Bullwinkle #3 (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle debuted in animated form in 1959. The creation of animator Jay Ward, the iconic team of Moose and Squirrel first appeared on ABC and eventually NBC where the show wrapped up it's original run in 1964. Over the next 5 decades, Rocky and Bullwinkle would reappear in reruns and new series with the flying gray squirrel always getting top billing, with exception of a Sunday evening show titled merely The Bullwinkle Show. However, when it comes to their appearance in comics forms, it's almost like Rocket J. Squirrel doesn't even exist. 

The furry friends first appeared in comic book form as part of the much beloved Dell Four Color anthology series. Their first 4 appearances were titled 'Rocky and His Friends' before being switched over to 'Bullwinkle and Rocky'. Despite being named in the title, Rocky disappeared from the front cover, with issue #1270 showing only Bullwinkle and the villainous female spy, Natasha, enjoying a piano recital. Eventually, even the supporting players vanished with solely the starring Moose on the cover and the title reduced to being called solely 'Bullwinkle.' Putting Bullwinkle in the spotlight would be a trend that would continue in comics through the 1990s.

Dell, Gold Key, Charlton and Marvel's all-ages imprint Star would publish officially licensed comics based on the Jay Ward Productions series. Every series starring Rocky and Bullwinkle from 1962-1988 would be published as Bullwinkle and Rocky. For the Gold Key series, of which I read issue #3, the publishing credits on the bottom of the opening page would list the series as only Bullwinkle. 

This issue is framed like a classic Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. The main story is broken into 2-parts. In-between the main story arc, there's a segment starring genius pooch Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman. Then to finish out the issue, Rocky recites a 'Fractured Fairy Tale' to his buddy Bullwinkle.

In the main tale, a slight parody of that holiday B-movie classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, the children of the Moon are absolutely ga-ga for the antics of Bullwinkle. Wanting to make the children of the Moon happy, a pair of Moon Men come to Earth in the hopes of luring the moose to the Lunar surface. In order to achieve this, the aliens sprinkle an anti-gravity powder to Bullwinkle's antlers which makes him begin to float. Seeing an advantage of Bullwinkle's magical antlers in the Cold War, spies Boris and Natasha seek to remove them as a potential power supply for a squadron of jets. 

The Sherman and Peabody segment puts a spin on the mythos of Billy the Kid, with the notorious outlaw actually being a pistol packing infant! You'll never look at the story of Cinderella the same ever again after reading her story in Fractured Fairy Tales!

The Moon people story is noteworthy in that all of the Lunar residents look like Quisp, the alien spokesman of the Quaker Oats cereal of the same name. Instead of a spinning propeller atop their heads, the Moon people have shaggy mop tops. But with their pink flesh, bulbish heads and googly eyes, the shared ancestry of Quisp and the Moon people cannot be denied. That's because Jay Ward designed Quisp as part of the cereal's original animated marketing campaign in 1965. Whether the likeness was an homage or accidental influence of the works of Jay Ward on the unlisted and unknown artist of the Rocky and Bullwinkle main story is up for debate. GoCollect.com claims that Al Kilgore was a writer and an artist for the issue. Kilgore did work on the Rocky and Bullwinkle newspaper strip that ran from 1962-67. His comic book work in 1972, however, is not confirmed.  No credits for either backup story are available either.

Rocky would finally receive top billing again in the 2014 4-issue miniseries, Rocky and Bullwinkle, published by IDW. It's a position that the level headed squirrel has maintained with other publications ever since.

Completing this review completes Task #10 ( Funny Animal Book starring a SQUIRREL, POLAR BEAR or ANTEATER) the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Life With Archie #118

I bought this issue in August at a used book store. I knew that this 1972 comic wasn't a Halloween themed book. But with it's creepy cover, I thought it would make a good read for the month of October.

There are only 2 stories in this issue. The first story is from which the cover image was taken. It shows a terrifying monster standing in front of a set of miniature coffins, each bearing the name of one of the Archie gang. The reason Archie and his friends are faced with such a situation is because the Archies have been summoned to the home of a promoter who wants the garage band to perform at a popular disco. The house the Archies arrive at is all dilapidated and the promoter is nowhere to be found. As the teens look for someone, anyone, they run into those coffins. If that's not scary enough, that menacing ghoul appears and threatens them with death!

Pretty tough stuff for an all-ages comic from the 70s. The ending was typical Archie, especially as the gang all seemed okay with what was behind all the scares. But then there's the eerie finale that made for this to be a great autumn tale that would be appropriate for a round of camp fire ghost stories. 

The back-up featured wasn't scary. Instead, it was a comedic yarn that proved that Archie Comics could successfully navigate the choppy waters of the generation gap. Mr. Andrews thinks the outfit Archie is wearing is straight up ridiculous. Archie just thinks his old man is being an old fuddy-duddy, where in reality, Grandpa Andrews probably thought Mr. Andrews dressed like a clown when he was Archie's age. Archie later meets up with Betty, ranting about how out of touch an old man his pop is, only to have a couple of kids to almost knock Betty on her butt. Archie stops the kids and berates them for being rude. In return, the kids call Archie old. The story ends with a gag about how Archie needed to get his foot out of his mouth. 

This was all-around classic Archie. There's a dramatic story that gets the heart racing. It's got a ludicrous ending that you'd only find in a family sitcom with a great twist ending. The second story was predictable, but such a fun read to experience getting to the closing gag. For less than $2 and spent using trade credit, I felt like it was money well spent.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Twilight Zone #47

Based on the classic and oh so creepy anthology series from the 1960s. This 1972 comic from Gold Key is part of a long running classic series in of itself. Featuring cover art by fan favorite George Wilson, I thought that the monsters on the covers were giant plants, like corn, out for revenge against those who might enjoy their kernels of goodness. But the monsters are rather different in the book and made for a very creepy story.

I also felt that perhaps these monsters might have in some way been inspiration for the Graboids in the Tremors series. There's some very interesting similarities. So, while unlikely, it's possible.

The opening story was something else. It's of a thief who goes back in time to a period of knights and fair maidens. The criminal ends up switching places with a wizard and in typically ironic Twilight Zone fashion, gets his just desserts. I was totally on board with this element of the story. 

(WARNING SPOILER) However, when we cut to the wizard, he's nothing but bones and rags. Now everything I know about time travel thanks to decades of watching Back to the Future and Doctor Who tell me that the wizard should have arrived in 1960s in the exact spot he traded places with the crook- stuck in a high rise elevator. But he shouldn't have turned into a skeleton. Right? Or did I miss something here?

This being the silver age of comics, there was also a 1-page prose story included. These were required until right about 1980 for certain comic book titles to retain their first class mailing status. It was kind of a mess as well. Certain parts of the story didn't really add up. Sadly, much care was never done with those tales as they were begrudgingly done just to maintain the postage rates.

There's some quality Dell Twilight Zone issues. This isn't one of them. Only one story was really great. The other fell apart at the end. At least I only paid a buck for it. Some of these high grade Twilight Zone books can be very pricey.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Night Nurse (Reprints Night Nurse #1-4, 1972)

I rarely buy a book new, especially if it is a comic book. But a few years ago at a lecture on the History of Comic Books, an image of Night Nurse #1 popped up on the screen and my wife exclaimed that she would actually be willing to read that. For years, I searched for an affordable copy to no avail. But with the new Daredevil series coming to Netflix, fate finally intervened.   

 See Night Nurse is apparently a character on the show. (Rosario Dawson plays nurse Claire Temple- and was intended to be Night Nurse, but Marvel Studios won't allow her real name to be used as the company has plans to use the character in a Marvel Cinematic Universe project in the near future.) So in order to both inform new viewers to what the character was supposed to be and make some money off of the property, Marvel re-released the entire run of the groundbreaking publication from the early 1970s.

      Created by Jean Thomas in 1972, Night Nurse is actually Wonder Woman. I kid, but her real name is Linda Carter and she is a student nurse operating during the evening shift at Metro General in New York. The Night Nurse was originally a candy striper in Atlas Comics’ ‘Linda Carter-Student Nurse’ which was more of a romantic-comedy series along the lines of Archie or Millie the Model.  Along with fellow up-and-coming nurses, roommates Georgia and Christine, this Linda is more dramatic, saving lives, fighting injustice and falling in love ( usually with the wrong guy.). Whether the two Linda Carters are the same character is up for debate. But it's a common practice in the comics industry, still used today, to reuse character names in order to maintain the copyright.

     The original idea behind Night Nurse was to introduce girls to comic books. Marvel's Roy Thomas was behind the effort along with the release of ‘Shanna the She-Devil'’ and ‘Black Cat’. Thomas was ahead of his time as the experiment though fondly remembered, was a failure, with Night Nurse being cancelled after only 4 issues.

  

   But like I said, Night Nurse struck a chord with readers as fans, who grew up reading the title, would usher Linda, Christine, and the rest into the modern age of comics in the pages of Nightcrawler and Daredevil.

    

 That brings us to the final reprinted tale in this edition- the first modern appearance of the Night Nurse. It's of Daredevil #80 (2004) and has Linda running a private clinic for superheroes. In this story by some guy named Bendis, Daredevil had been shot and the Night Nurse must save him while a slew of nasties is kept at bay outside by Luke Cage and friends.

   This is a very good collection of rare comic gems. The books from the 70s show their age in terms of the dialogue. The black characters speak in ‘jive’ and everyone under the age of 75 says “right on” when trying to appeal to the younger generation. Also, with all of the unrequited love going around, I thought I was reading a copy of 'Young Romance' instead of a 'superhero' title. Still, this is a great time capsule of Marvel's earliest attempts at relevant comics and the amount of care and quality in them shows.  

Worth Consuming

  Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.