Category Archives: Retro Review

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RETRO REVIEW: Femforce #29 (1990)

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Or – “Good Girl Art Is Not Inherently Bad…”

Ms. Victory!  She-Cat!  Nightveil!  Stardust!  Tara!  Synn!  Dragonfly!  If you know the Femforce, you probably know why we’re here.  If you don’t know Femforce, I want to preface today’s review with a warning:  If you are sensitive to depictions of voluptuous female forms, you may want to check out our extensive SDCC ’11 coverage.  There is nothing NSFW in this review, but a Femforce comic has a tendency to bring a nice big slice of cheesecake, put it on a plate, then add whipped cream and a nice raspberry sauce…

With that said, you should also know that there’s a lot more than cleavage going on.

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RETRO REVIEW: World’s Finest Comics #142 (June 1964)

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Or – “This One Goes Out To My Homegirls, The Super-Future Friends…*”

I started regularly reading comics at a truly wonderful time, as Marvel was shaking off it’s 70′s doldrums and DC was building up to the biggest (and probably the most important) crossover madness of all time.  Both companies were also putting out handbooks explaining their long histories, and I clearly remember buying issue #5 of ‘Who’s Who In The DC Universe.”  After histories of Clayface (whom I remembered from the 70′s Batman cartoon), Colossal Boy from the Legion, and Commander Steel (whom I remembered from All-Star Squadron), I encountered a drawing of a green-skinned half-Batman, half-Superman creature, named ‘Composite Superman.’   Who was he?  What was his deal?  How in the world did he keep half a cowl on?  Why did he no-sell his Batman half?  These questions and more will be answered, including one that you might not have expected:  Who is the single most powerful entity in the pre-Crisis DC Universe?

*(Am I allowed to say homegirl?)    
 

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RETRO REVIEW: Marvel Graphic Novel #27 – Emperor Doom (1987)

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Or -”The Grand Experiment.”

Marvel’s Graphic Novel series was designed to allow creators to tell stories that were too grown-up, too off-beat, or too out-of-universe for the regular titles.  Starting with ‘The Death of Captain Marvel,’ big-name creators were allowed to tell stories that otherwise might not have been told.  Though there are many strong tales in the range (She-Hulk, Revenge of The Living Monolith and The Death of Groo are all quite fun reads) arguably the crown jewel came when Marvel’s greatest villain finally got everything he had ever wanted…

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RETRO REVIEW: All-Star Comics #58 (Jan/Feb 1976)

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Or – “Her… Um… Character Wasn’t Quite As Large Then.”

There’s an urban legend in comics that inker Wally Wood (known for his rendition of very buxom and attractive women) made a point of inserting the type of figures that he loved into his inking jobs for DC, to the point where a new character in All-Star Comics became so buxom that it has become an intrinsic part of her character even 40 years later.  Are you ready for the first appearance of Power Girl?

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RETRO REVIEW: Daredevil Battles Hitler #1 (July 1941)

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Or – “You May Not Have Realized That Matt Murdock Wasn’t The First…”

The debut of Superman in 1938 led to a virtual flood of superhero pretenders, from Captain America to Captain Zephyr, most of whom were little more than a (Captain) flash-in-the-pan.  Not so, Daredevil, who headlined his own book for most of a decade and darn near made it through to the Silver Age.  You may have seen him floating about (AC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment and Erik Larsen have all revived him in recent years), but you’ve never seen him quite like this…

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RETRO REVIEW: Star Wars #8-10 (February-April 1978)

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Or – “Recollections of a Rifle-Green Rangy Rebel Rabbit!”

As a fan of comic books AND Doctor Who, I find myself quite familiar with arguments about continuity.  But when I recall the discussions I’ve heard from Star Wars fans (especially regarding the Expanded Universe material), I inadvertantly find myself having a William Shatner SNL moment and crying, “Get a life!”  However, I know that to be both inadvisable AND self-defeating , because geeking out over pop-culture minutiae is one of the signs of love for the stories that bring us together, and that the only difference between my love of the Legion of Super-Heroes and someone’s love for George Lucas’ grand opus is the fact that my rebellious guy wears a big green thunderbird instead of a cool pirate vest.

And then, I explain to all my Star-Wars-fan pals how, this one time?  A big green Bugs Bunny was a Jedi!

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RETRO REVIEW: Superman #199 (August 1967)

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Or – “The First Superman/Flash Race!”

Comics in the 1960′s were a different animal than what we read today, and many people like to claim that as a dig on the old-school books.  But if you really take the time to investigate old comics, you’ll occasionally find a concept so perfectly elegant that you wonder why ‘retro’ would ever be used as an insult.  This, Faithful Spoilerites, is one of those issues…

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RETRO REVIEW: Fantastic Four #51 (June 1966)

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Or – “I Love Me Some Jessica Alba, But She’s No More Sue Than I Am…”

The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine achieves it’s greatest triumph (and that, Faithful Spoilerites, is sayin’ something.)  It’s an issue so good I can’t even bring myself to say something snotty about it…

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RETRO REVIEW: Haunt Of Fear #19 (May/June 1953)

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Or – “Greetings, Fright Fans!”

Memorial Day Weekend, the official start of summer!  And what better way to celebrate summer than with a little baseball?  Of course, when you’re talking EC Comics, there’s a pretty good chance that the rules of the game may get a little bit bent in the process…

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RETRO REVIEW: Elseworlds 80 Page Giant #1 (August 1999)

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Or – “Did You Know That The Pound Is Worth Like A Buck Twenty Five?”

The exchange rate can be a scary thing.  Some years ago, I went online to purchase a couple of comics at a price already far above what I would normally pay for single issues, without noticing that the price listing was in Great Britain Pounds.  (Apparently, money is heavier in the U.K.)  As such, I ended up breaking my unofficial ‘don’t pay more than $100 bucks for one comic book’ rule twice in the same day, and ending up in the doghouse with the missus.  Still, since the comics in question were this one and a copy of Miracleman #24, it was still (albeit just BARELY) worth the price of admission…

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RETRO REVIEW: Alley Cat #1 (July 1999)

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Or – “From The Company That Brought You ‘NASH!’ “

A recent Major Spoilers Podcast featured an extended discussion of the various ages of comics, but we did overlook one sub-section of the modern age:  The Bad Girl Era.  Previews used to be a virtual minefield of fishnets, claws, cleavage and what seemed to be rejected WWE Diva names.  Poizon, Razor, Lady Death, Lady Pendragon, Hellina, and even revitalized stalwarts like Vampirella tottered around on sky-high heels with their business hanging out, and we even got to see the horror of “nude covers.”  (Here’s a protip:  If a nude cover doesn’t say either Altuna or Manara, I don’t need to see it.)  Near the end of this wave of nudilation came Alley Cat, a vanity project for former Playboy Playmate Alley Baggett, and her somewhat prosaically named alter-ego.  Say what you will about the book, but she’s wearing nearly four times as much fabric as many of her contemporaries…

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RETRO REVIEW: Amazing Spider-Man #236 (January 1983)

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Or – “There Was A Time When He Was My Fave-Rave…”

Once in a while, I feel a bit guilty about my general take on some of the more popular heroes.  I have a few favorite X-Men tales, a few bits of beloved Batman ephemera, even one or two Wolverine stories that I enjoy.  Spider-Man may get the worst of this, though, in that I started reading his adventures quite early in my comics diet.  When things went wrong (in my mind, anyway) with Spidey, they went WAAAAY wrong, and part of me never forgave Marvel for that.  As for what I loved about Spider-Man, this story (part three of an unofficial trilogy, well before the covers identified things as such) stuck with me for several years as an example of how to make even the most minor characters shine…

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