Comic Reader Résumé: Early November, 1986

In a rare bout of consideration for others, I found Blackthorne 3-D Series #11 at Marauder Comics around 1989 and bought it for my mother. She was in a firm Betty Boop phase that included a variety of merch, possibly including a rolling tray, but the one of those I remember most had Elvis' painted face on it. So probably a hash tin, instead? Also, in a credit deduction, I can't say whether it was a proper back issue or a quarter bin find, but I lean toward the latter. Lil' Bro picked up Captain America #326, a haunted house tale with visions of established rogues, and Doctor Strange #81, the final issue of the Master of the Mystic Arts volume. I'm not sure which of us got Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men #1, but only he would continue with it. I completely missed G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #56 for some reason. The Tom Palmer cover sparks no memory. I don't really remember G.I. Joe Yearbook #3 either, another silent Snake-Eyes story by the series' creative team, along with a Serpentor story by Mike Zeck, who also contributes covers and an extensive pin-up gallery. I don't know what happened with all that. My brother might have gotten Justice #4, where the anti-hero deals with the consequences of losing his hand while pursuing the other-dimensional crime lord. It certainly looks better having Geoff Isherwood finish Joe Staton rather than be finished by Vinnie Colletta. It's vaguely familar, and I don't think I ever got a copy myself, discounted or otherwise. Gladstone's re-release of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #516 stories that featured stories related to the simultaneous return of Song of the South was well played, since I must have been old enough to have pangs of nostalgia for that property, and very randomly purchased this.

My half-brother continued buying the "Gang War" arc into the Amazing Spider-Man #285, which had a Mike Zeck cover featuring the Punisher wielding a bazooka. It wasn't too unfortunate that Bob McLeod inked it, but that will be a problem for me in the future. The interiors were by DeFalco, Owsley, and Kupperberg, so I figure the proto-Christopher Priest element probably helped carry it for me. This one was about the mafia heads trying to smooth out their differences while Frank Castle tried to rub them out, with ol' Web-Head getting in the way. At a whopping $2.50, I was perfectly content to let lil'bro buy the up-format Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine one-shot. Mark Bright's rendition of Logan was not pleasing to my eye, and I already got a summary of this in that month's Amazing. At a time when kids like myself bought all things Wolveine, I was like "ehhh, not that one."

The 'Nam #3 continues to be the antidote when I get bogged down by long, arguably overwritten late Bronze Age comics. This one was a relatively light affair, with three Joes getting a three day pass into Saigon, only to be beset by terror attacks and grift. I got excite for a second that I might spot someplace familiar in the comic, but then I remembered that we never went to Ho Chi Minh City on our vacation. Too westernized. We did Hanoi and Da Nang, and the latter was mostly spent at Sun World Ba Na Hills, because I wanted to visit the Golden Hands Bridge, which was built in 2018. So no, I didn't get the 'Nam #3 experience, probably to the good.

D.P. 7 #4 was still a good book, but more Hardy Boys than Alan Moore. When Dave gets mistaken for a Bigfoot-type creature killing cattle in the sticks, it's up to his fellow freak friends to clear his name. I'd have more patience with it if I wasn't a middle aged man trying to canvass dozens of books on a tight schedule to get out a monthly podcast. But as it is, this was a wordy, corny, mystery of the week episode of a period TV show. It's also hard to miss that the New Universe has two series about groups with superhuman powers on the run from nefarious agencies seeking to exploit or exterminate them, and that each team book was among the longest lasting titles in the run. The main difference is that D.P. 7 are adults who do more actual running than the teenage runaways of Psi-Force. It was wise of Jim Shooter to distill the best of both books into the Valiant Comic Harbinger, which outlived each series in a more hostile industry landscape, though. But then again, if you combined the runs of the two New Universe titles and all the volumes of Harbinger, you'd more or less have a parity of total output. Maybe that's all the gas off-brand X-Men can give you?

The Marvel Saga: the Official History of the Marvel Universe #15 maybe learned a lesson from the Dardevil issue and allowed Keith Pollard to draw Hawkeye & Wonder Man in modern West Coast Avengers-style to sweeten their connection to the reprints within. We get their origin stories, plus the debut of noted failure Diablo. Speaking of Daredevil, the yellow-garbed one meets Spider-Man. On the move are Kang the Conqueror and the Scorpion, plus I should probably mention that Doctor Doom is rarely far from these Marvel Saga issues.

Secret Origins #11 offered another instance of my tossing through this title at the mall bookstore, based on the inviting premise, attractive cover, and characters I had little to no experience with getting a key spotlight. Power Girl had been appearing in house ads with sharp Kerry Gammill art, and Hawkman I knew from Super Friends, Super Powers, and team-ups with Batman. But as was the case in most of these occurrences, under the Jerry Ordway cover was tepid art and unengaging stories, such that I only ever bought a single issue of its fifty issue run new off the shelf. This could have been a great book to introduce me to the greater DC Universe, but it failed to induce me to buy, and even having picked up most of the run well after the fact, I keep them more for the reference than any true affection. Superman #2 was another toss through at the mall bookstore, lured in by the premise that Lex Luthor now knew the Man of Steel's secret identity, then put off by how they handwaved it away. Back on the rack, Byrne.

I don't know if we appreciated how good when had it in the '80s, when Barry Windsor-Smith would pop by for a random fill-in issue involving the Disco Dazzler, as I don't know if we appreciated how good when had it in the '80s, when Barry Windsor-Smith would pop by for a random fill-in issue involving the Disco Dazzler, as he did in Uncanny X-Men #214. This isn't Lifedeath-- there's nothing special about this book, except that it was drawn exceptionally well for the largest audience available in comics at the time. And I guess also that Wolverine is continuing to act like a nutjob, but we were still too high on the Mutant Massacre to care.

Comic Reader Résumé Podcast #27

(October 1986)

Internet Archive ◫ MP3 ◫ Spotify

ré·su·mé [rez-oo-mey, rez-oo-mey] noun 1. a summing up; summary. 2. a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.

In Comic Reader Résumé, I use Mike’s Amazing World of Comics to travel back through time via his virtual newsstand to the genesis point of my lifelong collecting of comics. From there, I can offer a “work history” of my fandom through my active purchasing of (relatively) new comic books beginning in January of 1982, when my interest in the medium went from sporadic and unformed to routine on through compulsive accumulation. To streamline the narrative and keep the subjects at least remotely contemporaneous, I will not generally be discussing what we call back issues: books bought long after their publication date. Sometimes, I will cover a book published on a given month that I picked up within a year or so that date, and I give myself an especially wide berth on this aspect in the first couple of “origins” episodes. We’ll get more rigidly on point as my memories crystallize and my “hobby” spirals out of control into the defining characteristic of my life (eventually outpacing squalor and competing neuroses.) It’s part personal biography, part industry history, and admittedly totally self-indulgent on my part.

This episode includes Batman #403, Classic X-Men #5, D.P. 7 #3, Daredevil #239, Elfquest #18, G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #55, The History of Electronics, Justice #3, Marvel Saga #14, The 'Nam #2, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #14, Strikeforce: Morituri #3, Tandy Computer Whiz Kids, Uncanny X-Men #213, X-Factor #12, and more!

“Transcripts”

• Early October, 1986
• Late October, 1986
• Twitter
• #CRRésumé?
• rolledspinepodcasts@gmail.com
• Comment on Résumé page or Rolled Spine Podcasts.

ALF, Batman, Bloom County, DC Comics, Daredevil, G.I. Joe, Ghostbusters, Inhumanoids, Marvel Comics, New Universe, Radio Shack, Rambo, SilverHawks, Strikeforce: Morituri, Wolverine, X-Factor, X-Men, Movies, Music, Comic Reader Résumé

Comic Reader Résumé: Late October, 1986

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I've been rereading Classic X-Men via my omnibus edition, which I've been very happy with. For each reprint, there's an orange page with black text that offers the original cover and a synopsis for the 1970s X-Men issue. As I've gotten older, my tolerance for the quirks and excesses of Bronze Age comics has worn thin, so I don't anticipate ever revisiting that material in full. I much prefer being given the plot and a gallery of all the revisions made to the material in 1986, then enjoy the new character-focused short story by a more mature and confident Chris Claremont. I favor that to suffering through a monster of the month plot last issue, where Cyclops accidentally unleashed demons that Storm has to put away, or this issue's revival of Eric the Red. I do feel bad for Havok and Polaris though, a reasonably normal and loving couple constantly sucked into the dark vortex that was Scott Summers' drama. Alex feels bad about getting adopted and leaving Scott behind at the orphanage, but like, wouldn't you have, too? The back-up involves Colossus' very brief romance with a defecting Russian ballerina, and how despite twice saving her from thugs, he's rejected for being a mutant. Piotr comes off as both soulful and dense for wasting a day on the beach, contemplating whether a man of steel like himself has a heart worthy of love. It was still a good one, and also, the negative space on the back cover finally allowed me to notice that Bolton has been numbering each cover as part of his signature. #5 in an ongoing series!

Elfquest #18 was full of palace intrigue, and I'm struck by the Tolkien of it all. Yeah, they're all more or less elves, but there's the shorter Wolfriders pitted against the taller telepathic ones on winged mounts, and then there's the ones that are part bat, and only one can still produce children, melting the heart of the king of the other ones, and yadda yadda. Look, it was sexy half-naked slender myth creatures in a fantasy soap opera. X-Men wasn't all that different.

Unicorn to Wolverine in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #14 pretty much marks the last proper issue of the Deluxe Edition. The other six issues are more specialized interests, where this one still looks at the breadth of the MCU. We got your Art Adams, Mike Zeck, Bill Sienkiewicz, John Byrne, Kerry Gammill, Bob Layton, and Paul Smith. The ones hitting it out of the park are Jerry Ordway's Vision, and if you can believe it, Sandy Plunkett's Will O' The Wisp.

X-Factor #12 seemed to be a try-out issue for Marc Silvestri, given that he would soon take over X-Men from the departing John Romita Jr. after a slew of high quality fill-ins. It inhabits an interesting space as a Mutant Massacre aftermath, that reintroduces Boom Boom post Secret Wars II, and makes a point at picking at the flaws of the mutant exterminators cover that would soon be abandoned. You've also got Apocalypse developing his Four Horsemen, and the progression of the crippled Angel subplot that will play into next year's mutant crossover.

Louis Williams did not have much of a career. On a quick search, I couldn't find any information on him, beyond a single issue's work on about three comics, an incomplete Speedy serial in Action Comics Weekly, a two-issue mini-series devoted to The Punisher's I.T. guy, and his five issue run on Daredevil. He did the Klaw fill-in with Steve Englehart, and then a pair of two-parters with Ann Nocenti that had to be separated by two fill-in stories by other artists. I have to assume the dude was not up to speed for monthly comics, and he was likely hired for bearing a passing resemblance to David Mazzucchelli. A shame then, because his work hit me just right, and he's kind of my defining Daredevil artist. He makes Matthew Murdock just pretty and delicate enough for me to believe that her could pull the kind of ladies that he does who are willing to put up with his nonsense, but also sell the violence inherent in his alter ego. His work is perfectly grounded and realistic, and yet he can also delve into the surreal and the outright horrific demanded from him in a script like "Bad Plumbing" from Daredevil #239. Though the cover advertises a Jack the Ripper type with the bloody scrawl "Rotgut was Here," Williams renders the serial killer a disturbing, pathetic creep driven to murder by various mental pathologies. Rotgut appears to be an African-American Albino, and in my experience, most comic artists struggle with an accurate representation of a regular Black person, but Williams excels at rendering such a tricky racial nuance. Rotgut isn't meant to be a credible or recurring threat to our hero, but as the centerpiece for Nocenti's exploration of a particular type of zealot that has only proven more of a concern for society today than he was nearly forty years ago. As I've mentioned, I didn't delve into the more highly regarded Daredevil material for a few years yet, so this was the interpretation that finally drew me onto the title, and which I still compare other runs against.

The 'Nam #2 was bought by my half-brother and read by me. This title should maybe come up more as an early influence on Western decompressed, cinematic storytelling. Like the New Universe, this book takes place in real time, jumping a month between issues. Unlike anything at the New U, this is drawn by one of the all time great comics artists at the peak of his powers, so the book doesn't feel the need to be written so densely as to serve as an installment in a novella in order to encourage repeat business. Michael Golden is killing it here like--well, like the Army kills that V.C. patrol, or like Sergeant Polkow would like to kill his superior when he intentionally puts his squad in harm's way as payback for a personal slight. The book looks so good, and is such a fine example of visual storytelling, that Doug Murray refuses to cover much of it with dialogue or captions, meaning you can read the thing in about five minutes.

After two exceptional issues of Strikeforce: Morituri, the third was a shockingly basic super-team comic. Purple prose, arch dialogue, straining to work in both real and code names while summarizing each character's power. This could have been any period X-Men knock-off, though the science fiction elements lend more towards Levitz Legion of Super-Heroes, aside from a horror element that sets it apart somewhat. It's a perfectly fine example in that class, with nifty costume designs on display and variations on fastball specials executed, but it's hardly transcending standard Marvel fare in the way it was previously

Comic Reader Résumé: Early October, 1986

October of 1986 is technically a five week month, but I don't seem to have bought anything from the first week. Watchmen was nearing its halfway point, but I only have vague, uncertain visions of seeing those covers while tossing through books at the mall bookstore. If so, Dave Gibbons' 9-panel grids clearly didn't grab me like Keith Giffen's. I can speak similar of the final four issues marking The End of the Justice League of America. I'm more confident about having tossed through late life issues of the series, which seemed dark and cool, but the character selection was off-putting, and I wasn't entirely won over by the art.

Batman #403 was the last and frankly least part of a sequential three-pack, but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it. I like Denys Cowan, just nowhere near the same level as Trevor Von Eeden or Jim Starlin. Plus, the inks of Greg Brooks-- yes, that Greg Brooks-- do the work no favors, occasionally veering into Carmine Infantino territory. This is also the second and final appearance of Tommy Carma, the mass murderer who thought that he was Batman, as we see him break out of a mental asylum in a manner it's not at all comfortable seeing Greg Brooks of all people help render. It feels like Collins was hired to do a fill-in, and then when he was handing it in, was asked if he could do another over the weekend. So it's an immediate, unnecessary sequel to the one he just did, with the added contrivance of the fake Batman actually stumbling upon the Batcave, but it's worth it when the Dynamic Dup rush to a Batmobile that isn't there anymore. Even in the best neighborhoods. Next issue begins "Year One," but I missed three-quarters of that one.

In D.P. 7 #3, the whitest people on the team try to being in the cops to help them with the clinic's headhunters, to entirely predictable results for the racial minorities. Mark Gruenwald gets it. The rest of the issue is dealing with the consequences of the team's decisions and circumstances, a surprisingly mature and organic take on the concept of super-powered individuals spontaneously manifesting. I know this creative team's work on Squadron Supreme is often touted as anticipating Watchmen, but I think that this is the book that fares better in comparison to that lionized piece. Rather than the heavily politicized moral panic of Moore's work, or the romanticized outsiders in the X-Men, this book took a disparate group of people and played out how they would deal with a fantastic circumstance in a believable way that satisfies with each installment.

G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #55 was dubbed "Unmaskings," and it feels like the reveal that the Flint who was captured was actually Snake-Eyes in disguise was added just to validate the kinda lame Zeck cover of him in the process of taking off his mask, alongside Cobra Commander and Destro. The latter two escape from under the Pit, but are on the run, donning new clothes and disguises. The twist is that they're pulled over by a cop who sees a resemblance between the Commander and a kid in a coma that turns out to be his actual son Billy, having survived the drunk driving incident. So there's a tearful reunion on the Commader's part, since his one-eyed kid still hasn't regained consciousness. You forget how much of an X-Men-like melodrama this book was in its heyday. Also, Stalker leads the mission to free Snake-Eyes, who then tears up Cobra troops.

The Marvel Saga, the Official History of the Marvel Universe #14 offers a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants cover, and I don't know if settling on Keith Pollard as the regular artist was an aesthetic choice or a budgetary condition, but these bland, stiff things are killing the title. I bought Marvel Tales with the help of new Kerry Gammill covers, later followed by the likes of Mike Zeck and Todd McFarlane. Classic X-Men was a bonafide hit with its Arthur Adams covers and John Bolton back-ups. Meanwhile, I let my brother buy every lame looking Marvel Saga that I ever read over its two year run, and I suspect at least some of that was X-Men completionism. This is the same kid buying old Werner Roth back issues, after all. Anyway, Green Goblin teaming-up with The Enforcers triggers a flash forward to John Romita stories telling of the psychological descent of Norman Osborne. Likewise, the Brotherhood sequence gets into Scarlet Witch backstory drawn by John Byrne. When we do get back to Kirby, it's for cool baddies like Enchantress and the Executioner. So basically, everything inside the book looks better than the exteriors.

Uncanny X-Men #213 sold us Sabretooth versus Wolverine by Alan Davis on the cover, but made it a Psylocke proving ground inside, and I wasn't mad at it. I think I'd missed the annual where Captain Britain's telepathic sister was brought into the book, since Phoenix had been written out, and Claremont can't not have a telepath around. This purple haired chick in pink just started showing up, so I for one needed the explainer. I did enjoy the issue, but maybe keeping Phoenix and having Psylocke be part of Excalibre would have made more sense, or having Alan Davis take over X-Men instead of launching its least loved spin-off at the peak of its sales powers?

Comic Reader Résumé Podcast #26

(September 1986)

Internet Archive ◫ MP3 ◫ Spotify

ré·su·mé [rez-oo-mey, rez-oo-mey] noun 1. a summing up; summary. 2. a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.

In Comic Reader Résumé, I use Mike’s Amazing World of Comics to travel back through time via his virtual newsstand to the genesis point of my lifelong collecting of comics. From there, I can offer a “work history” of my fandom through my active purchasing of (relatively) new comic books beginning in January of 1982, when my interest in the medium went from sporadic and unformed to routine on through compulsive accumulation. To streamline the narrative and keep the subjects at least remotely contemporaneous, I will not generally be discussing what we call back issues: books bought long after their publication date. Sometimes, I will cover a book published on a given month that I picked up within a year or so that date, and I give myself an especially wide berth on this aspect in the first couple of “origins” episodes. We’ll get more rigidly on point as my memories crystallize and my “hobby” spirals out of control into the defining characteristic of my life (eventually outpacing squalor and competing neuroses.) It’s part personal biography, part industry history, and admittedly totally self-indulgent on my part.

This episode includes Alpha Flight #41, Amazing Spider-Man #283-284, Animax #1, Batman #402, Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos #1, Classic X-Men #4, D.P. 7 #2, Daredevil #238, Defenders of the Earth #1, Elfquest #17, G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #54, Groo the Wanderer #22, Howard the Duck: The Movie #1, Justice #2, Mark Hazzard: Merc #2-3, Marvel Saga #12-13, Mighty Thor #374, The 'Nam #1, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #13, Power Pack #27, Psi-Force #3, Strikeforce: Morituri #2, Super Powers #4, Uncanny X-Men #212, X-Factor #11, X-Men Annual #10, and more!

“Transcripts”

• 1st Week of September, 1986
• 2nd Week of September, 1986
• 3rd Week of September, 1986
• 4th Week of September, 1986
• Twitter
• #CRRésumé?
• rolledspinepodcasts@gmail.com
• Comment on Résumé page or Rolled Spine Podcasts.

Animax, At The Movies, Batman, DC Comics, Defenders of the Earth, G.I. Joe, Howard the Duck, Marvel Comics, New Universe, Siskel & Ebert, Strikeforce: Morituri, Spider-Man, Super Powers, Thor, Wolverine, X-Factor, X-Men, Movies, Music, Comic Reader Résumé

Comic Reader Résumé: 4th Week of September, 1986

Classic X-Men #4 Between my Al Milgrom, Peter David, and Conway/Buscema periods, I tend to center Spectacular Spider-Man in my Web-Head experience. I also dismiss any influence from Tom DeFalco or Ron Frenz, who mostly worked on books that I skipped. And yet, my half-brother bought Amazing Spider-Man #284, the first part of the Gang War, and I certainly read through that story arc. This isn't my first or last foray into Amazing, either-- it's just that nothing here ever hit me like "The Death of Jean DeWolff." As you may have surmised, this one is about a mob conflict with super-human contributors, including Hobgoblin, Jack O' Lantern, The Rose, Hammerhead, and The Arranger. While these characters had a strong period presence, they were largely abandoned going into the '90s, and this churn helped to distance me from the Spider-titles. I experienced the classic rogues more through stuff like Marvel Saga and the cartoons, so they never resonated in the same way for me. Probably one of the reasons I've yet to embrace a Spider-Man movie is that they don't deal with my generation of supporting cast or foes, although Into The Mutiverse came the closest with the Kingpin and Prowler.

After a few months, I'm back to Daredevil with #238, with a near unrecognizable Art Adams on the cover, after being mucked up by Klaus Janson inks. The interiors are by Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha, which is also not a complimentary combination, especially on a loose Mutant Massacre tie-in spotlighting Sabretooth. Man-- was there a concerted effort to put Sabretooth over nine years into his career, and if so, was it all down to tying him into Wolverine's back story? I don't recall ever seeing Sabretooth before 1986, and then he was everywhere. DC somehow pulled that same trick off with Lobo a few years later. Anyway, this is an oddball story with a uniquely and questionably sympathetic take on the feral mass murderer, and it's only that much more off with the mismatched art team. Still, I picked it up at a flea market relatively soon after release, likely influenced by having read at least one of the better stories to follow, starting next month.

Marie Severin finished Mark Texeira's breakdowns on Psi-Force #3, and you can't tell that Tex didn't do the job himself, it looks so good and true. This is the first "breather" issue of the series, mostly about the kids going to school, relating to one another, and failing to relate to classmates. I genuinely like these kids, feeling and fearing for them when a knife wielding punk tries to cut them out of his circles. New scripter Danny Fingeroth doesn't seem to miss a beat, as this teen drama works for me in a way New Mutants and the like never could.

Strikeforce: Morituri #2 was another fantastic read, as the government think tank that gave the team its powers is also willing to allow them to die in a potentially lethal stress test to force the swift manifestation of their broader abilities. That seems like a waste of resources to me, since each member already had enhanced physical attributes to survive the Morituri process, but these deadly games work because of the human drama of their very real peril. While Peter B. Gillis' script is remarkable on its own, much of the heft comes from the art of Brent Anderson at his career best, accomplished through no small help by the inks of Scott Williams. Each character has a distinctive face-- body type-- posture-- manner of emoting. It a beauty to behold. I've said before and shall repeat: this is one of the best comics from arguably the best year ever for mainstream comics. After rereading the first issue, I was already kicking myself for missing the admittedly pricey trade paperbacks from a dozen years back, but there is blessedly a comprehensive single-volume omnibus coming next year.

Finally, appropriately, we'll wrap up with the colossal X-Men Annual #10, continuing to feature Arthur Adams illustrations, with the absorption of his signature character Longshot and the Mojoverse into the mutant sphere. This was also the first appearance of the X-Babies-- the actual X-Men temporarily regressed to young children, and the far less heralded up-aged New Mutants in fairly lackluster adult costumes. I don't think it helped the New Mutants' long term prospects that they looked like dorks even under Adams' pen, and when you think about it, what have they amounted to? Magik is about the only member presented that still has something of a career, and she's not exactly a huge breakout in modern x-circles. Anyway, this annual was a load of fun, and highly coveted at the time... especially for the peak body hair on naked Logan, which I admit is a metric that opens up a line of questioning that I won't be fielding. I got the Marvel Arthur Adams Omnibus, so I'll probably reread this someday, but the number of words per panel is almost as dense as Wolverine's personal foliage, and somehow more off-putting.

Comic Reader Résumé: 3rd Week of September, 1986

Classic X-Men #4 reminds me of just what a crazy book this was. You had those utterly modern, exhaustively rendered, perfect super-hero images on the front cover and frontpiece by Arthur Adams. Then you'd have these brittle thin, awkward and fragile lines of John Bolton on the back covers and back-up stories. Bolton had that art school quality, and was such a misfit on costumed action, but perfect for these introspective character pieces that Chris Claremont was crafting. This one was about Logan and Kurt becoming fast friends during mock combat, and later as part of a dare where Nightcrawler reveals his true form in a town near to the X-Mansion. I'd argue it's a lesser tale, but there's swell story title lettering by Tom Orzechowski, and Bolton manages some surprisingly iconic hero images. Between the two, you have Dave Cockrum producing new pages of story to supplement the old, while Claremont reworks old dialogue to better fit later characterization and changing publishing standards. This came at no small expense, not the least because all that bonus content came at the cost of any advertisements or marketing materials on a newsstand comic. That said, it also came at a better than 25% mark-up on the usual 75¢ demanded for a typical Marvel Comic. Regardless, it was a good return on investment to get a top selling title out of a reprint from pre-royalty inventory material.

I recall seeing the first issue of G.I. Joe Comics Magazine, a digest-sized sequential reprint of the monthly comic, but I'm not confident that I ever bought any. As much as I was into the title, I didn't feel a compulsion to read back material, especial with the Yearbooks around to summarize it. I also like standard comic books mainly, with an allowance for magazines, but digest and treasuries were always too extreme in dimensions for someone who had to pack up all their worldly goods as often as I did. Further, digests were so puny-- such a compromised way of reading material that was never intended to be printed so small.

My following on to Elfquest #17 is somewhat inexplicable. I was still into fantasy trappings at that time, where I've since developed a strong aversion. I'm sure the pretty art, strong female characters, and soap opera were a draw. The abrupt stopping points and overall meandering nature were not, plus those annoying web fairies were still here. There was a lot of telepathic torture in this issue, as one would find in a typical X-Men comic. I don't think my brother was buying these either, so it was all me.

As much as I gripe about Keith Pollard's Marvel Saga covers, he's a great fit taking over The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition with #13, Super-Adaptoid to Umar. Pollard did a lot of style guide work, and most of the art for the Master Edition. He's no Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, but he knows his way around these characters and the Bronze Age Marvel style. If you don't immediately notice the absence of John Byrne, he's getting the job done, with all due credit to the inks of Josef Rubenstein. All the usual suspects are inside: Byrne, Zeck, Simonson, plus another couple of entirely random Bollands. Paul Smith contributes, and I could have included him with the other surnames, but I thought folks might assume I meant Barry Windsor-Smith. Which leads me to wonder, how did we ended up with more Bolland pieces in OHOTMU than BWS ones?

I feel like I should have learned my lesson by Super Powers #4, but the comic is too familiar to deny. Maybe my brother bought it, or I dug it out of a quarter bin within a few years of relief? This final issue was about Kupperberg and Infantino playing with the same Wave Three action figures that I would have, if I had them all. They never made a Janus figure, which was just Darkseid masquerading in a more comics-accurate Orion look than the Man-E-Faces version from the toys, but Golden Pharaoh, Mr. Miracle, Tyr, Steppenwolf, and the rest were still on toy aisles for you to play your own games on Apokolips. Well... maybe not Cyborg, but I do think I have a vague recollection of passing on that now highly sought after figure for something much more gimmicky and disposable, probably Cyclotron and his dumb removable face plate. Which I didn't have long before it got stolen, like I hope also happened to this lousy comic.

As referenced last month, my brother bought The Mighty Thor #374 as a tie-in to the Mutant Massacre crossover, and I think closer to the time of release. It must have been so disappointing to circle back to #373 for a few pages of lead-in already covered in that same week's X-Factor comic. Anyhow, Thor takes on Harpoon, Blockbuster, and Vertigo, sending them running in moments. That trio was more than holding their own, at least with a few more members at any given time, against whole X-teams. Thor was saving Angel, who was permanently crippled in this encounter. So I guess that helps depict their relative power levels, and if I recall correctly, Thor was at reduced strength in this period. Wasn't the whole reason he grew the beard because his visage had been rendered ghastly by the touch of death? No really-- I haven't read these comics in nearly forty years, and was never big on Thor. That's why when they go back to Baldar and the Midguard Serpent, I check right out. I hope I remember right, because one of the Marauders comes back to break Thor's arm, and the only other thing he does in the crossover is wander around and befriend Artie, the big-headed pink kid that projects holograms. Not a big win for the Thunder God, here.

More Simonson on Simonson action coming at you in X-Factor #11, another chapter of the notorious Mutant Massacre. This one isn't as well remembered because it's mostly about Morlocks that lived, at least for now, but still a sight better than the early issues.

Comic Reader Résumé: 2nd Week of September, 1986

Where I was somewhat indifferent towards my brother's copy of the first issue, I think I started feeling it more with I'm uncertain when I got my hands on D.P. 7 #2. Though the book was initially told from a single character's perspective about the no-duh, too-good-to-be-true Clinic that was grooming the Displaced Paranormals for service to the C.I.A., we now get the proper ensemble that will drive this title. These characters each have their own voice and perspective, disagreements are organic, and their collaborating on a plan of action is relatable. There's no Professor X here to provide guidance, a mansion, and a stealth fighter. These are just a bunch of people from all walks of life, trying to escape a bad situation, barefoot and underdressed in backwoods and off the highway. As they're hunted by other powered beings, we see clever applications of everyone's special abilities, and Paul Ryan's relatively unglamorous art suits this more domestic take on mutant tropes. There's a reason why this was the New Universe title that lasted the longest, and managed to be one of the best regarded Mark Gruenwald series.

I wrote a lot about Flint last month, so that doesn't leave much for me to say about G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #54. The cover by Mike Zeck had him parachuting while a Cobra airship came gunning fort him, and was memorably featured on one of those animated TV commercials where Marvel conspired with Hasbro to sidestep regulations by promoting the comic books, and not the toys, even though they chant "Cobra Launch Base" fifty-something times in thirty seconds. Flint is captured by the twins Zander and Xamot to be turned over to Dr. Mindbender for conditioning. Can you smell the refresh in here? There's also a lot of Serpentor, while Cobra Commander and Destro are literally buried and presumed dead under the remains of The Pit, just to make the subtext text.

I wouldn't see the actual flick until home video, but I did buy the first issue of Howard the Duck: The Movie at the local 7-11. Given that they only had three issues to adapt a feature film, I'm not sure that it was wise to devote so many pages to the moody opening scenes and the "Hunger City" sequence where the band Cherry Bomb plays Howie through a series of misadventures upon his arrival in the misfit city of "Cleve-Land." What was wise was having Kyle Baker draw it, giving the very '70s Howard a fully '80s makeover. The book just looks cool, even if the story's a mess and Baker is definitely in comic strip mode. I got a commission done of Beverly to get signed by Lea Thompson, but was embarrassed when the artist sexed her up. I wish I'd given Baker's Beverly art as the reference instead of pictures, because he better balances the new wave rocker and suburban girl next door qualities of the character as depicted in the movie. Danny Fingeroth's script doesn't launder the weaknesses from the movie as effectively, and in fact he probably highlights the more off-putting aspects of the characters' personalities, which is likely why I didn't come back for the other two parts. I do think I'll keep an eye out for the last Marvel Super Special magazine that collects the lot though, if I can get it cheap. Let's be real-- if I find one, it'll be cheap.

Justice #2 features more of a young Geof Isherwood's solid Adamsesque pencils undermined by Vince Colletta inks, as our protagonist kills his cellmates in a New York jail. Then he's interrogated by Rebecca Chambers. I was going to make a Cheers joke, but I myself was mixing up Diane Chambers and Rebecca Howe, when the most famous Rebecca Chambers is the S.T.A.R.S. chick from the first Resident Evil that isn't Jill Valentine. This Becky Chambers is the Black plainclothes cop that was pursuing the same drug dealers as John Tensen, the guy we mostly just call Justice. He's totally hot for Becky's pure blue aura, to the extent that he kisses her, which even in the '80s was a big no-no (while being interrogated for multiple murders, I mean.) His whole story about being a Justice-Warrior from another dimension gets a big boost when the pair are attacked by brown-skinned were-creatures that run wild on the jail. These creatures lack auras, and cannot be effected by Justice energy "sword," so he just has to straight up break their necks. But his left-hand shield square things still stop Becky's bullet, so don't ask me how this is supposed to work as anything but a pure fantasy title, surely undercutting that "world outside your window" sales pitch. Justice basically just walks out of the pokey, then brutally executes a bunch of drug dealers to get the money to pay for a cab ride to Los Angeles. I don't know what drugs Steve Englehart was on when he wrote this, but you can definitely note his distinctly oddball touch over the next several issues, now that both of the book's creators have abandoned it.

Marvel Saga #13 is back for the second week of September. It's a Daredevil spotlight issue, given verisimilitude by Klaus Janson inks on the Keith Pollard cover. The earlier pages though are devoted to Hulk's first major battle with the combined Fantastic Four and Avengers, with that great Donkey Kong image of Hulk throwing girders from atop a skyscraper under construction as the heroes make their way up and through it. Black Widow gets introduced to Iron Man, triggering flashbacks to her origins with Gene Colan art and too many repurposed OHOTMU entries. Spider-Man gets Betty Brant's ne'er-do-well brother killed, and the Avengers face the Masters of Evil. It's a good issue, made better by the Daredevil section favoring Frank Miller art, though it made for a nice juxtaposition with the sunnier Bill Everett panels.

After the United States' defeat in the Vietnam conflict, and the despicable reception our lost and wounded soldiers faced upon returning home, we as a nation needed to have a serious conversation about these matters in the aftermath. But instead we got Reagan and Rambo to whitewash the whole thing, with Jim Braddock returning to liberate P.O.W.s and effectively win the war we lost as late as 1989. There were a few years of introspection, and then we were right back to Team America: World Police. As a child of the '80s, I was exposed to a near constant barrage of Vietnam War material, and I wasn't really prepared to parse the legitimate consideration from the "Namsploitation." I don't recall if it was myself or my brother who bought the first issue of Marvel Comics The 'Nam, as we more or less alternated issues, and I'm also not sure where that title fell on the line I've drawn. At the most basic level, the book was conceived by Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter, who had a mock-up put together that married the title to an image from a G.I. Joe comic, and they ended up hiring popular Joe artist Michael Golden. You have to figure Shooter wanted a Joe-like title that Marvel would own, and would tap into the popular subject of cinema at the time. On the other hand, he assigned the job of editor to G.I. Joe and actual Vietnam vet Larry Hama, who turned around and hired fellow vet Doug Murray to write it as a real-time exploration of Murray's own experiences in the war. So whatever Shooter's intentions, Hama was playing it straight, and it seemed to make a major splash, The first issue outsold Uncanny X-Men, and it was a newsstand staple for as long as Golden was on the title. The book got glowing newspaper write-ups, was swiftly collected in trade paperback, and was also repackaged as a black & white magazine. I feel like this book had to be tapping into a mainstream audience beyond the comics faithful, but when I look at circulation statements, they're nothing special. Less than 170K by around issue #15, and Golden would have drawn most of them up to that point, which had to be disappointing for someone of his fame. This first issue is stunning to look at, not only for its hyper-detailed art, but also for Golden's sublime coloring. You're immediately endeared to the characters, despite relatively sparse dialogue peppered with so much lingo that a dense glossary was included at the back of each issue to decipher it. That said, we ate it up, and for a brief period, it was among our favorite titles.

Among the effects of the Mutant Massacre was my actually buying Uncanny X-Men every month with my own money, even #212 with the Rick Leonardi art. That said, it had a bloody BWS Wolverine cover, and the start of the Logan versus Sabretooth feud. I guess Storm also fought Callisto again, but when it's over sewers full of meat that used to be Morlocks, who actually cares?

Comic Reader Résumé: Week 1 of September, 1986

I accidentally missed The Marvel Saga, the Official History of the Marvel Universe #12 on the first week of August. It had Hulk & Sub-Mariner teaming up to battle the Fantastic Four. There was so much more FF and Namor in the early Marvel Comics stories than the MCU ones. The capsules are really flying by at this point, so I'm not going to touch on them episode by episode. Anyway, the return of Captain America in the early days of the Marvel Age triggers a lengthy recap of his history, blessedly involving peak art by Jack Kirby and John Byrne. We get into the Invaders, Baron Zemo, and Cap's joining the Avengers. I'll be honest-- I'm not certain that my brother bought this issue. The material in it is very familiar to me from the Fireside Sentinel of Liberty trade paperback and issues of the Stern/Byrne Cap run I picked up at flea markets. But he does get the next issue, so maybe it just didn't resonate as much with me because of that familiarity.

I'm uncertain when I got my hands on Alpha Flight #41, but I lean toward either a three-pack or a pull from the quarter bin. Either way, this 1986 comic gives me 1989 vibes. It's about the daughter of the Purple Man, a fairly obscure villain at the time, suddenly acquiring his powers and complexion rather late into her teenage years for a mutant. After learning her hidden backstory, she steals her mother's credit card and runs away to... a ski resort? See, she's had a lifetime crush on a now retired but far famed French-Canadian ski champion, who is now the super-hero Northstar, and she ends up using her power to control people on him. I didn't understand at the time why he was so put out by having the intense interest of an attractive young woman, but now that the subtext is long made text, I get it. If the Purple Man had done that to me, I wouldn't have been cool with it, either. I've always liked Dave Ross, very well served by the inks of Whilce Portacio, and the purchase would make more sense if it occurred after one handed off the reins to the Punisher ongoing series to the other. Despite digging the story, it would be years before I got around to the next chapter.

My brother bought Amazing Spider-Man #283, which I read for the thin connection to Secret Wars via the appearances of Titania and the Absorbing Man. He also got Animax #1, based on a toy line so short-lived that I don't think he even had any of the figures, and you guys, he had so many action figures. I ran an eBay search, and they apparently came with a MOTU-style mini-comic, but the full sized Marvel ones are a lot more readily available than the actual figures, and look a lot better besides. You can still snag loose toys for under $20, so I'm guessing they're no so much ultra rare as simply little traded undesirables. Some of the villains look pretty neat, but that heroes are all dorks in giant animal masks that make them all look like Razorback. There's a reason why that Mort was used early and often in John Byrne's humorous Sensational She-Hulk run. The comic is actually really neat-- a bizarre heavy metal Mad Max riff with animal/machine cyborgs, which makes it real unnerving when you see the bad guys spit-roasting such a creature, despite being some sort of hybrids themselves. This features rare, sorta mainstream heroic artwork by Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, given a savage embellishment by the finally beneficial Gerry Talaoc. The book already gives big pagan vibes, but then the lead villain goes full bondage freak-- red skin and bat wing Satanic Panic action. This feels like an ill-fitting foreign import, so how this was spawned in Reagan's America, I'll never know. And Walt Simonson wrote it? What a trip. The book lasted four issues, but our interest and/or accessibility didn't.

Lil' bro also had Doctor Strange #80, in which all manner of monster attacked the Master of the Mystic Arts' friendship circle, and the man himself spiritually, as his physical body was undergoing surgery at a hospital. Another sophisticated tale by Peter B. Gillis, with some of the best art of Chris Warner's career, under Randy Emberlin inks. Definitely had Groo the Wanderer #22 in the house, though I'm not sure who bought it. This was the one where an ambassador with the unfortunate name of Gru, spelled with a "u," is constantly mistaken for the dim-witted barbarian and beaten for it. It's a cute bit that overstays its welcome, which frankly, is how I tend to view Groo as a whole.

I remember being put off by that little league cover to Mark Hazzard: Merc #2 when I was eyeballing it at the 7-11. I've never had any interest in sports, and hate when they intrude on my nerdy comics world. I needn't have worried, because the story is also about Mark's son's dumb baseball game violently colliding with the grim realities of a Soldier of Fortune. That said, it's also a funny book, before Peter David went completely overboard with the puns and sight gags. Mark Hazzard is a thug from a brutal world, so the humor stays firmly in the sardonic and bleak vein. This material needs to be collected in a higher quality presentation, certainly more so than freakin' Nightmask, which got a comprehensive trade paperback in 2018 to tie in with Secret Wars, I guess? Gray Morrow's art is shot directly from the pencils, and the line is so light that it nearly disappears on newsprint. A lot of the definition comes from D. Martin's pale coloring, which is also imperiled by the lousy paper, but entirely appropriate to the art. Merc was easily the most grounded, realistic, and in the early issues handily the overall best New Universe title. But part of its reality is that however sympathetic its lead may be played here, this guy would be a villain in the Marvel Universe, and that had to set a moralist like Jim Shooter's teeth on edge. This was so early in David's career that I have an easier time seeing him getting fired from this book for some of the choices he makes here than having left of his own volition, and at least as credited, this is Morrow's last issue for a while. Most of the time, I think the creative turnover on these title is a result of their being low paying dregs, but here, I think the book was simply too daring for the boss man. I love it, and will miss this team going forward.

My brother bought the Mutant Massacre tie-in Power Pack #27 for the Wolverine and Sabretooth appearances. It was overall too domestic and kiddie for our tastes, but then you'd have Scalphunter standing atop a pile of bodies as he gunned down adorable mutant children. Man-- that's just wrong. I like the Jon Bogdanove art a lot more now than I did then, but then again, Power Pack still strikes me as a kid's books that their parents would prefer, so that tracks.

As I mentioned last month, my Batman #402 came in a three-pack, so it's wild how much of this thing was centered on my interests, while being bought largely sight unseen. As the middle book numerically, I might noty have known that there was a Jim Starlin cover in the mix, much less full interiors. This may have been around the time Epic Comics started playing monkey-in-the-middle with his Dreadstar royalty checks, and I understand that he needed the fill-in gig for quick cash to pay an income tax bill. After having spent most of the '80s on cosmic science fantasy, and also entering a period when he was losing interest in drawing, Starlin's stiffness and extremely dated fashions stood out like a sore thumb. Bruce Wayne hanging out at the Playboy Mansion in his Hef smoking jacket with a clearly much younger Robin and a John Watters-looking Alfred should have had Wertham spinning in his grave, and the Swanderson look of it all would have been Seduction of the Innocent era appropriate. But Starlin also brings a '70s New York urban grit, along with some serious grindhouse ultraviolence that could have only gotten by an almost entirely defanged Comics Code Authority. It's about a guy whose mind is broken by tragedy, and comes to think that he's the Batman, but with an m.o. closer to Shadowhawk. Batman had to catch him, to clear his own name, and before "he" kills again. Not gonna lie, I lapped it up. By the way, I didn't realize that all this material had been collected into a trade in 2015, and thought I might pick it up. The not so aptly named Batman:Second Chances trade is going for upwards of $150 online. That just seems stupid high to me for readily attainable late '80s corporate IP that will inevitably be reprinted again, if only on account of those stupid prices indicating demand.

DC Special Podcast: DK Encyclopedia Diaries 14

Volume XIV
The Drunken Guide To The Characters Of The DC Universe

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A
Anti-Monitor 24

B
Black Bat (Cassandra Cain) 6

F
Flamebird (Bette Kane) 7
Forever People 22

M
The Monitor 24
Multiverse 9

N
New Gods 1

O
Oracle (Barbara Gordon) 5

R
The Resistance 15

S
Skye Runner 17
Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) 6


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Comic Reader Résumé Podcast #25

(August 1986)

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ré·su·mé [rez-oo-mey, rez-oo-mey] noun 1. a summing up; summary. 2. a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.

In Comic Reader Résumé, I use Mike’s Amazing World of Comics to travel back through time via his virtual newsstand to the genesis point of my lifelong collecting of comics. From there, I can offer a “work history” of my fandom through my active purchasing of (relatively) new comic books beginning in January of 1982, when my interest in the medium went from sporadic and unformed to routine on through compulsive accumulation. To streamline the narrative and keep the subjects at least remotely contemporaneous, I will not generally be discussing what we call back issues: books bought long after their publication date. Sometimes, I will cover a book published on a given month that I picked up within a year or so that date, and I give myself an especially wide berth on this aspect in the first couple of “origins” episodes. We’ll get more rigidly on point as my memories crystallize and my “hobby” spirals out of control into the defining characteristic of my life (eventually outpacing squalor and competing neuroses.) It’s part personal biography, part industry history, and admittedly totally self-indulgent on my part.

This episode includes Batman #401, Classic X-Men #3, Cracked #224, D.P. 7 #1, Elfquest #16, G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #53, G.I. Joe Order of Battle #1, Justice #1, Mighty Thor #373, New Mutants #46, Psi-Force #2, Strikeforce: Morituri #1, Uncanny X-Men #211, X-Factor #10, and more!

“Transcripts”

• Early August, 1986
• Late August, 1986
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• Comment on Résumé page or Rolled Spine Podcasts.

Atari, Batman, Cracked, DC Comics, The Fly, G.I. Joe, Howard the Duck, Marvel Comics, New Universe, Stand By Me, Strikeforce: Morituri, Super Powers, Wolverine, X-Factor, X-Men, Movies, Music, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Video Games, Comic Reader Résumé

Comic Reader Résumé: Late August, 1986

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I liked Elfquest well enough when I read it, but I didn't pick it up regularly, and they all tend to run together in my memories. It doesn't help that I also read this material in the oversized collections you could check out from at least one of my school libraries. I read #14-16 some way, but aside from a moment here and there, there wasn't enough worth talking about worth bringing up. This third one though, I remember all too well, and may have contributed to my not keeping up with the monthlies. "Noisybad Highthing!" introduced these little multi-colored flying fairies with a very distinctly annoying speech pattern. They vomited sticky Spider-Man web fluid at people, and made victims hibernate for years at a time once encased in it. They fit that fairy tale sweet spot of being adorable to some and creepy to others, more the latter for myself. But Elfquest was also, in modern parlance, "horny on main," so that might have kept me coming back. Numerous pages were spent on two sets of half naked couples in some stage of getting their freak on, so despite being on the newsstand, the book did not carry a CCA approval stamp.

Embarrassing as it is to admit now, especially in light of the fantastically rendered headshot cover on The Mighty Thor #373, but in 1986, I couldn't easily tell Sal Buscema and Walt Simonson apart. I mean, if you put a Buscema Spider-Man and a Simonson X-Factor in front of me, sure, but they were similar enough on Thor to confuse me. The same subject matter and super-distinct work of the greatest letter of all time, John Workman, worked to muddy my perceptions. The book just kind of looked the same to my still developing eye for art styles. And it's not like I was regularly following the construction yard adventures of Sigurd Jarlson, which fairly screams "we're clear tired of the dual identity bit, but are unwilling to leave the safety of the familiar." The majority of this book involves Norse Gods babysitting other people's children. It was not my scene. But the last few pages drags Thor into the Mutant Massacre crossover, because I guess they figured to use a sales bump, or the Simonsons were just so deep into the plotting of more central books that it just spilled over. But yeah, a frog from the New York sewer told Thor about it while he was hanging in the park, and next thing you know, Angel's getting his wings pinned by harpoon. My half-brother bought this one a bit after the fact.

After utterly failing to live up to the hype, X-Factor #10 takes this bland, vestigial X-title and returns it firmly to the fold at the start of the Mutant Massacre and Walt Simonson's run as artist. If that wasn't enough, it's also a Marvel 25th anniversary cover with a Cyclops head shot and the well regarded gray border filled with Marvel heroes. Once again, I didn't buy it myself, but my brother did, and he loved it. I think Louise Simonson and Bob Harras knew the title needed a kick in the pants, so taking part in the first big X-title crossover, much less one with a huge body count that this specific issue contributes mightily to, was just what editorial ordered. We've got your Morlock tunnels lined with bodies, the Marauders, Sabretooth, Apocalypse, and it all ends with Angel's wings impaled to a wall. The kids were more responsive to this than Beast going clothes shopping, let me tell you.

Cracked #224 is scanned onto the Internet Archive, so I can confirm that I owned the issue, but I already had a good run at this magazine last month. It still looks pretty bad, but they've go some notable creators. Dan Clowes did an Ugly Family installment, Peter Bagge did a single page gag with Bill Wray-- I never realized how many '90s indie guys I dug were on this book first doing booger jokes. There's a Born in the U.S.A. cover and a Billy Idol on the back, both crossed with Sylvester the Janitor. There's a Cosby Show parody, and pop star Garbage Pail Kids, and this whole ninja mail order catalog thing. Whatever. Moving on. Unfortunately to Mad Magazine #266, which also took on Cosby, and they both took extended digs at Hands Across America. It was such a dumb idea. Other satires included Who's the Boss, Growing Pains, and Wheel of Fortune. Mad had all the guys that you associate with this type of mag, like Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Sergio Aragones, Dave Berg, Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, Angelo Torres, Jack Davis, and Al Jaffee. I don't think either title holds up, but at least Cracked was more visually fresh. Mad's art staff was more than a little long in the tooth, and the only way I can tell that this isn't a '70s issue is the subject matter.

I've been thinking recently about how utterly amazing the work of Bill Sienkiewicz was, especially in this period. But as a kid, I wanted nothing to do with him, and he was perhaps the first penciller that I outright hated. I've never been a Bob McLeod guy, and my tolerance for kid heroes is limited, so suffice to say I tended to avoid New Mutants like the plague. At one time, it was enough to be X-Men adjacent to score top ten sales status, but with more related titles and stronger competition overall, the X-office needed to run a tighter ship. Of course New Mutants #46 would tie into the Mutant Massacre, but more than that, we'd get at least one crossover per year thereafter to keep that ship afloat. Barry Windsor-Smith was doing their covers in this period, and this has to be among the worst of them. The X-Men and a bunch of Morlocks burst through a wall in the X-Mansion, to the surprise of the barely present titular leads. It looks like it should be an interior half-splash, especially with Colossus being given a dialogue balloon, plus it was the umpteenth variation of "you X-Babies clear out so the adults can get the actual work done." The interiors were by Jackson Guice and Kyle Baker, an interesting combo that I found far more palatable than previous art teams. Not the main thrust was that the X-Men had evacuated the homeless mutants being slaughtered en masse by the Marauders back to their pad, now serving as a makeshift medical ward. Please don't ask me to explain the logistics of people who, if I recall correctly, lived in the sewers on the island of Manhattan, walking in one night to upstate New York via those same sewers. Besides, more pages are devoted to the New Mutants characters that I was largely unfamiliar with muddling in their own affairs in the periphery, contributing nothing. In the end, the bugger off to fight the evil father of the techno-organic alien member that they'd adopted, so they couldn't even be bothered to battle a mutant during the Mutant Massacre. I can't even blame my brother, because I bought this one, but not the next.

Psi-Force #2 picked up where the first issue left off, with the runaways carrying their dead mentor's body, wrapped in a stolen rug, around downtown San Francisco. They're trying to get it back to their shelter, but face a Warriors' style gauntlet in completing that task. Hilary Barta and Romeo Tanghal don't compliment Mark Texeira as well as Baker in the debut, but it's still a much more attractive and contemporary looking title than most of the New Universe's offerings. Steve Perry juggles a lot of nefarious parties of interest pursuing these kids, with a steady ratcheting of tension. He's much better here than on the abortive Blackthorne Omni-Men series, and this book didn't live up to the potential established in his two issues for the rest of my time following it. But I did enjoy the title enough to stick with it for a while yet.

I recollect tossing through Strikeforce: Morituri #1 at the 7-11, but not picking it up. Like many of my generation, I have to fight the Mandela Effect of associating it with the New Universe, since it was developed for that line and released at the same time with a similar trade dress. Instead, I was given my brother's brother's laminated-cover copies of the first three issues. So possessing personally gimmicked editions, I of course finally read the things, and I thought they were swell. The premise was that aliens that were a cross between the Predators, the creature from Explorers, and the enthusiastic consumerism of E.T. began a reign of terror over the Earth. They mostly acted like raiding parties in old westerns-- dropping onto towns, raping and pillaging, collecting slaves, and slaughtering anyone who got in the way. Humans were initially powerless to stop them, until a scientist developed a procedure to literally empower people. The Morituri process first gave a subject superhuman strength to endure the rest of the process, and then the subject would develop superhuman abilities. The first group were a trio called the Black Watch, who died valiantly taking out the leader of the alien's campaign against Earth. They were immortalized in comic within a comic, and their story inspired more volunteers for the procedure to take the fight back to the invaders. The catch was that the Black Watch was originally supposed to be a quintet, but two volunteers died while their powers were being developed. A third spontaneously combusted, accidentally killing a fourth in the process. The human body simply couldn't sustain the Morituri process for long, and anyone who undergoes it were expected to die badly within a year. If I recall correctly, the book ran in real time, unless that ol' Mandela Effect is acting up again, mixing it up with the New Universe or The 'Nam. Regardless, all of the characters introduced here should be dead by the twelfth issue, and the book is as much about how they deal with their imminent mortality as it is about using their powers to fight the aliens. 1986 is considered by many to be the greatest year in comic book history for mainstream content, with the much heralded works of Frank Miller and Alan Moore taking up most of the oxygen. The Strikeforce: Morituri got something to say. At the end of the day, it's still a sci-fi melodrama most indebted to Chris Claremont, but Claremont rarely operated at this level. I'd argue it as a career best for Peter B. Gillis and Brent Anderson, aided by the shine of a newcomer inker named Scott Williams. The inker's buddy drew the comic-within-a-comic, and While Portacio would soon offer a few fill-ins to establish himself as a penciller. Even the late Jim Novak is reminding me that he rates high ranking among the best letterers ever.

Comic Reader Résumé: Early August, 1986

My reading of books published in August of 1986 starts with a belated comic. I got Batman #401-403 is a three pack together, and I believe that it was from a toy store this time? Maybe another deal like that Man of Steel partial set with the cardboard envelope at Circus World? Despite still considering myself a Batman fan in this period, as with Superman, I had never made much of an investment in the hero's comics adventures up to this point. Their Pre-Crisis solo outings mostly bored me, but these stripped down post-400 Batman logo treatments had that air of late '80s sophistication. Decades removed, this genre-embarrassed generic fontiness would get an immediate veto, but at this point gave the title a cool aloofness. I wasn't used to seeing John Byrne drawing DC characters, and Magpie barely qualifies, as she's a rarely seen again new villain with a rare penchant for voluntary alopecia. I'd turn to crime too if I had to maintain three separate Mohawk hairstyles simultaneously on the same head. But anyway, getting past the Byrne, you had admittedly rough and rushed Trevor Von Eeden interiors, coming off the failed Thriller series. He'd drawn what is still one of my favorite Batman things ever, the 1982 Annual with Ra's Al Ghul, and his minimalism just played into that "yes, it is a Batman comic, but we don't care if you know that" vibe. Von Eeden was the original artist chosen for Year One, before being replaced by David Mazzucchelli, and there's a continuity between their Tothian styles. I'm not sorry things worked out as they did, since Mazzucchelli was at the peak of his powers on a story that remains a high water mark for the medium nearly four decades on. But if I may be so bold, I can't say Von Eeden wouldn't have had at least a similar impact, and he manages to convey a real menace in Magpie that nothing about her name, look, or modus operandi would suggest she could pull off otherwise. It's a little insane to me that there's a Brian Bolland pin-up at the back of this thing, that may well have been intended for the cover, and it's the least visually striking element of this package. "The New Adventures" branding is many months out, but Barbara Randall's edgy story suggests the attitude well in advance.

This is the last week of launch titles for the New Universe line, and it's probably not a great sign that I went to read the first issue of Displaced Paranormals, or D.P. 7, and realized that I'd already read it in recent weeks but forgotten. It had a police line-up cover that was like Love & Rockets on Lithium, and was about a more mundane but diverse team of X-Men who run away from the School for Gifted Youngsters when they found out Professor X was going to lobotomize and sell them out to the C.I.A. I was never that into the late Paul Ryan, and gave this book a pass on art alone, but my brother bought it, so I eventually read his.

On the other hand, I did buy Justice #1, which was more of a New Universe breaker than Star Brand, which took all the heat. Created by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, Justice borrowed heavily from the Terminator, featuring a tall, well-built New Wave Punk in a trench coat with glowing red eyes who wanders around Alphabet City killing other punks, seemingly indiscriminately. Simonson bailed as soon as the development money ran out, but Goodwin had a staff editorial position, so he was stuck teaming with young artist Geoff Isherwood to get the book out. Isherwood was more in the Neal Adams vein, and therefore my own, plus I wasn't hip enough to know Justice's whole scene was derivative and years out of date. It helped to cover that this was actually a stealth high fantasy series, with the silver-mulletted quasi-knight Tensen having been exiled to Earth from another dimension by magical ninjas after his affair with the queen was discovered. With patchy memories and no clear way home, Tensen uses his ability to see the auras of others to judge good versus evil. His right hand is a "sword" that fires destructive energy to reduce to ash any wicked that Tensen finds, while his left hand is a shield that erects force field squares to protect those deemed innocent. And again, since Star Brand was comparatively morally and structurally complex, the Justice vigilante just goes from drug dealer to pimp and so on, killing all the bad ones, and learning of the joys of hot dogs paid for in blood. All inked by Vinnie Colletta, looking like Jim Mooney doing a Death Wish comic. So it was dumb and violent when that was the style of the time, and I'd be back for seconds.

The cover to G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #53 is a Mike Zeck Snake-Eyes head shot, and I bought it on a t-shirt just this year. Hey, it's a chest-up, and he also draws a forearm holding up an Uzi. Within the parameters of the assignment, Zeck went above and beyond. But also, Snake-Eyes isn't even in this issue. "Pit-Fall" is about Cobra forces assailing the headquarters of G.I. Joe while the team is on suspension and the actual members are off-site. It's mostly about older brass who were deliberating on the Joes' fate being put in the position of having to replace them. But more importantly, it was a Flint spotlight issue, as he and Lady Jaye are two of the few members in the area, and Flint sacrifices himeslf to make sure his best gal could serve the greater good.

Uncanny X-Men #211 was the proper launch of the Mutant Massacre crossover, with another iconic JRJR Wolverine cover, this one a close-up of popped claws and frayed mask with a Marvel 25th anniversary border. Not being well versed in detecting art styles, I just assumed Romita had done his usual work on the interiors, though it's now obvious Bret Blevins provided a fair share of the pencils on this issue. Credit to Al Williamson for keeping the overall look consistent, though I was easily distracted by all the murder the Marauders were up to, followed by the X-Men getting ripped to bits trying to stop all that murder. We lapped this up in the '80s, but I admit that it's harder on the system at middle age to watch all this wholesale slaughter as entertainment. Honestly, it was much more abstract and fanciful back then, before you could watch videos of actual atrocities online. Given how much I and much of my generation hated Blevins' New Mutants run, looking at these pages, it's kind of a shame that he didn't get the Uncanny assignment instead. Objectively, Blevins was great at drawing awkward teenagers, where Marc Silvestri would have sexed them up like he did the kids in X-Factor. However, I don't care about New Mutants, and Blevins would have been a smoother transition from Romita. I'll also point out that this issue offered The Marvel Mutant Massacre Map, with Walt Simonson doodling in Beast, Nightcrawler, Angel, and one of the Power Pack kids while detailing the reading order of the sprawling 11-part, five title crossover. This was an extremely successful and well regarded event story that led to Marvel having their entire line of $4 books loosely connect for months on end today. This entire event cost barely more than two of those modern books, and involved three closely associated writers. We've lost so much common and story sense in the intervening decades.

I don't have the time or interest to go back and read all of these comics, but for various reasons there are a number of 1986 titles where I'm reading along with or ahead of this coverage. In the case of Classic X-Men #3, I bought an omnibus collection a while back, but I'm not sure when I'd ever read the thing without being prompted. I haven't had the slightest interest in the X-Men's modern adventures in decades, but I was deeply invested in the mutants of this time period. Since the collection only reprints the newly created material, as it progresses, we're talking about an investment of 6-8 pages a month, though they're written by Chris Claremont, so that's only about 48 pages worth of contemporary comics reading. Unfortunately, I waited three issues in to start. To make the original Len Wein issues more his own, plus to summarize a giant sized comic into a standard one, dozens of new pages were commissioned to, ironically, shrink the overall narrative. In other words, I went through pages 6-73 of the omnibus in service to following these "short" stories going forward. As it turns out, Dave Cockrum did come back for a lot of those interstitials, but he was so heavily embellished by Bob McLeod that I thought the inker did the whole page himself. Cockrum's work was already in decline by his second stint on X-Men, and we'd had the Paul Smith and John Romita Jr. runs since, so maybe that was for the best. I also didn't recall John Bolton's work being so impressionistic as I find it here, and in fact I now think I see a strong influence of this period's work on the artists Brian Stelfreeze and Jason Pearson, who are a few years out from getting published. Another head shot cover, this time of Storm. This issue involves the death and funeral of Thunderbird, but he was little remembered in this period, so commercial considerations exiled him posthumously to the inside frontpiece by Art Adams and Bolton's back cover.

G.I. Joe Order of Battle #1 started a four issue mini-series cover-billed as "The Official G.I. Joe Handbook," but drawing direct comparison with OHOTMU does it no favors. And it's in the drawings where it most comes up short, because instead of enlisting talented artists associated with both, like Mike Zeck, everything here is drawn by Herb Trimpe and Joe Delbeato. Simply drawing 32 Joes in full body static poses could be numbing for a set of artists, much less the same two guys, and they're rendered in an oddly passive manner for a bunch of rugged soldiers. Besides the lack of visual variety, there's no sourced reprint images to break things up, just one figure per page insides a file folder shaped box. The order is also rigid, listing only heroic Joes in alphabetical order for two issues, a third just for Cobra, and the fourth all vehicles. They don't even maintain the single creative team policy, because Eliot R. Brown does the vehicle issue by himself. Greater stylistic liberties are taken with Cobra, and they're just visually more dynamic in general, so it really would have broken things up to mix them and the vehicles in with the Joes. In my case, it was a fatal error, because I was so bored by the first issue that I didn't go back for more. Larry Hama was in file card mode, maybe offering an extra paragraph on top of what could be found on the action figure packaging, and far too fixated on dry data like what weapons they'd trained with, vehicles they were cleared to operate, and so on. The one almost backhanded compliment I can give is that I think Trimpe was enamored with Paul Smith at this time, because most of these entries have a PMS vibe. I was also a big Smith fan in this period, but I'm not sure he's the artist to ape for this subject matter or the target demographic.

Comic Reader Résumé Podcast #24

(July 1986)

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ré·su·mé [rez-oo-mey, rez-oo-mey] noun 1. a summing up; summary. 2. a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.

In Comic Reader Résumé, I use Mike’s Amazing World of Comics to travel back through time via his virtual newsstand to the genesis point of my lifelong collecting of comics. From there, I can offer a “work history” of my fandom through my active purchasing of (relatively) new comic books beginning in January of 1982, when my interest in the medium went from sporadic and unformed to routine on through compulsive accumulation. To streamline the narrative and keep the subjects at least remotely contemporaneous, I will not generally be discussing what we call back issues: books bought long after their publication date. Sometimes, I will cover a book published on a given month that I picked up within a year or so that date, and I give myself an especially wide berth on this aspect in the first couple of “origins” episodes. We’ll get more rigidly on point as my memories crystallize and my “hobby” spirals out of control into the defining characteristic of my life (eventually outpacing squalor and competing neuroses.) It’s part personal biography, part industry history, and admittedly totally self-indulgent on my part.

This episode includes Alpha Flight #39-40, Captain America #322-323, Casper #225, Classic X-Men #2, G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #52, Mark Hazzard: Merc #1, Marvel Saga #11, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #11-12, Psi-Force #1, Richie Rich #219, Son of Ambush Bug #4-6, Super Powers Vol. 3 #2, Uncanny X-Men #210, X-Factor #9, and more!

“Transcripts”

• Early July, 1986
• Late July, 1986
• Twitter
• #CRRésumé?
• rolledspinepodcasts@gmail.com
• Comment on Résumé page or Rolled Spine Podcasts.

Alpha Flight, Big Trouble in Little China, Captain America, Cracked, DC Comics, G.I. Joe, Marvel Comics, New Universe, Pac-Man, Spider-Man, Super Powers, Wolverine, X-Factor, X-Men, Atari, Maximum Overdrive, Movies, Music, Q*bert, Superman, Video Games, Comic Reader Résumé