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Invisoworld #1 (June 1987) by Gary Dunaier & Kurt Hathaway

This may be excessively nerdy, even for me, but is it wrong to be bothered by the fact that they put the incorrect emblem on the Golden Age Superman Crisis on Infinite Earths action figure?

WRONG

RIGHT

Sometimes, you just gotta take on the big issues.

Excessive gore, violence & torture; bare-breasted mermaids story; atom bomb panels; Gabby Hayes ends; tongue ripped out; Betty & Veronica sell souls to Devil; bondage/hypodermic panel; eyeball story; nudity panels of Betty Brant; people cooked alive; “The Hot Rod Gang” dope crazy kids; nude female painting; dismemberment, decapitation, article on human flesh for sale, Devil, whipping; ‘Commie’ torture story “Drug-Diet Horror;” cheesecake photos of Hollywood stars; teenagers smoke reefers; origin of Hitler feature story; Plastic Man forced to smoke marijuana; electric chair issue; tells how rock music is Satanic & produced by witches; President Nixon app.; tomboy story “I Hated Being A Woman;” acid in face story; injury to eye panel; man holds hypo & splits in two; heart torn out, blood drainage; woman melted alive; silhouetted nudity panel; “I Joined a Teen-age Sex Club” story; eyes torn out; Gabby Hayes returns; lingerie panels; opium den drug use story; Archie dresses as his aunt; man attacks & kills people with electric iron; nudist ranch panel w/four girls; female heroin junkie story; “unholy passion” story; cover shows girl in bondage having her blood drained; Wolverine cameo.

Man, Richie Rich sure was different back then.

Image of Mister Mystery #12 (1953) taken from the back cover of issue #9 of New England Comics’ much-missed Tales Too Terrible to Tell. Here’s a better look at that cover.

All of the above descriptions quoted from the 35th edition of the Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, available at a comic shop near you.

Alas, Thought Balloons and Eat More People have come to an end…both were informative and fun weblogs, and it’s sad to see them go. However, Kevin and Rick are now collaborating on Dark But Shining, more general purpose horror/sci-fi/fantasy weblog. Go check it out!

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Marvel Team-Up #44 (April 1976)

I was planning on doing a full take-down of sorts on this particular issue of Marvel Team-Up…I was just preparing a bunch of ’70s Marvels for our eBay auctions (have I mentioned our eBay auctions?), and for some reason, this particular comic stood out. However, as I’m looking at it…well, maybe I’ll just point out a couple things about this comic rather than do a full synopsis.

First, take a look at the cover. (You can find a better scan of a cover here, since I’m trying to save bandwidth here with my crappy little image.) Yes, I know it’s Gil Kane and Dan Adkins, so it can’t be that bad. But, if you look at the image…well, the perspective just seems a bit off to me, even taking into consideration that the villain (“The Dark Rider”) is a giant. I suppose it’s technically correct, but the way everything is colored and arranged, it looks like Moondragon and the Scarlet Witch have suddenly shrunk down to doll-size. Second, aside from the artwork, this is one cluttered cover, even by ’70s Marvel Team-Up standards. In addition to the primary cover image, you have:

• the Marvel Team-Up logo
• the logos for Spider-Man and Moondragon
• the “Marvel Comics Group” banner across the top of the cover
• the little bubbles with pics of Spidey and, er, Moonie (no, not that Moonie)
• the “PLUS: GUEST STARS GALORE!” banner
• multiple word balloons

I realize this is indicative of this kind of comic, but still…it’s so darn busy!

The story itself (which is by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema, and Mike Esposito, since I haven’t mentioned it yet) is, at first glance, about as cluttered as the cover. Check out that “exposition, ahoy” panel…it not only covers what happened in the previous issue, but what had just happened only a page or two before. However, when you get right down to it, the story is basically “big bad guy stealing energy from protagonists to take over the universe,” or something like that.

But, man, that’s some panel. Hey, Spidey, who’re you talkin’ to, exactly?

The story ends on a surprisingly downbeat note as, after the battle is completed, Spidey rushes off to save some falsely-accused people from being executed for witchcraft…only to find that he’s too late. More guilt is piled upon Mr. Parker…unless Dr. Strange can call up their ghosts to forgive Spidey as well. (Gee, why would Spider-Man need guilt? It’s not like it’s the primary motivator of the character or anything.)

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A question that came up at the shop as pal Dorian and I were discussing that comic…was there a sudden rash of Moondragon appearances after the first Star Trek movie?

Since Marvel never met a fad it didn’t like (well, to be fair, neither has DC), it seems like we would have seen a lot more Moondragon appearances to hopefully confuse casual comic fans into thinking that…I don’t know, that Lieutenant Ilya had joined the Defenders, or something. However, a brief look at this chronological list of Moondragon appearances (complete up until a couple years ago) doesn’t seem to show any more appearances after ST:TMP than before. Yeah, I know, the things we think about.

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One reason I didn’t really feel like making (much) fun of this book is that the writer of the book, Bill Mantlo, suffered a serious accident several years ago and remains, at least last I heard, in incapacitated condition. I wasn’t a fan of all his work, but I enjoyed his Incredible Hulk run (a nice tribute to Mantlo’s Hulk work can be found right here), and, as I noted before, his early Alpha Flight work (with Mike Mignola) was a guilty pleasure. It was downright creepy and unlike other superhero books of the time.

At the very least, you should read that Hulk essay and see how much of the Hulk’s direction in recent years has its roots in Mantlo’s work on the title.

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Commenter Jim notes that it appears that our store’s Sin City sales haven’t seem to have dropped off completely, like most comics do when their movie adaptations are released. Well, that’s true, sort of…the weekend after the movie was sort of the last peak in Sin City graphic novel interest, and it’s been downhill ever since. We still have some slight interest from a handful of customers, but nothing like how it was before the movie came out (and especially nothing like how it was during that several month window that none of the books were in print). Especially frustrating is that the demand that is there is for the books that the movie is based on and are currently unavailable from Diamond.

I don’t want this to be another Hellboy, where I couldn’t get the books while the movie was driving interest…and now I can get all the books I want, but nobody cares anymore. However, it looks like Sin City will be following the same pattern.

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Speaking of the Sin City, the Radiotiki internet radio show has a glowing review and some discussion of the film…go to this show log and click on “Part 5” for the stream. The review starts about six minutes in. (Note for those of you folks at work…review contains adult language, by which I don’t mean words like “escrow” and “retirement plan.”)

• As I was putting together my reorders for the week, I discovered (surprise surprise) no volumes of the Sin City trade paperback line are currently in stock at Diamond. Oh, well, it’ll save me money in the long run, since once they are available to us again, demand will almost certainly have dissipated and I won’t need to order so many copies.
• I’m also in the process of restocking our Star Wars graphic novels, in anticipation of one final “hurrah” for SW sales prior to the last movie’s release. It seems like I have to reorder Darth Maul every week. Oh, and the second volume of the Clone Wars Adventures digest series is finally available to us again, after about…two months, maybe? SW books that never sell: the ones that reprint the original Marvel series, and the X-Wing Rogue Squadron books.
• Old pal (and former coworker) Rob called me shortly after we opened today, to inform me that as he was driving by the store, he spotting a person in a sheep costume standing at the end of the block. Quickly walking outside to see for myself, I was relieved to discover said sheep-costumed person was advertising the recently-opened mattress store on the corner, waving at passerby and holding a big “SALE” sign…and not, for example, heading down the street to our shop with the intention of drunkenly raging at our customers and throwing half-emptied beer bottles at our walls.
• Two Chasing Amy references in a row: a person wearing this shirt (which took me a moment to recognize), and a customer recreating the “What’s a Nubian?” scene from the beginning of the film.

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Another contest: The Spatula Forum is giving away copies of cartoonist Jason Marcy’s books…just tell him what the name of your autobiography would be! You’ve got until April 29th, so get busy, you.

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In other news:

Four Realities takes a gander at the Super Jrs. digest.

More Super Jrs. shenanigans.

Pal JP comes through with more Super Jrs terror: an eBay auction for Super Jrs squeak toys!

Also on the eBay: homemade Sin City Magic the Gathering cards. Your choice of Nancy, Shellie, or Miho. Sexy and unauthorized!

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I keep forgetting to plug this contest: go enter Comic Book Galaxy’s James Kochalka giveaway! No, they’re not giving away James Kochalka…they’re giving away copies of his newest project, Super F*ckers! Yes, that’s right, Super F*ckers…ask for it by name. The grand prize winner gets an original painting by the super-star himself, as well as other goodies, including an American Elf hardcover. Go check it out, internet pals.

• While looking something else up in the Overstreet Price Guide, I spotted that Hex #1 was up to $8.00 in near mint condition. Eight bucks. How the heck did that happen? Is this another case of everyone’s copies going straight to the quarter boxes, and therefore are now hard to find in nice condition (like I theorized about Shazam #1)?
• On a related note, how many comic shops out there still have quarter boxes? When we still had them, we just dumped the absolute unsellable junk, unbagged, in there and hoped for the best. We did move some stuff, but occasionally selling books at a quarter each didn’t really justify the retail space the boxes were taking up. For a while we had 50-cent boxes, and currently we have dollar boxes (or 13 for ten bucks…woo hoo!) which are working very well for us, and more easily support the space in our store that these boxes occupy. Plus, the material in the dollar boxes is actually pretty good (we even had some reader copies of ’60s Marvels in there), so we have no problem moving them.

  The only problem with bargain boxes is thinking about all the things we sold for cheap in the past that we wish we had now. You know how many DC 100 pagers we sold for 50 cents a pop? Those things used to be common as dirt. I wonder what future high-priced collectibles are currently living in our dollar boxes?

• Discovered while restocking: we actually sold some West Coast Avengers, somehow. Well, I know we sold this issue, which introduced the Great Lakes Avengers (gee, wonder why that sold), but it turned out we actually had sold quite a few other issues of this series as well. Go figure.
• Someone’s also been buying the Evolutionary War crossover annuals…I didn’t read this when it came out, and I don’t think I’ve even looked inside a single installment of this adventure. I looked inside a couple of the annuals I was restocking yesterday…hoo boy, I didn’t really miss anything, did I? It looked like this series just plain summed up the generic-ness of late ’80s Marvel.
• We’ve also been selling Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn back issues lately, surely inspired by the current Green Lantern: Rebirth series. The first issue of this series has one of my favorite covers…that purple is really eye-catching.
• We also sold some copies of Arana #1 as back issues…none yet to the apparent young Hispanic female audience that Marvel supposedly was hoping for. (That particular demographic is more interested in manga and the “goth” comics, at least at our shop.)
• Other consistent back issue sellers: Avengers #196 (1st appearance of Taskmaster…I think we’re finally down to our last copy), New Mutants #98 (1st Dead Pool…Deadpool…Dead-pool…I don’t feel like looking up the proper spelling), and the current Adam Strange mini-series.

Also, before I forget…thanks to Commenter Bob for pointing out this page…Good Lord, that’s absolutely terrifying. (Actually, Bob, I’d completely forgotten about the Super Jrs. — I don’t think I’ve even ever seen a copy of that digest. And now I must have it.)

Well, I was certainly overcome yesterday…after what seemed like several hours of drilling and gagging and multiple shots of novocaine (and that was even before I got to the dentist’s office), I was in no real mood to poke around the internet and think about website content.

…So thank goodness for pal JP, and the weird stuff he sends me via the e-mail:

I have no idea where he found this, but I’m glad he did.

I have a cracked filling that’s driving me to distraction (and hopefully will get taken care of today), so I plan on taking out my irritation on all of you. Thanks for reading!

I’m so distracted, I almost forgot my SPOILERS AHOY warning!

Well, first off, a full third of our order on Seven Soldiers: Zatanna showed up damaged, with tears and holes in the spines. Given our sales on the Seven Soldiers of Victory books, I had upped the orders on this particular book to take advantage of the current interest…and, of course, they show up unsellable. Rats. Nice book, otherwise, with some slight nods in the direction of Alan Moore-era Swamp Thing continuity.

I’ve lost track: do we all hate Green Lantern: Rebirth or do we like it? I think I’ve said before that, if we’re going to have to have the return of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, then this comic probably does it as well as can be managed. Geoff Johns has a thankless job here, trying to paste back together Green Lantern continuity, while pro-Hal fans and pro-Kyle fans watch, waiting to get pissed off about one thing or another. I’ve been enjoying it, even as super-fanboyish as it is. And hey, Ethan Van Sciver draws an evil looking Sinestro, doesn’t he? I think I’m happier about Sinestro being back than I am about Hal.

Superman/Batman #18 has a surprising callback to a classic mid-80s Superman tale. I don’t want to go into more detail than that, except to say it was appreciated.

Oh, and if you’re a Will Eisner fan, grab the new issue of The Comics Journal, if only for the complete reprint of “A Medal for Bowzer” – it pleased pal Dorian to no end to see this comic. Of course, the rest of the mag is quite full of fine Eisner material as well.

Identity Crisis #1 & #2, final printings: okay, remember the movie River’s Edge? Well, in the late ’80s my old pal Rob had a copy of this on videotape, and I swear, every time I went to his apartment he had it playing. He and I must have seen that movie…well, I’m not going to say “hundreds,” but by God it was a lot. We saw it to the point of memorization. We also saw it to the point that, though nominally a tragedy, it became a comedy. Of course, having both Dennis Hopper and Cripsin Glover in this film helped push it in that direction, but I swear, we would watch this movie and laugh and laugh at each new completely bizarre thing we noticed. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about Identity Crisis. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed IC, but seeing the continuing debate and interminable histrionic dismay over this series and related tie-ins…well, that’s why there are words like “schadenfreude.” Yeah, I know, I’m a bad human being. I don’t like puppies either.*

(Okay, I will concede the red covers on the IC reprints are a bit much. Hokey smokes. But they sure stand out on the rack.)

Whenever my faith in my fellow man is at its lowest ebb…out comes a new issue of Deep Fried and all is right with the world again.

And there’s a new Swamp Thing out this week…it’s completely wacked-out, and I’m not sure I buy the ending (oh, well, there go a bunch of people off to their doom…hope they enjoy it!) but it did evoke, for a moment, some of the weirder post-Wrightson issues of the ’70s series.

* I lied. I love puppies. I think they taste great.**

** I’m joking. Save the hate e-mail.