NFL SUPERPRO Marvel Comics, 1991

The idea behind “Honestly, I Bought It For A Quarter Week” here at Dave’s Long Box is that there are some comics that I’m sort of ashamed to admit that I bought at full price. In my defense, I did get Nash #1 out of a five-for-a-dollar box. No, really.

And at no time have I ever masturbated over the imagery in Nash #1. Seriously. Why are you looking at me that way?

Ha ha! Comedy! You can’t look at me at all – we’re on the Internet. I was being fanciful. Just thought I’d start things off right with the old reliable masturbation joke.

NFL Superpro #1 – yes, I paid retail for it. Got an employee discount, though, because I was working at Whooo’s Comics and Cards in beautiful Lacey, WA. I still think I paid too much, even if the cover screams COLLECTOR’S ITEM 1ST ISSUE!

Unbelievably, NFL SuperPro lasted a full 12-issues (and a SuperBowl special!). I know – in what cruel mirror universe do we live in where SuperPro can get a full twelve issue but they no longer publish Sleeper? I know, I know: different companies – but you know what I’m saying. There’s no justice. I’m guessing that Marvel signed papers with the NFL that said they’d crank out a full twelve issues of SuperPro or else they’d get a visit from Terrible Terry Tate, the Office Linebacker.

Sure, it sounds bad, but let’s be fair: Is NFL SuperPro any good, as a comic book?

You tell me:

They should have called this comic book NFL SuperCorporateWhore. The most unrealistic thing about the story of ex-football player Phil Graysfield, aka SuperPro is the fact that he runs around with this big corporate logo fighting crime – and doesn’t get sued by the NFL. If he were real (what am I talking about?), SuperPro would be fighting The Subpoenea Server and Intellectual Property Rights Man.

NFL SuperPro was undoubtedly thought up by a bunch of drunk mid-level marketing guys who no longer have jobs with the NFL, and brought to life with joyless care by writer Fabian “X-Men” Nicieza and penciller Jose Delbo. It’s a pedestrian, paint-by-numbers affair.

Insert Spider-Man guest spot here:

That’s right, Spider-Man shows up to give SuperPro a proper send-off. It’s like breaking a bottle of champagne over the bow of a new ship – Spider-Man has to show up and say, “Bon voyage, Darkhawk!” or whatever. But usually Spidey doesn’t show up until the second issue of a new series, to keep that second-issue sales slump to a minimum. Spider-Man’s presence in the first issue of a comic is like the banshee, it’s a harbinger of doom that means Marvel has no confidence in the book at all – they’re just shooting their wad in the first issue and praying for the best.

The story involves SuperPro trying to clear a Raiders lineman from bogus gambling charges (because athletes would never – gasp – gamble) and to keep him from getting killed by mysterious yet generic assassins.

This involves jumping around and lots of football puns:

“What the #$%@ was that?”

“It’s goddamn NFL SuperPro! What are you, retarded?”

The uneasy hybrid of football and superheroics continues until we reach the climax, the one panel that the entire story has been working towards:

I’m convinced that Fabian Nicieza constructed the entire story around that one lame line. On a cocktail napkin.

NFL SuperPro has no shame, and I have no shame in admitting that I paid retail for it. I open my arms and embrace all manner of trash, even if it causes me pain…