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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.
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.
Whoever it is, it's clearly a sewer point for them.
I say it's issue #1 but, as far as I can make out, it's also the only issue.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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15 comments:
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.
Best cover has to be Dazzler? Not sure why? Not sure why i keep thinking about clamps?
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
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
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.
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.
My favourite cover from the ones above is easily the Rom one. The contrast of black, white and red is appealing to me.
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?
Cool? Its just the two Brits in the room not talking to any of the foreigners Charlie.
-sean
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.
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.
The FF Roast cover shows Captain Britain in his original costume which had been ditched by this point.
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
*I was referring to the the FF Roast comic. Sorry.
FB, I believe he's Marvel's 1940s Ghost Rider, later renamed Phantom Rider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Rider
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