Hero Illustrated 1, July 1993

[@jimdietz784]

So great! Hero was the poster child of all of the 90s boom excesses. Bravo to you two for hitting on it.

[@davidgrom7836]

That x-men "reset after you beat Mojo" thing i figured out when i was a kid by sheer frustration. I, despite its massive difficulty level, loved that game. I got to Mojo one summer afternoon,beat him,thought i broke the game,but pushed reset to keep playing and found the real ending. All of my friends from school though i was making it up when i told them that is what you had to do,lol

[@ericliu8488]

That’s just amazing! The first 3 levels were easy then the game got super hard afterwards. Never got to mojo without game genie cheats

[@ericharris262]

The people behind Electronic Gaming Monthly created Hero Illustrated.

[@TheKins]

Yeah, Steve Harris was the founder and publisher of EGM. Explains all the videogame ad buys, at any rate!

[@robertnopickle]

I had a handy boy. Fully Loaded. The magnifying glass was lit from underneath, which was the best part. It was heavy though. Came with a neck strap. And the buttons were bad. They were just springy plastic plungers that pressed down directly on the GameBoy's buttons underneath. The joystick/dpad situation was particularly rough, as you had to really work that thumb pretty far in a direction before it would register the press. Thankfully, the buttons are actually a separate piece that clipped over the lower front of the GameBoy, so I didn't often use them.

[@frdh1357]

"It was heavy though. Came with a neck strap." This thing sounds more and more like a nightmare!

[@TheEricmeister]

I love your content, boys! More of these Wizard/Hero magazine reviews please. It’s one of my favorite long videos in KZbin.

[@russworks2882]

After watching this, I dug out my old copy of Previews, March 1993 (Wrightson hologram card on the cover), which I kept partly for a hilarious Bisley interview promoting Monster Massacre, where some of the Maximum Force material appeared. He apparently had plans to generate a whole line of superhero books, but he may have just been drunk during the interview. "I want to write the Manic Mandrill four issue mini-series...This will be the first pure, unchained Simon Bisley!...This will be taken off the shelves before it's even put on...it's gonna be well banned!"

[@bxsolx5086]

The publisher of Hero was also behind gaming magazine EGM, which had a large circulation at the time; this will explain away a lot of your questions about the big advertisements & letters page.

[@Uploadingvirus]

Bought #1 for the Madman Adventures "ashcan" mini comic it came with. Hero always felt like the store brand soda to Wizard's Pepsi..

[@Uploadingvirus]

I had a friend who had the Handy Boy.... it sucked shit. There's an Angry Videogame Nerd review of it.

[@richardhuppertz3487]

While I would pick up a Wizard here or there, I loved Hero. I think I might have bought all and still have them in a box somewhere.

[@amirmalekpour4316]

Great show fellas. I loved the Larsen discussion. He lives in the Bay Area (where I live and I see him once in a while). He is very humble and nice when I see him around. By the way I found a Savage Dragon & Destroyer Duck today in a dollar bin. It has turtles in it too! Also Tomm Coker is still doing comics. He recently did an image book with Jonathan Hickman "The Black Monday Murders". It is really fun and is kind of photo referenced, not bad though.

[@ShaneMatlock]

Crazy that ad for Maximum Force was in a magazine from 1993 and didn't come out until 2002.

[@rakeemwatkins9440]

so what??

[@jcoriha]

I loved the Artist/Writer recommends sections in HI. Much like Palmer's Picks I used to find a lot of cool stuff

[@ppotter]

Nice shout-out to Gosh Comics - saw Piskor Prints in there the other day, and bought some lovely Mike Allred signed things. Great place.

[@dylandistraction]

Image Comics TMNT run has been re-published. It's called Urban Legends and it's under IDW, Frank Fosco on art, and it's very good.

[@HelloMisterJAMWAH]

That X-Men ad art might not be drawn by Kent Williams, but I'm 99% sure it's a swipe from a panel in Wolverine/Havok: Meltdown. So it kiiiind of is Williams.

[@ettecnal]

I collected those old Image TMNT issues when I was a kid. Unfortunately I'm missing like 4 or 5 issues from that run including the first issue. But I saw that IDW reprinted them in color. I think they looked better in the original black and white versions. That whole series was really badass.

[@MattHall]

Yeah, IDW ran it at TMNT Urban Legends. Would love to see more of the original art.

[@marcellerby]

Those Image TMNT comics are currently being republished and coloured (and finished) by IDW. I love how weird that series was but couldn't keep up as the issues were impossible to find.

[@KThorJensen1]

General consensus online (and according to Brian Michael Bendis) is that Kent Williams did paint that X-Men ad, and - let's be frank - he was probably hacking it out it for the paycheck

[@KThorJensen1]

And Tomm Coker is still working - his BLACK MONDAY MURDERS with Hickman is super super great.

[@ballpointpress]

Funny that it is CRACKED to Wizard's MAD. You could also consider it MadTV to Wizard's SNL.

[@williammcguire130]

So I had almost a complete run of that comic-- THE SECRET LIFE OF DOCTOR MIRAGE. It was pretty cool because it was almost a superhero MOONLIGHTING or what have you. The "costume" is so shitty because it's supposed to be a ridicukous yuppie skiing outfit that Mirage got zapped in so now his spirit is stuck in it. It's worth a re-read, as a surprising amount of the 90's Valiant stuff is.

[@DoctorComiX]

I had this issue but didn't follow Hero for very long. I don't know why, it must have come down to cost at the time. Thanks for reminding me about where I first read about the Superwoman ashcan, I always thought that was interesting comic book trivia.

[@antgto]

The only Hero Illustrated mag I have is that Image joint. I don't even remember where I got it.

[@whoffkne]

Dude, my friend had one of those Handy Boys and Ed is right - they were amazing.

[@whoffkne]

Also Ed - that is the concept art but around a year ago or so one of the only existing prototypes of the Nintendo Playtstation emerged. It is an amazing piece of gaming history.

[@whoffkne]

Hey, I just visited two Graham Cracker stores when I was in Chicago last week - check out my post of .50 bin stuff in the Ringside Seats group.

[@elijahcollier8348]

I bought #1 of Hero but to this day have yet to even see any other issue

[@funnypicturescomics]

Great video! I didn't collect many HERO'S back in the day...I bought WIZARD every month...Bought HERO depending on the cover story. Are you guys going to continue to review more WIZARDS?

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

Yes. Wizard Year Three begins next week.

[@Howard_the_Duck]

For a second i was excited that iron maiden's bassist published this.

[@AlfredComic]

I had a handy boy and it absolutely used to DRAIN the battery, totally ridiculous item

[@samnoirstoysandcomics1169]

Tomm Coker is working on the Image series

[@calloutpodcast2029]

That's interesting about Stan's closing thought not even being written by him. Same with his Spider-Man strip which was ghost-plotted since Day 1 by Jim Shooter and then ghost-written by Roy Thomas for it's last 17 years or whatever. Someone at ReedPop told me Danny Figeroth and Roy Thomas also ghost wrote Stan's more modern "How To" books- why isn't this an issue with people? Why do they continue to ignore these things and buy into the myth? The guy is a modern day Shakespeare and can't even write FORWARDS and AFTERWARDS LOL!!!!

[@MurielBellini]

evil dead 2

[@BGranoff]

I thought I told you to pump Webistics!!

[@herbjacobs3839]

Y'all gotta do FLUX magazine 😂😂

[@matthewporter5048]

i used to buy both Hero and Wizard....why?!?

[@TheRadman107]

Hey guys hey Jim hey Ed are you ever going to cover the "DeathMate series" at least book Red and book Black?,

[@peterdanielman]

Did Pulp Fiction steal it’s logo from Ashcan Comics??

[@rakeemwatkins9440]

i think its funny you say the X-Men interview is "for kids" but Spider-Man with a cybernetic eye and a headband is not? LOL

[@robsacchetto7709]

Sorry for all of the sudden 'likes..' Have seen all the videos, but unable to 'like' on my device....just wanted to show the love! :)

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

No one need every apologize to me for liking my work ;-) - Jim

[@robsacchetto7709]

@@CartoonistKayfabe Loving it good sir!! So glad I stumbled across your channel! 'Cartoonist KAYFABE' immediately garnered my interest!!! BEST WISHES!