...the regular artist's out that month! Well, we'll still take a quick look at this one: from 1992,
the Fly #14, "Games Evil Plays" Written by Len Strazewski, pencils by Al Bigley, inks by Pablo Marcos. Cover by Mike Parobeck!
Have I not blogged any
Impact Comics before? This was DC's first attempt at relaunching the Archie Comics/Red Circle superheroes, like the Comet and the Shield. I know I read the Comet at the time, since I was following artist Tom Lyle from
Starman; but I should've been buying
the Fly, which featured art by the great Mike Parobeck! Still, guest-artist Bigley does a good job with his character designs this issue.
This issue, the Fly has to (lamely) explain to his police contact his role in the brief disappearance of local teen Jason Troy, who of course was the Fly! Then, a fight with avid bowler and sportswoman Domino--altogether now, 'not
that one,' although it would be hilarious to see Neena in this one's costume, which seems direct from
Batman '66. She had a domino calling-card, to set up a fight in a bowling alley, but has billiard balls all over her outfit; kind of feels like she's all over the place. She puts the Fly through some Arcade-style traps at the bowling alley, then bails; but one of Jason's classmates may be getting too close to her...or trying, anyway; you know what high school guys are like. Domino could've been a mass-murderer that kicked puppies, but in that outfit...
I know out of context, the part where The Fly mentions his buddy Eldon creaming the villain of the month sounds bad now, but that’s just how we talked back then when referring to beating an opponent…ok that probably doesn’t sound any better does it? It was a different time kids…..
ReplyDeleteDefinitely love the overall character design of Domino here, because yeah, it definitely has a classic, Silver Age look & feel to it that would not be out of place in a DC comic, or as you said, as a villain in the Adam West Batman tv series.
Bigly does indeed do a serviceable job as a substitute for the regular artist, it’s close enough without being too jarringly different but I definitely miss Parobeck here. Hell I just miss him & his art in general 😩
I briefly bought some of these Impact comics like the Fly & Shield back in the day, either individually or as packs, but not on a regular basis. I think the Archie comic character revival happened at a bad time because you had Image Comics & that whole spectacle come out the year Impact did, Dark Horse was doing good business, Malibu, Death of Superman, Mutant mania at Marvel running high, etc, so definitely you had a very crowded market to compete in & so the attention needed for Impact Comics to thrive just wasn’t there. Perhaps if it’d been earlier or later in the decade?
That seems like a Milhouse bit: "I creamed her...(quietly) at bowling."
ReplyDeleteWow, I didn’t even go there- for once, you guys have a dirtier mind than I do.
ReplyDeleteI think Impact would have needed to happen in the 80’s for it to work- pretty much everybody had moved on from that stuff by then. I’ve got the Winter Special (somewhere) and it’s … okay. Nothing terrible but nothing special either. It seems like that’s Impact all over- very average, nothing that grabs you.
Also, I think the Domino thing is more about the domino mask- looks like a female Sportsmaster that copied the Riddler’s outfit.
@H: I can’t speak for everyone else around here but my mind’s pretty dirty 🤷♂️😏
DeleteYeah agreed. Had the impact line come along a little earlier it might’ve had a better chance at being better received. Unfortunately the powers that be decided it wise to unleash it when it did & despite the best efforts of everyone involved, it was doomed to fail.