THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Supplemental Quick Takes A-G

Green Fury of The Global Guardians

While we're waiting for the return of The Everlasting First, the A-Z remembrance of my introductions to various music acts and comic-book characters, let's take a look at some Quick Takes (or outtakes, I guess) not covered in previous installments. The Everlasting First will return soon with O is for THE OHIO EXPRESS.




ALL-STAR COMICS:  A reprint of All-Star Comics # 37, the Justice Society's first tussle with The Injustice Society, as encored in a DC 100-Page Super-Spectacular.

THE ANIMALS: "House Of The Rising Sun," though I think I came to the song ass-backard in the early '70s, via a teen band that played the song during an assembly at my middle school.

THE BONGOS: Live versions of "Telephoto Lens" and "In The Congo" on a various-artist live comp called Start Swimming.

Our lad Bulletman near lower left corner. Yeah, The Blonde Phantom drew my attention more, too.

BULLETMAN: I first read about the character in the books All In Color For A Dime and Steranko's History Of The Comics. My first comic-book Bulletman (and Bulletgirl) adventure was Justice League of America # 135-137 in 1976.



CANDY: I was working in a record store in Buffalo when Candy's one and only LP, Whatever Happened To Fun..., was issued in 1985. I saw that it was produced by Jimmy Ienner, a name I recognized from his work with The Raspberries. A quick in-store spin confirmed my initial hope that this was like a tougher version of The Bay City Rollers, so I was hooked.  

CONAN THE BARBARIAN:  I saw house ads for Marvel's comic-book adaptation of Robert E. Howard's character, and received a copy of Conan The Barbarian # 2 as a gift during a hospital stay in 1970.



THE DEL FUEGOS: We had a copy of the group's The Longest Day LP for in-store play at the above-mentioned Buffalo record store in Buffalo in 1985. 



DR. STRANGE: More merry Marvel house ads, this time circa '66 or so. Because I wasn't yet familiar with the abbreviation for doctor, I thought the character's name was Der Strange. Subsequently read an issue of Strange Tales co-starring this Master of the Mystic Arts with Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. My first issue was either # 149 or # 150; I definitely read # 150, but I'm not sure whether or not I came onboard before that.

ELECTRO: I don't when or what was the first time I read any comic book that included this Spider-Man villain, but I do know where I first saw the character: another house ad! This one was for Daredevil King-Size Special # 1 in 1967, cover-featuring our heroic Man Without Fear battling Electro and his emissaries of evil.



DAVID ESSEX: Same as most everyone else, I first heard Essex when his hit "Rock On" was playing on every radio in the country in 1973. I later saw him lip-syncing a follow-up called "Hold Me Close" on The Tonight Show (with guest host McLean Stevenson). The first (and only) Essex item in my record collection was Stardust, the soundtrack LP for a movie in which Essex played a rock star. I bought the album for its collection of oldies, and never gave much thought to the then-new Essex tracks on Side 4. (Incidentally, those Essex tracks on Stardust also featured Dave Edmunds, who played one of Essex's bandmates in the film.)



FELIX FAUST: Although this sinister sorcerer was an early adversary for The Justice League of America, I don't think I read about him until 1970's giant-sized Justice League of America # 85, which reprinted Faust's debut appearance from 1962.

FLEETWOOD MAC: A kid on my bus in eighth grade had a Fleetwood Mac LP with him one day, and I made a mental note of this unfamiliar name. It wasn't until years later that I realized Fleetwood Mac had done the song "Oh Well, " which I certainly remembered from WOLF-AM in the early '70s (the song was released in '69). I came to know the hit-makin' latter-day Mac in high school, and--like many lads my age--developed a healthy lust for Stevie Nicks.




GLOBAL GUARDIANS: I rarely read DC's Super Friends book, a tie-in to the Saturday morning cartoon show of the same name. The TV show was too juvenile for my taste--quit your damned snickering--but I may have missed out by skipping the comic book, which was written by E. Nelson Bridwell. Bridwell introduced his international super-team The Global Guardians in the pages of Super Friends, but I only read about 'em after the fact in the fanzine The Comic Reader. Two of the Global Guardians, Fire and Ice (formerly Green Fury and Icemaiden), joined the Justice League in the '80s. 



THE GRATEFUL DEAD: I must have heard "Truckin'" or "Uncle John's Band" on the radio at some point, but my first conscious memory of hearing the Dead was their cover of "Johnny B. Goode" on a weird 2-LP various artists set called Heavy Metal. Yep, The Grateful were metal long before the Best Heavy Meta Grammy went to Jethro Tull. I grew to actively despise the Dead in college (though the sublime "Uncle John's Band" was always an exception, proving that the band you hate can nonetheless come up with one absolutely killer track). My antipathy softened by the end of the '80s, and now I do like several Dead tracks, especially "Cream Puff War" and "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" from their debut album.

"Heavy Metal." You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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