I have to add the “DC” in because IDW is doing their own MASK series now. Anybody read it? Is it any good?
Leave it to VENOM to ruin a perfectly good comic book cover.
MASK #5
DC Comics (June, 1987)
“African Nightmare”
WRITER: Michael Fleisher
ARTISTS: Curt Swan & Kurt Schaffenberger
COLORIST: Bob LeRose
LETTERER: John Costanza
EDITOR: Mike Gold
Let’s ride this train to the station, shall we? The Star Wars Holiday Special was an ill-conceived attempt to create a Christmas special with the Star Wars characters. The plot involved Han trying to get Chewbacca back to his family for “Life Day”, and the story falls apart from there; we just had a bunch of mediocre skits (including at least three characters Harvey Korman would probably like to forget he played) and some other questionable stuff. It’s not worth watching except as a curiosity…and for the animated segment.
Produced by Nirvana, who would later go on to make The Ewoks/Droids Adventure Hour, the segment does have the first animated appearance of our favorite Droids who have managed to hijack most of this week (I used up all the good Droid fights in my collection for Friday Night Fights already), as well as Boba Fett. It also had some horrible designs for anything without a metal face or mask. You’ll see what I mean when you watch it.
Kup’s half the bot he used to be.
Transformers Timelines vol. 2 #4
Fun Publications (2009)
“Wings Of Honor”
STORY: Rik Alvarez
WRITERS: Forest Lee & Rik Alvarez
PENCILERS: Guido Guidi & Dan Khanna
PROFILES PENCILERS: Dan Khanna, Don Figueroa, Evan Guantt, Jesse Wittenrich, & Greg Sepelak
INKERS: Guido Guidi & Josh Warner
PROFILES INKERS: Josh Warner, Don Figueroa, Jesse Wittenrich, Evan Guanti, & Greg Sepelak
COLORISTS: Thomas Deer & Josh Perez
PROFILES COLORISTS: Josh Perez, Drew Eiden, Jesse Wittenrich, Evan Guanti, & Greg Sepelak
DIAMOND EDITION COVER: Guido Guidi & Thomas Deer
LETTERER: Jesse Wittenrich
MANAGING EDITOR: Pete Sinclair
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Brian Savage
TIMELINES CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Lanny Lathem
Han Solo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Reports are out that Woody Harrelson, who my generation knows from Cheers, a sitcom about people in a bar, is in early talks to play Han Solo’s mentor in the smuggler’s upcoming solo (no pun intended) movie. Screen Crush contributor Emma Stranfansky speculates on who that mentor may be and what might be an important necessity of the movie.
Maybe my eyes are tired. Can anybody make out what’s going on in this cover?
Transformers: Generation One vol. 3 #8
Dreamwave (September, 2004)
“Extermination”
WRITER: James McDonough & Adam Patyk
PENCILER: Don Figueroa
INKER: Elaine To
COLORIST: Espen Grndetjern
LETTERER: Ben Lee
Why not? I seem to be in a theme this week.
Star Wars Droids: The Adventures Of R2-D2 And C-3PO was a Saturday morning cartoon following the adventures of the real stars of the prequel. I don’t have to say who because it’s in the darn title! Airing the 1985/1986 season on ABC, the show takes place before the events of the original Star Wars movie (or episode four or A New Hope or whatever makes you happy and gets us back on topic). This is obvious by the occasional appearance of the Empire and a not-eaten Boba Fett. In hindsight this would take place past the prequels and their recent appearance on Star Wars Rebels although neither of those existed. Return Of The Jedi had ended and the parties involved wanted to keep the franchise in people’s minds, especially the toy-seeking younglings.
The series was produced by Nelvana, who had done the animated (aka the only watchable) segment of the ill-fated and ill-conceived Star Wars Holiday Special, otherwise known as “what were they thinking” over and over again. The same character models were used although thankfully the fleshy ones were less rubbery. It also aired alongside an Ewoks cartoon but I was never interested in that. (Although I did like the first live-action TV movie. The second one…not so much.) There was a prime-time animated special called The Great Heap, which has our heroes fighting a giant droid that for some reason was powered by draining R2 units, and R2 gets a girlfriend. It’s an odd show at time, but really quite good.
The series plot is that R2 and 3PO need to find work, and end up with a series of masters. Three-episode story arcs have the Droids dealing with mobsters and claim jumpers, saving princes and racers, and of course the usual bickering. Anthony Daniels returns as the voice of C-3PO and would do so again for both animated Clone Wars and the aforementioned Rebels appearance. The theme song, which finally gets us to the topic of this article, was co-written by Steward Copeland (of the band The Police, where Sting is also from), who sings the song, and Derek Holt. As I’ve stated before there is more to an intro than a song. Otherwise there would be more live-action pieces in this series than there are. So what helps make this work without John Williams involved?
Is Slithe about to eat Monkian?
Thundercats #3
WildStorm (December, 2002)
WRITER: Ford Lytle Gilmore
PENCILER: Francisco Herrera
INKER: Carlos Logo Cuevas
COLORING: WildStorm FX
LETTERER: John Layman
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
EDITOR: Jeff Mariotte
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
