NFL SuperPro #8: Vengeance

Sanzionare hires Crossbones to frame Phil’s friend Ron; Captain America lends a hand.

Issue #8

Phil and Ken cover a “Just Say No!” anti-drug event at Soldier Field, which features several notable guest speakers: Anthony Muñoz, Derrick Thomas, and Joe Gibbs (I looked them all up to see if they were real, and yes they are). Also speaking at the event is Ron Macedon, Phil’s old buddy from the first couple issues.

Phil spots C-List supervillain Crossbones breaking into the locker room; he quickly changes into his SuperPro costume (in 60 seconds) and chases after him.

SuperPro fights Crossbones but gets sliced by a poison-tipped knife. Captain America arrives and chases Crossbones away, then sucks the poison out of SuperPro’s leg.

Upon SuperPro’s return to the Anti-Drug event, he finds that Ron Macedon’s been arrested – drugs were found in his locker. Hmm!

Going on the Offensive

With detective work, and looking at the label on the silk coat Crossbones left behind, Ken sends SuperPro to a mansion belonging to Marco Sanzionare, SuperPro’s nemesis last seen in issue #4.

SuperPro fights both Sanzionare and Crossbones, but they escape without a trace. Afterwards, SuperPro returns to the Anti-Drug event and the charges against Macedon are dropped.

Thoughts

Not bad. About what you’d expect from SuperPro, but there wasn’t anything egregiously hammy here. Sanzionare still sucks and Crossbones leaving clues behind was really dumb – he left just enough for Phil and Ken to tail him. The comic tries to lampshade this by having Sanzionare yelling at him for being dumb, but that only called attention to it.

Captain America’s stay is brief, but that’s fine and I think he was handled better than Spider-Man in issue #1. He doesn’t take any attention away from SuperPro; he pops in, helps out, tells the hero he’s awesome, then pops out – SuperPro still does the heavy lifting, as he should.