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Volume 1, Number 20 February 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury

Unmask comics’ most unusual alter egos in our

PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Fire, Fire, Burning Bright: Firestorm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 An illuminating look at the creation of DC’s flame-headed Nuclear Man

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Seastone Marketing Group

AL MILGROM FIRESTORM ART GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A showcase of classic and never-before-published illos from Firestorm’s original artist

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore

Al Milgrom’s 2005 recreation of his 1978 Firestorm #1 cover, courtesy of Spencer Beck (www.theartistschoice.com). © 2007 DC Comics.

PRO2PRO: The Nomad Saga: Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema on Captain America’s Identity Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Steve Rogers takes on a new costumed guise—and Richard Nixon, too!

COVER ARTIST Jerry Ordway

PRO2PRO BONUS: Brubaker and Casey’s Captain America Influences . . . . . . . . . . . 24 How today’s hot Cap writers followed the footsteps of Englehart and Buscema

COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Michael Ambrose Michael Aushenker Cary Bates Spencer Beck Frank Balas Alex Boney Ed Brubaker Mark Burbey Sal Buscema Kurt Busiek John Byrne Glen Cadigan Joe Casey Leo Chuah Jennifer M. Contino Gerry Conway Denys Cowan DC Comics Ray Cuthbert Steve Ditko Tommy Lee Edwards Steve Englehart Mike Esposito Dave Gibbons Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Paul Handler Jack C. Harris Allan Harvey Jackie Haumann Heritage Comics Javier Hernandez Ilke Hincer Images of American Political History Dan Johnson Nick Katradis Ted Latner Steve Leialoha Steve Lipsky

TOP TEN WAYS TO HIDE YOUR SECRET IDENTITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Jennifer Contino’s helpful hints at alter ego concealment

INTERVIEW: Jawing with Jerry Ordway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Get to know the fan favorite from his youth as a Marvelmaniac to his current work Elliot S! Maggin Richard Martines Marvel Comics Bob McLeod Ky Michaelson Michael Mikulovsky Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics Al Milgrom Doug Moench Rafael Navarro Eric Newsom Dennis O’Neil Kevin O’Neill Jerry Ordway Martin Pasko Keith Pasquino Don Perlin John Petty Keith Richard John Romita, Sr. Benno Rothschild Greg Rucka Rose Rummel-Eury Alex Segura Ted Seko Jim Shooter Rich Shurgin Tom Smith Zack Smith Roger Stern Tom Stewart Chris Swan Roy Thomas Bruce Timm Rick Veitch Jeff Weigel Len Wein Marv Wolfman Eddy Zeno Tom Ziuko

WHAT THE--?!: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s… an Editor?!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Our exposé of Dave Gibbons’ secret identity as the costumed Big E FLASHBACK: The Three Faces of Moon Knight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Moench and Perlin’s dark knight and his multiple identities—and artists FLASHBACK: The Human Fly: Pretty Fly for a Real Guy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 The comics celebrity-packed story of “The Wildest Superhero of All—Because He’s Real” SUPERMAN COLOR ART GALLERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Four color pages with rare art by Curt Swan and super-friends PRO2PRO ROUNDTABLE: An Amazing Discussion About Clark Kent Red and Clark Kent Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Pre- and post-Man of Steel writers and artists examine Superman’s alter ego OFF MY CHEST: Standing Up for Vince Colletta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Rough Stuff’s Bob McLeod defends “comics’ worst inker” FLASHBACK: What, When, Why, Where, How, and…Who is the Question? . . . . . . . . . . 69 Explore the history of comics’ man with no identity, with O’Neil, Cowan, Rucka, and others BACKSTAGE PASS: Wonder Woman Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Visit a special fundraising event in Portland, Oregon BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 A letter from Deadman co-creator Arnold Drake, plus reader feedback on issue #18 FREE ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 A sample of our sister publication, absolutely gratis 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 Jerry Ordway. Shazam! (the original Captain Marvel), Billy Batson, and Firestorm TM & © DC Comics.

Moon Knight and Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. S e c r e t

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DAVE COCKRUM 1943 – 2006

As production on this issue drew to a close, we were saddened to learn of the Nov. 26, 2006 death of artist Dave Cockrum. Ironically, BACK ISSUE #14, published one year ago this month, featured a “Pro2Pro” interview between Cockrum and Mike Grell, the two most popular Legion of SuperHeroes artists of the 1970s.

Cockrum’s myriad contributions to comics include his revitalization of the X-Men and his creation or co-creation of Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, and the Futurians. We celebrate his extraordinary talent with this penciled page (courtesy of Bob McLeod) from X-Men #94 (Aug. 1975). Like the graceful Storm seen in the first panel, Dave Cockrum, whose later years were plagued with medical complications, now soars free. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Michael Eury

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Tom “The Comics Savant” Stewart

AN EXPLOSION OF NEW IDEAS!

Man of Two Minds Firestorm the Nuclear Man, with silhouettes of his two (original) secret identities, Professor Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond, from a 1977 DC house ad by Al Milgrom. Unless otherwise noted, all art in this article is courtesy of Al Milgrom. © 2007 DC Comics.

In 1977, DC Comics was undergoing seismic changes. The year before, Carmine Infantino— one-time editorial director, then publisher, a man who had set the look and direction of DC for almost ten years—was unceremoniously shown the door at Lexington Ave. by the higher-ups at Warner Communications. He was replaced with Jenette Kahn, a woman several decades Infantino’s junior, with no direct comic-book experience. To say that change was in the air would be like saying Superman … is kinda strong.

In 1975, DC added 16 new titles; in ’76, 12 were added; and in ’77, 12 more were jammed onto the racks. It was a war for shelf space with Marvel Comics, and this time DC wasn’t going to blink.

The call went out for new ideas, new characters, and new titles to join the fray. One of the people to answer was former Marvel editor-in-chief Gerry Conway: “I had come over from Marvel to DC, and was looking to do some work reminiscent of the work I did at Marvel, stuff I enjoyed doing.”

Conway had several ideas he’d been kicking around, one that became Steel (no, the other one, with the cool Don Heck art) and another that went through the indignity of being one of the most touted titles to never appear (well, almost never, but then you’ve got to count that warehouse of unpublished material, Cancelled Comic Cavalcade), Vixen. And one more, a series about what it might really be like to be a teenage super-hero: Firestorm, the Nuclear Man. Here’s Firestorm’s original editor, Jack C. Harris, on the atmosphere at DC in ’76–77: “There was a flurry of presentations at the time.

I remember two of mine own were a reworking of Kamandi (with Dick Ayers) and a reworking of Captain Comet (with Bob Rozakis and Joe Staton).

The Captain Comet concept went pretty far down the line before it was eventually rejected, but the atmosphere was very positive. The Powers That Be were actively seeking new and expansive ideas.”

Gerry Conway brought his concept of Firestorm to the “Powers That Be” and got the green light.

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A DC VERSION OF A MARVEL CHARACTER Here’s Gerry: “The idea behind Firestorm was to answer some basic questions I had about Peter Parker, play around with some thoughts about what would a real teenager, who wasn’t a brainaic, do with powers?

What would a kid in my high school do given that kind of power? I saw him as a kind of nice guy, well meaning, but not the brightest bulb, and to balance that out, came up with the idea of combining him with an older, mentor character, a reverse of the Captain Marvel concept … this time we have the young teenager staying a teenager, but he suddenly gains a Jiminy Cricket in the form of this older, somewhat disproving, smarter father figure. He becomes the voice in his head that tells him what to do, which [the kid] often ignores … as we all often do.”

So how did “team Firestorm” come together, Gerry Conway creator and scripter, and Al Milgrom, co-creator and artist. Gerry…?

“I wanted to work with Al Milgrom. We had a similar sensibility. Al had a kind of cartoony style to his artwork, in the same way Ross Andru’s Spider-Man was cartoony.

He was a great storyteller; drew very dynamic, actionbased figures.”

Happy to Be a Hero The splash page to Firestorm #1 (Mar. 1978), written by Conway, penciled by Milgrom, and inked

by Klaus Janson (“Klaus did a great job!” beams Al). Joe Rubinstein and an uncredited Milgrom inked additional pages in the premiere issue. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Al Milgrom himself had come over from Marvel to edit at DC just before Gerry. Al…?

“They asked if I’d be interested in working with Gerry on this project. I read the proposal, and thought it was pretty good!”

Jack C. Harris was on board as editor: “If I recall clearly, Gerry presented the Firestorm concept amid a flurry of requested submissions from Jenette Kahn and, as part of his contracted scripting, he was to write it as well. I was assigned as the editor with the creative team in place. I was thrilled, having worked with both Gerry and Al previously, and having established good working relationships with them.

That, and the fact that I loved their work.”

SPIDER-MAN SIDEWAYS Gerry, Al, and Jack wanted a return to the fun of the old Marvel. Here’s Gerry: “Basically, the notion was to have some fun with some of the tropes of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man character.”

And Al: “I always thought that Firestorm was Spider-Man sideways! It was the jock, Ronnie [Raymond, Firestorm’s physical alter ego] who had the powers and it was the smart guy, Cliff [Carmichael, supportingcast member] who was the real bully. It was the Spidey setup, but reversed.”

Comics had lost some of the fun over the years since Spider-Man’s 1962 debut. Peter Parker had gotten older and was loaded with some 15 years of baggage, trauma, and soap opera. He’d lost some of the wonder he’d had when he first appeared. It was time to bring some of that back. Gerry…?

“I still wanted to have the soap-opera elements [in Firestorm], but I wanted it to be more fun-based, and that’s reflected in the kind of powers Firestorm had, rearranging molecules to be whatever he wanted them to be. Sort of like Green Lantern, but as a kid.

“The idea was to try to do a DC version of a Marvel character, but try to have some fun with it.”

Ronnie Raymond was a good guy, an average kid with a mostly absent father, a nice hook shot to make up what he lacked in math skills, and a short fuse when it came to his nemesis, the smartest kid in school, mutton-chop- and smirk-wearing Cliff Carmichael. To impress the school beauty Doreen Day, in Firestorm vol. 1 #1 (Mar. 1978), Ronnie joins a nuclear protest group (that would impress girls, right?) that has much more than protesting on its agenda. Ronnie ends up unwittingly involved in a plot to blow up the nuclear plant designed by Professor Martin Stein, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose whole reputation is bound up in the success of the facility.

In trying to stop the explosion, Ronnie and Professor Stein are fused into one being, a nuclearpower man, Firestorm.

As noted, there was a lot of the early Peter Parker character type in Ronnie. Here’s editor Harris: “I remember thinking, initially, that [the Firestorm concept] was very derivative, taking great hunks of ideas and concepts from earlier creations. In later editorial conversations, Gerry often pointed out that everything was derivative in concept and that the originality comes from new presentations, combinations, and rearrangements of these concepts. The more script-plotting sessions we had, the more I saw that he was right. I remember creating two of the villains myself: Killer Frost and Multiplex.”

Professor Martin Stein

Cliff Carmichael

Doreen Day

hot-headed

pipe-smoking voice

mutton-chopped

angel with

high-school jock

of reason

meddler

a Farrah ’do

Note from Al: “Last time I bumped into Jack, he made some remarks [which were at odds with my recollection] about the creation of the costume…”

Jack…?

“Yes! This was fun. The word came down from the front office that we had to submit costume designs prior to the first script. So Al came into my office and began sketching. I remember that Gerry told Al and me that he would trust us totally to come up with a costume. If I recall, Gerry’s workload was very heavy at the time and he really couldn’t take any additional time to work on costume designs. Anyway, Al came up with about four or five sketches, all of them with the flaming head (I think that was Gerry’s one request).

We laughed about the costume with the puffy shirt and the atomic symbol around it. We were submitting that one just to show them we worked on more than one design. We never thought that THAT would be the one they selected. I remember Al whining, “Now I have to draw that costume in every panel!”

Here’s Al again: “The way I remember it was working very hard on the design, looking at the other heroes out there, analyzing the costumes. You know, each had their emblems, front and back—Superman has the ‘S’ on the front and the cape, Batman has the bat—so I gave Firestorm the atom, the nucleus, the protons, and the electrons on the front and the sun on the back. The big sleeves and especially the flaming hair were good to show the motion without having a cape. Some people say it’s very ‘Kirby’-like because the helmet looks kinda Lightray-ish. Well, Jack was the King…”

Conway loved the “hair on fire” look, right, Gerry…?

“I always wanted them to do a Firestorm action figure that could double as a cigarette lighter. Create a character whose hair was on fire, I always liked that idea. Something really, totally, socially irresponsible.

See what happens.”

For villains to match the puffy-shirted one, Gerry, Jack, and Al turned to again to Marvel’s and DC’s pasts for inspiration. Gerry…?

“For super-villains, I wanted to do a combination of the Spider-Man-type villains, very muscular and threatening, and the Flash Rogues’ Gallery villains, who were

oddball, strange … basically silly (‘I can do anything I want with mirrors!’). It was one of my favorite parts, coming up with the villains.”

Introduced in #1 (beside Ronnie and Martin) was the first villain (without his uniform), Multiplex. He was Professor’s Stein former assistant Danton Black (great villain name!), whom the Professor had fired for stealing. Black had also been caught in the blast that created Firestorm, but issue #1 ended before we found out how the blast affected him. In #2 (Apr. 1978), he came back as Multiplex, the duplicate villain.

He could make multiple copies of himself, but with a twist: Each copy Multiplex makes of himself is smaller than the one before. Here’s Gerry: “Like the ‘carbon copy man’ who gets progressively thinner… What I tried to do was take these things and try to figure out what would you really do, what would really happen. I remember one of the things SF writers would say about comic books is that we ignore the basic laws of physics. Well, I have no problem ignoring the laws of physics, like Giant-Man. His body shouldn’t support his weight, his legs would break, and he’d fall down. And I thought, ‘Gee, that’d be funny, I’d like to see that! ’ Or as Ant-Man, when he was really tiny, he’d get blown away because his mass isn’t the same as it was when he’s normal-sized. It’s fun to play with that.

So here we have a guy who can divide himself, but his mass doesn’t change so he just keeps getting smaller— that’s hysterical to me.”

In Firestorm #3 (May 1978), Firestorm met up with an ex-student of Professor Stein’s, Dr. Crystal Frost. Dr. Frost had been nursing a secret love for the Professor for years, and took the opportunity of Martin coming to inspect her energy project to proclaim her feelings. Martin, surprised, rejected her. She ended up being trapped in her own project’s cooling system, emerging as being with incredible ice powers … and a slinky dress. Gerry…?

“We thought to have an ice villain, the Fire/Ice [angle] being natural. I think Al wanted her to be a woman, to have something different to draw.”

Okay then, Al…?

“Really? That’s funny because I don’t think I draw women all that well. I’m sure I came up with the name, though. I was trying to make her sexy and attractive, using the icicles as a motif, an icy/snowy theme.”

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Firestorm © 2007 DC Comics.

Ronnie Raymond

© 2007 DC Comics.

Meet the Firestorm Cast

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Marvelous Team-Ups Milgrom’s original cover art to Firestorm #2 (Apr. 1978) guest-starred Superman and introduced Multiplex (you’ve gotta love the cover copy “Fission-Formed Fiend!”).

The heroes re-teamed in DC Comics Presents #17 (Jan. 1980); cover art by José Luis García-López, courtesy of Rick Shurgin. © 2007 DC Comics.

And how much of this was planned in advance? Gerry…?

“Oh, nothing. I’m terrible about making plans … I’m like the anti-Joe Straczynski. I don’t know what’s going to happen next month.”

Why try to do lighter, fun comics? The market was changing, even then, tending toward the darker stories that would come to flourish in the 1980s.

Firestorm was, even then, something of a throwback to the early ’60s. I’ll go back to Gerry for this one: “Part of what drove me into comic books was to do what I read as a kid, to recapture a part of my childhood. It was also tempered by a fundamental awareness of the inherent silliness of the stuff. I mean that in a completely positive way; you need to take it seriously, to tell stories that move people emotionally, but you can’t get caught up in taking it too seriously. The idea of these super-heroes running around in these outfits, defying the laws of physics, the laws of relationships, it’s inherently silly, and I liked that. I wanted to do a character that addressed that, that was fun. It seemed to work.

[Firestorm] was the longest-running new character at DC for several years, and one of the few that still exists, even in his new form … whatever that may be.

“We must have been doing something right.”

AN IMPLOSION OF IDEAS But Firestorm was cancelled. For a while.

Al Milgrom: “He was an early victim of the DC Implosion.”

Jack…?

“It was the higher-ups (at Warners, I believe) that ultimately initiated the Implosion.”

The mighty “DC Implosion” (that’s what the fans have called it, and it’s since become pretty much the “official” title) was the re-action to the action of the “DC Explosion” of new titles announced by publisher Kahn in full-page house ads. Fifty-seven titles added in four years, then, in 1978, the entire line was traumatically cut by 65 titles. A less-than-expected sales boost from the 1978 Superman movie and two of the worst blizzards the east coast had ever seen conspired to pop Kahn’s and DC’s balloon. Whole shipments of DC comics filled warehouses, undelivered and unsold, the trucks blocked by snow. Kids and parents couldn’t get to the newsstands and convenience stores, then the primary source of comics. Warner Communications, at the time DC’s parent company, was not amused. The word came down: The line was to be cut back to 26 titles. Total. The streets ran black with ink that day. After only five issues, Firestorm was cancelled.

But not forgotten, by the team or the fans. Here’s Jack C. again: “I remember [the experience of producing Firestorm] as very enjoyable.

Gerry worked mostly through the mail and over the phone. Al would bring in the art and we would do lunch and all that. I recall that there was a great sense of camaraderie all around. Editorially, I was very narrowly focused on exciting, individual stories and story arcs. We were doing stories and art that we would enjoy reading. We were all comic fans with quite a bit of professional experience under our collective belts. We really weren’t thinking ‘marketing’ at that point in time. If we thought it was original and exciting, we were pretty certain our readers would agree.”

Nor was the Nuclear Man forgotten by Gerry Conway, who moved on to other titles but kept Firestorm in mind.

“I brought him back in JLA [beginning with Justice League of America #179, June 1980] and as a backup in The Flash [in issues #289–304, Sept. 1980–Dec. 1981, with art by George Pérez, Jim Starlin, Denys Cowan, and Pat Broderick]. As time went by, there was more and more demand [for a new Firestorm title] … well, by ‘demand,’ there was something like five letters.”

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A Quieted Storm (this page and next) The cover (by Milgrom) and concluding page (by Milgrom and inker Jack Abel) to what would have been Firestorm #6 (not #5, as the cover mistakenly reads) saw print (sort of) in 1978 in the extremely rare Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1. Its introduction of Typhoon is not the version of the villain’s origin that appeared in Flash #294. Also, the exit blurb hints at a new, unseen villain. © 2007 DC Comics.

© 2007 DC Comics.

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sexy… Rafael [Kayanan, who eventually took over the art after Broderick] was good and he was fast, but maybe not as dynamic as Pat. Pat could really draw.”

Gerry, Pat, and later Rafael continued developing the backstory between Ronnie, his girlfriend Doreen (whose sister Summer was the vicious villainess Hyena), his mysterious father Edward, and his enemy/annoyance Cliff Carmichael. Gerry focused on the continuing soap opera of the characters and their lives, and the problems and responsibilities with being a super-hero.

Here’s Al: “Gerry was really a doing a Marvel formula, a Marvel book, under the DC Bullet.”

Gerry and Pat also continued to introduce new rogues, including Black Bison, a Native-American villain; Plastique, a villainess with a yen for things that went boom (who later reformed and dated Captain Atom, speaking of things that go boom); the aquatic character Typhoon (who was supposed to appear in the original Firestorm #6, but showed up in the fabled Cancelled Comic Cavalcade. Take that, continuity mavens!); and the popular superheroine Firehawk, who was Lorraine Reilly, the girl Ronnie was dating at the time. Firehawk was engineered

by Multiplex to be a villain, but ended up dating Firestorm, which started some interesting conversations between Ronnie and the chaperone in his head, Professor Stein. Says Gerry: “That was something I really enjoyed in the series, the byplay between the two characters [of Ronnie and Professor Stein]. It was like two people having SpiderMan’s inner monologues. That was a lot of fun.”

The Fury of Firestorm was a steady seller, popular with fans, but it tended to fly under the fan press radar.

How was it doing, Gerry…?

“Selling fine, did well. I never got any pressure to change it. I never had the sense that the book was in any kind of trouble. I think it got into trouble when they started changing it … then it died.”

© 2007 DC Comics.

“I WAS BEING AN *SSHOLE…”

“BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT—BACK IN HIS OWN MAGAZINE!” Firestorm returned in The Fury of Firestorm, so named to separate it from the previous series. In issue #1 (June 1982), Ronnie Raymond, Martin Stein, and the supporting cast were back, picking up where they left off in the back of Flash. Gerry Conway was back as writer and editor. With Al Milgrom back at Marvel, Pat Broderick took over as artist, continuing from the Firestorm backups in Flash. How was working it with Pat on the series? Gerry…?

“Pat was great, he was terrific, but he was slow. It became hard to get the book out [on time], but his art was just tremendous! It was funny—he had a great sense of humor to his art, and he was a great storyteller.

Doing the Flash backups, which was, like, nine pages every two months, it was no problem, but when we started the monthly book, it became a problem. But his stuff was so good; he did such a great job. He created the visual for Firebird, he made her look sooo

© 2007 DC Comics.

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Why did Gerry Conway end up leaving the book and the character? Gerry…?

“Well, there were a variety of reasons. For many years at DC I was on contract for the company and I was contracted to write a certain amount a material a month … and it was far too much. I shouldn’t have been writing as much as I was writing. But I wanted to make a living, I wanted to do well, so I was writing 100–150 pages a month, which comes out to 5–6 titles a month. Far too much. So as time went by, I was the guy they’d throw things at when they needed something fast, or when they needed material. Over time, the quality of my work started to suffer. I think it still held up on the titles I cared about, but on a lot of these things, I had to get it done, and there it was. In the mid-’80s, DC started to respond to the new fan base, moving from newsstand to direct sales. They wanted newer, sexier writers. I think it was at this time that Paul Levitz said to Marv Wolfman that nobody over the age of 30 could really write comics. By 1985, I was over 30.

“There was a pressure to start replacing us. I was starting to rebel against that. I was, well, burning out.

I was making more of a fuss about things, I was being an *sshole. I was pushing buttons and making people angry at me. Bit by bit, they started taking things away. They fired me as an editor, took me off JLA. Finally they took everything. I had nothing.

“As I was burning out, I wasn’t able to write as much, so I wasn’t able to meet my commitment to them. One thing led to another, and there I was. For six months to a year I wasn’t writing comics at all, then I came back to comics briefly through the good graces of people over at Marvel, then I went into television and left.”

After Gerry left Fury of Firestorm with #53 (Dec. 1986), the title was taken over by writer John Ostrander with #55 (after a Paul Kupperberg fill-in in issue #54). Instead of using the Nuclear Man as established, Ostrander decided changes were needed and recreated Firestorm, taking Firestorm further from his human roots and upping his powers to god-like levels. The more playful, soap-opera elements were dropped in favor of making Firestorm a Swamp Thing-like elemental, changing the combinations of individuals that made up the fusion being, then dropping the fusion angle. While maybe more inventive (maybe too inventive?), it wasn’t really Firestorm as originally conceived. The second series ended with #100 (Aug. 1990).

Firestorm, back in the form of Ronnie Raymond, died in the controversial 2004–2005 miniseries Identity Crisis, killed by the Shadow Thief. Firestorm had been bouncing around the DC Universe for several years, contracting cancer, becoming an alcoholic, and drifting ever further from the kid who took great joy from turning a gun into a cucumber.

Firestorm: The Nuclear Man vol. 3, with its first issue cover-dated July 2004, introduced a new Firestorm, Jason Rusch. For a few issues, though, Ronnie Raymond returned, still in his old costume, still the hero, though a bit older and world weary. He disappeared (died?) again, after showing the new Firestorm what it meant to be a hero with great power and even greater responsibilities. Which is how a hero should act.

We still miss the kid though, and that Vegasstage costume.

Getting Firestorm Down Pat The Pat Broderick/Rodin Rodriguez-drawn splash page to Fury of Firestorm #6 (Nov. 1982), courtesy of Heritage Comics.

Thanks to Gerry Conway, Jack Harris, and Al Milgrom for their time and talent!

© 2007 DC Comics.

HOW A HERO SHOULD ACT What did you think of the new direction, Gerry?

“I was in such pain over the way I was treated, and the way I treated DC, that I didn’t read anything [they were publishing].”

By the time the series ended, with a god-like Martin Stein, now Firestorm, flying out into space, leaving a now-powerless Ronnie Raymond behind, there was little of the original “teenager with great powers”’ concept left.

“How does this make it different from every other comic book now?” Conway asks. “I don’t think it did the book any good. It didn’t really go anywhere, and it died. And rather than admit they were wrong, and go back to the original material, they pretended like it was the fart in the room, nobody’s fault.”

Firestorm has gone through several permutations after Gerry, Jack, and Al left. What kept the interest in the character alive over the years? Jack…?

“I think it goes back to two things I mentioned before: Gerry’s originality and that whacko costume. I have fond memories of the character in his original form.

I wasn’t too fond of later changes and incarnations.

My favorite appearance of the character (outside of his initial run) was in the 1986–1987 Legends six-issue miniseries drawn by John Byrne, plotted by John Ostrander, and scripted by Len Wein. That series captured the essence of so many DC characters of the time so perfectly. It’s one of my all-time favorite books from after my time on the DC staff, and Firestorm was well represented. The other thing is that I believe that Al Milgrom is one of the great underused talents of that period. His talent, in all realms, from art to story to editing, is still as sharp and original as ever. He should get more work.”

Al…?

“I had a blast doing it! A fun book. I just did a commission for a guy in Europe who collected the original series in French reprints, bound them together, and sent them to me to do a cover for it! It was an intensive year, that time at DC, editing and burning the freelance oil at night penciling Firestorm. I left after the Implosion and stayed at Marvel for the next 20 years, but I did do the [original] Who’s Who Firestorm entry for DC and did an origin recap for the second series. Working with Gerry and Jack was a pleasure.”

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Al Milgrom Firestorm Art Gallery (below) Al’s scrapped (“Too static!”) Firestorm pencil rough for Who’s Who vol. 1 #8 (Dec. 1985) and (right) the published version. Also shown: (bottom right) his Killer Frost pinup from Who’s Who #12 (Feb. 1986).

Artist/editor Milgrom was back at Marvel (as “Editori-Al”) at the time he did these Who’s Who pieces. © 2007 DC Comics.

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(above) Milgrom remarks that this two-page spread (pages 2 and 3) from 1978’s Firestorm #1 is “among my favorite pages.” (far left) Original cover art to Firestorm #3 (May 1978), marking Killer Frost’s debut, and (left) #4 (June 1978), with the Hyena’s intro. © 2007 DC Comics.

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(previous page) Four unused cover sketches for Firestorm #4. (this page) Now here’s an identity crisis: The Nuclear Man blasts his “Jiminy Cricket” Prof. Stein in Al Milgrom’s layouts/ pencils for page 1 of the Implosion-axed Firestorm #7. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Just how does a super-hero hide his or her identity from friends, family, foes, and any other animals, vegetables, or minerals he or she might come in contact with? It’s tough, but we’ve asked a few “professionals” for their advice on…

The Top Ten Ways to Hide Your Secret Identity by

Jennifer M. Contino

10. Wear a wig.

“After all, even if your face is exposed, having a wig on can make all the difference in the world,” says Linda Lee. “Especially if it’s styled different than your ‘normal’ hairstyle.”

Dinah Lance is quick to agree, “With the right wig you can fool even a trained detective!”

9. Act like a wimp.

“If you’re a wimp, there’s no way someone will think you’re a hero, especially if you let bullies push you around, kick sand in your face, and bug you,” says Peter Parker. “Just to make sure your disguise is fooling everyone, let them knock books out of your hands or tease you in front of pretty girls, too.”

© 2007 DC.

8. Act like a pimp.

Bruce Wayne encourages, “If you’re at a party with several girls hanging off every body part, no one will believe you have enough time, energy, or desire to seek your kicks by busting heads on a dark ‘night.’”

© 2007 Marvel.

“Along with having a few gals on each arm, have a few bottles of good scotch or fine wine in each hand,” suggests Tony Stark.

“Getting a little sauced will make others find it hard to believe you’re an invincible hero.”

7. Have a list of ready excuses.

© 2007 Marvel.

“No, that wasn’t me saving the world, I was out walking my dog!”

“No, that red webbed shirt you saw underneath my dress shirt wasn’t a Spider-Man costume. I had a red crayon in with my laundry and all my undershirts are that color now.”

“I don’t know how Wonder Woman freed us, I was unconscious like the rest of you!”

“This isn’t a Green Lantern ring, I got it out of a Cracker Jacks box!”

Steve Rogers concurs, “I can’t tell you how many times the right excuse has saved my career!”

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© 2007 DC.

6. Be a klutz.

“If you can’t walk straight in your civilian identity and are tripping all over everyone there, no one will believe you can defy the laws of gravity or change the course of mighty rivers,” says Clark Kent.

5. Keep spare sets of clothes all over the place.

“You never know when your webbing might wear out,” says Peter Parker. “I’ve lost more dress shirts that way…”

Clark Kent recalls, “Secret pouches are also a hassle sometimes.” © 2007 Warner Bros.

“Just keep several sets of the same civvies in the usual hiding places to be on the safe side,” says Bruce Banner. “Especially if you wear stretchy purple pants ... those are so hard to find in stores.”

4. Have a handicap.

© 2007 Marvel.

“Being blind, no one would ever suspect you of being such a devil in a red—well, you get the idea,” comments Matt Murdock.

Charles Xavier says, “This wheelchair is my perfect cover!”

Joseph Wilson nods in agreement.

3. Use an image enhancer.

“There’s nothing more handy than a tiny piece of electronic equipment that can change your appearance and do just about everything but brush your teeth,” says Kurt Wagner.

© 2007 Marvel.

2. Wear glasses.

Barbara Gordon enthuses, “Glasses are the perfect disguise!”

© 2007 Marvel.

“You can barely tell what someone looks like when they aren’t wearing their glasses,” says Diana Prince. “And if you’ve a four-eyes in front of you, you’d never believe he could be a man of steel or that she could be a real wonder.”

© 2007 DC.

1. Be a shapechanger.

“If you can alter your identity at will and take on the characteristics of anyone or anything else, then no one would ever be able to find out your identity,” says John Jones.

Garfield Logan agrees, “Even if you’re a green squirrel, people just don’t get it!”

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by

Zack Smith

a m e c s u B d n a t r a h e l g s En ’ a c i r e m A on Captainy Crisis Identit It’s one thing for a super-hero to change his name, or maybe assume a new identity for a story. It’s another thing for one of the most iconic characters in comics to not only change his identity, but his entire philosophy as well.

Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema did just that with Captain America in the 1970s, crafting one of Cap’s most thought-provoking and best-remembered storylines.

“The Nomad Saga” (Captain America #177–186, Sept. 1974–June 1975) came in the wake of another well-regarded Englehart/Buscema collaboration, the recently reprinted “Secret Empire” storyline. In it, Captain America battles an evil conspiracy seeking to take over the country, leading to one of the most shocking endings in comics—after chasing the Secret Empire’s leader, Number One, to the Oval Office, Cap unmasks him to discover an unseen figure who claims “high political office” wasn’t enough for him, before committing suicide.

Though Number One’s identity was never stated, the allegory was clear to readers—Captain America had just witnessed a villainous Richard Nixon taking his own life.

Bereft, Cap questioned whether the values he stood for still applied in this modern America. He became a new hero, the Nomad, literally “the man without a country.”

Others attempted to fill Cap’s shoes, including a young kid he’d befriended named Roscoe. But when Roscoe was brutally murdered by the Red Skull, Cap realized that he had to return. Understanding that he represented America’s people and ideals rather than its government, he resumed his old identity and set out to avenge his friend.

The Nomad identity made a strong impression on readers, and was later revived by Jack Monroe, another Englehart creation. The new Nomad stuck around for a while, even enjoying a short-lived solo series in the early 1990s before he was recently killed off in the latest Captain America series.

BACK ISSUE recently sat down with Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema (whose participation was limited due to recent health problems) to look back on this storyline, and their work together. We also spoke to Joe Casey and Ed Brubaker, two modern-day Cap writers who have cited Englehart and Buscema’s influence on their work.

—Zack Smith

The Seminal Cap Team Even before their landmark Nomad storyline, Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema had pulled Captain America out of its sales doldrums.

Detail from page 1 of issue #161 (May 1973), courtesy of Nick Katradis. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ZACK SMITH: What was the genesis of the Nomad storyline?

How far in advance had you planned to do it?

STEVE ENGLEHART: I was very much sort of in-the-moment at that time. It came out, of course, during the whole Watergate thing. I was writing Captain America during Watergate and it just became absurd to me that Captain America would not pay any attention to Watergate. So I ended up doing “The Secret Empire” and you can see, if you read those issues leading up to it, it started out as kind of a super-hero thing and there’s vague talk of a conspiracy. But I had just moved out to California and a couple of issues were kind of plotted with Mike Friedrich. I plotted them, he wrote them, but I was sort of moving the story forward without having much idea what the story was at that point. And then I moved to California and settled in just as Watergate was really heating up. And for people who weren’t around then, it was very much like having this epic movie unfolding day by day. Every day there was forward motion in the storyline, there were new revelations, there were machinations, there were Senate hearings, and it really was the whole summer. So it seemed impossible to me that Captain America could not pay attention to it.

So once I got settled in California and sort of got back on schedule to do everything myself, I started shaping a story which really hadn’t started off in that direction, shaping it toward the whole thing where the president blows his brains out in the White House and Captain America is disillusioned, that America doesn’t believe in what he believes at the time. And then it just seemed obvious that he would give up being Captain America.

I mean, it was like one thing led to another, and so, to answer your original question, I probably [worked] no more than a month ahead when I thought of doing the Nomad concept. It was like every story led into every other story, and there was no long-term plan. I mean, the only long-term plan, as I recall, was that Captain America would have to become Captain America again at some point, and I understood that in my own sense of values to mean that no, it wouldn’t just be, “Oh, well, we’ve run this storyline into the ground.” If I had to go back again, there would have to be a good way for him to come back, but I didn’t know what that was. All I knew is I was going to do the Nomad thing and so it was just existential, really, because sort of every story I’d say, “Okay, here’s where it would go next,” and then I’d get that one done and I’d go, “Well, here’s where it would go next.” And that’s all I really knew.

SMITH: The ending of the “Secret Empire” storyline went into issue #176, some of your best writing on the series. I’d like to talk a little bit about that particular issue. How did you decide to do one that was just kind of a philosophical Captain America issue?

ENGLEHART: Well, Captain America, to me, was a philosophy in a sense. I mean, that goes back to when I took over the series.

As a reader—you know, [I was] just a fan before I went to work for Marvel—Captain America was clearly the book that had the least reason for existence, shall we say? I mean, Captain America was brought back in Tales of Suspense and Jack Kirby got a chance to do it again, and Stan Lee got a chance to do it, and for a while, there was like an interesting Captain America storyline. But once [Cap] got his own book, clearly, Stan had no idea what to do with it. It was just sort of bad super-hero stuff without any purpose or anything. But the problem wasn’t just Stan. Everybody was having difficulty with a character who was supposed to be a patriotic example of America when the Vietnam War was going on and when people were very much up in arms about what America was doing, and so forth, and it was like nobody was able to wrap his mind around doing a patriotic character in a sort of anti-American time.

And so when I got handed the book, I was able to wrap my mind around that. I could see [Cap] pretty clearly as a guy who exemplified the best that America had to offer, not what it was offering. And so right from the start, I was just doing this sort of philosophical take on this guy. I was doing the best super-hero

Beginnings: Art assistant to Neal Adams in Vampirella vol. 1 #10 (1971)

Milestones: The Avengers / The Defenders / Captain America The Incredible Hulk / Dr. Strange / Batman in Detective Comics / The Point Man (novel) / Coyote Scorpio Rose / The Djinn / Justice League of America / animation including Street Fighter and G. I. Joe / Green Lantern / The Night Man / Batman: Dark Detective

Work in Progress: The Long Man™ (novel, sequel to The Point Man™)

Cyberspace: www.steveenglehart.com

STEVE ENGLEHART Photo courtesy of steveenglehart.com.

Beginnings: Inker on 10-page Gunhawk story

Milestones: The Avengers / Sub-Mariner / Captain America The Incredible Hulk / Marvel Team-Up The Defenders / Rom / Iron Man / The Amazing Spider-Man / Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man / Fantastic Four / Artist for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe covers

Work in Progress: Inker for Spider-Girl

Cyberspace: Spider-Girl message board at comicsboards.com

SAL BUSCEMA Photo courtesy of Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find.

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book I could do, but at the same time, there was always this idea that he stood for something more than just super-heroics. That’s what differentiated him from Daredevil or Batman or any of those guys. He stood for the American Ideal and he didn’t wear it on his sleeve. It wasn’t a philosophical book in the sense that he didn’t walk around saying, “Here’s what I believe,” but that was just part of the vibe that he put off, so that was all in place. And even then, I never thought I was going to be building contemporary politics or any of that kind of stuff. I was just kind of working— I never mentioned—well, I did mention Vietnam, but there weren’t stories when Cap goes to Vietnam and does this and that, whatever.

Anyway, so the philosophical end of it was in place, and when he quit being Captain America, that was sort of the culmination of all that stuff. He did stand for something better than America was. America had really gone off the track, although who knew what would be coming later? And so, his quitting was a philosophical

“Everything that you needed to see.”

The Buscemapenciled splash to Englehart’s first issue of Captain America, #153 (Sept. 1972), inked and signed by Jim Mooney. Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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issue. You know, it was a thing for him to really come to terms with—not for me, but for him—to come to terms with the fact that what he stood for, what he had signed up to be back in 1941 at the beginning of the greatest generation, had gone to the Watergate point, and so I thought it was worth doing an entire issue where he just talked about that. In comics, you’re not supposed to be able to do that. You’re not supposed to be able to do a comic book that has no action in it. These days, there’s a lot of more talking and so forth in comics, but certainly in those days, the idea of a comic that was just about a guy, standing on a roof, talking to people, was pretty revolutionary. Times have moved on and it may not seem so much now, but at the time, there had never been a book like that. Of course, there never had been a book where Captain America had quit being Captain America because of his disgust with America.

So I was in the midst of this incredible roll, and I saw where [Captain America] could talk to each one of those individual Avengers and each one would have a different opinion about what he ought to do, and yet he could talk so he could have these sort of intense philosophical discussions. And, of course, if he was having them with a bunch of guys on the street, that would be even more boring comic books, but because he was having them with Thor and the Vision, and so on and so forth, at least you had the nice visuals. If this guy’s standing on a roof, Sal Buscema can draw that and make that interesting, and make that look good.

So I put everything I’ve got into every character that I do, but I really try to be true to the characters. If I’d’ve been writing Daredevil, I couldn’t have done that storyline. I mean, it just would have made no sense. It was a total Captain America storyline, and this comes back to what I was saying earlier, that in writing a Captain America storyline and really trying to be true to that character in the moment, you go, “Hmm, that would be interesting to do. This is what Captain America would do at this point.” And if you’re writing Daredevil, it would never occur to you to do that because Daredevil would never do that.

So the whole thing about him standing on a roof, talking to people, it was just the right thing to do at the time. You know, it was where it led to. And then, of course, as I’m sure you’re about to get to, the next step was, “What does he do next?” I’m not about to jump ahead of your questions, but that’s how Nomad came up. It was like, “Okay, now that he’s quit, now what does he do?” And it was in-the-moment again. It was like first, he’ll quit because that’s what he’ll do, then we’ll think about what he’s going to do next.

SMITH: They credit Martha Dukeshire for coming up with the name of “Nomad.”

ENGLEHART: Yeah, she was my girlfriend at the time.

We were living together in California and I was telling her what I was doing one day and she came by—I was probably saying, “I need a name, a ‘man without a country’ kind of thing. It was Captain America, so he’s got to be the non-Captain America.” So I remember I was thinking about a man without a country and she’s the one who said “Nomad,” so fine, I gave her credit for it. You know, why not?

SMITH: How much of the design did you come up with, or was that all Sal? ENGLEHART: Pretty much Sal. You know, I wouldn’t swear to it. I mean, if he said, “No, no, Steve gave me this idea,” it wouldn’t surprise me either. But my sense of it is that I said it’s a non-Captain America uniform, something that isn’t Captain America, and if you’re

Nomad’s Cover Story

Captain America #180 (Dec. 1974): Steve Rogers becomes Nomad.

Captain America #181 (Jan. 1975): Roscoe becomes the new Captain America.

going to go from red, white, and blue and you’re not going to use any of them [chuckles], you kind of go toward black.

The cape thing was mine, definitely the cape. I hadn’t done Batman at that point, but I’m thinking, “Cap’s never had a cape, he could think that it might be cool to have a cape.” But then Captain America [with] a cape doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I mean, whether he’s Captain America or whether he’s the Nomad, it’s a little too grandiose for that guy, and so I just thought it was funny to have the cape and have him trip over it and say, “Screw the cape” [chuckles] and take off again. But I think that the design, other than the cape [that he got] rid of it, was probably Sal’s.

SAL BUSCEMA: [joining interview] Is that right? I just don’t recall whether I did. I may very well have, but I just don’t recall. As I recall, it was a pretty simple costume so there was not that much of a big deal about it.

SMITH: What was the collaboration like?

ENGLEHART: It was great. You know, I worked with Sal on, I think, five different series, I’m not—it’s hard to remember exactly, but we did Defenders together, we did Captain America together, and then we did Skull the Slayer, which was a stupid little thing.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred people look at a comic book and they see the whole thing and they can’t separate the writing from the art. If I write a story and I have a really good artist, they think I wrote a better story. And if I write the same story and I have a really bad artist, they think I wrote a worse story because if they just think the comic book’s worse, they don’t differentiate.

So I was incredibly fortunate that the first guy that I got [to work with]—actually, with the Beast [series starting in Amazing Adventures #12, May 1972], I had Tom Sutton and Mike Ploog—but the first extended

All covers © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nomad #1 (Nov. 1990): Four-issue miniseries starring Jack Monroe.

Nomad #1 (May 1992): Monthly series debuts, runs 25 issues.

things that I did were Captain America and The Defenders, and both of them were with Sal. And so people came away from those going, “Hmm, that guy writes pretty good stories” [Zack chuckles]. I credit Sal with a lot of that because again, if I’d had a bad artist, they wouldn’t have liked the stories as much, and who knows where my career would have gone under those circumstances? But the two of us, we worked really well together. Sal is a great storyteller.

You know, I’ve said this for years, and this is not new to anybody who’s read other interviews with me about this, but I’m a storyteller and I want my artist to be a storyteller. Over the years I’ve worked with guys who could draw really pretty pictures but could not move a story across a page. Sal could do both. Sal drew very interesting-looking people, and his stuff was pleasant to look at, but he was also an excellent storyteller. My stuff is usually reasonably complex and it’s got subtleties in it. I could tell Sal anything and usually just on the fly. In those days, we were doing comics quickly and everybody had to do his job. The famous thing Roy Thomas said to me when he hired me was, “If you can turn this in on time and make it sell, you can keep doing it.

And if you can’t, we’ll fire you and get somebody else.” That was Marvel’s overall approach, and so everybody had to do what they had to do. [I could] call up Sal and say, “Here’s the concept, here’s what I’m doing,” [and] he would get it every time and completely understand it. When he was doing the story, he’d be putting in the nuances and the subtleties and so forth in addition to just doing a good-looking super-hero book.

So you can’t prove a negative. It’s hard to say if I’d had really bad artists exactly what would have happened. But fortunately, I had a really good artist and so a good part of my career is directly attributable to him.

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BUSCEMA: One of the fondest memories I have of working with Steve is, up to the point that we took over the book, Captain America was not a very good-selling publication. [It had been] worked on by some of the biggest guns at Marvel: obviously Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, I believe my brother worked on it for a while; it had some hotshot writers such as Stan Lee himself for a while, I guess when Jack was doing it.

The bottom line is that when Steve and I took over the book, the sales suddenly [increased]. It was a combination of things. It certainly wasn’t just because of me or just because of Steve. The chemistry between us worked very well and I believe … I’m not a hundred percent sure of this, but I believe that the book hit #5 in sales when we were working on it, especially during that “Secret Empire” storyline. And that’s very gratifying to know that when you’ve worked on a book that has not been a big-selling title, and then all of a sudden, because of a combination of some well-written stories— if I assume I illustrated them pretty well—that it became a good-selling book. That’s probably my greatest recollection, my best recollection, of working on it during that period. I think I worked on the book for, I don’t know, four or five years, maybe three years, I don’t recall exactly. But during that period that Steve and I worked on it together, it was a very, very good-selling book.

SMITH: Steve, what were some of the subtleties Sal added to a particular scene or issue that stick out in your memory?

Star-Spangled Sal A pair of pulsepounding pages, pre-“Secret Empire,” showing the talented Mr. Buscema’s razor-sharp storytelling.

Original art from Captain America #152 and 163 courtesy of Nick Katradis. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ENGLEHART: Well, the stuff I think about is facial expressions. Everything I do comes from character. I mean, it’s a super-hero book, it’s got action, it’s got this, that, and the other thing, but to me, the most important thing is who is the person inside the suit, not the suit.

When I did Green Lantern, somebody said to me, “But they all have the same power.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but they’re all different people. They all use the power differently.” To me, it’s always been about character, and so somebody who can convey the nuances of character is what I value to a great extent, and that’s what Sal did so wonderfully. His Captain America, Falcon, Sharon—all these people were living people on the page. It’s a hybrid medium that requires both of us knowing what’s going on. And again, I’m not going to name the names on the other side of the ledger, but I’ve written stories where the people all looked like they were carved out of wood—they might have been really pretty carvings, but they never actually came alive on the page. Sal’s stuff was always alive on the page. His brother John had a more grandiose style and got to do the more grandiose books, shall we say. I didn’t work with John that much, but I did work with him now and again, but of the two, I preferred Sal. John could do everything I’m talking about, too, but I just thought Sal was more direct about it by being less … “grandiose” is the word that keeps coming to mind. I’m not sure that that’s the best word. But John’s stuff was operatic, and Sal’s was more like a good rock-and-roll tune. It was just

Tricky Dick in Comics Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Before “Secret Empire,” Richard Nixon was no stranger to comics readers…

MAD #60 (Jan. 1961) congratulated Nixon for an election he didn’t win. © 2007 EC Publications.

Shortly before the Watergate break-in, Fantastic Four #123 (June 1972) gueststarred the prez. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Cover artist Murphy Anderson socked it to us with this “Nee-Xon” cover to From Beyond the Unknown #17 (June–July 1972). © 2007 DC Comics.

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Public domain photo from Images of American Political History.

like right there, boom, exactly what you wanted to see, clear, concise … everything that you wanted was there. “Concise” doesn’t mean he left stuff out. He had it all there.

But again, you can draw a scene a million ways. I can say, “Nick Fury’s sitting in a room and Captain America and Falcon and Sharon walk in the door.” The way Sal chose to frame that for my very first splash page of my very first Captain America, it had everything that you needed to see. I mean, it had mood, it had atmosphere, all the way through.

He’s a natural storyteller. He can tell a story with his pencil and that’s what comics are, stories told in words and pictures.

SMITH: Sal, do you still get people at conventions and like who remember that specific run on Captain America?

BUSCEMA: I hear about it all the time, all the time. When I go to conventions, that is one of the specific storylines that they talk about, and how much they enjoyed it. So many of the fans tell me that they have that series and they take it out and reread it. And that’s very gratifying, and I’m sure Steve feels the same way about it.

SMITH: Why do you feel that run on Captain America has had such an influence on so many people?

BUSCEMA: Because the characters are symbols, a symbol of what I believe this country stands for and what this country is all about. He’s a symbol of freedom, virtue, and courage. And those may be pretty oldfashioned things to talk about today [chuckles], but I believe they count for an awful lot, and I think that’s probably one of the reasons why the character has sustained. And I understand they’re coming out sometime soon, in the next couple of years or so, they’re coming out with a Captain America movie. It’ll be very interesting to see how it’s handled.

SMITH: The last couple issues of the Nomad storyline switched from you, Sal, to Frank Robbins as artist.

BUSCEMA: I think I was just given another assignment and I can’t recall—it might have been The Hulk for all I know. I don’t recall exactly, and I guess it was probably because I just couldn’t handle that much work [at one time].

SMITH: How many books were you doing at that point?

BUSCEMA: Oh, well, I assumed The Hulk and … good grief, there were so many others, some of those combination Spider-Man books [Marvel TeamUp]. I may have been doing two or three issues a month at that time, maybe even more. Because I was blessed with a certain amount of speed and some decent storytelling ability, Marvel would come to me and ask me to bail them out on one issue or another, so there were so many factors involved that’s probably as specific as I can get about why I left the book. And I just knew I was at a point where I figured that I’d just had done it enough.

SMITH: Was it disappointing to leave the book?

BUSCEMA: Disappointing?

SMITH: Mm-mm.

BUSCEMA: No, because as I recall, I went onto other projects that I enjoyed as much and maybe even more. [departs interview] SMITH: Steve, did you have to adjust your writing for Frank’s style?

ENGLEHART: Well, I’m a big Frank Robbins fan. I really liked the stuff he’d done, Man-Bat [in Detective Comics] in particular over at DC. But his style was very different from Sal’s. I had done Captain America for, like, three years, I don’t know exactly, but I’d done it from the beginning of my run with Sal, and I was not as pleased with Frank’s stuff. Sal and I were a team, and the flip side of being able to tell him anything, and know that he would do it and really like the way he did it for so many issues, was that that’s just the way I saw Captain America. So when Frank came on, as much as I liked Frank, it didn’t look like Captain America to me anymore. I did not adjust my writing, because I knew what I was doing was working. Not because I was so cool, but because it was working. It was selling, so the idea of changing what I was doing did not really occur. Plus, I was in the middle of the Nomad storyline and even though I was making it up as I went along, each step does sort of point you toward the end. It was clear in my mind I was going to see how long I could go without Captain America.

But I knew I couldn’t go forever without Captain America. As I said, I knew I was going to have to come back to him at some point. So incrementally, even without an overt plan, I was thinking, “Where’s this going?” I was in the middle of an arc and I just went ahead and finished off the arc. I did what I wanted to do. I’m just sorry that it wasn’t Sal all the way through because that, to me, was what Captain America looked like.

SMITH: Did the change in artists contribute to your decision to leave the book?

ENGLEHART: Yeah. When I got done with that Captain America arc, the first thing I did was bring back the Red Skull, because the Red Skull’s cool and that was fun to do. But I did sort of feel like I’d been to the mountaintop.

Final judgment is up to the fans, but in my mind I had written sort of the ultimate Captain America arc at that point: He’d quit, he’d become somebody else, and he’d come back when he’d seen that he needed to come back. I had the little kid, Roscoe, who got killed, and had a nice Falcon story running along in there, too, and I felt like that was the high point of Captain America for me.

And I could go back and I could just continue to write a good super-hero book, but I wasn’t likely to be able to do a run like that again. It was unlikely that Nixon was going to do anything again [laughs]. So I felt like I’d kind of done what I needed to do with Captain America. That was one side of it. And then the other side was the art change. I mean, in the end, it was Herb Trimpe, and I like Herb Trimpe quite a bit. I’d done The Hulk with him, and liked working with him, but that was now my third artist. And certainly, I’d been on books where you change artists every month, but Captain America hadn’t been like that.

So all-in-all, it just seemed like that was a good jumping-off point. And then they did offer me this bigticket black-and-white Thor magazine … which, of course, didn’t materialize. But I thought, “Well, I’ve done what I need to do with Captain America and it would be fun to try this new challenge of writing the mythology.”

Better Than Number One’s Fate President Richard Nixon departing the White House after resigning.

August 9, 1974.

Public domain photo from Images of American Political History and Nixon Presidential Materials Project.

Photo by Oliver F. Atkins.

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SMITH: What kind of awards did you receive for the Nomad storyline?

ENGLEHART: There was an Inkpot in San Diego, but actually, the thing that was most interesting was …

I know I’m going to get this wrong … I want to say the Modern— SMITH: Your website said it was from the Convention of Modern Language Associations.

ENGLEHART: Oh, good [chuckles]. I’m glad I had that on there. I was going to say “Modern Language,” and that didn’t sound right to me. But yeah, these university professors involved in popular culture and the way it’s used had me come to their convention and speak on the renovation of Captain America.

You know, Captain America, for a lot of people, does stand out. I mean, he’s not Daredevil. Even after the famous Ben Affleck movie, if you asked a lot of people who’s Daredevil and who’s Captain America, I think more people would know who Captain America is. He’s an icon. Maybe I’ll just drop back a second and say he’s an icon, but he’s [also] a human being. That’s what made him work for me in that series, I think. But certainly, people have no idea who Steve Rogers is as a concept, let alone as a human being. A good part of my reputation, early in the day, [was that] Captain America was about to be cancelled or go bimonthly, and within six months, Sal and I had made it the #1 book at Marvel.

Things could change that fast in those days and the fact is that we took Captain America from nothingness, really.

There was nothing going on in that book. It had no excitement whatsoever. The fact that we took it and, all of a sudden, made it extremely popular and then made it extremely relevant caught a lot of people’s attentions.

It was really something that the people were quite aware of and thus, gave awards for.

SMITH: If you were offered the opportunity to write Captain America today, would you take it?

ENGLEHART: I would, yeah.

SMITH: It’s really kind of an interesting political situation again.

ENGLEHART: Oh, yeah. All I can tell you is a year ago, Marvel asked me if I would do some more Captain Americas. The first thing I said, because I thought it might be a sore point, was if I did Captain America, I would have politics in it. And of course, the first thing they said in response was, [chuckles] “No, we don’t do that anymore.” Now I keep hearing that oh, there’s been politics here and there’s been politics there. I’ve found over the years that if I asked to do something and it’s too much for the companies, they usually say no. But then six months later, they let somebody else do it.

SMITH: [laughs] They’ve got a Civil War thing going on now.

ENGLEHART: Exactly where I was going with The West Coast Avengers. But I wrote Captain America as Captain America, not as Steve Englehart. Now, I mean, I’ve got my opinions on Bush and Cheney and Iraq, and so forth. I wouldn’t be pushing my opinions, I’d be pushing Captain America’s opinions. I tend to think they might be reasonably similar. But yeah, America has moved on, so Captain America’s got new things to do.

SMITH: If you approached the character again, could you see it echoing the Nomad storyline?

ENGLEHART: Possibly. I would not do a thing where he quit being Captain America again because I’m always looking to do something new, not to replicate what I did. Now Nomad is a separate guy.

SMITH: Well, they killed off the separate guy.

Buscema Bows Out… …as does Steve Rogers as Nomad in Captain America #183 (Mar. 1975). A turning point in Cap’s life, written by Englehart, penciled by Frank Robbins, and inked by Frank Giacoia. Courtesy of Frank Bolas. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ENGLEHART: Okay, well…

SMITH: You could see to doing, maybe, a new Nomad.

ENGLEHART: One way or another, it would seem like Nomad would want to get in on this story. But yeah, in answer to your abstract question, yes.

If they said to me, “You can do Captain America and you can do it the way you wanted to do,” that would be interesting to me. But maybe they’ll read [this] and say something. [chuckles] SMITH: Have you been following the current Captain America storylines?

ENGLEHART: I haven’t, actually. At the moment, I’m writing a novel. I have a novel called The Long Man, a sequel to the novel I did 25 years ago called The Point Man, which I’ve sold to Tor. And that’s taking all my time right now.

SMITH: Any other thoughts on the Nomad character or storyline?

ENGLEHART: Nomad was designed to be a throwaway character. I knew from the start that Captain America was coming back. Now, I wanted to take that as far as I could and do as much with it as I could. But Nomad was never intended to be an ongoing character. He was there to be the non-Captain America. As with the Shroud, which I created in kind of a similar way in SuperVillain Team-Up, and various others, I have learned that there’s no such thing as a throwaway character in comics [laughs]. You know, somebody will come along and yell, “Oh, let’s resurrect him!” Since Nomad didn’t even exist, the whole resurrection thing that they did later was an interesting thing. But he wasn’t intended to be anything more than just the guy standing in for Captain America during the issues when there was no Captain America. But who knew what he would become, you know?

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BRUBAKER AND CASEY’S TM

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Zack Smith

Two of today’s most acclaimed comic-book writers are Ed Brubaker and Joe Casey. Casey has written Cap in his Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes minis, and Brubaker has scripted one of the most acclaimed runs on Captain America in years. Both writers have cited Englehart and Buscema’s work in the 1970s as a major influence on their work.

Casey has often spoken of Englehart’s influence on his own work, including an essay at his website, www.godlandonline.com.

“The way Englehart wrote long-form comic books in the early ’70s set the template for just about every super-hero writer that came after,” Casey says. “His ability to craft long arcs that would start small and then build to a huge, dramatic crescendo and then scale back to start the whole process over again showed the rest of us how to maintain interest and energy on a series over a period of years.

“My early Marvel work—Cable in particular—was incredibly influenced by the way Englehart structured his series work. No Marvel writer outside of Stan Lee and Roy Thomas has ever had such a firm grasp of so many Marvel characters.”

For Brubaker, Englehart and Buscema’s run holds a special nostalgia. “The first comic I ever bought with my own money was issue #156 of Captain America and the Falcon, with the two Caps fighting on the cover, and those great giant Sal Buscema fists that are as big as their heads,” Brubaker says.

“That comic blew me away. I was five or six years old then, and living on the Navy Base at Gitmo, and I think that single issue of Cap cemented him as a favorite through most of my childhood. I’ve read every issue of the Englehart run several times, including recently.”

Both writers cite the Nomad storyline as a high point for the character of Captain America.

“As a kid, reading it the first time, I was really just shocked,” Brubaker says. “How could they do that to Cap?” Brubaker says that he felt that Steve Englehart’s writing helped readers see Captain America not just as a cliché, but as a person. “I think it was the genesis of the whole thing about Cap not serving the government, but the ideals of America, too, which has been carried over for decades now,” Brubaker says.

Casey agrees. “This was a radical change that actually related to the core concept of the character in a profound way,” Casey says. “The fact that Cap loved his country and the ideals it stood for to such a degree that he gave up the mantle for awhile was completely defining. In fact, that whole storyline probably defined the character for the following 20 years, if not to this day.

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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“I think Englehart was the first writer who had a real vision for Captain America. I realize the possible blasphemy I might be committing there, considering the previous main writers on Cap were Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Stan Lee, but Englehart was the first writer to consider what the character really means—and what he symbolizes––to the culture at that moment.

“And, considering it was the early ’70s … between Vietnam and Watergate, a character who wore the American flag was making a statement whether it was intentional or not. Englehart was the first—and probably the only—writer to address that statement and explore what it really meant in the context of adventure fiction.

And he did it without sacrificing the four-color excitement that super-hero comic books are supposed to deliver.

That’s a tough balancing act. Not many writers can do that, even today.”

Both writers also have fond memories of Buscema’s art. “Mostly because of his work on Cap, Sal is actually my favorite Buscema,” Brubaker says. “I think almost all the work he did on Cap was great, even when he came back with the Grand Master storyline later and they killed Sharon Carter.”

Casey also expresses admiration for Buscema’s work.

“I think Sal Buscema is one of the great underrated Marvel artists,” Casey says. His work is pure storytelling.

Hell, it’s just pure comics. Mr. Buscema has drawn some of my favorite childhood comic books, and part of why they’re my favorites is because of his clarity of storytelling. He wasn’t flashy, but his art still managed to convey power at the appropriate moments. And I used to love the shots where the bottom panel border was the floor of a room.”

Brubaker recently killed off the modern-day Nomad, Jack Monroe, in a poignant-but-disturbing story in issue #7 of the new Captain America series. “I felt okay killing Jack Monroe because he’d been out of circulation for a long time, and because I never really liked him being Nomad that much,” Brubaker says. “I liked him as a character, but to me, Nomad is Steve when he’s adrift.”

Casey liked Brubaker’s story, but says that he saw how the Nomad identity could return. “I think it made good story sense to get rid of Nomad in the manner it was done,” Casey says, “although I do think there’s a new disillusionment that a lot of folks have with the country, the current administration, and their handling of the war in Iraq. So maybe the Nomad character would have some renewed relevance in today’s superhero landscape.”

Brubaker admits that he didn’t know whether the Nomad identity would or even should make a comeback, but doesn’t rule anything out: “Who knows, with Civil War happening, maybe we’ll see the return of Nomad … or maybe not.”

Michael i M kulovsky by

conducted via email on Augu st 21, 2006

MICHAEL MIKULOVSKY: You were born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Is it true that as a kid you had a dog named Lobo, named after Marvel’s Red Wolf’s wolf Lobo?

JERRY ORDWAY: Yeah, that is true. Lobo was a German shorthair/black lab mix that we got as a puppy, and since the name meant wolf in Spanish, my brother Joel and I went with it.

MIKULOVSKY: Where did you get your comics back then, in that time before comic-book stores?

ORDWAY: Back in those dark ages, I used to ride my bike all over Milwaukee, starting with the great newsstand downtown and then to any drugstore that had a spinner rack, in search of titles that didn’t hit the main outlets. In the winter, when it was too cold in Wisconsin for bike riding, my Aunt Mary would drive me all over the place searching. I remember in around 1971 or so, I searched in vain locally for Forever People with Sonny Sumo on the cover, and on a summer trip found it at a little drugstore in northern Wisconsin, 50 miles from home. Man, was I happy for that trip!

MIKULOVSKY: Many fans think of you as a DC guy, but weren’t you a Marvelmaniac growing up?

ORDWAY: I spent most of my career working on DC heroes, but I got hooked on Marvel from the cartoon show in 1966. Then I found the comics at a spinner rack at the Milwaukee train station as the family embarked on a trip to Colorado for my oldest brother Mike’s college graduation. My brother Joel and I spent the dollar Mom gave us on Thor, Tales of Suspense, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Tales to Astonish, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Strange Tales. The greatest thing was that upon arriving in Colorado, we were able to get the next issues a few days later. And then it was an incredibly long month to wait for more!

MIKULOVSKY: Why did you prefer Marvel’s comics over DC’s?

ORDWAY: As a kid will do, I felt Marvel belonged to my generation, while DCs, which I had read a few years earlier, were “kid’s stuff.” I was nine years old, but DC to me was something I graduated from to get to Marvel. I also used to have to look up words in the dictionary to understand Spider-Man, for example. I did relax my buying habits later on to pick up the Captain Action comics from DC, as well as the occasional THUNDER Agents.

With One Magic Word…

Jerry Ordway’s rendition of Captain Marvel and his secret identity Billy Batson, from an early 1990s Capital Cities Distribution Catalog.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Beginnings: Mystery in Space #117 (Mar. 1981), inks over Carmine Infantino-penciled short story

Milestones: All-Star Squadron / Infinity, Inc. / Crisis on Infinite Earths / Adventures of Superman / Fantastic Four / Batman movie adaptation / Wildstar / Power of Shazam! / The Avengers / Tom Strong / Top Ten: Beyond the Farthest Precinct / Infinite Crisis

Work in Progress: Red Menace (from Wildstorm)

Cyberspace: www.jerryordway.com

JERRY ORDWAY Photo by Peggy Ordway.

MIKULOVSKY: Tell me about how you developed your drawing, inking, and writing abilities? Who most influenced your artistic style?

ORDWAY: I did what most kids did—I copied panels out of my comics. I drew my own versions of various covers and colored them up, until by the time I was ten I decided I should create my own characters and stories, to avoid the embarrassing question every adult hit me with upon seeing my drawings: “Did you copy that or draw it freehand?” When I took that next step, I, of course, looked at my favorite Marvel artists, such as John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan, artists of my top three comics: Spider-Man, The Avengers, and Daredevil. I also took great inspiration from their inkers as well. Tom Palmer and Joe Sinnott just amazed me, and I liked it when they inked my faves.

MIKULOVSKY: Many pros and fans alike compare your art to the late, great Wally Wood. How do you feel about this?

ORDWAY: I believe I first saw Wood’s work in back issues of Marvels that I bought for a dime apiece at a local locksmith shop down the block from home.

He had several grocery sacks full of comics that you rummaged through to find anything “good.” I scored an Avengers #3, Spider-Man #s 3, 5, 7 and 11, among other titles. I found a few Wood-inked Avengers, too, but really got enamored of his work when he drew the comic of my favorite action figure, Captain Action. You can’t imagine how influential that double-lighting Wally did on faces was to me! Man, did I copy that stuff!

MIKULOVSKY: What’s the story behind the Messenger, your creation during your fan days?

ORDWAY: The Messenger started out as my version of Captain America, colored by the “relevant” comics that Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams were doing in Green Lantern. His origin was tied to the Vietnam War, and he wore a stars and stripes costume originally.

That was probably started in 1971 or ’72, and I created several small home-made comics of his character, along with many others in the “Ordway Comics Group,” as I called my books.

MIKULOVSKY: I know in the early ’80s you worked with Mike Machlan, Al Vey, and Pat Broderick out of a studio in West Allis, Wisconsin. How did you hook up with them?

ORDWAY: With Machlan, I first met him via a fanzine I did in 1974 and 1975 called Okay Comix (instead of Comics, which I figured had to be in use by someone already) and we got to be great friends with many shared interests. He was really more of a mentor, as I was 17 and he was 24 at the time. We would draw pinup shots of Marvel or DC characters and practice inking each other’s stuff.

Later on, when Pat Broderick moved to Milwaukee in 1983, Mike and I were the art team on All-Star Squadron, and Pat instigated the studio idea, having worked at the famed Continuity Studios in the ’70s. In January of 1984, we started looking at office buildings convenient to us all. We found a space, and then decided we needed another guy to share the rent, so

Running from Ultra Boy, Who Wants His Shirt Back Ordway’s 2004 rendition of Dave Cockrum’s X-Men creation Thunderbird, courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Mike Machlan asked Al Vey, who I only knew a bit from hanging out at our local comic store. Al joined with the hope of breaking in to comics, and after a few years of helping out on some of our jobs, finally did. Mike and Pat moved on, and Al and I held down the fort, so to speak, until I moved to Connecticut in early 1987. While we were in that same office building we had many memorable parties and had an all-around great three years.

MIKULOVSKY: All-Star Squadron was the series where you first started to gain the attention of readers.

How did that series come about?

ORDWAY: All-Star Squadron was my first full-time comics work, and first contract with DC. I left a decent job in commercial art to freelance for DC, mainly at the urging of Len Wein, the editor [of All-Star Squadron], and Karen Berger, who was the editorial coordinator then, much to Roy Thomas’ chagrin, as I learned later. Roy had logically wanted Dick Giordano to be the finisher on penciler Rich Buckler, as they had teamed on many great jobs back then, and I was a nobody. All these years later I look at my start as a kind of comic boot camp, as Roy was doing the project he always wanted to do, and was justifiably very demanding.

It was frustrating at times, but I’m a better artist because of that experience. I was 23 when I first did All-Star, and thought I was pretty hot stuff, until I found myself having to ink and sometimes redraw accurate WW II-era planes, tanks, and uniforms, on top of civilian stuff. I purposely chose Wally Wood as a style model on Buckler as his work was very Neal Adams-like then, and I thought a Woody look would give the book a more retro style to fit the era it took place in.

Fans remember that stuff because I worked hard on it, I suppose, but mainly because JSA fans have always been super-supportive of those characters, especially when they were done with care.

MIKULOVSKY: You’re returning to the Justice Society with your new JSA project. Let’s talk about that: Will it be a painted graphic novel? Who are the JSA members in this book? Is it current or a flashback series?

ORDWAY: Well, I have an idea that I am trying to get going that involves the JSA and Infinity, Inc. in one storyline, set in their past, a few years back. Not much else has happened with it lately, as I am drawing a 1950-era book about super-heroes in the McCarthy Communist witch-hunt. It was offered to me out of the blue, and I couldn’t turn it down. Hopefully as I finish it, the JSA idea can advance.

MIKULOVSKY: Would you consider doing a JSA/Invaders crossover?

ORDWAY: I want to say it would be a lot of fun—to read, but not draw! Seriously, I still have tons of WW II reference books, so it really could be a cool project.

MIKULOVSKY: In BACK ISSUE, we spend most of our time looking backwards, not forwards. How do you feel when you look back at your early work, compared to your work today?

ORDWAY: I am not embarrassed by it, as I see it as the first couple of rows of bricks in this wall I’ve been building for the past 25 years. Most of us have varying levels of inspiration over the years, and in the beginning there’s always more energy and less technique. I draw better now, but I don’t have the same need to prove myself. It’s like a hunger for recognition. I had many great successes over the years, and each brick in that wall is working together to form a bigger thing.

MIKULOVSKY: Who are some of your favorite writers you’ve worked with? Anyone you would like to work with yet, who you haven’t been able to as of yet?

ORDWAY: I’ve worked with many greats, starting with Roy Thomas. My favorite recent experience was working with Alan Moore on various Tom Strong stories, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a high point. I most enjoyed writing my own stories, though, and hope to get the chance again. Of the dream category of writers, Stephen King is the Holy Grail for me. I have been a fan of his work since Carrie back in the 1970s.

MIKULOVSKY: How’d you make the jump from being an occasional Superman contributor for editor Julie Schwartz to drawing (and later writing) Adventures of Superman after the Man of Steel reboot?

ORDWAY: I owe that to being treated like a family member by DC, and specifically by Dick Giordano and Pat Bastienne, who ran DC in the ’80s when I rose through the ranks. They groomed me for Superman, and after I helped out on Crisis, Dick told me they were relaunching Superman and Batman, and thought I’d be a good fit on Superman. This was in 1985, and so I kind of treaded water, doing various covers, one-shots, and the like, until the plans were finalized. Once I was on

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The Golden Age Green Lantern moonlights as a demolitionist on Jerry’s amazing cover to All-Star Squadron #20 (Apr. 1983). © 2007 DC Comics.

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Super Friends (above left) The Man of Steel’s buddies get super-powers on Ordway’s pre-Adventures of Superman cover to Superman #567 (May 1985). (above right) Also that month, Jerry inked Pat Broderick’s pencils on this cover to Action Comics #567. Courtesy of Jerry Ordway. © 2007 DC Comics.

Superman, I hit the ground running, and tried to pitch ideas and get involved in the stories beyond just drawing from plots. By the time Byrne left, I was a more important cog in that machine, and [Superman editor Mike] Carlin pretty much pushed me to try my hand at writing. His logic was that it would be easier to train me in the job than it would to bring in an outsider to write who would need several issues to get with the flow.

MIKULOVSKY: What do you think was your biggest contribution to Superman?

ORDWAY: I lived those characters, starting out with Jimmy Olsen as my stand-in, until I was Clark Kent. I think my mark was to humanize Clark Kent, to bring him down from that pedestal he was on. I had no say in the Byrne revamp other than to run with what he set up, but I was with his program there, and loved what he did. He and his wife were also friends to me when I moved to Connecticut in 1987, and I was a frequent guest at “stately Byrne Manor.” While I learned a lot from all the writers I collaborated with

© 2007 DC Comics.

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over the years, John and Mike Carlin were the most generous as co-workers, and were the first to “bring me to the table” to plot stories. During my run as a writer on Superman, I first dated my wife, got married, bought a house, and then had my first child. That influenced my approach with Superman, and also contributed to making Lois and Clark’s relationship real enough for them to consider marriage.

MIKULOVSKY: I loved your 1989 Batman movie comic, one of your best pieces of work ever. How were you chosen for that? What challenges did you have with likenesses and with working with movie and comics people simultaneously?

ORDWAY: Thanks. I got that gig because my pal Jonathan Peterson was the editor, and he and I were not only huge movie nuts, but both thought movie adaptations had lost their stride after the great [Al] Williamson Star Wars ones, and [Walt] Simonson’s work on Alien. DC had been doing them as regular comics at the time, and we both had a desire to make the comic as big of an event as the movie, which was much anticipated. This required a lot of extra effort, on both Jonathan’s part as well as mine. He wheedled great stills from the publicity department at Warners, and I went the extra mile to get the likenesses right. The smartest thing we did, though, was to have me draw several style sheets for Nicholson, Keaton, and Basinger to sign off on, so that we didn’t have to submit anything else for approvals while fighting the tight deadline, February to April 1989, to pencil and ink 64 pages.

MIKULOVSKY: How did the Power of Shazam! graphic novel and monthly series come about?

ORDWAY: That came about when Jonathan Peterson called me up after John Byrne had quit his Shazam! project [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #12 for details]. There was some dispute about John having been promised a clean relaunch, then finding out DC had War of the Gods, a crossover series in the works that would have portrayed the Marvel Family as established then in the DC Universe. Jonathan and I were both fans of the Republic serial starring Captain Marvel, and we came up with the idea of retelling the origin in a one-shot book, as if it were a movie script. I also desperately wanted to control the coloring, and lobbied hard to do full-color pages, essentially watercolor work, instead of the traditional black-and-white line artwork approach. That and it had an open-ended deadline, so that I could continue on Superman as a writer. The series that followed was always on the table but I was initially reluctant, as I felt I didn’t have the familiarity a handful of other writers more suitable for the job had. I eventually agreed after I found a bunch of old Whiz Comics on microfilm, which helped inform my story arcs on the monthly.

MIKULOVSKY: Do you think Captain Marvel worked better in a universe separate from Superman?

ORDWAY: I think he coexists fine in a shared universe. Superman was godlike, but Cap had a better claim as he channeled their powers. My approach, and really my mission, on Power of Shazam! was to integrate the Fawcett [Comics] universe of characters into the familiar stomping grounds of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. That meant playing nice when other editorial offices had plans for crossovers or guest appearances. I had to change my ending on my first year of Shazam! to accommodate Mark Waid on his Underworld Unleashed mini, and then later had to roll with Alex Ross’ similar use of Mister Mind in Kingdom Come, as we both came up with it independently. But I think it was a great run for Captain Marvel in my book, and it’s a success to me, lasting four years in an environment of failing comics distributors and stores.

MIKULOVSKY: What were your unrealized plans for Captain Marvel that you didn’t get to do due to Power of Shazam!’s cancellation?

ORDWAY: I learned of the book’s cancellation, as did the readers, eight issues before the end, so I didn’t have any unused plots left in the drawer. I wanted to use King Kull though, in a big storyline that threatened the Rock of Eternity and the Wizard. It still frustrates me that DC wouldn’t give me a few more issues, as my goal was to do 50 issues, to help the fan in me commemorate the first Spider-Man I picked up at that train station in June 1967, which was issue #50, where Peter Parker is walking away from the Spidey costume in the trash. That was my geek moment to work toward, unrealized. [Editor’s note: Although Jerry’s vicarious attempt to capture that Spidey moment led to his “Captain Marvel No More!” recreation of that classic cover, which graces this issue.]

MIKULOVSKY: This issue of BACK ISSUE looks at secret identities. Captain Marvel has one of the most unique secret identities around. What’s your take on Billy Batson?

ORDWAY: An example of controversy which I don’t understand. I see it clearly as a boy transformed into an adult, where a few others see a boy replaced by an adult entity. I like the kid turning into an adult. I couldn’t wait to grow up, grow a mustache, drive a car, etc. I guess there are a lot who had similar thoughts as kids, when deprived of whatever it was that adults got to do that we weren’t allowed to. Valid and cool way to be a hero, and also have a secret identity that doesn’t involve a mask. Add in no parental controls, and you have a character who super-hero-s all night, and then sleeps through school.

MIKULOVSKY: Out of all of Marvel’s heroes, one might say Thor has had the most expendable secret identity. Would you agree?

ORDWAY: Well, expendable, but still necessary as Thor was originally played.

Don Blake was a way for Thor to walk among humans, not gawked at or worshipped or whatever. He clearly was not a separate entity, either, but a human version of Thor. I loved it as a kid, and liked the variety of having earth-

Finished Business From the 1986 Heroes Against Hunger one-shot, José Luis García-López layouts and Jerry Ordway finishes, courtesy of Jerry. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Fight Club Ordway’s fantasy cover to Power of Shazam! #48 recreates the Jack Kirby/Bill Everett cover to Thor #171.

From the collection of Michael Mikulovsky.

Shazam! and related characters © 2007 DC Comics.

Thor and related characters © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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bound stories instead of Asgard all the time. Thor kind of bored me when they ditched the humanity. Simonson handled it the best of anyone, but I still liked the duality.

MIKULOVSKY: On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about seeing Rocky 6: Rocky vs. Bullwinkle? OOPS! I mean, the Shazam! movie … if it ever actually gets made, that is?

ORDWAY: I don’t get overly excited by movies of comic characters anymore. It will be good or bad, and I have no control over that. I think it has the makings of a great film, and hope it happens, but I won’t lose sleep over it, sorry.

MIKULOVSKY: Do you enjoy going to comics conventions? Any funny or odd stories you care to share?

ORDWAY: I like them, but the time away from work is an issue with me these days. I also have done so many over the years that I prefer doing a full day rather than a three-day show, as they are pretty emotionally and physically draining. You have to be “on” as long as you are in attendance, and I am one of those people who respects the heck out of anyone who pays admission to get a few books signed, so I accommodate everyone I possibly can.

As far as funny stories, I’d tell them, but I don’t want to embarrass myself or any of the other parties involved. I did my share of drinking at hotel bars until dawn and then struggled though a full day of smiling and signing. I got to share great dinner chats with many of my heroes in comics, like Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Jerry Siegel, and the like.

MIKULOVSKY: I know you have three children. Are there any next-generation Ordways who aspire to be artists?

ORDWAY: My children all love to draw, and are really good for their respective ages, but none of them share my love of super-hero illustration. They all like cartoony art or manga style. But I supply them with their reading material anyway!

MIKULOVSKY: You’ve been pretty lucky to work on just about every major DC and Marvel character … but do you have a dream project you’d like to do one day, or a character or series you’d like a another shot at?

ORDWAY: I don’t salivate over any characters, really.

I have always been assignment-oriented, so that whatever I am working on at the time is my obsession.

As a nine-year-old, I wouldn’t have believed I would have become a Superman artist. I think the nine-yearold in me thought of carrying on the adventures of Spider-Man, Daredevil, or the Avengers. It was a real kick for me to do a handful of Avengers books a few years back, and I hope some day that opportunity arises again. At DC I’d enjoy drawing some Batman and Green Lantern, as well as doing the Infinity, Inc. characters again.

Superman’s Pal, Jerry Ordway… …at his super-best on the covers to Adventures of Superman #431 (July 1987; courtesy of Steve Lipsky) and 455 (June 1989; courtesy of Heritage Comics). © 2007 DC Comics.

MIKE MIKULOVSKY lives in Plymouth, Wisconsin, with his 20 lb.

Maine coon cat Zeus. A collector of Captain Marvel/Shazam! original art, Mike is looking to buy art from DC Presents Annual #3, Superman: Man of Tomorrow #4, Legends, Secret Origins #3, Power of Shazam! art by Ordway and Peter Krause … plus Dave Cockrum art and Warlock by Gil Kane, as well. Contact him at mmikul@hotmail.com.

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by

Allan Harvey

“I have been grooming and training an editor,” exclaimed 2000AD’s Tharg on the editorial page of Britain’s newest weekly comic. “His mind capacity is 50 times that of a normal human; his physical strength is limitless. He has all the amazing powers of mind and body that he needs to edit a comic of many worlds. Earthlets, I present Big E and his comic—Tornado!”

Launched in March 1979, Tornado was intended to compliment the solid hit that was 2000AD. The previous year, 2000AD’s sister comic, Starlord, had failed to fly off newsstands, and so Tornado largely ditched the sci-fi content in favor of more traditional fare. Like all British comics, Tornado was an anthology. Its roster featured, amongst others, a detective, a psychic, and a samurai. The character chosen to front the new comic was a super-hero. Whereas Tharg was an unknown man in a mask, Big E’s face was on full display in photographs throughout Tornado’s run. It’s a face we’ve come to know and love during the intervening years, for Big E was played by none other than comics artist Dave Gibbons.

“Originally,” explains Gibbons, “Judge Dredd writer John Wagner was approached, but wanted, I’m told, too much money. I agreed to do it for the equivalent of a page rate. It struck me as a bit of fun and I suspect I am a frustrated actor at heart. Or maybe I’m really just a showoff!

“I went with then-assistant editor of 2000AD, Nick Landau, to Berman and Mather, a theatrical costumier, and picked out some suitable items.

As I recall, the arms and legs were black; the gloves, breastplate, and boots silver; the underoos yellow; and the cape blue. I designed and drew the chest symbol on sticky-backed paper. It was blue with yellow stars.

“All the photos [used in the comic] were done on one day, around the then offices of [publisher] Fleetway, at King’s Tower on London’s South Bank. We roamed the corridors, parking lots, and roof, basically just being big kids. They ran a car up on a ramp, so it looked like I was lifting it, had people fire toy guns at me, and gave me the chance to punch out members of the editorial staff.”

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Yes, Dave Gibbons Gave Us Permission to Print This And you thought the “Big E” was BACK ISSUE editor Michael Eury…!

All photos in this article courtesy of Allan Harvey. © 2007 respective holder.

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Sadly, in print, these photographs appeared only in Would Dave Have black and white, though, occasionally, a color line drawing Been Assigned was used. “I got a lot of ‘high-end’ post-production help from art editor Jan Shepherd, who used her white-out Watchmen brush to remove the worst of my beer belly and double If These Had Been chin! Drawing myself on a couple of covers were amongst Leaked to DC? my more surreal drawing experiences.”

In Britain, super-heroes have never been particularly Top to bottom: The Big popular in comics, with publishers tending to favor war, E (Dave Gibbons) makes sports, humor, or adventure stories. Does it not seem strange, then, that Fleetway chose a super-hero as a pitch; the Big E gives Tornado’s figurehead?

Billy Preston (Kevin “The original idea was for Tornado to be called Heroes. It was to feature heroes of O’Neill) a lift; a Tornado different types: a space hero, a war hero, a editorial; and dashing Western hero, etc. It seemed an apt and Dave flies high. amusing idea, and a parallel with what had been done with Tharg in 2000AD, to have a super-hero as an ‘editor.’ Just as Tharg was essentially a chance for the editors to make fun of all-powerful aliens, so Big E gave the opportunity to do the same with super-heroes. The fact that superheroes have generally been perceived as, well, too silly by most European comic readers made the idea even more irresistible.

“Unfortunately, the editorial board got cold feet and rejected the name Heroes, sending the real editor, Kelvin Gosnell, off to draw up a list of ten or so ‘excitingly named’ aircraft or cars to pick a ‘better’ name from.

Hence, Heroes became Tornado (yawn), and the joke wasn’t so funny anymore.”

The joke, such as it was, was carried even further by Big E having a secret identity. When not doing super-heroic editorial feats, he went by the unlikely name of Percy Pilbeam, hiding behind greased-down hair and spectacles. Percy even had his own Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen analogues in the form of Samantha Stevens and Billy Preston—the latter being played by a very young Kevin O’Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

In the years following his time as Big E, Gibbons became a highly respected superhero artist, drawing Green Lantern, Superman, and, of course, Watchmen. His experiences as a real-life super-hero perhaps informed his later depiction of them: “One thing I learned about super-hero costumes was this: On a roof, when the wind blows, cape equals sail.

Looks good, but not really practical. Some of the best photos didn’t see print in the comic since they showed me, less than heroically, clinging on to the roof ladder for dear life.”

No regrets then? “Once in a while someone will confront me with an old copy of Tornado, hoping to embarrass me, but I have to tell you: I’m at peace with my inner super-hero!”

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The Three Faces of by

Dan Johnson TM

Once upon a time, secret identities were very important to super-heroes. In this day and age of comic-book characters unmasking more and more, I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. In fact, one character in the Marvel stable thought secret identities were so important, he assumed a couple of extra ones to help him wage his war on crime. Readers of BACK ISSUE, allow me to present to you Moon Knight.

Granted, it may take a while to get a handle on who this character is, but don’t sweat it too much. After all, knowing who Moon Knight really is is sometimes pretty difficult, even for the man behind the silvery mask.

When the character was first introduced in the pages of Werewolf by Night (issues #32 and 33, Aug. and Sept. 1975), his creators, Doug Moench and Don Perlin, were simply hoping for a new kind of adversary to go up against the Werewolf, Jack Russell. In the end they created a costumed adventurer whose full potential was just hinted at in his first appearance and who would eventually take juggling multiple identities to a whole new level. But more on that in just a little while….

DEADLINE-INSPIRED Let’s start back when Marvel’s newest mystery man was just a hired gun stalking deadly game in the Marvel Universe. Like other memorable comic-book creations before him, Moon Knight came about due to the greatest inspiration a writer or artist can have looming over their heads: a deadline. “I needed to write the next issue of Werewolf by Night because Don [Perlin] was waiting for the plot,” recalls Moench. “I needed to come up with a new villain for Jack Russell.

This was back when comics were more seat-of-yourpants and spontaneous. Never sell that short. Some of the best stuff I’ve done came under extreme pressure, and by the very nature of that there was no interference allowed because the publishers need the books. You were totally set free, and as long as [your work] was there by the deadline, it was okay.”

Meet Moon Knight… …rendered by the artist who co-created him, Don Perlin, in this commissioned illustration courtesy of Mr. Perlin. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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While preparing the next issue of Werewolf by Night, Moench also saw the need to inject something different into the book that would help catch the attention of readers. “[In Werewolf by Night], there was a group of villains called the Committee and they were real boring,” says Moench. “Don and I did not create them, that was the previous writers and artists.

I thought that a villain for the Werewolf should be, in a strange way, a hero. Someone fighting a werewolf is someone who is not necessarily a bad guy. But the Werewolf is the star of the book, and he is kind of a good guy, so the villain we needed would have to be a combination of a hero and a villain. We thought Moon Knight would be a villain for the Werewolf for maybe one story. The Committee [members] were all non-visual, guys in suits, as I recall. I thought they would hire someone to track down the Werewolf and capture him, and then the person they hired could be a cool-looking visual. We didn’t know that it would be popular, or that it would have legs and become something more popular than the sum of its parts, but it did.”

Don Perlin, the man who gave Moon Knight his look, recalls that the creation of Moon Knight was more than a means to meet that month’s deadline, he was also a way to help offset waning sales on the book.

“The horror genre was going down the tubes,” says Perlin. “The editors said we need to get someone with a costume on this thing.”

The first step in bringing Moon Knight to life was running the idea past Werewolf by Night’s editor Len Wein to see what his thoughts were. “I had a list of ten or 12 names,” says Moench. “And when I called Len, I described the mercenary based on the moon and said that he gets hired to go after the Werewolf and he uses silver weapons because that is the only thing that will hurt a werewolf. Len said, ‘Okay. So what are you going to call him?’ I read Len my list (which included the name ‘Blood Moon’), and when I came to ‘Moon Knight,’ he said, ‘That’s the one!’ I made up the name, but it was Len who liked it more than any of the other ones.”

Modern fans of Moon Knight may not even be aware of how and why this character’s appearance was first designed, or the great debt it owed to Marvel’s hairiest hero ever. “Everything flowed from [the Werewolf] very obviously,” recalls Moench. “The Werewolf only works at night, so whoever opposes him should also be attuned to the night. The Werewolf changes only when there is a full moon, and that’s where the moon [motif] came from, and the knight part was a play on words; nighttime and a knight who is hired to go on some crusade. He was a nighttime character and he was attuned to the moon. Silver hurts a werewolf, therefore he had these silver crescentmoon-shaped throwing darts. His costume was based on the moon, which, as it goes through its waxing and waning, was black and white.”

With no color at all, only solid white with black for shadows, Moon Knight bucked the conventional wisdom of most comic-book characters. “Other characters have all [kinds] of colors in their suits,” remembers Perlin. “[We figured] a black-and-white suit on a colored page would stand out. But then the colorists started adding blue tints [to his costume]!” Still, the costume designed by Perlin endured and did indeed get the desire effect on the printed page. “I put the cowl on Moon Knight to give him that sinister look,” recalls Perlin. “[In his first solo adventure,] I got away with

Hero and Villain in One Man

something that I liked. In a couple of panels, Moon Knight is standing in a doorway and it is black behind him, so all you see are the white parts of his costume.

That was spooky-looking.”

In his first outing against the Werewolf, Moon Knight was played more as a mercenary and his alter ego is named Marc Spector. Even though he took the money from the Committee to hunt down Jack Russell and bring him in, Moon Knight redeemed himself and decided in the end to do the right thing, helping the Werewolf escape and take down the Committee. Very little is revealed about Moon Knight in this first outing—indeed, the readers were never even given a good look at his face. But one element that would be important to the character’s future adventures was present right from the get-go: Frenchie, Moon Knight’s assistant and helicopter pilot. “Frenchie was in from the beginning,” says Moench. “He was actually one of the few supporting characters attached to the mercenary identity from the start.”

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Well, that could be said of both the Werewolf by Night and Moon Knight, duking it out in this Perlin commission kindly contributed by the artist. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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FLYING SOLO The Werewolf by Night outing proved popular enough with several of the editors at Marvel that the character was given a chance to shine on his own in the pages of Marvel Spotlight (issues #28 and 29, June and Aug. 1975). “The reason we were asked to do the solo story was because Len Wein and Marv Wolfman personally liked Moon Knight,” recalls Moench.

“They were like, ‘Aw, man, that was cool! Why don’t you guys do Marvel Spotlight with just Moon Knight and without the Werewolf?’”

It was during the run in Marvel Spotlight that Moench and Perlin really started adding layers to the character and started giving him the twists that helped to set him apart. The most obvious change came in defining just what side of the law Moon Knight was really on. “When we put him in his own story, without the Werewolf, the balance between hero and villain had to shift more toward the hero,” explains Moench. “Now he was a man who was trying to atone for his past mercenary ways and trying to make himself into a good guy. He would still do things for money, but only if it was a good cause.”

Moon Knight in Transition The character began to shift away from his “villain” roots in his first solo tale in Marvel Spotlight #28 (June 1976). © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

TRIPLE HEADER It was also during Moon Knight’s first solo outing that the most defining element of all was introduced to the character. Moon Knight took the idea of having a secret identity to a whole new level with not one alter ego, but three. Each of these alter egos represented a different level of society that Moon Knight would use to wage his war on crime and each identity had his own personality. “That was me, wanting to do a hero who was not like any other Marvel hero,” says Moench. “We took all the other conventions of super-heroes and turned them on their head, because he’s like the hero who is an anti-hero. I figured instead of the typical secret identity, how about three secret identities?

Everything just fell into place.”

Juggling three secret identities can take its toll on a super-hero, and that was another wrinkle that Moench added right away. “Moon Knight had three identities, so that must mean he’s kind of schizophrenic,” says Moench. “I thought that was pretty good since we didn’t have any

Three-in-One Hero Cabbie Jack Lockley, mercenary Marc Spector, and rich boy Steven Grant. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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other heroes who were really schizophrenic, although every hero with a secret identity should be. I figured we could play that up, and I wanted to push it to the point where even Moon Knight didn’t really know who he was. He was bad, now he was being good. He was rich and he was poor. He was a very complicated guy and I didn’t want to portray him as a cartoony schizophrenic, but I did want those conflicting things to get all mucked up in a ball confusion under the surface that made him distant from the typical super-hero.”

There was, of course, Moon Knight’s original alter ego, mercenary Marc Spector, of which little was initially known, and who was almost as mysterious as Moon Knight was. Spector was the outsider, the man who had no place in society. “All the secret identities had a unitarian function,” recalls Moench. “First, he is a mercenary, and this is the real guy. Early on, with him being a mercenary, I figured he would be different from the other Marvel characters because he would not be tied down to New York City. As a solider of fortune, we had the chance for globetrotting adventures. He could go here, there, and everywhere. And he wasn’t just a solider of fortune, he was hooked into intelligence agencies like the CIA, and we could have all this foreign intrigue. I was thinking ahead right from the beginning.”

Then there were the two faces of Moon Knight who interacted the most with the public, but each on very different levels. “Moon Knight was a mercenary and he got all this money so he could set himself up with the dream headquarters of any super-hero,” says Moench about the Steven Grant persona, the millionaire playboy who mingled with high society and the elite.

“People say I imitated Bruce Wayne. That’s not how it happened. It was more like Moon Knight was trying to make good on past wrongs and atone for the bad things he has done in his past, so he took his ill-gotten gains to fund these noble things now.”

Then there was Jake Lockley, the New York cabbie who drove the mean streets looking for leads on crimes. “We needed a way to have ears on the ground to sniff out what is going on in town and to get the lowdown on the underworld,” says Moench. “What better than a cab driver? He gets all over town, he talks to all kinds of people, and that made a lot of sense to me. He is the exact opposite of the Grant persona.”

Having a character with three separate identities meant having a character with three different worlds to inhabit. “Once we went with the three separate identities, we had three separate supporting casts,” says Moench. “There wasn’t too much done with Spector in the beginning, but there was eventually more done with him.” In Grant’s world there was his girlfriend, Marlene Fontaine, and his butler, Samuel. “The Grant persona set up the perfect base [of operations],” says Moench. “Therefore any supporting character attached

to that base would know that he was Moon Knight.

They were more intimately tapped in.” But for all of Steven Grant’s money, it was the Jake Lockley persona who had the richest supporting cast in his life. “I liked the cabbie character,” says Perlin. “[We introduced] the character who always came into the diner where Jake got information with the flies going around his head, Crawley. Then we had the waitress in the diner, the black girl, Gena. They were really interesting and it was a lot of fun [drawing them].” Moench agrees that the Lockley supporting characters appealed to him as well, especially after he saw the way Perlin brought them to life. “Crawley was a tipster for the cabbie,” explains Moench. “I came up with him for one specific plot point and the thought was that the cabbie could maybe use him in the future. When I saw the way Don drew him, the ‘maybe’ went out the window. I knew this guy was going to be in every story. He looked so cool with flies all around him, he was so different.”

The success of the first Moon Knight stories owe a lot to the artwork of Don Perlin. Besides giving Moon Knight and his cast their look, he infused them with their personality. “To me, [designing these characters] is like sitting down and reading a book,” says Perlin. “You read the descriptions the author gives you and the story unfolds, and there are pictures running through your mind. When I started getting my pictures in my mind, I had enough twists and turns in there to come out with something a little bit different than what most people would have thought to draw. I enjoyed what Doug

gave me. You’re drawing super-heroes and they all have muscles and tight suits, and it’s the same thing.

When you get characters like Moon Knight’s supporting cast, you have a chance to have some fun and make the characters look more realistic.”

Bill at Bat From The Hulk #14 (Apr. 1979), Bill Sienkiewicz’s Moon Knight pencils, and the same page inked

by Bob McLeod.

Courtesy of Bob, who offers this kind of art-in-progress spotlight every three months in the BACK ISSUE spin-off magazine Rough Stuff.

A SIENK-ING FEELING After a strong start with two solid stories, Moon Knight lingered in the background of the Marvel Universe for a couple of years, making occasional guest appearances in The Defenders #47–51 (May–Sept. 1977), Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #22 and 23 (Sept. and Oct. 1978), and Marvel Two-in-One #52 (June 1979). But all of these stories were done without the input of his two creators. “I turned both those team-up stories down,” says Moench about Moon Knight’s adventures with Spider-Man and the Thing. “I did not want Moon Knight to become part of the ‘Merry Marvel Pals and Gals.’ The whole point was that he was different from any other super-hero that we were doing.”

The desire to keep Moon Knight separate from the rest of the Marvel Universe was something Moench was adamant about from the get-go. “I remember having arguments over that,” recalls Moench. “[I told Marvel that] Moon Knight was the one character who should never be in Marvel Team-Up, and they just told me that if I wouldn’t do it, they would get Bill Mantlo to do it, and they did. It was another example of how if you agreed to work for Marvel, then Marvel gets to do what they want.”

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his creation, he also learned he would be doing so without Perlin. “[When] Macchio called, he said, ‘We’re going to Moon Knight in the back of The Hulk! magazine and I’ve got the perfect artist for it.’” The artist that Macchio had in mind was newcomer Bill Sienkiewicz.

Moench tried his best to make Macchio understand that Don Perlin was the character’s co-creator, and that if the series was going forward, they should have him drawing it. “Don made the characters so distinctive, they became living, breathing things. Don always did them justice,” says Moench. Still, the decision had already been made. “There was no talking Macchio out of Sienkiewicz. They wanted this hot new guy who drew exactly like Neal Adams. [I tried to make them see] that Moon Knight was Don’s guy, but they didn’t see it that way. I was lucky they called me, I guess.”

Despite Moench’s efforts to bring in Perlin, the new Moon Knight feature launched initially with a story with artwork by Gene Colan and that was followed by a story

by Keith Pollard in #12 (Dec. 1978), and then Sienkiewicz officially took over with Issue #13 (Feb. 1979). It was also during Sienkiewicz’s time on the book that Moon Knight started getting compared, rather unfairly, to a certain Caped Crusader who was being published by the “Distinguished Competition.” “Someone at Marvel got stuck on the idea to make Moon Knight like Batman,” says Perlin. “This started when I got the call that they got this new kid who draws just like Neal Adams,” adds Moench.

“Not only is he drawing just like Neal Adams, but the shots of Moon Knight, in many cases, are direct swipes of Neal Adams’ shots of Batman. Yes, they were both nighttime creatures, but Don and I never thought of Batman when we came up with Moon Knight. It never even entered our minds. It’s just that [the comparisons began] when he started looking like Batman and the fact that Steven Grant was a millionaire. But there were more differences than there were similarities. But I can see why people made that connection. As soon as I got the first Bill Sienkiewicz pages, I went, ‘Oh, my God! This looks like Batman now!’”

Meanwhile, perhaps because it was making readers think of Batman’s glory days, the response to Sienkiewicz’s work was impressive and the character’s fanbase grew. It wasn’t long before Moon Knight found himself headlining Marvel Preview #21 (Spring 1980) and even landing his own comic book. “It was only after It is unclear how much Moench’s resistance to having Moon Knight guest-star with other Marvel characters went toward keeping him from busting out sooner.

What is clear though is that it took a while for the character to get spun off into his own series. “Moon Knight kind of faded out for awhile,” says Moench.

“The books did well and Marvel said, ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll do another one.’ But it just never came up again.”

Just as it seemed that Moon Knight would be resigned to guest-star status for good, Moench learned of the next step in his evolution, as a backup feature in The Hulk! magazine [titled The Rampaging Hulk with its first ten issues], starting with issue #11 (Oct. 1978). “Ralph Macchio, who was the assistant editor on the magazine and who loved the hell out of Moon Knight, wanted to use Moon Knight as a backup strip. I was writing the Hulk in the front, and I guess they figured it would be easier for me to write the backup as well.” At the time Moench learned that he would be given a chance to further write the adventures of

More Sienkiewicz Pencils Story page 19 from Moench’s Hulk #14 story “Countdown to Dark.” © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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doing Moon Knight in the back of The Hulk that it really became clear that the character was worthy of his own book,” says Moench. “After Don and I did Marvel Spotlight, we did hear that those two issues did really well.

They did better than the issues before them and the ones after them. We heard that Marvel was going to do Moon Knight again, but [at that time] it wasn’t like he did so well that Marvel was going to give him his own book.”

With Moench and Sienkiewicz handling the writing and artwork, Moon Knight #1 (Nov. 1980) hit the newsstands and caught the attention of comic-book fans right off the … bat. The character was indeed not your run-of-the-mill super-hero and readers sensed that and made it a cult hit. “Back then I had a reputation of doing more ‘adult’-themed comics,” says Moench.

“I heard that a lot. Maybe that, combined with the fact that Moon Knight was in a book that didn’t have a Comics Code and he was an oddball character. I wanted to do him differently from other super-heroes and it made me go more toward my so-called penchant for adult handling. It wasn’t sex and violence so much, I like to think it was more sophisticated.”

After 15 issues, because of the tone Moench set for the book, Marvel chose Moon Knight to be a part of a great distribution experiment by Marvel Comics along with The Micronauts and Ka-Zar the Savage, and the three became the company’s first direct-sales-only books. “Marvel figured that the typical customer who goes to a comic-book shop as opposed to the corner newsstand must be older and more into comic books,” explains Moench. “So they decided that Moon Knight [was one of the books] with the most adult appeal.”

It turned out that the move from newsstand to direct sales was a boon for Moon Knight and for Marvel. “I don’t know how the other books did, but Marvel was shocked by the number for Moon Knight,” says Moench. “With comic-book shops only, we sold 100,000 copies, which was more than some of the titles that were in the comicbook shops and the newsstands. Marvel realized that the direct-sales market was their future.”

The original Moon Knight comic book was cancelled after 38 issues, but Moon Knight was never out of the public eye for too long. First there was a six-issue miniseries, Moon Knight: Fists of Konshu, and that was followed by Marc Spector, Moon Knight, which ended with the character’s death. Of course, in the immortal words of Monty Python, he got better and appeared in two additional miniseries in the late 1990s, each written

by Moench (Moon Knight: Resurrection War with artist Tommy Lee Edwards and Moon Knight: High Strangers with Mark Texeira). Because of his growing popularity, Marvel made a move that bothered both his original creators. It seemed that the more readers started digging Moon Knight, the more Marvel tried to mainstream him and fit him into the Marvel Universe. “They did real stupid things like put him in the Avengers,” says Moench. “They tried to kill the whole point of the character and make him like another one of these dopey long-underwear characters. That’s not what he is about.”

Post-Perlin and After Moench

These days Moon Knight is enjoying a successful revival [with a TV series in the works], one that has caught the attention of one of his creators. “It looks pretty good,” says Moench about the new Moon Knight series, which debuted in July 2006. “The guy they got to write it, Charlie Huston, is a super Moon Knight fan. Marvel went for a writer who is a big deal outside of comics and he has a couple of crime novels out. He contacted me and he claims that Moon Knight changed his life. He’s a real nice guy, but it was kind of touchy having him tell me how great I was [and him doing my character].”

In speaking with Moench, one gets the feeling that he still has unfinished business with Moon Knight. But for the time being, the ball is out of his court. “[Huston’s] a sweet guy, and I can’t hold it against him [that Marvel offered him Moon Knight],” says Moench. “Marvel comes to me and say, ‘Do you want to write Fantastic Four?’ Yeah, I love Fantastic Four, but Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created [that comic book], so I don’t have a right to gripe when someone else does Moon Knight. But on the other hand, the crucial difference is that Stan Lee was asking me to do Fantastic Four. It wasn’t like he wanted to write it and it was taken away from him.”

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Neither Moench nor Sienkiewicz stayed on for all of Moon Knight’s original 38 issues, with some erratic results due to frequently changing creative teams.

Here’s a high point, however: issue #35’s (Jan. 1984) pencils by Kevin Nowlan (courtesy of Bob McLeod). © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Has a History as Mysterious as the Real-Life Stuntman Who Inspired It

Michael Aushenker

In a decade when the comic-book industry evolved the practice of building titles around popular licensed properties, such as blockbuster movies and famous rock groups, it seems unlikely that a major publisher would launch a series based on a quasi-famous figure most people had never heard of.

And yet, in the 1970s, that’s exactly what Marvel Comics did.

Based on a real-life motorcycle daredevil with a secret identity, The Human Fly, lasting only 19 issues (1977–1979), appeared to have a disposable quality. If the letters columns were any indication, its artists were not merely underrated, but unappreciated, even despised.

Yet, upon closer inspection, Human Fly may have been one of the tightest titles to emerge from the Bronze Age; an unlikely showcase for some remarkable talent, combining the singular vision of the series’ only writer—a young Bill Mantlo—with a finite stable of seasoned veteran artists that included Lee Elias, Mike Esposito, Don Perlin, Carmine Infantino, Frank Springer, and the inimitable Frank Robbins.

THE FLY: NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL

Kids, Don’t Try This At Home!

Frank Robbins’ pencils for an unused Human Fly cover (possibly intended for issue #5). From the collection of Ted Latner. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

The book’s hero was an anomaly on several levels.

Tagged “The Wildest Superhero of All—Because He’s Real,” the Human Fly was a licensed character that did not begin life as a Lee/Kirby creation or in a George Lucas film, but was based on a “celebrity” whose popularity appeared somewhat dubious.

The Fly was not part of the Marvel Universe proper, and his backstory underscored this. Fly the comic-book character was not some victim of a freak occurrence with augmented talents, or a mutant cursed with super-human eugenics. He was a mere mortal, a stuntman. Not even a Batman-type, merging body and intellect into the ultimate crime-fighting machine. No, the Fly didn’t even dedicate himself to fighting crime, engaging in super-heroics only as a last resort when the situation arose.

Fly’s premise revolved around its eponymous stuntman, regally garbed in a Canadian red-and-white jumpsuit, rocketdesign belt, and glorified “ballet slippers.” He brandished a staff, and sometimes a collared cape. Visually an echo of the Invaders’ Union Jack (as if the printers screwed up the colors), the Fly wore a full mask with a cross design that concealed everything but a pair of piercing blue eyes. According to the origin prefacing each issue, his alter ego was the lone survivor of 1971 car crash on a North Carolina highway that claimed his wife and kids. “Hardly a bone in his body would remain unbroken,” went the blurb. “His doctors were sure that he would never move again. But he triumphed over his disability and went on to become the wildest hero of all … because he’s REAL!” Every issue transported the reader to another locale, where fans cheered as the Fly—secret identity unknown (even to us readers)—attempted a harrowing stunt, aided by his dedicated crew, for some children’s charity.

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Somehow, said stunt would go horribly awry due to some criminal’s scheme. Ultimately, the Fly had no choice but to protect innocent bystanders in his realm from said criminal.

The book’s leitmotif: the Fly as reluctant super-hero.

Evel Kn-who-vel? (right and below) These photos, circa the mid-1970s, support the possibility that, unlike Bigfoot, the Human Fly may indeed have been real.

LICENSED TO FLY Marvel Comics, by the 1970s, had become a progressive, savvy company, rapidly expanding the definition of the super-hero comic that Marvel itself had reinvented in the 1960s. Suddenly, supernatural super-heroes (Ghost Rider, Son of Satan) and monster anti-heroes (Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire) crowded store racks.

Part of this expansion involved adapting other properties: Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Star Wars were among the hit films to get their own series, as did TV shows Man from Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek. Marvel published a KISS magazine—a natural fit since the metal group’s leader Gene Simmons cited Marvel Comics as inspiration for his band’s outlandish personas. Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, and later Rom: Spaceknight and G. I. Joe outlived the popularity of the toys that spawned them.

Seemingly, the book capitalized indirectly on the headline-making antics of the substantially more famous Evel Knievel. Anticipating the late-’90s extreme sports craze by a good two decades, the Fly, over the course of the series, pulled off incredible feats on motorcycles, dirigibles, jet packs, rocket-powered skateboards, skates, and skis.

“The name used to kick around for years,” John Romita, Sr., then Marvel’s art director, tells BACK ISSUE. “There was always a variation on the Fly.” Umpteenth appeared to be the charm. What should have been a creatively D.O.A. title transformed into a high-octane rumbler, largely due to principle pencilers Elias and Robbins.

HUMAN FLY’S PIT CREW With its outsider licensed character, Human Fly (HF) yielded few super-hero crossovers: Spider-Man (HF #1, Sept. 1977), Ghost Rider (#2), and Daredevil (#9). But Fly was far more successful at attracting robust industry talent into its small rotation of draftsmen. In the early 1970s, many revered pencilers washed up on Marvel’s shore to pick up freelance work, and Fly became a haven for these aging artists. Silver Age favorite Carmine Infantino (The Flash) penciled the Ghost Rider issue, including its cover with Al Milgrom. Main HF artist Elias had years before drawn the comic-book version of Milton Caniff’s classic strip Terry and the Pirates. Robbins, best known for his Caniff-esque Johnny Hazard syndicated strip, came to Fly fresh off of an amazing run on The Invaders. Elias drew and inked HF #1, while Robbins began his intermittent run with #5.

The Human Fly’s inking department was no less impressive, with seasoned assists from Mike Esposito, co-creator of DC’s Metal Men. Another Silver Age artist, Frank Springer, inked HF #13. Canarsie, Brooklyn, native Don Perlin came to Marvel with decades of experience and drew the cult favorite Werewolf by Night before inking Fly. Inkers Ricardo Villamonte and Rod Santiago each tackled some stories; even a young Steve Leialoha inked an issue. Action-packed covers boasted art by Bob McLeod, Dave Cockrum and Joe Sinnott, Sal Buscema, Bob Layton, and the popular duo of John Byrne and Terry Austin.

Visit Dizzy World (left) Robbins’ cover to Human Fly #6 (Feb. 1978) packs amusement-park peril and platform heels! Courtesy of Leo Chuah. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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IN SEARCH OF … THE REAL HUMAN FLY “I wasn’t into sports at all, but I would occasionally watch sports coverage or leaf through the newspaper looking for the Human Fly,” recalls Javier Hernandez, creator of the independent comic-book series El Muerto, Aztec Zombie. “It would kind of annoy me because I would be, like, Where were all the stunts? I was frustrated because nobody was covering his real-life exploits. I never did find any mention of the Fly.” Hernandez was not the only ’70s reader wondering if the Human Fly was, in fact, REAL. Could it be that the Fly did not really exist? That he was just some kind of marketing ploy? Another notion conjured up within the House of Ideas to exploit the fuel-injected popularity of Evel Knievel? Scattered evidence of his existence, including a 1976 People magazine profile, suggests otherwise.

The only persistent rumor about the death-defying comic-book inspiration was that he was Canadian Rick Rojatt. In HF #3’s letters column, a reader ends his missive, “Keep up the good work (you, too, Mr. Rojatt),” to which the editor responds coyly: “Mr. Rojatt?”

While even this much has not been confirmed, talk of Rojatt has turned up on www.the-rocketman.com, devoted to customized motorcycles. The website’s creator, rocket engineer Ky Michaelson, posts about retooling a Harley for the Fly’s most ambitious stunt: a cycle jump conjoined to a Gloria Gaynor concert at Montreal Olympic Stadium.

Michaelson tells BACK ISSUE that the Fly, posing as his own engineer, contacted the erstwhile Hollywood stuntman and visited his Bloomington, Minnesota home as Rick Rojatt. Yet when Michaelson went to Montreal to work as stunt coordinator/engineer on the stunt for the costumed Fly, “I recognized his voice as the engineer I met in Minnesota.

“Rick’s claim to fame before this jump was that he wing-walked on a DC-8 [at 250 mph. in the Mojave desert],” writes Michaelson on his site. “…He played the real character of the Human Fly comic book and always walked around with his suit on so nobody knew who he was.

“In 1977,” he continues, “I was contracted to build a rocket-powered motorcycle … At first he wanted to jump over 36 buses … I convinced him to shorten the jump to 27 buses…”

Michaelson purchased a brand new 1977 Harley Davidson XL-1000 Sportster, pulled its engine, and replaced it with two 1,500 lbs.-thrust hydrogen-peroxide rockets to give it a 6,000 horsepower boost, pushing the cycle in excess of 300 mph. “All that the Fly had to do,” he writes, “was press the button, pray, and hang on for dear life. It wasn’t that there wasn’t going to be a crash. … the only question was how bad it was going to be.

“I could not believe my eyes when the Human Fly actually showed up for the jump,” Michaelson continues.

“Here comes the Human Fly and his entourage, he jumped on the motorcycle, and hit the button. The rocket cycle was off … it was a heck of a crash at the other end. The most amazing part of the jump was that he lived. He had a broken ankle and a couple of other minor injuries.”

From his hospital bed, the Fly wrote about the event in HF #13, “One would think that this second confinement would discourage me. Quite the contrary.

If anything, it is giving me more strength with my

hopes of becoming the world’s greatest philanthropic daredevil.”

“About a month after the jump,” Michaelson says, “Rick called me and told me he was the Human Fly. He didn’t have too many nice things to say about the people who put the jump on. I have not heard from him since.”

Steve Leialoha doesn’t buy the notion that Fly was a simple Knievel knock-off. He insists there’s another story behind Fly’s conception.

So just how did The Human Fly series come about? And how involved was the Fly himself?

Regarding the latter, the real Fly, from the get-go, used the comic as a platform from which to pitch himself as this inspirational “philanthropic daredevil” who overcame his own physical handicap to become an example to millions. His own words often appeared on the letters page. “I’ve got 50,000,000 kids out there depending on me,” the Fly evangelizes in HF #1. “Youngsters in hospitals struggling against cancer, polio, cerebral palsy, or whatever. I’ve got a lot of people to support. And this is my way of doing it.”

Yet even today, nobody knows for sure who the Fly was. Concurrently, few of the book’s participants recall the story behind the title’s genesis. Leialoha offers his theory: “It may be possible that Mantlo knew him. Someone knew him. [Jim] Shooter or Mantlo, someone in marketing.”

So BACK ISSUE went straight to the source: Jim Shooter. At the time editor-in-chief Archie Goodwin’s associate editor, Shooter reveals, “We editorial types sure didn’t think a Human Fly comic book was a good idea.

My recollection is that it was thrust upon us editorial folks by someone upstairs. Probably someone in our licensing department met the Fly’s licensing folks at a trade show and convinced the president of the company that it was a good idea—without consulting us.

“When such things happened, as they occasionally did, Archie just shrugged and made the best of it.

Most of the business types upstairs had never opened a comic book—no exaggeration—and were clueless.

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© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

All this talent on a B-series based on a relatively unknown figure who, even today, remains something of an enigma.

Robbins’ Sunday Best Frank Robbins’ August 6, 1967 Sunday Johnny Hazard comic strip. © 2007 King Features Syndicate.

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For example, one licensing person told me proudly that she’d just made a great deal for a Wonder Woman license, unaware that Wonder Woman wasn’t one of our characters. She was so upset when I told her...”

Midway through Fly’s run, “I became [Marvel’s] editor-in-chief on January 1st, 1978,” Shooter explains. “Archie became a contract writer/editor, responsible only for the two books he wrote, reporting to me, his former assistant. Yes, that was awkward.”

Shooter confirms Leialoha’s general recollection.

“Bill stayed in touch with the Fly,” offers Shooter. “He probably took suggestions. I think the Fly’s licensing people asked for the musician angle. Yes, the editorial people met him, and some of us, at least, knew his secret identity, though I can’t remember it.”

Rollercoaster … of Love (above) The deathdefyin’ Fly also made the perfect babysitter!

Splash page to HF #8,

by Robbins and inker Rod Santiago, contributed by Paul Handler. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ENTER THE TIGER Extreme sports wasn’t the only area where Human Fly—and, by extension, Marvel—was ahead of its time.

Fly also excelled at diversity.

Marvel exponentially expanded on the mandate it set in the 1960s with the creation of the African hero the Black Panther, and transcended what became rote cliché—the Caucasian super-hero—by establishing titles built around “ethnic super-heroes”: (Luke Cage) Hero for Hire (later Power Man), (Shang-Chi) Master of Kung Fu, and Black Goliath.

Fly’s diverse supporting cast consisted of fetching African-American stunt coordinator Blaze Kendall and kvetching Art Garfunkel-ish Jewish publicist Arnie Berman.

There was also the dogged WEST-TV reporter Harmony Whyte, a Caucasian blonde who cynically doubted Fly’s

Rockin’ Robbins (above right) Frank Robbins’ pulseracing, action-packed original cover art for Human Fly #8 (Apr. 1978), courtesy of Rich Shurgin. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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altruism and sought to uncover his true identity and ulterior motives. Most striking was Fly’s double-amputee stunt engineer, Ted Locke, who had hooks for hands.

Ethnicity often graced Fly, down to fleeting characters such as curator Margarita Mercado (HF #8–9) and #17’s African-American little girl narrator Rachel.

Even the Fly was an outsider who defied his doctors, against all odds, to become a super-stuntman. Sure, Marvel had introduced handicapped characters before— the blind Daredevil, the wheelchair-bound Professor X, the mute Black Bolt—but always accompanied by superpowers overcompensating for their disabilities. Not the Fly. The influx of multiculturalism into the pages of Marvel Comics was not lost on a burgeoning generation of ethnic cartoonists. Hernandez, whose El Muerto will soon be a feature film starring That ’70s Show’s Wilmer Valderrama, noticed these nuances buying comics at his local 7-11 in Whittier, California. “Marvel always led the way with that,” says Hernandez, “even in the ’60s with Black Panther and in the ’70s with Asian characters like Shang-Chi doing their part to reflect the readership.”

Part and parcel with the new ethnic super-hero wave came the underutilized Puerto Rican-American super-hero, the White Tiger, showcased in HF #8–9 (Apr.–May 1978). Created by George Pérez, White Tiger debuted in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19 (Dec. 1975). With the help of a magic talisman, Hector Ayala became Black Panther’s de facto doppelganger.

White Tiger rode in on a wave of martial-arts mystique beginning with Master of Kung Fu and including Iron Fist and Perlin’s co-creation Moon Knight. In hindsight, Fly became one of the few magazines to

feature the Tiger before he was martyred by automatic gunfire in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Hernandez was among a generation of MexicanAmerican cartoonists to take notice of “El Tigre Blanco.” “My first exposure to a Latino character was the Tarantula,” recalls Hernandez. “But he is Spidey’s enemy, so I gotta cheer for Spidey. So when I discovered the White Tiger, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, here’s this Latino kung-fu super-hero.’”

“It’s a shame they killed him off in such a cheesy way,” says the Sonora-born, L.A.-raised Rafael Navarro of White Tiger, who pre-dated Latin super-heroes in U.S. mainstream comics and anticipated Navarro’s own twofisted comic-book creation, Mexican wrestler gumshoe Sonambulo. Ted Seko (Billy Cole), a cartoonist of Japanese heritage, enjoyed Tomb of Dracula, home of black vampire hunter Blade, and Deathlok the Demolisher, whose protagonist Luther Manning had a subtly told interracial backstory. Seko also dug the premise of the Fly as a disabled man reborn. “The first issue was so neat,” Seko remembers fondly. “He had to build himself back up because he was messed up … he didn’t set out to fight bad guys or anything, he just wanted to do stunts. I thought it was a cool twist on it.”

I Am Tiger, Hear Me Roar

EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK …

MAKE THAT A GIANT URN Arguably, the series reached its highest watermark— creatively and storywise—with the two-issue White Tiger story arc drawn by Frank Robbins: HF #8 (“The Fly and the Tiger,” inked by the New York Tribe) and #9 (“And Daredevil Makes Three,” inked by Esposito). The story revolved around Copperhead, the bronz-metallic, trench coat-clad villain with a hiss lisp, plotting to use the distraction of a Human Fly stunt outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a smokescreen to steal a giant ancient urn by sinking it underground. Soon, the Fly is floating down an abandoned subway tunnel in the urn, trying to protect a group of elementary-school kids as water levels rise. These issues are ripe with Robbins trademarks: Fly, White Tiger, and Daredevil bounding with impossible contortions, and a multiethnic mix of Caniff-faced supporting characters headed by the sexy Latina Mercado.

“I’m not a crime fighter” is Fly’s mantra throughout the story arc, even as he kicks major copper ass.

What sold Seko on the Fly was the character’s quirks, which, in retrospect, gave him kind of a Luchador mystique. “There was that one issue where on the splash page he’s playing a guitar [#11],” says Seko. “I thought it was kind of neat that you never saw him. All the other characters, you found out their aliases, but his identity was under wraps because he was a public image.” In that respect, Fly resembled Mexican wrestler film stars— i.e., El Santo, Blue Demon, Hurricane Ramirez—always concealing their identities in a mask, whether battling foes, playing rock star, or romancing the ladies.

“I WANNA ROCK ’N’ ROLL ALL NIGHT …

AND JUMP BUSES EVERY DAY” What made The Human Fly sui generis among comics was that the title character’s flesh-and-blood counterpart attempted to use the series as a careerist vehicle. In the ski-themed HF #13 (“Slope Death,” Sept. 1978), boasting dynamic art reuniting Robbins with his Invaders embellisher Springer, the real Fly uses the letters page to promote his rock-star aspirations. In pure Stan’s Soapbox fashion, the Fly, from his hospital bed post-Montreal, drops a bomb: “My fans probably don’t know this, but, as a child I was exposed to a strong

The White Tiger makes a splashy entrance, Frank Robbins-style, in Human Fly #8, giving us a glimpse of what a solo Robbins Tiger series might have looked like.

Ca-RAMBA!

musical background. I have decided that, in addition to my daredevil stunts, I will pursue my musical career …

I’ve always been interested in rock music … May I just say that soon you’ll be hearing from the Human Fly musically. I’ll be going into the recording studio as soon as I am out of the hospital to tape my first album … as with my stunts, a good part of the money I earn through my music will be turned over to charitable organizations in whatever cities I perform.”

Indeed, a fumetti [photo comic] contest ad in HF #15 plugged the Fly’s “upcoming career as a recording artist.”

And as if to prepare us readers for the inevitability of the Fly not climbing to the top of Mount Rushmore but rather to the top of Billboard’s pop charts, HF #11 opens with a telling splash page: The Fly (nicely rendered by Elias/Esposito) soulfully rocking out on acoustic guitar, surrounded by posters of … HIMSELF! “Silver Charity, Sudden Death” involves a rock-concert fundraiser plotline that, by last panel, finds the Fly fulfilling a dying rock singer’s request: he grabs a guitar and takes to the stage singing the moribund rocker’s song, “Birth of a Superstar.” As if consciously not trying to make the character appear too self-aggrandizing (and prove Harmony Whyte right?), a big banner marked “The Human Fly Silver Charity Benefit Performance” appears behind a center stage Fly to remind us of our hero’s true colors (which, as we all know by now, does not include green).

Sadly, the Human Fly’s music became a bigger secret than his identity.

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© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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THE HUMAN TOUCH

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Unfortunately, the prominent talents on Fly who would have offered the greatest knowledge on the series’ backstory are unavailable for comment.

Robbins and Elias have died.

Mantlo, struck by a car in 1992 while rollerblading, suffered severe head trauma and has never recovered.

Yet others who worked on the book remember Fly’s core talent with fondness.

Leialoha, still a fan favorite with his latest series, Jack of Fables (DC/Vertigo), recalls the excitement of his salad days as a young Bay Area-based artist in his early twenties inking for Marvel. He remembers meeting Mantlo on a few occasions. “He was very personable,” says Leialoha, “very friendly, no attitude, which was not always the case. It didn’t go to his head or anything.” Adds Mike Esposito, “He was very well-liked. He had a lot of girls around him.” What Leialoha saw as Mantlo’s strength was his “general reliability … he was quick. A lot of the freelancers were lax in the time department.”

“Bill had many things to recommend him, but the system in those days encouraged hacking, and he was a hack,” says Shooter bluntly. “The reason he remained with Marvel after I became editor-in-chief was that some editors used him to get their books on time. Bill was never late, and, as I said before, he’d do things other writers turned up their noses at. Several of us felt that, having worked for Marvel so long, he’d sort of earned tenure.

“Bill was always trying to generate work for himself,” Shooter recalls. “He had lots of work, by most writers’ standards, but always wanted more, because in those days, comics creators got paid by the page—period—no royalties, no benefits, nada. Bill had the ability to churn out an immense number of pages. He was ‘passionate’ about anything that let him write more pages and make more money. That’s why Bill frequently ended up with the assignments no one else wanted, like The Fly.” For better or for worse, what Fly gained from Mantlo scribing its entire run was consistency—a singular narrative voice—that serviced the most dependable visual storytellers in the business. “Lee Elias was a great artist,” says Perlin, who inked Elias on HF #3 and also

Team Fly The Fly’s supporting cast: Blaze Kendall, Ted Locke, Harmony Whyte, and Arnie Berman, from HF #11. Art by Lee Elias and Mike Esposito. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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provided finishes for #17 (Jan. 1979), a Bob Lubbers–drawn circus adventure. “Marvel considered me an inker at the beginning and I never considered myself an inker at all,” continues Perlin. “I didn’t have what I thought was the line that most inkers had, but as long as they were paying, I took the assignment.”

Certain issues, such as the Robbins-rendered HF #8, were curiously inked by “the New York Tribe,” a minimystery in itself. According to Romita and Esposito, Tribe consisted of whomever was around the Bullpen on deadline: i.e., Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin, and Frank Giacoia. “Frank Giacoia was nuts about Frank Robbins,” Esposito says, “[Robbins] was a damn good artist, but I feel he was wasted over at Marvel. They would just give him things to do. He had his own look, his own style, but a lot of the young editors didn’t appreciate it. They just knew he was a big name.”

“He was so good and so fast,” gushes Romita. “…Frank Robbins, who could never get enough work.

He was always an asset for whomever he worked for.

He was working for DC and Marvel at the same time.

I idolized him so much.”

“He was a star,” opines Perlin, who did not ink Robbins on Fly but owns four Man from Atlantis Robbins originals. “[Robbins, Springer, Elias] all drew like Caniff. They were fun.”

Shooter remembers the Fly art team well. “Frank was a sweet, gentle man,” he says, “always nice to everyone. Lee had a more curmudgeonly charm. Bob Lubbers was a gentleman. One of the great things about the Fly series,” continues Shooter, “…they were all terrific—great storytellers, excellent draftsmen, total professionals. They had trouble getting work in those days, because most writers and editors thought their stuff looked ‘old fashioned’ and un-hip. That’s why they wound up on The Fly—none of the young, hip artists wanted to do it.”

At least one young, hip artist felt otherwise. Leialoha not only inked Robbins, he actively sought the job. “I’d been working for Marvel for three years,” he recounts. “I remember at one point telling Jim Shooter that I wanted to ink only artists that were over 50. His first response was, ‘Eh? You want what?’ I told him, ‘Any issue of Frank Robbins that came up, let me take a chance at it.’ I was always a fan of Frank Robbins even though he wasn’t that popular with the super-hero crowd. I figured I’d have a lot of opportunity to ink younger pencilers.”

Among his big “gets”: inking Jack Kirby, Marie Severin, and the Buscema brothers. And although he is only credited for inking HF #14, Leialoha recalls completing a panel in #13 before getting a phone call from Springer informing him that the job had been mistakenly assigned

to him. No hard feelings from Leialoha, who FedEx-ed those Robbins pages back East for Springer to ink.

Leialoha found #14 thrilling to work on: “There was definitely this freewheeling attitude [in Robbins’ art].

There was very little interpreting required. I remember that Jim Shooter told me all he wanted is not to make the knees square … to make it look more contemporary.

[Shooter] was concerned that it would look too dated and it would hurt sales, which was probably true, so I did try to take off some of the jagged edges.”

Sadly, HF #14 was the one and only Robbins story that Leialoha inked. It turned out to be Robbins’ last issue on the series and, quite possibly, for Marvel Comics.

“I only did one so that was quite memorable,” Leihloha says. “I wanted to do more, but it seemed Frank Robbins decided to retire and move to Mexico that month.” Leialoha remains proud of his one-shot collaboration. “I did see him at the Marvel offices,” says Leialoha. “I wish I had talked to him. He was on his way to Mexico, I mean, literally.”

Despite their lengthy collaboration on Invaders, Roy Thomas did not get to know Robbins very well either. Yet he remembers a true professional. “He was a wonderful storyteller, cooperative, never refusing a challenge,” Thomas tells BACK ISSUE. “I just sent him the plot and he sent back full pencils. He sometimes put in dialogue, till I asked him not to, because his putting balloons at particular places on the page hampered me somewhat … he was wonderful in terms of doing the WW II stuff. He clearly liked the historical angle.”

Thomas laments the absence of his Invaders artists—Robbins, Springer, and Elias. “I hate to see the world suddenly bereft of such talents as Frank Robbins,” says Thomas, “as well as Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema … hard to believe there’ll never be another drawing coming from their pencil or pen.”

BACK ISSUE asks Thomas if anything is missing from today’s super-hero titles that such journeymen artists brought to the mix.

“Joy.”

EXIT THE FLY While the Human Fly, over two years and nearly 20 issues, survived cycle jumps, tightrope walks, shark tanks, and man-eating wildcats, one stunt remained far beyond the Fly’s amazing abilities: selling comics.

In HF #15, Fly’s editors had announced a contest (in a fumetti spread written by Mantlo and starring Stan Lee, Shooter, Goodwin, Mantlo, and the real-life Fly) that promised readers who suggested the best Fly stunts would get to see them drawn into a future issue.

Something dramatic apparently happened by HF #19 (Mar. 1979), as the discrepancy between the letters page and the last panel of this final issue is jarring.

Incredibly, the letters page brimmed with optimism, noting that, although Robbins was “taking an extended leave of absence while he relocates to sunny Mexico,” HF #19 marked “the return of Lee Elias, the Fly’s premiere artist, we guarantee that The Human Fly will continue to satisfy our demanding readership.” Elsewhere on that very page, the editors were looking forward to “the fact that the Fly’s well on his way into his second year as a comic-book character must say something about his success in the medium.” There’s also a hint of creative differences: “We’re hoping the next year will be as encouraging as the first—especially in character developments and plot twists, while we attempt to add an element of drama that Bill has said he felt the book was lacking.”

Bobbing for Covers (top) Bob Layton’s cover art to Human Fly #15 (courtesy of Ted Latner) and #19 (courtesy of Rich Shurgin), and (above) Bob McLeod’s commissioned inks to our article’s opening image, the unpublished Frank Robbins cover (courtesy of Latner). © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Don’t Quit Your Day Job This detail from an unused Dave Cockrum cover celebrates—or perhaps mocks— the real-life Fly’s rock-star ambitions.

Courtesy of Ted Latner. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

HEY, IT’S BEEN REAL … AND IT’S BEEN WILD! For many readers of a certain age, The Human Fly remains a fond memory etched in Bronze.

As a boy, Rafael Navarro loved the visceral motion of Robbins’ storytelling. “It’s this level of energy that he conveys with every line,” says Navarro. “He can take the subtlest scene of two people in a hospital worrying about someone and it’s exciting.” He enjoyed Robbins best inked by Esposito and “without question, Springer.

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When the two Franks worked together, that stuff was dynamite. These guys were true artisans, true craftsman.

That sense of professionalism is seemingly gone.”

“When I was a kid, I didn’t really appreciate [Fly],” recalls Ted Seko, “because he wasn’t a super-hero … he wasn’t all that powerful. He struggled to do a simple feat that would be nothing for Spider-Man. Now as I get older, reading characters that have limitations, it’s sort of more exciting.”

“I still remember the feeling and the excitement of reading the book,” says Hernandez. “I still enjoy its spirit.”

Whatever the true story behind the enigmatic stuntman, nothing detracts from the fact that The Human Fly inspired a slambang comic book series which, like one of his stunts, was brief yet memorable.

Adds Hernandez, “I still believe that he was real.”

MICHAEL AUSHENKER is a Los Angeles-based writer and cartoonist. His comic books include the El Gato, Crime Mangler series, Cartoon Flophouse, and Those Unstoppable Rogues.

Visit cartoonflophouse.com.

Photo Credit: Jackie Haumann.

Unfortunately, there was no future for The Human Fly. Turn to #19’s last page, and the series abruptly ends. We can practically hear the sound of a getaway car’s motor running outside Marvel’s offices as all involved hastily wrap up the storyline, announce five stunt-contest winners, and simultaneously inform readers of the book’s demise.

Sadly, the contest’s big winners also turned out to be the contest’s big losers. In the final panel, Harmony pounds away on her keyboard, Steven J. Cannell-style (and as if to hammer home the indifference, Whyte’s last name is carelessly misspelled “White”). A loose page flying toward the reader proclaims: “All Important Announcement from the Marvel Bullpen—This is the final issue of THE HUMAN FLY— the wildest hero ever! Much to all of our regret, ending the FLY here also means that the Human Fly STUNT CONTEST ends as well, but we thought it would be nice to mention the five winners whose creative stunt ideas might have appeared in these pages. All have received an autographed page of original HUMAN FLY artwork.”

After listing the five “winners,” the bulletin ends: “Thanks for coming along for the wildest ride in years. It’s been fun!”

“The Fly was canceled in or around the summer of 1978,” says Shooter. “That was a bad time for comics. DC canceled 40% of their titles on one day, the infamous ‘DC Implosion,’ Harvey was reduced to occasional reprints, Archie went all reprint …

Charlton died and Gold Key cut back to almost nothing. Marvel canceled a number of titles that sold especially poorly. Few things were selling well. The Fly NEVER sold well, so it was on the list.”

According to Shooter, Mantlo, despite his apparent frustration, had creative carte blanche: “I don’t think the Fly people even read the approval drafts we sent them, certainly not after the first issue or two. Bill did pretty much whatever he wanted.”

Yet by #19, it didn’t really matter anymore. Fly had run out of rocket fuel, sputtering to its creative nadir. The series, which had shot out like the Fly from a circus cannon with Elias’s explosive origin issue, now came full circle with Elias penciling the series’ most anemic installment: a random, poorly inked Wild West tale set on a Hopi reservation.

Mantlo soon moved onto Rom. Perlin went on to pencil Ghost Rider and Defenders. Leialoha landed Spider-Woman. Robbins had already left the building— his electric storytelling, which had seemingly reached every square inch of the House of Ideas by 1978, was gone.

Superman Color Art Gallery Curt Swan penciled, inked, and colored this 1979 Daily Planet cast drawing as a gift for friends; courtesy of Richard Martines.

Also, covers from Turkish editions of Superman comics; contributed

by Ilke Hincer. © 2007 DC Comics.

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In 1991, Curt Swan was asked to pencil, ink, letter, and color this Superman page, combining the best aspects of the Superman myth from all eras, including when the Bottle City of Kandor was enlarged on the planet Rokyn under Julius Schwartz’s editorship. © 2007 DC Comics.

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In 2005, fourteen years after the Swan page at left, Big Bang Comics and children’s book author/artist Jeff Weigel illustrated the culmination of Superman’s proposal to Lois.

(Weigel also designed the book Curt Swan: A Life in Comics,

by Eddy Zeno.) © 2007 DC Comics.

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This recreation of the classic cover to Superman #300 was found on artist Curt Swan’s drawing board at the time of his passing in 1996 and recently digitally colored

by Tom Smith, who kindly contributed it to BACK ISSUE. This is among Swan’s last Superman drawings.

(Special thanks to the Swan family and Spencer Beck.) © 2007 DC Comics.

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An Amazing Discussion About

CLARK KENT RED

and

by

Eddy Zeno

CLARK KENT BLUE

© 2007 DC Comics.

As a young reader, I always liked Superman better than Clark Kent. Didn’t we all? My favorite stories might begin with an unfolding headline event teletyped into the Daily Planet newsroom. Clark might be working at his desk or chewing the fat with Perry, Lois, and Jimmy. He would have to find an excuse to change to Superman so he could fly to wherever the threat was and deal with it. If he never appeared out of costume for the tale’s remainder, it was fine with me. Yet despite a child’s opinion that Clark was not needed, except perhaps as a brief story springboard, he did not go away. That’s because the editors and writers, starting with Superman’s co-creator Jerry Siegel, were smart enough to know that without Clark Kent, Superman wouldn’t last.

Denny O’Neil, interviewed in January 2006 for the book The Krypton Companion (by BACK ISSUE’s Michael Eury and published by TwoMorrows), in essence said that even those long-ago, goofy tales in which Lois or Lana schemed to prove that Clark was Superman/Superboy were necessary. They helped ground a near-invincible space alien with godlike powers in the everyday world so readers could relate to him. In current continuity Superman remains grounded by having Ma and Pa Kent alive and by Clark/Superman being married to Lois.

The careers of the writers participating in the Clark Kent Roundtable span these wide gulfs in the reporter’s history and events in between. Their comments, received by email between July and October 2006, serve as reminders how each of them has added dimension to the fictional character. For contrast and clarity they are divided into pre- and post-Crisis teams—or the “Clark Kent Red” and the “Clark Kent Blue” teams, in a nod to the classic Imaginary Story. However, all Roundtable participants maintain a sharp interest in Clark as he appears today, and many of them still participate in his adventures in some form.

—Eddy Zeno (Acknowledgment: Thanks to Michael Eury for helping with the following questions.)

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CLARK KENT RED TEAM ROLL CALL

RED TEAM ROUNDTABLE EDDY ZENO: From your perspective, which was the “real” and which was the “manufactured” personality, Clark or Superman? Is he primarily a simple North American type of guy or a stranger from another planet?

MARTIN PASKO: Wow. This question reminds me of all the subplots and story premises I pitched that explored Superman’s identity issues. They kept being rejected by the editors I had to satisfy because they didn’t “get” them, and they didn’t conform to their purely escapist sensibility and their preference for gimmickry. I’m used to people not understanding why I find this a more complex and nuanced question than your phrasing of it implies. That’s because I’m probably unique among Superman writers in that I have firsthand experience with the sort of identity issues Kal-El would have—the kind that abandonment, early adoption, and displacement create.

For me, the “truthful” way to write it is that the Kryptonian began his conscious life thinking of himself as Clark Kent, believing himself human until his powers began to manifest themselves. But from that point on, everything changed.

That’s why I think that what you’re asking about differs depending on which version of the continuity you’re talking about. In the continuities in which there is no Superboy, the timeline of Clark’s self-discovery is different. The creative choice writers must make is greatly affected by where the information about Superman’s past comes from, at what point in his life he gets it, and how many years he’s been thinking of himself as a costumed vigilante (a longer period if he’s been Superboy).

What I had to work with was essentially a Julie Schwartz-modified version of the Weisinger continuity of the ’60s, in which Clark learned of his Kal-El identity when he was in grade school, rather than as a young adult. So it always seemed to me, because of the way I learned of my own identity, and had to revise my self-image as new information became available to me, that once “Clark Kent” became aware of “Kal-El,” Kal-El became the “real” person, and both Clark and Superman became constructs. But, because he was, in effect, cut off from his “real” self because he had no memory of having lived as Kal-El, that real self felt less real to him—paradoxically—than either of the “manufactured” identities.

I base this conclusion on the way my own history parallels the character’s: I was born in French Canada, of which I have no firsthand memory (so, for me, Canada = Krypton). In my birthplace,

CARY BATES Superman writer, 1960s–1980s

ELLIOT S! MAGGIN Superman writer, 1970s–1980s

DENNIS O’NEIL Superman writer and Superman Family editor, 1970s

MARTIN PASKO

© 2007 DC Comics.

Superman writer, 1970s–1980s; Superman Returns adaptation, 2006

LEN WEIN Superman writer, 1970s

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I was given the name Gaston Claude Rochefort (= Kal-El).

I was adopted by an American couple who were a good 10–15 years older than most of my contemporaries’ parents (= the Kents) and brought to the US (= Smallville) at a very early age.

My adoptive parents were completely honest with me about the fact of my adoption, and from as early as I can remember, I knew I was different from other kids in that respect. So, Gaston-Claude feels unreal to me because, to my conscious mind and memory, Martin Pasko has always been my identity. Yet I know it’s a construct because I wasn’t born with it.

That condition leaves one with a sense of being two people at once, and no one at all—and I was luckier than Supes; I didn’t have yet a third identity to worry about!

But that sense of being a man without a real identity—as well as a man without a homeworld, if you will—leads to a kind of alienation from others that is fairly unique. I would think that Kal-El’s awareness that he is considered human but isn’t really of humans is in the forefront of his consciousness most of the time. It’s this tragic dimension of the character that I always thought had great story potential, but nobody has ever really explored it, to my knowledge.

CARY BATES: To me it was never an “either-or” question, because he could never simply be just regular-guy-Clark-Kent any more than he could “just” be Kal-El-the-Kryptonian. From the moment his rocketship reached Earth and the Kents started raising him, the way I saw it, both aspects of the character were forever entwined.

LEN WEIN: The Clark Kent persona was definitely the real personality. He was raised as Clark from infancy and only became Superman (or –boy, if you’re so inclined) years later. I’ve long said that what makes Clark Kent Superman isn’t his ability to change the course of mighty rivers or bend steel in his bare hands, it’s the fact that he was raised by the two most decent people in the world, people who helped form his moral center. All the rest of it emanates from there.

DENNIS O’NEIL: To me, the guy in the cape was always the real one. And though he might try to fit in by being a wholesome, Midwestern kid, that’s not who he was.

ELLIOT S! MAGGIN: It is and has always been very clear to me that the character we are dealing with is Superman, not somebody named Clark who pretends to be Superman, and not Kal-El with some sort of alien consciousness who puts on Superman like a suit of clothes or a toga or something. The hero of the story is the character’s best self, given all that character’s aspects. A primary element of traditional mythology as well as contemporary mythology has always been the disguise, but the disguise is the fantasy, not the reverse—whether the hero is aware of that or not. The little kid growing up as his step-brother’s squire in the duke’s home was really King Arthur. The beggar who crashed the party thrown by Penelope’s suitors was really Odysseus. The swan that seduced Leda was really Zeus. And the strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men— as well as the mild-mannered reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper—is really Superman.

ZENO: How come Clark could fool Lois?

O’NEIL: She’s dim? Maybe she wanted to be fooled? I never answered this for myself, nor did I really try to. Clark’s fooling Lois—and everyone else—by changing clothes and putting on glasses was a convention I accepted.

Puzzled Planeteers

editorial fiat, of a plot submitted by a fan which attempted to offer a science-fictional rationale for the glasses disguise. The story was quickly ignored because it “felt wrong” (as it did to me even as I was writing it). I think it’s better not to even ask “How can Clark fool Lois?” Every time a writer tries to answer that, no one is satisfied; the attempted rationale is eliminated from continuity; and the franchise reverts to the conceit that the Kent disguise is effective.

ZENO: If the Clark Kent identity was an act, why was he hurt when she only loved Superman?

O’NEIL: Because, I think, it made for better stories.

MAGGIN: He wasn’t hurt. He was thrown off-track, and just a little. Hal Jordan wanted Carol Ferris to be in love with him and not the guy in the mask.

Superman has a more complicated life and he’s better at finding his way around the complications. I wrote a story a thousand years ago called “Gorilla Grodd’s Grandstand Play” [Action Comics #424, June 1973], which I still like quite a bit. In the last page of the story Lois took back some things she had said earlier, in a manner that ought to have hurt Clark’s feelings, and afterward Clark walked through the hall down-in-thedumps until he was out of earshot. When he was sure he was alone he burst out laughing. A friend told me at the time it was a cruel thing for Clark to do to Lois, but I thought about it and didn’t think so. I still don’t. It hurt no one, and helped me answer this question, after all.

PASKO: Was he? I remember it more as frustration and ambivalence than hurt: On the one hand, he was gratified that the disguise was working, but frustrated that at the Planet he was forced to keep playing the zhlub when he didn’t want to.

I’d also suggest that he was skeptical that she really loved him, as opposed to having a romantic fantasy. I mean, how can you truly love someone—in a mature, committed way— before you know them very well? And since they weren’t close enough for her to be entrusted with the secret of his double identity,

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Kent and his Daily Planet cronies, from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #98 (Jan. 1970); art by Curt Swan and George Roussos. © 2007 DC Comics.

© 2007 DC Comics.

WEIN: I always wondered the same thing until I watched the late, much-lamented Christopher Reeve demonstrate on screen that Clark Kent looks nothing like Superman; he’s shorter, his facial structure is different.

I’m telling you, they’re two entirely different guys.

MAGGIN: I like Noel Neill’s answer: “To keep my job.” That’s actually not a bad answer. People see incomplete stories in the world around them. Nearly half the people in this country voted for a man unqualified to be president twice in a row. Probably the best explanation for the failure of characters to perceive “reality” is that we rarely tell ourselves the whole story either; that metaphors are a convenient way around complications. I don’t want to spend my effort explaining—or hearing—that the hero is a master of disguise and theatrics and hypnosis and misdirection or the Kryptonian glass gives off a kind of mirage effect or some damned thing. I just want to get on with the storytelling and if glasses and suit gets me there, that’s fine with me.

BATES: Like explaining how the Force works (anyone remember midochlorians?), some questions are better left unanswered. A valiant but not too-successful attempt was made to address the disguise conundrum in a story Julie ran in the late ’70s (by Marty Pasko, I believe) [in Superman #330, Dec. 1978, and referenced above by Elliot as a “mirage effect or some damned thing…” caused by Clark’s special glasses].

PASKO: Because the eyeglass disguise was a simple conceit intended to suffice for small kids. Of course it’s preposterous in the eyes of an older audience, but that’s not the demographic for whom the books were intended in 1938. Moreover, it was easier to go along with the conceit before the mid-’70s, when the Superman-Lois relationship was unambiguously chaste. The 15 years immediately prior to the Clark-Lois wedding, in which there was an implied sexual intimacy between them, strained credibility to the breaking point.

But I’m not convinced that if the glasses were eliminated, there wouldn’t be a howl of protest— most of it from the very same people who deride the disguise as hokey. I was the reluctant scripter, by

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© 2007 DC Comics.

it’s doubtful he could regard her professed “love” as much more than an adolescent crush.

Even though Clark is an artificial identity, I don’t think it’s an “act” in the sense of a deliberately fraudulent alias, such as one a con man might assume.

Rather, it’s a displacement of Kal-El’s deepest emotions and vulnerabilities into a manufactured vessel. I put it that way to distinguish the process from dissociation as in multiple personality disorder, because in Kal-El’s case it’s conscious, vitally necessary, and not at all pathological.

We all know that actors who work internally will draw on sense memory and facets of their own psychological makeup to make their characters as real as possible. In this process, it’s not uncommon for actors to so closely identify with their roles that they start imprinting their own personalities on their parts. As a result, the actors so closely identify with their characters that the actors start taking what happens to the characters “personally.” Often, actors in long-running

TV series will feel that they’ve come to understand their roles better than the writers, and that’s what starts the “My character wouldn’t say that” wars. From that phenomenon, I extrapolate that, if he were hurt at all, Kal-El, the actor playing Clark, was hurt by Lois’ rejection of Clark the character because that’s the way the character Clark would react.

WEIN: Well, since I never believed the Clark identity was an act, I think the question answers itself. Besides, I always thought that back in the Silver Age, Lois was a bit of a starf*cker, if you’ll excuse my language. She was smitten with Superman because of what he was, not who he was.

ZENO: Why didn’t previous attempts to make Clark more appealing (Superman #210, Oct. 1968, under editor Mort Weisinger, and Superman #233, Jan. 1971, under Julie Schwartz) endure?

BATES: Don’t recall those particular issues, but in general … back in the ’60s and ’70s the mild-mannered schtick was the prevailing mantra of the day, and I would expect any departure from the status quo to be temporary at best.

MAGGIN: I’m not sure what issues the numbers refer to, but it seems to me that #233 probably included the first “Private Life of Clark Kent” story, if my geography is right. [Actually, the series began in Superman #242, Jan. 1972, with initial story by Denny O’Neil.] I don’t think Clark is unappealing. He’s just normal, and that’s part of the point of having him around.

And I’m not sure that any attempt to make him more appealing didn’t endure. In the nature of a shared universe like this, whoever is making decisions about who the character should be and where he should go, and what mood the storyteller is in, all change like life.

Readers’ responses to a momentary shift in direction are only a factor in whether or not a manifest thought somehow becomes canon. There was this big editorial meeting at some point where the publisher and all the editors at DC decided that from now on, the secret identity of a major character would be homosexual.

Really. It was kind of silly. And when it became clear that it was kind of silly, everybody quietly forgot about the notion. These characters have lives and dynamics of their own. The storytellers who are the most successful at creating time-worthy stories are those who best steep themselves in the characters’ histories and traditions, and then simply tell stories, letting the characters take their own natures into their own hands.

PASKO: I don’t think anyone in charge at DC ever thought analytically enough to reach a conscious decision that Clark needed to be made more “appealing.”

Superman #210 merely reflects editorial director Carmine Infantino’s attempts to make the books look more modern and dynamic (note that #210 has a striking Neal Adams cover). Carmine also insisted that the

Killer Kent Kauses Khaos In this Imaginary Story written by Cary Bates, penciled by Curt Swan, and inked

by Dan Adkins, Clark Kent was evil and Lex Luthor was the Man of Steel. From Superman #231 (Nov. 1970), at the end of the Mort Weisinger editorial era. © 2007 DC Comics.

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older DC artists update their swipe files on fashion and prop design. That’s when we first started seeing Clark get out of the perennial blue suit and into doublebreasted jackets and colorful shirts, etc. To the extent that the stories seemed to be about a “new” Clark Kent, it was wholly superficial; merely a matter of trying to find story hooks that would account for the design changes. So it wasn’t so much that the ideas didn’t “endure” as that the following Fall brought the designers’ new collections. The experiments of #210 and the issues following it were just another flailing attempt to seem as hip as Marvel—briefly considered and discarded like the “Go-Go Checks” of 1966.

As for the TV news anchor business that began under Julie, that was gradually dropped because, by 1980, it was clear to DC that the character of Clark Kent had taken on a life that was larger than its creators or owners. The company’s failure to persuade the Superman movie producers to incorporate the Galaxy Broadcasting franchise into the feature film was DC’s first inkling that, because of Superman’s long-term presence in mass media, the character had a multigenerational recognition factor that meant that the image of the “true” Clark Kent would always be that of a newspaper reporter. WB’s own research showed that DC’s efforts at “updating” Superman weren’t registering with the public. In 2006, we saw exactly the same pattern repeat itself in WB’s decision not to do a film in which Clark was courageous and virile and married to Lois.

O’NEIL: Maybe because it wasn’t a great idea? The storytelling advantages of a double-identity character are pretty much lost when both identities are admirable (or equally lousy). In the current interpretation, Clark is pretty darn great—brilliant, prize-winning journalist, etc.

And his nerdishness was never consistent; if memory serves, he was often played as an ace reporter.

ZENO: What was the impact of the editor(s) with whom you worked when it came to the character?

BATES: Weisinger was much more rigid in terms of everything from plot and dialogue to panel layouts, but since he was my first editor and I was green it worked out okay in the long run. I certainly learned a lot. Julie was a great teacher, too; he also had a lot of his own rules … but once he trusted a writer, more often than not he’d give you a much wider latitude of creative freedom.

WEIN: Well, since I only really worked with Julie Schwartz as my editor on Superman, the impact was considerable. Julie taught me a bunch of simple, basic rules when it came to writing a Superman story, and I’ve never forgotten them.

MAGGIN: I have generally worked with editors who were more concerned with the immediate story I was telling—whether it hung together, whether it made sense, whether it was exciting or engaging—than with where I was taking the characters. That was certainly true of Julie Schwartz. And for that matter, the characters were kind of dragging me along in that area.

PASKO: Not much. Nobody ever questioned or directed me in my treatment of Clark, perhaps because none of my editors felt very sure-footed when it came to the Superman franchise. That may have resulted from the same development that made the ’70s Superman such a mess (e.g., the sons of Superman and Batman). Petty politics triumphed over both sound business judgment and creative integrity: neither Infantino nor his immediate successors wanted a single editor to wield as much power at National Periodicals as Mort Weisinger had, so the

Stand-In Superman A Clark Kent appearance on this Bob Oksner-drawn cover to Action #453 (Nov. 1975). © 2007 DC Comics.

line was split up when Weisinger resigned in 1970.

It would be 15 years before all the Superman-related titles would come under a single editor’s stewardship again.

Consequently, I did Supes stuff for three editors— Schwartz, O’Neil, and [Joe] Orlando—and each approached both the character and the script-writing process differently.

In matters of mythology, Julie deferred to writers who knew it backward and forward, like Cary, Elliot, Len, and I did, so when we needed to shoot down an editorial suggestion because it was “off-continuity,” Julie went along.

Denny was always a joy to work with in comics.

He freely admitted that he was never that comfortable with the Superman property, so when called upon to edit it, he just found a writer he trusted and got out of the way.

Orlando had no feel for super-heroes, and no respect for the genre conventions. I had no problems with that; I understood what he found silly and didn’t blame him for thinking so. But he’d waste hours of your time asking questions like, “Why does Superman have to crash through the wall instead of go in through the door?” And, since he was an insecure little man, he tended to be dictatorial and apt to get petulant at every imagined slight. So you could never give him the straight answer that was in your head, which was, “Look, Joe, you either get it or you don’t.”

ZENO: What did you do to make Clark uniquely yours?

MAGGIN: I didn’t. He wasn’t. He belonged to the ages like Lincoln, f’r heaven’s sakes, and will you stop calling him Clark? The character I worked with was Superman.

Clark was the character Superman worked with.

PASKO: Nothing, and I made no attempt to. It would have been inappropriate to do so, from a

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professionalism standpoint. Besides, realistically speaking, making that big an impression would’ve been impossible anyway. Any major change one writer would’ve tried to make—even if s/he had gotten away with it—would have been undone immediately by other writers and turned into what some DC fans today call “Mopee stories.”

O’NEIL: Not a thing.

BATES: See answer to question 1.

WEIN: Strangely enough, I think the most important thing I did with Clark—aside, of course, from giving him a home life, introducing his neighbors in the apartment building he lived in, etc.—was to return the character to his basics. With rare exception, every Superman story I wrote contained that seminal moment where he would rip his shirt open and proclaim, “This looks like a job for… SUPERMAN!” It gave me chills as a kid and continues to do so to this day.

ZENO: What were Kent’s most important contributions to the Superman mythos?

Clark’s Last Peaceful Moment From Alan Moore’s legendary “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, Kent’s secret identity is about to be exposed.

Story page 7 of Superman #423 (Sept.

1986), penciled by Swan and inked by George Pérez. © 2007 DC Comics.

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O’NEIL: The Clark identity gives readers someone with whom to identify, and provides story fodder.

PASKO: It’s a fair question. Unfortunately. The very fact that anyone would find it necessary to ask that underscores how wrongheaded the most recent interpretation of Clark is. But, fortunately for the prospective longevity of the franchise, the fearless, macho Kent appears only in the comics, which have little influence in defining the property in the public imagination any more. Historically, Kent is the repository of the human failings Superman can’t afford to admit to himself. Whatever self-doubt, fear—indeed, any weakness—may have, he mentally relegates to Clark. Kent is Superman’s vehicle for inhabiting the human world so that he can be treated as an equal by humans (though, with delicious irony, he’s usually seen as inferior), rather than being worshipped or feared as a demi-god. But if you make Clark just as strong a personality as Superman, differing only by not wearing a costume and pretending not to have super-powers, then Kent not only has nothing to contribute, he’s virtually unnecessary.

BATES: I’ve never seen that question answered or delineated more effectively than the first five years of Smallville.

ZENO: Had you been given carte blanche, what would you have changed about the Silver/Bronze Age Clark?

WEIN: A lot less of Lois snooping into his secret identity, I think. Other than that, not much. That’s the character I grew up with, the Superman I loved.

BATES: From my perspective any answer to a question like that, some 30–40 years after the fact, would either be self-serving or b.s.

PASKO: The Weisinger stuff was pretty silly, but it was age-appropriate, it worked commercially, and, operating synergistically with the media incarnations, it kept the character alive in the comics about ten years longer than his super-heroic contemporaries. So, since it wasn’t broken, I wouldn’t have tried to fix it.

As for the post-Weisinger stuff, I’d have to have been the editor to make the changes I’d’ve liked to see: the writers would’ve been asked to think about the material a bit more deeply in terms of character logic, and to place more emphasis on policing the fantasy elements for believability, extrapolating more logically from known science. This would have constituted an effort to appeal to an older, slightly more sophisticated audience. Then, once a template for a new approach was established, I’d have insisted that all the writers treat the material consistently, rather than O’Neil having one take, [Bob] Haney another, Bates yet a third, and so on.

MAGGIN: In retrospect—although I didn’t feel it was so at the time—I think I did have a kind of carte blanche, at least as far as I wanted to take it. What I tried to do overall with Superman was explain in my own words who this character was. I never wanted to make up a new character that I wanted everyone to call “Superman.” I wanted to demonstrate the viability of a character in whom, at the time I began writing his stories, no one was really very interested in anymore. I believe I went some distance in doing that. I think the only regret I had was the kind of regret you have when you lose someone close to you: that you wish you could have spent more time with him.

O’NEIL: I might have done something about his so obviously being Superman. I mean, despite what I

wrote above, nobody noticing they’re the same guy requires a hell of a willing suspension of disbelief.

ZENO: Do you have a favorite Clark Kent story?

BATES: I’d have to think about that. The two-parter DC recently reprinted about Jonathan Kent coming back from the dead [Action Comics #507–508: see Kurt Busiek’s comments on same in the “Blue” panel discussion] would be high on the list.

PASKO: None comes to mind. To the best of my recollection, the Clark-oriented stories from the Silver Age never explored what having to pose as Clark meant to Superman emotionally: burden or relief, help or hindrance, etc. They were all gimmicky: Clark fakes his own death; Superman abandons the Clark identity; Superman must allow Clark to behave uncharacteristically, etc.

The Clark Kent stories under Schwartz were usually those silly six- to eight-page backups, some of which I’m guilty of writing, and they were largely substanceless. And I don’t consider Clark-oriented subplots or runners (like that Boeuf Bourguignon business and the proposal to Lois in the ’70s, for example) to be discrete stories.

The post-retcon Clark was a total turn-off to me, because I thought, and still do, that making Clark a heroic football stud, with no contrast to the Superman persona other than the costume and powers, was one of the worst mistakes DC ever made. The old saying at DC used to be, “Without Clark Kent (meaning the mild-mannered, cowardly wuss), there is no Superman,” and I think that’s a bedrock principle you don’t want to abandon.

Certainly Warner Bros. seems to think so, even if Joe Fanboy doesn’t.

WEIN: Probably one of the “Private Life of Clark Kent” stories I wrote, “The Baby Who Walked Through Walls!” [Superman #254, July 1972], with the wonderful Neal Adams on the art. It was just a lot of fun to do.

ZENO: Your favorite artist in delineating Kent, and why?

MAGGIN: Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

Together. I did do one story—“I Can’t Go Home Again”—that Murphy drew and inked himself [Superman # 270, Dec. 1973], and another— “I Flew With Superman” [Superman Annual #9, 1983] (was that the story where I collaborated with Cary to make Curt the supporting character?)—where Curt did the same thing. And I was satisfied, as I think they were, that either of them could carry the character admirably on his own. But together they just made a combination that had remarkable chemistry. I also did one story with Alex Toth that made me think he could have been an amazing interpreter of the character, but, alas, he never did another.

O’NEIL: I guess Curt Swan was my favorite Superman artist, which would make him my favorite Clark artist.

WEIN: My favorite Superman artist was José Luis GarcíaLópez, hands down one of the best—and sadly most underrated—artists in the history of this business. But for handling Clark, Curt Swan, uber alles.

PASKO: Curt Swan, of course, because when you’re bringing Clark front and center, you’re in more realitybased and emotive scenes. And nobody could sell that grounding in reality like Curt with his naturalistic, expressive faces.

BATES: Back in the day I always thought Curt Swan gave his face the most character … nobody else came close to making Clark look as much like a real person.

CLARK KENT BLUE TEAM ROLL CALL

BLUE TEAM ROUNDTABLE EDDY ZENO: From your perspective, which was the “real” and which was the “manufactured” personality, Clark or Superman? Is he primarily a simple Americantype of guy or a stranger from another planet?

ROGER STERN: Can I choose “none of the above?”

Clark and Superman are different aspects of the same man, so I would never call either of them “manufactured.” But Clark is really who he was raised to be.

And there’s nothing simple about Clark Kent.

Technically, he’s an alien, an immigrant sent to Earth by his birth parents, but he was raised as an Earthman—an American Earthman, and most specifically as a Midwesterner, which really gets to the core of his being.

He thinks and feels like one of us. Hell, he is one of us.

I’ve heard some people make a big deal about how important Jor-El is, in sending his only son to Earth. But to my mind, Jonathan Kent is much more important.

Have you ever stopped to think how lucky that world is, in that Jon and Martha Kent were the ones who found and raised the boy? Just imagine what would have happened if the kid had been raised by a grifter or a crooked politician or a corporate robber baron!

Imagine Clark Kent being raised by Lex Luthor. Pretty scary! But luckily, that didn’t happen.

See, the Kents were hard-working farmers, with respect for both the land and their fellow human beings.

Not a bigoted bone in their bodies. They gave Clark the moral foundation from which he built Superman.

Dig it: Just as he reached the age of maturity, Clark learned that he’s not Jon and Martha’s natural-born son.

He knew all along that he was different. He’d grown into these amazing powers. And that, by the way, wasn’t unique to the post-Crisis stories. George Lowther, in his 1942 novel The Adventures of Superman, had also come up with the idea that Clark’s powers must have developed gradually. If they hadn’t … well, mortal humans wouldn’t really be able to raise a super-baby. So, Clark’s powers developed slowly, and he had been—wisely—coached to keep them a secret. But he had also been taught that those powers and abilities didn’t make him any better than his fellow man, that strength of character was more important than sheer physical strength.

And now his parents were leveling with him, telling him that they found him in a rocket. Pretty heavy, right?

Clark had this gift, these great powers and abilities, and now he knew that he had some mysterious unknown origin, as well. But that didn’t change the fact that he thinks and functions as one of us. He needed to figure out how best to use his powers, so he set out around the world. In fact, he hiked much of the seven continents. For several years, the world was his college.

Being Clark, he used his powers to help people wherever he went, usually in secret, always moving on.

That’s another part of Clark’s post-Crisis background that I really love. He spent several years after high school just wandering the world, getting a better handle on his powers and helping people out. I once (in Superman Annual vol. 2 #7, 1995) had him casually refer to having walked the length of the Amu River in Afghanistan, and that was just a throwaway line. Think of the thousands of story possibilities that exist there!

Anyway, through it all Clark remained true to himself, to the values that his parents had instilled in him, by word and example.

After a few years, he decided that he needed a more formal education and enrolled at the University of Metropolis. Completed a four-year program in two years, S e c r e t

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KURT BUSIEK Superman writer, 2000s

JOHN BYRNE Superman writer/artist, 1980s; Action artist, 2000s

JERRY ORDWAY Superman writer/artist, 1980s–1990s

ROGER STERN Superman writer, 1980s–1990s

MARV WOLFMAN Superman writer, 1980s–1990s •

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all the while using his powers in secret to help others.

But then, something happened … something big.

He had to fly into action in front of God, the media, and everyone, to save the crew of a NASA space plane. Big excitement. Now everyone wanted to know all about him. Everyone wanted a piece of him.

And that’s when he turned to his parents and got their help in creating the Superman identity.

So Superman is the bright, shining, larger-than-life being who exists as the public face of Clark Kent’s hidden nature. Superman is out there, so Clark can lead a normal life.

Superman is very straightforward. Unlike Batman, he doesn’t wear a mask. His face is hanging right out there for everyone to see.

But Clark Kent … ah, Clark is very complicated. He has plenty of secrets. Clark Kent is secretly an alien from another planet. He guards that secret carefully, and shares it with only a trusted few.

KURT BUSIEK: The way I look at it, both “Clark Kent” and “Superman” are manufactured personalities— public personas that Superman chooses to show to the world in different situations. The real guy is who he is when he’s at home and doesn’t have to put on either show. The guy at Ma Kent’s kitchen table, or talking things over at the apartment with Lois, that’s the real one.

At heart, what he is, is a stranger from another planet who was brought up in middle America, in a loving, supportive family. The two can’t really be separated.

JOHN BYRNE: Through the Golden and Silver Ages it always seemed to be Clark who was the manufactured personality. Superman thought of himself primarily as Superman, then as Kal-El, then as Clark Kent. This never rang true with me, even as a kid, so when I had the opportunity, I “fixed” it.

MARV WOLFMAN: There are two distinct Clark Kents.

One is the Clark who is pretty much the same as Superman, the Clark that lives with his parents or the Clark that’s with Lois. The put-on Clark is the one who interfaces with everyone else but his intimates.

JERRY ORDWAY: In my opinion, Kal-El was raised as a human with a solid Midwestern farm town value system, and so the Clark Kent side of him is dominant. If you are adopted, your adoptive parents are your parents, for better or worse. In Clark’s case, it was for the better. He may be a Kryptonian, but he lives among us as one of us, taking on the persona of Superman to help humanity.

ZENO: What was the inspiration for the changes in Kent after the Crisis on Infinite Earths?

BYRNE: Just a general sense of how “adopted children” grow up. It seemed to me that every time Superman said “Great Rao!” or “Great Krypton!” he was spitting in the faces of Jonathan and Martha Kent, who had been more truly his parents than Jor-El and Lara had ever been, as Earth had been more truly his home than Krypton.

STERN: I can’t speak for the others, but I can tell you that George Reeves’ portrayal of Clark Kent was always a major influence on the way I wrote Clark. The way George played Clark, he always came across as very smart, very clever, and very likable. You could believe that his Clark was a respected reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper.

A Stern (not Roger) Talking-To (right) Pa Kent teaches Clark not to grab for glory as he grows toward adulthood in 1986’s Man of Steel #1, written and penciled by John Byrne and inked by Dick Giordano. © 2007 DC Comics.

“I’d like to order the Hollywoodland DVD, please…”

Roger Stern’s interpretation of Clark Kent was influenced

by George Reeves’ television portrayal. © 2007 Warner Bros.

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There was also a smattering of the Clark who appeared in the Fleischer cartoons of the 1940s and Chris Reeve’s portrayal from the movies … especially in posture and voice range.

I loved how Chris spoke in a slightly higher register as Clark, and stood straighter and taller as Superman.

Remember that scene in Lois’ apartment in the first Superman movie, where he takes off the glasses and straightens up—and then straightens up again!—and his voice drops an octave? Forget about “You’ll believe a man can fly!” That scene made me believe that Clark Kent could appear different enough from Superman to keep his double identity a secret.

Of course, there was precedent for the voice change, as well. In the cartoons and on the Mutual Network’s Superman radio show, Bud Collyer had used different voices for Clark and Superman, and even did a vocal transition when he “changed identities.”

In my stories, I’ve tried to emphasize—as often as I could—that Clark Kent is a tenor and Superman is a baritone.

ORDWAY: I suppose it was like anything else—DC wanted to make him a bit more accessible, and add a bit more depth to his personality.

ZENO: Were there elements of Clark’s previous “mild-mannered” persona that you wish had not been eliminated?

BYRNE: As the one doing the “eliminating,” no. A lot of thought—about ten years’ worth!—went into Man of Steel. (Given a time machine, I would not get rid of Superboy—but that’s because the Powers-That-Were at DC double-crossed me, after the contracts were signed, not because of anything to do with Clark.)

BUSIEK: Speaking as a reader, yes. I think the idea that Clark Kent was nebbish and uncharismatic— that he was a “nobody” who was secretly the greatest guy on Earth—was important to the character and

got lost along the way. However logical it might be to make Clark Kent a confident, no-nonsense guy who was a high-school football star, I think it loses the essential dichotomy at the heart of the series— that Clark is a nerdy exterior hiding a wondrous secret. It’s that, I think, that allowed millions of adolescent kids to identify with Clark and better imagine themselves Superman.

WOLFMAN: I had nothing to do with making him a school athlete. That would be exactly the thing I would not do. I would have had him as competent, but nothing special at school in terms of athletics.

Although he’s a top reporter, that has nothing to do with Superman. Writing and reporting are not things his powers can help him with. You can fly but that wouldn’t make you a good reporter. Writing skills don’t come with X-ray vision. To be a top athlete however would be him using his powers for personal gain and therefore wrong. He’d be using his powers in a way that would put down other students for no reason other than self-aggrandizement since he’d be taking a place on a team that might have gone to someone for whom baseball or football means more. My view of Superman is he’s not selfish in that way.

ORDWAY: The mild-mannered reporter was still there, but I know we tried to veer away from him being the butt of jokes, as he kind of was in the Julie Schwartz era. The whole set-up and dynamic of Lois lusting after Superman while despising Clark Kent as an unworthy wimp works great in a movie, and in comics as they existed in the throwaway era, but when longtime fans demand some sort of continuity, the joke becomes old really fast. We always tried to give the illusion of change, in order to keep the personal backstories moving along. Our fans responded to that.

STERN: Not really. Especially since the public perception of “mild-mannered” came to be interpreted as wimpy.

Pa Kent to the Rescue

Look, Clark Kent is a best-selling novelist and a respected journalist. He’s polite and caring, but he’s not a wuss. He grew up outside of a small town in Kansas, but he’s certainly not a rube. On the contrary, Clark has been around the world and has seen humanity at its worst, its best, and everything in between. Despite all that he’s experienced, he has not become cynical. He’s still very much an idealist, but he’s not naïve. Clark Kent is a clever guy. He’s witty, urbane, sophisticated … he’s a cosmopolitan in the very best sense of the word, at home just about anywhere in the world.

And Clark is hardly unique. Major newsrooms and city rooms across the nation are full of real-life journalists—worthy men and women—who have come out of the Midwest and the Great Plains. Walter Cronkite … Tom Brokaw … Bob Woodruff … all hail from the heartland.

ZENO: What benefits were derived from the Kents remaining alive in adult Clark’s life?

BYRNE: There was a false note in Superman’s backstory.

It was a holdover from the earliest Siegel and Shuster day: Pa Kent’s deathbed admonition to Clark that he use his powers only for good. The first time I read that scene, not knowing the history of the character, I wondered what the heck was going on. Hadn’t Clark spent about a decade as Superboy at that point? Did Jonathan really think his adopted son would suddenly go mad and take over the world, without him and Martha there riding herd?

I felt that if Clark had been given the proper upbringing—and we had no reason to think he had not—this scene was unnecessary. And that got me thinking that perhaps the deaths of the Kents were unnecessary, too. Those deaths mostly occurred because the earliest Superman story told us that he began his career as an adult, with no family ties.

When his origin was retconned to include Jonathan and Martha, instead of a lone male motorist, it became necessary for the sake of “continuity” to have them dead before he became Superman. When Superboy was retconned in, things really started to become complicated.

WOLFMAN: Although this was not my idea, it was the only one that was added to the series that I liked (besides my contribution of the businessman Luthor).

It gave him someone to speak to honestly. Clark in the present day didn’t gain anything by being an orphan twice.

STERN: Oh, that was the best part of the relaunch.

The Kents are Clark’s anchor. They’re his family, his

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(above) The Silver Age, “Pocket Universe” Pa Kent tries out his kryptonite collection on the Man of Steel in the Superman/ Superboy clash in the John Byrne written-and-penciled Action #591 (Aug. 1987); inks

by Keith Williams. © 2007 DC Comics.

Goin’ Gangsta This undated Superman cover rough by Brian Bolland, courtesy of Heritage Comics, suits the Man of Steel in mobster threads. © 2007 DC Comics.

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confidants. Jon and Martha are normal, loving people— and they’re his parents. Did Clark Kent win the lottery or what? Compare his home life with Lois’. The Lanes … now there’s a dysfunctional family. Can you imagine if Sam Lane had raised our boy? Oh, my God! BUSIEK: Two major things, I think: It gave him someone to talk to as himself, someone he wasn’t putting on a disguise for. Pre-Crisis, he did that with Batman, mostly, and with the other heroes, but post-Crisis he didn’t have that, so much. Second, it gave the Kents a role to play—they’d been regular, ongoing cast members in the Silver Age, because they appeared in the Superboy series. Without a Superboy, having them still be alive allowed us to see the influence they had and have over who Kal-El grew up to be, something that used to be established in the Superboy series but now got moved over to the main series.

[And] third, and perhaps less importantly, it made Clark feel a bit younger—most people who are the age he’s supposed to be don’t have dead parents, so referring to and visiting his folks “back home” felt right for his age and situation.

ORDWAY: With the Kents alive, Clark was no longer a sad, pathetic, lonely figure. He lost Krypton, and his birth parents, but had his adoptive parents around to share his problems as well as his successes with. Again, they added some dramatic depth. The situation also helped keep Clark from being perceived as a father figure, as he was in previous eras. Jimmy Olsen was more of a younger brother than son stand-in. That was a goal of the revamp, to sort of de-age Superman.

ZENO: What was the impact of the editor(s) with whom you worked when it came to the character?

WOLFMAN: Generally at the time the editors didn’t really make suggestions on character like you’re inferring. They would work with you, but the character stuff was never, or hardly ever, brought up.

BYRNE: Next to none. I had laid out a pretty precise game plan, before I was even hired to do the reboot, and it was on the basis of that game plan that I was hired. So I did what I said I would do.

STERN: Well, I didn’t get to work all that much with KC [Carlson] and Joey [Cavalieri]. By the time they came onto the books, my only major assignment was Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which was supposed to come out four times a year … but rarely did because of interruptions caused by DC’s fifth-week special projects.

But I can tell you that Mike Carlin was a constant, supportive presence—a true collaborator. He was the glue that held the Superman titles and us all together.

Boy, that was a great time!

ORDWAY: Mike Carlin took over from Andy Helfer, and really helped augment my view of the character, as he was not only familiar with the comic-book history but a bigger fan than I was of Superman. My inspiration came from a handful of stories, but mostly from the first movie. My character sensibilities have always been more informed by the Marvel Comics I read in my youth than DC’s. Mike was also a tireless champion of the people working for him on the books, oftentimes making enemies of other editors for our cause.

BUSIEK: The editors I’m working with are Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro, and they’ve been nothing but supportive—there’s nothing adversarial about the relationship, so we’re all pulling in the same direction, and trying to make everything work as smoothly and effectively as it can.

ZENO: What did you do to make Clark uniquely yours?

Our Favorite Ensemble Cast (above) An undated Kevin Nowlan sketch of the Superman cast, courtesy of Heritage Comics. © 2007 DC Comics.

Parental Guidance (right) Lettered John Byrne pencils from Superman vol. 2 #1. © 2007 DC Comics.

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STERN: I didn’t. I think that would have been a huge mistake. I just tried to make Clark uniquely Clark.

WOLFMAN: Several things. One, by creating Cat Grant, I made Clark the object of a beautiful woman’s love, or perhaps lust. He looks just like Superman, after all, and some woman should be able to see past the stuttering. I took him out of suits and Jerry Ordway and I gave him sweaters, etc. We made him vital rather than weak, someone who you could believe had the guts to be a major reporter. On the other hand, he was kept humble and never in your face. We also made Clark absolutely competent in his job and life.

ORDWAY: Well, I felt like I understood a lot of what made him tick, at least on the human side. I grew up without a father and without any real information about him or his family, and I understand that longing for a connection that Clark had for his Kryptonian heritage, as well as the way the Kents were somewhat protective of their parental hold on him. I also grew up in an environment where I was taught how to be a good person, and to make the right choices regardless of the consequences. If you strip away Superman’s humanity, he becomes a really scary being to the average man, I think. Would we trust an alien being as powerful as he is if we didn’t trust him to do the right things? Without humanity, he may as well be an alien from an episode of The Outer Limits, imposing his way on us all.

BYRNE: There is nothing unique about “my” Clark.

He is bits and pieces of many previous iterations, mostly the early Siegel and Shuster version, and the George Reeves version.

BUSIEK: I don’t think it’s about making Clark “mine”— for one thing, Clark isn’t mine, and for another, I don’t want to find a way to make him different from who he’s supposed to be, who he’s been all these decades. For me, it’s more about figuring out who Clark is, from the inside out—understanding him emotionally, so I can write him naturally and have him come across credibly and involvingly to the reader. If I know who Clark is from the inside out, then I can just write—my own natural style will make my approach distinctive, but Clark will feel like Clark, not like somebody nobody’s seen before.

As to how I did that—ironically, I figured my way into Clark by writing a character who wasn’t him. In writing [the 2004 four-issue miniseries] Superman: Secret Identity, which is about the “Clark Kent” of a world in which Superman is a comic-book character, I found myself writing about alienation, how any human being feels separated from the rest of the world, and shares his or her true self with only a few people. That led me to seeing the regular DC Comics Clark in a different light—as a guy who feels isolated due to being an alien, which turns out to work as a big ol’ metaphor for the human experience. It’s the fact that Superman is an alien, in story terms, that allows him to be so very human, in thematic terms. Once I clicked into that, I’ve had no trouble writing Clark at all, even without putting any of that stuff out on the surface.

ZENO: What are Clark’s most important contributions to the Superman mythos?

BUSIEK: I think I mentioned them earlier—Clark is the ordinary, unremarkable exterior that hides the greatest secret in the world. He’s what allows the reader to identify with Superman, to have that fantasy that his own life may be ordinary and unremarkable, but if people knew the true him, they’d see the Super in him.

Without Clark, Superman’s a power fantasy, but with Clark, he’s rooted in human perspective and experience.

Recommended Reading (left) A life-sized “Clark Kent” from the DC Comics offices, circa the early 1990s.

Photo courtesy of Bob Rozakis. © 2007 DC Comics.

The Secret Revealed (below) Byrne’s original cover art to Superman vol. 2 #2.

© 2007 DC Comics.

© 2007 DC Comics.

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WOLFMAN: He is the part of Superman’s life that gives the life meaning. Without Clark there is no context.

STERN: Clark is Superman’s humanity, his heart, his conscience. Without Clark, Superman would be this spooky, two-dimensional “over-man.”

ORDWAY: As stated in the previous question, Clark grounds a being of god-like proportion, putting him among us as a fellow Earthman. He grounds the concept in an understandable humanity.

BYRNE: I suppose Clark keeps Superman from going mad. Clark is his real “fortress of solitude”—a place to which Superman can retire when he wants to get away from the demands of the world.

ZENO: Do you have a favorite Clark Kent story?

STERN: Do you mean a story that focuses on Clark out of costume? There aren’t many of those, aside from “The Secret” from Man of Steel #1 or “Enemy Mine…” from Man of Steel #4 (both 1986).The latter features Clark a bit more than Superman but that story really belongs to Lex. Clark tends to be featured more in scenes than in whole stories. And for the most part, a good Clark story would also have to be a good Superman story, for my tastes.

Of course, there’s The Wedding Album (1996).

Clark was making do without his powers at that point, so even during his few scenes in costume, he was as much Clark as Superman.

ORDWAY: There are many I like a lot, but I suppose the one I go back to the most is the first Byrne Man of Steel, where Clark saves the space-plane and is swarmed by the crowds. Later, when the Kents help

© 2007 DC Comics.

him cope with the emotions running through him about the situation, I was totally hooked. In regard to my own contributions to Superman, I still like the story I wrote for Superman vol. 2 #50 (Dec. 1990), where Clark loses his powers, gets thrown out of Lexcorp towers by Luthor, battles Mxyzptlk, and manages to propose to Lois. That was a fun juggling act!

BYRNE: There was a Golden Age story where Clark takes Lois to the movies, and before the feature the cartoon is “The Mad Scientist,” the first Fleischer Superman cartoon [“Superman, Matinee Idol,” Superman #19, Nov.–Dec. 1942]. The story is all about Clark keeping Lois distracted, so she won’t learn his secret identity. (Imagine a story like that being done today!) I loved it because it was so deliciously goofy.

BUSIEK: For that we’re talking pre-Crisis. I’d pick “The Miraculous Return of Jonathan Kent” and “The Secret World of Jonathan Kent, “from Action Comics #507–508 (May and June 1980). It’s a Cary Bates/Curt Swan two-parter, about Jonathan Kent being given his fondest wish—to see what his son grows up to become. The fact that his son is Superman is important, but it’s the Clark stuff—his life, his job, his relationship with Lois—that Jonathan’s perspective really brings to life, and it’s one of the warmest and most involving portrayals of the character ever.

ZENO: If you also drew/draw the character, how did/do you portray Clark differently than his alter ego?

ORDWAY: Well, Clark was slightly more rumpled and casual than Superman. Superman was always more

Mr. and Mrs. … >sigh!< … Superman!

Lois’ “schemes and dreams” to rope Supie into matrimony was a frequent theme prior to the real 1996 wedding of Clark and Lois. Three examples: (left to right) Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #37 (Nov. 1962), 68 (Sept.–Oct. 1966), and 108 (Feb. 1971). © 2007 DC Comics.

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rigid, and erect. I used to hark back to a moment Chris Reeve pulled off in the first Superman movie, after Lois’ night flight. Lois was in another room getting her coat, and Chris managed to transform physically and vocally to play both in the same scene. Great stuff.

BYRNE: I kept in mind Christopher Reeve’s portrayal.

He was the one who convinced me that Clark and Superman really could look like two different people.

ZENO: Question for both the Red and Blue teams: The marriage of Clark and Lois—milestone or mistake?

WEIN: Catastrophe, period. I live every day hoping they’ll find some way to undo that.

O’NEIL: I think it was a mistake.

PASKO: For the same reason that the TV newsman thing didn’t catch on in the long run, I think you can argue that the marriage was neither a milestone nor a mistake, just an irrelevancy. An idea that, having been rejected in the arena that truly defines the branding, filmed entertainment—and, yes, I realize that this is heresy to fanboys, but let’s all wake up and smell the licensing—has been abandoned. The Superman franchise has already reverted to the doomed love triangle and the timid weakling Clark act, in both the WB cartoon franchise and Superman Returns. So that’s that. At the end of the day, the comic-book continuity— what fans like to call “canon”—has very little impact on shaping the general public’s perception of a branded entertainment property.

BYRNE: Big mistake. Colossal mistake. Stupid, bonehead, nincompoop mistake. Unbelievable mistake, given the people involved.

WOLFMAN: Mistake. But one I’ve learned to write to.

MAGGIN: Big boo-boo. It only took place at all because when I was a kid, Mort Weisinger actually promised in a letters column that in our children’s lifetimes it would happen. And when Mort died nobody seemed to remember what a big kidder he was. I’m a much bigger fan of the disposition of the characters that we saw in Superman Returns.

ORDWAY: Well, I believe it works, as I was a big proponent of the idea. Clark was never portrayed as a lothario or ladies’ man, so no one can miss the romantic element, and it puts us all past Lois being cruel to Clark all the time. When the engagement was first on the boards, my feeling was that it was pretty open-ended in comic-book time. They could have played it for years more, but I was no longer on the books when the wedding finally happened. I think it was a logical step in the mythos.

STERN: I wrote the ceremony [in Superman: The Wedding Album], so I hope it’s a milestone. I certainly don’t think it was a mistake.

Remember how I said earlier that Clark was one of us? Where is there better proof of that, than in his wanting to marry, to emulate the marriage of Jon and Martha Kent and become part of a couple? Yeah, sure, he’s an alien. But he looks like one of us, he thinks and feels like one of us. He fell in love with Lois, and she fell in love with him—with the man in Superman. Of course, he’d want to marry her. And of course, he’d be a good husband—he has the example of Jonathan Kent to show him the way.

Clark and Lois marrying doesn’t close the door on a story, it opens new doors, creates new opportunities.

And it allowed Lois to see beyond the dysfunctional family she grew up in, to the possibilities of life as a wife and partner, and to really grow out of the onenote character she was forced into being for so many

decades. And Lois is just too smart and interesting to be that limited.

BUSIEK: Both! It was certainly a milestone, in that it changed the very foundations of the Superman series in a very basic and dramatic way. I think it was a mistake, in that Superman without the eternal triangle of Clark loving Lois, who loves Superman (Lois seeing the ideal but not recognizing it when it’s in a human, approachable package in front of her) is weaker than Superman with it. That’s not to say it’s not strong on its own—it’s fun to write and there’s plenty to work with—but I think there was even more to work with before. As such, I have no desire to undo the marriage, but I do think it was both milestone and mistake.

BATES: Both. Milestone in the short-term, great for sales, publicity, blah blah … but probably a mistake over the long haul. Don’t be surprised if DC finds a way to “undo” the whole thing further down the road (either they split them up soap-opera style or it will turn out it “never happened,” a la Crisis). I give the marriage till 2010 tops.

© 2007 DC Comics.

It’s … >wink< … our secret!

A 1998 George Pérez sketch of Clark Kent’s classic fourth wall-breaking wink to the reader.

Courtesy of Eddy Zeno. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Bob McLeod

Editor’s note: Bob McLeod (www.bobmcleod.com), comics artist and inker and editor of our companion magazine Rough Stuff, has had his fill of Collettabashing and has a few things he’d like to get off his chest….

Vince (Vinnie) Colletta has become renowned among most comicbook fans and pros alike as the worst inker Rough Stuff © 2007 TwoMorrows. in comic-book history.

You can ask anybody, and several polls have, and poor Vinnie always comes up as winner of that dubious honor. It’s a bit surprising, really, because there are really several bad inkers who could surely compete in that category.

Inkers who really can’t or couldn’t draw well, and are or were helpless if the pencils got iffy. Inkers who just don’t or didn’t have a very attractive style. Inkers who hacked out pages as quickly as possible. But it’s always Vinnie who tops the list. Was he really all that bad?

As someone who knows a thing or three about the fine art of comic-book inking, I’d like to make the case that it’s high time we gave Vince Colletta a little respect.

Many people are probably most familiar with Colletta’s name from his inking on Thor over Jack Kirby. People I’ve talked to seem to either like his inking on Thor or hate it.

There are few who are ambivalent. I think it’s because Colletta had a strong style and wasn’t shy about imposing it on Kirby’s open pencils. There are some who do like Colletta’s inking. More than one person has even gone so far as to say Colletta was Kirby’s best inker on Thor. One art collector, Ray Cuthbert, summed up why he believes Colletta’s inking worked well on Kirby this way: “Wood, Sinnott, and Colletta all did something with Kirby that I believe is crucial in a pairing of talents: They melded their styles with Jack’s instead of being—dare I say say it?— tracers. Colletta also added a great deal from his years working on romance comics that made his work on Thor and the Fourth World books look fabulous, but which left his inking on Fantastic Four look out of place—except on the girls. His ability to soften Jack’s hard edges was appealing to me, even if it was less pure Kirby.”

I recently inked my first Kirby piece (Thor #156; you can see my version here: www.bobmcleod-

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Is This the Work of a Hack??

Colletta’s solid inking over Kirby, softened with lots of somewhat rough feathering. Cover art to Thor #148 (Jan. 1968). All art scans and captions in this article are courtesy of Bob McLeod. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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.com/thor156.html) and I didn’t trace it, but I stayed very close to the pencils out of respect for Kirby since it was just a single panel. I located Colletta’s version of it, which is the published one. What I see Colletta doing, at least in this piece, is working very hard (much harder than necessary for no extra pay) to create more visual interest and add more 3-D form to Kirby’s flat, open design. This was not bad inking and not hack work. Personal taste is subjective, but this inking is on a high professional level for that era. You may not like it, but it’s certainly not the work of the worst inker in comics.

It may come as a surprise to some, but when I first started work in Marvel’s production department in 1973, I was not really a Marvel fan. I had totally missed the Marvel explosion in the ’60s. I didn’t even know who Jack Kirby was, much less Vinnie Colletta. While most fans were enthralled with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby on Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor, I was reading MAD magazine, enthralled by Mort Drucker and Jack Davis. I had gotten the job in production at Marvel because my roommate at that time, penciler Pat Broderick, insisted that I show my work to Neal Adams, who was one of the top freelancers in the business during the ’70s and had a lot of influence at Marvel and DC. I showed Neal a MADstyle sample (see it here: www.bobmcleod.com/neal.jpg) and he phoned Marvel and recommended me for a job in the production department based mostly on my …

(above left) Colletta was 45 years old when he inked this Neal Adams page (story page 4 of the Batman/Flash team-up in The Brave and the Bold #81, Dec. 1968–Jan. 1969). I’ve seen much worse inking on Neal, who was not easy to ink. © 2007 DC Comics.

lettering! My first published work was penciling and inking a movie satire for Marvel’s Crazy magazine.

However, I soon realized that super-heroes were where the majority of the work was. Everybody liked the humor stuff, but what really impressed them were the dynamic super-hero artists. So I picked up a Thor comic to see if I could learn how to draw more like Kirby, and it happened to be inked by Colletta. Like most every other fan who doesn’t really know much about comic-book inking, I was seduced by all those little rendering lines. To my naive eye, Colletta gave Thor a distinctive look that seemed somehow appropriate for a comic about the Norse god of thunder. So really the first inker who made a strong impression on me was none other than Vince Colletta.

As I studied inking more, though, I discovered more polished inkers like Tom Palmer and Joe Sinnott, and soon came to think of Colletta’s inks as somewhat crude and uninformed. The difference is that Palmer and

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(above right) C’mon, you know you like this. Colletta pencils and inks, 1958. From Harvey Comics’ First Love Illustrated #89. © 2007 Harvey Comics.

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(top left) Colletta inking George Tuska. Nice. He kept Tuska’s style but also added his own. From Harvey’s Romance Stories of True Love #51 (Sept. 1957). (below left) Really fine work: Colletta pencils and inks. Also from True Love #51.

[Editor’s note: For more Vinnie Colletta art scans with Bob McLeod’s commentary, visit Bob’s Rough Stuff page at: www.bobmcleod.com/roughstuff.htm.] © 2007 Harvey Comics.

Sinnott had a smoother, more controlled outline, reflecting a better knowledge of more subtle anatomy. Their rendering is slicker and more attractive. They’re also more careful with the drawing aspect of their inking, such as on small figures. But Colletta’s roughness is exactly what makes his inking on Thor appealing to me and many others. In the same way that Ernie Chan’s rough style worked so well on John Buscema’s Conan, Colletta’s rough, heavily textured inking gave Thor a kind of “period” feel that didn’t work as well on super-hero comics like Fantastic Four. Colletta was a precursor of more popular inkers like Klaus Janson and Chan, who also added a lot of texture and linework in their inks. To Colletta’s eye, Kirby’s graphic style was too simplistic, flat, and cold. He tried to soften it and add more interest and warmth by adding texture and rendering. Kirby was a designer, and Colletta was a renderer. Melding these two approaches always produces sparks.

I think the main reason for his notoriety is that during those years of the mid-’70s, Colletta had become known for his willingness and ability to ink a 17-page comic in just a few days. Quality took a back seat to dependability with Colletta, because at that time Marvel was trying to publish more comics per month than they had artists to produce them (which is actually how I myself got started inking; they just needed warm bodies to produce pages)!

Vinnie had no qualms about erasing backgrounds and taking whatever other shortcuts he could think of to ink several pages a day. Frank Giacoia, a wonderful penciler and inker himself, once told me that one of the reasons he quit penciling was because he had penciled a war job and spent a lot of time and effort getting all of the little details correct on a tank, and Vinnie, rushing to meet a deadline, simply turned the entire tank into a black silhouette!

In addition to wanting to be the guy Marvel could count on to meet a deadline, Colletta also had the incentive that there were no royalties at that time, and the more pages you produced, the more money you earned. With slick inkers like Palmer, Dick Giordano, Adams, Sinnott, and Janson getting all the acclaim, Colletta’s inking was not very popular in any event by that time, so there was really little reason for him to slow down and do his best when he could ink four pages a day and make twice as much money by hacking it out.

Unfortunately, while these stories of his hack work persist and have outlived him, I fear. Colletta’s surprisingly (to me, at least) attractive and skillful earlier “good stuff,” where he displayed a real flair for inking and penciling as well, has been largely forgotten except for a few aging collectors. It was only in recent years that I discovered the romance comics from the ’50s and ’60s at which Colletta excelled. For many years, he was actually the “go-to” artist for comics with pretty girls, because he had a great way with inking hair and the female figure. He penciled and inked a lot of those comics, and to me those are his best work. His inking there is much cleaner and more controlled, and compares very well with the best work from that era. I maintain that no inker who can ink pages like these can be called the worst inker in comics—far from it, in fact. This was not just him following lines on tight pencils with a smooth ink line as many inkers do today. He was creating those lines and hair patterns. As with all good inking, it was his drawing knowledge that enabled him to ink so creatively.

So, yes, in the latter years of his career, he did sacrifice quality for quantity more than he should have, and yes, he did cut a lot of corners, blacking in details and erasing small background figures. But those tactics arguably made him somewhat of a shrewd, if slightly unethical, businessman rather than a bad inker. He did make a very good income for many years with those methods, while other inkers who plodded along doing their best just scraped by. There is a difference between being a bad inker and simply doing bad inking. For his era and in his prime, Vince Colletta was actually one of the better inkers. So you may call him many things, but don’t call him the worst inker in comics.

And I’m sorry, but I still kind of like his inking on Thor.

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Alex Boney

If, as Joseph Campbell tells us, “the hero” has a thousand faces, then what are we to make of a hero who has no face at all? Is he so cohesive and fully formed that his identity is never in question except to outside, unenlightened observers? Or is he so human that, as Plato explained, his identity is in a constant state of becoming? Originally created by Steve Ditko in 1967, the Question has been a mix of both in his 40-year history. Steeped in Aristotelian philosophy and Randian objectivism, the Question is one of the most complex “action heroes” ever created for comic books. He’s the thinking man’s super-hero, except that he’s not even that. He has no superhuman powers, save a burning, insatiable curiosity and desire to find the truth. Yet every time he comes close to understanding who he is, the Question becomes something else. This enigmatic flux may not be what Ditko intended for the character, but it is what has made the Question so continuously compelling and provocative for four decades now.

The concept of the dual—or secret—identity is certainly not unfamiliar in the world of comic books. But the idea of no identity at all is relatively unique. One of the most memorable uses of this trope comes from Homer’s The Odyssey. When Odysseus and his men are captured by the Cyclops, Odysseus’ captor asks him who he is. Ever the trickster, Odysseus replies, “My name is Nobody.

That is what I am called by my mother and father and by all my friends.” The trick works, and Odysseus eventually escapes because the Cyclops is not able to identify the hero as he flees.

When Steve Ditko created the Question, he merged old narrative tricks with new formulae to create something genuinely unique to the comics medium. As editor Mike Gold explained in a letter column 20 years later, “The unique aspect about the Question is that he is a man with a secret identity but without an alter ego” (The Question #1, Feb. 1987). The Question was probably not supposed to be as complex as he eventually became. In a more restrictive editorial environment, a character like the Question might not have been created at all.

DITKO DAYS In 1966, Dick Giordano was the editor of Charlton Comics’ line.

Given a large degree of creative freedom, Giordano decided to launch a new line of heroes in the tradition of DC’s and Marvel’s super-hero lines. But the “super” part of “super-hero” had always given him pause: “I intended to build the hero line around Captain Atom (the only original super-hero to survive) but I never could snuggle up to super-heroes…. I decided that, Captain Atom aside, the other heroes would not be super-powered, but would derive their abilities through specialized training or offbeat technology. I coined (I think) the phrase ‘Action Heroes’ and used it on all my house ads and letter pages and in panel discussions at

Face Off The enigmatic Question in a Denys Cowan convention sketch contributed by Keith Richard. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Behind the Mask Steve Ditko lets the reader in on the Question’s trade secrets in Blue Beetle #1 (June 1967, the character’s debut) and Mysterious Suspense #1 (Oct. 1968). Special thanks to Mike Ambrose of Charlton Spotlight (www.charltonspotlight.com) for the scans. © 2007 DC Comics.

conventions. Never super-heroes; always Action Heroes” (L.A.W. #2, Oct. 2000, letter column). Other Action Heroes in Charlton’s stable included Judomaster, Peacemaker, Nightshade, and Blue Beetle, the latter originally a Golden Age hero who recently had been revamped by Steve Ditko.

Blue Beetle graduated to his own title when Charlton’s Action Hero line was launched, but a new hero was needed as a backup feature in the book. When Giordano asked Ditko to create that feature, he took a hands-off approach: “The Question was a Steve Ditko production from start to finish…. My major contribution to the Question was telling Steve that I wanted a hero in street clothes to bring him down to a more human level, and give him contrast with super-heroes” (The Question Annual #2, letter column). In the Question features, Ditko introduced clever gimmicks that seemed to fit in well with the Action Hero line. In a familiar three-to-four-

Charlton’s Champions (right) Ditko’s Blue Beetle and Question, from Gosh Wow #2 (1968). Courtesy of Mike Ambrose via Mike Burbey. © 2007 DC Comics.

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panel sequence in each story, the Question removes a balled-up plastic mask from his belt buckle, applies the featureless mask to his face, and releases a gas that both affixes the mask to his face and changes the colors of his clothes. A wise elderly friend named Professor Rodor had developed the disguise. The Question even occasionally uses trick blank business cards that burst into smoke and reveal a question mark. On the surface, the Question didn’t seem to be especially new.

The most direct predecessor of the Question is the Spirit, a Will Eisner creation who appeared in newspaper comic pages for over a decade beginning in 1940. Like the Question, the Spirit wore a blue suit and fedora.

He also sported a mask, but the mask was almost unnoticeable. Denny Colt was supposed to represent an ordinary man who encountered a series of extraordinary situations and managed to wrestle his way out of them using wit and clever problem-solving. But whereas Denny Colt was playful, aloof, and displayed a wry sense of humor, Vic Sage was driven, focused, and acerbic.

In the Ditko stories, Vic Sage is a hard-edged reporter for W.W.B. (World-Wide Broadcasting), a television network in the fictional Crown City. The management at W.W.B. generally despises Sage, largely because he confronts hypocrisy and injustice in a direct, aggressive way and doesn’t care who is implicated in his stories. Sage is portrayed as arrogant and self-righteous, but it’s often difficult to argue with his positions. From

Sage’s perspective, there is no room for neutrality, passiveness, or compromise. As a vigilante, the Question finds answers. And as a reporter, Vic Sage reveals the truths that deceptive and cowardly people would rather keep hidden. In both identities, he sees himself as the type of public servant that elected public servants aren’t.

Unlike many of his costumed contemporaries, the Question was not a masked avenger or an adventurer.

Vic Sage and the Question worked in tandem to expose corruption and reform the attitudes and expectations of the public at large. One story in particular generated a great deal of attention among readers. At the end of the Question story in Blue Beetle #4 (Dec. 1967), several criminals fall into a sewer and start floating away.

Desperate, two of them ask the Question to pull them out and save them. The Question looks at them with his featureless, emotionless face and lets them drown. To add insult to injury, he lectures them as they float away: “You’re both crazy if you think I’d risk my neck to save the likes of you! As far as I’m concerned, you’re just so much sewage! And you deserve to be right where you are!” The Question considers himself to be judge, jury, and executioner in a society that (according to him) has become too soft and sentimental to fill those roles. He sees the world in binary vision as either black or white; no gray tones confuse his standards of justice.

In many ways, the early Question stories reflect the philosophical objectivism of Ayn Rand, an author best known for her novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Rand’s fiction demonstrates a belief that truth and morality are objective—that clear distinctions between right and wrong—good and evil—cannot be questioned and that each individual has a responsibility to live a rational, balanced life. In a sense, Rand’s philosophy is an extension of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, who

wrote that man is trapped in a mutable world of “becoming” but should constantly strive to achieve a more permanent, enlightened state of “Being.”

Rand’s adaptation of Aristotle for the mid-20th century was a response to the Modernist age of artistic and philosophical subjectivity that emerged in the early 20th century. The Question demonstrates a further extension of this philosophy into a new medium (comics) and genre (action heroes). In an especially memorable scene from the Question story in Blue Beetle #5 (Nov. 1968), an effete art critic named Boris sits in his studio surrounded by abstract paintings and sculptures depicting fear, alienation, anxiety, and misery. The art looks much like the work of German expressionists (Die Bruecke), Pablo Picasso, and Edvard Munch (painter of “The Scream”), all of whom channeled Modernist subjectivism in their works. Boris sees the world in a state of despair, with humans largely unable to control their fates. Vic Sage scorns Boris’ weakness and passiveness, and he dons his Question costume essentially to torment the man.

In his Question features, Ditko seemed to be testing out philosophical perspectives that he would use more directly in an independent project called Mr. A. The title character first appeared in Witzend magazine in 1967 but made sporadic appearances throughout the 1970s. Mr. A is even more self-assured and belligerent than Vic Sage, and he often lectures his victims after he’s mortally wounded them. “Of course it is obvious now that the Question was the forerunner of Mr. A,” says Dick Giordano. “I suspect that Steve was becoming more enamored of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as he worked through the storylines. Readers were shocked when the Question allowed a criminal to die when he could have saved him. Heroes just didn’t to that then.

Today, that story would hardly cause a ripple. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I thought it was in character and somewhat cool!”

Ditko only wrote Question stories for six issues (Blue Beetle #1–5 and Mysterious Suspense #1) at Charlton Comics. Blue Beetle was cancelled after the fifth issue and the Action Hero line collapsed after a little over a year. But the Question had left a mark, even if it wasn’t financial. “I surely believe that the Question stories were successful creatively,” says Giordano. “Did they add or subtract from the sales of Blue Beetle? There was no way to tell in those pre-direct market day. Besides, none of the Action Hero titles sold well, due to benign neglect on part of the publisher. They just threw the titles out there with all the rest as some kind of cannon fodder.

Truth to tell, that’s why I left Charlton.” One of the writers who worked with Giordano at Charlton, Denny O’Neil, left at the same time. And as unique and innovative as Steve Ditko’s work on the Question was, O’Neil’s revision of the character 20 years later is the version of the Question that resounds the most loudly.

Kindred Spirit Will Eisner’s Spirit, the Question’s most direct predecessor. © 2007 Will Eisner estate.

THE QUESTION AT DC After the cancellation of Charlton’s brief Blue Beetle series, the Question only appeared three more times in Charlton-related books and fanzines: in an eight-page black-and-white adventure story drawn by Alex Toth (Charlton Bullseye vol. 1 #5,

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Philosophical Fighting Man Ditko’s Mr. A, in a 1976 illo done for the San Diego Comic-Con. Courtesy of Heritage Comics.

Mr. A TM & © 2007 Steve Ditko.

1976), in a full-length team-up with Blue Beetle (Charlton Bullseye vol. 2 #1, June 1981), and in a team-up book licensing all of the Charlton Action Heroes, collectively dubbed the Sentinels of Justice (Americomics Special #1, August 1983). The Americomics Special, an AC Comics publication, ends with the following editorial caption: “Who is this shrouded figure who vows to destroy the Sentinels? Alas, we will never know because the Charlton characters have been sold to another publisher!” That publisher was DC Comics, where both Dick Giordano and Denny O’Neil then were working as creators and editors. But while Paul Levitz (then vice president of DC Comics) had recently acquired the Charlton characters, no one at DC knew exactly what to do with them.

It would have seemed logical for Giordano to revive the Charlton heroes again at DC, but as vice president/executive editor at DC, he was busy with other projects at the time. “I had absolutely nothing to do with [the Charlton characters] coming to DC,” he explains. “Paul Levitz struck a deal with the people at Charlton to buy the characters when Charlton was going out of business and gave them to me, as a gift, because he knew how much of myself had gone into their creation. I was grateful, but by this time I couldn’t edit the titles anyway. So I put them aside for a project that never materialized and later had others working on them.” DC’s continuity revamp was also a problem.

The company was gearing up for the epic 12-issue maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, which would consolidate the many Earths that DC had created during the 1960s and 1970s. The first appearance of the Charlton heroes at DC was in Crisis #6 (Sept. 1985).

The characters inhabited what was now called “Earth-4” and managed to survive the galactic assault that collapsed hundreds of the other Earths. By the end of the series, the Question, Blue Beetle, and the others had been integrated into DC’s principal continuity.

The first Question story at DC is a relatively straightforward action event. Len Wein, who was writing a new Blue Beetle series launched in 1986, decided to use the Question as a part of a team-up in Blue Beetle #4–7 (Sept.–Dec. 1986). Vic Sage was relocated to Chicago, but he was still a television reporter at WWB-TV and still donned the Question costume to investigate stories that couldn’t be uncovered by Sage. A narrative caption in Blue Beetle #5 quickly revisits his background and motivation: “Those young toughs won’t talk to Vic Sage—but I know someone they’ll have to talk to, someone who won’t give them a choice—once I pop this compressed mask from its secret compartment in my belt buckle! … Now to release the special gas that

From the Charlton Portfolio… …a 1970s Question pinup by John Byrne and Duffy Vohland.

Courtesy of Mike Ambrose. © 2007 DC Comics.

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will cement the mask to my face … to give me a new look and new identity! Now let’s see if these punks will have a few answers for—the Question!”

The Question in this story is more eccentric than bellicose. He is concerned more with style, flair, and affectation than objectivist philosophy. He is arrogant and reckless, but he’s found a way to channel these qualities. As the Question, Vic Sage almost mystically taps into the urban spirit of Chicago, which allows him to walk and leap through the city unharmed. This interpretation would be expanded on by writer Rick Veitch in his 2005 Question miniseries, but the most extensive and perhaps most definitive version of the Question would come much sooner. Only two months after the last issue of his team-up with Blue Beetle, the Question appeared in his own book.

THE O’NEIL/COWAN ERA By the time Denny O’Neil began writing The Question, he had already penned several successful runs on series that featured non-powered super-heroes. His revitalizations of Green Arrow and Batman were influential and groundbreaking for their time. But the Question offered possibilities that traditional costumed heroes didn’t. “I remember being at an editorial retreat and walking back from dinner with Paul Levitz and talking about what I might want to write,” O’Neil recalls. “The available characters were the Question and another Charlton

character DC had acquired—a real superman-type. I knew enough about myself to know that I was more comfortable with human-scale characters than with demigods. So the Question was the logical one for me to choose. I remember asking Paul what he thought about me doing it, and he said, ‘Well, in the early ’70s you pushed the envelope—you were an innovator. Why don’t you try to push the envelope again?’ That was unusual.

That was a guy whose job entailed a financial responsibility to the company asking me to be non-commercial.”

One of O’Neil’s difficulties with writing the character, though, was Vic Sage’s rigid, forceful political philosophy.

“I have great respect for Steve Ditko,” O’Neil says. “I think he’s one of the underrated greats in comics. But his politics and his worldview and mine are not wont to get along. I agreed to take this character on with the understanding that I would change him. I made that as blatant as possible in the first issue by literally having the guy die and be reborn. It was a painfully conscious symbolism.”

In the first issue of The Question, Vic Sage has relocated to the fictional Hub City. And while he is still a crusading television reporter (this time for KBEL-TV), this Vic Sage is a smoking, womanizing loudmouth with an inflated ego and an enormous chip on his shoulder. He swaggers through his world relying on ridiculous actionmovie clichés to sustain his image. In this first issue, O’Neil digs deeper into the psychological motivation of

Toth Tackles the Question Alex Toth’s Question cover for Charlton Bullseye #5, and an interior page. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Vic Sage. He provides a full name for the character (Charles Victor Szasz) and explains that Vic is a foundling who was left on a church’s front steps and grew up in an orphanage, where he developed a temper and a mean streak that would follow him the rest of his life.

Vic Sage isn’t the only character who receives an overhaul in The Question #1. Professor Rodor is reintroduced as Professor Aristotle Rodor, Vic’s closest friend, former college instructor, and mentor. Rodor’s first name provides a nod to the Question’s objectivist origins, but Vic generally shortens his name to “Tot.” The nickname reveals a familiarity between the characters, much like Tot’s insistence on calling Vic “Charlie,” a shortened version of his own real name. The men show a deep respect for each other, even if their philosophical perspectives are often at odds. But Tot also represents something deeper in Charlie’s life. He is a father figure to Vic and, though no direct evidence is ever provided in the series, several subtle hints suggest that Rodor

Putting on a New Face Page 13 of DC’s The Question #1 (Feb, 1987), by Denny O’Neil, Denys Cowan, and Rick Magyar. Courtesy of Keith Richard. © 2007 DC Comics.

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could possibly be Vic’s biological father. “Tot” is a palindrome, much like “dad” or “pop.” Tot offhandedly calls Vic “my poor boy” in The Question #20 (Oct. 1988). And in the last issue of the series, when Vic is brought back to Rodor’s apartment unconscious and near death, Tot exclaims with relief, “You found him! Is he all right? Charlie … son—are you all right?” (The Question #36, Apr. 1990). In any case, the two men share a bond that provides much of the characterization in O’Neil’s Question series.

Another important character in the series is Myra Fermin, a former lover of Vic’s who is blackmailed into marrying Mayor Wesley Fermin during Vic’s year-long absence from Hub City. Myra has a young daughter named Jackie who lives in a Hub City orphanage, and her actions during the course of the series are guided by the hope that she can make the city a safe place for her daughter to live. Myra eventually decides to run for mayor of Hub City herself, and Vic becomes a close friend, advisor, and (as the Question) protector to her. “I ended up liking Myra better than anyone else in the series,” says O’Neil. “It was a case of something you hear about in creative writing classes, of a character taking on a life of her own. She was Vic Sage’s girlfriend going into it, and there mostly to indicate that he was the kind of guy who would have a girlfriend (as opposed to, say, Batman). And without my consciously planning it, she became the most interesting character in the series.”

The complexity of Vic Sage’s dual identity also became a primary focus of the series. The Question is essentially a more focused extension of Sage’s inner turmoil—a way for him to channel his violent impulses and to break laws without getting recognized or caught. But at the end of the first issue, the Question finds himself in a situation he can’t resolve with force.

He is captured by a group of thugs, beaten nearly to death, shot in the head with an air gun, and thrown off a pier. The last panel shows him sinking to the bottom of the river, his mask floating away from his face. This “death” sets up the drastic transformation O’Neil planned when he conceived the series.

When Vic wakes up in The Question #2 (Mar. 1987), he asks, “Who am I?”—the question that guides the tone and direction of the rest of the series.

Instead of the self-assured man driven by the clear, unwavering code of righteousness he had espoused during the Charlton years, Vic Sage becomes a man guided by curiosity and transformation. As O’Neil says, “At the beginning, he’s a law-and-order, right-andwrong kind of guy. ‘I get to beat you up because I’m right and you’re wrong.’ And at the end, he realizes that life is much more complicated than that and that it’s time for him to move on—to let go of what he had been.” Vic Sage had to be broken down completely before he was ready to accept such a dramatic change.

The most important step in Vic’s process of selfdiscovery begins when Lady Shiva, a mysterious mercenary who rescued him from drowning in the river, arranges for Vic to visit a man named Richard at a hidden mountain retreat. “Richard” is actually Richard Dragon, a master martial artist who had appeared in his own title (Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter) in the mid-1970s. Vic doesn’t know who the man is, though, and Richard hides his expertise in physical combat by pretending to be disabled. The instruction Richard provides during Vic’s year-long stay in the mountains is intended to focus Vic’s mind more than his body. And with the following parable, Richard begins to call into question everything Vic thinks he knows about himself:

“Tell you a story—very old story. Once upon a time a wise man dreamed he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he had a strange realization. He realized that he didn’t know if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly … or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.” In The Question, Eastern philosophy is just as significant as Western philosophy. One of the techniques Richard teaches Vic is an intense, focused form of meditation. When Vic “goes inside,” he escapes much of the white noise that hampers his quest for truth in conscious life. He finds an intuitive clarity when he shuts everything out.

Another aspect of Eastern culture that became important in The Question was martial arts, and some of the most memorable scenes in the series are the fight sequences. For The Question, artist Denys Cowan developed an especially dynamic, kinetic artistic style that played not only to the book’s tone, but also to Cowan’s strengths as an artist. “I was a part of that generation where all my friends were into the martial-arts movies— Bruce Lee and everything,” says Cowan. “I was fortunate enough to have trained a little bit, so I knew about human movement and body movement. But my basic thing was not to do realistic fight scenes. Because there was nothing in The Question that was really realistic.

Reality is this: You poke a guy in the eyes or kick him in the crotch or wrestle him to the ground or try to choke him to death. You pick up a brick when a guy comes at you and try to hit him in the head as hard as you can and then you run. That’s reality. But that’s not going to fly in a comic book. I wanted to do sh*t that looked cool. I just wanted to make the coolest-looking shots and have him do the coolest things and I wanted him to be the coolest white-boy martial artist that anyone had ever seen.”

Vic Sage returns to Hub City after his year with Richard physically and philosophically changed. Vic’s rage is replaced with curiosity. He is about to embark on a quest for truth very different from the quest that had guided him until the moment of his “death”: “In the mountains he knew who he was—Richard’s student (though Richard would deny this). But here? In the city? Who? He has been told he was names—Charles Victor Szasz and Vic Sage. Words, these—only words.

Not part of him. He has another name, the one he was using when he died—a label for an identity he created for himself. The Question…. Yes. And what does the Question do?” (The Question #2). The implied answer is that the Question searches for answers, which is what he does for the remainder of the series.

In The Question, direct answers are not easy to come by. Vic Sage’s secret identity takes on new meaning when he returns to Hub City. Instead of just providing cover for Vic’s covert operations, the Question identity becomes an external mirror for how Vic sees himself internally. “In tribal societies, masks are not supposed to conceal an identity, but rather to make it manifest,” O’Neil explains. “You put on the mask of a god and you take on the attributes of that god. But serendipitously, Steve [Ditko] gave him a featureless mask. So you have a guy who doesn’t even know what his real name is, who goes through that entire series literally not knowing who he is. Maybe that came from the fact that he was putting on something that made him literally without a face.”

As important as identity and transformation are in The Question, another theme that guides the series is redemption. Vic Sage is not the only character seeking absolution for past wrongs. Inspired by witnessing the Question in action, a corrupt cop named Izzy O’Toole decides to change direction and becomes one of the few honest cops in Hub City. Another character the

Question meets at the beginning of the series, Reverend Jeremiah Hatch, is trying to make amends for atrocities against civilians he committed during Vietnam. But instead of adopting pacifism to atone for past wrongs, Hatch instigates a surge of violence and mayhem in Hub City in an attempt to bring about the Apocalypse.

Biblical images and references, largely organized around the ideas of fall and salvation, abound in The Question.

In a way, the series as a whole follows the structure of Dante’s Inferno. Hub City is the Hell that the hero must descend into before he can ascend to any sort of salvation or enlightenment. But in typical O’Neil fashion, The Question’s conclusion is far more ambiguous than Dante’s. Denys Cowan’s cover to the last issue of the series (#36) depicts the Question either climbing up or sliding down the rocky side of a mountain.

Ambiguity also informs the thin line that separates sanity from madness in The Question. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, most of Prince Hamlet’s most insightful observations emerge when he seems closest to insanity.

His famous monologue that begins “To be or not to be, that is the question” serves as a fitting epigraph for

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Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz— —what a collaboration!

Original cover art to The Question #4 (May 1987), courtesy of Benno Rothschild. © 2007 DC Comics.

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“Ultimate” Question?

The Charlton “Action Heroes” served as the prototypes for the heroes in one of the most important super-hero stories ever published. The month that the Question appeared in his first team-up at DC (Blue Beetle #4, Sept. 1985) was also the month that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen #1 hit comics stands.

When Moore pitched the series to DC, he originally wanted to use the recently acquired Charlton characters in his story. But when it became clear that the series would radically, irrevocably alter the characters (and leave several of them dead), Moore was asked to change his concept slightly.

Probably the most memorable of the Watchmen characters is Rorschach, who Moore patterned on the Question. In fact, Rorschach left such a powerful impression on readers and industry professionals that he became a standard that was hard to match even in the Question’s own book. Coincidentally, The Question #1 (Feb. 1987) shipped the same month as Watchmen #6 (the origin story of Rorschach). Writer Denny O’Neil was well aware of Watchmen and Rorschach when he started writing his Question series. He even ended up editing Watchmen #5. But he says the series didn’t change the way he was trying to approach the Question in his own book. “I have total respect for Watchmen,” O’Neil says. “I think it is still the high-water mark of super-hero writing. I have great respect for Alan. What I heard later was that, when they realized that what Alan had in mind would really change these characters, and perhaps make it difficult for them to use them in the future, that’s when they encouraged him to make up his own versions of them. But I didn’t know about Rorschach at all until I read the comics. It was distinct from what I was doing. We had different agendas. One thing that I probably had in my mind was that I’d have to do this character maybe over several years. And I couldn’t push him too far from the heroic. And I don’t think I would have wanted to.”

The Question artist Denys Cowan was also paying attention to how Watchmen was unfolding when he was drawing Denny O’Neil’s scripts. “I was very aware of Watchmen at the time,” says Cowan. “I loved Gibbons, loved Moore—just loved it. I was very aware that Rorschach was based on the Question. In fact, in a story Denny and I did called ‘Watchers,’ there’s a panel that opens with a guy looking at a watch on his wrist. And that was our Rorschach story—a direct homage to Rorschach from Watchmen. And I remember looking at a lot of that material—a lot of the Gibbons stuff—and trying my best to get that flavor. But I never could. I had to rely on my own style.” The issue Cowan cites is The Question #9 (Oct. 1987). The watch panel is not the only Watchmen reference in that issue. When Tot tries to remember a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, Vic answers fills in the gap: “Something about not staring into the abyss because you might find the abyss staring back.” Watchmen #6 closes with the actual quote Vic and Tot are reaching for: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss, gazes also into you.”

O’Neil returned to Watchmen again in an especially metatextual story called “A Dream of Rorschach” (The Question © 2007 DC Comics. #17). On his way to Seattle to find an escaped criminal, he buys a familiar book to read on the plane: “Picked up something to read at the terminal newsstand. Check it out. ‘Watchmen’ by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Looks like some kind of comic book. Whew. Heavy stuff. Not like the comics I remember from when I was a kid. This one character—Rorschach—maybe a bit over the edge. Maybe a little bigoted and he sure as hell is angry. But he does have moves.” On the plane, Vic nods off and dreams that he is Rorschach, and he references the character several times throughout the issue.

Whether direct or indirect, the Rorschach effect has always been something with which writers after Watchmen have had to come to terms. “One of the problems with writing the Question is Rorschach,” says Rick Veitch, writer of the 2005 Question miniseries. “Alan and Dave did a knockoff of the Question and mixed in a little of Mr. A, and they really did what everybody thought was the ultimate Question. They had really gotten it and knocked it right out of the park. Even though you’ve still got this great Vic Sage character—he looks great, and he’s really a great mystery character and a great action hero—he’s always sort of in the shadow of his own knockoff.”

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Denny O’Neil’s series. Some of the characters at first seem to be pathological madmen, but a closer look at their motivations often reveals the types of truth that can only come from the edges of madness. The Mikado, a man the Question confronts in The Question #8 (Sept.

1987), is a doctor who becomes so disillusioned by man’s inhumanity to man that he begins to kill and maim people in horrific ways. All of his victims have committed an act of horrid violence against others, and the Mikado in turn visits their own violence back on them. Another memorable story (from The Question #13, Feb. 1988) features a renegade paramilitary group of ex-soldiers who have become so disenchanted with the apparent decline of America’s moral strength and character that they become a terrorist cell in an attempt to wake America up. The leader of the group presents himself as rational and clearheaded, but his actions betray an undeniable insanity. The recurring themes of The Question—identity, justice, and madness— are all situational and relative.

The first volume of The Question, which ran from 1987 to 1990, is one of the most complex, cerebral series DC Comics has even published.

The Question provided one of the first extended investigations of complicated human issues in an ongoing book published by a mainstream publisher. Even in the Question’s rare crossovers with more traditional heroes, the stories resisted expectations. In a 1988 Question/ Batman/Green Arrow annual crossover entitled “Fables,” a mysterious man named the “O-Sensei” (Lady Shiva’s mentor) approaches each character, tells him a story, and asks the heroes to help him if the stories prove useful. The Question is not told a parable, but he agrees to go on the ensuing quest out of characteristic curiosity. At the end of the story, Vic realizes that many of the answers he’s looking for do not exist. The Question and Green Arrow meet again in The Question #17–18 (June–July 1988) and in two more annual events, but they spend as much time discussing philosophy as they do tracking criminals.

Although Denny O’Neil seemed to be guiding The Question very deliberately toward innovative, unfamiliar territory, his artistic copilot didn’t know what he was getting into when he signed onto the project. As Denys Cowan explains, “I didn’t think we were doing anything radically different. I was just reacting to the stories that Denny wrote. Denny put so many things in those scripts— more than I was probably able to handle at the time.

O’Neil writes very directly and very simply. He’s not a complicated writer. He doesn’t put a lot of words in.

He just puts the right words in. He distills it down to the essence. He wrote The Question in a very specific style. But at the time, when I first got the assignment, I wasn’t aware of any of that. I was just trying to draw a comic book. A lot of people said that Denny O’Neil and I did the first Vertigo book. If there had been a Vertigo imprint around at the time, The Question would have been one of the first titles.”

“Epitaph for a Hero” (right and below right) The splash and page 8 of The Question #15 (Apr. 1988), with the Question finding an unlikely ally in a bigoted private eye. Art scans courtesy of Keith Richard. © 2007 DC Comics.

O’Neil’s and Cowan’s The Question lasted 36 issues, after which the book went on a brief hiatus and returned in Autumn 1990 as The Question Quarterly, which ran for five issues. The first two quarterlies, like the regular series, were written by O’Neil and illustrated by Cowan and dealt with Vic trying to come to terms with his life and identity outside Hub City. When he leaves in The Question #36, he takes Myra’s daughter with him. But in the first Quarterly Jackie is kidnapped and Vic is forced to do the one thing he had managed never to do in the regular series: commit murder. The Question Quarterly #2 sees Vic trying to come to terms with that act while trying to return Jackie (who has become terminally ill) to her mother in Hub City. The last three quarterlies are set in Hub City and provide interesting narrative exercises, but the stories did little to advance the larger framework of Vic Sage’s story.

THE MODERN QUESTION After The Question Quarterly ended in 1992, the character shifted into a nomadic period. He made several cameo appearances in books like Guy Gardner: Warrior #29 (Mar. 1995) and Azrael #10 (Nov. 1995). Denys Cowan illustrated the Question again in another team-up story in Steel #38 (May 1997), but the character never quite fit neatly into the mainstream DCU in the 1990s. Denny O’Neil returned to write the character in three stories, all of which depict an aimless, lost Vic Sage. O’Neil wrote the Question for the last time in comics in The Question Returns (February 1997), in which Vic is still living an itinerant life as a gambler. Vic eventually gets into trouble, returns to Hub City, and reprises his identity as the Question. But his return proves to be as disappointing as his previous returns. Myra has moved on to another relationship and he is as ineffective in Hub as he had been when he left the first time.

It wasn’t until 1998 that the Question again began moving in a direction that had some momentum. In Batman Chronicles #15, writer Greg Rucka penned a ten-page story in which the Question visits Gotham City shortly after the earthquake that set up the “Cataclysm” and “Aftershock” stories in the Batman titles. The Question is spying on the Huntress, who at this time seems as lost and aimless as he has been the last several years. Returning to a major theme in the O’Neil/Cowan series, Vic Sage sees in Helena Bertinelli an opportunity for redemption. He follows her through the city and chastises her near the end of the story for allowing herself to be controlled by rage.

The relationship between the Question and Huntress is fleshed out further in Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood (June–Nov. 2000), a six-issue miniseries written by Rucka and edited by Denny O’Neil. In Cry for Blood, the Huntress comes close to experiencing the same sort of sea change the Question had undergone at the beginning of his own series. After Helena gets tangled in a web of betrayal in Gotham, Vic Sage takes her to Richard hoping that Richard will provide her with the same sort of focus he had for Vic. While some of the plot points of the O’Neil stories are slightly altered, Rucka retains many of the major changes O’Neil made to the Question as a character. Richard calls Vic “Butterfly,” a nod to the story about identity and transformation Richard told in The Question #2.

For Rucka, the Question (who Rucka, like Tot, calls “Charlie”) was a logical choice to help advance the story of another character who is trying to find identity. “I used Charlie in Cry for Blood for a deliberate reason,” Rucka says. “I wanted him to be a mirror for Helena. It made perfect sense to me that this was the story that he should be in. He’s a man who walks on the edge. The series is all about the idea of salvation. Charlie thinks he can save Helena. He tries to bring her back from the brink.” Helena seems focused after her visit with Richard, but she sinks back into familiar patterns of violence and revenge by the end of the series. Vic fails to change her, much as he had continually failed to change himself. Rucka intended to continue writing the Question in another project, but this book was put on hiatus because DC had made other plans for the character. At a panel table at a comics convention in 2000, Jim Lee told Rucka that the Question was making a move to DC Comics imprint WildStorm.

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The WildStorm plans were relatively clear at first. “It was around the year 2000, and I was working on WildStorm’s ABC (America’s Best Comics) books at the time,” writer Rick Veitch recalls. “I got a call saying that they had a list of characters that DC had given them that they were going to be allowed to re-imagine completely.

Kamandi was on it, as were the Question, Vigilante, OMAC, and a couple others. The job description was for me to re-imagine one of those characters in a new and interesting way, and I chose the Question because I had come up with the idea of an ‘urban shaman’ that seemed to fit really well into what he was.”

But soon after Veitch agreed to take the project, the Question was pulled into a larger crossover project. The “Superstorm” story focused on Lex Luthor’s construction of a Science Spire in Metropolis—an enormous tower that would channel a mystical energy that could override Superman’s power and make Luthor the most powerful man on Earth. One of the biggest challenges for Veitch and series artist Tommy Lee Edwards was coming up with a reason why the Question would be useful in a city that’s home to the world’s most powerful super-hero.

The answer lay in the contrast between Superman’s and the Question’s philosophies. “The whole existence of the bad guys we set up is based on evading Superman,” Edwards explains. “They play on the boy-scout nature of Superman, somebody who’s completely honest. He’s

Brave and Bold Two pages from The Question #18, featuring guest-star Green Arrow.

Courtesy of Kevin Pasquino. © 2007 DC Comics.

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not going to break the law. Basically, he’s the most upstanding guy on the planet. And the Question is not.

The bad guys would have drug deals going on in the bathroom because Superman was so moral that he wouldn’t look there. The Question would break down the door and beat the crap out of the guys in the bathroom stall. By being aware of every single thing around him, he was able to uncover and see all these things that Superman would never even notice.”

Superstorm fell apart, though, and the books originally tied into the event (Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, The Question, and Vigilante) were eventually released on their own with little promotion or fanfare. “The Question ended up being released virtually unnoticed,” Veitch says. “Which is unfortunate, because Tommy and I had worked up a terrific creative partnership and would have loved to keep working on it. We had thought up with a number of different avenues and directions for it. We were looking at a way to portray a guy who’s really on the edge. You’re not really sure if he’s mad or not. Shamanism is about using the intuitive part of your mind to understand things and to access knowledge that’s not written down.”

At first, Veitch and Edwards’ series seems to be unrelated to any previous Question continuity. But looked at more closely, the book synthesizes nearly all of the character’s incarnations. “The way we saw the

A Multifaceted Question From 1999 to 2005, the publication history of the Question was extremely convoluted. But this didn’t mean that the character languished in obscurity. In fact, some of the most colorful versions of the Question emerged during this period. Four out-of-continuity comics stories featured the character in memorable roles, while other media were either making the character move or casting him in three dimensions.

In a six-issue miniseries called L.A.W. (Living Assault Weapons), published by DC between Sept. 1999 and Feb. 2000, former fanzine writer/editor Bob Layton teamed up with artist (and former Charlton editor) Dick Giordano to tell a new story featuring the original Charlton Action Heroes. In L.A.W., the Question teams up with Blue Beetle, Judomaster, Nightshade, Captain Atom, and Peacemaker to fight against a global threat that no one hero can handle on his own. The story is a straightforward action story set more in Charlton’s original universe than in the DCU, and it serves as a continuation of the Charlton Bullseye series that came to an end when DC purchased the Charlton characters.

The Question had another memorable cameo appearance in Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again #1–3 (2001–2002). In DK2, writer/artist Frank Miller revisits the dystopian vision of a possible future DCU that he had first presented in The Dark Knight Returns (1986). In DK2, the Question appears to have fully embraced the objectivist philosophy of his origins.

In the third issue of the series, the Question engages in hilarious debate with Green Arrow that culminates in the following exchange: Green Arrow: What part of “blow me” do you not understand, Mr. AtlasShrugged-Is-The-Word-Of-God? Question: I’m no Ayn Rander! She didn’t go nearly far enough!

© 2007 DC Comics.

In 2002, DC Direct released a Question action figure as a part of a “Classic Heroes” wave including fellow Charlton hero Blue Beetle and Quality characters Uncle Sam and Phantom Lady. The Question figure was sculpted by Tim Bruckner, who is well known for accurately capturing artists’ two-dimensional renderings in three-dimensional form. Accordingly, the Question action figure looks like he stepped straight out of a panel from one of Steve Ditko’s early stories. The figure’s mask and fedora are removable, and even the head of Vic Sage underneath is an uncanny reproduction of Ditko’s classic look.

Two years later, the Question was introduced to another storytelling medium for the first time. In the first season of Cartoon Network’s Justice League Unlimited, the Question was featured in an episode entitled “Fearful Symmetry” (Sept. 4, 2004). In his JLU incarnation, the Question is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who helps members of the Justice League uncover deep mysteries.

Originally, the Question was pulled into JLU more for his visual distinctiveness than for his thematic use. “The decisions about which characters to use [in JLU] were mostly mechanical and aesthetic,” says series producer Bruce Timm. “We wanted a variety of looks.

We didn’t just want the ‘Spandex Brigade.’ The Question provided

a different sort of silhouette. He wasn’t just a guy in tights. We also wanted different kinds of heroes—not just in their clothes, but also in their motifs.” In the Question, Timm saw a character who asked questions that none of the other Leaguers asked and put puzzle pieces together differently from even the best detectives on the team.

The Question was used more extensively in the second season of JLU, which gradually revealed a vast conspiracy involving Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and the Cadmus Project. “Actually, we didn’t even plan to use him in Season Two,” Timm admits. “But the day Jeffrey Combs came in to do his voice [for Season One’s ‘Fearful Symmetry’], we looked at each other and said ‘home run.’ As we were plotting out the Cadmus/Luthor conspiracy stuff for the second season, the Question seemed to make complete sense. He fit perfectly.

For our Question, we combined Ditko’s objectivist philosophy with certain aspects of Rorschach from Moore’s Watchmen and came up with an amalgam that worked. But he developed his own unique personality in JLU. In the second season, he becomes a victim of this vast conspiracy.”

Although series writer Dwayne McDuffie scripted most of the second season’s episodes, scripts for two of the most memorable single JLU episodes involving the Question were written by recognizable comics scribes. “Double Date” (June 4, 2005), scripted by Gail Simone, revisits several of the Question’s comics connections as the Question and Huntress meet with Green Arrow and Black Canary for a high-octane night on the town. And in the third season of JLU, comics veteran J. M. DeMatteis scripted the Question into an episode called “Grudge Match” (March 11, 2006).

One of the briefest but most effective Question stories was written and illustrated

by Darwyn Cooke for Solo #5 (Aug. 2005). In this four-page story, which Cooke sets in the Middle East shortly after September 11, 2001, the Question has traveled overseas and planted bombs at 15 terrorist training camps.

After he places the last bomb, he thinks to himself, “Some questions are simply too vast for one person to answer … ideologies clash. Terrorists kill. Governments react. War is waged. It is the human condition. No one person can alter that equation.

So what can one person do? Can you turn down the noise and tear through the spin to find a shred of the truth? Can any individual find an absolute and the conviction to act with just purpose? Come sunrise today, there’ll be no question.” The story is concise, relevant, and taps into everything that makes the Question an important, unique aspect of the DCU. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Question is as the classic outsider geek,” Veitch says. “I think that’s always what Ditko has always done best, going back as far as Spider-Man. I wanted to bring out that element and to play with it more than even Ditko did.

[The Question is] this really weird guy on the sidelines.”

This outsider status is cemented by the Question’s complex interior monologue. When he enters a separate state of consciousness that allows him to “speak” to cities, the Question mentally chants rhythms that conjure the language of the Beat Poets of the 1960s. As Veitch explains, “I was definitely inspired by Ginsberg. I think I actually took a line directly out of Howl at one point. At the same time, the reason for speaking this way tells us a lot about Sage. Beat poetry is seen as bad poetry. People who actually read it make fun of it. But he believes in it earnestly, and he ends up slipping into this deep outsider position. The language and what it conjures are important to him, but no one else understands it.”

Veitch’s Vic Sage is a character who, much like the objectivist Question of the Charlton years, has the ability to see his world in a way that others cannot. He has attuned his senses to his surroundings to such an extent that he can literally walk in two different worlds. “This high-powered intuition—this ability to see other forms of reality—is the ultimate extension Ditko’s objectivism,” says Veitch. “If you look at reality completely objectively, you ultimately get to the point where you’re seeing what other people aren’t seeing and didn’t realize were there.

The Question Remains…

A moody Question commission by Tommy Lee Edwards, artist of DC’s 2005 Question miniseries.

From the collection of Eric Newsom (webmaster of a highly recommended Question site: www.vicsage.com). © 2007 DC Comics.

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Is it a super-power, or is it something that anyone could obtain if they really tried to?”

Edwards visually represented this dualistic life by depicting the intuitive experience differently. When the Question “talks” to the city, forms are rendered as shadowy silhouettes cast against a pale yellow background. “Rick came up with the Question being able to exist in another world—or another dimension,” Edwards says. “A few readers misunderstood that as being an actual ‘super-power.’ But it’s just him being super-sensitive to the world around him, which is what the Question has always been in every incarnation— knowing there’s something else going on here, something else below the surface.”

While Veitch’s urban shaman angle was unique, it didn’t line up with other plans DC had for the character.

Almost a year after the miniseries ended, the Question returned in a new ongoing series called 52. Spinning out of the events of Infinite Crisis, 52 is a weekly book that follows the stories of several second- and third-tier DC characters as they make sense of the DCU after the events of Infinite Crisis.

Two of the characters chosen for inclusion in 52 are the Question and Renee Montoya, a former detective in the Gotham City Police Department. “All of the characters in 52 had to have a specific thematic role that they could bring to the series,” says Greg Rucka, who (along with Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, and Mark Waid) is one the writers of 52. “Renee is the street-level everyperson. She’s the human anchor.

Charlie is a pulp action hero, but he also provides the philosophy of the series. He’s the guy on the outside looking in. He always asks, ‘What are you looking at and what does it mean?’ He always asks the questions, but he never gives the answers. He’s a perfect foil for Renee. He’s a guy who’s not afraid to take a good, hard look at himself. The root question in philosophy (and life in general) is ‘why?’ And ‘who am I?’ The Question just doesn’t let these questions go.”

The interplay between the Question and Renee provides one of the most interesting plot threads in the series. In Renee, Charlie sees another chance for redemption. “This is my way of moving Charlie forward in continuity,” Rucka says. “In Cry for Blood, he failed with Helena. 52 provides him with a second attempt. Renee has lost everything that’s given her identity. Charlie is there to help her find some of that again.” In 52, Renee is moving toward the same self-discovery that the Question experienced during the O’Neil/Cowan series.

When asked who the Question is, each of his creators gives a slightly different response. The Question is an elusive, difficult character to grasp, much less to write.

“Not everybody’s interested in writing the best characters, but I was,” says Rucka. “I’m a masochist. I’m a writer.

When a writer puts his stamp on a character, like Denny did, any writer that comes after him has to make a decision: accept it or refute it.” The same holds true for Ditko’s original version of the character. Each of the Question’s writers and artists has built slightly on what has come before him, and each has struggled to come to terms with who the character is and who he should be. If the past is any indication, the Question will continue to change in ways both subtle and drastic. If Denny O’Neil forced a sea change in The Question in 1987, we have to expect that another such sea change lies ahead.

But that, too, is part of the character’s perpetual journey toward discovery. As Vic Sage learns repeatedly, some questions have no answers. And many of the answers, like the Question, exist in a continual state of flux.

Wonder Woman TM & © 2007 DC Comics.

If Wonder Woman were real (she’s not—don’t argue with me), she would gladly lend her name to a fundraiser for women’s and children’s shelters. The ideals she embodies are very real, however, and through her “sidekick”—bestselling entertainment journalist and BACK ISSUE contributor Andy Mangels— Wonder Woman came to life on Sunday, October 29, 2006, at the “Wonder Woman Day” charity auction at Excalibur Books and Comics in Portland, Oregon.

Joining Andy at the event were artists Terry Dodson, Matthew Clark, and Anne Timmons, signing WW comics and special-edition prints. Over 100 artists contributed Wonder Woman artwork (most of it produced exclusively for this event) for a silent auction; a short list of participating talent includes Mike Allred, Norm Breyfogle, Darwyn Cooke, Denys Cowan, José Luis García López, Dick Giordano, Paul Gulacy, Fred Hembeck, Adam Hughes, Joseph M. Linsner, Bob McLeod, Jim Mooney, Bill Morrison, Don Perlin, John Romita, Sr., Alex Ross, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, and Joe Staton.

The total raised during the silent auction was $15,405.33, with 100% of all monies going to two Portland shelters, Raphael House and Bradley-Angel House. While most pieces were auctioned for between $50 and $250, 15 went for higher, the top bids being $4,000 for an Alex Ross WW, $777 for an Adam Hughes, and $500 for a Terry Dodson. Kudos to Andy Mangels and Excalibur for their hard work, and to all artists for their generosity.

The artwork is on display at Andy’s WW site, www.wonderwomanmuseum.com, but here’s a quick look at some of the fun of Wonder Woman Day….

by

Michael Eury (above left) Event organizer Andy Mangels (he’s a wonder!) and some of the Wonder Woman Day silent auction artwork. (left) BI editor Michael Eury (on the left, in case you’re confused) and friend.

(above) An absolutely awesome version of Wonder Woman by Paul Gulacy (whose pencil art was recently featured in Rough Stuff #2, still available from TwoMorrows). (right) You knew he drew a cute Mary Jane Watson, but Jazzy John Romita, Sr.’s version of the Amazon Princess is pretty snazzy, too!

Wonder Woman TM & © 2007 DC Comics.

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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

Before we get to letters on BI #18, we have two pieces of old business to conduct, involving our “Weird Heroes” issue, #15: Att: Michael Eury Bruce MacIntosh [writer of BACK ISSUE #15’s Deadman article] Hi, You Two: Let’s call this letter “DEADMAN’S GHOST”—a belated response to your splendid DEADMAN piece. Since it is one of my comics “children” that I am fondest of, I’ve waited a long time for such a serious evaluation.

Your intro says that Carmine Infantino and I thought DEADMAN to be a “throwaway” item. That’s a google of miles from reality. At that magic 3 A.M. moment in 1967 (date?) when I scrawled my first vision of the character on a paper napkin, I was sure this was the beginning of something special. How so?

The blend of the super-hero figure from Western pop culture with the mysterious and eternal values of the East had to come. Kids of the 1960s were graduating from Superman to Buddhism without a stop in between.

I thought we needed that stop.

When the first issue of Deadman [Editor’s note: Strange Adventures #205, Oct. 1967] jumped up 25 points (about a 60% sales leap), even the Yesterday-editorial-values that prevailed at DC had to give ground—a little. I thought this licensed me to tell Irwin Donenfeld that Stan Lee was about to pin their ears back—and why. He literally laughed in my face. Two years later, the new corporate management relieved Irwin of his job. © 2007 DC Comics.

So the writer believed he had put together something of lasting value—if he could get the right artist. But what did the artist believe?

At a time when everyone knew Carmine Infantino would soon be given artistic control of the shop, he briefly shared an office with Jack Miller, a new editor. Clearly, Carmine could have chosen to work on anything in the house. The morning I pitched the Deadman concept to Miller (who needed something to save Strange Adventures) with some of my sketches (crude, but arresting), Carmine decided that this was the character with which he wanted to close his “Second Act.” Now, when you are in that strong a position and you choose to top yourself with a totally untested character, you are a BELIEVER. So neither the writer nor the artist thought this was a throwaway character. I had a pretty clear idea of where Deadman should be going. It had to do with the notion that the “other world” is much like THIS one—with similar values and emotions: love, hate, anger, fear, remorse.

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So it turns out that somebody in the OTHER world is jealous of all the attention that is being given to this DEADMAN. He wants him TRULY dead. And he dispatches henchmen to make sure D’MAN doesn’t survive. In every yarn, Boston Brand [Deadman] would be faced with two sources of danger—the one from THIS world and the one from the OTHER. But what about the concept of heaven—where only the REALLY good folks go? Well, for one thing, it would be very sparsely populated. And, for another, I wasn’t out to start a new religion. I just wanted to write a hell of a series of stories with this fresh slant.

As for the masterful work that Neal Adams contributed, there could be no better choice—except for Carmine himself. Neal totally understood that East-West mix I was after and he added his own brilliance to it.

At the risk of splitting hairs, I think Neal became a little too involved with the Eastern wing, and not enough with the fabulous backgrounds the character afforded: DEADMAN as a boxing world champion who must hide the fact that he’s going blind; as the Senator from a swing state whose assassination could tear the country apart; as the scientist who has truly contacted life on another world and cannot reveal it.

Despite the fact that what I had in mind for DEADMAN was never realized, Neal kept the character alive with the sheer mastery of his art. And I think Carmine and I can be proud of the clear chart that we laid down in those first two issues.

As for the Society of Assassins, it sounds pretty close to the Brotherhood of Evil, from the Doom Patrol. Of course, not as close as Stan Lee got with his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But I have long held that Stan was my most loyal reader.

Thanks again!

– Arnold Drake Mr. Drake, it’s an honor to allow you to set the record straight.

And we’ve learned a valuable lesson about throwing out a word like “throwaway.”

– M.E. A friend emailed me that in the Doug Moench interview in BACK ISSUE #15, Doug said I told him that Werewolf by Night was my favorite comic of all time.

WOW! I think Doug’s memory is playing tricks on him. Either that, or I said it as a piece of hyperbole when I was still a letterhack!

I really enjoyed WBN, both with art by Perlin and Ploog, but it’s not even my favorite series by Doug (Master of Kung Fu and Aztec Ace hold that honor), let alone favorite of all time. In fact, I can’t remember a single WBN story today. Aztec Ace #1, however, remains one of my five favorite single issues I published.

As for all-time favorites, uh … Ditko’s Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, FF #35–55 … HEL-LO! – Dean Mullaney In issue #18, we asked for help identifying a page of Joe Staton Green Lantern pencils, and rushing to our rescue:

From Green Lantern #154, page 8. Scan attached. Story by Mike W. Barr, letters by Ben Oda, inks by Bob Smith, colors by Anthony Tollin. Almost the last issue Staton pencilled during his first run on GL (#155 was the last, then a Gil Kane oneshot in #156, and Keith Pollard’s run began in #157).

– Scott Dutton www.catspawdynamics.com Thanks, Scott! A free copy of this issue of BI is winging your way.

– M.E I enjoyed Michael Browning’s in-depth look at Ron Fortier and Jeff Butler’s reimagining of the Green Hornet in BACK ISSUE #18. His juxtaposition of Now © 2007 DC Comics.

Comics’ backstory with the development of Fortier’s generational approach to the Green Hornet brought a new perspective to Tony Caputo’s time with the character. I found the news of George Trendle, Jr.’s conservative approach to the Hornet mythos to be particularly interesting. Perhaps that explains why this great character has gone missing for 11-plus years (except for Quesada and Miki’s pinup in TwoMorrows’ excellent William Messner-Loebs Benefit Sketchbook).

As a longtime Green Hornet fan (and two-time winner of Now’s Green Hornet Trivia Contest), I wanted to highlight two additional points that speak to the genius of Fortier’s generational approach. First, as he had done for the Reid family tree, Fortier also devised a familial succession for Kato. Hayashi Kato was his “Bruce Lee” Kato who fought crime alongside the ’60s/’70s Green Hornet, while that Kato’s father (Ikano) battled alongside the original Green Hornet depicted on the radio. Hayashi’s siblings played important roles as well, with sister Mishi taking her fan-fave turn as Kato and younger brother Kono assuming the Kato mask © 2007 Green Hornet, Inc. toward the series’ end.

More importantly, Fortier dispelled the patriarchal (and dated) depiction of Kato as merely the Green Hornet’s kung-fu sidekick. Instead he created a personal relationship between the characters that was based upon a deep respect for their families’ shared history and complementary talents. The Green Hornet and Kato were finally partners in Fortier’s world, a story element that heightened the tension felt in every episode because each man truly cared about the other. This element also laid the foundation for the various Tales of the Green Hornet series and made the futuristic Dark Tomorrow miniseries work (in its SpiderMan 2099 kind of way).

Finally, I agree with Neal Adams’ assertion (in his interview with Philip Schweier) that scientists’ unwillingness to “speak regular English” presents a barrier to lay people. In my view, that barrier fosters public misconceptions about science and fuels the often inflamed public reaction to scientific discoveries (e.g., stem cell research). That is partly why, when I’m not reading BACK ISSUE, I run a small communications business that aims to help research organizations do a better job of explaining their science to the public. As a fan of comic books and comic creators, I would be happy to aid Neal or any other comic writer interested

in incorporating compelling scientific elements into their stories—free of charge.

Keep up the good work!

– Shane Smith, Ph.D./Science Policy, Communications & Coalition-Building 1010 Ashbury St. #1 San Francisco, CA 94117-4436 shanegsmith@yahoo.com www.shanesmithconsulting.com BACK ISSUE #18 had it all. Given my preference for Julius Schwartz-edited super-heroics, I especially liked the review (which, of course, faithfully tracked my own memories) of the Earth-1 Green Lantern from the 1972 cancellation of his own title to the 200th last issue of his revived title in late 1985. Incidentally, I got The Flash #217, which featured the first installment of the three-part Adams-drawn GL-GA adventure, off the rack in Spring 1972; while never my cup of tea, I must admit it was a gripping tale. I am glad GL went solo thereafter, though.

Also, the account of the Martian Manhunter’s pre-Crisis history was pure joy. In light of [former DC editor] Murray Boltinoff’s interest in reprinting J’onn J’onnz’ adventures serially, I now wonder why he never saw fit to justify a [team-up] with Batman in The Brave and the Bold. The Earth-1 (or Earth-2) Wildcat, Green Arrow, and the Metal Men appeared often enough in that title!

In all, a fine effort.

– Steven Smith I recently discovered your publication, and it was love at first read (so to speak).

One ongoing feature I’d love to see is a “Where Were They Then?” segment. This would be the reverse of the “where are they now?” shows that are popular on television (where they examine a formerly well-known band, musician, or actor/actress and reveal what has happened to them since). Your feature could instead take a character or title that is currently making a comeback and look back at its history. For example, maybe you could do a retrospective on new JLA members Vixen, Black Lightning, and Arsenal? Maybe you could talk about Iron Fist’s origin (both in the books and behind the scenes)? These features could take many forms (a character timeline, a brief interview with the original creative team, etc.) and could be fairly succinct— maybe one or two pages.

Again, thanks.

– Jeff Coburn Great to have you as a BI reader, Jeff.

As you read more issues of BACK ISSUE, you’ll discover that timelines and other flashback features are a mainstay of the magazine. We’re the equivalent of VH-1’s Behind the Music series with our celebrity-laced histories.

Word of warning: Coordinating BI’s “then” coverage with a publisher’s “now” revival is more of a challenge than you might imagine (case in point, issue #15 was supposed to tie in to the Ghost Rider movie, which was bumped), but we’ll see what we can do.

And check out BACK ISSUE #8 for a look at Black Lightning’s past.

– M.E. Another great issue. It has taken me this long to get around to commenting on it because I had to finish The Krypton Companion first. (Great work there, BTW!) I have never read The Hulk, but the Peter David interview was a fun behind-the-scenes look at his work there.

I would have bought this issue for the Neal Adams material alone. I hope he does get to do All-Star Batman someday, though

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Speaking of John Wells, the following letter from the noted comics historian shows us that his knowledge isn’t limited solely to DC Comics: Loved the “Big, Green Issue,” especially the Green Hornet and Green Team. I discovered the former a few years back via a remaindered hardback of the first 12 issues and have loved that run ever since. I knew almost nothing about its background until now. And the Green Team is another

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© TwoMorrows Publishing.

an All-Star Green Lantern-Green Arrow would thrill me even more. I heard him discuss his Pangea theory at a San Diego convention a few years back, and was glad to get a better fleshing out of it, though I am still not the least bit convinced about his expanding Earth. I was also interested to read about his view on the Continuity comics line. He learned then that comics readers want a product produced on a regular schedule, or they will abandon the product, a lesson I fear the current comics companies are about to learn.

I also enjoyed the Hal Jordan history. I have been a fan on and off of Hal Jordan during my 25 years of reading comics, though there have been too many dry spells to really get attached to the character. I was surprised that Jim Kingman didn’t have more to say about Steve Englehart’s run. There is one particular issue where the focus is on a powerless Hal where I really think Mr. Englehart captured the essence of Hal. Sort of a precursor to the revitalization of Hal in New Frontier and his current series written

by Geoff Johns.

I never cared for Guy Gardner.

The Mike Grell interview was fascinating, largely because of the difference in worldviews between Mr. Grell and Green Arrow. It’s a very good author who can write fairly the attitude and opinions of a character with whom he does not himself agree.

Again, I never have read Spider-Man, but the “Pro2Pro” with Gerry Conway and John Romita, Sr. was very interesting, especially their views on whether a story like the death of Gwen Stacy could be done today.

The Green Hornet article was a lot of information about a character and company I just don’t care about.

I have to disagree with Tom Stewart’s characterization of First Issue Special.

That title was intended to be much closer to Showcase than to Marvel Fanfare. It was simply Carmine Infantino’s policy at the time to greenlight “pilot” issues of concepts, usually one issue (Sandman, First Issue Special), but sometimes two (Man-Bat) or three (Warlord), send them out to newsstands, then continue them only if they sold. [At least one] concept prepared for FIS was instead launched as series, the BatgirlRobin team-up that became Batman Family. So to characterize FIS as a dumping ground is unfair.

John Wells’ history of Martian Manhunter was wonderful. I have to admit that I am one of those fans who knew nothing © 2007 DC Comics. beyond the character’s origin and his appearances in Justice League.

I didn’t realize that the DeMatteis miniseries wasn’t the first time his backstory had been altered in such a wholesale manner. That series did certainly lead to one of the best elements of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League run, the relationship between MM and Gypsy. It was a serious, emotional thread that proves that that run was more than just bwah-ha-ha.

– Jim Van Dore

guilty pleasure from childhood. I still think the pilot is a huge kick even if the follow-up stories are dreadful. (I had the same reaction to Prez, whose first issue was pretty good but the rest…) To this day, I believe the concept could be a big hit in the right hands.

Two minor quibbles in the issue’s interviews—both in comments from the interviewees, not the interviewers. While John Romita got across his central point that Gwen’s death was inspired by that of Raven Sherman, his description of the facts surrounding that 1941 story are otherwise inaccurate. For starters, her boyfriend was Dude Hennick, not Pat Ryan (who wasn’t even in that climactic sequence). Caniff didn’t kill off female cast members “every four or five years.” Indeed, I can’t recall any other woman in Caniff’s entire run on Terry and the Pirates who definitively perished. Later, in Steve Canyon, he’d occasionally have the death of a secondary recurring character, but those were generally men.

Dude Hennick, incidentally, died a bit later—off-panel. He’d been based on a real acquaintance of Caniff and when that man died in the war, his comic-strip counterpart was quietly said to have passed on.

Meanwhile, in the Green Arrow piece, Mike Grell accurately described incidents from Ollie Queen’s first foray into politics but attributed them to Denny O’Neil. It was actually Elliot S! Maggin.

That’s enough nit-picking. Great issue!

– John Wells I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for what you're doing for us “middle aged” guys (as you said in #18’s opening column)!

I’m 40 and very disenchanted with most of what is out there these days. Particularly at Marvel, Joe Q. and his boys don't seem to appreciate the rich history that is/was the Marvel Comics Group. I buy a few books regularly, but I more often than not get my fix these days from the Avengers and FF DVD-ROMs (great idea to review those in an upcoming “Comics on DVD” column!), DC’s Archives series, etc. I spend a fair amount of time on the message boards over at www.avengersassemble.us, and I can assure you that there are more “grumpy old men” out there!!

There’s not one thing about your magazine I don’t like, and I recommend it on the AA boards every chance I get. It is a coverto-cover read, although I do like to stretch it out over several weeks—keeps me from missing it in the off month! I appreciate your focus on Marvel and DC, as I was never an “independent” reader. Keep it up!

So from all of us who hearken back to the Celestial Madonna, the original Clone Saga, and when the Torch fought Quicksilver in the Baxter Building, thanks a million and keep doing what you’re doing!!

– Doug Wadley And thank YOU, Doug.

BACK ISSUE is happy to play a role in exploring and preserving comics history … and in giving “grumpy old men” a reason to smile.

Next issue’s theme: “The Devil You Say,” where we dig deep into the Miller, Janson, Mazzucchelli, and Romita, Jr. eras of Daredevil. Also: hellacious histories of Blue Devil, Son of Satan, Stig’s Inferno, Fallen Angels, Plop!, and Devil Dinosaur—and an exclusive Mike Mignola “Hellboy: The Beginning” interview! See you in six-six-sixty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor

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ALTER EGO #64 PREVIEW! Edited by ROY THOMAS (former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief and top writer), ALTER EGO, the greatest ’zine of the 1960s, is back, all-new, and focused on Golden & Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews, unseen art, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more! Issue #64 features a previouslyunpublished cover painting by DON NEWTON, ROY THOMAS’ special issue-by-issue analysis and appreciation of OTTO BINDER and C.C. BECK’s 1943-45 “Monster Society of Evil!” serial, film model-maker ROGER DICKEN’s theory that Captain Marvel was modeled after German heavyweight boxer MAX SCHMELING, plus a special double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, et al.! Also, JIM AMASH interviews MARTIN FILCHOCK (Golden Age artist for Centaur comics), MR. MONSTER presents “Twice-Told Tales,” and MORE! Now monthly!

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The Monster Society Of Evil An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial In Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46

by Roy Thomas

A

s a kid in the latter 1940s and early 1950s, I loved Saturday afternoon movie serials—a minor sub-genre of the film industry that was just winding down in local theatres all across the country. I was an adult before I even knew there’d ever been a Captain Marvel serial—but I was bowled over that memorable day in 1948 when I saw the theatrical trailer (yes!) for the first Superman serial, starring (my later acquaintance) Kirk Alyn, at a movie house. I managed, despite the usual childhood illnesses, not to miss more than a chapter or so of it, or of Atom Man vs.

Superman, or Batman and Robin, Congo Bill, or Blackhawk, or even what was actually a re-release of The Secret Code, starring that World War II mystery man, The Black Commando.

were, they couldn’t have seemed any more real to me at that time if they’d been projected on the big screen with all of today’s CGI magic, augmented by Sensurround Sound. And all those creatures were commanded by this weird little worm riding on a sea horse!

Whether or not I saw, a few weeks later, the following issue, in which Mr. Mind was finally captured and met his just end, I don’t recall. But I never forgot that penultimate chapter of a comic book serial of whose beginnings I had no inkling for the next fifteen years.

In 1960, Dick Lupoff lauded the “Monster Society” serial in his seminal article “The Big Red Cheese” in the first issue of his and wife Pat’s science-fiction fanzine Xero. And I was thrilled when, over the near year or three, I finally got to read all 25 whimsical yet exciting chapters during one of my visits to fellow comics fan Biljo White and the cement-block White House of Comics behind his home in Columbia, Missouri. Bill had a virtually complete collection of Captain Marvel, Whiz Comics, and The Marvel Family, among many other wonders.

But, love the two Superman serials in particular though I still do, there’s another specimen of the species “serial” that rivals them for a place in my heart—and even in my head. And I first saw it not at the Palace Theatre in Jackson, Missouri—but in the pages of a comic book.

Its name: “The Monster Society of Evil!”

Since I’d only turned four in November 1944, I couldn’t yet read when I perused a brand new copy of Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April ’45)— which may well have been my initial encounter with the World’s Mightiest Mortal. I instantly fell head over sneakers in love with the red-clad hero with the lightning bolt on his chest, and I can still remember how excited I was looking at all the colorfully inventive sea monsters he battled in that issue. Cartoony as they

Five (Or Is It Six?) For Fawcett This great composite drawing of Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and Mr. Mind was printed by the American Nostalgia Library as the full-color cover of a flyer advertising its fabulous 1989 reprint volume The Monster Society of Evil (see main text). The original comic book serial was primarily the work of (left to right at top) writer Otto O. (“Eando”) Binder… artist C.C. Beck (with his comics studio)…and editor Wendell Crowley. Binder gave RT his early-’40s photo—P.C. Hamerlinck provided the late 1940s/early 1950s shot of Beck—and the photo of Crowley at the 1968 Jack Binder comic shop reunion dinner (covered in A/E #57) is courtesy of Marc Swayze. [Art ©2007 DC Comics.]

For the past decade, I’ve championed to DC Comics the notion of abandoning for once its chronological approach to reprints in its Archives series, and of printing all 232 pages of the serial in a single hardcover volume. Such a book could almost be considered the first graphic novel—composed of material originally published more than sixty years ago!

There’s even precedent for such a collection. In 1989, the American Nostalgia Library, an imprint of Hawk Books Limited of London, England, published a

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An Issue-By-Issue Appreciation Of The 1943-45 Serial

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sitting in the darkness of a neighborhood movie house in the mid1940s, watching this tale of tales unfold up there on the silver screen.

But that’s only fitting, since no doubt the ultimate inspiration for the comic book serial was the rousing success of the 1941 chapter-play The Adventures of Captain Marvel, in which stuntman Tom Tyler made an excellent World’s Mightiest Marvel—even if Republic Pictures took, as per usual, a few more liberties with a licensed property than made any sense.

So let’s turn down the house lights, grab a soda pop in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other, and enjoy a chapter-by-chapter look at—

“The Monster Society of Evil” Captain Marvel Adventures #22 (March 1943) Chapter I “The Pearl Of Peril” (12 Pages) The “famous Indian princess” Dareena Rajabuti comes to the USA to donate jewels to the Allied war cause. Over his special radio hookup, Mister Mind (the “Mister” is always spelled out in the first three chapters) directs Captain Nazi to steal the jewels to “further the battle for your Axis”—i.e., Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and imperial Japan. Mind says he’s helping the Axis “because it is evil! And thus you are a part of my great Society of Evil of the Universe.”

Let The Show Begin!

The splash page of Chapter I, complete with cast listing. The blurb says there’ll be “a new chapter every third Friday,” because at this time Captain Marvel Adventures was so popular that it was published once every three weeks, rather than monthly—though each issue had a different monthly date and somehow it all worked out. (Incidentally, this odd scheduling somehow led to there being two issues labeled “Jan. 1943”—but no “May 1943”—and no “Dec. 1944”!)

The princess has actually brought only one magic black pearl the size of a croquet ball, which “can pick up scenes and voices from anywhere,” thus making it “valuable for espionage service!!” When Captain Nazi tries to grab the pearl, Billy Batson, who is interviewing the princess, shouts “Shazam!,” changes to Captain Marvel, and knocks him and his two armed thugs around. Though no match for the hero physically, Nazi flies off with both pearl and princess. (Cap

The construction of the group name “The Monster Society of Evil” leads Ye Editor to believe it was inspired by DC’s “Justice Society of America,” but writer Otto Binder always denied any conscious borrowing. Anybody out there have any ideas of where else he might’ve gotten inspiration for it? [©2007 DC Comics.]

3000-copy edition of a gorgeous 14" x 10H" hardcover titled The Monster Society of Evil that collected the entire serial, plus a bit of introductory material. I’ve always assumed ANL/HBL had permission to reprint that material, since the book contains a copyright notice for DC Comics. Unless stated otherwise, all art accompanying this article is taken from that volume. (The first and last chapters of the serial, incidentally, were reprinted in black-&-white, from retouched art, in the 1977 Crown volume Shazam! from the 40’s to the 70’s.)

ANL/HBL’s Monster Society is a wonderful book, which reproduces each page from copies of the printed comics. No Theakstonizing or retouching for these folks! It’s all there just as it appeared in the original 1943-45 magazines, complete with sometimes off-register coloring, but reproduced considerably larger than in the old comics, so that the color dots are often clearly visible, as if Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein had turned the serial into one of their Pop Art productions. And, in one odd touch that somehow works, the pages’ margins and “gutters” between panels—areas that were left white on the comics’ pulp paper—are rendered in solid black. The end effect is to underscore the feeling established on the splash page of Chapter I, that one is

“Mister Mind Calling Captain Nazi!”

The first the reader encounters Mr. Mind is as a disembodied voice from outer space—but he’s already involved with Captain Nazi, though their exact relationship is unclear. Mind gives Nazi orders on the next page—but Nazi’s main loyalty seems to be primarily to “Our Fuehrer.” From Chapter I. [©2007 DC Comics.]

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All On One, And One On All Pp. 2-3 of Chapter I are a two-page spread in which Cap faces many of his major villains from previous stories, as listed on the splash. The corresponding scene in the story, in which Mr. Mind sends several of the hero’s old enemies against him, was printed in the just-out All-Star Companion, Vol. 2. [©2007 DC Comics.]

berates himself for forgetting that Captain Marvel Jr., Nazi’s regular nemesis, had told him that Nazi had recently gained the power to fly.)

Dareena informs Nazi (and Mister Mind) that there are two black pearls, which must be used together; the other is still in India.

Having learned the location from Nazi’s thugs, Cap bursts in to confront him. Cap and Mister Mind spar verbally for the first time. The latter claims, “My organization will soon rule the universe!” Cap dares him to show his face, but Mind says he plans to remain “only a voice reaching everywhere and spinning my web of power day by day! I will hurl man after man at you, plot after plot, till even you, mighty Captain Marvel, will some day crack under the terrific strain!” At Mind’s summons, Cap faces not only Captain Nazi but also others of his former foes: Sivana, Ibac, Nippo, Mr. Banjo, and several unnamed rogues. Cap’s blows don’t stop them, because Mind has “instilled them with mental strength, which I project through the ether!”

Stalemated, Cap flies off to India with the princess and the pearl. He takes her to the giant statue of the god Siva whose remaining eye is the second black pearl. She tells him he must hold the two pearls close together and “wish for any scene you want.” Nazi and Ibac arrive and push the idol over onto them. Cap shields Dareena and kayos Nazi, but Ibac flies off with both pearls. Mister Mind’s voice taunts Cap from Captain Nazi’s belt radio. A final caption, in the style of movie serials, orders the reader not to miss “Part II,” which will be “on sale March 5th.”

Captain Marvel Adventures #23 (April 1943) Chapter II “The Jungle Trap” (12 Pages) Dropping off the princess, Captain Marvel pursues Ibac, who flees in a rocket ship provided by Mister Mind. Cap cracks open the ship over “the wastes of North Africa.” After he belts Ibac around, Mind directs the villain to hold the two black pearls together. At Ibac’s wish, they show him from which direction Cap is approaching, so he can give the hero the slip. Mister Mind says the pearls can be used to help the Axis in North Africa, but to himself he cackles that “When I’ve made the Axis win the Earth, the world is mine!”

Cap changes to Billy and enters an American Army camp. (Allied troops had invaded North Africa in November of 1942.) The troops quiz the famous young radio reporter, being eager to hear news of back home: “Yes, the Empire State Building is still standing. The girls are still pretty! No, they haven’t stopped big league baseball! Yes, jive is still popular!” Billy broadcasts to the US that “these soldier boys of ours are going to bring victory for America before you can say Adolf Shickelgruber!”

At Mind’s bidding, Ibac says his own magic word (“Ibac!”), changing back to “scrawny ordinary little Stinky Printwhistle.” He sneaks into the camp by night, to plant false orders that will lead

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Ibac Is Back!

American troops astray into the desert, where they’ll die of heat and thirst. Billy spots Stinky—and, moments later, Captain Marvel and Ibac are at it again.

Ibac stampedes some elephants, who trample Cap—not that he notices much.

Ibac tricks Cap into saying “Shazam!” to impress some gullible cannibals, then grabs Billy and binds and gags him. As the cannibals prepare to cook the lad in a big pot, Mister Mind’s voice—through Ibac’s belt radio—says Ibac will now deliver the black pearls to Nippo in Tokyo, so they can help crush America in the Pacific.

Ibac, whose name was an anagram, may have gotten the power of terror from Ivan the Terrible, cunning from Borgia (Cesare, we presume), fierceness from Attila the Hun, and cruelty from the Roman emperor Caligula… but he was still no physical match for Captain Marvel. Still, he used that ol’ Borgia cunning to see that it was Billy who wound up in the cannibals’ pot. The cannibals are horrible racial stereotypes, of course, but most characters looked pretty ridiculous in Captain Marvel Adventures. From Chapter II. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Captain Marvel Adventures #24 (June 1943) Chapter III

Alaska, he sees a glacier about to crush a town—while a parka-clad Dr. Sivana cackles triumphantly.

“The Second Pearl Harbor” (12 Pages)

Captain Marvel Adventures #25 (July 1943) Chapter IV

As one of the cannibals approaches Billy with a cleaver, the quickthinking boy uses it to slice off his gag. He changes to Captain Marvel and flies off.

Nippo, aboard a Japanese plane, uses the black pearls to intercept the aircraft of the American commanding officer of Hawaii and shoot it down. At Mister Mind’s direction, Nippo uses a rubber face mask to take the C.O.’s place at Pearl Harbor. But his “clammy hand” and “the hiss in his voice” betray him to the C.O.’s daughter Mary, a nurse. She tosses Nippo with jiu-jitsu, then flees into Captain Marvel’s arms.

Nippo gets thrashed but escapes.

With Mary, Billy Batson parachutes down and finds the C.O. alive.

Captain Marvel discovers Nippo and other Japanese in a volcano crater, setting up an explosive charge to cause an eruption that will bury Pearl Harbor. Cap foils that plan and retrieves the black pearls, slugging Nippo so hard that he lands in the crater. Cap addresses Mister Mind over the belt radio he took from Nippo; Mind tells him Sivana is carrying out the next phase of his plan. When Cap tunes the pearls on

“Glaciers Over America” (12 Pages) Captain Marvel flies to Alaska to stop “giant, towering, grinding glaciers” from “crunch[ing] through Alaska and Canada” into the United States. Mister Mind plans a new Ice Age for all of North America. Sivana figures that, “with the two great brains of Sivana and Mr. [sic] Mind against him—especially mine—what can Captain Marvel do? Heh, heh, heh!”

The glacier is too big for Cap to pick up, so he bores through it till it looks like “a big Swiss cheese,” and it collapses. But, down in the States, it’s snowing during the summer—crops are withering in the cold—shipping is tied up in freezing water. Despite wartime censorship of radio weather reports, Sivana sees their scheme is working.

Cap uses the black pearls to locate Sivana and chases him through a small doorway in one of the glaciers. He changes to Billy to creep inside. There the lad sees Sivana operating his huge Pole Changer, whose spin “is forcing the whole Earth to shift around on its axis! In a few weeks, the new North Pole will be… right in the heart of Texas!”

Cap smashes the machine—but Sivana escapes, taunting him that, if he doesn’t put it back together, “the Earth will stay right where it is and it will always be as cold as as it is now!” So Cap must spend an hour reassembling it and starting its motor “in the opposite direction!”

Cap changes to Billy to use Sivana’s radio, then crawls to the surface. There, Sivana douses Billy with water, which freezes before he can finish saying his magic word. (“Sha-blub!”)

Sivana leaves him there with a marker.

Captain Marvel Adventures #26 (Aug. 1943) Chapter V “Marvel Meets Mr. Mind!” (12 Pages) Nippo’d In The Bud Nippo took his orders (via belt radio) from Mr. Mind. From Chapter III. Plus the cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #24, the first issue to feature a cover scene related to the “Monster Society” storyline, although the new serial had been mentioned on the cover of #22. Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck for sending good scans of the five CMA covers spotlighted with this article. [©2007 DC Comics.]

This chapter’s title had to intrigue anyone who’d read the first four chapters! Billy is conveniently rescued by a hungry (brown!) polar bear, which tips over the block of ice encasing him. It

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Pole Tax Billy finds it taxing to sneak up on Thaddeus B. Sivana and his pernicious Pole Change. From Chapter IV. [©2007 DC Comics.]

cracks open; the boy yells “Shazam!” and Captain Marvel flies off, after the bear learns his teeth won’t hurt the World’s Mightiest Mortal.

With the black pearls, Cap locates Mr. Mind’s hideout on the “dark unknown world out near the Moon.” He smashes his way in through a steel door marked “Beware! Keep out!! Especially Captain Marvel!”

He encounters a man-goat who speaks with Mister Mind’s voice and knocks him out—only to have Mind’s voice (coming from a radio) explain this was only one of his “minions.” Cap next faces a similarlyvoiced robot, then a human-headed octopus, but neither of them is really Mr. Mind, either.

Changing to Billy to see if the lad will have better luck (as you can see, Cap didn’t always make full use of the wisdom of Solomon that was one of his powers), he’s searching the HQ when a “worm” drops on his shoulder. Billy brushes it off… but a closeup shows that the tiny creature has big round glasses, a human-like evil smile, and a radio hanging from his “neck.” The most unsophisticated reader at this point would have realized that the worm must be Mr. Mind—but Billy hasn’t paid any attention. Just then, Billy’s grabbed by a burly wrestler type, but manages to shout “Shazam!” before the guy can anesthetize him.

Cap knocks him out, but learns he wasn’t really Mr. Mind, either. Mind escapes in a space ship, leaving Cap wondering if his enemy is invisible.

The chapter ends with Cap pondering, “Who or what was Mr. Mind all the time?” But the readers knew!

Captain Marvel Adventures #27 (Sept. 1943) Chapter VI “Mr. Mind On Earth” (12 Pages) Cap flies to radio Station WHIZ, where Billy works. There, owner Sterling Morris suggests the lad help his friend Steamboat (an unfortunate “Negro” stereotype, though always treated as a sympathetic character) with a new rock garden on the building’s roof. Billy does, though preoccupied with thoughts of his mysterious foe.

Landing at an undisclosed location on Earth, Mr. Mind quickly builds a “scientific laboratory” that resembles a castle, and fires his “cosmic brain ray” out the window. It takes control of “vast unseen

Will The Real Mr. Mind Please Stand Up? The splash page of Chapter V shows Billy’s predicament from the end of Chapter IV—and Captain Marvel facing several creatures, each of which, over the course of the ensuing dozen pages, he’ll think is Mr. Mind. [©2007 DC Comics.]

hordes of worms and termites,” who burrow under a city tower, making it sway ominously.

Captain Marvel prevents the building from toppling, but sees that the termites have carved out the words: “Only the beginning! Mr. Mind!”

Billy returns to work on the rock garden, “hoping to clear his baffled mind.” Looking for more rocks in a vacant lot nearby, Steamboat finds “a small castle” (he naturally doesn’t see the balloon

Steamboat ’Round The Bend— And Over The Top Billy’s friend Steamboat was depicted as a stereotype in both look and speech, though he was treated as a likable character. Reports are that he was dropped from “Captain Marvel” stories a short time later, after complaints from AfricanAmericans. I’m sure that, in later years, Otto, C.C., and Wendell were all embarrassed by the memory; but such things were sadly par for the course at the time. From Chapter VI. [©2007 DC Comics.]

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“???”coming from it) and deposits it in the rock garden; but Billy fails to notice. Thus, Mr. Mind is actually right under Billy’s nose.

Next, Captain Marvel saves City Hall from collapsing. He and the mayor are accosted by three members of what Mr. Mind calls for the first time “my Monster Society of Evil”—two sinister humans and a guy with a crocodile’s head. Mind’s miniature rocket flies in, and Cap finally knows he’s fighting “a tiny being of some sort!”

After Cap scatters the minions and Mind escapes, Billy is doing his radio broadcast when Station Whiz itself starts to sway. Billy is

Sidebar:

Mr. Mind On Their Minds The two dozen plus chapters of “The Monster Society of Evil” were scripted by former science-fiction writer Otto Binder, who by 1943 had been scribing “Captain Marvel” stories for a year or two, infusing the superhero action with an increasingly whimsical sense of humor. The art was by the talented C.C. Beck and his comics studio; the editor of Fawcett’s “Captain Marvel” titles by now was the estimable Wendell Crowley. In 196364, Roy Thomas began a correspondence with Binder, who was then writing memorable “Superman” tales for DC. Binder’s initial, long letter to Roy was printed in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7, the first issue the latter edited and published. In it, Otto wrote in part:

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grabbed, bound, and gagged by two more minions, and left to die in the tottering building. Ants, however, are attracted to his gag by remnants of chocolate cake he’d been eating, and they quickly gnaw through his gag. Within moments, Captain Marvel is bolstering the building. He joins Steamboat—and spies the miniature castle amid the rock garden. He rips it open, but can’t find his enemy. It’s Steamboat who discovers Mr. Mind—a worm hiding inside an apple in his lunchpail! Cap chases the villain to stomp him—and the chapter ends with Mr. Mind, rather than the hero, in mortal danger!

For the rest of this article, don’t miss ALTER EGO #64, on sale now!

Mortal and the Universe’s Weakest Creature (which may have been the genetical thought that conjured up a worm).

“Of course, the sheer poles-apart contrast made for a wealth of ideas (as inspirations always do), so that the serial ran for 24 chapters before we decided, perhaps wisely, that too much of a good thing is bad.

“I won’t exactly say there were tears in our eyes that day we worked up the final chapter and executed Mr. Mind; but, in all honesty, I think we all felt a ‘loss’ of some kind. You can’t write about any character for a length of time—worm or warm-blooded man—without a sense of sadness at ‘killing him off.’”

The Worm Turns (Up) “Regarding Mr. Mind, the evil worm from outer space who plagued One of the most famous panels from the entire serial is the one in Captain Marvel for two years…. [he] Chapter V in which, while searching Mr. Mind’s otherworldly Through Otto, Roy soon also began headquarters, Billy casually brushes something off his shoulder— wasn’t a worm, at least not for the first a correspondence with 1944-53 and a closeup reveals to the reader (though not to Billy) the true half dozen chapters. The CMA Fawcett editor Wendell Crowley (who, form of his enemy: a spectacles-wearing, radio-sporting worm (Captain Marvel Adventures) brain passing through St. Louis on business colored green-and-black with red dots. We wonder, in retrospect, trust composed of Wendell Crowley as for his family’s lumber company in how kids reacted to the revelation. [©2007 DC Comics.] editor, Charles Clarence Beck as artist, spring of 1965, would become the first and myself as scripter, got our heads comics professional RT ever met in together to figure out just who or what Mr. Mind should be, after I person). In a letter printed around that time in Alter Ego (V1) #8, invented him as a disembodied voice.

Crowley mildly disputed one of Otto’s points: “We undoubtedly went through a hundred concepts, until somebody (and, frankly, in those skull sessions, I have no idea who first thought of any particular gimmick)… somebody said, ‘Why not take the most unusual thing we can think of? Not the traditional human or galactic villain, nor robot, nor this nor that of the routine masterminds, but just the goofiest of all things—maybe a worm!’

“I vaguely recall that this was enthusiastically endorsed by us with much laughter and a tongue-in-cheek attitude; we had no idea that thing would become POPULAR!!?? We truly were amazed at the electrifying response… letters pouring in… and believe me, with a readership of over one million as we had in those days, the mail can become pretty imposing. A rousing consensus simply loved Mr. Mind!

Why? We never figured it out. You figure it out, you researchers today into the mysterious hypnotic power that comic characters had on readers.

“The flood of letters, as a matter of practicality, set us to dreaming up new and more outre situations between the World’s Mightiest

“I was surprised to see Otto saying that letters were pouring in on Mr. Mind. As far as I can recall, the only time letters poured in was after Mr. Mind had been electrocuted, and for some reason or other we had requested the fans to write in at that time, although what the reason for this was, I don’t remember. In any case, I do recall that one little boy wrote in and protested that the trial of Mr. Mind had been unfair in that he had not been actually tried by his peers, there having been no open-minded worms on that jury.”

To see why fans were writing in to Captain Marvel Adventures just as the “Monster Society” serial ended, see p. 19. On the other hand, ’twould appear Otto was right about letters “pouring in”— though it probably happened right after the serial ended, rather than while it was going on.

Hmm… maybe we should’ve attached a “spoiler warning” to this sidebar.

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Mac’s Marvel & Mongo Two Golden Age Artists Discuss Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel Jr., And MAC RABOY

by Jay Disbrow

R

ejoicing in the release of Dark Horse Comics’ four volumes of Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, which reprints Raboy’s 19year tenure on the Sunday strip, fellow Golden Age artist Jay Disbrow, who drew comic books during the late 1940s and 1950s (see A/E #21) takes a look at Raboy’s version of Flash Gordon.

Disbrow celebrates the superb quality which the original “Captain Marvel Jr.” artist brought to the strip, returning it to its past days of glory when under the helm of its first artist, the legendary Alex Raymond. —PCH.

edited by P.C. Hamerlinck Jay Disbrow.

erotic appeal. Mac’s work was suitable to all ages.

In 1948, when Raboy was assigned to the Flash Gordon Sunday page, he received no credit for his work during the first 14 weeks of his labor. Then, beginning with the 15th week, he received a byline along with Don Moore, who wrote the storyline. Moore had actually written the Flash Gordon scripts since the feature’s founding in 1934, but had apparently been was content to labor in total anonymity for those 14 years. But he and Raboy made an excellent team until mid-1953, when Moore left the strip for good. For the next 14 years, Raboy proficiently

For the better part of a century, a mere handful of dramatic comic artists (primarily of the newspaper syndicates) have been regarded as the ultimate talents of their industry. In our day, these men are almost legendary, larger-than-life figures. Because of their extraordinary artistic ability, they occupy pinnacles of exalted grandeur.

Because of their talent and the fact that such a limited number of them were practicing their craft in the same era, their names are instantly recognizable: Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth, Milton Caniff, and Ray Moore. Without a doubt others could be added, depending on personal preferences. We cannot rule out certain talented artists who, for a variety of reasons, failed to reach a similar level of achievement and notoriety. One such artist who belongs in the revered group listed above is Mac Raboy.

Emanuel “Mac” Raboy was an artist of remarkable skill and ability, but it was not until he assumed his duties on the Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper page that the true depths of his artistic talent began to come forth. Prior to that time, he was merely regarded as another comic book artist … albeit a very good one.

Raboy’s figures were graceful, supple, and wellconstructed. His layouts and inking were magnificent. But one of the most remarkable aspects of his work on Flash Gordon was the faces of the characters he drew. For many years, he constructed facial caricaturists that were beyond the ability of most artists associated with the comics. Even the faces of his secondary characters were distinctively defined and appeared to be practically photo-realistic. Raboy also possessed the ability to portray the female form to its full glorious effect. His women were beautiful in face and figure without his resorting to a base

Two Master-Ful Covers Mac Raboy at the Fawcett offices, 1940s— symbolically contemplating his cover for Master Comics #43 (Oct. 1943)—and the cover of Dark Horse’s Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, Vol. 1, the first of four collecting the artist’s complete run on the sciencefiction comic strip. Gorgeous stuff—but shouldn’t somebody’s feet be touching the ground on the Master cover? Photo courtesy of Roger Hill. [Captain Marvel Jr. TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

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carried both art and writing responsibilities.

Raboy was a product of New York City, born in 1914, the son of Romanian immigrants who settled in the Bronx after the turn of the 20th century. From his early years he exhibited a propensity for art. He ultimately enrolled in New York’s famous Pratt Institute, and received the training that launched his career.

As early as 1941, Raboy had found his way into the comics industry. I was still a kid when I first discovered his work for Fawcett Publications: “Bulletman,” and his vital work on “Captain Marvel Jr.” Of course, I had no way of knowing his name back then, because the work bore no signature. His post-Fawcett art for Spark Publications’ Green Lama comic book further enhanced his reputation, despite the fact that again he was given no byline.

“Captain Marvel Jr.” represented the serious side of The Marvel Family. Raboy made no effort to interject humor into his art as did C.C. Beck of Captain Marvel fame. Raboy was an illustrator who took pride into his creative efforts.

However, Beck felt that Raboy’s lush, illustrative style of “high art” was inappropriate for comic books, believing that a simple cartoon style was the best approach for comics. I could never bring myself to share Beck’s opinion on this.

Whose Work Is It, Anyway?

(Top left:) Raboy’s first Flash Gordon strip, dated August 1, 1948, scripted by Don Moore, but minus all credits. Already by this time, the feature was allotted less space on the comics page than in its heyday in the 1930s. (Above:) Raboy and Moore had a byline by the strip for Nov. 7, 1948. [©2007 King Features Syndicate.]

In The Family Way DC’s hardcover Shazam! Family Archives, Vol. 1, released in 2006, includes Raboy classic wartime tales of Captain Marvel Jr. from Master Comics, the stories in Captain Marvel Jr. #1 which imitated his style, and the Marc Swayze-drawn origin of Mary Marvel. All this, plus an informative intro by FCA’s own P.C. Hamerlinck! [©2007 DC Comics.]

For the rest of this article, don’t miss ALTER EGO #64, on sale now!

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ALTER EGO #1

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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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ALTER EGO #4

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Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!

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

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

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!

DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ’40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ’65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!

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

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

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

ALTER EGO #19

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!

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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!

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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

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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!

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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

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC032833

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

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB042796

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR042972

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

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUN042972

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL043386

(108-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG043186

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

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV043080

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC042992

(100-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN053133

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 #68

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

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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

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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!

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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!

TM

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

BACK ISSUE #7

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

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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

BACK ISSUE #16

BACK ISSUE #17

BACK ISSUE #18

DAVE COCKRUM and MIKE GRELL go “Pro2Pro” on the Legion, pencil art gallery

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

“Weird Heroes” of the 1970s and ‘80s!

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

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

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

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

by NEAL ADAMS!

(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

BACK ISSUE #20

BACK ISSUE #21

BACK ISSUE #22

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!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP063683

(104-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV063993

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN073984

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR073855

(108-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073880

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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!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JUL073976

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP074091

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073948

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN084020

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships July 2008

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.

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Now Shipping Diamond Order Code: MAR084108

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(80-page FULL COLOR magazine) $8.95 Ships June 2008 Diamond Order Code: MAR084135

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

(160-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905924 Diamond Order Code: FEB084082

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!

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

US

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

For the latest news from TwoMorrows Publishing, log on to www.twomorrows.com/tnt Surface

Airmail

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$44

1st Class Canada $56

$64

$76

$120

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$40

$54

$66

$90

$108

DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF (4 issues)

$26

$36

$44

$60

$72

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

$78

$108

$132

$180

$216

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$32

$42

$50

$66

$78

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