By various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2090-2
Trust me: when you get to my age, Love is Funny.
For years romance comics were a solid staple of Marvel and most other publishing houses. It’s also a truism that girls are pickier than boys – just look at your own track record with the opposite sex or gender of your predisposition (and yes, I know that’s a cheap shot, but it’s also hard to contest!) – so most of those titles, whilst extremely limited in the stories they offered, were generally graced with some of the best artwork the industry could offer.
Those love-starved chicks might be happy to absorb the same old perpetually regurgitated characters and plot pablum but they definitely, defiantly wanted it all to look the best it possibly could…
Having accepted that the art for comics aimed at females has always been of a higher standard and observed that many of Marvel’s greatest illustrators have secretly toiled in the tear-sodden Hearts and Flowers mines, in recent years wisely cynical Editorial heads at The House of Ideas realised that even though the tales might be dull, dated, sexist and largely objectionable to Modern Misses, with a hefty dose of irreverence, a touch of tongue-in-cheek and a heaping helping of digital Tippex, much of that fallow material could be profitably retuned and recycled for today’s shallow crowd of callow youths.
Moreover, if you tap some of the funniest and most imaginatively warped scribes currently working in the industry you might even make that mushy stuff accessible to the jaded, worldly-wise, nihilistic, existentialist, and oh-so-lonely post-Generation X voidoids who think love is for cissies…
Thus in 2006 Marvel Romance Redux was to blame for five issues of raucous and occasionally ribald mockery that took the hallowed love comicbook to new depths, resulting in this deliciously offbeat confection a year later. Behind new covers by Keith Giffen, Pond Scum & Christina Strain, Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti, Greg Land, Kyle Baker and Frank Cho, 21st century sentiment met timeless 1950s, 1960s and 1970s artwork in a bizarre but highly successful marriage…
The fist issue was subtitled But I Thought He Loved Me and opened with ‘President Stripper’ (rescripted by Jeff Parker from ‘I Do My Thing… No Matter Whom it Hurts’) by John Buscema & Romita Sr., revealing how a daring Go-Go dancer heartbreakingly failed to find happiness using her daring moves and raunchy routines to run America.
Roger Langridge then twisted the words of ‘I Mustn’t Love You, My Darling!’ illustrated by Dick Giordano & Vince Colletta to the tragic cautionary tale of a tattooed temptress who had to cover up the fact that ‘I Was Inked by Sparky Hackworth!’…
‘The Summer Must End’ by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Colletta became under John Lustig, the sordid saga of a savage sexy relationship-wrecker in ‘I Was a Beach Blanket Barbarian!’ whilst Jimmy Palmiotti retained the title of Kirby’s ‘If Your Heart I Break…!’ but shifted the cause for the end of the affair to the unpalatable fact that hunky beddable Matt was a hopeless comicbook geek…
The first issue then closed with ‘Hit or Miss’ as Giffen transformed Lee, Gene Colan & Jim Mooney’s bittersweet ‘The Boy Who Got Away’ fable into a war of words and weapons between rival hot assassins…
Guys & Dolls opened with ‘The Dinner Demon’ as Parker rewrote diner love story ‘One Day a Week’ by Jim Starlin & Jack Abel into a creepy tales of greed and Satanism, whilst Lustig took the already outrageous ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be a… Spinster!’ by Don Heck & Colletta, and concocted a modern parable of a girl who knew that money made the world go around in ‘Love Ain’t Cheap…Especially at these Prices!’
Sixties college affair ‘Formula for Love!’ by Jean Thomas, Colan & Bill Everett was seamlessly evolved into a yarn of faux feminism and dangerous psychobabble under Zeb Wells, whilst Palmiotti also kept the original title of Lee, Buscema & Romita Sr.’s ‘I Love Him… But He’s Hers!’ but happily messed with our heads in an account of petty jealousy and government conspiracies…
‘Love Isn’t in the Cards for Me’ from Lee, Buscema & Frank Giacoia became, under Frank Tieri ‘A (Former Child) Star is Born!’ and showed just what a poor ambitious girl would endure to secure a man with money…
Love is a Four-Letter Word started with the magically surreal ‘Hot Alien Love’ (Jeff Parker making over Lee & Buscema & Colletta’s ‘Another Kind of Love’) as Gail – a dedicated agent of Homeworld Security – falls for the kinky tricks of an extraterrestrial Casanova, before Michael Lieb & Giffen introduced ‘Buffy Willow, Agent of A.D.D.’ (formerly ‘He Never Said a Word’ by Colan) as possibly Freedom and Democracy’s most inept honey-trap, and Joe R. Lansdale refitted Kirby & Colletta’s ‘By Love Betrayed’ into ‘Mice and Money’ wherein a hunky guy finally broke up gal-pals with the strangest tastes imaginable…
‘Love Me, Love my Clones!’ was originally ‘Jilted!‘ by Jean Thomas, Heck & Romita) until Paul Di Fillipo added his own ideas on buying the ideal bespoke companion, whilst Peter David converted ‘Someday He’ll Come Along’ by Heck & Colletta into the death-affirming ‘They Said I was… Insane!’
…And “They†were right.
Robert Loren Fleming opened Restraining Orders are for Other Girls with the utterly hilarious ‘Too Smart to Date!’ (originally ‘The Dream World of Doris Wilson’ by Kirby & Al Hartley), after which ‘Callie Crandall: Co-Ed Campus Undercover Cutie’ laid out her Federally-mandated lures for radicals and subversives as Lieb overhauled Dick Giordano & Colletta’s ’50’s filler ‘No Dates for the Dance’.
The art team was one of the most prolific of the period and Fred Van Lente turned their ‘The Only Man for Me’ into ‘Psycho for You’ which showed the upside of stalking and celebrity religious cults, whilst Kyle Baker performed similar duties on their ‘A Teenager Can also Love’, turning simple romance into psychedelic horror in ‘My Magical Centaur!’
Kirsten Sinclair then wrapped it all up by upgrading Kirby & Colletta’s ‘Give Me Back My Heart!’ into a fable of crime and obsession in ‘Give Me Back My Heart! (Dame Mi Carozan)’…
I Should Have Been a Blonde devoted much of its content to adapting a full length tale of Marvel’s secret star Patsy Walker (of Patsy & Hedy and a number of spin-off titles most Marvel Zombies refuse to acknowledge the existence of). Under the sinister influence of Peter David, ‘Patsy’s Secret Boyfriend’ by Lee & Sol Brodsky became the uproariously self-censorious and rudely self-referential ‘Patsy Loves Satan’, sublimely supplemented by ‘Hedy’s Uncomfortable Fanmail’ and ‘Patsy Walker’s Battlesuits!’
Also included to balance the passionate madness was ‘The Language of Love’, wherein Matthew K. Manning converted Giordano & Colletta’s ‘The Last Good-By’ into a good old-fashioned laugh at immigrants’ expense, before Lustig wrapped it all up by turning Gary Friedrich, Colan & Giordano’s ‘As Time Goes By’ into a bizarro tale of superstar possession as a pretty film fan became ‘The Girl With Bogart’s Brain!’
Yes, it’s pretty much a one-trick pony but it is an endlessly amusing one and the tendency towards wry comics-insider gags is far outweighed by the plethora of absurd, surreal, sly outlandish and wickedly risqué spoofs and devastating one-liners.
Moreover, the art is still stunning…
Daft, pretty and compellingly witty, this is a lovely antidote to the wave of mawkish sentiment doled out in motion picture RomComs and a welcome rare chance to see some of the industry’s greatest graphic talents’ most sidelined artistic triumphs.
© 2006, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.