Back Issue #32 Preview

SPIDER-MAN AND SPIDER-MOBILE TM AND © MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THIS ISSUE: TECH, DATA, AND HARDWARE

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MARVEL HANDBOOKS c WHO’S WHO c GREEN LANTERN c ROM c DIAL H FOR HERO with BROWN c STATON c VAN SCIVER c WEIN c WOLFMAN c and SUPERHERO FASHIONS

Volume 1, Number 32 February 2009 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Today!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

COVER ARTISTS Eliot R. Brown and Dusty Abell

PRO2PRO: Drawing Green Lantern: Then and Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Joe Staton and Ethan Van Sciver compare notes on the power-ringed space cops

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

BACKSTAGE PASS: The Art of Joe Staton: An Exhibit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 The artist of Green Lantern and just about everything else is honored in Massachusetts

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Alan Rutledge Dusty Abell Alex Saviuk Mark Arnold Michael Aushenker Alex Segura Lee K. Seitz Eliot R. Brown Ted Seko Timothy Callahan Jim Shooter Dewey Cassell Jason Smith Kent Clark Anthony Snyder Ernie Colón Stephen DeStefano Joe Staton Ethan Van Sciver Shelton Drum Len Wein Shane Foley Marv Wolfman Mike Gagnon Alex Wright Frank Gimpaya Gramps and Miss Millie Grand Comic-Book Database Robert Greenberger Larry Guidry Dustin Harbin Heritage Comics Auctions Javier Hernandez Sharon Karibian Jason Leivian Bruce MacIntosh Michael Mantlo Marvel Comics Allen Milgrom Bing McCoy Brian K. Morris Jeff Murrell Steve Ross Matt Rossi Bob Rozakis

FLASHBACK: A Knight to Remember: ROM: Spaceknight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Marvel’s guilty pleasure that outlived the toy that spawned him

Medusa faces front, then sideways, then back in this Marvel Handbook illo by Keith Pollard. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

FLASHBACK: The Legend of Bill Mantlo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 The ROM writer’s tragic story ART GALLERY: Spacenite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 Artists pro and amateur remember Bill Mantlo through ROM art at a special event PRO2PRO ROUNDTABLE: How to Be Definitive—Who’s Who . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and Bob Greenberger recall the origins of DC’s Who’s Who OFF MY CHEST: Leafing Through Who’s Who in the DC Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 An up-close-and-personal look at 1990’s looseleaf relaunch of Who’s Who INTERVIEW: Diagramming the Marvel Universe with Eliot R. Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 In-depth and photo-packed, a trip through Marvel’s history and a look at its Handbooks FLASHBACK: Dialing “H” for Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 Sockamagee! The DC device that turns zeroes into heroes BEYOND CAPES: Richie Rich’s Inventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 Ernie Colón tells the nuts-and-bolts about the poor little rich boy’s high-tech stuff BACKSTAGE PASS: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 A photo tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s special exhibit GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . .80 For Sale, the Justice League! The newest chapter of Bob Rozakis’ fantasy comics history BONUS FEATURE: AA Comics Who’s Who pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Get the lowdown on AA’s Aquaman and Aquagirl, Green Arrow, Batman, and Robin BACK TALK: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 Proof positive that Walter Simonson is a prince of a guy!

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, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $44 Media Mail US, $60 First Class US, $70 Canada, $105 International First Class, $115 International Priority Mail. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office.

Cover art by Eliot R. Brown and Dusty Abell. Spider-Mobile and Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2009 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing.

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8 con duc ted June 21, 200 e Mac Into sh inte rvie w tape d by Bruc K. Mor ris and tran scrib ed by Bria n

TM & © DC Comics.

MICHAEL EURY: My name is Michael Eury and I’m the editor of BACK ISSUE magazine, which, as you’re probably aware, is published by TwoMorrows and is the magazine about comics recommended by three out of four dentists. [audience chuckles] Today we’re talking about Green Lantern, in a very interesting forum with two artists who have had very influential runs on the hero’s adventures. We were originally going to include a third artist, that person being Alex Saviuk, who drew Green Lantern in the late 1970s, but he, unfortunately, had to cancel from the convention.

Still, we’re lucky to have two talented artists here for this “Pro2Pro” interview, a transcription of which will appear in BACK ISSUE #32 in January. So I’d like to first introduce the gentleman to my right.

This is JOE STATON, and you are probably aware of his work on a variety of titles. You would be hard-pressed to find series and characters Joe has not drawn. [audience chuckles] Joe’s first stint on Green Lantern started in the late ’70s and ran through the early ’80s, then he returned to different Green Lantern series off and on for many years thereafter.

And then, to Joe’s right, is ETHAN VAN SCIVER, who has drawn a variety of DC characters and very major profile series over the last handful of years, but you might be most interested in his Green Lantern work on a number of projects, particularly Rebirth.

Let’s start with a question for both of you: What is the first memory you have of discovering Green Lantern as a character?

JOE STATON: My first memory of Green Lantern was of buying his first tryout issues of Showcase off the stands. Green Lantern was the ultimate [editor] Julie Schwartz science-fiction character— the intergalactic adventures, the whole thing. I had been totally fascinated with Julie’s Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures.

Julie Schwartz was really the first actual name of a comics professional person I knew, and I was a big follower of whatever Julie did. So when I saw the first Showcase issue on the stands, that was my earliest Green Lantern memory.

ETHAN VAN SCIVER: I’m a little more peculiar because I don’t have any memories of Green Lantern other than some vague ones about the Super Friends. But Green Lantern was the one that when I watched the show, I never understood what he did and what he was about. He seemed completely uninteresting to me. I was interested in Superman the whole time.

I thought Superman was great! We’re talking about when I was four. Through the years, I managed to ignore Green Lantern my entire life, was never very impressed with the Green Lantern comic book.

When I was started working at DC in the late ’90s, I had friends, other artists, who would say to me, “Green Lantern is my favorite character,” and “If I could only get my hands on Green Lantern, that’s where I want to be forever.” And I would just look at them, baffled. I never saw it before. It took a long time for me to see it.

EURY: What was the catalyst for you to finally discover the magic of Green Lantern?

VAN SCIVER: [DC editorial director] Dan DiDio called me into the office and said, “We’ve got a great thing for you, Ethan. It is awesome! This is the perfect project for you, you’re going to be happy that you signed this exclusive with DC Comics. We’re going to rape and kill” … what’s her name? Darn it, I’m losing her name … Janet? No, not Janet.

MALE VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Jean?

VAN SCIVER: No, not Jean Loring.

ANOTHER MALE VOICE: Sue Dibny.

VAN SCIVER: Sue Dibny! [claps hands] Thank you, all right. I’m glad we have an audience here. [audience chuckles] He offered me Identity Crisis and I couldn’t T e c h ,

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Beginnings: Creepy stories, early 1970s / “Curse of the Hanging Man,” Ghost Manor #3 (1972)

Milestones: E-Man / Mike Mauser, Private Eye / Justice Society in All-Star Comics / Power Girl / Plastic Man in Adventure Comics / Green Lantern / The Huntress / Millennium / Guy Gardner / Scooby-Doo / Inkpot and Eisner Awards

Works in Progress: Femme Noir (Ape) / E-Man (Digital Webbing) / Scooby-Doo (DC) / Living With Celiac Disease (Boston Children’s Hospital)

Cyberspace: www.theartistschoice.com/staton

joe staton

Beginnings: Cyberfrog (1996)

Milestones: Cyberfrog / X-Men / The Flash: Iron Heights / Impulse / Green Lantern: Rebirth / Batman / Green Lantern

Works in Progress: The Flash: Rebirth / The Blackest Night

Cyberspace: http://ethanvansciver.comicbloc.com

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believe what I was hearing about that. He said, “No, take it home and chew on it for a while. You’ll see.”

And I did and I was getting ready to draw a bath when suddenly, they decided Rags Morales should be the artist for that and I should be the artist to bring back Hal Jordan.

And I was aware because I read message boards and I’ve always listened to the fans, [reverentially] I’ve always listened. [audience laughs] I was aware that some people were unhappy with the way Hal Jordan had been treated in the ’90s. I was quick to investigate and realized that even though I didn’t really care about Green Lantern before, I was also unhappy. And then I got on the phone with Geoff Johns and he pointed out some things that I should start reading so that I could educate myself about Green Lantern.

I missed Neal Adams’ run—in fact, I didn’t read a Neal Adams Lantern comic until much, much, much later. [gestures to Joe] Actually, the first comics that I read of Green Lantern, other than the death of Hal Jordan and all that nonsense, were yours.

That’s where I found Kilowog, and I thought Kilowog was wonderful and decided that we needed to bring back Kilowog immediately in Rebirth.

STATON: You big poozer. [audience laughs] VAN SCIVER: Yeah, and I drew him just like you.

I mean, I had the Popeye arms and everything. [audience laughs] And I started to really understand how deep and wonderful and how broad a concept it is, the idea that the color green is an energy that exists somewhere out in the universe that can be tapped by individuals using rings, special rings, and manifest itself through will power. I thought that was wonderful.

It had just been done wrong recently.

I mean, the comics that I had read of Green Lantern were wrong. I wasn’t interested in them. Geoff and I just sat down and decided what was the most important, what was the fundamental thing about Green Lantern that was so wonderful and broke it down and rebuilt it from there and that was it. So that’s a long answer to the question. [audience chuckles] EURY: As far as Hal Jordan is concerned, his uniform has remained essentially the same. It’s been modified slightly over the years, but by and large Gil Kane’s original costume design for the Silver Age Green Lantern is still being used fifty years later. From an artist’s viewpoint, what makes that design so powerful and timeless?

VAN SCIVER: It’s a brilliant design. It’s one of the best-designed costumes in superhero comics.

Everybody agrees with that, I’m sure. There’s no reason to change it, is there?

STATON: No, green and black. And the way it was done originally, where there was no coloring around the black.

It was so stark, I mean, you really can’t do better.

EURY: Green Lantern #107 was the first time you did any work on the character. That was July 1978 and a cover you penciled for an issue that Alex Saviuk drew.

It had aliens converging upon Green Lantern, accusing them of killing their Green Lantern. And you took over the series shortly thereafter. Was this a tryout?

STATON: Well, actually, your information’s not right.

EURY: Uh-oh!

STATON: My first shot at Green Lantern was sometime in 1977 in DC Five-Star Super-Spectacular.

EURY: Oops, I forgot that. [audience chuckles] STATON: That was kind of my tryout on Green Lantern, and as long as I had been working at DC, I had been wanting to do Green Lantern but it had never come up for a long time.

VAN SCIVER: When did you start at DC and on what?

STATON: When did I start at DC? Well, I started on Karate Kid, doing finishes off Ric Estrada. When would that be, like ’45?

FEMALE VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: ’75.

STATON: Oh, ’45, ’75? [joking] Sorry, I was sitting next to Irwin Hasen today… [audience laughs] I started at DC after doing The Incredible Hulk at Marvel— who’s also green—and next, I did the finishes on Karate Kid. And I had a good run on the Justice Society [in All-Star Comics], and various things. But I had always wanted to do Green Lantern because of the whole Julie Schwartz thing. Julie was there [at DC at the time] and [Green Lantern] came around.

I think [assistant editor] Jack Harris put in a good plug for me.

He did some persuading to get me onto Green Lantern.

EURY: Jack C. Harris eventually took over the editorship from Julie on that title during your run.

STATON: Yeah.

EURY: Joe, one of your first storylines was called “Power War,” with Sinestro. Really, he’s Green Lantern’s only A-list villain…

VAN SCIVER: You’re forgetting Evil Star? The Shark? [audience chuckles] EURY: So what makes Sinestro GL’s arch-foe?

VAN SCIVER: With Sinestro, it’s like Star Wars. It’s like Jesus and Satan. He fell from grace and has been angry ever since.

Except that Sinestro is not Hal Jordan’s father. [audience laughs] STATON: That’s right, that’s right. Sinestro is the fallen angel.

He’s the Lucifer of the Green Lantern Corps. You’ve got a greenand-black hero, and a magenta-and-black bad guy, you can’t go wrong with that.

EURY: Let’s stay on the topic of Green Lantern’s rogues’ gallery: Outside of Sinestro, no other GL villain has ever really made it to the A-list, with the possible exception of Star Sapphire. This is a question for each of you: Aside from Sinestro, who’s your favorite Green Lantern villain, and why?

VAN SCIVER: They’re all great! They’re all great! All of them are great! [audience chuckles] I’m trying to think of a bad one, but all of them just needed to be rethought through and given a little bit of a spit-shine and then put back into play. The original Shark creation, he didn’t look like a shark. He looked like a parrot. [audience laughs] I would like to do Sonar. The lamer, the better. [audience chuckles] Sonar, the Master of Sound, whatever, able to manipulate sound.

STATON: With a tuning fork. [laughter] VAN SCIVER: It’s all good. I mean, there’s a wealth of truly weird and wonderful characters and all of them are worth pursuing.

You need a feel for it, the right sort of energy.

I was not a Green Lantern fan for thirty years, so I felt free to be slightly irreverent and to look at Green Lantern and to see all the pieces, the puzzle pieces, that there’s one here, one here, one here, that nobody ever put together before to make the big picture.

You know, Sinestro’s use of the color yellow, which represents fear, which happens to be right on the color spectrum next to green on the rainbow. And yet, for many, many years, these two colors kept converging. Guy Gardner getting a yellow ring for a little while, Sinestro used to be a Green Lantern, Hal becomes Parallax, these two colors come together like colors on a spectrum, on a rainbow. And then suddenly, you look closer and realize that over here, someone’s playing with the violet powers, the Star Sapphire’s.

It’s left untouched, it’s left undone, it’s dangling here and suddenly, you go, “Look at all the pieces that are missing.” This all makes sense somehow and it seems like it was there from the very start and so everything makes sense about Green Lantern.

EURY: But it wasn’t there from the very start.

VAN SCIVER: But somehow, it was! That’s what’s so interesting about it. Oh, I’m sure they didn’t realize it, but it actually was.

STATON: You’ve even got Dr. Polaris and everything’s a negative, and so actually in Green Lantern, the whole thing is the color thing.

Rotten to the Corps (above) Arch-foe Sinestro hogs the stage on the cover to Green Lantern Corps #217 (Oct. 1987), penciled by Joe Staton and inked by Bruce Patterson. From the collection of Phillip Anderson. (top) Van Sciver, Staton, and Eury, at HeroesCon 2008. Photo by Rich Fowlks.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Covers © the respective owners.

In August and September of 2008, residents of Western Massachusetts could walk through the door of the nondescript Storefront Artist Project and find magnificent universes awaiting them inside. Many visitors probably hadn’t studied the work of Joe Staton before, but they were certainly familiar with the images which filled the walls: Batman, Scooby-Doo, Superman, and other iconic comic-book characters.

“The Art of Joe Staton,” a six-week exhibit in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts, drew adults and children from all over the northeast, as the nonprofit Storefront Artist Project displayed the legendary artist’s work in addition to hosting a variety of interactive comic-book workshops geared toward aspiring creators of all ages.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art founder (and current Pittsfield resident) Lawrence Klein conceived of “The Art of Joe Staton” as a way to invigorate the local comics community while providing an all-ages exhibit that everyone could enjoy. Klein drafted local writers and artists into the project, with the goal of providing free comic-book classes and sketch-a-thons for the community.

How did Klein settle on a show devoted to the work of Joe Staton? “I’ve known Joe and [his wife] Hilarie Staton for a long time,” says Klein. “No one is more deserving of an exhibit [than Joe Staton] and his art is perfect for what I had in mind.” Klein commends the support the Staton family had shown in the early days of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, and emphasizes that Staton’s work had the family-friendly appeal that he wanted for the Storefront Artist Project show.

Staton, who donated dozens of hours of his own time (in addition to many pieces of his original artwork) for the exhibit, was more than happy with the response from the community. “Apparently we’ve had a good turnout of the local art gallery crowd, and we brought in lots of families with kids,” says Staton. “We kept the Storefront’s base and broadened it to people who don’t generally check out gallery shows.”

Overall, Staton enjoyed interacting with fans and non-fans alike. “I’ve really enjoyed the workshops,” says Staton. “We had a good showing of comics fans and local artists who had serious questions and good feedback. At one point, Scott Hanna and I were doing sketches outside for a street fair and we got a lot of visibility for the gallery. That was especially good catching non-comics, non-gallery people who were just fascinated to see drawing being done. For people who aren’t around artists a lot, especially kids, it can be sort of amazing that a bunch of scribbles on paper will suddenly turn into Scooby-Doo or Batman.”

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Timothy Callahan

® He was the original techie from another planet.

A failed action figure inspiring a 75-issue run (1979–1986), the gadget-dependent cosmic superhero ROM: Spaceknight may have had the most unique backstory in Marvel Comics history.

HE CAME NOT FROM THE PLANET GALADOR … BUT FROM YOUR LOCAL TOY STORE

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It was a riddle that even the Great Sphinx of Giza could not answer: ROM originated as an Egyptian character pitched to the burgeoning electronic toy market.

In 2004, Lee K. Seitz posted an interview with ROM creator Bing McCoy on his website, ROM: Spaceknight Revisted. The toy creator, a former touring musician who once backed Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, created the action figure ROM. But McCoy’s name is not the only one registered to the ROM patent.

According to McCoy, he started a toy company with Scott Dankman, after McCoy’s success developing Electronic Battleship. Marketeer Richard Levy came aboard, and, said McCoy, he “let them sign on as co-inventors so that they could [claim] capital gains status on their tax returns. Scott and I dissolved the partnership after a few years.

“No toy company would want to sell an Egyptian mystic,” McCoy explained, “so I made it into a cyborg after all the toy companies passed on the ‘Egyptian’ concept. Parker Bros. picked it up because they [wanted] to try something outside the board game business.”

Originally named COBOL after the computer programming language, “Parker Bros. changed the name to ROM,” McCoy recalled. “‘Read Only Memory.’ My only backstory was that he was a cyborg. Marvel came up with the main story concept.”

There’s a good reason why Dire Wraith figures never invaded toy store shelves. “ROM pretty much flopped as a toy, so Parker Bros. didn’t want to make any more stuff,” said McCoy, who gambles that only 200–300K units of the 12" action figure were ever distributed due to poor marketing.

“On the box was a terrible graphic design. It just didn’t look very sexy.”

Michael Aushenker

Marvel To Milgrom: “It’s Miller Time!”

Al Milgrom’s original cover for ROM #1.

Compare it to the Frank Miller/Josef Rubenstein version used instead, seen in the inset. “Frank was the hot artist at the time,” says Milgrom. “I actually thought my version was better. I would rarely have said it because Miller was a star, and who was I? But I think it worked better.”

ROM TM & © Parker Brothers.

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HE WAS EDITED AND DRAWN BY AL MILGROM

Few people in fandom may realize that writer/ artist/editor Al Milgrom’s maternal grandparents were related to Marvel Comics publisher Martin Goodman. But nepotism could not break Milgrom into the industry.

Milgrom tried to gain employment at Marvel, but Goodman ignored his queries. When Milgrom finally entered the business in 1972, it was at Marvel’s rival as a background artist for Murphy Anderson on DC’s Action Comics.

“Murphy actually worked at the DC offices,” Milgrom tells BACK ISSUE. “He could have worked from home, but he couldn’t convince his wife that he was working if he didn’t get up and leave the house in the morning.”

When Milgrom came to New York, “I lived with Jim Starlin, Bill DuBay, Steve Skeates,” he recalls. “Mike Friedrich had just moved to the West Coast.

Laser Tag Al Milgrom’s sizzling cover art to ROM: Spaceknight #2 (Jan. 1980).

ROM TM & © Parker Brothers.

“Starlin and I went to high school together and I think junior high before that. He was from a suburb— Berkley, Michigan. I lived in the neighboring town of Huntington Woods.”

Milgrom briefly assisted another Detroit Marvelite, Rich Buckler, on Ka-Zar and Man-Thing. Milgrom joined Anderson at DC, where Milgrom worked as an editor from 1977–1978 alongside another young up-and-coming multi-hyphenate talent, Larry Hama (G. I. Joe). Then came the DC Implosion, when the company shelved dozens of titles.

“DC threw us both out at the same time,” Milgrom says. “I went up to work at Marvel after a short period.

Jim Shooter offered me an editorial position. He asked me if Larry would be a good editor.”

By the time Shooter hired Hama, Milgrom had begun editing “around 15 titles: [including] Shogun Warriors, Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk, Dr. Strange, Defenders. Mary Jo Duffy was my assistant editor.”

Milgrom created scores of Marvel covers, such as the memorable Human Fly #1.

Then came ROM.

HE HAD A SINGULAR VISIONARY IN WRITER BILL MANTLO

Marvel Comics Group had a history of adapting other media into comics. In the early ’70s, Planet of the Apes, Tomb of Dracula, The Monster of Frankenstein, and Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations abounded. By decade’s end, Logan’s Run, Man From Atlantis, 2001: A Space Odyssey (which Jack Kirby spun off into Machine Man), The Human Fly, KISS, Shogun Warriors, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica filled the spinner racks.

Soon, Star Trek, G. I. Joe, Transformers, and US-1 (inspired by an electric toy set) also became titles.

“The Marvel fans were always up in arms about it,” Al Milgrom, frequent ROM cover artist and the series’ initial editor, says. “To them, it was as if we were diluting the Marvel Universe. What the fans didn’t want to understand is that it’s also a business.

Comics [based upon] licensed characters would bring in new readers that were fans of the toys. I never saw anything wrong with doing books based on licensed characters. That’s why I liked Bill [Mantlo]—we did The Micronauts, too. There’s a whole group of fans now where those were the books they loved.”

But by 1979, Marvel certainly didn’t need another cosmic hero with Silver Surfer, Warlock, Captain Marvel, Killraven, and Nova each having top-lined series. So why ROM: Spaceknight?

Jim Shooter, at the time Marvel Comics’ editor-inchief, remembers how ROM: Spaceknight crash-landed into the Marvel Universe.

“Sometime early in 1979, Marvel Comics president Jim Galton called me to his office to discuss an opportunity to license a toy property—ROM, the Spaceknight,” Shooter tells BACK ISSUE. “We’d had some success with the Micronauts, which the legendary licensing/toy genius Stan Weston had pitched to me, and I had licensed, so Galton was immediately interested in a new Parker Brothers toy that he had somehow become aware of. Galton knew nothing about comics, and couldn’t care less about them— but he was very interested in making money. If one toy property worked, why wouldn’t another?”

Shooter continues, “Galton and I flew up to Boston and drove out to wherever Parker Brothers offices were— in a beautiful, wooded setting, as I recall—and met with their brass and licensing people. We worked out a deal.”

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For the comics fans out there who have not encountered his work, Bill Mantlo was a young, aspiring comics writer who made his big break with Marvel Comics in the 1970s.

Mantlo’s intelligent plots and high-paced action quickly propelled him into the upper echelon of comics writers. During his career Mantlo would make his mark on some of the most prominent titles of the day.

The Brooklyn-born comic enthusiast started his professional career in the early ’70s by landing a job as a colorist at Marvel. Bill quickly moved up to being one of Marvel’s top writers in a few short years. By the late ’70s, Mantlo had an impressive résumé and had worked on almost every major Marvel title.

Mantlo built up a fan following thanks to his respected work on titles such as The Micronauts, ROM: Spacenknight, The Incredible Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man, Alpha Flight, X-Men, and Cloak and Dagger, just to name a few. Cloak and Dagger were, in fact, two hit characters with a cult following that were created by Mantlo himself.

Bill’s contributions to the characters he wrote were palpable, and can still be felt to this day.

Mantlo spent five years writing Marvel’s Hulk character starting with The Incredible Hulk #245 (Feb. 1980). Mantlo made a concentrated effort on expanding the human side of the Hulk, moving the thrust of the series from exterior action and battles to the inner turmoil of Bruce Banner’s own mind. Bill was the first writer to revisit the grey Hulk since the character’s origin tale. Mantlo was also the first writer to explore the Hulk’s inner mindscape, to have the beast control Banner, and to write villains who would use gamma-irradiated animals as weapons against the Hulk. It was Mantlo who created the backstory that the Hulk was not born of the gamma explosion which released him, but that he had always been hidden within Banner’s mind, a split personality resulting from previously unrevealed childhood abuse, with the gamma explosion only being the key which allowed his release into the physical world.

These and other key elements introduced to the character by Mantlo would become enshrined in the character’s mythos and built upon by other great writers, most notably Peter David in his ten-year run on the book. Mantlo’s work on Incredible Hulk also inspired key plot lines in other entertainment spin-offs such as cartoons, video games, and the most recent Hollywood adaptations.

Mantlo would also spend nearly seven years writing Marvel’s flagship character, Spider-Man, beginning with The Spectacular Spider-Man #9 (Aug. 1977). During his time on the book Mantlo would shift the focus from general superhero and crime capers to Peter Parker’s personal life as a student at Empire State University, something not being done in the other Spider-books of the time.

Indeed, in a similar fashion Mantlo would make a trademark out of touching or altering the personal lives of nearly every character he wrote.

During his career, Bill also built a reputation for being able to turn out quality comics series based on licensed properties for Marvel. Mantlo is still remembered fondly by fans for his work on Team

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America, The Micronauts, The Transformers, and ROM: Spaceknight, all series that were based on toy lines and were so well received that they long outlived the toys that inspired them.

Although long defunct, the ROM series in particular is still popular among fans today. The series earned Mantlo a fiercely loyal fan following by mixing dramatic space opera, action, and surreal environments. Today there are art and sci-fi shows held celebrating the character and honoring the man who brought him to life.

Mantlo wrote the entire 75-issue series of ROM and four annuals from 1979–1986. During this time, Bill worked on several famous collaborations with Sal Buscema. It has been said by some comic-book historians that Bill and Sal had a love/hate relationship. Rumor, or legend, has it that the two got along great and loved working together, but eventually would butt heads and result in Sal walking away until the next time the two creators would join forces. “…only Bill Mantlo would have taken the job to write a comic book based on a toy motorcycle you placed in a launcher and wound up and treated it so sincerely” comic critic Matt Rossi said regarding Bill’s Team America work in a 2004 entry in his weblog. “Neither [Jim] Shooter nor Steven Grant can say they did the same.”

Mantlo enjoyed working on nearly every one of Marvel’s top properties in the ’70s and ’80s while continuing to reach for another lifelong dream, his law degree.

By the time Bill was preparing for the bar exam he was also talking to DC and landing the job writing their epic company-wide crossover, Invasion!

Mantlo realized his dream and became a public defender based in New York City, while still making time to turn out scripts for Marvel.

Due to his professional obligations, Mantlo would lessen his workload from comics, but never turned his back on them entirely. Mantlo always had some side project in comics on the go.

In 1992, in the prime of his life and a budding legal career, an event occurred that would irreparably alter Mr. Mantlo’s life forever.

Tragically, Bill Mantlo was struck by a car while rollerblading. Among other things, Bill was left suffering from a “closed-head, traumatic brain injury.” The complications related to his injuries left him in a coma for over a year. When Bill awoke he had to begin living with what has been described by family members as “massive brain damage.” Even after years of therapy Mantlo now resides in a home for the disabled where he receives 24-hour care. Bill now lives in a severely impaired mental state, unable to do even the most simple of tasks without help, except sleep.

The driver of the car that struck him fled from the scene and has never been identified or apprehended.

Like so many other comics creators before him, Mantlo was considered a freelancer, and so is not entitled to any kind of pension or benefits. The nature of his disability has left Mantlo in need of constant care, unable to perform even the most basic of functions.

In the years since, the comics community has come together to help Bill Mantlo by raising money. Comics creator David Yurkovich has written a book about the writer and has donated proceeds to Mantlo’s continuing care. Artists such as David Lasky have donated artwork auctioned off for Bill’s benefit. “[Support from the comic-book community] has been extremely important, in that it allows me to provide Bill a somewhat improved quality of life,” says Bill’s brother Michael Mantlo. “I am able to bring him meals of his choosing (so he isn’t forced to eat institutional food every day), provide him new/replacement clothing, and simply help keep him up to date with the world around him, which he is more or less cut off from.”

Jason Leivian, owner of Floating World Comics in Portland, Oregon, is a huge supporter of Mantlo. In December 2007, Leivian 2 8

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held a SPACENITE art show in his store; he sells posters and is working on a book, all to help raise money for Bill’s care.

“What first grabbed me as a kid was the artwork, the shiny design of ROM’s robotic costume,” Leivian says. “But it was really the story and characters that led me to collect every issue as a kid.

Looking back there were lots of strong sci-fi and horror elements as well as superheroics. Sort of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Nightmare on Elm Street, where the parents or authorities don’t believe the terror that’s going on or they mistake the hero for the monster.

It worked. I used to go look at the back issues and the early covers really intrigued me.”

Leivian held another gallery event in late 2008, called SPACENIGHT 2, where he debuted a benefit book which showcased material from a number of artists and comics creators.

Even newer or younger comics fans can easily track down affordable copies of Mantlo’s work in their local hobby shops or at conventions and discover the rich tapestries that Mantlo created.

Unlike the Kirbys and the Eisners of the comics world, who continue to experience surges in popularity long after their passing, Bill Mantlo is a modern comic-book legend who is still with us today.

In Mantlo, comics fans have only to make a decision, to make a commitment to show our appreciation for the great work he has done while he is still here and with us, to let Mr. Mantlo know that when he is in his darkest hour, that it is we who will band together and help carry him through the tough times.

Bill Mantlo continues to meet his daily needs solely on the love and support of family and friends, and the dedication of a small legion of volunteers, made up of professionals and fans alike, who won’t allow one of our own to become another statistic of society’s forgotten.

“Bill’s long-term memories are still intact, although it is difficult for him to access specific memories at will, without assistance,” says Michael Mantlo. “What this means is, he remembers everything from his time at Marvel, but the memories swirl around in his head like the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz, and he can’t control which memory pops into his head at whatever time it does. The letters from fans bring him great joy, and an immense amount of pride in knowing that his writing touched people, and in some small way helped change the world.”

You can send well wishes, fan mail, donations (payable to Michael Mantlo), and letters of support to: Michael Mantlo, 425 Riverside Dr., Apt. 12-E New York, NY, 10025 You can also find free downloads of David Yurkovich and Michael Mantlo’s book “Mantlo: A Life in Comics,” as well as Bill’s ’80s creator-owned series Swords of the Swashbucklers, at www.wowio.com. Each download generates a donation that helps contribute to Bill’s long-term care.

Showing your respects to our comic-book veterans is a worthwhile cause, and helping can be as simple as buying a piece of artwork, donating a few bucks to organizations like the Hero Initiative, or volunteering your time in some form or another to help out and get involved with the benefits and fundraising efforts for Bill and other retired comics creators like him.

Let’s send a message to those artists and creators whose work we’ve enjoyed that as long as there are fans, their hard work and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

MIKE GAGNON is a freelance writer with a soft spot for all things comics-related. You can find out more about his work at www.mikegagnon.ca.

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Comics readers had always sought out details about their favorite heroes or villains, but before the 1980s, no official guides existed. In a hurry, that changed when both DC Comics and Marvel Comics launched competing, exhaustive guides to their continuities. Such guides have since become a comic-book staple with most publishers offering up some sort of handbook of their own.

The approaches taken by the two major companies differed, with Marvel tending toward encyclopedic detail about their characters, including trying to define powers and abilities in context with other inhabitants of the Marvel Universe. DC’s approach has tended more toward placing the characters and their convoluted backstories in historical perspective.

Although work on Who’s Who began first, Marvel’s Official Handbook hit the racks earlier. Undaunted,

What’s What Character-crammed original art to the wraparound cover to Who’s Who #3 (May 1985), penciled by George Pérez and inked by Dick Giordano. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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DC’s team continued their own way, and since it debuted in late 1984, Who’s Who has remained a high watermark for the company. Now, for the first time, BACK ISSUE has gathered the three main men behind the maxiseries (which grew from 24 to 26 volumes before the first run even wrapped) to wax nostalgic.

– Bob Greenberger BOB GREENBERGER: Marv, this more or less all started with you and your crazy idea of a mega-event. How soon after the Crisis notion did the logical Who’s Who companion occur to you?

MARV WOLFMAN: What happened was a series of events. First, we thought that to do Crisis we needed a complete history of DC, and so we hired Peter Sanderson to read every DC book from our library and to make notes for us. It was a dangerous job but someone had to do it.

Who’s Who Behind Who’s Who Who’s Who-era photos of Len Wein and Bob Greenberger from “back in the day,” courtesy of Bob Rozakis (seen behind the laughing Wein in the first pic).

As time went on and the expense started to grow, we received a little bit of flak from the front office for how much it was starting to cost without them understanding specifically what good Peter’s research would do.

Although we announced Crisis in 1981 under the title of History of the DC Universe (or something similar) and had been working on it sporadically for three, four years (more thinking than working, if truth be told), Marvel took our slow progress to try to scoop us with a toy tie-in comic they were working on [Secret Wars] and say they had come up with the idea first. Of course, they hadn’t— they started years after us, but they rushed out their book while we took our time with Crisis in order to come out during DC’s 50th anniversary in 1985.

Anyway, I got angry over Marvel saying we ripped off their idea even though ours was mentioned in print years before, and since we were getting flak about the cost of hiring Peter to read our books, I frankly suggested ripping off their Marvel Universe book and proposed Who’s Who as a companion to Crisis that would very specifically use Peter’s research in a way we actually never did in Crisis, since that book evolved away from any history into something bigger. I also suggested we could do the book so it would serve a triple purpose: 1) to use Peter’s research and catalog every DC character for our files as well as the new DCU that would be coming after Crisis was done; 2) after Crisis to let all our potential new readers know the entire DC pantheon of characters; and 3) to show potential licensers an easy to follow guide for their use.

This would be the first real attempt to make such a list available to anyone who wanted to license our characters.

LEN WEIN: There’s really not much more that I can add to that, Marv. That pretty much sums it all up.

GREENBERGER: What sort of reaction to the concept did you get from DC higher-ups Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, and Dick Giordano?

WOLFMAN: I think they liked all those ideas and, of course, the ability to show them to licensers gave it a financial incentive, too. But I think they also liked the idea of having all our characters available at a glance. In short, the idea of Who’s Who justified the expense.

WEIN: Also, to be honest, we were sort of the Golden Boys of DC in those days. There was very little that either Marv or I suggested that did not get approved. Our track record for DC at that point, sales-wise, was excellent, so even if they had their doubts, they were willing to give us the benefit of same to see what we’d produce.

GREENBERGER: Since I joined the party in January 1984, you were already at work on this series. I’m curious: Having had nothing like this to base Who’s Who on, did you guys create your own template or borrow something from another field?

WOLFMAN: Well, as I said, Marvel had done their Marvel Universe book, but Len and I didn’t want to do the “role-playing game” concept of exactly how strong people were, how many foot/pounds-per-whatever they could do, or specifically define the absolute limit to powers. That was good for role-playing games, which was Marvel’s intent, but not for creating fiction.

We wanted to be a bit more general and to come up

with something exciting and interesting. Interesting for the fans and exciting for licensers.

WEIN: Absolutely. One of our biggest concerns was that if we listed any sort of limits to any of the characters’ strengths or weaknesses, that would be all that the mail would consist of from that point forward: that “Last issue, you had Superman lift Mount Rushmore, but in the Who’s Who, you said he couldn’t lift anything heavier than Mount McKinley” sort of stuff. What we really wanted to do was supply all the pertinent data that future writers or licensers would need to be able to work with the characters, not put any artificial limits on them. The entries were really more like minibiographies of the characters than anything else.

MARV WOLFMAN GREENBERGER: Why did you decide to include the non-DCU characters [characters from DC’s long history that did not, at least at the time, exist in the traditional DC timeline] as well?

WOLFMAN: I don’t remember exactly, but probably for the licensers so they knew all the characters DC published, not just DCU characters.

WEIN: Yeah, that seems as good a reason as any at this point. I really don’t remember the specifics anymore.

GREENBERGER: My recollection was that it was being hailed as a 50th anniversary tie-in, so the company’s rich history, in and out of continuity, was included as a result.

How tough was it to create the master list LEN WEIN from fifty years’ worth of publishing?

WOLFMAN: Peter had already spent a few years cataloging the information, so it wasn’t that difficult. We took his research on the old characters and combined it with our knowledge of the current characters.

WEIN: Exactly. It was more a matter of deciding which characters not to include, which villains or supporting characters to leave out. Peter had already done all the heavy lifting.

GREENBERGER: [DC’s first art director] Neal Pozner came in to design the logo and page layout for the book. What did you think of those efforts?

WOLFMAN: Neal was a great designer, and though I don’t recall this exactly, I think he probaBOB GREENBERGER bly went through a lot of logos before we all settled T e c h ,

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I joined the DC Comics staff as an associate editor in August of 1989, after 18 months at Comico the Comic Company.

I was hired by the DC group editor trinity of Mike Carlin (Superman), Denny O’Neil (Batman), and Andy Helfer (Justice League), to work with each of them and their universes.

With my fingers in all of DC’s major superhero “groups” and my background as a diehard DC fan (which was obvious to the editors given my previous pro-DC articles for the fanzine Amazing Heroes), I became the logical choice to edit a “new” version of Who’s Who that the company wanted to do (or maybe I was picked because no one else wanted to do it…). Having thumbed through my original Who’s Whos to the point of almost wearing their yellow-dot-matrix backgrounds off the pages, this was an exciting assignment! But as I sat down to work on the project, it wasn’t one without its challenges…

My first challenge, as I recall (and it’s been almost twenty years, so hopefully these recollections are accurate), was the format. By ’89, DC had done 26 issues of Who’s Who, five issues of an ’87 and four issues of an ’88 Update, two issues of Who’s Who in Star Trek, and seven issues of a Legion of Super-Heroes version. That’s 44 Who’s Whos to live up to! This was an “if it ain’t broke…” scenario, where the format, which had become tried-and-true in just a few years, really didn’t need “fixing.” But I was being asked to revamp it. So I was faced with the dilemma of how to complement the original Who’s Who, or take it to the next level, without disservicing it (or disrespecting the work of Marv, Len, Bob, and the others who came before me).

Friday at DC was “comp day.” Each Friday afternoon Kevin (and later, Lenny) the libarian would roll around a cart filled with that week’s worth of DCs, Marvels, and whatever else the company received to distribute to staff. At this time, trading cards were enjoying a surge in popularity, and packs of cards were often part of our weekly comp pile.

So in discussing possible formats with the project’s designer, Keith “Kez” Wilson, it became obvious to us that we needed to turn Who’s Who into “giant” trading cards, or into a comic book of “trading cards.” I did a sketch (featuring Aquaman) of how I envisioned the layout: The “A” side would be a pinup of the character, with logo (like the original Who’s Who), but featuring more of a “signature” shot of the character(s) than the original’s historical montage. The “B” side would feature a driver’s license-like headshot to accompany the personal data; then would come the character’s history, in text, and below that a trio of flashback panels to provide the reader with a visual “tour” of the character’s past, spotlighting key moments referenced in text. In this rough I indicated that the page would feature a color-coded designation to define the entry’s status: Hero, Villain, Supporting Cast, and the like, or supplementals such as Geography.

This would enable the reader to group the pages as s/he saw fit: alpha order, by color, by group (go ahead, bundle the JLA!), and so on. Keith refined my

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primitive etching into a working design, and we were faced with the next challenge: how to make that format a reality.

Here’s where then-production manager Bob Rozakis and art director Richard Bruning became involved. Kez and I dropped the loose-leaf Who’s Who into their laps and asked them to make it work!

This required research into the new production terrain of a book spine consisting of lightly glued pages which could be peeled off. And let’s not forget threehole-punching. And shrinkwrapping, to keep the pages from separating when bound. Yikes! But through Bob’s and Richard’s diligence and ingenuity, the details were worked out.

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The front cover art of the second Who’s Who in the DC Universe notebook binder, with art by Brian Bolland.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Like many of BACK ISSUE’s readers, I had the good fortune to be an avid comics fan during one of the most exciting periods in the medium’s history, the late ’70s through the mid-’80s. A treasured memory of those times was the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe! It was the glorified equivalent of baseball trading cards and sport almanacs but for comic-book fans.

I was in heaven!

One of the contributors to the Handbooks whose work I was fascinated with and became an enthusiastic admirer of was Eliot R. Brown. He provided the technical illustrations and scientific explanations of Marvel’s iconic characters, vehicles, and installations in a way that made flying cars and robotic suits of armor seem entirely plausible and mechanically sound. I had the opportunity to ask Eliot about his life and career and I hope you enjoy the very entertaining reminiscences, stories, and asides from someone who had a firsthand account of life in and around the Marvel Bullpen from almost the very beginning of its historic inception.

– Dusty Abell DUSTY ABELL: Can you tell me a bit about your early childhood, family, where you grew up, school, how your mom helped you get a job at Marvel Comics, and your memories of Marvel’s early days?

ELIOT R. BROWN: I was born in ’54 in Boston, moved to midtown Manhattan—New York City— when I was five. Mom was single, and went to work at Parade Magazine. What was odd about that was that Parade’s offices were literally a block away from where we lived (we lived on 45th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues—their offices were right on, uh ... 46th and Third! A rare circumstance...). Went to P.S. 59 on 57th Street, which—another oddity—was in the same building as my high school—so up to high school, I didn’t have to travel all that far.

That experience at Parade allowed Mom to move on to another job in a “small” office, a place called Kalish, Quigley & Rosen (KQ&R). These three smart guys used to work at Magazine Management (MM)— an innocuous name for a place that also owned Marvel Comics. MM was making money from its line of “Men’s Magazines,” torrid stuff like Men, True Adventure, Action for Men, and Stag, what we might see as “soft R”-rated today. There was also a line of “Women’s Mags” like Intimate Confessions and True

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Eliot R. Brown’s Marvel Universe Entry Art by Marie Severin. “And how!” smiles Eliot.

“That woman with her incredible mind had assembled each little thing I had done that was perfectly, absurdly relevant to my time at Marvel and rendered a ‘little story’ of me.

Plus that was a very nice likeness of me in a suit; I did look good in a suit!” [Editor’s note: Eliot looks “less good” in a wig and bra. But he assures us that Marie didn’t make up that stuff in the montage—he really did it all!] © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Beginnings: At age 13, as a messenger boy in midtown Manhattan, occasionally delivering to Magazine Management (which morphed into Marvel Comics)

Milestones: The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe / The Punisher Armory / The Punisher War Journal / The Iron Manual / Penthouse Comix / Wolverine Encyclopedia / Green Arrow / Secret Files and Origins and miscellaneous DC Comics tech pages / The All-New Iron Manual / The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe

Works in Progress: The Kingston Vacuum Works business (“vacuum forming tables and more for designers, modelers, engineers, and chocolatiers”)

Cyberspace: www.warmplastic.com www.eliotrbrown.com

Eliot R. Brown Photo: Frank Gimpaya.

Retro-Rockets to Brake!

Eliot’s car design, probably drawn in 1968. The entire seat compartment was a capsule that could be shot out and parachute to safety.

“ERB-1” is the license plate.

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Confessions. Oh, yeah, and a couple of comic books, too. This was roughly in 1961.

So KQ&R got a contract to sell all the advertising space in all of Magazine Management’s mags and comics plus anything else they could come up with.

Mom (Frances) and two other very nice ladies who became my other Moms (Connie and Muriel) took care of all the ads in all those “books.”

All those dozens of teeny tiny ads—100 stamps for a dime!; learn to throw your voice!; X-Ray specs!; a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger flexing away (why, you could look like him with some of Joe Weider’s products!); learn to play the guitar!; itching powder “gags” (ground glass! yes; when found out, eliminated from the line up of “sure-fire laughs”)— hundreds more! Many painfully burned into my brain!

I never did get the 6' Frankenstein’s Monster or fold-up submarine—but wanted to!

A bit of triviality was that those pages were referred to as “the stamp pages” by my three moms. Not just from the previously noted stamp offer, but also those ads were assembled at the printed size and so they were just like stamps!

Mom stayed there for a long time. When I was old enough I became their messenger boy, when I was about 12.

So there was little Eliot acting as messenger boy in bustling midtown Manhattan. I would go between the main offices of Magazine Management and Kalish, Quigley & Rosen. Stan Lee and Marvel Comics used to be physically separated from MM. Sometime in the early ’70s, Cadence Industries bought MM and they gently, but swiftly, shut down the “magazine” end. That’s when they hired James Galton as publisher. He was the fellow who saw Marvel Comics as the “tail wagging the dog” and decided that a kid-oriented entity shouldn’t have a dozen magazines about WWII soldiers finding Nazi gold while rescuing a dozen nurses! Galton had come from Paperback Books at New American Library and seemed to have little interest in the field as anything other than a publishing business.

This major change—Cadence and Galton— seemed to heighten the traditional conflict between publishers and creative people. This is not to say that there are no creative publishers, but usually that more revolves around saving money by eliminating creators than breathing life into paper and ink for hundreds of thousands of fans...

This is not to say that Jim Galton was anything other than a pretty good guy to us bums down below.

He tried. I felt he was more a fish out of water— these “comic books” were not real publishing, after all.

ABELL: What are your earliest recollections of comic books from your childhood, of artists or writers whose work influenced or inspired you?

BROWN: When I was a kid roving the streets with my chums, there were a lot of small “Mom and Pop” stores. My earliest exposure to comics that I could buy (a 25-cent allowance went a long way back then) got me some Superman and Batman books.

There was a vibrant trade system with my chums so I could see a regular assortment of lesser titles.

I recall Supergirl and Wonder Woman. But the one that still jumps to mind, quite clearly, is an oddity called Brain Boy. I loved the idea that through the power of his mind alone, he could fly. Apparently, he could do other things too, but that’s what I remember best.

“Vest Pocket Park” A high school project of Brown’s. “That sort of small park was the rage at that time,” he says. “I think there are a handful in Midtown Manhattan! Real estate quickly outstripped amenities...”

As for early artistic influences … harder to say. Back then, “Walt Disney” was that prolific animator who also made a comic book or two. Simpler times, you know?

The two artists that do stand out were William Pène du Bois and Hergé. Du Bois’ The 21 Balloons and The Giant were delightful—still are. They speak of a fantasy from a very different era. The Three Policemen by du Bois featured a giant “sea monster”-ish ship/pleasure cruiser that was shown in cross section and is still just beautiful.

I found Hergé’s Tintin and his two-part Trip to the Moon in the first, big, early ’60s reprint at a friend’s apartment. I was mesmerized by the blueprints and mechanical diagrams. That was a clear influence.

I can only guess that my Mom got me a t-square and triangle because the very first “hard” drawing I did was of a car of original design. It is lost in the mists of time—the second version, however is not. I recall trying to draw the safest car I could—I think I actually took out of the library [consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s book,] Unsafe at Any Speed(!). So there’s an example of getting reference!

One influence that I think is hard to explain to young people these days is Doc Savage. I prowled the paperback lanes of the Woolworth’s department store on Lexington Avenue and stumbled across Doc Savage and the Lost Oasis. Cover by the unparalleled James Bama. There was Doc, crouched on one knee with a smoking Thompson sub-machine gun, surrounded by giant vampire bats!

Some dead and some looking quite menacing! He looked like he’d been through hell and then found this machine gun! What young boy—this was 1965, I was nine—could resist?! I plunked down my 65 cents and was never the same.

ABELL: How about movies or television? Were there shows or films that sparked your imagination and fed into your love of science, technology, and adventure?

BROWN: Well, Gerry Anderson’s Supercar was the first biggie.

Fireball XL-5, a close second. All of his work is still vibrant and wonderful to me. All of Thunderbirds is still a personal “time machine”! Then Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space (I did a freehand cross-section of the Jupiter II from memory for a 4th grade art project). Let’s just say, I was young enough to love the first few seasons of each and then got old enough to turn my nose up at the later stuff. The Time Tunnel is still a favorite—that tunnel set featured a computer that, only a few years prior, was in charge of tracking incoming missiles and aircraft over American airspace. The SAGE (Synthetic Air Ground Environment) computer was the most

Speed Run Brown after a weekend-long “speed run” for Stan Lee. “He needed three copies of the first 18 issues of his Silver Surfer book—who knows why? But it was a big job.” Photo by Jack Morelli. advanced thing of its day (1950s)—it could take different pieces of information and make a visual display of all that info in real time.

It used conventional telephone lines to relay all the information from all over the country! That’s when we had a robust phone system!

It pioneered “real time” imagery, a graphical interface (close enough to a mouse), modems, and was the size of a very large building!

Well, to be fair, each installation had two complete machines with generators just in case one stopped working!

Allen’s Land of the Giants is a high artistic achievement of creativity in the face of silly plotting. But it was the only one that didn’t get wildly stupider as it went along.

When young, my friends and I were very proud of being able to watch seven hours of TV on a Friday afternoon and night.

Jonny Quest, the ’60s Batman, and, still one of my favorites to this day, The Green Hornet. What possessed them to cancel this gleaming jewel of near-ideal entertainment is beyond me! I see the shows today and still shake my head in disbelief. Every aspect of that show was just right—cranked up a little for what I suppose was perceived as a young audience—but still very entertaining.

I was a sensitive youth and mostly terrified of horror movies of the day. But I watched the usual clutch of cartoons and adulterated

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Imagine you are a teenager in the mid-1960s, neither a cool kid nor a jock, but are a bespectacled bookworm and ham radio operator who has a backyard shack where you perform laboratory experiments for fun.

One day, you are racing soapbox cars with your friends when the town is attacked by a criminal organization called “Thunderbolt.” Attempting to escape, you fall into a cavern and discover a dial made of a peculiar alloy from another dimension, inscribed with strange symbols. You take the dial home, where you live with your grandfather (Gramps) and housekeeper (Miss Millie), and manage to decipher the symbols, which correspond to ten English letters. You dial H-E-R-O, only to find yourself transformed into a superhero with unusual powers, just in time to save an airplane about to crash.

Multiple Personalities

DIAL “S” FOR SOCKAMAGEE!

Such were the beginnings of Robby Reed, “the boy who can change into 1,000 super-heroes,” and the “Dial ‘H’ for Hero” series that ran for 18 months as the lead story in DC Comics’ House of Mystery. The series began in 1966 with issue #156, paired with backup stories of the Martian Manhunter. The early Dial “H” stories were written by Dave Wood and illustrated by Jim Mooney. (Bill Finger may have written the Dial “H” story in issue #162.) Jack Miller wrote the later issues for pencilers Frank Springer and Sal Trapani. The exact impetus for the idea is lost to time, but the title of the series may pay homage to the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film, Dial M for Murder, starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly. The whole concept of a dial was more logical in the era that preceded touchtone telephones.

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Dewey Cassell

Original art of a H-E-R-O transformation page from House of Mystery #173 (Mar.–Apr. 1968); illustrated by Sal Trapani.

TM & © DC Comics.

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How the dial came to be in the cavern and who created it is never fully explained, but Robby embraced every opportunity to make use of its capabilities in fighting crime. In each issue, Robby monitored the radio for signs of trouble, dashing into action whenever needed. Every time Robby dialed H-E-R-O, he would become a different superhero with different powers, while retaining his own consciousness.

Upon transforming, he would quickly assess the capabilities of the new hero and dub it with a name. Fortunately for Robby, the heroes were often capable of flight, assisting his pursuit of the various villains with which his hometown of Littleville, Colorado, seemed plagued.

After dispatching the bad guys, dialing O-R-E-H would then return Robby to normal. Occasionally, after dialing O-R-E-H, Robby was unable to transform into another hero right away. Gramps and Miss Millie remained blissfully ignorant of Robby’s heroic pursuits throughout the series.

Robby was not the only one able to use the dial. The dial once fell into the hands of a criminal named Daffy Dagan, who managed to dial V-I-L-L-A-I-N. (This required numerous attempts, since he did not have the benefit of Robby’s translation to help him with the mysterious symbols.) Until Robby recovered the dial, he was unable to return to his normal self. A friend of Robby’s named Suzy once discovered his secret and persuaded Robby to allow her to use the dial to turn into a H-E-R-O-I-N-E called Gem Girl. Fortunately for Robby, she was later hit on the head and forgot all about the dial. As Robby was fond of saying, “Sockamagee!”

Generally speaking, the heroes and villains of the “Dial ‘H’” series were unique, although a few bore some resemblance to existing comic-book characters, such as Giantboy and the Human Icicle.

The exception would be the story in House of Mystery #160 (July 1966), in which Robby turned into the classic character Plastic Man. This was the first appearance of Plastic Man in a DC comic book. Robby also typically turned into a different hero with each issue, although the same issue that featured Plastic Man also included a reappearance of Giantboy, the first hero Robby became after finding the dial.

Jim Mooney is credited with establishing the visual appeal of the “Dial ‘H’” series, using his expert draftsmanship to bring to life the gawky teenager and the fantastic heroes and villains. The scripts dictated the powers each hero was expected to have, but their exact appearance and functionality was left to Mooney’s imagination. As Mooney remarked, “that was totally my department. They might give it a name, but I had to interpret the costume, the shape, the size, and so on. They were my own doing, my own interpretation.” The results were exciting to see, but hard work to create. Jim commented, “if you stop to think, there were usually three characters—villains or superheroes—in each issue. I looked forward to it because it was kind of fun, but it was far more time-consuming than some of the things I did, like say for instance, the Legion of Super-Heroes. Even though the Legion of Super-Heroes had a lot of characters, it wasn’t quite as complex and time consuming as “Dial ‘H’” Mooney also noted that as an artist, he got paid the same amount whether you were drawing one character every month, like Supergirl, or coming up with three new heroes for each issue. “[Dial ‘H’] took a helluva lot more time and they didn’t pay any more money for it, but what are you going to do? You have to get the book out and you have to meet your deadlines. Sometimes I would think, ‘I should be making more per hour.’ What I was doing, I should be able to do in eight or nine hours, when it took me ten or 12. It was not terribly profitable.”

But it was certainly well received in the House of Mystery letters pages. The concept was naturally appealing to teenage readers and response to the “Dial ‘H’” series was enthusiastic. Fans not only critiqued each of Robby’s incarnations, but also suggested heroes and villains of their own. Although they encouraged the feedback, DC editors apparently did not make use of any of the reader recommendations at the time. The series ended with issue #173 (Mar.–Apr. 1968) and House of Mystery returned to its suspenseful, non-heroic roots. Robby and the dial remained largely in limbo for 13 years, save a few reprints that appeared in Superboy in 1972, and a guest appearance in issue #13 of Plastic Man, published in 1976. In the latter story, when Robby recovers from a bout of amnesia, he finds the dial and uses it to once again become Plastic Man, but the dial has become rusty, giving him an evil persona. He fights the original Plastic Man and loses, and Plastic Man confiscates the dial. (It is never explained how Robby eventually retrieves the dial from Plastic Man.)

DIAL “A” FOR ADVENTURE

That same year, Jenette Kahn joined DC Comics as publisher, and in 1981, Kahn was promoted to president. Prior to coming to DC, Kahn had founded several magazines, including Kids and Dynamite!, which featured contributions from its readers.

Hoping to repeat its success, Kahn was searching for a similar vehicle at DC and turned to editor Len Wein, who suggested resurrecting “Dial ‘H’ for Hero,” albeit without Robby Reed.

Wein elaborates on the circumstances: “Then-publisher Jenette Kahn was looking for a series concept that could involve the readers, something along the lines of the old Katy Keene strip, where readers would turn in fashion sketches of outfits Katy should

What’s wrong with this picture?

While it is a wonderful commission by Jim Mooney, Robby is missing his glasses and the dial only has eight holes (instead of ten).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Mark Arnold

If you’ve read The Best of The Harveyville Fun Times!

(2006) or Harvey Comics Classics, Volume 2: Richie Rich (2007), you would have discovered that Richie Rich was created as a backup feature in 1953 for a new title that Harvey Comics was debuting, Little Dot. Richie appeared in a simple five-page backup story called “The Dancing Lesson,” and from that first appearance it would have been difficult to predict that Richie would have become one of Harvey’s best-known and best-loved characters, rivaling its own Casper, the friendly ghost, in popularity.

The growth of Richie Rich as a property was a very slow one. He appeared in backup stories in both Little Dot and Little Lotta throughout the 1950s and had two separate tryout issues as part of the Harvey Hits series before finally landing his own series in 1960.

Most of these stories were simple five-page affairs that usually concerned the Rich family’s abundance and abuse of wealth in gags featuring the dollar sign ($) as a punch line. Richie’s friends were few, and the hired help in the Rich mansion were referred to by anonymous or generic names such as “Jarvis” or “Jeeves.”

As the Richie universe expanded, so did the number of characters, and the number of titles. During the 1960s, a few giant-sized issues were added to the line: Richie Rich Millions, Richie Rich Dollars and Cents, and Richie Rich Success Stories. Most featured reprints of earlier stories, but “Success” went out on its own with new stories, many with expanded length, featuring tales of international intrigue similar in vein to Hergé’s Tintin, of which prominent Richie Rich artist Ernie Colón was a fan.

Although Colón wasn’t the only Richie artist, he was the one who helped solidify Richie as an adventure hero. Many of the other Richie artists included animator Steve Muffatti, Harvey premier artist Warren Kremer, Ben Brown, Dom Sileo, Sid Couchey, and Howard Bender, among others.

Everything’s Rosie with This Robot Maid Richie Rich’s steel servant. © 2009 Harvey Entertainment.

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Meanwhile, the Rich family staff members were made more concrete and consistent. Added to the cast were Cadbury, the perfect butler; Bascomb, the chauffeur; Mr. Cheepers, the cash custodian; Nurse Jenny; Mr. Woody, the repairman; and Professor Keenbean, head of the Rich Laboratories.

Keenbean would and could create literally anything and as such, it was only natural that the Rich family wouldn’t just have any old maid, but literally a robot maid! Christened “Irona,” she made her debut in Richie Rich #100 (Feb. 1970). Strangely, Irona made her debut five years before Keenbean’s, which was in Richie Rich #137 (Dec. 1975), so no mention was ever made of who created Irona in the stories. She just was.

In real life, Ernie Colón reveals that it was Harvey writer Lenny Herman who created Irona and Keenbean because “Lenny, Sid [Jacobson, longtime Harvey editor], and I felt Richie needed more characters around him.

I always held Peanuts up as a model—an ordinary boy surrounded by extraordinary characters.”

Irona’s design changed a bit before settling on the final version. In the earliest Irona stories, her design changed a few times before settling in on the standard design of a silver robot with a black maid outfit.

One version even has her gold! The initial version had pictured her as a silver robot sans clothing! (You can see that version in the aforementioned Harvey Comics Classics book or in Richie Rich #100.)

When asked whether he was told how to draw the character or had free rein, Colón responds, “I was given a free hand in her design.” Although Colón worked on the design, he did not create the final model sheets for Irona or any of the other characters.

“Warren was the only one who did model sheets,” he says. “No one paid any attention to them, but me. Howie Post was in his own alternate universe— a very funny one. His Hot Stuff was the best. Ben Brown didn’t have the talent or the interest. He was a ‘serious’ painter and barely condescended to draw the Harvey characters.”

It was only a matter of time after a number of Irona and Keenbean appearances that a title featuring the exploits of the Rich Laboratories would make its way to its own title with Richie Rich Inventions (1977–1982).

“Again, Lenny, he created Professor Keenbean,” says Colón. “Lenny also created Chef Pierre and Dollar the Dollarmatian. Len was very creative and very funny. He used to make the Wednesday rounds with all the other gag cartoonists in the magazine heyday.

When they folded, he still made a living selling gags to esoteric publishers—Farmer’s Guide to Good

by

Sharon Karibian

[Editor’s note: Although our bimonthly schedule prohibited the publication of this article during this exhibit’s four-month run, we are preserving the present-tense voice of the author, who submitted this in July of 2008—it’s the next best thing to being there!]

It’s Tim Gunn meets Two-Gun, when comic-book fashion and designer fashion come together for “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spectacular costume exhibit that debuted in May 2008, hot on the transistor-powered heels of the Iron Man movie.

The Met’s Costume Institute curators, Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda, organized the exhibit and Nathan Crowley, the production designer for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, served as creative consultant. Bolton also wrote the splendid book Superheroes Fashion and Fantasy (Yale University Press), accompanying the exhibit. The book contains a meditative essay by famed novelist/comic-book aficionado Michael Chabon, in which he muses on the fantasy persona provided by the superhero costume as well as the real-life impossibility of actual people wearing such skin-tight, gaudy, high-tech garments in public.

Bolton has drawn upon an impressive array of comic-book scholars (including Peter Coogan, Les Daniels, Danny Fingeroth, Scott Bukatman, and Richard Reynolds) in gathering information for the exhibit and the book. The exhibit, which features roughly 60 costumes and ensembles, has proven to be a hit, with the Met’s Communications Department reporting that the exhibit drew over 150,000 visitors in the first month alone—with the biggest opening week ever for a costume exhibit. This is partly due to an unusually large number of men and kids attending, as they are not the typical audience for offerings at the costume exhibit.

The exhibit’s premise is that superhero costumes and designer fashion are similar in that they both (1) focus on the idealized human body and physical perfection; (2) allow for fantasy and escapism by transforming the wearer and providing the viewer with a sense of wonder; and (3) reflect the zeitgeist and in some cases, even look ahead, as with futuristic wear. In terms of what’s shown comics-wise, selections are limited to costumes that have been used in film and television, specifically the Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Iron Man movies, and the 1970s Wonder Woman television show. These are displayed alongside pieces from the crème de la crème of fashion designers, including Dolce & Gabbana, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Franco Moschino, Thierry Mugler, Bernhard Willhelm, Gianni Versace, Pierre Cardin, and Giorgio Armani (Armani is the sponsor of the exhibit, with support from Condé Nast). The designer fashion is largely contemporary (the oldest piece being from 1989) and unrelentingly haute couture, meaning it’s unsuitable for everyday wear.

There is wall text alongside each exhibit; in terms of comics, the posted commentary includes some historical background, significant dates such as characters’ first appearances, and creators’ names including Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, William Moulton Marston, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Bob Kane, Gardner Fox, Harry Lampert, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, John Romita, Sr., Gary Friedrich, Mike Ploog—even the usually unsung Larry Lieber!

Bolton and company have organized superhero costumes into eight distinct thematic categories, with each group represented by a character or two, alongside the fashion the character has inspired: 7 4

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Photo by Sharon Karibian.

THE GRAPHIC BODY

Upon entering the exhibit, one is greeted by a vivid 1981 Andy Warhol Superman screen-print. Then, an exhibit highlight: the Superman costume worn by the late Christopher Reeve in the 1978 Superman movie.

Through holographic means, the clothes worn by a mannequin resembling Reeve alternate between the Superman costume and a Clark Kent ensemble, complete with hat, glasses and drab, buttoned-down suit.

This ingenious display transfixes kids and adults alike.

The wall text commentary describes Superman as being the first superhero and posits that his classic costume—with its uncomplicated primary colors and form-fitting garb based on circus acrobat/strongman costume (for freedom of movement)—set the standard for all successive heroic attire. But of perhaps greater significance is the appearance of the “chevron”— an insignia or emblem, usually on the hero’s chest— that immediately tells us who we’re looking at and what to expect. [Bolton derives this concept from Peter Coogan (and in Coogan’s book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre, Coogan in turn credits Jim Steranko for being the first one to use the term thusly.]

Superman’s “S” chevron is the gold standard and sets the bar for superhero costumes after him. The chevron

Skin Tight

is a symbol or logo, so it provides instant brand name recognition: It’s shorthand, especially apt in this day of instant gratification—what you see is what you get.

Besides Superman, think Batman (his chevron almost a target), Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Golden Age and Silver Age Flashes, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and countless others.

The printed backdrop used: Superman detail from Justice #1 (Sept. 2006), by Doug Braithwaite and Alex Ross.

How does the chevron fit into fashion? Here, Superman’s “S” is shown to have influenced Moschino, who uses an “M” as his chevron—brand name recognition indeed!

Not to be outdone, Spider-Man is also shown in the Graphic Body section, because of his costume’s “pictograms” (spider insignia, the webbing). James Acheson’s Spidey movie costumes are on display— both the timeless blue and red, and the black one worn by Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 3. Fashionwise, Spidey’s sartorial splendor translates into cobwebby crocheted and diaphanous creations by Mugler and Galliano that wouldn’t look out place in Lily Munster’s closet. There’s also some vaguely arachnid-looking sportswear by Spyder Active.

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(top left) Warhol’s Superman. (top right) Designer Franco Moschino’s superinspired chevrons. (bottom tier) Graphic Body examples, including the movie Spider-Man. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

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What if … instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1945, Max Charles “Charlie” Gaines had purchased National Periodical Publications (DC Comics) from them? That’s the premise of this fantasy series being divided between the pages of BACK ISSUE and its TwoMorrows big-sister mag Alter Ego and set on “Earth-22,” where things in the comics business happened rather differently than the way they did in the world we know.

Just imagine: a comic-book industry in which the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash, rather than Superman and Batman, are the premier heroes of comics, media, and merchandising. The author, Bob Rozakis, a longtime writer, editor, and production manager for DC Comics, has imagined just that in…

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. The Story of M. C. Gaines’ Publishing Empire Book Two – Chapter Four: For Sale, the Justice League

This is another one of those stories, like the one about Charlie Gaines and Martin Goodman at the poker game, that could very well be apocryphal. But so many people have told it over the years that there probably is at least a kernel of truth in it: Alexander and Ilya Salkind were meeting with some studio head at Warner Bros., working out the distribution deal on the first Green Lantern movie in late ’76 or early ’77. As the story goes, Steve Ross, the CEO of Warner, happened to be visiting the studio that day and just “dropped in” on the negotiations.

As he sat there listening to Ilya Salkind describe the special effects they were creating for the movie, Ross said to his aide, “Are they making this stuff up or does somebody own this character?”

When the aide shrugged, one of the young attorneys sitting nearby said, “They’re from a comic book, Mr. Ross.”

“Who owns the comic books?” Ross asked.

“It’s a privately owned company, sir,” said the lawyer.

“Track the owners down,” Ross told him, “and buy them out.”

BOB ROZAKIS: Someone once described the way Steve Ross put together Warner Communications in this way: He bought a variety of companies that had potential to be more than what they were, worked the synergies among them, and let the people who were running them do their jobs. “Make a lot of money, send some to corporate, and we won’t worry about how you do it.” It was undoubtedly this philosophy that appealed to Bill Gaines when he was first approached by a representative of Ross in 1977.

TED SKIMMER [longtime AA Comics employee]: Billy’s idea of how to run a company was unique, I’ll say that.

Once Charlie retired and Billy was fully running AA, he made changes that more suited his philosophy.

And, quite frankly, some of them were kind of wacky.

ROZAKIS: Such as?

SKIMMER: Well, taking the entire staff away on a week’s vacation was one. He did that a couple of times before you and the rest of the “kids” were hired.

Green Team After using a variety of pairings, editor Murray Boltinoff settled on Green Lantern as the permanent co-star in The Brave and the Bold. Some issues, like the one shown, resurrected characters who had not been seen since the Golden Age. (All comics images in this article are © DC Comics.)

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Bob Rozakis

ROZAKIS: Didn’t the first trip come about because of a subscriber on some Caribbean island?

SKIMMER: Exactly. The company in Europe that published the French editions of our books did not have distribution rights in Haiti, so we had no presence there. Billy found out we had one subscriber in the whole country, a kid who had signed on for a bunch of our books when we were offering the “10 issues for $1” deals in the mid-’60s. He kept renewing when they went to a buck and a half for 12—that was when we went to 15¢—but it seemed that the jump to a quarter was too much.

ROZAKIS: So what happened?

SKIMMER: His subscriptions started to lapse.

Somebody mentioned it to Billy during an editorial meeting and at first we thought maybe something unfortunate had happened to the kid.

ROZAKIS: Or maybe he just outgrew comic books.

SKIMMER: Bite your tongue! You know fanboys never outgrow comic books.

ROZAKIS: [laughs] SKIMMER: Julie said he didn’t think that was the case because the kid was also a regular in his letter columns and he’d just gotten a couple of letters a few days earlier.

ROZAKIS: So did Bill just say, “Let’s go check this out!”?

SKIMMER: Pretty much. He said, “This is one of our most loyal fans. I think we need a firsthand investigation.”

Next thing we knew, he had one of the secretaries booking us all for a week in Haiti.

ROZAKIS: The whole staff?

SKIMMER: Well, keep in mind that there weren’t that many of us back then. But, yes, it was everybody … except the janitor.

ROZAKIS: Had to draw the line somewhere.

SKIMMER: No, he couldn’t come because his wife was ill.

ROZAKIS: It was just the staff members, right?

No spouses?

SKIMMER: Right. You know, Billy may have invented the “corporate retreat.” I know that other divisions in Warner started doing it after we were bought.

ROZAKIS: So you all went to this kid’s house when you got there?

SKIMMER: Billy hired a bus and we went there en masse. It was a little house somewhere in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. You should have seen the look on the face of the kid’s mother when Billy knocked on the door.

ROZAKIS: Surprised, I’m sure.

SKIMMER: Scared was more like it. Here’s a small army of people looking for her son. Of course, I keep calling him a kid, but he was probably about 19 or 20 at the time, so maybe she thought we were there drag him off to prison or something.

But Billy explained who we were and that seemed to reassure her, at least enough that she offered us a

Man with a Plan Steve Ross, who parlayed funeral homes and limousines into the massive Warner Communications, added AA Comics to his multimedia empire in 1977.

Send in the Clones Murray Boltinoff was not the only editor bringing back Golden Age characters.

Jack Kirby resurrected his Boy Commandos as clones of the original team in the pages of Doiby Dickles.

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