2016 Comic Challenge 231 Mortar Man #01

TITLE-Mortar Man #01
PUBLISHER-Marshall Comics

Found this one recently in the cheap bins. It was a buck and I had never heard of the title,the artist,writer or even the publisher.

The cover,and that it came out in 1993,makes me think this is another tiny indy trying to start their own superhero universe. On the back cover we got the lead villain of this issue,the Rotten Apple. Of course that is our titular hero on the front cover.

So I start reading the issue expecting something like I would get from Dagger comics,who besides me remembers them?,or maybe Lightning Comics. A badly drawn and written cash grab at the comic boom. Nope instead I get a fairly well written and very very well drawn satire of superhero comics. Mortar Man relies on various grenades. Some cause him to fly others just explode. The drawback is they all look the same so he never knows what he is using. The Rotten Apple is a great arch-villain. Think a slightly silly Dr Doom.

I am kind of wondering if maybe this was written and drawn years before it got published. One of the reasons is this came out at the height of the Image craze,where comics were lucky to have 3 panels on a page.But in Mortar Man #01 most of the pages have 6 to 9 panels. It really reads and looks like one of the many superhero satire books on the 80s B/W indy comic boom.

Since I found this in the dollar bins,I am gonna guess it shouldn't be hard to find it cheap. And really if you find it for cover price or less and enjoy satire it is worth grabbing.

Mortar Man #01 gets a buy!