Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Come hither. Let us discover what some of Marvel's less high-profile comics were doing whilst bearing this month in 1983 as their cover date.
All of it packed into 76 pages and wrapped in what is, arguably, not Bernie Wrightson's greatest cover.
Sadly, I can offer no information about the interior of this comic but I do know this will prove to be the final issue in this particular series.
I do have to congratulate Sienkiewicz on being, possibly, the first artist ever to try and make Jack Russell's alter-ego look formidable.
And, surprisingly, doesn't encounter the Circus of Crime.
He does, however, encounter Unus and the Blob.
How can even he hope to triumph against such invulnerable foes?
Elsewhere, we get a tale in which Daredevil tries to tackle cruelty towards animals.
I can shed no light upon whether this is the actual hunchback of Notre Dame or if it's Marvel's long-standing computerised villain who's adopted human form.
The X-Men get a spin-off, as The New Mutants hits us in the eyeballs.
I've never read this tale but, apparently, the team get acclimatised to their new home, talents, friends, and teachers. All the time unaware they're being watched.
Meanwhile, Moira McTaggart discovers Professor X has a son - and Psyche's attacked in the Danger Room!
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20 comments:
Wow. Great job Steve! Charlie never realized that the “big bang” for multiple titles of the same character, one-shots, etc started in the early 1980s. Alwaya thought it eas a 1990s thing.
Cheers! Charlie
A lot of luxury items there!
Those Marvel glossy reprints were pretty brilliant at the time [and DC got in on the game, too - I had their Wein / Wrightson SWAMP THING and Simonson MANHUNTER ones].
I picked up the Steranko SHIELD reprints around this time, though they've been superseded by various other editions in the years since.
Weirdly, I did actually get the X-MEN graphic novel. I don't know why, really. Possibly because it was a rare birthday trip to the comics specialist in Manchester, and I just wanted to buy stuff.
An interesting detail - when reprinting Miracleman recently, Marvel censored Alan Moore's two uses of The N-Word, but in the various recent reprints of 'God Loves, Man Kills' it's left intact.
I guess it's context that makes the difference, as Claremont is making a direct attack on discrimination, whereas Moore is using the word in one case possibly naively and unwisely in describing Evelyn Cream's train of thought; and in the other simply to make an evil character seem more evil. Still. Irks me a bit.
I was going on recently about the weirdness of direct-market US comics finding their way to the newsstands in the UK. This issue of Moon Knight caught my eye in a tiny newsagent in Burscough, near where my grandparents retired to. I mean, it was literally the middle of nowhere, the sticks. But it also got copies of Epic Illustrated occasionally. So strange.
Did anyone read The New Mutants before Sienkiewicz came avoard? It looked like the blandest of the bland.
Matthew, I read a couple of those early New Mutants comics, including the Graphic Novel that preceded #1 (I feel the need to add here that my younger brother got them, not me) - they were pretty much what you'd imagine Chris Claremont would do with a Junior X-Men series, and Bob McLeod's artwork was serviceable.
On Moon Knight in regular shops - British newsstand distribution didn't work on sale or return (and the comics code was meaningless) so any surplus copies could be sold here without difficulty. Although I agree it is a bit odd when you see comics like that (I think I mentioned getting the first two issues of Batman: Black & White in my local corner shop when you bought it up before?)
Anyway, Sienkiewicz' version of Werewolf by Night was of course completely out of step visually with earlier iterations of the character, and brilliant.
Btw, on the (seemingly inevitable) subject of Miracleman here, I was dubious about Evelyn Cream's narration in general, back when it first appeared in
Warrior. Johnny Bates' dialogue later... not so much, as it made sense in the context. I appreciate that 'realistic' dialogue may be ill-advised even where its plausible but arguably unnecessary; but I don't see how it's more acceptable in the X-Men book simply because Claremont is more obviously making his point.
Still, at least you didn't bring up the Black Dossier!
-sean
Thank you, Charlie.
Matthew and Sean, I've never read a single issue of New Mutants. Would I be right in assuming it was aimed at younger readers?
Hard to say, Steve. My recollection is that Claremont approached the New Mutants pretty much the same way he did the X-Men. Imagine the latter all being written like variations on Kitty Pryde - except one's native American, another Scottish, another Brazillian etc etc - and you've got the idea.
Maybe that was Claremont's idea of writing for younger readers, but I suspect it was just an obvious spin off to have a next generation at Xavier's school and more likely that was simply how he wrote younger characters.
It was a bit confused really - I always assumed thats why Sienkiewicz eventually got the New Mutants gig, to clarify that it wasn't specifically aimed younger readers. When his first issue came out there was a house ad with one of his life and the slogan 'No-one's calling them X-Babies anymore'.
-sean
*A house ad with one of his pics...
Apology for the typo (not sure how it is that predictive text comes up with completely different words sometimes).
-sean
That cover to Moon Knight issue 29 is amazing as is the actual comic itself (and the secondart of the story in issue 30). I bought that Hulk v Quasimodo comic at the ti!e (no idea why) and Quasimodo from memory, was a man that was turned into a monster (can't recall how or why) and turned back to a man at the end of the story after being given a potion.That Bolton Kull issue was very nice indeed.
I also bought the pre-Sink issues of New Mutants and fell for the cynical gouge 'Graphic Novel' (48 pages of by-numbers Claremont and Bob McLeod for close to four quid, as I recall). I'm pretty sure it was intended for exactly the same people that bought X-men (literally), but bland is the perfect adjective.
I also found Moore's use of language for Evelyn Cream's monologue a bit uneasy. Miller (of all people) actually used the word effectively (contextually) in Ronin around the same time. Moore didn't really pull it off this time, and it did seem more likely that he was trying to piss off Dez, rather than anything else (hadn't Moore and Skinn fallen out by this time?). Still different times, as Roald Dahl's publisher would say...
I think the Moon Knight, Marvel Fanfare and Kull covers are all great and probably better than often whole month's. Regarding the random appearance of direct sales titles, I think I've mentioned before that I once saw piles of non-distributed Marvel comics in the post-customs area in Heathrow airport, I specifically recall X-men #142 and #143 because these were expensive to buy as back issues due to some business related import problem. From memory there were dozens of copies of each issue, and this would have been at least two years after they were published (or not, in the UK).
DW
By post-customs area, I should say Departure lounge. If there's a correct term, its always best to use it ;-)
DW
Dunno DW, I find it hard to believe Moore would purposefully have written stuff just to piss off Skinn, no matter how much they were arguing. Not extended passages anyway.
A narrative from Cream's point of view, exploring the paradoxes and ironies of a black man working for a British intelligence organisation run by ageing imperialists like Sir Dennis made sense, thematically and to explain his motives. But Moore's execution - trying to suggest a 'post-colonial voice' - was just totally off imo.
But to be fair, it was early days for him as a writer.
I suspect the way he pushes at the unacceptable comes from the influence of underground comics. Mostly it's a plus in his work, but er... sometimes it isn't.
-sean
PS Pretty sure the New Mutants was supposed to have been a regular comic from the start, but a gap in the schedule meant the original first issue was expanded a bit and became Marvel Graphic Novel #4.
Which explains the 'by-numbers' feel. Claremont definitely seemed to be trying harder with 'God Loves, Man Kills', and it was better than the regular X-Men comics. Faint praise maybe, but still.
-sean
Sean
I agree Cream's narrative was probably planned well in advance but I wonder if he slipped the n word in as a dig at Skinn (presumably anticipating its removal). In typing that, it does seem stretch.
I suspect you're correct in that the New Mutants G/N was intended as two regular issues, or even a double-sized launch issue (ala Alpha Flight). I didn't buy God Loves, Man Kills as a consequence of being stung. Admittedly, I probably still would have struggled with anything credited to Christopher Claremont and Brent Eric Anderson because I'm a bit like that...
D (no middle initial) W
Sean & DW -
I wouldn't have thought Moore would be looking to piss off Skinn especially with that bit of writing. I think it's just a bit of boundary-pushing, as you say, but with the 1980s lack of sensitivity where odd racial characterisation [I'm not sure a cultured Black man being haunted by voodoo dreams was that good a look, even then] and that word in particular were concerned.
The New Mutants kind of defined what comics needed to move on from back then. As a young teen reader weaned on 2000AD and Warrior, I definitely wanted some sort of eccentricity in comics. Until Billy turned up, TNM absolutely lacked that. It was charisma-free.
Brent Eric Anderson: discuss...
I never got the hang of him back then, I'd seen some of his stuff reprinted in Savage Action in the UK. And I recently tried reading Astro City: a friend had got me a hardcover of the first stories a few years back which I quite enjoyed, but I couldn't really get hold of any more books at the time because they were all in various stages of OOP / too expensive-ness.
Then the new hefty paperbacks came out and I got one of those. Got about a hundred pages in and gave up - very boring. Like Top Ten but without much humour or drama or interest. Very Diet Coke.
And Anderson's art was still underwhelming. I could now see the massive Neal Adams influence, but not much of interest beyond that. Does he have a big fanbase? Is anyone here a fan?
Funnily enough, Matthew, Neal Adams was the original artist for 'God Loves...', or at least the project that became it. (I guess Ms Mystic was just too important)
So, Brent Anderson. Er... better than Bob McLeod?
On supposedly quality titles aimed at 'mature readers' - at a higher price point! - I'd prefer someone better, but he isn't a dealbreaker. I like him more than, say, Paul Smith. You know, randomly picking another then 'hot' new artist for comparison...
Anyway, why are we talking about him rather than John Bolton, the other great new artist at (US) Marvel in the early 80s besides the Sink? Unfortunately the colour on Baxter paper in Kull #2 was a bit hard on the eyes. A shame, as his b&w Kull in Preview/Bizarre Adventures was fantastic.
-sean
John Bolton was a cult figure before my time. Always seemed like a pre-punk guitar hero in post-punk times.
I remember he was spoken of in hushed tones in the letters pages of Warrior when I was young, and all the bits and pieces I saw were impressive in a pen and ink kind of way. But nothing I saw of his ever gripped me. I recently saw the Marada hardcover for peanuts in Forbidden Plant and nearly snapped it up out of a kind of completism, but didn’t: it was technically really nice but…
I see he’s become a kind of Photoshop whizz with a knack for ‘sexy ladies’ more recently. I picked up a Batman graphic novel he did in the 90s but sold it on. Technically dazzling but not for me.
I didn’t know that about Adams and ‘God Loves…’ I guess we’d still be waiting for that one if he’d committed to it.
I would love to read X-Men Odyssey!
Actually, now I think about it, didn't Neal Adams start an X-Men series in the 21st century, but not finish it? I seem to recall reading somewhere that for some reason Marvel insisted he had to work with a writer...
-sean
Sean, Adams did a 5 issue mini series "The First X-Men" in 2012 with writer Christo Cage from issue 1. The series was noted as a mini series and lasted 5 issues but there was no mention on the cover it was a 5 issue mini series so it may have been that it was wrapped up early. It wasn't Adams best work.
I was most excited by Adam’s Xmen work around issue 60? Good stuff fighting the Sentinels! Around 1971?
Yes, Adams's scene with the Sentinels flying into the Sun was very memorable (Marvel Superheroes Monthly # 367 ish?)
Phillip
When Byrne left the X-Men, Brent Anderson's fill-in issue didn't disappoint. Things could have been a lot worse. A thumbs up from me!
Phillip
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