Also I liked putting the original Elfquest #16 at the fronts of magazine boxes.
First off, let me extend my condolences to my blogging pal Johanna on the loss of her husband, K.C. Carlson. K.C. had been an editor on Legion of Super-Heroes, and on the comics-retailer specific publication, the appropriately-named Comics Retailer. I’m very sorry, Johanna, and I hope you’re doing as well as you’re able.
Okay, I apologize for the delay in this entry, but we’ll wrap up our look at the Bud Plant October 1985 catalog and the ordering tips for comic shops detailed within. Here’s part one and part two…and speaking of part two, I have a few notes from my former boss Ralph in regards to a couple of entries from last time.
Surprisingly, he tells me that the P. Craig Russell opera comics sold surprisingly well for him. He says it was likely the excellent art on these books that boosted sales, but I’m holding out for a secret conclave of opera singers living in our area. Whatever the reason, they did do well, and, y’know, good! These are good comics.
In regards to Jon Sable Freelance and American Flagg!, there wasn’t an immediate drop-off on sales, according to my former boss, as the series changed hands or, um, declined in perceived quality. He said there was just a general and natural decline as the series ran on, with no new readers coming on board as things progressed.
And as to comics’ eternal question, “which sold better, Death Rattle or Tales of Terror/Twisted Tales, the answer is…well, kind of a push, really. Neither one really stood out versus the other.
Now, onto the last batch of books from this tip sheet (this time, with some info gathered from Ralph in advance):
Yes, absolutely Frank Miller coming back on Daredevil boosted sales. His initial run was highly regarded, and this return has since become a classic in its own right. Even with the new Disney+ series taking its name from this storyline.
Contrary to this column, Ralph informs me that Firestar, at least for him, didn’t sell worth beans. BEANS, I say. I do recall rarely having to restock this book in the back issue bins. I don’t even her eventual inclusion in the Avengers title did anything to perk up sales. We’re just not a Firestar town, I guess. Maybe if she sang opera….
I mean, yeah, sure, it’s a special issue of Amazing Spider-Man, it’s gonna sell. Still sells even now on the occasion I get one in a collection here at the shop. To this day, I couldn’t tell you who Hobgoblin is or what his deal was — yes, I know that’s only a Wiki link away if I really wanted to know — but that orange weirdo still has sales power even now.
While Secret Wars II wasn’t quite as popular as the original, it still sold awfully well, and interest in the tie-ins wa strong. And this may be among the best of them, an ad-free Avengers story drawn by John Buscema? Sure, let me at it! And it’s still a good seller today…had one in the shop briefly last week before being snapped up.
Ralph tells me that G.I. Joe was largely dead at his shop. Probably one of those books that sold better on newsstands, as folks going into comic shops turned their noses up at those “cartoon comics.”
By “a few issues yet,” they mean “’til #319, which is Byrne’s last issue after quitting the book over a story they didn’t want to run until they ran it in Marvel Fanfare.” Anyway, sales were strong on Byrne’s run, and when Al Milgrom took over the story/art chores with #320, my former boss sez sales didn’t drop as much as one might have thought. Byrne’s arrival on the book sorta rejuvenated interest in the character. I know the story is that Peter David got the gig writing the book shortly after this, as “nobody else wanted it,” but at least in our neck of the woods Hulk was doing okay.
Yeah, I got lazy and just lumped all of these together. For Punisher, this is the Grant/Zeck/Beatty mini-series, which, with issue #5, Zeck is replaced on pencils by Mike Vosburg, and while Grant is still credited with the plot, the script is by Jo Duffy. I did forget to ask Ralph if that did anything to sales, but my feeling is that if you were in for four issues, you were probably going to see it out with the fifth.
Marvel Saga The Official History of the Marvel Universe I did ask about…if you’re not familiar, it’s a retelling of the history of the Marvel Universe (hence the overlong name), with panels taken from various sources, connected together with text, and I’m sure someone wanted this, but not enough to make it sell a whole lot at the old shop. I think I personally bought the first two issues, and I was all “yeah, I don’t have the patience for this.” Kind of a dud as a back issue seller, with the possible exception of the issue focused on Mary Jane Watson since it’s a tie-in to the whole wedding thing. And the Galactus issue had some brief demand at one point.
X-Factor was a big seller…at first. There was a lot of excitement for the original cast of X-Men returning as a team, but enthusiasm dropped a bit once they actually saw the book. I mean, sure, eventually, Louise and Walt Simonson took over the series and things began to look up about a year later, so there’s that.
Again, my old shop was apparently the weird one out here, as, like G.I. Joe, this was one o’them “cartoon comics” for kids and not a serious adult book like Green Lantern. Anyway, probably a big newsstand seller. Boy, I wish I had lots of copies of this comic now, though.
By “Santa Claus #1″ I presume what’s meant is Marvel Comics Special #39, adapting the 1985 Santa Claus movie starring Dudley Moore and John Lithgow. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have ordered too high on this either. I think the few times I’ve had them in back issue bins since, they were…not big sellers.
As to Young Astronauts…yeah, like this feller here, I didn’t know what this was. A quick Googling shows this was intended to be part of Marvel’s children’s imprint Star Comics, a tie-in to a new Saturday morning cartoon. However, the Challenger space shuttle disaster kinda put everyone off the “kids exploring space!” nature of this property, and the whole thing, cartoon and comic book, was canned. That link will give you all the info you need on this, including the few pics that exist. The “good creative team” included Denny O’Neill as writer, and June Bringman on pencils, and yeah, that was good. Too bad it’s all languishing in some file drawer somewhere.
Man, all these cartoon tie-ins are being pused as “HOT!” while my former boss’s recollection is that they didn’t do well at all, due to the “kid’s book” stigma. And, I mean, it’s not like kids weren’t going to his shop…I was a kid then, and I saw other younger kids there. Just these TV comics weren’t moving, I guess. Ralph noted that he’d see a lot of newsstand editions of these books show up in collections, where, again, these sorts of books were probably selling.
Just wanted to point this out because I liked this comic. An alien stuck in Victorian England, solving mysteries to occupy his mind and not be bored into literal suicide? Sure, I’m in! Written by David Michelinie, illustrated by Bret Blevins and John Ridgway. Apparently it was collected into a trade just a few years ago, and I recommend you read this however you can find it!
One of the classic indies of all time, and it’s a shame that aside from a recent cover for another comic, no new Carrot has graced us in quite a while. I pestered my old boss about sales on Flaming Carrot Comics (use the full name, please), and he said it wasn’t a huge seller compared to, like, everything else, but as black and white indies go, it did relatively well.
Just seeing all these titles together gave me a real nostalgic flashback to this period of comics. Not that I was a big reader of any of them (I think at most I may have flipped through an Elfquest, but I have read a few Blood of Draculas). For a while there, we were doing pretty good custom in the Elfquest line of comics, both in new and back issues, including this annual. I see Elfquest is doing a new push on collections, so maybe we can get interest up in this material again. Oh, also, Elfquest‘s creators Richard and Wendy Pini dropped by the old shop a couple of times, and they were very nice.
I loved both Paradax and Strange Days…don’t think they sold very well for the shop, but boy I thought they were neat.
These were oversized (about magazine-size) reprints, featuring, of course, the always-classic EC Comics stories of the 1950s. I remember having one or two kicking around the shop when I started working there, but no real backstock on them. I’m presuming they did sell well, at least for the old job. The noted sales trouble may come from their magazine size, as by and large anything bigger than a standard comic book could be a harder sell, or at least not sell in quantities equal to their smaller, floppier brethren.
Phew, that was a lot. And I suspect I have comments that’ll need responding, so there’s maybe one more post in this series. Thanks for reading, everything, and stay safe out there!
Sorry to hear of Johanna’s loss. May her husband, K.C. Carlson, rest in peace. It is good to know that he had a career in a industry that he loved.
I can’t comment on what sold more in terms of the the Kitchen Sink versus the Pacific /Eclipse Horror titles, but those early Twisted Tales issues published by Pacific Comics had some outstanding cover artwork by Richard Corben and Bernie Wrightson. I didn’t buy them at the time, as I was a bit too young for some of the ghastly content, but I pick them up now when I find them in decent condition at a reasonable price.
I barely recall the Firestar comic–was it spun out from the “Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends” cartoon? Isn’t that where the character first appeared?
The main problem with The Marvel Saga was using a bunch of reprinted panels from old Marvel Comics that generally had incongruous art styles. What they should have done was to hire Rich Buckler to use the old panels as source material and redraw them–just like they had him do the Saga of the Sub-Mariner, and the Original Human Torch limited series comics. Hell, it would have been even cooler if they got Steve Ditko to draw it–but I guess one of his conditions upon returning to Marvel was that he refused to ever draw Spider-Man again.
Re: Incredible Hulk no. 318, why did John Byrne do away with Doc Samson’s classic original costume? That ’80s costume revamp looks bad, and not in a good way…
Re: Daredevil. What ever became of the artist who drew Daredevil for awhile after Miller and Janson departed? I think his name was Daniel Johnson or something like that, and either Denny O’Neil or Larry Hama was writing the stories he drew. It seemed like he had potential.
When I find those Avengers issues by R.Stern, J. Buscema, and T. Palmer I usually pick them up. The art is so good–especially the way Captain Marvel/Monica is drawn.
Although I loved Micronauts and liked ROM, I passed on all of those other toy/cartoon licensed comics Marvel was publishing by the mid-’80s as they just seemed goofy to me at the time. I have since picked up some of the Star Comics Thundercats issues that have some nice Jim Mooney artwork.
I do recall buying X-Factor for awhile. I didn’t like their uninspired
costume designs at all, and found the team name cheesy. They should have just called the title “The Original X-Men” and let them keep their Neal Adams-designed costumes. At least the art picked up once Walt Simonson came on board.
I’ve picked up a few Bozz Chronicles in dollar bins but never gotten around to reading them yet–but Bret Blevins is a talented artist. Flaming Carrot seemed a bit too bizarre when I was young but I should probably read the original run–Bob Burden’s art reminds me a bit of Raymond Pettibone’s art. I did enjoy Myth Adventures back in the day, but most of WARP’s other output wasn’t really what I was into. Except Thunderbunny–that was a fun comic! I agree that Paradax was a very cool character with great art by Brendan McCarthy! And Strange Days was a neat anthology title.
Those magazine sized EC reprints were way cool and I definitely picked up some of the sci-fi ones back in the day for the Wally Wood art! Nowadays whenever I can pick up missing issues from the more or less complete EC Comics single issues/floppies reprinting that Russ Cochran did in the ’90s or whenever it was, I go for it. But I wish they would reprint as single issues Moon Girl and some of the other very early stuff from the late ’40s/early ’50s that predates their horror and sci-fi stuff.
Switching gears, what do people think about the Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer? Personally, I think the retro-future 1960s vibe is cool–although I wish they went with the Kirby iteration of the Fantasti-car and the classic Kirby suits with blue and black, instead of blue and white (and I really hope at a certain point The Thing is just wearing his classic trunks). I was pleasantly surprised that they got The Thing’s head and face fairly Kirby-accurate. Also, the casting on The Thing and on Johnny Storm seems good/classic FF comics accurate. I wish the Krasinskis had been cast as Reed and Sue. Although Pedro Pascal is a great actor, I don’t see him as Reed Richards (Killian Murphy could have nailed it!) –but maybe once I see the film I will change my mind. Vanessa Kirby seems like she will do well as Sue. It was cool to see H.E.R.B.I.E. and a Galactus who looks like Galactus instead of a space cloud. I guess John Malkovich is the Red Ghost…or another multiverse Reed from the Council of Reeds…or old man Franklin Richards from the future. But why didn’t we get to see Reed’s stretching power and how could they release a FF trailer without Ben proclaiming: “It’s Clobberin’ Time!!!”? And can we get Paul Giamatti as the Moleman?
Also, it would be cool if they include an homage to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the film. Maybe they could use old TV clips from when they were being interviewed and just briefly show it while The Thing is watching TV. Or, what if they hired actors to portray Kirby and Lee in their forties– since the film is set in a sixties time line–and there was a brief cameo of them as the writer and artist meeting the FF, who was licensing the rights for Marvel to make comics about their real-life adventures. I think in the early ’60s comics there was a situation like that, where Stan Lee inserted Jack and himself into the comic once or twice. They definitely tried to go to Reed and Sue’s wedding–but I think they were turned away as they were not on the guest list.
this entry literally recapped my first year of comics collecting. i was 14 and had just moved to CT, and worked in my grandfather’s craft shop, so i had pocket money for the first time in my life. Marvel Saga and OHOTMU clinched the deal for me. it was all …downhill? uphill? till this very day!
I’ve been reading comics for about 35 years now, so I’ve seen my fair share… So it amazes me to see so many covers that look totally unfamiliar. Maybe regional differences, since I grew up in the South?
1) I might be the #1 Secret Wars II Fan. I loved it on thew newsstands, I bought every tie in I could find, and I have the Omnibus I still pull off the shelf now. Shooter’s idea of “God comes to Earth to find out what Humanity is all about so of course we kill him” was awesome.
2) Marvel Saga was the greatest for us young continuity junkies and before the days when everything was reprinted. I ate it up and to this day my friends turn to me for any Marvel trivia question because I absorbed the facts in that book like I was studying for a final. A few years ago I got all my Marvel Sagas bound for my bookshelf.
MythAdventures was a fun read, made more fun because the author was the son of a teacher in my elementary school!
Marvel Saga was absolutely the bomb.
Sean-Re: Firestar. The cartoon is where Firestar first appeared, but that is not in continuity. Claremont introduced Angelica Jones into the Marvel Universe in an issue of Uncanny X-Men. Marvel followed up by publishing the Firestar mini-series (written by Tom DeFalco), which took place chronologically before the Uncanny X-Men issue, to flesh out an origin for Firestar in the comics.
King of the Moon-“Shooter’s idea of ‘God comes to Earth to find out what Humanity is all about so of course we kill him’ was awesome.”
That idea sounds awfully familiar.
“Firestar”
Woulda sold better if they titled it FIRESTARTER.
“I couldn’t tell you who Hobgoblin”
He’s NOT FLash Thompson, he WAS Ned Leeds, then he WASN’T. So… I dunno. He’s who ever Jack-O-Lantern really was!
“an ad-free Avengers story drawn by John Buscema?”
That’s a good story, even if ya DON’T like SW2.
“which is Byrne’s last issue after quitting the book over a story they didn’t want to run”
Such wasted potential!
“but at least in our neck of the woods Hulk was doing okay.”
“HULK BOUNCE BACK!! HULK BE OK IN LONG RUN!”
” but my feeling is that if you were in for four issues, you were probably going to see it out with the fifth.”
Oh yeah, you gotta see how it ends! Zeck art was BEST art, though.
““Santa Claus #1″”
I’ve enjoyed, and bought, lots of Marvel’s old Movieadaptations. This will NOT be one of them.
“Man, all these cartoon tie-ins are being pused as “HOT!” while my former boss’s recollection is that they didn’t do well at all, due to the “kid’s book” stigma”.
i remember Transformers & GIJOE being hot, but not that other stuff. Looked goofy.
Of course, I’m the one guy who liked SECTAURS & CRYSTAR.
“Paradax”
Beware his furrowed brow!
“Young Astronauts”.
Never heard of it, but I DID see that back cover ad w/Cap a lot.
“Except Thunderbunny – that was a fun comic!”
I donated a copy of Red Circle’s Thunder Bunny #1 to the Bunny Museum following its sad destruction in the California wildfires (fortunately the museum’s real-life bunnies were rescued). Also an issue of Joshua Quagmire’s Cutey Bunny.
Anyone else have any rabbit-related comics to spare?
X-Factor has to be one of the greatest editorial saves of all time. A terrible concept suffers a botched launch after which Louise Simonson, formerly the editor, takes over as writer and over the next 30 or so issues (after getting her husband in on art) ditches the terrible mutant hunter idea, makes there characters interesting, gives the team a reason to exist, develops Apocalypse into a serious threat and finally squares the terrible circle of Cyclops being a heroic man who abandoned his wife and child the moment his old girlfriend came back. It’s a fun book that solves a Gordian knot of problems.
And then, after the Madelyne question is settled, it promptly has no reason to exist and slumps away to nothing. Paul Smith comes back to draw an everyone’s-gone-to-another-planet epic that’s painfully generic and has never been mentioned again. Like only its myriad problems gave it life.
@ Chris V.
Thanks for the Firestar background information.
@Oliver
Cool that you donated some Thunder Bunny and Cutey Bunny comics to the Bunny Museum. My favorite Thunder Bunny issue was the one that had a lot of Golden Age public domain characters who had been in suspended animation appear in it. I think Martin Greim also wrote a fun run of the Original Shield stories for Red Circle/Archie Comics in the ’80s with some decent Dick Ayers and Tony Dezuniga artwork. It would be cool if Echo and the Bunnymen could be persuaded to do a benefit performance for the Bunny Museum.
@ Snark Shark
I forgot about Crystar–I did buy some of those comics back in the day. Nice Michael Golden covers and wasn’t there a Nightcrawler appearance to goose sales –or did all of the X-Men pop up there?
@ Tom W
I might have to try to track down some of those Paul Smith X-Factor issues. I always liked his art on X-Men and was bummed when he left.
Yes, Crystar (unlike books like G.I. Joe, Transformers, or Sectaurs) was considered part of the Marvel Universe, similar to Micronauts or Rom. Nightcrawler guest-starred in one issue, as did Dr. Strange and Alpha Flight in other issues (AF showed up in the final issue). Crystar was created by Marvel specifically in an attempt to create an action figure line, rather than licensing an already existing toy line to adapt into a comic book. It’s why Marvel can still use those characters anytime they choose, although the sales on the original series (and the toy line being long forgotten) is probably why those appearances are rare.
I also liked the Crystar comic. It wasn’t anywhere near the quality of Micronauts or Rom, but I had no problem paying a quarter an issue when I found the entire series in a 25cents box sometime in the 2010s.
G.I. Joe was incredibly hot for a period (the first 50 issues, I want to say). It was one of the few comic books I could reliably find at every non-specialty store’s spinner rack, alongside books like Uncanny X-Men or Batman that every store was carrying in the 1980s. Other comics were spotty, you might find a store that carried Avengers, but certainly not every store was carrying it. Around issue #50, the issues were getting harder to find, but I had discovered comic specialty stores before that point.
G.I. Joe was my gateway drug to comic books. My cousin found G.I. Joe issues 1 and 2 on the spinner racks and piqued my interest. I was seven years old at the time they launched G.I. Joe, and it was my first taste of comic books. It wasn’t long before I decided we needed to start collecting another comic series with a history behind it, settling on Uncanny X-Men for myself. I stopped bothering with G.I. Joe not too long after issue #50. I had discovered a lot more Marvel Comics by that point.
Man, you getting lazy and lumping the Punisher, Marvel Saga, and X-Factor write-ups together combined with me getting sloppy and skimming past the all-caps print at the top, assuming the whole writeup was Marvel Saga. And for a moment I was SO confused, wondering in what world Marvel Saga could be considered “really powerful stuff,” and elicit a comment like “I can’t say I like what this book represents, but we’ll sell a lot of them.”
“What this book represents”? It’s still making me laugh.
I have long maintained that the original X-Men/X-Factor is the lamest, least interesting of all major super-hero teams. I like some of the characters individually or mixed into other teams, but the combination of boring personalities and powers puts me to sleep. I agree that it’s fairly amazing that Louise Simonson was handed that group of characters and a stupid premise and turned the series into something sustainable. I didn’t read X-Factor until Whilce Portacio was drawing it because his art was so eye-opening.
@ Mike Loughlin
I can see your point, but to a certain extent the original X-Men, at least as a concept, was pretty cool for early Silver Age comics in general and Marvel in particular. First of all, it gave Marvel something to rival DC’s original Silver Age Doom Patrol, and to a lesser extent, the Legion of Super-Heroes (as a teenage team). A few years later, there was the original Teen Titans–which very well might have been placed into a team because of the X-Men and Spider-Man’s popularity as teenager superhero characters who were able to headline books.
Anyway, if you break down the team by individual characters, Iceman was probably the blandest one–and was basically a reworking of Stan Lee’s Golden Age Timely Comics character Jack Frost (who Roy Thomas later used in retroactive continuity as a member of the Liberty Legion during WW II). That makes me wonder, have Jack Frost and Iceman ever been used in a story together?
Marvel Girl was fairly bland in her early appearances (and superhero name) as well–before her power set was enhanced and she became Phoenix. In many ways she was Marvel’s pastiche on Saturn Girl from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and for all I know there were other Golden Age heroes she might have been based on. I liked her when she became Phoenix in the original Dave Cockrum costume–Dark Phoenix, not so much.
Angel, in my opinion, is not a bad character–although, of course, Stan repurposed the name from the Timely Comics mystery man called The Angel, and gave Warren Hawkman-style wings, with the difference being that they were organic. There were probably other Golden Age characters who had organic wings, or else characters in pulp fiction stories; and the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon. But I think for a Silver Age character, Warren Worthington III was fairly solidly developed. Although when they made him Archangel that was horrible.
Beast was most likely ripped off by Stan from Doc Savage’s supporting cast member from “The Fabulous Five,” “Monk”– who was a brilliant engineer with a somewhat simian appearance similar to that of Hank McCoy. And even the name “The Fantastic Four” is ripped off from “The Fabulous Five”–thanks Doc Savage! But, again, I would argue that Hank McCoy was a fairly well d beloved character–or became one over time.
Cyclops has definitely had staying power, even if he wasn’t that well developed in the beginning as a character. And here, again, Stan ripped off the Golden Age character The Comet from MLJ/Archie Comics
(who had been killed off in the ’40s–thus spawning the birth of the Hangman, his brother who was out to avenge The Comet’s death). The Comet was created by Jack Cole (of Plasticman fame) and shot optic death ray blasts from his eyes through a visor device, way before Cyclops came along.
And Prof. X was a great character–even though they tried to keep killing him off during the Silver Age.
I think the later additions to the team, Polaris and Havok, are cool and had great costumes during the Silver Age. And the Neal Adams costume redesigns towards the end of the original X-Men’s adventures for the founding members look cool as well. But, of course, the Bronze Age arrival in the mid-’70s of the hip, international, New X-Men with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, soon-to-leave Sunfire, soon-to-die Thunderbird, and somewhat-of-a-caricature Banshee was going to blow the original team out of the water. It just goes to show how much comics had evolved since the early ’60s. But as a product of the early ’60s, the original X-Men, although a lot simpler, were also a good concept–albeit with the
Silver Age shorthand cliches of the brooding, socially awkward Scott pining for Jean, the somewhat conceited and entitled Warren, the good-hearted brainiac Hank, the annoying kid brother Bobby, and the intelligent and attractive young lady, Jean, not fully aware of her awesome, as yet untapped, power. And Xavier, the “Come to me my X-Men” cult leader/mentor.
Crystar showing up in Deadpool Team Up this past year actually made me pay money for a Liefeld book. It was a tough choice to be honest.
I think Byrne’s Incredible Hulk run was the first time my excitement for him faltered. His abrupt departure, and the equally abrupt departure from Fantastic Four, left a sour taste in my mouth. His subsequent Superman relaunch was exciting at first, but soon felt lacking in…something. Grandeur?
Funnily enough, the book I think he really nailed was the one he said he never really got a handle on: Alpha Flight. I bought that title religiously and still think about his run fondly, probably because he didn’t suddenly jump ship.
@ Thom H.
I also enjoyed Byrne’s Alpha Flight run.
I think that run of Action Comics which Byrne did with Superman and various guest stars was alright and basically filled the void for DC Comics Presents. But screwing over the Legion and restoring Ma and Pa Kent and all the tinkering Byrne did with Superman’s established continuity was not great. Also, I think that Superman is a hard character to write month after month without things becoming tedious as he is just too powerful.
That’s why I always enjoyed DC Comics Presents much more than Superman and Action Comics when all three titles were being published concurrently–we got a variety of writers and artists (usually pretty good!) and a variety of co-stars, which generally made for fun reads.
I just read DC Comics Presents no. 60, starring Superman and The Guardians of the Universe. Nice issue by Cary Burkett, Irv Novick, and Tony Dezuniga; with a spiffy Gil Kane cover. Novick inked by Dezuniga actually looks pretty good. It was also interesting to learn that Tomar-Re was the Green Lantern of Krypton’s space-sector when it exploded and feels guilty for not having been able to save the Kryptonians. I don’t think I knew that before reading this issue. Ranakar is the Guardian of the Universe chosen to help Supes defeat the Weapon-Master, who has hi-jacked all of the green juice from “The Great Battery of Power” on Oa, and enslaved a legion of Green Lantern Corps members to his evil will. Ranakar is perturbed, as he wants to return to the composition of his eighteen-level poetical abstraction on the mathematical relationships between reflected light and its source–which he has been working on for a century and a half. I think Ranakar might just be the greatest co-star ever to appear in DC Comics Presents!
“I forgot about Crystar–I did buy some of those comics back in the day. …a Nightcrawler appearance to goose sales”
Yes, #6.
“Crystar was created by Marvel specifically in an attempt to create an action figure line”
I did not know that!
“I have long maintained that the original X-Men/X-Factor is the lamest, least interesting of all major super-hero teams.”
Cyclops is a huge dork. I’m OK with the rest of them. Except for Marvel Girl needing a WAY better anme- which she eventually got.
“Beast was most likely ripped off by Stan from Doc Savage’s supporting cast member from “The Fabulous Five,” “Monk””
There Is a strong resemblance!
“New X-Men with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler”
Add kitty, and you’ve PROBABLY got my 4 favorite X-Men!
While my least favorite are Bishop & Gambit. GAMBIT YOU STILL SUCK!
“Crystar showing up in Deadpool Team Up this past year actually made me pay money for a Liefeld book”
I did not see this!
” Byrne’s Incredible Hulk run was the first time my excitement for him faltered. His abrupt departure”
why the hell did he leave so quickly, I wonder? He was on FF for a few years, at least, a good run. And was writing the Thing solo title part of that time, as well.
“I think that Superman is a hard character to write month after month without things becoming tedious as he is just too powerful.”
Yup, that’s the big reason why it’s so hard to write him well. And what the hell do you do with him in the Justice League? Like Superman would need ASSISTANCE all of the time.
@ Snark Shark
That was actually one thing I thought about during that DC Comics Presents issue–maybe instead of just heading out with the contrite Guardian of the Universe, Ranakar, Supes should have summoned the JLA for back up to help him take in the legion of Green Lantern Corps members who were under the Weapon-Master’s control–especially as they were able to change their green will-power energy to Kryptonite energy.
That also got me to thinking it would have been fun to have a DC Comics Presents story where Superman tries to summon the League but none of them can show up, for whatever reasons, so he ends up with a rag tag team of, like, The Creeper, Ragman, Metamorpho, Black Lightning (pre-Batman and the Outsiders), The Vigilante (Greg Saunders), and Ultra the Multi-Alien to battle Despero, or whoever.
It could have also been cool to have a DC Comics Presents story as well where Supes teamed up with The Heroes of Angor.
The issue of DC Comics Presents when Superman meets Hoppy the Marvel Bunny has to be one of my favourites. And Supes treats Hoppy like an equal, without the slightest snark, which is even better.
Also, it was in one of the final issues of DC Presents that the Charlton Comics version of Captain Atom made his last appearance. (Never liked what DC did to the character.)
@Sean: I agree that there were some fun stories in the team-up version of Action Comics. And in general, I thought Byrne’s Superman reboot was interesting if not exactly inspiring.
Ironically (maybe?), it was the depowering of Superman that I had a problem with. His inability to travel through space or into the past really cut down on the number of fun stories you could tell with him. He was stuck in the here and now, leaving readers with a somewhat “Marvelized” version of the character.
That’s all a million years ago, though. Seeing reference to Byrne’s Hulk run just brings up memories of my juvenile disappointment, I guess.
Byrne’s Hulk started out promisingly, and had the large-scale destruction and battles that fit the character. It started to meander even before he left, however, and the Hulkbusters were not very interesting. Still, I would have liked more, as I think he could have swung it back to being fun. Byrne left and did Superman, though, oh well.
@ Oliver
Agreed that the Hoppy the Marvel Bunny appearance in DC Comics Presents, and Superman treating him as a peer, was also great! I actually picked up a Golden Age Fawcett Comics Hoppy comic last year for next to nothing. I need to dig it out from the stacks and read it. Also agreed that DC’s alterations on Charlton’s Captain Atom did not serve the best interests of the character–but the creation Dr. Manhattan and the rest of the Watchmen pretty much ensured that all of the Charlton Action Heroes would be given a more grim and gritty treatment. I guess Ted Kord/Blue Beetle was all right for awhile in the early part of his relaunch, before they turned him into a buffoon.
@ Thom H.
Good point about Superman not being able to travel into the past or future, or space. Long Live the Pre-COIE Legion!
“And Supes treats Hoppy like an equal, without the slightest snark”
Wonder Woman would also do that.
Blue Beetle would be like me- “YOU’RE A GIANT BUNNY” said on repeat.
@ Snark Shark
What if Hoppy met Captain Carrot…?
That would be more talking bunnies than the law allows!