Mini-Comic Report: Marvel/Drakes series 2

I’m not happy that my first Clutter Report in some time is a crosspost from the other site, never mind one I only posted this week. However, I want to get back to writing for this site and this will hopefully be the first step on that front.

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Many moons ago we looked at the first collaboration between Marvel Comics and Drake’s snack cakes, a four-issue miniseries in which Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Hulk, and Silver Surfer were slowly drawn into battle with Doctor Doom to rescue Jubilee from his energy experiments. Apparently the promotion was good enough to create a second one in 1994, this time five issues long and drawing in the other X-Men.

Eric Fein returns as the writer of these issues with rotating art teams. Letterer Janice Chiang and editor Glenn Herdling, as well as the Editor-In-Chief at Marvel at the time, Tom DeFalco, are the only other consistent names. So until the Comicstorian (if you don’t know who that is, I think I know what the next “Internet Spotlight” is going to be on) finally goes over these, it’s up to me to complete the review of this event. Good thing we loved our Coffee Cakes and Devil Dogs at the future BW HQ at the time. Never really got into Yodels.

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Toy Report: Leaping Hulk

My cleaning project this week was more comic organizing as I took three different stacks of comics and properly merged them together. So I think I’ll review a comic book character action figure. I haven’t done that in a while.

2003 was a good time for Hulk action figure collectors. In addition to the Marvel Legends comic line Ang Lee’s take on jade giant was hitting theaters and naturally toys followed. Frankly I didn’t like the face on the Legends Hulk. It was kind of scary, even for the Hulk. Instead I went with one of the movie Hulks, namely the Leaping Hulk action figure. Although as I’ll get into I kind of disabled the leaping feature.

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“Mini” Comic Report: Marvel/Drakes series 1

Let’s  talk about Drake’s snack cakes because they’re good and they’re back. I’m so happy having my Coffee Cakes again. I thought they were gone for good when Hostess (who bout Drake’s before they shut down) came back and Drake’s didn’t. As much as love my Twinkees I do like a good Devil Dog now and then. Well, they’re back and I’m happy. To celebrate, we will take a look at the first set of Drake’s comics with Marvel Super Heroes!

Two series were produced and packed inside boxes of Drake’s different snack cakes: Ring Dings, Devil Dogs, Yodels, and Coffee Cakes. We mostly bought Coffee Cakes and Devil Dogs at the future clutter zone at the time and I don’t remember which was the “chase comic”. I may have a few multiples if I didn’t throw them out. However, I picked up all four of the first series and all five of the second one. Each had their own running story but the stories could also stand on their own, which is how I like it. Still, the running plot was enough to want to get all of the set, and thus Drake’s made much money and you gained a greater mass. Everyone wins but your body! But was it worth it?

Shared credits: Eric Fein (writer) George Roussos (colorist) Rick Parker (letterer), Glenn Herdling (editor) and Tom DeFalco (editor in chief)

The third comic has no credits but since these were the names on the other three it’s safe to assume they worked on that one, too. Let’s breeze through this because they’re really rather short.