Hope y'all got out and voted by now. I got my early voting done last week. On the eve of the election, there's been a lot of comic book creators planting their flags, extolling the virtues of their respective candidates.

   I choose not to share my political beliefs in the milieu of comic books or the internet. Once a comic creator states his/her politics, he/she take a risk of alienating 50% of their audience. Said Creator must then endure a lot of unnecessary bashing from their polar opposites of the political spectrum. Some creators have the tenacity to slug it out online, but not I. Now, over a beer outside a convention hall, I'd be glad to tell you about some universal absolutes in politics (according to me). I don't have the time to waste furiously typing, trying to convince someone who's orientation is different than mine while walking the tightrope between passionate discourse and insults. It has nothing to do with comics.
Just explaining all this tuckers this little bear out.

   99% of fans who have access to the internet 'lurk', but don't post. The handful among those who do post have an unfortunate high percentage of negative comments. Some posters try to make a name for themselves by tearing apart almost every press release and interview, taking the role of a cool contrarian. Add a bullseye to your head when you represent an unpopular political sentiment of the day, and you're in for a lot of grief.

   Like many of you, I'm currently fried on the subject of politics. Besides, you can consider my blog an oasis from such weighty matters. I always have...

   Let's talk about a fun subject...ME!

   Well, Drew-Geraci-in-the-Comics-Industry-Anniversary Month has been over for two days now. You can take down your decorations (like the traditional cutouts-of-comicbook-panels-inked-by-me mobiles). What's great about my anniversary month is that it coincides with Halloween, so you don't have to decorate and clean up twice!

   I'm going to take a break this week from the chronological retelling of my triumphs and tragedies up the comicbook ladder. Instead, I've been inspired by a scathing review by professional contrarian Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese, Space Ghost Coast to Coast) of the book that garners my vote for most-unlikely reprint collection of the year: Essential Super-Villain Team-Up.

   "A friend of mine at Marvel -- hell, my only friend at Marvel -- graced us with a copy of the "Essential"...Super-Villain...Team-Up. Words fail me. Actually, no they don't. This, my friends, is an ass-thick collection of mind-numbingly half-assed overwritten and underdrawn ding-dong comics from my childhood. Essential? To whom? Tom Brevoort and Ralph Macchio already have all the original comics, in bags and boards, most likely. I'm only a third of the way through this, as I'm only reading this during bathroom stints (appropo, methinks), and if nothing else it's a prime example of why Roy Thomas absolutely stinks as a writer (a hackneyed overwrought style marked by grandiose Stan Leeisms that would cause the Man himself to wince, diarrhea of the descriptive caption, trite and dated SF homages and an overall patina of smug, pretentious fanboy horsehockey), and how childhood nostalgia makes people deify crappy comics. For thrill-seekers who find cruddy comics entertaining -- and, hell, I certainly do -- this might prove to be grand entertainment, indeed (as Roy the Boy and his ilk might have put it). The book collects non-essential Amazing Adventures issues, the wonky Super-Villain Team-Up series, and several related crossover issues of the Avengers and the Champions (a second-rate team of second-rate characters by third-rate creators, of course, I loved this book as kid), featuring a bitchy Dr Doom and his ongoing dalliances and alliances with other hammy Marvel villainy. It's heel vs heel, folks, as the Red Skull, the Hate Monger (oh, excuse me, Adolf Hitler), the 'tweener Sub-Mariner and other classic copyrighted jobbers piss and moan about losing to the Avengers and the FF while stabbing each other in the badly drawn back. Not the stuff of legend, but it's fun (and unintentionally funny), to see young fervent writers at 70's Marvel approach this as if it was pure epic myth, or at least Ancient Roman intrigue. The utter pretentiosness of the writing is a panic, I fell for this stuff as a zit-scratching eleven year old, but holy joe, this is not Essential stuff by any stretch of the word. Probably the most interesting aspect of the book is the snapshot of a specific point in comics history, second-tier characters and ideas, outmoded story-telling techniques, dated references, and most importantly, you get a fascinating look at the hodgepodge of 70's Marvel staffers and freelancers hacking away on these oddball books -- energetic but unformed young up and comers, uninspired bullpenners, and talented veterans in a career fog or downward spiral. The roster includes a burgeoning George Perez, early Marvel Jim Shooter scripting AND penciling (!), a faltering and out of place Mike Sekowsky, an interesting pairing of Johnny Craig inking John Buscema (with not too-shabby results), Wally Wood's pretty but stiff take on Doc Doom during his flirtation with the House of Ideas, fellow EC stablemate George Evans proving superheroes were not his forte, Gene Colan proving yet again that histrionic super-heroics wasn't his forte either, Marvel stalwarts like Herb Trimpe (inked by Jim Mooney in a style that can only be described as moribund), and George Tuska, perfunctory page-fillers like Jack Abel, Larry Leiber, Bob Hall, and Don Perlin, early Keith Giffen (his Kirby silly-puttying phase), Carmine Infantino looking plain wrong in a Marvel book, and the absolute horror men call Arvell Jones (a phantom creator whose sub-fanzine art I couldn't stand even when I was a kid). Maybe Comic Book Artist can find something nice to say about this sort of stuff, but even they'd need a few drinks. It just goes from the ridiculous to the ridiculouser. These brainache-inducing comics feature justly forgotten characters (The Shroud. Wow. The Shroud.) and, I'm sorry to say, justly forgotten creators (the aforementioned Jones, someone named Owen McCarron who helped hack out an amazingly wretched bunch of amateurish pages). Cripes...I could write about this crazy book for hours, it's senses-shattering, as they used to say. There's some okay stuff from the Buscemas, Perez is young, game and works hard and has okay inking, Wood's stuff is attractive, and there's an interesting plot bit where Vic Von Doom's mother fixation leads him to butt heads with Satan (!) once a year...but it's pretty much car wrecks and pilot error all the way. true, it's exhiliratingly bad, so you might want to check this out for that reason alone. If nothing else, it'll blow your mind if you have any lingering kind thoughts towards these comics from your kidhood. So, bottom line: If you want to see the Shroud call Namor, "Subby", read this book. If you want to see four color luminaries like Arnim Zola the Bio-Fanatic and the "Diabolical" Dr. Dorcas talk to themselves (or rather, shout to themselves), steal this book. If you want to know the sound an elephant makes when the Sub-Mariner throws it at a member of the Circus of Crime (okay, here's a freebie, it's "Blomb!"), buy this book. If you want to read Stan Lee-inspired hoo-ha plots with Ed Wooden dialogue, chart the early fanboy professional over-use of slavish continuity and see a lot of truly awful art slapped out by a legion of hacks, uninspired stalwarts and exhausted veterans -- find a friend at Marvel to give you this thick wad of travesties. Lo! A piece of crap shall find thee!

   Whether you're outraged or nodding your head in agreement, you have to admit It's a pretty funny review, and Dorkin dares admit loving these stories as a kid. AS A KID!..remember, the target audience we've lost in the last 30 years? I recently enjoyed the hell out of Ess.SVTU, because I know that's the only format that obscure 70's comics will ever be reprinted anymore. Is this collection, as Dorkin says, 'A prime example of how childhood nostalgia makes people deify crappy comics."? Possibly. But there's a lot of us out there, who may not commit to a pricey back issue, but will gladly toss a twenty dollar bill for an 'ass-thick' collection of goofy memories.

   Evan Dorkin's just coming off as the abrasive cynic, because he knows his fans expect it from him. He's an old-school Merry Marching Marvelite like we, heartbroken over a time that no longer exists.

   Ess. SVTU is everything Dorkin says it is, but it's gloriously so. I won't deny that there's a high cheese factor in most of the stories contained therein, but Dr. Doom is a fun character who's always lent himself to overdramatic speeches and over-the-top theatrics. When my friends and I were kids (as I stated, a target audience), we loved the slavish continuity to cancelled series. It offered the depth of history (a screwy history, to be sure, but a history nonetheless). For example, in SVTU, I was fascinated to learn that Doom had appeared in something called Astonishing Tales. Upon finding an issue of Ast. Tales years later at my first comic convention, I then discovered some 'new guy' named Wally Wood. As I delved deeper in comics' past, I discovered Wally's brilliant EC work.

   I loved footnotes back then, because I'd know which referenced comic to seek out. Part of comics collecting was the joy of discovery. These back issues helped to complete Marvel and DC's wobbly-but-fun tapestry*.

   *However, at the end of the '70's, with the self-policing positions of Writer/Editors, some writers' material became less like storytelling, and more like continuity auditing. - Dry-eyed Drew.

   Roy Thomas, who launched both Ast. Tales and SVTU, before handing them off to neophytes, has often been cited as the heir apparent to Stan Lee, and in his first ten years, there was nobody who came closer to that title. It's amazing how seamlessly he picked up the reins on The Avengers with #35. Even more amazing was that it was part two of a Living Laser story begun by Stan. If not for the credit boxes, you would've believed Stan wrote it. Maybe Stan had a hand in the script as editor, but Roy the Boy didn't appear to require much adult supervision.

   But by the mid-seventies, Thomas had eschewed the Stan Lee formula for his own, letting his teaching background overwhelm his writing in the tone of a humorless schoolmarm. One example that stands out was the year-long storyline when Thor was forced to be a spectator in his own book learning of his ancestry through a retelling of Wagners' Ring of the Nibelung and Jack Kirby's Celestials, all told from the perspective of Odin's Eye(?)! Unless P. Craig Russell's involved, Opera is a tough sell in comic book form.

   Back to SVTU: This potluck dinner of a comic series finally delivers some tasty dishes with the arrival of relative-newcomer Bill Mantlo (Starting in #10). Mantlo had cut his teeth doing fill-ins with Sal Buscema on every Marvel title at one time or another. Mantlo adeptly and satisfactorily wrapped up all the wacky plotlines he inherited by #13, where Doom finally makes good on his promise to revive Sub-Mariner's Atlantis. Mantlo, in my opinion, took over the Stan Lee style of snappy scriptwriting that Thomas had incorporated in his early years. Don't believe me? Read Hulk #250, guest-starring the Silver Surfer. It reads like classic Stan. And in the vein of Stan's Surfer stories, Bruce Banner and the Surfer try to overcome their respective problems, only to end up with the status quo intact, despite their best efforts.

   Mantlo was given a Parker Brothers toy to write a series around (Rom Spaceknight) and made it last 75 issues and 4 annuals. The main reason was Mantlo' characterization of Rom, which echoed Stan's version of the Surfer. Rom read like a regular Marvel character, and Mantlo incorporated much of the Marvel universe in his travels. Mego's toys, The Micronauts lasted 58 issues plus two annuals for the same reasons (not counting the quickly-relaunched series which lasted 20 MORE issues by Peter Gillis and Kelly Jones). Both of these series began when licensed comics based on toys were far from a sure thing. Both comics outlasted their toy lines by years. Both of these successful comics were created by Bill Mantlo from simple toys with no instruction by their copyright holders other than making the characters recognizable and spell their names right. Because Mantlo was the kind of Marvel writer who could, and did, make Rom and The Micronauts legitimate Marvel comics characters (although, sadly, not legitimate in the actual legal sense). Then came the 1980's, when G.I. Joe broke the mold in a big way, thanks to Larry Hama, Herb Trimpe and others and you know the rest.

   I apologize if my tastes are plebian and less-than-Fantagraphics, but I remember when comics weren't so segregated into adult (where all the 'real' stories occur) and 'kid-friendly' versions, labeled as such. My tastes are probably out of touch with today's fast-paced, quick-edit youth market (with their extreme sports, extreme entertainment, and extreme sour candy), so all my bleating may be for naught. I guess I've painted myself into a corner when I could've simply said "I really enjoyed Essential Super-Villain Team-Up!" But then I'd have a one-sentenced blog this week. I'd like to thank Evan Dorkin for offering a springboard for my comments, and I thank Marvel's Collections Editor, Jeff Youngquist, for making Ess. SVTU a reality.

   Useless fun fact to take to your grave: DC came out with their own bad guy book, Secret Society of Super-villains around the same time of Super-Villain Team-Up. I don't know which one came first, or if one was a company's response to the other. I strongly doubt it caused any fan controversy, like the coincidental publications of Swamp Thing/Man-Thing and X-Men/Doom Patrol.

   Now, if DC would publish a 'phone book' version of Secret Society of Super-Villains, I'd buy that in a Barry Allen heartbeat.

   By the way, I stole two jokes from Dorkin this week because he IS a funny guy who still cracks me up... With that I'm outta here...Blomb!