Art Fail: Nineties comics were a bit silly, weren’t they?

 From Razor versus Warrior Nun Areala - Faith

Warning: cartoony graphic violence

Episode 437 - Storm Force: K-Squad

Episode 437: Storm Force: K-Squad

Porcupine has to share a locker room with Magnus. After that, there’s nothing you can do or say to frighten him

They’ve fought mutant spider goons, a man wearing a suit that was permanently on fire, a Zombie with a nuclear arsenal and a robot wizard. After all that, half a dozen guys with guns seems somewhat irrelevant as opponents and a somewhat anticlimactic conclusion. But here we are at the end of Battle as Storm Force fight for survival against declining sales and editorial mandates. And with nothing to lose, our brave band of designated heroes prepare for the fight of their lives to see if they will make the jump to Eagle or end up forgotten in the bottom of a filing cabinet somewhere. So grab your machine gun, your pit full of landmines and the stick of dynamite you always keep on you for emergencies for Storm Force. This is a big news issue!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 427 - Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 5-9

Episode 427: Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 5-9

To reiterate the point, a man on a hang-glider is shooting spiders at people. Yes, this is entirely serious

As Magnus remains in a state of total brain malfunction due to a spider bite and female operative Stiletto is once again effortlessly kidnapped, heroic combat leader John Storm (and maybe those other three guys) race against time to stop half-man, half-spider terrorist leader from drilling into their secret underground lair. And yes, this entirely serious, why do you ask? But first they must overcome the dreaded jet-powered remote-controlled spider bomb and face the might of Pinky-Puff, the terror of Harrow Lane. Will they succeed? Probably. Will the status quo be reset as if nothing happened? Of course. It’s Storm Force, so what did you expect? So get your tea and biscuits and pick your best weapon arm for Operation Mole Machine. Also featuring a non-machine mole!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 419 - Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 1-4

 Episode 419: Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 1-4

Due to a Mole Machine incident at Leicester Square station, delays are expected on the Piccadilly Circus line.

Did you know that Spider Bites cause mental breakdowns? Or that Harrow Lane has a new sports centre? Or that after losing his arm in combat, John Storm was fitted with a prosthesis that can support a variety of weapons? All of which means it’s time for another thrilling chunk of Storm Force, featuring our favourite bunch of substitute heroes as they fight to save their dying comic from cancellation. And in this exciting sequence of panels, Storm Force’s mole machine has been stolen by one of their team for reasons unknown. Can they find out why? Can they stop the machine’s deadly rampage? Will Storm resist the urge to fire into crowds of civilians? Will Stiletto be effortlessly captured? The answer to one of these will surprise you, but only one. So get oiled up and lift some weights for Operation Mole Machine!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 386: Storm Force - The man who stole Polaris, parts 5-9

Episode 386: Storm Force: The man who stole Polaris, parts 5-9

Listen to the one-armed man with the sword telling you to shoot the zombie’s computer. He’s talking sense.

When you think about it, zombie hitman Alexander Kruise is just living the dream of every American. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to blow up the president with a nuclear bomb delivered in a shark-shaped, laser armed battle car? (Don’t answer that). And so, once again, it falls to our designated protagonists in Storm Force to save the day from his poorly defined evil plan to do something bad for some reason that really escapes us. So once again grab your razor disc, your exo-skeleton and your rocket propelled sheep scarers and be prepared to be shocked as Mikron actually does something in this gripping tale torn from the pages of Battle the inevitable grip of entropy!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 378 - Storm Force: The man who stole Polaris, parts 1-4

Episode 378: Storm Force: The man who stole Polaris, parts 1-4

Status: In the middle of exploding.

Imagine that you are the editor of Battle, a comic founded on the ideals of subverting authority through war stories that were gritty and heroic, but not romantic. Now imagine that the newest story has crossed your desk. It’s about a zombie stealing nuclear missiles to take over the world, and the only people who can stop him are a group of gun-toting maniacs who drive around in a shark-shaped car shooting lasers at people. And now imagine that you’re accepting this, because you know it lets the hollow shell of your once-proud comic can stave off succumbing to the inevitable for another two months. That’s right, dear readers, we have hit peak Storm Force. It doesn’t get too much better – and worse – than this.

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 370 - Storm Force: Man of Fire

Episode 370: Storm Force: Man of Fire

Suddenly, a massive asteroid strikes the Earth. The impact shatters continents, vaporises oceans and ignites the atmosphere, leading to the extinction of all multicellular life. Bruno Demonski immediately crawls out of the rubble unscathed and shouts “You cannot stop the man of fire!”

When your life’s work proves to be a failure, it’s hard not to be despondent. Some people try to see what went wrong and find some way to fix their mistakes and move forwards. Others instead opt to quite literally set the entire world on fire in a festival of cartoon supervillainy. And since this is Storm Force, I think you can guess what brilliant inventor Bruno Demonski chooses to do. That’s right, it’s another all action, all fire, all explosions (but no Jenga) tale of our favourite group of substitute action heroes as they fight for whatever the hell it is they fight for in an effort to prop up a dying comic book. So grab your best fire suit, your flamethrower arm and your one-man attack helicopter and make the most minimal effort possible for Man of Fire.

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 363: Storm Force - The Wizard's Challenge, parts 4-7

Episode 363: Storm Force: The Wizard's Challenge, parts 4-7

Your mastery over cosmic powers before mortal comprehension is no match for his mundane rock!

Given the choice between introducing new and unexpected elements into the world and falling back on the well-established clichés and lazy writing it prefers, Storm Force unerringly opts for the latter in this, the second half of The Wizard’s Challenge. Having spent about a three hundred pages picking off the members of the titular team of murderous psychos one at a time through his amazing magical powers, Mortak is revealed to be a robot who was doing it all with smoke and mirrors all along. Yes, it’s an amazing plot twist comparable to that of an average episode of Scooby Doo, only with slightly more killer robots (Slightly). Throw in a jarringly out of place ending that completely ignores that devastating disasters that set up the story in the first place and it’s a wrap! Merry Christmas!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 359 - Storm Force: The Wizard's Challenge, parts 1-3

Episode 359: Storm Force: The Wizard's Challenge, parts 1-3

At this point, I suspect that the writing process had devolved into ‘they try to kill Mortak for six pages. Let’s knock off and go to the pub while we still have jobs.’

Terrible disasters strike across the globe, threatening major cities! Who or what could be behind these calamities? Why yes, a wizard did it, and yes, I am being entirely serious about this as well. In response to this supernatural threat, Storm Force deals with the situation by doing what they do best, and by that I mean blundering around a death-trap laden castle while being picked off one at a time, preferably after announcing their signature weapon for the benefit of readers who might have forgotten who they are since last week. Can brave and always correct combat leader John Storm overcome Mortak of the Nagam, with his twin powers of lighting and announcing that he is Mortak of the Nagam? Or will the comic fold first? Read on and find out, if you dare!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 352 - Razor versus Warrior Nun Areala - Faith

Episode 352: Razor versus Warrior Nun Areala - Faith

Nineties comics were a bit silly, weren’t they?


Not to be confused with Areala versus Razor, this is an entirely different and yet still near identical book. Straight from the horrors of nineties bad girl comics, we have a tale of... well, not much really. There’s some demons, and there’s a pair of ludicrously dressed, impossibly proportioned women who fight them in festivals of blood-soaked cartoonish violence. Oh, and they also fight each other, which is basically a given, what with the ‘versus’ part of the title. Throw in the Generic Anime Villain’s guide to dating and you basically have a wrap. So get your Sword of Catholic Guilt, stab a demon through the eyeballs and kick over a gravestone for the generic crossover action of Razor versus Areala.

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 339 - Storm Force, parts 4-6

Episode 339: Storm Force, parts 4-6

Living your life one Great News For All Readers at a time

And now after years of anticipation (not really), the final part of the origin of Storm Force can be told! After spending an eternity farting around with robot arms, experimental microsurgery, expository walk and talks and trying to kill the rest of his team, brave pyromaniac designated protagonist John Storm is ready to lead his men into deadly danger against the dreaded half-man, half-spider Tarantula! Will Storm succeed? Will Porcupine follow through on the threat that is his sole character trait? Will Mikron do anything? Will Wolf hold up a TV? Will anyone actually remember that agent Winston, the supposed objective of this whole farce, actually exists? The answers to all these questions won’t even mildly surprise you, but here they are no less!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Art Fail - Barticus

Behold Barticus and his gigantic laser cannon boobs! Possessing an arsenal capable of leveling cities and yet only ever hits things with a tree! Completely indestructible only to be felled with a single rocket!

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm intimidated.

Art Fail - Storm Force

This Art Fail is a little different from the others. There's nothing wrong with the art in Storm Force; in fact, I quite like Vanyo's style. It;s certainly a lot better then the other Art Fails I've showcased. However, that doesn't change the fact that the content of the art is, well, just kind of goofy.

Case in point, let's meet our titular team of designated protagonists...

Storm Force! Fighting the war on mutant spider goons!

Episode 333 - Storm Force: Robot Raider, parts 5-8

Episode 333: Storm Force: Robot Raider, parts 5-8

When you're designing themed evil robots, you need to go all the way. There's no sense in just leaving it half done. Besides, a Samurai Robot speaking perfect English would be just silly

When you are facing an army of high-tech killer robots, there are certain skills that you want on your team. For example, for obvious reasons, you would need a computer hacker. That means you have someone who can hysterically scream and be useless while the real men blow robots up with their robot arms, samurai swords or knife suits. And when slightly misunderstood genius Paul Sondheim unveils his army of the twelve deadliest robots ever built (Insert Astroboy joke here), you’ll need all the crying and whimpering you can get to fight off this army of deadly mechanized cosplayers. Throw in a doomsday weapon that obligingly runs amok the instant it is introduced and an exploding bandstand and you have the next scintillating part of the Storm Force saga!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 327 - Storm Force: Robot Raider, parts 1-4

Episode 327: Storm Force: Robot Raider, parts 1-4

A giant metal man is fighting a robot gorilla. We might as well all go home now, because it's not going to get any better than this.

Straight from the pages of Battle with Storm Force (And Action, Boy’s World, Champion, Fantastic, Lion, Pow!, Smash!, Terrific, Thunder, TV21, Valiant, Vulcan and Wham!) comes another tale of manly men (and token girl) punching things to make a better world or something! A reclusive renegade genius unleashes robot bank robbers, cyborg gorillas, giant mechanical ants and quadcopters with GoPros to plague mankind, and only our heroes, Detachable Arm, Spikey McGrumblebum, the greatest ninja in Yorkshire, Full Metal Codpiece, Weiner Man and the one with the girl bits can stop them! That is, if their own staggering ineptitude doesn’t do them in first. So grab your samurai sword, your flamethrower arm and your exo-skeleton and go make mechanoids explode! It’s about war stories that are realistic and gritty, after all.

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Episode 320 - Storm Force: Spider Fortress

Episode 320: Storm Force: Spider Fortress

I think the message of this comic so far is spiders.

Fresh from the pages of Eagle (aka Eagle with Scream, Eagle and Tiger, Eagle with Battle, Eagle and MASK, Eagle with Wildcat, All-New Eagle, Eagle Monthly and Holy crap, where did the British comics industry go?) comes the return of Storm Force! After generically evil mutated villain Tarantula takes over a nuclear power station, the Storm Force team attempt to thwart his evil scheme by doing pretty much everything they can to oblige him and blindly walking into obvious traps. And so as Tarantula unleashes his plans (That involve spiders) and his deadly agents (Being more spiders) and even his devastating doomsday weapon (hint: eight legs) it’s up to John Storm to use his robot arm (He has a robot arm in case you forgot his robot arm) to stop him! All this, plus the Road Shark! It’s a thing, apparently!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Art Fail - Reusing the panel

Ben Dunn had something of a reputation of being lazy, unimaginative and unoriginal, as well as copying artwork. In fact, he even was supposedly known for copying his own art. But is that reputation justified? Well, let's just take a look at some panels from Warrior Nun Areala versus Razor and see.

Episode 315 - Warrior Nun Areala versus Razor - Deceiver

Episode 315: Warrior Nun Areala versus Razor - Deceiver

He's a grizzled old cop who as seen too much. She's a leather-clad killer who is driven by vengeance. It's an odd choice for a RomCom, but not entirely unwelcome either.

There are few things more nineties then 'Bad Girl' comics, featuring massively endowed, under-dressed women who all apparently suffer from severe spinal trauma. But when you have a crossover between two of them, then it gets really silly (and possibly even 'xtreeeeeem'). That's exactly what happens when Warrior Nun Areala (Wielder of the Sword of Catholic Guilt) and Razor (Your basic stabby psychotic stripper) encounter each other and, because the comic has no plot otherwise, fight in a battle to decide who's costume is more blatantly fetishy. But it's not all fun and games and splayed crotch leaping as evil is afoot and something that resembles a story is happening, forcing our two anti-heroines to put aside their differences, work together and beat people up while they're in the bathroom. It's paint by numbers crossover only with more sweaty priests!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Art Fails

One of the limitations of comic book MSTings is relying on the written descriptions of what's happening. This has two problems; the first is that a scene in a comic can often be hard to describe in text form, especially when it's a complicated one or involves a lot of characters, or action or the like. The second is that it means I can't really riff on the art quality. After all, I'm making a joke about the art in a way that means the reader isn't able to see what I'm joking about. It'd be like commenting on the special effects in an Ed Wood movie on the radio.

Art Fails is a new feature that will be addressing some of that. I'll be scanning selected pages or panels from some of the comics and sharing them with you in order to better illustrate some of the odder moments I've come across. They may be bad, they may be incomprehensible or they may be just plain awkward, but there's a lot to be seen.

As a way of introduction, I present a panel from League of Champions #6. I simply described this as "Kid making a weird face. I cannot describe it beyond ‘wrong’". Take a look for yourself, and see.

The Horror...

Seriously, if you can describe that face, then please explain what it's meant to be.

Episode 313 - League of Champions #6

Episode 313: League of Champions #6

Giant superhero seeks giant super villain to fight. Must have own easily breakable doomsday weapon.

A comic based on a tabletop RPG based on the superhero comic genre? It sounds like a great idea in concept but actually, that's a terrible lie. It was the eighties so go with me here. Instead what we get is the adventures of the alleged superhero team known as The Champions (Rich White Guy, Big Guy, Iceman Clone, Blonde Victim Girl, Redhead Victim Girl, Brunette Victim Girl and Senile Grandfather) as they take on the subtly named organisation DEMON (hint: they might be evil) and their leader, Lifetime Movie Of The Week Man. But that's not all, as we have a character development subplot that not only never goes anywhere but is basically forgotten within the same issue. Add in a Batman Cosplayer, a nagging Dependant NPC and a Generic Immortal Evil Sorceress and you have the regrettable experience that is the League of Champions!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Mat Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.