Set Description:
After the Death of Superman storyline pulled me back into comic book collecting I would pre-order books through Previews and had a pull list at the local comic book store wherever I lived. This story came out while I was stationed in Iwakuni Japan and I knew a shop Owner in Beaufort South Carolina that was nice enough to mail me a box each month with my books as well as the next issue of Previews. This was all old-fashioned mail at that time.
Major Bummer is one of the titles that I gave a try and enjoyed throughout its entire run. The story was pretty wacky and you got the sense that the writers were given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted… too bad it only lasted 15 issues! The idea was that a couple of space alien college students had a project to see what happens if they gave a human being superpowers. The problem was that they accidentally gave these powers to the wrong guy… not ONLY the wrong guy but a pretty unmotivated guy by the name of Lou Martin who would rather play video games than save the world.
Our hero is slowly surrounded by a pretty crazy cast of characters as well as bad guys. The aliens that accidentally gave him superpowers join in at times throughout the story, which takes us in many different directions. There’s a Nazi T-Rex as well as plenty of superpowered mutants. The story concludes with Lous (plural) from multiple time streams converging. It’s a fun ride and I think this would be a great idea for a movie.
A sample of his rogues gallery is below, along with one of his gal pals…
When I decided to build this set my idea was to submit my reader copies. If they didn’t all come back 9.8 oh well, that’s a bummer, but it kinda fits with the idea of Major Bummer being the title. When I looked through my books they were all pretty sharp except issue 6 had some pretty good color breaks on the spine. I ended up picking up some extra copies and switched a couple of my originals out. Even if I wasn’t worried about all 9.8’s with this set I didn’t see any sense in submitting books that were obviously much lower than that. Interestingly, some of the books, even from completely different sources had the exact same scratches in certain areas, especially the back cover. I sent all 15 issues in at once through CCS and did the quick press on them… I used part of my grading credit from my main set (Superman: Doomsday! Funeral for a Friend Reign of the Supermen!) winning Best Presented Set in 2020 to grade these books and ended up with thirteen 9.8’s, and two 9.6’s out of the bunch! Not too bad! The 9.6’s ended up being issue 1 and issue 6. All copies except for issue 1 are the first graded examples of that book. My plan had been to leave the set as-is and not worry about upgrading if any weren’t 9.8’s on the first attempt BUT it just so happened that there was a 9.8 of issue 1 on eBay the day that I got the grades and I couldn’t resist the temptation of picking it up while I could. There is not a lot of excitement surrounding this title so I doubt I’ll have much competition any time soon. As I said before though, I think this would make for a cool movie… laugh now, but if that ever happens I will be sitting on a literal GOLD MINE! Step aside AC 1 and AF 15 if that ever happens!!
Once I had the grades I had to request that the competitive set be created. After fifteen months of this set being the only set in this Set Type I created a second set so it wouldn't feel so lonely... later, in October 2022 I deleted both competitive sets and created a Custom Set because CGC was talking about making newsstands variants and I disagreed with the possibility of newsstands having their own slots. In fact I deleted ALL my competitive sets except one.. it was a bummer but at least I was able to preserve the absolute hystericalness of this set in the Custom Set! Lucky for You! Once I was done with my temper tantrum over how ugly newsstands are, I recreated this set because I realized no one really cared about it except me... I did lose my Best in Set Type icons when I did all this deleting/recreating... that was a major bummer and I didn't like it, so I have went ahead and put them back here...
 
Niiiiiiice!! Later on, CGC decided to make newsstands slot options and they put the newsstand designation in the Pedigree field, rather than give them their own slots... they are the same Comic/Comic ID after all. I later deleted the Custom Set because it was basically the same books as this set and it was too much work to have two! Back to THIS set...
I included a page from each book in that book’s second image slot which kinda shows how ridiculous this series was. I’m glad to have created this set and hope everyone enjoys it. Some may dismiss this as ‘90’s drek but it was a fun book and isn’t that what this hobby is supposed to be about?
Even with superpowers this guy is clueless…
Disclaimer: The Set and Book descriptions herein are for entertainment purposes ONLY and are intended to emulate the rediculousness of this series. They are not meant to be taken too seriously... thank you for your cooperation and understanding! |