Back Issue #152

MARVELS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY with KURT BUSIEK & ALEX ROSS July

2024

2 5 1 . o N 10.95 $

MARVELMANIA ISSUE

™

featuring

The Avengers TM & © Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

THE AVENGERS by SAL BUSCEMA

Marvelmania International • Marvel Novel Series • Marvel Value Stamps • Marvel Classics Marvel Age Magazine • FABIAN NICIEZA Captain America interview & more

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #2

CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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Volume 1, Number 152 July 2024 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Sal Buscema (Art originally appeared as the cover for Marvemania Catalog #2, 1970. Scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions.)

TM & © Marvel.

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Kevin Sharp SPECIAL THANKS Jim Amash Ed Lute Tom Brevoort Ralph Macchio Sal Buscema Kevin Maguire Kurt Busiek Andy Mangels Shaun Clancy Marvel Comics Edinburgh Robert Menzies Comic Con Ian Millsted Chris Eliopoulous Doug Moench Mark Evanier Fabian Nicieza Irving Forbush Eric NolenKarl Heitmueller, Jr. Weathington Fred Hembeck Jim Salicrup Heritage Auctions Tom Speelman Dan Johnson Roy Thomas Douglas R. Kelly Gerry Turnbull Richard Kelsey Marv Wolfman Scott Kress, Dwight Jon Catskill Comics Zimmerman Paul Kupperberg James Lundy

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BACKSEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Notes on this issue, plus the infamous Marvelmania International fan club BACKSTAGE PASS: Sal Buscema and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A “nightmare” assignment for the superstar artist proved a blessing for fans OFF MY CHEST: Marvel Novel Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Paul Kupperberg recalls the challenges of adapting superheroes to prose FLASHBACK: Marvel Value Stamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The popular mid-1970s initiative that drove readers to cut up their comic books PRINCE STREET NEWS: Lost Marvel Merchandise of the Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Go on a supermarket sweep with cartoonist Karl Heitmueller, Jr. BEYOND CAPES: Marvel Classics Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Step aside, CliffsNotes, as Mighty Marvel adapts literature’s best FLASHBACK: Marvel Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Jim Salicrup and pals revisit the House of Ideas’ ’80s Marvel zine INTERVIEW: Fabian Nicieza and The Adventures of Captain America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 An in-depth chat with the writer of the inspirational retelling of Cap’s early years GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Tales from Earth-U(slan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Batman movie producer Michael Uslan had big plans for the Marvel Universe PRO2PRO: Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The superstar duo revisits Marvels on its 30th anniversary BACK TALK: Reader Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 BACK ISSUE™ issue 152, July 2024 (ISSN 1932-6904) is published monthly (except Jan., March, May, and Nov.) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 4490344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Back Issue, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 112 Fairmount Way, New Bern, NC 28562. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $97 Economy US, $147 International, $39 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover artwork by Sal Buscema. The Avengers TM & © Marvel. All Rights Reserved. All editorial matter © 2024 TwoMorrows and Michael Eury, except Prince Street News © 2024 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1

by M i c h a e l

Eury

Marvelmania membership materials from the fan club’s first two years.

TM & © Marvel.

You don’t have to be a Marvel Zombie to catch Marvelmania.

Sure, the M.M.M.S. membership card–carrying True Believer is most susceptible to this highly contagious condition. But Marvelmania does not discriminate. You might be devoutly devouring your favorite title from the Distinguished Competition or a cutting-edge creator-owned series when something special from the House of Ideas crosses your path. Too late! You’ve been infected with Marvelmania! There’s no vaccine to protect you against it and no cure for the condition outside of a Marvel comic fix. Or an edition of BACK ISSUE devoted to Marvel material from the Bronze Age and Copper Age. You can thank occasional BI contributor Robert Menzies for this issue’s theme, although Robert himself may be surprised to read this. Some five years ago, Robert offered to BACK ISSUE his 2018 interview with Fabian Nicieza about the 1991 Adventures of Captain America limited series Fabian wrote and Kevin Maguire drew (well, Kevin drew most of it… and knocked each and every panel right outta the park!). Initially I had intended to schedule it in the first appropriately themed issue and placed it aside… but issues zipped past, as did years, with the interview collecting cyber-dust on my hard drive.

Last year, after scheduling back-to-back DC Comics covers for BI #150 (Batman) and #151 (Sandman and Death), it was time to balance our coverage between publishers by running a Marvel Comics cover for issue #152. At last—a home for the Fabian Nicieza Captain America interview! Then I received an email from Marvel artist Don Hudson reminding me that 2024 marks the 30th Anniversary of Marvels, so a Pro2Pro interview reuniting that series’ writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross was added to the issue. And coincidentally, at that time my former DC Comics colleague Paul Kupperberg shared with me his article about his Marvel Novel Series offerings. In addition to the Marvel material that literally fell into my editorial lap, this Marvel-themed issue allows BI the chance to finally spotlight Marvel Value Stamps, Marvel Classics Series, and the ’80s fanzine Marvel Age. There’s also 2 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

a Greatest Stories Never Told about Michael Uslan’s unrealized Marvel series—from what we affectionately call Earth-U(slan)— that had been under discussion since we ran a similar DC-themed Earth-U piece a while back, and a Prince Street News cartoon prepared by Karl Heitmueller, Jr., specifically for this issue.

Of course, either a Maguire Captain America or Ross Marvels cover for BACK ISSUE #152 would’ve been dynamite (although I’d hate to have had to choose between the two). Heck, a Bob Larkin Spider-Man vs. Hulk Marvel Novel painted cover would’ve been a blast, too!

With the deepest respect to those superb talents (each of whom has graced BI’s cover spot at least once), there is one Mighty Marvel artist whose work we have yet to cover-feature… until now. He has frequently been cited in our interior pages (not surprising for one of the Bronze Age’s most prolific illustrators) and has often chimed in with answers to interviewers’ questions, but in the 20-plus years we’ve been publishing this magazine, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to showcase on our cover the artwork of the amazing Sal Buscema! Once ye ed stumbled across Mr. Buscema’s iconic Avengers cover for Marvelmania Catalog #2 (1970), I knew I’d found the perfect piece for this edition’s BACK ISSUE cover. We’d hoped to interview Sal Buscema for this issue, but sadly he was unavailable. So the intrepid Robert Menzies (this issue’s undisputed Fearless Front Facer) rallied to the rescue by presenting an incisive study of exploring Sal’s contributions to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The Buscema Avengers cover art this issue is no doubt familiar to many of you, and you may have seen characters excerpted from it for different Marvel merchandise. Prior to rendering this cover—perhaps the most perfect “money shot” Avengers depiction anyone could imagine—Sal penciled a similarly staged group portrait of the team (inked by Sam Grainger) at the end of The Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969).

While we prepare to delve into the Marvelmania that awaits in the pages that follow, let’s not forget that “Marvelmania

International” is also the name of a brief and rather infamous initiative in Marvel Comics’ history. And who better to explain this to BI than one of Marvel Comics’ top editors, Tom Brevoort?

On The Tom Brevoort Experience (www.tombrevoort.com), Tom blogged, “Marvelmania was a short-lived operation set up in 1969 to sell licensed merchandise of Marvel characters. It was positioned in the books as a spiritual successor to the Merry Marvel Marching Society, Marvel’s in-house fan club, but in fact it was a separate fly-by-night organization entirely, one set up and licensed by Don Wallace. According to [comics and television writer] Mark Evanier, who worked for Marvelmania for a time, Wallace didn’t really know what he was buying here—he thought Marvel was the publisher of Captain Marvel [Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures, DC’s Shazam!] of the 1940s, and he made several erroneous business calculations based on an imprecise understanding of the business and his audience.

Eventually, Marvelmania folded around 1971, with Wallace running off with any remaining cash before his creditors could catch up to him. It wasn’t always guaranteed that you would receive the merchandise you ordered through Marvelmania, but they did produce a very nice fanzine and product catalog.”

The Merry Marvel Marching Society (M.M.M.S.) was Marvel’s in-house fan club from 1964 through 1969, offering a handful of items include a membership kit and several Marvel products such as T-shirts and inflatable pillows bearing Marvel characters’ likenesses. As the House of Ideas was expanding its publish-

ing line in the late 1960s, placing more responsibilities upon the editorial offices, it no doubt made sense to broker Marvel merchandise sales and fan club activities through an outside third party. And thus came the Marvelmania announcement in 1969.

“I first found out about Marvelmania in The Amazing SpiderMan #78 (Nov. 1969),” comics historian Richard Kelsey tells BACK ISSUE. “Spider-Man was my favorite comic at that time, and there was a half-page ad for Marvelmania in it and in every Marvel comic for that month. Those Marvelmania half-page ads regularly appeared in every Marvel comic every month from then on and until the club ended. The ad was usually on the same page as the Mighty Marvel Checklist. So, the ads were predominantly featured and always got my attention.”

According to Wikipedia, the original Marvelmania International membership kit cost $1.75 plus 25¢ postage and handling.

Offered were a membership card, a Captain America poster, Marvel character decals, a 16-page catalog of Marvel products, a test edition of Marvelmania Magazine #1 (Oct. 1969), a Dr. Doom Mad Money coupon, and a Marvelmania flyer newsletter.

After the initial text edition of Marvelmania Magazine, the publication continued with a new issue #1 (cover-dated Apr. 1970) and ran for six issues. More products were commissioned, primarily pinback buttons, posters, a stationery kit, and art portfolios. Jack Kirby and other Marvel artists were promised generous rates to produce original artwork for posters and products.

(left) Early Marvelmania merchandise included these colorful decal sheets. The stickers shown here were originally from the collection of Steve Sherman. (top right) Jack “King” Kirby was hired by Marvelmania International to produce new art for merchandising, which included these character pinback buttons. (bottom right) Kirby’s Black Bolt flies high on the cover of the first issue of Marvelmania Magazine (Apr. 1970).

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3

(top) Many a disappointed Marvelmaniac received this or a similar letter about a Marvelmania International promise gone bad. (bottom) Marvelmania released several artists portfolios including 1970’s impressive Marvelmania Comic Art Portfolio, a collection of seven black-and-white plates measuring 8.5” x 11”. Spotlighted artists were John Buscema (whose plate is shown here), Gene Colan, Jack Kirby, John Romita, Sr., Marie Severin, Jim Steranko, and Herb Trimpe. (opposite page) Four of Marvelmania’s 11 posters, which measured 2’ x 3’ each: (top) The Incredible Hulk by Herb Trimpe and Captain America by Jim Steranko. (bottom) Dr. Doom by Jack Kirby and the Black Knight by Howard Purcell.

Kirby produced eight posters for Marvelmania but only four were printed (Fantastic Four, Thor, Silver Surfer and Galactus, and Doom). Kirby’s unused poster art or roughs became layouts for other artists’ posters, including Trimpe’s Hulk.

Characters TM & © Marvel.

Many fans that ordered products from Marvelmania earnestly submitted their orders via a post office box in Culver City, California, but never received their items. Apology letters from Marvelmania for delays became common, although some customers were reportedly ignored. “In talking to other people who had experiences ordering Marvelmania stuff, I appear to be one of the few who came out okay,” reveals Richard Kelsey. “Others never received any items they ordered. I received two of the three things I ordered, and on the third item I got a refund. So, I didn’t lose anything. I wish I had kept that letter of apology from Marvel that came with the refund. It may have been Stan Lee himself who sent it!”

Fans were not the only people soured by Marvelmania International’s inefficiency. Unpaid bills to printers and other creditors mounted, merchandise orders went unfilled, and planned merchandise went unmanufactured. Kirby and other artists did not receive the total monies promised them. Future comics pros Mark Evanier, who originally edited Marvelmania Magazine, and Steve Sherman had been working for the enterprise but resigned once they caught wind of Marvelmania’s dubious practices. Marvelmania International eventually imploded, with the December 1971 cover-dated Marvel titles’ Bullpen Bulletins page declaring the club’s disbandment. “No more memberships or orders should be sent to Marvelmania,” the Bulletins announcement read.

Those BACK ISSUE readers wishing to learn more details about Marvelmania International’s shaky history are encouraged to read Mark Evanier’s News From ME blog (www.newsfromme.com) about the subject, as well as Richard Kelsey’s article “Marvelmania International: The Early 1970s Marvel Fan Club That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” which was published in our (big) sister mag, Alter Ego #177. Kelsey had previously written “The M.M.M.S. Wants You! The Glorious Rise and Fall of Marvel’s Very First Fan Club” for Alter Ego #120.

Kelsey reflects to BI, “Joining a club like the M.M.M.S. made me feel a little special and a little closer to Marvel Comics. At the time, I don’t think there was any other club like that around. So that made it all the more special. If I had the money, I would have immediately joined Marvelmania for the same reasons.

Plus, the membership kits had great stuff. I treasured those M.M.M.S. club items like the card and button. Even today, when I look at that club button, it is special to me. And I imagine many others feel the same way about Marvelmania, at least the ones who received the items that they ordered!”

Marvelmania International may have failed to live up to its potential, but most of the merchandise it managed to produce was exceptional. Presented in this expanded Backseat Driver editorial are several of Marvelmania International’s products. Enjoy these treasures (scans courtesy of Heritage Auctions) as you prepare for the real Marvelmania that awaits you this issue!

Richard Kelsey interview conducted for BACK ISSUE by Tom Speelman.

BACK ISSUE editor-in-chief MICHAEL EURY has been prone to occasional bouts of Marvelmania since 1967, when he joined the Merry Marvel Marching Society at age nine. He still has his M.M.M.S. membership card (No. 20270 A), made out to his childhood name of “Mickey.” The card also features his penciled correction of the misspelling of his last name, his first official comic book “edit.”

4 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 5

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and and

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

by R

obert Menzies

Meet the New Avengers Artist Sal Buscema’s stunning Avengers debut: issue #67 (Aug. 1969), featuring Ultron.

Inks by Sam Grainger. Courtesy of Heritage. (inset above) The artist, as seen in the Bullpen photo gallery from Fantastic Four Annual #7 (Nov. 1969).

Unless otherwise noted, images accompanying this article are courtesy of Robert Menzies.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 7

[Author’s note: At the time of writing, Sal Buscema was unavailable for an interview for BACK ISSUE, and so I have relied on past interviewers, to whom I am enormously grateful. I hope, when he sees this, that Sal enjoys our collective stroll down memory lane (Memory Lane, in this instance, being located to the rear of Avengers Mansion, 809 5th Avenue, New York City, NY 10065).]

SAL BUSCEMA ‘AVENGERS’ CHECKLIST Cover Art

Pencils: #67–72; Inks: #84, 191; Full art: #88–91 and Annual #4

Interior Art

Pencils/breakdowns: #68–72, 78, 86, 88–89, 92, 127–134, 156, 158–159, 169, 172–173, 193, 227; Inks: #87, 98; Full art: #90–91

TM & © Marvel.

Sal also drew new covers for 1972’s Marvel Triple Action #5, 6, and 8, which reprinted Avengers #10, 12, and 14, respectively.

The interview to be artist on The Avengers was the best interview of Sal Buscema’s life—one to tell the kids, grandkids, and future, as-yet-unforeseen, interviewers about. Stan Lee, Marvel’s editor, head writer, and inexhaustible driving force, had been bowled over by Sal’s pencil samples and invited him to come up to Marvel’s Madison Avenue offices for a one-on-one meeting. Big brother John Buscema had known Stan since the late ’40s and filled in Sal, but he hadn’t been expecting to see Stan leap onto furniture like a five-year-old propelled by a sugar rush. After this frantic crash course in how to tell a story the Marvel Way, a dazzled Sal walked out with an assignment: he was now the pencil artist for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

British Variant 1 (left) The cover of The Avengers and the Savage Sword of Conan weekly #104 (Sept. 13, 1975), with character omissions, reproduces (right) Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger’s cover for The Avengers #70 (Nov. 1969).

TM & © Marvel.

8 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

One wonders when the shock wore off and the reality hit. On the train ride home? When he finally sat down at his artist’s table with a blank piece of artboard? Remember, this was not the experienced Sal Buscema who was artist-in-residence on legendary runs on The Incredible Hulk or The Spectaular Spider-Man. This was 1969 and Sal, for all his innate talent and a year of at-home practice, had never penciled a story and could count on his fingers the issues he had inked. Now here he was taking on pencil duties on the company’s premiere team book. Yes, it was a flattering declaration of faith in Sal’s ability, but it was also a case of being thrown in the proverbial deep end.

As an introduction to regular pencil duties, Sal penciled (and Sam Grainger inked) the cover to Avengers #67 (Aug. 1969), another vote of confidence in an era when covers were considered crucial to a comic book’s success. The arresting image, which in its anatomical details clearly demonstrates the influence of big brother John, shows a gloating Ultron, one of the great Avengers villains, electrocuting Thor, Iron Man, Vision, Goliath (Clint Barton), Yellowjacket, and the Wasp. Considering that it didn’t look out of place alongside other titles that month—Amazing Spider-Man #75, Incredible Hulk #118, Silver Surfer #7, and Thor #167 all sport memorable covers by legends John Romita, Sr., Herb Trimpe, and John Buscema, respectively—it’s a stunning, if not precocious, debut.

This cover was no fluke, and the coming months saw more home runs. The following month’s Avengers #68, with the Avengers standing over the limp and lifeless form of the Vision, was another. Internally, Sal was also impressive in his first full issue as penciler as Ultron rampaged through the United Nations building as part of his latest attempt to subjugate humankind. The varied page layouts, smooth panel transitions, and spot-on characterizations prove that Sal took to comic book storytelling like a duck to water.

That was true, although Sal has asserted there had been a lot of paddling under the waterline.

“The Avengers […] was a nightmare because it was a group book, and those are the most difficult to do.” Difficult though it may have been, and allowing for some alterations to Ultron, it’s a stellar debut, with Sal and long-time Avengers writer Roy Thomas combining to make the change in artist seamless.

With hindsight, it seems obvious to us that Sal had the talent to pull this off, but readers of the time had no such knowledge and to them this issue must have been a pleasant surprise, even if no one could have foreseen after a single issue that Sal would become one of the Marvel greats. Stan Lee, the best talent spotter in the business, had made another wise hiring decision, one that would continue to benefit Marvel long after Stan had relocated to the sunny climes of California.

Avengers Assembled (left) The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes rally together on the final page of Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969), with Sam Grainger inking Sal Buscema’s pencils. (right) Some of the staging is similar in Sal’s Avengers cover for Marvelmania Catalog #2 (1970), the source of cover art for this edition of BACK ISSUE. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 9

A Mar-Vellous Guest-Star Original Sal Buscema art— inked by Sam Grainger—to The Avengers #72 (Jan. 1970), kicking off Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ adventures in the Bronze Age. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

10 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

After penciling or doing full art on those five issues, Sal only drew five more in the next five years: one in 1970, with the others scattered across 1971.

The reason for this, according to Roy Thomas, is that Stan kept asking John Buscema to fill in on other projects, meaning someone had to pinch hit on Avengers. Sal, probably shaped to some degree by his ad agency background, took great pride in his professionalism, and management quickly realized they had a team player who could be relied upon to rescue a book from a deadline crisis.

“I think I would categorize myself as a company man,” Buscema said. “I was interested in selling books. I consider the comic book business a business first. We were in the business of selling comics.

Now, within that you have to be very creative. It is a very creative business, but our primary function is to sell books. That’s what we’re doing this for, and in that respect I tried to do the best job that I could do for the company, and I very definitely considered myself a company man.”

A few of those fill-in issues would prove to be historically significant, none more so than the early parts of the Kree-Skrull War, an important step in making the phrase “The Marvel Universe” literal.

Even though other parts of the story had covers by Neal Adams at his peak, arguably the most memorable is the harrowing “The Only Good Alien… Is a Dead Alien!” cover Sal drew for The Avengers #89 (right), with Captain Marvel being executed in an electric chair. (As an aside, the iconic original art sold on the Heritage Auctions site on September 8, 2021 for an eye-watering $78,000.)

This was hardly the only praiseworthy piece of art, of course. Sal’s classic group shot at the end of Avengers #71 was an instant classic and, to take just one personal favorite, the opening splash page for #91 juggled no less than three concurrent cliffhangers with a skill and confidence that makes a mockery of Sal’s relative inexperience.

Transitioning into a new decade, Sal and writer Steve Englehart were a formidable pairing in the

TM & © Marvel.

The Avengers Trinity (top) A classic illo of the Big Three, from Avengers #90 (July 1971)! Art by Sal Buscema. (In an uncharacteristic slip, Sal forgot Shellhead’s hip pods.) (bottom) From Avengers #91: the Vision and the Scarlet Witch’s romantic feelings are revealed for the first time, a scene so significant in Avengers history that it is part of the Marvel Universe of Super Heroes exhibition that ran in 2023 at Discovery Place science museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 11

first half of the 1970s, collaborating on numerous ambitious story arcs that are deservedly considered high water marks in the Bronze Age. Famously, if not notoriously, at the helm of Captain America they featured a suicidal President Richard Nixon and also cleaned up the considerable continuity problems caused by the living legend of World War II’s brief 1950s revival.

While redefining Captain America in the Watergate era, Steve and Sal introduced a super-team that was close to Sal’s heart. No matter that it looked as if it was a product of randomly picking names from a hat rather than good sense, The Defenders had the good fortune to have Sal on board to lay the artistic foundations. He drew all but one of the first 41 issues, with a dozen scattered returns after that, and the original series, albeit with a shifting cast, lasted for 14 years. In later years Sal admitted he preferred the Defenders to the Avengers: “My guy [the Hulk] was in there,” Sal remarked. “Sub-Mariner was kind of an off-speed character, and I enjoyed doing him. The same with Dr. Strange. That’s why I liked it better than The Avengers. There were also fewer of them, so it was not quite as difficult a book to do as The Avengers.

The Avengers was a really tough book.”

Whatever he thought or felt about individual titles, Sal was the consummate professional, never refusing assignments unless overloaded with work. Many a printer’s deadline was met because Sal bailed Marvel out. During Sal’s occasional issues on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, some characters received some long-needed attention. The Scarlet Witch, while never a headliner like the Big Three of Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, had nevertheless been synonymous with the team almost since her (and brother, Pietro’s) reformation and recruitment in the historic Avengers #16 in 1965. Some of the most important milestones in her life were depicted by Sal: the historic first scene that openly demonstrated the feelings between her and the Vision (#91), and three years later when Wanda lived up to her codename, taking instruction from an actual witch, Agatha Harkness, sometime babysitter for Franklin Richards, son of the FF’s Mr.

Sayonara, Swordsman (top) The Swordsman sums up his disastrous love life (and his precarious state of mind). From Avengers #129 (Nov. 1974). Art by Sal and Joe Staton. (bottom) The Swordsman became the first Avenger to fall in battle. From Avengers #130. Art by Sal and Bob Layton.

TM & © Marvel.

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Fantastic and Invisible Girl (issue #128). Her paramour, the Vision, likewise received a new origin as the Avengers hopped through time and met a cast of “dead” supervillains in a suspenseful hunt through mazey tunnels.

One of the main subplots from another memorable Englehart/Buscema story, the epic “Celestial Madonna Saga,” centers around the reformed criminal known as the Swordsman. A Z-list character that no one cared about—let’s face it, there were already more interesting and likeable sword-wielding characters in Fandrall the Dashing and the Black Knight—Steve and Sal somehow managed to make readers care about him. The Swordsman’s anguish and mental decline, while uncomfortable to watch, was always compelling. Being rejected by someone you love, as he was by the Vietnamese martial artist Mantis, is pretty much a universal experience for anyone out of adolescence, so that was a clever way to stoke sympathy. Not that this was required. Even reading this as a child with zero romantic experience to draw upon, the emotional pain registered with me.

Oddly, a case could be made that the character’s most memorable scene is posthumous. The pacing of the Swordsman’s funeral scene in Avengers #130 is immaculate, and Sal’s panel showing Mantis following the cortège is something of a masterclass in representing a character’s internal desolation. Not only is she physically distant as she walks behind the faceless coffin bearers, they symbolically frame and enclose her in her own claustrophobic visual “box.”

As an aside, the mourning is interrupted by a scream, as the Titanic Three, a trio of communist enforcers, pursue and torture a defenseless villager.

The figure of the Crimson Dynamo from one panel

was flipped and repurposed for the sleeve art of the song “Magneto and Titanium Man” by ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, then of Wings. (While not named in the title, the Crimson Dynamo is featured in the lyrics.) The art also appeared on stage as part of the backdrop when Wings performed the song during their Wings Around the World tour, 1975–1976.

I haven’t seen any interviewers ask Sal about this, and as far as I know he hasn’t mentioned it himself, so I suspect he doesn’t know about this. He’d likely get a kick out of knowing that audiences on three continents saw his art.

While Sal’s Avengers issues feature all-time classic Marvel villains like the previously mentioned Ultron, the Skrulls, Kang the Conqueror, and a scene-stealing Dr. Doom, there was also the introduction of major adversaries in the Squadron Sinister (an evil version of DC’s Justice League of America), the insectoid Psyklop (#88, with plot by Harlan Ellison), and Graviton. Co-created with Jim Shooter in 1977, Graviton—his name is a giveaway about his gravity-controlling powers—was such a threat, it took the return of a certain Asgardian Thunder God to tip the balance in favor of the good guys.

From this point on, Sal’s Avengers issues are random and unconnected. Avengers #169 is a

British Variant 2 The Mighty World of Marvel #123 (Feb. 8, 1975) took Sal’s cover for The Avengers #88 (May 1971) and erased Goliath, Falcon, and Redwing, repositioned Iron Man, and reassigned dialogue.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 13

Sal’s Art Has Wings! (left) An example of one of Sal’s memorable splash pages: Avengers #132 (Nov. 1974). Inks by Staton. (top right) A terrifying trio wreaks havoc in this detail from page 11 of Avengers #130, penciled

by Buscema and inked by Staton. It was the source art for (inset) the record sleeve of Wings’ “Magneto and the Titanium Man,” the B-Side of the 45 RPM release “Venus and Mars/Rock Show.” Both songs appeared on the Wings LP Venus and Mars. (bottom right) Wings’ Paul and Linda McCartney—and projected Marvel art!— during a Wings concert.

Avengers, Magneto, Titanium Man, and Crimson Dynamo TM & © Marvel. Wings © MPL Communications Limited.

done-in-one fill-in issue, written by Marv Wolfman with an old-fashioned, chaptered structure. To be blunt, only the art by Sal and finisher Dave Hunt, who had a cultured, Joe Sinnott–like inking style, saved it from being rather forgettable. Three issues later, Sal and Klaus Janson, who greatly admired one another, combined to great effect when depicting the return of everyone’s favorite argumentative boomerang, Hawkeye, an event that played out against the backdrop of the Avengers wrecking a harbor while battling the Atlantean revolutionary Tyrak.

In the view of many fans, the highlight of Jim Shooter’s tenure as scripter is “The Korvac Saga,” and Sal drew an early instalment (Avengers #173). It appears this was an emergency fill-in job, with Sal’s pencil art finished by no less than seven inkers. If it was indeed a rush job, it is even more impressive how Sal effortlessly juggled a huge supporting cast that included many then-current and former Avengers, the original Captain Marvel, Nick Fury, Golden Age hero the Whizzer, the Watcher, Odin, Zeus, Mephisto, Korvac, the Collector, and most of the original Guardians of the Galaxy.

One of the more unusual entries in Sal’s career is The Avengers #227 (Jan. 1983), his final full issue, as it must be a candidate for the most homage-happy comics in Marvel history. From a script by Roger Stern, soon to prove himself one of the great writers on the team, and with immaculate inks by Brett Breeding, Sal saluted his big brother and others including Jack Kirby, George Pérez, Bob Hall, and Alan Kupperberg. (Brett Breeding’s excellent cover is itself a composite of vignettes from Sal’s internal art from that issue. It may also be the first cover to feature superheroes having lunch!)

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Remember His Name Jim Shooter, Sal Buscema, and Pablo Marcos introduce Graviton in Avengers #158 (Apr. 1977)!

TM & © Marvel.

Comparing and contrasting the original panels with Sal’s version is like taking a class at the Kubert School. Starting on page 11, Hank Pym—poster child of dissociative identity disorder—begins an extended recap of his history. These memories are interspersed with faithful recreations of moments dating back to his earliest days; for instance, the introduction of Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a., the Wasp, in Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963). In the original panel where Van Dyne promises to become Pym’s partner, artists Kirby and Don Heck show the pair full figure from a distance as they talk in a darkened lab. As their faces are obscured by shadow, the emotion of the scene is communicated almost entirely through Al Huntley’s dialogue. Sal recognized the obvious weaknesses

in this panel, lighting the scene properly and moving the “camera” closer, so the reader can now see their facial expressions.

The next panel is equally instructive, a recreation of Kirby’s panel showing Van Dyne undergoing physiology altering treatment. Sal positions the characters just as Kirby did, but he alters the panel border, lowering it so we can see Van Dyne’s hands. Hands, of course, are very expressive and Sal consciously draws them slightly larger than life to exploit that fact.

Another image, on the next page, makes it clear that Sal wasn’t making changes just for changes’ sake. In the ¾-page splash that opens “The Birth of Giant-Man!” in Tales to Astonish #49 (Nov. 1963), a costumed Pym has been experimenting with his size-changing formulae and miscalculated, causing him to wreck the ground floor of his New Jersey Palisades home. The scene is reproduced almost exactly, down to the astonished gardener who had been peacefully mowing the lawn.

The Towering Inferno Steel yourself for a Sal splash as Wonder Man and Iron Man are “welcomed” to Pittsburgh by the hot-tempered Inferno. From Avengers #193 (Mar. 1980). Inks by Dan Green. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 15

Drawing Inspiration (top) From the last full Avengers issue illo’d by Sal Buscema, Avengers #227 (Jan. 1983), Sal’s roundtable panel homages (top inset) the George Pérez/Terry Austin cover for Avengers #181 (Jan. 1983).

Similarly, (bottom) Sal’s buggy battle scene takes its staging from (bottom inset) the Pérez/Pablo Marcos cover for Avengers #161 (July 1977).

Avengers #227 inks

by Brett Breeding.

TM & © Marvel.

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Pages 15 and 16 contain four consecutive homages from Avengers #60 (Jan. 1969), a story by Roy Thomas with art by John Buscema and Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo).

Perhaps it is unsurprising that he didn’t alter his brother’s art, in part because he’d likely never have heard the end of it. George Pérez, then early in a legendary career, was homaged twice, on the covers to Avengers #161 (July 1977) and #181 (Mar. 1979). Both were faithfully reproduced except for more exaggerated facial expressions and body positions in the latter cover, as per Stan Lee’s guidance 14 years earlier.

When Sal touched on events drawn by Bob Hall, he again showed himself to be selective.

While he changed nothing of note to Hall’s opening splash page from Avengers #213 (Nov. 1981), Sal combined the final two story panels into one, an improvement.

The only recreated panel to be significantly altered was drawn by the late Alan Kupperberg, perhaps best remembered at Marvel for his 1970s work on the World War II title The Invaders. In a panel with Captain America, Yellowjacket, and the Elfqueen from Avengers #212 (Oct. 1981), all three characters were repositioned. Captain America, seen from behind in the original, now faces the reader so we can better see his facial expression.

The arm positioning of the Elfqueen is also much more dramatic. Kupperberg’s original panel works fine, just not as well as the recreation.

Such is Sal’s expansive legacy at Marvel, his Avengers issues are overshadowed by his characterdefining work on the Hulk, Spider-Man, the Defenders, even Rom. And yet among the many highlights of Sal’s sporadic Avengers issues he made memorable and important contributions to the “Kree-Skrull War,” the “Celestial Madonna Saga,” “Kang War II,” the “Korvac Saga,” and, as artist-inresidence on The Defenders, the “Avengers-Defenders War.” Faced with complex plots and a cast that on occasion numbered dozens of major characters, Sal Buscema not only survived but excelled. Not bad for an assignment that was a nightmare.

Thanks to Jim Amash and Eric NolenWeathington, authors of the definitive Sal Buscema: Comics’ Fast & Furious Artist (TwoMorrows, 2010). Also thanks to Sal’s art rep, Scott Kress of Catskill Comics, and Gerry Turnbull.

A Cap-tivating Commission Art by Sal Buscema (2013), recreating a panel from Captain America #226 (Oct. 1978).

Digital color art

by Ian Sokoliwski (2016). From the collection of Robert Menzies.

TM & © Marvel.

Nearly half a century after an eight-year-old ROBERT MENZIES decided that Sal Buscema was his favorite artist later, he hasn’t changed his mind.

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Before the 1978 publication of the Marvel Novel Series, one could literally count the number of superhero comic book novels on the fingers of one hand: The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther (Random House, 1942); Batman vs. the Three Villains of Doom and Batman vs. the Fearsome Foursome (New American Library, 1966), both by Winston Lyon, the pseudonym of William Woolfolk; The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker by Otto Binder (Bantam, 1967); and Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by Ted White (Bantam, 1968).

For most of the 1940s and through the 1960s, comic books were considered kids’ stuff. The eightto 13-year-old readership wasn’t any traditional book publisher’s idea of a profitable demographic, unlike the popular movie and television adaptations of the 1950s and 1960s. The novel The Adventures of Superman in 1942 was an anomaly, taking advantage of the Man of Steel’s popularity at the nexus of comic books, animated cartoons/radio program/ newspaper strip, and licensing that no comic book character would match until Batman exploded onto television in 1966.

And though Batman may have instigated the 1960s comic book paperback book publishing miniboom (NAL also released three paperback black-andwhite cut-and-paste reprints of Golden Age Batman comic book stories under its Signet Books imprint: Batman, Batman vs. the Joker, and Batman vs. the Penguin, as well as one volume of Superman stories... and Bill Adler’s Funniest Fan Letters to Batman), it was Marvel that had the decade’s last word with Bantam Books’ Avengers and Captain America novels in 1968 (along with six back-and-white comic book reprint paperbacks, one each of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, and Thor, and two of the Fantastic Four).

It was a short, intense burst of welcome activity for comics fans on the paperback spinner racks, almost two dozen titles (including Belmont’s reprint of MLJ’s High Camp Super-Heroes and Tower’s four T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents reprints in 1966) over the course of a few years.

But the fad was short-lived. The last episode of television’s Batman ran in March of 1968 and the entertainment tide turned away from the four-color world to other genres. It would be another decade before superhero stories were again told in words, without pictures.

Web-Slinging Novel Citizen Your friendly neighborhood you-know-who versus the Kingpin on Bob Larkin’s painted cover for Paul Kupperberg’s Marvel Novel Series #8: The Amazing Spider-Man: Crime Campaign. All images accompanying this article are courtesy of Paul Kupperberg.

TM & © Marvel.

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by P a u l

Kupperberg

‘PAUL LEVITZ SAID WE SHOULD PACKAGE THE NOVELS!’

“Pocket Books asked us to write the first Spider-Man novel in something like 30 days,” The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan co-author Marv Wolfman recalled in a 2009 email exchange.

“I wrote the first draft and Len [Wein] the second, which was the only way it was possible to do it.

After we finished, we were asked if we’d like to write all 12 books. We wanted to, but the money was awful, so we turned it down.”

“I don’t remember how we were chosen,” he confessed 40 years later, but Marv and co-writer and co-editor Len Wein (June 12, 1948–September 10, 2017) were probably among the best choices publishers Simon and Schuster could have made to package the (originally planned) 12 paperback prose novels that would appear under the Pocket Books colophon. With roots in fandom, they were friends who broke into the business together in the late 1960s and quickly established themselves individually as top tier writers in their own rights.

They had both written most if not all of DC’s and, more importantly, Marvel’s flagship characters, and had each served stints as Marvel’s editor-in-chief.

The decision to commit to a line of novels based on the Marvel characters was likely reached due to a flurry of superhero activity on television and film. DC’s Superman: The Movie was in production and generating a lot of publicity, while on the small screen Marvel was making some moves on CBS with a slate of live-action shows: The Amazing Spider-Man, which ran for two seasons and 13 episodes between September 1977 and

July 1979; The Incredible Hulk, with five seasons, 80 episodes, and five TV movies (guest-starring Daredevil and Thor) between November 1977 and May 1982; and the Dr. Strange (September 1978) and Captain America (January 1979) made-for-TV movies. That probably explains why six of the first eight books in the series featured one of those four heroes. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #5 for our look at Marvel’s live-action TV programs. Also, TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno was interviewed in our sister mag, RetroFan #1, while TV Cap Reb Brown was interviewed in RetroFan #9.]

When Wolfman and Wein declined their offer, Pocket Books hired another writer for the second

‘Wanna write a novel?’

‘Who, me?’ (top) Paul Kupperberg, in the late 1970s. (bottom) From the amazing archives of the man who threw nothing away, Kupperberg’s 1978 signed contract for the Spider-Man novel Crime Campaign, countersigned by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 19

The Spidey Novel, Inside and Out (left) Title page to Kupperberg’s Crime Campaign, also bearing the Wein and Wolfman credit. (right) Crime Campaign’s back cover.

Spider-Man TM & © Marvel.

book but were not happy with the results. “After they read it, they called us and said they’d meet our price if we took it over,” Marv said.

“Paul Levitz, who was then an assistant editor at DC Comics and would later become its publisher and president, played cards with us and, though younger than us, he was a much better businessman. He said we should package the novels and not necessarily write them if we didn’t want to. Writing them ourselves, the schedule would have been brutal, so we took Paul’s advice, told Pocket we’d package the books instead, and they agreed.

“We had eight days for the next book (#2: The Incredible Hulk: Stalker from the Stars), so I wrote that while we assigned the rest, all based on what we knew to be Marvel’s top characters at the time. Len wasn’t that interested, as I recall, in writing a book himself. But we sat down and made the decisions together, then, once I was done with the Fantastic Four book (#5: Doomsday), we split the editing. We did have to pitch in and write about a third of one of the books because, as I recall, it hadn’t worked out.”

Mayhem in Manhattan was Wein’s first stab at prose, but Wolfman already had one novel under his belt; he had earlier written Weird Heroes #5, Doc Phoenix: The Oz (Pyramid, 1977) for Byron Preiss Visuals. “I didn’t have a great ambition then to write prose, because I didn’t think I’d be good at it. I was essentially a dialogue writer, and comics are mostly dialogue, at least the part the reader is aware of. And I was intimidated by prose because I was a reader of Ray Bradbury and other brilliant writers who were so much better than I would ever be. But we were young and foolish and agreed to do it so there would be good superhero novels. We hadn’t read any good ones before.”

But the unfortunate reality of licensed publishing is that what mattered over everything else was the schedule. And these novels were on a monthly schedule, with no room to spare. “We had to have a finished book every 30 days. For beginners like us, it was a treadmill set to warp speed.”

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‘WANNA WRITE A NOVEL?’

In late 1978, I was writing the occasional movie and television parody for editor Paul Laikin at Marvel’s Crazy Magazine, but otherwise worked almost exclusively for DC, so I wasn’t a regular visitor to 575 Madison Avenue. But on one visit, I was leaving the editor’s office when I heard my name called. It was Len Wein, and I turned to find him coming down the corridor at me with a big grin and a sense of purpose.

“Wanna write a novel?” he asked without preamble.

In all, there were ten writers involved in the creation of the 11 novels and one anthology, which featured four short stories. And of the seven who wrote the novels, only three— Ron Goulart (writing as Joseph Silva), William Rotsler, and Richard S. Meyers—were working novelists, but all had backgrounds and experience in comics as well. The rest of us, packagers included, were relative or complete novice novelists.

In 2023, I asked Marv how he and Len had chosen the writers for the project. “I don’t remember the specifics, but we wanted comic book guys attached because comic guys were always ignored and weren’t considered as good as prose writers,” Marv replied. “We chose people we thought could do a good job. Either we saw writing samples or heard something in conversation with them we thought showed certain people just ‘got it.’ We took a risk, but for the most part it worked.”

In retrospect, I can’t imagine a bigger risk than me. I’d always harbored the dream that I would one day write novels, but up to then I had only written for fanzines and comic books and outside of school writing assignments, had only ever managed to complete a couple of short stories. Also, as a DC writer, there was nothing in my background or experience to indicate I was someone to be trusted to write a sustained 75,000-word narrative featuring Spider-Man. In 30 days yet.

But I was at least a known quantity and had, in fact, been at many of the same poker tables Wolfman and Wein shared with Paul Levitz. Even if they had never read any of my published work, I apparently fell into the “heard something in conversation” category. In the 1980s when we briefly shared an editorial office at DC Comics, I asked Wein why I had been asked to write Spider-Man in particular. Len said, “Have you ever heard you speak? You’re a bigger wiseass than Peter Parker.”

Marvel Novel Series #10: The Avengers: The Man Who Stole Tomorrow author David Michelinie had a similar experience. Starting at DC, where he co-created Claw the Unconquered, Star Hunters, and Gravedigger, as well as writing Swamp Thing and Aquaman, the Kentucky native moved over to Marvel in the late 1970s, where he enjoyed long runs on Amazing SpiderMan, Iron Man, and The Avengers.

“I’m pretty sure The Man Who Stole Tomorrow was my first published prose fiction,” according to Michelinie. “If you don’t count the Sherlock Holmes parodies a friend and I wrote and sold at school for a nickel apiece when I was ten years old. Until a teacher found out and chucked our inventory into the nearest trash can.”

Michelinie recalls, “I was indeed contacted by Len/Marv to write the book, but I don’t remember which one... [and] I don’t know if my being the writer on The Avengers comics series had anything to do with me being offered the assignment, but I assume there’s a strong possibility that it did.” He added, “My original title was The Tomorrow Thief. The editors changed it to The Man Who Stole Tomorrow which, I grudgingly admit, was better.”

According to Wolfman, “I believe a couple of writers used pseudonyms because they had other contracts or because they had to write so fast, they didn’t want the work held against them. I actually think all the books were fine, and some were really excellent.” One of those multi-book authors was the prolific Ron Goulart (January 13, 1933–January 14, 2022), who worked on two books as “Joseph Silver.” The other was DC writer Martin Pasko (August 4, 1954–May 10, 2020), whose Daredevil story “Blind Justice” in The Marvel Superheroes anthology appeared under the name “Kyle Christopher.”

ENDING WITH A WHIMPER

I was assigned two books in the series, #8: The Amazing Spider-Man: Crime Campaign and #11: The Hulk and Spider-Man: Murdermoon. I signed the contracts for the pair on October 6, 1978. They were due by December 15, 1978. In between, I uprooted my life and relocated from Brooklyn to Chicago, but the deadlines were somehow met, and the books were released, the former in July 1979 and the latter in October.

There weren’t many models for writing superheroes in prose. Were they supposed to read like Lowther’s juvenile The Adventures of Superman, or the tonguein-cheek approach of Lyon/Woolfolk’s Batman books and Binder’s Avengers? Who was the audience?

Largely readers of the comics, I assumed, but there was a strong possibility someone without deep

When Authors Collide (top) Marvel Novel Series authors David Michelinie and Paul Kupperberg in 2018. (bottom) Kupps shakes hands with Marv Wolfman at a 2017 convention.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 21

Hulk Smash Puny Pocket Books Star!

Bob Larkin’s cover and the back cover copy to the Kupperberg-penned Marvel Novel Series #11: The Hulk and Spider-Man: Murdermoon.

TM & © Marvel.

22 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

knowledge of the Marvel Universe might pick one up based on the TV shows or simple curiosity.

I took Ted White’s The Great Gold Steal as my model. The experienced science fiction writer and editor had set the Captain America starring heist adventure squarely in a realistic, relatable world. Unlike comic books, prose lets readers paint their own mental images of the characters and their environments; to me, the fictional “New York” or “Gotham City” I conjure in my imagination is more realistic than the two-dimensional picture imposed on me by the printed image.

The only advice I can remember Marv and Len giving me was to write the novel I wanted to read. And it quickly became obvious that what worked with four-color images on the page can easily turn dull when rendered in words alone. A comic book story holds the reader’s attention with depictions of impossible people and events. Prose dives into characters’ thoughts and emotions with an intimacy hard to achieve in comics.

“I realized you couldn’t concentrate on action as you did in the Marvel Comics of the time,” Marv said. “You had to write the characters. It was a real learning process, even as I was rushing through it. There was no time for rewrites, and because of the deadline, I made up the entire plot as I went along, so I wasn’t always sure if it was coherent.”

What started with such promise ended on an odd note, or at the very least on an odd number. “We were contracted to deliver 12 books to Pocket,” Marv said. “But they could only publish 11 of them. There was one more novel, written by the late science fiction author, cartoonist, photographer, etc. William Rotsler, that was never published. It was a Silver Surfer novel, and it was excellent, but it had been decided at the time that only Stan Lee could write the Surfer, so the book was scrapped. But Bill had done a great job, so it’s a real shame.”

A loss to readers, and an anticlimactic end for the series. The Marvel novels had been released into the world with little or no fanfare. The first two books, before the series was branded with the “Marvel Novel Series” trade dress that graced the rest of the seven Bob Larkin, four Dave Cockrum, and one John Buscema and Peter Ledger covers, received a mention in a Marvel Bullpen Bulletin, but no real effort was made to promotion.

“I don’t think we got any response back then,” Wolfman remembered in 2023. “I get more now from people who bought it back in the 1970s.”

The dearth of superhero novels in the aftermath of the series would seem to back Marv’s memory. There wouldn’t be another book based on a Marvel property until 1986’s novelization of the movie Howard the Duck, by Ellis Weiner. DC fared only a little better with originals between 1979 and 1986, including Elliot S. Maggin’s Superman: Last Son of Krypton and Superman: Miracle Monday and Blackhawk, and novelizations of such films as Swamp Thing, Superman III, and Supergirl, some by the same authors who worked on the Marvel Novel Series.

The tide towards superhero novels turned again in the 1990s and into the 2000s, unleashing a flood of books for readers of all ages from Marvel, DC, Image, and other publishers that continues to this day.

Since the Marvel Novel Series, writer and onetime DC Comics and Weekly World News editor PAUL KUPPERBERG has written superhero fiction featuring Batman, Catwoman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the JSA, Kevin Keller (in the Archie Comics Universe), and more. He has also written more than 1,000 comic book stories for DC, Archie, Marvel, Bongo, and others. He is the author of Direct Conversations: Talks with Fellow DC Comics Bronze Age Creators, Direct Comments: Comic Book Creators in Their Own Words, and The Devil and Leo Persky. Follow Paul at www. paulkupperberg.net and on Facebook and Twitter.

What comic book–loving fan doesn’t enjoy cutting up their comic books on a regular basis? No one, of course! Well, except back in the mid-1970s, when Marvel Comics gave readers a reason to take their scissors to their four-color pages with its Marvel Value Stamps (MVS).

Come along as BACK ISSUE clips out the history of the MVS promotion and its legacy.

SERIES A

by E d

Lute

On the Bullpen Bulletins page for Marvel comics cover-dated February 1974, an image of the Incredible Hulk with an orange background appeared. Stan Lee asked fans to guess what the secret of the image was. The following month Stan revealed that the image was a stamp, but “not just any run-of-the-mill, lick-it-and-stick-it-on-apostcard stamp, but the fabulous forerunner of a whole herd of—are you ready for this?—MARVEL VALUE STAMPS.” However, it wasn’t until the April 1974 cover-dated issues that Stan gave fans the whole story. There would be 100 numbered stamps featuring images of the heroes, villains, and supporting characters of the Marvel Universe, as well as some licensed properties like Conan. The stamps would appear across all of Marvel’s comic book line except for reprint titles. This gimmick inspired readers to search out books that they might not be regular readers of.

The hope was that not only would there be an immediate sales increase for the entire line, but that fans would become regular readers of a newly discovered title.

According to Roy Thomas in his introduction to the book Marvel Value Stamps: A Visual History, from Abrams ComicArts, “Stan and I were painfully aware that—shocking ROY THOMAS as it might’ve been to IMDb.com. us—not every Marvel fan bought every Marvel comic book title. Some might purchase The Amazing Spider-Man but not Fantastic Four, or even Marvel Team-Up (in which

You Can’t Lick Marvel’s Mightiest!

In the mid-1970s, fans took scissors (>gasp!<) to their beloved Marvel comics—under the direction of Stan and Roy!—clipping Marvel Value Stamps from letters pages and inserting them into this specialty stampbook. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel. Conan © Conan Properties International, LLC.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 23

Whence They Came Early Marvel covers and panels provided art from which the Marvel Value Stamps were taken. As an example, (top) Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott’s cover for Fantastic Four #59 (Feb. 1967) provided (bottom) Series A’s Black Bolt stamp (#17). The cover’s elongating pose of Reed Richards also doubled as the Mr. Fantastic stamp, #34.

TM & © Marvel.

Spidey usually costarred), let alone Iron Man.” (See sidebar for more on the Abrams book).

The series started off with Marvel’s biggest star, the Amazing Spider-Man. The image used for stamp #1 was a slightly altered one from the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #70 (Mar. 1969).

Webs were added and the figure was tilted. This wouldn’t be the last time a tweaked image was used for the MVS. In fact, all of the images were reused from cover or interior art or even unused art and house ads, but were modified in some way for the stamps. The artwork was chosen by “Jazzy Johnny Romita, Mirthful Marie Severin, and Titanic Tony Mortellaro,” as revealed by Stan in Marvel’s comics cover-dated April 1974.

The artwork used for the stamps ran the gamut of early Marvel images as well as then-current ones.

They were taken from publications going back to 1963 and to one image of a character that debuted the same month as his stamp did. The Red Ghost (stamp #61) image was the earliest published one first used as a pinup page in Fantastic Four Annual #1 (Sept. 1963) by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky. Stamp #11, Deathlok, first appeared in Master of Kung Fu #19 (Aug. 1974). Deathlok debuted in Astonishing Tales #25 the same month.

Some artwork lent itself to multiple stamps.

The bombastic cover of Fantastic Four #59 (Feb. 1967), illustrated by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, gave readers the Black Bolt stamp (#17) as well as the Mr. Fantastic one (#34). The same for the George Tuska–illustrated cover to X-Men #39 (Dec. 1967), which was used for stamps depicting Cyclops (stamp #67) and Marvel Girl (stamp #69).

The images for Captain America (stamp #8) and Iron Man (stamp #15) were both taken from the John Buscema/George Klein cover to Avengers #58 (Nov. 1968).

While most artwork for the stamps was reused from covers or interior story artwork, some was taken from house ads or even unused artwork.

The Iron Fist stamp (#39) was taken from a Marvel Bullpen Bulletins house ad promoting the character’s debut in Marvel Premiere. The Lilith, Dracula’s Daughter stamp (#85) was taken from a house ad for Giant-Size Chillers #1. Stamp #18, Volstagg, was taken from an unused Jack Kirby/Bill Everett cover for Thor #170 (Nov. 1969), while the artwork for the Hercules stamp (#90) was taken from an unpublished character model sheet. The model sheet by John Buscema eventually saw print in Alter Ego #42 (Nov. 2004).

24 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

‘MARVEL VALUE STAMPS: A VISUAL HISTORY’

TM & © Marvel.

If this article isn’t comprehensive enough for you or you just have to see what each and every Marvel Value Stamp looks like, then you are in luck. In 2023, Abrams ComicArts published Marvel Value Stamps: A Visual History, a book about the history of the initiative that also contains pictures of each stamp and more. The book is a treasure trove for fans of MVS, containing pictures of the original sources for the artwork on each stamp as well as pictures of the stamp books themselves.

The book would be good if that was all it contained, but one thing takes it from good to great: its introduction by Roy Thomas. Thomas’ insightful introduction contains a plethora of behind-the-scenes and background information on the MVS. Thomas discusses the genesis of the book with BACK ISSUE: “Abrams CoimcArts has been doing books recently on many aspects of Marvel Comics, especially in its early days, and someone came up with the idea for a book on the Marvel Value Stamps.” The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series, The Alex Ross Marvel Comics Poster Book, Marvel Big Book of Fun and Games, and two volumes of Marvel Classic Black Light Collectible Poster Portfolio are just a few of the other books about Marvel Comics published by the company.

Thomas is a wealth of information regarding comic books and comic book history, so it was a great choice to have him involved with this book. Thomas recalls, “They did virtually all the research as far as the source artwork, etc., were concerned, while I did all the research for the accompanying article... which included getting in touch with Robert Menzies in the UK about the stamps’ predecessors.”

The book is a must-have for Marvel Comics lovers or those interested in comic book history.

In the April 1974 cover-dated Bullpen Bulletins page, Stan Lee claimed that “MVS #100 will absolutely, positively the rarest one of ’em all, popping up in only one Marvel title during the whole blamed year.” This wouldn’t be the case, though, as stamp #100, containing an image of Galactus, could be found in three books: Sub-Mariner #72 (Sept. 1974), Fantastic Four #154 (Jan. 1975), and Amazing SpiderMan #145 (June 1975).

Most Series A stamps were published three to four times in different books; however, this wasn’t the case with every stamp. The most rare stamp of all was #92, depicting Sub-Mariner villain Byrrah, which only appeared once, in Marvel Team-Up #22 (June 1974). Ghost Rider (stamp #80) was the one that was published six times. (See chart for stamp appearances.)

The B-Team Even lesser-known ’70s characters like the Golem and Killraven got the MVS treatment!

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 25

TM & © Marvel.

EXTREME COUPONING The Marvel Value Stamp promotion wasn’t the publisher’s only gimmick during the Bronze Age that asked fans to cut up their comics. In fact, a UK promotion actually preceded the MVS by a few years. This program didn’t feature stamps but coupons that could be cut out to receive a gift.

British comics, unlike their US counterparts, were published weekly instead of monthly, and usually in black and white. However, that wasn’t the only difference between them. Many issues, especially the newly introduced ones, contained a free gift to entice readers to try the new comic.

For example, the first issue of The Mighty World of Marvel (Oct. 7, 1972), a black-and-white reprint book that featured serialized versions of early Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Incredible Hulk stories, contained a “green-skinned monster T-shirt transfer.” In addition, the issue also contained the first coupon that readers could cut out and collect in order to get a mystery prize.

Each issue contained a new coupon to collect, and hints were given as to what the mystery prize was going to be. Finally, it was revealed that it was a poster featuring a dynamic image of the six superheroes appearing in MWoM: Hulk, Spider-Man, and the members of the Fantastic Four. The poster was illustrated by none other than “Big” John Buscema, Frank Giacoia, and Mike Esposito. US readers would get a chance to get their hands on this poster as well. A promotion provided the poster as a bonus for fans that subscribed to $10 or more worth of titles from Marvel.

As for the coupons themselves, the images were limited to six superheroes and two alter egos because the MWoM comic had just started and many of the characters beyond the core cast members hadn’t made appearances yet. The coupons featured the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, the Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Thing, Peter Parker, and Dr. Bruce Banner. Two bonus coupons could be found in issues #9 and 10 in case readers missed an issue. Who says Marvel doesn’t look out for their fans?

The coupon program proved successful. In 1973, Marvel repeated it when the new Spider-Man reprint title Spider-Man Comics Weekly was launched. This time, fans were treated to a poster of Spidey for collecting all eight coupons. This is the same Spider-Man poster that American readers would receive with their Series A stampbook order.

26 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

Stamp #54, Shanna the She-Devil, is one of the most infamous from the series due to one of the issues it appeared in. The second comic that featured the stamp was the issue of The Incredible Hulk that featured the first full appearance of the future mutant superstar Wolverine. For collectors, it can become difficult to find a complete issue with the stamp included.

“I never liked the idea of the stamps myself, but Stan wanted them, so Stan got them,” Roy Thomas tells BACK ISSUE. “I really don’t know how successful the stamps were in selling more comics, but they probably did to some extent.”

SERIES B

A second set of stamps was developed, but instead of just having 100 stamps to collect, the 100 stamps in Series B were broken up into ten mini-collections that could be assembled to form a picture.

Unlike Series A, where most stamps appeared multiple times, most stamps in Series B were only found in a single issue, thus making it harder to collect an entire set.

There were, however, several stamps that made multiple appearances, thus helping fans put all of the puzzles’ pieces together. Stamp #1 from the Amazing Spider-Man picture, stamp #6 from Conan the Barbarian, and stamp #56 from the Fantastic Four pic all had two printings.

Fantastic Four #168 (Mar. 1976) offered fans a double dose of stamps when its letters page contained not one, but two Marvel Value Stamps: stamp #65 from the Conan picture and stamp #66 from the Dr. Strange one.

Most of the images used for this series were from one source, either a cover or splash page, and in one case even an advertisement for a record. The Stan Lee stamp image by Marie Severin was taken from a 1975 house ad for Lifesong Records’ Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero.

However, the Amazing Spider-Man picture used several images to make its final product.

The image of Spidey was from the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #131 (Apr. 1974) by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia, and the thugs attacking him were taken from page 15 of Amazing Spider-Man #107 (Apr. 1972) by John Romita, Sr. and Giacoia.

Like the stamps from Series A, this series was spread across a variety of titles, excluding reprint books. From popular titles as Thor, Captain America, and Amazing Spider-Man to lesserknown books like Iron Fist, Skull the Slayer, and Omega the Unknown, fans were tasked with buying titles that they might not otherwise purchase to complete their set.

Still Stuck on Marvel Cover for the second Marvel Value Stamp Book, for Series B. Note that the Sal Buscema–drawn Thor and Cap hail from the same group shot used on the cover of magazine and on this issue’s BI cover!

TM & © Marvel.

‘SO WHERE’S THE VALUE?’

As Stan Lee put it in the Bullpens Bonus Page for Marvel issues cover-dated April 1974, “After you’ve got all 100 stamps, what do you do with them? We call ’em MARVEL VALUE STAMPS, after all—so where’s the value?”

The “value” of the stamps was their collectability, and thus Marvel introduced the official Marvel Value Stamp Book into which fans would paste the stamps they’d cut out of their comic books. Fans could send 50 cents to Marvel and not only receive the stamp book for Series A, but also a poster, the same Spidey poster that UK fans received (see sidebar).

Marvel did provide a lot of value to fans, especially those who lived near New York City

or San Diego. Fans could bring their completed stamp books to the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention or San Diego Comic-Con to receive an admission discount. In addition to attending the conventions, fans could meet Marvel Bullpeners such as Roy Thomas, John Romita, Frank Brunner, and Mike Friedrich, amongst others.

However, Marvel didn’t forget about those who couldn’t attend these conventions. They could send their completed book into Marvel. In return they would receive a coupon that would “entitle [them] to a whoppin’ ten percent discount on any

Clip the ‘THWIPP!’ A “virgin” Series B stamp, on the letters page for Omega the Unknown #1 (Mar. 1976).

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 27

Widescreen Edition Peeking inside the Series B Stampbook: the Vision toplines a Marvel tutorial about the initiative, while Series B’s stamps themselves dissected pinup-type images into puzzle-like panels to be clipped and assembled.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

Huckleberry Hound © Hanna-Barbera. Mickey Mouse © Disney. Tom and Jerry © Warner Bros. Little Lulu © Dreamworks. Woody Woodpecker © Universal.

DELL TRADING POST The Marvel Value Stamp program may have asked readers to cut a stamp out of their books, but one company asked readers to mutilate their books even more.

In the early 1960s, Dell Publishing wanted readers to cut off the top of the cover with the Dell logo and the title of the comic. The company dubbed these Dell Comics Cover Strips.

Readers could then save these and trade them in for a variety of products at the Dell Trading Post. While the MVS promotion offered readers deals on convention attendance where they could meet their Marvel Bullpen idols or for savings on Marvel-themed products, Dell’s program was underwhelming, to say the least. Not only were most of the products not directly related to their comic books, but they were just not very exciting in general. Fans of Dell’s Yogi Bear comic could send in two cover strips and 50 cents for a Yogi Bear toy. Otherwise, readers could rip off the top of the cover to their comic books to trade for a stuffed dog, a teenage pocketbook, or a slave bracelet with their initials, amongst other products.

28 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

of the matchless merchandise being offered to you by your big-hearted House of Ideas.” In addition to the discount coupon, they would also receive their stamp books back.

MARVEL VALUE STAMPS’ LEGACY

The Marvel Value Stamp program didn’t end with Series B, although it did take a long hiatus.

Stamp #101 debuted over two decades later, in 2006. The stamp featured Forbush Man, the mascot from Not Brand Echh, with artwork by MVS veteran Marie Severin. The following year, Willie Lumpkin, the Fantastic Four’s mail carrier, was seen on Stamp #102. 2006 also saw new Marvel Value Stamps featuring a variety of older (Sgt. Fury) and newer (Sentry) characters.

The Marvel Value Stamp promotion was a favorite amongst readers of the time, with two series being produced. The MVS stamps encouraged fans to pick up books that they normally might not pick up or even buy multiple copies to keep one pristine while cutting up the other. It was one of the early marketing gimmicks of the kind that would proliferate in the 1990s.

Thanks to Roy Thomas for his time and assistance with this article.

ED LUTE is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE magazine. He loves all aspects of comic book history and is ecstatic to be able to share this love with BI readers. He never cut up his comics but he has been known to mark off a monthly comic book checklist from time to time.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 29

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by D

ouglas R. Kelly

A little more than a year ago, one of my closest friends died suddenly. While I tried to get my head around Andy not being here anymore, his sister asked me to speak at his memorial service. She also lined up two more members of our posse, one of whom asked me what I thought I would say. I told him that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t imagine what I could say that would sum up Andy’s life and our 45 years of being the best of pals. My friend said to me, “You can’t sum up Andy’s life in eight minutes, nobody could do that for another person. What each of us can do is try to share who we think he was… sort of like, who was the essential Andy?”

This rattled around in my head for a while, and finally I just thought, “All I can do is share what Andy meant to me, and if the other guys do that too, maybe we’ll get to, more or less, the essence of our great friend.” To my surprise, that was pretty much what happened—the three of us came at the subject from different places, and I think we managed to convey what we thought made Andy, Andy.

Adapting the work of a great artist into another medium, it seems to me, likely follows a similar path. Imagine trying to sift through a 400- or 500page literary epic, looking for what makes that story unique, looking for the essence of that great novel. Then imagine that you have to squeeze it all into a 48-page comic book.

It had been done before, of course. The Gilberton Company introduced its Classic Comics series in 1941, offering readers of the time access to classic works of literature. The name eventually was changed to Classics Illustrated, and over the

Bottoms Up! Gil Kane and Dan Adkins delivered this shocking cover for the first issue of Marvel Classics Comics (1976), adapting Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unless otherwise noted, scans illustrating this article are courtesy of Douglas R. Kelly.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 31

‘Now Age’ Adaptation The black-and-white Now Age books by Pendulum Press, at 5.25” by 8”, were smaller than a standard comic book. The brilliant Alex Niño was the artist of Pendulum’s adaption of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine #64-1045 (Mar. 1973).

following 30 years, books such as Wuthering Heights and Two Years Before the Mast were adapted to the comic book format. When Gilberton ceased publishing the line in 1971, some 169 titles had been covered, with each being reprinted numerous times.

Apparently, the end of Gilberton’s series didn’t scare off Pendulum Press, Inc. In 1973, the Connecticut-based company started publishing its “Now Age” series of “illustrated paperbacks”— black-and-white comics, really, in 5.25-inch by 8-inch perfect-bound book form, each of which cost 75 cents. Vince Fago, a comic book industry veteran who had worked first as a freelance artist for Timely Comics, then served as the company’s editorial and art director while Stan Lee served in the military during World War II, headed up Pendulum’s Now Age series, performing both editorial and production duties on the books.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, Pendulum sold the books to schools, which then either

gave them or sold them to students. The company published more than 70 of the black-and-white books during the 1970s, and they didn’t skimp when it came to the creators they worked with on the series: writers like Otto Binder and Naunerle Farr, and artists such as Rudy Nebres and Alex Niño, brought the stories to life. In fact, it was the outstanding artwork on the books by Niño and his fellow Filipino artists that got the attention of a young writer working at Marvel Comics.

Kane and Company Serious Gil Kane goodness: (above) Marvel Classics Comics #2, The Time Machine. Inks by Dan Adkins. (opposite page, top left) The cover for Marvel Classics Comics #3, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, has to be a contender for best cover of the series. Inks by Klaus Janson. (top right) Gil and Tom Palmer provided a menacing Dracula cover for #9. (bottom left) From the Hunchback adaptation: Esmeralda gives water to Quasimodo as he’s flogged and humiliated. Art by Jon Lo Famia. (bottom right) From the Dracula adaptation: Nestor Redondo didn’t need to show lots of blood to get the point across in his artwork.

TM & © Marvel.

32 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 33

Cooler Than CliffsNotes (top left) The Lilliputians have Lemuel Gulliver on the spot on the Kane/Dick Giordano cover of issue #6 (1976), Gulliver’s Travels. (top right) The Last of the Mohicans became issue #13, Marvel’s first completely in-house issue of the series.

Cover by Kane and Frank Giacoia. (bottom) Another superb Gil Kane cover entry—inked

by Dave Cockrum—for H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, for issue #14.

TM & © Marvel.

HEY, I HAVE AN IDEA

“I noticed that these great Filipino artists were doing these Pendulum books, and I thought, ‘Let me check these out,’” says writer Doug Moench. “I loved Classics Illustrated comics. The Last of the Mohicans was one of my favorite comic books of all time. So I see these little books from Pendulum Press… black and white, cheap, but well-done and well-illustrated.”

At the time, mid-1975 or so, Moench—who would go on to do acclaimed work as a writer on such series as Moon Knight, Master of Kung Fu, Batman, and Werewolf by Night—was a staff writer at Marvel, and he says the Pendulum books led to an offthe-cuff conversation with Marvel’s publisher, Stan Lee. “One day, Stan walks in and says to me [Moench goes into his Stan Lee voice], ‘So what are you going to do for Marvel today, Doug?’ I said, ‘Well, why don’t we start a line of Marvel versions of these classic stories?’ I had a couple of the Pendulum books with me, in my case, because I had just bought them, and I showed them to Stan and he said, ‘Great idea! Talk to Roy… we’re gonna do this starting immediately. Let’s get started!’ And I thought, ‘Wow, that was easy!’ And then they started asking me to do a whole lot of them… more than I really wanted to do, but it was my idea.

It was a ‘You’re the one who wanted to do this!’ kinda thing. It was just a joke, you know? ‘What are you doug moench gonna do for us today?’ ‘Well let’s do this,’ and he said, ‘Great!’ It really surprised me, stunned me, actually.”

Shortly after, Marvel approached Pendulum and did a deal with them to use Pendulum’s content as the basis for a new series, to be called Marvel Classics Comics (MCC). The team at Marvel started the series off by reprinting 12 of the Now Age books, and added color to the pages, which made the interior artwork really pop. They also replaced the original Pendulum covers with covers that were much more in the Marvel style. Interestingly, Marvel didn’t include a monthly cover date for any of the issues; instead, the indicia on the first page just indicated that each was published in 1976, or 1977, or 1978. Strangely, the indicia in the early issues also stated, “Published annually.”

I have no memory of seeing the Pendulum Press books back in the day, but the Marvel Classics Comics series got my attention immediately, as 34 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

I’d read a number of the original classics. The idea of Marvel combining these great stories with the comic book format parked itself in my imagination, and I bought and read the majority of the issues in the series, which came out while I was in high school.

The first entry, released in early 1976, was Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which sported an intense Gil Kane/Dan Adkins cover showing Jekyll’s transformation into his hideous alter ego. Kane, in fact, would go on to do covers for many of the issues in the series. Kin Platt is listed as having adapted the story, and Nestor Redondo did the art. Unlike in standard Marvel comics, the Pendulum Press lettering was typeset, which gives the layouts a stiffer, more formal feel.

Redondo’s art generally is very solid in this first issue, although he tended to skimp on backgrounds, which often are just left blank. But in some cases, he drew very atmospheric scenes that effectively showed the overcast, eerie look of the London streets. Oddly, the narration keeps switching from first person—Dr. Henry Jekyll— to the third person, as when we read, “Utterson knew that the broken cane was one he had given Jekyll many years before.” This may have simply been for convenience in advancing the story, but it makes for a choppy narrative. Despite this, it’s an engrossing read, an exploration of the dual nature of man and what can happen when one nature suppresses or controls the other.

Issue #2 adapted the H. G. Wells classic, The Time Machine. It was adapted (written) by legendary science fiction and Golden Age comic book writer Otto Binder, and the art was by Alex Niño, who did a superb job of visually creating a world some 800,000 years in the future. His splash page, showing the time traveler appearing in that far future world, is killer, and Niño’s Morlocks (underground beings that stalk the time traveler) are truly creepy creatures.

DIFFICULT TO DISTILL

Victor Hugo’s grandly descriptive novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, became issue #3 of the Marvel Classics Comics series, and it demonstrates the difficulty of distilling 500 pages of imaginative prose into the 48 pages of a comic book. Writer Naunerle Farr wisely chose to leave out Hugo’s extensive and in-depth descriptions of the architecture and geographical features of the city of Paris. But she also ignored the poor treatment and torture of a central character, Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer, an omission that deprives the reader of gaining insight into her character and motivations.

But the adaptation does convey the hopelessness of the ugly and deformed Quasimodo’s love for Esmeralda, and of Esmeralda’s love for Captain Phoebus. The cover art is superb, by Gil Kane and Klaus Janson, and for my money, is one of the three or four best covers in the MCC series despite the fact that, on the cover, Esmeralda is a blonde while in the story, her hair is a rich black.

Issue #4 was an adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by writer Otto Binder, which was followed by Naunerle Farr’s interpretation of Black Beauty, the original author of which was Anna Sewell. Gil Kane was the penciler on both covers.

Writer John Norwood Fago and artist E. R. Cruz presented Jonathan Swift’s satirical and controversial 18th Century novel, Gulliver’s Travels, which became issue #6 in the Marvel series. Cruz used an unorthodox style of visual storytelling by dispensing with panels and borders, instead placing scenes/vignettes on the pages in more-or-less balanced ways. But he also effectively used landscapes and perspective to depict the comparatively massive Gulliver living among the Lilliputians.

Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick were next up in the series as issue #7

Mighty Men of Marvel (left) Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo got the Marvel Classics Comics treatment in issue #17 (1977).

Cover art by John Buscema and Ernie Chan. (center) Big John and Ernie reunited for the cover art for issue #19, Robinson Crusoe. (right) Tomb of Dracula artist Gene Colan came up with a suitably menacing cover for Frankenstein, issue #20 in the series.

Inks by Chan. Note the misspelling of the author’s last name on the cover.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 35

An Eyewitness Account Ernie Chan provided a chilling rendition of the Cyclops on the stunning original cover art for Marvel Classics Comics #18 (1977), Homer’s The Odyssey.

From the vaults of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel.

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and 8, respectively. Interior art on Tom Sawyer was by Bob Larkin and E. R. Cruz, with Alex Niño doing the honors on Moby Dick. Both stories were adapted by Irwin Shapiro, and both covers were by Gil Kane.

An outstanding Gil Kane/Tom Palmer cover graced issue #9, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. By now, the indicia in the issues had been changed to read, “Published quarterly.” Adapted by Naunerle Farr, the story was drawn by Nestor Redondo, who did a good job of conveying the feelings of dread and fear surrounding Castle Dracula and other locations such as graveyards. While the story didn’t show blood and gore—this was the height of the Comics Code Authority era, after all— Farr didn’t shy away from describing how the vampires had to be disposed of and rendered powerless.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island were issues #10 and 11 in the series, adapted by Irwin Shapiro and Otto Binder, respectively. Gil Kane once again supplied the cover art to these issues, and the interior art in both was by E. R. Cruz.

The last of the Now Age reprints that Marvel did for the series was issue #12, Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.

Naunerle Farr wrote the adaptation and Alex Niño furnished the artwork. Another great Gil Kane/Dan Adkins cover shows D’Artagnan and his colleagues engaged in swordplay.

BRINGING IT IN-HOUSE

The deal with Pendulum Press finished with issue #12, after which Marvel brought the Classics series fully in-house. Starting with

Not to Be Confused with Marvel’s Bloodstone (left) Chan’s cover for issue #23, The Moonstone emphasized the larger-thanlife aura of the titular gem. (right) Wilkie Collins’ central character in The Moonstone, Sergeant Cuff, methodically sorts through potential suspects. Adaptation

by Don McGregor and Dino Castrillo.

TM & © Marvel.

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Another ‘Hit’ from Homer (left) D’oh!

Swordplay at its most dazzling, as rendered by penciler John Buscema and inker Ernie Chan for Marvel Classics Comics #26 (1977), adapting The Iliad.

Autographed by Buscema. (right) A gorgeous interior page from The Iliad, showcasing the art of Yong Montaño. Both, courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

issue #13, several new names were added to the masthead along with writers and artists.

One was the new editor of the books going forward, John Warner. Another, listed under “Production & Staff,” was Ralph Macchio. “I worked closely with John,” says Macchio. “In 1976, Archie Goodwin became editor-in-chief at Marvel. Archie had been the editor on the black and white line, a job that now was vacant, so John Warner became editor on that line. I was hired as John’s assistant, so I worked with him on the black and white magazines, along with the Marvel Classics Comics series.

“I was 24 when I came to Marvel. I had done my undergraduate work at Fairleigh Dickinson University, then went for my graduate work at Montclair State. I was intending to go into teaching, probably to be a high school English teacher. But teaching jobs were scarce at the time. When I got the opportunity to work at Marvel, I took that and I thought I’d be able to finish my studies but I wound up staying at Marvel. So I have a background in English lit, and that served me well when I was hired at Marvel because I had an understanding of grammar, and that was something that came in handy for proofreading and so on. I think that’s why I was given the opportunity to work on [this series].”

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For that issue #13, Doug Moench wrote/ adapted James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, which was a natural match for the writer—but he had his own ideas about how the story wound up. “My most beloved Classics Illustrated comic was The Last of the Mohicans. Now, it’s great, but the original wasn’t that well written, it’s kind of turgid. So I went back with that one and I couldn’t read it all, so I skimmed it and got the important parts… and then I re-wrote the ending [for the Marvel Classics Comics version]. And I still think that it’s better than the original ending, because my re-written ending is all about the title… it’s about the fact that he is the last of the Mohicans.

The original novel totally dropped the ball on that… I remember thinking, ‘Didn’t you know what you had in your title here? They’re going extinct, he’s the last one!’”

Gil Kane drew the cover, and with Marvel-style lettering complimenting Sonny Trinidad’s interior art, this was the first of the Classics series to fully look the part of a Marvel comic.

Issue #14 featured the legendary H. G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds. Chris Claremont, who declined being interviewed for this article, wrote and adapted the story, and he stayed pretty true to Wells’ narrative as we see the main character’s sense of despair of humankind

surviving the holocaust. We also sense his despair of his ever seeing his wife again, whom he assumes has been killed in a Martian assault on the village where he left her for her safety.

Yong Montaño and Dino Castrillo did the interior art, and the inside back cover features a pinup page by Dave Cockrum, showing his take on the Martian invaders. The Montaño/Castrillo art is adequate, but I’d love to have seen what Cockrum would have done if he’d been given the main assignment.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, was issue #15, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Dino Castrillo, and #16 was Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, written by Doug Moench. The interior art on Ivanhoe was by Jess Jodloman, whose drawing style was an excellent match for the subject: his fine line made for a great level of detail, giving the story a distinctive visual feel.

The next issue turned out to be 50 cents well-spent for me. Issue #17 was an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Chris Claremont, with art by Dino Castrillo. I was in high school when the Classics series was published, buying and reading the issues that appealed to me, and this one was right in my sweet spot. My English teacher, Mrs. Burrows, gave us an assignment to write a book report about one of several classic novels. When I saw The Count of Monte Cristo included on the list, I dug out my copy of issue #17, re-read it, and wrote my report based on it.

Whattaya Know, It’s Poe! (top left) A creepy Gene Colan/Tom Palmer cover went for the jugular on issue #28, which offered no less than three Poe stories inside, adapted by Don McGregor. (bottom left) The art for #28’s The Tell-Tale Heart, by Yong Montaño and Rod Santiago, had a psychotic quality that pushed the story along at a frantic pace. (below) Rats! There’s no end of ’em on this terrifying Pit and the Pendulum page illustrated by Rudy Mesina. Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 39

Hey, Verne!

Robur, the nowinsane “master of the world,” watches as John Strock falls from the spaceship on the cover of issue #21.

TM & © Marvel.

When I got it back with a grade of B-plus, I wanted to say to Mrs. Burrows, “A B-plus? This is based on the work of Chris Claremont. Don’t you know who that is? Uncanny X-Men? Ms. Marvel? Iron Fist?” But I resisted the impulse, seeing as how I was more-or-less on the ragged edge of cheating. At least I didn’t use CliffsNotes. (I have since read Dumas’ original, and I’m happy to report that it’s at least as good a read as Claremont’s version.)

Homer’s The Odyssey was next in line as #18, written

by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Jess Jodloman. This was followed by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which was written by Doug Moench and featured interior art by “The Tribe.” (The marvel.com website lists Sonny Trinidad and Tony DeZuniga as the artists on the issue.) The cover was drawn by John Buscema and Ernie Chan. About the process he used in adapting the stories that he did, Moench says, “I cheated a lot. A lot of the books, I remembered them from when I was a kid, and then I would skim them [during the adaptation process]. And for some of them, I relied on CliffsNotes… and others, I read [the original]. Like Alice in Wonderland, I’d read when I was real young, and I remember loving it. So I got a chance to re-read it. So, certain ones, I looked forward to re-reading, while for others, I needed CliffsNotes. I even checked out the Classics Illustrated versions.”

HORROR AND FANTASY

Editor John Warner wrote issue #20, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The author’s name was misspelled “Shelly” on the cover, as well as on the issue’s splash page and on a pinup page on the inside back cover. But they got it right for the author profile and the title box on the inside front cover. Gene Colan and Ernie Chan provided the art for the cover, while the interior pages were by Dino Castrillo.

Science fiction and fantasy masters Jules Verne and H. G. Wells were back for the next two issues: Verne’s Master of the World featured in issue #21, and Wells’ Food of the Gods appeared as #22. Doug Moench wrote both issues, with Dino Castrillo providing interior art on #21 and Sonny Trinidad doing the honors on #22.

Gil Kane and Bob Wiacek teamed up to do a great cover for Master of the World, showing John Strock being blasted out of Robur’s submarine/spacecraft.

William Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, published in 1868, is widely considered to be the first Englishlanguage detective novel. It featured the character of Sergeant Cuff, a London detective working to solve the disappearance of the Moonstone, a sacred gem from India. Don McGregor adapted the story for issue #23 of the Classics series, and he captured the methodical

Something’s Not ‘Wells’ with This Cover Pretty sure H. G. Wells would have a beef with this: next time you see Ralph Macchio, ask him about the cover for Marvel Classics Comics #31 (1978). Alan Weiss’ The First Men in the Moon cover art was so dynamic it was easy to overlook the logo’s glaring error: the erroneous author’s credit.

TM & © Marvel.

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Move Over, Hawkeye! (top right) Artist Alfredo Alcala hit it out of the park on the Robin Hood cover for issue #34… and it got even better inside! (bottom right) The teaming of penciler Rudy Mesina and inker Alcala on the interior art for Robin Hood made for some of the best artwork of the entire series. (left) Robin Hood and Friar Tuck meet for the first time.

TM & © Marvel.

and perceptive Sergeant Cuff very well. Cuff is said to have been one of the inspirations for Sherlock Holmes, and that similarity is evident in the Marvel version. Dino Castrillo once again did the interior art, behind an action-packed Ernie Chan cover.

Issue #24, based on H. Rider Haggard’s She, was written/adapted by John Warner, with Dino Castrillo and Rod Santiago teaming up on the interior art.

The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells’ classic suspense story, appeared as issue #25, and with it came a changing of the editorial guard. Roger Slifer was now editor, with Ralph Macchio slotting in as associate editor, a role he would fulfill for the next several issues of the series. “I had things like Monarch Notes at home, and I’d go back and check those as we did these, just to review,” says Macchio about his time working on the series.

“Some of them I had not read, books like Ivanhoe, for example. As great as these original works were, often they had their flaws, and some weren’t what you’d call linear stories… so adapting some of them was pretty difficult.” Moench was back as writer on issue #25, with Dino Castrillo and Rudy Mesina doing the art chores.

Next up, as issue #26, was Homer’s The Iliad, which was written/adapted by Elliot Maggin and drawn by Yong Montaño. The work of Robert Louis Stevenson then made a third appearance in issue #27 with Kidnapped, which sported a superb cover

by John Romita, Jr. (just starting his career as an artist) and Pablo Marcos. Doug Moench was back as scripter on this one.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 41

ECHOES OF DITKO

Cancelled??

Humbug!

Original Bob Hall cover art for the final issue of Marvel Classics Comics, issue #36 (1978), adapting Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel.

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum made the cover for issue #28, and it was joined inside

by The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado.

Don McGregor adapted the stories, and the art team was made up of Rudy Mesina, Yong Montaño, Rod Santiago, and Michael Golden. The art for The Tell-Tale Heart had an intense quality of madness and panic to it, reminding me in places of Steve Ditko’s horror work at Charlton and even of the work of EC greats like Graham Ingels.

Doug Moench wrote the next two entries, Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda for issue #29, and Arabian Nights for #30. Rico Rival and Pablo Marcos did the art for #29 and Yong Montaño did #30.

Then came the kind of error that keeps editors up at night. Issue #31 was H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, written by Don McGregor with art by Rudy Mesina. As Ralph Macchio tells it, “Somehow—I don’t know if I was asleep at the switch that day or what—I put the wrong author on the cover of issue #31! It was The First Men in the

Moon, and I attributed it to Jules Verne. I think it was Roger Stern who brought it to me, when it came out, and he said, ‘What is this? Don’t you have a background in English literature?’ [laughter] It was one of my many early gaffes. That was a real goof and I’m completely responsible for it, nobody else!”

Issue #32, Jack London’s White Fang, was another Moench effort, with art by the “Philippine Tribe”—meaning, everyone who was around that afternoon pitched in to get it done. The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain, was featured in issue #33, written by Don McGregor with art by “The New Tribe.” Your guess is as good as mine.

In terms of interior art, the Marvel crew saved the best for last, or nearly so. Issue #34 featured the story of Robin Hood, scripted by Moench, with art by Rudy Mesina and Alfredo Alcala. That combination resulted in visual magic, with Robin and his Merry Men never having looked better. Even Friar Tuck had it going on. Well, if you squinted.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland featured in issue #35, written by Doug Moench with art by Frank Bolle. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ beloved tale, was issue #36, written by—guess who, initials are D. M.—with art by, evidently, nearly the entire Marvel bullpen.

And that, as they say, was that. The Marvel Classics Comics series ceased publication in 1978 with issue #36. I don’t have sales figures for the series, but the fact the books contained no advertising couldn’t have helped the bottom line. In my view, the Marvel Classics Comics series undoubtedly served as a gateway drug—in a good way—for some readers to then check out the original classic works by the original authors, and many of the Marvel writers and artists turned in excellent work on those classics. “Among the stories that I did for this series, I think my favorite was Alice in Wonderland, probably followed by Robin Hood,” says Moench. “Partly because of the artwork on both of those… I asked for an artist for Alice who could draw] similarly to the classic John Tenniel illustrations of the original, and they got someone who could do it [Frank Bolle]. I thought it looked great.”

Ralph Macchio was partial to certain stories, as well. “The Pit and the Pendulum was a favorite of mine. I also enjoyed Kidnapped and Treasure Island because I thought they were suited to the sort of visual thing that we were doing. You know, we had some top-notch people working on that series, and I was proud of having worked on them. I just wish we could have run the books longer, to have gotten a lot more of each story in there. 100-page issues could have been great. But at the 48-page size, we had to rely on the storytelling ability of both the artist and the writer.”

DOUGLAS R. KELLY is editor of Marine Technology magazine.

In addition to BACK ISSUE, his byline has appeared in Antiques Roadshow Insider, Model Collector, The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles, Diecast Collector, and Buildings magazines. He no longer is in near mint condition but maybe that’s overrated anyway.

42 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

An exploration of

by I a n

Millsted

TM

The mid-1980s was a time of evolution and development in the comics industry, seeing the rise of the direct market, popular miniseries and maxiseries, company-wide crossovers, imprints for creator-owned titles, collected editions and graphic albums (for the bookstores), and much more.

One magazine that was perfectly positioned to chronicle Marvel Comics’ contribution to all of the above was Marvel Age, which launched a first issue cover-dated April 1983. The first thing most potential readers would have seen was the cover by Walter Simonson (promoting his new Crystar series), which is a pretty nifty place to launch from. Although the magazine was listed as just Marvel Age in the indicia, it was usually referred to as Marvel Age Magazine by those who worked on it. The addition of the “zine” word is significant. This was a place where there would be information for the fans and retailers.

Marvel Age was initially a 20-page magazine, in comic book size and format, with early issues edited by Carol Kalish and others (including Peter David). It was mainly a listings and promotion magazine, retailing at 25 cents, at a time when a standard Marvel comic cost 60 cents.

Jim Salicrup shares his insights with BACK ISSUE: “Marvel Age was originated by Marvel’s Sales Department, but since it was also printed comic book size, Jim Shooter had to approve it. I proposed to Jim that I go over it and make notes for him, since he was a super-busy guy, and much to my surprise he made me the editor of Marvel Age.” The page count was soon increased to 36 pages, which allowed Salicrup and his team to further develop the title.

FOOM Has Left the Room The debut edition of Mighty Marvel’s Big ’80s self-promotional series, Marvel Age. Issue #1’s (Apr. 1983) cover by Walter Simonson heralded Marvel’s new Crystar series (which we’ve yet to explore here in BI—anyone want a Crystar article in a future ish? - ed.).

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 43

One feature of the magazine that was in place from the very start was the Coming Attractions listings of the next month’s Marvel titles, giving creator credits and brief descriptions of the contents. Beyond that, the rest of the pages were used in a flexible way. Articles ranged from a couple of pages to much longer pieces in the ten- to 20-pages range. There was a New Talent Department that combined work from prospective newcomers with editorial advice. Most of the covers were specially commissioned and represent, as shown in the following pages, a fine body of work by some of the biggest names in the field at the time. It looked like a winner for all parties. Marvel Comics was able to promote its entire range of titles.

Readers and fans had a useful guide to what to look forward to, with release dates so they could jim salicrup get to a comic shop in time to Gage Skidmore. get the titles they wanted. Comic retailers presumably benefitted from the promotion as well; indeed, some direct market vendors gave Marvel Age as a complementary title to customers who regularly bought from them.

Jim Salicrup, with assistant editor Mark Lerer and a wider team of contributors working on a freelance basis, started to innovate and introduce new features and departments. Salicrup had his own “Salicrup’s Section” regular column on the inside front cover. “I had to answer to two bosses,” Salicrup recalls, “Jim Shooter and Carol Kalish, then-head of Direct Sales, two very strong-willed people. Fortunately, I liked both of them a lot and it worked out well… although it was tricky in the beginning. What I hoped to achieve was that sense of we’re all part of a big fun club enjoying Marvel Comics. Plus, I enjoyed editing a magazine, which is very different from editing a comic book and far more labor intensive.”

Among the notable features in the earlier issues are an 11-page two-way interview with Stan Lee and Jim Shooter in #8 (Nov. 1983), a first look at the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars series in #12 (Mar. 1984), and Jim Starlin on his Dreadstar series in #13 (Apr. 1984). That issue also marked the start of a chronological overview of Marvel’s comic books from 1961. Initially this was a year to an issue but soon expanded, taking several issues to cover each year.

A couple of features that exemplified Salicrup’s “fun club” philosophy were the cover corner boxes featuring mascot Forbush-Man, which were unique to each issue, and the two-page Hembeck comic pages introduced in 1984.

Cartoonist Fred Hembeck kindly shares his recollections of how he came to be part of Marvel ‘Salicrup’s Section’ Age. “I believe it was editor Jim Salicrup who (top) This header topped many of the columns penned by Marvel enlisted me. My strips in DC Comics’ Daily Planet pages had come to an end, and Jim felt Marvel Age’s longtime editor, Jim Salicrup. (bottom) Face it, tiger: THIS is should grab me up. I honestly don’t recall if my the first page you turned to in each issue of Marvel Age! In the Marvel Age strip started before or after the FF Roast.” Hembeck’s contribution was a two-page pre-Internet ’80s, “Marvel Coming Attractions” plugged readers comic strip, across the center pages, in which he into the House of Ideas’ latest offerings. From issue #12. portrayed himself as a chat show host interviewing the great and the good (and Brother Voodoo) TM & © Marvel.

44 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

of the Marvel Universe. It was a format he had previously used in The Buyer’s Guide fanzine.

“I think Jim just said, ‘Keep doing what you’ve been doing in The Buyer’s Guide—just keep things strictly Marvel. The interview format came so naturally to me, I just went with it. I did tweak it in the sense that I was often portrayed as a faux TV host, desk, curtains and all, while my Dateline:@$! strips had Cartoon Fred simply holding a microphone in front of my subject du jour.”

One of the running gags that Fred Hembeck introduced was Marvel horror character, Brother Voodoo, as a frustrated A-list wannabee. “When Marvel published Fred Hembeck $ell$ the Marvel Universe—a collection of Marvel Age strips I seem to recall I chose myself—one of the new pages of material was a long, detailed explanation as to why I goofed on Brother Voodoo. Check that out for a longer response, but the short of it is, I was at a con shortly after the first Superman/ Spider-Man book had been announced, and an audience member asked Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, why those two? I don’t recall which one answered, ‘It was either that or Brother Power the Geek meets Brother Voodoo,’ and from that moment on, I associated BroV with that infamous DC comics flop. BroV was actually a pretty cool character, but he came along at the tail end of the ’70s horror-hero boom, and was soon cancelled.

So I took his status of ‘I coulda been a contender’ and used that as a go-to for laughs. I guess you could say it was planned as a possible running gag, but it evolved much further than expected.

People still associate me with Brother Voodoo to this day, and I suppose it went over okay.”

More respectful was the special issue dedicated to the memory of Sol Brodsky in #22 (Jan. 1985).

Brodsky is a name that might be familiar to regular readers of BACK ISSUE as a behind-the-scenes guy who contributed in all sorts of ways to Marvel Comics over the years (and, but was less well

known to most Marvel readers at that time, compared to the likes of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko). The cover portrait by John Romita, Sr. is a fine piece of work, and the recognition of Brodsky’s place in Marvel history a notable indication that Marvel Age was not just a promotional magazine but had a wider remit as well.

One aspect of Marvel Age that is clear in hindsight is the opportunities it gave for a good number of would-be comics professionals to get early work in the industry, including BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury. “For issue #28 (July 1985) I wrote ‘Not the Marvel Coming Attractions,’ a parody of Marvel Age’s monthly Marvel Coming Attractions column, filled with joke entries of existing and fantasy Marvel titles. I took jabs at current trends (in comics and pop culture) and the growing X-Men expansion (The Muppet Mutants, anyone?). My favorite line was in my writeup ‘for’ Conan the Barbarian #174: Conan faces the unspeakable menace of ‘…’. “‘Not the Marvel Coming Attractions’ (whose title was clearly based upon the ’80s HBO comedy show Not Necessarily the News) was an unsolicited proposal to Jim Salicrup and Marvel Age,” Eury continues. “Jim liked my sense of humor and offered me the chance to write Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham backup stories for Marvel Tales, which had become Spider-Ham’s home since the cancellation of his own book. I loved writing Spider-Ham! For Jim I also wrote a Master of Kung Fu one-page parody for What The--?! #4 (Nov. 1988) where ‘Shang-Chew’ becomes a short-order cook, the Master of Tofu.

Jim was a great mentor, and I’ll forever appreciate his faith in me and his editorial guidance.”

Kurt Busiek was another emerging pro to find work at Marvel Age. Kurt kindly shares the story of his involvement as someone who was already selling scripts. “I’d done a very dumb thing. I was the regular writer on Power Man and Iron Fist,

Meet the Marvelites Marvel Age often introduced Marvel’s staff and creative artists to readers. (left) Ron Zalme’s cover for issue #8 (Nov. 1983) feautred BMOCs Stan Lee and Jim Shooter, while editor-in-chief Shooter, also the scribe of the white-hot Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars limited series, got another spotlight (center) on Mike Zeck and John Beatty’s cover for issue #20 (Nov. 1984). (right) The late Sol Brodsky was honored in issue #22, including this cover portrait by John Romita, Sr. TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 45

Voodoo You Think You Are? Brother Voodoo and Doc Samson drop in on Fred Hembeck in the “Hembeck’s Page” (a doublepage spread) from Marvel Age #20 (Nov. 1984). © Fred Hembeck. © Marvel.

which really wasn’t enough to cover expenses “I’m almost positive that was Jim’s idea, but I living in the New York City area, so rather than have very few actual memories of it,” Busiek hustle until I found more work, I moved back says. “I don’t think I wrote the article solo, to the Boston suburbs and then to upstate New though. As I recall, we had various ‘reporters’ York, where I’d gone to college, and I could get shadow the various editors for a day, taking note of by on less. But then, when I was fired from Power what they did—I think I shadowed Don Daley?— Man and Iron Fist, I suddenly had no income, once they were done everyone wrote up and I hadn’t built up any relationships reports on what went on in that editor’s with editors because I wasn’t able to office for the day, and they turned come in to the offices. them in to me. And I collated them “So I came back down to the and did kind of a style-edit on it all New York City area, stayed on a so it read smoothly rather than like friend’s couch for a few weeks, and a bunch of different voices.” dug up some work. I did the Red Another frequent contributor Tornado miniseries and a couple was Dwight Jon Zimmerman, who of fill-ins for DC, which earned me shares his memories with BACK enough money to move down to ISSUE. “I first met Jim through friend a New Jersey apartment. At Marvel, David Kraft, who was my high school I did a couple of Power Man and best friend, in the mid-’70s. We Iron Fist fill-ins—ironically, the dwight jon zimmerman got to know each other and, guy who replaced me was slow following a four-year detour enough that they needed some to Rabun County, Georgia, help—and Jim Salicrup told me he didn’t have any where David wound up living, upon my return to comics for me to write, but his assistant on Marvel New York City, I renewed my friendship with Jim. Age was leaving, and he could use a new one. So I One of our off-duty routines was a Sunday visit to took that gig, and did my best with it for a while.” comic book shops to gossip, check out what other One of Busiek’s contributions was wrangling publishers were doing. We’d visit the used booktogether a 20-page “A Day in the Life of Marvel store Strand Books.”

Comics” for issue #35 (Feb. 1986). The article is Despite being a house magazine for a commercial a useful document for future comics historians. publisher, Jim Salicrup and his colleagues were

46 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

given room to decide on the content, and Salicrup had plen- enough room to squeeze in a desk for Jim and a drawing board ty of ideas. Zimmerman recalls, “I didn’t pitch ideas. They all for me.” came from Jim and Kurt. Since Marvel Age was Marvel’s pubAs far as the other Marvel editors were concerned, licity magazine that spotlighted upcoming projects, there Salicrup says, “Hey, I’m not the Watcher. I don’t know what the was always plenty of work available.” Busiek, similarly, other editors thought, but there were some who wanted remembers, “I rarely pitched anything at Marvel Age, the promotion in Marvel Age and there were those that I can recall—maybe I should have. The one who were indifferent—but we tried to promote major exception I can think of is that when Jim everything fairly.” Indeed, Marvel Age covered the said he wanted to add a new mock-newspaper Star Comics line for younger readers, the Epic line section called ‘The Mutant Report,’ to cover of creator owned (mostly) titles, non-superhero things X-related, I told him, ‘I refuse to do it comic books, giving each full respect. The easy unless we have a single panel gag cartoon by sales route of featuring X-Men or the Punisher on Kyle Baker called It’s Genetic!’ I was mostly joking, every other cover was avoided. Special mention and partly inspired by seeing Kyle’s work on should go to John Byrne and Sergio Aragonés what would become The Cowboy Wally Show in for their regular covers. Byrne clearly had fun the Bullpen earlier that day. But Jim laughed, designing covers, often with She-Hulk at and said, ‘Kyle’s here somewhere, go ask him.’ I the beach, for summer issues. Meanwhile, Araasked how much we could pay, Jim told me, so gonés favored the winter season and Groo. “I fred hembeck I went and found Kyle and asked him to do the always enjoyed working with John Byrne (on © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia.com. strip. He said. ‘Uh, yeah, okay.’ And I think that’s Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four),” Salicrup my big contribution to Marvel Age, other than co-creating the says, “and we were promoting something he was working Phone Ranger with James Fry in Marvel Age Annual #1.” on or it was a more general Marvel event cover. As for Groo, Given the nature of his section, Hembeck had even more aside from getting an original cover by Sergio Aragonés, I like autonomy. “I had a free hand, mostly,” Hembeck relates. “I magazine traditions such as the annual New Yorker cover by was usually given a list of the topics to be included in each Eustace Tilley on it every February. So come Christmas time, specific issue, and if I could align my strip with one of those Groo was our Eustace Tilley.” subjects, great. If not, I was on my own. Of course, there were Zimmerman had the role of liaising with the other editimes I was asked to spotlight certain things they were pushing. tors for content for the Coming Attractions. “As the inforBarbie comes to mind, as does Nightcat. If you don’t remember mation I was seeking was for issues three months in the (and why should you?), Nightcat was an actual young woman future, there were quite a few times where editors didn’t have who was a singer, dancer, and—hopefully—an actual makebelieve superhero. She had an actual record out, as well as a prestige comic, dialogued by Stan Lee. She also apparently only had a single life, as she hasn’t been heard from since.” [Editor’s note: We remember Nightcat, Fred! We even featured her in an article back in BACK ISSUE #95!]

“Then there was the time, fairly early on, when I was instructed to use Ms. Marvel (in her second, gray outfit),” Hembeck continues. “It marked one of the few times I had an illo on the cover—turns out Marvel hadn’t used Ms. for a while, and by appearing in my strip, Marvel maintained the copyright on the character! So, while I may’ve destroyed the Marvel Universe, it’s a little known fact that I saved Ms. Marvel!

“The only time I got myself in mild hot water was when Marvel and Jack Kirby were at odds regarding the return of his original art. I was obviously on Mr. K’s side, so I took the opportunity to use my strip to extol the greatness of Kirby and all that he meant to the creation of Marvel. Nothing about the controversy, but my intent was pretty obvious. Jim just said, maybe I’d better tone it down in the future, but they ran what I sent in.”

Marvel Age was an important part of the Marvel line but not the highest priority, as evidenced by the location of the editorial team. “When I started, we worked at a couple of art tables in the Bullpen,” shares Busiek, “but we quickly got an ‘office’ in what was called ‘the Hulk room,’ because it was a storage closet they used to store, among other things, the costumes for Marvel character appearances, so we had full-size Captain America shield, Thor’s hammer, and the bulky Hulk outfits that couldn’t be folded compactly like other suits. But there was

The Busiek Tour Marvel Age #35 (Feb. 1986) featured a guided tour of Marvel’s New York offices, conducted by Kurt Busiek and friends.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 47

plot information I needed. They’d get cranky because my presence was an incarnate reminder that their creative team(s) were late. As a result, I had to fake it with such lines as, ‘If we told you who the villain was in this issue, we’d be revealing too much!,’ or, ‘You know he’s Spider-Man! You know he’s in trouble! But if you think he can fight his way out of this fight— you’d be wrong!,’ or some other similar verbal legerdemain.

That said, editors respected me and we had great professional relationships. They were always forthcoming in fulfilling my requests and needs.

One obvious column that had not been part of the magazine from the outset was “Stan Lee’s Soapbox,” which had been a regular feature in Marvel mags for years. “When ‘Stan’s Soapbox’ was squeezed out of the Marvel Bulletins page, I couldn’t wait to include Stan’s column in Marvel Age—after all, would there have even been a Marvel Age without Stan?” says Salicrup. “Plus it gave me a good reason to call Stan every month to tell him what the next issue’s theme would be.” After a while the Stan Lee page was further enhanced by running some old Willie Lumpkin three-panel gag strips he had done in the 1950s with artist Dan DeCarlo.

With issue #74 (May 1989), Marvel Age started a regular five-page preview of a new title premiering the following month. The first example was Moon Knight, with a new issue #1 following soon after. I’ll leave readers to decide for themselves if these count as first appearances or extracted previews.

However, the first appearances of the likes of New Warriors in Marvel Age may account for the rising back-issue prices of Marvel’s promo-zine. Similarly, the character designs for Rob Liefeld’s take on New Mutants spotlighted the likes of Cable before they appeared in the actual comic.

Another added department was the column by Mark Gruenwald, which was interesting for the candor and humor he showed. Salicrup: “Jim Shooter suggested including ‘Mark’s Remarks,’ and I was happy to include it. Jim wanted more editors to contribute, but they were often too busy trying to get their books out. I liked Mark’s column because, again, he wasn’t necessarily trying to sell something. He was just sharing his comic book opinions with the Marvel Age audience.”

By the late 1980s, Marvel was seeing a rising output of screen adaptations, mainly television films and animation for the time being. Marvel Age tapped into the expertise of Andy Mangels for a new ongoing department. Andy tells BACK ISSUE, “So, basically, in the pre-internet days, I was the chief pipeline for news about comic book and genre movies and TV shows in a monthly format. Comics Scene covered some of the same material, but always with a threemonth lead-time, whereas I was much more timely. One of my regular readers was Marvel editor Jim Salicrup, who approached me in mid-1990 to write a Hollywood column for Marvel andy mangels Age magazine. ‘Andy Mangels’ Reel Marvel’ debuted in Marvel Age #95 (Dec. 1990), and continued through issue #112 (May 1992), though it was not in every issue. Over the years, I had built up such a strong base of sources in Hollywood, both in animation and film, that readers knew they could trust the information in my columns.

Hollywood press folk cooperated once they knew I wouldn’t burn them. Two of my favorite sources were the now-late Darrell McNeil—an animator for Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and others— and Mark Evanier, then the writer of Groo at Epic and DNAgents and Crossfire at Eclipse, while also maintaining a kick-butt animation writing career.

One of my sources was a studio chief who is still in the industry; I took a meeting at his office one day,

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Original John Byrne cover artwork from Marvel Age #86 (Mar. 1990), with Robocop— then poised to star in a new licensed Marvel comic—tagging along with Spidey, the New Warriors, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel. Robocop © Amazon.

48 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

and saw hundreds of scripts on top of his bookshelf for things like Judge Dredd, Watchmen, and others. He told his assistant to copy any of them I wanted, and I left with 40 to 50 scripts! Often, I would be tipped off to something brewing by someone (by phone), and then start investigating.

Back then, security wasn’t quite as tight, and spoilers and secrecy weren’t as huge a problem. I was sometimes sent in-production scripts, and had certain publicists on speed-dial. Also, a subscription to Variety, which I combed through every issue of, helped give me leads. On the flipside, there were endless secretaries and assistants who had no idea what ‘comic book press’ even meant, and who certainly had very little interest in courting comic book fans... even on shows that were based on them!” [Editor’s note: Andy’s still the master of comics-related Hollywood lore, as he reveals in his ‘Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning’ animation column in each edition of our sister mag, RetroFan.] After eight years helming Marvel Age, Jim Salicrup moved on to become editor-in-chief at Topps Comics and the Marvel Age editorship passed briefly to Renee Witterstaetter, and then Steve Saffel. This marked a period of change, inevitably. The Coming Attractions was shortened to just a couple of pages, and other features were dropped altogether.

“My second editor, Renee Witterstaetter, basically left me to my own devices,” Andy Mangels says. “When Steve Saffel came on as editor, he wanted to reboot the magazine with a fresh style. He immediately cancelled my column, oddly without publishing the fifth of a five-part series. In his first two issues (#113–114), he ran a poll to see what fans liked. I don’t think the results were ever made public, but I was told that ‘Reel Marvel’ came in as one of the top five favorite features, but that it was still cancelled! Three years after cancelling me at Marvel, Steve was an editor at Ballantine/Del Rey, where he edited my Star Wars: The Essential Guide To Characters book in 1995.”

Fred Hembeck shares his perspective on Marvel Age’s editorial transition.

“The book went to Renee W., but she left it to her assistant editors—like Glenn Herdling—to discuss each issue’s assignment with me. I appreciate that she kept me on, as I don’t think she was ever much of a fan. Although I contributed to Jim Salicrup and Carl Potts two issues each of What The--?! when it was a limited series, once it was ongoing and Renee was in charge, I was never again asked to contribute, which disappointed me since it was the perfect vehicle for me (there weren’t many other issues of Spectacular Spider-Man for me to pencil, after all). In her defense, my art wasn’t nearly as slick as it could’ve been at the time (still isn’t, though it’s better), but I think I could’ve written some good stuff if given the chance.

“My last editor on the book was Steve Saffel,” Hembeck continues, “and I’ll never forget the phone call I got from him when he took over. He told me he such great plans to revamp the magazine and then praised me to the skies—all the while, I’m thinking, this is great! This guy loves my stuff!—and then he casually mentions, oh by the way, that he’s cutting me down to a single page!! Sheesh—imagine if he DIDN’T like me! But we got along great, even if he was the only one who came anywhere close to micromanaging my page (there was one strip I did—I believe it had Peter Parker in it—that he thought looked drab, layout-wise. So, using the same script, I took the square-ish panels and turned it into a Gene-Colan-jutting-panels-type page, and yup, it DID look better).”

Marvel Age was eventually cancelled after 140 monthly issues and three Annuals.

In terms of a lasting influence, Marvel Age, which for some years seemed to be forgotten, is having something of a revival in the mid-2020s, with an Omnibus edition and Marvel Epic collections. Dwight Jon Zimmerman gives credit to Jim Salicrup: “At one point early in my career at Marvel Age, when Jim gave me the Coming Attractions assignment, he told me, and I’m paraphrasing from memory, this: ‘Dwight, I want you to look at this as you have just discovered the coolest thing in the world and that you can’t wait to tell your best friends about it.’

I regard it as the best advice Jim ever gave me.”

With thanks to Jim Salicrup, Dwight Jon Zimmerman, Kurt Busiek, Andy Mangels, Fred Hembeck, Michael Eury, Shaun Clancy, and Chris Eliopoulos.

IAN MILLSTED is a writer and teacher based in Bristol, England.

Direct Currents from the House of Ideas Five-page previews of new series began with (bottom left) Moon Knight in Marvel Age #74 (May 1989). Cover by Sal Velluto. (top) Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ new Marvels series was previewed, featuring this Ross cover, in issue #130 (Nov. 1993). (Turn to page 68 as Kurt and Alex reunite for a Pro2Pro interview about their landmark series’ 30th anniversary!) (bottom right) Weren’t expecting a DC character in this article? John Romita, Lr.’s Marvel Age #139 (Aug. 1994) cover hyped the Punisher/Batman Marvel/DC crossover.

TM & © Marvel. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 49

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obert Menzies

There’s something almost mythical about the great superhero origin stories. Created in 1940 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America was probably inspired as much by revulsion for Nazism as he was by potential sales figures. While the familiar core elements never alter—during World War II, sickly volunteer Steven Rogers is declared medically unfit to serve in the armed forces, but is later transformed by a secret government experiment into the world’s first Super-Soldier—in all other ways the origin story is not nearly as consistent as readers believe or remember. With almost each retelling, Cap’s origin has been tweaked and expanded, sometimes contradicting previous accounts in significant ways.

Most versions of the origin run to only three or four pages, with none longer than a standard-length comic. However, by far the most forensic examination of the process through which Steve Rogers became Captain America is the early 1990s limited series Adventures of Captain America (AOCA). Written

by Fabian Nicieza, with pencil art by Kevin Maguire, Kevin West, and Steve Carr, and inks by Joe Rubinstein and Terry Austin, this was an ambitious project of four 48-page issues. Rogers’ training process had received scant attention in previous stories. The selection process, even less. This series was going to address those “gaps,” as well as contend with inconsistencies and the character’s long history.

As the back-cover blurb to AOCA #1 announces: For the first time, complete and unexpurgated, with many never-before-revealed details, it’s the origin of the greatest hero of World War II -- Captain America!”

Surprisingly little analysis of this groundbreaking series has been done. In a riveting face-to-face interview with me at Edinburgh Comic Con on April 15, 2018, Fabian Nicieza revealed the behind-the-scenes events that led to the series, why he thought for so long his series was a failed experiment, and why he now sees it differently. He also explained why he and Maguire felt a sense of injustice after Captain America: The First Avenger was released in 2011.

– Robert Menzies ROBERT MENZIES: Thanks for agreeing to speak to BACK ISSUE about your series, Adventures of Captain America, Fabian. I first wanted to ask if you remember your first Captain America story and what your early impressions of the character were.

FABIAN NICIEZA: I have to be honest, I don’t remember the first Cap issue I read because we first started to get comic books in late ’66, early ’67. We had just come to the United States from Argentina and I was just learning how to read and speak English. My brother, who was three years older, was the one who was really driving the buying and I just ended up looking at whatever

Thrills, Spills, and Chills!

Cover to The Adventures of Captain America #1 (Sept. 1991). Art by Kevin Maguire and Joe Rubinstein.

TM & © Marvel.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 51

he got. The first time I really started to understand what I was reading was late ’67, I was in first grade and my memories really kick in around that time.

We were only allowed to get one or two books a month because they were expensive, 12 cents a book! [laughs] I think the first time I saw Captain America was in a Tales of Suspense issue. I remember mid- to late 1968, Captain America was an Avenger, so I was reading Captain America in The Avengers. I decided I was going to get Avengers every month because for 12 cents I could get lots of heroes instead of just one or two. That was when I started to get The Avengers, in the issue #80s. I continued buying The Avengers every month, all through to my job at Marvel in ’85, and then I got them for free.

So, I became most familiar with Cap through the Avengers, but then I went back and anywhere that a Cap reprint appeared I would end up buying it.

Make Mine Maguire! (top) Fabian Nicieza, the author of The Adventures of Captain America, proudly displays a copy of issue #1. Photo by Robert Menzies, taken on Sunday, April 15, 2018 at the Edinburgh Comic Con. (bottom left) The Adventures of Captain America largely came about because Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco wanted one-time Bullpen artist Kevin Maguire back after Kevin helped make a hit of competitor DC’s Justice League #1 (May 1987). (bottom right) Prior to the Nicieza/Maguire miniseries, Captain America #255’s (Mar. 1981) retelling of Cap’s origin lingered in many fans’ minds.

Cover by John Byrne and Joe Rubinstein, signed by Rubinstein.

From the collection of Robert Menzies.

TM & © Marvel.

52 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

MENZIES: Was he a hero you always liked?

NICIEZA: Yeah, yeah. He was always considered straight-laced and boring, but what I would do is that I would pick up short bursts if something sounded interesting that was going on. I know I got a huge chunk of the Englehart/Buscema run, all the “Secret Empire” stuff, Falcon getting his new wings, I remember distinctly buying that because of the cover. [Interviewer’s note: The Black Panther gifted Falcon his new wings in Captain America #170 (Feb. 1974); the artwork that Nicieza is remembering is John Romita’s classic cover to #171.] I still think it’s one of the best covers ever. I bought the whole “Secret Empire” run [#169–176, Jan.–Aug. 1974] because it was a really interesting story and Englehart was putting Cap through his paces, so I got the whole Nomad arc afterwards. I bought Cap for about a year and a half, up to the point where Frank Robbins took over as artist and that didn’t interest me [#182, Feb. 1975].

I started picking up Cap again when Kirby came back [#193, Jan. 1976]. So, I bought the whole Kirby run while it was coming out. And then I didn’t pay attention to Cap as a monthly book until John Byrne and Roger Stern got on the book [#247, July 1980], and I started buying Cap again.

A little later I saw the Deathlok cover that Zeck did [probably issue #286, Oct. 1983], and the Deathlok story, and I liked a lot of what DeMatteis was doing so I would check that out. So I would always jump back in in bursts, it was never a monthly purchase, but if you look at my original collection from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or whatever, I’ve got a lot of Cap in there. But it wasn’t necessarily my love of Cap that had me working on the project.

MENZIES: So, what brought you to writing Adventures of Captain America?

NICIEZA: The genesis of me working on the project was pretty simple. [Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief] Tom DeFalco wanted Kevin Maguire back. Kevin was ours, and we lost him. [laughs] Kevin was a Romita Raider—he worked on staff for just a short amount of time as one of the Romita Raiders, an art-correction guy. His talent was obvious to everyone—his ability to maintain a monthly schedule was questionable to everyone, including Kevin. [laughs]

Star-Spangled and Steroid Free (top left) Captain America #376 (early Sept. 1990) cover by Ron Lim and Danny Bulanadi. The “Streets of Poison” six-parter was inspired by a fan letter asking regular Cap writer Mark Gruenwald if the serumenhanced Captain America promoted steroid or drug use. A major element of the story was Fabian Stankowicz, the techie hired by Cap, who became hooked on drugs. (top right) Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs #1 (1990). Is it coincidence that this came out in 1990, as the steroid chatter about Steve Rogers was coming to the fore? (bottom) Marvel 1990 – The Year in Review cover by Maguire and Rubinstein. Page 11 has a feature entitled “Cap says no to drugs?

An Avenger confronts the nation’s scourge.”

TM & © Marvel.

He was offered Silver Surfer, the Englehart relaunch of Silver Surfer, or Justice League by [DC Comics editor] Andy Helfer at the same time.

Kurt Busiek had gotten Andy Helfer to agree to get Kevin to draw a miniseries Kurt was trying to sell to DC called Wildcard. Kevin, I think, might have drawn the entire first issue before Andy said, “I don’t want to use him on Wildcard.

Wildcard isn’t as important to me as this Justice League relaunch and I think this is the artist that can really service this better.” So, he offered Kevin Justice League. Kevin was familiar with Andy having already done some work for him. Marvel was offering Silver Surfer.

Kevin was living with me at the time—Kevin and I and an inker named Mark McKenna were all living together—and Kevin was saying, “What should I take?” Silver Surfer was a character he had loved since a kid, he’s easier to draw and it’s easier to draw space scenes. And I said, “Justice League is going to be a bigger thing.

It’s bigger, it’s more important to DC, which means they’ll make you more important as a result.” And it was a more challenging, more difficult book for him to draw but he decided to do Justice League at that time. [Editor’s note: Marshall Rogers was then headhunted for the new Surfer series; see BI #135 for our look at the Silver Surfer in the Bronze Age.] So Kevin had been drawing Justice League for two years, I think it was, and Tom wanted him back. [Editor’s note: DC’s Justice League was retitled Justice League International with issue #7 and Justice League America with issue #26.

Maguire pencilled issues #1–23 (May 1987–Jan. 1989), plus a cover for #24 and a brief return in issue #60.] Tom was frustrated that we had lost him, so Tom said, “What do we do to get him back?” I said, “I dunno, let me ask him.” And Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 53

We Can Rebuild Him, We Can Make Him Stronger Select scenes from issue #1 (top left) New villains are revealed. (top center) Injections have been an inconsistent feature of the process of transforming Steve Rogers into Captain America. In a sneaky and clever move, Nicieza and Maguire inserted this panel with an injection, but it was not part of the actual Super-Soldier transformation scene. Thus, this can be explained as just a vitamin shot or a routine inoculation (penicillin is administered in the film) to distance the character from drug-use accusations. (top right) An unnamed Nick Fury is tapped to instruct Steve Rogers in military strategy.

Note the hand grenade being used as a paperweight! (bottom) Cindy’s concern is incredibly like Peggy Carter’s in the Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) film. Art

by Maguire and Rubinstein.

TM & © Marvel.

Kevin said, “I’d love to do Captain America!”

Tom said, “Fantastic! Okay, we’ll do a Captain America special project!”

I pitched a couple of story ideas, all set in the present day, and Kevin wasn’t as excited by those. Kevin said, “I’d really love to do something set in World War II.” I said, “Really?

It’s a lot more work.” He said, “No, it’ll be a lot more fun!” So we basically pitched “Captain America: The Movie”—that’s what it was.

If Kevin and I were making a movie of Captain America, this is what it would be. It wasn’t intended to be a continuity story, it was not intended to rewrite Marvel history, it was intended to be “Captain America: The Movie.”

We broke it down in Kevin’s basement apartment in Manhattan on his wall, with giant poster boards and index cards. We really broke it down like a three-act structure to a movie, set across four issues with cliffhangers, with betrayals, with love interest, all of that. It was really meant to be like a 1940s cliffhanger serial World War II adventure movie.

MENZIES: I had imagined that the genesis of the series was completely different, that it was a case of, “The 50th anniversary is coming up and this would be a really good time to retell the origin.” The only real attempt to tell a definitive origin that tied up all previous versions had been the classic Captain America #255 by Roger Stern and John Byrne, which itself was a 40th anniversary special. But I’ve got this all completely wrong.

NICIEZA: It makes logical sense to think that way, but it was the cart coming before the horse. Once Kevin said he wanted it to be

54 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

during World War II, then everything else fell into place. Then everyone said, “That’s great! The 50th anniversary is coming up.

We can retell the origin!” And I remember there were some people at Marvel who were queasy about it. They didn’t want me—who didn’t have that much writing experience at that time and was getting this plum project just because of my friendship with Kevin—to retell the origin. And, look, I was on staff there, they were all my friends, I knew them all, I understood that push and pull between the new and the old. I got it. I always was a guy who tried to bridge that gap and be the middle, between the two voices. I always loved and respected the old and I always wanted to try to push for the new.

The biggest one we had to get on board was Mark [Gruenwald], because he had been writing Cap since forever and he was really wary of someone else getting the anniversary project. Even though I was friends with him, it was still daunting to him until Tom, in his brilliance, assigned Mark as the editor of the project, which is both a slap in the face and a smart administrative decision because it makes your most daunting, questioning critic intimately engaged and engrossed in the project!

At first I was worried that Mark was going to be the editor, but that quickly dissipated because I was able to convince him that we don’t care necessarily about continuity, we’re fleshing out between the panels of existing continuity in such a way that it’s building a story so if you care about continuity you can find a way to make it fit, but ultimately I told

him we’re making a movie. This was going to be better than Cannon’s [1990 film] version of Captain America, and he bought it. He said, “I get it, I understand it. It’s not imposing or impinging on anyone else. It doesn’t have to be referred to in footnotes in the regular series or anything like that.” Of course, I folded it into mainstream continuity in New Warriors, but that’s a whole other matter! [laughs] That’s just me being me. I didn’t want to waste good character opportunities.

But we were able to sell Mark on it, and Mark was intimately involved in the entire opening salvo where we broke down the story, presented it to them, what our issue breaks were going to be…

Mark was engaged and involved in all of that. Then he became executive editor and so other editors got involved—Greg Wright stepped up and took over more of it. But at the beginning, it was Mark.

MENZIES: I don’t remember the series ever being referred to in Cap’s monthly series, even though it doesn’t really contradict any previous origins.

And, of course, other accounts had contradictions.

To make this easier for me, I tabulated the different accounts.

NICIEZA: Wow. You’re kidding me. That made it easier?!? [laughs]

NICIEZA: Yeah, probably. I really respected Roger Stern, so did Mark. It was a version that took into account what had come before but told it in a streamlined and clean way. Ultimately, I would have to say in many ways there has not been an origin retelling that has been as detailed as ours.

Because we fleshed it out and expanded it in very logical ways. They shortcut so much, in the ’40s especially, but certainly even in the ’60s and later, they shortcut stuff. We had the luxury of not needing to shortcut. The minute we knew we had pages to flesh out and a lot of story that we could tell, that’s when we started saying, “Well, let’s think about this logically. If this is a real government program, is he really going to be the only one? If there’s a real government program, are they not going to test for who it should be rather than finding one guy in a recruitment center and saying, ‘This is the one’? Wouldn’t they want different body types, with different physical characteristics, different mental abilities? That’s why we fleshed it out the way we did. We knew that that made logical sense and we also knew that it would be a good story to tell.

Meet the Perfect Man In previous accounts, Rogers is (implausibly) sitting up or standing during his transformation. AOCA #1’s page 29, shown here, is the first where he is strapped down.

The narrative also added the chamber to contain the Vita-rays, another concession to realism.

TM & © Marvel.

MENZIES: [showing Nicieza his table of Cap origins] So, I can see that Joseph Rogers died when Steve was young, and that that first pops up in the Stern/Byrne origin. You kept that. You retained the part about the young Steve being a reader and an artist, too.

NICIEZA: Yes, because he’s working for the government agencies.

MENZIES: There are certain things you dropped from the origin, though, like the young agent disguised as an old woman.

NICIEZA: Yeah, because that conflicted with us introducing Cindy [Lieutenant Cynthia Glass/ Agent X] and her being an important character.

Originally, we had discussed whether that should be Peggy Carter. Or there was another woman character, wasn’t there, back then? In the actual ’40s. Betsy [Ross]? We talked about using a Golden Age character, we talked about Peggy, although she wasn’t originally from the Golden Age. She was shoehorned in in the ’60s. We knew she was going to be the one who betrays him, we knew she would end up dying. We did not want to alter continuity to that degree.

What Cindy’s character becomes is an examination of why Steve Rogers will always have difficulty maintaining normal relationships, not just because of the betrayal but because of the cost of being Captain America and a certain hesitancy on his part to trust, you know, because his first love betrayed him. So, that’s why we did that. The dynamic we wanted to create was a three-way dynamic between Colonel Fletcher, the experienced, grizzled veteran; Steve, the newbie; and her. We did it, and quite frankly they lifted it for the [Captain America: The First Avenger] movie, too.

MENZIES: It does look to me that the version you’ve dipped into the most is the one from #255.

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Danger, Adventure, and Comedy! (left) Cover to The Adventures of Captain America #2 (Nov. 1991).

Art by Kevin Maguire and Terry Austin. From issue #2: (top right) Steve Rogers at Camp Leigh receives a call from Col. Fletcher, the template for the Tommy Lee Jones character in the first Captain America movie. (bottom right) The scenes with Bucky redefined the character and are a highlight of the series.

Art by Maguire and Austin.

TM & © Marvel.

MENZIES: You’ve also created a window for other writers there. Steve Rogers is test subject 223—it’s not even just double figures, it’s in the hundreds. You’ve paved the way for other, earlier Super-Soldier subjects like Protocide and the characters in Red, White & Black to be retconned into Cap’s history.

Another aspect of your version that builds on Captain America #255 is the tactical training.

In #255, a white-haired general-type instructs Steve on the military tactics, whereas in your version it’s an unnamed Nick Fury, isn’t it?

You slightly contradict Stan and Jack as they had Cap and Fury meet later, but it’s a really fun change.

NICIEZA: Yes, I think that was Sgt. Fury.

MENZIES: He pops up twice. I really liked that retcon, although it seems to have flown under the radar. Even the Marvel Database doesn’t list Nick as a cast member.

NICIEZA: Again, these are non-controversial tweaks, you know what I mean? They’re not tweaks that should offend anyone’s sensibilities.

We drew lots of stuff. I can’t remember the specifics. But a panel like that is a launching point for Kevin and me to talk about, “What is this one image of him and a Japanese sensei

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master or whatever, what is that? A page, two pages, what do we do with that? How do we make it a scene about Steve?”

MENZIES: It was just them bowing to each other in the Stern/Byrne version, but you have him apparently underestimating someone who’s smaller than him and being thrown over.

It’s much more interesting. That’s one of the panels with Nick.

NICIEZA: We quietly threw him in a couple of times. We wanted it to be subtle, on purpose, you know?

MENZIES: He’s just “Sarge.” But it’s the dialogue. That image is quite small. And Fury was always stubbly and he’s not here, which could throw you off. That was a nice addition. I honestly think I didn’t notice that the first time I read it, although it’s pretty obvious. I just saw it as another soldier, possibly because I “knew” that Cap and Fury met later.

NICIEZA: We were just trying to use what was available to us in a clever way without drawing too much attention to it. Using his name would have drawn too much attention to it. We didn’t want anyone saying, “No, you can’t have Nick Fury meet Steve Rogers before he’s Captain

Heart of Glass (left) Steve’s love interest, Lt. Cindy Glass, introduced in AOCA #2. (right) Hayley Atwell and Chris Evans as Agent Carter and Steve Rogers, respectively, in Captain America: The First Avenger.

A great deal of Atwell’s role can be found in the portrayal of Lt. Glass in The Adventures of Captain America.

TM & © Marvel.

America because he never did in continuity!” We were just trying to do stuff that was sly and smart and fun, you know, in a way that wouldn’t draw too much attention to it.

MENZIES: Stan was constantly changing things as well, or forgetting what had happened in earlier stories.

NICIEZA: Yeah, but this was different. We were in an age where we were trying to wrestle a greater control over the continuity and not make those mistakes and not make those contradictions and Mark was really gung-ho about that stuff, obviously. He was the editor of the Handbooks, you know, so you had to be smart about how you went around it.

Mark would read something like that and that would make him laugh, make him chuckle… he liked that because he got it, and he got it in the way that didn’t offend anyone. So there were no issues when you do it like that. If I tried to do a sequence where Cap and Fury are on some underwater assignment to stop a German spy ring in the US, then Mark would say, “No, that’s pushing it too much.”

MENZIES: The other interesting thing is, in the original Simon & Kirby account of Cap’s origin, and ones after, there are no Vita-rays. Steve’s sort of luminous, or glowing.

It’s symbolic, though—he’s not really lit up, he’s just changing.

The catalyst of change is an injection or him drinking an oral compound, and that later develops into the Vita-rays.

Some versions have just one catalyst, like he drinks a serum.

Some have two, a combination of any two, like liquid serum taken orally combined with Vita-rays or an injection and Vita-rays.

And then there’s three. That’s what happened with the Stern/ Byrne version. I suspect that some of the time the injections were taken out because of the Comics Code Authority, and later for a fear of Cap promoting steroids.

NICIEZA: There might have been, as we learning more about steroids and chemical use in the ’60s, and all of this stuff, they wanted to get away from the idea that Cap is a creation of chemicals. That means anyone can be Cap and that is not supposed to be the idea. So, they added layers to it to get away from drugs, to get away from steroids, and make it something that was almost in a way specific to Steve. I knew

that when we approached it, and the way the movie did, and just everyone does now, it should be a combination of chemical concoctions and these mysterious Vita-rays.

And the Vita-rays work best on him because he was tested and he was conditioned and prepared for it physically. It shouldn’t be that you can just walk in off the street and take the Super-Soldier serum and become a Super-Soldier. It shouldn’t be that easy. That was the whole idea behind it: we were following along with what was logically expected of us.

MENZIES: There is an injection scene in the process but not in the transformation scene.

NICIEZA: He was getting injections to prep him for the Vita-rays, right?

MENZIES: Yeah. What I was wondering is the year before your Adventures of Captain America series, there was the “Streets of Poison” storyline. I don’t know if you remember that? [Editor’s note: The Mark Gruenwald–written “Streets of Poison” storyline appeared in Captain America #372–378 (May–Aug. 1990).]

NICIEZA: Yeah, but we were working really independently of that. You have to take into account that during the amount of time it took Kevin to draw this thing, Mark and [then–Captain America penciler Ron] Lim probably lapped us as our first two plots may have been finished, or our first three plots may have been finished, well in advance of the “Streets of Poison” story… I just don’t remember the timing.

MENZIES: The whole “Streets of Poison” story happened because of a letter Mark Gruenwald received. The letter asked whether Captain America, by taking this drug, is just an advert for steroids… I wondered if that had had any impact on your series.

NICIEZA: Not that I recall. That was also a biweekly book, wasn’t it?

MENZIES: Some of it was, yes.

NICIEZA: Schedules being what they are, and the reality of it, Mark was just working on what he’s got to work on. I was familiar with what they were doing, but it wasn’t affecting us one way or the other.

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MENZIES: The other main thing I wanted to ask you about was the film, 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger. There are lots of elements from the series that you wrote— NICIEZA: [very animated] Yeah, you noticed, huh?! Huh, what a surprise we didn’t get a credit in there! Go figure!

MENZIES: I mean, for Hodge alone, the bully in the training camp, you’ve got the name and the same personality. Even the way he propositions Peggy in the film is like the crude come-on to Cindy in your book.

NICIEZA: The triangle between Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell and Chris Evans is the same exact triangle, really, as we have in our book. The relationship between, what is it, Phillips in the movie…? Yeah, it’s General Phillips that Tommy Lee Jones plays in the movie.

MENZIES: Yes. NICIEZA: And our Fletcher is very similar in personality and tone and style. Captain America wearing a leather jacket in the movie when he goes off into battle, the art director of the movie actually cited Kevin’s work and the use of the leather jacket in our series is their inspiration for him putting him in that look in the movie. Kevin and I saw the movie together, we went to go see the movie together, and before the movie starts, we said, “I wonder if they’re going to use any of our stuff?” And the opening scene, after the present day, is Steve Rogers watching the newsreels in a movie theater. And that was how we opened. And Kevin and I looked at each other and said, “I guess they are!” and that was it.

We watched the movie and we both enjoyed it a lot and we sat and waited as the credits rolled and saw the special thankyous they had, and our names weren’t on it. After really enjoying the movie, we both left the theatre really sad and frustrated that we weren’t acknowledged. Marvel Studios is usually really good about that, so when they’re not pretty good you give them the benefit of the doubt. The fact they weren’t good to me and Kevin, I separate from the understanding of the reality they’re usually pretty good about that. They weren’t in this case. They should have given us a thank-you credit because they drew a tremendous amount of material from our storyline. It’s disappointing they didn’t acknowledge that.

Bring on the Bad Guys (top) The Red Skull oozes menace in this image from issue #2, page 27.

On that page the Skull broods while standing in front of a large window, just as his cinematic equivalent does in the 2011 Cap movie. (bottom) Also from AOCA #2: Meet Das Vernichtungs-Kommandoes (the Extermination Commandos): Blitzkrieg, Zahnmorder, and Suppressant.

TM & © Marvel.

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MENZIES: I’m very surprised. As you say, in the opening scene there’s the argument in the cinema, which leads to the alley fight. There are other accounts that have Steve watching the newsreels, but yours is the only version that has the argument. The film takes it one step further and has the fight outside.

NICIEZA: The film did a great job. They know how to condense. We had four 48-page issues.

They had a 180-page script. They understood very smartly how to condense. And showing Steve’s stubborn bravery in the face of a

Action, Romance, and Drama! (left) Cover to The Adventures of Captain America #3 (Dec. 1991). Art by Kevin Maguire and Terry Austin.

Highlights from issue #3: (top right ) Bucky accidentally discovers Steve Rogers is Captain America. Cap’s secret identity, in fact, is nearly revealed in an earlier scene with Sgt. Duffy in #2, which is a neat foreshadowing of what is to come and makes his eventual exposure more plausible. (bottom right) One of many striking images from the series, this shows Cap grieving over the violent death of Col. Fletcher, Cap’s mentor in the series, who committed suicide to avoid betraying the Allies.

TM & © Marvel.

bully as your opening establishment of him is a great, great introduction to the character. I loved the movie, I really did, I thought The First Avenger was an excellent movie.

MENZIES: I did, too. Chris Evans is wonderful as Steve/Cap. NICIEZA: It is one of my top five favorite Marvel movies. But all that being said, yes, they drew a lot from our stuff, and that’s fine, I’m glad that they did, I just would have liked to have been acknowledged for it.

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kevin maguire Super Festivals.

To the Rescue Hopefully you’re sitting, because this gorgeous page from issue #3 will knock you off your feet! Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Marvel.

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Showdown, Break-Out, and Defeat (plus the loss of an artist)!

Cover to The Adventures of Captain America #4 (Jan. 1992). Art by Kevin Maguire and Terry Austin.

TM & © Marvel.

That being said, they still had the single greatest bit and Kevin and I were angry as hell that we hadn’t thought of it [laughs], which was Steve diving on the grenade, when he thought it was a live grenade. That right there is just the absolute best single Steve Rogers scene that we’ve seen yet in a movie.

MENZIES: There are smaller beats that seem to be from your book. There was a character being cynical about Steve. At one point a doctor says, “Gumption won’t dodge bullets,” and in the film it’s Tommy Lee Jones, General Phillips, saying, “You don’t win wars with niceness.” There are other similarities. But the biggest parallel is having the love interest. That’s a really big plot element that’s not in any other version. That seems a direct lift from your book. They’ve changed it in that the female character is different, but having a love interest who is part of the origin is not part of any other account.

NICIEZA: But that’s really good story structure for a movie.

That’s a very smart thing to introduce into a movie. They introduced it very smartly, very nicely. It was going to be a bitter resolution no matter what, so I thought they did a really, really good job with it. To me the triangle is the key, the copy of our triangle to their triangle, it’s what drove a lot of our story and which drives a lot of their story. And that’s really the key to me.

The Cindy character is not really the Peggy character—there are a lot of differences—but it is about having that triangle that’s the most important thing story wise.

Look, I liked our approach for what we needed to do, but it’s very different than doing a 120-page script, you know. I liked for the most part all of the choices they made, there’s few things with the Red Skull that I would have done differently. I get why they had to do it, but I like our Red Skull being much more part of the entire structure of the Nazi organization and all of that stuff. I thought ours worked better. I like our arena thing. I like Cap realizing how much better a circular shield is as a result of fighting the Red Skull. Stuff like that I liked.

MENZIES: I really liked that. In Cap #255, it’s just President Franklin D. Roosevelt handing Cap the new shield, which is an admittedly cool scene with FDR acting almost like a surrogate father figure. Mark Gruenwald and Marc DeMatteis used to write Cap as if he and the Red Skull were almost mirror images of one another. In one version, Cap was created to be a propaganda opposite of the Skull, so for you to tie them together like that was one of my favorite parts of the series. The irony is that a Skull weapon saves Cap. One last question: What was the reception like for AOCA? I remember it going down really well, and I certainly enjoyed it, although the one thing I do recall is that because Kevin wasn’t able to finish it that caused some grumbles.

NICIEZA: I think at the time it landed as a failed experiment, it landed as a… I don’t want to disparage it because it’s not fair, but because it took so long to come out, because Kevin couldn’t finish it, it all landed with a thud. It didn’t explode onto the scene, it landed with an “Oh, this is finally coming out. His anniversary was a year ago!” That’s why at the time it was a huge disappointment for all of us. For Kevin, for me, for Marvel.

The two guys who had to finish it up, Steve Carr and Kevin West, are guys who are looked at just as guys who had to fill in but they worked their asses off and did as good as job as they

humanely could considering they had to finish up a story that was started by someone who had come on the scene as explosively as Kevin had.

There was nothing about this project when it came out finally that was anything that I was really excited about because it all fell apart. I was doing so much other work by the time that when it came out, I didn’t have time to even think that much about it. It was finally out—okay, it’s finally out. I wasn’t happy with the coloring, not necessarily Paul Mounts’ coloring, because I think Paul did a good job if you see the originals, I wasn’t happy with the printing. It all printed too dark and muddy, the whole thing didn’t look good.

So I wasn’t happy with the whole thing. I thought this was going to be the project that makes my name in comics, but I had already made my name in comics by the time it came out!

That was the irony of it, you know. I just reread it for the first time in 20-something years when the trade paperback came out, and a lot of it holds up and a lot of it doesn’t. A lot of it’s really, really good and a lot of it isn’t. It ends up being a flawed project that had a lot of really good things in it.

MENZIES: I’m glad you feel more positive about it now. I really enjoyed it.

NICIEZA: I’m glad you did. A lot of people did. A lot of Cap fans really liked it a lot. You were a Cap fan, a lot of Cap fans really liked it a lot because it was very, very respectful to Cap. Because I am very, very respectful to Cap, and Kevin is very, very respectful to Cap. We love the character.

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Heroes Forevermore The final page (page 48) of the last issue (#4). Art by Steve Carr, Kevin West, and Terry Austin.

TM & © Marvel.

The biggest negative, in hindsight, after Kevin drew Captain America, every other artist had to draw every scale of chain mail in Cap’s uniform, so all it has done is slow down every single artist who’s drawn Cap because Kevin decided he was going to draw every link of chain mail.

John Cassaday’s and Bryan Hitch’s Cap are completely patterned after Kevin’s. I honestly think Kevin set the tone for how the character was going to look for the next 25 years. It has just started to deviate from that in the last five or so years. For all of the late ’90s through to the ’00s, everyone was drawing Kevin’s Cap. And Kevin drew his own Cap: Kevin’s Cap wasn’t Kirby. And it wasn’t Sal Buscema’s, and it wasn’t John Romita’s. Kevin’s Cap was his own Captain America because he tailored his drawing style and his realism, combined with a little bit of his cartoonishness and a ridiculous obsession with detail, and he merged all of these into a very visual and definitive Cap.

MENZIES: I thought the character he redefined more than any other was Bucky, actually.

NICIEZA: I like our Bucky better than “machinegun Bucky” of the last 20 years.

MENZIES: Bucky wasn’t a three-dimensional character for a long time.

NICIEZA: I like Bucky the con man, I like Bucky as Matthew Broderick in Ladyhawke (1985). I like him being smart and sly and conniving because that’s different from what Steve is and that brings something to the table that’s different to what Steve brings to the table. You don’t need Bucky to be an expert marksman-sharpshooter who kills people from hundreds of yards away like they did in the comics the last 15–20 years.

MENZIES: And the films.

NICIEZA: The Bucky in the film I don’t even qualify because the Bucky in the film is his contemporary, his friend, a person the same age as him. The avoided the kid sidekick trope completely by not making him a kid.

MENZIES: He’s still the sharpshooter, I was meaning.

NICIEZA: But he’s a soldier now. He was a soldier before Steve was a soldier. I don’t qualify the movie Bucky as the comic Bucky because it’s not. It’s its own entity and it works very, very well for the cinematic universe, but in comics he’s always been a teenager, he’s always been a sidekick. We’ve always tried to justify in our present-day terms why he would be part of that mix, why the Army would let him be part of that mix. I think Kevin came up with the solution to it. I like our solution, quite frankly, much more than the more recent Brubaker stuff, with him being a killing machine. Even if he were in the military, the Army wouldn’t allow a 15-year-old to go out on the field of battle. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds slid in by lying to get drafted but it was the exception, not the rule. Certainly not someone as visual as Bucky would have been.

I’m happy with our Bucky, I liked him a lot. He was a clever, fun character to write.

MENZIES: He stole nearly every scene he was in.

NICIEZA: Yeah.

MENZIES: You look at the Bucky standing with Cap on the cover of #255, and then Kevin’s Bucky on the cover of Adventures of Captain America #1, it’s totally different.

NICIEZA: It’s all attitude, it’s all “Look at me!” He’s actually front and center, and Steve’s behind.

MENZIES: Thanks for making time to sit down with me, Fabian.

NICIEZA: I enjoyed chatting about this.

Huge thanks to Fabian Nicieza, who was enormously generous with his time, recollections, and insights. Also thanks to James Lundy, Managing Director of Edinburgh Comic Con, and all the ECC and EICC staff.

Hands down, ROBERT MENZIES’ favourite superhero is Captain America, and The Adventures of Captain America is one of his favorite miniseries.

62 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

by D a n

Ta n d a r i c h

Movie producer Michael Uslan may be known as The Boy Who Loved Batman, but he also loves superheroes, including Marvel’s vast gallery of crimefighters and world-savers, as well as history, movies, and New Jersey.

Uslan pitched three Marvel potential storylines in the 2000s. He thought big… and what could be bigger than Marvel’s own version of DC’s epic Crisis on Infinite Earths, starring the Cosmic Cube?

The Cube played into Uslan’s envisioned action epic featuring a WWII adventure melding history and superheroes. And, coming full circle in this Marvel triple feature, we end with an idea introducing a Marvel version of DC Comics’ Earth-Two with Golden Age incarnations of Marvel’s Silver Age heroes.

So, what if Michael Uslan had paused his movie producer occupation and authored stories for Marvel? Well, wonder no more, as “The Greatest Stories Never Told” reveals more of Michael Uslan’s takes on the Marvel Universe! But fair warning, when one reads a Michael Uslan story, they better be prepared to research history, watch a few michael uslan movies for references, and a trip to New Jersey wouldn’t hurt either.

In his 2022 book Batman’s Batman, Uslan shared, “Long before anyone thought to make an Avengers movie, I wanted to write a miniseries called The Cosmic Cube… I was told that it tied into too many characters whose storylines were already set for the next year or two.” But had this story been published, it would have had major ramifications.

Uslan reveals to BACK ISSUE, “This was to be the Marvel Comics version of DC’s Crisis [on Infinite Earths]. And I already knew there were A-list artists who wanted to bring these tales to life.”

The Cosmic Cube can do virtually anything. It is the ultimate power! And everything you think you know about it is untrue! Uslan’s plot reads, “But it has its own supreme intelligent design that… never would have allowed any of its real secrets and

‘He Who Holds the Cosmic Cube’… …wields unfathomable power, as shown

by Jack Kirby (inked by Don Heck) on this augmented detail from the cover art from Tales of Suspense #80 (Aug. 1966). Decades after the King of Comics drew this dynamite cover, Michael Uslan imagined a new opus involving the Cube whose effects would ripple throughout the Marvel Universe.

TM & © Marvel.

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COSMIC AVENGERS ROLL CALL

thanos

eternity

odin

the beyonder

living tribunal

All characters TM & © Marvel.

the watcher

ikaris the eternal

origins to be revealed to human, demon, cosmic entity or god. Like the Joker in The Killing Joke, everything the universe thought it knew about the Cosmic Cube is nothing but perception and memory manipulation and disinformation for the purpose of keeping its great secret unknown.”

Who would kick off this monumental storyline? None other than Galactus!

The world-devourer hungers. Constantly searching for planets to consume as a food source is exhausting. He wants to set his table for the foreseeable future.

A new Big Bang would repopulate the universe with planets. But would even he survive that implosion? Galactus would need the added protection of the Cosmic Cube for assurance.

Through his heralds and an enthralled Silver Surfer, Galactus attains the Cube. However, as soon as the Big G taps into its power, the all-powerful object has its own agenda and resurrects the deathworshipping Thanos.

To stop Galactus, Thanos believes he needs the most powerful forces in the universe, an assemblage that can only be called—the Cosmic Avengers! The roll call consists of a who’s who of Marvel’s cosmic characters: Eternity, Odin, the Beyonder, the Living Tribunal, the Eternals, the Celestials, the In-Betweener, the Stranger, Lord Chaos and Master Order, Lady Death, the High Evolutionary, the Watcher, and others…

Mentor, Thanos’ father, pulled into this affair by his estranged son, believes brains and not brawn will win this battle. From Uslan’s script: “[Mentor] is convinced that the inhumanity of Galactus can only be checked by the humanity of Earth’s mankind.” And with that ideology, the Braintrust is formed!

Only it is not the costumed identities needed for this but the super-brains of Dr. Reed Richards, Professor Charles Xavier, Dr. Bruce Banner, Dr. Henry Pym, Tony Stark, Dr. Doom, and Magneto.

Uslan wanted to set the stage for the next evolution of Marvel storytelling. Here, he had some help from fellow writer David Uslan, his son.

“David was the one who knew every single bit of the continuity of all these characters within the Marvel Cosmic Universe. I could not move a muscle without him functioning not as ‘The Living Tribunal,’ but rather as ‘The Living Encyclopedia.’”

But remember, the Cosmic Cube stars in this affair! It controlled villains like the Red Skull, A.I.M., Thanos, MODOK, and the Magus, just like a puppeteer: “Every single one of them was manipulated by the Cosmic Cube for its own hidden purposes and no one has even a clue as to what the Cosmic Cube is, how it was created, or its only true raison d’etre.” Uslan urges the reader to think of “a much, much smarter version of Green Lantern’s ring.”

Can Anything ‘Cube’ His Appetite?

“Marvel’s cosmic mythology will be reshaped, and the landscape changed in The War of the Cosmic The planet-devouring Galactus would have Cube!” Uslan reveals it as “the cosmic equivalent of acquired Marvel’s ultimate power source the climactic battle in... 300.” Galactus and the Cosmic Cube versus Thanos and the Cosmic Avengers! in Uslan’s proposed Cosmic Cube limited Place your bets! This would be a culling of the cosmic series. The Galactus image, by Kirby and entities with those left standing more clearly defined.

One specific event would tap into another famous George Klein, hails from the cover of Thor movie scene. Uslan shares, “The Watcher, who #168 (Sept. 1969). would become the equivalent of Martin Sheen in the last scene of Apocalypse Now, is in a state of TM & © Marvel.

64 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

braintrust ROLL CALL

reed richards

professor x

bruce banner

henry pym

dr. doom

magneto

tony stark

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 65

All characters TM & © Marvel.

shock and awe, repeating the words, ‘the horror… the horror…’”

However, the High Evolutionary takes matters into his own hands and engulfs the Cube in a cosmic cocoon reminiscent of the ones Adam Warlock/Him would occasionally find himself in. If the Cosmic Cube evolves into a higher state, it may develop empathy and care for humankind and life throughout the universe. Surprisingly, two cocoons form, crackling with celestial energy. According to Uslan’s story, “Emerging from one is a physical entity version of the Cosmic Cube we will come to know as the word ‘Cosmic’ followed by a small number ‘3’ after it, to be pronounced as ‘Comic Cubed.’ From its connected cocoon, what unexpectedly emerges is ‘Him’ born again… a being we will one day again know as Adam Warlock, starting over from the beginning, yet now eternally linked to the Cosmic Cube and its ever-secret origin and reason for being.”

Uslan wanted a way to explore Him and the Infinity Gems and the Infinity Gauntlet all over again: “…very powerful and popular concepts that made the Marvel Cosmic Universe such a wonderful, mind-boggling place can now be restored for a new generation of writers to explore.”

The plot synopsis ends with the wisdom of the Braintrust attempting to learn from the Cosmic Cube to save the universe. And with that trust, the Cube learns something as well… “[m]ankind is worth existing and worth saving.” One would think this guy Uslan was producing a movie or something!

This treatment could have been the basis for years’ worth of Marvel stories. After the miniseries, Uslan envisioned four ongoing titles: The Braintrust, The Cosmic Avengers, Adam Warlock, and Cosmic Cubed. Also, 20 one-shots would have been rolled out for characters such as Reed Richards, Thanos, Silver Surfer, the Living Tribunal, Lady Death, Henry Pym, and many of the other cosmic entities previously mentioned.

Would the Cosmic Cube have revealed some of its secrets? Uslan would still love to tell this story one day, but the curtain can be pulled back on some of the details.

“The High Evolutionary in the 1940s, amid the savagery of World War II and the horrors [he] saw mankind inflicting upon mankind, had enough of humans,” Uslan tells BACK ISSUE. “Rather than see them obliterate themselves out of existence as they dabble brainlessly with forces they would never grow mature and wise enough to control… the High Evolutionary elects to blaze a path for mankind to evolve into a higher state of being. If the atomic work of Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Fermi can ignite Earth’s atmosphere and burn a rift through space-time, the High Evolutionary can use that as a cosmic fuse.”

Uslan continues, “Recruiting to his new cause his all-powerful allies [the Cosmic Avengers], the High Evolutionary can encapsulate the power of a black hole rift with a human fully engorged in the Super-Soldier Serum, all within a cosmic matrix they all manipulate by twisting science and physics. With the added highest power of magic channeled through Eternity, the matrix will spawn a Supreme Being who will be the ‘Adam’ of a higher

and mightier form of life on Earth, one that could take a welcomed presence in the universe, free of the hatred, the lust for power, and the greed of the lowly human race.” Eventually, a standoff would occur between the new Cosmic Cubed and Galactus, and only one would remain. Whew!

From a Cosmic Cube Crisis we now move on to WWII. But, as you’ll read, the Cosmic Cube continues to play a role in the next story. Maybe there’s more to the Cube’s manipulation than we thought.

Uslan first approached Marvel editor Tom Brevoort about a “Marvel Mystery” story in 2007. By 2010, the idea was still on the back burner at the House of Ideas, but now Uslan had a dream collaborator for the project… the legendary Joe Kubert!

Marvel had an anniversary venture already taking place in The Marvels Project and wanted a bit of distance between the two stories so they would stand apart in comic readers’ minds. That distance resulted in Uslan’s story not getting past the idea phase.

Marvel Mystery Comics. The setting: March 1941. Princeton, New Jersey. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Dr. Albert Einstein if Germany has gained nuclear weapons secrets.

Einstein thinks it may be worse than that.

“What could be more powerful than an atomic bomb?” wonders FDR. “A cosmic cube,” replies Einstein.

And with that, the stage is set for action!

Cut to Berlin and FBI agents Keen Marlowe (the Destroyer) and Louise Grant (X-13). The operatives need to infiltrate the Kit Kat Club. Lieber Und Schomburg, a celebrated costume shop, will provide them with what they need. Movie magic ephemera and props get a second life. From 1925’s Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney and 1932’s Blonde Venus starring Marlene Dietrich comes the look of X-13, now nicknamed Blonde

Phantom, complete with evening gloves, gown, and the top part of Chaney’s mask painted black. Marlowe transforms with a demonic-looking costume including a mask reminiscent of Nosferatu.

The FBI agents must gather information on a very specific Nazi operative. Enter: Tillie! From Uslan’s plot, “Inside is the show’s tuxedoed emcee who, though masked in clown makeup (think Joel Grey in Cabaret), exudes a chilling, scary visage presaging death.” The bizarre, toothy clown face of Coney Island’s Luna Park (and Asbury Park in New Jersey), also known as Funny Face, greets all visitors of the world-famous amusement facility. Only it is a real-life Tillie, who has also taken on the role of a Nazi agent and teamed up with the Red Skull. Uslan explains, “The grinning face of Tillie on the side of Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, New Jersey, was always the Joker. I connected the two when I was no more than five years old.”

Back in New Jersey, dangerous times make for strange and dangerous bedfellows. Operation: Underworld teamed the FBI with Murder, Inc. to make sure America created the first atomic bomb. Einstein delivers a stern warning about the weapon.

“An atomic bomb blast in the atmosphere could open a rift into another dimension… a parallel universe… creating a hole of blackness from which immeasurable quantities of dark cosmic energies could slip through. If contained, this vast energy could be so potentially great that it could theoretically manifest thoughts as reality, creating on Earth a… supreme being. Its only possibility for containment would be to channel it into a matrix constructed out of a solid version of Professor Reinstein’s Super-Soldier Serum if that serum proves successful in its testing.”

A connection between Professor Reinstein’s Super-Soldier Serum and the secrets of the atomic bomb? Nazi scientist Baron Zemo will stop at nothing to get his hands on the serum.

The Destroyer manages to infiltrate a Nazi meeting, but…

BANG! Tillie, the Nazi Joker, shoots the Destroyer once he notices something suspicious. Just then the mélange of Operation: Underworld with its mystery men and mobsters rush in. Cap, Torch, the Young Allies led by Bucky and Toro, and Louise Grant take what Nazis they can round up into custody while the members of Murder, Inc. use a more permanent solution. In the confusion, the Red Skull and Tillie escape, but the Destroyer relays their plans before he dies.

Cap and Bucky take off for London, England, to confront Baron Zemo and stop the attempt to steal the R.A.F.’s experimental drone plane, the perfect delivery system for the bomb.

The date is May 8, 1945. In the flashback tale, the events of what happened to Cap and Bucky were related in Avengers #4 (Mar. 1964). The drone plane was stopped at the cost of Cap and his decades in suspended animation and Bucky’s “demise.”

The Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch team up to take out the Red Skull. Neither is too familiar with New Jersey, but thanks to their allies in Murder, Inc. they have “eyes and ears all over the state,” which leads them to Asbury Park, one of New Jersey’s bustling summer getaway destinations.

Looking for a place to celebrate the victory, the Young Allies go to the amusement park in Asbury called Palace Amusements. But, upon arrival, Toro sees the bizarre countenance of Tillie on a green building, practically identical

Saluting Marvel’s Golden Age Uslan had big plans for Marvel’s—then Timely Comics— Golden Age characters, including the skull-chested Destroyer, in his proposed Marvel Mystery Comics. Cover to All Winners Comics #2 (Fall 1941). Artist unknown.

TM & © Marvel.

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to the one in Luna Park. With its funhouse and Ferris wheel, Palace Amusements provides the incongruous backdrop for the deadly battle where the fire and water of the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner defeat the Red Skull.

Later, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, and Toro meet at the office of Timely Comics in the Empire State Building.

“Torch recalls the Destroyer reporting Tillie said this plane was going to fall the same way the King did.”

“Which King?” wonders Sub-Mariner.

The Torch lights up. “The Manhattan Project’s in the Empire State Building!” he exclaims. “You tell me which King he meant!”

Sub-Mariner, a non-movie buff, still doesn’t get it. (Maybe Fay Wray could give him a hint!)

Suddenly, disaster strikes! The B-25 plane carrying the U-235 necessary for a nuclear chain reaction slams into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building. Civilians die. But the U-235 remains safe.

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States releases atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And with that, Japan surrenders, but Tillie hasn’t and wants to unleash his own A-bombs on an unsuspecting Times Square.

Hoover rallies the heroes as never before. But first, he must share the news that Cap and Bucky never made it back from their mission.

Tillie is ready to blow: “Yes! The War is over! It’s all over! And Hitler and his Man Who Laughs shall have the last laugh!”

The Torch ignites, fireballing Tillie right in the face. Louise grabs the bomb but doesn’t know how to deactivate it. Einstein studies it intensely, and then… clips a red wire. Problem solved.

The enemy now knows about the Cosmic Cube. “If Captain America truly is dead, who will be here to stop them?” Einstein says.

Louise responds, “Captain America is a symbol, not a man.

And since The Human Torch isn’t actually human, and since Namor is an Atlantean, I’m sure that 50, 60, even 70 years from now, our country will still have a Captain America, Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner fighting the good fight.”

Einstein ends with, “And that would be a… marvel.”

Regarding the connection between the atomic bomb and the Super-Soldier Serum, Uslan explains, “Together in a matrix, they create the Cosmic Cube. If used to its max in that form, it becomes one of the most powerful weapons in the universe.

If used as a matrix, it can create more than a Super-Soldier, but rather like a being such as Dr. Manhattan.”

How would Uslan have envisioned a Joker in the Marvel Universe? He explains, “During World War II, he represented the threat and depravity of Nazi Germany. Post–World War II, he would have been more in the background, sowing seeds of hate. He would have been the force behind Senator Joe McCarthy and the manipulator of politicians in an attempt to turn

The Inspiration for ‘The Marvel Universe’s Joker’ Tillie, the clown with the creepy Cheshire Cat smile, on the Palace Amusements attraction in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in a 1990 photo (the business closed in 1988).

Tillie’s toothy grin originated with Brooklyn, New York’s Coney Island theme park, which started in 1897.

Named after park founder George C. Tilyou, Tillie’s visage appeared on tokens, tickets, and signage. He’s also known as the Steeplechase Face or Steeplechase Jack, named after Coney Island’s original attraction, Steeplechase Park. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this information.) Photograph by Joe Bittabip. the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, two former allies against the Nazis, into a hot war. He would have attempted to set up communism and democracy in a fight to the finish, to ensure their mutual destruction, paving the way for the rise of neo-Nazism. He then became the rabblerousing Hate-Monger, but always spewing his hate while wearing the most polished politician’s blue suit and red tie, and flashing the most perfect politician’s smile.”

But Uslan, who never seems to run out of ideas, would have been most excited to develop a Marvel Earth-Two, a DC Comics homage where he would create Golden Age versions of characters from Marvel’s Silver Age. The titles would include Golden Age classics such as Marvel Mystery Comics, Daring Mystery Comics, All Select Comics, USA Comics, All Winners, and Young Allies. Uslan explains, “I was going to retro-introduce the 1940s Golden Age versions of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, the Avengers, and the X-Men. As I recall, the All-Winners Squad/ Invaders would morph into the Silver Age Avengers, and the Young Allies would morph into the Silver Age X-Men. Just thinking… how they would interact with both Captain America and Sgt. Fury opens the door to endless possibilities.”

Uslan had a way of crossing the divide between the Marvel and DC Universes, attempting to use ideas and concepts in new ways, a mashing of Who’s Who with the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

For now, it remains on Earth U(slan)!

DAN TANDARICH is an educator in New York City.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 67

‘A Time of Marvels’ Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, whips up quite a stir among the folks on the street on Alex Ross’ cover artwork for Marvels #1 (Jan. 1991). All art scans accompanying this interview are courtesy of Alex Ross.

TM & © Marvel.

KURT BUSIEK

by B r y a n

ALEX ROSS Facebook.

In 1994, a new four-issue miniseries debuted. It was titled Marvels, and it burst upon the scene with the force of Mjollnir.

That massive impact has been felt ever since, and on this, the 30-year milestone since its release,

68 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

D. Stroud

writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross answer a few questions for BACK ISSUE about this truly groundbreaking blockbuster that continues to make waves in the industry.

– Bryan D. Stroud

BRYAN D. STROUD: Can you describe the research process for Marvels?

KURT BUSIEK: We had pitched several different iterations before [then-Marvel editorin-chief] Tom DeFalco said that if you’re going to be exploring Marvel history, use the real Marvel history.

We had to research it in a different way. The first issue was all Golden Age material and I’d read very little of that. I bought a microfiche reader and I bought or borrowed certain Golden Age issues on microfiche and researched that way.

That was a lot of work, but at least I was only covering from 1939 through 1941. Then from Marvels #2 (Feb. 1994) and on, I had to know what was happening all over the various Marvel comics. We wanted to be able to say, “And this is where the Avengers are and this is what Spider-Man is doing.” So I had to have this collated by date rather than by series. We also needed to know what stuff was publicly visible.

I would go through all the Marvel comics and read them. I had printed out data sheets with the issue number and the title and date and “Here’s roughly what happens,” “Here is what would be seen in public,” and “Here are any media references.” I had a big, looseleaf notebook of Marvel continuity I could refer to.

That was time consuming, and it got more so because when I was researching for Marvels #2 (Feb. 1994), it was a period where Marvel could only publish limited monthly books, so some are bimonthly. By the time we get to #4 (Apr. 1994), which is taking place around 1972, Marvel’s line is much, much bigger.

Alex also had to do research, because every time I would specify something, he had to look that up. And there was stuff that he was interested in that he wanted me to put into the stories and I did that as best I could.

STROUD: The interconnectedness of the Marvel Universe had to be critical.

BUSIEK: If they hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have had any story to tell. The fact that there is a Marvel Universe is why it was worth looking at from the point of view of the man on the street.

There are different levels to this. Going back to the Golden Age, there were a couple of crossovers between the Human Torch and Namor, and later Captain America showed up in other series, and eventually, they teamed them up as the All-Winners Squad. In the early ’60s Marvel Universe, you’d have things like the Hulk meeting the Fantastic Four. But things don’t start to get seriously tied together until Roy Thomas wrote the Kree-Skrull War with Neal Adams and the Buscema brothers, because that’s the story where not only does it take place in Avengers, but there’s a crossover with an Inhumans story using Fantastic Four villains. Today it’s all on one stage.

ALEX ROSS: I would argue that the big battle that built up between the Hulk and the Thing in 1964 was the real beginning of that sense of everything overlapping in a shared mythology.

STROUD: Were you working full script or spending a lot of time on the phone or both?

BUSIEK: Both, very much. Marvels was created out of different threads of inspiration, but it started with Alex. Before Alex broke in as a comics artist, he had this idea to do a series

Man on the Street Marvels’ street-level POV shared with readers the spectacle of the burgeoning Marvel Universe, with character Phil Sheldon being our guide.

TM & © Marvel.

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that he called Marvel. He had worked up a number of characters he wanted to do stories about because they were, to his mind, important characters in the development of Marvel.

The Sub-Mariner was on his list because he was the first Marvel superhero in Motion Picture Funnies Comics. He had the Thing on the list because the Thing is Marvel’s first monster. He had Gwen [Stacy] on the list because Gwen is the first to die.

He had all these characters he wanted to do, and he had been putting together a pitch.

ROSS: I had finished the 12-page Human Torch origin retelling that is featured in the beginning in every Marvels collection. It was the centerpiece of my presentation, done with fully painted art and placed text written by myself and Steve Darnall. All of this is what I worked on in 1990 when I was 20.

BUSIEK: Along the way, I contacted Alex to work on Open Space, which I was editing for Marvel at the time. That story did not get published until years later, because the book got cancelled, but still, I was the guy connected to Marvel that Alex knew. After I left Marvel and was a freelance writer, Alex contacted me and sent me all these beautiful illustration plates of Marvel heroes and told me about this series he wanted to do. I thought the idea of doing painted stories of Marvel superheroes could be very good, but I thought there were some problems with the way he was conceiving it. He wasn’t assuming that he would do all of the stories. I said, “You’re sort of proposing Marvel Fanfare, which just got cancelled, but in a more expensive way. And you’re a newcomer.

Marvel is not going to accept a proposal by a newcomer to start a series that the newcomer will do just some of.”

ROSS: In my defense, the prototype I saw for my proposal was the licensed series Hellraiser, which was a prestige format 48-page anthology filled with illustrators often unfamiliar to Marvel readers, doing expanded art approaches like painting stories. It seemed like a no-brainer to consider using the same format for Marvel’s own properties, and I worked out the way they could envision this, as it would visually stand far apart from the more traditional Marvel Fanfare comic book.

I just needed to get it in front of someone at Marvel who could do something with it. It turned out that Kurt wasn’t that person, or not in the way I imagined.

BUSIEK: I told him he’d have a much better likelihood of selling it if he made it a miniseries that he intended to do all of. Then, if that works, you can spin out the other thing you’d like to do, but give them something they’re more likely to buy.

Look! Up in the Sky! (left) Mutant hysteria rears its ugly head on the cover of Marvels #2. (inset) More mutants, from #2. (opposite page) (top) Ross’ inventive Silver Surfer cover art for issue #3 offers a reflective glimpse of his foe. (bottom) Interior images from #3.

TM & © Marvel.

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At the time, I wasn’t assuming that I would write the project. But stuff happened. I was showing Alex’s samples around to try to get work that we could do together at companies like Eclipse. There was an editor at Eclipse, not Cat [Yronwode] or Dean [Mullaney], who apparently really liked Alex’s work and had no interest in working with me. So the pitch kept getting lost. After the editor left the company, Cat told me, “I found like eight copies of your pitch stuffed behind a drawer in her desk.”

Meanwhile, she was trying to get Alex to work on other stuff, including the Clive Barker material that they were publishing. Alex was not really interested. She decided, “I know how to convince him. I’ll sent these samples to Clive and Clive will convince him, because he’s Clive Barker.” Clive got the samples and said, “These are terrific!” He actually called Alex up, and Barker sent Alex’s samples to Marvel because Marvel was doing the Hellraiser comic. So Barker basically said, “Yeah, not Eclipse.

Let’s get Alex working on my Marvel project.”

The editor at Marvel, Marcus McLaurin, said, “This is great, we want you to do this Clive Barker thing.” Alex wanted to get into Marvel somehow, Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 71

The Big Moments One of the Marvel Universe’s seminal events—Galactus’ first attempt to devour Earth—as interpreted by Alex Ross in Marvels #3.

TM & © Marvel.

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so he said, “Absolutely.” Marcus said, “But these plates of Marvel characters. Is this for something?” And Alex said, “Yeah, it’s for a project that I’ve been talking to Kurt Busiek about. Would it be okay if we pitched you something?” And Marcus said, “Yes, please do.”

That’s the point where I became the writer on the project.

ROSS: When Marcus McLaurin first called me about the Marvel pitch art he had gotten from Clive, he said, “Did we publish this? Because if we didn’t, we should.” So much for it reminding them of Marvel Fanfare. Kurt didn’t mention that he talked me into doing a pitch other than my Marvel one in 1991, after he received mine. He said the Iron Man series was changing hands, and since I did a pinup of him in my proposal, maybe I’d want to try my hand at a regular pen-and-ink style and produce samples for his story pitch. I did two sample pages in ink as well as a painted cover sample, hoping to keep my hand in that art style, and I designed characters for Kurt’s Iron Man script.

As far as I would later learn from that series editor, he never even saw our submission.

I’d also like to mention that I did do the single-issue storyline for Marvel’s Hellraiser book that Clive Barker and Marcus McLaurin were contacting me for. It involved a host of new characters I had to design credited to Clive, but weren’t really his invention but that of his partner’s and a team of writers. I did the gig knowing it was a keeping a line of communication open with Marvel to build the proposal up with Kurt. If I hadn’t, I don’t know if they would have been as receptive to us. It was my Marvel tryout, for the second time.

BUSIEK: Both of us had separately had the idea that the focus character could be a reporter. I’d already done a couple of short backup stories that were about showing aspects of the Marvel Universe through the eyes of normal people and thought it could work here.

Alex had himself come up with the idea, too, so we merged those two ideas together and settled on a photojournalist, pictures being a good way to take advantage of the visuals of comics [and] heroes that Alex wanted to paint. We did a proposal like that and Marvel asked for changes. One of the changes they wanted was to scrap the first issue. “Nobody cares about the Golden Age.” We didn’t want to do that, so we did another version of it and they liked that one better and I think that’s the point where Tom DeFalco said to use actual Marvel history. Alex has said that was the point where it stopped being our story and started being my story, because I went back and replotted everything so it could be actual moments of Marvel history.

I was writing full scripts in part because Alex didn’t like working plot-style. He wanted to know, “If I’m painting this guy’s face, I want to know what he’s saying. I want to know what every panel is when I’m designing it.”

It was a lot of back-and-forth. That was a ton of fun. It made it very slow, but it was very enjoyable to be talking with an artist who cared that much, and was open to input that much to try to make the material the best it could possibly be.

Forever Our Girl The death of Peter Parker’s love, Gwen Stacy, at the hands of the Green Goblin was told in Marvels #4. (right) Its cover, and (inset) an interior panel.

TM & © Marvel.

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In Case You’re Wondering How Peter Parker Nabs Those Shots…

Say cheese! Alex Ross’ cover painting for the Marvels TPB. TM & © Marvel.

STROUD: Was Phil Sheldon’s loss of sight in one eye symbolic?

BUSIEK: We wanted to have him affected in a permanent way in his interaction with the Marvels.

I think after we came up with the idea that he loses an eye, we tied in the idea that he’s got monocular vision, like a camera.

STROUD: Marvels contains so many Easter eggs.

Were any yours, such as Mr. Goodman in charge of the Daily Bugle?

BUSIEK: If it’s in the text, or if it’s a comic book reference, it’s almost always me. If it’s some sort of other reference, like the Beatles showing up in issue #2, that will almost always be an Alex reference.

ROSS: There are a lot of cameos of historical figures like Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott in the car and Stan Lee in the bar in issue #3 that I knew would resonate, but I didn’t want to overwhelm the narrative. Some of my references to friends, public figures, and comic book lore are like a coded language to someone reading who will notice something that others couldn’t possibly know.

STROUD: Do you think Marvels affected the Marvel Universe at large?

BUSIEK: I think it did. I think it had multiple waves of effect. The first thing Marvel decided was that comic books with plastic covers sell. Then they decided maybe it was comics that were painted. Maybe it’s comics that are about history. I think all of the projects that moved in that direction did not do as well as Marvels, because It wasn’t that simple. But over time, it was the idea of telling stories about the human side of the superhero experience. I think that is Marvels’ lasting legacy.

STROUD: Do you feel that Marvels’ realism might have helped inspire the later movies?

ROSS: Avi Arad told me that they brought in the comics to meetings when they were developing the first Sony Spider-Man movie, to show how he said they should bring him to life.

As it worked out, though, the look of the character was taken directly from a trading card set of Marvel characters, including a unique “raised webbing” version of Spider-Man by the Hildebrandt brothers. (Don’t worry; they never saw anything for it, but neither did Ditko.)

BUSIEK: If Marvels had an influence on the movies, I think that it would be, “I can see what this looks like now.” If you look at Alex Ross’ Iron Man, you go, “Okay, I can see what that would look like onscreen.”

ROSS: Actually, the movie Iron Man was inspired by the then-recent painted covers and interior art 74 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

of artist Adi Granov, who was directly involved in designing the look we saw in the final film, an honor that I’ve never experienced.

STROUD: How does the fact that Marvels is celebrating a 30-year milestone make you feel?

BUSIEK: Old! [laughter] It’s very flattering. It feels like, “Oh, boy, we did something right.”

I’m particularly pleased by that because I didn’t feel like we were aiming for that. The lesson I take from it is that you can’t do it on purpose. Most books don’t last. Marvels has had lasting power.

One of the things that I didn’t look at when we were doing it, but I started hearing from people saying, “I read this book and it enabled me to get into other Marvel comics.” Because it’s like an introduction to the Marvel Universe. Once you finished reading Marvels, you’ve got the ground rules. So Marvels, which some people looked at as a nostalgic project, turned out to be a foundational primer of the Marvel Universe. I think that’s part of why it’s a perennial, too.

STROUD: Any final thoughts on Marvels?

BUSIEK: It’s very easy to talk about Marvels from the point of view of “Look what Alex and I did.” But Marvels wouldn’t have been what it was if it didn’t start out with Alex’s idea to do a book of painted superhero stories. And it wouldn’t have been what it was if Tom DeFalco hadn’t made the suggestion to make it about real Marvel history. And it wouldn’t be what it was if Marcus McLaurin hadn’t looked at our pitch and said, “You’ve got this Phil character who is witnessing all this stuff, but every issue we’ve got to have a ‘B’ story that’s about Phil and his family, something to make him more than just a witness.”

So I can point out things like Alex came up with the title Marvel and I put an “s” on it and that worked because Marvels is not just the name of the company, it’s a way of describing the characters. At the same time, it’s easy to lose sight of all the things that happened along the way that turned it into what it was. Some

of that came from me, some of that came from Alex, but some of it came from Marcus, Spencer Lamb, and others that gave us that core thing that made it a magical thing.

Marvels is very much a standing-on-theshoulders-of-giants thing. It’s Kirby, it’s Ditko, it’s Stan Lee, it’s Bill Everett, it’s Carl Burgos, it’s everybody. We’re bringing their work together, but it’s also the decision to play it a particular way from editorial advice. Every piece of that has fathers and while the primary fathers of Marvels are Alex and me, it’s more than just us two.

ROSS: The journey that got us to where we wound up was a better outcome with a focused story that brought the best out of us both. All things that followed Marvels, like our collaboration with Brent Anderson on Astro City or mine with Mark Waid on Kingdom Come, are a direct result of the distinctive human focus from Marvels.

As a postscript to this, I finally got a chance to create that original anthology Marvel series for Marvels’ 25th anniversary, for which Kurt consulted and wrote a ’60s-era Avengers story illustrated by Steve Rude, and I got to do another cover tribute to Marvel Comics #1 from 1939.

It was a project that featured some of the best talent working in the business. Aside from coming out during Covid, it worked pretty well as an idea finally come full circle.

The author would like to convey his sincere gratitude to Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, without whose generous contributions, this article would not have been possible.

BRYAN D. STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has had the opportunity to interview many of the creators from that era. He is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE magazine and owns a comic book spinner rack that reminds him of his boyhood.

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 75

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief • BACK ISSUE 112 Fairmount Way New Bern, NC 28562

Find BACK ISSUE on

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Recently, I learned from BI readers and Godzilla fans that Dan Johnson’s article, “Go, Go, GODZILLA! The Big G at Dark Horse Comics” published in BACK ISSUE #140, contains inaccuracies. In particular, two sub-sections, “Godzilla Raids Again” and “All Monsters Attack,” omit my and other creators’ contributions.

It is important to set the record straight on how Dark Horse’s Godzilla was produced.

BI readers should be aware of the following relevant, factual information: When Dark Horse’s “all-new, all-exciting” Godzilla went into production in late 1994, I was blessed with the responsibility of editing the series in my role as Associate Editor of the company’s Licensed Comics Division.

Tasks included hiring talent, seeking approvals from Toho Co., Ltd. through their North American agent, and writing the Afterword for the Second Edition of the company’s trade

(top) This penciled image of Destroy All Monsters is Kevin Maguire’s last official work on Godzilla. Commissioned in 1998 by Robert Conte’s company Studio Chikara, licensed by Toho Co., Ltd., this concept art was used in official business presentations and intended for one in a series of Godzilla Origins lithographs that remain unpublished to date. Art: Kevin Maguire. (bottom) While Dark Horse’s Godzilla stories have not been reprinted in North America for 25 years, they were recently collected in Japan as part of a Godzilla: Classic Collection series. Shown here is the cover for vol. 1, with cover art by Arthur Adams. © Toho Co., Ltd.

76 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

Current Toho Co., Ltd. licensee Super 7 released two different commemorative action figures specific to Dark Horse’s Godzilla.

Shown here is the SDCC exclusive “Bleeding Godzilla,” based on the storyline written by Kevin Maguire with box art from Godzilla #1 as designed by Arthur Adams, Brandon McKinney, and Keith Aiken. © Toho Co., Ltd.

paperback collecting Kazuhisa Iwata’s manga adaptation of Godzilla 1984.

The next step in establishing a direction for the monthly title was pairing the two stories reprinted from Dark Horse Comics #10–11 with an all-new, ten-page tale for Godzilla #0.

I then edited the next seven subsequent issues by having three separate creative teams work simultaneously on connected story arcs. The thought behind this was to ensure each issue was published on time and, in most cases, it worked. Most of the talent hired were people I had known personally and/ or previously worked with at other companies. They included Kevin Maguire, Brandon McKinney, Tatsuya Ishida, Scott Reed, Daniel Rivera, and Albert Deschesne. None of these individuals were previously employed by Dark Horse.

I give great respect to Godzilla regular Arthur Adams, who graciously illustrated covers for issues #1–4 and 8; inked covers #5–7 over Kevin Maguire’s pencils; and provided scripts and breakdowns for issues #5–8. Arthur was also developing Monkeyman & O’Brien, his creator-owned series, for Dark Horse around that time. So it was out of the question to have him create a monthly comic book as he did, from start to finish, with 1992’s Godzilla Color Special.

Specifically regarding Godzilla #9–12, I co-edited those issues with Randy Stradley, who insisted we hire writer/ filmmaker Alex Cox on the third, four-issue arc in the series.

Instead of being held to strict deadlines as other creators

were, Cox had to be extraordinarily coddled as if he were a movie star. It was not unusual for him to go above my head to Randy when I made suggestions to help improve his scripts that were engineered to read like a screenplay and not like a comic book. Cox’s behavior led to my increasing frustration, resulted in publication delays, and, in my opinion, ultimately hurt the quality of his story.

Michael, you may recall having been my editorial supervisor for about three months at Dark Horse. When Godzilla vs.

Hero Zero [written by Michael Eury and illustrated by Tatsuya Ishida—ed.] was in development, I was not permitted to be the editor of that one-shot special because I was your direct “subordinate.” Randy took on that role, and you both asked me to borrow Tatsuya from his penciling duties on Godzilla #4–8 to illustrate your story. Soon after, you left Dark Horse and Randy became my supervisor until I resigned from the company. Perhaps unbeknownst to you, and recently revealed to me, was that Tatsuya fell behind on Godzilla #8 and was let go from penciling the issue—a direct result of his jumping off the series to work on GvHZ. After Godzilla #6 was published, I left Dark Horse Comics for a career working for the rock group KISS [see BI #101 for details on the Godzilla vs. KISS team-up that was almost published]. Later, I would learn that my credit was removed from every subsequent story I edited and/or co-edited published for titles including Godzilla, GI JOE, and others; Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 77

© Toho Co., Ltd.

a terrible policy that I believe other employees were painfully subjected to, as well.

While Dan Johnson cites quotes for his article from Arthur Adams in TwoMorrows’ Modern Masters vol. 6, he apparently did not bother to reference vol. 10 spotlighting Kevin Maguire.

Had he done so, he would have learned more about the inner dynamics of Godzilla’s production, including that I named some of the alternate Kaiju that the “Big G” fought throughout the first four issues, including Cybersaur and Bagorah.

It should also be noted that Johnson’s article did not mention other stories by Dark Horse including “Godzilla’s Day” in Dark Horse Presents #106 (by Ed Brubaker and Dave Cooper) and “Godzilla: The Origins of a Species” published in A Decade of Dark Horse.

Michael, years ago I pitched you an article covering Dark Horse’s Godzilla series, offering behind-the-scenes content from my files including sketches, proposals, script pages, and the like. You passed at the time but left the idea “open for future consideration.” While I understand that you assigned the piece to another writer, I would have been a good source for it—especially as you were my direct supervisor when I edited at least three issues of the series and have been a longtime BI contributor.

I am deeply disappointed this article was published without mention or acknowledgment of every contributor who worked on Dark Horse’s Godzilla, including me. Being overlooked in this article is simply astounding to me, whether intentional or not.

As you correctly acknowledged Bob Hall, Allen Milgrom, Mary Jo Duffy, and Jim Shooter for their editorial contributions to Marvel’s Godzilla series in BI #116 when its writer failed to do so, I had hoped you would have done the same in Johnson’s article. You did not, so I hope you will now add those who deserve various editorial credit for Dark Horse’s Godzilla including Bob Schreck and Edward Martin III. Dark Horse’s Godzilla remains among my proudest works to date. That experience served as a steppingstone for me to work on other Toho projects as a consultant and packager for over a decade. This includes paving the way for North American companies, including IDW Publishing, to obtain “Master Monster” licenses. That and other Godzilla-related memories are being published in my forthcoming memoir, “Big G” and Me, available soon at www.studiochikara.com. Thank you, Michael.

– Robert V. Conte I would like to apologize to Robert Conte for any perceived slight my article may have caused. Leaving his account of events out of my Godzilla article was not intentional. While working on this assignment, I reached out to many creators who worked on Dark Horse’s Godzilla. While I was able to contact quite a few of them and arrange interviews, there were others who I was unable to connect with. Robert was one of those individuals I was not able to speak with.

When this article was assigned to me by editor Michael Eury, I was given a specific word count: 4,000 words. Let me assure 78 • BACK ISSUE • Marvelmania Issue

everyone, this article provided an embarrassment of riches in regard to content both written and visual. Honestly, with what I had to work with, this article could have easily been double its final length. Regrettably, when dealing with a print publication, and a limited page count, a writer has to make tough calls as to what to include and what to leave out of their final submission.

While it would have been preferable to spotlight and comment upon every creator who contributed to Dark Horse’s Godzilla, it was simply not possible.

I have been writing for BACK ISSUE for 20 years. One of the first lessons Michael taught me was that this magazine should be much more than just listing credits, titles, and story synopses.

That information is readily available to anyone with access to the Internet. BACK ISSUE should always be about sharing the stories of the men and women who made the comics that shaped the Bronze Age. That being the case, I chose to write my article around the interviews I had collected.

Again, no slight was intended by not mentioning each and every writer, artist, and editor who worked on Dark Horse’s Godzilla. My sincere hope is that anyone who has ever worked in comics, or any area of writing, remembers that you must adhere to the word count and/or page count you are allotted.

I consider myself a comics historian. More than anything else, I want to record the stories of the people who made the comics I grew up with and who fueled my love for this medium.

That means getting as many of the facts down for the record as possible. To that end, I am happy Robert has shared his side of the story at this time. Also, should my article ever be reprinted or cited by TwoMorrows in the future, I would be more than willing to amend my work to include his accounts. I truly believe that the more information I can add to any article I write, the more enlightening and entertaining it will be.

– Dan Johnson Thank you, Robert, for bringing these Godzilla omissions to our attention. And thank you, Dan, for your courteous response.

One of the editorial challenges with producing a magazine like BACK ISSUE is deciding the length of its articles. Since Marvel’s Godzilla had twice been covered in our pages, Dark Horse’s Godzilla seemed like a good fit when “Dinosaurs” was selected as BI #140’s theme.

Yet there was no space in the issue for anything beyond a short overview of the Dark Horse material, which is what I assigned to Dan Johnson and what he delivered. Beyond our page count restrictions, my additional concern was that the majority of BACK ISSUE’s readers favor articles about mainstream superhero comics of the 1970s and 1980s, so a deep dive into Dark Horse’s Godzilla projects would be lost upon them, no matter how important those comics might be to fans of Kaiju and the “Big G.” Nonetheless, we apologize for the errors and wish you good luck with your memoir, Robert. And thank you for the Godzilla images and captions, which we’re sharing here with our readers.

CHALLENGING CONSEQUENCES

Another excellent issue (BI #146), and once again you’ve stoked my interest in a series that had previously passed me by. I’m referring to the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Challengers of the Unknown miniseries from 1991. I ignored it at the time, being unfamiliar with the creatives, and less than inspired by the subject matter. Thirty-two years later, I’ve corrected that oversight. Never too late, in my opinion.

But what most struck home was Gerry Conway’s comment in the Mr. Fear article. “We live in a consequences-free mythology with superhero comics,” he said, his point being that nobody takes anything that happens seriously anymore, as everyone knows that no changes will be permanent. This state of affairs was remarked upon in the current Chip Zdarsky– authored issue of Daredevil (#14). ”Every day it feels like another of your ‘super hero’ friends comes back from the dead. Why can’t Matt?” asks Foggy Nelson. Reed Richards suggests that, “It feels sometimes like it’s almost proof of a higher power, of someone who needs us to live to stop what’s coming.”

I’m not so sure about that explanation, but I’d certainly agree with Gerry Conway that this lack of consequence is a loss for comic stories. Why should we care about the latest multi-issue crossover that promises to “change everything,” when we know deep down that the hero slated to die will turn out to be the Blue Beetle of Earth-38, or whatever. It feels like a strategy that can only bring diminishing returns; there’s probably only so many times you can play that sort of trick before the weary readership gives up. Then follows, perhaps, an editorial edict to reduce the once more infinite Earths back to two or three, and the whole merry-go-round, together with a fresh slate of issue #1s, starts again.

– Simon Bullivant

DIGGING DAREDEVIL

Congratulations on achieving a publishing milestone with BACK ISSUE magazine. I’ve been an avid reader since issue #1, but modern economics means, alas, after reaching a complete collection up to issue #100, I only pick up the issues now that really appeal to me (which, to be fair, is nearly all of them).

I wish I’d seen the Daredevil issue being advertised—I was and remain a big fan of the 1970s iteration of the Man without Fear. I have had in my collection a number of scans of Dave Cockrum cover sketches, and amongst them is his draft cover for Daredevil #158, suggesting the layout for Frank Miller to render.

– Martin Downham Thank you, Martin. We appreciate your support of this magazine for the past two decades and welcome you whenever a theme piques your interest.

It’s unlikely we’ll be revisiting DD any time in the near future, and we covered the Frank Miller Daredevil run some years back.

ANOTHER DD FAN!

Enjoyed the in-depth look at the Bronze Age Daredevil. Ironically, as I read the book from #21–63, you essentially start your welcome coverage with where I left off. (Granted, I did read a few back issues and some collections since then.)

What I didn’t care for, around the time I departed, was the overly dark inking of Gene. Oh, and the protracted she-lovesX-Men/X-Babies TM & © Marvel.

BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows. All Rights Reserved.

me/she-loves-me not situation with Karen. Other Marvel love interests were written out (Pepper Potts. Jane Foster) or finally married (Sue Storm, Janet Van Dyne). But Karen? She knew Daredevil’s identity and that he loved her. Yet, she couldn’t commit; nor was she skilled at breaking it off. So, wishy-washy temporary misunderstandings. I wasn’t crazy about the Black Widow, but at least it was someone different to dump Matt.

Part of the problem with Daredevil was his villains weren’t the greatest. They were either extraordinarily average or on loan from other books (Cobra and Mr. Hyde, Electro). Oh, and the Eel wasn’t from Spider-Man but the solo “Human Torch” strip (Strange Tales #112).

I did enjoy a retrospective of covers I missed, particularly the Kane/Giacoia #81. Well done!

Thought the Gene Colan pencil cover art was a real treat, especially the recreated #23. That was a cool one! A triple threat: the Gladiator—too close for comfort—along with the prowling lion and looming menace of gangsters in the audience.

As to the competition between Gene’s penciled cover and the Severin/Everett published version for #67, I’d have to grudgingly agree they went with the better of the two.

It has him potentially falling from a greater height. Plus, without Stilt-Man being bound, DD’s in more danger.

The motion trails make the scene more confusing and less unified.

Wally Wood’s preliminary sketch of Mr. Fear and the cast was wonderful. A welcome surprise! I especially liked the iconic shot of Daredevil, fists on hips. Granted, basic, but still everything we need to know. I always loved Daredevil #6, as it gave us a chance to see Wally’s rendition of various heroes and villains in his wax-works figures.

(Incidentally, even with the blurbs and go-go checks, that Infantino/Giella Batman/Scarecrow cover from Batman #189 was a gem.)

The amusing thing about your Challengers article, to me, is even with some outstanding cover artists, such as Neal Adams or Joe Kubert, sorry, no one can touch the Kirby/ Wood art from Challengers #4–8. Short-lived, but amazing!

I hadn’t seen much of it, till the late ’80s, as back issues, but I’m surprised it gets so little attention. Terrific! It’s what the early Fantastic Four should have looked like. Interesting, too, how the repurposed Kirby covers seemed better the first time. The reprints came off as too dark. And why the recolored yellow pants and red shirts? Did they buy them, at a garage sale, from Daredevil, when he went to all red?

– Joe Frank Next issue: Stop yer cryin’, you Peter the Little Pest fans… Our Big Baby Issue is here! Cuddle up with the X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, the FF’s Franklin Richards (and Power Pack), Luthor vs. Superbaby (plus Batboy and… Little Flash?!), Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel’s and Harvey’s kid humor comics (yes, you knew we HAD to include Baby Huey), and more! Featuring the work of ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, TOM DeFALCO, SHELDON MAYER, LOUISE SIMONSON, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and many more grown-up creators.

X-Babies cover illustration by Arthur Adams.

Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

Marvelmania Issue • BACK ISSUE • 79

19942024 UPDATE #2

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ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE

by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others.

Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read!

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MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

by PIERRE COMTOIS This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement!

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COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS

NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

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AMERICAN COMIC BOOK ALTER EGO #190 CHRONICLES: 1945-49 MITCH MAGLIO examines vintage jungle

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

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ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

BRICKJOURNAL #86

comics heroes (Kaänga, Ka-Zar, Sheena, Rulah, Jo-Jo/Congo King, Thun’da, Tarzan) with art by LOU FINE, WILL EISNER, FRANK FRAZETTA, MATT BAKER, BOB POWELL, ALEX SCHOMBURG, and others! Plus: the comicbook career of reallife jungle explorers MARTIN AND OSA JOHNSON, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

LEGO LANDSCAPING! A detailed look at how to create realistic stone and foliage from bricks: ANU PEHRSON’s White Wall from Game of Thrones, and JOEL and JONATHAN NEUBER’s (working!) Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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BACK ISSUE #156

BACK ISSUE #157

KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

THIS ISSUE IS HAUNTED! House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Unexpected, Marvel’s failed horror anthologies, Haunted Tank, Eerie Publications, House II adaptation, Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more wth NEAL ADAMS, MIKE W. BARR, DICK GIORDANO, SAM GLANZMAN, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOE ORLANDO, STERANKO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and others. Unused cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ & WRIGHTSON.

BRONZE AGE GRAPHIC NOVELS! 1980s GNs from Marvel, DC, and First Comics, Conan GNs, and DC’s Sci-Fi GN series!

With BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, JACK KIRBY, DON MCGREGOR, BOB McLEOD, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. WRIGHTSON cover.

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others!

With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!

IN THE NEWS! Rare newspaper interviews with Jack, 1973 San Diego panel with Jack and NEAL ADAMS discussing DC’s coloring, strips Kirby ghosted for others, unused strip concepts, collages, a never-reprinted Headline Comics tale, Jimmy Olsen pencil art gallery, 2024 WonderCon Kirby panel (featuring DAVID SCHWARTZ, GLEN GOLD, and RAY WYMAN), and more!

Cover inked by DAVID REDDICK!

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage!

Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #37

RETROFAN #35

RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assisting on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp!

The start of a multi-part look at the life and career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service comics produced by students at the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in a career-spanning interview, former DC Comics’ romance editor BARBARA FRIEDLANDER redeems the late DC editor JACK MILLER, DAN DIDIO discusses going from DC exec to co-publisher, we conclude our 100th birthday celebration for ARNOLD DRAKE, take a look at the 1970s underground comix oddity THE FUNNY PAGES, and more, including HEMBECK!

Saturday morning super-hero Space Ghost, plus The Beatles, The Jackson 5ive, and other real rockers in animation! Also: The Addams Family’s JOHN ASTIN, Mighty Isis co-stars JOANNA PANG and BRIAN CUTLER, TV’s The Name of the Game, on the set of Evil Dead II, classic coffee ads, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #188

ALTER EGO #189

BACK ISSUE #153

BACK ISSUE #154

KIRBY COLLECTOR #90

JOHN ROMITA tribute issue! Podcast recollections recorded shortly after the Jazzy One’s passing by JOHN ROMITA JR., JIM STARLIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, BRIAN PULIDO, ROY THOMAS, JAIMIE JAMESON, JOHN CIMINO, STEVE HOUSTON, & NILE SCALA; DAVID ARMSTRONG’s mini-interview with Romita; John Romita’s ten greatest hits; plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, & more!

BIG BABY ISSUE! X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, FF’s Franklin Richards, Superbaby vs. Luthor, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel and Harvey kid humor comics, & more! With ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, SCOTT LOBDELL, SHELDON MAYER, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and other grownup creators. Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS.

BRONZE AGE NOT-READY-FORPRIMETIME DC HEROES! Black Canary, Elongated Man, Lilith, Metamorpho, Nubia, Odd Man, Ultraa of Earth-Prime, Vartox, and Jimmy Olsen as Mr. Action! Plus: Jason’s Quest! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE DITKO, BOB HANEY, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MARK WAID, and more ready-for-primetime talent. Retro cover by NICK CARDY.

WHAT IF KIRBY... hadn’t been stopped by his rejected Spider-Man presentation?

DC’s abandonment of the Fourth World?

The ill-fated Speak-Out Series? FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics crusade? The CIA’s involvement with the Lord of Light?

Plus a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other columnists, a classic Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, & more!

Cover inks by DAMIAN PICKADOR ZAJKO!

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DOUBLE-SIZE ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! The Marvel side includes mini-interviews with JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, JIM MOONEY, and GEORGE TUSKA—plus “STAN LEE’S Dinner with ALAIN RESNAIS” annotated by SEAN HOWE! On the DC side: talks with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOHN BROOME, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JOE KUBERT, & MURPHY ANDERSON—plus a GARDNER FOX photo-feature, and more!

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #34 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #35

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more!

Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

DAN JURGENS talks about Superman, Sun Devils, creating Booster Gold, developing the “Doomsday scenario” with the demise of the Man of Steel, and more! Traverse DON GLUT’s “Glutverse” continuity across Gold Key, Marvel, and DC! Plus RICK ALTERGOTT, we conclude our profiles of MIKE DEODATO, JR. and FRANK BORTH, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of DC/Marvel hardcover super-hero collections), & more!

An in-depth look at the life and career of writer/editor DENNY O’NEIL, and part one of a career-spanning interview with ARNOLD DRAKE, co-creator of The Doom Patrol and Deadman! Plus the story behind Studio Zero, the ’70s collective of JIM STARLIN, FRANK BRUNNER, ALAN WEISS, and others! Warren horror mag writer/ historian JACK BUTTERWORTH, alternative cartoonist TIM HENSLEY, & more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Sept. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Aug. 2024

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!