marvel

Star surfing, across the universe.

filed under Categories collecting, marvel, pal plugging, silver surfer, star trek 6 Comments

So I got something in a collection the other day that I’ve never seen before. Well, I mean, I’ve seen the comic, of course, in its much more common “softcover book” variety. But for the first time ever, I’ve seen it in hardcover form:


It’s the 1978 Silver Surfer original graphic novel by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, along with Joe Sinnott, John Constanza, Glynis Wein, and cover artist Carl Norem, retelling an alternate version of the character’s origins without the involvement of the Fantastic Four. This was one of a handful of releases from Fireside Books/Simon and Schuster that included Origins of Marvel Comics.

Way back when, at onne of the local bargain stores, there were stacks of the softcover available at next-to-nothing prices. (Also available for deep discounts at the same store: DC’s Famous First Edition treasuries in piles and piles.) I never bought one then, which I of course regret, but not as much as I regret not buying all of them to now sell in my comic shop.

It’s probably because of that long-ago stock dump that I keep seeing copies of the softcover version turn up in collections. As I said above, however, this is the first time the hardcover edition has made its way into my funnybook-worn hands. The dust jacket has seen better days, but otherwise the book looks good.

Here’s the back cover:


The inner flaps of the dust jacket:


Unfortunately, there’s no design on the book’s covers themselves:


…but at least you get some inlaid silver lettering on the spine:


It’s a neat book, and believe it or not, for all the times I’ve come across it at both of the shops I’ve worked at, either in the original softcover or via Marvel’s later reprintings, I’ve never read it. I am seriously considering keeping this for myself. I know, I know, how am I going to make any money and stay in business if I keep all the cool stuff for myself (like all the Popeye comics and fanzines that come my way), but this is a neat time and I’m really tempted. I mean, I’ll at least give it a read before putting it out for sale.

• • •

My ol’ Pal of the Internet Kevin Church has written a nice piece in celebration of Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, and I heartily recommend that you go read it.

I’m a little jealous of Kevin in that he remembers exactly when, and with which episode, he became a fan. I was one of those folks who picked up on Trek when it was in syndication in the early ’70s, that period when a lot of new fans discovered the series. I remember watching it on TV, both the original series and that cartoon, I had several of the toys (the Mego figures, the bridge set, even communicators and the tricorder), but I was perhaps too young to remember which episode to which I was first exposed.

And then Star Wars hit in 1977, and that began to occupy a large segment of my forming fandom brain…but I never forgot Star Trek, which has continued to this very day, finally achieving perfection with the greatest Trek series of all time:


“Search your feelings, you know it to be true,” as someone from a famous sci-fi franchise once said. I think it was Captain Janeway.

Letting it all hang out.

filed under Categories dc comics, marvel, publishing, retailing 8 Comments

So Marvel unleashed its “Ultimate” Universe in 2000/2001, starting with Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men, partially out of a need to have some “new reader friendly” material on the stands free of the deep continuity in the regular Marvel Universe. Also, a collapsed comics market and Marvel being on the verge of “going away” for good probably helped push along any desperate ideas to keep them afloat. Whatever the reason, the Ultimate books came out, giving fresh starts to their properties separate from the still-ongoing Marvel Universe proper…until they became just as convoluted as the mainline universe and purpose successfully defeated.

But it ran a long time, and made lots of money and had a strong readership, and “the sweet taste of success attracts many tongues,” as no one but me says, and DC was trying to figure out how to get some of that Ultimate scratch.

First they tried with their “All-Star” line in the mid-2000s, with All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman…both sold amazingly well, though one got a little more critical acclaim than the other. All-Star Superman was a mini and wrapped up after 12 issues, while the Batman title stopped mid-story with #10, and planned Batgirl and Wonder Woman titles for the line never appeared.

Then DC tried out the “Earth One” line of graphic novels, starting in 2009, again giving fresh starts to their major properties and hoping to catch a new bookstore audience with them. The Superman and Batman series for this imprint put out multiple volumes, but never really seemed to catch any traction. The Wonder Woman run of three books was generally well received, as was the Green Lantern run. But it looks like this effort was finally abandoned a few years ago (though a collection of the Wonder Woman books as part of DC’s Compact Line has done well for me!).

And then, finally, The Third Time’s the Charm, as they say, as just a couple years ago DC launched their Absolute line. Similar to the Ultimate Universe, the Absolute Universe gave fresh starts to their heavy hitters (Supes, Bats, and Wondy) in continuities separate from the mainstream DCU. Interestingly, the milieu spins out of one of DC’s Big Event titles, positing a reality centered around the Omega Energy of the seemingly fallen Darkseid. Sorry if that sounds a little inside-baseball for anyone coming onto this out of context, but the general idea is that this is not just a darker universe, but an existence where the heroes we know lack the advantages their regular counterparts have.

At any rate, this line (which quickly added a handful of new titles) is pretty much DC just printing money at this point. Absolute Batman is far and away the biggest hit. DC just keeps issuing reprint after reprint of the entire run of individual comics, and I keep putting them on my shelves, and they keep selling. They’re up to, like, a 12th printing on #1. This is almost unheard of for just a regular monthly title at DC, especially after the trade paperback collections started getting released.

And it’s not to speculators…it’s new readers, it’s teenagers, it’s adults who’d heard about this thing online somewhere. It’s the Holy Grail of what DC and Marvel have been looking for, A Title That Gets New Readers into Comic Shops Specifically for Their Thing.

The other Absolute titles also do well, if not at quite the extreme Absolute Batman does, but they’ve found their levels and move off the shelves.

Anyway, now that DC has found its Ultimate line, Marvel seems like it’s going to try to find its Absolute line, with this new Midnight publishing initiative they’re about to launch. I was going to say “I don’t know that this is directly a response to DC’s Absolute line,” but the headline of this article, “Marvel’s new Midnight universe makes DC’s Absolute comics look ‘pretty polite,’ says Spider-Man writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson,” seems to clear up any confusion.

The “Midnight” line is horror-centric, apparently, separate from the regular Marvel Universe, with darker versions of Marvel’s mainstays, which feels like a misread of the Absolute line, but, well, we’ll see what they do with it. The solicit for the first issue of Midnight: Fantastic Four #1 reads

“FIRST STEPS INTO DARKNESS! An obsessive scientist delves into the secrets of the universe perhaps best left unknown to humankind, leaving himself and three others warped in strange and horrifying ways. What horrible secrets lie in the new dimensions they have discovered? And can humanity survive the discovery? From the twisted minds of Benjamin Percy (WOLVERINE, PUNISHER) and Kev Walker (INFERNAL HULK, DOCTOR STRANGE) comes a tale of existential dread and secrets best kept…”

I can do without the “from the twisted minds of…” business, I mean c’mon, but I don’t know, Fantastic Four as a cosmic horror comic? Or even, dare I say, Lovecraftian? Yeah, I’d be all for that.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not criticizing anything they’re doing here. I obviously haven’t read any of these yet. They could be great! They have solid creative teams. But the question is, will these capture the same attention and sales as DC’s Absolute line?

This is something I had to ask myself when I was finalizing orders on the initial releases from this line. And while I tend to order conservatively on new titles, I did bump orders up quite a bit for these books. I think they will do very well, at least at first, as everyone tries to get in on the ground floor of what they think will be the Next Big Thing. And maybe they’ll be right, and it will be the Next Big Thing.

But I honestly think it will be at best a good selling new Marvel line to already established comic fans, and not the constantly-selling, new customer-attracting, phenomenon that Absolute has been. That niche is already filled, you see, and lightning striking again seems highly unlikely.

Again, just my feeling. I could be wrong, and maybe I’ll still be selling the 12th printing of Midnight: X-Men #1 off my shelves two years from now. And I’ll be cursing myself for not having ordered ten times the amount I did for the first printing of that issue.

We’ll all see soon enough how the Midnight line does. And whether I was on target with my orders. I’ve had strong interest from my regular clientele regarding these books, and I’ll be interested to see if there’s any demand beyond that.

The worst Civil War prequel.

filed under Categories collecting, low content mode, marvel 9 Comments

Someone came by the shop and donated a short box full of comics…not really much of interest in there, the usual smattering of random ’90s Marvel comics, but it did have:


…nineteen copies of West Coast Avengers Annual #3 from 1988. That’s a book value of up to tens of dollars!

You know, I’ve never actually read this particular comic. Now’s my chance to…well, probably not do so again.

And also starring Jesus’s twin brother, Thor.

filed under Categories dc comics, found art, marvel, this week's comics 9 Comments

So anyway, I was reading the new Spider-Man/Superman book released by Marvel this week (NOTE: THIS IS A NEW COMIC AND NOT THE SAME AS THE SUPERMAN/SPIDER-MAN COMIC RELEASED A MONTH AGO, DON’T LET IT FALTER IN SALES LIKE THE SECOND BATMAN/DEADPOOL TEAM-UP), and seeing one of the back-up stories,. the one by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank:


…it reminded me of somethin’. What we see here is a big battle between DC and Marvel characters, primarily good guys versus bad guys, though the Hulk as pictured is giving Superman what for. And what all that hoohar brought to mind was this bit from Doomsday Clock #12, also by Johns and Frank:

This was the bit at the end of this series where John forecast some future events in the DC universe, in particular what is obviously a Marvel versus DC battle in 2030. We’re still a few years off from that, of course, but who knows how long this current détente between the two publishers will last, and thus John ‘n’ Frank got in their predicted big battle a little early.

Granted, the “sacrifice” described in that Doomsday Clock excerpt doesn’t happen in this story. But as we’ve seen in these recent intercompany team-up books, the back-up stories often end after having resolved whatever emotional core existed at the center of the plot, leaving the traditional “good guys versus bad guys” battle for an unseen denouement. Perhaps, if you need to tie up a loose end from Doomsday Clock, this story can suffice as the foretold conflict, with the Hulk’s death still coming after the end of the story we see here.

Anyway, it’s fun to pretend.

• • •

Now, you sinners need some superhero love in your life, so here are some pics my old, old pal William took of a vehicle he spotted whilst out and about:


If you want bigger pics, William’s got ’em in this Bluesky post — let them pay for the bandwidth! But seriously, this vehicle is amazing. William and I live in the same general area, so I’m amazed I haven’t seen it driving around my own self. Unless it was just passing through on its way to spread the good super-Word throughout our country.

Just one official Swamp Thing/Man-Thing crossover, I don’t ask for much.

filed under Categories dc comics, marvel 17 Comments


So Deadpool/Batman #1 (or, more accurately, “Marvel/DC: Deadpool/Batman #1″) has finally been unleashed to, far as I can tell from my wee little comicks shoppe, a very popular item.

In my case I ordered a lot, more than I would normally order on what would be considered a Big Comic, out of my belief that this would have legs. Most new comics that come out have their primary sales window in the first week of release, with a few straggling sales in the following weeks, maybe, before they get pulled for back issues and to make room for the new issue, if there’s one coming in.

I think Deadpool/Batman will have a longer sales run than that, as it is the first Marvel/DC crossover in 20 years, and for a lot of people buying it, the first they’ve experienced as a new release. Also, it’s a one shot with a variety of features and (of course) variant covers, making it easy to collect. Just buy the one (or two, or six, if you want the different covers) and you’re done.

Of course, there’s the DC/Marvel Batman/Deadpool coming out in a month or two, so it’s not all done yet. And I am kind of curious if the turnout for this first release will be matched by that for the second. We will see.

But back to this comic that’s here right now, currently on my new comics rack, being picked up by just about everybody coming in. I joked (or “joked”) not long ago that some days, my shop just felt like an outlet for DC’s Absolute Comics line. Well, now sometimes it feels like and outlet those that, still, and this new crossover. I’m seeing lots of new customers buzz in to pick up this new comic specifically.

Yes, yes, but is it any good? Sure, it’s fine. It delivers what the people want, a crossover between Marvel characters and DC characters. The lead story with the title characters is fun, with only a few slightly off-color jokes from Mr. Pool as he and Batman do their thing against a particular bad guy, I don’t remember if it’s general knowledge who it is. Slight but entertaining.

The other stories are pretty much as expected…a Daredevil/Green Arrow story written by Kevin Smith, a cute Krypto/Jeff the Land Shark story, a wild Dark Knight-era Batman/Old Man Logan short by Frank Miller…it’s a good mix of work. The one story people seem to be complaining about is the Wonder Woman/Captain America WWII-era crossover, where they corner Hitler and argue over straight up killing him or taking him in to face justice. If we were still in the Golden Age, there might be an issue, but as the characters are interpreted today, frankly they both would have put him down immediately. But ah well, What Can You Do?

The sales success of this comic (and, hopefully, the follow-up produced by DC) could very well lead to more of thse Marvel/DC events in the future, but here’s hoping they don’t overdo it like they did in the ’90s/’00s. Sure, there were a lot of good ones (that Hulk/Superman one drawn by Steve Rude is something else), but it really did get to the point where they just weren’t special anymore. (At least until JLA/Avengers came out, which was absolutely special.)

As such, if these two companies contiue to work together for releases like these, maybe keeping it down to just three or four a year at the absolute most would be ideal. Or even just two, like the Deadpool and Batman books, with each company producing their own versions of each team up.

As online pal Jacob notes, there’s a time limit on this, set by whenever one company or the other or both get annoyed with each other and puts an end to these co-publishing money-makers for another couple of decades. I just hope they hold it together enough to get a wide reprinting (versus the limited one they did a couple of years back) of JLA/Avengers, because honestly, that’s just leaving cash on the table.

It was all worth it just to hear Harrison Ford say the words “Captain America.”

filed under Categories marvel 23 Comments

So anyway, I decided to run my mouth off a bit about the Captain America: Brave New World film over there on the Blueskies. Here’s the thread, but I’ll repost all the entries right here:

As the new Captain America movie slowly crawls toward almost breaking even, I’m guessing that it just plain costs too much to make superhero movies for them to be profitable now, at least in most cases, and at this scale.

These movies are budgeted to have to make within a spitting distance of a billion dollars to be considered profitable, and that only happens if the films become cultural phenomenons.

FANTASTIC FOUR will be the big test this year for Marvel, but if that underperforms that just means no more FF films. The *real* test will be the new Avengers movies, and if they fail that’s what will cause Disney to rethink the whole superhero movie thing.

They might give it another shot with a new X-Men movie, and I think Spider-Man abd Deadool movies will likely continue to be profitable, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole will either be abandoned or *greatly* de-emphasized.

Or they can just start putting Deadpool into every new Marvel movie. THE AVENGERS STARRING DEADPOOL would do okay, I think.

Now, the DC movies are a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. No telling how that new Superman movie will do.

There had been a lot of stories going back and forth about just how expensive this movie ended up being, once the cost of the extended reshoots were factored in. However, the only seemingly verified budget I could find was $180 million, with reports of wild ballooning costs due to the reshoots being declared as unreliable.

The movie’s momentum is slowing, and the linked report there says it may end up with a total of $450 million in the box office. Said report also claims the break-even point for the film, factoring in the promotions budget, is about $425 million. And all that is assuming the reshoots ‘n’ such are all incliuded in that $180 million budget, and didn’t tack on another $100 mill or so as is rumored.

Now, why do I care? I mean, I’m not absolutely invested in the success or failure of this film, beyond wanting all superhero movies to be good and popular so that I can maybe sell more comics. I just find this…interesting, from a cultural standpoint, as to how the Marvel movie machine went from “unstoppable juggernaut” to “kind of a crapshoot” as far as their movies go. And this isn’t saying anything about the quality of the films…I enjoyed The Marvels, for example, and I’m sure Captain America: Brave New World is fine.

Assuming all the numbers are right, BNW making $25 million over the break-even point doesn’t seem like enough of a return on the investment. Though, as my old pal William pointed out somewhere in the original thread, who knows what that $25 mill will look like after the studio accountants rejigger everything.

Point being, I don’t think I said anything incorrect in my Bluesky thread. According to Box Office Mojo, as I write this the film is just shy of taking in $290 million. It’s not quite broken even yet, but it seems like it’s gonna get there eventually.

But these huge budgets do present a problem. Some of these films have enormous budgets, and as I said in that thread above, they’re budgeted so that close to a billion dollar box office is needed to make it all worthwhile. And that’s not a guarantee anymore, especially in this pandemic and/or streaming era.

I did get a little pushback on my comments here, like this statement someone made:


First off, I did specifically mention Deadpool as being one of the franchises that can, and does, make a lot of money. It’s not a typical “Marvel Cinematic Universe” movie, though, so its not quite the successful example this writer thinks it is.

The statement that BNW is “breaking even in its second week” is, as shown above, incorrect, which presents the general public’s misunderstanding of film budgeting. Not that I’m any kind of expert, but the cost to bring a movie to the marketplace is more than the actual outlay of cash to make the film. There’s also the advertising budget, which can be (but not always) as high as the actual production budget itself. Plus, in this specific case, there are the reshoots, which nobody seems quite sure how much that added to the budget, if anything. Only making back the production budget means the film lost money.

The concluding statement that implies that I’m saying “no one goes to these movies” is a non sequitur, since that’s not an argument I’m making. A box office take of hundreds of millions of dollars means people are seeing these films, there is still a lot of interest in superhero movies. My point is that the films themselves are too expensive, that even those millions of dollars in ticket sales are either barely enough or not enough to cover costs. As stated, to get that coveted billion dollar box office, a movie has to be more than a blockbuster, it has to be a cultural phenomenon, something special. And entry #40 or whatever in the Ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t enough anymore, in and of itself, to give it that extra push.

In my thread above, I didn’t mention Thunderbolts, simply because I feel like that movie may be a non-starter. Again, I’m sure it’s perfectly fine, but we’re probably going to see the same slow crawl to almost breaking even, even with its smaller (relatively speaking) budget.

Fantastic Four could go either way…people might be excited to see a proper version of this superhero team on the big screen, or the general public may say “fool us three or four times, shame on us” and not bother. Frankly, I’m leaning more toward the former, but a quick Googling of the budget (perhaps as high as $250 million) means were looking at probably a half-billion break-even point.

Again, as I said above, even if all these movies underperform, that’s not the end of Marvel movies. It might be the end of these particular franchises, but Marvel still has their Avengers movies coming with the Hail Mary stunt casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. If those films don’t do well, then it may just be Deadpool and Spider-Man movies from here on out. Honestly, I do think these new Avengers flicks will do fine. And we have the eventual X-Men movies to look forward to.

What’s the answer? I had a few responses noting the amount of excess and bloat on the productions ballooned their costs, and that other studios have achieved plenty in their effects-laden action films on much smaller budgets. I mean, yeah, sure, but I don’t know how possible that would be with Marvel at this point. If costs are cut, it’ll be on the production teams and not the actors, I suspect, and God knows the production teams don’t need their resources cut.

I’m not an expert on any of this (“yeah, no kidding,” says the person who actually works in Hollywood reading my post), but I just find it all…well, almost unworldly. Talking about hundreds of millions of dollars like this is almost like talking about magical fairies or UFOs for all the ability I have to relate to this stuff. But, as someone who owns a comic book store, I have a vested interest in what’s going on with these films, how the public is reacting to them, how excited folks who actually come into my store are about them, that sort of thing.

In the last entry in the Bluesky thread, I mention the coming Superman movie, and…well, that may be a topic for another time. A lot of pressure on that one to succeed, since that may indicate whether or not we get more DC movies in this cinematic universe. Here’s hoping we’re not going to see more Warner Bros. tax write-offs.

Yes, I know about that History of the DC Universe drawn by Pérez.

filed under Categories indies, marvel, pal plugging 28 Comments

So pal Nat has published via About Comics the complete Dalgoda Omnibus:


Featuring all the comics by Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake and others, starring your favorite space dog. Also includes images of promotional artwork, retailer posters and signs, and mag covers. Of note…I helped a very tiny bit with this publication, providing a scan of a magazine cover for the book’s art gallery. I’m thanked in there and everything.

So anyway, if you want copies, they’re out there for sale…and I’ll have ’em for sale at my shop, too. If I run out, I’ll just give pal Nat a ring-a-ding and get some more!

(I wrote a bit about Dalgoda here as part of my Final ’80s Countdown series on fave indie comics.)

• • •

Okay, I was maybe a little too harsh on my assessment of Marvel Saga, that company’s attempt at retelling the history of their shared universe via panels and sequences from their long history of publications, with additional text filling in the gaps. Like so:


A couple of you in the comments there expressed your appreciation of that project, which made me rethink my opinions on it. I may have come at it from a retailer perspective, looking at unsold copies sitting in a bin and so forth.

But I forgot what it’s like to be a fan, new to all this nonsense, not having immediate access to Everything That’s Come Before in the comics you were just starting to read. It reminds me a bit of a certain Mr. Roynaldo Thomas and his work at DC Comics in the early 1980s, particularly this series:


…where I, a kid who didn’t have a full run of every Golden Age superhero comic ever printed, could learn about DC’s past characters in stories set in a time from which they originally came into existence. And then there was the America Vs. The Justice Society mini, with its copious footnotes detailing the decades-past stories referenced during the main plot.

I devoured this stuff. I loved learning about DC’s Golden Age via these new comics. As it turns out, I find them somewhat hard to read now…just kinda overly dense and clunky in a way I don’t have patience for. Which isn’t to say I don’t still have positive feelings towards those comics and how they helped fill in some comic knowledge gaps when I was a young and eager fan.

And so, there’s Marvel Saga, presenting the breadth of the Marvel Universe, a relatively stable and consistent setting compared to DC’s own superhero setting which had at that time (and several times since) been recently reset. Plus, this particular format (previously used for the Super-Villain Classics retelling the story of Galactus) made a recent appearance in the similarly-purposed History of the Marvel Universe from just a few years ago:


I take back my initial dismissal of Marvel Saga and acknowledge its use as a guide through the company’s continuity, especially for those folks who could use the introduction or the refresher. There can be a steep learning curve for folks trying to get a handle on a superhero universe’s fictional setting, and books like this help. Sure they could use Wikipedia, but it’s more fun through the comics themselves.

Better Red than dead.

filed under Categories low content mode, marvel 7 Comments

Sorry pals, part 3 of the look at the October 85 Bud Plant catalog’s retailer tip sheet will have to wait ’til Monday. Which is okay, as there are a few titles in this next batch that I want to ask my former boss Ralph about anyway.

So no big post today, but take a gander at this sharp-looking Red Sonja cover by Mary Wilshire and Walt Simonson:


Boy, that just leaps out at you, right? I’ve seen the later “homage” cover by the current publisher of Red Sonja stuff, where they pull back the camera to make sure you get the breasts in the pic. But the original is perfect as is.

Many would swear *at* Superman 64.

filed under Categories marvel, the thing, video games 12 Comments

Just in case you ever thought comments on old posts ever got past me…nope, they sure don’t! Here’s Reader Pete with a comment on my relatively recent video game post:

“I know I’m a few weeks late to comment on this post, but reading this reminded of the Questprobe game and tie-in comics from Marvel in the mid-80’s. I had the Hulk and Thing/Human Torch games for my Commodore 64 which I remember formatted like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book. I bought the Hulk and Spider-Man comics as back issues later on, but could never find the Thing/Human Torch one. It seemed like comics & video games would have been a much more natural partnership but that didn’t seem to develop until years later.”

The Questprobe computer games were illustrated “interactive fiction,” where the player would read text and type in commands of the “GO NORTH” and “TAKE AXE” variety, accompanies with still digital drawings.

There were programmed by Scott Adams — no, not that one, but rather this gentleman. And I suggest looking at that Wikipedia page to see the pic of Mr. Adams from 1982, which is literally the greatest.

Now, despite my affinity for computer and video gaming and (surprise) comics in the mid-’80s, I didn’t acquire these games. I’m not even sure I ever saw them for sale in the wild, and I regularly haunted the game software shelves at any store that stocked this sort of thing.

I was aware of the games, absolutely, as I definitely bought at least the first issue of Marvel’s tie-in Questprobe comic book series. (And according to the Grand Comics Database entry linked there, the look of the antagonist in this series was designed after Adams himself — again, reference that photo from Adams’ Wikipedia page.

Adams worked with John Byrne to put together a plan for the overall series of games, and of course the related comics, for a run of about a dozen installments. Only three games came out, due to the game company shutting down, which also ended the related comic book series. However, a comic based on the unreleased fourth game was created, and eventually released in issue #33 of Marvel’s Island of Misfit Stories, Marvel Fanfare.


And because the late writer Mark Gruenwald forgot nothing, some of this Questprobe stuff would turn up in his run of Quasar.

A couple of additional points: despite missing the games during their initial release window, I did sample one or two of them via emulation decades later. Which, unfortunately, is probably not the way to try them out given how very dated they feel now. As I recall, even the text interface seemed relatively primitive compared to the more complex commands available in, say, the contemporary Infocom games.

The Questprobe games had the affectation of the user prompt being, like, “SPIDER-MAN I WANT YOU TO” after which you would type in the command, like you’re controlling the character from afar. Here’s a playthrough of the Spider-Man game to show you what I mean:

The other point I wanted to make is that reader Pete (remember Pete? This is a post about Pete) said he couldn’t find the third issue of the run, feaeturing the Thing and the Human Torch:


And this is an issue we fans probably shouldn’t miss, as it features the excellent artwork of noted Thing artist (from the self-titled series and from many Marvel Two-in-Ones) Ron Wilson. I just checked, and this issue is not included in the recent The Thing Omnibus, almost certainly due to licensing issues, so folks, keep your peepers peeled for that lost gem. EDIT: Ignore all that, it is in the Omnibus, somehow I missed it when scanning the covers on the book’s back cover.

In my more nostalgic moods I might say that superhero video games never got any better than the Atari 2600 Superman from 1979. The best games? Maybe the recent Spider-Man games…maybe the Batman Arkham series. Many would swear by, say, the X-Men arcade game, or the various LEGO games.

These Questprobe games were an interesting attempt at moving superheroes into the then-burgeoning home computer market, but producing them as essentially text adventures with some pictures seemed to miss the point a little. I mean, yes, comic books themselves are pictures with some text, but if you’re handed a game, when you think “superheroes” you probably don’t want to spend hours guessing what noun-verb combination is the correct one to get you to the next guessing of a noun-verb combination.

Superheroes imply action, and in a video game market that means directly moving characters onscreen as per your controller interface. And with the release of the recent Batman virtual reality game, the games are coming closer and closer to actually just straight up living out the world are presented in comic books, with fewer apparent steps of remove.