It’s only been in the past few years that my love of comics has led me down the long and twisted road of comic book history - especially with modern comics of often resurrecting forgotten characters and plot points from bygone eras. Especially with my forays into drawing my own comics, knowing WHY I’m drawing comics and the efforts and styles of all of the artisans who preceded me has a real value.

Running Press recently released The Marvel Vault, an extra large spiral-bound, glossy, full-color history of the Marvel Universe, and it’s a beautiful thing. Not only does it capture the general feeling of every era throughout Marvel’s history (up until the time of the X3 and Ghost Rider movies, and the ‘Civil War’ in the comics), but it discusses important, era-defining plot points, paralleled with the artists who came and went from the books and the greater context of everything. Every detail is accompanied by large, clear reproductions of comic pages, sketches, photos, and ephemera by way of illustration. It’s a great jumping-on point for anyone who wants a brief history of the Marvel Universe in terms of both artists and the evolution of various characters and stories.

But that isn’t what makes The Marvel Vault impressive. Spaced throughout the book are a dozen clear pages that are studded with pockets, and in each page are a handful of reproduced collectibles from throughout Marvel’s history. Among these are the original Sketches of Namor the Sub-Mariner (Marvel’s very first super-character), trading cards, stickers and letters from the Marvel fan clubs and conventions, a Marvel Comics stock certificate, and my favorite, a mini Marvel No-Prize comic that details a series of hilarious errors that were accidentally left within the pages of Marvel comics. If Marvel’s been anything throughout their entire history, it’s self-effacing underneath Stan Lee’s riotously overblown (and always semi-sarcastic) statements of greatness. All of these ‘museum’ items are paper, so while the ‘Howard the Duck for President’ badge is no longer a badge, it is a nifty vinyl sticker now. He’s my write-in vote this year anyhow.

There could always be more, but it’s definitely enough.

Because all of this stuff is in pockets, every item can be removed and inspected. Some are branded with a tiny indication that they are indeed ‘REPRODUCTIONS’, but it doesn’t distract from the fact that there’s some neat stuff hidden within the pages. The book doesn’t rely on what could easily be seen as gimmickry, nor does it rely solely on a well-grasped (but general) understanding of the history of Marvel and its artists and writers. It holds both of these aspects in fair balance, making for a neat addition to the Marvel shelf. It’s like a whole collection that’s already been pre-collected for you, and if you’re after the genuine articles, this is a great place to start the hunt. And above all, it’s FUN.

The book has a cover price of $50, so if you’re buying it from your local bookstore, get a SEALED copy. The many removable parts will surely provide far too much temptation to the sticky-fingered browsers of the graphic novel section. So, while buying it sealed will guarantee completion, also be warned that the loosely-bound spiral pages (and oversized cardboard cover) have a tendency to bend and ding very easily, and some of the ‘museum’ items have been slid into their pockets with bent corners & such - though I see this as just one more step towards authenticity. And there’s a Star Wars Museum-in-a-Book too!

Ultimately, it’s a pleasing and interesting addition to the Marvel-related library.

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Jack Kirby, as I’ve mentioned before, was a singular fella. Working double duty and both a writer and an illustrator for both Marvel and DC Comics at different times, he had complete control over a whole army of characters that he created, scripted, drew and edited. In most hands, this would be a disaster - but Kirby made it work, because he made it work in a narrative language that he created.

The creative control that he was given over his own later titles was nearly absolute, legend that he was, and he took advantage of every iota of that power. For DC Comics, he created the Fourth World, an entirely diverse and self-contained universe that ended up playing an integral role throughout all of DC continuity. As he moved from publisher to publisher, he trailed memorable stories behind him, and one of the very last stories that he told was that of Devil Dinosaur and Moon-boy, before he left comics (due to lack of benefits) to work in animation until his death - with a few odd comic projects in-between.

Unchanged throughout his entire career was the bombastic, dramatic voice that narrated all of his stories, and a dramatic, action-filled scenario for every single panel. While this method of storytelling went over amazingly in his early career, it stopped resonating with a changing audience as the 1970s passed. Kirby was clearly a man in love with the art, and he continued with this flair until the end. It makes for some campy, but ultimately entertaining, reading.

The 9-issue series of Devil Dinosaur was originally published in 1978 by Marvel, and lasted for only nine issues before it was canceled. It follows the adventures of a monkey-like human, who is verbal, and who befriends a powerful and violent (but ultimately faithful) nonverbal dinosaur, named Devil for the red skin that he acquires as he’s cast into a volcanic eruption and survives! The 173-page collection retains the original letters pages and Kirby’s reflections upon his stories that finished out every issue (plus, ads for old comics!) - which are details that many collections omit as extraneous, but I always find that they contextualize the story more faithfully. Kirby’s ruminations reveal what a unique thinker he was, closing out at least three issues with the idea that ‘no one can ever really know what happened - maybe this is a true story!’ He states this convincingly enough that it remains ambiguous whether or not HE really believes it to be true, or he’s just attempting to engulf the reader in this mythology. He’s a man that’s clearly up on his science, but also prescribing to the idea that he knows just how much we DON’T know about the dinosaurs. This idea remains relevant even today, when dinosaurs are being completely rethought with each paleontological find. (Thanks to Dinocollector for pointing out the difference between this and ‘archaeology’ down below!)
As if having a cherry-red dinosaur rampaging through a humanoid-populated vista weren’t enough, Kirby makes almost all of the humanoids talk with Shakespearean grace and import - even ending the 9-issue series with a singular panel in biblical script, spelling out ‘…and thus endeth the Chronicle…’ We can assume that these florid speech bubbles are a rough translation from caveman-to-Kirby and that Jack never REALLY thought that Moon-boy wrote The Tempest, but it adds a great flair to the tales as they progress.

At this point in Kirby’s artistic career, his illustrations became more impressionistic and broad than ever before. Things seem to change proportions between panels often, but always to the benefit of the action involved. None of it was done out of laziness or a lack of attention to detail - it’s all done to affect ACTION. With multiple exclamation points. Cavemen with decidedly 1970s haircuts notwithstanding.

Devil Dinosaur and Moon-boy fight dinosaurs, giant bugs, giant humans, and crazy space-machines before the series ends and they make other appearances throughout the Marvel Universe, unfortunately not written by Kirby. This means that, in some stories, Devil turns into a terrorist who can now talk, and has eaten Moon-Boy, or that they die together on the moon, or are briefly brought into present day as criminals. While Jack Kirby envisioned that the duo existed within the main Marvel Universe, later writers who were more concerned with the continuity of acceptable science and history, moved Devil and Moon-boy into other parallel universes. It’s not certain which universe the duo exist in today, but they have appeared in comics as recently as 2007 - not bad for a team that lasted only 9 issues.

Devil Dinosaur is an essential part of any Jack Kirby library - and if you don’t have one at least started, you can’t consider yourself a serious comic reader - and that’s probably a good thing, given the attendance I’ve seen at the conventions. I loves me some Jack Kirby, though, and $20 - $30 bucks for a beautifully restored hardcover collection is a great deal.

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This week was the release of the nine thousandth Heroclix set from WizKids Games. As I’ve detailed in the past, HeroClix is a collectible miniature game featuring the best of Marvel, DC and indy superheroes. You arrange them on a map, you observe their stats, and you make ‘em duke it out. With various strategies and abilities at your disposal, you roll dice and finesse your way to victory. And it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Even if you’re not a gamer, the appeal of tiny superheroes is undeniable.

This recent expansion of playable Heroclix figures places a lot of focus on recent marvel storylines - notably, Marvel Zombies and World War Hulk. In the former, a zombie plague breaks out in the multiverse that contains our heroes and just about all of them become zombies or are killed, with expected zombie chaos and fun ensuing. In the latter, the dangerous Hulk is sent into space by a group of Earth’s heroic leaders, lands on a planet of insanely powerful gladiators, and must fight for his survival. Of course, this all creates some interesting new characters that would undoubtedly be fun to have little battles with.

As such, this set features a handful of new zombie figures. The first four were released in extremely limited quantities a few sets ago, and consistently reach prices of over $100 at auction. These zombie figures aren’t nearly as strong as their living counterparts, since they’re weakened by hunger and rotting bodies, but their main appeal is being fun to play - especially as an oncoming horde. A zombie Giant-Man is introduced, his morbid figure clutching a still-living Black Panther, who he keeps alive and gradually eats for sustenance. A second version of zombie Spider-Man is also present, as well as a second zombie Wolverine. My personal favorite zombie comes in the form of zombie Iron Man, who’s nothing but an off-kilter torso.

The World War Hulk focus includes a few more characters. First, we have ‘Green Scar’, Hulk’s armored, gladiatorial persona - he’s really mad, and he’s pretty strong. We also have a few warriors that he’d battled on the planet of Sakaar - Miek, Korg, Warskrull, and warbound Brood. There’s also Silver Savage - a warrior incarnation of the Silver Surfer, trapped on the warring planet. Past Hulk villains also are included in the set - Zzzax, Absorbing Man, and The Leader - along with a very special Hulkbuster Iron Man, and one can never have enough Iron Men.

Two other outstanding figures, both in their sculpt and the fact that they were made at all, are the Super-Adaptoid and Devil Dinosaur. Super-Adaptoid is an android designed to absorb and mimic the powers of the Avengers, thus proving to be a stronger enemy than all of them put together. I love characters that can do this, and there are many in the world of comics - Super Skrull is a mimic of the Fantastic Four, Amazo copies the Justice League, Composite Superman copies the Legion of Superheroes, and the list goes on. The bizarre, green amalgamation of superhero costumes on the Super-Adaptoid is my kind of silver age stuff.

Devil Dinosaur plays right into my love of Jack Kirby, and he’s even sculpted with a Moon Boy mini-figure riding him. Of course, the weight of the extra-large figure makes him pretty detectable in sealed Heroclix packs, but it’s a great interpretation of one of Kirby’s bizarre creations.

The rest of the set is filled out with various X-Men characters, which are never as interesting as they could be - except for a few first appearance-type figures, in their original X-Men #1 outfits.

Two figures are only available through promotional means - a ‘Dark Beast’ figure can be purchased ONLY if you have a receipt for 10 booster packs from a retail location, and ‘Rampaging Hulk’ can only be obtained if you’re a new player who shows up for a sanctioned tournament at a shop. So, the set keeps the completists searching, since it’s not as easy as buying a case and hoping for the best.

It ends up being a pretty neat set. I haven’t had the opportunity to test them in battle, but WizKids is consistently improving the quality of their figural sculpts and game mechanics. Check out an almost-full gallery of the figures from this set in our Collectors’ Community!

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While there’s a far greater likelihood that I’ll assume a Jabba-like stature before I’ll ever assume that of a mighty Klingon or a barbarian, I can still live vicariously through the fictional warriors of old. Yes, I’ve watched Hercules and Xena : Warrior Princess, and sometimes, I even stopped looking at the pretty girls and listened to some of the story. I’ve read the books of Gor, and I’ve played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I’m all about the thickly-built warriors, in the most heterosexual way possible.

Which is why I love Robert E. Howard’s Conan. He’s a barbarian, he’s a Cimmerian, he’s a conqueror and a king and an avenger and a… freebooter? Seriously? That sounds more like a jaunty endzone dance than anything a warrior would sensibly do, but whatever Conan does, I’m sure he totally owns it. To the max. And he’s also killing dragons and making out with chicks at the same time.

Conan has been around since the early 1930s, during the revolutionary days of Weird Tales and the emergence of the Lovecraftian and Cthulhu Mythos - a very strange a beautiful time in the evolution of fiction. In fact, the correspondence between Lovecraft and Howard actually precipitated into the intermingling of the Cthulhu mythos and Howard’s world of Cimmeria - essentially making Conan a tangential part of the Lovecraft story cycle, which thrills me to no end. Howard’s character is widely recognized as being ‘the most popular fictional barbarian’, and he’s also spawned a large number of collectibles over the years, outside of the original series of books written about him and Weird Tales magazine - which are collectible themselves in their earlier editions, and fetch hundreds upon hundreds of dollars.

In 1975 (and again in 1979), the Mego company released their action figure version of Conan - the earliest articulated figural depiction of Conan, who would not appear again in a superhero-based line of toys until 2007’s Legendary Comic Book Heroes from Marvel Toys. That’s not to say that there weren’t a lot of Conan toys in the interim, but they existed in lines by themselves, including Hasbro’s 1992 efforts, and 2 whole lines of stunning Conan mini-statues released by McFarlane Toys in 2004 and 2005. McFarlane’s line was the very first collection to feature the all-important warrior princesses, monsters, and slave girls that made the Conan series so darned alluring. Dark Horse also released a small Conan statue to coincide with 2007’s Conan video game release, for XBox and PS3.

This Conan video game was the sixth video game to bear the mythos and name of Conan, being preceded by a handful of PC games, and two notoriously awful, but marginally rare, NES games. The popularity of Conan was only aided by the two movies of the same name, starring Arnold Schwartzenegger, both of which were wildly divergent from the original Robert E. Howard tales. A third Conan movie, unrelated to the previous two, is currently being developed, and follows the original storyline more accurately. Sure. the whole Conan franchise also lost a little bit of depth and credibility with the introduction of the questionable Mr. Schwartzenegger to the fray, but the legitimacy of the franchise is being slowly reclaimed.

Conan was also an award-winning Marvel Comics character for a while, beginning in 1970 and illustrated by the legendary Barry Windsor-Smith and John Buscema. The Conan series, as well as its eight spin-off comics, spawned over 600 issues to read and collect. In 2003, Dark Horse comics took over the character, and has been faithfully publishing (and re-publishing) Conan’s continuing comic book tales.

Add busts, high-end statues and trading cards to the array of available Conan items, and you have yourself a generous smattering of bare-chested, heaving paraphernalia. Let’s see Danielle Steel generate THAT.

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Through the hallowed halls of sketch comedy, there are a few select television series that stand far above the rest. Of course, above them all, shining down on the rest like some kind of huge-footed beacon of hilarity is Monty Python’s Flying Circus, without whom much other sketch comedy would not have been possible. Over here, across the pond, my all time favorites come neatly packaged in a convenient trinity : the oft forgotten The State (which ran for a brief period on MTV, who never know a good thing when they see it), Kids in the Hall, and Upright Citizens Brigade. SNL should have quit while they were ahead.

UCB has a special place in my brain because the UCB Theater in NYC is frequented by none other than Jesse Falcon, one of the head honchos of Marvel Toys. You can sometimes see Jesse on various ‘I Love the 70’s’ type retrospective shows on VH1, dispensing his unique perspectives on things past or popular, but when he’s not doing improv on stage, he’s making action figures. In fact, I was told by Jesse that the Nick Fury action figure from an early series of Marvel Legends is based on Ian Roberts, one of the founding UCB members and co-star of the UCB television show, which lasted for three seasons on Comedy Central. Now, the first two seasons can be yours.

Yes, the bus driver with the enormous butt, Officer Lunatic, Little Donny, the problem with astronauts, and the beautiful ape-woman. All yours. It all might not be for everyone, but their particular brand of absurdist humor, mixed with straight-faced crassness and intellectualism, with a fair amount of public stunts thrown in, will probably have something for everyone.

As always, any TV-on-DVD set can be judged solely on its completeness and its secret stash of bonus features. Seeing as how these are billed as ‘the complete first’ and ‘the complete second’ seasons, we can rest assured that nothing is omitted. During the commentary track on the first episode, we can even hear the UCB lamenting that the original commercial breaks were not included. So, what do these have by way of additional material?

Any great TV show will include the original, usually unaired pilot episode, which is included in the first season. Episode commentaries are offered up on a handful of episodes, many of which were recorded live before an audience for the second season. Additionally, we get an in-character episode commentary from Little Donny, whose peculiar affliction shall remain unnamed here, but is immortalized in a song that you do not want to be caught idly singing. Which I almost was. We get deleted scenes, a selection of live performances, and the feeling that we’re getting a package that’s completely full of everything that they could possibly fit in. With a third season on its way to DVD still, I think that we can expect a whole lot more.

Each season has ten 23-minute episodes, collected in the order in which they originally aired. In the UCB’s particular brand of comedy, we’ll get characters, jokes and references that run through the entire series, beyond the episode in which they first appeared. Watching them in sequence isn’t essential, but there’s always that divine pleasure of picking up on an in-joke that can be added.

The first season was re-released this week (after an initial release in 2003), accompanied by season 2, and at an average price of 20 bucks per season, it’s an excellent investment in hours of pure entertainment. Plus, Amy Poehler. Who can resist that?

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