Monday, September 1, 2008

1984 5


Time for another issue of 1984. Patrick Woodroffe provides this issue's cover.

Up first is "The Greatest Hero of Time and Space!" with Jose Ortiz doing the story and Bill Dubay (as Strontium Whitehead) and Jim Stenstrum (as Alabaster Redzone) doing the story. Standard Dubay sex fantasy story to open up the issue. A young boy's father dies, so he goes to live with his uncle, an old man who lives with about a half a dozen beautiful naked women. He tells the nephew of his various adventures through time with them as they rescue humanity and have other various adventures. It ends up that the women are all actually robots, but that doesn't stop the boy from having an orgy with them all at the end of the story.

Second is part three in the Idi Amen storyline, "Idi and the Ratment of Hunger Hollow". Art is by Esteban Maroto and story is by Bill Dubay. Dogmeat and Idi head to an area where there is a bunch of rats, in an attempt to find a rocket they can get to use to the US. They are confronted by many real rats and the ratmen, but are able to get to the rocket and take off. As usual great art by Maroto but poor story and horrible dialogue by Dubay.

"Timothy Sternback and the Multi-Colored Sunrise" with art by Alex Nino and story by Gerry Boudreau is about a man who experiments with sex with numerous different women. He finds himself transported to another dimension where he's supposed to marry the King's daughter and produce a child to be their heir. He does so, but desires to return to Earth so wishes himself back there when the King give him a wish. In actuality, there was no wish, and they had sent him back by their own choice anyway.

"I Wonder Who's Squeezing Her Now? follows, with art by Wally Wood & Ernie Colon and story by Nicola Cuti. This story was originally intended to be published for the magazine "POW" and was drawn back in 1971. The magazine never ended up getting made, so it finally ended up here. The story surrounds a man whose life is falling apart around him. His wife is having an affair, so he leaves her and has an affair with a woman from his office, which becomes public, getting him fired from his job. His lover ends up in the hospital and he gets beat up by his wife's lover. He decides to kill them, but upon seeing the lover beat her up for having an affair with yet someone else, our hero finds a little better and decides to call it off.

"Luke the Nuke Brings It In!" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story). A rather boring story about the Luke of the title piloting a shuttle, smuggling illegal aliens, who makes his way through various enemies traps, etc... Don't waste your time with this one.

The latest segment of "Mutant World" by the team of Rich Corben (art) and Jan Strnad (story) features Dimento in yet another battle with other mutants over food. He also battles with a wolf-like creature. Meanwhile a soldier finds Dimento's friend, the woman, and brings her to a nearby compound. Dimento follows but can't get in. Corben's art continues to be quite well done in color here, although the story is still moving rather slowly.

"The Box" by Mike Nassar & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Len Wein (story) is a rather interesting story about a tower which contains a civilization in it serving an entity known as the box. At the end it ends up being a TV show which is cancelled. Not an overly complicated story, but a fairly good one.

Next is "Killman One" by Herb Arnold (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story, as Alabaster Redzone). The story is about an alien woman who hates her husband, a star 'Killman', who fights various competitors in one on one battles to the death. She decides to take him on in one such competition and ends up killing him.

We wrap up with another installment of Rex Havoc, entitled "The Spud from another world! or Who Grows There?". This story is a parody of the movie "The Thing From Another World", and the book it was based on, "The Thing From Another World". It features our heroes in the arctic where an alien being is found frozen. It ends up getting thawed and is an alien potato monster that our heroes try to take out by frying him on a frying pan. A sympathetic scientist screws things up, but Rex is able to set the alien on fire in his ship and take him out.
Some good stories here, but also some very bad ones. Across the board the art is quite good though.

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