Comics Review: The Best of Josie and the Pussycats Part 2

Part 1

For some odd reason, the Pussycats took an odd turn into the horror genre.  This seems like an extreme version of a Scooby Doo cartoon.  This is weird and how dare the writers put Melody in this kind of danger!

 

And then there’s this infamous story from 1973, Vengeance from the Crypt.  Unlike the nice clean reproductions in the rest of this volume, this one looks like color photocopies of the comic.  It’s almost like the originals were lost or perhaps burned in a furnace, which would make all sorts of sense.  In short, Josie is possessed by an evil book and has to undergo an exorcism led by Alexandra of all people.  I can appreciate the message, but was this really the place for it?  Also, the girls are mostly in bikinis in this just like a teen slasher film.

 

The rest of the 70’s, 80’s, and the 90’s passed with much more standard Josie and the Pussycats hijinks.  I bought a couple of Josie comics off the rack in the 80’s.  I did love them, even if they were a bit goofy and totally not fitting in with the other comics in my collection. 

 

Josie’s publishing was spotty during this time, as the group lost their own title and were mostly in Archie’s TV Laugh Out and then, Laugh.  (The Archies/Sabrina/Pussycats crossover story isn’t reproduced here.)  My comics were from the Archie Giant Series, which would feature Sabrina at times, who also didn’t have her own title.  Sabrina would make a comeback in the 90’s supporting the Melissa Joan Hart TV show.  The Pussycats would briefly get their own title back in the mid-90’s.         

The Pussycats returned in the early 2000’s supporting their theatrical movie.  (I actually enjoyed it, though I think I’ve only seen it once on TV.)  They were a regular feature in Archie and Friends.  Holly G and Rex Lindsey did a good job on these stories.  

It was the Archies versus the Pussycats in a video game battle of Rock Hero.  Only Part 2 of this two-part event is reproduced here, but you aren’t missing anything.  The Archies/Pussycats/Madhouse Glads/Bingos battle of the bands is not mentioned in this volume.  Maybe that happened after it came out.  

This sort of, but not directly, led to Archie’s romance with Valerie and a wedding story.  Hey, why not?  He’s dated everyone else.  While Josie might be his cousin (possibly not canonical) is there any explanation for his lack of interest in Melody?  Why aren’t of these guys interested in Melody (except me)?  Heck, Alexandra looks pretty good.  Why didn’t Archie date her?  He’s got plenty of experience with rich, unpleasant young women.  

 

Gisele Lagace took a turn with the Pussycats.  I adore this woman’s work on Archie comics, as well as her own creations.

In 2016, a new look Pussycats were introduced to go with the new Archie series.  This departs from the standard “house style” for the characters and maybe updates them a bit.  It’s okay.  I’m ambivalent towards the more “modern” Archie that I’ve read. 

 

I’ve felt that Archie should have been relaxing their directives on style well before they finally committed to it.  (They did disastrously try it earlier with the New Look in the early 2000’s.)  As far as content-wise goes, you can’t really make Archie comics “realistic” without making them not Archie.  By definition, the Archie gang is always perpetually stuck in high school (except for Lil’ Archie, of course).  They can’t age.  This Josie story does a good job though of being kid-friendly without being childish.      

As if to prove my point, the volume finishes with this Riverdale crap.  Why even discuss that show?  Did it have its merits?  The show’s producers did know their Archie lore very well.  It’s what they did with it that’s so questionable.  For the show, they race-swapped Josie and Melody to black and made Valerie irrelevant. 

 

I saw one episode with these “Pussycats.”  “Josie,” while standing in her mother, the mayor’s, mansion lectured Veronica on what an intrinsically hard life she lives.  How could a musician be so tone deaf?  (Her dad was also rich and famous in the music industry.  I’m sure that wasn’t helping her musical career.)           

 

In sum, except for the ending and a few weird horror interludes, this volume is a must-have for any Josie and the Pussycats fan.  It is by no means complete, but it’s completely fun.  The Pussycats haven’t had a great publishing history and only a two-season cartoon and a failed movie to their credit, but they’ve had an outsized influence on the culture.  I seem to remember the other Best of I had quoted the Bangles and the Go-Go’s as being inspired by them.  For that alone, the Pussycats were a great idea.    

Comics Review: The Best of Josie and the Pussycats Part 1

I don’t want to look through my Archie collection of digests and trades.  I don’t know how many of them I thought I reviewed, but haven’t.  I don’t know why I missed this one.  I think I picked up this up in 2017 at Barnes & Noble.  I’m sure I was pretty excited about it, though I think this is the second Best of the Pussycats volume that I’ve owned. 

 

As I vaguely remember, the first one was full comic book sized, but only a bit more than 100 pages.  It wasn’t that great and I traded it off.  This one is slightly larger than digest-sized, but 400 pages!  What makes the difference is that this one covers a much greater breath of stories over the decades.  There’s a little bit of interspersed text about Josie and the Pussycats, but none of it really worthwhile on the history of the group, hence this blog post.  

 

I’ve already reviewed the comics from Josie’s origin and early days in She’s Josie.  She was maybe a female version of Archie with her own set of interesting friends.  I don’t know how popular she was, but the comic was blessed with Dan DeCarlo’s excellent artwork, so it probably did okay.  That said, Josie was likely destined to end up in the graveyard full of failed teen comics that couldn’t compete with the Archie gang.  (And there are a lot of them.)    

 

In 1968, Filmation premiered an Archie cartoon show.  It featured the Archies.  The band had debuted in the comics the year before.  This was followed a Sabrina show (sept 2023) in 1969.  These shows were very successful and spawned several versions over the years.  (There was a later 70’s Archie history show, US of Archie, which included an episode where the gang joined some escaping slaves in the Underground Railroad.  Yes, really.)  Filmation was thrilled with comic book support they got from Archie to promote their shows.     

     

Rival animation studio, Hanna-Barbera, wanted in on the Archie action.  In 1969, Josie and Melody decided to start their own band in the comics.  Like before with the Archies, a year later, the girls' H-B cartoon debuted heavily featuring a musical component.  (Check out their groovy theme song above.)  I don’t know how popular the cartoon was, but like Sabrina after her cartoon, Josie and the Pussycats were now iconic.    

 

In both cases, the band concept in the comics may have been a pilot for a proposed cartoon.  Or maybe not.  The Archies might have just been a reaction to the Beatles.  It’s hard to say.  Don Kirshner, who produced the cartoon Archies’ music, was The Monkees’ producer, who were definitely inspired by the Beatles.  However, it’s likely the Pussycats were a cartoon pitch.     

 

Unlike the Filmation shows which sort of followed the comics (and also the format of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In), this show had more in common with H-B’s Scooby Doo, Where Are You? with the girls travelling the world and getting mixed up in plots with weird villains.  (And then getting shot off into space in Season Two.  Yes, really.)  Oddly, this story formula didn’t show up much in the comics.  Most of the comic stories were much more down to earth (pardon the pun) and in line with a typical Archie comic.      

 

The volume begins here with Josie and Melody trying to start a band with Alexandra Cabot, who insists on naming the band after herself.  Her brother, Alexander, wanting to upend his sister’s ambitions and get in good with Josie, introduces the new girl at school and musician, Valerie, and the group clicks immediately.  Why is Alex trying to impress Josie instead of Melody is my question.  This issue is made even more poignant in the next story, as we are introduced to Alan M., who would become Josie’s love interest that Alexandra is also after (thought actually, he was introduced a couple of issues beforehand).  (Is Melody nothing to you guys?) 

 

Except for Alexandra’s mischievous cat, Sebastian, the cast of the cartoon is basically introduced here.  They all look about the same as their cartoon counterparts.  The Cabot twins look completely different than their original versions when they were introduced in She’s Josie a few years before.  The other original cast members from that comic have also disappeared. 

Some of these early stories, pre-cartoon, prominently feature Alexandra using magic trying sabotage the group.  I thought I remembered somewhere that she only had powers while she was holding the cat, but that isn’t shown anywhere in this book.  This gag was dropped in any case.  Hereafter, Alexandra is just obnoxious (and glamorous) trying to horn her way into the group.  (Has there ever been a witch’s battle between Alexandra and Sabrina in the comics?)    

Here the group gets a tour of the Hanna-Barbera studios.  The Archies likewise got a tour of the Filmation studio when their cartoon started. 

 

Somehow, Alexandra never quite fits into the group whenever she’s given a chance.  (The banjo cover isn’t in this book.  I just love it, though.) 

Part 2

Comics Review: The Very Best of Marvel

 

Part 1

The Very Best of Marvel Comics

Okay, it’s “The Very Best of Marvel Comics.”  Surely this one will be a winner.  Actually, this was the one I was most reluctant to pick up.  The hook here is that stories in the book were chosen by various writers and artists (and Stan Lee).  Mostly, they were picked for being the most personally influential for the creators.  I’d already read maybe a bit less than half of the book.  The Fantastic Four stories, I’d read last year in a Penguin Classics edition.  Still, there were interesting-looking comics inside and for $6 for 200 pages, why not toss it in?

 

The volume started off strong with a Chris Claremont New X-Men story drawn by John Byrne.  Magneto single-handedly captures and defeats the X-Men (including Phoenix, sheesh!).  Still, he can’t resist torturing them instead of finishing them off and they come back and defeat him in the next issue.  Unfortunately, the story ends on a severe cliffhanger.  (No, I don’t know how it resolves.)  Too bad this book isn’t a trade paperback of just the best of X-Men stories.

 

Next is a classic two-part Spider-Man encounter with the Green Goblin.  It’s significant as a double reveal.  The Green Goblin finds out Spider-Man is Peter Parker, one of his son’s friends, and Peter finds out the Goblin is Norman Osborn.  Thankfully, Osborn loses his memory at the end of their knock down/drag out encounter.  Peter, trying to protect Harry Osborn, covers up the Goblin’s secret identity.

 

Oh, and Peter has a severe cold.  The Goblin also manages to suppress Spider-Man’s spider sense, so he can sneak up on him.  Aunt May’s condition is worsening, and she can’t endure any shocks, like finding out Peter is Spider-Man.  Peter is also having problems with his classmates and his love life.  (He does manage to out-haggle J. Jonah Jameson for payment for his pictures, so that was a solid win.)  Whew!  It’s irresistible.  This is peak classic Marvel. 

 

There’s a weird little older story segue with Spider-Man crashing a party and bothering the Human Torch.  It makes the both of them look really bad, frankly.  This leads directly to Doctor Doom’s first two-part appearance in the Fantastic Four.  Sue is held hostage, while the guys are sent back in time to recover Blackbeard’s treasure.  The Thing may or may not have ended up becoming the inspiration for the Blackbeard legend.  It’s . . . imaginative.

 

Next was a more modern story with Dr. Strange story featuring Michael Golden’s finely detailed artwork.  I may have gotten this volume mostly to read this one.  Strange is very depressed over Clea leaving him.  (Well, who wouldn’t be depressed by that?)  This personal low point brings on an attack by a demon, who attacks him on a psychic level.  Strange is hit with a lot of very trippy fourth-wall breaking stuff.  It’s weird, but in a good way, but it made me want more Dr. Strange.

 

The next story is even weirder.  It’s a classic-era story featuring Daredevil fighting the Submariner for the first time.  Namor comes to New York City in hopes of suing humanity for ownership of the surface of the earth and retains lawyer, Matt Murdock, for this purpose.  (Only in a comic book.)  Yeah, it comes to blows quickly.  The military and Daredevil fight Namor.  (Where are all those other heroes in NYC?)  The Submariner is very impressed with Daredevil, who is completely overmatched.  DD does not quit, until Namor finally retires back to the sea to defend his throne from a usurper.     

A second Daredevil story starts with DD in Vietnam.  He’s not fighting.  He’s part of a USO show.  (This story might have been a bit tone deaf even when it was published.)  Matt meets a black soldier who’s been blinded recently and later helps him out as a lawyer, when he comes back state side.  Stan Lee recommended this story and said it has an “anti-prejudice message.”  There actually isn’t any sort of such message in the story.  It’s more about overcoming a disability.  Regardless, Gene Colan’s bold, dynamic artwork is impressive, and the story is good.

 

Two things I didn’t know about Daredevil I learned from these stories.  Unlike Spider-Man, DD is highly respected by the military for some reason and presumably the rest of the government/media establishment.  How’d he get on their good side?  The other thing is Matt’s forlorn love for his secretary, Karen Page.  Admittedly, my knowledge of Daredevil starts with Frank Miller’s awesome run with the ninjas.  (Why isn’t one of those stories in this?)  I’d only ever seen Karen as a strung-out drug addict resurfacing from Matt’s past.  Here, she’s rendered a smart, sweet, blonde bombshell.  (You could easily fall in love with Colan’s vision of her.)  That was quite a revelation.          

 

What an opening to Thor's Simonson era!

The reprint of Thor #337 kind of hurts me.  I owned this one and I’m sure it’s worth money.  It’s the start of Walter Simonson’s epic run with the iconic cover of Beta Ray Bill as Thor.  The story brings up some questions, but it is no doubt a classic and awesome and the start of good things.  I got a subscription to Thor shortly after this issue.  Rob Liefield wrote the intro to this issue as it had inspired him.

 

This Man . . . This Monster finishes off the collection.  Again, I’d just read this classic Fantastic Four tale in the Penguin edition.  It’s overwrought but has some real emotion to it.  The plight of Ben Grimm as the Thing is clearly illustrated here.  It’s subtle subtext that it’s only the love of his girlfriend, Alicia, and his friends that is keeping him from cracking up from his condition.          

 

So, you can’t go wrong with the material, but you have to question the choices.  This is such a random hodge-podge stories it’s hard to get a handle on them in one book.  Most of the stories are self-contained, but a couple end on real cliffhangers and they probably should have not used those.  It’d also make more sense to do the book as a series featuring different decades.  The style difference between 60’s Fantastic Four and 80’s Thor is jarring.  This book is okay, but it’s just sampler. 

 

This trip for comics was a bit disappointing, as usual, but at least it was interesting.

Comics Review: FF and Outsiders

I bought these comics long enough ago that I’ve forgotten how I ended up at Coas Used Bookstore.  I was there with dad at their secondary location on Solano.  Though a much smaller store, they still have a good selection there.  I immediately found three items in the comics section.  I felt lucky, since these looked like pretty good straight-up comic book superhero comics.

Fantastic Four #600

This is a floppy, but it’s a 100-page, 50-th anniversary edition printed on slick paper.  It was $7.99 when it came out in 2012.  (Ah, the good old days.)  It looked amazing when I picked it up, so this was an easy purchase.

 

Then I sat down and read the intro page at home.  Let’s just say with rather incredible plethora plot threads, I doubted even 100 pages would be enough resolve what was currently going in the Fantastic Four.  This was entirely prescient.    

 

Part One of this, which would have been about the size of a regular issue was entirely decompressed, which was a terrible design choice for a story that involved an alien invasion of New York city with most of the Marvel superheroes present in defense.  Honestly, you could have filled all 100 pages, with some digressions for side plots, with just this battle and had a resolution.  Instead, it was random action scenes that just ends with a dramatic cliffhanger, which was unwelcome, since there was still 2/3 of the comic left.  Worse, the sparse dialogue featured a bunch of dumb asides and idiotic quips. 

 

The cliffhanger was the reappearance of the Human Torch as his presumed death.  Spider-Man, in a new costume, had taken his place in the Fantastic Four.  Part Two features the story of Johnny Storm getting captured in the Negative Zone and then breaking free.  This was another full-issue that probably would have worked better as a separate issue after the main story had concluded.  Then again, the story was decompressed enough that it likely could have been told a few flashback panels after the Torch’s reappearance.

 

Part Three was an incomprehensible interlude with the Inhumans.  I’ve seen much better artwork from Ming Doyle.  This looked like a quick insert needed for meet the page count.  Then there’s an ominous interlude with Galactus.  I probably liked this short flashback story best in the comic.  Lastly, there’s an even more ominous flashback with some mysterious person grooming Franklin Richards, Reed and Sue’s little boy with god-like powers.  Really scary on some different levels.  There was a kind of pointless subplot in Part One with the Richards kids and their alien friends.  It felt jarringly out-of-place in the rest of the story.

 

Its 100 pages of filler.  I keep emphasizing the page count to highlight what a waste of time, money, and effort this anniversary issue was.  This could have been so much better if it had told the conclusion of the main story.  Instead, you could have skipped this and just gotten a one-page recap in the next issue.  The writers and editors must have been severely degraded at Marvel to have not capitalized on this opportunity.

 

Outsiders: Sum of All Evil

The original Outsiders were an 80’s creation of Batman, who’d left the Justice League, but wanted to lead a super group his way (with EXTREME justice!).  This 2000’s version is led by Nightwing and has the same nebulous, unnecessary function as a super team.  Yeah, it’s basically a marketing effort with some B and C grade heroes, probably partly done to keep up the copyright on some unused characters and to introduce a few useless knockoff characters as new characters. 

 

However, Dick Grayson (Robin I and Nightwing) is one of my favorite comic book characters (yes, really) and Jade is on the team.  I don’t know if it’s the Orion slave girl aspect of Jade or her cool costume and Green Lantern powers that captivates me so.  The book looked like it had plenty of action, so this was another easy purchase decision.

 

As per the intro, this version of the team was started by Arsenal (sort of Green Arrow Jr.) with Nightwing brought in to lead them.  They are supposed to be more proactive in stopping supervillains in their mission.  Also, the group would be more like professionals, rather than like family and friends, to avoid too much personal entanglement amongst the members.  Stylistically, this comic would be more “grim and gritty” to distinguish it from the brighter and more colorful Justice League.

 

Dark is a pretty easy description of this book.  The amount of black ink used in this comic book is overwhelming.  Even scenes in daylight look dark with the heavy black borders.  As far as content goes, while it is super-powered people punching each other like a usual comic, it is pretty grim, if not a bit gross in places.  It doesn’t get any sunnier in the personal relationships.  For a “non-family,” the Outsiders fight with each other like Grampa just brought up politics at the Thanksgiving table with all of the relatives. 

Black Lightning is making that 70's outfit work.

Captain Marvel Jr. is also looking good.

 

The trade begins with Arsenal in the hospital and the Huntress brought in to sub for him.  Helena and Nightwing immediately start fighting with each other for no apparent reason.  There’s no time for further interpersonal conflict as a new super demonic Sabbac is on a mass murdering spree.  Black Lightning (whose daughter is in the group) and Captain Marvel Jr. (the original Sabbac’s arch enemy) join the fight to foil his plan. 

 

There’s a whole issue about Arsenal recovering from his gunshot wounds.  He has meaningless sex with an unnamed woman (I’m not sure who the character is, Cheshire?) and has a fight with Nightwing to prove his readiness to return to duty.  At the end, I think Batman (deep in the shadows) is shown to be group’s motivator with intel.  In the next issue, Arsenal is also revealed to be having an affair with the Huntress.  He gets around.

 

In the next arc, the Fearsome Five is broken out of prison by Dr. Sivana.  They don’t get along with each other either, but they carry out a series of attacks on various Lexcorp facilities for Sivana.  (Lex is obviously out of the picture at this time, as his presidency has just disastrously ended.)  The Outsiders have a losing encounter with the FF and Jade confronts Nightwing on his leadership abilities.  This wasn’t undeserved, as Grayson’s brains are usually considered to be his second-best asset.  (His best ASSet, I will not comment on.)   

 

The relationship between the villains takes a more significant downturn, as Sivana kills Gizmo and leaves them.  The now Fearsome Four then goes on a new mission to take over Lex’s secret nuclear missile base.  This leads to a desperate confrontation by the Outsiders to stop a launch.  Okay, this was the kind of superhero action I was looking for in this book. 

 

So, my opinion on this is that it’s a confused nice try.  This was trying to be something a bit different, but kept falling back on standard superhero tropes, which ironically was the only thing redeeming it.  The dark mood made the otherwise good artwork ugly.

 

The characters, some of whom I already liked, were not likable or even really interesting.  Having two “Alpha” male characters in the group (and neither have superpowers) was unnecessary.  The female characters were mostly unbearable.  They had this angry feminist undercurrent that tended to ridicule the strong male characters, but still take orders from them.  (Tellingly, the two most pleasant characters were a female android and a clone of Metamorpho.) 

 

This concept could work if they went completely one way or the other.  Either make it a standard superhero team comic, but just have Nightwing recruiting members specifically for certain missions and not have a regular roster.  Or go completely to the dark side.  Have this roster of Outsiders taking on dark underbelly of the DC Universe and tackle some uncomfortable real-life issues with a little superpowers mixed in.     

       

Part 2