Kirby was not just the King of comics, he was the King of the Bicentennial. He wrote and drew the magnum opus of Bicentennial comics -- Captain America's Bicentennial Battles -- as well as a 10-issue storyline in the regular Captain American comic book.
I'll be talking about each of those projects in the coming months, but let's get a lesser Captain American project out of the way first.
Much lesser.
This one didn't even get its own book. It wasn't much of a story. The writing is pretty clunky. The art is cramped. But this one-page tale appeared in about 20 different Marvel comic books that month. Combined this must have been seen by tens of thousands of kids in 1976.
Of course I'm talking about a Hostess Twinkies ad.
For those unfamiliar with this oddity, the Hostess Snack Cake company ran a long series of one-page ads in comic books for more than a decade. Each starred a different comic book character -- Cap, Batman, Hot Stuff, Richie Rich, Spider-Man and the like -- often fighting a villain over a package of sponge-cake goodness. This one is pretty typical for the period, but also atypical in a way. As far as I know it's the only one that took a timely topic and the only one that ran in just a specific month.
As far as Hostess ads go, it's not too bad, but it does bring questions to mind. How did Captain America want to make his Bicentennial celebration the "most patriotic, most fantastic ever," and what did he need to practice? If the Red Skull could secretly go back in time and prevent the Revolution, why did he need to zap Captain America into his lair to supposedly stop him from preventing his plan? How does the mouth-less Cosmic Cube plan to eat the Twinkies? Speaking of which, where was Captain American carrying them? It's not like he has pockets or even pouches in his costume.
Alas, there are no answers.
Still, this ends with a killer line from the Red Skull: "By George Washington! My cube has gone square!" That almost redeems the entire thing.
According to the Grand Comics Database, this one-page story/ad appeared in titles as diverse as Ka-Zar, Master of Kung Fu, the Avengers, the X-Men and Weird Wonder Tales -- but not, oddly enough, in the regular Captain America title. Talk about a missed opportunity.
Well, that's enough spongy goodness. Next week we'll be back to the real Bicentennial comics. Perhaps a visit to the iconic town of Riverdale?
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