POWER COMICS #5
(Cover by Mike Gustovich)
Published and © by Power, Dec. 1977
“Big Time”
Synopsis: Bluebird — “Detroit’s most exotic private detective!” — retrieves secret space-warp documents from the clutches of Pigtails and Orson.
Writer: Joe Zabel
Penciler: Mike Gustovich and Aaron McClellan
Inker: William Messner-Loebs (as William Loebs)
Review: Much like the previous installment of Power Comics (see Comic Bronze Age’s review of #4), this issue — which would prove to be the series’ last — is long on desire and short on execution. There is an earnestness to writer Joe Zabel’s story; he obviously cares about the Bluebird character. But that earnestness just doesn’t translate into an entertaining comic. The not-quite-ready-for-prime-time quality extends to artists Mike Gustovich, Aaron McClellan and William Messner-Loebs; all three would go on to bigger and better things in the 1980s and ’90s, but their work here lacks much needed consistency.
Grade: C-
Cool factor: Still loving the DIYish, self-cover format.
Not-so-cool factor: The typeset lettering adds to the amateurish look.
Notable: There’s several mentions of The Justice Machine in this issue, which creator Mike Gustovich would bring to print for other publishers in the 1980s and ’90s.
Character quotable: “”!+?&$!+?&” yourself, Seargeant Bradshaw!” — Bluebird (private eye, potty mouth, bad speller).
Yet another title I’ve absolutely never heard of before – I find all of these early attempts at independent super-hero comic publishing of the 70s and early 80s intriguing. And Justice Machine, that’s something I haven’t seen mentioned in ages. I had all of one issue of the first JM series (#4 I think) that was a double feature with the even more obscure Cobalt Blue taking up the second half of the book. Have any of that original Noble comics run in your collection?
Edo:
When I was young, the Power Comics were actually pretty common here in the Pacific Northwest. No clue why, as they were published out of Lansing, Mich. Cobalt Blue actually started life in Power Comics, and the company also published his first one shot. I do have a couple of the Noble Justice Machine issues, and will probably do a theme week once I track them all down.
Cheers,
Andrew
Pacific NW is a pretty large concept, & I grew up sort of in the boonies roughly halfway between Portland and Salem, OR – and I don’t recall ever seeing a Power Comics title. I found that sole issue of Justice Machine in my collection in a comics shop in Salem, and even they didn’t seem to stock that or other more obscure stuff regularly.
Edo:
I didn’t know you were (are?) a Northwesterner. I’ve only made it as far south as Salem a couple times, and never, sadly, to buy comics.
The copies of Power Comics I have now aren’t my originals (I got rid of them during one of my purges over the years because, despite the cool format, they just aren’t very good). I’m guessing I bought them at a convention in Seattle growing up, or at one of the two comic-book stores I went to in Everett, Wash. My “range” didn’t extend to Oregon until the late ’80s, after I got my license and started going to the Portland Comic Book Show each spring and fall.
Ironically, I just picked up a copy of Power Comics #2 and Cobalt Blue #1 (also from Power) at a small show in Shoreline, Wash. last week. Look for reviews of those sometime in the month ahead.
Cheers,
Andrew
It is a very cool old book!