the unlikely adventures of the grand canyon's own superheroes (1995)
TRANSCRIPT
The Unlikely Adventures of the Grand Canyon’s Own Superheroes
Bizarro Back Issues
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
Comic Books Galore!The ’90s were a magical time for the world of comic books.
It became a golden age of PSAs and promo comics, with everything from Christian weightlifters to national parks being cast in super heroic adventures.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
That’s right, everybody: National Parks. It seems that sometime in the mid-90s, someone decided that the natural grandeur of the Grand Canyon was having a rough time appealing to kids in an age of rap music and Super Nintendos, and that’s what America’s greatest landmark needed was a team of vaguely heroic characters to explain why littering is bad: Chasm and the Eco Squad!
Remember the Nintendo games?
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
Grand Canyon Comic Characters…
Created in 1995 by writer Mark Iacampo and artist Doug Smedley, Jr., Chasm and the Eco-Squad — which included Chasm’s psychic pet falcon, Phantom — appeared in at least four issues of Canyon Comics Presents. The short-lived series was published by the Grand Canyon Association, the nonprofit that runs all the non-essential parts of the park’s tourist industry, and as you might expect, it’s mostly about all the cool stuff you can see if you visit, and how you shouldn’t just throw your damn soda can everywhere or toss rocks off the side of the trail, you jerks.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
The first issue is focused almost exclusively on Chasm alone — with a guest appearance from Wolf and his magic katana, which is every bit as amazing as it sounds — but the rest of the crew doesn’t show up until the second issue. It also tells their origin story, and considering that it’s referenced in the first issue, I got the idea that it might’ve been meant to be put out first, but that the Grand Canyon wanted to do some Avengers-style world building with solo heroes before they really expanded into the National Park Service Shared Universe.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Grand Canyon had super-powers?
Either way, here’s the short version: A bunch of people got powers from Mother Nature, represented here as an actual ethereal woman who hangs out at the Grand Canyon handing out super-powers and magic swords to local college students and sketchy bounty hunters.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
The powers themselves range from the very specific to an arsenal of bizarrely vague abilities that seem like they might’ve been drawn out of a hat. Rex, an amateur paleontologist, can turn into any dinosaur, something that helps out a lot in #4 when he gets sent back to the Mesozoic to see the Grand Canyon when it was just a shallow river, but Chasm gets super-strength, the ability to speak to animals, a psychically linked bird pal, and a crossbow that shoots “no ordinary bolts,” which seem to be able to do pretty much anything.
The World of Comic Books and Talking Animals
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
As for why, well, there are bad guys out there who are, for some reason, just hell-bent on destroying national parks. There’s Roughcutt, who has chainsaws for arms, Ardent, an arsonist who “blazes with EVIL and would see the whole WORLD afire with the hate that burns through her own veins,” a yeti-lookin’ dude named Wylde Beest who is “a creature of DEATH, the embodiment of MAN’s desire to KILL.”
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
The leader of the bad guys is a revenge-crazed maniac named Dr. Arachnid, and after the Litterbug’s plan to turn the Grand Canyon into the Grand Landfill is dealt with in a shockingly violent fashion, he takes over for the second half of the first issue.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
Fun Stories of the Canyon…..
At its heart, this story is just a big PSA comic about some standard Dos and Don’ts of hiking at the Grand Canyon: A couple of kids get understandably excited about seeing all the glorious majesty that the park has to offer and run down the trail ahead of their parents with no water on a very hot day, making sure to not talk to strangers and stay the hell away from rattlesnakes.
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
I think we all learn a good lesson about what we should do if we ever visit one of our country’s most beautiful wonders: Drink plenty of water, stay with your parents, and stick to the established trails.
If you don’t, you might end up meeting a couple of actual superheroes and watching them fight a mountain lion with a magic katana, and I’m sure nobody would want that!
223,217,31Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center450 State Route 64 Grand Canyon, AZ, 86023Phone: 928-638-2468
explorethecanyon.com
Grand Canyon National Geographic Visitor Center
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Phone: (928) 638-2468
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