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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