Retro Comic Read Through: Team America #7

Team America #7
Cover date December 1982

Never thought I'd say this about a Team America comic, but this is a really great cover. It's stylish, creative, well drawn, nice composition and very well coloured. It's so good that it leaves me wondering if it's a homage to some other illustration I'm not aware of.

Drawn by Hannigan and Milgrom, it depicts hat waving, broadly smiling Cowboy on his leaping bike, in front of line art of internal panels from the story. His shadow is of him riding a bucking horse. It's very evocative and were this a better regarded series, I've no doubt this would be a highly praised and iconic cover. It's a great design.

The splash page is pretty good as well. Cowboy leaping from his bike to the back of a bull. All to the amazement of hundreds of fans in the stadium crowd. The art looks better than it has in awhile and that's due to Luke McDonnell's return to the book. And on this splash page, at least, Colletta doesn't completely massacre the art. Though that can't be said for the rest of the book.

With a title of 'The Emperor Of Texas', the star of this solo story being Cowboy, and after that great cover, I find myself hoping that Mantlo will embrace the obvious and give us a western adventure. Sadly instead he gives us a story that would probably sit better in a Gold Key Star Trek licensed comic.

Team America are performing an exhibition in Texas (which means they've not been involved in the Unlimited Class Racing circuit since issue #2), when an old flame of Cowboys, called PJ, is kidnapped. And kidnapped rather spectacularly. Her car suddenly flies away with her up into the air!

Since she was a senators daughter, her father chooses to blame Cowboy and the rest of Team America for her disappearance (there really isn't much of a sensible explanation for this plot contrivance). The father urges the sheriff to arrest them and advance the plot, the lawman instead houses the team in the senator's own bunkhouse while things can be sorted out. Honcho must of rushed into the bunkhouse, as while the rest of the team are still gathered around the door, he's already chosen a top bunk and is stretched out upon it. Wrench is all for busting out, but the consensus is to wait to sort it all out. So as the team fall asleep, the Marauder appears and proceeds to track the missing car with PJ in it, via his eerie motorcyclist powers.

Come morning Cowboy sneaks out and hits the road in search for PJ. Following the tracks left by Marauder, he's joined by the sheriff who along the trail professes his own love for PJ. And don't you just hate it when you're travelling with someone and they blurt out something really personal, then the rest of the trip is just awkward? They eventually come to a large cliff, and are soon pulled up to the top by some sort of tractor beam.

Atop the cliff they find themselves in a lavish Roman style temple. And meet their host, Tony Rome, famous auto designer. He's been using his personally designed cars to kidnap the children of influential Texas people to hold as hostage to stop them from interfering with his grand scheme.

And his is a grand scheme indeed! He's going to turn Texas into a recreation of the Roman empire with himself as Emperor, or he'll nuke it. Yeah, that makes sense. The sheriff is released from captivity to return to the world with the Emperor's demands. While Cowboy is kept captive to challenge the Emperor in a race. Cowboy's motorbike against robotised chariots. What follows is far from Ben Hur.

Meanwhile the sheriff has done the only logical thing and ordered an airstrike on the mad Emperor. Can sheriffs order airstrikes? Maybe they can in Texas. With ten minutes before the place is raised to the ground, the sheriff, Team America and their bikes, parachute in to free the hostages. He's cutting it fairly close.

Back in the arena Cowboy uses the challenge to free the hostages and get knocked-out, like all good little Team America members do. Which means it's time for the Marauder to make the scene! Arriving just in time to stop the Emperor from launching his nuke and destroys his temple in the process. The Emperor feels the full weight of his Texas sized plans for domination crashing down when he's fatally whumped by a chunk of falling marble. The newly awake Cowboy digs him out for this exchange:
Emperor: “Why did you interfere?”
Cowboy: “I just couldn't let anything happen to PJ! Ain't yuh ever loved someone?”
Emperor: “No... Neverrrrr” And he dies in Cowboy's arms.
A strangely nonsensical death scene.

In the aftermath PJ throws herself at Cowboy, telling him she's been waiting for him to return. And realising that even though he loves her, he isn't prepared to sacrifice his life with Team America. Pretending not to care for her, he drives her into the eager arms of the waiting sheriff, before wistfully riding off into the sunset with his motorcycling companions.

An odd, poorly paced story. But through showing Cowboy's noble sacrifice it achieves its objective of ascribing to Cowboy a personality that was till this point non-existent. I still would of preferred a western tale though.

The real gem of this issue, after the cover, is the 'Honcho's Hints' two page back-up. 'How an engine works!' – which explains with technical diagrams the basics of a combustion engine. Really quite fascinating. And 'Customized bikes!' - in which Honcho urges us to consider that even though all bikes have the same basic structure, it doesn't mean they all have to be the same. Most subtle Honcho subtext yet! The page shows several different bike types evocatively rendered from obvious photo reference. They're so nicely drawn it makes you painfully aware at how poorly the motorcycles in the rest of this series are rendered! The art chores on these two pieces are by Brozowski and Giacoia for the Engine page. And Brozowski and Simons, for the bike designs.

This Cowboy story is the last in the Team America solo character stories. Meaning that the only member of the group that didn't get his own spotlight is the black member, Wrench. Which is a shame, as he is the most human and easily relatable character in the group.

With the end of the solo stories, another pattern shows itself. In each solo story the singled out member of Team America gets involved in adventure via an ex-girlfriend. Wolf's old lover who's brother goes missing. Reddy's ex who gets in trouble while investigating. Cowboy's past flame who gets abducted. All except Honcho... who got pulled into adventure by a man whom he shared a history with. Everyone was given a girlfriend except Honcho. At some point subtext stops being 'sub' and just becomes 'text'.

Next issue box promises the return of Jim Shooter on scripting... there goes any room left for the art!

SWEET SCOOTS!