Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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What thrilling delights were waiting to greet us when we entered a theatre of kinematographic entertainment in February 1985?
These thrilling delights:
I've seen the first two of those movies but not recently enough to know whether they were any good or not. However, I don't recall getting any great enjoyment out of them.
When it comes to the third film in that list, I'm fairly confident I've never encountered it.
Can it it be? Is Doom set to be the unlikely saviour of the universe?
No. He isn't.
But he is going to triumph against his foe.
And, surely, that can only mean trouble for everyone.
Sadly, that's all I know.
And someone also seems to like Dragon Man, as he also turns up, this issue.
Beyond that, my knowledge of this one's contents is highly limited but I do know there seem to be plenty of robots in it.
And all I know of this one is it's by Bill Mantlo and Butch Guice and runs to 56 pages.
In a packed issue, Cannonball and Mirage tell Professor X their news and Magneto apologises to Aleytys. Meanwhile, Wolfsbane and Sunspot seek assistance from Father Bowen, Wolfsbane rescues Colossus, and Magik tries using sorcery to restore Wolfsbane and Sunspot.
You know who else shows up?
Only Cloak and Dagger.
From that cover, I'm assuming our heroes are still in Japan.
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20 comments:
Why would Marvel discontinue MTU?
Don’t get me wrong, I thought Marvel team up number one was money-grab bullshit when I bought it off the spinner rack, Even though I did love that first issue with the human torch.
But still… The concept seemed to work, no? 150 issues ain’t bad.
Chrlie
This is the point at which Marvel realises that MTU is just another Spider-Man strip, so cancels it and launches Web Of Spider-Man as a replacement. We end up with three Spider-Man comics each month but we already had that anyway.
Ahhh… i see. Little did they realize they could’ve had 10 Spidey monthly strips. Ever walk into the local comic book store lately? It’s a joke.
CH
It seems we saw the same films that month, Steve! However I do remember enjoying both "Breakfast Club" and "Witness" quite a bit. Actually, seeing "Witness" was an assignment for my college photography class. "Why?", you may well ask. Our photo instructor was both a big cinema fan, and wished his students to become adept at critique. Hence, we all attended the film, and subsequently wrote our assessments. Incidentally, I gave it a great review...
When it comes to the comics available then, the only pictured book I got was "Kitty Pryde and Wolverine". Was determined to get the finale of the story, even though it was somewhat disappointing. More to my tastes were a handful of indies: "E-Man", "American Flagg" and "Normalman".
Oh, and those space scooter riding ladies on the cover of "Starstruck" - I've seen them in some story somewhere, but specifics escape me. Anyone recognize them?
Charlie- yes, the preponderence of Spidey books is...unappealing. It all seems so far removed from the Lee/Ditko concept of an ordinary joe with powers. Plus it seems that most any character who ever appeared in the Spider world ends up getting their own book. Wonder if Mindworm ever got a series...
Red, The Starstruck characters appeared in a few other comics published by Dark Horse ( where I first read the stories), IDW and Heavy Metal. Perhaps you saw them here. ?
The Witness was solid, and still is, for at least 2 reasons (and they both were not belonging to Kelly McGillis).
The first is… well… Kelly is very pretty.
The second, and im not sure it has international appeal or just american, is the overlapping of simple amish and violent american culture. I saw it on TV a few years ago and was still interested.
Same with Breakfast Club… teenage angst combined with high-school hi-jinx. Still a great combo. Like a bit of Rebel Without a Cause or Ferris Beuller’ Day Off.
Go watch ‘em STEVE!
Ch
A few years ago I saw a film called "The Innkeepers" about the last days of a haunted hotel in Connecticut which was an excellent film in my opinion and I only mention it because Kelly McGillis was in it but you wouldn't recognise her nowadays as she looks so different from her roles in "Witness" and "Top Gun".
COLIN- you are exactly correct. I went online to make sure i was spelling her name correctly… she has not aged according to how one might think she would look based on Top Gun, The Witness 40 years ago.
M
As an aside i do wonder if SIMPLE MINDS “Dont you Forget about me” helped/was helped by THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Very cool song and probably woke the USA to them?
Wow!!! Just checked my email and was alerted that SIMPLE MINDS is coming to Chicago this June!
And RICK SPRINGFIELD This Friday at a local casino!!!! That’s a valentine’s day treat?! Ms. ChRlie is not showing the necessary enthusiasm though…
Bt the real draw for CHARLIE is HOWARD JONES ON 20 Feb at a local village.
HOWARD JONES IS an interesting dude! Martyn WARE of Heaven 17 has interviewed many synth stars the past few years e.g, BOY GEORGE, DOLBY, and HOWARD J! They are all worth a listen!
Steve:
Yeah, Barry’s MTU 150 really is pretty bad. Makes his similarly static portrait-y cover for X-MEN 186 look … well, like a less bad cover (sorry, ran out of gas in the middle of that one).
Although I have to admit NONE of these covers appeal to me very much. 3-way tie for Worst Cover: TIMESPIRITS, SECRET WARS and Milgrom’s Faux Miller cover for KITTY AND WOLVERINE.
I liked WITNESS well enough back in the day, haven’t seen it in decades and never get the urge to revisit it.
I didn’t care for THE BREAKFAST CLUB. SIXTEEN CANDLES was just about the only John Hughes movie I kinda/sorta liked back then — I tried watching it again about a year ago and had to turn it off about 20 minutes into it.
b.t.
The only one of these comics I ever even saw was New Mutants. Most of them are direct market titles so didn’t cross my path.
I didn’t see any of those movies at the time but I caught up with them on TV soon after. I sort of enjoyed Breakfast Club as a teenager. Sort of.
It was entertaining enough but US movies about ‘real’ teens never seemed ‘real’ as the living conditions in the US seemed absurdly luxurious compared to the UK. Massive houses, well-appointed schools, disposable income.
Starstruck actually started out as a Marvel Graphic Novel, Steve. Well, maybe 'started out' is a bit misleading as if first appeared (in English) as a series in Heavy Metal magazine, which Marvel reprinted as a graphic novel just before launching the series.
Anyway, the main thing to note here is that it was the first unequivocally good comic to come out under the Epic imprint.
For someone unfamiliar with the early Shadow issues, who only knew his work from covers and The Studio, it was great to finally read a comic drawn by Mike Kaluta. And - also this month - the first Swamp Thing story by Berni Wrightson, reprinted as part of the fill-in Saga of the Swamp Thing #33.
A shame Barry Smith let the side down with that MTU cover. Like yourself, I have left the 'Windsor-' off his name, as a passive aggressive protest.
-sean
Along with Starstruck - and New Mutants (hey, it was drawn by Bill the Sink) - the other comics worth getting this month were:
Strange Days #2 - classic 80s Brendan McCarthy. What's not to like about that?
Night Music #2 - a vehicle for P Craig Russell, with short stories like this -
https://www.tumblr.com/ungoliantschilde/146754065839/forgotten-masterpiece-la-sonnambula-and-the-city
American Flagg #17 - still pretty good, by the ever dependable Howard Victor Chaykin.
Cerebus #71 - a must read again, having returned to form after the somewhat inconsistent post-High Society period.
-sean
Perhaps some of the American contributors here could weigh in on that, Matthew. Because I suspect that not everyone in the US lived liked that either.
-sean
Matthew and Sean- yes, the image of American lifestyle as seen in such films is definitely not what most average folks here experience. It reminds me of the soap operas my wife likes to watch. Everyone has impeccable attire, gorgeous living quarters, and apparently no bills. All while never seeming to work at a job...
Well it is sort of like this in america.
Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Fast Times at Ridgemont High are legit schools, homes, communities.
As to what percent of the American population it applies to is to be researched.
And then there is Florida and Arizona and Alabama…: places in the middle of nowhere, like Bullfrog Arizona (is/was?) where land and houses and taxes are cheap. 4-bedroom houses, swimming pools, etc. and rat fuck schools, medicine, culture.
Big-screen American houses exceed typical UK houses in size. However, also, big-screen American houses' construction is more wooden(at least, on the exterior!), rather than brick, as UK houses are.
If a lot of Hollywood sets are Californian, I suppose using more wood in construction's less problematic, as parts of California near Hollywood aren't damp nearly all year round, like the UK is.
Other areas ( fog rolling into San Francisco - or damp blowing off the great lakes), however, must suffer lots of damp. Also, didn't central Chicago ban wooden construction, after the great fire? Hollywood, come to think of it, ought to consider banning wooden-facaded houses too, what with the recent fires!
What with Florida's frequent hurricanes, wooden exteriors wouldn't be fantastic there, too - but brick probably wouldn't help, either!
Phillip
Phillip
Apologies for rubbish grammar/English in that last sentence.
Phillip
American houses are almost 100% wood: plywood, particle board, and lumber studs. And nails. They are shit compared to European homes (well i only know french and german houses up close and personal).
Hurricane Alley - Florida- i’ll check . My cousin just built a home outside of Sarasota and he was at Ground Zero for the recent hurricane and suffered no damage. I will ask.
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