Christmas Comic Cavalcade: The Beginning of the End

Something sad happened to me this year. As years go, 2019 had a lot of highs and lows and I like to think I took most of them in stride… but probably the lowest low was having our basement flood this March.

We lost stuff. Ellen and I were lucky that we had most of our photographs in plastic bins and electronics secured high enough not to get wet. Electronics were well about the line. The real gut-punch of the damage was to our books. Ellen collects a lot of cookbooks and I’m into all types of random garbage… you name it, I’ll buy it. Old issues of Creem Magazine.  Movie novelizations. Lots and lots and lots of comic books.

The movie novelizations were fine. My Creem Magazines were set above the gushing water. My comics however… they got hit. They got hit bad. While I was able to move most of my collection, I lost about three and a half long boxes of comics.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE. I had just begun on a cataloging/organization of all my floppy copies and as such, had comic boxes stacked on top of comic boxes in a fort-like capacity, three or four tall. Had this flood happened a few weeks before my organization project, I would have lost almost ALL of them… but they were stacked, so many were untouched.

It was, however, those boxes on the lowest level of those stacks that took the brunt of the water. Sadly, two of those boxes were filled with unbagged comic books… ranging from the 1970’s to today. Most of the comics I lost weren’t worth anything. I’m a sucker for $1 dollar comics sales (or lower!) and I like to have a lot of books to look through. A lot of those comics will be easy to replace…

but the hardest thing that was hit was my half box worth of Christmas/holiday comics.

I don’t have many comics that have SENTIMENTAL value.

I will ditch a comic pretty quick if I’m looking to downsize. Stack ‘em all up and just get them gone. I’ll buy a trade paperback.

Those Christmas comics though?

They have a lot of sentimental value for sure.

Comics I bought when I was a kid.

Comics I read to tatters.

Also, writing these Christmas comics posts! “Blogging” as a fad has come and gone but I always enjoyed giving myself the assignments. Giving myself an excuse to sit down with these types of comics and see how creators took to the challenge has become part of my holiday tradition.

Anyway, here’s what I’m going to try to do. I still have the box of comics. They are in pretty rough shape but I have saved a few choice books. I haven’t decided if I’m going to rebuild this collection but let’s squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of this metaphorical tube over the next few weeks.

If you’ve never read the Christmas Comic Cavalcade before, I recommend checking out the Master list!

Christmas Comics Cavalcade – Star Trek: The Next Generation #2 (DC Comics)

In the past two years, I’ve become a fan of Star Trek.

Previously, I never had much use for Star Trek. I was always more of a Star Wars kid growing up and, if I’m being honest, I found a lot of the Trek canon to be nothing but a slow, boring slog as a teenager. Star Trek was the first Geek Certified property I never quite got a handle on enjoying… and it perplexed me!

“By all rights,” I thought to myself back in 1992,  “I should be incredibly interested in Star Trek! Look at all these other socially unacceptable pursuits I undertake that make me comically unappealing to the opposite sex! Comics! Toys! Video games! Science Fiction! Star Trek fits right in there!”

…and what was worse, I now realize it was never a better time to be a Star Trek fan than in the 1990’s. Ample opportunities to become a Trekkie existed in the during that decade, with a hefty amount of new spin-offs and movies being cranked out by Paramount.  Still, nothing ever really appealed to me outside of kind of enjoying Star Trek: First Contact when I saw it in theaters.

Trek caught my attention in a big way in 2016 when I suddenly found myself very discouraged about the state of humanity in general. 2016 seemed to usher in a cruel, stupid new paradigm for my country and I didn’t like what I was seeing.

As with many before me, I found solace from the harsher realities of the world in some of the loftier ideals of Star Trek. The idea that some day… some day, humankind sheds the base, antagonistic bullshit we always seem to be caught up in and we get to explore the stars?

During much of the last two years, I’ve needed that kind of hopeful escape.

At any rate, I started getting into Star Trek: The Next Generation in a big, bad way.

Christmas doesn’t come up much in Star Trek. Besides a couple of throwaway lines and scenes over the last 50 years, no Star Trek series has ever directly tackled a holiday episode. That’s why I’m doubly excited today as both a fan of Star Trek and a fan of Christmas comics to look at Star Trek: The Next Generation #2, published in 1987 by DC Comics

…an honest-to-God Star Trek Christmas story. Look at Captain Picard defend that Christmas tree!

The comic was written by Mike Carlin with art duties from Pablo Marcos, Carlos Garzon, and Arne Starr.

Christmas Comics Cavalcade: The 1994 Marvel Holiday Special

I’ve covered the Marvel Holiday Specials here. They are some of my favorite Christmas comics, owing much to my memories of buying them and reading them around the holidays.

I’ve gone on at length about how much I loved those comics as a kid and still find a lot to love about them now. One of them always eluded me though. I’d never been able to locate a copy of the 1994 Marvel Holiday Special.

…until a few months back when I finally stumbled over it at a clearance sale.

Christmas Comics Cavalcade: Force Works #8 (Marvel Comics)

In the inaugural week of 2013’s Christmas Comics Cavalcade, we’ll be looking at Force Works #8, a holiday themed issue of the superhero team series published by Marvel Comics in 1994.

This book was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, with art from Stu Johnson and Don Hudson.

It’s weird to think this in 2013 but The Avengers haven’t always been such a big deal. While the team is now the preeminent name in superhero comics and movies today, the property had major ups and downs over the years. The early to mid 1990’s were a particularly fallow period for Avengers comics creatively… which is from whence this week’s yuletide-themed comic hails.

By the mid-1980’s, The Avengers’ place as the center of the Marvel Universe had been usurped by The Uncanny X-Men and its’ various spin-offs and successors. By the early ’90’s, the various X-titles had become sales juggernauts. Force Works seems to be the Avengers’ answer to the success of X-Force. The title was meant to replace West Coast Avengers and high concept for the book was a trope that genre comic writers rake up every few years: the proactive superhero. Force Works was to be the team that stopped disasters WAY before they happened rather than waiting for the super-villain to attack. This approach is rarely successful; much of the fun of superhero comic is in the over-the-top theatrics; covert teams seeking to circumvent that process rarely generate a lot of interest from readers.

This was the 1990’s, remember – most comic readers (myself included) would buy ANY new comic series that had a number one issue… even better if it had some kind of cover enhancement. For the record, Force Works #1 had a pop-up 3-D cover that was one of the stupider of those things.

…but we’re not talking about Force Works #1… we’re talking about #8, and look at that cover! Surely everyone can anticipate what this comic’s going to be about before you even begin reading it, yes? That distinctive pointy cowl… that suggestive hand posture… even the phrasing on the book, “Guess Who’s Coming to X-Mas Dinner?”  C’mon. That’s Wolverine, y’all! Wolverine was a big goddamn deal in the 1990’s and just a brief cameo from the character would shoot a book’s sales into the stratosphere.

Christmas Comic Cavalcade: DC Comics Presents #67

In our final Christmas Comic Cavalcade of 2012, let’s look at DC Comics Presents #67, published in 1983. This yuletide comic was plotted by Len Wein and E. Nelson Bridwell, illustrated by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

That gorgeous cover is by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, by the way…

christmas comic cavalcade: walt disney’s holiday parade (disney comics)

This week, we’re looking at Walt Disney’s Holiday Parade, published by Disney Comics in 1990.

It’s a 64 page collection, priced at $2.95.

christmas comic cavalcade: super-sized alf holiday special #2 (marvel comics)

This week, we’re going to be looking at one of my all time favorite comic book series ever made. No, I’m not kidding!

christmas comic cavalcade: extreme super christmas special (image comics)

This week, we’re looking at Extreme Super Christmas Special, published in 1994 by Image Comics.

Cover price was $2.95.

I was a bit leery of jumping back into the Image Comics waters after last year’s dreadful Gen 13: A Christmas Caper, but it’s the holiday season, right? It’s a time for making peace and moving on. I figured it was worth a shot… even though just typing the name of this comic makes me want to punch someone in the face. Extreme Super Christmas Special? Give me a break!

christmas comic cavalcade: terror inc. #8 (marvel comics)

This week at the CCC, we’re looking at Terror Inc. #8, published by Marvel Comics in 1993.

Cover price was $1.75.