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DONNA TROY, DIANA PRINCE, WONDER WOMAN ♥ WHY BATTER BATWOMAN?? ♥ TV SUPER CHICKS

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SUPER GIRLS ISSUE! ♥ FEMALE CARTOONIST ROUNDTABLE ♥ WOLFMAN & JIMENEZ TALK

T H E U LT I M AT E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

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TwoMorrows.Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. (& LEGO! ) TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Volume 1, Number 17 August 2006 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

FLASHBACK: Supergirl: From Argo City to Legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 The Maid of Might in her own series, with art from and/or commentary by Buzz, Giordano, Harris, Kupperberg, Oksner, Saaf, Sekowsky, Skeates, and Wolfman

EDITOR Michael Eury

ART GALLERY: Supergirl: Super-Fashion Plate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 The heroine in hot pants, by Hamner, Kirk, Moy, Parent, Rosema, Saviuk, and Stelfreeze

PUBLISHER John Morrow

PRO2PRO ROUNDTABLE: Super Women on Super Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Jennifer Contino asks 11 female comics pros about their favorite super-heroines

DESIGNERS Rich J. Fowlks Robert Clark PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington

INTERVIEWS: Talking About Tigra: From Cat to Were-Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Linda Fite, Ramona Fradon, Tony Isabella, and Marie Severin chat about the Cat

COVER ARTIST Bruce Timm

BEYOND CAPES: Diana Prince, Wonder Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 When the powerless Amazon went mod, with Samuel Delany, Dick Giordano, and Denny O’Neil

Paul Kupperberg Daryl Kuxhouse Bruce MacIntosh Dennis Mallonee Andy Mangels Lee Marrs Darrell McNeil Sheldon Moldoff Brian K. Morris Al Nickerson Ann Nocenti Bob Oksner Dennis O’Neil Kristen Palmer George Pérez John Petty Robert Plunkett Dennis Pu Trina Robbins John Romita, Sr. Scott Rosema Bob Rozakis Steve Rude Rose Rummel-Eury Paul Sager Diana Schutz Marie Severin Scott Shaw! Steve Skeates Roger Stern Aaron Sultan Roy Thomas Jill Thompson Bruce Timm Anne Timmons Jim Warden Michelle Warden John Wells Marv Wolfman Spiros Xenos James Zanotto

BACKSTAGE PASS: Attack of the ’70s Super Toon Chicks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Darrell McNeil tracks Saturday morning’s favorite females—with little-known facts and art by Steve Rude and the late, great Alex Toth COLOR GALLERY: Bruce Timm’s Super Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 A bevy of Bruce Timm-drawn beauties, in glorious color FLASHBACK: Marvel’s Dark Angel: Spider-Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Frank Cho, Carmine Infantino, Ann Nocenti, Roger Stern, and others weigh in on Marvel’s web woman

COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Arthur Adams Marcia Allass Darryl Banks Eduardo Barreto Laura Bartroff Jon Bogdanove Judy Bogdanove Jerry Boyd June Brigman Mike Burkey Sal Buscema Buzz John Byrne Mark Cannon James Carroll Dewey Cassell Frank Cho Ali Cloos Chynna ClugstonMajor John Cogan Jennifer M. Contino Colleen Coover Josh Davidson Fred L. deBoom Samuel Delany Jan Duursema Linda Fite Ramona Fradon Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Fred Grandinetti Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Adam Hughes Carmine Infantino Tony Isabella Guenter Jandrasits Phil Jimenez Dan Johnson Barbara Kesel

ROUGH STUFF: Pretty in Pencil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Banks, Bogdanove, Byrne, Hughes, Leonardi, and Pollard sketch the fightin’, fairer sex

INTERVIEW: Marv Wolfman on Donna Troy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 The superstar writer discusses his landmark Titans tale “Who Is Donna Troy?” INTERVIEW: Phil Jimenez on Donna Troy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 One of comics’ most popular writer/artists reveals his love for the one-time Wonder Girl FLASHBACK: Twenty Years of Flare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 A revealing retrospective by the heroine’s publisher, Dennis Mallonee OFF MY CHEST: The Revival, Death, and… Return of Batwoman . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 A hard-hitting look at the tumultuous career of DC’s original Dominoed Daredoll GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: DC Double Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Go behind the scenes of the Supergirl/Superboy title you never saw, with previously unpublished art by Infantino and Eduardo Barreto BACK IN PRINT: Non-Comic Books for the Comic Art Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Collectors Press’ new releases examine pin-up and pulp art BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Reader feedback on issue #16 BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Bruce Timm. Tigra the Were-Woman, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Woman TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Supergirl TM & © DC Comics. Flare TM & © Heroic Publishing. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2006 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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Brian K. Morris

TM & © DC Comics.

From Argo City to Legend Her ultimate fate to the contrary, Kara Zor-El was the luckiest girl alive. Her home, Argo City, survived the destruction of the planet Krypton. But when the Argonians could stall death no longer, teenaged Kara escaped to Earth where her cousin, Superman, found her. Hiding “Linda Lee” in an orphanage beneath a wig of auburn hair, Supergirl practiced the use of her powers, operating as Superman’s “secret weapon” until she was revealed to the world. Eventually, she was adopted by the Danvers and discovered that her true parents survived the destruction of Argo City. She ran through a series of boyfriends—human and otherwise—and tackled menaces that were less cosmic in scope than Superman’s, relying more on her intelligence and so-called “feminine intuition” than muscling her way towards a solution. Starting as a backup feature in Action Comics #252 (May 1959) through 377 (May 1969), she pushed her Legion of Super-Heroes teammates out of Adventure Comics with issue #381 (June 1969). Except for the problems from which comic adventures were made, life was good for Kara Zor-El. And then her editor retired. 2

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All-New, All-Different! In 1970, Mort Weisinger surrendered the long-held editorial reins to the Superman family of comic magazines [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #12 for a fuller look at this period.], leaving his empire to be divvied up amongst the DC staff including neo-editor Mike Sekowsky. Long acknowledged as one of the industry’s fastest and most versatile pencilers, Sekowsky came off an eight-year run as Justice League of America’s penciler to take over Metal Men and Wonder Woman, where the characters all took on more human identities. Sekowsky showed a talent for writing believable characters and setting them in fastpaced adventures, easily moving from genre to genre. Since Sekowsky was so good at “humanizing” his characters, perhaps the same creative magic would work again on Supergirl.

drug temporarily cancels her superabilities without warning. While she might only be a “parttime Supergirl” now, the scientists ensure Kara can remain a fulltime super-heroine. Fitted with an “exoskeleta cyborg,” a series of miniaturized motors to emulate her natural super-strength, a pair of jet boots for flight, and later with a pair of nose plugs that would allow her to

Clap On! Clap Off!

breathe underwater or

In Adventure Comics #397 (Sept. 1970), the first issue of

in space, Supergirl

the Sekowsky era and guest-starring Diana Prince, Supergirl’s

eventually brings the

initial battle with the wizard Zond leaves Supergirl’s uniform

Professor to justice in

trashed. This gives the Maid of Might an excuse to adopt

Adventure #405 (Apr.

a new set of threads taken from designs by readers

1971) before he can

Louise Ann Kelley (address unknown) and Jean Bray of

whip up a triple dose

Springlake, Michigan.

of his vile formula. As

In the backup story, the reader meets Nastalthia, no last

punishment, he cheerfully seeks a cure for his power-

name ever given, who would be Supergirl’s chief nemesis

be-gone pill in Kandor, surrounded by cutting edge

for the next couple of years. The young brunette, nicknamed

Kryptonian technology, not unlike imprisoning a mouse

“Nasty,” is a previously unseen niece of arch-villain Lex Luthor

inside a cheese factory.

Original art to page 16 of Adventure Comics #401 (Jan. 1971). Art by

whose goal is to defeat Supergirl in the first step of his “plans

In #406 (May 1971), Linda Danvers finally graduates

Mike Sekowsky and

for those other super-freaks! Then—the world is mine!”

from Stanhope College. Via her contact at Galaxy

Jack Abel. Courtesy

“Ours, Uncle,” Nasty reminds her mentor, “ours!”

Broadcasting, a newly installed TV reporter named Clark

of Heritage Comics.

Of course, Lex lands in prison—again!—and a decided-

Kent, a cameraperson/reporting job awaits her at K-SFTV

ly unbalanced battle with Nasty’s gang of cycle-thugs

in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Nasty is there already,

does nothing to quench the villainess’ desire to make their

having used her infamous uncle’s unrevealed influence. By

first encounter the last.

now, Nasty believes that Linda and the Girl of Steel could

The international jet-setting thief/con-artist Starfire (no relation to the sword-and-sorcery heroine of the 1970s or

TM & © DC Comics.

be one and the same, combining the villainous aspects of her uncle with the insatiable curiosity of Lois Lane.

the New Teen Titan) shares Luthor’s theory about Supergirl.

Aside from old villainess Black Flame in #400 (Dec. 1970),

Her right-hand man, Dr. Kangle, reveals the result of years of

the Sekowsky era was costumed-villain-free, relying on more

research, a pill able to remove super-powers. Staff gigolo

personal challenges for his heroine, just like in Sekowsky’s

Derek meets Supergirl, seduces her, then administers the

Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, a new editor waited in the

drug during a romantic picnic as Supergirl laments, “I have

sidelines to guide the Girl of Steel through a fresh set

these powers—and while sometimes I wish I didn’t—and

of adventures.

humanity as long as it needs me!” A few minutes later,

From the House of Mystery to San Francisco

Supergirl’s super-abilities vanish and she is left for dead

Without fanfare or the intense scrutiny of today’s Internet-

from a hail of machine gun bullets from Starfire’s thugs.

driven fandom, Joe Orlando began his editorial reign over

Bleeding and barely able to stand, Supergirl makes her

the Maid of Might with the second story of Adventure

way to Kandor, where she’s examined by the shrunken

#409 (Apr. 1971), the first half containing Sekowsky’s last

city’s scientists who declare that an unknown substance in the

as editor/writer/penciler. In the tale written by E. Nelson S u p e r

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TM & © DC Comics.

could live a normal life—I have to use them to help

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Bob Oksner’s cover

Bridwell, Supergirl heeds a summons to her bio-father’s lab

art to Supergirl #8,

in Kandor. There, he replaces her exoskeleton with a

guest-starring the

bracelet (conceived by editor Orlando) that not only amplifies her strength and allows her to wear more revealing out-

Justice League.

fits, but also tells the time. She also substitutes her boot

Courtesy of

jets with her Legion flight ring. And one issue later, Supergirl

Heritage Comics.

changes her outfit into one designed by John Sposato of

TM & © DC Comics.

Edison, New Jersey, which she would use for most of the next decade. With Orlando’s artistic roots dug far away from the loam of super-heroic literature, Orlando sought writing help from fans-turned-pros like Bridwell, Steve Skeates, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and then-assistant editor Paul Levitz as well as cartoonist/Jonah Hex creator John Albano and veteran writer Raymond Marais. Steve Skeates attracted fans with his unconventional story approaches in Charlton, Warren, and DC’s mystery titles as well as in both Teen Titans and Aquaman. Orlando appreciated Skeates’ talent for naturalistic dialogue and

TM & © DC Comics.

recognized a kindred spirit whose creative interests didn’t begin and end with super-heroes. Upon accepting the assignment, Skeates didn’t study his predecessors. “Basically,” he says, “I’ve found that sort of thing to be more of a hindrance than a help,” not wanting to be locked into another writer’s character conceptions. Nor would he treat Supergirl differently than her cousin

were available for me to work on, and I was quite pleased

“Actually, I saw no reason to make Supergirl different from

to land the assignment.”

Supes himself, seeing as gender-wise a difference was already

Don’t ask, just

Orlando inherited Sekowsky’s supporting cast and locale

built in, as it were. I’m not quite sure I can define what the

which included the on/off powers which Skeates admitted

buy it! Superman

difference is, writing-wise, between a strong male character

were “kind of cheesy, actually, and coming off as a strained

accessorizes the JLA

and a strong female character. I do believe I tend to operate

and rather artificial way of creating some drama. One of

in Mike Sekowsky’s

here almost upon a subconscious level.”

the least appealing attempts to do what was being done all

Skeates didn’t write from a fan’s perspective, but, “I did

over the place at DC at that point—produce some drama

rather enjoy handling strong female characters, getting

by weakening just about every super-hero up there.” As

into feminist themes, like in ‘All Men Are But Slaves’”

with Sekowsky, the Orlando era relied primarily on non-

(Adventure #417, Mar. 1972). His handling of Mera,

1972). Inks by

costumed adversaries, often extraterrestrial, for conflict,

Wonder Girl, and Lilith drew accolades, particularly from

perhaps reflecting Orlando’s unfamiliarity with the super-

Bob Oksner.

female readers. “So, in its own way, Supergirl for me was

hero genre.

TM & © DC Comics.

the best of all the characters in the super-hero mode that

last pencils on the team in Adventure Comics #423 (Sept.

However inconsistent her powers may have been, Supergirl quietly became the most powerful character in the DC Universe once her cousin’s powers were quartered in Superman #241 (Aug. 1971). But typically for the attitudes of the time, this passed without notice. Unlike Supergirl’s powers, one consistent element of this run could be found in artist Bob Oksner, who contributed to every Orlando issue except #409. This assignment demonstrated his versatility as either full artist, penciler, or inker over pencilers as diverse in style as Tony DeZuniga or returning penciler Mike Sekowsky. Oksner began his career in the Golden Age of comics and over the years proved himself adept as a penciler, an

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stand and syndicated comics alike. For years, he’d labored

writing by the time Skeates wrote his final Supergirl story.

happily as the artist for DC’s humor titles but by ’72, his

Skeates says, “I’d say that baby was definitely co-plotted

assignments succumbed to poor sales. “I’d rather, of course,

by Joe.” But as with all good things, Supergirl’s run in

have been doing humor,” says Oksner, “but I had to eat, I

Adventure came to an end in issue #424 (Oct. 1972). Skeates

had to earn money. In those days, I never had a day when

recalls, “I heard that Supergirl was headed elsewhere and that

I didn’t work, or seldom a day [chuckles] and that was of

the new editor [the recently reinstalled DC editor Dorothy

my own volition, not from lack of work.”

Woolfolk] wanted to lose the newsroom, the TV station,

So Oksner moved to Adventure. He could draw attractive

and Nasty, in time to write those four final panels,” in

women, told a solid story, and proved versatile enough to

which Linda Danvers wraps up the San Francisco leg of

do full art jobs or just pencils or inks as needed. “It made

her life journey.

things interesting, but truly, I enjoyed it. I had a great deal

Perhaps Skeates became a fan after all. “Yes, I was sad

at DC. If they gave me something to pencil, I penciled;

to see her go. I was indeed enjoying writing that series and

something to ink, I inked.” He also enjoyed working with

I do wish my tenure there had lasted a bit longer.” A burst

Joe Orlando again as he had on [the late-’60s DC humor

of righteous indignation on Supergirl’s part in #424 sparked

series] The Angel and the Ape.

a potential turning point for her, as Skeates saw it. “That

In time, Orlando grew more comfortable with super-

sidebar

heroes, becoming more involved in the plotting phase of

TM & © DC Comics.

inker, as well as a humorous or dramatic writer in news-

final scene transformed her into a much more interesting

The Editors of the Girl of Steel: Part One A good editor does more than simply ensure a book makes it to the

by Bernie Wrightson] in Plop #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1973).

printer on schedule. That person recruits the most talented creative staff

These stories bought by Orlando each won a

available and encourages them to do their best work. Some editors merely

Shazam Award from the Academy of Comic

make story and art directions while others become active participants in

Book Arts. “Suddenly,” states Skeates, “I was

the creative process.

forgiven for being too wordy and too artsy and

Joe Orlando, Julius Schwartz, and E. Nelson Bridwell brought their own strengths to the craft and the art of comic creation. Just ask the writers who worked on Supergirl.

Bob Oksner in the early 1970s. Photo courtesy

was a Big Deal all over again.”

of Bob Oksner.

Although both Skeates and Orlando had experience in the “long underwear” field,

Orlando having penciled Daredevil #2–4 in 1964, neither writer nor editor Steve Skeates and Bob Oksner on Joe Orlando

were totally comfortable with working in the super-hero genre at this time

When Steve Skeates wrote Aquaman #56 (Mar.–Apr. 1971), it gained him

and the concept of the “secret identity” never struck a sympathetic chord

few admirers among the editorial staff at DC comics.

with Skeates. “As an ultra-liberal, the idea of glorifying someone who led

“This particular tale is now rather a fan favorite,” states Skeates, citing

a secret life as a benevolent fascist was not something I was particularly

his fans’ admiration for its unconventional plot structure, multiple story

comfortable with—and therefore I wasn’t particularly adept at plotting

titles, wordiness, its introducing a new hero [the Crusader] only to kill him

your typical super-hero story.”

a couple of pages later, then abruptly ending the story without resolving

So the pair approached the adventures of Supergirl from a non-

the danger to the title character. However, Skeates claims, “Back in the day,

traditional point of view, as compared to, say, Mort Weisinger. At first,

this particular yarn did not sit well at all with the bulk of the editors at DC,”

Orlando and Skeates would talk out the plot, leaving the latter to go home

thus forcing him to offer much of his writing to other companies.

and write it. But as Orlando became more comfortable with super-heroics,

But new editor Joe Orlando began buying what Skeates calls “those pseudohorror tales known as ‘mystery stories.’” As he further states, “I do believe Joe

he began to offer more of his own ideas to the stories. “Actually, I found working with Joe in this fashion,” says Skeates, “and

saw himself as rather a maverick up there [at DC], into making comics a

in part, due to the fact that in a way, neither one of us knew exactly what

livelier medium by breaking all sort of rules.”

we were doing—to be rather fun and exciting, exploring territory neither

Aside from hiring writers who didn’t stick to the 35-words-per-panel “rule,”

one of us were all that familiar with.”

Orlando “was the first editor to employ a number of women to write horror

Bob Oksner worked with Orlando on the late Angel and the Ape series.

pieces, seeing the feminine ‘take’ on horror to be interestingly different from

“Joe Orlando was an excellent artist, really good. I guess I say that because

the male approach. In light of all that, it seems downright natural that Joe

we were a lot alike with the work we did.

would give work to someone who was basically anathema as far as most of the editors up there were concerned.” In time, Skeates wrote “The Poster Plague” for House of Mystery #202 (May 1972) [illustrated by Sergio Aragonés] and then “The Gourmet” [art

Just as Oksner related to his new editor, Orlando worked, in turn, to relate to his creators. “When I started [on Angel and the Ape], we would have dinner together and talk about it, how to plan the story and the art.” Oksner summed Orlando with three words: “He was wonderful.” Sidebar continues next page S u p e r

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sidebar

The Editors of the Girl of Steel: Part Two

character than she had ever before been. Unfortunately, I never got to write any stories for this new and better character!” Except for a couple of letter columns, none of the

Jack C. Harris and Bob Oksner

San Francisco cast, not even Nasty, rated a mention

on Julius Schwartz and E. Nelson Bridwell

ever again. And when letter writer and future pro

At the memorial service for Julie Schwartz [Editor’s note: See Alter

Paul Kupperberg was promised a resolution to the

Ego #40 for a transcript of the service.], Harris told of the longest hour

on/off powers in Adventure #419’s letter column,

of his life, waiting for the great editor to pass judgment on the first

how could anyone know the solution was to

Supergirl script he submitted. “When I turned that script in, I was just a

ignore the problem?

nervous wreck while he was reading it. I mean, what if he doesn’t like it? What am I going to do? I just felt helpless.

In Her Own Title, At Last!

“He said, ‘This is fine,’ the sum of his words and that just floored me because I thought that was the greatest compliment [laughs]. From Julie, that was just fantastic. “And we [Schwartz and Harris] always had a good time. Those were some of the best times I ever had when still in the comics was sitting in Julie’s office, plotting.” The sessions began with “maybe 20 springboards with onesentence ideas and he’d stop me at ones he liked and we’d just start throwing ideas back and forth and with me taking copious notes along with way. “By the time we walked out of there, we had a plot with no surprises for him. He wanted to know exactly what was going to happen in the story.” Being a long-time admirer of Schwartz, was it easy for Harris to work for the man? “It was very nerve-wracking for me because I still consider him the best comic-book editor who ever lived. Absolutely amazing and mostly instinctive. It wasn’t really something he could teach somebody, a great instinct for it.” Of long-time assistant/associate editor, one-time editor of Superman Family, and Super-consultant E. Nelson Bridwell, Harris says, “I had met Nelson a couple of times at comic conventions. He was always great to talk to because he was a walking encyclopedia; not only comic knowledge, but he was a Shakespearian scholar. He was just knowledgeable about a lot of different subjects. “Nelson was great to work with. Nelson was into trivia. If you could find some little trivia bit and some old character that you could reintroduce into the Supergirl strip, he just

On the splash page of Supergirl #1 (Nov. 1972), Kara says farewell to her old job and hello again to campus life as a graduate student majoring in Theater at Van Dyre University, ten miles away from San Francisco. In ten issues cover dated between Nov 1972 and Oct. 1974, she continues to help the people of Earth on a smaller scale than her cousin, the tone of the stories closer to the pre-Sekowsky days where the stories seemed to revolve around a cover “hook” such as the type that helped regular writer Cary Bates break into the business. Returning editor Bob Kanigher replaced Woolfolk by #2, with most tales illustrated by Art Saaf and Vince Colletta. Bob Oksner remained with the book as the cover artist for all ten issues while drawing Shazam! Meanwhile, Supergirl had her share of guest-stars, such as when Zatanna moved up from the backup slot of the book in issue #7, or from the Justice League (#8); Queen Hippolyta and Wonder Woman’s pre-Crisis “sister” Nubia (#9), as well as Prez Rickard (#10).

loved that,” a task made simpler by Harris’ long-time fondness for the strip. “I could dig

However, being the gentlemanly sort, Jimmy Olsen

back into Supergirl’s history and bring something up and find, and resolve, an old problem

invited Kara and the recently cancelled Lois Lane to share

or old storylines. Nelson thought that was terrific.”

his title when it morphed into the new 100-page Superman

Bob Oksner worked with Bridwell later on the final Supergirl solo series, describing him

Family book with issue #164 (Apr.–May 1974), now putting

as “a quiet fellow. I didn’t know him that well, although I had worked with him. But he

Supergirl in the editorial hands of Julius Schwartz and E.

was quiet; scholarly, I would guess. Julie was a little bit more social than Nelson as far

Nelson Bridwell.

as I was concerned. And both of them were very easy to work with.” But what was Schwartz looking for in a story? “Julie liked original stuff. He wanted

One Big Happy Family

new things.” Plot twists, inner conflicts, a new job as a soap-opera actress, dynamic

Supergirl’s new scribe, Elliot S! Maggin, started with

characters, “That’s the kind of things Julie liked and such things he interjected into the

Superman Family #165 (June–July 1974), when Linda

story because he liked that ongoing conflict. That’s the continuity he liked. He liked a

Danvers left Van Dyre University for a new job as a student

little ongoing conflict that wasn’t really resolved. But then when the story was being

advisor at the New Athens Experimental School in Florida.

told, whatever conflict you entered into the stories, that would be resolved by the end

Naturally, Superman arrives to help Linda fly to her new

of the story, and the ongoing personal stuff was what kept the series going.”

home, but the Girl of Steel decides to travel via jet. “I’d

The tale of “The Man with the Eternity Hands” (Superman Family #197) sold itself

rather be a genuine flesh-and-blood woman than a

with just the title. Harris recalls with a chuckle telling Schwartz the title and the editor

Supergirl!” While she enjoyed the fame and glory of being

said, “That’s great. Write a story with that title. I like that.” Now an instructor at The School for Visual Arts as well as a private tutor, Harris’ fondest memory of his run was, “working with Julie Schwartz as a professional. That was clearly the highlight of that.” —Brian K. Morris 6

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a super-heroine, she confesses, “I’m just not the worldsaver you were born to be!” “I can respect your feelings,” Superman says, “even if I

can’t agree with them!” It must have come as a relief to meet a new menace every six months, given the rotation of Supergirl’s original stories with Jimmy Olsen’s and Lois Lane’s in the title’s bimonthly schedule (reprints fleshed out the rest of the book). Briefly, Cary Bates wrote “Supergirl” again until #182 (Mar.–Apr. 1977), when Superman Family became a monthly Dollar Comic all-original stories from cover to cover. With a new publishing frequency came a new writer for the Maid of Might, one who’d been with Kara when her adventures were just a gleam in Mort Weisinger’s eye.

Those Who Remember the Past… How did Jack C. Harris become Supergirl’s scripter? According to Harris, “This is almost sexist on DC’s part, I guess. At one point, I was writing virtually every female character in the DC lineup,” what with scripting Wonder Woman, Isis, “Batgirl,” and editing Starfire. Since it was perceived he knew how to write stories about women, “that’s how I got the ‘Supergirl’ job.” And that task would last about four years, with a few fill-in scripting jobs by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, and Marv Wolfman. Harris’ interest in Supergirl began almost on the ground floor, having read Superman #123 (Aug. 1958), where a “Supergirl,” born from a magical totem and Jimmy Olsen’s fervent wishes, appeared just long enough to pique reader interest. Harris and his brother read Weisinger’s editorial output religiously so for him, “Supergirl was the first Silver Age character that I leaped on to from the very beginning.” Harris mined Supergirl’s rich history, something that

Brown, Don Heck, Jack Abel, and Harris’ good friend José

If Superman is out to

hadn’t been done often in recent years or sometimes very

Delbo. “I was lucky. A lot of these artists were ones I’d

get Supergirl, he’s not

well, such as in Adventure #400 where returning villainess

admired as a kid, like Bob Brown, who drew Challengers

Black Flame reaches the Phantom Zone via spaceship. He

[of the Unknown], which I really loved, so that was great to

also enjoyed working on Supergirl, “because I got the

work with him; and of course, Win Mortimer, who drew

cover feature. That’s really exciting to do that.”

one of my favorite Batman covers from years ago, [on]

trying hard enough! He only appears on this splash page of

“Somewhere along the way,” Harris explains, “someone

Detective Comics #164, ‘Unsolved Tales of the Bat Signal,’

Supergirl #8 (Nov. 1973),

extremely clever decided that her parents were still alive.

(Oct. 1950).” Mortimer worked on the book beginning

with artwork by Art Saaf

When they brought her parents back, that just really

with Superman Family #199 (Jan.–Feb. 1980), and would

and Vince Colletta.

made her a whole different character than Superman and

be the regular “Supergirl” penciler until the title’s final

that was brilliant. That really changes her origin from

issue (#222, Sept. 1982).

being a duplicate of Superman’s.”

TM & © DC Comics.

(sidebar left) Writer

“José Delbo and I had a great relationship because we

As for Fred Danvers, the man who helped rescue

worked on Wonder Woman for so long,” adds Harris. In

Jack C. Harris holds the

Supergirl’s bio-parents, Harris placed him at S.T.A.R. Labs,

fact, Harris and Delbo were practically neighbors in New

original cover artwork

always a good way to get one’s super-daughter to visit. As

Jersey. “He lived nearby, so occasionally he would come

to Superman Family

for Zor-El and Allura, Harris claims that “there was always

over to my house, because I went in [to the DC office] every

#199 (Jan.–Feb. 1980),

great character potentials that never were quite developed

day, and give me a stack of artwork to take into the office

to the full,” citing that this was Jor-El’s brother and a scientist

so he wouldn’t have to make the trip.” Harris also performed

of a similar caliber. “If you think about it,” Harris states,

this messenger service for Joe Kubert. “Of course, it was

“that’s Superman’s uncle.” During Harris’ tenure, he worked

kind of great because I got to see all the artwork before

The art was a gift from

with great pencilers like Mike Vosburg, Alan Weiss, Bob

anyone else did.”

artist Ross Andru. Photo

for which he wrote the Supergirl cover story.

by Dale Harris. S u p e r

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In #208 (July 1981), Harris threw a curve in Linda Danvers’ career path when after a fit of anger at her coworkers at New Athens, she used her dramatic training,

When Correctly Viewed…

landing a role on the daytime soap opera Secret Hearts.

sidebar

Just as he’d done with Wonder Woman, Harris moved

In Adventure Comics #421 (July 1972), Nightflame slices a gateway from the Innerverse, a universe inside of the atoms of Supergirl’s own brain, intent

Linda Danvers to New York City, often supplying photographic landmark reference. Given that comics’ primarily male demographic of the time probably didn’t admit to watching soaps, why did Harris switch Linda’s occupation? Harris had a contact at Lincoln Center where one of the major afternoon soap operas was produced. When editor Julie Schwartz gave permission, Harris toured the studio to

on capturing the Maid of Might and stealing her powers. Only tormenting

soak up all the information he could on the nuts and bolts

the Girl of Steel with her own inner evil,

of daytime TV production. “That gave me a lot of ammunition to make stories on that.”

it seems, could get her to surrender TM & © DC Comics.

her powers. But one of Linda Danvers’

Harris also gave former JLA mascot “Snapper” Carr his

co-workers holds Supergirl’s hand, sending his fervent mental and emotional sup-

real first name in #189 (May–June 1978). “I remember going

port through their newly created link.

to Julie that day. I said, ‘We’re putting Snapper Carr in

Empowered by his concern, Supergirl wrestles her evil urges into submission,

here. What’s his first name?’ He says, ‘I have no idea.’ So I

conquering a latent death wish in the process. As she tells Nightflame, shortly

named him after George Lucas. [laughs] Star Wars was going

before she perishes, “I’m a complete woman now! I feel secure, strong!”

on at that point, and ‘Lucas Carr,’ it just sounds good.”

From the plot by Marv Wolfman to “The Beginning” ending from Orlando, “Demon

Also, “I remember one thing that Nelson added to that

Spawn” is a straight-up fantasy story packed with inner conflict and potential

script, which I thought was rather cool. When [Snapper]

romance wrapped up with a “coming of age” theme. According to scripter

was trying to get a job at S.T.A.R. Labs, he brought in his

Steve Skeates, “I think if you read between the lines while trying as hard as you

references and it was all the Justice League’s autographs.”

can to ignore all the sexual imagery in there, you can actually see what Marv was originally up to. It was, as a matter of fact, [penciler] Mike Sekowsky who added most of the sexuality to this story.”

What did Harris believe was his personal mark on Supergirl? “I think one of the things I liked, and this goes across all of the female characters I did, I never made an issue out of

Done in a rare (for DC at that time) plot-first manner, Sekowsky’ s tale showed that the artist could draw attractive women with the best of them, aided by Bob Oksner’s rich inkwork. Nightblade’s skin-tight costume and both women’s provocative poses wasn’t lost on Skeates. “By the time I got the finished art and was asked to add in the dialogue, things were already pretty much sexed up. I could see, at that point, no recourse but to go with where Mike had gone, to further emphasize the sexuality. “Thus, cheered on—or should I say ‘egged on’?—by Cary Bates, with whom I was sharing office space at that time, I played up Sekowsky’s sexual themes to the point where the explosion on the bottom of page 15 became a way-tooobvious veritable orgasm. And, the last page—what with its ‘being close, joined…’ and ‘I can feel a closeness I’ve never felt toward any other man!’—was pretty damn sexy, too!” With all this imagery happening, how did this story pass the Comics Code? As satirist Tom Lehrer once said, “When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.” So run to your local

equality. They just were equal. Everyone treated them as equals. People say, ‘it’s not realistic in the real world,’ but that’s the way it should be, so that’s part of the fantasy. They’ve just never run across any prejudice.” With #209 (Aug. 1981), Harris supplied only the plot and with #211 (Oct. 1981), Martin Pasko briefly took over after a fill-in by Bob Rozakis. Then Paul Kupperberg arrived as writer with issue #217 (Apr. 1972), getting the job by being, as he says, “the right guy in the right place at the right time.” When Pasko moved on, “Julie Schwartz and E. Nelson Bridwell turned around and pointed at me. Superman Family was kind of second tier as far as the Superman franchise went, and I was trying to move up in the rotation in those days.” Like Harris, Kupperberg was a ground-floor fan of Supergirl. “I loved Supergirl, but not, y’know, in a creepy I-knowshe’s-fictional-but-a-guy-can-pretend kind of way, all the way

comic shop and pick

back to her start in Action #252.

up Adventure Comics

“I think what I liked most about Supergirl was that I was

#421. Share it with someone you love.

Is it warm in here or is Supergirl confronting her inner

—Brian K. Morris

demons in Adventure Comics #421 (July 1972)? Art by Mike Sekowsky and Bob Oksner. TM & © DC Comics.

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watching her history unfold as I collected the run of

blacks that you had to have in there. His pencils were

Action, which I started doing in the mid-’60s. There was

very different than Curt [Swan’s], but they were equally

no way to do that with Superman, who was and remains,

great for comic books.” [See The Krypton Companion,

along with Plastic Man, my favorite super-hero character.

edited by Michael Eury, available now from TwoMorrows,

Supergirl was accessible and so well done, really ahead of

for more of Bob Oksner’s views on inking Curt Swan.] After one year, the title became simply Supergirl, but

TM & © DC Comics.

its time in the way DC did comics in those days.”

despite some solid storytelling, a new uniform, and a

From Zor-El to El-Trains

hilarious appearance by Ambush Bug in #16, the book

Although Kupperberg enjoyed the old stories, comics

ended with #23 (Sept 1984).

and its audience had changed. Despite changing jobs,

Kupperberg summarizes his run: “I had a lot of fun

locales and supporting characters, the decision was

writing Supergirl. It really was that Supergirl was such a

made to re-invigorate the strip by turning back the clock.

favorite of mine, and, corny, I know, because I was

Original cover art

Whose idea was it to send Linda Danvers back to college?

getting to play in the Superman mythology sandbox.”

to Supergirl #9,

“I think it was Julie’s,” says Kupperberg. “I do remember

However, Supergirl’s days were literally numbered.

by Bob Oksner.

that he wasn’t happy with the whole TV star/soap opera

While the Supergirl motion picture with Helen Slater

element and thought she needed to go back to simpler

neared release, others plotted Kara’s finish. Not with

times. We probably talked it out and came up with the

kryptonite or magic, but with the desire to take her

college student angle together.”

cousin back to his roots.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics. TM & © DC Comics.

Why? “Because once you put her in an ‘adult’ situation, make her a TV star or newswoman, why the hell is she still going around calling herself Supergirl? She should’ve become Superwoman, but since that wasn’t about to happen for the expected copyright and trademark reasons, it just made sense to keep her a ‘girl.’” Showing the spunk that made Steve Skeates want to keep writing the feature, Linda Danvers left New York in the last issue of Superman Family, #222. After a special preview in Superman #376 (Oct. 1982), she received her own title, The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl, beginning with #1 (Nov. 1982). Rather than another fictional city, Kupperberg turned to his previous home-away-from-Brooklyn, Chicago, where he lived from 1979–82. “We wanted a fresh start: new direction, new city, new supporting cast, etc.” Kupperberg knew the city thoroughly and “the Midwest was light on super-heroes, so the skies wouldn’t be too cluttered.” Another change to the strip came with new penciler Carmine Infantino, whom Kupperberg praises. “He was the first professional I ever really spoke to, when I was maybe 13 and was up at DC’s offices during my fanzine days, but he was an artistic god. Still is, as far as I’m concerned! God, it’s a toss-up between Carmine and Gil Kane for being the best visual designer ever to work in comics.” Also returning was Bob Oksner, who enjoyed inking Infantino. “Carmine was a marvelous layout man,” Oksner contends. “He was great on layouts and I can’t think of anyone who came close to him. A wonderful designer, I enjoyed doing his pencils. He put all the

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arms. “That and Barry [Allen] running until he disintegrates,

Not a Hoax, Not an Imaginary Story

are defining moments; the end of the Silver Age or Bronze

Writer/editor Marv Wolfman takes full

Age or Aluminum Foil Age, whatever age it was.”

credit for Supergirl’s death. “I believe

Comic fans can invest a lot of emotion into their fictional

I broached the idea. The thought was

heroes and heroines. And when drama’s needs demand

to make Superman the sole survivor

characters’ deaths, the fans can react … poorly. Did fan

of Krypton again. The Crisis [on Infinite

opinion sway negatively when Supergirl died? Wolfman

Earths] was to strengthen him and

says, “We received death threats on Terra [in The New Teen

make him special once more.”

Titans] but never any on Supergirl, although I expected them.

Then-executive

editor

Dick

Giordano concurs. “Marv came to

I think I got more grief over it from my fellow professionals than I ever did from the fans. The pros grew up with her as

me with the idea. His rational was

I did, and loved the old orphanage stories as I had, but you

basically that we had to prove that

know, that was 20 years before I did Crisis and those days, sadly, were long gone.”

Talking about writing

this Crisis was real and permanent, and that Supergirl’s

who one knows, was

death would be a dramatic way to make the point. I agreed

“I’m sure there was some,” concludes Giordano, “but really

and added my own bias, that Supergirl had no real purpose

nothing significant. I think most didn’t care all that much.”

this the John Ostrander?

in the DC Universe. She was just a female Superman. I went

One pro who cared was Kupperberg. “Of course, it was

to [then-publisher] Jenette Kahn’s office, and told her what

sort of traumatic for me. Post-Crisis, Superboy and Supergirl

“Yep, I knew John

we wanted to do. For a beat (only!), she looked horrified

were gone and Superman was off in other hands, and all of

Ostrander through a

and then told me she would have an answer after talking

a sudden, a lot of old friends were gone. I went on to other

mutual friend.” They

to Marv.”

things, but, y’know, there’s only one Superman … and

Paul Kupperberg says,

lived across the street

How far up the corporate ladder did Jenette have to go

from each other in

to get permission? Giordano replies, “Not as far as you might

Chicago, and Paul even babysat his dog. This panel is from

In retrospect, Jack C. Harris eulogizes Kara: “I really felt

imagine. First of all, Supergirl did have some licensing

bad when they killed her off. It was like an old friend dying.

value, but Wonder Woman was, by far, the real licensing

I think that she had so much potential and it was never

star. Secondly, DC had some autonomy in making creative

reached.”

decisions. [Corporate parent] Warner only reacted after

The Daring New

Supergirl and Superboy.”

the fact if someone complained.

“I didn’t think there would be any long-term repercussions,” continues Wolfman, “since I assumed a new

Adventures of Supergirl

“I know not whether Jenette sought advice from her boss,

Supergirl would be created. Remember, we rebuilt the Earth

#1 (Nov. 1982), art by

but I think not. She was called ‘Fearless Leader’ by many of

from day one which meant Supergirl could be created again—

Carmine Infantino and

us for the chances she took in leading DC.

from scratch—and not have to worry about the mistakes of

“We soon had permission. And we were ‘go’! Basically

Bob Oksner.

in one afternoon!” Supergirl’s fate was sealed. TM & © DC Comics.

So what of Paul Kupperberg’s plans for Supergirl? “The

the past.” He concludes, “You were given the freedom to recreate her any way you wanted, hopefully without a cartload of mistakes this time.”

death of Supergirl was decided at loftier levels than mine. Her monthly had already been cancelled, as had Superboy’s, which I was also writing at the time, but we were plan-

In Superman #338 (Aug. 1979), the Cousins of Steel found

ning on bringing both characters back in a new title, DC

a home for the Kandorians on Rokyn, a planetary Brigadoon

Double Comics.” [Editor’s note: See the related “Greatest

that circled a red sun, moving in and out of our dimension,

Stories Never Told” feature later this issue.] Production on

where Zor-El and Allura made their home. With Superman

the first two issues ceased “when we got word that the

#414 (Dec. 1985), “New Kandor” became Supergirl’s rest-

TM & © DC Comics.

characters weren’t going to survive the Crisis.”

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ing place as Superman personally broke the tragic news of

In retrospect, how did Wolfman view Kara’s sacrifice for

Kara’s demise in the touching ending to a story written by

her cousin? “I am very proud of that issue, and frankly it’s

Cary Bates and illustrated by Curt Swan and Al Williamson.

one of the few that I wouldn’t change anything on other

The following issue, written by Elliot S! Maggin, introduced

than tweaking a line here or there.”

•

Closure on New Krypton

Salkor, an alien who two years before married a beautiful

Kupperberg agrees about the story’s emotional resonance.

blonde with awesome physical powers, but no memories of

From his days as Editor in DC’s Licensed Publishing

her earlier life after contact with “a green radioactive

Department, he recalls that even though the Crisis novel-

element.” After she disappeared, Salkor tracked his wife to

ization by Wolfman focused on the Flash, the cover image

Earth, learning from Terran broadcasts her true identity and

reflected Supergirl lying dead in a grieving Superman’s

tragic fate.

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Kara Zor-El of Argo—a heroine, friend, daughter twice over, wife and then martyr, soon to be forgotten in the aftermath of the Crisis.

Forgotten But Not Gone Three years later, the second Christmas with the SuperHeroes Special (1989) saw print. By now, Superman was born anew as the last son and only survivor of the doomed planet Krypton. In a story by TV writer Alan Brennert and illustrated by

Could Supergirl Have Saved Supergirl? While the architects of the Crisis on Infinite Earths secretly planned

Dick Giordano, an attractive blonde stranger greeted the

Supergirl’s final moments, Ilya Salkind

invisible and depressed Deadman. She related to the man

launched his own plans to bring the

whose life was taken at a moment of triumph who sought

Maid of Might to cinematic life,

to right wrongs, one person at a time. “We do it because

spending an estimated $35,000,000

it needs to be done. Because if we don’t, no one else

in the process. However, in its two

will.” And those deeds would be done even if no one would acknowledge them, “even if no one remembers we

months of release, the movie only took

in $14,296,438, which wouldn’t cover its production costs, much less any promotional efforts.

ever existed.” As a distant church bell rang, this angel turned to leave. Wanting to know her name, she faced him one last time and said sadly, “My name is Kara. Though I doubt that’ll mean anything to you,” before disappearing forever. But her work had been done, another individual saved. So why bring Supergirl back, if only for Christmas? Giordano says, “We never saw Supergirl in that story, just the spirit of her alter-ego who was able to converse with Boston Brand’s spirit, Deadman. No one else saw or heard them but the reader and only those with a good memory would realize who she really was.” And while the fans might not have remembered or objected, the same might not be said of some of the DC staffers. “I got reamed out by my fellow editors who said that she’s dead and shouldn’t be brought back to the DC Universe,” Giordano adds. Before she vanished, except possibly from the hearts and minds of her fans, Kara mentioned that she left because she had “business to attend to.” Perhaps the girl continued to use her special gifts to help individuals, unknown to the new

While “Team Crisis” worked to merge the different Earths into one, what if on Earth-Prime, the movie became a critical and financial success? What if Helen Slater got to share her positive reviews with her co-stars? What if Peter O’Toole and Faye Dunaway weren’t nominated for Razzie Awards? What if Supergirl garnered as much interest in its source material as Tim Burton and Michael Keaton did for Batman just five years later? Would the film’s success change the direction of the Crisis? According to Crisis on Infinite Earths writer Marv Wolfman, “It was already too late. The story was done. If it had been a success however they might have revived [Supergirl] sooner.” Did the movie influence then-current Supergirl writer Paul Kupperberg? “The main influence was that we didn’t want to do anything even remotely as terrible as that movie in the comics. That was just a bad movie. Helen Slater looked great in the part, but she had nothing to work with. It’s a film best forgotten.” On the other hand, did the producers seek out Kupperberg’s advice on how to handle Kara or even Jimmy Olsen, characters he’d already written? “I had nothing to do with it, except to watch it.” So Supergirl would have met her heroic demise even if the film turned out to be the Titanic of its day—the film, not the disaster it was based on—rather than one more argument for a movie studio to give second and third thoughts about greenlighting a comic-book property for film. Dick Giordano adds, based on his own experience, “Films rarely really affect their comic-book counterparts, and so I think Crisis would have still needed the dramatic push of Supergirl dying. And

world, even to her

Marv is probably right that a huge successful Supergirl film might have led to a

beloved cousin who

recreation of the character minus the baggage.”

continued to battle injustice on a global, even a cosmic level.

TM & © DC Comics.

sidebar

Still, she had one more life to save.

So what might have saved the Maid of Might? Marv Wolfman has his own ideas. Perhaps she would be more than just “Superman’s cousin,” something even the film’s producers couldn’t—or wouldn’t—move away from. “I would have handled

Perhaps, even if just for

her in a much stronger fashion—Superman without all the Smallville,” says Wolfman.

a little while, she became

“Remember, Kara grew up in Argo City knowing billions of her people had died.

S u p e r m a n ’s s e c r e t

She must have been somewhat hardened to grief which makes her innocence

weapon once again.

even more wondrous. There is a deep character there but it was never mined.” —Brian K. Morris

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Art G Gallery allery Art Supergirl:

Super-Fashion Plate

TM & © DC Comics.

After dropping off her blue skirt at the thrift store in 1970, the Girl of Steel became DC’s most fashionable femme. In this gallery, seven all-star artists go ga-ga over the ’70s and ’80s Supergirl in a collection of commissioned illustrations shared with BACK ISSUE by their owner, Bruce MacIntosh. All artwork © 2006 the respective artists. Supergirl TM & © DC Comics. Betty © 2006 Archie Comics Publications.

Supergirl by Alex Saviuk (Superman, Amazing Spider-Man).

Supergirl by Brian Stelfreeze (Matador, Domino, Batman covers).

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Supergirl by Cully Hamner (Blue Beetle, Batman: Tenses).

lery l a g t ar

Supergirl by Leonard Kirk (Agents of Atlas, JSA: Darkness).

Supergirl by Philip Moy (Powerpuff Girls).

Supergirl by Scott Rosema (August, Space Ghost).

Supergirl by Dan Parent (Archie, Tween Angel).

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n e n e m o m o W W r e r SSuuppe Color Me Diana

rite First Favo o y M “ r e if by Jenn ” Contin r Woman e d n o W was

Dick Giordano’s cover art to 1975’s Wonder Woman Giant Comics to Color (Whitman). Courtesy of Heritage Comics. TM & © DC Comics.

e, ls issu r i G r l r Supe me rea micFor ou ask so o o s on c ided t ought h we dec t r i the oines. girls st her e low: t a super e ies be s’ gr he lad

t d ch of you fin ked ea s) did ( e in We as ook o -her omic-b super as a c l a n Which ted piratio collec st ins ? and y h the mo w inment r, and terta n e r u reade for yo swers nt. the an joyme and en tino er Con —Jennif

di ana schutz Senior Editor, dark horse comics Supergirl! Hands-down, no doubt about it ... Supergirl! I was a Mort Weisinger baby of the early to middle ’60s when I first began reading comics, and the gentle Otto Binder-scripted adventures of Superman’s cousin were what floated my little-girl boat. Artist Jim Mooney drew every single Supergirl story, save for her introduction in Action #252, and Jim became the first artist whose work I was able to recognize even as a child. (Don’t forget: no credits back in those days.) Supergirl was blonde (just like ... me), and she was often lonely TM & © DC Co mics.

(just like ... me), and she could do her homework or clean her room—or save the world—in a mere three seconds. Unlike me!

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own adventures, and really cemented the idea that being female didn’t have to be a sorry-ass loser like the ’60s-era Supergirl. But then, my movie faves were Rosalind Russell and Katherine Hepburn: that great combination of sass and class. I have no respect for women who let somebody else carry their brains.

MARCIA ALLASS Editor-in-Chief, www.sequentialtart.com

As a kid I was very keen on Wonder Woman. I only owned one issue of the comic that I was bought when in hospital for an eye operation, but I kept that comic

Marvel-ous!

barbarA kesel Hawk & Dove, Savant Garde, Ultra Girl, Batgirl, The Dark Crystal

Detail of Mark Swayze’s Mary Marvel painting

for ages and reread it many times. I don’t remember the details of it now, but I definitely remember being wowed by this woman who could become a butt-kicking heroine

Well, first off, I’ve always hated the word “heroine”

at any time, and I especially remember liking her lasso

because of the “whine” in it, which was often what

and her invisible plane! To a nine-year-old, these were

passed for character development in female characters

just too cool!

from Way Back When. “Hero” is a job; “heroine” is an

I kind of moved away from super-hero comics as an

estrogen-based drug that weakens the brain, causing

adult, so I couldn’t point specifically to anyone that has

frantic stupidity and the inability to reason when not

inspired me as such—although from my skimming of

in the presence of a Similarly Named Male Character.

the genre I’d have to pick Oracle, simply because of

My favorites? Phantom Girl (of the Legion of Super-Heroes), for one. She had the coolest

how she overcame adversity and the fact that she uses her wits not her body to win the day.

power ever and kicked major ass. (The fact that she got a cool boyfriend didn’t hurt.) I wasn’t a Marvel reader in my

trina robbins gogirl!, wild irish rose

younger days, or I’m sure Marvel Girl would have made the cut. Wonder Woman and Supergirl were, unfortunately, Major Stupid when I first read them, which kept leading me back to the Shooter-era Legion where women were as plentiful as men and brunettes were part of the mix. I liked the idea of a world where female didn’t mean secondplace or second fiddle (okay, so there’s certain stories where I hang my head and sigh, but!). That series of stories gave me a great new-but-familiar world where I could set my

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Well, duh, obviously Wonder Woman comes first! She was an Amazon and a princess and she spoke to goddesses (and they spoke back to her). How cool was that? Plus she lived on a magic island populated only by women. For little girls in a scary, male-dominated world, that’s a safe place. Next would be Mary Marvel, because she had all the same powers as Superman (except for the X-ray vision) but she was just a girl, like I was just a girl. And all she had to do was to say her magic word, Shazam. So maybe I could find my magic word and say it, and I too would have super-powers and be able to fly!

Colleen coover banana monday, sexy chix

(Bottom left) A 1985

JAN DUURSEMA Star Wars, Spider-Man, XFactor, Warlord, Hawkman

Maggie sketch by Jaime Hernandez, courtesy of Heritage Comics.

As a little kid in the early ’70s, Batgirl was my favorite, mostly on account of the fact that I loved her on the Batman TV show. I liked how spunky and cute she was. But when I was a teenager in the ’80s, Maggie Chascarrillo became the girl character I saw myself in. I identified with her insecurity, her taste in punk rock,

Barry Windsor-Smith. She was intelligent; street smart; a capable, superior fighter; and tough as nails. She was also beautifully drawn and her costume was very cool. When I think about it, I drew a lot of inspiration for Aayla Secura from that character.

and her undefined sexuality. Of course, Penny Century

Jan Duursema’s original,

is really more of a super-hero than Maggie, but Maggie was kind of a super-mechanic.

CHYNNA CLUGSTON-MAJOR Blue Monday, Sexy Chix, Queen Bee, Strangetown, Teen Titans Go!

Seriously? 99% of them bored me to death from day

unpublished cover art JUNE BRIGMAN POWER PACK, SUPERGIRL, STAR WARS, BRENDA STARR

to Wonder Woman vol. 1 #294 (Aug. 1982), courtesy of Heritage

Don’t have an answer for this one. Didn’t read comics

Comics. In the inset is

growing up. It’s the artwork that inspires me. But on

the published version of

that note, I always enjoyed the Jack Kirby heroines. He

the cover, by Gil Kane.

drew women who really looked like they could kick ass.

TM & © DC Comics.

one. No, no, bear with me. I’m not trying to be a “snob” here, this was me as a kid, a genuine reaction. I thought they were uninteresting, I felt absolutely no connection to their lives, and I thought their outfits were ridiculous and garish. Hey, this is a visual medium after all, and it was difficult to even look at the panels without feeling embarrassed for them. I wanted it all, the entire package to be awesome. It wasn’t until I discovered Love and Rockets (L&R) around either [age] 12 or 13 that I found something to aspire to. So, that said, I guess I can claim Penny Century as my most inspirational super-heroine (though between you and me, I’m really a Hopey fan). Not only Penny, but everyone in L&R were dressed in great clothes and kicked ass and could talk some serious garbage. Los Hernandez Bros can really write women, and that’s what I found inspiring as a comic-book reader. Great self-aware characters. Realistic, even in fantastic situations. Good, good stuff.

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LEE MARRS Sexy Chix, Wonder Woman, Batman, Indiana Jones

raised as a regular human guy, with superhuman powers—but no especially wise take on how Earth functions. But WW operated from a different set of values that made for some interesting endings to

Wonder Woman was always a favorite, especially

stories. Her reactions to the “strange ways of men”

the George Pérez years. When I was a kid, she was

echoed many of my own. This investigation of how

the only superheroine.

our world functions was a terrific chance for various

The things that impressed me: She was an outsider,

writers to make comments on screwed-up aspects of

in ways that were much more important than Superman’s

society. Her set of goodies—the bracelets, the truth-

just being from another planet. He was actually

telling lasso, and invisible plane—were also offbeat and fun. And very good storytelling devices, too.

mics. TM & © DC Co

As a kid, I ignored the Steve Trevor stuff as stupid. Once I got into my teens, the whole yearning/ misunderstandings scenario was a perfect unfortunate parallel for what we girls were trained traditionally to do: hide our real smarts, athletic ability, whatever, to make guys feel superior so that they would like us! Aaargh. We longed for some guy who could stand up to our Wonder Woman-ness, and (literally) embrace it. With the rise of feminism, that wistfulness became a shout! Along with many other characters (Aquaman with fish posses and electric eel jails, Batman doing Sherlock Holmesian urban detecting, etc.), WW has taken a Violence Conversion Makeover wherein most of the specific anomalies and variety of dealing with conflict that were fun/interesting

Detail from George Pérez’s

have been erased and replaced with

original cover art to

mega-smashing. Yawn. So predictable

Wonder Woman Annual #2

and generic.

(1989), courtesy of

But if there’s anything that is

Heritage Comics.

certain in the comics universe, it’s

TM & © DC Comics.

The Next Version Soon.

anne timmons GoGirl!, Sexy Chix, Wilma Rudolph, Jane Goodall

Batgirl, probably because I enjoyed action stories where the woman was able to defend herself and execute incredible rescues. And I liked her costume!

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I mostly preferred male characters. They had much

Peter Parker,

better stories.

honorary girl.

So (finally the real answer), actually, I was really

into Kitty Pryde from The X-Men. When she first appeared, she was 13, she had curly hair, and she was from the Chicago area. She spoke to me on a level that no other character could at the time, seeing as how I was a curly-haired, teenaged girl from the Chicago area. Talk about identifying! But at the same time, I loved Phoenix. She was super-powerful and could pretty much do whatever © 2006 Marvel Characte rs, Inc.

she wanted. Unfortunately, she wanted to eat a solar system filled with asparagus people. I suppose first and foremost, I loved how both characters looked. I could not get enough of that John Byrne art. And Chris Claremont and John Byrne brought out the best in each other. Those Claremont scripts were great. He really made you care about all

Curly-haired

the characters. They were much more fleshed out

Kitty Pryde. X-Men #143

to me than things I had previously read.

(Mar. 1981) cover art

Before that I loved Betty and Veronica... JILL THOMPSOn Scary Godmother, Death, Deadboy Detectives, Sexy Chix

by Terry Austin.

...but my favorite character was Jughead.

I don’t know if I was inspired by any super-heroines as a comic reader. I don’t think I ever wanted to become an ambassador for peace, because I read Wonder Woman or anything ... but as a kid, I really wanted to find a character I could identity with. In general, everyone could identify with Peter Parker, right? In real life, he was an average guy, unsure of himself, kinda outside, but when no one was looking, he did marvelous things. Like when people daydream. We do miraculous things, say witty remarks, or whatever in our heads. We all are super-heroes in our minds. But to find a female character to identity with when I was reading comics? Most of them were not so interesting. Of course, I was always happy to read stories with any female character who had cool powers. Medusa from the Inhumans was pretty good, but she was a supporting character. In general, they really didn’t speak to me. It wasn’t until I found The X-Men that I was really wowed by female super-hero characters. Before that

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A Gallery of Graphite and Sketch Art

el Eury

icha Captions by M

Adam Hughes’ underdrawing for the final painting of All-American Girl, produced for the 1993 Creators Universe set of collectors cards of creator-owned properties. “I never did anything with her other than the card,” Adam says, “but she was a pastiche of WWII comic characters.” Courtesy of the artist. 2 0

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ALL-AMERICAN GIRL – ADAM HUGHES

Pretty in Pencil:

BLACK CAT – KEITH POLLARD

Can you believe that this fabulous Keith Pollard-penciled cover to Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979) was rejected? Since this was the issue that introduced Spidey’s friend/foe Black Cat, it was decided that a front view of the character (seen in the inset, drawn by Al Milgrom) would better reveal the Cat to readers. Courtesy of Bob McLeod. S u p e r

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DONNA TROY – DARRYL BANKS

Wonder Girl, all grown up! Boy, is she ever! This stunning 2001 Donna Troy commissioned illustration by Darryl Banks was contributed to BACK ISSUE by Robert Plunkett—and to learn about Donna’s turbulent past, turn to page 64. 2 2

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WONDER WOMAN – JON BOGDANOVE

You may know him as a Superman artist, but Man of Steel’s versatile Jon Bogdanove shows he’s no slouch at drawing Wonder Woman, either. This powerful interpretation of the Amazon Princess is from DC Comics’ 2006 JLA Style Guide. Courtesy of Jon and Judy Bogdanove. S u p e r

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PHOENIX – RICK LEONARDI

This astounding doublepage spread by Rick Leonardi was drawn for an aborted Phoenix miniseries (circa late 1980s/early 1990s) written by Chris Claremont; the project was revived (and revised) in the late 1990s as the miniseries X-Men: True Friends. Courtesy of Dennis Pu.

BATWOMAN – JOHN BYRNE

A new Batwoman is coming out and coming back to DC’s pages, according to an early June 2006 press release—but back in the 1990s, John Byrne batted this idea (which, unfortunately, went nowhere) to then-Batman group editor Denny O’Neil. From the collection of Michelle Warden, via Jim Warden. © 2006 DC Comics.

We’re proud to announce the “birth” of a bouncing baby BACK ISSUE spin-off! Rough Stuff, packed with pencil and sketch art by a multitude of modern masters, is now a quarterly magazine edited by Bob McLeod. “Rough Stuff” will be leaving these pages as of next issue—and going out with a bang, with a Dave Gibbons pencil-art showcase. Rough Stuff © 2006 TwoMorrows. Characters © 2006 their respective companies.

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by Dewey Cassell

interview Curiosity Didn’t Kill The Cat… …bad sales did, depriving readers of the publication of The Cat #5. Here’s the splash page to that unpublished issue starring the pre-Tigra Marvel heroine. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Nothing gets male hormones raging faster than a curvaceous female feline in a bikini, as attested to by the enduring popularity of Marvel Comics’ Tigra the Were-Woman. So, who would imagine that the origins of Tigra lie with another hirsute heroine whose tales were woven for girls? Comic books have often attempted to reflect the changes occurring in society. In the late 1960s, the dialogue, characters, and storyline of DC Comics’ Teen Titans reflected the hip culture prevalent at the time. By the early ’70s, the feminist movement was in full swing. In 1972, Gloria Steinem founded Ms. magazine. That same year, Marvel Comics launched several new comic books aimed at a female audience, including Night Nurse, Shanna the She-Devil, and The Cat [a.k.a. Claws of the Cat]. Targeting female readership was not new to the comics industry, but by late 1972, the romance titles that had long been a mainstay had largely lost their appeal. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #13’s “The Death of Romance (Comics)” for more on this subject.] What were lacking were relevant stories featuring a character with which girls could identify and admire. For all of the monumental growth in the super-hero genre, there remained a dearth of female heroes. Enter Greer Grant Nelson. Greer was an attractive, intelligent, but insecure young woman who married an overbearing policeman who was later killed by a gunman. Left on her own, Greer volunteered for a university study with Dr. Joanne Tumolo. The study involved a series of treatments designed to heighten the innate capabilities of women, including a sixth sense of “women’s intuition.” Ironically, the study was being funded by a dominating male villain named Mal Donalbain, who had also created a cat suit as part of a secret plan to build a private “army of amazons.” Dr. Tumolo discovered the scheme and Greer donned the costume, confronting Donalbain, whose morbid fear of being touched proved his undoing.

Cover Girl x 2: Original art to the covers of The Cat #3 (Apr. 1973), penciled by Rich Buckler and inked (and signed) by John Romita, Sr., and Marvel Chillers #6 (Aug. 1976), by Buckler and inker Mike Esposito. Art scans courtesy of Mike Burkey (www.romitaman.com) and Heritage Comics (www.heritagecomics .com), respectively.

According to former Marvel editor Roy Thomas, “The basic concept for the character, and the name (including Claws of the Cat) was Stan’s.” Marvel stalwart Marie Severin was tapped to pencil the book, and she talks about the genesis of the character:

Marie Severin at the 2001 San Diego Comic-Con. Photo courtesy of Dewey Cassell.

DEWEY CASSELL: I understand they deliberately put a team of women creators on The Cat. MARIE SEVERIN: Absolutely. They were hoping to capture female readers. After all, fifty percent of the population is female. CASSELL: I guess female inkers were hard to come by, though, because Wally Wood inked the origin story. SEVERIN: Yes, I remember saying, “My God, I drew this woman and Wally inked her like she’s wrapped in Saran Wrap.” His storytelling always had lovely inking, nice blacks and everything, but I didn’t have her that revealing. The boys loved his work, though. She was hot stuff. CASSELL: Did you have some influence over the design of the character? SEVERIN: At that time, Stan had the time that when you worked on something, you always checked it out with him. You had time to go in and have a little talk and get his opinion. They wanted her to look like a cat. The sash was my idea, I’m pretty sure. The sash was just for an element of flair, not having a tail. She had something on her feet so she could climb up buildings. That all made sense in the

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realm of the nonsense of comic books. CASSELL: How did you feel about women’s lib? SEVERIN: In my family, we all drew. I never knew that girls didn’t draw. We always had books at home and my parents were artistic people and they always gave us paper to draw on. And you never drew on the other side. My father said that you should draw on one side only. It instilled in you that you were not scribbling. It was worth something. Marie left the book after the second issue to become head of the Marvel coloring department, after which Paty Greer (later Cockrum) and Bill Everett took over the illustrating chores. About the same time that the third issue of The Cat hit the newsstands, Greer made a guest appearance alongside your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in issue #8 of Marvel Team-Up (Apr. 1973). The move was undoubtedly meant to provide a boost to the fledgling super-heroine’s own title, but it was not enough. Issue four of The Cat would prove to be her last and she went out with a whimper, appearing in a short 15-page tale illustrated by three men (Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, and Frank McLaughlin), accompanied by a reprint of a Marvel Girl story from X-Men. The writer of Claws of the Cat was Linda Fite. Linda talks about how she got involved with Marvel Comics and Greer Nelson:

CASSELL: How did you get started at Marvel? LINDA FITE: When I was in college, I made friends with this guy who was one of the first generation of hippies in the South. He ran this really cool club in Raleigh, North Carolina, called the Sidetrack. His name was John Peden and now he’s a photographer in New York City. We’d go down there to see him because his girlfriend went to my college. He was a Marvel Comics fan and he sort of turned me on to it. I started reading them in college and just loved them. When I was a senior, looking around for jobs, I had some interviews lined up in Manhattan. So I wrote Marvel and said, “Hey, man, you should hire me. I’m good.” [Marvel staffer] Flo Steinberg called me in my dorm and said, “You sound so wonderful. We can’t offer you a job, but when you come to New York, Stan would like to meet you.” So that’s how I got there. I took a job at Marvel, even though it paid substantially less than the job I was offered at a national magazine. I think it was Life or

Linda Fite at New York’s National Con, 2001. Photo courtesy of Dewey Cassell.

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Look or one of those, but I was in love with comics. It was too cool to pass up. CASSELL: So, how did you get the assignment to write The Cat? FITE: I was hired as an editorial assistant/production assistant at Marvel. I answered fan mail, too, and helped out Flo. I kept bugging Roy, “C’mon, Roy, let me write. Gimme a shot.” The first thing he let me write was a fill-in short Western for Kid Colt Outlaw or something. I did all right. He thought it was okay. And then he let me write—I can’t remember the timeline, but I did an X-Men filler and also filled in when Jeannie Thomas, his wife at the time, was doing Night Nurse. Then Stan and Roy said, “We should do some woman super-hero character.” They came up with the whole concept and then brought it to me. I thought, “A cat? Oh, my God, how original. We’ll have a woman and we’ll call her Cat and she can be in catfights.” But I was just happy to have the chance to do it. CASSELL: Did they suggest the women’s lib tone to the stories? FITE: No, I sort of came up with the first story. Once they had the design and what she would look like, I came up with the backstory and her name. That was sort of what they were aiming at, to have a strong female character. I guess she was widowed—that put her out on her own—plus she’d had all this adversity and a “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” [attitude]. That kind of stuff. Roy edited it, but I don’t remember him making any drastic changes, unless he wanted more fighting. I think a couple of times, [Roy] said, “Here would be a good villain for her to fight.” I named the character, Dr. Tumolo, after my best friend from college. She’s so mad now. She’s quite an eminent psychotherapist, but she says, “If you Google my name, The Cat comes up!” [laughter] Pop culture, baby. It rules. CASSELL: So why did the story in the fourth issue end up being only 15 pages? FITE: I have no idea. Is that the one that Starlin and Weiss did? I got mad at them because they were putting all these notes in the margins. I was very passionate then, as far as my feminism goes. One of them wrote, “Next issue, the Cat gets an ovarian cyst.” I got so mad. I went to Stan and I finked on them and they got in trouble. But that’s when I was much more self-righteous. Not as wise as I am now. CASSELL: Do you recall anything about why the book got canceled? Was it just a sales thing? FITE: It was strictly sales. The standards were much higher then for what would float a comic. If it was under a certain number, they just canned it. Did you know that Frank Miller’s first mention in a Marvel comic was in a Claws of the Cat letters page? Mind you, I didn’t notice at the time. Who knew who Frank Miller

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was going to become? Someone pointed that out to me later. I can’t remember which issue it was, maybe #3. CASSELL: How long did you end up working for Marvel? FITE: I was there, I guess, only about a year and a half in the office, but it was the most fun office anyone could ever hope to work for. It was like those movie versions of those fun ad agencies with the basketball hoops. It was freewheeling with lots of talk, so much discussion, joking, and practical joking. We would party together, and go out to eat at lunch, and it was really wonderful. I left because they wouldn’t give me a big enough raise. I am a practical woman. It was kind of a boy’s world. I got a fulltime job as an art director for a trade magazine. Today, I’m a copy editor for a daily newspaper in the Hudson Valley.

A fifth issue of The Cat was written, penciled, and partially inked, but never published. Ironically, with this issue, Marvel was attempting to return to the original premise of the book. Long-time DC penciler Ramona Fradon was tapped to do the honors for Greer. Linda Fite once again penned the tale and Jim Mooney was slated to ink it. The story featured the Cat taking on a sorceress with supernatural powers and Ramona redesigned the character’s costume for the issue. Although the changes were largely cosmetic, it was indicative of the concerted effort to revitalize the book. Ramona discusses her brief foray into Marvel Comics: CASSELL: You worked for a long time for DC Comics… RAMONA FRADON: Most of the work I did was for DC. I did a lot of features for Adventure Comics. I did some detective stories and Westerns, just three- or four-pagers. And then I started doing Aquaman and did that all during the ’50s, up until 1960, I guess. CASSELL: Since you had been working for DC all that time, how did you get involved with Marvel and The Cat?

Ramona Fradon, San Diego Comic-Con, 2001. Photo courtesy of Dewey Cassell.

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FRADON: Well, I had been retired for about seven years. I had a small child who needed me and so I stopped drawing. I guess it was in 1973; Roy Thomas called me and said they had this feature. They wanted a woman to do it because it was during the height of the women’s movement. I think maybe the reason they called me was that Stan Lee loved the drawing I did on Metamorpho, or so I heard at the time. I was getting kind of restless anyway. So, I drew The Cat and one story of Fantastic Four. I did those two things for Marvel. Then, I went back to DC after that. CASSELL: Did Marvel just not have enough work? FRADON: No, no. First of all, I was really rusty. And I was totally confounded by not drawing from a script. They gave me this one paragraph and said go draw this 17-page story. I don’t think I did my best work by any means. I think I had a script on Fantastic Four, but I just don’t think they were satisfied with my work. Then I went back to DC and started doing mysteries with Joe Orlando. I really had a lot of fun doing that. It suited my style, I think. CASSELL: I’ve talked to a number of people like Dick Ayers who did not like having to build a story from just a paragraph or two. FRADON: No, especially since you’re only getting paid to be the artist. That was fine for artists who liked doing action stuff. I remember vaguely that there was one requirement at Marvel, which was that you had to have five or six pages of solid action in the middle of every story. Of course, you had the opportunity to do whatever you wanted, which is nice. I started doing that on the Cat story, but my mind began to wander from the plot. It was just hard for me to keep focused on telling the story. CASSELL: It was actually a wonderful story. When they asked you to do this issue of The Cat, had they suggested you redesign the costume?

FRADON: I don’t remember if they told me I could change the costume or if I just did it. CASSELL: Did they keep you posted at all about what was going on with the book? FRADON: I had no idea if it was going to appear or not. I was completely out of what was going on in the business. I don’t think I’ve seen the story in total. CASSELL: Oddly enough, the first and last pages were fully rendered, but a lot of the pages in between were only partially completed. Sadly, poor prior sales figures led to the title’s cancellation before the fifth issue of The Cat saw print. Ordinarily, that would mark the end of a super-hero, but we are talking about a cat, and this one would have at least three lives. Which brings us to Tigra. After a year-long absence, Greer Nelson returned to Marvel Comics in 1974 in a book entitled Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974), featuring Werewolf by Night. In this story, written by Tony Isabella, Greer discovers that her mentor, Dr. Tumolo, is actually a member of an obscure race of cat people. When Greer gets injured

(above) Splash page to Marvel Chillers #3 (Feb. 1976). (below) Writer Tony Isabella.

fighting a Hydra agent as the Cat, the good doctor offers to heal her, but there is a catch: the cure will turn her into one of the cat people as well. With the acquiescence, “Life is precious, in any shape,” Greer consents and the result is the character we have come to know as Tigra. In the transformation, Greer acquires fur, stripes, and claws like a tiger, as well as the animal’s innate agility and senses. The issue also included a text piece about Tigra written by Isabella. Eight months later, Tigra reappeared in the pages of one of Marvel’s black-and-white magazines, Monsters Unleashed #10 (Feb. 1975), taking on a changeling killer who assumed the form of—no joke—a giant rat. The following year, Tigra finally found a home in the pages of Marvel Chillers, starting with the third issue. Tony Isabella sheds some light into the origins and resilience of Tigra:

CASSELL: How did you get the assignment to write Giant-Size Creatures #1 and the subsequent Tigra stories?

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(far right) Splash page from Avengers #144 (Feb. 1976). (right) Tigra tangles with the Frightful Four in Fantastic Four #177 (Dec. 1976). Art by George Pérez and Joe Sinnott. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

TONY ISABELLA: My memory may be a bit shaky here, but I recall the Giant-Size books were approved and put on the schedule without a lot of lead time. Editor Roy Thomas asked me to write the first issue of Giant-Size Creatures and the framing sequence for the reprints used in the first GiantSize Defenders. Mike Friedrich was the writer of the regular Werewolf by Night title, but he was living on the West Coast. Since I was living in New York and on staff at Marvel, it was easier and more expedient for Roy to work with me. I think I got the assignment one day, pitched the idea on the next, and one day later was sitting down with Roy and Gil Kane to work out what Tigra would look like. I didn’t have any claim to Tigra—she was based on an existing character, after all—but it made sense to Roy and his immediate successors that I write her subsequent appearances. CASSELL: What prompted you (and Marvel) to bring back Greer Nelson and why did you not just bring her back as the Cat? ISABELLA: I liked the character. With supernatural heroes seemingly in favor with Marvel and its readers, I figured turning Greer into Tigra might give her a second chance at comics success. I wouldn’t have been interested in bringing Greer back as the Cat. I saw more possibilities in Tigra, both as a character and in the wider range of stories I could tell with her. CASSELL: What was your inspiration for Tigra, or did she just spring from your imagination? ISABELLA: My friend Duffy Vohland was at my apartment when I was working on the basic pitch

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for the story. We were tossing out names of existing Marvel characters to see if some underutilized character might make for an interesting “team-up” with the Werewolf. I can’t recall which of us mentioned Greer, but I’m pretty sure I was the one who came up with the idea of turning her into some kind of werewolf. Roy Thomas came up with the name “Tigra the Were-Woman.” Gil, Don Perlin, and John Romita finalized Tigra’s appearance. CASSELL: Why does Tigra wear a bikini? ISABELLA: Because the Comics Code wouldn’t let her go naked. CASSELL: Were there any aspects of your original concept for Tigra that were not realized? ISABELLA: My original concept didn’t do much beyond what I needed for the Giant-Size Creatures story and the awareness that Tigra could fit into both super-hero and supernatural thrillers. Not long after, I plotted a Tigra story for one of the black-and-white horror mags I was editing. Chris Claremont scripted it. Once I was asked to write an ongoing Tigra series, then I started stretching the concept. I gave her a speech pattern very similar to Spider-Man’s; Tigra had as many insecurities as he did and that snappy patter was fun to write. Like Spider-Man, I also wanted her to be outnumbered or outgunned by the villains she faced as often as possible. I wanted her stories to be exciting, fun, and even a little bit sexy. As with Ghost Rider, which I was also writing at the time, I avoided New York in favor of playing around the fringes of the Marvel Universe.

CASSELL: Do you know what led to the cancellation of Marvel Chillers? ISABELLA: Sales. It was rocky time in the comicbook marketplace. Marvel had thrown a lot of new titles into that marketplace at the same time. DC had done much the same thing. It would take a few years for the comics industry to get a grip on the possibilities of the direct market. CASSELL: Why do you suppose the character has survived all these years? ISABELLA: Tigra is a fun and very human character. I think readers relate to that. When she’s written correctly, she is someone readers would like to know and for whom they can root. The transformed feline proved far more appealing as Tigra than she had as the Cat. While her reign in Marvel Chillers was not much longer than her original tenure in The Cat, Greer went on to appear alongside the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Avengers. She later developed a prehensile tail and is able to change back into human form, thanks to a magic amulet. She remains an active member of the Marvel Universe, including a 2002 solo miniseries. But that was just her second life. When Greer Nelson joined the ranks of the cat people as Tigra, she left the cat suit behind, and who should happen along to don the costume but Patsy Walker, of romance comics’ fame. Patsy dubbed herself “Hellcat” and took up residence with the assembled in The Avengers #144 (Feb. 1976). Hellcat was killed at one point but later resurrected. She, too, is still an active part of the Marvel mythos as a member of the Defenders. Anecdotally, “Hellcat” was a name considered for the original Greer Nelson character in 1972 and a working title in 1974 for the character that became Tigra. A failed start out of the gate rarely results in a character—much less two—that survive for over 30 years. Credit goes to Tony Isabella and Roy Thomas for seeing the potential in the flawed feline and saving her from the violin factory. Beware the claws of the Cat, in any form. Sincere appreciation goes to the ladies Fite, Fradon, and Severin, as well as Mr. Isabella. Check out Tony’s latest projects at www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony. Thanks, also, to Roy Thomas, editor of sister publication Alter Ego, as well as John Romita and Aaron Sultan for their assistance. Dewey Cassell is a regular contributor to BACK ISSUE as well as author of the book The Art of George Tuska, available from TwoMorrows Publishing.

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Catsuits and Karate:

Diana Prince Leaves Wonder Woman Behind!

Andy Mangels

Gone were the satin tights and invisible airplane; in 1968, Wonder Woman renounced her powers and learned to kick butt as mortal woman Diana Prince. It was a time of change in the country, as social consciousness was being raised, and equal rights for women were being battled for in the streets, the courtrooms, and the news media. It was also a time of change at DC Comics, wherein “relevant” stories about racism, war, and drug abuse were peppered among the storylines of super-villains and aliens. Wonder Woman had gone through numerous permutations since her debut in 1941. She had battled Nazis and costumed villains, espousing ideals ranging from love and sisterhood to the joys of bondage and “loving submission.” But since the death of creator, William Moulton Marston, in 1947, the Wonder Woman comic had been a schizophrenic affair, showcasing the character as a Wonder Girl and a Wonder Tot, endlessly revising her origin, pitting her against giant communist eggs, sentient protoplasm, genies, dinosaurs, and romantic entanglements with mermen, birdmen, monsters, and the ever-present Steve Trevor. Writer/editor Robert Kanigher seemed to care little for continuity, and the title languished in sales. DC publisher Carmine Infantino handed the Wonder Woman editing reins over to romance comic editor Jack Miller in 1968, and Miller assigned a new team to the title: writer Denny O’Neil, and artists Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano. Wonder Woman

The Prince Formerly Known as Wonder Woman Sekowsky and Giordano’s cover to Wonder Woman #178 (Sept.–Oct. 1968). Unless otherwise noted, all art in this article is courtesy of Andy Mangels. Wonder Woman TM & © 2006 DC Comics.

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#178–180 (Sept.–Oct. 1968 to Jan.–Feb. 1969) revealed that the Amazons had depleted the magic of Paradise Island and needed to retreat to another dimension. Wonder Woman gave up her star-spangled costume and super-powers and stayed on Earth, buying a clothing boutique in New York’s Greenwich Village. As part of an undercover mission, she also embarked on a makeover to infiltrate a “hippie club,” styling her hair, adding makeup, and donning hip, new fashions. The “mod” look would stay for four years. Denny O’Neil says that he got the job because “I was the flavor of the week. I was the new kid on the block and being asked to take it in a new direction. Why I picked the new direction I did, I no longer know, and I certainly would do it differently if I had to do it again.”

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Elaborating, O’Neil says that “the thing was controversial because the feminists criticized us for de-powering her, and I thought at the time I was serving a feminist agenda by making her self-reliant. I now see their point. She was the only superpowered female in publication at the time and one of the very few that existed, and here I came along and made her un-super. I absolutely didn’t see that at the time. I certainly thought of myself as a liberal and probably pro-feminist. I didn’t understand their attacks at the time, but I now do and certainly see their point of view.” Artist Dick Giordano remembers that the depowering of Wonder Woman was actually a bit of a trend at DC. “The ‘de-powered era’ was called ‘the relevancy period’ by those of us then in the trenches,” he says. “Carmine was intrigued with the possibilities of having our characters be more in touch with what was happening on the street. Our romance books of the time moved away from the traditional storybook fables and had more real romance story lines with characters having more of the same problems that real people had. The Teen Titans were de-powered as well, and we had plotlines in most of our titles fit the mode. Carmine was the driving force in relevancy, and as such was behind the ‘no costumes/no powers’ formats of the day.” Without her costume, Diana’s new “mod” outfits came straight out of the pages of fashion magazines of the day, and a later white catsuit design seemed to be modeled after Diana Rigg’s skintight apparel on British TV import The Avengers. “Mike Sekowsky did all the design work,” Dick Giordano remembers. “I was only the inker. The entire project—including fashions—was patterned after The Avengers. I-Ching was Steed.” For the storylines, O’Neil didn’t pattern anything after the TV series, though. “I was not a television watcher at all,” he says. “It seemed to be something in the air. Certainly the martial-arts stuff was beginning to be a part of our collective consciousness.” So who was I-Ching? In issue #180, Steve Trevor was killed (in a later letters column, Sekowsky called him “just too dumb and boring”), and Diana was given a new friend: aged Asian martial arts instructor I-Ching, a blind man with mystical powers who would tutor Diana in karate, jiu-jitsu, and other forms of self-defense. O’Neil is a bit embarrassed today about naming the character as he did. “I certainly meant no disrespect to 50,000 years of Chinese culture, but I can understand why people saw it like that. I had, and have, a virtual lifelong interest in Asian philosophy. If I had to do it again, I would at least have made the Asian character a woman and I would not have named her after the great Chinese classics.”

Diana Prince … Guest-Star In the four years that the powerless Diana Prince roamed the DC Universe, she still managed some pretty surprising team-ups. Other places she popped up included: Justice League of America #69 (Feb. 1969) A powerless Diana Prince resigns from the JLA, and they wonder who she is in the first place, having never known her secret identity! Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #93 (July 1969) Lois battles Diana for Superman’s affection, but have Diana’s powers returned? The Brave and the Bold #87 (Dec. 1969–Jan. 1970) Mike Sekowsky delivers a tale of fashion and sports cars, as Diana helps Batman at a foreign racing event.

Our Other Princess Diana… …the enchanting Diana Rigg, as Emma Peel. Anyone who needs to ask why this 1968 Gold Key one-shot was titled John Steed and Emma Peel instead of The Avengers, the title of the characters’ British TV series, is hereby required to take a crash course in Comics 101. © 1968 ABC Television Limited, London.

O’Neil jokingly notes that he recalls little of the nearly 40-year-old stories. “It was a job. We weren’t taking notes,” he says, laughing. “We certainly didn’t think that 30–40 years later anyone would be interested. One of my strengths—and weaknesses—in doing this is, I did and do respect comics, but I guess I didn’t take my involvement in them seriously [at the time].” In addition to his penciling duties, Sekowsky became editor with Wonder Woman #182 (May–June 1969), and took over writing the series with the following issue. Under his pen, Diana revisited the Amazons, fought a recurring female villainess named Dr. Cyber, and even invaded “Red China” with a machine gun blazing! In the book’s letters pages, Sekowsky alternated letters between those who hated the new direction and those who loved it. In one issue, he did crow that, “The old Wonder Woman was dropped because the sales on

The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #117 (Mar.–April 1970) Seeking Diana’s autograph, Jerry Lewis is transported with her to Paradise Island. It’s far worse than you imagine. Adventure Comics #397 (Sept. 1970) Diana helps Supergirl on a mission with witchy Morgana (returning from Wonder Woman #186), and gives the Maid of Steel a ginchy new costume! World’s Finest #204 (Aug. 1971) In a story by Denny O’Neil, Superman and Diana seek to change a doomed future by stopping violence at a college riot. Superman #241–242 (Aug.–Sept. 1971) Diana and I-Ching aid a brain-damaged Superman in another story by O’Neil. Justice League of America #100–102 (Aug.–Oct. 1972) In a three-part story, Diana is drafted to help the JLA, JSA, and Seven Soldiers of Victory. The Brave and the Bold #105 (Jan.–Feb. 1973) Diana goes undercover in the Latino underworld to aid “Bat Hombre” in this tale by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo. All comics © 2006 DC Comics.

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“If I had to do it again”… …says Denny O’Neil of I-Ching, cover-featured here on WW #180 (Jan.–Feb. 1969), “I would at least have made the Asian character a woman and I would not have named her after the great Chinese classics.” © 2006 DC Comics.

the old WW were so bad that the book was going to be dropped. The new Wonder Woman was given a chance—(a last chance for the book) and it worked! … I can honestly say that I am quite pleased to have taken a sow’s ear and turned it into a silk purse.” Wonder Woman #185 (Nov.–Dec. 1969) was a startling issue for those who read between the lines, as Diana Prince faced a gang of evil women who were barely disguised lesbian caricatures. According to comics historian Scott Shaw!, Sekowsky admitted that the villains of the issue were meant to be disturbing lesbians, and that he had designed the cover in such a way as to avoid the potential wrath of the Comics Code Authority. Interestingly enough, the story would have been written very shortly after late June 1969’s Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, wherein patrons of gay and lesbian establishments rioted against the police for several days. Celebrated today as the start of the modern gay-rights movement, the location and timing of the riots almost certainly played in to Sekowsky’s plotting of the story.

Wonder Down Under Colour Comics of Australia was one DC licensee that reprinted Wonder Woman adventures, most often in World’s Finest Comic Monthly. Oddly, when it came to the Diana Prince era, many of the covers were redrawn from the US originals. Not redrawn to be new images … redrawn to be the same image by a different (generally inferior) artist! Enjoy a few looks at the original and redrawn Wonder Woman covers, as well as a familiar Jeffrey Jones cover for the Mexican version of Marvila. (Special thanks to James Zanotto, Spiros Xenos, and Mark Cannon of www.ausreprints.com for some of the Australian covers.) Wonder Woman TM & © 2006 DC Comics.

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Coded controversy aside, after two years of bimonthly adventures, Wonder Woman sales were beginning to slip. Spy stories alternated with fantasy tales to change up the mix, but Sekowsky fell out of favor with DC management. Dorothy Woolfolk took over as editor for issues #196–198 (Oct. 1971–Feb. 1972), two of which were reprint editions of earlier stories. Denny O’Neil returned to Wonder Woman as editor/writer with issue #199 (Mar.–Apr. 1972), with Dick Giordano taking on full art chores. O’Neil also brought in big-name artist Jeff Jones to do the cover art for a few issues. “It was an experiment to see what happens if we add a different sensibility into the mix,” O’Neil recalls. “I did that throughout my various stints as editor to see if there was going to be an interesting evolution if we change the mix a little bit. Jones hung around with comic-book people. We all saw each other at parties and card games and such.” Jones’ covers brought an element that had been missing from Wonder Woman covers for almost 20 years: bondage! O’Neil laughs about this when asked. “Bondage covers! Something I was too stupid to see at the time. I thought Jeff’s covers were handsome and that’s what I wanted them to be. Now that you mention, it was a fairly startling coincidence. I was following in William Moulton Marston’s footsteps!” With issue #201 (July–Aug. 1972), O’Neil took his last whack at writing the “mod” Wonder Woman, with the first of a two-parter that deposited Diana and Catwoman in the fantasy world of Fritz Lieber’s literary characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser! “I think we wanted to do sword and sorcery and we didn’t want to imitate Robert E. Howard,” says O’Neil. “Lieber’s take on that kind of fantasy was much more to my personal taste. I saw it as witty and clever and a little self-satirical, which I like. I guess that’s what lead to us doing the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser comic that Howie Chaykin drew (1973’s Sword of Sorcery).” Though he tried, O’Neil never directly worked with Lieber. “It was a frustrating couple of days tracking down Lieber to talk to him. I never did meet him.” Asked how DC got the licensing rights to guest-star the pair in Wonder Woman, of all books, O’Neil laughs. “I have wondered if anybody did whatever was supposed to be done. I asked for permission and I got it. From DC.” Oddly, in the two issues of Wonder Woman in which his heroes appeared, Fritz Lieber’s name (or copyright) is never mentioned. Dick Giordano loved working on that pair of issues. “I had never read Fafhrd and Gray Mouser but I was aware of their existence. I really enjoyed working on those two issues. It was my first contact with sword-and-sorcery characters and I went at it like a kid with a new toy.”

Having written himself into a corner, O’Neil called on another literary inspiration to help get him out. “I read one of Samuel Delany’s books, and I read in the NY Post that he lived near me, and then I got introduced to him at a convention,” O’Neil says. “He got interested in comics and I had a very modest stash. He came over to my house on Sixth Street and read through the comics. He’s one of the two most intelligent people I’ve ever met. I continued to read his SF. He was doing extraordinary stuff then. That whole era was wonderful blossoming stuff then and he was one of the foremost practitioners. Since he was interested in comics and I was seeing him ’cause he lived a block away, it seemed natural enough to let him write some comic books for me.”

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Delany remembers that the Wonder Woman assignment sprang from the two men’s conversations. “I had read some of his Green Lantern stuff and was very impressed. It was kind of a mutual admirations society. At one point, Denny fell into the editorship of Wonder Woman and a couple of times when I had been with Denny, we talked about feminist topics. I got a call one day: Would I be interested in writing it?” Delany came on with Wonder Woman #202 (Sept.–Oct. 1972), to wrap up the fantasy storyline. “Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser was a great concept and some of them were remarkable stories,” he says, but the cliffhanger that O’Neil handed him wasn’t much fun. “My feeling basically was that it was just a mess and one had to get oneself out of it whatever way one could. Denny had written the first one and he hadn’t been able to figure out what to do with the second part anyway, and so I said, ‘Well, give it here, I’ll come up with something.’ And so we did. Dick Giordano was a

Wonder-Ful Letterhacks The letters pages of Wonder Woman contained several interesting critiques of the “new Wonder Woman” from some names much more familiar to modern fans. They include: Mark Evanier (#181) Mark Gruenwald (#181) Martin Pasko (#187)

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wonderful artist to work with. He would give you just anything you wanted, which was really quite astonishing. I had never realized that a good, working comic-book artist could put quite so much into one of those panels. I tried to follow along with Denny’s suggestions: 35 words per panel; keep it down to four or five panels to a page.” But it was with issue #203 (Nov.–Dec. 1972) that Delany really got to write the adventures of Wonder Woman his way. “I put together essentially a six-story arc,” Delany says. “Each one had a different villain. One was ‘The Grandee Caper!’, the ‘women’s lib’ issue.” He laughs at the cover blurb that touted the feminist angle. “They were all women’s lib. Each one it was sort of a different villain. A department store mogul, then it was the head of a supermarket chain in the second one who was going to be working against a women’s food cooperative. There was a college advisor that thought women shouldn’t go to graduate school and was also, with the best of intentions, advising young black women ‘No, all you have to do is just take some home economics and get married.’ They all worked together in some way. It was rather complex the way they actually got together. These were going to climax eventually with a story set in an abortion clinic, which is where it was all going to lead to.” An abortion story in 1974? Delany had more in store. “At the same time, there was a running counter-story with the people who lived upstairs who basically you only heard their dialogue through the floor for the first five issues. It was some problems between a husband and wife and that story was going to climax when they actually came on stage in the last issue. It was all worked out to have elements that resolved with each story, and other elements that went on from story to story.” In #203’s story, Diana actually utters the line “I don’t like most women” to her assistant, Cathy Perkins. Pressed about the line which most fans feel is the most incongruous line in Wonder Woman history, Delany defends it. “At the time, if you talked to 25 women, that would be one of the first things that would come out of 24 of them’s mouths. ‘Oh no, I don’t like women, I much prefer to hang around men. They’re more interesting.’ In that sense it was clichéd notion that Diana had picked up, and Cathy was eventually going to disabuse her of that notion. Wonder Woman had to change and grow, and that was her start. Eventually, Wonder Woman realizes that she too is oppressed, and that this ‘I don’t like women’ is part of a whole syndrome. An issue or two later she was going to say, ‘If I’m saying I don’t like women, I’m saying I don’t like myself.’ That was part of the character arc.”

As a writer who is openly gay, it would seem likely that Delany might write some lesbian subtext into Wonder Woman, but the writer had no immediate plans to do so. “This was 1973, so it was four years after Stonewall, and the notion that you were going to have anything gay in a mainstream comic, even [within] a ‘relevant’ comic, was beyond anyone’s conception at the time. The notion that there would be classes in queer theory in colleges, people would have looked at you as though you were crazy. It was beyond anyone’s ability to even dream of at that point. Certainly beyond mine. Even then, because it was the most commercial of overground comics and was not an underground comic, it had to come in in the most coded way. I certainly was not out to break that particular set of restraints. There were too many others I was trying to play with at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised, if, as I moved on through it, I thought, ‘Well, this is something that might be played with.’ But because the whole thing was snuffed out after the first story that was entirely mine, it didn’t get a chance to.” Even though Wonder Woman #203 ended in a cliffhanger, neither Delany nor O’Neil got the opportunity to resolve the crisis. The creative team was changed with issue #204 (Jan.–Feb. 1973), and Diana regained her powers and her colorful costume in a dramatic storyline that redefined both her origin and her relationship to the Justice League. I-Ching was also killed, as was a certain female editor named “Dottie Cottonman,” clearly new writer/editor Robert Kanigher’s revenge on ex-editor Dorothy Woolfolk.

O’Neil doesn’t recall why the change was made. “I was not consulted, nor would I have expected to be. There was no reason for anybody to talk to me about that. It was an experiment, and I think at the time we realized it was an experiment. Whether or not Ms. Steinem had anything to do with that or whether she was brought in because they thought it was time to revert back to an earlier inception of the character, I don’t know.” Gloria Steinem was the head of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, and in 1972, she founded Ms. magazine, featuring the costumeclad Wonder Woman on the magazine’s debut issue (July 1972). Steinem also introduced a hardcover book of Wonder Woman’s adventures in 1972, published by Bonanza Books. Delany tells the story he heard about the real reason Wonder Woman reverted to her super-roots: “Apparently, Gloria Steinem, who was then the editor of Ms., was taking a tour through the DC offices one day, and they were proudly showing her Wonder Woman. She didn’t read the story, she just looked at some of the artwork, and the first thing she saw was that Wonder Woman was no longer in her American flag and bikini briefs. And she said, ‘What’s happened to Wonder Woman? You’ve taken away all of her super-powers. Don’t you realize how important this is to the young women of America?’ Unfortunately, she wasn’t paying any attention to the storyline at all. It was just in terms of the image. So I think probably the Powers That Be were kind of intriguingly dubious about my storyline. They were probably not terribly happy

Catfights! Dick Giordano’s recreations of his cover art to WW #201 (July–Aug. 1972) and 202 (Sept.–Oct. 1972), both guest-starring Catwoman. Note the appearance of Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser on #202. © 2006 DC Comics.

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where it was going. So suddenly they say, ‘Ah! Gloria Steinem herself has spoken!’ So the word came down from The Powers That Be that by the next issue, Wonder Woman had to be put back into her American flag bra and her magic bracelets. Well, there was no way you could continue my story arc. It wouldn’t have worked at all. So I just said, ‘Okay, I bow out, guys, there’s nothing I can do with it.’ And I wasn’t particularly interested in carrying it beyond that.” Neither Delany nor O’Neil ever discussed the matter with Steinem. “I have not met Ms. Steinem, though I would certainly like to,” says O’Neil today. Dick Giordano theorizes that Steinem’s influence may have had less effect on the return of the traditional Wonder Woman than Delany or O’Neil believes. “My guess would be that sales of the the de-powered version had more to do with its demise then any pressure brought by Ms. Steinem. Carmine [Infantino] would not have changed his mind

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because of statements made outside the editorial or business offices of DC. Besides, the Teen Titans got their costumes and powers back at about the same time, without pressure from Steinem.” In the three decades since, Delany notes that “I never did meet [Steinem]. I wished that we had run into one another. I would have explained what had happened. I’m sure she would have found it interesting, if not a little on the sad side. Wonder Woman never did get a chance to champion a women’s abortion clinic. I’m sure, if Steinem had been aware of it, she probably would have said ‘Oh, okay, that would be great.’ I’m sure Steinem had no idea what her basically chance remark in the offices had occasioned and I think the Powers That Be at DC breathed a big sigh of relief and said, ‘Oh, thank God, we’ve been let off the hook by the woman herself.’ I don’t at all feel that it was Steinem’s fault in any shape or form; it was a case of what they used her for.” Largely because of his experience on Wonder Woman, and later with the Empire graphic novel with Howard Chaykin for Byron Preiss, Delany has mostly stayed out of the comics world ever since. “I’ve always loved comics and I still do. And I enjoyed doing them,” Delany says. “The only problem is that I don’t think I’ve ever worked in another medium where the power-crazedness of the administration was higher. That’s one of the things that keeps me out of it as a medium to spend time working in. You’re working against such incredibly over-arching egos that it doesn’t seem to be worth it to me. The general producership feel … they see much more at stake than actually is.” Delany’s last work in comics was the autobiographical graphic novel Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York, in 1999. Other than those expressed previously in this interview, O’Neil has few regrets of his time on Wonder Woman. “Good or bad, you can’t worry about it after it leaves you. If you’ve given it your best shot, that’s all you can do.” O’Neil is currently writing a novel with the Question, Batman, and Lady Shiva, and he recently taught a course at New York University and spoke at the Smithsonian. Giordano remembers the Diana Prince run perhaps the most fondly of all of its participants. “I really, really enjoyed working with Mike Sekowsky, first inking the traditional Wonder Woman and later the de-powered version,” he says. “I much preferred drawing the Diana Prince persona! I’ve never been a fan of super-powers … I always felt they eliminated the potential suspense of who will win. It was a highlight in my career that I still look back on with fondness. Denny’s scripts were a pleasure. It was just a good time for me!”

In the 65-year history of Wonder Woman, the Diana Prince era remains a small portion of it. But it still has its fans. In 2003, Walt Simonson, Jerry Ordway, and P. Craig Russell constructed a six-part story in Wonder Woman vol. 2 #189–194 (Apr.–Sept. 2003), in which Princess Diana lost her powers and donned a white catsuit for a brief time. Such a change lasted months, however, instead of years. Today, the licensing revenue on Wonder Woman and her iconic stature as the world’s most famous superheroine dictate that although she may change her clothes every so often, or vary her outfit depending on artistic whims, for Princess Diana, she will now and forever be … in her satin tights, fighting for our rights, and the old red, white, and blue. When he’s not directing DVD documentaries, writing USA Today best-selling novels, or penning articles for BACK ISSUE, Andy Mangels is one of the world’s leading Wonder Woman collectors/experts. Visit his personal webpage at www.andymangels.com or his tribute site, www.wonderwomanmuseum.com

Diana Prince Goodies Despite the four-year period, very little licensed material of Diana Prince was ever created. Even the DC house ads for Palisades Park and the like featured the traditionally garbed Wonder Woman. But one item was released in 1971: a “Klick ’n Ready” kite by Remco featured Diana Prince, running in her white pantsuit (photos courtesy of Ali Cloos). On George Pérez’s extraordinarily rare 1991 “Wonder Woman Through the Ages” poster for DC (below), the “mod” Diana Prince and many of her supporting cast members are featured, as well.

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, AAttack ttack ooff the the 70s 70s TToon oon SSuper uper Chicks, C hic ks , or…I was a Teenage Inbetweener (Which I WAS!) 4 4

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Welcome once more, dear friends, to Big D’s latest yearly installment of “I was reading a plugfest and suddenly an article broke out.” Yes, once again your friendly neighborhood Euryman has defied all common sense by axing your not-so-humble one to take another hike down memory lane (as opposed to just taking a hike) and peel back the onion skin to observe a time in our toon past … when the super-heroine joined the super-hero in changing our cartoon landscape. (And yes, friends, this year’s plugs are coming. You’re just gonna have to sit through the rest of this essay first. Don’t beg … it looks unseemly.) This time ’round, I’m going to do this totally by studio as well as character and year (and yep, I worked on most of these shows, too; y’think the only studio super-heroine I did was Striperella?), beginning our tally with the king of the mount back in the toon-producin’ day: Hanna-Barbera, which intro’ed the Saturday-morning superbabe back in the ’60s with Jan (Space Ghost), Gravity Girl (Galaxy Trio), Invisible Girl (Fantastic Four), Tara (Herculoids), and Princess Nida (Arabian Knights). Since the ’70s and ’80s are this mag’s purview (and the preceding quintet may be revisited in one’a my “pluggies” later on), we’ll start with the ’70s’ first toon super-heroine, who is, of course… …Wonder Woman, who made her first animated appearance under H-B studio rival Filmation’s auspices when ABC slotted a guest appearance for her and her future fellow Super Friend Superman in that network’s Brady Kids animated series in 1972. The following year, ABC teamed its two super-guest-stars with CBS guest-stars Batman and Robin (The New Scooby-Doo Movies) and Aquaman (of the ’60s series bearing his moniker) to form TV’s longestrunning continuous super-toon, the 13-season Super Friends (SF), about which has often been writ, so I’ll not re-writ it here. After her SF run, Wonder Woman made an appearance on the ’80s Superman show. It was doubly ironic in a number of ways that I, the “teenage inbetweener” cited in this article’s title [Editor’s note: In animation, an “inbetweener” is an artist who provides transitional drawings in between two principal or “key” drawings.], was given WW as the first character I was paid to inbetween, as even Bill Hanna noted that I was the first “comic-book geek” he had ever hired at the studio. (This “note” came from my continuing practice of correcting him whenever he referred to Wonder Woman as Wonder Girl. Oh, well … as many characters as he and Joe Barbera created, he can be forgiven for forgettin’ a few names!) Fact is, I almost did more’n just draw the old gal—durn near got to scribble ’er, too, as All-New Super Friends’ story editor Norman Maurer (father of future Challenge of the Super Friends story editor Jeffrey Scott Maurer) let me pitch various story ideas to him. One he was this close to approving (by one day!) was a story for the seven-minute “guest-star” segment featuring a lead Super Friend with another DC hero (or heroine, as the

next two characters will demonstrate). The one I wrote would’ve been a “missing ship mystery” teaming WW with Lois Lane and, in her first animated outing, Black Canary (who, with her fishnets, would’ve definitely driven the animators nuts … but with us at that time, it wouldn’t’ve been much of a drive!). The reason why you didn’t see this “mini-classic” was that the day Norm would’ve greenlighted my tale, an edict had come down from ABC stating that, from that point on that season, all story premises for the network’s animated shows were to be generated by their in-house writing team (of former H-B head writers/future studio heads) Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. That’s what a diff of 24 hours makes. (And if this doesn’t make me and Jack Bauer soulmates, I don’t know what does!) Two other DC heroines that I did draw, however, were … Hawkgirl and Rima, the Jungle Girl, both of whom guested in separate guest segs with hubbins (in the former’s case) Hawkman. My mentor and fellow HannaBarberian Alex Toth designed way cool model sheets for all the previously named SF characters. Whilst he needed little help on the drawing/designing part, when it came to a character like Rima, that neither he nor most of the studio had even heard of—that’s where I came in. Being the DC freak I was then (and am now), working with that trio was a particular joy for moi, to the point that I penciled a pinup of the gals for a “super-heroines-oriented” fanzine that was published at the time. (It was inked by some aspiring

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artist named Brent Anderson who, soon afterward, vanished into obscurity and was never heard from again … just kidding, Brent!) Speaking of SF heroines, I can’t let this piece go by without mentioning SF’s secondlongest-running super-heroine… …Jayna, super-shapeshifting sister of fellow Wonder Twin Zan (try saying that three times fast), who put in a sevenseason run on the series from ’77 to ’84. (Though the Twins were largely ignored during ’85’s Super Powers Team season, hardly anybody noticed. Come t’think of it, that was true of Aquaman, too, though he may have his own series by the time you read this … guess that’ll teach us!) Anyways, here are a couple of little “betcha didn’t know” fun factoids: If you look closely at the All-New Super Friends’ opening title and the earliest half-hour episodes, you’ll see that originally whenever the Wonder Twins activated their powers by touching fists, they took off their gloves first. Eventually it was decided that it would’ve taken too much screen time to constantly show ’em taking their gloves on and off, so in this case, the kids’ gloves stayed on. Also, note Jayna’s “whipped cream”-style hairdo: It was modeled after a real hairdo worn by an H-B checker named My Bushman, related to both animator Bruce Bushman

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and then-H-B senior director Charles “Nick” Nichols. Jayna designer Ivao Takamoto was looking for a way to differentiate her from previous teen sidekick Wendy and visually, the hair helped (that, and her pointed ears). Our next H-B super chick is one I cited in a previous piece as ABC’s answer to CBS’ popular Tarzan animated series … Jana of the Jungle. I’m not going to go back over the heroine evolution of Jana to this present concept; suffice it to say that, despite producer Doug (Jonny Quest, Godzilla) Wildey’s efforts, Jana’s quest to find her father, lost in the jungle she inhabited, never caught on and, 13 episodes later, Jana had indeed given up the “ghost” (and I don’t mean her white panther, who did have that name). The H-B heroines trail lightsped into the ’80s in the produced-in-’80/didn’t-air-until-’81 (due to actors’/ musicians’ strikes) Space Stars (SS) series for NBC, which brought back old friends Jan (Space Ghost) and Tara (Herculoids, who was, as in the ’60s version, vocalized by then-70-something actress Virginia Gregg, who matched the SS’ Tara’s stronger character with a harder-driving vocal). Joining the SS’ new episodes of Space Ghost, Herculoids, and Astro and the Space Mutts was H-B’s sole original contribution to the teen super-team toon genre, Teen Force. Its members were Kid Comet, Moleculad, the Astro-Mites Plutem and Glax, and our raison d’être for the purposes of this article, the heroine originally named “Nova.” I said “originally,” ’cuz once H-B learned that Marvel Comics already had a super-hero named “Nova,” they sought and later gave her a name that wouldn’t duplicate another Marvel hero’s. That name, by which she’s known to this day? Elektra. Oops! Or maybe not so. Y’see, the way TV toons were conceived back in the pre-cable era (or roughly 300 networks ago!), we were all a li’l bit looser in terms of the immediacy of pop-culture influences in our toonmaking (or, “When in doubt, ‘rip’ it off … they’ll never notice. We hope…”). Sometimes it worked, in Nova/Elektra’s case, other times it didn’t. We’ll get to a big one of those in a min, but first, let’s meet the last of H-B’s ’70s/’80s toon princesses… …Goleeta, a warrior princess some ten years before the “lawless” one, who used her magic shield and fiery temper to aid the title star of Galtar and the Golden Lance in his quest to regain his throne in his ’80s syndie series’ two-season run. (Thundarr… Blackstar… Galtar… anyone sense a trend there? Now, if only they were pirates… arrrrr!!!) Now we gonna boogie on over (this is the ’70s, remember?) to cross-toon rival Filmation Associates, which, to give them their props, was always in the forefront when it came to casting women and minorities as lead characters in their series… starting with Saturday morning’s only black, female super-team leader: Astraea, the animalshapeshifting member of Space Sentinels who, with fellow Sentinels Hercules and Mercury, fought evil in … well, space (duh!). I was then at H-B working on their dark-skinned

animal shapeshifter Jayna (coincidence?!?), but arrived at Filmation in ’78, just in time for… …the ’70s super-heroine stars of the Super 7 (try saying that three times fast!): Web Woman, Microwoman, Moray, and Isis. We’ll start with Miss Webster first, since her character conception alludes to that point I made a few paragraphs previous re pop-culture “immediacy.” Or lemme put it to ya this way: I have spoken, in a past time, to a creator of a ’70s not-Marvel hero who had contended that a not-Filmation studio had appropriated his character for their not-Super Friends show. In that case, I’d neither confirm nor deny simply ’cuz I knew how things worked then. In Web Woman’s case, though, I saw the presentation artwork/conceptual “think” for the Super 7 elements not involving Tarzan, Batman, or Space Academy, and the drawings labeled were of a blue-and-red-suited insect-powered babe who was called “Spider-Woman.” Now, Marvel didn’t have a “Spider-Woman” in the works as I recall (they did have another spider character, opposite sex, however), which is what gave the then-Filmation creative braintrust the idea of using the Spider-Man archetype, as well as other archetypical characters as Plastic Man, the Atom, and Aquaman to draw from when creating their “original” Super 7 heroes. Now, I usually don’t bring fellow creators (often) into my stories, but I gots to here: At San Diego Con that year (’78), I met Marv Wolfman, known for many other books aside from Spider-Woman. I mentioned that I worked in the animation industry; he inquired what shows I was involved with; I said, “Web Woman”… he was not amused. I didn’t know his involvement with Marvel’s newly created “Spider-Woman” (partly in response to our then-renamed “Web Woman”) at the time and yes, we get along fine now. (At least until he reads this anyway … smile!) And it wasn’t just SpiderWoman being created in response to the “nation’s creative poaching,” but, partly to keep anyone from making a

female knockoff of that character, the She-Hulk was born. Anyway, the three Super 7 heroines, the aforementioned Web Woman, the Aquaman-influenced Moray, aquatic partner of “Manta and --,” and Microwoman, shrinking partner of “Superstretch and --,” aired for three seasons on CBS and one on NBC until a court settlement Filmation reached with DC and Marvel expressly forbade them from ever using the characters again… even when it came to future syndicated/rerun usage. (I have tapes of ’em, though, so I don’t care.) Of course, only in Hollyweird could a company sue you one year, then do a show with you the next … which explains why DC heroine Mary Marvel was brought to toon life along with the rest of the Marvel Family as part of NBC’s Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam, produced by Filmation, natch. Mary and kin shared the show with the Super-Archies-influenced (no, I’m not starting that up again!) Glorious Gal, Dirty Trixie, and Misty Magic (any similarity to Betty, Veronica, and Sabrina is purely coincidental!!). Speaking of Shazam, Captain Marvel’s live-action stablemate Isis scored her own animated segment of Super 7 as leader of a group of legendary heroes called the Freedom Force, consisting of Hercules, Merlin, Sinbad, and the Super Samurai. Five episodes of I & FF were made (along with seven Mantas, ten Webs,

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and 11 Stretchs… don’t ask!) and it, alone of the Super 7’ers, is slated to come out on DVD in 2006, accompanied by commentary from your not-so-humble. The last and arguably most successful super-heroine produced under the Filmation aegis was the mid-’80s He-Man spin-off She-Ra, starring the Grayskull Guardian’s twin sister Adora, who lifted her sword to battle baddies both on her own and teamed with her musclebound sibling. Switching from the big dudes to the smaller players in the Saturtoon world, heroine-wise, we go right back to the Web Woman/Spider-Woman controversy, of which the biggest irony coming from it was ABC giving SpiderWoman an animated series of her own in ’79 due in part to the successful ratings of … Web Woman, without which there probably wouldn’t be a—oh, my head hurts! The season before, DePatie-Freleng had animated the Invisible Girl as part of their new Fantastic Four. That series, in ’78, along with ’ 7 9 ’s S p i d e r Woman, only lasted a single season each. Once DePatieFreleng became Marvel Productions

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in 1980, it scored a several-season success with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which teamed the Web-Slinger with Iceman and their heat-generating heroine Firestar, who became a Marvel Comics character after her TV debut. We finally wrap up our “Super Chick Roll Call” with Ruby-Spears’ contributions to the genre. Ariel, sorcerous sidekick in the alternate universe of Thundarr the Barbarian (unless we really did get clobbered by a passing meteor in 1994, in which we— oh? What’s that, Michael … we didn’t? Dang it, why didn’t somebody tell me?). Their other major heroine, on the air in ’81, was Goldie Gold, the world’s richest girl (though compared to Richie Rich she was probably a piker!), who teamed with her boyfriend “Action” Jack, to buy her way into and out of various escapades. Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: “So, Big D, what’re you coming up with?” Glad you axed, and it just so happens what I’m doing fits right in with this essay’s subject matter (ain’t that a coinkydink?). I’ve a trio of projects which all three may see the light o’day around the same time as what you’re reading: the years-in-the-making Rainbow Girl, the year-in-themaking animated serial Jenna of the Jungle, and the live-action sports shorts U.G.O. Girlz! All of which, to quote Jay Ward, “will be appearing on your local screen soon … probably.” See, that plug didn’t hurt … unlike some I could name! Laterz!

If somehow, someway, you’re not a fan of the art of Bruce Timm—animation producer/director/designer (of the Emmy-winning Batman: The Animated Series plus Superman and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited) and mega-popular comic-book artist (of the Eisner Award-winning Batman: Mad Love, among other projects)—you will be after feasting your eyes upon this astounding collection of commissioned paintings…

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Dan Johnson

Marvel’s

Dark Angel: BACK ISSUE Gets Caught in Spider-Woman’s

Marvel Comics is known for creating super-heroes that are hard-luck cases in spandex. Of all the females in the Marvel Universe, Spider-Woman was always the gal most in need of a break. On the comics page, Jessica Drew’s alter ego has been unlucky in love, misunderstood by the

Web

public at large, and has gotten tangled up with a wide variety of freaks and weirdos (both as a super-heroine and in her civilian life). But what Spider-Woman’s fans saw on the printed page was only half the story for Marvel’s Dark Angel.

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Initially, Spider-Woman wasn’t intended to be anything more than insurance. “The only reason that Spider-Woman was created in the first place was to prevent another company from ripping off Spider-Man with a female version for a Saturday-morning cartoon series,” explains Roger Stern, who served as the character’s editor for a brief time. “The other character eventually turned up as Web Woman. [Editor’s note: See this issue’s “Backstage Pass” for Web Woman info.] Someone—it might have been Stan Lee— found out that a rival Spider-Woman cartoon series was in the works, and to protect the name for Marvel, Archie Goodwin quickly came up with our own Spider-Woman character for Marvel Spotlight #32 (Feb. 1977). It was basically a case of Marvel ripping itself off to prevent someone else from doing so.” While Goodwin took charge of developing Spider-Woman’s origin, it fell to a member of the Marvel Bullpen to create the look of the Arachnid Adventuress. One of the tasks that went into researching this article was putting on my detective cap to uncover the identity of the artist responsible for Spider-Woman’s look. BACK ISSUE is delighted to give credit where credit is due—finally—to Marvel’s reallife superwoman, Marie Severin, for designing Spider-Woman. “So many people were freelance then,” explains Severin about her role in the character’s creation. “Johnny [Romita] and I would be in on the innovative things, to start off [new characters], and then they would be assigned to an artist for a story. [That story artist] might embellish something else in [the costume] and if it was approved, that was it. Very often, if something was innovative, Marvel might put it on a cover, you know, ‘So and so new character,’ and the artist who was doing the story would follow the costume [from the cover]. [The costume designs] weren’t written into stone. The artists could change anything they wanted as long as they discussed it with Stan. When I was on staff, and before he

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went out to California, it all flowed through Stan.” Severin’s role in Spider-Woman’s genesis was brief, but important. It speaks volumes about Severin that she is very modest about her contribution. “When it was that long ago, you don’t think you’re making history when you’re doing these things,” reveals Severin. After Severin designed Spider-Woman, the art chores for Spider-Woman’s first comic-book adventure fell to Sal Buscema on pencils and Jim Mooney on inks. If the first Spider-Woman story was nothing more than an effort to protect a copyright, you couldn’t tell it from the work of the men involved. Her origin story was jammed packed with action and mystery. It recounts how Spider-Woman, referred to here only by that moniker and the name Arachne, has no memory of her life before being recruited by Hydra and tricked into trying to kill Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. By the end of the story, Spider-Woman learns that she has been manipulated by the criminal organization. She discovers that Hydra has hidden her connection to the New Men, the evolved animal beings created by the High Evolutionary. The end of the story sees SpiderWoman believing that she is nothing more than a spider that has been evolved into a woman. “Archie was a terrific guy,” says Buscema. “I always thought he was one of the best writers in the business. He was very, very intelligent, and I thought that intelligence was reflected in his stories. This was one of the few projects that we did together, but it was a pleasure working with him.” Buscema also believes that this origin story went above and beyond being just a matter of establishing copyright. “[All the details in that story] were probably done deliberately. Maybe Marvel had thoughts of making this a permanent book.” Whether or not Marvel had plans for Spider-Woman beyond this one appearance is debatable, but there was

no denying that they were on to something after Marvel Spotlight #32 hit the newsstands. “The comic Archie Goodwin wrote sold better than anyone expected,” says Marv Wolfman, who would become the character’s second writer. “I was asked to take this character who was created to be a one-shot and turn her into as regular book. I realized that what Archie did couldn’t continue. Since I was not privy to the creation, I have no idea how much of Spider-Woman’s background (aside from her name) was given to Archie or if he developed the idea fully on his own. Spider-Woman was an evolved spider, and back in the mid-’70s that would not have flown. I had to take what Archie did and spin a new story around it so she could be human.” Wolfman began by making Jessica Drew the daughter of Dr. Jonathan and Meriem Drew. Dr. Drew was a friend and colleague of Dr. Herbert Edgar Wyndham, the scientist destined to became the High Evolutionary. Drew even helped Wyndham create his stronghold, Wundagore. But the uranium that funded the experiments of the two scientists caused young Jessica to become ill. In the end, the only thing that could save the girl was a spider extract that her father had been working on, combined with Wyndham’s genetic accelerator. Together, the two not only saved Jessica’s life, but also gave her the powers that would one day make her Spider-Woman. Wolfman made another decision that helped to make Jessica her own woman. “I decided on my own to keep her as far away from Spider-Man as I could,” says Wolfman. “I wanted her to have her own reason for being and not cheapen SpiderMan by replicating his origin or his purpose and character. I began to develop the Jessica Drew character, named ultimately after my daughter Jessica and Nancy Drew.” After a four-issue story arc in the pages of Marvel Two-in-One (#29–33, July–Nov. 1977), Spider-Woman was launched in her own title. The legendary Carmine Infantino was tapped to illustrate this series. “I was working on Star Wars at the time and Marvel called me and asked me if I would like to do SpiderWoman,” recalls Infantino. “I said I’d give it a shot. At first I really wasn’t sure [about the book], but slowly, but surely, I got into it and began to enjoy Spider-Woman. I ended up doing issues #1 (Apr. 1978) through 19 (Oct. 1979). After issue #19, I left Marvel and went back to

Original art to an unused version of Spider-Woman #1’s cover, by Carmine Infantino and Bob Wiacek (courtesy of Fred deBoom), and the published cover.

DC to do The Flash.” At Wolfman’s suggestion, Infantino added a few modifications to Marie Severin’s original costume design. “The costume was created before I was connected with the book,” says Wolfman. “I remember asking [Infantino] to open up the top of the mask so her hair would flow free, which I thought made her look better.” Besides the costume changes, Infantino also brought sex appeal to the character of Jessica Drew and her alter ego. “You

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have got to be careful with the way you draw women,” says Infantino. “There are little tricks here and there that keep them feminine. Some artists, when they draw a female character, they make them like a man. When you do male and female characters, its two different worlds and you have to draw them accordingly. I think I accomplished it [with Spider-Woman].” Once settled in her own comic book, Wolfman set about making Spider-Woman a more traditional Marvel character by giving her a set of problems to overcome, like the fact that most women had an unexplainable distrust for her and her lack of a past made her virtually unemployable. Wolfman also gave Jessica a love interest, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jerry Hunt, and a traveling companion and confidant, the wizard Magnus. It was through Magnus that Spider-Woman would also acquire an arch-enemy, the sorceress Morgan LeFay [alternately LeFey].

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Considering how good Wolfman’s stories were, and the contributions he made to the character, it is shocking to learn of the relief he felt in departing the series. “If truth be told I never felt comfortable writing her,” says Wolfman. “I never found a handle for her and kept trying until I finally decided to leave the book. I never really figured her out. I did like some of the villains I created for the book however, from Brother Grimm to the Hangman.” As it turns out, Wolfman had another villain for Marvel’s Dark Angel in mind when he left the series—Spider-Woman’s loss was a certain Web-Head’s gain. “I had originally created the Black Cat for the Spider-Woman book, but then moved to The Amazing Spider-Man where I completely revamped the look I would have gone for,” explains Wolfman. “The original unused Spider-Woman cover with Black Cat was printed in the letter column of the SpiderMan/Black Cat intro. [Originally,] she was going to be a ’40s-styled character, with a long dress, wide-brimmed hat, and not action-oriented. The powers were the same, though. I was going for mood with Spider-Woman. When I switched her to Spider-Man, I rethought the whole concept, except for the powers.” With Wolfman’s departure, Mark Gruenwald was brought on board to write Spider-Woman and Roger Stern was asked to edit. The two men continued with Infantino to turn out some great yarns, but by this time the tide was beginning to turn against our heroine. The underlying problem Spider-Woman seemed to have was prejudiced resentment against her on the part of potential readers. “That issue of Marvel Spotlight sold very, very well, and upper management immediately pushed for a SpiderWoman title,” says Stern. “But at the time, a lot of hardcore Marvel fans hated the very idea of a Spider-Woman. They saw her, and later the She-Hulk, as running a good idea into the ground, much as DC had done in the ’60s with its then-ever-growing families of Super- and Bat-characters.” If Wolfman was uncomfortable writing the series, and if the readers weren’t warming up to her, Spider-Woman had one advocate at least. “[Those stories] were pretty good,” says Infantino. “Marv Wolfman did a nice job of writing on them, and he played up the characterizations fairly well. The writing remained consistent under Mark Gruenwald. I got a kick out of doing Spider-Woman. You can tell when I don’t like to do something, it’s fairly obvious in my work. If I didn’t enjoy [a project], you can see it.” At first it appeared that the management at Marvel was also behind the character and initially there was a huge effort to build on the success that had been generated by her first appearance. At the time Roger Stern took over as her editor, Spider-Woman was starting to turn up in advertising ads for Marvel. She even made the leap to Saturday-morning television in an authorized cartoon series for ABC, where actress Joan Van Ark gave her voice. In spite of the high hopes that Marvel had for her, and the fans that Spider-Woman had garnered, things were not going well. “I’m sure there was a small, hard core of

Spider-Woman fans, but my sense was that the series was never a strong seller… much as management would have liked it to be,” explains Stern. “They kept pushing for her to be Marvel’s Wonder Woman, at least on the merchandising front. They had hoped that Ms. Marvel would be that cash cow, a character that they could sell as a shill for dolls and Underoos, and bad Halloween costumes, [and that] didn’t happen. So when Spider-Woman fell in their laps, they put a lot of effort into promoting her to merchandisers, getting her on the Underoos, pushing for that authorized Spider-Woman cartoon. And for a while, it worked. But unless the comic book has a sizable readership, unless your character has the recognition, you can’t keep using it to sell stuff.” As the numbers on the book began to flounder, SpiderWoman hit other snags. Gruenwald, who had wrapped up several plots started by Wolfman, left the book one issue after Infantino. With this team gone, the book began to experience creative instability. After Infantino left, there were several fill-in issues by Frank Springer and Trevor Von Eeden handling the book’s artwork. With issue #25 (Apr. 1980), Steve Leialoha took over as the book’s new penciler. While Leialoha’s artwork was stunning, SpiderWoman’s stories had already begun to suffer. After Mark Gruenwald, Michael Fleisher stepped in to write the book from issues #21–36 (Dec. 1979–Mar. 1981). Fleisher kept the book in a holding pattern until Chris Claremont began his run on the comic from issues #37–46 (Apr. 1981–Oct. 1982) Claremont brought a new direction to Jessica Drew’s life by introducing a new love interest for her in the form of David Ishima, by making her a private investigator, and by giving Spider-Woman a connection to the X-Men. Sadly, Claremont’s stint on the book was too little, too late. The hammer was ready to fall on Spider-Woman once and for all. Even before her final writer came on board, Spider-Woman’s fate had been decided. “[Spider-Woman’s last editor] Mark Gruenwald hired me to kill Spider-Woman,” says Ann Nocenti, who wrote Spider-Woman from issues #47–50 (Dec. 1982–June 1983). “Marvel was killing the book because the sales were no good.” Gruenwald’s decision to bring Nocenti as the writer of the final issues of Spider-Woman was meant to bring closure to the character with a bang. “Mark brought me in for the woman’s perspective, but I think [I was hired] also because I didn’t grow up reading comics and when I started at Marvel I hadn’t really read any comics,” says Nocenti. “Mark had a certain idea that I didn’t have the [comic] form in my head yet and I might do something interesting. I wasn’t reacting off of years of reading comics yet, and I came from a film and journalism background.” Nocenti quickly realized the creative potential that could come from killing off Spider-Woman. “These are licensed characters and

you want them to have a forever life,” Nocenti tells BACK ISSUE. “At the same time, they live in a violent world and occasionally you feel like someone has to die, otherwise it’s too unreal.” Experimentation seemed to be the name of the game during Nocenti’s time with SpiderWoman. At the point she came in, no one had anything to lose by being creative. Indeed, for the final issue, Nocenti describes something very different, and very unique, the Spider-Woman photo shoot. “The last issue had a photo cover, and [a number of Marvel staffers] all went to a fire escape for the shoot,” says Nocenti. “Mark Gruenwald and Mike Carlin were there, and we all dressed up like characters [from the last story]. I was painted like Tigra.”

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The final Spider-Woman adventure saw Jessica Drew and her old friend, Magnus, facing off once more against Morgan LeFay. Even though they defeated the sorceress, LeFay got the last laugh by trapping Spider-Woman’s astral form in a nether world, leaving her unable to rejoin her physical form. “[We wrote it] so you could almost feel she was still alive, kind of in limbo,” says Nocenti. “We showed her in a weird afterlife place to take some of the hurt off of it.” With the cancellation of her series, it appeared that Spider-Woman was down, but she wasn’t out for too long. Thanks to her former writer and editor, Jessica Drew soon got a new lease on life in the pages of The Avengers #240 and 241 (Feb. and Mar. 1984). In these issues, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, along with Dr. Strange and the Shroud, came to Jessica’s aid and they rescued her from the limbo she was trapped in. “I wrote that coda to Spider-Woman

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at Mark’s request.” says Stern. “[Mark Gruenwald] had become the editor of Spider-Woman in its final months, and when he c o u l d n ’t g e t t h e s a l e s turned around, he decided to kill her off in the final issue. Evidently, the readership hated it. I remember him expressing surprise over that. So few people were buying that book at that point, he figured that not many would mind Spider-Woman getting a true final issue. But he got so much hate mail that he asked me to come up with a happy ending for her in The Avengers. So we saved her life, and let her walk off into the sunset.” As it was, Mark Gruenwald wasn’t the only one who had developed second thoughts about killing SpiderWoman. “I felt bad about it,” Nocenti says. “It was before I understood the intense, personal attachment the readers have to the characters. In retrospect, I realized it wasn’t a nice thing to kill a character off. As I worked in the field for a while, I developed a strong personal attachment to a lot of characters and I realized how alive they were. For the younger fans, it’s kind of traumatic to kill somebody off.” While back in the land of the living, Jessica Drew’s days as a heroine were over (at least for the time being). Within a few months of her resurrection, Marvel launched Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars (#1–12, May 1984–Apr. 1985), and there a new Spider-Woman was introduced. She remained Marvel’s Spider-Woman for several years and then a third character with that moniker was launched. Each version of Spider-Woman was different, but they all seemed to have one thing in common: none of them stuck around for very long. Still, always in the background of the Marvel Universe was Jessica Drew. Jessica was brought back to the foreground when Brian Michael Bendis was asked to write The New Avengers, which premiered in late 2004. This series launched with Marvel’s top guns headlining, including Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, as well as a few of the company’s minor characters like Luke Cage and, to everyone’s surprise, the original Spider-Woman. Finally, Jessica Drew’s break had come. Not only was the original Spider-Woman in one of Marvel’s hottest new titles, she had a writer who was able to add some new twists to her story and generate reader interest in her for the first time in years. Besides having Bendis as her writer, Spider-Woman has also had the good fortune to be illustrated by a man who knows a thing or two about drawing beautiful women, Frank Cho. “Wizard hired me to do a Spider-Woman pin-up for an article. It was a

(left) Steve Leialoha inked by Bruce Patterson. Page 18 of Spider-Woman #36 (Mar. 1981). Courtesy of Heritage Comics.

quick fun little assignment,” says Cho, explaining how he first came to draw Spider-Woman. “[The pin-up] was published and I didn’t think much of it beyond that. Brian saw my Spider-Woman pin-up in the magazine and tracked me down. He was about to write his Spider-Woman story arc for The New Avengers, issues #14–15, and thought I was a perfect fit.” The issues that Cho drew helped to further fill in the gaps in Jessica’s history and revealed just how she came to regain her powers and the price she is paying for them. Just like other readers of The New Avengers, Cho has discovered that there is a lot to like about Spider-Woman. “My main comic collecting period was from 1983–1990, so Spider-Woman’s series was pretty much cancelled at that point,” says Cho. “I wasn’t exposed to her growing up, but I eventually saw some back issues of her later on. I thought she had a great costume, but I didn’t really have any strong feelings toward her. Brian is a helluva writer. As I said before, I didn’t read SpiderWoman growing up, so reading Brian’s take on her is pretty exciting to me since I’m basically coming in on the ground floor. It’s nice to see him build her up layer by layer into this complex character. I can’t wait to see where he’ll lead this character.”

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Marv Wolfman Recalls

conducted on November 10, 2005

interview

by Al Nickerson

“WHO IS DONNATROY?” “Who is Donna Troy?” is my second favorite comic-book story. Produced by the legendary talents of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez for The New Teen Titans #38 (Jan. 1984), this story finally pieced together, for a little while anyway, Wonder Girl’s origin. As a wedding present to Donna (Wonder Girl) Troy and her fiancé Terry Long, Dick Grayson investigates the mystery of Donna’s past. Through Grayson’s detective work, it is revealed that Wonder Girl’s young and single mother gave up the infant Donna Troy to an orphanage. A married couple quickly adopted Donna. Unfortunately, Donna later ended up being part of an illegal child-selling scam. Recaps of Donna’s origin also included Wonder Woman rescuing an infant Donna Troy from a burning building and Donna being raised by the Amazons on Paradise Island. —Al Nickerson

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AL NICKERSON: First off, I want to say that I have always enjoyed “Who is Donna Troy?” It is probably the most “human” super-hero story that I have ever read. It’s certainly the most touching. How did “Who is Donna Troy?” come about? Was this an idea that you and George Pérez came up with, or was the telling of Donna Troy’s full origin a request from DC Comics? MARV WOLFMAN: I don’t remember in specific if it was George’s idea or mine—we were working so handin-hand by then, but once George moved to the same town I lived in, only five blocks or so away, we usually got together for lunch and would work out a story over the next few hours. In many cases I would then go home and write up a plot based on it, or sometimes George would take the verbal plotting we did and take it from there. I can’t recall how we did this story specifically, or who generated the initial concept— it could very well have been George—but like many others we knew it was going to be a strong one from the moment we started working on it. DC didn’t generate ideas at the time; that was left to us. George and I had a really strong give and take. By the time of “Who is Donna Troy?” we weren’t writer and artist but co-plotters, and the book benefited from both our similarities and differences. I know George was more involved with this one than in most of them but, as I say, I can’t recall where the initial idea came from. But no matter who generated the original idea, we certainly talked over almost all, if not all the specifics in detail, coming up with ideas, tossing others out, etc. NICKERSON: Why was it so important for Donna Troy, and for us, too, to know where Donna came from? WOLFMAN: I wrote the original Donna Troy origin story back in the first Titans run. She had never had one and was, in fact, not a “real” character (if you can call any of them real). She was a computer simulation of Wonder Woman as a girl. That story also named her Donna Troy and set up everything that followed. Unfortunately, after Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Wonder Woman revamp, we had to go back and redo it again as a brand new Wonder Woman being born on Earth could not have rescued the girl from the burning building. I wish we had been able to keep it as I think it’s gone insane now. I just wanted a simple origin story. I came up with the original, and then George and I simply elaborated on what had been done, giving her real knowledge of who she was. I would love to say that everything after “Who is Donna Troy?” should be forgotten, but that’s not the way continuity works, sadly.

Beginnings: Castle of Frankenstein #12 (art), Blackhawk #242 (story)

Milestones: Tomb of Dracula / Blade / New Teen Titans / Amazing Spider-Man / Nova / Daredevil / Action Comics / Crisis on Infinite Earths / Adventures of Superman/ 1980s Superman animated series

Work in Progress: Superman Returns novelization / Raven / Condor (direct-toDVD animated movie)

Photo courtesy of Glen Cadigan.

NICKERSON: Right from the beginning, readers knew that something special was going to happen in this comic. The first two pages of “Who is Donna Troy?” reminded me of the opening credits for a film. Was the pacing and layouts of the panels, the use of shadows, and the placement of the credits on the first two pages all of George’s great handiwork? WOLFMAN: I believe that was all George. He was and remains a master of setting up mood and scene, all to tell a story not just to highlight good drawing. George is all about storytelling. That his art is spectacular is an extra. NICKERSON: We discover that Dorothy Hinckley was Donna Troy’s biological mother. So, who was Donna’s biological father? Did we ever find that out? WOLFMAN: No. At least not by us. NICKERSON: Did you guys have an idea who Donna’s biological father might have been? WOLFMAN: Nobody important. Just someone Dorothy had gotten involved with. Not everything should be tied into everything else. In fact, I usually avoid that sort of thing because I think it shrinks our universe instead of expands on it. Donna’s dad was, to me at least, just some guy. NICKERSON: The reunion of Donna and her adoptive mother, Fay Evans, is quite powerful. George’s illustration of this moment is amazing. WOLFMAN: All I can say is he did it really well. NICKERSON: Since Donna already had a family amongst the Amazons, is it important for Donna to have an extended mortal family in Man’s World? WOLFMAN: Absolutely. I think Donna’s world is about her real self, not the god part of her which should, in my mind at least, always be diminished. NICKERSON: This is also a coming-of-age story for Dick Grayson, as well. Dick’s solving the mystery of Donna’s past shows us his individuality, his independence from Batman. Was this an intentional element to the story, or am I reading too much into this? WOLFMAN: Yes, Robin’s growth was coming out of what we were doing with him. Absolutely. That much I do remember. NICKERSON: I’m not quite sure how much of “Who is Donna Troy” is still relevant after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and The Return of Donna Troy. Why has Donna’s simple origin from “Who is Donna Troy” become so complicated? WOLFMAN: As I said, once Wonder Woman’s origin was brought up to the present, we had to redo Donna’s. I just wish we could have ignored it and kept the origin simple. As good as the stories were, our “Who Is Wonder Girl?” story, which turned her into Troia, was to me gilding the lily. I wish we hadn’t had to do it. And perhaps that is one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of continuity. Her origin was, as you say, nice and simple. I wish we could have left it as such. NICKERSON: Did the events of The Return of Donna Troy finally fix Donna’s origin? WOLFMAN: I didn’t read it and probably won’t. Sorry. NICKERSON: When are you going to return to The Teen Titans? I miss the real Titans.

Cyberspace: www.marvwolfman.com

Marv WOLFMAN

A Wonder Girl origin flashback from Wolfman and Pérez’s “Who is Donna Troy?” revision “Who is Wonder Girl?”, from New Titans #50–53 (Dec. 1988–Feb. 1989). Inks by this art’s contributor, Bob McLeod. © 2006 DC Comics.

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Trading in their spandex for Speedos are (left to right) Starfire, Donna Troy, Tigra, Valkyrie, Scarlet Witch, and Carol (Ms. Marvel) Danvers— with the smilin’ Sandman looking on. An eye-popping Pérez portrait from the collection of Paul Sager, via Jerry Boyd. Characters © 2006 DC Comics and Marvel Characters, Inc. Art © 2006 George Pérez.

Donna Troy becomes Troia, from New Titans #55 (June 1980). This is the first publication of George Pérez’s line art to this cover, which was painted in its printed form. Courtesy of Andy Mangels. © 2006 DC Comics.

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WOLFMAN: To paraphrase what the late Don Thompson once said about Hawkman, to some people the real Teen Titans is the Haney/Cardy book. George and I started the third Titans series and we pretty much ignored what came before us without saying it didn’t exist. Not as a put down of what had been but so we could do our thing. I actually never expected anyone who followed me (since George had left the book years before) to do what I did but to do their thing, too. I think the “real” Teen Titans is the one you first discover and speaks to you the most. I deeply appreciate the wonderfully nice comments and thoughts people send our way—they really do make my day—and I know we worked hard to do the very best we could and I think we mostly succeeded, although I’d like to take the last two years and Cuisinart them—but every writer and artist team should take the groundwork we put down and those who preceded us created and build on it, not replicate it. As we did. Would I want to do the Titans again? I’d love to complete the graphic novel Games that George and I started what seems to be a hundred million years ago. I’d love to do an occasional fill-in, maybe another graphic novel if I had an idea for one, and I’d absolutely love to do stories dealing with some of the characters individually, but I think 16 years on that book, ten to 12 of which I am really, really proud of, may be enough. As I say, I’d rather do Raven stories or Starfire stories or Nightwing stories, etc., than do the title regularly. Been there and after about 250 stories or so ran out of ideas. NICKERSON: Is there anything else you want to add concerning “Who is Donna Troy”? WOLFMAN: It was a solid story, beautifully drawn, highly emotional and I’m very proud of it.

Phil Jimenez Chats About the Many Lives of

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ANDY MANGELS: With Infinite Crisis now over, what is the role of Donna Troy in the DC Universe? PHIL JIMENEZ: She’s become a cosmic historian. In 52, she’s trying to solve a mystery, and in doing so, reveals to readers the DC Universe again redefined. The first Harbinger was killed off, but the information she held in the orb that was introduced in History of the DC Universe became Donna’s. With

conducted on May 5, 2006

Donna Troy has had more histories than any one character should. The Wonder Girl character first appeared in the April 1959 issue of Wonder Woman #105, where she was Wonder Woman as a teen. With the launch of the Teen Titans in The Brave and the Bold #60 (July 1965), it appeared that Wonder Girl was another character entirely, and in Teen Titans #38 (August 1969), readers finally learned the answer to the cover question “Who is Wonder Girl?” with the origin story of orphaned Donna Troy. That issue’s writer, Marv Wolfman, revisited history again 15 years later with “Who Is Donna Troy?” in New Teen Titans #38 (Jan. 1984); changes from the Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity reboot required a new “Who is Wonder Girl?” in New Titans #50–55 (1989). Since then, Donna Troy’s history has been vamped and revamped as she became Troia, a Darkstar, then Troia again, was married, divorced, learned she had lived hundreds of alternate lifetimes, and died at the hands of a rogue Superman robot. In The Return of Donna Troy miniseries of 2005, by Phil Jimenez, José Luis-García López, and George Pérez, the origin was smooshed together and cleaned up, leaving Donna in a new post just as the Infinite Crisis began: keeper of the history of the DC Universe. Phil Jimenez has only had one history. Raised in California, he attended the School of Visual Arts in New York. He began working for DC at the age of 21, penciling four pages for the War of the Gods miniseries (1991). In the 15 years since, Jimenez has been known for his meticulously detailed artwork (admittedly inspired by George Pérez) and his intricately scripted scripts, often dealing with Titans-related characters (with a sideline for his self-created 2005 Vertigo series Otherworld). But whether on Titans, his run on Wonder Woman, or The Return of Donna Troy, Jimenez has kept his passion for Donna Troy in the forefront. Now, Jimenez shares his thoughts on the past and future of his favorite character. —Andy Mangels

interview

D onna Troy

Phil Jimenez’s “turnaround” model for a DC Direct Donna Troy action figure currently in production. According to Phil, the figure is “based on my initial design for this version of the costume (which, believe it or not, was not my original costume idea for her—this is the one three editors could all agree on). It’s based on her original red jumpsuit look, from the Pérez New Teen Titans era— but keeps the Troia aspects (slung belt, New Chronus symbol, black starfield).” © 2006 DC Comics.

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Beginnings: War of the Gods #4 (four pages of pencils—featuring Donna Troy as Troia!—over George Pérez layouts)

Milestones: Tempest / Invisibles / JLA/Titans / Wonder Woman / New X-Men / Otherworld / work displayed in Chicago Museum of Science and Industry / Tobey Maguire’s hand double in Spider-Man / DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy / Infinite Crisis

Work in Progress: Otherworld, vol. 2

Cyberspace: www.wonderphil.com

phil jime nez New Chronus, Donna now has Monitor’s satellite, a storehouse for that information. MANGELS: How did you first get to know Donna Troy? Given your age, I suspect it was the Wonder Woman TV show, where Wonder Girl was Drusilla, Wonder Woman’s little sister. JIMENEZ: I’m sure my earliest exposure was probably the TV show Wonder Girl, Drusilla. My first exposure to Donna Troy was New Teen Titans #12 (Oct. 1981), which Marv Wolfman wrote and George Pérez drew. I was 13, and she appealed to me because she was an Amazon; she was tied intimately to Greek mythology; she had Wonder Woman’s gimmicks without being Wonder Woman and was an easier fantasy figure to attach and relate to, and I dug her hair! I would later read interviews with Marv and George where they said she was the most well-balanced Teen Titan, and that’s always been her great appeal to me. She was never as dark and moody as Raven and never as extreme as Starfire. Donna was a really good, likeable person who was really, really good at everything she did. It was later written that she was overcompensating, that she was afraid that people would think that she wasn’t perfect, so she had to be perfect at everything. I was a straight-A student, I was actively involved in my school, I never did drugs, and I was college-bound, responsible, all—to compensate for being gay—for what I perceived as a weakness or something that needed fixing, as a problem. I think Donna appealed to me for that … as someone who felt she had to be perfect, even though no one who loved her expected that of her. MANGELS: That component makes her very different from Wonder Woman.

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JIMENEZ: Wonder Woman appeals to me on a broader conceptual level than Donna. What I love about Wonder Woman is that she embodies the idea that humans can peacefully coexist if they’re given the tools to do so. In the 1940s, Wonder Woman was a teacher, gifted with great love and wisdom, inspiring young boys and girls to fight the forces of tyranny and war. The Greek mythology is very cool, too. But what I relate to is her particular message: “Killing other human beings is a terrible thing; war is tragic; if you had more sex and less war, the world would be a better place.” That’s very basic to me. I don’t worry about how Wonder Woman pays her rent or who she’s in love with; I personally don’t need to relate to her on that level. On the other hand, I think being the more human of the characters, Donna’s great strength—the strength of all the Teen Titans—is their “relatability.” They’re less symbolic and more human than their adult counterparts. I think Donna was the kid I was like or wanted to know, and Wonder Woman was the person I aspired to be. MANGELS: What did Marv’s pair of original origin stories mean to you? The first is still highly respected, and the second is a bonafide super-hero classic. JIMENEZ: I read the very first one from 1969 as an adult, just doing research. It was amazing that the character that I love and feel so strongly about, Marv was writing two years before I was born! [The second story] “Who is Donna Troy?” remains an amazing character study. To me, the strength of that story stems from the work of George Pérez. Everyone looks back on that—I think it even made it into Wizard’s top 50 best single-issue comics—as a story that had no super-hero fights, or arch-villain conflict. It was just about a woman trying to figure out who her parents were with the help of one of her best friends. I don’t think the impact that particular story had on storytelling in the industry can be underestimated. MANGELS: The reboot of Wonder Woman in 1987 required a reworking of Donna’s origin yet again. Many people felt that here’s where the real unraveling of Donna’s story began. JIMENEZ: What I thought they did beautifully was take a specific sliver of Donna’s life—her time with the Amazons and Paradise Island—and replace them with New Chronus and Titans of Myth. The “Who is Donna Troy?” story never changed. The reason I thought it was a strong retcon was that it retained her mythological elements without eliminating her human ones. Instead of being raised as an Amazon, Donna was raised to be one of Diana’s goddesses. I always thought that was incredibly fascinating—and it allowed Donna to be something other than Wonder Woman’s little sister. It didn’t bug me in the way that it bugged a lot of people. I never found it particularly messy because a certain chunk was replaced by another chunk; this was post-Crisis history, and it was happening all the time. Because so many retcons were happening, I just figured, this is the new history and that’s the way it goes. What I found really frustrating was the number of people that couldn’t let go of the pre-Crisis past. I think what muddied the waters was that George had a heavy hand in Donna’s recreation, and he left the book soon after. He left an incredibly powerful character, perhaps too powerful for that team, with a new editor and a new staff that

were not going to treat her with the same love and respect that Marv and George would have. I always argue that while the retcon eliminated the Amazon sister aspect of Donna—the toughest part of the change—it was a fairly concise transformation, easy to follow. From ages 2–13, instead of being raised here with these godlike characters, Donna was raised with these godlike characters. And heck, was “Great Rhea!” that much different than “Great Hera”? MANGELS: But you and [writer] Devin Grayson fixed that in JLA/Titans. JIMENEZ: One of the first things we did was reestablish that Donna had been officially adopted by Hippolyta. Once John Byrne had retconned the post-Crisis Donna again, what many people responded to was the fact that she was Wonder Woman’s sister again, albeit a mystical doppelganger. So all Devin and I did was establish that Hippolyta had adopted Donna as her daughter, Diana’s sister. Both pre-Crisis and post-Crisis, Donna Troy was now the adopted sister of Wonder Woman. But I think everyone sort of forgot about that. MANGELS: Not long after that, Donna was the sacrificial lamb in the Titans/Young Justice miniseries. JIMENEZ: The Powers That Be wanted a dramatic reason to break up Young Justice so they could spin off Teen Titans and Outsiders, and they felt that the death of a beloved character could give other characters around her the motivation they needed to form these new teams. I always knew they were going to bring her back, and so I told [DC executive editor] Dan Didio I would sign a long contract with DC if they would let me be a part of that. For many, many years, editor Eddie Berganza and I had a vision of the kind of story we wanted to tell with Donna and New Chronus. One of the reasons that I like New Chronus is because it’s amazing space visually. In this world of currently real, dark comics, I felt that the world of the fantastic was missing. And I liked the idea that Donna was connected to this fantastic world, a visual world ultimately, that was far more than a dark alley or a gritty urban street. MANGELS: How successful do you feel that your Return of Donna Troy series was from what its original conception was to what it became due to Infinite Crisis? JIMENEZ: I think a lot of people know that it was not what I had originally envisioned, which was something smaller—a weekly crossover between Teen Titans and Outsiders that could be an intimate character study. But the Powers That Be of the company wanted a big splashy prologue to Infinite Crisis, requiring some definite tonal changes. I know a lot of people really responded quite poorly to the first issue, although they warmed up considerably to the second. The reason we crafted the first issue that way was because we originally thought that readers would only have to wait one week for the second chapter; therefore, we thought it was okay to come in the middle, establish Donna under the mind control of the Titans (an homage to the first story I read with her 20 years ago), bring in her brother Athyns, etc. A recurring motif in Donna’s history is her faulty memory, her constant question of “Who am I?”, and the original intent of this mini was to pay homage to that first “Clash of the Titans” story that inspired my love for her, using the post-Crisis versions of the Titans of Myth and Donna herself.

A lot of what we had wanted to do either got subverted or expanded to include the impending Infinite Crisis, and so The Return of Donna Troy became something else. It was not exactly what I intended or envisioned, but ultimately I think it was a big sales success and people were much happier with it by the end than they were at the beginning. And seeing José Luis García-López and George Pérez work together was a very literal dream come true. MANGELS: Now Donna’s character is much bigger in scope, and she’s appearing all over the DC Universe. That must make you happy. JIMENEZ: I’m always happy for it. My big issue with Donna for years has been that every story about her focused on her history: fixing it, tweaking it, changing it, altering it. They never really showcased her character, which to me is the most appealing part about her. As a character, she remains the beautiful girl next door, who had her own business by 19, lived a fantastic life, loved, lost—this incredibly good, human person that you’d truly want to know. When [writer] Geoff Johns and I were coming up with a new history, and this new development came that now Donna’s an amalgam of these thousand lives, it played out beautifully. She’s a much more powerful character than she has been. It gave her a purpose, a function that was different than Wonder Woman’s, that allows her to be somebody other than the kid sister. I think the hardest thing for Donna, and for Nightwing and Tempest—is the glass ceiling above them. It’s Batman, it’s Wonder Woman, it’s Aquaman. They can never be better than their mentors, so why should they even try? They should be something else. My hope is that nobody loses the fact though that Donna’s still this very cool, Sex and the City girl— delightfully normal despite her cosmic origins. I don’t want her to become the Watcher, speaking without contractions and acting in a corny, comic-book cosmic kind of way. That would just bum me out. MANGELS: In the “One Year Later” period, Donna now has her base on New Chronus, and is a part of the DC Universe. Are you planning to revisit the character? JIMENEZ: I would like to very, very much. As everyone knows, working on crossovers can be very frustrating; creatively you don’t always get what you want. I’d love another chance to work with that character cleanly, without having to consider crossover needs. I was actually working on a proposal earlier today that features Donna in a really cool way. It would allow me to work with a lot of wonderful, creative people and cement Donna’s character outside of Wonder Woman’s shadow. And I would get to explore a lot of stuff about mythology, both real and in comics, and what it means to be a hero and an icon in the DC Universe.

You’ve come a long way, baby! Phil Jimenez’s 1992 original art (top) for an unpublished New Teen Titans cover, courtesy of Royd Burgoyne, and the artist’s covers (with George Pérez inks) to 2005’s DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy #1–4. © 2006 DC Comics.

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Twenty Years of

A retrospective by her publisher, Dennis Mallonee

Wow. Twenty years. Hard as it is to believe, it really has been 20 years since Heroic Publishing’s glittering goddess of the light made her comic-book debut. It really has been two decades since Eclipse Comics published the first of six issues of the original Champions miniseries that introduced Flare and the League of Champions. Back in the spring of 1986, we honestly had no idea that Flare, above any other Champion, would have such extraordinary appeal. So far as we knew, Terri Feran was just one of half a dozen characters chosen for use in the comic book from a roster of heroes originally created for the Champions role-playing game. Indeed, as I look at the cover of Champions #1 (Sept. 1987), I see nothing about Flare that does stand out. All I see is a bosomy young blonde with a bouffant hairdo wearing a tacky orange jumpsuit and doing some kind of energy thing with her left index finger. At first glance, whoever that girl is, she’s nothing special at all. There are scores of bosomy young blondes in the comics. Most of them are better dressed than this one is. And as far as powers go, there’s an endless supply of comic-book characters that have energy powers, light-based or otherwise. So the question can be fairly asked: What was it about Flare that struck a chord with readers, that a year later led to her being voted the most popular Champion of them all, that led ultimately to a groundbreaking first issue that in one particular way served to change the shape of the comic-book industry? Because make no mistake about it: Up until that first issue of Flare obliterated the conventional wisdom of the day, it was widely believed (Wonder Woman not to the contrary) that a comic book featuring a costumed female lead had zero chance of appealing to a broad base of mostly young male comic-book readers. Lightning-quick sales of Flare #1 (Nov. 1988) proved otherwise. And though it’s entirely possible that from the 1940s through the early 1980s the conventional wisdom had been true, by the late 1980s the nature of comic-book distribution was drastically

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changing. Flare helped demonstrate that old rules might no longer apply. And what followed was an explosion of comic books featuring costumed women as their title characters. Which brings us right back to the question of what, exactly, was—and remains—so special about Teresa Katrina Feran, a.k.a. Flare. In order to find an answer to that question, we need to go to the beginning.

In the Beginning Although it’s been 20 years since Flare made her comicbook debut, she’s actually a bit older than that. It was five, maybe six years earlier that a lovely young woman named Stacy Laurence began participating in a series of super-hero role-playing adventures run by Steve Peterson and George MacDonald using a system of combat rules that quickly evolved into something recognizable as the basis of the “Hero System” used to this day by Hero Games for its line of role-playing games. In order to play in those adventures, Stacy needed a character. After getting some input from other participants, among whom was her future husband, Glenn Thain, Stacy decided that her character would be a preternaturally strong young flying heroine with the powers of light, and named her Flare. As the role-playing adventures continued and became a full-fledged campaign, Flare’s background and personal history were developed. It was soon learned that Terri had a mysterious mother, possibly a mythological goddess of some kind, who would show up from time to time and give her special gifts. Despite Flare’s continuing insistence that the reason she had super-powers in the first place was because her mysterious mother had fed her “super-cereal” when she was a child, there were hints of a connection with a secret genetics experiment conducted in South America by expatriate ex-Nazi scientists. It was even discovered during the course of one game that Flare had an electrically powered little sister. When it came time, in mid-1985, to decide which six characters from Steve and George’s original Champions campaign would appear in the forthcoming Champions comic book, it was that hint of evil in Flare’s background that to my mind made her a compelling choice. If the Nazi story were true, the fact of it transformed the silly “super-cereal” fable into a bald-faced lie. And this raised the question of why Flare thought it necessary to conceal

the truth, even from her supposed friends and allies. In light of this, her motivation for being a hero became suspect. And though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, it was this interpretation of Flare’s background, history, and motives that would make all the difference in the world.

Let There Be Light The process of bringing Flare and the rest of the League of Champions to comics required several months of effort. It was an effort that began at the 1985 Comic-Con in San Diego. At that time, Steve and George’s Champions role-playing game had achieved its first crest of popularity. They and their partner Ray Greer were in San Diego that year, and had been invited to do a panel on the mechanics of translating a comic book into a game. Toward the end of that panel, during question-and-answer, the topic was reversed and someone asked, “When are you guys going to do a comic book about the game?” I was sitting in the back of the audience. While Steve and George were hemming and hawing over the question, a series of thoughts raced through my mind. I had a small publishing company. Since late 1981, I’d been publishing the illustrated SF/fantasy magazine Fantasy Book. I had contacts in the comicbook industry. I’d always loved the comic-book medium. I knew Steve and George. We already had some Champions-related projects pending; I was working on a few game supplements for them, both as writer and editor. So, on impulse, I piped up, “I could do it.” Talk about putting your foot in your mouth… After the panel, we retired to the Hero Games table in the dealers’ room and had a serious discussion of what it would take to produce a Champions comic book. On cold reflection, I’d already concluded that even though I’d been publishing a fiction magazine, I didn’t yet know enough about the mechanics of publishing and distributing into the comic-book market to be able to do this entirely on my own. My best bet would be to find an existing comic-book publisher to handle that end of it. And that, it seemed to me, given the strength of the Champions brand name, wouldn’t be much of a problem. I’d already learned from Mark Evanier that Eclipse Comics was looking for a few good super-hero titles to supplement Mark’s DNAgents. So I decided to pitch it to Dean Mullaney and Cat Yronwode. But before I did that there were concerns to be addressed. George and Steve and I agreed that we didn’t want this proposed Champions comic book to be perceived as a one-shot or a limited series. We were looking for an ongoing marketing tie-in with the Champions roleplaying game. Obviously, if for some reason the comic book were to bomb, that wouldn’t happen, but we felt we needed to go into it on the assumption that the series would be open-ended. I wanted to be certain that we got cross-promotion. If I did the comic book with an eye toward promoting the game, I expected Hero Games to promote the comic book in return.

I also wanted to be certain that creators’ rights were protected. Yes, it made sense to feature characters from Steve and George’s original Champions campaign in the Champions comic book. But if we were going to do that, I wanted written agreements with those characters’ creators, agreements that specified who owned those characters, agreements that made clear that all my company was being given was license to make use of them. Above all else, if I did this it would be mine to do. This would not be a Hero Games project. In addition to licensing specific characters from their creators, I would be licensing the existing Champions trademark from Hero Games. All this was agreed to by Steve and George. I then tracked down Dean and Cat, and gave them a rough outline of what I had in mind. They were interested. Now it was up to me to work out the specifics of what the proposed Champions Comics would be, and send them a detailed proposal.

Flare and Friends I already had a rough idea for an initial story arc. My friend One of the earliest drawings of Flare, Andrew M. Robinson had some months earlier written an elaborate by Mark Williams, 1982. All art in this Champions game supplement feature is courtesy of Dennis Mallonee. featuring an occult criminal © 2006 Heroic Publishing. organization called DEMON. An overarching threat posed by the forces of DEMON would provide an excellent reason for a league of Champions to gather. But what Champions would they be? More to the point, given that these characters had never before been seen in a comic book, why should I expect anyone to care that they were getting together in the first place? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that regardless of which Champions I might decide to use, I’d need to find a way to introduce them first as individuals before bringing them together as a team. By this time, George had sent me character backgrounds and information for about a dozen potential choices. Because Mark Williams’ Gargoyle and Bruce Harlick’s Marksman and villainous Foxbat had already been featured prominently in Champions © 2006 Heroic Publishing. S u p e r

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game material, they were obvious choices for the comic book. As I went through the remaining possibilities, four other characters caught my eye. I could see strong story possibilities not only for Stacy Laurence’s Flare, but also for Glenn Thain’s Icestar, Tom Tumey’s Rose, and Steve Peterson’s Goliath. I began fleshing out initial story ideas for each of those characters. My thought was to put together a set of shorter stories featuring each of the heroes, and feature them in solo action in the first six issues of Champions Comics. Although these stories would not obviously be tied together, in fact they would end up dovetailing logically into a two-part adventure in issues #7 and 8 that would pit the entire League of Champions against the power of DEMON. Had we done that, here are the stories that would have been told about Flare: The first Flare story would have been a tale of her childhood. We’d have seen little Terri Feran growing up in that enclave of ex-Nazi scientists in Brazil. We’d have met her electrically powered little sister. We’d also have met her two brothers, one brave and super-strong, the other a wicked shapeshifter. We’d have seen Flare use her photonic powers, we’d have seen her learn how to fly, and we’d have established the nature of her conflict with wicked shapeshifting Philip. The second Flare story would have involved jealous Philip using his shapeshifting powers to get Terri into some serious trouble with the Nazi scientists. The third Flare story would have brought an emissary of DEMON to Brazil to “request” that one of these young super-powered children be sent on a mission to destroy certain meddling American heroes. Flare would have been chosen, artificially aged, and dispatched to America. The fourth Flare story would have been a longerformat crossover pitting Flare against Gargoyle. She’d not only have won that fight, she’d have come very close to actually killing her opponent. And in so doing, she’d have realized that she didn’t want to be a villain. That she didn’t want to dwell in darkness. That she wanted to be a hero. That she wanted to seek the light. After plotting out this story sequence, and story sequences for several other characters, I was disappointed to hear from George that Gargoyle’s creator, Mark Williams, had other plans for Gargoyle. Though we could make mention of Gargoyle, Mark preferred that his character not be a featured character in the Champions comic book. The good news was that we did have permission to use the other characters I was interested in, and written agreements would be forthcoming. So I proceeded. For Tom Tumey’s Rose, we’d do an occult detective angle. She’d be solving mysteries and following leads that would eventually bring her into conflict with DEMON.

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For Bruce Harlick’s Marksman, we’d do a technosavvy soldier-of-fortune thing. In order to provide the connection with DEMON, we’d establish that the Marksman’s industrialist father had been coerced by threats against his wife into providing certain services for that unwholesome occult criminal organization. For Glenn Thain’s Icestar, we’d do something that looked to be a straight super-hero bit. He’d fight the whacked-out Foxbat. He’d go up against mechanical monstrosities built by the mysterious Madame Synn, a female mad scientist who would later turn out in her civilian identity to be none other than Icestar’s girlfriend! And in the end, Icestar would be pulled into the affair with DEMON because both Foxbat and Madame Synn had been recruited to do some work for DEMON. And for Steve Peterson’s Goliath … well … we couldn’t actually use him. Not by that name, anyway. Even though, circa 1985–86, Marvel wasn’t making use of their size-shifting character of the same name, there was still a strong fan identification of “Goliath” as a Marvel Comics character. That’s the essence of a trademark. And as a matter of courtesy even more than law, you do things to do avoid infringing on someone else’s trademark. If I couldn’t use “Goliath,” what I could do was create an entirely new character built around the concept of growth. To that end, I reached back into Greek mythology. I was intrigued by an unfulfilled prophecy that the reign of Zeus in Olympus would one day be overthrown by a son born to him of the nymph Metis, and tried to envision a threat that might cause Zeus to relent and allow that child to be born. The result was the story of Giant and Dark Malice. And it was the possibility that the machinations of DEMON might reawaken Malice that became the gist of the threat that the League of Champions would have to deal with. Now, the attentive reader will realize that even though none of the solo stories described above actually appear in the six-issue Champions miniseries published by Eclipse, they have in fact all seen print in various issues of Flare, The Marksman, Champions, the first Champions Annual, and League of Champions. Even the tale of Flare’s battle with Gargoyle was recently glimpsed in flashback in the third issue of the new Flare series. The reason these stories didn’t appear in the issues published by Eclipse is that upon being presented with a detailed proposal for the first six issues of Champions Comics, Eclipse nixed the idea of using those issues to introduce characters. For reasons that made very good sense to them, they wanted a superhero team comic, plain and simple. They weren’t looking for anything elaborate. They didn’t want something that would start out looking like an anthology title. They wanted a six-issue miniseries that would be devoted entirely to the Champions versus DEMON storyline. But because that development of that storyline hinged on tales that now would not be told, this created two serious plotting problems. And the resolution of those problems led directly to a much more prominent role in this storyline than I’d originally contemplated for Flare.

Problem One: Since I couldn’t get into it gradually, I had to find a way to get into it immediately. This meant I’d need another character, a character who would know most of the essential background, a character who would therefore be able to provide the required exposition. That’s how my own character, Doctor Arcane, entered into the mix. As I’d envisioned him while creating him for the Champions game supplement, The Coriolis Effect, he was a master of magic who’d been around since well before World War II. So of course he would know much of what it was needful to know. At the beginning of the story arc, he would have possession of the Hellfire Crown—the ancient mystic artifact that would serve as the MacGuffin of the plot—and it would be an unsuccessful attempt by Foxbat to steal it from him that would alert the League of Champions to the nature of DEMON’s threat. Problem Two: Although using Doctor Arcane would enable me to do without many of the stories that otherwise would have converged into the Champions versus DEMON adventure, it wasn’t possible to discard the story of the origin of Flare. The personal conflict between Terri and her brother Philip was at the heart of what was really going on. The difference between Flare’s quest to find the light and the Demonmaster’s embrace of darkness was ultimately what the Champions versus DEMON story was all about. Therefore, during the course of these six issues, Flare’s story had to be told. And this was a story that Doctor Arcane could not have known. The result of it was that no matter how much character development I tried to provide for Icestar, Rose, the Huntsman, and Giant, the focus of “The Curse of the Hellfire Crown” inevitably came back to Flare. For everyone else, goals were clear and well defined. Of all the Champions, Flare was the only character who had to deal with fundamental internal conflict. And that, in the end, made the original Champions story arc a story about Flare. That the story was ultimately about Flare was something I fully understood going into it. What I didn’t fully understand was what the consequences of that would be.

Heroic Publishing Begins Although the six issues had evidently done reasonably well for Eclipse, it turned out that Champions had not broken what was then (and to a lesser extent continues to be) a frustrating pattern of large first-issue orders followed by rapid decline. Despite a fine artistic effort by Chris Marrinan and Dell Barras, Champions clearly wasn’t going to be any sort of breakthrough title. And since Eclipse didn’t own the property, there was no reason for them to continue to publish it.

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But I had a business plan. In November of 1986, Fantasy Book Enterprises had incorporated as Heroic Publishing Inc., for the express purpose of moving into comic-book publishing. The business plan called for the development of comic-book characters into viable commercial properties for the purpose of generating ancillary licensing and merchandising revenue. As it turned out, the assumptions of that business plan were flawed; the comic-book industry was still more than a decade away from the kind of maturity the plan presumed. But going in, I didn’t know that. With Eclipse taking a pass on continuing to publishing the Champions comic book, and Deni Loubert at Renegade Press reaching the decision that the science-fiction series Eternity Smith that Rick Hoberg © 2006 Heroic Publishing. and I were doing for her wasn’t really the kind of comic book she wanted to be publishing, Heroic Publishing would start with two tested properties. We needed two more. My gut feeling was that four would be a good number. I spoke with Roy Thomas, who had an idea. He and his wife Dann had been talking about doing some kind of father-and-son super-hero team. Roy wanted to call them Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, names from out of the Golden Age of comics, names which naturally evoked electrical powers. Sounded good to me. So I hooked Roy and Dann up with Dell Barras, and set them to work developing plot and visuals. Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt This Flare miniature was produced in would be Heroic Publishing property number three. the early 1980s for the Champions And for property number role-playing game (RPG). four? Well, we had all those © 2006 Heroic Publishing. characters in the Champions comic book, and I had all those stories I hadn’t been able to tell. So why not pull one of the Champions into his own magazine? But which Champion should it be? The Marksman seemed the obvious choice. In 1987 the most visible trend in comics was toward hard-nosed guys with guns. The Marksman was a hard-nosed guy with a gun. So I asked Steve Perrin to take the industrialist-father-coerced-by-DEMON story idea and develop it into a three-part origin sequence. And as a backup feature in the proposed Marksman comic book, since science and the occult always seemed to make for good contrast, we’d do some of those occult mysteries with Rose. Because we are already planning to feature the Marksman and Rose outside the ongoing Champions comic book, the creative focus in Champions naturally shifted to other characters, specifically to Icestar and © 2006 Heroic Publishing. 7 4

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Flare. To start with, I wanted to do something a little bit goofy by way of contrast with the seriousness of that original six-issue story arc. Since the untold Icestar stories tended toward goofiness, those were obvious choices as backup features. And for the lead feature in the first issues, I’d need to come up with something contemporary for Flare. If you have a copy of the first Heroic Publishing issue of Champions, follow as I explain how that story came together. The first thought was that with Giant gone—he’d died a tragically heroic death in the final issue of the miniseries—the Champions were seriously shorthanded. Perhaps Flare could go looking for someone to recruit. But hey, what if the guy she found was a complete jerk? Once again, I turned to DEMON creator, Andy Robinson, who had a character he’d been playing in our local Champions campaign who often did come across as a complete jerk. He plotted out a hilarious story featuring the comic-book debut of the now-legendary Galloping Galooper. Incidentally, as I was putting together that first Heroic Publishing issue of Champions, it occurred to me that I’d made the decision to pull the Marksman into his own title without actually consulting with fans. Though I certainly expected that the most popular character would be the Marksman, I didn’t actually know that for a fact. In light of that, since if this went well we’d soon be looking for a fifth and sixth title, this seemed as good a time as any to find out which member of the League of Champions fans actually liked best. So in the first issue of Heroic Publishing’s Champions comic book we polled readers and asked them specifically which Champion they wanted most to see in a solo title. More on this later. Into the second issue of the new Champions series, I slotted another of those Icestar stories, and decided to take advantage of the fact that Flare was actually a lot younger than she appeared to be by setting a story featuring her, Rose, and the Marksman in Las Vegas. Getting Flare there would be a little tricky. Because she was underage, Rose and the Marksman wouldn’t have taken her. She had to get there on her own. And in coming up with the means by which she would get there, I was obliged to develop further that streak of contrariness that had already been on display in the earlier issues. Then, in issues #3 and 4, because I needed to deal with the fact that without Giant the Champions were short-handed, I came up with a plan to introduce two new members of the team. In text features that had appeared in the miniseries, we’d made mention of Icestar’s and Flare’s younger sisters. Now it was time to introduce them. Icicle appeared briefly in Champions #3, but it wouldn’t be until issue #4 that she’d put on her costume. In issue #3, the focus would be on Flare’s electrically powered little sister, Olga. But in order to be able to get to Olga, I needed to bring Flare to her. Which meant going back to the story in issue #2 and setting up an emotional conflict that would separate Flare from her teammates. This meant running Flare through a gamut of emotions that further defined the essence of her character.

It was at about this time that poll results started coming in. And as I tallied the votes, I was startled to see that of all the Champions, the most popular was Flare, and not by any small margin. She was drawing three times as many votes as any other character. The Marksman wasn’t even close. He wasn’t even second. There are times when you don’t have to be hit over the head with a club. This wasn’t one of them. Until the poll results starting coming in, because what had been happening with Flare had been happening as a consequence of circumstance far more than design, I honestly hadn’t taken notice of it. But it had been happening, and I should have noticed it. Flare had taken over. Easily, effortlessly, she was becoming the glittering star of the Champions comic book. Everything was revolving around her. Everyone else was being relegated to a supporting role. The question was why. Why was Flare taking over? Truth to tell, of all the Champions, Flare was never my personal favorite. I didn’t even much like her. Yes, she was beautiful, but she could also be petty, vindictive, and cruel. Of all the Champions, I liked Rose best. Unlike Rose, Flare is not a nice person. So why was she taking over? The answer, when it finally came to me, explained everything. Flare is not a nice person. She was good rising up out of evil, light coming out of the darkness, beauty born of ugliness, a glittering goddess born out of the muck and mire of the mundane. Flare was a character who, by her very nature, pulled joy out of tragedy, and redemption out of sin. Flare is not a nice person. She is, in fact, a powerful Judeo-Christian archetype. The instant I understood that, I finally figured out what was going on. And I knew she would have to get her own magazine.

designed to test the water for an ongoing Flare comic book. And despite gradually declining orders from retailers, actual in-store sales seemed strong enough for those two issues that I was encouraged to go ahead with it. But if I was right about what it was that Champions fans were finding so viscerally appealing about Flare, I had to do this right. In order to match the character, Flare the comic book would itself have to contain a synthesis of opposing styles. It would require serious humor, reckless intensity, light-hearted danger, innocent sexiness, and flagrantly subtle wit. The trick would be to find an artist who could pull this off. I found a combination of two. Tim Burgard has always had a remarkable talent for making serious stuff look just a little bit goofy without losing any of that underlying sense of seriousness. And Mark Beachum, though he does have an unfortunate tendency to overemphasize certain portions of the female anatomy, draws very pretty. Together, Tim and Mark were able to give me artwork for Flare #1 that knocked my socks off. And when I saw what Tom Luth had been able to do for the color, I had a very strong sense that the first issue of Flare would indeed prove to be something special.

The Original Series But I wanted to test the water first. You see, I believed the conventional wisdom of the day. Despite what fans were telling us, I was far from convinced that Flare would be able to carry her own magazine. So after a couple of full-team Champions stories that ran through issue #7, I called on Walt Davis, the artist who’d done the original character design sketches for the comic-book version of the Champions, the artist who’d been my original choice for the Champions mini-series. Walt did a framing sequence around a pair of those unused original stories. The first untold tale featured Icestar as Foxbat’s foil. The second featured Foxbat’s first encounter with Flare. While Walt was working on that, I asked Chris Marrinan and Dell Barras to work up for Champions #9 what was essentially a prototype issue of Flare, featuring a lead Flare story and a Lady Arcane backup feature. Those two issues of Champions were deliberately

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Then we had to decide what to do. On analysis, the underling problem remained the same. No matter how much potential for success it appeared that Flare might have, we didn’t have the financial resources to follow through on it. At the numbers we were seeing, Flare wasn’t going to lose money, but on her own she certainly wouldn’t be producing enough revenue to enable us to implement the original business plan. So despite what had happened with Flare, Heroic Publishing’s first venture into the world of comic books came to a halt. But that was not the end of the story.

Flare in the 1990s

But Flare #1 was, in a publishing sense, an afterthought. You’ll recall the mention of declining sales a few paragraphs above. At the time the first of Flare was being put together, it had become quite clear that comic-book retailers weren’t going to be ordering Champions, Eternity Smith, Captain Thunder, or The Marksman in the kinds of numbers that would have paid for production costs. And since we simply didn’t have the financial resources that would have allowed us to continue for a while at a loss, it was only a few months into it that Heroic Publishing’s comic-book operation started winding down. On that basis, Flare #1 should have been one of Heroic Publishing’s last published comic books. Second and third issues of Flare were in production, but at the time issue #1 went to press, it wasn’t at all clear that there would actually be an issue #2 or an issue #3. But after Flare #1 went on sale, we saw something very strange. Reorders started pouring in. There were in fact two printings of Flare #1. They’re not distinguishable in any way, but there were two printings. Then we saw something very nearly incredible. Orders for the third issue of Flare had jumped right back up to the same level as the initial orders we’d received for Flare #1. And preliminary indications were that orders for a hypothetical Flare #4, an issue that wasn’t even actually in production, were going to be higher still. At the time, that sort of ordering pattern was unheard of. No new comic book ever did that. So we very quickly finished putting the second and third issues of Flare together, printed them, and distributed them.

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As evidenced by the plethora of “sexy” female characters that followed, other comic-book publishers had noticed (though perhaps not fully understood) what had happened with Flare. One of those publishers was our good friend David Campiti of Innovation Comics, who in early 1990 expressed to me an interest in finding a cost-effective way to get Flare back into print. It was with Dave’s help that in 1990–91, during a brief association with Innovation, we were able to publish four issues of Flare, three issues of League of Champions, one issue of The Adventures of Chrissie Claus, and a couple of repackaged collections of unsold copies of various issues of the original Heroic Publishing titles. Unfortunately, by then, the impetus of the original three issues had been lost, and the need to keep costs as low as possible made for some decisions that in retrospect were unfortunate. After the deal with Innovation ended, that need to keep costs low produced a decision to experiment with black-and-white comics. For a time, the black-and-whites seemed to be working. Because they cost much less to produce, we were actually able to publish more comic books in the 1990s than we’d published in the 1980s. And the good thing about that, it seemed, was that we were making the Heroic Publishing characters visible again. The drawback to it was that in making the decision to go to black-and-white, we’d made a fundamental decision to abandon any hope of ever reaching the high end of the comic-book market. In 1993 and 1994, at a time when the speculative comic-book market collapsed, and retailers who had previously been marginally successful suddenly found themselves strapped for cash, it wasn’t the high end of the market that suffered. What retailers cut back on were the black-and-white comics. We’d seen it coming, we were ready for it, and when it happened Heroic Publishing stepped back from the comic-book market once more. Flare lingered for a bit, but eventually the plug was pulled. But during that black-and-white period, there was some very nice stuff done for Flare, principally by Mark Propst, who brought a maturing elegance to the character that had never been emphasized before. The “Flare in Olympus” story arc that ran from Flare vol. 2 #10 through Flare vol. 2 #15 (a story arc currently

being reprinted in color in issues of Flare Adventures) helped define her as the glittering goddess of the light she’d always been, and laid down a firm foundation for what would follow a decade later.

Flare Today During the subsequent decade, Heroic Publishing focused principally on computer-programming services and database-access development. This produced a large enough stream of income that in 1999 and again in 2002 we toyed with the idea of doing some comic books again, at least on a limited basis. In 1999, the project was Commander Fantastic and the All-Girl Hero League. In 2002, we contemplated publishing a pair of anthology super-hero titles, Tales of the Champions and Tales of the Arcane. It was preliminary work on those two anthology titles that led to the revival of Flare, and to our twentieth anniversary celebration this year. All during that intervening decade, Heroic Publishing had maintained a comic-book website at www.heroicpub.com, principally for the purpose of demonstrating an intent to continue to make use of our established trademarks. We could tell from the traffic we were getting, from ongoing back-issue sales, and from the occasional fan mail we continued to receive that Flare remained our most popular character. But my thought was, even if we were going to get back into comics in a small way, we didn’t necessarily want to lead with Flare. Because Flare was likely to be critical to any success we might have this time around, I wanted to be absolutely certain we’d do her justice. So in late 2003, the plan was that instead of starting immediately with Flare, we’d first warm up with some Doctor Arcane by Terrance Griep and J. Adam Walters, and a new Tigress by Wilson Hill and Daerick Gross. Flare would come later. Enter Gordon Purcell. Gordon had heard from Terrance Griep that Heroic Publishing was getting ready to start publishing comics again. Gordon got in touch with us and suggested that Terry Pallot might be available for inks. And I realized that with Gordon and Terry doing the artwork, there wouldn’t be any need to wait. With a little help as needed from Adam Walters and a few other talented artists, we would be able to do right by Flare. The first new issue of Flare debuted at the 2004 Comic-Con in San Diego, and was distributed to comic-book stores that same October. And we couldn’t have been happier with the production values maintained throughout all the issues that have followed. Fans seem to like what we’re doing, and with as many as 28 pages of full-color adventure in every issue, Heroic Publishing is providing even more bang for the buck than just about any other comicbook publisher out there. As of March 2006, Flare is up to issue #33. She’s been joined on the Heroic Publishing schedule by titles featuring The Black Enchantress and WitchGirls Inc. Giant and the Tigress have indeed begun appearing

in issues of Tales of the Champions. Roy Thomas has contributed his new Anthem comic book to the mix. Those Doctor Arcane stories Terrance and Adam were working on will soon be appearing. And Liberty Girl is on the horizon, beginning with a special 0th issue for this year’s Free Comic Book Day. We do still have to be careful not to overreach. But there are encouraging signs that comic-book retailers may in fact be taking notice that Flare is back, better than ever. And with Hollywood at last knocking on our door, this time she just might be back to stay.

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by Fred Grandinetti

The Revival, Death, and . . . Return of

guest editorial

Editor’s note: The author of the books Popeye, the Collectible (Krause, 1990) and Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History (McFarland, 2004), Fred Grandinetti roots for the unlikely hero—including a certain Silver Age sidekick about whom he’d like to get something off his chest…

How Could You Not Love the Batman Family? Batwoman, Bat-Girl, and Bat-Mite by Arthur Adams, from the collection of John Cogan. On the opposite page is another Adams Batwoman illo, courtesy of Guenter Jandrasits. © 2006 DC Comics.

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I have friends who poke fun at me because I choose to write about characters in popular culture that, without close examination, have taken a negative thrashing in the annals of history. My favorite Three Stooges shorts feature Joe Besser. I prefer to watch The Avengers with Tara King and find the Popeye theatrical cartoons produced in color by Famous Studios enjoyable. This may help to explain my attraction to a female crimefighter who often elicits groans when her name is mentioned: the Batwoman. Batwoman started a trend in DC’s storytelling which continues today with alarming frequency—the murders of established female comic-book characters. Psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, attacked the relationship between Batman and Robin. Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff, who designed Batwoman and drew many of Batman’s stories during this period, states, “Wertham had suggested Batman and Robin was or could be mistaken for a gay relationship.” DC Comics tried to rectify this situation with writer Edmond Hamilton’s lead story in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956), “The Batwoman.” Clad in a black-and-yellow bodysuit, red (later yellow) mask, and a red cape with a weapon’s bag strung over shoulder, Kathy Kane, a wealthy heiress and one-time circus daredevil, used her skills to battle criminals as Batwoman. She had her own Batcave and rode around Gotham City on a red motorcycle. Batwoman’s weapons were all very feminine and included a lipstick case filled with tear gas, a compact filled with sneezing powder, charm bracelets which were actually handcuffs, and an oversized hairnet used to snare criminals. Her heyday was long before it was acceptable for women to be seen using judo and karate. Batman and Robin didn’t readily accept her aid. Batman discovered her secret identity at the conclusion of her first adventure and convinced Kathy that crooks could do the same. Kathy gave in and retired.

But “readers liked the [Batwoman] idea,” Moldoff says, so Kathy’s retirement was short-lived and for the next eight years, Batwoman made occasional appearances in Batman, Detective, and a few issues of World’s Finest. Contrary to popular belief, she didn’t need constant rescuing by Batman, and on several occasions saved the Dynamic Duo from peril. By 1964, the weak-selling Batman and Detective titles were near cancellation. While some attribute this decline to the additions of Batwoman, Bat-Hound, BatMite, and Bat-Girl, fan letters indicated that readers wanted to see more of these characters. In truth, too many Bat-characters did spoil the brew, in addition to the outlandish science-fiction stories which were totally out of Batman’s element. Batman and Detective were reassigned to editor Julius Schwartz, whose “New Look” Batman, featuring more modern artwork, began in Detective #327 (May 1964). Alfred was killed off and Dick Grayson’s Aunt Harriet arrived to avoid the question “What do three men do in a mansion together?” Batwoman was seen only in reprinted stories. Before long, Batwoman was also getting bashed in letter columns when compared to the “new” Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who debuted in Detective #359 (Jan. 1967). Batgirl relied on karate and judo to battle criminals, which was more appropriate to her time period than Batwoman’s sneezing powder and hairnet. By 1975, Batgirl was appearing in the popular anthology Batman Family (BF), edited by Bob Rozakis. I asked Mr. Rozakis in January 2006 what led to the late1970s’ reappearances of long-unseen Batman family members. “I think a lot of it had to do with the reprints,” Rozakis said. “Readers were interested in these characters. So was I, as a writer. That made it fairly easy to convince Julie Schwartz to let us bring them back.” Readers were asking for Batwoman’s return in the letters pages. “I wanted to use her,” Rozakis revealed,

“and convinced Julie Schwartz to let me!” She returned in BF #10 (Mar.–Apr. 1977), in “Those Were the Bad Old Days,” written by Rozakis. The story begins with Barbara Gordon acknowledging that there was a Batwoman before she started crimefighting. When the Cavalier and Killer Moth go on a crime spree together, Batwoman comes out of retirement to aid Batgirl. Barbara and Kathy stumble upon each other’s identities and capture the criminals. Barbara asks Kathy, who now owns a carnival, if Batwoman is going back into retirement. She replies, “It was fun wearing the old costume again, chasing around like I was a big important crimefighter— but I’m no spring chicken anymore! I’ll leave the criminals and Batwoman name to you—you’re a most worthy successor.” Barbara declines the use of the name, telling Kathy, “There has been and always will be only one Batwoman, and retired or not, it’s you.” Batwoman’s revival meant changes to the character. Not only was her costume revised but gone were her hairnet, sneezing powder, and other feminine weapons. She now relied on her physical and circus skills. Rozakis said, “We were trying to make her less campy than she had been in her first incarnation. Batwoman was more a performer than a crimefighter. What she did was much more an extension of her circus act than a lifelong obsession to exact revenge on criminals.” Readers, as evidenced by comments in the letter page, welcomed Batwoman’s return! One reader stated, “The revived and revised Batwoman is a resounding success,” while another said, “It’s ridiculous for you to even talk about re-retiring a dynamite character.” Batwoman returned in cameo appearances, although she was central to the action in “Old Super-Heroines Never Die—They Just Fade Away” in BF #14 (Oct. 1977) and “Horoscopes of Crime,” in #17 (Apr.–May 1978). She joined forces with other heroes to help stop an alien invasion in two 1978 issues of Freedom Fighters (#14 and 15). Bob Rozakis scripted all of Batwoman’s 1977–1978 adventures. Kathy Kane’s murder (by the League of Assassins), written by Denny O’Neil in “The Vengeance Vow” in Detective #485 (Aug.–Sept. 1979), could be attributed to the magazine’s slumping sales. In an article about the “DC Implosion” researched by Darcy McLaughlin, appearing on The Comic Bin website (December 11, 2005), she writes, “Between 1975 and 1978 DC cancelled a total of 65 titles. Things were so bad

Photo courtesy of Fred Grandinetti.

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for DC that one of the titles actually scheduled for cancellation in 1978 was Detective Comics. It was only saved by merging it with Batman Family.” In the letters page, discussing Kane’s death, DC stated the decision was made to get more readers involved with Batman’s adventures than they had been. When asked about this in January 2006, Denny O’Neil answered, “On this, my memory is really fuzzy. But I think we killed Batwoman just because she was perceived as not being very interesting. It certainly had nothing to do with the notion that Batman’s popularity was waning.” While some readers praised the story, many criticized Batman’s lack of emotion over the loss of a friend and ally. In the fanzine The Heroine’s Showcase #18 (1980), Howard W. Stangroom wrote, “Oh sure, Batman vows revenge, but so what? He’s done that much for total strangers in the past, and considering this is a woman he once came close to admitting he loved I would have expected just a little sorrow.” “The Vengeance Vow” was reprinted in a graphic novel and reviewed on The Masked Bookwyrm website, who commented, “Batman seems surprisingly unmoved by the murder of his one-time friend, ally, and lover. Since it was under O’Neil’s subsequent editorship that Batgirl was crippled, perhaps O’Neil just has a pathological hatred for women who dare to don Bat-costumes.” Bob Rozakis said of Kathy Kane’s death, “I had no advance warning about her death nor did I have any input. I’m pretty sure the attitude was, ‘Yeah, let’s kill her off and be done with her once and for all.’ Everything that is done in comic books is to attract reader attention. The goal is to sell the books, so if they think killing off a character will do it, they kill off a character. Did killing off Batwoman increase reader attention over any length of time? I doubt it had much effect. Comicbook characters are somewhat like the characters in the ‘mad slasher’ movies. Their close friends get killed left and right and it does not seem to bother them. It would be nice to see the repercussions of the death of a significant character carry through over a number of issues, but it doesn’t happen often.” Neither Barbara Gordon,

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who was a close friend of Kathy’s, nor Kathy’s niece, the original Bat-Girl, who was a member of Titans West during this period, were shown grieving. “That story is almost a textbook example of how not to write such a thing,” Denny O’Neil admits today about “The Vengeance Vow.” If Batwoman hadn’t been killed off in 1979, as a female character from DC Comics she probably would have bitten the dust by now. The company has a ghoulish habit of not retiring costumed females, but killing them. Over the past two decades, among those getting the death sentence were the original Black Canary, the Golden Age Catwoman, Earth-Two’s Huntress, the new Wildcat, the Golden Age and post-Crisis Cheetah, the Silver Age Supergirl, Kole (of the New Teen Titans), the Silver Age Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, the Phantom Lady, Aquagirl, the Spoiler, Pantha, Jade, and the Golden Age Lois Lane. Their methods of death include having a stomach blasted open, torture, disintegration, stabbing, and radiation cancer. It seems that males tend to die in DC stories, but they come back hale and hearty. When asked about the death of women in DC tales, Rozakis said, “I think there are not many writers at DC who know how to handle a female character, possibly because they have not had any relationships with real women. Certainly, the inability to write about a married couple in a positive relationship is quite evident by the number of wives who have been killed, maimed, etc. I do not think this is a good thing.” Thanks to Emmy Award-winning writer Alan Brennert, the League of Assassins didn’t kill off Kathy Kane entirely. Brennert introduced the Earth-Two Batwoman in The Brave and the Bold (B&B) #182 (Jan. 1982). In “Interlude on Earth-Two,” Kathy Kane dons her costume after a long, self-imposed retirement to help a grown-up Robin battle Hugo Strange. This story features scenes rich in characterization, including the first meeting of the Earth-One Batman and Earth-Two Batwoman, both knowing that their respective counterparts are deceased, with Batman admitting that he had forgotten how much he cared for the Kathy Kane of his Earth. The Earth-Two Batwoman returned in “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne,” another excellent tale written by Brennert, in B&B #197 (Apr. 1983), in a flashback revealing how Batman and Catwoman fell in love. Then, the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths hit with the intention of erasing characters such as Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Bat-Mite, and Bat-Hound. DC, however, had yet to decide if they existed or not, for shortly after the Crisis series ended, a photo of the aforementioned Batman family was seen in The Killing Joke (1988). Though Kathy

Kane’s death was mentioned in an issue of Suicide Squad, Bette Kane (the post-Crisis BatGirl, now the heroine Flamebird) referred to her “Aunt Kathy” in the 2000 miniseries Beast Boy. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #6 (1996) featured a Kathy Kane of the future, still Batwoman, but wearing body armor and wielding an ax. The most poignant post-Crisis appearance of Batwoman occurred in The Kingdom: Planet Krypton #1 (1999). Batwoman was featured prominently as a product of what Batman called “reflections of realities similar to our own, yet divergent.” When he sees Batwoman, his grim expression grows tender and he says in a whisper, “Kathy?” Even more surprising, in Batman: Dark Detective #2 (2005), a portrait of Batwoman hangs in the Batcave! With the 2006 news of a new Batwoman coming from DC Comics, fans have speculated who it will be and what Earth she will be a part of, with the miniseries Infinite Crisis recreating the DC Universe. Bob Rozakis said to me regarding DC’s alternate universes, “I think getting rid of the multiple Earths created far more problems than it solved. Here we are 20 years later and DC is still trying to fix things with Infinite Crisis. I have never heard from a reader who said, ‘Yeah, they were right. That parallel Earth stuff was too hard for me to figure out. I’m so glad they put all the characters on one world.’” Whether Kathy Kane will be a part of yet another DC world remains to be seen as of this writing. Her alter ego, however, continues to be remembered by many with great affection. Editor’s note: The comments in this “Off My Chest” guest editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BACK ISSUE magazine or TwoMorrows Publishing.

(above) Batwoman in a commissioned illustration by Buzz (www.justbuzz.com). From the collection of Robert Plunkett. (left) Original cover art to Batman Family #14 (Oct. 1977), by Jim Aparo. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. Batwoman © 2006 DC Comics.

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John Wells

Part One: Boy Interrupted Sinister business dealings and attempted murder. Clark Kent caught in a romantic triangle with Lana Lang and a blonde classmate. An episode of Smallville? Could be … but it was also the state of affairs in the DC Universe’s own version of Smallville when, 20 years ago, the curtain came down on the adventures of Superman as a boy. The Superboy solo strip had ceased before, of course, having been virtually consumed by the Legion of SuperHeroes in 1973 when they took over his own comic book. But the Boy of Steel struggled back: sales on a 1976 solo tryout in DC Super-Stars #12 led to an ongoing 1977 solo strip in Adventure Comics that moved to Superman Family in 1978 and culminating with the launch of The New Adventures of Superboy (NAOS) comic book in 1979. By late 1982, Paul Kupperberg had assumed the scripting duties on the series (joining veteran penciller Kurt Schaffenberger) and introduced the first major supporting characters to the series since Clark’s bullying nemesis Bash Bashford (who debuted in 1969’s Superboy #157). These were Johnny Webber, a troubled crony of Bash who struggled to redeem himself, and Lisa Davis, a blonde teenager who was (no kidding) Clark Kent’s girlfriend. Echoing his relationship with Chloe Sullivan in Smallville, Clark didn’t immediately notice that the quiet Lisa was interested in him (NAOS #40, Apr. 1983) It took Lana Lang to point him in the right direction. There were rocky moments in the beginning, as Lisa misinterpreted Clark’s mysterious, abrupt exits as a sign he didn’t care. But apologies were made and the couple settled into a comfortable routine, Clark’s self-esteem rising as Lisa prodded him to stop making self-deprecating comments about himself. “In general, it was more fun writing Clark Kent than Superboy,” Kupperberg says, “which is why I introduced a new girlfriend—it gave me an excuse to write more Clark/less Superboy. Anyway, I was trying to get away from that Clark-as-wiener thing. I remember having him get into a touch football game and, without using his powers, do okay and start

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thinking maybe he doesn’t have to always play the schmuck everybody thinks he is.” And a funny thing happened ’round about New Adventures #50 (Feb. 1984). Lana Lang, who’d matched up Clark with Lisa in the first place, started to have regrets that the Boy Next Door was now taken. “Not that we were officially dating,” she told herself in #52 (Apr. 1984), “but I thought we had an understanding.” So Lana started making a play for Clark, who was so busy worrying that she might be trying to ferret out his secret identity that he never figured out what was really happening. The dawn broke soon enough, though, when Lana tried to ask Superboy out on a date and he realized she was trying to make Clark jealous. Meanwhile, Clark’s dad was having problems of his own, ones that held considerably more peril than a teen love quadrangle. Lisa Davis’ father Malcolm, a real estate agent, had learned that a shopping mall was in the works for Smallville, a situation that threatened the financial well-being of the community’s local businesses but would represent a $20,000,000 windfall for City Council president Gary Simmons, who owned the land where the mall would be built. Malcolm and the city’s other merchants believed that Jonathan Kent had the integrity and popular support that would enable him to win a seat on the Council and oppose Simmons (NAOS #44–45, Aug.–Sept. 1983). Jonathan said no—but changed his mind after a pair of strangers threatened him if he did run for office (#46). Jonathan tried his best to shrug off the danger, including an explosion at his storefront (NAOS #48–49, Dec. 1983–Jan. 1984). But he was genuinely shaken when Police Chief Parker called him in the middle of the night to report that prowlers had been arrested in his store— professional hitmen armed with untraceable weapons (#53). Incredibly, Gary Simmons even confronted Jonathan directly, offering “a piece of the action” that Kent naturally rejected. Though more determined that ever to win the Council seat, Jonathan was certain that there was more going on than a land deal. Indeed, Malcolm Davis, who’d been evasive at times in trying to persuade Jon to run in the first place, had made a nervous retreat from his home at the same time that Simmons was confronting Kent (#54). That’s where things stood in Smallville when the plug was pulled on the book in 1984. Despite soft sales, DC

still had hopes of revitalizing the series by putting it in a bigger, 48-page comic that would be a streamlined version of the earlier, more successful Superman Family comic. Superboy’s companion feature would be Supergirl, whose own comic was cancelled with #23, three months after New Adventures. Unfortunately, misgivings about the relaunch had emerged during that brief period, enough of them to put the whole project on hiatus and scuttle plans to release the preliminarily titled DC Double Comics [alternately called Double Action Comics] in July of 1984 to coincide with the release of the Supergirl movie. And when that movie tanked at the box office, any hope of reviving the project was lost. What few people realize, however, is that the interiors for Double Comics #1 actually exist in penciled form as do Kupperberg’s nearly completed scripts for #2. Penciled by Kurt Schaffenberger for five years, Superboy was slated to get a new look when thenSupergirl penciller Carmine Infantino moved over to the Boy of Steel. And Kupperberg also seemed poised to tap into the 1980s trend of teen super-teams by making Superboy the nucleus of an international team of young heroes. In the 16-page “Fugitive From Tomorrow,” Superboy found himself engaged in battle by armored Temporal Rangers, who were convinced that the Boy of Steel was actually a time-fugitive from 3535 A.D. named Bartel Cross. Their real target was no slouch himself, equipped with sophisticated monitoring devices in his Australian base and gifted with shadowpowers that enabled him to literally fade to black. Were it not for Superboy’s intervention, however, the young man would still have been apprehended. Superboy was astonished to learn that Bartel Cross was otherwise known as Benjamin Cross, founder of “Australia’s largest research company” and a self-described twelve-year-old who looked “at least sixteen.” His powers, he explained, were a consequence of his “escape from the future through the Hyatt Time-Pool,” a time portal originally seen in the 1960s Atom series and once accessible only by that comic’s six-inch-tall hero. “You think I should become some kind of super-hero like you, right?” Cross asked Superboy. “That’s not for me … not if my life depended on it … and come to think of it … it really does!” In the script for issue #2’s 24-page installment, Superboy’s conversation was interrupted when Cross’ monitors picked up an alien battleship approaching the planet. These were the Kytor, infamous reptilian warriors who’d now set their sights on Earth. The Boy of Steel’s encounter with the marauders was, at best, a stalemate and they vanished from sight via hyper-speed. Superboy was left with the ominous knowledge that this was merely an advance scout for a full-scale invasion. To no great surprise, Bartel Cross had taken advantage of Superboy’s absence to return to hiding but he left behind a map that highlighted four locales: the Swiss Alps, Tokyo, New York City, and St. Louis, Missouri. “If it’s heroes you’re looking for,” he suggested via a monitor screen, “try these people.”

Before he could act on the tip, one of the mystery heroes actually arrived at the Kent front door, addressing Clark as Superboy and urging him to accompany her on an urgent mission in her native Japan. And against all reason, the Boy of Steel found that he trusted the stranger completely and agreed to join her. The 16-year-old’s name was Nancy Kwan, whose father had been transformed by a small statue into the Oni, a Japanese demon that Kupperberg declared was “ugly and mean and hardcore evil!” Having already

Page 6 of Paul Kupperberg’s Superboy story from the unpublished DC Double Comics #1, featuring penciler Carmine Infantino’s spunky Superboy and Krypto in a space romp. Double Comics art courtesy of Paul Kupperberg. © 2006 DC Comics.

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installment, “the round-up continues … the Teen of Steel meets the girl of granite … and more!” But there was no more. Nor would the Lisa Davis and City Council subplots ever be resolved. “I can't quite recall what I had in mind for the Jonathan-for-City-Council plot,” Kupperberg admits. “He was going to go it alone, forbidding Clark from using his super-powers to intercede (‘A man's got to fight his own fights!’) in spite of all the dangers facing him, including murder attempts.” It would have ended, he believes, with “some twist where Clark and some of his friends, get involved in the political process and help save Jonathan and win the election.” As for Lisa, one can speculate that her father may have somehow been involved in the same real estate scheme he was supposedly fighting against and that this might have played a role in ending her romance with Clark. In any event, “something was going to break them up,” Kupperberg continues, “and before they could resolve anything between them, Lisa was going to move away from Smallville. Following that, I was going to bring Lisa back in Superman and Action Comics, getting the two together as adults for a while. She was going to have some obsession with Clark (the only man she’s ever really loved) and some problem with Superman (this was the 1980s...), and have some sort of twisted life that would catch up with her and prevent her and Clark from marrying at the last minute. Julie Schwartz had, to my recollection, approved this story in its broad strokes .. but then came [Superman’s Man of Steel] relaunch and it was bye-bye to all that.” Similarly unresolved were some of the affairs of Superboy’s intended co-star from DC Double Comics…

Part Two: Girl Interrupted

mesmerized the people in the nearby countryside, the Oni intended to expand his domain outward, eventually going global. The battle went badly for a time as Oni’s magic temporarily stripped Superboy of his invulnerability. Nancy’s power over emotion left Oni momentarily shaken but it was her encouragement of Superboy that enabled the teen hero to destroy the statue through which the demon had been channeled. Afterwards, Nancy confirmed that she was “an empath, of a sort,” born on a parallel Earth whose leaders sought “to use my command over men’s emotions for evil—or, failing that, see me murdered as they killed my … my brother, who helped me escape through the multi-verse.” Superboy realized that he’d found one of Cross’ four heroes, part of the superhuman team he now intended to organize to turn back the impending Kytor invasion. A caption proclaimed that, in the next

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He called her name and she turned, stunned to see the face of the man she’d dated in high school and college. And before she could react, he had her in his arms and kissed her warmly. Fade to black. End of story. It was an unconventional way to conclude a series— and, truth be told, an unintended one—but Kara Zor-El a.k.a. Linda Lee Danvers a.k.a. Supergirl had never been one to adhere to formula. Unlike her famous cousin, who’d been locked into a fairly inflexible status quo for decades, Linda had seen constant progression since she arrived on Earth as the 15-year-old sole survivor of a Kryptonian colony. Her life as an orphan at the Midvale Orphanage gave way to the role of beloved daughter of Fred and Edna Danvers. She watched her best friend get married, graduated high school and college herself, got a job on a film crew, studied acting, helped kids as a guidance counselor, and had a stint on a TV soap opera. Her series had a long run as backup to Superman in Action Comics (with occasional star-billing on the cover) before she graduated to what was, in spirit if not in name, her own comic book, Adventure Comics. And after that, Kara actually did have a brief stint in a comic entitled Supergirl before it was merged with the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen titles as the giant-sized Superman Family, a venerable comic wherein the Girl of Steel eventually emerged as its undisputed star attraction.

Thus, in 1982, DC decided it ought to scale back the oversized comic to the standard format and rename it (to avoid confusion with that earlier series) The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl. [A year into the run, the preamble was dropped at it was, thereafter, simply Supergirl.] This was an era in which many of DC’s beleaguered series had attempted to return to their roots in an effort to recapture the spark that had gone out of them. Batgirl had been moved from Washington, D.C. back to a secondary role in Gotham City. As Diana Prince, Wonder Woman was once again in the Army alongside Steve Trevor. After well over a decade’s absence, Hal Jordan was working as a Ferris Aircraft test pilot again. And Supergirl? As Linda Danvers, she returned to college, an environment where writer Paul Kupperberg believed she’d functioned best and which seemed less derivative of Clark Kent’s workplace situations. The school setting also served to suggest a more youthful image for a character obligated to continue referring to herself as a girl. Joining Kupperberg was an inspired art team that paired the stylized pencils of Carmine Infantino with the softer, more romanticized inks of Bob Oksner. It was a startling contrast to the preceding years of episodes often blandly inked by Vince Colletta. Now a psychology major at Lake Shore University in Chicago, Linda was surrounded by a number of new cast members, foremost among them neighbor John Ostrander (named—yep—after the future DC writer), her high-spirited pal Joan Raymond and a new boyfriend, music conductor Phil Decker. After struggling a bit in its first year with a succession of multi-part stories, the series got a boost with the news that Supergirl was slated to be the star of the next movie in Alexander and Ilya Salkind’s Superman franchise. Viewing the cleavage and hot pants of Kara’s costume as a bit too adult, the Salkinds requested a change. A new costume and logo were rolled out in Supergirl #13. Over editor Julius Schwartz’s objections, a headband was belatedly added to the outfit in #17. “Sure enough,” Schwartz later groused in Comics Feature #30 (1984), “when they made the movie, they left the head-band out.” In any event, the series seemed to find its footing in the second year with more tightly focused stories and development of the supporting cast. Linda’s romance with Phil Decker hit a snag thanks to secrets he was keeping from her. Frustrated by his evasiveness, she broke up with him in Supergirl #22. And in issue #23, Kupperberg added another wrinkle to the subplot when he threw Dick Malverne into the mix. Dick had been a childhood acquaintance of Linda at the Midvale Orphanage who’d been reunited with her in high school. They dated well into college but he’d faded away not long before graduation and hadn’t been seen since 1970’s Adventure Comics #393. His embrace of Linda on the last page of Supergirl #23 was, therefore, enormously tantalizing—and meant to induce readers into seeking out the relaunched series in DC Double Comics in July of 1984. Perhaps the hottest member of Julius Schwartz’s stable of Superman artists at that point was newcomer Eduardo Barreto, who’d been illustrating a succession of striking

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covers for the books in addition to the impressive interiors of a crossover between Superman #397 and Supergirl #21. Barreto was poised to take over as Supergirl’s regular artist with issue #1 of the new series (inked by Oksner), representing as great an artistic departure as the Infantino-Oksner team that had preceded him. His pencils for that first 24-page adventure are just as good as one might have hoped. [Covers for DC Double Comics had been planned as representative poster-style illustrations of Superboy and Supergirl together, the first reportedly intended to have been drawn by Neal Adams.] Where the previous 23 issues of Supergirl had focused on new directions and new faces, the opening trilogy of the new series seemed, on the surface, to embrace the past. Moving beyond Dick Malverne, the story would check in on the inhabitants of Kandor, including Kara’s parents, Zor-El and Alura, and friends Van-Zee and Ak-Var, who’d operated as Nightwing and Flamebird in a series Kupperberg wrote for Superman Family in 1977 and 1978. “Going Home” found Supergirl engaged in furious battle with a costumed rogue named Fireball, a foe who held his own against her longer than he ought to have. Uncharacteristically angry, Kara realized that the recent turmoil in her personal life was taking its toll of her costumed alter ego. Linda was wondering whether she even ought to continue as Supergirl when Dick Malverne showed up at her door. Dick, apparently, had made a quick exit after their prior meeting when he realized how much he’d shocked his old girlfriend. His attempt at easing into things with small talk was a bust, his discussion of his job in the computer field segueing into the bombshell that he’d transferred to Chicago specifically to be near Linda. Even as she grimaced, Dick proclaimed that he still loved her, insisting over her protestations that “the girl I remember couldn’t change that much.” “You’ve intruded in my life!” Linda snapped back at him. “You’ve set me up as some kind of paragon and now you’re angry at me for not meeting that expectation … and then you expect my sympathy for

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‘disappointing’ you! I don’t need you to come back into my life to bring me guilt!” And she slammed the door as she kicked him out. Her emotions boiling over, Kara jumped in a rocket and flew off to New Krypton, the world that was now home to the Kryptonian survivors of Kandor. Also known as Rokyn, New Krypton was a “phase-world,” a planet that faded in and out of existence in Earth’s own universe. We’d learn here that the Kandorians, powerless under the world’s red sun and heavier gravity, had made great strides in rebuilding their shattered civilization, thanks in part to their “new neighbors in the other dimension.” Nonetheless, things were still quite primitive on Rokyn, with steeds native to the world serving as the principal source of transportation. Zor-El and Van-Zee were working around the clock, however, to tap into the hydro-thermal energy at the heart of the planet, power that would jumpstart their progress. While her father was occupied with the drilling process, Kara caught up on her people’s progress via Ak-Var, now sporting a beard and a brawnier physique very different from his youthful Flamebird persona. And she had a heart-to-heart talk with her mother, openly discussing the void she felt in her life. “I’ve drifted from city to city, job to job … always feeling there has to be something more than what I’ve got … somewhere I can be myself—not just someone else’s expectation of what I should be.” Alura suggested that, for all the fine guidance he’d given the teenage Kara, Superman “could only teach you what he knew. You are a child no longer, Kara. You are a young woman … a very special one at that. Don’t you think it is time you stopped relying on what you’ve been taught—and started learning for yourself?” To that end, Kara threw herself into studying the Kryptonian martial art known as Klurkor at the hands of an aged master known as Vak-Ti. As the script for issue #2 progressed, Kara found that she had little trouble at the physical aspects of Klurkor … but mastering the inner discipline was another matter altogether. Still, Supergirl felt refreshed in the idyllic Kryptonian

when the new Supergirl finally received an ongoing comic book of her own again in 1996. In a last ditch effort to save the series in 2002, David actually brought the Kara Zor-El version of Supergirl into the series, allowing her to interact with her modern counterpart for six issues that were, ultimately, too late to prevent the cancellation of Supergirl. The groundswell of enthusiasm for the return of the “real” Supergirl seems to have proven something to the Powers That Be. Namely, that the 1986 re-establishment of Superman as the lone survivor of doomed Krypton might be an idea worth reconsidering. Inevitably, a “Supergirl from Krypton” emerged from a spacecraft to greet her stunned cousin (2004’s Superman/Batman #8–13) and a delighted readership whose response won her a new ongoing series a year later. It’s 2006. And this time it’s Superboy (the clone modeled after the Man of Steel) who has died to save all of existence. But Supergirl is alive and well. And rumors abound that Clark Kent’s boyhood was once again, well, super! In comics, second chances, like crises, are infinite.

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community, so much so that she was seriously considering remaining there permanently. But she’d have to make her decision soon. Rokyn was slated to shift back to the other dimension in three days. While Kara may not have had much success in accessing the inner fire that Vak-Ti spoke of, her father was having no such difficulty in his drilling project. Unfortunately, the energy at the heart of the planet represented “living beings of flame and molten rock.” When Zor-El and Van-Zee broke into the core, the flame-creatures rose to the surface—and a wall of fire began fanning across the horizon towards Kandor. Though intended as a 16-page story, the script for the second Supergirl episode stopped abruptly after its description of page 13. This was, apparently, the point at which word came down that DC Double Comics was being put on hold. Even as the final issue of Superboy was being released in March of 1984, Marv Wolfman and Len Wein were preparing a death list for DC publisher Jenette Kahn, a catalog of major and not-so-major characters who could be killed at dramatic moments in the forthcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Flash’s name was on the list. And so, sadly, was Supergirl’s. By the time Supergirl #23 was published in June, the confidence in the continuation of the series had given way to nervous optimism. And the critical and box-office failure of the Supergirl movie was the final nail in Kara Zor-El’s coffin. The final solo adventures of the Earth-One Supergirl were shelved, the subplots from that series likewise unresolved. The secret of Phil Decker was never revealed though he was seen briefly in the epilogue of “Going Home.” One can at least speculate, though, as to where the Dick Malverne situation was headed. In the script for issue #2, Joan Raymond took pity on the forlorn young man mooning over Linda and coaxed him into coming into her own apartment. “We’ll have some coffee and talk,” she assured Dick as the door closed. “Or something.” Dick and Joan may have found romance but there was no such happy ending for Supergirl herself, who died at the hands of the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7—exactly a year after DC Double Comics #1 should have been released. Superboy, on the other hand, succumbed in stages, initially being written out of Superman’s history in John Byrne’s 1986 revamping of series and later returning as a hero from an alternate timeline just long enough to suffer an on-panel death in 1987. But the Boy of Steel had the last laugh, starring in a syndicated TV show by the end of the 1980s (with accompanying DC comic) and being reinvented as a supposed clone of Superman in 1993. And in 2001, the WB launched Smallville, a thoroughly modern take on the life of young Clark Kent, that fueled major new enthusiasm for the classic Superboy. Like her male counterpart, Supergirl made a gradual return, initially being revived in 1988 as an artificial being from a parallel Earth. And, in an attempt to bring the character more in line with her roots, Peter David fused “Matrix” with a human named Linda Danvers

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Non-Comic Books for the Comic Art Collector

Michael Eury

Jeepers Peepers!: A Gallery of American Pin-up Art Introduction by Louis K. Meisel Collectors Press, 2006 • softcover • 176 full-color pages • $14.95 U.S.

I embrace new technology, wear contemporary fashions, and keep abreast of current events. But when it comes to popular culture, I am blissfully stuck in the past. In addition to editing this magazine, I write and co-write books examining popculture history, I prefer music from my youth (I’m listening to Time-Life’s 70s Music Explosion right now—next up: Olivia Newton-John), and my office is decorated with vintage toys and comic-book art. The past not only provides womblike solace, but it also teaches lessons (for those who choose to accept them) on avoiding mistakes that recur as frequently as … well, relaunches of Wonder Woman.

The Incredible Pulps: A Gallery of Fiction Magazine Art Introduction by Frank M. Robinson Collectors Press, 2006 • softcover • 176 full-color pages • $14.95 U.S.

Worlds of Tomorrow: The Amazing Universe of Science Fiction Art by Forrest J. Ackerman with Brad Linaweaver Collectors Press, 2004 • hardcover with dust jacket • 176 full-color pages • $39.95 U.S. All books © 2006 Collectors Press, Inc.

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Since Aquaman’s wife Mera didn’t make the cut for our “Super Girls” issue, we present this delightfully glistening glimpse of Bill Medcalf’s 1948 painting Surf’s Up, from Jeepers Peepers! © 2006 Collectors Press, Inc.

I’m not alone. Most likely you, the BACK ISSUE reader, share a similar appreciation of times gone by. So does book publisher Collectors Press. Collectors Press (www.collectorspress.com) realizes that we, as a culture, are who we are because of where we have been. Their list includes a diverse and funky range of publications from cookbooks (like the yummy 2006 release The Big Book of Barbecue Sides) to styles (such as the upcoming 70s Fashion Fiascos) to its “Retro” series (from Retro Housewife to Retro Luau). Nestled within this eclectic line are two new titles, intoxicatingly colorful handfuls measuring 5 1⁄4 x 6 1⁄2 inches each, which celebrate artistic realms familiar to many comic-book fans: “good girl” pin-ups and pulps. Those whose appreciation of the illustrated female form led to their purchase of this edition of BACK ISSUE will welcome Jeepers Peepers! Harkening back to the days long before Eva Longoria Internet downloads, Jeepers Peepers! gathers a heavenly host of paintings of captivating women, from coquettish girls next door to traffic-stopping bombshells, created as magazine and calendar pin-ups to entertain GIs during World War II (although some of the images predate the war). Seven chapters thematically group the portraits—Nudes; Playful and Sporty; Swimsuit and Seaside; Exotic; Indian Maidens, Pirates, and Gypsies; Sheer Beauties (lingerie shots); and Glamour—and showcase the artwork of the genre’s masters, including the inimitable Gil Elvgren. Pulp magazines—collections of fantastical short stories printed on inexpensive “pulp” paper—were the precursors to the American comic book, their spirited prose packaged inside striking illustrated (usually painted) covers. The Incredible Pulps is an astonishing collection of many of the best covers from the 1920s through the 1940s, presented in four sections: Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery, and Adventure and Western. Comics fans will discover the just how heavily artists and editors of the Silver Age borrowed from the Sci-Fi pulps (and yes, included in The Incredible Pulps is the July 1940

Thrilling Wonder Stories cover that was later recreated as the June 1961 “Giant Turtle Olsen” cover of DC’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #53), and a quick scan of the new releases at the comicbook shop reveals that the gritty noir-ish flavor of pulps’ Mystery covers is enjoying a renaissance on cutting-edge crime and Vertigo titles. The reproduction values in both books are top-notch, and their digest size affords Jeepers Peepers! and The Incredible Pulps an iPod-like intimacy. If you’re looking for larger, in-your-face images, however, consider the coffee-table hardcover Worlds of Tomorrow. Hosted by Famous Monsters of Filmland’s “Forry” Ackerman and Nebula finalist Brad Linaweaver, this glossy volume features extraterrestrial menaces, saucy space maidens, and rocketships galore from over 300 sci-fi pulp and paperback covers from the 1920 through the 1960s. Ackerman and Linaweaver’s incisive commentary appears judiciously, the authors wisely preferring to let the art speak for itself. Let’s hop from the bookshelves to the DVD racks for a moment. BCI-Eclipse has just released DVD collections of two TV series of interest to the comics fan. First is the 1966–1967 Japanese import Ultraman, syndicated in the U.S. in the 1970s; this three-disc, 20-episode set retails for $39.98 and includes two collectible photo cards, interviews, and the original Japanese audio track with newly created English subtitles. Also retailing for $39.98 is BCI-Eclipse’s four-disc, 24-episode boxed set Flash Gordon—The Complete Series, collecting the Alex Raymond-esque 1979–1981 Filmation animated series. Among Flash’s myriad bonus features are behind-the-scenes interviews (including a chat with animator Darrell McNeil, author of this issue’s “Backstage Pass” column) produced by BI’s own Andy Mangels, and exclusive collectible cards illustrated by Frank Cho and Gene Ha.

Special thanks to Laura Bartroff, Josh Davidson, and Kristen Palmer for their assistance with this column.

NEW in Print! New Comics. Classic Appeal.

Savage Red Sonja: Queen of the Frozen Wastes #1–4 Dynamite Entertainment • Aug.–Nov. 2006 32 color pages • $3.50 U.S. Sword-wielding woman warrior Red Sonja, who recently shared a crossover miniseries with ’70s barbarian Claw, gets the Frank Cho treatment in Dynamite’s Savage Red Sonja: Queen of the Frozen Wastes. Cho teams with The Nam’s Doug Murray to co-write this four-issue miniseries, illustrated by Homs. Each issue features three variant covers, one by Cho, one by Homs, and one by Mark Texiera. © 2006 Red Sonja Corporation.

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BOOKS by BACK ISSUE’s editor MICHAEL EURY

KRYPTON COMPANION Unlocks the secrets of Superman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, when kryptonite came in multiple colors and super-pets scampered across the skies! Writer/editor MICHAEL EURY explores the legacy of classic editors MORT WEISINGER and JULIUS SCHWARTZ through all-new interviews with NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, CARY BATES, NICK CARDY, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, KEITH GIFFEN, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, JIM MOONEY, DENNIS O’NEIL, BOB OKSNER, MARTIN PASKO, BOB ROZAKIS, JIM SHOOTER, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other fan favorites! Plus: Super-artist CURT SWAN’s 1987 essay “Drawing Superman,” JERRY SIEGEL’s “lost” imaginary story “The Death of Clark Kent,” MARK WAID’s tribute to Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and rare and previously unpublished artwork by WAYNE BORING, ALAN DAVIS, ADAM HUGHES, PAUL SMITH, BRUCE TIMM, and other Super-stars. Bonus: A roundtable discussion with modern-day creators examining Superman’s influential past! Cover by DAVE GIBBONS!

JUSTICE LEAGUE COMPANION A comprehensive examination of the Silver Age JLA written by MICHAEL EURY (co-author of THE SUPERHERO BOOK). It traces the JLA’s development, history, imitators, and early fandom through vintage and all-new interviews with the series’ creators, an issue-by-issue index of the JLA’s 1960-1972 adventures, classic and never-before-published artwork, and other fun and fascinating features. Contributors include DENNY O’NEIL, MURPHY ANDERSON, JOE GIELLA, MIKE FRIEDRICH, NEAL ADAMS, ALEX ROSS, CARMINE INFANTINO, NICK CARDY, and many, many others. Plus: An exclusive interview with STAN LEE, who answers the question, “Did the JLA really inspire the creation of Marvel’s Fantastic Four?” With an all-new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

BATCAVE COMPANION The writer/editor of the critically acclaimed KRYPTON COMPANION and the designer of the eye-popping SPIES, VIXENS, AND MASTERS OF KUNG FU: THE ART OF PAUL GULACY team up to explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in THE BATCAVE COMPANION! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-by-issue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by DENNIS O’NEIL and its iconic cover painting by NEAL ADAMS, THE BATCAVE COMPANION is a musthave for every comics fan! By MICHAEL EURY and MICHAEL KRONENBERG. (240-page trade paperback) $26.95 US • ISBN: 9781893905788 • Diamond Order Code: NOV068368

(224-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905481 Diamond Order Code: MAY053052

(240-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905610 Diamond Order Code: MAY063443

COMICS GONE APE!

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

The missing link to primates in comics, spotlighting a barrel of simian superstars like Beppo, BrainiApe, the Gibbon, Gleek, Gorilla Man, Grease Monkey, King Kong, Konga, Mojo Jojo, Sky Ape, and Titano! It’s loaded with rare and classic artwork, cover galleries, and interviews with artists & writers including ARTHUR ADAMS (Monkeyman and O’Brien), FRANK CHO, CARMINE INFANTINO (Detective Chimp, Grodd), JOE KUBERT (Tor, Tarzan), TONY MILLIONAIRE (Sock Monkey), DOUG MOENCH (Planet of the Apes), and BOB OKSNER (Angel and the Ape)! All-new cover by ARTHUR ADAMS, and written by MICHAEL EURY.

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! Covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor, peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on his career milestones! Lavishly illustrated with RARE AND NEVER SEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art (includes a color section)! Also includes an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, plus a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS and Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

(128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905627 Diamond Order Code: FEB073814

(176-pg. Paperback with COLOR) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905276 Diamond Order Code: STAR20439

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE ORIGINAL SUPER-HERO ACTION FIGURE (Hardcover 2nd Edition)

CAPTAIN ACTION was introduced in 1966 in the wake of the Batman TV show craze, and later received his own DC comic book with art by WALLY WOOD and GIL KANE. Able to assume the identities of 13 famous super-heroes, his initial career was short-lived, but continuing interest in the hero has led to two different returns to toy-store shelves. Lavishly illustrated with over 200 toy photos, this FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SECOND EDITION chronicles the history of this quick-changing champion, including photos of virtually EVERY CAPTAIN ACTION PRODUCT ever released, spotlights on his allies ACTION BOY and the SUPER QUEENS and his arch enemy DR. EVIL, an examination of his comic-book appearances, and “Action facts” that even the most diehard Captain Action fan won’t know! The original softcover edition has been sold out for years, but this revised, full-color hardcover second edition includes behind-the-scenes coverage of CAPTAIN ACTION’S TRIUMPHANT 2008 RETURN to comics shelves in his new series from Moonstone Books, and spotlights the new wave of Captain Action collectibles. Written by MICHAEL EURY. (176-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490175 • Diamond Code: APR091003

THE

BATCAVE C O M P A N I O N NOW SHIPPING! Batman. Is he the campy Caped Crusader? Or the grim Gotham Guardian? Both, as The Batcave Companion reveals. On the brink of cancellation in 1963, Batman was rescued by DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz, who, abetted by several talented writers and artists, gave the hero a much-needed “New Look” which soon catapulted Batman to multimedia stardom. In the next decade, when Batman required another fresh start, Schwartz once again led a team of creators that returned the hero to his “creature of the night” roots. Writers Michael Eury (The Krypton Companion, The Justice League Companion) and Michael Kronenberg (Spies, Vixens, and Masters of Kung Fu: The Art of Paul Gulacy) unearth the stories behind the stories of both Batman’s “New Look” and Bronze Age (1970s) comic-book eras through incisive essays, invaluable issue-by-issue indexes, and insightful commentary from many of the visionaries responsible for and inspired by Batman’s 1960s and 1970s adventures: Neal Adams, Michael Allred, Terry Austin, Mike W. Barr, Steve Englehart, Mike Friedrich, Mike Grell, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Adam Hughes, Sheldon Moldoff, Will Murray, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Rozakis, Mark Waid, Len Wein, and Bernie Wrightson. Featuring 240 art- and info-packed pages, The Batcave Companion is a must-have examination of two of the most influential periods in Batman’s 70-year history.

Written by Back Issue’s

MICHAEL EURY & MICHAEL KRONENBERG ISBN 978-1-893905-78-8 $26.95 in the U.S. plus shipping Batman, Robin, and all related characters and indicia are TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Send your comments to: Email: euryman@msn.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) No attachments, please!

Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 5060A Foothills Drive • Lake Oswego, OR 97034

As production on this issue came to a close, we were informed that comic-book artist extraordinaire and Space Ghost/Super Friends character designer Alex Toth (b. June 25, 1928) passed away on May 27, 2006. BACK ISSUE #17 is dedicated to the late Mr. Toth.

If this is the first time you’ve sampled BACK ISSUE, welcome! You’ve joined thousands of regular readers who turn to us every other month for a chock-full-o’art-and-anecdotes blast from the past. Just received BACK ISSUE #15 today from my comicbook subscription service—another entertaining read! I’ve always had a soft spot for Marvel’s Bronze Age horror books, so I was delighted to see Werewolf by Night featured on the cover. Perusing the mag, I found one item which I believe needs correcting, however. On page 37, you feature a Don Perlin-drawn unused/rejected cover for Werewolf by Night, which is identified as having been intended for issue #32. It almost assuredly was drawn for issue #37, however, as the cover image of the Werewolf fighting ghoulish policemen matches the opening sequence from WBN #37. Probably, the confusion stems from the knowledge that the rejected cover was replaced by one featuring Moon Knight. Since Moon Knight’s debut in WBN #32 was the main focus of that issue, I have to believe he was always intended to be featured on that cover. However, though Moon Knight does appear in #37, it is only as a spectral image conjured by that issue’s main protagonist, Belaric Marcosa. Perlin probably didn’t

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feature Moon Knight on his cover for #37 because the actual character doesn’t appear in the story, just an image. The published cover for #37, by Ed Hannigan and Dan Adkins, featuring the Werewolf battling Moon Knight, Dr. Glitternight, and Hangman, was probably substituted as it may have been felt it would sell more copies to the casual buyer. Since WBN was in danger of cancellation at this point, having been dropped to bimonthly with the previous issue, #36, this seems plausible. Indeed, issue #37 had originally been scripted as the final issue by Doug Moench, even being titled “The End” and featuring a two-page epilogue of Jack saying mental “goodbyes” to the title’s cast of supporting characters. Then Marvel decided to keep it alive, and it lasted another six issues before cancellation. – Jay Ferrebee Thanks for bringing us up to speed, Jay. While we’re correcting errors that crept into issue #15, the art on page 16 (in the Matt Wagner interview) was not the actual Wagner/Art Nichols page 23 from The Demon #1, but instead a sample inking page from an unidentified inker that somehow found its way into our files. Our apologies to Matt, Art, and interviewer Al Nickerson. Re the José Luis García-López Deadman interview, Jim Van Dore informs us that José produced work for Charlton and Gold Key before his work started appearing at DC, and invites readers to examine his García-López checklist at hometown.aol.com/jrvandore/myhomepage/fan.html. And the one-and-only Harlan Ellison, a self-professed “registered lieutenant in the grammar police,” reminds us that “from whence he came,” which appeared in the Phantom Stranger article, should simply be “whence he came.” And speaking of Moon Knight, Jay, Marvel’s Dark Knight gets the BACK ISSUE spotlight in issue #20. Also coming in #20, which will make letter writer Jason Pott happy: the Human Fly, “the wildest super-hero ever—because he’s REAL!” But let’s not rush things … we have to produce issues #18 and 19 first. – M.E.

I first discovered BACK ISSUE with issue #9, when this lifelong Nexus and Grimjack fan had to pick up your magazine to read again about my favorite characters. Since then, I’ve bought every subsequent issue and even ordered copies of issues #1–6 off your website. The 1970s and 1980s are when I grew up and are still my favorite period for comics, so it’s been a real joy to rediscover so many great titles and read so many firsthand accounts from that era. I just finished the newest issue, #15, and I have to say it was one of the most well-put-together “theme issues” yet. You guys hit on some of the “weirdest heroes” to be published in the last 35 years, though I couldn’t help but wonder if this wouldn’t have been better served as a seasonal Halloween issue. I especially loved reading about one of my old favorites, the Phantom Stranger, and hope that DC’s recent hints of a Showcase collection for PS come true. I was pleasantly surprised by the ’Mazing Man article. I remember the book, but never read it. Now though, after reading the comments from Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStefano, I plan on tracking down the back issues when I get the chance. This seems to happen every time I read an issue of BACK ISSUE, as previous articles have led me to discovering DNAgents and inspired me to fill in some long-standing gaps in my Legion of Super-Heroes, Maze Agency, and Marvel Star Wars collections. Another article (and regular feature) that I enjoyed was the “Greatest Stories Never Told” about Grodd’s comic. I wanted to ask that for future articles on this feature, if you couldn’t examine several comics I remember DC announcing back in the late 1980s, but which never materialized for some reason. I was specifically thinking about John Byrne’s Freaks, Mike Grell’s Swamp Angel, and Captain Atom and Firestorm graphic novels, both of which were supposed to feature the artwork of one of my favorites, Pat Broderick. I always wondered why none of these series ever came out and would love to see whatever artwork was completed for them. I also wanted to ask if you still have any plans to run a feature on Bill Willingham’s Elementals, as you mentioned waaay back in issue #2? I’ve been anxiously awaiting that one for some time. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my comments and questions, and I look forward to following your magazine for a good long while. You guys are doing a fantastic job! – Andrew Collins

On behalf of everyone connected with BACK ISSUE, thank you, Andrew. Incidentally, I considered reserving issue #15’s material for Halloween, but opted to avoid the annual spookyseason horror-comics deluge. Those are great suggestions for “Greatest Stories Never Told” features. Thanks for your patience regarding the Elementals article … we’ll try to hook up with Bill Willingham soon. Glad you liked the Grodd article, by the way—Grodd is one of many characters featured in the book Comics Gone Ape!, written by yours truly (a resident of Planet of the Plugs) and shipping from TwoMorrows later this year. – M.E.

I just read BACK ISSUE #15, and it was another masterful job. The Deadman article by Bruce MacIntosh about José Luis García-López was great. He is definitely an underrated, most talented artist. The Wagner Demon article was also a very pleasant surprise. My favorite article was about Jim Aparo’s Phantom Stranger art. (PS: I own the other five pages from Phantom Stranger #22 that you did not showcase). And the Luis Dominguez covers were stunning. The Mike Ploog/Don Perlin Werewolf by Night article was awesome. It reminded me that I went to high school with Don Perlin’s son, Howard. He lived in Canarsie and I lived nearby in Mill Basin. Even though I read comics from age 11, I never told him that I read them, and at the time it was not important to me to meet his dad. Too bad for me, in retrospect. Keep up the great work. Your magazine has become to me what Comic Book Marketplace used to be when I was a comic collector. It is an indispensable read and a very important connection to the hobby I have come to love, original comic-art collecting. One last point: On page #82, the Ghost Rider art gallery, showcases the Ghost Rider #18 cover, which I purchased from Heritage in 2003. It is one of my most prized covers. – Nick Katradis Another fun issue of BI. I always thought Deadman was an underrated character and I was glad to read an article about him! One quibble though: It was too bad that the article didn’t mention the Deadman story in 1989’s Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2 (by the always-inventive Alan Brennert and Dick Giordano). Not only is it a fine Deadman story, but it’s also a touching, subtle farewell to another beloved DC character.

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Creators and collectors of 1970s/ 1980s comics artwork are invited to share your goodies with other fans! Contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive complimentary copies (and the editor’s gratitude). Submit artwork as (listed in order of preference): Scanned images: 300dpi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (emailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire) Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments. Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by emailing euryman@msn.com or by sending a SASE to the address below.

My first comics staff job was in the late 1980s at Comico the Comic Company, where I was the assistant editor on Bloodscent, a horror one-shot produced directly from Gene Colan’s pencils. They’re even cooler when you see them in “living” graphite! Rob, your treasury comics site is superb— and recommended to BI’s readers! And no quibbling—the Deadman Christmas with the Super-Heroes story is mentioned in this issue’s Supergirl article. – M.E. I just wanted to pass along how much I really like BACK ISSUE. I’m a latecomer to comics, so it’s awesome to have a resource that provides superb insight into the characters, series, and creators that have preceded today’s comics. I really treat BACK ISSUE as reference material, and really appreciate the layout, style, and thematic approach you take to each issue! I keep telling every one of my fellow comic-book readers and collectors that there isn’t a better resource about comics—especially older ones—even on the web! Great job, keep it up! – Jeff Henke

Artwork submissions and SASEs for writers’ guidelines should be sent to: Michael Eury, Editor BACK ISSUE 5060A Foothills Dr. Lake Oswego, OR 97034

Advertise In BACK ISSUE! FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100

TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings) These rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as cameraready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up. Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply. Sorry, display ads not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds), Visa, or Mastercard to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Phone: 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

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Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Write Now!, Back Issue, or any combination and save:

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Your letter made our day, Jeff. It’s been BI’s goal since day one to explore the past in a new and engaging way. Who says history has to be boring? Not us! And thanks for spreading the word about BACK ISSUE to your friends. Next: our “Big, Green Issue,” with a Neal Adams interview/studio tour/Green Lantern-Green Arrow art gallery, a Mike Grell Green Arrow interview, a Peter David Hulk interview, a “Pro2Pro” chat between Gerry Conway and John Romita, Sr. on the death of the Green Goblin, a Dave Gibbons “Rough Stuff,” plus looks at GL (post-GA), Guy Gardner, Green Hornet, Martian Manhunter, and the Green Team, with an illuminating Green Lantern cover by Neal Adams. See you in sixty! Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor

Colan.

BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s and 1980s: Unpublished artwork and covers Original artwork and covers Penciled artwork Character designs, model sheets, etc. Original sketches and/or convention sketches Original scripts Photos Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities

S U B M IS S IO N G U ID E L IN E S

I also loved the Phantom Stranger piece, and the beloved ’Mazing Man! Too bad DC doesn’t think MM could work again … I think it’d probably work even better now than before. Loved those Colan pencils—too bad more of his work wasn’t reproduced directly from them, they’re so gorgeous and complete. After each issue of BI, there’s always some heretofore-unknown-to-me back issue that I find I now have to own, and this issue was no exception! That Miller cover of Spider-Woman #32 would be worth the price alone! Thought you might be interested in this: I opened up a site devoted to my favorite kind of comic, the treasury. It’s really a fan site with delusions of grandeur, but I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback and I’d love to know what you think: www.treasurycomics.com. – Rob Kelly

TwoMorrows Publishing 2009 Update WINTER/SPRING

Supplement to the 2008 TwoMorrows Preview Catalog

ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

SAVE

BATCAVE COMPANION

IT’S FINALLY HERE! The writer/editor of the critically acclaimed KRYPTON COMPANION and the designer of the eye-popping SPIES, VIXENS, AND MASTERS OF KUNG FU: THE ART OF PAUL GULACY team up to explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in THE BATCAVE COMPANION! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-byissue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by DENNIS O’NEIL and its iconic cover painting by NEAL ADAMS, THE BATCAVE COMPANION is a must-have for every comics fan! By MICHAEL EURY and MICHAEL KRONENBERG.

WHE % N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 US • ISBN: 9781893905788 • Diamond Order Code: NOV068368 • Ships April 2009

COMIC BOOK PODCAST COMPANION Comic book podcasts have taken the Internet by storm, and now TwoMorrows offers you the chance to go behind the scenes of ten of today's top comic book podcasts via all-new interviews with the casts of AROUND COMICS, WORD BALLOON, QUIET! PANELOLOGISTS AT WORK, COMIC BOOK QUEERS, iFANBOY, THE CRANKCAST, THE COLLECTED COMICS LIBRARY, THE PIPELINE PODCAST, COMIC GEEK SPEAK, and TwoMorrows’ own TUNE-IN PODCAST! Also featured are new interviews about podcasting and comics on the Internet with creators MATT FRACTION, TIM SEELEY, and GENE COLAN. You'll also find a handy guide of what you’ll need to start your own podcast, an index of more than thirty great comic book podcasts, numerous photos of your favorite podcasters, and original art from COLAN, SEELEY, DC's MIKE NORTON, and many more! By ERIC HOUSTON, with a spectacular new cover by MIKE MANLEY. (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 • ISBN: 9781605490182 • Ships May 2009

ALL-STAR COMPANION Volume 4 The epic series of ALL-STAR COMPANIONS goes out with a bang, featuring: Colossal coverage of the Golden Age ALL-STAR COMICS! Sensational secrets of the JUNIOR JUSTICE SOCIETY! An index of the complete solo adventures of all 18 original JSAers in their own features, from 1940 to 1951! The JSA's earliest imitators (Seven Soldiers of Victory, All Winners Squad, Marvel Family, and International Crime Patrol)! INFINITY, INC. on Earth-Two and after! And the 1980s SECRET ORIGINS series! With rare art by ALEX ROSS, TODD McFARLANE, JERRY ORDWAY, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE KUBERT, ALEX TOTH, GIL KANE, MURPHY ANDERSON, IRWIN HASEN, MORT MESKIN, GENE COLAN, WAYNE BORING, GEORGE TUSKA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, GEORGE FREEMAN, DON NEWTON, JACK BURNLEY, MIKE MACHLAN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, DICK DILLIN, and others. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE

(240-page trade paperback) $27.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490045 Ships June 2009

(Hardcover 2nd Edition)

CAPTAIN ACTION was introduced in 1966 in the wake of the Batman TV show craze, and later received his own DC comic book with art by WALLY WOOD and GIL KANE. Able to assume the identities of 13 famous super-heroes, his initial career was short-lived, but continuing interest in the hero has led to two different returns to toy-store shelves. Lavishly illustrated with over 200 toy photos, this FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SECOND EDITION chronicles the history of this quick-changing champion, including photos of virtually EVERY CAPTAIN ACTION PRODUCT ever released, spotlights on his allies ACTION BOY and the SUPER QUEENS and his arch enemy DR. EVIL, an examination of his comic-book appearances, and “Action facts” that even the most diehard Captain Action fan won’t know! The original softcover edition has been sold out for years, but this revised, full-color hardcover second edition includes behind-the-scenes coverage of CAPTAIN ACTION’S TRIUMPHANT 2008 RETURN to comics shelves in his new series from Moonstone Books, and spotlights the new wave of Captain Action collectibles. Written by MICHAEL EURY. (176-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490175 • Ships July 2009

MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1960s: An Issue-By-Issue Field Guide

The comic book industry experienced an unexpected flowering in the early 1960s, compliments of Marvel Comics, and this book presents a step-by-step look at how a company that had the reputation of being one of the least creative in a generally moribund industry, emerged as one of the most dynamic, slightly irreverent and downright original contributions to an era when pop-culture emerged as the dominant force in the artistic life of America. In scores of handy, easy to reference entries, MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1960s takes the reader from the legendary company’s first fumbling beginnings as helmed by savvy editor/writer STAN LEE (aided by such artists as JACK KIRBY and STEVE DITKO), to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity. With the history of Marvel Comics in the 1960s divided into four distinct phases, author PIERRE COMTOIS explains just how Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and others created a line of comic books that, while grounded in the traditional elements of panel-to-panel storytelling, broke through the juvenile mindset of a low brow industry and provided a tapestry of full blown pop culture icons. (224-page trade paperback) $27.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490168 • Ships July 2009

GRAILPAGES:

Original Comic Book Art And The Collectors GRAILPAGES brings to light the burgeoning hobby of collecting the original, hand-drawn art that is used to create comic books! Beginning more as a novelty, the hobby of collecting original comic art has expanded to a point where some of the seminal pages commonly run more than $10,000 each. Author STEVEN ALAN PAYNE lets you meet collectors from around the globe and hear their passion in their own words, as they detail collections ranging from a few key pages, to broad, encompassing collections of literally hundreds of pages of original comic art by such artists as JACK KIRBY, JOHN ROMITA SR., and others! Balancing out the narratives are incisive interviews with industry pros, including writers GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, and ROY THOMAS, and exclusive perspectives from Silver Age artists DICK GIORDANO, BOB McLEOD, ERNIE CHAN, TONY DeZUNIGA, and the unparalleled great, GENE COLAN! Completing the book is a diverse sampling of breathtakingly beautiful original comic art, some lavishly presented in full-page spreads, including pages not seen publicly for decades. Fans of comic art, comic books, and pop culture will find in GRAILPAGES an appreciation for a uniquely American form of art! (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490151 Diamond Order Code: JAN094470 • Ships March 2009

MAGAZINES

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

BRICKJOURNAL magazine is the ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, spotlighting the LEGO Community with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Edited by JOE MENO. ALTER EGO focuses on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster & more. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

BRICKJOURNAL #3

BRICKJOURNAL #4

BRICKJOURNAL #5

BRICKJOURNAL #6

Event Reports from BRICKWORLD, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE WORLD FESTIVAL and PIECE OF PEACE (Japan), spotlight on our cover model builder BRYCE McGLONE, and interviews with ARTHUR GUGICK and STEVEN CANVIN of LEGO MINDSTORMS to see where LEGO ROBOTICS is going! There’s also STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, TECHNIQUES, & more!

Interviews with LEGO BUILDERS including BREANN SLEDGE (BIONICLE BUILDER), Event Reports from BRICKFAIR and BRICKCON, plus reports on new MINDSTORMS PROJECTS, STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS and TECHNIQUES for all skill levels, NEW SET REVIEWS, and a report on constructing the Chinese Olympic Village in LEGO!

Features event reports from around the world, and the MINDSTORMS 10TH ANNIVERSARY at LEGO HEADQUARTERS! Plus an interview with the head of the LEGO GROUP’S 3D DEPARTMENT, a glimpse at the LEGO Group's past with the DIRECTOR OF LEGO'S IDEA HOUSE, instructions and spotlights on builders, and an idea section for Pirate builders!

Spotlight on CLASSIC SPACE SETS and a look at new ones with LEGO SET DESIGNERS, BRANDON GRIFFITH shows his STAR TREK MODELS, plus take a tour of the DUTCH MOONBASE with MIKE VAN LEEUWEN and MARCO BAAS. There's also coverage of BRICKFEST 2009 and FIRST LEGO LEAGUE'S WORLD FESTIVAL and photos from TOY FAIR NEW YORK!

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Diamond Order Code: JUN084415

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Diamond Order Code: SEP084428

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Diamond Order Code: DEC084408 Ships March 2009

(80-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 US Ships June 2009

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, plus rare and unpublished art. Edited by MICHAEL EURY. DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation, featuring in-depth interviews and step-bystep demonstrations from top comics professionals. Edited by MIKE MANLEY. ROUGH STUFF features never-seen pencil pages, sketches, layouts, roughs, and unused inked pages from throughout comics history, plus columns, critiques, and more! Edited by BOB McLEOD. WRITE NOW! features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, exclusive Nuts & Bolts tutorials, and more! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

ALTER EGO #84

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood, by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, in-depth art-filled look at Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, DC’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Dagar the Invincible, Ironjaw & Wulf, and Arak, Son of Thunder, plus the never-seen Valda the Iron Maiden by TODD McFARLANE! Plus JOE EDWARDS (Part 2), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: AUG084454

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: OCT084483

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: NOV084368

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: JAN094555 Ships March 2009

C o l l e c t o r

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrates his life and career through INTERVIEWS WITH KIRBY and his contemporaries, FEATURE ARTICLES, RARE AND UNSEEN KIRBY ART, and more. Edited by JOHN MORROW.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PRINT EDITION, AND GET THE DIGITAL EDITION FREE, BEFORE THE PRINT ISSUE HITS STORES!

BACK ISSUE #29

BACK ISSUE #30

BACK ISSUE #31

BACK ISSUE #32

“Mutants” issue! CLAREMONT, BYRNE, SMITH, and ROMITA, JR.’s X-Men work, NOCENTI and ARTHUR ADAMS’ Longshot, McLEOD and SIENKIEWICZ’s New Mutants, the UK’s CAPTAIN BRITAIN series, lost Angel stories, Beast’s tenure with the Avengers, the return of the original X-Men in X-Factor, the revelation of Nightcrawler’s “original” father, a history of DC’s mutant, Captain Comet, and more! Cover by DAVE COCKRUM!

“Saturday Morning Heroes!” Interviews with TV Captain Marvels JACKSON BOSTWICK and JOHN DAVEY, MAGGIN and SAVIUK’s lost Superman/”Captain Thunder” sequel, Space Ghost interviews with GARY OWENS and STEVE RUDE, MARV WOLFMAN guest editorial, Super Friends, unproduced fourth wave Super Powers action figures, Astro Boy, ADAM HUGHES tribute to DAVE STEVENS, and a new cover by ALEX ROSS!

“STEVE GERBER Salute!” In-depth look at his Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Metal Men, Mister Miracle, Thundarr the Barbarian, and more! Plus: Creators pay tribute to Steve Gerber, featuring art by and commentary from BRUNNER, BUCKLER, COLAN, GOLDEN, STAN LEE, LEVITZ, MAYERIK, MOONEY, PLOOG, SIMONSON, and others. Cover painting by FRANK BRUNNER!

“Tech, Data, and Hardware!” The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and GREENBERGER on DC’s Who’s Who, SAVIUK, STATON, and VAN SCIVER on Drawing Green Lantern, ED HANNIGAN Art Gallery, history of Rom: Spaceknight, story of BILL MANTLO, Dial H for Hero, Richie Rich’s Inventions, and a Spider-Mobile schematic cover by ELIOT BROWN and DUSTY ABELL!

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DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

ROUGH STUFF #10

ROUGH STUFF #11

ROUGH STUFF #12

Interview with Scott Pilgrim’s creator and artist BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, plus learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on his series. Also, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Features an in-depth interview and demo by R.M. GUERA (the artist of Vertigo’s Scalped), behind-the-scenes in the Batcave with Cartoon Network’s JAMES TUCKER on the new hit show “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” plus product reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and Comic Book Boot Camp’s “Anatomy: Part 2” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY!

Interview with RON GARNEY, with copious examples of sketchwork and comments. Also features on ANDY SMITH, MICHAEL JASON PAZ, and MATT HALEY, showing how their work evolves, excerpts from a new book on ALEX RAYMOND, secrets of teaching comic art by pro inker BOB McLEOD, new cover by GARNEY and McLEOD, newcomer critique, and more!

New cover by GREG HORN, plus interviews with HORN and TOM YEATES on how they produce their stellar work. Also features on GENE HA, JIMMY CHEUNG, and MIKE PERKINS, showing their sketchwork and commentary, tips on collecting sketches and commissions from artists, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, and more!

Interview and cover by comic painter CHRIS MOELLER, features on New Zealand comic artist COLIN WILSON, G.I. Joe artist JEREMY DALE, and fan favorite TERRY DODSON, plus "GOOD GIRL ART" (a new article about everyone's favorite collectible art) by ROBERT PLUNKETT, a "Rough Critique" of an aspiring artist's work, and more!

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ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

WRITE NOW! #20

Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stories, and in court, with art by WALLY WOOD, CURT SWAN, and GIL KANE), an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!

Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!

The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and early editors WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, VIN SULLIVAN, and MORT WEISINGER, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CREIG FLESSEL, FRED GUARDINEER, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Focus on THE SPIRIT movie, showing how FRANK MILLER transformed WILL EISNER’s comics into the smash-hit film, with interviews with key players behind the making of the movie, a look at what made Eisner’s comics so special, and more. Plus: an interview with COLLEEN DORAN, writer ALEX GRECIAN on how to get a pitch green lighted, script and art examples, and more!

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BACK ISSUE #33

BACK ISSUE #34

BACK ISSUE #35

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

“Teen Heroes!” Teen Titans in the 1970s & 1980s, with CARDY, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, PÉREZ, TUSKA, and WOLFMAN, BARON and GUICE on the Flash, interviews with TV Billy Batson MICHAEL GRAY and writer STEVE SKEATES, NICIEZA and BAGLEY’s New Warriors, Legion of Super-Heroes 1970s art gallery, James Bond Jr., and… the Archies! New Teen Titans cover by GEORGE PÉREZ and colored by GENE HA!

“New World Order!” Adam Warlock examined with JIM STARLIN and ROY THOMAS, the history of Miracleman with ALAN DAVIS & GARRY LEACH, JIM SHOOTER interview, roundtable with Marvel’s post-STAN LEE editors-in-chief on the New Universe, Logan’s Run, Star Hunters, BOB WIACEK on Star Wars and Star-Lord, DICK GIORDANO revisits Crisis on Infinite Earths and “The Post-Crisis DC Universe You Didn’t See,” and a new cover by JIM STARLIN!

“Villains!” MIKE ZECK and J.M. DeMATTEIS discuss “Kraven’s Last Hunt” in a “Pro2Pro” interview, the history of the Hobgoblin is exposed, the Joker’s short-lived series, looks back at Secret Society of Super-Villains and Kobra, a Magneto biography, Luthor and Brainiac’s malevolent makeovers, interview with Secret Society artist MIKE VOSBURG, plus contributions from BYRNE, CONWAY, FRENZ, NOVICK, ROMITA JR., STERN, WOLFMAN, and a cover by MIKE ZECK!

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, his BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby covers inked by DON HECK and PAUL SMITH!

Spotlights THE MAGIC OF STAN & JACK! There’s a new interview with STAN LEE, a walking tour of New York showing where Lee & Kirby lived and worked, a re-evaluation of the “Lost” FF #108 story (including a missing page that just surfaced), “What If Jack Hadn’t Left Marvel In 1970?”, plus MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, behind a color Kirby cover inked by GEORGE PÉREZ!

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NEW MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW, DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more!

Volume 19: MIKE PLOOG

Volume 20: KYLE BAKER

Volume 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

Volume 22: MARK BUCKINGHAM

Volume 23: DARWYN COOKE

by Eric Nolen-Weathington & Roger Ash (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781605490076 Diamond Order Code: SEP084304 Now shipping

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AGE OF TV HEROES Examines the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes! FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER features the in-depth stories of the actors and behind-thescene players that made the classic super-hero television programs we all grew up with. Included are new and exclusive interviews and commentary from ADAM WEST (Batman), LYNDA CARTER (Wonder Woman), PATRICK WARBURTON (The Tick), NICHOLAS HAMMOND (Spider-Man), WILLIAM KATT (The Greatest American Hero), JACK LARSON (The Adventures of Superman), JOHN WESLEY SHIPP (The Flash), JACKSON BOSTWICK (Shazam!), and many more! Written by JASON HOFIUS and GEORGE KHOURY, with a new cover by superstar painter ALEX ROSS! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490106 Diamond Order Code: SEP084302 Rescheduled for July 2009

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EXTRAORDINARY WORKS KIRBY FIVE-OH! OF ALAN MOORE: LIMITED HARDCOVER Indispensable Edition Limited to 500 copies, KIRBY FIVE-OH! The definitive biography of the co-creator of WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA finally returns to print in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Features an extensive series of interviews with MOORE about his entire career, including a new interview covering his work since the sold-out 2003 edition of this book was published. Includes RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ART, and private PHOTOS of the author, plus a series of tribute comic strips by many of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring a RARE MOORE STORY (remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN! (240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: OCT084400 Limited Hardcover Signed by Alan Moore (100 hardcover copies) $49.95 US Only available from TwoMorrows!

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BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

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LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION covers the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career in comics, including his 50 BEST STORIES, BEST COVERS, BEST EXAMPLES OF UNUSED KIRBY ART, BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS, and profiles of, and commentary by, 50 PEOPLE INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus there’s a 50-PAGE GALLERY of Kirby’s PENCIL ART, a DELUXE COLOR SECTION, a previously unseen Kirby Superman cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER! Includes a full-color wrapped hardcover, and an individuallynumbered extra Kirby pencil art plate not included in the softcover edition! It’s ONLY AVAILABLE FROM TWOMORROWS, and is not sold in stores! Edited by JOHN MORROW.

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, with looks at Jack’s 1970s and ‘80s work, plus a two-part focus on how widespread Kirby’s influence is! Features rare interviews with KIRBY himself, plus Watchmen’s ALAN MOORE and DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, Bone’s JEFF SMITH, MARK HAMILL, and others! See page after page of rare Kirby art, including a NEW SPECIAL SECTION with over 30 PIECES OF KIRBY ART NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, and more! (288-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490120 Diamond Order Code: DEC084286 Ships February 2009

(168-page Limited Edition Hardcover) (500 hardcover copies) $34.95 US Only available from TwoMorrows!

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Subscriptions will start with the next available issue, but CURRENT AND OLDER ISSUES MUST BE PURCHASED AT THE BACK ISSUE PRICE (new issues ship in bulk, and we pass the savings on in our subscription rates). In the US, we generally ship back issues and books by MEDIA MAIL.

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR Volume 7

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TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. (& LEGO! ) TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

“HOW-TO” MAGAZINES Spinning off from the pages of BACK ISSUE! magazine comes ROUGH STUFF, celebrating the ART of creating comics! Edited by famed inker BOB McLEOD, each issue spotlights NEVER-BEFORE PUBLISHED penciled pages, preliminary sketches, detailed layouts, and even unused inked versions from artists throughout comics history. Included is commentary on the art, discussing what went right and wrong with it, and background information to put it all into historical perspective. Plus, before-and-after comparisons let you see firsthand how an image changes from initial concept to published version. So don’t miss this amazing magazine, featuring galleries of NEVER-BEFORE SEEN art, from some of your favorite series of all time, and the top pros in the industry!

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ROUGH STUFF #1 Our debut issue features galleries of UNSEEN ART by a who’s who of Modern Masters including: ALAN DAVIS, GEORGE PÉREZ, BRUCE TIMM, KEVIN NOWLAN, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, ARTHUR ADAMS, JOHN BYRNE, and WALTER SIMONSON, plus a KEVIN NOWLAN interview, art critiques, and a new BRUCE TIMM COVER!

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The follow-up to our smash first issue features more galleries of UNSEEN ART by top industry professionals, including: BRIAN APTHORP, FRANK BRUNNER, PAUL GULACY, JERRY ORDWAY, ALEX TOTH, and MATT WAGNER, plus a PAUL GULACY interview, a look at art of the pros BEFORE they were pros, and a new GULACY “HEX” COVER!

Still more galleries of UNPUBLISHED ART by MIKE ALLRED, JOHN BUSCEMA, YANICK PAQUETTE, JOHN ROMITA JR., P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and LEE WEEKS, plus a JOHN ROMITA JR. interview, looks at the process of creating a cover (with BILL SIENKIEWICZ and JOHN ROMITA JR.), and a new ROMITA JR. COVER, plus a FREE DRAW #13 PREVIEW!

More NEVER-PUBLISHED galleries (with detailed artist commentaries) by MICHAEL KALUTA, ANDREW “Starman” ROBINSON, GENE COLAN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, and STEVE BISSETTE, plus interview and art by JOHN TOTLEBEN, a look at the Wonder Woman Day charity auction (with rare art), art critiques, before-&-after art comparisons, and a FREE WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW!

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NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED galleries (complete with extensive commentaries by the artists) by PAUL SMITH, GIL KANE, CULLY HAMNER, DALE KEOWN, and ASHLEY WOOD, plus a feature interview and art by STEVE RUDE, an examination of JOHN ALBANO and TONY DeZUNIGA’s work on Jonah Hex, new STEVE RUDE COVER, plus a FREE BACK ISSUE #23 PREVIEW!

Features a new interview and cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE, interview with BUTCH GUICE, extensive art galleries/commentary by IAN CHURCHILL, DAVE COCKRUM, and COLLEEN DORAN, MIKE GAGNON looks at independent comics, with art and comments by ANDREW BARR, BRANDON GRAHAM, and ASAF HANUKA! Includes a FREE ALTER EGO #73 PREVIEW!

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Features an in-depth interview and cover by TIM TOWNSEND, CRAIG HAMILTON, DAN JURGENS, and HOWARD PORTER offer preliminary art and commentaries, MARIE SEVERIN career retrospective, graphic novels feature with art and comments by DAWN BROWN, TOMER HANUKA, BEN TEMPLESMITH, and LANCE TOOKS, and more! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073966

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ROUGH STUFF #8 Features an in-depth interview and cover painting by the extraordinary MIKE MAYHEW, preliminary and unpublished art by ALEX HORLEY, TONY DeZUNIGA, NICK CARDY, and RAFAEL KAYANAN (including commentary by each artist), a look at the great Belgian comic book artists, a “Rough Critique” of MIKE MURDOCK’s work, and more! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB084188

Editor and pro inker BOB McLEOD features four interviews this issue: ROB HAYNES (interviewed by fellow professional TIM TOWNSEND), JOE JUSKO, MEL RUBI, and SCOTT WILLIAMS, with a new painted cover by JUSKO, and an article by McLEOD examining "Inkers: Who needs ’em?" along with other features, including a Rough Critique of RUDY VASQUEZ! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY084263

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE! 6-ISSUE SUBS: $44 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($60 First Class, $70 Canada, $105 1st Class Intl., $115 Priority Intl.).

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“PRO2PRO” interview between GEORGE PÉREZ & MARV WOLFMAN (with UNSEEN PÉREZ ART), “ROUGH STUFF” featuring JACK KIRBY’s PENCIL ART, “GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD” on the first JLA/AVENGERS, “BEYOND CAPES” on DC and Marvel’s TARZAN (with KUBERT and BUSCEMA ART), “OFF MY CHEST” editorial by INFANTINO, and more! PÉREZ cover!

“PRO2PRO” between ADAM HUGHES and MIKE W. BARR (with UNSEEN HUGHES ART) and MATT WAGNER and DIANA SCHUTZ, “ROUGH STUFF” HUGHES PENCIL ART, STEVE RUDE’s unseen SPACE GHOST/HERCULOIDS team-up, Bruce Jones’ ALIEN WORLDS and TWISTED TALES, “OFF MY CHEST” by MIKE W. BARR on the DC IMPLOSION, and more! HUGHES cover!

“PRO2PRO” between KEITH GIFFEN, J.M. DeMATTEIS and KEVIN MAGUIRE on their JLA WORK, “ROUGH STUFF” PENCIL ART by ARAGONÉS, HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, BYRNE, KIRBY, HUGHES, details on two unknown PLASTIC MAN movies, Joker’s history with O’NEIL, ADAMS, ENGLEHART, ROGERS and BOLLAND, editorial by MARK EVANIER, and more! BOLLAND cover!

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“PRO2PRO” between JOHN BYRNE and CHRIS CLAREMONT on their X-MEN WORK and WALT SIMONSON and JOE CASEY on Walter’s THOR, WOLVERINE PENCIL ART by BUSCEMA, LEE, COCKRUM, BYRNE, and GIL KANE, LEN WEIN’S TEEN WOLVERINE, PUNISHER’S 30TH and SECRET WARS’ 20TH ANNIVERSARIES (with UNSEEN ZECK ART), and more! BYRNE cover!

Wonder Woman TV series in-depth, LYNDA CARTER INTERVIEW, WONDER WOMAN TV ART GALLERY, Marvel’s TV Hulk, SpiderMan, Captain America, and Dr. Strange, LOU FERRIGNO INTERVIEW, super-hero cartoons you didn’t see, pencil gallery by JERRY ORDWAY, STAR TREK in comics, and ROMITA SR. editorial on Marvel’s movies! Covers by ALEX ROSS and ADAM HUGHES!

TOMB OF DRACULA revealed with GENE COLAN and MARV WOLFMAN, LEN WEIN & BERNIE WRIGHTSON on Swamp Thing’s roots, STEVE BISSETTE & RICK VEITCH on their Swamp work, pencil art by BRUNNER, PLOOG, BISSETTE, COLAN, WRIGHTSON, and SMITH, editorial by ROY THOMAS, PREZ, GODZILLA comics (with TRIMPE art), CHARLTON horror, & more! COLAN cover!

History of BRAVE AND BOLD, JIM APARO interview, tribute to BOB HANEY, FANTASTIC FOUR ROUNDTABLE with STAN LEE, MARK WAID, and others, EVANIER and MEUGNIOT on DNAgents, pencil art by ROSS, TOTH, COCKRUM, HECK, ROBBINS, NEWTON, and BYRNE, DENNY O’NEIL editorial, a tour of METROPOLIS, IL, and more! SWAN/ANDERSON cover!

DENNY O’NEIL and Justice League Unlimited voice actor PHIL LaMARR discuss GL JOHN STEWART, NEW X-MEN pencil art by NEAL ADAMS, ARTHUR ADAMS, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, ALAN DAVIS, JIM LEE, ADAM HUGHES, STORM’s 30-year history, animated TV’s black heroes (with TOTH art), ISABELLA and TREVOR VON EEDEN on BLACK LIGHTNING, and more! KYLE BAKER cover!

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MIKE BARON and STEVE RUDE on NEXUS past and present, a colossal GIL KANE pencil art gallery, a look at Marvel’s STAR WARS comics, secrets of DC’s unseen CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS SEQUEL, TIM TRUMAN on his GRIMJACK SERIES, MIKE GOLD editorial, THANOS history, TIME WARP revisited, and more! All-new STEVE RUDE COVER!

NEAL ADAMS and DENNY O’NEIL on RA’S AL GHUL’s history (with Adams art), O’Neil and MICHAEL KALUTA on THE SHADOW, MIKE GRELL on JON SABLE FREELANCE, HOWIE CHAYKIN interview, DOC SAVAGE in comics, BATMAN ART GALLERY by PAUL SMITH, SIENKIEWICZ, SIMONSON, BOLLAND, HANNIGAN, MAZZUCCHELLI, and others! New cover by ADAMS!

ROY THOMAS, KURT BUSIEK, and JOE JUSKO on CONAN (with art by JOHN BUSCEMA, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, NEAL ADAMS, JUSKO, and others), SERGIO ARAGONÉS and MARK EVANIER on GROO, DC’s never-published KING ARTHUR, pencil art gallery by KIRBY, PÉREZ, MOEBIUS, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, BOLLAND, and others, and a new BUSCEMA/JUSKO Conan cover!

‘70s and ‘80s character revamps with DAVE GIBBONS, ROY THOMAS and KURT BUSIEK, TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ on Spider-Man’s 1980s “black” costume change, DENNY O’NEIL on Superman’s 1970 revamp, JOHN BYRNE’s aborted SHAZAM! series detailed, pencil art gallery with FRANK MILLER, LEE WEEKS, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, CHARLES VESS, and more!

CARDY interview, ENGLEHART and MOENCH on kung-fu comics, “Pro2Pro” with STATON and CUTI on Charlton’s E-Man, pencil art gallery featuring MILLER, KUBERT, GIORDANO, SWAN, GIL KANE, COLAN, COCKRUM, and others, EISNER’s A Contract with God; “The Death of Romance (Comics)” (with art by ROMITA, SR. and TOTH), and more!

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BACK ISSUE #17

BACK ISSUE #18

DAVE COCKRUM and MIKE GRELL go “Pro2Pro” on the Legion, pencil art gallery by BUSCEMA, BYRNE, MILLER, STARLIN, McFARLANE, ROMITA JR., SIENKIEWICZ, looks at Hercules Unbound, Hex, Killraven, Kamandi, MARS, Planet of the Apes, art and interviews with GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, KIRBY, WILLIAMSON, and more! New MIKE GRELL/BOB McLEOD cover!

“Weird Heroes” of the 1970s and ‘80s! MIKE PLOOG discusses Ghost Rider, MATT WAGNER revisits The Demon, JOE KUBERT dusts off Ragman, GENE COLAN “Rough Stuff” pencil gallery, GARCÍALÓPEZ recalls Deadman, DC’s unpublished Gorilla Grodd series, PERLIN, CONWAY, and MOENCH on Werewolf by Night, and more! New ARTHUR ADAMS cover!

“Toy Stories!” Behind the Scenes of Marvel’s G.I. JOE™ and TRANSFORMERS with PAUL LEVITZ and GEORGE TUSKA, “Rough Stuff” MIKE ZECK pencil gallery, ARTHUR ADAMS on Gumby, HE-MAN, ROM, MICRONAUTS, SUPER POWERS, SUPER-HERO CARS, art by HAMA, SAL BUSCEMA, GUICE, GOLDEN, KIRBY, TRIMPE, and new ZECK sketch cover!

“Super Girls!” Supergirl retrospective with art by STELFREEZE, HAMNER, SpiderWoman, Flare, Tigra, DC’s unused Double Comics with unseen BARRETTO and INFANTINO art, WOLFMAN and JIMENEZ on Donna Troy, female comics pros, art by SEKOWSKY, OKSNER, PÉREZ, HUGHES, GIORDANO, plus a COLOR GALLERY and COVER by BRUCE TIMM!

“Big, Green Issue!” Tour of NEAL ADAMS’ studio (with interview and art gallery), DAVE GIBBONS “Rough Stuff” pencil art spotlight, interviews with MIKE GRELL (on Green Arrow), PETER DAVID (on Incredible Hulk), a “Pro2Pro” chat between GERRY CONWAY and JOHN ROMITA, SR. (on the Green Goblin), and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!

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BACK ISSUE #19

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“Unsung Heroes!” DON NEWTON spotlight, STEVE GERBER and GENE COLAN on Howard the Duck, MIKE CARLIN and DANNY FINGEROTH on Marvel’s Assistant Editors’ Month, the unrealized Unlimited Powers TV show, TONY ISABELLA’s aborted plans for The Champions, MARK GRUENWALD tribute, art by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, and more! NEWTON/ RUBINSTEIN cover!

“Secret Identities!” Histories of characters with unusual alter egos: Firestorm, Moon Knight, the Question, and the “real-life” Human Fly! STEVE ENGLEHART and SAL BUSCEMA on Captain America, JERRY ORDWAY interview and cover, Superman roundtable with SIENKIEWICZ, NOWLAN, MOENCH, COWAN, MAGGIN, O’NEIL, MILGROM, CONWAY, ROBBINS, SWAN, plus FREE ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW!

“The Devil You Say!” issue! A look at Daredevil in the 1980s and 1990s with interviews and art by KLAUS JANSON, JOHN ROMITA JR., and FRANK MILLER, MIKE MIGNOLA Hellboy interview, DAN MISHKIN and GARY COHN on Blue Devil, COLLEEN DORAN’s unpublished X-Men spin-off “Fallen Angels”, Son of Satan, Stig’s Inferno, DC’s Plop!, JACK KIRBY’s Devil Dinosaur, and cover by MIKE ZECK!

“Dynamic Duos!’ “Pro2Pro” interviews with Batman’s ALAN GRANT and NORM BREYFOGLE and the Legion’s PAUL LEVITZ and KEITH GIFFEN, a “Backstage Pass” to Dark Horse Comics, Robin’s history, EASTMAN and LAIRD’s Ninja Turtles, histories of duos Robin and Batgirl, Captain America and the Falcon, and Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, “Zot!” interview with SCOTT McCLOUD, and a new BREYFOGLE cover!

“Comics Go Hollywood!” Spider-Man roundtable with STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, SR., JIM SHOOTER, ERIK LARSEN, and others, STAR TREK comics writers’ roundtable Part 1, Gladstone’s Disney comics line, behindthe-scenes at TV’s ISIS and THE FLASH (plus an interview with Flash’s JOHN WESLEY SHIPP), TV tie-in comics, bonus 8-page color ADAM HUGHES ART GALLERY and cover, plus a FREE WRITE NOW #16 PREVIEW!

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“Magic” issue! MICHAEL GOLDEN interview, GENE COLAN, PAUL SMITH, and FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, Mystic Art Gallery with CARL POTTS & KEVIN NOWLAN, BILL WILLINGHAM’s Elementals, Zatanna history, Dr. Fate’s revival, a “Greatest Stories Never Told” look at Peter Pan, tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS, a new GOLDEN cover, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #6 PREVIEW!

“Men of Steel!’ BOB LAYTON and DAVID MICHELINIE on Iron Man, RICH BUCKLER on Deathlok, MIKE GRELL on Warlord, JOHN BYRNE on ROG 2000, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, Machine Man, the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes comic strip, DC’s Steel, art by KIRBY, HECK, WINDSOR-SMITH, TUSKA, LAYTON cover, and bonus “Men of Steel” art gallery! Includes a FREE DRAW! #15 PREVIEW!

“Spies and Tough Guys!’ PAUL GULACY and DOUG MOENCH in an art-packed “Pro2Pro” on Master of Kung Fu and their unrealized Shang-Chi/Nick Fury crossover, Suicide Squad spotlight, Ms. Tree, CHUCK DIXON and TIM TRUMAN’s Airboy, James Bond and Mr. T in comic books, Sgt. Rock’s oddball super-hero team-ups, Nathaniel Dusk, JOE KUBERT’s unpublished The Redeemer, and a new GULACY cover!

“Comic Book Royalty!” The ’70s/’80s careers of Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner explored, BARR and BOLLAND discuss CAMELOT 3000, comics pros tell “Why JACK KIRBY Was King,” “Dr. Doom: Monarch or Menace?” DON McGREGOR’s Black Panther; an exclusive ALAN WEISS art gallery; spotlights on ARION, LORD OF ATLANTIS; NIGHT FORCE; and more! New cover by NICK CARDY!

“Heroes Behaving Badly!” Hulk vs. Thing tirades with RON WILSON, HERB TRIMPE, and JIM SHOOTER; CARY BATES and CARMINE INFANTINO on “Trial of the Flash”; JOHN BYRNE’s heroes who cross the line; Teen Titan Terra, Kid Miracleman, Mark Shaw Manhunter, and others who went bad, featuring LAYTON, MICHELINIE, WOLFMAN, and PÉREZ, and more! New cover by DARWYN COOKE!

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #85

WRITE NOW! #20

ROUGH STUFF #12

DRAW! #17

BRICKJOURNAL #5

Go behind the pages of the hit series of graphic novels starring Scott Pilgrim with his creator and artist, BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY, to see how he creates the acclaimed series! Then, learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on the series, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR094514 Now shipping!

(80-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084398 FINAL ISSUE! Now shipping!

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(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084377 Now shipping!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE:

BATCAVE COMPANION

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work, like an UNUSED THOR STORY, BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, & DESTROYER DUCK, a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING, unseen Kirby covers & more! (84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Diamond Order Code: DEC084397 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 7 Reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30 plus over 30 pieces of Kirby art never published! (288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490120 Now shipping!

GRAILPAGES

The definitive autobiographical book on ALAN MOORE in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Includes new interviews covering his work since the original 2003 edition of the book. From SWAMP THING, V FOR VENDETTA, WATCHMEN, and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and beyond – all are discussed by Alan. Plus, there’s RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ARTWORK, and PHOTOGRAPHS, tribute comic strips by NEIL GAIMAN and other of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring the RARE MOORE STORY “The Riddle of the Recalcitrant Refuse” (newly remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN!

Explore the Silver and Bronze Ages of Batman comic books in THE BATCAVE COMPANION! Two distinct sections of this book examine the Dark Knight’s progression from his campy “New Look” of the mid-1960s to his “creature of the night” reinvention of the 1970s. Features include issue-by-issue indexes, interviews with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA, DENNIS O’NEIL, and NEAL ADAMS, and guest essays by MIKE W. BARR and WILL MURRAY. Contributors include SHELDON MOLDOFF, LEN WEIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, and TERRY AUSTIN, with a special tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS. With its incisive introduction by DENNIS O’NEIL and its iconic cover painting by NEAL ADAMS, THE BATCAVE COMPANION is a must-have for every comics fan! By MICHAEL EURY and MICHAEL KRONENBERG.

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: JAN088702 Now shipping!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 US ISBN: 9781893905788 Diamond Order Code: NOV068368 Now shipping!

Indispensable Edition

Go to www.twomorrows.com for FULL-COLOR downloadable PDF versions of our magazines for only $2.95! Subscribers to the print edition get the digital edition FREE, weeks before it hits stores!

2009 SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

Media Mail

Original Comic Book Art & The Collectors Examines the hobby of collecting original comic book art, letting you meet collectors from around the globe as they detail collections ranging from a few key pages, to hundreds of pages of original comic art by JACK KIRBY, JOHN ROMITA SR., and others! Features interviews with industry pros, including writers GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, and ROY THOMAS, and exclusive perspectives from Silver Age artists DICK GIORDANO, BOB McLEOD, ERNIE CHAN, TONY DeZUNIGA, and the unparalleled great, GENE COLAN! Completing the book is a diverse sampling of breathtakingly beautiful original comic art, some lavishly presented in full-page spreads, including pages not seen publicly for decades. Written by STEVEN ALAN PAYNE. (128-page trade paperback) $15.95 US ISBN: 9781605490151 Diamond Order Code: JAN094470 Now shipping!

VOLUME 20: KYLE BAKER

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490083 Now shipping!

VOLUME 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

(128-page trade paperback) $14.95 US • ISBN: 97801605490137 Ships May 2009 Each features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from the artist’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl. Intl.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$60

$84

$136

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$44

$60

$70

$105

$115

DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

$40

$47

$70

$77

ALTER EGO (12 issues) Six-issue subs are half-price!

$88

$120

$140

$210

$230

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$38

$48

$55

$78

$85

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