Lefty Side of the Dial

All this week I will be taking a look back at the much-maligned 80's. Sure fashion wise they sucked, but there is a treasure trove of other things that were, well, pretty bitchin' about the 80's. Today's topic is:

Now I'm going to avoid some obvious stuff that most people agree on. Stuff like The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Dark Knight, etc. This is a nostalgic list of books that were near and dear to me, and I had owned at least one time in my life.

(December 1982) This Star Wars issue was the first comic I ever bought with my own money. I bought it from a comic book store, which at the time just blew my mind that there were stores that focused on selling comic books. Anyway, this story was okay, but I was a huge Star Wars fan (still am), and that cover just sold me. It was coming off of the Shira storyline, so I felt a little confused by what was going on, but I still enjoyed seeing Luke stranded on a planet, not knowing when help would be on the way.

(August 1984) My first regular comics I picked up were "crossover comics" from other media. Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Transformers were regularly rotated between my brother and me. This Larry Hama classic was the start of a massive snowball, the back story of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Snake-Eyes was the Wolverine of the G.I. Joe comic, and Storm Shadow was his Sabertooth. This issue revealed the two characters to share a common history and I just ate it up.

(August 1984) The Hulk freakin' rocks! Up until this time I was all about Spider-man and Wolverine, but seeing the Hulk hold up an entire mountain blew my adolescent mind! Say what you will about Jim Shooter, he had comic fans like me in mind with some of his ideas. Secret Wars as a whole filled me with comic glee, and to this day I still find those Mike Zeck covers to be just gorgeous. Oh, and even Iron Man was pretty cool this issue...too bad he became such a dick during Civil War.

(November 1986) Up until issue 211 I was only mildly interested in the adventures of the X-men. I would pick up an issue here and there, but when the Mutant Massacre cam down, I became hooked on the not-so 'Merry Mutants'. A bunch of bad guys, called The Marauders sweep through the New York sewers to exterminate the underground mutant Morlocks, and the X-men try to stop them. The death toll continued to climb in this second part of the story, and tragedy touches the X-men team.

(September 1983) One of the most important events in the history of the X-men happens this issue....well at least to the adolescent me...Storm goes punk! It's a strange issue following Wolverine's wedding day disaster; Storm goes solo in Japan and discovers her inner punk. Her famous mohawk makes its first appearance, and she sky-rocketed in my interest in her character. I know it was really superficial, but I still have this hidden wish that someday we may see more mohawked Storm.

(September 1987) I was not a big DC reader in the 80's. Justice League hooked me because I loved that a superhero comic could still feature world-threatening challenges and have side-splittin' humor. This classic issue features the famous Guy Gardner vs. Batman fight that fanboys like me still revere as one of the best comic book moments...ever!

(November 1987) Kraven's Last Hunt is a fuckin' classic! Sure DC was getting accolades (and rightly so) for the Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, but J.M. Dematteis tells one of the best Spider-man stories in years! This issue is Act II in this super-hero Shakespearean tragedy, as Spider-man literally has to dig himself out of his grave. Kraven soon would hunt no more, and his death really shook me up.

(July 1986) I'll admit I didn't "get" Miracleman until I was working in a comic book store in the early 90's. I had recently expanding my reading to include non-Big Two comic books, and I managed to find several Miracleman issues in our Back Issue bins (if only I had hung onto these). This issue is the very graphic birth issue that had a fair bit of controversy at the time. I loved this issue, and it was before I discovered Alan Moore had written The Watchmen or Swamp Thing.

(Winter 1988) This was the book that made me take chances in what I read. This book opened my eyes to see that comic books can be so much more than capes beating up on other capes. The book used the Wiley E. Coyote character as allegory to tell a story that still reverberates for me, and makes me question what I believe. Yes, I comic book does have that power to change hearts and minds. Hmmm, I wonder what that Grant Morrison character is doing nowadays?

(August 1984) I can't explain why I connected so much with this dearly missed series. It remains one of my favorite series of all time, and even if during the latter part of run it didn't run so smoothly, I loved the Power kids. This first issue was double-sized and Louise Simonson wrote a story that set everything up. I love June Brigman's art and simple design for the Smartship made me come back for every issue. Man I loved this series!

Well stay tuned tomorrow as I present (with some help from YouTube) my Top Ten music videos from the Eighties. I should also note that all the pics today came from the Grand Comics Database Project.