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.