Ms. Tree Quarterly, "Maternity Leave," Cover Date Summer, 1992
Written by Max Allan Collins, Penciled and Inked by Terry Beatty
"Who or what is Ms. Tree?" was my reaction when I saw this cover. I've always been more of a Marvel Zombie, but I thought I knew most of DC's books during this time, and I had never heard of any "Ms. Tree." Fortunately, wikipedia exists, and I was able to discover that Ms. Tree is a detective in the classic pulp tradition, who inherited her husband's business after he was murdered by gangsters. By his own admission, Max Allan Collins conceived of the series as a sort of "what if" Mike Hammer married his secretary, Velda, and then was killed?
A comic book blog dedicated to celebrating and mocking the excesses of the 1990's.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Review: Thunderstrike #4
Thunderstrike #4, “Evil Woman,” Cover Date January 1994
Written by Tom DeFalco, Penciled by Ron Frenz, Inked by Al Milgrom
In my previous Thor review, I comp’ed to never having been a big fan of the character’s solo series, emphasizing how at his worst, the character can be a little too similar to Superman with a funny accent. As such, I haven’t read much of Thunderstrike, so a lot of this information is second-hand.
Thunderstrike is Eric Masterson, an architect merged with Thor early in DeFalco’s run, echoing the “Dr. Donald Blake” alter ego of the silver age. Unlike other alter egos (except Captain Mar-Vell), Masterson kept his own personality, including an ex-wife and young son. For a time period, he served as Thor on his own, while Thor was exiled for killing Loki. After Thor came back, Odin created a new mace for Masterson. He debuted as “Thunderstrike,” a slightly less powerful 90’s version of Thor that got his own series in the 90’s.
Written by Tom DeFalco, Penciled by Ron Frenz, Inked by Al Milgrom
In my previous Thor review, I comp’ed to never having been a big fan of the character’s solo series, emphasizing how at his worst, the character can be a little too similar to Superman with a funny accent. As such, I haven’t read much of Thunderstrike, so a lot of this information is second-hand.
Thunderstrike is Eric Masterson, an architect merged with Thor early in DeFalco’s run, echoing the “Dr. Donald Blake” alter ego of the silver age. Unlike other alter egos (except Captain Mar-Vell), Masterson kept his own personality, including an ex-wife and young son. For a time period, he served as Thor on his own, while Thor was exiled for killing Loki. After Thor came back, Odin created a new mace for Masterson. He debuted as “Thunderstrike,” a slightly less powerful 90’s version of Thor that got his own series in the 90’s.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Review: NFL Superpro #7
NFL Superpro #7, "All Abuzz," Cover Date April, 1992
Written by Evan Skolnik, Penciled by Jose Delbo, Inked by Mike De Carlo
As anyone that even casually follows sports can tell you, it’s been a rough few months for the NFL. In the wake of video footage of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell have found themselves under increased media scrutiny, not helped by the fact that players continue to make headlines for beating their children, getting repeated DUIs, receiving drug suspensions and promptly losing thirty pounds, and otherwise behaving as less than ideal role models for children everywhere. Perhaps it’s time for the NFL to turn back to one hero they can always count on: NFL SuperPro!
Written by Evan Skolnik, Penciled by Jose Delbo, Inked by Mike De Carlo
As anyone that even casually follows sports can tell you, it’s been a rough few months for the NFL. In the wake of video footage of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell have found themselves under increased media scrutiny, not helped by the fact that players continue to make headlines for beating their children, getting repeated DUIs, receiving drug suspensions and promptly losing thirty pounds, and otherwise behaving as less than ideal role models for children everywhere. Perhaps it’s time for the NFL to turn back to one hero they can always count on: NFL SuperPro!
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Review: Thor #428
Thor #428, "If this be Juggernaut," Cover Date January, 1991
Written by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz (plot), Penciled by Ron Frenz, Inked by Joe Sinnott
Thor is one of those ongoing series ideas that I never really understood. A perfectly acceptable supporting character in the Avengers, he's kind of limited by being a pretty hugely boring character who speaks in a strange accent. He's had an on-going series on-and-off for nearly fifty years, and outside of Walt Simonson's run, in which recognized Thor's blandness by focusing on a diverse supporting cast and less on Thor, the series has more or less been pretty forgettable for the majority of that time. That said, one of the better forgettable runs on the book probably belong to Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, formerly of Amazing Spider-Man. The duo are perhaps best-remembered for their all-time classic Spidey story "the kid who collects Spider-Man," a story that could've so easily turned treacly, but managed to avoid it just long enough to bring on the waterworks for most Spidey fans. After leaving that book, the team stayed together elsewhere, moving to Thor post-Simonson, where their attempt to get around the "Thor is boring" problem was to introduce a new, untrained character into the Thor mythos. DeFalco and Frenz would later collaborate on an issue of "What If?" that featured Peter Parker's daughter, Spider-Girl, who would go on to have a pretty successful hundred issue run through the late 90's and 2000's that was a throwback to early Spider-Man stories, but with a bizarre influx of DeFalco's 90's Spider-Man work.
But enough preamble, let's get to the smiting!
Written by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz (plot), Penciled by Ron Frenz, Inked by Joe Sinnott
Thor is one of those ongoing series ideas that I never really understood. A perfectly acceptable supporting character in the Avengers, he's kind of limited by being a pretty hugely boring character who speaks in a strange accent. He's had an on-going series on-and-off for nearly fifty years, and outside of Walt Simonson's run, in which recognized Thor's blandness by focusing on a diverse supporting cast and less on Thor, the series has more or less been pretty forgettable for the majority of that time. That said, one of the better forgettable runs on the book probably belong to Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, formerly of Amazing Spider-Man. The duo are perhaps best-remembered for their all-time classic Spidey story "the kid who collects Spider-Man," a story that could've so easily turned treacly, but managed to avoid it just long enough to bring on the waterworks for most Spidey fans. After leaving that book, the team stayed together elsewhere, moving to Thor post-Simonson, where their attempt to get around the "Thor is boring" problem was to introduce a new, untrained character into the Thor mythos. DeFalco and Frenz would later collaborate on an issue of "What If?" that featured Peter Parker's daughter, Spider-Girl, who would go on to have a pretty successful hundred issue run through the late 90's and 2000's that was a throwback to early Spider-Man stories, but with a bizarre influx of DeFalco's 90's Spider-Man work.
But enough preamble, let's get to the smiting!
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Review: Deathblow #16
Deathblow #16, "Wildstorm Rising Chapter 16," Cover Date May 1995
Written by Steven Seagle, Penciled by Trevor Scott with Mel Rubi and Tom Raney, Inked by Trevor Scott, Rick Maygar, and Tom Rangy
I’ve expressed in the past that it’s more than a little unfair to reduce an entire decade, a decade that produced plenty of exceptional work, to its worst excesses. As easy as it is to mock the Death of Superman or X-Force, I really believe there is plenty of value to be mined reviewing these comics, and that most of the comics I review are worth a closer look.
And then there’s Deathblow #16, which sounds like a joke every time I write it. And the comic is about as good as you’d expect from the sixteenth issue of a title called “Deathblow.”
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Review: WildC.A.T.s #20
WildC.A.T.s #20, "Wildstorm Rising, Part 2," Cover Date May 1995
Written by James Robinson, Penciled by Travis Charest, Cover by Barry Windsor Smith, Inked by Troy Hubbs
It's been awhile since I've added a review here, mostly because I recently moved and start a new job on Monday, but if you want to hear my dulcet tones, remember to check out Your Stupid Minds for our bi-weekly podcast, which goes on regardless of my exciting life changes.
To celebrate my reduced schedule, here is a review of WildC.A.T.S., the poster comic for reduced scheduling! This issue is part 2 of Wildstorm's first company-wide crossover, and I'm sure it won't be an incomprehensible mess from the word "go," right? So let's get to it!
Written by James Robinson, Penciled by Travis Charest, Cover by Barry Windsor Smith, Inked by Troy Hubbs
It's been awhile since I've added a review here, mostly because I recently moved and start a new job on Monday, but if you want to hear my dulcet tones, remember to check out Your Stupid Minds for our bi-weekly podcast, which goes on regardless of my exciting life changes.
To celebrate my reduced schedule, here is a review of WildC.A.T.S., the poster comic for reduced scheduling! This issue is part 2 of Wildstorm's first company-wide crossover, and I'm sure it won't be an incomprehensible mess from the word "go," right? So let's get to it!
Friday, July 18, 2014
Quasar #18
Quasar #18, "The Bearable Lightness of Being," Cover Date January 1991
Written by Mark Gruenwald, Penciled by Greg Capullo, Inked by Keith Williams
One of the traps of writing about a decade of comics is to reduce a huge amount of work to a specific set of common tropes, and to make exceptions for "everything else" that doesn't fit into that narrative of what defines a decade. In reality, 10 years in most any media is a long time that sees more than one trend, and for comics in particular it was a time of rapid change. For Marvel in 1991, they were putting out more books than they ever had, but unlike their expansion later in the decade, there was such a huge new talent pool that Marvel was putting out some legitimately great books, and quite a few more that at the very least had a very talented artist working on them. In late 1990, you had Art Adams penciling Simonson scripts on a classic run of Fantastic Four, Jim Lee working with Claremont on X-Men, Todd McFarlane drawing long, flowing Hobgoblin capes on Spider-Man and Erik Larsen doing his best Steve Ditko impression on Amazing Spider-Man, while on Marvel's "second tier" of sellers you still had newcomer Mark Bagley working on New Warriors, JRJR penciling Iron Man (a natural fit since he didn't have to draw as many faces), Jim Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, a young Brian Hitch on Sensational She-Hulk, and Ron Frentz doing great work on Thor. In short, there was actually so much artistic talent that it didn't seem like such a bad idea to have 50 books a month being published. Unfortunately, within 2 years we'd see even more new titles as many of these artists abandoned Marvel to head for Image.
Written by Mark Gruenwald, Penciled by Greg Capullo, Inked by Keith Williams
One of the traps of writing about a decade of comics is to reduce a huge amount of work to a specific set of common tropes, and to make exceptions for "everything else" that doesn't fit into that narrative of what defines a decade. In reality, 10 years in most any media is a long time that sees more than one trend, and for comics in particular it was a time of rapid change. For Marvel in 1991, they were putting out more books than they ever had, but unlike their expansion later in the decade, there was such a huge new talent pool that Marvel was putting out some legitimately great books, and quite a few more that at the very least had a very talented artist working on them. In late 1990, you had Art Adams penciling Simonson scripts on a classic run of Fantastic Four, Jim Lee working with Claremont on X-Men, Todd McFarlane drawing long, flowing Hobgoblin capes on Spider-Man and Erik Larsen doing his best Steve Ditko impression on Amazing Spider-Man, while on Marvel's "second tier" of sellers you still had newcomer Mark Bagley working on New Warriors, JRJR penciling Iron Man (a natural fit since he didn't have to draw as many faces), Jim Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, a young Brian Hitch on Sensational She-Hulk, and Ron Frentz doing great work on Thor. In short, there was actually so much artistic talent that it didn't seem like such a bad idea to have 50 books a month being published. Unfortunately, within 2 years we'd see even more new titles as many of these artists abandoned Marvel to head for Image.
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