Yes, that’s meant as a dirty joke.

filed under Categories 1990s Sins 13 Comments

Okay, I’m going to wrap up the much-delayed “1990s Sins” posts with today’s entry, and go on to a new, and yet still 1990s-ish, thing on Wednesday.

M.A. “Bats” Masterson pops in with the following:

“DOOM FORCE and the Ambush Bug Nothing Special. Accept no substitutes.

“I don’t care if that’s two comics.”

YOU SCOFFLAW! Anyway, I already discussed Doom Force here, so phooey, I’m just discussing one of your suggestions anyway!


The Ambush Bug Nothing Special is of course similar to the Doom Force comic in that it’s primarily a parody book, poking fun at DC’s various characters and imprints, inlcuding Swamp Thing and Sandman. Plus there are more general spoofs, such as going after the ’90s style of comics:


As such, the “sin” category for this title would be “Parody,” though like for Doom Force, this is more accurately a virtue than a vice. These two titles provided some nice perspective on a genre that, perhaps, was taking itself too seriously while simultaneously reaching the occasional height of ridiculousness.

• • •

And just to wrap things up on our interrupted journey through 1990s comics sins (for now), here’s Mike Loughlin with

“Bloodstrike 1 had a Liefeld cover, with layouts by Liefeld. It features characters with EXTREME! names jumping out of a vehicle and attacking a base, the Liefeldest way to open a series. Most ’90s of all, it had a gimmick cover: if you rubbed the cover, blood would appear. The ad even said, ‘Rub the Blood!’ or something to that effect. It is, to me, the ’90s-est comic to ever ’90s.”

Ah, Rob Liefeld, the gift that keeps on giving. When this comic came out:


…much amusement was had at the gimmick, in which some blood printed in thermal…ink, I guess, would appear or disappear as one would rub hopefully just fingers over those spots. And “Rub the Blood!” wasn’t just in the ads, it’s right there on the darned cover!

Now, this thing originally ran for 20+ issues and I couldn’t tell you a darn thing about it except it got revived a couple of times after the ’90s were over: once in 2012 for a brief run picking up the numbering and written by Tim Seeley and illustrated by Francesco Gaston. Then it came back again in 2018 by Michael Fiffe, starting up again with issue #23 (and the subtitle “Brutalists” and continuing on with a few more issues, with a #0 mixed in there somewhere. No idea if these were straight-up continuations of the original 22 issue run, or sly and knowing “takes” on the property or what was going on. I have a vague memory of the Fiffe run getting some interest.

But neighter of those revivals had any blood you could rub, so fie upon them and let’s get back to that #1. “Rub the Blood,” indeed. That, my friends, is a gimmick for the ages, and thus that is the category under which it shall be placed: the 1990s Comics Sin of “gimmick.” And well deserved it is.

I’m going to give regular commenter Snark Shark the final word here, because…well, it made me laugh.

“Man, that gimmick rubbed me the wrong way!”

Still salty about the Jason Todd thing.

filed under Categories batman, dc comics, publishing, retailing 17 Comments

Okay, I ultimately decided not to continue the search for the most ’90s comic for the moment, as picking up from where I left off there was…well, weird. But I do have more 1990s comics content in the works, so check back next week for that.

But, speaking of the 1990s…here’s DC Comics with a big ol’ announcement regarding the forthcoming variant-laden first issue of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s “Hush 2” storyline:


So here’s what Batman #158 entails.

Cover A – the main cover.

Covers B, C, D, E, F, G – cardstock cover artist variants

Cover H – the blank sketch cover

Cover I – foil cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams

Cover J – a connecting fold-out cover by Jim Lee

Cover K – wraparound foil cover by Sean Gordon Murphy

Cover L – the 1 in 25 ratio variant

Cover M – the 1 in 50 ratio variant

Cover N – the 1 in 100 ratio variant

Cover O – the 1 in 250 Jim Lee pencils “virgin” cover

Cover P – the 1 in 608 (get it?) black and white variant signed by Jim Lee

Cover Q – the 1 in 608 black and white variant signed by Jeph Loeb

Cover R – the 1 in 1000 signed by Lee and Loeb

Then there are the Giant Size (probably Treasury Size) editions, with a regular cover edition and a foil one, as well as the Glow-in-the-Dark foil “Launch Party” variant. And this doesn’t count stuff like a special bundle of ashcans for sale/giveaway, or whatever retailer-specific variants there may be for this comic.

Obviously that 400,000+ copies are divided up amongst all these variants, and I wonder what the print run per comic would be…probably 125,000 or so for the main cover, and the balance spread out over the rest of the covers.

Now, it seems unlikely that Batman is suddenly going to quintuple in sales for this comic, and dumping 400,000+ into the current state of the direct market does seem like quite a lot. Retailer orders does not always equal sales (no matter how much the Rob may brag about the order numbers on X-Force #1 back in the 1990s, a solid chunk of those went directly into stores’ back rooms), but I suspect this particuilar Batman comic will do reasonably well. It really depends on how many different covers any one customer may end up buying.

In its favor, there have been a couple of decades’ worth of sales of the original “Hush” story in trade paperback building up an audience for it. (Never read it myself, beyond flipping through an issue or two, but people seem to really like it.) Can DC get people who read this as a trade initially to come back to pick up a comic book series for six consecutive months, or will that specific audience just wait for the eventual hardcover/paperback release?

Will customers already buying single issues in the direct market suddenly flock to “Hush 2” pushing the already (relatively-speaking for today’s market) high numbers on Batman even higher? Maybe for a while, and orders may be up there for the first couple of issues, but I imagine we’ll see a huge correction in orders by part 3.

Another point in its favor is the artist, Jim Lee. He’s been a popular artist for decades, but the extra push of “THE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER OF DC COMICS IS DOING A RARE ART JOB” will probably grab eyes. “Hush” has always been a Jim Lee art showcase, the story being relatively superfluous beyond “Batman fights all his villains,” and the prospect of new Lee art is a big sales pitch. Whether it’s 400,000+ copies big, we’ll find out soon enough.

Spoilers for Great Darkness Saga, Planet of the Apes (1968), X-Men/Teen Titans, and, I don’t know, Sixth Sense, maybe?

filed under Categories collecting, legion of super-heroes 20 Comments


So with the acquisition of the above book, Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga Deluxe Hardcover, my collection of DC’s chronological reprints of these comics starting with the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Volume 1 back in 1991 has now reached the issues I started with in the early ’80s.

Now this book is the “2025 Edition,” and apparently a version of this book had been available several years before, in both trade and hardcover, if I’m understanding Diamond’s back catalog correctly. The issues contained within pick up from where the Before the Darkness hardcovers of a couple of years ago left off, with issue #284 through #296 plus Annual #1. It also includes a gatefold reproduction of Keith Giffen’s amazing 1983 poster featuring every Legion character, complete with a guide as to who is whom.

This is not to be confused with the other Great Darkness Saga reprint volume, which looks like this:


…which, just to confused matters, also has been rereleased in a new edition with that same cover. This version reprints #287, #290 through #294 and Annual #3. As opposed to the chronologically-reprinted Deluxe Hardcover up there, this other book is intended to be Darkseid/Great Darkness-specific, including the follow-up in that third annual.

Speaking of Darkseid, one of the bits of business about the Great Darkness Saga when it originally ran in 1982 was that is was supposed to be a surprise when the Big Bad Guy, ol’ Craggy Face himself, finally shows up. After Kirby’s Fourth World reached its end, more or less, in the ’70s, Darkseid maybe popped up here and there but was mostly unused. “The Great Darkness Saga” put him back on the map as an imposing villain (along with a certain intercompany crossover the same year that also used him in an impressive fashion).

Given the fact that Darkseid’s appearance was a surprise, it’s a little amusing that his big ol’ noggin is prominently featured on these covers. It’d be like putting the Statue of Liberty on the Planet of the Apes movie poster (which I’m sure must have been done at some point). I realize the surprises for these have long since filtered into public consciousness (maybe more so the Lady Liberty thing than the Darkseid thing) and possibly no harm is done in putting a spoiler just right up front like that. However, there are people who come to these with fresh eyes and I feel bad there’s little to no chance of them enjoying the surprise as it comes, versus having it staring in the faces of those out to experience these stories for the first time.

The next Legion reprint hardcover comes out in May, but that one is entirely issues I read and own. I may still get it out of completeness because, y’know, I’m a comic collector an’ all.

Oh, and also, Bruce Willis’s character is a ghost. Look, I told you up there in the title of this post there’d be spoilers, don’t get mad at me.

Suddenly, fourteen months later….

filed under Categories 1990s Sins 19 Comments

So anyway, when I felt off back in January of 2024, we were talking about The Most ’90s Comics. in the series of posts under this category, we’d talked about such contenders as Deathmate Red and Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1 and Spider-Man #1 and Doom Force an’ other goodies. My personal choice for Most ’90s Comic was, as a reminder, was the original X-Force #1 with its polybags holding one of five different trading cards (plus a mail-away offer card that was the same in each).

While I covered most suggestions, and that linked post implied I was going to continue to talk about this…um, I forgot, I think. Thus, better late than never, let’s dive back in and wrap things up, first off with Dave‘s suggestions.

Dave was taking the high road with his ideas for Most ’90s Books, starting with DC’s Sandman. …Look, it was a more innocent time then, and knowing what we know know about The Author, the Sandman franchise as a whole has lost its sheen, and possibly cost DC Comics one of its most reliable cash cows. But for many decades, it was The Tops, signifying the crossover between regular ol’ comic readers and the ever-elusive Bookstore Market that the Big Two companies are always hoping to bust into.

And that may represent the “1990s sin” that I’m using to identify these posts. I mean, Sandman itself was a net positive (until, well, you know), attracting readers beyond the usual Direct Sales marketplace. But its success certainly pushed DC and Marvel and others along into putting everything into collections and possibly, in its way, encouraging the Writing for the Trade (in which stories are purposefully created in five or six issue installments, idea for reprinting as a book) or Waiting for the Trade (in which buyers eschew the singles in favor of the paperbacks, forgetting that without the sales on the singles, the seris will die off) strategies.

Which “1990s sin” category would I put this under? Not sure. “Bookstore Break-In?” “Waiting for the Trade?” It seems unfair because Sandman wasn’t really the main offender here, but it was the most visible. (And yes, Dave acknowledges this series actually started in the very late ’80s, but its impact was really heavy in the ’90s.)

Another of Dave’s suggestions is Jeff Smith’s Bone:


Another positive spin on the traditional (at least around these parts) take that the ’90s were all bad for comics, which of course they weren’t. Bone was a real success story, a self-published book that grew more popular in the regular comics world over time, before getting that Scholastic book deal and becoming a beloved classic for kids everywhere of all ages.

Again, despite being in our “1990s sins” posts, it’s not really…well, “sinful” in that fashion. It’s a good book, the success of which is greatly deserved, and I’m glad it continues to entertain a whole new generation after generation of kids. Maybe “D.I.Y,” not a bad thing in this particular case but surely inspirational to other creators who met with less success both financially and artistically. Kinda like the 1980s black and white boom iknspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but on a smaller scale.

• • •

Okay, got a couple more to cover here, and hopefully this time I won’t drop the ball for another year and change. Come back Wednesday to find out if I do…actually, I have something else probably planned for Wednesday, so come back Friday and find out!

Doomsday +2.

filed under Categories fantastic four, hulk, metamorpho, this week's comics, wonder woman 10 Comments


Yes, I know it’s the second post in a row this week leading off with a big ol’ pic of the Red Hulk, but given this is the first Red Hulk comic on the stands since, I think, Red She-Hulk ended back in 2013, I think I’m justified. It’s a tie-in to the “One World Under Doom” crossover, which is one of the few Marvel events I’m actually reading and not just kinda inferring what’s happening in the larger Marvelverse when these things creep into series I follow (like when “Blood Hunt” poked into my series).

Of course the reason this series exists is that said crimson behemoth is currently appearing on a slowly diminishing number of movie screens near you in Captain America: Brave New World. I’m very curious how the comic is going to do, given I haven’t had a whole lot of advance demand in this at the store, and I don’t know if the film is generating enough interest amongst the Wednesday regulars to get them to grab it off the shelf.

I’ve red…er, read the comic, it’s fine, it’s very obviously Part One of the story, with not as much Red Hulk action as I’d have expected. But it sets up the character’s involvement in Doctor Doom’s plans, and we get a few surprising cameos, and I’m happy to stick around and see where it’s going. The Doom event has attracted some good sales on the released tie-ins so on, so that may be what gets people trying out the title more than the Hulk his own self.

Side note: when the Red Hulk was originally introduced, the big mystery was “just who is the Red Hulk?” and my somewhat bonkers guess was that it was Bruce Banner’s paramour Betty Ross. Who it turned out actually to be was mildly disappointing, but I suppose it was no surprise. Still haven’t seen the film, but it’s pretty clear that nobody’s going in wondering who becomes Red Hulk. …Still think my idea was better.


Continues to be a complete delight, as Al Ewing channels his inner Bob Haney and makes this the most groovily-script comic on the stands. I had a good grin on my face through the entire issue, and even released a Sensible Chuckle on more than one occasion. Artist Steve Lieber ain’t no slouch either. This issue is a good focus on the relationship between Metamorpho and his boss Simon Stagg’s unfrozen caveman assistant Java, between whom no love is usually lost but find themselves just kinda stuck with each other anyway. Anyway, the book’s a blast, you should read it.


Another “One World Under Doom” event book, in which we get a look at life under Doom’s thumb, and it is very, very hard not to read the descriptions of that life, the discussions between characters about it, and so on, as an allegory for Trump, which can only be intentional. Politics, in my comics? Why, yes, as they’ve pretty much always have been since the beginning of time, but if you’re worried that it’s heavy-handed, nah, take it easy. No explicit references, but if you read this, you won’t be able to help but connect the dots.

But anyway, what I’m enjoying a lot about Ryan North’s run of scripting these books is the various grouping of characters that he does with the relatively small-ish main cast. This issue we get the Thing, Dr. Sue Storm (and I do love that North is very big of reminding us of that “Dr.”), and former member She-Hulk in a very satisfying done-in-one story that doesn’t let the crossover get in the way.


As always, whichever of the Absolute books I’ve read most recently becomes my favorite of the imprint, as the initial storyline of this title comes to its conclusion. While the main plot seems relatively simplistic (Wonder Woman helphs Man’s World fight off a giant monster), there’s a lot of solid backstory and characterization and just plain pretty art and entertaining dialogue that you get your buck’s worth with each issue. In fact, every issue of these Absolute series is dense on art and story and giving you good value. I hope this continues on in the new Absolute titles coming in the next few months.

Speaking of which, I’m hoping DC doesn’t go into overkill with the additional spin-offs for this imprint, chasing those strong and continuing sales the first three series have experienced. The fear of course is The New Thing replacing The Old Thing, and I recall one writer of a Marvel book wondering why he’s doing a regular Marvel Universe title when the “Ultimate” version was being published concurrently. The original Ultimate titles I’m speaking of, by the way, not the current iteration. Now we know what happened with the original Ultimate books, so I don’t think there’s any real danger of one supplanting the other. That said, I still don’t want too many and have them biting into each other’s sales, or into the sales of the main line.

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.

That’s the first appearance of Mogo, friends, a Hot Key Investable Issue!

filed under Categories batman, dc comics, indies, publishing, supergirl, superman 15 Comments


So I done dood it…I got myself a copy of the nigh-legendary Time Beavers graphic novel by Tim Truman, published by First Comics in 1985. Now I haven’t had the time to read it yet, but read it I shall, oh yes. I’m just a tiny bit miffed with myself in that copies of this were just all over the place at my previous place of employment. I mean, I could have bought one of these from there on the day of release, but alas, I thumbed my nose at Time Beavers and headed straight to the rack to grab Green Lantern #188 with its Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons back-up instead. Thus, I have to resort to the eBays and other nefarious means instead.

Anyhoo, there were plenty of comics I had easy access to back then, but didn’t think about acquiring until, oh, say, ten-something years after I stopped working there and three years after that shop closed. Ah, well, What Can You Do™? I’ve got my Time Beavers now, so my decades-old oversight has been corrected. I’ll get it read soon and let you Dingbats of ProgRuin Street know what I think.

• • •

Some interesting news from DC Comics over at the 2025 Comicspro event, such as:

  • Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton by Ryan North and artist Mike Norton, which sounds amazing. No thought balloons here, North promises, but if you’ve ever seen Norton’s artwork, I suspect there’ll be expression enough from the Dog of Steel.

  • Supergirl written and drawn by Sophie Campbell…good, there should always be a solid and accessible Supergirl title on the stands.

  • Action Comics, which isn’t a new ongoing, obviously, but the new regular team of Mark Waid and Skylar Patridge will be effectively making it into a new Superboy series with a young Clark Kent. After years and years of DC either not having “Superboy” in Clark’s history after the Byrne reboot, and then kinda sorta waffling about it over the last decade of in-flux continuity, it’ll be interesting to see a modern take on the “Adventures of Superman When He Was a Boy.”

  • Batman by Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez – YAY! Restarting the main Batman series with a new #1 – BOO! I saw a news site state that “this is only the fourth time the Batman series has been renumbered,” and c’mon, that’s like five times too many. Batman will sell just fine without renumbering. Yes, we’ll get a boost in sales for the first few issues, which is the reason they do this, but then it’ll be back to its normal sales level soon enough. …I mean, the comic sounds good, I’ll definitely be reading it, I’ll just sigh heavily every time I look at the issue number.

I didn’t see any new Swamp Thing comic news, so all this Super/Bat stuff will have to do.

That panel is from Boris the Bear #5, if you’re wondering.

filed under Categories swamp thing 19 Comments

So anyway, remember that Swamp Thing storyline in the mid-late-ish 1980s where Swamp Thing was banished from the Earth via nefarious means, and he found himself on the planet Rann and had to grow himself a new body from the local vegetation?


And we find out, via the Champion of Rann (and native Earthman) Adam Strange that “Swamp Thing” in Rannese is “Smalsh-Yegger?”


 
 

Yes, that’s right, “Smalsh-Yegger!”

Well, thanks to those mad geniuses at Todd McFarlane’s toy factory, you can now relive the excitement with an action figure based on that exact adventure!


Here’s the back of the box:


Here’s a better look at the whole figure and his bonus parts:


And here’s a look inside the box, showing the figure’s stand and a trading card, neither of which I haven’t felt like figuring out how to remove without entirely trashing the lining:


Pretty cool figure, I think, if somewhat…inexplicable why they picked this exact moment in the character’s history to immortalize in a nearly foot tall articulated plastic homunculus. It is a nice figure, despite being extremely micro-marketed at me and possibly me alone, with an eye-catching paint job and lots of detail.

For a half-second, I thought maybe the figure had the wrong eye color, the yellow irises on red as per Swampy’s normal look, and as shown on the original cover to #57 and on the figure’s box itself. But the eyes on the toy:


…do reflect how they appear in the comics’ story pages, more or less:


I keep telling myself “I don’t need any more toys” and then I say “well, I need yet another Swamp Thing figure” and here I am, making space in the Swamp Thing Room at the house for yet another addition, right there next to the slippers.

Now, DC, if you’re taking requests….

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.