All I Want For Christmas Are This Comic Book And The Movie It Is Based Upon

So, I'm reading a comic I glommed from The Quarter Bin--Red Circle's Sorcery #7 (1974)--and I come across this ad:

Sweet Mariah Carey, I MUST find this book.

Did it ever actually exist?

Oh, yeah:

OK, that cover makes it look like the best comic ever!! (Cover by Gray Morrow!)

The stories in this issue? Crime Is Out Of Fashion, Bedlam Beat, Next Stop...The Cemetery, and 2 To Get Ready, 4 To Go.

Great Bird Of the Galaxy--I NEED this comic!!

Wait a minute--why are they wearing Batman-symbols? Where the hell are the DC lawyers?!?

Well, you see, the one and only issue of The Super Cops is based on a movie which depicts...

WAIT A MINUTE--there was a movie?!?!

Oh, hell yes:

Sweet mama jamma!!!

Allow me to crib from the plot description on Amazon.com:

Better cool your jets, all you Bed-Stuy dealers, operators and lowlifes: the heat that will take you down is on the street. The Super Cops zippily chronicles the crime-busting adventures of David Greenberg and Robert Hantz, the unorthodox police duo "who became known, not always fondly, as Batman and Robin," writes Vincent Canby in his review in The New York Times. "The nicknames define the comic-book style of the film," Canby adds, a film directed by renowned Life photojournalist and Shaft filmmaker Gordon Parks and amped by enthusiastic performances from leads Ron Leibman and David Selby. The real-life Greenberg and Hantz appear in the film in news footage and in bit roles.

Wait--Amazon?? So this movie is available on DVD??

Hell, yes!! Too cool story: It turns out that Edgar Wright wanted a copy for to use as a reference for Hot Fuzz, and Warner obliged by making it available as an on-demand title.

Plus, the fact that it was a Warner Joint explains how the flick could get away with all of the "Batman & Robin" references (which the press really did use in real life...). Still, I'm surprised that Archie Comics was able to get away with the Bat logos. Then again, maybe they didn't, and that's why the comic went away after one issue...

And a year later, the story was made into an TV pilot, which didn't sell.

So, there is a comic and a DVD of The Super Cops, and I don't have them.

Ahem...Oh, Santa...?

Comics I Wish I Had--Wonder Woman #203

Some covers are so compelling, you just have to have them:

Why do I want this comic so badly?

A) It's part of Wonder Woman's "Emma Peel" period, of which I've read frighteningly little. (Yes, I know it's all available in trade. What, you think I'm made of money?) Not only that, it's the very last issue of Diana Prince: Wonder Woman. In the very next issue, it's back to stars and stripes and wonder bras...

B) This issue is written by Samuel R. Delany. Yes, THAT Samuel R. Delany. Is your mind blown yet??

C) The title of the issue is "The Grandee Caper," and the cover blurb promises "a NEW kind of villain." GCD notes that, according to the issue's artist Dick Giordano, Mr. Grandee was "visually based on Carmine Infantino." Hee hee.

And, most importantly, D)Now, you'd think that every issue of Wonder Woman would be a "Women's Lib Issue." But this is 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment and "women's lib" is on everybody's tongue, and you just know this story is going to be so monumentally ham-fistedly-topical-yet-not-in-any-way-seriously-challenging-the-status-quo that it would probably make my mind explode. But...it's written by Sam Delany, so...?

In short--A "special women's lib issue" of the Emma Peel era Wonder Women written by Nebula and Hugo winner Samuel R. Delany with Carmine Infantino as the villain.

Dammit, I'm going to have to break down and buy the trade, aren't I??

Comics I Wish I Had--Lois Lane #38

The glory of DC's "cover first" practice--wherein the editor frequently came up with the cover idea first, and then passed it along to the creative team to make a story from it--was that it did produce some pretty "I've got to read this" covers. Case in point: Lois Lane #38 (1963):

I mean, come on, who doesn't want to read this story, and figure out which women would accept Kal-El as a powerless mortal, and which wouldn't??

FACT: Superman is so smooth, he proposes to two ladies at the same time--in the same room!! Word.

Then again, it's the Silver Age, so the characterization of our heroines is sufficiently flimsy and/or non-existent that there's essentially no way to guess from their personalities whether Lana or Lois would still marry Superman. It's a coin flip/writer's whim.

Still then again, it is the Silver Age, so I'd gladly wager a dollar that the one who "refuses" powerless Superman is not really refusing him, but doing it a) to protect him, or b) to goad him into rehabbing himself back into super-powerdom, because she some some little clue that indicates that Superman is faking, or that all psychosomatic, or whatever.

Finally, let me quibble with the cover blurb, because I'm pretty certain that whoever wrote it had never actually read "The Lady Or The Tiger." Because in the that story, the consequence of making the wrong decision is to be devoured by a ravenous man-eating beast, whereas in this story the worst that can happen is Superman marries Lana...

Oooooh, I get it...

Tales From The Quarter Bin--It Will Be Mine. Oh, Yes, It Will Be Mine!

The hunt is on.

While taking a quick dive through the quarter bin this week, I found this:

Don't worry, I'm not going to savage some evangelical Christian comic book. No, what really caught my eye was the back cover ad:

I've seen most of these before, even own a couple of them. But this fragment caught my eye:

So, engaging in a little internet detective work, and by the good graces of GCD, I found out that snippet was from this:

Wow.

I have never wanted a comic book so much in my entire life (except for this one).

You'll have to excuse me, because I'm going to be scouring quarter bins for awhile. But I will find it. Oh, yes, I will. And it will be mine...

Tales From The Quarter Bin--I Am A Mighty Hunter/Gatherer

What did I find today, trolling the depths of the voluminous quarter bins at my local comics shoppe??

Why, nothing much....

...just a complete run of Jon Sable Freelance...

...a complete run of Manhunter...

...and one of my most-lusted after comics EVER:

It's good to be alive, is all I'm sayin'.

Comics I Wish I Had--Bewitched #13 (1966?)

If there are young children reading this, you might to make sure they're not in the room when you check out this entry...because you're about to experience---

A GROOVE ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You see, back in the 1960's, even the most staid of media franchises sometimes just went plain nuts, acting like someone had laced their Wheaties with a couple of tabs of acid, in a vain attempt to seem hip and groovy to the increasingly powerful youth market.

And of course, in the 1960's virtually every TV show had a comic book spun off from it. Seriously, for just about every show that survived more than one season, Dell or someone would rush in with some licensing money to do a comics version.

Combine those two trends, and you get--

A GROOVE ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, with that in mind, brace yourself...because you can never be ready for this:

GROOVE ATTACK!!!!!

My local comic shoppe has this available for 20 bucks. I'm sorely tempted, except a) you know the story itself has gotta suck, b) you know the story itself likely has no relation to the cover, and c) I can't justify the 20 bucks right now.

But the guitar...the tights...the crazed look on Elizabeth Montgomery's face...the insanely bare cover design...the "Wacky Way-out World of Witches!!"

Man, maybe I will head back to the shoppe this weekend...

Comics I Wish I Had--Blackhawk #219 (1966)

Maybe the greatest comic book cover EVER:

Why?

First of all, these:


Ah, how hip and trendy such Spanglish phrases must have seemed back in 1966!! In the post-"Yo quiero Taco Bell" era, we're so jaded. But back then...way bueno!! It only gets better when we learn that the title of the story is "El Blackhawk Peligroso!"

Then, of course, there's this:

You know, we really need more "talking heads off to the side commenting on the cover action" covers, don't we? Especially when those talking heads are whispering to each other, rather than actually talking.

And when those talking heads are a stereotypical Frenchman and a stereotypical "South American," well, only hilarity can ensue, si?

Finally, there's this guy:

Yellow trunks. Awesome.

Comics I Wish I Had--Lois Lane #96

October, 1969:

Just look at that!! Look at the villain's get up!! Check out Lana's mini-skirt, and Lois' faux-1920s hideous mini-skirt get-up!! The gambit of making the potential reader guess what the "girls" are saying!! The above-the-logo teaser asking you to "Weep for Lois Lane's Baby!" Of course, there's no way the comic could live up to such a great cover...is there? (...unless it's secretly a ploy by Kal-El to set up a little menage a trois with the LL girls...)

Oh, what are the ladies saying, you ask? I'm thinking that it went a little something like this:

Too bad, Supes...it was nice knowing you.

Comics I Wish I Had--Lois Lane #9

Dude, you have no idea how MUCH I want to read this issue!! Why??

A) Of course, there's the mystery reason Kal-El must use "all his superpowers" (really? Super-ventriloquism, too?) to prevent the song from becoming a hit. Aren't you dying to know it? Don't you just know that it's something ridiculously silly? Like, somehow it gives away his secret ID? Or somehow, the words and notes of the song just coincidentally mean something else in some alien tongue and will cause an alien invasion? Or somehow the song violates a pledge Superman made to Pa Kent? Then again, knowing DC, the cover is probably inaccurate, and Supes doesn't have to stop the song at all...

B) Pat Boone. I mean, Pat Boone. Somehow, I doubt "using all my super powers" means beating the crap out of Pat Boone or stranding him in the past, but we can hope.

C) The barely concealed arrogance of Superman assuming that any song about him will become a hit. Ego much?

D) The comically misdrawn guitar Pat is playing on the cover. I love you, Curt Swan, but is that a ukulele? Piano and ukulele duets must have been quite the rage in 1959. Or is Pat Boone a giant (or is the song itself mutating him??)?

E) Really, would putting Pat Boone on your cover move a lot of extra comics for you 1959? If so, that explains a heckuva lot about my parents' generation...

F) Then again, a mere 4 months after this issue appeared, Pat did get his own DC comics series...really!! So maybe he did move some issues...It lasted only 5 issues, but look at the clean-cut goodness!!

Comics I Wish I Had--House of Mystery #149

Another comic I really, really need to find--House of Mystery #149, 1969:

Not just for that great cover, which elicits from me the following comments:

A)Too bad they won't be doing this cover story in the current House of Mystery...or will they??

B) I really want to see the insect Johnny Cochrane!!

C) I think I saw that one on a Law & Order once...

No, the reason I really, really need to read this issue is that the J'onn J'onzz story in it is titled, "The Man-Thing That Unearthed Secrets."

That title is so perfect on so many levels, my head is throbbing with joy.

The Man-Thing That Unearthed Secrets...geez, that is so cool...

Comics I Wish I Had--Jimmy Olsen #88

A comic I really, really need to find and read--Jimmy Olsen #88, 1965:

I HAVE to read this story. Bonus...according to GCD, Jor-El and Lara also appear in that same story. Whaa?!?!

Hat tip to Fred Hembeck...his version of the cover is shown in the awesomely delicious Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus. Please go buy a copy, because I think it will make you happy, and I like happy people.