Stop rubbing
your eyes in disbelief
Sol Brodsky
is one of those little known, unsung heroes of the early days of Marvel Comics.
Stan Lee described the late Mr. Brodsky as his “right-hand man for years.”
Working behind the scenes as production manager (later as vice president of
operations and then vice president of special projects), Sol contributed such
things as helping co-create the logos for books such as The Amazing Spider-Man, inked some of Jack Kirby’s early work
including Fantastic Four issues 3 and 4, and
even helped Steve Ditko ink and fill in backgrounds and secondary
figures for Daredevil #1 when Bill Everett turned in the artwork late and
incomplete. According to Lee “He could write, he could draw, he could ink – he
could do everything.”
One of his
other notable achievements was procreating children who were drawn to the
comics industry just as he was. His daughter Janice Cohen worked for some time
as a colorist at merry ole Marvel. And his son Gary…well, he decided to go into
publishing comics.
Styled as
Solson Publications (literally Sol’s Son), the short-lived 1980’s independent
comic company boasted no less than Fantastic Four artist, cover artist
extrodinaire and Deathlok co-creator Rich Buckler as its president. Producing
off-kilter comics was the company staple. Just like many of the boom publishing
houses of 80’s that tried to jump in to the black-and-white market, Solson
failed to make much of a mark. Only one of its titles made it to issue four.
What did survive
from the company’s short tenure is pure trashy crapbox comic book gold. With
titles like Santeria: The Religion, Those Crazy Peckers, Daffy Qadaffi and Iron Maidens, you can tell right away that Solson’s wasn't aiming to tackle the big two head on.
As for the
first issue of Reagan’s Raiders,
it’s the brainchild of actor Monroe Arnold and penciler/editor Rich Buckler.
The whole ball of wax is played as a parody of the Captain America setup with
Reagan and his cabinet undergoing the super-solider treatment. While Reagan is
rendered quite faithfully, most of the other cabinet members don’t get the same
treatment, leading me to sometimes confuse George H. W. Bush’s character for
George Shultz. Just in case you don’t remember all of Reagan’s cabinet (ha!
Like I knew them before this book? Ha again!), here they are:
Front row:
Donald Regan, Secretary of the Treasury; Vice President Bush; President Reagan;
George Shultz, Secretary of State; Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense
Second row:
Terrel Bell, Secretary of Education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Representative to
the United Nations; David Stockman, Director, Office of Management &
Budget; William French Smith, Attorney General; Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of
Transportation; Donald Hodel, Secretary of Energy; Margaret Heckler, Secretary
of Health & Human Services
Third row:
John Block, Secretary of Agriculture; Raymond Donovan, Secretary of Labor;
Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary of Commerce; Samuel Pierce, Secretary of Housing
& Urban Development; William Clark, Secretary of the Interior; William
Casey, Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Edwin Meese, III, Counselor to
the President; William Brock, U.S. Trade Representative
Not to spoil
too much but Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Casper
Weinberger get lots of page count and Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth
Dole, U.S. Representative to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick and Secretary
of Health & Human Services Margaret Heckler don’t even appear. That’s kinda
sexist of Ronnie to not give women equal screen time. Especially since 46% of
them help get him elected.
The book
opens with Ron explaining the danger our country faces from the WTO. That’s
World Terrorist Organization. GATT wouldn’t be changing its name to the World Trade
Organization for another 14 years. Looks like our Commander-in-Chief is itching
to get his hands dirty. Seems that he’s motivated by concerns his son’s been
having. You know, “the one with all the talent” who called him just the other
night to ask a very serious question.
The Achille
Lauro being a ship that was hijacked by PLO terrorists the prior year. Guess
Reagan is saying it’s now a permanent terrorist target since it got hit once.
Guess Pearl Harbor is off-limits to military
ships in this book too. Ron appears just a bit paranoid in this last panel.
“…to the eve
of destruction” is how he finishes that up. Note that this is all suppose to be
so over-the-top that it makes the story a parody. It’s really odd to see
terrorism taken lightly as a subject matter. In our post-9/11 world, terrorism
is both a catchphrase and a genuine threat. Yet this book’s version of Ron
definitely wouldn’t let a disaster of that magnitude happen. Which makes for an
odd resonance in the material. How much fault does the President bear for
events that cannot be easily foreseen? And the even bigger question: if there
was a super-secret government project to make the President and his cabinet
into super soldiers, would Dubbay have used it to prevent 9/11? And even more
importantly: if he did, how would Condi look in a skin-tight spandex costume?
While you
linger on those thoughts for a moment, let’s look in on our terrorists.
So this is Omegus’s merry little band of terrorists. I like how each member lays all their weapons out on the table in front themselves. Kind of sad about that guy at the head of the table who can’t afford a gun and has to settle for a crossbow-thingy.
Omegus looks
like a poor-man’s Baron Zemo wearing the Mole Man’s glasses. Rich worked for
Marvel for many years before this, so maybe some of that leaked into his
character design. Here’s Omegus being all evil and stuff while explaining that
the WTO is going to cause a meltdowns at three nuclear reactors in the
northeastern part of the USA.
His partners
don’t fare any better. Angel, the female terrorist, gets some leftover outfit
from Wasp circa Avengers #1. Also skunk doos went out in like 1982.
As for
Scythe, he looks remarkably similar to Rich’s other creation, Deathlok. He’s
even got the metal plate on the same side of his head. That’s just lazy
character creation.
Back at the
White House, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger has made a startling and
important discovery:
Well, ok
maybe not that startling or important. As a side note, who names their kid “Casper”? This newscast is
THE straw that breaks the camel’s back as far as Ronnie is concerned. He’s all
ready to deal with the perpetrators personally. Mind you, he’s 75 here. What’s
he going to do? Tell them to get off his lawn? The very next day Reagan unveils
a secret military project to his cabinet members. Seems Secretary of State
George Shultz has a bit of a problem with what the Gipper has planned.
This must
mean they aren’t taking Bush senior with them to get upgraded. He was the guy
that got shot down in enemy combat, so no big loss there. Ron is all gung ho
about the breakthrough they’ll be considering. They take a limo to a secret
government train station. An army colonel warns the President that what they
are about to see is so top secret that even after they’ve seen it, they haven’t
seen it. If Reagan’s Alzheimer’s kicks in as expected, that shouldn’t be a
problem. What is this project, you may ask? Just remember to forget what you
see here.
That’s pretty
standard super-solider program stuff right there. Any hidden twists to tweak
this mixture?
The younger
men finally withered away and died. So Ronnie does what any geriatric man would
do in the time before Viagra was created.
Of course
nether of these Ex-Presidents could muster the courage to undertake this type
of operation when they were in office. Note how concerned they are with the
results of the procedure.
Never miss an
opportunity to rag on Ford. Never! Meanwhile Scythe, our Deathlok-ripoff
terrorist has found a spy in his organization.
Scythe
dangles Mr. Needle off the top of a nearby dam. Just in the nick of time, a
helicopter drops Reagan’s Raiders into the fray. Reagan looks true to form
albeit a bit too “Rambo-esque”, but the rest of this crew has become
generic-looking sparkly-spandex clad commandos. Also this is one of those
panels that really show the hurried, non-professional style of the book. Like
it’s trying real hard not to have any polish.
So flying
jet-pack Reagan swoops in and saves the falling mole. He has to dash off quick,
though as Scythe makes his getaway while sending in waves of his own
shocktroopers. Our spy is quite beside himself, as anyone would be after being
saved by a buff 75 year-old leader of the free world. All of the guys left as a
rear guard action are quickly overcome by the Raiders and surrender.
Guess
Ronnie’s trying to switch tactics after Iran-Contra. I can see how he’d want
to. Ron doesn’t stop their either. He makes a comment about “Here comes the
Gipper” and then knocks Scythe down with a flying tackle. Scythe isn’t too
impressed with by the President’s “Jack Lalanne” physique and proceeds to
engage him in fisticuffs. He boasts that he’s about to rewrite history. Ronnie
cleans his clock.
Scythe ends
up melted down into a pile of slag. The President then learns from Needle of
the threats on the other two nuclear power plants and off his team goes to stop
them. Angel is the operative there and she’s already broken into the reactor
control room and shut down the cooling systems. Her two backup terrorists are
concerned when she mentions that they will all “die gloriously for the cause!”
It’s moments
like these that again point out how our attitudes about terrorism have changed
since 9/11. In 1986 it was hard to conceive of a group of people so fanaticized
and disenfranchised from the power structure that they would believe that only
a suicidal course of action could achieve their needs. The terrorists are shown
to be rational people and their leaders are the crazy fanatics who will lay
down their lives to achieve their goals. As we’ve seen now, the roles work so
much better in reverse. “Rational” leaders whose motivation is power and self
interest directing groups of extremists willing to lay down their lives for
“the cause”. How innocent we were back then.
The two
followers end up sabotaging Angel’s defense against the Raiders and cause her
to be vaporized by her own short circuiting power source. That leaves only
Omegus’s try at a power plant left to stop. The lead villain tries dropping a
bomb from his helicopter to destroy the plant, but Ron and George get there
first.
Reagan then
disables Omegus’s main rotor and smashes him into the ground.
So it looks
like Reagan is going to take that “War on Drugs” thing seriously. Reagan’s
Raiders got a scant 3 issues in print. It’s unknown if the series was cancelled
or if it was a victim of Solson Publishing’s demise. Oddly I’d like to see more
issues of it, since there was so much more potential for the “cast” of cabinet
members to shine. Now we’ll never know how much ass a superpowered Donald Regan
or Elizabeth Dole could kick.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.