Tuesday 10 May 2022

The Marvel Lucky Bag - May 1982.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon
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What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women.

It's a philosophy I still follow, to this day. 

And it was taught to me by Genghis Khan.

Either that or by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And he may have taught it to me in May 1982 because that's when the first Conan movie escaped into our cinemas.

However, Arnold wasn't the only one to have a film released that month. We also saw it unveil Annie, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Rocky III.

I'm going to be controversial and say it right here. Of those four movies, Annie is the best.

And I'm sure Genghis Khan would agree with me.

Dazzler #15, Spider-Woman

Dazzler and Spider-Woman are still teaming up in order to tackle whoever it is they're teaming up to tackle.

Whoever it is, it's clearly a sewer point for them.

Fantastic Four Roast #1, Fred Hembeck

Here's a thing I never expected to see. Fred Hembeck brings us Fantastic Four Roast #1.

I say it's issue #1 but, as far as I can make out, it's also the only issue.

Marvel Two-in-One #87, The Thing and Ant-Man

It's the team-up we've all demanded, as Benjamin J Grimm collaborates with Scott Lang.

Judging by the cover blurb, I'm assuming it's happening on a microscopic world.

Which does make me wonder if it's the same one we saw in Fantastic Four #16 when Hank Pym's Ant-Man first encountered the gang.

ROM #30

I must confess it's a bit of a shock for me to see Rom reaching his 30th issue.

But perhaps I shouldn't be shocked at all. A modicum of research tells me his book will manage to make it to issue #75 before folding, forcing me to realise he must be more popular than I ever dreamt of.

Plotwise, it's Christmas Eve and Rom modifies the Torpedo's visor so he's able to see through the Dire Wraiths' disguises.

But there's far more to consider than that. After all, our hero must also battle the Metal Master who wants to use his armour's alloys to conquer Earth.

Dennis the Menace #7, Spider-Kid

What's this? Dennis the Menace with spider powers? It can only lead to trouble.

And it does. For, it would appear that, when he's invited to a romance-themed Halloween party, he decides to go as Spidey and starts spraying webbing on everything.

Marvel Team-Up #117, Spider-Man and Wolverine

Speaking of Spider-Man. The wall-crawler and Wolverine are attacked by modern-day Roman soldiers who work for the mysterious Professor Power.

And they're faced with a dilemma. They can either go after the Professor or save innocents from the Roman forces.

Except there are two of them. So, I would have thought one of them could do the first task, and the other perform the second.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hembeck did some really wonderful cartooning for The Buyers Guide for Comic Fandom for many many years. Less than one page, sometimes only one panel, IIRC. But a full comic… not sure if the novelty wouldnt wear off after a few pages?

I would say the only “spoof” work i could read in its entirety was Mad Magazine.

Anonymous said...

Best cover has to be Dazzler? Not sure why? Not sure why i keep thinking about clamps?

Anonymous said...

Well, its by Bill Sienkiewicz, and it shows Dazzler doing the splits... so thats a couple of things in its favour. And yet somehow its still not as appealing as that makes it sound.

I think my cover of the month has to be none of the above, Steve.
So, in a wild burst of blue sky thinking, I checked what other comics had a May '82 cover date, and decided to pick Marvel Fanfare #2 - an atmospheric mutant Spidey with Kevin and Shanna of the Savage Land, by Michael Golden.

It was either that or Weird War Tales #111 from DC, although it was the logos for the Creature Commandos/GI Robot team up that set my comic book sense tingling rather than the distinctly average artwork.
A bit of a pisspoor month for covers really.

-sean

Anonymous said...

Btw in case anyone's interested, the first issue of DC's revived Swamp Thing - by Marty Pasko and Tom Yeates - came out this month.

-sean

Killdumpster said...

This was during the time period when I quit continuous comics reading. I'd only pick up a book here and there. The only book featured I may have picked from a spinner rack might've been the MTU, but glancing through the pages , with a throw-away-villian, I would've put it back.

Just re-watched both Arnie's Conans , with Brigette's Red Sonja to make it a triple bill. Even though the second Conan and the Sonja film are flawed, the nostalgic value alone make them better than most of Hollywood has been shoveling out lately.

Redartz said...

Yes, kind of a lackluster cover week. But among these, I'll go with the Fantastic Four Roast! Mainly because I LOVE that book. One of the few books I kept when I first sold my collection, and still have it. It really is a lot of fun. Part of that fun is deducing the artists; many then- current artists rendered their regulars. Romita Sr. did Spidey, Miller did Daredevil, Sal Buscema did the Hulk. Yeah, it's just a personal favorite.

On the other hand, even back then I really disliked that Marvel Team Up cover. The forced perspective just seems, well, forced.

Steve W. said...

My favourite cover from the ones above is easily the Rom one. The contrast of black, white and red is appealing to me.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Anyone else find it cool that on the "Fantastic Four Roast" we see Captain Britain and Union Jack chatting to each other?

I am mildly surprised that Fred would toss them in there?

Anonymous said...

Cool? Its just the two Brits in the room not talking to any of the foreigners Charlie.

-sean

Anonymous said...


Steve:
I agree that the ROM cover is the winner here, and mostly because of the color, but it’s one of those ‘Best Of A Bad Lot’ things for me. None of these scream ‘Buy Me, Kid!’ And in fact, I didn’t buy any of these back in the day.

b.t.

McSCOTTY said...

I think that Rom covers a cracker. I only have the Fred Hembeck FF roast comic as im a bit of a Hembeck fan he did some nice comics and covers at this time.

Colin Jones said...

The FF Roast cover shows Captain Britain in his original costume which had been ditched by this point.

Anonymous said...

Wow, Jack of Hearts and the 3-D man even made it into the group photo. Am I daft or is that the "Ghost Rider" from DC western comics in the top left?
-FB

Anonymous said...

*I was referring to the the FF Roast comic. Sorry.

Steve W. said...

FB, I believe he's Marvel's 1940s Ghost Rider, later renamed Phantom Rider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Rider