Written and Illustrated by Don Simpson
Introduction by Bill Morrison
Foreword by Chris Ecker
Afterword by Don Simpson
Published by Fantagraphics Books
If you’re a comic book fan or collector and you weren’t buying comics in the 1980s, or perhaps weren’t even born, then I feel sorry for you.
The decade of the 1980s was one of the most creative periods in comic book history. The Direct Sales market led to a cornucopia of new concepts, new characters, new titles, new publishers, new techniques, and most importantly, new creators.
And creator ownership!
While some of this was happening at the Big Two—Marvel and DC—there was also quite a bit happening completely unconnected to the industry mainstream. One such something was writer/artist Don Simpson and Megaton Man.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Megaton Man, Fantagraphics Underground has crafted The Complete Megaton Man™ Universe, Volume One, the 1980s, 600+ pages of mostly on target, take no prisoners, superhero satire.
As a character, the satirical Megaton Man has always reminded me of Gilbert Shelton’s over-the-top superhero parody, Wonder Warthog. Both are ridiculously over-muscled in their super-identity. When The Hog of Steel was in his secret identity, though, he squeezed into a small, tight human outfit as Philbert Desanex. Megaton Man’s other identity, Trent Phloog, however, is just as exaggeratedly steroidal as the hero himself.
Simpson was never just a one-joke wonder, though. Right from the beginning, his characters sharply parodied all sorts of comic book tropes and clichés. The Megatropolis Quartet, for example, figure prominently in several stories that deftly ape the splashes and wordiness of mid-sixties Marvels. These Fantastic Four wannabees include Liquid Man (aka Mister Waterballoon), the See-Thru Girl, The Human Meltdown, and, most brilliantly of all, Yarn Man, the Ben Grimm/Thing variant!
Oh, and one can’t forget Kozmic Kat!
Jerry Lewis, as his “nutty professor” character (literally) is one of several other supporting characters who pop in and out of the stories. Some of the crazy bad guys include The Contraptoid, The Red Scum-Ball, The Cosmic Cueball, Doctor Software, and just plain…Bad Guy.
Amongst the other specific characters held up in silly variations, we have Nick Fury, Superman, The Spirit, Wolverine, Elvis Presley, The X-Men, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even comic book collectors themselves. Because the pieces are printed chronologically, the reader can sense Simpson’s confidence in his abilities building and building.
Unfortunately, one can also see where he starts to get his creations bogged down, too. The scripts become almost soap operas. The humor is still there but he seems at times to be coasting, both with story and art.
Overall, though, the art in this volume is fairly consistent, with insanely muscled characters (which would sadly become the norm for characters like The Hulk, Thor, and Captain America as Marvel followed in Image Comics’ footsteps in the 1990s!) and wonderfully shapely females. The See-Thru Girl even gets a brief nude scene! For those not “in the know,” Don Simpson also did some stylishly filthy adult comics under the nom-de-porn, Anton Drek (also soon to be collected from Fantagraphics). He draws sexy and more realistically proportioned females better than 90% of the newbie fanboy artists who worked at Marvel, Image, or even DC during that same period.
Over and above all the fun stories themselves, the reader also gets delightful text pieces from Chris Ecker (Big Bang Comics) and Bill Morrison (Bongo Comics, Mad), as well as an informative Afterword from Don himself. The latter is followed by more than sixty pages of what the Table of Contents describes as, “rough drafts, unused pages, alternate takes, and other developmental materials from the archives.”
The good news is that most of the satire here is still recognizable and wonderfully drawn by a cartoonist who clearly has always known what he’s doing and loves his work. The best news is that right at the end, we’re promised no less than THREE more volumes of The Complete Megaton Man™ Universe, the last of which will be all new!
Booksteve recommends.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login