Issue(s): Speedball #8
Cover Date: Apr 89
Title: "School of hard knocks / Cold comfort"
Credits:
Roger Stern / Mary Jo Duffy - Script
Steve Ditko - Plot
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Bruce D. Patterson - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
This month's villain is Bonehead, leader of the Bonehead Gang, who uses his bone head for crime.

His target is the Founder's Day community fund, where the hot topic of discussion is the murder of Alex Bow from Speedball #4.

And of course Speedball stops Bonehead despite his powerful bone head. In fact, the bone head just provides more kinetic energy for Speedball to turn back at him.

The much more psychedelic depiction of the fight on the cover makes me wish Ditko was given something more fantasy oriented to do. This story was Roger Stern's last, so he doesn't even get to conclude the Alex Bow storyline, which is odd since it was always the stories he scripted that were developing (so to speak) that plotline (so to speak). This lends to the idea that his scripting of these stories was happening before he was fired, and for some reason instead of just publishing them sequentially they had Mary Jo Duffy stories inserted to round out every issue. The Mary Jo Duffy issues were always purely standalone, even by the standards of this series.

For example, here's the Mary Jo Duffy story for this issue, which features Robbie getting some really bad advice from his mom.

Even Robbie recognizes it as being weird.

The girl he likes is Teri Cooper (spelled "Terri" here) who has been growing her hair out (maybe it's an attempt to give her a more modern hairstyle? The panel looks really overworked.).

Robbie doesn't have to try hard to find another girl to make Teri jealous with, thanks to the new rich girl, Monica Deluise.

Monica takes an instant liking to Robbie, evident here as they go out on a double date and find themselves getting pushed out of a restaurant despite having a reservation.

Then some guys try to kidnap Monica, and Robbie rescues her as Speedball. She's less interested in him.

When it's over, Monica has to leave because her dad's a Senator and he has to testify in Washington. So Robbie never gets a date to the prom.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A