Today in Comics History, February 25, 1991: Lt. Slim Shady stands up and debriefs his C.O.

from A-Team: War Stories: Face one-shot (IDW, April 2010), script by Chuck Dixon and Erik Burnham, pencils and inks by Alberto Muriel, colors by Gerry Kissell, letters by Neil Uyetake

Today in Comics History, January 29, 1991: B. A. Baracus did not agree to be turned into an Army 4x4

from The A-Team: War Stories: Hannibal one-shot (IDW, March 2010), script by Chuck Dixon and Erik Burnham, pencils and inks by Hugo Petrus, colors by German Torres, letters by Neil Uyetake

Dumbass Things You Shouldn't Do in the Stephen J. Cannelloverse

In a multiverse which contains the tough-guy no-holds barred worlds of The Rockford Files, Baretta, Black Sheep Squadron, Hardcastle and McCormick, Wiseguy, The Commish, 21 Jump Street and, uh, The Greatest American Hero, you should beware of doing dumbass things that you know deep down are going to get your face bashed in by the stars of the show around whom that world revolves. But of all the shows from Silk Stalkings to Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, of all the characters in the Stephen J. Cannelloverse from Richie Brockelman to Rick Hunter, who is the one person you most don't wanna do dumbass stuff to?...

Here's a hint: if you do that dumbass stuff, you're a fool, and I pity you.



Pages from The A-Team (Marvel, March 1984), script by Jim Salicrup, pencils and colors by Marie Severin, inks by Chic Stone, letters by Brad Joyce
Yep. Do not bother Mr. T. while he's drinking his milk.

I like these pages a lot. They've got a cinematic vibe, doing something you can do easily on the TV screen but which isn't often seen on the comic page, certainly at that time. Eisner has done it, and Frank Miller was doing it in the mid-80s, but you wouldn't expect to see this technique used in an off-the-beaten-616-track miniseries like The A-Team, which holds the "camera" steady and lets its figures wreck havoc throughout, allowing us to precisely follow the action, the motion, and the ass-whupping therein. Bob and Ray have the right idea: get out of the way and let the chaos commence. Then, create a critically acclaimed comedy radio show about it. Anyway, my point, and I do have one: Marie Severin is wonderful. But we all knew that already, right? Right.

So, what have we learned?


To sum up: don't do dumbass things around Mr. T. 'Coz you know what happens.


Ah. I love it when a plan comes together.

Go Bully! It's your birthday! (And my A-Team movie review)

Today is my birthday! I am six years old today. Which is a very good age to be!

It's not every day a little stuffed bull turns six, y' know, so today was a very special day when Marshall and Shelly and all my animal pals woke me up early to bring me breakfast in bed! That's a very special treat. I sat up in bed and they gave me orange juice and toast and waffles and butter and syrup and a Pop-Tart and tea (Earl Grey, black). I just wish they had put it all on a plate, and some cups.

After I finished doing the laundry and hanging out the bedclothes, it was such a beautiful day that I took my Razor Scooter out and went scooting all around Park Slope. Everyone was waving and wishing me happy birthday! It's nice to have so many friends in the neighborhood. My pal at the dry cleaners, Puck, the cute funny dog with the curly tail, even let me ride on his back for a while for a special treat while he wished me happy birthday! I think. He speaks Chinese and I don't really understand him. But when he brought out his Calgon I got to say to him "Ancient Chinese secret, huh?" And we all laughed and laughed and laughed.

In the afternoon I took my Metrocard and headed off for the all-new, all-different MTA subway (No more V trains! Different color M trains! I wonder if the tunnel pigs had to get dye jobs on the M line.) and went into the city to treat myself to a lovely lunch at Danny Meyers' Shake Shack! It is a long long long wait in line but luckily Mister Meyer came out and saw me and declared that I didn't have to wait in line, not the famous Bully, not on my birthday, and he escorted me right up to the Shack where I got a free chocolate malted concrete shake on the house. After the brain freeze headache went away, I thanked Mister Meyer and headed off uptown to my next destination...an afternoon at the movies! I'd really, really wanted to see a special movie and I had my Moviecash gift card (personalized with my photo on it!) so I headed over to 42nd Street and into the vast, sprawling AMC Empire 25, home of as many movies as you'd ever possibly wanna see, as long as ten of them are The Last Airbender.

But was I heading to see that new movie by M. Dark Knight Shyalaman? No I was not. There is a movie out based on one of my favorite TV shows of all time so I couldn't wait to see it. I told the ticket clerk how excited I was that my favorite TV show had finally come to the big screen and I asked her if little stuffed bulls got discounted rates and free popcorn and all the bubbly fizzy Coca-Coca in a giant barrel-size cup that I could drink because it was my birthday, and she said "No."

There's so many people at the movies even in the afternoon, and I rushed from floor to floor to find my theater out of the approximately seventy-three billion that are in this megaplex. I rushed into the auditorium just in time for the lights to go down on the screen and everyone's cell phones to light up and start chirping, and then the movie I've wanted to see for weeks began...The A-Team! Yayyyyyyyyyyy!

Recite it along with me: In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team. Hooray! I was sure looking forward to lots of action-adventure stunts, car chases and van crashes, elaborate confidence schemes against the bad guys, a last-minute escape from the pursuing military police, and maybe a guest appearance by a Cylon in the opening credits. But, you know, I've gotta hand it to the studio...they certainly went in a different direction than you would expect! It's a pity they couldn't get George Peppard and Mister T and all the rest of the original cast, but the quartet of actors that made up the A-Team in the movie was an interesting choice. Sarah Jessica Parker narrated a lot of the action from the opening scene where the team went undercover at a gay wedding...I'm not quite sure why, but wow, that was some great costuming, huh?...to their escape from...I dunno, some guys...at the end of the film. Sarah Jessica P. didn't smoke any of Peppard's signature cigars, though. I guess that's the studio's way of saying don't smoke, kids! Which is a very good cause and you all should remember it.

The rest of the cast rounded out the A-Team with energy and verve. Cynthia Nixon played up her flirty side as the ever-on-the-prowl Face, and Kristin Davis wisely chose to bring out her most insane performance as H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock. Really, nobody acts that neurotic in real life, but it's funny to see Murdock stress about the little things. But by far the standout of the cast was Kim Cattrall , who perfectly captured the spirit and the persona of the loud-mouth, rough-and-tumble B.A. Baracus and his crazy-ass jewelry and ghetto outfits. Hah! I pity the fool who tangles with B.A.!

On the other hand, I expected bigger and better stunts and pyrotechnics in a movie version of this action show, and I've got to say I was a little disappointed at how modestly they played up the stunts and shooting. That might go right along with the absent cigars: don't shoot people, kids! Which is another very good thing to remember. Except the A-Team and the bad guys never even hit anything in the TV series. They could fire off a round of two thousand bullets from a van-mounted machine gun and all they would hit is the tires on the army jeep pursuing them and then it would go WHOOOOOP up and fly over and flip, but you'd always see the Army guys getting out and shaking themselves off. Nobody ever really got hurt on The A-Team, unless you count Dirk Benedict's chances of doing a Battlestar Galactica sequel. Haw! But I kids the Dirk Benedict.


The plot involved something about the team heading to the Middle East. I was hoping they were gonna go up against terrorists or something, but instead they just spent all their time lounging around the pool and gossiping and shopping and making phone calls to people back home. I guess that's a modern-day updating of the A-Team to say to you don't stereotype Middle Easterners as terrorist, kids, which is a pretty good idea.

Then there was a whole sequence where Hannibal met one of his long-lost loves, and I thought we were gonna have one of those nicely done romantic scenes you used to get once in a while in the TV show where one of the A-Team came back into contact with a love from his past but they couldn't stay with her because they were all on the run from the law (see the aforementioned "still wanted by the government.") I kept waiting for something to blow up or the A-Team to make a tank out of a golf cart but they still just kept on shopping and talking about shoes. That's a little quibble I had with the reality of this movie. If you're going to fight bad guys and keep one step ahead of Colonel Decker, you've gotta have on sensible shoes: army boots, or maybe even Face's glamourous but practical spiffy shoes. I really don't think you'd be able to run and jump and do stunts in four inch Louboutins, whatever they are.


You know, now that I think about it...hmmmm. Unless it was all during the time when I was out at the snack bar getting my 444-ounce soda refilled, or maybe the six or seven times I had to run to the rest room, I actually didn't see any action sequences at all. Nobody running, jumping, nothing exploding or shooting. Why, there weren't even any guns at all in the movie! I got excited when Kim Cattrall said a guy she had met had a big "love gun," and I thought All right! Now we're gonna see some action adventure! But then it was just a long scene of B.A. and another guy, I dunno, I think they were wrestling, and because they were in the desert it was really hot so they took off their...look, there weren't any guns at all in this movie!

You know something...I'm beginning to think that wasn't a very good A-Team movie at all. I don't know why critics said it was a "fun big-screen reboot" and full of "rousing action set pieces laced with sardonic humor". This was a pretty bad A-Team movie. Why, when I told the theater clerk that I wanted a ticket to see that big-screen version of the hit TV show, I never expec

...................

Wait a minute.

(checks my ticket stub)

Curse you, AMC Empire 25!!!!!

I Pity the Fool Who Don't Know It's Clobberin' Time

Hey, kids, it's the great long-lost A-Team/Fantastic Four team-up!


Splash page from The A-Team #2 (April 1984), script by Jim Salicrup, pencils by Jim Mooney, inks by Joe Giella, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by L. P. Gregory

You may well note a lack of stretching, fire, and invisibility in this page, not to mention a complete absence of the sheer awesomeness that is Ben Grimm. That's because...look closer...the team-up is actually really just H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock reading an issue of the Fantastic Four comic book that he obviously borrowed from his brother Matt:



Hey, you can actually tell exactly which issue Murdock's reading: FF #264!


Fantastic Four #264 (April 1984), art by John Byrne

There's something not quite right about that comic book Murdock's holding, though...hmmm...oh, I know! On the real comic book, there's an ad for the video game "Frogger" on the back, not for "Cash Prizes." (Which woulda made a great name for a 1980s private detective played by Lee Horsley, right?)



Hmmm, let's see...there, I fixed it!



I think that covers everything for tonight, don't you think? Oh wait...just one more thing: