Bizarre characters: Skateman by Neal Adams - Was it really the worst comic book of all time?

Skateman (Pacific Comics) is generally regarded as one of the worst comic books ever published, personally I don’t agree with that ascertain and even although it certainly isn’t a good comic book I have read far worse in my time. What it is , is a comic featuring one of the most bizarrely ludicrous concepts for a comic book hero in many a year. Skateman is basically a guy whose super-power is that he knows a bit of kung-fu and is a pretty good roller-skater . The fact that its creator was Neal Adams, one of the genres most highly regarded and influential creators made it all the more ripe for ridicule amongst many fanboys of the early 1980’s . Upon opening the book you immediately sense that this may have been a rushed job by Pacific and Adams, instead of having a splash page the cover is simply reprinted with added word ballons.

To add to the theory that this comic was a rush job you need to remember that Adams was still a hot property at this time and the new Pacific comics were keen to add Neal Adams to their mounting list of creators. Adams had already delivered the first issue of his then new character Ms Mystic to Pacific however; it had been almost 2 years and issue 2 was still nowhere to be seen. Skateman it seems may have been meant for another purpose when Adams dusted it down and sent to it Pacific for publication to allow him time to get Ms Mystic back on schedule. Below are a few select pages from the offering that was Skateman a character as far as I am aware has never appeared since:

Since this is a super-hero book, the protagonist (Billy Moon) must protect his secret identity in this case by pretending not to be able to skate on a date (in a skating date!!!) in case she suspects him of being the dorkiest hero of the 1980s - was roller skating even a thing in 1983?

There were also two short back-up strips in this issue, The first of these was ”Korlack of Futureworld" by Andy Kubert and Jack Arata which provides a glimpse into a post-apocalyptic world. The second strip, “Rock Warrior” by Paul S. Power is all over the place and to be honest I had no idea what was going on in this one.

Allegedly Skateman was partially responsible for the eventual fall of Pacific Comics as they had published so many of these books based on Neal Adams name selling anything that was published. However many of these issues (1,000's) went unsold. What this comic proved to me was that Neal Adams was undoubtably one of the greatest comic book artists the genre has ever known but he was not a writer. A lesson that Neal (and other publishers) sadly never learned.