Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
A wise man once said, "Hooray for Hollywood!"
But was that location giving us much to cheer about as 1985 hit its summer months?
I will, of course, do my customary job of rushing to the defence of Return to Oz and nominate that as my Film of the Month. I am aware that others may have other ideas.
I assumed the Vulture was dead but it seems he's still alive and out to wreak vengeance upon the criminal gang known as the Vulturions, for stealing his costume design.
Has it really taken this long for the Thing to come up against the Rhino?
It's a comic whose title I keep misreading as The Secateurs but I am equally clueless when it comes to the contents of this, its first issue, other than knowing the story within is titled Upheaval! and brought to us by Bill Mantlo and Mark Texeira.
And it's another book whose contents I know nothing of. Is that the Scorpion on the cover? If so, he seems to have been raiding the steroid cupboard.
It's a sensational first issue for the man who's had a few of those in his time.
From what I can make out, Marc Spector's out to end his career as Moon Knight but is forced, by Egyptian priests, to abandon his plan and de-abandon the role.
If it has, I'm sure our rocky hero will make short work of the thick-skinned thug.
Especially as that thick-skinned thug is being mind-controlled by the Miracle Man.
Apparently, Rick Jones is also in this issue.
And, while they're at it, they give him some magic weapons and a new costume.
And another nocturnally-active thwarter of evil gets his own book when the Gargoyle gargoyles his way into our hearts.
And it's another one about whose contents I remain profoundly ignorant.
I could thrill you with news of what he gets up to, this issue but I don't know what he gets up to.
I do know, though, that we're treated to his origin. Not that I know what his origin is.
The fourth issue of the comic which shares a title with everyone's favourite Disney movie arrives to deliver an adventure in which a plot is hatched to overthrow someone who claims to be Dr Doom, and seize control of Latveria.
As far as I can make out, nothing comes of that and it all ends with the Dazzler and the Beast breaking off their relationship.
Chris Claremont and John Bolton bring us a tale of which I know nothing.
I am quite struck by Bolton's cover for it, though.
I can, however, reveal the story within is called Hostages and is the handiwork of Alan Zelenetz and Chris Warner.
Posts
.jpg)
33 comments:
Steve - Re: ROM # 67. The Scorpion was my first choice, too. In reality, though, it's the protector/guardian of the Sleepers ( represented by those heads on the cover) - an overpopulated planet's populace, that wakes once a millennium ( at which time their planet comes back to life, too.)
Even stranger, the art's by Ditko & P.Craig Russell. It's usually Sal Buscema art on ROM, pretty much every time ( Greg LaRoque occasionally, though! )
At the tale's beginning, Brandy's mooning over ROM ( does she think he's dead? ), whilst Rick's not letting the grass grow under his feet, walking off with Brandy, hand in hand. He never tried that with Captain Marvel's girls
( either Una - perhaps before his time? - or Elysius), did he?
Phillip
Thinking on, Rick made time with Dr.Minerva - so maybe he's got form!
Phillip
It’s National Black Cow Day in the USA. UK gents - you familiar with those?!
Always a fav for CH!
IIRC, Ditko replaced Our Pal Sal as Rom’s regular penciller. Craig Russell inked a fair number of them too.
b.t.
b.t. - My brother's ROM collection's pretty comprehensive. I'll look more closely, as I work through them. Strangely, Ditko ended Captain Marvel's run, too - e.g. those final shadow figure stories (?)
Phillip
I'm struck by that Black Dragon cover too, Steve.
But maybe the Gargoyle one - by the mighty Berni Wrightson no less - just beats it to Lucky Bag cover of the month? Nice colour, and atmosphere.
-sean
Charlie: Strangely enough I do know what National Black Cow Day is, ( without looking it up).We have a family friend over from USA and he mentioned this day when he asked for a root beer when we took him out in Glasgow ( Root beer isnt popular in bars here) its a day when you have a cold root beer float
Spot on MCSCOTTY!!! Cold root beer and vanilla ice cream!
Good job, Paul. I didn’t even know that. I’ve always just called em “Root Beer Floats”. Also, there used to be a chewy dark chocolate / carmel candy on a stick called a Black Cow, so that was the first thing I thought of. I don’t know if they still make those, haven’t seen one in ages…
b.t.
I’m with you regarding Return To Oz, Steve. That’s easily the best movie of the month.
I’m feeling a bit nauseous at the moment due to the endless Goonies nostalgia doing the rounds on social media. That movie stank to high heaven.
This selection suggests Marvel were leaning hard into fantasy and SF at this point. (I know all their comics are sort of SF anyway, but you know what I mean?).
I like the Gargoyle cover, but does anyone know who did the Web of Spiderman one? I’m a sucker for treated photo backgrounds.
And does anyone know why Moon Knight was revived for a mini-series only 18 months after the ongoing series ran out of gas?
Matthew, the Web of Spider-Man cover was by John Byrne.
Oh, I don’t like it any more then.
Not counting FF #279 which I checked out the other day, Steve, the only Marvels I read this month were New Mutants #28, Black Dragon #2 - a double hit of Claremont! - and Sisterhood of Steel #4 (no, really - as I mentioned when you covered #1 in this feature, that comic was a much better read than you'd guess from the covers).
However, I can reveal that from the competition, I also read:
Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 by Alan Moore, and Rick Veitch & John Totleben, featuring the first appearance of John Constantine.
Green Lantern #189, which wasn't really that good, but it had a GL Corps back-up - 'Insect Trust' - drawn by Kevin O'Neill.
Omega Men #27. Fortunately -!as it's a bit rubbish - I read someone else's copy so didn't have to buy it... but it had a Moore 4 pager in the back.
Crisis On Infinite Earths #3. But don't tell anyone.
DC Graphic Novel #4: The Hunger Dogs, Jack Kirby's ending for the then recently reprinted New Gods. Well, sort of. Sadly it was compromised, because DC didn't want him to make their properties (yeah, right) unusable in future. But it's still great. Obviously, because it's by Jack Kirby.
I think I might have had to save up for that one, and got it a bit later.
And from First Comics:
American Flagg #21, by Howard Victor Chaykin (obviously)...and the first part of a back up feature written by Alan Moore. A pity the Chayk couldn't find the time to draw that too.
It seems 'Hard Times' - the collected first three issues of Flagg - came out this month too. A classic.
Eric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate #1, which was disappointing. No Craig Russell ):
I did not get any later issues.
And finally: Cerebus #75. Jaka's back. So not much in the way of jokes, but still back on form.
-sean
*I did of course mean Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate #1
Not Eric.
#@*&ing spellcheck.
Matthew- regarding "Goonies", I too saw it but don't recall much about it. Other than Cyndi Lauper's song, which I absolutely loved.
Sean- no worries! "Crisis" was pretty impressive in my opinion; some flaws but overall quite enjoyable. Read the whole series as it came out; my main challenge was (being mainly a Marvel guy) keeping track of who all those characters were.
I assume that's Eric as in Eric Of Melnibone?
Phillip, that planet reminded me of Brigadoon. Why have you got your brother's ROM collection?
There's a reason root beer isn't popular over here - because it's horrible. A few years ago I bought a bottle of Bundaberg Australian root beer which tasted like cough medicine, yuck.
I think i (and others?) for some reason see GOONIES and STAND BY ME sort of way in the same category of a Kirby kids adventure tale? Both enjoyable but obviously SBM more realistic.
I worked with a guy who had too many things in common with CHUCKIE and SLOTH of GOONIES except for being sort of inherently nice.
Eric of Melbourne, Colin.
-sean
Redartz, I generally find multi-superhero crossover epics like Crisis on Infinite Earths a bit overdone for my taste. All the different characters get a bit meaningless after a while.
Perhaps more to the point, even back then I wasn't convinced that 'modernizing' the DC universe so it was more like the Marvel one was a god idea. No multiple Earths, no super-pets? That's what gave DCs their distinctiveness!
Even they realized that before long, and they've been trying to fix the mistake ever since.
-sean
Colin - Yes, Brigadoon's also evoked in 'Local Hero', which has a space theme, too ( kind of), with Burt Lancaster's character's obsession with the night sky/astronomy. My brother's a lodger (working down south), so much of his stuff is up here. About 2/3 of the way through ROM's run, he gained silver Killraven boots ( not a good look, art-wise! )
Phillip
*good idea
Not 'god idea'. Its not really my day here, is it?
Charlie never read CRISIS. Yet Roy THOMAS’s Alter Ego monthly mag (or is it Back Issue mag) this June goes deep into CRISIS. 84 pages worth for only $10.95! Finally I’ll get caught up!!! Yep - paying $10.95 to read about comic people talking about comics instead of spending $0 to get the actual comic book from the library and actually read it. Makes sense???
Phillip, Radio 4 did a version of Local Hero only a couple of months ago - I'd never seen the original film so this new radio adaptation was my first experience of Local Hero.
Colin - The Radio 4 adaptation must have played Mark Knopfler's 'Local Hero' theme, I imagine. They must have - it being the film's trademark anthem!
Phillip
sean:
As big a Kirby fan as I am, I think THE HUNGER DOGS is a hot mess. I’m not convinced Kirby ever really intended to wrap up his sprawling Fourth World series with a bombastic ‘Grand Finale’. When I read the original comics, they really don’t read like something that has what we would think of nowadays as a coherent ‘story arc’. Personally, I think he just considered the Fourth World books as a place where he could go wild with his patented mix of mythic archetypes and far-out cosmicism, without having Stan Lee breathing down his neck and watering down his concepts. Also, he was used to cranking out multiple monthly comics, year in, year out. When the books were cancelled, I get the feeling he wasn’t disappointed because he’d never be able to finish his Magnum Opus, but because the enormous playground he’d created for himself was going away.
I’ve read THE HUNGER DOGS several times and been saddened and disappointed by it every time. Kirby was trying to do too much in too few pages. Also, he wasn’t anywhere near his peak creative form at that point in his life. And there were other factors beyond Kirby’s control to consider. So… too much, too little, too late. I’ll probably never read HUNGER DOGS again in my lifetime. I prefer to leave his Fourth World Saga ‘unfinished’, with MISTER MIRACLE 18 as a convenient stopping point.
b.t.
RIP Brian Wilson.
b.t., I would agree that Kirby probably didn't intend the Fourth World to be one single story - not in the way we think of that kind of thing these days anyhow - but he did have some sense of it being a whole, that was different to other open-ended comics of the time. I think?
You say mess, I say compromised. Admittedly I have even been known to talk up Captain Victory and Silver Star. So possibly you might have a clearer take on it than me.
-sean
Oh that's sad news about Brian Wilson, I loved some of those Beach Boys tunes and associate reading certain comics whilst listening to their greatest hits LP
sean:
“Compromised” works for me. It definitely was that.
b.t.
McSCOTTY:
I have a similar “Beach Boys / Comics” connection ( I think I’ve mentioned it here previously) : in the summer of ‘74, one of our local Top 40 radio stations played “Good Vibrations” on a whim and listeners began calling in to request it as if it as a brand-new song. It subsequently got a ton of air-play for the next few weeks, so much so that whenever I hear it now, my mind’s eye sees images of some of the comics I read that summer, including GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #2 and EERIE #60.
I’m sorry that he’s passed away, but I know he’d been dealing with some serious mental and physical troubles for many years. Hopefully he’s at peace now.
b.t.
It was the songs Break Away and Good Vibrations that I associate with comics like Walt Simonsons Metal Men, Plastic Man , Kamandi ( non Kirby) and Marvel titles like The Eternals and Black Goliath. I was house sitting my brothers ( and his soon to be wifes) flat and he bought me a pile of comics to read along with his LP collection which had the Beach Boys 20 Golden Greats LP which I played non stop whilst reading comics.
Sean- overall I'd agree with you regarding those Big Event crossovers. Having liked "Crisis" (probably due greatly to George Perez' work), I found the increasingly frequent followups unappealing. The last one I read was DC's "New 52", which I gave up halfway through finding it unreadable.
R.I.P. to Brian Wilson. Another Beach Boys/ comics note: on the album cover to their hits compilation "Endless Summer", one member of the group is portrayed reading an issue of DC's Sergeant Rock...
Personally my preferred Beach Boys songwriter was Charles Ma... er, thats in poor taste isn't it? Maybe another time.
Anyway, back to the comics. When I bought up DC earlier, I forgot to mention - probably because I didn't read it at the time (or indeed later) - that Batman & the Outsiders #22 came out this month.
Drawn by Alan Davis. His first work in the US I think?
-sean
Post a Comment