“A Taste of Madness!”

From the first moment I saw the splash page I was hooked. And then the story. To sum up, Super-Skrull and Skragg try to drive Mar-Vell nuts by appearing as his defeated, dead enemies. Of course, Captain Marvel (with the aid of his alter-ego, eternal sidekick Rick Jones) beat the baddies at their own game. But this only sets the stage for what was to follow – the high water mark of Captain Marvel.

(As a side note, I love Cap’s expletives. “By the Code of the Kree! By Hala! By the Great Pama!”)

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Drax the Destroyer. DRAX THE DESTROYER. At that moment it was no longer August, 1985 but February 1973. American POWs were released by the Viet Cong, the US and Red China established diplomatic liaison offices, and in domestic matters I was continuing my never ending role as sparring partner for DeWayne Bell, Buddy Green, Eric Anderssen, and Michael Colobussi.

Looking back on it now, I still can’t figure out why I bought that particular issue of Iron Man. It sure as hell wasn’t the cover. But from the moment I saw the first page I was hooked.

Iron Man was not a big draw for me as far as comic buying habits went. I seem to remember him most from reading a reprint story from Strange Tales when he kicked the crap out of the Crimson Dynamo (the Commie imitation, who, naturally, was no match for Yankee know-how and ingenuity). In an act of mercy, Shell-head let CD escape. After failing his mission, he returned to his rendezvous point with a Soviet sub and they let him drown, stating that failure could not be tolerated. For a kid, that was pretty heavy stuff so maybe that’s why I picked up #55, plus it had a green guy a la The Hulk on the cover.

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Back in the halcyon days of yore of my misspent youth when life was simple (see IRON CURTAIN), one of the few haunts where I sought solace from the dreaded linked list, relational database, homogeneous diff-e-Qs (as opposed to heterogeneous diff-e-Qs which are currently lobbying for heterogeneous diff-e-Q marriage) was The Closet of Comics. I also was known to frequent licensed shebeens but that’s another story for another time.

The Closet of Comics was a nondescript little store located in the basement of a building next to a major shebeen on Route 1. Which is probably how I discovered it. I had been out of the comic-reading business since roughly the age of fourteen. By then the callipygian assets of Linda Guadanole had captured my imagination. Anyway in I walked and I was greeted by the proprietor and his large black Lab-mix dog Rhoda. I took a look around and my eyes fell upon the cover of a comic that brought it all back. The Life of Captain Marvel. I mean that’s it. Right there. All in one little package. All the wonder, excitement, and joy of comics came rushing back in an instant.

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BIG NEWS here. This made the front page of the CNN website.

I realize this didn’t actually go up Sunday, but the title seemed appropriate since it is the 7th comic in the series.