I remember back in the 90's, when I was young, and my heart was an open book (stop doing that!) there was a Marvel Comics/Kool-Aid promotion. Collect Kool-Aid points, mail in a couple bucks, get a mini-subscription for three comics, I think. Maybe you remember the ad; it wasn't in this one, but a packet of Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi was! From 1996, Over the Edge #9, "The Killing Time" Written by Bruce Sakow, pencils by Robert E. Brown, inks by Mike Witherby.
Pretty sure the comic crash was in full effect by this point: this was the second-to-last issue of this series, and the Bullpen Bulletins page mentions the last issues of Spider-Man 2099 and Captain America. Marvel was no longer flooding the racks with books of varying quality; but I liked the art in this one: it's very 90's, with a cartoony look to the characters but a lot of detail. I thought it had a bit of an early Greg Capullo feel? "REB" did not appear to have a ton of credits, but he did an issue of Excalibur back in the day, and I wouldn't mind checking out his Savage Sword of Conan issue.
Story-wise, bad guy Skinner, one of Lilith's brood from the Rise of the Midnight Sons crossover, breaks out from the wreckage of the Black Hole, which I guess was the Ghost Rider books' answer to the Raft. Although he had been forced by Lilith to kill the family he had built, he still blamed Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider, and started a rampage of murder on his way back to them. Meanwhile, Dan Ketch worries that he's got to get his life together, although he does somehow have a girlfriend: I still suspect his motorcycle did a lot of the heavy lifting. Johnny is at Dan's mom's house, telling her he's going to try to run down another lead on his missing kids; but of course Skinner starts blowing things up before he gets anywhere. Ghost Rider and Johnny beat Skinner down, although they feel he's more to be pitied than scorned.
Hmm, I haven't made a proper pitcher of Kool-Aid in years--possibly because they aren't bribing me with comics! But it looks like strawberry-kiwi is still out there, even if it is no longer "Slammin'." In the same vein, the back cover of this issue is an ad for Spider-Man cereal; another classic. Still have my Spidey cereal bowls from it!
Well you definitely got a chuckle out me w/ the Mccartney-Wings' reference, so thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteI remember Brown but don't remember if he stayed in the business or left. To the Google machine!!!!
I did enjoy his art though even it reeked of him being a Todd Mcfarlane clone, or Capullo, as you pointed out. Whether or not that was intentional or not on the artists' or Marvel's part idk, but I'm sure it it didn't hurt.
Didn't collect the kool aid packets, or the Charleston Chew wrappers either? Did you get those?
Haven't made kool aid myself in a couple years, as I usually drink soda, Sweet tea and cartons of minute maid juice, but I probably should get back into the habit tho since it's so cheap (well the knockoffs sure are)
Never ate the Spider-man cereal that I can remember, but I could be wrong bc I was aware of it I just don't know if I had any. I did eat the X-men Spider-man chef boyardee spaghetti and meat balls. beefaroni tho.
I remember the Kool-Aid Man comics but not the ad. Man, promotional comics were way better than they had any business being in the 80's.
ReplyDeleteI swear that Charleston Chew comic has come up a couple times lately; I'm 80% sure I have one or two...
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