rplass
05-28-2009, 12:09 AM
I came across an interesting little mini-comic with an Alpha Flight cameo. It's a free promo from Pizza Hut, published in 1993 called "The Pizza Hut Super Savings Book" featuring the X-Men. Pizza Hut would go on to publish a series of other comics with the X-Men, along with drinking glasses, posters, etc. The book is a mini-comic, about 11x18cm (which is 4.25 inches by 7.13 inches) and only 8pp long. The red border on the right (see below) is a pull-out coupon book with $2.00 pizza coupons, that sort of thing.
Inside is a recounting of the story of the X-Men, taken from Uncanny X-Men #138. Selected panels from that issue are re-organized into four pages to quickly tell the story from issues #1 to 138 just like the original, but reduced to just 4 pages, so much of the story is omitted. Also, the perspective is changed to that of Professor X, not Cyclops. The editors did a great job re-using many of the original captions, but inserting perfectly matched captions as written by Professor X.
Alpha Flight appeared in two panels in the original Uncanny X-Men #138, one being a re-creation of the scene in UXM #109 where Weapon Alpha bursts out of the ground, and another generic flashback panel to the events of UXM #120-1. The latter panel is reproduced in this little Pizza Hut Super Savings Book, with a few differences: Northstar and Aurora's hair are colored a light blue, not white like the original, and the caption in the lower left corner of the panel has been removed, showing a small obscured portion of the panel containing Vindicator's left foot, Sasquatch's left foot and both of Shaman's and Snowbird's feet. The caption above them has been reduced in size and re-written to read, "We helped Ka-Zar save the Savage Land, helped Sunfire save Japan, and met the Canadian super-hero group Alpha Flight."
The last two pages quickly jump from 1980 to more recent developments in the early 1990s, with art taken from some issue of Uncanny X-Men that I probably don't have or never read.
Here is a picture of the cover
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g214/rplass/x-menpizza.jpg
It's neato and tiny, a very cute bit of ephemera.
Love,
rplass
Inside is a recounting of the story of the X-Men, taken from Uncanny X-Men #138. Selected panels from that issue are re-organized into four pages to quickly tell the story from issues #1 to 138 just like the original, but reduced to just 4 pages, so much of the story is omitted. Also, the perspective is changed to that of Professor X, not Cyclops. The editors did a great job re-using many of the original captions, but inserting perfectly matched captions as written by Professor X.
Alpha Flight appeared in two panels in the original Uncanny X-Men #138, one being a re-creation of the scene in UXM #109 where Weapon Alpha bursts out of the ground, and another generic flashback panel to the events of UXM #120-1. The latter panel is reproduced in this little Pizza Hut Super Savings Book, with a few differences: Northstar and Aurora's hair are colored a light blue, not white like the original, and the caption in the lower left corner of the panel has been removed, showing a small obscured portion of the panel containing Vindicator's left foot, Sasquatch's left foot and both of Shaman's and Snowbird's feet. The caption above them has been reduced in size and re-written to read, "We helped Ka-Zar save the Savage Land, helped Sunfire save Japan, and met the Canadian super-hero group Alpha Flight."
The last two pages quickly jump from 1980 to more recent developments in the early 1990s, with art taken from some issue of Uncanny X-Men that I probably don't have or never read.
Here is a picture of the cover
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g214/rplass/x-menpizza.jpg
It's neato and tiny, a very cute bit of ephemera.
Love,
rplass