We move closer and closer into the present with the various Mr. T comics and upon hitting 2008, we get to my favorite of the bunch. Now, while Mr. T and the T-Force and the short-lived Mr. T from 2005 involved a couple of neat elements, there’s something rather underwhelming about going the lengths of getting the Mr. T license and not doing anything extra special with it. The A-Team comic wasn’t especially fantastic, but at least it knew that being outlandish couldn’t hurt. The stories made little sense, but we still had B.A. Barracus fighting a sumo, getting into bar fights and knocking out Russian soldiers.

After the unfortunate cancellation of the 2005 Mr. T due to the company closing down, Christopher Bunting decided he would keep it going. He started up Mohawk Media and released yet another Mr. T comic. While the stories are basically split up into issues, including covers, they would not be released separately and by the month. Instead, Bunting would let them loose all at once with the new Mr. T graphic novel.

I don’t know how to feel about that “AS SEEN ON TV” logo.

There are five issues in the trade. The first four are its own story arc with JL Czerniawski on art. The bonus issue is done by artist Giovanni P. Timpano. While, yes, the comic does have a lot of Mr. T being preachy, it’s a lot less forced this time around. The reliance of having Mr. T yell at children for doing drugs is finally put to rest.

Also, between the issues are pages of Mr. T answering fan mail. If you’re wondering, Mr. T believes Clubber Lang would beat B.A. in a fight.

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Mr. T’s comic book reign went dormant during 1994 and it would be that way for some time before he’d make his return. Luckily, the internet was starting to build its way up as a major thing and Mr. T would gain a special status of his own through this new medium. Ah, the old days of the internet during the mid-to-late 90’s. Back when everybody had a hit counter. When you got links to web rings. When people had so much time on their hands that you’d find stuff like a shrine to King of Fighters character Kim Kaphwan and other shit like that. What a time it was.

I’m not sure what the very first internet meme was, but I’d like to believe it was “Mr. T Ate My Balls”, which led to a series of other characters eating balls. It was a stupid, stupid meme based on blurry jpgs of Mr. T with word bubbles portraying him as being interested in devouring your balls. They rarely ever showed anything resembling the act, as the gag was more based on him punching someone out while yelling, “I want your balls, fool!” I can understand why someone would find it funny, but I was never into the whole gag, so I’m going to move on.

Shortly after the Balls site opened up, a college student by the name of Peter Bokma used his University of Idaho web account to put together his own inane site that is sadly banished into the internet void, never to be seen again. Through edited images, he made a short story called “Mr. T vs. Superman”. In it, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman version) asks Mr. T to take care of Superman for him. If he does, he’ll pay him in gold chains. With a determined grimace, Mr. T growls, “Superfool is DEAD!”

What follows is a series of pictures of Christopher Reeve Superman and Mr. T going to war based on whatever is going on in each image. For instance, we’d see Superman holding a missile over his head from one of the movies, with his dialogue saying that he’s going to be using it on Mr. T. The next panel has Mr. T in angry pain, complaining that Superman dropped it on his toe. The fight is soon over with a badly MS Painted image of Mr. T headlocking Superman in one arm and Batman in another. It ends with Mr. T smiling, enjoying how great his new chains are.

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It’s time to talk about the second half of Mr. T and the T-Force, but first I thought I’d bring up the trading cards. Most issues would come shrink-wrapped with Mr. T and the T-Force cards. They would tend to show either cover art or a choice panel on the front while the back would include a quick explanation of how Mr. T is awesome in the light of his environment and a quote from T himself. Here are a couple of them for you.

Note: Mr. T and the T-Force has zero mention of racism.

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Hey, remember when I said this was going to be a 5-parter? Make that 6. I should really learn to count better.

In the first installment, we took a look at Marvel’s A-Team from the mid-80’s. The show faded away, but Mr. T remained Mr. T. While he did have some projects here and there, such as the ever-memorable Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool, Mr. T didn’t really enter the 90’s with any steady piece of media. If he was going to appear in a comic book, he wasn’t going to be B.A. Baracus or any fictional character. T would have to be T.

In the mid-90’s, the company NOW Comics was filled with a myriad of interesting choices for licensed comics. Green Hornet and Terminator? Not bad. Speed Racer and Ghostbusters? Unorthodox, but still fully acceptable. Three Ninjas and Married… with Children? Then you have to vocally wonder what the Christ. Not only that, but the Married… with Children comics included a miniseries where the Bundy family gets powers from cosmic radiation and become the Quantum Quartet. I get the douche chills just thinking about it.

Mr. T would also get some play from NOW with Mr. T and the T-Force. The series lasts a whopping ten issues, longer than any other Mr. T series to date. Well, ten issues that I know of. Wikipedia suggests that there were eleven issues and there were certainly more announced within the comics, but I haven’t seen any evidence of issue #11. Though there also appears to be an annual that came out during the series’ existence. I’ve found absolutely nothing on it online outside of a Scans_Daily post showing Mr. T fighting a dude who looks like a cross between Spoiler and Phantasm.

The series ultimately works like Marvel’s Nextwave in that each arc is done in two issues. Unlike Nextwave, each arc is done by a different creative team. That means there really isn’t any true arc to the comic. Just a series of subplots and callbacks to supporting characters.

The main problem with the series is how Mr. T himself just doesn’t seem to have anything going on. While he’s shown to be a landlord, he has no actual personal life. He just goes around stumbling across people who need his help. B.A. Baracus helped people all the time too, but he still had his own personal problems to deal with. The army was after him, he had to deal with Murdock’s nonsense and his fear of flying. In Mr. T and the T-Force, Mr. T’s life seems just a little too perfect to the point that they rarely even show him in any real peril. So much that whenever anyone pulls a gun on him, he disarms them at the snap of a finger every time. I’m going to keep a tally on that.

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In less than two months, the new A-Team movie will be released in theaters. Even though I have a feeling the movie will be less than great, I’m still excited about it and have been ever since I heard about the casting. As far as I’m concerned, they were four-for-four with their choices and that gave the project a big head start. I suppose as long as it isn’t amazingly terrible, it’s good to see the movie exist because I’m just happy to see more A-Team.

It was a really good show and it hits me of why. The thing was like a Justice League made up of four characteristics that dudes find empowering: suave, slick, crazy and tough. Each guy fully encapsulated these ideals and nobody came off as the weak link. All four had something to offer. That said, the additional members pretty much sucked. By that I mean the two female reporters and that Santana guy they tossed in during the last season. I appreciate the attempt to keep the show fresh in the face of declining viewership, but I can’t remember a thing that guy had to offer. When the show lasted, you had a great foursome of heroes enduring explosions, rampant gunfire that almost never hit a single human being, episode after episode of making fools out of the government and bad guys who could be taken care of in less than an hour thanks to Hannibal being on the jazz. It was manly as hell.

Of course, the man we remember the show for most of all is Mr. T, who played the role of Bosco “B.A.” Baracus. With momentum from his role as the antagonist of Rocky III, Mr. T not only became a highly-paid star during the A-Team’s five seasons, but it practically defined his career. While George Peppard, Dick Benedict and Dwight Schultz each played characters, Mr. T was – and still is – a character in himself. Baracus was nothing more than an extension of his real life persona to the point that it’s hard to tell where Mr. T ends and B.A. begins. Even to this day, he stars in Snickers commercials where he gets so outraged at a man’s cowardice that he fires Snickers bars at him from a helicopter and warns him not to make him do this again because he hates flying.

And God bless him. I think the world of Mr. T and it’s hard to say exactly why. I guess he’s just a larger-than-life personality that accumulates nostalgia, super-strength, unique style, badass disposition, camp and a genuine heart of gold. Not only that, but he embraces what he is. Not as endearing as him kicking cancer’s ass (T-cell lymphoma, ironically), but endearing enough.

I thought I’d celebrate the lead-up to the A-Team movie by taking a look at Mr. T’s many comic book appearances from over 25 years. That’s right, over 25. Eat that, Norris!

What better way to start it off than Marvel’s A-Team miniseries? It lasted three issues, with the first one written by Jim Salicrup and drawn by Marie Severin. If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you probably already know what the A-Team is about. A handful of soldiers are wanted for a crime they didn’t commit and now go from city to city, righting wrongs as soldiers of fortune. There’s the brilliant, cigar-chomping tactician Hannibal, the quick-witted ladies man Face, the insane and childlike “Howling Mad” Murdock and of course, B.A. Baracus. Oh, and there’s reporter Amy Allen, but she never did anything of importance.

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