In-Shallow Profile: Marvel Super Specials

The Marvel Super Specials series was a collection of one-shot comics published from September 1977 to November 1986, most of them featuring adaptations of then-current movies. I have no doubts that the series was inspired by the tremendous success of Marvel's Star Wars specials: their six-issue comic-book adaptation of the movie was repackaged as a …

Hatch, Match & Dispatch – September 2020

Welcome to the twelfth monthly Hatch, Match & Dispatch feature here on Rusty Staples! It's a hefty one this time, chums, and took me a rather long time to compile (I'd like to thank the decision-makers at WordPress for forcing me to use their new editor and thus making the process even longer). Standard disclaimer: …

Rusty’s Reviews Round-Up

Angry news first: WordPress -- the content management system on which this blog runs -- has decided to force me to use its absolutely horrible, baffling and extremely user-hostile new editor, which I utterly hate and despise and hate again. And what's more, I also hate that I don't have the option to switch back …

Comics on TV: Life on Mars

In the 2006 TV show Life on Mars (named after the David Bowie song that was released on the 1971 album Hunky Dory) Manchester-based police officer Sam Tyler is struck by a car and wakes up in the year 1973. He doesn't know whether he's going crazy, in a coma, or has travelled back in …

Oddities: Daniel Rand IS Shang-Chi: Master of Kung-Fu!

Marvel's mysterious martial artist Danny Rand -- AKA The Immortal Iron Fist -- premiered in Marvel Premiere #15 (May 1974)... The cover was pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Dick Giordano (with alterations by John Romita). It's a great image and a fantastic way to introduce a new character. Later that same year, this …

Oddities: Indiana Jones vs. the V.S.W.K!

Last week, as I was preparing the August 2020 Hatch, Match and Dispatch feature, I was paging through my (sadly incomplete) collection of Marvel UK's Indiana Jones comics when I encountered a mystery that I'd spotted back when the comics were new but about which I'd subsequently forgotten... Indiana Jones Publisher: Marvel UK From: Oct …

Hatch, Match & Dispatch – July 2020

It's that time again, "Rusty Staples" readers! It's the last Monday of the month, and that means we get to look ahead to see which British comics are celebrating (or commiserating) a major anniversary in the coming month. This time around the list includes a couple of Judge Dredd titles, a couple of Conans, some …

Enfari’s Syndrome: Captain Britain

In 1976 an Irish kid living in the suburbs of Dublin was taking a bit of risk buying a comic called Captain Britain. Especially a kid like me: I was very small for my age, couldn't fight, and lacked the physical prowess to out-run a tree... and I possessed a self-defeating tendency to smart-mouth the …

Star Wars Day!

For the past few years the fourth day of May has been pushed as "Star Wars Day" because "May the 4th" sounds like "May the Force" (this is something that young Rusty spotted back in 1978, but tragically failed to trademark), even though it means everyone is quietly ignoring the fact that none of the …

Pocket-Money Comics: Star Wars Weekly

More Star Wars = Better. That was the simple formula by which we Star Wars fans lived back in the 1970s, hence our excitement when we learned that Marvel UK would be releasing a weekly Star Wars comic. But as it turned out, we didn't even have to wait until Star Wars Weekly had finished …