The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1718: Thundercats #1, December 1985

I have some nice nostalgic feelings about Thundercats. I remember watching the series as a kid, being annoyed by Snarf, but generally enjoying the story.

This comic didn't quite have the same effect, though whether that's quality of narrative or distance of nostalgia, I'm not sure. There's a flimsy set-up (planet destroyed, this group is the only one that survives the escape), and then some action, and then some more action on "Third Earth." (I'm actually fascinated with where humans must fit in this world - if it's Third Earth, does that mean humans colonized it? And where did Mum-Ra come from?)

I was curious in the first couple of pages as to whether or not the characters were, for the most part, naked. They seem to be, as Tygra, at least, is walking around in bear (or tiger) feet. Chetara has boots, as does Panthro, but it doesn't look like they're wearing clothes. Which makes sense. If you look at a cat, they're not wearing clothes, though one could make the case that that's what fur would look like on an anthropomorphic creature.

I think about these things too much.

"H-how am I supposed to use the sword, Jaga? I-I can't even lift it!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1717: Droids #1, April 1986

I very much enjoyed the Droids cartoon when it was on TV. I even had a couple of the action figures based on the series. Though more comedic than the original films, the series sated a need for Star Wars in my young soul. Bear in mind that this is post-Jedi, so we really thought that there was no more of the story coming. Droids served as a prequel to A New Hope, and a better one than the prequels we eventually got. With the exception of Rogue One, a true prequel to A New Hope.

Today's comic highlights something about Artoo and 3P0 that has always interested me: they seem to find new people to serve simply by serendipity. I think there might be something to be said about this serendipitous nature throughout the films and ancillary media, and it really reinforces the fan theory that the films are being told by Artoo at some point in the future. Despite being mechanical beings, the two often function quite magically in the series. Artoo always manages to find the right fix just in the nick of time, and 3P0 gets into situations that often lead to unintended, but important, outcomes.

And before I let this one go, I do have to mention the uncomfortable bit about the droids looking for a "Master" to serve. I find the idea more and more uncomfortable as the world slides inexorably rightward.

"The X-Ones were defense robots, programmed to automatically fight against any hostile act!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1716: Chuck Norris #3, May 1987

Yep. There was a Chuck Norris comic for a little while. Any you know what? This particular issue, at least, was way better than it had any right to be. It's proof positive that you can tell a good story regardless of the setting and characters, and any inherent ridiculousness therein.

In today's issue, we get three stories of how Tabe (the sumo wrestler) first met Chuck, as he tries to help some other members of the "Kommandos" with problems they're having. As a side note, I've never really understood the proclivity to replace a letter with another letter just to have it match the first letter of another word. Commandos still alliterates with Karate without misspelling it. And when those words are only spoken (like in the cartoon that this comic is based on), the replaced letter simply makes no sense.

Just a small thing, and it doesn't take away from the masterful storytelling by Jo Duffy and Steve Ditko. Though I know little to nothing about any of the characters in this comic, their interactions with Tabe reveal depths both to those the sumo helps and to the wrestler himself, so much so that I'll probably pick up another issue of the series if I see one on the cheap because I'm actually interested in the characters. I'm probably kidding myself that they'll be as good as this issue, but you really never can tell.

"And now, Chuck Norris, we shall see which of us is the superior swordsman."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1715: Heathcliff #13, December 1986

Heathcliff just doesn't speak to me. I don't know why. The jokes are amusing, the artwork quirky and well done. But, as I've said before, he's no Garfield, and the stories are far too surface-oriented. There's a really great essay by Sigmund Freud called "The Uncanny" that talks about the perception of the world by children, and posits that the best children's writing acknowledges the very strange place that the world can be for young people. Heathcliff's world is strange, but no one ever seems to acknowledge that strangeness. In fact, the strange things are played off as normal, everyday events. And I'm not really sure why.

"Maybe this is a 3-D movie, Heathcliff!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1714: Masters of the Universe #3, September 1986

One thing I am curious about is whether or not the artists on these toy-related series had any prior knowledge of the toys that were coming out. I remember when Hordak's Slime Pit was released, but I wonder how close to the release of that toy this comic showed up, similarly with the Meteorbs from last issue. Given the amount of time that a comic takes for production, is it possible that the toys had been out for some time, which would make the comic a reminder of their existence, or is this more a preview of things to come, which would suit the advertisement aspect of the comic far better.

It doesn't really matter, but I find that's the case with so many things that fascinate me. I often think that if I wasn't so drawn to things of ephemeral importance in our society, I'd probably be in a much better state than I am these days. But there's something about the things we throw away, and about the people who love them so much, that I just can't leave behind.

I'm missing two issues of this series, and as nostalgia increases for people of my age, they're harder and harder to track down. I'd like to because I really do think this is the most pure iteration of the characters and series, outside perhaps of the mini-comics that came with the original toys. While the Star series, and the cartoon it's based upon, humanize the characters somewhat, the mini-comics tend to treat the characters far more archetypally, which is perhaps a better way of approaching them. Each character is defined by a single aspect (Triclops, Beastman, Man-At-Arms), a way of thinking about characters that is much more in line with pantheonic thinking, rather than human. If they're Masters of the Universe, shouldn't there be something godly about them? The Star comics series, in giving them more human personalities, takes these aloof gods and renders them much more like the Greek pantheon. Neither is necessarily a bad take on archetypal beings.

"The Slime Pit has exploded! And there, coming through the debris, is He-Man!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1713: Masters of the Universe #2, July 1986

I've waxed lyrical about the Star Comics Masters of the Universe before, so what better title that this to kick off a week exploring Marvel's all-ages comics line from the mid-80s. Much like the Transformers and G.I.Joe titles that preceded it, this comic has to wrestle with being both story and prolonged advertisement, and writer Mike Carlin handles this divide with grace. There is the introduction, on an issue-by-issue basis, of new toys and characters, a problem that plagued the Transformers comic to such an extent that I actually stopped buying it at one point. Unfortunately the point that I stopped buying the comic was just as the popularity of the franchise was starting to wane, and the stories were much less dependent on cleaving to the toys. The same happens with MOTU, and by the last couple of issues (which I reviewed a few years back) the attention to the toys has all but disappeared. Not quite the case with today's early issue, but the fact is that the story, action, dialogue, characters, are all very nicely realized, with the advertisement becoming something of a backdrop to the action.

I really love this series, though part of me is wondering if my youthful attachment to it maybe had something to do with the muscular main character and his distinct lack of much clothing...

"I too crave vengeance on the blond one--..and perhaps together we can destroy both of our enemies for all time!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 880: Droids #6, February 1987

One of my favourite Star Wars comics is called Tag and Bink are Dead, written by Kevin Rubio, and styled after Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It follows the adventures of two rebel soldiers who pop in and out of the backgrounds of many of the famous scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy. It's very clever, and trades on the ubiquity of knowledge of the events of Star Wars to increase its humour.

I'd kind of hoped that today's comic would be similar in execution, and it is to a certain extent. What keeps this comic from achieving the same level of metatext and commentary as Tag and Bink, though, is that this comic is explicitly linked to a children's cartoon. Droids was relatively successful when it came out, as was it's companion show Ewoks. But they were both definitely designed for younger audiences, and the comics versions are too. Instead of humorous entrances and exits into familiar action, which does happen a little bit, we instead get pretty much a retelling of the first half of Episode 4, interspersed with strange little side adventures (like with a weird race of mole creatures that live under the desert on Tatooine and worship an "acid lizard." Had the comic not been linked to the cartoon, I imagine we might have seen amusing commentary on the actions we've come to know and love, and different perspectives on how the events progress. What is C-3P0's take on the Rebellion, and the frankly haphazard way that Luke, Han, Chewie, and Leia go about their business of overthrowing a dictatorship? Would he even want that to happen?

Were the retelling a bit more self-aware, I'd likely track it down. But it's not, so we get a little taste of what the Droids comic and cartoon were like, how Star Wars (episode 4, that is) might have played out as a children's cartoon, and of Marvel's second (?) attempt to adapt this story. The first one, I think, was more successful.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 782: Masters of the Universe #1, May 1986

I've waxed lyrical about the end of this series already, a fantastic story pencilled by today's featured creator, Ron Wilson, so I thought we'd look at the beginning of the series as well. Unfortunately, it pales in comparison quite a bit. I mentioned in my previous posts on this series that it's only when a toy-based comic gets to a point where the toys upon which it was based are no longer popular that the characters and story can actually come out from beneath the marketing and flourish. At the time of this first comic's appearance, He-Man and his compatriots were still popular enough to have a television series and a still-lucrative toy line. Though the series is only 13 issues long, it was published bi-monthly, so we're seeing 2 years worth of comics. And 2 years can be a long time in the life of a children's toy. By the time 1988 rolls around, and "Lifetime" is presented in the final issues of the series, the toy line was winding down. Hence the good story.

This is, of course, not to say that today's story was necessarily bad, only that it was definitely skewed toward showing the toys to kids, rather than telling them a story. We get two views of castles in this issue, one of Greyskull and one of Skeletor's lair, Snake Mountain. And they are, quite literally, views of what the toy versions of those locations would look like if placed on a rocky, barren landscape. I know this not only because I've seen the toys, but because I had them way back when. Even at the issue's end, when He-Man is trapped in Hordak's "Fright Zone," the creature that attacks him looks literally like the hand puppet that comes with that set. While this might be good for advertising, some creative license needs to be taken in depicting toys as dynamic objects within a narrative.

Mr. Wilson's depictions of these toys, however, are very accurate, and given the ridiculousness of the characters he's been given to draw, he does a decent job of trying to twist someone like Leech, a character who drains life energy through suction cups on his hands, though the toy version simply has large flat suction cups for hands - how exactly does he do anything else? He looks like the toy in the comic, but really looks like he wouldn't survive long trying to do anything other than stick to a window. This said, it's also the first issue of the series. I imagine that rather than doing character design work, Mr. Wilson was simply given reference pictures of the toys and told to go to.

Masters of the Universe continues to be a popular franchise, though mostly with those who enjoyed the toys as kids, and in the later series of the story it gets a bit of a grit-washing in order to appeal to those grown fans. But the Wilson/Carlin iteration of the series was the longest-running comic during the first run of both toy and cartoon, and therefore holds an important place in the history of the franchise.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 593: Master of the Universe The Motion Picture #1, 1987

A few weeks back I read through Paul Chadwick's Concrete: Fragile Creature mini-series, in which the title character assists on a film set for Rulers of the Omniverse, a movie based on a children's toy line. I thought it would be amusing, and slightly metatextual, to review the comics adaptation of the movie that Chadwick apes in his story.

I was a huge fan of the Masters of the Universe toy line - my brothers and I had the figures, the castles and playsets, the vehicles. I even collected the comic well after I'd lost interest in the toys and cartoons, and the final couple of issues of the Marvel series, a dystopian possible future story for Eternia, are just excellent. On top of this, I remember fondly the movie coming out, though it only slightly captured the feel and strangeness of the toy. (Also, Courtney Cox, well before Friends, and a little after Misfits of Science, starred, and I've always liked her.)

It's that capturing of the strangeness of the toys that I'd like to focus on. The designs of this comic are much more in line with the toys, cartoons, and comics for MOTU, much more so than the actual movie. Now, partially I'm sure, this is because Dolph Lundgren would have looked ridiculous in He-Man's costume - I'm teaching my students Michael Chabon's "Secret Skin" tomorrow, and in he talks about attempts to realize superhero costumes in our own physical reality, and the failure of such ventures. I think the furry-shorted He-Man might suffer a similar problem. But that the comics adaptation went with the original designs allows it to fit more properly with the stories that were being told in the comics. It's for reasons like this that I continue to wonder where the series would have gone had it been able to continue after the cancellation of the toy line. Today's comic reads much like a finale to the whole He-Man versus Skeletor story, with Skeletor finally victorious, and a few of the last Eternian heroes rallying to defeat him. It's a pity we don't see more of the other heroes, but the three major players are present. The comic also plays down the magical aspect of Eternia significantly, making everything much more science fictional than the source material, and replacing the annoying Orko with the equally annoying Gwildor.

One thing that I find odd is that Beastman, a staple of the toys and cartoons and comics, and one of the more recognizable of the villains, is illustrated in this comic in his film version, rather than his toy version, unlike every other character in the comic. It's an odd choice, especially since Beastman's original clown-meets-bear design is quite strange and intimidating.

So, not a terrible comic, but not a great one. Probably a better story as a comic than it was as a movie, but nostalgia cleanses so many sins from our memories.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 420: Masters of the Universe (Marvel) #13, May 1988 ("Hey Kids! Comics!" Week, Epilogue)

Part 2 of the "Lifetime" story is also the final story to be told of the Masters of the Universe in this particular iteration of the series. It's a fitting ending to the series, and offers a more blatant, but still somewhat effecting, version of the end of Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, the notion of the story never ending, of the battle of good against evil being an ongoing struggle.

More and more I think that there's a link between serialization and mythification that's an important thing for us to be thinking about. Why do we create never-ending stories? The easy answer is that to cap a franchise such as this one is to terminate its usefulness as a marketing vehicle. But a quick glance at the revisions and re-imaginings of just about everything these days trumps that idea. Even if a story is finished, it can be (over)hauled back out and told again. There's something deeper happening, some thing pedagogical, I think. If we are presented with a definitive victory of good over evil, we are taught that good can triumph - this is simply unrealistic, and despite the setting and premise of the series, the lessons it teaches need to have real world application. The struggle between good and evil, however one might define such terms, must be ongoing for it to have meaning. And it's not even the external struggle to which such teaching moments are directed, but toward our inner dialogues and the struggle against our lesser angels.

Which is to say that, as He-Man proclaims his renewed dedication to the struggle against Skeletor, the story teaches us to face evil head on, always, and not back down. A simple message, perhaps, but a fundamental one.

Barring suggestions from readers, I think we may move on to a week of romance comics tomorrow. I have some fairly old pieces from the genre, and they're certainly amongst the least-read of the various genres in the collection. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 419: Masters of the Universe (Marvel) #12, March 1988 ("Hey Kids! Comics!" Week, Day 7)

I left this comic until last because it's one of my favourite children's/toy comics in the collection. And I think I may have to extend "Hey Kids! Comics!" week by one day so I can read the conclusion to this story. I've read that when the Transformers line of toys started to wane in popularity, Simon Furman was given free reign to tell stories not contingent on the merchandise that was associated with the title, and it's these stories that are actually the best ones in the series. I wonder if such a think might be behind this He-Man tale. We see in this story a post-Skeletor vision of Eternia, a young Prince Adam decrying his heroic alter-ego, and the deaths of beloved characters. It's dark, and a bit grim, and manages to do some remarkably interesting things with characters that are, more than occasionally, ridiculous. The covers of these last two issues of the series are amazing (as you'll see tomorrow as well), and the story within hints at what could have been had the series been given a few more issues to find its feet. It moves from toy-related advertisement to thoughtful fantasy series in a very short space of time - where it might have gone afterward is, sadly, only a matter for speculation.

Masters of the Universe has been revived a couple of times since this comic folded, but I've never been quite as impressed with the stories (though I haven't read that many of them) as I am with this one. There's a naivety around it, in that it hasn't been grit-washed to appeal to the grown fans of the line - it's still a colourful children's comic, but an intelligent one, which is in the minority when it comes to this genre of comics, I'm finding.

We'll really finish up with the kids' comics tomorrow, and then move on to another genre. See you then.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 131:Heathcliff #17, August 1987

I have a fairly substantial amount of children's comics in my collection, and I have to admit that, for the most part, they're the ones I'm looking least forward to reading. Kid's comics are great when they're written not as kid's comics, but as comics with a good story that are suitable for all-ages. I think that there's perhaps a difference to be explored between "All-Ages" comics and kid's comics. All-ages comics appeal to exactly that, all ages. Kids comics, on the other hand, don't always.

I picked up a stack of comics for $10 today at a local flea market, and amongst them was this Heathcliff title. When he was younger, my son loved Heathcliff, so I've got a few issues kicking about, but I've never actually read them. I always viewed Heathcliff as a less-intelligent version of Garfield....

...and I was right.

The saving grace of this particular issue is that Heathcliff gains superpowers and briefly becomes "The Masked Moocher," proving that the superhero genre is capable of being deployed in the most unusual of places.

Heathcliff was okay, I suppose, for what it is. But what it is doesn't seem to do much. If one looks to the comics that kids used to read (think of Mad or the EC Comics lines), there were layers to those works that spoke not only the relatively primitive language of children, but acknowledged that there's a lot more going on in that primitive language than we sophisticates might be willing to admit. Slapstick, which is a tradition that Heathcliff grows from, has an element of satire built into its fabric, one that writers of children's comedy comics would do well to recall. Kids understand that the world we live in is a weird and ridiculous place. It's only as adults that we start seeing that ridiculousness as normal.

That was a bit disjointed. I promise I'll get back on track this week. It's been a weird few days. See you tomorrow.