Here is our other thread discussing Marada.

Bizarre Adventures #27



Secret Lives of the X-Men. See Nightcrawler's bait shop! Watch Iceman's sno-cone venture ironically fail. Jean Grey's secret life as a decal on a Trans-Am!

Paul Gulacy cover,

Creative Teams: Phoenix-Chis Claremont-writer, John Buscema pencils, Klaus Janson-inks; Iceman-Jo Duffy-writer, George Perez-pencils, Alfredo Alcala-inks. Nightcrawler-Jo-Duffy-plot & script, Bob Layton-plot, Dave Cockrum-pencils, Ricardo Villamonte-inks; Denny O'Neil-edits, Ralph Macchio-assco edits.

It's the 80s, so we have to push the X-Men into everything. Start of a trend, as they even turned up in Rom.

Synopsis: Phoenix-This is post death, so it is a flashback. Jean's sister, Sara, places flowers on her grave, one year after her death...



Sara talks to Jean's grave. her son is nearing puberty and she is afraid he might be a mutant and his potential powers might bring him death, as it did Jean. She recalls a happier time. The sisters go sailing, where Jean dumps a masher into the water. We seen Sara slightly shocked by a display of Jean's telekinesis, then see a periscope pop up, nearby. An inexplicable fog bank rolls suddenly in. The radio isn't transmitting and Sara passes out, from something in the fog. Jean is affected and her body freezes. She slips into the water and is pulled under. She flashes back to childhood, when a friend is hit by a car and Jean was in her mind, as she died.



She then meets Charles Xavier and becomes an X-men; and, then Phoenix. She wakes up, underwater, able to breath. She finds Sara freaking out about the same thing. Guards come and they are brought before Attuma, who plans on making them his brides. Jean lets him know she isn't ready for marriage and whoops his hide, after a bit of a struggle. She then escapes with Sara, but finds Sara can't breath air. Jean is able to transform her system, so she can return to land, but comes close to drowning, herself (if that's possible. Sara is still terrified of the possibility of her child being a mutant and Jean puts in a mental block on the memories. Back in the present, Sara says goodbye and thinks that she is now at peace with the idea of her son being a mutant, if he is half the person Jean was.

Iceman-Maverick is flying reckless and Goose is whooping on the mic.......wait, that's Top Gun. It's the Winter Carnival, at Dartmouth and Bobby Drake is looking at snow & ice sculptures...



The theme is superheroes and Bobby adds an Iceman statue. he has a snowball fight with friends, that is interrupted by some hoods, stealing computer components from a lab. he stops them and everyone is impressed that Iceman is there and he engages in some fun in the snow. A police lieutenant turns up to question Iceman about the robbery, asking if they saw who sounded the alarm. it was a professor who is in the math department, but no one seems to have taken his courses. later, we see the computer stuff being stolen. The robbery was a phony and when the items were returned, there was an extra crate, with a man hiding inside, who opened the door for the real thieves. They walk past the statues and it turns out there are two of Iceman and the second one comes to life and attacks. The prof hits him with energy from a cane, which melts things; but Bobby reforms the ice and chases him down and gets the cane away, as it nears critical energy. The thieves are caught and Bobby returns to the festivities.

Nightcrawler-The X-men are watching Nightcrawler's favorite film (The Mark of Zorro, with Tyrone Power). Cerebro sounds an alarm and Kurt gets there first. cerebro has detected half a mutant, in Poughkeepsie. They travel there and find Vanisher, or half of him, as he appears stuck in phase.



Nightcrawler touches him and there is a "BAMF" explosion, and then Nightcrawler and Vanisher are being propelled across realities...



Nightcrawler and Vanisher crash to a landing, in separate locations, where each encounter a group of women who want to "use" them. Neither are able to teleport away. They are taken to separate banquets, where it is explained that males don't grow naturally there and they get males when they pop in. Nightcrawler has questions and is referred to the oracle, which turns out to be a tv, with goo all around it. A person, named Sehv, appears on screen. The oracle tells him that there is a portal that pulls in stuff from other realities (including the Space Battleship Yamato aka the Argo, from Starblazers) and that if he pops through it, he can get out; but, he has to take anything back with him that came through with him. She also warns him to watch his backside.

Vanisher is living it up, when Nightcrawler shows up and he doesn't want to leave. They fight, with swords, and nightcrawler does his best Bugs & Daffy impression...



They get to the portal, fight some more, then jump through, ahead of a monster. They arrive in their reality, sans clothes (well, Vanisher). He disappears, then Nightcrawler pops out, as the story ends kind of abruptly.

Thoughts: Nothing particularly groundbreaking; fairly average stories. The flashback within a flashback, with Phoenixx, is a bit much. The actual story isn't anything great. It ends up a character piece about Jean and her sister's fears. Not really much depth on the character front and the Attuma element comes out of nowhere and seems unnecessary, other than to add action. Seems like they didn't have confidence in a pure character story.

Iceman is lighthearted, but fun, and lets Bobby have a bit of a spotlight. The insider professor is a bit hard to swallow, as you don't just waltz onto a college faculty and then get access to expensive computer equipment, even at snooty ivy league schools, with chinless wonders in their administration (I went to a Big Ten school). Nice art from Perez, even if the snow motif gets a bit overdone in the visuals. it looks a bit like the art got splattered by white-out, with snow and ice all throughout.

Nghtcrawler is basically Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck on an adventure, that could have used some more room to develop the joke.

Nothing spectacular here; but, I am betting they hoped the X-Men would sell more copies. It probably did, but, I'd rather have more like Black Widow or what we get next issue.

Next issue blurb says Marada the She-Wolf; but, that would wait a couple of years and turn up in Epic Illustrated, for reason covered above.

Statement of ownership included in the issue says they are averaging around 50,000 copies. They'd kill for that today. Back then, that wasn't great. They are averaging about 1/3 sell through on their print run. If you could hit 50% or better, you were doing great.

Letters pages praise Black Widow and it is mentioned that Macchio is finishing a story for the upcoming Marvel Fanfare, which Perez already pencilled.  That's a couple of years down the road.

Cockrum revisited this world later in his 1985 Nightcrawler mini-series, with more zany cartoon-like swashbuckling. Mary Jo Duffy made The Vanisher a core character in her Fallen Angels mini-series in 1987.

^^^^ I was a Wrightson near-completest at the time, but never picked this up--never really was interested in seeing him draw superheroes.

Bizarre Adventures #28



Elektra!

Also, Mr Sandman....bring me a dream........

Creative Team: Elektra-Frank Miller-story & art*, Shadow Hunter-Neal Adams-story, some pencils & inks, Doug Moench-script, Larry Hama pencils, Dick Giordano, Rerry Austin, Dennis Francis-inks; Hunstman-Archie Goodwin-writer, Michael Golden-pencils, Steve Mitchell-inks; Triton-Jo Duffy-writer, Wendy Pini-art, Bucky Bizarre-Steve Skeates-writer, Steve Smallwood-art; Denny O'Neil-edits, Ralp Macchio-assoc edits

The theme is unlikely heroes. It was supposed to be Marada the She-Wolf; but, a loss of rights and cold feet made it not happen. Also, Hintsman originated elsewhere, as I will get to, in a moment.

Synopsis: Elektra-A freighter receives a radio message to abort their mission, they have been infiltrated. Just then, Elektra guts the radio operator with her sai. She kills several more men and sets explosives, escaping ahead of the explosion. She finds herself on a raft with a lone survivor, who has her at point blank range. She convinces him to let her live, for their mutual survival...



He is hunting a Nazi war criminal who murdered his family with medical experiments (think Mengele), who now masquerades as a spice merchant. The raft eventually nears land. The man shoots Elektra, creasing her temple. She swims for shore. She passes out and wakes up surrounded by two Charles Atlas types, whose father is making a deal with our Nazi. She fakes them out and steals their dune buggy. She kills a guard dog and when it is found, the guard says that is the second dead one. She infiltrates the house and finds dead guards. She finds her former raft mate standing there, having shot the Nazi in the legs, which are paralyzed. he is confused and seems to be suffering from dementia. The man spots Elektra and turns, then is shot through the back by the Nazi, who apologizes to Elektra for taking her kill. She starts to leave and...



Shadow Hunter-At an American missile base, somewhere in the Far East, a group of karate weirdos attack, without Chuck Norris...



They head for the control room, to sabotage things when one notices Shadow Hunter is missing. He then turns up in front of them and reveals he does not work for Gen Kang, like the rest of them. It turns all chop-socky and the little dude is kicking ass and taking names, when the MPs turn up and everyone runs. They get his with gas grenades and Shadow Hunter wakes up in the intelligence section office. he is questioned about why he is there, since no one knows who he is, including the "ninjas." He tells of growing up in Hawaii, the son of Japanese immigrants. he joined the Arm but was too small for combat and was made a cook. His unit was moved closer to the front lines and a helo went down, with all captured, including him. They woke up in a secret Chinese underground training complex, where they were made Manchurian Candidates and were made to obey Gen Kang (but not Kodos). SH was able to beat the conditioning, due to his ninja training. Uh-hunh. He knows where the base is and one of the soldiers believes him and they take a fighter (which ends up looking like a mix of and F-4 Phantom and an A-4 Skyhawk) and SH ejects out and parachutes down into the jungle. He infiltrates the base, confronts Kang, then smashes his computers from inside their cabinets.



The cavalry arrive and the other "agents" of Kang will not receive their orders.

Huntsman-A man called Ballard is alone, having escaped a city and wounded an unfamiliar beast...



He flashes back to Huntsman training, where he and his partner are sent into a slumzone, looking for fugitives. they are attacked by ratpackers, feral children. Cable, the partner, loses his gun and one of the kids gets it. They are saved by Cdr Stryde, their instructor. he scatters the kids and sends them on, after their target. It's a young woman and Cable shoots it in the head. Ballard is stunned, then Stryde shows up to reveal it is an android.

tryde debriefs and critiques the cadets, then they go to the Arena, where a group facing retirement (at 35) try to reach the Golden Circle. The crowd chants "Swim", but none make it. Ballard trains to be the best, but hesitates to shoot when facing a real fugitive and is saved by Stryde. He has to do better or he will face the organ banks, at 35.

Cable is made a full huntsman, byt Stryde doesn't think Ballard is ready. There is talk of the Golden Circle being opened to Hunstmen. Ballard goes and trains in a holographic simulation room, until he kills without hesitation. His score is off the charts and Stryde stops the exercise and makes Ballard a full Huntsman. The go to the Arena and see someoen who outclasses the field, yet gets zapped before reaching the Golden Circle. Later, Ballard is in Slumzone 3, stalking a target and hits it. It is Cdr Stryde. The Arena is rigged. Hunstmen have o inner track tot eh Golden Circle, they are sent to Arena, which is rigged to kill all. His faith shattered, he ran. Ballard is awakened. he destroys the body, so it can't be used for the organ banks. Later, he goes on the run and survives. He now faces the beast and decides to let it go...



Triton-Triton is swimming through the ocean, when he encounters an oil slick and is sickened. he is rescued by a boat that is following the slick, cased by a damaged tanker of a Middle eastern nation. The man on the boat says the king is a good man and their people need the oil and the slick was an accident. The ship is attacked by armed men and Triton fights them off, then leaves, without learning that his savior was the king, who was given an earful by Triton, unknowingly, about how they are destroying the oceans.



Bucky Bizarre-Bucky is travelling the time stream, when his intake is damaged and he lands in 1956, where he finds a monster attacked by a mob...



They are interrupted by a neighboring village idiot, who has kidnapped the ehad of the pTA and is dragging her away. Bucky convinces the bog monster to play hero and he rescues the PTA president. The mob is happy; but, they still think he smells bad and lowers property values and attack him. he dumps grass seed on himself and Bucky asks why...



Thoughts: The Elektra story was the first to appear outside the pages of Daredevil. It was eventually collected with the others as The Elektra Saga, which edited together the Elektra stories into one unit (minus some plot elements that didn't involve her, which made for some choppy reading. It was later collected in trade book, with the entirety of Miller's DD. Miller has sole credit, apart from letterer Jim Novak; but, people like Klaus Janson and Joe Rubinstein did extensive finishes on his pencils; so there is a question if someone else was working here or if it was all Frank. It's easily the star piece and nicely done.

Shadow Hunter is swiped from about a half dozen sources, including The Manchurian Candidate and reads like it was written during the height of the Vietnam War, not 6 years after the fall of Saigon. It reads like typical Neal Adams Continuity plotting, though Moench is a better scripter than most that worked at Continuity (apart from Elliot Maggin). Looks nice, though.

Huntsman is an unused Logan's Run story repurposed here, with name changes and slight alteration to the Hunstman/Sandman uniforms (though no one told Bob larkin, on the cover). Ballard, in the original novel, was a legendary "old man" who had lived beyond the mandated age of 21 and helped the runners to escape. His identity ends up being a bit of a twist. In the film, there is no Ballard, per se, though The Old man takes part of his role. Here, the name is given to Logan. Cable appears to be Francis. The ratpackers are the Cubs and Arena is Carousel. Being that this was Archie Goodwin, it's a great story, ably aided by Michael Golden's evocative art. Still, you'd have to be oblivious to Logan's Run to not see what it is.

Bucky Bizarre is typical Steve Skeates material, with bad jokes and an Underground sensibility. I didn't think much of his Star#Reach and Quack contributions and this does little for me, though it is fine for what it is. The character looks like he raided Jay Garrick's closet.

Pretty decent issue, with plenty of pulpy action for fans of that stuff, much like the Lethal Ladies issue and the Dominic Fortune reprint. Better use of the format than the X-Men issue.

Next up is an adaptation of Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man, many years before the movie version. Never understood why they didn't do an endorsement deal for Toro.

It seems that every time I see something of de Matteis's online it reinforces my dislike for his writing, though in fairness I've read very little of it apart from samples like this, having dropped Marvel by the time he started writing comics.

Bizarre Adventures #29



The Lawnmower Man...

Tron-Meets-Sling Blade, right?



...or not?



Cover y Walt Simonson.

Creative Team: Lawnmower Man-Stephen King-writer, Walt Simonson-art; Greenberg-JM DeMatteis-writer, Steve Leialoha-art; Mirror, Mirror-Bruce Jones-writer, John Buscema-pencils, Bob Wiacek-inks; Bucky Bizarre-Steve Skeates-writing, Steve Smallwood-art; Denny O'Neil-edits

Synopsis: Lawnmower Man...Harold Parkette used to have his grass cut by the neighbor boy, using his own Lawnboy mower. One day, a dog chased the neighbor's cat into the path of the mower, killing it. Horrified, by the constant thought of it, Harold's wife made him get rid of the mower. The next spring, he let things go....and go...and go, until he had more of a pasture, then a lawn. He contacted a service and they sent out a man, named Karras (Alex?). he went to work on it. Harold witnessed, in disbelief and revulsion as a big mower tore through the yard, of its own volition, while Karras, naked, crawled behind, eating the grass. Then, a mole ran from the path of the mower and it swung to pursue and mulch it, while Karras followed behind, to consume the remains...

..

Harold faints and believes he is dreaming, but wakes up to Karras, who speaks of the boss, Pan, and sacrifices. Harold thinks he is nuts and tries to call the police, but is drowned up by increasing mower noise. In comes Karras and the mower chases down Harold. When the police arrive, the find a grisly mess, but a beautiful lawn.

Greenberg-A leather boy is killed, walking his dog, in an alley. Police burst in on an apartment to find a woman, weeks dead, and a group chanting her name. Seemingly unrelated events? A bat flies into a sliding glass door and curses. Inside a sleeping man, the man wakes in fright, with a figure standing over it...



The man is Oscar, the younger man is his nephew, Morrie, and the bat is Denise. Oscar is a vampire, as is Denise. They all go to a kosher butcher, run by Oscar's brother Ira; the family business. Ira provides animal blood for Oscar and Denise, so they won't have to feed on people. They return home and see the news, about the dead woman. The crowd of people were from a meditation group and were trying to resurrect Tina Di'Arrio, model and fashion editor. Leslie Townshend, her lover and leader of the meditation group, expresses dismay. Denise knew them and is dumbfounded. Oscar thinks it might make for a good plot, to help get past his writer's block. A man with a crucifix kills a woman and he also killed the leather boy. He has a picture of Oscar in his room, as he looks over weapons.



Oscar, Denise and Morrie go to talk to Leslie, who says Tina committed suicide. She films everything and purports to work miracles and such and her followers lacked enough faith to realize the miracle. She is marketing her "religion," which disgusts Denise. The group splits up and Morrie runs into our killer and is taken at gunpoint. Oscar & Denise go to a party, to talk to vampire friends. Oscar's friend, Leopold shows a clip from the Tom Snyde (funny, that) show, with a blacked out man claiming to be a vampire hunter, naming Oscar and JD Salinger as vampires. A box arrives for Leopold and it is the remains of Bob, his lover and the leather boy. Morrie is taken into an alley, surprises the killer with a thrown rock and runs away.

Oscar & Denise fly in bat form to leslie's and break into her video files. they find footage of Leslie telling Tina to commit suicide, in what looks like a ceremony and Tina doing so, willingly. They are interrupted by Leslie, who has a crucifix. In comes Mr X and Morrie. Oscar gets the crucifix away, with extreme pain and Mr X knows Denise. She is his sister and he is her brother, Arthur. She was the victim of vampiric attackers and he swore a holy war on their vampiric kind. Tina turns up, undead and kills Leslie and everything comes to an end, with cover stories.

Mirror, Mirror- 1927 and Michael Campbell goes to breakfast. he thinks back on his half-sister Caroline, given up for adoption and reclaimed by their mother, as Michael trips down the stairs...



Michael wakes and sees a vision of murder in a mirror. He is taken to bed, to rest, but is haunted by the vision. He looks at the mirror again and sees it more clearly, as his sister is killed and he stands, blood smeared on him, holding a knife. Further investigation reveals the calendar, with the date; the next day. Michael tries to change things, Caroline goes off with their parents, while he goes to school. he comes home to fid Caroline, and the mirror gone. he runs from her and hides, then she arrives with a knife, to kill him so she can have their parents for herself. She stabs Michael in the arm and he gets away and she crashes out a window, to her death. Micheal picks up the knife and sees himself reflected in a mirror, holding the knife.

Bucky Bizarre-Bucky lands in the Victorian Age and runs into a gothic vampire tale...



The vampire is decapitated by an unseen wire, stretched between buildings, as we get bad jokes about losing a head over a woman.

Thoughts: Well, we see how little of anything ended up in the Lawnmower Man movie, and why King got rather upset by it. It was Flowers For Algernon-meets-The Twilight Zone (or Alfred hitchcock). This is a tale of Greek horror, in suburbia, as Harold Parkette meats up with an agent of Pan and a sacrifice to the gods for good grass. Not sure is King wrote the script or if Walt adapted it; but, the story works really well. Walt's art is a bit minimalist, to fit with the bizarre world (and black and white presentation). It adds to the surreal nature of the story and its rather EC style of dark humor. Great piece of work.

Greenberg is big on character, a bit weak on the mystery and very week on the ending. The same is true of the graphic novel, as DeMatteis seems to lose the narrative thread just before he runs out of pages. Steve Leialoha makes it look nice. It is forward in the presentation of homosexual characters as matter-of-fact and both let us down by not exploring this vampiric society. I have to believe DeMatteis is somewhat influenced by Anne Rice and her Lestat novels, which debuted in 1976, with Interview with the Vampire, and its vampiric society, though I have not read that much vampiric fiction to be certain of other influences. Fred Saberhagen's Dracula works predate Rice (not by much), so both could be of influence. Sadly, DeMatteis isn't inclined to really focus on this aspect, here, nor as much as I expected, in the graphic novel. In that, he is no Kim Newman, whose Anno Dracula metafictions give us both a mystery/adventure story and a look at a world with vampires in open society, combining genre elements into a larger whole. Not sure is DeMatteis just hadn't developed the concept enough or was too hindered by a Marvel mandate for their stories. It is weak horror and poor mystery, but interesting character piece, to a point. I have to think the property would have been better served in the indie world, where the freedom to explore the characters might have been greater (though there probably would have been a push for the horrific elements there, too, for commercial reasons).

Mirror, Mirror is typical Bruce Jones material, much like his Warren and Pacific/Eclipse stories, in the EC model. Buscema does a nice job with both the emotional element and the time period.

Bucky Bizarre continues to be bad jokes to fill out page count.

Another fine issue, with a central horror theme to it, which lives up to the name of the magazine.

Next, Paradox returns.