Thriller!

Thriller is a limited series from the 80's I'd love to read again. I got rid of all my issues long ago, but I really remember liking the energetic art of Trevor Von Eeden on the first eight issues and the wild designs of Alex Nino on the final four issues. The premise is fantastic and full of pulp vibes. With practically everything published at DC having been reprinted, I'm wondering why this particular series created by Robert Loren Fleming and Von Eeden which seems so ripe for it hasn't been. The back issues can be had cheap, but I'd prefer a more permanent volume. If you don't know much about Thriller, here's a link with a bit more on this offbeat crime-fighting team dubbed "The Seven Seconds". I think you'll be intrigued.












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Marvel ReTales!

This cover for a 1968 issue of the long-running Marvel Tales reprint comic is a real curiosity. It's a blend of elements from a few previous Spidey comics and artists.


There is a Spidey figure by "Sturdy" Steve Ditko isolated and enlarged from the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #17 which is the story reprinted too.


And that is combined with an early also embiggened image of The Green Goblin by "Jazzy" Johnny Romita from Amazing Spider-Man #39.

It's not a great cover by any means, but it works. And it offers a weird visual representation of the transition of Spidey from one great artist to the other. It's curious though that they'd decide to eliminate the Human Torch from the cover art as he was also featured in the Marvel Tales issue, albeit in his own series from Strange Tales.


Marvel would get around to finally reprinting the original Ditko cover a generation later in 1983.

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Dark Savage!

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises, not so much because I thought it would be especially compelling, but I wanted to see the end of the story which began so excellently in Batman Begins but hit a bit of bump for me in the sequel The Dark Knight. That latter flick has some great moments but suffers from such poor pacing problems that I really fell out of the narrative in the latter part and found the ending somewhat tedious. I dreaded the new one, because it sadly seemed more of the same. And I didn't know much if anything much about the villain Bane.


I'm not a Batman fan much, really falling off the character in any real way after the Steve Englehart - Marshall Rogers run in Detective many decades ago. I left Batman and DC in general after that, save for a return in more recent years to the Justice League franchise. I knew about "Knightfall" and I'd seen plenty of images of Bane, but I just assumed he was an Image-comics inspired over-hyped, muscle-headed super-luchadore or some such.


I didn't even think he could speak, since my sole real experience with him was in the 90's Batman and Robin movie alongside Poison Ivy.


So I was really somewhat dreading this "boring villain", but much to my most pleasant surprise the Bane of the new Batman film not only can talk, but he is malignantly eloquent. That voice, processed as it is, is a huge factor in the fearful nature of this most excellent baddie. I won't belabor discussion of the movie, not wanting to spoil things at all at this point, but I really was entranced by Bane when he appeared and the devotion of his men was weird and scary to boot. This is wonderful adventure and it is never tedious.


Then I get home and read up on him, and discover that brains are at least fifty percent of what makes him tick and that he is of all thing a "dark" variation on my favorite pulp hero Doc Savage. Sheesh! I'm floored that I could remain so dim on such a significant character for all these years, but there it is. In some ways thought I get that wonderful thrill of discovery!


And while I did know this, I had forgotten that it was Bane who killed me...sort of, at least killed my nom-de-electron inspiration the Charlton-DC WWII fighter Judo-Master, one Hadley "Rip" Jagger. Ouch!

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Marvel Collectors' Item Revisions!

Why was the cover to Marvel Collectors' Item Classics #19 a new Jack Kirby production? All previous MCIC covers had been reprints of the classic Fantastic Four comics they were taken from, but not this one. This one has a new rendition of the classic 1964 Fantastic Four #27 cover. Was the original artwork misplaced?

I'm not sure which one I prefer, as I frankly like aspects of both. The original Kirby art with its brisk Chic Stone inks has great energy and an almost Kabuki feel to the stance of the characters. On the later 1969 revision with John Verpoorten inking the King, the art is more naturalistic (as Kirby ever got that is) and has plenty of energy if somewhat less drama.

Why the change?

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Team America!

This summer of Olympic action seems an auspicious time to celebrate comics own "Team America". This gang of motorcycle heroes flashed onto the scene in the early 80's when Marvel was just beginning its decades-long hegemony of the newsstands.


According to this CBR article the team began when an Evel Kneivel projected comic fell through because of his run ins with the law.



The toy line was altered and a new different comic book was invented.


Also it seems the concept owed more than a smidge to Jack Kirby's Forever People, not a connection I grasped at the time. I do remember enjoying this frothy comic.














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The True Cow-Ards!

All the hubbub about Chick-fil-A and the owner's very public stance against Gay Marriage points up some troubling trends. Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A very publicly expresses his personal opinion and he is hoisted high over the town with loose talk about government sanctions against his business. That's not very American.

The guy has the courage of his convictions, he makes no secret of his attitudes regardless at how out-of-step with modern culture they might be, and folks can individually decide if they want to frequent his franchises or not. I give him credit for taking a public stand, though personally I disagree with his position.

But what I find most troubling, is that simultaneously we have other corporate interests clandestinely giving sacks of money to various and sundry political super-pacs for eventual advertising to promote some candidate or other, and the criticism is justly that we don't know who they are. Money in political campaigns should be transparent and the information should be available in real time, so that all voters can process the details for themselves.

Whatever I might think of Cathy's position, at least he's not keeping it a secret, at least he has the courage of his convictions. Good for him.

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Covering Starhawk!

Here is a charming imaginary cover someone developed for the failed project Starhawk. Starhawk was a sci-fi character advertised in Marvel Super-Heroes #20 for the next issue but never appeared when that title converted to all reprints. I took a closer look at the character in this updated post from a few years back.

What might've been! Sigh.

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