Or - “There’s A Reason Why The Annual Overstreet Guide Could Be Used To Kill A Yak…”

I’m a big believer in getting a little extra for your buck. I like Value Meals, and free Kleer-Cote paint protector, and when the girl at the coffee shop tosses in a little extra mocha. And, even though, y’all, the intrepid Spoilers readers (I can’t decide whether “Spoilamaniacs,” or “Spoilerheads” sounds cooler) probably didn’t feel too ripped off by the lack of a review on Easter Sunday, it bugs me that I didn’t get it finished. I have only one excuse. Her name is Molly, and she started the day by eating a bag of jellybeans, and entire candy bracelet, a lemonhead and some sort of odd malted milk ball. This turned her into a miniature version of Chuck Taine, The Bouncing Boy, and kept me from writing an entire recap. So, in the interests of giving everyone a little something extra, I present to you this special Retro Review: The Creepy Comics Cavalcade!

Now, I must start by letting you know that I don’t mean creepy in any pejoritive or nasty sense, but in a much gentler vein: These are comic books that I didn’t know ever existed until I picked them up, and that’s something I find very unusual. I am a comics geek, a student of their history, the creators and forms, and I’ve got just enough graduate school in me to retain the various minutiae, meaning that I don’t often run into a comic I’ve never even heard of. Heck, I have a copy of the sole issue of Power Plays (featuring the best superhero team name in all history: The Lunatic Fringe), so it’s not like I’m some jabronie who’s never made it to the carnival, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down. Two of these mental omissions are understandable, for reasons which will become clear, but the third puzzles and confuses me. There’s just no real reason why it evaded my radar.

Starting our whirlwind tour of “They Probably Shoulda Known Better,” I take you back with me, faaar back in the mists of time, to the farflung year 1987… The Iran-Contra affair was in full swing, “Bloom County” was really hitting its peak, Space Shuttle “Ranger 3″, piloted by Captain William “Buck” Rogers was launched (at least if you believe the opening credits of Gil Gerard’s masterpiece), and The A-Team, The PTL Club, the Second Doctor and Commander Adama left us. Also still extant, though nearing it’s last legs, the “Independent Explosion,” a time when hundreds independent companies gave us hundreds of new comic books. Most of the blame for this can be pinned on the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltles, but the main result was a virtual plethora of comics, both good and bad (but mostly pretty forgettable). Among these was “Global Force,” from Silverline Comics. Only two issues were created, which shows that either nobody ever heard of it, or it was truly execrable. Wanna see which?

Whaddaya mean, “NO?” We’re gonna do it anyway! And we’re gonna start with excitement and exposition!

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

The evil forces of W.O.E. have the means to track Global Force’s every move (it’s called radar), and mean to stop them from freeing us all from our dependance on OIL! Who are these mysterious men of W.O.E.?

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Is it just me, or is this a lot of exposition for a second issue? Colonel Bolt predates both Kano and Cable, but I think he’s been drawn from the same source: Schwarzennegger as the Terminator. “Ah’ll be bahck.” Apparently, he meant that somebody will rip off his visual approximately every seventeen seconds into infinity. And I like that Global Force is commanded by Popeye, it’s good to see the old salt working again after the whole nephews debacle. Each of the members of Global Force (apparently) comes from a different nation, and each seems to represent an entertainingly stupid stereotype. Ben, from Japan, talks of honor, and is a kung-fu master. The Irishman (Shane) has a temper and learned his mastery of explosives and rockets as a child, presumably in the IRA (and sports a darling little Four Leaf Clover mask.) Tamara is a Kenyan, whose people have been enslaved, and their tech wizard is a genius of Indian descent. the other members aren’t identified or allowed dialogue, (I think they forgot to pay their SAG dues,) the true mark of a great character… Just ask the background members of “Youngblood.” The GF Team members talk and talk and TALK, before finally leaping into action with a splash page!

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

John Byrne should be charging this artist royalties… The battle is a silly affair, wherein Colonel Bolt is downed because he “didn’t calculate for direct assault,” despite Shane rushing straight at him with fists swinging. There’s a kung-fu battle, lots of frapgun energy bolts flying, until only All-American leader Tom Cooper is left standing. “As if things weren’t bad enough for Global Force now… Be here next month as the Saga Continues in: BLOOD BATTLE!” All the information that I can find indiates that this was the last issue, but I like to imagine that, somewhere, there’s a man who was 8 in 1987 who desperately wishes that Global Force will come back, and that he’ll know for sure if Colonel Bolt or Tom Cooper won the day, and is bitterly reminded of this disappointment every time he pays 3 bucks a gallon for Unleaded. This book isn’t horrid, it’s just amateurish… I don’t want to sully the “Star System” of grading with a book like this, so I give it 1 1/2… Aaaah, let’s say, ‘Disco Stephens.’

That’s much better! For our next outing, we flash forward a few years… The B&W Boom has gone bust, and many of those publishers have gone the way of the Dodo, but the winds of change were a-blowing. In just a few months, seven of Marvel’s highest-paid scribblers would jump ship and form Image Comics (as opposed, one presumed, to substance), and revamp & revitalize comics, but ends up revisiting old mistakes, and becoming themselves reviled. (Look at me, I’m Stan Lee!) In those early months, there weren’t a lot of independent comics about, and I was stunned to find the first issue of “Future Shock Comics” in the nickel bin at Half-Price Books. It bears an illegible logo, no price, publisher info, or UPC code, and doesn’t seem to exist in the Overstreet guide, but it’s… um… adjectives fail me. If I had to describe it, I’d call it “One of the comic books I own.” Witness the splash page:

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

That lettering is giving me a headache. Even the horror that is ‘Comic Sans’ would be better than that. And I think he’s got something on his nose, there. Perhaps some Kleenex is in order? Sure, you can say that the art is a little bit amateurish, but it’s got energy, and the love of these characters is poured into every page. This abundance of love, sadly, leaves no room for explanation, plot, or character, and precious little for dialogue. Well, actually, there’s a ton of dialogue, it’s just 80% nonsensical, and 20% bizarre.

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

The implication is that he’s dead, I think. That’s the villain, mind you. The main hero character (and I use both terms loosely) is named Royn Storm, which looks like a typo, but seems to be intentional. His body may be trapped in the evil Nightmare’s energy field, but his mind is running amok through the cosmos, and communing with his lost mentor, who looks a lot like Daredevil’s mentor, Stick, only as a cosmic disembodied head.

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Now, wait justaminnit! This is the first issue, and our hero appears in the first panel, already trapped by the villain, and now we’re throwing in TWO NEW guys with terrible names and questionable anatomy (I think Witchexx may actually be a male-to-female transsexual, which is a brave choice for a superhero in the 90’s) to muddy up the waters? Yay, independent comics! The freighter “Lone Wolf” (oooh, foreshadowing…) slides through the cosmic void, shuddering like a whale trying to scratch its back. It’s Captain is having some sort of existential crisis (a sure sign that the writer is a fan of Chris Claremont), and finds that the best way to deal with that is to walk down a dark and sinister alleyway at night…

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Oh, Unnamed Stubbly Protagonist, didn’t your mother ever take you not to accept bottles of mysterious substance from courtesans in back alleys? Apparently not, as he immediately takes a dose of whatever the heck it is, turns on, tunes in, and drops out, resulting in headspace trippier than the Wonkatania. The mysterious drug sets him off on a poorly drawn psychedelic tear… “I forgot about drugs and my PSIONIC POWERS!” screams our hapless pilot, as his mind is torn to shreds. I’d have to say that this is something I’d remember, akin to my penicillin allergy. Maybe he needs a MedicAlert “No Drugs With Psionic Powers” bracelet? He meets his own duplicate, starts to strangle himself to death…

…

…

…and the book just ends there. Maybe it’s an origin story, maybe it’s a cautionary tale about drugs (especially for psionics), maybe it’s a pilot for a wacky sitcom (”Two Guys, A Strangling, And A Pizza Place”), we don’t know. All I know is, I couldn’t make head nor tails of it, and I have an urge to claw out my kidneys with a silver shrimp fork. It’s only worth 1/2 star ‘Hammer Dancing Stephen.’

Finally, we come to the dark horse of the pack, something that I really didn’t expect to see, something I don’t remember coming out, but a book that exists, nonetheless. Punisher 2099 Volume 2 #1… It doesn’t continue (thankfully) the adventures of Jake Gallows from the original run of P-2099, but starts fresh. Apparently, in 2004, Marvel did a fifth-week event, orchestrated by Robert Kirkman, that created an alternate 2099, and populated it with new takes on old characters. This issue starts with a mother-and-son team (wearing Punisher skulls) lying in wait for their drug-dealing prey…

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

With a “Ba-BOOM!” all the drug dealers are gone, as a somewhat troubled Franklin flashes back to six months ago, when his always-haggard looking mommy picked him up unexpectedly from school. Mom has always had odd habits, it seems, but when she tells him to sit down so they can have a heart to heart, he’s very unnerved. “We have to talk” is never good, folks, take it from an old married man. And Frankie finds out the hard way how right I am…

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Stunned by this revelation, young Frankie barely has time to be confused when his mother begins training him with firearms, even though he’s never touched a gun. “My name is not Cossandra Natchios. It is Cossandra Castle. I am the daughter of Frank Castle and Elektra Natchios.” Apparently, in the future, 65 is the new thirty, since this takes place 94 years in the future. Mom is older than she looks, and that may be saying something. After a whopping two weeks of training, Cossandra takes her boy out for what she intends to be his first kill…

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Suddenly, the Sentinels arrive! Why? Because it’s the future, and all future Marvel Universes have Sentinels. It’s in the rule book, look it up. Mother and son barely escape, and he almost finds the whole ordeal fun, until mom coughs up a handful of blood from her exertion. His training continues (”Shoot the guy in the middle first. That way, even if you miss, you should hit one of his guys..” is among Cossandra’s ever-so-cheerful pieces of advice), and finally, the horrible morning comes when Cossandra doesn’t wake up, and Franklin is forced to make the inevitable choice. Kirkman shows that he really understands what makes the whole Punisher idea tick with his ending…

IMAGE REMOVED BY MARVEL LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Frank’s war (and later Cossandra’s) is incredibly personal, horrible, and certainly nothing that you’d want to pass on to your children. Her attempt to do so is both depressing and incredibly selfish. Franklin has done what any sane person would have done in the face of such a daunting prospect: walked away. If only the sales figures would allow the current Punisher to do that, to regain a life and become a human being again. Bygones. This book’s art feels very reminiscent of Michael Avon Oeming’s work on ‘Powers,’ and is well-written, if somewhat inexplicable. I’ve read all the 2004 “2099″ books, and I can tell you, they’re interesting takes, but certainly not long-term characters with any viability. Punisher 2099 V.2 earns a ’so-so’ 2.5 ‘Achy Breaky Stephens.’

There’s an old saying about sex and pizza: even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. That can, in a way, be applied to comic books as well. Even if I got nothing out of this stack of mismatched books, even if Global Force needed an “a” in place of that second “o”, even if I still don’t know what Future Shock was about (maybe it was all in somebody’s mind, like the finale of St. Elsewhere?), I managed to get a few minutes of diversion out of 75 cents worth of comics… For all the complaining I may do about art, or lack of story, or changes in character in the current books, there’s something to be said for “just plain comics.”

There can’t be a Civil War every month, every book can’t be a gem, and frankly, sometimes bad can be good. Witness the resurgence in recent years of the beloved schlock movies of Ed Wood, the existence of “Mystery Science Theatre 3000″ and the fact that somewhere, Rob Liefeld is pencilling an issue of “Onslaught Reborn” that should have come out already. I know I missed the holiday that would have tied this all together, but every quarter bin purchase, every bag of new books, every trade paperback is a potential legion of easter eggs. If you dig the form, the media, the “idiom,” if you will, even the bad comics are kind of fun. That said, I’m certainly not wasting a bag and board on these turkeys, all of which will be relegated to the longbox in my den labeled “???” I may be waxing philosophical, but you have to have SOME standards.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 7:06 pm and is filed under 2099, Marvel, Questionable Idea, Retro Review, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.