Saturday, June 28, 2008

1984 2


The second issue continues some of the trends of the first issue. Absolutely terrific art, some of the best we've ever seen in Warren, lots of stories, no ads... and lots of stories focused way too heavily on sex. The cover is again by Richard Corben, with some edits by Bill Dubay.

"The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" is first. In the future, nuclear waste being stored around the world caused disaster. Many men's sex organs became radioactive and killed women during sex. They became known as the Glows. Other's sex organs became quite large, the Hungs. The story features the battle between the Glows and the Hungs, as the Glows try to steal the women of the Hungs since all their women die. It should be noted that if you look at the artwork in this story, you'd have no idea of this, as thankfully Ortiz's artwork doesn't seem all that more offensive than any ordinary story by him.

"Scourge of the Spaceways" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bill Dubay (story) is next. One of my favorite, if not my favorite 1984 story, mostly due to Maroto's insanely beautiful and exotic artwork. Probably the best art he ever did on a Warren story, at least in my opinion. The story features humanity heading to space, where it is promptly discovered that women are unique to humanity. All of the universe quickly gets embroiled in a war to claim the women of Earth. Eventually however, a natural solution arises as a 'scourge' from human women causes male's sex organs to shrivel and fall off, so the war is quickly ended, and humanity pretty much dies
out, since there's no real way now to continue our species.

"...Sure Fire Quick-Carnage Self-Detonation Kit!" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story) is an
infomercial esque tale about ways to kill yourself in entertaining fashion. This is actually a fairly fun story to read, and Nino's art is quite complex and gory.

"One Night Down on the Funny Farm" by Wally Wood (art) and Wood & Bill Dubay (story) is a dull, nonscencical story where the story, about a TV producer, or something like that, doesn't match the artwork, featuring medieval action, at all. Horrible, horrible story, most likely due to Dubay's edits to Wood's story.

The Janitor by Nebot (art) and Bill Dubay (story) is a quick paced story with no dialogue featuring a janitor who starts work at a school for wayward girls and promptly has sex with all of them. He then is chased out by the nun who runs the place, and it is revealed that he is an alien creature who came to Earth to impregnate a bunch of women.

"Mutant World", the second part of Richard Corben's 8 part series features our dimwitted hero Dimento coming across a priest/monk who orders him around. They head through the desert and Dimento gets punished when he tries to eat some of his fruit. Suddenly something buries the priest in the sand however, saving Dimento from the beating.

"Messiah" is about a sex doctor who dresses up like a powerful warrior. The story is drawn by Rudy Nebres and written by Bill Dubay. He heads to a planet that used to have the most beautiful entities in the universe, but due to overpopulation, scientists distributed material that turned them all into hideous monsters. They retaliate by killing all scientists who come, including our lead character. And of course, the planet ends up being none other than Earth. Nebres's art is actually quite good here, and is mostly 2 page spreads.

"Don't Call Me... Maneater!" by Jim Janes & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Bill Dubay (story) is just a horrid, horrid story about some guy who likes to eat people. Poor story that I won't go into any more detail on here.

"The Microbe Patrol" wraps up the issue, with art by Abel Laxamana and story by Nicola Cuti. This story features a miniature ship sent inside a man's body to fight off germs, a practice that is common in the setting of this story. Many ships have dissappeared however, and it soon becomes clear when a very promiscous nurse has sex with the patient and they end up in her, where they find all the dissappeared ships, with their own civilization. One foolish man protecting the city ends up killing her however, so they all have to leave her body and set up a shrine for her.

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