1990s Comic Book Ads- Action Comics #662

When I’m home in Springfield, MA (The 413, baby!), I often don’t bring anything to read. Lucky for me, there is no shortage of books, from Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (this edition) to the novelization of The Fugitive (this edition- that went through multiple printings, right?). I am never wanting for something to read, and I often do want something to read. 

Along with those books, though, I have my old comic book collection. I collected comics for years. The first comics I remember getting were the Archie Comics TMNT Adventures (which started as a straight comic adaptation of the cartoon and then expanded into its own universe. It was actually pretty good (unless Jim Lawson drew it... grrr). I switched to Superman, Batman and the X-titles in the early 90s, and continued for years (for the record, this stopped me reading DC Comics and this stopped me reading Marvel.)

So, even now, as an adult, I still read comics (Marvel Unlimited is well worth $60/year). But reading my old, actual comics that my mom put in a big plastic container in our basement brings back memories. Those old stories are fun, and I’m a sucker for well drawn comics (Oh yeah? Then why do you have Liefeld-era issues of X-Force? Great question, me.) so I love to pick up my old comics. And, really, nothing takes me back to the late 80s and 90s like the ads in those books. So I decided I would take you, the dear readers of Saturday Morning Deathgrip, on a trip into the deepest, darkest regions of February 1991: Action Comics #662*.

*Incidentally, you can get a nice summary of the story content of Action 662, the story in which Lois Lane finally learns that Clark Kent is Superman here. Bob McLeod’s art is pretty rock solid, in my opinion. 

Ad #1 Upper Deck’s 1990-91 NHL series

There’s a lot to like here. Wayne Gretzky’s movie star smile, the fact that Wayne could have signed with anyone, but chose Upper Deck (as did Brett Hull, Mark Messier and Steve Yzerman), and the boasts of two dynamite pictures on each card. Now, I was a big baseball card fan as a kid, and I was kid in 1990. I don’t recall players endorsing card companies, but whatevs; we all know that Steve Yzerman just farted gold (FYI, that’s a gross picture if you’re not used to seeing injuries— maybe I should have put this warning BEFORE the link. Food for thought.) But the real trip in time was in the last column- “The ‘collector’s choice’ means action today and collectibility tomorrow.” What says early 90s more than the trading card collecting boom? I do remember the idea that trading cards were an investment, and serious collectors were basically storing stacks of gold, not cardboard. And today, if you happened to have your hands on a 1990-91 Upper Deck Eddie Belfour (NHL Calder Memorial trophy winner, aka Rookie of the Year) card, you’d be able to sell it for just south of one whole American dollar. Goodbye student loans!

Ad #2 Mega Man 3

I have literally nothing bad to say about this ad. First of all, this game was awesome. It was the only Mega Man game my two older brothers and I had (we didn’t own that many games, we were renters unless a game was awesome.) The bosses were awesome, the levels were awesome, it introduced Rush, Mega Man’s dog. Heck, IGN has wasted the time of over 35,000 people by having two guys give commentary while playing the whole game. The ad mentions Mega Man’s slide, which is basically how I moved around every single level. Capcom clearly assumed everyone knew Mega Mans 1&2 (Mega Men 1&2? Megas Man 1&2?) I don’t know why they chose to highlight Top Man of all the bosses, when Shadow Man was the best boss. But whatevs. I miss being forced to watch my brothers play, since that’s how I spent 95% of my time with this game. 

Ad #3 Flash Hardcover collection

There are only three things I have to say about this one:

1. Where the EFF is Mirror Master? I’m not saying exclude any of the villains featured (though I have no idea who GoggleFace-WhiteSuit is, there behind Grodd), but come on! Mirror Master is awesome. 
2. Jay Garrick!
3. Come on DC, “hit TV series”? I did think it was awesome, but that's a little loose with language, no?

Ad #4 Gargoyle’s Quest

Capcom back with another game, this time Gargoyle’s Quest. I was not allowed to have a Game Boy, so I have not played this gem (these days, it's not even available online, but, you know, whatever). I’m fine with an ad pimping their product; that is the job of the ad. But “graphics so real”? “Highly-detailed art sets new standards for the Game Boy”? Or “dazzling graphics and excellent sound”? Judge for yourself. I could only stand being “dazzled” for about 19 seconds.

Ad #5 Great Eastern Conventions

Nothing that exciting really (though, bigger names heading to Minneapolis than to New York... interesting). But it does lead me to one of my favorite facts about comics, since this is an ad for January 1991 conventions in a comic dated February 1991 (I know, right now, everyone reading this was already approximately like this). I read somewhere, ages ago that comics have always been published several months ahead of their cover dates, which was done to try and trick retailers into leaving them on shelves longer. So, December 1978 rolls around, you own a coffee shop and put out the newest Uncanny X-man #119 (great issue too, Banshee saves ALL OF JAPAN but loses his power), you don’t realize its cover says March 1979 and, because you’re a 60 year old man in 1978, you also probably don’t read it to see it’s also a Christmas edition. Apparently, the folks at Marvel were hoping you would leave that up for three months. I have no idea if this helped ever. I’d imagine the hypothetical 60-year-old you who owns a coffee shop MIGHT notice you have 4 different issues of X-men*.

* If it was the 90s, that probably just means cover variants, but don’t get me started on that!

Ad #5 & #6 Ultimate Game Club and National Baseball Card Hotline

By coincidence, these two ads share a page. But, in another sign of the pre-Internet age, we have two companies offering 900 numbers (do those exist anymore?) for services that should not cost $.95 a minute ($1.25 for the first minute on the ol’ National Baseball Card Hotline.)  

Ultimate Game Club could not be more of a relic of its time; they clear checks by Telecheck, they boast about offering both US and Japanese games, and, above all else, they boast about their physical store. How quaint. Also, did anyone in the US actually own a TurboGrafx 16?  

As for the National Baseball Card Hotline... was this ever necessary? I love the idea of a computer network of delears pooling prices. FYI, today Pee Wee Reese 1958 Topps is $34, Bo Jackson 1987 Fleer is $6, Ken Griffey Jr 1989 Fleer Rookie card $9. It’s an investment, I tells ya! I really used to love baseball cards. 

Ad #7 Detective Comics #627

What can you say against this ad? Oh, I guess the contrast of the anger of the marjority of the rouges against the the haunting sadness of this guy who I thought was Mr. Freeze.

Boo hoo... 

Except, this is clearly Mr. Freeze, and he seems more or less indifferent.

Meh, whatevs man.

Also, it looks like Joker’s got some tiny men living in his hair.

Joker's status as Clown Prince of Crime may be going to his head. HEYO!

Ad #8 Mile High Comics

This ad is boring. Now, Mile High Comics was a mainstay advertiser of the era. It’s a really good thing I didn’t have a credit card as a kid, I probably would have bought a ton from these guys. Also, back then, I imagined that I could go to their store in Denver and it’d be like the warehouse in Raiders.

We have top men locating Archie vs Punisher. Top Men.

Ad #9 POTPOURRI

Five ads in here for mail-order comic stores. You could get catalogues for free, $1.00, $1.25, $2.00, or $2.50. How did they compete with Mile High? I want to know! How many people actually sent in money to these places?

Three “draw comic characters” ads. You could get info for free, $3.95, and $4.95. And the free one is the one that is suggesting you can earn something (specifically: four dollar signs) by learning to draw. How many people actually learned drawing from these tiny, tiny ads that don’t even feature impressive drawings?

Classic Charles Atlas, GED and sea monkey (ish) ads. I have read plenty of comics from the 60s, and these were in the same place on kind of hodge-podge ad page. I kind of imagine DC just never bothered to remove them because how many people were getting their exercise routine from Charles Atlas ads in a comic book?

How many people volunteered for the AHA from an ad in a comic book?

And finally- I WANT THAT BATMOBILE PHONE!

Ad #10 Green Lantern #’s 9-12

Stupid friggin Guy Gardner. 

Stupid friggin G’nort.

Ad #11 Three Musketeers

There were a bunch of these stupid things. I never understood the point. I guess 3 Musketeers bars had big chocolate taste, so a giant bar would be buried or in space. I guess the point was probably a comic book-style ad to draw in kids like me. Of course, I was already spending all of my available cash on like six comic titles each month and whatever else would get pooled with my brothers to rent a movie or some crappy NES game (FORESHADOWING I TELL YOU), so I made no candy buying decisions. I really like 3 Musketeers bars in general (contact me whenever you want to thank me for the endorsement, Mars Candy Incorporated), so no harm, no foul, I guess...

Ad #12 WWF Wrestlemania Challenge

Did someone say something about crappy NES games? Yes, I did, during the last entry. The back cover ad features WWF Wrestlemania Challenge, the second NES WWF game. The ad makes several mistakes in text such as “the Hulkster splash” which doesn’t exist, “the Warrior Wallop” which doesn’t exist and a caption mentioning “a flying atomic drop”, which not only doesn’t exit but also is not physically possible (don’t bother asking if you don’t know). But you do get a cool yellow-splash paint background on black background, which is pretty solidly 1990. 

Wrestling games have a shaky history, as far as I’m concerned. Some are unequivocally awesome, some are unbelievably awful. The early efforts, very unsurprisingly, were uniformly terrible. The first WWF game (WWF Wrestlemania) was awful. Here’s a YouTube review of a guy who sounds like he’s ready to seek out the game designers on a Wyatt Earp-style Vengeance Ride. You might think the followup fares better, but no, it doesn’t (here’s an angry Scotsman reviewing it on youtube). It was a different game company. Of course, LJN made this game, and they’re only a company famous for sucking (that source may be biased, but if you disagree you clearly never threw your controller because you were playing Spider-Man and the X-men: Arcade’s Revenge or just sat there bewildered playing Back to the Future*) The worst thing was the diagonal ring. The NES controller couldn’t do diagnoal (diagonal didn't come along until N64), so up actually was the upper left and right was upper right, and so on; moving your wrestler was such an unbearable chore. I just tried it on VirtualNES to confirm it wasn’t just me being a nine-year-old sucking at video games, and nope, still sucks. Ugh.

* BTTF the NES game was so terrible that Bob Gale, co-writer of Back to the Future movies actually did interviews telling people not to buy the NES BTTF game.

And that’s it! Yes, apparently the only things worth advertising in comics in 1990 were video games, comics and candy. Like that’s what the readers of comics care about.