Was there once an America where hot short-skirted babes would queue up to bring a man hamburgers? If there was, WHY CAN WE NOT RETURN TO THIS MAGICAL LAND OF ENCHANTMENT?
There’s a seemingly endless list of questions posed by Superman’s godly powers, queries spawned from the minutiae of our workaday lives and how that small stuff would apply to a Man of Steel. A great many of them revolve around bodily functions. Wouldn’t he blow a hole in the toilet every time he took a leak? Does he even take leaks? When he’s in the throes of passion, wouldn’t he snap a frail human woman in two? Does he watch what he eats? Does he even eat? Even noted metropolitan newswomen ask such things.
This comic takes a swipe at just what a yellow sun fueled super-metabolism entails, and the caloric ramifications of a Kryptonian super-tummy. You will be all the better for this knowledge imparted from on high. I think.
In this Cary Bates penned, Curt Swan pencilled and Tex Blaisdell tale, the (new) Toyman is bopping around Metropolis pulling off assorted (and annoying) heists. During a news report on said shenanigans, WGBS anchorman Clark Kent (Go f–k yourself, Metropolis…) dozes off at his desk, earning the frothing ire of that modernized Perry White stand-in, Morgan Edge:
This isn’t an isolated incident. Clark seems to be developing a bad case of narcolepsy, one coupled with poor table manners, as we see at the aforementioned swank, pricey S.T.A.R. Labs fundraiser:
He isn’t just sleepy in his Clark Kent guise — even Superman has trouble keeping his eyes open:
Remember the poor etiquette at the fancy dinner? Well, not only is Supes all worn down, he needs gobs and gobs of calories to keep going, like some dude hauling a sled solo across Antarctica:
That’s MacTavish’s, the Earth-1 equivalent of McDonald’s. More on that in a moment. And, mercifully, Superman doesn’t corkscrew out a Randy Marsh sized movement after all this junk food.
In a subsequent tussle with the Toyman, our hero figures out that there’s something weird going on with that yellow sun radiation of which he’s so fond, something coming from down underground. He meets with the S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who headlined the earlier fundraiser, an egghead whose specialty is solar energy. This extremely bald gent crafts a special suit to help preserve Superman’s powers when he burrows into the Earth to put and end to the nonsense. The suit looks like a cross between a Mary Jane Watson dress and something Michael Jackson would have worn in his Captain EO days:
At least he’s kept his dignity in all of this.
He finds the problem, a glowing yellow ball that’s sucking up all the good radiation. He swaddles it in the special suit, which contains the malevolent effects. Everything is once again right with the world, and all that’s left is a denouement and a wink:
Back to MacTavish’s, the restaurant that seems to be benefitting greatly from Superman’s binge (the total number of burgers sold has gone from nine to ten billion during the course of this issue’s events — that’s a busy kitchen, people). If you look closely, you can see the mascot for this fictional chain, “Donald MacTavish,” the Earth-1 Ronald MacDonald. Granted, it’s a small little picture, but he looks a hell of a lot like the Joker. Not sure of the marketing associations that would unleash. Food. Folks. Fun. Deadly poison. Enjoy!
Anyway. To review: We now know what happens when the energy from Superman’s precious yellow sunbeams is taken from him. He gets hungry. Extremely hungry. He doesn’t lose his powers, but to maintain them he has to constantly eat. I’m sure this contradicts other comics. It seems that his powers would wane without the yellow sun energy, no matter how much Grade A beef he crammed into his gizzard. BUT THEN YOU WOULDN’T HAVE THE GREAT COVER WITH SUPERMAN SHOVELING BURGERS INTO HIS MOUTH. And that’s all that matters.
What we’ve really learned is that Julie Schwartz really new how to sell a damn book.
The little creep in red looks like he needs a good slap, what with his Snapper Carr mien and all. He’s devaluing book learning with every word that comes out of his smug mouth.
When your garish, overly elaborate signature is the most attention-grabbing aspect of your work of art, then your priorities might need some rearranging. THAT THING IS HUGE. It competes with both the Commander Koenig inset and the UPC box for space. It’s out of alignment with the cover’s diagonal arrangement. It has its own box, as if to say that the signature all by its lonesome is worthy of your rapt, undivided attention. DID I MENTION THAT IT’S HUGE?
Was Byrne, like John Hancock, hoping to draw the gaze of a near-sighted monarch? Overcompensation? He is a man who once inserted himself into a comic book so that he could lecture a comic book character on comic book character costumes. EVEN THE BARRIER BETWEEN FACT AND FICTION MEANS NOTHING TO HIM. So there’s that.
I’m willing to chalk the signature up to youthful exuberance. Though it could represent nascent egotism. You decide.
This comic represents some of the earliest published work of Byrne, the versatile writer/artist that we’ve come to know and love and tolerate and sometimes downright loathe. Let’s put the prickly personality traits aside for the moment, because it’s rather breathtaking to see art from someone clearly destined — granted, with the benefit of hindsight — for big things.
I didn’t scan much from this Nicola Cuti scripted issue because, to be perfectly frank, I could not possibly care less about the outer space adventures of Koenig, Maya & co. I read this comic and cannot relate to you any of the plot developments that unfolded within. But Byrne… Here are a couple of contiguous pages. I’m not overly enamored of tilted panels (I feel like I’m watching a Kenneth Branagh film), but the deep blacks, expressive poses and scale coupled with detailed backgrounds are things to fall for:
Perhaps no slice of this comic better captures what we were dealing with here — an artist literally breaking bounds of what came before — then this battle shot:
You have that detail and scope, but the three dimensionality is what truly puts you in the action. Koenig is holding the raygunslinging broad. There’s a ship crashing in the background. The blasts fired by the enemy ship are both in front of and behind the blonde, and that makes them almost seem to be coming at us. There’s motion. There’s depth. You’re in it. You feel the wind in your hair — or bare scalp, as the case is with me.
Again, I couldn’t care less about what went on here, but that has more to do with my disdain for a series that was, like other sci-fi kinsmen, incredibly wrong about the course of the near future. Not a big fan, but if you want a comparison with another graphic Space: 1999 tale, one was covered here a while back. Handy. I think you’ll find its characters, though perhaps more closely resembling Martin Landau and the rest of the troupe, were stiffly posed, and that it had none of the verve seen in the above panels. It’s as if Byrne was building with a whole different set of tools.
Maybe that signature was appropriate after all.
Nothing about getting a hummer from a sexy stew?
You want to move merchandise, TYCO? Then show Joe Jet nailing a stewardess before takeoff. Some Otto the Autopilot action. Adolescent boys will be lining up to follow his scale model railroad loving example.
Every time a see a model kit ad I want to tell the dorky kid within to get a life. Then I realize that I have closets brimming over with bagged, boarded and boxed comics, AND I REALIZE I AM NO BETTER THAN THOSE I MOCK. It’s an eye opener.
The lucite wall displays are still a bit much.
She’s a nagging bitch. There’s one reason this couple should not be wed. – The Flash #165
There’s a rather mild Easter Egg on this Murphy Anderson cover, if you’re inclined to break out your (metaphorical) magnifying glass and find it. It’s rather obvious. Really obvious.
Since it’s a new year, it seems like as good a time as any to balance my chi and cleanse the blog palate. To that end, I turn to my comic book North Star, Carmine Infantino and the Flash. Carmine isn’t for everyone, but goddamnit, he’s for me. That’s doubly true when he’s bringing life to a certain lightning bolted hero. Give me a dopey blog and an Infantino Flash comic to steer her by.
This selection, from deep in the blogintomystery.com archives (a locale guarded by a moat filled with snapping alligators), marks a seminal moment in the history of the Barry Allen Flash, as he weds his lady love, that nagging shrew, Iris West. His blushing, nothing-you-ever-do-is-good-enough bride. Mazel mazel, good things. And I shall refrain from making all Runaway Groom jokes in this post. YOU’RE WELCOME, PLANET EARTH.
Pull up a pew.
This is a small John Broome/Infantino/Joe Giella catered affair, just a few friends and family. Barry spends the night before his nuptials not getting a lap-dance from some big-jugged hottie while Superman, Batman, GL et al. feed him shots, but fighting crime. IT’S ALL HE KNOWS. He also has a few quiet moments wondering whether or not he should tell Iris of his double life as the Flash. Decisions, decisions.
On to the ceremony itself, with the former Mr. Element and Wally West representing the not-in-costume costumed contingent:
Even as bitchy Iris walks down the aisle, the moment so many young girls dream of, she can’t resist one last mental dig at her (unbeknownst) hero betrothed — AND THEN THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS:
The Flash interrupts Barry Allen’s wedding. Nuptia interruptus. But Barry Allen is the Flash. Though nobody knows that Barry Allen is the Flash. I’m sniffing the beginning of a classic “But I’m the [insert her0]!” story, one that has the potential to be extraordinarily awkward and revealing, to say the least.
Who could be behind this? Why, a certain someone with a unique propensity to mimic the guise of the Scarlet Speedster. Yes, that great negative image character, the Reverse-Flash.
Let’s flash (no pun intended) back a little ways and forward a long ways. Professor Zoom was once again possessed by the urge to meddle in the affairs of his ancient history, and, envious of Barry Allen’s charmed existence, decided to assume his foe’s identity. To that end he sucked Barry to the 25th century (in a most gratifyingly Infantinoish manner) and did the old switcheroo:
Who knew that your Norelco could work such wonders? Yet it gives you a crappy shave. Huh.
Zoom had gone full-bore in his new I.D., including some mild crime-fighting and going through with the wedding (though he didn’t look happy about the latter — perhaps he had an inkling of Iris’ acid tongue). At the same time in the future (only in the realm of comics can such a phrase exist), the real Flash used some bewilderingly questionable science to theorize about how to break out of his prison and return to his own time:
But escape he does, which brings us back to the “present.” Barry kidnaps “Barry” and once away from the assembled guests they agree to duel for the right to marry Iris. You might wonder why Barry doesn’t inquire just what Zoom’s claim to Iris is exactly, but whatever, this challenge means it’s time for high-speed ass-kicking. SPEED LINES AND SPLATS GALORE:
After chasing the Reverse-Flash through neighborhoods, up the sides of buildings and all over the damn place, our Flash triumphs. Zoom is zapped back to his own time by future authorities (thanks, guys), and the wedding is back on. Iris is shockingly complaint-free despite her great day being interrupted, and remarkably accepting of Barry’s “It was all a misunderstanding, I’ll tell you later” explanation for “his” kidnapping — I guess there was another wedding booked right after them or something. LET’S LIGHT THIS CANDLE.
Barry, you may kiss the bride:
All that’s left is the honeymoon, where Barry is still all tied up in knots on whether to tell Iris about his second job:
When I was in college and law school, I hated with a fiery, nuclear fusiony passion when the professors would make the class break up into discussion groups. Instead of hearing the person paid to educate me drone on, I got to listen to the assorted drips that formed my peer group drone on, people who often reeked of cigarettes and threatened to drag me down into their moron hell. Not to claim that I was ever some boy genius, but WHAT EXACTLY AM I PAYING FOR HERE? was bouncing through my head at such junctures. This comic’s final panels seem to invite us to break up into discussion groups, an association that vexes me to no end. DC, if you want my opinion, you pay ME, okay? I’ll expect a check for my 12 cents, with accrued interest, in the mail soon. Consider it a fine for breaking the fourth wall in that last panel, and breaking it for something tacked on and stupid.
Lest that faint sour taste linger, let it be said that I could look at an Infantino-drawn Flash vs. Reverse-Flash high-speed battle every day for the rest of my life and never once fail to see the colorful exuberance in it. It’s perhaps the purest Silver Age joy that exists. It’s delicious.
And one can’t read this issue without thinking of later, darker events between Barry, Iris and Zoom. The Reverse-Flash killed Iris. The Flash killed the Reverse-Flash. The Flash was put on trial for his life. It turned out that Iris was still alive in the future. Barry joined her there. And then Barry died in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Most of these latter events occurred when I was reading the title as a kid, and make up a part of the bedrock of my fandom. This comic is like the bedrock of the bedrock.
Chi balanced. Palate cleansed. I am ready for the new year, and whatever it may bring.
Let this Norman Rockwell drawing high kick us out of the NFL season and into the new year
It’s that special time of year when I’m simultaneously filled with 1) unfathomable sadness at the close of the 17 week NFL gorge and 2) renewed optimism at a fresh new calendar stretching out before me. HAPPY NEW YEAR.
A sweater vest. A pipe. A model train. DAD’S WORLD IS COMPLETE.
I get the feeling that if Dad heard that “HEE-HEE,” his loving embrace would be quickly withdrawn. And a “HO Raceway” conjures up a different set of images for model train non-aficionados.
Yeah Spidey, but smoking makes you look so boss and cool… – Spider-Man, Storm and Power Man (vs. THE DEMON TOBACCO)
This is yet another in the long line of drug PSAs masquerading as comics, one-offs that barely restrain themselves from lurching into a Reefer Madness degree of hysteria. They’re unhip. They’re square. Their good intentions are drowned in a sea of unartistic lecturing. All that’s not to say that railing against childhood drug use is a bad thing. Far from it. But with a little distance, a dash of perspective, snorting spilled blow off restroom floor tiles can be a bit much.
Cigarettes aren’t good for you. But they’re legal. They were legal when this comic was published (1982). Maybe not for kids, but good God. The underlying ninnyism here makes some of the Edwin Moses leaps in this comic stretch credulity to its breaking point. It’s nicotine, people. It’s not healthy. But it’s not human sacrifice, nor is it bathing in fresh entrails.
Is there anyone out there that doesn’t know about that lung cancer, emphysema, and leathery skin stuff? Anyone? Well, if all that’s not enough, this comic seems to postulate that teenage smoking can lead to a descent into the world of organized crime and youth track meet betting schemes. THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED.
Not only that, it features one of the oddest assemblages of good guy talent you’re likely to see.
Luke Cage is taking a break from knocking people’s teeth out to coach a youth track team. Coincidentally, Peter Parker is covering their practice for the Daily Bugle in what must be the lowest moment of his measly photog career. Maybe he pissed in J. Jonah’s coffee or something.
Anyway, the star runner is coming up a bit short in practice, and I THINK YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING:
After a concerned Cage follows young Bret to a rendezvous with some of his new smoking-friendly pals (low-level hoodlums), Peter, now in his Spider-Man guise, shows up, engages in his usual insufferably glib banter, and then calls in backup. This is a real five alarm superhero crisis, after all. Perhaps nothing made me raise an eyebrow more in this comic than Spider-Man reaching out to Storm for an assist. Seems arbitrary. Wouldn’t there be about fifty other names that would leap out as he flipped through his hero Rolodex? As he scrolled down his Facebook friends (so to speak)? Storm? Really? What, Speedball wasn’t available? Maybe he has a thing for her.
Storm and her weather powers (She can extinguish a cigarette with a mere windy whim!) are soon incapacitated when she stumbles onto Smokescreen, the villain for the cover who wears the unfortunate initials SS on his chest. Not only is he a crook, he’s a subliminal Nazi. Eventually the hoods and Smokescreen spring their fiendish plot on naive young Bret — YOU’RE GOING TO THROW THAT YOUTH MEET, KID:
Betting on a scholastic track competition has to rank someplace below Puerto Rican cockfighting in the Degenerate Gambler Hierarchy.
Lo and behold, Spider-Man, Luke and a resuscitated Storm quickly put an end to this nonsense, with Luke giving a little extra punctuation by cracking a pool table over the goons. Fun.
We wrap things up with our lesson for the day, after Bret gives the big race his all but still loses:
Biggest bunch of crooks, Spidey? Really? These douchewibblers were worse than the Kingpin? REALLY? YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED ME THIS DAY, WEB-SLINGER.
In case the threat of idiot mobsters isn’t enough to turn you off of the cancer sticks, maybe some simple opportunity cost will change your mind:
That kid smoking there on the bottom looks pretty damn happy, doesn’t he?
This story fails on every level. The boring (and rather tame) health information provided is undermined by the ridiculous plot, one that pushes the bounds of silliness to unprecedented reaches. It backfires about as bad as that time Hank Hill tried to teach Bobby the evils of smoking. It assuredly drove more kids to smoking out of spite than it brought back into the fold, like those smug, smarmy Truth commercials that made me want to side with Big Tobacco. The enemy of my enemy…
There are no credits given for who put this comic together, and that’s a small mercy to the poor souls who were saddled with it. Blessed anonymity.
I’ve yet to see any anti-smoking campaign counter the fact — FACT — that smoking makes you look cool, something that’s been drilled into our heads by decades of cinema classics. I’m not a smoker, but I’ve smoked. And when I’ve put that cigarette between my lips and drawn that first draft of smooth goodness, I’ve felt like James Dean. A rebel. Humphrey Bogart. A man. Surgeon General Warnings be damned.
My father’s G.I. Joe can kick your G.I. Joe’s ass
I grew up in the 1980s G.I. Joe era, when every character had fruity backstories and gimmicks, and even wisecracking pet parrots. All the tech they carried and rode around in was nice in a whiz-bang way, and the child me that thought Fruit Roll-Up Bars were a wholesome snack found these flashy Joes peachy-keen. The original G.I. Joe seemed so dull. Boring. “Oh, you’re a soldier? THEN WHERE’S YOUR DAMN PARROT?”
Now I understand that the old-timey Joes could eat the new-fangled versions for lunch. Even Snake-Eyes. Make necklaces out of their finger bones and charm bracelets out of their teeth. The above Green Beret and with his bazooka now has a spartan masculinity that easily trumps the gizmos. And I’m fine with all that. Sign me up for the (old) G.I. Joe Club.
A toy that can make toys. THE TOYS ARE TAKING OVER.
One shudders to think what was in the toxic goop that was used to make these things. Was there an actual neighborhood secondary market for homemade Creeple Peeple? Was that how Warren Buffett got his start?
I’m of the opinion that any product referred to as “em” in an advertisement is inherently worthless. PROVE ME WRONG.
Simon & Kirby: A Final Elegy – Boy Commandos #1
Sometimes people are called upon to eulogize the dear departed without ever having met the deceased, to say a few kind sentences over the grave though they knew the lost by deeds alone. No one is calling on me to say word one about Joe Simon, and with good reason. A dopey blog written by someone who had no exposure to Simon’s output growing up, a person who only stumbled onto it later in life, is hardly the forum or the person to provide fulfilling perspective on a life and a legacy. At least with Gene Colan, another great who left us this year, I had the pleasure of enjoying some of the art from the tail end of his career. Simon was well — WELL — before my time.
Yet, to not bang out a few words before the end of the year wouldn’t be right. It would leave some karmic gap, and I do have a thing or two to say about the man. It’s been close to two weeks since Mr. Simon’s passing, and those with greater knowledge have tossed out their tributes and obituaries. Time to leave my solitary flower amongst the bouquets and wreaths.
It’s not only Joe Simon that passed on December 14th. That day also marked the terminus of Simon & Kirby, one of the most revered bylines in the history of comics. Jolly Jack long ago left us, but his varied and lengthy career went on to greater personal renown after he left that ampersanded duo. I always think “Silver Age” when I see or hear Kirby’s name. Simon’s Golden Age material was where his mark was made, and he’s long carried the fire from those foundational decades. He was an embodiment.
Simon & Kirby. Just typing it makes your fingers happy.
It’s perhaps fitting to look back at one small slice of that great tandem. Let’s go back to their greatest World War II creation. No, Silly Rabbit, not Captain America. THE BOY COMMANDOS, BABY. And I write that without a scintilla of irony.
In what must have been acute fantasy fulfillment for every child of the 1940s with a shiny dime pressed between their grubby little fingers, the Boy Commandos, kids just like those urchins in floppy hats, TOOK IT RIGHT TO THE GODDAMN AXIS. Rip Carter and his smart-aleck orphans were like the Dirty Dozen mixed with a Boy Scout troop, earning badges not from making fire by rubbing twigs together but by grenading filthy Nazis straight to hell.
It was far-fetched. It was ludicrous. And Simon, with his dialogue and pacing, invested it with tremendous energy. He made it work. He made it fun.
This 1970s book reprints two classic Boy Commandos stories, with a recolored cover from the original Boy Commandos #1. The first entry (from Detective Comics #66) is told in flashback, as a mummy in the far future recounts his encounter with the Commandos. Yes, you read that correctly:
How can you not love this?
Lest we forget Kirby… There’s a simple compositional beauty to his depiction of Nazi-occupied North Africa:
In the high point of this tale’s hijinks, the Commandos stage an elaborate trap for their Nazi pursuers, and it reads like some riotous fusion of Our Gang with The Three Stooges and a dash of Keystone Kops thrown in for good measure:
This. Is so. Good. And this is coming from someone who’s normally bored to death by Golden Age storytelling.
The second tale (from the aforementioned BC #1) is beyond preposterous, asking us to believe that Rip and the Boy Commandos are reincarnated every 40 years or so to battle evil. In China. The mummy is starting to seem tame and banal.
A product of its time, this story has no qualms about depicting an elderly Chinese man as a desiccated, shrivelled, jaundiced monkey:
Remember that old Chris Rock SNL skit, The Dark Side with Nat X? There was a line in there that said Nat was a man “so black, he’s blue.” This guy is so yellow he’s orange. AND HE’S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS.
Still, the story roars along and Kirby’s art shines. Take this battle scene, as a prior iteration of the Commandos storms Chinese fortifications at Yen-Tse:
You can smell the gunpowder.
There’s a delightful naiveté in these stories, a childish sense that nothing is impossible, even beyond the idea that kids who should be chucking newspapers at doors are fierce (and effective) warriors. The sky’s the limit. A green mummy granting an interview in the future and the Boy Commandos returning in cycles like Halley’s Comet to cleanse the Earth of evil-doers one wise-crack at a time — IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO SMILE AT THESE CONCEITS. And that all falls to Simon. Taking nothing away from Kirby’s nascent mastery, one has to give a wheelbarrow of credit to the ink-ribbon stained wretch. These stories aren’t just entertaining to look at. They’re entertaining reads. Even today.
I was in the midst of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay when news of Simon’s death hit the web. That literate take on the birth of the American superhero, borrowing heavily as it does from the Simon/Kirby experience, makes one appreciate the toils and travails of Golden Age scripters and artists all the more. I’m not saying that Simon died at just the right time for me (THANK GOD HE DID SO I COULD MORE FULLY APPRECIATE MY STUPID BOOK — that’s not what I’m getting at) . I’m simply pointing out a sad context. The timing made me think and reflect a little more than I might have otherwise.
Anyway, I thank him — sincerely and profusely — for his contributions. He will be missed, and he will be remembered. No doubt about that.
The Boy Commandos comics have been reprinted in some nice volumes. Maybe they’d make a nice purchase if some of that Christmas money is burning a hole in your pocket. Just a thought.
Time to separate the (boxes of) men from the boys
The Day After Christmas: the proving ground of toys, where some are marked for the future glory of nostalgic remembrance and others are consigned to the shadowy reaches of the toy box, never to be seen or heard from again until a decades-later garage sale.
No matter how many accoutrements they might come with, boxes of static men could never get me going, even if they were incorporated into actual games like in this ad. I lacked imagination, I guess. They were great, however, for melting under a magnifying glass and getting swallowed by the dog. And I’m sure the heroes of Chickamauga up in Elysium are beaming with pride at the above tribute.
Straight into the dark corner of the toy box.
Also, I’m not certain whether company-name “Helen of Toy” should be slapped or applauded. In the spirit of the season, I’ll go for the latter.
Merry What’s Left Of Christmas
‘Nuff said.
Crappy new versions of venerable characters. A pink stocking. IT’S A VERY NEW ARCHIES CHRISTMAS. – The New Archies #12
My parents are good people. We weren’t a rich family by any stretch of the imagination, but Christmas was always a happy time in our household while I was growing up. They made a valiant effort to satisfy my youthful greed, tolerating me as I’d go through the holiday catalogues like a snotty little bastard, circling the plastic garbage that I wanted wrapped up under the tree OR ELSE. They laughed me off when I’d beg for one of those lame gigantic remote-controlled robots that were a staple of the Sears/Montgomery Wards wares, but more often than not Santa showed up with a lot of the crap that fulfilled all my youthful desires. It was generous parental indulgence.
It sometimes came with a price, though. I can remember my mother, as I was tearing paper off of boxes like a whirling banshee, reminding me that there were a lot of people less fortunate out there. This would strike like a depressing bolt out of the blue. I understand what she was going for. She wanted to remind me that, well, that there were people less fortunate out there. To count my blessings. It was a good intention, but it would take a lot of air out of the balloon. A buzz-kill. Debbie Downer.
There’s an undeniable impulse to put a damper on Christmas cheer, to take the edge off the sugar. Take a dump in the nutmeg. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, whether it’s mothers or storytellers. We’ve seen that transfer over to comics, and in more than one place.
I can think of nothing — NOTHING — more sugary sweet than an Archie Christmas tale. Nothing could need a takedown more than that. AND THIS COMIC DELIVERS BIGTIME.
And this is no ordinary Archie book. These are the New Archies, one of many misguided attempts (the Muppet Babies are at the front of that list) to update a venerable property. The flagship was a short-lived cartoon (centered around younger, slightly altered versions of Archie, Jughead, et al.), and that in turn spun off this equally short-lived comic.
It was like Ultimate Archie, and it was worthy of a Punisher rampage. But it gave us this happy/sad/happy again story. where the gang comes face to face with an old guy living in an alleyway cardboard box. Strap in.
If you’re not in the right mood, here’s an AIDS PSA to get you in the proper key for a Christmas dirge:
We open this Mike Pellowski/Henry Scarpelli carol with Mr. Andrews fully enmeshed in the second pain of Christmas:
YOU’RE SO SMART, YOU PUT THEM UP!
Downer time. Even Riverdale (or New Riverdale, as the case may be) has a homeless problem — but at least they’re cheery Riverdaley homeless, with whiskers and patched jeans and no paranoid schizophrenia:
A conscience-ridden Archie decides to bring old Jake (*cough* Elizabeth Smart *cough*) home like a wayward pup, prompting Mr. Andews to undergo the fastest change of heart in the history of comics:
A shave and some fresh clothes later and Jake’s a brand new de-aged James Broliny man:
An electrician you say? Hey, wasn’t Mr. Andrews having problems with the lights?:
Oh my God — if Joe had AIDS, this story would be perfect! PERFECT!
Merry Christmas.
Jared
blog into mystery 