Back Issue #33 by TwoMorrows Publishing

TITANS TOGETHER! TEEN HEROES ISSUE!

009 April 2

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FLASH 킬 NOVA 킬 LEGION 킬 FIRESTAR 킬 POWER GIRL 킬 KITTY PRYDE 킬 NEW WARRIORS with BARON 킬 GUICE 킬 NICIEZA 킬 BAGLEY 킬 SKEATES 킬 and TV Billy Batson MICHAEL GRAY

THE ULTIMATE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! TM

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Volume 1, Number 33 April 2009

The Retro Comics Experience!

Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Today! EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTISTS George Pérez and Gene Ha COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

FLASHBACK: The Tumultuous Times of the Teen Titans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Adams, Giordano, Rozakis, Skeates, and Wolfman relive the TTs’ troubles and triumphs

Dan Johnson Casey Jones Michael William Kaluta Rob Kelly Paul Kupperberg Paul Levitz Bruce MacIntosh Andy Mangels Christy Marx Bob McLeod Allen Milgrom Ian Millsted Jeffrey Moy Fabian Nicieza Stephen O’Day Alan J. Porter Ruben Procopio Roland Reedy John Romita, Jr. Bob Rozakis Alex Saviuk John Schwirian Alex Serra Jason Shayer Jim Shooter Steve Skeates Doug Smith Joe Staton Roger Stern Roy Thomas Michael Uslan Len Wein Mary Wilshire Marv Wolfman

Nick Cardy’s recreation of his own cover to Teen Titans #23, unveiling Wonder Girl’s groovy new threads. TM & © DC Comics.

FLASHBACK SIDEBAR: Mego Teen Titans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 A look back at one of the most unusual action-figure lines of the ’70s

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Dan Abnett Neal Adams Jim Alexander Alter Ego Mark Arnold Mark Bagley Frank Balas Mike Baron Alex Boney Sal Buscema John Byrne Cliff Chiang Gerry Conway Ron Dante DC Comics Tom DeFalco Mike Gagnon Keith Giffen Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Michael Gray Mike Grell Jackson Guice P.C. Hamerlinck Valentine Hellman Heritage Comics Auctions Matt Heuston Benjamin Holcomb Adam Hughes Jamal Igle Carmine Infantino Georges Jeanty Geoff Johns

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

PRO2PRO: Mike Baron and Jackson “Butch” Guice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 The writer/artist duo discuss Wally West’s journey from “Boy to Man, in a Flash” INTERVIEW: Michael Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 The kid who cried “Shazam!” tells BI about being both Billy Batson and a teen idol INTERVIEW: Ron Dante: Archie’s Here, Veronica, Too . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 A chat with the singing Archie Andrews FLASHBACK: I Was a Teenage Crisis Survivor: The Power Girl Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 The “Earth-Two Supergirl’s” convoluted history, as told by a host of all-stars FLASHBACK: Growing Up with Pryde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 Here, Kitty, Kitty—the evolution of one of the X-Men’s most beloved characters ART GALLERY: Legion of Super-Heroes: Fashions of the 2970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 A runway of talent takes on Cockrum’s and Grell’s funky ensembles FLASHBACK: The Man Called Nova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Before he made the Titans “new,” Marv Wolfman introduced this Marvel teen sensation OFF MY CHEST: Firestar: The X-Man Who Wasn’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Firestar interviews with Christy Marx, Tom DeFalco, Mary Wilshire, and Fabian Nicieza PRO2PRO: Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 The writer and artist reveal how Marvel’s teen heroes, the New Warriors, gathered WHAT THE--?!: James Bond, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 Come on, you know you don’t really hate this adolescent secret agent… GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . .72 Chapter Five of Bob Rozakis’ fantasy comics history reveals the company’s new president! INTERVIEW: The Unique Voice and Vision of Steve Skeates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Continuing (from Alter Ego) an in-depth dialogue with one of comics’ most diverse scribes BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87 Reader feedback on our “Saturday Morning Heroes” and Steve Gerber tribute issues BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $44 Media Mail US, $60 First Class US, $70 Canada, $105 International First Class, $115 International Priority Mail. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by George Pérez. New Teen Titans TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2009 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. T e e n

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This issue’s theme might not have happened were it not for panicky personnel at DC Comics back in in 1940. Their newest hit character, “the Bat-Man,” that grim, midnight avenger, sometimes packed heat in his crime-crushing. When Bob Kane and Bill Finger cranked out their earliest Batman tales, The Shadow, who used pistols and an unnerving laugh as his weapons, was a primary inspiration for their bat-cloaked hero, and so Batman shooting vampires or using firearms when necessary seemed logical (despite its absurdity when one considers that Batman’s very existence was in response to his parents’ murder by a gun). But comics legend tells us that editorial concern about the level of violence in Batman’s early stories led the Darknight Detective to become a Darknight Daddy. And so “the sensational character find of 1940,” Robin, the Boy Wonder, was added to the strip to soften its tone—and to create a figure that would appeal to comics’ target audience, which at the time was roughly the same age as the boisterous Boy Wonder. (Child endangerment apparently never came to mind to DC’s Golden Age editors when mandating Robin’s creation.) On Robin’s Peter Pan-like heels sprinted Marvel Comics’ Toro (sidekick to the original Human Torch) and Archie Comics’ Roy, the Super-Boy (youthful ally of the Wizard), both of whom appeared on the stands in the same month, leading historians to bicker over which character is actually comics’ second sidekick.

Toro © Marvel Characters, Inc. Roy, the Super-Boy © Archie Publications.

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Sidestepping that debate, no one can deny Robin’s impact. The Boy Wonder opened a floodgate of kid heroes, with some operating both alongside adult mentors—like Bucky with Captain America, and Speedy with Green Arrow—or others in their own Little Rascals-inspired clubs such as the Young Allies and Newsboy Legion. And in the decades since, teen heroes have matured out of sidekick status into a genre all their own, no longer needing the super-supervision of a masked mentor. This issue’s diverse lineup of teen heroes is sure to bring a nostalgic smile to almost anyone’s face. We cover a lot of ground and our writers are to be commended for their informative articles and interviews. Two writers deserve special thanks: Alex Boney, who took on the challenge of making sense of Power Girl’s perplexing permutations, and Bruce MacIntosh, who managed to turn his passion for collecting sketches of the Legion of Super-Heroes in their funky ’70s fashions into an incisive art gallery peppered by behind-the-scenes remarks from Mike Grell on the challenges of drawing Dave Cockrum’s elaborate Legionnaire costume designs. We also welcome two teen idols from Saturday morning television, Michael Gray, Billy Batson from Shazam!, and Ron Dante, the lead singer of the Archies, who chime in for a pair of exclusive interviews. And 007 fans will either love or hate our spotlight on James Bond Jr.! (Incidentally, as a follow-up to BACK ISSUE #26’s James Bond in Comics article, in November 2008 Titan Books released the latest compilation of British 007 comic strips in a 128-page, $19.95 trade paperback titled Polestar. These Bond comics have never before been collected, and are quite a treat!) And while we celebrate young heroes this issue, we welcome President Barack Obama to the White House! Sure, FDR read Little Orphan Annie aloud over the radio, but Obama actually collects Amazing Spider-Man and Savage Sword of Conan! Thanks to our intrepid reporter KC Carlson, BACK ISSUE was fortunate enough to snag this photo of our Chief Executive at work. Short boxes in the Oval Office!

TM & © DC Comics.

Titans Together Again! A 1976 DC Comics house ad by George Tuska and Rich Buckler touting the Titans’ return. During this revival’s ten-issue run, penned by Bob Rozakis, six different pencilers and six different inkers drew the interiors, with a variety of artists handling cover art chores as well. Original art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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As most readers familiar with the history of the Teen Titans know, artist Nick Cardy kept the original series looking dynamic for most of its entire run. But the writing never quite hit the mark—especially in the early stories. Take, for instance, this sampling of dialogue from Teen Titans #3 (May–June 1966), “The Revolt at Harrison High,” where the Titans have been called to Washington, DC, to the office of the President’s Commission on Education: ROBIN: Teen Titans reporting as requested, sir! COMMISSIONER: Glad to see you, Titans! As you know, our country has one teenage problem that’s probably more serious than any other … drop-outs … kids who drop out before they graduate! We’re organizing a national campaign to persuade drop-outs to stay in school! But government officials have one drawback—they’re not teenagers! Our campaign is all from the adult point of view … that’s where you come in, Titans. Here’s Harrison, a typical American town—but with a high number of drop-outs! We want you to go there, study the situation, talk to the kids, give us the teen slant—the inside angle—so our campaign will have a better chance of success! Will you go? ROBIN: You bet we will, sir! And so the Teen Titans head to Harrison and discover that a local hoodlum (and high school drop-out) called Ding-Dong Daddy has been encouraging the local adolescents to forget education and join his gang. The Titans teach the boys and girls that Ding-Dong is just using them and the kids all agree to return to school. “We’d better all get back to school, too,” Kid Flash quips, “or they’ll pin the drop-out tag on the Teen Titans!” Thus would end a typical writer Bob Haney/editor George Kashdan issue of Teen Titans, with the teenagers and adults realizing how silly their conflict was and resolving their differences thanks to the aid of the Teen Titans. Despite the use of “hip” and “mod” slang like “squaresville,” “Daddy-o,” and “Wonder Doll,” the morals of these stories were ones of conformity and conservatism. These tales felt like they belonged more in the clean-cut 1950s rather than the radical 1960s! Quick history lesson: Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash first teamed up in The Brave and the Bold (B&B) #54 in 1964, made their formal debut as “the Teen Titans” (joined by teammate Wonder Girl) in B&B #60 in 1965, and were awarded their own bimonthly series in 1966. These were troublesome times in the real world: The United States had recently been rocked by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Space Race was heating up the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining steam, and President Lyndon Johnson was escalating the number of US troops in Vietnam. This was a period of great change in American society, with high school and college students at the center of many conflicts, and Haney and Kashdan were a decade out of step.

MEANWHILE, HERE COMES DICK GIORDANO

Hip To Be Square Dig this crazy detail from the cover of Showcase #59, the Titans’ third appearance. While the surfing craze was the rage when this was published in 1965, writer Bob Haney’s teen slang was a decade behind the times. Art by Nick Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

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In 1968, two important things were happening in DC Comics’ offices: Management wanted DC to be more competitive with the rising popularity of Marvel Comics and was seeking “young gun” writers to bring in new ideas. At the same time, many of the current, established group of freelance writers in the DC stable were negotiating for a pay raise and possibly a shot at creator rights or health benefits. This movement fell apart as management remained firm in its stance and, amidst the fallout, editor George Kashdan was fired and Bob Haney lost many of his writing assignments—including Teen Titans. Enter Dick Giordano (inset). Giordano had been an editor at rival Charlton Comics, and was responsible for recruiting many fresh new faces into the industry during his stay there. With the help of Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano was hired by DC and given Teen Titans as one of his new editing assignments.

Unlike the other titles Giordano inherited at DC, Teen Titans did not see an immediate change in writer and artist. “As I understood it,” Giordano explains, “George Kashdan was informed that I was replacing him on the Friday before I was to start on Monday. I didn’t know I was replacing him until I got there! He had a finished issue on the shelf, a script in the hands of Nick Cardy, and a script being written by, I believe, Bob Haney. I had to see those issues through to production without really being fully involved in their creation. I was merely the overseer of George’s efforts but officially the editor of record for those three issues” [Teen Titans #15–17, the first to carry Giordano’s credit]. While these three issues were being completed, Giordano had time to shop around for his new creative team. “I was told by the executives that Bob Haney was part of the problem and so I didn’t keep him on Teen Titans,” Giordano says. “I did want to continue the look of the book and Nick did some great work on TT, including some to-die-for covers!!” So Cardy stayed and Haney was out— but who would replace Haney? Giordano decided to give newcomers Len Wein and Marv Wolfman a shot at the big time. Marv Wolfman recalls, “We were both starting to make a name in the business. After doing some other mystery stories for Dick and Joe [Orlando], Dick asked if we’d be interested in doing a Titans story. We jumped at the chance.” Wein and Wolfman’s first outing, Teen Titans #18 (Nov.–Dec. 1968), while nothing radical, still had a political edge as the attitudes of Kid Flash and guest star Russian hero Firestar (now known as Red Star) held their own “cold war” during their search for international jewel thief Andre Le Blanc in Stockholm, Sweden. Other than the moral of not judging a person based on stereotypes of their nationality, the only thing that stands out about this issue is that it features neither pencils nor inks by Nick Cardy, but art instead provided by Bill Draut. Writer Mike Friedrich stepped in along with penciler Gil Kane and inker Wally Wood to provide Teen Titans #19, “Stepping Stones for a Giant Killer.” This tale stands out as the true transition from the Haney/Kashdan days to the shake-up of the Giordano tenure. Speedy joins the team while Punch, a teenage supervillain-sidekick wannabe, tries to impress JLA-foe Headmaster Mind by taking out the Titans. At last, the Titans were starting to reflect the real world. This time, when the heroes visit a campus, they find unrest as a group of students attack a young man simply because he is Jewish. While it turns out that the violence was instigated by Punch, it still acknowledges the existence of prejudice and the tension that could easily be ignited on American college campuses. Additionally, continuity in other DC titles was maintained as Aqualad resigned to help Aquaman search for his kidnapped wife Mera in that series.

weren’t going to publish it. I know that at least part of the reason was that I had given the writing assignment to Len and Marv and he didn’t believe they were ready for prime time. Neal Adams (inset) took the story, rewrote it overnight, salvaging some of the Nick Cardy pages, and penciled the balance, having Nick ink it to retain the look of the book. He turned it into a multi-part story and the credits indicate that the creative team remained constant for the three issues with some additional help on the third issue, I believe. Neal saved me by taking on the responsibility but more importantly he helped save Len and Marv’s fragile reputations at the time.” Yup, it was the controversial “Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho” story in Teen Titans #20 (Mar.–Apr. 1969). The original tale as envisioned by Wein, Wolfman, and Cardy (who drew the entire tale, reportedly doing one of the greatest works of his career), was extremely different from what finally saw print. Wein and Wolfman had written a story about unrest in an inner-city African-American community where a hero named “Joshua” tries to prevent a riot with the help of the Teen Titans. As the inner-city youth had been manipulated by a crime syndicate, the story would have continued into the next issue, but publisher Carmine Infantino ordered Giordano to remove Wein and Wolfman from the book.

THROWING A FIT But why was it necessary for Friedrich to fill in for Wein and Wolfman? Were the rookies not yet up to the task of writing a bimonthly title? According to Giordano, it wasn’t really Wein and Wolfman’s fault. “The problem started with [the story that would become] issue #20,” Giordano remembers. “Len and Marv wrote it and Nick did the art chores ... and Carmine [Infantino] rejected the entire issue with only a small window of time to turn the book in! I don’t recall the reason that Carmine rejected it, but just before closing time he tossed the finished pages on my desk and said we

Cold War, Cold Reception Original art page to Len Wein and Marv Wolfman’s freshman Teen Titans outing, from issue #18 (Nov.–Dec. 1968). Little did anyone know that these nascent (and thenproblematic) wordsmiths would later, as editor and scribe, revitalize the Titans. Art by Bill Draut. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

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Marv Wolfman was highly disappointed, not just in losing his job, but because he and his partner hoped to try something new with the Titans. “We were supposed to take it over full-time,” says Wolfman about his brief time on the Teen Titans. “We had rough ideas, such as the Russian character and the black hero, but nothing much beyond that. Had we stayed on we would have worked up more ideas. We were kids of the ’60s and interested in what was going on at the time. So we wanted to push the book into the present. Also, remember, we read Marvel and not just DC and they were handled much more realistically than DC books at the time. We wanted to inject some of that into the Titans. I doubt everything we did would have been political, but they would have been more contemporary.” When asked why the story was rejected, Wolfman replies, “Depends on who you ask. Some say because Joshua was black. Others say because the story wasn’t good. I’m not sure except that when Neal Adams said he’d rewrite it so it would be better, the rewrite was turned down. As I was not privy to the conversations or there when the decisions were made, who knows?” Giordano has his own theory: “I can’t tell you what was going on in Carmine’s mind at that time. I know he said that he had problems with the story on ‘Jericho’ and he wasn’t happy with my using ‘the kids running up and down the hall looking for work’—but that is how I work to get new talent in the door.” Artist Neal Adams, who, alongside writer Denny O’Neil, co-created many a controversial tale during his run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, tells a different story as to why the “Jericho” story was nixed. “Looking back at that time from today,” Adams reports, “has disadvantages perception-wise. One thinks the times were about the same. Not so. This was a time of great upheaval in this country. Things were changing week by week, month by month. By the time

we did the John Stewart Green Lantern, Denny and I had introduced the idea of relevant comics to DC. When we did, the truth is we sort of snuck them in casually and inoffensively. The powers-that-be weren’t even aware of what we were doing. They found out because the media got wind of it and it was the talk of the smarter fans. “Even so, we were not really controversial at first. Then the interviews and articles began to appear. DC was the talk of the town. Had it gone the other way, I’m sure we would have been stomped in a trice. Truth is that DC got more publicity for that series of books than they ever had since Congress attacked comics in the early ’50s. [In GL/GA,] we knocked out the Comics Code; we attacked Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. Near the end, when I asked to do a black Green Lantern, I had earned my chops. They let me do it. “‘Jericho’ happened at a time when DC was not, not about to rock any boats. The thought of doing what Denny and I would do a couple of years hence would have terrified them. DC had experimented with black characters before. The incredible Bob Kanigher and Joe Kubert did several stories about a black boxer, Jackie Johnson (I believe). He was DC’s first real black character of note for us fans. Jericho should have been an easy sell. No one, I repeat, no one was against a black character, even a black superhero. Why not? It wasn’t a surprise, by then. “What was a surprise, however, was a militant black superhero and a Black Panther-type of organization running rampant [in ‘Jericho’]. You, likely, weren’t alive then, and you don’t understand, and couldn’t understand, the irrational fear and concern that was generated against this militant group in America. It was a Black Panther story and nothing less. And at a time when the full force of the government was arrayed against the Black Panthers. And no, the name Black Panther was never used, but no one who read the script had any doubts. What other black paramilitary group was there in America than the Black Panthers? “I can tell you categorically that no one at DC would have had any trouble with a black superhero. Everyone looked forward to it. They thought the boys were doing a good thing—until they read it. “Nick Cardy had drawn a number of pages. It was beautiful work. The day that I walked in to DC—the day when DC’s staff had finally seen Nick’s pages and read the strip—the air was dense with tension. One never gets used to that feeling. People looked sideways at me out of their eyes as if gauging whether I was ‘in on the conspiracy,’— or was I the secret head of the conspiracy, or simply a dupe like them? Murray Boltinoff was bewildered. Sol, Carmine, Eddie Eisenberg, and others were fuming. “I was thinking, ‘Did Nick do something wrong?’ He was of the ‘old school.’ Did he draw black characters in an insulting way? I was shown the pages—no, Nick had done his job well. You could argue pro or con on a face or two. Were they ‘too black’? I was getting paranoid. Then I noticed the bad guys—or were they just ‘angry’ guys wearing berets? ‘Didn’t,’ I thought, ‘the black Panthers wear berets?’ “That’s when it hit the fan. “Two hours later, I had pages and balloons read to me. It was inflammatory, I was told. ‘An outrage! We could never print this kind of madness.’ “So I read it. I was stunned. The boys had done it. They had leap-frogged over ‘seeking equality’ into militancy. Yow! “And they had nailed it, dead on. Years later this would be Spike Lee’s dialogue—but then…! “Of course, Len and Marv had gone right to the kernel of story. They had introduced a ‘Black Panther’-type of organization and the reason that it existed was justifiably attractive. And it was presented right down to the berets. In the real world, the Federal Government was hunting down the Black Panthers as practically enemies of the State.

“And the soldiers did march”… You’d never guess by looking at Nick Cardy’s stunning cover to TT #20 that this issue’s contents were controversial. TM & © DC Comics.

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“The book couldn’t happen. The decision was made. A rewrite? No! A revise, for the sake of using as many pages of Nick Cardy’s work as possible? “No, they couldn’t trust the boys. This proved it. They should have known, and, it was likely true, they did know, and that’s why nothing was said. “Was it about the Black Panthers? Is there a question? Look for berets. “The rest, as they say, is history.” Adams came to the rescue, salvaging as much of the original art and story as he could. He converted Joshua and all the African-American characters into white boys, changed the manipulators into extra-dimensional aliens (seen previously in Teen Titans #16), introduced Hawk and Dove to the Teen Titans (possibly to help boost sales of their own book), and extended the plot into three issues. Giordano even managed to sneak in a short feature by Marv Wolfman in #22 that told the origin of Wonder Girl and introduced her new costume. Bob Haney returned for two more issues, with Giordano calling in writer Robert Kanigher for Teen Titans #25–27.

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN By using Robert Kanigher, Dick Giordano was finally able to start instituting some real change in the series. After all, Infantino could not object to such an established, respected, and longtime editor/writer as Robert Kanigher. Besides, as Giordano recalls, “Carmine ordered the elimination of their [the Teen Titans’] powers and costumes as part of an effort to move toward stories of relevancy. Even our romance books featured stories of social workers and women who had a social conscience. I think the idea was only to treat them as normal human beings and expose them to the same uncertainties and doubts that regular vulnerable human beings had. I don’t think radical storylines were to be part of the package. We just made the heroes more vulnerable ... to make them more like ‘other folk.’ Probably didn’t work very well ... it only lasted a short time.” Just as Kanigher had improved Wonder Woman a year and a half earlier by removing her costume and superpowers, he was hired to do the same in Teen Titans. With the Titans, Kanigher focused on a theme of responsibility versus recklessness. Kanigher was writing Teen Titans #25 in 1969, and the news was filled with headlines of civil disobedience ranging from peaceful sit-ins to violent bombings. The plot of “To Kill a Saint” reflected much of the pain the country was feeling from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. When Dr. Arthur Swenson, Nobel Peace Prize-winner, speaks at a peace rally in Titans #25, angry protesters create bedlam. The Titans, joined by Hawk and Dove, try to stop the protesters by using their fists, while Dr. Swenson cries for everyone to stop fighting. A gun is drawn, and Speedy, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Hawk all have a hand on the gunman when the gun goes off—and the bullet kills Dr. Swenson. The Justice League confront the Titans, calling their actions brash and irresponsible. Robin resigns from the team, but the rest of them agree to discard their costumes and vow not to use their powers again until they have completed training with the mysterious Mr. Jupiter. Joined by the precognitive Lilith (already one of Mr. Jupiter’s students), the remaining Titans begin their education in Mr. Jupiter’s version of a police academy. In the next issue, Kanigher added Mal Duncan, an African-American youth trying to survive in a rough neighborhood. While the story is not as intense as Wein and Wolfman’s “Jericho” tale, it does bear many similarities. Mal’s neighborhood is terrorized by a gang of white hoodlums, the Titans interact socially with many African-Americans (including a scene of an interracial baseball game in the neighborhood, and Mal is shown beating a white bully, both on the street and in the boxing ring. So why was Mal acceptable while Joshua was not? Wouldn’t Mal have offended some distributors? How did this story get past Infantino? According to Giordano, “Carmine most likely didn’t read the Kanigher story.” Not only does that explain “Penny for a Black Star” in Teen Titans #26, but it also explains how an even more controversial moment slipped into print in the end of that story. In the setup for the next issue, Giordano tells of “a scene where Lilith kissed Mal on the cheek to wish him well before he took off on a dangerous mission, [which] created a firestorm in the office where I was told that the Southern distributors would have a fit when the scene was published. Lilith was white and Mal black. We colored the whole sequence as a night scene in tones of blue. I was color blind so it never occurred to me. I saw them only as teammates. After publication, I received several death threats all postmarked from Southern states. The police were notified and we never heard (or saw) anything more about it.” Amazing. Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. kissed each other in December 1967 on primetime television in the musical/variety special Movin’ with Nancy. Eleven months later, the Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” (first broadcast on November 22, 1968)

BACK ISSUE SING-A-LONG by John Schwirian

Many readers are confused by the title for Teen Titans #20, “The Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho.” Was “fit” a misprint for the word “fight”? Actually, the word “fit” was intentional. “It comes from the well-known spiritual, ‘Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,’” writer Marv Wolfman explains. “It’s fit, not fight.” Also, despite many arguments among fans otherwise, there is no connection between the Titans’ “Jericho” story and the Bible story. “The hero’s name is Joshua,” said Wolfman, “That’s all. That, and we were breaking down walls by introducing a black hero.” “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho” (Traditional American Gospel Tune) And the soldiers did march, and the trumpets did blow, and the people did SHOUT, do you know who tore the wall down, down, down, down. Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and the walls came a tumbalin’ down, down, down, down. You may talk about your men of Gideon, you may talk about your men of Saul, but there’s none like good old Josh-a-ua, at the battle of Jericho, that morning; Joshua rose early in the morning, that is when the trumpets blew, they marched around the city, at the battle of Jericho. Right up to the walls of Jericho, he marched with spear in hand, Joshua commanded the children to SHOUT, and the walls came a tumbalin’ down, down, down, down; Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, the trumpets they did blow, so, Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and the walls came a tumbalin’ down. Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, now you know, Jericho, Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and the walls came a tumbalin’ down. Now you know who tore the wall down, now you know who tore the wall down, down, down, Joshua! (in a whisper)

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featured an interracial kiss (although depicted as involuntary) between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura. The ice had been broken! This issue hit the stands in late 1969 (cover-dated Mar.–Apr. 1970) and DC still feared the repercussions of interracial relations?

THE TITANS GO SKEAT-ING Kanigher lasted only three issues. Giordano states that up until this point, the frequent “writer rotation was me trying to find just the right writer for the series and one that was a good mix for Nick Cardy’s art and to maintain the sales level we were at.” He found that in Steve Skeates, a writer he had worked with extensively during his time at Charlton Comics and with whom he had produced the acclaimed “Search for Mera” storyline in Aquaman, as well as working together on Hawk and Dove. With the cancellation of Hawk and Dove, Skeates was available and so Giordano offered Teen Titans to his old friend. Skeates started his run off by immediately addressing something he saw as a huge problem (and evidently many fans agreed)—the Titans’ vow not to use their powers or costumes. “Perfect timing, or so I thought!” an excited Skeates explains. “That is to say, beyond (back in 1969) being overjoyed … to be invited to climb aboard the Teen Titans saga, to be assigned to assume the position of that series’ regular writer, at the precise moment when my particular (perhaps even peculiar) ‘take’ on writing comics fit what had already been set into motion. Giordano and Kanigher had set the ball to rolling in a highly exciting and definitely controversial manner, setting the stage for the necessity of some certain yet-to-benamed character (once again someone assuming a position) taking up the cause loudly espoused by those readers who vehemently objected to the vow the Titans had taken. It had to be someone who knew something about the Titans, and thus the choice became quite obvious, seeing as there was one actual member of the Titans who at the time in question had been occupied elsewhere, missing out on all the action surrounding that hot potato that they called a vow; furthermore, this was a character I was quite used to writing for! Of course, I’m speaking of the star of Teen Titans #28–29, none other than Aqualad!” Yes, Skeates expressed his feelings to the readers through Aqualad’s eyes. Initially, the tale is told from Aqualad’s point of view, showing the confusion over the abandonment of the Titans’ familiar headquarters, over the absence of Robin from the team, and the disappointment (heck, even anger) over the lack of costumed heroics! In order to make his point, Skeates takes two issues and uses the entire Titans’ roster. Robin, in costume, leads Aqualad to Mr. Jupiter’s academy, where Aqualad explains his dilemma. In a crossover to the current Aquaman story, the villain Ocean Master is helping aliens take over Earth. The team tries to help the Sea Teen, only to discover that they are of no use in this situation without using their powers. So they don their uniforms, save the day, and still refuse to give up their vow. As Aqualad says at the end of

Doffed Threads and Death Threats (top) As the Cardy cover to Teen Titans #26 (Mar.–Apr. 1970) shows, the kids gave up their costumes. (bottom) Lilith’s innocent embrace of Mal in that same issue sparked “a firestorm” for editor Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.

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the tale, “I can see that you’ve learned something from this adventure, but the way I see it, you haven’t learned enough!” Aside from the vow, Skeates felt there were other difficulties that arose during this two-parter. “So, what was the problem here?” Skeates queries. “Certainly I had already had a veritable vast array of disagreements with Dick concerning the Hawk and the Dove, but that was due mainly to political points of view. What I’d term as Dick’s ‘mishandling’ of the Dove was evident even within this Titans tale—still, that was hardly the main problem! “One or the other of us (or perhaps both) were not up to, not that adept at, handling such a huge cast of characters. Dick wanted to get them all in there pretty much all the time (not exactly every character in every panel of every story, yet way too close to that for my comfort) and with lots of action, too. I was more into concentrating on but a few of the characters, thus getting more deeply into the personalities of whichever ones I’d chosen, and therefore I saw Dick’s approach to these teens as being way too superficial. “I do believe Dick saw the audience for the Titans as being younger than our Aquaman fans, which to him meant they weren’t as into the seemingly more ‘cerebral’ approach that we’d used for the Sea King, [so] Dick was very much into yanking out anything of any depth I’d do and replacing it with a fight scene!” Therefore, for the duration of his stay on the Teen Titans, Skeates would split the issue into several short stories instead of a “book-length” epic. This way, he could focus on fewer characters and concentrate more on dramatic storytelling by giving the readers a multitude of tales. “If you can even call three a multitude,” Skeates chuckles, “that’s exactly story-wise what I was shooting for here—an abundance of adventures (one’s money’s worth, as that guy down the street might say) rather than but a single too-often-too-obviously-strungout-nearly-to-the-breaking-point (and padded beyond even what should happen to the walls of the room wherein lives anyone who actually likes this sort of fluff), one-note, overblown, book-long (or even longer) pseudo-story, certainly at its worst more or less of an aberration back there in the late ’60s and early ’70s, yet soon to somehow transmogrify into the mainstay of the mainstream, as well as these days apparently all that this industry knows how to produce. “On the flip side, however,” Skeates continues, “there was diversity, variety, or, to be more specific, [each] comic kicked off with a 13-page Teen Titans tale with the team pared down to its essential five-character core (Kid Flash, Speedy, Lilith, Mal, and Wonder Girl), a considerably more manageable throng than that which had cavorted all over the place within [Teen Titans #28–29]’s nine-hero extravaganza. My overall plan here being to initiate alternating backup stories, Aqualad in one issue, the Hawk and the Dove in the next, and so on and so forth.” And this concept helped to solve the costume dilemma. The Titans in costume on the cover sold the book, but they weren’t supposed to wear those outfits in the actual stories. Giordano had to get creative to get around this quandary. Skeates tries to clarify: “The 31st issue of Teen Titans—personally, this is my second-favorite ish (overshadowed only by the ish that came before!)—had the Titans changing into their old costumes and then a few panels later changing back, which seems particularly silly, but Dick wanted some excuse for having the Titans in their costumes on the cover! This, as you may have just now noticed, tends to suggest that the only reason Aqualad ended up with sole possession of the cover of issue #30 (Nov.–Dec. 1970) is that the other Titans never appeared in costume within their story therein!” The short-story approach also lent itself well to reflecting contemporary ideology—including corporate greed, bigotry, and even the generation gap. “To Order is to Destroy” in Teen Titans #31

remains relevant even today. The basic concept: A university psychologist, fearing the recent (1970) violence on college campuses, has developed a machine to brainwash the students into blindly following his commands. Upon his arrest at story’s end, the madman cries, “You’re fools! There’s going to be riots on this campus! Many riots! You let these kids control their own destiny, and they’ll burn this place to the ground! Wait and see!” But the true point of the story is stated a few panels later by Speedy: “Sure, Johnny fought against the computer circuits, but what about all those other students? Is the will of the majority really that weak? Is it really that easily subverted?” In an eerie manner, Skeates realizes that “in my opinion, ‘To Order is to Destroy’ just keeps getting better and better with the passage of time, thanks to the insane directions our country seems to be going in and how such as that can’t help but make this tale seem more and more believable!”

EDITORIAL SHIFT Coincidentally, just as readers were happily adjusting to the new approach, change struck. Dick Giordano resigned as an editor at DC Comics to go into business with his friend Neal Adams. With Giordano gone, many of the writers he fostered lost their assignments and found themselves begging for work. Skeates was one of these unfortunates as Infantino canceled Aquaman and pulled him from Teen Titans—in the middle of a script! Teen Titans #32 starts with Kid Flash and Mal having traveled through time and accidentally changing the future by having caused the death of a caveman [Gnaark] in the past. Realizing their mistake, they must confront a medieval realm with the Justice Knights in place of the Justice League before they can go back and fix their error. In the next issue, they not only go back in time and save the caveman from death, but they

No Longer a Fish Out of Water Writer Steve Skeates used the often-ill-fitting teammate Aqualad as the lens through which he observed how the Titans series had strayed from its roots. Cover to TT #28 by Nick Cardy. TM & © DC Comics.

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It’s Ladies’ Night Writer Bob Rozakis allowed more girls to join the predominantly boys’ club: (left) Duela Dent, a.k.a. the Joker’s Daughter and/or the Harlequin, plays “Who’s Your Daddy?” with the terrifying Two-Face on the Rich Buckler/Jack Abel cover to Teen Titans #48 (June 1977); while Karen Beecher, a.k.a. Bumblebee, buzzes in the background of the cover to issue #49 (by the same art team).

bring him back to their time with them!! Now, wouldn’t that alter the timeline just as much as killing him did? How could a script turn out so bad? According to Skeates, “the answer is Murray Boltinoff and Bob Haney! Once Murray took over Titans from Dick, he threw out the last seven pages of my script for this issue, and he and Haney came up with a new ending! That these two individuals would construct a tale that made absolutely no sense was hardly anything new!” And thus there was a changing of the guard, pretty much right back to where the Teen Titans had started. Bob Haney was still writing down to what he believed to be the only people reading comic books—14-year-old boys. Still, his tales were significantly different than the previous run. All 11 issues of Teen Titans he wrote from #33 to cancellation with #43 had some kind of kooky magical angle to it. Maybe he was influenced by the Saturday morning television cartoons of the time and produced Scooby-Doo-type mysteries. Additionally, Haney quickly ignored the vow the Titans had taken and returned them to their costumes with no explanation. Steve Skeates managed to get one last shot at the Titans, and used it to take a dig at Bob Haney. In World’s Finest Comics #205 (Sept. 1971), Skeates had the Titans fall under the spell of Richard Handley and settle down in the town of Handleyville that was still stuck with Jim Crow attitudes. Handley is a jab at Haney, with the first punch being thrown on the very first page with the caption “Note! If within the following pages, you see a subtle change in the attitudes and actions of the Teen Titans—don’t phone! Don’t write in!” Of course, Skeates is referring to the change in writers on Teen Titans. In response, Haney called Skeates a crybaby. Interestingly enough, right after Skeates’ World’s Finest story appeared, Green Arrow/Green Lantern #85 hit the stands, revealing Speedy to be hooked

TM & © DC Comics.

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on heroin. Haney and Boltinoff never acknowledged it in the pages of the Teen Titans, but it was an event that rocked the fans in 1971 and continues to have reverberations today! At any rate, the Teen Titans series was canceled in 1973, with the characters wandering around in a fantasy world. The team apparently broke up, with the individual members all going their separate ways.

THE TITANS REVIVAL Three years passed. Carmine Infantino had taken up penciling again, at rival Marvel Comics. Jenette Kahn was the new head honcho at DC. Kahn wasted no time in canceling series she felt were unsuccessful and looked to bring back classic series from the past. Teen Titans would be one such title. Initially, the writing chores were assigned to Paul Levitz, but before the first issue was completed, Levitz had moved on to other series. Enter Bob Rozakis. By 1976, like DC, America too had undergone great change. The country wanted to forget the controversies of Vietnam and Watergate. The focus had changed from civil disobedience to social integration. Emphasis was now placed on desegregation and Women’s Liberation. The Bicentennial came at a time when Americans wanted to party, to focus on recreation and self-indulgence. Social activism had given way to escapism and the generation that changed America had given way to the “Me generation.” While primarily unintentional, Teen Titans under Bob Rozakis clearly reflected this attitude. With an emphasis on fun, entertaining stories, Rozakis moved the Titans into the fad-driven ’70s with traditional superheroics mixed with topical references. Initially, the team consisted only of Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Speedy, Aqualad, and Mal, with Lilith, Gnaark the caveman, Hawk, and Dove nowhere to be seen.

Rozakis explaines the new setup: “The market for superheroes, particularly teams, was growing again so the thought was, ‘Why not bring [the Teen Titans] back?’” As to the team roster: “We were going for ‘brand recognition.’ The original team was the group older readers would expect to see and the one new readers would recognize. We certainly followed the continuity of the original series as best we could, but I tried to keep the characters more in line with the rest of the DC Universe than they were the first time around.” Teen Titans returned with issue #44, cover-dated Nov. 1976. Part of the effort to keep the Titans “in line with the rest of the DC Universe” included having the young heroes face more familiar super-foes like Dr. Light, the Fiddler, and Two-Face rather than helping teens in trouble or battling off-the-wall villains like DingDong Daddy and the Mad Mod. However, the Titans did wind up battling new opponents as well, as per editorial direction. Rozakis elaborates, editor “Julie Schwartz had an unwritten rule that if you used an established villain in one issue you had to come up with a new one in the next, so Captain Calamity, the Rocket-Rollers, and the ‘twin villains’ made their debuts. Also, I preferred using villains I created (or old ones that no one else was using) because I had control of their continuity.” And it was through these newly created characters that Rozakis stamped the flavor of the ’70s on the series. The plots often featured then-hot concepts like skateboarding (the Rocket-Rollers) and disaster films (Captain Calamity). The Teen Titans moved out of their old cave hangout and set up quarters in Gabriel’s Horn, a discotheque financed by Bruce Wayne, which booked performances by the band Great Frog, with Roy (Speedy) Harper on drums and Mal Duncan on horn. “They were teenagers,” says Rozakis, “so why shouldn’t they be involved in things that teens of the time were doing?” Teen Titans #46 even went so far as to make a topical pun as the Titans exposed rockers Peter and Laura McCarthy of the Flyers as also being folk singers Ricky and Cathy Woodworker (a poke at popular bands Paul McCartney and Wings and the Carpenters). The addition of Karen Beecher, a.k.a. Bumblebee, to the team added a new dimension to the series. Not only was she female, but she was also African-American, a whiz with technology, and capable of holding her own in fight. Whether intended to or not, the inclusion of Bumblebee reflected Affirmative Action and the Equal Rights movement, both major issues facing the country at the time. “The Bumblebee was my creation,” Rozakis proclaims proudly. “I had introduced Karen as a girlfriend for Mal, so we wanted to keep the new member ‘in the family.’ “There’s an amusing story about her name,” Rozakis continues. “Len Wein told Julie [Schwartz] that we should name her the Black Bee (following the odd idea of the time that all African-American heroes and villains needed to have ‘Black’ in their names, i.e., Black Lightning, Black Goliath) because he thought bumblebees were ‘too cuddly.’ I told Len he was the only person I’d ever met who thought bumblebees were cuddly and convinced Julie to keep the original name.” Rozakis also brought in another female character—the Joker’s Daughter (Duela Dent), who had been baffling Robin in Batman Family. “After Julie Schwartz and I decided that Duela would be a hero instead of a villain,” explains Rozakis, “the logical place for her was among the Teen Titans. I had plans to set up a romantic triangle with Robin, Duela, and [the original] Bat-Girl had the series continued.” While overall, the Teen Titans revival was far from spectacular, it did have two highpoints—which strangely occurred in the last two plots of the series. The first was the introduction of a second Titans

team, Titans West, in Teen Titans #50–52. The new team consisted of Beast Boy, Bat-Girl, Hawk and Dove, Golden Eagle, and Lilith—all of whom were then located on the west coast. The story took three issues to tell, and Rozakis had long-reaching plans that, unfortunately, would not be realized due to cancellation one issue later. Had the series not been pulled from the schedule, Rozakis reveals, “My plans were to establish two teams and switch back and forth between them, with occasional cross-country team-ups. Bat-Girl was going to come east (to set up the romantic triangle I mentioned earlier). Speedy and Wonder Girl were going to go west and Kid Flash was going to be in both groups since he could run back and forth whenever he wanted to.” But upon the completion of the Titans West mini-epic, word came down of the series’ cancellation, leaving Rozakis with one last issue to fill. Thus, Teen Titans #53 (Feb. 1978) wound up being the most significant in the revival’s ten-issue run as it gave the Teen Titans a new origin story. “It wasn’t a new origin,” Rozakis clarifies, “it was the origin. There hadn’t been a story explaining how they went from the meeting of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad in Brave and the Bold #54 to being the Teen Titans in B&B #60.” Rozakis’ telling of how the sidekicks saved the JLA from the mysterious entity called the Antithesis became a classic and still holds up unaltered today, as evidenced by the 2008 miniseries Teen Titans: Year One. Regarding said miniseries, Rozakis comments, “I find it amusing, by the way, that what I did in 17 pages in 1977 took a six-issue miniseries this year to retell.” Following the origin story in #53, Teen Titans got the ax, expiring shortly before the highly touted arrival of the DC Explosion (need I remind you of how that turned out?)!

THE NEW TEEN TITANS Several more years passed, with the Titans mostly remaining in limbo, outside of a Batman team-up in B&B #149 (Apr. 1979). The majority of the Baby Boomers—fans of the original Teen Titans—were now settled into careers and raising families, having become the authority they once marched against and now facing a world that was more complex than they ever imagined in their youth. Their children, who would eventually be labeled Generation X, grew up in a world where technology changed rapidly. Mass media heavily influenced their view of the world, and the generation gap seemed to grow wider. Parents who grew up with three major television networks, played their music on vinyl LPs and 45s, and maybe played Space Invaders or Pac Man a few times at the drugstore, had children who had home theater systems with VCRs, cable networks, and Nintendo. The home computer and the Internet were lurking just over the horizon… As the world changed, parents dreamed of a great future for their children, but the kids had dreams of their own. Communication problems between parents and children have always been and always will be, but they seemed intensified in the rapidly changing America of the ’80s, and The New Teen Titans would come to reflect this.

Titans West Detail from the Buckler/Abel cover of Teen Titans #50 (Oct. 1977), introducing a second Titans team for which writer Rozakis had high hopes. TM & © DC Comics.

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Big changes were happening in the comic-book industry as well. Jim Shooter became editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics and instituted new policies in operations. This benefited DC, as Jenette Kahn was able to recruit many talented professionals who were disgruntled with the changes at Marvel. Among these new recruits were writer Marv Wolfman, artist George Pérez, and editor Len Wein. Pérez arrived hoping to do the art for Justice League of America (which was not available at that point). Meanwhile, Wolfman faced similar disappointment with his first assignments. “When I came to DC,” Wolfman tells BACK ISSUE, “I had asked for no team-up books as I had written Marvel Two-in-One for years, but I was assigned Brave and Bold and World’s Finest, so I wanted out. I got onto Superman [in Action Comics] but needed to create my own title for the second. I had written a few Titans stories in the ’60s and loved the title and thought I could do a much better job with all new characters.” Now came the problem of convincing Jenette Kahn to do another relaunch of the Teen Titans. “Jenette was not really interested in a new Titans,” Wolfman remembers, “since the last one was not to her liking and, on top of that, it didn’t sell. But I went into her office with Len Wein, who would become the editor, and we basically said, ‘We’ll do it better.’ She accepted that and gave the okay. I think it was based on our record; she was a huge Tomb of Dracula fan and had liked my Amazing Spider-Man as well, and I guess us coming in that way gave her the confidence to say yes.” Wein was a vital ingredient in selling the series. As he had successfully rebooted the X-Men at Marvel from third-rate characters into a top-selling title, his ability to develop team dynamics spoke for itself. Meanwhile, looking for a series to draw, Pérez heard about Wolfman’s pitch and signed on as the artist. Wolfman looked at previous runs of the Teen Titans and threw out almost everything except for Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash. “I thought we needed to move DC into new ideas and out from the old,” Wolfman says. “Most of the Titans characters I didn’t use I actually disliked quite a bit and thought they were semi-useless (save a few which we did use from time to time that I liked). I also thought if I added in new characters I could build them from scratch to be interesting. To me, creating an interesting backstory is the most important thing one can do to flesh out a character. Also, and very importantly, it wouldn’t feel like a retread. I wanted it to be new. Lilith isn’t Raven. Raven’s backstory is very rich and could be used for decades. Lilith was a good character but I couldn’t move her in ways I thought important to make the book fresh.” Not only was Wolfman going to bring in a fresh cast, he had a fresh approach as well. Haney’s Titans worked to resolve differences between kids and grown-ups. Later writers focused on the Titans maturing from sidekicks into young adults. Wolfman planned to stress the conflicts between adolescents and adults. With this concept in mind and his new characters planned out, Wolfman sat down with editor Wein and artist Pérez to flesh out the details and direction of the series. “Long before I presented the Titans concept to DC,” Wolfman explains, “I had worked out all the characters in detail and the approach I had wanted to take and Len pretty much agreed with it. We had two points of disagreement, one major, one minor. The first was he felt DC needed a Doctor Strange character—a sorcerer who cast bolts, etc.—and wanted me to do one in the Titans. I refused because I didn’t want that kind of magical

Family Affair (top) The personal stories of the Titans—including Changeling’s (a.k.a. Beast Boy) history with the original Doom Patrol—helped make DC’s The New Teen Titans the company’s best seller (of course, George Pérez’s detail-packed art certainly didn’t hurt!). Original cover art to the cover of vol. 1, issue #15 (Jan. 1982), penciled by Pérez, inked by Romeo Tanghal, and contributed by Heritage. (bottom) Contributor Rob Kelly’s fantasy cover, using Pérez art, for a Teen Titans tabloid-sized edition makes us wish this were the real deal! TM & © DC Comics.

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character in the book as I was going for a very different feel. Also, I already had Starfire who cast bolts and Cyborg who fired sonic waves, and didn’t want anyone else whose powers shot out of their fingers in that fashion. Instead of doing what he asked for, I combined two characters I had previously created; an empath that was in Werewolf by Night (Topaz—I think was her name—had the ability to feel what others felt) with a character I had created as a teen called Gabriel and later on changed the name to Janus. That character was the son of the devil, Asmodeus, who would come to Earth to fight his father. I also used some of that concept in Tomb of Dracula in a similarly named Janus, but that character, though the son of Dracula, was actually an angel sent to fight his father. Since the Titans was about parents vs. their children, I combined those ideas, then came up with Azarath as an in-between viewpoint. Raven’s inner self was the darkness of Trigon and I felt that had to be tempered with the pacifistic cult of Azar, so Raven would be caught between two worlds, creating an eternal conflict. Raven’s peaceful upbringing was always at war with the darkness inside her and would make for endless storylines. So instead of doing a sorcerer with mystical powers, I presented Raven and Len accepted her without problem. “As for the second disagreement, it was over my use of bold words. Len and I tended to emphasize different words and we fought endlessly over that, but, as I say, that was minor. But as George and I tended to do our stories together, after the first issue or so Len saw the book after George drew it. You need to remember it was a very different time then. Back at Marvel the writers always sent their plots directly to the artists and the editors saw the work for the first time when it was finished. I wasn’t avoiding Len; I was just doing the book as I had been doing it at Marvel for the previous eight years. Also, back then, the editors rarely set tone or direction for the books; that was up to the creators. And Len was a good editor who trusted George and me to do the job the right way. And once George moved about five blocks from where I lived, he and I would get together and work out the detail of the stories together.”

While these conflicts drove the plots, what made the series work was the fact that the characters found a new family in each other. Even the villains fit this formula. Deathstroke the Terminator took on the Titans out of his need to fulfill his role as a father to his fallen son, the Ravager. The alien Gordanians pursued Starfire due to a contract made by her parents. Trigon sought to invade Earth through his daughter, Raven. Even Brother Blood had issues with his mother! New characters also grew out of this idea. Terra hated her parents so much that it twisted her into an evil, vengeful monster. Thunder and Lightning needed to find their father in order to survive. The new Vigilante arrived like the Punisher, seeking to avenge his murdered family by bringing criminals to justice his way. And Jericho—sweet, silent Jericho—joined the team to redeem the sins of his father and brother. Even the original Titans would be brought in under this umbrella. Speedy, feeling abandoned by Green Arrow, went into spy work for the government where he met up with and fathered a child with the assassin Cheshire. Lilith returned, discovering a connection to Wonder Girl when her mother was revealed to be Thia of the ancient Greek Titans. Kid Flash, there from the beginning, had a loving relationship with his parents and resented how being a superhero routinely disrupted his “normal” lifestyle. The most drastic change came when Batman replaced Dick Grayson with a new Robin—Jason Todd—forcing Dick to adopt a new identity: Nightwing! However, this resulted from more internal debates within DC rather than Wolfman feeling a need to update Robin. “What happened was,” according to Wolfman, “the Batman group wanted Robin back in their book and wanted him to be Batman’s young partner again. I wanted to keep Dick Grayson. I suggested they create a new Robin.

FAMILY TIES After bowing as a preview insert comic in DC Comics Presents #26 (Oct. 1980), The New Teen Titans spun off into its own title the following month, with a Nov. 1980 cover date. Something about The New Teen Titans resonated with the readers. Many argue that it was the Marvelesque feel to the book, or the awesome artwork of George Pérez, but the truth is that the series spoke to virtually everyone. As Wolfman says, New Teen Titans was about the conflicts between parents and their children. Whether it was Trigon trying to force his daughter Raven to join him in his evil conquests, or Cyborg hating his dad for turning him into a freak, or Starfire’s conflicted need to fulfill her royal duties to her parents on Tamaraan while yearning to be free and true to herself, dysfunctional families lay at the core of every Titans story. Even Robin, after dropping out of college, felt angry over his failure to please Batman. Still, not all of the characters were seeking to break away. Wonder Girl was searching for her family in order to make sense of her past; and Changeling desperately wanted to restore the family he lost when the Brotherhood of Evil killed the Doom Patrol.

The Titans Just Say “No” The TTs take it to the streets in this original page from the first of three New Teen Titans Drug Awareness giveaway comics produced in 1983. Art by George Pérez (who signed the page); photocopy courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyder.com). Ross Andru drew the second and Adrian Gonzales drew the third Titans Drug Awareness comic; Marv Wolfman wrote the first two and the story for the third; Joey Cavalieri scripted #3. TM & © DC Comics.

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They loved the idea because it would give them a great publicity angle and I’d be able to keep Dick Grayson and turn him into Nightwing. It was a win-win scenario for the Batman books as well as the Titans.” The New Teen Titans was a hit on a gigantic scale—beyond anything that anyone at DC ever anticipated. Following a successful miniseries spotlighting the origins of the new characters (Tales of the New Teen Titans #1–4), DC teamed up with the White House’s anti-drug campaign and produced three special issues to help spread President Reagan’s message on drug awareness. In 1984, the series changed titles with issue #41 to Tales of the Teen Titans and New Teen Titans relaunched with a new first issue in a deluxe specialty-store-only format. New Teen Titans had hit the top, competing with Marvel’s X-Men for comics’ fan-favorite title.

THE TITANS IN CRISIS Of course, there was a price to pay for this success. Marv Wolfman and George Pérez were top of the heap, so to speak, as New Teen Titans outsold everything DC was doing at the time. Therefore, Jenette Kahn was extremely open to a new idea from Wolfman that would eventually become Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis became the vehicle in which DC could “fix” its awkward continuity, give languishing characters a new start, and attract new readers to DC’s comics. With Wolfman and Pérez pouring everything they had into Crisis, Titans began to suffer as a result. The first sign of trouble came when DC changed the newsstand New Teen Titans into Tales of the Teen Titans and relaunched New Teen Titans with a new first issue as a

direct-sales-market book only, creating two Titans titles a month for one year. “The only problem was that writing two Titans a month,” sighs Wolfman, “was more than I could comfortably do and keep up any quality. I had the first year of the Titans title worked out so I knew where it was going and I knew I could write stories leading up to it. But I had already done fifty or so Titans stories by then and trying to do 24 more a year really hurt. Ultimately, it was a good idea but not a practical one, at least for me where I was at that time in my life.” Writing two Titans tales a month, combined with the stress of scripting the 12-issue epic Crisis, impacted Wolfman’s ability to maintain momentum on New Teen Titans. “I think after Crisis,” Wolfman elaborates, “I went into a writer’s block (for personal reasons) and also, after Crisis, it was simply hard for me to get past all the work that had to be done to get that book going. I was simply not in the right place to write the Titans, but as I still loved the characters, I didn’t quit. I should have and set it up that I could come back a year or so later when I felt refreshed. Crisis was so all-consuming and huge, I just didn’t have it in me to do a lot of superhero stuff and should have centered on smaller projects until my interest was rekindled.” The second sign of danger was the loss of George Pérez as the artist. While he was succeeded by the amazing José Luis García-López and later, Eduardo Barreto, no one could compensate for the loss of Pérez as a co-plotter. Pérez knew the characters in an intimate level that no other artist could replicate. He expressed characterization in body language, in movement, and in facial expressions. No matter how skilled the artist, no one could follow Pérez in this manner. “Obviously, it was a major loss,” Wolfman says regarding Pérez’s departure from the series. “But as I said, if I hadn’t gone into a writer’s block because of other stuff, I don’t think the book would have gone down a lot. I just couldn’t make it work and, until Tom Grummett later on, didn’t have a partner I could work with and easily talk to. George’s loss as I was in a writer’s block and as I finished Crisis and was superhero burned out was just too much all at once.” Wolfman may blame writer’s block for his difficulties in writing the Titans, but could the problem be that he had done his job too well? The book was successful because the characters changed and grew, and this made it difficult to remain true to the original concept. The Titans were growing up, becoming secure in their sense of self and identity. Wolfman tried to infuse new life by bringing in new characters like Azrael, Kole, and Danny Chase. Unfortunately, Kole and Azrael never had a chance to catch on, partly due to internal politics at DC. “Kole was created to die in the Crisis,” Wolfman admits. “The shame was I had really grown to like the character, who was physically based on a real person, by the way. But everyone had to give Crisis characters to kill and as the Crisis writer I couldn’t be an exception, so she had to die. I wish it hadn’t worked out that way. As for Azrael, I had intended to bring him back, but at some point Denny O’Neil asked me if he could use the Azrael name for a short while in Batman. As I hadn’t worked out my story yet I said yes, but then I was later informed I couldn’t use the name, and therefore the character, again. I wasn’t pleased.” Poor Danny Chase was hated by the fans—the same fans who still cried for the resurrection of the demented Terra also demanded the removal of Danny Chase from the team. When asked why, Wolfman responds, “I don’t know. I’m aware he was abrasive but he was good. Why Danny, who mouthed off but did good things, wasn’t accepted while people still love Terra, who was not only abrasive but pure evil,

Troubled Times Despite superlative art stints by José Luis García-López and Eduardo Barreto, New Teen Titans, by Marv Wolfman’s own admission, lost its footing during the mid-1980s. Seen here is García-López’s cover art to NTT vol. 2 #24 (Oct. 1986), courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

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There’s a New Kind of Titans Comin’! Redwing flies front and center (backed up by, left to right, Kilowat, Terra, Nightrider, and Mirage) on Kevin Maguire/Willie Blyberg’s original art to the Redwing variant cover of Team Titans #1 (Sept. 1992); courtesy of Heritage. Each Titan had a variant cover and edition (with his/her origin) of the premiere issue. TM & © DC Comics.

are some of the things I can’t explain. I actually thought of Danny as sort of a screwed-up Peter Parker-like character and therefore under it all should have been sympathetic. But everyone hated him.” Wolfman seemed unable to re-establish the internal conflict that once drove the team. With each new storyline, he resolved old conflicts, leaving little room for growth. With the second volume’s 50th issue, the word “Teen” was dropped from the title, changing to New Titans, and began the “Who is Wonder Girl?” storyline. This marked a major change in direction as it not only saw the return of George Pérez to the series, but it also tied in with Wolfman’s origin of Wonder Girl from the original Teen Titans #22 and “Who is Donna Troy?” from New Teen Titans vol. 1 #38. The characters were clearly adults now, and the teen angst was gone. Wonder Girl now knew who she was and was secure in her life as a wife (and soon to be mother). Cyborg had forgiven his father. Raven’s soul had been purged of Trigon’s influence. Changeling had reconnected with his stepdad. Starfire had fulfilled her royal duties and was free to return to Earth. Even Nightwing had resolved his identity crisis and helped Batman decide on Tim Drake as the newest Robin. Wolfman had taken his children as far as he could on his own. A new direction was needed.

DARK TITANS Enter editor Jonathan Peterson. In 1990, superheroes were dark, grim, and violent. Killing characters had become a quick gimmick to boost sales. Bringing in Tom Grummett to handle the art, Peterson proposed the “Titans Hunt.” Like Terra in “The Judas Contract,” the team would be betrayed by one of their own, only many Titans would die this time, new members would join, and Deathstroke would return as the Titans’ … ally?! “Actually, I never thought of Deathstroke as a villain or bad guy.” Wolfman says in justification of this decision. “I thought of him as someone who was put into a bad situation and couldn’t find a way out so he kept getting deeper and deeper into the hole he was digging around himself. I think one of the best Deathstroke stories was one I did in Titans called ‘Shades of Gray’ where he and Changeling go to a diner and just talk. I think that showed who Deathstroke was. I’m not comfortable with him being a mega-villain. As for how he acted after Terra—well, he was in the early process of redeeming himself. I think of Terra as the manipulator, not Deathstroke. She was his means of getting out of the HIVE quagmire he was in. He was her means at getting revenge against the world.” “Titans Hunt” sounded like a great idea at the time, but it never really came together. Wolfman explains the problems with the concept: “‘Titans Hunt’ came from Titans editor Jonathan Peterson, and I thought it was the first really good Titans idea in a long while. I wasn’t doing great work and probably should have left the series, but I loved writing the characters so much I didn’t realize that it was no longer creative. Jon had the ability to instill enthusiasm in the books he edited and I got excited about the Titans in a way I hadn’t been for awhile. Unfortunately, ‘Titans Hunt,’ which should have been a four-to-six-part story at most, was constantly being interrupted with company-wide crossovers which extended the story for a year or more.” Despite the launch of sister titles Deathstroke and Team Titans, the New Titans had fallen in sales. It still had a sound following, but it was no longer the top-selling series it once was. In what

appears to be an act of desperation, Wolfman had the major characters succumb to the evil implanted in them years ago by Trigon. Starting with Jericho, the Titans fell one-by-one—Wonder Girl, then Raven, Changeling, and Starfire. The internal dynamics that once drove the series were broken and unrepairable. “We were wrong” Wolfman apologizes. “The ideas were bad. I can’t excuse them or explain them. Major league screw-up. Mea culpa.” The quality continued to degrade until 1994 and the advent of another company-wide crossover, Zero Hour. “The Old Order Changeth” declared the cover of New Titans #114 (Sept. 1994), and the glory days had definitively come to an end. A new team was assembled the next issue, with virtually no connection to any of its predecessors. The series would last another two years, being canceled with issue #130. The magic was gone, and so too were the Teen Titans that had once captured the imagination of a generation. While the Teen Titans have enjoyed a revival in recent years, with an animated television series and a franchise of monthly DC titles to their credit, the Wolfman/Pérez Titans era remains, to many fans, the series’ zenith. By day, JOHN SCHWIRIAN is a mild-mannered high-school English/special ed teacher, but by night, he dons the role of comic-book historian. In addition to his passion for all things Teen Titans, he explores the sunken regions of the DC Universe in his selfpublished fanzine The Aquaman Chronicles.

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by Rob Kelly

Courtesy of Benjamin Holcomb. Teen Titans TM & © DC Comics.

MEGO TEEN TITANS

Contradictions. If one word could sum up the legendary Mego toy company, that would be it. Capable of producing breathtakingly cool plastic reproductions of kids’ favorite comic-book, movie, and TV characters, Mego just as quickly could make something so pathetically cheesy that Santa wouldn’t have dared leave it for you under the Christmas tree. And no Mego line is a better microcosm of those inherent contradictions than Teen Titans (TT). Produced in 1977, the Teen Titans line consisted of four figures— Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash, and Aqualad (Robin having been Mego-ized in 1972). Despite being established characters in the DC Universe, Mego chose not to brand the Titans with its massively popular World’s Greatest Super-Heroes (WGSH) label, and their packaging was different than the standard WGSH design, even though in trade ads they were sold alongside the WGSH line. Within the TT line itself, quality varies wildly. While Kid Flash, Speedy, and Aqualad are spitting images of their comic-book selves (and Speedy coming with a full complement of detailed accessories), Wonder Girl has the creepy, dead-eyed visage of a baby doll, something I doubt any young boy would’ve been caught dead buying. At least you could buy Batgirl or Supergirl because you had feelings for Babs or Kara that you were too young to understand, but Wonder Girl looks like she wants to help you whip up some brownies in your sister’s Easy-Bake Oven.

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Also, Teen Titans would become victims of Mego’s cost-cutting practices at the time. Mego used an inferior, cheaper plastic on them, causing “molting,” where the Caucasian skin tones eventually turn a sickly grey, making the kids look like they’re the stars of Teen Titans Zombies. As many toy manufacturers have learned, kids are an inscrutable bunch, and you never know what will sell. While the WGSH line was a monstrous, industrychanging hit, the TT line flopped. According to Benjamin Holcomb, author of the ultimate WGSH reference work, Mego 8" Super-Heroes: World’s Greatest Toys, “The Teen Titans had an extremely short production life, offered to retailers only once, at Toy Fair in February 1977. With no marketing support, the Teen Titans failed.” (Yet the line lasted long enough to produce one tiny packaging variant and two different sets of arms— one that bent, one that didn’t—for Wonder Girl.) One of the other things going against the line was Mego’s (usually excellent) timing. In 1977, there was no Teen Titans cartoon or movie, and the Teen Titans comic was heading for its second cancellation. Ironically, the Titans would take off to nearly unrivaled heights of popularity under the genius hands of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez just a few years later. Partly because of their unusual-ness (face it, you don’t see a lot of Speedy toys out there, even in today’s DC Direct world) and the fact that they weren’t collected en masse like a lot of the other WGSHs, the TTs now go for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to collectors. Teen Titans Go!

Dan Johnson

cond ucte d Augu st 15, 2008

Kid sidekicks have been a staple of comics ever since the Golden Age. For around fifty years, the following dynamic was in place: The hero led and the sidekick followed and learned. That changed at the end of DC Comics’ continuityaltering maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths when the Flash—Barry Allen—made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life to save the universe. When the dust had cleared and the final battle was won, DC needed a new Scarlet Speedster to fill Barry’s boots. Wally West, who had previously run by Barry’s side as Kid Flash, became the first sidekick in the history of comics to take the place of his hero. With the passing of the baton, a new chapter in the history of the Flash was begun. Wally West was now the star of an all-new Flash series, the first issue cover-dated June 1987. The authors of that chapter were writer Mike Baron and artist Jackson “Butch” Guice, who share with BACK ISSUE the inside scoop on how Wally West inherited the mantle of the Flash, and in the process, became his own man. – Dan Johnson DAN JOHNSON: Thank you for sitting down to talk with BACK ISSUE about how Wally West became the Flash. JACKSON GUICE: I hope you remember how that happened, Mike, because it’s going to be short otherwise!

MIKE BARON: Well, it’s been a long time [since we worked on The Flash]! GUICE: I was going to say, that was a lifetime ago. I’m going to depend on you to remember the details. JOHNSON: All I ask is that you tell me what you can. GUICE: We can try that. JOHNSON: How did you each come to be involved with the Flash? BARON: [Then-DC editor] Mike Gold asked me if I was interested in taking over the Flash. GUICE: Yeah, you were already in place and then I came onboard. And again, that was Mike Gold contacting me. I think that might have had more to do with the fact that I was approaching DC at that time to pick up work. Suddenly, I was being talked about around the DC office. JOHNSON: Now, you had worked together before Flash, right? Butch, you did a fill-in issue for Steve Rude on Mike’s co-creation, Nexus (#32, May 1987), and you two also did a two-part Hawk story Mike wrote for Teen Titans Spotlight (#7–8, Feb.–Mar. 1987). BARON: That’s true. GUICE: If I remember correctly, wasn’t the Hawk story supposed to get us comfortable working together? DC didn’t want us to start immediately on Flash, so they had us do that story? And you wrote one of your typical scripts that had four million bugs in it! [laughter]

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Big Shoes to Fill As Wally West ran in Barry Allen’s footsteps, so did the 1987 Flash team, dashing forward into new directions for their next-generation Fastest Man Alive. Our art is a composite from the cover of Flash #1 (June 1987), drawn by Jackson Guice and Larry Mahlstedt, and the Silver Age The Flash #135 (Mar. 1963), illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. TM & © DC Comics.

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Beginnings: “Tie Tac,” with artist Larry Gonnick, Warm Neck Funnies (1976)

Milestones: writer and co-creator of Nexus, The Badger and Ginger Fox / Flash / The Punisher / Deadman: Love After Death / Feud

Works in Progress: The Architect (Big Head Press) / Nexus (Rude Dude Productions)

Cyberspace: bloodyredbaron.com steverude.com rudedude.com

MIKE BARON

Beginnings: pencil breakdowns on Micronauts #48 (1982)

Milestones: Micronauts / New Mutants / X-Factor / Flash Dr. Strange / Action Comics / Eternal Warrior Resurrection Man / Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis

Works in Progress:

BARON: Yeah, it was about a creature that learns to imitate man, and it was all these insects that form together into a human shape. JOHNSON: I liked that Hawk story a lot when I read it. I mainly picked up those issues because I was a huge Flash fan as a kid, and I wanted to check them out when I learned you two were working on the new Flash series. GUICE: I had a lot of fun working on the Hawk job, and working from Mike’s drawn scripts. I think that was also part of the test run, to see how comfortable we were working that way. That was a blast! You did all the heavy work for me, Mike, and I appreciate it. [laughs] BARON: You’re welcome. That was back in the day when I used to write scripts by drawing each page out by hand. JOHNSON: I remember learning that you worked that way in an issue of Nexus where you illustrated that method in the back of the book. You published an original hand-drawn script page and then published Steve Rude’s finished page. BARON: That was a good way to work for a while, but I have since switched to doing full scripts. JOHNSON: Butch, I take it you were all in favor of Mike’s approach to scriptwriting? GUICE: It was a lot of fun. Also, not every writer will give you what you need in their scripts, but having these rough-drawn scripts gave me real insight into how Mike was seeing these sequences. I had plenty of encouragement to do whatever I wanted to, but it was like having a storyboard in front of me. JOHNSON: Mike, did doing the scripts in this manner give you the chance to have more input into designing new characters? BARON: If I was drawing a new character, I would go into significant detail as to how I thought they should look. Sometimes I would add a few notes, you know: “[Give them] blond hair, blue eyes.” GUICE: Mike was always good about giving me a basic diagram to how new characters should look. It wasn’t just a stick figure standing there, waving at you on the page. JOHNSON: When it came to relaunching the Flash, were there any mandates from higher-ups at DC Comics? Was there anything that they wanted to specifically break away from in regard to Barry Allen’s Flash? BARON: The only mandate was that the new Flash was going to be Wally. Other than that, DC gave me free rein. GUICE: The only thing I can remember, from the visual side, was that there was a lot of talk about trying to draw speed without doing the repeat-image thing that Carmine Infantino had done. In retrospect, I don’t think I was very successful doing it and I remember Mike Gold and I talking about that several times. JOHNSON: I know the direction you took the character was a bit of a shock for old-time Flash fans. Previously, except for Marv Wolfman’s portrayal of him in The New Teen Titans, Wally had kind of a bland

Ultimate Origins (Marvel Comics) / Storming Paradise (WildStorm)

Cyberspace: theartistschoice.com/guice.htm

JACKSON “BUTCH” GUICE

See Wally. See Wally run, as illustrated by Jackson Guice. (Very special thanks to Andy Mangels for flashing to our rescue with last-minute art scans.) TM & © DC Comics.

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personality, although he was basically a good person. Mike, you painted him as being a little more brash, a little arrogant, and even self-centered. BARON: Oh, yeah. I was just trying to realistically create what I thought a young man with all that power would be like. They can’t all be saints. JOHNSON: You also set up something that has been mined by every writer since you left the series, and that was the specter of Barry Allen hanging over Wally’s head. BARON: Not so much. I think my greatest contribution was the fact that Wally had to take in a 100,000 calories a day in order to act at super-speed. JOHNSON: There is that, too. I wanted to discuss how you had his powers grounded more in the real world. It is interesting that we’re doing the interview now [summer 2008], because the Olympics are going on and there is all the media coverage about Michael Phelps, the swimmer who is busting records left and right. I heard on one news report that he has to take in 12,000 calories a day so he can do his regular five-to-six-hour-a-day workout. When you guys were doing the book, DC had wanted Wally to be much slower than he had previously been. Instead of going faster than the speed of light, he was only able to go as fast as the speed of sound. Even with diminished powers, he would still be exerting a lot of energy and burning up a lot of calories. BARON: That is true. There are those immutable laws. When we apply them to our superheroes, it makes for a more interesting story. JOHNSON: You also introduced some brand-new characters to the Flash universe, many of whom became mainstays. There was Tina McGee, who was even used on the Flash television series, although she was teamed there with Barry Allen’s Flash. Speaking as a man who has been 21, I can understand the appeal of an older woman. BARON: Well, they say he’s fast. GUICE: [laughs] JOHNSON: Well, now, when it comes to the ladies, that might not be a good thing…. That was another new wrinkle you brought to the character, making Wally a ladies’ man. BARON: I had wanted to do that for years. He’s a young guy, and he’s got sex appeal. What would he be doing with his spare time? JOHNSON: So you made him a player. BARON: Yeah, a player. GUICE: [laughs] JOHNSON: Like I said, I had always been a big Flash fan, and under the two of you, I was seeing a side of Wally that I had never seen before. He had some negative attributes, and to be honest, he sometimes came off looking like a jerk. That took some getting used to, but I look back on those issues and I appreciate them more than I did initially. Now, I think you nailed Wally on the head. As the book went along though, I did see him mature somewhat. Besides showing the downside to having super-speed and giving Wally a little more personality, was there anything else you thought needed to be brought to the table? BARON: No, not really. I wish I had more ideas. I didn’t know what to do with the character. That just shows a lack of imagination on my part. GUICE: I thought you had plenty of good ideas, Mike. BARON: If I had had more ideas, I wouldn’t have given up the book. I stopped writing it because I didn’t know what to do with the character. I think the Flash is particularly difficult to write, but twenty years of stories

later have shown me that there was still plenty of things to do with the character. GUICE: I would have to say that you got the ball rolling a lot in that direction. BARON: Yeah, I gave it a hell of a first kick. GUICE: I think a lot of people look back fondly on the start of that series, and it is all due to what you brought to the table. I was there, and I wish I had done a better job on the artwork myself. I thought everything that was positive and working on that book was what you brought to it, and it was actually ahead of its time. A lot of writers came in later and started doing their characters like that afterwards, bringing in that quirky realism and dealing with relationships. JOHNSON: Butch makes a very good point, Mike. You did lay the foundation for the series. It wasn’t until Mark Waid came in 60-some issues later that new characters were introduced, and even now there are still references to characters and situations you created. Also, you gave Wally one of his best supporting characters ever, Chunk. GUICE: Everyone fondly remembers Chunk. [laughter] That is the one character that gets brought up to me at conventions when people mention Flash. JOHNSON: I think there are comic-book fans who could relate to Chunk, especially those who see themselves as outsiders. They are introverts and they simply don’t realize what is special about themselves. And with this character, you gave those fans someone they could identify with and you turned the idea of the power fantasy upside-down. You said, you can have this amazing power and ability, but you are going to end up with even bigger problems than being socially inept. BARON: Yep. JOHNSON: You brought in Vandal Savage as a villain right from the get-go. That was cool, especially since the character had a history with Jay Garrick and Barry Allen, and now he was gunning for Wally’s Flash. TM & © DC Comics.

Chunk Chunk was a popular addition to Baron and Guice’s Flash. Seen here is the splash to issue #11 (Apr. 1988). TM & © DC Comics.

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The Gipper Meets the Zipper President Ronald Reagan shows up on page 2 of Flash #4 (Sept. 1987)—and so does tech terror Kilg%re. Art scan courtesy of Stephen O’Day (visit his site: myComicArt.com). TM & © DC Comics.

As far as classic villains went, though, that was it. Did you not have any interest in bringing in some of villains from Barry’s rogues’ gallery? BARON: It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, I just wanted to create some new characters. Also, if I had had more ideas, I would have stuck around and used those characters eventually. JOHNSON: It might have been a good idea to go that way in the beginning. It further helped to make Wally his own man. And you did give him a really good villain by the third issue, Kilg%re. BARON: Yeah, he’s one of my favorites. He was an alien electric virus. GUICE: And he was a great character to draw because it’s always correct. BARON: Dark Horse did a movie a few years later with Jamie Lee Curtis where she is on a ship and an alien virus hits and it starts building contraptions out of whatever is at hand. It was called Virus. JOHNSON: Makes you wonder… BARON: Well, there are no new ideas. There are just amazing synchronicities. JOHNSON: Butch, you left the series early on. What prompted your departure? GUICE: To be honest, I didn’t feel like I was right for the book. As much fun as I was having on the book, I felt I was all wrong for it pretty much from the get-go. BARON: Who did you see for the book? GUICE: Somebody who could draw speed. My characters looked heavy and chunky and I never felt like I was holding up my end of the project in terms of delivering what you were bringing to the table. BARON: Can you name any artist who can do what you are trying to describe? Can you give me an example of someone who can draw speed? 2 0

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GUICE: There are some guys who have come along since then. Actually, if I was on the book today, I would approach it entirely differently. When we were working on the book, that was all pre-Photoshop days, and there are ways now that we could get in there and do certain things with the art to get [the idea of illustrating speed] across. Before the technology today, the best you could do was maybe have a color-hold, some kind of surprint, but it was always complicated drawing layers to go over the tops of things. There are ways you can do things in Photoshop now where you can really put that visual impression across a whole lot more effectively than what production allowed us back then. But on an artistic level, I didn’t think I was doing the book justice. There was frustration at my end and I mentioned that to Mike Gold a couple of times. Eventually, I just decided that I was beating my head against the wall with it and I should step aside and let someone else come aboard with it. BARON: There was a subsequent writer and artist team, and I can’t remember who it was, but they did an excellent job. They had a brilliant way of showing Flash’s speed. They would have things happen between the panels. A hat would end up on a rack or a pizza would disappear, and by jumping over the action itself, and showing the result, they got across that impression of speed. GUICE: Maybe it was also the timing of my career. I just didn’t think I had the chops to be doing that particular book. That was why I was out of there by issue #11. JOHNSON: Well, you did say Gold didn’t want you to use the old trick of using speed lines or multiple images. GUICE: Frankly, the speed lines did come back in eventually. The one suggestion made to me was to do what they did for Johnny Quick where they would draw multiple figures within the panel, but they weren’t sequenced right there together, so you would have six shots of the same guy doing different things. I liked the speed lines though, and they had been established as the iconic way you show the Flash in action. JOHNSON: Since DC wanted to power down Wally considerably, and since Wally was now nowhere near as fast as he used to be, and certainly nowhere near as fast as Barry had been, the lack of speed lines and multiple images helped to illustrate that point. I certainly got the sense that Wally was moving much slower. Now, the big, important thing about Wally is that he was the first kid sidekick who took over for his mentor, and in the process became the first person to replace one of the Silver Age mainstays. DC tried to do the same thing with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, but ended up reversing those decisions. Why do you think Wally has stayed in the role of his mentor while others failed to live up to their legacies? BARON: I think the new guys would have stuck if the writing had been up to the task. I only did 13 issues, so the praise for the Flash’s longevity must go to the writers that followed me. JOHNSON: But still, you did lay that foundation. And you can’t build a solid structure without a strong foundation. I think you both should be credited with what followed. As a Flash fan, let me say thank you for doing what you did. Before we sign off, do you have any final words about the Flash? BARON: Long may he run! DAN JOHNSON is a regular BACK ISSUE contributor whose writing credits include Herc & Thor for Antarctic Press and occasional gags for the daily and Sunday Dennis the Menace comic strip.

P. C . H a m e r l i n c k

cond ucte d on Mem orial Day 2008

From 1974 to 1977, Michael Gray successfully brought to life a hip, likable, long-haired rendition of Captain Marvel’s alter ego Billy Batson on the hit Saturday morning CBS-TV series Shazam! Born in Chicago in 1947, but having grown up in the tropical warmth of Miami Beach, Gray, the child of a manufacturer and a romance novelist, graduated from high school in 1965 and then headed west to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Three years later, Michael was signed to a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox and landed a variety of small TV and movie roles. In 1972, he nailed a primetime spot on NBC’s The Little People, which catapulted worldwide teenage poster-hanging idolatry as his face was regularly plastered in Tiger Beat and other teen-aimed publications. Filmation Studios knew of enamored teenagers’ admiration for Michael (27 at the time) and cast him as Billy Batson in their new live-action, moralistic, heart-touching superhero series. His popularity continued to grow as Shazam! quickly became a ratings hit. But dark times set in for Michael when the series was canceled, and his fame soon faded away (due to typecasting and an urgent need to detox from prescription drugs that his doctor had given him to cope with Shazam!’s shooting schedule). During the ’80s, he managed to get a few miniscule TV roles, but was eventually forced to work odd jobs around Los Angeles to survive. He went on a blind date with future wife Stacy, who he soon learned was one of those thousands of teenage girls that grew up putting Michael Gray pictures up on their bedroom walls. The couple married in 1994 and purchased and ran her parents’ West Hollywood flower shop; they later moved the business to Beverly Hills. The Grays left behind La La Land, and now happily reside in their ocean-view home along the Northern California coast … where Michael, now 60, is still recognized and remembered as the boy who could “summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word: SHAZAM!” – P.C. Hamerlinck

“… Appear Before My Seeking Eyes” Michael Gray was 27 years old when he was cast as Billy Batson on CBS-TV’s Shazam! series in 1974. In the inset, Michael Gray as he appears today. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

P.C. HAMERLINCK: What kind of childhood did you have? MICHAEL GRAY: My parents, sister, and I moved from Chicago to Miami Beach when I was six years old. I had a pretty normal upbringing … I mean, the housekeeper wasn’t molesting me or anything! [laughs] Miami Beach was a great place to grow up. I’d always be wearing shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops, and go to the ocean all the time. I wasn’t too serious in school and was sort of the class clown … maybe because I was so short I had an inferiority complex! [laughs] I’d always be doing something for a laugh, which got me into trouble all the time. T e e n

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HAMERLINCK: After studying acting in the late ’60s, what were some of your pre-Shazam! TV roles? GRAY: I was in the TV pilot for Room 222, but quickly learned the word nepotism; before they started filming the first season my role was given to another actor, whose father happened to be a good friend of the show’s executive producer. I played a hippie in a scene with Sally Field on The Flying Nun; I did a couple of Marcus Welby M.D. episodes, and I was cast as a regular on the NBC series The Little People. The show was filmed near Waikiki. I played a high school kid who helped out at a doctor’s office after school. Brian Keith played a pediatrician. My character was always doing something stupid which would drive Brian crazy, but the kids loved it. Right before Shazam! I did a Brady Bunch episode, and it’s amazing how many people have seen it. To this day, I still get, “Oh, you’re the guy who Marcia sprayed with whipped cream!” HAMERLINCK: Besides your television work, you also had a few small parts in movies. What were some of those? GRAY: I did a scene with Mae West in Myra Breckenridge. I had a blink-of-an-eye part in Russ Meyers’ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. I also did an Aaron Spellingproduced “Movie of the Week” with Burt Reynolds called Run, Simon, Run, where I was cast as Burt’s younger brother. HAMERLINCK: Was it during The Little People that you started showing up in teen magazines? GRAY: Yes—it first started with just small photos, and then Tiger Beat and others started printing stories about me with larger photos, and month after month my popularity increased. I got a call from Chuck Laufer, the owner of Tiger Beat and other teen magazines, and I signed with him as my manager. Then things

Vital Idol (left) Young Billy Batson: Michael Gray at age 15. MG says, “If Warren Beatty and Elvis had a kid, I think this is what it would look like!” (right) Michael Gray, Michael Jackson, and their groovy pals share the cover of the Feb. 1973 issue of Tiger Beat. Gray was a fixture of 1970s teen magazines (which had knocked five years off his “official” age). Tiger Beat © 2009 Laufer Media, Inc.

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really began to snowball and I literally became famous everywhere. In 1972, I won the “TV Star of the Year” award in the German magazine Bravo. And then things quieted down for a while, but when Shazam! got going it all hit again—and just as big as before. HAMERLINCK: Tell me about your first meeting with the Shazam! producers and cast—and were you at all apprehensive about doing a Saturday morning program? GRAY: I wanted to work, and it didn’t matter to me if it was Saturday morning TV or not. I never felt stupid or silly about doing any of it. Early on, I was told Les Tremayne (Mentor) was going to be in it and that I would be playing Billy Batson. The first meeting I had was with Filmation executive producers Lou Scheimer, Norm Prescott, and director Bob Chenault. The second time I went out to Filmation, Lou and Norm were there again and that’s when I finally met Les Tremayne and Jackson Bostwick (Captain Marvel). And that’s basically how it all started. It was all pretty much an immediate thing. I think there was just that one meeting with the cast and that was it. No actual auditions or anything. I didn’t realize until later how much Les disliked Jackson. I’ve never held grudges and don’t dislike people, but Les was a stubborn old man. I loved Les dearly, but boy, if he didn’t like you, he really didn’t like you. He was very rude to Jackson and, to my knowledge, kept giving him the cold shoulder. HAMERLINCK: Were you already familiar with Captain Marvel before you started the show? GRAY: No, I was not. I was a Superman fan growing up and loved The Adventures of Superman on TV. Batman was too silly for me. I only became familiar with Captain Marvel once I got involved with Shazam! I remember we filmed a Shazam! episode at the L.A.

County Zoo, and we met Frank Coghlan, Jr.—Billy Batson in the 1941 [The Adventures of] Captain Marvel serial—who just happened to be working there at the zoo. What a trip that was! I thought to myself, “Wow, is this what I’m going to be doing 25 years from now—chasing around animals?” [laughs] HAMERLINCK: While many bemoaned the departures from the source material, were you still satisfied with the Shazam! scripts? GRAY: The scripts were quite short. I think if the writers would’ve had hour-long episodes to work with they could’ve gone more into the whole background and history of the characters. But they didn’t do that. Sometimes we shot two episodes a week/one episode in two days—so we didn’t have much time; we had to get them done as fast as possible. Sometimes we’d have to shoot some things over again, but we just had to fly through it. Hardcore Captain Marvel fans probably didn’t appreciate that, but most kids watching TV on Saturday morning didn’t know the difference. They just enjoyed it for what it was: good, clean entertainment. HAMERLINCK: Shazam! was shot mainly outdoors all over Southern California during the summer, with only an occasional indoor scene. What about those shots when Billy appeared with the animated Elders—were those shot in the studio? GRAY: I didn’t do any interior work with those scenes at all; no standing in front of a blue screen or anything like that. For those scenes I just said my lines wherever I happened to be standing at the time … or if I’d be sitting on the passenger side inside of the motor home and the half-a-volleyball with lights would start twinkling and I would just look up towards the windshield and say, “Oh, Elders, fleet, strong, and wise…” and they would just patch me in with the Elders later. And those California summers were always hot! HAMERLINCK: And here you were, stuck wearing a long-sleeve Billy Batson shirt. GRAY: Yes! And Les wore a turtleneck sweater and a bush jacket! There would be times when we’d be sitting inside the motor home and the windshield would crack because it was so hot outside. They had to shut off the air conditioning inside of it because the audio technician said it was way too loud, and Les and I would be dripping with sweat. We’d be in the middle of saying our lines and Les would stop and say, “It’s so @#%! hot in here! My eyeballs are shrinking!” and I would just add to it with a few more expletives, all spoken with a straight face, as the crew were cracking up. I think they had on hand for me seven Billy shirts, seven pairs of pants, and seven pairs of sneakers. I did hang on to one of the Billy shirts; one of the ladies from wardrobe let me keep one afterwards, but I have no idea what happened to it. When I went on the road to do personal appearances I wasn’t allowed to wear the Billy shirt; some licensing agreement forbade me to wear it. So, instead I’d go out on them wearing a red, round-neck, long-sleeved Tshirt and blue jeans. HAMERLINCK: What can you tell me about the long-lost Shazam! blooper/outtake reels shown at Filmation Christmas parties? GRAY: There was a lot of funny footage on them— with language on it that you wouldn’t normally find on Saturday morning TV! There were scenes with me wearing the Captain Marvel costume, and there was a

scene with Les in the CM costume sitting there like an old drunk. There would be stuff on it where I’d say something like, “Oh, Elders, fleet, strong, and wise, come sit up on my thighs!” and Les as always would jump right in and finish it with something. HAMERLINCK: Were you aware at the time that Shazam! was also enjoying worldwide popularity? GRAY: They gave us a list of every country where the show was being aired. It was astronomical. It was even shown in Iran. We were paid residuals for all foreign airings, but the money was hardly anything. HAMERLINCK: I was surprised back then that there was really no TV-specific Shazam! merchandise produced while the show was on the air. GRAY: Our contracts said that we would get 2% of the net of all merchandise—which amounted to not one penny. HAMERLINCK: Let’s talk a little bit more about your relationships with your fellow Shazam! cast members. Since you were the closest with Les Tremayne, let’s begin with him. GRAY: Les was the ultimate professional. When my parents found out that I would be working with Les they were in awe because they used to listen to his radio shows when they were younger. Les’ speech was so eloquent; he spoke the English language perfectly. I learned a lot from him. Whenever I worked with someone as professional and experienced as Les, I’d be like a sponge and take it all in. I’m sorry Les didn’t get along with Jackson. I loved Les and thought he was a great guy. We’d play off each other on camera. We just hit it off really well. We’d see each other socially on weekends. I didn’t even know that he had passed away until his wife, Joan, called me and told me that he had already been gone for a while. I miss him. HAMERLINCK: While you didn’t do any scenes together for obvious reasons, what did you think of Jackson Bostwick and his portrayal of Captain Marvel? GRAY: Jackson was really into his work and was very serious about it. He wanted to be able to make sure that when he was in front of the camera the character he was playing was presented properly on screen, and he did a great job. The guy was physically in great shape and he liked playing the character. I believe he liked my portrayal of Billy and, from what I can remember, he was impressed to be working with Les. And I was amazed with all the stunts Jackson did.

Super Friends Billy Batson (Michael Gray) traveled the country with Mentor (Les Tremayne, right) “to right wrongs, develop understanding, and seek justice for all.” Gray and Tremayne were also good friends off the set. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

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And then it all came to a very abrupt ending when Jackson’s accident occurred; he was injured and suddenly he was off and somebody else was on. John [Davey], his replacement, was a great guy, but he was not built physically to play Captain Marvel like Jackson was. Jackson was really ready for it. I liked Jackson, I really did, and I treated him the same way I treated him from the first day I met him, and I’m sorry how things happened for him. HAMERLINCK: What about Jackson’s replacement, John Davey? GRAY: John was really funny and he had a phenomenal sense of humor. He wasn’t sure what he was doing or why he was there. When he first arrived on the Shazam! set he looked confused and was very out of shape. Before he knew it, he was wearing a tight-fitting costume as he ran around like a maniac and looking cross-eyed towards Les and I. He was a nice fellow and a sweet guy—a big teddy bear. But I wouldn’t want to cross him because he was huge. I haven’t spoken to the guy in a while. John came in later, and I’m sorry it worked out the way it did. I don’t think John really could’ve ever been a better Captain Marvel than Jackson because physically Jackson had the right look. John just played the character like a regular guy. He was hysterical. I mean, he was running around all over the place with this pot belly and I’m thinking, “This is not right!” and Les and I would be laughing our asses off. But John had a great sense of humor and took it all in stride. HAMERLINCK: Did you have much interaction with Joanna Cameron (Isis)? GRAY: I really had no kind of relationship with her at all, so I have nothing negative or positive to say about her. She had done a lot of TV commercials before Isis and she was a very pretty lady. I was told that she had her legs insured by Lloyd’s of London. In later years, when we were living in the same area, I approached her about participating in a benefit for homeless children which I was helping to organize, but she turned me down. HAMERLINCK: Did you get along well with the Shazam! production crew? GRAY: A lot of the Shazam! crew were the same ones who worked on the old Lassie TV series. They were a bunch of talented guys with a great sense of humor. Whenever I worked on a show I always hung out more with the crew than with the cast. The crew were just a bunch of regular guys doing their jobs and were fun to hang out with—and they could tell some really great stories about the old days. Not to say all of them are like this, but I found that I really didn’t like hanging out with a lot of actors and actresses because of their big egos. HAMERLINCK: How much interaction did you have with the Filmation executive producers? GRAY: Lou Scheimer and I talked a few times while the show was going; I rarely spoke with Norm Prescott. I got to know our director Bob Chenault well, but not as well as Jackson got to know him. I did, however, become very close with director Hollingsworth Morse. Holly went way back in the business, directing The Lone Ranger and many other series. HAMERLINCK: During the first season, Billy sometimes rode a motorcycle, but it seemed to have disappeared for the remainder of the series. GRAY: I liked the bike. It was a little Honda and I would take it for a spin during lunch breaks and go flying around the hills where we’d be shooting. They were worried I was going to kill myself on it, so they took it away from me. HAMERLINCK: Frank Coghlan, Jr. once told me when he worked on the ’40s Captain Marvel Republic serial he’d lose a few eyebrow hairs after they ignited the gun powder for Billy’s transformation scenes. Did the same thing happen to you? GRAY: The first time they did the “Shazam” transformation they had a gun powder strip in front of me, and when they hit it the thing exploded and smoke flew up into my face. I was coughing and gagging and thinking, “What the hell?” That was not the way to do it. HAMERLINCK: Do you think Shazam! could have worked, with a longer format and bigger budget, as a primetime series?

Double Trouble Michael Gray as Billy Batson in two Shazam! promo shots with his two Captain Marvel co-stars, Jackson Bostwick (top), replaced during the second season by John Davey (bottom). P.C. Hamerlinck interviewed both Marvels in BACK ISSUE #30. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

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Saturday Superstars Artist/sculptor Ruben Procopio pays tribute to Michael Gray in this recently rendered Shazam! montage. View more of Ruben’s work at maskedavenger.com and maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

GRAY: I think it could have, as long as they didn’t do it camp like Batman. They had The Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and other shows like that back then, and they didn’t do them campy, and I think Shazam! could’ve done just as well as those shows. HAMERLINCK: The word is that you were quite the practical joker on the Shazam! set. GRAY: I once put a 12-pound rock in Les’ backpack and he hauled it around with him on the set all day without even bothering to look inside of it. The next day he called me up and said, “You son of a b****!” I had signed the rock, too! [laughs] I did stuff like that all the time. Things can become quite tedious when you’re out there on location like we were for 10–15 hours a day. With that kind of schedule people get tired and cranky and sometimes you have to do things to get them going again. It never took away from the professionalism of the show; I think it just helped keep people in better spirits. HAMERLINCK: Tell me a little about the personal appearances you did during your time on Shazam! I imagine there were plenty of bizarre things that took place on the road. GRAY: We began doing personal appearances after the end of the first season and a lot of weird things did happen. We were sent out all over the country to a different city every weekend. The appearances were usually associated with car shows. A lot of celebrities did the “Come see the cars and the stars” sort of thing back then. I did some with Adam West, Burt Ward, Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors, John Travolta and the cast of Welcome Back, Kotter, and others. It was a nice way for us to supplement our incomes a little bit. Once we were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and after the car show a bunch of us, including Adam West, headed to the airport. We all went through the security check point around the same time. Adam had sold some pictures at the event and had a bag full of cash in his suitcase. As soon as he went through the check point, the security officers saw all the cash and, when they started going through his suitcase, they pulled out his Bat-mask. We had to tell them, “Wait! Wait! Wait! You got the wrong idea! This is Batman, guys!” Another time I was in Eerie, Pennsylvania, signing autographs at a show when a bunch of big, hardcore Harley Davidson hog riders came in. One of the guys was drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and he walked right up to me and said, “Have a swig of this, boy!” I thought, “If I don’t take a drink I’m going to get killed!” So he gives me the bottle with a string of saliva from his mouth still attached to it, and with a grimace I take a drink from the bottle— disgusting! Then his girlfriend wanted me to sign something for her so she took off her panties and put them in front of me on the table for me to sign. I looked at him, I looked at her, and then I wrote on them: “Best Wishes—Michael Gray—SHAZAM!” In a different city a “fan” threw a kung fu throwing star at me. I saw it coming and ducked, and it stuck in the wall behind me. Had I not ducked, it would’ve hit me right in the forehead. HAMERLINCK: Was he expecting you to say “Shazam” or what? GRAY: I don’t know what the guy thought, but I actually did have some people in various cities ask me to say “Shazam” and fly around the convention center … and they were serious! HAMERLINCK: What was it like for you when Shazam! was canceled? GRAY: It hurt a lot, and as reality set in I started thinking, “What am I going to do next?” I was very lucky before, but I soon realized things were no longer going to be as easy for me as they had been. I got calls for a lot of things after Shazam!, but it all dried up quickly.

HAMERLINCK: What are your thoughts about the upcoming Shazam movie currently in the works? GRAY: I think it should’ve been done a long time ago, but better late than never. I think there’s great potential for it. We didn’t do our show campy—we did it seriously with just a little humor, and the people loved it. The movie could be done the same way—I hope it is. I’m just pleased that I’m still alive to see it happening, and my gut feeling is that it’s going to be successful. HAMERLINCK: What do you hope you’ve left people with your portrayal of Billy? GRAY: I loved being a part of Shazam!, and to be able to have done something in life that I loved doing was a blessing. To this day, people in their forties and fifties still come up to me and say, “I remember you from Shazam!” I recently had some construction worker guy walk up to me. He was 6'8", had scabs and calluses all over his hands (and probably on places where there shouldn’t be any!), and looked like he ate raw meat for dinner. He said to me, “You were such a big part of my life!” And I’m thinking to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” And then he went on for the next five minutes about how much Shazam! meant to him … how much he loved the show and how it helped him get through a lot of things. Accolades like these over the years have been such a pat on the back … to have been a part of something that was impactful, important, and that helped people and made them feel good. I’d play Billy all over again … [laughs] … if it wasn’t for the grey hair and bags under my eyes! Big Red Cheese historian P.C. HAMERLINCK is the editor of FCA, appearing in the pages of our sister publication, Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego magazine.

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Mark Arnold

condu cted summ er 2008

In 1968, producer and songwriter Jeff Barry assembled a group of musicians and singers under the direction of Don Kirshner for the purpose of recording a soundtrack album for a new TV show based on the popular Archie comic-book series. Kirshner’s idea of working with cartoon characters, as opposed to live actors, was due to the grief he suffered from his previous venture, the manufactured group called the Monkees. This time the singers weren’t “real,” and so he didn’t have to contend with a group wanting to flex their creative and artistic control over their recordings and music. The result was a surprisingly catchy and listenable album that’s held up as well as any other pop-music album issued at the time. In fact, the Archies’ debut album, simply titled The Archies (1968), remains one of the best children’s rock ’n’ roll recordings. Ron Dante was the singer hired to portray Archie on the recordings. To this day, he still tours around utilizing the Archie name as well as his own to promote a fictitious music group that boasts six Top 100 hits, including four in the Top 40, two in the Top 10, and one that made it all the way to #1 in 1969! Their albums didn’t fare as well on the charts, but they contain

Riverdale’s Rock ’n’ Roller Archies lead singer Ron Dante (inset) helped propel the Archies, the first comic-book-based singing group, into super-stardom, eventually topping the Billboard charts! © 2009 Archie Publications.

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dozens of quality songs and music thanks to the strong performances and production values applied to each recording. – Mark Arnold MARK ARNOLD: Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into the music industry. RON DANTE: My first job in the music industry was as a staff writer/demo maker at Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music located at 1650 Broadway in New York. It was an incredible opportunity to work at the hottest musicpublishing firm in the world. I worked alongside such hit-makers as Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. They were the top writers of the day and I got to sing on their demos and watch the way they produced. My songs were also recorded by such artists as Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Bobby Vee, Jay and the Americans, James Darren, and Johnny Mathis. ARNOLD: How was the Archies formed (at least from your perspective and involvement)? DANTE: I auditioned for Don Kirshner and producer Jeff Barry and got the job of singing the lead voice for

ARCHIES DISCOGRAPHY Sugar, Sugar, and Sugar The masterminds behind the very successful Archies albums: Don Kirschner, Ron Dante, and Donna Marie.

The Archies (1968)

Everything's Archie (1969)

Cash-in for new TV series. Featured first hit, “Bang-Shanga-Lang.”

the Archies. I had heard Don was in charge of all the music for this Saturday morning TV show based on the comic-book characters, and since I knew both Don and Jeff, they were happy to see me. ARNOLD: Were the Archies created independently from the comic books, or was Archie Comics actively involved in the process? DANTE: The comic-book people only licensed their characters and never had anything to do with the creation of the series. ARNOLD: Were you a fan or were you aware of the Archie comic books? DANTE: I grew up on Archie comics and loved being a part of their TV show. ARNOLD: Was the group created for the Filmation cartoon show or vice-versa? DANTE: The idea to have the Archies be a group was Don Kirshner’s, and it was the best thing for the series. Filmation loved the concept. ARNOLD: Were you the only person considered to do the vocals, or would they have replaced you if you became more demanding? In other words, did you have any creative input? DANTE: I had heard that Don and Jeff were considering a few other singers from New York City, but once I sang for them it was a done deal. After the success of the first album and its hit singles “Bang-Shang-a-Lang” and “Feelin’ So Good (S.k.o.o.b.y.-D.o.o.),” and the success of The Archie Show on television, it was only natural that a follow-up would be recorded, but no one could anticipate the success of the second album, Everything’s Archie (1969), and especially of its hit single…

Propelled group into mainstream with the #1 hit “Sugar, Sugar.”

Jingle Jangle (1969)

Sunshine (1970)

Major follow-up to “Sugar, Sugar” with the catchy hit “Jingle Jangle.”

Attempts at mature direction with “A Summer Prayer for Peace” and the title cut. No Archies characters or logos are in evidence.

Ron Dante Brings You Up (1970)

Greatest Hits (1970)

ARNOLD: Did you feel that “Sugar, Sugar” would have made it to #1, or was that a total shock and surprise? How about the overall success of the Archies? DANTE: I was not shocked by the worldwide success of the Archies or “Sugar, Sugar.” The creative team behind it was the best in the business for making hits. Don Kirshner headed the most successful music-publishing company of the ’60s and Jeff Barry was the top songwriter of the ’60s with such hits as “Be My Baby,” “Chapel of Love,” “Da Do Ron Ron,” “Hanky Panky,” “Do Wa Diddy,” and “River Deep, Mountain High.” I knew we had the best chance in the world. To prove that the Archies weren’t just a one-hit wonder, a third album was rush-released during 1969, appropriately titled after the new Top 10 hit Jingle Jangle. There was no follow-up single from the album. Strangely, at a time when albums released hit singles, there were a few stand-alone songs that somehow escaped inclusion on an album, and were only released as singles, a concept almost foreign today.

The inevitable compilation, with last hit “Who’s Your Baby?,” originally released in 1969 as a single only.

Dante’s stab at releasing an Archies soundalike album under his own name.

ARNOLD: Why was “Who’s Your Baby?” left off any regular Archies albums? DANTE: This song was cut just as a single and when it didn’t become a huge hit they just left it off the albums. I don’t know why. It was a terrific song with me and Donna Marie [the musical voice of Veronica] singing. Up until now, every song on every Archies album had been featured on the cartoon series, be it called The Archie Show, The Archie Comedy Hour, or Archie’s Funhouse. Less than half of the songs on Sunshine (1970) were telecast, so this album is not really a soundtrack. In fact, this album can be considered the first artistic statement by the Archies, including commentary about the Vietnam War.

This is Love (1971)

ARNOLD: An odd track to me that was seemingly trying to take the Archies in a new direction was “A Summer Prayer for Peace.” What was the idea behind that one? DANTE: I think Jeff Barry wanted to make a statement about the war at that time and “Summer Prayer for Peace” was what he wanted to say with the Archies’ help. That song was number one in South Africa at the time.

The Archies Christmas Album (2008)

Hard-to-find final original Archies album.

Comeback album after 37 years. Dante still in fine voice, sounding like he never stopped.

Sunshine would prove to be Jeff Barry’s final production work with the Archies, as he soon left for work in California shortly after the album’s release. Barry infused varied

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musical styles and as a result, gave the Archies records a lasting appeal. His presence would be missed, but there were still a couple more releases, including a solo album by Ron Dante that sounds suspiciously like a lost Archies album. ARNOLD: Why was Ron Dante Brings You Up (1970) released under your own name? Were you trying to break the Archies image, or was the Archies name slipping? DANTE: I always wanted an album of my own and Don Kirshner promised me a solo album if I would keep doing the Archies vocals for a few years. After the obligatory album The Archies Greatest Hits (1970), which did include “Who’s Your Baby?,” it was back into the studio for the Archies’ final recording, This is Love (1971). Signs weren’t good for this album, because releasing a “greatest hits” compilation usually signified the end of an artist’s career at the time, and this proved to be no exception. Having no TV exposure with any of the songs didn’t help matters. For this final album, Kirshner hired Ritchie Adams as the group’s new producer. ARNOLD: Why was the This is Love album so poorly received? Was it because everyone had moved on to similar groups like the Partridge Family? DANTE: I think the newness of the Archies began to fade as the show on TV was going down in the ratings. I felt it was because they changed the format of the show each year along with the title. ARNOLD: Was there going to be a follow-up album to This is Love? DANTE: No. That was the last album we were to do since the show was going off the air.

Bang-Shanga-Langers Ron Dante, then (top) and now (center), and the Archies in a 2001 pinup by Dan DeCarlo.

That was it for the Archies (although Dante did record a few more songs under the Archies’ name in early 1972 for some non-charting singles). On TV, Archie’s Funhouse became Archie’s TV Funnies in 1971, which completely changed the format of the Archie show, so that Archie and the gang ran a TV station airing programs featuring popular newspaper comic-strip characters like Dick Tracy, Broom Hilda, and Alley Oop, among others. Music was completely phased out, and Ron Dante continued on with other session work, solo albums, and tours.

ARNOLD: Has Archie Comics (or anyone else) ever approached you to do a new Archies album? DANTE: You will be the first to know that I am currently producing the new Archies album for Christmas. It’s called The Archies Christmas Album featuring Betty & Veronica. It will sound like Hannah Montana meets the Archies. [Editor’s note: The CD was released in the fall of 2008.] ARNOLD: Why haven’t all of the Archies’ albums been released to CD in their original configurations? It always seems to be an endless catalog of greatest hits albums. I know you released a couple of them under your own name with different album titles. Do you have any say in the matter? DANTE: I am currently working on getting all the rights to those albums and releasing them next year. I would like to thank Archie historians Jeffrey Branch and Don Charles for their excellent Archies album review website http://lpintop.tripod.com/ oldiesconnection/id29.html and for their information, and to Ron Dante for his gracious time and responses to my questions. MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian. He has been a longtime fan of Archie Comics and was a regular contributor to Jeffrey Branch’s long-running Archie fanzine, Riverdale Ramblings.

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® by

Few characters demonstrate that comic books are both a verbal and a visual medium better than Kara Zor-L, the Power Girl of Earth-Two. When Power Girl debuted in All-Star Comics #58 (Jan.–Feb. 1976), she was a kinetic whirlwind of vital energy. In two pages, she closes an erupting volcano, stops to pose and introduce herself to the Flash and Wildcat, and knocks a group of Chinese soldiers off their feet by stomping the ground. In the thirty years since her first appearance, Power Girl has remained one of the DC Universe’s greatest embodiments of strength, assertiveness, and self-assurance. But despite the character’s great strength, Power Girl has also embodies the tangled web that can ensnare the development of even the

Alex Boney

most vital character over the course of three decades. When she said, “Let’s simply say—a lady with powers like mine gets around” in All-Star Comics #58, Power Girl could not possibly have known how prophetic that statement would be. Kara Zor-L has been the cousin of Earth-Two Superman, the granddaughter of an ancient Atlantean sorcerer, and the mother of a child who was meant to bring balance to the universe. She has been a member of the Justice Society, Infinity, Inc., Justice League Europe/International/ America, the Sovereign Seven, and the JSA. As Keith Giffen (who has both penciled and plotted her adventures) says, Power Girl is “second only to Donna Troy on the scale of confusion.” But in the mid- to late 2000s, Kara has settled into a familiar role with her

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Bustin’ Loose Power Girl in a commissioned illustration penciled by Kerry Gammill and inked by Joe Rubinstein. From the collection of Roland Reedy. TM & © DC Comics.

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original team. And as she learns more about herself, and as her convoluted history becomes less knotted, Power Girl is quickly becoming one of the most intriguing and important characters in the DC Universe.

FIRST LOOK Although Power Girl’s first narrative appearance occurred in All-Star Comics, she actually first appeared in print a half-year earlier in Amazing World of DC Comics #6 (May–June 1975). In an issue focused on comics legend Joe Orlando, Paul Levitz previewed the upcoming All-Star Comics book with a teaser design sketch drawn by Joe Orlando. Briefly discussing the new members of the Justice Society, Levitz wrote, “Uh … wait a minute … we forgot that you don’t know who Power Girl is! Well, she’s the Supergirl of Earth-Two … more or less.” Power Girl’s origin may have become muddled over the years, but her beginnings were relatively clear: “I created Kara because I wanted to have another female character in the Justice Society,” Gerry Conway says. “Not just a female character, but a strong female character who could hold her own as a stand-in for

TM & © DC Comics.

“The Supergirl of Earth-Two … more or less” Readers got their first peek at Power Girl in this 1975 Joe Orlando sketch from Amazing World of DC Comics #6. TM & © DC Comics.

Superman. I also thought that here we were on EarthTwo, and there was no real counterpart to Supergirl from Earth-One. But I didn’t want to call her Supergirl, because that would cause more confusion and we wanted her to stand on her own.” And stand on her own she did. Despite the fact that she was only 18 years old when she joined the team, Kara was a commanding presence in the Justice Society immediately—for a number of reasons. Power Girl was one of three new members dubbed the “Super Squad,” which debuted in All-Star Comics #58. Along with the Star-Spangled Kid and Earth-Two Robin, Power Girl was a part of a new guard that injected a youthful energy and attitude to a team that had its roots firmly planted in the Golden Age. Because the JSA never really had a non-mystical heavy-hitter, Kara served as the muscle of the team. Power Girl was effective in fights against Justice Society villains, but her temper also led her into frequent conflict with members of her own team. After Wildcat condescendingly qualifies her fighting prowess in All-Star Comics #59, Power Girl slams the door on him and exclaims, “Wildcat—I—am—not a— ‘BROAD’!” Kara’s antagonistic banter wasn’t limited to Wildcat, though. Three issues later, when Superman encourages her to follow his advice, she replies, “Not any more—I can’t—and I won’t! We were both infants when our parents sent us away from Krypton— is it my fault that my father designed a slower rocket? That I stayed young—in suspended animation— arriving on Earth years after you began your career? I deserve my chance, too!” (All-Star Comics #62). This certainly wouldn’t be the last time Kara would have difficulty asserting her identity. When the Star-Spangled Kid offers her a “P” emblem in the shape of Superman’s “S” for the front of her costume, she replies, “Why, you little chauvinist piglet! That’s just a Superman emblem with a P instead of an S! I thought you understood—I may be Superman’s cousin, but I’m not his carbon copy! I’m my own woman!” (All-Star Comics #64).

LADY IN WHITE In a way, the lack of a symbol on Kara’s costume is a perfect metaphor for her history and her identity. In her first six appearances, Power Girl sported a white costume with a circular window cut out of the middle of her chest. She not only didn’t have a symbol— she didn’t even have fabric. When the gap was closed up in All-Star Comics #64, the front of her costume remained blank. Creator Gerry Conway suggests that the costume is an appropriate reflection of the character: “I don’t think there have been very many white-costumed heroes. And that was what I started with. We added the boots and a cape for some color, but the white actually stands out because there weren’t many other costumes that looked like that. I don’t think it would have been very plain if we had kept the circle. That’s what her symbol was, in effect. It was pretty distinctive.” Power Girl had a strong personality, but it’s nearly impossible to discuss the character without addressing her costume design. While many female character costume designs in the Silver Age were relatively conservative thanks to the Comics Code Authority, Power Girl’s costume called attention to her very … full body shape. Kara was well-developed, and she wasn’t afraid to hide it. The most prominent part of her costume was the open circle placed in the center of her chest.

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Whereas most superheroes sported an identifiable logo on their chest, Kara’s logo was her cleavage. “I designed a lot of the characters I created when I was working at Marvel and DC in the ’70s,” reveals Gerry Conway. “I would sketch out a preliminary design and pass it on to the guys who were drawing it. Sometimes they would modify it or redesign it, but not much changed with Power Girl. She looked like I wanted her to look. I was working with Joe Orlando and Ric Estrada at that time, and I sketched out an early version of Power Girl’s costume that had the open circle on her chest. And that sort of got me in trouble with Jenette [Kahn, publisher of DC Comics at the time].” While Conway, Orlando, and Estrada were all integral parts of creating Power Girl’s look, it was the presence of inker Wally Wood that probably influenced the character’s early look the most. Perhaps the most familiar legend about Power Girl is that Wally Wood made Power Girl’s chest bigger every time he drew her to see how far he could push the limits without anyone in editorial noticing. “Wally inked the character, and his inks always overshadowed whatever pencils he worked with,” Conway says. “He kept making her bust larger. Whatever Ric drew, Wally would bump up a size or two. I think we all approved except for Jenette, who thought it was sexist. In retrospect, she was probably right.” Reading through those early issues, it’s difficult to confirm the legend one way or another. The depictions are pretty consistent from issue to issue. Paul Levitz, who followed Conway as the writer of All-Star Comics, doesn’t recall any specific boundary-pushing, but he does admit that there may have been an inside joke he wasn’t privy to: “I don’t think any of us ever put a tape measure around it,” Levitz says. “But it certainly was something Woody loved to draw in the course of his

career. He was an enormous admirer of beautiful women and drew women as beautifully as any artist I know. Joe Orlando was also a great appreciator and great artist of beautiful women over the course of his life. So I can certainly imagine the two of them sitting there cackling. Because I was a full generation younger and had a sort of innocent-kid look about me, I’m not sure they would have let me in the room while they were sitting there doing the raunchier versions of the jokes, but I’m quite sure they were swapping some of them.” Joe Staton, who took over pencils on All-Star Comics shortly after Levitz began writing the book (issue #66), knew that he was filling some big shoes. Wally Wood had to leave the series in early 1977 due to health issues, but he left behind in Power Girl a visually stunning character who had certain expectations attached to her: “One of my favorite stories,” says Staton, “was told to me by Howard Leroy Davis, a comics fan and writer. His little girl was very young when Power Girl started, and she brought the comic over to him and said, ‘Daddy, since Power Girl’s name starts with a “P,” why is her emblem a “Y?”’ According to Joe [Orlando], when Woody was working on it, Woody would always make the bust bigger every time. Each issue, the bust would enlarge. It was just what he did, what he liked to do.”

Wonderful Woody Magnificent Wally Wood artwork from All-Star Comics #65 (Mar.–Apr. 1977): the title page (left), featuring a cobbledtogether Power Girl logo, and the cover art (right), with our feisty femme closing in on Vandal Savage as that immortal villain clobbers her cousin. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

SHE’S GOT PERSONALITY Whether the legend is true or not, there was always much more to Power Girl than her appearance. A character who lasts as long and continues to be as relevant as Kara has to have more going for her than a unique costume design. In a way, Kara was the emotional anchor of the Justice Society throughout the team’s short-lived revival. “I think it was her personality that made her a very different

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character,” says Paul Levitz, who wrote Power Girl in most of her Bronze Age appearances. “I tried to follow up what Gerry had begun to build. His take on her was someone who was more enthusiastic about using her powers than the historic Superman/Supergirl approach of ‘I am incredibly powerful but I won’t use most of it, I’m just sort of here to do what needs to be done today.’ This was someone who was excited about what she was doing, had emotional reactions to it, and got involved in that kind of way. And that was a fun kind of character to write.” Joe Staton agrees that Power Girl was fun to direct in her early years. Ironically, he suggests that part of her appeal was her simplicity: “I think her openness and her enthusiasm made her appealing. There wasn’t much dark or complicated about her. She was Superman’s cousin, she had powers, and she was tough. I loved drawing her, just because she was so simple. Basic white and blonde. It was a good design and a good character.” Levitz and Staton remained the creative team for most of Power Girl’s first decade. They wrote and drew not only the remaining issues of All-Star Comics, but also the three-part Power Girl origin story that ran concurrently in Showcase #97–99 (Feb.–Apr. 1978). In the Showcase story, they revealed that Kara was supplied with years of false memories during her extended journey from Krypton to Earth. Much of her incertitude and defensiveness can be attributed to the isolation she experienced during that time. Because she lands on Earth-Two much later than her cousin, she doesn’t have the chance to acclimate to humanity the way Superman does. As she tells a journalist who assists her in Showcase #98, “Andrew—I’ve only been on this Earth of yours a short time, and there’s a lot of things I haven’t learned yet. One of

them is how to express my thanks … because you just saved my life. Another is how to work with people—and you just showed me how important that is … even to me.”

A STARR IS BORN At the end of the Showcase origin story, Kara adopted a new secret identity to help her better fit into and understand Earth culture. As Karen Starr, Power Girl posed as a computer-software expert at Gotham City’s “Ultimate Computer Corporation.” Kara’s secret identity as Karen Starr reflected an important cultural shift that had taken place in the 1970s. From her very first appearance onward, Power Girl was an embodiment of various strains of feminism that had been building in American culture for years. According to Gerry Conway, this was unintentional but inevitable: “She was feminist, but she was feminine. And feminists in those days really defined themselves in nontraditional sexual ways. As a feminist of that generation, Power Girl followed more of the Gloria Steinem model. A lot of readers could look at her and admire the fact that she was strong and she was sexual. She was totally self-confident. She knew she was a woman, she knew she was powerful and beautiful, and she was not ashamed of that. That was perfectly fine with her. If you had a problem with it, it was your problem.” With the transformation of Kara into Karen Starr, Power Girl entered the American workforce in a significant way. She was a woman who had achieved a position of power in a traditionally male-dominated field. According to Paul Levitz, this was actually a mirror of what was happening at DC Comics in the late ’70s. “I don’t know if it was how feminism was generally seen at the time,” Levitz says. “But I know that the work I did with Power Girl and Huntress convinced a number of people at DC that I was one of the better writers in the house at writing female characters. And certainly Jenette [Kahn] had a real appreciation of what I did there and kept encouraging me, as she represented in many ways the embodiment of a certain kind of feminism at that moment. When Jenette got to DC, she was a 28-year-old woman running a corporation— something that would have been considered very unusual only a few years before and was still pretty rare when she got here.”

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER In the short term, Power Girl’s new identity and sense of direction served her well. Shortly after the Showcase story, Kara became close friends with new Justice Society member Huntress (Helena Wayne— the Earth-Two daughter of Batman and Catwoman). The two women were quite different, but the contrast created interesting ways to advance both characters. “When we brought in the Huntress, she was obviously a darker character,” Joe Staton says. “She was brought in specifically to play off the more optimistic and open Power Girl.” According to Paul Levitz, the introduction of Huntress also made Power Girl more interesting to write. “I used her every chance I got,” Levitz says. “I loved working with her, particularly in the way she ended up playing well with the Huntress character. I thought they were a great combination—two strong women with two very different personalities.” The two characters first interacted in the last issue of All-Star Comics, #74 (Sept.–Oct. 1978), but their partnership was continued and enhanced when the Justice Society’s adventures shifted from All-Star to Adventure Comics. When Power Girl and Huntress team up to solve a mystery in Adventure #465 (Sept.–Oct. 1979), Helena coaches Kara through her impatience and impulsiveness. And in the next issue, after Kara notes that the team only seems to get together for funerals, Helena shoots back: “Some days it’s

Staton/Layton Penciler Joe Staton and inker Bob Layton ably took over All-Star Comics from Wally Wood. This page from #67 shows the hot-headed hottie in Middle-Earth. Courtesy of Heritage. TM & © DC Comics.

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painfully obvious you were raised by a machine, Power Girl” (Adventure Comics #466). By the end of the story, Power Girl comes to understand that the Justice Society is far more than a loose association of costumed heroes; it’s a family. After the Justice Society’s brief run in Adventure Comics (#461–466), Power Girl appeared infrequently for the next five years. Several of these appearances occurred during the annual Justice Society/Justice League team-ups in Justice League of America. In issues #183–185 (Oct.–Dec. 1980), Gerry Conway had the opportunity to return to two of his best-known and most-enduring DC creations. Firestorm and Power Girl represented the young guards of their respective teams, and the banter between the two becomes light and fun after Firestorm develops a crush on Kara. Thanks to Paul Levitz and Joe Staton, Power Girl also teamed up with the Huntress again in backup features in Wonder Woman (#274–276). Power Girl even made an appearance in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #15. When the Zoo Crew runs into the Justice Society on Earth-Two, Power Girl quips, “Listen, I don’t care if it’s an annual tradition! I’m not working with a team of funny animals!” And in DC Comics Presents #56 (Apr. 1983), Paul Kupperberg scripted and Curt Swan illustrated a team-up story in which Power Girl and the Earth-One Superman are kidnapped and forced to fight in an off-world arena.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND Power Girl’s next significant team experience happened courtesy of Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway. When a new group of “legacy” heroes bursts into the Justice Society headquarters to announce their desire to join the team in Infinity, Inc. #1 (Mar. 1984), the old guard rejects them. At the end of the issue, though, Power Girl and Huntress show and interest in the new team and leave the Justice Society to mentor the young heroes. Kara’s time with Infinity, Inc. was relatively short-lived. She left the group and became a reserve member in Infinity, Inc. #12. The 12-issue maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths changed many characters in the DC Universe, but no character was changed as completely as Power Girl. In Crisis #12 (Mar. 1986), all the parallel Earths were collapsed into one and Earth-Two was effectively erased. This left numerous incongruities with the historically based Justice Society. In The Last Days of the Justice Society Special (1986), which was intended to resolve many of these hanging threads, writer Roy Thomas placed Power Girl and the members of Infinity, Inc. on Earth Prime while the rest of the JSA was trapped in perpetual battle in Limbo. Power Girl now had no clear home or origin, and editors were left to forge a new direction for the character. That task fell to Paul Kupperberg, who had written the character only once before. “Power Girl’s new origin [revealed in Secret Origins #11 (Feb. 1987)] came from an idea from Gerry Conway,” Kupperberg says. “Gerry, Power Girl’s creator, of course, had already passed the notion onto Bob Greenberger, who passed it onto me: Kara would be connected to Arion and ancient Atlantis. Oddly, it didn’t really seem to change the basic structure of her pre-Crisis origin: the infant Kara rocketed from the doomed planet Krypton, growing to maturity on that journey since her ship was slower than Kal-L’s, and reaching Earth with knowledge fed to her by the ship. In the new version, beautifully illustrated by Mary Wilshire, by the way, she is set up as a pawn by her grandfather,

Arion’s greatest foe, his brother, Garn Daanuth. In order to prevent Garn from harming the child, Arion encapsulates her in a magical ship in suspended animation and sends her ahead in time, hidden from Garn, growing to maturity slowly over 50,000 years. Same story, different details, but it all seemed to fit together nicely, almost as if we’d planned it that way.” Power Girl’s new origin may have left her disoriented and out of place (and time), but it did open up new storytelling possibilities. Trying to come to terms with her newfound Atlantean roots, in 1987 Kara traveled to Skartaris in Warlord #117–124. Shortly thereafter, she graduated to her own four-issue miniseries, written by Paul Kupperberg and illustrated by Rick Hoberg. In Power Girl, Karen Starr was recast as the CEO of a Brooklyn-based computer software company called Starrware. The series fleshed out the origin story Kupperberg had introduced in Secret Origins #11 and carved out a new direction for Power Girl that could take her seemingly anywhere in the DC Universe. Despite the new possibilities for the character, Kupperberg did have some reservations: “Frankly, from the moment we started retrofitting her with the Atlantean origin, we were setting her up to be a post-Crisis whipping girl, denying her the past she thought was hers and making her even more of a stranger in a strange land than she’d been before. Power Girl was always tough, but post-Crisis—and this evolved mostly under other writers when she was in the Justice League books later on—she became erratic, nasty, and, for the large part, comedy relief. To my mind, it just made her almost a tragic character. At least pre-Crisis Kara had Superman to call family. [This] post-Crisis Power Girl has nothing, nobody. And even when her grandfather returns, he’s not all that interested in having anything to do with her.” TM & © DC Comics.

Solo Starr Kara Zor-L, a.k.a. Karen Starr, got a three-issue tryout beginning in Showcase #97 (Feb/ 1978). Cover art by Joes Staton and Orlando. TM & © DC Comics.

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EUROPEAN VACATION Power Girl didn’t wander aimlessly for long. Her next major stop in the post-Crisis DC Universe was in J. M. DeMatteis’ and Keith Giffen’s Justice League Europe, a spin-off book that ran alongside the America-based Justice League book that had started two years earlier. In JLE, Giffen and DeMatteis gathered together a group of apparent outcasts and … well, placed them in Europe and hoped for the best. But neither Giffen nor DeMatteis were particularly pleased when they were given Power Girl. “We were told to use her,” Giffen recalls. “We were handed most of the characters. We had all the characters from Legends [a six-issue miniseries that reset the DC Universe after Crisis], because that set up the new Justice League. And when Justice League Europe was gearing up, we were handed a list of characters and Power Girl was one of them. To be honest with you, at first I didn’t want her.” What worried Giffen and DeMatteis most was that they didn’t know exactly what to do with the character. Her origin and her motivations had just become exceedingly complicated, and it was unclear what role she would play in the dynamic they were trying to create. “When we got her for JLE,” Giffen says, “I just thought she was angry. And stacked. Stacked and angry—that’s pretty much how we looked at her. At first we thought she was just a cipher. She was just an angry Supergirl. But as it progressed, we found a direction for her anger. In each one of the books, we tried to use a straight man. In Justice League, it was Batman and/or J’onn J’onzz. And in JLE, it was always going to be Captain Atom. But Captain Atom became sort of the Jonah—the Ancient Mariner—of the group. Everything crappy came down on him, and he almost became this frustrated person. We didn’t really have a straight man anymore. So Power Girl came along, and she became the straight man/straight woman. Power Girl started out as an angry window into that world and then sort of became the backbone. Captain Atom started out that way, but Power Girl eventually took over that role. In Justice League, it was, ‘Uh-oh, Batman’s here, now you’re in trouble.’ In JLE, it was, ‘Uh-oh, Kara’s here, now you’re in trouble.’” Giffen and DeMatteis put Power Girl through the gauntlet early in JLE. In a four-part JLA/JLE crossover called “The Teasdale Imperative,” Kara is brutally injured by a mad scientist who absorbs and channels the powers of the Gray Man. The assault leaves Kara near death, and Superman is called in to operate on her. The surgery saves her life, but the procedure greatly reduces her powers. True to form, though, Kara makes the best of a difficult situation. In the interior monologue that closes JLE #9, she thinks to herself, “A lot is gone, especially the cosmic end of all my powers. But the speed and the strength are still meta-human, still cooking… Faster than a speeding bullet … more powerful than a locomotive … able to leap tall buildings…. I can live with it!” Perhaps the most memorable contribution Giffen and DeMatteis made to Power Girl was the introduction of her cat. In a two-part JLA/JLE story called “Furballs,” a hideous stray cat wreaks havoc on both Justice League embassies. The story closes with Kara petting the cat in her room, and the cat remained her companion for the rest of the series. “I don’t really think the character gelled in my head until we introduced her cat,” Giffen says. “It was Andy Helfer’s idea that she would have a cat, and we made her this horrifying cat that she would initially keep around just

Bad Hair Day Among DC’s post-Crisis missteps with Power Girl: the costume change evidenced on this cover to Justice League Europe #38 (May 1992). Cover art by Ron Randall and Randy Elliott. TM & © DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

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to drive everybody else crazy. But then, when she developed an actual fondness for this foul, wretched, one-eyed monstrosity, it sort of gave her a soft spot.”

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION When Giffen left JLE after the epic 1991 crossover series “Breakdowns” and handed the reins over to Gerard Jones (who co-wrote most of JLE during Giffen’s tenure), Kara’s story quickly became even more complicated. Until Jones began writing the book, Power Girl’s origin had been largely sidestepped. As Giffen notes, “we never really delved that far into her past because ‘there be tigers.’” But in the hands of Jones, Power Girl’s origin became a focal point of JLE. After struggling to come to terms with her identity and her purpose (most notably in JLE #43 and 46), Kara begins acting erratically and eventually learns that she’s pregnant (JLE #52). Power Girl’s origin story had been convoluted before this point, but it quickly spun completely out of control after the (apparently immaculate) conception of her child. Kara continued to go into battle with the Justice League even after she learned she was pregnant, but her unborn child projected an energy force-field (from her womb) that protected Kara from any real harm. She eventually gave birth to the child in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #1. Two months later, after her child had been growing at a rapid rate, Power Girl and her son were attacked by a demon named Scarabus (JLA #93). Arion appeared at the end of the issue, and the monologue he delivered at the beginning of JLA #94 provided the clearest explanation for Kara’s recent experiences: “In the old days, there was Atlantis. The greatest civilization this little world has ever seen…. It was a civilization based on magic … and I’m a mage. We fought the other side for eons, to keep the darkness from swallowing the cosmos.

Big Guns Team-hopping Kara landed in the 2006 relaunch of Justice League of America. Cover art to issue #1 (Oct. 2006) by Ed Benes. TM & © DC Comics.

But then we got old. Our time was ending. The time of science was coming. Atlantis went under the sea. But before we mages shuffled off to the cosmic rest-home we gave the future a gift. My granddaughter, put into a 50,000-year sleep, set to wake up when the universe needed her most. That’s now, Kara.” Essentially, Kara had been sent 45,000 years into the future to give birth to a child who would restore balance in the eternal fight between order and chaos. The apparent father of the child was the demon Scarabus, though it was unclear how he had impregnated Power Girl. Kara seemingly destroyed Scarabus shortly thereafter, but her son continued to grow quickly over the next few issues and eventually (and suddenly) left her. In JLA #106, Scarabus re-emerged in Thailand (where Kara had gone in search of her son) and attacked her again. This time, the demon actually struck her son, who magically transformed into a grown hero named Equinox and finally destroyed Scarabus before leaving his mother again. The entire child sequence is a mystery that no one (in the “real” world of DC editorial or in the fictional world of DC Comics) seems to remember or understand completely, and Equinox has never been seen or mentioned since the series ended (in JLA #113) to pave the way for Grant Morrison’s relaunch of the Justice League.

HOMELESS HEROINE After JLA concluded, Power Girl became a nomad again. She made appearances in Peter David’s Aquaman (#23–25) and Supergirl (#15–16) and joined the Sovereign Seven before it was revealed in Sovereign Seven #36 that the entire series had been a dream. Kara was also used as a supporting character in Green Lantern: Circle of Fire and a few issues of Birds of Prey (#12–14, 16–17, 33–35, and—most importantly—42, an issue entitled “Kara’s Story”). But it was clear even in those guest spots that she had become a diminished, devalued character with whom no one knew what to do. What’s worse than a C-list character? A C-list character that’s not even recognizable anymore. But in 2002, when Geoff Johns and David Goyer needed a new character to add to the roster of the JSA series they had been piloting for nearly three years, Power Girl’s value suddenly went back up. “I remember we had lost Black Canary,” Johns says. “We had Black Canary on the team and there was something going on with her. They were doing something with Birds of Prey and the editors wanted to reflect all those events and it was getting a little tricky because of the pacing issues. So we opted to replace Black Canary, and so many people had been clamoring for Power Girl. Power Girl was a character I really liked in Justice League Europe and the old All-Star Comics, but I didn’t really know her that well. And at that time, her origin was pretty … well, they had tried to put on a band-aid a couple times, but it was never really explained who she was. So when we brought her in and started writing her, I immediately fell in love with the character.” In a team that consisted of half new characters—Mr. Terrific, Stargirl, Dr. Mid-Nite, Sand—and half established characters— Sentinel (the Golden Age Green Lantern), Wildcat, Hawkman, Flash— there wasn’t a glue to bind the halves together. Kara was a legacy character, but her ties to the Justice Society were somewhat tenuous given the post-Crisis revision of her origin. No one knew how to make sense of Kara’s place in the DC Universe (much less the JSA), but Johns thought the challenge would be worth it in the long run. “She’s a great character because technically, she’s the first legacy character to ever join the JSA,” Johns points out. “The JSA was never about legacy back in the day. But in All-Star Comics, Power Girl—

and to a lesser extent, Robin and Star-Spangled Kid—was officially the first legacy character because she was related to Superman. Power Girl represents to me what the Justice Society has evolved into in the very best possible way. The Justice Society and those characters are so rooted in World War II that you have to have time progress with that group. And I think it works best when you have that book deal with legacy. I don’t think every DC book should deal with legacy; it can be overwhelming sometimes when you have so many characters taking on new identities, and you can get a little bit carried away with it. But I think in the JSA, it works conceptually. When they re-introduced the JSA in All-Star Comics and introduced Power Girl, that’s when it became about training and bringing in the next generation. Infinity, Inc. grew out of that, and the current JSA is really kind of a combination of the classic JSA and Infinity, Inc. Power Girl has been— and still is—a pivotal character in that mix.” The obvious problem that Johns faced when he added Kara to the JSA roster was what to do about her origin—her post-Crisis connections to Atlantis and everything that had happened since Secret Origins #11. In JSA, Johns saw a chance to reset the character in a meaningful way and rescue her from what had become a spiraling cycle of confusion. “Power Girl really has no origin,” Johns asserts. “They strip-mined her and started connecting her to characters like Arion, which I don’t think particularly made a lot of sense. I understand the modernization and the retconning that can go on, but I think sometimes there’s not as much thought given to the thematics behind the character. What’s the character really about? Is she really the daughter of an Atlantean sorcerer? That never really made sense to who Power Girl or Kara Zor-L was.”

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When Johns pulled Kara into the JSA, he almost immediately began casting doubts on her Atlantean roots. After Dr. Mid-Nite conducts a series of tests on Power Girl in JSA #32 (Mar. 2002), he questions whether her powers are magic-based. By the time DC was set to launch Infinite Crisis a few years later, Johns had all but debunked Kara’s connections to Arion and the past. When Kara, Hawkgirl, and Dove free the imprisoned spirit of Arion in JSA #50, the sorcerer says, “Kara … Karen Starr. Power Girl. I am sorry for deceiving you. I … am not your grandfather. We are not family.” As DC was laying the groundwork for what would become Infinite Crisis, the truth of Power Girl’s origin was becoming clearer. Just before the event began, in 2005 Johns wrote and Amanda Conner drew a seminal Power Girl story for JSA: Classified #1–4. “When we did the Classified story, I was thinking of a lot of possible origin stories for her and played them out in PsychoPirate’s assault on her,” Johns says. “I could have gone a lot of ways with it—she could have been the Supergirl from the Crime Syndicate Earth, she could have been a Legion of Super-Heroes member lost in the timestream. But I really didn’t want to go that way; when it came down to it, I just wanted to say that she’s exactly who people think she is. Everybody still knew she was Earth-Two Superman’s cousin. Anyone who had spent time reading or researching old comics knew who she was immediately. I always thought that was the easiest thing to do—to go back to why they created her in the first place.”

Back to Basics In recent years, Power Girl has been restored, more or less, to the character she was intended to be. (left) Our Kryptonian tough gal rolls up her sleeve to get busy on the Amanda Conner/ Jimmy Palmiotti cover to 2005’s JSA: Classified #1, while (right) she surprises the Man of Steel in a page from that same issue. TM & © DC Comics.

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Infinite Crisis offered an opportunity to return Power Girl to her basics. Because DC was reintroducing the existence of the Multiverse—and reversing the enormous implosion that had occurred in Crisis on Infinite Earths—it became clear that Power Girl was going to be a pivotal character in the story. “When I got down to the origin, there was a lot of debate about Power Girl. People were saying, ‘Don’t use her, she’s too confusing, don’t address it.’ But I thought if we were reintroducing the idea of the Multiverse and the idea of parallel worlds, most people would know what we were talking about. I thought just going back to her roots was the easiest thing. She’s the last surviving Kryptonian from a parallel universe, and I don’t think that’s very confusing.” In Infinite Crisis #2, Kara is reintroduced to her cousin—the Superman of Earth-Two—and all the memories of who she had been in the days of the Conway/Levitz Justice Society come flooding back to her. But when Earth-Two Superman dies at the end of Infinite Crisis, she is once again stranded and alone. On the one hand, this perception is incredibly tragic. As Johns says, “it gives her a lot of pathos. Not only is she the last survivor of the Krypton of her world, but now her entire universe is gone again. She’s got nobody to relate to.” On the other hand, her new understanding at least gives her a better idea of who she is—something tangible to cling to, and something she hasn’t had for more than twenty years.

Kara of Two Worlds (right) Supergirl and Power Girl strike a pose in this 2004 specialty drawing by Leonard Kirk, contributed by Roland Reedy. (above) Infinite Crisis brought back our Power Girl. Here’s a variant cover to issue #2, by Jim Lee. TM & © DC Comics.

This recent sense of awareness has allowed Kara to more fully realize her potential as a hero and as a leader. In Justice Society of America #4 (May 2007), Kara is appointed chairwoman of the JSA when Mr. Terrific steps down to join Checkmate. And according to Johns, this is exactly the sort of character Power Girl—as an embodiment of the JSA both past and present—has always been. As Johns notes, “Power Girl is the terrific sub-story within the JSA—here’s this hero who has grown into her own despite the odds she’s faced. And that’s sort of what the JSA is all about—these guys have these flaws and things they’ve suffered through or things that have happened to them, but they always push through and carry on. And that’s what Power Girl is. She’s never given up. She doesn’t quit. She’s always kept moving despite being knocked around and keeps getting back up. That’s something about that character that appeals to a lot of people.” Comics scholar ALEX BONEY has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from James Joyce to Booster Gold, and co-edits an online comics review site at www.guttergeek.com.

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Kitty Pryde ranked #13 in Wizard’s Top 200 Characters list of 2008 and, what surprised many, was that she was not only the first woman on the list, but also ranked ahead of the iconic Wonder Woman. How could a plucky, resourceful teenager rank ahead of a battlehardened warrior-princess? Approachability. Kitty has been around for thirty years with a few hundred appearances, while Wonder Woman has been around for 65+ years with a few thousand appearances. Kitty is your girl-next-door with a mutant power, while Wonder Woman is an Amazon princess with the backing of the gods of Olympus. Would you rather spend an evening in casual conversation with Kitty or be intimidated by Wonder Woman? Kitty’s notable ranking in the Wizard poll is a direct result of her loyal fans, which in turn is a direct result of a cleverly designed teenage archetype. If you were a teenager in the 1980s and read Uncanny X-Men, you were probably like me and had a crush on Kitty Pryde. Kitty was molded to be a love interest for comic books’ target audience of teenage boys. She was a geek’s dream: She was smart, loved sci-fi movies, excelled at video games, belonged to a superhero team, and kept a pet dragon. Kitty was never drawn as the typical comic-book “babe”; instead, she was drawn as a perky teenaged girl with a glint of fun and mischief in her eyes.

KITTY’S ORIGIN Kitty Pryde was created by John Byrne in 1978. From Byrne’s first sketch of Kitty, he outlined: “My concept here is that Ariel should be not so much a new member of the X-Men per se, but rather the first member of a second team, a kind of ‘X-Men-in-Training’ team.” Byrne’s “X-Men-in-Training” would come to fruition years later in the form of the New Mutants [see BACK ISSUE #29 for the New Mutants’ history]. On the creation of Kitty Pryde, former Uncanny X-Men editor Roger Stern recalls that editor-in-chief “Jim Shooter expressed an interest in seeing the X-Men get back to the original concept of being a school for mutants. Not a bad idea, but it wasn’t easily going to work with Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops. None of those X-Men were really kids. And could you see Wolverine turning in a homework assignment? [laughs] Yeah, me neither.” Younger readers in the early 1980s might have had difficulty relating to the adult cast of the X-Men, but Kitty was the ideal character through which to view them and their world. She embodied everything the readers wished they could be and they lived the X-Men’s life vicariously through her. “Kitty works because she’s cute and funny,” Louise Simonson, former X-Men editor, said in Marvel Age #11 (Feb. 1984). “She’s a youngster in a group of older people and therefore gives a fresh vision to a lot of the stuff the others take for granted. A lot of questions

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she has and the turmoil she goes through is something that they are beyond, so she gives a younger dimension and insight into the book, characters, and stories. She provides freshness.” Katherine “Kitty” Pryde made her first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #129 (Jan. 1980) as her developing mutant power triggered Professor Xavier’s mutantdetecting device Cerebro. Her life suddenly got much more complicated. “I liked her as John [Byrne] had presented her,” explains Roger Stern. “She was supposed to be the ‘normal’ one—the average middle-class kid from the suburbs of the Midwest—I think her house even had a white picket fence. And then, out of the blue, she has a weird mutant power click on. “Kitty was scared by what was happening to her, and seriously weirded out by all of the bizarre mutants and the strange world she suddenly found herself in. But, at the same time, she was a little jazzed by the thrill of it all, just like most of us would have been at that age. There was going to be something new and fantastic around every corner for her, and we were all going to go along for the ride. What a great, fun character Kitty was! Of course, once John and I were both off the book, she became a girl genius and a ninja and a spy, and Lord knows what else by this point.” Dazzler also made her debut in Uncanny X-Men #129 and served as an interesting contrast to Kitty,

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as both of these characters couldn’t be more different. Dazzler was older, on her own, flashy, and loved to be the center of attention, whereas Kitty was younger, still living at home with her parents, quiet, and used to being overlooked or ignored. Which one of these characters was more likely to create a bond with teenage readers? Kitty was popular from the moment she first appeared. In the letters page of Uncanny X-Men #135 (July 1980), Chris Claremont answered a reader’s letter: “You were one of the many—heck, why be modest?— the multitude of fans who applauded the debut of Ms. Katherine ‘Kitty’ Pryde of Deerfield, Illinois. John [Byrne] and I figured we were creating a pretty nifty character, but we never counted on the incredible—completely favorable—response she generated. Whew!!”

THE NEWEST X-MAN We didn’t see Kitty again until the last page of Uncanny X-Men #138 (Oct. 1980), when she was dropped off at the steps to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. After the death of Jean (Phoenix) Grey and the departure of Scott (Cyclops) Summers, Kitty’s arrival signaled a change and provided hope for a new beginning. Her arrival mirrored the arrival of Jean Grey way back in X-Men #1 (Sept. 1963), as she too was dropped off by a taxi at the steps to the school. Kitty was the first mutant to join the school since the X-Men were re-envisioned in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975) and was the youngest student ever accepted. In issue #139 (Nov. 1980), Kitty put on her X-Men uniform for the first time and turned down Professor Xavier’s codename, Ariel, to chose Storm’s suggestion, Sprite. This issue showed the growing mother/ daughter bond between Storm and Kitty as Storm remarked, “Incredible. Kitty reasons as calmly, as sensibly, as Professor X—yet, for all of that, she is still a child, struggling to hold onto her childhood.”

With Uncanny X-Men #141 (Jan. 1981), the first part of the famous “Days of Future Past” storyline, an alternate future version of Kitty, Kate Pryde, took center stage, suggesting that Kitty’s tenure as an X-Man would be something significant. This issue also demonstrated the quick attachment that the X-Men had formed with their newest member. After inadvertently putting their lives at risk as she walked into the Danger Room and disrupted their session, Kitty was given the opportunity to test her phasing powers. The young girl closed her eyes and walked through the Danger Room, phasing through all of its deadly perils. Her escapade resulted in a round of cheerful and welcome laughter from her teammates. Another noteworthy moment in this issue highlighted the awkward relationship between Kitty and Nightcrawler. Ever since their first meeting, Kitty had been put off by Nightcrawler’s demon-like appearance. However, we got a glimpse into the future as Kitty, with Kate’s mind in control, embraced Nightcrawler, letting us know that Kitty will eventually mature beyond her fears and prejudices. Uncanny X-Men #143 (Nov. 1981) spotlighted Kitty Pryde as she was left on her own in the mansion over Christmas since she was Jewish and didn’t celebrate the holiday. While the story paralleled the movie Alien (1979) with its similar monster and premise, it did successfully employ some of its cinematic devices, like the heart-pounding climax and the shock ending. The story showcased Kitty’s resolve and resourcefulness and showed us that she had the wherewithal to be an X-Man. John Byrne left Uncanny X-Men after this issue and Chris Claremont took creative control of Kitty Pryde. Like a loving father, Byrne was clearly disappointed in how Kitty would evolve over the next decade: “Kitty Pryde was created by me and only me,” Byrne tells BACK ISSUE. “Chris Claremont got a lot of ‘credit’ for developing her into something she was not supposed to be. Kitty went from a sweet regular girl named after a young lady I knew in school (who spurned my advances more than once, I must say!) to a psycho ninja magician. “What bothers me most is that now that is the version that counts. And Chris gets all the glory and all the royalties while I struggle to clean my pool and feed my cats. I’m not angry—I understand that when you play in someone else’s House of Ideas you cannot control what happens to the character after you let her go. That’s just the way it works. But when it comes to Kitty I’m a little sensitive and I find it hard to forget the treatment she has received after she left the safety of my loving arms.”

CLINGING TO HER CHILDHOOD Claremont continued to put Kitty through tough times to build the reader’s investment in her. In Uncanny X-Men Annual #6 (1982), Kitty learned of her parents’ plan to divorce after failing to reconcile their marriage. Storm stepped in, again in her role as substitute mother, and tried to soothe the inconsolable Kitty. This world-altering problem wasn’t something that could be dealt with by using superpowers and readers sympathized with Kitty as she felt betrayed by her parents. Kitty Pryde’s life took a sudden and unexpected turn in Uncanny X-Men #151 (Nov. 1981), as her parents withdrew her from Professor Xavier’s school and enrolled her in the Massachusetts Academy (run by the X-Men nemesis Emma Frost, the White Queen), where she’d be with students her own age. Teenage readers recognized Kitty’s frustration with her parents who thought they knew what was best for her.

The storyline that ran through Uncanny X-Men #151–152 (Nov.–Dec. 1981) established Emma Frost as Kitty’s arch-enemy. Frost served as a great foil for Kitty as she represented the establishment and conformity with her mind-control powers and authoritative position as headmistress. Uncanny X-Men #160 (Aug. 1982) had a profound effect on Kitty’s development, as Peter (Colossus) Rasputin’s young sister Illyana, after an encounter with the demon Belasco, lost seven years in Limbo and emerged as a teenager. Over the years to come, Kitty and Illyana would become best friends and be there for each other through the highs and lows of their respective X-Men and New Mutant careers.

GROWING UP FASTER THAN SHE’D LIKE The Brood Saga, which ran through Uncanny X-Men #161–167 (Sept. 1982– Feb. 1983), provided Kitty with her first off-world adventure and her first real confrontation with death. Wolverine described Kitty in Uncanny X-Men #162 (Oct. 1982): “Kid she may be, but she’s proved—time an’ again—that she’s got more guts an’ smarts than most adults. Than most heroes.” Kitty faced the possibility of dying as her body hosted a Brood embryo. Haunted by the prospects of a horrible death, Kitty tried to be tough, but like any other teenager faced with a similar situation, she was terrified. Fortunately, Peter was there to comfort her. As their fates came to a climax in Uncanny X-Men #166 (Feb. 1983), Wolverine entertained the possibility of killing his teammates to give them a quick, clean death. Kitty stepped up and boldly showed her resolve: “I know what’s happening inside me. I’ve never been so scared, but I’m not gonna give up, maybe this is a hopeless fight, but I won’t quit. And part of not quitting means standing beside my fellow X-Men, all of us, together to the end—as a team, Logan! A family.” Lockheed also made his first appearance in the pages of Uncanny X-Men #166. Although not really a dragon, but rather an alien species that looks like one, Lockheed would be forever associated with Kitty as her pet “dragon.”

PROVING HERSELF ONCE AGAIN In the aftermath of the Brood Saga, Professor Xavier announced Kitty’s demotion to the ranks of the New Mutants. The look on Kitty’s face and the look on her teammates’ faces on the last panel of Uncanny X-Men #167 (Mar. 1983) said it all. Despite having proven herself capable, she was still considered a child and unable to make her own decisions. How could any teenager not empathize with Kitty over Professor Xavier’s stinging words? You didn’t have to go far into a teenager’s life to find a similar situation in which a parent has made a decision that they vehemently disagreed with. It was a clever plot device to pull in readers who had followed Kitty’s exploits and develop a loyalty to her. This issue’s ending set up a wonderful spotlight issue on Kitty in Uncanny X-Men #168 (Apr. 1983). T e e n

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KITTY PRYDE CHECKLIST– KEY APPEARENCES Uncanny X-Men #129–131 (Jan.–Mar. 1980) #141–143 (Jan.–Mar. 1981) #153 (Jan. 1982) #166–168 (Feb.–Apr. 1983) #177–180 (Jan. –Apr. 1984) #183 (July 1984) #197 (Sept. 1985) #203 (Mar. 1986) Annual #6 (1982) Annual #8 (1984) Marvel Graphic Novel #5: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (1982) New Mutants #14–17 (Mar.–July 1984) © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. #45 (Nov. 1986) X-Men and Micronauts #1–4 (Jan.–Apr. 1984) Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1–6 (Nov. 1984–Apr. 1985) Fantastic Four vs. X-Men #1–4 (Feb.–June 1987)

Who could forget that memorable splash page drawn by Paul Smith with Kitty spinning about, finger pointed, yelling out “Professor X is a Jerk!”? This issue focused on Kitty Pryde’s attempts to convince Professor Xavier that she belonged with the X-Men rather than the New Mutants, who she labeled as the “X-Babies.” With her pride wounded, Kitty struggled to impress Professor Xavier on multiple fronts and was forced to change. Rather than continue to complain about her situation, she became an adult and took action. She eventually won over the Professor and convinced him to reverse his decision. The next milestone in Kitty Pryde’s life occurred in Uncanny X-Men #179 (Mar. 1984), when she presented her devotion to her teammates in a speech that brought an end to the conflict between the X-Men and the Morlocks, an underground colony of misshapen mutants. “This mess is my fault—my responsibility, and it’s up to me alone to resolve it. I’ve brought enough people pain, I won’t be party to causing any more. Colossus is what’s important—with the Morlocks’ help, we might have a way to save him!” The key to Kitty’s speech was the use of the word “responsibility” and the personal acceptance of everything that it entailed, something very adult, something a certain web-swinging character might say.

GROWING PAINS Storm’s new rebellious and death-defying attitude proved troublesome, and it came to a head in Uncanny X-Men #180 (Apr. 1984) when Kitty confronted her. “Life involves growth, and growth, continual change,” Storm told Kitty. “You may not like those changes, but you cannot run from them, you must face them, child.” Kitty responded with, “Some things shouldn’t change! They should be constant! It was bad enough my parents couldn’t keep the promises they made to each other—but I thought I could count on you! I’m scared, Ororo. Will it happen to me, too, like this? If I fall in love, will it only be for a while? Or worse, will the person I love stop loving me—?” Kitty expressed insecurities and doubts that fell within the realm of real, believable teenagers. Her relationship with Storm evolved, moving from that of a mother and child, to friends: “Stand by me—I need the strength of a true friend, even if, in days to come, that strength may be the ability and willingness to let me go.” Storm’s heart-to-heart with Kitty foreshadowed the drastic changes to come in Kitty’s life. Their discussion also evokes John Byrne’s comments earlier in this article on how things had changed beyond his original vision of this character. In Marvel Age #16 (July 1984), Chris Claremont explained that “Kitty’s growing up faster than she’d like. The kind of life she leads as a super-powered mutant who confronts danger from day to day is pretty hard for a girl her age to handle. Add to this the fact that her best friend is a demon sorceress and her other best friend is a dragon!” When her teammates returned from the Secret Wars event, Kitty learned that Peter had fallen in love with an alien woman who had died saving their lives. Reading Uncanny X-Men #183 (July 1984), who couldn’t feel

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Adventures in Babysitting Moonlighting Kitty, in her Shadowcat guise. This pinup by the incomparable Michael Kaluta saw print in Marvel Fanfare #45 (Apr. 1989). Courtesy of Heritage. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Kitty’s heartbreak? “Tell me it’s a joke,” she lamented. “Tell me anything but the truth. Hey, God, why me, huh?! What’d I do to deserve this?! It isn’t fair. It isn’t, right?” This turn in events shocked a lot of X-Men readers who had expected their relationship to blossom.

SHADOWCAT “One of the things you do as a teenager, one of the jobs you have, is that you have to work out your own relationship with the world,” said Louise Simonson, editor of the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries, from her interview in Marvel Age #11 (Feb. 1984). “This involves a moral relationship as well as a physical one. This series is going to help Kitty define what hers is going to be. It’s really Kitty’s series. Wolverine is just there because he likes Japan a lot, he likes Kitty a lot, and really doesn’t want to see her get killed.” After Kitty had her heart broken by Peter, she took a leave of absence from the X-Men and went home for a change of location. Unfortunately, she didn’t get much of an opportunity to relax as her father’s ill-advised financial dealings with the Japanese mob end up stranding her on her own in Japan. The use of Kitty’s first-person point of view in Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1 (Nov. 1984) really grounded the reader and allowed them to develop an instant connection with her. Events escalated as a Yakuza bodyguard named Ogun captured Kitty and put her through a drastic reconditioning that reshaped her as a ninja assassin. You couldn’t help but feel for Kitty as she was helpless to prevent what was happening to her. Fortunately, Wolverine made his way to Japan to check up on Kitty and after a near-fatal confrontation with her, they began the arduous task of deprogramming her. Wolverine played it tough as her teacher, forcing her to choose to live and fight and struggle. In the end, Kitty’s strength and stubbornness served her well. In this miniseries, Claremont had more time to focus on what he excelled at: developing character. Unlike a lot of comic-book stories, the characters in this series actually changed. “At the time, she [Kitty Pryde] seemed like an unusual choice; she was a younger, less significant character,” remembers Al Milgrom, the miniseries’ penciler. “But Chris Claremont really liked writing female characters and invested a lot of himself to make them interesting, diverse, and very strong characters. Teaming her up with Wolverine, a down-and-dirty character, was an interesting contrast. The tone of the miniseries was a lot darker than you might have anticipated with Kitty Pryde in it, but it turned out to be an interesting story. “Claremont really liked what he did with the character and liked the way the storyline went,” Milgrom continues. “Originally, the miniseries was supposed to be four issues, and as Chris started writing, I guess he got carried away and liked the direction it was going in and begged for another couple of issues to make sure he didn’t shortchange the process. There was a lot of surprising depth to the story.” For Kitty, this series was a coming-of-age story and she symbolized it by taking a new codename, Shadowcat. It also served to solidify the relationship between Kitty and Wolverine and their teacher/student roles revisited the original theme of the Xavier’s school. In the series’ climax, Wolverine defeated Ogun and offered Kitty Ogun’s life. Although tempted, Kitty turned down the offer, ultimately proving to Ogun and to herself that her spirit couldn’t be broken.

GROWTH REQUIRES CONTINUAL CHANGE The explosion of X-titles in the late 1980s and early 1990s saw the disassembling of what a lot fans consider to have been the X-Men dream team. Kitty and Nightcrawler moved overseas to join the ranks of Excalibur, Cyclops rejoined the original X-Men as X-Factor, and what was left of the X-Men relocated to the Australian outback.

After a lengthy run in Excalibur throughout the 1990s, Kitty faded into the background, making a few appearances here and there. In 2004, Joss Whedon returned Kitty to the fold in Astonishing X-Men. Whedon also restored Peter Rasputin to life and rekindled their romance. The resumption of their relationship in a more adult fashion was interesting since that level of feeling and intimacy couldn’t really be addressed twenty years ago when Kitty was being portrayed as a 14-year-old girl. Interesting as well was the open hostility between Kitty and her nemesis, Emma Frost, who was now a member of the X-Men. Around the same time, a modern take on a teenage Kitty Pryde was being undertaken by Brian Michael Bendis in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man. The formula for her character was strikingly familiar and I can’t help but smile wondering how many readers developed a crush for Peter Parker’s cute and spunky mutant girlfriend. What stands out years later is how Kitty’s character changed as she grew up, unlike a lot of other comic-book characters whose development stalled, especially in terms of their age. That change also made a lot of us realize that we were also growing up. However, all I have to do is pick up my well-worn copy of Uncanny X-Men #168 and I’m a teenager again along with Kitty, flooded with emotions and memories as I flip through each page of that wonderfully, unforgettable issue. JASON SHAYER’s addiction to comic books and his 12-year-old mindframe have caused more than a few people to raise an eyebrow. When he’s not writing or reading, he’s teaching his three-year-old daughter the finer points of comic-book collecting.

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Bruce MacIntosh

Saturn Girl by Adam Hughes (covers and interiors, Legionnaires). TM & © DC Comics.

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Beginning with the Legion of Super-Heroes’ introduction in 1959, the costumes of the team remained unchanged, despite the following decade’s radical changes in popular fashion. By the early ’70s, even DC Comics’ conservative management and creators realized that its readership had become more sophisticated, and a costume update was in order for the 30th Century teen heroes. Whether it was out of desperation or the desire to integrate its readers into the creative process, DC encouraged fans to submit suggestions for costume upgrades for the members of the LSH. Over a dozen proposals were adapted by artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and included in the otherwise-reprint issue #403 of Adventure Comics (Mar. 1971). Reader suggestions for similar wardrobe updates appeared in the pages of another DC teen superhero title, “Supergirl” in Adventure Comics [see BACK ISSUE #17, Aug. 2006]. Few of the suggestions actually appeared in the art of LSH stories and only one (Saturn Girl) “stuck” for any length of time, but the seed was planted. Rookie artist Dave Cockrum was assigned the penciling duties for the short Legion tales appearing as a backup in Superboy. In his early twenties, Dave knew that comics’ readership had matured and were more sophisticated than DC’s middle-aged management and creators gave them credit. So he set out to finally bring the Legion into the 30th Century. Cockrum wrote in the foreword for the Legion of SuperHeroes Archives vol. 10: “The best thing I had going for me in those days was enthusiasm for the job, and a science-fictiony design sense that started early and thoroughly permeated the strip by the time I left. It’s evident in the costuming.” In one of Cockrum’s early LSH penciling assignments in Superboy #191 (Oct. 1972), Murphy Anderson was busy with

(top left) Dream Girl by Casey Jones (Fantastic Four, Excalibur, Jubilee). (above) Dawnstar by Alex Serra (The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century). (left) Infectious Lass by Cliff Chiang (Green Arrow/Black Canary, Dr. Thirteen). TM & © DC Comics.

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DAVE COCKRUM ON HIS FAVORITE COSTUME DESIGNS Superboy #195 (June 1973) “introduced more new costumes (including Phantom Girl’s sexy white bell-bottom jumpsuit) and the one Legionnaire I can take credit for designing—Wildfire (although he was called ERG-1 in that story, for some incomprehensible reason).”

other projects and Dave was required for the first time to ink his own work. That story “showed the first signs of my tendency to tinker with costumes. I played around a bit with Dr. Regulus’s armor. I don’t think anybody noticed.” Cockrum went on to explain, “I had also designed new costumes for most of the Legionnaires, and then fast-talked [editor] Murray Boltinoff into giving me reluctant permission to use some of them. [Superboy #193, Feb. 1973, “The War Between the Nights and Days”] introduced the first of them, on Chameleon Boy, Shrinking Violet, Duo Damsel, and Karate Kid.” Had Cockrum not been so persistent and sneaky, the Legion might have become a mere footnote in comics history—like some of DC’s other futuristic conceits such as Space Cabby or Captain Comet. “As the strip drew ever more attention,” Cockrum wrote, “Murray Boltinoff became even more conservative, fearing, I think, to jinx a good thing by continuing to tinker with it. He told me to stop adding new costumes.” Cockrum nevertheless persisted: “The trouble was, I still had several I wanted to introduce … so I sneaked them in and alerted the colorist to make sure they were colored properly. If Murray noticed, he never said anything.” Dave Cockrum left DC after two years to work his creative magic on Marvel’s moribund X-Men title, but not before he updated the uniforms of most of the Legion and helped create several new characters with equally futuristic garb. He was replaced by another relative newcomer, artist Mike Grell. Having successfully navigated the perilous waters of Aquaman backups in Adventure Comics, Grell was thrown into the deep end with the multi-character Legion stories. He continued Cockrum’s legacy of costume mods and character creation, most notably with Tyroc and Dawnstar. Cockrum and Grell’s LSH costume alterations may now look like examples of disco-era excess, but they made such an impression on this teenager that three decades later I commissioned dozens of artists to draw their favorite LSH characters. The team and costumes have gone through multiple revisions since, but it is Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell’s versions from the ’70s that have endured.

Phantom Girl by Dave Cockrum (the Legion of Super-Heroes in Superboy #184–202, Apr. 1972–June 1974). TM & © DC Comics.

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Dave Cockrum appeared at HeroesCon in June 2004, after a protracted illness. He gave a wry smile when I invited him to draw his favorite Legion character, and exclaimed, “That’s easy: My favorite is Phantom Girl!” He revealed that he had partly patterned the flirtatious Phantom Girl after wholesome Mary Ann from TV’s Gilligan’s Island.

(above) Cosmic Boy by Mike Grell (the “Legion of Super-Heroes” in Superboy #202–246, June 1974–Dec. 1978). (right) Shadow Lass by Michael William Kaluta (The Shadow, Batman, Books of Magic). TM & © DC Comics.

MIKE GRELL ON COSMIC BOY’S BUSTIER Grell confirms that neither he nor Cockrum had ever been given specific instructions by DC to update the Legionnaires’ costumes: “I broached the subject with the editor [Murray Boltinoff] about updating Cosmic Boy’s costume, because just about everybody else had been revised at some stage of the game. But Cosmic Boy’s costume had stayed the same, and it was basically pink and white and black. Compared to the dynamics of the costumes that Dave Cockrum had designed during his run, it just didn’t fit in with the rest of the series.” Grell stresses the importance of modernizing Cosmic Boy’s suit, yet keeping it recognizable: “I kept the black and white by using the silver bits. The solid black of the costume, I wanted it to be solid black—not the shiny parts. If you’re looking at a hand and want to show

expression in a hand without drawing all the details, you make the silhouette interesting. For the pink, I just went flesh.” He revealed that until I suggested it for a commission, “it never dawned on me that he was basically wearing a bustier … without the laces. “Of course, in the world of comic books, someone always wants to have an explanation of how and why things work,” Grell alludes to Cosmic Boy’s unique uniform. “So the biggest criticism I ever got was, ‘Well, how does that thing stay up?’ It just wraps around the side, and is open completely down the middle. So, it’s like a shell on the top of his body. I finally had to explain that the fabric itself was impregnated with metal, so that his magnetic powers could make his costume stick on.”

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MIKE GRELL ON HIS LEAST FAVORITE COSTUMES When asked about his least favorite costume to draw, Grell was quick to cite either Ultra Boy or Shrinking Violet: “The reason is that the costumes are so complex, that I’ve always got to go back for reference, and figure out ‘what is this, how does it look.’ Shrinking Violet had the most complex jumble of stuff between her boobs. It wasn’t chest hair, but it looked like it. It was open down the center to the navel, like good costumes should be, at least on the women. And in the center, there was this vine-y looking stuff. I bet that it was five years before it dawned on me that what I was looking at was a stylized version of the letters ‘S–V.’ “You’ve got to look at Dave’s original drawings, because … I just drew the shapes, right? I didn’t see it as the letters ‘S–V.’ I just drew the shapes; I had no idea that that was what it was. “I corralled [Dave] on it and [told him that] I couldn’t have gotten through the Legion if I hadn’t had his sketch book with all the model sheets of all the characters that he had designed. I said, ‘Shrinking Violet is just hell on wheels to draw. I can never get that costume right.’ He said, ‘Neither can I. I’ve got the same sheet sitting next my drawing board!’ I felt a lot better after that.”

(above right) Ultra Boy by Joe Staton (Green Lantern, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, E-Man). (right) Duo Damsel by Alex Saviuk (Amazing Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, DC Comics Presents). (far right) Wildfire by Georges Jeanty (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight). (opposite page top) Tyroc by Jamal Igle (Supergirl, Teen Titans). (opposite page bottom) Princess Projectra by Jeffrey Moy (Legionnaires, Legion of Super-Heroes). TM & © DC Comics.

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MIKE GRELL ON THE LEGION’S FIRST BLACK HERO, TYROC Grell had originally drawn a Science Police officer in Superboy #207 (Mar. 1975) as an African-American, but his editor made him redraw the character as white. (Boltinoff told Grell they were planning to do a black character later.) “Every couple of months,” Grell reveals, “I would pester them: When are we going to do this black Legionnaire? Finally they came up with one of the sillier powers I ever saw: Tyroc’s. I’m surprised they didn’t name him Tyrone, because the ultimate explanation for why there were no black people ever in the Legion of SuperHeroes. Get this, it was 1974 … all the black people had gone to live on an island. “I wonder what Martin Luther King would have to say about this,” Grell wonders aloud. “Weren’t these people alive in the 1960s? Were they completely unaware of the Civil Rights Movement?” The subtly xenophobic conceit of Tyroc’s story was that he went around destroying cities with his sonic scream because he was attempting to determine the correct frequency to keep the island of AfricanAmericans from fading away to another planet. “I blocked that out,” Grell muses. Grell comments on Tyroc’s extreme costume with its flaired collar, festooned with gold chains and medallions: “I did that intentionally. I based him a little bit on Fred Williamson. You know, ‘Fred the Hammer.’ He was doing a lot of Blaxploitation films back in the ’70s. Fred was a big, strapping guy.” Regarding Tyroc’s Afro: “It was the ’70s, and everybody had hair. Even I had hair, and not just on my back!”

In his secret identity, BRUCE MacINTOSH operates his online real estate school in Colorado, though he much prefers teaching his Supergirl, Isabel, to fly. Read Bruce’s further exciting adventures in comics on the Pulse (www.comicon.com/pulse) and his own site, www.comiczar.com.

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In 1976, before Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture made science fiction popular with mainstream audiences, Marvel Comics began blazing the cosmic skyways with its “ultimate super-hero” in The Man Called Nova. For the rest of the decade, Nova would go from a normal high school student to planet-saving hero and end up going full circle back to an ordinary teenager by 1981. However, it’s the journey Nova took in that circle that made him one of the best characters ® to come out of the 1970s.

A STAR IS BORN

Doug Smith

However, just as in the real universe, there can’t be a Nova without a Star. The saga of Nova began ten years earlier in 1966 with a black-and-white fanzine called Super-Adventures. This superhero publication was being published by Dave Herring with articles contributed by a young writer named Marv Wolfman. In Super-Adventures’ third issue and Wolfman’s first as publisher, a new hero named the Star made his first appearance. The Star was a creation of Marv Wolfman and his friend and fellow comics enthusiast Len Wein. In the story, a man named Denteen comes across the crashed spaceship of Kraken Roo, an alien from the planet Orion 2. Inside the ship, Denteen discovers a machine which creates pills that grants superpowers to anyone who takes them for five minutes. With these pills and a costume with a fivepointed symbol on its chest, Denteen became the Star. The new hero found himself with a wide variety of powers including flight, laser vision, energy absorption, teleportation, and the ability to create illusions. He could also project energy blasts, radioactive gas and freeze beams from his hands. With these powers, the Star fought a variety of villains both solo and with a group of super-crimefighters called the Law Legion. The subscribers to Super-Adventures received a special bonus when the sixth issue arrived in their mailboxes. Along with the normal fanzine came an offset publication. In this supplement entitled “Who Can Defeat A God?,” Wolfman and Wein gave the Star a major overhaul! The story featured the return of Kraken Roo, who was now an all-powerful being called the Celestial Man. During his battle with the Law Legion, Legionnaire Cosmic Ray and the Celestial Man exchange power bursts and the resulting collision bathed the Star in energy and split him into two beings. The leader of the Law Legion, the Brain, changed one into a new being while Celestial Man absorbed the remaining Star. This new being created by the Brain now permanently had all of the powers of the pills minus the power of flight (replaced with a pair of flying “sky skates”). With this change came a new name and costume as the Star became Black Nova. The evolution of the superhero involved both Wolfman and Wein. “I had wanted to change the character,” recalls Wolfman. “My friend, Len Wein,

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and I discussed the changes and I believe I came up with the idea for a character to be called Black Nova. Len came up with the costume.” The costume designed by Len Wein was a sleek dark blue and yellow skintight suit (which appeared black and white due to the format of the fanzine) with five connected starbursts on the chest and a golden helmet with antennae. Wein remembers that “an element of Black Nova’s original mask was inspired by a one-shot Doctor Strange villain called Tiboro. I really like the idea of a helmet that covered the character’s upper lip. The rest of the costume was just trial and error, I’m afraid.” Unfortunately, Black Nova wasn’t around long enough to use his new powers to their fullest. In Super Adventures #9 (1969), Black Nova sacrificed his life in a crashing airship in order to save the Law Legion.

Black Nova Wolfman and Wein created the Nova prototype “Black Nova” in 1966 in the fanzine Super-Adventures. © the respective owner.

REBIRTH Seven years later, Marv Wolfman had become a successful professional in the comic-book industry and had advanced his way to the position of editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics. While in this position, Wolfman decided that Marvel needed to go in a new direction. In his foreword to the Nova fanzine Rocket Boosters (2007), he wrote, “I wanted to return to the spirit of the old Spider-Man and Fantastic Four books, the ones that were aimed at the younger readers rather than the older ones. I was already writing Tomb of Dracula, a book written squarely for the older readers, and felt as a company we were inadvertently moving away from what was then the

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younger fan. There should be comics, in my view, that appealed to everyone, but we were in danger of abandoning the very people we needed to grow into long-term readers who would continue to follow the books into their twenties and beyond. So I believed Marvel needed an entry-level comic. And I wanted it to be written with as much care and fun as I could. The Man Called Nova was it.” Former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter was an associate editor at the time and recalls Wolfman’s passion for the project: “I don’t remember what brought about the opportunity to launch a new character/title—probably some other title was canceled and Marv talked the brass into letting him replace it with something new. I know he gave a lot of thought to what made Peter Parker work and tried to develop an alter ego and supporting cast that had the same kind of presence and appeal. I know he wanted Rich Rider to be much more of an average guy, as opposed to brilliant Peter Parker.” Nova’s creator elaborates on some of the details: “The book occurred because I was leaving my EIC job and got a contract for writing,” says Woflman. “Rather than take books from others I created my own: Nova, Skull, etc. The Dracula mag, for instance, was the equivalent of two-to-three books in writing. I did the same at DC with Titans. Jim [Shooter] is right [in that] I did analyze why Spidey worked—same reasons why Archie and Jughead work—and tried to duplicate the thought process but obviously not the character.” But Wolfman still felt the new Nova character wasn’t quite ready. Although Nova’s new identity of Richard

Rider and his world were developed in his creative mind, he believed the original Black Nova costume needed some updates. “I wanted the costume simplified,” Marv says. “It was very striking but fannish; antennae on the head, too many starbursts on the chest, overly cluttered, etc. I also wanted a starburst on the back. John [Romita, Sr.] was the in-house designer at the time and I asked him. The original was about 80% there but I needed to make it sleeker.” To finalize Nova’s look, Marv Wolfman was inspired by the cartoon character Mighty Mouse and added a comet streak to his new character’s flight visual. As the book neared publication, one thing was bothering Wolfman—the title of the series. “Nova sounded too feminine to me, so I asked Stan (Lee) for an idea and he suggested The Man Called... It was perfect so I used it.”

NOVA EXPLODES ON THE SCENE With all the pieces in place and the title now satisfactorily masculine, The Man Called Nova #1 (Sept. 1976) hit the stands. With fantastic art by John Buscema, the comic gave readers everything they expected in a first issue back in the 1970s: the hero, his supporting cast, a huge fight, and his origin! And what an origin it was! From the depths of space, a large starship containing a dying alien warrior, Rhomann Dey of the planet Xandar, found its way to Earth in pursuit of the planet’s destroyer Zorr. After Dey realizes he won’t be able to continue his fight, the Xandarian transfers his powers to an unsuspecting human in the form of Richard Rider. Rider was an average teenager living in New York and had a serious lack of self-confidence. On the one side, Rich Rider had his two best friends, Bernie Dillon and Roger “Caps” Cooper, and his girlfriend, Ginger Jaye, to help bolster his self-esteem. Unfortunately on the other side, he was constantly bullied by the school jock and top honor student, Mike Burley. It was during an altercation between the two at Uncle Fudge’s Ice Cream Parlor that Richard Rider’s life would be changed forever. After being knocked to the ground by Burley, Rider was struck by an energy beam sent by Dey and was immediately put into a coma while his body adjusted to the new power. After regaining consciousness and returning to his normal routine, the young hero-to-be was thinking about Dey when the Nova powers exploded from inside Rider’s body (along with the costume), and Nova was born! After enthusiastically testing his new powers around the city, Nova discovered his helmet could pick up radio transmissions from the police band and learned that Zorr was attacking the city. A brief but intense battle ensued until Zorr suddenly disappeared! At the end of the issue, Rich Rider decided to accept his responsibilities as a hero and the role of Nova. With the character and his story now introduced to the readers it was time to, as they say, bring on the bad guys! The next two issues introduced three major enemies to the Nova mythos: Condor, Powerhouse, and Diamondhead. Collectively and informally known as the “Terrible Trio,” they were united against another who would become Nova’s greatest foe. The Man Called Nova #2 (Oct. 1976) featured the Condor, a winged flying genius whose goal was to become the top crimelord in New York. However, that goal was not an end to itself. He wanted to use the position to amass great wealth to fight his foe known only as “the Dreaded One.” His unwilling partner-in-crime was a young amnesiac man named Powerhouse. He had the ability to absorb all forms of energy to use as a weapon or drain his opponent into unconsciousness. Nova’s third issue saw the arrival of the final character in the Terrible Trio. A former boxer who was turned into living diamond during a lab heist, Diamondhead was invulnerable and was even stronger than Nova himself. Diamondhead shared the Condor’s intense fear of the Dreaded One and the three formed a partnership against their common foe at the end of The Man Called Nova #3 (Nov. 1976). Although the battles between Nova and the Condor and Diamondhead ended in stalemate along with Powerhouse’s defeat, the ongoing conflict would carry itself through the first year of the series. This issue also saw a change in artists as the penciling chores went from one Buscema to another. John Buscema was needed on other

“King”-Sized Menace Original art to the cover of The Man Called Nova #5 (Jan. 1977), penciled and signed by Jack “King” Kirby and inked by Frank Giacoia. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel titles and Marv Wolfman approached John’s brother Sal to take over the series. Wolfman recalls that “I loved working with John and felt he could give the look I wanted. After John left, Sal became available. I loved Sal’s stuff and loved working with him on many, many assignments, but actually don’t think his Nova was the best stuff he did.” For his part, Sal Buscema felt Nova was a pretty standard Marvel character. “Marv’s a good writer,” Sal reflects. “I enjoyed working with him. As far as the character is concerned, I thought it was a good character. I didn’t think it was a terribly unique character but, you know, it’s very difficult to characterize this because I worked on so many of the Marvel characters.” If Nova thought his fight against Diamondhead was tough, it paled in comparison to his next opponent—Thor! In The Man Called Nova #4 (Dec. 1976), the God of Thunder’s mind was taken over by the chemical touch of a new Nova foe, the Corruptor. During a brief but intense battle, it was revealed Nova’s uniform was also a functioning spacesuit complete with a 15-minute air supply. Following the inconclusive fight and Thor’s return to normality, the two heroes team up to take down their mutual enemy and part as friends. T e e n

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NOVA MEETS HIS MAKER … AND OTHER GODS

Nova’s Rogues’ Gallery Our young hero is in the

Even battling a god couldn’t prepare Nova when it was time for him to meet his maker! In The Man Called Nova #5 (Jan. 1977), the superpowered teenager was shocked and ecstatic to discover that Marvel Comics was looking for him in order to create a comic based on his adventures! In a surreal moment where comics met reality met comics, Nova came face to face with the creative team behind the proposed fictional comic—Marv Wolfman and Sal Buscema! Both of the creators recall the issue fondly. “Back then, we often put the Bullpen in the stories and I was looking to write a light, more fun issue after a few heavy action stories,” remembers Wolfman. “I always saw Nova as the book for Marvel’s youngest superhero readers as opposed to, say, Conan or Tomb of Dracula (TOD), meant for their oldest readers. And as I was writing TOD I wanted something to be the opposite of that book. Besides, I love writing comedy.”

clutches of Diamondhead, Condor, and Powerhouse in this Sal Buscema/Frank Giacoia page from issue #6 (Feb. 1977), signed by Sal. Note the issue-title stamp atop the page— apparently, “Nova the Unknown” was considered as the series’ title. Courtesy of Heritage. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

“That was a lot of fun,” shares Sal Buscema. “I think Marv kind of made me appear as kind of an idiot [laughs], but that was part of the fun of the thing. It was fun to draw or interpret his writing and put that in picture form. I remember that very specifically, and … I can’t remember exactly what the line was, but I think Marv told me something like, ‘Just shut up and let’s go, Sal,’ or something like that. I remember being a little indignant about that [laughs], but, yeah, that was just a fun job.” After meeting the two creators, Nova fought and quickly defeated Tyrannus, an old Hulk villain. With the danger passed, Nova, Wolfman, and Buscema go back to the Marvel Comics offices. Once there, they were disappointed when Marvel’s publisher, Stan Lee himself, rejected the Nova comic book in favor of publishing Midas, the Million Dollar Mouse! The Man Called Nova #6 –7 (Feb.–Mar. 1977) made up the second story arc involving the war between the Terrible Trio and the Dreaded One. In issue #6, we learned that the One the Trio feared was an extremely powerful and immortal Egyptian called the Sphinx, and we also discovered his origin. Over 5,000 years ago, the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses was challenged by Moses to a duel of snakes. The Pharaoh’s chief wizard lost the battle, was exiled for his failure, and wandered the desert for almost a century. During his exile, he uncovered a hidden temple and merged with a powerful gem called the Ka Stone to become the Sphinx. The inspiration for the Sphinx came from a decidedly non-comic-book source. “This comes out of the Bible— the sorcerer who faced Moses,” Wolfman reveals. “I thought, ‘Wow. That guy had god powers, too— just his were given by the Egyptian gods.’ Moses got his power from his god. The Bible doesn’t say there aren’t any other gods. In the Ten Commandments it says that they shouldn’t be worshipped before God. So in comic-book terms, if you accept that, you have to assume the sorcerer’s power came from his god and he’d make for a great villain character.” The arc ended with the Terrible Trio armed with highly advanced weaponry from an unexpected source— the starship left in Earth orbit by Rhomann Dey! The villains were able to access the ship by temporarily taking control of Nova’s mind with one of the Condor’s machines. The Terrible Trio/Sphinx War reached its conclusion in The Man Called Nova #10–11 (June–July 1977). Despite being armed with alien weapons, the three found themselves easily outmatched and humiliated by the Sphinx. But the confrontation between Nova and the Sphinx was one of the biggest highlights of the entire series. In the local television station’s studio, Nova and the Sphinx traded punches which shattered equipment and shook walls. Unfortunately, Nova’s punches didn’t faze the Egyptian but the Sphinx’s were devastating. However, Nova fought with a determination that won the Sphinx’s respect. As he left an unconscious Nova on the floor, the powerful immortal admitted that the teenage hero was “more of a man than I have seen for many a century.”

NOVA CROSSOVERS The Man Called Nova #12 (Aug. 1977) saw the hero who was—according to #1’s cover blurb—published “in the marvelous tradition of Spider-Man” meet the web-slinger himself. The meeting of New York heroes was too big for one title and even one writer. The crossover saw the creators of Black Nova, Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, reunite to co-write a murder mystery that began in Wolfman’s The Man Called Nova title and ended in Wein’s The Amazing Spider-Man. 5 4

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The story involved the death of Rich Rider’s uncle Ralph by the supervillain Photon. The two writers chose to approach the crossover in a unique way. After the discovery of Ralph Rider’s body amongst a handful of calendar pages and the standard “heroes fight because of a misunderstanding” situation, Wolfman supplied Wein (and the readers) with five suspects and the clues to solve the mystery. “Working on the Spidey crossover was fun because I was able to set up a mystery and see if [Len] could figure out what I had done,” Wolfman reveals. “He actually didn’t get the JASOND clue but worked out the results. Then I went in and told him that so we could plant it in the story.” The action continued over in Amazing Spider-Man #171 (Aug. 1977), with Len Wein picking up the writing chores. “I love a good mystery and it was fun being challenged to solve one,” Wein recalls. “I take great pride in the fact that I succeeded, whether I used Marv’s clues or not.” The Spider-Man writer was definitely up to the challenge! He revealed to the readers that Ralph Rider used the calendar pages of July through December to spell out the true identity of Photon, a.k.a. Jason Dean. After capturing Photon and a whole bunch of AIM agents, Nova and Spider-Man parted as friends. The Man Called Nova #13–18 (Aug. 1977–Mar. 1978) was a standard story arc involving Nova’s fight with Yellow Claw. It began with a terrific battle with the Sandman, the Claw’s hired hand. Following his victory over the sandy supervillain, Nova was approached by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. to continue the fight against Yellow Claw. Over the course of the storyline, the two allies saved New York from a gigantic tidal wave and stopped the Claw. During the arc, the series took on a darker tone in both story and art, with Nova pushing away his friends and family. When asked if this was an editorial direction change on his part to help sales or a choice

The Human Rocket by Cockrum and Infantino (left) This unpublished version of The Man Called Nova #7’s cover by Dave Cockrum contains marginal notes signed by Marv Wolfman to Jack Kirby, who redrew it for publication. Courtesy of Heritage. (right) An example of Flash artist Carmine Infantino’s Nova work, from issue #17 (Jan. 1978), inked by Tom Palmer. Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyderart.com). © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

to simply evolve the character, Wolfman responds, “It was both. My hope was to bring the readers along with me as we got more and more into Richard’s story. Sales weren’t as high as I had hoped (or so I was told) and I thought I’d goose up the intrigue factor, make it more compelling. I still think the lighter approach was better but in an effort to boost sales and evolve the character, as you say, I moved Richard into slightly darker places. Had the book continued I would have lightened up the following stories, going back and forth between darker stories and lighter ones.” The following issue (#19) was Marv Wolfman’s tribute issue to one of his influential writers, The Flash’s John Broome, and Broome’s artist on The Flash, Carmine Infantino, who had replaced Sal Buscema as penciler on The Man Called Nova since #15. The issue introduced a new villain named Blackout. T e e n

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“Having been heavily influenced by John Broome’s writing, as well as Stan Lee’s,” Wolfman remembers, “I thought of Nova in many ways as Marvel’s Flash in terms of the rogues’ gallery—as many characters as I could come up with that fit the concept. Blackout was very deliberately designed to be a Flash-like villain once I had Carmine on the art. The entire story was constructed to be a Flash-like story.” The issue also gave readers an unofficial DC/Marvel crossover with Wally West, DC’s Kid Flash! Nova’s writer admits, “I don’t remember how that came about. But the Blackout story was my tribute to Carmine and John Broome’s great Flash stories, so either I suggested it or Carmine, drawing kids who look like that, drew someone who happened to look like Wally and I picked up on the resemblance and wrote to it. I wish I could tell you now precisely why Wally makes his appearance in that story, but I can’t. I just have a hunch it was simply a fortuitous resemblance I played to.” For his part, Infantino couldn’t recall the details of the event but was surprised with the crossover. “I don’t know how [Wolfman] got away with that,” Infantino remarks. “Didn’t DC complain? It was just the name Wally West? Well, you can’t do much about that now. [If he’d been in the Kid Flash costume,] DC would have gone after them for that if any of that had happened. You can use the name like that if it’s not the same character.” Following this issue, Wolfman and Sal Buscema reunited to team Nova up with the Thing over in Marvel

Two-in-One Annual #3 (1978). It was during their battle with the otherworldly Monitors that Nova discovered he could create a space warp by riding the electron path of an actual star’s nova and traveling faster than light! Later in the series, in The Man Called Nova #21 (Sept. 1978), Marv Wolfman decided to break one of the sacred conventions of the superhero genre. Richard Rider, no longer feeling he could deal with the stress of hiding his Nova secret, revealed the truth of his alter ego to his family! The writer explains that “I never much liked the idea of secret identities. Look at how loosely I handled them in Titans later on. I always felt they were way old school. I couldn’t reveal Dick Grayson’s in Titans because of Batman, but I never tried to play games with them. When I was a kid, I used to hate the ‘Lois searches for Superman’s ID’ stories. So it seemed to make sense with Nova telling his parents. After all, if you can’t trust your parents....”

NOVA GOES INTO A BLACK HOLE The Man Called Nova series concluded soon after with a space-spanning epic that involved numerous superheroes and three separate titles! The Xandar-Skrull War began in The Man Called Nova #23 (Jan. 1979) and continued through the final issue #25 (May 1979). Nova, along with the Comet and Crimebuster (Wolfman’s father/son creations from earlier in the series), Tomb of Dracula villain Dr. Sun, Powerhouse (revealed to be a Xandarian Syfon Warrior who had followed Rhomann Dey to Earth and lost his memory), and Diamondhead, joined the Sphinx to journey to the surviving remains of Xandar. The Egyptian had taken over the Nova Prime Starship in order to journey to Xandar and learn the secret to ending his immortality that he had earlier been unable to force from Nova. However, before they could reach Xandar, the title was canceled. With the book’s cancellation, Marv Wolfman kept the story going in Fantastic Four (another title he was writing) beginning in #204 (March 1979). The Xandar-Skrull War’s storyline ended in Fantastic Four #209 (Aug. 1979) with the war unresolved. The war and the story of Nova would reach its conclusion in another title, ROM: Spaceknight. In ROM #24 (Nov. 1981), writer Bill Mantlo revealed to readers that the war had been ongoing for a year. In a final showdown with the Skrulls and Diamondhead (who had betrayed Xandar), Nova and ROM defeated the Skrulls’ massive invasion and ended the war. However, the leaders of Xandar felt Nova’s power was needed at Xandar to provide security for the future. Given the choice of keeping his powers on Xandar or return to Earth and his family, Richard Rider was faced with a difficult decision: With the gratitude of the Xandarians, Rich Rider chose to return home powerless to the family he had been missing terribly. Although the series only lasted 25 issues, along with various appearances in other titles, the character of Nova would have a lasting impression on fans and future comic-book writers. In the years since the character’s return from the publishing “black hole” in 1989, Nova has appeared in numerous comics including a popular series launched in 2007. Ironically, the new series has Marv Wolfman’s original unused title—Nova! DOUG SMITH lives in Marion, Iowa, and runs the Nova Prime Page (www.novaprimepage.com).

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Editor’s note: Back in the Big ’80s, almost every kid in America knew that Firestar was one of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger’s Spider-Friends. So why didn’t she become a comic-book superstar? Occasional BACK ISSUE commentator Mike Gagnon has some opinions about Firestar that he’d like to get off his chest…. by

Mike Gagnon

In the early ’80s, an exciting new cartoon, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, was launched by Marvel Productions. Many young Spidey fans, myself included, would scurry excitedly to the television on Saturday morning. Perish the thought that we should miss a moment of the action! What made this cartoon unique was it featured the mega-popular Spider-Man, best known as a loner, in a team dynamic, a first for the web-head. Joining Spidey in his college-based adventures was Bobby Drake, a.k.a. Iceman of the popular X-Men comics, and a new character, Angelica Jones, a feisty female known as Firestar. Little did the creators and producers of the show know then that their animated creation of Firestar would later take the leap and cross over into the mainstream comic-book universe of Marvel Comics. Any quick Internet search will turn up dozens of fan pages dedicated to Firestar and discussion threads about her on message boards. It’s not uncommon to find online discussions with fans asking, “Why wasn’t Firestar used more?” or “How come she wasn’t a bigger part of the X-Men?” Many fans, myself included, assumed that our beloved Firestar would take a bigger role, possibly joining Marvel’s X-Men (she was a former member of the mutant clan in the cartoon), or taking on a larger role in her own right, following her initial 1986 miniseries. In this article I’ll attempt to explain and examine the creation of, use of, and plans for Firestar and try to solve the puzzle of any perceived under-use of the character that many fans feel that she may have suffered from. In the process I’ll go directly to the horse’s mouth, so to speak, and will be joined by Tom DeFalco, Mary Wilshire, Fabian Nicieza, and even Christy Marx, the screenwriter who wrote many TV episodes that focused on Firestar and created her origin for the show.

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FIRESTAR IN SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS According to the show’s official fan site at www.spider-friends.com, producers of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends liked a fire and ice combination for Spidey’s companions, but for various reasons were unable to use the Human Torch as originally planned, and so set to work in creating a new character to take Johnny Storm’s place. Taking the original design of Mary Jane Watson (Spidey’s future wife) and tweaking it just a little bit gave the show’s creators their look for Angelica Jones. Names were tossed around such as Heatwave, Starblaze, and Firefly before the team made their final decision and Firestar was born. Firestar was originally conceived by the show’s creators, including the late Dennis Marks, the show’s producer and its voice of the Green Goblin. The details and origins surrounding Angelica Jones were created by writer Christy Marx. Marvel Productions was the name of the company’s west coast branch at the time, which was in charge of developing Marvel’s properties for film and animation. This included developing Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends as a Saturday morning cartoon. It debuted in the fall of 1981. In the animated series, Firestar is depicted as an intelligent young woman in her early twenties, enrolled as a student at Empire State University in New York. She attends classes with both Peter Parker and Bobby Drake. On the show she was even shown to have aboveaverage intelligence, using Peter Parker’s secret lab without any trouble. The character even warranted a Marvel alternative history. Both Firestar and Iceman are introduced in the first episode as former X-Men, retired from the team in order to pursue their studies at ESU. Adding Firestar to the cast didn’t just give producers a chance to draw in the young female audience. Putting a female lead into the lineup also made it possible to inject plot elements such as an ongoing love triangle with Angelica dating both Peter and Bobby at different times on an “on-again-off-again” basis. In late October 2008, Christy Marx, animation and comic-book writer, joined me for an interview via e-mail to talk about her work with Firestar for Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

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MIKE GAGNON: You’ve been credited as being the creator of Firestar. Is that accurate? If so, how did you come up with the idea and how much input did you get from producers and other writers? CHRISTY MARX: I don’t recall exactly where Firestar came from. She already existed as part of the series and I can’t tell you who her original creator was. However, I was the one who was allowed to come up with and write her origin story, so in that respect I did help to “create” her. GAGNON: It’s been said that the show was originally supposed to cast Spider-Man with Iceman and the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, but the Torch was tied up in licensing hell. Is this true, and if so did you see this as an opportunity to inject a female lead into the series? MARX: Again, this was so long ago, that I don’t really recall where Firestar came from. It wasn’t up to me to inject anyone. The series was already laid out conceptually before I started writing. As for the Torch, the first animation series for which I ever wrote was The Fantastic Four. That series didn’t have the Torch in it either. He was replaced by a small robot sidekick (H.E.R.B.I.E., for those unfamiliar with the show). I was told that the reason for this was Imitatible Behavior. When writing for children, there is a great fear that they will imitate something harmful that they see on TV and do harm to themselves or others by imitating this behavior. That’s why there were (and are) strict unwritten rules about never letting one character poke another character in the eye, etc. In the case of the Torch, someone somewhere believed that kids might be inspired to set themselves on fire because they would see Johnny suddenly burst into flames and fly off. I’ll let you decide how much sense this makes to you, but that’s the reason I was given. You’ll note that Firestar doesn’t burst into flames the way Johnny Storm does. GAGNON: Did you have to do much research into Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men comics in order to come up with Firestar’s backstory? MARX: No, it didn’t require any research. Besides, I’ve been reading the X-Men since I bought issue #1 off a spinner rack, so I didn’t exactly need to do research! GAGNON: Firestar was involved in a romantic triangle with Iceman and Spider-Man. In one episode Peter (Spidey) confessed to Bobby (Iceman) that he loved her. Had the series continued on for another season or two, would this have been revisited? Were there any storylines you would have liked to have done with Firestar that you didn’t get a chance to? MARX: Those are the sort of questions that can only be answered by the story editor. The story editor and/or producers are generally the ones who get to make those sorts of decisions. After all this time, I don’t remember whether I had other stories I wanted to do. GAGNON: Did you develop any sort of emotional attachment to the Firestar character? MARX: I always enjoy writing strong female characters, so I certainly enjoyed creating stories for her. GAGNON: What was your favorite moment or thing about working on the show? MARX: That was early in my career, so everything about it was fresh and exciting for me. And I was such a comic-book geek, that getting to write comic-book characters was also a joy. GAGNON: Have you ever gotten feedback from fans who watched it or did you get feedback from kids who were watching the show at the time it was airing? MARX: I’ve gotten a small amount of feedback in recent years, and it’s always nice to know that the show made an impact and is remembered after all this time.

GAGNON: Were there any stories that got vetoed by Marvel because of content? MARX: Not that I know about, but that’s more of a story editor question. GAGNON: How did working on the show affect your work and career? Did it help you learn anything that you still use today? MARX: It was another valuable step in the long chain of growing experiences that helped me to become a better animation writer. GAGNON: Aside from television, you’ve also written several comic books and graphic novels. Would you ever be interested in writing a Firestar comic for Marvel? MARX: Sure! That would be great fun, especially tackling the challenge of how to update her for today’s times. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was canceled in the spring of 1984 after only three seasons. (Season Two consisted of only three episodes.) However, syndication kept the series alive in reruns for a couple more years.

THE FIRESTAR OF MARVEL COMICS At some point in the mid-’80s, following the end of the animated series, Tom DeFalco, at the time known for his work on characters such as Dazzler, Machine Man, and Spider-Man, approached Marvel’s then-editor-in-chief Jim Shooter about what to do with the Firestar character. DeFalco saw Firestar as a character with potential that was just sitting around not being used by Marvel. Not only was Firestar given a four-issue miniseries penned by DeFalco, but also a cameo in one of the most successful books of the time, Uncanny X-Men, in issue #193, May 1985), which was a crossover with the Firestar miniseries. Tom took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to me about his experiences working on the Firestar character:

MIKE GAGNON: How did you become involved in the Firestar miniseries? TOM DeFALCO: I came up with the idea of doing the miniseries and pitched it to Jim Shooter, who was Marvel’s editor-in-chief at the time. Since Firestar was on television, I thought it might be a good idea to put her in comics. GAGNON: What led you to approach Marvel about the miniseries? Were you a fan of the cartoon? DeFALCO: I can’t say I was a fan of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. That’s not surprising since the show wasn’t really aimed at me. However, I was assigned to write the comic-book adaptation (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends #1, Dec. 1981) and I could appreciate its merits. I did think that Marvel was missing a big opportunity with Firestar. Since she was already popular on television, I reasoned that we could make some money on a comic that starred her. It was kind of like taking out a license on a property you already owned. A no-brainer as far as I was concerned GAGNON: Do you recall whether there was a feeling that this was going to be a big event for Marvel because of the character’s previous popularity as an animated character on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends? DeFALCO: I might be misremembering, but I don’t think anyone in the office had great hopes for Firestar. She was a television property, barely a step up from a T e e n

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Firestar First Issues Tom DeFalco scripted both Marvel’s one-shot adaptation of the TV show, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends #1 (Dec. 1981), and Firestar #1 (Mar. 1986). Cover art by John Romita, Jr. and Al Milgrom, and Mary Wilshire and Steve Leialoha, respectively. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

licensed property. I do remember that Louise Jones (now Louise Simonson) seemed to like the story I pitched and was very supportive and encouraging. GAGNON: When you say “the office didn’t have great hopes for Firestar,” what exactly do you mean? I remember seeing a number of “in-house” ads for the series in other titles. Does that mean that there was promotional support for the series, but not so much executive/editorial support? DeFALCO: I didn’t say the company didn’t support Firestar. I said they didn’t have great hopes for her, and there’s a big difference. The powers-that-be thought they could produce a profitable limited series based on Firestar, but I don’t think they believed the character would become a major star. History has agreed with them. GAGNON: Do you recall any memos detailing the specific look of the character or how they wanted the character portrayed? DeFALCO: I did contact the west coast branch of the company—I think it was called Marvel Productions at the time—and tried to work with them. They didn’t really have a backstory for the character and were kind of happy that I was going to finally give her an origin and explain how her powers worked. GAGNON: How was your experience working on the series? DeFALCO: It was terrific. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Mary and Louise. One of them—I don’t remember which one—told me that I had the heart of a 16-year-old girl … even though I looked like Ben Grimm on a bad day. GAGNON: How much discussion was there between you and your editor and the creative team (Chris Claremont and John Romita, Jr.) or editors of the Uncanny X-Men at the time?

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DeFALCO: I never spoke to Chris or JRJr about Firestar. I assume that Louise gave them copies of my basic treatment or plots and that’s what they used as the basis for their treatment of the character. GAGNON: Was there a conscious effort to inject her first comic-book appearance from Uncanny X-Men #193 into an intersecting point with the miniseries? DeFALCO: Louise Jones/Simonson really liked the Firestar limited series and wanted to help push it. I assume she told Chris about the character and convinced him to use her. GAGNON: What would you say were the strengths and weaknesses of the character when you took on the Firestar project? DeFALCO: When I took on the character, she had visual and heat powers. I gave her an origin, a family history, a detailed connection to both the Hellions and the X-Men, and decided that her powers were based on microwaves. GAGNON: How did you exploit those strengths and weaknesses? How do you feel your work developed and expanded the character? DeFALCO: I think Marvel Productions did everything they needed to do in order to produce a character that could appear in a half-hour animated television series. I added the necessary layers so that Firestar could appear in comic books for years to come. GAGNON: How has your work affected and contributed to the Firestar (last seen in Civil War) comic fans know today? DeFALCO: When animation fans think of Firestar, I believe they’re thinking of the character as she appeared on television. When comic-book fans think of Firestar, I believe they’re thinking of the character as she appeared in the comics written by guys like Fabian [Nicieza],

seemed like a natural for the team. [Editor’s note: For more on the development of the New Warriors, see the “Pro2Pro” interview beginning on page 66.] GAGNON: Would you have liked to see more of Firestar? DeFALCO: I grew very fond of the character and loved Mary Wilshire’s take on the character. I would have jumped at the chance to do a monthly series starring Firestar … which is kind of why I put her in the New Warriors when I had the chance. I thoroughly enjoyed the work that Fabian Nicieza and Kurt Busiek did on the character and hope she eventually gets a shot at glory. Despite the fact that Mr. DeFalco didn’t have high hopes for Firestar within the larger Marvel Universe, it wasn’t a far stretch for fans to believe that she was going to play a more important role in the future of the X-Men universe at Marvel Comics. And then, not so much. Unlike her mature, emotionally together animated counterpart, in her first appearance, the comic-book Firestar was portrayed as a young, insecure adolescent, still coming to terms with and learning about her powers. The story delved back into Angelica’s childhood, crossed over with, and continued past her first comicbook appearance in the Uncanny X-Men. [Note: The events of Uncanny X-Men #193 took place between Firestar #2 (Apr. 1986) and #3 (May 1986)]. Angelica’s power is detected by both Professor X and the White Queen (Emma Frost) and both school masters want to recruit the girl to their respective mutant training schools. Angelica ultimately enrolls in Frost’s Massachusetts academy, becoming a member of the junior Hellfire Club known as the Hellions. Eventually Angelica discovers Frost’s deceitful manipulations and murders, then turns on her mentor and destroys her headquarters in a fiery explosion before returning home to her father. Although she starred in her own pulsepounding miniseries, Firestar later made only small cameo appearances in the Marvel Universe, never playing a major role in any following X-Men storyline, perplexing for a character that is as popular among fans as she appears to be. One individual who feels that Firestar may have had a deep emotional impact with a different target audience than usual for comics—young females—is Firestar miniseries artist Mary Wilshire:

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KEY FIRESTAR COMIC BOOKS Uncanny X-Men #193 (May 1985) Firestar makes her first appearance in comic-book form as a member of the Hellions, battling the X-Men, whom she would later befriend. Takes place between issues #2 and 3 of Firestar.

Firestar #1–4 (1986) Angelica Jones discovers her powers to create and manipulate microwaves by generating heat and fire. She is taken in as a student by Emma Frost, but when she uncovers Frost’s deceptive ways she destroys her mentor’s base of operations and returns home to her father.

Thor #411/New Warriors #1 (July 1990) Angelica is blackmailed by Night Thrasher into forming the New Warriors.

New Warriors #26 (Aug. 1992) Firestar starts dating Marvel Boy.

Kurt [Busiek], and me. My limited series may have started the ball rolling for Firestar, but Fabian and Kurt did all the heavy lifting. GAGNON: For a character that seems so popular among some fans, Firestar has never really been given a lot of attention or another chance to star on her own. Any theories on why that is? DeFALCO: It’s awful hard to do a monthly superhero comic with a female lead—trust me, I know! Aside from Spider-Girl [written by DeFalco], the first Spider-Woman, and SheHulk, Marvel hasn’t had a lot of success with superheroines. GAGNON: Would you say that it is easier today to sell a series with a female lead than it was back in the ’80s? Harder? DeFALCO: I think it’s very hard to launch any new comic series. How many new series were launched within the last five years and are still being published today? Successful female superhero leads just seem to be a hard sale and ’twas ever thus! GAGNON: How do you approach writing a female lead in order to create that edge that gives it a chance at survival over other creators? DeFALCO: I don’t know what other creators do. I just know that I like women—always did and probably always will—and thoroughly enjoy their company. I just try to build my characters around people that I know and I go from there. GAGNON: Did you ever think or believe that Firestar would become a part of the X-Men or that surrounding universe after the miniseries? Possibly a future X-Man/important player? Was there any talk or intention toward that? DeFALCO: Absolutely not! When I was working on the Firestar limited series, I was just hoping that I could accomplish three things: I wanted to do a limited series that sold well for Marvel. I hoped that by the end of the series Marvel would have another viable and valuable character that other creators would want to use. And I also wanted to have a good time while working on what I hoped would be an interesting story and character. I think I was the only one who really believed in Firestar at first. Louise Jones/Simonson was my first convert, followed by Mary Wilshire. But there was never any talk about Firestar joining the X-Men or becoming a major player in the Marvel Universe. GAGNON: Did you ever have any specific plans or ideas for the character beyond the miniseries and including her in your plans for New Warriors? DeFALCO: No, I had no plans for the character beyond the limited series. Once I completed the limited series, I assume I became involved in another project and focused my attention on it. I honestly didn’t really think about Firestar until I began putting the New Warriors together. I wanted the Warriors to be Marvel’s sort of/kind of answer to DC’s Teen Titans, and Firestar

Firestar discovers that her microwave powers are killing her and those around her.

Avengers #1 (Feb. 1998) Firestar and Justice (Marvel Boy) join the Avengers.

Avengers #12 (Jan. 1999) Hank Pym creates a suit that cures Firestar of the poisoning caused by her powers.

Civil War (various issues) (2006) Angelica retires her Firestar identity.

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MIKE GAGNON: What were your biggest challenges working on Firestar? MARY WILSHIRE: I never had much personal contact with Jim Shooter, but I am quite sure he would have been far less interested in launching a new book about any wholesome female character than any other kind of character. His sexism was legendary, but so was his comic-book acumen. I’m sure the only reason they were willing to do Firestar was that she was a mutant and could be linked with the New Mutants and (Uncanny) X-Men. GAGNON: So, would you say that a book with a female lead was one of the series’ biggest challenges? WILSHIRE: We also drove ourselves nuts trying to get girl comics marketed in locations where we knew little girls and mothers could be targeted, like supermarket checkouts. They wouldn’t do it. Many of us felt there were untold millions that could have been made this way, but … guy comic-book fans ran the biz and they felt girl characters weren’t interesting, unless they were very evil, very sexed-up, very destructive, or someone’s girlfriend. GAGNON: Do you think that this is a problem that’s still prevalent in the industry? WILSHIRE: Maybe it’s different now, but I am not well informed at all in this area these days. In those days, we had a constant battle trying to convince the powers-that-were that there could be any kind of audience for female characters. Only the established women characters hung around and got printed. GAGNON: If having a female lead was a challenge for the miniseries, what aspects do you feel worked in its favor? WILSHIRE: The whole metaphor of being a mutant, at war with one’s own personal power, and how to see it in a social context is still an enduring and irresistible concept, as evidenced by the success of crossover comic-book properties in film and TV. GAGNON: How did you come about landing the gig drawing Firestar? Was it something you pursued? Were you a fan of the cartoon or Spider-Man comics? WILSHIRE: I was not a comic-book fan growing up, and fell into the work accidentally. Larry Hama got me into it and taught me anything I ever learned about drawing for continuity and visual storytelling. I never read Spider-Man or knew anything about Firestar being part of an animated series. I don’t remember struggling to keep her character looking like a previous version; though I’m sure I had specific guidelines for her costume. GAGNON: What were the biggest driving forces for you creatively on the Firestar series? What was the most fun part of the job? WILSHIRE: Larry Hama, the editor with whom I worked most often, usually urged me to bring as much pathos and personality into my drawing as possible. I would have loved it if Firestar were to have become a more important character, because it would have meant royalty checks for me, something I didn’t see too much. For me, the real connection was to Firestar’s emotional problems, as I had been a little girl whose mom died tragically when I was young, and I felt for years it was my fault. This was part of Firestar’s

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story, too, so it was a cosmic, therapeutic kind of story for me to draw. That was the most compelling thing I remember about drawing that character. Ironically, I’d have to say the most fun I had drawing the issues of Firestar was drawing the White Queen! Pretty funny, eh, after my pointed remarks about gender stereotypes?! Drawing the first issue took me eight months; I was so subconsciously “blocked.” My own emotional traumas came to the surface more as an actual result of drawing the story. I’m sure Tom [DeFalco] wanted to give the book to an artist who would just get it done, but probably Larry intervened on my behalf, hoping that I would bring some warmth and non-comic personality into the art. GAGNON: Overall, would you characterize your experience with the series challenging, due to the existing boundaries set up for female characters? WILSHIRE: I enjoyed working on the series, I loved working for Marvel, and it was a blast. Working with Larry was the single most educational experience of my career, but I was more of an illustrator than a comic-book artist. So, has Firestar suffered from a lack of vision in targeting the appropriate audience, from Marvel not wanting to risk expanding into risky markets to target the female audience? Perhaps it’s not the root cause, but this is definitely a valid point that may have contributed to Firestar’s lower sales, and perhaps this has caused other creators to think twice about focusing on Angelica Jones as a feature protagonist. Pinpointing what happened to Firestar’s direction, or lack of direction, is a hard challenge since early formative stories and discussions regarding the character’s development took place over 23 years ago, even longer for the animated version, and over time specific details have faded with memory, as evidenced my discussions with Uncanny X-Men #193 artist John Romita, Jr., who remarked: “I don’t really recall anything about working on the issue. I’m sure it was a situation where Marvel sent

a memo saying this is how the character looks and I drew it like that according to Chris’ [Claremont] script. I’m sure they wanted it a certain way because of the cartoon and so be it. As for anything specific, though, I don’t really remember any details.” With the growing cast of Uncanny X-Men in the comics and no new episodes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends to keep the character fresh in the minds of fans, Firestar was squeezed out of the pages of Uncanny and soon faded away from both television and comic books.

THE NEW WARRIORS The next time we saw Angelica Jones and her heroic alter ego was in 1990 as a founding member of the New Warriors, a new team of edgy young heroes. The original team roster consisted mostly of other teenaged Marvel heroes from the past who had slipped out of view. The New Warriors first appeared in the pages of Thor #411 (Dec. 1989) and quickly leapt into their own comic-book series, which has experienced several revivals in the years since. Although an original member and key character in the early issues, Firestar would eventually leave the series as writer Fabian Nicieza began to push the envelope, developing new and original superheroes (Silhouette and Rage) and transplants (Darkhawk) to join the team. Mr. Nicieza took time out of his busy schedule working on Robin and Trinity to take part in a brief interview via e-mail:

MIKE GAGNON: How did the inclusion of Firestar to the roster of the New Warriors come about? FABIAN NICIEZA: Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz put together the original character grouping for New Warriors and I was handed a working pitch bible from which I developed the series. GAGNON: Are there any plots or storylines involving Firestar that you wanted to do, but never had a chance to? NICIEZA: Uhm, honestly, that was so long ago I can barely remember. I do know I planned to continue powering her up in a Jean Grey/Phoenix parallel that would have eventually resulted in a storyline similar to what Evan Skolnick developed when he took over and then was completed by Kurt Busiek in the Avengers. GAGNON: When you say that you had a story in mind for Firestar that would parallel Jean Grey/Phoenix, would your version have culminated in killing the character off as well? Or as killed of as much as anyone in Marvel Universe can be? NICIEZA: I prefer not to play the game of “what was the story you didn’t tell twenty years ago?” I can’t give you the details of what I would have wanted to do, because the story was never broken down for pacing, subplots, etc. It was just a potential “avenue of pursuit” for me to take with the character, that’s all. GAGNON: Do you feel that Firestar or other characters in the New Warriors may not have had as much face time in order to focus on other characters? NICIEZA: No. I tried very hard to “share the wealth.” Maybe Angel [Angelica] got a little less face time than the

others, but that was a combination of her personality and her lack of “conflicted backstory” that prevented having much to flesh out. Other than White Queen, she didn’t have a lot of Marvel Universe history, family problems or mystery like many of the other NW characters did. GAGNON: Would you say then that the other New Warriors were more interesting to write than Firestar because she inherently had less to work with as a character? NICIEZA: I would say yes, but I don’t want that to denigrate Angel. I liked writing her character immensely and thought she added a tremendous amount to the group dynamic, but she didn’t have as much personal conflict, family baggage, or continuity history as the other characters did, and therefore they had more meat on their bones for a writer to chew on. GAGNON: Is it difficult to focus on the development of one character when you’re working with an ensemble cast? NICIEZA: Not at all, I don’t think. You just juggle your storylines and make sure you keep all the balls in the air. GAGNON: What was your favorite New Warriors story? That featured Firestar? NICIEZA: That’s a tough one. I liked my run a lot and different stories had different strengths. If I had to pick one, I’d probably say the “Forever Yesterday” storyline in #11–13 (May–July 1991) because it was just a truckload of fun to write. As for Firestar herself, I really enjoyed putting her up against Firelord and hearing all the fans complain that she won! GAGNON: Were you a fan of the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends animated series? NICIEZA: Not really. I was a bit too old by the time that cartoon came on air. They had a dog, didn’t they? Yeah, except for Krypto, I don’t want any superhero dogs running around. GAGNON: Did you have to use much reference or research from the animated series or the ’80s Firestar © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Surgeon General’s Warning Is Firestar hazardous to your health? Not when drawn by Mary Wilshire, or by this issue’s (#3, May 1986) cover art duo of Arthur Adams and Bill Sienkiewicz. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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miniseries, written by Tom DeFalco, to write the character for The New Warriors? NICIEZA: I used no reference from the cartoon. I don’t know if there was any to be had. This was pre-Internet, pre-DVD sets, etc. and I don’t know if the cartoon was even available at retail back then. I did reference Tom’s miniseries for her supporting cast, relationship to the Hellions, etc. GAGNON: What would you say were the strengths and weaknesses of the Firestar character when you took on the New Warriors project? NICIEZA: Her strengths were her powers, her status as a mutant in the Marvel Universe, and how recognizable she was due to the cartoon. The weaknesses were her lack of in-depth backstory or supporting cast, her status as a “cartoon character,” and a concern that her personality as established, slightly shy and tentative, would become lost in a setting with much more bombastic personality types like Nova, Speedball, Namorita, etc. GAGNON: How did you exploit those strengths and weaknesses? How do you feel your work developed and expanded the character? NICIEZA: By exploiting her mutant history with the Hellions, it made for an easy subplot flowing to an obvious story and an eye-catching cover in #10. That helped the book expand its reach into more of the touchstones of the Marvel Universe, by flashing a light on the mutant corner. As for her personality, making her quiet but resolute gave her a foundation of strength and conviction, so that when she did speak, others had instant respect for her. She was likable, which is important in a group setting with some slightly unlikable or annoying characters, which the Warriors had plenty of. Her relationship with Vance allowed for a sweet romantic subplot that readers always love. GAGNON: How do you feel your work affected and contributes to the Firestar comics fans know today? NICIEZA: I honestly couldn’t answer, having not read anything that was done with the character since I wrote the I m Marvel story with her and Vance in it. GAGNON: Is Firestar a character you’d like to revisit again? Any of the other original New Warriors? NICIEZA: There was a time I’d have been interested, but I really think the time has passed for both the team and my involvement with

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them. I think outside of DnA’s [Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning] great work on Nova, Marvel has successfully disrespected the core concept of the original team and those characters often enough that going back would be more trouble than it’s worth. Firestar was again seen as a part of a large cast of characters in the Spider-Man series crossover, “Maximum Carnage,” published in 1993, also featuring Venom, Black Cat, Cloak and Dagger, and Morbius. In this story Firestar has banded together with these other heroes in an attempt to take down the insane villain Carnage. In 1998, when Kurt Busiek was given the chance to revamp the Avengers, the writer decided to introduce some new blood to the team in the form of one-time New Warriors characters Justice (formerly Marvel Boy) and Firestar. To spice things up, the romantic subplot between the two characters, started by Fabian Nicieza in the pages of New Warriors was continued as well. Avengers is, however, ultimately an action/adventure comic and the couple’s side story was soon overshadowed by stories involving Marvel’s big guns such as Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. Firestar made a number of cameo appearances in the Marvel’s 2006 event, Civil War. Following the events of the story, the character retired from the public eye and has settled down into regular life as Angelica Jones. While the factors discussed in this article have held back a character that seems to maintain a warm spot in the hearts of her fans and creators alike, we can only hope that someday soon the right creative team will come together and create an epic story for Firestar. Until then we’ll just have to continue enjoying our back issues and DVD releases, dreaming of what the future holds for the feisty redhead named Angelica Jones. MIKE GAGNON is a freelance writer and artist with a love for all things comics and retro cartoons. More about his work can be found at www.mikegagnon.ca.

Given the success in the 1980s of The New Teen Titans for DC and The New Mutants for Marvel’s X-Men group of titles, the possibilities for a teen superhero group rooted in the wider Marvel Universe were clearly there. The New Warriors, by the creative team of writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Mark Bagley, launched with issue #1, cover-dated July 1990. The series’ original run lasted until #75 (Sept. 1996), and Fabian and Mark collaborated on the first 25 issues plus one annual. They kindly share their thoughts on their involvement with the New Warriors with BACK ISSUE readers. – Ian Millsted IAN MILLSTED: Can you tell us something about the creation of the New Warriors? Their first appearance was in Thor #411–412 (both Dec. 1989), by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, who get a “conceived by” credit in New Warriors #1 rather than “created by.” Who would you say were the real creators? How did each of you become involved in the project? FABIAN NICIEZA: That’s always a nebulous term when it comes to shared-universe concepts. Tom and Ron got the credit they did because we all felt that was their role. They conceived the concept based on Tom’s desire to see a youth-oriented Avengers-style title. Mark Gruenwald and Tom had been talking about how Marvel didn’t have a Teen Titans-style title, so Tom went about coming up with one, and as is often the case, bounced his ideas off Ron. They co-created Night Thrasher, but used established characters and concepts beyond that, so their credit was well-deserved. As far as “creating,” well, every story that saw print was created by myself, Mark, and with the very strong editing involvement of Danny Fingeroth (and I mean that in a very positive way!). MARK BAGLEY: The way I remember it … Danny Fingeroth offered me the book (Fabe had something to do with that, I think). The idea was that they would first show up in that Thor issue. I get the feeling that was so Tom and Ron could sorta get “creator” cred. I remember being less than thrilled with the way they were portrayed and thought we had our work cut out for us. I did not do any real character sketches right off the bat, but I really wanted to do something about Nova’s bright red costume, and I came up with the idea that Namorita wasn’t wearing a “costume,” so much as just a bathing suit which she changed all the time. NICIEZA: I was working at Marvel in a staff job— I think I was still the advertising manager at the time, I hadn’t moved to editorial yet—and I knew the

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inter view s cond ucte d Sprin g 2008

project was percolating because I’d talked to Tom about it. I asked Danny if I could pitch, knowing I’d be one among many vying for the job. I also knew that a returning editor, Danny would be very wary of hiring a young talent whose only experience for the most part had been working on a stigma-inducing New Universe line. So I pitched, knowing I was the right choice for the job and knowing I would do a better job than anyone else. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. And then I waited. And by the way, did I mention that I waited some more? And then, by sheer attrition and reluctance on the part of Danny, he gave me the job. [laughs] By then, because the waiting time had taken so long, I’d gotten to know Danny a lot better, plus I’d gotten all kinds of wonderful blackmail photos and tape recordings of him that I was able to parlay into making me the obvious choice. MILLSTED: How were the initial characters selected? NICIEZA: I always joked with Tom that it must’ve been a lot of work to flip through the Marvel Universe Handbook and throw darts at it as the pages turned, but the truth is, Tom and Ron bounced the ideas back and forth, trying to use our limited number of young characters available who weren’t a part of the X-Universe and create a team that had a bit of a gender mix to it. They also knew that each character had to bring in some personal “baggage” which could then be used to tell group stories through their involvement (i.e., the White Queen/ Firestar connection or the Sphinx/ Nova connection). BAGLEY: I do remember that Fabian wanted Richard Rider (Nova) to be © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. sort of a scrawny loser since losing his powers. I really had a problem with that idea and talked Fabe into the idea that Richard had tried to compensate for his loss of the Nova powers by pumping up in the gym. It was really selfish on my part … I just didn’t want to draw him scrawny. That was really the first time I felt like a real collaborator with a writer on a book. Fabe really listened to my reasoning and cooperated with me—it was really cool. MILLSTED: Were there any problems with New Warriors characters that were being used elsewhere? Namorita, for example. NICIEZA: We had a few little tiffs regarding Namorita, but in the long run, nothing really major. We were told in no uncertain terms by Tom DeFalco and Mark Gruenwald that Warriors was her “main” book, so that gave me the confidence to stand by my approach to the character. That and the fact our sales kept going up in comparison to other titles we might have been in “competition” with for use of any characters. MILLSTED: Given the teen heroes theme of this BACK ISSUE, to what extent was New Warriors intended to be a Marvel answer to New Teen Titans? NICIEZA: I don’t know if we ever intended to “answer” that series in a tit for tat method in terms of ever thinking we’d be as good or successful. I mean, Marv Wolfman and George Pérez turned Teen Titans into sheer gold in the ’80s. It was one of my favorite regular series by far in its first four years. We obviously followed their example, but I don’t think we ever copied them. Our characters were our own and their stories were their own. I think the Claremont/Byrne X-Men set the standard by which the Teen Titans followed and in turn, the Titans set the standard by which we tried to follow. BAGLEY: I don’t remember if the Titans were ever really a factor in what we were trying to do. We just wanted to make the book as hip as we could. MILLSTED: One thing that interested me was the use of Al Williamson as an inker on the first two issues. I know he did a fair bit of inking for Marvel around that time. How did you (or Danny) get him for New Warriors and why only two issues?

Beginnings: Psi-Force #9 (July 1987)

Milestones: New Warriors / X-Force / X-Men / Thunderbolts Nightwing and Superman (childhood favorite characters) / Captain Action

Works in Progress: Batman Confidential #17–21 / Trinity / Robin

fabian nicieza

Beginnings: Nightmask #9 (July 1987)

Milestones: New Warriors / Amazing Spider-Man Thunderbolts / Ultimate Spider-Man

Work in Progress: Trinity

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NICIEZA: Danny wanted a name to kick-start the series launch, but Al wouldn’t be able to commit to another monthly. BAGLEY: I was really excited … dude is a legend! I didn’t have much contact with him … but I do remember one phone call. I’m not sure why I called him (it’s been a lot of years), but he told me he was leaving because, and I quote, “I was making him work too f***ing hard!” Really, he said that I was pretty good, but that he would love to have me in his studio for a while, that I could learn a lot, and he was absolutely correct. The skill he brought to my pages—adding blacks, textures, and what-not—was amazing. I did think that he was a little too “loose” style-wise to be a great fit with what I was doing at the time, but, man, he could draw his ass off! We ended up sending out sample pages to a few guys, and Larry Mahlstedt was terrific … really smooth and clean, which I liked a lot at the time.

NICIEZA: As much as I love and respect Al’s work as an artist, I personally didn’t feel he was right for the tone of the book or for Mark’s pencils. I was very happy to see Larry take over with issue three and help provide, what I felt, was the right, slicker “sheen” to Mark’s art. MILLSTED: Larry had previously been at DC on Legion of Super-Heroes, among other things, so would have had a track record on team books. NICIEZA: Yes, that had something to do with it, but ultimately, we felt his style was very suitable to Mark’s pencils at that time. By giving the book a cleaner line he made the young people look young, the fun look fun, giving it the “Marvel pizzazz” that the book required, rather than a dark or scratchy look that was more appropriate to something like Daredevil. BAGLEY: Larry and about three others did sample pages for us, which was a first for me. His were clearly the best. Very smooth and faithful to my style. Looking back over those issues, he worked his ass off. MILLSTED: How did you both see New Warriors in career terms? BAGLEY: I saw it as my first crack at mainstream Marvel, with the added benefit of low expectations from the company and the market. The fact that I could take these characters that no one really cared about and make them mine was a real plus. I was relaxed from the get-go. That the book did well was really a cherry on top. Fabe and I made a really good team, and it showed. NICIEZA: I saw it as the book that would make my career in mainstream superhero comics. I felt that if I could make New Warriors succeed, I would continue to rise on an upward track. And modestly, I think it succeeded, I was afforded a lot more opportunity as both a writer and an editor at Marvel. There was a healthy dose of respect internally for the book’s success. MILLSTED: How was the response to the series from readers and the company? NICIEZA: Marvel VP of direct sales at the time, the late Carol Kalish, God bless her, a brilliant woman who helped make the comic-speciality shops a growing success through the ’80s, used to describe the book at retailer meetings as “Avengers Academy—it’s like Police Academy, but with the young Avengers.” And I’d be sitting next to her half the time cringing because it made the book sound ridiculous. Most people on the outside thought it was going to be a joke. Lots of people on the inside did, too, until they started seeing Mark’s pages and realizing something pretty damned good was percolating. Plus, I talked enough about what we planned to do that insiders knew I had some interesting stories planned. Danny and I had a few pretty fun screaming matches, which made everyone think, “Oooh, something controversial might be happening.” All of that was good to help build some internal buzz. Externally, we knew we had to really wait for the book to come out and succeed due to word of mouth.

“Dude is a legend!” Al Williamson inked Mark Bagley’s first two issues of New Warriors, although all involved felt the marriage of then-newcomer penciler Bagley and venerable artist Williamson was a mismatch. Page 1 of issue #2, contributed by Frank Balas. © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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BAGLEY: I think the fan reaction was really a shock to everyone. This was a group of really unappreciated characters, and a lot of folks really liked what we did with them. I think Fabe made his bones with the book, proved he was the real deal. I was able to really improve as an artist on the run. There is really no better training than a team book for storytelling, and it led directly to me being assigned to Amazing Spider-Man. NICIEZA: Issue #1 sold 126,000 in the direct market. I remember to this day. It was the second lowest-selling title, I think, of the six new titles launched that year in a combined marketing launch. We sold another 80,000 or so on the newsstand. By issue #12 we were selling, I think, about 190,000 in the direct market plus about 75,000 on the newsstand. We were one of the only titles of that year whose sales climbed steadily in our first year and stabilized in our second. I had a not-so-fun wager with someone working on another title that launched that same year guaranteeing him we’d be selling more than his book by the end of our first year. I won the bet. And no, I won’t say who the bet was with. MILLSTED: Clearly sales were good, amazingly so in comparison to anything today. Did that give you more freedom or did it mean you got more attention from “higher ups”? NICIEZA: Yes and no. I remember fighting about a lot of the things I wanted to do. Marvel at that time was firmly and squarely publishing their superhero titles for “all ages,” meaning every issue had to be readable to ages eight to eighty. That’s a pretty big range to shoot for. There were lots of things I wanted to do but wasn’t allowed to. That being said, all the fighting was well worth it because Danny made me work my ass off and made me a better writer by forcing me to think about everything I was doing and why. Arguing over dialogue helped teach me how to understand what lines really worked and why, when my plot points did indeed have holes in them large enough to drive a small truck through, etc. So freedom, not so much; an enhanced standing in the company, definitely. Even within that, it was never a top ten book or anything, it just sold far better than anyone expected, and that in and of itself led to more offers for me and eventually to Amazing Spider-Man for Mark. MILLSTED: The Sphinx storyline in New Warriors #11–13 (May–July 1991) allowed you to do your own versions of many Marvel characters. Is that fun? NICIEZA: For a writer it is. I don’t know about for artists since it requires redesigning everything. Personally, I had a blast writing that storyline. BAGLEY: I remember it being a ton of work, but I was having a blast doing it. You gotta realize that I was still in the “I gotta prove myself” mode. So even though I wasn’t really drawing all these high-profile Marvel characters, I was showing that I could handle anything that was thrown at me. MILLSTED: The final issues you did together included the trial of Vance Astrovik. A very interesting storyline, I thought, but how tricky is it to do scenes restricted to a courtroom? NICIEZA: Easy for me. Tough for Mark, but he pulled them off beautifully. I know I structured the story in such a way that “static” courtroom dramatics would be offset by wild and crazy Cambodian action in the other story thread. The reaction to that entire storyline was fantastic. BAGLEY: It was a really good exercise in storytelling. How to make it visually interesting. Almost a precursor to the sort of deconstructed storylines that are common

Turncoat!

in comics now—lotta talking heads sittin’ in a room. I really enjoyed those issues. It was some of Fabe’s best work. MILLSTED: Did either of you have regrets leaving New Warriors? BAGLEY: I hated to go, but it was time to move on. Those were some really exciting times in my early career. NICIEZA: I could probably have written the book for another fifty years and never have run out of story ideas. I had the book thought out through issue #100 and beyond. I chose to leave simply because I felt I’d gotten to the point where the creative energy I was giving to the title was not being matched by Marvel, and since I was still a staff guy and intimately involved with all the people in all the departments, I thought it better to stop writing it than descend into a dark cloud of bitterness. And I’m the sunny, sweet guy I am today because of it.

IAN MILLSTED is a writer and teacher based in Bristol, England. His first child, Bethan, arrived while he was working on this article.

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The peace of a winding English country road is shattered by the sound of racing engines. A familiar classic silver sports coupe swings into view, hotly pursued by a large, black limousine of evil intent. Suddenly, a laser cannon swings into the air from within a hidden compartment on the limo, and its deadly beam sears the air, only to be deflected by a sheet of high-tech armor plating emerging from the trunk of the coupe. But all is not well. The force of the blast knocks the silver coupe off the road, and the Aston-Martin DB5 plummets over the edge of a cliff on its way to apparent obliteration on the rocks below. Inside the doomed vehicle, the driver calmly clicks a switch, the car doors open and fold downwards to mimic a pair of wings, and a propeller appears from behind the front grille, instantly transforming the vehicle into a flying car. The driver-turned-pilot climbs, then banks, and flying low over the head of the frustrated villain, heads on to his appointment, one for which he was already late. Arriving with style the flying car lands, folds its wings, and executes a neat reverse hand-brake turn into a parking slot. Unfazed, the driver emerges, crosses the parking lot, and introduces himself to the waiting crowd of people. “My name’s Bond … James Bond Junior.” What? Hold on a minute—James Bond Junior?? Who is James Bond Jr.? The year was 1991, and while the Bond movie series was on its six-year hiatus between Timothy Dalton’s swan song in Licence to Kill and Pierce Brosnan’s debut in Goldeneye, EON Productions, the James Bond movie-rights holders, decided to resurrect a spin-off idea that had first been tried at the height of Bondmania in the late ’60s: the idea of a “junior” James Bond that could appeal to a new audience—kids and teenagers. Back in 1967, a “young adult” novel entitled 003 1/2: The Adventures of James Bond Junior was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK (and by Random House in the USA a year later), written under by the pseudonymous “R. D. Mascott,” whose identity has yet to be officially revealed (popular opinion among Bond scholars is that it may have been fantasy novelist Arthur Calder-Marshall; others suggest it may have been Roald Dahl, the famous children’s writer who also wrote the screenplay for the Sean Connery Bond movie You Only Live Twice). The idea was to launch a series of novels for younger readers featuring James Bond’s “nephew,” written by different writers but all published under the R. D. Mascott name. Apparently “003 1/2” didn’t sell well enough and the idea was quickly abandoned. When you think about it from a continuity perspective (as a comics reader, is it possible to think any other way?), the idea of Bond having a nephew named James Bond Jr. is a fatally flawed one. Bond’s creator Ian Fleming established in the original novels that Bond was an only child, so having a nephew would be impossible. If, for argument’s sake, James Bond did have a brother that Fleming had “overlooked,” then for his child to be named James Bond Jr., the mysterious brother would also have to be named James Bond! Perhaps Bond’s parents just displayed an incredible lack of imagination when it came to naming their offspring. In the R. D. Mascott novel it states that 007’s mysterious brother was in fact named David Bond, inferring that the “junior” is perhaps more of a nickname than a literal appellation.

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Fans Were Shaken, and Stirred Marvel’s adaptation of the James Bond Jr. TV series [cover #1, Jan. 1992, is seen here, with art by Mario Capaldi and Colin Fawcett], and (inset) the 1967 young adult novel from which the young Bond idea originated. © 2009 EON Productions.

Such logical flaws didn’t stop the idea being dusted off in 1991, this time as a multi-media property with a 65-episode TV animated series, six junior novelizations, a video game, a line of action figures, and a comicbook series. All of which completely ignore the naming conundrum. Marvel Comics was granted the license to produce the tie-in comics series, and they then contracted the Marvel UK office to oversee production. Marvel UK regular writer Dan Abnett was approached, having previous experience working on “junior” franchise properties such as Thundercats and Ghostbusters. Abnett, now known for his work in 2000AD, as well as for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and as a prolific novelist, was a self-confessed Bond fan since his youth and jumped at the chance to work on the franchise: “Hell, even watered down for younger tastes, it was James Bond, after all,” he tells BACK ISSUE. The series was planned for an initial 12-issue run with an option to renew. To prove that the creative team could handle the franchise to EON Productions’ satisfaction, it was stipulated that the first five issues should be adaptations of selected episodes from the animated series. As Abnett explains, “the adaptations were the hard ones: boiling down the essence of a TV episode, even with twenty or so pages to play with, was often a tight or awkward fit. When we [later] got the freedom to do our own stories, we could craft them into comic terms much more effectively.” The first four TV episode adaptations appeared under Abnett’s pen name of Cal Hamilton, because “I didn’t want a particular publisher to realize I was working for their rival,” Abnett reveals. The last episode adaptation and the following seven original stories all appeared under Abnett’s own name.

Like the TV show, the comics featured spin-offs of familiar Bond characters from the books and movies, such as the reappearance of dead villains Dr. No (who for some reason now had green skin and wore a red-and-purple jumpsuit!) and Goldfinger. Goldfinger’s (also dead) assistant Oddjob made the occasional appearance (and appeared to share a tailor with Dr. No as he had changed his suit for a metallic visor over his eyes, a purple-and-yellow tracksuit, and a gold chain bearing the letters “OJ”). Continuing its penchant for illogical naming, the series even introduced Goldfinger’s daughter, Goldie Finger. Roger Moore movie-era sidekicks Jaws (although in this case his whole jaw, not just his teeth, was made of steel) and Nick Nack often appeared as the obligatory bickering comedy duo. Other Bondrelated junior characters included I.Q. (the grandson of Major Boothroyd, a.k.a. Q) and Gordo Leiter (Felix Leiter’s son, sporting perhaps one of the best mullets ever seen on Saturday morning TV). The basic plot of each episode revolved around 17-year-old James Jr. and some of his pals escaping from the premises of their prep school to battle the forces of S.C.U.M. (Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem) while their friends covered for them. This approach upset many Bond purists at the time (including the author of this article), but Abnett saw it differently: “[It was] sort of fun, although there were places you couldn’t go with it,” the writer says. “And [the basic plots were] sort of clunky. But this was a kid’s cartoon, after all. There was a certain, sweet, old-fashioned appeal to the idea that he was Bond’s nephew. It was very much its own thing, but I’m sure my imagination was informed by my knowledge of ‘proper’ canonical Bond.” Art for all 12 issues was handled by Marvel UK regular Mario Capaldi. Capaldi specialized in historical tales and is perhaps best known in the UK for an contemporary adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that he did for The Saturday Evening Post newspaper. In the instance of Bond Jr., as with other franchise titles he worked on such as Care Bears, Capaldi simplified his normal detailed illustrative style to closely match the animated style of the TV show. With the TV show ratings performing below expectations, the series was canceled during 1992, so the option for more issues of the comics series was allowed to lapse. As it turned out, the most successful aspect of this James Bond Jr. media blitz was the 12-figure toy line, which continued to be a strong seller for Hasbro long after the TV show had stopped airing. Many of the TV episodes are now available online thanks to YouTube. Collecting the full run of the Marvel series takes a little searching, but some issues, especially the first two, are plentiful and usually to be found in the bargain bins. This series is a nice talking-point oddity to add to any Bond collection, and for comics fans it’s a great look at how one of today’s top comics writers bought his skill and craft to working on a tightly controlled franchise. Given the less-than-favorable reaction that the James Bond Jr. concept received among the Bond fan community and its lack of commercial success, a different approach to a junior Bond was launched in 2005 with the establishment of the Young Bond series of novels by Charlie Higson. These novels purport to tell the story of the teenage James Bond and the various adventures he fell into. At the time of writing, four books have been published in the series. The first, SilverFin, has been adapted into a graphic novel in 2008 with art by Kev Walker. ALAN J. PORTER has been writing on various aspects of pop culture for over ten years, but somehow always seems to come back to the Beatles, Batman, and Bond. You can find out more at alanjporter.com.

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What if … instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1945, Max Charles “Charlie” Gaines had purchased National Periodical Publications (DC Comics) from them? That’s the premise of this fantasy series being divided between the pages of BACK ISSUE and its TwoMorrows big-sister mag Alter Ego and set on “Earth-22,” where things in the comics business happened rather differently than the way they did in the world we know. Just imagine: a comic-book industry in which the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash, rather than Superman and Batman, are the premier heroes of comics, media, and merchandising. The author, Bob Rozakis, a longtime writer, editor, and production manager for DC Comics, has imagined just that in…

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. The Story of M. C. Gaines’ Publishing Empire Book Two – Chapter Five: Youth Movement

BOB ROZAKIS: AA wasn’t really big on kid sidekicks and teenage heroes in the early days, were they? TED SKIMMER [longtime AA Comics employee]: No, we weren’t. The sidekicks were more of a DC thing—Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff had them in their books, but Julie Schwartz and Bob Kanigher didn’t use them. The earliest ones were in the DC books before we took them over. The Golden Age Batman had a young Robin, the first Green Arrow had Speedy, the Crimson Avenger had Wing. ROZAKIS: Jack Kirby liked them, too. Captain America had Bucky. He brought in Sandy when he took over Sandman. SKIMMER: True. And Jack and Joe Simon were the ones who created the Newsboy Legion and the Boy Commandos. But, as I said, those were all in DC titles. Once those books were canceled, we didn’t have any kid heroes for a couple of years. ROZAKIS: Then Mort took over Green Lantern and introduced Kid Lantern in Sensation Comics. SKIMMER: But he wasn’t a kid sidekick—he was just a younger version of GL. I think the first real sidekick he added was Electron in the Atom stories in All-American Comics. Then came Kid Flash in Flash Comics—that was when Jack Schiff took over the book from Julie. And then Hawklad when Hawkman moved from the back of Flash to the back of Comic Cavalcade. ROZAKIS: Hawklad pretty much replaced Hawkgirl as his partner once Mort took over the strip. SKIMMER: Mort said that the readers preferred kid heroes to female ones and he would point at the much lower sales of Wonder Woman as proof of this theory. ROZAKIS: But that didn’t stop him from coming out with Girl Lantern. SKIMMER: Oh, he had an answer for that, too. As long as she was the backup series in All-American, it was fine. When they gave her the lead in Sensation, after bumping out the Lantern Legion, she couldn’t carry the book. ROZAKIS: Whose idea was it to team up Kid Flash with Electron and Hawklad? SKIMMER: Probably Murray Boltinoff’s. They were still doing Brave and Bold on a rotating basis at that point, though it was no longer a tryout book. They started doing different team-ups in 1963, planning to turn the book into another Comic Cavalcade with two stars sharing an adventure the way Flash and Green Lantern did in CC. I think Murray did the first one… ROZAKIS: Wildcat and Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man. I remember seeing that on the newsstand and thinking that it was an odd pairing, so I bought it. SKIMMER: [laughs] See? It worked! 7 2

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Generation Gap The 1970s saw a return to popularity for the Teen Titans, thanks to appearances like this one with Green Lantern in The Brave and the Bold. (All comics images in this article are © DC Comics.)

ROZAKIS: Then came Hawkman teamed up with Aquaman, Flash with the Atom, and Sgt. Rock with a couple of the other war heroes. SKIMMER: I think that was one by each of the editors, so it would have been back to Murray again. He had been playing up Hawklad in the Hawkman book, even gave him billing on the Showcase issues, so he figured there would be an audience. Turned out he was right. The sales figures came in and Billy told him to team them up again. ROZAKIS: Who thought of adding Wonder Girl to the group? SKIMMER: Maybe Billy, maybe Murray. Marvel’s team books all had a girl in the group. So did the Justice League. ROZAKIS: But no one pointed out that Wonder Girl didn’t really exist? That she was Wonder Woman as a girl? SKIMMER: Maybe someone did, but nobody cared. Only you fanboys worried about continuity. ROZAKIS: But it would have made more sense to put Girl Lantern in the book. SKIMMER: Ah, but Mort wouldn’t let them do that. Just as he wouldn’t let Julie Schwartz play up Green Lantern in JLA, he wasn’t about to have Girl Lantern star in someone else’s book. The problem was that with four characters in the book, there would be too many logos on the cover, so that’s when they came up with the Teen Titans name. You know it was originally going to be called Kid Commandos, don’t you? ROZAKIS: I’ve heard that. Teen Titans is a better name. SKIMMER: It certainly sold well. After they appeared in B&B #60, Billy told Murray to start them in their own book. ROZAKIS: But there was that appearance in Showcase #59. SKIMMER: Convenience. There was nothing else ready for that issue of Showcase, so Billy told Murray he was plugging Teen Titans in it. Teen Titans #1 came out two months later. ROZAKIS: And it did well for a few years. But it seemed like the young heroes ran out of steam toward the end of the ’60s. The Lantern Legion made only a few appearances and Teen Titans was canceled. SKIMMER: Everything has its cycles and that was one of the downturns. The same thing happened over at Marvel to X-Men. But interest picked up again when we went back to the 48-page books in ’71 because we started using reprints of the early ’60s stuff. A new round of readers discovered the characters. The Lantern Legion ended up taking over the Kid Lantern book. The Teen Titans started appearing on a regular basis in Brave and Bold with Green Lantern. And Jack Kirby reinvented the Boy Commandos, characters he and Joe Simon had created in the DC days during World War II, as the DNA Commandos in Doiby Dickles. It was like the superhero business was suddenly having a youth movement. ROZAKIS: Well, so was the company! SKIMMER: That’s true. You and your compatriots came on staff at about the same time, along with a lot of new writers and artists. Seemed like an endless parade of new faces through the office, especially people coming in to see Joe Orlando. ROZAKIS: Well, Joe’s books did provide the biggest opportunity for new talent. He used a lot of short stories in Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science, and the other horror books. That’s where guys like Len Wein and Marv Wolfman got their start, along with artists like Bernie Wrightson and Mike Kaluta. SKIMMER: Seems to me there were a lot of one-shot-wonders in there, too. Guys who did one story and then went out and got jobs in the real world. ROZAKIS: You mentioned that Carmine Infantino once asked you, “Who are all these kids?” after we got hired. What was the reaction among the other old-timers? SKIMMER: [laughs] “Old-timers,” eh? You realize that you are older now than we were when you showed up, don’t you?

Teen Teams Today and Tomorrow (top) The original Teen Titans got their title back in the mid-’70s, following appearances in Brave and Bold and Comic Cavalcade. (bottom) The Lantern Legion returned to prominence by teaming up with Kid Lantern in his book, then took over the title and sent the Kid back to the 20th Century. T e e n

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ROZAKIS: Hey, I’m well aware that now I’m the old-timer. SKIMMER: Which makes me ancient! Do you know how comic books were invented? We were painting on cave walls and Charlie Gaines said, “You know, if we print these on paper, they would be a lot easier to sell.” ROZAKIS: [laughs] He was right! SKIMMER: Anyway, there were a couple of people on staff who were scared for their jobs when you guys started working. Only one of them actually got let go, but that had nothing to do with any young guy taking his place. There were a few artists and writers who lost work to you guys. ROZAKIS: Maybe, but the line was expanding and there was more and more new material in the books as the reprints were phased out. There was no way they could have done it all. SKIMMER: True, but there were a few who, no matter how overloaded they were, would see any job that went to a new guy as money out of their pocket. It was a mindset that went back to the ’40s and ’50s when companies went belly up and guys suddenly had no income. ROZAKIS: But a few of those guys were hopelessly stuck in the ’50s. SKIMMER: That was one of the reasons that Billy supported Orlando on hiring a lot of young talent. He saw what Marvel was doing, that Stan Lee, and then guys like Roy Thomas who followed him, were able to connect with the older readers. We had a lot of guys who were still doing comics for ten-yearolds, but we needed to do some books for the fanboy market as well. And they had to be done by people who had just been part of that market.

ROZAKIS: Bob Haney’s spin on the “groovy” Teen Titans was always amusing. They seemed stuck in 1966 for a long time. SKIMMER: I’m sure there are people who look at what you did on that book in the ’70s and would say the same thing about them being time-stuck! ROZAKIS: Touché. SKIMMER: By the end of the ’70s, Haney was the only writer from my generation who was still working for us steadily. You younger guys had pretty much taken that over. ROZAKIS: But not so with the artists. Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Irv Novick, Carmine, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, and a whole lot of others were still doing regular monthly assignments. Most of the lettering was done by Ben Oda and Gaspar Saladino. And Tatjana Wood was everyone’s favorite colorist, though there were a few folks of my generation making some inroads in that area. SKIMMER: You have to realize that after his father died, Billy was starting to look at things differently, too. When Charlie retired in 1969, he was 75 years old; he was almost 87 when he died. Billy was only 59 in 1981, but he had health issues. He told me many times that he had no intention of working as long as Charlie did. But, unlike Charlie, he had no son to pass the business along to. Not that it mattered at that point. Warner owned AA and they would promote or hire whomever they wanted to run the company when Billy decided to retire. ROZAKIS: Which they did. SKIMMER: Yes, and everyone seemed to agree that it was a good choice. NEXT: “Kirby—King of Comics”

10 MINUTES WITH MICHAEL USLAN, PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER OF AA COMICS BOB ROZAKIS: One of the “legends” of the comics business is that Steve Ross decided Warner should buy AA because he sat in on a meeting about the first Green Lantern movie. And he sent a young Warner lawyer to set up the deal. True? MICHAEL USLAN: Well, yes. And I know this because I was that attorney. ROZAKIS: How did you end up in that meeting? USLAN: Much as I loved comic books, I really wanted to get into the movie business. While I was at Indiana University, I sent out 130 résumés to anyone and everyone I could find an address for. Every one of them was typed individually on a typewriter. It turned out that more than a couple of them ended up on the same desk in the legal department at Warner Bros. Somebody said, “This kid really wants to work here!” so they offered me a job … in Burbank! ROZAKIS: But you were living in New Jersey at the time…? USLAN: Newly married and freshly graduated from IU with no job and little money. I sold the copies of Green Lantern #1 and Flash Comics #2 from my collection to pay the moving expenses and to get a place in California. ROZAKIS: That must have hurt. USLAN: [laughs] I’ve been able to replace them. Anyway, I had been working out there for awhile when the studio started negotiating distribution rights with the Salkinds for the first Green Lantern movie. Someone from our department had to be there and since I knew something about comic books, I was elected. None of us expected Steve Ross to come in and sit down in the middle of the meeting, though. But, apparently, he did that from time to time, just “dropped in” to see how things were going. When he came in, I got up so he could sit at the table and moved to a chair behind him. That’s how I heard him asking his assistant what the movie was based on.

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ROZAKIS: And when the assistant didn’t know… USLAN: I told him. ROZAKIS: And right then he said, “Go buy me that company”? USLAN: Well, that’s how the story goes, but that’s because it sounds better that way. Actually, we got a call a day or two later saying that Ross was interested in exploring a deal with AA. He did ask for me to do the groundwork. Of course, I knew Max and Bill Gaines from the couple of summers when I was there in the early ’70s, so it was fairly easy for me to get an appointment to see them. And they seemed pretty open to the idea of selling, too. ROZAKIS: Well, I’m sure they both made a nice bit of money from it. USLAN: I think we can say that everybody walked away from the table happy. ROZAKIS: So the deal went through and you went back to doing legal work at the studio? USLAN: Yes, until Ross and the board decided they wanted someone from corporate to go in and provide some oversight. They were discussing possibilities and someone suggested “that kid lawyer who bought them in the first place.” Ross liked the idea and the next thing I knew, I was moving back to New Jersey. ROZAKIS: But this time you didn’t have to sell any of the comics in your collection. USLAN: [laughs] No. So I came in as vice president and publisher in 1981 and when Bill passed away in 1992, I was promoted to president. ROZAKIS: Do you miss working at the studio? USLAN: With all the movies and TV shows being made using our characters, I have plenty of interaction with the people out there. In a lot of ways, this turned out to be the best of both worlds for me. ROZAKIS: I think we can say it turned out to be the best for AA Comics as well.

P E R S O N A L D A T A Alter Ego: Kelly Kelley Occupation: College student Marital Status: Single Known Relatives: Mayor James Kelley (father) Group Affiliation: none Base of Operations: Keystone City First Appearance: FLASH COMICS #359 Height: 5' 6" Weight: 123 lbs. Eyes: Brown Hair: Red

H I S T O R Y While an undergraduate at Keystone College, Kelly Kelley was in need of a senior project to complete her degree in Chemistry. One of her professors suggested that she review some of the abandoned projects from the past and determine whether new breakthroughs in science would turn them into successes. Kelly’s research resulted in her recreation of Jay Garrick’s experiments utilizing “hard water.” Kelly was able to duplicate Jay’s experiments, including being exposed to and succumbing to the hard water fumes. And, just as Jay did, Kelly

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P O W E R S & W E A P O N S Flashette possesses super-speed, the limits of which have not been tested. She has been known to throw her helmet to disable her foes. Ar t by Larr y Guidr y

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P E R S O N A L D A T A Alter Egos:

Kid Flash - Wally Williams Hawklad - Henry Hall Electron - Bobby Pratt Occupation: Students Base of Operations: Happy Harbor, Maryland First Appearance: BRAVE & BOLD #54

H I S T O R Y When a creature called the Antithesis took control of the Flash, Hawkman, and the Atom, their young sidekicks found themselves joining forces in order to battle the creature and their mentors. Though ineffective individually, the youthful heroes

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discovered that their combined powers were what was needed to save the day. Some weeks later, when the villainous Mister Twister took control of the town of Happy Harbor, Maryland, the three young heroes received a ham radio message asking for their help. They reunited and, again, teamwork enabled them to defeat their foe. After this adventure, their mentors agreed that the three young heroes could establish a headquarters and meet on a regular basis, which they did. Wonder Girl joined the group shortly thereafter and the quartet proved themselves a formidable team. A number of other young heroes joined the team officially or unofficially over the years, including Beast Boy, Hawk and Dove, Hornblower, and the Bumblebee.

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P O W E R S & W E A P O N S Kid Flash is able to move at super-speed and vibrate through solid objects. Hawklad has the power of flight thanks to a belt made of the nth metal. Electron is able to fire bolts of electricity from his fingers as well as absorb the power from electrical devices. Wonder Girl uses her magic lasso and Amazonian bracelets against her foes and is able to ride the wind currents. Ar t by Larr y Guidr y and Shane Foley

More concerned with the quality of his work than seeking the spotlight, Steve Skeates mastered the craft of writing the short story during his tenures at Marvel, Tower, Charlton, DC, and Warren. While best remembered for his stint on Aquaman with artist Jim Aparo and for his Hawk and the Dove stories with Steve Ditko and Gil Kane, Skeates did some of his best work in the humor genre following his award-winning run on DC’s Plop! Skeates’ evolution from Stan Lee's assistant to awardwinning author can be found in our sister magazine, Alter Ego, issue #84 (now on sale). The following continues the life story of Steve Skeates after his days on Plop! – John Schwirian

John Schwirian

JOHN SCHWIRIAN: In the early ’70s, the bulk of your work outside of DC was mystery—at Warren Publishing. You also had stories printed in the Marvel “horror” comics and in Archie’s Red Circle Sorcery. Why was so little of your work showing up outside of DC and Warren? STEVE SKEATES: The early ’70s were a real crazy time for this particular raconteur, what with all sorts of awards and all sorts of work (the latter to some extent being generated by the former, me suddenly no longer on anyone’s blacklist, a pleasant perk brought about by that just-now-mentioned touch of recognition I had somehow wrung out of my peers, and all of it making for people who had hated my guts but a couple of years earlier abruptly in unseemly abandon stepping all over each other’s tongues and toes in their untoward eagerness to buy whatever work I might feel like shoving their way) even as, with my second marriage having fallen apart, I was back living in NYC and that didn’t hurt either in my ending up with wearying load of work piled impossibly high upon my shoulders. Beyond Plop!, Supergirl, Zatanna, Kid Flash, World’s Finest, Spawn of Frankenstein, Dr. Thirteen, Captain Fear, Aquaman, Jimmy Olsen, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and those Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansions, beyond the Mummy, Pantha, and This Unholy Creation, beyond even those occasional jobs for Red Circle Sorcery and one or another Marvel horror comic, there were humor pieces for Sick, Crazy, Harpoon, and Blast. There were those fish stories I both wrote and drew for Star*Reach and Quack, and there were even the initial stages of my working on Tweety and Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Underdog, and The Twilight Zone for Gold Key. Anyway, in the midst of all this, if it seems like I didn’t do as much work as I could have for the Marvel horror books, undoubtedly that’s simply because I felt that the so-called Marvel method (plot, then pencils, then script, then lettering, then inks), while admittedly great for superdudes, didn’t work well at all when it came to mystery stuff; therefore, I was way less than enthusiastic when it came to fighting for assignments from Journey into Mystery and its various clones! As for Red Circle Sorcery, there really wasn’t all that much pseudo-horror work to be had there—merely one bimonthly book.

Skeates and Friends The writer and some of the characters whose adventures he wrote. Cartoon by Matt Heuston, courtesy of John Schwirian. Characters © their respective owners.

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

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

Work in Progress: “Possessions,” featuring the adventures of Tepeth-tet, forthcoming in All-Smash Funnies #2 (Comic Enterprise Publishing Group)

steve skeates SCHWIRIAN: I’m assuming that Sick and those others were parody books like MAD, but what were Star*Reach and Quack? SKEATES: Sick, Crazy, and Blast were indeed imitations of MAD, whereas Harpoon was a poor man’s National Lampoon. And, just to make the whole silly picture utterly complete—there was (as I’m now suddenly quite eager to point out) a fifth humor mag I did work for back in those days, one I had almost forgotten all about, something called (believe it or not) Something Else, in many ways yet another MAD clone but with pretensions of a sort, seeing as this one was trying to be the hippest, man—you know, attempting to pass itself off as part of the counterculture and all

Pre-DC Three Denny O’Neil, Steve Skeates, and Dick Giordano lighting up a Charlton Comics panel, circa 1966–1967. 7 8

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that, like in that ever-popular busy-being-pleasantlyfreaked-out-to-the-max phrase from which its very moniker supposedly flowed, i.e.: “Hey, wow, that’s something else, man!” All in all, then, five minor-league magazines that were trying with all their tiny little hearts to stake out some sort of territory within a market that seemed utterly owned by MAD, Cracked, and that new upstart that had not that long ago veritably burst upon the scene, making a profit by its second issue (a fantastic feat for any periodical), National Lampoon. All these mags (the ones I worked for, that is) had some sort of connection with comics, so here (for whatever it’s worth) is something of a run-down on the five… Sick (which had been around since the ’50s) and Something Else (a recently conceived entity) were put out by the same publishing firm (whatever its name might have been), and, when this particular correspondent got involved with those two, Joe Simon (yep, the same dude who used to pal around with Jack Kirby) was the senior editor over at Sick, whereas his son (whose first name I flat-out don’t remember) was the editor of Something Else. I don’t recall anything of much interest that I produced for Sick, but I did concoct some pseudounderground pieces for Something Else that I still feel worked out quite niftily—in particular, an inside-frontcover faux public service announcement about sleep which ended with the line “Sleep is Essential—Try it!” Crazy, meanwhile—published by those appropriately whacked-out people over at Marvel—came into being in 1973. Edited by Marv Wolfman, Crazy employed a number of writers and artists generally associated with comic books—Neal Adams, Larry Hama, Don McGregor, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Ralph Reese, Tony Isabella, and more! I was on board for the first four issues, but got a bit miffed once Marv started putting his own name as co-writer on any piece he made any sort of editorial changes to, no matter how minor those changes might be. The second time he did this to one of my pieces, I decided to forget about Crazy and concentrate my humor writing efforts on Plop! (which, being an actual comic, was selling much better than Crazy anyway). Then, in 1975, when Marv handed the editorial reins over to Steve Gerber, I more or less picked up where I had left off Crazy-wise. The Gerber/ Crazy era [Editor’s note: see BI #31] was definitely the best time I ever had working for a humor mag, and I did indeed produce some of my favorite pieces, like my three-part parody of pulp magazines entitled “Stupid

Stories Illustrated.” Gerber didn’t last too long as the editor, however, mainly because his issues of the magazine were extremely copy-heavy, an aspect I (and a number of the other writers) quite enjoyed; however, once Stan Lee actually paged through one of these issues, he hit the ceiling and immediately replaced Gerber with someone who had no connection with comics, a former editor for Sick, I believe. I submitted a couple of pieces to this guy but they were rejected mainly because they were (of course!) “too wordy!” Later still, I did quite a bit of work for Crazy in the early ’80s once Larry Hama became the editor— that lasted quite a number of years and once again I produced quite a bit of stuff that I quite liked, including a back cover (illustrated by Marie Severin) that was in such bad taste that some offended higher-up, angrily exercising his power, told Larry (under the threat of termination) never again to place anything I wrote on the back of the magazine! To this day, still one of my proudest moments! As for Blast, all in all, truth be told, there’s very little I do recall about this rag outside of the simple string of events that began with yours truly spotting the first ish of this thing upon the stands somewhere, grabbing it up, and saying to myself as I read what it had to offer: “Hey, I could do better than this!” Thus, I got in touch with the editor and wound up writing and selling said publication at least an issue and a half’s worth of three-, four-, and five-page stories. Sadly, though, before any of my work here got to see the light of day publication-wise, the lousiness of the first two issues of this baby took its toll, and Blast bit the dust. Harpoon was an attempt by one smalltime publishing firm (in this case: Lopez Publications, which put out a line of cheap sleazy men’s adventure magazines) to cash in on the success of National Lampoon simply by putting out a publication that looked a lot like the Lampoon. Once again, we’re dealing with a son as the editor, this go-round it was Dennis Lopez whose old man, as the owner/publisher of Lopez Publications, was quite willing to entrust his college-graduate son with far more moolah than any of his other editors got to throw around. Dennis, in point of fact, was in way over his head and much of the supposedly pointed humor in Harpoon missed its mark by at least a mile and a half, especially those pieces written by Denny himself. Still, he did hire such artists as Neal Adams, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, Mike Kaluta, and other biggies, even as Mary Skrenes and I started writing more and more of the mag, thereby (if I do say so myself) upping the quality of said publication. My own favorite bit of business of mine: my description in an ersatz advertisement for a velvet painting of Richard M. Nixon: “His eyes avoid you no matter where in the

room you stand!” Ultimately, the Lampoon threatened to sue, and, rather than fight, the Lopez family changed the name of their publication to Apple Pie, an appellation that somehow unfortunately simply wasn’t all that appealing to the general public, sales plummeted, and quickly that particular publication (that I had very much enjoyed working for) died. As rather a footnote (although I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here), I did want to mention that finally in the late ’80s I even did some work for Cracked. Being something of a snob, I suppose, I had pretty much always seen Cracked as being too lowbrow even for my taste, but, by the late ’80s, Cracked had a new young editor, and was making waves via such surprising moves as hiring Don Martin away from MAD, and besides, at that particular point in my career, I was fairly desperate for work. As for MAD itself, that was a nut I simply never could crack, seemed to have had the same writers essentially forever (or, at least, ever since Kurtzman had departed) and really wasn’t looking for any new blood (not in the writing category anyway). However, I can nevertheless still say that I did (in fact, believe it or not) get published in MAD itself seeing as a letter I wrote praising the quality of one of the last issues of MAD the comic book got published (back when I was all of 12 years old) in the very first issue of MAD the magazine. As a matter of fact, mad, crazy, and sick as this may seem, the heady sensation way-back-when of having that missive published may well stand as the true underlying impetus of my entire writing career! This all, however, leaves one question unanswered: What was Star*Reach? This was Mike Friedrich’s cross between a regular ordinary comic book and an underground— he called it a ground-level comic—published out on the west coast. The first issue contained work by Starlin, Simonson, Chaykin, and myself. Star*Reach was successful enough so that Friedrich ultimately felt confident enough to develop a second regularly published comic, this one featuring nothing but various “adult” funny animal stories— and that (as you may have already guessed) is what Quack was all about! SCHWIRIAN: You had two tales appear in the ill-fated Atlas (Seaboard) Comics line— the tale of the Comanche Kid in Western Action #1 and a book-length sword-andsorcery epic in Wulf the Barbarian #3. Had the Atlas line not died, would you have continued with these characters?

Hard-to-Find Humor Mags MAD knock-offs like Blast and Something Else contained humor scripts by Skeates. © the respective owners.

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SKEATES: Subsequently, as the world wormed its way into the late ’70s, I (along with just about everyone else in the comic-book industry) experienced Atlas Comics. A bizarre company, to be sure, and one that had somehow found out everyone’s page rate at all the other companies (probably wasn’t too hard to get this info from Marvel, seeing as they had a number of relatives working there, but I do wonder how they pulled it off at DC). In any event, they offered everyone a dollar or two more a page if they’d come work for Atlas—that’s all it took to get just about everyone in the business to wind up writing or drawing at least one Atlas story. As for me—yes, indeed, I would have enjoyed continuing to write those two series, especially Wulf and especially if Leo Summers had continued to plot and draw the stories. Truth be told, Wulf #3 is one of my all-time favorite personal achievements, and mainly because of the great plot Summers provided me with, allowing me to actually do some research so that I could actually explain the smelting process, whilst simultaneously giving characters off-the-wall names like Modeo Doh Tyrak and having them shout such cornball epithets as “Eat Cold Steel, Slime-dweller!” Hey, what’s not to love about that? SCHWIRIAN: Getting back to DC Comics, in World’s Finest #214—starring Superman and the Vigilante fighting a cowboy werewolf (which is weird enough)—there were two reporters who briefly appear in the story and contribute nothing to the plot. They are unnamed, but could be said to be you and Denny O’Neil (since you guys co-wrote that tale). Julius Schwartz was famous for inserting cameos like this in books he edited. SKEATES: You got it! ’Tis indeed O’Neil and yours truly making that clever cameo as a couple of reporters (a job the two of us had held down at various points in our respective existences) there in the midst of that Superman and the Vigilante Meet the Rodeo Werewolf stanza! Not that I look (or looked) anything like the manner in which Dick Dillin depicted me. Denny in that tale comes off quite a bit like the real O’Neil—or at least looks rather the way Denny used to back when he had hair—but then O’Neil was living in the city back then, would often hang out around the office, and therefore most folks who worked for DC got to know what he looked like. Meanwhile, I had set up my residence some 300 miles away, making me for many rather an unknown quantity, and apparently Dillin also had no reference material to work from, so he based his visual interpretation of me upon the way I functioned within the story, making me into rather a hayseed, a hick, a wet-behindthe-ears farm boy.

Meet Rube and City Slicker Artist Dick Dillin’s renditions of Steve Skeates and Denny O’Neil, from World’s Finest #214. Inks by Joe Giella. TM & © DC Comics.

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In any event, the fact that I worked on this story at all grew out of the actuality that O’Neil had over the years grown to quite dislike Superman, thus (when asked) he told Julie that he would be perfectly willing to do a Supes/Vig team-up for World’s Finest but only if he could just write the Vigilante while someone else wrote the Superman portions—he even suggested that I be the one to write Supes, seeing as Denny knew (although he had a hard time believing how this could possibly be) that I actually harbored quite a bit of affection for the Man of Steel. Our opposing viewpoints toward Superman’s worth, in fact, became the basis for much of the banter between those two reporters. Furthermore, originally, the credits were going to read “Superman written by Skeates; The Vigilante written by O’Neil,” but Julie ix-nayed that idea, felt it was too cutesy and too confusing as to who exactly did what, and therefore had us put down which of the pages each of us had written instead. SCHWIRIAN: Now, on to a secret childhood favorite of mine: Oh, Mighty Isis! I loved the television show and bought and read to death every issue of the comic book! Looking back now, the stories come off pretty hokey, and for the most part, do not have your signature flair. However, the Set story oozes with Skeates humor—especially the pie-in-the-face saving the day!! What was it like working with Denny O’Neil as an editor? Was Isis restrictive to write, requiring a moral for each story and having to tie in with the television show? SKEATES: Seems downright apropos to have just now mentioned Denny’s working relationship with Julie Schwartz even as we now move on ahead and into a discussion of Denny’s approach to being an editor, especially in light of the fact that much of the way Denny edited was derived from the manner in which Julie had edited Denny’s own stuff. The thing is, at least when I was working for him, Denny was far stricter in enforcing many of Julie’s ideas than Julie himself had ever been. I certainly don’t want to badmouth Denny, yet (to be honest) I do have to admit that for me working for Denny was a real pain. I suspect that the main problem here was that Denny and I were friends, close friends, former drinking buddies, and everybody in the industry knew all about that, making for Denny as my boss being determined not to show me any favoritism, and he just went too far along those lines, never cutting me any slack, treating me worse than anyone else who was working for him, and just generally making my life miserable. One of Julie’s “laws” that Denny was very much into enforcing was the idea that there should be no more than 35 words in any comic-book panel. I very much doubt that I was alone in quite disliking this idea—

the truth is, though, that much of my career was based on stories that were far, far more verbose than that; consider, for example, in one issue of Aquaman there was one panel that had 135 words in it—yet, when working for Denny, I of course (albeit begrudgingly) tried to adhere to that rule. That might even help explain the rather lackluster quality of my Isis stories—I spent too much time counting words and not enough time being actually creative. Anyway, I remember that in one story, I got all the panels down to at most 35 words, except for one—just couldn’t seem to pare it down to anything less than 38, so I left it like that. Later, after having turned in that script— while passing Denny in the hall at DC, Denny suddenly stopped me in order to say, “You’re doing it again, pal! You’re using more than 35 words in your panels!” Using the plural form for the final word in his statement made that entire sentence blatantly untrue, yet you get my point, don’t you? This was an insanity I really didn’t feel like putting up with! That, in fact, may be all the explanation we need for my finally deciding to write an Isis story the way I wanted to write one—i.e., the Seth story you mentioned. I didn’t go overboard with verbosity, and I turned in a detailed plot prior to writing my script so Denny would know exactly what I was up to; however, once the finished artwork came in and Denny saw Isis getting hit in the face with a pie, he totally freaked—what would Filmation do? Would DC, thanks to this story, lose the right to handle this character? He didn’t remember any pie-in-the-face event gracing my plot outline—could it be he was working too hard? Had too much on his plate? And therefore had skimmed my outline way too quickly? He checked said outline only to discover that the pie scene was indeed right in there, and therefore decided that he couldn’t exactly fire me and subsequently make sure that I’d never work in comics again. Still, he was angry enough to take me off the lead feature in the Isis book and relegate me to writing merely the six-page backups from then on. It wasn’t too long after that that I departed from NYC, gave up comics, and became a bartender. SCHWIRIAN: So having a friend as an editor didn’t work out too well for you. What was it like, then, working for Gerry Conway on “Codename: Assassin” [in 1st Issue Special] and Blackhawk? SKEATES: Gerry Conway may have been ten years my junior back when I was still young enough to view a decade as being quite a significant span of time, yet I felt then (even as I feel now) that this kid was indeed the best editor I had ever worked for, especially when it came to dialogue. Gerry had a fantastic “ear” for the way people really talk—actually not all that common

Lethal and Light-Footed Code Name: Assassin’s debut in 1st Issue Special #11 (Feb. 1976) was not a pleasant experience for writer Skeates. Cover art by Mike Grell. TM & © DC Comics.

an attribute (even in its non-fantastic form) vis-à-vis most comic-book editors. It was undoubtedly this “ear” that had allowed Gerry to write and sell his first novel before he reached the age of 18—a first-person point-of-view novel with each chapter having a different narrator, making for the whole book (a sci-fi opus) essentially being dialogue. Subsequently, within the wonderful world of comics, while most editors when making changes would often transform an author’s dialogue into something egregiously stilted and totally unnatural-sounding, one could (just about always) count on Gerry’s changes to improve what the characters had to say rather than detracting from it. This may, in part, help explain why you (and so many others) found my Plastic Man stories to be so enjoyable—my dialogue (not bad in itself but with an aforementioned tendency toward verbosity—to get a real measure of what my dialogue is like, check out my last issue of Aquaman [#56], “The Creature that Devoured Detroit,” in which Dick [Giordano] neither changed nor deleted a single word of what I wrote) became somehow even livelier and more real once Gerry got his hands on it—not just chopping out all the unnecessary words, but perking it up every now and then as well.

A Script Divided Note the credits box for the Superman/ Vigilante team-up in World’s Finest Comics #214 (Oct.–Nov. 1972), co-written by Skeates and O’Neil. TM & © DC Comics.

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Of course, it wasn’t all sweetness and light with a pretty pink ribbon tied to it; there were (that is to say) certain requirements of an editorial position that Gerry didn’t quite excel at, and a big one of these came to the fore during the construction of the Codename: Assassin book. Gerry was used to doing things himself and doing them quickly—he still probably holds some sort of speed-writing record having written 93 comic-book pages over a single weekend; bear in mind, though, that these were Marvel pages, meaning Gerry didn’t have to figure out scenes; he just had to write captions and dialogue—still and all, doing stuff that fast meant he was doing it almost instinctively. In short, Gerry knew what he wanted and knew how to do it; where he fell short was in conveying to someone else what he wanted. In other words, just to belabor my point here, used to doing things himself, Gerry had had little practice in explaining what he wanted to others, and thus he was never able (for one thing)

TM & © DC Comics.

to impart to me what exactly he was expecting when it came to “Codename: Assassin.” I really struggled with that script, yet each section as I turned it in elicited a “No, that’s not quite it” from Gerry, quickly followed by a “But I’ll take care of it.” And, though I’d try to cajole him into saying more, that was it. Thus, never really understanding where I had (in Gerry’s eyes) fallen down within one section made it hard for me to make any improvements in what I would next write, so my next section would wind up being just as “unsatisfactory” as the one before it, and, in the end, Gerry wound up totally rewriting approximately 98% of the captions and dialogue in this particular book. Yet, for someone who could write that fast, I suppose doing it this way was easier than trying to construct the proper subtle tone-poem explanation of what he was after and somehow pound that through what Gerry may well have perceived as my thick skull! Thinking about it now, I do believe Gerry may have wanted Codename: Assassin to be darker than (in all honesty) I’ve ever been able to write. But that’s just a guess—I’m still not sure. But that was just one story—as a matter of fact, it wasn’t even that, was it? Approximately (instead) merely half a yarn with the rest of it to be continued within the next issue, only there wasn’t a next issue—no continuation, no conclusion! My main thrust here, though, is that outside of Conehead: Assassin (or whatever) every project I worked on with Conway was not only fun, the end-results were usually downright spectacular. Take Blackhawk, for example—I enjoyed the heck out of writing those four issues of mine, those grandiose sprawling epics featuring those seven high-flying adventurers with all the stereotypical wackiness of their respective private lives, plus the arguments, the insults, and the various assorted off-the-wall villains they’d face (okay, okay, I’m counting here the final issue of this particular run of Blackhawk, while admittedly that one wasn’t edited by Gerry, but by Jack C. Harris)— I furthermore believe that here was some of my best writing as well. Too bad, then, that Gerry felt he had to take me off the series, mainly because I was living at that moment out of town and Gerry wanted someone who could come in all the time for immediate editorial conferences, and, in my opinion, it was something even worse than too bad (for the readers in particular) that he chose David Anthony Kraft to take my place, seeing as I found this character’s scripts to be basically unreadable, his ideas utterly odiferous—having Patch hire six women mercenaries as her gang and then romantically pairing each of them up with one of the Blackhawks—blehhh! What sort of silly, sophomoric sexual fantasy did that grow out of?? SCHWIRIAN: Your work on Plastic Man (illustrated by the mighty Ramona Fradon, Aquaman veteran artist) is some of the best stuff you did for DC during this period. What was it like working with Conway and Fradon on this title?

Oh Bitter Zephyr Winds Skeates’ experience scripting DC’s Isis was bittersweet. [See BACK ISSUE #23 for an article on DC’s Isis and the TV show itself.] The Secrets of Isis © 1976 Enterainment Rights plc.

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SKEATES: I in no way seek herewithin to downplay what a big thrill it was getting to work with the great George Evans [on Blackhawk]; nevertheless, the real biggie that flowed forth from Conway’s stable (at least for this particular correspondent) was (of course) the opportunity to write for Plastic Man! The original Jack Cole output (every little bit of it that I could get my grubby little paws upon) was a particular favorite of mine when I was a kid, and having been (in my teen years) an avid reader of the all-but-vanished-now wonderfulness of humor (so many clever writers lovingly constructing so many short essays of true wit, as compared to the less-than-a-handful of humor practitioners pounding the keys these days—and, actually, even back then, in the ’50s, humor-writing was already in the throes of being a dying form, making me quite definitely feel that I had been born too late), a big fan of Harvey Kurtzman as well, subsequently attempting to shove as much actual humor (as opposed to dumb-ass comedy) as I could into whatever I was writing—even superheroes— but without overdoing it, without (that is) overloading those pieces with wackiness and thereby destroying all the other aspects thereof, and ultimately building up (thanks to Abbott and Costello, Go-Go, “The Poster Plague,” Plop!, Crazy, and even certain Aquaman stanzas) the reputation (amongst many) of being the only writer around who could possibly actually successfully write Plastic Man! Hey, I was among those who viewed my own self in that particular light, making yours truly both determined and nervous as hell, afraid that maybe I couldn’t pull it off. The challenge: to take a wacky character who had starred in short punchy stories and put him in a full-book adventure which somehow nonetheless had the flavoring of those aforementioned short pieces. In order to abate my nervousness a bit, I chose to use as the basis for the plot of my first Plastic Man story what I still tend to refer to as my mathematical formula for a superhero story, something I had developed back when I was working for Tower Comics—since the Tower stories were ten pages long whereas this baby would be approximately 20, I merely doubled everything in that formula. That gave me something fairly rock-solid upon which to hang all sorts of insanity—missing persons, talking hamsters, a parody of Denny O’Neil, a little girl as the female lead replete with a personality based upon that of my brother’s annoyingly condescending wife, new regulars Agent Foyle and Sundae Supplement, and a villain the bottom half of whose body was a forklift truck. The success of that first issue [Plastic Man #11] with its beautiful Ramona Fradon artwork (looking great, yet subsequently it’d look even better once Bob Smith took over the inking chores) allowed me to calm down a bit, and therefore the subsequent issues were far less formally structured. My favorite of the five (yep, only five!) issues I worked on is quite definitely the third one [#13], “If I Kill Me, Will I Die?,” guest-starring Robby Reed [of “Dial ‘H’ for Hero”], although I will say that hardcore Reed fans very much hate that issue. I’m also rather proud of the fact that (due to yours truly enlisting the aid of Mary Skrenes and Jane Aruns in the writing of the female characters, especially their backstories) this became one of the few comics whose credits contain an equal number of men and women—Conway, Smith, and me on the guy side, Fradon, Skrenes,

and Aruns as our better half! Well, okay, so that one’s my fave—yet, in recent years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the subsequent issue, the Snuffer one [#14], is the best of the five, what with the Snuffer’s variation of a Swiss Army Knife for a hand, a baddie called Rice O’Rooney the San Francisco Threat, and Carrot-Man escaping from prison simply by throwing himself in the garbage. Certainly, there were weak points to my Plastic Man tales (I never made as much use of Plas’ ability to disguise himself as I should have, and too many baddies became evil via getting hit on the head, an idea I adopted from Thornton Wilder’s script that formed the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt), yet basically I’m more than a little proud of all this stuff! SCHWIRIAN: Your work all but vanishes from DC after 1977. Could this be attributed to the rise of Paul Levitz and the soon to come DC Implosion? SKEATES: What happened in 1977? Howcum I suddenly vanished? Where did I go? Things were going rather crazy up at DC during that year—books were changing hands right and left (I had three separate editors on the three issues of Super-Team Family starring the Challengers of the Unknown I wrote, the same was true of Lt. Larry Rock), plus DC

TM & © DC Comics.

Blackhawk Skeates appreciated George Evans’ rendition of the Blackhawks during a 1970s revival. Steve scripted issues #244–246, 249, and 250 of the series. TM & © DC Comics.

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TM & © DC Comics.

Feeling Woozy Many fans regard writer Skeates as one of the few creators to adequately handle Jack Cole’s creation, Plastic Man. Original page 16 to Plastic Man #11 (Feb.–Mar. 1976), courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Look for Steve’s scripts in Plastic Man #11–13, 15, and 16. TM & © DC Comics.

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had adopted the idea of having both a story editor and an art director, and there were all sorts of responsibilities that each of these people thought the other one was handling, making for all sorts of storytelling mistakes slipping on through. Also, I hated my first issue of Isis (whereas now I quite like at least the first story therein) and was still upset over the way O’Neil had treated me vis-à-vis my second issue of that book, so (as I mentioned previously) I got out of town, went to the poorest county in New York State where the living was cheap, where I could subsist on my savings plus what little I was making from still writing for Gold Key. I spent an inordinate amount of time while living upstate (during ’78 and ’79) on writing my controversial Comics Journal article “The Death of the Superheroes,” which of course I didn’t get paid for, yet it did win me special-guest status at some comic-book convention in Chicago where I wound up getting all sorts of work offers—my comeback had begun! What had happened in the interim back in New York, up at DC, and who was involved in what I really wasn’t privy to—nor did I particularly care about any of that for that matter—but anyway, by the time I got back to the city, I found that O’Neil was now working at Marvel, that Larry Hama was editing Crazy and was desperate to find competent humor writers, that someone named Lynn Graeme was editing both the Howard the Duck magazine and Marvel Preview and was eager to have me contribute to both of those, etc., etc. So, for a while anyway, I was back at it, back being a full-time comic-book writer— something that was destined to last until the mid-’80s when things got even weirder than they had been in the late ’70s, definitely too weird even for me! SCHWIRIAN: With Plop!, Plastic Man, and your Gold Key titles, you were finally on your way to becoming a full-time humor man. How did you get in the door at Gold Key? SKEATES: Okay, now, here we go with way more information than anyone needs (or wants or whatever). First of all, the marginally interesting fact that way, way back when I was in the fourth grade, I was still ambidextrous and just dyslexic enough so that it would depend upon which hand I happened to pick my pencil up with as to what direction my writing would go in—normal stuff when I used my left hand, what many term “mirror-writing” when I employed my right, and secondly how all of that somehow ultimately led to this correspondent applying for a freelancing job at Gold Key. Of course, there’s a lot of years betwixt the fourth grade and yours truly working for that particular comic-book company, and in there (during my teen years, to be exact) was my refusal to learn to drive whilst all my peers were out tooling around (and generally being juvenile terrors) upon the upstate New York roadways. Y’see, even at that point, I had honestly somehow decided that ultimately I was going to move to NYC and become a big-name writer (though I saw myself as writing humor essays rather than comic books) and, of course, in the Big Apple nobody drove themselves anywhere

(outside of the insane); instead they walked or took the subway or a taxi. Like everyone knows, only idiots from New Jersey employ their own personal cars in the Big City. But, to get back to our story—I mention my lack-of-driving prowess merely because I honestly believe that had I learned to drive I quite likely would have gotten over my slight case of dyslexia, seeing as so much of driving deals with what’s on the right and what’s on the left—turning right, turning left, passing on the right, passing on the left, etc., etc.—whereas, as things actually progressed, to this day I actually have to stop and think about it when trying to figure out which side’s my right and which is my left. All of this is a rather round-about way of explaining how it is that leaving the offices of DC Comics one day while pretty much lost in thought about the plot I had just had approved and heading (I thought) toward my apartment over on the west side of the city, I suddenly found myself way over on the east side! In fact, I was pretty much right outside the offices of Gold Key! Hey, I figured it was fate or the hand of merciful Zeus or something! So, even though it was four in the afternoon, a little late for applying for work, I nonetheless went up to those offices to see if I could pick up any assignments that might supplement what I was making at DC. And, yes, believe you me, I’m damn glad I did! SCHWIRIAN: How did you like writing for Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny and Sylvester and Tweety? Did you find them more difficult or less to write based on their rich animated Warner Bros. past in film shorts? SKEATES: Gold Key was a rather relaxing, laid back company to work for, rather befitting the sorts of stories they tended to publish. While the folks at DC and Marvel were frantically running around trying to do everything at the last minute and often missing deadlines right and left (and even having to pay fines to people like the folks in Sparta all because of such utterly insane tardiness), in January of 1976, the people up at Gold Key were already working on books that wouldn’t be published until January of 1977! Truth be told, I loved working on the Yosemite and Bugs book as well as the Tweety and Sylvester tome, and often wished that there were other Warner Bros. books that were being handled by Gold Key’s east coast office. Part of the fun was the rich history that was there that I could build upon. In fact, when I deviated from this history, adding in elements that really didn’t belong, that’s when I ran into trouble—like my story in which Yosemite Sam decides to lose weight, buys some pills from a street vendor, pills that do cause him to lose weight, a lot of weight very quickly, yet strangely he still remains the same size, becoming then not unlike a balloon that’s about to float away, and has to be tied down. That baby came off too much a misplaced horror story, with Bugs mainly playing the part of

Why Can’t We Be Friends? Skeates scripted for Gold Key’s Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny title in the 1970s. Seen here is detail from the cover art to issue #58. © Warner Bros.

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an observer rather than a trouble-making wise guy! Nope, bad ideas all around! In other words, after that one (a particularly disconcerting disaster), I tried very hard not to do anything like that again! SCHWIRIAN: You’ve stated that Underdog was one of your all-time favorite titles, but why? Wasn’t having to write all of Underdog’s dialogue in rhyme a constant challenge? SKEATES: Yes, I may have been indulging in a bit of hyperbole when (originally in a fanzine interview, as I recall) I suggested that Underdog was my favorite of all the characters I’ve ever written for. But then again, the characteristics of this humble superhero as seen on TV (definitely including, amongst the more stellar attributes, that voice characterization as provided by the wonderful Wally Cox) and the general format of the comic-book stories based upon those televised episodes both had so much to offer—a gentle character (and not merely his alter ego but in his superhero identity as well), gentle stories (no over-the-top earth-

shaking crises with the fate of the entire planet hanging in the balance), short tales (usually five or six pages) with happy endings forever a foregone conclusion, and, best of all, the rhymes! Certainly a hero who generally spoke in couplets was something of a challenge (making what he said both rhyme-y and apropos), yet rather than seeming like extra work, this challenge was all part of the fun, the joy, of writing this series. Fact is, it was so obvious I was having so much fun here that Steve Gerber (who was in the group I was palling around with at that time) created in his Howard the Duck book the character Winky-Man, so that he too could experience the fun of writing someone who spoke in rhyme. Meantime, I was getting so into it that I went well beyond mere couplets, employing more complicated rhyme schemes (like ABAB, and even AABBA, etc.) and often would also extend the effect beyond merely Underdog himself by having the captions rhyme as well. Furthermore, for me, the relative shortness of these stories combined with the rhyming-ness to make each adventure here into rather a poem—succinct superhero sagas, epics condensed down to their bare essentials—the way I saw it, this was the perfect place for parody! So, I wrote the Cosmic Canine (my parody of Jim Starlin’s way-out-there output with Underdog having to become “cosmically aware” in order to defeat my parody of the Silver Surfer), “The Private Life of Shoeshine Boy” (my parody of those “Private Life of Clark Kent” stories, complete with Shoeshine winking out at the readers in the final panel), while also introducing into the Underdog mythos such entities as the Shack of Solitude, the Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, and the Bottled City of Cal-Can. To reiterate, what’s not to love about that? SCHWIRIAN: If Underdog was so much fun to write, why did you leave the title (and Gold Key in general)? SKEATES: Why indeed? After all, I’ve been offering here within pluses and minuses vis-à-vis just about everything I’ve been blathering about, and I daresay the character I dubbed the Cosmic Canine deserves no less, should not (that is) be seen as (for me) naught but the bringer of endless wonderfulness; there were (after all) occasional downsides to this lovable series as well, the main one being a certain amount of editorial dumbheaded-ness—with editorial changes being particularly disconcerting whenever they would affect the poetry I was shooting for, like (for example) in “Antlers Away” in Underdog #22 (Dec. 1978), a tale in which our hero actually grows antlers which somehow impedes his ability to capture the bankrobbing Simon, where within its final panel (what with the aforementioned situation at last resolved) Underdog is supposed to say, “Yep! Simon and Cad are going to jail! It’ll be quite awhile before they get loose! And it’s great to be Underdog again! For a while there I looked like Under Moose!” However, some brilliant editorial blockhead decided to change the word “loose” to “out”—do you see what that does? And, not just somewhere within the story, but in the concluding panel!! Holy Yipes Akimbo, man—that one still stings!! Editor’s note: We’re out of space, and Steve’s still got lots to say (on the topics of Bucky Bizarre, The Generic Comic Book, Spider-Ham, his comic strip, and more). Join us for the conclusion of his interview in BACK ISSUE #34.

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E-mail: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Please inquire before sending attachments.

Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

Our letters column was crowded out of our last issue, so we’re covering two issues’ worth of mail, starting with BACK ISSUE #30, the “Saturday Morning Heroes” edition. I’ll zip my yapper as much as possible and let our readers do the talking…. Gold! Gold! Gold! The Gary Owens article was pure gold. It was everything I dig and more. I loved Laugh-In. Loved it! And I always enjoyed Gary Owens. But I had no idea of his life: The crossovers and intertwining connections in his life. Himself and Mel Blanc. Arte Johnson was George Peppard’s roommate. Ted Cassidy and Jack Kirby. Hanna-Barbera. Luncheons with a “who’s who” of voiceover actors, cartoonists, and the like. (To be a fly on the wall at those…) I think I know where you were going, Michael, when you prompted your man in the field [interviewer Richard A. Scott] to find out about Ted Knight. The story we got was great but I wanted to hear more about Knight as a voice talent. I remember Saturday morning being drawn to the set when I heard the late-’60s Batman cartoon theme come on. I was so excited by that theme. I also remember being aware that the cartoon was a cousin of the Batman show and I distinctly remember being aware at the age of four or five that this was also a slightly different interpretation of the characters, specifically the main villain’s voices, Riddler, Joker, and Penguin. I remember being aware of the concept of “interpretation” at that age. It wasn’t until some time later that I found out it was Ted Knight doing all the villain voices as well as the narration. Lots of things tied up in that man and that cartoon for me … and then, of course, Super Friends later on. On another note I wanted to say, through BACK ISSUE, you’ve educated me, and turned me on to a great many artists I formerly knew nothing about. I must admit I was always a self-professed Marvel loyalist. Or snob. For whatever reason I just found Marvel to be the real deal. More believable. Like Thing and Hulk fighting on a rooftop is believable. But you know what I mean. Marvel to me seemed to deliver the goods. It seemed that DC covers would show some silly premise like, “Oh, no! Batman’s been turned into a giant spinning top!” Or something like that. And then you opened the book and that scene didn’t even happen. I just didn’t want to crack that book open. But, man, how I really missed the great talent that were in some of those books. Really fine artisits like Jim Aparo and Don Newton. As a teacher, I especially appreciate the latter’s personal story. So from one teacher to another. Thanks on that front. Back to Gary Owens: it’s the only article I’ve had time to read so far (I have an 11-week-old who’s still not sleeping), but what a super issue thus far. Keep it going, man. Good job. – Andy Patterson Picked up BACK ISSUE #30 and really enjoyed it as I do all the ones I’ve read, although I must admit I do disagree strongly with your comments about DC’s ’70s revival of Captain Marvel. Aside from the fact that I was a big fan of the Shazam! series, I feel it has always been an enormous mistake to try and “update” the character. The Big Red Cheese was and will always be a superhero for kids, not adults or even teenagers but kids, a pre-adolescent power fantasy that will always play best for the audience it was originally

BACK ISSUE #30 was one of your best! The interview with Jackson Bostwick was great reading. It was very cool to read about Mr. Boswick’s connection to Clayton Moore (who in my opinion is the definitive Lone Ranger, mask or not). And it was nice of him to give props to his Captain Marvel predecessor Tom Tyler. But Mr. Bostwick, with your version of Cap, you did Tyler (and Cap) proud. Class act. Oh, and Mr. Eury? Who do you feel was perfectly cast as heroes? Me, Van Williams and Bruce Lee were GREAT as the Green Hornet and Kato! And George Reeves’ Superman was spot on. But for my money Mr. Reeves gave us the alltime best version of Clark Kent. Thanks to Reeves, Kent was a reporter (and his friendship with Inspector Bill Henderson was real). And I definitely agree that the Marvel Family was mismanaged by DC. A Joe Orlando/Steve Skeates/ Walt Simonson Marvel Family would have been seriously cool. – Wayne C. Brooks

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meant for, and reaction to the current cartoony Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam seems to be proving my point. I really hate to say it, but aside from showing a major lack of imagination (why don’t people create their own stuff rather than constantly “re-imagining” the work of others?), I can’t help thinking that the modern trend for doing so-called “adult” versions of classic children’s literature is kind of sick, both in the sense of being perverse (Todd McFarlane’s grotesquely sexualized “Oz” figures are a good case in point) and just plain unhealthy. Anyway, enough with the hopefully not-too-harsh criticism. The rest of the issue was great as always. Wonderful to see the never-finished Captain Thunder/Colonel Lightning crossover with Superman. Was always a big fan of the original story and still take it out from time to time to read. Also enjoyed the interviews with the stars of the Shazam! live-action series, but really got the biggest kick out of the one with the great Gary Owens (it’s true what they say in Hollywood … he really does know everybody!). Loved the stuff on the Super Friends cartoons and toys, although I’m probably not the first person to write in to you to say that the Wonder Twins weren’t the only non-DC-created characters to appear as thinly disguised members of the Ultimen on Justice League Unlimited. Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, and Samurai did as well. And I continue to enjoy the mock history of All-American Comics, although I do want to ask about the costume colors on their Flash-style “revival” of Superman—blue with a red-and-gold emblem, right? [Yep! – M.E.] BACK ISSUE is a great magazine, and I hope to see it on the comic-shop stands for many years to come. – Jeff Taylor

Wayne, from my perspective Christopher Reeve was Superman. I agree with your appreciation of George Reeves’ Clark Kent, though. – M.E. I recently finished reading BI #30 and thought I would write. Great cover by Alex Ross. I can’t wait for the day he finally gets around to doing a Chris Reeve as Superman painting! [Editorial aside: That was a goal back in 2004 as I tried to arrange a Christopher Reeve interview for BACK ISSUE. TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow consented to donating a percentage of the issue’s proceeds to the Reeve Foundation. My interview request was turned down on a Monday in October; Reeve died at the end of that week.]

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I enjoyed your article on DC’s revival of Captain Marvel, though I think Jerry Ordway and Peter Krause did a much better job with the Captain than Jeff Smith did. Billy Batson is not a host for Captain Marvel, as Smith suggested. “Sha-Boom!”: It’s a shame that Captain Thunder sequel was shelved. I would’ve loved to have seen it back before Superman was rebooted. Changing his name to Colonel Lightning so as not to conflict with Roy’s Captain Thunder just seems silly. It would be a onetime usage that wouldn’t have affected Roy’s comic, nor its longevity. Bostwick and Davey: Great interviews by P.C. Hamerlinck. I’m going to have to pick up Bostwick’s book when it is available. Mark Harmon was almost Cap? What a scoop! Love the accounts about Clayton Moore and John Wayne. While I thought Bostwick made a great Cap, I can’t see him as Superman. I didn’t know that Davey was a boxer, not that he needed his boxing skills on a show where Marvel had no one to punch out. I really don’t understand why Warner has not released neither the live-action show nor the animated series on DVD yet. I hope if this proposed/rumored Captain Marvel movie does get made that they release both as a tie-in. It’s a shame an interview with Garret Craig couldn’t be included. If Andy Mangels couldn’t track him down for his Legends of the SuperHeroes article [BI #25], he can’t be found. “Those Super Friends of Mine”: Another informative entry from Darrell McNeil. “Smashing Out of the TV Screen”: Speaking of Andy, the highlight of the issue was his article on the Super Friends comic series. Very thorough, though he did get one thing wrong— Superman’s face on the cover of the Super Friends treasury edition was not redrawn by a DC house artist. It was photostated, then cut and pasted, from the cover of Superman #183 drawn by Curt Swan and George Klein. As I don’t have that Golden Press SF 72-page children’s book I don’t know who did the interior art, but the cover was penciled by Kurt Schaffenberger. Can’t tell who inked it, though. Lovely tribute to Dave Stevens by Adam Hughes. Super Powers: I was on vacation with my family and my mother’s friend and her son at a dude ranch when I stumbled across those figures. My mother’s friend was nice enough to get the figures available at whatever store we saw them at during that vacation. I would eventually get most of the others from the run. I loved those figures, and the Batmobile produced for the line was one of the best ones ever made for use with figures that wasn’t based on the George Barris ’66 TV series’ version! I had heard that there was to be Nightwing and Supergirl figures in the unproduced fourth wave. I know Kenner reused the Batman molds when they did their Keaton as Batman line. I also remember hearing that Kenner sold the molds to Toy Biz, and those molds were used to start their Marvel line. This has a tenuous link to the Super Powers line, but I think the readers might find it amusing if this letter sees print. When I was in college I accompanied a classmate into a sex shop in Times Square so he could buy a vibrator for his girlfriend. While he’s doing that I’m looking around and I see, high on a shelf, a Wonder Woman blow-up doll. The reason I bring it up here is because the packaging was made to look like it was part of the Super Powers line! Whatever company produced it had a sense of humor because they got the colors and star design correct. I don’t remember whether it said Super Powers on it or not. To this day I regret not buying it for the goof factor. What a collectible that would’ve made! Gary Owens can draw? Man, you learn something new every day! Another cool interview.

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Steve Rude: It’s really a shame that there wasn’t a sequel to that Space Ghost one-shot. Magnificent job by all involved. Ruby-Spears Superman: Finally, some love for this one-season wonder! Film Score Monthly released the soundtrack to this series in their excellent box set that includes all the music from the four Chris Reeve films. Maybe Warner will deign to release this on DVD within my lifetime. All-American Comics: This was a cute idea at first but, the bloom is off the rose. I hope this is the end of this waste of space. – Delmo (The Saint) Walters, Jr. I was reading Jerry Boyd’s article on Space Angel, the Forgotten TV Space Hero, and I have discovered that there is a Volume One of the series on DVD from Movies Unlimited, 3015 Darnell Road, Philadelphia, PA 19154 (www.moviesunlimited.com). Also, I enjoyed reading Andy Mangels’ article on the Super Friends comic-book series. What made these stories so good is that they were fun to read and they were just as exciting as the television series! I also enjoyed reading SF’s Seraph stories and the Plastic Man stories as well. – Ricky T. Butler, Jr. And now, feedback on BACK ISSUE #31, our tribute to Steve Gerber. It may have been mentioned somewhere in the magazine but in case it wasn’t, I just wanted to add, largely as an FYI, that the unpublished cover for my first issue of the Metal Men (the Gerber story) you ran in the magazine was inked by Bernie Wrightson over my pencils. Unfortunately, it wasn’t credited completely in the Art of Walter Simonson book, and I’m sure the credit will never catch up with the printed versions, but I thought it was pretty cool. Several of us, Bernie and me included, were living in the same apartment building out in Queens back in the day. So we hung out a lot, worked on each others stuff some, and generally had a fine time. – Walter Simonson I got the copy of BACK ISSUE. Thanks. I also liked having the “final say,” as it were, in the tributes to Steve. And the illustration by Wrightson at the end was very fitting, as well. I just wanted to mention that on page 51, the photo of “Rev. Pierre La Pooj” you say is of Steve Gerber is actually of Ed Hannigan. Just thought you’d want to know. – Roger Slifer Some notes about BACK ISSUE #31(the otherwise-swell Steve Gerber Tribute Issue): Page 29, paragraph 3: Reference is made to writer “Robert McKenzie.” This is actually Roger McKenzie, a prolific scripter for late ’70s and ’80s Marvel, most famous for being Frank Miller’s first collaborator on Daredevil. Page 51: The pic of “Rev. Pierre La Pooj” is actually Ed Hannigan, not Gerber. The above are objective criticisms, this one personal: As a fellow founder of the Malibu Ultraverse, more space was due Steve’s contributions to that too-short-lived line. I realize space was at a premium, but more column inches were given to Steve’s single issue of Metal Men than to his work on all of the ’Verse series Sludge, and his work on the series Exiles was omitted entirely. – Mike W. Barr Mike, I tried to keep the Gerber coverage as grounded in BI’s ’70s/’80s realm as possible. When the Malibu titles “age” a bit more, I suspect you’ll see a BI focus on the entire Ultraverse line, though. – M.E. Big “D” here, with a slight correction to your otherwise fine article on Thundarr the Barbarian [BI #31]. As shown in my book, Alex Toth: By Design!, the model sheets of the leads (Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla) Alex designed for the series were indeed the ones actually used for the production. Jack Kirby designed pretty much everything else for the show (with assists from Jerry Eisenberg), but Alex’s designs were used as-was. – Darrell McNeil

Thanks for another terrific issue read cover to cover. I had the privilege of working with Steve Gerber on what sadly turned out to be his final comic-book project, his inspired re-imagining of Doctor Fate in DC’s Countdown to Mystery (C2M). I never met the man, spoke to him on the phone only twice, and traded a handful of e-mails with him. Nevertheless, he taught me much, and I was deeply affected by his passing. Editor Joey Cavalieri contacted me in late 2007 with the news that because of “a serious health condition,” Steve was running late with C2M. Joey asked if I would be interested in writing an inventory story that could plug in to the miniseries if necessary, something that could stand alone and not affect the continuity of Steve’s story, so he could just pick up right where he left off. After some hesitation, I accepted. Hesitation because, even as a bewildered, wide-eyed, but nonetheless rabid kid fan of Steve’s work at Marvel in the 1970s (Marvel Presents and The Defenders, in particular), I knew there was no one like Steve. I hesitated because I knew that trying to write something approximating his tone and style—in the middle of a story he was already telling!—was a fool’s errand. Yet, to be able to say I had worked with Steve Gerber, even tangentially, was something I couldn’t pass up. I quickly pitched a story to Joey, which he accepted, then I outlined it and scripted it. Shortly thereafter, I received the news that Steve had indeed finished the issue he was working on in time to meet the publication deadline, so my story wouldn’t be needed. However, Steve and Joey knew Steve would need help completing the final two issues, and Steve was impressed enough by my “sample script” (just knowing that fact makes me smile) that Joey asked me to pitch in on those issues. I accepted, this time, without hesitation. After an introductory e-mail, Joey set up a conference call for the three of us to talk about the series’ seventh issue. Steve was a kind presence on the phone, taking care to praise me person-toperson for my inventory script, and cautioning me that this was going to be a “weird ride” because of his condition—he never knew how he would feel each day, how much work he’d be able to accomplish, and so on. He asked if I was sure I was “up for this.” I told him I was. Reading the comics’ press selectively, as I do, I hadn’t been aware of just what his condition was, nor its severity. This was the first time I found out he was actually in the hospital. The conference call was brief—Steve promised to send Joey and I a synopsis for the seventh issue as soon as possible, and I’d then dialogue it … in a hurry. After we hung up, Joey and I spoke again on the phone, and I learned the truth about Steve’s condition, and just how serious it was. More than ever, I wanted to help him finish this story his way, to do him justice, to do right by him. Some weeks later, I got the synopsis for the issue’s first eight pages. Two days after that, I got the remaining eight. Everything was there, the images, snippets of dialogue, broken down page by page. The theme running through the entire series, the theme of so many of his stories—the concept of “self”—underlying every image and word. I could clearly see the issue through his collection of 16 simple paragraphs, in a way I’d never been able to see my own stories through my own words. I was amazed. And newly educated. There was very little work for me to do—just break everything down into panels, transcribe dialogue, and fill in where needed.

As I worked, Steve worked on the eighth and final issue. He’d e-mail periodically to apologize for lateness and to update us on his condition. Up and down from day to day. Possibly going home soon. Spent yesterday in a pain drug-induced haze. The synopsis was coming. Finally, it became clear to Steve that he wasn’t going to be able to write up a synopsis for the issue. We hastily scheduled another conference call so Steve could at least tell me the basics of what he had in mind. His voice was strong, but he took frequent pauses, whether to focus or simply to breathe. Steve sort of drifted in and out during the call, losing the thread of where he was going, picking it up somewhere else. Joey and I simply let him talk. After a time, he begged off the line, pleading exhaustion, promising we’d continue soon. It was the last time I spoke to him. Joey and I reconvened after the conference call. Steve’s notes for the final issue didn’t really make a lot of sense, just bits and pieces and hints here and there, and while both of us were sure Steve could see the story in his head, he hadn’t been able to communicate it to us as clearly as we needed. We decided to wait until Steve’s condition improved enough to schedule another call. That was early in the second week of February, 2008. Joey called me later in the week with the news of Steve’s passing. After trading heartfelt condolences, we stared into that empty final issue, wondering what to do next. We had no idea where Steve wanted us to take the story, which was fairly funny since, having read so many accounts of Steve’s working methods in your tribute issue, it seems clear that often Steve didn’t know himself. We talked about just leaving the series open-ended, another mystery in Steve’s body of work to rival Omega and the Elf with a gun. Steve probably would’ve gotten a kick out of that, we thought. But the issue had already been solicited. I promised Joey I’d try to come up with something— quickly—to finish up the storyline. Then, kind of off-handedly, I suggested something sort of wacky, something I thought Steve might have appreciated: What if Joey rounded up some of Steve’s friends and favorite colleagues, broke up the final issue into segments, and had each of those writers finish it their own way as a tribute to Steve? In addition to being a simple way of honoring Steve, there was also something funny and … Gerber-esque? ... about building a story up for seven issues, then slamming on the brakes and ending it in four different ways taking four pages each. Joey liked the idea, and called me back a day or two later to say that Steve’s friends and proteges, Mark Waid, Mark Evanier, and Gail Simone, had agreed to participate. Further, Joey asked if I’d like to be the fourth writer aboard. My first reaction was that surely there had to be another writer out there Steve knew better, or would have wanted to see participate more than me, but Joey knew what working with Steve Gerber meant to me, and offered me the opportunity. I am forever grateful not just to Steve, but to Joey Cavalieri. Gail, Mark, and Mark turned in fantastic, idiosyncratic stories that paid tribute to Steve in the highest possible terms, and in ways I’m certain would have made him smile and laugh the laugh so many described in your magazine. For my part, I managed to include the Elf in my four pages, as well as obvious nods to Howard the Duck, Bev, Omega, and Thundarr. I hope he would have liked it. It was an honor to be part of such a unique finish to a series started by a legendary creator, alongside other writers I admire. And it was an honor to know Steve Gerber even a little bit. Like everyone else, I wish it could have been more. – Adam Beechen

I very much enjoyed the Steve Gerber tribute issue. I have not kept up with his work in recent years but his ’70s comic books are some of my all-time favorites, especially Howard the Duck, a comic I’ve loved since picking up the first issue off the rack in January 1976 (in the U.K. American books went on sale during the cover-date month in those seemingly pre-deluvian days). Gerber made me realize, at the tender age of 13, that comics had the potential to appeal to adults, too, as I fondly imagined myself to be at that age. A couple of corrections, though: Page 31: Supernatural Thrillers ended at issue #15, not 18. Page 28: Giant-Size Chillers #1 did not feature Werewolf by Night or Tigra; the writer of this piece was thinking of Giant-Size Creatures #1. All in all, however, the issue was a nostalgic feast. Thank you. – Chris Green

As a fan from childhood of the Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon, I appreciated the well-written overview by Brett Weiss, which, until relatively recently, I did not even realize was created and written

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by Steve Gerber (although I had long heard about the involvement of Alex Toth and Jack Kirby). I’d like to add to the collective history of this underrated gem of an animated series (awesomely borrowing elements from Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, and Planet of the Apes) and perhaps offer a reason as to why Thundarr got canceled after only 21 episodes. As a kid of about 11 or 12, I remember my constant frustration with the network that ran it, cursing out the ABC (and NBC?) sports programs that seemed to perpetually preempt Thundarr, or delay the program so that if I caught an episode, it would be by sheer luck. I’m sure shuffling Thundarr around like that did much to discourage a bigger following. Of course, I second the motion to collect all the Thundarr episodes on DVD (or on Blu-Ray or whatever format we’ll be onto by the time they move on this one). As for Thundarr merch, Weiss and Thundarr fans may want to know that Web sites such as 80stees.com (where I got my Thundarr T-shirt) carry several different Thundarr designs. – Michael Aushenker

First of all, thank you very much for printing my letter and apologizing for getting my name wrong when you printed my last missive. Having worked in publishing I know how easy it is for these kinds of things to happen. The icing on the cake was that you somehow managed to print a picture of Sub-Mariner #55 along with it which was, in fact, the very first ’70s Subbie by creator Bill Everett I ever picked up and was the comic that solidified my status as a mega-fan of his work. Torg lives! (Well, no, I guess not really after Namor was finished with him...) Really enjoyed the rest of the Steve Gerber Tribute Issue although, of course, I am sad that he is no longer with us. Wasn’t a super-fan of Howard the Duck but did enjoy his adventures immensely (heck, I even liked the movie, especially those few wonderfully uncomfortable moments of the comic’s social satire that they somehow managed to sneak past the studio), although I wish that you had done more coverage on Destroyer Duck where Gerber really took out his knives and sharpened them up good. [Editor’s note: We interviewed Steve Gerber about Destroyer Duck back in BI #12.] I didn’t realize how many of the Marvel Monsters he had a hand in. I was always a big fan of the Living Mummy, Son of Satan, and the Zombie, and it’s interesting to note how Marvel was recently able to bring Simon Garth back with a new origin that places him within the modern cliché context of a Dawn of the Dead-style plague of flesh-eating ghouls and still have him have the same semi-heroic “personality” that Gerber created (which lets you know how strong the concepts were he came up with as a writer!). I’d forgotten his work on Metal Men, too, which I had really enjoyed, so it was nice to be reminded of that. Thanks for the coverage on the Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon. I enjoyed that so much when it was on the air, and like many others can’t understand why it hasn’t been released on DVD long ago. Thanks also for covering his later work for Malibu Comics. Really enjoyed the article on Sludge, although I was rather surprised with some of what was missing from it. First of all, I went through the article several times and I don’t think I found the word “melt” once, which is odd considering that’s what the title muck-monster’s disfiguring touch did to whatever flesh it touched. Also no mention was made of the highly distinctive speech/thought pattern Gerber came up with for the character which was obviously the result of research into actual types of brain damage where Sludge would struggle through various homonyms as he tried to make himself underwear ... underwater ... understood. Other than that, though, it was a great issue, a fitting tribute to one of the most wonderfully strange minds that comics have ever produced (hey, any guy who was actually able to take a throwaway idea about the cosmic adventures of a Las Vegas showgirl and her pet ostrich and decades later get Vertigo to publish it is all right by me!). – Jeff Taylor

Next issue: Experience a “New World Order,” featuring the soul-searching story of Counter-Earth’s Adam Warlock, with JIM STARLIN and ROY THOMAS, and the behind-the-scenes history of the revolutionary Marvelman, with ALAN DAVIS and GARRY LEACH. Also, JIM SHOOTER stands tall in an exclusive interview and we look back at Marvel’s New Universe. Plus: Logan’s Run, Star Hunters, BOB WIACEK on Star Wars and Star-Lord, the conclusion of the STEVE SKEATES interview, a new AA COMICS chapter, DICK GIORDANO and PAT BASTIENNE revisit Crisis on Infinite Earths, and “The Post-Crisis DC Universe You Didn’t See”! Contributors include GERRY CONWAY, TOM DeFALCO, GEORGE PÉREZ, DAVID MICHELINIE, WILLIAM F. NOLAN, and PAUL RYAN. All behind an incredibly cosmic Warlock and Thanos cover by Starlin! Don’t ask, just BI it. See you in sixty! Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor 9 0

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S U B M IS S IO N G U ID E L IN E S BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s and 1980s: Unpublished artwork and covers Original artwork and covers Penciled artwork Character designs, model sheets, etc. Original sketches and/or convention sketches Original scripts Photos Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities Creators and collectors of 1970s/1980s comics artwork are invited to share your goodies with other fans! Contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive complimentary copies (and the editor’s gratitude). Submit artwork as (listed in order of preference): Scanned images: 300dpi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (e-mailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire) Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments. Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by e-mailing euryman@gmail.com or by sending a SASE to the address below. Please allow 6–8 weeks for a response to your proposals. Artwork submissions and SASEs for writers’ guidelines should be sent to: Michael Eury, Editor BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE Concord, NC 28025

Advertise In BACK ISSUE! FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100 Prepay for two ads in Alter Ego, DRAW!, Write Now!, Back Issue, Rough Stuff, or any combination and save: TWO FULL-PAGE ADS: $500 ($100 savings) TWO HALF-PAGE ADS: $300 ($50 savings) TWO QUARTER-PAGE ADS: $175 ($25 savings) These rates are for black-&-white ads, supplied on-disk (TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable) or as camera-ready art. Typesetting service available at 20% mark-up. Due to our already low ad rates, no agency discounts apply. Sorry, display ads not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Send ad copy and check/money order (US funds), Visa, or Mastercard to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 Phone: 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

TwoMorrows Publishing 2009 Update WINTER/SPRING

Supplement to the 2008 TwoMorrows Preview Catalog

ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

SAVE

BATCAVE COMPANION

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

WHE % N YO ORD U ONL ER INE!

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

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

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

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE

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

(Hardcover 2nd Edition)

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

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

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

GRAILPAGES:

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

MAGAZINES

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

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

BRICKJOURNAL #3

BRICKJOURNAL #4

BRICKJOURNAL #5

BRICKJOURNAL #6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

ALTER EGO #84

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C o l l e c t o r

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

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

BACK ISSUE #29

BACK ISSUE #30

BACK ISSUE #31

BACK ISSUE #32

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

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

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: MAY084246

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: JUL084393

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: SEP084399

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: NOV084369

DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

ROUGH STUFF #10

ROUGH STUFF #11

ROUGH STUFF #12

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

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

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

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

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

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • Ships Spring 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: AUG084469

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: NOV084404

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships April 2009

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • Ships February 2009 Diamond Order Code: DEC084377

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

WRITE NOW! #20

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

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

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

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships May 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships June 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships July 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships August 2009

(80-page magazine) $6.95 US FINAL ISSUE! Ships February 2009 Diamond Order Code: DEC084398

BACK ISSUE #33

BACK ISSUE #34

BACK ISSUE #35

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

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

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

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

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

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

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships May 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships July 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Diamond Order Code: JAN094556 Ships March 2009

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Diamond Order Code: DEC084397 Ships February 2009

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Ships May 2009

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

Volume 19: MIKE PLOOG

Volume 20: KYLE BAKER

Volume 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

Volume 22: MARK BUCKINGHAM

Volume 23: DARWYN COOKE

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

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781605490083 Diamond Order Code: SEP084305 Ships February 2009

by Eric Nolen-Weathington & Todd DeZago (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 97801605490137 Diamond Order Code: NOV084298 Ships March 2008

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by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $15.95 ISBN: 9781605490205 Ships June 2008

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

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

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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

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BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

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DRAW! (4 issues)

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

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BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

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

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

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

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COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR Volume 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

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THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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

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

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!

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BACK ISSUE #4

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

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

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

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

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

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BACK ISSUE #9

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

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

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

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

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

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BACK ISSUE #14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #84

WRITE NOW! #20

ROUGH STUFF #12

DRAW! #17

BRICKJOURNAL #5

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

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(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • (Digital Edition) $2.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC084377 Ships March 2009

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE:

BATCAVE COMPANION

BRICKJOURNAL COMPENDIUM 2

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

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

FULL-COLOR! BRICKJOURNAL, the ultimate magazine for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, began as an online (PDF) magazine in 2005, and this book compiles the digital-only issues #4-5 (Vol. 1, from 2006) in print for the first time! Features interviews with: MIKE WILDER (about using a Mindstorms robot to film a 3-D documentary) and MARK LARSON (creator of the Fabuland Housewifes online comic strip), ALBAN NANTY on his LEGO-based Star Wars® film, plus features on LEGO character sculptures, tutorials on LCad software for creating projects, an examination of LEGOLand's history, behind the scenes at a LEGO factory, building big with LEGOs (from castles and rollercoasters to ships and skyscrapers), creating custom minifigures, instructions and building techniques, and more!

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

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

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

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

Indispensable Edition

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

2009 SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

Media Mail

(224-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 US ISBN: 9781605490021 Diamond Order Code: JUN084416 Now shipping

VOLUME 20: KYLE BAKER

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490083 Ships March 2009

VOLUME 21: CHRIS SPROUSE

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

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

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$60

$84

$136

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$44

$60

$70

$105

$115

DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

$40

$47

$70

$77

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

$88

$120

$140

$210

$230

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$38

$48

$55

$78

$85

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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