Acquired: DC Comics Presents #81

Price: $3.00
Where: Arch Enemy Comics, Boise, ID

I was recently re-reading my already-owned copy of this particular issue when I noticed a small tear on the back page that made me sad. It meant that I had to get another copy, and so I immediately put it on the list. Normally, I wouldn't bother picking up a spare copy of a practically valueless mid-80s comic that I already own in decent shape aside from a small tear. But with this one, I felt I needed to keep a extra, more flawless copy handy. It's special to me. Two copies would be nice.

Why?

Writer and Artist: Keith Giffin

Because it's the single greatest Ambush Bug story ever told!

And by the end of this, you'll agree!

The hi jinx's start with our intrepid protagonist enjoying a quiet round of golf. Well, considering that it's Ambush Bug we're talking about, "quiet" means plowing through the course and other players like a whirling dervish while making loud "Whoop! Whoop!" noises. After he slices his ball into the drink, he grabs his snorkel, dives in, and finally chips it into the hole!

He pops his way to the jewelery store where he has the "rare glowing gem" set into a necklace as a present for someone he recently had a falling out with.

(Superfriends Narrator Voice)

Meanwhile, at the Fortress of Solitude...

Superman is honing his punching skills with a game of Bombardment Ball. (Hey, it's in bold in the comic!) Being Superman, he can't be expected to do it the easy way though, and is just about to reach a blindfolded new high score when who-know-who pops in:

And that, dear readers, is a set-up and premise that would make me shoot bourbon spiked coffee out of my nose and onto Mr. Giffin were I in the pitch room.

After Superman (Ambush Bug) explains the situation to Ambush Bug (Superman), he (Ambush Bug .. I mean Superman .. I mean.. oh, nevermind!) decides that the world still needs a Superman and blasts off to continue the never-ending quest of defending truth, justice, and cream pies, despite his total ineptitude with the powers and leaving Superman (forget it!) stuck in the Fortress.

(Superfriends Narrator Voice)

Back in Metropolis, forty-four hours later...

...Kobra is after the secret to Ambush Bug's teleportation suit and tracks him to his detective agency:


Koko makes a quick exit leaving AB to wrap up a very lucrative Frank Miller deal. After a bit of thought, he figures out that the mysterious, bald stranger who just beat a hasty retreat had to be none other than Lex Luthor! And the chase is on!

(Superfriends Nar... aww.. you get it already!)

Meanwhile, back at the Fortress of Solitude...


Meanwhile...

Notice, if you will, Kobra's signal device: "Why.. Why.. Why..." That's funny, right there.

Meanwhile...


Ambush Bug eventually smacks into Kobra and proceeds to set fire to the entire waterfront when he figures out how his heat vision works. Kobra is seriously scared after concluding that Superman has gone crazy and breaks for his ark:

Meanwhile... Back at the Fortress of Solitude... Superman, stuck in Ambush Bug's body, tries to learn the secret to the suit's teleportation...


Soon after, the 48 hour Red Kryptonite effect wears off and our players switch bodies back again to the way things were. Superman (the real one now) lets Kobra get away in order to deal with the waterfront fire. Ambush Bug pops back to help just as Supes is creating a tidal wave to deal with the fire.

What follows this panel is probably the best in-joke splash page ever to see print. Not to be spoiled here. Go buy it yourself.

The story ends with a funny little wrap-up that leaves Superman in hysterics and Kobra plotting a course outside of the DC universe. Seriously.

I've read this issue at least 50 times since I bought it way back when it originally came out. Now I have two copies and can read and re-read my original torn one until I finally read it to tatters. I may do that.. it makes me laugh every time. I credit this particular comic with starting my love for wacky silver-age funny book craziness, which to this day still hangs on me like a Red Kryptonite necklace. Recommended.

*Pop!*

Acquired: Hitman #18

Price: $3.50
Where: The Paperback Place, Boise, ID

This one was on the list just in case I hapen to find it in a cheap bin somewhere, and it's been on the list for a long time. I eventually decided that I'd searched the cheapies long enough and that I should just buy it already. $3.50's not too bad...

Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: John McCrea

To say this was a serious issue of Hitman would be stretching the truth. To say the least. To also say that this is Ennis at his absurd best would also not quite ring true. Even taking into account that this is issue 4 of a 6-part arc, the plot's all over the place. It jumps from The Demon rising from Hell, to the Hitman having one of those John Constantine stand-offs with his mates, to a bunch of D-listers getting the old team back together, to some spider-demon thingy rampaging the streets of Idaho, to a last page reveal that really isn't anything even halfway surprising. The art's a bit too cartoony for my liking - especally when it has to jump from comedy to suspense to spooky and back again. In another book, I'd probably dig this style, but when you have to deal with Hitman, The Demon, Jason Blood, Hell and all that... it's a bit too goofy to take the parts that are meant to be serious, well, seriously. Quite honestly, this issue only has one thing going for it.

But that one thing ... Holy Screaming Cats, Batman!!:


The Dogwelder. The Freckin' Dogwelder. The Sam-Scratch, Mother-Farkin', Freak Your Ass Out NOW Dogwelder. AAAAGGHH!

The Dogwelder is nine shades of Awesome. There's no way around that... Awwwwsome! I mean, the dude welds dogs to people's faces! Holy Shipdip, Groo! That's fantastic! Brutalizing a woman? Dog to the face! Bank robbery? Dog to the face! Caught littering? Dog to the face! Wrong street at the wrong time? Dog to the Face, baby!

The Dogwelder is easily the best character ever created as the result of a drunken bet between crazy Irish comic guys. As the story goes, The Dogwelder was created from a series of one-upsmanships between Steve Dillon and Garth Ennis building from who could create a dumber sounding super-hero name than "Green Lantern" (sorry, Sally). I believe Dillon came up with "dogwelder," which might have come from drunken association with "spotwelder," (ha! get it?!?) after which Ennis must have conceded. I know I would've.

Unfortunately, this is only The Dogwelder's first appearace, and he just appears long enough to get recruited back into his old team. This, of course, means that I'll be picking up Hitman #19 and #20. I must see some dogwelding in action!

Until then:


Comics are awesome sometimes.

Acquired: Amazing Spider-Man #344

Price: $10.00 (Store Credit)
Where: Arch Enemy Comics, Boise, ID

Bought this one with some store credit I'd accumulated from Ken at Arch Enemy Comics. If you're in the area, stop on by... great store!

Writer: David Michelinie
Penciler: Erik Larsen

Pretty good cover by Larsen, although Cardiac looks a bit unconcerned at the prospect of a beat-down by Spidey and the Rhino. Perhaps it's the power of the Kirby Kackle! And although Rhino's the big Spidey-Family villain this issue, he gets billing only after Cardiac and - check out the top - clues to a possible Venom cameo. I'd be pissed. Actually, on a second glance, he kind of is! In fact, killing Spider-Man would get you some press above the fold, as it were. Ah, motivations!

I also like the "Now how much would you pay?!" blurb at the bottom. Anything that encourages a 10-year old haggling in a direct market comics store, I'm all in favor of.

I have a huge Amazing Spider-Man collection - far more than any other title I own. It just sort of exploded by itself then subject itself to collector's disease. The reason this on was on the list is that, now that I've got it, I have every Amazing Spider-Man from #100 until it re-booted. I just never got around to plugging that gap. I mention this because I don't want you to think I wanted this one for the fantastic story and breathtaking art... 'cause, brother, they ain't here!

This issue starts, like every ASM in the '90s, with Spider-man checking out some shady goings on at the waterfront. The shadiness gets broken up by a new Super Hero/Villain (will we ever know?!?), Cardiac, who uses some kind of big staff to zap the bad guys and destroy the waterfront and the evil chemical corporation that's using it. We then get a brief Peter / Mary Jane plot furtherance, then a look at a previously unknown multi-million dollar corporation run by a big guy who walks with a cane and has a problem with evil chemical corporations.

I mean, C'Mon! Was I ever dumb enough not to put these together? I say thee, Nay!

At this point, I was curious if I could, based on the story so far and the cover, predict the rest of the issue. I could. It wasn't even hard. Play along at home!

If you guessed that Rhino would be hired to stop the new character from completing his evil-chemical corporation vendetta and Spidey would get caught in the middle and then Rhino would be defeated and finally the two would leave everything at an unsteady truce... well, Congrats! Here's your cookie.

When we're not getting Spidey kicking Rhino, we get a bit about Eddie Brock in prison and a glimpse of something that may or may not be the costume making it's way back to him. He's sharing a room with the guy who will eventually become Carnage and it's pointed out how evil he is. Oh, and we get this sinister-looking panel of him:


That's wrong, Mr. Larsen. So, very, very wrong. Still, you did make me giggle, so if you were going for that, good job!

Thank goodness for store credit, because this issue certainly wasn't worth the $10 I used on it. This could be one of the formulaic comics I've read in a long time - and I have all of the other 90s ASM's, so that's saying something. But it did plug a ASM gap, so glad to finally have it. And it did have this ad on the inside:



"You've seen the ads! You've heard the name uttered in whispers! But now it's time to meet the newest, most exotically exciting superstar in the mighty Marvel firmament - the only super hero based on a real-life, flesh-and-blood human being - dazzling, dangerous, deadly - a smoldering, sizzling stick of human dynamite - the one and only NIGHT CAT!"
That some mighty fine huckstering there, Stan! You the man!

"Yours truly wrote the script, too, which could possibly change the complexion of the comic book industry for all time to come!"

I'll let that one lie there.

I still think we should get Night Cat and Feedback together to really create something that would change complexions. At least mine.

Acquired: Strikeforce: Morituri #31

Price: $.25
Where: Future Dreams, Portland, OR

Chalk this one up to a guilty little pleasure. Because, man, this is not a good comic.

Strikeforce: Morituri was a nifty little sci-fi / super-hero title that started in 1988 (I believe) that centered around an alien invasion of Earth. The aliens, vastly superior to us humans, easily put down the initial resistance and have spent years looting the Earth. Not of resources, but of trinkets. Buttons, old movies, action figures and the like. They were basically a race of interstellar super-collectors. Maybe they worked for Wizard. Or Toybiz.

Humanity's salvation comes when one scientist discovers the Morituri Process - the ability to create super-heroes. The process comes at a cost, however, as it puts such an immense strain on the subjects' metabolism that they will - sometime in the near future, but usually within a year - burn out and die. Usually they explode. It's cool. The process is also limited to very few genetic matches, and the powers the volunteers get are totally random. One lady got the power to make flowers bloom. Sucks to be you, babe!

The call goes out for volunteers, and those that were willing to sacrifice themselves for a chance to bash some alien butt are put through the process. During the comic's run, many characters would die (Ka-Blooey!) and get replaced by other characters. But the end of the series, there were no original characters - in fact, I think the rotating cast was well into its 4th generation.

I loved this concept when I originally read it and collected every issue as it came out. Though not a brilliant comic (far from it), at times it was a very fun read. I liked it enough to keep my original complete run to this day. I even created a series of Champions RPG modules based on this concept - players would each create 5 characters each and at certain times during the game, I would make a random (and hidden) roll, and if a certain percentage came up, somebody's character would explode. Then they'd move on to the next character they created.

Yes, I'm a geek. This surprises anyone reading this far?

So, imagine my horror when I realised that I didn't actually have every issue. I had every issue but the last one. How odd. Luckily, I was able to find one in the cheap bin for $.25. And brother, I gotta tell you: it's worth at least half that.

At the time of this issue, the hoarding aliens have been defeated (by other, even more powerful aliens in one of the biggest cop-outs to a series finale I've ever read), the surviving Morituri have found a "cure" that lets them live indefinitely, and things are returning to semi-normal. Except that behind the scenes the Morituri process is being used covertly to (wait for it....) create killers loyal to a shadow government in order to overthrow the legitimate government. I could've written this. Even back in '89.

It's fairly obvious that this issue has to wrap everything up - and quickly. It's pretty jumbled and forces endings .. when it's not letting them go. The issue opens with the uber-aliens giving us a synopsis (this issue's real heavy on synopsis' - it uses one at three different times. Not a good sign.) that leads up to the four surviving Morituri on their way to the secret bad guy base to put a stop to the evil government's plot. Things aren't going so well at the bad guy base at the moment. One of the bad Morituri has it in his head that he's some kind of god and is running around slaughtering people at super speed. Ah, loyalty! Thy fickle mistress!

One of the two other evil Morituri makes his ghostly way to the base, figuring out that he's on the wrong side. Evil M#3 figures it out, too and decides to just go back home to India. Screw it. Issue's only got so many pages, you know.

So, all the evil guys you recruited for use on your side have all turned on ya, huh, Mr. Government Guy? Seemed like a good plan at the time? You paying attention, Mr. Stark?

The Morituri get to the base and it only takes them six pages to break in. Really. Six pages. The upcoming big fight scene with speedy guy was complete in 4 1/2. Masterful pacing there. Fight with speedy guy begins, and after he takes out half of them, we get to something I like to call "The Dr. Light Moment!"


The thought of having another mini-series with the word "Crisis!" in it spurs our final Morituri to kill speedy guy and we wrap up everything pretty quickly. How, you ask?

The uber-aliens are behind everything - AGAIN!

I specifically remembering groaning at this when I was 18. Again?!?

The aliens do some mind-mamajama on the boss, he surrenders - surrenders, mind you - and the comic finishes the issue setting up the scenes for a few quarterlies that were set to run after this issue. I've read them - and whoo-boy! are they stinky! This issue has a few pages from what will be the first one, Y'know, to whet your appetite. With pages like this one:



Along with this page, which basically says, "It's been 10 years and the government's new, and we have new stuff now." all of the "sneak preview" pages are exposition pages. All of them. Nothing new is presented at all. Now, I gotta say - if I was pushing this book in a new direction and wanted to ensure that old, series-long readers are going to want to see the direction I'm going to be taking it in the last issue of the series - man, I'm definitely going to show them a sneak preview consisting of nothing but recaps. Because, Y'know, nothing says innovative like a flashback to things they already know. They'll be lining up to buy that sucker.

This issue's penciler is credited as John Calimee, with Mark Bagley on the cover. I suspect that Bagley had more than a passing influence on the interior (or vice-versa), however - check out this bit:


That's a Bagely sequence, right there.

Strikeforce: Morituri will always have a place in my heart as a great concept to base a series on, however passable the execution turned out to be. I really loved this series (especially the early issues) and now I have a complete set. Except for those quarterly issues. Don't miss those at all. So long, you crazy doomed-to-die alien horde bashin' heroes!


Nah, I'm good.

EDIT: One real spiffy thing about this issue that I completely forgot to mention is that you get to read the whole 25 pages of story without getting interrupted by a single advertisement. The only ads in the book are between the main story and the preview and then after the preview itself - and there's only 3 pages of them. Imagine that. It was real refreshing, actually - Thesedays I'm so used to having my fight scenes broken up by Heroes promos, car ads, or that damn Wii kid.

Acquired: ROM Annual #1

Price: $2.80
Where: Future Dreams, Portland, OR

I recently made a trip to Portland, Oregon where I was able to cross a few things off the list. I've been looking for this one ever since I noticed it somehow missing from my collection.

Wow. That cover blew my 12-year old mind. Check that shit out. This is a classic, "I've gotta see what happens!" cover. A few things about it:

- That is some poorly put-together armor. It doesn't have ankles, feet bottoms, (feet bottoms? - moving on) arm protection, or under-thighs. (under-thighs?)
- Be thankful that the only piece still remaining is the crotch-guard. As an aside, I'm totally making a product called "Crotch-Guard." I don't know what it will do, but it'll come to me.
- I seem to remember that you're trading your humanity in order to become a space knight, and I seem to remember some kind of ceremony that left you scarred in some way. But, cripes! They sure fuck you up good.
- This scene, though it does happen in the comic, (I hate those "I've gotta see what happens!" covers that never take place in the book itself) happens on one panel only. But the crotch-guard is, finally, removed.
- Though I didn't know it when I was 12, this cover is by Affable Al Milgrom, an artist whom I generally despise, though I like his writing - for what it does - and he's a really funny and nice guy personally. I met him in '86 or so at some comic convention or another and he was happy to sign things, chat, and doodle for me. If I knew that he did this cover then, I would've had him sign it. This cover totally rocks, unlike say, all of Secret Wars II.

Unfortunately, the art on the inside is by Pat Broderick, an artist I cannot freggin' stand. Never have, never will. Bill Mantlo writes it, and it's a typical Mantlo "done it in one" threat that almost beats the hero but hero fights it back and we all learn something in the process script. He probably phoned this one in, but again, my 12-year old mind was blown.

Our story opens with some vast space judicial society sentencing one T'urin G'ar to "be expelled from the body," which is apparently like being in the Phantom Zone but without all that "trapped in an unbreakable prison thing." He floats around incorporeally through space for a bit until he comes across "A warm world! A living planet!" Three guesses.

He lands on Earth in some backwoods community where he upsets the local kid's baseball game. And here's an example of why I don't like Broderick's art:



There's a whole lot wrong with that sequence... but let's just stick to the passage of time. This might be the worst example of dialog pacing you'll ever see. The baseball and the batter's swing are moving completely independent of the dialog. Unless they're speaking really, really fast.

Anywhoo, Mr. G'ar arrives, absorbs the kids and in the process gives us one heck of an out-of context panel:



"Merging them with his starstuff. T'urin G'ar bears the children off to a place of darkness where he senses he can be alone with his warm-things."

I once thought I had sensed a place where I could be alone with some warm things, but then the cop flashed his light into the car and scared us both shitless.

T-to-the-G decides to steal some essence from each of the kids (ewww...) in order to make another body for himself, because "The starstuff binding me prevents me only from rejoining the Body - not from stealing the essence of others!" That's some well-thought out punishment, there. That's likewise some well-thought out dialogue, there.

Meanwhile, ROM is doing his thing, looking for the Dire Wraiths, when he spots the kids' search party passing by. He detects some "other world" activity and goes off to find it. Instead, he finds the essence-less bodies of the kids and returns them to the search party.

In a scene that repeats itself in every issue of ROM, the humans assume he did something to the kids (or some other random human while hunting Dire Wraiths) and force him off. I swear, it would save a lot of time if ROM had a sign explaining things. Like this one:



The Dire Wraiths use the distraction to escape the search party and end up getting absorbed by Tig Giddy, who now goes by Stardust. ROM detects the Wraiths and follows the trail of Wraith corpses to S'Diddy's lair. Then they throw down smack like a Cracker, Jack!



Notice ROM doesn't care about the Wraiths' life-energies. He's all harsh like that. And "Return the humans' life-energies, or suffer the wrath of ROM!" may be my new catch phrase to greet strangers with at bars. That or, "Soon you will have no desire to fight the Body!" Or, "Creature, you have defiled me with your unholy examination!" Mantlo's great with these. I'll bet he gets all the chicks. Props to the playa.

OK, I'm done with the gansta, yo. White-bread cracker like me shain't'all'n' go there. Word.

Anyway, ROM beats Stardust and uses all that extra "life-energy" to restore the children. But not the Wraiths. Cold, ROM, cold. You could restore them, then Limbo 'em, Homey! Fate worse than death or absorption by the S-Diddy, yo!

OK, I'm sorry. Last time, I swear.

He then explains the whole "I didn't kill any humans, they were really Wraiths in disguise - I'm a space knight and sorry it looked that way" thing he does in every issue and the town's cool with it. And we're all good.



There's a fun 6-page backup about another space knight named "Gloriole" - which I think is something what would cost you at least $15 in Thailand, if you knew the right hotel - betraying ROM before learning that it wasn't such a good idea and redeeming himself. More space knight mittens are involved.

This was an awesomely unexpected find during my vacation, and left me giggling the whole flight home. I loves me the ROM, and all it's campy goodness.