Captain America #240
December 1979
Gang Wars!
Guest Scripter: Alan Kupperberg
Plot: Paul Kupperberg
Pencils: Alan Kupperberg
Inks: Don Perlin
Letters: J Rosen
Colours: G Roussos
Cap takes on some old-school hoodlums down at the Coney Island arcade in this by-the-numbers filler issue.
Back in the day, comics editors would sometimes commission filler issues or inventory stories. These were self-contained, one-off tales that could easily be inserted into a long running title if the writer or artists were for any reason unable to get the regular book out on time. It was a good way for writers to break in, but the restrictions of the format meant that the stories themselves were rarely memorable. You often get the feeling that these kind of stories were written without a specific hero in mind, and had been tailored to fit the character.
Gang Wars suffers from the worst of these issues. We get Captain America, but no Steve Rogers, no regular supporting cast at all. He spends most of the story without his shield. He gets sucker punched with a bar stool in the back of the head when he is facing a mirror. He deliberately takes a punch to the face from a guy who may not have super-strength, but is still obviously very tough.
We start with some action, Cap attacking a bunch of crooks. Soon it transpires that the ruffians are trying to strong arm elderly widower Jacob Kirsch into moving out of his home, so that they can use the abandoned building as a hang-out. The plot does not get much more developed than this, but descends into a series of brawls as Cap tracks the bad guys back to their leader, a bruiser called "Big Thunder" who he, erm, fights with and, well that's pretty much that.
There is a bit more to the story, the bad guys hold Kirsch and threaten to kill him unless Cap hands over his shield and then, erm, has a fight with Big Thunder.
Yeah, this one is definitely not a prime example of the best of the era. There's nothing seriously wrong with it, but at the same time it does not make a hell of a lot of sense, and there does not seem to be much of a point to anything. The villains are generic in motivation, visuals and well, everything. Cap himself comments on how corny some of the dialogue is. Big Thunder may be the first Marvel villain to wear flip-flops, I am not certain.
The art is slightly better than the writing. Nothing ground-breaking but perfectly acceptable, even if some of the weapons the bad guys have hold of seem just a tiny bit... unlikely? (I must admit I have no idea if genuine Coney Island hoodlums were packing tommy guns in the late 70s, maybe they were?)
Sheesh. 'Nuff said for this one, I think.
December 1979
Guest Scripter: Alan Kupperberg
Plot: Paul Kupperberg
Pencils: Alan Kupperberg
Inks: Don Perlin
Letters: J Rosen
Colours: G Roussos
Cap takes on some old-school hoodlums down at the Coney Island arcade in this by-the-numbers filler issue.
Back in the day, comics editors would sometimes commission filler issues or inventory stories. These were self-contained, one-off tales that could easily be inserted into a long running title if the writer or artists were for any reason unable to get the regular book out on time. It was a good way for writers to break in, but the restrictions of the format meant that the stories themselves were rarely memorable. You often get the feeling that these kind of stories were written without a specific hero in mind, and had been tailored to fit the character.
There is a bit more to the story, the bad guys hold Kirsch and threaten to kill him unless Cap hands over his shield and then, erm, has a fight with Big Thunder.
Sheesh. 'Nuff said for this one, I think.
Comments
Post a Comment