Comics I Missed Until They Were Cancelled: Planetary

I have to admit that I don't get around to reading every comic book out there. There are a number of them that I never catch until I pick up a used trade paperback somewhere, only to find that I've missed something pretty good that's not around anymore.

Such is the case with Planetary. A couple of weeks ago I read the first issue and was suddenly hooked on the series. What is it? It's sort of a tale of three heroes who live in an amalgam world of all our comic books but with a slightly evil twist to them.

For instance, the villains of the story are a thinly-masked version of the Fantastic Four. Imagine a world where the FF were actually villains out to destroy humanity and rule the multiverse. Imagine a world where the FF killed Superman as a baby, Green Lantern just when he was starting out, and Wonder Woman right after she arrived on our shores. Pretty cool, eh?

Guess who?

Along the way of this trip, we visit a monster island off Japan where a familiar giant green lizard has died. We run into a Doc Savage type who saved the world from an evil JLA, find out where Thor's hammer actually goes when it's a stick, face off against the team of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, meet Tarzan, and even visit Galactus' ship where its master has laid dead for centuries. What would happen if General Ross had been able to grab the Hulk and really put him away, allowing him to slowly starve to death? All of these things are not explicitly mentioned, but slight variations are put on each. Just enough that they couldn't be sued, but it's impossible not to understand what you're reading. Long before anything is mentioned, you know what's going on.

To me, that's what made this comic so amazing. It was a chance to see a familiar world of DC and Marvel with the twist that the heroes could die, make mistakes, really fail, and then have to live with the consequences of it. They were fallible, and Planetary was there to clean up the mess they'd left. Never every issue was a home run, but most were well worth the reading.

And along the way, there is the mystery of Elijah Snow (the main character) and what his background holds. As it comes to light, it adds another dimension to what you've been reading.

No spoilers here. I want you to enjoy every issue if you decide to read it. This title lasted only 27 issues, with 3 specials along the way. Though it wasn't supposed to take place in any known comic universe, they met up with Batman, the JLA and the Authority through various circumstances and twists.

"Doc Savage" and "The Shadow" take on the "JLA"

In the end, this series really blew me away. I'd heard of it over the years, but never picked up any issues. Now I've finished it as a set and have to say I loved it and I'll miss it. Still, I'm glad it went out when it did rather than continue on well after the main story had died and it was scrounging around for anything to keep it running. I hope Irredeemable does the same soon.

Because of the incredibly sporadic publishing schedule (the comic went two years between issues at one point), I probably wouldn't have stuck with it if I'd tried a monthly run. Now, as a whole, the book is a guilty pleasure of mine. This is the rare occasion when picking up a book after cancellation was the best idea.

If you're looking for something slightly different from the normal comics out there, Planetary definitely fits the bill.

Heroes and Comics I Miss: Part 2

A few weeks ago I gave you a few little comics that made my childhood in the 80's a lot of fun. This week I wanted to give you a few more titles that brought a smile to my face and were scooped up as soon as I saw them. These will never see an "Essential" collection, but should.

Shogun Warriors

Probably the biggest toy ever to have a comic book based on it, these guys were 3 feet tall and were an absolute treasure during my childhood. Their fists would fly off, they had little spaceships in their helmets, and were on roller skates! Well, rollers anyway.

The comic book was a lot of fun as well. It only lasted 20 issues, but it was a blast and saw guest appearances by the Fantastic Four. These guys even faced Godzilla at one point in his own comic!

Basically, it was pretty much like any Japanese manga you'd see today except this was Marvel comics drawn by Herb Trimpe so it was Americanized like crazy. These were giant robots controlled by normal guys and they would fight giant monsters, meteors, and even each other if something happened.

What makes this comic stand out above others like it is the fact that it was pretty much the first of its kind for me. Up until that point giant robots had been used by villains to attack folks like Superman and such. Here were some cool robots based on even cooler toys that were run by good guys with no super powers other than the ability to drive a giant robot!

While the toy line had several to choose from, the comic concentrated mostly on three or four. My personal favorite was Raydeen, both as a toy and as the comic. Unfortunately, this was part of a licensing deal (which Marvel really ran with in the early 80's) and therefore these guys are off the table permanently. Marvel can't touch them and the toy line is pretty much dead, though Mazinga (or Mazinger, in the Japanese version) still shows up from time to time in toy stores as a smaller version.

Crazy Magazine

Is it fair to heap a magazine into a comic book list? Yes, if we're talking about Crazy magazine. This was Marvel's answer to Mad Magazine, and as such it had some of the greatest guest shots imaginable. Marvel's earlier foray into funny books was Not Brand Ecch!, and they even packaged a reprint of that first issue in one of the Crazy issues, retitling it Crazy as well.

So what made it so good? This was a parody book that was for comic geeks as well. At one point they introduced "Teen Hulk", a character who changed when he was afraid. Nothing ever went right for him though, and he definitely wasn't like the real Hulk because he was funny. A character named "Obnoxio the Clown" was introduced later in the run, and he actually made it into the real Marvel universe to fight the X-Men! Marvel artists like John Byrne drew entire funny comic stories in it! Sometimes they would even take a Marvel story from the past and reprint it with new dialogue to make it funny. This was stuff that catered to comic fans!

Popular TV shows and movies were made fun of all the time, but these were jokes I actually got as a child. Mad sometimes got a little too deep with some of their parodies for me (or too wordy), but Crazy always kept it pure and simple.

This little book ran from 1973 to 1983, and I still vividly remember when I received notice in the mail that the title was being canceled. It was not a fun moment in my childhood.

Of course, popular culture today could not support a book like this anymore (seen Mad lately? Sheesh!). It would inevitably get too political or dirty and would therefore lose the charm this book had.

Still, this was a window into the 70's and early 80's that was consistently funny. I miss it and still try to add back issues to my collection whenever I can find one in really good condition.

Team America

Another one of those "toys tie-in" comic books, Team America was about three bikers (later five) who basically rode around in cool red-white-and-blue-themed costumes and fought criminals between stunt shows.

Along the way, they were assisted--many times without their knowledge--by the mysterious "Marauder", a black-clad biker who never spoke but could ride his crazy chopper like no one else. Due to the success of Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe, there can be little doubt who this character was designed after.

This group managed to get into the real Marvel Universe, just like the Micronauts and ROM had before it. Iron Man made an appearance, and what biker comic book could go without an appearance by Ghost Rider, fighting Marauder of course.

Who was Marauder? Well, that was the mystery. This guy showed the talents of all five members of the team, constantly giving you the impression it could be any of them. They did a great job of keeping him "off screen" when the heroes were around, and only letting him show up when no one was around so you never knew.

This series only lasted 12 short issues, with the identity of Marauder finally being explained to be a woman who was channeling the collective psychic influence of the team, thus allowing her to appear to have the abilities of all of them. It was a rip-off ending for me, but they made it all better as the final panels of the series unfolded. The team was flying away (all of them, including the woman) to go their separate ways, and then we saw this:

I was better after that. Marauder wasn't just a woman in padding! Maybe there was hope for a sequel! While the team appeared a few times in other books, they basically disappeared toward the end of the 80's and have never been seen since.

The guys were eventually exposed as mutants (hey, it was the 80's and all the cool kids were mutants) in a few other comic appearances (in New Mutants, Captain America, and the Thing) but that was never explored much because they disappeared soon after. The Ideal Toy license eventually expired so Marvel won't be reprinting this title anytime soon, just like the others on this list. Still, it was a fun read while it lasted.

I loved the toys this comic was based on. I had the Marauder toy, and managed to pick up Honcho (the guy in white) and R.U. Reddy (the guy in red) figures at garage sales. While the comic was action-packed, the figures were basically built to stay on their respective bikes and that was all. The legs were bent and wouldn't move, and the arms could only go up or down with no bend at elbows or wrists. Still, I was a happy child with the stunt bike going all over the driveway and ramps I made.

To me, Marauder was one very cool hero. He was the strong silent type, and I hate that he never managed to team up with Snake Eyes for at least one issue. Not a lot of conversation going on, but the narration would be crazy. The figures were two different sizes so playing with the 4 inch poseable Snake Eyes and the 10 inch "can't move much o'nothing" Marauder wasn't much of an option. Those adventures will forever remain a mystery.

What about you? Do you have any favorite canceled comics you miss?

Heroes I Miss: Part 1

Here's where I wax nostalgic. There are certain comic book series and heroes that I loved reading when I was a kid but you never see anymore. Some are gone for licensing reasons, while others just didn't sell well enough to warrant another series attempt. But these are the comics I scoop up happily when I see them in the back issue bin at the comic shop.

ROM

Ok, this one was created simply to get the toy of the same name some business, but who would have ever guessed the comic book would be so popular! This guy teamed up with everybody! During the 75 issue run of the series, we saw guests like the X-Men (pretty much a staple guest star to every comic of the 80's), Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, the Avengers, Alpha Flight, and even the Master of Kung Fu! Not bad for a cheap toy that couldn't bend its arms!

I owned the toy and thought it was cool for the time (it's pathetically laughable in today's age of action figures). The eyes lit up and the rocket pack made noise. As long as I had batteries, I was happy. Still, it was the comic book that made the guy memorable to me.

Over the years, ROM ended up becoming a great comic. He fought the Dire Wraiths, hunting them down and blasting folks away (the DWs could disguise themselves as normal human beings and only ROM could detect them using one of his cool tools). Naturally this didn't sit well with most heroes, though eventually they found out the truth when the DWs became more obvious in their invasion attempts.

An entire storyline was developed that allowed ROM to have a true origin. He was a normal man who became a Space Knight to save his beloved planet Galador. He began chasing the DWs across the galaxy and ended up on Earth trying to wipe them out completely. He was never a regular part of any super-team, but he interacted with a ton of major and minor heroes and villains along the way. He even fought Galactus at one point!

When the time came to end the series, fans were treated to a rarity among comics: a satisfying ending. Marvel didn't own the license to the toy so the hero was perishable at best. They finally allowed ROM to return to being a human back at his planet with his loving wife at his side. Happily ever after? Nope.

The recent miniseries Annihilators allowed us to see what happened over time to everyone but ROM (they couldn't even mention his name because of the licensing issues, just alluded to his death sometime in the past). The Dire Wraiths infiltrated Galador again, and ROM was dead. No chance now of ever seeing him back in his armor again.

The Micronauts

Yes, I know many of these guys have come back in different titles, but the original team was one of my favorite must-read comics of the time. I had the figures (most of them anyway...I was never able to buy an Acroyear figure and actually still want one today) and the adventures these guys faced were above the standard Marvel fare at the time. They gave each member of the team a true backstory and the chance to examine it in detail.

The series ran for 59 issues, ending a few years after the toys themselves were no longer available. That attests to the popularity of the title at the time. They introduced another Marvel regular in issue #8: Captain Universe. The team even made it from the Microverse to our universe to face the Fantastic Four, SHIELD, and even had a helping hand from Ant-Man. The tiny heroes always managed to create this larger-than-life world of adventure and fun for this little (at the time) reader.

Unfortunately Marvel only owned the rights to certain aspects of the title, so Commander Rann (not Space Glider), Marionette, and Bug are the only members of the team we'll ever see again in comics (and do see on a fairly regular basis lately). Acroyear, Biotron, and Microtron, along with Time Traveler, Force Commander, and Baron Karza are gone from us forever.

JJ Abrams was rumored to be helming a Micronauts movie back in 2009, but that has apparently fallen through. And Marvel's recent reintroduction of Rann and Marionette in the Enigma Force miniseries wasn't the update we'd hoped for either. Rann and Mari had marriage problems and were at odds with each other after a messy breakup. Here's hoping they find a happy future someday. 

Dial H for Hero

During the 80's there was a very simple storyline of two teenagers, Chris King and Vicky Grant, who became "The heroes created by you!" Every month I grabbed the latest issue of this short-lived series that eventually found its way into the last few pages of Superboy comics as a backup story. These were heroes that were created by kids just like me!

The premise was that you could send in your drawing and brief description of the hero and hope it ended up being printed. While I had a ton of cool hero ideas in my head at the time, I was a horrible artist and could never get anything on paper like I saw it in my head. As a result, the world is forever robbed of DreamStalker in comic form somewhere.

The "Dial H for Hero" concept actually came out two decades earlier when a kid named Robby Reed found the dial and became 3 heroes throughout the course of each issue of House of Mystery from issues 156-173. This collection was actually brought out in a "Showcase Presents" collection last year. But it's the 80's version of the title I miss.

Where else could you hope to actually see your own hero or villain in print? And for a group of amateurs, people came out with some pretty cool creations. My personal favorite villain was called Wildebeest, sort of a Kraven/Deathstroke combo that was very effective.

The only downside was Carmine Infantino's artwork. I know there are people who put him as one of the greatest comic artists of all time, but I have never understood that. Put his work next to Neal Adams or Jim Aparo from the same time period and there is absolutely no comparison.

Unfortunately, we were robbed of a happy ending to this little tale. By the time the series moved to Superboy, the heroes were created mostly by some comic writer rather than a kid. Finally, Robby Reed showed up and the kids both were supposed to be big heroes forever. Years later we found out in a Teen Titans storyline that Chris was a hero but Vicky had become evil due to some cult. In the end, both characters basically disappeared, while Robby Reed continues to show up from time to time.

In today's litigious society a series like that could never fly. If one of the heroes became popular, their creator would get greedy and want to sue for more money. It would be more trouble than it was worth. Still, it was unique for the time it came out and was the dream of many budding comic book writer-wannabes to see something like that in print.

And on my own personal happy ending, thanks to the very fun MMORPG City of Heroes, I've been able to create my own heroes decades later just like I saw them in my head (I'm still a horrible artist though). DreamStalker lives!