versions of his Justice League pals - remembering that Hal Jordan, Aquaman, and Oliver Queen ALSO met Clark as teens, and so did Lois Lane, Braniac, and for all I know, me.

In closing, though, I leave you with this: Best wishes from Superboy and his friends. You know, like Mxyzptlk, and the Kryptonite Kid who, earlier in that very issue, was trying to kill superboy to death via the loss of his life. Here, he warmly places a hand on Pete Ross' shoulder and smiles
gently. Ah, how time has tendered us all.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Skateman!

HELLO (Head Enlarged Looks Like an Ovum!) I am the artist formerly known as MODOK! (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing!) I was designed by the scurrilous rats at AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) as part of their many PLOTS (Plan Leveraged to Overthrow Tons of Stuff) for world domination. My role in the secret, scientific army? I'll let you guess. Yes, that's right, KILLING! Heck, it's all I was designed FOR! (Formal Operating Reason)

This started to cause problems during periods when there wasn't particularly anything which needed killing. And at the company picnics? Forget about it! "Hey MODOK, we need a sixth for basketball ... AAAGH, I've been killed! Why are you killing us? Basketball is for playing basketball, not for killing!" and I'd be all "Do I LOOK like a Mental Organism Designed For NOT Killing and Playing Basketball Instead (MODONKPBI)?" No, it was a mess all around.

Luckily, I've been reprogrammed as a MODOHBCRF (Mental Organism Designed Only for Hosting Bad Comic Related Features) ... so, settle back, kick off your in-lines, and ENJOY (Entertainment Now ...um ... no, Naively Just ... um ... Over ... shit, I'm out!)

Sometimes, you get thrown a curve. I returned from San Diego with a big, brassy and beautiful copy of Superman vs Muhammed Ali in my mitts. My intentions were good, as I intended to take this treasury-sized edition of Superman and - neverminding he was the greatest boxer of all time - what amounts to a fragile sack of boxing Earth-flesh, and relate to you in microscopic detail what surely was going to be a four-color anatomical study of Superman putting planet sized holes in Ali's ribcage, merely by forgetting his lines. I expected - nay, anticipated even - a really crappy comic ... and for that matter, it was, like, FIFTEEN TIMES LARGER than a regular comic, so it should be exponentially worse than even the worst comic, right?
Well, damn, it turns out that Superman vs Muhammed Ali is not only NOT a crappy comic, it's a downright GOOD comic. In fact, one of the best I've read in YEARS. Excellent pacing, nice and completely contrivance free plot twists and gimmicks, lots of empathy for ALL the main characters, and Adams' art was at an absolute peak. A four-star project, despite its somewhat flimsy premise.

And as screwed up as this is, the joy of reading a really good comic was almost overshadowed by the realization that what I expected to be a real prize for G&F had slipped out of my fingers. Luckily, while at the Con, I ALSO came across a copy of SKATEMAN, considered by many to be one of the worst comics ever done. One of those many is me, now. Wow. This comic. If a future civilization were to come across only copies of Superman vs Muhammed Ali and Skateman as the last remnants of our world, they'd think Neal Adams was a schizoid maniac, or our god of duality, or Two-Face. Whatever, as far as this book goes, Neal flipped the coin to the scarred-up, "let's make a book that sucks" side.

Actually, there's no clear indication that Adams wrote and drew this. Sure, it's in his style, but Neal oversees a lot of kids who work in his very imitable technique. Of course, Neal's name appears proudly (or, as proudly as possible, given the circumstances) right above the character name, although that could just as well imply Neal's proud ownership of the property. I really should've asked him while at the Con, but I was either drunk or apathetic, I can barely recall from the hazy obfuscation of miles of fanboy-flesh squeezing out all traces of oxygen and good taste.

But to the book! Skateman opens with a blinding action sequence, dropping us unceremoniously smack into the middle of an ongoing story. This is alright because the damn thing's gonna end right on the climax, more about that later.

The very first thing you notice about the book - besides the fact that you're laughing at the idea of a hard-boiled vigilante who kicks people with his roller skates - is that the cover is reproduced on the interior as the splash page. Always a sign of quality, that. Of course, they added dialogue, which includes Skateman's dynamic introductory line in his crimefighting debut:

"Hands off, jerkhole! ... We're forming a union! My foot and your face!"

So, you can see why I love this book.

It goes on from there, Skateman beating the hell out of some faceless thugs and ... of course ... skating the hell out of everything. During a hazy flashback (brought on by taking a damn 2x4 across his mug), we get a glimpse into the complex work of art that IS Skateman.

The story starts with Billy. I forget his last name, honestly, and I neglected to write it in my notes. I'm pretty sure they mention it in the book, but c'mon, I had to read this thing, like, EIGHT TIMES already, so have some pity on me. Anyway, it starts with Billy - a lifelong martial arts enthusiast - coming back from his Army stint in Vietnam to a new career as a - - - wait for it - - - ROLLER DERBY athlete! Yes'm, Billy finds fame, glory, and more as the star of the Roller Derby circuit. Unfortunately, it all falls apart for him when his best friend - and fellow Roller Derbier (what do we call these guys, anyway?) - "Jack" (Way to work those names, gang) is KILLED ... his death possibly owing to Billy's carelessness (but more likely to a gangster plot), Billy retreats into shrieking depression, cared for by his girlfriend Angel.

AND IT KEEPS GOING! Billy also befriends a local neighborhood "Beaner" (his words, not mine, folks) Paco, whom he teaches to "defend himself AND ride a skateboard." Teach what you know, I guess. This starts to help Billy out of his depression, until BIKERS KILL ANGEL! Thanks for being in the Dramatis Personae, hon, we really cared deeply for you as a character.

This sends Billy over the edge, and inspired by Paco's comic book collection, our flaxen-haired derby jockey adopts a disguise to strike terror into criminal's hearts - assuming the criminals live in Venice Beach and are easily scared - SKATEMAN!

Point of order. Here are the three things which have defined your life up to this point: You have studied martial arts for years, you served in the Army during the Vietnam War, and you roller skate. Which do YOU choose as the central theme for your career of masked vigilantism? Roller-skating? You're an idiot, someone please call Daredevil.

Let's fast forward to get through this. Billy is romanced by a girl named Jill, whose "personal brand of rock 'n' roll" - and a No-Prize
to whomever can explain what that means - and slavish devotion touch his
tender heart. Jill gets abducted by bikers, who apparently are in league with migrant workers to bring "shit" (according to the only black man who gets a speaking role in the book - I think he's
Rudy, from Fat Albert) into the country. Billy slaps on a pair of cotton briefs and a scarf around his head and rollerskates FOR JUSTICE, and is aided by a Newsboy Legion of
skateboarders.

As an aside, all the hispanic people in this book are apparently migrant workers. This alone is just not right. Then all the white people are either bikers or disco dancers. And all the black people in this book aren't anywhere to be seen at all. (Okay, except for Rudy). This is just one of many things that are chronically not right with this book.

Anyway, here's my favorite part of this book:
The thing ends on a climax. Like, the last thing we see is Skateman rescuing Jill from a massive explosion at the evil bikers' hideout, barely keeping ahead of the flame and shockwave, while Paco cheers on from the sidelines, shocked and amazed, and then the word "Finis" is on the page. Boom. The end. No plot strings tied up, no "to
be continued" (Though it pretty obviously was intended to be), no questions answered, no satisfaction delivered.

I'm not sure I have the words to describe how jarring it is to have a story end on the climax. Like, try to picture this; Luke Skywalker flies into the Death Star trench, Vader follows him, Solo ambushes Vader's TIE fighter and Luke drops in the blast that destroys the Death Star ... the Death Star EXPLODES ... freeze on the explosion, roll credits. Boom. The end. Unsatisfying, right? How about - Indiana Jones is tied up at the post, the Nazis open the Ark, they all melt - freeze frame, roll credits. Agh! Or, here's another example: This book sucks.

But Skateman sure doesn't fail to deliver! No, rather than leaving with us with a story which abruptly ends at no logical point, it brings us THREE stories that fail to end in any satisfactory manner.

The first backup is "Futureworld," featuring art by Andy Kubert from back when he used to draw a lot like his father, and less like not any good whatsoever. The story focuses on a post-apocalyptic future where a single brave youth - Korlak - must brave the wastelands and terrible dangers of two panels worth of flying a big zeppelin to get to "The Great Machine."

The "Great Machine" turns out to be an old Nuclear Power Plant, which we know because Korlak exclaims, upon seeing it, "Th-the Great Machine! It lives! A WORKING ATOMIC REACTOR!" ... Of course, in his very next word balloon, he muses "I have never seen such contrivances." Then how did you know it was a nuclear power plant, you dope? Korlak broke kayfabe. The rube.

The next story is "The Rock Warrior," which is what I'm gonna name my first-born. Here's the plot, as figured out following somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth read: Edgar is a boxer. Om is an inventor. They used to be partners in adventure until Edgar settled down, married, and had a daughter - Angie. Om accidentally drops his new invention - a handheld personal teleporter - while rushing to get some free lunch. The infant Angie grabs the thing and sends her and her father on a wild tour of dangerous spots throughout the universe. Along the way, Angie and Edgar meet the Rock Warrior, Om's twin (apparently fraternal) brother who fights crime with a space guitar. After a near miss rescuing Angie from a death ride in a giant missile, the duo come home, safe and sound.

Now, here's what the story felt like during the first eight thousand exhausting
efforts of making heads or tails of it: This guy with the stripes and this
guy and he has a teleporter, right? Then the baby grabs it and the guy I don't remember who go through time and the Space Warrior plays his guitar
and then they have to stop the missile so they go into space and they fight
it with lasers and then it's over and they're back home and the guy with the stripes, he says "should we tell them" and the baby says "Wok! Wah Wah!"

I hate to admit I enjoyed the whole Skateman experience - Rock Warrior and Skateman more than "Futureworld," just for the former duo's excessive incompetence and insanity - but I get to qualify it by saying I enjoyed it in the same manner as I enjoyed Manos, The Hands Of Fate, or groin injuries on America's Funniest Home Videos. On a final note, Skateman ends with this
line, tacked on to the end of the Rock Warrior story:

"Ok, readers. Do you want to see more of Rock Warrior? It's up to you, then. Write in!"

I can't resist when creative teams beg for support. Needless to say, I have pen in hand as we speak. How many "R"s in "Warrior?"

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Super-Heroes versus Super-Gorillas

I'm the FACE! Cut off your nose to spite me, that's my dare to you!

Okay, that was the worst joke I could think of right away, but get this, here's an even WORSE joke: Criminals were afraid of me! Yes, that's right, they feared me because my face was horrible and green and awful and obviously a mask, really. Rah! There, I scared you, too, didn't I? Time to give up that life of crime, if I can say so myself.

I like to think I provide an important lesson to all would-be superheroes out there, and that's that you don't need laser beam eyeballs or super strength or a belt full of fancy gadgets to be a REAL Hero ... all you really need, deep down ... is a gift certificate to Spencer's at their post-Halloween clearance sale.

DC Super Special #16 - this thing is the BIBLE of Super-Heroes Battling Super-Gorillas! Which, I realize is a statement dependent on the bible being a book about how monkeys come from space and they conquer us or kidnap our women or solve crimes, in the best of circumstances. Maybe it is about that, like I have time to read the Bible when I've got all these super-ape comics lying around.

"Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorillas" is a collection of four classic struggles between the forces of justice and the forces of apes. Now, this'll help me cover a good assortment of some classic simian characters who've graced DC's roster over the last sixty years, but it's barely the tip of the huge, hairy iceberg. For instance, it leaves out that gorilla who was made an honorary Marine sergeant in one of DC's
war books. Or Detective Chimp, who was a smart monkey who'd solve crimes his idiot owner would neglect. (Every episode, hewould attribute Detective Chimp's amazing discoveries to pure chance. "By pure luck, Bobo has accidentally mixed the precise chemicals necesary to make this invisible ink visible again!" ... "Bobo's clumsy antics have caused this diary to fall open to a precise
page which describes a likely motive for the murder" ... "Bobo's comical monkeyshines have linked the DNA evidence to the accused and invalidated his alibi, and his monkey chattering sounds enough like testimony to convict the accused for a hundred years!").

And then there's Monsieur Mallah, an enemy of the Doom Patrol, and Congorilla, who was a pal of Congo Bill (Like Arctic Ice Cap Carl would hang out with Arctic Ice Capybara - used that joke before, sorry), and Beppo the super-monkey who shouldn't hold his breath expecting a revamp like Krypto got, plus SO many more. But patience, we have time, and we have more than enough to deal with here.

The book opens with the classic Batman tale "Batman Battles The Living Beast Bomb," which is a title that honestly makes the reader ask some important questions, right?

Scrawny scientist Walter Hewitt creates a device which gives him animal powers (animals have powers?), but it all goes wrong when a gorilla he's shooting radiation at for the purpose of gaining APE STRENGTH ends up getting Hewitt's intelligence instead, AS - WELL - AS mental powers which he uses to command Hewitt to steal things. Like ... whatever a gorilla would want to steal, I guess. Bugs. Bananas. Tricycles.

So anyway, the gorilla invents a bomb that will destroy Gotham City, but not him (they don't explain how) and he wears it like a belt ... or a fanny pack, really ... and fights Batman as the bomb ticks down, and Batman knocks out the gorilla, and then it turns out the bomb slows down the farther away from earth it is (again, don't know why or how), so Batman military presses the big gorilla until the bomb runs out.

Many many many stupid things here. Usually, it's Superman who forgets that he has super powers, Batman and Robin are always right on the spot with whatever gadget they need from their belts. This time, they forget they have belts, and spend some time being amazed that their shorts stay up.

See, Robin shows up to help Batman keep this creature up in the air, and Robin decides to help by ... lying on his back and putting his feet in the air. No, Robin, not now! There's this stupid frigging tree RIGHT IN THE SHOT during most of the fight between Batman and the evil gorilla scientist mental power genius bomb beast, and at no point do Robin or Batman figure out it'd be easier to tie one end of a Batrope to the gorilla, the other to the Batmobile, throw the rope over
a tree branch and pulley him up above the ground. I am so not the world's greatest detective, and I got that!

The next story is "Wonder Woman -
Gorilla," which I guess is what the liberated amazon's name would be if she married Mr.Martin Gorilla. The whole story takes place on Amazon Island, and if you don't think they're
awful concerned about men setting foot on their island home, then you just don't know amazons!

I am so fucking puzzled by this story. I'll keep it short: Space Gorillas come to Earth to get mates, but not gorilla mates! No, human mates! Human
women mates! Why? Because they're unique! So the king of the space gorillas turns Wonder Woman into a gorilla girl, changes her back because he liked her better as a human girl, then changes himself into a human guy with his changing-people ray so he can be a unique mate to Wonder Woman's unique not-being-a-girl-gorilla status, and then Wonder Woman kicks him in the nuts and yanks his underwear up his crack.

Of course, here's why I'm puzzled. They value uniqueness. Human girls are unique. They have a ray that changes gorillas into apes and back again. Solution: Get some damn girl gorillas and make them human. The end. I am matchmaker to space gorillas.

Onto a Flash story featuring the "Reign of the Super-Gorilla," starring probably the most succesful gorilla-character in DC's history, the Super-Gorilla Grodd
(That is, by the way, his official villain name: Super-Gorilla Grodd. Imagine how screwed the Man of Steel's secret identity would be if he was required to call himself Super-Man Clark Kent - used that joke before once as well, sorry again)

This story hinges on the fact that Grodd escapes from jail (and the human body he was stuck in - don't ask), returns to Gorilla City (a super advanced
scientific community of hyper-intelligent gorillas hidden in the depths of Africa), where he sees a beautiful young gorilla girl and falls instantly in love. Learning that she's engaged to his arch-enemy Solovar, KING of the hyper intelligent gorillas, he creates a ray that makes himself incredibly likable, thereby stealing Solovar's throne of power, his fiancee, and eventually, the wills of the people in Flash's hometown of Central City where he intends to run for Mayor in a bid to control the world.

Look at that, not one intentional joke in the above paragraph, and see how it still ends up sounding?

Superman fights Titano, the super-ape, in a closing story they had to call "Titano, the Super-Ape," because of a bizarre policy at DC in the 1960's, where every fucking story had to have the name of the villain, the hero's hometown city, or the adjective "Super-" in it somewhere. Like, "The Mirror
Master's Two-Sided Crimes" or "The King of Gotham City" or "Lex Luthor's Super-Plot to Destroy Metropolis." And so on.

I'll spare you the specifics of the story, like how Superman once again cuts off the super-blood-pressure to his super-brain so he can super-be a super-fucking moron and cause great tragedy to befall Metropolis (in this case, by bringing Titano to modern-day Earth from the prehistoric era to which he had been banished), and instead pose this important question: How did Titano get to be a gorilla?

The origin of Titano is that he was a famous chimpanzee who did stage shows (this was the Fifties - chimps could be famous. It's perfectly reasonable that a succesful, well-to-do businessman
could come sweeping into his gentleman's club with a pair of tickets in his hand, just beaming with glee, and when one of his fellows puts down his brandy to ask what the tickets were for, the lucky man could reply happily "I got two tcikets to see the famous Toto the performing Chimpanzee. Then all his welathy, soecity friends would congratulate him on his good luck, and quietly form a seething ball of jealousy and resentment that they'd drown in cheap alcohol and mistresses. Like I say, the Fifties...). For some reason, the government decides to rocket him into space, possibly so as to test the effects of weightlessness on celebrities, paving the way for James Garner, Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland to return to space in 2000's smash hit, Space Cowboys, now available on VHS and DVD, check your local retailers. Space Cowboys - Boys will be boys! A Warner Brothers film, directed by Clint Eastwood.

In his hapless orbit, Toto withnesses a meteor of PURE URANIUM crash into a meteor of PURE KRYPTONITE, causing a STARTLING change in him when his capsule safely returns to Earth (and by the way, did you notice that Jor-El, Superman's father from a highly advanced civilization on a futuristic world, was basically incapable of safely sending a living creature into space without its orbit going haywire, meanwhile we "backwards" humans get Toto back, never minding a near-hit collision. Jor-El so tore through his test animals, including the poor, traumatized Beppo, that he resorted to using his SON'S BELOVED PET DOG as a test animal for his rockets! Yo, Jor-El! The ex-nazis the US government smuggled to White Sands figured it out! Here's to your super-advanced technology!)

Anyway, Toto returns to Earth where he undergoes that aforementioned STARTLING
transformation - to wit, he grows to a King Kong size. Now, here's my question - how'd he become a gorilla? Gorillas are not just bigger versions of
chimpanzees, they're a whole different species! It's like, you know Colossal Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes? Or Black Goliath? When they grow big, they become big humans, NOT giant marmosets, or koalas, or some dopey shit.
How'd Toto's transformation hop the species barrier? Questions abound, readers,
questions abound ...

Okay, also, this very story breaks the rules of physics it established by itself: To wit, Superman, at one point, flies up in a lead suit to fight Titano (The big ape has super-eyes of kryptonite ray shooting, in case I hadn't mentioned that before). Supes flies so fast that the air friction reduces the lead suit to slag. However, earlier, they flash back to Superman throwing Titano so fast the the ape "travelled through the time barrier," which is presumably much faster than it would take to melt lead. Haha. That bit about sending Titano through time was probably just the story Superman told everybody, like how your mom probably told you that your dog went to
a nice farm while you were away at Summer camp.

I have the original comic where the Titano story appeared, as an aside (all these stories in the special were reprints). Neat thing about it is a backup story where Superman dresses up in a devil costume to scare some criminals out of their nefarious plans. Personally, I'd just put my index fingers through the boss criminal's temple, boom, I bet the other crooks'd be pretty much scared out of a life of crime. Anyway, the important thing is that Superman took full advantage of his makeshift Halloween costume to create a devil motif ... i.e., skull cap, sissy Van Dyke, red leotard and cape ... Oh man. And he kept using his fantastic powers to do stuff like create smoke effects, and pretend to become invisible. This was in the stead of using his tremendous super powers to punch everyone unconcious and fly the crooks to jail.

Nothing to do with Super-Gorillas, just a weird aside ...

•Grodd's Got Gas!
•Jesus Christ, Lois! You're right! Why this observation deserves an exclamation ...

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Strange Sports

Splish splash, I've been taking a bath ... a BATH of JUSTICE, that is! I'm Hydroman, the hero who came in convenient buckets for easy carrying!Yes, I fought crime with an arsenal of super-powers as impressive as --- turning to WATER! Yes, DANGEROUS, CRIMINAL-STOPPING water! I could HOP OUT of GLASSES and SOAK criminals ... with JUSTICE! I could drench their shirts and ruin their suede jackets ... with SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY! And if my ability to convert my body into water wasn't enough, I also had ... these nice red shorts! Yes, and also, the spectral power of my boyto- ... partner, Rainbow Boy! So look out evil, you're about to get WET and SHINED UPON ... BY JUSTICE!

Well, folks, what we're looking at here comes to us from the pages of DC Super Special #10, and in this case, I'm pretty sure they mean "special" the
same way the Special Olympics and Seanbaby do. I don't even feel qualified to determine if this was a good or bad comic ... I'm still stuck in the "what the hell were they thinking" phase ...

The short version of this comic is "Super-Villains challenge Super-Heroes to a baseball game." The long version begins with "Ah, I KNEW you wouldn't be satisfied with the short version..."

To elaborate, the scene opens on Golden Age villains and long-time spouses Huntress and Sportsmaster in a ... let's call it "heated" ... discussion about their future career paths. Huntress is considering a switch to the side of good, because "good always wins." After beating her against the side of a doorframe with a tennis racquet, Sportsmaster convinces her to give him the opportunity to prove her wrong by, of all things, challenging the combined forces of good in the universe to nine innings of America's pasttime.

And so they kidnap nine super-heroes and villains and a stadium full of baseball fans. Way to start that path of moral righteousness. I still don't get why the first thing the heroes did after the game wasn't throwing Huntress' tuckus in the pokey for fifty-thousand-plus counts of
kidnapping. Ah well, my rational mind and the trouble it gets me into ...

Luckily, it's easy to kidnap them all, as the opposing forces of good and evil are engaging in several spots of conflict around the globe ... at charity sporting events. Nice theme. The villains encounter the heroes by chance at a variety of sporting events, an exercise which eats up a half dozen pages of story and already bores me to death.

Green Arrow, Batman and Black Canary are all together at a charity bowling event, and say that one to yourself a few
dozen times before you figure out why a pair of billionaires would sponsor the national game of Wisconsin retirees (No hate mail, please, I bowl too. I'm just saying ...). Additionally, among the other sports-themed events attended by the heroes, Kid Flash and Robin are naturally to be found at the horse track. Of course. What sport is more "with it" among the hip kids of today than horse racing? Nothing, that's what. And if you don't believe me, check out X-Treme Horse Racing over on ESPN 2. It'll be on at about 3:15 Wednesday morning.

We catch up with Superman playing with himself ... I'm sorry, I mean "playing A GAME OF TENNIS with himself," using super-speed to cover both sides of the court. What was the Seventies' fascination with drawing the super-heroes playing fucking tennis against themselves? "Look, Flash is running so quickly that he's playing a GAME of TENNIS against HIMSELF!" Great. I can do that too, assuming I have a brick wall handy.

Back to it, Sportsmaster and his confused wife assemble the assorted heroes and villains together in a purloined baseball stadium, give them the low down on the moral dilemma at stake, and make with the "play ball." Uncle Sam plays umpire for the good guys, Amazo for the bad guys, all on Lex Luthor's recommendation. Sure, trust Lex.

This is one of those stories where Superman forgets he has every super power ever plus five more you never heard of, and they're all jacked up on creatine and atomic energy. He keeps getting defeated by the villains' superior "logic." He poses to Sportsmaster the very question I'D ask, namely, why the heroes should bother to play when they could just whompass on the villains. Sportsmaster replies that he and Huntress will see to it that the sixty-six thousand hostages in the sports arena will be kept there "forever," by some undefined and ambiguous
means. Superman sort of shrugs and grabs a pitcher's glove.

Here's a little peek into the alternate universe where
I wrote the script to this comic:

PAGE SEVEN

Sportsmaster: Now super-heroes, you will play a game of BASEBALL against our combined villainy! We picked first, you can have Tattooed Man if you want. He's only good for far right field.

Tattooed Man: Hey, shut up, matey!

Superman: And what if we don't play along with your little game?

Sportsmaster: Why, my wife will see to it that these sixty-six thousand baseball
fans stay here for all ETERNITY!

Superman: Hm. Actually, how about I just use my heat vision to tattoo pictures of genitals on your foreheads, and all these nice people can leave through the big doors. (SFX:"BZow!")

So the game begins, and we're treated to what feels like seventy million pages of indecipherable baseball action courtesy of veteran artist Dick Dillin. And if you thought super-heroes looked gay already, try to picture them playing baseball in their little costumes. It's about as gay as two men having sex with each other, and THAT'S PRETTY GAY!

Eventually, the rule about not using your powers gets thrown out the window, and both sides start to slip in a little magic, elasticity, and sharp arrows piercing your braincase. Mind you, even though the basic tenet of the game - not being allowed to use your powers - has broken down, they still CONTINUE TO PLAY THE GAME! It occurs to me that if Luthor is throwing you a cybernetically enhanced red solar baseball stuffed full of Kryptonite bees, you probably have carte blanche to beat him to death with that Louisville Slugger in yer mitts. Why not? It's against the rules? So is using microwave beams to explode Kid Flash's intestines, but does that stop Matter Master? Probably not, I frankly don't remember ... the book gets all hazy around this point.

In one of my favorite scenes in the book, Plastic Man successfully disguises himself as Wonder Woman's magic lasso. Even as a kid, reading this, I remember thinking:

(A) Way to go, Plas!
(B) How did Wonder Woman not notice Plastic Man replacing her lasso right
on her hip?
(C) Why is Plas glowing? Well, as I think about it, rubbing up against Wonder Woman's satin, star-spangled fanny would probably illuminate even the most stoic among us.

Anyway, the thing ends with the heroes winning, and I guess Huntress becomes a super-hero, or not, and I fall asleep. Oh, and the cap to this tale is a
full page of text describing play-by-play action of the baseball game. Fascinating stuff. Lots of questionable editorial decisions (I suspect they worked all of this out on one of those plastic-and-cardboard ball-bearing
tabletop baseball games they used to make in the Seventies. My dad and I
used to play that game, only we never found ourselves flicking the lever and saying "Okay, this one is Doctor Polaris batting southpaw against Superman.")

There are things like Batman taking a walk, and useless-for-shit-all characters like Tattooed Man making dramatic short-stop plays against WONDER WOMAN, who could still hit a grounder like a total girl and end up ripping your
arm off and atomizing your hand if you try to catch that thing. Oh, and "Superman flies out to left field?" What? What about "Superman drills the ball through Chronos' ribcage?"

And we're OUT!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Mighty Comics

Hi! I'm Rainbow Boy, and if you think you see me shooting a cascading beam of colors out my ass, brother, are you ever seein' RIGHT! I'm making an appeal to all gay rights organizations to accept me, Rainbow Boy, as the official spokesperson for your group or organization. I mean, come on ... Ra-ai-ai-inbow! A-a-a-asssss! I'm everything you're looking for! And don't be put off by my apparent youth! I'm well over sixty years old, having debuted in the early forties! Now come closer, lemme show you how this rainbow ass power of mine works ... hey, what? Get your hands off me! Hey! Fine, if that's the way you want it, I'm leaving ... but you'll never see another piece of ass like this again ... not one that shoots rainbows!

It's the Sixties, and for fans of the bad comic ouvre, there is only ONE word that drives this decade: Batman. Alternatively, Zonk! Or Pow, Bam, Wap, Zowie, et al.

A lot of comics suddenly found themselves under editorial scrutiny at this time, and dozens more which debuted here angled to distinctly take advantage of the camp grandeur of the Batman television show. There were the Harvey Heroes, featured a few months back, as well as fellow newcomers like the Inferior Five, or nice tries like the second generation Plastic Man. These were a mixed bag, especially compared to the unkillable mainstays of the Archie super-hero line, the Mighty Crusaders.

From the Crusaders, we have here the Web, the Shield and Black Hood, bypassing for right now their fellows Hangman, the Fly, Jaguar, the Comet and many others (Cause I don't have THEIR comics). The whole lot of them debuted in the long-ago-renamed MLJ comics, debuting along their most popular property ARCHIE ... in fact, these superhero stories ran right alongside Archie and Pal's high school hijinx in the pages of Pep. Since then, the property has been liberally passed around, and the characters have been under the guiding hands of at least a half dozen different sub-contractors - to name a few, there's Red Circle, DC's ill-fated (but generally likable) Impact line, and a modern reinterpretation going on back inhouse at Archie Comics ... oh, and plus these guys.

Under the heading of "Mighty Comics," the mid-Sixties Radio Comics (no, not that one) brought back these classic Golden Agers as "Go Go Do-Gooders" for the "Action Generation" to "go ape
over." Liberally mixing in Marvel Comic's editorial style and humanist superhero formula with grade-C Batman tv show camp, they reintroduced these characters to a world consumed by a comic craze.

Oddly enough, this theme should have worked and is, in general, a pretty good idea. See, not only did these characters have a driving gimmick which fueled their super-hero identities - they had a driving gimmick in their CIVILIAN identities. The Shield, for instance, couldn't manage to hold down a job for more than a day at most, and sometimes not even that, hindered by his responsibilities as the Shield. The Black Hood, as officer Kip Burland, was wanted by his fellow officers following what I can only describe as one of the least competent frame-ups in the history of everything. And the Web was accurately described as the "hen-pecked hero," being as it was that his wife pretty much got to lay down the law on his spandex antics, gender-bent Bewitched style.

Getting back to the Black Hood's frame-up just for a second, let me expand on this. In his identity of motorcycle cop Kip Burland, the Hood follows the sounds of gunshots to find his "best pal" Pete Hannigan shot dead in front of a bank. Kip is clocked in the back of the nog while leaning over his dead pal's body, and the bulgy-eyed killer (thereafter cleverly dubbed "Bulgy Eyes") stuffs a few stolen dollars in Kip's pockets and hits the bricks. Kip is discovered by ANOTHER "inseparable" pal, Mark Brodie, who does the math (in the same way a retarded terrier might do the math) ... Kip unconscious + Pete dead + bank robbed = KIP KILLED PETE AND ROBBED THE BANK!

Never mind it doesn't explain how Kip got blackjacked on the back of his head while Pete got shot dead while SITTING ON HIS MOTORCYCLE. Or why the few thousand dollars hastily stuffed in Kip's pockets don't total the amount actually STOLEN from the bank. No, it explains nothing, but WHO CARES, because from that moment on Kip Burland is a wanted man!

I'm serious, man, I didn't leave out a BIT of that hardcore detective work. Well, except that Kip, rather than pointing out any of these glaring indications of his innocence, BOLTS from the scene and begins living the life of a fugitive ...

Moving on to the aforementioned Web, the Bewitched premise is pretty much spot-on. Professor John Raymond is a veteran, semi-retired super-hero who decides to get back into the game. Despite his "rusty reflexes," he becomes "one of the most fab crime-crushers on the current scene," much to the consternation of his fussy and emotionally manipulative wife who threatens him with divorce, infidelity (no kidding. Subtle, but there nonetheless...), and probably refuses to play the sausage game, if you follow.

Naturally, most of her appearances are spent brow-beating her put-upon husband until he either acquiesces to her face
but sneaks out the back for some super-heroing, or cracks under the pressure and shows her the back of his hand. "Bitch!" he yells in one scene, "I done TOLD you once already!"

No, wait, I kid. It almost always ends with a sort of maudlin, gag-like scene as with this one.

And that brings us finally to the Shield, the lovable loser among these recycled heroes, only he's not lovable at all.

Bill-or-Joe Higgins (depends on the story) is the Shield, and also a guy who is all-around apparently no damn good at anything. Except beating people up. For Justice, mind you, but still ... Joe's shtick is that he keeps getting fired from his back-breaking blue collar jobs on accounta the fact that no matter WHAT he's doing, he sees a crime occurring and figures he better change into the Shield and stop it. He's washing windows, he sees a cop being held at gunpoint. He's building a railroad, he sees known criminals drive by. He's cleaning the grease trap at Arby's, he sees someone whizzing in the condiment tray. This is a job for the Shield!

The Shield also got to experience that sort of white middle-class it's- the -Sixties -but -not -the -socially -freaked -out -yet -Sixties American poverty, by which we mean he had a nicely appointed apartment and his only evidence of financial woe was that he was often hungry (which I imagine is because you burn a lot of calories fighting crime) and that he can't afford to repair his television. In fact, if he would just take on a freaking roommate
instead of paying for a three-bedroom apartment on an imaginary salary, he
probably could have made it just fine.

I leave you with this shot of the cover to Black Hood #50. You can't see it terribly well, but check out the tank on the "hoodcycle" there ... not only does it feature a lovely portrait of the Hood himself, but you can just barely makeout the handwritten "Hood Cycle" next to it. This is what we had before Lo-Jack.

• Everything's Gay and Gorgeous! Scoobie-Do!
  
• Cornball ... Yocks ... Stupid bit ... Hey, how'd you get back here, anyway?
  
• It probably would've been easier to just HIRE some dancers.
  

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Secret Wars II

"Yo yo yo, check it out, boy-eeee! We're
representin' from the Golden Age, don't front or you will know our rage, patriotic boy toys from the Forties, chug our forties, and the ladies like to suck it cause we taste so sweet, take it Dandy!"

"Yo Yank, you know my glock goes ackackack, and all you sucka DJs betta step back back back, when we busta rap even the japs know it's like When Animals Attack!"

"I'm DJ Yank, y'all. Gimme your thanks, y'all. I take it to the bank y'all, with my homie, you call him 'Dandy.' and he say 'Hooop! Dere it is!'"

"Hoop! Dere it is!"

"Peace out, y'all."

Here it is, finally, the followup to Marvel's wildly succesful Secret Wars miniseries, brought to us by then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter - the man famous for being able to say "The last thing this industry needs is another superhero comic" and "I'm writing a new superhero comic" in the same breath, and G&F alum (for his thick-necked brushstrokes on Kitty Pryde and Wolverine), Al Milgrom.

Props where props are due department, Shooter may never go down as one of the great writers of mainstream comics, but he'll always be at the very least one of the more dependable workhorses. Usually, you can depend on him for an entertaining story, often a very well-done story, and only occasionally a terribly awful bad nine-issue miniseries. Al, as mentioned earlier, is a heck of an editor and cleanup inker, but inexplicably was allowed to pencil this, ANOTHER high-profile Marvel miniseries which would've benefitted from a gentler touch. Young Steve Leialoha, a current fave of mine, provides halting and seemingly confused inks.

The story picks up on what no man can call an "unresolved plot thread" without breaking into riotous laughter - or bawling in horror. The Beyonder, an omnipotent being peering into our universe by means of a spontaneously generated cosmic peephole, kicks off the original Secret Wars series abducting Earth's greatest heroes and villains and having them play out the plateau of their eternal morality play for him. In this sequel, his curiosity about humanity left unsated, he ventures to Earth in a human disguise. hoping to learn about us by living among us.

Abstractly speaking, it's an interesting enough premise for a story ... a being of virtually limitless power and no moral barometer to speak of is driven to Earth by his one human characteristic - curiosity - to learn by walking among them what it is precisely that makes humanity so unique. It's a very Seventies story, very Green Lantern/Green Arrow, except that if Denny O'Neil had been writing it, it would've wrapped up in twenty-five pages, and the kicker would've been that the alien ends up finding happiness and contentment being a hobo.

Sadly, this thing is a plodding brickhouse of overdone monologues and tiring existentialism.

By contrast to Secret Wars I, where the mightiest heroes and viallins on Earth fought a cataclysmic war of mythic proportions, Shooter brings us in the sequel such riveting scenes as: A television cartoon writer gaining trememndous destructive powers and blowing up a McDonald's, the Beyonder destroying the earth, and it gets fixed immediately (that happens like FIFTEEN times or something), and the Beyonder looking at all the STUFF he has. Over and over again.

I'm not one of those guys who thinks every book needs to have a fight scene, but I do consider myself something of a fight scene snob in that I want any fight scene I DO see to at least be ... any good at all. Whereas this book did have three battles per issue, or thereabouts, they all went like this: (A) group of super heroes leaps out from behind a billboard, parked car, toaster oven, etc (B) they whup on Beyonder for about two or three panels and then (C) Beyonder basically yawns and walks away.

Boom, THREE TIMES AN ISSUE! And theoretically all the heroes of Earth had been alerted to the Beyonder's presence, and to the terrible destruction he could cause, but rather than - say - make a plan or come up with some inexplicable scientific gadget to defeat him ... you know, the stuff they do every issue of their own comics and have done since the beginning of time ... they just like to leap out from behind the bushes and try to jump on his head. It's about as effective as putting a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep, except that this way the Beyonder doesn't even get POOP ON HIS SHOES!

To illustrate this point, let me recreate a particular scene for you: The Beyonder hooks up with Boom-Boom*, a character who debuts in this series though eventually ends up with X-Force. Boom Boom separates from him at some point and rats him out to the Avengers. The Avengers gather their whole roster, Dr.Strange, and the Fantastic Four. They jump out of the bushes and stumble over each other for four panels. Then the Beyonder walks away, and they LET HIM GO despite being there to defeat him in the first place.

But wait, there's more. Noticing that the Beyonder seems a little depressed, the heroes decide to ask Boom-Boom if she knows why, only she's slipped away in the confusion. So they write her off.

That's right, using only the amazing power of her OWN TWO LEGS, she left the scene of the battle which only lasted about a minute and a half, meaning she is CLEARLY lost for good. How could the heroes possibly hunt her down knowing that she's gone a full HUNDRED YARDS or more away from her last known location!? If only someone there had some kind of super-advanced armor which could track people, or was a super-brilliant scientist who could create a vanilla-pudding sensing hemmorhoid pillow using only a tin can and a plastic spork, or was the GODDAMN MASTER OF THE MYSTIC ARTS and had an ALL-SEEING
EYE AMULET right on his goddamn lapel!

This is only one of dozens of scenes that actually had me yelling at this comic book. Not just shouting in frustration or incredulousness, but also trying to force it out of existence using only my voice, like that one groovy black Legionnaire. I used persuasion where I could. "Staples! Jesus Jumping Cats, how can you stand to hold together a book this awful? Fall apart! Now!" and "Paper, you dishonor your noble tree ancestors by holding onto this image. I demand that you reject the ink that created it, NOW!"

It didn't work.

Also weighing the book down like a pork-stuffed redwood log were the endless FLASHBACKS and RECAPS. Lord, you really didn't have to worry about missing the original Secret Wars story, because they recapped it for you ... in every issue. Okay, that's not precisely true; they stopped doing it around the fourth or fifth issue ... at which point they offered recaps of the previous issues of THIS miniseries. Hell, sometimes they went for the threepeat and would recap the first series, the previous issues of this series, AND any important events from any of the eight hundred CROSSOVER
books they did. If you buy one Marvel comic in 1985, make it Secret Wars ... because it blows the plot of every other book they produced that year.

The thing also failed to follow the "show, don't tell" rule of good comics - "failed" in the same sense as when you say something like "The pilot failed to adjust his trajectory and crashed his missile-laden jet first into the children's hospital and then smack dab into the main gasline for the town." The average panel in this book is anywhere from one-third to THREE-FOURTHS dialogue, and at one point there becomes such a critical struggle between
allowable text space and cramped art that the hand-letterer gives up and they have a typography machine add in text in a smaller typeface to several panels.

Not that every word was pure gold ... far from it. Most of it was sort of endless, over-obvious mewling about the varied state of the human condition - some of it sounding all the world like Steve Ditko grabbed the pen and wrote a few pages. Other parts would be the heroes or narrator taking a moment to describe what was happenin before their very eyes. No kidding. Lots of "Look out, he's shooting energy beams" and "those shards of glass are coming right for us!" ... stuff that the artist should've been able to represent without the writer feeling he had to mention it.

To wit: Captain America explains, as the Beyonder
vanishes in a flash of yellow light, "He disappeared!" Yes, thank
you Cap. You roided out imbecile.

I swear there's more to loathe, but to document every failing in the book would be to REPRINT this book. Suffice it to say, the heroes unveil their boots of clay as they make a resolution to actually go kill the Beyonder (say it with me ... "!!!"), and then end up changing their mind, because he turned himself into a baby. That the heroes, all of whom abide by that hoary old comic standard, the Code Against Killing (could be worth fifteen points in Champions), decided to off the super-omnipotent being but then change their minds when it's a super-omnipotent alien BABY being kinda puts
a lie to any moral standard they're supposed to represent. Mind you, if these had been TEXAN super-heroes, that baby would've been frying in an electric bassinet before we had time to blink.

There's so much more in this series, like the fact that it was the awakening maternal instinct of the female heroes who kept the good guys from killing the Beyonder baby, or how the Beyonder comes to earth and ends up looking like a white Michael Jackson (that was back in the days before "White Michael Jackson" was such a redundancy), or how ONCE AGAIN Stan Lee pops up in a guest shot in a book we review (And why is he always so evil?)

• Enjoy Byrne/Austin here ... and suffer the inside art
  

*Boom Boom makes her first appearance in Secret Wars 2 #5. I called Bob Rozakis night and day at his home number, trying to figure out how much a mint edition copy would get me. He would just say stuff like "Professor Zoom, the reverse-Flash, is Eobard Thawne" and "Man-Bat #1 is worth thirty cents in good condition" and "Leave me alone or I'll have you arrested."

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The 60's Harvey Superheroes

A-Hem. "Bwa-hahahahahaha!" Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I do ... for I am the Shadow! No, seriously, I am ... knock it off!

Like a lot of characters, I made a comeback during the flood of Batman popularity in the mid-1960's. The costume was part of the package deal. Hey, stop laughing, Archie comics really treated me well.

What? What!? Archie is a perfectly respectable publication for super heroes to appear in. I mean, they have the Shield, the Jaguar ... um ... look, I'll be honest, by the time the 60's ran around, I really torn through my vast personal empire. I was lucky to get this gig. And at least I wasn't as bad off as these guys...

Back to the mid-1960's, we find another comic book company putting together a hasty super-hero line in order to cash in on the success of the campy Batman tv show.

What's a real shame is that Harvey didn't break out its already existing stable of characters in the persons of Shock Gibson, Stuntman or Hollywood's "Glamorous Detective Star," The Black Cat. There were, additionally, another two dozen or so Golden Age Harvey superheroes including the Red Devil, the Zebra (I kid not) and one of my personal favorites, Pat Parker - War Nurse, none of whom made it to Harvey's silver age enterprise.

Undoubtedly, legal hurdles kept them off the roster. At this point, Harvey is very successful publishing its Richie Rich, Casper, Sad Sack titles, among spin-offs and others. It was probably easier for Harvey to create all-new characters rather than revive their admittedly successful World War II-era roster ... even if the new characters were big balls of suck.

Bee-Man has absolutely got to take the cake. Billed as one of the two main features in Double-Dare Adventures (On the cover of which he famously admonishes army men "We double-dare you to resist the attacking bees!"), he's actually a completely insane villain rather than a hero of any sort.

It all begins when Barry E.Eames - and note the clever comic book logic acronym of his name, there - is attacked by giant insects from outer space. Somehow, Barry finds himself imbued with bizarre "bee-like" tendencies. Eventually he is captured by a race of super-advanced aliens who tell him that, because of the stinging assault of the alien bees,
he is, like them, a super-advanced bee alien. However, he cannot be trusted to keep the super-advanced bee alien population a secret, so he is confined to the limits of their futuristic space base. Then he wakes up in the middle of the desert and solemnly swears to never do more than a single dry ounce of 'shrooms ever again

No, seriously, he immediately escapes the civilization (therefore kind of putting a lie on how advanced they're supposed to be) and begins to rampage Earth, stealing gold to hide in his "Honey Pot" home - and also stealing honey, because a mouthful of the sticky stuff returns him to full powers whenever he begins to wane.

There's a confusing, kind of insane text piece immediately following Bee-Man's origin tale where we theoretically learn more about his motivation. "My worthy deeds will force all Earthlings to surrender to my SUPERIOR WORLD. Many of your great scientists have predicted that ONE DAY INSECTS WILL RULE THE EARTH. You laughed and called them crazy, but I shall prove them RIGHT. The day is not far away when INSECTS WILL INDEED RULE THE HUMANS OF THE EARTH. You will become our slaves and solve many of our problems
- one of which is labor. The entire human race, what is left of it, that is, will become SLAVES TO MY RACE. You will fulfill the duties of our 'worker bees.' You will become MY SLAVES. Any questions?"

No, you pretty much covered the prurient points. This is
like the best paranoiac raving the internet has to offer, only thirty years earlier! Harvey, you were ahead of your time.

Bee shares the book with the Glowing Gladiator, who is actually the President and head Troubleshooter of Adventure Unlimited, Harry Barker. AU's job is to "fulfill unusual requests," which leads Barker to go off and find the Amulet of Hannibal on behalf of the mysterious and evil Mr.Destiny.

Falling into a deep pit, Barker is met by the ghost of Hannibal himself, who grants him a golden raiment in which to garb himself and golden weapons with which to uphold the cause of justice. Actually, it's Hannibal's own stuff, and this leads to perhaps the most unique scene in any comic in history as Hannibal actually undresses and hands his clothes to Barker while describing their functionality. "And the underwear of Hannibal keeps the bollocks of Hannibal from hitting the side of the shower stall. Wear them in pride."

The only thing that bothers me about the otherwise unremarkable Glowing Gladiator is that they keep calling his costume "Golden," but it's pretty plainly Red and Blue. It's red and blue! Gaddamit, people!

Following a couple of minor features, including a Kirby short story, we meet the "MagicMaster." I'm actually not certain who the Magicmaster is, to be perfectly honest. See, there's a magician who gets killed, and it's actually kind of likely that he is indeed the Magicmaster of the story's title. But then, there's his kid, who has learned all his dad's misdirection and prestidigitation, so he might be MagicMaster. But then there's this blue-skinned genie (not Robin Williams, though) who knows REAL magic, and he PROBABLY is the Magicmaster, but I just don't know. God, what a boring story.

The hook of the thing was that Jimmy, the kid, and Shamarah, the genie, used to help each other get out of dangerous situations, Jimmy with his tricks and Magicmaster with his ... um ... magic. Oh, and Jimmy would occasionally hijack the story to bring us how-to tutorials on doing simple magic tricks. I can now make a key disappear into nothingness. _I_ AM MAGICMASTER!

Jack Q (The Q is for Quick) Frost was this amazingly lame secret-agent super hero - I love this - had the ability to shoot ice from his hands AS WELL AS was armed with a gun that shot ice. What? He can shoot ice from his hands, but they also gave him a gun that does the same thing. That's like giving you or me a gun with a boxing glove on a spring over the barrel.

Actually, JQF answers that particular question for his inquiring public. "That is my ice pellet gun, fellows. I use it when I must send my ice pellets great distances. It is also more accurate." You suck, Jack Quick Frost.

SpyMan is most famous for being what is likely the earliest Jim Steranko work on any comic. Like Jack Q Frost, Spyman fought the forces of evil with his robot hand. For our edification, we're given numerous cross-sections and product descriptions for the robot hand - it's got the rudimentary laser, the communications equipment, the camera, 32M of RAM and 4 gigs of storage, but it doesn't have a floppy disk drive. But I've heard the customers really like the color selection.

Over in Unearthly Spectacular, fans were
promised the appearance of the uperheroic Tiger-Boy from Twilight. Nestled in the midst of a bunch of pretty terrible short sci-fi "shock ending" pulp tales was a story called "Will Power," featuring a boy (Paul Canfield) who had incredible powers. From infancy, he was mentally and physically superior to humans. As time passed, he developed incredible powers which included letting him travel anywhere in the universe instantaneously, changing shape,
rearranging matter on a molecular level, reversing gravity, levitating shit and so on. At the very end of the story he turns into a tiger with a human head - once - and then announces his desire to take over the world!

His parents then reveal that they are from Jupiter, where everyone has these amazing abilities, so maybe Paul oughtta shut up about being so great and everything all the time.

And then he's mowing the lawn. And that's the end of the story. The Hell? No superheroic adventure, no identity chosen, no mission to fight crime - in fact, Paul's parents put the kibosh on his powers and that's the end, pretty much ... Harvey! You suck!

There's more - like Miracles Inc, the Man In Black Called Fate and the Three ocketeers - but I wanted to end on the best Harvey characters ever.

Colonel Gary Jason of the U.S.Space Force is a victim of the most traditional unfortunate circumstance to occur in comic book space travel. Crashing in space, he's rescued by aliens who then proceed to rebuild his body from its shattered components. Not being familiar with human anatomy, they hook him up with synthetic tendons that allow Jason to stretch, twist and elongate himself in the most disturbing way ever - with plates of his flesh "floating" on the elasticized tendons. The is Jigsaw. God, he's disturbing.

To make it up to him, the aliens hook Jason up with an alien guide - the beak-faced Si-Krell - and encourage him to go traipse about the universe, representing Earth in unique events like the Interplanetary Olympics.

What amazes me is that - well, you'd think that if you had your entire body rebuilt to resemble Stretch Armstrong, you'd eventually develop a sense of humor about the situation ... isn't that traditional with comic book stretchers? Not with Col.Jason, who deadpans his way from wonder of the galaxy to
awe-inspiring alien horde with little more than a legless, himpering zinger on his lips. He's a square, a straight, he's downright dullsville daddio. And this was supposed to appeal to the camp Batman audience.

But never mind that, here's the Man from S.R.A.M., my all-time absolute favorite from this run of characters. The Man from S.R.A.M. is, in actuality, a cop from planet Mars ... see, that's S.R.A.M. spelled backwards ... who comes to Earth to capture a deadly agent of F.I.N.K. ... that's the Fiendish Interplanetary Nasty Killers ... and generally just acts altogether Yllis ... which is Silly spelled backwards!

For some reason, the Man keeps reversing words in his dialogue, then pausing to tell us what it means the right ways around. And he fights a tentacled alien horror by turning himself into a lemon and squirting it in the eye. And he flies either in his OFU - Object Flying Upsidedown - or on his UFOR - Unbeatable Flying Oriental Rug. And he turns a klieg light into a giant pink feather so when the alien hits him in the head with it, it doesn't hurt. And when a director says "We're going to shoot 'Man from Mars,'" the Man from S.R.A.M. pulls a gun and says "Me? No you won't, chum!" HAHA! Man from S.R.A.M., you so Crazy! I meanm, "Yzarc!" I love you, Man from S.R.A.M.

But not the rest of Harvey's Heroes. They knits.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Human Fly

Edit: I know, and my face is redder than Rick Rojatt's - despite my skepticism and harsh words, the Human Fly was a real guy. I feel like a dope, but nonetheless, here's the article as it originally appeared...


Eep Eep! All hail Brak! Um ... hold on, wait a minute, I'm not Brak I'm ... well, at my best guess, I'm a weightlifting orangutan in a Beatles wig. All hail DC's line of G-ed up Science Fiction comics. I appeared in an issue of Mystery in Space or Strange Adventures or Spacey Weirdness or Galactic What The Hell? or something or other as an alien creature in an interplanetary zoo! And what made the rubes line up to see my act? The innate human curiosity to see an orangutan in a Beatles wig lift weights. Come on, admit it, you'd wanna see it too.

After the zoo folded, most of us got sold to labs for cosmetic experiments. Not me, though ... after all, I'd spent my time in captivity buffing up and shooting steroids. I tore through my captors like I was busting through a soggy napkin. Their gory entrails stained my orange pelt a brackish red. All hail Brackish Red! Since then, I've shaved myself and now I compete on the Weider circuit. I'll see you at the next Arnold Classic! But until then, we present...

By gum, it's yet another Fantastic First Issue from Seventies Marvel ... well, actually, according to the cover, it's a "First Fantastic Issue," implying that other fantastic issues will be following. Ha ha, this is a lie.

This is the Human Fly, the character promoted as "The Wildest SUPER-HERO Ever -- Because He's REAL!" "Real" being comic book code for "Pretty much we largely made him up just about in entirety."

The premise of the series is that an anonymous young man is involved in a terrible car accident which apparently shatters every bone in his body, to judge from the full body cast he's shown in immediately afterwards. Despite being told by doctors (whose bedside manner could use some work) that he's going to be a cripple for the rest of his life, the Fly spends every waking hour rebuilding his body through secret exercises, until not only does he return to his former state of health, but he develops amazing additional new agility and strength. Oh, and the doctors gave him a steel skeleton.

Which means he can't produce platelets anymore, and he's gonna die if he ever gets cut. But I digress.

Deciding to be symbol for the disabled, he collects assistants from the ranks of other accident victims. This includes Ted Locke, a brilliant engineer who lost his hands in an explosion while trying to save a woman and child from a bridge he'd rigged to explode. Um ... oh, and this was in the Vietnam War, so it wasn't just a case of Ted blowing up bridges for no reason. Anyway, having lost his will to live (and his HANDS, ha ha!), Ted is given a cause to fight for when the Fly recruits him for his team. I like Ted because he has claws for hands. Raar!

Then there's Kendall Blaze, the beautiful and daring pilot whose terrible disability is ... that ... um ... well, she doesn't have any. But, she WAS in a terrible accident, and ALSO had her confidence shattered, and was even in one of those full body casts for a while, so she counts. Kendall's backstory was that she was a co-pilot on a commercial airliner which went into a vicious dive when the pilot - a misogynist who didn't put much faith in female co-pilots - had a sudden heart attack and collapsed. Kendall pulls the plane out of its dive at the last second, and although it still crashes, there isn't a single loss of life. Except the pilot, I guess, whose heart exploded at 15,000 feet. Unfortunately, they don't clarify that point for us.

Looking back on the thing, I'm not precisely sure why the plane had to crash in the first place. The pilot had a heart attack, and then the plane went into a dive, and Kendall crashed it. Maybe she does suck at flying. Nonetheless, this does lead to my favorite two-panel
transition in the history of comics. Panel One, Pilot says 'You know, I don't believe a lady pilot can fly a plane," Panel Two, Pilot says "Oh Christ, my heart!" HAHAHA!

The Fly and his team (including ever-so-Yiddish publicity agent Arnie Berman, whose endless use of the word "boychik" makes me want to pummel Bill Mantlo to death) are bedevilled by investigative reporter Harmony Whyte, who has a name more suited to getting dollars stuffed in her pants than in anchoring a news program. Harmony is dedicated to finding out the Fly's true identity, ostensibly so she can reveal him for the glory-hungry hypocrite she suspects him to be ... and why finding out his real identity would help her do that, I dunno. I also have a hard time imagining her pitching this idea to her editor. "I need the company to expense me travel around the world with a full camera crew so I uncover the true identity of this guy who walks tightropes and jumps pools of fire. What's that? No, why would I want cover the hostage
crisis or the SALT talks? I've got a stunt man to expose!"

Author Bill Mantlo offers a text piece to explain the background and genesis of the Human Fly (As an aside, I always consider a text piece explaining the concept of the character to be a sign of trouble. Also, if the character drives around in an RV, that's trouble too. And if they have both ... well ...) He starts off with "The Human Fly is me," which to my mind kills all the suspense regarding the Fly's secret identity. Oh wait, there's more...

The whole text piece is done in earnest, Mantlo claiming straight-faced through the entire article that the comic was entirely based on the story of triumph personified by a "young Canadian man" who, like the fictional Fly in the comic, endured a crippling injury, overcame it, had his skeleton replaced
with a steel skeleton, then fought beside Spider-Man.

Mantlo really tries to sell the text piece, claiming that the real-world analog of the comic book character had been praised on television around the world, and had even landed the appellations "space-age daredevil" as well as "the living bionic man," and furthermore had been favorably compared to Spider-Man and Captain America (?) in the news media. Worse yet, he gives
the 'real-world' Fly actual quotes, such as "I've got 50,000,000 kids out there depending on me. I've got as lot of people to support...youngsters in hospitals, struggling against cancer, polio, cerebral palsy or whatever. I've got a lot of people to support."

Polio? Isn't that .... cured .... now? Ah, probably not back in '77 .... me, I had a cousin who suffered from 'whatever,' so I know how serious that is.

Mantlo is pretty freely mixing pop culture with urban legend and outright fiction, not to mention that he's trying way too hard to sell the 'real story' of the Fly in that damn text piece. Of course, the inspiration for the character is largely based on the attention-seeking daredevils who populated the airwaves
and newspapers in the late Seventies ... see "Real People" and "That's Incredible!" for a plethora of examples ... along with a real-life inspirational story. Some of our more veteran (By which I mean "Old") readers will remember
the news stories of a young man, crippled by only possessing one leg, undertaking a cross-country run for the purpose of showing the world what the disabled could really do ... and that man's name? Of course, it was ... Forrest Gump.

The Fly is surely the most earnest super-hero of the Marvel Universe, as he lays all his motivational cards on the table
at every possible opportunity."After expenses, any money I make goes to charity ... to help the disabled." he tells the tv cameras on more than one occasion. Likewise, the Fly is focused on creating an example for others survivors of deabilitating accidents. And this is hard to make fun of, so I won't. But moving on ...

Art chores on the series were provided in part by Lee Elias, well-known to Golden Age enthusiasts for his Black Cat work. I really love Lee Elias' work, and I'm only sad that the Human Fly never gave one-page tips on performing "Judo Tricks."

Seventy-Seven, the year of the Fly's debut, is also about the same time that Marvel created regionalistic super-hero Captain Britain for its Marvel UK comics line. Considering that as well as the Fly's Canadian origin and distinctive white-and-red costume, I can't help but wonder if he was intended to be a regionalistic Canadian hero. I find myself thinking about this somewhat idly, but even so I propose that the baton was a concession to French-Canadian interests. Ha ha.

On a costume note, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what doesn't work on the Fly's costume. The flared gloves might be a little much, also the extravagant caplet or the bizarre white piping that bisects his body at several points. Or it could be the the flared eyehole designs which make him look like he's wearing immense albino fake eyelashes. Or the baton. Probably the baton.

Actually, the two things which stand out for me are the rocket design on his belt (why a rocket? What does a rocket have to do with being a human fly? I'm so confused) and the fact that, in closeups, the Fly is pretty clearly wearing Chuck Taylor's Converse All-Stars canvas tennis shoes.

Most puzzling to me is that the Fly had two guest stars in his first two issues, but only one of them gets any cover credit at all, much less an appearance. The two guest stars in question were Spider-Man and the Ghost Rider, and the guy who gets the cover appearance is ... Ghost Rider. Spidey plays a pretty pivotal role in the climax of the first issue, but not only doesn't show up on the cover, he isn't even mentioned on the cover. in fact, there's no HINT from the cover that there's even a guest star in that issue, much less Marvel's flagship character. So much for Marvel's merry marketing machine ...

The only final note I can think to leave you on in terms of Human Fly is the fact that Bill Mantlo, at one point in the third issue, referred to the Fly as a "manchild." That's a term you don't usually hear without the words "lumbering" or "hapless" preceding it.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Captain Marvel

Alright, alright, calm down a minute and I'll try to explain. I am Captain Thunder, the Black Power of Shazam. And if you have never seen me before, that's okay, cause I only ever made one appearance anywhere before ever, and that was in an article for the Comic Buyer's Guide.

See, Roy Thomas, the Dr.Moreau of rehashed golden-age superheroes, brought me out to DC as a proposal for the introduction of Captain Marvel to the DC Universe. Actually, I was Captain Thunder, the Earth-1 equivalent - I was even secretly newspaperboy Billy Batson, although I looked like Rudy from Fat Albert.

This is a proud tradition in comics known as "Throwing the minorities a bone." Sometimes me and the second Dr.Mid-Nite and the second Wildcat and the second Mister Miracle and just about the second everybody would get together and hang out at Steel's place. This was before he got big. Back then, we just called him ... the second Superman.

Speaking of seconds, allow me to present ...

Why, it's Captain Marvel! We all love Captain Marvel, don't we? Yeah, WHIZ radio! Shazam! Tawky Tawny! Big Red Cheese ... Of course, THIS Captain - despite his red suit and magic word - is just a wee bit different.

You're looking here at the second Captain Marvel, a character completely unrelated to the original Fawcett creation of the Forties and who pretty much reeked like wookie ass. Rather
than an orphaned boy granted terrific powers in order to defend justice, this Cap was an amnesiac robot with loose limbs.

Cap debuts in a story which bears the legend "Based on a character created by Carl Burgos," which lends even more confusing twists and angles to his existence, inasmuch as he curiously has few ties to the company or creator of the original character. Burgos was, as you may know, the creator of the original Human Torch - also a robot with a human identity and a nondescript red jumpsuit.

We first catch up with our hero as he wanders a dark house, suffering a complete memory loss. This is NOT a good start, in my opinion. As he paces the house, bits and pieces of his memory return, escorting us back to his origin . (In the second story of this issue, Cap AGAIN has a blackout. He has more blackouts than a Kennedy. I wonder how often this happened to him. And how long it's gonna take before one of these blackouts ends with him standing in a strange motel room with a dead hooker on the bed and four kilos of pure heroin in his overnight bag)

We're taken to an alien world where a group of scientists has created Captain Marvel, The "Human Robot" - which I think works on the same level as "Meatless Burger" - for the "good of man." And BOY, is he ever handy to have around.

Check this out:

Marvel is instructed to utter the word "Split," which he does even though I think if I were in his situation - no memory, wakes up on a table surrounded by men in hospital gowns, being told I'm a robot - I'd be hesitant to jump when the enigmatic bossguy says so. Anyway, for his willingness to participate, Marvel is rewarded by having his arms and legs fall off. Obediently uttering the word "Xam!" - which I guess isn't really a word, so much as "Split" is - Marvel finds himself spontaneously reattached to his disparate parts. "Hello again, toes!"

He's told that the reason he can split is to "make repairs to your body..." (The hell?) and to - and this is a favorite of mine - "to prevent an attack from more than one person." That seems overly optimistic to me. "Blast, there's more than one person, but luckily fewer than four people, attacking me right now. Haha, the joke will be on them. HERE COME MY LIMBS!"

"HERE COME MY LIMBS" would've been my first choice for Captain Marvel's battle cry, by the way.

Actually, Cap could dissect himself into a startling array, basically at every joint and then some. Every finger could split independently at the joint, the arm at the elbow, wrist and shoulder, his pelvis could detach, his legs split at the hip, knee and ankle .... heck, I suppose his toes could probably separate independently, too. Oh, and his head could fly around independently too, just like Sir William Gull at the end of From Hell. XAM!

Cap's got that "magic word" weakness of having a common term as his mantra. If I knew the guy, I would've abused it. "Well, time for dessert Captain. Which would you prefer, salted liver with anchovy gravy or a banana split?" ... "Um, the one that isn't the liver." ... "You want the liver? No problem! Eat it all up!" ... "No, I want the other one. The thing with the bananas" ... "Say it Cap." ... "Alright. I want ... the ... banana SPLIT (THUD)."

Anyway, shortly after building him, Cap's native world explodes and he non-chalantly rockets to Earth (Says he, witnessing his planet's destruction "Now I'll have to find a new home." No kidding) where, once again suffering a terrible loss of memory, he is taken under the wing of an Earth boy. The writers were surely aware of Cap's shared namesake, evidenced if only by the presence of Marvel's young ward. Introduced in the first story only as "Billy...from the USA" (I swear), he's later given the full name of Billy Baxton, a short hop-skip-and-jump from the original Marvel's identity of Billy Batson.

Besides his handy ability to draw-and-quarter himself at will, Marvel can shoot laser beams from his eyes, fly, deflect bullets, emit electric shocks from his body, use some kind of half-assed telepathy and probably more; he's one of those characters whose powers were so poorly defined as to make him effectively omnipotent. But turning back the page for a moment, note that he can shoot electricity AND laser beams, but his only reputed defense against an attack by more than one person is to haphazardly fling his limbs at them.

Also, his powers stem from a magic element he keeps in his flat, completely non-medallion-looking medallion. The element is called "X" ... not "Element X," not "Chemical X," not "Cherry flavored X-Pops" ... Just "X." It is clearly identified in the medallion by the large letter "M" emblazoned on the front.

The stories in the first issue have that sort of meaningless Golden Age "twist ending" feel - well, except for the first story which is just Captain Marvel walking around the house losing body parts until Billy brings him his Ritalin. The first story starts with
Cap being involved in a plane crash (Which his super powers are apparently useless to avert. Or his super-powers might just be useless), then falling under the sway of evil "invisible" aliens (pictured above, and as you can see, they are not only visible but bear some resemblance to Milk&Cheese. "I'm an invisible alien of hate!") who kidnap everyone on the plane and plan to kill them, but then change their mind and ask Marvel to help them return home, and they go, and Cap has another blackout, and then I don't remember a damn thing about the story.

The last story in this issue continued the comic's newly-found tradition of swiping popular characters' names, as they introduced Plastic Man - their version lacking every bit of inventiveness
that made the original so appealing.

In this tale, the Captain is bedevilled by aliens (not invisible, but blue this time) who come from Venus but who live underwater, and have come here
to destroy us, then send Cap to meet his doom at the hands of a native Venusian "Gronk," to wit Plastic Man, and then the twist ending is that the aliens actually came here to warn us that nuclear bombs were polluting our atmosphere, and the Venusian who did all the killing and destroying was only pissed because his parents had been killed by a rogue Gronk a couple of days before the mission started. This Venusian went on to become ... Bat-Man. No, I kid.

Changes abound between issues as Cap goes from sandy brown hair to blonde, from a magenta jumpsuit to a red one, puts on a mask and has his medallion change from a mere insignia to something actually resembling a medallion. Of course, nothing can change the subtle way he's won our hearts.

He also changes identities from "Mister Marvel" (brilliant) to "Roger Winkle" (haha), now a college professor at Dartmoor, as well as something of a comical euphemism for the penis. He's also, by this point, gained a useless love interest and some supporting cast.

I thought I pretty much had this company pegged as some hack penny press which survived by harvesting the names of
popular characters from defunct publishing houses - this comes from a bat-eared, gargoyle-looking villain called The
Ray, which had prepared me for a total rape of the Quality Comics line. Of course, they derailed me with the use of TINYMAN for the nom de guerre of a shrinking District Attorney who uses his puny weakness to fight crime.
Somehow.

In any case, he was the perfect target for a second-hand DollMan tag, but I'm guessing the book's creative staff thought that was too femmy. Thus, Tinyman. Much better.

On a final note, the first issue is also one of the most catastrophic
cover scenes in the history of the medium. Not only is young Billy tied to a dangerous machine, but that machine is clearly reading that it is ready to blow even as an electrical monster of some sort is rising from it and reaching towards Billy with scary lightning mitts, all the while he's surrounded by menacing alien robots with terrible facial hair while Captain Marvel bursts into the ship only seconds away from a raging wall of water under the baleful gaze of ANOTHER type of alien, armed, watching the events below unfold through the UFO's canopy while even MORE UFO's fly in the skies in the background. Jesus. What, they couldn't light Billy on FIRE, too?

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Green Team

Alright, hey there, howsit going? I'm thinking of a number between one and ten ... hey, good one! I'm a Kryptonian Thought-Beast, a pretty popular bogie-beast who made it into a lot of the Silver Age Superman stories. On my native Krypton, I and my race evolved the incredibly handy facility of having our primitive, reptilian thoughts broadcast on a big screen on our heads. Which usually meant the creature we were about to eat saw a picture on my viewscreen of my thinking about eating them. So all our prey knew when we were going to eat them. Well, they saw it on the viewscreen and also we were charging at them, roaring, with our tooth-filled maws wide open, so if they couldn't guess what was going to happen, then the screen would fill in the blanks for them.

In any case, we went extinct when the Kryptonian humans taught us the game of poker. I guess they could see right through us. We gambled into bankruptcy and then had to hock our screens for cash. Many of us died impoverished, a Sony black-and-white 7" portable TV strapped to our foreheads with duct tape...

Great Day, it's the bookend boy team from First issue Special, the Green Team! They're a foursome of Richie Rich wannabes and ... oh yeah, they suck!

The book opens with Abdul Smith, a poor black shoeshine boy who desperately wants to join a club (considering the shabby treatment he receives from Whitey in this book, may I suggest the Black Panthers? How about the Nation of Islam?). Anyway, for some reason he wants to join the Green Team (among others), but falls somewhat short of their patently exclusivist "million-dollar gross worth" limitation. In fact, Abdul's only got thirty-two bucks, and an apparent brain injury that forces him into this neurotic obsession with joining some damn group.

Luckily, stupid comic book coincidence jumps to his rescue; depositing his weeks' earnings (five whole bucks! He should show that to the Fast Willie Jackson gang!), a creepy bank teller accidentally enters the deposit as $500,00.00 (happens to me all the time. You?). Shining shoes at the tock
Exchange, Abdul shows a broker his checkbook, and soon finds himself the owner of some fast-rising Aerospace stock, earning him enough money to meet the Green Team's million-dollar height requirement even after the bank corrected the mistake (for which they probably fined Abdul's checking account twenty bucks, too). So, Abdul brings his million-dollar bankbook along to join the Team, only they kick him out for being black.
No no, I kid, he gets in for some reason, and then is promptly shoved to the backdrop of every discussion, action scene and plot point (even crammed in the corner of the cover, as if a last minute addition). Once his little human interest story is done, Abdul becomes persona non-grata in the Team. I can only imagine that the mere addition of Abdul to the team was a concession of the part of the writer to editorial concerns for ethnic representation.

I don't even know why Abdul would want to have anything to do with the Green Team anyway, considering how poorly the other team members treat him during the course of the book.

The other members consist of The Commodore (Shipping Tycoon), a femmy little twerp in a yachting uniform, and J.P.Houston (Oil Magnate), a gangly cowboy-regalia-bedecked Texan with an obnoxiously feathered hairdo. These two are pretty much the stars of the book, as they get the choice lines and the prime roles in the adventure. Or maybe it just seems that way compared to how Abdul gets shoved to the back of every scene and how one-dimensional the last team member is played...

He's Cecil Sunbeam, the Starmaker, and he's GAY GAY GAY! Or at least, really annoying and effeminate and flamboyant ... Like Elton John, Paul Lynde or Rip Taylor, so you see my reasoning. Sunbeam is a Hollywood producer/director for the "Now" Generation ... which is, these days, the "Then" Generation. We initially catch up with him diving two-fisted
into his remake of "Merchant of Venice," showing his street-gang cast first-hand how to throw down during a rumble (all the while under the approving leer of his disturbingly criminal-looking adult assistant). I've heard Oliver Stone does the same thing.

Halfway through the book, the cast established, the adventure beings. Well, actually, the adventure
was foreshadowed on the splash panel with the words of Missy, the Green Team's secretary, announcing "Professor Dinkle is here with a model of his GREAT AMERICAN PLEASURE MACHINE." Fuck! That really disturbs me. Any guy named "Dinkle" with a "Pleasure Machine," well, I don't need to see that shit.

Not that it matters much anyway, Dinkle reappears a little later demoted from Professor to "Mister," and no longer bearing his Great American Pleasure
machine but rather a scale model of a proposed North Pole colony built with insulating french fries .... I kid not ... Instead, Professor APPLE appears out of nowhere with the Great American Pleasure machine, but then again that doesn't matter much either because Professor Apple completely disappears after introducing the damn thing and then never reappears.

During the construction, Broadway producer David D.Merritt gathers together an evil marching band to destroy the G.A.P., as it'll drive all entertainers out of business what with its ability to deliver pleasure. Next, they go after the high-class hookers!

This threat prompts the boys to dress up in their Action Andrew Jackson gear, fancy little green Dickies with four combination-locked pockets used to carry CASH MONEY! Like these guys never heard of a gold card ... Each member carries about a quarter million dollars on them at all times, and then use them for such daring and innovative escape-plans as ... throwing it all on a roof and then running away! (this is true). I think this is their secret plan to immediately divest Abdul of his million-dollars so they can kick him out and get back to telling jokes like "What would you call the Flintstones if they were black?" "Haw haw, good one Cecil!"

They're also armed with a completely unimaginative set of accessories, including the keys to the locks which protect their various fortunes, and a tickertape watch which reads out news flashes for each of them. I get that on CNN.com, myself.

I'm glad this thing ended. Pretty much the only adventure I'd wanna see the Green Team participate in ever again would be a story where the Dingbats
of Danger Street kill them with shivs.

During the course of the story, they actually advertised themselves with massive billboards reading:"WANTED - Adventurous boys to join the GREEN TEAM" and then by way of small print, "Must Have A Million Dollars" all of which sounds suspiciously like a really transparent NAMBLA scheme. "Clean-Limbed boys wanted for big, exciting adventure. Must have million dollars, be willing to travel to Thailand. Orphans with no kin preferred."

Oh, here's some more text from other billboards scattered throughout the issue ... "Boy Millionaires seek ACTION!" ... "One Million Dollars (or more) Available for thrilling ACTION projects requiring participation of adventurous boys" and finally, my personal favorite, "MONEY for THRILLS! ... We Pay for Play!"

There's a poorly-thought-out text piece in the back
which explores the backstory of the Green Team, and which doesn't clarify a single thing about the characters or their motivation. Supposedly, the Green Team was founded by P.T.Green, formerly a poor boy from New York's lower east side who, as an adult, made it big and rich. Upon amassing his fortune, the adult Green thinks back on the hard life he and his pals had in the mean streets, rumbling with other kid gangs to protect their turf. He decides he wants to form a gang of his own to make up for the hardships he endured, so he inexplicably founds a gentleman's social club.

Disappointed with the turnout of rich, old white guys (he was expecting what, precisely, from a Millionaire's Club? Street Fights? The Jets and Sharks?), he founds ANOTHER group, this time an adventurer's group for millionaire teenagers. Fucking what? Millionaire teenagers already HAVE their own groups. They're called "Kennedys." Why Green, in his nostalgic pique, didn't provide some sort of funds for underprivileged kids living in the same slums where he grew up, but instead created an organization for kids who already had every advantage possible is totally beyond me. I can't tell if Simon was going for social commentary again, or if he's just an idiot.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Four

’Allo everybody, I am Fuzz-ee, the comical French Floating Space Head! Oui Oui! Sincèrement, I actually do not HAVE a name! I merely appeared in une single issue of Mystery In Space. But I am tres freaky-loooking, non? What evolutionary advantage do you suppose my big dewey eyes and comical handlebar mustache grant me, ohn ohn ohn?* Now, s’il vous plaît, enjoy the most recent installment of Gone & Forgotten. I must partez rapidement, as I am late for my Madballs audition. Ohn ohn ohnnnnn!"

_{*Say that like Maurice Chevalier. "ohn ohn ohnnnn"}

By Ironjaw, I’ve had it! This is the last Atlas article! Reading these
things is like sucking down a balloon full of sulfur and lemon juice! Let’s
get it done!

Wulf the Barbarian, the second of Atlas’ barbarian line, was - more or less - spared the Third-Issue Switch largely by dint of it never having had the same creative team twice. And if you think that may have really hurt the book’s continuity and focus ... man, are you ever right.

Rather than IronJaw’s post-apocalyptic barbarian future, Wulf took place in Earth’s distant, shrouded past. There were liberal mixings of J.R.R.Tolkein and Conan both in this book, with perhaps a pinch of Beowulf, all hindered by the constant mix of creative teams and how none of the issues were really all that good anyway.

I’m not even sure if there were any continuing characters or storylines from one issue to the next. Larry Lieber scripted one that was pure Tolkein, complete with fakey made-up names
for all the people and places. "Lord Tyrkna the Enlightened of the Plains of Hufgth has the Sword of Farrth, and he’s bringing it to the Temple of Rwwtah which is guarded by the Priests of Huybnom who possess the mighty powerful Disc of GtrhhbojfpnnakptangyakPOWwoop!"

Larry Hama gets his foot in there, too, with a more Conan-esque story and Klaus Janson puts pencil to paper for a lushly illustrated story, all of which would have come as a surprise to anyone who judged the book by the cover (which, not unlike many Atlas comics, was wholly unrelated in terms of design
and content to the story inside).

I do not own a copy of Midnight Madness or Thrilling Adventure Stories, and I suspect that they actually never came out, though Mike Kaluta assures me that he did finish and send in the story they commissioned from him. He never got it back. In any case, like Devilina, these were black-and-white magazine sized books. And like Devilina, they only existed so the stories could include more titty.

Tigerman was apparently intended to be another one of Atlas’ big central books, as he was pretty focal in the print advertising. You can almost say he had one hellabad costume going on, but the fact remains that it made him look like a brunette tiger in legwarmers. Cause, man, nothing goes with tiger striping better than BLUE PIPING! That just SCREAMS "tiger!"

Philanthropist doctor Lancaster Hill journeys to deepest darkest Africa to get high on native serums and wrestle with tigers. And
as I think about it, I’m not actually sure they have tigers in Africa.
In fact, let me engage one of the hoariest old chestnuts in comedic writing and have you wait a moment while I go check this out ...

Okay, the answer is "no." There are no tigers in Africa. All the Tigers are
closer to China where, ironically, there are no polar bears. That’ll
make sense as you read further on.

Anyway, so there are no tigers in Africa except for one in a bamboo cage in the aboriginal village where Dr.Lancaster Hill is making some damn serum or another out of tiger juice because he thinks a tiger’s natural instincts may be the product of some natural curative in their genetic structure.

I, too, have deep-bred instincts, and those instincts tell me that tiger juice isn’t gonna cure any damn disease. Where’d this jackass go to medical school? "You know what would cure cancer? A keen sense of smell!"

I know that comic book science is often spurious at best, but when did it become full-fledged dyed-in-the-wool ON CRACK? even author Gerry Conway causes his lead character to pause for a moment in reflection and admit to himself that it was only "for some reason," he thought his plan would work.

Anyway, T-Man was cut very liberally from the Peter Parker cloth, a comparison only helped by the omnipresent Steve Ditko doing his art thang. Besides an animalistic set of powers, Doctor Hill was, like Spidey, torn between his super-hero career and personal life, often wondered if something was mentally wrong with himself and used his crime-fighting as a good way to ’work out the cobwebs.’

Only other thing worth mentioning is that his big enemy was a similarly powered villain, a native of the village where Dr.Hill gained his powers, by name of the Blue Leopard. Now, on the cover of the book, he sure was blue, alla blue, very blue. Inside? He had blue Y-fronts and a leopard-print costume. Man, Atlas.

Police Action had two features, starting with Lomax (Or, I should say "Lomax, N.Y.P.D.!"), an effort drawn by the usually-better-than-this Mike Sekowsky, and which is otherwise intolerable. Lomax bites down grimly on his ridiculous cigar and beats the hell out of suspects, witnesses and passers-by alike. Luckily, he’s a New York cop so one imagines the legal
ramifications will be minimal.

Luke Malone is done by the improbable team of Mike Ploog and Frank Springer, two fellas who, when working singly, I can’t stand. Nonetheless, there’s something appealing about this feature ... probably it’s obvious and persistent Eisner/Spirit influences. The murder victim around whom the story revolves even gets a Spirit-esque name, as he’s a boxer named Randy McNally ... nicknamed "Atlas" in the ring.

Yeah, his name was Atlas and he was shot dead in the first month of Atlas’ publication. Ha ha.

I have to kind of point out that I got a ... vibe ... from the Luke Malone story. I’m actually talking to a crowd of comic readers somewhat older than myself, but do you remember the first time you saw Northstar (of Marvel’s Alpha Flight) in a book? Remember how you got a ... hunch ...
about the guy? You kind of suspected ... you know ...and then fifteen years later, in a story which could earn a G&F by itself, he comes speeding out of the closet. So, I got this same feeling about Luke Malone, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. It may have something to do with him turning down his willing and sexy young stripper neighbor in this
bitchy final panel to the story.

Anyway, I’m gonna go suggest that to the
Gay League of America website.

Oh, but, by GOD this series wouldn’t be complete without a kung fu book!

Yes, as the cover of The Hands of the Dragon tells us, "From the holocaust of an ATOMIC EXPLOSION comes the TOUGHEST KUNG FU fighter of them all!" I don’t know about tough, but he’s sure the most lurid of all time. Right on the splash panel, the Dragon’s "lightening" feet kick out in flying vengeance at the loinclothed, tattooed Dr.Nhu ("the patron saint of all things sinister") while a crowd of hippies scatter wildly before the Doc’s blazing machine gun and the lifeless body of the Prime Minister of Japan hangs from the rafters of the stage behind them.

Yeah, this comes from the pen of Ed Fedory (who?) and Jim Craig (who?), and it starts just after World War 2 as a Japanese man carries his two twin grandsons to a monastery in China, where he hopes they’ll be raised away from the horror of war. But, whoops, the old fucker hadn’t anticipated this: there’s an undetonated American atom bomb resting in the hollow of the
crest of Mt.Fuji, which he must scale (!!) before reaching the sea to get his ass to China.

Likewise, he didn’t count on it being sensitive to the presence of twins. BOOM! Inexplicably, it goes off in his face and, at the recommended safety distance of twelve feet, he gets quite a start. Also, one of the twins is HORRIBLY SCARRED! Yes, I cannot stress this enough, he is HORRIBLY SCARRED!

Oh, but the old man’s travails aren’t near over yet, for as he gets to China, he sets up camp for that night, and he’s attacked by A POLAR BEAR! In China! Not long after an atom bomb went off
when he was comfortably hiking up Mt.Fuji. Jeezus.

Anyway, the kids get raised by monks, only the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother is evil and vicious. So they leave the monastery, and the unscarred one goes
to fight crime, while the HORRIBLY SCARRED one goes on to be a master criminal.

Then there’s an assassination attempt, a ghostly figure gives a cheap-ass disco medallion to our dizzy, hospitalized hero and the series ends.

I only hope the HORRIBLY SCARRED brother got some kind of help for his HORRIBLE
SCARRING.

The efforts of our brave men and psychotic vermin at war was represented by the dual offerings of Blazing Battles Tales (featuring Sgt. Hawk) and, of course, Sgt.Stryker’s Death Squad, the latter of which you may know from their annual Christmastime toy drives.

First, let’s bring on the Blazing Battle Tales, all one issue of it! Ostensibly an anthology book (bound under a very Joe Kubert-esque cover courtesy of Frank Thorne), the lead feature is Sgt.Hawk, which they may as well have called it Sgt.Rawk cause, man, that’s precisely what they were aiming for.

Who are Sgt.Hawk and the men of the Killer Platoon? Why, they’re a "confident bunch of sore-footed dogfaces, spoiling for a fight, any time and any place." By no means were they "combat happy joes." Oh no. Heavens forfend.

The Sarge is backed by a multi-ethnic platoon of two men. There’s Goldberg ... WHO’S NEXT?!?! And then there’s White Cloud, and they’re not gonna let you forget it. "Come with me, White Cloud. Stay here, White Cloud. What’s the situation here, White Cloud?" Jeezus Sarge, you’ve only got two men in the platoon, must you always address them by name?

The Killer Platoon’s mission is to rescue
a captured and eroti-sadistically tortured French Resistance fighter named Yvette, cause MAN is she ever French. She’s also a "doll," and I know this, because that’s all Sarge ever calls her. "We got the doll, and since we had the doll we knew the Nazis would be after the doll, so we had to get the doll to safety so the doll could go back to France. White Cloud, go get the doll!"

Backup stories included a swell John Severin/Alan Kupperburg two-pager about some guy who really really hated the Germans a whole lot, and then a sort of forgettable EC-inspired ace fighter story called "Sky Demon," and the only reason I mention it is because the hero’s name was "Vip Gunner," and I can’t believe someone named their kid "Vip."

Sgt Stryker’s Death Squad was the lead feature in Savage Combat Tales, and I hate to say this about any Atlas book (though I did say it for Scorpion), it kinda isn’t that bad. Oh, it’s not GOOD! No no no. Of course not. Silly reader. I mean, at the end of the series I was
still left longing for more competent war stories, such as ... oh, I dunno, that one DC comic where a trained gorilla became a Marine sergeant, or the Creature Commandos ... nonetheless, it was readable.

Sgt.Stryker starts off as the gentle son of a life-loving country doctor, stationed in the same unit as his girlfriend’s little brother. He’s uncomfortable with the idea of killing, but like a lot of other guys in wartime, learns that he prefers it to dying. Anyway, Stryker gets to watch his entire battalion absolutely
demolished by the Nazis - including his girlfriend’s little brother - but yet manages to save four men, the four worst, most savage men in the entire army. Who were all stationed together. By luck.

Okay, truth time? It’s Dirty Dozen, only with four people. See, the Sarge and his boys discover that they’re absolutely the best killers the army ever had, so the top brass arranges to send them on special missions where ... um ... they kill people. Savagely. In combat. And then we hear tales of it. Savage Combat Tales.

Courtesy the usual type of idiosyncratic characters who end up in war stories like this, the Death Squad is composed of: Ice, a former gangster. Not a lot of those guys went to war, so his squad should feel blessed. Turk, a big, bald professional wrestler whose handlebar mustache, I’m certain, must break some army regulations. Then there’s Duke, some jerk they
picked up along the way, and finally, Shigeta, who doesn’t get a peppy, butch nickname cause he’s a DIRTY JAP! No, sorry, wait, he’s a Nisei, which they never let us forget. And because he’s Nisei, he knows ... say it with me ... all the martial arts!

So, Shigeta’s supposedly there for the ironic-twist/lesson-in-humanity role. You know, "We’re fighting the Japs, but look, we’re also fighting ALONGSIDE a Jap! And he’s a regular joe, just like us!" kind of mentality.

Of course, even as we were supposed to feel the deep humanity of this character, he WAS colored a pale candlewax yellow. Jesus A. Sammich, as I am inclined to say. Why not just give him a cleaver and buck teeth?

The back-up stories in Savage Combat Tales were usually these EC-inspired and oft-Archie Goodwin-scripted war tales with ironic twist endings. They’re pretty standard fare, and you could find yourself a handful of ones done better in Our Army At War or Combat! or your drunk great-grandfather
going on and on and the Nazzees.

And here comes some Western Adventures! And the art in the lead story is by ... Doug Wildey! Wow! Cool! And the writing is by ... Larry Lieber! Shit! No!

This is Kid Cody, sort of a hollow experience for all involved. Eastern family comes west to start a farm, evil cattleman kills the hero’s family, hero hooks up with a drunkard ex-gunslinger who teaches him the works and then the hero goes out for vengeance.

What I wonder is what does the fella do NOW? He killed the bad guy, he’s
a badass with the gun, he’s got all that land his dad bought ... does he go farm? No, not according to the end of the story ... he wanders off to fight more evil land barons. I suppose. I don’t really care.

Backup feature stars the Comanche Kid, which is brought to us by Steve Skeates and Jack Abel and features the inking props of Al "Lay ’Em Down Thick" Milgrom himself. I can summarize this one faster than Kid Cody. Ready? "Abducted white boy raised by comanches becomes a wandering force of justice, like hundreds of others." Boom. The end.

So, on the cover of Western Adventures, there’s a little panel that declares that this issue is "introducing ... the Renegade." But actually, it isn’t. The guy they picture is the Comanche Kid, and there’s no story about a renegade anywhere in the
book.

They probably SHOULD have called Comanche Kid "The Renegade" so that you didn’t have a title with two "Kid"s in it. "Kid Cody and the Comanche Kid." Terrible.
Still, I’d like to see a story where their descendants team up. "Kid Cody’s Kid and the Kid of the Comanche Kid in ’The Kid Gloves Are Off’."

Speaking of which, envision if you will a world where Atlas survived its first year of existence. You KNOW they would have eventually had a team book. Tiger-Man, Cougar, the Brute and Phoenix the Protector are ... um ... The Avenginators!! And a team-up book, too. Ironjaw meets the Tarantula. Sgt.Stryker meets the Bog Beast. The Dragon meets Morlock 2001.

By far the greatest of the third-issue switch victims, Morlock 2001 starts off not only borrowing its title from two popular science fiction movies (Morlocks from "The Time Machine" and "2001:A Space Odyssey"), but borrows its premise from Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451, the Incredible Hulk and SWAMP THING! ... Once again I’m amazed at how close to dadaistic divinity these books
came ...

Anyway, the plot here comes to us courtesy Michael Fleischer, and goes something like this: Reclusive scientist is killed by government thugs to repress his free-thinking ways (and it works, too). In his labs, the police find a weird plant-man whom they discover can kill people with a touch. So they make him a government assassin, only he suffers a plague of conscience. To keep an eye on his rebellious nature, the secret police assign a female cover agent to keep an eye on him, and cause you KNOW that Fleischer just LOVES AND RESPECTS women like nobody’s business, she gets to die hideously. Cause, you
know, she betrayed Morlock’s trust. So she dies.

Anyway, blah blah on the run from the government blah blah futuristic world blah blah "Ahhh, I’m a plant guy" blah blah. Third issue comes around, and doing his filling-in thing, Gary Friedrich pens the THIRD ISSUE SWITCH with Steve Ditko along for the art chores ... and I do mean "chores."

Now called "Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men," the book centers more around an intellectual revolutionary named Whitlock who was burned over his whole body during an attack by the secret police. But he
survives. Of course ... he’s .... HORRIBLY SCARRED! Whitlock assembles a rebel army, hides Morlock away as a secret weapon, and then breaks it down old school style to give us some ’man is born to be free’ speeches
while Friedrich recaps.

Oh, but the secret police attacks and, as the issue ends Whitlock fatally
shoots the suffering Morlock RIGHT IN THE GADDAMN FACE, killing him right out. Yay! Then he whips out a detonator and tells us he’s gonna blow up his secret headquarters, killing everyone including himself. Yay! More!

I’m only slightly sad to say that I don’t have a copy of Fright (featuring the Son of Dracula) to which I can refer for this article, but be assured, it stinks like baboon ass stuffed with burning tires. It comes close on the heels of Marvel’s "Son Of Frankenstein," which makes me wonder if Larry and Stan used to sit around their house back in the twenties or eighteen-nineties or seventeenth century of whatever and make up imaginary friends together.

And then if ANY Atlas book deserves to go on the rosters of THE MOST unforgettable hunks of steamy dog poop ever printed, it must be Planet of the Vampires! Here’s a Larry Hama effort with art by a somewhat stiff but still presentable Pat Broderick.

There’s a heck of a misnomer in the title, by the way. It’s not exactly a planet of vampires. In fact, it’s pretty much just one apartment building. I mean, sure, it’s the Empire State Building, and it’s BIG and all, but still.

Alright, the plot borrows a little from Planet of the Apes (no! you say in shock and amazement) and Omega Man, the adolescent last-man-alive fantasy film by Chuck Heston. Basically four American astronauts (well, two married couples, actually, and another guy ... and an invisible guy, and I’ll get to that in a second) return from a lengthy mission in space to find that
not only has Earth been ravaged by nuclear war, but it’s largely reverted to barbarianism!

Yes, the streets of New York are flooded with thick-armed thugs who constantly fight and rumble in the streets and ambush strangers and steal anything worth taking. Um. Wait, I know there was something different about this ... oh, yeah, since it’s in the future, the cars can FLY!

Anyway, the startled - and ’hip,’ boy are they ever ’hip’ - astronauts manage to escape a terrible experience with the local freaks and ruffians and make their way to what appears to be the only remaining bastion of civilization in America - the Empire State Building. Hm. Okay. Anyway...

Turns out all the greatest scientists of America flooded to the building, rather than hole up somewhere near all the scientific equipment. Go figure. They build a force shield around the place, set up a well-armed militia and power elite and ... and this is the important part ... they capture the uncivilized grubs down on the street below and harvest them ... FOR BLOOD! They hook em up to big, fakey looking machines and drain the blood from them for nourishment. So, repulsed, the astronauts break out of the building, get split up, hook up with the barbarians to form a rebel army. Blah blah blah.

Two of my favorite parts of this story: First off, although they ARE trained astronauts, the women are totally useless. They just cry and wail and worry and let the men make the decisions. I’m gonna make a guess and say that their designation on the mission was "Official Military Mattressback Advisors." Also, late in the book, the black couple gets separated and disappears in the city. And the big, dumb, white hero of the book proposes that his black male counterpart will be all right because he has an abundance of "street smarts." Not because he’s a military-trained USAF Colonel, or a NASA-trained astronaut. No. Because he has street-smarts.

Anyway, according to the cover of the book, it’s six astronauts who return to Earth to find blah blah blah, however, inside the book, there’s actually only five (the odd man out, a balding old man, gets offed by a barbarian spear after the crew lands). To rectify this discrepency, I consider the Colonel’s amazingly large afro to be an official crew member all by itself.

Oh, it’s over. My long, sequential nightmare is over. I’ll never have to read this crap again. At least, not until some Gen-Y jackoff buys the rights and publishes a grim-n-gritty rewrite of it all. Heavens Forfend.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Outsiders

H-A-! I am JIGSAW, and MAN am I ever DIS-TUR-BING! I was one of Harvey's attempts to cash in on the super-hero craze that followed the Batman TV show, and Good Lord, was that a weird group. There was me - the man whose limbs were barely attached - and Bee-Man and his giant bees, and Magicman who would stop fighting crime in the middle of a battle to teach magic tricks ... there were more, but kids your age probably wouldn't know them. Every now and again, you can catch them hanging out at Boat Shows, still trying to buddy up to Adam West or peek down Elvira's cleavage It's sad. Personally, I'm glad I was able to break into gay porn.

Alright, let's check out this month's Gone & Forgotten...

Nope, not the one with Batman and Metamorpho and Black Lightning and everybody ... neither is it Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Hell, it's not even Matt Dillon or that weird, white, bumpy thing Alfred Pennyworth changed into for those coupla issues of Batman back in the Fifties. Nooo, it's ... something else altogether.

First Issue Special was DC's 1970's answer to Showcase, the rotating feature book of the Sixties which introduced Green Lantern and Flash and a passel of other DC staples. I don't think ANY First Issue Special alumni made it past their feature appearance, least of all this messy group.

Outsiders comes from the same folks who brought you Prez, Joe Simon and Jerry Grandetti, though what they were trying to accomplish in the way of social commentary - if anything - is vague at best.

The cover of the book may be my favorite part, as it was apparently handed to Ernie Colon WITHOUT giving him any reference to the characters appearing inside the book. Besides Doctor Goodie's hair going cropped and platinum blonde, the silhouettes for the Outsiders represent five figures we don't even come CLOSE to seeing inside the book.

The story itself is told recursively -- it begins at the denouement, then proceeds to the climax and resolution, THEN goes back and gives us a prelude (complete with expositionary flashback) and catches right back up with the denouement. This is handy, inasmuch as since the story loops itself, it's a closed system and implies that IT'LL NEVER BE CONTINUED IN ANY FASHION ANYWHERE EVER! YAY!

The premise goes something like this: Doctor Goodie, the world's greatest ... doctor. Doctor of what, I dunno. Anyway, he's asked to accompany an astronaut on an important trip into deep space, to identify the source of myterious lasers which can cure cancer. I don't write this stuff, folks.

Anyway, the space vessel crashes, the aliens save Doctor Goodie and perform reconstructive surgery on him ... but since they've never seen a human being, monitored the plentiful television broadcasts bouncing around space, caught Voyager's act or have advanced enough technology to do what reconstructive anatomists do every day on good, old, primitive backwards Earth ... they make him look like a guy from that one Twilight Zone episode where the pretty
lady goes through plastic surgery to look like a frog person. You remember that one, right? Right.

So, to get over his terrible disfigurement, Goodie wears a plastic mask and performs amazing surgery by day (with the aid of the
alien-implanted cybernetic nervous system), and by night, removes his mask and joins his adopted menagerie of a family as ... Doctor Scary.

It's somewhere between the X-Men and Big Daddy Roth.

We're introduced to the gang by a "theme song" in the splash panel, "Hang in there Billy, it's us, it's us...we're the Outsiders!Lizard Johnny, the Amazing Ronnie, Hairy Larry, Ol' Doc Scary & Mighty Mary" Plus Harry Carey and Cheri O'Teri.

Billy, by the way, is an orphaned freak with a tremendously tough and huge head. I would be too, but Mom and Dad are alive and kicking to this day.

---

One of the great injustices of the early days of Gone&Forgotten was that the Fast Willie Jackson article - one of the favorites, according to the survey results so far - was posted without any graphics In order to better illustrate this fine document, we bring you ... The Fast Willie Jackson Chronicles:

• Jamar and Jo-Jo trade the infamous banter regarding the existence of a mythical currency that white men call "A five-dollar bill."

• "The fat on your head." that sounds grotesque.

• It's just lately that I found out black is beautiful.

• Jabar in a full-page strip - "The One and Only." What exactly is the message of this book again?

• Can you dig it, disembodied head of the white kid who doesn't appear in the book?

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Kitty Pryde and Wolverine

Greetings true believers, I am 3-D MAN! In the 1950's I defended
America's shores from alien ... uh ... alien ... whoa, sorry, but if you could just see what you look like. You're coming right at me! It's amazing!
Anyway, I was a Roy Thomas creation from the pages of Marvel Premiere, and ever since ... dude, okay, serious, I just happened to look at the TV over there. It's totally freaked out! It's, like, not just colors, but its all, like, wheeeeeeoooooo, wheeeeeeeeo.
Sorry. So, in the 70's .... No WAY! Come check out this wallpaper! It's totally like FLOATING off the wall! Dude, come here, I wanna check out that old plaid shirt I got last Christmas from my aunt Edna. WHOA! Check it out! It's totally like it's all freaked out! This is insane! Who needs television, man, when you got 3-D glasses. Shit. This is totally fucked up.

Uh ....

Oh yeah, here's this month's G&F ...

Let me set the stage for you.

I'm 19, just entering college, and like a lot of kids that age I've grown disillusioned with comics. So I drop by the local shop with a longbox or two full of books for sale - including every X-Men comic and spinoff they'd produced since I was in short pants.

The shop owner was happy, gave me a good price, and therefore I was happy too. Walking out of the store that day, I carried only two things: a check worth a couple months rent and living expenses, and a bag containing the six-issue miniseries Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, which the owner declined to buy.

"No problem," thought I, "It's an X-book. I can sell it eventually."

Anyway, it's damn near ten years later and here it is. I can't GIVE these issues away - literally; every Halloween I give out comics as well as candy to the neighborhood kids, and some of those little shavers have REFUSED this book.

Once I'm done with this article, I'm gonna light these issues on fire.

If you were anything like most readers of this crappy miniseries, you spent every month waiting for the next issue - - - so Wolverine could do something COOL! Apparently, that happened in issue seven. As for the first six ...

Okay, the back story. KP&W was one of the first few X-Men related miniseries - I believe it was preceded by Magik, Wolverine and X-Men/Micronauts, the latter of which sounds like I made it up, but I didn't. This was back in the day before EVERY comic on the stands was an X-Men spinoff, so it actually seemed kind of special.

Magic words were provided by longtime X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and, boy, can you ever tell it. Claremont's trademark "hiccuping dialogue" peppered the book. "Are you hurt, punkin?" New balloon "No" new balloon "Only" new balloon "my pride" I wish I could talk like that.

Art was inexplicably provided by longtime Marvel staffer Al Milgrom, who I guess wanted to buy a houseboat or something; back in those days, a Wolverine or Batman miniseries or one-shot was a veritable Golden Ticket, considering the going page rate and commission. So, even though Al's style is … well, let's be kind to him (After all, the man's a hell of an editor and
cleanup inker) … unsuited to the fan-favorite, industry leading X-Men,
his brush gets to brutally assault two of Marvel's most popular characters.
I'm assuming he pulled some rank.

Claremont's often serpentine plotlines were never so impenetrable as when he indulged his Wolverine-as-Samurai angle, and - oh goody - guess what the plot of this series was? Goes something like this --- but only "something like" …

Kitty Pryde - perennial perky phantasmic pre-teen (sorry, she's "thirteen and a half") of the X-Men and one of Marvel's more popular mutants - returns to her home in Illinois for a Winter break and a heartfelt musing over her current, dire situations. To start with, she's a mutant, and in the Marvel Universe that seems to be most mutants' major problem: you know, being hounded and hunted and hated and such. If that weren't bad enough - and for many of Marvel's underdeveloped legions of homo superior, it has to be - add the fact that her parents are getting a divorce AND that her long-time love interest Colossus - the Russian X-Man and statutory rapist six years her senior - apparently finally fell in love with someone his own damn age.

This means Kitty is free to choose between Bill Wyman, Jerry Lee Lewis or Jerry Seinfeld.

Anyway, Kitty's banker father falls behind on a loan from the Yakuza, and gets kidnapped to Japan. Kitty follows the nefarious stereotypes to their headquarters, only to eventually be captured by Ogun, an ageless, supernatural samurai who once was mentor to Marvel's number one marketing tool, Wolverine.

So while Ogun is hypnotizing Kitty into being his ninja-slave-assassin, Logan comes to Japan to join in the fray. And if Wolvie is in Japan, that means one thing and one thing only - absurdly convoluted cast of supporting characters and backstory! Let's go!

So there's some evil samurai and Yakuza, Logan's old fiancee Mariko and her adopted daughter, plus olvie's old dorobo flame Yukio, plus some plotlines presumably from the Wolverine miniseries, but even research couldn't penetrate the smoky veil of this story.

The end result is that Kitty Pryde goes grim(mish) and gritty(ish) in the guise of ShadowCat (for some damn reason) which she still holds this day, and Ogun is defeated and Kitty's dad is … I don't know, I couldn't make heads nor tails out of the embezzlement/money laundering plot. In any case, it's also obtusely hinted that Wolverine was in fact the famous Japanese ronin Miyamoto Mushashi. Which makes him something like four-hundred years old, Japanese, and dead.

Which is what I wish these comics were. BURN! BURN!

KP&W is universally the most loathed of all X-men books, especially to judge by the survey results which list it as the NUMBER ONE comic most folks wanted to see here. Green Team
came in second. A distant second.

•One of the thematically bisected covers for this crap
•Kitty stabs Wolverine through the heart, and makes Al drop his brush
•The sacred blade is drawn ... poorly.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: I, Krypto

"Hi, this is a very special and very different edition of Gone & Forgotten. Instead of reviewing some lousy comic, we're going to look back on the career of a beloved comic book institution, Krypto the Super-Dog! And the Super-Dog Family! Woof!

"I'm Kolli, Krypto's super-sweetheart. Don't sweat it if you don't remember me. Shortly after my only appearance, I was run over by Braniac's spaceship. Nonetheless, before my untimely demise, I did scatter Krypto's illegitimate pups all over the inhabited cosmos, so next time your space shuttle finds itself humped by super-powered dogs, you know what's going on.

"In any case, please enjoy reminiscing with some of Krypto's greatest friends and enemies - as if a dog could have friends and enemies - and try not to think about how we're all dead now."

"I am King Krypto, and I sentence you all to DEATH!"

Hello visitors, I am Krypto, greatest of the Super-pets because I was Superman's favorite, and because Streaky and Comet aren't even really Kryptonian and Proty is a pile of snot! Ha ha! I am not only super-powerful, but also much smarter than any normal dog. Notice, for instance, that I have no desire to cram my nose into your crotch as a form of greeting. I am beyond that. Also, I do not eat feces or ruin the carpet. Only bad dogs would do that. I am not a bad dog. Krypto is a good dog.

"I am Swifty, one of about a billion super dogs who, over the course of the fifties and sixties, usurped Superboy's affections for Krypto and replaced him as a partner. I know we usually all turned out to be robots or Krypto in disguise, but still, if I were Krypto I wouldn't put up with Superboy's shit. You know what I mean?"

"And I am Destructo, who was Lex Luthor's pet dog! I was given super-powers so that I could help my master open a can of whoop-ass on Superboy and Super-Dog. Back in the Sixties, every one of Superboy's foes seemed to have a dog. Kryptonite Kid had the Kryptonite Bulldog there. I'm sure there would've been more villain dogs, but frankly, Superboy only HAD maybe two or three villains. Most of the time, he used his incredible super human strength to beat the hell out of penny ante gangsters and con men."

"I am Kryptonite Dog,
and I like to eat beef jerky
and fart noxious Kryptonite
fart clouds everywhere."

"Raaaagh! Me am Bizarro Krypto! Me make mess on carpet! Me eat own feces! Me hump all legs! Woof woof! Me am barking loud all night! Me am apeshit crazy!"

"Grr! Naff off Bizarro Krypto! I fucking hate you!"

OOooh. Who could I be? Am I a be-yooo-tiful lady dog? HAHA!
No! I am Krypto! I flew through a Red Kryptonite comet once and, for forty-eight hours, was changed intoa beautiful collie dog. The master's girlfriend said I was so pretty. She petted me and gave me treats. She said I was the lovingest most special doggie in the universe. Even my master thought I was beautiful. He brushed my fur and threw many balls for me to chase.

Then the Red K wore off. "Surprise!" I said. "It is me, the beautiful dog you loved so much was me, plain old Krypto! Now you see that you only loved what is special inside of me!" They hugged me and said they liked me the way I was. Then they went off together and I was left alone for several hours.

"This is another of my ingenious
disguises. I am secretly a dog,
but look, I am wearing glasses!"

Begorrah! I am Tail Terrier, Captain and chairman of the Space Canine Patrol Agency, a team of intergalactic, telepathic crimefighting dogs who made Krypto a member back in the Sixties. Every member was required to have a super-power; for instance, I possessed an infinitely elastic, malleable, prehensile tail I could use to lasso crooks. Krypto, by comparison, could flash fry us or stomp us into nothing with his mighty paws. We didn't mess with Krypto.

"By dame ib Tusky Husky, adb by bib toobh ib ubeful for obening dings. Bib Dob! Bib Dob! Bow Wow Wow!"
Other members of the team included Chameleon Collie, who could change his shape, Mammoth Mutt, who could inflate to a huge size and thereby become an easy target. There was also Precognitive Pup whose freakish head turned translucent and gave us views of the future. And lest I forget, there was also Paw Pooch, Hot Dog, Tusky Husky and Snoop Dogg.

We'd meet in our galactic clubhouse and bark out our pledge: "Big Dog Big
Dog, Bow Wow Wow. We'll Stop Evil, Now Now Now!" Then we'd keep yapping and howling for half an hour or so. Mark Waid can't ever remember our anthem correctly. We mock him for it. I, personally, have dropped poopy on his house on more than one occasion, laughing heartily as we veer our hyper-dimensional cruiser through his rosebushes and do donuts on his lawn.

Our biggest enemies were these rogue, sentient cats who kept trying to feed us tainted hot dogs. It was a mess. A lot of them were the pets of Kryptonian villains who'd been condemned to the Phantom Zone - I mean, I sort of don't blame them for turning to evil! They get eternally banished to a twilight dimension of terror just because they happen to be the pet cats of criminals. Sometimes I think it's a blessing that Krypton exploded.

"You take that back or I'll KILL YOU! I'll KILL YOU!"

Then there's us, the Legion of Super-Pets. Here's a picture of us on the Celebrity Super-Pets edition of Jeopardy. Me? I'm Comet, Supergirl's pet horse who secretly used to be a human male, and I won the game when I bet it all on "Super-Pets who've claimed SuperGirl's maidenhead"

Besides me, Beppo the Super-Monkey is also a member. Beppo was sent into space on an experimental rocket built by Jor-El. Just like Krypto, the freaking thing got lost and
he wandered through space for a bunch of decades. Freaking Jor-El. To say it was traumatic is to put too kind a face on it. Poor little monkey used to chew on his own dried feces and weep violently, haunted by terrifying dreams of endless blackness. Anyway, Beppo's put it all behind him. Of course, Beppo pretty much blew his mind on peyote during the Seventies when he moved to New Mexico to "find himself."

"I figure surviving begins with healing,
and healing begins with forgiveness.
I forgive you Jor-El. Sob."

There was also Streaky the Super-Cat, who was kind of a fraud, but he was also a freaking wild man so we kept him around for the parties. Streaky got his super-powers from something called "Kryptonite-X," which SuperGirl "accidentally" slipped into a ball of yarn for him to play with. He only kept his powers for a little while, so after they'd wear off we'd make him go do the beer runs.

Then there was this little ball of shit named Proty. We kept him around for laughs. What a feeb.

Over the years, we've had a number of great adventures, but mostly we flew to the 30th century and beat up on the Legion of Super-Heroes a lot. Hahaha. "No, no, Braniac 5, we were being mentally controlled!" HAHAHAHA. Oh yeah, and Bee Boy applied for membership once. Streaky made him swim out to the pier with a candle in his thorax. Those were wild times.

"Okay, okay, that's enough already."

These were my fantastic adventures. There were so many folks I couldn't find the time or space to mention, or for that matter, the inclination. There was my pal Ed Lacy, a retired Police Detective who palled around with me when I was playing the role of a professional stuntdog named "Jocko." Most of Ed's relatives were junkies on the run from the law. We had to keep finding them and saving them. I'm guessing that this was because Ed was a black comic book character and, therefore, family of junkies. Comic book logic. It makes sense to some folk.

"This is a drawing I made of Proty. He is stinky poop."

Also, at the same time, there was this lady movie star dog I was trying to get close to. "Chelsea." Stuck up little bitch - literally. Moses couldn't part her legs, I swear.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ma and Pa Kent, my master's adoptive parents and the kindly couple whose rugs I so often ruined over the course of a lifetime. I will always remember MA Kent as the woman who would sneak me pieces of lunchmeat off the counter. I'll always remember Pa Kent as the man who would pass wind and blame it on me. Also, these two created my absolutely excellent secret identity of "Spot" or some damn thing, which they created
by spilling paint on my back. They meant well. But honestly.

"Fuck you! Fuck you and die
you fucking stupid cat! I hate you!"

THE END! ARF!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Prez

November is Election Month, and in honor of it, may we present a special edition of G&F featuring

Yes, Prez! From the mind of Joe "You're Getting Paid To Draw, Jack, Not Erase"
Simon himself.

Yes, Joe Simon, the man who, in collaboration with Jack Kirby back in the 1940's, brought us Captain America.

Yes, Captain America, the comic book hero who paved the way for patriotic super-men of all shapes and sizes - including red turtlenecked teens. Believe it or not.

Joe put together the ballad of Prez with art assist from Jerry Grandenetti, an appropriately unpolished artist for what was certainly a hastily-constructed concept (later adopted and made into a triumphantly allegorical tale by Sandman author Neil Gaiman). The story of "The Man From Steadfast" goes like this:

Gimme a P!

Prez Rickard is a youngster in the way-side town of Steadfast, a small community in the boondocks where Prez heads the local drag-racing club in his 'sweet ride,' The Lollipop, while he ponders political futures and frets about local timepieces.

You see, Steadfast is famous for its clocks - thousands of them, everywhere, in every nook and cranny, each one unique - especially in regards to their accuracy. According to the text in the first issue, it takes more than half-an-hour for all the clocks to finish chiming the top of the hour.

Now two unrelated locomotives move towards each other on the inexorable tracks of destiny. While Prez is taking it upon himself to fix all the clocks in Steadfast so that they chime right, Congress has passed laws giving 18-year olds the vote, and allowing 21-year olds to hold all public offices.


You blockhead.

Enter Boss Smiley, Charlie Brown lookalike gone bad. A greed-monger of the first degree, political thug, polluter, breaker of men's souls and, oh, TOTALLY MISSHAPEN FREAK! Smiley has designs on high political power, and sees the naive Prez Rickard as his tool. He co-opts Prez (who is riding high on a wave of publicity following his town-wide clock repair job) as his own personal pocket candidate for Senator of ... whatever the heck state Steadfast is supposed to be in.

The clueless young Prez does as he is told, his eyes filled with senatorial stars, until he gets wised up and hepped to the deal by go-go Native American Eagle Free. Turning his back on Smiley, Prez nails his former benefactor to the wall and - riding the newly appointed teen vote and the publicity high of ruining the infamous Smiley - finds himself whisked into the White House! While there, Prez becomes an ambassador for peace, love, understanding, and fighting vampires.

No, seriously....

Gimme a R!

I personally LIKE the premise of Prez, and apparently I ain't the only one; award-winning author Neil Gaiman recruited guest artist Mike (Madman) Allred to do a Prez retrospective in Gaiman's critically acclaimed DC/Vertigo book The Sandman (issue #54, The Golden Boy). Sadly, outside of Gaiman's work (and possibly the Ed Brubaker one-shot "sequel" to Gaiman's story) the premise was subsequently underfed.

Given that it was 1972, Prez (then 21) was a child of the Sixties, of the love and peace generation. Appropriately, he became an ambassador of said virtues, much to the chagrin of the establishment which saw him as an upstart, unworthy of the office granted him, and a danger to their precious status quo. And yet, Prez was often foolish, naive, downright childish and simple, and carried with him a bag of spite and paranoia for the older politicians who surrounded him.

So what had we here? A unique everyman champion of a generation that broke all the rules, an indictment of a bloated political system, or a cruel parody of an earnest but often errant youth movement? All in all, it was a very different type of patriotic super-hero than Simon - or anyone else - had given us before.


Gimme an E!

Well, anyway, it's all irrelevant, as the series couldn't have been more brutally cheapened and used than if Boss Smiley himself was writing it. (Some notes on Boss Smiley, by the way: The Prez stories were written much in the same vein as Simon and Kirby's Fighting American - highly tongue-in-cheek, often misshapen villains representing vast political and social movements across the land. Well, sorta ... cause while Boss Smiley may have been the symbol of the shallow, ugly America of the early Seventies, I don't know what Dracula and Bobby Fisher represented).

Yes, while Prez jetted around the world bringing relief to put upon nations, he also had to fend off the violent advances of the NATION OF TRANSYLVANIA which threatened to send a HORDE OF RABIES-INFECTED VAMPIRE BATS down upon our heads! Yes, and then there was the insane, costumed CHESS-PLAYERS from the Soviet Union who used robot chess-pieces to commit terrible crimes!

Prez was assisted in his ludicrous adventures by the aforementioned Eagle Free, now Director of the FBI, and by his gargantuan vice-president Martha (no last name given).

Messing with continuity buffs for years to come, Prez even makes an appearance in Supergirl Comics in which he not only co-starred with the Maid of Might, but was also identified as the current President in DC Continuity. Natch'ly, the story is largely ignored in terms of Pre-Crisis canon.


Gimme a Z!

Let's see, what else stands out during Prez's brief period in office? There was the renaming of Air Force One to "The FreeBee." There's an assassination attempt on Prez's life which instead claims that of a lookalike's ... and no one seems to care. Sigh. Prez ran a grand total of four issues, plus a fifth which was completed but never published outside of DC's in-house Cancelled Comics Cavalcade (printed and distributed solely to creators and price guide guru Robert Overstreet, merely for purposes of copyright retention). Add to this is the apocryphal Supergirl appearance, the two Vertigo books, and his brief stint as a reserve member of the Champions.

No, I made that last part up. Prez never even rated a "Whatever Happened To ..." feature in the back of DC Comics Presents.

On one final note, let's take a moment to REALLY consider the full implications of Prez Rickard's term of office; If puffy, hound-faced, pudgy Bill Clinton seems to be swimming in a pool of endless poon, imagine the quantity and quality of nubile young girl intern-meat a blonde, Midwestern twenty-something woulda had on stock. Viva Prez! Viva the U! S! A!



Stupid Kite-Eating Tree!

• Prez plays well with others
• Prez sticks it to Boss Smiley
• They're Here! The Deadly Chessmen!
• Eagle Free has eliminated the glass ceiling. And everything else, too.
• As far as origins go, it's not exactly "Rocketed from a doomed planet..."
• Prez could stand to learn some respect for native cultures
• If Prez keeps it up, he's gonna get a swat to the face.
• Damn that electrical energy!
• Prez and Hillary are burning the Whitewa---I mean, he and Eagle Free are looking for incriminating evidence of Smiley's misdeeds.
• A big damn Prez seal, for whatever misdeeds you care to apply it.

"Then there was Prez, a husky, handsome blond like a freckled boxer, meticulously
wrapped inside his sharkskin plaid suit with the long drape and the collar
falling back and the tie undone for exact sharpness and casualness, sweating
and hitching up his horn and writhing into it, and a tone just like Lester
Young himself. "You see, man, Prez has the technical anxieties of a money-making
musician, he's the only one who's well dressed, see him grow worried when
he blows a clinker, but the leader, that cool cat, tells him not to worry
and just blow and blow--the mere sound and serious exuberance of the music
is all he cares about. He's an artist. He's teaching young Prez the boxer.
Now the others dig!!"

-Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: US 1

"Hi friendly friends! My name is Bat-Mite, but you can call me by my real name ... Delirium Tremens."

"I've got solid money down that most of you remember me - yep, I was that pesky imp who idolized Batman and would cause no end of hilarious hi-jinks when I'd teleport in from my magical Fifth Dimension to aid my pointy-eared buddy in his unending fight against crime."

"HAHA! No, seriously, I'm just the natural result of an obsessive personality's inevitable slide towards mental enfeeblement. I'm an hallucination of the highest degree! Batman's been so on edge ever since that Parricide thing that you can bet he's seeing little, magical, floating Truman Capote's in every shadowy corner. Yeah, the guy's nuts. Never mind that thing he's got, dressing like Dracula and scaring the Hell out of derelicts and hobos - you should see some of the stuff he's totally repressed about Robin ... all three of 'em."

---

Amazingly, this book was NOT written by Gerry Conway. I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

So come take a little journey with us. It's 1983 and Marvel Comics - flushed on the success of top-selling fan favorite X-Men, critically accalimed Epic titles and a string of lucrative liscensed books - is adroitly attempting to cash in on the trucking and CB craze which swept America .... five years previous. Ten-Four good buddies!

Running twelve issues, US1 follows the adventure of U.S.Archer and his amazing cybernetic big rig US1 as they travel down US Highways and USe restrooms and the USual stuff all across the USA. U See?

US1 was something like Speed Racer with wide loads, from the assortment of vehicle-oriented villains right down to the family connection. In fact, like Speed's brother Racer X, US's brother Jeff was a mysteriously-clad driver whose path continually crossed with his brother's. The only difference was that, in his disguise as the Highwayman and driving the "devil-truck" Blackrig, Jeff was trying to off his brother.

The rest of the cast included US and Jeff's adoptive folks, the tragically nicknamed "Wide-Load Annie," and her husband "'Poppa' Wheelie.' Get it? 'Poppa' Wheelie. HAHAHAHA. Also part of the crew were US's dense mechanic friend Retread (No, not Retard), short order cook and love interest Mary McGrill and femme fatale Taryn O'Connell....

Hey, waitaminnit. Taryn O'Connell? What does THAT name have to do with BIG RIGS!? Whu- why - it's not a lame pun at all! It's -- its .... oh wait, sorry ... her nickname is "Taryn Down The Highway." My mistake.


As to the story, following a near-fatal run-in with his disguised brother and that darn "devil-truck," US has a metal plate installed in his skull - turns out the thing can pick up and receive short wave broadcasts, and so US1 disturbingly christens it his "CB Skull." With that and his rig, US takes on adventure all across the nations, including more run-ins with the Highwayman, races with competing drivers (inlduing Taryn) and a confrontation with the deadly, "hypno-whip" wielding Midnight - secretly a possessed Mary McGrill turned evil.

In between attempts by the legal team of Clutch, Grab and LeGreed (sigh) to foreclose on Poppa and Wide Load's diner (The Short Stop), US is visited by the representative of an alien federation seeking an Terran trucker to represent our humble little world in civilized space. In a final issue blowout, pencilled by guest artist Steve Ditko, US and Jeff race for the privilige of being the first intergalactic errand boy (eat THAT, Futurama). Ultimately, and obviously, the race ends with US as the victor and the entire cast - minus a suddenly repentant and solemn Taryn O'Connell - moving to the fringes of known space - where I would have stranded them at the beginning of the first issue, but that's just me.

Never mind the more curious parts of the final story, such as US1 being fitted to operate as a space vehicle, or the inexplicably savage and totally unjustified sibling rivalry between Jeff and US, or the alien with the barely perceptible but often mentioned trucker-lingo-laced accent; I'll always remember US1 for one line of dialogue, uttered by Jeff as he pilots into space, and one which I feel describes the greater portion of comics published annually:

"No! I don't like it! It's too big, too dark! And it makes my stomach hurt!"

• An ending like you never expected
• This is pretty much pure Ditko
• The Majesty of space. Gosh!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Who's Who #10.5

My pal Leonard Pierce runs a daily writing log under the heading of the Ludic Log, which includes a once-a-week, issue-by-issue overview of DC's original Who's Who series.

When Leonard took a week off to celebrate 'our nation's birthday' (Could we possibly conceive an even more precious phrase to describe Independence Day? Did the movie ruin it for us or something?) in San Francisco, I stepped in to write his Who's Who entry, pulling an issue wholesale outta my ass. Enjoy!

---

What with Leonard out of town and apparently too much of a little girl to risk writing a daily log while raging drunk and waist-deep in America's national center of steamy man-love -- listen, some men fear these changes, some men embrace them; me, my valedictorian speech was delivered soused and pinned beneath a stranger whose real name was probably not actually 'Cody' -- I wanted to step in and give the DC Who's Who retrospective a shot. While drunk. And man-humping.

But of course, any idiot can (and does) write a standard review of Who's Who entries. Where I'm going -- and taking you with me -- is the Who's Who that SHOULD have been. To a comics history guru like me, some of the choices made for inclusion versus exception were simply astonishing, so I want to write my own definitive directory to the DC universe otherwise left forgotten. Meet

Who's Who #10.5, the notional issue!

You don't need me to cover the glaring omissions in any given issue of Who's Who, not when 1986 America's faithful army of anal-retentive nerds were there to angrily do it in the truncated lettercol inside each issue's front cover. But then again, you don't really need Who's Who in the first place, you're just going to get it, is all.




And now try new Egg-Fu-Beaters, with no chorestelorrrllrlll ....
EGG-FU. Sometimes I ponder whether Wonder Woman was actually selling enough to survive, or if DC kept it around only to diffuse the potential feminist backlash against not having a predominant female superhero. (Then again, Marvel's never had a major female superstar in a long-running title, which is why scary nerds prefer Marvel.) In any case, I have a hard time believing her sales saved her star-spangled ass if only because every supporting element in her book has been so lame, particularly her villains. She's a page out of Greek mythology, right? So she should have an endless stream of half-human monstrosities and angry demigods to battle when she's not spurning the advances of an amorous Apollo or sowing a field of dragon's teeth or sparring with bronze warriors. There's nothing short of a thousand menaces, puzzles or quests on her plate, but instead she gets this: A sixty-foot tall Communist Chinese egg with a handlebar moustache. That, and the over-amorous space gorillas that one time.





I'm gonna r-r-r-rub ya out, see? R-r-r-r-r-rub ya out!
ERASER. This was a legitimate Batman villain who dressed like a pencil: pink rubber hat, yellow striped suit, pointy shoes. In a world where Kite-Man gets included in Who's Who but this guy doesn't, I don't believe there's justice. I mean, the Ten-Eyed Man got an entry and that guy was a Man-Bat villain! MAN-BAT! How many degrees of separation from respectability could they tolerate in these entries?

GENERALISSIMO GOG. A disgraced military figure of the diminutive Mediterranean nation of Offalia, Generalissimo Demmy Gog (oh ho, ho ho) and the five ragtag soldiers which make up the country 's "Dirty Half Dozen" its sole military force attack a hipster-slang-slinging Justice League in hopes of conquering America. This was one of those stories written by Denny O'Neil when he forgot he was writing one of DC's flagship series and instead thought he was still writing Herbie the Fat Fuck. Oh, wait, I mean 'Fury'. No, wait, I meant 'Fuck'.

GOODY RICKLES. The goody-goody brother of Don Rickles, who appeared in Jimmy Olsen during the Kirby run. Amazing.

ITTY. This is Green Lantern's flower/snail sidekick-pet. It sat on GL's shoulder while he had adventures in space. I believe it was introduced during the period where Georgia O'Keefe was drawing the book. (As an aside, I just realized yesterday that its name was 'Itty' as in 'Itty Bitty', not just as in 'it' with a modifier.




Get them off me, GET THEM OFF ME!!

JULIUS SCHWARTZ. No denizen of 'Earth Prime' (I prefer a nice fatty cut of Earth myself, maybe an Earth loin or a nice Earth roast) has made more appearances in DC comics than this editorial icon. Also, here's a Julius Schwartz story I saw on the bus at San Diego: Julie steps on at the Sheraton, wearing a Dark Knight t-shirt and slacks. Some kid yells "Hi Julie", and Schwartz turns to him, looks him up and down, and angrily snaps "I don't know YOU!" Then he sat down. MAN JULIE!

LARA. Jor-el got an entry. Superman had a mother too, you fucks.




I'm STILL better dressed than Shade, the Changing Man.
ODD MAN. You've seen this guy in the late-70's DC full-page ads: patchwork suit, one red eye, one yellow eye, polka dot tie, striped pants, checkered jacket, ALLLLL the colors of the rainbow. Steve Ditko character. Oh yeah, now you remember...

PINKY. Mister Scarlet's sidekick. I'm familiar with the legal problems which kept most of the Fawcett-purchased characters out of Who's Who as well as other DC titles, but the fact is that DC's lawyers should've fought extra hard if only to include the one sidekick whose secret identity was gayer by far than 'Speedy', 'Robin' and 'Sandy the Golden Boy'. If you had a kid sidekick superhero whose name actually had the words "Lubed-Up Pleasure Toy" in it, it still wouldn't be quite as irredeemably gay as 'Pinky'.

PREZ. This is bullshit. This is major, major bullshit. Even if Prez's omission was actually tackled in the letters page of the very issue in which he should have appeared, and even if there was "heated discussion" about it, I still call bullshit. Someone deserves a gut-punch for this, and I swear, even if it was Archie Goodwin, I'm gonna dig him up and do it. How much of a total bunch of assholes do you think DC editorial felt when, years later, Neil Gaiman turned Prez into the most amazing single issue of a comic in years? Anyway, Prez's cut has me so upset, I'm not even going to be able to stir up the muster to mention The Green Team...




Wonder Nerd powers -- ACTIVATE!
RADIO SHACK WHIZ KIDS. Alex and Shanna, I think. I honestly don't particularly know, or care. In the matter of whether I should use valuable space in my memory for pictures of naked women, phone numbers, or the names of the Radio Shack Whiz Kids, I think you know what wins out. In any case, these two were computer geniuses who used Radio Shack's TRS-80 model computer to assist Superman in solving crimes and fighting menaces which were particularly vulnerable to cassette drives and screen burns. I can't accept that Superman could benefit from a pair of teenage desk jockeys and their oversized calculator-slash-paperweight. Even I can process square roots faster than a TRS-80, what's Superman going to do with one, smash Luthor across the noggin with it?

SENTINELS. I'm assuming DC got the rights to these guys along with all the other Charlton heroes. This was a trio of beatniks who gained super-powers from something and then fought something, and their names were Helio and something and something. But here's the good part: their civilian identities were as a folk trio, their ouevre was songs about how the world is doomed, and they actually had partial lyrics to one of their songs which went: "The Doomsday Dirge/the doubters we'll purge " Whoa! Watch out Kingston Trio!

SUPERBABY. If there's one thing you have to give Superman, it's that he's made great strides in overcoming his childhood speech impediment. It's also possible that his rocket might've landed harder than we thought, and the poor little fella got his noggin well-shook. Two versions of Superman got Who's Who entries: the Golden Age fella and the Byrne revamp. This means that not only was Superman's rich career as a boy generally ignored, but all those years he spent as an autistic force of nature were left undocumented in the cold post-Crisis world

SUPERMAN JR. How they could overlook this guy, Superman's only legitimate claim to a kid sidekick (not counting Supergirl, although let's face it, Clark pretty much abandoned that jailbait in some one-horse town and hightailed it back to the big city)? Superman Jr. was the son of a scientist who gave the kid super-powers before up and keeling over. Then Superman adopted him and, like all good adoptive parents, changed the kid's name. Now do you miss your dead daddy? Oh, and later, Superman Jr. died. I bet there's an acre of upturned earth behind the Fortress of Solitude containing the unmarked graves of dozens of Superboys and Supergirls.




As you look at this image, keep in mind that this is the internet and that's a cartoon turtle. And this means that someone - somewhere - is probably masturbating to it as we speak.
TERRIFIC WHATZIT. DC's first funny animal superhero, dressed up like the Golden Age Flash BUT WAS A TURTLE, GET IT? Also, as I think about it, they left out Super-Turtle too, BUT INCLUDED SEPARATE ENTRIES FOR EVERY MEMBER OF THE ZOO CREW! Let me see if I get this straight the Metal Men, the Blackhawks, and the Inferior Five have team entries...but every member of the Zoo Crew got their own entry. Even Little Cheese. Mmn. Mm-hmn.

T'OMM JONZZ. Insert your own Tom Jones song title in here, but come back in time for this piece of info: Martian Manhunter's little brother. I ain't kidding. His little kid brother made it to Earth. His little kid brother's name was T'omm. I think and/or hope he died at some point.





Me want ice cream nyargh fart GAAAARGLE!
WONDER TOT. This is Wonder Woman when she was small and retarded. Getting back to WW's horrible lameness, another of her poorer elements was her persistent Artemis-come-lateliness in terms of comic book accoutrements. Lo-o-o-ong after Batman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, and the Flash had teen sidekicks, Wonder Woman gets Wonder Girl. Lo-o-o-ong after Superman devalues himself as Superbaby, we get Wonder Tot. These stories had lots of Wonder Tot fighting a giant sea monster and gargling out gems like "Tee-hee, me play with smiley fish!" You know the drill. Wonder Tot also had a genie. I wish you could witness the angry paroxysm I undergo everytime I type that. "Wonder Tot also had a genie WHAT THE FUCK!"

This is coming out a little thin for an issue of Who's Who, so I'm going to round this up with some DC super-heroes I just made up

CHALLENGERS OF THE KNOWN. Four rough-and-tumble adventurers Randy, Specs, Doodles and Veronica dedicate their lives to seeking thrills and action among the well-established paths trod before them. When last seen, the Challs were on a mission to ride every Six Flags roller-coaster without getting sick!

LEGION OF FUCKS. Cashing in on the inherent hipness of the racially and economically oppressed underclasses so often represented in the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of over-privileged thirtieth-century kids form their OWN super-hero clubhouse. Represented by such stalwart costumed figures as Trustfundicon and the Living Kennedy, the LoF dedicates themselves to throwing killer bashes and getting that blonde bitch so drunk she don't know if she's got it coming or going, yeee-ah! Once a year, the Legion of Fucks stage a membership drive, at which they systemically turn away many Jews and blacks.

MADONNA-WHORE. This complex super-villainess repeatedly torments Wonder Woman, causing the amazing Amazon to come to grips with her coquetteish dismissal of Steve Trevor's affection, the dichotomy between her over-feminized costume and overtly masculine physique, and the fact that she's a fucking enormous undersexed Amazon in star-spangled bondage gear who could rip a phone book in half with a kegel.

QUEEF. This mischevious fifth-dimensional imp who idolizes the Black Canary (II) often appears in a stylized version of her role model's costume to aid the Canary with her magic. As time passes, Queef's self-image begins to deteriorate as she realizes she doesn't possess Canary's hourglass figure. After several weeks of crash dieting, bulimia and radical plastic surgery, Queef falls into a profound depression. Following a girl-to-girl talk on the beauty of full-figured women, an obviously uncomfortable Black Canary suggests Queef may try wearing darker colors, and should consider sweat pants. Queef vanishes into a quart of chocolate ice cream and is never seen again.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Protectors

"Hello Everyone, and welcome to Gone and Forgotten. I'm your host for this edition - Bee Boy! Bzzzzzzzzz!"

"Yes, I haven't seen the light of day since Superboy #127, and I'm a freak! The official story is that I was a lost kid who was abandoned in the middle of Africa and saved by some sort of damn bee serum, but I think it's fair to say that I'm just a "special" guy with "special" tastes (Whaddya think of my fancy white ermine turtleneck tunic?). Hey, I even tried bagging Lana Lang's sweet thorax while she was doing her Insect Queen thing. Ah, Lana, your dry, chitinous husk, your hairy, exo-skeletal legs ... ooooaaaugh. Baby. Superboy took pity on me and spared me a brutal beating at his invulnerable hands. In fact, the editors of his comic even begged readers to ask for more Bee Boy stories. Nobody wrote. Nobody ever wrote."

"But enough about me, let's move on to the January selection of the worst comics ever written. Let's meet...

THE PROTECTORS

...Or better yet, how about Great White?

Boy, did these guys suck. A product of New York Comics (which was published by Solson Inc, printed by Solson, distributed by Solson and featured Solson house ads ... for Heaven's Sake, who is this mysterious New York Comics?), theoretically this comic introduced "The Most Unlikely Heroes Of All," which was true inasmuch as it's highly unlikely this band of unlikeable incompetents could do anything heroic whatsoever.

And wasn't that an X-Men catchphrase, anyway?

Right, well, Protectors was written by Brett Axel, a name that screams "I will play bass in a garage band until I'm thirty-eight," and drawn by Spencer Bernard, age 12. I'm not kidding. Spencer is Brett's wife's cousin. I'm not kidding. Spencer left the book to draw dragons full-time. I'm still not kidding.

I usually wouldn't bother slamming a book drawn by a kid, but Brett up there deserves a half-dozen GAFs and a SeeBelow all to himself; a frustrated writer ... painter .... poet ... AND musician. Plus his spelling is atrocious, and he sounds like a big dork. Not only did Brett visit his unfortunate comic book idea on the world at large, due to a proportional naivete on Spencer's part (Spence drew the books on 11x14 paper, rather than the 12x17 preferred by most cartoonists) Brett chose to give us a running editorial on the 'creative process' behind the Protectors, running along the bottom 1¾ inches of each (and every) page. Great. Here are some pearls of wisdom Brett visits upon our sorry heads:

"It began with a daydream adventure. That's the way my stories usually begin. I pick an adventure that sort of formulates in my mind and play it out. I was Randy, my wife Linda, my sister Gail was Gene, spelled masculine, by the way, because the character suits it" Haha. Of course, that is a joke; No one in this book HAS any character whatsoever.

The story, by the way, centers around Randy Pain, his wife Linda and Randy's psychic sister (part-time private detective Gene Pain). Gene's been hired to locate a missing girl - Donna Jacobs, not that knowing her name is at all important - and for no reason whatsoever uncovers a plot by a bejumpsuited, undersea spy organization to kidnap woman and crossdressers. Then Roxanne, a dart-throwing tomboy, joins up with the group, adds in one of the stupidest pop culture references I've ever seen with my own eyes, and plunges a dart into some guys sinuses. Then Terrance Stamp puts on a housedress and says he's the devil, and nobody gets off the boat alive, - did I mention that there was a boat? - and then I don't remember cause I've read this comic a dozen times and I STILL don't know what the hell is supposed to be happening.

More from Brett, regarding the editorial accompaniment:"My solution, after grave consideration, you are now reading. I said "Hey lets let the reader in on all the behind the scenes stuff. The embarrassing truths, that sort of thing. Nobody liked the idea." And yet. By the way, that excerpt is reproduced error for error, just to show us the quality of writer with which we are dealing.

And if you thought Protectors #1 was great ... and how could you ... here's some stuff Brett had planned for future issues, ideas which his peers deemed "too political, too controversial or too radical"

"The second issue showing another possible story to the Libian crisis, one which shows Ron Reagan in a most unattractive light was sure to bring the CIA down on me as a subversive ... 'glorifying drunk driving' ... criticizing the Hands Across America ... a spoof on the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles titled the Unborn Nuclear Wasted Punk Rock Fetuses ... (About four aborted fetuses flushed into Manhattans sewer which lived and grew older as a result of a nuclear waste dumping)"

No, like most every other Solson production, Protectors went one whole issue (other Solson books never even came out at all. Thank goodness). More about Solson, Solson publisher Gary Brodsky and Solson guilt-by-associate Rich Buckler in a later GAF. I'm just too tired now. Just ... tooo ... tired.

• Jean/Gene and her magic mood astrology psychic sea anemone
• This was the house ad for the second issue of the Protectors. Some issues:




1. Wow, with an ad like this, how could I RESIST?
2. Blood doesn't splatter like that. Paint and semen splatter like that. So make your own guesses as to what's going on here.
3. I see a horsie, and another horsie, and two birdies and a duck.


• The cover to issue one.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Three

"sfptzl glbsh."
"shlmp gtzl?"
"glx brzl."
"glxll brum bzgll
foogum wa wa bdangum spa
fon wokka wokka?"
"word."

---

Part Three: Also...A Werewolf!

For the completists among you, may I present what is (to the best of my knowledge) a complete listing of the entire Atlas comics line of mockery fodder:

The Barbarians, Blazing Battle Tales, The Brute, The Cougar, Demon Hunter, The Destructor, Devilina, Grim Ghost, Fright, (Featuring Son Of Dracula), Hands Of The Dragon, IronJaw, Midnight Madness, Morlock 2001, Phoenix (...The Protector), Planet of the Vampires, Police Action, Savage Combat Tales, The Scorpion, Tales of Evil, Targitt, Thrilling Adventure Stories, Tigerman, Vicki, Weird Suspense, Weird Tales of the Macabre, Western Adventures and
Wulf the Barbarian.

Many of these titles featured werewolves...

Tales of Evil

Atlas' premiere horrible ... er, "horror" book ran a whopping three issues. It started out its first issue as a sort of generic anthology title and then changed format slightly to become an anthology book which attempted to launch new characters. To wit:

Issue one starts off with a story about a possessed doll that forces a little girl to kill ... so you know Stephen King probably wrote it. ( I say, that's what you get for letting your child play with a little, velveteen man-goat). One of my personal faves from the Silver Age, Mike Sekowsky, then illustrates a story about a werewolf who must fight the evil forces of the Hair Club For Men (kinda, I ain't much kidding there) and ends up with a story about vampires that tries REALLY HARD to imitate an EC flavor.

Second issue introduces THE BOG BEAST, whose sobriquet kind of confuses the fact that he emerged from a tar pit. Although he's spotlighted on the cover messing up a bunch of Carnies, the only action he sees inside is watching two hippie revolutionaries get offed. That issue is followed up by ANOTHER EC-type story - this time, I swear artist Jerry Grandenetti is tracing Kriegstein panels - and ends with a story about ... a werewolf.

Third issue stars MAN-MONSTER, who is actually former Olympic swimming champion Paul Sanders (and who is, when we first meet him, "entertaining two beautifully-bikinied Women's Lib Magazine reporters! --- Unaware that he has a date with destiny --"). Paul swims through some gigantic "bacterial force" that comes outta nowhere, turns him red and scaly, and puts him on the kabuki-KISS frontman HELL-BLAZER's shit list. The end.

Bog Beast reappears in that issue as well. He meets a werewolf.

The Cougar
Here's a story I KNOW you've heard before: Handsome Hollywood stuntman lands a major role in a big-budget action movie, the movie bombs, stuntman keeps his costume and deicdes to fight vampires - oh, and the occasional Cajun werewolf - on the locations of major films worldwide.

The cover to this comic's first issue promotes it as "Hollywood stuntman turned Night Stalker," which is Atlas' way of saying "We combined Hooper with Kolchak!"

The premise of the book is pretty underdone: never parting with the costume he was meant to wear in his failed big budget debut (A choice which, in the real world, would mark you as a sad, out-of-touch loser suffering from pathetic delusions. In Atlas, that makes him a super-hero), the "Cougar" stumbles across supernatural menaces on the sets of the very films where he works as a stuntman.

Usually, studio insurance doesn't cover that.

Naturally, he encounters a ... say it with me ... WEREWOLF! Specifically, the werewolf is his long-lost, rebellious brother suffering from a bayou witch's curse. But still, a werewolf, Atlas did not let me down ...

Vicki

This was Atlas' shot at the Archie crowd, starring a gaggle of clueless, comical, girl-crazy teenagers and werewolves. Unfortunately, the comic lost much of its appeal when the characters from Fast Willie Jackson were bussed in as part of the school distrcit's anti-segregation policy.

Okay, as we did with Fast Willie, so shall we do with Vicki. Arch was replaced by Tommy Trippit, who I'm sure was quite a hit at his mid-70's high school for wearing sweater vests and slacks. Vicki is a little bit Betty, and a little bit Veronica, but not so much as the very Veronica-esque Peg (who sports two distinctly different hairstyles in the first issue). Midge is Go-Go and gets more air time, her Moose is the wisely renamed Animal, and Reggie got an even dorkier name as Ashley.

The werewolf's name is DogFace, and boy does he love chompin' down those triple-cheeseburgers at Doc's Ice Cream Parlor.

And I'm serious about those out-of-date fashions! Even the bikins were straight from 1958. They had these pin-up fashion pages with Vicki wearing Twiggy's hand-me-downs, a lot of polo shirts and v-neck sweaters, and the women wore bows in their hair. It's amazing to look at ... like the most unlikely time machine of all.

Devilina

No werewolves, but at least you get a mummy, a mermaid and a demoness. Oh, and titty.

One of Atlas' black-and-white magazines, and the hardest-to-find of all their books. I have little to say besides mentioning that the cover promises "Illustrated Stories Of Female-Filled Fantasies," which is what I thought Pay-Per-View was for.

*PS - I was kidding about DogFace. Honestly, people.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part Two

(a recorded transcript)

Bee-Man: (draws on cigarette) Is it ... I don't know where to start.

GAF: Wherever you feel comfortable. This is your story.

Bee-Man: (Pause) I don't even know what to think. I just thank the good Lord for freedom this day. (Pause) That's all. (Pause) It would be wrong of me to blame Bill. (Pause)

GAF: Take your time.

Bee-Man: (cigarette) I guess ... It's ... We're in Mexico, and Alan,
Bill's flying super high, and I know he's spiked the heroin, only what do you spike heroin with, you know? (laughs, Pause) So, I remember he was pointing the gun at me, and I was laughing and crying all at once, and he told me he ... uh ... he said, well, he said he had a hard-on ... (Pause) I wanted to be back in Ohio (Pause) so bad ...

GAF: How did you get to the army base?

Bee-Man: Uh (Pause) I don't remember. All I know is, that afternoon I'm in New Mexico in my bee costume, and I've picked up a gigantic swarm of mutant bugs, and I'm hovering over the Army base laughing and I'm ... um, I'm yelling over and over "We double-dare you to resist the attacking bees!"

GAF: (Pause) And how many years did you...

Bee-Man: Thirty-five years in Federal prison. I don't even know what they did with my mutant bee horde.

If you were to line up Atlas's array of talent, you'd have the start of one great comic book company. And yet, when all was said, done, and thrown into the ten cent bins, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that something went horribly wrong.

Most likely, it was the editor. More often than not, we here at G&F tend to rake the artists and writers over the coals when the editor is at least AS culpable for a crummy book - if not, sometimes, moreso…(likewise, an editor can often be the saving grace of a sub-par book, but that's more for a webzine dedicated to GOOD comics … and we haven't seen one of
those here in a lo-o-o-o-ong time)

Atlas editor Larry Lieber obviously lacked the innovative spark of his brother Stan Lee, whose guiding hand shines like a divine light on those early Marvel super-heroes. Larry's mitt clumsily tumbles like a balloon full of mud. Whatever lessons Larry learned in his many years in the comics industry, it's apparent that the prime three directives were "Pander, Thieve, and Hasten."

Does that seem mean? It might just be that I recognize Lieber as the first editor-in-chief/comic book bigwig in my lifetime to actually run a company on so shady a principle. Nowadays, of course, it's standard practice, and you can't throw a rock at Previews without hitting a half-dozen like-minded young publishers.

I'm sure he's a nice man. He's a decent writer. It's just that he was a terrible editor.

Oh, but speaking of the words "terrible" and "writer" in the same sentence, I bring you three of Atlas' more legendary titles, all from the pen of Michael (Hex, Haywire) Fleisher:

IronJaw was apparently Atlas' flagship character, and the predominant hero of their Barbarian vein (which adroitly tapped into America's growing fascination with half-naked, unwashed longhair illiterates).

IronJaw was set in a distant, post-apocalyptic future where man had reverted to barbarism and where the few, remaining machines were regarded as spooky, ooky, mystical god creatures. In the beginning of his dynamic-as-hell origin story (actually the fourth issue, which was written not by Fleisher but Gary Friedrich), IronJaw is a young, handsome, steroid-popping musician who pals around with the local barbarian horde. The horde's CEO, upset that all of the horde's chicks keep hanging around the musician (isn't that always the way?) mugs him, crucifies him to a tree and cuts his jaw off (Isn't that
always the way, too?)

IronJaw - or, at this point, AbsentJaw - is found by a hideous old witch who binds his traumatic wounds and, by way of healing him, GRAFTS A HIDEOUS KNIFE-TOOTHED JAW to his HEAD! Thanks ma'am!

So IronJaw responds the only way he could be expected to: He dies from shock.

No no, not really. Actually, he becomes a wandering cutthroat and warrior, selling his strong sword-arm for profit and demeaning all those whom he meets. Holding everyone "weaker" than he in scorn, IronJaw muses on the infirmities of age ("Your father was too old … that is why he died running as a coward dies."), royalty ("To be a king is to be a toothless old woman!")
and, of course, women.

After all, having had every kindness in his life shown to him by women, the newly christened IronJaw naturally becomes … a misogynist! Yes, because Michael Fleisher is at the writing helm, all women are stupid, pliable or evil. To wit:

"The fighter dies young who heeds the counsel of women." … "…you are a woman, and so you will tell, because women are unable to keep silent!" … "The women in this god-forsaken kingdom are the same as women everywhere!
First they offer themselves to you on a platter, and then they … what's this?" (This last one he muses upon after attempting to rape his own sister).

The final page text feature - "The World Of IronJaw" - explains it thus: "IronJaw, unlike most other comic book characters, is a real human being. What he thinks, what he says, how he reacts are all gauged by what Mike feels a real man, placed in that same situation, would do."

Which means, in a post-apocalyptic world, former musicians with crippling deformities would naturally be muscle-flexing, woman-hating, thick-headed buffoons.

In a Conan vein, IronJaw becomes King of a prosperous land, only to abandon the crown because he disdains the life of luxury and ease. After all, that's what a real individual would do living in an apocalyptic wasteland where food is scarce, enemies are plentiful and one must kill or be killed to survive. Comfort, safety, food, shelter - pfah!

Sort of loosely based on the Hulk, and also loosely based on "Frankenstein Conquers the World," and "Trog," the Brute is a 12-foot tall (or taller, or shorter, he's up and down the height charts faster than a whore's drawers), cerulean blue neanderthal
monster unearthed from a glacier in some part of the world where primitive man was 12 foot tall and cerulean blue.

In the Joan Crawford role was a bleeding heart anthropologist Dr. Ann Foster, whose ceaseless pursuit of scientific advancement results in the Brute running rampage and killing people by the carloads. Way to go, science! In the role of "Who the hell
cares" was Ann's supposed love interest, a sheriff who violates jurisdiction in darn near each and every panel of the book.

Like IronJaw, The Brute's first couple issues were drawn by Justice League great Mike Sekowsky - much to the distaste of Atlas' obviously discerning fanbase. In a change heralded by a lettercol full of negative reviews for Sekowsky's work, Pablo Marcos takes over the art chores - just as he did in IronJaw, much to the same refrain.

And also as in IronJaw, Gary Friedrich takes over the writing chores for the final issue of the Brute, an issue which introduces a supervillainous foil for the simple, savage, lumbering, murderous manchild that we've come to know and love as - the Brute.

Finally, there's the Grim Ghost. In a plot which ought to seem naggingly familiar to Spawn fans, Colonial highwayman Matthew Dunisane is recruited by Satan his-own-bad-self to be a recruiter of souls for Hell's Army. With Beelzebub no longer willing to wait the extended lifespan of late-Twentieth Century man for the delivery of corrupt souls, the Grim Ghost's job is to find criminals, ne'er-do-wells and --- I dunno, hobos - and send them to a fiery demise.

The book boasted art by Ernie Colon and, in its third issue, story by Tony Isabella. The third issue also tried to introduce a little sex appeal in the character of Lady Sarah Braddock, assigned by Satan to be Dunisane's accomplice and - by hellish irony, Buh-WA-HAHAHAHAHA - the very woman whose betrayal in life led Dunisane to the gallows.

The Grim Ghost does win some points for me in being one of the more innovative concepts from Atlas, although it grew tiresome quickly as Dunisane endured as a back alley vigilante whose only unique quality was his moralizing brutality. Besides, Fleisher was writing an essentially identical story over in The Tarantula. I would've liked to see this character developed, the landscape of hell expanded upon and the moral implications of a murderer murdering murderers employed more expansively but, as the Grim Ghost himself says in the final moments of his last issue "It must be terrible to want one thing so very much…"

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.

---

• "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 to sing Christmas Carols with the other hobos. Or, actually, he probably wasn't able to, since I don't think there were more than three voice actors doing this whole record. You could barely afford to have someone interrupt ...

The berserk-ass foley continues to meet my highest expectations. I sincerely wish I had the room to post this whole fourteen minute adventure, as some of this should not be missed - the sound the Batarang makes as it whizzes in midair - that being a sound not unlike slide whistles in a washing machine - or all the hobos' endless Christmas Caroling - ACTION PACKED! At the very least, I can share this much with you - Batman and Robin getting around Gotham via tap-dancing bat-ponies. Sorry Madam!

This all ends with Wonder Woman in "The Prisoner Of Christmas Island." This is probably the least of all three stories, cause whereas Batman's was sort of disturbing and insane and Superman's story was just flat-out retarded, Wonder Woman's story is only sort of obtuse.

Or hey, maybe it's me, I never quite 'got' Wonder Woman anyway. I mean, most other superheroes have a theme by which they abide, you know, Superman is 'Super,' Batman has a bat costume and bat-themed gadgets, Spider-Man has spider powers and Captain America is all about America, and so on. But with Wonder Woman, she's a little harder to define. Right off the bat, she's a patriotic polytheist from Sorority Island, not to mention being a D-Cup golem with a golden bikechain which makes you tell the truth, and who splits her free time between chucking bullets off her wristwatch and talking telepathically to her imaginary airplane. Danant danant dant danant!! WONDERRR WOMAAAAN!

Wonder, indeed.


Thanks to that sound clip and years of idle internet surfing, this is pretty much what Wonder Woman looks like to me, in my mind.

Still, I don't think it's me. Dig this: Wonder Woman's story begins with an Ex-Nazi quisling kidnapping Santa Claus from his North Pole toystore on the orders of the legendary Valkyrie, Brunnhilde. This is a devious plan of the war god Ares, who is introduced to us while arguing with Aphrodite. Meanwhile on Earth, the President enlists Wonder Woman to save Christmas while news agencies around the world report of Santa Claus' sudden absence and orphans cry themselves to sleep at the prospect of a Christmasless winter. So, it's up to our heroine to return the jolly old elf in time to make his yuletide rounds or else the Third Reich rises again, and JUMPING JESUS ORANGUTAN, PEOPLE!! Confusing or not, all I know is that's a lot of myths, archetypes and cliches to pack into a fifteen minute adventure!!

At least they talk pretty in this one. Either that, or the narrator is practicing his sibilants.

Naturally, Wonder Woman comes out on top in this adventure - keep the dirty joke to yourself, friends. Nonetheless, her victory is amazing to me. Sure, in the comic book world, most supervillains may be Downsies, but even the greatest superhero has a greater-than-even chance of being a total 'Tard. Take, for instance, Wonder Woman's musings on geography. I think she means it figuratively. Or, in any case, I can't help but find the way she says this ... oddly arousing. If I start writing erotic fanfic, please stab me in the eye with an icepick, please. Thanks.

Not to be left out, Wonder Woman also gets saddled with profoundly puzzling foley. Specifically, she's off to go cheer up the orphans - presumably by eating a straw hat. And that's what Christmas means to me, CRONCH CRONCH!

---

Transcriptions of the audio files ....

• ... this excitable fella from the Pacific Northwest ...
  Jimmy Olsen: I'm Jimmy Olsen, WGBS TV, can I talk to you for a minute?
  Man: Sure.
  Jimmy Olsen: How do you like Washington?
  Man: GREAT!
  Jimmy Olsen: What do you think of that tree up there?
  Man: FANTASTIC! I'M FROM OREGON!
  
• ... dashes across the quad in his brand new cordurouy pants. ...
  Superman: Did you see where he went?
  Man: Last we saw, he went over to that van over there.
  Superman: Oh, the WGBS Mobile Unit. Thanks. (SFX: Cordurouy pants on the move!)
  
• ... ONE AFTER THE OTHER!! ...
  (Phone rings)
  Batman: I'll get it. Hello?
  Voice: Hello. Is this Batman?
  Batman: Yes.
  Voice: I have a singing telegram for ya!
  Batman: How nice, sing away!
  
• ... Rodney The Red Nosed Hitman ...
  (SFX: Bullet ricocheting)
  Batman: Nyah, missed again Rodney! Ready or not, here I come!
  
• ... explain, ...
  Robin: Don't you think it would be better to go the rest of the way by Batmobile?
  Batman: Oh, I don't think so. With Rudy in jail, we shouldn't have any more trouble. Aaaand it's such a nice, clear night for walking. (Singing and apparently tap dancing) Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, da da da da deee, doooo...
  
• ... tap-dancing bat-ponies. ...
  Batman: Now!
  (SFX: Tap dancing ponies kicking up a storm)
  Batman: GOTCHA!
  Old Lady: AAAAAAH!
  Batman: Oh, I'm so sorry madam ...
• ... talk pretty ...
  Narrator: And like a grey-black ghost, her massive engines purring softly in the murky depths, the powerful sub sails silently South with its precious cargo ...
  
• ... Wonder Woman's musings on geography. ...
  Wonder Woman: The ocean is so large and that island so small!
  
• ... eating a straw hat. ...
  Wonder Woman: I'll do my best to cheer them up. (SFX Crunching taps...)

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Fun & Games

Presenting another brief mini-GAF filler piece, originally appearing in your Humble Editor's off-site online journal for the amusement of whatever thirty or forty trained monkeys who've been hooked up to university computers have managed to access by picking corn pellets out of a chute. I bring you ...

Fun & Games! This is a Marvel Comics product released in 1979, and which not only (A) was a constant distraction and a part of my allowance-eating hobby at age eight, but (B) fills an important hole in my "First Issues of the 1970s" collection (Beowulf: Dragon Slayer, Starfire, Ms.Marvel and Hanna-Barbera Presents Scooby's Laff-A-Lympics welcome you!) and (C) I just recently found at my fave local comic shop, Charlie's.

As an aside, Charlie's business card and sign have this sort of austere, antiseptic-future style logo, with his face in the middle of the O in Comics. This bothers me, because when I say "Charlie's," I want it written in swoopy Cheers-like font, evoking the notion of a neighborhood hangout, where the beer is always cold, the music hot, and the twenty-five cent bin not kept on the floor so that my knees hurt when I rifle through it.

And speaking of typography, lookit that lowercase "a" in "and." That is a goddamn designer's nightmare, that's the kind of thing that you mean to fix before production, but you sort of forget until early the day the presses are running, and you wake up scared to death that you forgot to paste the correction over the damn thing, and then you write it off as being just your proclivity to worry, but then you see the cover and OH SHIT THEY REALLY USED THAT HORRIBLE LOWERCASE 'A!' And then you get fired.

Anyway, the magazine's aimed at the lesser intellect of your average juvenile comic reader, i.e. me in 1979. Or now, possibly. Most of the puzzles had to do with trivia brain teasers like "Match the secret identity to the Super-Hero" or "We've mixed up the costumes of fifteen Defenders! Can you tell which costume part comes from which hero?" and even I'd get lost, except that the guy would have Dr.Strange's cloak AND Nighthawk's wings and one of the Hulk's feet.

As an aside, there's a two-page spread in this first issue littered with ugly-ass pieces of typically poorly-designed Marvel super-hero costume accroutement, with instructions to cut them out and paste them to pieces of construction paper, then cut them out again and assemble them on a generic figure in long underwear in order to make your OWN Marvel Superhero! Who wantsta Shockwave code that thing once I get all the disparate pieces scanned in?

Personally, I'm surprised anyone could keep their quiz-taking cool when confronted by the ghostly, splotchy spectre of Stan Lee's grinning maw greeting them in garish, muddied yellow right on the splash panel. Jesus Christ, Stan!

Nu-u-u-u-u-uff Sa-a-a-a-aid!

Outside of the trivia questions, F.a.G (hahaha) also marshalled up a few word finds, crosswords, what's-different-in-this-picture pages (which was always difficult, because Marvel's then-sloppy on-newsprint printing process blurred so many of their pages to the point of unreadability - in fact, that was why I liked Daredevil, I think, cause I got the FEEL of being blind!) and some other traditional brain teasers and time wasters. And inside the trivia questions, it's too dark to read.

I used to subscribe to GAMES magazine, and I'll tell you, I feel I could sit through some of the world's most frustrating puzzlers without a problem. I'[m not sure how I ever found myself with the time to find the 34 iterations of "HULK" in this four-way-mini-wordfind. FINDING ONE SHOULD BE ENOUGH! Also, the real challenge should be finding how often KHULUH appears in this thing, for the cheap Lovecraftian giggle ... here, try for yourself.

I have GOT to get all of these things scanned ... and then we can form a league. And then, later, kill ourselves as retribution for wasting so much time in drawing lines through mazes made up of Dazzler's costume sequins or Nightcrawler's ass-fur or whatever. MAKE MINE MARVEL!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Atlas Comics Part One

"This is Gone and Forgotten. I'm KillJoy. I'm your host for
this edition, and I got words for those of you who think Steve Ditko is an
unmitigated genius..."

"Yeah, I was the lead in a Steve Ditko-created backup to Charlton Comics'
E-Man#2, eight pages that seemed to go on for months. The only real consolation
is that I'm not as purely terrible as Liberty Belle."

"This is the first time I've ever actually spoken in print; not that I didn't have any lines in the story, I just couldn't bring myself to read 'em. It was always 'Society has laws,' or 'Crumbs like you think that society owes you..." and then fifteen pages of dialogue from The Fountainhead. I just clammed up and let the poor saps in my Rogue's Gallery take the brunt."

"Oh, those sad dopes: Jungle Jake, Robber Hood, the Flame ... none of 'em ever worked again. Last I heard, Jungle Jake was posing for 'wrestling magazines,' if you know what I mean."

"The gimmick of the book was that the bad guys'd just sit there and cry and weep that society owed them the right to rob people, and I'd buck wild on 'em, and then they'd go to jail. Kinda like Christian Slater, I suppose. Also, there was this idiotic subplot about my secret identity, coz I was supposed to be one of three men: Jud Lah, lawyer, Al Ace, counter intelligence, and the other guy. Like I'd admit to answering to ANY of those names. Gah. Steve Ditko."

"Ah well, who's gonna tell Steve Ditko that we don't NEED another objectivist super-hero, huh? Not me, I got a lucrative second-career selling custom-fitted theatre lighting. It's a hell of a business opportunity. Anyway, let's get on with this month's feature..."

Part One: My Brother, My Enemy

Atlas Comics, ah Atlas - famed predecessor to Marvel, home of Steve Ditko, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, bringer of such wonderful horror, fantasy and monster comics --- oh, wait, we're not talking about THAT Atlas Comics! We're talking about the crummy, derivative comics produced in the mid-1970's by none other than Stan Lee's brother, Larry Lieber.

And BOY, did Larry not us forget it. In his scant few editorials - the entire Atlas line, of course, barely ran four months in 1975 - Larry mentions his admittedly significant contributions to Marvel's history and his connection to his famous brother .... well, we'll say "more than once."

Larry's long history with Marvel (he was a scripter on the first Thor, Iron Man and Ant-Man stories, among others, as well as long-time artist on the daily Spider-Man newspaper strip) gave him some important connections in the mid-70's comic book world . Besides a passel of top-flight artists and writers (Berni Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Larry Hama and more more more), Larry established a professional relationship with Martin Goodman, original publisher and principal financial support for Marvel Comics, back in the day. Martin's son Chip continued their relationship by setting up Larry in the editor's chair for Atlas' ambitious 24-title launch in 1975.

So the brother of a great editor, financed by the son of a great publisher, proceeded to work with the illegitimate children of famous artists and writers to create a bastardized legacy of comics ... well, no, I made that last bit up. But they DID try to launch a line of comics intended to challenge Marvel and DC's dominance (mostly Marvel) in the comic publishing world, and hopefully strike lightning twice by creating a second wave of the great "Marvel Age of Comics."

And more about how they did later ... hey folks, I'm gonna get at least a half dozen articles out of the wonders of Atlas before I'm through! I have to spread the wealth of information out over multiple entries! But if you'd like something to chew on, consider this - by the time I've covered all of Atlas's 24 books, the combined articles about Atlas will have outlasted the company itself by threefold.

Sad.

JOHN TARGITT - MANSTALKER

Atlas was largely unabashed about admitting to its ... I was going to try and find a polite euphemism for it, but the word I'd be looking for is "aping" ... aping of other sources for it's material. In fact, in Targitt's own letter column, Lieber says "...comics and cinema are closely related art forms. For years, comics have borrowed cinematic film techniques, and vice versa. Now ATLAS has carried the relationship a step further, by employing cinematic ideas for the comic medium."

What he means to say is "We crammed BULLITT and DEATH WISH into one comic!"

Targitt is John Targitt, a New York police detective whose wife and kids are brutally killed at the hands of the mob. Targitt decides to take the law into his own hands and visits bloody justice on his family's killers. And thus, a superhero is born, right? Well --- NO!

John Targitt started off as a cop-thriller (Atlas covered all its bases by having at least one comic for every popular genre of the day) and despite what you see in these pictures, Targitt didn't don a super-hero costume until his second issue (featured here on the cover to his third issue), when the previous concept was trashed and the book was turned into a super-hero drama -- now called John Targitt ... Man-Stalker!

This was the "Third Issue Switch," a metamorphosis that affected fully half of Atlas' books (either around issue two or three). Lacking the strong editorial guidance his brother had provided to Marvel, Lieber met flagging Atlas sales with a sudden decision to effect sweeping cosmetic and thematic changes to all existing characters. Targitt was luckier than most, as many character were wholly unrecognizable after the wait between second and third issues -- at least some of the plot strings continued after the genre was abandoned.

Overall, the book was a tragic mishmosh of vigilante cliches, started by writer Ric Ayers and then taken over by Gerry Conway in a story that poorly represented his talents. Art was provided by the very capable Nostrand, reaching for a style that was strangely cartoony considering the subject matter.

All that said, though, I have to admit a shred of affection for a hero who will - without skipping a beat - empty eleven shots from a .357 magnum at point blank range --- into a stubborn doorknob.

I like chicks, boss.

Weird Suspense featuring The Tarantula

Michael Fleischer rears his ugly head over and over again in the credit boxes over at Atlas, not least of which for this book.

The Tarantula, a morbid, grim, stiff story featuring the Count Eugene Lycosa (who looks not a little like Eugene LEVY), a European blue-blood whose family line has been cursed by the evil witch ... um ... Rak-Kosa, I think ... it failed to make an impression ... and now, under the full moon, become some kind of man-tarantula creature.

To feed his inhuman tastes, the Count wanders the seedy streets of America (he's abandoned his native where-ever-the-heck-he's-from) , cornering thieves and murderers and ex-sanguinating them in scenes which possess all the drama of a Berenstein Bears book.

If you're not familiar with Michael Fleischer, he's most famous for being engaged in a high-profile lawsuit with Harlan Ellison, and for not much else. He DID write The Great Superman Book, a compendium of the Superman mythos (a dry, technical tome which holds interests to only the most die-hard of fans ... such as myself, for instance), and assorted comics here and there.

Fleischer was assisted on this book by the underrated Pat Boyette, whose very competent compositions sadly lent little to the book. In fact, I have to wonder who was behind this decision: When Lycosa transforms into the Tarantula, his head and hands are visibly affected, but he continues to wear his fashionable sky-blue Nehru jacket and brown loafers. "What kind of Man-Tarantula reads Playboy?"

On a side-note, what exactly constitutes "Weird Suspense?" "One of these fish is responsible for teaching the hats to sing! But whi-i-i-ich one ... ?" Weird, indeed.

Yep, agile as a cat ...

The DESTRUCTOR

Aaargh, Steve Ditko!

Yes, yes, I know he's responsible for Shade, Dr.Strange, Spider-Man, Creeper, Hawk and Dove, Blue Beetle and the Question ... and I just don't care. For every brilliant character he's created, he's got fifteen of these hyperactive, double-jointed fashion victims bounding around.

I think it was Archie Goodwin who scripted these stories, and - like others working for Atlas - he was working well below his capabilities. Jay Hunter - the former street thug and son of a famous scientist who eventually becomes the Destructor by drinking a super-scientific serum *whew* - actually starts his career with the a terrible line which begins something like "(I'll be) a smasher, a destroyer ... SOME KIND OF DESTRUCTOR."

Destructor? He didn't like "Destroyer?" I don't know about you, but outside of talking about this comic I've never actually used the word "destructor" in any fashion, nor would I want to.

Destructor is largely cut from the Daredevil mold of heroes - besides his tremendous strength and agility, he has heightened senses and heals remarkably quickly from even fatal wounds. In his fourth issue, possibly due to a near-miss with a "third-issue switch," he gets exposed to some kind of radiation that gives him the power to shoot destructive beams from his hands.

This ranks the Destructor in with a very select group of super-heroes who have had TWO origins. Not that it made him any better.

One of the last things that sticks with me about the Destructor is a pair of villains he fought in his third issue; a man-hating animal trainer named The Huntress, and a bare-chested beast-man named Lobo ... who had amorous intentions towards Huntress. Destructor offs the pair of them at the end of that issue, so it never gets developed or resolved, but I thought it was a charming dynamic to add to the story.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Fast Willie Jackson

Kick it to the curb, Willie Jackson style!

Can you dig it? They're COOL, BAD, FAST and TOGETHER! They're the BROTHERS
and SISTERS of MOCITY U.S.A! Yeah, that Fast Willie Jackson is One Bad ----

Just talking about Fast Willie Jackson, this funkadelic, happenin', Archie-ripoff
what came out of Fitzgerald Publications (who?) back in swinging 1976. Word.

Ah yes, and as an Archie rip-off, it had to have the ubiquitous cast of
characters. Assuming the role of the good-natured, slightly lazy, all-American
kid is Fast Willie himself. Taking up the Jughead mantle is JoJo, and Moose
has been replaced by a big, dumb man of color name'a Hannibal! Dee Dee Wilson
is their Veronica - there were not enough pages in one ish to introduce a
Betty, but enough to have TWO "villainous" foils: slick playa and tricked
out sugar daddy Frankie Johnson, and black militant Jabar (Always seen holding
a protest placard and working himself into a sweaty fervor). Adoringly, Pop
was replaced by a Puerto Rican named Jose Martinez. Just about all of the
figures of adult authority, so essential to the elements of an Archie book,
are represented by Officer Flagg, a buffoonish, brick jawed, thick necked
honky policeman (only whiteboy in the whole book, by the way) described in
the Dramatis Personae as "The Man.

I suppose I should get a brief kudos for Fast Willie and Fitzgerald Publishing
out of the way first - an apparent inhouse ad in the book offered a series
of historical magazines entitled Golden Legacy, offered under the heading
"Want To Learn More About Black History?" and prominently featuring a volume
dedicated to the Black Cowboys. The magazines advertised an illustrated
(read:comic book) history of African-Americans, including notable events
which have only gained truly national attention in the last few years (i.e.
Amistad, the aforementioned black cowboys, etc) and several others which,
sadly, are still overlooked in the American consciousness.

But enough of that, cause School Daze this ain't! Besides the essential crimes
of being uninteresting, unoriginal and unfunny, FWJ steeps into tastelessness
with both hands on several occasions. Among my favorite moments include:

• Willie's entire crowd overjoyed at the prospect of having five dollars.
  (Says Hannibal "Hey, Jo-Jo! Willie has a five dollar bill!" Replies Jo-Jo,
  "Cool, man! Er--What's a five dollar bill?")
  
• A not-so-subtle pimp-ho joke going on between Frankie and Dee Dee; It's
  Dee Dee's birthday and, to celebrate, she's giving all her presents to Frankie,
  and fawning all over him. To return the favor, Frankie takes her gifts and
  affection, then heads out the door telling Dee Dee that he's off to go do
  the same thing with another (of his) woman.
  
• The angry young black man (Jabar), while certainly not a shining example
  of young Black malehood (what with his rabid ranting) is a buffoon character
  really for no other reason than his afro-centricism.

I don't even know how to categorize this book; nice try or naive opportunism? Good intentions or shameless grubbing? All I know for sure is that the folks at Fitzgerald weren't really EVIL --- they were just JIVE....

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Adventures of Jimmy Olsen Vol.2

So, a few weeks back I picked up my copy of Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen Vol 2 - a fantastic book, hands down, for fans of the King of Comics. Jimmy Olsen is possibly my favorite of Kirby's Fourth World books, if just because the imagination behind it was absolutely unbridled, plus it's got that irascible Newsboy Legion tied up in the mix, an they're my fav'rits.

Anywez, with all that said, there's really nothing in here that matches the peak of the Volume One saga, which had to be where Don Rickle's goody two-shoes identical twin popped up in the middle of the debut of Darkseid and the war between New Genesis and Apokolips. The start-off story of this volume, tho, beats all your asses with a stick. To wit:

Jimmy and Clark Kent find themselfs embroiled in the machinations of Count Dragorin, a pasty-faced wampyr who's on a quest for the renegade genius of genetic thinktank Project Cadmus, the mad scientist Dabney Donovan. In tow of the chalk-white Count is a movie-molded wolfman and a passel of like-likenessed famous monsters of filmland.

Their story? Well, dig this: Dabney Donovan is obsessed with creating artificial life. In a fit of questionable pique, Donovan creates Dragorin and all the other residents of their homeworld, Transilvane. Their homeworld, you may ask? Donovan has his own planet on which to make life?

Why yes, yes he does. It's in his basement.

Take THAT, Grant Morrison and your johnny-come-lately The Filth! Kirby has Donovan creating a miniature planet, populated by microscopic lifeforms consisting of an "atomic liquid" structure which casts itself into finalized forms - in this case, movie monsters - sheerly by the persistent use of visual stimuli and suggestion. Donovan ensures that his bacteria-sized beings turn into Universal theme park characters by showing non-stop monster movies against the atmosphere of Transilvane, via those floating movie projectors you're seeing in the picture up there.

To summarize: Amorphic subatomic artificial beings were turned into B-Movie monster clones by a mad scientist who showed late night horror flicks into the upper atmosphere of their schoolbus-sized home planet, accessible by the door at the back of the kitchen. Oh, and I forgot, they transport themselves to the exterior world by special space-travelling size-changing coffins.

Superman gets involved by saving the Transilvane-ites from Donovan's "Demon Dog," a pesticide-spewing robot gargoyle scheduled to spit death on the tiny creatures of Transilvane at the hour of midnight. I know, how could I NOT get a scan of that? I guess I'M the REAL monster here ...

Superman, natch, saves them, but both he and Jimmy muse upon the injustice of the Transvilane-ites tiny, ghastly, cinema verite (ho ho). Superman, of cuss, has a plan, and that plan is to show a new movie into the atmosphere of the planet, resulting in ...

...CREATING A TINY PLANET FULL OF HIGH-STEPPING, ALL-SINGIN', ALL-DANCIN', ROOTIN'-TOOTIN' COWPOKE MONSTERS!!!! Holy shit, AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY ENDS!!!

Man, so, Transilvahoma. How you can read comics and not love the hell out of Jack Kirby, I'll never understand.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Amazing Moments Gleaned From One of the 100-Pg mid-70's DC Comics: Part 1

Amazing Moments Gleaned From One of the 100-Pg mid-70's DC Comics: Part 1

Shazam #16

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Oh, Good Christ, It's The Power Pachyderms!

Raaaaargh, I am ICEBERG HEAD, and let me show you a little icebreaker I know of. Ho ho, ho ho.

\

No, seriously folks, it's great to be here tonight ... shoving my ghastly and stretched out mug abruptly through the greenish ice of this frozen lake or whatever. Greenish ice? Don't the folks around here dispose of their antifreeze in the proper recycle facilities?

Anyway, my life's been pretty quiet since I last surfaced ... ha ha ... to force Mera and Aqualad to give me tasty Hostess snack cakes. And you know what? THEY DID! You can pretty much force Mera and Aqualad to do ANYthing, cause what're they gonna do to you, spit? Splash? Screw
'em, I wanted pastries and they didn't have a thing to say about it.

Tonight, I bring you a much-belated edition of Gone&Forgotten featuring big elephant superhero idiots! Here's a scientific fact, 'pachyderm' means 'thick-skinned.' Here's another one, "Iceberg Head' means 'has the head of an iceberg.' And 'hack comedy piece' means pretty
much what it sounds like ..."

Comic books, despite what the name implies, are just not funny.

My UNDENIABLE evidence of this is "POWER PACHYDERMS," a 1989 Marvel
one-shot, coming to us discourtesy of writer Roger Stern and artists Adam Blaustein and Jon D'Agostino (Gotta love that Dag!) ... oh, and Tom Defalco had a hand in creating the concept, so kill yourselves now if you'd like to be spared his venomous touch.

Each time Marvel attempts a humor comic, it becomes harder and harder to remember that this was the same company which produced "Not Brand Ecch." Since the days of Charlie America and Spidey-Man, sadly, Marvel's taken a downturn in the humor department. A handful of What Th-!? stories have managed to keep pace, but for the most part, Marvel's humor comics (and hell, most self-referential comic book parody in general) have been sad, sad, SAD amalgams of context-free pop culture references, poorly executed sight gags with origins at the turn of the century, and self-aware jokes which not only break the fourth wall, they stumble through it drunkenly and spill red wine on your carpet before scratching your car on the way out of the driveway. At least Mad Magazine could throw in some useful Yiddish when the formula started getting old, SCHMUCK! DRECK!

The story dribbles over the pages like so: We open on a circus train, wherein the car holding the troupe's elephants falls off the train and rolls down a neglected side-track. Their detour takes them straight through a gamma bomb test site and a completely unconvincing 'comedic' revamp of the Hulk's origins, and two panels later, the elephants on the train give birth to MUTANT
SUPER ELEPHANTS. This takes us up to the end of page three and the better part of the origin, and so far, NOTHING funny has happened ... which is a theme with this book.

The elephants grow into super hero parallels to Colossus, Cyclops, Elektra and Wolverine - and why these four? I have no idea. I'm already asking for a lot given that the name of the book APPEARS to be a spoof of "POWER PACK," but that there are no Power Pack elements anywhere in the comic ... I guess making it a stilted, unfunny parody of one of the most popular X-Men and two of the oft-neglected background characters AND ALSO of a Daredevil character cast through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lens MUST MAKE SENSE! Mostly to Tom DeFalco, curse his soul.

Fast forwarding through a painful routine where the Pachyderms meet up with martial arts monk versions of the Three Stooges (well, four of them as Curly and Shemp co-exist. And as we all know, basic Physics tells us that if Shemp and Curly were to simultaneously co-exist in the same space, the resultant explosion would destroy all life on Joe Besser) where we’re treated to not one, not TWO, but THREE separate “We’re reading from the script” gags! Yes, not funny the first time, let’s give it two more shots and see what happens.

Past that, the team assembles, forms a crime-fighting organization with their headquarters well established in the middle of a harbor on a dilapidated boat, and go through a series of personal interactions that mock the ever-popular ‘angsty team dynamic’ of the day. Actually, parodying the angsty team dynamic was ALSO a common phenomenon of the day, but did we get parodies of that? No. Thank goodness.

At this point, I still haven’t found a joke in the entire book, despite the fact that the Wolverine character - Rumbo, by the way , L O L - keeps breaking kayfabe by telling the readers that the characters are fully aware of being in a comic, oh the high hilarity of it. We’ve also been through
a half-dozen swipes from ‘famous’ comic scenes at this point, mostly from Frank Miller’s Elektra and Wolverine stuff. Now, I’m actually admitting there MIGHT’VE been some jokes in there, but I have to confess that my taste for humor was absolutely murdered dead a few pages into the book … because they KEPT PUTTING THE LADY ELEPHANT INTO SEXY POSES!
Fucking AAAAH!

Seriously, a peach-colored anthropomorphic elephant WITH TITS strutting sexy over the joint or hopping around naked in the shower … I’m not going to go as far as to say it’s put me off sex forever, but at the very least it’s put me further off of sex with anthropomorphic elephants than I've ever been before. For the time being anyway, winky face, LOL, a/s/l. type ‘1’ if
you like Limp Bizkit.

Now here’s where the book goes wonky, and I sure as hell know what I just said, but I stand by it. The team gets on the case of Clarinetto, leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Musicians and a neo-Nazi, for some damn reason. Apparently feeling they’d drained every bit of life out of the already dead super-hero parody, your creative team turns to POP SINGERS for further so-called lampooning, as the Pachyderms fight weakly-represented clones of Prince, Cyndi Lauper, The Bruce, Willie Nelson and Madonna. And hey, goddamnit, Willie’s been through enough lately, let the man rest.

Even as I’m trying to figure out the POINT of the damn celebrity spoof - what are they trying to SAY here, why THESE singers - the book throws me another curveball as Electralux - did I mention that’s the terribly clever pseudonym for the lady Elektra Elephant? Cyclops’ analog is called Trunklops, so count your lucky stars Electralux - falls into a vat of radioactive MAKE-UP!

Yes, radioactive make-up, in the basement of a Musical Academy … OF EVIL!

So, at this point I kill myself, which is why I miss it when Elctralux becomes ROGUE ELEPHANT, a crap Dark Phoenix gag enhanced by singing snippets of ‘women power’ songs, and then the team decide to beat up the Three Stooges and take their places as all-wise Martial Arts masters, and Rumbo does another fucking self-aware gag about being in a comic. I miss all of that.

I’d love to wrap this one up in a quick summary of sheer derision, but I’m dead, remember? Power Pachyderms did what Kitty Pryde and Wolverine couldn’t. Congratulations, and MAKE MINE MARVEL!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Daredevil vs Vapora

DAREDEVIL VS VAPORA - RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE WITH THE FUME OF DOOM!

I have decided that the double-D on Daredevil's chest must stand for DISCO INFERNO, except without the “Disco” part and I don't know what the second D means. This is not my finest hour, as far as the association of meaning to initials goes. And to think, I once took State.

"I have a NAME, Daredevil. It's Henry."

Going all-ll-ll the way back to 1996, we join scripter Mindy Newell, artists Mike Harris and Don Judson, super-hero Daredevil and football fields worth of burning children in a PSA comic brought to us by the caring individuals at the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association (with a little boost from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CAN I GET A HELL YEAH FOR MY DAWGS AT THE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION?! COME ON, PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!).

This book touts ol' Hornhead* facing off against one of those 'embodiments of evil' with which I'm so chronically unimpressed. Making it even worse for her PR agent, the villainess Vapora – called, in the book, “The Fume of Doom,” HAHAHAHA - isn't even the embodiment of something like fear or angst or desperation. She embodies “insufficient ventilation.” To clarify, before we continue, the Gas Appliance Manufacturer's Association produced a book about the dangers of gas. This is like AIM producing a book about the dangers of MODOK.

*As a point of order, only high-ranking officers of the Merry Marvel Marching Society are allowed to call him Hornhead. Enlisted men and civilians should address him as “Boy, what the fuck was with that godawful goddamn Ben Affleck movie, man? I wanted to beat the director's MOTHER with my bare hands.”

The book balances between Matt Murdock defending a landlord who's accused of whatever crime it is you get accused of when you're a landlord and your building sucks and it burns down. Negligent burnination, a class 3 felony, I think. The rest of the book finds Daredevil encountering Vapora – one of the few villainesses I believe to have ever gone around in an off-the-shoulder muu-muu – at the sites of assorted buildings which have burned down owing to the tenants' careless misuse of gasoline. Which basically makes this comic more like “Daredevil vs the Darwin Awards” than anything else.

Boom Boom Boom, Up in My Room!

Like, take this as an example: Halfway through the book, we join a young mother who is cleaning gum off her carpet using gasoline. Oh, and she's left the cap off the ENORMOUS FUCKING CAN OF THE STUFF, which is – by the by – within arm's reach of her toddler's playpen. Yes, I'll take a moment while you draw that map in your brain. I should point out that the gum-removing in question is happening about a foot away from her increasingly dain-bramaged carpet ape, AND THEN SHE SITS UP AND LIGHTS A SMOKE!

I'm not a heartless man, but I can't help but think that maybe her gene pool ending in a greasy smear in a three-bedroom walk-up is probably best for all involved. What's next on her list of nightly chores, lullabye the kid to sleep with a bag of mothballs? Balance the baby on the fire escape railing? If I were Daredevil, I'd forget about the Fume of Doom until I'd made a hasty phone call to Child Protective Services.

"And I enjoy long walks on the beach."

Other folks who're genetically predispositioned to catastrophic self-immolation with errant uses of gasoline include a father taking the tiles off the kitchen floor, and a couple of kids washing their bike down. And if this book has a failing, it is this: I DIDN'T KNOW GASOLINE COULD BE USED FOR SO MUCH STUFF! Getting gum off the carpet? Removing tile? SPRUCING UP MY RAD BIKE?? MAN, note to self, BUY FIFTY CANNISTERS OF GASOLINE ON WAY HOME! I'm gasoline's number one fan, now!

Getting back to it, even our hero himself succumbs to the dizzying prevalence of gas fumes in this story. Investigating the site of one of the deadly fires, Matt Murdock's enhanced senses lock in on the underdressed form of the cackling villain. “It's some kind of vaporous thing – “ he exclaims to the fire official escorting him onto the site, “A Vapora!”

Whoa, a “Vapora?” Nice one, big red. Did that radioactive canister also cripple your sense of not giving things really stupid names?

Not that Vapora's a poet either, as all her dialogue is that rambling, crammed together mishmash of gibberish that passed for “Crazy talk” in comic book shorthand. “DIEdieDIEdiePAINpainDEATHterrorHURTpainPOWER!” and so on. Basically, it all sounds like Superbaby trying to order a LOT of ice cream, REALLY quickly.

Well-played, Counselor.

Daredevil only gets one real shot at Vapora, which doesn't go anywhere in particular except that DD saves a little girl from being COMPLETELY burned alive (Vapora just claims a char-black hand). Frankly, this particular nemesis should've gone to a hero with more ventilation-based powers, like Storm, or Torpedo, or Wolverine with a box fan.

This particular PSA has the SINGLE MOST DEPRESSING ENDING out of any dozen or so I've read. “How's the little girl doing?” asks the landlord, following his Not Guilty verdict on the charge of Excellent Burnination. “Well,” replies Murdock, “They're going to wean her off the respirator ... doctors can do surgery to reverse some of the scarring ... she'll need physical and psychological therapy.”

“But she'll live?” the landlord asks, smiling. “She'll live,” a grinning Murdock replies.

...

"SHIT! We got SMURFS!"

JESUS! Kids in those anti-drug comics NEVER end up this fucked up, and THEY were the ones who made conscious decisions to shoot weed or snort crack or whatever it is you kids do these days! All this girl did was have a TRULY RETARDED FATHER who crossed “While You Were Out” with a Great White concert. For Pete's sake, even that Mitch kid in the Captain America drug story only came out of it with internal bleeding and a coupla cracked ribs...

On the back cover of the book, along with an illustration of Daredevil playing “Keep-Away” from Vapora with a urinal cake, the Fume of Doom (hahaha) herself spouts off official trivia from her upcoming autobiography. “I can travel from room to room, finding an ignition source,” she says, “I'm heavier than air and travel along the ground. I love to leak out into a closed room.” Hey, lady, so do I, but you don't see me bragging about it.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Captain America vs DRUGS!

Captain America vs DRUGS!
SPOILER WARNING: Drugs lose.

"When Captain America throws his mighty shie-e-e-e-eld, all those who chose to smoke lots of weed and snort blow off a hooker's ass must yi-e-e-e-e-eld ...!"

And the red and the white and the blue smoke crack, when Captain America stars in his very own PSA comi-i-i-i-ic! Which he has, folks, back in 1990 Captain America starred in an anti-drug awareness comic produced in cooperation with the FBI.

This is the smartest super-villain in history. He should be running AIM

(Speaking of which, under the Patriot Act, I believe I risk federal prosecution for making fun of this book. Get your "Free Humble G&F Editor" bumper stickers while they're fresh! Or just cross "Mumia" off of your already-existing bumper sticker and write me in, you dirty hippie)

The one-shot is titled "High Heat," which sure makes me want to slap someone. Most likely, that would be Peter David, author of this particular fable. Additionally, I believe this comic was conceived as a challenge between David, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada – all three create their own PSA comic, and if Peter David's book doesn't convince all kids everywhere to stop using drugs, he's fired. All Jemas has to do is convince kids to eat pizza and drink beer. Quesada's book has been pushed back to 2008, but you still aren't allowed to cancel retail orders for it.

The story starts off on the observer spaceship of the alien Tzin, of whom we only ever see their nasty, caterpillar-lookin' fingers. The aforementioned digits are exclusively shown fussing around with the big, suborbital DirecTV hookup with which they size up the human race.

Planning an invasion of Earth, they wonder whether even their superior alien firepower can overwhelm the indominatable human spirit. "Are you saying it will be difficult," says one of the aliens, "That we shouldn't even try?" No, never give up, silly alien! Where there's life, there's hope, even for all-conquering alien dominators! THAT'S the REAL message of this book.

What are you saying, KLXXR? You've never given up on anything in your life!

Deciding to exploit humanity's one weakness – the habit of sucking down mind-altering substances – the aliens proceed to conquer us by blowing up breweries. No, fucking wait ... they decide to pick FOUR humans, chosen specifically for their unique gifts which will eventually grow to benefit all of mankind. The Tzin will tempt them with drugs to see whether they are strong enough to withstand temptation, or give in and end up managing a Circle K.

The first kid they pick is a rising star little league baseball player name of Mitch, which was hedging their bets to be sure. An athlete using DRUGS? What kind of topsy-turvy world IS this?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mitch jumps at the chance to inhale the sugar packets – yes, to all appearances, sugar packets – offered to him by an overcoat-bedecked stranger. Concerned over his friend's suspicious behavior, Mitch's close pal Keith Wilson* does what anyone would do – he narcs on Mitch.

*Amazingly, absolutely amazingly, this is a black kid named "Wilson" who is NOT related to the Falcon. A first for everything in Marvel comics, a first for everything ...

Cap is really fucking sarcastic.

Inappropriately enough, Keith calls on Captain America to closely investigate this kid who's suspected of taking drugs. I hate to point this out, but Cap never would have existed if he himself had not been an underage kid who took drugs. The Super Soldier Serum ain't Snapple, babies, and the first one's always free. I'd suggest calling on a hero who got his powers from something a little more socially responsible – like radiation, or black magic. Something DECENT ...

In any case, there's luckily no evil or crime anywhere else in the world at the moment, so Cap's swings on by. He happens to catch up with the kid at the point when a drugged-up and befuddled Mitch accidentally wings a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball smack into the batter's head. "My control was off," Mitch pleads over the unconscious body of the clobbered boy, “My head was messed up!"

Parting the already-angry mob, Cap busts in and asks "Want to tell us WHY your head was messed up, Mitch? Is there something you've been putting into it?"

Wow. Cap. Way to incite an already foaming crowd. Cap's terrifically timed bon mot enrages the crowd further, but luckily nearby cops have come to investigate the scene – oh, actually, they had planned on just driving by the public lynching until Cap threw his shield at their heads. Tell me again, WHO'S ON DRUGS HERE?

"...It IS some nut in a Captain America costume!"

After enraging the crowd, Cap takes everyone who's even vaguely sympathetic towards Mitch – his parents, his coach and Keith – out of line-of-sight of the irate mob and Mitch both. Let me say that again – he turned his back on the angry mob, he turned his back on Mitch, and then he hung out with some people who were really into blaming themselves for Mitch's drug problem. ONE MORE TIME: Where was the mob? I don't know. Where was Mitch? I don't know. Where were the people who would happily defend Mitch against an angry mob? Hanging out behind the boys' showers, having a chat.

In one of those twists that make comics such exciting reading, Mitch is wandering the streets and HAPPENS TO RUN INTO THE ANGRY MOB! I guess the angry mob was having coffee together. They invite Mitch to their kaffeklatsch by way of a baseball bat to the gut, which hits Mitch so damn hard that he starts bleeding from the nose! COPIOUSLY bleeding from the nose, hemorrhaging internally! Keep this in mind, because I'm coming back to this ...

Naturally Cap shows up, beats off Mitch's attackers and quips the line that he's as strong as twenty men (because of what again? Oh yes, DRUGS!). Cap then proceeds to lecture a still bleeding Mitch on the foulness of drug use. Except when your country demands it. But seriously, Mitch, no drugs, c'mon man.

I neglected to mention that, earlier on, Mitch had been re-approached by his overcoat-sporting pusher. In a sudden paroxysm of spasming denial, Mitch smacks his pusher in the phiz, knocking off what was apparently a ceramic mask of a human face and revealing the alien features beneath. Mitch actually tries to explain to Cap that aliens gave him drugs, and Cap's response to this is to sort of pat Mitch's head and send him on his way, lesson learned.

"...THANKS TO DRUGS!"

So, at first glance, Cap UNBELIEVABLY decides that a drug-abusing teenager who spins some yarn about drug-pushing aliens just has "quite an imagination," and figures the kid is otherwise okay to walk home by himself. Me, I'd think the kid was probably tripping a LITTLE too hard to be allowed to escort himself ANYWHERE.

But hey, the Living Legend of World War II isn't a chaperone, I suppose. Even if he did drive all the way out to Butt-Fuck, South Egypt in the American Midwest merely to answer one kid's possible suspicions about his close friends potential drug use. And even if he's having Mitch walk home alone through streets potentially crawling with members of an angry mob waiting to whup his ass. AND EVEN IF Cap himself helped rile up that crowd. "N.M.P., CITIZEN! HAWKAAAA!" or whatever.

But ON TOP OF ALL THAT and thinking about it a second time, Cap has let an assault victim who is bleeding copiously from the nose and has just sustained a blunt force trauma to the breadbasket WALK HOME. Okay Cap! That was fucking sugar the kid was sniffing, you know, not radioactive spider blood or Uru or some shit.

Hell, even after Cap finds the shattered face mask of the alien pusher, he just sort of shrugs and heads back to his Americycle or whatever, never stopping Mitch to follow up on what may be an incredible alien conspiracy! Frankly, for all the good Cap did in this one – which was essentially to show up, break up a schoolyard fight and then lecture somebody – he might as well have been your Junior High School Principal wearing really fantastic pajamas.

"Let's leave my wife out of this, Cap."

So thus ends the saga of Mitch, inasmuch as he probably passed out in an alleyway and quietly bled to death halfway home. As for the other THREE specially gifted individuals whom the aliens were planning to tempt and subsequently destroy with their sugary space drugs? I ... I don't know. I'm assuming this was either planned as a much larger book, or a series, or SOMETHING because they just never get mentioned after the first time. And since Cap never investigated the suspicious alien situation, they're probably all dead now. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: PSA Comics

The cookie elves have asked the circus
freak to tell you to stay off drugs.

I think I'm speaking without exaggeration when I say that the ONLY reason anyone in my generation stayed off drugs, in school, away from cigarettes, well-fed and unmolested was thanks to the tireless efforts of the Teen Titans. Barred their intervention, I would have been left to the woefully inadequate admonitions of “Bad Dudes,” most likely ending up neither a winner nor bad enough to rescue President Ronnie.

Spider-Man is totally raising the fuck out
of your awareness about the dangers of bull-riding.

Thank you, trend towards major publishers issuing special edition Public Service Announcement comic books to little kids! You kept me out of prison and off the streets, off drugs and high on life! In fact, I don't even live above ground anymore, I have a sub-basement hovel filled to the ceiling with stacks of newpapers and jars of my own urine. I'd throw the stuff out, but Spider-Man once told me that bad men were trying to touch my swimsuit area, and I'm afraid to walk outside to the garbage can on the curb.

To fill you in on my self-indulgent rambling, DC and Marvel (among other publishers) have always been eager to lend their character to comics with charitable aims. The Teen Titans starred in a trio of anti-drug comics, Spider-Man (with Power Pack and - holy fifth-string characters! - Skids and Rusty from X-Factor) and the Hulk have both warned kids about assorted stranger danger, and Superman, Batman and the X-Men have all made their stand against famine in Africa (bravely opposing the intimidating pro-famine-in-Africa lobby). Even the Radio Shack Whiz Kids got in on the act, turning the tremendous processing power of the TRS-80 to the problem of inner-city drug use. I think they solved it, too, I should double-check that issue. I believe the resulting equation recommended hugs, rather than drugs...

"Hi there, nice to meet you, we're Power
Pa -- HOLY JESUS, KID!"

So now we're on the same page, and that page probably includes a pudgy white kid in a striped shirt crying while Spider-Man holds his shoulders and says “Tommy, you have to understand that it's not your fault!” I'm sure you got your hands on these yourself, somehow, either via a well-meaning adult authority figure who likes to say “I think these kids consider me to be pretty 'cool'” and make air quotes when he says it, OR you swiped a copy from the library and read 'em with your delinquent friends while you lit up.

Originally, this article was going to try and be a comprehensive overview of ALL the major PSA comics, but I ran into two problems. First off, if you think I'm going to make fun of a comic book about molested kids, you're nuts. What the hell kind of captions am I supposed to slap together for THAT? “Hey retard, did your daddy touch you? Haha, FAG!” If you're feeling so all-fired giddy, why don't you write up a couple hurtful paragraphs, blog it, and then sit back and watch the hate mail roll in. I get more than enough vitriol for just not liking Secret Wars II ...

For a South American anti-landmine comic,
Wonder Woman was re-costumed in a more
modest fashion. I'm amused by the idea that
kids couldn't learn about landmine safety if
they were otherwise confronted with Wonder
Woman's Amazon rack.

(Still, I would've loved to fit a “Touched by The Angel” joke in here somewhere. Ah well ...)

The second problem is that there are about a million of these things. I honestly thought there weren't more than half-a-dozen. As I hunted down copies after copies and documentation of these books, I began to wonder how so many kids could still be sniffing glue and starving in Africa. I mean, fuck, how many times do you have to be TOLD, junkies? The Living Legend of World War II is not used to repeating himself!

Even Storm and Luke Cage got to do one, although they take a back-seat to Spider-Man in their PSA comic about the dangers of smoking (Hell, they barely even got on the cover, first time around). Actually, looking at it a little more objectively, I believe the comic is less about smoking hazards and more about how Marvel doesn't have any prominent black characters who can stand on their own merits. Unlike DC, who has that guy who's the fourth or fifth most popular Green Lantern, and then also there's Spawn, who I was surprised to discover was black under the shadows, the mask and the facial scarring. JESUS, how deep do you feel like burying the brother, McFarlane?

Sorry, I'm getting off track here ...

Fun fact: Spider-Man stars in more of
these things than anyone else. Which is
why he tackles such bullshit topics as
"Literacy," a topic no comic book has any
damn right addressing.

Although their hearts are largely in the right place, I never felt these comics were a good idea. Beside the fact that half-naked vigilantes who routinely beat the tar out of mental patients in fetish gear are probably not the IDEAL spokespersons for a sane, safe, law-abiding existence – although, I could be wrong. Perhaps those anti-drug seminars they used to hold in our high school auditorium would have packed more of an impact if the attending officers had been decked out in Mardi Gras beads and bike shorts, and hauled in a wino to pummel – superhero comics are notorious for reducing even the most complex problems into black-and-white matters.

Super-heroes thrive on the morality play, which makes super-hero comics particularly well-suited to warning kids against the hazards of trying to conquer the world. As far as pinning drug abuse or worldwide famine on an individual super-villain or monster goes, I'm not so assured.

It's already a pretty spurious premise that any PSA comic is going to spark a turnaround in any of the serious issues they address, which is why the stated purpose of these books is to inform and raise awareness. Problem is, are we really raising awareness of an issue by blaming its cause solely on some mythical villain?

This poster promotes a Superman comic
which raises awareness about land mine
safety. Any joke I can make here about land
mine safety is pretty much talking shit from
a guy who lives in a country NOT COVERED
WITH LANDMINES!

(I'll take a parenthetical aside here for a moment to fill you in on a peccadillo of mine, before it rears its ugly head. Both the X-Men and the Superman-Batman team appeared in comics benefiting African famine relief charities. One was titled “Heroes Against Hunger” and the other was called “Heroes For Hope,” and no matter how often I remind myself, I keep switching those up to make “Heroes for Hunger” and “Heroes Against Hope.” Happens consistently. This is the same berserk mental twitch which makes me call any of the Star Wars sequels – assuming for some reason I feel compelled to precede it with its episode number and whatnot – as “Star Trek,” and why I constantly, unconsciously call those films “Star Trek: The Phantom Planet” and “Star Trek: Night of the Clones.” HONESTAGOD!)

In the X-Men:Heroes Against Hope book, the mutant heroes ultimately discover that the famine in drought-struck Ethiopia was being caused (or at least exacerbated) by this alien monster who fed on human suffering. OH, SO HE'S THE GUY! Gut him out hollow, would you Wolverine, and let's get back to punching the Toad in the phiz.

Take, for instance, the well-intentioned Captain Awareness comic, which is certainly trying its hardest for a very worthwhile cause. However, as the tale within the pages unfolds, it turns out that incidents of rape are actually caused by a big smoky monster which possesses men's bodies and makes them do bad things. Whereas I appreciate the sentiment that my gender as a whole is so inherently pure of heart and free of ill will that it takes an all-powerful ethereal being of gross malevolence to turn even the most sociopathic brute into a rapist, I DON'T THINK THAT'S REALLY THE PROBLEM!

"Jesus kids, I'M FLYIN' HERE!"

This trend is sort of endemic to the super-hero genre as a whole, which often makes villains out of 'embodiments' of emotional or metaphysical states, as well as the occasional elemental and whatever the heck it was Speedball was supposed to be in relation to kinetic energy. OH WAIT, why the hell didn't SPEEDBALL DO AN ANTI-DRUG COMIC? That's automatic GOLD, Marvel! “Don't do me, kids, I'll ruin your life. Say no to me.” IT'S GENIUS!

So the super-hero universes abound with what tend to appear to be normal folk in fright masks and aerobics gear, but who are secretly the universal depository of all the universe's sense of sorrow, hate, apathy, anger, bigotry, what have you. Now me, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding heart tree-hugging Leftist, but even I support executing THESE fucks. “So, this is the universal embodiment of all hate in the universe? There'd be no hate without him, am I getting this right? Okay, pardon me, Punisher, may I borrow this?” Boom, problem solved. And here I thought it took a deep understanding of the nature of man and his role in a wide and unresponsive universe to salve the wounds of the human condition, when all you really have to do is beat the guy in the Danskins to death with a crowbar.

Believe it or not, this book is about minorities
in the engineering field. Who are building
enormous, terrifying Tyrranosaurotons, or
something. I agree that this issue needs more awareness.

At least none of these books had the paucity of good taste to create an anthropomorphic embodiment of child molestation. Not that you really have to, since Marvel's currently doing a pretty good job of BEING that themselves. (Don't believe me? Hey, when was the last time you saw an eight-year old girl with a gargantuan rack and pillowy pudenda? Try X-Men:Phoenix. Like your eroticized juveniles a little more photo-realistic? No Trouble at all! And then there is, of course, the latest mutant title, X-Ploitation of Minors! Marvel! Because NAMBLA only lets you hump little boys!)

Which makes it a shame that the PSA comic trend has died down, or at least seriously put the brakes on in the last ten years. Because we sure could use a comic warning kids to stay away from anything Marvel president Bill Jemas has a hand in ... ironically, in fact, I think reading any single issue of Marville will pretty much take care of that right out of the gate.

(Hey, here's some fun: So far, not counting this one, there are nineteen paragraphs in this article. Guess how many of them will generate an angry piece of hate mail. Whatever you guess, it's two less than actually will.)

Bonus Image (I ran out of room in the article): Here to teach you about bicycle safety, it's Spider-Man and Ghost Rider. You know, Ghost Rider. The self-immolated guy with no skin whose motorcycle is on fire. That guy. He's here to teach you about wearing kneepads.

Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Superman 2001

SUPERMAN 2001

COCK-BLOCKED!

Personally, I can't even remember what Superman was really doing in 2001. For all I can remember of the last fifteen years of mucking about they've done with the big guy, he was either dead, revived, reincarnated, mulleted, electrified, split in two, evil, emotionless, cloned, too big, too small, stuck in the past, stuck in the future, crazy, mind-controlled, married, divorced, over-powered, de-powered, wearing a funny hat, getting his ass kicked by Batman, learning to snorkel in the Bahamas, eating marzipan cakes in a locked bathroom and weeping, or possibly all of the above at once.

As an aside, if you ask me what has defined Superman over the last fifteen years, I honestly would have to reply "I have no idea what's going on with him from day to day." And it's true - back in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, it didn't matter HOW alternate a future or HOW imaginary a story to which we were being treated, Superman was Superman. They had some stories which featured his descendant in the 24th century or something, and it basically looked like Superman with a weak chin and a Hitler haircut. If we went to a parallel world where Superman was a villain, he wore a little black mask along with his regular costume. Since the Crisis, Superman's changing costumes, powers and appearance at the drop of the hat. I blame the action figure market.

See? See how his skin reflects the laser?
Check it out. You see yet? I'll keep doing it, see?

But hey, that's beside the point! We're going back to the Golden (or, actually, Bronze) Age of 1976! More specifically, we're going back to Superman #300, the self-proclaimed "tricentennial" issue of Superman - My, he's come far since 1676 - and an imaginary tale which moved the Superman mythos up a few decades.

"Just imagine," the cover begs of us, "The MAN OF STEEL coming to Earth as a Baby TODAY -- -- and growing up in the world of TOMORROW!" (i.e. several years ago). Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin provide the writing and Curt Swan and Bob Oksner do the drawing on what is actually a very good story of the era - which doesn't mean it's free from silliness, oh no. Oh no no. God bless it.

I'm sorry, I meant to say "Me
am rocket zoom bang double
Ice Cream Cone GARGLE FAAAAART!!!"

The story opens with the same, familiar stirrings of the traditional super-origins. Jor-El - Superman's father and evidently Krypton's worst public speaker - responds to Krypton's violent dissolution by packing up baby Kal-El in more fabric than all three of Michael Jackson's kids combined, and shoving him in an atomic dildo headed straight for Earth. And so far, even with my overwhelming shame at the cheap Michael Jackson joke, nothing much different from the traditional here.

Now here's where the story gets ALL FUTURISTIC AND ULTRA-MODERN NOW, JUST YOU WAIT!

Soviet and American radar pick up the trace of Superbaby's cosmic bunting, and make a mad dash to beat one another to the oceanic crash site. After an I'm-not-kidding and totally-awesome action sequence, the ship is claimed by mustachioed Special Secret Operative Agent or something Lt.Thomas Clark! Hey, waitaminnit, CLARK? You don't suppose...

The ship is taken back to a secret government bunker where scientists attempt to blast baby Kal-El's face right off, there's some super-toddler hijinx, and for ONCE goddamn Superbaby can actually speak proper English and not that insane Bizarro-shit he used to go on about. "Me am shoot in rocket boom space eat cosmic bang-bang happy double cake ice cream cone WAAAAAAH!" Oh no, this time it's speaking every language on Earth fluently and knowing syntax, and where's the fun in that, I ask you?

Awww, I love you too, little French Superbaby!

Also, I think it puts the finger on Ma and Pa Kent for not hooking Superbaby on Phonics the first time around.

Superbaby is code-named "Skyboy" and raised by the U.S.Military, so you know he's going to grow up completely straight in the head, right folks? Eventually, news of his existence leaks out, causing a terrible increase in Cold War tensions. This is capitalized upon by an unnamed third-world country whose flamboyant and middle-aged major-domos have world conquest on the mind. They arrange some computerized tomfoolery which makes the US and USSR believe that the other country is launching a nuclear attack, believing that in the ruined aftermath, they'll be able to pick up the pieces and take over. Enjoy your glowing hunk of scorched soil, gentlemen, you're both assholes.

Oh, and did I mention that this brief US/USSR exchange happens in 1990? We were so young, once.

By 2001, Milton-Bradley's boardgame favorite takes on a scope of horrifying
proportions. C-17? YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIPS, IMPERIALIST DOG!

Anyway, "Skyboy" takes it on himself to stop every nuclear missile and space laser in existence, then following the death of his military mentor - General Kent Garret HOLD IT, KENT? OH. MY. GOD! That's AMAZING! - disappears into an anonymous existence, which takes us into the futuristic world of the twenty-first century.

Now, no offense intended to these guys - many of whom are my artistic heroes - but Seventies' comic book artists had no business drawing the future. Most of these guys barely knew what the present looked like, for crying out loud.

Swan's always been one of DC's exceptions when it came to a modern look, though, and he was damn good at giving his characters contemporary fashion and style. I think the problem came to him - in this story specifically - when he was called on to design a future world of advanced technology, BUT not render it in such a way that it looked exactly like the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

So now he has to achieve a delicate balance of ju-u-u-ust the right moderation and tweaks and finesse and nuance and - oh, I'll shut up, it looks like the Legion of Super-heroes future. Except they didn't call everything "Cosma-Ice Cream" and "Super-Clothing," and that everyone's wearing three-layered pantsuits instead of really ugly Underoos with their home planet printed on the jerkin, or whatever. The Cosma-Jerkin. Fucking future.

Some of you may be too young to recall, but this actually IS what the internet was like back in 2001...

There's no greater comedy dollar than the "What did they think the future would look like wayyy back in the past" comedy dollar. Or "Comedo-Cred" or "Econo-Humor-Unit" or whatever. Cosma-comedy-dollar. In any case, let's take a look at ... THE STARTLING WORLD OF THE FUTURE!

For one thing, we're no longer watching television, but Tri-Vision! Which I think means that the future is offering us a triple dose of Univison, and that Mexican show where all those forty-five year old guys and tanned super-models dress in ridiculous school uniforms and pretend to be in grade school. Sadly, for my household, we only watch El Clon and CMLL/AAA, so we're screwed.

Siegfried and Roy 2001, evil foreign putzes.

A thousand Cosma-points for accurate predictions to Bates and Maggin though. Clark no longer is a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper or even broadcasting giant WGBS, but is an anchorman for a "24-hour news network" made possible by the "around the world ... huge communications linkup."

The prediction of the cable news scene here didn't actually tell us whether Clark was working for any PARTICULAR news network, but since he wasn't obscured behind the scrolling equivalent of a James Joyce novel OR was gleefully muckraking with a smarmy political slant, I figured it wasn't CNN or Fox News. Judging by the fact that Clark is filmed in a full body shot and is DEAD-FUCKING-BORING, it's either E! or MSNBC. Your choice.

Another accurate prediction made by the Bates/Maggin team was that there'd be a frothy mocha available on every street corner. Or MOKA, sorry, let me get my notes straight as we get back to the story.

The aforementioned gaudy third-world nation, still helmed by what appears to be an elderly gay couple, strikes upon a brilliant plan, assuming that you're judging brilliance by comic book standards. On New Year's Eve, 2001, they send a four-armed android to perch on the clock above Times Square and declare that he his-own-bad-self was not only responsible for saving the world from total destruction back in 1990, but that he now demands their allegiance. Oh, and that his allies Frappe and Latte would be joining him shortly.

WERE! YOU! LISTENING?!

Amazingly, the world BELIEVES HIM, right off the bat. Gullible fools. Is that too harsh, you ask? Hell, I'm just quoting the MAN! Superman reads the dupes of Earth the fucking riot act while he turns MOKA into styrofoam peanuts.

ctually, his outright verbal abuse is meant to inspire folks to not look to 'heroes and false gods' for the answer to their problems, which Metropolis' citizens adhere to by erecting a ginormous Superman statue in the middle of Times Square.

As for the fashion nightmare that WAS whatever retirement home-turned-third world nation it was, they had their plans foiled AGAIN by Superman, and thus ... quit, I guess. I dunno, they didn't follow up on it.

Frankly, they're not the worst villains I've seen in Seventies' comics - In a SHAZAM! I was reading recently, Captain Marvel repulsed a world-conquering effort by a bunch of guys who lived in a city suspended by wires above a mountain chasm. Turns out if you, I dunno, cut a few of the wires supporting their nation, they tend