The tagline's certainly a grabber.

There are many different periods in MoKF:

1) The earliest issues, in which the hero deals with the fact that his father is the criminal mastermind Fu Manchu. These issues are action comics with a philosophical slant, sort of a thinking person's kung fu comic with the added credibility given by that name, "Fu Manchu".

2) The glory days of the Moench-Gulacy era, in which the hero deals with more than his father issues (drug traffic, environental issues, arms dealing); these comics are more like James Bond films that Fu Manchu ones. I believe they're the defining run of MoKF.

3) A long period of trying to recapture the magic of the previous era. Not always unsuccessful, but it's kind of a slow burn... there is some character development, but I'd say only a dozen issues or so in those years are must-read material; the rest has a feel of "been there, done that". Unfortunately, these include most of the Mike Zeck issues; I say "unfortunately", because I think Zeck's art was pretty good, and that his consistently good work probably saved the mag from cancellation.

4) The last hurrah, marked by the arrival of Gene Day as penciller-inker. The philosophy became more serious, the drama became more human, and were it not for Day's tragically early passing, this might have proven to be the mag's best run.

5) The post-Moench and Day period, which might as well not have been published as far as I am concerned. They were not inept, but were clearly lacking in direction and are of little interest. They also have the main characters acting out of character.

Both!

I haven't read it since it came out in the 90's, but I liked it.  

I've said it before :  If Rick or Tom Veitch has their name on it, I'll buy it.

As far as Desert Peach, I've only read a little of it, maybe one issue IIRC.  I may be wrong, but I think the lead character was a cross dresser, other than that I couldn't tell you anything else.

An archaeological dig turns up an artifact that gives its bearer superpowers and he becomes unto a God to that culture, an American gets those powers and tries to turn the little middle eastern nation into a superpower but at a tremendous cost.

It's been about a year and a half to 2 years since I read it. Quite liked it, but it felt rushed and choppy in places, like it may have been intended to be a longer format story compressed into 3 prestige issues and some severe edits to the script had to be made. It was solid, but with better pacing it could have been tremendous.

-M

So, uh, Big Daddy Danger from DC. I so a LOT of 'em in the fifty cent boxes. Worth it?

Sorry I missed this post!

I love The Desert Peach! I started reading it around issue #13, got all the back issues mostly in the compilations and read it for awhile. I looked it up on the Comic Book Database and I see it only went up to issue #30, so I read it almost all the way to the end. It was not published regularly and at the end there might be two issues a year or it might skip a year.

The Desert Peach is the nickname for Erwin Rommel's gay brother. He is the commanding officer of a supply battalion in North Africa, providing support and supplies for Rommel's North African activities during World War II. The command has become a depository for all the misfits in the German army.

I once made a Top Twenty-Five Comic Books list that included The Desert Peach #13. That's the issue where writer/artist Donna Barr tackled the Holocaust.



Very powerful.

A later issue (#25) flashbacked to World War I when Erwin Rommel commanded troops in Transylvania. (This part is true!) The Desert Peach was serving with his brother and he gets separated from the others and runs into vampires!



It's different. I loved it most of the time.