All Ages

That shot of my comic collection in Mind Games: The Experiment actually gives a glimpse of two more comics, apart from the ones I listed in the 'annotations' post (which, incidentally, seems to have got much fewer pageviews than the 'errata' post - I guess it really IS more fun to pick holes in things!) so I thought it was only fair to give them some time in the spotlight too.

Luckily, I haven't rearranged my piles of comics too much since they filmed that bit (it was part of the last bit of filming around my house, when they'd decided what story they wanted to tell and wanted to make sure there was footage to support it), and I can safely identify them from the blurry picture and their position in the cupboard - the one on top of the pile at the back is Last Hero Standing #3, from 2005, and the one out on the right is the Funny Stuff miniature edition that came free with Wheaties breakfast cereal in 1947. An eclectic kind of pair, so let's have a look at them!

I don't know why the third of this five-issue series is on top of one of my piles; all five of them are in the cupboard somewhere, but they must have got separated since last I sorted the things into order. This one is rather tatty all round, in fact, considering I bought it new when it came out in 2005, which maybe shows that it's more something I bought as a fun read and didn't think about much after reading it.

Last Hero Standing is an epic adventure in the MC2 universe. This was a family of Marvel comics launched in 1998, revolving around the flagship title Spider-Girl, about the teenage daughter of Spider-Man, with the other titles also following the theme of the next generation of the Marvel universe, fifteen years on. Yes, Spider-Man had a baby daughter, in 1996. She was quickly wiped out of existence in one of Marvel's periodic bouts of panic that readers will desert them in droves if they change anything about their characters, but Spider-Girl was conceived at a time when Baby May was still fresh in the memories of the type of creator and fan who cared about character development.

Although I'm that kind of fan in principle, I never liked the Spider-Girl comic all that much. Some of the short-lived supporting titles were better, and the idea of a newly-created universe of superheroes that was still connected in a way to the mainstream Marvel comics was definitely appealing. They're "All Ages" comics, meaning that the aim is to market them to new young readers. Marvel tried without great success to get the comics into shops where young readers might learn that they exist, but sales were pretty awful. Spider-Girl lurched along being reprieved from cancellation on a regular basis, but the wider universe wasn't able to support any other titles. By 2005, it was nice to see that the supporting characters were all going to get a moment or two on panel in a new limited series!

You see the general theme here on the first-page cast of characters. For example, Speedball is a goofy teenager in present-day Marvel continuity, so in MC2 he's a mature, grown up, respected hero. The established heroes of the present day are retired or otherwise less involved in superheroing than they used to be, and teenagers have taken over old mantles. It's the kind of thing you wish would happen in the 'real' Marvel universe, but you know never will.

Last Hero Standing, like all the MC2 comics, is the brainchild of Tom DeFalco, a real old-school writer who was passionate about this kind of thing. In fact, this kind of "event" miniseries is the antithesis of what MC2 was traditionally all about - good, old-fashioned self-contained stories in each issue with continually building subplots in the background. This is like an infusion of modern Marvel into the new old-fashioned universe, and probably not what DeFalco would have preferred to write if sales figures had permitted it. But the idea attracted me to the limited series, at least!

The creators of this issue are credited as "Tom DeFalco & Pat Olliffe - script, plot & pencils". I assume that means the traditional arrangement where they create the plot together, Olliffe draws it and DeFalco writes the words, but it's not laid out in the traditional way with 'script' under the first name and 'pencils' under the second. Scott Koblish is credited with "finished art".

Reading this one issue on its own isn't the best way to get into it - the five-issue series is really designed to be released as a trade paperback, or one of the popular little digest books Marvel had some success with around that time. But in the last couple of issues various heroes have been mysteriously kidnapped, and now they're starting to mysteriously come back with shiny black eyes and a new 'grim and gritty' attitude full of enthusiasm to take a more proactive approach to crimefighting. One of them is Spider-Man, who goes out and gets seriously violent with robbers in the street and then picks a fight with superhero Darkdevil.

And meanwhile, Spider-Girl has stumbled through a dimensional doorway along with fellow legacy heroes J2, Wild Thing and Thunderstrike, plus Captain America. And they're fighting an army of Asgardian trolls! The artwork in this comic is really sensational, both in the big battle scenes and the quieter moments. It's what all superhero comics should be like! Captain America isn't happy with these new heroes (he comes across very nicely in MC2 comics as someone who's past his prime but still trying to do his best) and thinks J2 and Spider-Girl have run away and abandoned them, when of course they're just going to save the day. They discover that Loki, arch-foe of the Avengers, is behind everything, but back on Earth he's already put his plan into action! To be continued with a big hero versus hero fight!

It's a pretty good comic all in all, but it didn't manage to generate any better sales for Spider-Girl or the MC2. It's about time they brought them back for another try - I think the general mood of comics is heading back that way.

One thing that seems less likely to make a return is the days when you could get a free comic with your breakfast cereal. But in spring 1947 in America, that was a reality!

A free comic book with your Wheaties! There were four different ones available, two from DC Comics, and two from Fawcett. Which is an interesting arrangement, and the choice of titles to release in miniature form is interesting too - Fawcett went with their two biggest titles, Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures, but DC went for Flash Comics and Funny Stuff.

Those two titles were both ones that had previously been produced by All-American comics - originally a part-owned sister company, briefly an entirely independent enterprise (at least on paper) but now bought out in full by DC/National. But at this point it was still basically being run as a separate company, with Sheldon Mayer the editor in chief, and he was probably the one to choose which comics to tape to double-packs of Wheaties.

Normal comics of the time had 52 pages, counting the covers (which were made of superior paper). These miniature giveaways, a bit more than half-size, had 32 pages, all on the cheapest newsprint, and you'll never find them in mint condition because they were attached to the cereal boxes with two strips of tape at the top and two at the bottom, and detaching them must have been quite a struggle for Pauline Howe, who's signed this copy on the cover and filled in her name and address on the coupon to send off for Wheaties premiums inside.She wanted the parachute ball kit (one Wheaties box top and 10c) and the navy signal mirror (one Wheaties box top and 25c), but perhaps she didn't have the money. The offer expired December 1, 1947.

Despite the poor condition, the Wheaties comics with superheroes in them command the usual ridiculous prices second-hand, but Funny Stuff can sometimes be found for an almost reasonable sum, because it was full of funny animals!

And funniest of them was Blackie Bear! Fascinatingly, he gets the cover and the first six pages of this miniature edition - in the regular monthly full-size Funny Stuff, that honour almost always went to The Dodo and the Frog. Since they made their debut in #18 (cover-dated February 1947), Blackie had only made the cover twice, and he normally had to be content with playing second fiddle. Which was a shame, because he really was the best of the bunch in Funny Stuff every month, so it's nice to see him and those pesky cubs getting their moment in the spotlight on Wheaties boxes!

It's the cubs who are the real stars. Rather than talking, they communicate by holding up wooden signs, with hilarious effect. In later years, just before funny animal comics died out once and for all, the 'sign language' was dropped and they started using speech bubbles like everyone else, thanks to some lazy artist, but I don't see how anybody could get tired of Blackie failing to realise that the adult authority figure he's talking to is actually just the cubs, one on the other's shoulders, wearing a trenchcoat and 'talking' to him by holding up two signs, one from the sleeve and one between buttons at waist height.

Blackie is followed by six pages of Henry the Laffing Hyena, who's made a poor choice of career...

Six pages of J. Rufus Lion, who's got a Wheaties-themed adventure about box top collections!

Six pages of the Three Mouseketeers (who shouldn't be confused with the more famous Three Mouseketeers who appeared in DC comics only a few years later but are entirely different; and nor should they be confused with the contemporary adventures of Marmaduke Mouse, who also worked for King Louie)

And just three and a half pages, filling the remaining space after the other animals and all the Wheaties promotions, of the usual stars of the series Dunbar Dodo and Fenimore Frog!

These guys are the headline stars whenever DC trawls the archives and tries to interest readers in a funny-animal revival today, but in 1947 they were at best the second-most important stars of DC animal comics - the Fox and the Crow, who were licensed characters and no longer owned by DC, were the big names. If DC would bring back Blackie and the cubs instead, it would probably go down better!

Personally, I might have liked this one more than the adventures of the Flash or Captain Marvel if I'd ended up with it stuck to my Wheaties boxes!