THE UNBOXING - MAY 2018

Marvel comes at us with two books this month; a trade paperback and hardcover. The trade is CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: THE BLOODSTONE HUNT, plugging a long-lived hole in Marvel's reprints of Mark Gruenwald's CAPTAIN AMERICA. Slotted between the previously released THE CAPTAIN collection and the STREETS OF POISON EPIC COLLECTION, and combined with the SOCIETY OF SERPENTS EPIC COLLECTION and JUSTICE IS SERVED EPIC COLLECTION, this book now completes a full run of CAPTAIN AMERICA issues 302 through 386, plus assorted annual and other goodies! Essentially this is the first half of Gruenwald's ten-year run on the bookshelf, and while the second half has seen some spotty collection over the years, it seems only a matter of time before it, too, receives the comprehensive Epic Collection treatment.

And from the X-Office of the nineties, we have the X-MEN: LEGIONQUEST hardcover. This book contains several of the same issues as could be found in the X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE PRELUDE book from some years back, though that was a volume I never picked up due to very poor reviews of the paper quality -- which turns out to have been the right choice in retrospect, as this book offers a significant upgrade in size and quality.

And now a new edition of the Junior Unboxing! It came to my attention recently that Marvel published a second edition of the AVENGERS STORYBOOK COLLECTION, just released last month, containing all-new tales aimed at younger readers. I snagged it and, while I was at it, picked up 5-MINTUE SPIDER-MAN STORIES (2017 edition) and the SPIDER-MAN STORYBOOK COLLECTION (2016 edition), both of which also offer (mostly) new contents as well. I spoke a few months back about the Marvel Storybook Universe I'm compiling and suggested I might write a post about it -- and that's still my plan, but the addition of these three books has me revising the universe, so the post has been delayed. I suspect it'll probably arrive this summer for the one or two people who might any interest.

I think that's it for May, so we'll reconvene in a month to see what shows up next!

KELLY GREEN: THE GO-BETWEEN

By Leonard Starr & Stan Drake

NYPD officer Dan Green is killed in a raid. Not long after, a beautiful and wealthy young woman is murdered in the seedy part of town. Soon, Green's widow, Kelly, becomes involved in a blackmail scheme linking both deaths.

As Kelly mopes about, her late husband's partner, Angelo, struggles to cheer her up, while three ex-cons who Dan had sent up the river in the past vow to protect her. When the cons bring her an offer to become a "go-between" -- an impartial third party exchanging money for incriminating evidence in a blackmail case -- Kelly agrees, stating that she now hates the cops and hates criminals, so she might as well live between both their worlds.

The ensuing story sees Kelly work briefly as a go-go dancer to gather some information about her client, travel to Florida to make the exchange (and discover another dead body), then return to New York for a finale which reveals who got her husband killed and how he's related to the blackmail scheme.

As usual, I'm trying to be a little vague in my description of the story -- this material is thirty years old, but was only relatively recently re-released in a new collection -- and it is a mystery, after all. I'm much less cavalier about revealing random plot points than I am about spoiling mystery stories, especially if they're relatively obscure like this one.

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #430

“HOMEWARD BOUND!”
Setting by: Marv Wolfman | Design by: Jerry Ordway
Engraving: Albert de Guzman | Hues: Tom Ziuko | Editing by: Mike Carlin & Andy Helfer

The Plot: Superman battles the Fearsome Five in Metropolis, but they defeat him and escape. As he worries over his parents’ upcoming anniversary party and the two sides of his dual life, the Five argue over whether or not they should have finished him off. A week later on the night of his parents’ party, Clark Kent receives a call warning him that the Fearsome Five are aboard a luxury liner called the Augustus Mandrell. Superman arrives and fights them again, and again they escape.

Clark misses his parents’ party and shows up after all the guests have left. Pa Kent gives him a pep talk about letting his two lives coexist in harmony, and the next day, having received another phone call about the Fearsome Five’s whereabouts, Superman barges into their hideout. This time, not distracted by the conflict between he costumed life and his secret identity, he defeats the group.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The Fearsome Five count two new members among their number: the mysterious Charger and Deuce. We see during the story that they’re more bloodthirsty than the rest of the group and that they joined as a couple. It’s also revealed in the story’s conclusion that Deuce was the one who called Clark Kent, apparently knowing he was actually Superman, to tell him where to find the Fearsome Five. Presumably we’ll learn at some point that these two are members of the Circle.

KELLY GREEN

...Who...?

Well, if you'll indulge me, it all started with Leonard Starr.

Again -- who?!

Folks -- we're about to do some deep digging, which hopefully someone out there will find at least a teensy bit interesting and/or informational.

When I was a kid, one of the many properties hurled at us children of the eighties was THUNDERCATS. I watched the cartoon, I owned some of the toys. Eventually it went off the air and I more or less forgot about it. Then, a decade or so later in 1997 -- when I was in high school -- Cartoon Network began to air the original show as part of their weekday afternoon Toonami programming block. I started watching again, and this time I was able to see every single episode, as opposed to my childhood viewings of only some here and there.

I also paid attention to the credits during those Toonami airings, and saw that nearly all the major episodes, continuity-wise, were written by a fellow named Leonard Starr, who also appeared on the end credits of every episode as the Head Writer. At the time I didn't really think much of it other than that he was a pretty creative guy, and that was that.

BATMAN/TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ADVENTURES

"THE FACE OF TWO WORLDS" | "THE CLOWN AND THE CLAN"
"GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE" | "TO LAUGH SO NOT TO CRY"
"THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS" | "THE TERROR OF THE KRAANG"
Written by Matthew K. Manning | Art by Jon Sommariva
Inks by Sean Parsons | Additional Inks by Serge LaPointe | Colors by Leonardo Ito
Additional Colors by Matt Herms, Jon Rauch, Zac Atkinson, and Sean Galloway
Letters by Shawn Lee | Edits by Bobby Curnow

The crossover you never imagined would exist, yet for some reason does! It's a Batman/Ninja Turtles story, but one that's set very specifically in the worlds of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and Nickelodeon's TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cartoon which ran from 2012 - 2017.

I've never watched that iteration of the Turtles; to tell the truth, I've never watched any TMNT cartoons since somewhere around year six or so of the original eighties run -- so I can't speak to the authenticity of that side of the crossover, other than to say that the Turtles are basically in-line, personality-wise, with their most common interpretations (Leonardo as the cool-headed leader, Raphael the hothead, Michelangelo the goofy jokester, and Donatello the brainiac). I can, however, note that the Batman side of the equation is a nicely faithful recreation of the heydey of THE ANIMATED SERIES. Jon Sommariva, while drawing in his own style (sort of "elastically cartoony", if that makes sense), mimics the character designs and backgrounds originally defined by Bruce Timm and his production team with terrific results. This isn't Timm's style, but it's still clearly his Batman, his Robin, his Arkham Asylum, etc.

The story finds dimensional portals popping up in both Gotham City and the Turtles' New York, allowing several of Batman's villains to escape Arkham Asylum to Turtle-Earth. Batman, Robin, and Batgirl pursue and team up with the Turtles, and while some villains -- such as Clayface and Poison Ivy -- prove relatively easy to dispatch, others -- like the Joker and the Scarecrow -- pose more of a challenge.

SUPERMAN #7

“RAMPAGE”
Words & Pictures: John Byrne | Inking: Karl Kesel
Coloring: Tom Ziuko | Lettering: John Costanza
Co-Editors: Michael Carlin & Andrew Helfer

The Plot: Lois Lane is touring a new experimental energy facility when an explosion occurs. Superman responds to the crisis and is attacked by a large, gold-skinned woman. Their battle takes them around Metropolis until Superman realizes that the woman’s cells are irradiated with solar energy trying to escape.

Superman allows his own body to absorb the solar leakage, then soars into the sky toward a thunderstorm over Kansas, intentionally getting himself struck by a bolt of lightning to dissipate the energy.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The energy facility, run by a Professor Kitty Faulkner, is the product of a contest to find a clean energy source sponsored by the Daily Planet (though I have a hard time imagining any newspaper having the resources for such a vast project, even a massive one like the Planet and even in a pre-internet world).

It has no ultimate bearing on the story’s conclusion, but there’s a sub-plot where Superman briefly believes the woman he’s fighting is Lois, transformed by the explosion. It’s revealed within the span of a few pages, however, that she’s actually Professor Faulkner.

Still mooning over Wonder Woman, Clark calls up Carole Bennett of the Boston Globe-Leader to try to set up an interview with the Amazon Princess, but is informed that the paper has no way to contact her.

I BOUGHT MORE FONTS

I think I have a problem -- I actually shelled out money for some Comicraft fonts. Mind you, they're for my own personal entertainment; I do a lot of nutty graphic design stuff in my spare time, so they'll be put to good use -- but part of the reason I did it was to spruce up the old blog a bit more. And of course I could never pay full price for Comicraft offerings, but they happened to run a "Spring Cleaning" sale recently with a 50% off coupon, so I picked up a few of their lower-priced goodies to put me in the mind of late-nineties Marvel, when every comic in the publisher’s stable was lettered by Comicraft.

Thus the "Table of Contents" icon over at right has been updated. Here's a larger version, making use of Comicraft's "Stand by 4 Action" (a mainstay of their AVENGERS and THUNDERBOLTS books circa 1996 - 2000ish) and "Monster Mash":

I've also created new headers for some of the pages which previously lacked them, specifically COLLECTED EDITIONS, EDITORIALS & MISCELLANEA, and X-MEN COLLECTIONS: