Impulse request...

[glprime]

In response to one of silverzeo's requests, here's a snippet from an early Impulse issue dealing with a supporting character's home life. While a little bit after-school-special, as TV Tropes says, Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.



Preston's been called into the Assistant Principal's office.



The Man asks Bart to try and get closer to Preston, and possibly find out what's going on. Bart instantly tells him that what's being asked is a ridiculous invasion of a student's privacy and more than a little gross for him Bart agrees.

Preston drags Bart along into the (nearby?) swamps of Manchester to go looking for a supposed local "monster." Preston claims he's going to use the footage to move to Hollywood and hit it big. Bart doesn't have the heart to tell him that dropping out of school is soooo cliched for a kid in his situation a bad idea. They notice some spooky fog lights and Preston panics and tips the boat. Bart struggles to find him amidst nasty bog water and meddlesome snakes.



Uh oh. Dad's pissed.

Bart sees Preston the next day.



My god... BACNE!!! okay, I'll stop...

So Bart heads out to the swamps to find Preston, who of course has run into the real swamp monster, which turns out to be a kid younger than both of them afflicted with severe acromegaly (who'll probably die within a year, Waid tells us, just to make Bart feel like more of a jerkass for defending himself from the rampaging youth).

There's some lame attempt at an "every son deserves to be loved" aesop (how is letting your kid wander around the swamp and get chased by amateur cryptozoologists being a loving parent?), which sends Bart into dark!Robin mode.







Yeah.



Well... that kid's gonna need some counseling. But then Bart's not really one to lecture people on mommy issues.



This was one of the first issues of Impulse I grabbed from the longboxes at my LCS waaaay back in like '96/'97.



7.6/23 pages from Impulse #6 under the cut.

Comments

[silverzeo]

Thanks for the post. I really want to learn more about Bart's history in his run, as it is ignore like Superboy's.

Shame that Preston, along with Carol and Evil-Eye, have been left on the cutting room floor in today's continuity.

Also, the assistant principal's office looks alot like my old grade school principals office. Filled with superhero memorabilia, old toys, though I have raised eyebrows about that McD's Happy Meal. Anyone else remember the 7-Up mascots, along with the old Kit-Kat jingle?

How did Bart and Mom settle with Bart staying in the past/present?

[glprime]

Not that up on Impulse to say definitively, but I've got an issue where he visits his mom in the far future, so I'll look into that tomorrow.

[swingbound.livejournal.com]

I'll assume you mean Bart and Bart's Mom (Meloni).

Don't wanna steal glprime's thunder so I'll just give the short-short version: Basically, Bart's maternal grandpa's a dick and kinda forces them into the whole different era deal.