Out of the Vault - Revenge of the Prowler

Not much to say this week. I promised Revenge of the Prowler last week without reading it, and upon reading it, found that there wasn't much to say. But since I promised and put in the time to read the comics, I'll go ahead and write a quick entry. Or maybe not so quick, I dunno; it's the last weekend in March, and we're in the middle of a heavier snowstorm than I think we saw all winter, so my head's kind of in a mess right now trying to process that. I figure Al Gore must be holding some big global warming conference in Tulsa this weekend, since the blizzards seem to follow him wherever he goes.

Revenge of the Prowler picks up where the previous miniseries left off, with art student Scott Kida dealing with the emotional aftermath of the vampire slaughter in Prowler #4. He's obsessively painting gruesome images of slaughter while letting his personal life and relationships go to hell. He finally decides to tell Leo Kragg that he's done with the entire Prowler misadventure, but while he's talking to Leo, two of Leo's old acquaintances turn up, former U.S. Marines nicknamed the Devil Dogs (crossover characters from Strike!, another Eclipse series).

One of the Devil Dogs' granddaughters has run away, only to turn up in an underground kiddie porn magazine. So Leo and Scott go off with the two old Marines to rescue her from a heavily armed compound in northern Mexico, where heavy gunplay ensues. Kragg rides in on a vintage WWII bomber, dons a helicopter backpack to catch a speeding truck, then rides to the rescue on a motorcycle with guns blazing in each hand, just like John Wayne in True Grit, only with handlebars instead of reins in his teeth.


Meanwhile, in the back-up feature, we see an example of the Prowler newspaper strip, ostensibly from the 40's, as well as Kragg's continuing run-ins with vampires and zombies, with the trail leading once again to Murder Legendre.

As I was reading, I discovered that I had only three of four issues. As far as I know, there were only eight issues published of the Prowler's adventures. I quit before the final one came out. Unlike Dynamo Joe, though, I don't regret quitting. Revenge of the Prowler gets continuously seedier and more depressing, and we don't get to know the characters well enough to share any of their deep angst. And John K. Snyder's blobby artwork just adds to the seediness and emotional distance. I quit buying the book because it was obvious that it would never live up to the promise I saw in the premise.

And just to show you how little I cared about this book, issue 2 of Revenge of the Prowler came with a Flexidisc included. For those too young to remember, occasionally magazines or comics would include a little record of flexible plastic that you could play on your record player.

The first one I ever saw was a recording of whale songs in an issue of National Geographic. I had a couple of comics that included them, too. The original, magazine-sized Nexus included one in issue #3, and Tim Truman included a flexidisc of the blues songs (which he composed and recorded) played within the storyline of Scout #19.

I have both of those issues, and have pulled out and listened to both flexidiscs. It probably killed the collector's value of those issues, but I've never really cared about collector's value. I buy comics to read and enjoy, and liked both Scout and Nexus enough to be curious about the expanded experience the flexidiscs offered.

The flexidisc in Revenge of the Prowler #2 is still intact and unlistened to.