Stuff Bully Got for Christmas: That Steve Martin book

I got Number One Walking by Steve Martin and Harry Bliss from my sister for Christmas! It's been on my wish list since it was announced so I was very, very happy to open it! About half the book is Steve telling anecdotes about his work in movies, his discussion translated into comics by Harry. Very entertaining!


I laughed out loud several times and you can definitely hear the stories in Martin's voice. On the other hand, the second half half of the book is single page gag cartoons that are pretty good — in the style of The New Yorker, or, for some of the more absurd ones, B. Kliban...but they're printing one panel to a two-page spread and I flipped through them very quickly, making it a pretty fast read. I read this in about half an hour. As I like to say, two hoofs up!

Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark! Extra!: Says toro toro taxi / See ya tomorrow my son

It's the feature that's too good to restrict to just the Mid-Day Matinee, Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark! (Also, I had more than five installments for this thing.)

Hey, who's the most famous roller-skater in the Marvel Universe?


Panel from Dazzler #7 (September 1981), plot by Tom DeFalco, script by Danny Fingeroth, pencils by Frank Springer, inks by Armando Gil and Frank McLaughlin, colors by Don Warfield, letters by Janice Chiang

Well, yes. We all know that. Well, okay, then, who is the second most-famous roller-skater in the yadda yadda yadda?

If you have read the title of this post I think you can guess.


Panels from Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

Yes, it's The Free-Wheelin' Tony Stark, rollin' rollin' rollin' on transistor-powered jet skate wheels. Since this was 1963, we laugh at this primitive interpretation of electronic technology, now that we're all zooming around on our resistor-powered jet skates. Yet another way in which Stan Lee was wrong about the future! (Also, that whole thing with Galactus never showing up.)

Stark's roller-skating technology was light-years ahead of its time, however. Before he stopped making weapons for the military and turned his roller-skating blueprints over to the carhops at A&W Drive-Ins, he shared the tech with this Army General! Tony Stark: he's got a brand-new pair of roller-skates, and you've got the brand-new key!


Panels from Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

This general was busted down to corporal after the US Army purchased 30,000 pairs of skates and quickly came to realize there were no superhighways in Vietnam. Tony Stark...a genius...like a fox! (Hey, that does make sense!)

But as Dazzler showed us above, you can roller skate in different ways other than just upright on your feet. Tony Stark invented that move, you know...with a little beanie propeller and roller skates on his back! For fighting The Evil Pharoah! To protect Cleopatra! And remember, he can fly at this point. And yet, he still does this:


Panels from Tales of Suspense #44 (August 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

Well...that certainly happened. In fact, it was such a draw that we got to see it on the splash page first!



So, Tony Stark! Without his amazing technological innovations we would never have had roller-derby, the movies ATL or Xanadu, or this, the most amazing scene of skating ever seen in history:

















Tony Stark! He's Steve Martin's best friend. Because he's the only guy who in comparison makes Steve feel less compulsive.