This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of pieces looking at advertisements in comic books over the decades that amused me for whatever reason. Here is an archive of all installments of this feature.

Today we look at the final issue of Marvel's Godzilla comic book from 1979 and the three ads within the comic that featured famous athletes endorsing products. Two of the three have since become...well...let's just say not as well-admired as they were in 1979...heck, even the third had his issues...

We open with an ad featuring Pete Rose, roughly a decade before he was banned from Major League Baseball for life due to gambling on the game...

Said lifetime ban was recently re-confirmed by the current MLB Commissioner. The fact that Rose bet on his own team when he originally said that he did not did not help matters (dude seems allergic to the truth).

Next, an ad featuring OJ Simpson, roughly fifteen years before, well, you know...

Finally, Johnny Unitas keeps the issue from being a total loss...

But even there, the football legend got some guff a few years after this ad for lending his name to pretty much any company that would ask him to do so, including some fraudulent ones (although, seriously, people, if you're getting a mortgage from a company because some football player tells you to do it, you got some issues).