I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, was a late adopter of Twitter and left when it turned fascist, and always declined to adopt Facebook. He was a fairly early adventurer into the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

For part three of the read-through, I went to a different box. This is one of the indie boxes, labelled 'Power + Glory - Sco.' Power and Glory is a Chaykin series (see Part One of the read through for a bit about Chaykin) but I wasn't ready to jump into that. 'Sco' is short for Scout, a Tim Truman title - and we'll hear a lot more about Tim Truman. But right after P+G came Power Plays ...

'Power Plays'
numbers 1-2

In the 80s, a lot of small comic companies popped up, and sometimes vanished almost immediately. Sometimes the company was really just one or two people,essentially self-publishing. Such was the case with 'Power Plays' ('An Extrava-Gandt Enterprise'), a 1983 outing by Michael Kelly, whose introductory material listed him as writer/artist/publisher. In that material, he wrote that 'Power Plays' was intended to be a sixteen issue, quarterly 'maxi-series.' Things did not work out as planned.

Issue #2 appeared two years later, and was published by Americomics, who also reprinted #1. There was, apparently, a third issue that came out in 1990, but I don't own that. That issue was back to Extrava-Gandt Enterprise publishing. Then in 1995, after I stopped collecting, Millennium Publications rebooted it with a new issue #1, intended to be a four issue mini-series, but never got past #1. For that, Michael Kelly was still writing, but Wendi Strang-Frost was doing the art.

To summarise - an intended 16 issue quarterly run starting in 1983 (and presumably ending in 1987), ended up being four issues, spanning 12 years and three publishers.

I rather enjoyed 'Power Plays' #1. There was some clever writing, and some interesting characters. The story was clearly being set up with an eye to the long game, which makes it a little frustrating that it fell on the floor. The second issue was not as good. It relied more heavily on one of the trends of the 80s of parodying popular characters or titles, in this case the 'X-Men.' This worked out well for some people, notably Eastman and Laird with 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' which started out as a mash-up parody of 'Daredevil' and the 'New Mutants.' For 'Power Plays,' it just resulted in a cluttered story with too many characters floating in and out, sometimes literally. The writing still had its moments - clever jokes and smart references. In both issues, the art is good, and Kelly had a good eye for layout, taking advantage of the medium to move things along.

It's a pity that it didn't work out that way it was intended, I would have liked to see it. Still, while interesting, it's not going to be a keeper.

The next two items in that box are both one-offs, at least in my collection - 'Precious Metal' and 'Predator.' This leads nicely into a quick chat about the Comics Code. The short version is that in the '50s, some people got their knickers in a twist about how comics were corrupting youth and so on. (Much like the PMRC in the 80s - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.) Anyway, so the big publishers adopted the code to avoid regulation. (Movie ratings, anyone? See a theme?) The code prohibited the usual things - sex, violence, language. As usual, the boundaries got pushed - skin tight outfits were fine, with cutouts to show off abs, midriffs, and so on. But naked skin? No, no, no! As for violence, the rules were strange. People were not supposed to be shown completely impaled, for instance. This meant that when Bullseye killed Elektra, the blade tented her shirt on her back to comply. The indie companies didn't bother with the code, since they weren't using the usual distribution channels like 7-11, drugstores, and so on; indies usually went straight to comic shops. (Marvel's 'Epic' and DC's 'Vertigo' had some similar motivations.) This meant, in turn, that some indies really leaned into the sex and/or violence.

Which brings us back to 'Precious Metal' and 'Predator.'

'Precious Metal' from 1990, published by Arts Industria, was completely a one-off. It lists no creative team at all, which is kind of unusual. It violates the Comics Code on the basis of sex and language. There were lots of ways to address sex in comics. Cheesecake was well-established, and a lot of Code acceptable comics were pretty cheese-cakey. You could simply use it as part of the story, not making it the centrepiece, but using it to add depth to the narrative or characterisation, just as you would in any other literary form. You could use it to comic effect, often sexist, as a lot of Playboy cartoons did. You could go for pornographic effects. It's like the difference between a PG movie and R movie. An 'R' rating doesn't mean you're going to get something raunchy, but it removes some of the limitations on what tools you can use. It's also no guarantee of quality.

The subtitle of this is 'An Erotic Robotic Love Story,' but what it really is is a not particularly good dirty joke, with pictures. It's got some ads, a bit unusual in indies, mostly for other indie comics. The most interesting thing about it is that they did a double cover. Or a one-and-a-half cover. The half cover was on the front and partly concealed the drawing of a woman and a robot. You can flip that open to reveal the only slightly racier rest of the illustration. In any case, no reason to keep this one.

'Predator,' published by Dark Horse in 1989, embraced violence. It's a spin-off of the 'Predator' movie franchise, with a predator in NYC killing things. I've got number one in the four issue mini-series, but none of the rest, which tells you that I wasn't impressed. It's all colour, while many indies were black-and-white. And there's lots of violence with the predator killing people, people killing people, and probably by the end people killing predators. The art is drifting toward a style I don't care for, with squinty eyes and bulging veins. The story is just kind of there. I have no reason to keep this one either.

Dark Horse is one of the most successful of the indie publishers, and they realised early that connecting with film and tv was a good idea. They licensed 'Predator' and 'Alien' and even 'The Abyss' for comic adaptations. They also got some of their original properties onto screens big and small. 'Hellboy' was a Dark Horse comic, as were 'Umbrella Academy,' 'Resident Alien,' and 'Sin City.' They're also still around, showing great longevity. So many of the indies, as noted above, failed pretty quickly.

NB - if anyone reading any of these is interested in any of the 'non-keeper' comics (so far Killraven, Amazing High Adventure, and now Power Plays, etc), let me know. We might be able to work something out ...

• Comic Read Through Part Two
• Comic Read Through Part Four