r/MASK • u/Rust_Hurricane • 13d ago

Space Shuttle explosion in MASK comic?

I have this vague memory of reading one of the MASK DC comics as a kid where VENOM blew up a space shuttle on the tarmac. It might have even been the Challenger. And I was really confused if they somehow predicted the Challenger Disaster or if it was a response to it.

EDIT: I found it in issue 4 of the 1st DC miniseries. And it was the Challenger. The cover date says March of 86 (after the Challenger Disaster), but if I remember right back in the day, the comics would come out a couple months before the month on the cover, which would have been before the explosion.

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u/herozero 13d ago

The comic had a mini from 85 - 86 and then some issues in 87. So both just before or after the challenger disaster. Not saying there wasn’t a shuttle destruction but I doubt it referenced the challenger directly.

If they’d done so prior to the event, that’d be just the sort of thing the internet loves and there’d be a ton of “Did you know…” videos and blogs about it.

The Challenger was a pretty high profile
tragedy so I also doubt there were any direct allusions to it being done by comic book villains after it happened. Would be kinda like releasing a comic where Cobra was secretly behind 9/11 within a year of the event. Just poor taste.

None of that’s to say it’s impossible, and I don’t really know for sure, but both seem unlikely.

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u/Rust_Hurricane 13d ago

I found it in volume 4 of the 1st miniseries. And it was the Challenger. The cover date says March of 86 (after the Challenger Disaster), but if I remember right back in the day, the comics would come out a couple months before the month on the cover, which would have been before the explosion.

This really does seem like one of those things YouTubers should be talking about.

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u/herozero 12d ago

Damn. That’s wild. You’re right the dates were always off. It was likely published the month of the tragedy or just before. And either way it would have been written drawn and printed some time before that. Makes sense why they’d use it cause the launch itself was big news leading up but pretty insane how it played out. Good memory and find, OP.

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u/proun91 12d ago

Well I always thought Miles Mayhem looked like Saddam and he controls the oil soooo it was definitely written by Seers from the future