Back when we checked out the
Superman/Radio Shack comic, I mentioned the
Captain America and the Campbell Kids giveaway, about energy conservation. Here's another educational/promotional giveaway one with Cap, that I'm not sure I had read before: from 1987 (or thereabouts!)
Captain America Meets the Asthma Monster! Written by Louise Simonson, pencils by Alex Saviuk, inks by Fred Fredericks.
A young boy dreams of being a hero like Captain America, but figures with his asthma he would probably spend the rest of his life doing nothing; until he meets another kid who had her asthma under control. Their medications protect them, from the sudden attack of the Asthma Monster; who isn't a figurative monster but a guy in a suit with an "aller gun" making people sick, under the rationale if he couldn't breathe, nobody else should either. They call Cap's hotline, and he was in the neighborhood, so...Cap even explains, he himself had asthma when he was a kid. (Cap had a lotta problems as a kid, many of them probably from living conditions at the time.)
The kids help bring down the Asthma Monster, which is an important message in empathy as well: just because something bad happened to you, doesn't mean you want it to happen to somebody else. Still, the Asthma Monster promises to return, and oddly enough, he does! There would be a sequel in
1989, with Mark Bagley art. These were harmless and helpful little larks, unlike recent
promotional comics: I swear there was an
Avengers/Halliburton one recently...(OK, maybe not; but I did see this
Avengers/Visa one, that probably ends with Peter Parker getting denied a card.)
I think there actually was one with Halliburton (or some big company like them), back in 2009 or so. They definitely should do a collection of all these PSA-style stories, partially to have them collected and partially to show how things have changed over time. They were going to do one with the Spider-Man stories a while back, but that got canceled or maybe they just couldn’t get the rights they needed for it or something.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Goo is going to post about the time Peter got molested as a kid.
DeleteI used to own this one myself back in the day. Can’t remember how I got it, just did. I’m not against Cap retcon getting asthma in current continuity, as it adds to his having to overcome even more physical obstacles in wanting to enlist for military service, yet at the same time it’s not a big loss if it isn’t either. Can’t believe they made a sequel tho. Then again he would be a relatable villain to throw at beginning heroes.
ReplyDelete