This month, Rand Bellavia takes a look at his growing longbox, and reflects on comics released in April 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015!

Rand Bellavia is back to share his fond memories of decades of comic collecting and reading in this month’s Random Access Memory.

April 1980

Marvel Team Up 95

This issue features Bobbi Morse’s first appearance as Mockingbird. She later went on to marry Hawkeye, become a West Coat Avenger, and appear in the Agents of SHIELD TV show. I was subscribing to Marvel Team-Up at this time, and was happy to be introduced to a new character. The Frank Miller cover was an added bonus.

After meeting Mockingbird during an unnecessary fight scene (it’s a super-hero team-up and it’s the law) Spider-Man learns that she plans to assassinate Nick Fury!

The guy Spidey is talking to is later revealed to be a Bad Guy (his facial hair should have tipped you off).

In all the excitement, everyone forgets about the Bad Guy’s final order as a SHIELD agent.

It’s a little weird that this issue of Marvel Team-Up kind of inspired the Winter Solider film and resulting Agents of SHIELD plot lines.

Comics I Read From April 1980

Amazing Spider-Man 206
Avengers 197
Cerebus 15
Daredevil 165
Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 44
Untold Legends of the Batman 1
Uncanny X-Men 135

April 1985

Saga of the Swamp Thing 38

For the second issue in a row, Steve Bissette is MIA (this issue is pencilled by Stan Woch) but John Totleben’s inking has so much personality that you’d be forgiven for not even noticing.

This is John Constantine’s second appearance, and the Sting is very strong here. Look at that second panel. Fans of David Lynch’s Dune can practically hear Constantine screaming, “I will kill him!”

35 years ago, I probably thought that Constantine was upset that someone called him gay, but now it reads more like Moore was establishing Constantine’s queerness. And, having the guy attempt to remedy his homophobia with misogyny is sadly on point.

Later, Constantine quickly establishes the nature of his relationship with Swamp Thing.

This is a call back to the second issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing — written long before Alan Moore took over the book — and another great example of how Moore can craft great stories by grabbing the dangling threads left by previous writers.

Comics I Read From April 1985

Alpha Flight 25
Amazing Spider-Man 266, 267
American Flagg 23
Avengers 257
Black Dragon 1, 2
Cerebus 73
Coyote 12
Crisis on Infinite Earths 4
Defenders 145
Gargoyle 3
Marvel Fanfare 21
Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu 2
Neat Stuff 1
Nexus 11
Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 104
Power Man and Iron Fist 118
Secret Wars II
Sisterhood of Steel 4
Strange Days 3
Vigilante 19
Web of Spider-Man 5

April 1990

Animal Man 24

At the end of the last issue, Ultraman had broken the panel border that imprisoned him and left the comic page. Here Animal Man examines the breech:

Another forgotten character (Overman) shows up to start another unnecessary fight, but the Psycho Pirate knows it’s all just a distraction.

With the help of Dr. Highwater, the characters discover more about the nature of their reality:

Animal Man fights Overman from outside the panels.

Eventually, Overman is defeated by the panel itself.

Highwater lets the forgotten heroes know that they are immortal.

Take note of that guy from the third panel who is worried he’ll never be seen again. (It’ll come up again in 25 years.)

April 1995

Invisibles 9

From the start many American readers were upset that Jack Frost wasn’t more relatable. He was initially presented as a whiny brat who’s primary connection/attraction to the reader was that he knew as little about what was going as we did. In this issue, Jack is left to fend for himself against an enemy he doesn’t even understand. Not knowing what else to do, he grabs King Mob’s gun and runs. He doesn’t get very far.

At this point, there has been a lot of cool action violence, all delivered “nice and smooth” by King Mob, so we’re utterly unprepared for Jack’s reaction to having murdered someone.

This (very reasonable) emotional response is the first likable thing that Jack does, and it is the beginning of both his journey to Buddhahood, as well as the salvation of King Mob.

Comics I Read from April 1995

Amazing Spider-Man 402
Big Book of Death
Cerebus 193
Dark Horse Presents 96
Druid 2
Eightball 15
Flash 102
Goddess 1
Hate 18
Hellblazer 90
Impulse 3
Incredible Hulk 430
Kill Your Boyfriend
Milk and Cheese 666
Palookaville 7
Preacher 3
Shade the Changing Man 60
Starman 8
Swamp Thing 155
Tank Girl: The Odyssey 1

April 2000

Invisibles 1

This is the final issue of last volume of the Invisibles. The major plot points wrapped up in the previous issue, so this is an epilogue that (as promised by Grant Morrison at the outset of the series) reveals the meaning of life.

I find it fascinating that Morrison was talking about memes in early 2000.

Twenty years later, meme culture played out pretty much exactly as described by Morrison here:

This issue makes the “life as a game” metaphor overt. Specifically, what we have been experiencing as a comic book is revealed to be a playable inhalant.

Sing it with me: “And on that farm, he had some neo-modernist kitchen sink science fiction. Extreme Impact Environmental Immersion Option.”

We end in a suitably bravura fashion, with Jack letting us know we are free, and Morrison and Quitely delivering a remarkable pun that could really only work in comics.

Top Ten 8

Top 10 is a police procedural that takes place in a world where everyone has super-powers. So you have super-powered cops arresting super-powered criminals while protecting and serving super-powered citizens. This issue involves a traffic accident that the cops refer to as a “Jump-Bump” — a teleportation collision where the victims were fused together.

Saroona is dead, and Mr. Nebula isn’t doing too well, either.

Alan Moore demonstrates that Grant Morrison isn’t the only comic book writing occult genius that’s really into the “life as a game” metaphor.

Kapela explains his world view:

Of course, it’s all about perspective.

And if that sky metaphor sounded familiar to you, it’s because the creators of True Detective appear to be Alan Moore fans.

True Detective Rust and Marty talk about the sky: “The light’s winning”

From True Detective Season 01 Episode 08.All properties of Home Box Office Inc.”- E’ una storia sola, la più vecchia: luce contro oscurità.- Beh, so che non …

April 2005

Vimanarama 3

Vimanarama suffered from too much story in too few pages. What should have been a 12-issue (if not an ongoing) series was crammed into three issues.

At the end of the last issue, the gods were failing everyone, and our hero Ali was dead. Turns out the afterlife — as imagined by Grant Morrison and Philip Bond — is a very strange place indeed.

Sofia was meant to be Ali’s spouse, but then she found out she was the reincarnation of Rama’s lover.

Ali is surprised to find his (as far as he knew, still living) older brother and father in the afterlife.

We learn that while Ali thinks his family dismiss him as lazy and shiftless, they in fact expect great things from him.

And it’s not really a Grant Morrison comic without at least some meta-narrative.

Sofia finally remembers that Rama had given her Chekhov’s Gun during the previous issue.

She gives Ali the elixir, and we rush off to Happily Ever After.

April 2010

Captain America: Who Won’t Wield the Shield?

Warning: Captain America does not appear in a single panel of this comic book, and it is very silly.

What we have here are two very strange short stories, elaborately framed with a story written by (and featuring) Jason Aaron that takes place at a comic book store signing:

The signing is interrupted by Forbush Man.

In 1967, Marvel published a humor comic called Not Brand Echh. If Not Brand Echh was Marvel’s Mad Magazine, Forbush Man was Marvel’s Alfred E. Newman. As one might imagine, such an innocent character is appalled by Marvel’s “realistic” violence.

Forbush Man exacts his revenge by killing the writer of the story, but in doing so only reveals that he has become a purveyor of the very violence he is protesting. (Note Aaron’s last word, which is annoyingly misspelled.)

Then, for reasons that don’t really matter, we go into a delightfully insane story by Matt Fraction and Brendan McCarthy.

This is the sort of story where this kind of stuff happens:

We even get a nod to the phone contest that led to the death of Jason Todd’s Robin, which is pretty much Ground Zero for violent shenanigans as fan service.

Meanwhile, back in our framing sequence, Ed Brubaker gets the upper hand on Forbush Man, and Jason Aaron (the writer, not the dead character) has some fun at Ed “I brought Bucky back from the dead” Brubaker’s expense.

April 2015

Multiversity 2

Multiversity comes to an end, and, just like in every other Crisis, it comes down to the speedsters.

In a matter of seconds, Red Racer gathers speedsters from all across the multiverse to help save us all.

President Superman gathers the troops for the final battle.

Remember that guy from Animal Man 24 (way back in 1990), who was worried he’d never be seen again? Well, there he is, sitting at the lower left hand corner of the panel.

Captain Carrot is Committed to the Cause! And if you ever wondered what planet in the DC Multiverse we lived on, here’s your answer:

It looks like we’re in trouble.

The Surface 2

Ales Kot does some great things with meta-narration in this comic.

The voice is our head is ours, but who put it there? When we read the words on the page, are they coming from the author, from us, or from some third place?

Who really controls the narrative?

Technically, this is all true. We are not there. This isn’t happening. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”

But, as it turns out, the narrator hasn’t even been talking to us.

RANDom Access Memory – April 2020

April 1980