Spider-man & Captain America Use The Men's Room...

Okay, so that is undoubtedly one of the lamest covers to a comic-book in the entire history of the medium. Yet behind this awkward looking Captain America dwells one of the most read and re-read comic-books of my childhood. It's a simple done-in-one story starring Spidey and Cap - nothing earth-shattering or spectacular - it's just a simple, standard super-hero story that just so happens to have a single shining 'hell yeah!!' moment that reminds you why comic-books are freaking awesome.

This book has no business being so high on my 'comic-books I love from my childhood' chart. Not only does have that ambominable cover - it also stars my least favorite villain in all of the Marvel universe. Vermin - the rat man. Man, I hate that guy. Spidey-writers seem to always wanna shoe-horn him into all of my favorite story-lines like 'Kraven's Last Hunt' or 'The Child Within'. What is there to like about this guy? All he does is go around moping, eating garbage and rolling his Ss like some kind of bad Thundercats villain.

Mmmm...I'm loving it

Apart from Vermin we've got Spidey and Cap who just happen to be at the same carnival in thier respective secret identities. Peter's moping around thinking about Black Cat and treating forgettable Spidey love-interest Mia like dirt. While Cap is there with current (at the time)beau Bernie Rosenthal wishing he was there with smoking S.H.I.E.L.D. chica and future assassin Sharon Carter. How these jerks continue to get chicks to date them is beyond me.

Anyway luckily for Steve and Pete an angry rat-man shows up with his pack of rats and mangy dogs. So the guys get to ditch their second-string honeys and go to work. Of course going to work in this case means stopping Vermin from stealing a crusty, fresh baguette at the carnival:

Calm Assertive Cap! Calm Assertive! Someone Call The Dog Whisperer!

Then helping him wreck up a local supermarket:

Clean Up In Aisle Three

None of which is the killer 'hell yeah' moment that I mentioned earlier. That moment happens a few moments before the intial Vermin baguette offensive. It takes place in the carnival's suprising pristine men's room...

...sorry I felt a George Michael joke coming on there..it's gone now.

As I was saying despite being in the midst of a dangerous super-villain attack both Pete and Steve unceremoniously ditch their girls and rush to the little super-heroes room. They each duck inside a seperate stall and don their trusty spandex and then...

I Hope They Wash Their Hands

That's the moment. That's awesome. When I was a kid I read and re-read this comic over and over just to re-experience that moment. These were the days when Marvel Team-Up would deliver a big steaming heap of awesome every month! One month you'd have Cap and Spidey getting all 'Avengers Assemble' in the men's room the next month you might have Kraven hotrodding after Spidey atop a stampede of wild animals.

Take note modern Marvel writers. You wanna write a successful super-hero team-up issue? Learn from masters like J.M. DeMatties, Kerry Gammill and Mike Esposito. It's all about men's rooms, mack-daddies and mangy dogs.

Just don't put Vermin in it - I'm sick of that guy!

Nuff Said.

Hear The Drummer Get Wicked...

Since we're celebrating my brother's birthday today I figured maybe a post that combines the mission statement of ourselves, here at YouAreComic, with his one true love...Hip Hop.

What better way to weave two such diverse concepts seamlessly together than by taking a look at Public Enemy:The Comic Book #1:That's right, your eyes do not decieve you. That is in fact a double-page spread of none other than Flavor Flav himself, fly-kicking a bad guy in the chops while slicing him up real nice with a razor-edged clock.

What warped mind could concieve a comic-book where old-school hip-hop superstars Public Enemy are in fact undercover operatives of a badass, secret organisation of globe-trotting, wrong-righting do-gooders? Why only the mind of the Hard Ryhmer himself..Chuck D of course.

He's secretly been a comic-book fan just biding his time in the rap game until he could unleash this upon the world:It's deeply, deeply insane and you should totally buy it.

Consider yourselves warned!

Happy Birthday B-Bro...

Recently this blog has seemed to be nothing but birthday posts, but I can't let my brother's birthday go by without a mention here on YouAreComic. After all it was stealing and reading his Eagles that made me into the fine specimen of a man I am today.

So in celebratory fashion allow me to post his favorite comic-book panel of all time right here for your enjoyment:

Hey B-Boss

Okay, so no-one but those with whom I share DNA is going to get that, but suffice it to say that somewhere in Tallahassee, Florida someone is cackling his ass off.

Happy Birthday bro, hope you have a good one. I send you birthday wishes and..

..a cup of java on the ol' Jawa

(Today's cryptic birthday salutations both come from the fantastic Amazing Spider-man #226. It's a rip-roaring tale of romance, costume parties and laundromats by the dream team of Roger Stern, John Romita Jnr and Jim Mooney. I still have this issue in an old beat-up UK reprint annual that you guessed it...I stole from my brother. One of my favorite Spidey stories ever, so much so that this is the second time I've posted about it)

Do The Hypno-Hustle...

Despite M.O.D.O.K.'s impressive giant head spins and Ultron doing a mean robot, victory in this year's Annual Super-villain dance-off went to Mysterio and SilverMane for their thoroughly entertaining synchronised Running Man...

Go Quentin It's Your Birthday

(Today's mad dance skillz were brought to you by the hip hop headz at Amazing Spider-man #620, Dan Slott, Marcos Martin & Javier Pulido. Also in this issue Mysterio pulls off a death-defying escape by claiming to be Spidey's cousin before giving him a sturdy kick in the nards. Didn't that guy used to just dissapear into a puff of smoke?).

Come back Spinner Racks, All Is Forgiven...

Ah, the 70s, it must've been quite the time to be alive. You could head down to the local convenience store pick up a quart of milk, a nice fresh loaf, a slice of watermelon and this...

Satan on your shopping list! God bless you Tony Isabella.

Nuff Said.

(Today's barrage of birthday blogs was brought to you by Ghost Rider v1 #15,17 & 18 by the awesome talents of Tony Isabella, Frank Robbins and Vince Coletta. Thanks for Sataning up my formative years guys.)

You Kiss Your Momma With That Mouth?

It's foul-mouthed outbursts like this that got Johnny damned to Hell in the first place!

Johnny Blaze On Blind Dating...

"You show up at their door with a buncha posies wearing your best leathers and your bitchinest flaming skull..."

"...and they turn out to be possessed by Satan!"

Holy Ghost Rider Tony I...

A comic-book series in which an Evel Knievel analogue with a flaming skull for a head saves Jesus Christ from being crucified by a cavalcade of the most third-rate 70s super-villains ever!!How can you not want this in your comic-book collection!

Have An Isbella Birthday...

Today is my birthday. That's right, believe it or not your hospitable YouAreComic host is in fact 32 years young today.

By way of birthday celebration let's tip our hat to one of my favorite comic-book creators from back when I were a lad - Tony Isabella. Dude wrote some of my favorite books back in the sepia-toned days of YouAreComic's youth. From the Champions to Luke Cage:Hero for Hire to the original Ghost Rider series.

Oh how I loved that original Ghost Rider run. It was the perfect blend of melodrama and outright comic-book wackiness! It's as if it was created with we here at YouAreComic in mind.

Don't get me wrong though. Tony Isabella wasn't just about the pitting GR against nefarious scheme of Paste Pot Pete (okay, okay so he was the Trapster by then but how can anyone resist calling him Paste Pot Pete??). Tony I. had some serious cojones for a 70s Marvel writer. Some of those old GR stories covered some pretty grimy, satanic ground. At one point he had even planned to have GR freed from Satan's curse by having him become a born-again Christian (sadly the story got nixed by some lily-livered editor).

But hey this is YouAreComic people! Our loyal readers don't come here to hear me wax intellectual on bad 70s Marvel editorial policy. They come here to see Ghost Rider rugby tackling a laser-pistol-packing, leather-clad biker with a giant hypnotic eye for a head off his motorbike in the middle of a high speed chase down the Ventura Freeway.

Happy Birthday YouAreComic

And Many More!!!

You Know What's Great About Comics...

Things can start off nice and normal with Power Girl taking a shower, cleaning her teeth and shaving her legs with a clever combination of heat vision and Shining Stems with Aloe:
Ten pages later she's fightin' it up with a giant humanoid warrior Elephant armed with a flamethrower and a Madonna mic:Oh comics, how I love thee.

(Today's post is brought to you by Power Girl #10 wherein Karen sports an outfit that consists of a cake tin and a baguette! Yowza!! It's so sad to bid a fond farewell to this book's awesometastic creative team of Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and the wonderful Amanda Conner. They'll be sadly missed by everyone on the YouAreComic team each and every month).