Month: August 2011

The Numbers Game (My Life as a Teen Titan, Part Sixteen)

You know, the 1990s take a lot of crap from comics fans (read: it’s cool to trash them on the Internet) and a lot of that crap is pretty justified (you find value in Brigade.  No, seriously.  I’ll sit here and wait.), but as I have said before and will say again, it actually was a pretty great time to be a comic book fan.  Not only were comics selling like crazy, but so many titles hit milestone issues.  Between the time I started collecting comics in the late summer of 1990 and the time I graduated high school in June 1995, there were plenty of “anniversary” issues to go around.  Either characters turned 30, 40, or 50 (such as happened over at Marvel) or titles hit an issue that was a multiple of 50.   For instance, you had Action Comics hit issue #700; Batman hit issue #500; and because they all more or less debuted around the same time after Crisis, The Flash, Superman, Justice League America, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow all hit issue #100 within a few months of one another in 1995.  And the New Titans celebrated its centennial issue as well.

Now, considering that this was the 1993, an anniversary cover could no longer simply carry a special banner (like the “Anniversary” one that DC used for the better part of a decade on the cover of any milestone isssue–in fact, the last comic I remember seeing the “Anniversary” banner on was Detective Comics #627, which was the “600th” appearance of Batman in the title).  In order to commemorate said anniversary, you needed a gimmick.  For instance, Superman #75 (the Death of Superman issue) had a deluxe edition that came in a black polybag with some stuff (you know, I never opened the polybag and wound up selling it on eBay still in the polybag); Batman #500 had an overlaid cutout of Batman swinging through Gotham over Azbats swinging through Gotham in an entirely different costume.  And the title that during its formative years the Titans had been compared to–The Uncanny X-Men–had a foil cover with the X-Men’s logo in a hologram for its 300th issue that March, a mere three months before New Titans #100 debuted in July.

Considering that since its debut in 1984 with the epic return of Trigon storyline, the New Teen Titans series that would eventually would be renamed The New Titans with #50 had gone through many ups and downs and had nearly been canceled at least once, the fact that issue #100 was hitting the stands was something pretty remarkable.  Also, the fact that Nightwing and Starfire were going to be married in issue #100 was something pretty remarkable because if you go all the way back to issue #1, they were shown in bed together for the very first time and that caused quite a stir in the lettercolumns.

But if you look at the foil-embossed cover, which is all nice and rainbow-reflective when you hold it up to the light, Dick and Kory weren’t exactly on their way to wedded bliss.  The Grummett/Vey cover (their very last on the title) shows an unmasked Dark Raven looking excessively sunburned and wearing an outfit that is something out of a bad S&M fantasy holding both the bride and groom while the Titans plus guest stars Robin and The Flash look on.  It’s a revelation of a villain whose big “reveal” we would have expected to have to wait for during the issue but I guess considering that the average Titans fan had figured out that the cloaked figure who’d made out with Liz Alderman and brought us the Deathwing (seriously … Deathwing?) for the past few issues was Raven, so at least we weren’t left feeling insulted, and we were teased from the shelves by what promised to be a decent fight. (more…)

The Teamwork to Make a Dream Work

It’s been a few months since I’ve written about the 1986 Mets.  Put simply, it’s been hard to find many memories of the regular season that really are worth the space I usually devote to an entry around here.  My most vivid memories–as I think is the case with most people–center around the postseason, although when I think hard I do remember a few great regular season moments.  For instance, there was a four-game series against the Braves in mid-July where I watched Darryl Strawberry charge the mound after Dave Palmer plunked him after Gary Carter launched one into the seats en route to an 11-0 win.  It was the first time I had ever seen a brawl in a baseball game live on TV, and I didn’t really understand why Straw charged the mound but it was cool to see a fight.

The Sunday game of that series featured a tribute to Rusty Staub, where the team came out during the pre-game ceremony wearing red wigs and a 2-0 victory which featured Gary Carter tagging out Ken Griffey, Sr. at home plate, a tag that was so awesome it wound up in promos for at least another year or so (it shows up in the music video at the 3:30 mark).  But aside from those and the whole mess in Houston where Tim Teufel, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, and Rick Aguilera were arrested for a bar fight, I spent the summer watching games and checking the paper whenever I could to see how far ahead the Mets were.  Then, as August started to drag on, I started checking their magic number and then learning what a magic number and “clinching” meant (I was nine and new to following baseball, so sue me).

There was no magic number in the daily news yet when we went to a game against the Expos on August 2, and I honestly don’t remember much about the game, except that Uncle Lou and Aunt Geri took us, it was the first time I had ever been to a night game at Shea Stadium, and it rained.  My aunt and uncle will at least be able to confirm that–it seemed like it rained every single time we bought a bunch of tickets to go as a family.  But still, sitting in the upper deck, watching the Mets win 4-2 under the lights was pretty cool.  Plus, my dad and I had tickets for another game a few weeks later, against the Cardinals, a team I had hated since last season when they downed the Mets en route to a World Series appearance.

However, by this time, the Cards were toast and the Mets’ magic number sat at 33.  We had tickets to the first game of an impromptu doubleheader (meaning that one of the games was a makeup of a rainout) and my dad took me and my “cousin” Vic (“cousin” meaning that our families were such good friends we might as well be related).  It was a 2-1 loss and made me concoct a theory that perhaps I’d go to one losing game and one winning game every season.  Anyway, it was a “down” time for the team–Gary Carter had just been placed on the DL the day before with a torn thumb and Ed Hearn hadn’t completely started to rise to the challenge of being the everyday catcher like he would.  Rick Aguilera started the game but wound up leaving with an inflammed right knee (I always thought Aguilera was a decent pitcher with the Mets but not as steadfast as Doc, Darling, and Ojeda … Aguilera would wind up hitting his stride with Minnesota years later), and it was one of those games that just sort of sputtered out.

We intended to leave between the games of the doubleheader (after all, we needed to beat the traffic), but we stuck around because between the games, a guy took the field and made the crowd do all sorts of shouting and cheering and even The Wave.  Yes, we did The Wave.  Why was the guy there?  Well, he was doing crowd shots for “Let’s Go Mets,” the official 1986 Mets music video, which premiered later in the season as the team was gearing up for its playoff run.  Unofficially titled, “Let’s Go Mets Go” (because of the “Let’s go Mets go!” shout throughout the song), the video features the team, its fans, as well as some highlights and is set to a tune written by Shelton Leigh (“Shelly”) Palmer, who lately more notable as a technology columnist for sites like CNN.com and The Huffington Post, but composed several theme songs for television productions back in the 1980s.

It is, more or less, a huge PR piece with better production value than the local television promos.  We begin in one of the parking ramps of Shea where three kids are playing some game where you flip baseball cards and the winner keeps all the baseball cards, which is something I never knew how to do when I was a kid.  I’m pretty sure that a relative once tried to teach me but I never picked up on it.  The rules of the game didn’t matter in the video anyway, because after the two kids lose all of their cards to a bully-type who looks like a cross between Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story and Jason Hervey’s character in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Doc Gooden, Gary Carter, and Kevin Mitchell (because they couldn’t sober up Straw and who is rocking 1980s eyeglasses and a track suit that I can only describe as “Sharpton-esque”) show up.

Garysays, “Go ahead, Doc.”

Doc says, “Do it.” (more…)

It’s getting dark in here (My Life as a Teen Titan, Part Fifteen)

The name is so '90s, the costume looks like he's the superhero of the Charlotte Hornets. Ladies and Gentlmen, ARSENAL!

If you were creating a comic book in the 1990s or if you were revamping a flagging title, you probably wound up doing one of four things (if not all four):  added a lot of guns and maybe some leather jackets to the cast’s wardrobe; gave the entire female cast, even the mousy girl, boob jobs; made half of the characters darker, edgier, or maybe even evil; killed someone; and hired an artist who drew like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, or Todd MacFarlane.  By the time that New Titans hit its “zero issue” (in other words issue #0) in 1994, they had either attempted or accomplished all five.  It started, of course, with issue #71, which is where we started this journey, but the process ramped up with New Titans #100, which was the conclusion to a story arc called “The Darkening.”

Yeah, they actually called it “The Darkening.”  Moreover, there was a companion story that ran in Team Titans called “The Darkening Night,” which wrapped up in that title but the implications of which were shown in New Titans #100.  It’s kind of hard to figure out the order in which to read the individual comics of these stories, as they are two separate continuous stories, but in looking at them again I broke it down by reading New Titans #97, 98, and 99, then following with Team Titans #7-10 before reading New Titans #100 (and Annual #9, which will get a little bit of a mention at some point).  I know, this is one of those “get back to the nerdery” moments here, but the only books that I knew at this time that were doing a continuing story across several titles and let you know what order in which to read those titles were the Superman books, so sometimes you have to figure these things out for yourself.

New Titans #97 begins the very last story arc for the art team of Tom Grummett and Al Vey, who had more or less been working on the book during the end of George Perez’s second tenure, which was about issue #56 or so.  I was going to miss this art team, although not too much–not because I didn’t like them, but because Grummett was already on Adventures of Superman and would be working on the regular Robin title, so at least I got to see the same pencils somewhere else.  I’ll … uh … get to his replacement in a later entry, so for now let’s just get to “The Darkening.” (more…)

Pass Tense

Joey Jeremiah, resident Degrassi clown and keyboardist for The Zit Remedy. Photo courtesy of Degrassi Online.

I have to admit, in my half-assed effort to recap old Degrassi episodes, I was going to cherry pick stuff I remembered from Degrassi Jr. High and then go on to cover probably all of Degrassi High because I have all of that series on DVD and have watched it enough times in the last few years that I can probably pick off an episode at random.  Besides, YouTube only had the first 26 or so episodes of DJH available and that was it.  However, Hulu has the rest of them, and as I browsed through the titles I was reminded of how much of the show’s final season (before high school) I actually did watch.

Arguably the most famous storyline on Degrassi Junior High‘s second season is Spike’s pregnancy, which wound up providing the impetus for Degrassi: The Next Generation nearly fifteen years later (but enough about that for now).  The thing is, while I knew that Spike was the pregnant teenager on Degrassi Junior High whenever I managed to catch an episode, I never actually saw the episode where she got pregnant, nor did I see the ones where her pregnancy became a huge scandal and she had to fight to stay in school.  During those first two seasons, I saw a smattering of episodes and all I knew was that the show was about Arthur, Yick, Stephanie Kaye, the twins (whom I couldn’t tell apart), and the guys in the band The Zit Remedy.

Which is why I am probably sure that while I saw some of those second season episodes, I didn’t really remember any until the next season rolled around.  There were few exceptions, and one of them was the second season finale, “Pass Tense.”

When the episode opens, it’s finals and Wheels is freaking out about his upcoming tests.  He’s been having a pretty tough year academically and doesn’t want to risk being left behind.  Meanwhile, everyone else is getting ready for the big eighth grade dance, as it’s their time to graduate to the local high school.  Except, well, they won’t.  City-wide overcrowding has resulted in the administration making the decision to keep the ninth grade at Degrassi Junior High next year, which puts a huge damper on the eighth graders’ celebration, especially when the seventh graders (led for the most part by Caitlin Ryan) decide that they are not going to be decoration monkeys anymore.  But the show must go on (and the seventh graders get to attend as “payment” for doing the decorations) , especially when that show includes the first-ever performance by The Zit Remedy.

I think that anyone with a passing knowledge of Degrassi knows The Zit Remedy, which was the band comprised of Joey Jeremiah on keyboards, Derek “Wheels” Wheeler on bass, and Archie “Snake” Simpson on guitar.  They had one song and only one song, the immortal, “Everybody Wants Something” (which in itself would be the title of an episode of Degrassi High, so when I get around to that one, I’ll talk more about it).  This dance, according to Joey, was going to be their big break and throughout the episode he seemed to have a “Today Degrassi, tomorrow the world!” attitude.  Until, that is, Mr. Raditch pulls him aside and tells him that he has failed eighth grade and will repeat.

It was a very pivotal episode for Joey for two reasons:  first, you could tell that he was being hit pretty hard with reality here, and the fact that he was … well, slower than everyone else would define his character for most of the rest of the series.  He also starts to take an interest in Caitlin, and that would … well, that’s “the relationship.”  It’s a very quick moment at the dance at the end, but enough to suggest that something would go on between the two at some point in the coming year.  And I have to admit that this was around the time that I started noticing Caitlin.  I’m pretty sure that Stacie Mistysyn, the actress who played her, was my first real actress crush, which probably explains A LOT. (more…)