Back Issue #19 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Gerber & Colan talk “Pro2Pro” on Howard the Duck!

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The Art and Life

… DON NEWTON!

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UNSUNG HEROES • DEFENDERS • CHAMPIONS • TV’S UNLIMITED POWERS CARLIN & FINGEROTH ON MARVEL’S ASSISTANT EDITORS’ MONTH

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

Volume 1, Number 19 December 2006 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Seastone Marketing Group

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: BACK ISSUE Remembers The Defenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The history of Marvel’s “non-team,” including interviews with many of the series’ writers and artists GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: We Are the Champions?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Writer Tony Isabella reveals his unrealized plans for the’70s super-team comic PRO2PRO: Birds of a Feather: Steve Gerber and Gene Colan Discuss Howard the Duck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The writer and artist waddle through memories of the irascible hero who was “trapped in a world he never made”

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Unlimited Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 As almost seen on TV: Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo’s live-action series starring the Flash, Green Arrow, Blok, and Dr. Occult

COVER ARTISTS Don Newton and Josef Rubinstein

BACKSTAGE PASS: Geppi’s Entertainment Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 A photo tour of pop culture’s coolest new attraction

COVER COLORIST Tom Ziuko

WHAT THE--?!: Interview with a Very Rich Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 “The Comics Savant” goes one-on-one with Richie Rich

COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark

PRO2PRO: Marvel Assistant Editors’ Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Danny Fingeroth and Mike Carlin relive this Golden Oldie

SPECIAL THANKS Dusty Abell Steve Lipsky Neal Adams Marvel Comics Tamara Asseyev Bob McLeod Danny Bilson Julie Meddows Kathie Boozer Don Perlin Mike Burkey John Petty Sal Buscema Rose Rummel-Eury Mike Carlin Brian Schatz Dewey Cassell John K. Snyder, Jr. Gene Colan Tom Stewart Barbara Crews Roy Thomas Jamie David Steven Tice DC Comics J. C. Vaughn Fred deBoom Len Wein J. M. DeMatteis Bob Wiacek Paul DeMeo Jay Willson Kim DeMulder Cory Everson Steve Englehart Tom Field Danny Fingeroth G-Unit Steve Geppi Steve Gerber Steven Gerding Geronimo Film Productions Keith Giffen Grand Comic-Book Database Ed Hannigan Harvey Comics Heritage Comics Image Comics Dan Johnson Wendy Kelman Barry Keller David Anthony Kraft

OFF MY CHEST: Mark of Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Peter Sanderson’s guest editorial commemorates the tenth anniversary of the passing of influential Marvel writer/editor Mark Gruenwald

EDITOR Michael Eury

NEW IN PRINT: In the Gruenwald Tradition.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Image’s Invincible Handbook, with peeks at art by Austin, S. Buscema, Frenz, P. Smith, and Zeck ART GALLERY: The Art of Don Newton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Full-page rarities from our featured unsung hero FLASHBACK: Don Newton: “He Showed Us How to Do It Right” . . . . . . . . . . . 51 An in-depth, art-rich retrospective of the Phantom/Batman/Shazam! illustrator FLASHBACK BONUS: Memories of Don Newton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 An intimate portrait from a personal friend COMICS ON DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Flash, Superboy, and more releases of interest to the retro comics fan INTERVIEW: Lights, Camera … Bob Wiacek?? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Was that the Brave and Bold/X-Men inker we saw on the tube with rapper 50 Cent? GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: She-Hulk the Movie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 The scoop behind the Brigitte Nielsen flick you didn’t see GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Ty Hardin’s Brave and Bold Misses . . . . . . . 80 Was this bearded dead-ringer for Oliver Queen the inspiration for Green Arrow’s makeover? BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Reader feedback on issue #17 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 Don Newton and Josef Rubinstein, with special thanks to Steve Lipsky. Batman and related characters TM & © DC Comics. 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. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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the Bold, shares with us what type of work an inker might find for himself when the assignments slow down. Occasionally, there are comic-book series that develop cult audiences but never quite reach the A-list. Marvel’s X-Men, of course, played second fiddle to The Avengers for years before rising to the top of the publisher’s super-team heap. The Defenders, however, never enjoyed such acclaim (although it did manage a lengthy original run, followed by a succession of revivals), but many readers recall the title with great affection and have requested a focus on it here. Your wish is our command. Sometimes, unsung heroes come in the shape of material that didn’t make it off the drawing board. You’ll discover such missed opportunities in this issue’s four “Greatest Stories Never Told” articles. And amid this eclectic mix of comics’ great underdogs is a remembrance of its greatest underduck, Howard, through the “Pro2Pro” recollections of his creator, writer Steve Gerber, and artist Gene Colan.

In this issue, we take a look back at a number of comics creators who and series that somehow escaped the acclaim they rightly deserved: “Unsung Heroes.” Those of you who have been reading this magazine for a while know that BACK ISSUE traditionally does not feature career-spanning retrospectives of writers or artists. When publisher John Morrow offered me the editorship of BI back in 2003, I decided that the way to distinguish this then-startup magazine from its predecessor on TwoMorrows’ schedule, Comic Book Artist, was to simply allow their titles to define their content: Since Comic Book Artist (mostly) spotlighted comic-book artists, then BACK ISSUE’s mandate would be to cover the back issues—the comics themselves. That’s why you’ve seen histories of long-running and short-lived series in these pages, with their writers and artists offering their behind-thescenes insights, instead of lengthy examinations of any creator’s work (BI’s solo-creator interviews often focus upon a single series, as with last issue’s Mike Grell/Green Arrow feature). I’ve rejected several proposals from writers who wanted to do a “Fill-in-theBlanks-Name-of-a-Famous-Artist Issue” of this magazine—that’s simply not our purview. But then there’s Don Newton…. Don Newton’s name has popped up in letters and emails from BI readers more so than any other creator’s. Many of our readers fondly remember Newton’s work, and have asked for it to be covered in these pages. Thirty or so years ago, I first stumbled across Don’s art in an issue of Charlton Comics’ The Phantom (despite the fact that Charltons rarely made it onto my reading radar, as those who read my “Back in Print” column last issue recall). By the time Newton landed at DC a few years later, I became a fan of his work since it graced the adventures of three of my favorite characters, Aquaman, Captain Marvel, and Batman. Although Don Newton died in 1984 after an all-too-short career penciling comics for Charlton, DC, and Marvel, his realistic style distinguished the artist among his contemporaries and inspired many illustrators who were beginning to hone their skills during the 1980s. One can only imagine how Newton’s artistry might have flourished had he lived longer, and it is with great pride that BACK ISSUE showcases his work. Another genius whose creative flame was extinguished far, far too early was Marvel editor/writer Mark Gruenwald, to whom we offer tribute. Is there any vocation in comics more underappreciated than the editor? The comic-book editor walks the perpetual (and largely thankless) tightrope that divides massaging talent and policing schedules. In this issue, we salute the editor by looking at one of comics’ most offbeat gimmicks ever: Marvel’s Assistant Editors’ Month. Additionally, the comics inker often gets no respect—and anyone who’s seen Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy can certainly back up that remark. Bob Wiacek, who’s embellished everyone from Paul Smith on X-Men to George Pérez on the new The Brave and

Michael Eury

Oh, you had to end this editorial on a sour note by reminding us of that turkey, didn’t you, Howard? Thaaaanks… …and thanks to the other unsung hero of each and every edition of BACK ISSUE: you, the reader. Your enthusiasm and support has steered us through our first three years in print, and we look forward to many more together.

Remembers by

Dan Johnson

They were the outsiders of Marvel Comics: the loners, the malcontents, and the misfits. Their original roster included several of the company’s most famous solo acts: Dr. Strange; the Incredible Hulk; Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner; and the Silver Surfer. Strong and powerful on their own, they were unstoppable together as the world’s greatest nonteam: the Defenders. According to Essential Defenders vol. 1, the earliest Defenders stories were a series of team-ups that spanned various issues of the non-team’s individual books, where they faced off against the Undying Ones in Doctor Strange #183 (Nov. 1969), Sub-Mariner #22 (Feb. 1970), and The Incredible Hulk #126 (Apr. 1970) and stopped the threat of a nuclear weathercontrol station in Sub-Mariner #34–35 (Feb. and Mar. 1971). Eventually, the decision was made to bring these heroes together officially. Indeed, the Defenders weren’t christened until Marvel Feature #1 (Dec. 1971), and they almost didn’t have the leadership of the Sorcerer Supreme. “My original idea was to have the team composed of Hulk, Namor, and the Silver Surfer,” explains Roy Thomas, the man who created the non-team. “But Stan didn’t like anyone else writing the Silver Surfer much at that time, so he ‘suggested’ Dr. Strange replace him. It worked out very well, perhaps better. The name Defenders was Stan’s also.” With artist Ross Andru, Thomas wrote three Defenders adventures for Marvel Feature. “The Defenders sold well from its three-issue tryout,” says Thomas. “I’d have continued it, but was busy with The Avengers, so I turned it over to Steve Englehart, who did wild and wonderful things with it.”

Not Your Average Super-Team Original cover artwork to Giant-Size Defenders #1 (1974), by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito. Unless otherwise noted, all art in this article is courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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NEW TEAMS FOR THE NON-TEAM Ross Andru did not continue as the non-team’s artist when they moved into their own series with The Defenders #1 (Aug. 1972). The artist chosen to succeed Andru, Sal Buscema, became one of the defining illustrators for this group. “Comics is a hybrid medium,” offers Englehart. “I can write the world’s greatest script, and if the art doesn’t convey it, the reader will say that whole thing didn’t work. I have a career because people liked my comics. Part of the reason they [liked them] was because Sal Buscema is so good at conveying what it was I wanted to say. If I had a lesser artist, my books would not have been as well received and my career would not have followed the same trajectory. I owe him in that regard.” In Defenders #4 (Feb. 1973), Englehart added a member who would stay with the non-team up until the very end, the warrior-woman Valkyrie. “When you’re doing a book on a regular basis, you start to see what you need to keep it going,” says Englehart.

“[The Defenders] was a great concept, and they were great characters, but they were all men and they were all skewed to one side of the emotional spectrum. I figured a woman would give me something else to work with. Making her a kick-ass woman made her one of the team. She was the right person for that group, and she fit in with the kind of idea that none of them thought of themselves as a team, but at the same time she offered something very different with her background and her point of view. It is difficult to do an ongoing series about a group of people who don’t want to be together, so Valkyrie was the sweetener to hold it together.” Englehart also brought someone to the Defenders that Thomas had wanted from the beginning: the Silver Surfer. “It was common knowledge that Stan wanted to hold on to the Silver Surfer for himself,” says Englehart. “I knew the Surfer was [Stan’s baby], and I still went to him and said, ‘I’ve got this really good idea about the Silver Surfer, could I use him?’ To me, ideas have always trumped the rules, for better or worse. Stan had no reason to let me do what I asked him to let me do, except that Stan also believed in ideas, and Marvel in those days was very nurturing and encouraging of people taking it to the next level. So I used [the Surfer] the one time, and a couple of months later, I had another idea for the character. I wasn’t trying to get the Surfer in there on a regular basis, but he belonged in that group. Roy was right the first time, the Surfer

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worked well with these people and he did offer [an outer-space element].” Before leaving the series, Englehart made two other contributions that, at first, were deemed risky: the “Summer Event” and Marvel’s first major, multi-issue crossover. “As a fan, I used to love the summer specials and annuals from Marvel,” recalls Englehart. “[In 1973], for the first time, Marvel decided they weren’t going to do any, so I thought of the idea that had the series going back and forth all summer long with this big storyline that involved everybody.” Englehart’s story became the “Evil Eye” saga, which ran in alternating issues of The Defenders and The Avengers. Today, Englehart’s crossover concept is commonplace. When first proposed, though, there were concerns. “Roy was a little dubious to start with,” recalls Englehart. “If any one of those issues had come out late, it would have screwed the whole thing up, then you would have been reading stories out of order. Roy expressed that concern, and I told him I wouldn’t screw it up, and he okayed it.” Len Wein stepped in as the non-team’s new scribe with issue #12 (Feb. 1974). “[I liked having] a chance to play around with the Hulk and Doctor Strange, two of my favorite characters,” says Wein. “That, and the fact that I got to bring in other characters, like Professor X, Son of Satan, and Luke Cage, pretty much as I wanted to. To a young writer at that time, that was quite an appealing concept.” During his short stint, Wein was also able to bring in a Defender who helped to define the non-team further, the criminal-turned-hero Nighthawk. “Adding Nighthawk gave me a character to play with who didn’t have a whole lot of previous history and thus a whole lot of baggage,” explains Wein. “Essentially, it gave at least one character I could do anything I wanted with without worrying about how it would affect any other titles that character might appear in.” The arrival of Nighthawk would mean the departure of the Sub-Mariner, which didn’t bother Wein too much. “What was lost by removing Namor? For me, pretty much nothing,” says Wein. “The Hulk gave me the raw power Namor could provide, and I have always hated Namor’s arrogant attitude. I was happy not to have to deal with it.”

GERBER’S BABIES There are certain defining moments for any series that sees its share of multiple creators. For The Defenders, one came with issue #20 (Feb. 1975). The Defenders were in for a huge change, and as it turned out, so was their new writer, Steve Gerber. “I really wanted to try the Defenders. I had never written a team book before, and I liked the idea of the nonteam. When Len decided to leave the book, I sort of campaigned for it,” explains Gerber. “Perhaps foolishly, Marvel [gave it to me].” With Gerber’s arrival, Defenders lost any hope of ever again being a traditional super-hero series. “The series always paid lip service that the Defenders were not really a team,” says Gerber, “but they almost always acted as a team. I wanted to extend the group’s dysfunction beyond their personal interactions into the hero-villain conflicts.” Gerber’s run on the series is remembered for the humor that he injected into the book, but it was never at the expense of the characters themselves. “I used to tell people that Defenders was my humor

Super-Team vs. Non-Team

book, and that Howard the Duck was my serious book,” says Gerber. “I thought that Defenders, in its own way, was a lot funnier. The stories were real adventure stories, but skewed slightly toward the bizarre. The characters themselves were all very peculiar, and I loved that about them. These guys could have never made the Avengers. They were Marvel’s answer to the Legion of Substitute Heroes.” When Gerber wrote The Defenders, all bets were off. “There was an understanding among myself and the writers of Dr. Strange and The Incredible Hulk that the characters in The Defenders who went by those names were not exactly the same characters that appeared in their own books. In today’s terminology, The Defenders’ characters might have been called the ‘All-Star’ or ‘Ultimates’ versions,” suggests Gerber. “That approach was necessary, or managing the continuity would have been a nightmare, and, even more importantly, none of the books could have

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LUNATIK FRINGE

Many Heroes, Many Hands

retained its individual flavor. In The Defenders, the Hulk, for example, was played less like a living engine of destruction and more like a lovable doofus who, just incidentally, could stop a tank with one finger. In his own book, the Hulk would have been incapable of saying, ‘Men killed Bambi’s mother!’” Gerber, like most Defenders writers, also admits that it was the secondary characters that kept things interesting for him. “Dr. Strange and the Hulk were in The Defenders to sell the book, but I couldn’t do anything with them. They had to enter and exit each story pretty much unchanged,” says Gerber. “Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and the various others we introduced—those were the characters who could change and grow. For me, the fun in comics has always been writing those ‘backwater’ characters, the ones that haven’t become inviolable icons and trademarks.” When Gerry Conway took over as Marvel’s editorin-chief, he felt that Defenders needed a new direction. Issue #41 (Nov. 1976) was the last issue Gerber and Buscema did together. Keith Giffen, who was still cutting his teeth in the business, was brought in by Conway to pencil Defenders. Conway wrote two issues of a four-part story before Roger Slifer was brought in as the book’s new writer.

Of the 12 pages of the lead story in Defenders #53 (Nov. 1977), Keith Giffen penciled seven, Michael Golden penciled four, and Dave Cockrum penciled one, the splash, shown here. Terry Austin provided consistency by inking them all. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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When Slifer landed The Defenders, he enlisted a friend to assist him, David Kraft. “When he was Marvel’s editorin-chief, Gerry had been writing Defenders, but when he went freelance, he changed horses in midstream and left the book during a story arc,” recalls Kraft. “Roger was given the book to script, but there was no written plot—Gerry had discussed the plot with Keith Giffen, and Keith had gone off and drawn whatever he thought the plot was based on their talk. Roger and I got the art from Giffen with a couple of liner notes, but we didn’t have a clue what was going on! Keith actually had no adequate explanation for what he had drawn, so we had to make up what was going on. This issue happened to be the third of a four-part series, the exposition issue where we’re explaining what’s happening. Talk about a challenge.” Roger stayed long enough to finish Gerry’s original storyline and the prelude issue of Kraft’s “Who Remembers Scorpio?” story arc. After a fill-in issue by John Warner, issue #47 (May 1977), Kraft became the book’s official writer and presented the Scorpio Saga, a tale he is rightfully proud of, which ran from issues #48–50 (June–Aug. 1977). In spite of the bumpy start, Kraft was confident that the rest of his time would be smooth sailing. Kraft and Giffen even made plans to present a new villain together. “Keith wanted to do Lunatik,” says Kraft. “But he didn’t give me a drawing or much of a description of the

Giffen’s departure left Kraft with an even bigger problem than an absent super-villain. “When Keith left for DC, he only turned in every other page of what was supposed to be the next Defenders issue. I don’t know if this was his way of putting it to Marvel or making some kind of a point. There was a huge crisis because these things are on deadline, and that is why all those other [fill-in] artists are on issues #53 and #54 (Nov. and Dec. 1977). God, he caused me hell on Earth, because every other page of those issues [that he had turned in] had to be written and sent to the letterer, and then I went back after the other artists had drawn the in-between pages and had to link up dialogue, backwards, and forwards, for those pages with the ones already written.” “I’ve never tried to whitewash my *sshole years,” admits Giffen. “Back then I was a nightmare to deal with. Dave got it right. I screwed up royally and slinked out of town with my tail between my legs. Was I a prize or what?”

Devil-Slayer Kicks Butt (left) The Ed Hannigan/Klaus Janson cover of Defenders #58 (Apr. 1978). Scribe David Kraft dedicated this issue to the rock band Blue Oyster Cult. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE “AS SEEN ON TV” YEARS

character other than that he was dangerously crazy. Because we worked together so well, and it was something he wanted to do, I was willing to give it a shot. Lunatik first appeared as a silhouette at the end of Defenders #51 (Sept. 1977), where you see his boots and the bottom of a staff. I began setting up an alter ego, Harrison Tyrk, and a subplot that tied into the mythology I’d created for the Man-Wolf series. Before Lunatik actually appeared as a costumed character, Keith jumped to DC and I was left hanging.” In the end, Kraft was forced to design Lunatik by himself one Friday evening on his way out of the bullpen after 5:00 PM on a Friday. “Lunatik’s makeup was Alice Cooper-inspired, his hairstyle was Jim Salicrup-inspired (he was standing around waiting for me), and I colored his jumpsuit differently than that of the main characters so when they were overlapping one another you could still see what was going on in the panels,” says Kraft. “Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen are both friends of mine, but I look at Lobo and I can’t help seeing a ramped-up Lunatik. When they did Lobo for DC’s The Omega Men, Lobo had the same white makeup and eye shadow that I gave Lunatik, and a similar hairstyle. Roger and Keith had a big success with Lobo, go figure. Actually, I’m pretty good humored about it.”

When Kraft was paired with artist Ed Hannigan, their collaboration lacked the drama of Kraft’s earlier Defenders experiences. Hannigan himself has one unique distinction. He is the only creator who worked as an artist and a writer on the original Defenders series. “I always wanted to work with Dave,” recalls Hannigan. “We were quite close and used to drink together and plot stories together. I remember one time we were tooling through the mountains in Georgia on Dave’s Norton 750 [motorcycle] and plotting a story, shouting back and forth to each other.” Under Kraft and Hannigan, it was again the secondary characters who received the bulk of attention and affection.

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Indeed, Hannigan had little interest whatsoever in writing for the most popular member of the non-team. “One of the things I really hated was that they made us feature the Hulk prominently in every issue because of the Bill Bixby [1978–1982 Incredible Hulk] TV show [with Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk], and that became very restricting because there’s only so much you can do with the Hulk,” recalls Hannigan. “I never really bought him as a ‘team member’ and would have gotten rid of him if I could.” “The problem you had with the Hulk is that he is not a joiner. He’s not going to hang out and be a part of a group,” offers Kraft. “He was obviously a popular character that helped sell the book, but it was hard to have him issue after issue. You had to keep contriving stuff, and that was true with a lot of the major characters. With Dr. Strange being so powerful, no matter what the menace is, he could just whip up a spell and solve the problem. The only way you could do a story was to knock him out, put him in stasis, put him in a spell, or whack him on the head. Strange spends a lot of time being unconscious, otherwise you wouldn’t have a story.” The Kraft and Hannigan runs are when the ladies of the Defenders really started to come into their own “Hellcat was my and Dave’s favorite character,” says Hannigan of the Steve Englehart-created heroine who joined the Defenders in issue #44 (Feb. 1977). “She was very anarchistic and liked to have a good time, so she was a lot like Dave and me. She didn’t care that much about the rules. Unlike most Marvel characters, she was not burdened with heavy angst and self-importance. We also liked the fact that she was often the one who solved problems and was very intelligent, while seeming to be a lightweight. I think that flew right by a lot of fans who thought she was an idiot.” Kraft also recalls the affection he felt for the first lady of the Defenders. “We inherited Valkyrie, but I could really understand

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” The Green Goliath made the cover of TV Guide’s July 28, 1979 edition … and as a major media star he also dominated the Defenders lineup. Hulk © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. TV Guide® Magazine is TM & © 2006 TV Guide Magazine Group, Inc.

that character,” says Kraft. “She was one of the valkyries who would take the dead to Valhalla, but she was trapped in the body of a human. She didn’t see the world as we do or understand our customs. I had her have a relationship with the Hulk, too. When no one else could calm the Hulk, she was on his wavelength. She’s probably the only one in the Marvel Universe who could get the Hulk to serve coffee.”

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN? Given Kraft and Hannigan’s appreciation for their heroines, it’s no surprise to learn of the direction they almost took the Defenders. “We had thoughts of transforming the Defenders into a female-dominated or female-only team,” recalls Hannigan. “I think in one issue I actually achieved that.” When Hannigan started writing Defenders after Kraft’s departure, Herb Trimpe took over the penciling with issue #68 (Feb. 1979). Trimpe stayed on the title for just over a year, then Don Perlin replaced him with issue #82 (Apr. 1980). Instead of The Defenders, Perlin almost inherited another comic that Sal Buscema had penciled. “I was doing the inking on Captain America with Buscema,” says Perlin. “When Sal left that book, I put in my pitch to pencil it. I was going to do my first story, but then I got a call from [editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter. He told me Roger Stern and John Byrne had come in and they had some great ideas for Captain America that they wanted to do. Shooter asked if I would mind if I penciled The Defenders instead.” Except for the occasional fill-in issue, Perlin penciled every issue of the book up until its cancellation. Of all the writers and artists who worked on The Defenders, his is the longest run of them all. J. M. DeMatteis took over writing The Defenders with issue #92 (Feb. 1981), and for him it was a dream come true. “I wrote The Defenders very, very early in my career,” recalls DeMatteis. “It was really the first big series I did. Jim Shooter knew I liked the Defenders, and he knew I loved Dr. Strange. It was a gift for me at that point and time to be given a book that meant so much to me.” DeMatteis put the Defenders through a number of challenges and the most radical changes that fans would ever see, including revealing the secrets of Hellcat’s past, the death of Nighthawk, the disbanding of the original Defenders, and the formation of a new non-team. Meanwhile, DeMatteis continued the tradition of exploring Marvel’s secondary characters, which was good practice for his work on Justice

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League with Keith Giffen a few years later. “It says a lot about me that the characters I ended up falling in love with were the least commercial and the most obscure, like Son of Satan, Hellcat, and Devil-Slayer,” says DeMatteis. “[These were] all goofy characters that no one cared about, and that was part of the reason they were so much fun. Son of Satan has never really appeared in all that many places, and it was one of those characters that just kind of walked into the book and I went, ‘Oh, my God! What a fantastic character!’ I trotted him into the book and I said, ‘I want to keep this character around.’’

THE GARGOYLE AND THE ELF WITH A GUN DeMatteis created a character that joined the nonteam in issue #94 (Apr. 1981), and he did so with little fanfare, and no real purpose other than to help propel the initial story he was in. But this newcomer had something special that won over readers, even if he had a face only a mother could love. “I loved Gargoyle,” says DeMatteis, recalling how he came to create one of the Defenders’ last major additions. “Gargoyle just sort of popped out of nowhere, and I thought this was a cool concept. Here was this demonic, seemingly evil creature, and inside is this 80-year-old man who is a total sweetheart.”

Ladies’ Night

Besides having the appearance of a monster with a human heart, the Gargoyle had something else in common with his Silver Age brethren, albeit by a stretch: the King. “Don came up with Gargoyle’s Hal Foster-ish design,” says DeMatteis. “Don used the same inspiration that Jack [“King”] Kirby used for the Demon, and it was a demon mask that was in a Foster Prince Valiant comic strip. Gargoyle was a classic Marvel monster, but again the fact that he had the soul of this sweet, old man is what made the character unique.” Carl Potts took over the editing chores for The Defenders with #125 (Nov. 1983). His arrival meant more changes for the non-team. Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer were set off on their final adventure together in issue #122 (Aug. 1983), where they learned they could never be the Defenders again. Steve Gerber revealed that during his Defenders run, he introduced one of the book’s longest-running mysteries in response to a plea from Sal Buscema. “After four issues, Sal was getting sick of drawing snake suits for the ‘Sons of the Serpent’ [storyline in issues #22–25 (Apr.–July 1975)],” confides Gerber. “Sal asked me to give him something—anything!—else to draw. I gave him the gun-toting Elf [in issue #25].”

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(above left) From penciler Herb Trimpe’s Defenders run, page 26 of issue #76 (Oct. 1979), inked by Steve Mitchell and guest-scripted by Steven Grant.

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Gerber left the series before he explained the Because the old team was sidelined (and story behind the Elf with a gun, and DeMatteis sus- because Hellcat and Son of Satan left after their pects that Gerber probably had no real plan for this wedding), the New Defenders were created in issue diminutive enigma. He is right. #125 (Nov. 1983). Valkyrie and Gerber admits that he was basically Gargoyle remained with the group, making the Elf up as he went and DeMatteis added Moondragon to along. “But that’s how I was writing the ranks. Even before this shakeup everything in those days. Had I occurred, the Beast from the original continued on the book, I’m sure I X-Men had already joined the would have figured something Defenders, and DeMatteis was able to out,” confesses Gerber. “I always bring two more mutants along with said the ending Marvel did, having him. “The Angel and Iceman were just the Elf run over by a truck, with no floating around in Marvel limbo, and I explanation at all, was the secondpulled them in,” reveals DeMatteis. “A best possible ending for the character. lot of people thought there was an We’ll never know what the best editorial dictate to bring in some X-Men would have been.” characters, but that wasn’t the case at DeMatteis’ explanation was all. For the last couple of years the that the Elf, or Elves, as it turned book had been rooted in the supernatural. out, were time agents of the I wanted to shift things back over to Tribunal, and their mission was to the more traditional side of the Marvel displace human beings whose life © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. Universe.” forces would eventually be used to Don Perlin recalls another change save the life of a renegade alien prince. The original that Potts’ instituted. “Carl wanted to give The Defenders, by interfering with the aliens, triggered Defenders a new look and pick up sales,” recalls events that would spell certain doom for Earth in Perlin. “He wanted the penciling and inking style to the future. To insure that the world would be safe, change, and [to look like the style of] the Bros. the original Defenders pledged that they would Hernandez. I always think of a request like that as a never come together as a team again. challenge. I kind of enjoyed trying to do that style.”

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DEFENDING THEIR LIVES “The Defenders had been floundering around with several different [inkers],” recalls Kim DeMulder, who began inking Perlin on #120 (June 1983). “[Potts] wanted to nail down a regular art team.” Perlin adds, “Look through some of the Marvel books and when you see the credit for Inker and it says, ‘M. Hands,’ that stood for ‘Many Hands.’ [The editors] would stand outside the office door with the book and when an inker passed by, they would ask if they could ink two or three pages.” “Carl’s greatest contribution to the book was that he got Don excited like a kid who had just entered the business,” says DeMatteis. “If you look at the issues after Carl came on, Don was trying new types of layouts that he had never done before. There was also a new energy in the book [because of Don’s artwork].” DeMatteis left the series with #132 (June 1984), and the Defenders’ final writer, Peter Gillis, came onboard. “Something that added extra juice to The Defenders was when Peter Gillis came in on the book,” recalls DeMulder. “DeMatteis had been doing a great job, but every time you get a new person, you get a new vitality that’s injected.” Still, DeMulder indicates that he left the book when Gillis’ Defenders started getting dark. Gillis’ later stories were some of the grimmest Defenders stories ever told, all of which cumulated in their final adventure which saw the entire team, save for the three X-Men, make the ultimate sacrifice when they faced off against a rogue Moondragon in issue #152 (Feb. 1986). “I’d have to say that the dark and more realistic graphic look they were trying to get out of the book is one of the reason The Defenders sagged in their sales,” speculates DeMulder. Perlin concurs with DeMulder’s assessment, and had this to add: “From what I understand, Marvel didn’t think we worked the characters the right way, [we didn’t steer it towards traditional] super-hero stuff, so they came up with X-Factor [for the Beast, Iceman, and the Angel].” Since their cancellation, the Defenders have been brought back at various times. The most successful relaunch was a 2005 five-issue miniseries that starred the original team, written and plotted by two of the non-team’s former creators, J. M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen. It was so popular, it started making many Defenders fans wonder if there would be a follow-up. “At one point, after we finished the miniseries, Marvel indicated they would like to do another one,” says DeMatteis. “I pretty much decided that I didn’t want to do it. There is still a good chance that there will be one. Keith might end up writing it himself. We’re having so much fun creating new characters and universes with [Boom Studios’] Hero Squared, I don’t want to spread us too thin. I want to focus on these characters that we own and can do anything we want to without having to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes. Marvel did allow us a lot of freedom, but its more fun working with your own characters.”

Non-Team Roster from the Original Defenders Series (Marvel Feature #1, Dec. 1971 through The Defenders #152, Feb. 1986) Founders: • Dr. Strange • Hulk • Sub-Mariner Recruits/Special Guests: • Clea (Marvel Feature #2) • Silver Surfer (Defenders #2) • Black Knight (#4) • Valkyrie (#4) • Namorita (#5) • Hawkeye (#7) • Nighthawk (#14) • Professor X (#15) • Son of Satan (Giant-Size Defenders #2) • Luke Cage (#18) • Daredevil (Giant-Size #3) • The Thing (#20) • Yellowjacket (Giant-Size #4) • Red Guardian (#35) • Howard the Duck (Marvel Treasury Edition #12) • Hellcat (#44) • Moon Knight (#47) • Ms. Marvel (#57) • Devil-Slayer (#58) • Spider-Man (#61) • Black Goliath (#62) • Captain Marvel (#62) • Captain Ultra (#62) • The Falcon (#62) • Havok (#62) • Hercules (#62) • Iron Fist (#62)

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Jack of Hearts (#62) Marvel Man (Quasar) (#62) Nova (#62) The Falcon (#62) Palladin (#62) Polaris (#62) The Prowler (#62) Stingray (#62) Tagak (#62) Torpedo (#62) White Tiger (#62) Moondragon (#76) The Wasp (#76) Aeroika (#79) Black Panther (#84) Gargoyle (#94) Dracula (#95) Ghost Rider (#96) Man-Thing (#98) The Beast (#104) Wonder Man (#104) Mr. Fantastic (#105) Captain America (#106) Scarlet Witch (#112) The Vision (#112) Angel (#125) Iceman (#125) Angel (#125) Cloud (#127) New Mutants (#129) Seraph (#129) Candy Southern (#138) Andromeda (#146) Manslaughter (#151) Interloper (#151)

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We Are the

Editor’s note: The following article was originally serialized in three consecutive issues of The Comics Buyers’ Guide and is reprinted here by the permission of the writer.

One of the most baffling mysteries of my career is the regularity with which readers ask me about The Champions, a title I conceived and wrote for Marvel in the 1970s. It featured possibly the most awkward teaming of super-heroes ever: the Angel, Iceman, the Black Widow, Hercules, and the Ghost Rider. It ran 17 issues. I plotted six of its first seven issues and scripted five of them. Though I always gave it my best shot and did some decent work on the title, I don’t count it among my comics triumphs. Yet fans keep asking me about it. The Champions were “conceived” in 1975. Marvel editorial has been ordered to add a bunch of new titles to the schedule and add them quickly. Though my memory is a wee bit shaky on this, I recall being given the go-ahead on three new titles in the same afternoon (Champions, Black Goliath, and a Tigra series for Marvel Chillers) and being told the very next day that I was already late on all of them. Can I get an “Arrgh!” from the congregation? My initial pitch for Champions was very different from what I ended up writing. Iceman and Angel had just quit the X-Men and, since I always liked those characters, I tried to come up with something cool for them. What I dreamed up was a cross between Route 66 and The Odd Couple. I saw Champions as a “buddy” book. Wealthy Warren Worthington and average guy Bobby Drake would travel across the country, driving each other crazy, getting in trouble, and helping just plain folks with not-so-plain dangers and villains. I envisioned one- and two-issue adventures with lots of clever dialogue, exciting action, and pretty ladies. I even figured Don Heck for the artist because he was a master at drawing expressive faces and gorgeous women… and he wasn’t too shabby when it came to the action either. I was confident this would be a great comic book. Then—cue the scary music from Jaws—the editors got involved. I was told a super-hero team must have five members. I was told this by the editor and writer of Fantastic Four. I was told a super-hero team must have at least one woman member. Having set up the Black Widow’s departure from Daredevil during my short run on that title, I chose her. I was told a super-hero team must have at least one member with his own series. The editor suggested Luke Cage. I chose Johnny Blaze, figuring that, since I was writing Ghost Rider, I could keep Johnny too busy to attend Champions meetings. I was told a super-hero team must have a “strong guy” on the team. 1 2

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CHAMPIONS ? I chose Hercules. If I had to play by these silly rules, I might as well go my editors one better. That’s why I added Venus and a passel of Greek/Roman gods to the team’s origin story. By then, I was even kind of sort of looking forward to the challenge of making this nonsense work. My plan was to establish the Champions as superheroes for the guys and gals on the street, agents of a charitable organization funded by the Angel’s money. It wasn’t a bad notion, but it was too big of a notion for me to manage with these mismatched characters and with the grandiose opening story arc I had come up with to get them all together as a team. I never did get a handle on it. However, I did come up with a Russian tragedy involving the Black Widow When I plotted and scripted “The Man Who Created the Black Widow” for Champions #7 (Aug. 1976), I didn’t realize it would be my last issue of the title. I thought it was the first chapter of an arc which would change Natasha’s life forever. My inspiration was a flashback in an earlier Widow story in which Ivan Petrovich told how he rescued young Natasha from a fire which claimed the life of the girl’s mother. It was a truly tragic moment … and I wanted to make it more so. The Widow was attacked by villains gathered by the Commissar, who’d trained Natasha prior to her becoming a Soviet agent. Most of his team were old foes of the Champions or its members, but one of them was a new Crimson Dynamo. The new CD was Yuri Petrovich, Ivan’s son. My memory is foggy on some of my plans, but I remember a key element with crystal clarity. During the arc, we and the Widow would learn Yuri was her brother and Ivan, her father. Having arrived too late to save the lives of his wife and— he thought—his son, Ivan considered himself to be unworthy to claim his daughter’s love. Though he’d remain as close to her as possible, as her chauffeur and confidant, he would never reveal their true relationship. Determined to punish the father he falsely believed had abandoned him, Yuri intended to kill Natasha in front of Ivan. To save her, Ivan would reveal the truth he had hidden for so long. This would wound Natasha, enrage Yuri, and leave Ivan more alone than ever. I don’t recall if Yuri or Ivan survive my story. I’m an old softy, but I know you can’t have a great Russian tragedy unless something, uh, tragic happens. After I scripted the issue, Marvel went through an editorial change. I went to DC. The last page of Champions #7 was changed to allow incoming writer Bill Mantlo to take the title in his own direction. I think he did a fine job, but I’ll always regret never finishing the story my way.

Missed Opportunities Original cover art to Tony Isabella’s last issue of The Champions, #7 (Aug. 1976), penciled by Rich Buckler and inked by Frank Giacoia. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Birds of a Feather: Gerber and Colan Discuss

Dan Johnson

cond ucte d on August 8, 2006

It takes more than talent to make a comic book that will be remembered 30 years after it is published. A writer has to be something slightly more than brilliant, and an artist has to be more than just incredibly gifted. Truly great comic books are made by creators who reach a point where they can operate on the same wavelength, and it doesn’t hurt if they happen to like one another as friends. Most of all, it helps if they love the comic book that they’re doing. This was the case when Steve Gerber and Gene Colan joined forces to put a certain fowl through his paces, and helped Howard the Duck navigate a world he never made. —Dan Johnson DAN JOHNSON: Steve, let’s talk about the creation of Howard the Duck. Howard started out being a throwaway character in the Man-Thing feature in Adventure into Fear #19 (Dec. 1973). What kind of response did the character get that made Marvel realize that he had potential? STEVE GERBER: Rather than “throwaway character,” I would use the term “sight gag.” The story we were doing for Man-Thing had to do with a collision of realities, and we already had a visual of a barbarian jumping out of a jar of peanut butter. That had to be topped some way or another, so Howard was the sight gag to top it. The Barbarian was sitting in the Man-Thing’s swamp and talking about how his life had become an absurdity, and Howard walks out from behind a clump of brush and says, “Mister, you don’t know the meaning of the word,” or something like that. He was fun to write from that very first line, but I don’t think any of us at Marvel anticipated Howard becoming a continuing character. In fact, in the second half of that story, which appeared in Man-Thing #1 (Jan. 1974), Roy Thomas, Marvel’s editor-in-chief at time, gave me strict orders to get the Duck out of there. He felt, and was probably correct, that having a cartoon duck waddling around with a swamp monster would spoil the mood of horror. So, in the course of that story, we had Howard tumble off into the void, and I don’t think any of us ever expected to see him again.

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JOHNSON: The first couple of Howard stories leaned more toward the horror genre than the super-hero genre. In his first solo story you even had him squaring off with a vampire cow. GERBER: “Hellcow” (Giant-Size Man-Thing [insert sophomoric pun here] #5, Aug. 1975) was the second story. The first was “Frog Death” (G-S M-T #4, Apr. 1975), with Garko the Man-Frog, which, sans duck, could have passed for a very typical EC-style horror short. Howard’s origins, after all, were in a horror comic book, and horror and humor are very close cousins. I never saw Howard representing any genre—he’s sort of sui generis—but his horror roots were showing in a lot of the early stuff. You have to remember, at that time horror had become very popular in comics, much more so than it is today. Gene was doing Tomb of Dracula at that time, and Man-Thing, on a percentage basis, was one of Marvel’s best-selling titles. The idea of dropping the Duck into horror situations just kind of grew naturally out of that. JOHNSON: You even had a “Frankenstein Monster” that was a giant gingerbread man, in Howard the Duck #6 and 7 (Nov. and Dec. 1976). GERBER: Our gothic romance story, which I loved. That was another genre that was making inroads into comics at that time. Marvel wasn’t doing anything with it, but DC had several gothic romance titles, the best known of which was The Sinister House of Secret Love. The Duck story, of course, was titled “The Secret House of Forbidden Cookies,” and it somehow became a cross between Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, with the monster being a giant gingerbread man. Don’t ask me to explain that one. Somehow, it happened organically. JOHNSON: I liked Beverly Switzler as a character. I always thought she was the perfect Ying to Howard’s Yang. How did you come to create her? GERBER: She was created over dinner with Mary Skrenes and Frank Brunner, who was going to draw the first issue, and had drawn the short stories in Giant-Size Man-Thing. Mary came up with the name Beverly—actually, she intended it to be spelled “Beverlee”—and I wound up basing the character very loosely on Mary herself. Beverly was intended to be a throwaway character; she was created as the requisite half-naked female in distress for Howard’s barbarian adventure. Somehow, she survived to the end of the story, and in the process she’d become such an amusing character that there was no way I was going to let her go. JOHNSON: Gene, how did you come to work on Howard? GENE COLAN: I don’t quite remember how I got into it. I was doing something else at the time; it might have been Tomb of Dracula. GERBER: Gene was working on a couple of books at the time, including Tomb of Dracula. I can tell you a funny story about how Gene got involved with this: When Brunner left the book, Roy, or John Verpoorten, who was production manager at Marvel at the time, asked me who would be my choice to take over the penciling. The first two words out of my mouth were “Gene Colan,” which I thought would be impossible. Gene and I had done a few things, like a couple of Son of Satans and a Dracula story for Dracula Lives. The reason I wanted you to do the book, Gene, was that you drew human beings so well. If you could carry off the Duck, the series would look the way it was supposed to, with a three-dimensional anthropomorphized duck trapped in our reality. You may not remember this, and I’ll bet you’ll deny it, but when John first called you to ask if you would take the assignment, you hadn’t heard of Howard the Duck. John

Beginnings: Incredible Hulk #157, Marvel Comics (1972) (script over Roy Thomas’ plot)

Milestones: Man-Thing / Defenders / creation of Howard the Duck / co-creation with Mary Skrenes of the original Omega the Unknown / Phantom Zone miniseries / creation of Thundarr the Barbarian / creation of Nevada /creation of Hard Time

Work in Progress: Hard Time Season Two, DC Comics/Vertigo

Cyberspace: www.stevegerber.com www.stevegerber.com/sgblog (almost-daily blog)

Steve Gerber Photo courtesy of stevegerber.com.

Beginnings: Wings Comics for Fiction House in 1944

Milestones: Journey into Mystery / Kid Colt, Outlaw / Creepy / Eerie The Avengers / Silver Surfer / Iron Man / Sub-Mariner / Captain Marvel / Captain America / Dr. Strange / Daredevil / Tomb of Dracula / Howard the Duck / Phantom Zone / Wonder Woman Ragamuffins in Eclipse Monthly / Batman in Detective Comics Night Force / Nathaniel Dusk, Private Investigator / Jemm: Son of Saturn / Silverblade / Rob Zombie's Spookshow Spectacular / Hellboy: Weird Tales

Work in progress: Retired, but taking requests for commissions through his official website

Cyberspace: www.genecolan.com

Gene Colan Photo courtesy of Tom Field.

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had to convince you that you weren’t being demoted to working on funny animals. John sent you some copies of the book, and you realized we weren’t doing “Ziggy Pig” or something. For whatever reason, you took to it immediately and understood exactly what I was trying to do. We had a collaboration on that book the likes of which I have never had with any artist since. COLAN: I wish it had lasted forever. It was a lot of fun, and the best-written piece I’ve ever come across. You are very funny, and it comes across in your writing. I can’t think of another writer who could have pulled that off like you did, and I enjoyed every moment of it. JOHNSON: I discovered Howard the same time I did the booming direct-sales market of the early 1980s. I thought Howard the Duck had the best of both worlds—there was a tie to the Marvel Universe, but it also had the humor of some of the indie books. I would compare Howard to a really good martial-arts film. On one hand you have a tale with rich characters that plays to the arthouse crowd, and on the other hand you have a action-packed kung-fu film that will appeal to the mainstream crowd. GERBER: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Duck. Howard was about as demented as anything being published at the time, including the underground comix. COLAN: It was very, very different than anything else that was out there. JOHNSON: Going back to the original question, when did Marvel know they had something that was golden? GERBER: Right after we sent Howard tumbling into the void, in that Man-Thing story, the letters started pouring in, castigating us for killing the Duck. It went so far that some Canadian fans sent in the remains of their Christmas duck with a note tacked on to it that read, simply: “Murderers!” I never got to see that package—I was out of town at the time—but the story was told to me, with horror, over the phone. Certainly by that point, we realized we had struck a nerve someplace. JOHNSON: At one point, wasn’t the first issue of Howard the Duck (Jan. 1976) the highest-selling modern comic book out there? GERBER: On a percentage basis, which is how sales were calculated in those days— percent of print run sold—it could very well have been. In fact, the first issue was hijacked off distributors’ tables around the country by comic-book dealers. We’re not talking about the kind of retailers who run today’s comics shops. These were speculators who intended to sell the book at scalpers’ prices through the mail or at conventions. They swept down on the distributors’ warehouses before the book ever reached the newsstands and bought up most of the copies, which hurt the book tremendously. It was flattering, of course, to be that much in demand, but it was also infuriating. It impacted the number of copies that got to the newsstands, and it put the book in danger. You simply couldn’t get that book anywhere. That’s the reason we did the reprint of it so early on in a Marvel Treasury Edition. The reprint was done within the first year of the book’s publication, specifically because readers couldn’t get their hands on that first issue at a reasonable price. JOHNSON: Were Howard’s team-ups with other Marvel characters something the Marvel editors asked you to do, or was this your decision? GERBER: In most respects, the content of Howard the Duck was entirely left up to me. I wanted to bring in the super-heroes because it was very important to me to establish that Howard really did exist in the Marvel Universe. Using Spider-Man as a gueststar [in Howard’s first issue] was the perfect way to do it. If anything, there was probably some hesitation at first on the editorial side, until it became clear that Spider-Man, or any other guest star in the Duck book, would be handled the same way as in any other team-up story. We never demeaned the super-heroes who guest-starred; we never made them the butt of jokes. I could even argue that some characters—the Ringmaster comes to mind—were actually treated more seriously in Howard the Duck they ever had been before. You know, for that matter, there are actually very few jokes in Howard the Duck. It was funny because the characters themselves, and, of course, the events of the stories, were funny. I was walking a strange and interesting little tightrope with that book,

Howard vs. Klout (top left) The Colan/Leialoha cover art to issue #5 (Sept. 1976).

Weird, Wild Stuff (left) From odd villains to Spider-Man cameos, you never knew what to expect in Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck. Original cover art to issue #10 (Mar. 1977), by Gene Colan and Steve Leialoha. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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because its believability would have been shattered if the characters had suddenly started doing one-liners. JOHNSON: Gene, what did you think of the book once you started working on it? COLAN: Howard was very humorous. I never made any comment to my wife on the dialogue of any of the serious books that I had worked on, like Daredevil, but Howard was a laugh riot. I would call her in from the other room and tell her, “You’ve got to listen to this!” And I would read [Steve’s dialogue] off to her and we would both be in stitches. GERBER: You did manage to [bring a realistic quality to Howard] that the previous artist on the book had not. COLAN: Howard was in the real world, so everything that we understand and are familiar with would be there. Since the Duck was in our world, therefore he had to reflect our world. GERBER: I was always impressed with the way you made light and shadow on Howard [look real], and you gave him the folds on the clothes and even texture on the feathers. Howard always seemed to belong with everything else in the panel, which just heightened the craziness of the whole premise. COLAN: I’m glad it did. Howard was a huge success, and once Stan [Lee] left Marvel [for Hollywood], everything went downhill. Stan let us go with Howard, whatever we wanted to do was fine with him. The book was doing very well, but after Stan left, other people came on board and they didn’t care for the way the book was presented. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore. JOHNSON: You mentioned that Roy Thomas wasn’t initially happy with Howard…. GERBER: Let me make sure everyone understands this: Roy thought Howard was funny as hell. He just didn’t think it was going to work in the context of Man-Thing. Over the years, Roy’s been castigated for that decision, but he really doesn’t deserve it. He made an editorial call, and he was probably right, although he’s come to wear the vilification good-naturedly as a badge of pride: “I’m the guy who said to get rid of the duck!” JOHNSON: Who was behind the book when you and Gene were doing it? I can’t imagine anyone not liking Howard the Duck, and I was just curious who some of your industry fans were. GERBER: You may not be able to imagine it, but there were a number of people—don’t ask me to name them—who just didn’t get what the book was about and found it somehow disturbing that this character had invaded the Marvel Universe. I hate to say this, too, but it’s true: There was a certain amount of jealousy at the time, because Howard the Duck was getting an awful lot of mainstream press attention, independent of the other Marvel books. Both Gene and I were being interviewed all the time, and Howard was everywhere for a while. There was even a photograph of a very young Bruce Springsteen wearing a “Howard the Duck for President” button in some college newspaper. So, there was kind of a weird feeling among some of the creative people that, ‘We’re doing these super-hero books that are selling really, really well. How come the damn duck is getting all of this exposure?’ And in a way I can understand that. Those people were working very hard and very professionally to meet what were considered the commercial demands of comics at the time. Yet, it was precisely because Howard was such an oddity among commercial comics that it gained such media attention. JOHNSON: Some writers and artists who worked at Marvel in the early 1970s give the impression that the comics industry could have gone under at any minute. Howard gave the business a shot in the arm, and I think it would have behooved Marvel to take advantage of this book when it was becoming a pop-culture phenomenon. They would have been idiots not to have done that. GERBER: Well, you have to remember that Marvel’s management at that time were idiots. I’m not talking about Stan, who was also a Duck fan, but about the people who ran the conglomerate. They did try to push Howard, after a fashion, but they did it the way they did everything in those days: on the cheap. What happened with the Howard the Duck newspaper strip is an example of that. That’s a story that’s so painful, I don’t even want to go into it. It’s not that they didn’t try to sell Howard, or market it—they just had no clue how to go about it, and they simply couldn’t comprehend

that promotion, of Howard the Duck or anything else, costs money, let alone that the investment might be worth it. JOHNSON: The peak of Howard’s pop-culture popularity was his 1976 run for the White House. How did the write-in campaign get started? GERBER: It started as a joke over dinner. It was a silly little marketing idea we thought might be fun and, if we were lucky, profitable. Howard’s campaign staff basically consisted of me and Mary, with an occasional assist from [editors] Jim Salicrup and Dave Kraft. We personally stuffed all those campaign buttons and portraits into all those envelopes. We even typed all the mailing labels. JOHNSON: I had fun rereading the “All Night Party” presidential storyline in the Essential Howard the Duck. That was done back in 1976, yet your take on politics and political parties is still relevant today. GERBER: More relevant today. Politics has become even more horrifying in the time since that story. You could read that story now and think it had been written a month ago. JOHNSON: The only major difference I could see is that these days if you had a candidate caught in a sex scandal, it might actually help their campaign instead of hurt it. GERBER: Didn’t work that way for Clinton. What you get now, though, is what Bill Maher calls “fake outrage.” In this post-sexual revolution era,

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nobody’s really scandalized anymore, but they’re required to posture as if they were. And weirdly, even though the electorate knows it’s all pretense, they pretend it’s real and vote for the best posturer. American politics now resembles strongly the caricature of it that we did in that story. The Howard story, which at the time was satire, now reads more like documentary. COLAN: Steve is very knowledgeable politically, and I’m sure he has a lot to say about the political scene today. Howard would fit in perfectly, and Steve could do all his talking through Howard. Steve has a gift for being funny and still getting to the truth of what is going on. JOHNSON: Since you were doing political and social commentary, was there anything that ever got vetoed by Marvel? GERBER: There were a couple of times they insisted on changes. The Reverend Sun Myung Moon parody was originally named Sun Moon Dung. They were adamant that we change it to Joon Moon Yuc. [Editor] Archie Goodwin and I had a huge argument over that one, but those instances were rare. There was one more that was really funny. Dr. Bong’s origin was a little snipe at a journalist who had written a very nasty and misleading piece about the Kiss comic in his syndicated column. I wanted a blurb on the cover of the Bong origin issue that read, “We Couldn’t Print It If It Wasn’t True!” Apparently, nobody in management got the joke—that accuracy in journalism is about as reliable as accuracy in a comic book about a talking duck—and the blurb had to go. That one, I regret. JOHNSON: I really enjoyed Howard’s all-too-brief return in his “Marvel Max” series of 2002. Has there ever been any talk about bringing Howard back again? GERBER: No. Unfortunately, there are no plans that I know of. The Max series was an incredible frustration for me, for [its artist] Phil Winslade, and for Marvel’s current management, because of the terms of an agreement that the former idiot management had made with Disney regarding the look of the character. That agreement, which dates back to the late 1970s, early 1980s, didn’t just stipulate that Howard couldn’t look like Donald Duck. Marvel stupidly, stupidly agreed that the Howard visual had to conform to a model sketch that Disney had provided. As you’d expect, that model was hideous. It included the infamous pants, of course, but also a huge, swollen beak that just made the character ugly to look at. That’s why we turned him into a mouse for most of the Max series. The alternative was that deformed Disney duck. COLAN: Can I ask you a personal question, Steve? Do you own Howard?

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GERBER: No. COLAN: Okay, I thought you had him. So, you can’t move him around to another publisher. GERBER: No, he’s Marvel’s character, or Marvel’s property, anyway. JOHNSON: If Marvel decides to do another Howard story, is there at least an understanding that they will come to you first to see if you would want to write it? GERBER: I may have right of first refusal on a project like that. I’d have to check the lawsuit settlement agreement to be sure—although, then, I couldn’t tell you, because the settlement terms were confidential. Anyway, at this point, I’d probably say no. It really is part of the past to me now, and I feel I said the rest of what I had to say about Howard in the Max series. On the other hand, if we could do the real Howard, and if, say, Gene could be persuaded to draw it, my mind could be changed. That’s about as likely a scenario as Ann Coulter flinging her naked body at Al Gore and begging him for forgiveness and hot throbbing love. COLAN: The minute big business gets into the picture, the art goes right out the window. I think that the writers and the artists should have been consulted more and their opinion valued more. But let’s face it, it’s all a money-making proposition. They can do what they want because they have the money to launch these things, and we’re just hired workers. The truth is, we made Howard popular, they did not. JOHNSON: Steve, I wanted to ask about your leaving Howard the Duck. What did you feel when you realized you had to go? GERBER: My departure came about because of the battle over the ownership of the character, and that came about because of what happened with the newspaper comic strip, which again is such a terrible story, I don’t want to go into it. A lot of it had to do with my thinking that Gene was being treated unfairly on the comic strip. He was laboring to do a daily strip, basically for free, or on spec, because payment from the syndicate came 60 or 90 days—I forget which—after the date of publication, and the payment was a percentage of revenue generated by the strip. The amount was dependent, in other words, upon how many newspapers carried the strip. Now, that’s fine for an artist who creates a strip and owns it, but Gene was being asked to take all that risk for a character in which he had no ongoing interest. It was completely unfair. The strip was also cutting into the time Gene could spend doing comic books for which he could be paid immediately. Rather than advance Gene any money for [his work], Marvel basically made it necessary for him to

leave the newspaper strip, which I know that you loved, Gene, because you got to ink it yourself. COLAN: I enjoyed it very much, but I was burning the candle at both ends. I was still holding on to what Marvel would give me [as well as doing the strip]. GERBER: You had to, because there was no income yet from the comic strip. Basically, Marvel set up a situation where no artist could afford to do the newspaper strip. Rather than shell out what would’ve amounted to the fee for drawing a comic book every month, they kept running through artists until they found somebody who would do it for nothing, and then they got exactly the comic strip they deserved. I had the same financial arrangement on the strip as Gene, but I was in a position to take the gamble—I was in my twenties, I didn’t have a mortgage, and I had created the character. Gene, and, later, Val Mayerik and others, should never have been asked to take that risk. It was that situation that made it impossible for me to continue with Howard, and it’s what started the argument over ownership of the character. I’d had various little spats with Marvel before this, but really, in the grand cosmic scheme, nothing very serious. The comic strip is what blew up in everybody’s face. It’s a lot of fun remembering all this now, isn’t it, Gene? COLAN: You’ve got to move forward, that’s all. I wish it had remained, and I still think it would be a great book for them to pick up on. But things aren’t the same. The people up at Marvel now aren’t the same people [who were there in the 1970s]. GERBER: No, they aren’t the same people. And I want to make that clear, too. When I speak disparagingly about the management of Marvel Comics, I’m talking about the management back in the 1970s, not Joe Quesada’s crew [of today]. The current group has its own quirks, but if they had been in charge in the 1970s and 1980s, things might have happened very differently. I think Howard could have gone on for a number of years longer than it did. It made me sick to have to leave Howard the Duck at the time. It was my baby. I really loved working on that character and I was appalled at what happened to him [after I left]. JOHNSON: Guys, what moments on Howard made you the happiest? When did the baby start walking and talking and when did you point and say, “That’s my boy!”? GERBER: Those are two different moments, actually. There was first the birth and then there was the bar mitzvah! The birth came a couple of issues before Gene came onto the book, with the Space Turnip story (Howard the Duck #2, Mar. 1976). That was one of my favorites of the entire run. I think Howard reached full flower with the Dr. Bong story (HTD #15, Aug. 1977), in particular the scene where the rocks come raining out of the sky on the deck of the ocean liner, the S.S. Damned, that was bringing Howard and Beverly back to the states from their adventure in Bagmom. The ship keeps sailing on with a whole mountain range on top of it, and Gene’s illustration of it is priceless. It’s one of the most bizarre visuals in the entire series. All of the stories that flowed out of that sequence were among my favorites—Howard the Human, and the introduction of Fifi, the French maid with a duck head on an unbelievably sexy human body. That’s when I think this comic reached its full level of dementia. Which ones did you like best, Gene? COLAN: I enjoyed the character Dr. Bong, and I laughed my behind off at that. GERBER: I wanted to create a character whose power was hitting himself in the head! The first issue you did was also one of my favorites, Gene, the Winky Man story (#4, July 1976). That was the one with the guy running around in the nightshirt and using a supercharged Roman candle to blow up hypocrites. COLAN: You were always making a commentary on the way the world is. We’ve got a world full of nuts and Howard never asked for it, but here he is [in the thick of it]. GERBER: At core, Howard was one of the nuts, too. The tragedy of his existence was that he knew it. Want to read more about Gene Colan, including another dialogue between Gene and Steve Gerber? You’re in luck—the book Secrets in the Shadows: The Art & Life of Gene Colan by Tom Field is still available from TwoMorrows!

Altered Drakes (top right) Gene Colan and Klaus Janson’s cover to Howard the Duck #18 (Nov. 1977), where the Duck becomes human!

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David Gutierrez An aged speedster. A bio-engineered man. A novice archer. A black mage. These four became a new Justice League in a world of dark politics and the absence of heroism, where “Batman hung up his cape” and “Superman departed for galaxies unknown” in the non-produced CBS pilot, Ultimate Powers. Unfortunately, their story would remain untold—until today. Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo are no strangers to bringing super-heroes to the big and small screens. After paying their dues writing, producing, and directing B-movies for cult film mogul Charles Band, Bilson and DeMeo wrote and sold an adaptation of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer to Disney in the mid-’80s. This led to a development deal with CBS where the two would write a bold and inspiring pilot in 1989 that would never be made.

“THE RETURN OF THE FLASH” “The Return of the Flash,” the Unlimited Powers pilot, opens with a bang. Barry Allen, the Flash, escapes from a 15-year-long suspended-animation prison sentence and runs out into oppressive Central City. Now a virtual police state run by Civic Governor Kendrick, the Flash is declared a fugitive. For the first time in his career, he experiences fatigue when he uses his powers. His age is catching up with him now that his body has outrun his mind. The Flash liberates some clothing and hides out in the downtrodden area of the city known as Peddler’s Row. An advertisement featuring a “middle-aged man in a black mask and green body suit” selling Emerald Brand Batteries catches the Flash’s attention. He sees his old colleague, Green Lantern, reduced to cashing in on his reputation to make a fast dollar. “My God,” asks the Flash, “What have they done to us?” For ten dollars, Doctor Richard “Doc” Occult will tell a customer both their future and their past. Doc is described as a longhaired man in a black leather jacket. Manning a booth in Peddler’s Row, Doc’s levitation practice is interrupted by two angry men. The two men rough up Doc in an attempt to force him to use his precognitive abilities for their financial gain. Doc escapes a beating and runs out into the street. He trips over a bag lady’s shopping cart and receives the beating he just avoided. The Flash notices this from a nearby soup line and intervenes. In a flurry of punches and speed, the Flash saves Doc. The Flash collapses in exhaustion. When he comes to, the people of Peddler’s Row stand in awe of what they’ve just seen—the Flash has returned. The Flash quickly darts off, leaving Doc alone and calling after him. In a stark contrast to the downtown area of Central City, Governor Kendrick and a trio of his associates congregate in a posh cocktail lounge. He’s surrounded by Selina Kyle, described in the script as a “statuesque and shapely brunette in black, topped by a leopard skin pillbox hat”; a man in mirrored sunglasses; and the Prankster. Kendrick tries to convince his associates that the Flash’s escape is of no consequence or danger to his plans. The city will remain under his control. They identify their waitress, a “blowzy, overweight” woman, as none other than Diana Prince, Wonder Woman. Truly, the heroes of yesterday have fallen and fallen hard. Former Kid Flash Wally West no longer exhibits the lean runner’s physique he did in his youth. Having hung up the costume, his midsection has grown and he’s gone corporate. Two men in suits visit Wally in his suburban home asking about the Flash’s whereabouts. He denies having seen his old mentor. The suited men leave. A small whirlwind of motion startles Wally. It’s the Flash. He and Wally quickly catch up on everything the Flash missed during his incarceration. Here, we are told of the Limited Powers Act—a worldwide action that forced super-heroes to retire in exchange for world peace. Wally supports the political action, believing it has bettered things and improved his life. The Flash doesn’t agree. “Are you nuts?” he asks. “I took a fast tour of our fair city. And I saw a good town gone to hell. An army of cops, crime running wild, spy blimps … even the air smells rotten. How can you expect me to quit now?”

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A second blur of motion interrupts the debate. Wally holds a foot out, causing the blur to halt. It turns out that Tommy, Wally’s son, has inherited the gift of speed. West chastises his son for using his powers out in the open. The Flash asks the question that has weighed on him since his return: What has happened to Iris West, Wally’s sister and the Flash’s girlfriend? Iris became a civic attorney and is romantically involved with a policeman. After the Flash leaves Wally’s home, Wally calls his sister to tell her about the hero’s return. At her office, Iris West receives an unexpected visit by her old flame. She and the Flash momentarily talk about where they stand in each other’s lives, but get nowhere. She suggests he enroll in a governmentsponsored program run by Governor Kendrick for helping super-heroes adapt to “normal life.” The Flash is stunned. He reveals to Iris that Governor Harlan Kendrick is none other than the super-villain and mercenary, the Icicle. Before Iris can voice her objections, the Flash kisses her. She responds in kind, but pulls away just before her boyfriend, policeman Bill Farrow, enters her office. Iris’ boyfriends, past and present, make introductions. Bill explains that while he will not arrest the Flash, he expects him to stay away from Iris. She suggests that the Flash visit another old colleague, Oliver Queen, who successfully completed Kendrick’s program. The Flash agrees and Iris walks him out. Seeing an opportunity, Bill quickly phones the Warden’s Bureau. The Flash arrives at the Queen Estate for a meeting with his old comrade-in-arms, the Green Arrow. Oliver’s teenage daughter, Ashley, greets him before being reunited with Oliver himself. Now sixty, Oliver still sports his trademark moustache and goatee. Sadly, Oliver now suffers from paralysis in his bow hand. The Flash voices his anger at what his world has become. Every bit as fiery and opinionated her father, Ashley volunteers to help. Oliver dismisses her, causing her to storm out. Oliver believes his daughter is fully capable of taking up his mantle, but fears what would happen if the Wardens discovered her. From atop the Queen estate, Ashley fires a grapplinghook arrow she’s drawn from an emerald quiver. She swings over to a library window and eavesdrops on her father and the Flash’s plan to expose Kendrick. They hope to bring to light the conspiracy uncovered by the late Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle, revealing the forced retirement of heroes in the Limited Powers Act was secretly added by a group of super-villains. “Our enemies have infiltrated the highest levels of society,” explains Oliver. “I don’t know where or who they are.” Ashley spots policemen surrounding the estate. The Senior Warden and his police force have confirmed the Flash’s presence. Ashley fires a flare arrow, blanketing

New Kid on the Blok Who’s Blok, you newbies ask? First seen as one of the Legion of SuperAssassins in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #252 (July 1979), this concrete crusher soon joined the future super-team. Blok still had a thing or two to learn in the above panel from page 23 of issue #292 (Oct. 1982), from chapter three of the classic “The Great Darkness Saga” by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, and Larry Mahlstadt. © 2006 DC Comics.

the grounds in a familiar green. The Senior Warden and police storm the estate gates and bark out a warning, calling for the Flash’s surrender. Ashley defiantly draws her bow back and orders the police to leave. The police aim their rifles back at her. Ashley releases an arrow that pierces the Chief Warden’s hat, pinning it to a tree. Ashley proclaims, “The Green Arrow lives!” The arrow explodes in a cloud of smoke. A second smoke arrow detonates on the estate grounds, confusing the policemen. Ashley regroups with her father and the Flash. Now a fugitive, Ashley escapes down a hidden tunnel with the Flash. They drive off in a green car with the police in pursuit. Ashley makes quick work of one of the police cars by piercing one of its wheels with an arrow. An electrical pulse fired by a police zeppelin stops her and the Flash. They are pulled from their car and placed under arrest. The Flash is separated from Ashley, shackled, and thrown him in a holding cell. Kendrick enters the cell to taunt the Flash, explaining that their roles have now reversed. The man who was once a hero, who represented law and order, is now an outlaw. Kendrick has the Flash moved to the maximum-security wing of the prison. The Flash is moved into a steel-door vault, flanked by armed guards and a laser grid. He’s not alone in his cell. He quickly meets his cellmate, Blok, a “massive shape posed like a roughly-hewn version of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ statue.” Blok explains that he was bred in a laboratory to serve criminals and has been incarcerated for over a decade. Over time, Blok has rehabilitated himself through reading hundreds of books. With nothing but time to kill, the two prisoners sit down for a game of chess when their cell door opens. Two guards have come to release them. One guard raises his helmet visor to show his true face—Doctor Occult. Doc has temporarily hypnotized the guard into following his orders and aiding them in navigating the prison. The Flash convinces Doc and Blok to help him spring Ashley from the Women’s Detention Ward. Using the same hypnotic trick, Doc makes a female guard believe he’s escorting two female prisoners. U n s u n g

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Before they can free Ashley from her cell, the first guard shakes off Doc’s influence. Simultaneously intimidating the guard and demonstrating his indestructibility, Blok takes one of the guard’s grenades and swallows it live. It harmlessly explodes inside of him. The guard runs off and activates an alarm. Blok tears Ashley’s cell door from its hinges and lets her out. The Flash runs into the prison garage and disables all but one police car. He drives the remaining car to meet Ashley, Blok, and Doc. Blok’s mass causes the car to sink and drag. The four heroes evade any remaining guards and manage to make their getaway. The next morning, Oliver’s butler, Edmund, brings Oliver’s breakfast to his room. He’s alarmed by a cold fog creeping out from under the bedroom door. Edmund forces the door open and makes his way to the bed where Oliver lays still. The ground has iced over and crunches beneath Edmund’s feet. Edmund discovers Oliver is dead. Someone has frozen the

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entire room and killed Oliver in the process. In a limousine outside, Governor Kendrick smiles smugly and packs a strange, iced-over gun into a case while his limo slowly pulls away. A fleet of Naval ships rest at a long-abandoned dock, the result of military disarmament. Doc has led Ashley, Blok, and the Flash to his home in a decommissioned battleship. Blok tries to rescue his new friends from Ashley’s attempts at cooking. Doc explains to the group that he is the son of the original Doctor Occult. The original Occult foresaw an end to the age of super-heroes and kept his son’s existence a secret. Because he was forced to retire, Occult was overcome by the dark forces he fought for years to keep at bay and was driven insane and sent to Arkham Asylum. Like his father, Doc possesses psychic powers that foretold the formation of a new Justice League made up himself, Ashley, Blok, and the Flash. They unanimously agree to join forces. The Flash devises a plan to bring down Kendrick, but will need some inside help. Ashley makes one of the ship’s crew chambers into her own room. The Flash brings her a longbow, a quiver of arrows, and news that her father’s been murdered. In her office, Iris accuses Bill of arresting the Flash out of jealousy. Back at the shipyard, Doc and the Flash realize Ashley has gone missing. The Flash realizes she has gone to avenge her father’s death. Central City awaits the official unveiling of the Citizens’ Information Bureau. A wall of policemen holds reporters, camera crews, and bystanders at bay, separating them from the city officials, Kendrick, and Iris. Kendrick addresses the crowed from a podium explaining the building will house files containing dossiers on all of Central City’s inhabitants—running the gamut to include “photographs, genetic prints, everything from the serial number of a citizen’s video set to his first grade report card.” Using an infrared bow scope, Ashley takes aim at Kendrick from the window of a nearby abandoned building. A reporter asks Kendrick if he believes Oliver Queen’s death and the Flash’s escape are related. Kendrick answers the question as Ashley lets her arrow fly. The Flash snatches the arrow in mid-air before traveling through the window. The Flash helps Ashley realize she shouldn’t kill. She breaks down in tears and apologizes, accepting her father’s death. The Flash consoles Ashley. He tells her with a smile, “I’ve got a plan.” In front of the civic building, the reporters question Kendrick. Standing amongst the newshounds, Doc locks eyes with Kendrick and asks him if the building will feature a comprehensive file on Kendrick himself. Kendrick stumbles. His podium has iced over. He cries out, confusing the crowd with his outburst. Nobody can see what Kendrick does. Doc continues to entrance Kendrick. Doc appears as though he’s covered in ice and deathly pale. Kendrick turns to look at Iris and reels. Frost has settled in her hair and all the color has drained from her face. Kendrick begins hearing voices in whispers, urging him on to confess. He sees the crowd, all of them standing in a cold fog, covered in ice. The crowd remains confused by Kendrick’s behavior. He shouts at them, “I killed them … all … froze them to death.” Kendrick feels a cold hand on his shoulder. He turns to see Oliver Queen. Kendrick admits publicly to murdering Queen.

Doc falls to ground, spent. Freed from the Doc’s influence, Kendrick draws his freeze pistol and takes Iris hostage. He fires his gun at Doc, instantly freezing him. Iris calls to Bill to help. Bill realizes the hopelessness of the situation and moves aside allowing Kendrick to drive off with Iris in a police cruiser. A manhole cover launches into the air, directly in the path of Kendrick and Iris. Blok emerges from the manhole and stands right in the car’s path. The Flash rushes alongside the police cruiser and matches its speed. He zooms into the back seat through one door, grabs Iris, and exits out the other. Blok takes his turn and slams a fist into the car’s grill, bringing it to a stop. He tears off the driver’s side door and grabs Kendrick. Ashley sees the police, reporters and bystanders swarm toward Blok, the Flash, and Iris. She fires an arrow that explodes in an intense white blinding cloud. When the glow dies, only Iris, the mob, and Kendrick, now wrapped in a twisted bumper, remain. Bill runs to Iris’ side, mentioning that things have taken a turn for the worse. She corrects him: “I think everything’s going to be a lot better.” The Flash kicks up debris running laps around the Central City High School track with a frozen Doc in tow. He increases his speed with each successive lap, creating enough air friction to thaw out Doc. For a third time, the Flash has worn himself out to the point of collapse. Ashley, Blok, Doc, and the Flash return to the docks with Iris. She promises to use her position to protect them and work with them in secret. She tells the Flash that she and Bill have decided to spend some time apart. She needs time to think. She kisses the Flash good-bye and drives off. It may appear that nothing has changed in Central City, but it will never be the same again.

FOLLOWING BURTON’S LEAD Unlimited Powers, like all comic-book related projects at the time, gained strong momentum following the incredibly successful Tim Burton Batman film of 1989. It also mirrored the attitude in comics and the political climate of the late 1980s. Comic fans were introduced to a darker realism and more world-conscious views in books like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Many of the latter’s themes found their way into Bilson and DeMeo’s pilot. Bilson explains, “This show was Watchmen. I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t. It was my favorite book. I was asking, ‘How can we find a way to do that in our medium, which at the time was TV?’ The thing I wanted to see on film the most was Watchmen. So we added these characters and wrote this pilot.” Given the cynicism creeping into the American psyche as a result of the hollow excesses of the “Me Decade,” Bilson adds, “It was a straight-up political comment on the time. It was a Reagan-era commentary about how the bad guys were all wearing suits. The conceit is all the famous super-villains have taken off their makeup, capes, and masks, and are running the government.” Also similar to Watchmen, the heroes of Unlimited Powers are threats to the Powers That Be. Those that continue to fight on must go underground. Turning the clichéd version of a hero on its ear, instead of fighting for the status quo, they now fight against it. The Fascist elements of the government are similarly used in Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta, another work influenced by ’80s politics and fears.

The key to any successful group is balance. DeMeo and Bilson were extremely careful in deciding who would appear in their pilot. Batman and Superman were already spoken for, but they still had the remainder of the vast DC character library. “We wanted to visit or reinvent a couple of the iconic DC characters like Green Arrow and the Flash,” explains DeMeo. “We were also interested, after looking through the DC Comics character catalog, of adding a couple of more obscure characters we could reinvent and throw into this mix. Like any super-hero team, you want different talents and abilities that went anything from the Flash to the occult powers of Dr. Occult. It was up to us to pick the characters that we wanted and then had to get them approved [by Warner Brothers]. It was really a fanboy’s phantasmagoria.” Bilson adds, “The Flash was chosen because he was the biggest DC character we could grab. It was a question of, ‘Who’s big enough?’ Superman and Batman weren’t available to us. Wonder Woman we didn’t really care about. And then there’s the Flash. It was who mattered and had a focused power that wasn’t all over the place.” DeMeo reinforces their decision to include an older, more world-weary Flash by saying, “There was also a conscious effort on our part to have the

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Was Barry Allen a Moose Lodge Member? Writers Paul DeMeo (left) and Danny Bilson on the set of TV’s The Flash, circa 1990. Photo courtesy of Paul, Danny, and David Gutierrez. Photo © 2006 Warner Bros. The Flash TM & © 2006 DC Comics.

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NEW in Print! New Comics. Classic Appeal.

Flash, who in the script was around forty, teamed with—in consideration of the audience—two young characters in Dr. Occult and Green Arrow’s daughter. So you’ve got the Flash, these two teenagers, and this totally inhuman character that was like the Birdman of Alcatraz. From that, I think you get a pretty cool mix of talent, powers, abilities, and personalities.” Bilson adds an interesting bit of trivia: “The Flash was actually written for an actor, Tim Thomerson, from our Trancers film. He was also in Zone Troopers. So there was some of that actor’s humor and energy bleeding into that Flash. We were writing it for him. He was in his forties, had gray hair. I never saw anyone else in that part. So some of that humor came out of writing for Tim.” Fans of the Flash television series will remember Thomerson went on to play Jay Allen, the Flash’s brother, who dies and provides an inspiration for Barry to take up the Flash identity. “If you examine the character of the Flash in Unlimited Powers,” continues DeMeo, “he’s much different than the Flash that ended up in the show we did with John Wesley Shipp. He’s a much more cynical, embittered, laconic character where everything that comes out of his mouth seems to be a wisecrack or some kind of sarcasm. Shipp’s version of Barry Allen was a much more traditional superhero with a much more balanced and open moral center. He wasn’t a guy who had been captured and was put into suspended animation by an oppressive government. He was a guy who still had his optimism at the beginning of his career.” The pair factored cost and the reality of what could be produced for a weekly television show. This helped them pare down their selection. “Green Lantern was cool, but would have been impossible to pull off on TV,” says DeMeo. In terms of what characters they felt were possible, Bilson expands upon their choices. “I’m sure we were thinking in 1989 Blok would have been a guy in a makeup effect, like from Harry and the Hendersons, rather than a CG character.” He adds, “Green Arrow’s daughter became the new Green Arrow. We wanted to kill a character for value. It was dramatic to kill Green Arrow and have his daughter inherit his name.” Given its subject matter and being written at the height of post-Batman fever, Unlimited Powers seemed like a surefire hit for CBS. So what went wrong? Bilson brings to light the network’s perceptions of the show: “What I remember most was everyone at CBS was crazy to make it, except the two top people.

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The show was way too challenging for their tastes. All the VPs and executives the next level down were clamoring to make it because it was fresh.” DeMeo believes the pilot was “too extreme for [the top executives],” but admits the realities of making Unlimited Powers. “If they had given us the green light on this show, it would have been a really difficult, really expensive show to make. Once we went on to make The Flash, we realized how difficult it was just doing the Flash. Now multiply that times four, with the technology that was available for the day, it would have been pretty tough.” Still, he believes he and Bilson would have found a way to make it happen. Bilson feels the television world was not yet ready for their show. “It was grotesquely ahead of its time. I’m not saying that like we’re so great. We’re just that stupid. We’re that stupid to try to do something so out of sync with what the commercial market was like. Two years later, we did The Flash and some would argue that was too ahead of its time— and that was really traditional compared to Unlimited Powers. It took the idea that you understand what comics are already and goes one step beyond. They don’t even do that in the movies yet. You’re still seeing movies served up as origin stuff.” As noted earlier, the pair would eventually bring one character of the Unlimited Powers pilot, The Flash, to the airwaves in 1990. Some elements from Unlimited Powers would surface in the series, most notably the Flash stealing clothes from a laundry line and man frozen to death in the episode “Captain Cold.” Cancelled after one season, the show gained a cult following and has been released on DVD. Bilson and DeMeo later adapted the DC Comics character The Human Target for a sevenepisode run for ABC in 1991. Over ten years later, the duo is once again writing the adventures of the Scarlet Speedster. With them penning DC Comics’ The Flash: Fastest Man Alive monthly series, there seems to be no signs of these two slowing down. With the Flash once again under their guidance, who knows what will come of the Unlimited Powers concept and their lineup? “I always thought it was the coolest unproduced pilot we’ve ever written,” says Bilson. Unfortunately, it also remains one of the Greatest Stories Never Told.

The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #6 DC Comics • on sale Nov. 15, 2006 • 32 color pages • $2.99 US

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Geppi’s Entertainment Museum: The Ultimate Pop-Culture Experience “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” pondered Jack Nicholson’s Joker in director Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). In the case of Steve Geppi, owner of Diamond Comic Distributors, his jaw-dropping collection of comic books, character-based toys and advertisements, movie posters, original comic art, animation cels, and related media hails from auctions, purchases of entire collections, and years of seeking out and acquiring the most pristine specimens available. Geppi could have played the role of “greedy kid with the best toys” and hoarded them for himself, but instead he’s shared these treasures in Geppi’s Entertainment Museum (GEM), a 17,000-square-foot wonderland occupying the second and third floors (the Sports Legends at Camden Yards Museum is on the first floor) of the former Camden train station in Baltimore, Maryland. “When I see them in their place now, it’s almost like a puzzle I was putting together,” Geppi remarked on his search for collectibles while hosting an August 28, 2006 press tour of GEM (at which your wide-eyed BACK ISSUE editor was in attendance). “It’s a dream come true,” he beamed. I was in a dream state throughout the tour, and over two weeks later as I pen these words, I’m still blown away by what I saw there. I suspect that by the time this sees print in November, I’ll continue to be dazzled by GEM. And why shouldn’t I be? Geppi’s Entertainment Museum showcases what is, no doubt, the finest collection of the coolest stuff imaginable. The museum also legitimizes character collectibles as a lens through which Americans observe their ever-transforming culture. “There’s an order to what people collect,” stated GEM President John K. Snyder, Jr. at a luncheon prior to the press tour. Exercising that collector’s mentality, GEM’s contents are intentionally displayed in chronological order, allowing attendees to stroll through history. But that stroll begins in a room dedicated to the art form from which so many merchandised characters emerged: comic books. How many of you have actually seen a copy of Action Comics #1? There are two copies at GEM … at least that’s how many I noticed. This room chronicles the history of comic-book publishing beginning with the precursors to comic books, including pulps and Big Little Books. This leads the museum-goer to a series of cabinets featuring significant comics grouped by eras, concluding with a selection of titles from the past two decades, including examples of the gimmick-ridden covers of the 1990s. Original cover art to some of the medium’s most influential comics also dots the room. The hallway connecting the exhibit room is itself awe-inspiring: with 20-foot-high ceilings, virtually every square inch of available space is adorned with movie posters, original art, and cels, all smartly arranged and never seeming like wall clutter. Beginning in the next exhibit room, “Pioneer Spirit (1776–1894),” the museum teaches us that toys were created not only for playtime but for “parents’ added value of educating kids,” according to Snyder. After an

array of vintage trains, dolls, marbles, and other early American toys, one discovers a collection of items featuring the Brownies, Palmer Cox’s multiethnic creations which were the first successfully franchised characters. Following in their footsteps, in a room dedicated to characters from 1895–1927, the Yellow Kid and the Katzenjammer Kids are among the familiar faces selling everything from cigarettes to paper dolls. Subsequent rooms by M ichael Eury explore 1928–1945, where the Great Depression and World War II gave way to escapist heroes like Mickey Mouse, Superman, and Captain America; 1946–1960, showing the emergence of television as the Experience medium that welcomed everything from singing cowboys to crazy redheads into our liv“Pop Culture with ing rooms; 1961–1970, where character merCharacter” at: chandising—from the Beatles to Batman— Geppi’s Entertainment mushroomed into ubiquity; and 1971–1990, Museum where comics, movie, and TV characters were 301 West Camden St. joined by then-new media sensations such as Baltimore, MD 21201 videogaming’s Pac-Man and fast-food celebs like Ronald McDonald. A retail store with character Hours: merchandise and trade publications (including April to October: Open daily from many fine TwoMorrows products!) completes 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM the museum (although it wasn’t open during November to March: Tuesday our press tour), with an accompanying array of through Sunday from collectibles from 1991 to today (yes, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM SpongeBob SquarePants is there!). Snyder menAdmission: tioned that there are plans to offer classes on Adult $10.00, Senior $9.00, collecting, and that the items on display, while Student (3–18) $7.00, Child carefully selected to reflect the significance of (under 3) free each room’s era, are interchangeable and may Group prices and facilities rentals be rotated in and out. are available; for info, call Julie My only criticism of Geppi’s Entertainment Meddows at 410-625-7064. Museum is that after witnessing these incredible For additional information, visit specimens, my own collection of much-loved ’60s www.geppismuseum.com toys seems mediocre … but at least I now have a deeper appreciation for their historical and educational value. Touring GEM is a family-friendly, fun, and educational experience you’ll long remember— and while you’re planning your trip, the next four pages provide but a mere glimpse of the wonders that await…

Camden Yards GEM’s location is adjacent to Oriole Park. U n s u n g

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Unless otherwise noted, all photos were taken by Michael Eury on August 28, 2006.

start here!

Photo courtesy of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum.

Steve Geppi, the man with a museum.

As you exit the elevator and enter the museum lobby, vintage movie posters pepper the walls.

Also in the lobby is this rare Golden Age artifact, promoting the original Human Torch series. In the comics wing, Geppi (in the white shirt, second from right) discusses his cabinet of significant Golden Age titles. Note the original EC cover art above the display.

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Among the many items in GEM’s hallway is George Herriman’s final Krazy Kat Sunday strip, interpreted by some, as Geppi explains here, as the death of Krazy Kat. The artist knew he was dying when completing this cartoon in 1944, and passed away shortly after its publication. Framed behind Geppi is a letter of condolence from Walt Disney to Herriman’s daughter, Mabel.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Gerding of Comic Book Resources (www.cbr.com).

Also in the comics room is original artwork to Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide covers, including these Alex Ross paintings.

A touch-screen monitor enables you to read scanned copies of Action Comics #1 or Superman #1 page-by-page, with the added (and much appreciated) bonus of page-turning animation as the reader advances through the story.

CONTIN UE NEXT P D ON AGE! A rare poster for King Kong, in the hallway.

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Statues of the Brownies, the first successfully licensed characters. The Brownies represented a range of vocations and geographical locations.

Behold, some of the rarest Superman collectibles ever, tucked inside a Daily Planet skyscraper-shaped display.

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(top) Working vintage television sets play video loops of classic programming from TV’s Golden Age, including The Milton Berle Show, I Love Lucy, and Howdy Doody. (middle) What kid in the 1950s didn’t want a Donald Duck bicycle? This is one of numerous Disney items on display. (bottom) The Flintstones were among the many TV stars that became merchandising icons of the 1960s. These early vinyl figurines were produced when Hanna-Barbera’s quality-control standards were in the Stone Age: here, Betty’s a blonde, Barney’s got green hair, and Dino is orange!

Icons of the BACK ISSUE era of the ’70s and ’80s are on hand, including this rather odd item, a Gilda Radner Cut-Out Doll Book!

Photo by Barbara Crews.

Remember, GEM is a museum, not just a toy showplace—placards like this one explain the histories behind character collectibles.

A glimpse of Marvel merchandising from the Silver Age. Note the white “Congratulations!” envelope—yes, that’s an actual Marvel No-Prize!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman concludes your tour with a Batusi! GEM’s collection of TV Batman-inspired memorabilia (yes, that’s a Batphone to the left) is anchored by a contemporary statue of the hero, the museum’s way of informing its visitors of the intended interpretation of DC’s Dark Knight.

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GiVE BACK TO THE CREATORS WHO GAVE YOU YOUR DREAMS.

Tom “The Comics Savant” Stewart

conducted by

TOM STEWART: Well, we should start at the beginning. Where were you born? RICHIE RICH: At the Richard Rich Hospital, in the Regina Rich Pediatric wing, grounds of the Rich Estate, sometime in the 1950s. STEWART: Really. RICH: Yes, really. This is the point where you make some rather lame joke about how “well preserved” I look. STEWART: Uh, let’s just say I made it and move on. RICH: Let’s. (Note to editor: This guy looks freaking TWELVE!) STEWART: So, how did you get started in comics? RICH: I started as a backup to Little Dot… STEWART: Yes. How did you get that gig? RICH: Talent. STEWART: Yes, of course, but I’ve heard that your father— RICH: Talent. STEWART: Okay. So … how was it working with Miss Dot? RICH: All right, once you got past that sick dot obsession of hers. STEWART: Obsession…? RICH: Of course they cleaned it up for the comics. We were selling to kids, you understand? STEWART: Of course. RICH: Of course. Did you know that she chased cars? STEWART: Nooo… RICH: Tires. They look like dots. STEWART: Of course. RICH: She disappeared for a week once. Almost missed an issue! We had Little Lotta standing by just in case… STEWART: Really! What…? RICH: We found her finally. She was holed up in coin vault #2,104. She’d had been in there the whole time, stacking coins… STEWART: Ah… RICH: “Dots.” STEWART: Yes. Well, after working with Dot, you got your own title. RICH: Well, it was obvious she was too far gone to keep doing all those books. Stretched too thin, and with her fragile condition… STEWART: Riiiight… RICH: So I stepped in with my own book. STEWART: Now, here again I’ve heard— RICH: Talent. STEWART: Talent. Yes, of course. Uh, now, it seems that most of the Harvey comic characters had certain … “obsessions”? RICH: Yes, some did. STEWART: Yes. Dot with uh, “dots.” RICH: Yes. STEWART: Little Lotta with food. RICH: She always claimed she was big-boned.

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STEWART: Really. RICH: Gluttony. Is that funny? STEWART: Well, she was popular. RICH: I can see her featured in one story, maybe, maybe two, but there were reams of the stuff! STEWART: Well, I thought— RICH: And the mountains of food! Good Lord, man! STEWART: About your own— RICH: And the belches out of her! That’s not comedy! STEWART: About Richie Rich #1… RICH: Yes. I thought we should start out slow, then branch out into other titles. STEWART: Well, you had quite a few titles. RICH: Yes, that was part of the strategy—move out slowly into the market, see what was selling, then give the public more of it. STEWART: Sure. RICH: Sound business planning. STEWART: Again, I heard that— RICH: Talent. STEWART: Talent. RICH: And popularity.

STEWART: Of course. Now, while you expanded your titles, some of your fellow Harvey characters lost some books. RICH: Again, business. STEWART: Little Dot lost most of hers… RICH: Hmmm… STEWART: Little Lotta became a secondary character in the back of Dot’s book, I believe. RICH: I’ve already stated my feelings about Lotta... STEWART: Characters like Hot Stuff, Stumbo, Spooky, and even Casper lost books. RICH: Now really! I should feel bad about this? It’s business! If people wanted their books, they would have bought their books! What they wanted was Richie Rich! Richie Rich Cash! Richie Rich Millions, Billions! Zillions! Gems! Diamonds! Bank Books, Vaults, Vaults of Mystery, Gold and Silver! STEWART: Super Richie? RICH: That was for tax purposes. In short, they wanted Richie, they got Richie! STEWART: That’s a lot of Richie. RICH: It wasn’t all me, though. I did do the team-up books. STEWART: Richie and Jackie Jokers… RICH: Great guy, a prince. STEWART: …Professor Keanbean… RICH: [laughter] Oh, yes! Nice man. STEWART: …Billy Bellhops… RICH: Good kid. I ran into him the other day! STEWART: Really? RICH: Yes. I gave him a good tip. STEWART: Cadbury… RICH: Good fellow! We were just talking about doing a new project together, soon! STEWART: …Gloria… RICH: Just friends. STEWART: Friends? RICH: She just could never get used to the whole money thing. STEWART: Uh … Reggie? RICH: Tax fraud. Should be out in two years. STEWART: I have here a document I wanted to show you before the end of this interview... RICH: Wait a minute, this wasn’t in the approved questions…! STEWART: It’s a sales statement showing millions of comics purchased by one company… RICH: What? I never agreed to this! STEWART: I have proof that that company, the R Rules Company, was wholly owned by a Mr. D. Dollar... RICH: I don’t see— STEWART: Mr. DOGGIE Dollar! Your own dog! (Inaudible remarks. Several lawyers appear as if from nowhere.) RICH: This interview is over! STEWART: But we haven’t covered Richie Rich meets the New Kids on the Block! RICH: (expletive deleted)

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Danny Fingeroth

Conducted February 2, 2006 transcribed by Steven Tice, and copyedited by Mike Carlin and Danny Fingeroth

In 1983, Marvel Comics readers were tantalized by house ads and Bullpen Bulletin notices about something called “Assistant Editors’ Month.” Based on the practice among department stores of having “assistant buyers’ months,” the idea was that the Marvel editors were out of the office at the San Diego Comic-Con and meetings in Los Angeles, leaving the assistant editors in charge. The comics that came out of this period were all over the map, some barely taking notice of the special occasion, others indulging the freedom that the assistants and freelance writers and artists allegedly had while their bosses were away. Danny Fingeroth was then the newly promoted editor of the Spider-Man line. Mike Carlin was assistant to Mark Gruenwald in the Avengers office, and was the assistants’ “ringleader.” He also wrote the AEM issue of Marvel Team-Up and a story in Daredevil that month. Danny and Mike sat down in Mike’s glamorous office at DC Comics and revealed some of the shocking secrets that were the real story behind Assistant Editors’ Month…

May Day Aunt May as Golden Oldie in a certified Carlin classic. Original cover art to Marvel Team-Up #137 (Jan. 1984), penciled by Ron Frenz and inked by Mike Esposito. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

DANNY FINGEROTH: So what the heck was Assistant Editors’ Month, anyway, Mike? MIKE CARLIN: Well, depending on who you talk to, it was a lot of fun or a giant fiasco. The legend I had always heard, after it came out, people looked back and said that it was Marvel’s worst-selling month ever! Hyperbole, I’m sure … but I never checked—as I didn’t want to know the awful truth. For the assistant editors, it was definitely a hoot to actually get a chance to have some fun, though I guess the reality was, we weren’t really editing regular Marvel comics. Part of the instruction was to make them a little more offbeat than they normally would be, so they would feel different. It wasn’t, like, an audition for our days when we’d be real editors, because then we would have done straight stories and really tried to cough up Watchmen or something. FINGEROTH: It might have been the first line-wide programming stunt that any company ever did, and certainly the most irreverent one. You and I both seem to remember it as [editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter’s idea. CARLIN: I think he generated it, although he might have just come across it somewhere. But Macy’s would have sales where their assistant buyers would be in charge of buying all the stuff that they’d sell. So the idea was that Jim was going to be taking all the editors out to the Comic-Con in San Diego—all the main editors were going to be out of the office at the same time—and wouldn’t it be funny if the books that came out the month that they were traveling to San Diego reflected the fact that the editors were gone. That, to him, meant that the books wouldn’t be quite normal. [laughs] FINGEROTH: That was the hype, but of course the reality was that it was the most carefully planned, plotted, and strategized stunt that we had probably ever done, up to that point. U n s u n g

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Beginnings: writer: recap splash pages for Marvel’s British weeklies, then co-writer of Avengers #207–208 (1981) editor: uncredited editing on Captain Britain, then editing some fill-ins on Man-Thing and Star Wars

Milestones: editor: New Warriors, Moon Knight, Alpha Flight / Spider-Man group editor writer: Dazzler / Darkhawk / Deadly Foes of Spider-Man / Avengers: Deathtrap: The Vault / Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (Continuum) / founding VP/editor in chief of Byron Preiss Multimedia’s Virtual Comics / senior VP for Creative Development at Visionary Media, home of WhirlGirl

Works in Progress: editor in chief of TwoMorrows’ Write Now! / Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (Continuum) / teaching comics writing at New York University, the New School, and Media Bistro

Cyberspace: WriteNowDF@aol.com www.twomorrows.com

Beginnings: DC Comics intern (1974) / jokes written for Will Eisner’s Scholastic Joke Books, then writer/artist for Marvel’s Crazy Magazine (1980s)

Milestones: editor: Fantastic Four / Avengers / Superman group editor (ringmaster of the infamous “Death and Return of Superman” series) / DC Comics executive editor / JLA / Identity Crisis / writer: Marvel Team-Up / Peter Porker, The Spectacular SpiderHam / Star Trek / Superboy TV series / Ratman 2000 (Slave Labor)

Works in Progress: senior group editor at DC / The All-New Atom / The Trials of Shazam! / Green Arrow / Hawkgirl

Cyberspace: www.dccomics.com

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CARLIN: Sure. For everything to hit in August when everybody was out in San Diego, we had to be finished with the books two months before that. FINGEROTH: I think it said January cover date, September on sale, which is kind of wild, thinking back to those days when the covers were so far ahead. CARLIN: Yeah, the cover dates, they were from another universe. Comics used to time travel backwards from six months in the future and land on your newsstand. FINGEROTH: You were Mark Gruenwald’s assistant at the time, right? How long had you had that gig? CARLIN: I guess I had been his assistant for two years already, and we were pretty tight in our systems. Our working style was pretty in tune with each other, so he did trust me a lot, and I did ultimately get promoted pretty soon after Assistant Editors’ Month, so I think I was already on the track to knowing how to put a book out. And Mark did let me come up with the ideas. Everything was run past, obviously, the editors and Jim Shooter before we even started the project, and based on where any given series was at the time, you had a little more leeway or a little less leeway. On Thor, Walt Simonson had just started on the book, three or four months before this, and we weren’t really interested in ruining his story, so the Thor Assistant Editors’ book really just consisted of a funny letters page that I did. FINGEROTH: Walt did eventually make Thor a frog, so, I mean, what wilder thing could an assistant have done, anyway? CARLIN: If I could have gotten him to do that two months earlier, I would have been the greatest assistant ever! [laughs] But he was in the middle of the Beta Ray Bill thing, and it really would have ruined the momentum on that. Captain America had a big storyline going on, so we did half an issue of a straight story, and half an issue of an oddball backup. But then there’s other books like The Avengers, where we really went all out and did a 22page story where the Avengers actually went on Late Night with David Letterman, which was a fairly new phenomenon back in the early ’80s. David Letterman was pretty hip and happening at the time. He had just moved from his morning show to his late night slot a year or two before that and it was pretty popular. FINGEROTH: Was it your idea to try to get the Letterman show in The Avengers? CARLIN: Yeah, it was my idea, because I was a big fan of it. Roger Stern, who was writing Avengers at the time, also loved Letterman. I called up Letterman’s agent and they said, “Sure.” It was that simple. We sent a letter, they signed it, and in the indicia we just had to say, “all the characters in this book are copyright Marvel Comics except David Letterman and Paul Shaffer.” FINGEROTH: I guess there was some precedent. Several years before, Marvel had done the crossover with the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players in Marvel Team-Up. CARLIN: And even before that, everyone forgets that Don Rickles was a character in Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen comics. And Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope had their own comic books. So the big difference I guess would be that currently—“currently” being after 1970-something—we don’t pay the celebrities to be in our books. [laughs] Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope, I think, got a piece of the action. I don’t think John Belushi got anything from the sales of the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players issue, FINGEROTH: Now, in the AEM Avengers issue, it’s not like there was a backup where Letterman met the Avengers and they shook hands. He was integral to the story itself. CARLIN: The story involved a running villain, a lightweight villain for the Avengers, called Fabian Stankowicz.

The Avengers were on Late Night with David Letterman when Fabian attacked (because it was easier then to get tickets to David Letterman, I guess). [laughs] FINGEROTH: Was the issue in the middle of a storyline? CARLIN: This one did not interrupt a major storyline, but it used all the regular series characters and it was in current continuity at the time. FINGEROTH: Now, reading the Bullpen Bulletins from that period, you were made out to be the assistants’ ringleader. Were you? CARLIN: I think I was the senior assistant editor at the time. I had been assisting the longest at that point, and I was made responsible for just making sure that all the covers had the fake rubber stamp on them that said, “Beware.” Which was only fair, it was truth in advertising. “Beware, it’s Assistant Editors’ Month.” If you buy this, it’s your own fault, basically. And really, I just had to report to Jim what was going to be in each of the books. FINGEROTH: For your office or everybody’s? CARLIN: For everybody’s. So I would have meetings. I just made sure the trains ran on time, basically. That was ultimately good training for editing and then for supervising the DC Universe, eventually. One of the things I’ve been best at is getting my books out on time. FINGEROTH: You said you’d been an assistant for a couple of years at that point, so certainly, in all that time, Mark must have gone on vacation for a week or whatever, so you actually had run his office before. And almost all the assistants had. If you have a boss who’s off on vacation, you’re going to be “in charge.” But the idea here was that all the editors went on vacation at once. I was in a funny position because, when the AEM concept got started, I was still Louise Simonson’s assistant on the X-Men books, but then I got promoted, and suddenly I was the editor of the Spider-Man books. CARLIN: Who was the assistant editor on the X-Men books then? FINGEROTH: Eliot R. Brown. CARLIN: What did they do with the X-books? FINGEROTH: Wasn’t there a Hope/Crosby thing? CARLIN: It might have been. The thing is, Chris Claremont would always do comedy relief stories in The X-Men, so it wasn’t unusual for the book to have something offbeat. I mean, one of the good things about Chris is, he could give you Sturm and Drang for 11 months and then— FINGEROTH: They’re my favorite team. CARLIN: —Hope and Crosby, Sturm and Drang. And then he’d give you an Impossible Man story that would just be fun. FINGEROTH: I think the X-books might have just had backups. I had inherited the Spidey books from Tom DeFalco, and Tom was—talk about having the books on schedule—he was so far ahead it was miraculous. One of the things we had was “The Kid who Collects SpiderMan” in Amazing Spider-Man. And it’s “Collects.” People often call it “The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man,” but that misses an important aspect of the story, which is that it’s shown as a counterpoint to a newspaper column that the reader is reading along with the comic panels, and that column is written in the present tense, which makes the story’s ending that much more effective. CARLIN: That was an Assistant Editors’ Month book? FINGEROTH: Yes. That was a serious Assistant Editors’ Month book. I may have put Ron Frenz and Terry Austin on the story, but the plot (it was done Marvel style) was there when I took the book over. I know I worked out the cover with John Romita, Jr., who was the regular penciler on the book. The cover incorporated the “Kid” story with

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You Twenty-two of the above titles participated in the stunt, either through wacky covers, tongue-in-cheek stories of various lengths, or the simple nods of corner-box gags and the “Beware” cover stamp. Can you I.D. the AEMs without peeking at the sidebar? (below) Detail from the cover to Avengers #239. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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the lead story in the issue, which was in regular continuity, and had Spider-Man fighting Thunderball, one of the Wrecking Crew. AEM also had the Fred Hembeck-drawn issue of Spectacular Spider-Man [see above]. CARLIN: That I remember. That was a lot of fun. I have to say that “The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man” is, to me, one of the best Spider-Man stories ever done, and I feel honored to have instigated that. I’m taking credit retroactively even though I had nothing to do with the story. [laughs] FINGEROTH: You heard it here. Mike thought of the idea. He drew it and he fed Roger the script. [Roger Stern wrote the “Kid” story.] CARLIN: David Letterman thought of the idea and he told it to Roger. FINGEROTH: I think the only one of the core Spidey titles that didn’t have an AEM plan when I came on board was Marvel Team-Up. Luckily, Mike Carlin was available to write it.

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CARLIN: Yes, I had a funny idea—I mean, if you’re allowed to be funny, why not be funny? So I thought it would be weird if Aunt May became Galactus’ herald. And it really was only to do two things. One was to use the name “Golden Oldie,” which is a name you can’t use straight for any character, so that was fun. And the other one was to make fun of those crummy Twinkie ads that used to be in all the comic books back in the ’70s, and ultimately it became a big ad for “Twinkles,” starring Galactus. FINGEROTH: Now, did I come to you, or did you come to me? How did we come up with that? CARLIN: I have no idea. I probably just threw it out as a dumb idea, and you were happy to give the regular team a day off and get caught up on the schedule. FINGEROTH: There was no regular team when I got the book, which might have been one reason that Tom didn’t have anything slotted for it. I had a lot of fill-in stories. CARLIN: There you go. I was the fill-in guy. But it really was just a fun idea, a joke that could not have been used unless What If? did another funny issue. FINGEROTH: I have the story right here, and on the cover it says, “Not a Hoax! Not a What If! Not an Imaginary Story!” That’s right, it was a dream! [laughter] CARLIN: Exactly. FINGEROTH: I was proud of that cover copy. Yes, I admit, I wrote it—not my assistant. The Hembeck issue of Spectacular was written completely straight by Bill Mantlo, but drawn by Hembeck, except there was a framing sequence by regular artist Al Milgrom, done in his wacky “Editori-Al” style, which showed him coming in and having a confrontation with my assistant, Bob DeNatale: “What the heck is this Hembeck stuff you’re replacing me with?” But the basic story was in continuity and written straight, just drawn with those Fred Hembeck-style characters. For readers out there who don’t know Fred’s work, he’s got a funny, caricature-based style [you can see what Hembeck is all about at his website: www.hembeck.com]. In retrospect, putting Hembeck on that issue was a pretty wild thing to do. He was well known to comics fans, but at that point in time, the newsstand was still the main market for super-hero comics. A lot of readers must really have been scratching their heads. For those who got it, though, it was brilliant. And we did end the issue with a couple of “serious” Milgrom-Mooney pages. CARLIN: That story’s going to make the Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man, volume 37, pretty weird. [laughs] FINGEROTH: And then your story was a funny story, but drawn completely straight. CARLIN: What was fun about the whole AEM stunt was that you could mix it up. Like there’s not one way to do a good comic book, there’s not one way to do a good funny comic book. There wasn’t one assistant editor who dictated every part of their book. I mean, I did a few little things that nobody else did to make mine unique. I put the old DC “Go-Go Checks” on my

Marvel covers. I also put a takeoff on the old National Periodicals DC Bullet, using M and C instead of D and C. (I told the bosses it stood for Marvel Comics—but it really stood for Mike Carlin! [Was this blasphemy? Or a harbinger of where I’d end up for the next 20 years?] I even had my corner symbol figures drawn facing the wrong way. So instead of Captain America jumping toward you, he was jumping away. [laughs] He was trying to get away from his issue. FINGEROTH: We editors were away, most of us, for a week to two weeks, because some of us went up to L.A. for meetings at Marvel Studios after the con, and then some of us just went on vacation. So if you want to see what it would be like to have the assistant editors really in charge, don’t look at Assistant Editors’ Month, look at the month or two after that, because those are the books the assistants really would have been working on. CARLIN: Exactly. So you have to look at two months to four months after that January. So look up to June in …’83 it was, I think? Yeah, check out the covers with those dates to see where things really went wrong. FINGEROTH: So, did anything zany actually happen in the office while we were away? CARLIN: Nothing zanier than unusual. If anything, the assistants were galvanized to not screw up. So it was probably a little more serious in the office just because everybody didn’t want to be the guy that did something wrong. When the editors came back and Shooter got a load of something, nobody wanted to be the guy who got clobbered. It really was kind of business as usual. In any office situation, when the bosses are away, the atmosphere’s a little lighter. And the fact that there were no Blackberries back then, or even fax machines, meant that you were pretty safe until they got back, so it would take some of the heat off. Nowadays, if a boss calls you from out of town, you really are in trouble. FINGEROTH: I was relatively newly promoted, so I was calling in a couple of times a day, for which everybody made endless fun of me out there. CARLIN: Well, they make fun of me now because I answer emails even when I’m on a vacation cruise, but it’s for my own stress level. It’s to not come home and have 300 emails that I have to answer. It’s really just about keeping up so my heart doesn’t give out. FINGEROTH: So you can answer an email on a cruise and then just go back to your vacation? CARLIN: Yeah. FINGEROTH: You switch your vacation mode on and off? CARLIN: Yeah, I just got back from an 11-day cruise. I was out for 14 days. So I just set aside two hours right in the middle of the vacation to cover all the emails that had come in up until then, and two hours right at the end of the vacation to cover anything else that had come in while I was gone, and it really takes the heat off. FINGEROTH: But you have an assistant here [at DC], right? CARLIN: An associate editor, actually … but, yeah, I don’t feel right leaving everything for him. It’s a never-ending battle. It’s corny, but this is a job of minutiae. That’s what all assistant editors learn very fast. You have to have your head in five different points in time, on 500 different parts of a project, or ten projects, at any given time, and you can’t freeze up. You have to just keep moving forward. Every single day there’s a thousand things you have to deal with, including a ton of emails. FINGEROTH: The irony of the whole electronic revolution is that the fantasy was: “Oh, with electronic media and email, we’ll get our work done so fast we’ll be able to go to the gym for the rest of the day,” but of course all the high-tech stuff does is give you time to do more minutiae. CARLIN: Yeah, you can do more, and you can certainly do it fast, but you also are dealing with some contributors who like to push everything as late and as close to the last minute as they possibly can, and that means you still have to have a high stress level when you’re finally dealing with something. FINGEROTH: Freelancers can now send work in, literally, a second before it’s due. CARLIN: It’s true. There was a period for a while where comics were being drawn and they would be on the stands less than two weeks later. You can’t run a whole line like that forever—or your life, like that, for that matter. Once in a while you might need to do it, but those companies that had years publishing like that … I don’t know how people slept at all. Even if you weren’t working, you had to be stressing about it.

It’s Clobberin’ Time! Mike Carlin discusses Marvel Assistant Editors' Month on NYC cable TV's Bob's Comic Book Quiz in 1983. Courtesy of Mike Carlin.

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FINGEROTH: Some people can’t work without that stress. I know a deadline is a useful thing for me. CARLIN: Useful is different than domineering. If it is running the show and deciding your life, then you don’t have a handle on it. FINGEROTH: One reason I thought of doing this “Pro2Pro” is because there was an entry on Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters comics gossip and rumor website [on www.cbr.cc] about AEM. Rich is a guy who has a pretty good understanding of the workings of the comics industry, but he was talking about Assistant Editors’ Month as if it really happened the way it was portrayed in the Bullpen Bulletins. And I’m thinking, “If this guy, whose job is to be cynical and not believe the hype, if he thinks that it happened that way…” So I wrote him an email saying, “I think you should know the AEM books may have been good, bad, or indifferent, but the whole event was contrived, and I can’t believe that you of all people didn’t get that.” And his response indicated that he really believed it, maybe because he was only 12 years old or something when it happened. So that’s why I thought we should open people’s eyes. CARLIN: I have a real problem with how the Internet shows what goes on behind the curtain. I really think that that whole Wizard of Oz thing of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” is part of what comicbook reading should be about. I don’t want to know who’s fighting with who at a company, I don’t want to know what happened in the background, I don’t really want to know how hard it was for a comic-book company to get all the pages together and color it up nice and printed in the right order and in my hands. When I’m a customer, I just want to enjoy the show. And I think that everybody has to always remember that every word of editorial content in a comic book is entertainment. It’s not a journal, and it’s not journalism, for sure, especially with the old letters pages. They were more hype, promotion. They were there to do a job, and that job was to maybe crack a joke or two and to be funny and entertaining, definitely to be informative when there was something to inform about, but for the most part we were creating personalities for public consumption. Jim Shooter’s takes on the antics in the office, they’re not all fabrications, but they are definitely embellished, and they’re not all we did. FINGEROTH: It’s fine that there was an official version of AEM. It’s part of our jobs to create the feeling that it’s fun to make comics—which it often is—and that the people who make them are fun people— which they may or may not really be. But, as you said, comics sell more than stories and characters. They sell the feeling that for the price of a comic, you’ve become part of a community of fun people.

CARLIN: Just talking about what an assistant does when their boss is on a vacation, it’s a job. It’s not all fun and frolics. But according to everything that was mentioned in the hype pages about that editors’ trip and about Assistant Editors’ Month was, it was a laugh a minute, apparently. FINGEROTH: That was true of the west coast trip as much as it was of what went on in the office. We were working out there, including staging “fun” events that were supposed to be the basis of a fumetti [photo comic] book. Because everybody wants to see editors trying to be funny in photos. CARLIN: At least you got to go on the trip! FINGEROTH: I got to go on the trip. It was interesting because we did spend an awful lot of time at the booth, as I recall. We had these breakfast meetings every day in which we sort of strategized what we’d do the whole day. And all the stuff that they talked about in the Bullpen Bulletins did happen, but, of course, the best stories can’t be told. CARLIN: It was work. FINGEROTH: It was work, it had a quality of “enforced fun,” y’know? Which is still a kind of fun—but you were always aware you were at work. CARLIN: Exactly. And at the office, the comics themselves, which were lighter that month, still took the same amount of work to get done and drawn and put out

Grateful Dave A personal thankyou. Courtesy of Mike Carlin. © NBC.

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CHECKLIST

1. Alpha Flight #6 2. Amazing Spider-Man #248 3. Avengers #239 4. Captain America #289 5. Conan the Barbarian #154 6. Daredevil #202 7. Dazzler #30 8. Defenders #127 9. Fantastic Four #262 10. The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #13 11. G. I. Joe #19 12. Incredible Hulk #291 13. Iron Man #178 14. Marvel Fanfare #12 15. Marvel Tales #202 16. New Mutants #11 17. Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #86 18. Power Man/Iron Fist #101 19. Rom: Spaceknight #50 20. The Thing #7 21. Thor #339 22. Uncanny X-Men #177

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on the shelves. Hembeck is a human and he has the same physical time/reality limitations that the regular artist had on Spectacular Spider-Man. The AEM stories were mostly different because we got a chance to lighten up a little bit. FINGEROTH: That trip was the first time, really the only time, I met and spoke to Jack Kirby. And, of course, suddenly I was 12 years old again. I was afraid to even go up and say hello to him, even though he was clearly open to being approached. So my then-wife and Christie Scheele literally dragged me over to meet him. I geeked out and offered him work on Spider-Man, which was ridiculous, because I think he was in the middle of all sorts of conflict with Marvel at that time, so the idea that he could be offered or accept work probably violated ten different corporate directives that I was unaware of. He told me he could tell I was a “real firecracker,” which was cool. I wonder if that’s what he told everybody. Any other Kirby firecrackers out there? CARLIN: What’s really going on was that while Kirby was there meeting you, his assistant was drawing all his comics, because it was Assistant Editors’ Month, Assistant Pencilers’ Month, Assistant Inkers’ Month. Ooh, that would have been really good. [laughs] FINGEROTH: Do you think a company could do Assistant Editors’ Month in 2006? Is that a viable idea today? There’s certainly a lot of “stunt” comics content. CARLIN: Personally, I wouldn’t have done it then. [laughter] I find that the people who read super-hero comics today don’t like you to poke fun at them. They don’t like what they’re reading to be different. They like it to be the same. Every now and then you can sneak something by them that is different and they’ll respond to it, but they would never have told you they wanted it up front. And it’s not a question of what the assistant editors’ levels of ability are or any of that kind of thing. If you did it today, you’d have to do it the same way as 23 years ago. There’s still the lead time problem, there’s still the reality that there’s not a publisher out there who’s not going to have some real supervisor look over everything before it leaves anyway. Maybe because we’re a hundred times more litigious society than we were in the early ’80s, I think that companies have to monitor stuff, or they’re asking for it. FINGEROTH: I think with the Internet now, you’d probably want to actually have a contest where you have the winners come in and be guest editors. CARLIN: People who have advertised with DC have run “be a DC editor for a day” kinds of contests. People come in and they get feted with food and things that have nothing to do with being an editor. It’s still not close to being real. And, again, I don’t believe there’s a place in the major companies today where that can happen. I think that bigger companies like Marvel and Image and DC and Dark Horse have a responsibility, if they’re charging three bucks or something for a comic, to have some standard of quality that you’re just not going to get from the guy who wants to edit one comic. FINGEROTH: I think it’s about time to wrap this up, Mike. I’m trying to come up with something pithy to say about Assistant Editors’ Month. Maybe it’s just to observe that, despite it being a contrived event, some fun stuff did come out of it, comics that broke the proverbial fourth wall. AEM was maybe the last gasp of a style of comics that were able to pull off the trick of telling serious stories which didn’t suffer from creators and readers acknowledging that, to quote Crumb, “it’s just lines on paper, folks.” And when you think about it, it was just a few months later that Secret Wars came out, which was a milestone in the tightening of comics continuity, as well as in the move toward deeper seriousness in story tone and content. Outpith that, Carlin—I dare ya! CARLIN: You are a regular Brad Pith, Fing… won’t even try to compete! But I will add a decidedly un-pithy closing thought: There are still places in comics where people do have fun. Marvel’s done several What The--? type deals over the years. Sergio Aragonés works steadily for places like Image and Dark Horse and DC. And lots of independent comics and smaller publishers do tons of fun/funny comics. But I’d bet you a dollar even they’re not being done by the assistants! Comics good and bad are done by seasoned professionals—we swear! FINGEROTH: And with those words of wisdom, we can turn off the recorder and get something to eat! CARLIN: You’re buyin’!

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Peter Sand

erson As of August 12 of 2006, it has been ten years since the sudden, unexpected death of Marvel writer and editor Mark Gruenwald from a massive cardiac attack at his country home in Pawling, New York. He was only 43 years old, and one of the very first of the Baby Boomer generation of comics professionals to leave us. Mark was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on June 18, 1953, and his boyhood was a lot like that of his contemporaries in comics, but he had two big advantages. His father, Myron, had not only been a super-hero comics fan back in the Golden Age of the 1940s, but, unlike most parents, encouraged his son to read them, too. Not only that, Mark’s mother, Norma, worked in a drugstore with its own comics rack! At first Mark read DCs and developed a lifelong affection for the Justice League. When he was nine he saw his first Marvel comic, and at age ten one of his fan letters was printed in Fantastic Four #20. In kindergarten Mark also started writing and drawing his own amateur comics. He was on his way! He didn’t lose his passion for comics as he grew older, either. In fact, after college he moved to New York City, specifically in order to break into the comics business. To show what he could do, Mark created the most unusual of comics fanzines, Omniverse: The Journal of Fictional Reality, which took a serious approach to certain sciencefiction conventions in comics, particularly time travel and alternate universes. (Two of Mark’s heroes were Justice League of America editor Mark Gruenwald Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox, who had pioneered the parallel-Earth concept in comics; they both make cameo appearances At his desk at Marvel Comics, circa 1983. in his Squadron Supreme series, and he long considered writing a All photos in this feature are courtesy of Mike Carlin. biography of Schwartz.) Now when I watch documentaries describing how scientists now believe time travel is possible, and that there may indeed be alternate universes vibrating at different rates of speed, I entries on Marvel and DC characters seem influenced by the format am amazed at how Mark’s fantasies may yet prove to be realities. Mark sent a copy of Omniverse to Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, Mark devised. Even Mark’s original Handbooks are now back in print. who hired him to be an assistant editor in February 1978. Omniverse They may be dated, yet the concept has passed the test of time. Mark’s foremost achievement as a writer of fiction may be the also brought me into Mark’s circle, as I became its assistant editor. It was Mark who is principally responsible for my career in comics. Maybe the Squadron Supreme limited series. I’ve been giving a lecture course connection between us was that I was an Ivy League academic who called “1986: The Year That Changed Comics” at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City. That was the was fascinated by the DC and Marvel Universes, and year that Alan Moore’s Watchmen, and Frank Miller’s The he was very much a scholar at heart. Dark Knight Returns, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus came Omniverse led to Mark’s creation of The Official out. With that kind of competition, Squadron may have Handbook of the Marvel Universe, his encyclopedia of been underrated at the time. But in its quieter way, it too Marvel characters, alien races, gadgetry, and more. was a revolutionary work for the super-hero genre. The Handbook embodied Mark’s belief that the fictional It also predicted the future of comics. Think of a cosmos and characters created by Stan Lee, Jack storyline in which Superman and his allies, with benign Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others, and their histories, intentions, assume control over America, and Batman deserved to be taken seriously and chronicled by teams up with Lex Luthor and other master criminals to pop-culture historians. The collected biographies of overthrow their dictatorship. Squadron Supreme did the characters in the Handbooks amount to a grand this story a decade before Kingdom Come. How about compendium of Marvel’s greatest stories, all interwoven a romance between Superman and Wonder Woman? into a whole. Mark brought me aboard as a Handbook You can see it in Kingdom Come or in Miller’s The Dark writer and researcher, and I ended up writing more of Knight Strikes Again, but Squadron got there first. What subsequent versions than he did. about a storyline in which a Justice League brainwashes The Handbook and similar projects such as DC’s one of his or her own teammates? Identity Crisis did it Who’s Who were popular in the 1980s but then fell in 2005, but Squadron did it back in 1986. from favor at both DC and Marvel. Yet today, a new Years before, Roy Thomas had conceived of the generation of comics historians is compiling new © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. Squadron as semi-serious parodies of the Justice Handbooks at Marvel, and similar projects, like DK’s League, who inhabited an alternate Earth: Hyperion Marvel Encyclopedia and Ultimate Guides to DC and Marvel characters, and Gina Misiroglu’s Superhero and Misiroglu and was Superman, Nighthawk was Batman, and so forth. Steve Englehart Michael Eury’s Supervillain Books, likewise carry on Mark’s tradition. later characteristically introduced a political angle to stories involving The forthcoming handbook for the alternative super-hero series the Squadron. With his love of the real Justice League since childhood, Invincible is intentionally being done as a tribute to Mark. Wikipedia you can see why Mark would be eager to work with the Squadron. 4 2

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Mark for the most part dropped the parody but took the political theme much further. If super-heroes had the ability to remake the world into a utopia, Mark asked in Squadron Supreme, why didn’t they do so? Perhaps Mark was thinking of the classic “imaginary story” on this theme, “Superman Red and Superman Blue,” but the same question was asked by Alan Moore in his British series Miracleman, which was being published in America that same year. Miracleman’s utopia worked, but Moore had grown warier of the “man who would be god” when he presented Ozymandias in Watchmen in 1986. Simultaneously, in Squadron Mark asked what the price of utopia was, not only in terms of human freedom but with regard to the “hero’s” conscience. The Squadron members set out to rebuild an America that had fallen into catastrophic ruin and transform it into an earthly paradise. But step by step, after one moral compromise after another, the Squadron turn America into an Orwellian state in which even freedom of thought has been abolished. This is a parable of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Squadron ends with its own version of Ragnarok: a cataclysmic battle between Hyperion’s forces and Nighthawk’s, which claims the lives of former friends and allies, including Nighthawk himself. Grim and gritty that may be, but it was not morbid and despairing like so many subsequent comics. Like Samson and Oedipus, Hyperion has been physically blinded but now “sees” more clearly. As leader of the surviving Squadron members, he vows they will undo their past mistakes. Mark offered up hope for repentance and redemption, and Squadron ends not with death but with the birth of a Squadron member’s new baby, embodying the hope represented by a new generation. Still, rereading Squadron a decade after Mark’s demise, the fate of another of its members becomes even more affecting: Tom Thumb, the brilliant visionary, who foresaw his own death and could not avert it, and yet worked up until the last for the betterment of others. Squadron may be Mark’s masterpiece, but I suspect that the rest of his comics writing deserves rediscovery and critical reappraisal. He wrote Captain America for a decade, creating the memorable storyline in which Steve Rogers resigned as Cap rather than subordinate his sense of right and wrong to government superiors. In the underappreciated Quasar, Mark sought to

Worm’s Eye View (top right) Mark and Walter Simonson in the Marvel office shared by Gruenwald and his then-assistant editor, Mike Carlin, circa 1983.

No, They’re Not the Blues Brothers (middle right) Groom Mike Carlin and best man Mark Gruenwald at Carlin’s July 1986 wedding.

Mullets and Memories (bottom right) Circa 1990, a gathering of Gruenwald (standing) and his one-time assistants: (left to right) Greg Wright, Howard Mackie, and Mike Carlin. U n s u n g

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combine Schwartz-style science fiction with Marvelstyle characterization and themes. I wish that someday Marvel would reprint Mark’s creation D.P.7, the forgotten gem of Marvel’s ill-fated “New Universe” line: The character-driven saga of a community of super-powered individuals, it was like a kinder, gentler X-Men. Each of his series followed his perennial theme: the struggle of good people to do what is right in a dangerous, morally complex world. Mark literally put himself into his work. You may have heard the story that, following his wishes, Mark was cremated and his ashes were mixed into the inks used to print one of his comics. It’s no urban legend: If you own a first edition of the Squadron trade paperback, you’ve got some of Mark Gruenwald on your bookshelf. More than in the books he wrote, Mark put his, well, mark on the Marvel Universe through his role as editor. Among the 1980s classics he oversaw were Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer’s magnificent collaboration on Avengers; Denny O’Neil’s harrowing examination of Tony Stark’s alcoholism in Iron Man; and Steve Englehart’s inventive West Coast Avengers. Mark’s influence over the entire Marvel line grew as he became right-hand man to editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco, and ultimately senior executive editor. But being a writer and editor were only two of his many facets. Mark was an amateur actor, comedian, musician (a guitarist), and filmmaker who produced, co-wrote, and co-starred in his own public-access cable TV show Cheap Laughs. He was a costume designer, for whom Halloween seemed as important a holiday as Christmas. He was the consummate prankster, whose elaborate practical jokes became Marvel legends. Mark was also a teacher, presiding over the weekly class for Marvel’s assistant editors, imparting his thorough knowledge of crafting comics to the next generation of comics professionals. “Mark’s Remarks,” the column that Mark wrote for years in various comics, may have been a

Wrap Artist (right) Mark Gruenwald as “Weebwow: The Man from the Distant Future of the 1990s,” for a Cheap Laughs cable TV skit in 1984.

Head Cases (far right) A Cheap Laffs reunion for Mark’s 1992 bachelor party. Top to bottom: Eliot Brown, Mark Gruenwald, Mike Carlin, and Heady LaMarr. 4 4

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variation on “Stan’s Soapbox,” but now it strikes me as being a blog before the rise of the Internet. (And now it actually is on the web, at www.geocities.com/mh_prime/). He was the mastermind and master of ceremonies for “Mondo Marvel,” “Marvelympics,” and other such events at comics conventions: Marvel-themed game shows with audience participation. To Mark’s mind it was important to convey the sense to our audience that Marvel comics were fun. It was likewise important for Mark to make his coworkers feel that, too. It was hardly all fun and games during the Shooter era. But whether through parties in the office or even more elaborate parties at his home, or commissioning Marvel jumpsuits for the staff, or decorating his office like a horror movie dungeon, Mark did his utmost to keep Marvel morale high. But Mark has now been gone for ten years, and with so much turnover at Marvel, there are few people left there who knew him. But he remains alive in the memories of those of us who knew him. And he left a lot of his work with us. His Handbooks and Squadron are back in print. Mark’s widow Catherine and I would love to see a revival of Omniverse. Catherine also has Mark’s thick book of notes for his lectures to his assistant editor classes, serving as a comprehensive guide on how to create comics. And he left plenty of other unpublished material. Who knows, perhaps a Gruenwald renaissance awaits. Comics critic, historian, and teacher Peter Sanderson was the first official archivist at Marvel Comics, and is the author of several books on Marvel. He was also one of the principal writers for the original four versions of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and DC Comics’ Who’s Who. A frequent contributor to magazines about comics, Sanderson has written for Comic Buyer’s Guide, The Comics Journal, and Wizard, and is a graphic novel reviewer for Publishers Weekly. He writes the online column “Comics in Context,” a weekly series of essays on comic and cartoon art, for IGN Comics (http://comics.ign.com/).

Michael Eury

The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe #1 and 2 Image Comics, Nov. and Dec. 2006 48 color pages • $4.99 U.S.

In the 1980s, Marvel Comics’ Mark Gruenwald catered to readers’ inner fanboy by developing the ultimate who’s who/what’s what guide to Marvel’s characters, The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe. The series continued on for years through a number of permutations, and has been recently collected in Marvel’s Essential trade-paperback format as well as revived in a series of All-New Handbooks. Artist Dusty Abell was a reader of those original Handbooks, and in their spirit has spearheaded a twoissue series debuting in November 2006 from Image Comics. “I’ve put together an homage to Mark Gruenwald’s original comic-book series from back in the early ’80s using the characters from the best super-hero comic on the stands today, Invincible,” Abell says. “It’s The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe, an illustrated guide which attempts to detail the Invincible Universe and the diverse collection of characters in it.” A host of artists from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s joins a lineup of contemporary names for a stunning collection of character pinups, with Jason Pearson, Dave Johnson, Herb Trimpe, Phil Noto, Ed McGuinness, Mike Wieringo, Brian Stelfreeze, Neal Adams, Rudy Nebres, and Craig Hamilton among their number. We’ll stop yapping now and let this sampling of Invincible Handbook artwork, courtesy of Dusty Abell, speak for itself...

Gruenwald’s Mark The running-character wraparound cover format made famous in Marvel’s Handbooks (and seen above in the original John Byrne/Joe Rubinstein art to Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition #7, June 1986; courtesy of Heritage Comics) is replicated in Image’s Invincible version, with cover art by Dusty Abell and Kelsey Shannon. Marvel Universe and related characters TM & © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. Invincible and related characters TM & © 2006 Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker.

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Seems Like Old Times… (left) …with new characters, like the Immortal, drawn by the equally immortal Paul Smith and designed in the classic Marvel Universe layout. © 2006 Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker.

Fantastic Four Four BACK ISSUE fan favorites are among the Invincible Universe artists: (clockwise from above left) Mike Zeck (drawing Elephant), Terry Austin (Doc Seismic), Ron Frenz (Black Samson), and Sal Buscema (Mauler). © 2006 Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker.

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The Art of (Gallery artwork courtesy of Heritage Comics, Jay Willson, Barry Keller, and Steve Lipsky.)

Don Newton’s model sheet for Nick Cuti’s “Dee Munn,” one of the characters considered to host a new early-1970s horror title at Charlton Comics. Newton and Cuti ultimately created Baron Weirwulf instead, in one-page strips that Don drew. © 2006 the respective copyright holder.

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A favorite among Newton fans is Don’s painted cover to Charlton’s The Phantom #73 (Oct. 1976). In the inset is a treat: an excerpt from the artist’s first, unfinished version of that cover, rescued by Jay Willson out of Don’s trash can after a frustrated Newton decided to start over. Willson says that the rough reveals “Don’s painting process: inking the drawing in marker, painting backgrounds in detail first, and finishing up with the figure last.” The Phantom TM & © 2006 King Features Syndicate.

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A close look at Newton’s astounding pencil work on a rejected cover intended for Batman #356 (Feb. 1983). In 2006, a copy of this art was inked by the late artist’s inker of choice, Joe Rubinstein, and graces our cover this issue. Batman TM & © 2006 DC Comics.

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Barry Keller

(Artwork and photographs appearing in this article are from the collections of Barry Keller, Jay Willson, and Steve Lipsky, to whom this magazine extends its gratitude. Additional original art scans are courtesy of Heritage Comics, www.heritagecomics.com.)

The Ghost Who Sits A 1973 Don Newton Phantom cover for the legendary fanzine Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector (RBCC) #106.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a number of young comic-book artists made a mark for themselves in the growing ranks of comic fandom publications. They would quickly emerge as part of a new wave of comic artists that energized the industry with a fresh dose of exuberant talent. Most of these artists (Michael Kaluta, Berni[e] Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Dave Cockrum, Jim Starlin, etc.) spent a year or so in fandom before striking out for gold in the pros. But it didn’t always happen quite this way; it didn’t happen this way for Don Newton. In many ways, Don was not like the other breakout fandom artists. Donald L. Newton was born November 12, 1934, in the small coal-mining town of St. Charles, Virginia. After Don developed asthma at an early age his family moved to Arizona, where the hot, dry air was easier on their young son. Don grew up in the city of Mesa, outside of Phoenix. By the time he began his tenure in the world of comic-book fandom, Don was an elementary school art teacher in his mid-thirties. Don wasn’t just another in a long line of comic-fandom artists; Don was the comic fandom artist. His work appeared in over 100 issues of 38 different titles, including seven issues of The Comic Crusader, eight issues of The Comic Reader, ten issues of The Collector, and an amazing 36 issues of The Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector. Newton tried for years to leverage his connections in fandom into a job at DC or Marvel, but living in Arizona put him at a distinct disadvantage. Marvel in particular wanted their artists close at hand, and Don was unwilling to move from Arizona. For a brief period in the early 1970s, Don was an assistant to Captain Marvel artist C. C. Beck, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship (as detailed in Alter Ego vol. 3 #11, Nov. 2001), but it never resulted in actual published work. Newton finally set his sights a little lower and sent sample pages to Nicola Cuti at Charlton Comics. Where the big publishers passed on Newton, the little one was excited to get its hands on such an artistic find.

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Favorite of Fandom: Early- to Mid-1970s Fan Art by Don Newton

(above left) The Hood, from the fanzine Illustrated Comic Collectors Handbook vol. 4, where Don did 14 illustrations. (above) Newton’s rendition of the Man of Bronze, Doc Savage. (below) Newton was well known for his strip The Savage Earth, which ran in RBCC for over a year. © 2006 the respective copyright holder. © 2006 Condé Nast. © 2006 Don Newton estate.

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(left) Years before drawing Shazam! for DC Comics, Don Newton drew this Marvel Family/C. C. Beck tribute cover for RBCC #91 and recapped Captain Marvel’s origin in Rocket’s Blast Special #8 (below). © 2006 DC Comics.

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Roy, Is That You? (below) Page 1 of Don’s last horror story for Charlton, from Midnight Tales #14 (Sept. 1975). “The character Harley Davenport looks a whole like Roy Thomas,” observes BACK ISSUE contributor Barry Keller, to which Newton friend Jay Willson adds, “Don didn’t know Roy Thomas at the time, but had seen him in The Comics Reader, Mediascene, and other industry papers, and probably would have drawn Thomas in there to attempt, in his own weird way, to get Marvel to notice him. I think that is supposed to be Roy Thomas. (It sure looks like him.)” © 1975 Charlton Comics.

Don Newton (above) A 1979 Mesa Tribune photo. CHARLTON COMICS Don Newton did his first published professional comic-book work at Charlton Comics in 1974. Though Don’s first love had always been super-heroes, Charlton didn’t publish super-hero comics in 1974, so Don drew what many artists breaking into the business drew in those years…

THE HORROR COMICS Newton’s first work for Charlton was “The Empty Room,” a seven-page horror story in Ghost Manor #18 (Mar. 1974). Don was very displeased with his art. “The way I rushed through the job, I thought they’d hate it!” Don once wrote. As it turned out, everyone at Charlton loved it. Don’s next strip, “The Treasure Seekers,” appeared in The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #45 (May 1974). Charlton Editor Nicola Cuti wrote Don: Joe Gill and myself have been looking over your story: “The Treasure Seekers” and we felt compelled to write you a note. The craftsmanship of the art is superb. Each character is unique and interesting, not a department store manikin, and the dreariness of the swamp is unmistakable. Please continue to turn out your art on this level of quality and there is no doubt in our minds that you will soon be rising to the top of the profession. Ghost Manor #19 (June 1974) had two one-page features by Don. The first introduced the character of Baron Weirwulf and his mysterious library from which the Baron would read facts about “vampires, werewolves, monsters, UFOs, and magic.” These would appear in the pages of many Charlton comics.

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The Baron Weirwulf character would prove so popular that in April 1975 he was promoted to his own book with the release of Baron Weirwulf’s Haunted Library (BWHL) #21 (actually Haunted #21, but the first issue to have BWHL on the cover). It featured a beautiful Newton cover painting of the good Baron and a single introductory page inside by Don. Newton spent a year and a half doing horror stories for Charlton, and painting covers for their horror and romance books. Midnight Tales #14 (Sept. 1975) contained the last of the new horror work that Newton would do for Charlton. The sixpage tale of time travel entitled “Love Thy Neighbor” was written by Nicola Cuti and penciled and inked by Don. The story features a couple of very nice pages and serves as a nice ending to Don’s tenure on the Charlton horror comics, a genre which he personally did not like to draw. Don was a super-hero fan and longed to draw “men in tights.” He was about to get his wish.

THE PHANTOM October 1975 saw the release of Charlton’s The Phantom #67, featuring a beautiful cover painting and 23 pages of story by Don. Newton was stylistically reinventing the strip, and his first issue of The Phantom was a retelling of the character’s origin. “Triumph of Evil!” is attributed to writer Joe Gill, but Newton would later claim that he “re-wrote 50% of [the] #67 script.” Within a few months, Don’s friend and ex-Witzend editor Bill Pearson would become Charlton’s new assistant editor. After Don complained to Bill about Joe Gill’s scripts, Pearson unofficially took over the editing of The Phantom and gave Don pretty much free reign to collaborate on all scripts, with Don’s input growing with each issue. Newton would pencil and ink all of his Phantom work and would supply a cover painting for every issue he drew. Newton rewrote and drew issue #68, but issue #69 only featured a cover painting by Newton. Newton had a lot of gripes with Charlton and when Pearson took over control of the book, there was finally someone at Charlton who would listen. It took Pearson a while to get control of The Phantom, or as Don put it, “They were screwing around trying to figure out who was going to be the writer and we lost over a month.” When the dust had settled, Pearson and Newton would control the writing for the remainder of the series. Additionally, Bill Pearson would color the interiors of The Phantom to great effect. Because of the “screwing around” they had to, as Don put it, “pull one they had on the shelf” for #69. During the rest of Newton’s short run on the book, he wrote (along with Pearson and Don’s friend John Clark), penciled, inked, and painted covers for issues #70–74. This run featured two classic Newton pieces at Charlton. Issue #70 (Apr. 1976) of The Phantom is simply amazing. Don described it like this: “The Phantom meets Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and a bunch of others as they seek a fabulous golden idol in

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Casablanca!!! Sounds like a comedy? Not really. It’s a tight mystery based on four old Bogart films that Pearson and I wrote. This will be the first super-hero comic in a long time with a plot rather than 20 pages of gang war!” Besides all the famous stars in “The Mystery of the Mali Ibex,” Newton created a supporting cast of over 20 of his real-life friends in a story that is part Casablanca and part The Maltese Falcon with a dash of The African Queen and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre thrown in. Although the tale was attributed solely to Pearson, Don would write:

A Cover with Bite (above left) A Charlton cover rough by Newton; project and date unknown.

A Letter from Don Newton’s personal stationery. Address and phone number no longer valid.

The original idea came when Pearson wrote some Phantom story summaries for me and at the end of one decided to be funny and said, “and in the end the Phantom stops in Casablanca where he meets Bogart, etc., etc.” When I read this I thought he was nuts, but then I began to see a possible story. So I called him up and he thought I was nuts! I suggested we string several old Bogart movies together and build a story around their elements. Well, he liked that idea and went to work on a script. He’d bring the story over and we’d tear it apart and he’d go and write it again … and again and again!

Newton’s swan song on the book, issue #74, features the Phantom of 1776 meeting Ben Franklin. It features Newton’s most stunning Phantom cover: the Phantom of 1776, sword in one hand, flintlock pistol in the other, in front of a smoky background of the Declaration of Independence and a tattered 13-star American flag. 5 8

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THE DEATH OF CHARLTON While Newton was soaring artistically, Charlton was floundering. There was a four-month gap between the bimonthly Phantom #72 and 73 and a three-month gap between #73 and 74. With #74 (cover-dated Jan. 1977), Charlton cancelled The Phantom, and then a month later the company folded for what would be the first of many times. When Newton began at Charlton he viewed the publisher as a stepping stone to Marvel, but once he started working on The Phantom, Don became disenchanted with Marvel and the “Marvel style” of story. He was even pursued at this time by then-Marvel editor Roy Thomas to draw the Liberty Legion for Marvel Premiere and turned it down, preferring to concentrate on The Phantom. However, while still working for Charlton, Newton did do work on Giant-Size Defenders #3 (Jan. 1975). Don’s friend Dan Adkins had been given the 32-page story to pencil and ink over Jim Starlin’s layouts, but was way behind schedule. With about ten days left to complete the strip, Adkins had only completed four pages and was panicking. He asked for Newton’s help (Adkins also enlisted the help of Jim Mooney). Newton said he would only do the work if Marvel gave him a credit line. Adkins immediately contacted Marvel and they readily agreed to Don’s terms. Newton penciled and inked 12 full pages and did contributing work on two other pages. Although told to follow Starlin’s layouts, Newton once said he “wound up erasing 90% of [Starlin’s] stuff.”

Also through Adkins, Newton did some uncredited inking on a few of Marvel’s kung-fu books that Adkins inked and did a frontispiece for The Savage Sword of Conan #6 (June 1975). In early 1976, Newton did a single painting for Marvel, the cover of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Special #1. Once again Don got the work through Adkins, who was art director of the Marvel black-and–white magazines at that time. Roy Thomas was impressed by Newton’s work on this cover, and said he was saddened that Marvel would not be allowed to use him again because Newton lived in Arizona. Newton inked the Don Heck penciled Apr. 1977 issue of Ghost Rider, #23. Newton left Heck’s pencils alone, so that the result is more Heck than Newton. Still, the combination is interesting and the book is a milestone in Newton’s career as it represented the first time he did a full book for someone other than Charlton. But Charlton was gone and the work from Marvel soon dried up, mainly because Marvel art director John Romita didn’t care for Don’s artwork, or so Don believed. Newton grew frustrated with his comics career.

DC COMICS Don’s frustration was shortlived, as within a few months he had a breakthrough with DC. Don would write: Last night got a call from none other than Neal Adams! He suggested I contact DC as they had been trying to reach me. A call to Joe Orlando today netted me a penciling job on Aquaman! Adams told me that he thought I might be able to get the Batman [book] and that he had suggested me for this assignment. That would be quite a giant step if I could get on Batman! So, the death of Charlton has actually opened up new and bigger doors for me. Maybe I’ll make the “big time” yet.

Don was a Neal Adams fan, and as his friend Jay Willson remembers, “This was a huge moment in Don’s life—not only did he get a solid assignment at DC, but to know that it was Neal Adams that had recommended him just blew him away. He was on cloud nine the whole week after that phone call.” Newton’s DC career began with DC Special #28 (July 1977). Don penciled a 12-page Aquaman strip, “A Creature of Death and Darkness!”, which was inked by his old friend Dan Adkins. Don Newton had finally made it to the “big time.”

NEW GODS Later that same month saw the release of Newton’s first series at DC, The New Gods #12 (July 1977). Newton had a great love of science fiction and the New Gods certainly had a lot of SF leanings. Jay Willson remembers, “Don had asked

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Star Hunters (left) Bob Layton inking Newton, from the first Star Hunters story in DC Super-Stars #16 (Oct. 1977).

Back to Atlantis (bottom left) The Newton-penciled splash to Aquaman #60 (Mar. 1978), inked by John Celardo.

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to do Batman or Captain Marvel and was a little perplexed and disappointed to be given The New Gods. He saw himself as the last artist to imitate Jack Kirby, but decided to just do his best on it and actually grew to like it somewhat.” Don was still working as a junior high school art teacher, yet managed to pencil the book in his “spare time.” Newton did seven issues of New Gods, issues #12–14 and #16–19, and two more New Gods stories that appeared in Adventure Comics. Dan Adkins inked most of Don’s work on The New Gods, but issue #16 (Feb. 1978) featured Joe Rubinstein’s first inks over Don’s pencils. Don was ecstatic over the collaboration and Rubinstein became Don’s favorite inker. His love of Rubinstein’s inks would later play a large part in Don’s decision to quit DC and work for Marvel, where he would be promised Rubinstein as his main inker.

STAR HUNTERS During this time, Newton co-created a new DC series with one of his favorite writers, David Michelinie. Star Hunters premiered in DC Super-Stars #16 (Oct. 1977) in a 34-page origin story inked by Bob Layton. At Michelinie’s urging, Don did all of the character and hardware designs for the series. It was Don’s idea to make the main character look like Errol Flynn, and Michelinie followed that idea by naming him Donovan Flynt in similar fashion. Newton also did the cover for this book, which was a rarity for Don at DC. Star Hunters #1 followed the next month, again by Michelinie, Newton, and Layton, but this was Newton’s last work on the Star Hunters feature. Don was very happy with Star Hunters until he saw Bob Layton’s inks; his whole interest in the book then changed, because Newton was adjusting for the first time to seeing his work inked by others, as Adkins and Rubinstein were just about the only people besides Don himself to ever ink Don’s pencils. Newton was often very critical of inkers, almost obsessively so. In later years, his frustration with an inker may not have driven him off of a book, but it did this time. Don asked for a different inker, and when told of Layton’s commitment to the book, he asked to be removed from Star Hunters.

AQUAMAN In 1977, DC revived the Aquaman title with issue #57, featuring artwork by Jim Aparo, and Don took over as the regular penciler with issue #60 (Mar. 1978). Around this time, DC committed to a contract with Don for 30 pages of penciling a month, so Newton was able to give up his job as a teacher and finally made comics his full-time career. Up until then, comics had been a second profession for Newton. He would pencil pages during the school lunch hour. When he had worked at Charlton, Don would pencil a page at lunch and ink it that night when he got home. Don asked Aquaman scribe Michelinie if he would write Batman into an issue, and so Aquaman #61 (Apr.–May 1978) guest-starred Batman and Green Lantern and afforded Newton his first professional opportunity to draw both characters. Aquaman was cancelled once again with issue #63, but Newton would continue drawing the character in Adventure Comics for the next year or so, alternating issues with Don Heck.

SHAZAM! Don Newton was maybe one of the biggest Captain Marvel fans of all time, and one of his lifelong ambitions was to draw Captain Marvel. He got his “dream job” in 1978. Newton was given the nod as the new penciler for the Shazam! book. Of this Don wrote: I am going to be taking over.............Captain Marvel! More over, Jack Harris sez to draw it realistic! Finally they bring him up to date … I’m going to get rid of his “wet look” and trim him down about 10 lbs.! This would be another defining moment in Don’s life, finally being able to draw one of his all-time favorite characters. Of being given the strip Don said, “I’ve ‘arrived’... where else can I go??” His first issue as penciler was in Shazam! #35 (May–June 1978), which, to Don’s great surprise, ended up being the book’s final issue. Don penciled the 17-page story “Backward, Turn Backward, O Time in Your Flight!”, which was written by E. Nelson Bridwell and inked by Kurt Schaffenberger. Don was very apprehensive when told that Kurt Schaffenberger would be inking the book and had a great deal of anxiety regarding the collaboration. However, when Don finally saw the beautiful black, slick inking that Schaffenberger used on the feature, Don became a big Schaffenberger supporter. Although the Shazam! book was cancelled before it had a chance to gain an audience under Newton’s new art approach, the Shazam! feature was quickly moved into World’s Finest Comics, which, at the time, was a “Dollar Comic” featuring 68 pages of new stories and art. His first World’s Finest issue, #253, was cover-dated November 1978. Newton and Schaffenberger were an interesting team, and Kurt stayed on the feature for nearly a year before a long, rotating line of inkers took over. Don would draw Shazam! in 28 issues of World’s Finest, ending his run in July 1982 in issue #281. The Shazam! feature then moved to Adventure Comics. Newton’s last work on his beloved Captain Marvel appeared in the Sept. and Oct. 1982 issues of Adventure. These two stories were obviously scheduled for World’s Finest, but it had reverted back to a standard comic featuring the Superman/Batman team. During this time period, Adventure was a 5" x 7" digest book, and the diminutive size of the printed page took its toll on the art’s impact.

BATMAN Since joining DC, Newton had been pressing his editors for an opportunity to draw Batman. He got his chance with Batman #305 (Nov. 1978), which featured an eight-page Batman backup strip “With This Ring—Find Me Dead!” inked by Dave Hunt. The same month, Don was the “guest penciler” on the Batman strip in Detective Comics #480. Newton followed it up with another backup story in the very next issue of Batman.

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Holy Moley! Guess what Don Newton was reading in 1979?

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The Clown Prince of Penpals (below) Don’s illustrated letter to the editor of a Phoenix paper regarding an article on Batman.

Within six months Don became the regular penciler of Detective Comics. Newton would also do backup stories in Batman, featuring Batman, Robin, or Catwoman, for the next two years before beginning a two-year stint on the main Batman strip beginning in late 1982. Newton also did a couple of issues of The Brave and the Bold, issues #153 (Aug. 1979, starring Batman and Red Tornado); and #156 (Nov. 1979, with Batman and Doctor Fate). In total, Newton did 79 stories featuring Batman or members of the Batman family during his tenure at DC. The Newton Batman harkened back to the days of Dick Sprang. Though it was never considered to be the “definitive” Batman—many others had mined that field before him—Newton did add to the Batman legend. Newton brought a level of humanity to the characters that others did not. What was “definitive” about Newton’s Batman work was the supporting cast. Although many inkers worked with Newton on his Batman pages, two stand out above the rest. His old friend, Dan Adkins, inked the vast majority of Newton’s Batman pages, and the late Alfredo Alcala inked the majority of his Detective pages. These men embodied completely different inking styles, but both added to the richness of Newton’s pencils. Adkins was one of Don’s favorites. He was a personal friend who had, for a while, during Don’s Charlton tenure, lived near Don in Phoenix. Adkins’ clean, precise style was neater than Don’s rough, brushy inks, but Dan’s inks let the Newton’s pencils show through. Adkins didn’t add much to Newton’s work, but he never took anything away from it, either. All of Don’s fine detail work was on display when Dan Adkins finished inking a page. Alfredo Alcala was almost the polar opposite of Adkins. Alfredo was the owner of a powerful brushstroke, which could, at times, overpower pencils. Alcala could hide a weak penciler in thick outlines and heavy contour lines, but Newton was not a weak penciler. Don had a very unique style and many times it clashed with Alcala’s inks. When Alfredo began inking Don’s Batman pencils, first in Detective and then in a long stint in Batman, many cried foul. Alcala’s heavy style obscured the Newton-ness of the artwork. But after about a year working together, something strange happened: synergy. Alcala began to back off a bit on the heaviness of the inks and you’d see this beautiful Newton anatomy, these extraordinarily expressive faces, and these wonderful quirky Newton characters with these thick, rich inks, not at odds with the pencils, but caressing and enriching them. Sometimes the results were pure magic. In some ways Alcala’s inks harkened back to Don’s own brushy fandom work. Alcala began to play with the blacks that could dominate Don’s pencils, adding texture and depth. While some debated the appropriateness of Alcala’s inks, there was one person who absolutely loved them: Don Newton. Don’s friend Jay Willson tells of a time when Alcala was going to a convention in California and stopped by a Phoenix comic-book shop to sign books: Don stood in line with everyone else and waited his turn to get Alcala’s signature. When it was Don’s turn, Alfredo asked to whom he should sign the book and when Don said, “Don Newton,” Alcala’s face lit up. “You are the Don Newton, the man I ink

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Don Newton’s Dark Knight Inkers

(clockwise from top left) Newton pencils, Dan Adkins inks, from Detective #486 (Aug.–Sept. 1979). Newton pencils, Dick Giordano inks, from Detective #524 (Mar. 1983). Newton pencils, Bob Smith inks, from Detective #539 (June 1984). Newton pencils, Alfredo Alcala inks, from Detective #526 (May 1983), Batman’s 500th appearance in the title. © 2006 DC Comics.

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on Batman?” Don nodded yes. Alcala came around the table and they hugged and they both began to talk at once about how much they loved each other’s work. Alcala talked about what an honor it was to ink Don’s pencils and Don returned the compliment, telling Alcala how much he appreciated the richness and beauty of Alfredo’s inks. Don had suffered through many poor inkers during his career, but he loved the “illustrative” style of the Filipino artists and never considered Alcala a poor inker.

MARVEL COMICS For years Newton’s career goal had been getting work at Marvel, but over time Newton became disillusioned with Marvel. Not only did he like the DC characters better, but also he found the “style” of the two companies to be almost direct opposites. Don felt that not only did DC have the best characters, but that DC relied on characterization to drive their plots, while Marvel seemed to focus on fight scenes, so he was quite satisfied with working at DC.

In 1979, however, he returned to Marvel to produce his best work there. Don wanted to draw Captain America at Marvel, but John Byrne was doing Cap at the time and The Avengers was the closest they could come to fulfilling Don’s request. Don wasn’t too thrilled about doing a team book, but took the assignment anyway when he was promised a higher page rate than DC was paying and Joe Rubinstein as his permanent inker on the book. Don had loved Joe’s New Gods inks years earlier and jumped at the opportunity to work with Rubinstein again. Don finished the pencils for two issues but did not have a script for a third issue in hand. DC had always filled Don’s time with a backup story or something else in the case of a script delay, so Don never had to stop drawing. When this did not happen at Marvel, Don panicked, contacted DC’s Paul Levitz, and re-upped his contract with DC at his new Marvel page rate. Don’s two issues of The Avengers became Avengers Annual #9 (1979), half of which was inked by Rubinstein. Joe’s clean, powerful style let the details in Don’s work shine through, while adding a depth to the pencils that other inkers could not. It was powerful stuff and it would have been a great series, but Don was back at DC … though not for good. In 1981, Newton again jumped ship from DC to land ashore at Marvel. As was the case the first time, better money was one of the factors that pushed Don to Marvel. In addition, Don began feeling that DC was taking him for granted. When Newton asked DC if he could get some of the higher-paying side work from commercial companies that artists such as José Luis García-López, Curt Swan, and others got. From Newton’s perspective, DC hemmed and hawed about it, so Don left. Marvel had other artists, such as Val Mayerik and Joe Rubinstein, call Don to entice him back to Marvel and The Avengers. Unlike last time, Joe Rubinstein was an enticement, but not a promised part of the deal, though editor-in-chief Jim Shooter told Don that they would work toward getting the two of them together again. The Avengers #204 (Feb. 1981) featured inks by Dan Green. The results were, for the most part, dreadful. Don’s wonderful style is almost non-existent, and Don absolutely hated the job.

DC AGAIN While Don was drawing this second attempt at The Avengers book, Paul Levitz contacted him and promised Don a raise, some additional, higher-paying advertising artwork, and some design work on the upcoming Batman film should he return to DC. After the disastrous inks by Green and the lack of scheduled work from Marvel, Don accepted a new contract with DC. Don never worked for Marvel again.

GREEN LANTERN 1982 began with Newton-penciled backup stories in Green Lantern #148 and 149 (Jan. and Feb. 1982). For #148 Don penciled an eight-page Green Lantern Corps story inked by Dan Adkins. This story has a little bit of everything in it: space battles, Guardians, alien civilizations, everything… except humans. Green Lantern #149 again took us down an unexpected alley. Dan Adkins once more handled the inks on an eight-page Western entitled “Earth’s First Green Lantern.” Not only does this story redefine

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Captain Thunder by Newton and Ordway (below left) This black Captain Marvel was not to be, but it got Roy Thomas and Don Newton talking, and that eventually turned into the Infinity, Inc. assignment. © 2006 DC Comics.

the history of the Green Lanterns on Earth, altering the Earth/Abin Sur timeline, it also features Don’s only professional Western comic art. It would be two years before Don returned to Green Lantern, but what a return. Green Lantern #181 (Oct. 1984) is the only DC comic Don ever inked, a six-page Tales of the Green Lantern Corps story written by Paul Kupperberg titled “One Night in a Bar on Lawrel-Hardee XI.” The inks are lush and brushy like Don’s old Phantom style, but the details—the intricate crosshatching—is evocative of his early fandom work, only with a maturity that was never there in the past.

INFINITY, INC. After six years of drawing Batman, Newton was burned out and was looking for a new challenge. In 1983, Don had worked with Roy Thomas on a proposed relaunching of the Shazam! series featuring a new member of the Marvel Family, Captain Thunder (basically, the black Captain Marvel of Earth-1). DC passed on the new Shazam! book, but it had brought Thomas and Newton together, and was the catalyst for Roy asking Don to pencil a fill-in issue of Infinity, Inc. Newton had told DC that he would like to draw All-Star Squadron, and Roy tapped into that interest by proposing that Don draw Infinity, Inc., which featured the children of the original All-Star characters. Newton enjoyed the experience so much that when Roy offered him the regular pencils on the book he jumped at the opportunity. Sadly, this collaboration did not last long. The first issue scheduled to contain Don’s art was Infinity, Inc. #11 (Feb. 1985), and Newton penciled a five-page framing sequence around an 18-page story drawn by George Tuska and Mike Machlan. Newton’s pencils were inked and fairly obscured by Tony DeZuniga. Newton was to begin penciling the entire book with issue #12, but the letters page in issue #11 told the world that tragedy had already struck. Don Newton had died on August 19, 1984, after suffering a massive heart attack a few days earlier. He was 49. While Newton lay in the hospital in a coma, his mother had sent in the first three pages of Infinity Inc. #12 to Thomas. Joe Rubinstein was brought in to ink them, and Newton’s Phoenix friend John Clark lettered the pages. Jim Shooter let Rubinstein out of his Amazing Spider-Man duties for a month so that he could ink the U n s u n g

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works of art. They were complete when they left his drawing table. One did not have to visualize the finished inked page … everything you (and the inker) needed to know was there. Don lived far enough away from where most of the action is not to want to take chances with the skill level of the people who finished up his work, so he intimidated all with the wizardry of his skill, rendering all elements in his drawing completely. I also suspect he felt that since he couldn’t see the finished page until it was printed, he needed to have his artistic needs satisfied before the page left his hands. When Don’s work arrived at the office, it was an event. We crowded around to have a look and to marvel at the talent. He never disappointed. To my mind, Don’s final statement was the Green Lantern Corps story he penciled and inked that appeared in Green Lantern #181. He showed us how to do it right. In the letters page of Infinity, Inc., Roy Thomas spoke eloquently of Don and his final pages of art: What strikes me, looking at them, is that, even though they were penciled at a time when severe illness had strained his heart and caused him to lose an alarming amount of weight, they are full of life—as good in their own way as those of #13 or anything Don had ever drawn. The loss to comics is a grievous one, of course, even for those who knew him only by his work. It is a far greater one for those of us who knew and liked him personally. He will be missed. Hell, he is already.

fill-in issue Newton had done. It became Infinity, Inc. #13 (Apr. 1985). This was Newton’s last published original work, a 23-page story, “A Thorn Grows in Paradise,” written by Roy Thomas.

Carrot Hotline (above) The splash to Newton’s next-to-last issue of Infinity, Inc., #12 (Mar. 1985).

DC SAYS GOODBYE One of the real indications of the impact Don Newton had on DC was the classy way in which they said goodbye to him. Over the years a lot of artists and writers had passed away, but the company had never made a big deal out of it … until Don died. In the months following Don’s death, the DC books included a full-page “Meanwhile...” column featuring Don’s obituary. In it, then-editorial director Dick Giordano wrote of Newton:

Solomon Grundy (right) Detail from page 11 of Infinity, Inc. #13 (Apr. 1985), Newton’s final published original work; inks by Rubinstein.

I consider myself fortunate and privileged to have been in a position to be able to work with this extremely talented and professional artist in the four years that I’ve been back at DC Comics. His penciled pages were, in and of themselves,

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Jay Willson

I met Don Newton in the summer of 1975, at the apartment of Marvel Comics inker Dan Adkins. I was in high school at the time, and Dan Adkins had invited me over to his apartment to look at some of his artwork, since he was planning to leave Arizona to move back east. While I was there, Don Newton called Dan and dropped by to say hello. When he entered Dan’s apartment, Don sat down at Dan’s art table, and immediately began to draw goofy caricatures of things while talking to Dan and me. That single meeting resulted in nine years of friendship with Don. That was just Don—he had a comfortable way about him that made you just want to just hang around with him. Don would meet me, along with fellow friends John Clark, Shane Shellenbarger, and later, Mike McCormick, for weekly Sunday night dinners at local Arizona Mexican restaurants during all of those nine years. We always ate at the same restaurants, and Don always ordered the same thing: a cheese crisp (or Quesadilla) and a small garden salad. I don’t believe that I ever saw Don eat anything else. Don and John had jokingly named our get-togethers “fan dinners,” and over the years, we would welcome guests to the dinners as well. Comics inker Terry Austin, letterer Todd Klein, Charlton assistant editor Bill Pearson, and Another Rainbow/Gladstone publisher Bruce Hamilton joined us during visits to the Phoenix area. Each evening was filled with laughter and comics chat (usually about artists that we loved or hated), all while Don was drawing. He was a fun, easygoing host. Don even requested an “inking sample” from Terry, and a “lettering sample” from Todd, and both gentlemen produced beautiful custom pieces for Don, works that hung on the walls of Don’s studio area until he died. Don produced art for each of them in return, including a painting of Captain Marvel for Terry that appeared as the cover of Alter Ego #28. When Don’s original artwork was returned to him by DC each month, the opening of the package would always create a moment of true wonder as we all looked through the stack of pages. Comments usually circulated around how well or badly an inker had done on Don’s pencils. When the evening was done, we would all walk out of his apartment with original artwork in our hands. That was just Don. Don was an incredible artist. He could draw anything, and it was always drawn well. He had an incredible memory for detail, and his classic art training enabled him to spot clothing wrinkles and shadows that always looked authentic and real. I never saw Don swipe another artist’s work in any way. He didn’t need to. He would sometimes use photographs to reference specific cars and buildings, but otherwise, Don drew all of his comics artwork in the same way: sitting in a small, fully cushioned chair, socked feet up on the

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chair, with a 12" x 18" art board on his knees, and a small T-square hanging off the board. When I would arrive to see him, he would be starting a page. When I left, a beautiful page of comic-book artwork would be ready to be shipped to his publisher. Watching Don draw was astoundingly powerful; a humbling experience that left me, the wannabe artist, wondering if I could ever be half as good as he. Even with my skills, Don was never anything but encouraging, and even asked me to assist him in small art jobs from time to time. In one case, a printer friend asked Don to draw a series of postcards that would be sold in local gift shops. Don was having trouble getting to the assignment, so he asked me to work on the cards with him. I drew half of them and he drew the other half. His were much better than mine, but when payment arrived for the job, he gave all of the money to me, despite my protests. That was just Don. Don was a very cautious, private, and unusual person, but also one of the most giving and honest people that I’ve ever met. He put the needs of his friends over his, but would then make them the butt of his jokes when the right moment appeared. He was very guarded about his personal life, and even though I hung out with him for years, I didn’t feel that I knew him all that much better when he died than I did when we first met. Don had a passion for a lot of things. The movie serials of his youth were a huge influence on his interest in comics and heroic figure drawing. He loved well illustrated, detailed artwork, yet despised abstract thinking. His favorite movies were films starring Humphrey Bogart and mysteries such as Double Indemnity. His favorite comics artists were all excellent technicians of the craft: Adams, Raboy, Kubert, Giordano, GarcíaLópez, and many of the Philippine artists such as Rudy Nebres. I never saw him tongue-tied until the day that I observed him meeting Nestor Redondo, a Philippine artist whose work Don really loved. He was still a fan on the inside. That was just Don. Don found humor in strange things, and his sense of it was always very dry. His delivery often made it a challenge to understand if he was joking or not. Once, in an attempt to move closer to his comic-book company employers, Don decided to move to Reading, Pennsylvania, where Dan Adkins also lived. Don made all of the plans and purchases without a single visit to the location. He bought his new house over the phone, selecting it from photographs that the realtor sent to him in the mail! He moved everything to Pennsylvania, and, in typical Newton fashion, just hated the place when he arrived. A month later, John Clark arranged to meet me at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Upon my arrival, there was Don, hiding behind a dinner menu to surprise me. He had already moved back to Arizona, and spent the evening telling us tales of his horrible trip. That was just Don. Don Newton did not look like a comic-book artist. He had curly permed black hair, sideburns, and was very concerned about his appearance at all times. Don had been a weightlifter as a young man, and supported a big chest and arms from years of curls and bench pressing. He stood about 5' 9" in height, but gave the appearance of being larger due to his strong stature. He often wore his shirts open to reveal a hairy chest, creating an image of a smaller Tom Selleck. Don had a deep baritone voice, and usually answered his phone with a hearty “Hey-low!” He was married twice, with his first marriage producing son Tony. Don never mentioned his ex-wife, nor did Tony, so I never really knew what happened with her or the relationship.

Don’s mother, who lived much of her life near Don’s various residences, would watch Tony on weekends, freeing up Don for his active social life. He attended singles dances every Friday night, and often engaged in one-night stands that he would sometimes mention, although sparingly. He rarely had girlfriends who were anything but casual friends or partners. He would marry one more time in his life, and again, in typical Newton fashion, the marriage would last only one month. Don quickly left the marriage, unable to handle the nagging demands of his new wife and the impact that the changes placed upon his life. He liked to remain independent and free to make his own choices. That was just Don. During Don’s last year of life, he experienced a difficult medical condition that made it difficult for him to swallow. He was unable to eat without experiencing pain, and lost a tremendous amount of weight as a result. The confident strong man was reduced to a mere shadow of his former self. My life had grown in complexity at the time, and I had not seen him for a few months during one period. When I finally arranged to attend a Sunday dinner, I was shocked at his incredibly slight appearance. Despite the challenges of his illness, Don still joked like his old self. The artwork that he produced was still masterful. He was excited to be drawing new characters on DC’s Infinity, Inc. title, and was hoping that his doctor would figure out what the hell was wrong with him soon. He still held strong opinions about the comics industry, as he thought about potential titles that he could draw and griped about certain inkers and editors. The challenges didn’t dampen his spirit in any way, but he had changed. He was finally starting to show his age after looking young and strong for so long. On the day that Don had his massive heart attack, he had been on the phone to DC Comics regarding his work on Infinity, Inc. He had finished the last panel on a page of art earlier, but the artwork displayed his labored condition. His body had finally failed him, but the man inside still burned with a passion to continue drawing great comics stories. I’m sure that’s how he’d like to be remembered as well. That was just Don.

Coveted Cover Willson explains, “This is Don later in life, during one of his periods of growing the mustache. He’s holding the cover to DC Comics Presents that he did, one of his favorites [issue #54, Nov. 1983, co-starring Superman and Green Arrow]. Don loved doing covers and was frustrated his entire career that he was not assigned more of them.” Photo © 1983 Phoenix New Times. Characters © 2006 DC Comics.

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Have a comic-book-oriented DVD you want to see reviewed? Contact me care of www.andymangels.com! Welcome back to our column reviewing and previewing DVDs featuring comic-book characters translated to film and television. In this column, I’ll take a closer look at newer releases of films, TV series, and comic-related documentaries. Let’s dive right in to this DC-intensive episode…

Often held up as one of the best live-action comic-book adaptations on television, The Flash was done in by constant preemptions and time-slot moves by CBS. It’s a shame that this gorgeous, well-written series didn’t last. The crisply heightened color scheme, gloomy shadows, and even star John Wesley Shipp’s padded muscle suit have never looked better than on DVD. Unfortunately, Warner gave the DVD set exactly zero extras, an immense shame given the cool over-saturated commercials the series had and the longer cut and alternative-cast pilot in their vaults. This is still highly recommended for fans, but with regrets… DVD Extras: None. The Flash commentary track Thankfully, one fan, David Gutierrez [author of this issue’s Unlimited Powers article], approached Flash executive producers (and current Flash comic-book writers) Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo to record a commentary track for episode #22, “Trial of the Trickster.” The result can be downloaded at his website or through iTunes: www.dmgutierrez.com/podcasts.

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Adventures of Superman: Season Two / Seasons Three & Four Warner (683m /706m) In celebration of Superman Returns, 2006 is the year of Superman on DVD. These two box sets showcase the first television Man of Steel, barrelchested George Reeves. The digital restoration of the episodes brings out the details in the sets and costumes—both cheesy and noirish—while the color episodes beginning in season three almost burst off the screen. The second-season extras focus significantly on Noel Neill (Lois Lane), with two commentaries, a documentary, and the “Stamp Day for Superman” special episode. The Season 3 & 4 set’s featurettes focus on the addition of color, the special effects of the series, and an excerpt from Bryan Singer’s documentary (see below). An excellent pair of boxed sets. DVD Extras: Commentaries, Featurettes.

Superboy: The Complete First Season Warner (558m) The Boy of Steel starred in a halfhour series that ran four syndicated seasons beginning in 1988. With episodic writers such as Mike Carlin, Andrew Helfer, Mark Evanier, and Cary Bates, it should surprise no one that the shows reflected the comic-book tone, introducing Lex Luthor’s hair loss, kryptonite,

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their exclusive Limited Edition version, which has a different cover, a second disc that includes all of Singer’s “video journals” while filming Superman Returns, and five postcards reproducing original movie poster art! DVD Extras: Video Journals, Postcards (Limited Edition only).

Krypto the Superdog: Cosmic Canine Warner (110m)

Look, Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman (Limited Edition) Warner (110m) Even if it is meant as a promotional piece for Superman Returns, this documentary by Bryan Singer and Kevin Burns does a relatively strong job of tracing the Man of Steel’s roots from the pages of comics, through (almost) all of his screen incarnations, and up to the newest film. There is some wonderful archival footage and interviews, and even if you’ve seen excerpts of this on all of the Warner Supermanbased discs (or on cable television) released during summer 2006, you haven’t seen the whole doc until you watch it on DVD. Unfortunately, in its countdown LUIST ignores the 1988 CBS/Ruby-Spears animated Superman show, one of the best iterations of the hero. When buying this, you’ll want to go to Best Buy (or BestBuy.com) for

Aimed at a younger audience than most of their comic-book shows, Krypto is not without its charms, even for adults. Chief among them are Ace the Bathound and Streaky the Supercat, as well as the bizarre members of the Dog Star Patrol: Brainy Barker, Mammoth Mutt, Bull Dog, Paw Pooch, Tail Terrier, Tusky Husky, Hot Dog, and Drooly. As weird as these characters are, they actually debuted in the Superboy comics in 1966 as members of Krypto’s Space Canine Patrol Agents! A fun show; let’s hope however that Warner doesn’t dole out all 52 episodes in five-episode installments like this. DVD Extras: Guided Tour, Unaired Promo. 2006 DC Comics. © Warner Bros. Superman TM & ©

Warner (1088m)

Mr. Mxyzptlk, and other familiar elements into the show’s mythos. Superboy is much more entertaining than some historians record, and this set is great fun! The only frustrating thing is that the episode “Countdown to Nowhere” does not contain all of the same footage as the originally aired episode. DVD Extras: Commentaries, Featurette, Screen Test.

2006 DC Comics.

The Flash: The Complete Series

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DVD PLUG: Be on the lookout for Flash Gordon: The Complete Series, out now, with exclusive art postcards from Frank Cho and Gene Ha, and featuring a new documentary produced/directed/scripted by me! And for fans of Isis, she appears on the set Space Sentinels/Freedom Force—The Complete Series, also out now and featuring copious Special Features which I produced.

Dewey Cassell conducted June 28, 2006

Comic books have much in common with film and television. In many ways, comic-book artists serve as director, cameraman, costume designer, set designer, and key grip for the stories they illustrate. But few artists take the idea as far as Bob Wiacek. Bob Wiacek was born in 1953. After graduating high school, he attended the School of Visual Arts, which included instruction with legends Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner. After his third year of art school, Mike Kaluta got Bob an interview with Continuity Associates, run by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. Adams looked at his portfolio and said, as Wiacek recalls, “His penciling was atrocious, but his inking was pretty nice,” and offered him an opportunity to get into the business inking backgrounds. Bob left art school and started work at Continuity as one of the “Crusty Bunkers.” He also did backgrounds for Bob Oksner, Tex Blaisdell, Dick Giordano, Klaus Janson, Mike Grell, and Wally Wood. Over the years, Bob worked for both DC and Marvel Comics. Grell took him to Vince Colletta, who was then art director for DC, and encouraged Colletta to give Bob a shot inking Legion of Super-Heroes and later Batman. Archie Goodwin was the editor-in-chief at Marvel who gave Bob his first work at the House of Ideas inking the “Guardians of the Galaxy” in Marvel Presents. He went on to ink the X-Men, Iron Man, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, and many other titles. Bob was a contemporary of Terry Austin, Bob McLeod, Pat Broderick, and Joe Rubinstein. About being an inker, Bob says, “I didn’t want the inks to push the pencils down, but rather to make the pencils shine through my inking.” He learned his attitude toward inking from Dick Giordano, whose inks were “as beautiful on Neal Adams’ pencils as on Mike Sekowsky’s.” Bob has done some penciling as well, including a five page “Silver Burper” story written by Stan Lee that appeared in What The--?! In this exclusive interview, Bob talks about the later years of his career and his foray into acting. —Dewey Cassell

Marvel’s Muck Monster An unused Wiacek penciled-and-inked cover for the 1979–1981 volume of Man-Thing. All art in this article is courtesy of Bob Wiacek, unless otherwise noted. © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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

Milestones: inking Paul Smith on X-Men / inking Walt Simonson on X-Factor / inking Steve Rude on Spider-Man: Lifelines

Work in Progress: inking George Pérez on The Brave and the Bold (DC) / penciling and inking a Mike W. Barr-scripted Secret Agent X-9 story for overseas distribution

Cyberspace: www.theartistschoice.com

BOB WIACEK

Universal Talent photo courtesy of Bob Wiacek.

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DEWEY CASSELL: How did you get away from doing comic art in the late ’90s? BOB WIACEK: The last thing I did for Marvel was a Steve Rude Spider-Man job called Spider-Man: Lifeline. I was also doing a few things for DC at the time and I was caught in the implosion, when the business went through tremendous bad times. They were trying a lot of new guys coming in and they just wanted to stay with them. Marvel was not using me. DC was still using me occasionally—I was inking Walt Simonson on Orion—but there was a shortage of work. These things happen. You’ve got to roll with the punches. You have to go out and look for other work, which is what it forced me to do. CASSELL: That must have been difficult. What did you do? WIACEK: You’ve seen a lot of delis and places with illustrations on the windows, where the artist actually painted the window? They’re all over New Jersey and New York. I saw an ad from Mia Rodriguez for an artist to work in her studio. I answered the ad and she liked what I had done. I did a little bit of painting, but mostly grunt work. A lot of other little minor illustration jobs came in, too. CASSELL: Like what? WIACEK: About a year ago, I did illustrations for simple scientific experiments for grades 3–5 and 5–7. It was doing line drawings with computer tone work of experiments or projects for kids of that age. It was for [publisher] Byron Preiss and, unfortunately, they filed Chapter 7, so the drawings were never published. They are hoping to sell the project to another publisher. I also did an illustration for the Gerber Tours Company. Ernie Colón helped me get the job. It was a place that did tours of New York City. This particular illustration was for a tour of Broadway. I even did an illustration for a drop cloth company of a guy in coveralls. CASSELL: So how did you get involved with the rapper 50 Cent? WIACEK: Again, it was a matter of looking for work. I was calling different studios in California and some in New York, trying to get storyboard work. It was very hard to contact people. Occasionally, I would see these ads for extras in a movie. You’d get paid $100–500 for being in a movie, in the background, walking around or passing by on a street or something like that. I realized that to get on a set of a movie or TV show would be good. In the movie industry nowadays, everybody knows about comic books, more than ever. If they didn’t know who I am, they would probably like to see my work, so I could catch them on a break and say, “I’m Bob Wiacek. Here’s my card.” Maybe show a couple of pieces and say, “This is the kind of work that I do. I’m looking for storyboard work.” It could be a way to break in. CASSELL: So did you pursue it? WIACEK: I did a few things. I went to Universal Talent in New Jersey. I got my picture taken. You let them know you are available and they call you up and say, “Go on this set and let them know who you are.” So I got on the set for a HBO movie called Undefeated, with John Leguizamo. It was a boxing movie. When they fought, I was one of the people in the audience watching. You know, they don’t use that many people. I and a few other people are sitting next to these cardboard cutouts of people. It was really strange to see them taking these cardboard people out of boxes and putting them next to you. Then for closeup shots, to get audience reaction to the fight, they would put me

in the front with a whole bunch of people pretending to watch the fight. It was fun. I’m only in the movie for a couple of seconds. CASSELL: What else did you do? WIACEK: In an episode of Law and Order, I’m walking in the background of an airport, pretending I’m buying a ticket. And in a Canon commercial, I’m in the bleachers, watching a tennis match. Then one day, I got a call from them and they said, “We sent your picture, along with hundreds of other pictures, to this producer and director. They picked 12 guys and they want to interview you.” I called them and set up my interview. I went down to the city for the interview and they brought me in and I met the director and producer. The producer was Connie Orlando and the director was Damon Johnson. He’s done a lot of MTV videos. He told me what it was all about. It was a commercial they were doing for 50 Cent. If you bought his album, there was a way you could win these medallions. They showed me the storyboards and told me what they wanted to do. I guess they wanted to get a feel for me to see if I was good for the part. The commercial entailed a jeweler, closing up shop, and walking down the street with a valise. I’m trying to keep these guys from mugging me and taking the valise away. It was about a 20-minute interview. I showed them the kind of work that I do. I gave them a couple of comic books I had done and showed them some of my portfolio. They liked that idea. They said, “If we’re going to use you, Bob, we’ll call you tonight.” I went home and later on that night, I got a call and they said, “We want to use you in this commercial.” Two days later, they told me to meet them on Canal Street. I brought two suits. (They didn’t furnish me my wardrobe.) They liked one, so I put it on and had to wear a bow tie to look like a real jeweler that worked down there. So the director came on and he pretty much did all the scenes in order, following the story. CASSELL: Did you have to wear makeup? WIACEK: Yes. I had to always look like I was out of breath and sweating, so the makeup girl put makeup on me and then she would spray me with a water sprayer to make it look like I was sweating. CASSELL: What time of year was it? WIACEK: It was filmed on October 21, 2003. CASSELL: I’ll bet it was a little chilly on Canal Street in October. WIACEK: It was pretty chilly, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was doing a lot of running around. I even had to run just so they could get an audio recording of me breathing hard. I had to run very cumbersomely. CASSELL: How were your fellow actors? WIACEK: The guys who were supposed to mug me, they were tall guys. You can’t really tell the size of these guys on film. They were very friendly. I told them, “Listen, guys, scare me. Scare the heck out of me.” And they did. CASSELL: I noticed that you don’t say anything in the commercial. WIACEK: The part didn’t call for it. If I did speak, I would have had to join SAG [Screen Actor’s Guild]. It costs a bit of money to join SAG. I think it was two days later; I got a call from a person who represented Spike Lee. Spike Lee had apparently seen me in this thing and wanted to use me, but when they learned I did not belong to SAG, they couldn’t use me.

CASSELL: Did it require a lot of takes to get the commercial right? WIACEK: No, there was only one take that they didn’t use. Before I’m mugged, they open the door and I’m let into the building. There’s a scene in between there and where the guy frisks me and then takes me up to meet 50 Cent. His name is Bounce, by the way. He was a nice guy. There was a scene where I almost fall over because I am out of breath and Bounce catches me. It took a little bit too long and they decided not to use it. I did the best I could. CASSELL: I think you did a great job in the commercial. WIACEK: Everybody claims that I’m good in it. If I’m good, the director Damon Johnson gets part, if not all, of the credit. He was very professional. It was a lot of fun. A lot of people said I reminded them of Woody Allen. Bob Schreck and Michael Wright, who are editors at DC, liked the spot. I sent a copy to Jim Steranko because he wanted to see it and he really liked it, so I asked him, “Jim, you can tell me, was I good or bad?” He said, “Well, Bob, I have to say, you were the proverbial victim,” and I said, “Jim, if that’s what came across, then I guess it means I’m a good actor because that’s what I was supposed to be.” CASSELL: Have you ever listened to 50 Cent or G-Unit’s music? WIACEK: I had not heard much of him before that, but after that I listened to some of his music to get a feel for it. When I did that scene with 50 Cent at the table, he asked me if I had ever done this before and I told him, “No. It’s a new experience for me.” He kind of winked at me and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.” Afterwards, people asked me why I didn’t get his autograph, but I said, “I wasn’t there to get his autograph. I was there to work.”

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Putting in His 50 Cent’s Worth “Proverbial Victim” Bob Wiacek in screen captures from the 50 Cent commercial. Also, go behind the scenes of the ad via these storyboards. © 2006 Geronimo Film Productions.

CASSELL: Is 50 Cent a comic-book fan? WIACEK: I wouldn’t know. I told him what I did, but you have to remember that they were trying to get the commercial done. Who knows? Maybe he is. A lot of people you wouldn’t think of end up being comic-book fans nowadays. CASSELL: Where did the commercial air? WIACEK: It appeared on the Black Entertainment Network, MTV, and VH-1. There is a 60second and a 30-second version. It ran in November 2003. CASSELL: So, are you enjoying the acting thing? WIACEK: To be perfectly honest, I have not pursued it because afterwards, I was still trying to get work in comics and slowly, but surely, it was starting to come in. I wanted to concentrate on my work. To this day, people keep telling me I should pursue it. CASSELL: What comic-book work are you doing now? WIACEK: I did The OMAC Project with DC. Jesus Saez was penciling and inking and doing a phenomenal job, but due to time constraints, he couldn’t do a whole issue of #3, 4, 5, and 6 as well. The editor, Joan Hilty, had a gentleman named Cliff Richards who was trying to pencil it in a Jesus Saez style. I had done some samples for Joan to show what I could do as far as that style is concerned and she liked it. I did #3, 4, and 5 of The OMAC Project. Then after that, George Pérez gave me a call and asked if I would like to ink an issue of JSA, which Paul Levitz wrote. As many years as George Pérez and I have been in the business, he and I had never done a whole book together, until that time. Now, I’m inking the Brave and the Bold series as a regular gig for DC. Batman and Green Lantern are in the first issue. It will be kind of like the ol’ Neal Adams days. George puts so much work into his stuff. It’s a pleasure to work on it. Creativity tends to shine through, no matter what a person does. Never was that more true than with Bob Wiacek, who has been successful both as an artist behind the “camera” and as an actor in front of it. Watch out, Tom Cruise. (Sincere appreciation goes to Bob Wiacek for the interview and artwork photocopies, as well as Geronimo Film Productions and G-Unit for the use of screen shots from the commercial.) DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE as well as author of the book The Art of George Tuska, available from TwoMorrows Publishing.

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Three Trips to Gotham Sixteen years after inking Mike Grell on May 1977’s Batman #287 (top left), Bob Wiacek penciled the Darknight Detective, inked by Walt Simonson, in this pinup from Sept. 1993’s Legends of the Dark Knight #50 (bottom left). At this writing he’s inking George Pérez in the all-new The Brave and the Bold #1 (above), featuring Batman and Green Lantern, debuting in late 2006 from DC Comics. Art courtesy of Heritage Comics and Bob Wiacek, respectively. © 2006 DC Comics.

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Andy Mangels

[Editor’s note: While this article was originally intended for last issue’s “Big, Green Issue” theme, She-Hulk’s secondbanana status to her better-known cousin—plus her on-again, off-again publication history—also makes the Jade Giantess one of comics’ unsung heroes…] “Nerves of Steel … and a body that’s even tougher! Brigitte Nielsen—She-Hulk—A new kind of hero.” It was the summer of 1991, and hundreds of press people milled on the beach at the Cannes Film Festival, clamoring to get a photo of Brigitte Nielsen, the Teutonic film actress who had just been announced to play the role of Marvel Comics’ jade giantess in a major motion picture from New World International. Full-color fold-out brochures given out at Cannes showed Nielsen in full-body makeup, a skimpy green lamé outfit, and emerald hair teased high to the heavens. But despite its auspicious headline-grabbing debut, the She-Hulk movie was never to be. Fifteen years later, Brigitte Nielsen as She-Hulk is a comic-book trivia question … and the perfect basis for the greenest Greatest Story Never Told.

SAVAGE Although Marvel had previously protected its best interests (and trademarks) in 1977 by creating Spider-Woman—after Filmation Studios had debuted a short-lived animated heroine named Web Woman— it wasn’t until the popularity of NBC’s live-action The Incredible Hulk television series that Marvel developed The Savage She-Hulk for comic-book and entertainmentindustry exploitation. She-Hulk was lawyer Jennifer Walters, who developed her super-powers after getting a gamma-irradiated blood transfusion from her cousin, Bruce Banner. Unlike her male counterpart, She-Hulk retained her intelligence, eventually coming to enjoy her alter ego as much as—or more so than—her prim lawyer self. Although some discussions of a television spin-off for She-Hulk took place, the jade giantess had her first non-comic adventure on NBC’s animated The Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man series in 1982. In the eleventh episode, called “Enter: She-Hulk,” her origin was briefly recounted. The character was voiced by Victoria Carroll, but was never seen again.

Red Sonja Sees Green Brigitte Nielsen as She-Hulk. Unless otherwise noted, all images in this article are courtesy of Andy Mangels. © 1991 New World Entertainment. She-Hulk TM & © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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SEDUCTIVE Danish-born model Brigitte Nielsen had already proven herself as an action heroine in 1985, playing Red Sonja in the movie of the same name. So when producer Tamara Asseyev was looking for a face to play She-Hulk in a proposed New World movie, the 27-year-old Nielsen seemed perfect. “Brigitte was so right for it,” says Asseyev today. “She was tall, and was hot from the Tony Scott film, Beverly Hills Cop II.” Asseyev was also comfortable with the actress, having executive-produced her in a 1989 CBS telefilm, Murder by Moonlight (aka Murder on the Moon). A deal was struck with Nielsen, but in lieu of test footage, a detailed photo shoot was put together. Asseyev recalls that the flashy She-Hulk costume was created by Trashy Lingerie on La Cienega Boulevard in Hollywood. Other shots featured Nielsen as a more proper Jennifer Walters, looking studious in a law library, while wearing a brown wig that covered her traditionally close-cropped platinum hair. While posters for She-Hulk were first spotted during the American Film Market on February 28–March 8, 1991 at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, the feature wasn’t officially launched until Cannes, from May 9–20, 1991. “We showed up at Cannes and it was incredible,” says

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Also featuring Jennifer Walters John Byrne’s She-Hulk (detail from the cover of Sensational She-Hulk #8, Nov. 1989) is dubious about her movie counterpart. © 1991 New World Entertainment. She-Hulk TM & © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Assayev. “We held a press conference on the beach, and there were reporters from all over the world.” Besides the poster, four-page brochures from New World were released, with She-Hulk punching her fist on the first page. The brochures promised that She-Hulk was “definitely a femme fatale film sensation for the nineties!” The film was to be a New World Entertainment picture, which was complicated. New World Pictures had bought Marvel Comics in 1986, but sold it to Ron Perelman in 1989 following disastrous financial losses. In 1990, Perelman also bought New World, renaming it New World Entertainment, and planning a focus on television production. She-Hulk could not be developed for television and films by the same production company, however; contracts gave Universal the rights to the character for live-action TV as part of their Hulk licensing deal. “New World was going to finance She-Hulk if we could presell a number of territories,” says Asseyev. “But we were unable to do it.” Co-production partners were courted; Asseyev recalls trying to bring aboard Fox, Disney, Hemdale, NBC, New Line, Universal, and Warner. While trying to deal with financing, Asseyev was developing the concept for the film. Mark Verheiden was offered the scripting job, but turned it down. Jaws I–III writer Carl Gottlieb turned in one treatment, and was guaranteed to script the film. Stan Lee, She-Hulk’s co-creator, worked on a treatment as well, from his office at New World, next door to Assayev. In July 1991, even relative newcomer comic writer Andy Mangels (where’d he end up?) turned in a treatment, pitting She-Hulk against a cybernetically enhanced villainess named Cicada. In 1991, Asseyev promised that the final script would have “the humor of Beetlejuice, the look of Batman, and the action of The Punisher.” The efforts all proved for naught. Unable to put together proper financing for the film, New World put

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the brakes on She-Hulk. It wasn’t their only Marvel failure: 1989’s The Punisher hadn’t set any box-office records (though The Punisher II was announced at Cannes alongside She-Hulk); also in 1991, they had tried—and failed—to sell a live-action Power Pack TV series; and, in 1996, their Generation X telefilm for Fox failed to catch the mutant fever that later films would. Still, New World did have some success with two seasons of The Fantastic Four and Iron Man cartoons from 1994–1996, and another pair of seasons from 1996–1998 on UPN with … The Incredible Hulk.

SENSATIONAL This latter toon wasn’t New World’s first turn at the green bat, as they had produced three Hulk telefilms: The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), and The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990). Thor and Daredevil had made their live-action debuts in those first two films as backdoor pilots to possible series; a She-Hulk debut had been among others discussed (along with Wolverine and Iron Man). Following the demise of the on-screen Hulk—and the feature film—New World came up with possibilities to continue the franchise. One telefilm script, titled “Metamorphosis,” would have shown She-Hulk’s origins in a series of flashbacks, while The Rebirth of the Incredible Hulk would have brought the character back to life. Bill Bixby’s death on November 21, 1993, scuttled any further television reunion plans.

Thus, in UPN’s new Hulk cartoon, the producers wasted little time introducing She-Hulk, relating her origin in the seventh and eighth episodes of the first season. Here, she was voiced by actress Lisa Zane in the first season, and Cree Summer in season two. That second year, the series was actually retitled to The Incredible Hulk and She-Hulk. Another television She-Hulk project emerged in the 1990s, produced by film director Oliver Stone, who cast Ms. Olympia bodybuilding champion Cory Everson in the title role. “Yes, I was involved with Oliver Stone to play the She-Hulk, which I was very excited about,” Everson wrote this author in 2003. “We had met with Stan Lee, who I adore, and we had the pilot and scripts ready. No footage was shot as a pilot. I am not sure what ever happened to it. I think Mr. Stone may have gotten involved at the same time with a huge film and we never picked it back up again. I also remember there was some talking with either CBS or NBC and it just fell into never-never land.” Everson regrets not being able to don green body makeup and launch a new super-heroine to popularity. “(It was) too bad. I know in my heart it would have been more popular than Xena! I just know that a strong, sexy character who had a ton of personality and was a bit insecure, with a body to die for, would have made some good TV and she also would have made a lot of friends with her viewers.” She-Hulk hasn’t been seen in live-action or animation since 1998, though her doppelganger, She-Dragon, appeared on USA Network’s animated Savage Dragon series in 1995. Still, like her comic-book counterpart, who keeps getting cancelled and revived, it doesn’t seem like it will be long before some new version of the jade giantess will burst forth. Meanwhile, thanks to Tamara Asseyev and Brigitte Nielsen and a pack of publicity photographs, readers will always be able to remember their heroine in the shiny bullet-bra, thigh-high boots, and emerald come-hither look … a lime-colored piece of history in this Greatest Story Never Told. Special thanks to Tamara Asseyev and Cory Everson.

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Ready for a fish fry, Speedy? Almost-Batman Ty Hardin, looking oh, so Ollie Queen-like. © Warner Bros.

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With his starring role in television Westerns Cheyenne (in 1958) and Bronco (1958–1962), handsome Paramount contract player Ty Hardin graced several Dell comic-book covers of the Silver Age. But Ty almost had an even closer tie to DC comic books, as shown in the following almost-unknown set of near misses… In 1964, executive producer William Dozier was casting about for the heroic lead for a half-hour comedy series based on National Periodical Publications’ Batman. As he later said in an interview in Joel Eisner’s The Official Batman Batbook, “My first choice for Batman was Ty Hardin, but he was shooting spaghetti Westerns in Italy, so was unavailable. His agent came in to tell me that Ty couldn’t try out, and then he showed me an eight-by-ten. He said, ‘What do you think of this guy?’” That guy turned out to be actor Adam West, who screen-tested for the role of Batman, as did Lyle Waggoner. West, of course, won the role, while Waggoner would later become Steve Trevor, the Air Force hero and love interest on ABC’s Wonder Woman series. And while Hardin’s near-miss for the role of Batman was more publicly known, it was while this author was pawing through stills at a decrepit Hollywood still store that another comic-book link was forged. When I pulled out a photo of Ty Hardin with bleach-blond hair and a distinctive blond goatee and moustache, with a bow and quiver slung over one arm, I saw a shocking resemblance. Ty Hardin was Oliver Queen/Green Arrow! The publicity photo—and several others—was from the 1963 Warner film PT 109, in which Hardin played the real-life Ensign Leonard J. Thom, the second-in-command of a PT boat commanded by pre-President John F. Kennedy in World War II. Hardin didn’t use a bow in the film; the shot was purely a publicity still published in magazines of the day to play on Hardin’s beefcake appeal. Six years after PT 109, in Aug.–Sept. 1969’s The Brave and the Bold #85, artist Neal Adams debuted a redesigned Green Arrow teaming up with Batman. The letters page acknowledged the change, with the editor stating, “Because of a climactic upheaval in his personal life, Green Arrow’s costume, facial appearance, and behavior pattern (to use a head-shrinker’s phrase) were affected.” The revelation about the upheaval came soon, in Nov. 1969’s Justice League of America #75, which revealed that Oliver Queen had been cheated out of his fortunes. While the story elements that changed Green Arrow were clear, less so was the physical look of Oliver Queen. So, with the photos of Ty Hardin in hand, this author tracked down Neal Adams for a quick interview. Was Hardin the physical model for Green Arrow’s redesign? “Of course I saw and watched the PT 109 film,” says Adams, “and I have been a passive fan of Ty

Hardin’s work. It would be more than natural for any artist to file his natural good looks into his mental ‘good looks characteristics’ file. More than that, Ty Hardin’s face and head has a truly classic bone structure, so there his countenance resides. However, ‘consciously’ in my redesign of Oliver Queen, he is made of whole cloth, as much as an artist can do such a thing. Yet, naturally, an artist cannot live in a vacuum. I thought of him as a modern Robin Hood and the influence of Errol Flynn was natural and obvious. Then, to sever that bond, I realized being blond would make him new, and perhaps different. As to the rest, I pretty much used myself as the model. If you check around you’ll probably find some photos of me with a similar goatee, though, since my beard is predominantly red, it photographs black. “Did I also dip into my mental file, unconsciously?” Adams asks. “I’m sure. The nicest note here, of course, is that since the character was based on myself, it’s quite a compliment that someone thinks he looks like Ty Hardin.” So, while the subject is engaged, what was the basis of the rest of Green Arrow’s distinctive “new look”? “The costume quite naturally was based on a redesign of a jerkin and tights of the day, and a rejection of the plainness of the original ‘costume.’ The gloves are a combination of gloves and archer’s arm guards. I assume Ollie’s arms are very powerful, but his skin retains the weaknesses that skin is heir to, and I well know what an archer’s burn (on the inside of the arm) feels like. The gloves were the answer. Utilitarian and attractive.” Adams pauses and adds, “It’s a small source of humor to me to see other artists who apparently have not experienced the fine art of archery accidentally place the openings on the inside of the arm … which leaves the forearm victim to the nasty and unforgiving bow-string.” Adams also notes that the new costume was not editorial or writer mandate. “It was my idea, of course. I don’t think [Brave and Bold writer] Bob Haney would present himself as a costume designer. Yet it was Bob who opened the door for me. Ollie got a new costume, [which] could be the same or could be different. I made it different! Of course, I believe I made it right! Too bad folks mess with it, especially if they know little about archery.” So as our tale comes to a pointed end, Ty Hardin has lost the role of Batman, but gained a possible role in the redesign of Green Arrow. Not quite a bull’s-eye, but it at least doesn’t miss the target entirely. Special thanks to Neal Adams. Photos and art courtesy of Andy Mangels and Neal Adams.

Goatees Three (below) PT 109’s Ty Hardin, Neal Adams in the late 1960s, and an Adams-drawn commission of Green Arrow. © Warner Bros.

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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

Thanks for sending BACK ISSUE #17. I was pleased to see the nice mentions of my stories featuring Supergirl and Batwoman, and somewhat amused that it sounds as though I was the go-to guy for resurrecting dead heroines who’ve been unceremoniously bumped off. Actually, Marv Wolfman bumped Kara off quite ceremoniously in Crisis; it was her subsequent retroactive erasure from the DC Universe that made me feel she deserved to be sent off with one last little grace note. In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that I’m also the guy who killed off the original Black Canary in Secret Origins (frankly, I’m not sure how many people at DC at the time even realized the original Black Canary was still alive and hadn’t gone to fight Ragnarok with the rest of the JSA), but it was in a good cause. In that story, as in my Supergirl/Deadman tale, I sneaked in the then-seditious concept that even though the DC Universe had been completely remade, the souls of those who populated the old multiverse still existed somewhere. © 2006 DC Comics. As Dick Giordano has noted, this pissed off a lot of people at DC; but now, in the wake of the most recent DC reboot, Paul Levitz’s JSA arc brings back the ghost of the Earth-Two Batman. So what began as an act of quiet sedition on my part (aided by my co-conspirator, then-editor Mark Waid) is now part of mainstream DC continuity. It may be a small legacy to comicbook history, but it’s one I remain proud of. – Alan Brennert Just was reading the latest issue, and saw Marv Wolfman’s comments on Supergirl. He doesn’t recall negative or irate fan reaction to the death of Supergirl, but I vividly recall the opposite. At the many shows I did after her death, I was bombarded by fans that were upset by her death in Crisis, many more than seemed to care about the Flash’s death. In fact, at at least two shows, the same gentleman fan appeared at my own signing stints at the DC booth, asking where the “murderers” (Marv and George Pérez) were (and I recall Marv being at least aware of this guy at the shows, as he apparently had contact with him). I think maybe the guy was either brushed off or shuffled away because of his belligerence, but I made a point of talking to him, and explaining that he was overreacting. Not that it did much good, but why make enemies over a comic-book story? It was a little scary for me, having fans react so violently and looking for the people responsible. I made it clear to all the fans looking for blood that I was not responsible, and that Supergirl lived on in her back issues. Anyhow, this is still pretty vivid in my mind. I also recall hearing about death-threat letters coming in to DC over Kara’s death, but never got one personally. We also got a few of those during the Death of Superman storyline, and it’s not something you forget. – Jerry Ordway

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I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a long time to compliment the fantastic work being published in BACK ISSUE. Having been born in the ’70s and starting collecting in the ’80s, this is a little piece of home for me. The attraction is the in-depth look at what I dug as a kid, but what keeps me hooked is the discovery of all the great stuff I overlooked or wasn’t mature enough to appreciate at the time. As a 30-year-old geezer I can’t connect to today’s over-hyped comics, and this points me at a lot of great stuff from a day when there was still gold to be mined in comics. I like that the issues are thematic but I also wonder if it’s a bit constricting at times, if perhaps some things get forced and others get overlooked, and I think it would be nice to break that formula once in a while. But regardless, BACK ISSUE is my favorite periodical about comics and I really love it. I was excited when issue #12 was announced because the Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz Amazing Spider-Man was really the hook that got me addicted to the world of comics. While the issue was still very interesting, unfortunately the article on Spider-Man’s black costume was pretty short and little unsatisfying for a cover story. The real Spider-Man buzz in the ’80s was the Hobgoblin! This storyline started with Stern and Romita, Jr., and caught on fire even as it was continued by DeFalco and Frenz. Then, POOF!, DeFalco and Frenz were gone and the story just fell flat. Years later, Stern and Frenz wrapped the story, and while it was great to have the creator unveil the real villain, the sense of anxiety was already gone. I always wondered where DeFalco would have taken the character if he got a chance to finish his run, and from what I read there is definitely a soap opera here and I think this would make a great feature story. Besides, there is so much great “rough stuff” of the Hobgoblin © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. who was, despite his connection to the Green Goblin, quite a unique character visually. I really liked the roundtable discussions BI used to have and I think, considering all the different creative energies involved with this subject, this would be a great topic to use that format. – Todd Novak P.S. Please be careful about tapping too much into the ’90s and the present unless it’s a follow-up. A lot of the appeal of this book is that it isn’t ’90s and beyond. Besides, there are plenty of publications out there for that stuff already.

Todd, while our themes provide an editorial “spine” for each issue, we’ll occasionally veer from the collective subject matter when there’s good material to present—case in point, this “Unsung Heroes” issue’s “Pro2Pro” with the often-celebrated Gerber and Colan on the once-celebrated Howard the Duck. We’re working on a Spider-Man roundtable discussion for a future issue, by the way…. Don’t worry, the 1970s and 1980s remain our purview, and we’ll only stray when there’s a compelling reason to do so, like this issue’s “Back in Print” spotlight on the Mark Gruenwald-esque Incredible Handbook. Thanks for your enthusiasm, Todd. Glad you’re a BACK ISSUE reader! – M.E.

Now that is a stirring testimonial, Steven! We’ll add Starfire to our list of subject matter to cover in the future. – M.E. I first started reading BACK ISSUE with issue number #5, with its great interview with Lynda Carter, and I have not stopped yet; nevertheless, #17 is the best issue that Mr. Eury and company have produced yet. I could not put down when I started to read it. I have always been a big fan of the female super-hero (I am in agreement with Barbara Kesel; I’m not big fan of the word “heroine”), and issue #17 covered some of my favorites: Spider-Woman, Tigra, and Wonder Woman. I was especially surprised to learn the secrets of SpiderWoman’s development as a character for Marvel came about just to protect its copyright, and its push of the character in regard to merchandising. Spider-Woman #11 was one of my first comic books, and I immediately fell in love with character. Like most Marvel characters, SpiderWoman/Jessica Drew had issues that she needed to overcome, and I think that is what drew me to her and kept me reading the series through its 50-issue run. I believe it is her troubled past and her searching for her place in Marvel’s vast universe that has led to her rediscovery and popularity by today’s comics fans. I would have loved to read a little more about the brief Spider-Woman © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. cartoon and why the decision was to modify the characters powers in the show. Remember, Spider-Woman was able to shoot webs out of her finger on TV, which is a power she has never possessed in the comic book, and I consider was done to keep similarities between Spider-Man and Spider-Women to a minimum. I hope in the future you consider annual issue dedicate to the women of comics’ universes. I especially would love to see an article covering the other spider of the Marvel Universe, the Black Widow. – Michael Mulligan Issue #17 was another good issue. I enjoyed the Supergirl article. According to The Comic Reader, there was an 11th issue of Supergirl ready to go to press in 1974, as well as a final issue of both Lois Lane and Secret Origins. The issue of Secret Origins was eventually published, but I’d love to know what happened to the Supergirl issue, and the Lois Lane one, for that matter. I assume, due to the change in creative team the Supergirl story wasn’t used in Superman Family, but

Some spotlight on heroines! Where in blazes was the vital illustrated essay on the great original DC Starfire, whose adventures from 1976 to 1977 were remarkable for her fierce resolve in service to freedom against fiendish tyranny? I know she is less recalled now than even the Batwoman, enjoyed a published life of just over a year, and inhabited an autonomous world set utterly beyond standard super-hero continuity, but she was a striking—no pun intended—raven-haired beauty who won the immediate attention and admiration of her title’s readers, was the protagonist in tales addressing stark themes bearing directly on the human condition

similar to what one would find in the Objectivism-driven work of Steve Ditko, and rates at least as much mention as Flare got, in my frank opinion. I know I speak for many readers of both sexes who reacted quite favorably to the first Starfire, a bold, vital freedom fighter for the ages and explicit proof the female is more dangerous than the male. Give us the real Starfire or give us death! – Steven Smith

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

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With our multi-article format, one reader’s favorite feature might be loathed by another reader. However, that versatility keeps each issue interesting, and we’ll continue to cover as much ground as we can while being entertaining and informative in the process. I look at BACK ISSUE as history for the short-attentionspan generation. Since you enjoy “Greatest Stories Never Told,” Jim, I hope you got a kick out of the four of them this issue. Be forewarned, though, that sometimes the reason for a series’ abortion is painful to the creators involved, or hushed for political reasons, so there may be some unpublished comics whose stories will remain untold, out of respect to their writers, artists, and publishers. But we’ll try to dust off as many of these unseen gems as we can. Next issue: “Secret Identities,” with Clark Kent, Moon Knight, the Question, Captain America, Firestorm, and the Human Fly—plus an interview with Jerry Ordway. Cary Bates, Sal Buscema, Elliot S! Maggin, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Marty Pasko, Dave Gibbons, and Al Milgrom are among the many folks involved with the issue—won’t you join us? Its Ordway-drawn Captain Marvel/Billy Batson cover is sure to make you scream “Shazam!” See you in sixty! TM & © 2006 TwoMorrows. Shaza m! © 2006 DC Comics.

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maybe it was. The sidebar to the article about the editors seemed to have a fairly tenuous connection to it, but had interesting info nonetheless. The other highlight of the issue for me was the Andy Mangels article on the mod Wonder Woman. I have to wonder whether the use of Fritz Lieber’s characters will prevent this run from ever being collected and reprinted. I especially appreciated the way the Gloria Steinem legend about the return of the traditional Wonder Woman costume was approached from different angles and a fuller picture was presented. I do have to say that I just can’t penetrate Darrell McNeil’s writing style. I’m sure there is plenty of good information in his article, but there are just too many asides, interjections, jokes, and digressions for me. The two short pieces on Donna Troy were fairly good, but didn’t really cover any new ground. The Kathy Kane appreciation was a nice filler, but I’m afraid I don’t share the author’s appreciation for the character. The Tigra and Spider-Woman articles were well done as far as I can tell, not being a Marvel reader. I’m afraid I only skimmed the Flare article. I’m not sure the character merited as much space as it got. The highlight of the issue for me, as it usually is, is the “Greatest Stories Never Told” article. I love how it always fills in the picture of projects I have only heard about in brief items in the comics press years ago. I hope someday you will get info on Len Wein’s Zero Man and Pandora Pann. Or what about the Wanderer or the first issue of Vixen (later seen in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade)? Or an interview with Steve Englehart on the development from his Superman-Creeper story as Cap’n Quick and a Foozle. I’ll have to go through my old Comic Readers and Amazing Heroes Preview Specials to come up with other ideas for this feature. – Jim Van Dore © 2006 DC Comics.

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor

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STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!

Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more! GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!

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Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!

Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!

WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!

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ALTER EGO #9

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JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!

Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!

Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!

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1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!

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ALTER EGO #17 Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!

ALTER EGO #14

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A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!

JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!

MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!

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ALTER EGO #18

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ALTER EGO #20

STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ’40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG022420

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT022884

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ALTER EGO #21 The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on the JSA and All-Star Squadron, more UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA, and more! DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers! (108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC023029

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!

Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!

X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on All-Star Squadron #1 and its ’40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN032492

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB032260

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ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!

Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!

FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!

ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!

DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ’60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN032614

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(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG032604

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ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!

Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!

JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV032695

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(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN042879

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ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!

JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!

Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!

RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!

Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR043055

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY043050

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ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!

Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special! Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ’40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more! Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP043043

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT043189

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ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

ALTER EGO #49

Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!

WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ’40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ’40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!

Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB053220

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR053331

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR053287

ALTER EGO #50 ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY053172

ALTER EGO #54 ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN053345

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL053293

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MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP053301

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ’80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC053401

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN063429

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR063545

ALTER EGO #55 JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Card Art from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ’40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, and more! ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT053396

ALTER EGO #59 Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on 1960s/70s DC, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA and VIC CARRABOTTA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: APR063474

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY063496

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN063522

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063690

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ALTER EGO #63

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT063800

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ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!

PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR073852

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: APR074098

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073879

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN074006

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL073975

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ALTER EGO #73

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073947

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN084019

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074112

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ALTER EGO #74 STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT073927

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ALTER EGO #78 ALTER EGO #77 ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships May 2008

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DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships June 2008

ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—MIKE W. BARR on Superman the detective— DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus the NEMBO KID (Italian for “Superman”), art by BORING, SWAN, ADAMS, KANE, and others!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, and more! New cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships July 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships August 2008

12-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $78 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($108 First Class, $132 Canada, $180 Surface, $216 Airmail). For a 6-issue sub, cut the price in half!

COMPANION BOOKS

NEW FOR 2008

TITANS COMPANION VOLUME 1

JUSTICE LEAGUE COMPANION VOL. 1

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the NEW TEEN TITANS, this comprehensive history features interviews with and rare art by fan-favorite creators MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PÉREZ, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍALÓPEZ, LEN WEIN, and others! Also included is a indepth Silver Age section featuring interviews with NEAL ADAMS, NICK CARDY, DICK GIORDANO and more, plus CHRIS CLAREMONT and WALTER SIMONSON on the X-MEN/TEEN TITANS crossover, TOM GRUMMETT, PHIL JIMENEZ and TERRY DODSON on their ’90s Titans work, rare and unpublished artwork by CARDY, PÉREZ, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GRUMMETT, JIMENEZ, and others, a new cover by JIMENEZ, and an introduction by GEOFF JOHNS! Written by GLEN CADIGAN.

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!

(224-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905504 Diamond Order Code: SEP053209

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

FLASH COMPANION Details the publication histories of the four heroes who have individually earned the right to be declared DC Comics' "Fastest Man Alive": Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, and Bart Allen. With articles about legendary creators SHELLY MAYER, GARDNER FOX, E.E. HIBBARD, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOHN BROOME, ROSS ANDRU, IRV NOVICK and all-new interviews with HARRY LAMPERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, CARY BATES, ALEX SAVIUK, MIKE W. BARR, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE BARON, JACKSON GUICE, MARK WAID, and SCOTT KOLINS, among others, THE FLASH COMPANION recounts the scarlet speedster's evolution from the Golden Age to the 21st century. Also featured are "lost covers," never before published commission pieces by Flash artists throughout the decades, a ROGUES GALLERY detailing The Flash's most famous foes, a tribute to late artist MIKE WIERINGO by MARK WAID, a look at the speedster’s 1990s TV show, and "Flash facts" detailing pivotal moments in Flash history. Written by KEITH DALLAS, with a a cover by DON KRAMER. (224-page trade paperback) $26.95 • ISBN: 9781893905986 • Ships July 2008

NEW FOR 2008

KRYPTON COMPANION

BLUE BEETLE COMPANION

Picks up where Volume 1 left off, covering the return of the Teen Titans to the top of the sales charts! Featuring interviews with GEOFF JOHNS, MIKE McKONE, PETER DAVID, PHIL JIMENEZ, and others, plus an in-depth section on the top-rated Cartoon Network series! Also CHUCK DIXON, MARK WAID, KARL KESEL, and JOHN BYRNE on writing the current generation of Titans! More with MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PÉREZ! NEAL ADAMS on redesigning Robin! Artwork by ADAMS, BYRNE, JIMENEZ, McKONE, PÉREZ and more, with an all-new cover by MIKE McKONE! Written by GLEN CADIGAN.

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, RICH BUCKLER, 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 SuperHeroes, 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 (including JOHN BYRNE, JEPH LOEB, and ALEX ROSS) examining Superman’s influential past! Plus an Introduction by Bizarro No. 1 (by SEINFELD writer DAVID MANDEL), and a cover by DAVE GIBBONS!

The Blue Beetle debuted in 1939, rivaling Superman and Batman for longevity in comics, but not in popularity until his recent death and resurrection as a result of DC Comics’ hit INFINITE CRISIS. Now CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the history and uncovers the secrets of his 60+ years of evolution—from the world of FOX COMICS to an in-depth history of CHARLTON COMICS—all the way to the hall of today’s DC COMICS. Find out what really happened to infamous Golden Age publisher Victor Fox, and get an in-depth look at the Blue Beetle radio show and JACK KIRBY’s Blue Beetle comic strip. Also, presented for the first time since 1939: the character’s first appearance from Mystery Men Comics #1! Featuring interviews with WILL EISNER, JOE SIMON, JOE GILL, ROY THOMAS, GEOFF JOHNS, CULLY HAMNER, KEITH GIFFEN, LEN WEIN, and others, plus never-before-seen Blue Beetle designs by ALEX ROSS and ALAN WEISS, as well as artwork by WILL EISNER, CHARLES NICHOLAS, STEVE DITKO, KEVIN MAGUIRE, and more! With an introduction by TOM DeHAVEN, and a new cover by CULLY HAMNER, this is the ultimate look at one of comicdom’s longest-living heroes!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 ISBN: 97801893905870 Diamond Order Code: JAN083938

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

(128-page trade paperback) $16.95 ISBN: 9781893905702 Diamond Order Code: DEC063946

TITANS COMPANION VOLUME 2

NEW FOR 2008

BEST OF THE LEGION OUTPOST

ALL- STAR COMPANION VOL. 2

Originally published in 1972 as the official newsletter of the Legion Fan Club, the LEGION OUTPOST soon became the premier Legion of Super-Heroes fanzine of the 1970s, featuring contributions by fans, pros, and soon-to-be pros. Launched at a time when the future of the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES was in doubt, the LEGION OUTPOST was at the center of fan-based efforts to revive the title, and was largely responsible for its rescue from obscurity, leading to it becoming a runaway best-seller! This trade paperback collects the best material from the hard-to-find fanzine, including rare interviews and articles from creators such as DAVE COCKRUM, CARY BATES, and JIM SHOOTER, plus never-before-seen artwork by COCKRUM, MIKE GRELL, JIMMY JANES and others! It also features a previously unpublished interview with KEITH GIFFEN originally intended for the never-published LEGION OUTPOST #11, plus other new material! And it sports a rarely-seen classic 1970s cover by Legion fan favorite artist DAVE COCKRUM! Edited by GLEN CADIGAN.

ROY THOMAS presents still more secrets of the Justice Society of America and ALL-STAR COMICS, from 1940 through the 1980s, featuring: A fabulous wraparound cover by CARLOS PACHECO! More amazing information and speculation on the classic ALL-STAR COMICS of 1940-1951! Never-before-seen Golden Age art by IRWIN HASEN, CARMINE INFANTINO, ALEX TOTH, MART NODELL, JOE KUBERT, H.G. PETER, and others! Art from an unpublished 1940s JSA story not seen in Volume 1! Rare art from the original JLA-JSA team-ups and the 1970s ALL-STAR COMICS REVIVAL by MIKE SEKOWSKY, DICK DILLIN, JOE STATON, WALLY WOOD, KEITH GIFFEN, and RIC ESTRADA! Full coverage of the 1980s ALL-STAR SQUADRON, and a bio of every single All-Star, plus never-seen art by JERRY ORDWAY, RICH BUCKLER, ARVELL JONES, RAFAEL KAYANAN, and special JSArelated art and features by FRANK BRUNNER, ALEX ROSS, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, MIKE MIGNOLA, and RAMONA FRADON—and more!

(160-page trade paperback) $17.95 ISBN: 9781893905368 Diamond Order Code: SEP042969

(240-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905375 Diamond Order Code: AUG063622

ALL- STAR COMPANION VOL. 3 In this third volume, comics legend Roy Thomas presents still more amazing secrets behind the 1940-51 ALL-STAR COMICS and the JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA! Also, there’s an issue-by-issue survey of the JLA/JSA TEAM-UPS of 1963-85, the 1970s JSA REVIVAL, and the 1980s series THE YOUNG ALLSTARS with commentary by the artists and writers! Plus rare, often unseen art by NEAL ADAMS, DICK AYERS, MICHAEL BAIR, JOHN BUSCEMA, SEAN CHEN, DICK DILLIN, RIC ESTRADA, CREIG FLESSEL, KEITH GIFFEN, DICK GIORDANO, MIKE GRELL, TOM GRINDBERG, TOM GRUMMETT, RON HARRIS, IRWIN HASEN, DON HECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JACK KIRBY, JOE KUBERT, BOB LAYTON, SHELDON MAYER, BOB McLEOD, SHELDON MOLDOFF, BRIAN MURRAY, JERRY ORDWAY, ARTHUR PEDDY, GEORGE PÉREZ, H.G. PETER, HOWARD PURCELL, PAUL REINMAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, HOWARD SIMPSON, JOE SINNOTT, JIM STARLIN, JOE STATON, RONN SUTTON, ALEX TOTH, JIM VALENTINO and many others! Featuring a new JLA/JSA cover by GEORGE PÉREZ! (240-page trade paperback) $26.95 ISBN: 9781893905801 Diamond Order Code: SEP074020

NEW FOR 2008

SILVER AGE SCI-FI COMPANION

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS COMPANION

Instantly recognizable among comics fans, Hawkman is one of the most iconic heroes ever created. Inspired by tales as old as mankind and those much more recent, this four-color legend has left an indelible mark upon the comic industry. Behind a fabulous CLIFF CHIANG cover, this collection contains interviews and commentary from many who have helped Hawkman soar through the ages, including JOE KUBERT, GEOFF JOHNS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, TIMOTHY TRUMAN, JUSTIN GRAY, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, RAGS MORALES, STEPHEN SADOWSKI, DON KRAMER, BEN RAAB, TONY ISABELLA, DAN JURGENS, ROY THOMAS, STEVE LIEBER, MURPHY ANDERSON and many other top comics creators. Also included is a copious image parade, profiles on the Hawks through the ages, as well as their allies and adversaries, and a timeline of Hawkman's storied existence throughout the DC Comics Universe. With insight into the character and the creators who made him what he is, the HAWKMAN COMPANION is certain to please any Hawkfan. Written by DOUG ZAWISZA.

In the Silver Age of Comics, space was the place, and this book summarizes, critiques and lovingly recalls the classic science-fiction series edited by JULIUS SCHWARTZ and written by GARDNER FOX and JOHN BROOME! The pages of DC’s science-fiction magazines of the 1960s, STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE, are opened for you, including story-by-story reviews of complete series such as ADAM STRANGE, ATOMIC KNIGHTS, SPACE MUSEUM, STAR ROVERS, STAR HAWKINS and others! Writer/ editor MIKE W. BARR tells you which series crossed over with each other, behind-the-scenes secrets, and more, including writer and artist credits for every story! Features rare art by CARMINE INFANTINO, MURPHY ANDERSON, GIL KANE, SID GREENE, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and many others, plus a glorious new cover by ALAN DAVIS and PAUL NEARY!

The definitive book on the history of such memorable characters as DYNAMO, NO-MAN, LIGHTNING, ANDOR, THE IRON MAIDEN, and all the other super-heroes and super-villains created by the late, great WALLACE WOOD and company! Included are interviews with Woody’s creative team, as well as those superb writers and artists involved in the various T-Agents resurrections over the decades, and a detailed examination of the origins and exploits of the characters themselves, including the shocking truth behind the first super-hero to ever be “killed,” MENTHOR! This exclusive book features reams of artwork, much of it rarely-seen or previous unpublished, including a rare 27-page T-Agents story drawn by PAUL GULACY, unpublished stories by GULACY, PARIS CULLINS, and others, all behind a JERRY ORDWAY cover. Edited by JON B. COOKE.

(208-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905931 Ships October 2008

(144-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905818 Diamond Order Code: JUL073885

(224-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905436 Diamond Order Code: MAR053228

HAWKMAN COMPANION

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 such as “Pro2Pro” (a dialogue between two professionals), “Rough Stuff” (pencil art showcases of top artists), “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: $40 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($54 First Class, $66 Canada, $90 Surface, $108 Airmail).

BACK ISSUE #1

BACK ISSUE #2

BACK ISSUE #3

“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!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP032621

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV032696

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN042880

BACK ISSUE #4

BACK ISSUE #5

BACK ISSUE #6

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BACK ISSUE #8

“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!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR042973

(108-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY043051

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL043389

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP043044

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV043081

DIEGDITITIOANL ONLY!

BACK ISSUE #9

BACK ISSUE #10

BACK ISSUE #11

BACK ISSUE #12

BACK ISSUE #13

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!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN053136

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR053333

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY053174

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL053295

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (100-page Digital Edition) $2.95

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BACK ISSUE #14

BACK ISSUE #15

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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!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV053296

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN063431

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR063547

(108-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY063499

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL063569

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BACK ISSUE #19

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BACK ISSUE #23

“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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BACK ISSUE #27

BACK ISSUE #29

“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!

“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!

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #77

ROUGH STUFF #8

WRITE NOW! #18

DRAW! #15

BRICKJOURNAL #2

ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!

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!

Celebration of STAN LEE’s 85th birthday, including rare examples of comics, TV, and movie scripts from the Stan Lee Archives, tributes by JOHN ROMITA, SR., JOE QUESADA, ROY THOMAS, DENNIS O’NEIL, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JIM SALICRUP, TODD McFARLANE, LOUISE SIMONSON, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, and more!

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE, covering major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, featuring faculty, student, and graduate interviews in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/ interview with artist BILL REINHOLD, MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, a FREE WRITE NOW #17 PREVIEW, and more!

The ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages spotlights blockbuster summer movies, LEGO style! Go behind the scenes for new sets for BATMAN and INDIANA JONES, and see new models, including an SR-71 SPYPLANE and a LEGO CITY, plus MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATIONS, BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, tour the ONLINE LEGO FACTORY, and more! Edited by JOE MENO.

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KIRBY FIVE-OH! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #50)

SILVER AGE SCI-FI COMPANION

BEST OF WRITE NOW!

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 3

In the Silver Age of Comics, space was the place, and this book summarizes, critiques and lovingly recalls the classic science-fiction series edited by JULIUS SCHWARTZ and written by GARDNER FOX and JOHN BROOME! The pages of DC’s science-fiction magazines of the 1960s, STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE, are opened for you, including story-bystory reviews of complete series such as ADAM STRANGE, ATOMIC KNIGHTS, SPACE MUSEUM, STAR ROVERS, STAR HAWKINS and others! Writer/editor MIKE W. BARR tells you which series crossed over with each other, behind-the-scenes secrets, and more, including writer and artist credits for every story! Features rare art by CARMINE INFANTINO, MURPHY ANDERSON, GIL KANE, SID GREENE, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and many others, plus a glorious new cover by ALAN DAVIS and PAUL NEARY!

Features highlights from the acclaimed magazine about writing for comics, including interviews from top talents, like: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, WILL EISNER, JEPH LOEB, STAN LEE, J. M. STRACZYNSKI, MARK WAID, GEOFF JOHNS, TODD McFARLANE, PAUL LEVITZ, AXEL ALONSO, and others! Plus “NUTS & BOLTS” tutorials feature scripts from landmark comics and the pencil art that was drawn from them, including: CIVIL WAR #1 (MILLAR & McNIVEN), BATMAN: HUSH #1 (LOEB & LEE), ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #47 (BENDIS & BAGLEY), AMAZING SPIDERMAN #539 (STRACZYNSKI & GARNEY), SPAWN #52 (McFARLANE & CAPULO), GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (JOHNS & VAN SCRIVER), and more! Also: How-to articles by the best comics writers and editors around, professional secrets of top comics pros, and an introduction by STAN LEE! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

Compiles more of the best tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #5-7, including: Penciling by MIKE WIERINGO! Illustration by DAN BRERETON! Design by PAUL RIVOCHE! Drawing Hands, Lighting the Figure, and Sketching by BRET BLEVINS! Cartooning by BILL WRAY! Inking by MIKE MANLEY! Comics & Animation by STEPHEN DeSTEFANO! Digital Illustration by CELIA CALLE and ALBERTO RUIZ! Caricature by ZACH TRENHOLM, and much more! Cover by DAN BRERETON!

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 16: MIKE ALLRED

(144-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905818 Diamond Order Code: JUL073885

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The regular columnists from THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrate the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career, spotlighting: The BEST KIRBY STORIES & COVERS from 19381987! Jack’s 50 BEST UNUSED PIECES OF ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! Interviews with the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! A 50PAGE KIRBY PENCIL ART GALLERY and DELUXE COLOR SECTION! Kirby cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER, making this the ultimate retrospective on the career of the “King” of comics! Edited by JOHN MORROW. (168-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905894 Diamond Order Code: JUL078147 Now Shipping

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!

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(256-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905917 Diamond Order Code: JAN083936

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Features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from Mike’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art! By ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON. (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905863 Diamond Order Code: JAN083937

COMICS GO HOLLYWOOD Unveils secrets behind your FAVORITE ONSCREEN HEROES, and how a character goes from the comics page to the big screen! It includes: Storyboards from DC’s animated hit “THE NEW FRONTIER”, JEPH LOEB on writing for Marvel Comics and the Heroes TV show, details on the UNSEEN X-MEN MOVIE, a history of the JOKER from the 1940s to the upcoming Dark Knight film, and a look at Marvel Universe co-creator JACK KIRBY’s Hollywood career, with extensive Kirby art! (32-page comic) FREE! at your local comics retailer on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 3, 2008!

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