STORY: Michael Gallagher 
Art: Howie Post
Cover: Howie Post
Publisher: Star Comics (Marvel)
Price: $.75
Release Date: September, 1986

For anyone who grew up in the 80's and 90's, I think you'll agree that the toys and TV shows we had as kids were far more influential on present day culture than the effect of current media, and such, on the future.

That said, how many of you remember Muscle Men? Little 3 inch non-posable wrestling figures of just about any strange being you could think of that didn't already exist somewhere else. They came in a clear plastic trash can, and at some point, had their own Saturday morning cartoon (man, what happened to those?).

Ok, now the easy part. We all remember Garbage Pale Kids, right? Those were the days. Simpler times. Well somewhere in the realm of obscure wierdallities (real word), lying just between Muscle Men and Garbage Pale Kids is the perfect amalgam of both...Madballs!
These were the nurf-like, tennis ball sized balls sporting strange, and sometimes recognizable faces of the strange and grotesque. You could throw them with your friends, you could throw them with your mom, you could throw them AT your mom. You could hide them in places you knew they shouldn't be, and you could hide them with your dog.

The point is that they could do anything any other ball could do (?) except they had a face. Which was totally rad, because then you could do more with them. And all of this culminated into their huge popularity, for about six months, and eventually landed them in their own cartoon, AND in the pages of their own comic.

So thanks again to Brother Joe C. for scouring the quarter bins and bringing us our second Lost Treasures feature.

You lost them, we found them. Now we can all remember them.

See you in the future! AC