Somebody’s First Comic Book-Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier #1

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CREDITS:

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Art: Dale Eaglesham
Colors: Andy Troy
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Carlos Pacheco, Tim Townsend & Frank D’Armata
Publisher: Marvel Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Dude definitely has a “Captain America” vibe to him… hey, wasn’t his name “Steve” in the movie?

IMPRESSIONS: Ah, he is Captain America. Or… he was. But he’s not now… looks like he’s a super-spy, and the grandson of the guy who turned him into Captain America in the first place is in some sort of trouble, so he has to save him.

Okay, I can work with this.

The book actually gives us just about everything we need to know. It recaps Captain – um… Steve’s origin pretty succinctly, and it shows us why that’s relevant today, as there are evidently enemy spies trying to recreate the experiment that made Steve a super-soldier in the first place. The fighting is cool – whether he’s wearing the mask or not, Rogers kicks a lot of butt in this issue. It’s a trifle confusing why he’s not Captain America anymore, or why he’s just going around with no mask on and everyone knows who he is, but there’s enough to go on to make the story comprehensible and enjoyable.

But man… “Steve Rogers” has got to be the worst superhero name ever.

Really? There was somebody called “Maggot” in the X-Men?

Never mind.

GRADE: B

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Neil Gaiman’s Teknophage #10

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TITLE: The Day God Came From the Machine

CREDITS:

Writer: Paul Jenkins
Pencils: Al Davison
Inks: Al Davison
Colors: Ian McKie
Letters: Todd Klein
Editor: Ed Polgardy
Cover Art: Bryan Talbot & Angus McKie
Publisher: Tekno-Comix

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: “Neil Gaiman’s Teknophage.” None of these words mean anything to me. Maybe if it was “Neil Diamond’s” or something, I dunno. Still, it looks like there’s a giant lizard, so how bad could it be.

IMPRESSIONS: Well… there’s a giant lizard, all right, but that’s about as much of this issue that I comprehend. We’re in a skyscraper in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by birds, bugs, and flying machines. Inside, the lizard – whose name is “Henry Phage” and who wears a snazzy red jacket, throws a bunch of people into a giant vat of green goop. And they turn into a blue thing.

It’s all… it’s kind of… what the hell is it?

Okay, I get that the people Phage sacrifices turn into this blue amalgam entity that kinda-sorta takes vengeance on him, but so what? I have no idea where we are, who these people are, why he’s killing them or why there’s a giant lizard wearing a snazzy red jacket in the first place. Quite frankly, this book is completely absurd, and the only reason it doesn’t rank lower is because I at least follow a little of the internal consistency. There’s a clear cause and effect here, but there’s no context to allow any of it to make sense. I know this issue the tenth issue – says so right on the cover there – but couldn’t they have included some sort of note to let people know what was going on? I’m utterly lost.

GRADE: D

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Superman (1939 Series) #299

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TITLE: The Double-Or-Nothing Life of Superman

CREDITS:
Writer: Cary Bates & Elliot S! Maggin
Art: Curt Swan & Bob Oksner
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Superman I know – but why is his suit empty? And who are these guys surrounding him?

IMPRESSIONS: Evidently, Superman’s next-door neighbor is an alien. But not a nice one, like Superman is. He’s the sort who is planning an invasion or something and has gone about it in a ridiculously roundabout way – somehow he’s found a way to remove Superman’s powers whenever he changes to Clark Kent. Superman has decided to test this out by spending an entire week only as Clark, then a week only as Superman. After his time is up, he’s about to decide on which life to stick with full-time (for some reason), when his alien adversary rounds up nine of – as Superman puts it, “the most fearsome super-villains [he’s] ever fought!” I don’t know about how fearsome they are. Lex Luthor, sure. The Parasite and Brainiac look pretty formidable too, and I’m sure I can understand why he’d be afraid of someone named Kryptonite Man. But we’ve got a dwarf in a derby hat called Mr. Mxyzptlk, a chubby guy in a plaid coat called the Prankster, a weirdo called the Toyman, a goofy cowboy called Terra-Man, and someone named Amalak who doesn’t do much but stand around looking purple. (A lot of Superman’s enemies seem dedicated to a purple-and-green color scheme for some reason. Five of the nine wear those colors exclusively, and only Toyman doesn’t have any of them at all.)

Anyway, Superman goes out to round up these guys in a fashion that comes so easily one must seriously question how tough the rest of the criminals in Metropolis are, if these are the most fearsome of the bunch. Then we get an explanation for Superman’s power loss that makes you wonder why the hell it took him three weeks to figure it out, and then he beats the alien using an even more convoluted series of events.

There’s a bold proclamation on the first page of the issue: “The greatest hero the world has ever known in his most magnificent adventure of all time!” I’m hoping this was mere hyperbole, because as far as adventures go, this wasn’t particularly magnificent. I understood this just fine. That didn’t make it less silly.

GRADE: C

Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982 Series) #50

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TITLE: Vows

CREDITS:
Writer: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Rafael Kayanan
Inks: Mike Machlan, Pablo Marcos, Rodin Rodriguez
Colors: Nansi Hoolahan
Letters: Carrie Spiegle
Editor: Paul Kupperberg
Cover Art: Denys Cowan & Klaus Janson
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: I don’t know who he is, but he’s got a cool look…

IMPRESSIONS: Wow, does this book turn you around a dozen times. We start off with someone polishing a gun while he looks down at a wedding announcement. We come to find out that the guy getting married is Ed Raymond, father of Ronnie Raymond, who’s kind of the hero “Firestorm,” and that Ed’s fiancé just recently dropped a lawsuit against Firestorm. I say Ronnie is only “kind of” Firestorm, because apparently he can only become a superhero by fusing with one of his college professors. Anyway, things seem to be going okay until somebody kidnaps Ed and tries to kill Ronnie during a football game, but instead winds up crippling one of his teammates, a sort of beefy dude with a heart of gold called Hugo.

Oddly enough, the superhero stuff (in which a college student merges with a professor to turn into a flying man whose head is on fire) is the part of this comic that’s easy to comprehend. The comic goes into all kinds of backstory, including stuff that’s happened to Firestorm in the past and an old World War II superhero called the Aviator, who turns up out of nowhere with a sort of convoluted soap opera explanation for what he’s doing in this story.

Firestorm himself is actually pretty cool. He’s got an interesting hook and a great visual. All the stuff around him is a mess, though, and it makes me less likely to want to read any more of his comic books.

GRADE: C

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Atomic Robo Vol. 1-Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne

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TITLE: Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne

CREDITS:
Writer: Brian Clevinger
Art: Scott Wegener
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Jeff Powell
Publisher: Red 5 Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Never heard of him. I’m guessing “Atomic Robo” is the robot with the gun who looks like he beat up the bigger robot with the skull head.

IMPRESSIONS: Holy crap, this book is insane.

In six chapters, we’re introduced to the world of Atomic Robo, an 83-year-old robot who has apparently fought in World War II, battled monsters and mad scientists for decades, and owns a company called Tesladyne with which he and a group of “action scientists” protect the world from ludicrous menaces, such as that pyramid in Egypt that got up and started walking away, blowing stuff up in the process.

I’m using words like “insane” and “ludicrous” here to describe the book, but you’ve got to understand I intend that in a totally complimentary way. The stuff Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener have come up with to populate the world of Atomic Robo are wild, out-of-this world kinds of menaces that work well in contrast with the hero himself. It’s like somebody mashed together Indiana Jones, Doc Savage and Buckaroo Banzai, then turned the result into a robot. Everything about this property reminds me of the blatant toy commercial cartoons of the 1980s, except that this is actually really good.

To be fair, it is kind of confusing. It’s obvious that Robo has a pretty rich history here, but we don’t see very much of it. Even the flashback sequences (such as the time his trip to Mars was sabotaged by Stephen Hawking, of all people) only give us glimpses to his past adventures. We know he was active in World War II because he gets a letter from the granddaughter of an old army buddy telling him that his friend has died. Beyond that, we don’t know much – where did he come from, who invented him, what’s his origin?

Fortunately, these questions are more tantalizing than frustrating. It would be easy to load a book like this one with a ton of things that are left unresolved and leave the audience unsatisfied, but that isn’t the case here. The questions that are raised are never central to the plot or the character’s role in the story, so we feel like we’ve got a complete, satisfying tale in and of itself, even as we want to know more.

And you’re telling me there are five more books in this series? So far? Awesome. Give me more Atomic Robo.

GRADE: A-

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Roger Rabbit #1

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TITLE: The Trouble With Toons & Good Neighbor Roger

CREDITS:
Writers: Kate Worley & Doug Rice
Art: Rick Hoberg, Dave Simons & Bill Langley
Editor: Len Wein
Publisher: Disney Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: I know Roger Rabbit! He was framed, if my memory serves me correctly.

IMPRESSIONS: The comic seems to pick up shortly after the end of the movie. Roger Rabbit goes down to the Ink and Paint Club to find that it’s been trashed and rushes to his buddy, Detective Eddie Valiant, for help in solving the case. But Valiant has been swamped with business ever since he and Roger defeated Judge Doom (in the movie), so he sends Roger to his buddy Rick Flint. Roger and Flint set out to find the man who destroyed the club, and a new partnership is born.

This comic book felt like the first episode of a movie-spinoff TV show where the producers couldn’t get the original actors in for more than a cameo. Flint isn’t really that interesting a character – he’s a generic old-school detective who doesn’t seem to bring anything to the story that couldn’t have been served just as easily by using Eddie Valiant. I can understand how, if this had been a TV show, getting Bob Hoskins would have been rather difficult. But we’re looking at a comic book here. Why couldn’t they draw Valiant instead of coming up with a low-rent substitute?

The second story, “Good Neighbor Roger,” is much better. This one is set in Toontown, where Roger is upset to learn his new neighbor is a weasel. (Remember them from the movie? Roger, understandably, has a bit of an aversion to weasels.) Roger decides to make nice, though, and hilarity ensues. This one feels like an old-fashioned cartoon with more modern writing, and I liked it a lot on that level.

Not a bad comic book, I guess, but I’d be more interested in reading more of Roger’s Toontown adventures than the Adventures of Rabbit and Flint.

GRADE: B-

Somebody’s First Comic Book: The Ferret #1

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TITLE: In the Midnight Hour

CREDITS:

Writer: R.A. Jones
Pencils: Dean Zachary
Inks: Ken Branch
Colors: Keith Conroy
Letters: Tim Eldred
Editor: Roland Mann
Cover Art: Dean Zachary, Mike Miller & Albert Calleros
Publisher: Malibu Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Not only have I never heard of this “Ferret” individual, I’m struggling to figure out exactly why this comic book is in the shape of his head.

IMPRESSIONS: The story here is actually relatively simple. We meet the Ferret, a superhero who seems to be a bit hampered because he’s a member of a group called the Protectors, and because of that the criminal element of the city knows he won’t kill them. So he has to find alternative ways to brutalize the hell out of them. Meanwhile, in a hospital somewhere, a big ugly green dude called Toxin wakes up and intends to kill the hell out of the Ferret. We encounter the Ferret in his secret identity of Cal Denton, a rock singer wearing clothes he stole from 1972. Despite this, an attractive woman called Midnight Blue (seriously) starts hitting on him after one of his shows and immediately before Toxin attacks him.

Despite the rather silly synopsis, the book isn’t too difficult to understand. I’ve really got no clue who the Ferret is or what he’s about, but as a generic superhero fighting a generic supervillain, he seems straightforward enough. None of these characters seem particularly deep, so I don’t even feel like I’m missing out by not knowing anything about who they are. Heck, the only reason I’m sure that the “Protectors” are a superhero group is because there are a few ads for their own comic scattered throughout this one.

The writing is so-so, and the art is really weak. Nobody poses in the positions these characters routinely employ, and Cal Denton looks dated as hell, even considering that this comic book was published in 1993. And I still can’t figure out why the book is cut in the shape of the Ferret’s head. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the story, it adds nothing to the reading experience, and it actually makes it a little difficult to hold the book without fear of accidentally crumpling it up. I’m starting to understand why this guy didn’t become a superstar some time in the last 18 years.

GRADE: C+

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Alf #7

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TITLE: Going Thru a Stage

CREDITS:

Writer: Michael Gallagher
Pencils: Dave Manak
Inks: Marie Severin
Colors: Marie Severin
Letters: Rick Parker
Editor: Sid Jacobson
Cover Art: Dave Manak
Publisher: Marvel Comics/STAR Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Hey, I remember ALF! Loved this show – an alien lives with a human family. Who’d have thunk it? Well… except for Mork and Mindy. And My Favorite Martian. And…

IMPRESSIONS: We get three stories in this comic book. “Going Thru a Stage” is first – Lynn, the daughter of the Earth-family, is going to be the star of her high school production of Pygmalion, and Alf winds up as her drama coach. She does great, but her co-star gets a case of stage fright, so “Uncle Alfred” has to step in and save the day. We also get a “Melmac Flashback” called “Aloe Again, Naturally.” Alf reminisces about his adventures with Aloe Vera, a plant-based supervillain his scientist father accidentally created back on his home planet of Melmac. And in “Bounce Thy Neighbor,” a device from Alf’s spaceship winds up in the hands of the Tanner’s next-door neighbor, Trevor Ochmonek.

All three stories here are actually really funny – in fact, I suspect they’re probably funnier than the TV shows would be if I went back and watched them again. Michael Gallagher packs the pages with cheesy puns and groan-inducing gags that are all the better for their goofy nature. But he also works in some rather smart jokes – cracks about Salvador Dali, Audrey Hepburn, and other things that kids reading this comic very likely would have missed entirely. Dave Manak’s artwork, similarly, is full of little sight gags. The comic book also brings an energy and a scope to it that wasn’t really possible on the sitcom, where the camera was limited by the nature of the puppet star.

This is actually a really funny book. Cute, smart… I think even kids today, who’ve never heard of Alf, could read it and find it very enjoyable.

GRADE: B+

Somebody’s First Comic: The Incredible Crash Dummies #3

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TITLE: The Space Dummies & My Daddy the Junkman

CREDITS:
Writer: Angelo Decesare
Pencils: Bill Vallely
Inks: Jorge Pacheco & Frank Hill
Colors: In Color
Letters: Dan Nakrosis
Editor-in-Chief: Sid Jacobson
Publisher: Harvey Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Wait, the Crash Dummies? The creepy dummies from those old “Buckle Your Seat Belt” PSAs? They had a comic book?

IMPRESSIONS: Yes, they did have a comic book, and good grief, is it bizarre. Spin and Slick are the Crash Dummies, some sort of bizarre robot (I think) superheroes that were invented by another… robot crash dummy… mad scientist? Ahem. Anyway, in this issue, the scientist invents these rocket boots so the Crash Dummies can man NASA’s first orbital space station, because “loss of gravity can be harmful to humans.” Evidently, NASA’s solution in this universe is not to rotate your crews out, as has been done in the real world since 1971, but rather to send in a crew whose name is literally synonymous with a lack of intelligence.

Anyway, the Dummies’ enemy, an evil Dummy named “Junkman,” makes an Infomercial trying to get scrap metal away from other countries so that they can build their own, competing space stations, but he really just intends to use the components to build a missile to shoot at the Earth. Spin and Slick head into space to stop him.

There’s also an equally nonsensical back-up story, “My Daddy the Junkman,” in which Spin starts to lament the fact that, as a Crash Dummy, he never had a real family. So his scientist buddy loads up his brain with a bunch of fake memories, accidentally convincing him that the Junkman is his father. Hilarity ensues.

I don’t even know what to make of this book, honestly. The story is easy enough to follow, so for that part of the grade it deserves a high mark… but it’s just so bad. Bad writing, bad jokes, dull characters. I guess this was an attempt to make the Crash Dummies a “brand” (now that I think about it, weren’t there toys, too?), but talk about your misguided efforts. Did I get this? Yes. Did it make me want to ever read a Crash Dummies comic book again? No way.

GRADE: C

Somebody’s First Comic Book: What If? (1989 Series) #108

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TITLE: The Greatest Sacrifice

CREDITS:

Writer: Tom DeFalco
Pencils: Sergio Cariello
Inks: Keith Champagne
Colors: Kevin Tinsley
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Frank Pittarese
Cover Art: Sergio Cariello
Publisher: Marvel Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: The Avengers… they’ve got that movie coming out, right? And… I guess Spider-Man is one of them, too?

IMPRESSIONS: Maybe not… the story kind of starts in the middle, with the Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and three people I don’t know) throwing down against Spider-Man’s enemy Carnage, who somehow has taken possession of the Silver Surfer. (Wait – Silver Surfer… wasn’t he in the Fantastic Four movie?) Evidently, we learn later, Carnage is some sort of alien slime that has been bonded to a serial killer, but left the killer and possessed the Silver Surfer.

We also find out, somehow, that these guys aren’t technically Avengers, but that they’re about to pick a new team. I’m not sure exactly how this works, but I like to imagine it’s like gym class, with Captain America and Iron Man taking turns picking from a line and the last one (I’m guessing the dude called “Justice”) being stuck with whoever picked second. Anyway, “Cosmic Carnage” nearly destroys the Avenger called the Vision and whips up on the rest of them until Spider-Man decides to clue them in that the monster is usually vulnerable to loud noises and fire, and maybe this girl called Firestar could do something? In the end, though, all she does is weaken the alien enough for the Surfer to exert control, fly into space, and kill himself and, presumably, the alien too.

I’m… lost here. The story itself is kind of straightforward, but what on Earth are they talking about – they’re not “really” the Avengers, they went and killed the surfer, and… and the title of this book. “What If?” Is that supposed to tell us that this is a “fake” story? It didn’t really happen? And if that’s the case, why the hell am I reading it?

GRADE: C-

[Meta-Note: I’m going to drop the usual pretense of this feature for a moment here to explain my commentary. The old Marvel What If? series, for a long time, was hosted by the Watcher, who explained that what we were seeing was a story set in a world very similar to the “real” Marvel Universe, but where something happened differently and the whole world changed as a result. Kind of a superhero version of Ray Bradbury’s Butterfly Effect theory. At some point, they dropped the Watcher as the narrator and, not being a regular reader of that book at that time, I didn’t really think much of it. Looking back for the sake of “Somebody’s First Comic Book,” I realize the lack of explanation makes this confusing as hell.

On a more amusing note, the letters page for this issue features letters for issue #105, the first appearance of Spider-Girl. The letters absolutely gushed over the comic, although the editor answering the letters initially says “Every story is only meant to be a glimpse into that particular reality. So don’t count on any more trips to see Spider-Girl!” Ah, hindsight.]