Here’s a small gallery of scans from the backs of comic books from the 1990s. Today’s special is “buddy movies.”
Yes, that’s Sly Stallone and Kurt Russell, from the truly terrible cop movie Tango & Cash. The movie was actually released in 1989, but this shot comes from the back cover of a 1990 Batman comic book:
The Last Boy Scout partnered tough-guy Bruce Willis with Damon Wayans in another crummy cop movie. This ad is also from the back cover of a Batman comic book, Legends of the Dark Knight No. 27, from February of 1992. That’s 20 years ago! This was one of those Shane Black movies — he’d made a big splash as a screenwriter after the success of Lethal Weapon (1987). This looks like Hollywood was trying to recapture some of that magic, where the angry white guy has to learn to get along with the wimpy black guy:
It’s a pretty forgettable movie, even if it does have Halle Berry in one of her first movie roles (she plays a foxy chick).
For our next entry, the odd-couple angle is covered by age, not race. It’s old-timer Clint Eastwood and hot new star Charlie Sheen in The Rookie, from 1990. This bad movie was directed by Clint Eastwood, before he started getting Oscar nominations for simply walking down the street. And it was waaaaaaay before Charlie Sheen went all nutsy. From another Batman comic, this ad is from January of 1991:
Cops aren’t the only ones who make good buddies! Let’s not forget our proud men in the military. It’s Charlie Sheen again, this time in Navy Seals (“America’s Top Secret Weapon” — because nobody even knows about Navy Seals!). Strictly speaking, this isn’t quite a “buddy movie.” These guys don’t have to learn to love each other — they already love each other. So much so, they scrap one guy’s wedding plans and go kill some dangerous foreigners instead. This ad is from the back of the August 1990 Shade the Changing Man No. 2:
Up next, more bonding, more buddies… and Brad Johnson? Squint your eyes and it’s Tom Berenger! That’s what the film’s casting director said to the producers. Flight of the Intruder is a male bonding movie about the war in Vietnam. Specifically, about how even though we bombed their cities and killed their civilians, they still managed to teach us a valuable lesson about honor and friendship. This ad is from the back of Batman, Legends of the Dark Knight No. 15, from February of 1991. The movie was directed by John Milius, the writer of Apocalypse Now and the director of 1984’s Red Dawn:
Guess what? You can be buddies without carrying a gun. That’s what Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter taught us, with Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the lame follow-up to 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. This ad comes from the back of No. 14 of Shade the Changing Man, from August of 1991:
Finally, what’s the best kind of buddy? The best kind of buddy is someone who looks JUST LIKE YOU. Regrettably, in this instance Jean-Claude Van Damme’s two characters are twins “torn apart by violence” (perhaps they were conjoined twins connected at the deltoid?). Even more regrettably, Who2 doesn’t have a profile of Jean-Claude Van Damme OR his twin brother, Jean-Claude Van Damme.
That’s it for today. There are more movie ads from comic books in my collection, but I’ll wait for another day to show them.