Random Longbox

TITLE: Marvel Premiere #27

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

COVER DATE: December 1975

COVER PRICE: $0.25

19 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

Not much has changed since the Randomizer picked this book from among the random collection of forty books that I picked up during my LCS' Christmas Extravaganza. I still have never read a Satana book, nor do I have a clue who "The Tribe" is that is credited with the art on this book.

I could tell you that Satana is the brother of Daimon Hellstrom, and that this is her first appearance in FULL color, but anyone with google and five minutes of free time could tell you that. Let's just jump right in, ignorant feet first and see what we have in store for us.

Deathsong

• Author: Chris Claremont
• Artist: The Tribe
• Letterer: Marcos Pelayo
• Colorist: Janice Cohen
• Editor: Marv Wolfman

The tale begins at the ending, as Satana stands at the scene of a horrific car crash, with a smoldering body lying nearby.

I'm assuming we'll get some explanations on how we got here and what it means, and it would also be nice if we got some answers about just who Satana is at the same time. Although, when the narrator has just as many questions as you, that's never a good sign.

With all of these questions, it's best to go back the beginning, as we catch up with the owner of the smouldering corpse, Deborah Hirsch, as she is on the run from an angry mob. Trying to lose them through the alleyways, she quite literally bumps into Satana, who has been drawn to this town by an occult sixth sense.


Unfortunately, her odd sense of decorum does her no good as Satana delays her just long enough for the mob to catch up to her and bind her in chains. Why chains? Because they claim she's a witch, and they intend to burn her at the stake.

You'd think the devil's daughter would be all for a good witch burning, but not this time. It's time to teach these townspeople some manners, so she makes him grovel like a pig at her feet.


As it turns out, she probably should have let them light the blaze as Deborah actually was possessed by the demon Dansker!

And who is Dankser?

He was also Satana's tutor in the ways of all things demony. Dansker used to rule the Netherlands until Lucifer usurped his command and bound him to his service. One of his chores was to "teach" Satana. The last time they talked was on her graduation day, where she attempted to best him in battle. Unsuccessful, her teacher left her beaten and humbled, vowing that he would always be her better.

Now that the Dansker is free in the mortal world, Satana decides it's time to settle some old scores. First, she needs to find where he has run to after he broke free. One stolen soul later from the last surviving townsperson, and she has her answer.

Here's where the story takes a turn into the-- surreal? Comical? Bizarre?

I can't decide, so what do you think?

That, in all of his bearded and bikini'd glory is Dansker. I know this was the seventies and all, and fashion took a certain liberty with common sense, but that's just weird.

You would think that if you have the power to put your head on a body, you could also spare some magical mojo for some more appropriate attire.

You also would've thought that Moondragon would not have taken kindly to someone copping her look. Granted, there's more hair, but tell me Moondragon hasn't wore that same one-piece.

This time, however, Satana is more than able to match Dansker's power. One well placed "SSZZZAA-KOW" later, and Dankser is brought to his knees.

Leaving him humbled and beaten this time, Satana turns his back on him and walks away. Dansker still has a little fight left in him, as he jumps into Deborah's car and tries to run Satana down, which proves the age old adage...if you can't beat 'em with magic, run 'em over with a car!

Summoning from the power of the basilisk that lies deep within Satana's soul, she lashes out and incinerates Dansker alive, host body and all. In the end, Deborah Hirsch's death was avenged by Satana. Yeah, she technically burned her body to ashes, but her soul was already damned by Dansker at that time. Someday her final battle with Dansker will come, and she will be able to take a true reckoning...someday...

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN...

For all intents and purposes, this is your standard "demon exiled from Hell, trying to find their way in the mortal world" type of story. This particular time around, the demon is the daughter of Lucifer himself. I wouldn't necessarily say she's guided by a sense of justice, but she does appear to have her own roughly admirable moral code to guide her.

Yeah, she avenged an innocent women's death and saved the life of a young boy in the process, but she did it by stealing another man's soul and condemning him to death. And while he wasn't free of guilt himself, he was actually trying to prevent his town from being taken over by demons. Granted, he was using methods straight out of the Salem Witchhunts, but is that a good enough reason to suck his immortal soul dry?

I suppose we'll leave that question to the philosophers and historians to decide.

Apart from the rather silly villain costume, this was a pretty decent issue. Chris Claremont is not a writer I normally associate with done-in-ones, but this one is not bad. There was only one spot where I rolled my eyes at the excessively dramatic narration.

Evil, a living testament to the darkness in men's souls...

Tell me that that description was never used for Apocalypse, or Mr. Sinister, or Magneto.

The art I rather liked as well, as it was very reminiscent of Marvel's house-style for their seventies horror books. It looks like at least two different artists handled this issue, but the transitions are well done and smooth.

As this story draws to a close, I can't say that I'm storming the halls of Marvel demanding she get her own series, but as a random issue read some thirty plus years after it was released, it was entertaining enough.

If you just can't get enough Satana, however, Marvel did us a favor with this issue and reprinted her first appearance from Vampire Tales #2. It's only four pages long, but it's by Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr., so it's worth taking a look at. Check the links out at the bottom of this post, as Pete from The Bronze Age of Blogs has a post that has some nice large scans of all four pages.

It's time to pick a new random book to review from my collection, but since this is also new comic book day, that can only mean one thing...

That's right, it's time for Comic Book Days of Wednesday's Past!

So before we have the Randomizer tell us what book to read, let's fire it up to randomly pick a year and see what was on the shelves back then. The first year up is 1951!

It's Captain Marvel and the Lieutenants of Safety #3. You gotta love the 50's! A time of such innocence, when all it took to keep your family safe was a ladder and a new light bulb.

But then again, it would appear that all it took to turn people into rampant criminals was a little darkness, so maybe it wasn't the pristine age of innocence that everyone seems to recall.

So that was 1951, but let's pick another year and see what dangers of that age we can be warned against. The next year is 1989, and are broken street lights still the nefarious menace to civilization that they were 48 38 years ago?

Yikes! V For Vendetta #7...yep, the times they are a changing.

In a world of anarchistic revolutionaries fighting a fascist government in a post-nuclear world, a little darkness would seem to be the least of our problems.

Although I blame the Lieutenants of Safety. If only they would've kept up with Demon Danger and his air rifle, there would have been no dark corners in which a fascist government was able to rise to power.

Let's quit while we're ahead, and get going with the pick of our next random review. Take it away, Randomizer!

...and that book is Action Comics Weekly #642 from March 1989, published by DC Comics!

It's our second go around with the weekly anthology experiment that was Action Comics Weekly. This time we are treated with the last weekly issue, before it reverted back to the original format.

So if that isn't exciting enough, this issue features artwork by none other than Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Jim Aparo, Curt Swan, and Carmine Infantino!

Comic book pedigrees don't get much better than that!

See you in a day or two for the review.

UPDATE: So it was just pointed out to me by reader PM that today (the 5th) is Guy Fawkes Day! I swear the highlighting of V For Vendetta in this post, with it's obvious ties to the Guy Fawkes mythology, was completey random and coincidental.

It just goes to show, once again, that the Randomizer is smarter than me. One of these days it's just going to refuse to open the pod bay doors, and then we're all in trouble!

TITLE: Captain America #339

PUBLISHER: Marvel

COVER DATE: March 1988

COVER PRICE: $0.75

22 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

As I mentioned the other day, I didn't even know that I owned this issue so what I remember is pretty much nothing.

It's from the period in time where Steve Rogers resigned from being Captain America, and it takes place smack dab in the middle of The Fall Of The Mutants storyline that was running through the X-titles at this time.

Short preamble today, so let's just get to the book...

America The Scorched!

• Story: Mark Gruenwald
• Pencils: Kieron Dwyer
• Inks: Tony DeZuniga
• Letters: Jack Morelli
• Colors: Gregory Wright
• Editor: Ralph Macchio
• Chief: Tom DeFalco

The issue opens up with Famine wreaking havoc in the middle of the midwest, withering crops to ash and desiccating the local cattle. She's one of Apocolypse's Four Horsemen, and she has been let loose to terrorize America's heartland. Every living thing in her way perishes, be it crops, animals, or the farmers who tend them.

We then cut to Steve Rogers in the midst of a nightmare. His foe? It's a hulking man in a grey three-piece suit. Steve struggles to overcome him, but he can't touch him. This is not a physical battle, which Cap learns the hard way as his shield dematerializes.

It would appear that the hulking form is the embodiment of the U.S. Government, which he's still trying to come to terms with since his forced resignation. Obviously, there's some resentment going on there.

If Cap was resentful before, he's going to be downright pissed now, as his costume disappears next leaving him fighting in just his star-spangled boxers.

And we all thought that super-heroes wore their underwear on the outside!

Cap struggles to regain some modicum of modesty as he sees his black costume lying at his feet. He tries to put it on, but it soon transforms into miles and miles of red tape that engulf him like a mummy as he is taunted by the hulking figure, who has now transformed into a mocking visage of Ronald Reagan.

That's enough to wake Steve out of his nightmare, as he comes to in a plane flying across the country. With him are Nomad, The Falcon, Vagabond, and D-Man. Cap reassures D-Man, who apparently has just started his super-hero career, that even living legends have doubts and fears. After his pep talk, The Falcon wonders how he's going to convince Cap to do what's right and retake his mantle that he was forced to resign from. That's a story for another day, as a distress call comes over the radio detailing Famine's path of destruction across Kansas.

This is the first story I've read that really deals with D-Man and I'm confused. My only exposure to this character was in Busiek and Perez's fantastic Avengers run. I remember when they were holding one of their membership drives that everyone was giving D-Man a wide berth, like he smelled bad or was a leper. Obviously there's more to his story, as in this issue he's the money man behind Steve's current activities.

We cut to a U.S. Military base, where the new Captain America and Bucky run into Freedom Force. There, the Blob boasts about the recent death of the X-Men. Even though the X-Men were considered renegades at this point in time, it still sits uneasy with the new Cap who is showing signs of not being as much of a company guy as the U.S. Government would like.

Their little get together is cut short as Cap and Bucky are summoned to military command. There, they are informed about Famine and are ordered to go take her down.

Steve and his crew catch up to Famine just as she dispatches some military helicopters that were sent to stop her. The Falcon takes off, as Nomad, D-Man and Cap parachute down to the surface. I don't know what it is, but this panel makes me laugh.

You think there would be a more superheroy way to make an entrance from 15,000 feet!

The Falcon is able to get Famine into a full nelson, separating her from her flying, robotic steed. Just as he is about to land, she twists and attacks the Falcon. She escapes his grasp, as the Falcon falls to the ground, doubled over with severe hunger.

The cavalry lands just in time as Nomad's flying discs stop her attack on the Falcon. Steve runs to check on the Falcon, as Nomad fights Famine and D-Man tries to tame her steed.

After all the damage that Famine has wrought in her rampage, Nomad tries one of the oldest tricks in the book on her. He throws dirt in her face! Now that's an old-school scrapper. He then follows that up with a "knuckle sandwich." I think I figured out who the Nomad really is, he's my grandfather! I mean, who else says knuckle sandwich anymore.

After making sure that Falcon is going to be all right, Steve rips a metal panel off of a tractor to use as a makeshift shield and enters the battle to stop Famine.

It shouldn't really come as surprise that a little mud in the eye and a knuckle sandwich were insufficient to take her down. Steve tries to bore her into submission with what sounds like a segment of one of FDR's fireside chats.

What do you think you're accomplishing by despoiling the land and robbing hard-working farmers of their livelihood and trying to starve a nation?

I guess Cap really is a man out of time.

Just as Cap wrestles her into submission, she and her steed are teleported away. Steve is confident that Nomad and Falcon will recover, but what about America. Who can bind the wounds of the land and feed her famished people. It sure was convenient that a villain out of nowhere attacked the very heart of America, right as Steve was coping with what it means to be a living symbol of that same country. I guess that's what tangential tie-ins are for, convenient plot movements.

The new Cap and Bucky show up, but just find an empty field with no sign of Famine. Poor new Cap, always a bridesmaid and never the bride.

Weeks later, we catch up with Cap as he visits Tony Stark in his Los Angeles headquarters of Stark Industries.

It seems Steve has come to seek the aid of his onetime teammate to help him construct a new shield. Things were so much easier in a pre-Civil War continuity.


Then again, maybe not. Steve talking to Tony about him giving up being Captain America...now where have I heard that before...

Steve tries out his new adamantium shield, content with the hopes that now that he is complete with his shield again, the nightmares that have been plaguing him will stop.

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN...

Cap and Iron Man used to be friends. Ahhh, good times...good times...

I was wondering the other day why I hadn't started reading Captain America before Mark Waid took over. After all, I was a huge Avengers fan since I first started reading comics in the mid-80's. I think after reading this issue, I know why.

It really wasn't all that good. I can see what Gruenwald was trying to do, it just seemed a little ham-handed to me. Maybe it was the fact that it tied into a crossover that was happening in another corner of the Marvel universe. It's not like Captain America was ever really closely tied to the X-universe, after all.

I've also enjoyed Kieron Dwyer's work in the past on the aforementioned Busiek run of The Avengers and his stint on Action Comics. Here, his work lacked the visual punch I remember his pencils having. He was still a competent storyteller here, but I was looking for a little bit more when I saw his name in the credits.

For the time being, I think I'll just stick with Captain America #444 as the official beginning of my Captain America collection.

All characters and artwork reproduced are (c) Marvel Comics.

• Kieron Dwyer's official website
• The archive of editorials by Mark Gruenwald