Marvel Comics Presents was perhaps one of the most unsatisfying comic book reading experiences ever. Ever!
An anthology book, MCP had four serialized short stories per issue – about eight pages each. You could count on two of the four stories starring Wolverine, Ghost Rider, or The Punisher, and the rest was filler. Despite the bi-weekly shipping schedule, MCP was a frustrating read because you would only get a fraction of each serialized storyline - you could read just enough of the story to remember what the hell was going on, and then it ended.
This issue, for instance, features part four of a five-part Wolverine story, part three of a four-part Iron Fist story, part five of a six-part Ghost Rider/Luke Cage story, a stand-alone Black Widow story, and a story featuring a cute little Japanese Sanrio animal. Each story has a different creative team. Each story is crap. That's right: crap. I'm going to go so far as to say that this comic – Marvel Comics Presents #135 - literally sucks ass. Literally.
The only MCP storyline that anyone really was invested in was Barry Windsor-Smith's twelve part "Weapon X" storyline, which featured the sort-of origin of Wolverine. It was beautifully illustrated, but I don’t remember being blown away by the actual story. It mostly consisted of Wolverine hooked up to a bunch of colorful wires and pretty lights.
In this issue we have an obligatory Wolverine story by Dan Slott and Steve Lightle which I won’t mock because I like both those guys. There’s also a Ghost Rider/Luke Cage team-up, only during the nineties he was just called “Cage.” Because, you know, it’s cooler. This story is just eight pages of Cage running from zombies and Ghost Rider arguing with Generic Demon #73.
Here’s an excerpt of the conversation between the two demons:
That’s about as interesting as it gets in that story. At least Ghost Rider knows where he stands: “No.”
Then there’s a quick little eight-page Black Widow story with the most bizarre art. I can’t figure out how this art got accepted and published. My daughter can draw better than that – and she’s not even three yet.
Don’t take my word for it, have a look:
What the hell? Did the artist just use his left hand? Or maybe he kept his eyes closed the whole time? Drew it in a mirror? Or upside down? Maybe the artist got carpal tunnel and just made his 10-year old nephew draw the whole thing? Or perhaps this is the first comic ever produced by monkeys in captivity?
Whatever the reason, the end result is really bad art of women who look like they've been hitting the 'roids. And where are Black Widow’s pupils? How do you forget something like eyes?
In addition to the hard-on-the-eyes Black Widow story, we get an Iron Fist vs Sabretooth story. The art is a little cleaner in this story, but it’s full of grimacing characters who look like they are trying to pass a couple of bowls of Colon Blow through their system:
Finally, there’s a gritty one-shot story that features a flying Sanrio kitty who has to use all of her mystical kitty powers to defeat a group of crack dealers who have been possessed by Dormammu. Heads will roll and arteries will spray before the Sanrio kitty emerges battered but victorious. I thought the juxtaposition between the adorable Japanese kitty and the horrific Satanic imagery was disturbing, but effective.
Okay, maybe there wasn’t actually a Sanrio kitty vs. possessed crack dealers story. But you can’t tell me that Marvel Comics Presents #135 would have been any worse if there was.
53 comments:
I used to own more issues of Marvel Comics Presents than any sane human being SHOULD own. However, there were some good stories to be found in there. Ann Nocenti wrote a lot of stories for it, most notably a Colossus story (#10-17), Wolverine/Typhoid Mary (#109-116), and Ghost Rider/Typhoid Mary (#123-130).
The Steve Gerber Man-Thing story that kicked off the series (#1-12) was pretty wicked satire.
Marv Wolfman made a brief- and entertaining return to Marvel with "Black Shadow! White Shadow!" (Issues #38-47).
And then there was "Panther's Quest", the 25-part Black Panther in South Africa epic by Don MacGregor, Gene Colan, and Tom Palmer. Verily, it kicked ass.
But more often than not, and the more the series wore on, we'd get crap like a Havok story, that goofball Higgins/Larsen Excalibur story where they fought the Looney Tunes, because NO ONE demanded it- the return of Comet Man, a Devil Slayer story that was about... Devil Slayer retiring, hideous Mackie GR hackwork, Moench and Gulacy's lameass Coldblood, Gulacy's art being wasted again on a Shanna story by Gerard Jones, Cyclops Vs. the Master Mold (by Bob Harras), and any number of filler crap drawn and written by... amateurs.
But it was an interesting series for a while, and some big people got noticed there, like Lobdell, Kieth, Liefeld.
I think that was the first time I saw Colon Blow on a blog. I can't believe it took that long for someone to put it on the printed screen.
Man, that Black Widow art is right down there with the Mark Badger run on American Flagg! I always maintained that Badger was drawing with his feet.
Dan Coyle, why is it you don't have your own blog? You should; I'd read it.
And Colon Blow: always funny.
I think I missed out on a Daniel Day-Lewis My Left Foot joke when I was mocking that Black Widow art...
Yeah, this issue sucked, but that Hello Kitty vs Zombie Crack Baby was off the hook!
Apparently the artist who drew that Black Widow story thought he could have a career with only the ability to draw caricatures of Mick Jagger.
Campbell: Because I'm seriously computer illiterate, though I am thinking of seriously starting a blog. You're not the first person to tell me I should start one.
Or maybe you're worried I'm stealing your thunder here? ;-)
Ian: IIRC, that was John Stansici, who late would become an inker before leaving comics altogether. His las book was The Brotherbood. Which tells you pretty much everything right there.
I bought a whole run of Marvel Comics Presents a while back in my e-bay buying craze (it was about $15 or something.). I don't think I've looked at them since. I might have to take a look at that Panther's Quest story Dan talks about though.
I think this was the series that introduced Wolverine's "secret identity" Patch on Madripoor. I look at those early Wolvie issues and wonder why I thought they were so great.
The first issues, with Wolvie before he got his own title, Manthing, and Shang Chi weren't too bad, but the quality went downhill fast, like anthology comics nearly wlways do.
MCP's biggest problem was that even when the stories were good, they were only fractions of the stories, and those good fractions made for really big teases...
You buy a whole comic but you have to buy six more more whole comics to get one whole story.
Come to think of it, MCP was a lot like a primer for most of the Marvel Comics today.
Oh, thanks so much (sarcasm) for bringing to the forefront of my consciousness Marvel Comics Presents. Because I own so many of those crappy issues. Damn.
Now I can't get the titanic team-up of Beast and Constrictor vs. the Were-borgs and Red Ghost (w/ Super Apes!).
Not to mention the fact that Wolverine had to fight Cyber, the man with adamantium skin, who was like his high school gym coach or something...man.
I hate you, Dave.
What can I say? I'm here to help.
I collected MCP for a little while. But mostly because Rick Leonardi was on the art for the Colossus story. I think that was him, right? Can't... remember... ... ...
Shane B: Dude, read the Panther story. It rocks. People who ask me why I'm unsatisfied with Reggie Hudlin's Wakanda is AWESOME take- I point them right to "Panther's Quest"
Matt: Yes, Leonardi penciled Nocenti's excellent Colossus story, "God's Country", and not only that, he was inked by P. Craig Russell. SOLID!
See? Marvel Comics Presents is probably the reason that stuff like 2000 A.D. doesn't sell as well here in the states --- a healthy fear of serial anthologies. Any time you buy one, you're in part 4 of a 7 part Judge Dredd story, or part 2 of a 19-part story about killer moths speaking Latin invading a cheese factory. (All of which would be OK, I might add, if it weren't serialized. And four freakin' bucks a copy.)
Of course, the other reason 2000 A.D. doesn't sell well is because in all their comics someone's using made-up words from the future, like "Blargthaw this, fropuchit!"
Now, a monthly Judge Dredd comic? I'd be ALL over that.
Hi.
As someone who got a lot of work published in MCP in the 90's, let me tell you-- it was an important book. Because it was a place where a LOT of us got our feet wet. And... you know what that means? It means a lot of you poor shlubs were reading about our wet, stinky feet. And for that, I'm VERY sorry.
But it's like this:
People go to the circus where novice trapeze artists still uses a net.
People get their hair cut at the barber college.
And, yeah, some people have to get treated at the teaching hospital.
If not, you'd get a lot of dead aerialists, shaggy haired outcasts, and a world without doctors.
That guy who drew that Black Widow story? His name's John. And he got a LOT better.
Chuck Jones (the famous animator and director)... well, he had a saying:
"Every cartoonist has 10,000 bad drawings in them. And it's good to get them out as soon as possible."
THAT was MCP. And I'm SO glad it was there. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be where I am today. Seriously.
Sure, I did a REEEEEAL lousy SPITFIRE story in MCP #89. But you know what? In that SAME issue, I also did a pretty cool MOJO & THE X-MEN story that was Joe Madureira's first published work.
I wrote a TERRIBLE two-part GHOST RIDER story in MCP #98 and #99... but at the SAME time I was working on a TWO-GUN KID story with one of my childhood idols, Gil Kane! (It ran in MCP #116). To this day, that story is one of my proudest achievements in comics. It was one of the last things Gil Kane did for Marvel-- and it's the last story in the MARVEL VISIONARIES: GIL KANE TPB.
For all the cr@p I took part in-- I'm VERY sorry. But I think it evens out when you look at jobs like my MIGHTY DESTROYER story in MCP #156 (though my English to German was SOOOOO off) and my CAPTAIN UNIVERSE story in MCP #148 (which will soon be reprinted in November's CAPTAIN UNIVERSE TPB).
For anybody who even remotely likes my stuff-- please grade MCP on a curve. It was there for a reason-- to let guys like me to flail around and take our first baby steps in the industry. Hopefully, most of us have learned to walk by now. :)
ttyl
Dan Slott
Ditto on what Dan said.
Kurt Busiek's early work was no great shakes, either.
I think this was the series that introduced Wolverine's "secret identity" Patch on Madripoor. I look at those early Wolvie issues and wonder why I thought they were so great.
See, I like that Madripoor stuff; I think it's because it's basically Terry And The Pirates with a pissed-off Canadian all up in people's faces, being all "Uh-nuh!" and them being all "Uh-huh!" and...wait. No, that was Ghost Rider.
ANYWAY, you get Mighty John Buscema drawing all kinds of crazy shit like that dude with swords for arms.
Hey, Dan Slott thanks for the comment! Wow, now I'm glad I didn't say anything bad about your story. Phew. ;)
Dave, if this comic literally sucks ass, I'd recommend you stop using it as toilet paper.
I loved Marvel Comics Presents My Mom, that was a great ten-parter by Roy Thomas and the guy who went on to draw "Bachelor Duck in the year 2025." In the story, my mom and Ghost Rider have to keep this ALL NEW villain (the Boilermaker) from solving a rubik's cube that was cursed by the devil (AKA hellcube).
Sure, it dragged in parts 4 through 8 but the pay-off where my Mom walks in on the bad guy without knocking and catches him spanking it was priceless. It was like Roy had been in my closet taking notes...hmmm...oh god.
Well, there have been a number of monthly Judge Dredd comics, but they all bombed, although there is the Judge Dredd Megazine... but that's an anthology.
2000ad has the advantage over something like MCP because it's weekly, so the five-page chunk stories are a bit more reasonable. Waiting a whole month for the next five pages is ridiculous.
And beaucoupkevin, are you talking about perennial Shang-Chi foe Sword Fist?
...perhaps this is the first comic ever produced by monkeys in captivity?
No, this is clearly the work of wild monkeys.
Wild, insane monkeys. With putty knives.
Kelvingreen, good points all. I recently dropped 2000AD because (A)it seemed to ship biweekly at my comic shop, and (B) the issues were usually 3-4 weeks out of order when I did get them.
Maybe I need to ask my LCS guy if this is typical with 2000AD.
Then again, maybe I just need to blog about it. :)
Kelvingreen,
Yes, but it's Razorfist.
Feel free to make all sorts of jokes about how this guy goes to the bathroom.
Yeah, if MCP were still around I'd have a place for my Hypno-Hustler revamp.
Holy crap, I'm jealous. I'd love to have Dan Slott comment on my blog. I even called one of his comics the best of the year.
I do remember one MCP series I bought. It was a New Warriors/Slapstick team-up. Need I say more? If Marvel puts out more Slapstick comics, they've got my money.
My blog is six times as old as your blog.
The most butt-kicking fellow to comment on my blog (to my memory) was Jim Treacher.
Then again I try to be as controversial as possible on my blog. Go read my blog.
oh, and Dan S? I still buy MCP whenever I see it in a quarter bin. I have too many stories that I need the ending to!
Razorfist, that's the chap. Good fun.
I liked Wolvie in Madripoor, too. Very Silver Age DC concept, but with Bronze Age Marvel attitude. He could be all nice and save-kittens-from-trees and world-savey in his bright yellow spandex at Xavier's, then go to Madripoor and drink and smoke and whore and eviscerate Hand-trained nuns and wear flannel. And then you just explain away any discrepancies with a "well, he's maintaining a different identity in Madripoor..." A secret identity that forces someone to be MORE violent than their heroic self? Jackpot!
MCP wasn't really a bad idea, it's just that Marvel didn't manage it very well. My idea would be to give some superstar creative team a 12-16 page, multi-part lead story, then have two new-talent teams do the two backups. Sort of like combining JLA: CLASSIFIED with DETECTIVE COMICS. Imagine this line-up:
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS: WOLVERINE (guest starring Jesus!) by Grant Morrison and Leonardo da Vinci
Featuring:
Ghost Rider vs. Typhoid Mary vs. Schizophrenic Flaming-Skull-Head Hunter! Because you demanded it! (1st of 8) by Colon Blow and Toe Finger
--and--
Sanrio Kitty's War Journal (Part 87 of 236) by Dave Campbell and V. mer Rauder
Thing is, MCP was always going to be bad, but even so it still took a nosedive once Image started and all of Marvel's hot new artists who could actually draw (and Liefeld) started their own titles.
When the art starts to suck on the X-titles, something like MCP doesn't stand a chance.
Especially when all the cool, quirky interesting stories are traded in for more Wolverine, Punisher, Ghostrider and flavour of the month stories.
Especially when all the cool, quirky interesting stories are traded in for more Wolverine, Punisher, Ghostrider and flavour of the month stories.
Thank the heavens we don't have to worry about that kind of thing anymore!
Shit.
That endless Black Panther story about his hunt for his mother? Three things from it haunt my memory.
1. Gene Colan's art was way cool.
2. The story went on forever.
3. The writer must have had either a mad-on against the Panther or a severe masochistic streak. Every damn story had the Panther get torn up by barbed wire, attacked by dogs, shot, set on fire, whatever. Remember, we're talking about eight-page chapters, twenty-five in all. That's a whole lotta Panther abuse.
My all-time favorite lame story had to be that "Coldblood" crap by some dude and Paul Gulacy. Imagine Deathlok as a show on syndicated television or a Golan-Globus movie. That...was "Coldblood." Bleaugh.
Danny the S: Ah, yes, I remember that Two-Gun Kid story fondly, and have the Visionaries trade. I remember liking the Mojo story too.
Oh, and one more thing: if you were a seriously obscure character, and you made your first appearance in, say, Contest of Champions, then you had a place in Marvel Comics Presents, usually written by Scott Lobdell.
Le Pegerine! Shamrock! Overmind!
Some of Lobdell's early stories were really good, which is why everyone looks at me with abject horror when I say I'm a Lobdell fan. The guy can tell a really good story when he's "on".
Shamrock totally rules.
First of all, picture Shamrock being drawn by Jim Lee.
Doooo iiiit! There. Sick perverts.
Second, Overmind was a thing with the Eternals. Wiiiild stuff. Another one of those psychic totalities that comic book writers are so fond of.
Third, I liked when the French Peregrine was trash-talking to the Angel in Contest and was saying "maybe they invite ME to join the X-Men...?" and Angel then whups him.
Fourth, that's Coldblood-Seven. Coldblood was something I discovered soon after reading a Wizard blurb mocking names that sounded forced like Reignfire and just about any two-word combination codename from a Liefeld comic book. I thought "Wow! Cold. blood. 7. Cold blood. Cold blood. That doesn't sound right."
Fifth, I always wanted to read the entire Master Mold Cylops fight.
Sixth, THIS is the stuff that would generate surely kick-ass stuff for trade paperback collection line. morons.
Point seven: This created a whole bunch of stuff that ended up in Marvel Fanfare later... and perhaps before.
Does anyone else remember that Marvel Fanfare where Spidey fought the Hulk and stopped the rampage by sneezing on the alien critter controlling him? It was published during period where the Hulk was grey so.... whatsisface the editor-inker.... Editori-Al.... apologized and explained.
IIRC, that KICKASS issue of Marvel Fanfare was co-written by Bill Mantlo and Golden in 1983, during the period of Mantlo's run where the Hulk had the mind of Bruce Banner.
Golden didn't actually turn in the final pages until the middle of 1989.
"Overmind was a thing with the Eternals. Wiiiild stuff. Another one of those psychic totalities that comic book writers are so fond of."
The Eternals fused to form the "Uni-Mind," a great big floating gold brain. (Bless you, Jack Kirby.) The Overmind was, I think, that dorky looking red-bearded space jerk who fought against the dorky looking white-moustachioed space jerk The Stranger.
Overmind had a weird silver headpiece with four or six tines coming off the side. Fought the FF a few times.
Now that I think about it, Overmind was one of those collective-mind dealies. He contained the consciousnesses of an entire planet full of people. Allegedly the Stranger did as well, and the Overmind/Stranger conflict was the continuation of the two planets' ancient war.
Though later we find out that it's not true. The Stranger lied and wasn't the collected minds of an alien race. Everything you know is wrong!
I think I may use the Overmind idea as a pickup line. "Hey baby, I'm the vessel for the collected consciousness of an entire alien race. I contain billions of souls and billions of minds. Can I buy you a drink?"
Chicks dig guys who are actually alien vessels containing billions of minds.
Well, they should.
Lobdell's pretty good when not being ghost-written by editors. His early UNCANNY stuff (esp. the death of Illyana Rasputin) was awesome. Then both he and Nicieza became hopelessly mired in Marvel crossover madness and Imageification. They both got a bad rap.
The 25-part Black Panther story reminds me of how creative with the format of epics Marvel used to be. Things like Claremont/Davis's 18-part (I think) Cross-Time Caper in EXCALIBUR, Simonson's 2-year Surtur Saga in THOR, the skirting-around-the-same-event nature of the Mutant Massacre, even going so far back as the cross-title Hulk/FF and Hulk/Avengers fights Stan and Jack used to do. There was no set "format" for the big stories like there is today, so they were pretty daring. The pinnacle being Starlin's Thanos stories that would move from cancelled title to cancelled title, an annual or two, one-shots, minis, even reprint titles; anywhere he could put a page or two you'd see Thanos's continuing quests.
And can't forget to include the Supreme Intelligence in the Collective Minds Brigade. And wasn't MODOK a bunch of AIM scientists' brains?
We seriously need an all-Shamrock week on the Long Box, Dave.
Well, maybe an all-Shamrock Thursday or something...
Well, maybe an all-Shamrock Thursday or something...
All-Shamrock 2:36pm, really.
Ah, I'm so embarrassed to get the Uni-Mind and Over-Mind confused, but I still got the membership in the collected being brigade correct.
I wouldn't know about late Golden art angle but that sounds about right. I can remember Bruce Banner changing into the Hulk at will, and wearing a Hulk-sized space suit before that and the Hulk speaking with Banner's voice instants before the alien parasite latched onto his suit and made the Jade Giant go red-eye.
Bill Mantlo rocks.
From what I recall about Scott Lobdell is that he never started AND finished a subplot in the X-titles.
Fabian I give pardons to because he was taken off the book before he had a chance to properly wrap things up but Lobdell was on the book so long he has no excuse. Lobdell wrote both mainline X-books for a period of over a few years. Bah.
Remember that Mangog was also the collected presence of an alien race. A population of a billion billion aliens tried to invade Asgard so Odin just said "screw it" and transformed them all into one being and threw the angry nihilistic bastard into a pit. Genocidal dude tried to pull Odinsword from its scabbard and tried to annihilate the universe and would have existed too if Thor had not wakened the All-Father from his Odin Sleep and the big daddy countered the original spell which held together Mangog's existence. Split him into 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual pieces. 1 billion billion people.
Cove is right about that stuff with the epics. Avengers/Defenders War was the one of the first crossovers with just one story volleying back and forth between two series like that. NBC stole that pretty well... har.
Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars was not a mere crossoever but a 12-issue battle epic with issues of each hero from each series bookending the deal.
Steve Englehart had his Mantis saga.
Heck, back in the day if the story lasted six issues it was big and it had better have one heckuva scope. Nowadays the SMALL stories are told in six issues.
It took Bendis nine issues what it took Stan Lee to tell in 14 pages.
I remember a three-part arc in Amazing Spider-Man going from #17 (Spidey runs from a fight with the Green Goblin that he was actually winning because his aunt was having health troubles), through #18 (Spidey deals with the whole city thinking him an ineffectual coward) to #19 (Spidey makes his comeback and beats up on a new criminal mob led by Sandman and the Enforcers, while rescuing the Human Torch) and there was a subplot running through that ended in issue 20 with the origin of the Scorpion.
Galactus Trilogy was a trilogy.
Both these stories had more content and still took half as many issues as a made-for-trade story today.
All of Steve Gerber's Panther stories should be collected. The Complete Black Panther, minus the Hudlin CRAP and with the Kirby Panther stories shifted in continuity as to... that's a longer, different story.
Well, Dan took a lot of the wind out of my sails, so go reread his post. MCP turned out to be a great training ground for artists and writers, including Rob Liefeld, Joe Mad (who was about 18 or so at the time, as I recall), Jae Lee (about the same age, come to think of it), Fabian Nicieza (who had a few credits already, true), Scott Lobdell, and a ton more. And isn't it where Lobdell wrote that great story illustrated by Gene Colan where Nightcrawler and Wolvie hug? It's such a small moment, but it really works.
You never know what name will jump out at you when you open up a random issue. Yes, there's a lot of crap out there, but it's an anthology title of leftover and overexposed characters.
Personally, I pretty much gave up on it after issue #100 or so. But there were other highlights I'm surprised nobody's mentioned yet, including Peter David/Sam Kieth's Wolverine story that's been collected a couple of times now. I think it's "Blood Hungry" or something. It debuted Cyber, who came back once or twice in the Marvel U after that.
Kieth did a ton of great covers, too.
It's also where I had a few of my earliest letters published, alongside the "official" letterhack of MCP, Len Biehl. Len had a claws rating system for each story.
I read the first 100 issues or so of MCP, and the only story I really remember is the one where Mr. Fantastic got stuck on a roof...
Damn, that's some bad art.
It looks like grown-up Little Orphan Annie, battling a transexual, in a comic sponsored by the website "Awful Plastic Surgery".
Wow, I didn't remember this issue being so bad. But then, I haven't looked at it in ten years.
MCP also had some of the first Sam Keith art i really got into, but (like you said) it was so short, you couldn't enjoy it. this was also the 2nd coming/hey-day of Ghost Rider, so that wasn't COMPLETELY bad to read.
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