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Post by coke & comics on May 23, 2015 19:15:10 GMT -5
Foolkiller #1 (October, 1990)  "Mad... as in angry" by Steve Gerber, J.J. Birch and Tony Dezuniga The Foolkiller concept was introduced by Steve Gerber in the pages of Man-Thing. And revamped with Greg Salinger taking up the mantle in the pages of Gerber's Omega the Unknown. Foolkiller appeared a few other times under other writers. But here Gerber returns to his creation, opening with Salinger in a mental institution and a truly great dream sequence where he wrestles with his life. He has taken to writing. He writes to magazines and talk shows, but nobody replies. His story alternates with the story of Kurt Gerhardt, a man who loses his father... and then his job... and then his wife. Gerhardt has has enough with our society and its criminals. And Salinger is ready to go on TV to spread his message. A book at an odd place and time. In marketing and branding, it seems to fit in so smoothly with the other revamped dark and brutal heroes getting their own series around this time. But once you get past the cover and its contemporaries, it is really very different. This first issue is entirely build-up. It's a psychological drama told by a veteran writer. This isn't some assistant editor. This is Steve Gerber. Birch's art is not flashy like Lee's or McFarlane's. But it tells the story well. A story built around character, around faces, around quick cuts between parallel stories. It's really quite good. It's a great comic in a year that had no use for great comics. This is one of my favorite minis. It does seem kinda outta place for Marvel at the time, but it's useful to remember that Marshall Law had been a major critical and commercial success for them a few years earlier (and with its shipping delays, it ended its Epic run closer to 1990 than one might suspect). One of the things I love about the series is that it asks about the connection between heroism and perception and the media. The Foolkiller is a hero when he's hunting rape gangs in Central Park, he's a villain when he takes his war to corporations destroying the environment and people's lives. (Oddly enough, many of those arrested in the "rape gang" hunts of the late '80s would later be exonorated by new methods of interpreting evidence. Those corporate criminals mostly still get away with a slap on the wrist.) It's the marketing and the branding, though. Epic had its own brand and reputation for smarter creator-driven stories. From the marketing, you would suspect this to be another Ghost Rider or Punisher, not another Marshall Law. |
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Post by fanboystranger on May 24, 2015 0:14:28 GMT -5
This is one of my favorite minis. It does seem kinda outta place for Marvel at the time, but it's useful to remember that Marshall Law had been a major critical and commercial success for them a few years earlier (and with its shipping delays, it ended its Epic run closer to 1990 than one might suspect). One of the things I love about the series is that it asks about the connection between heroism and perception and the media. The Foolkiller is a hero when he's hunting rape gangs in Central Park, he's a villain when he takes his war to corporations destroying the environment and people's lives. (Oddly enough, many of those arrested in the "rape gang" hunts of the late '80s would later be exonorated by new methods of interpreting evidence. Those corporate criminals mostly still get away with a slap on the wrist.) It's the marketing and the branding, though. Epic had its own brand and reputation for smarter creator-driven stories. From the marketing, you would suspect this to be another Ghost Rider or Punisher, not another Marshall Law. I don't know about that. Obviously, the series only exists as single issues, and most of them were advertising Epic series on the flip side. I just happen to have four sitting on my desk at home (having rescued them from quarter bins): FK 4 advertises Wagner/Grant/McMahon's Last American ; FK 5 advertises Ted McKeever's Metropol; FK 6 advertises Miller's Elektra Lives Again; FK 7 advertises the tpb of Clive Barker's Hellraiser. All of them are Epic books. I think the target audience was quite clear.
EDIT: Also, the interior of the cover for issue 5 advertises Chaykin and Mignola's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, which was an Epic adaptation of Fritz Lieber's work.
More importantly, I have no idea why I'm arguing this at 1:30AM. To paraphrase Jack Kirby, "Effin' comics, they break your heart."
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Post by coke & comics on May 24, 2015 11:37:00 GMT -5
It's the marketing and the branding, though. Epic had its own brand and reputation for smarter creator-driven stories. From the marketing, you would suspect this to be another Ghost Rider or Punisher, not another Marshall Law. I don't know about that. Obviously, the series only exists as single issues, and most of them were advertising Epic series on the flip side. I just happen to have four sitting on my desk at home (having rescued them from quarter bins): FK 4 advertises Wagner/Grant/McMahon's Last American ; FK 5 advertises Ted McKeever's Metropol; FK 6 advertises Miller's Elektra Lives Again; FK 7 advertises the tpb of Clive Barker's Hellraiser. All of them are Epic books. I think the target audience was quite clear.
EDIT: Also, the interior of the cover for issue 5 advertises Chaykin and Mignola's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, which was an Epic adaptation of Fritz Lieber's work.
More importantly, I have no idea why I'm arguing this at 1:30AM. To paraphrase Jack Kirby, "Effin' comics, they break your heart."
Only one way to settle this. Pistols at dawn. |
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Post by fanboystranger on May 24, 2015 22:23:32 GMT -5
I don't know about that. Obviously, the series only exists as single issues, and most of them were advertising Epic series on the flip side. I just happen to have four sitting on my desk at home (having rescued them from quarter bins): FK 4 advertises Wagner/Grant/McMahon's Last American ; FK 5 advertises Ted McKeever's Metropol; FK 6 advertises Miller's Elektra Lives Again; FK 7 advertises the tpb of Clive Barker's Hellraiser. All of them are Epic books. I think the target audience was quite clear.
EDIT: Also, the interior of the cover for issue 5 advertises Chaykin and Mignola's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, which was an Epic adaptation of Fritz Lieber's work.
More importantly, I have no idea why I'm arguing this at 1:30AM. To paraphrase Jack Kirby, "Effin' comics, they break your heart."
Only one way to settle this. Pistols at dawn. Hahaha. That would mean there'd be one less of the seven people that's actually read Gerber's Foolkiller mini. We're too rare to kill. |
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Post by berkley on May 24, 2015 23:24:15 GMT -5
Foolkiller was one of the very few Marvel series I read in the 90s. It's a very good series, but I think I'd rank it behind the only other Gerber title of the 90s I can remember reading at the moment, Nevada. The FK miniseries was a little on the preachy side at times, I thought, the tone a little strident, though I respect the genuine anger at its base. I'll admit that I thought the shot at Chomsky was off the mark, though that was no more than a minor incident in the whole narrative and I don't necessarily agree myself with every single thing Chomsky says. On the whole, well worth reading, but not up there with Gerber's best work, IMO. I haven't read the series since it first came out though, so it's quite possible I'll revise that opinon whenever I do re-read it.
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Post by coke & comics on May 25, 2015 14:09:09 GMT -5
Spider-Man #3 (October, 1990) by Todd McFarlane  Pretty much in line with the last 2 issues. Battle with the Lizard. Mood set by the rain and drumming. Some shots of MJ heading home looking forward to a night in with her husband to contrast the battle. The opening 3 pages identically mimic the structure of the previous 2. 5 page-height horizontally-arranged panels about the city itself, with narration leading to the phrase "rise above it all", showing up atop a 2-page splash across pages 2-3. This issue ends with Kraven's ghost appearing. Even if you haven't deduced the identity of the villain we get only glimpses of, this will give you a hint that this story is looking back to Kraven's Last Hunt.
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Post by the4thpip on May 26, 2015 7:46:16 GMT -5
Only one way to settle this. Pistols at dawn. Hahaha. That would mean there'd be one less of the seven people that's actually read Gerber's Foolkiller mini. We're too rare to kill. I had no problem finding and buying every single issue all the way over here in Germany when it came out. |
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Post by coke & comics on Jun 6, 2015 12:20:11 GMT -5
New Warriors #4 (October, 1990) by Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley and Larry Mahlstedt  The first 3 issues have built up to this confrontation with Genetech. We learn their CEO had been rejected as a candidate for the experiment that created Captain America, and has been obsessed with genetic enhancement ever since. He went on to work with Howard Stark and was a teacher of Reed Richards... How about we just calm down on tyring him to every aspect of Marvel history. This guy's like Wolverine or the Winter Soldier. Psionex are the villains. Created by Genetech using genetic material stolen from the Warriors: Coronary--manipulates biometabolic processes; Pretty Persuasion--arouses people and turns her erotic impulses into weapons; Mathemanic--a math telepath; Asylum--anybody engulfed in her mists messes gets a mind-trip; Impulse--I think he's really fast. These characters have yet to be translated to film. My cat, Kyle, came along, stepped on the comic, and has his own opinions to express: Couldn't have put it better.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 6, 2015 16:43:13 GMT -5
I always liked Psionex..sure, they're kinda 90s, but they're unique. They turned up not too long ago as one of the Initiative teams.
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 3, 2015 17:47:39 GMT -5
Deathlok #4 (October, 1990) by Dwayne McDuffie, Gregory Wright, Denys Cowan, Kyle Baker, Mike DeCarlo, and others  This series started off strong and fell quite far. The writing remained solid. But the art, is, frankly, a mess. And you don't even need to read the issue to guess this. You just need to look at the credits and the fact that they can't name all the inkers. Kyle Baker is a great artist, but not necessarily for doing fill-in inks on part of a comic. The editor of this comic is Bob Budiansky. I'm guessing he's to blame for the turn the series took. It's only 4 issues long, for Odin's sake. Anyways, Deathlok is about to kill Ryker, but Ryker shows him his body is still viable and that he can get Deathlok's brain back into it if Deathlok helps him with some profitable international industrial espionage and arms trafficking. Which, oddly, Sunfire seems fine with. So Deathlok battles Sunfire. Nick Fury arrests Ryker. Deathlok still dreams of being human. The end.
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 3, 2015 22:13:43 GMT -5
Ghost Rider #6 (October, 1990) by Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares, and Mark Texeira  Say what you will about this series, at least it managed to hold on to a creative team. And I maintain Ghost Rider looks awesome in it. This is part 2 of the obligatory Punisher crossover. We learn the bike needs no gasoline. Is Danny using the Ghost Rider persona as a way to escape from dealing withis his own life problems? Remember, kids, always wear a helmet when biking. Flag Smasher and Ultimatum want anarchy in the US. Ghost Rider stops Punisher from killing Flag Smasher, because he doesn't believe in death. Even though he's a vengeance-obsessed demon. And even though I'm sure we've seen him kill people already in this series. "There are things far worse than death, boy." Ghost Rider, threatening a young child.
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 4, 2015 22:08:27 GMT -5
Deathlok story from Marvel Comics Presents #62 by Dwyane McDuffie, Gregory Wright, and Jackson Guice  This story was alluded to before it was published. It's entitled "Test Run" and tells the story of the previous failed attempt at a Deathlok cyborg with the brain of Colonel John Kelly. The test goes wrong and Kelly's brain ends up fried. They nonetheless consider it mostly successful and want a new brain in the cyborg. This is a short prelude and basically a teaser for the series. It seems to be the fault of editorial that it came out after the series was finished. Nice to see Guice's Deathlok again. |
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 5, 2015 18:18:17 GMT -5
Nomad #1 (November, 1990) by Fabian Nicieza, James Fry III and Mark McKenna  Nomad isn't really a rookie, but he got a new look and direction in the '90s with his first ongoing series. They took the old Nomad costume and 90sed it up. The history of Nomad is tricky to piece together, and what I tell you today may be retconned tomorrow. But Jack Monroe is the 3rd person to wear the Bucky outfit, battling Communists in the '50s before being put into suspended animation for a while. Nomad was an identity Steve Rogers used when he wasn't Captain America for a period. Jack Monroe is the 3rd character to claim the identity. The take of this new series spins out of two 1989 stories by Nicieza, a short story in Marvel Comics Presents #14 and a backup story in Captain America annual 9. Nomad is now an "urban vigilante" in Miami. Nicieza is a writer we've seen already in this thread with New Warriors. Opinions on him tend to vary. Many, not without reason, see him as a pure hack, typing out scripts and earning a paycheck. Others have a fondness for him, based on some series or another he wrote that they enjoyed. I'm closer to the latter camp. I think his writing is not as technically strong as many of his peers, but he has a knowledge of these characters and their universe, as well as an enthusiasm for them which just shows through in all his work. The comic explicitly describes itself as aiming to be a modern western, where crime runs unchallenged except by one lone hero. At one point he meets up with Captain America, who questions why he carries a rifle. Most of the issue is spent on a not particularly interesting investigation into why a girl got beaten up in an alley. The investigation resolves itself, but leads to more questions which send Nomad on the road to Kentucky. Get it? He's a nomad. He wanders around.
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Post by coke & comics on Jul 26, 2015 15:42:38 GMT -5
Foolkiller #2 (November, 1990) by Steve Gerber, JJ Birch and Tony DeZuniga  We get a documentary recap of the career of the original Foolkiller, Ross Everbest, with the second Foolkiller, Greg Salinger, providing follow-up commentary. Everbest seemed most concerned with the hippies of the world. But Salinger focused on the slaves to consumerism. Kurt Gerhardt watches with interest. The two will begin a correspondence. This is simply a great comic, playing with the idea of legacy, and how ideas spread and inspire. The story of how somebody becomes the third Foolkiller. Who each believes to be fools may change, but the solution does not. I really like "atheist tofu-sucker" as an insult for liberals. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 28, 2015 8:18:32 GMT -5
I am to be added to the list of people that haven't and need to read Foolkiller. I am hoping to get some of the few early Deathlok issues I am missing (2-5) so I can read the rest (6-20). I have had them for some time, but I am feeling the early issues are too much to miss to enjoy the rest of the series that I have, and then decide if I want to move on from there. I was never wowed by the art, from the covers (or reading #1, which I have had for many years) but I have heard good things about this series and found the chunk of them I have for $1 each in the last 6 months or so. Nomad is also one of the 90's characters I have not read. I didn't know about the back story of the character or that Cap had taken that identity at one time. Ghost Rider, New Warriors, MCP, and Spiderman I all have a good chunk of, and getting close to completing those series, outside MCP. Really enjoying reading this thread Coke even if I don't comment a lot. Most all these books I was reading at one time in the 90's. There was a lot of good stuff out there in that decade. Glad to see someone else enjoying them as I did, to some degree anyway. Edit: Nicieza is a writer we've seen already in this thread with New Warriors. Opinions on him tend to vary. Many, not without reason, see him as a pure hack, typing out scripts and earning a paycheck. Others have a fondness for him, based on some series or another he wrote that they enjoyed. I'm closer to the latter camp. I think his writing is not as technically strong as many of his peers, but he has a knowledge of these characters and their universe, as well as an enthusiasm for them which just shows through in all his work. He was one of the first names I started to recognize, as he was doing a lot at that time. He was also on an interview with several other writers (I'll have to watch it again) on two promotional VHS tapes of the X-Men cartoon that I got from Pizza Hut back then. And he did seem to have a passion for comics, in writing them, and in their popularity. In hindsight, he seems like a writer's version of McFarlane, in that while he may not be regarded as the best in that craft, he certainly had the passion, and his contributions to the industry, especially Marvel, might have made the company different than it is now, if it hadn't been for him. But that could just be my own perception. |
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