Nov. '86 - Kickers, Inc. # 1

Another of the New Universe titles launched by Marvel, this was written by Tom DeFalco and drawn by Ron Frenz. I have a great fondness for their run on Amazing Spider-Man but this title never made it passed the first issue with me.

The star of the comic is Jack Magniconte, a quarterback on a pro football team. His brother owns a company called Sports Power Plus which sells nutritional programs to sports teams. The brother has developed a machine which artificially grows muscle mass just like using steroids. Jack decides to use the machine before it has to be submitted for testing and without knowing the side effects. It works on him, too well, and he finds himself with super speed, strength and reflexes. Football is no longer a challenge for him and they easily win the championship game. Later on his team-mates find out what has happened to him and they all use the machine and so does his wife. To provide a challenge in his life, Jack decides to form a company with his team-mates to help people with unusual problems and creates Kickers, Inc.

I have a problem with the story when Jack uses the machine to give himself an edge in football and it works with no side effects. I know it's a fantasy but the fact that he knew he had too much of an advantage and still went out and played the championship game and crushed the competition sends a bad message to young readers. And then he lets his team-mates use the machine and his wife! It's like supplying steroids to his team-mates! If there had been some consequences to their actions I might have felt differently about the comic. This one took the exact opposite approach. It shows the players doing product endorsements, music videos, commercials and basically living a great life because he used this machine.

This comic isn't staying in the collection. It's heading to the trade-in pile. The used bookstore downtown will do 2-for-1 trades on comics. As I re-read the collection I'm pulling out the ones I don't want to keep and trading them in for ones I do want to read.