Sunday, July 25, 2010

Tales From The Quarter Bin--LL Kool-Aid!!

I have read many a comic book with this banner on it:

But never one quite like this one:

Yes, Kool-Aid Man is in the Marvel universe!! You can keep your Crossgen and your Marvelman, Joe Quesada--just give us more Kool-Aid Man!!

Trouble has broken out at the local little league field:

But don't worry, help is on the way!!

SPOILER ALERT: Kool-Aid Man says "Oh, yeah!" an awful lot in this comic.

How cool is Kool-Aid Man? He has a bitchin' ride:

And an HQ that puts the Baxter Building to shame!!


Eat that, Reed Richards!!

Apparently, Kool-Aid Man is even busier than Superman (pre-broody walkabout version):

And if you dare to desire his companionship, you should feel the burn of dirty shame and guilt:

But don't worry, should the Thirsties strike, well...

In the second story in this issue (yes, two stories!! We are truly blessed!!), Kool-Aid Man takes on a menace from...OUTER SPACE!!


And yes, you gotta love the sound effect hat tip to Frank Zappa, which is so cool I choose to believe it is intentional.

Anyway, after the obligatory tie-in with another Marvel title:

We learn that Marvel's Kool-Aid Man has his own set of physical laws, including the behavior of liquids in a vacuum:

And the ability to burst through heavy spaceship bulkheads.

And here's the valuable lesson we want all kids to learn:

Losing is no fun, so just give up!! Thank you, Kool-Aid Man!!

But the most important lesson?

Ladies Love Kool-Aid!! OH, YEAH!!

But this was nothing compared to the next issue (which I do not own, sad to say):

Yes, Kool-Aid Man goes back in time to help win the Revolutionary War against the (obviously British) Thirsties. Eat that, Rip Hunter!!

Kool-Aid Man #1 was from 1983, and while GCD has no credits for it, #2 is credited to Jim Salicrup, Dan DeCarlo & Jim DeCarlo, and #1 sure looks DeCarlo-ish, so let's run with that, because I'm tickled by the thought that Dan DeCarlo made a Zappa reference....

3 comments:

Martin Wisse said...

If I'm not mistaken, issue 1 was written by Kurt Busiek (!)

Mark Engblom said...

Whaaaat? Talk about your humble first assignments.

Of course, Snell, you WILL be tracking down issue #2, right? I mean, you just can't leave us hanging, here, can you?

snell said...

I'm scouring quarter bins as we speak....

Martin, the bibliography on Busiek's website doesn't mention it...although it does mention he did do a story in Jello-Man #1, which is now on my list...