I'm a sucker for the early 80's.
It wasn't too long ago that DC released a trade paperback collecting the original I, Vampire serial that appeared in House of Mystery (1st series), timed to cash in on the early success of a rebooted version of the serial, aimed at the "Twilight" crowd. Sadly, I, Vampire was staked a few months ago due to declining sales.
Now comes another treasure from the class of 1980.
The Creature Commandos was one of two features that alternated in the pages of Weird War Tales (1st series), and debuted in the November 1980 issue, released in August of that year. Yes, it came out around the same time that New Teen Titans made its debut. Like I, Vampire, the Commandos sprang from the pen of J. M. DeMatteis, who was quite the busy writer back then. Anyway, the series was set in World War II, where a top secret government experiment produced a covert operations team that traded on the bizarre. DeMatteis drew upon the continuing popularity of the iconic movie monsters, such as Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Monster of Frankenstein, to build the team. In this case, the Wolf Man was otherwise a timid, stuttering farmboy from Oklahoma. The Monster was rebuilt after he'd stepped on a land mine and nearly died. The vampire was a sergeant who was looking at a 30 year sentence for crippling a superior officer. They'd soon be joined by Dr. Medusa, whose hair was mutated into a nest of snakes worthy of the mythical gorgon.
Over the course of three years, the series endured creative changes, as DeMatteis departed---he'd also left I, Vampire behind when he bolted for Marvel---perhaps a bit too early. However, succeeding writers, such as DC legend Robert Kanigher, kept the spirit of the series intact until Weird War Tales ended its run in 1983 after 12 years.
The Commandos were later revived in a 2000 miniseries illustrated by Tim Truman, who'd expanded on the original concept, and in the New 52 DC Universe, the Commandos appeared in the pages of the now-defunct Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.. All of that is also available in trade paperback, I'm sure, so there had to be a demand for the original stories. Now, all we need, I'd guess, would be to collect Jonny Peril (from The Unexpected), Mr. E (Secrets of Haunted House), and a few other short-flight series from that same period, and we'd be all set.
The stories were drawn by veterans Dan Spiegle, Fred Carrillo, Bob Hall, and others, and were mostly done-in-one stories. Still the best, 34 years later.
Rating: A-.
A while back, we saluted the return of Red Circle Comics at Archie with the launch of The Fox. As of issue 2, another classic hero has returned. The Shield might certainly be insulted that there are a trio of wrestlers in the WWE who've taken his name and thrown dirt on it with their crooked tactics in the ring. Be that as it may, the aforementioned J. M. DeMatteis is scripting the series, running as the backup feature. As before, the Red Circle characters, though mocked by many, are a pleasant alternative to the constant reboots at Marvel & DC. Archie's taking their time with Red Circle this time, and that's a good thing.
Rating: A.
Finally, I just couldn't pass up this next item, especially considering I've only just learned about it yesterday.
Seems that an enterprising soul named Pat Evans composed a poster purporting to promote a feature film adaptation of the Wonder Twins (from Super Friends), with the shape-shifting siblings to be played by real-life lovebirds and former That 70's Show co-stars Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. Now, no comics fan worth his salt would buy into seeing the Twins on the big screen ahead of, say for example, Wonder Woman or Aquaman. Nuh-uh. Not. Gonna. Happen. Evans sent the finished product to Midtown Comics in New York in November, but was there any sort of buzz upstate? Well, as the Fresh Prince (Will Smith) might put it, hmmmmmm, wellllllll......of course not!
Best selling author and fellow blogger Marc Tyler Nobleman was a guest on Evans' Bat-Podcast, and, in the course of learning about Evans' little scam, turned the tables on his host. Reading about it on Marc's blog, Noblemania, yesterday, made my day and my week. While Evans was treating the Twins as a punch line, like so many others have, it's easy to forget that Zan & Jayna had a rotating backup feature in Super Friends (1st series) that appeared infrequently during the series' final 2 years (1979-81), and were written better in print than they were on TV. I've always believed that if Warner Bros. were to go through with a Wonder Twins movie, it'd have to be animated, not live-action, and, of course, done right, with full respect to the characters and their creator, the late E. Nelson Bridwell.
It should also be noted that, on That 70's Show, there was an episode that ended with the gang dressed as the Super Friends, and, if memory serves me correctly, Mila Kunis' character was in fact dressed as Jayna, so that part of the equation fits. Kutcher's character of Michael Kelso was, as it happens, an imbecile. Considering how the TV writers treated Zan as a bit of a braggart whose boasting got him in trouble, maybe that ain't much of a stretch after all. Or, as Jayna herself would say, real spacey.
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