Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs

I have a pop-culture book room in my basement, and you never know what's in there.

I found this, and have no idea where it came from. It's dated 1990 and has no price, so I suspect it was some kind of freebie given out by schools. Let's take a look, shall we?

What do we learn from this cover?
--In 1990, it was apparently OK to wear maroon and brown clogs with a scary pink miniskirt that is decorated with a merkin.
--A kid with a '60s bandana around her head would certainly boast an '80s ghetto blaster, '50s saddleshoes, and the flag of Honduras as a shirt.
--Rainbow coalition! You'll want a red-haired girl to represent Ireland, an Asian girl who's giving the peace sign for no apparent reason, an angry black kid in a fuschia sweater vest, and a doughy-faced guy with hypertrichosis of the fist.

According to this awesome Cracked article, this comic is just 1 of 2 issues, apparently the first. I can give you the summary of my lone issue. Cap crashes through a skylight into some drug den (all the best drug dens have skylights, improves the resale) and the drug lords, who look like middle-aged dads on a fishing trip, start shooting him with their automatic weapons. But nothing can penetrate Cap's shield, so he saves the day and the FBI has to suck up to him big time,


"Demery"? "Kathleen"? Maybe this is explained in the other comic, but those names feel too specific to be made up. I feel like some comic artist fulfilled a birthday obligation by getting his girlfriend's name in here.

Now pages of backstory where aliens want to conquer earth, blah blah, gonna be tough, bleep bloop, but we humans have a fatal flaw, which is buying small bindles of drugs from crew-cutted dudes wearing headphones and Yale letterman sweaters.

"You couldn't get into Harvard, Yalie!"

Meanwhile, somewhere in an enormous house in the Hamptons (guessing...), Keith Wilson, a member of the Teen Brigade (let's just pretend this is explained in the other comic) whose room is plastered with posters of Captain America, is writing an email to his hero. (They must've both had Prodigy, it was 1990.)  You see, Mitch, on his baseball team was a great baseball player, back in high school. He could throw that speedball by ya, make you look like a fool, boy. But Mitch isn't passing up the speedballs, apparently, because Keith saw him talking to a cowboy-hatted dude and is convinced he's ON SOMETHING.

Which he is, kind of. Powdered Red Bull, or crushed Pop Rocks, or Pixy Stix, who knows? It made him feel better, briefly, and then he felt worse.

Off to the next day's baseball game. Mitch sucks. Some kid that they're all chanting "no batter" at (me?) hits a homer. Then Mitch beans Ricky in the temple and the other team is about to kill him when "some nut in a Captain America costume" shows up.

Then comes the absolute best panel in the comic, where the cops hear the argument and decide "protect and serve my ass," and are just going to ignore it until Captain America almost decapitates them in their patrol car with his shield. Cracked correctly dubs them, "a pair of cops who apparently have no idea what cops do for a living."


Mitch confesses he was high. An ambulance takes Ricky away. The incompetent cops do nothing. Mitch's parents and coach realize that Mitch's personal failures are all their faults for being jerks.


Mitch finds the drug dealer who sold him the Pixy Stix and pops him one and his face awesomely breaks off, BECAUSE HE'S A SPACE ALIEN. And apparently instead of space aliens just transmorgifying into human form, they have to wear those ceramic masks like your grandma bought in the hotel gift shop in New Orleans that one time and hung on her wall forevermore.


But Mitch's troubles aren't over. Turns out Ricky's entire team has somehow changed into street clothes and put those weighted donuts on their bats and are just striding around alleys looking for the guy who beanballed their teammate. They smack him lamely in the stomach and then Cap shows up. Blah blah you can't stop us old man I'm on the school boxing team (1990 schools had boxing teams?), blah blah Cap shows them what for, blah blah they run off in their stylin' puffy purple vests.

AND NOW THE BIG FINISH. With blood pouring from his nose, though he was struck in the belly, Mitch rants that he's heard all the drug speeches. But he hasn't heard this one! Cap tells him that "we're on your side," and that "drugs just destroy the gift you have." Feeling down and unhappy is normal, so suck it up, boy, because you're not gonna be happy 24-7.

Of course it works. Mitch takes all responsibility for using drugs a whole two times and he's clean, even though he tells Cap it was an "alien monster" who gave him the drugs.

SNORT. Cap decides the kid should write science-fiction. "Space monster drug pushers, what an imagination..."

And then he finds grandma's broken mask from Bourbon Street, and you can hear the sad trombone TOLD YA! back on the alien's home planet.


Well, I wouldn't believe Mitch either. He's a drug-using idiot.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Stars, stripes, and slushees forever

Dunkin Donuts aren't around here that I can tell, but they have an icy drink called the Coolata.

And for the upcoming "Captain America" movie, they have a three-color one, in patriotic red, white and blue. Of course Matt at X-E got a hold of one, and was deservedly thrilled.

Excerpt:
"The three flavors were chosen to create a red, white and blue effect, because duh. The red portion is a Cherry Coolata, and it leads the trio because it tastes awesome and looks so much like the blood soaked shores of a beachy horror movie. The blue portion is a Blue Raspberry Coolata, which is sour enough to curl my lips into the rough shape of a squid sucker upon every sip. Finally, the white portion. That’s a Vanilla Bean Coolata. It smells like suntan lotion and tastes like a Pina Colada. It's good, but I get the impression that the only reason this third flavor isn’t lemon is because Captain America hates Romania. It’s the slushie of our dreams, and it’s available for a limited time only. Ridiculous. Something this cool should never go extinct."

Monday, June 06, 2011

Start your own He-Man Power Club!

Oh man, I love Matt's post on how kids were encouraged to start He-Man Power Clubs. As always, it's written in Matt's hilarious style.

Excerpt: "Pretty much everything the guide suggests is something I would’ve loved doing. Come up with a secret code that only club members could understand? Yes. Design new villains to help Skeletor behead the bitchy Sorceress? Yes. Make our own membership cards? Oh, YES!"

He also offers a link to his classic 2003 post, "Who was Photog?", all about a kid-designed character who won a Mattel contest once upon a time, and the X-E crowd's desire to find the now-grown kid who designed him.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Spidey fights teen pregnancy

Oh, I had some of these comics, where Spider-Man fights a villain but also delivers lectures on some kind of social issue.

But I never saw this one, where some guy called The Prodigy is trying to give teenagers the wrong information about getting pregnant so they'll all get knocked up and he can take their babies for slave labor. Awesomely awful!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Death comes to Riverdale

Miss Grundy, noooo! Oh, I guess it's just one of those Archie alternate futures. Thankfully, because I had no idea that she MARRIED Mr. Weatherbee. Or that her name was Geraldine. Geraldine Grundy?

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Archie gets political

Hmm, not sure I'm liking this political turn Archie has taken. Although I'm sure it's all happy and as positive as could be expected, given the circumstances.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Grit? Really, Grit?

How did Richie Rich get so rich? According to this ad, he sold him some Grit.

The panel where he's actually delivering the issue of Grit is kind of hilarious because Richie is SO ENORMOUSLY OUT OF PROPORTION compared to his customer.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Bike Patrol

The Bike Patrol is a beautiful online comic about childhood from Garry, the guy behind the wonderful Retroist, and his artist friend Christopher. It's just lovely. I hopt to remember to check back when they add more pages.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Santa goes back in time

I love Oddball Comics, and this is a classic. Santa Claus takes some random kids back through time, and they even visit southern slaves and their masters. Really weird.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Kelly in comic-book form

The little girl on the far left of this Jughead Double Digest looks eerily like my Kelly!

Also, who knew that Jughead's Double Digest had a blog? You go, Archie Comics!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Always pick the Cooper!

In one possible future, Archie Andrews marries Veronica, and all the Betty fans freaked out.

But now, the ring's on the other finger, and he's marrying the blonde sweetheart next door. People are much happier.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Well, you should see, my little sis

Oddball Comics is already great, but I especially loved this entry, highlighting a comic book all about "The Twist." But instead of featuring Chubby Checker, they've made up a white guy named Skinny Becker. Uh-huh.

I always thought the lyrics were "we're gonna twisty, twisty, twisty, till we BURN the house down." But this entry reprints them as "TURN the house down."

Perhaps dance-induced arson was just too much for 1960. Imagine what they would make of "Golddigger."

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Everything's Archie

Uh, possible Archie Comics spoiler ahead?

Why is a high-school kid proposing to anyone anyway? Did we learn nothing from AfterSchool Specials?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Too fat to frug!

This cracked me up. In six months she went from Kate Moss to Anna Nicole Smith in her chubby days, apparently.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Everything's Archie

Archie Andrews, rubbing elbows with the chi-chi celebs in Vanity Fair (2007 issue).

"Archie comes for you when you're roughly 10 years old, when romance is a far-off rumbling. It's a hazy time. Teachers cease to exist the moment they leave the school building. Other adults are incomprehensible beings who hide in offices all day, performing secret tasks. At night Mom or Dad will slam a bedroom door, and you have no idea why. History is a rumor, science a series of magic tricks. Pets die. Grandparents too. Movies are filled with jokes and references just beyond your mental grasp. The choices at the iTunes store are bewildering. The president's father was also once the president, apparently. You like garish colors."

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Archie Andrews, Archie Andrews, wherefore art thou, Archie Andrews?

I love this: Poetry sent in by readers of Archie comics in the 1960s.

Don't miss the first one, where the writer chastises a boy for having long hair, questions his gender, and tells him to get a haircut. GASP! Outta the car, long hair! Seems that not all kids in the era of love and peace were very live-and-let-live.

Also, some of these kids weren't even trying. This doesn't rhyme!

"Then comes Reggie, himself he admires,
He plays dirty tricks and is the king of the admirers."

What?? End one line with "admires" and one with "admirers"? Did you get torn away from your masterpiece because your mom was calling you?