Buried Treasures - Super Powers Mini-Comics, part one

Doug: No review this week, kids. Busy, busy, busy with moving our youngest son out of the house (probably permanently) and on to graduate school, and school of my own just kicking my butt to start this year. So, although I meant to bring you something off my beaten path with a review of an old Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, it will wait until a later day. Instead... it's back to the auction block.

Last week we finished a look at some 4-panel comics that adorned the back of the packaging on Mattel's Secret Wars action figures. Now I'm selling my Super Powers stuff and what did I find but several mini-comics! Yay! For your discussing pleasure (but you'd have to leave a comment, you know) I scanned the seven comics that I had. Not all of them turned out perfectly, so we'll take a look at two of the better ones today, and another two at a later date.

I am frustrated, however, that I am having the same difficulty with these that I had with the Secret Wars comics -- who in the world created them? While both the Grand Comics Database and the Comic Book Database have entries, neither site lists creators definitively. So see what you can come up with as you read - recognize anyone's work? Looking through all of the comics, I sometimes got an Ernie Chan vibe; at other places I was feeling the work of Irv Novick.

Have fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I Had A Buck... Summer Annuals!

Martinex1:   The calendar may not say Summer has started yet, but the kids are out of school and the neighborhood is filled with the sounds of basketballs bouncing, the squeals from trampolines and pools, the sing-song of ice cream truck tunes, and the bursts of firecrackers.

I have always enjoyed June and remember the childhood joy of waking up with no cares, wolfing down a bowl of Fruit Loops and slamming through the screen door to get outside for another day of whiffle ball, street hockey, eating snow cones, and firefly catching.   I clearly remember sticking my paper route money into the elastic of my knee-high tube socks and sprinting across the four-lane intersection to the corner drug store to look for the latest comics on the spinner rack.

And it was around this time of year that the Annuals started appearing.   Not one, but TWO issues of The Avengers on the rack at the same time!  Big thick 50 cent editions of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, and  Marvel Two-In-One were there also!  I quickly decided to skip the blue-raspberry Slushee, Marathon Bar, and Bottle Caps and get as many comics as I could.  

Annuals did not always contain the best scripted stories or the usual art team, but there was something magical about them.  The first annual I purchased with my own money was Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11.  It contained a rather pedestrian story about a trio of stuntmen hired to wear spider-like super-suits to take on our beloved Peter Parker.  It contained some of the first artwork of John Romita Jr. and to this day I still wait for those rather weak villains to make another appearance.  I must have read that issue thirty times that month.  It is strange how much I remember about that book from the venom tipped rapier to the scene with Mary Jane repeating her lines as a movie extra, "Peas and carrots.  Peas and carrots."

Another favorite of mine was Avengers Annual #9.  I picked that one up at a 7-11 in Colorado on a family vacation road trip on the way to the Grand Tetons.   The convenience store was adjacent to a KOA Campground where we stayed for a night, and my brother and I were out exploring.   This one had Don Newton art and the tale of Arsenal, a doomsday type robot, living in the sub-basements of Avengers Mansion.  I read that comic until the cover fell off.  I remember getting scolded by my Dad because I was reading in the back seat of the car instead of enjoying the majestic mountain scenery of the American west.  Decades later I replaced that issue with a much less worn copy from Doug's ebay offerings.  Others may say that the best Avengers Annual was #7 with the Thanos showdown or #10 with the Michael Golden art, but this one is all about nostalgia for me so it remains my favorite.

So here we are together yet again for another $1.00 Challenge.   Spend your money wisely as you choose just two issues this time (hey, they are double-sized after all) from the long list of selections below.  Whether you want 64 pages of humor or heroes, let us know what drove your decisions.  From Atlantis Attacks to Archie, what were your Summer Annual and seasonal memories?   Which year presented the best set of annuals?   And what were your all-time favorites?

Gerry Conway Has More to Say About DC Entertainment

Doug: In regard to the issue of whether or not creators should be compensated for their creations once those characters make the leap from the four-color page to the screen, as Karen mentioned in a comment yesterday, Gerry Conway has posted more missives on his tumblr blog. Please make the jump, and then jump back here to leave some thoughts.

We ran a post on this two days ago; it's here if you need a refresher.

All the Young Dudes

Doug: Today I'm going to ask you to think like a 12-year old. For many of us, that's not all too difficult. What I'm looking for is a mental trip back to your formative years, about the time you started "collecting" comics -- that era when you became not only aware of what books and characters you liked, but why you liked them.

Doug: It's long been know around here that I was (and am, I guess) a team book guy. So it's pretty logical that Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes would be one of my monthly go-to's. And while I thought it was really cool that it was a club of super-powered teenagers, by the time I was reading it Mike Grell and James Sherman were doing the art chores. I hate to say it (boy, do I hate to say it!), but I wasn't going to junior high school with any young ladies that looked like Saturn Girl or Princess Projectra! Nor did I have any friends whose older sisters looked like that! So my point is, although the characters were supposed to be "my age" or slightly older, I didn't identify with them as such. I can say the same thing about Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, and the X-Men (granted, the All-New, All-Different team was supposed to be in their early 20s).

Doug: Now what about you? When you were a kid did you gravitate to the youngsters? Were Bucky and Toro favorites of yours in the Invaders? How about Robin (probably close to 19 or 20 by the time most of us were reading Batman Family)? Did you buy Nova because he was a teen, or because he had a cool costume? Was the inclusion of characters specifically designed to appeal to youngsters a spot-on marketing strategy from the Big Two?

Which Characters Don't Even Register on Your Care-o-Meter?

Doug: OK, maybe the title is a bit harsh. But, are there characters who you really just don't care about? Maybe you've never read anything about them, or even a book they were in? Is there someone out there that you keep asking yourself, "What's the big deal?"

For me, the guy at Marvel who fills that bill is Deadpool.

I was never a Rob Liefeld fan, never got into the New Mutants or X-Force, so that entire line of characters has largely gone by the wayside in my brain. I know Deadpool is popular, but he's just a gun-totin' blowhard to me (by the way -- check out the left forearm in the image to the left... I say "Image be damned!!"). He just doesn't resonate with me. I wouldn't say I hate him -- I'd just say he doesn't register anytime on my Care-o-Meter.

And, over at the Distinguished Competition, it has to be Firestorm. I believe he came 'round during the period I was out of comics (early 1980's -- I could be off a bit). So when I got back in, I saw his books on the spinner racks, saw him in the JLA, but just never found the character, the look, or the backstory attractive. I mean, again, I don't hate on the guy -- just don't really have any involvement with him, no attachment.

So who's yours?