Nerding Day: Marty Party in Space (Patreon)

It's Nerding Day and it's time to party! Marty style! But also space style, because Marty Stuart is having a Marty Party In Space!

You seem confused. Let me start again. In 1995, Marvel was a year away from going bankrupt, but I doubt it had anything to do with fantastic decisions like the one they made to publish Marty Party In Space. The comic featured the world famous, sure-fire hitmaker, Marty Stuart, and you already seem confused again. Let's look at the back and see if we can make sense of this.

The comic claims MARTY STUART is "the hottest country star on Earth," and I don't want to brag about my taste in music, but that could be entirely possible. Unfortunately for Marty, I fact checked it.

These aren't great numbers. Marty Stuart is heading into space tied with every astronaut who has ever lived for Most Top 10 Hit Songs. But maybe I'm not being fair. The comic book said he was the hottest country star on Earth, and rating country music next to regular music is like rating country sex next to non-chicken sex. So let's narrow our focus to just the chicken sex, or as it's known on Billboard.com, "Hot Country Songs."

These are pretty good numbers! Six top ten country hits puts him in the same category as Hat Bradley Jr or Scooter Jim and the Henfuckers, two acts you didn't know I made up until Scooter's jug section fucked those chickens. The point is, at his peak, Marty Stuart was never Earth's hottest country star. And in 1995, the year this was published, he was tied with Travis Tritt for the 46th hottest country star on his literal best day. Here is a line from Marty's Wikipedia that probably hurts his feelings when he looks himself up:

So Marty Stuart is a singer you would recognize if you were a country music fan ten years earlier or a Mississippi Walmart shopper three years after that. Who the fuck thought Marty Stuart should be the face of this country western adventure through the stars!?

Oh, that makes sense. It seems like Marty had the idea to use the booming 1995 comic book industry to promote his greatest hits album, The Marty Party Hit Pack. There's an ad for it right inside. "Time to Party... Pick Up Your 12 Pack Today!," shouts Marty from a blazer made from the patch of casino carpet where his second wife went missing.

Comparing the twelve songs on The Marty Party Hit Pack to a half rack of beer helps us understand Marty and his label better. It means Marty Party In Space ($5.95 U.S., $8.35 CAN.) is a product trying to hit the coveted market of children in comic book stores who love bluegrass music, speculative science fiction, and social drinking. It was an insane demographic to hit, so Marvel put two industry veterans on the project. And when I say veterans, I mean both the writer and the illustrator were in their seventies. This might already be the worst idea you've ever heard, and I haven't even told you yet that it's fifty pages long and very racial.

The story opens with Marty performing his chart-appearing hit from five years earlier, "Hillbilly Rock." His admiring audience's enthusiasm rises, according to the elderly comic book writer very familiar with Morty Stuber and this genre of music. Mysterious and unseen men decide Marty has earned the sacred magical ring, the highest honor in country music. Other mysterious and unseen men are watching that, and plotting to steal the magical ring. We are only one page in and you already need to forget everything you know about magic ring succession, the importance of mid-level country music, and watching people.

Two creeps corner Marty backstage and tell him he's earned "a really special ring." They say it's only ever been held by Hank Williams Sr. and Elvis Presley. The fact that Marty Stuart is about to go to space is more reasonable than him being included in this discussion of all-time greats. If you made a Mount Rushmore of country music legends and put Marty Stuart on it, people would assume he was a Dolly Parton head marking the site of a catastrophic sculpting accident.

The artist seems to have only been given one picture with which to draw Marty Stuart, so he grins back at them the same way he grinned while he was playing (the enduring classic) "Hillbilly Rock." He buys the whole thing. These men, drawn like cartoon grifters, award him The Country Music Association's Green Lantern Ring for Outstanding Small Venue Country Western Performance and Marty Stuart is like, "Thanks for the magic ring, fellas! I guess I am kinda up there with The King!"

This magnificent, important artifact doesn't come with instructions. If it does something, the Country Music Association representatives didn't explain what or how it might be. Or why? Marty has fewer questions than me. He checks to see if it works by playing the guitar and has no second idea. There's an unnamed loose pig backstage, which feels like something I'd demand a fucking explanation for if I was country music star Marty Stuart. Maybe even before I ask about the ring.

Marty and his dog, Oscar Lee, start driving to Nashville and they are caught in a beam of light. "Huh?" screams legendary chart topper, Marty Stuart. And get used to that, because he screams it for several more pages.

"I must have rented one of them glowing cars," thinks Marty Stuart. "Oh well," he also thinks.

"I guess it was the sun," he now thinks. By this point he has been Earth's ring protector as decreed by the Country Music Association for at least two hours and Marty Stuart still can't recognize an obvious tractor beam.

When they come out of the tunnel, the beam of light envelops them again, killing his dog. "I didn't have a picture of Marty Stuart where he looks like his dog is being pulled apart by light," said the illustrator. "So I used the smiling one for reference again. I'm going to keep doing it, no matter how weird it gets."

Marty Stuart is confused by the beam of light. Not still, but again. Every moment is a new thing he doesn't understand or remember, but he seems to be thinking this, as far as dog executions go, is shaping up to be a fun one.

"There goes my dog being taken to Heaven," Marty Stuart must certainly be thinking. Remember when I said this comic was fifty pages long? You probably thought that would mean a lot of story after the opening one established Marty Stuart as third in a line of country magic ring guardians. But here we are, four pages into Marty making bad guesses about a light beam. He's not done, either.

"Here comes God's final judgment for me too, I guess," giggles bluegrass sensation Marty Stuart.

It sort of gives away your lack of confidence in Marty Stuart's popularity when you make him remind the audience, for the second time in this same beam attack, that he is a country music singer. But at least for one fleeting moment, as he's yanked through the sunroof of a car going 70 mph, he recognizes he may be in danger.

It took six pages to do it, but the space beam has finished pulling Earth's hottest country star 25 feet into the air. Marty, recent recipient of a magic ring, tries to think of all the reasons he would be abducted by a space ship. "Moon gig," he thinks, and again has no second idea. This is the full depth of Marty's personality and expertise. That grin is the full gamut of his face's expressions. It's as if Stan Lee handed the writer and artist this album cover . . .

. . . and said "I wish I could tell you more, true believers, but we need you to come out of retirement and get whoever this is to space. I'll need fifty pages on my desk tonight."

Marty and his dog have been pulled into the stars and trapped in a furry lavender chamber, but when a country accent greets them, Marty finally decides this is ridiculous. Space hillbillies? That is fucking stupid. And for once, his instincts are right.

This is a nightmare. No matter what you imagine you'll encounter as you're being pulled into a UFO's prison cell, this is worse. It takes only a moment for Marty to accept this is possible-- these are real alien hillbillies. But then something more impossible happens . . .

. . . someone has heard of Marty Stuart. These aliens are familiar with him! Probably from his appearance on episode 15 of the 23rd season of Hee Haw, but mostly because he wields the magic ring from earlier. You might remember it because we are eleven pages into the story and it's one of the two things that has happened. Marty hides the ring by taking it off his finger, the only place they look. But no amount of cunning can save him from being trapped! Trapped upon the star toilet! How will Marty Stuart, ring-bearing country music star, escape?

Tail wag to the CHAIR OFF lever! Marty is freed by his dog's natural happiness! You know, Marty Stuart is lucky he was driving to Nashville with his dog and not Travis Tritt, because Travis Tritt knows enough about outer space to avoid slapping your ass into a UFO's probes. At least until all other options are exhausted. "None of these buttons or knobs do anything, Marty Stuart! I... I've got one last thing to try, b-but you can't tell anybody about this." Hold on, I know I was in the middle of something. Right! This comic book!

Marty Stuart hides the magic ring on Oscar Lee's collar because to his credit, he is taking his duties as Country Music Association's Ring Paladin seriously. The star hillbillies return with food for the dog which was entirely their idea, and not another cunning Marty Stuart plan. They arrive right as Marty is shouting "PERFECT TO HIDE THE MAGICAL RING!" two feet from their ears in a language they understand. Their leader has the most high-tech name a 72-year-old comic writer in 1995 could come up with, "CD ROM."

The aliens have forgotten all about the ring. They seem to come from a society built entirely around Season 23, Episode 15 of Hee Haw... a planet called Blue Grass. They show it to him on the most high-tech device a 72-year-old comic writer in 1995 could come up with, a virtual reality headset.

If I'm being honest, this is more offensive and contains two more nude children than I was expecting. This looks like a courtroom drawing of a January 6th hearing. This is the closest I've ever come as a White to saying, "Now wait just a moment, sir, that's racist!" I guess we should be grateful they picked Caucasians for their racial caricature.

After all, it coul . . .

Oh no. This can't be good. The space hillbillies are at war with, and these are Marty Party In Space's words not mine, THE BACKWARDS BOOGER-MEN FROM THE PLANET HIP-HOP. We were all expecting a '90s country music comic book to age badly, but you couldn't have seen an intergalactic race war coming. I want you to really take the Hip-Hopians in. I'm not sure this creative team born in the early 1920s got even 15% of those racial stereotypes right, and that's taking for granted they should be referencing any at all. This looks like a cat tried to draw Parliament Funkadelic from memory. It looks like a Fat Albert scene Bill Cosby wrote after his date switched drinks with him.

After showing Marty Stuart footage of the people of Hip-Hop dancing and singing about the joy of music, Marty doesn't quite understand how it justifies genocide. It's a decent point, but Hillbilly Commander CD ROM counters with, "We don't like their music, and killing their planet is the easiest way to deal with it." So there are good people on both sides. Speaking of, Marty's ship is now facing off against a Hip-Hop ship in star combat. Which means we are up to a third thing happening.

"We sometimes communicate with rap," the crew of the Hip-Hop ship says. "Not all the time though," they rap. "We don't have anyone in our lives we can check with to see if this is okay," the creative team says. "Album sales are going to go through the roof," raps Earth legend Marty Stuart.

This isn't racism, though maybe we should take it as such, but when the space blacks hear the voice of Marty Stuart's hound dog, they start worshiping it like it's their God. Again, I don't know what foul indecency this could possibly be based on, but I know in my heart it is 100% not okay.

On his first try, Marty Stuart raps well enough to pause a genocide. He suggests deciding the race war with a sing-off between the country western people of Blue Grass and the rap users of Hip-Hop. Marty, as a country western artist currently being murdered in space by the other side, would act as the impartial judge. "Oh my God, shut the fuck up and let this happen," says the momentum of the story after 40 pages of racist inaction.

With the same grin he wears on stage, strapped to a star toilet, or caught in the crossfire of a very, very ethnic cleansing, Marty Stuart declares it a tie. This infuriates everyone, but country singer Marty Stuart has an idea, and it's the same one-- country music. This infuriates everyone.

"That's a grandma chord," says the Hip-Hop Rapper about Marty Stuart's chord. In many ways it's incredible how this writer managed to stay alive for over seven decades without ever hearing music or having it described to him. "That chord is square," says the Blue Grass Hillbilly as if to prove, yes, the only thing this writer knows about music is "chords" and how there are good ones and bad ones. Marty Stuart tries a different chord and everyone agrees it's one of the good ones. They unite through the power of music.

Marty Stuart has done it! He's saved the universe! One more thing, though. On the next page both ships are disabled by an asteroid and Marty repairs the engine with his magic Country Music Association ring, which I'm so happy to explain is its only power. It fixes starship engines! This is the only thing it has ever done!

"By the sorcery of Hank Williams Sr., bow to my will, fuel rods!" I love this. This is pure misfiring brain. A child couldn't be this stupid. This plot is something you would cough at a paramedic after falling into a Tennessee aquarium and dying for five minutes.

President Clinton receives an emergency warning of a star ship over American airspace but doesn't need to hear another word. It's absolutely the work of the promoters for the future site of Disneyland Virginia. I don't know why they included this. I don't know why I included this. It's such an unnecessary and pointless detail. It's as if the creators wanted us to know that Earth didn't notice Marty Stuart was gone. The President of the United States is saying, "Look, if you've got a flying saucer I might look up, but not if it's got Marty Stuart in it."

When it comes time to explain where he's been, Marty handles it the same way he has handled everything since the second I learned who he was. Fucking country music, the end.

...

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