In which I bother noted comics people online.
So, a couple of follow-ups:
First, in regards to Amadeus Cho’s explanation for the Hulk avoiding death tolls in his rampages, I said I wasn’t sure if that was per an editorial edict or not. Turns out over on Bluesky, the fella what wrote that comic, Greg Pak, straightened things out saying that it was all him making that decision, not anyone higher up.
Granted, I’m sure the Marvel high muckety-mucks were glad to have something to point to and say “see, our hero who is in Avengers movies and makes us lots of money is not a killer.” And frankly, I’m glad of it too. It’s fun to see Hulk smash up buildings and punch tanks, it’s not quite as much innocently-violent fun (usually) to think about him murdering people in the process. Just one of those “willing suspension of disbelief” deals.
I did just reread the Garth Ennis/John McCrea Hulk Smash two-parter from 2001:
…and in the series, Hulk fights the army, natch, and it is very heavily implied that several soldiers are killed in the process.Tanks are smashed, planes are blown up real good, and you do see men scrambling out of hatches or parachuting to safety. However, deaths are implied in dialog, but there is perhaps enough wiggle room to claim that soldiers have survived but are out of the battle.
Chris K noted the 2001 Startling Series: Banner series by Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben:
This was an out-of-continuity story that, I have to admit, I haven’t read probably since it was released, but it does tell the story of a Hulk who does leave a body count in its wake. As I recall, it’s dark and a little depressing, so if you had a killin’ Hulk on a regular basis, that may be what it’d feel like.
Again on the Bluesky, I quote-posted famed comics writer Kurt Busiek, because he was talking how DC Comics missed an opportunity by not going wild with out-there storylines right before Crisis on Infinite Earths swept threw and reset everything.
He mentioned as an example of DC kinda/sorta half-heartedly doing that sort of thing was “Supergirl [getting] married in a story no one remembers.” Well, I remember it, because I bought that very issue new off the shelf back in late ’85:
Now this was by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Al Williamson, and I haven’t read it in forever, but my memory is that it was…not good. I mean, nothing wrong with that creative team, of course, but the story itself seemed misguided and, well, weird.
As per this Wednesday post, I’ve been reading a lot of late-era pre-Crisis/pre-Byrne reboot Superman comics. I keep avoiding this particular issue as I recall not liking it, but talking about it this much may have be revisiting it sooner rather than later. Anyway, I did hit on kind of a similar point in that past post, which I mentioned to Mr. Busiek, about Steve Lombard’s progress as a character this late in the game was curtailed by Crisis and the reboot.
Busiek’s response was that around this period, DC was producing Superman story inventory for overseas publication, and then trying to use them up in the U.S. comics, so that actual permanent continuity changes were tricky to pull off. Now, I know DC did release stories in other countries that were eventually reprinted here, such as every issue of the Superman Special, as well as the proto-graphic novel Superman Spectacular.
The Grand Comics Database is usually pretty good in noting when a comic is reprinted from another source. But I can’t find any of the late pre-Crisis era Superman and Action books noted as initially coming from an overseas publisher, while the examples above do. Doesn’t mean they don’t, I just can’t find info confirming it. It would be interesting if that were the case, so I’ll have to look further into it.
I’m always interested in material produced for foreign markets and there were some Superman comics produced for Germany which definitely weren’t reprinted in the USA of America, including a gorgeous one drawn by the late, great Keith Giffen. Googling will probably find them but I’ll post a link if I find one.
Re: The Hulk
I found it fairly disturbing in The Avengers film when The Hulk was tossing Loki around like a ragdoll–talk about gratuitous violence.
Re: Supergirl’s Marriage
How did Brainiac-5 take the bad news?
These are the Dutch versions of the 3 Superman comics made for the European market. :-)
https://dc.fandom.com/nl/wiki/Superman_Extra
How did Braniac 5 take it?
I imagine he was like, “Oh, grife. Well, as long as she’s alive and happy, I can be an adult and be happy for her.”
***and then history changes one minute later***
“Sprock.”
There were a number of Spider-Man comics made for the Canadian market in the early ’90s. They were all weird PSAs with bike safety and anti-drug messages. Looks like some of them were collected in “The Amazing Spider-Man Fights Substance Abuse” along with some other PSA comics.
It doesn’t seem to be well documented online (it’s not on the GCD as far as I can tell), so I guess not many people bought it. There’s a version on Marvel’s site listed as “Spider-Man: The PSAs” with more stuff, but apparently that version doesn’t actually exist.
I have in my collection a few Archie Comics that were published in Australia in the early ’80s. They are TV Guide-sized, but much slimmer and appear to be black and white reprints of various Archie stories originally published in America, but it is possible that the color covers were created specifically for the Australian market, although I’m not certain. But instead of “Canadian Whites”
these comics are basically “Australian
Whites.” They are published by the Yaffa Publishing Group. One of them is titled: “Birdwatch With Archie” and has a GGA bikini cover. Then there’s “Archie Again,” and “Madcap Archie.” They originally sold for 75c in Australia and 90c in New Zealand.
Looks like Supergirl is marrying Spock!
“Live Long and avoid Kryptonite.”
It would’ve been less creepy and more touching simply to have Kara consummate her relationship with Phil Decker. Did he ever appear again, post-Crisis?
There are 3 pages of original Swan art for this story up on Comic Art Fans that say on the board that they’re for Superman #415 (it looks like they might have originally wanted it for #414). All of the art I’ve seen for the overseas stories says ‘Superman Quarterly’ or ‘Ehapa’ (DC’s German licensee) on it somewhere, so I’m guessing this wasn’t one of those.
If you search the GCD for ‘Superman Quarterly’ it brings back a bunch of issues of the German comic ‘Superman Taschenbuch’. I believe this is where most or all of the overseas stories ended up. Looks like they really liked Terra Man over there!
Weirdly, all of the pages online from ‘Superman Quarterly’ on Comic Art Fans, eBay etc. seem to be lettered in English, even though most of them were only ever printed in German.