PixlBit

      Another week of comics and another batch of old video game ads scanned right from their pages. 1980's Marvel comics were always full of ads about all the things kids were into: sweets, toys, and games. Comics fans are a little older now, and there aren't any ads for cookies or candies or toys (other than action figures) in comics today, but what has always remained are the video game ads. These ads I got from The New Defenders, No. 125, released November of 1983.

                                    

     Kool-Aid Man was made for both Atari 2600 and Intellivision. They are both very different games as you can see from the screen shots at the bottom. The left one is the Atari 2600 version and the right the Intellivision. Apparently Kool-Aid Man has to battle The Thirsties, those yellow green tongued creatures shown, in both games. Say it with me, "OH YEAAHH!"

                 

     This Popeye two page ad has one disturbing image of Brutus strangling Olive Oyl on the far right. I kinda wonder why there's so much text in this ad. It's all Popeye complaining about the hard things he has to put up with and thereby describing aspects of the game and how great it is. Popeye apparently doesn't approve of eating Spinach in a quiche. What?! Does quiche's unmanliness ruin the benefits of Spinach? Bah! What nonsense! Popeye's an old macho fool.

                               

     As was fairly common in old ads from comic books like this, they were sometimes comics themselves. Solar Fox was a bit like Pac-Man with space ships shooting at you from the top and bottom of the screen. You just had to clear a field of pellets without getting shot. I think it's kind of funny that the girl wants to play at the end and the guy just thinks, "what a space cadet!". I don't think that's sarcastic, it's like, "wow, she's hot and she wants to play a video game with me". Yea, I guess the subliminal message here is that if you play this game the girls will like you, or at least, want to play your game. Yea, that never happened to me. But then again, I never played Solar Fox... hum... 

                               

    In Star Wars Return of the Jedi Death Star Battle, you pilot the Millenium Falcon and shoot at Tie-Fighters until a hole opens in that forcefield shown in the screen shot. You fly through it and then get to shoot at Death Star 2 until you hit the core and destroy it. All the while it fires at you and other ships attack you. Then that's basically it. The game just starts over but slightly harder each time. It's all quite similar to Yar's Revenge. The text below gives you some more information about what you do in the game, but it's that image of a pilot approaching Death Star 2 at the top that really grabs the eye and makes you want to play it. I always liked that logo as used in other Star Wars games. The way the words "Return of the Jedi" are in red and bordered by a double line with "Star Wars" embedded in it.

    All in all, a pretty good catch this week. Four fish in the boat. Time to motor home.