Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week Bennett talks about Marvel’s Monsters Unleashed and Underdog.

It’s hardly a secret, but as someone named Dan (no last name was given) so succinctly put it on Movie Pilot, “Marvel Comics Aren’t Doing So Hot Right Now.”  It started last summer when Rebirth trounced Civil War II at the cash register by getting their classic characters back to their core values of optimism and heroism. Ever since then Marvel has been unable to dominate the sales charts the way the way they used to do by using the main weapon in their publishing arsenal: the major crossover event.

Most Marvel fans, as well as retailers, seemed to think that Civil War II was a soggy sequel to the original, and it's torn-from-today’s-headlines premise about prophetic profiling was merely a pretext to get the superhero community at each other’s throats. It definitely didn’t help that was it was really, really late. I really don’t like spending other people’s money, and I know I’ve floated this idea before, but I can't help but think it would help if they just had more finished issues in-house before they solicited the first one.  To once again quote Ferris Bueller’s dad, “You know you’ve got the money, you’ve just got to spend the money.” Or has Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter deemed this sort of thing an unnecessary expense? After all, late is cheap, and what are fans going to do; buy other comics?

Civil War II did accomplish one thing, as far as I’m concerned anyway; it teased Monsters Unleashed.  Which, yes, is another major crossover event, but one I can’t disapprove of given I’ve been literally begging Marvel for years to do something, anything actually, with what we Olds used to call the Lee/Kirby monsters. A premise as simple as superheroes fighting giant monsters is pretty hard to get wrong, and I must admit that the first issue is definitely a lot of fun.  Even though I am a little disappointed neither Red Ronin or It the Living Colossus has shown up so far.  Hopefully they’ll make an appearance in the Monsters Unleashed ongoing series coming up in April.

The ongoing series is about a boy hero called Kid Kaiju who, along with his team of Behemoths, Aegis, Slizzik, Scragg and Mekara, battle evil monsters across the globe.  Not to split hairs, but both Aegis and Mekara look like giant robots to me, not that this hurts my feelings one bit, seeing as how kids love both giant robots and giant monsters unconditionally. Even kids my size and age. So take it from someone who knows, Marvel hasn’t had a comic with this much pure 100% unadulterated “kidnip" since the glory days of Godzilla and Shogun Warriors.

If the premise of Monsters Unlimited seems at all familiar, that’s probably because it’s nearly the same as Disney’s Big Hero 6, with monsters instead of superheroes. Given its success, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out to be the next Marvel Comic repurposed by their parent company for animation purposes. Since I have the feeling this might have been a bit under ordered, I would like to gently suggest to anyone that feels like “speculating” on a new comic might want to pick up a few extra copies of this one.  If for no other reason than it has a much, much better chance of being the basis of the next big multi-media tentpole franchise than, say, Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider #1.

While we’re on the subject of “comics for kids which also has something for us oldies,” American Mythology is doing a new Underdog comic starting in April.  Which came as something of a surprise to me as I honestly thought the Dreamworks live-action 2007 feature film version would keep the franchise sidelined a lot longer than this.  For those who missed it, it featured an actual beagle playing Underdog, and the great Peter Dinklage, not having nearly as much fun scenery chewing as you’d think, playing mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister.  Though I’ve got to admit Patrick Warburton was born to play Cad Lackey. 

The truth is, I actually liked the show’s theme song more than I liked Underdog. Even the news that the comic was being written by Batton Lash and drawn by Bill Galvan didn’t raise my interest level all that much.  Then among the various variant covers I saw one by S.L. Gallant featuring  the cast from Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales,  an earlier series by Total TV, the company that also made Underdog.  I always liked these “semi-educational” (as Wikipedia calls them) shorts, which managed to teach me a couple of science and history lessons that I've actually managed to retain over the decades. Though, even at age eight, I found Tennessee to be an intolerable jerk.

But I always liked his sensible Walrus sidekick Chumley, and was especially taken with their frequent advisor, The Man With All The Answers, Phineas J. Whoopee and his Three-Dimensional Blackboard (the 3DBB).  Back then this device was essentially magic, though now the same effects can be achieved with a high-end computer tablet.  Not only does Gallant does keep all of these characters perfectly on model (as they say in the animation business), his art also manages to capture all of their personalities beautifully.  If Tennessee and company are going to be a regular part of this Underdog comic, well, I'll have to check it out.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.