Comic Books Archives - Retro Ramblings

The Green Hornet and The Case of the Museum Mummy

Here is a classic tale from the golden age of comics featuring the legendary Green Hornet. The Green Hornet is one of the characters from those early years that has stood the test of time and is still relevant today. Not counting the Seth Rogen movie, most of the Green Hornet tales and appearances have been top-notch, and this tale from 1942 is no exception. In this one, at the opening of the Tutenkiem exhibit, the man who discovered the mummy dies, and The Green Hornet has to solve the puzzling case. Just click below on the “Continue Reading” for the complete story.

Wax Pack Flashback Ep. 09 – Comic’s Future Stars from 1993

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In this episode of Wax Pack Flashback, I open up a pack of Comic’s Future Stars cards from 1993. I was huge into comic books in the ’90s, and I thought this pack would be filled with profile shots or people like Todd McFarlane, Rob Leifeld, and Jim Lee. I guess I should have realized the fact that those guys were already superstars and wouldn’t be featured. Instead, these cards feature artwork from little know creators at the time. But just in this pack, I was a couple of artists who went on to bigger and better things. It was certainly fun going through these cards, even if it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

Friday Five: Christmas Presents Through the Years

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I’m bringing back my old feature, Top 5. It’s where I do a quick list of my five favorites from a variety of topics. With the two big days of Christmas upon us, this time I’m ranking the Top 5 presents I received for Christmas through the years. It’s too hard to put these in any kind of order of most favorite to least, so I’m listing them in the order of when I received them. Feel free to leave your own top 5 in the comments at the bottom.

Castle Grayskull

I’ve got a feeling I got this in 1984, since it probably wouldn’t have been like my old man to buy it in 1983 when my fandom was just blossoming for all things He-Man. He generally liked to wait until he was sure I was really into something before dropping a lot of dough on it. But what kid out there who was lucky enough to get this for Christmas wouldn’t enjoy it? I know I flipped for it. I’ve got an old polaroid of me just after opening it, and I’m crying. They had to be tears of joy. But this was the highlight of my Christmas that year, and countless battles were fought around, in, and for Castle Grayskull in the following months and years.

Some Retro Comic Book Ads

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Flipping through the pages of old comic books is kinda like opening a time capsule. They are usually full of ads that feature pop culture icons, products that are fondly remembered, and some that jar no memory what so ever in our brains. Being a big fan of retro advertising in all forms, I am especially fond of slowly browsing the pages of comic books looking for those ads that make light bulbs goes off overhead. I was going through an old comic the other day and came across a few like that and thought I’d share them.

All of the ads in this article are from the comic book, X-Men 2099 #2, cover dated November 1993, from Marvel Comics. I picked this issue up from a quarter bin at a comic book convention recently.

While I never read a single issue of X-Men 2099, I was a fringe fan of the 2099 concept from Marvel Comics. I really enjoyed the Doom 2099 series and thought the Spider-Man 2099 series was pretty good as well. I was just never a big fan of the X-Men comic books in general. I thought the mid-90’s cartoon was good and really well done though.

Quaker Oatmeal Kid’s Choice

The first ad I came across, was inside the front cover and is for Quaker Instant Oatmeal Kid’s Choice. It looks like it’s a variety pack that features four different flavors, that would hopefully please even the pickiest of us kids/pre-teens/teens or whatever you were in 1993.

I was always a big fan of Quaker Maple Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal, but I don’t really remember this Kid’s Choice pack. It appears to be mostly just a variety pack that had been re-branded to appeal to a younger generation instead of the adults. A quick watch of a commercial for this oatmeal has enlightened me to the fact that at some point there was a “CinnaMagic’ flavor included that would change color instantly when water was added. I’m guessing that flavor came after the Cinnamon Graham Cookie that is featured on the box in this ad.

Above and beyond the totally ’90s packaging, check out the clothing on the models in this picture. You have the preppy kid up top in his khakis and sneakers, the cool street kid rocking the backward hat, sweatshirt and sweat pants, and the best touch of all….the striped athletic socks with the sweat pants tucked into them! On the side, it appears we have another Zack Morris wannabe, and with a ‘Daddy’s little angel’ on the floor next to him. And the best is on the other side of the box. Corporate America’s vision of what a 13-year-old hippy chick would dress like.

M.A.S.K. Insert From 1986

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Earlier this week I was thumbing through some 80’s comics books looking at the classic ads when I came across this absolute gem. At first I thought it was just a short comic story insert featuring M.A.S.K., but then I found that immediately following the short, four page comic, was a few pages of M.A.S.K. merchandise! As soon as I saw it, I knew I wasn’t the only one who would be interested in all this cool stuff, so here in it’s complete glory is the complete 12-page insert! And probably the coolest, yet weirdest, part about all this is the fact they were giving away an actual Chevy Camaro. When you think that the majority…the VAST majority…of people who would see this were kids, it makes the giveaway kind of a head scratcher. But anyway, don’t let that ruin your fun! Enjoy looking through this awesome insert from 1986.

MASK

Retro Comic Book Ads #2

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Old comic books often act as a time capsule. They’re full of advertisements of products from long ago, and can tell us a lot about the culture of the time in which they were printed. Some of those products are still with us, while others are not. I often like to crack open the pages of a long forgotten comic book and just browse the advertisements found inside with which to take a trip back in time to another era. Let’s open one of those time capsules here today and see what we find….

The “time capsule” for this trip back in time is a copy of Iceman #1, from Marvel Comics in 1984. It was the first issue of his first mini-series, and I imagine this mini-series was created to capitalize on the character’s popularity from the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon.

The first ad we come across is a real eye-opener. It’s for the Mario Brothers home video game for the Atari 2600 system. It’s hard to think of a Mario game being on any system besides one from Nintendo, but this is from before Nintendo was launched in the USA and Mario took over the video gaming world. This version of the game for Atari was an arcade port to the home system.

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