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WARLOCK AND THANOS TM & © MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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Marvel’s soul-searching hero

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MARVELMAN ! NEW UNIVERSE ! CRISIS ! LOGAN’S RUN ! STAR HUNTERS with STARLIN ! SHOOTER ! GIORDANO ! DAVIS ! LEACH ! WIACEK ! MICHELINIE

Volume 1, Number 34 June 2009

The Retro Comics Experience!

Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Today!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTIST Jim Starlin

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: The Life and Death (and Life and Death) of Adam Warlock . . . . . . . . . . . .3 An in-depth look at Marvel’s cosmic messiah, with Jim Starlin and Roy Thomas

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Michael Aushenker Pat Bastienne Jerry Boyd Eliot R. Brown Mike Browning Bruce Buchanan Rich Buckler Glen Cadigan Lex Carson Dewey Cassell Paty Cockrum Jennifer Contino Alan Davis DC Comics Fred L. deBoom Mark DiFruscio Kirk Dilbeck Scott Edelman Danny Fingeroth Ron Frenz Jason Geyer Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Glenn Greenberg Allan Harvey Heritage Comics Auctions Tony Isabella Dan Johnson Rob Jones Mike Keane Rob Kelly David Anthony Kraft Garry Leach Peter Lee

Steve Lipsky Tony Lorenz Nigel Lowrey Howard Mackie Andy Mangels Marvel Comics Bob McLeod David Michelinie Ian Millsted Brian K. Morris Al Nickerson Nightscream (courtesy of Wikipedia) William F. Nolan George Pérez Paul Ryan Brian Sagar John Schwirian Richard A. Scott Marie Severin Jason Shayer Jim Shooter Dez Skinn Anthony Snyder Jim Starlin Roy Thomas Titan Books J. C. Vaughn Karen Walker Hank Weisinger Brett Weiss Bob Wiacek Bill Worboys Photography Rob Yancey

INTERVIEW: Jim Shooter’s First Day at Marvel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 The in-between years in the career of comics’ teen-turned-titan FLASHBACK: Sparks in a Bottle: The Saga of the New Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 A galaxy of creators explore what went right, then wrong, with Marvel’s ambitious line PRO2PRO: Dick Giordano and Pat Bastienne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 When worlds collided! Behind the scenes of Crisis on Infinite Earths GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Post-Crisis DC Universe You Didn’t See . . . . . . . .40 Our wish list of all-star talent on DC’s books, circa 1986 BEYOND CAPES: Logan’s Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 William F. Nolan’s future is great—until you turn 30! With George Pérez Detail from Jim Starlin’s cover art to Warlock #9. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

INTERVIEW: Bob Wiacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 The top-tier inker discusses his Star Wars stint—plus Star-Lord, too FLASHBACK: The Art of Marvel Slurpee Cups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Ever wonder where the art on those cups came from?

BEYOND CAPES: Star Crossed: Remembering DC’s Star Hunters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 An incisive look at David Michelinie’s short-lived sci-fi series FLASHBACK: Blood and Sapphires: The Rise and Demise of Marvelman . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Alan Davis, Garry Leach, and Dez Skinn discuss comics’ first “real world” superhero GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . . .77 Chapter Six of Bob Rozakis’ fantasy comics history spotlights Kirby, King of Comics!

INTERVIEW: The Unique Voice and Vision of Steve Skeates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Concluding the dazzling dialogue with one of comics’ most diverse scribes BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Reader feedback on our “Tech, Data, and Hardware” issue—plus more photos from the Eliot R. Brown archives!

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 Jim Starlin. Warlock and Thanos 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. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. N e w

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The character of Adam Warlock has been a mainstay in the Marvel Comics Universe for over 35 years. Although today synonymous with cosmic adventure, Warlock is also a character with a history of transformation.

Initially immaculately conceived as a perfect being in the tail end of the Lee/Kirby era, Warlock went on to become a messiah to a planet under Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, and ultimately a shattered, conflicted pariah in the hands of Jim Starlin.

Warlock went through two distinctly different phases in the 1970s. Both of these were remarkably different from the typical superhero fare published at the time.

Questions of belief, personal freedom, power, and corruption—all of these were explored through Warlock.

THE SAVIOR OF COUNTER-EARTH

In the early 1970s, it seemed like Jesus Christ was everywhere. The terms “Jesus freak” and “born-again Christian” entered the language, and two successful musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, promoted the image of Christ in an entirely new and exciting way. Jesus had become a pop-culture icon.

Roy Thomas, writer and editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics at the time, had been a fan of the Jesus Christ

Karen Walker

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Superstar soundtrack and envisioned bringing the story to comics, but in a superhero context. He did have some concerns: “Yes, I had some trepidation about the Christ parallels, but hoped there would be little outcry if I handled it tastefully, since I was not really making any serious statement on religion … at least not overtly.”

However, he did decide that he should isolate this project from the mainstream Marvel Universe. At the same time, though, he wanted to use a pre-existing character, rather than create a brand-new one.

Fortunately, there was a perfect character already available. In Fantastic Four #66–67 (Sept.–Oct. 1967), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had woven a tale about an artificially created “perfect being.” He emerged as a golden-skinned man from a pulsating cocoon. His creators wanted to use him to rule the planet, but he rebelled against them and destroyed them. He disappeared, only to appear a short time later in Thor #165–166 (June–July 1969), where he made the mistake of kidnapping the Thunder God’s girlfriend, Sif. Now calling himself “Him,” the traditional Marvel hero battle ensued, with Him ultimately deciding no girl was worth taking a beating from Thor, and he made a quick exit. He wrapped himself in another protective cocoon and drifted off into outer space.

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“The Seeker,” a Jim Starlin-illustrated Warlock print thought to be from the 1970s. #29/100.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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What’cha Gonna Do About Him

But this was not the last we would see of Him. Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane would bring him back, drastically transformed. In Marvel Premiere #1 (Apr. 1972), Him’s cocoon is discovered in space by the High Evolutionary, Marvel’s resident cosmic-level scientist.

The scientist is preoccupied, however, with his latest project. Previously, he had performed experiments where he evolved animals into anthropomorphic, sentient beings—his “New Men.” Now, the Evolutionary is contemplating a grander experiment: the re-creation of Earth!

But he seeks to not merely re-create Earth, but to do it better. His goal is to make an Earth where mankind would arise without ever knowing aggression or violence.

Essentially, the Evolutionary plans to create a paradise.

The Evolutionary uses a small chunk of Earth to generate his new planet. He dubs his world “CounterEarth,” as it occupies the space directly opposite the Earth, on the other side of the Sun. As Him watches from within his cocoon, Counter-Earth quickly goes through billions of years of progress. As humans appear, the Evolutionary, completely exhausted, collapses into a deep sleep. It is here that this perfect Earth goes irrevocably off-course. The Man-Beast, an early New Man creation of the Evolutionary who symbolizes the “fallen angel” of this story, breaks into the Evolutionary’s orbiting home. While the Evolutionary sleeps, the ManBeast instills violence into the proto-humans. Eventually, the Evolutionary awakes, and discovers with shock what

The character who would ultimately become Adam Warlock emerged from a cocoon and was originally called “Him.” Covers to Fantastic Four #67 (Oct. 1967) and Thor #166 (June 1969), both penciled by Jack “King” Kirby and inked by Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta, respectively. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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has been done. He struggles with the Man-Beast and his followers, and is about to be overwhelmed, when Him bursts from his cocoon. He helps the Evolutionary drive back the evil New Men, who flee from the station.

But the Evolutionary is filled with dismay. He had wanted to give mankind the kind of peaceful life they had never had on his Earth. But since the Man-Beast has seeded the world with evil, he feels it is hopeless.

He resolves to destroy the planet.

The newly transformed Him pleads with the Evolutionary to let him save Counter-Earth by driving out the influence of the Man-Beast. After much debate, the High Evolutionary gives Him his blessing, saying that he is like the son he never had. He places a small jewel upon his forehead and, in a ray of light, sends Him off to Counter-Earth, proclaiming, “Men shall call you ... Warlock!”

By going this route, Thomas was able to achieve his desire of isolating his new character from the rest of the superhero community, although leaving the connection to and potential to interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe. Thomas had liked the name “Warlock” and decided to give it to the reborn Him. Thomas and Kane collaborated on a new look, giving him a red tunic with a golden lightning bolt, their tip of the hat to the Fawcett Captain Marvel. Kane added the gem on Warlock’s brow, which would become far more significant in Starlin’s run. The story also clearly set up Warlock as a Christ-like figure.

Marvel Premiere #2 (also by Thomas and Kane) picks up right where #1 left off. Warlock plummets to Counter-Earth and is discovered by a group of four runaway teenagers. He is without his memory and is an enigma to himself as well as the astounded kids. A girl named Ellie Roberts gives Warlock his first name, Adam, as he is “really one of a kind.” Warlock’s arrival is noted by the Man-Beast, who sends out his minion, Rhodan, to attack him. In the meantime, the teens’ fathers track them down. All are men of “the Establishment.”

While the kids explain why they have rejected their parents’ values, Warlock steps into view, and the adults immediately accuse him of stealing their children.

Rhodan then attacks Warlock. After a brief fight, Warlock uses the soul gem to revert the New Man back to his true form—a rat. Warlock tells the teens it’s time to go. When the men object, Warlock tells them to look into his eyes.

They see the world that they and other men of power have created. “They see thru the eyes of a starving Biafran … an orphaned child in Asia … a city-dweller gasping unclean air into filth-choked lungs. And they know that this is their world … the world which they created … they, and men like them … and so few of them were bad. So very few.” Having seen this, the men halt their objections and Warlock and his flock move on.

Three months after Marvel Premiere #2, Adam Warlock would shift to his own title. Thomas stayed on board as writer for the first two issues, and then handed the reins over to Mike Friedrich (with science-fiction author Ron Goulart filling in on issue #5). Kane would handle the art chores on issues #1, 3–5, with John Buscema filling in on issue #2 and Bob Brown handling issues #6–8. Thomas would continue to edit the title throughout its run.

Warlock continued the story of Adam’s attempts to drive the Man-Beast out of Counter-Earth, but drifted toward standard superhero stories with pseudobiblical references injected into them. Warlock spends much of his time trying to convince the High Evolutionary not to destroy the planet, and the rest of his time battling the Man-Beast and his minions. Although the concept of a superhero savior was still present, it often came across as forced, and certainly contradictory to the idea of a pacifistic savior. It’s questionable whether the concept could really work in a medium driven by physical conflict.

Perhaps the most interesting ideas presented in the book dealt with the Counter-Earth versions of a couple of popular Marvel characters. On CounterEarth, Adam encounters a Dr. Victor von Doom who is scarred like his otherworld counterpart, yet uses his scientific know-how to benefit mankind.

His colleague, Reed Richards, also made a spaceflight like his counterpart on Earth, but tragically, his Sue Storm fell into a coma, and he began transforming into a dangerous creature known as the Brute. Doom would become a believer in Adam, and sacrifice his life in issue #7 to stop the Brute.

Adam does develop a following on Counter-Earth, although the scope of the movement is never quite clear. When he prevents the Brute from destroying the Golden Gate Bridge, he is hailed as a hero, which worries President Rex Carpenter (a name obviously heavy with allusion). In the final issue, Warlock #8, Warlock would battle demons and discover that President Carpenter was actually the Man-Beast in disguise. But their confrontation was not resolved in the issue—we were told in a caption that this would occur in another title “some time, somewhere.”

That “somewhere” would be in the pages of The Incredible Hulk #176–178, almost eight months later. Roy Thomas was the editor of that book, and it seemed as good a place as any to finish the Warlock story.

While Warlock had strung some biblical analogies along in its pages, the story in Hulk would be a nearly literal translation of the death of Christ.

Gerry Conway was the writer for the first two issues, #176 and 177, with Tony Isabella helping out by scripting the last issue, #178. Longtime Hulk artist Herb Trimpe would draw all three issues. Editor Roy Thomas was credited with having conceived the story.

Second Coming Artist Gil Kane paired with writer Roy Thomas to re-create Him into Adam Warlock. The Counter-Earth Crusader hopped from a two-issue tryout in Marvel Premiere to his own series.

Kane covers (inked by Dan Adkins and Joe Sinnott, respectively) to Marvel Premiere #1 (Apr. 1972) and Warlock #1 (Aug. 1972). © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Teenaged writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Editor-in-chief of Valiant.

Editor-in-chief of Defiant. Editor-in-chief of Broadway Comics. Once again writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Human lightning rod.

Whatever you call Jim Shooter, his career in comic books has taken him as a teenager from his parents’ home in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the loftiest perches in the industry. His defeats have been spectacular and well covered.

By any objective standard the writer, editor, and (if forced by dire circumstances) artist has had a tremendous impact on fans, fellow creators, and how comics are done for more than four decades. His original run of “Legion of Super-Heroes” in the pages of Adventure Comics is still the stuff diehard Legion fans love to talk about. Critics sneered at Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars, but it sells out every time the trade-paperback collection is reprinted.

Many Marvel veterans bristled under what they described as his autocratic leadership, but seminal runs such as Walter Simonson’s Thor, Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s Daredevil, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil, and Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz’s New Mutants, among others, all were published on his watch.

To get to that stage, though, Shooter had to pass through one of the least documented portions of his comic-book career. While both DC and Marvel fans and historians have interviewed and editorialized about his first Legion run and his tenure as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, not nearly as much as been written about his earliest days of his editorial tenure at the House of Ideas.

His stints as associate editor and editor-in-chief certainly weren’t his first exposure to Marvel, though, perhaps to the chagrin of his original Legion editor Mort Weisinger.

“Mort taught me a lot, but it was usually ‘Never do this, always do that,’” Shooter says. “He gave you the rules and you followed them. Okay. With Mort, if your family desperately needed the money, you just followed orders.

“But then, occasionally, I’d read a Stan Lee story that totally violated Mort’s rules and worked,” he continues.

“Rocked, in fact. Brilliant. I started to realize that Mort’s rules always worked, story-mechanics-wise. Easy, idiot-proof, safe. Trying things that explored the frontiers beyond the confines of Mort’s rules was tricky—fraught with opportunities to fail—but if you were daring, if you had the necessary depth of understanding and the skills, you could do wonderful things. This revelation led me to seek the underlying logic that explained why Mort’s way always worked, but exceptions could work, too.

“On my own, I started studying story and storytelling,” Shooter says. “And I found out that there were more things in heaven and earth than were

Back to the Future Writer Jim Shooter’s return to the Legion occurred in Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #209 (June 1975) through #213 (Dec. 1975). Here, minus cover copy and a digit in its issue number, is the original cover art by Mike Grell to Superboy #211 (Aug. 1975), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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J . C . Va u g h n

dreamt of in Mort’s philosophy. I slowly grokked and slowly expanded my horizons. I even got away with a few forays into dangerous territory while still under Mort’s thumb.”

Shooter discovered Marvel Comics during a hospital stay as a youngster.

“The Marvel comics I read in the hospital were a revelation,” he explains. “Suddenly, what was lacking in DC comics became very clear! Marvel comics had much more spectacular action, much more human-sounding dialogue, much more credible characterization, and much more relatable characters. And the stories! Wow. Stan absolutely threw down and danced upon clichés and conventions.”

He describes that as the moment the light bulb went off in his head. If he could write even a little like Stan, maybe he could sell stories to DC, he thought. “They sure needed help.”

After his initial successes with DC, some there even started calling him their “Marvel writer.”

“They meant it disparagingly,” he says.

As his high school days came to a close, having been accepted at New York University and under increasing pressure from the relentless Weisinger, Shooter flew to New York to talk with Stan Lee at Marvel.

He had no appointment or knowledge of any particular assignments available. The student standby fare in those days was $27.50, pretty much everything he had at that point, but he went anyway.

“I called Stan Lee and asked for an interview,” Shooter says. “Idiot.

What if he was out of town, or sick that day? Fool. I called from a pay phone on Madison Avenue. Miraculously, the receptionist put me through. Unheard of. No one got to speak with Stan. Did she sense the desperation in my voice? Whatever. Lucky fool. I told Stan I wrote for DC and wanted to write for Marvel. He said, and I quote, ‘We don’t like the writing at DC.’ I said, and I quote, ‘I don’t either. The people there call me their “Marvel writer,” and they mean it as an insult.’

Stan thought for a few seconds and said, ‘I’ll give you 15 minutes.’

“I showed up at Marvel’s offices at 1:00 PM, as prescribed. I met with Stan. We started talking comics theory. We agreed on everything.

After three hours of conversation, during which, at one point, Stan jumped up on his thankfully sturdy coffee table waving a yardstick as if it were a sword (he’ll deny that, but it happened), Stan hired me as an editor. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no way I could do what he wanted and go to NYU at the same time. I picked Marvel.”

He showed up for work as agreed at Marvel on the following Monday with his suitcase and no idea where he was going to sleep that night.

“I worked all day, mostly editing a Millie the Model script— and caught a major mistake. Stan, who wrote the book, was very impressed and grateful. Hey, I was a made man on day one,” he said.

Lee’s receptiveness, however, wasn’t shared by Weisinger.

“Somehow, Mort had found out that I had taken a job at Marvel.

He called me at my desk that first day and proceeded to scream at me for being an ingrate, ‘After all I’ve done for you, retard, imbecile, idiot, blah, blah, blah.’ Ho-hum.”

Shooter ended up staying at the YMCA. “I spent three weeks working at Marvel,” he says. “That would have been at the end of 1969 or maybe early 1970. I loved it.

I co-plotted several stories, I edited lots of comics, I learned paste-up,

Beginnings:

Legion of Super-Heroes stories in Adventure Comics #346 and 347 (July and Aug. 1966), at age 13

Milestones:

Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics (creator of Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, and Princess Projectra) / Superman and Action Comics (creator of the Parasite) / Captain Action / Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes / Super-Villain Team-Up / The Avengers / Dazzler / Marvel editor-in-chief / Superman vs.

Spider-Man in Marvel Treasury Edition / Valiant Comics / Defiant Comics / Broadway Comics / winner of Eagle and Inkpot Awards

Work in Progress:

Legion of Super-Heroes / DC Comics Classics Library: Legion of Super-Heroes: The Life and Death of Ferro Lad

JIM SHOOTER Photo by Nightscream, from the Nov. 2008 Big Apple Convention in Manhattan.

sort of, from the great Ancient One, Morrie Kuramoto, I proofread, I did everything. Marvel had a very small staff.”

But he was only 18, fresh from Pittsburgh, with just a few dollars in his pocket. After just a few weeks he realized he couldn’t survive.

“Finally, I gave up. I went home to Pittsburgh, where at least I could sleep in a warm place,” he says.

After leaving comics, he worked at a paint and plastics plant as a quality control tech, at a lumberyard, at a restaurant washing dishes, as a security guard, in a payroll office, in a department store, as a house painter, as a car re-conditioner, and as a janitor. During those days, he also got work doing comics-style advertising concept, writing, and illustration.

“I did work for big clients like U.S. Steel and Levi’s—and made incredible money, when there was work. The trouble was that such work wasn’t steady, hence the parade of low-end jobs to bridge the gaps,” Shooter says.

That led him back to comics, and the entire chain of events led to his first day at Marvel Comics….

Bouncing Boy Young Jim Shooter (center) first wrote Legion stories for the LSH’s ’60s editor, Mort Weisinger (left), then returned in the mid-’70s to write the series for editor Murray Boltinoff.

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In 1986, Marvel Comics was coming up on its 25th anniversary as the publisher of the most popular superhero comics in the world. In 1961, inspired by DC’s Justice League of America, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby took an idea for a team of superheroes, who in spite of having amazing powers and abilities, had their own unique hang-ups and quarreled and bickered with one another. With the publication of Fantastic Four #1, Marvel laid the foundation for a whole new line of comic books that would revolutionize the way fans and future creators would look at superheroes.

For 25 years, the Marvel Universe lived and thrived and expanded. To mark this milestone, a decision was made to do the impossible and try to catch lightning in a bottle a second time. It was a bold concept, and one whose birth and ultimate demise was fraught with equal amounts of heartache and success, disappointment and glory.

THE BIG BANG THEORY

The New Universe was an ambitious undertaking, but then so was the man behind this idea, editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Initially, Shooter intended something much more radical to mark Marvel’s anniversary. Indeed, creating a whole new universe was actually the fallback plan. “Eighteen months or so before Marvel’s 25th anniversary, there was a meeting called by the president, Jim Galton, to discuss how to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary— that is, how to capitalize on it and make money from it,” recalls Shooter. “Someone must have told Galton that the 25th anniversary was coming up, because he knew precious little about our comics, or anyone else’s, for that matter. It might have been me.

“The meeting included Galton, all the vice presidents, and a couple of director-level people, I think— maybe nine or ten people,” continues Shooter.

“The ‘directors’ I’m referring to, by the way, were the people like Carol Kalish who were below the veeps and above the manager-level people, not members of the board of directors—all of whom knew less and cared less about the comics than Galton did, if that’s possible. I was a VP as well as editor-in-chief.

“Anyway, at the meeting, a number of fairly pedestrian ideas were put forth—work with Abrams to publish a coffee-table book, do some sort of special promotion at the San Diego Comic-Con, etc., etc.,” says Shooter. “Eventually, I was asked whether I had any ideas for special publishing in honor of the anniversary. I had been thinking about it, and I proposed that we do a Big Bang—that is, bring the Marvel Universe to an end, with every single title concluding—forever—in dramatic fashion in May of 1986 and in June begin relaunching the entire universe. We’d start each title again from #1.

We’d preserve all that was good about each character and title and weed out the glitches, bad stuff, and

Worldview A New Universe montage assembled by BACK ISSUE’s dynamic designer, Rich Fowlks. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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From the Brown Vault (opposite page) From Eliot R. Brown’s files, Mark Gruenwald’s ideas about the New Universe, and three pages of notes from a developmental meeting. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

stupidities. We’d improve the continuity. It would be a second edition of the Marvel Universe that would not track issue-for-issue, item-for-item, event-for-event with the first one, but would draw upon the vast pool of creative ideas expressed in the first 25 years, much as Stan had drawn upon the wealth of creativity expressed in the Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics prior to 1961. It could be heavily promoted, and sales, both for the end of MU1 and the beginning of MU2, would be outstanding, I felt.”

As it was, Shooter had another reason for wanting to relaunch the Marvel Universe, one that would have seen a great injustice corrected.

“I also proposed that we could use the universal rebirth of Marvel as a line of demarcation from which to begin paying creators’ royalties to Ditko, Kirby, Ayers, and the rest,” says Shooter. “We could just include them from that point on in the standard creator participation programs that I’d installed, as each of the characters they had created long ago were re-introduced. Needless to say, that whole idea was shot down.

Too risky. Our sales were booming then, by the way, and we held a nearly 70% market share. Galton was afraid to mess with success.

“Since they wouldn’t let me do Plan A, I proposed Plan B—celebrate the 25th birthday of one universe by creating another one—a New Universe,” says Shooter, revealing how the first brick for the foundation of the line of comics was laid. “That flew. I was given a budget of $120,000—big money in those days—to develop eight new titles with which to launch the New Universe and promised a massive advertising promotional, and PR campaign as well as other support—staff, bonus money to insure that we’d be able to get top-drawer creators.”

Even before Shooter could get the New Universe underway, the first of several problems sprang up that worked to hinder the line.

“Marvel’s parent company, Cadence Industries, was taken private by its board under the name Cadence Management, Inc.,” says Shooter.

“CMI immediately began trying to sell off the pieces of Cadence, including Marvel, to make a quick, windfall profit for themselves.

They put enormous pressure on Marvel to cut costs and increase revenues to maximize profit gained from a sale. (Companies like Marvel are usually sold for a multiple of cash flow.) One of the many casualties of that effort was my budget for creating, developing, and establishing the New Universe. It was simply removed. Cut down to zero.

“We were still obligated to go through with the New Universe, however,” says Shooter. “CMI wanted more revenues, remember.

I took over the project personally. I came up with the basic conceit of the New Universe, that is, start with the real world and add ‘realistic,’ science-fiction-style heroes, i.e., based on real science, as opposed to the Marvel Universe, which is fantasy/pseudo-science-based.”

ASSEMBLING THE TEAMS

With a reduced budget, Shooter began to form a team that would be responsible for the creation of the New Universe from his staff at Marvel.

These staffers included seasoned pros like Tom DeFalco, Archie Goodwin, and Mark Gruenwald, and a couple of up-and-comers, Eliot R. Brown and Jack Morelli. Right from the first production meeting, the team hit the ground running trying to come up with ideas for new books. “Jim was pounding the war drum to get something brand new started,” Brown recalls. “I remember we were at an editorial meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel on Park Avenue and Jim held up a sheet of paper and said, ‘I have here a proposal to do a brand-new series of books and I want ideas from everybody.

We’re going to get this going and it’s going to be something different.’”

As ideas started being bounced around, Shooter started playing his cards close to his vest. “Jim was playing it very cautious,” says Brown, remembering the initial editorial meetings that brought him onboard for the New Universe. “Jim was doing that for upstairs. He couldn’t

Brown Thinks Big Eliot R. Brown remarks of his gag memo: “I cannot recall whether Marvel was still owned by Cadence Industries at the time, or I had just used some old stationery! Whoever owned us then, whether it was New World or Cadence, in four short years, we would be owned by Ron Perlman and see the beginning of the end!” © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

hire a brand-new editor and he was promoting from within, which apparently is different. He did say, ‘You have to be conditional, you have to be secretive. We’re not telling anybody [what we are doing],’ and that was fine. I’m thinking this was in November of 1985. We had one more big editorial meeting and we were pitching ideas or titles for the books. I remember ‘New Universe’ [for the name of the line] was not favored at the beginning, but after trying other ideas, it was finally settled upon.”

In spite of the budget cuts, there was a clear need to get New Universe up and running. But the clock was ticking and the launch date for the new line was quickly approaching. Pressure was building to meet the proposed launch date that was less than a year away. “Because of time lost at the beginning, everything was late,” recalls Shooter.

“It was a nightmare getting anything out the door on time. All in all, given the circumstances, I thought we did better than anyone could expect.” To illustrate how diverse the proposals were for the New Universe line, one need only look at two creations which would eventually be published by Marvel, but at the time were considered not quite right for Shooter’s vision. Those series were Speedball and Strikeforce: Morituri.

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Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986), DC Comics’ legendary 12-issue maxiseries

by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, reshaped the company’s cumbersome continuity. Readers still recall today their anticipation over the series’ “permanent” revisions and their enthusiasm for Crisis’ numerous intracompany crossovers.

It’s no easy task producing a publication of any type, especially a project of Crisis’ enormity. Crisis’ editorial planning stages—from cameo appearances of the Monitor to the famous character “Death List”— have been well documented (nowhere better than in the superlative collected edition, Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths, which comes highly recommended). But what did it take to get Crisis on Infinite Earths,

the maxiseries and the crossover event of the decade, out the door and to the printer on time? Were there behind-the-scenes machinations— from blown deadlines to temperamental creators—that threatened to implode this earth-altering project? And over two decades later, how does Crisis hold up in the minds of those who helped bring it to life?

To find out, BACK ISSUE has made the interdimensional hop (via e-mail) to the studio of Dick Giordano, that mirthful master of “Meanwhile…” who at the time was DC’s vice president/executive editor (as well as the inker of Crisis on Infinite Earths’ earlier issues), to ask some Crisis-related questions … and joining in on the chat is Pat Bastienne, who during Crisis was DC’s editorial coordinator—and later became the company’s talent coordinator (Pat’s participation in this dialogue was limited due to an injury—thanks, Patti, for doing what you could, and get well soon!). Join us as we pick Dick’s and Pat’s brains and venture back to a time…

®

by

Michael Eury

condu cted by e-mail on Januar y 25, 2009

Meet the Monitor George Pérez’s take on the foreboding figure behind Crisis, and (above) the DC Comics memo spelling out the Monitor’s use in other series.

TM & © DC Comics.

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MICHAEL EURY: Dick, your editorial approach was creatively nurturing but relatively “hands off.”

What was your biggest challenge, as executive editor, to editorially manage such a massive crossover event as Crisis on Infinite Earths?

DICK GIORDANO: Since I wasn’t the editor of Crisis on Infinite Earths, my editorial approach, hands off or on, was basically irrelevant. Marv, and I think George, approached me with the idea and I offered little input as they pitched a story that I knew would be an “event” of the biggest magnitude. I was one of those who believed that our continuity was fast becoming too convoluted for our new audience (newsstand sales were being replaced at a dizzying clip by direct market sales which attracted older more mature readers) and that any attempt to simplify and clarify the DC Universe continuity would be welcomed by some and vilified by others. I fully expect a volley of death threats (kidding! ). I also knew that the project management would be a job and a half and could not be run by me alone. For it to work, it had to be a team effort.

I was, for lack of a better term, the project facilitator.

EURY: Were there editors used to doing things their way who resisted across-the-board coordination?

GIORDANO: Of course there were. An editor who didn’t believe he knew what was best for the characters in his charge couldn’t have been a very good editor.

EURY: So how did you get them to play ball?

GIORDANO: I’m happy to relate that at a mass out-ofoffice meeting attended by all the in-house editors, the writer/editors, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, and myself, a lively exchange of ideas gave us confidence that all parties would, at least outwardly, participate.

There were no threats and Jenette, Paul, and myself were there to contribute creatively, not as managers.

EURY: Pat, how did DC approach the daunting task of coordinating all those interconnected stories in its different series, as well as the Crisis maxiseries itself?

Beginnings:

Sheena background art for the Jerry Iger Studio (Fiction House, 1951)

Milestones:

Editor of Charlton Comics’ “Action Heroes” line / Sarge Steel / 1960s romance comics / editing at DC in the late-1960s on titles including Aquaman and Teen Titans / inking Neal Adams on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Detective Comics, and Batman in the 1970s / Diana Prince: Wonder Woman / Continuity Associates, with Adams solo art on Batman tales including “There is No Hope in Crime Alley” in Detective #457 / the Human Target / Marvel Comics’ Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with Roy Thomas / Sons of the Tiger / returning to DC as editor in the 1980s and becoming its editorial director for a legendary stint / inking Crisis on Infinite Earths and Man of Steel / Jonni Thunder / Modesty Blaise / Future Comics / The Phantom / Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time (TwoMorrows biography, 2003)

Works in Progress:

Colony (online comic with Bob Layton, at www.boblayton.com) / The Unseen

Cyberspace:

www.dickgiordano.com / www.theartistschoice.com/giordano index.htm

dick giordano Photo courtesy of Rob Jones.

World Watching The Monitor’s aide Lyla stands up to her boss in this two-page spread from Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 (Apr. 1985) by Wolfman, Pérez, and Giordano.

Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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John Byrne on Superman? Frank Miller on Batman?

George Pérez on Wonder Woman? Mike Grell on Green Arrow? For the DC Comics reader of the mid-1980s, the news of this quartet of comics superstars taking over four of DC’s greatest heroes in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths induced fanboy heart palpitations!

Dick Giordano, at the time DC’s executive editor, confessed to me that his unfulfilled dream for the post-

ACTION COMICS

writer/penciler: John Byrne inker: Karl Kesel

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN writer: Marv Wolfman artist: Jerry Ordway

AQUAMAN

writer/artist: Tim Truman

THE ATOM

writer: Steve Gerber penciler: Pat Broderick inker: Bruce Patterson

THE ATOMIC KNIGHTS writer: Mike W. Barr artist: Brian Bolland

BATMAN

writer/penciler: Frank Miller inker: Klaus Janson

BLACK CANARY

writer: Howard Chaykin artist: Dave Stevens

BLUE BEETLE

writer: Len Wein penciler: Steve Ditko inker: Dick Giordano

CATWOMAN

writer: Frank Miller artists: Los Bros. Hernandez

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN writer/artist: Barry Windsor-Smith

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED writer: Roy Thomas penciler: John Buscema inker: Tony DeZuniga

Deadly Darkseid, the nastiest of New Gods, in a Jim Starlin-drawn commission courtesy of Anthony Snyder.

THE CREEPER

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His Apokolips Are Sealed!

TM & © DC Comics.

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Crisis DC Universe was to follow Marv Wolfman’s suggestion of rebooting the entire DC line. Let’s pretend that was in fact what DC did, assembling the top talent of 1986 to revitalize not just its core titles, but virtually every title published by the company! Thanks to a poll of BACK ISSUE’s writers conducted by ye editor, BI proudly presents our ultimate wish list of what might have been…

®

Welcome to the 23rd century. The only thing you can’t have in this perfect world of total pleasure is your 30th birthday. Logan is 29.

by

Such was the tagline of the 1976 sciencefiction film Logan’s Run. The film was based on a novel written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson and published in 1965.

The novel had a curious beginning, as William F. Nolan relates: “We have to go way back to 1963.

There was a science-fiction course being taught by Charles Beaumont at UCLA. It was an evening adulteducation class, one of the earliest science-fiction classes.

He called me one day—we were very close friends— and said, ‘Would you come down and speak to my class?

This is a very basic course and I’m just starting it, so what I need from you is an example of how science fiction differs from social fiction.’ I said, ‘Okay. Let me think it over and I’ll come up with something.’ So, I put the phone down and the next week, as I drove on the freeway toward UCLA, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’ve got to have an example and I still haven’t thought of one.’ Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute. That old cliché is that “Life begins at 40.”

What if you turned that around? In social fiction, life begins at 40 and a guy turns 40 and runs off with a Vegas showgirl. In science fiction, what if you turned 40 and you were living in an overpopulated state and it was against the law to live past 40, so death begins at 40?

That might make an interesting science fiction example for the class.’ That’s all I ever thought it would be. So, I gave the lecture and I used that example and when I was driving home after the class, I thought, ‘You know, I could probably sell that and make $100 or maybe even $200 off it.’ I even had a title, ‘Killer Man, Killer Man, Leave My Door.’ So, in the future, the K-Men—it was Sandmen in the final novel—would come to your door on your 40th birthday and take you away for euthanasia and that would be the end of you. I could write about an ex-K-Man who turns 40 and is pursued by his own people, but since he knows all the rules and he has been a K-Man, he knows how to stay one step ahead of them. But in the end, they find him and execute him and that’s the end of the story.

And I thought, ‘I could probably even make a novelette out of that.’ That’s as far as it went then, in 1963.”

That was not, of course, the end of the story. Early the next year, Nolan was visiting with another close friend, screenwriter George Clayton Johnson, who had worked on TV’s original Twilight Zone. Nolan told Johnson of his story idea and George loved it, suggesting they write it together. Their plan was to write a novel first and then a screenplay. Before parting, they jotted down some key ideas on index cards, such as lowering the age of death.

As Nolan explains, “We cut it from 40 to 21 eventually because we thought death at 21 is far more shocking for most people than death at 40. You’re just achieving your

Dewey Cassell

Running for Their Lives Logan’s Run montage created by George Pérez for the artist’s 1977 Accent on the First “E” portfolio.

Art scans in this article courtesy of Dewey Cassell.

Logan’s Run TM & © MGM.

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©1967 William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.

adulthood, you’ve just turned 21, and suddenly you have to die.” Due to hectic schedules, it was the following year before they were able to set aside time to write the story.

To get away from distractions, they holed up in a motel room, cranking out the novel on a typewriter in 21 days. After a few revisions, they submitted the manuscript to several publishers simultaneously and Dial Press made the best offer. Having sold the novel, Nolan and Johnson then sat down to draft the screenplay, following a similar writing approach. At the time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer became interested in Logan’s Run and ultimately met their asking price of $100,000.

MGM purchased the film rights to Logan’s Run, but rejected the screenplay submitted by Nolan and Johnson. The project went through a series of screenwriters, including Richard Maibaum, who had penned a number of the James Bond films.

Irwin Allen also pitched an idea for the film, but MGM did not want to surrender the rights to the property. It ultimately took nine years to bring to fruition. Each year, MGM would change executives and the new executives would have a different idea of how to do it. Finally, David Zelag Goodman was chosen to adapt the novel to the screen. Goodman did not have a sciencefiction background and the film differed from the novel in several significant ways.

The death age was changed from 21 to 30.

At the time, teenage actors were less plentiful and it would have been challenging to cast the entire movie with people under 21. Other changes were more capricious. Nolan recalls his conversation with producer Saul David: “Saul said, ‘We’re getting rid of your euthanasia thing, the Sleep Shop.’

And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘Yeah. MGM took your whole Sleep Shop concept and put it into Soylent Green, another one of our movies. And I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And he said, ‘Well, we own the rights to both books.’

There were additional changes, as Nolan recalls in his further conversation with Saul David: “Saul said, ‘By the way, we’re bringing in an old man.’ And I said, ‘Oh, you mean Ballard, the Sanctuary master.’ And he said, ‘No, we’ve got a contract with Peter Ustinov. He’s going to come over from England and he’s going to take the part of this old man who lives in the Senate building with hundreds of different cats and he quotes from T. S. Eliot all the time.’ And I said, ‘Where’s Ballard?’ He said, ‘We got rid of Ballard.’ And I said, ‘So what does Sanctuary mean?’

And he said, ‘There is no Sanctuary.’”

Despite the authors’ objections, MGM proceeded with the film, which proved to be a box-office success.

Logan’s Run was directed by Michael Anderson, and starred Michael York as Logan, Jenny Agutter as Jessica, Richard Jordan as Francis, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors in her breakout film role as Holly. The film won an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects.

Bringing the Novel to the Silver Screen (top) Logan’s Run movie poster, courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries (www.ha.com). (inset) 1969 Dell paperback edition of the novel. (bottom) Scene in the ice cave from the film, with Michael York as Logan and Jenny Agutter as Jessica. © 1976 MGM.

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Having grown up in the ’70s, I was, as were many kids my age, a huge fan of the Star Wars movies.

The Marvel Star Wars comics published following the movie adaptation not only helped to fill the gap between films, they also fueled the fire of imagination for many of us as we dreamed of a galaxy far, far away.

Writer Roy Thomas and artist Howard Chaykin have both discussed their work on the movie adaptation as well as their subsequent stint on the early “expanded universe.” Although both creators liked the original movie, the franchise wasn’t exactly their “cup of tea” and they wrapped up their work on the series with Star Wars #10.

Beginning with issue #11, a whole new creative team consisting of some of the industry’s top professionals assumed direction of the title.

Writer Archie Goodwin, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Terry Austin injected a whole new life into the series.

As the series continued, inking over Carmine’s pencils was handled alternatively by Bob Wiacek and Gene Day. Most of the early creators of the Star Wars comic have been interviewed about their work with the exception of Bob Wiacek. Recognizing this, I set out to provide a comprehensive interview with the inker whose comics career has spanned more than three decades. My sincere appreciation to Mr. Wiacek for his taking the time to discuss his work on the series.

– Mike Keane MIKE KEANE: Early on in your career, you inked a couple issues of the black-and-white magazine Marvel Preview featuring Star-Lord (issues #14 and 15, dated Spring and Summer 1978, respectively). It appears this work predated your work on Star Wars.

BOB WIACEK: It did.

KEANE: Both “Star-Lord” and Star Wars were penciled

by Carmine Infantino. How did your collaboration with Carmine on “Star-Lord” come about?

WIACEK: The first time I had inked Carmine was on an issue of Iron Man, issue #108, and [Marvel] liked it so much that it was because of that, that I got to ink the “Star-Lord” stuff.

KEANE: Do think that your work on “Star-Lord” was a tryout for Star Wars?

WIACEK: No, I don’t think that it was because they didn’t inform me about it. It was only due to the fact that they liked the work that I did with Carmine on that issue of Iron Man that I got the job [on Star-Lord].

KEANE: I enjoyed the work you both did on these two issues. The black-and-white medium is very conducive to an epic set in outer space. What media did you use in your “Star-Lord” work? Was it a combination of pen and ink, brush, and zip-a-tone?

WIACEK: The Star-Lord work was all brush except for a lot of the mechanical stuff. I used a 102 or a Gillott 170 that I had been using at the time. And I used a Rapidograph for the small, intricate stuff. Except for the small figures, nine times out of ten I would use brush on the figures.

I used zip-a-tone, and that was my first serious use of the

Checkmate Signed by its inker, Bob Wiacek, the Carmine Infantino-drawn original cover art to Star Wars #35 (May 1980). Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm.

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Mike Keane

Beginnings: Doctor Strange #4 (1974): background inks as one of the “Crusty Bunkers” / Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #220 (1976): first credited inks

Milestones: inking Paul Smith on X-Men / inking Walt Simonson on X-Factor / inking Steve Rude on Spider-Man: Lifelines / The Brave and the Bold

Works in Progress: JSA #23–25 (inking Jerry Ordway) / Nexus (inking Steve Rude on a regular basis starting with #102)

Cyberspace: www.theartistschoice.com

BOB WIACEK Universal Talent photo courtesy of Bob Wiacek.

© 2005 ????

medium. Some of it I liked, and some of it I failed at what I was trying to do and it didn’t come out the way I’d wanted it to. On the second one, I used a lot of grease pencil work and I really liked the way that came out.

KEANE: One thing that stands out is the difference in techniques that were used between these two issues. In issue #14, you primarily used zip-a-tone for various effects, while in issue #15 a grease pencil is heavily utilized instead. Was this you experimenting with different techniques?

WIACEK: Yeah, I was trying out different techniques and trying to get a different look between the two issues. I was heavily influenced by the work that Alfredo Alcala was doing—not capturing necessarily his style, but capturing his work using a grease pencil. I had thought about experimenting with ink wash but I wasn’t very comfortable with it and instead I tried working with a grease pencil.

KEANE: There are many similarities between the art and general look you and Carmine created for both “Star-Lord” and Star Wars.

The technology, starships, and even military costumes in both series were very much alike. Marvel Premiere #15 and Star Wars #24, for instance, reflect this comparison. As far as your inking, it appears that by the time you began Star Wars you felt more comfortable with the media you had experimented with, and you began merging the different techniques you had used on “Star-Lord.”

WIACEK: Yes, I didn’t want them both to look the same.

KEANE: To achieve various effects which required white contrasting with the black background of space (e.g., stars, spaceships racing through space), you used a combination of techniques. You used either white ink or a razor blade to tear away at the black-inked pages.

WIACEK: Oh, yeah, that was a technique that a lot of artists were using. In fact, Jack Abel taught Terry Austin and me. I didn’t get it down as good as Terry did until later on, where you’d let the razor skip down the page.

I remember Jack doing it a number of times.

KEANE: Carmine had taken a break from Star Wars after issue #15 to work with you on these two issues of “Star-Lord” and returned to the series with issue #18.

Although it went un-credited, your first work on Star Wars would have been assisting Terry Austin by inking a couple of pages of issue #13.

WIACEK: And I had inked an issue of Star Wars that Walt Simonson penciled [issue #16].

KEANE: This would have been your first full issue [issue #16, “The Hunter,” featured the first appearance of the popular bounty hunter, Valance the Hunter]. What led to you getting this fill-in issue?

WIACEK: It was interesting how that came about. Jim Shooter contacted me and said that he had two books that needed to be inked. Back then he was giving out work occasionally. One was Star Wars over Walt Simonson and the other was, believe it or not, an adaptation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with pencils

by George Pérez. I’m glad I said yes to Star Wars. I loved Simonson’s work and I don’t think that Sgt. Pepper was ever published. [Editor’s note: Actually, it was, as Marvel Super Special #7 (1978).] I found out later that that was my tryout for the series. They liked what I did and I became their regular inker with issue #18.

KEANE: What was your opinion of the movie?

WIACEK: I loved the film and saw it four times when it was first released. I was just blown away because it was the old serials,

Valance the Hunter An undated Bob Wiacek rendition of the Star Wars bounty hunter. Courtesy of Mike Keane.

TM & © Lucasfilm.

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In the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics’ merchandising had shifted away from mail-in premiums and dimestore novelties. One of the first and most fun marketing concepts given to retailers, which still endures today, were Slurpee cups. They were primarily distributed from large-chain convenience stores such as 7-11. Yes, I’m old enough to remember begging my mom to take me to 7-11, conning her into buying me a Slurpee so I could get one of these Marvel cups.

A set of 60 cups were offered to 7-11 retailers in the summer of 1975.

The set was so well received that a new set was again created and offered in the summer of 1977. Maybe you have some of these sitting around in your attic. Other retailers like Circle-K, Icee, and Kolee also issued Slurpee cups. You might even find a few that are blank with a vacant spot where the retailer could have their name printed!

But when you look at these cups, a lot of times you could get a feeling of déjà vu, an idea you had seen this art before, and you are correct! Almost all of it has been recycled in some shape or form. I have been fascinated with the production of these cups and who their original artists actually were. I knew that Marie Severin worked in Marvel production in the early ’70s, and I eventually tracked her down (with the help of her old friend Herb Trimpe) at her home in New York and we had a phone conversation about these cups. I think everyone knows she is one of the nicest people you will ever meet in the business. She listened politely to my ramblings and finally told me, “You need to talk to Paty.” She had to spell the name out for me as I was unfamiliar with this person who is known only by her first name! I finally realized she was talking about Paty Cockrum, a comics creator, as well as the wife of the legendary Dave Cockrum.

Upon contacting Paty Cockrum, she was able to give me a wealth of information about these cups. She had begun work at Marvel Comics in October of 1974 shortly after Marvel had signed a contract to produce the 1975 Slurpee cups. Although Tony Mortellaro and Marie Severin had already begun the project, Paty was quickly brought in.

Tony Mortellaro had previously created archived files on some of the more prominent Marvel characters. However, Paty made a discovery: “Some of the lesser characters were not represented in the files. So I started building merchandising files with good shots of each character.

“Tony left staff and Marie became busy with other projects,” Paty continues. “I finished up the run. I began to amass a large file of action poses to offer prospective merchandisers. I had access to the archives at Marvel. They had silverprints of all the books that they had printed for decades.”

However, the work was a bit more difficult than that. You will notice some of the art has additions or subtractions or subtle differences. Paty describes the process she was presented with in 1974: “Marie [Severin] and Tony Mortellaro were doing the touch-ups … taking out blurbs and word ballons and touching up the holes to form a merchandise image.”

It became a fun and creative process. She also mentions, “We played all kinds of games with the figures … flopping them … redoing arms and legs and wings and heads and expressions. As soon as art came in on major characters, I would glom the pages, stat them, give them back, and go do work on the lifted figures … clean it up, stat it down or up to fit the master file, and then add it to the growing collection!”

Paty singularly became the Marvel production department in the 1970s and the Slurpee project was one of her biggest. In picking and choosing the art to use, merchandisers wanted the characters to signify the heroes’ current look. Costumes might have been recently updated or modified. The characters’ creative teams may have changed. Most retailers had a desire for John Buscema or John Romita, Sr. art to advertise their products. Paty notes, “Romita’s art was so much more visually attractive … especially to merchandisers who did not understand the stylistic difference in the art forms. They invariably went to the Buscemas, either one … Romita… Cockrum, Adams, Buckler; good, representational artists.”

The characters on the cups also had to be good representatives of Marvel. Normally a smile was added to each character. None of the characters were to give a frightened or confused state. The usually scowling Hulk is provided with a John Romita-smile as he rampages 5 4

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Lex Carson

Oh, Thank Heaven… …for 7-11. An ad for the 1975 Marvel Slurpee cup collection, including Super-Stan. (Where’s Rascally Roy, we wanna know??) All images in this article are courtesy of Lex Carson. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. 7-11 TM & © Sunderland Corp.

through a town. My personal favorite is the 1975 Captain America image, smiling as he throws a punch at you.

Identifying the art and artists used for the Slurpee cups has been and continues to be difficult. A few, such as John Romita’s Invisible Girl, were created for the Slurpee project. Some of the art was presented in premium magazines such as FOOM or, in the case of John Severin’s 1975 Kull image, from a Kull private portfolio printed by Pacifico.

Images also came in from “across the pond,” as some have been found in the Marvel British issues such as Mighty World of Marvel.

There are still a few that have not been identified, and I hope some readers of this article can help. In particular, the 1977 cup images of the Black Widow, Iron Fist, and the Black Panther have been extremely puzzling. If you know who did this work, please let us know!

Drawing Bead on a Slurpee Interior art images from FOOM #7 (Fall 1974), with art by Dave Cockrum; and the 1975 Hawkeye cup using the Cockrum art. All Slurpee-cup photos were produced by Bill Worboys Photography. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Distinguishing a 1975 Slurpee cup from a 1977 cup is a very easy task. The 1975 cups presented a single action pose of a character.

A set of 60 was created, complete with a numbered checklist. The back of the cup had a head image of the character and a word balloon telling their origin and background. Today’s comics strive to have a “jumping on” point for the reader. The 1975 Slurpee cup gives its owner an immediate idea of who the character is. This was an elementary but effective marketing concept. The 1975 cups are primarily printed in two colors and black. The 1975 cups also come in two styles. Some are wide while others are slightly taller (I prefer to have the taller ones as they appear thicker and are more durable).

The word balloons on the back of the cup are usually black ink on the white plastic surface. However, you will find some cups that had black ink in a yellow word balloon.

The 1977 cups are wild in design. Paty was provided with a much wider color range to work with, and to say the least, she got very creative with background scenarios and even paneled sequences. The result is a panoramic scene with multiple characters which is not easily captured by the camera. With two more years of experience in production and many more images in her archives, Paty’s 1977 set is a very groundbreaking piece of work. Forty cups were issued in 1977.

You probably wonder, if Marvel had a bigger budget with the second issue, whey were there not more cups? Each cup for the 1977 issue, with more color and multiple images on each, were simply more expensive. Paty explains, “If we wanted more color and more interesting possibilities with the designs, we had to go for less cups in the run.”

Of course, Paty was working at Marvel with a budget of her own.

“Any time I could get my hands on extraneous art,” she recalls, “like spots Dave [Cockrum] did for fun … or Buscema did on the back of pages, I would stat them and add them to the masters in my files.”

People also ask if some cups are more sought after than others. I think that is a topic open to debate. Some have said the John Buscema 1975 Doc Savage cup is difficult to find, but I really see no scarcity in its supply.

There is also a strong interest in the Dave Cockrum X-Men cup. Yes, it is the only one with a Wolverine image. There were multiple cups made of some of the more popular Marvel characters such as SpiderMan, Captain America, and Fantastic Four, but the X-Men had just recently relaunched its “new” lineup and Marvel was unaware that it would become such a major part of its universe. The image Paty uses for the X-Men cup was somewhat difficult to find. Dave Cockrum drew it for the letters page of a black-and-white magazine: Rampaging Hulk #2. The team is shown on the letters pages on page 40 and 41, but there is only an exploding cloud of brimstone signifying that

Nightcrawler has “bamfed” or teleported out of the picture. You’ll be somewhat amused to find the image of the teleported Nightcrawler on page 65 of this Hulk magazine. This gag took me over 30 years to figure out and Paty and Dave Cockrum both had a laugh at how slow I have been to discover the subtle humor involved. The X-Men cup is the only one you’ll find in either issue that is signed by the artist.

Another unusual cup with quite a bit of history is the 1975 running Spider-Man. This image was originally done by Steve Ditko. It is a panel from one of the early Amazing Spider-Man comics. Marie Severin shared with me that a Marvel staffer cut out the image and reattached the arms to fit onto a poster in the 1960s. My guess would be the staffer might have been either Sol Brodsky or Frank Giacoia. The curves of the legs and the shinbones on Spider-Man are vintage trademarks of Steve Ditko. For the Slurpee issue, John Romita presented Paty with a similar image for marketing. Paty recalls, “John told me that is was a redo of a Ditko running pose that had been lifted from the books and monkeyed with to a degree. He just redid it so we could have a good vertical action pose of Spidey.”

Of course, no marketing project could be complete without an image of the master of self-promotion: Stan Lee. Marvel’s head honcho adorns one of the 1975 cups with original art as an amalgamation of several of the Marvel characters under the guise of “Super-Stan.” His body image was created by John Romita. Lee, who has always had a fondness for the way Marie Severin drew his face, allowed her to create the head for his likeness.

DD Slurpee The Gil Kane-drawn Daredevil image from the cover to Marvel Two-in-One #3 was recycled for the Man without Fear’s 1975 cup. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Mark DiFruscio

Donovan Flint, Star of “The Survivors”… …the working title for Star Hunters, in this early Don Newton/Bob Layton pinup signed by both artists. Sadly, Flint did not survive the DC Implosion.

Art courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyder art.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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With those words, a young filmmaker named George Lucas introduced moviegoers to a scrappy band of space-faring freedom fighters trying to overthrow an evil Galactic Empire in his sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars.

Released in May of 1977, Star Wars quickly went on to become a cultural phenomenon, adding a slew of new terms to the English lexicon, including “Death Star,” “the Force,” and “Darth Vader.”

However, in the fall of that same year, DC Comics introduced its own scrappy band of space rebels warring against interstellar tyranny in the form of a new comic series called Star Hunters. Over the next three decades the Star Wars franchise would spawn two sequels, three prequels, countless comic-book tie-ins, and enough merchandising sales to surpass the GNP of a small country.

Meanwhile, Star Hunters has largely been relegated to the role of a footnote in comic-book history as one of the approximately 30 titles given a speedy demise during the now-infamous “DC Implosion” of 1978. Despite its alltoo-brief sojourn through the galaxy, Star Hunters remains a book that was as far ahead of its time as the hit movie that would forever eclipse it in the popular consciousness.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

“Beginning an epic of space and time,” proclaimed the opening page of DC Super-Stars #16 (Oct. 1977), wherein the Star Hunters made their debut. “Step 150 years into the future,” beckoned the first caption, “into a world of galactic flight and interplanetary intrigue, of alien cultures and death at the speed of light! A world whose greatest hero speaks with an unmistakable Irish brogue—” While that last line might prompt contemporary readers to conjure up sound bytes of Colin Farrell or U2 frontman Bono, the origins of this Irish space hero actually stem from a bygone era of swashbuckling adventure films that were akin to the Star Wars of their day.

Shaping An Imagination The 1956 sci-fi masterpiece Forbidden Planet imprinted the imagination of writer David Michelinie.

Forbidden Planet © 1956 Loew’s/MGM.

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Created by writer David Michelinie, Star Hunters was first conceived of back in 1975 when Michelinie was scripting The Unknown Soldier and Claw the Unconquered for DC. In a text piece entitled “The Story Behind the Story,” printed alongside the Star Hunters’ first appearance, the details of the development process illustrate just how Michelinie’s concept evolved over a prolonged period of editorial reshuffling and creative setbacks. That evolution first began during the fall TV season of 1975 when Michelinie noted the gaining popularity of science-fiction television series such as Space: 1999 and reruns of Star Trek. From this trend Michelinie came to believe that the time might be ripe for a similar resurgence in the world of comics.

Reflecting on the creation of Star Hunters some three decades after the fact, Michelinie recalls that his interest in science fiction began at a young age. “I was a huge science fiction fan, both books and movies,” Michelinie remembers. “My favorite movie of all time is Forbidden Planet, which I saw when my age was still in single digits.

Most of what I read was science fiction. Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, and Fredric Brown were staples throughout high school, with Harry Harrison, Harlan Ellison, and Michael Moorcock added during college. Novels that I loved and undoubtedly helped form my creative direction were Starship Troopers by Heinlein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, The Shrinking Man [more famous by its film adaptation’s name, The Incredible Shrinking Man] by Richard Matheson, Star Born by Andre Norton, Time is the Simplest Thing by Simak.

[I also] clearly remember some of the short stories I absorbed then, even after all these decades, like “Third from the Sun” by Matheson, “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury, “The Waveries” by Brown, and “A Wind is Rising” [by science-fiction humorist Robert Sheckley].

Those kind of stories kicked my imagination into high gear and made me want to make up stories of my own.”

Obviously, science fiction has always been a part of the comics medium as well, going back to the early days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and carrying through to the pantheon of DC’s Silver Age sci-fi heroes such as Adam Strange, the Atomic Knights, and Captain Comet [see TwoMorrows’ Silver Age Sci-Fi Companion for a comprehensive exploration of this era in DC history].

Nevertheless, as the “Story Behind The Story” explains, “science fiction had not traditionally done well in comic books.” In fact, just a year earlier DC had canceled its science-fiction anthology series Weird Worlds, which adapted such sci-fi adventure classics as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars and David Innes of Pellucidar, as well as serving as the launching pad for Howard Chaykin’s shortlived Ironwolf saga. Despite these recent sci-fi failures in a marketplace increasingly dominated by superheroes, Michelinie continued to wonder if, “Perhaps the time had come when it could succeed.”

During this same period, team books were coming into vogue across the comic-book landscape, prompting Michelinie to conceive of the potential series as a team book set against the backdrop of space. After developing the idea further with editor Joe Orlando, Michelinie brought the pitch to DC Comics publisher Carmine Infantino.

“The sodium-lit hour before dawn…”

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At the Larksmere nuclear power station, terrorists drag the near-unconscious form of journalist Mike Moran.

Between half-closed eyes Moran glimpses a sign on a glass door from the wrong side.

The letters appear reversed: “Atomic” has become “CIMOTA”… Whispering this word, Moran explodes in a fury of light and noise; in his place stands a godlike being dressed in blue, an “MM” logo on his chest.

Smiting the terrorists as he ignores the ineffective gunfire bouncing bullets off his skin, this near-perfect man takes to the sky in orgiastic release.

“I’m Marvelman…” he cries, the curve of planet Earth far behind him. “I’m back!!”

And indeed he was. Not that anyone had ever missed him. In fact, someone opening the first issue of Warrior magazine would have been forgiven for having never even heard the name “Marvelman.”

Marvelman was that most rare of beasts: a British superhero. While superheroes had come to dominate American comics, costumed do-gooders had never taken hold in the UK. British children preferred the cozy cartoon hijinks of Biffo the Bear, Dennis the Menace (the British one, not the Hank Ketcham kid), and the Bash Street Kids; or war and stirring adventure stories based on good old British values and derring-do, featuring such luminaries as Union Jack Jackson, Morgyn the Mighty, and Alf Tupper.

Perhaps publisher Dez Skinn is correct when he suggests that superheroes “aren’t really needed in a country already full of legendary characters. Swinging across a London skyline on a Bat-rope or spider-webbing never felt right to me.”

Instead, during comics’ Golden Age, UK publishers such as Len Miller turned to the US and reprinted American wares for the home audience. He published weekly reprints of such US fare as Don Winslow, Spy Smasher, and Lash LaRue, though Captain Marvel proved most popular. But in 1954, Miller found himself with a problem: Fawcett, the US publisher of Captain Marvel, was getting out of the comics business following a decade of legal battles with DC Comics over the allegation that the Captain was plagiarized from Superman. Miller’s well had suddenly run dry.

Many comics publishers used the services of packagers to compile their comics, while they concentrated on the business aspects. Mick Anglo was one such packager, and Miller asked him to create a new character to replace Captain Marvel, with the idea that the new character would be similar enough that the audience might not realize there had even been a change.

Anglo altered the costume from red to blue; removed the cape; changed dark-haired Billy Batson to blond-haired Mike Moran; and the old wizard mentor Shazam became super-scientist Guntag Borghelm.

Allan Harvey

You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly The final page of Marvelman from Warrior #1.

Art by Garry Leach. All art scans in this article are courtesy of its writer, Allan Harvey. © the respective owner.

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Thus was Captain Marvel transformed into Marvelman.

From issue #19 of Miller’s weekly Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. titles, readers were informed that the heroes had decided to retire so new Marvel heroes would replace them. With #24 of their respective titles, the original Marvel Family bowed out.

One week later (February 3, 1954), Marvelman #25 and Young Marvelman #25 duly appeared, and continued very successfully for the next half-decade. In 1956, a third title was added, The Marvelman Family, which saw the debut of Kid Marvelman. For these three titles Anglo assembled a small studio of artistic talent that produced strip artwork, covers, and puzzle pages. Amongst those delineating Marvelman’s adventures were future comics historian Denis Gifford, and Don Lawrence (who went on to become one of the big names of British comics adventure art).

The practice of repackaging US comics took a severe hit in 1959 when the UK government changed the law to allow the importation of US comics. Children abandoned the black-and-white reprints for the four-color excitement of the new imports, and sales declined.

No Marvel Family Retread The very first page of Marvelman from Warrior #1, showcasing the new, realistic art approach.

Art by Garry Leach. © the respective owner.

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Miller canceled the Marvelman Family title, switched Marvelman and Young Marvelman to monthly frequency, and filled them with reprints of older adventures.

Succumbing to the inevitable, Miller ceased publication in 1963 (both titles having reached a fairly impressive #346) and filed for bankruptcy. Marvelman quickly faded into obscurity.

MARVELMAN RECYCLED

But Dez Skinn remembered.

By 1981, Skinn had decided to quit his role as the editor-in-chief of Marvel UK. Marvel had begun its UK publishing venture in 1972 with Mighty World of Marvel #1, a weekly title reprinting Hulk, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four adventures. More titles followed, and initially sold very well, but by the late 1970s, sales were down, and cancellations and series mergers had occurred. New ideas and a new approach were needed.

On a business trip to the UK, Stan Lee hand-picked Skinn to head up the new operation.

Skinn had worked professionally in comics since 1969, and had published his own magazine, House of Hammer (later Halls of Horror), that focused on the output of the famed horror-movie studios. Each issue included a comic-strip adaptation of one of the movies. Later Skinn founded Starburst magazine, which had as its focus the newly emergent sciencefiction movie scene.

On taking up the reins of Marvel UK, Skinn began using homegrown talent to produce the new material required to fill out the reprints (new covers, story recaps, etc.), and initiated the new titles Hulk Comic and Doctor Who Weekly, which featured brand-new strips by British creators. Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, Steve Dillon, Alan Davis, and David Lloyd produced work for Skinn during this time.

But working for a huge machine like Marvel brought its frustrations. As Skinn explains, he finally decided to leave due to an “inability to maintain any quality control [when producing] 1400 pages a month. When I took the job on, after an arm-twisting weekend from Uncle Stan—where he wanted me to carry out the suggestions in my report on turning around the fortunes of his US-led UK reprint line— I had sufficient staff to fulfill my suggested changes (‘the Marvel Revolution’ as I named the sweeping overhaul we were implementing). But the problem with success is large companies always want to replicate such until you become your own competition at the cost of a dwindling return on individual investments.

“Because part of my brief at Marvel UK was to create new material that the US could reprint,” Skinn continues, “to make it more of a two-way street I brought my old team in (from HoH) and ultimately believed we should be doing it for ourselves instead of others.”

Earlier, Skinn had published a shortlived reprint comic called Warrior. Now, having divested himself of his Marvel duties, and itching to get started on a new venture under his own Quality Communications brand utilizing the very best British talent available, he recycled that venerable title.

“Britain’s always had dynamic one-word titles for its comics,” he explains, “with no need for the asinine suffix the US seemed to need. Where they had Action COMICS, Detective COMICS, ad infinitum, our shores went for emotive key words like Lion, Tiger, Victor, Valiant, and such. So Warrior seemed an obvious choice nobody else had picked up on—both times!

It fit perfectly as a newsstand logo.”

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 Comics (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 Six: Kirby: King of Comics

Fantastic Five Jack Kirby’s return to AA Comics brought a revitalization to characters he had created during his previous tenure in the company. The Challengers of the Unknown traded in their purple jumpsuits for cosmic costumes and weaponry and were enmeshed in a war between old and new gods.

Art courtesy of Shane Foley. (All comics images in this article are © DC Comics.)

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BOB ROZAKIS: Stealing Jack Kirby away from Marvel must have been quite a coup back in 1970.

TED SKIMMER [longtime AA Comics employee]: Oh, absolutely. It was the equivalent of the Yankees getting Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. Even though Jack had worked with Joe Simon for DC in the ’40s and then by himself for AA in the ’50s, he was just another artist back then. But after he and Stan Lee “created” Marvel Comics, he was elevated to a whole new level.

By 1970, Marvel had made serious inroads into our sales. They were expanding their line in leaps and bounds and the older readers would drop our books in favor of new Marvel titles.

ROZAKIS: But it wasn’t just Jack’s art that was the cause of that…

SKIMMER: Of course not. It was the whole Marvel mystique that Stan had propagated. But Jack had defined the look of the books. They were bringing in new artists alongside the old-timers and every one of them was trying to make their books look like Kirby was drawing them.

Billy knew he needed to shake up the staff and the books. When he pulled in Joe Orlando to handle the horror books, he was addressing one niche in our line.

Same thing when he signed Joe Kubert to co-edit the war books with Bob Kanigher.

But Kirby—that was a whole new ballgame. Jack started out with a wide variety of books and changed them all.

ROZAKIS: How much of it was Jack’s doing? As opposed to Bill giving him instructions on how to change things?

SKIMMER: Oh, it was almost all Jack.

Billy gave him Young Love and said, “You and Simon started this 20 years ago. What if you were starting it now?” Jack started doing the “Soul Love” series in the book, featuring black people, then brought in Hispanic characters, and, after that, Asians, Indians, Eskimos … you name it. He did the first interracial love stories in comics. He did stories about married couples having affairs and going through divorces. He did stories about premarital sex, birth control, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and even sneaked an abortion in one time.

ROZAKIS: As I recall, that did not play well in some parts of the country.

SKIMMER: No, it didn’t. In fact, it got all our books yanked from some stores in the Bible Belt. But it also got us a lot of publicity and what we lost in those areas was more than made up for by the sales in urban areas and in college towns. Very quickly, the general public was reminded that Stan Lee and Marvel were not the only comic-book game in town.

ROZAKIS: Why did Bill give him Doiby Dickles?

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SKIMMER: Even after Mort [Weisinger] left, the Green Lantern books were still the best-selling ones we had, but they were lagging behind some of the Marvel titles. Overall, Billy liked what Julie Schwartz had done to update the character, but he wanted to see what Jack would do. So he gave him the worst-selling book of the lot and said, “Do it your way.”

ROZAKIS: So if it didn’t work out, the main titles, GL and AllAmerican, were unaffected.

SKIMMER: Exactly. Jack had some big ideas for where he thought superhero comics should be going and this gave him a way to introduce those concepts into the AA Universe.

ROZAKIS: What he did with Challengers of the Unknown, for example. That was quite a change from four guys in jumpsuits fighting the monster of the month.

SKIMMER: The first editorial meeting that Jack came to, we were sitting around the table and he started talking about his ideas for grand cosmic adventures and epic sagas.

You would have thought he was speaking a foreign language.

Billy loved the ideas and Jack’s enthusiasm, but the other guys … well, Julie [Schwartz], Murray [Boltinoff], and [Robert] Kanigher had been editing comics since the ’40s and each of them had his own approach. Kubert and Orlando, being artists, could relate to what Jack was saying about making the storytelling more dynamic, but they weren’t quite sure what he meant either.

ROZAKIS: There was certainly a lot going on in his books, what with his new race of gods that had replaced the old ones—the combination of the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods who had battled one another into oblivion—and the intermingling with the superheroes of the AA Universe. And he seemed to be pulling characters out of everywhere.

SKIMMER: Billy gave him pretty much free rein. Jack started by reinventing a lot of what he had done in the past. He and Joe Simon had created the Boy Commandos for DC back in the ’40s; he brought

them back in Doiby Dickles as the DNA Commandos, making them clones of the original kids and putting them in the slums of Gotham City rather than in World War II Europe.

ROZAKIS: I remember when he started using the concept of clones in the book. I wrote a letter saying that he was pushing the suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Who knew how right on the money he actually was! He was years ahead of Dolly the sheep.

SKIMMER: Jack’s imagination seemed to know no boundaries. Not in his storytelling and not in his artwork. Those photo-collage backgrounds he started using in the books, they were a real challenge for the production department.

ROZAKIS: That was back in the days before Photoshop and computer image manipulation…

SKIMMER: Oh, yes. Jack would cut pictures out of magazines and paste them on a board, then draw the characters, and cut and paste them onto the montage. Unfortunately, with the type of separations and printing we were doing, a lot of those pages ended up looking like mud.

I remember coloring one of the books that had a photo background and not being able to tell what was in it. When I asked Jack how I should color it, he told me, “Just add some shapes and things.” So I threw some green here, some magenta there. When it printed, my crazy colors made it look even more bizarre and Jack told me it was exactly what he’d wanted!

ROZAKIS: [laughs] How were the sales?

SKIMMER: Some were better than others. When there was a minimal tie to the mainstream AA characters—or no tie at all—the books seemed to do better. The core Green Lantern fans weren’t so happy with what Jack did with Doiby Dickles.

ROZAKIS: Is that why the book was folded with Girl Lantern and Cathy Crain into Green Lantern Family?

SKIMMER: That was part of it. None of the three books was selling particularly well. Interest in the two “girl” books was dwindling; I think our audience was probably 95% male by then. Joe Orlando was editing Girl Lantern, but he never liked superhero books. And Billy was very unhappy with what Nelson [Bridwell] was doing with Cathy Crain.

ROZAKIS: Nelson was trying to tie all the continuity together. Unsuccessfully.

SKIMMER: So Billy decided to put the three features together. He made Murray Boltinoff responsible for the “Doiby” and “Cathy” stories and gave Julie “Girl Lantern.” Nelson was in charge of reprints.

ROZAKIS: Which made up the bulk of the book.

SKIMMER: Right. There was only one new story per issue and it rotated among the three “stars.” So the extra burden on Julie and Murray was minimal.

ROZAKIS: What was Jack’s reaction when Bill took Doiby away?

SKIMMER: He didn’t seem to mind much. Jack was trying all sorts of things in the book and each issue seemed wilder than the last.

ROZAKIS: Like the Don Rickles guest appearance?

SKIMMER: Precisely. Don Rickles … Doiby Dickles … the team-up seemed perfectly logical. To Jack, anyway.

ROZAKIS: I loved the line on the cover. “Kirby says: Don’t ask, just buy it!”

SKIMMER: Jack never wanted to do long runs on any of the books anyway. He had so many ideas; he just wanted to get them rolling and have others take them over. He was a fast worker, but there was no way he was going to write and draw all the books he was coming up with.

The King and His Creations (above) Jack “King” Kirby. (left) AA house ad announcing the return of an old title as a home for myriad Kirby creations. Jack’s 14-issue run on the title ran the gamut from revamped Golden Age heroes to brand-new concepts. Art courtesy of Shane Foley.

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John Schwirian

JOHN SCHWIRIAN: After your time off from comics, you returned in 1980 to write a lot of strange humor for Marvel including the way-out “What If Aunt May Had Been Bitten by the Radioactive Spider?” [What If? #23] and the adventures of Bucky Bizarre. How did Marvel lure you back into writing comics?

STEVE SKEATES: When I left the comic-book industry in disgust over the Isis debacle, I didn’t exactly get totally immersed in being a bartender whilst trying to forget all about comics, although on certain levels that might well have been what I should have done! Instead, I spent a lot of time (while admittedly rather heavily sampling those wares my place of employment was peddling) devising various surefire story ideas as I plotted my next comeback, reemergence having become for me more or less a way of life—my career supposedly over before it had hardly begun back when Stan Lee fired me, the revitalized version thereof biting the dust when Dick [Giordano] gave up his editorial position at DC, then assignments getting way scarce due to Conway’s departure and Orlando’s utterly stupid decision to have his pal John Albano write Plastic Man, and now this!

It took (this time) merely a single trip to NYC for me to suddenly find myself once again busy being a fulltime comic-book scripter! The best of the story ideas I took with me, a little something called “The Whole Tooth,” was immediately grabbed up by Lynn Graeme, who made it a part of [Marvel Preview #23’s] Bizarre Adventures 2 (a particularly fine collection of off-the-wall stuff by O’Neil, Roger Stern, Frank Miller, and various others, with my piece therewithin not only having a great plot but also possessing—at least in my opinion—some of the best-written captions and dialogue I’d ever constructed!) while (to get back to Ms. Graeme) also asking me to write a 25-page story for the next issue of the Howard the Duck magazine.

All in all, no doubt about my having shown up at exactly the right moment, seeing as Larry Hama had just inherited Crazy magazine and noticing me wandering the halls there at Marvel, he immediately decided that I should play a major role in this new venture of his!

Furthermore, though I had no idea what sort of a shake-up had happened back at DC during my two-year-plus absence, I now found O’Neil working for Marvel, and Marvel indeed seemed to agree with him—he was more laidback than ever, more relaxed, even friendly and was no longer strictly enforcing any silly arbitrary rules! Truly, a nifty development!!

SCHWIRIAN: What was the premise behind Bucky Bizarre?

SKEATES: Ultimately, O’Neil inherited from Lynn Graeme (who was departing for some sort of greener pastures) the Bizarre Adventures book, which the big boss-man Jim Shooter never saw as having all that much sales potential— to Jim, this book was more like a toy that he was giving as a gift to O’Neil, something for O’Neil to play around with, something to help keep Denny happy while he was simultaneously hopefully being productive within other less-pleasing arenas! To Denny’s way of thinking, Bizarre Adventures (as he himself had developed it) was

Master of Weird Humor Steve Skeates juiced up editor Joe Orlando’s offbeat title Plop!, especially with his tale “The Gourmet,” which ran in this issue (#1, Sept–Oct. 1973). Cover art by Basil Wolverton.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Beginnings:

Scripting Larry Lieber’s plots in Two-Gun Kid #79 and 80 (Jan. and Mar. 1966)

Milestones:

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (Tower Comics) / Abbott & Costello / The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves / Sarge Steel backups in Judomaster / Aquaman and Aquaman in Adventure Comics / The Hawk and the Dove / Teen Titans / Kid Flash in The Flash / Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella / Plop! / assorted DC mystery stories / Crazy / Plastic Man / Dr. 13 in The Phantom Stranger / Challengers of the Unknown in Super-Team Family / Blackhawk / Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham

Work in Progress:

“Possessions,” drawn by Dick Ayers, featuring the adventures of Tepeth-tet, forthcoming in All-Smash Funnies #2 (Comic Enterprise Publishing Group)

steve skeates

© 2009 Marvel Characters Inc.

Marvel No Frills (right) Skeates wrote Marvel’s Generic Comic Book #1 (Apr. 1984). Cover art by some old hack. (above) Bucky Bizarre appeared in this issue of Bizarre Adventures (#34, Feb. 1983). © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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simply too dark—he wanted to throw in there at the end of each issue a short light humorous entity that perhaps would even offset any suicidal urges brought about by the rest of the stories in that particularly depressing magazine, and he even figured that I’d be the perfect person to devise such a series. I came up with something called “Buck Bizarre,” a square-jawed, overly muscular time-traveling pseudo-hero-type who lived in a world of puns, but that wasn’t quite cutesy enough for O’Neil, so he added a “y” to the guy’s name, and had Hama work up a visual idea for the character, making him look more like a cute kid than like a muscular hero. Hey, fine by me! As a matter of fact, although there were indeed some clunkers, I do believe this baby had a better record of being spot-on than most other series of this ilk!

SCHWIRIAN: The Generic Comic Book and Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham are fun reads— like your Gold Key material—yet they are pretty much the last of your mainstream comic-book material.

What happened here?

SKEATES: Larry Hama asked me to write something called The Generic Comic Book—I have no idea whose idea this was (perhaps Tom DeFalco’s, perhaps Hama’s)—but what this baby essentially ultimately turned out to be was an old-style ’70s sort of comic: clichéd, humorous, even silly, and with a what-if-superheroes-existed-in-the-real-world refrain. Wow, yes, I hadn’t had so much fun writing a comic book in something like five years, all of which convinced me that I really didn’t care where comics had gone, didn’t really care what editors now expected—this (the ’70s sort of comic) was what I wanted to write! And, if this sort of comic essentially didn’t exist anymore—well then, that was it for me! I wasn’t gonna struggle trying to write stuff I neither understood nor cared about! If the fun-to-write stuff no longer existed, then I was outta here! I quit!

And that would have been it, too, if it hadn’t been for a phone call from Larry Hama. It seems, you see, that upon the demise of Crazy (which had never really sold well anyway), Hama had been given to edit a certain Star Comic featuring the antics of a funny animal with the unlikely moniker “Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham,” a character created by Tom DeFalco, who recently had replaced the departing Jim Shooter as Marvel’s editor-in-chief. DeFalco had told Hama that if he [Hama] couldn’t find someone else to write Spider-Ham, then he [DeFalco] could do the job. No way did Hama want his boss to be [on this particular project] working under him—you can just imagine the sorts of problems this could cause! So Hama had been asking everyone he knew if they’d please, please write this series. Thing is, this was during that period when Marvel was offering a nice piece of change to those writers whose books really sold, and everyone knew Spider-Ham stood no chance at all of selling even modestly well, so Hama (so far) had gotten no takers whatsoever! Finally, he thought about me, called me up, and literally begged me to take the job. Actually, it didn’t sound all that bad— a book I could easily twist around so that I was parodying Spider-Man’s adventures from the ’60s and ’70s rather than reflecting anything that was happening in the funnybook field at that particular time and place, so I easily gave in to all Larry’s sniveling pleading.

SCHWIRIAN: Mary Skrenes is credited with working with Steve Gerber on several projects (mainly Omega the Unknown), but you’ve revealed that she co-plotted with you on several series. Can you give me a little background on this lady of mystery?

SKEATES: Had Mary gone to the same high school as I, or even attended the same college, surely the two of