Thursday, August 13, 2015

80-Page Thursdays: Amazing Adventures!


Per the GCD this one has 84 pages; but it also calls it "Amazing Adventure," no 's,' per the indica. Well, let's go on with it anyway.
From 1988, Amazing Adventure #1, with stories by Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, J.M. DeMatteis, and more; and art by Michael Golden, Mike Vosburg, Rick Veitch, and more.

This issue perhaps should've picked a different title, since the adventures within are less amazing and more bleak. In the cover story from Claremont and Golden, a young woman raped and left for dead is offered the chance for revenge...or something better. Even with dragons and Golden's snazzy, Micronauts-style designs; it's a dark story. (And since this is a squarebound book, it was a pig to cram into the scanner, so that's about it for scans today.) There are two separate stories of Jews fighting oppression: a composer finds the will to fight in "Men of Peace," and a survivor confronts the leader of a massacre in "Pogrom."

A spy loses a loved one but completes his mission against Mata Hari, in Mike Vosburg's "Spies." That's the second-closest to a straight adventure story, just behind Mike Baron's history lesson "The Turtle," recounting the first use of a submarine in naval warfare, in 1776! (Baron may be taking a few liberties with the historical record!) "In the Dark Ages," about a knight in search of the Holy Grail, gets things grim again; as does the odd memoir "Ahhhh...Christmas," in which a young man spending the holidays alone receives a phone call offering him a reunion with his family, that doesn't take the turn you might expect. (Oddly, shortly after reading this issue, I was told of something similar happening, so perhaps you might!)

Certainly not a bad little issue, just not as thrilling "Yay! Adventure!" as you might expect.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Okay spoilers are needed on that last one. What happened to you that was so unexpected?

That Michael Golden art though is pretty beautiful.