Not living up to that title this issue.

I have a vacation coming up shortly, even though in all likelihood the blog will continue to trundle along aimlessly while I'm gone. I am going to be far away from my usual haunts, though; and in an area completely new to me. Which means I'll be hitting some new comic shops! I should put together a list of anything I'm seriously looking for; but c'mon, I really just want a big messy pile of random quarterbooks. Like today's book! From 1990, 666 #1, featuring stories by Peter Milligan, Tom Tully, David Anderson, and more; and art by Massimo Belardinelli, Eduardo Vano, and Chris Weston.

The full title for this reprint book was 666: the Mark of the Beast; that and the covers make it sound a lot more hardcore than it actually was. In fact, there was an ad for it on the back of the same issue, so the Fastner and Larson cover art is on both sides; with the ad's breathless copy: "The science of horror is exquisite in its precision, relentless in its application, and ulimately deadly in its execution!" Whoa, ease up there. These were British imports like Judge Dredd or Rogue Trooper, but from pretty far down the roster: oddball Peter Milligan strip "the Dead," in which an immortal man has to die to find out why demons are appearing; and early Tornado serial "The Mind of Wolfie Smith," a hard-luck psychic boy's adventures, last seen in 1981. The rest of this issue is filled out with a couple tame horror shorts.

Nowhere near the strongest of Fleetway/Quality's reprints, but I'd still grab a pile if I found them cheap. #4 has a Simon Furman/Steve Dillon werewolf story, and another Peter Milligan strip, "Freaks," starts in #7.