Russian Red Star Squadron, Chinese Phoenix Team and Others

Just a post title change. I heard back that people were not checking the post as they assumed it was a political post about Brexit.
No. Just...no.*********************************************************************************
Back in the late 1980's I courted political controversy.  Well, not really.  You see I was putting together Black Tower Adventure and Previews Comic -both of which were anthologies. 

Fast Fiction Small Press service -or Ed Pinsent to be precise- once wrote: "You can see his DC comics collection opening up in front of you" re. my comics.

As I pointed out to dear Ed that was a bloody insult -"Ich bin ein Marvelite!" I roared and making his cheese sandwich shake across the table!  :-) Honestly, one has to remember that these were the "elite" who declared time and again that Europe had never had super hero comics.  Therefore, if I had a comic with such characters (costumed and uncostumed as was the British tradition) it had to have been inspired by American comics. Being a Marvelite in those days I did grab any Justice League of America comic I could see but that was my shameful secret revealed only now almost 40 years later :-)

But at one Westminster Comic Mart I was talking to Tom Elmes, John Erasmus and others when some idiot I did not know (he was one of those comics 'nice guys' it turns out) called me a communist. Considering the experiences of my mother's (German) family during the Second World War that was quite insulting and I did ask -politely- what they were talking about.

It turned out to be The Evil of the Salamander strip. Why?  Well, obviously they could not give any cogent reason other than the fact that I had showed Soviet and Chinese super heroes -actually part of the military of the PRC and USSR therefore more soldiers than civilian vigilantes.  Not just that but I had shown  the Phoenix Team and Red Star Squadron -brace yourselves!- cooperating to fight a common foe.

No ugly faced, gnarly toothed evil sons of bitches out to subjugate the free world.  That it seems is where the problem was.  Dammit they were not even fighting each other but trying to prevent what could turn into -at best and least- a border war.

Some little twit did later write that I probably hated democracy and read Soviet Weekly between comic books.  Actually, I did not reveal that I had read Soviet Weekly -back in the pre internet days we had to read things that were printed and if you wanted the latest Russian photos from the Moon or Venus don't think they were in all the news papers: you bought a copy of SW with the photos and report in.

So here are parts 1 and 2....