The 1992 2020 Marvel Age Calendar: In February it will be / A Rick Jones month-long bad joke spree

"The 1992 Marvel Age Calendar: January" from Marvel Age #110 (March 1992);
by Mike Lackey and Darren Auck
(Click picture to Leap Day-size)
By the way, I made a Photoshop edit to this calendar to correct an error. Can you spot where I made it? Here the original panel as a hint:

The 1992 2020 Marvel Age Calendar: In January it's so nice / To put Rick Jones on ice

Hello 2020! What d'you have to say about the new year, Cap?


Man, I worry about Captain America these days.

Yes, that's the kind humor you can enjoy all month long with the

"The 1992 Marvel Age Calendar: January" from Marvel Age #109 (February 1992);
by Mike Lackey and Darren Auck
(Click picture to Reaper Madness-size)
The joke all of January is that Rick Jones is dead and pretty much nobody cares! Haw! Wow, good thing that's not happening in Marvel Comics here in 2020, right? (tugs collar, makes choking sound, looks around nervously)

Mind you, it being a rare leap year right now, we don't have too many choices for this feature's usual schtick of Useable Calendars Found in Comic Books. As y'all can see, we haven't used this exact same calendar since 1992. And the last one before that was 1964! Before that was 1936, when the comics industry was still so squeakin' new that Kal-El was still a wee li'l babe ridin' his rocketship through the stars and listening to Jor-El's podcast "Things You Can Do On Earth (That Nobody Else Can Do.)" Sponsored by Casper Mattresses!


Speaking of Casper, one of the few 1964 calendars we can find in comics is in Harvey Comics cover-dated April 1964! So I went down into the Comics Cave, pulled out the longbox that's labelled HARVEY FREAKS OF NATURE, but I sadly seem to be missing Baby Huey, the Baby Giant #57, Sad Sack's Section Eight Comics #20, and For Pete's Sake, Little Lotta, Put Down that Pork Chop Annual #2, so that's not really a helpful solution now, is it? (Except a reminder to recycle more Harvey comics.)

So, as you see, above you'll find the beginning of some calendars from Marvel Age for the also-election year of 1992. Don't get too used to 'em, though, True Bullievers, because the all-cartoon format is about to in a few months and you'll see extremely stream-lined Marvel calendars with less artwork, fewer jokes, and definitely a minimal percentage of Irving Forbush. So enjoy these while they last, and now that they're half-price in the stores, you might want to keep and eye open for the eight-days-a-week stuffed-with-cold-hard-moolah calendar that Richie Rich, one of the aforementioned Harvey Freaks of Nature, seems to be enjoying right here. WHY DON'T YOU GET LOST ALREADY RICH YOU CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION 1%ER WHO WILL BE THE FIRST UP AGAINST THE WALL WHEN THE COMICS REVOLUTION COMES!!!


Cover of Ri¢hie Ri¢h DigeSt Winner$ #15 (July 1982), art by some Richie Rich artist guy, I dunno, s'posed to be good for ya

365 Days of Defiance, Day 329: And then Roy Thomas's head exploded

Panels from The Avengers (1963 series) #97 (March 1972), co-plot and script by Roy Thomas, co-plot by Neal Adams, pencils by John Buscema, inks (and colors?) by Tom Palmer, letters by Sam Rosen

Teniversary Countdown #25: How comic books destroyed the Avengers

This month, (nearly) all month, favorite panels from the tenth issues of my favorite comic book series, in celebrating of my encroaching tenth anniversary of blogging! Frankly, I am not at all certain how I did blogging during those first four years.

Kicking it off, seein' as it's National Avenging Day or somethin' like that, some panels from the tenth issue of The Avengers!


Panels from Avengers (1963 series) #10 (November 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Don Heck, inks by Dick Ayers, colors probably by Stan Goldberg, letters by Sam Rosen
Yes, folks, Immortus, Master of Time, using an ad in a comic book to ensure his victory over the Avengers. I like to think it would go...a little something like this:

FLO STEINBERG: Hello sir, welcome to Marvel Comics. How can I help you?
IMMORTUS: I have returned! I trust I am not to late to place this "advertisement" on the back page of all your "comic magazines"?
FLO: Um, no, actually, not at all. In fact, we were just closing the ad deadlines on our next issues. You're just in time.
IMMORTUS: Excellent! Victory shall be mine!

(two hours later:)
FLO STEINBERG: Hello sir, welcome to Marvel Comics. How can I help you?
IMMORTUS: I am Immortus, Master of Time! And I have come to place this "advertisement" on the back page of all your "comic magazines!"
FLO: Oooh, I'm sorry, Mister Mortus, but we just sent all this month's issues to the printer. Our ad deadline was two hours ago!
IMMORTUS: Curses! (storms out)
STAN LEE: Who was that, Flo?
FLO: I don't know, boss. Never seen him before.

365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 107: The US Army's Sunday Punch Super-Missile (M1-472)

Welcome to the Atomic Age...and that Trajectile to Astonish, the Sunday Punch Missile!


Panel from "To Live Again!" in Tales to Astonish #70 (August 1965), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Artie Simek
The Sunday Punch Missile launches copies of the 1942 MGM film of the same name at its target, thus bombing them...with a capital B (for B-movie). General "Thunderbolt" Ross and Major Glenn "Betty's Second Choice" Talbot have launched it...well, not at the Hulk, but at one of the Leader's giant plastic behemoth super-robots! Still, I'm betting they won't be too broken up if the Hulk gets blown into teeny-weeny green pieces at the same time. It's two for the price of one at Gamma Savings Days! Everybody wins!


Splash page from "Like a Beast at Bay!" in Tales to Astonish #72 (September 1965), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Mike Esposito, letters by Artie Simek
To paraphrase Mr. Slim Shady:

Please don't drop bomb on Hulk
Major Talbot, please don't drop the bomb Hulk
Drop bomb on them
I don't want no doggone beef
See? Ain't no reason to sick dogs on Hulk
Drop bomb on 'em
Please don't drop bomb on Hulk!

Yes, it's the Marvel Universe's United States Army. When you absolutely, positively have to drop a big-ass atomic bomb in your own country.


Luckily, we're told, the Sunday Punch does not spread radioactivity: it simply bombs the poop of things. Wait a minute, why has the Army never used another one of these things? Why wouldn't they just launch it at the caves with Osama bin Laden-616? Or, at the very least, the Skrulls. Did you guys forget how to make this thing?

Luckily, the Hulk uses the blast of the bomb to jump into the upper atmosphere, high enough to see the curvature of the earth, and then falls back to the ground without suffering any major reentry burning or freezing of his and Rick's lungs, because comic books.


In the 1966 Hulk cartoon series, the Sunday Punch Missile (at minute 4:02) is mistakenly referred to as "M-472" (it's missing 1 1: "M1-472") and is colored red, white, and blue. It's the Captain Americmissile!


It also features the greatest overacting ever in the Marvel Super Heroes series—stick around for the last couple lines of the episode.

So, to conclude: Sunday Punch!

Rick Jones, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life

Rick Jones. He's the Kevin Bacon of the Marvel Universe, serving as sidekick or associate to dozens of Marvel heroes. He's the Hope to Hulk's Crosby, the Lewis to Captain America's Dino, the Pink Lady to Captain Mar-Vell's Jeff. Also, he was on General Hospital and sang the smash hit "Jesse's Girl." Oh wait...that was Rick Springfield. I've made another one of my silly mistakes.

Still, don't forget that Rick Jones palled around not only with Rom (Spaceknigget), and now has his own successful business in the midwest! But if you don't count skulking around in mechanized caves in the southwest with a scientist's grumpy alter-ego, Rick actually started his career of superhero groupiedom with the Avengers! In fact, Rick was running around Avengers Mansion from Day 1, getting under Jarvis's feet and trying to get Cap's shield off the roof following a particular intense game of Frisbee with Hawkeye. And, in a twist ending that is not at all a Mary Sue moment for writer Roy Thomas, Rick saves the universe with his extensive knowledge of Golden Age comic books. So is it any surprise that he wants more than just to hang around with the Avengers...he actually wants to join the World's Mightiest? (Answer to rhetorical question: No. No, it is not a surprise.)


Panels from Avengers #10 (November 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Don Heck, inks by Dick Ayers, letters by Sam Rosen

Now, you or me, if we wanted to be in the Avengers, we'd get ourselves bitten by a radioactive spider, or get a transfusion of blood from our viridian cousin, or wear a snappy suit and a bowler hat and carry an umbrella. Rick hasn't got the time for the pain of those methods, though, so he's going to become a hero the way everybody used to in those days: by answering an ad in a comic book!:



Of course, whenever you answer an ad in a comic book, you wind up being captured by Immortus the Conqueror, who has undertaken the precise task of capturing Rick Jones by placing an ad in a comic book that had to be brought to his attention by a friend. Now that's an excellent use of Immortus's public relations department! Much like Ernst Starvos Blofeld minus the fluffy feline, Immortus sits back and lets his henchmen do the dirty work, but no mere hired goon wearing a black sweatshirt labeled "Timey" is good enough for Mister I: his muscle is Attila the Hun, who uses air quotes and grabs Rick the moment he arrives in answer to the ad. In many ways, therefore, comic book ads are just like Craigslist.



Just like the best ABC Afterschool Special, however, Rick learns to be cool and stay in school only losers do drugs that the hero was inside him all the time. No, no, he hadn't accidentally swallowed Ant-Man at breakfast, but Cap's lessons had turned him into a fighting force to be reckoned with, capable of finding curtains to swing from in an otherwise featureless room and using them to get all Lucy Liu on Attila's butt.



And the moral to the story is, if you want to be a hero, just answer an ad in a comic book. No, not the one Rick was looking at...in fact, there's an ad in Avengers #10 itself that would have turned Rick into an instant hero:


No, no, not that one...there's an ad in Avengers #10 that gives you an easier and faster way to make yourself a hero. Just like the Wizard tells the Cowardly Lion, you don't need muscles or bravery or da noive to be a hero...all you need is reproduction war hero medals:



Later, these medals deflected bullets fired in several different assassination attempts during Rick Jones's 1986 "Rock Me Hulkadeus" tour, so that was $7.75 mooched off of Steve Rogers well spent, don't you think?

Do You Yahoo?

Context.