Comic Review #43: 1st Issue Special #2: The Green Team (1975)

 

I'm surprised I haven't read more of this series. I'm pretty sure I own like the entire run. I mean it's only 13 issues but still. 1st Issue Special was a try out book where they would put new characters into each issue. Or they would bring back an old character that hadn't been seen in a some time. Dr. Fate, Creeper and Metamorpho and the New Gods were characters that were brought back for this series. Every other character was a new character and since I want to discuss every character I can from  both Marvel and DC it's time for us to discuss The Green Team. I had two choices to go through for these obscure goofballs because they appeared in this comic and then in another comic series for about 8 issues in 2012. I chose this because I remember it being a ridiculously fun comic book.

It's time to discuss Joe Simon. Joe Simon was in comics for decades at this point. At least 3 maybe 4 decades. He worked with Jack Kirby and they created a simple little obscure character known as Captain America. They created Boy Commandos and Newsboy Legion. They really liked boy gangs because well they were both probably in a gang of boys going on wild adventures. I've always liked his comics because the vast majority of them were bugfuck crazy. He'd probably not like being called bugfuck crazy but this is one of the more normal comics he did and it's still pretty wild. Jerry Grandenetti did most of his work in war comics which is a genre I should discuss more. He also got his art stolen by so called artist Roy Lichenstein. Me I just call that guy what he is a fucking thief. No one wants to read me rant about that guy who would take comic art panels from other people without any money given to the other person and make them into "high" art. Fuck that smug thief asshole.

Anyway back to discussing the comic and not some big dickhead. This comic involves a bunch of boy millionaires. I like comic book rich people but not real rich people so I do like these little goofballs. The first kid we meet is Abdul Smith. He wants to join a team and he does end up joining these boy millionaires when a bank fucks up saying he has 500,000 dollars and he puts that money into the stock market and wins. Commodore Murphy is a boy real estate king who buys a damn town just to fuck around with his toy ship. The toy ship has its own REAL BOMBS and it blows the hell out of the town. What a weirdo. He meets up with his friend J.P. Houston, an oil guy and most stereotypical Texan I've ever seen. The last kid was Cecil Sunbeam who is a movie making kid. I love how all four of these look so goofy and I can't get enough of them.

They get brought in by a Professor Apple who wants to create The Great American Pleasure machine. A machine that will give any person who goes inside the greatest pleasure of all time. The boys go for it and when visiting the building area for the Great American Pleasure Machine they get accosted by David D. Merrit a broadway producer who's afraid the Great American Pleasure Machine will destroy his job. He actually gets a meeting with the Green Team and all he wants is 50k to piss off. I'd have given him that but it wouldn't have made for a very interesting ending to a comic book but the Boy Millionares decide to throw away even more money to distract his the people following David D. Merrit. He decides that he won't let the Green Team get him and decides to take a ride in the Great American Pleasure Machine, and wouldn't you know it. It drives him fucking insane. I guess too much pleasure is not good for you.

FINAL VERDICT: a very silly yet very fun little comic book. I will probably check out the other series made 3 and a half decades later sometime soon. I would also like to find a copy of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade where they have TWO other Green Team comics. I loved the goofy cartoony art and had a great time re-reading this and I just wish we had more of these goofballs. A very charming and fun comic book.