Here's another one I had been looking for, and again, the quarter bins provide! (Almost literally this time, it was a fifty-cent buy!) From 1996,
Guy Gardner: Warrior #41, "Guys & Babes in Toyland" Written by Beau Smith, pencils by Marc Campos and Mike Parobeck, inks by Dan Davis.
I'd mentioned this before, as featuring animation-style art by the great Mike Parobeck: he had done something similar for
Superboy #4, and we do see a thought balloon in the animated version as G'nort wishes he had got that job with Superboy! Here, two versions of the same story run simultaneously: the 'real' events of Guy's visit to Toy Fair '96; and a cleaner, TV-friendly cartoon version. Guy's there to promote his uncle Buck Fargo's planned toy line and tie-in cartoon for him. This version of Guy was way more chill than his
JLI days, as well as more respectful to women: one of his sidekicks was jungle-girl Veronna, who was willing to do
anything for Guy, but the idea of taking advantage of her seems too much for even him. Toy sales rep Olivia does think Veronna's action figure was going to sell well, though!
This being a comic book, of course some bad guys show up; and hey, why not get a team-up in there? A really, really awkward one, with guest-star Fire! With Ice currently dead, they had both been in mourning, but may have been drifting closer together in spite of themselves. In the animated version, the bad guy is "the Debt" and gets shut down by Olivia; but in real life it was goons from Quorum, who don't appear to have accomplished anything...except their true purpose, getting cell samples from Guy!
Later, Guy manages to catch his show, and is dismayed to see how G-rated/"Captain Marvel" he was portrayed; but too late to change it now. And Fire plans, to maybe see Guy again.
I'm actually a little sad I wasn't reading this one when it was released: it's good-natured fun, with Guy far more sympathetic than he'd ever been. I would've still remembered him as a grade-A jerk, though; and he's probably back there now. Also, is it going back to the well to have Parobeck do another animated-show riff? Maybe, but there was still water there! I feel like Wonder Woman deserved an issue of that: Diana, frustrated with executives, "...what, exactly, is a '
Star Rider'?" Parobeck was of course the best, but Campos does a great job here too. Dig it up!
