Thursday, June 15, 2023

ROCKHEAD IV

ROCKY IV
(1985)
dir: Sylvester Stallone

ROCKHEAD IV
MAD #262, April 1986
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker
When we last left off, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) won his bout with Clubber Lang (Mr.T.), and it was left to the viewer who won a private friendly match between him and Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). At home Rocky and his wife Adrian (Talia Shire) are having a party for her brother Pauly (Burt Young). The Soviets have developed their champion boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) which his wife (Brigitte Nielsen) is introducing to Americans.
In the audience in the splash panel are Benchley, Drucker's newspaper strip, and Hulk Hogan, who was in the previous Rocky movie.

Apollo comes out of retirement to fight Ivan despite protests from Rocky, the Italian Stallion. He goes through with it and gets pummeled to death by Ivan.
Rocky decides it's up to him to fight Ivan to avenge the death of Apollo, and the bout takes place in Russia, becoming a fight of “U.S. vs. U.S.S.R”. In Russia, he trains with primitive resources while Ivan has state of the art equipment. Pauly goes with him and he's later joined by Adrian. The crowd, being Russian, starts out on Ivan's side.
Rocky wins the bout. Is it even necessary to say? The Mount Rushmore here consists of Stallone as both Rocky and Rambo with Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson.
I made up words to the theme song in high school. All I remember is the middle, it went something like this: “Rocky 2...Rocky 3...Rocky 4...Rocky 5... That's a whole lot of Rockies...Why are there so many, I don't know...oh... Gonna fly now...” I don't know why Rocky was singled out as having so many sequels when there were a dozen or so other franchises. MAD picked Rocky in particular too in #264, July 1986.
Mexico's take on the parody.
And the Netherlands, with politicians only they would know about.
And Germany.
ROCKEY IV
Cracked #220, July 1986
w: Mort Todd
a: Bob Fingerman

In his match with Ivan Drago in Vegas, he came down a big stage with James Brown.
Stallone did a movie about arm wrestling called Over the Top.
ROCKEY: 2001
Cracked #219, May 1986
w: Eel O'Brien (Mort Todd)
a: John Severin
MR. ROCKEY'S NEIGHBORHOOD
Cracked #219, May 1986
w: Mark Lewis
a: John Reiner

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