Captain America and the Falcon, Volume 1 #196 dates to 1976. In issue 195 the Captain somehow lost his shield and now must enter in the Kill-Derby in order to win it back. Marvel Comics has posted some digital versions of old comics online. They require a subscription fee to read beyond a few pages. I thought this issue was in there, but it isn’t. You can view the skateboard related excerpts here on S&A – he said, until Mickey mouse’s lawyers crushed him… I was going to the refrain from Captain Sensible’s Wot as the title, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already used that joke at least once. Instead, the title comes from one of the panels in the story.
Here’s the cover in it’s full glory. Point blank and that handgun is still going to miss him. In an interesting manipulation of 3D space, that gun blast should by all rights be in front of him instead of behind him.
The Rules; Anything Goes! The Stakes: Cap’s captured Shield! The Game: Kill-Derby!
Anything look familiar? The typeface (and storyline) is highly reminiscent 1975 classic Rollerball.
The characters in this panel look like extras from THX 1138, and you’ve never seen so many coffin boards at once, outside a Skull Skates distributor, circa 1988.
Is it “skateboards” or “skate-boards?” I never can tell. Maybe it’s “skate~boards” and I’ve been spelling it wrong all these years.
Meanwhile, concentrate on your skateboard.” It’s speed can be regulated by pressing these squares with your toe.
Wackyboards of the future, from the past!
Even though one character is apparently named “Tinkerbelle,” the head to head combat in this comic makes the jousters from Thrashin look like a bunch of pansies. They’ve got flame thrower’s for Hosoi’s sake.
Blaamm! You got him, Tinkerbelle!
And exploding missile fingers too! That’s painful for everyone involved.
The Captain has new school downhill posture. They weren’t kiding about “no rules” because it’s OK if the Falcon jumps off his board an starts flying around. Too much drag for the board in the first place.
Stop that Mayhem Machine! He’s splitting our ranks!
Hard to tell what’s going on in that last panel. Is the thug holding a skateboard as he gets clocked by the Cap’n? What happened to everything past the first set of trucks?
And that’s it. the rest of the action takes place on foot. Suddenly all images and mention of skateboards disappears from the comic book. Still, all in all, pretty good comic book skateboard action for 1976.
10 comments
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Men are from earth Women are from earth Deal with it
spurr
I can still hear the sound of 50 skaters bombing the parking garage, like an f-14 on takeoff .
Here's Wot
C’mon, Randy, try to keep up… follow the swoosh marks left by Captain America’s wheels on the cover and you will see that he turned suddenly so that the shooter, not expecting to have to use what is known in aerial dogfighting as a “deflection shot”, would miss… but the Captain (no doubt because it is on the cover that he is riding switch) could not hold his lean and so his torso got bucked back in the direction of the shooter, making it hard to realize that he had just leaned into an elusive turn, unless you follow the swooshes. Have you learned nothing from reading Mary Worth? Always follow the motion marks! (Though in M.W., they just indicate characters’ shock.) (Such as the time that Peter Parker walked in on Mary with Sex Organ, MD.)
kilwag
WINNER: Anyone who has the chutzpah to reference Mary Worth.
I think there’s an actual correspondent on CNN named Brenda Starr.
wall eyed glue huffer
damn…that looks like my coffin cut long board
K.C.
That is so funny. Did I hear The Falcon call that guy a “Dim Wit”?
I guess “Jive Turkey” was too risqu
spurr
I remember a night session in a parking garage downtown Seattle ,this must have been about 84,85 . We were racing down the levels of the garage and then pile into the elevator back to the top . There was about 50 skaters that night due to the rain . That was a kill derby ! Good times …good times.
Tony D
Oh the glorious days of working elevator empty parking garage bombing without the security guards…. Those were fun times! Don’t know if I was there for that particular event but enjoyed similar nights in downtown Seattle.
zeno01
I remember my days of rolling in the ol’ Kill Derby. You kids wouldn’t remember that, though…
Bevilacqua
” … say wot u want !”