REVIEW: Ghostly Tales #134

Charlton Comics comics have become my new guilty pleasure. At first I thought this obsession would pass like the great Alf obsession of 2012 or the great Sleepwalker folly of ’96 . . . but, nope, this is totally not going anywhere. Charlton covered a lot of territory from Billy the Kid, Gunfighter, Outlaws of the West, and other great classic G-rated westerns, to the G-rated horror books such as; the classic Haunted, Ghost Manor, and my personal favorite Ghostly Tales. I feel like I need to throw out a nod to the American muscle in Drag N' Wheels (huge fan), and the classic Blue Beetle as well. These are the books with which I’m familiar, and I’ve yet to scratch the surface of the orgy of their catalogs’ musty sexiness. Granted the ones in great condition cost a pretty penny, but I’m not concerned with condition. In fact, if it’s not dog-eared or smells like Grandma’s basement, then I don’t want it. Some things are just uncivilized. Comics are meant to be read not locked in a time capsule forever entombed in anonymity. Plus, I’m a cheap dollar box scavenger, which is exactly where I found this gem. Technically I found this book and a handful of others in a red shoe box behind a mirror under a bunch of old newspapers, during my wife’s quest for a vanity at some random antique store. Other than this book, I scored a few issues of Drag N' Wheels and DC's Scalphunter, and a single issue of the Incredible Hulk (#230 to be exact).

Scavenger.

Happiness House

Editor: George Wildman

Story: Joe Gili

Art: Larry Englehart

In our first short story, Jason Phelps is building a house for his bride-to-be . . . or I should say slaves are building a house for his bride-to-be. One night a slave escapes and heads to the local jungle voodoo priestess and has her put a curse on the evil slave master, whom just whipped our escapee. Somehow the voodoo priestess accidentally curses Phelps and his betrothed. She dies, and he's made immortal and forced to spend eternity living alone in his house. Fast forward 200 years, and the reincarnated fiance returns to break the curse. The end. So the lesson here is when picking a voodoo priestess, shop around a bit before you hoodoo the voodoo.

That Personal Touch

Editor: Geo Wildman

Writer: P. Kupperberg

Artist: Nicholas Alascia

Our second story is all about a “master” sculptor named Victor Salzburg, whose works are known for their uncanny lifelike details. As we soon learn, Victor is in fact not the ABBA of sculpting; he is in fact a man trained in Gypsy alchemy to turn people into stone. Our buddy Vic targets the riff-raff, bonks them over the head, and turns them into stone. In some unexplained way, Victor’s stone creations come alive and hit him with his own medicine. The lesson here is if you’re going to turn people to stone . . .

Satan’s Night Out

Editor: Geo Wildman

Writer: Joe Gill

Artist: Steve Ditko

Yay! Steve Ditko! And in our grand finale some wackjob goes around for a year and writes down the names of people he deems as evil. Step two of his diabolical plan is to acquire a realistic devil costume. Check. Step three is to kill all the evil people on your list dressed as the devil himself. Almost check. Before our fanatic can off the last person on his list the real devil jumps out of a poster and marries him with the business end of his trident. I mean you just can't out-devil the devil after all. The lesson here is don’t dress up as the devil and start making a naughty list.

PS. For only $1 you can enter the wonderful of amazing live Sea-Monkeys. Smells like victory.

REVIEW: Kobra #1

Writer: Martin Pasko
Artists: Jack Kirby, D. Bruce Berry, Pablo Marcos

Free Comic Book Day not only gives us the gift of aforementioned free comics, but also usually showers us with other gifts.
Gifts in the form of sale priced or clearanced loot. Most shops run a table or two (or three!) of highly discounted merchandise they can't move or are otherwise tired of looking at. Almost always these tables hold that Promised Land of a Dollar Box or Quarter Bin, and any store that doesn't needs to pick up their game.
You know who you are . . .

This year I picked up enough moldy oldies and mid-'90s stock to fill this column for about a year, and today we'll take a look at the finest comic that 1976 DC had to offer:  Kobra.
I've always had a fondness for snake-themed villains, probably due to my early exposure to James Earl Jones' Thulsa Doom, and Kobra is no exception. Though sporadic at best, I always treasured those rare DC comics I'd find that had some calling for a Ruthless Terrorist Organization to menace the world, and if Ra's al-Ghul was busy that week I could always count on Kobra.


Kobra is a great book, brimming with vintage purple prose and phenomenal interiors by Jack "Hail to the King" Kirby. The book opens with the snake cult's hidden temple under Manhattan, and among the trophies and relics within, we are treated with the appearance of a miniatures mastodon from Atlantis preserved in suspended animation. I only make mention of this because somebody was awful damn proud of that woolly mammoth as it was pointedly expounded upon, almost verbatim from my sentence above.
Old school comics, everyone?

Exposition tells us that Kobra is one of a set of Siamese twins, separated at birth and secreted away by a sinister serpent cult to reign as their Evil Prophesied Dalai Lama. His brother, Jason, is in the dark about his brothers' actions or even his existence but is soon clued in by a streetwise NYPD lieutenant. The police want to use Jason as bait in the hopes of luring Kobra out of his Bond Villain lair, but Kobra has other plans.
Plans that involve sending a giant alien robot rampaging through the streets of New York on the hunt for his brother.

As it turns out, Kobra and Jason share a specific cliché trait as some fictional twins are wont to do. As the Corsican Brothers before them and GI Joe's Crimson Twins to follow, Kobra and Jason feel one another's pain.
Not in an empathetic metaphorical sort of way. In a way, where if I smack Jason in the head, Kobra looks up and goes, "Ow! Dammit, who did that?!!!"
You all know what I'm talkin' about.
This puts a damper on Kobra's plan to send his rampaging alien robot across town to kill his brother.

When all is said and done, Jason Lives and Kobra shakes his fist and escapes to bedevil our heroes another day. As to be expected, considering he is the titular character.

If I were a betting man, I'd say a majority of folks aren't scrabbling for copies of 1976's Kobra. I might go so far as to say a lot of readers might not even know who the hell Kobra is, but if the opportunity presents itself, I'd recommend finding out. The Jack Kirby art alone is worth the price of admission.

REVIEW: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Special #1

Script: Steve Sullivan
Art: Brian Thomas (1st story), Bill Wray (2nd story)

The early 1990s.
When turtles were king.
Transformers was long gone and G.I. Joe had devolved from the far superior Sunbow series to the crappy, crappy DIC treatment, paving the way for TMNT to lord over all of us on weekday afternoons.
Or Saturday mornings . . . depending on where we're at in the timeline.

Anyhow, like most kids my age I was enamored by Ninja Turtles. I had the ridiculous toys, played the often-frustrating video game, and cheered for the movie.
Unlike most kids my age, I was an avid comic nerd. Upon discovering there existed a Ninja Turtles comic book, my head nearly split in twain.  I picked up the awkwardly-titled Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Special no. 1 at a Wal-Mart in Independence, Iowa whilst visiting my grandparents in 1992 and probably hadn't read it in 20 years . . . until today.


Keeping in mind that TMNT Adventures was for the most part a children's comic, it's a pretty well-done book. It consists of two stories, both involving the turtles encountering some sort of hazard to the environment and ecology. The first segment finds the April O'Neil, Master Splinter, and the four turtles camping in the Pacific Northwest and running afoul of lumberjack-robots clear-cutting the forest.
The robots belong to (wait for it) industrialist Shelton Slujj.
Shelton. Slujj.
He introduced himself as "Shelton Slujj, billionaire philanthropist" and it's wonderfully hokey. I really can't even throw any shade at the name.  One of my favorite books is old-school Man-Thing and he had a recurring villain named "F.A. Schist", so there's that.

Anyhow, it seems Mr. Slujj is clear cutting forest to make way for a factory to compress toxic waste for easy storage.
Don't overthink it, just go with the flow . . .
Throw a monkeywrenching eco terrorist and his band of Sasquatch into the mix, along with some friendly misunderstandings, and
We all learn a valuable lesson at the end of the day.
About not destroying the natural habitat of Bigfoot.

The second story opens with the turtles enjoying some r&r after their toxic waste Bigfoot adventure on a yacht with their new pal, Mr. Slujj. 3-hour tour or no, the motley crew is soon shipwrecked and picked up by a Japanese research vessel (read: whaling ship).

Sidebar: The Japanese and a select few other nationalities are permitted to harvest a number of whales per annum for 'research purposes' which is pretty much a load of bologna, and unless you're an Inuit or of some other aboriginal culture you've no business hunting whales any-damn-way.
That's just my opinion from atop my position of white privilege and first world problems.

Anyway, soon after being scooped up by said research vessel we learn that the captain of said ship is all but an Asian Captain Ahab.  His backstory reveals he lost his nephew to a sea serpent attack, and now he sails the Seven Seas seeking vengeance.
Fairly formula but, as this book is geared towards younger readers, it's perfectly acceptable.

At the end of the day, the turtles and Mr. Slujj (still, that name!) prevail against the mad sea captain with, of course, the help of the aforementioned sea serpent. We're left to wonder if the captain learns a valuable lesson about the error of his ways, but I'm inclined to think he was recalcitrant to reform and continued his crusade in unwritten tales.

TMNT Adventures isn't a book I'd pick up these days, but I've got fond memories of reading the comic in the days of yore. If you've a younger reader in the family or circle of friends, I would highly recommend this series.  It's a cartoon put to paper, and may be just the thing for an elementary-schooler, who is a fan of the TMNT franchise but not quite ready for the more mature direction of the current books.
I don't believe the comics are particularly collectible and should be a fairly cheap addition to the collection of a fresh-faced comic fan.