Comics Scene #10
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeComics Scene #10 (July 1983) arrived at a pivotal moment when the independent comics movement was reshaping the entire industry, and this single issue documents that crossroads from multiple angles at once. It carried Mike W. Barr's own commentary on Batman and the Outsiders just as that team — introducing Geo-Force, Halo, and Katana to the DC Universe — was making its debut in the pages of Brave and the Bold #200 and launching its own series, making the interview a contemporaneous record of the characters' creation. At the same time, the issue spotlighted the flourishing First Comics line, including Nexus and the promise of American Flagg!, at the exact moment creator-owned science fiction was challenging Marvel and DC's grip on the direct market. As one of the final ten issues of the original Comics Scene run, it stands as a time capsule of the Bronze Age giving way to the creator-driven Copper Age.
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Comics Scene was launched in January 1982 by the Starlog Group as a companion to its sister genre magazines Starlog and Fangoria, distributed through the same newsstand network of drug stores and grocery outlets that reached readers far beyond comic shops. The original series ran eleven issues from January 1982 through September 1983, with its primary editorial mission being coverage of comic book properties crossing into film and television, though it also ran substantive industry journalism. Issue #10, cover-dated July 1983, was the second-to-last installment of that founding run before the magazine went on hiatus, returning for a longer second volume in 1987.
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- Published July 1983 by Starlog Group; issue #10 of the original 11-issue run (January 1982–September 1983), distributed via newsstand alongside sister titles Starlog and Fangoria.
- Features a Darth Vader / Return of the Jedi cover and a major article in which artist Al Williamson discusses his work on the Marvel Comics adaptation of Return of the Jedi (scripted by Archie Goodwin), the same four-issue miniseries then on newsstands.
- Mike W. Barr contributes commentary on Batman and the Outsiders — the team (Batman, Black Lightning, Metamorpho, Geo-Force, Katana, Halo) had just debuted in Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983) before launching their own series in August 1983; Barr created Geo-Force, Halo, and Katana for that book.
- Gil Kane discusses Sword of the Atom, DC's contemporaneous reimagining of Ray Palmer / the Atom as a sword-and-sorcery hero.
- An article covers First Comics and its line, spotlighting titles including Nexus (Horatio Hellpop), the sci-fi/superhero series created by writer Mike Baron and artist Steve Rude that had begun at Capital Comics in 1981 before transitioning to First Comics.
- Hank Ketcham — creator of Dennis the Menace — discusses his long-running strip in an interview, accounting for the presence of Dennis Mitchell, Alice Mitchell, Henry Mitchell, Martha Wilson, George Wilson, and Ruff in the character index.
- Jan Strnad contributes an editorial essay titled 'Comic Book Morality: The Impending Crisis,' an early piece of industry criticism appearing just before the direct-market boom fully transformed the medium.
- A recurring Fred Hembeck humor strip appears, consistent with Hembeck's regular presence as a comics-commentary cartoonist throughout the original Comics Scene run.
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