Marvel Super-Special #1: KISS by Steve Gerber

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Summer 1977. A time of blockbuster movies and severe heat, much like today(it's over 90 in Seattle, at night, as I write this, and going into triple digits tomorrow). And also, this was when Stan Lee decided to make inroads into the world of rock & roll, because I can promise you, DC couldn't.
So they released this, which is now an incredibly rare and valuable collector's item(I wish I still had it, but I only have scans).
A personal note, as I have memories bundled with this thing. I was 8, at my grandma's house in Kingstree, SC, for the summer. I remember first reading this sitting on her porch swing overlooking her garden. It was in the same pile as a tabloid-sized Batman featuring the first GA appearance of Two-Face. And a newspaper nearby had an ad visible for someone performing named "Elvis Costello." It was around 11 am and I was drinking iced tea. That's what I remember about this comic.
I bought it not because it had KISS but because it was written by the guy who wrote my favorite comic, HOWARD THE DUCK.


I didn't become a KISS fan, then or now(not even when you could do it ironically), but my lord, this was a fun comic. But then again, it was rare in the 70s for a Marvel comic not to be at least a little fun. And it was a perfect totally silly Summer thing. KISS. Mephisto. And Dr. freaking Doom. So here you are, as much of the highlights and some of the extras as I can post, including pictures of them getting their blood actually drawn to be mixed in the ink. Youngsters may not realize: this opening? It's as close as you came to seeing their actual faces, and believe it or not, that mystery was a BIG DEAL in the 1970s. And this could not be a more 1970s book. Art here by Alan Weiss and Sal Buscema. Size limits kept me from posting John Buscema's chapter with Mephisto--sorry!
Mods: this was a 72-page magazine. This is 13 pages of a 40 page story, one-third of one article, and one single-page fake ad. I have also included Gerber's 2-page intro in its entirety. I believe this is all within limits.
First: the opening, which is the best part of the comic. What's truly funny about this opening is that Gene Simmons is in fact a wizard at accounting(as is Mick Jagger) and always thought of KISS as a business, first and foremost.


And the Fashion Police make an arrest.

And I gotta say, this old blind hippie guy without pants? Weirded me out as a kid, and still does.
Was New York in the 70s a place where a guy could walk around like that and nobody remarks on it?...

That's right, Ace Frehley calls everyone "Curly." And is apparently an acid casualty. And by the way, that expression on Peter's face? Awesome. I like Weiss.



Hey! All you complaining about Star Sapphire's current outfit? Okay then, explain what Paul's wearing, please.

And Paul? He defeats people by making them sad. Kind of like Grant Morrison's "Crying Boy" from DOOM FORCE.

I gotta say, i always liked Gerber's omniscient narration, wittier(while still in a very Marvel style) than most.
I'll also say this would have been a perfect Elf With a Gun moment, but ah well.

Oh crap OH CRAP OH CRAAAP...

Anyway, in between they met Dr. Doom, trashed some Doombots, got caught in a patented Gerber Interdimensional Vortex(tm), go to Hell, beat up Mephisto, go to some...parallel cat world, beat up some furries, end up here, destroy more Doombots, and next thing they know they're all being sucked. No, not in the way a 70s rock god would want.
Though I hear groupies can seem this way if you're on lots of acid.
And THEN...DOOM HATES MIMES!

But Doom is no match for "I'm OK, You're OK."



Here's Gerber's intro, with photo!


And for you scoffers, that's right, here's their damn blood. In the comic. You're holding. Right now. Yes, this was long before AIDS, why do you ask?


I love how they take such pains to quell those Satanism rumors. Finally: maybe you'd like a vacation?

Tie-in comics? Never this fun again. By the way: I also have scans of another legendary and little-seen 1970s comic: SUPERMAN vs. MUHAMMAD ALI. Want?
All pages (c)1977 KISS, Aucoin Management, and Marvel Comics Group.

Comments

[stig.insanejournal.com]

Hurrah for Nemi.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

Heh, how appropriate! I will admit to being a bit of a KISS fan (I have the first eight studio albums and the first two 'Alive' ones, but Peter Criss was always the one who confused me the most. The other band members get these ridiculous alter-egos to play with - the Star-Child, the Demon, the Space Ace, and what does Criss get? The Cat. Which always struck me as a bit 'meh'..

[filkertom.insanejournal.com]

I had three copies of this. :) Spent a lot of time drawing Gene Simmons from it. And me and my buddy Denton used to quote the lines back and forth.

(When Hanna Barbera made their gloriously dumb TV movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, they even swiped the origin from this, complete with quoting "Heads up, flaming youth! Hither cometh thy destiny!")

And I gotta say, this old blind hippie guy without pants? Weirded me out as a kid, and still does.
Was New York in the 70s a place where a guy could walk around like that and nobody remarks on it?...

Well, he is being mugged.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

I'm just praying he IS wearing furry underwear and that's not just... him. o_O

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Oh dear god. It was the 70s. They WERE hairy...

Oh dear, dear god. And with that shirt.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

I'd seen weirder than him wandering around NYC in the early nineties.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

There is nothing un-fabulous about this comic. What Paul is wearing is AMAZING and i want one.

I don't really like KISS outside of their comic appearances because they are both creepy and scary and deviate musically so strongly from.. prop'a glam. Don't taunt me with your costumes then seranade me with whatever KISS plays! But IN-comic, that was a whole lot of fun.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I would agree with all that. It was the (carefully crafted) image that everyone loved. It's really funny, isn't it? All that demon and sinister stuff, and yet the music is basically just slightly heavier Cheap Trick.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Haha, you know I never noticed the similarities there? You're right! Cheesier as well as heavier, though.

But if I want Cheap Trick, KISS, (and I often do), then I will listen to Cheap Trick. They have better t-shirts and smarter lyrics anyway! Put that on your tongue and wiggle it!

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

It is! It's basically heavy bubblegum. KISS was, more exactly, a bubblegum band pretending to be glam metal.(and then in the 80s they became Spinal Tap)

I also think it's funny I'm only now noticing Paul's costume is just one big money shot. Look at him in the panel where they emerge from the booth.

And Gerber, that was witty. A booth. Which is traditional for changing identities in comics.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Funny you should say so. Guess who discovered Cheap Trick.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

The Guess Who didn't discover Cheap Trick!

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Well, then who did?

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

No, they didn't.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Listen, Slappy . . . .

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

THE BAND ON STAGE!!!

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I KNEW Crazy Jane had a brother. ;)

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

So KISS gains super powers, and then they defeat Dr. Doom through the power of painful memories.

If it were anyone else, that would be so ridiculous it would be physically painful.

But for KISS? I can make an exception.

[rdfox.insanejournal.com]

...is that Con-Stan the Barbarian who trained Doom's father?

Seriously, I know Stan was still relatively young at this point, but, damn, the resemblance is uncanny.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

it's over 90 in Seattle, at night, as I write this, and going into triple digits tomorrow)

I disbelieve the illusion!


*goes to hide in the wonderfully air conditioned Lynnwood library anyway*

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Brain melting. The sun's going down so now it's only...NINETY-FIVE.

For those unfamiliar: this NEVER happens in Seattle. So most people don't have AC. Gah.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

Kinda like the snow we had earlier this year? I stand by my theory that the apocalypse has come at last.

[rab62.insanejournal.com]

"Was New York in the 70s a place where a guy could walk around like that and nobody remarks on it?"

I can tell you, in all seriousness: yes, yes it was.

Also, Playland was a real place and one of my regular haunts, but I resisted the temptation to call everyone there "Curly."

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

I was thirteen when this came out, which was the perfect age for this book, especially for someone who was both a KISS fan and starting to really get into comics. There was a sequel that was a little more slick, but not nearly as much fun.

Dr. Doom vs. KISS? There is a god!

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Doomstadt Rock City!

[fredneil.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I wonder if I still have my copy somewhere, or my copy of the second Kiss book they did. If so, that one is missing the cover, because I saw THAT just the other day.

That old, blind hippie guy on the streets of New York not only could exist, he did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondog

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

That's supposed to be Moondog? Interesting. (Though I've never seen photos of Moondog dressed like THAT)

[fredneil.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if Gerber wasn't using Moondog as a source. There is a bit of a resemblance, though the beard on the comic book character is a lot shorter.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I always thought Moondog was supposed to be the guy Gidget hung out with.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

KISS freaks me out. They do. They just do. Sure, I can understand the draw of having your own unique look and all, but... THAT look? Good grief. They look like demonic gigolo mimes. And from what I've heard of their tunes (which ain't much, I'll admit), they're not much in the music department, either.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

KISS was the ultimate expression of 70s rock hype. They took parts of glam, parts of bubblegum pop, parts of comics and horror movies(their look was very influenced by 70s Marvel Comics--crossed with David Bowie--which made this a good fit), used the same theatrical arena-rock approach that lives to this day in U2, stole liberally from Alice Cooper while getting rid of the darker and rougher nature of his music(though he too was a "brand") and made their concerts basically circuses. It was rock vaudeville. It was an image, marketing, a brand, and the music was deliberately designed to appeal to the LCD. People Cheap Trick or Aerosmith were too smart for. You couldn't have a comic book, TV specials, and toys of Cheap Trick. This was carefully and cleverly packaged.

That's just an observation, not necessarily a criticism. They were very, very good at it. But there's a reason most can't recall a song of theirs from the makeup period besides "Rock and Roll All Night" or maybe "Beth." Neither of which is exactly heavy or dark. I will confess a fondness for the thudding, brilliant dumbness of "I Love It Loud," though. There is such a thing as good 70s hard-pop, and that'd be an example.

They were the ne plus ultra of what was called and is called "Corporate Rock." Amusingly, though they cultivated this dark look, and did stunts like the fake-blood thing in concert(or fire-eating, again, a circus or carnival thing), but their competition was not Alice Cooper(who, granted, was super-successful in the 70s) so much as ABBA.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Well, I'm not really the target audience for them, anyway - rock isn't really my thing. I mean, I like some of it, but I'm more of a Celtic and world music guy - the closest thing to rock in my collection is Afro-Celt Sound System, and while I personally think they're brilliant, they're not exactly mainstream. (Which means I frequently have no idea what people are talking about, but oh well.)

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Um, I should point out here I'm not speaking as a fan(and they are only representative of a certain era and brand of "rock" that I'm not fond of). I'm simply describing what they were.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I didn't think you were a fan - I was just saying (perhaps unnecessarily) why I wasn't one. I generally look for a reason to respond to a response, y'know, and that seemed to be a relatively good one at the time.

[fredneil.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I thought that the makeup period was the only one people did remember songs from. "Dr. Love," "Shout It Out Loud," "Hotter Than Hell," "Cold Gin," and I wasn't a fan at all. "I Was Made for Loving You" is also fairly visible, which is a bit ironic, since I'd guess that if they could choose one of their hits to disown, it would be that one.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Maybe that's just me. Unfortunately, where I lived, the one that was best-known--because they didn't play KISS on the radio in Charleston, but they did have MTV--was "Lick It Up," which I consider the start of their Spinal Tap era.