Comic Review #35: Care Bears #1 (1985)

 

I've decided to review this comic for two reasons: 1.) I love to unearth the weird and obscure things from the histories of these companies. The stuff that didn't work, stuff that kinda worked, and stuff that seemed to work pretty well for a short time before just ending. I'll get into this imprint in the next paragraph. reason #2.) I want to talk about those goofy Bears that Care. It's been too long that I haven't talked about the Care Bears on a nostalgia blog because I loved those guys as a child. I had the stuffed toys. I watched the movie. I've seen The Care Bears Movie 2: The New Generation more times than any human being should. That was my go to movie for years. It is still a fucking masterpiece of cinema. I will probably review it one day. The only reason I haven't done them on The Final Episode is because it's really weird to talk about a Christmas Episode in June. Yeah that and one other show that I will not name ended on a Christmas episode. Weird huh?

Star Comics came along when Marvel realized they didn't have any comics for little children instead of teenagers and big weirdo adults. They  decided to get licenses for tons of stuff. Like a shit ton of stuff hoping that the kids will read them and then grow into reading the older audiences stuff. The licenses were Thundercats, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (both Marvel AND DC had this license wild huh!?) Inhumanoids, Visionaries, Heathcliff, and the new characters were like Spider-Ham, Top Dog and 32 ripoffs of Harvey Comics and you know how I feel about Casper the Friendly Ghost and his stupid asshole friends. Alf was not under the Star Comics imprint weirdly enough. The imprint ended in 1988 BUT several series still kept on under the Marvel name. It wasn't a world shattering thing that stayed for decades but it clearly lasted long enough for me to say it wasn't a failure.

This is the paragraph where I give you some nice information that I mostly stole from Wikipedia and turned into a paragraph. Howard "Howie" Post was born in 1926 and he was into drawing and art from the earliest possible age. He worked at Marvel before they were even known as Marvel, you know the Journey Into Mystery age. I would like to see that art because his goofy comic art in this comic is a lot of fun and I'd like to see him what his horror art looks like. He also worked at gross ass Harvey Comics doing their gross ass comics. I am never reviewing a Harvey comic that isn't the Saved By the Bell one. He created the very popular caveman character of Anthro for D.C. Comics. I have a few issues of that and should check them out. He also created some comic strip called The Dropouts that existed from 1968 to 1981. Apparently took place on a deserted island or something. I dunno. I never even heard of it until now. He went back to work at Marvel AND DC doing stuff like this comic series and the Looney Tunes Magazine. He passed away in 2010 at the age of 83.

The story of Care Bears #1 was called The Plot to Steal Summer and It's a simple story. It starts out with the Care Bears looking at us from the clouds to see if people need any help. I'm just curious though is Care-A-Lot a part of Heaven? These are the questions I ask myself every day. I'm going to say yes because I like thinking that Care-A-Lot is a part of Heaven. Anyway it turns out that the even Glump monster is trying to steal summer by turning it into winter! He's getting Haywood the Hail Hare to make it hail everywhere. He's getting Beezy the Sleazy Freezy Dragon to make it cold and Slush Monkey to get everything all Slushy! The Care Bears won't stand for this kind of hooliganism and well they get the bright idea of having winter related fun! In the summertime! This causes the Glump monster to fire all of his minions and they tell him in nice kid comics way to piss off and go hang out with the Care Bears. It ends with Birthday Bear celebrating a birthday because it's someones birthday out there and guess what it turns out to be Glumps birthday! Everyone is happy! Even the dickhead who tried to ruin summer.

Howie Post was clearly having a lot of fun with the art, the story, the characters, the designs, all of it. It shows through in the story. I'd say check this out even if you have no nostalgia or care for the Care Bears. It's full of silly jokes but kids like silly jokes. I enjoyed re-reading this quite a bit and would enjoy checking out more issues of this and Heathcliff (which Post also did). Best of all I felt this story didn't speak down to children unlike the Masters of the Universe comic I read from Star. That one was not very good but I'm going to save it all for another review

FINAL VERDICT: a fun comic based around one of my favorite old tv shows. I don't know what happens in like 14 of these 18 issues because I only own a few of these. One of them had them fighting the Mad Balls and really is there anything better than a Crossover with the mad balls. Oh and Spider-Man met the Transformers AND Top Dog. I believe Top Dog met Spider-Man and also Heathcliff so these things now take place in the Marvel Universe proper. I'm sorry but I don't make the rules.