This must have been the one Christmas when my younger stepsister from my mother's marriage gave me some comics as a present. I don't think that I ever gave her anything, ever, and we had a mildly antagonistic relationship in those years. It was a really sweet gesture, and I don't know what possessed her. I haven't seen her in something like twenty years at this point, when she occasionally shopped at the adult boutique where I worked. You might find that a bit too candid, but unless she got born again in the meantime, I don't think she'd care about the mention. Anyway, I hope she's doing well, and I hope her father isn't. I never thought I'd be able to identify a specific Archie comic, but sure enough, she gave me Betty's Diary #6, in which the young lady explores multiple potential careers. I'm a known girl's guy, but this was clearly a bowling ball with Homer's name on it. Which again, is better than literally the nothing I had to offer. Betty tries her hand at creative writing, a teenage hobby of my older stepsister, and there's a panel of fairy tale versions of the Archie gang that stuck with me. The next story had Betty crying at a nativity scene, and I surely rolled my eyes at the Spire of it all even then. The third story was about Betty failing to find some quiet alone time, because she was just too popular. Oh-- I can totally relate. F'sure.
Even I don't understand what my relationship status with Captain America comic books was up to in this period, but we were back on-again for #327. "Clashing Symbols" was about Johnny Walker trying to make Cap look bad by having his 'roided-up buddies wear his mask and call themselves Buckies. Yes, even the Black one. Lemar Hoskins. Had to look it up. If you didn't know, "Big Black Buck" or abbreviated versions of same was a racist term applied to young men of African descent that supposedly embodied all of the worst stereotypes you'd expect from friends of the Klan. The murderers of Emmett Till got off by framing the 14 year old as a Buck, if that helps you with context. Mark Gruenwald was clearly just riffing off the name of Cap's boy sidekick when he developed the Bold Urban Commandos, or B.U.C.s, and nobody minded until grown ass Lemar Hoskins took on the actual Bucky name and costume. Given who he was a sidekick to, they could have leaned into the political commentary, and kept his legs exposed besides. Instead, within a year, Bucky was given a new name and monicker, Battlestar, and he was eventually shuffled off to Silver Sable's Wild Pack. Part of the irony is that Lemar Hoskins is himself a racist, or at least played one while assaulting Middle Eastern students while slinging related epithets that you couldn't print in a modern comic. When you misspell the word that you're burning into someone's lawn, your redemption arc is short and bends toward obscurity. Most of the rest of the issue was Paul Neary making Bernie Rosenthal as visually unappealing as Gruenwald was assassinating her character. I cop to the bias of DeMatteis/Zeck being the best Cap, followed by Byrne/Stern, so Bernie is my one true pairing with Steve. Her getting done dirty like this was not endearing. From there, Cap and Super Patriot brawled in a parking lot outside a Springsteen concert for an hour with no clear victor, but Rogers was left demoralized by his inability to win, both in person and against a popular rise of far right extremism. Now that, I can relate to. As with Flag Smasher, I love how Super Patriot embodies an ideological divide with our hero, wielding a flaming sword instead of a shield, the prominence of red in his costume contrasting against the blues of Cap. It clearly impressed Denny O'Neil, who stole whole cloth from this run for Azrael and Knightfall.
D.P. 7 #5 picks up where their Kickers Incorporated appearance left off. One story was about their banding together against an external threat, where here their personal difference divide them. Specifically, Glitter is so desperate to be relieved of the powers that separate her from her children that she helps talk the group into seeking an exorcism. Meanwhile, Scuzz willfully rejects the group from the combination of not feeling valued, and because he fears the emotional investment after a lifetime of abandonment. There are brawls and other theatrics, but ultimately the creators interest is in the domestic soap opera within a found family. I like it, but by being a proximal Marvel title, commercial expectations and narrative conventions clearly compromise the effort. It wants to be Concrete and settles for Midwestern X-Men.
The third issue of Matt Wagner's The Demon mini-series was probably the first time I saw Etrigan outside of the one issue of Who's Who that I bought new. It wasn't by choice, as this was another Christmas comic from my stepsister. This was the penultimate issue, basically one long Satanic incantation story, and I wasn't a horror fan yet. I halfway think it was just something that she ended up with, because it was such an odd choice, although that choice was the most memorable thing about the book. I never have read the rest of the series, so I have no idea what was even going on here.
I was back for G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #57, with a nifty cover of Destro teaming up with Flint and Lady Jaye. There's a whole "Man in the Iron Mask" thing where Major Bludd has assumed Destro's identity and taken over his Scottish Estate, and I guess because he's temporarily on the outs with Cobra, the Joes help him reclaim it. By the way, this issue has circulation numbers, and the book was averaging half a million reader, with the most recent issue up another 35K. I think you could have a top book with just the 35k today.
With Mark Hazzard: Merc #5, I think I bought it new, but I'm not absolutely certain of that. The 'Nam's Doug Murray takes over as writer, and Mark Beachum provides layouts for Alan Smithee-- er, "Jack Fury," even though Morrow outs himself on the cover. Most of the time, enough Beachum shines through, especially on the sexy ladies, to make up for the Alan Kupperberg issues. Other panels have a Kyle Baker quality, which I'm also not mad at. But then other pages, maybe too many of them, just look like the more amateurish Blackthorne stuff. But the main problem is that the story is a rip-off of Streets of Fire, with a line pilfered from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and it's just badly done. The humor is gone, and in its place is an Andy Sidaris martial arts tart and a hard lean into straight-to-video action cheese. It's readable, but much diminished from its initial promise.
I picked up Marvel Fanfare #31 at the same neighborhood 7-11 that I got most of my comics, and that shouldn't have happened. A friend of mine had some early issues of Fanfare, and my brother had some others, but this was a book made for direct market only sale to comic shops, on all-cover stock at a hefty $1.50. So it was never supposed to be on a newstand, and I wouldn't normally pay twice the standard cover price. But this was a Captain America story by J.M. DeMatteis, with art by Kerry Gammill, the only person that I could ever approve of replacing Mike Zeck. Admittedly, unfortunately, it's also a team-up story with Frog-Man, quite a step down from when this same creative team had Spider-Man in that slot. But Gammill's art was so gorgeous that he rated the high production values, and I love when S.H.I.E.L.D. material seeps into Cap's world. The mystery baddie is the Yellow Claw, a rare titular villain from his own comic in the 1950s, who'd fought Nick Fury during the Steranko run. This was a two-parter, and it took me probably a decade or more to finally finish this story. I literally had the comic in bed with me before I decided that I had to say "no" to any more reading ifg I'm going to get this thing done while it's still 2024.
Since I read The Marvel Saga: the Official History of the Marvel Universe #16, I was convinced that the obscure X-Men villain Lucifer, who dressed like Magneto and crippled Professor X, would prove to be the notorious '90s archfoe Onslaught. Decades on, what did Onslaught even do? Send a bunch of classic Marvel heroes on a vacation to Image Comics? What also sucked was that Onslaught was wholly from the X-office, but all he did of real note impacted the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Hulk. Would a villain like Lucifer, who fought the X-Men and Avengers in their first meeting, have been a more legit option? Certainly better than Professor X turning evil, again. Anyway, most of the rest of this issue just continued or resolved ongoing story arcs. Dormammu's origin is covered with then-recent Paul Smith art, mingled with older Ditko and Colan material involving Clea.
Marvel Tales Starring Spider-Man #197 got me back by combining the Chris Claremont/John Byrne team with Iron Fist, the character with whom their collaboration had begun. I mean, I didn't know that back then-- I just thought Byrne drew Iron Fist better than anyone else, which was true if the other name in the hat wasn't Kerry Gammill. Plus, this one featured Steel Serpent, at a time when dark mirrors were still wired instead of tired. Since '70s comics ran short, there was a new Bob Layton Hercules 5-pager with his trans-curious Skrull sidekick. Same 7-11 as the Marvel Fanfare, though probably not in the same week.
Pepe Moreno doesn't just happen to ink The 'Nam #4. It's a choice, and I'd argue a bad one. The story is solid-- another instance of Top Kick putting men in harm's way in service to his own agenda, and the consequences of that decision in the presence of a news crew. Michael Golden has clearly put everything down on the page, but Moreno's style is simply incompatible, and his embellishments dilute rather than enhance. I liked the story fine, but every turn of the page was a reminder of that compromise.
I really wasn't into Uncanny X-Men #215 at the time. I didn't care about a two-part solo Storm story versus some dorky fake World War II-era super-heroes drawn by Alan Davis. I didn't realize that the X-Men were peaking for the time being, and that as I gained a political consciousness, their "law and order" murder games would prove more relevant and timeless than I could have feared in that period. But also, it's still weird that they tried to do anything with the Crimson Commando after this. These characters are too disturbing.
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