Comic Reader Résumé: November, 1985

On to November of 1985. The lovely Craig Hamilton cover art for the first issue of the 1986 Aquaman mini-series, featuring his short-lived blue "camouflage suit," was also a pervasive house ad. I'm pretty sure I tossed through that first issue at a mall bookstore, but it didn't come home with me, and I wouldn't read the mini-series until my deep Aquaman dive of the mid '90s. Apologies to Neal Pozner, but the art was definitely the only reason to bother with it.

Likewise, the 48-page final issue of Wonder Woman vol. I, #329, looked properly momentous. It was a Crisis tie-in with a JLGL cover in a martial setting that was then uncommon for the Amazing Amazon. Unfortunately, the interiors were still by Don Heck, and I never had any tolerance for him in my youth. Another toss at the mall, then back on the heavy wood & plastic spinner rack.

Little bro definitely bought X-Factor #1, which I remember as another one of those odd situations like Crystar #1, where only the debut issue was printed on Baxter stock with the associated price bump. Then #2 comes along in standard comics newsprint. I'm sure they got a little profit bump off that, but it cost them any loyalty from a cost conscious customer myself. If I can't afford the first issue, you're going to have to work that much harder to get me to buy the second or third issue. Anyway, the book started under Bob Layton and Butch Guice, who I'd seen on other books but couldn't yet recognize beyond being part of the default Marvel Bronze Age style. I had passing familiarity with the original X-Men from titles like Marvel Team-Up, New Defenders, and Phoenix: The Untold Story, but I wasn't particularly endeared to any of them then or now. The story itself bored me, so I only ever read it once, if that. I feel like I might have bailed partway through.

Marvel Saga #3 had a particularly nice cover featuring the forging of Dr. Doom's face plate by Ron Frenz and John Byrne. The comic starts with perhaps a newly commissioned splash page of Sub-Mariner, as he recalls the circumstances behind his loss of both memory and underwater kingdom of Atlantis. The art is all over the place as illustrations are taken from sources as varied as 40s Bill Everett, 60s Jack Kirby, 70s Frank Robbins Invaders material, some John Buscema and maybe Don Heck to cover Prince Namor's birth through his post-World War II adventures. Then we're back to very early Fantastic Four and Hulk content, including the origin of Dr. Doom, which allows some more contemporary panels by John Byrne and Jerry Ordway. This series is maybe the most visually schizophrenic thing Marvel ever published, given the whiplash of following all that up with the time the Thing impersonated Blackbeard the pirate. Uncle Ben gets shot and Spider-Man discovers his own role in that sad circumstance, while Charles Xavier braces for the public revelation of the existence of mutants among them. I'm so much happier getting through all this Silver Age material in synopsis form, rather than slogging through the actual stories.

The Punisher #2 was filled with violent executions and one sex scene. It was quite similar to 1983's The New Teen Titans Annual #2, introducing The Vigilante, one of my formative comics. I still give the edge to Wolfman and Perez on this front, but no other Vigilante story would ever live up to the first, while this was only one issue of an outstanding Punisher solo mini-series.

My brother liked to collect final issues of titles, as it was for Defenders #152, a staple reference for characters in the Dead & Inactive editions of OHOTMU. Under a Frank Cirroco cover, the un-team anticipates the COIE fate of the Justice Society, as most appear to sacrifice their lives to stop a cosmic threat, leaving only The Beast and Angel to immediately reform the original X-Men as X-Factor. I think only Manslaughter and Interloper stayed dead, which surprises me, because someone like Deadpool could use foils like these.

I was clearly becoming disenchanted with Blue Devil by #21, where he went up against a giant car that ate other cars. I wasn't buying this title to see the hero drive around for an entire issue, and the art sure wasn't selling it. I'm not sure if this was flea market buy or something I got out of the quarter bin a few years later. Oh look, the Aquaman house ad.

As I've often whined about, I only bought Booster Gold #1 because there was an ad saying I would get a free promotional button at participating stores. I rarely bought comics at Circle K, and they were in fact not participating. Booster Gold was a corporate capitalist super-hero more concerned with licensing deals than lives. I thought he had a doofy costume, and I don't think Mike DeCarlo's inks flattered the reliably bland Dan Jurgens. It's not a great sign that I thought the tossed-off villain Blackguard looked cooler. Between Blue Devil's decline and this, it's no wonder I was backing away from DC toward Marvel. At least I can say I got in on the ground floor of hating Booster Gold, nearly forty years going. And no, I don't still want my button.

Woo-Hoo! OHOMU #4! Paul Smith Dr. Strange, Dormammu, and, um, Dragon Man! Dave Gibbons Drednaught! Bill Sienkiewicz Elektra! BWS Forge! Howie Chaykin Dominick Fortune! Large, plentiful reference image to elaborate upon the text! Mike Zeck Falcon so good it almost makes me interested in the Falcon! Same for JRJR's Fenris twins! A Larry Lieber Forgotten One that is definitely referencing Arnold! A Val Mayerick Frankenstein made all the more pale by that Mike Ploog inset art! The only disappointment for me is the Steranko Nick Fury, who is not living up to his own legacy art in the entry, and is maybe just incompatible with inker Joe Rubinstein?

I'd aged out of Peter Porker between Marvel Tails with an i and The Spectacular Spider-Ham ongoing series, but I randomly ended up with #6 at some point. Our hero must battle Ducktor Doom and the attack of giant killer vegetable to save Aunt May. I think I thought it would be funnier? I did like Peter's kid sidekicks, Bunsen Bunny, J. Jeremiah Jackal, Jr., and especially Upton Adam Stray, who looked like a New Wave take on Felix the Cat. There was an Awful Flight back-up story, which leaned way to hard on the McKenzie Brothers riff, but I still liked that weird Steve Mellor art.

One that held up it's comedy promise, at least in the first half, was the Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer. The cover warned readers not to open the book until December 25th, but I waited until 1987, when I got the book at Third Planet. I proceeded to read it most Christmases for the next several years though. You'd think a Jewish creator like Keith Giffen would have little interest in the holiday, except that's actually probably part of the reason he's done so many parodies of it, and you can't deny it's secular cultural impact. It's abuse of Hukka from Atari Force is legendary, and I think I started drinking Yoo-Hoos because old Irwin Schwab reaches for a statted photograph of one in this comic. It's a can though, and everybody knows that you should only drink Yoo-Hoos from an ice cold glass model. He really is a crazed maniac. The book goes on to parody Night of the Living Dead and rebut Steve Ditko's objectivist comics with a jaundiced view of the American justice system. Yes, in a xmas comic. And that's before things getting entirely insane, bringing in Ernie Colon and offering stacked fan polls and introducing Chibi illustration to western audiences. This really is a wild one, and it's been too many years since I gave it a read, especially since I own the story multiple times over at this point.