I swore I’d never return, but they dragged me back. I’m talking about the comic book store, of course. Why? Why God, why? I don’t know. The only local comic book store in town is within walking distance of my workplace (along with a great used bookstore and a great hamburger place and a great pizza place). I’ve gone to work early a few times, so I could walk over to the downtown mall for a late lunch before clocking in. Passing by the new Zia Comics location, I went in to give them a shot. I don’t even really remember why, but now I’m checking their weekly releases online.
Seeing what’s coming out each week has reminded me why I gave up on comics: they don’t want mine (or even maybe anybody’s) business. New comics are crap. I just want a fun little superhero story, not a lesson in feminism and other such nonsense. I also want no part of some enormous, pointless mega-crossover epic that needs 30 issues to play out in an unsatisfactory way. “But,” complain the comic book companies, “How else can we make comic books? There’s no other way to do it.”
Yes, there’s no one capable of making a good comic at Marvel or DC anymore. What to do? At this point, some enterprising person in the marketing department discovered this thing called a “reprint.” Back in olden days, people made entertaining comic books. Why not reprint them, at modern prices, and sell them to desperate comic book fanboy suckers? That’s where I came into the picture. I’m the sucker. So, I’ve picked up a few of these over the summer (and a couple of new comics). In order to get something out of the money I’ve misspent, I’ll go ahead and review them. Let’s start with, frankly, the two worst ones I’ve gotten.
True Believers Edition Thor
This was at least only a dollar, not the typical $4 or $5 modern comic. If Zia Comics has a fault, it’s that they don’t have a Dollar Comic box like every other comic book store I’ve ever been to. Even the nearby used bookstore has a bin with some old comics, though not all at a dollar.
The downside of this particular issue is that it’s a goofy old comic book from the 60’s. It has the origin of a classic superhero character, Thor, and a backup story featuring the first appearance of Loki. It also features Thor fighting rock-men from Saturn. No, really. It’s as silly as you’d think.
I actually bought this for the husband of my department head (actually I’m not sure what her title or relationship is to the department, but its close enough). Her new husband is a doctor. He’d had a motorcycle accident and broke his hip right before the wedding. She’d told me recently he’d recovered to where he was now walking with a cane. I immediately said, “Oh, a doctor with a cane, like Thor.”
She had no idea what I was talking about. She was a big fan of the Thor movies, but that was all she knew about the character. I had to explain the whole Don Blake thing and find some online proof. It never really occurred to me that not everybody knew this. (I’m such a fanboy.) When I found this issue on the Zia Comics spinner rack (indeed an actual spinner rack, but just for the $1 comics), I had to get it to pass it along. At least it went over well as a gift.
There’s a bunch of these True Believer comics, but this one is part of a Jack Kirby series. I’m sure some comic book historian will bridle at the hypocrisy of Marvel celebrating one of the creators they screwed over. (Or was it another one? Or all of them? I’m not a comic book historian.) I picked up the Eternals one and I’ll post a review of that. I might pick up some of the others later. I remember having a Devil Dinosaur comic as a kid. It was basically Godzilla with a hirsute kid sidekick versus aliens. It was funky.
Facsimile Giant Sized X-Men #1
I bought this for a co-worker who likes Wolverine, since I couldn’t find the Hulk versus Wolverine first appearance reprint issue from earlier this year. (I’ve never seen the story. I was anxious to read it too.) His dad owned a local comic book store I used to go to. This issue is the first appearance of Wolverine with the X-Men.
I knew this story had a reputation of being kind of dumb, but this is an important issue in X-Men history, as it relaunched the group after the comic book had been canceled. Difficult to believe in the 80’s and 90’s, but the X-Men have not always been popular. This isn’t so difficult to believe nowadays, as Marvel has run the franchise into the ground because they didn’t own the film rights to them. Now they do. Ooops. Maybe they can un-run them into the ground. (Not a chance, and I have a bad feeling about Marvel’s upcoming movies about them too.)
Here’s your first appearance of Storm . . . topless. Ah, 1975.
Frankly this wasn’t a dumb comic, it was a terrible comic! It made me reconsider buying anymore facsimile editions. It’s worse than invading rock-men from Saturn. Here’s your villain, a living island that absorbs mutant energies.
Here’s how they defeat the living island. The writer was obviously an expert in physics.
At least here’s a nice pin-up of Marvel Girl. The end of the issued featured some reprints of explanations of the original X-Men’s powers.
I found the ads in the comic interesting. Yes, it’s true simulacrum of the original with the ads. Obviously, the Mego superhero dolls were cool. I had a Batman doll, but the Spider-Man one was the one to have. Ironman was interesting. I had a friend that had the Spider-Man diorama.
Check out some of the other characters featured in the merchandising: Daredevil (above with the superhero statues), Powerman (Luke Cage), Conan, Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu, and Dracula.
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