Back Issue #20 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

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Volume 1, Number 20 February 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Unmask comics’ most unusual alter egos in our

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Fire, Fire, Burning Bright: Firestorm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 An illuminating look at the creation of DC’s flame-headed Nuclear Man

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Seastone Marketing Group

AL MILGROM FIRESTORM ART GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A showcase of classic and never-before-published illos from Firestorm’s original artist

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore

PRO2PRO: The Nomad Saga: Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema on Captain America’s Identity Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Steve Rogers takes on a new costumed guise—and Richard Nixon, too!

COVER ARTIST Jerry Ordway

PRO2PRO BONUS: Brubaker and Casey’s Captain America Influences . . . . . . . . . . . 24 How today’s hot Cap writers followed the footsteps of Englehart and Buscema

COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Michael Ambrose Michael Aushenker Cary Bates Spencer Beck Frank Balas Alex Boney Ed Brubaker Mark Burbey Sal Buscema Kurt Busiek John Byrne Glen Cadigan Joe Casey Leo Chuah Jennifer M. Contino Gerry Conway Denys Cowan DC Comics Ray Cuthbert Steve Ditko Tommy Lee Edwards Steve Englehart Mike Esposito Dave Gibbons Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Paul Handler Jack C. Harris Allan Harvey Jackie Haumann Heritage Comics Javier Hernandez Ilke Hincer Images of American Political History Dan Johnson Nick Katradis Ted Latner Steve Leialoha Steve Lipsky

TOP TEN WAYS TO HIDE YOUR SECRET IDENTITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Jennifer Contino’s helpful hints at alter ego concealment

INTERVIEW: Jawing with Jerry Ordway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Get to know the fan favorite from his youth as a Marvelmaniac to his current work Elliot S! Maggin Richard Martines Marvel Comics Bob McLeod Ky Michaelson Michael Mikulovsky Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics Al Milgrom Doug Moench Rafael Navarro Eric Newsom Dennis O’Neil Kevin O’Neill Jerry Ordway Martin Pasko Keith Pasquino Don Perlin John Petty Keith Richard John Romita, Sr. Benno Rothschild Greg Rucka Rose Rummel-Eury Alex Segura Ted Seko Jim Shooter Rich Shurgin Tom Smith Zack Smith Roger Stern Tom Stewart Chris Swan Roy Thomas Bruce Timm Rick Veitch Jeff Weigel Len Wein Marv Wolfman Eddy Zeno Tom Ziuko

WHAT THE--?!: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s… an Editor?!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Our exposé of Dave Gibbons’ secret identity as the costumed Big E FLASHBACK: The Three Faces of Moon Knight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Moench and Perlin’s dark knight and his multiple identities—and artists FLASHBACK: The Human Fly: Pretty Fly for a Real Guy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 The comics celebrity-packed story of “The Wildest Superhero of All—Because He’s Real” SUPERMAN COLOR ART GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Four color pages with rare art by Curt Swan and super-friends PRO2PRO ROUNDTABLE: An Amazing Discussion About Clark Kent Red and Clark Kent Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Pre- and post-Man of Steel writers and artists examine Superman’s alter ego OFF MY CHEST: Standing Up for Vince Colletta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Rough Stuff’s Bob McLeod defends “comics’ worst inker” FLASHBACK: What, When, Why, Where, How, and…Who is the Question? . . . . . . . . . . 69 Explore the history of comics’ man with no identity, with O’Neil, Cowan, Rucka, and others BACKSTAGE PASS: Wonder Woman Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Visit a special fundraising event in Portland, Oregon BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 A letter from Deadman co-creator Arnold Drake, plus reader feedback on issue #18 FREE ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 A sample of our sister publication, absolutely gratis

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Jerry Ordway. Shazam! (the original Captain Marvel), Billy Batson, and Firestorm TM & © DC Comics. Moon Knight and Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. S e c r e t

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Tom “The Comics Savant” Stewart

AN EXPLOSION OF NEW IDEAS!

Man of Two Minds Firestorm the Nuclear Man, with silhouettes of his two (original) secret identities, Professor Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond, from a 1977 DC house ad by Al Milgrom. Unless otherwise noted, all art in this article is courtesy of Al Milgrom. © 2007 DC Comics.

In 1977, DC Comics was undergoing seismic changes. The year before, Carmine Infantino— one-time editorial director, then publisher, a man who had set the look and direction of DC for almost ten years—was unceremoniously shown the door at Lexington Ave. by the higher-ups at Warner Communications. He was replaced with Jenette Kahn, a woman several decades Infantino’s junior, with no direct comic-book experience. To say that change was in the air would be like saying Superman … is kinda strong. In 1975, DC added 16 new titles; in ’76, 12 were added; and in ’77, 12 more were jammed onto the racks. It was a war for shelf space with Marvel Comics, and this time DC wasn’t going to blink. The call went out for new ideas, new characters, and new titles to join the fray. One of the people to answer was former Marvel editor-in-chief Gerry Conway: “I had come over from Marvel to DC, and was looking to do some work reminiscent of the work I did at Marvel, stuff I enjoyed doing.” Conway had several ideas he’d been kicking around, one that became Steel (no, the other one, with the cool Don Heck art) and another that went through the indignity of being one of the most touted titles to never appear (well, almost never, but then you’ve got to count that warehouse of unpublished material, Cancelled Comic Cavalcade), Vixen. And one more, a series about what it might really be like to be a teenage super-hero: Firestorm, the Nuclear Man. Here’s Firestorm’s original editor, Jack C. Harris, on the atmosphere at DC in ’76–77: “There was a flurry of presentations at the time. I remember two of mine own were a reworking of Kamandi (with Dick Ayers) and a reworking of Captain Comet (with Bob Rozakis and Joe Staton). The Captain Comet concept went pretty far down the line before it was eventually rejected, but the atmosphere was very positive. The Powers That Be were actively seeking new and expansive ideas.” Gerry Conway brought his concept of Firestorm to the “Powers That Be” and got the green light.

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A DC VERSION OF A MARVEL CHARACTER

Here’s Gerry: “The idea behind Firestorm was to answer some basic questions I had about Peter Parker, play around with some thoughts about what would a real teenager, who wasn’t a brainaic, do with powers? What would a kid in my high school do given that kind of power? I saw him as a kind of nice guy, well meaning, but not the brightest bulb, and to balance that out, came up with the idea of combining him with an older, mentor character, a reverse of the Captain Marvel concept … this time we have the young teenager staying a teenager, but he suddenly gains a Jiminy Cricket in the form of this older, somewhat disproving, smarter father figure. He becomes the voice in his head that tells him what to do, which [the kid] often ignores … as we all often do.” So how did “team Firestorm” come together, Gerry Conway creator and scripter, and Al Milgrom, co-creator and artist. Gerry…? “I wanted to work with Al Milgrom. We had a similar sensibility. Al had a kind of cartoony style to his artwork, in the same way Ross Andru’s Spider-Man was cartoony. He was a great storyteller; drew very dynamic, actionbased figures.”

Happy to Be a Hero The splash page to Firestorm #1 (Mar. 1978), written by Conway, penciled by Milgrom, and inked by Klaus Janson (“Klaus did a great job!” beams Al). Joe Rubinstein and an uncredited Milgrom inked additional pages in the premiere issue. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Al Milgrom himself had come over from Marvel to edit at DC just before Gerry. Al…? “They asked if I’d be interested in working with Gerry on this project. I read the proposal, and thought it was pretty good!” Jack C. Harris was on board as editor: “If I recall clearly, Gerry presented the Firestorm concept amid a flurry of requested submissions from Jenette Kahn and, as part of his contracted scripting, he was to write it as well. I was assigned as the editor with the creative team in place. I was thrilled, having worked with both Gerry and Al previously, and having established good working relationships with them. That, and the fact that I loved their work.”

SPIDER-MAN SIDEWAYS

Gerry, Al, and Jack wanted a return to the fun of the old Marvel. Here’s Gerry: “Basically, the notion was to have some fun with some of the tropes of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man character.” And Al: “I always thought that Firestorm was Spider-Man sideways! It was the jock, Ronnie [Raymond, Firestorm’s physical alter ego] who had the powers and it was the smart guy, Cliff [Carmichael, supportingcast member] who was the real bully. It was the Spidey setup, but reversed.” Comics had lost some of the fun over the years since Spider-Man’s 1962 debut. Peter Parker had gotten older and was loaded with some 15 years of baggage, trauma, and soap opera. He’d lost some of the wonder he’d had when he first appeared. It was time to bring some of that back. Gerry…? “I still wanted to have the soap-opera elements [in Firestorm], but I wanted it to be more fun-based, and that’s reflected in the kind of powers Firestorm had, rearranging molecules to be whatever he wanted them to be. Sort of like Green Lantern, but as a kid. “The idea was to try to do a DC version of a Marvel character, but try to have some fun with it.” Ronnie Raymond was a good guy, an average kid with a mostly absent father, a nice hook shot to make up what he lacked in math skills, and a short fuse when it came to his nemesis, the smartest kid in school, mutton-chop- and smirk-wearing Cliff Carmichael. To impress the school beauty Doreen Day, in Firestorm vol. 1 #1 (Mar. 1978), Ronnie joins a nuclear protest group (that would impress girls, right?) that has much more than protesting on its agenda. Ronnie ends up unwittingly involved in a plot to blow up the nuclear plant designed by Professor Martin Stein, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose whole reputation is bound up in the success of the facility. In trying to stop the explosion, Ronnie and Professor Stein are fused into one being, a nuclearpower man, Firestorm. As noted, there was a lot of the early Peter Parker character type in Ronnie. Here’s editor Harris: “I remember thinking, initially, that [the Firestorm concept] was very derivative, taking great hunks of ideas and concepts from earlier creations. In later editorial conversations, Gerry often pointed out that everything was derivative in concept and that the originality comes from new presentations, combinations, and rearrangements of these concepts. The more script-plotting sessions we had, the more I saw that he was right. I remember creating two of the villains myself: Killer Frost and Multiplex.”

Just how does a super-hero hide his or her identity from friends, family, foes, and any other animals, vegetables, or minerals he or she might come in contact with? It’s tough, but we’ve asked a few “professionals” for their advice on…

The Top Ten Ways to Hide Your Secret Identity by

Jennifer M. Contino

10. Wear a wig. “After all, even if your face is exposed, having a wig on can make all the difference in the world,” says Linda Lee. “Especially if it’s styled different than your ‘normal’ hairstyle.” Dinah Lance is quick to agree, “With the right wig you can fool even a trained detective!”

9. Act like a wimp. “If you’re a wimp, there’s no way someone will think you’re a hero, especially if you let bullies push you around, kick sand in your face, and bug you,” says Peter Parker. “Just to make sure your disguise is fooling everyone, let them knock books out of your hands or tease you in front of pretty girls, too.”

8. Act like a pimp. Bruce Wayne encourages, “If you’re at a party with several girls hanging off every body part, no one will believe you have enough time, energy, or desire to seek your kicks by busting heads on a dark ‘night.’”

“Along with having a few gals on each arm, have a few bottles of good scotch or fine wine in each hand,” suggests Tony Stark. “Getting a little sauced will make others find it hard to believe you’re an invincible hero.”

7. Have a list of ready excuses.

“No, that wasn’t me saving the world, I was out walking my dog!”

“No, that red webbed shirt you saw underneath my dress shirt wasn’t a Spider-Man costume. I had a red crayon in with my laundry and all my undershirts are that color now.” “I don’t know how Wonder Woman freed us, I was unconscious like the rest of you!” “This isn’t a Green Lantern ring, I got it out of a Cracker Jacks box!” Steve Rogers concurs, “I can’t tell you how many times the right excuse has saved my career!” 1 4

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a m e c s u B d n a t r a h e l g s En ’ a c i r e m A on Captainy Crisis Identit It’s one thing for a super-hero to change his name, or maybe assume a new identity for a story. It’s another thing for one of the most iconic characters in comics to not only change his identity, but his entire philosophy as well. Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema did just that with Captain America in the 1970s, crafting one of Cap’s most thought-provoking and best-remembered storylines. “The Nomad Saga” (Captain America #177–186, Sept. 1974–June 1975) came in the wake of another well-regarded Englehart/Buscema collaboration, the recently reprinted “Secret Empire” storyline. In it, Captain America battles an evil conspiracy seeking to take over the country, leading to one of the most shocking endings in comics—after chasing the Secret Empire’s leader, Number One, to the Oval Office, Cap unmasks him to discover an unseen figure who claims “high political office” wasn’t enough for him, before committing suicide. Though Number One’s identity was never stated, the allegory was clear to readers—Captain America had just witnessed a villainous Richard Nixon taking his own life. Bereft, Cap questioned whether the values he stood for still applied in this modern America. He became a new hero, the Nomad, literally “the man without a country.” Others attempted to fill Cap’s shoes, including a young kid he’d befriended named Roscoe. But when Roscoe was brutally murdered by the Red Skull, Cap realized that he had to return. Understanding that he represented America’s people and ideals rather than its government, he resumed his old identity and set out to avenge his friend. The Nomad identity made a strong impression on readers, and was later revived by Jack Monroe, another Englehart creation. The new Nomad stuck around for a while, even enjoying a short-lived solo series in the early 1990s before he was recently killed off in the latest Captain America series. BACK ISSUE recently sat down with Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema (whose participation was limited due to recent health problems) to look back on this storyline, and their work together. We also spoke to Joe Casey and Ed Brubaker, two modern-day Cap writers who have cited Englehart and Buscema’s influence on their work. —Zack Smith

The Seminal Cap Team Even before their landmark Nomad storyline, Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema had pulled Captain America out of its sales doldrums. Detail from page 1 of issue #161 (May 1973), courtesy of Nick Katradis. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ZACK SMITH: What was the genesis of the Nomad storyline? How far in advance had you planned to do it? STEVE ENGLEHART: I was very much sort of in-the-moment at that time. It came out, of course, during the whole Watergate thing. I was writing Captain America during Watergate and it just became absurd to me that Captain America would not pay any attention to Watergate. So I ended up doing “The Secret Empire” and you can see, if you read those issues leading up to it, it started out as kind of a super-hero thing and there’s vague talk of a conspiracy. But I had just moved out to California and a couple of issues were kind of plotted with Mike Friedrich. I plotted them, he wrote them, but I was sort of moving the story forward without having much idea what the story was at that point. And then I moved to California and settled in just as Watergate was really heating up. And for people who weren’t around then, it was very much like having this epic movie unfolding day by day. Every day there was forward motion in the storyline, there were new revelations, there were machinations, there were Senate hearings, and it really was the whole summer. So it seemed impossible to me that Captain America could not pay attention to it. So once I got settled in California and sort of got back on schedule to do everything myself, I started shaping a story which really hadn’t started off in that direction, shaping it toward the whole thing where the president blows his brains out in the White House and Captain America is disillusioned, that America doesn’t believe in what he believes at the time. And then it just seemed obvious that he would give up being Captain America. I mean, it was like one thing led to another, and so, to answer your original question, I probably [worked] no more than a month ahead when I thought of doing the Nomad concept. It was like every story led into every other story, and there was no long-term plan. I mean, the only long-term plan, as I recall, was that Captain America would have to become Captain America again at some point, and I understood that in my own sense of values to mean that no, it wouldn’t just be, “Oh, well, we’ve run this storyline into the ground.” If I had to go back again, there would have to be a good way for him to come back, but I didn’t know what that was. All I knew is I was going to do the Nomad thing and so it was just existential, really, because sort of every story I’d say, “Okay, here’s where it would go next,” and then I’d get that one done and I’d go, “Well, here’s where it would go next.” And that’s all I really knew. SMITH: The ending of the “Secret Empire” storyline went into issue #176, some of your best writing on the series. I’d like to talk a little bit about that particular issue. How did you decide to do one that was just kind of a philosophical Captain America issue? ENGLEHART: Well, Captain America, to me, was a philosophy in a sense. I mean, that goes back to when I took over the series. As a reader—you know, [I was] just a fan before I went to work for Marvel—Captain America was clearly the book that had the least reason for existence, shall we say? I mean, Captain America was brought back in Tales of Suspense and Jack Kirby got a chance to do it again, and Stan Lee got a chance to do it, and for a while, there was like an interesting Captain America storyline. But once [Cap] got his own book, clearly, Stan had no idea what to do with it. It was just sort of bad super-hero stuff without any purpose or anything. But the problem wasn’t just Stan. Everybody was having difficulty with a character who was supposed to be a patriotic example of America when the Vietnam War was going on and when people were very much up in arms about what America was doing, and so forth, and it was like nobody was able to wrap his mind around doing a patriotic character in a sort of anti-American time. And so when I got handed the book, I was able to wrap my mind around that. I could see [Cap] pretty clearly as a guy who exemplified the best that America had to offer, not what it was offering. And so right from the start, I was just doing this sort of philosophical take on this guy. I was doing the best super-hero

Beginnings: Art assistant to Neal Adams in Vampirella vol. 1 #10 (1971)

Milestones: The Avengers / The Defenders / Captain America The Incredible Hulk / Dr. Strange / Batman in Detective Comics / The Point Man (novel) / Coyote Scorpio Rose / The Djinn / Justice League of America / animation including Street Fighter and G. I. Joe / Green Lantern / The Night Man / Batman: Dark Detective

Work in Progress: The Long Man™ (novel, sequel to The Point Man™)

Cyberspace: www.steveenglehart.com

STEVE

ENGLEHART Photo courtesy of steveenglehart.com.

Beginnings: Inker on 10-page Gunhawk story

Milestones: The Avengers / Sub-Mariner / Captain America The Incredible Hulk / Marvel Team-Up The Defenders / Rom / Iron Man / The Amazing Spider-Man / Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man / Fantastic Four / Artist for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe covers

Work in Progress: Inker for Spider-Girl

Cyberspace: Spider-Girl message board at comicsboards.com

SAL BUSCEMA Photo courtesy of Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find.

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BRUBAKER AND CASEY’S TM

Zack Smith

Two of today’s most acclaimed comic-book writers are Ed Brubaker and Joe Casey. Casey has written Cap in his Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes minis, and Brubaker has scripted one of the most acclaimed runs on Captain America in years. Both writers have cited Englehart and Buscema’s work in the 1970s as a major influence on their work. Casey has often spoken of Englehart’s influence on his own work, including an essay at his website, www.godlandonline.com. “The way Englehart wrote long-form comic books in the early ’70s set the template for just about every super-hero writer that came after,” Casey says. “His ability to craft long arcs that would start small and then build to a huge, dramatic crescendo and then scale back to start the whole process over again showed the rest of us how to maintain interest and energy on a series over a period of years. “My early Marvel work—Cable in particular—was incredibly influenced by the way Englehart structured his series work. No Marvel writer outside of Stan Lee and Roy Thomas has ever had such a firm grasp of so many Marvel characters.” For Brubaker, Englehart and Buscema’s run holds a special nostalgia. “The first comic I ever bought with my own money was issue #156 of Captain America and the Falcon, with the two Caps fighting on the cover, and those great giant Sal Buscema fists that are as big as their heads,” Brubaker says. “That comic blew me away. I was five or six years old then, and living on the Navy Base at Gitmo, and I think that single issue of Cap cemented him as a favorite through most of my childhood. I’ve read every issue of the Englehart run several times, including recently.” Both writers cite the Nomad storyline as a high point for the character of Captain America. “As a kid, reading it the first time, I was really just shocked,” Brubaker says. “How could they do that to Cap?” Brubaker says that he felt that Steve Englehart’s writing helped readers see Captain America not just as a cliché, but as a person. “I think it was the genesis of the whole thing about Cap not serving the government, but the ideals of America, too, which has been carried over for decades now,” Brubaker says. Casey agrees. “This was a radical change that actually related to the core concept of the character in a profound way,” Casey says. “The fact that Cap loved his country and the ideals it stood for to such a degree that he gave up the mantle for awhile was completely defining. In fact, that whole storyline probably defined the character for the following 20 years, if not to this day.

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“I think Englehart was the first writer who had a real vision for Captain America. I realize the possible blasphemy I might be committing there, considering the previous main writers on Cap were Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Stan Lee, but Englehart was the first writer to consider what the character really means—and what he symbolizes––to the culture at that moment. “And, considering it was the early ’70s … between Vietnam and Watergate, a character who wore the American flag was making a statement whether it was intentional or not. Englehart was the first—and probably the only—writer to address that statement and explore what it really meant in the context of adventure fiction. And he did it without sacrificing the four-color excitement that super-hero comic books are supposed to deliver. That’s a tough balancing act. Not many writers can do that, even today.” Both writers also have fond memories of Buscema’s art. “Mostly because of his work on Cap, Sal is actually my favorite Buscema,” Brubaker says. “I think almost all the work he did on Cap was great, even when he came back with the Grand Master storyline later and they killed Sharon Carter.” Casey also expresses admiration for Buscema’s work. “I think Sal Buscema is one of the great underrated Marvel artists,” Casey says. His work is pure storytelling. Hell, it’s just pure comics. Mr. Buscema has drawn some of my favorite childhood comic books, and part of why they’re my favorites is because of his clarity of storytelling. He wasn’t flashy, but his art still managed to convey power at the appropriate moments. And I used to love the shots where the bottom panel border was the floor of a room.” Brubaker recently killed off the modern-day Nomad, Jack Monroe, in a poignant-but-disturbing story in issue #7 of the new Captain America series. “I felt okay killing Jack Monroe because he’d been out of circulation for a long time, and because I never really liked him being Nomad that much,” Brubaker says. “I liked him as a character, but to me, Nomad is Steve when he’s adrift.” Casey liked Brubaker’s story, but says that he saw how the Nomad identity could return. “I think it made good story sense to get rid of Nomad in the manner it was done,” Casey says, “although I do think there’s a new disillusionment that a lot of folks have with the country, the current administration, and their handling of the war in Iraq. So maybe the Nomad character would have some renewed relevance in today’s superhero landscape.” Brubaker admits that he didn’t know whether the Nomad identity would or even should make a comeback, but doesn’t rule anything out: “Who knows, with Civil War happening, maybe we’ll see the return of Nomad … or maybe not.”

Michael i M kulovsky by

conducted via email on Augu st 21, 2006

MICHAEL MIKULOVSKY: You were born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Is it true that as a kid you had a dog named Lobo, named after Marvel’s Red Wolf’s wolf Lobo? JERRY ORDWAY: Yeah, that is true. Lobo was a German shorthair/black lab mix that we got as a puppy, and since the name meant wolf in Spanish, my brother Joel and I went with it. MIKULOVSKY: Where did you get your comics back then, in that time before comic-book stores? ORDWAY: Back in those dark ages, I used to ride my bike all over Milwaukee, starting with the great newsstand downtown and then to any drugstore that had a spinner rack, in search of titles that didn’t hit the main outlets. In the winter, when it was too cold in Wisconsin for bike riding, my Aunt Mary would drive me all over the place searching. I remember in around 1971 or so, I searched in vain locally for Forever People with Sonny Sumo on the cover, and on a summer trip found it at a little drugstore in northern Wisconsin, 50 miles from home. Man, was I happy for that trip! MIKULOVSKY: Many fans think of you as a DC guy, but weren’t you a Marvelmaniac growing up? ORDWAY: I spent most of my career working on DC heroes, but I got hooked on Marvel from the cartoon show in 1966. Then I found the comics at a spinner rack at the Milwaukee train station as the family embarked on a trip to Colorado for my oldest brother Mike’s college graduation. My brother Joel and I spent the dollar Mom gave us on Thor, Tales of Suspense, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Tales to Astonish, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Strange Tales. The greatest thing was that upon arriving in Colorado, we were able to get the next issues a few days later. And then it was an incredibly long month to wait for more! MIKULOVSKY: Why did you prefer Marvel’s comics over DC’s? ORDWAY: As a kid will do, I felt Marvel belonged to my generation, while DCs, which I had read a few years earlier, were “kid’s stuff.” I was nine years old, but DC to me was something I graduated from to get to Marvel. I also used to have to look up words in the dictionary to understand Spider-Man, for example. I did relax my buying habits later on to pick up the Captain Action comics from DC, as well as the occasional THUNDER Agents.

With One Magic Word… Jerry Ordway’s rendition of Captain Marvel and his secret identity Billy Batson, from an early 1990s Capital Cities Distribution Catalog. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Beginnings: Mystery in Space #117 (Mar. 1981), inks over Carmine Infantino-penciled short story

Milestones: All-Star Squadron / Infinity, Inc. / Crisis on Infinite Earths / Adventures of Superman / Fantastic Four / Batman movie adaptation / Wildstar / Power of Shazam! / The Avengers / Tom Strong / Top Ten: Beyond the Farthest Precinct / Infinite Crisis

Work in Progress: Red Menace (from Wildstorm)

Cyberspace: www.jerryordway.com

JERRY ORDWAY Photo by Peggy Ordway.

MIKULOVSKY: Tell me about how you developed your drawing, inking, and writing abilities? Who most influenced your artistic style? ORDWAY: I did what most kids did—I copied panels out of my comics. I drew my own versions of various covers and colored them up, until by the time I was ten I decided I should create my own characters and stories, to avoid the embarrassing question every adult hit me with upon seeing my drawings: “Did you copy that or draw it freehand?” When I took that next step, I, of course, looked at my favorite Marvel artists, such as John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan, artists of my top three comics: Spider-Man, The Avengers, and Daredevil. I also took great inspiration from their inkers as well. Tom Palmer and Joe Sinnott just amazed me, and I liked it when they inked my faves. MIKULOVSKY: Many pros and fans alike compare your art to the late, great Wally Wood. How do you feel about this? ORDWAY: I believe I first saw Wood’s work in back issues of Marvels that I bought for a dime apiece at a local locksmith shop down the block from home. He had several grocery sacks full of comics that you rummaged through to find anything “good.” I scored an Avengers #3, Spider-Man #s 3, 5, 7 and 11, among other titles. I found a few Wood-inked Avengers, too, but really got enamored of his work when he drew the comic of my favorite action figure, Captain Action. You can’t imagine how influential that double-lighting Wally did on faces was to me! Man, did I copy that stuff! MIKULOVSKY: What’s the story behind the Messenger, your creation during your fan days? ORDWAY: The Messenger started out as my version of Captain America, colored by the “relevant” comics that Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams were doing in Green Lantern. His origin was tied to the Vietnam War, and he wore a stars and stripes costume originally. That was probably started in 1971 or ’72, and I created several small home-made comics of his character, along with many others in the “Ordway Comics Group,” as I called my books. MIKULOVSKY: I know in the early ’80s you worked with Mike Machlan, Al Vey, and Pat Broderick out of a studio in West Allis, Wisconsin. How did you hook up with them? ORDWAY: With Machlan, I first met him via a fanzine I did in 1974 and 1975 called Okay Comix (instead of Comics, which I figured had to be in use by someone already) and we got to be great friends with many shared interests. He was really more of a mentor, as I was 17 and he was 24 at the time. We would draw pinup shots of Marvel or DC characters and practice inking each other’s stuff. Later on, when Pat Broderick moved to Milwaukee in 1983, Mike and I were the art team on All-Star Squadron, and Pat instigated the studio idea, having worked at the famed Continuity Studios in the ’70s. In January of 1984, we started looking at office buildings convenient to us all. We found a space, and then decided we needed another guy to share the rent, so

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Allan Harvey

“I have been grooming and training an editor,” exclaimed 2000AD’s Tharg on the editorial page of Britain’s newest weekly comic. “His mind capacity is 50 times that of a normal human; his physical strength is limitless. He has all the amazing powers of mind and body that he needs to edit a comic of many worlds. Earthlets, I present Big E and his comic—Tornado!” Launched in March 1979, Tornado was intended to compliment the solid hit that was 2000AD. The previous year, 2000AD’s sister comic, Starlord, had failed to fly off newsstands, and so Tornado largely ditched the sci-fi content in favor of more traditional fare. Like all British comics, Tornado was an anthology. Its roster featured, amongst others, a detective, a psychic, and a samurai. The character chosen to front the new comic was a super-hero. Whereas Tharg was an unknown man in a mask, Big E’s face was on full display in photographs throughout Tornado’s run. It’s a face we’ve come to know and love during the intervening years, for Big E was played by none other than comics artist Dave Gibbons. “Originally,” explains Gibbons, “Judge Dredd writer John Wagner was approached, but wanted, I’m told, too much money. I agreed to do it for the equivalent of a page rate. It struck me as a bit of fun and I suspect I am a frustrated actor at heart. Or maybe I’m really just a showoff! “I went with then-assistant editor of 2000AD, Nick Landau, to Berman and Mather, a theatrical costumier, and picked out some suitable items. As I recall, the arms and legs were black; the gloves, breastplate, and boots silver; the underoos yellow; and the cape blue. I designed and drew the chest symbol on sticky-backed paper. It was blue with yellow stars. “All the photos [used in the comic] were done on one day, around the then offices of [publisher] Fleetway, at King’s Tower on London’s South Bank. We roamed the corridors, parking lots, and roof, basically just being big kids. They ran a car up on a ramp, so it looked like I was lifting it, had people fire toy guns at me, and gave me the chance to punch out members of the editorial staff.”

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Yes, Dave Gibbons Gave Us Permission to Print This And you thought the “Big E” was BACK ISSUE editor Michael Eury…! All photos in this article courtesy of Allan Harvey. © 2007 respective holder. I s s u e

The Three Faces of by

Dan Johnson TM

Once upon a time, secret identities were very important to super-heroes. In this day and age of comic-book characters unmasking more and more, I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. In fact, one character in the Marvel stable thought secret identities were so important, he assumed a couple of extra ones to help him wage his war on crime. Readers of BACK ISSUE, allow me to present to you Moon Knight. Granted, it may take a while to get a handle on who this character is, but don’t sweat it too much. After all, knowing who Moon Knight really is is sometimes pretty difficult, even for the man behind the silvery mask. When the character was first introduced in the pages of Werewolf by Night (issues #32 and 33, Aug. and Sept. 1975), his creators, Doug Moench and Don Perlin, were simply hoping for a new kind of adversary to go up against the Werewolf, Jack Russell. In the end they created a costumed adventurer whose full potential was just hinted at in his first appearance and who would eventually take juggling multiple identities to a whole new level. But more on that in just a little while….

DEADLINE-INSPIRED

Let’s start back when Marvel’s newest mystery man was just a hired gun stalking deadly game in the Marvel Universe. Like other memorable comic-book creations before him, Moon Knight came about due to the greatest inspiration a writer or artist can have looming over their heads: a deadline. “I needed to write the next issue of Werewolf by Night because Don [Perlin] was waiting for the plot,” recalls Moench. “I needed to come up with a new villain for Jack Russell. This was back when comics were more seat-of-yourpants and spontaneous. Never sell that short. Some of the best stuff I’ve done came under extreme pressure, and by the very nature of that there was no interference allowed because the publishers need the books. You were totally set free, and as long as [your work] was there by the deadline, it was okay.”

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While preparing the next issue of Werewolf by Night, Moench also saw the need to inject something different into the book that would help catch the attention of readers. “[In Werewolf by Night], there was a group of villains called the Committee and they were real boring,” says Moench. “Don and I did not create them, that was the previous writers and artists. I thought that a villain for the Werewolf should be, in a strange way, a hero. Someone fighting a werewolf is someone who is not necessarily a bad guy. But the Werewolf is the star of the book, and he is kind of a good guy, so the villain we needed would have to be a combination of a hero and a villain. We thought Moon Knight would be a villain for the Werewolf for maybe one story. The Committee [members] were all non-visual, guys in suits, as I recall. I thought they would hire someone to track down the Werewolf and capture him, and then the person they hired could be a cool-looking visual. We didn’t know that it would be popular, or that it would have legs and become something more popular than the sum of its parts, but it did.” Don Perlin, the man who gave Moon Knight his look, recalls that the creation of Moon Knight was more than a means to meet that month’s deadline, he was also a way to help offset waning sales on the book. “The horror genre was going down the tubes,” says Perlin. “The editors said we need to get someone with a costume on this thing.” The first step in bringing Moon Knight to life was running the idea past Werewolf by Night’s editor Len Wein to see what his thoughts were. “I had a list of ten or 12 names,” says Moench. “And when I called Len, I described the mercenary based on the moon and said that he gets hired to go after the Werewolf and he uses silver weapons because that is the only thing that will hurt a werewolf. Len said, ‘Okay. So what are you going to call him?’ I read Len my list (which included the name ‘Blood Moon’), and when I came to ‘Moon Knight,’ he said, ‘That’s the one!’ I made up the name, but it was Len who liked it more than any of the other ones.” Modern fans of Moon Knight may not even be aware of how and why this character’s appearance was first designed, or the great debt it owed to Marvel’s hairiest hero ever. “Everything flowed from [the Werewolf] very obviously,” recalls Moench. “The Werewolf only works at night, so whoever opposes him should also be attuned to the night. The Werewolf changes only when there is a full moon, and that’s where the moon [motif] came from, and the knight part was a play on words; nighttime and a knight who is hired to go on some crusade. He was a nighttime character and he was attuned to the moon. Silver hurts a werewolf, therefore he had these silver crescentmoon-shaped throwing darts. His costume was based on the moon, which, as it goes through its waxing and waning, was black and white.” With no color at all, only solid white with black for shadows, Moon Knight bucked the conventional wisdom of most comic-book characters. “Other characters have all [kinds] of colors in their suits,” remembers Perlin. “[We figured] a black-and-white suit on a colored page would stand out. But then the colorists started adding blue tints [to his costume]!” Still, the costume designed by Perlin endured and did indeed get the desire effect on the printed page. “I put the cowl on Moon Knight to give him that sinister look,” recalls Perlin. “[In his first solo adventure,] I got away with

Hero and Villain in One Man

something that I liked. In a couple of panels, Moon Knight is standing in a doorway and it is black behind him, so all you see are the white parts of his costume. That was spooky-looking.” In his first outing against the Werewolf, Moon Knight was played more as a mercenary and his alter ego is named Marc Spector. Even though he took the money from the Committee to hunt down Jack Russell and bring him in, Moon Knight redeemed himself and decided in the end to do the right thing, helping the Werewolf escape and take down the Committee. Very little is revealed about Moon Knight in this first outing—indeed, the readers were never even given a good look at his face. But one element that would be important to the character’s future adventures was present right from the get-go: Frenchie, Moon Knight’s assistant and helicopter pilot. “Frenchie was in from the beginning,” says Moench. “He was actually one of the few supporting characters attached to the mercenary identity from the start.” S e c r e t

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Michael Aushenker

Has a History as Mysterious as the Real-Life Stuntman Who Inspired It In a decade when the comic-book industry evolved the practice of building titles around popular licensed properties, such as blockbuster movies and famous rock groups, it seems unlikely that a major publisher would launch a series based on a quasi-famous figure most people had never heard of. And yet, in the 1970s, that’s exactly what Marvel Comics did. Based on a real-life motorcycle daredevil with a secret identity, The Human Fly, lasting only 19 issues (1977–1979), appeared to have a disposable quality. If the letters columns were any indication, its artists were not merely underrated, but unappreciated, even despised. Yet, upon closer inspection, Human Fly may have been one of the tightest titles to emerge from the Bronze Age; an unlikely showcase for some remarkable talent, combining the singular vision of the series’ only writer—a young Bill Mantlo—with a finite stable of seasoned veteran artists that included Lee Elias, Mike Esposito, Don Perlin, Carmine Infantino, Frank Springer, and the inimitable Frank Robbins.

THE FLY: NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL

The book’s hero was an anomaly on several levels. Tagged “The Wildest Superhero of All—Because He’s Real,” the Human Fly was a licensed character that did not begin life as a Lee/Kirby creation or in a George Lucas film, but was based on a “celebrity” whose popularity appeared somewhat dubious. The Fly was not part of the Marvel Universe proper, and his backstory underscored this. Fly the comic-book character was not some victim of a freak occurrence with augmented talents, or a mutant cursed with super-human eugenics. He was a mere mortal, a stuntman. Not even a Batman-type, merging body and intellect into the ultimate crime-fighting machine. No, the Fly didn’t even dedicate himself to fighting crime, engaging in super-heroics only as a last resort when the situation arose. Fly’s premise revolved around its eponymous stuntman, regally garbed in a Canadian red-and-white jumpsuit, rocketdesign belt, and glorified “ballet slippers.” He brandished a staff, and sometimes a collared cape. Visually an echo of the Invaders’ Union Jack (as if the printers screwed up the colors), the Fly wore a full mask with a cross design that concealed everything but a pair of piercing blue eyes. According to the origin prefacing each issue, his alter ego was the lone survivor of 1971 car crash on a North Carolina highway that claimed his wife and kids. “Hardly a bone in his body would remain unbroken,” went the blurb. “His doctors were sure that he would never move again. But he triumphed over his disability and went on to become the wildest hero of all … because he’s REAL!” Every issue transported the reader to another locale, where fans cheered as the Fly—secret identity unknown (even to us readers)—attempted a harrowing stunt, aided by his dedicated crew, for some children’s charity. S e c r e t

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Evel Kn-who-vel?

Somehow, said stunt would go horribly awry due to some criminal’s scheme. Ultimately, the Fly had no choice but to protect innocent bystanders in his realm from said criminal. The book’s leitmotif: the Fly as reluctant super-hero.

(right and below) These photos, circa the mid-1970s, support the possibility that, unlike Bigfoot, the Human Fly may indeed have been real.

LICENSED TO FLY

Marvel Comics, by the 1970s, had become a progressive, savvy company, rapidly expanding the definition of the super-hero comic that Marvel itself had reinvented in the 1960s. Suddenly, supernatural super-heroes (Ghost Rider, Son of Satan) and monster anti-heroes (Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire) crowded store racks. Part of this expansion involved adapting other properties: Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Star Wars were among the hit films to get their own series, as did TV shows Man from Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek. Marvel published a KISS magazine—a natural fit since the metal group’s leader Gene Simmons cited Marvel Comics as inspiration for his band’s outlandish personas. Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, and later Rom: Spaceknight and G. I. Joe outlived the popularity of the toys that spawned them. Seemingly, the book capitalized indirectly on the headline-making antics of the substantially more famous Evel Knievel. Anticipating the late-’90s extreme sports craze by a good two decades, the Fly, over the course of the series, pulled off incredible feats on motorcycles, dirigibles, jet packs, rocket-powered skateboards, skates, and skis. “The name used to kick around for years,” John Romita, Sr., then Marvel’s art director, tells BACK ISSUE. “There was always a variation on the Fly.” Umpteenth appeared to be the charm. What should have been a creatively D.O.A. title transformed into a high-octane rumbler, largely due to principle pencilers Elias and Robbins.

HUMAN FLY’S PIT CREW

With its outsider licensed character, Human Fly (HF) yielded few super-hero crossovers: Spider-Man (HF #1, Sept. 1977), Ghost Rider (#2), and Daredevil (#9). But Fly was far more successful at attracting robust industry talent into its small rotation of draftsmen. In the early 1970s, many revered pencilers washed up on Marvel’s shore to pick up freelance work, and Fly became a haven for these aging artists. Silver Age favorite Carmine Infantino (The Flash) penciled the Ghost Rider issue, including its cover with Al Milgrom. Main HF artist Elias had years before drawn the comic-book version of Milton Caniff’s classic strip Terry and the Pirates. Robbins, best known for his Caniff-esque Johnny Hazard syndicated strip, came to Fly fresh off of an amazing run on The Invaders. Elias drew and inked HF #1, while Robbins began his intermittent run with #5. The Human Fly’s inking department was no less impressive, with seasoned assists from Mike Esposito, co-creator of DC’s Metal Men. Another Silver Age artist, Frank Springer, inked HF #13. Canarsie, Brooklyn, native Don Perlin came to Marvel with decades of experience and drew the cult favorite Werewolf by Night before inking Fly. Inkers Ricardo Villamonte and Rod Santiago each tackled some stories; even a young Steve Leialoha inked an issue. Action-packed covers boasted art by Bob McLeod, Dave Cockrum and Joe Sinnott, Sal Buscema, Bob Layton, and the popular duo of John Byrne and Terry Austin.

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Superman Color Art Gallery Curt Swan penciled, inked, and colored this 1979 Daily Planet cast drawing as a gift for friends; courtesy of Richard Martines. Also, covers from Turkish editions of Superman comics; contributed by Ilke Hincer. © 2007 DC Comics.

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In 1991, Curt Swan was asked to pencil, ink, letter, and color this Superman page, combining the best aspects of the Superman myth from all eras, including when the Bottle City of Kandor was enlarged on the planet Rokyn under Julius Schwartz’s editorship. © 2007 DC Comics.

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An Amazing Discussion About

CLARK KENT RED

Eddy Zeno

and

CLARK KENT BLUE

As a young reader, I always liked Superman better than Clark Kent. Didn’t we all? My favorite stories might begin with an unfolding headline event teletyped into the Daily Planet newsroom. Clark might be working at his desk or chewing the fat with Perry, Lois, and Jimmy. He would have to find an excuse to change to Superman so he could fly to wherever the threat was and deal with it. If he never appeared out of costume for the tale’s remainder, it was fine with me. Yet despite a child’s opinion that Clark was not needed, except perhaps as a brief story springboard, he did not go away. That’s because the editors and writers, starting with Superman’s co-creator Jerry Siegel, were smart enough to know that without Clark Kent, Superman wouldn’t last. Denny O’Neil, interviewed in January 2006 for the book The Krypton Companion (by BACK ISSUE’s Michael Eury and published by TwoMorrows), in essence said that even those long-ago, goofy tales in which Lois or Lana schemed to prove that Clark was Superman/Superboy were necessary. They helped ground a near-invincible space alien with godlike powers in the everyday world so readers could relate to him. In current continuity Superman remains grounded by having Ma and Pa Kent alive and by Clark/Superman being married to Lois. The careers of the writers participating in the Clark Kent Roundtable span these wide gulfs in the reporter’s history and events in between. Their comments, received by email between July and October 2006, serve as reminders how each of them has added dimension to the fictional character. For contrast and clarity they are divided into pre- and post-Crisis teams—or the “Clark Kent Red” and the “Clark Kent Blue” teams, in a nod to the classic Imaginary Story. However, all Roundtable participants maintain a sharp interest in Clark as he appears today, and many of them still participate in his adventures in some form. —Eddy Zeno (Acknowledgment: Thanks to Michael Eury for helping with the following questions.)

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CLARK KENT RED TEAM ROLL CALL

RED TEAM ROUNDTABLE EDDY ZENO: From your perspective, which was the “real” and which was the “manufactured” personality, Clark or Superman? Is he primarily a simple North American type of guy or a stranger from another planet? MARTIN PASKO: Wow. This question reminds me of all the subplots and story premises I pitched that explored Superman’s identity issues. They kept being rejected by the editors I had to satisfy because they didn’t “get” them, and they didn’t conform to their purely escapist sensibility and their preference for gimmickry. I’m used to people not understanding why I find this a more complex and nuanced question than your phrasing of it implies. That’s because I’m probably unique among Superman writers in that I have firsthand experience with the sort of identity issues Kal-El would have—the kind that abandonment, early adoption, and displacement create. For me, the “truthful” way to write it is that the Kryptonian began his conscious life thinking of himself as Clark Kent, believing himself human until his powers began to manifest themselves. But from that point on, everything changed. That’s why I think that what you’re asking about differs depending on which version of the continuity you’re talking about. In the continuities in which there is no Superboy, the timeline of Clark’s self-discovery is different. The creative choice writers must make is greatly affected by where the information about Superman’s past comes from, at what point in his life he gets it, and how many years he’s been thinking of himself as a costumed vigilante (a longer period if he’s been Superboy). What I had to work with was essentially a Julie Schwartz-modified version of the Weisinger continuity of the ’60s, in which Clark learned of his Kal-El identity when he was in grade school, rather than as a young adult. So it always seemed to me, because of the way I learned of my own identity, and had to revise my self-image as new information became available to me, that once “Clark Kent” became aware of “Kal-El,” Kal-El became the “real” person, and both Clark and Superman became constructs. But, because he was, in effect, cut off from his “real” self because he had no memory of having lived as Kal-El, that real self felt less real to him—paradoxically—than either of the “manufactured” identities. I base this conclusion on the way my own history parallels the character’s: I was born in French Canada, of which I have no firsthand memory (so, for me, Canada = Krypton). In my birthplace,

CARY BATES

Superman writer, 1960s–1980s

ELLIOT S! MAGGIN Superman writer, 1970s–1980s

DENNIS O’NEIL

Superman writer and Superman Family editor, 1970s

MARTIN PASKO

Superman writer, 1970s–1980s; Superman Returns adaptation, 2006

LEN WEIN

Superman writer, 1970s 5 4

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I was given the name Gaston Claude Rochefort (= Kal-El). I was adopted by an American couple who were a good 10–15 years older than most of my contemporaries’ parents (= the Kents) and brought to the US (= Smallville) at a very early age. My adoptive parents were completely honest with me about the fact of my adoption, and from as early as I can remember, I knew I was different from other kids in that respect. So, Gaston-Claude feels unreal to me because, to my conscious mind and memory, Martin Pasko has always been my identity. Yet I know it’s a construct because I wasn’t born with it. That condition leaves one with a sense of being two people at once, and no one at all—and I was luckier than Supes; I didn’t have yet a third identity to worry about! But that sense of being a man without a real identity—as well as a man without a homeworld, if you will—leads to a kind of alienation from others that is fairly unique. I would think that Kal-El’s awareness that he is considered human but isn’t really of humans is in the forefront of his consciousness most of the time. It’s this tragic dimension of the character that I always thought had great story potential, but nobody has ever really explored it, to my knowledge. CARY BATES: To me it was never an “either-or” question, because he could never simply be just regular-guy-Clark-Kent any more than he could “just” be Kal-El-the-Kryptonian. From the moment his rocketship reached Earth and the Kents started raising him, the way I saw it, both aspects of the character were forever entwined. LEN WEIN: The Clark Kent persona was definitely the real personality. He was raised as Clark from infancy and only became Superman (or –boy, if you’re so inclined) years later. I’ve long said that what makes Clark Kent Superman isn’t his ability to change the course of mighty rivers or bend steel in his bare hands, it’s the fact that he was raised by the two most decent people in the world, people who helped form his moral center. All the rest of it emanates from there. DENNIS O’NEIL: To me, the guy in the cape was always the real one. And though he might try to fit in by being a wholesome, Midwestern kid, that’s not who he was. ELLIOT S! MAGGIN: It is and has always been very clear to me that the character we are dealing with is Superman, not somebody named Clark who pretends to be Superman, and not Kal-El with some sort of alien consciousness who puts on Superman like a suit of clothes or a toga or something. The hero of the story is the character’s best self, given all that character’s aspects. A primary element of traditional mythology as well as contemporary mythology has always been the disguise, but the disguise is the fantasy, not the reverse—whether the hero is aware of that or not. The little kid growing up as his step-brother’s squire in the duke’s home was really King Arthur. The beggar who crashed the party thrown by Penelope’s suitors was really Odysseus. The swan that seduced Leda was really Zeus. And the strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men— as well as the mild-mannered reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper—is really Superman. ZENO: How come Clark could fool Lois? O’NEIL: She’s dim? Maybe she wanted to be fooled? I never answered this for myself, nor did I really try to. Clark’s fooling Lois—and everyone else—by changing clothes and putting on glasses was a convention I accepted.

Bob McLeod

Editor’s note: Bob McLeod (www.bobmcleod.com), comics artist and inker and editor of our companion magazine Rough Stuff, has had his fill of Collettabashing and has a few things he’d like to get off his chest…. Vince (Vinnie) Colletta has become renowned among most comicbook fans and pros alike as the worst inker Rough Stuff © 2007 TwoMorrows. in comic-book history. You can ask anybody, and several polls have, and poor Vinnie always comes up as winner of that dubious honor. It’s a bit surprising, really, because there are really several bad inkers who could surely compete in that category. Inkers who really can’t or couldn’t draw well, and are or were helpless if the pencils got iffy. Inkers who just don’t or didn’t have a very attractive style. Inkers who hacked out pages as quickly as possible. But it’s always Vinnie who tops the list. Was he really all that bad? As someone who knows a thing or three about the fine art of comic-book inking, I’d like to make the case that it’s high time we gave Vince Colletta a little respect. Many people are probably most familiar with Colletta’s name from his inking on Thor over Jack Kirby. People I’ve talked to seem to either like his inking on Thor or hate it. There are few who are ambivalent. I think it’s because Colletta had a strong style and wasn’t shy about imposing it on Kirby’s open pencils. There are some who do like Colletta’s inking. More than one person has even gone so far as to say Colletta was Kirby’s best inker on Thor. One art collector, Ray Cuthbert, summed up why he believes Colletta’s inking worked well on Kirby this way: “Wood, Sinnott, and Colletta all did something with Kirby that I believe is crucial in a pairing of talents: They melded their styles with Jack’s instead of being—dare I say say it?— tracers. Colletta also added a great deal from his years working on romance comics that made his work on Thor and the Fourth World books look fabulous, but which left his inking on Fantastic Four look out of place—except on the girls. His ability to soften Jack’s hard edges was appealing to me, even if it was less pure Kirby.” I recently inked my first Kirby piece (Thor #156; you can see my version here: www.bobmcleod-

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Is This the Work of a Hack?? Colletta’s solid inking over Kirby, softened with lots of somewhat rough feathering. Cover art to Thor #148 (Jan. 1968). All art scans and captions in this article are courtesy of Bob McLeod. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Alex Boney

If, as Joseph Campbell tells us, “the hero” has a thousand faces, then what are we to make of a hero who has no face at all? Is he so cohesive and fully formed that his identity is never in question except to outside, unenlightened observers? Or is he so human that, as Plato explained, his identity is in a constant state of becoming? Originally created by Steve Ditko in 1967, the Question has been a mix of both in his 40-year history. Steeped in Aristotelian philosophy and Randian objectivism, the Question is one of the most complex “action heroes” ever created for comic books. He’s the thinking man’s super-hero, except that he’s not even that. He has no superhuman powers, save a burning, insatiable curiosity and desire to find the truth. Yet every time he comes close to understanding who he is, the Question becomes something else. This enigmatic flux may not be what Ditko intended for the character, but it is what has made the Question so continuously compelling and provocative for four decades now. The concept of the dual—or secret—identity is certainly not unfamiliar in the world of comic books. But the idea of no identity at all is relatively unique. One of the most memorable uses of this trope comes from Homer’s The Odyssey. When Odysseus and his men are captured by the Cyclops, Odysseus’ captor asks him who he is. Ever the trickster, Odysseus replies, “My name is Nobody. That is what I am called by my mother and father and by all my friends.” The trick works, and Odysseus eventually escapes because the Cyclops is not able to identify the hero as he flees. When Steve Ditko created the Question, he merged old narrative tricks with new formulae to create something genuinely unique to the comics medium. As editor Mike Gold explained in a letter column 20 years later, “The unique aspect about the Question is that he is a man with a secret identity but without an alter ego” (The Question #1, Feb. 1987). The Question was probably not supposed to be as complex as he eventually became. In a more restrictive editorial environment, a character like the Question might not have been created at all.

DITKO DAYS

In 1966, Dick Giordano was the editor of Charlton Comics’ line. Given a large degree of creative freedom, Giordano decided to launch a new line of heroes in the tradition of DC’s and Marvel’s super-hero lines. But the “super” part of “super-hero” had always given him pause: “I intended to build the hero line around Captain Atom (the only original super-hero to survive) but I never could snuggle up to super-heroes…. I decided that, Captain Atom aside, the other heroes would not be super-powered, but would derive their abilities through specialized training or offbeat technology. I coined (I think) the phrase ‘Action Heroes’ and used it on all my house ads and letter pages and in panel discussions at

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Behind the Mask Steve Ditko lets the reader in on the Question’s trade secrets in Blue Beetle #1 (June 1967, the character’s debut) and Mysterious Suspense #1 (Oct. 1968). Special thanks to Mike Ambrose of Charlton Spotlight (www.charltonspotlight.com) for the scans. © 2007 DC Comics.

conventions. Never super-heroes; always Action Heroes” (L.A.W. #2, Oct. 2000, letter column). Other Action Heroes in Charlton’s stable included Judomaster, Peacemaker, Nightshade, and Blue Beetle, the latter originally a Golden Age hero who recently had been revamped by Steve Ditko. Blue Beetle graduated to his own title when Charlton’s Action Hero line was launched, but a new hero was needed as a backup feature in the book. When Giordano asked Ditko to create that feature, he took a hands-off approach: “The Question was a Steve Ditko production from start to finish…. My major contribution to the Question was telling Steve that I wanted a hero in street clothes to bring him down to a more human level, and give him contrast with super-heroes” (The Question Annual #2, letter column). In the Question features, Ditko introduced clever gimmicks that seemed to fit in well with the Action Hero line. In a familiar three-to-four-

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panel sequence in each story, the Question removes a balled-up plastic mask from his belt buckle, applies the featureless mask to his face, and releases a gas that both affixes the mask to his face and changes the colors of his clothes. A wise elderly friend named Professor Rodor had developed the disguise. The Question even occasionally uses trick blank business cards that burst into smoke and reveal a question mark. On the surface, the Question didn’t seem to be especially new. The most direct predecessor of the Question is the Spirit, a Will Eisner creation who appeared in newspaper comic pages for over a decade beginning in 1940. Like the Question, the Spirit wore a blue suit and fedora. He also sported a mask, but the mask was almost unnoticeable. Denny Colt was supposed to represent an ordinary man who encountered a series of extraordinary situations and managed to wrestle his way out of them using wit and clever problem-solving. But whereas Denny Colt was playful, aloof, and displayed a wry sense of humor, Vic Sage was driven, focused, and acerbic. In the Ditko stories, Vic Sage is a hard-edged reporter for W.W.B. (World-Wide Broadcasting), a television network in the fictional Crown City. The management at W.W.B. generally despises Sage, largely because he confronts hypocrisy and injustice in a direct, aggressive way and doesn’t care who is implicated in his stories. Sage is portrayed as arrogant and self-righteous, but it’s often difficult to argue with his positions. From

If Wonder Woman were real (she’s not—don’t argue with me), she would gladly lend her name to a fundraiser for women’s and children’s shelters. The ideals she embodies are very real, however, and through her “sidekick”—bestselling entertainment journalist and BACK ISSUE contributor Andy Mangels— Wonder Woman came to life on Sunday, October 29, 2006, at the “Wonder Woman Day” charity auction at Excalibur Books and Comics in Portland, Oregon. Joining Andy at the event were artists Terry Dodson, Matthew Clark, and Anne Timmons, signing WW comics and special-edition prints. Over 100 artists contributed Wonder Woman artwork (most of it produced exclusively for this event) for a silent auction; a short list of participating talent includes Mike Allred, Norm Breyfogle, Darwyn Cooke, Denys Cowan, José Luis García López, Dick Giordano, Paul Gulacy, Fred Hembeck, Adam Hughes, Joseph M. Linsner, Bob McLeod, Jim Mooney, Bill Morrison, Don Perlin, John Romita, Sr., Alex Ross, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, and Joe Staton. The total raised during the silent auction was $15,405.33, with 100% of all monies going to two Portland shelters, Raphael House and Bradley-Angel House. While most pieces were auctioned for between $50 and $250, 15 went for higher, the top bids being $4,000 for an Alex Ross WW, $777 for an Adam Hughes, and $500 for a Terry Dodson. Kudos to Andy Mangels and Excalibur for their hard work, and to all artists for their generosity. The artwork is on display at Andy’s WW site, www.wonderwomanmuseum.com, but here’s a quick look at some of the fun of Wonder Woman Day….

Michael Eury (above left) Event organizer Andy Mangels (he’s a wonder!) and some of the Wonder Woman Day silent auction artwork. (left) BI editor Michael Eury (on the left, in case you’re confused) and friend.

(above) An absolutely awesome version of Wonder Woman by Paul Gulacy (whose pencil art was recently featured in Rough Stuff #2, still available from TwoMorrows). (right) You knew he drew a cute Mary Jane Watson, but Jazzy John Romita, Sr.’s version of the Amazon Princess is pretty snazzy, too! Wonder Woman TM & © 2007 DC Comics.

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We hope you enjoy this FREE

ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW! Edited by ROY THOMAS (former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief and top writer), ALTER EGO, the greatest ’zine of the 1960s, is back, all-new, and focused on Golden & Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews, unseen art, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more! Issue #64 features a previouslyunpublished cover painting by DON NEWTON, ROY THOMAS’ special issue-by-issue analysis and appreciation of OTTO BINDER and C.C. BECK’s 1943-45 “Monster Society of Evil!” serial, film model-maker ROGER DICKEN’s theory that Captain Marvel was modeled after German heavyweight boxer MAX SCHMELING, plus a special double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, et al.! Also, JIM AMASH interviews MARTIN FILCHOCK (Golden Age artist for Centaur comics), MR. MONSTER presents “Twice-Told Tales,” and MORE! Now monthly! (100-page magazine) SINGLE ISSUES: $9 US SUBSCRIPTIONS: Twelve issues in the US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail). NOTE: FOR A SIX-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTION, CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

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The Monster Society Of Evil An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial In Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46 by Roy Thomas

s a kid in the latter 1940s and early 1950s, I loved Saturday afternoon movie serials—a minor sub-genre of the film industry that was just winding down in local theatres all across the country. I was an adult before I even knew there’d ever been a Captain Marvel serial—but I was bowled over that memorable day in 1948 when I saw the theatrical trailer (yes!) for the first Superman serial, starring (my later acquaintance) Kirk Alyn, at a movie house. I managed, despite the usual childhood illnesses, not to miss more than a chapter or so of it, or of Atom Man vs. Superman, or Batman and Robin, Congo Bill, or Blackhawk, or even what was actually a re-release of The Secret Code, starring that World War II mystery man, The Black Commando.

were, they couldn’t have seemed any more real to me at that time if they’d been projected on the big screen with all of today’s CGI magic, augmented by Sensurround Sound. And all those creatures were commanded by this weird little worm riding on a sea horse! Whether or not I saw, a few weeks later, the following issue, in which Mr. Mind was finally captured and met his just end, I don’t recall. But I never forgot that penultimate chapter of a comic book serial of whose beginnings I had no inkling for the next fifteen years. In 1960, Dick Lupoff lauded the “Monster Society” serial in his seminal article “The Big Red Cheese” in the first issue of his and wife Pat’s science-fiction fanzine Xero. And I was thrilled when, over the near year or three, I finally got to read all 25 whimsical yet exciting chapters during one of my visits to fellow comics fan Biljo White and the cement-block White House of Comics behind his home in Columbia, Missouri. Bill had a virtually complete collection of Captain Marvel, Whiz Comics, and The Marvel Family, among many other wonders.

But, love the two Superman serials in particular though I still do, there’s another specimen of the species “serial” that rivals them for a place in my heart—and even in my head. And I first saw it not at the Palace Theatre in Jackson, Missouri—but in the pages of a comic book. Its name: “The Monster Society of Evil!” Since I’d only turned four in November 1944, I couldn’t yet read when I perused a brand new copy of Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April ’45)— which may well have been my initial encounter with the World’s Mightiest Mortal. I instantly fell head over sneakers in love with the red-clad hero with the lightning bolt on his chest, and I can still remember how excited I was looking at all the colorfully inventive sea monsters he battled in that issue. Cartoony as they

Five (Or Is It Six?) For Fawcett This great composite drawing of Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and Mr. Mind was printed by the American Nostalgia Library as the full-color cover of a flyer advertising its fabulous 1989 reprint volume The Monster Society of Evil (see main text). The original comic book serial was primarily the work of (left to right at top) writer Otto O. (“Eando”) Binder… artist C.C. Beck (with his comics studio)…and editor Wendell Crowley. Binder gave RT his early-’40s photo—P.C. Hamerlinck provided the late 1940s/early 1950s shot of Beck—and the photo of Crowley at the 1968 Jack Binder comic shop reunion dinner (covered in A/E #57) is courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Art ©2007 DC Comics.]

For the past decade, I’ve championed to DC Comics the notion of abandoning for once its chronological approach to reprints in its Archives series, and of printing all 232 pages of the serial in a single hardcover volume. Such a book could almost be considered the first graphic novel—composed of material originally published more than sixty years ago! There’s even precedent for such a collection. In 1989, the American Nostalgia Library, an imprint of Hawk Books Limited of London, England, published a

An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

Alter Ego #64 Preview

sitting in the darkness of a neighborhood movie house in the mid1940s, watching this tale of tales unfold up there on the silver screen. But that’s only fitting, since no doubt the ultimate inspiration for the comic book serial was the rousing success of the 1941 chapter-play The Adventures of Captain Marvel, in which stuntman Tom Tyler made an excellent World’s Mightiest Marvel—even if Republic Pictures took, as per usual, a few more liberties with a licensed property than made any sense. So let’s turn down the house lights, grab a soda pop in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other, and enjoy a chapter-by-chapter look at—

“The Monster Society of Evil” Captain Marvel Adventures #22 (March 1943) Chapter I “The Pearl Of Peril” (12 Pages) The “famous Indian princess” Dareena Rajabuti comes to the USA to donate jewels to the Allied war cause. Over his special radio hookup, Mister Mind (the “Mister” is always spelled out in the first three chapters) directs Captain Nazi to steal the jewels to “further the battle for your Axis”—i.e., Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and imperial Japan. Mind says he’s helping the Axis “because it is evil! And thus you are a part of my great Society of Evil of the Universe.”

Let The Show Begin! The splash page of Chapter I, complete with cast listing. The blurb says there’ll be “a new chapter every third Friday,” because at this time Captain Marvel Adventures was so popular that it was published once every three weeks, rather than monthly—though each issue had a different monthly date and somehow it all worked out. (Incidentally, this odd scheduling somehow led to there being two issues labeled “Jan. 1943”—but no “May 1943”—and no “Dec. 1944”!)

The princess has actually brought only one magic black pearl the size of a croquet ball, which “can pick up scenes and voices from anywhere,” thus making it “valuable for espionage service!!” When Captain Nazi tries to grab the pearl, Billy Batson, who is interviewing the princess, shouts “Shazam!,” changes to Captain Marvel, and knocks him and his two armed thugs around. Though no match for the hero physically, Nazi flies off with both pearl and princess. (Cap

The construction of the group name “The Monster Society of Evil” leads Ye Editor to believe it was inspired by DC’s “Justice Society of America,” but writer Otto Binder always denied any conscious borrowing. Anybody out there have any ideas of where else he might’ve gotten inspiration for it? [©2007 DC Comics.]

3000-copy edition of a gorgeous 14" x 10H" hardcover titled The Monster Society of Evil that collected the entire serial, plus a bit of introductory material. I’ve always assumed ANL/HBL had permission to reprint that material, since the book contains a copyright notice for DC Comics. Unless stated otherwise, all art accompanying this article is taken from that volume. (The first and last chapters of the serial, incidentally, were reprinted in black-&-white, from retouched art, in the 1977 Crown volume Shazam! from the 40’s to the 70’s.) ANL/HBL’s Monster Society is a wonderful book, which reproduces each page from copies of the printed comics. No Theakstonizing or retouching for these folks! It’s all there just as it appeared in the original 1943-45 magazines, complete with sometimes off-register coloring, but reproduced considerably larger than in the old comics, so that the color dots are often clearly visible, as if Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein had turned the serial into one of their Pop Art productions. And, in one odd touch that somehow works, the pages’ margins and “gutters” between panels—areas that were left white on the comics’ pulp paper—are rendered in solid black. The end effect is to underscore the feeling established on the splash page of Chapter I, that one is

“Mister Mind Calling Captain Nazi!” The first the reader encounters Mr. Mind is as a disembodied voice from outer space—but he’s already involved with Captain Nazi, though their exact relationship is unclear. Mind gives Nazi orders on the next page—but Nazi’s main loyalty seems to be primarily to “Our Fuehrer.” From Chapter I. [©2007 DC Comics.]