The Super Heroes Monthly #8

I've just been so busy and exhausted with the new school year and all that. I've been reading comics and graphic novels. I've just been too (fill in the blank) to do any reviewing. I seem to have caught a break today.

From the U.K., I couldn't tell you where I found this magazine of black and white DC reprints. But I know that I didn't spend more than a buck on it. So I must have gotten this years ago at a Con and totally forgot about it.

There are 3 stories inside. First up is a reprinting of the very first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash. The Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert origin is forever imprinted in my mind. But I had forgotten that the first villain that the Fastest Man Alive takes on is known as the Turtle Man, the Slowest Man on Earth! Kinda comical. But it's a pairing that makes sense.

The Super Heroes Monthly had been running through the complete Man-Bat saga for several issues up to this point. In this issue featuring story by Frank Robbins and art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, the Man-Bat takes a bride.

I've either previously read, own a copy or both when it came to both stories. Had I bothered to check the contents of this book whenever I bought it, I probably would have passed over it. At least the third and final story was one that I never read before. It stars Superman featuring Len Wein on scripts and art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson; which in itself is an all-star crew. Unfortunately, it's a Man of Steel story that isn't really good.

The premise to this tale has an intriguing beginning. Lex Luthor laments the disappearance of the entire population of Earth. In his latest attempt to destroy the Man of Steel, Luthor's robotic assassin overheats, causing the nuclear core to meltdown and wipe out not just Superman, but everyone and everything on the planet. Birds, snakes and all!

When we learn what the MacGuffin behind the disappearances really details, the explanation is so implausible, it really lowered the quality of the story. I know that a lot of Superman stories stunk up news stands and comic collections during the 70s. If we were to place this story on the list, and believe me, I am, then 'The Man Who Murdered the Earth' has be the durian of all Superman tales from 1970-79!

I love the Alan Craddock cover of Superman and the Flash attempting to outrace a speeding locomotive. It is what enticed me to buy this book. But the fact that I already have 2/3 of the stories contained within and I hate that last one, this issue is going to be taken in for hopefully a little bit of trade credit instead of taking up valuable shelf space.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Bizarre Adventures #28

This black and white magazine from Marvel is a must have for Elektra fans. It contains the assassin and Daredevil love interest's first ever solo story. With art and story by creator Frank Miller, it alone is worth the asking price which seems to range online from $20-50 bucks. Maybe it's because it's a magazine. Or maybe the asking price is less than I would have expected as maybe collectors don't know about it's importance. I know that I got lucky having bought it for only a buck at a thrift store a few years back.

A trio of characters make their first ever appearance debuts in this issue. Neal Adams, Doug Moench and Larry Hama present the Shadow Warrior; perhaps the world's smallest ninja and America's only hope against the infiltration of a cadre of brainwashed American soldiers trained by an Asian operative to overthrow our government. 

Archie Goodwin, Michael Golden and Steve Mitchell introduce readers to the world of the Huntsman. From what I can tell, this is the only appearance of the character and that may very well have been because of how much the world of the cracker jack Huntsman named Ballard is a lot like that of the dystopian sci-fi thriller Logan's Run. Citizens who must die at age 35, bounty hunters stalking 'defiers', those who wish to extend their lives by escaping into the wilderness and there's even a floating arena where winners who make it to the victory ring atop the domed ceiling can live longer lives in luxury. I wonder if Marvel got a cease and desist order from 20th Century Fox for copyright infringement. 

Upon further research, it turns out that I was right. Only in reverse. In 1975-76, Marvel Comics had the rights to produce a comic book based on the film starring Michael York. Only, the House of Ideas had the rights to adapt the film, which they did as a 5-parter. When Fox learned that Marvel was continuing on with new adventures, the studio made them stop. Issue #7 was the last issue, which supposedly ends with a never resolved cliffhanger. 

'Huntsman' was a story that was going to run in a future issue of Logan's Run. But due to the sudden cancellation resulted in the project getting shelved. Never one to let paid work sit unpublished, Goodwin and Golden made some adjustments to the story; enough to satisfy legal and the forgotten story finally saw print several years later in 1981.

It must of been Assistant Editor's Month at Marvel because two of Goodwin's assistants supplied a story for this issue. Mary Jo Duffy and Wendy Pini place the Inhuman Triton in an ecological heavy adventure involving a wrecked oil tanker and modern day pirates.

If you've been paying attention to this review, you'll remember I said that this book contains 3 debuts. Lastly, Steve Skeates and Steve Smallwood introduced a rather odd little fellow named Bucky Bizarre. In his premiere, this guy is a time traveler who winds up in the 1950s, where non-conformity is a thing to be mocked and berated. Bucky tries to help a living garbage heap that came alive because of pollution and nuclear water only to set up the punchline to a really awful plotline. 

I'm really torn about this issue. Having the Elektra story makes it sorta valuable. Only I don't really have room nor a bag and board for a magazine sized book. I think the materials to keep it pristine and clean are more important than having a place to keep it. If I could get it, that would be great.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Santa Claus: The Story Behind The Legend

Go to the grocery store lanes today, if you can find one that isn't self service, and you'll find a number of magazines devoted to a single pop culture subject. A recent trip to a Chapel Hill, NC Harris Teeter saw single-issue publications devoted to Superman, Willy Wonka, and Taylor Swift. It was about a month ago that I purchased this holiday special starring one of the major players of Christmas: Santa Claus.

Just about everything you wanted to know about St. Nick is in this full color 100-pager. His history, both as real and myth, a look at those writers and creators who evolved the character from a Turkish bishop to the billion advertising juggernaut he is today. There's info about Mrs. Claus, the reindeer, his elves, even a look at the rustic homes of the North Pole are included. It also contains tons of facts about movies, books and TV shows that have featured Santa as well as a look at how children around the world receive their gifts from Santa. 

The cover promises to reveal the secret as to how Santa delivers toys to all those kids in just 1 night. While they take into account that based on the international date line and going from East to West in a lateral zig-zag pattern in each time zone actually gives Santa about 36 hours to deliver all his presents, they forget one important thing: not every culture has Santa deliver their gifts! Italy has a witch named La Befana. Some Scandinavian countries have the Yule Goat: a man who transforms into a gift giving goat every Christmas Eve. Some cultures get their gifts from Santa a bit before or weeks after December 25th. Add in those lands that forbid Santa or the celebration of Christmas, the lack of kids in Antarctica, and acres of unlivable terrain, in reality, Santa isn't that busy every Christmas Eve.

This publication was released by A360Media. From the cover, it looked like a Time/Life magazine. Instead A360Media are the folks who own the National Enquirer, Star and US Magazine. The Enquirer and Star links explain the lack of 100% accuracy in some of the facts. The US Magazine link explains the focus on pop culture and entertainment. 

I really only skimmed the surface of this mag. I think my wife will enjoy reading it next year. There's a life bit of everything for the person who loves Christmas. There's even a couple of recipes! Only thing missing was some kind of fun and games page. I would have appreciated a crossword and a word find. Maybe a hidden picture or other visual activity would have been nice. Still, without those additions, this was a read that while peppered with some inaccuracies, was anything but naughty!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Strange Days: The Year in Weirdness (#1)

If you think 2020 is weird, well, you're probably right. It's extremely weird what with a pandemic and quarantines and massive loss of live, employment and livelihood. But 1995 was a pretty weird year. 

Published by the editors and writers of the Fortean Times, Strange Days: The Year of Weirdness chronicles the strange and unusual. From UFO sightings to ghosts, doppelgangers to astrological occurrences, animal attacks and strange creatures galore. If something didn't make sense with the normal way of life, it was covered by the Fortean. 

So what is the Fortean Times? Until a year ago, I didn't know anything really about it. And except for a very brief mention of it in a recent episode of Doctor Who, it's probably not a publication known by many. Since 1973, the Fortean Times has covered anomalous phenomenon through the use of the scientific method. Thus, the Fortean is the Fox News of all things bizarre- that is if Fox News was truly fair and balanced. 

I had bought this book at a yard sale early last year. I read some of it and then kinda filed it away. Why did I finish it now all of a sudden? It was all thanks to the pandemic. I finished the book for a couple of reasons. First, I hoped to possibly uncover a clue as to the origins of COVID. Then I wanted to read about read things that were really bizarre. That was to help make today's strange days a little less odd. It actually worked. 

It was refreshing to read a book about the odd, weird, and macabre without taking a side. Often these type of books veer off into either direction of Skepticsville or Conspiracy Theorist's Junction. This book really does just tow the straight and narrow by giving facts from reports and any sort of comment from the scientific community that may have investigated these incidents. 

Now if only the reports of this current crisis was reported the same way.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 27

Cover to issue #1.

    This month marks the 40th Anniversary of one of my favorite comic books- The Rampaging Hulk. It actually is more like a magazine or tabloid. because it was printed over-sized like a copy of LIFE Magazine. The book was printed in black and white and served 2 purposes A) to be a little more edgy in order to appeal to older readers and B) be used as a promotional tool for the live-action Hulk TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno that debuted a year later.

    This first issue of the Rampaging Hulk recaps Hulk's origin as a gamma bomb transforms Bruce Banner into a big Green Monster. But instead of being a full retelling of the Incredible Hulk comic book, this series takes Hulk and his sidekick, Teenager Rick Jones into the stratosphere. While vacationing in Rome (where all superheroes go after they get their powers for some much needed R&R), Hulk and Rick are kidnapped by alien invaders called the Krylorians. 

    Under the guise of friendship, the Krylorians actually want to use the Hulk as a weapon against those who oppose their harsh rule. Rick helps the Hulk figure this out and the duo escape. While on the run, they meet Bereet, a rebel who uses her techno-artworks as weapons against the Krylorians.
 

Bereet.
Her weapons were kept in her satchel.
It's like the TARDIS: bigger on the inside.

     For the next several months, Hulk, Rick, and Bereet's adventures are chronicled as they seek to overthrow these alien tryants. But then all of a sudden in the middle of 1978, this storyline abruptly stops. Gone is Bereet. The Hulk is back on Earth and who knows where Rick Jones went. That's because the editors lead by Stan Lee decided to shift the focus to being more like the TV show as I mentioned earlier. (Later issues of the Hulk comic would tie-up the loose ends to the Bereet storyline. Turns out it was all part of a series of very popular films that Bereet made on her home planet!)

   In the new Rampaging Hulk format, Bruce's name is changed to David as like on the show. (Rumor has it that CBS execs though the name Bruce was a homosexual name and requested Stan Lee change it on the show. Honest!) Each issue has Banner travelling the US searching to be cured from the Hulk transformations. More often than not, trouble finds Banner and he turns into a giant monster. 

    One thing about this new format that was not like the TV show were guest stars. Characters who also had their own Marvel Magazines such as Moon Knight and the Man-Thing made appearances in Rampaging Hulk. It's the closest fans the show would get to an actual superhero team-up until the Hulk TV-Movies in the 80s that featured Daredevil and Thor.

Cover to Marvel Essential
Rampaging Hulk Vol. 2.

    I never read these books in their original form. I found giant-sized treasury editions called Marvel Essentials that reprinted these stories plus some of the background articles on production of the Hulk series and that issue of the Hulk comic that tied-up Bereet's storyline. I enjoyed both and they are now permanent fixtures of my collection. A little silly, a lot of action and a whole lotta Hulk.

   Worth Consuming!

   Rating: 8.3 out of 10 stars.

Essential Rampaging Hulk, Volume 2

I was sorely disappointed with this volume. I loved volume 1. It was a recap of the Hulk’s earliest adventures mixed in with the exotic alien artist Bareet. Her and her cosmic magic bag of tricks were a delight as she sought the Hulk and Rick Jones’ help to defeat a hideous race of invading aliens. Sadly, Bareet was written out of this magazine after it was decided to make Rampaging Hulk more like the hit live action television show starring Bill Bixby.

Since the series was written and published as a magazine, it wasn’t subject to the Comics Code. So, some more adult themes were up for grabs in this book. For example, in one story, Bruce Banner takes refuge at a Manhattan Y, he’s nearly gang raped by a pair of homosexuals. In another story, Banner juggles an abused drug addict and a suicidal single mother. There’s some very frank story lines in this volume that you wouldn’t have seen in a normal 48 page monthly. It’s just really weird to see such mature themes in a 70's comic dealt with such grittiness. Did Martin Scorsese craft these?

The biggest thing this volume has going for it is the art. The magazine was originally published in stark black and white. It made for some fantastic experiments with shadow. Graphite has never come in so many shades.

But while the art clearly benefits from the black and white of both the original format and the newsprint reprinting, one areas that was overlooked was the lettering. I’m not sure how it looked back in 1981, but using dark letters on a charcoal gray shaded letter box is very hard to read in a black and white reprint. Why the editors at Marvel did not retouch these is beyond me. But it also meant that several stories were difficult to follow as the lettering was unreadable.

Speaking of editing, in the next to last story, I found a big typo. A woman who picks Bruce up in her truck refers to both her betrothed and her new suitor with the same name. However, the new paramour’s name was referred to just a couple of panels earlier as a different name. I bet if I had found this when the magazine was originally, I would have won a coveted Stan Lee ‘No Prize” which was a honorary accolade given to astute Marvel Comics readers back in the day.

I did enjoy reading this volume. The art is some of my favorite in all of my years of reading comics. Yet with it’s new format of no holds barred material and poor lettering, this wasn’t as good as volume 1. Things did pick up towards the later issues, but the series was cancelled before these improvements were implemented to win back readership. Oh, well.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Essential Marvel: The Rampaging Hulk, Volume 1

The Hulk's face looks like my grandmother's when she'd get mad.
She'd get mad a lot!

Think about popular super heroes and the volume of titles out about them. Superman has Action Comics, Superman, Superman/ Batman, Superman/ Wonder Woman, and appears in the pages of Justice League of America. Spider-man, Batman, Wolverine, and countless other fan favorites appear in several different titles every month. Now think about the Hulk. He’s been a pretty popular dude for a very long time, but until very recently, he only appeared in the pages of Incredible Hulk and the occasional mini-series.

I remember reading Incredible Hulk as a kid and I thought that was really the only series to star the Green Goliath (brief membership in the Avengers and his quasi-membership status in the Defenders excluded.) I’ve been reading comics for 33 years now and I’ve come to be considered to friends and family as an expert on the subject. So imagine my surprise when I came across a used copy of this book a few months back. Rampaging Hulk- what is that?

My first thought was that these was a collection of the Hulks greatest rampages. Instead, this was a magazine format black and white edition published in the late 70s. The idea for the book was in relation to the live action Hulk series starring the late Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. These adventures of the Hulk take place during the first 6 issues of the Hulk published all the way back in 1963. It was meant to be a slightly more adult reader for people who loved the TV show but had never read the comic before. The only difference was the addition of a 3-fingered alien artist named Bereet and her bag of assorted gizmos, who enlisted the Hulks aid in defeating her alien brethren who sought to conquer the earth.

Apparently, the mag was more popular with comic book fans than new readers and after 9 issues the title and the format of the publication changed. Instead of providing an altered history of the Hulk and the early days of the Marvel Age of Comics, fans clamored for a comic that was similar to the live action series. Gone was the word “Rampaging,” as was Bereet, her brutal alien race, and one time sidekick to the Hulk, Rick Jones. Now, Robert Bruce Banner travelled the by-ways of the US, seeking solitude and solace from the one thing he can never outrun- the Hulk!

These new format tales have Banner finding work where he can find it, and usually he ends up finding corruption too. Thus as he tries to make things right, he ends up becoming the Hulk and doing a lot of destruction. Why nobody wonders why this wanderer comes to town and winds up shirtless and in purple pants after the Hulk rampages is beyond me. If I was to track down the Hulk, I would put an APB out for stores that have recently sold a large quantity of stretchable purple pants. Find the guy buying the purple pants, find the Hulk. Problem solved!

Anyway, I liked this series- both formats. I think the reboot was imaginative and I liked the newer tales that reflected the TV show. Some of those tales tackle child abuse, nuclear waste, and race. It’s like Marvel’s answer to the relevant comics of DC, such as Green Arrow/ Green Lantern, just about 7 years too late. There’s a second volume and I am on the hunt for it. I liked what I read and saw. Though I think the Ramping Hulk artwork is far more superior than that of the later issues. The early stuff has fantastic shading and looks very artistic. The later stuff is very clean but is what I would expect out of the comic book. Either way, the entire series is a fantastic read and very much worth consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Spider-Man Family, Vol. 1: Back in Black

Though reprinted in digest form, Spider-Man Family was published in glossy magazine style, similar in size and shape to MAD or Sports Illustrated. These issues originally came out during the hype for Spider-Man 3 in which Venom and Spidey’s black costume were integral plot points. It also coincided with ASM’s Back in Black storyline in which Peter Parker must don the black and white again minus the alien symbiote.

The first issue features a flash black story in which we see how Spidey’s alien infested black costume had a mind of its own. Each issue continues to tell a lost tale about Spider-man in a manner geared for kids but fun for all ages. These issues featured a back-up story starring members of the Spider-Man family, such as Venom, Scorpion, Black Cat, and more.

Really enjoyable. But, I think the Marvel Adventures Spider-Man series was better. They seemed to cater to fans both young and established. This series is somewhere in the middle and it lacks the charm and nostalgia of MASM. Still, it’s very kid friendly, so parents should approve and it’s not dumbed down, so serious readers will delight as well.
WORTH CONSUMING!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.