It wasn’t until later that Speed realized he left the parking break off.
Speed Racer Special (2nd printing)
NOW Comics (September, 1988)
WRITER: Fred Schiller
COVER ART: Ken Steacy
CENTERSPREAD ILLUSTRATION: Ken Steacy & Andrew Pratt
TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATIONS/AUTO MOTIVE SPECS: Jim Bauer
TECHNICAL WRITING: Brenda Erwin
EDITORS: Tony Caputo & Fred Schiller
“Speed And The Beauty Queen”
PENCILER: Tom Morgan
INKER/LETTERER/COLORIST: Cygnet Ash
“Just Desserts”
PENCILER: Guy Davis
INKER: Alex Gillinson
LETTERER: Kurt Hathaway
In our first story Speed is trapped with a beauty queen who is the mascot for a hunger charity race. However, falling boulders have sent the Mach-5 into the water and now they’re trapped down there until they both come up with a plan to free themselves from the mud. The story is just an excuse to have Speed discuss the history of the Mach-5 in this version. There are some continuity hiccups with the first issue and the beauty queen’s valley girl schtick is as annoying to read as it is for Speed to listen to, but having her actually have some brains in her head, at least on a technical level, was a nice surprise. A decent story by the end.
The second one is just an adventure. Speed and Spridle are kidnapped by a sheik so his son has better odds of winning a desert race. Racer X comes to their rescue. This was pretty neat. We get to see Rex spend time with Spridle (too bad they didn’t spell it right, as fan sites insist it should be Spritle, with a “t” instead of a “d”) while Speed’s knocked out and he does some tricks with the Mach-5 our heroes probably never thought of before. However, the Arab depictions would never be seen in a modern comic since it could come off as racist stereotyping…and I’m on modern’s side for once. For the most part though a good short story.
Overall this isn’t a must-own issue but it wasn’t too bad. Average really, not really good nor really bad.
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