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Deathlok the Demolisher TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

RELEVANCE IN COMICS PLANET OF THE APES KUNG-FU FIGHTER DC SALUTES THE BICENTENNIAL FOOM & AWODCC & MUCH MORE!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE

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1970s Time Capsule Issue

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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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!

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“Villains!” MIKE ZECK and J.M. DeMATTEIS discuss “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, history of the Hobgoblin is exposed, the Joker’s short-lived series, 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!

“Monsters!” Frankenstein in Comics timeline and a look at BERNIE WRIGHTSON’s and Marvel’s versions, histories of Vampirella and Morbius, ISABELLA and AYERS discuss It the Living Colossus, REDONDO’s Swamp Thing, Man-Bat, monster art gallery, interview with TONY DeZUNIGA, art and commentary from ARTHUR ADAMS, COLÓN, KALUTA, NEBRES, PLOOG, SUTTON, VEITCH, and a painted cover by EARL NOREM!

“Comics Go to War!” KUBERT/KANIGHER’s Sgt. Rock, EVANIER and SPIEGLE’s Blackhawk, GEORGE PRATT’s Enemy Ace, plus Unknown Soldier, Wonder Woman’s return to WWII, the Invaders, Combat Kelly, Vietnam Journal, Sad Sack, the Joe Kubert School, art and commentary from AYERS, HEATH, KIRBY, ROBBINS, ROMITA SR., SINNOTT, and the return of GERRY TALAOC! JOE KUBERT cover!

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“Family!” JOHN BYRNE’s Fantastic Four, SIMONSON, BRIGMAN, and BOGDANOVE on Power Pack, LEVITZ and STATON on the Huntress, Henry Pym’s “son” Ultron, Wonder Twins, Commissioner Gordon & Batgirl’s relationship, and Return of the New Gods.

With art and commentary from BUCKLER, BUSIEK, FRADON, HECK, INFANTINO, NEWTON, and WOLFMAN, and a Norman Rockwell-inspired BYRNE cover!

“April Fools”! GIFFEN and LOREN FLEMING on Ambush Bug, BYRNE’s She-Hulk, interviews with HEMBECK, ALAN KUPPERBERG, Flaming Carrot’s BOB BURDEN, and DAVID CHELSEA, Spider-Ham, Forbush-Man, Reid Fleming, MAD in the 1970s, art and commentary from DICK DeBARTOLO, TOM DeFALCO, AL FELDSTEIN, AL JAFFEE, STAN LEE, DAVE SIM, and a Spider-Ham cover by MIKE WIERINGO, inked by KARL KESEL!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Cat People!” Catwoman, Black Cat, Hellcat, Vixen, Atlas’ Tiger-Man and Cougar, White Tiger and the Sons of the Tiger, Wildcat, Thundercats, Josie and the Pussycats, and the Badger! With art and commentary from BOLLAND, BRENNERT, COLON, CONWAY, DITKO, GOLDBERG, LEVITZ, MILGROM, MST3000’s MIKE NELSON, and more. Cover

by JOE STATON and FREDDY LOPEZ, JR.!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Red, White, and Blue” issue! Captain America and the Red Skull, CHAYKIN’s American Flagg, THOMAS and COLAN’s Wonder Woman, Freedom Fighters, and Team America! With art and commentary from JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, ROGER STERN, CURT SWAN, MARK WAID, LEN WEIN, MIKE ZECK, and more.

Cover by HOWARD CHAYKIN!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Wild West” issue! Jonah Hex examined with FLEISHER, DeZUNIGA, DOMINGUEZ, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GIFFEN, HANNIGAN, plus TRUMAN’s Scout, TRIMPE’s Rawhide Kid, AYERS’ Ghost Rider, DC’s Weird Westerns, the Vigilante’s 1970s revival, and more! Art and commentary by ADAMS, APARO, DIXON, EVANS, KUNKEL, MORROW, NICIEZA, and more. Cover by DeZUNIGA!

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(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Jungle and barbarian” issue! Shanna the She-Devil feature and gallery, JONES and ANDERSON on Ka-Zar, LARRY HAMA interview, Beowulf, Claw the Unconquered, Korg 70,000 B.C., Red Sonja, Rima the Jungle Girl, art and commentary by AZZARELLO, BOYETTE, CHAN, GULACY, KUBERT, MICHELINIE, REDONDO, ROY THOMAS, WINDSOR-SMITH, cover by FRANK CHO!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Spider-Man in the Bronze Age!” Drug issues, resurrection of Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy, Marvel Team-Up, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey Super Stories, CBS and Japanese TV shows, Clone Saga, CONWAY, ANDRU, BAGLEY, SAL BUSCEMA, DeFALCO, FINGEROTH, GIL KANE, STAN LEE, LEIBER, MOONEY, ROMITA SR., SALICRUP, SAVIUK, STERN, cover by BOB LARKIN!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Odd Couples!” O’NEIL and ADAMS’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Englehart’s Justice League of America, Daredevil and Black Widow, Power Man and Iron Fist, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, and… Aquaman and Deadman (?!). With AUSTIN, COLAN, CONWAY, COWAN, DILLIN, HOWELL, LEONARDI, SKEATES, and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Greatest Stories Never Told!” How Savage Empire became The Warlord, the aborted FF graphic novel “Fathers and Sons,” BYRNE’s Last Galactus Story, Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!” The final DAVE STEVENS interview, Rocketeer film discussion with DANNY BILSON and PAUL DeMEO, The Phantom, Indiana Jones, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ heroes, Dominic Fortune, Sherlock Holmes, Man-God, Miracle Squad, 3-D Man, Justice, Inc., APARO, CHAYKIN, CLAREMONT, MILLER, VERHEIDEN, and more, Rocketeer cover by DAVE STEVENS!

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Volume 1, Number 49 July 2011 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Beyond!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Rich Buckler and John Beatty, from a layout by Charles Costas COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore

FLASHBACK: Relevance in Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Chaykin, Conway, DeMatteis, Englehart, O’Neil, and Thomas sound off on the trend that gripped ’70s comics

PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Neal Adams Mark Arnold Michael Aushenker Bob Bailey Michael Bailey Dave Ballard Mike W. Barr Alex Boney Jerry Boyd Frank Brunner Bruce Buchanan Mike Burkey Jarrod Buttery KC Carlson Gary Chaloner Howard Chaykin Grand Comic-Book Database Gerry Conway J. M. DeMatteis Mark DiFruscio Steve Englehart Bertram Fitzgerald Jim Ford Carl Gafford George Gladir Bob Greenberger P.C. Hamerlinck Jack C. Harris Allan Harvey Heritage Auction Galleries Lee Hester Joe Hollon

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 “The Bronze Age’s Biggest Events” surveys 40 innovations that shaped the industry

WHAT THE--?!: Fighting Both Sides of a Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Spinning the story behind the recording Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero Fast Willie Jackson Dan Johnson Rob Kelly James Kingman Rob Kirby Paul Levitz Nigel Lowery Elliot S. Maggin Marvel Comics Franck Martini Alan Maxwell Michael Mikulovsky Jonathan Miller Ian Millsted Doug Moench Al Nickerson Dennis O’Neil Mike Ragogna Shannon E. Riley John Roche John Romita, Sr. Bob Rozakis Jim Salicrup Philip Schweier Lynn Shiloh Jim Steranko Ty Templeton Roy Thomas Don Vaughan Karen Walker Brett Weiss John Wells

INTERVIEW: Roy Thomas Remembers the Mighty Marvel Calendars . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Betcha had these on your wall back in the funky ’70s BEYOND CAPES: Dragon’s Twists: Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Re-evaluating DC’s tardy foray into the kung-fu craze of the 1970s BEYOND CAPES: Planet of the Apes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Flashing back to when Apes dominated comics … and mankind FLASHBACK: FOOM and Amazing World of DC Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Jim Salicrup and Jack C. Harris discuss these fondly remembered fanzines BACKSTAGE PASS: Stick with Captain Sticky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 The story of Richard Allen Pesta, a real-life superhero (sort of…)

FLASHBACK: Different Comics, Different Outlets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 A look at some good comics you didn’t get to see on a spinrack INTERVIEW: Bert Fitzgerald and Fast Willie Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 The golden legacy of the “Black Archie” FLASHBACK: DC Comics Salutes the Bicentennial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 The publisher’s star-spangled celebration of an American milestone FLASHBACK: Reading by Fireside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Starting with Origins of Marvel Comics, Fireside Books popularized collected editions BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Reader feedback on issues #45 and 46 BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year 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. Email: euryman@gmail.com.

Eight-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Rich Buckler and John Beatty, after Charles Costas. Deathlok TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted.

All editorial matter © 2011 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. 1970s Time Capsule Issue

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While some dismiss the 1970s as an era of excess, glitter, and kitsch, we’ve got bragging rights when it comes to the decade known as the Bronze Age of Comics. Groundbreaking characters, revolutionary creators, and new genres and formats built upon the foundation left behind by the pioneers of the Golden Age and the innovators of the Silver Age, pointing the way toward a maturation of the medium.

So put on your boogie shoes, because we’re taking you to funnybook town as we survey…

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O’NEIL AND ADAMS ON BATMAN Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970) marked the first pairing of writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams on Batman, and together this pair transformed the campy Caped Crusader into the gothic Gotham Guardian.

GREEN LANTERN/ GREEN ARROW Green Lantern #76 (Apr. 1970) shattered superhero conventions as O’Neil and Adams combined two mismatched crimefighters and explored real-world problems. While shortlived, the GL/GA series remains a classic.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN Roy Thomas and Barry (Windsor-)Smith brought Robert E. Howard’s fantasy hero to Marvel with Conan the Barbarian #1 (Oct. 1970), initiating a long run for the title (as well as Thomas) and comics’ sword-andsorcery fad.

KIRBY IS COMING! Jack Kirby leaving Marvel for DC seemed as inconceivable as Captain America joining the Justice League! But “the King” vacated the House of Ideas he helped construct, and his hitand-miss DC output created several mainstays including Darkseid.

KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE! Once Julius “Julie” Schwartz inherited the Man of Steel from retiring Super-editor Mort Weisinger, Superman #233 (Jan. 1971) updated comics’ premier hero and began an editorial run for Schwartz that would continue until 1986.

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SPIDER-MAN DRUG ISSUES In Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971), writer/editor Stan Lee defied the iron hand of the Comics Code Authority and presented a poignant exploration of America’s growing drug problem through a pillpopping Harry Osborn.

BLACK-AND-WHITE MAGAZINES Although Warren had been publishing B&W comics mags like Creepy since the 1960s, with Savage Tales #1 (May 1971) Marvel began to explore a format that would bear great fruit throughout the decade.

RELAXING OF THE CCA The Comics Code Authority, implemented in the mid-1950s to neuter supposed corruptive content, began to allow depictions of the undead, igniting an explosion of monster comic books.

SWAMP THING Enthusiastic response to Len Wein and Berni(e) Wrightson’s sympathetic muck monster’s throwaway tale in House of Secrets #92 (June–July 1971) led to a Swamp Thing series, with a monster comics craze soon following.

100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULARS DC one-upped its 80-Page Giants of the Silver Age by releasing Weird Mystery Tales (1971), the first of its 100-Page Super Spectaculars. Golden Age stories were exposed to a new generation thanks to this (mostly) reprint format.

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JONAH HEX Infusing subtle horror elements into an Old West setting, John Albano and Tony DeZuniga’s Jonah Hex first rode into the pages of All-Star Western #10 (Feb.–Mar. 1972) and breathed new life into the sagging cowboy genre.

TOMB OF DRACULA Publishing a comic book starring an antagonist may have seemed like risky business when Tomb of Dracula #1 (Apr. 1972) was released, but this long-running title became one of Marvel’s most popular series.

LUKE CAGE Hero for Hire #1 (July 1972) not only gave the medium its first black superhero headliner, it paved the way for a multicultural Marvel Universe, with more non-white heroes— and DC—following this lead.

TABLOID COMICS Thanks to this Christmas 1972 one-shot, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer illuminated a new format for reprints (and later new stories), hoisting comics off the spinracks and onto the newsstands themselves.

STARLIN’S COSMIC ODYSSEY Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel #25 (Mar. 1973) began the writer/ artist’s long career of concocting cosmic epics—with Thanos, Warlock, Dreadstar, Death of the New Gods, and many other series to follow.

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Michael Eury

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DEATH OF GWEN STACY The team of Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, and John Romita nailed the lid on the coffin of Silver Age innocence with Amazing Spider-Man #122 (July 1973), featuring the unforgettable death of Peter Parker’s girlfriend.

MASTER OF KUNG FU It’s true—in the ’70s, everybody was kung-fu fighting! Special Marvel Edition #15’s (Dec. 1973) Master of Kung Fu premiere kick-started comics’ martial-arts mania and featured a minority character in the lead.

THE PUNISHER Presented as a villain in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (Feb. 1974), Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, quickly became a Marvel anti-hero and a template for other assassin protagonists that followed.

DEATHLOK THE DEMOLISHER Rich Buckler’s signature character debuted in Astonishing Tales #25 (Aug. 1974), bringing cyborgs and alternate futures to the mainstream—as well as inspiring the makers of Robocop to crib from his creation!

WOLVERINE Introduced on the cover of Incredible Hulk #181 (Nov. 1974) as little more than a “Canadian super-hero,” Wolverine instantly clawed his way into the Marvel firmament, becoming a sensation.

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ATLAS COMICS In 1975, upstart Atlas Comics challenged Marvel’s market dominance by parroting the House of Ideas’ series, leading to a product glut and a quick demise for the company.

Atlas’ Grim Ghost, Phoenix, and Wulf have recently returned.

GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1 Chris Claremont, Len Wein, and Dave Cockrum salvaged this failed Marvel superteam by adding Wolverine and other international heroes, spawning not only a hit title but ultimately a lucrative franchise.

WONDER WOMAN ON TV Lovely and likable Lynda Carter brought DC’s Amazon Princess to live-action television in a 1975 pilot movie that was followed by a threeseason run—and TV success for The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man, too.

HOWARD THE DUCK This unlikely every“man” waddled out of the pages of Man-Thing into his own series with Howard the Duck #1 (Jan. 1976). Its writer, Steve Gerber, would soon become a champion for creator rights with his copyright lawsuit against Marvel.

SUPERMAN VS. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Big events don’t get much bigger than this!

In January 1976, DC’s and Marvel’s top titans tangled in the publishing houses’ second crossover (the first being a Wizard of Oz adaptation), with Lex Luthor and Doc Ock along for mischief.

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AMERICAN SPLENDOR An outgrowth of the underground comix of the late 1960s, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor #1 (1976) birthed the self-indulgent genre of cartoonist autobios and introduced readers to Pekar’s peculiar but compelling voice.

JENETTE KAHN AT DC It seemed to happen in a flash in 1976: Carmine Infantino was out, and 28-year-old Jenette Kahn was in as DC Comics’ publisher. Kahn would later be named president and lead DC through countless innovations before moving on in 2002.

LIBERATED MARVEL HEROINES The Marvel Universe was no longer a boys’ club with the release of Ms. Marvel #1 (Jan. 1977).

On her heels were SpiderWoman and She-Hulk, as well as Marvel’s other female characters maturing beyond their initial girlfriend/domestic roles.

2000 A.D. This British sci-fi anthology title premiered on Feb. 26, 1977.

Besides breakout star Judge Dredd, 2000 A.D. is best known for grooming a generation of writers and artists that would migrate to American comics in the ’80s.

HEAVY METAL The “adult illustrated fantasy magazine” Heavy Metal #1 (Apr. 1977) introduced American comics readers to European artists and a sensibility that transcended the mainstream. Before long, Marvel would follow suit with Epic Illustrated.

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STAR WARS George Lucas’ mega-movie became a cultural phenomenon in 1977, and with Star Wars #1 (July 1977), Marvel legitimized the licensed comic book. Star Wars enjoyed a long life at Marvel, and an even longer one at Dark Horse.

“THE DEFINITIVE BATMAN” Artist Marshall Rogers joined new ’Tec-writer Steve Englehart for their brief but landmark Detective Comics run with issue #471 (Aug. 1977), imprinting later depictions of the Dark Knight and inspiring the 1989 Batman movie.

CEREBUS THE AARDVARK Originally a self-published swordand-sorcery parody, Cerebus the Aardvark #1 (Dec. 1977) morphed into writer/artist Dave Sim’s sophisticated magnum opus, eventually running 300 issues.

CLAREMONT/BYRNE X-MEN In issue #108, the momentum writer Chris Claremont had been building with the reboot of X-Men was bolstered by the addition of penciler John Byrne (inked by Terry Austin), beginning a long and popular run.

THE DC IMPLOSION An aggressive mid-’70s expansion of DC titles, including a touted “DC Explosion” of increased page counts and new backups, glutted the market. Adverse market conditions in 1978 triggered the unexpected cancellation of dozens of DC titles.

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ELFQUEST Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest, one of the medium’s most enduring fantasy concepts, was introduced in Fantasy Quarterly #1 (Spring 1978). This anthology one-shot also included a 6-page non-Elfquest tale illustrated by Dave Sim.

BIRTH OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy’s Sabre (Aug. 1978) was the first graphic novel created for distribution exclusively in the emerging direct-sales market. Will Eisner’s lauded A Contract with God and other graphic novels followed.

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE “You’ll believe a man can fly” touted the hype for director Richard Donner’s seminal film, released in December 1978. Superman: The Movie was the first superhero screen project to become a box-office blockbuster.

FRANK MILLER DAREDEVIL Artist Frank Miller joined DD scribe Roger McKenzie with Daredevil #158 (May 1979), but within the next year the visionary billy-clubbed his way into writing the title as well, his most enduring contribution being Elektra.

THE FIRST MINISERIES DC Comics introduced the miniseries—a title intended to have a finite run—with World of Krypton #1 (July 1979), which ran three issues.

The concept would soon expand to limited series of longer lengths, such as the 12-issue Secret Wars.

OTHER BRONZE AGE MILESTONES A New Breed of Writers

The Coming of Comic Shops

At DC, the stodgy, by-the-book scripters of Golden

In the late 1970s, small businesses combatted sketchy

and Silver Age comics were crowded out by a wave of fan-grown writers who honed their chops on horror and war short stories, while at Marvel, line expansion and

distribution by catering to comics consumers. Soon, non-returnable titles were produced exclusively for this “direct” market. This 1978 photo from Greenville, NC’s

Stan Lee’s promotion allowed new voices to be heard.

Those making their mark during the Bronze Age include Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman.

Nostalgia Newsstand’s “Greenville Comic Book Trading Day” is courtesy of Bob Bailey. Shown are (left to right) David, Freddie, shop owner Charles Lawrence, and BI editor Michael Eury.

The Age of the Artist The journeymen artists of the previous generation sweated bullets as innovative new illustrators—many of whom doubled as writers—burst onto the scene. Bronze Age breakouts include John Byrne, Howard Chaykin, Dave Cockrum, Michael Golden, Paul Gulacy, Mike Grell, Michael Kaluta, Frank Miller, George Pérez, Marshall Rogers, Walter Simonson, Jim Starlin, Barry WindsorSmith, and Bernie Wrightson.

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by

Alex Boney

During the past 40 years, the term “Relevance in Comics” has become synonymous with “Green Lantern/ Green Arrow.” And with good reason. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ run on Green Lantern during the early 1970s marked the first sustained attempt to make social commentary the norm in mainstream superhero comic books. But while O’Neil and Adams’ work was pioneering and influential, the creators were not the first—and certainly not the last—purveyors of relevance in comics.

Comics have acted as a mirror for society for as long as the medium has existed, constantly reflecting the realities, trends, and developments of American life.

But during the ’70s, comics began looking directly at the social transformations that rapidly enveloped American society. And the result was a medium-wide genre shift that altered the distance between comicbook characters and the world their readers inhabited.

Some of the first “relevant” superhero comic-book stories actually come from some of the first superhero comics. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s early Superman stories were very much focused on their hero’s connection to his adopted world. Action Comics #1 (June 1938) famously dealt with the problems of pervasive crime, domestic violence, and government corruption. But later stories also tackled social concerns like labor/mining safety (Action #3) and juvenile delinquency (Action #8).

These early stories are not representative of comics’ overall social awareness, but they do offer early examples of superhero comics demonstrating social awareness.

As the 1930s turned into the ’40s and World War II escalated, superhero comics took a sharp turn toward adventure stories and war support. Readers were urged to “Buy War Bonds” and were given clear examples of exactly who the enemies of the world were. Besides the occasional war profiteer (who was always slightly foreign, anyway), this naturally did not include anyone from the United States. If comics were relevant in the ’40s, it was only insofar as they were aware and supportive of America’s war effort.

The nationalistic tone of superhero comics waned as the ’40s drew to a close, and Atlas (eventually Marvel) and DC Comics generally steered clear of social concerns during the 1950s. Western, adventure, and science-fiction

“Comix That Give a Damn” Original art by Neal Adams, intended for the front cover of the first of two 1972 Green Lantern/Green Arrow paperbacks.

This art was instead used as the back cover, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s image redrawn for print. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Not-So Happy Days The 1950s witnessed (below) the trailblazing racism parable “Judgment Day,” published in Weird Fantasy #18 (Mar.– Apr. 1953), and (right) Dr. Fredric Wertham’s scathing indictment against comic books, Seduction of the Innocent.

Weird Fantasy © 1953 EC Publications.

stories provided suitably escapist, non-confrontational fiction during a decade when American prosperity was on the rise. Even romance comics, many of which featured career women, were largely focused on women’s heartache and fixation on men.

This ideological neutrality wasn’t the case with every publisher, though. While William Gaines’ EC Comics has come to be known primarily for its sensationalistic crime, horror, and science-fiction comics, the publisher also frequently delved into social issues. Probably the most famous of these stories is “Judgment Day,” a sci-fi story

by Joe Orlando, originally published in Weird Fantasy #18 in 1953. In “Judgment Day,” a representative of the Galactic Republic visits a planet populated by orange and blue robots. An Earthman, Tarlton, has come to Cybrinia to determine if it is worthy of joining the Galactic Republic.

As Tarlton tours Cybrinia, it becomes clear that the blue robots are subjected to menial labor and cruel treatment at the hands of the orange robots. It’s a planet based on discrimination and segregation. As the story closes, Tarlton tells an orange robot that his planet is not ready to enter the Republic and, in the final panel, Tarlton removes his helmet to reveal a black man’s face.

In 1953, “Judgment Day” was an anomaly—a comic book that confronted racial injustice with a direct

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social message that ran counter to the American mainstream. A year later, in the wake of Congressional hearings and the publication of Dr. Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, the Comics Code Authority was established to self-police the comics industry.

While violence, drugs, and sexual content were the major concerns of the CCA, race was also an issue.

When EC wanted to reprint “Judgment Day” in 1956 and submitted the story for approval, the CCA demanded that the company remove or alter the last panel—despite the fact that the last panel was the entire point of the story. The story was eventually reprinted in Incredible Science Fiction #33, but only after a protracted fight between Gaines and the CCA. As the 1960s began, many of the social shifts and rumblings that had been glossed over in the ’50s began to manifest themselves more clearly. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on Washington was held just months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The Civil Rights Act followed in 1964, but racial unrest was just beginning to boil over (especially in the South). America also began fighting the Cold War in earnest during this time. The Korean War had been waged relatively quickly and quietly during the ’50s, but the Vietnam Conflict was just beginning in the early ’60s. By 1967, America had placed nearly 500,000 troops in Vietnam. In some ways, the ’60s ushered in an age of hope and idealism—a New Frontier for a younger generation. But in other ways, the decade visibly manifested the divisions and unrest that had existed in America for centuries.

Comics were not left untouched by these social tensions. Underground “comix” (either self-published or published by independent companies) pushed the boundaries of “suitable” content—drugs, politics, and sex—without the CCA approval label. Even Marvel Comics, which operated within the Code’s restrictions, began to subtly reflect the new realities of a social

awakening. The origin of the Fantastic Four is tied to the space race that JFK had initiated. The Hulk was created as a result of gamma radiation (an oblique reference to Cold War nuclear anxieties). X-Men could be read as a metaphor for the Civil Rights movement (or at least the Jewish persecution that was still lingering in the wake of the Holocaust). The new social awareness was also seen in the way Marvel appealed to youth culture, which was becoming more vocal in the ’60s. Iceman and Beast frequented a Greenwich Village coffee shop called Coffee-A-Go-Go, which attracted hippies who spat beatnik dialogue and dressed in snappy hipster gear.

Marvel wasn’t the only publisher trying to tap into the social trends of the ’60s. In DC Comics’ Brother Power, the Geek (1968), Joe Simon told the story of a rag doll brought to life by a group of hippies. The book was probably intended to reflect the merry-prankster eccentricities of hippie culture, but it actually ended up demonstrating more of a psychedelic nightmare than anything else. Hippie culture wasn’t the only social topic DC addressed in the ’60s, though. Denny O’Neil’s Justice League of America was a testing ground for some of the ideas the author would with more directly in the next decade. Bob Haney’s Brave and the Bold #85 (Aug.–Sept. 1969), followed by JLA #75 (Nov. 1969), saw the revision of Green Arrow’s costume and personality, as the Emerald Archer rejected his fortune and became a social reformer.

JLA #79 (Mar. 1970) is essentially a warning parable about the dangers of pollution and industrial waste.

The growing voice of feminism also began to exert an influence on comics. Lois Lane told Superman to get out of her life and tore down the words “Girl Friend” off the cover of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #80 (Jan. 1968). And in the hands of Denny O’Neil and Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman was completely made over in the late ’60s. Wonder Woman #178 introduced a “New Wonder Woman,” and in Wonder Woman #179 (Nov.–Dec. 1968), Diana Prince was stripped of her supernatural abilities and recast as a secret agent/ kung-fu fighter (complete with a white jumpsuit) in the mode of Emma Peel and James Bond.

There is a distinction to be made between social awareness and social relevance—especially in comics from the ’60s. While many DC and (especially) Marvel books were socially aware, they generally didn’t directly confront and challenge social norms in a way that made them entirely relevant. This sort of explicit—perhaps confrontational—relevance fell largely to other publishers. In a story for Charlton Premiere #2 (1967), Denny O’Neil (writing under the pseudonym “Sergius O’Shaughnessy”) and artist Pat Boyette created a story called “Children of Doom” about a doomsday machine that actually wiped out Earth civilization. Told from a post– apocalyptic perspective, “Children of Doom” is one of the first stories that directly warned of

Far-Out Funnybooks (left) In Brother Power, the Geek #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1968), Joe Simon tapped into the hippie culture to create one of DC’s most unusual characters. (right) Writer Denny O’Neil (and later, Mike Friedrich) used Justice League of America as a forum to explore realworld issues such as pollution. Cover to issue #79 (Mar. 1970)

by Neal Adams.

TM & © DC Comics.

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She’s Gonna Make It After All (below) Detail from the Mike Sekowsky/Dick Giordano cover of Wonder Woman #178 (Sept.–Oct. 1968. (right) Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May 1971) examined drug addiction—and lost the blessing of the Comics Code.

Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the consequences of the nuclear arsenal that both America and Russia were building during the Cold War. By the end of the ’60s, American culture began to reflect the darker tones that O’Neil had warned of in “Children of Doom.” Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968. As US involvement in Vietnam continued to escalate, the My Lai massacre was revealed by news agencies in 1969. Anti-war protests intensified, which led to the Kent State shootings in May 1970.

All of this social unrest and turmoil created an atmosphere that creative artists could no longer tiptoe around, and comics began to reflect more directly the turbulent conflict(s) tearing at American culture.

RELEVANCE AND HARD-TRAVELING HEROES Green Lantern/Green Arrow is remembered as a major social relevance bulwark because it was the first sustained comic-book run to confront many of the concerns with which America was wrestling as the ’70s began. Nearly every issue of the two-year run from Green Lantern #76 (Apr. 1970) to Green Lantern #89 (Apr.–May 1972) pinpointed a contentious issue pulled from the headlines. Green Lantern #76, one of the most-reprinted books in DC’s catalog, dealt with the issues of slumlords, economic disparity, and racial inequality. Some of the most iconic panels in DC’s history come from a scene in which a black man says to Green Lantern, “I been readin’ about you … how you work for the blue skins … and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins … and you done considerable for the purple skins! Only there’s skins you never bothered with—! The black skins! I want to know … how come?! Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!”

The scene from Green Lantern #76 set the tone for the rest of the series, as O’Neil continued to script stories that challenged many of the divisive and decisive issues of his time. Much like Action Comics #3 had done 30 years before it, Green Lantern #77 tackled the issue of inhumane, dangerous mining conditions. But O’Neil also added the problems of mountain-town poverty and exploitation, which were more timely and controversial. Green Lantern #78 (July 1970) introduced a cult leader named Joshua, who lulled Black Canary into his “family.”

Joshua was in part a reflection of mass murderer Charles Manson, who had been arrested in August 1969

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and whose trial began in June 1970 (just a month before the cover date of Green Lantern #78).

Future issues touched on a variety of social concerns, including Native-American relations (#79), pollution (#80), overpopulation (#81), child abuse (#83), and— most famously—drugs (#85–86). Although the “Speedy on smack” issues are probably more familiar now, the drug abuse problem actually was confronted first in The Amazing Spider-Man. In 1971, the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee and asked him to do a story in a popular comic book dealing with the explosion of drug use among American youth.

In response, Lee wrote (and Gil Kane drew) a threeissue story for The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971) in which Harry Osborn becomes addicted to an unspecified narcotic. Ironically, even though the US government had approached Marvel, the Comics Code Authority declined approval of the Spider-Man drug issues. The books were published without the CCA seal, which began the decline of the CCA’s influence in the next two decades. The twoissue Green Lantern drug story, which followed just a month after the Spider-Man story concluded, ran with the Code’s seal of approval.

Green Lantern provided a pivot point for many of the writers who followed O’Neil and Adams. According to O’Neil, this was largely due to the fact that no one had really tried to contradict social orthodoxies so directly before. “In those days, you did not question any decision made by a president or a congressman or even a mayor,” O’Neil says. “They were, by definition, right—especially if you grew up in Catholicism, where the Pope was right and that ended that. That was where popular culture took its cues. The comic people I worked with didn’t want to be social rebels. One of them told me that, ‘No, I want to be part of the

The Times, They Are A’Changin’ (left) Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85’s (Aug.–Sept.

1971) Adams–drawn cover still packs an emotional wallop four decades later. (background) Youth protest against the Vietnam War (background) helped pave the way for a teenage US commander-inchief in Prez #1 (Sept. 1973). Art by Jerry Grandenetti.

TM & © DC Comics.

establishment,’ because most of them came from disadvantaged circumstances, and what they were aspiring to was a middle-class existence that the hippies were denigrating. Getting a gig, being able to feed a family … those were not small considerations.”

Although the O’Neil/Adams run was critically acclaimed and left an expansive creative legacy, it didn’t prove commercially successful enough to continue beyond two years. And while DC’s competitors at Marvel were paying attention to what O’Neil and Adams were doing, they were in no particular rush to emulate it. “Relevance is a buzzword,” says writer Gerry Conway, who was writing for Marvel during the early ’70s. “It’s not really a concept. It was a promotional tool. And it didn’t work. Green Lantern/Green Arrow was an attempt to drum up sales, and it didn’t. In fact, the book ended up folding. And to a degree, that was probably inevitable anyway because of the way that things were going for Marvel and for DC. The arcs of the two companies at that point were in opposite directions. It was more of a promotional attitude at DC than it was an aesthetic approach. It had an aesthetic component, but it was more promotional.”

Whether the series was promotional or not, it left a legacy on a young generation of comics writers who were just beginning to get work in the industry. “I go back to Denny and Neal’s stuff, which I think was the high point of it all—the most memorable,” writer Steve Englehart says. “DC was not particularly on the edge of reality. People in DC lived in Star City and such, not New York. So it stands out more that it was a DC book that pushed the edges. As a newspaper reporter, Denny had always been interested in that sort of stuff.

He had a real interest in the real world. Maybe that’s why it was so overt. They took it a step further than ever before. It was a deliberate step into areas that hadn’t really been worked before.”

THE RELEVANCE RIPPLE EFFECT At DC, the ripple effect of GL/GA was slow to develop.

After the run came to a close with Green Lantern #89, no book or artist tried to pull off what O’Neil and Adams did for quite some time. This isn’t to say that stories didn’t wade into the socio-political arena from time to time, though. In Superboy #187 (June 1972), Len Dorfman and Bob Brown told a story about prison overpopulation—a problem that would only continue to get worse. Dorfman depicted the prison system as a set of awful and inhumane conditions that actually work against the goal of social rehabilitation.

Perhaps the most prescient and relevant short-lived series published by DC in the ’70s was Prez, a four-issue alternate history (Elseworlds before Elseworlds) in which a teenager becomes president of the United States.

Following the Vietnam disaster, the political assassinations still fresh in Americans’ minds, and the Watergate revelations that were just beginning to hit the news, Prez presented a world that looked back to the youthful idealism of the early ’60s. In Prez, writer Joe Simon and artist Jerry Grandenetti envisioned a world in which the youth are the only people with enough insight, energy, and clarity to actually change the world.

While DC dabbled a bit in social relevance shortly after Green Lantern/Green Arrow ended, Marvel’s Captain America picked up the social relevance banner and ran full-tilt into the current-events fray. The Watergate hearings, in particular, played a significant role in framing writer Steve Englehart’s narrative: “For the first couple of years I was writing Captain America, it was essentially a superhero book. The villains were the Yellow Claw and 37 other guys whose names are escaping me now. I was doing the difference between the American ideal and the American reality within a superhero book. I was cruising along doing that when Watergate happened, and Watergate just transfixed the country. People were 1970s Time Capsule Issue

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National Crisis US President Richard M. Nixon’s involvement with the Watergate break-in and cover-up, and eventual resignation (left), inspired writer Steve Englehart in the pages of Marvel’s Captain America. (right) In issue #176 (Aug. 1974), a disillusioned Steve Rogers abandons his star-spangled identity.

Cover by John Romita, Sr. Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

fascinated by this. All the hearings were on television daily, and the hearings had drama and intrigue and never got boring. Nixon had to release a tape [of private meetings], and when they came up with it, 18 1/2 minutes of it had been erased and there was no good explanation for it.

It was like this great novel—this great sort of mystery movie, and everybody was into it. It was the president of the United States who had authorized a burglary.”

In response to Watergate, Englehart began writing a story in which Captain America becomes disillusioned with the America he’s supposed to represent. In Captain America #169 (Jan. 1974), Englehart and artist Sal Buscema introduced a group called the Secret Empire— an underground organization bent on corrupting the United States from within. Using a front group called the “Committee to Regain America’s Principles” (you do the acronym), the Secret Empire launches a series of radio and TV spots denigrating Captain America’s reputation. In Captain America #170, Cap is framed for murder and arrested. The Secret Empire story concludes in Captain America #175 when Agent One—a thinly veiled Richard Nixon stand-in—commits suicide in the White House in front of Captain America. Ending only a month before Nixon resigned (in August 1974), this story arc was one of the most powerfully dramatic depictions of national disillusionment comics had ever seen.

It also had a lasting impact on the character in the book’s title, as Steve Rogers had a difficult time sustaining the symbolism and idealism his costume

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was supposed to represent. In Captain America #180 (Dec. 1974), Rogers donned a new costume and called himself Nomad—a deliberate statement about how he viewed his place within the United States in such tumultuous times. The change of identity didn’t last long (Rogers reclaimed the costume after a friend’s death in issue #183), but the gesture had ramifications that lasted for decades. The Nomad identity would be used again in the coming years as America continued to experience identity crises of its own.

Englehart’s story remains relevant for many of the same reasons that Green Lantern/Green Arrow remains relevant. Both story arcs used a superhero framework to reflect and respond to very real concerns of their time.

According to Gerry Conway, this sort of ambition was a more natural fit for Marvel’s character. “For some of these characters and some of these titles, they were sort of shoehorning relevance in,” Conway says. “Wonder Woman, to a certain extent, made sense because you were dealing with feminism at the time—women’s roles.

Those are legitimate issues to tackle in a comic books.

In Green Lantern, they sort of created this setup, rather than really having it come organically. It wasn’t inherent in the Green Lantern concept. Captain America should address these sorts of issues because Captain America is a political concept. When you name your book after your country, you’re basically taking on the whole package.

You’d better address it and not ignore it.”

RELEVANCE AND RACE One of the major advances in comics during the ’70s was a realignment of how black characters were presented. While the portrayal of black characters may been questionable and awkward at times (especially in retrospect), the presence and prominence of black characters in a 30-year-old medium was (and still is) seen as a tremendous step forward. Luke Cage, Black Lightning, and Falcon were a far cry from Will Eisner’s portrayal of Ebony White in The Spirit—an assessment that Eisner admitted with regret decades before his death. Predominantly white creators may have relied on stereotypical tropes (African kings, urban brawlers, and social workers), but black characters in comics were generally portrayed as dignified, strong, and self-assured.

Serious portrayals of black characters in comics actually began in the 1960s. Black Panther may have been the first black superhero, but the first major black character actually appeared three years earlier.

In 1963, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos introduced Gabe Jones, a member of an integrated WWII combat squad led by Nick Fury. Oddly (but maybe not unpredictably), Gabe was actually colored white in this first issue because the printers thought Marvel had made a mistake.

According to Roy Thomas, the growth of black characters in comics was a conscious effort on the part of Stan Lee to be more inclusive. “In those days [the early ’60s], I never saw many African Americans in comics,” Thomas says. “Stan had a conscious, obvious policy about doing it. He made one of the seven Howling Commandoes black, even though the Armed Services had not been integrated during the Second World War. And, of course, Black Panther, while he was African rather than American, was still edging in that direction. I would say that relevancy was one of the

inspirations for characters like the Falcon and Luke Cage, but so were the Black Panther and the direction in which Stan had already been going. The impetus of it all came from Stan, and the basic decisions about what would go forward were made by Stan and Archie [Goodwin] and me.”

Due to Lee and Thomas’ editorial direction, Marvel was at the forefront of introducing black characters into the superhero pantheon. The Falcon debuted in Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969) and went on to co-star in Captain America for more than seven years (#133–222, 1971–1978). Originally a social worker from Harlem, Sam Wilson reflected the socially conscious focus of many black Americans in urban America. Luke Cage, who debuted in Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972), was also from Harlem but represented a different aspect of the urban black character type.

Written by Archie Goodwin, Cage was an angry, hardened former street thug who had reformed but was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. More in line with the blaxploitation film genre than any of his comics predecessors (Shaft had hit theaters in 1971), Cage’s overall sensibility and costume design established a trope that would be copied by many other creators throughout the ’70s. The secret identity of Black Lightning (introduced in his eponymous 1977 series) was Olympic decathlete and inner-city educator Jefferson Pierce.

While the character was interesting on his own, it’s clear that many parts of his origin and design (including the nine-inch afro and deep-cut collar shirt) were essentially mash-ups of Falcon and Luke Cage.

DC’s first black superhero was Mal Duncan, who first appeared in a story called “A Penny for a Black Star” in Teen Titans #26 (Mar.–Apr. 1970). While Mal wasn’t superpowered at the time (that would come later), he proved himself heroic enough to join the Titans and return as a recurring character throughout the series. In Teen Titans #26, Bob Kanigher

1970s Time Capsule Issue

Black Superheroes Howling Commando Gabe Jones might have Marvel’s first ongoing black character, but Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972, cover detail by Romita) was the first Marvel title to star an African American.

DC later followed with Black Lightning #1 (Apr. 1977, cover art by Rich Buckler and Frank Springer).

Hero for Hire TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Black Lightning TM & © DC Comics.

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Float Like a Butterfly…

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (published in 1978 in All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56) pitted the Man of Steel against the controversial heavyweight. (right) Writer Don McGregor’s Black Panther battled “the Clan” in Jungle Action #19 (Jan. 1976).

Superman TM & © DC Comics. Muhammad Ali TM & © Muhammad Ali Enterprises. Black Panther TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

and Nick Cardy also addressed the public assassinations and gang violence that were plaguing America in the late ’60s. Two years later, in Green Lantern #87, Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams introduced John Stewart—an ex-Marine who was chosen by the Guardians as a backup Green Lantern for Hal Jordan after Guy Gardner was injured. While Stewart was a professional architect (not a social worker or an ex-thug), he clearly had a chip on his shoulder when it came to authority figures.

The growing number of black characters in comics during the ’70s might have been progressive (especially for the time), but that progression did not come without a certain degree of controversy and uncomfortable situations. Although Black Panther’s name had been coined before the foundation of the black-nationalist Black Panther party, the name had become contentious in mainstream American society by the early ’70s.

In Fantastic Four #119 (Feb. 1972), by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, T’Challa changed his name to Black Leopard. As he explains, “I contemplate a return to your country, Ben Grimm, where the latter term has—

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political connotations. I neither condemn nor condone those who have taken up the name—but T’Challa is a law unto himself. Hence, the new name—a minor point, at best, since the panther is a leopard.” The name change was short-lived, but controversy returned in 1976 when Black Panther battled a group called the Clan in Jungle Action #19–22. The Clan, clearly based on the Ku Klux Klan, was not a particularly sympathetic group, but the use of the racist organization in mainstream superhero comics presented Marvel with a hot-button (and potentially divisive) issue. The story, written by Don McGregor, was published as written, but Jungle Action only lasted another two issues before a new (non-political) ongoing Black Panther series was launched by Jack Kirby.

Perhaps the most contentious story in mainstream comics (from a socio-political perspective) came when DC Comics published Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in spring of 1978. Viewed from a 21st-century lens, Muhammad Ali is essentially seen as one of the greatest heavyweight fighters who ever lived. But in the ’70s, Ali was a particularly divisive figure in American society.

In March 1964, Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and adopted the name Muhammad Ali, which was given to him by NOI leader Elijah Muhammad.

When Ali was drafted into the US Army in 1966, he refused to report for induction and made a number of incendiary (if accurate) statements about the escalation of war in Vietnam. Most famously, he said “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me nigger.” Ali was tried in June 1967, convicted, and stripped of his Heavyweight Champion title.

Although the US Supreme Court reversed Ali’s conviction in 1971 and he returned to the ring for the “Fight of the Century” (1971), the “Rumble in the Jungle” (1974), and the “Thrilla in Manila” (1975), Ali’s reputation as a political gadfly made his

reputation a difficult and complicated one. It followed, of course, that Superman vs. Muhammad Ali had great difficulty making it to print. Most of the problems with the story were creative (not political), as the project was plagued by delays and changes in the creative team. By the time the book was published, Ali was no longer Heavyweight Champion. But the fact that DC was willing to wade into such tumultuous waters was a sign that mainstream comics had turned a corner in its treatment of black characters (and social consciousness).

RELEVANCE, GENDER, AND FEMINISM One of the most prominent issues comics had to navigate in the ’70s was the rise of feminism in American society. As second-wave feminism took hold in many pockets of American life (especially in universities, Congress, and the workplace), writers in most media were compelled to address the movement’s central concerns: equal opportunity and pay, reproductive rights, sexual freedom, and female empowerment.

In these regards, comics were at a disadvantage as the decade began. For one thing, the CCA, which was still very influential at the time, had scared several publishers into tightening their restrictions and requirements.

DC’s Editorial Policy Code, for example, declared as late as the ’60s that “the inclusion of females in stories is specifically discouraged. Women, when used in plot structure, should be secondary in importance,

and should be drawn realistically, without exaggeration of feminine physical qualities.” Even before such requirements, though, comics had been a medium dominated by male voices writing about male subjects, and the depiction of females in comics had generally not been very progressive.

Besides several strong heroines from Fiction House titles in the ’40s, women in comics were generally portrayed as either career women or Good Girls (objects of sexual desire) prior to 1970. The ’70s, then, was a decade of playing catch-up. And although not all of it was handled smoothly, it was a time marked by far more advancement and awareness than the decades that had come before it.

At the beginning of 1970, comics’ most iconic and popular heroine was running around without powers in a white jumpsuit. Wonder Woman had been depowered in 1968. But DC wasn’t unaware of the growing voices of feminism in society at large. On its cover, DC Special #3 (Apr.–June 1969) declared itself an “All-Girl Issue.” On the title page inside, Aquaman explains, “Well, you saw it on the cover! The girls have taken over this issue, and that leaves nothing for us fellows to do but introduce the stories featuring … DC’s fabulous females!” While none of the stories were particularly feminist in the academic sense, the issue did point toward a tone that would pervade mainstream comics throughout most of the next decade.

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Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves (left) DC Special #3 (Apr.–June 1969) reprinted stories starring female characters. Cover art

by Neal Adams and Nick Cardy. (right) Metropolis’ intrepid reporter goes “undercover” in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #106 (Nov. 1970).

Cover art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

TM & © DC Comics.

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WOMEN’S LIB COVER GALLERY

(top left) Lois Lane refuses to be a “girl friend” anymore in issue #80 (Jan. 1968) of her series. Cover art by Swan and Adams. (top right) Valkyrie assembles the Lady Liberators in The Avengers #83 (Dec. 1970). Cover art by John Buscema and Tom Palmer). (bottom left) The last installment of the “Diana Prince— Wonder Woman” story arc was billed as a “Women’s Lib Issue.” Wonder Woman #203 (Nov.–Dec. 1972) cover by Dick Giordano. (bottom right) Mike Grell’s cover to All-Star Comics #58 (Jan.–Feb. 1976) premiered DC’s in-your-face heroine, Power Girl (seen in the background as rendered

by Amanda Conner).

Lois Lane, Wonder Woman, Power Girl, All-Star Comics TM & © DC Comics. Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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The ’70s began somewhat awkwardly, though.

On the cover of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #106 (Nov. 1970), a story titled “I Am Curious (Black)!,” Lois explains that “It’s important that I live the next 24 hours as a black woman!” Written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Werner Roth, Lois Lane #106 dramatized a strange convergence of civil-rights causes. But the issue was nonetheless a well-intentioned story about cross-racial understanding.

A month later, The Avengers #83 introduced Valkyrie—a female warrior whose mission was to round up several of Marvel’s heroines, form a group called the Lady Liberators, and shake off “the invisible shackles men have placed on you.” Written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by John Buscema, Valkyrie offered a representation of feminism that was more aggressive and threatening than assertive. “I used to be taken to task by my friend Trina Robbins about certain aspects of that ‘Lady Liberators’ story in Avengers #83,” Thomas admits. “I wasn’t trying to make a big statement. I was just doing a story and Women’s Liberation was in the air. I used it, but I don’t think I abused it particularly. But I wasn’t trying to make a big point about it either. I wasn’t out to make a big statement. Maybe I was out to exploit it a little bit, but I don’t think it was in a particularly bad way.”

In January 1972, the same year the Equal Rights Amendment passed both houses of Congress,

feminist journalist and activist Gloria Steinem launched a magazine called Ms. The magazine provided a focal point for a movement gaining momentum, and Steinem chose to feature Wonder Woman (in her traditional red, white, blue, and gold costume) on the cover of the first issue. Steinem also wrote a column for the issue in which she criticized DC Comics for having depowered Wonder Woman. According to Steinem, Wonder Woman was a symbol of feminist strength and should be portrayed as such—especially in her own title.

According to Denny O’Neil, Steinem was right to raise these objections. “Why does Wonder Woman keep popping up in my life?” O’Neil asks. “They even reprinted that! I have come to agree with Gloria Steinem that that was not anybody’s high-water mark—especially not Wonder Woman’s or mine.” In response, DC restored Wonder Woman to her familiar costume by the end of the year. Wonder Woman #203 (Nov.–Dec. 1972), whose cover curiously announced the issue as a “Women’s Lib Issue,” was the last issue to feature Diana Prince in her white costume. The next issue, #204 (Feb. 1973), saw Diana’s return to her traditional costume. The issue was cover-dated a month after the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in the Supreme Court.

February 1973 also saw Marvel Comics trending in the same direction. On the cover of The Defenders #4, Valkyrie rescued and admonished her male teammates:

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Superhero Women (left) Valkyrie charges into The Defenders in issue #4 (Feb. 1973). Cover art by John Buscema and Frank Giacoia. (right) SpiderWoman’s breakout appearance, in Marvel Spotlight #32 (Feb. 1977). Cover art by Kane, Romita, and Giordano.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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She Is Woman Supporting-cast player Carol Danvers was powered-up in Ms. Marvel #1 (Jan. 1977, cover art by Romita and Giordano).

Ms. Marvel’s history will be detailed by this article’s writer, Alex Boney, in BACK ISSUE #54.

“Fellow Defenders! Your foes attack—and you puny males are too weak to stand against them! But I can!”

As aggressively feminist as she had been in her debut, Valkyrie continued to carry an enormous chip on her shoulder and pummeled her way through the Marvel Universe in this manner for most of the decade.

In an attempt both to appeal to female readers and to recognize a growing feminist influence in America, DC and Marvel introduced a slew of new females heroes as the ’70s progressed. In All-Star Comics #58 (Jan.–Feb. 1976), Gerry Conway and Ric Estrada debuted Power Girl—an Earth-Two version of Supergirl who embodied the feminist spirit of the time far more than her Earth-One Kryptonian counterpart.

Power Girl not only embraced her sexuality (that costume!), but also seemed to be particularly touchy about how men treated her. She engaged in frequent arguments with her Justice Society teammate Wildcat, who was cast as neither enlightened nor liberated.

In Detective Comics #456 (Mar. 1976), Denny O’Neil

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

introduced Leslie Thompkins, a recurring character who was created as an homage to Catholic Workers pacifist and humanitarian Doris Day. The year 1977 saw the debut of two of Marvel’s most recognizable heroines. Marvel Spotlight #32 introduced Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)—an instantly identifiable character who went on to star in her own television series and an ongoing comic-book series that lasted for 50 issues (1978–1983). And in Ms. Marvel #1 (Jan. 1977), Gerry Conway and John Buscema introduced perhaps the most relevant and significant heroine in Marvel’s catalog. Carol Danvers had actually been created by Roy Thomas in the 1960s, but Conway’s series gave her powers and a new identity. Danvers, the editor of a new magazine called Woman (a direct nod to Gloria Steinem’s Ms.), placed gender and identity at the forefront of her adventures. As Conway wrote in his column at the end of the first issue, “She doesn’t know who she is. Now, if you’ll think about that for a moment, you might see a parallel between her quest for identity, and the modern woman’s quest for raised consciousness, for self-liberation, for identity.

In a way, that’s intentional. Ms. Marvel, because of her name if nothing else, is influenced, to a great extent, by the move toward women’s liberation. She is not a Marvel Girl; she’s a woman, not a Miss or a Mrs.—a Ms. Her own person, herself.” While not as iconic as Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel was far more plugged into the late-’70s zeitgeist than most of her peers.

Issues such as feminism and gender identity may have been handled in unsubtle, heavy-handed ways by predominantly male creators in the ’70s, but the prominence of women during the decade paved the way for more complex portrayals of women in comics in the years to come. Characters such as Elektra, Ms. Tree, and She-Hulk might not have been as accepted or as successful if characters like Power Girl, Ms. Marvel, and Valkyrie had not first made a space for powerful, assertive women in mainstream comics.

LEGACY OF RELEVANCE The legacy of the relevance movement in comics is a mixed one. Comics partially retained a sense of relevance and social engagement, but most of the mainstream superhero books shied away from overt political messages as the ’70s turned into the ’80s.

There were occasional exceptions, of course. In 1981, DC (along with co-sponsors Keebler and IBM) produced a series of three New Teen Titans Drug Awareness Specials. In 1986, DC published a Heroes Against Hunger one-shot tackling the epidemic of global hunger. And the fact that two of the 1980s’ most popular and bestselling series (New Teen Titans and X-Men) featured black, multi-ethnic, and female characters in prominent roles was a testament to the pioneering work that writers had done throughout the ’70s.

But most of the most explicit and effective political messaging—either in the form of sincere engagement (Ms. Tree) or hyperkinetic satire (American Flagg!)—shifted away from DC and Marvel and toward independent companies like First and Eclipse. The indies were experimental in both style and content, and they were where the true continuance of relevance emerged in the first half of the ’80s.

Some of writers from next generation are actually skeptical of the legacy that the relevance movement has acquired over the years. “I never thought of it as a movement; I thought of it more as a casual annoyance,” Howard Chaykin says. “If we’re talking

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Titans Just Say No Two of the three New Teen Titans drug-awareness benefit comics published in 1983, supplanting the Protector for Robin, the Teen Wonder.

Cover art by (left) George Pérez and Dick Giordano and (right) Ross Andru and Giordano. (below) The Adamsrendered cover to DC’s Heroes Against Hunger.

TM & © DC Comics.

about the stuff that Neal and Denny did, I found it kind of banal and silly. I look back at that Green Lantern stuff and it has an enormous sensationalism built into it. I remember being impressed by it when I was a kid. But I also feel like … Speedy as a drug addict? It seemed kind of silly. We’re talking about an era in which Crossfire and Point/Counterpoint were popular, and it all became a ‘yes! no!’ shouting match. I’m a great believer in the messiness of social relevance, as opposed to the doubt-free conviction that comes out of what passes for social relevance.

I’m a patron saint of doubt.”

While some writers downplay the overall effect of relevance in the ’70s, the work of O’Neil and Englehart made other writers reconsider the possibilities of their craft. “What they did for me, and the people who came afterwards, was to expand the parameters of what mainstream comics could be,” J. M. DeMatteis says. “Guys like Englehart and Gerber and Len Wein and Denny—I’m forgetting so many people, but that whole generation—they really just kicked down walls that we didn’t even know were there in terms of what we could do with content: the characters and the types of the stories that could be told within the context of a Marvel comic or a DC comic. For me, it wasn’t so much, ‘Oh, I can be political’ as it was, ‘Oh, I can do anything I want.’ You could just keep pushing and do anything you want as long as you remain true to the characters and tell a good adventure story. Within the confines of a DC or Marvel adventure story, there were really no limits after those guys.”

This is the key to why many of these stories remain interesting decades after they ceased being “relevant” in an immediate sense. Many of them are simply good and memorable stories. Sure, many of them are ham-fisted, tin-eared, and excessively naïve.

But they were also intended to correct injustices by

making (mostly younger) readers think about difficult issues for possibly the first time in their lives. O’Neil and Englehart took several rather drab characters hovering near the edge of cancellation and made them interesting again in stories that related directly to readers’ worlds. They were zeitgeist comics, much like Swamp Thing and Watchmen were a decade later. Or Mike Grell’s Green Arrow, Denny O’Neil’s The Question, Warren Ellis’ The Authority, Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, or Howard Chaykin’s Challengers of the Unknown. All of these books tap into a larger narrative—a story that transcended the panels of the comics page and the brightly colored costumes of the mythological heroes who populate them. Relevance comics are usually pretty recognizable—not for their crazy ’70s costumes or their dated political stances, but because they’re comics that matter (and continue to matter) beyond their four-color, two-dimensional worlds.

ALEX BONEY is a freelance writer and English teacher currently living near Kansas City, Missouri. His graduate work in English at Ohio State University explored the connection between superhero comics and modernist art and literature.

He regularly contributes articles to BACK ISSUE and presents work at the Comic Arts Conference in San Diego. He contributed to The Comics Journal satellite site GutterGeek for five years before The Panelists began and has also contributed to The Supervillain Book and the forthcoming What is a Superhero? (from Oxford).

While most of Alex’s academic and professional work is focused on 1930s and ’40s superheroes, he remains partial to the Question, Power Girl, and Martian Manhunter.

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Would somebody call me Peter Parker before I go insane You see this other guy I’ve been lately forgot he had a name I find super-strength and fame ain’t all they’re cracked up to be Because the only one they don’t help is me And the spider’s web flew through the air And it landed on Peter Parker who didn’t even know it was there As Spider-Man I’ve learned about those tangled webs we weave As Peter I want to live my life and it’s either him or me So Peter stays and the Spider-Man goes But the spider is only human and Peter says it’s time to spin of web of his own It’s like fighting both sides of the mirror But this crazy war has got me weary and I can’t fight anymore – “Peter Stays and Spider-Man Goes” (Mike Ragogna) By 1975, Peter Parker’s adolescent anxieties and sardonic web-slinging persona had become an infallible, identifiable icon. Spider-Man’s widespread infiltration from comic books to multiple facets of mainstream pop culture had soared to new heights in the swingin’ mid-’70s, as a diverse profusion of worldwide Web-Head merchandise inundated the marketplace.

Ann Picardo, author of the well-intentioned Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book, had also recognized Marvel superheroes’ potential to not only exercise, but to rock ’n’ roll all nite. She pitched to Lifesong Records executives Terry Cashman, Tommy West, and Phil Kurnit a conceptual rock album based on the convoluted world of Spider-Man. The newly formed label agreed to record and release an album of Spidey-tunes—with the possibility of more Marvel/Lifesong team-ups down the road.

This wasn’t Spider-Man’s first melodious endeavor to be immortalized onto vinyl. Tifton released a 1966 pre–Power Records 45 RPM Spidey song and tale, and in 1972 came the Buddah label album The Amazing Spider-Man: A Rockomic “From Beyond the Grave” with John Romita, Sr. artwork, music by Ron Dante from the Archies, and featuring actor Rene Auberjonois as the voice of Parker/Spider-Man. In one of the songs, our hero is described as a “one-lady sex machine.”

The ’75 Lifesong album, however, was considerably more earnest in bringing insightfulness to the Web-Slinger— within an eclectic mix of musical genres. Peter’s tortured soul and complexities as the record’s premise were shaped

by Terence P. Minogue (co-producer of the rock group Crack the Sky), Billy Kirkland, and jingle singer Marty Nelson from songs provided by the label’s roster of talent.

One of those songwriters was 17-year-old high school student Mike Ragogna, hired by the seminal label as a developing artist two years earlier and invited to participate in the project when Lifesong’s co-owner (and Jim Croce co-producer) Tommy West observed a correlation between Ragogna’s own teenage awkwardness and moodiness with that of Peter Parker’s. It also didn’t hurt that the teenager was a self-proclaimed “Spider-Man junkie.”

Ragogna jumpstarted his career with Spider-Man and has been involved in the music industry ever since. “I look back fondly at the Spider-Man album,” he said when I caught up with him in early 2011. “It was part of my childhood … and was the first time I was involved in a major musical project.”

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by

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

Yesterday … All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away The Nick Cardy (Peter Parker)/John Romita, Sr. (Spider-Man) cover for Lifesong Records’ profoundly reflective 1975 album, Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero.

Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Ragogna’s latest CD, Summerland, was released in 2008, and he currently has a show on KRUU (1001- FM), a solar-powered radio station in Fairfield, Iowa.

With his familiarity and identification with the character, Ragogna wrote a folk-rock song about his hero’s dual-identity struggles; “Peter Stays and Spider-Man Goes” (touching on events from Spider-Man #50 and the death of Gwen Stacy) ultimately became the strongest, most poignant track on the album.

“Gwen’s death really traumatized me,” Ragogna remembers about the comic books, “and the depth and the severity that they put Peter Parker through … there was such a noir quality to those early Spider-Mans. ‘Peter Stays…’ could just have easily been about me, as I was living a dual life, too; I was the kid going to high school, but also had these incredible expectations at a record label.”

Ragogna’s moving “fighting both sides of the mirror” lyric from his song wound up becoming the album’s centerpiece—as well as the inspiration behind Marvel artist John Romita’s front cover rendering of Spider-Man. “The great Nick Cardy did the front cover,” Romita recalls about the record. “Stan [Lee] asked me to do the Spider-Man figure in the mirror. The back cover was my playground and I had fun doing satirical sendups of our characters.”

(Romita’s extraordinary back-cover illustrations of the album’s “musicians” had Power Man on bass; a contented Hulk on drums; the Silver Surfer playing keyboards on his cosmic surfboard; the Fantastic Four providing background vocals; strings by “Conan and the Barbarians”; the Black Panther jamming on electric guitar; Thor on the trumpet; super-soldier Captain America tapping away on a tambourine; the Falcon regulated to handclapping; and lead vocals, of course, by Spider-Man. To this day, the artwork is as compelling as the record itself.)

Other standout tracks were the album-opener “High Wire,” with its triumphant chorus, “I’m a man …

I’m a Spider-Man!!”; the record’s anthem and sole single, “Spider-Man”—written by Barry Manilow collaborator

Alan Axelrod—further embracing the melodrama from the comics (“Once I was helpless / Now I rescue those who need it when I can”); Manhattan Transfer original member Marty Nelson’s contribution of the ’50s doo-wop “Gwendolyn,” an ode to Pete’s late girlfriend; and the duly maniacal “Dr. Octopus”—penned by Crack in the Sky front-man John Palumbo and playfully sung by Ray Carouse—taking us inside a Parker nightmare where Doc Ock threatens not only Spider-Man but the entire Marvel Universe.

A majority of the album’s music was performed by Crack in the Sky, and amid the long list of musicians was renowned jazz saxophonist David Sanborn.

Lastly, reinforcing and bringing validity to the material was an in-between track, hyperbole narrative delivered by none other than Stan “the Man” Lee. Being an early release for Lifesong, promotion for the Spider-Man LP was minimal. A NYC music store, Korvette’s, endorsed the record by having an actor dressed as Spider-Man make an in-store appearance and sign autographs. The album scored a positive review in Billboard magazine and found an underground following by being mainly marketed to college radio stations where it became a quirky, play-list favorite.

Despite Winthrop Records’ CD reissue, the record is still relatively ambiguous Spider-Man ephemera, dismissed in its entirety as idiosyncratic ’70s cheese. But pay no heed—for those true believers who grew up listening to Rock Reflections of a Superhero already know it for what it is: the definitive musical journey of Spider-Man.

Sgt. Stan’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (above) Romita’s amazing back cover, featuring Rock Reflections’ gifted “musicians,” still mesmerizes to this day. (left) An ad for the Rock Reflections record (also available on cassette and 8-Track tape!).

The variant of the album’s front cover is taken from promotional art drawn by Angelo Torres.

TM &© Marvel Characters, Inc.

Comics historian P.C. HAMERLINCK is the editor of FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), appearing in the pages of our sister publication, Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego magazine.

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by

Mike Mikulovsky

Friendly Neighborhood Supporting Cast Original art to the 1975 Spider-Man pinup by John Romita, Sr. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Jazzy Johnny Romita tells interviewer Mike Mikulovsky that this first Marvel calendar was “Stan Lee’s idea, but Roy Thomas deserves most of the credit. He did most of the details and spent hours making the calendars what they were.”

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

I can remember, as a 13-yearitself was full of Marvel fun facts, trivia, old boy, paging through my and birthdays and photos of the Mighty latest Marvel comics and Marvel Bullpenners. seeing the ad for the 1975 From 1975 through 1982, the Marvel Comics calendar.

Marvel calendars became an annual I thought, “I can’t wait to tradition. While most calendars featured get mine!” While looking the whole Marvel Universe, in 1978 in the lower level of my Spider-Man was that calendar’s star; bookstore, on a table not in 1979, the Incredible Hulk, then a far from the science-fiction huge TV star, was the featured hero on book section, I saw the the calendar; and the 1980 calendar calendars for the following featured the Master of the Mystic Arts, year there—including the Dr. Strange. roy thomas 1975 Marvel calendar!

Curious about the story behind Its John Romita, Sr. cover these calendars, I asked Marvel showed the main Marvel heroes bursting into action, Comics’ one-time editor-in-chief Roy Thomas about the and even featured Dracula and Conan the Barbarian. origins of these gone-but-not-forgotten gems.

Its pinups were beautifully illustrated, and the calendar – Mike Mikulovsky 20 • BACK ISSUE • 1970s Time Capsule Issue

MIKE MIKULOVSKY: What do remember about working on the Mighty Marvel Calendars? Those were truly fun for the fans. Besides the beautiful artwork, we got to learn some interesting tidbits about the characters and the Marvel Bullpenners themselves.

ROY THOMAS: Here’s what I remember... As I recall, the idea of the calendar was Stan [Lee]’s, and he appointed me to write it. There wasn’t a real template as to what it should be like, so I decided to make it a combination of anniversaries of key Marvel events (based on the cover date by month), real-life birthdays of Bullpenners, a few Astrological signs, and just plain gags.

Was it 1975 that was the first one? I don’t know if I have a copy of that one, but I’m pretty sure I wrote the first one.

MIKULOVSKY: Yes, the first one was for 1975.

THOMAS: I know that Tony Isabella wrote the 1976 one, because I was busy with other things and knew he’d do a good job. That, of course, was the special Bicentennial calendar.

MIKULOVSKY: The Bicentennial calendar was my favorite, with the Marvel heroes in Revolutionary War settings. The Hulk at Valley Forge pinup by Herb Trimpe, with the Hulk in Revolutionary War-era garb—with a sword, to boot—was hilarious! And John Buscema’s Thor pinup for May, with the Thunder God giving Benjamin Franklin a helping hand in his discovery of electricity.

THOMAS: The thing I loved most about it are Gil Kane’s Conan drawing and Frank Robbins’ Invaders art.

I seem to have returned in 1977, whose cover features a few new stars among the usual Marvel hero illuminati—Conan (who had developed into one of Marvel’s most popular characters by then), Howard the Duck, and Luke Cage, Power Man. You don’t often see John Romita drawing Conan! I even made sure to acknowledge Robert E. Howard’s birthday on it.

Heads Up, Ichabod Crane! (top right) Frank Brunner’s Marvel monsters pinup from the 1976 Bicentennial calendar. Courtesy of the artist. (right) Original art by Gil Kane from the 1976 Bicentennial calendar, featuring the unlikely scenario of freedom fighter Conan at the Battle of Lexington. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Surfer and Swinger From the 1981 Marvel calendar, original artwork to the Silver Surfer pinup (left) by John Buscema and the Daredevil pinup (right) by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson.

According to Heritage Comics Auctions, from which we obtained the scans, a collector created the appearance of these “unpublished covers” by mounting the originals onto backing boards and adding graphics.

MIKULOVSKY: How did you choose the birthdays to include on the calendar?

THOMAS: The way I recall working on the first calendar was that I put lines and rows on 12 sheets of paper, numbered to coincide with the 12 months. I’d managed (I forget just how—probably badgering) to get virtually everybody’s birthday [from the Marvel Bullpen and staff]. I had to go through my bound comics collection to see what event had happened in which month (at least, which cover date—which is far from the same thing, of course). For instance, in October we celebrated Conan the Barbarian #1, because that was the cover

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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date of the 1970 first issue, which had actually gone on sale in July or August … but I stuck him on October 12, and asked at the bottom of the box: “And didn’t this used to be Columbus Day?” (I always hated the idea of pretending that everybody was born on a Monday—Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King.)

Production was in charge of getting the proper images to paste up—sometimes it was a very specific image (like Conan from the cover of the first issue, or a photo of someone on his/her birthday), sometimes it was more general, like just a shot of the Fantastic Four (for November, celebrating FF #1’s cover date), or whoever. Naturally, I had to proofread it later, and I’m sure Tony could vouch for the fact that a zillion little things went wrong.

In the 1977 calendar I even scattered the questions of a quiz throughout the calendar, and answered them all on the inside back cover.

MIKULOVSKY: The calendars sound like they were a lot of work!

THOMAS: It was a lot of work and long hours— probably for less money that it made sense to accept for that much work. But it was fun, too.

In the 1977 calendar, I gave special thanks on the inside front cover to: “Marie Severin, John Verpoorten, Nanette Jacovitz [a secretary], and Roget’s Thesaurus.”

Not necessarily in that order.

MIKE MIKULOVSKY is an aspiring freelance writer working on a fantasy/children’s book. He lives in Plymouth, Wisconsin, with his 25 lb. Maine Coon cat Zeus. Mike is looking to buy original comic art from Marvel Preview #9, Man-God, drawn by Tony DeZuniga.

He can be reached at michaelwzeus@aol.com.

by

Jim Kingman

Had the tranquility-seeking, martial-arts master Richard Dragon the ability to look outside the sequential four-color comic-book panels that told his story, no doubt he would have been greatly distressed by the tumultuous activity that went into his production, because Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter (KFF) was published during one of the most chaotic times in DC’s 75-plus year history, which might help explain the many twists and turns his adventures took over the course of two and a half years.

In late January of 1975, KFF #1 (cover-dated Apr.–May 1975) arrived on the comics scene to capitalize on one of the great fads of the 1970s, kung fu.

Unfortunately, the series debuted right when everyone was just about done kung-fu fighting. Not exactly expert timing, and that’s not all the book had going against it.

KFF was one of a large number of comics of various genres that Carmine Infantino, then-publisher of DC, released to meet head-on Marvel Comics’ wave of new titles, subsequently causing quite the saturation of funnybooks at the nation’s newsstands and on comic-book spinner racks. The competition was fierce, especially for a new adventure character loosely based on Dragon’s Fists, a 1974 paperback novel that a good number of people do not even recall seeing. “Kung-Fu Failure” seemed KFF’s epitaph.

All these years later, I give KFF a lot of credit for hanging in there as long as it did, because a good portion of the new titles published by DC and Marvel in early 1975, not to mention all of the fledgling Atlas Comics line, were canceled by the end of that year.

KFF entered 1976 on a monthly schedule, just as Infantino was ousted and Jenette Kahn replaced him as publisher of DC. While monthly status lasted only five months, the book continued on as a bimonthly until the summer of 1977, ending with its 18th issue.

Alas, KFF is neither the highlight of Denny O’Neil’s writing career nor his editing career. It’s also unfortunate that O’Neil, who wrote all but two issues, is reluctant to look back on the series due to legal considerations regarding the title character. Still, I’ve always gotten a kick out of KFF. The series is entertaining, albeit relentlessly busy, incorporating kung-fu combat, strong character development, international espionage, escalating violence and tragedy, and a barrage of colorful villains, most having no training whatsoever in the martial arts.

I became irritated with the book, however, during my initial research on the series due to the editorial miscues and oversights that seem to plague every issue of the title. There are peculiarities in plot, pacing, and production. In fact, it was a little bit frightening.

To keep myself on track I broke KFF down into four complete phases, plus a brief initial fifth phase, and then the intriguing “coda,” which in one fell masterstroke added some clarity to the series—because I swear, if you study KFF too closely, it will chop you down!

Foot Soldiers Detail from the cover of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #2 (June–July 1975). Art by Alan Weiss and Al Milgrom.

TM & © DC Comics.

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ENTER RICHARD DRAGON

Dick’s Kicks Dick Giordano’s cover for Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #1 (Apr.–May 1975), with the titular titan and Ben Turner taking on all comers.

TM & © DC Comics.

Richard Dragon was introduced in Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #1’s “Coming of a Dragon,” the beginning of the series’ first phase, as a brash young thief intent on stealing a Buddha statue from a monastery in Kyoto, Japan. He was intercepted by the O-Sensei, a master and teacher in the martial arts. Dragon attempted twice to attack the old master, but the O-Sensei easily subdued him. Richard then met the O-Sensei’s pupil, Ben Stanley, who Dragon also attempted to attack, but that didn’t go over so well for the troubled youth either. The O-Sensei offered to take Richard under his wing, and the downfallen youth agreed.

Thus began Richard’s seven years of martial-arts training. When the O-Sensei told Dragon that he and Ben’s education was complete and the two friends could now leave Japan to fulfill their lives, Richard was disappointed, but knew in his heart and mind what he hoped to achieve—to become a teacher of the martial arts, emphasizing discipline and tranquility. While this

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would be accomplished, Dragon was also beginning months of unyielding adventure and tragedy that would challenge his desire for tranquility, and the catalyst of all this arrived that fateful night in the person of Barney Ling.

The leery, manipulative Ling was the head of G.O.O.D. (what good actually stood for—Global Organization for Organized Defense—would not be revealed until the last issue of the series, in the final letters column), a trouble-shooting international organization affiliated with no one government, but headquartered in New York City, where, coincidentally—or maybe not— Dragon intended to open up his school for martial-arts training. Ling had come to the monastery to test Richard’s and Ben’s abilities and see if they were mentally and physically prepared to take on a mission involving the deposement of a slave trader in Sudan. Suspicious of Ling’s overall goals, the friends grudgingly consented for this one mission. However, this was the start of Richard and Ben’s months-long association with Ling, whether they liked it or not, or knew it or not.

The opening story arc was loosely based on the aforementioned Dragon’s Fists, a 1974 paperback novel

by Jim Dennis, a pseudonym for writer Denny O’Neil and artist Jim Beery. As Jim Dennis, O’Neil discussed the book in Marvel Comics’ Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #6 (Nov. 1974), in an article entitled “How to Create a Dragon.”

Aki, the international slave trader that Dragon and Ben confront in #1, is called an “Afgman,” by nationality. I think O’Neil meant “Afghan.” Little peculiarities like this creep up a lot in KFF. Successful in defeating the slave trader and freeing his captives, despite Ben being shot at and grazed, Richard and Ben returned to Japan to prepare for leaving to New York, as depicted at the beginning of issue #2’s “A Dragon Fights Alone.” Upon leaving the monastery, they met Carolyn Woosan, the O-Sensei’s goddaughter.

They were subsequently attacked by a group of thugs, who were hired to kidnap Woosan. Learning this, Richard and Ben vowed to escort Carolyn home to New York and protect her. In protecting her, they would fail, and with her tragic death in the clutches of The Swiss— who sought out secret laser frequencies that he believed, mistakenly, Carolyn had knowledge of—a number of unfortunate events would increasingly plague Richard and Ben in the months to come, leading Dragon to despair, and his friend to much worse.

Introduced in issue #3’s “Claws of the Dragon” was the Dragon’s Claw, a jade charm given to Richard as a gift from the O-Sensei. Dragon wore the ornament around his neck. When he fingered it he was able to combine his mental faculties and physical strengths, channeling them throughout his body, raising his Ki force to a practically unbeatable level during personal combat.

Carolyn Woosan, who could not escape the clutches of The Swiss despite one ample opportunity, was misnamed Carolyn Wotami in the third issue.

The O-Sensei emerged as an ongoing spiritual presence in issue #4 (Oct.–Nov. 1975), speaking words of wisdom to Richard as the young martial artist meditated or leapt into battle.

Each of the first four issues employed a different artist or artists, with Leopoldo Duranona turning in a strong outing on issue #1. Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, and Allen Milgrom provided a Marvel-esque rendition of Dragon and company for issue #2.

Jack Kirby was an unusual choice for artist in the third issue, as his bombastic style wasn’t quite suited to the fluidity of kung-fu action. However, since Kirby was on the verge of leaving DC for Marvel, his heart

Shiva Me Timbers! (top) Jack “King” Kirby (before inks by D. Bruce Berry) seemed out of his element as the artist of issue #3. (bottom) Dick Giordano’s cover to Kung-Fu Fighter #5 (Dec. 1975–Jan. 1976), introducing Lady Shiva.

TM & © DC Comics.

wasn’t in the job, and this apparent detachment actually worked in the story’s favor, providing a surprising compatibility between Kirby’s softened, possibly rushed approach and the action involved.

With the compatible pairing of Ric Estrada and Wally Wood in issue #4, KFF had finally found a consistent art team … for several issues.

TM & © DC Comics.

ENTER LADY SHIVA In Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #5’s “The Arena of No Exit,” which kicks off the series’ second phase, Ben had healed from his gunshot wound received in issue #2 and was intent on making more than judotraining moves on one of his pupils, Joy Dillard.

Meanwhile, Dragon had been “summoned” by Barney Ling, who explained to Richard that The Swiss was a hired lieutenant of Guano Cravat, an evil industrialist who desired the laser frequencies to sell to the highest bidder. Ling also introduced Dragon to Sandra Woosan, Carolyn’s sister, who once worked for Cravat and knew how difficult it would be to breech Cravat’s retreat (which was located somewhere along the North or South American coastline, or on an island in the Pacific; it’s not clear).

Seeking to avenge Carolyn, Richard successfully parachuted into Cravat’s heavily armed fortress, and found it surprisingly easy to slip inside. What he soon discovered was that it was a trap all along, and Dragon had been lured and tested by Sharon, revealing herself as Lady Shiva, to see if he was worthy of facing her in combat. Cravat, who witnessed this confrontation at a safe distance, previously succeeded in convincing Sharon that Dragon killed her sister. In the heat of battle between Richard and Sharon, Cravat let it slip that he hired The Swiss, who killed Carolyn, and once Dragon was able to convince Lady Shiva of that, the two took Cravat down. Shiva was intent on killing Cravat, but Dragon was able to restrain her. For the time being, they would be friends.

Lady Shiva thrived on the violence that her mastered skills could generate. She would recline in her room patiently, surrounded by her weaponry, always welcome to take Richard’s call to action.

Ironically, she was comic relief in the series. Whereas Richard became consumed by a tormented reality, Shiva just wanted to fight and defeat everybody who challenged her, all the while mocking her combatants.

After a short wait on the beach below Cravat’s retreat at the beginning of issue #6’s “Island of the Inferno,” Dragon and Lady Shiva were rescued by a plane belonging to G.O.O.D. Barney Ling was on board. As the plane flew over the Pacific Ocean, it was intercepted by a magnetic force generated from a powerful magnet used by Slash, a modern-day pirate.

Realizing they were about to be captured, Ling made an inexplicable decision to store an atomic bomb the plane was carrying into a live volcano for safekeeping.

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Not Quite the Right Moves Writer Jim Kingman contends that the battle sequences in Kung-Fu Fighter lacked the fluidity of true martial-arts combat. Ric Estrada/Wally Wood-drawn page from #7 (Apr. 1976).

TM & © DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

Dragon was incredulous. When the plane landed, Shiva, Ling, and his crew were taken captive while Richard slipped away unseen to somehow retrieve the atomic bomb, now soaking in hot lava, from the top of the volcano. As Shiva and Cravat dueled with swords, Dragon utilized the magnet to pull the atomic bomb from the volcano and drop it into the Pacific Ocean. As Slash was about to execute Shiva, the magnet soared over the pirate and drew him and his held sword to the magnet and dropped him into the ocean, where he apparently perished. Safe from further harm, the plane was repaired and Dragon and company returned to New York City.

Ben appeared on crutches again in issue #7’s “Command: Slay the Dragon,” allegedly the victim of a mysterious fall, but I’m convinced that Joy Dillard didn’t take to his romantic advances and kung-fu-kicked him in the shin. Janey Lewis was introduced, and she would soon be romantically linked to Ben, with tragic results. Guano Cravat, meanwhile, had hired Dr. Moon—who had previously been linked in confrontations with Batman and Wonder Woman—to destroy Richard

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Dragon. Moon had transformed thugs into superhuman fighting machines, but his ace in the hole, the mentally controlled, simple-minded Topper, was Dragon’s greatest threat. Richard was finally able to defeat the big guy, but only after suffering grave injuries to his body.

Richard also spared Cravat and Moon. We would not see Cravat again, but Moon would be back.

The kung-fu combat between Lady Shiva and a thug on page 12 of KFF #7 (left) is a good example of the problem I have with some, but not all, of the martial-arts action depicted during the series’ run. Kung fu by nature is a very fluent and quick series of movements that is exciting to watch as it happens, more so than the resulting strike. It’s hard to convey that in comics because in man-to-man (or, as in this example, Shiva-to-man) kung-fu combat lasting more than two panels, every panel must break in the action to go on to the next panel, effectively stopping the intense battle movements of all kung-fu fighters involved. It’s stop motion with no motion. No longer are these cats fast as lightning. The artwork is satisfying, don’t get me wrong, but it is not satisfying sequential art. It comes across as lessons in a How-to-do-kung-fu training manual.

With issue #7 (Apr. 1976), KFF was elevated to monthly status.

Slash returned in issue #8’s “Slay the Blind Dragon,” having survived his fall into the Pacific, and swore vengeance on Richard and Shiva, luring them in the worst possible way by murdering some of Richard’s students. Slash was now based in a hidden cove somewhere along the Pacific coastline, and how Dragon and Shiva arrived there so quickly from New York City is not explained (maybe they had access to a JLA transporter). Slash was defeated again, making his final appearance. Meanwhile, Ben was fully mended; unfortunately, it would all be downhill for him from there.

“I was colorist on several issues,” recalls Carl Gafford, “the ones with Wally Wood doing finishes on Ric Estrada’s layouts. I think in one issue I had a large, maybe half-page panel with the moon reflecting on the ocean and lighting a nearby castle, and I carefully constructed the glow on the water to go from yellow to blue. I also came up with Dragon’s red-and-yellow costume to differentiate from Karate Kid’s black, grey, and white costume. I enjoyed the book, due mostly to the Estrada/Wood art, which was also the team on All-Star [Comics’] Super-Squad, which I was also coloring then.”

TARGET: BEN Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #9’s “The Preying Mantis” was a turning point in the series, the start of its third phase. Here Ben became a target of assassins.

He was shot at as he left the martial-arts school with his date, Janey. Surviving the incident, Richard and Ben went to Barney Ling to see if he had any information about the assassination attempt—and surprise, surprise, he did, and would give them that information … but first, Ben and Richard had to travel to the island of San Lorenzo and look into the mystery of an allegedly

man-size insect attacking tourists. Richard, Ben, and Shiva (recruited by Dragon with a phone call) did indeed battle a severely deformed individual known as the “Preying Mantis,” and also a group of thugs who hoped to attain a reward in capturing the creature. Richard eventually took the Mantis down, but felt pity for him.

Ben was granted a new last name in issue #9, Turner. “Stanley” would slip in once again by mistake.

Estrada inked his own pencils, as Wally Wood spent more time illustrating All-Star Comics.

In issue #10’s “The Human Inferno,” Richard and Ben returned to G.O.O.D. headquarters in New York to make sure Ling was good on his word to reveal the person who was trying to assassinate Ben. Ling explained that Ben had inherited thousands of acres of prime timberland in Canada. The foreman there, Hatchett, wanted the timber for himself. Ben, Richard, and Shiva traveled to the Canadian timberland where they met Ben’s nephew, Ben, Jr., now an orphan because Hatchett, the evil foreman, killed his mother, Ben’s sister. Hatchett and his lackeys were set on killing Ben, too, but Richard, Ben, and Shiva took them all down, although Richard was severely burned in the battle.

Jack Abel came on board as inker through issue #12 (Oct.–Nov. 1976).

Recovering from his burns in a Montreal hospital at the outset of issue #11’s “When Strikes the Samurai,” Dragon was visited by Ben, Shiva, and Ben, Jr. A Samurai also dropped in to visit, although he was no wellwisher—he just wanted to kill Ben. Failing in this, the Samurai escaped. A furious Ben felt deceived by Barney Ling and the three friends dropped in again on G.O.O.D. headquarters. Their confrontation with a convincingly concerned Ling did not go as planned, as Ling explained that they must immediately travel to the People’s Republic of China and prevent “Operation: Moonage Daydream” from succeeding.

Ling also told Ben that a missing agent, Blodwyn, had the information that would lead him to the man trying to kill him. So off they went to China, stopping in Korea to meet their contact, Telegram Sam, who split them up so they could locate and bring back separate halves of the Tiger Tally, although it wasn’t clear to them why this was part of their mission.

In China, Richard connected with Sun Ling Po, who escorted Dragon to a temple where the Tiger Tally resided. They first had to subdue some funky Chinamen to gain access, and once they did they entered the temple. Sun Ling Po was suddenly, violently killed by the Samurai, who was now guarding the Tiger Tally.

A stunned Richard Dragon battled the Samurai and executed him with probably the most devastating kung-fu kick Dragon had ever delivered. Dragon then mourned and vowed to avenge Sun Ling Po. Issue #11 was guest-written by David Anthony Kraft and guest-edited by Gerry Conway, as O’Neil addressed health concerns and provided scripts for the then Kirby-less Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth.

With this issue, released in late May of 1976, KFF was demoted to bimonthly status.

1970s Time Capsule Issue

Blinded by the Light (below) Autographed original-art splash page to Kung-Fu Fighter #8 (May 1976), with the villainous Slash, and (left) the issue’s Giordano cover.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Buggy and Batty (below) Giordanodrawn original cover art to Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #9 (June 1976), featuring Preying Mantis. (right) Dragon guest-stars with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #132 (Feb. 1977). Cover

by Jim Aparo.

TM & © DC Comics.

Kraft wrapped up his two-part tale in issue #12’s “A Dragon Defiant,” which included Dragon battling a solid hologram of himself (the secret behind Operation: Moonage Daydream), and the death of Blodwyn (who was also Telegram Sam) before Ben could ask him who was trying to kill him. O’Neil returned as editor, his last issue in that capacity.

Also beginning with this issue, Jenette Kahn was officially listed in the indicia as publisher.

Dragon took a detour on his way back from China and traveled to Gotham City to visit a friend, as chronicled in The Brave and the Bold #132 (Feb. 1977).

There he confronted a martial-arts master known as the Stylist, teamed up with Batman, and resolved a matter involving the will of Calvin Curtis, the DC Universe version of billionaire Howard Hughes. Dragon and Batman also flew to South America by 747, in costume, but drawing absolutely no glances from the surrounding passengers, which is quite humorous. A fine, fun story by writer Bob Haney, its pleasures are immensely increased by sterling Jim Aparo artwork.

Circumstances took a very nasty turn for Ben in #13’s “To Catch an Assassin.” Upon returning from

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China with his friends, and reuniting with Ben, Jr., Ben Turner was struck down by a poisoned dart on the streets of New York City. Shiva recognized the attackers as members of the League of Assassins. They learned that the League employed a scientist called the Viper, who reveled in creating poisons. They hoped to locate the Viper in his hideout high in the peaks of Mongolia and get an antidote from him to administer to Ben. The Viper had trained guards to protect him, but as Richard and Shiva closed in, the villain sent for a helicopter to whisk him to safety. Unfortunately, the chopper traveled into Russian air space and was shot down, and with the Viper’s abrupt death it appeared that Ben was doomed.

Beginning with issue #13, which was published in October 1976, skipping a month, Joe Orlando became editor of the title. Also with this issue, Ric Estrada was the sole artist on KFF through #18.

Issue #14’s “The Man Who Studied with Bruce Lee” provided one last desperate attempt to save Ben. Richard and Shiva traveled to a secluded monastery in China where the O-Sensei now resided. Dragon hoped his former master would be able to save Ben. Dr. Moon, however, had reached the O-Sensei first and had been torturing the old man for some time to learn how to defeat Richard Dragon. When Richard and Shiva arrived, they were once again met with violence in the form of Moon’s underlings, and in the melee Shiva was shot and wounded. Richard went on alone, while Moon dashed to his new ace in the hole, the young Sing, who trained under Bruce Lee and could possibly be the only man alive to best Richard. Their battle was intense and fought to a standstill, and before Moon could execute the O-Sensei, the old master took down the bad doctor. Sing retreated to lick his wounds, and the O-Sensei traveled with Richard and Shiva to cure Ben. Once Ben was assured of survival, the O-Sensei disappeared and Richard, Shiva, and Ben headed back on the trail of Ben’s assassins.

When Dragons Duel (left) Readers were seeing double on the Ric Estrada/Vince Colletta cover to Kung-Fu Fighter #12 (Oct.–Nov. 1976), with Richard fighting his doppelgänger. (right) Behind Rich Buckler and Jack Abel’s action-packed cover to issue #13 was a tragic tale featuring the murder of Ben Turner’s love interest.

TM & © DC Comics.

To circumnavigate the problem with stop-motion kung-fu combat that I discussed earlier, O’Neil often added narration to complement the kung-fu action and/or included other events occurring simultaneously around the perimeter of the action. The battle between Dragon and Bruce Lee disciple Sing in issue #14 was a perfect example of combining different storytelling elements (compelling narration, Dr. Moon off to the side holding a gun to the O-Sensei’s head, the fight shifting across temple grounds) to offset the awkward visual breaks in movement during combat.

CURTAIN CALL In a series where innocents were brutally killed on a regular basis while unsuspecting men were trained as weapons of manly destruction, perhaps the greatest tragedy occurred at the beginning of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #15’s “The Axeman.” As the series’ fourth phase commenced, Janey Lewis was senselessly murdered at the hands of the Axeman, mere moments after Ben Turner asked Janey’s father Luke for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Matters only got worse for grief-stricken Ben, as he and Richard were subsequently recruited by Mr. Lewis to thwart the hijacking of a US submarine from a Connecticut shipyard, supposedly by the Axeman and his associates.

It turned out to be all a ruse perpetrated by Lewis, including the hiring of the Axeman, to frame Ben and Richard for stealing a submarine that Janey’s father actually stole, if our heroic kung-fu fighters didn’t drown first after being tossed from the sub as it submerged into the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, a near-exhausted Dragon was able to swim the perilous waters and carry Ben to shore.

Issue #15 is hands-down the most shocking, suspenseful, and thrilling issue of KFF. Unfortunately, the splash page gives away all the shocks, suspense, and thrills before the reader even starts the story.

Kahn instituted “story editors” for some books, all under managing editor Joe Orlando, and writers would no longer be editing their own material. Beginning with issue #15, Jack C. Harris would become story editor on KFF, and remain on the book until its cancellation.

“The ‘story editor’ was a demotion for all the assistant editors,” explains Carl Gafford. “In [Kahn’s] days in outside publishing, an ‘assistant editor’ was someone who graduated with an English degree and was

only good for opening (but not answering) the mail and making coffee.

She didn’t realize that at DC the assistant editors were like deputies, taking care of all the editorial demands. With all the art assignments being concentrated under Vinnie Colletta, making the assistants ‘story editors’ she thought was a promotion, since they would actually work on the stories appearing in the books—something they’d already been doing before, and working with the artists as well!”

Issue #16’s “The Doom Seer” had Richard and Ben, joined by Lady Shiva, whose skills extended to operating state-of-the-art hovercrafts, traveling to the North Pole to retrieve the stolen submarine and restore their honor. Luke Lewis had taken the submarine to a mysterious Professor Ojo, who dabbled in magnetism and brainwashing.

The battle at the North Pole for possession of the stolen submarine continued in issue #17’s “The Final Victim,” and when Richard, Ben, and Shiva successfully retrieved it, Ben chose to stay behind and deal out his own brand of justice to Luke Lewis. Professor Ojo eagerly awaited Ben’s return.

Ben was neutralized by Ojo and brainwashed in issue #18’s “The Secret of the Bronze Tiger.” After Ojo’s headquarters was destroyed in an explosion and Ben’s body never recovered (although apparently Luke Lewis had met his demise), Richard was tormented by the alleged death of his friend and blamed himself, sinking deep into despair. Shiva was furious with him, but was soon able to convince him to go undercover and disperse an illegal martial-arts “fight club.”

After infiltrating the event, Dragon was intrigued by the referee, a masked man known as the Bronze Tiger. Richard was forced to fight in the ring and defeat a worthy foe, at which point the Bronze Tiger wanted to take on Dragon. Before they could battle, however, the police made a raid, and Richard and the Bronze Tiger fled the scene. On a rooftop the Bronze Tiger’s mask slipped off—revealing the face of Ben Turner.

He gave Richard a knowing glance, then disappeared into the night.

Richard has found some solace knowing his friend had survived!

The debut of Ben as the Bronze Tiger would have been a good place to start the fifth phase of the series; unfortunately, this was the last issue of KFF. Kung fu is an ancient Chinese art, but KFF’s major villains did not play their part. Aki, The Swiss, Guano Cravat, Slash, Dr. Moon, 1970s Time Capsule Issue

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Martial-Arts Montage Bill Wray’s Wally Wood homage, from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #19 (Sept. 1986).

TM & © DC Comics.

Hatchett, the Samurai, the Viper, the Axeman, Luke Lewis, and Professor Ojo—none of these men were kung-fu fighters. What most of them had in common, outside of being dastardly, is that they employed henchmen, thugs, lackeys, weapons specialists—you name it—who were trained in some or all forms of the martial arts. The only exception was the Preying Mantis, who learned martial-arts combat by studying insects as they fought amongst themselves.

CODA

TM & © DC Comics.

Four years later, “Whatever Happened to Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter?” was published in DC Comics Presents (DCCP) #39 (Nov. 1981), a short “coda” that tied up some (but not all) plot elements left dangling by the abrupt ending of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter in 1977. The story was interesting and entertaining on several levels.

The creative team of writer Mike W. Barr, artist Alex Saviuk, and editor Julius Schwartz was a surprising departure from the original KFF chroniclers. Schwartz edited all the Superman titles, so the ongoing “Whatever Happened To…” backup series in DCCP had been overseen by him for months. O’Neil’s unavailability to participate was because he was working at Marvel at that time. Alex Saviuk was the regular artist on the backup series.

The “big reveal” of Barney Ling as the man who ordered the assassination attempts on Ben Turner was effective and made sense within the context of the original series. The story concluded with a mystery, the disappearance of Ling’s supposedly dead body from his coffin. Was this mystery meant to be solved?

And who took the body? Ben? Lady Shiva? The O-Sensei?

Or did Ling somehow come back to life?

“I pitched the idea for the story to Julie,” recalls Mike W. Barr. “I doubt that he had any knowledge of

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the character before that. Julie’s affection and respect for Denny O’Neil may have played some part in his acceptance of the pitch. The use of the name ‘Denny’ on page 8, panel 3, was Julie’s inclusion.

“Barney Ling being behind the assassination attempts was certainly in character for him, so it was following through on O’Neil’s characterization.

I don’t think O’Neil ever mentioned any such plot development to me. I recall wanting to include Lady Shiva in my story as well, but Julie bounced this idea, probably thinking—rightly—that the story was crowded enough as is.

“The idea of Ling’s body vanishing from its coffin was Julie’s contribution. We were so tickled with the idea, we didn’t give a follow-up story any thought.

When I told O’Neil of this twist he grinned and said: ‘Julie’s still got it.’

“I do recall that when I proposed the ‘Whatever Happened To … Dragon?’ story, the DC legal department was unclear about the disposition of the character’s comic-book rights. To resolve this situation, I took to Denny a letter of intent (or whatever the legal term is), written by Paul Levitz, that turned comic-book rights to the character over to DC; this action cleared the way for my story, as well as future uses by DC of the character.”

FINAL KICKS In the post–Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe, Ben (Bronze Tiger) Turner would become a team player in Suicide Squad and Lady Shiva would become a strong supporting character in The Question, also written by O’Neil. Richard Dragon returned in The Question #2, apparently a cripple but still a teacher, intent on humbling an arrogant Vic Sage. As the years passed, Dragon’s origins would be retooled, so by the time he was revamped for a Richard Dragon ongoing series in 2004 the character would resemble the Bronze Age version pretty much in name and appearance only.

I collected Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter as best I could from newsstands and convenience-store comic-book spinner racks back in the mid-1970s, acquiring missing books (#2, 5, 6, 18) as back issues years later. Even as an uneven read I don’t recall it ever being as exasperating and exhausting as it has been while reading and researching it as a complete work for this article. So I take my bow, having made my stand, and with a sway of the typing hand, the motion makes me skip, now I’m done with this kung-fu trip.

It’s Easter Sunday 1973, and 11-yearold JIM KINGMAN waits in eager anticipation for the photo shoot to end so he can indulge in his candyfilled Easter basket. Of course, if the candy doesn’t meet his standards, he can always fall back on his oneyear-old DC comic-book collection (but not fall back literally, as the comics are yet to be well-protected).

TM

by

Michael Eury

Editor’s note: Portions of this article appeared, in edited form, in the book Comics Gone Ape: The Missing Link to Primates in Comics (TwoMorrows, 2007).

Planet of the Apes exploits our deepest fears—that our evolutionary cousins, the ones we’ve kept in cages and in cute theatrical costumes, will one day revolt and make monkeys out of us all. Can you blame them, after B. J. and the Bear?

Planet of the Apes (or POTA, an acronym first coined on a Marvel Comics letters page, as Marvel UK scholar Rob Kirby reminds us) may be packaged as a sci-fi property, and its rich continuity of musty scrolls and pedantic lawgivers may attract the fantasy buff, but make no mistake about it, it’s the ultimate horror story. Sort of like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. We should have seen this coming. It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!

Planet of the Apes is also the poster child for franchise expansion. It started with a somewhat maligned novel that limped toward becoming a surprise hit movie, which led to men in suits demanding more movies with apes in suits. And soon marched forth an invasion of POTA action figures, TV shows, records, lunchboxes, jigsaw puzzles, and comic books.

Let’s test your POTA IQ: Can you name the first artist to draw Planet of the Apes in comic-book form?

You might guess Mike Ploog, or George Tuska.

Maybe cover painter Bob Larkin.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Before this question is answered, let’s backtrack for a quick recap of the genesis of the world where apes rule and humans are hunting targets.

Man-Handled!

Original art by Ron Wilson for the cover of the UK edition of Planet of the Apes #75.

Courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyder.com).

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

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YOU LED ME AROUND ON A LEASH!

Be Vewwy, Vewwy Quiet … I’m Hunting Humans A glimpse at how Pierre Boulle envisioned his apes, from a 1981 Hungarian adaptation of the author’s original novel.

Art and script by Zórád Ernö. Courtesy of Dave Ballard.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

French author Pierre Boulle (1912–1994) was best known for his 1952 novel The Bridge Over the River Kwai (which spawned an Oscar-winning 1957 film adaptation titled The Bridge on the River Kwai) when, in 1963, he published La planète des singes—or, as translated into English, Monkey Planet. The author’s tenth novel, the story that would soon become known as Planet of the Apes featured journalist Ulysse Mérou, who accompanied scientist Professor Antelle and physician Arthur Levain on a space-time sojourn to the solar system of the sun Betelgeuse. They ultimately found the planet Earth-esque planet Soror, home to primitive humans and intelligent apes. Boulle’s simian society was more civilized than the movie version etched into the pop-culture psyche: Its apes dressed in clothing contemporary to that of the author’s late-20th-century day, resided in homes and toiled in highrises, and drove automobiles. Yet the basic building blocks of the world we know today as the Planet of the Apes were there: a societal divide among chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas; the

research-scientist chimps Zira and Cornelius; the scholarly orangutan Dr. Zaius; and the wild-girl love interest Nova.

Planet of the Apes began spinning its way to the big screen a few years later, when Hollywood producer Arthur P. Jacobs scored the film rights for Boulle’s book. Without a script or even a treatment, the infectiously enthusiastic Jacobs wooed Charlton Heston to the project through a verbal pitch accompanied only by several production drawings.

Heston lured director Franklin J. Schaffner to the in-development film, but despite the superstar actor’s involvement, trepidation existed within Tinseltown: Science fiction was not commercially successful during this pre–George Lucas/Star Wars time, concern was voiced over the prohibitive cost of the movie, and there was an outright fear that audiences would not take talking apes seriously.

To counter the latter concern, a short test film co-starring Heston as a trapped-in-a-world-henever-made human, astronaut Colonel Thomas (yes, Thomas), and legendary screen gangster Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius was prepped, currying the support of 20th Century Fox head Richard Zanuck. Zanuck procured the necessary funding ($5.8 million, considerably less than what Jacobs might’ve hoped for), and the producer grabbed The Twilight Zone’s twist-ending master Rod Serling to pen the screenplay (Boulle himself also lobbied for that assignment). Ultimately Heston’s Colonel Thomas became Colonel Taylor, Maurice Evans was cast as Zaius due to Robinson’s adverse reaction to ape makeup, and Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter were signed to portray popular primates Cornelius and Zira. Screenwriter Michael Wilson reworked the story into its final shooting script, although Serling is responsible for its signature moment, Taylor’s discovery that this planet of apes is in fact Earth of the future. Shot between May and August of 1967, Planet of the Apes—producer Jacobson’s follow-up release to his 1967 kiddie movie Dr. Dolittle, which, coincidentally, starred a man who talked to the animals—opened on February 8, 1968.

It eventually earned a chest-thumping (for the day) box office of $32.6 million.

HUMAN SEE, HUMAN DO As Jacobs had to toil to convince Zanuck to make his movie version of Apes, comic-book houses similarly required persuasion to adapt the movie to funnybooks.

Gold Key Comics, responsible for the lion’s share of movie and TV adaptions of the late 1960s, skipped the first movie. Once the buoyant box office of POTA inspired 20th Century Fox to hurry a sequel into production, Gold Key jumped on board.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes, starring James Franciscus as human flyboy Brent (accompanied by a reluctant Heston reprising, in a limited capacity, his Taylor role), hit theaters in June 1970, with a Gold Key adaptation produced by (in answer to the POTA IQ question) the Alberto Giolitti studio.

Giolitti and his studio of artists were also responsible for Gold Key’s 1968 adaptation of King Kong.

For some, the Gold Key comic’s photo cover is more exciting than the pedestrian interiors (presumably, Giolitti’s studio also provided the script, adapting from the screenplay), but this one-shot does indeed hold the distinction of being POTA’s first foray into the comics world.

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A PLANET WHERE APES EVOLVED FROM MEN? The second artist to draw the series was … no, not Larkin, Ploog, or Tuska … but Jack Kirby. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate, but Kirby’s title Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth was launched with an Oct.–Nov. 1972 cover date, and Apes’ imprint upon “the King’s” DC Comics creation is indisputable.

As related by Kirby’s one-time protégé Mark Evanier in The Jack Kirby Collector #40 (Summer 2004), in late 1971 (or thereabouts) Kirby and the publisher of DC, Carmine Infantino, were chatting by phone about the growing film and merchandising success of Planet of the Apes; since Gold Key’s adaptation of the second film, the franchise had expanded with Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), and 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was on its way. Infantino had inquired about DC obtaining the rights for a POTA comic but was unsuccessful in his pursuit (probably due to the expense of the license), so the pair agreed that a new concept that borrowed (but not too closely) from the Apes mythology might be a worthwhile project for Kirby. Before long, Kirby dusted off his unrealized Kamandi of the Caves 1950s’ comic strip and recreated it into a comic book starring a long-haired, teenage protagonist fighting to stay alive on a future Earth populated by “Beasts That Act Like Men!” and “Men Who Act Like Beasts!” One need to look no further than Kirby’s iconic cover to Kamandi #1 for proof of POTA’s mark upon Kirby’s dystopian world—its depiction of a junked Statue of Liberty should have earned Rod Serling a “special thanks” credit. And while apes were far from the only intelligent animals in Kamandi’s world—other creatures in the mix included tigers, dogs, rats, and bats—gorillas occasionally tangled with the Last Boy on Earth, even in non-Kirby Kamandi adventures including the Batman/ Kamandi team-up in The Brave and the Bold #120 (July 1975) and the time-displacement tale in Superman/ Batman #16 (late Feb. 2005).

And so the actual second comics artist to draw POTA was … Norman Mingo, on the cover of MAD magazine #173 (Mar. 1973). That issue featured a lampoon of the Apes craze, “The Milking of the Planet That Went Ape,” drawn by POTA’s third comics artist, Mort Drucker.

Early Apes and Aping (left) The first POTA comic-book adaptation in the US, Gold Key’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes, from 1970. (above) The Rod Serlinginspired Jack Kirby/ Mike Royer cover to 1972’s Kamandi #1.

YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! During the winter of 1973, the first three POTA movies were broadcast on network television, netting strong ratings—especially the first film. This was noticed by the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, Roy Thomas, who was fundamental in Marvel’s then-recent transformation of licensed properties, most notably Conan the Barbarian, into successful comic books. “I recall going to lunch with a representative of the movie company one day in Manhattan,” Thomas says. “The movie Planet of the Apes had had spectacular ratings when it had been shown for the first time recently on TV, and a deal was struck for what soon became both color and black-and-white comics versions, as a TV series was to follow.” This was during the era of Marvel’s line of B&W magazines, which contained slightly 1970s Time Capsule Issue

POTA TM & © 20th Century Fox. Kamandi TM & © DC Comics.

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Apes Rule!

Norman Mingo’s cover to MAD #157 (Feb. 1973), comics’ second Apes sighting. (right) The first issue of the Marvel black-and-white magazine Planet of the Apes #1 (Aug. 1974), with a Bob Larkin painted cover.

MAD TM & © EC Publications.

POTA TM & © 20th Century Fox.

edgier material and were distributed beyond the spinracks housing the kid-friendly four-color titles.

Marvel’s plan was to produce adaptations of the Apes movies and new material that expanded the film mythos, augmented by text and photo features that explored the cinematic versions of POTA. Thomas picked Marvel’s go-to writer du jour, Gerry Conway, for the project. After crafting a brief outline for non-movie continuity, Conway bowed out of the project due to overcommitment. That problem was easily solved: Relative newcomer Doug Moench was assigned the Apes startup, because Thomas had observed “that Doug could use a series, could turn out lots of work, and was a good writer whom I saw as best suited to non-superhero work.”

Doug Moench elaborates, “Gerry had written a paragraph or two broadly outlining his Apes intentions before realizing his schedule was already on overload.

Something had to give, so he gave up the assignment not yet really begun. At the time, he lived on West End Avenue just two corners around from my Riverside Drive apartment on the same block, so it was easy to stop off that evening on the way home from Marvel.

But rather than offering further input, liberated Gerry generously said, ‘It’s yours, have fun, go for it’ So we began our friendship discussing other things, after which I went ape ‘going for it.’”

That editorial reassignment was a mere bump in what would quickly become a rocky road to the first

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issue’s release, as what Thomas calls “a couple of mini-disasters for the company” occurred. The ink was barely dry on Marvel’s contract with 20th Century Fox when the licensor forbade the use of Charlton Heston’s likeness, to avoid profit sharing with or a lawsuit from the actor. Penciler George Tuska drew a generic heroic figure as Colonel Taylor in Moench’s first installment of the original movie’s adaptation. Moench also introduced his long-running “Terror on the Planet of the Apes” storyline, drawn by Mike Ploog. Nervous over Fox’s sluggish delay in approving issue #1, Marvel rushed the magazine to the printer—and was soon informed of Fox’s objections to Tuska’s Taylor being too Heston–like, despite the artist’s precautions. Marvel was forced to shred the first print run, frantically redraw the Taylor faces in the adaptation, and return to press. Yet, at last, in the summer of 1974, the black-and-white comics magazine Planet of the Apes #1 (Aug. 1974) finally hit the stands.

HONORBOUND TO EXPAND THE FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE Curiously, despite 20th Century Fox’s gorilla-fisted policing of the rendering of Taylor, their scrutiny of Doug Moench’s original stories was a game of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” As Marvel’s POTA series progressed through its 29-issue run, the Counterculture writer ran amuck with offbeat storylines in the backup strip (which supported the film adaptations in most issues), covering a range of controversial topics and tiptoeing away from what the licensor probably wanted.

By creative whim or deadline necessity, the writer occasionally sidestepped his initial serial, “Terror on the Planet of the Apes” (issues #1–4, 6, 8, 11, 13–14, 19–20, 23, 26–28), for the single tales or series “Evolution’s Nightmare” (#5), “Kingdom on An Island of the Apes” (#9–10, 21), “Future History Chronicles” (#12, 15, 17, 24, 29), and “Quest for the Planet of the Apes” (a twoparter in #22). The majority of these stories were illustrated either by Ploog or by Tom Sutton. Will Eisnertrained Ploog’s lush backgrounds and supple linework made Moench’s Apes tales intoxicatingly seductive, yet at the same time, stark and haunting, while Sutton

approached the material and the B&W format’s larger pages with gusto, saturating each page, and each panel, with extraordinarily detailed artwork.

The Moench/Ploog creative pairing is fondly remembered by many—including Moench himself.

“Mike Ploog’s style is ‘cartoony-but-realistic,’” the writer says. “And, especially like Eisner, Corben, and Wrightson, Mike can even be ‘cartoony-but-scary.’ Exaggeration packs a wallop and, when done well, it paradoxically makes the unreal more ‘real’ than reality.”

Moench continues, “I hate bad storytelling. It forces me to waste time pursuing nothing but flawed compromise. Often the best I can achieve is a finished product which at least makes sense—but only if you read it, not at a glance. Working with a good storyteller, on the other hand, always and automatically makes my writing better. It frees me, in fact, to pursue my full potential while making the finished product the best it can be, adding only those words which are vital to advancing the story or which enhance the effect or impact of the art. Inadequate visuals force me to compensate with words, conveying too much of a story’s necessary information in clunky narration and/ or contrived dialogue. I always try to disguise the contrivance and limit the clunkiness, but neither should be necessary. In a ‘perfect’ comic, one blending words and pictures in smooth synergy, such artifices give way to an elegant whole greater than the sum of its individual parts. And at its best, such alchemy renders magic.

“Which is exactly what I felt when working with Mike Ploog.”

So strong was their relationship that Moench based a character in his “Terror” serial upon his artistic collaborator: “Michael J. Ploog the man may not be especially tall, but he’s a larger-than-life character with twinkling eyes, a big beard, and a bigger boisterous laugh,” Moench explains. “He hails from Wyoming. He was a Marine. He rode bucking broncos. Just looking at him, you’d figure 50 other things, all the way from safecracker to chef, before artist.

“Recalling the character Mike Keel from my beloved childhood Davy Crockett series, I decided to create two lovably obnoxious and incessantly cantankerous pals who run a riverboat, one ape and one human, both larger than life and equally prone to endlessly over-the-top braggart raps and rants. The kind of guys who don’t just laugh; they roar, putting their whole bodies into it. When they slap your back, you’re face-down in the mud with a dislocated shoulder blade. Calling them Gunpowder Julius and Steely Dan, I told Mike in my art instructions: ‘They’re both you in buckskin and coon-caps, but I’m not sure it’ll show more in the gorilla or the human.’

“After moving to New York—first time I walked home from Marvel—I came upon a Broadway refreshment stand of a type then unknown in Chicago. It offered a drink, and a most delicious one at that, called ‘Orange Julius.’

The odd name struck me at the time and later bubbled to the fore when naming my riverboat gorilla, probably because ‘Julius’ (as in Caesar, and like ‘Brutus’) fit the Apes’ Roman Empire theme. Had I made the ape an orangutan, I could have stolen the ‘Orange Julius’ name wholesale, but I wanted a big, bad gorilla rather than a patrician wuss orangutan. And since the two rogues were using their boat to pole barrels of gunpowder downriver, ‘Gunpowder Julius’ the gorilla became...

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Non-Stop Action (below) A Mike Ploog-drawn, Doug Moench-scripted “Terror” page from Marvel’s POTA #2 (Oct. 1974), with rich washtones. (left) The Plooginspired Gunpowder Julius and Steely Dan, on Bob Larkin’s cover to POTA #4 (Jan. 1975).

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

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“...leaving Ploogie to become Steely Dan by default, named when few had heard of the jazz-rock group. Had I known how famous they’d become, I never would’ve cribbed the name. At the time it fit to a T, although I never asked Mike if he dug the music.”

Moench also offers “an ancillary benefit of working with Mike: The eureka realization that PLOOG makes a perfect sound effect for a stone tossed into water.”

Artist Tom Sutton was first seen in POTA’s pages with issue #12 (Sept. 1975), in its “Future History Chronicles” feature, and eventually took over “Terror” from Ploog. “Seems to me I’d already worked with Tom on something or other, maybe a horror story for Warren or Skywald,” Moench muses. “In any case, I can’t remember the details of hooking up on ‘Future History Chronicles.’ If Tom called me, I probably recommended him to the Apes editor. If not, then the editor recommended Tom to me. Either way, I know we discussed the first episode on the phone, because I clearly remember Tom going apesh*t at the prospect of that city-ship double-spread—on which he did an incredible job.

“Not just incredible, but also humongous. The Sutton ‘Future History’ pages were way oversized, if not mounted on stiff boards.”

Amazing Artists (opposite) A quartet of Marvel Planet of the Apes covers: (top) #5, by Bob Larkin, and #9, by Greg Theakston; and (bottom) #11, by Gray Morrow, and #12, by Ken Barr. (right) Larkin’s preliminary painting for POTA #17’s (Feb. 1976) cover, and (below) Tom Sutton’s astoundingly detailed city-ship spread, pages 3 and 4 from #17. Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

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Controversial Kiss The infamous kissing scene, from POTA #19 (Apr. 1976). Script by Moench, pencils by Ploog, inks by Sutton.

Courtesy of John Roche. (right) Issue #4 (Feb. 1976) of Marvel’s color comic, Adventures on the Planet of the Apes. Cover pencils by Gil Kane, inks

by Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

TAKE YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE! Perhaps Moench’s most memorable moment as the series’ scribe came in the “Terror” installment of Planet of the Apes #19 (Apr. 1976), in a scene depicting a lip-locked human and ape in the story “Demons of the Psychedrome” (penciled by Ploog and inked by Sutton). At that time in American culture, the dust had barely settled on the tumultuous civil-rights movement of the 1960s, and interracial relationships had yet to be accepted in most circles. “The core Apes premise was obviously ripe for—and rife with—racial allegory, so I knew exactly what I was doing with that ‘miscegenation’ scene,” Moench reveals. “On the other hand, given the black girlfriends in my past, I really didn’t think it was that big a deal. In the ’50s, sure, but the times, they’d already been a-changin’ for more than a decade and I assumed nothing could stop the inevitable. If the zeitgeist had not yet reached full enlightenment and tolerance, it was at least trending toward the only state of mind that made sense, one increasingly freed of superficial hate.

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“My optimism, as it turned out, was clearly infused with a more-than-liberal dose of blissful ignorance.

I knew dark forces were still in play, but I’d badly underestimated them. Looking back, I’m dismayed at how naïve I was.”

Many of Moench’s POTA story elements were patently bizarre: talking brains, water-breathing apes, drug hallucinations, and ape/human hybrids peppered his adventures. Surprisingly, he met little resistance to his unorthodox concepts. “Nothing was ever rejected by anyone, although [editor] Archie Goodwin did ask me to change one title,” Moench discloses. “It was the Mount Rushmore story, with some ape hermit living inside the huge hollowed-out head of a dead human president—knowing me, probably Abe Lincoln—wherein he hoarded a cache of precious artifacts from his past/our present.

Things like soup cans and traffic signs and flashlights, mundane crap treated like treasure. The entrance into this den of treasure-trash—into Lincoln’s brain— was a chiseled nostril. So when a character sneezed inside the head, I naturally cut to an exterior shot with the ATCHOO coming from Lincoln’s nose. Anyway, while I can’t recall the revised—and published— version, I sure do remember my original title… “‘Up the Nose-Tube to Monkey-Junk.’

“Gotta be one of my all-time favorite titles, spunky and funky while perfectly describing the story.

Too canny for me, Archie knew that ‘junk’ was drug slang while cocaine snorting was catching on at the time.

Obviously, I was also aware of the double entendre— but only, I swear, a split-second after coming up with the title purely for its sound and sheer literalness.”

Goodwin’s “junking” of Moench’s title didn’t stray too far from the original: “Up the Nose-Tube to Monkey-Trash” was published in Planet of the Apes #14 (Nov. 1975).

THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN MAN Doug Moench also adapted each of the five Apes movies for Marvel’s POTA magazine: Planet of the Apes was serialized in issues #1–6, Beneath the Planet of the Apes in #7–11, Escape from the Planet of the Apes in #12–16, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in #17–21, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes in #22–28. The first two movie adaptations were reprinted—edited, with panel alterations, from copies of the original art made before the addition of the characteristic washtones used in the black-and-white magazines— in the newsstand-distributed color comic Adventures on the Planet of the Apes, which ran 11 issues beginning with an Oct. 1975 cover-dated first issue.

The writer penned most of the adaptations without the benefit of actually viewing the movies. “I’d seen the first two movies upon release in Chicago theaters long before moving to New York, meaning long before I knew I’d ever write for Marvel, let alone adapt all five movies into comics form,” Moench says. “Although I’d loved the first movie and enjoyed the second, lukewarmto-bad reviews led me to skip the final three.

“Along comes 1973 and I’m invited to work for Marvel in New York, then asked to adapt all five Apes movies. Now, of course, I really should catch the last three, but I’m stuck in that remote epoch before home video. My only hope is that the last three films will be shown on TV or in some Manhattan revival theater before I finish adapting the first two. But if such happened, I simply missed it, forcing me to work solely from the

screenplays, adjusting the first two to the best of my memory and working the last three blind.”

Beyond Marvel’s literal (and licensed) adaptations of the 20th Century Fox movies, three comics publishers cribbed elements from POTA for new titles: In addition to the aforementioned Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth from DC Comics—which ran an impressive 59 issues—Atlas/Seaboard’s Planet of Vampires lasted three issues, while Charlton’s Doomsday + 1, with art by newcomer John Byrne, lasted six (with reprint revivals following in later years as Byrne’s star rose). And Gerry Conway finally got to write talking apes (as well as other beasts) by introducing them into his futuristic DC title Hercules Unbound in its fourth issue (Apr.–May 1976).

And then there was the ravenous demand for Apes material outside of the United States…

British Invasion (left) Photo cover of the 1975 UK POTA Annual.

(The 1976 Annual, below, features a photo cover of the TV show’s cast.) (right) Ron Wilson original cover art to the UK’s POTA #24.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

ALL MY LIFE I’VE AWAITED YOUR COMING The Brits’ Beatles invaded the US in 1964, and ten years later the Yanks returned the favor by shipping them their Apes.

Marvel’s POTA #1 was quickly followed by the September 13, 1974 premiere of the CBS-TV Planet of the Apes series, a short-lived program that might have lasted longer than its 14 episodes were its production costs not so high. When the series “was first shown across the ITV network in Britain (except, strangely, Scotland), viewers couldn’t get enough of the show,” according to UK comics historian Rob Kirby. On October 26, 1974, the first UK edition of Planet of the Apes was released—and published

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Far-Out Amalgamations (left) Note how this Herb Trimpe Killraven cover to Amazing Adventures #20 (Sept. 1973) was altered to become Apeslayer (inset). (right) Was there ever a stranger combination of titles than the UK’s “long-awaited merger” of Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives!?? Cover art by Pablo Marcos.

POTA TM & © 20th Century Fox. Other characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

weekly! Kirby notes, “It seems that nobody had given any consideration to the fact that they didn’t yet have a sufficiently large enough inventory of material for the UK comic to stay comfortably behind the States.

Inevitably, the reprints in our weekly version began catching up with the most recent stories appearing in the US monthly magazine, and after only 22 weeks both comics had achieved synchronicity.”

While Marvel UK churned out new covers to meet the demands of a weekly schedule, after electing to use almost none of the US painted covers, even the lightning-fast typing hands of Doug Moench couldn’t maintain this breakneck pace. More story content was needed, and needed yesterday.

Enter: Apeslayer!

Lifting material from its own Amazing Adventures series, featuring the sci-fi/sword-of-sorcery hybrid “Killraven” concept in stories loosely based upon H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, “Killraven” became “Apeslayer” beginning in issue #23 (March 29, 1975).

“In double-quick time they had to re-dialogue and overdraw photo-stats of the original artwork,” says Kirby, “converting the cast into new characters and their protagonists into apes of various guises.” As weird as this sounds, Apeslayer wasn’t the first time a comicbook publisher performed such an act of grave-robbing— just a few years earlier, to satisfy a demand for Archie–like teen titles, DC raided its vaults and transformed its cobwebbed early ’60s TV tie-in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis into Windy and Willy, which spun off into its own series after a preview in Showcase #81

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(Mar. 1969). DC’s series at least benefited from its original artist, Angel and the Ape co-creator Bob Oksner, performing the necessary cosmetic surgery to make over Dobie and his beatnik sidekick Maynard G. Krebs into the hip Willy and the hippie Windy, but Apeslayer’s alteration of the Killraven art of Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, and Herb Trimpe was jarring for those familiar with the originals. Thankfully, the insertion of the Apeslayer stories corrected the disparity between the US’ and UK’s inventory, sparing readers further comics cannibalizations. To feed the UK’s demand, Moench was then asked to instigate his run of “Terror” stories and other original serials.

Yet, Moench relished the breakneck pace of production. “All the pressure and intensity, I loved it!” he smiles. “My brain exploded on a permanent high, buzzing and crackling nonstop. Doing a ‘mere’ Master of Kung Fu plot plus five or ten pages of ‘mere” Werewolf by Night dialogue—or 17 pages of nothing but Inhumans dialogue, or a ten-page original-story full script for Vampire Tales or Monsters Unleashed, or even 25 pages of dialogue for Doc Savage or whatever—made every other day of the week a 12-hour breeze by comparison. The more I worked, the easier and faster the stuff flowed.”

The British Bullpen reprinted every American POTA story at least once, printing the film adaptations from copies of the original artwork, made by the UK department the minute new artwork arrived in the office before it was washtoned for US use (which is probably where Adventures got its artwork from, Rob

Kirby suggests). This led to some small differences of dialogue, as well as several additional pages of strip material later deleted from the US editions due to page restrictions—“making the US edition effectively the reprint one!” Kirby points out.

Also, beginning in 1974, four of the movies were adapted anew in a series of Power Records narratedcomics releases (which omitted the fourth, Conquest; some surmise that its exclusion was due to its violent content being deemed unsuitable for children). Alan Maxwell, co-editor of the UK Apezine Simian Scrolls, states that some of the adaptations are credited to “Arvid Knudsen and associates,” but that “at least part of the first Power adaptation was drawn by Ernie Chan (Chua).” Power repackaged the POTA records in several forms, which included new sleeve artwork by Chan and Neal Adams.

While Marvel didn’t adapt material from the Apes CBS-TV program into comics form, publisher Brown Watson did, releasing three hardcover POTA Annuals in the mid-1970s. Additionally, the TV series was adapted into Spanish-language comics by a publisher in Argentina.

In 1976 the Apes fad began to peter out. The UK’s title merged with another sagging series, becoming Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives! with issue #88 (June 23, 1976). This staved off the cancellation of POTA/DL! until #123 (Feb. 3, 1977), when the Apes strip was then shunted into Marvel’s premiere UK anthology The Mighty World of Marvel, before being dropped from the comic 16 weeks later following #246 (June 15, 1977)—outdistancing Stateside Marvel’s POTA, which ended with issue #29 (Feb. 1977).

And with the summer 1977 release of Brown Watson’s POTA Annual #3, Apes comics were now banished to back-issue bins, flea markets, and memories.

In assessing Marvel’s overall POTA output, Roy Thomas offers this footnote: Regarding the TV airings of the movies that prompted Marvel’s acquisition of the license, “I understood later that apparently, bad weather over much of the country had contributed a lot to the high ratings by keeping an inordinate number of people indoors that night … and there never was the kind of boom for Apes that we all thought. Still, the books did okay for a while.” Thomas notes that the problems that plagued the B&W POTA book from the get-go continued, including “when two issues (after I was no longer editor-in-chief, thank goodness) evidently had the same cover date, so that one of them had an on-sale date of about 20 minutes.”

inception conceived as a franchise: a black-and-white monthly Planet of the Apes title aggressively supported by a variety of miniseries. Whereas Moench embellished POTA movie continuity with his fanciful diversions, Marshall took on the responsibility of being Apes’ next “storygiver.” He set the monthly a century after the events of the last movie, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and expanded the film continuity with story material that fed into the first two movies. “I know what’s out there and I know what’s behind me,” Marshall revealed in an interview in Comics Scene #13 (June 1990). “I’m just trying to fill up the middle.”

In this vein, in POTA #1 (Apr. 1990) Marshall and penciler Kent Burles introduced descendents of the Battle characters, such as the chimp Alexander (the grandson of Cornelius and Zira’s son, Caesar) and a bloodthirsty gorilla named General Ollo (a disciple of the war doctrines of General Aldo). In the four-issue miniseries Ape City (Aug.–Nov. 1990), Marshall and penciler M. C. Wyman—in Moench–like “Terror” fashion—unveiled original ideas that included baboon ninjas, a giant ape named Cong, and Terminator–like Vindicators sent from the past on a mission to avert Earth’s monkey-planet

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

SOME APES, IT SEEMS, ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS Charles Marshall’s memories of POTA’s 1970s boom— the stuff of his childhood—led to the realization of his dream project.

In 1990, Marshall was the chief writer of an Apes revival for Adventure Comics, an imprint of Malibu Graphics (a.k.a. Malibu Comics). Hoping to capitalize on nostalgia, Adventure’s POTA rebirth was from its

Listen Up! Advertisement for Power Records’ Planet of the Apes adaptations. (above) Kent Burles’ cover to 1990’s Ape City #3, from Malibu’s Adventure Comics imprint.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

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Before and After Burton (left) Killer gorilla Tonus is featured on the cover to 1991’s Blood of the Apes #4.

Original color cover art by Tom O’Connor, courtesy of Heritage. (right) Dark Horse’s POTA #1 (Sept 2001).

Cover art by Matt Wagner.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

future. Marshall and Wyman also teamed up for Adventure’s first color comic, 1991’s four-issue Ape Nation, perhaps the oddest comic-book crossover ever (not counting Archie Meets the Punisher), between the Planet of the Apes and Alien Nation continuities.

The jewel in the Adventure crown came in the form of a 1991 POTA miniseries titled Urchak’s Folly, written and penciled by Australian cartoonist Gary Chaloner, an Apes fan since his youth, attracted to Marvel’s series, in part, by his fascination with the art of Mike Ploog. “I’m a longtime admirer of Will Eisner’s work,” says Chalenor. “[Since] Ploog was an Eisner assistant, the stylistic connection must have attracted me.”

Chaloner’s Urchak’s Folly was created in homage to Apes novelist Pierre Boulle’s other classic. “It’s Bridge Over the River Kwai with a time-travel twist,” Chaloner explains. “A man from the Victorian era, Thorne, is transported to the future ruled by apes. In a large, mysterious valley, he’s captured by a group of militant gorillas, led by the insane Urchak, whose expedition

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west from Ape City has been blocked by a river.

The gorillas have enslaved a group of trogs—half-human, half-ape—and are forcing them to build a huge bridge across the river. The trogs are led by a woman who is making her way east, to Ape City, to await the arrival of a messiah … a man called Taylor.”

Chaloner endeavored to make Urchak’s Folly compatible with the Adventure Comics continuity, but “tried hard for it to be a stand-alone story. I also relied heavily on continuity from the feature films, mentioning Taylor [and featuring] a journal that recounts events concerning Zira and Cornelius.”

Urchak’s Folly earned Chaloner the 1992 OzCon Award for Favorite Writer.

Adventure’s POTA monthly was initially well received, its first issue selling out and going into multiple printings. But its readership quickly dwindled, the entire franchise jeopardized by fluctuating market conditions and mired in Marshall’s earnest, but overly ambitious, plan to expand the Apes mythos—or in this case, monkey around with fans’ memories. “The art and stories varied wildly and in trying to expand the POTA universe they took some pretty wild diversions,” observes Alan Maxwell.

“The series is not remembered fondly by too many fans.” Adds Chaloner, “Perhaps those stories weren’t close enough to the films, both visually and thematically. It’s always a tough call working on a project that has such a loyal fanbase. If you are even a little off-target with your vision, then it won’t go over with the fans.” After an Annual, a Blood of the Apes miniseries, and reprints of some of Moench’s Marvel material (the first three movie adaptations and a Terror collection), Adventure/ Malibu’s POTA was canceled in 1992 with issue #24. The publisher’s Apes line ended in 1993 with the miniseries The Forbidden Zone.

BEWARE THE BEAST MAN, FOR HE IS THE DEVIL’S PAWN For the rest of the 1990s, fans were teased and tormented as a new Apes movie was in development. Filmmakers as diverse as Oliver Stone and James Cameron were attached at various times, and Planet of the Apes was considered as a starring vehicle for both Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Clooney.

Eventually it was announced that film visionary Tim Burton would direct a “reimagining” of Planet of the Apes. Burton was known for his freakish cinematic eye candy—but not for cohesive storytelling. Would the director of Beetlejuice transport moviegoers to the star system of Boulle’s Betelgeuse? Or did he have something else in mind?

Burton’s heavily hyped Apes bowed on July 27, 2001, with Mark Wahlberg as reluctant (and unlikable) human hero Captain Leo Davidson and Tim Roth as the savage ape General Thade. As you’d expect from a Burton film, the makeup, costumes, and sets were astonishing. But the director had blundered into a real-life Forbidden Zone, attempting to “fix” what was never broken. His brutal reimagining strayed too far from viewers’ expectations, as a result being butchered by critics and soon fading from screens.

Visually, though, this reimagining was a sight to behold. Its multilayered treehouse of an Ape City, complex military costumes, buxom wild women, and mean-ass monkeys were the kind of stuff comics artists go Pavlov over.

It made perfect sense for Dark Horse Comics, the publisher that had created comic-book hits out of 20th Century Fox’s Aliens and Predator franchises, to see another winner in Planet of the Apes. Scott Allie ably penned the compulsory movie adaptation, drawn by Davidé Fabbry, and writer Ian Edginton and artist Paco Medina, like Moench and Ploog before them, ventured beyond the movie in the three-issue miniseries POTA: The Human War. Anticipation was sufficient enough to warrant a monthly series written by Edginton that launched with a Sept. 2001 cover date; Dan Abnett succeeded Edginton with issue #4. “Ian and I wanted the characters to have real warmth and depth and not be cut-out, two-dimensional figures,” Abnett remarked in a Simian Scrolls interview.

Dark Horse, like moviegoers, soon realized that Burton’s baby just wasn’t the Planet of the Apes everyone would have liked to have seen, and concocted an escape clause: “Ian Edginton did reveal that they had been toying with combining the worlds of the remake with that of the original, classic POTA,” says Alan Maxwell, “but alas, the comic didn’t last long enough to ever see that come to fruition.” Dark Horse’s POTA series was canned with issue #6 (Feb. 2002).

CHALK UP ANOTHER VICTORY TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT Shrugging off the Burton version as if it were only a bad dream, Revolution on the Planet of the Apes #1 (Dec. 2005), from Canadian publisher Mr. Comics, began a six-issue exploration of Caesar’s rise to power in the advent of the Ape rebellion depicted in the final two movies. Each issue featured a 16-page lead “Revolution” story and a supplemental five-page backup story set in different periods of the Apes timeline, provided by a collective of writers and artists including Joe O’Brien, Salgood Sam, Tom Fowler, Attila, Sam Agro, Art Lyon, cover painter Denis Rodier, and Ty

Templeton, the series’ co-writer and point person.

Fortunately for Apes fans, Templeton and company’s Revolution augmented, not violated, the Apes mythos.

Mr. Comics’ acquisition of POTA was, however, a second-banana choice. “Originally, I suggested that Mr. Comics approach Fox for the rights to Family Guy (back when it was still in cancellation),” reveals Templeton, no stranger to licensed titles from his previous Batman Adventures and Simpsons contributions.

Publisher Steve Ballentyne obtained the Family Guy rights, but was stalemated when Fox did not respond to Mr. Comics’ proposal materials. “I’ve been told it was because [Family Guy creator] Seth MacFarlane was hard to get on board the project, or because he wasn’t interested in seeing Family Guy in comic form while his show was off the air,” Templeton explains.

After waiting for months without a Family Guy green light, Ballentyne, hot for a licensed property for his line, wanted to capitalize upon his relationship with Fox’s licensing department and asked Templeton if there was a different Fox property Mr. Comics might acquire. Nightmare on Elm Street was considered, but Templeton was not interested because of his unfamiliarity with that Freddy Krueger series. “When our

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Hey, Mister! (above) Denis Rodier’s cover pencils for Mr. Comics’ Revolution on the Planet of the Apes #2 (Jan. 2006), courtesy of Ty Templeton. (inset) The issue’s published cover, colored by Bernie Mireault.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

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The Ape of Things to Come (below) This amazing Jim Steranko painting will be the cover of BLAM!’s forthcoming illustrated novel, Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes. Courtesy of Rich Handley and Drew Gaska. (right) The cover of Handley’s 2010 Apes encyclopedia.

TM & © 20th Century Fox.

publisher suggested POTA, I told him that Planet was one of my favorite films and I could have a ball writing that title,” says Templeton. “I suspect my enthusiasm for the characters (as well as our publisher’s familiarity with the movies) was the deciding factor.”

Revolution on the Planet of the Apes #6 (Aug. 2006) concluded Mr. Comics’ new POTA material.

Templeton had hoped to produce a sequel to Revolution, a miniseries with the working title Empire of the Planet of the Apes, foreshadowed in the backup story in Revolution #5, “where we see that gorillas and chimps eventually have a civil war for control of the Planet of the Apes,” says the writer. Since Revolution “broke a little below even,” however, those plans went unrealized.

In July 2009 BLAM! Ventures announced its acquisition of the POTA license in a two-book agreement with 20th Century Fox to produce a pair of illustrated hardcover novels, both set within the world of the original 1968 film. The initial outing, Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, co-written by Andrew E. C. Gaska, Christian Bernsten, and Erik Matthews, was announced for a Spring 2010 release, then delayed until late 2010, and as of this writing in late February 2011 is still pending publication. Apes historian Rich Handley, whose most recent POTA project, From Aldo to Zira: Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia, was published by Hasslein Books (www.hassleinbooks.com) in December 2010, informs BACK ISSUE that he is now involved with Conspiracy: “Drew Gaska and I are revising the manuscript for BLAM! Ventures and Archaia Comics, and we hope to see a late 2011 or early 2012 release, followed by a second novel, as yet untitled, by late 2012 or early 2013.” BLAM! has procured A-list talent for illustrations in Conspiracy, including painters Ken Kelly and Joe Jusko and cover artist Jim Steranko.

Ty Templeton is thrilled about Conspiracy— he’s a character in it! On January 4, 2011, Templeton wrote on his Ty Templeton’s Art Land blog (tytempletonart.wordpress.com) about a discovery he made while reading Handley’s Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes. A previously unnamed American National Space Administration documentary narrator in a DVD extra produced for the 2008 Blu-ray release of the original POTA has been named “Templeton” in BLAM!’s Conspiracy novel as a nod to Ty’s work on Revolution.

Planet of the Apes is not only going BLAM!, it’s just gone BOOM! In April 2011, BOOM! Studios launched a new Planet of the Apes comic-book series, penned by award-winning sci-fi/fantasy novelist Daryl Gregory and illustrated by Carlos Magno, with covers by Chad Hardin. BOOM!’s POTA is set within the continuity of the original five films.

And with the August 5, 2011 release of director Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a prequel to the 1968 movie, humans might want to look over their shoulders…

Special thanks to Dave Ballard, Gary Chaloner, Rich Handley, Rob Kirby, Alan Maxwell, John Roche, Ty Templeton, and Roy Thomas.

While he enjoys pop culture from the 1970s, in 2011 BACK ISSUE editor MICHAEL EURY has shed his ’70s baby fat and mop-top haircut.

Among the comics-related books he has written or co-written is Comics Gone Ape: The Missing Link to Primates in Comics, published in 2007 by TwoMorrows.

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by

Brett Weiss

DC has billionaire industrialist superhero/playboy Bruce Wayne; Marvel counters with billionaire industrialist superhero/playboy Tony Stark. DC has lightning-bolt-motif super-speedster the Flash; Marvel counters with lightning-bolt-motif superspeedster Quicksilver. DC has the groundbreaking 12-issue maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths; Marvel lays the foundation for Crisis with the 12-issue maxiseries Secret Wars.

Indeed, it seems that whenever DC has an idea, Marvel invariably follows suit; and that whenever Marvel has an idea, DC invariably follows suit.

During the early 1970s, when comic-book fandom was in full swing, each company published its own fanzine, with Marvel beating DC to the punch by more than a year.

Prior to expounding on Marvel’s FOOM and DC’s Amazing World of DC Comics, a little perspective is in order, namely a brief history of comic-book fanzines.

For those unfamiliar with the term, the word “fanzine” is short for fan-made magazine. Most fanzines of the 1960s were reproduced via such crude contraptions as the hectograph (a gelatin duplicator) or the Ditto machine (a spirit duplicator), the latter of which was commonly used by churches, schools, and other organizations to make copies (this was before the proliferation of the photocopier). Anyone over 40 will remember the wet, smelly, purple-printed pages associated with Ditto machines.

Science-fiction fandom began during the 1930s, but comic-book fandom didn’t really get off the ground until March 1961, with the publication of Jerry Bails’ seminal comic-book fanzine, Alter-Ego. Bails sent copies of Alter-Ego #1 to addresses published in the backs of such comic books as Justice League of America and Fantastic Four, and to addresses he found in earlier comic-book fanzines (what few there were).

Shortly after the publication of Alter-Ego #1, Don Thompson and Maggie Curtis debuted their labor of love, Comic Art, a classy, highly influential fanzine known for publishing work by such legends as Carl Barks and Harlan Ellison. By 1963, comic-book fanzines, including such important titles as The Rocket’s Blast and The Comicollector, were ubiquitous, helping educate, entertain, and unite comic-book fans across the country.

In 1964, super-fan Bernie Bubnis organized the first New York Comicon (widely considered the birth of comic-book conventions), further fueling the fire for fandom. Hundreds of fanzines were being published during this time, with Marvel and DC getting in on the act in 1973 and 1974 respectively.

Marvel’s Mightiest The legendary Jim Steranko illustrated this comin’-atcha poster of heroes in 1973 for Marvel’s FOOM fan club. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Holy Hyperbole! (left) Marvel’s big daddy, Stan “the Man” Lee, tells it like it is on the cover of FOOM #1 (Feb. 1973). (right) Hulk smashed his way onto FOOM #2’s cover, courtesy of artist Jim Steranko.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Both companies, operating on shoestring budgets, an introduction by Stan “the Man” Lee himself. produced wonderful, fondly remembered fanzines, Printed in white with a blue background, the intro with FOOM being a little more lighthearted and was plastered right there on the cover, as though Amazing World of DC Comics a little more serious, Stan couldn’t stand the idea of readers having to reflecting the personality of each company to a T. turn the first page before they could get to his The publications were produced as rhapsodic ramblings about Marvel’s mail-order fanzines instead of newsstand miraculous new magazine. magazines in order to specifically Told in typical Stan Lee fashion, target the hardcore comic-book here’s a sampling of that introduction: fan base.

“Your days have found new meaning; Issues of Amazing World were your nights have been enriched; thicker than FOOM (50 or so your world has gained new lustre. pages apiece compared to 30 or Thrice blessed you are, for you so pages each) and produced on have embraced the cause of superior paper stock. However, FOOM forever—now let the angels both zines are highly collectible sing... Only a fellow Foomer like today, commanding approximately yourself can sense the lump in my $30–$80 per issue in Very Fine or throat, the deep emotion that jim salicrup better condition. threatens to overwhelm me. For, of all the countless words I have FOOM penned in days of yore, none have An acronym for Friends of Ol’ Marvel, FOOM was been so fraught with meaning, so tinged with the frolicsome follow-up to the much-missed drama, so garnished with glory as these which you Merry Marvel Marching Society and Marvelmania now read…”

International fan clubs. The first issue of FOOM features During its 22-issue run, FOOM included in its pizzazz-prone pages an amazing assortment of far-out, fan-friendly features, many of which almost lived up to Lee’s hyperbolically hilarious hooey. Highlights include: histories of the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Thing; interviews with Roy Thomas, Jack Kirby, Steve Gerber, and Stan Lee; photos from the Marvel company softball game; and articles by Roger Stern on Captain America and the Silver Surfer. The mag also featured board games, puzzles, unpublished art, fan art (including work by a young John Byrne), and much more.

For a closer look at FOOM, I interviewed former Marvel man Jim Salicrup, who edited such titles as The Uncanny X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and The Avengers.

Salicrup was a contributing editor for the fantabulous fanzine FOOM.

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Make Room for FOOM (left) Even Spider-Man reads FOOM, as seen on issue #3’s cover. (right) It was clobberin’ time for the ever-lovin’ Thing in FOOM #5, while (below) the Defenders got the Marvel spotlight in FOOM #19.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

BRETT WEISS: Whose idea was it to publish a Marvel fanzine, and who came up with the name?

JIM SALICRUP: I’m not really sure, but my guess would be either Stan Lee, who loved the Merry Marvel Marching Society (the original Marvel fan club), or Jim Steranko, who actually put the first few issues of FOOM together (as well as designed the entire membership kit and original advertisements). Both men are supertalented and could’ve come up with the idea.

WEISS: What were some of your duties as contributing editor for FOOM? SALICRUP: Usually, I simply hung around whoever the FOOM editor was at the time and made lots of suggestions and did whatever they might’ve asked me. My proudest moment was suggesting artist Arnie Sawyer’s great full-color portrait of Stan to be FOOM’’s very first full-color cover. I later suggested that Arnie’s Stan Lee portrait be used as a Marvel trading card, and it was!

WEISS: Did you enjoy working on FOOM? SALICRUP: Of course! I loved Marvel so much that I wanted to be involved with a magazine devoted to Marvel’s fans that would take them behind the scenes at mighty Marvel. Stan Lee knew how important it was to really communicate with fans, and having a special magazine to do that was brilliant. That’s also why I was editor of Marvel Age for eight wonderful years— to keep that special relationship going! Now, in the back pages of most Papercutz graphic novels [Salicrup is editor-in-chief at Papercutz], we try to run the same kind of fun features to communicate directly with our incredible fans.

WEISS: Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, and Marv Wolfman are listed as contributing editors on FOOM. Did they have much direct involvement with FOOM, and do you remember working with them on the zine?

SALICRUP: This was back when Marvel had writer/ editors, and each of those guys was one—Jack Kirby was a writer/artist/editor! When gathering up the news on all the upcoming Marvel titles, we would run

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Carmine’s Corner A limited edition color artist’s proof of Carmine Infantino’s cover to The Amazing World of DC Comics #1. Only 20 of these were produced.

Courtesy of Heritage. (inset) The published cover of AWODCC #1.

TM & © DC Comics.

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little mini-interviews with them to find out their plans.

Also, if we did anything about any of their titles, we would get their input. All of them were supercooperative and happy to help.

WEISS: What about Stan Lee? Did he oversee FOOM at all?

SALICRUP: Of course! Stan was right there at the very start of FOOM, talking about it in his “Stan’s Soapbox” column on the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page that ran in every Marvel comic! He kept teasing fans about this new and mysterious thing called “FOOM,” before finally revealing that it stood for “Friends of Ol’ Marvel” and that it would be Marvel’s newest fan club.

He also oversaw the creation of the magazine and membership kit and advertisements by Steranko, and looked at and offered feedback on most issues of FOOM before they were printed up. And, of course, he was greatly involved in the special Stan Lee issue!

WEISS: What are some of your favorite articles, strips, and/or pieces of art that were published in FOOM? SALICRUP: I really enjoyed the interviews, especially those conducted by FOOM editor David Anthony Kraft (and sometimes by me). I liked them so much that I later suggested to DAK that he start an entire magazine featuring interviews with everybody involved in comics and call it David Anthony Kraft’s Comics Interview (inspired by Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine). Comics Interview was a great magazine and ran 150 issues—a lot longer than FOOM itself! I also really liked the later full-color covers FOOM ran, such as the multi-paneled Defenders cover by George Pérez. I also liked Marie Severin’s Jarvis cover for the

Avengers issue, and there was also a great FOOM logo designed by Ed Hannigan that he based on the logo of the band the Doors.

WEISS: Why was FOOM canceled?

SALICRUP: When FOOM was first launched, it got a great push in the comics from Stan and was advertised everywhere. Later on, Marvel was launching so many new projects that took up every available promotional space in the comics that FOOM was virtually forgotten, and without promotion in the comics, no one could know about it, so it slowly faded away.

WEISS: Any thoughts on the competition’s fanzine, Amazing World of DC Comics?

SALICRUP: I thought it was great and really well-done.

It captured the DC feel the same way FOOM caught the flavor and style of Marvel.

WEISS: Anything else you care to share regarding FOOM? Any interesting and/or funny stories to tell?

SALICRUP: I was just a teenager working at Marvel when FOOM was launched, and I still remember working late one night in the Marvel Bullpen, and the only other two people there were Stan Lee and Jim Steranko, talking about this new project called FOOM. As a big Marvel fan, I was in heaven—listening in on two of my favorite Marvel super-stars. When they finally wrapped up and were on their way out of the office, Stan was surprised to see that I was still working away at such a late hour, and made some wonderful Stan–like comment like, “You deserve a special Marvel commendation for work above and beyond the call of duty!” To which Steranko added, “Aw, just pay the kid!” ’Nuff said!

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Stan the Super Man (left) Stan Lee was immortalized as many of Marvel’s mightiest in this Arnold Sawyerpainted poster, which also doubled as the cover of FOOM #17. (right) The wallcrawling final issue, FOOM #22.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS Although it lacks a formal introduction, Amazing World of DC Comics #1 starts off with a bang as noted letterhack Guy H. Lillian III interviews Joe Kubert. Complemented by photos, art panels, and cover reproductions, the eight-page feature reveals how Kubert, as a young boy, skipped school to show his art portfolio to the various companies around town, eventually getting some of his work published in the process. Kubert also discusses Sgt. Rock, Tarzan, [the syndicated newspaper strip] Tales of the Green Berets, and much more.

That first issue also features articles on Bill Finger (in memoriam), the Wonder Woman TV pilot (with Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role), The Adventures of Superman television series, the Paramount Superman cartoon from the 1940s, and National Periodical Publications vice president Sol Harrison, who did color separations for some of the very first comic books (which were simply reprints of Sunday strips, reduced in size).

One of the great things about Amazing World of DC Comics is that it was a terrific vehicle for rare material. Issue #1 features a centerspread of The Shadow by Mike Kaluta and a “Murder, Inc!” strip by Jack Kirby, both of which were previously unpublished.

To help put a personal stamp on the proceedings, a “Meet the Woodchucks” [a reference to Carl Barks’ Donald Duck stories] page features profiles of eight DC creators, including Bob Rozakis, who was a contributing/assistant editor for Amazing World.

“Sol Harrison came up with the idea for the magazine,” Rozakis says, “and the plan was for the ‘Junior Woodchucks’ to do all the work. We shared all the work—deciding the contents, writing the articles, putting the pages together, even packing up the contents to be mailed. It was fun in those days before I was writing comics regularly to have somewhere that my work was appearing in print.”

Rozakis’ favorite issue of Amazing World was #3, a Julius Schwartz special that features a bust of Schwartz on the cover as “carved” by Joe Kubert. The issue also includes: “Julius Schwartz Leads the Way”; Green Lantern in “Safety First” (one of only three original scripts written by Schwartz, this one previously lost); and stories and reminiscences about Schwartz by such legends as Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Robert Kanigher, and Mort Weisinger.

Another creator listed in the “Meet the Woodchucks” bio page is Legion of Super-Heroes writer and former president and

Julie and the Joker (left) Joe Kubert’s Easter Island-sized bust of DC editor Julius Schwartz graced the cover of Amazing World of DC Comics #3. (right) AWODCC #4, a Batman issue, featured a Jerry Robinson cover.

TM & © DC Comics.

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publisher of DC Comics Paul Levitz, who declined to be interviewed for this article.

Here’s Levitz’s Amazing World mini-bio, circa 1974: “At 17 1/2, Paul is the youngest in the National Bullpen. His double life consists of attending New York University as a full-time student two days a week and acting as Assistant Editor to Joe Orlando and Murray Boltinoff the rest of the time. As editor/publisher of ‘The Comic Reader,’ Paul won two Comic Art Fan Awards for best fan magazine. Paul’s hobbies include sleeping, reading, aging, and figuring out how he can do four weeks of work in the space of three days!”

Indeed, part of the fun of reading Amazing World is to see just how far some of its contributors have come in the world of comic books.

In Amazing World #4, which was a special Batman issue, writer Jack C. Harris was presented as the newest “Woodchuck,” complete with mini-bio and head sketch. Harris contributed an article called “Two-Faces are Better Than One,” which features a photo of Harris appearing as Two-Face in 1973 and 1974 at the New York Comic Convention.

Jack C. Harris tells BACK ISSUE, “My piece on Two-Face was my first published work for DC, so that remains a favorite. I loved Guy Lillian’s bio of Julius Schwartz and really enjoyed seeing all of the previously unpublished artwork we were able to dig up out of the DC files.”

Like Rozakis, fellow contributing/assistant editor Harris remembers taking on a variety of roles in publishing AWODCC (around the office, the fanzine was frequently called “Awoduck”).

“Everyone did some of everything, from coming up with themes, article ideas, writing the articles, and everything else to actually pasting up the issues,” Harris says. “The editors were advisors; the assistant editors did everything else.”

Harris worked under managing editor Joe Orlando, whom Harris called “a delight … a great artist and editor … and a great teacher as well.”

As the boss-man, Orlando would delegate editorial duties for individual issues to assistant editors on a rotating basis. “Issue #7 was mine, where I coordinated the entire issue, assigning articles, collecting up the artwork, etc.,” Harris said. “The greatest thing was getting the cover from Superman artist Curt Swan. It was a beautiful pencil drawing of the Man of Steel done on a heavily

acrylic gessoed board. Curt made a gift of the original to me, and it now has a place of honor framed in my den.”

Harris continues: “The next great thing about issue #7 was a personal note of appreciation to me from actor Kirk Alyn, who portrayed Superman in the 1948 and 1950 serials. He enjoyed Allan Asherman’s coverage of the serial in that issue very much.”

Amazing World of DC Comics ran for 17 issues, plus a Special Edition published in a smaller format for the Super DC Con, which was held in 1976 at the Hotel Commodore in New York City.

The Special Edition features con programming, along with articles by E. Nelson Bridwell, Paul Kupperberg, Len Wein, Neal Adams, and Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The zine also features art by Adams, Nick Cardy, Curt Swan, Ross Andru, and others.

Harris wasn’t privy to the reasons behind the cancellation of the fanzine, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t due to low sales or disinterest among fans.

“I believe Sol Harrison, the vice president at the time, initiated the idea as a training project for the junior staff,” Harris says. “I think that the assistant editors had all moved up to editorial positions [around the time of the cancellation] and simply did not have the time to devote to it any longer.”

During its proverbial day in the sun, Amazing World truly was packed with tons of amazing features.

Some of the more impressive pieces include: interviews with Curt Swan and Mort Weisinger; a centerfold sketch by Swan of an unused Lois Lane cover; a centerspread by Nestor Redondo of a rejected cover to Swamp Thing #15; a look back at DC’s clubs for kids (the Supermen of America and the Junior Justice Society); and too many others to mention.

The 17th and final issue of Amazing World of DC Comics includes a mention of the regrettably never-published issue #18, which was to feature articles on DC’s science-fiction comics (such as Star Hunters), along with an interview with the far-famed

A Super Gift

SF and comic-book author Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination, The Demolished Man), who purportedly penned Green Lantern’s famous oath. The last published issue, which concludes with an historical meeting of Kirk “Superman” Alyn and Jackson “Captain Marvel” Bostwick (written by the late, great fan writer Larry Herndon), also promises that a special Robert Kanigher issue was in the works.

(above) Artist Curt Swan gave the original of this pencil drawing of Superman produced for Amazing World of DC Comics #7 to editor Jack C. Harris. (left) Issue #10 went behind the scenes of DC’s production department.

IN CONCLUSION Back in the day, before such fonts of information as the Internet, Comic Shop News, and Previews magazine, Marvel and DC’s in-house fanzines were valuable resources for giving fans news, plot summaries, release dates, and the like on forthcoming comic books.

While it is no longer necessary for publishers to produce a magazine containing listings of their “comics in your future” (to borrow a phrase from the Comics Buyer’s Guide), the types of interviews, unpublished art, and other fun features found in FOOM and Amazing World are sorely missed.

Luckily for seasoned comic-book collectors and bright-eyed beginners alike, there’s BACK ISSUE and Alter Ego (in its modern incarnation) to help fill the gaping hole left by Marvel when they stopped publishing FOOM and by DC when they put the brakes on Amazing World of DC Comics.

TM & © DC Comics.

Former comic-book retailer BRETT WEISS is the author of Classic Home Video Games, 1972–1984 (McFarland, 2007) and Classic Home Video Games, 1985–1988 (McFarland, 2009). To catch up with Brett, check out his blog: www.brettweisswords.blogspot.com.

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Decades before Kick-Ass and Who Wants to Be a Superhero? gave us a glimpse of what a real-life superhero might look like, an outsized avenger in a blue leotard and gold cape presented himself to an awed public. Armed with nothing but a kindhearted nature and a supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Captain Sticky burst onto the national scene not from the pages of a comic book, but from the imagination of the man who portrayed him, Richard Allen Pesta.

His subsequent career as “America’s only practicing caped crusader” was equal parts heroic crusade and commercial enterprise, the latter including the production of T-shirts, bumper stickers, computer games, and, of course, comic books (although an attempted licensing deal with Marvel Comics never materialized), as well as the recording of a song on the 1979 album Circus Royale and commercial endorsements for everything from Polaroid cameras to peanut butter.

When interviewing Captain Sticky for the Los Angeles Times (“One Man’s War on Evil,” Nov. 8, 1974), Michael Seiler was introduced to the World Organization Against Evil and learned about the Captain’s mission and plans for the future, which included the acquisition of a hot-air balloon and the development of laser-controlled peanut butter and jelly-firing guns. One fundamental component of Pesta’s arsenal had already been produced—five Lincoln Continental Mark IVs—thanks to a local Lincoln Mercury dealer who also plastered Captain Sticky’s likeness all over his showroom. This miniature fleet yielded the customized Stickymobile, the Captain’s signature vehicle.

Pesta’s fiancee, Lynn Shiloh, never had the chance to ride in the iconic vehicle. “It was long gone by 2000,” when the couple met, but she reveals, “he did make it entirely himself. He was good at fiberglass work— he invented the fiberglass, water-filled barriers that are used on highways. That money was what was used to finance Captain Sticky’s beginning,” and led Seiler to refer to Pesta as the “300-pound boy wonder of fiberglass.”

Pesta’s considerable talent for attracting attention generally served an altruistic motive, such as when Captain Sticky gave a press conference in front of an Orange County home for the aged to call attention to the substandard living conditions of the residents.

“The strong, silent type he ain’t,” noted Seiler. Even his driver’s license was under the name Captain Sticky.

Captain Sticky’s activities eventually resulted in statewide reforms in elder-care facilities. The second edition of the Captain Sticky, Destroyer of Evil comic book, with art by J. Holmes, announced the formation of the Captain Sticky School of Spies and included a “Fink Form” that urged health-care workers, “If you see evil lurking, it is your duty to report it at once!”

His flamboyant persona drew many to his crusade, most notably a platoon of shapely sidekicks. “He had his ‘Stickettes’ that were basically traveling around looking sexy and helping the Caped Crusader,” Shiloh comments wryly.

A Real American Hero Richard Allen Pesta (1946–2003), a.k.a Captain Sticky, from the centerspread of the second edition of the Captain Sticky comic book.

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by

Jonathan Miller

Stuck on You (top) Pesta, paragon of product promotion. (below) Cover to the Captain Sticky comic book’s second edition, circa 1974–1975. Art by J. Holmes. Courtesy of Jonathan Miller. It’s unknown if the scribbled signature is related to the comic.

In the role of consumer advocate, Captain Sticky took on price-gouging rental-car companies, and as a concerned citizen he denounced a drug-rehabilitation program that he thought had questionable practices.

He was interviewed by Byron Allen on the television program Real People in the episode that also profiled Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. His alter ego was not the only superheroic role Pesta played; in 1984 he essayed the part of Superman in The Sex O’clock News. Pesta also appeared as Tuns-a-Fun in 1989’s Caged Fury starring Erik Estrada (Shiloh: “One of the movies is actually a German movie as it was banned in the USA at the time. I think it was Caged Fury”) and on Playboy After Dark.

Captain Sticky wouldn’t be the first superhero to have a suggestive side to his persona, and with a moniker that lent itself to double entendres more readily than most, it’s not surprising that he skirted the adult-entertainment industry, getting some bad press after leasing his house to the director of a pornographic film which was shut down by the police. Later he tried to open a brothel in Amagossa Valley, Nevada. Pesta’s post–Captain Sticky career direction was also not without legal complications: “Yes, the American Man’s Midlife Crisis Tours [in Thailand in the early 1990s],” Shiloh muses. “I’m not sure how long it was successful, but I do know it was until it was shut down as it kinda gave the impression that a man could have sex any time with anyone.

The Thai government was not very keen on that so the tours were shut down and Richard could not enter that country for a period of time.”

By that time, Pesta had mostly retired his costumed alter ego in favor of various entrepreneurial enterprises, such as selling environmentally friendly soil products.

“When I met him he had a company called Organa,” Shiloh says. “He was hosting a garden show for a while.

I believe that was sponsored by a hardware/garden store in the San Diego area. Also, the product was presented on HSN while I was with Richard. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night was not the best time to sell it.

And he had someone else go so the presentation was not dynamic as it would have been had he gone.”

Sadly, while Captain Sticky simply faded away in the tradition of old heroes, the more mortal Richard Pesta died December 12, 2003 in Bangkok, due to complications after bypass surgery.

Lynn Shiloh remembers: “When Richard passed in the Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand, I was sitting in a waiting room. I felt a ‘whoosh’ of air that made me look up as I thought someone had just passed me. There was no one.

When they came to take me to a little room to tell me Richard had passed. So he did leave this earth with a great energy, just as his bigger-than-life persona lived.”

JONATHAN MILLER has never managed to save the world, but he makes a hell of a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

To read more of his writing on comic books, visit his blog at: mylifeinfourcolors.blogspot.com.

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www.twomorrows.com

by

Jerry Boyd

Music, clothes, movies, and TV shows were changing rapidly in the early 1970s. Marvin Gaye asked the musical question “What’s Going On?” in his seminal album in ’71. The Carpenters had warbled the musical promise “We’ve Only Just Begun.” The cast of the stage musical Hair summed it all up by announcing, “This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” The US had successfully landed on the moon and safely returned its astronauts to the Earth. Hippie culture—their clothes, their turn-ons and turn-offs, as well as their politics— was everywhere. John Shaft, a super-bad black detective, had exploded onto theater screens nationwide in the cultural expanse of 1970 and ’71.

Comic magazines had their own cultural revolution, as well. The new versions of super-people and their super-problems had captivated open-minded popculture analysts in the ’60s. Underground “comix” distributed mostly on the West Coast presented their own comments about superheroes, societal norms, and alternative lifestyles, as seen in their mostly black-and-white efforts. Could the 1970s amplify on all of this burgeoning creativity?

Yes, definitely—and as new genres opened up, new venues/outlets were also explored. The reasons are apparent. New readers were sought out to add the growing excitement that sequential art had engendered in the previous decade. Even though comics sales reportedly sagged again after the cancellation of ABC-TV’s Batman in 1968, many creators had not negated the idea of self-publishing, even though many decided to stay where they were rather than venture into that risky world.

Still, the industry thrived on risk—and some of comicdom’s best went outside the usual perimeters and provided those of us who were willing to follow with some different kinds of comics in some different, yet interesting, outlets and venues. And we thank them for those efforts. Here are some of them:

BLOCK-ING OUT DRUG ADDICTION The Block © 1971 Supergraphics Press Written and drawn by James Steranko and published by Byron Preiss and Steranko In 1970, Jim Steranko was thinking about making some new inroads into those areas in which comics were strangers. With his friend and business associate Byron Preiss, Supergraphics began as a company. Preiss came up with the idea of addressing the nation’s burgeoning drug epidemic, a problem that had found its way out of the purview of jazz clubs and Counterculture hangouts it had previously been most associated with.

In looking back on the project, he noted in Comixscene #4 (May–June 1973), “Despite a newly found profession as paperback illustrator, Steranko WOULD do another

Dr. Deadly’s House of Comics Neal Adams’ cover for Aurora’s Monster Scenes comic booklet of 1971. Note in the right background Vampirella, at the time a hot property for Warren Publishing. © 1971 Aurora Plastics Inc. Frankenstein © Universal. Vampirella © DFI.

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comics story. He agreed that hard drugs were a problem that deserved as many devices as possible to combat them. He agreed that educating kids to the dangers of drugs was something that should start young, at the elementary level. Further, he agreed that the drug problem was hitting hardest in the urban areas, and that children could benefit from a tale set in this locale.

Finally, he agreed to do the comic with no expectation of economic renumeration.”

Steranko wrote in the one-page press release for The Block that “comics are written, drawn, and published for the sole purpose of entertaining children. Yet not until recently has it become apparent that comic books can be used to inform, instruct, and educate their readers.”

He added in a later paragraph, “It is the first story of its kind ever offered to the public and the first of a series aimed at America’s drug problem.” It was.

The Block was unique in its telling of two New York City black kids whose similar lifestyles and strong camaraderie lessens as they approach adulthood. Billy Lee accepts his lot in life, concentrating on just having “kicks” and makes his money through petty theft.

The Block (right) Detail from the cover to Steranko’s Comixscene #4 (May–June 1973). (bottom) Steranko depicted the contrasts between his two protagonists in these panels that showed one lad enjoying a S.H.I.E.L.D. comic adventure! © 1971 Supergraphics Press.

Leroy loves pop music (specifically citing the magic of Motown’s stellar group, the Temptations) and works at honest endeavors, while practicing with a small band.

Eventually, drug addiction overcomes Billy Lee and sadly, he dies young, his ridicule of the hardworking Leroy ringing hollow as his friend returns to the ghetto a local celebrity on his way to bigger successes.

The Block was distributed through the direct-sales comics shops that were slowly creeping across America.

Also, Steranko and Preiss worked through various educational systems so that the target audience— kids regularly exposed to drug dealers and the problems that came from them—would get their message.

Jim Steranko told me about this comic in the early ’90s at a con, and later wrote me that “the concept of using the comics’ format to educate kids about drug abuse was very innovative and deeply appealed to me.

I was always aware of the power that the Brotherhood of Comics Creators had and was gratified to participate in a project that could actually influence lives—perhaps even save lives. Cutting through the education system’s red tape was sometimes a nightmare, but had Byron and I been requested to continue producing similar material, I would have been gratified to generate more.”

Again, Steranko had broken new ground. The Block was applauded by school-district officials, teachers, and PTA members. The newspaper tabloid black-and-white effort would be reprinted later in the aforementioned issue of Comixscene. In it, Byron Preiss wrote, “The Block will not solve the drug problem. It will not stop the flow of heroin in our cities. The Block is not a cure. The Block IS a catalyst.

A tool towards a goal. One match for a very large candle.

A small piece of hope. A word of caution. A first step.”

And so it was. In addition, Preiss and Steranko gave their wonderful project what educators today sometimes call “teaching points.” An educational guide with specific questions for students and narration/reading tips was offered along with the comic. The effort won approval from Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mrs. Hubert H. Humphrey, and many community organizations and parents. And once discovered by comics aficionados in these times, the praise will no doubt continue.

DR. DEADLY’S HOUSE OF COMICS Aurora Monster Scenes booklets © 1971 by Aurora Plastics Inc. and Warren Publishing Drawn by Neal Adams Ahhhh, the ’60s. Baby boomers saw pinbacks, toys, games, pennants, stickers, and cards drawn by Joe Orlando, Jack Davis, Basil Wolverton, Jack Kirby, Curt Swan, Chic Stone, Murphy Anderson, and Carmine Infantino, among others.

Neal Adams got a piece of that action, as well.

Adams was searching for more lucrative outlets for his newly established Continuity Studios (originally his partnership with Dick Giordano). Mr. Adams had already done the late-’60s Spider-Man model box art for Aurora and his reputation for stunning photorealistic art had been confirmed by fan enthusiasm for DC titles with his covers and interior art. (I was there at the time, and after seeing some early stories he did for House of Mystery … whooo!)

Aurora had shifted gears somewhat for the early ’70s—Frankenstein and some new monsters and characters would become part of a Monster Scenes lineup. The company even went after Warren Magazines’ Vampirella [see BACK ISSUE #36] as one of those new stars. Along with Frankie and Vampi

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came a beautiful, terrified “Victim” (that only makes sense, right?) and a deranged scientist, “Dr. Deadly” (and that makes even more sense). The ads for all this madcap mayhem showed up on the back covers of Warren mags and all over the place in mainstream comics.

Adams’ work was inside the model boxes this time around. He drew a total of eight pages—four B&W instructional how-to and four sequential art pages in color showing where the Victim ended up after being abducted

by Frankenstein. The Man of Many Parts took her to Dr. Deadly’s of course, where he and his lovely assistant Vampirella planned … heeehee … experimentations.

Adams explains his involvement: “I run a commercial art studio. Our job is to accept assignments like that.

But in this case, I believe we were recommended by [DC’s] Mark Hanerfeld. I could be wrong. It’s just that Mark was around a lot in those days, and he was acting like an expert to these companies.

“I did not lobby for it, but we would have if we had known about it first,” Adams adds. “We don’t actually lobby, our reps do what it called ‘cold calling,’ and visiting potential clients.”

When I asked if those were the type of advertising projects he was interested in during the 1970s, Adams answered, “Not necessarily. But it’s good to do comics of any sort, and to be paid four times as much as doing comics. Everything paid better than DC Comics! A spot illustration for a printer—a religious drawing of a Catholic church, even charity work for the March of Dimes, and others, paid more. In fact, organizations like that paid four to five times the going [comics] rates, and they apologized for not paying more but that they were ‘were charities and they could not afford to pay top dollar.’”

Unfortunately, the Vampirella kit wasn’t warmly received, but the overall sales of the Monster Scenes weren’t fantastic, either. Parents complained about the torture devices in addition to their problems with the sexiness of the Victim and Vampi. Also, the Adams booklets weren’t promoted as “treats within the treats.”

(If they had been, my Adams-happy generation would’ve bought the kits then, instead of spending big dollars getting them now!) The Adams booklets were pretty much the same, however, and only differed in the instructional how-to section that differed from kit to kit.

Still, though many of us fans missed them the first time around, it’s somewhat nice to know that there’s some more vintage Adams’ Vampirella and related monster comic art out there to be had.

I’M CASPER—FLY ME! AstroComics © 1970 Harvey Publications, in conjunction with American Airlines Written and drawn by various Harvey Comics staffers Harvey Comics was also looking at new outlets. The Enchanted Forest crowd had dazzled youngsters in the ’60s through various TV programs. The Harvey brass had to be thinking, “This is no time to let up.”

In the early 1970s, the company wouldn’t exactly leave the airwaves, but they would take to the air.

For a few years, American Airlines stewardesses would give out free AstroComics to children on their flights.

The books (regular-sized, by the way) featured Casper, Little Audrey and Melvin, Spooky, Richie Rich, Reggie van Dough (Richie’s conniving Loki–like cousin), Little Dot, and Little Lotta. Though Hot Stuff and Nightmare made the covers, research hasn’t turned up any interior misadventures of theirs in any of the issues.

In addition to a few puzzles as well, there were a few pages devoted to the makeup of the airplanes AA used and what made ’em go.

Mark Arnold, editor of The Harveyville Fun Times! fanzine, explains how it all began: “I asked Alan Harvey (son of one of the original publishers) a few years ago about this and he said basically that a lot of the promotional tie-ins with Harvey had to do with personal affiliations that Alfred Harvey had at the time (the 1970s).

He was friends with the people who handled the Boy Scouts of America, UNICEF, Apollo 16, the American Dental Association, and obviously American Airlines.

So, it wasn’t any particular marketing plan on Alfred’s part; he just interested his friends in high places in comic-book tie-ins, and they accommodated his requests. I suppose that once he secured a deal with American, he wouldn’t pursue, let’s say, United or some other airline in order to avoid a conflict of interest, and he probably got some frequent-flyer miles for his efforts.”

It was a good idea. I remember my brother and I being pleasantly surprised at getting free comics on 1970s Time Capsule Issue

Huggable Horrors The back (and final) page from the Monster Scenes comic. These groovy ghoulies just want peace and love, man! Art

by Neal Adams. © 1971 Aurora Plastics Inc. Frankenstein © Universal.

Vampirella © DFI.

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Friendly Fliers (inset) AstroComics covers were drawn by Warren Kremer and showed the Harvey gang flying high without American Airlines planes! (top) This interior page from an issue of AstroComics showed how in-flight movies were done. (bottom) Ernie Colón drew this illo of Richie Rich and Casper for the writer of this article in 2007. © 1970 Harvey Publications, in conjunction with American Airlines.

our earliest flights in the ’70s, and the parents of all involved had to be happy at having their little ones being occupied and quiet during part of the flight.

The American Airlines/Harvey connection resulted in at least seven all-new issues (no reprints) with various covers marked by red dots to let kids and stewardesses in on the differences. By 1977 it was all over, but for a while the idea was flying high! (Oooohhh…)

SCENES OF ADVENTURE! Aurora Comic Scenes booklets © 1974 Aurora Plastics Inc., Marvel Comics, DC Comics, etc.

Drawn and written by various talents Though the Monster Scenes lineup hadn’t been the success story the ’60s Aurora monster models were, the company brass decided to relaunch their ’60s superhero kits … with a few surprises. This time, the Superboy, Captain America, Tonto, Batman, Spider-Man, Lone Ranger, and Superman kits would come with new boxes drawn by more of the industry professionals and (you guessed it!) with comics booklets inside.

These booklets were not small like Dr. Deadly’s, but closer to actual comic-book size. Among the artists responsible: Dave Cockrum (Superboy), Gil Kane (Tonto, the Lone Ranger), Herb Trimpe (the Hulk), Dick Giordano (Batman), Curt Swan (Superman), and John Romita, Sr. (Capt. America, Spider-Man). Unfortunately, once again the marketing team at Aurora Plastics failed to play up these happy dividends to the kits and fans of those towering talents found out too late that all-new comics stories were done by the ’70s writers, artists, letterers, and colorists who were blowing their minds monthly over at DC, Marvel, etc. On a happier note, there was a new group of fans who’d missed out on the ’60s excitement that Aurora provided, so these new kits sold nicely.

To John Romita, the assignment was nothing special.

He recalls, “[I] never dealt with Aurora folk (as far as memory goes). I think I just received a script and prior printed examples. The jobs were assigned to me as a staff artist. I do think I was paid something, though. If it was extra pay, I was satisfied.” But for those who’d been dying for some new Aurora styrene, these comic-model tie-ins had to be the best … or “boss, ” as the slang went in the early ’70s. In no cases (and I’ve seen them all) was the art rushed or poorly inked. Stories were sequenced in script by Mark Hanerfeld, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and others, and equal to the artwork.

While a set of issues are worth searching for, especially if you’re a Bronze Age enthusiast, one of the best (in my humble opinion) was the Hanerfeld/ Neal Adams/Gaspar Saladino (lettering)/Glynis Wein (coloring) Tarzan booklet. In a jungle nutshell, a cocky young martial-arts expert invades Tarzan’s turf. With incredible nerve, he kills small monkeys to attract hungry lions to test his skills! When the Jungle Lord comes around, he throws a challenge his way. Guess who wins?

“They trusted me on that that, and I more or less handled the thing,” Adams says of the Aurora Tarzan comic.

“I was trying to show them how they could get more for less by letting the artist get creative. That Tarzan piece turns out to be a fan-favorite and is widely collected.”

Since “Jazzy” Johnny Romita had had some experience penciling jungle people like Shanna the She-Devil, Ka-Zar, and the Black Panther for Mighty Marvel, I queried him about his chances of delineating that particular issue. “Tarzan might have been fun, but after [John] Buscema and [Joe] Kubert did Tarzan, I was glad not to be compared,” Romita says.

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Still, Mr. Romita did do two outstanding efforts for Aurora, for the Spider-Man and Captain America kits.

Having taken the Web-Slinger and the Shield-Slinger into new territory for the new decade with scripters Gerry Conway and Gary Friedrich, respectively, Romita was in the groove when he was tapped for these projects.

Old baddies Kraven the Hunter and the Red Skull provided the traps for our heroes. In the Spider-Man issue, the Hunter has just stolen a number of ancient tapestries from a museum. Spidey was momentarily set back by the jungle man and his giant gorilla and black tiger, but managed to put a Spider-Tracer on the ape’s hide. The fight is rejoined after the Web-Spinner corners the three menaces in a crumbling city building. This condemned edifice for the combatants provided the backdrop (Comics Scenewise) and the model itself was very similar to the one in the late ’60s (as was the case with many of the others).

Captain America’s adventure began outside an old house on the edge of the city. Cap had gotten wind of the Red Skull having possession of a weapon of mass destruction (called a “master weapon” or “Doomsday Machine” in the story). Cap makes his way into the booby-trapped mansion, and the battle is joined. I won’t get into details here because I’m sure some of you will want to enjoy these yarns one day with as many surprises intact as possible.

Romita adds to his comments above that, as Marvel’s art director, he “designed the Spider-Man balloon (Macy’s Parade), toy designs, pop-up books, and a few of Marvel one-page ads in our books.” In many respects, he was the “Marvel Man.”

Finally, I went back to Neal and asked him, “Did you wish to do more or did the Aurora execs have similar projects you wished to do but didn’t?” His answer was, “One likes to have a steady flow of work. More would have been fine, but one cannot afford to look desperate— so one has to chill.”

Fan-collectors will find it hard to “chill,” however, when in the presence of these hard-to-find but beautifully executed booklets. Thanks go out to all of the aforementioned for giving us some wonderful scenarios of adventure fiction. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #13 for an article on Aurora Comics Scenes, featuring many original-art pages.]

Model Citizen (left) Captain America was one of the stars of Aurora’s Comic Scenes comic books. Script by Len Wein, art by John Romita, Sr. (right) Neal Adams did Tarzan justice in Aurora’s impressive Comic Scenes entry. Seen here is page 1. Script by Mark Hanerfeld.

ARCHIE GETS RELIGION

© 1974–1988 Christian Spire Comics with Archie Comics As you’ve read, some creators were spurred more by the importance of their message than the possibility of gaining new readers or increasing revenues for their company. Such was certainly the case of Mr. Al Hartley, a former Marvel penciler for Millie the Model and Thor, but by the ’70s, a mainstay at Archie. Hartley was a very religious man and his short stories took on a marked contrast to his ’60s work as the 1970s began. Subtle and not-so-subtle Christian messages punctuated the Archie Gang’s shenanigans and misadventures. In one tale, for example, Archie and Reggie go crazy over a platinumblonde beauty named Gabriel (get it?) who rephrases

1970s Time Capsule Issue

© 1974 Aurora Plastics Inc. Captain America and Red Skull TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Tarzan TM & © ERB.

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Getting Straight (left) Archie and the Riverdale gang showed their faith in the one-shot Archie’s One Way (May 1974). Cover art by Al Hartley. (right) Al Hartley made Christianity easy to understand on this page from Archie’s Something Else! (Sept. 1977). © 1974 Archie Publications.

Biblical scriptures for them as they clumsily compete for her. In another, Big Ethel moans aloud to her friends about being unattractive and unloved. Betty reminds her that God sees “her soul” and that’s why she’s “a beautiful person” to her friends and neighbors. Ethel’s spirit is revived.

Hartley’s desire to spread his faith got a big boost from Spire Christian Comics. Victor Gorelick, at this writing the co-president/ editor-in-chief at Archie, explains the circumstances: “Al was approached by the publisher; I believe his name was Hugh Barbour, of Fleming H. Revell Publishing based in Old Tappan, New Jersey.

Revell was the publisher of religious books. They wanted Hartley to adapt specific books which they published into a comic-book format for young readers under the Spire Christian Comics imprint. He agreed, provided the comics would be handled through Archie Comics.

So Hartley produced the artwork and Archie took care of the production, pre-press, and printing. At some point the Archie characters, under license, were introduced in various Spire titles, with the understanding that these comics would only be distributed to religious stores and schools. Not on newsstands.”

In the one-shots Hartley wrote and drew, the Archie Gang went through the usual motions with morals emphasized strongly by the tales’ middles and endings. “Bad” or “confused” teens had their actions and words sweetly rebuked by Betty or Big Ethel, who showed spiritual maturities way beyond their 17 years. Even Veronica, that lovely embodiment of selfishness and materialism, and Reggie, with ego unchecked, had to admit there was something special going on after Betty and Ethel finished their assertions. Sometimes, Archie, Jughead, and Big Moose reinforced or even led the message.

Archie’s One Way (May 1974) had three short stories by Hartley and Archie’s Something Else! (Sept. 1977) was a full-length tale of cynical exposé-minded reporters looking for the “real problems that no one got to see” at innocent-appearing Riverdale High. They’re shocked when Archie’s pals and gals turn out to be relatively problem-free (we already know about Jughead’s overeating, Veronica’s vanity, Reggie’s ego, etc., right?) and the ol’ redhead shows how their school has constructively responded to any problems with drug abuse, racial tensions, and so on. Betty (again) and Archie explain that by putting God first and dealing with their dilemmas based on

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Biblical teachings, those things can be handled for the betterment of all. Even a wild-haired type nicknamed Legion has gotten the help he’s needed from his schoolmates and teachers. He tells the reporters his story and they’re shocked and frustrated when so much seems to be going well at Riverdale High. Hartley added a page with himself in photos and speaking in word balloons in that issue.

Mr. Gorelick adds, “I assume the comics did well. We produced them for about 15 years. The Spire Christian Comics imprint changed a couple of times—once to Spire Comics and then to New Barbour Christian Comics.”

The comics were fun and did nothing to contradict the regular material. And after all, the Archie Gang, their school’s faculty, and parents were as wholesome and clean-cut as you could get, anyway! Mr. Hartley did fine work and his Spire efforts were (I can’t resist) in-Spire-ing.

POWER UP! The Power Records superhero and TV comic and record sets © 1976 Peter Pan Records and various TV and film studios, DC, and Marvel Written and drawn by various talents I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Power Records and the comics records they produced for youngsters in the ’70s. According to information gathered on Peter Pan Records via Google, an expert writes on the subject, “Peter Pan Records announced it’d be marketing a record series called Super Adventures, featuring the popular heroes of TV and comic book fame—Planet of the Apes, Wonder Woman, Conan, Space: 1999, Superman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Captain America and the Falcon.”

Power Records, an imprint of Peter Pan Records, incorporated characters from the DC Universe, the Marvel Universe, Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, and other hot properties including fairy-tale favorites.

The jacket covers were eye-catching. Neal Adams did new covers and story art for Batman: Stacked Cards (PR-27, 1975), that pitted the Joker against Batman, Robin, and Gotham City’s finest; and Batman: Robin Meets Man-Bat! (PR-30, 1976), which came with a few reprinted pages from

the Man-Bat’s origin in Detective Comics #400 (June 1970).

Both are sought-after collectibles today.

While many of the Power Records were truncated versions of the comics offered by the majors, other notable treats were the Star Trek productions (that also featured great Adams covers!). These came with surprisingly good sci-fi excursions with art by John Buscema and Dick Giordano, among others. Aside from the off-coloring of Lt. Uhura (she’s a Caucasian blonde in at least two of the Star Trek records!) and Lt. Sulu (who’s black in at least one!), the Enterprise crew fared nicely. Violence, particularly fistfights, was kept to a minimum, however. Don’t expect “phasers set to kill” or intense do-or-die battles along the lines of the TV show. These products, after all, were aimed at children. After 1981, the series disappeared.

Once again, however, the marketing department of a company failed to properly get the word out about the new excitement it had created. If teenagers like myself, for example, in ’76 had known that Adams, Giordano, and Buscema were doing all-new artwork for these records, we’d have been all over the kiddie sections of K-Mart, Woolworth’s, and the other retail stores where they were sold! But a lot of collectors didn’t know they existed, and if they did, they probably looked at the shorter comics stories in the Marvel ones, and assumed all of them were similar—stories taken from comics.

In one post on the aforementioned website, an observer commented, “I don’t remember there being too many ads for Power Records in the comics (at least compared to Mego or other superhero toys), which is surprising, considering it had to be the exact same audience.” In any case, all-new stickers should’ve been applied to the record jackets with all-new material.

In BACK ISSUE #44, we found at least one Spider-Man record had an all-new issue and the Wonder Woman set came with new material, also. The Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, Kojak, and the Planet of the Apes group all featured new stories and art—and for aficionados of those characters, they’re worth the effort of “powering up” and going after.

LOOK, BABY—IT’S SPIDER-MAN! The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Prodigy! © 1976 Marvel Comics and Planned Parenthood Written by Ann Robinson, drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito Unwanted teen pregnancies soared to record highs in the 1970s, so Planned Parenthood, Inc. stepped in, contacted the Marvel brass, and they decided to use the very popular Wall-Crawler to convey to impressionable kids the dangers, problems, and responsibilities of those electing to have sex and children out of wedlock.

The Andru/Esposito pairing was a natural—after all, they’d governed over the main Amazing Spider-Man title of that era. This Prodigy booklet, close to digest size, was 16 pages in its entirety, printed in full color.

The Prodigy was a sinister space alien who crashlanded in New York State. The effect of his landing

1970s Time Capsule Issue

A DC Spin-Off The cover and an interior page from Power Records’ Batman: Robin Meets Man-Bat! (1976).

Art by Neal Adams.

TM & © DC Comics.

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them to be baby machines! Changing diapers, going nowhere in dead-in jobs … sitting home every night trying to find the time and money to go to a movie or buzz out to the burger stand. What kind of life can they have? No chance to develop, they’ll never catch on to his crazy scheme, they’ll just be his puppets.

What a crafty creep!”

Then, Spidey webs up and beats down the conscienceless guards on the premises. After disrupting the intended broadcast by smashing through the window, our hero tussles with the villain. Then he unmasks him for the youngsters to see, clogging his throat with a web ball. Finally, there’s another lecture.

This time it’s on the last page and inside back cover with images familiar to Spidey fans; the printed pages tell the kids the problems they’ll really face if they start having infants too soon … and where to get answers and more information about VD and where to seek help.

I contacted Stan Lee, Marv Wolfman, and Roy Thomas for additional info about this book, but they didn’t remember it. So how’d this “team-up” of Planned Parenthood and Marvel come about?

Probably because the House of Ideas was just interested in helping a necessary cause—and if anyone knew about “responsibility,” it was Spider-Man. A Planned Parenthood representative told me the books were given out in their centers for free and in some high schools at the time. Some comics dealers got hold of them in ’78–’79 and sold them for prices that would seem to put them in cahoots with the Kingpin!

Marvel’s Strangest “Team-Up” Marvel Comics and Planned Parenthood co-produced The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Prodigy in 1976. Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. © 1976 Marvel Comics and Planned Parenthood, Inc.

altered his voice and created an irresistible hypnotic state, and he broadcast his advice to teens over hidden television and radio outlets in his mansion hideaway.

(Don’t ask how he could afford a mansion and hired help.) Disguised as a human, he planned to tell adolescents brought to him and others over the airwaves to not worry about sexually transmitted diseases, or parental/ societal disapproval, and so on. He went on to explain that their newborns would be looked after by “experts” (actually, his fellow aliens from the planet Intellectia who planned to commit the children to slave-labor camps on their world while they prepared for the subjugation of others). Sure, that’s a far-out (pun intended) premise for a booklet about being responsible parents, but this was still a Marvel comic and interstellar menaces did that kind of thing all the time in the universe that Stan, Jack, and Steve built.

Spidey’s in costume throughout, and hitches a ride to that mansion on a web-connect after his SpiderSense warns him of some kind of danger. He listens to the Prodigy’s nonsense and, able to shrug off the hypnotism involved, decides on a plan.

First, however, Spidey debunks the lies told by the Prodigy outside his window. He thinks, “He wants

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So there you have it—different comics and different outlets/venues for their distribution. Are there others?

Of course, and the fun part of it is if you’re still “a fiend” for rare comics with artistry by the aforementioned greats—think “differently” and … begin your search.

These days, some of these items remain hard-tofind, naturally, since they’ve not been reprinted or collected in one product. However, the Neal Adams Batman material has been compiled (sans records, of course) in the three hardback volumes of Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams published by DC from 2003 to 2005. And we can only hope the others will see the light of day again in bright, new packages.

In the meantime, I know that I’m not alone in just being thankful that some of the greatest comics professionals of the Bronze Age put together those rarities for us to one day … discover and cherish.

Special thanks to all the participants, George Gladir for contact information, and Mike Burkey. This is respectfully dedicated to the memories of Mike Esposito and Byron Preiss. Jerry Boyd provided most of the images shown from his collection.

JERRY BOYD has written numerous articles for fanzines The Jack Kirby Collector, BACK ISSUE, Alter Ego, The Harveyville Fun Times!, and the Spooky Fearbook. He’s proud to have interviewed numerous professionals in the industry as well for those publications. Jerry is a professional schoolteacher and an aspiring screenwriter living in Southern California. As often as he can, he sends copies of rare art to BI for other readers/fans to enjoy.

Fast Willie Jackson was Fitzgerald Publications’ attempt to produce a more racially diverse, hip, streetwise version of “Archie.” Fast Willie is the Archie–like character attending Mocity High School, a more urban setting than Archie’s Riverdale. His close friends include the sexy Dee Dee and Maria Martinez, hip ladies’ man Frankie, muscular Hannibal, radical Jabar, and class clown Jo-Jo. Other cast members include Maria’s father Jose Martinez, fortune teller Sister Zola, Officer Flagg, deli owner Mr. Solomon, feminist teacher Jane Fronda, and Harry the wino.

Fast Willie Jackson lasted for seven issues from 1976–1977, and there was brief discussion of a spin-off TM series starring Dee Dee and Frankie. At the time of cancellation, Fast Willie was close to an animation deal with Filmation and sales of issues were at the break-even point. An eighth issue was planned but never published.

Fitgerald Publications’ publisher Bertram “Bert” Fitzgerald was the writer of Fast Willie Jackson.

Fitzgerald was born November 6, 1932, in Harlem, New York. He was a graduate of Brooklyn College with an accounting degree and also served in the Air Force.

His interest in black history, reading, and comic books became a natural combination for an idea for a comicby M a rk Arnold book series, Golden Legacy, which spanned 16 issues conducted July 17, 2010 over a ten-year period from 1966–1976.

Fast Willie Jackson artist and co-creator Gus LeMoine is believed to have passed away, as have virtually all of the Archie artists from the same vintage of the 1960s and ’70s. Fitzgerald has not had communication with him in many years. A search for Gus’ daughter, Geri LeMoine (who had a letter printed in Fast Willie Jackson #5), has proved fruitless and she may have passed on as well.

In our discussion, Bert Fitzgerald talked in greater length about his proudest achievement, the Golden Legacy comic-book series, that explored the world of African-American history at a time when such topics were virtually ignored in classrooms, much less comic books.

Fitzgerald experienced discrimination and racism in both his private and business lives, such as in his dealings with printers and distributors and occasional subject matter in the Golden Legacy series. This spilled over into Fast Willie Jackson, and was one of the reasons why it took four years to get published.

Fitzgerald has felt at times that he may have been under surveillance due to his alleged black activism.

BERT FITZGERALD At the time he was preparing his 13th volume of Golden Legacy, the biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., he knew that his phone was tapped. He would testify later in court that his “legs could be broken if he didn't stop publishing.” This, coupled with a later copyright trial, had a detrimental effect on Fitzgerald. He had suffered two heart attacks during this time, but ultimately, Fitzgerald was the victor.

Everything’s Not Archie The Fast Willie Jackson cast, detail from the cover of issue #1 (Oct. 1976). Art by Gus LeMoine. © 2011 Fitzgerald Publishing Inc.

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Foxy Momma vs.

Love-Starved Hussy (left) An original art page by Fitzgerald and LeMoine from Fast Willie Jackson #3 (Feb. 1977). Courtesy of Mark Arnold. © 2011 Fitzgerald Publishing Inc.

Fortunately, Fitzgerald has survived to attain the awards bestowed upon him for his legacy to the comic-book publishing industry.

[Author’s note: In 1983, the Golden Legacy series was bootlegged by an unscrupulous party and after a four-year struggle, Fitzgerald won the case and the publishing rights to all the bootlegged issues. Fitzgerald is now retired, although he still sells a hardbound collection as well as individual issues of Golden Legacy through the mail. For those interested in obtaining back issues, go to www.golden-legacy.com.]

– Mark Arnold MARK ARNOLD: How did Fast Willie Jackson get started?

BERTRAM FITZGERALD: I started Golden Legacy in 1965 while I lived in South Jamaica [New York]. Then I lived in Brooklyn and again in South Jamaica and Hollis, and then I lived in Riverdale, where I also taught at Fourth Avenue. That’s where I thought of Fast Willie Jackson, which was sort of a copy of the Archie books.

Gus LeMoine, who drew like Dan DeCarlo, who created that Archie style of drawing, drew the book.

ARNOLD: How did you get in touch with Gus LeMoine?

FITZGERALD: Gus LeMoine had heard about me and got in touch with me and asked me if we could do this with

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him with my great wealth. [laughs] I put about $50,000 in for Fast Willie Jackson and World Color Press agreed to do it, [but] then they passed it on because of Archie [Comics], who threatened to have my legs broken. This was 1972.

ARNOLD: Wow! FITZGERALD: We continued and we did a handful of issues, but they wouldn’t print it for about three or four years. Itwas a long time until they gave in, and then Gus LeMoine tried to sue me because I ran out of money.

ARNOLD: Was that before it was published or after it was published?

FITZGERALD: Oh, after it was published. I wasn’t making a lot of money. I was at the breaking point and we did the publishing and we did the cover. I had a couple of these Golden Legacys and Fast Willie Jackson, and I was getting distribution through Black Medium. They helped me and they wanted to boost the circulation by putting in some of the Fast Willie Jacksons as a comic strip.

ARNOLD: Were all those drawn by Gus? Was Gus the only artist on Fast Willie Jackson?

FITZGERALD: Yeah, he was the only illustrator. There was another fellow who did the coloring and charged me a lot of money to color it.

ARNOLD: How did you distribute your titles?

FITZGERALD: I went through the normal channels, but normal channels wouldn’t even distribute my damn books. I had all kinds of wars to fight. One fellow there was an alcoholic. He would pop nitroglycerin while he drank. He would chase it with nitroglycerin.

He once sent me $21,000 that I wasn’t supposed to receive, but I wouldn’t cash the check.

ARNOLD: Apart from those two titles, Fast Willie Jackson and Golden Legacy, did you work on any other books?

FITZGERALD: No, I could never afford to do any more.

Well, I did a book trying to create pressure against the use of drugs. That, I donated 200,000 copies to schools.

ARNOLD: On Fast Willie, did Archie Comics tell you that you can never reprint them?

FITZGERALD: They didn’t say nothing to me.

I guess I probably could [reprint them]. I would rather have what I had done before. Quebecor, who took over for World Color Press, I’m sure that I got them to pay up the money that they owed me, which I gave most of to my first wife.

ARNOLD: I will put my vote in that I would like to see that comic again in a compilation if you made it into a trade paperback. The originals are so hard to find.

FITZGERALD: Maybe that’s the thing, to put it out as a graphic novel.

ARNOLD: There was an eighth issue that you didn’t put out, so this would give you a chance to include it.

Do you know what happened to Gus LeMoine?

FITZGERALD: No, I don’t. He tried to sue me. I had a lot of fellow lawyers around me that would represent me on that case and I charged them.

ARNOLD: I was trying to track him down, but have had no luck. The only person I know that has met him is this artist named Milton Knight, and he met him a long, long time ago at a show.

FITZGERALD: Gus is a nice guy, really, and he just tried to play me and make me borrow money to give him money. I don’t know what he wanted. I didn’t make any money. I lost over a thousand dollars.

ARNOLD: I would like to find out more about him.

The only other thing I know about him is that he actually worked at Archie on things like Jughead’s Jokes and Reggie’s Jokes. Those are the only things that I know that he’s done. I don’t know if he has done anything else.

FITZGERALD: Well, he did Fast Willie Jackson! [laughs] ARNOLD: Right, right! [laughs] Were the Fast Willie Jackson characters created by you?

FITZGERALD: Actually, Hannibal was a dopey character created by Gus. Dee Dee, I think she was created by Gus; also, the fortune-teller woman. I wrote several of the stories.

ARNOLD: What was your reason for doing that? It seemed like it was dramatic switch from straight black history (in Golden Legacy) to a light-hearted, Archie kind of comic?

FITZGERALD: Gus was very persuasive with me.

He wanted to do stuff that he couldn’t afford to do.

It’s a shame that he didn’t get any money out of it.

He would draw up the strips that I would send out to the black magazines.

ARNOLD: Do those strips still exist?

FITZGERALD: Yeah.

ARNOLD: Do you know how many strips were made?

FITZGERALD: Probably about eight, seven or eight.

There was another publication called Black Medium. It was a Sunday supplement similar to Parade. They were in 100–200 black weekly newspapers. The guy who ran that publication, he also ran Ebony magazine for a while.

ARNOLD: With all due respect to Fast Willie Jackson, you’re most proud of Golden Legacy. How did that series come about?

FITZGERALD: I really was not a comic-book reader.

I was very interested in African-American studies.

I brought a visual approach that was very effective.

I learned about art history and had an interest in art and made acquaintances with some artists. I knew that we were going to illustrate certain titles, because they were biographies. The first one I did was Toussaint L’Ouverture. The artist I started with had full knowledge of L’Ouverture, and he began to illustrate the comic book. His name was Leo Carty.

ARNOLD: Did you choose all of the subjects, or were there any other hands in the writing or producing or suggestions of which historic figures to cover?

FITZGERALD: No, there was no input from others.

When Bobby Kennedy was murdered, they wanted me to do a book on Bobby Kennedy, but I didn’t do it.

ARNOLD: Where did you get your information for the Golden Legacy stories?

FITZGERALD: I had an interest in those things promoting those subjects of interest for self-pride, 1970s Time Capsule Issue

Eight is Enough! (left) Cover art to the unpublished eighth issue of Fast Willie Jackson. (right) An example of the ultrarare Fast Willie Jackson comic strip. Courtesy of Mark Arnold. © 2011 Fitzgerald Publishing Inc.

© 2011 Fitzgerald Publishing Inc.

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Jabar Takes a Stand Another of Fitzgerald and LeMoine’s Fast Willie comic strips, featuring a hardhitting political message from the series’ resident radical, Jabar. © 2011 Fitzgerald Publishing Inc.

self-esteem, who could benefit from this information.

I had a few other friends who had some interest in art named Joan Bacchus and Tom Feelings. [Tom] had also done a story on Crispus Attucks, which was appearing in a hardcover book, and we bought the rights from him to produce that story and that was the third title. The fourth title was Benjamin Banneker, and I had a cousin who was interested in writing and illustrating it. We had an illustrator for it and I did locate by that time a friend who was also interested in the format. His name was Ezra Jackson, he was not very good at illustrating, but he was very agreeable, whereas Leo Carty was more interested in having his way.

My cousin, Francis Taylor, wanted to write. He was interested in writing and in making a name for himself, but that wasn’t the real motivation. His real motivation was getting involved in an enterprise that he could benefit from. It didn’t pay a lot of money and he would gain some experience writing. Ezra Jackson, actually, he was the first African-American comic-book artist that I used, and so I used him to illustrate the Benjamin Banneker story and he did another. He was fast.

ARNOLD: You ultimately did 16 issues of Golden Legacy. Why did it end?

FITZGERALD: It was hard to finance Golden Legacy. I’d have to go into a marketing strategy that would interest a company so they could finance the illustrations and the writing of Golden Legacy. I was married with young children at the time and we needed money for support. I had developed a strategy where the Coca-Cola Company could benefit from these stories. I asked Coca-Cola to consider taking aboard the marketing and promotion. I had done a couple and had a third ready to go and about the time I had gotten the third or fourth issue out when Coca-Cola came aboard.

ARNOLD: When the 16th issue appeared, was that designed to be the final issue?

FITZGERALD: That wasn’t designed to be the final issue. I didn’t intend to complete the series, but I started to have problems. I wanted to do Mary McLeod Bethune. Have you heard of her? She was friends with Roosevelt’s wife. She was very close to Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a great woman. She was as great or greater than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Anyway, Mary McLeod Bethune, I wanted to do a book on her.

I also wanted to do a book on another woman, Ida Bell WellsBarnett. She was a writer and she was anti-legislature. And she was so anti-legislature that they burned down her house. So I wanted to do a book on her and I got stuck because I didn’t know how to show lynching to kids because kids, read the books and people would buy them for their kids. I didn’t want to give them all of that. You don’t know about racism until you know about lynching.

ARNOLD: Did something happen … like, did Coca-Cola pull out?

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FITZGERALD: Coca-Cola pulled out, so I had to find another sponsor.

I called up a number of companies to finance new titles. I went through 11 titles with Coca-Cola financing. We’re going back to a different period of time, now, where black people in business couldn’t get loans and black people were denied financing. It was closed to black people and banks were not interested in making withdrawals for minorities.

ARNOLD: When you were doing these, did you ever imagine a black man becoming president?

FITZGERALD: No. ARNOLD: Have there been any changes to the books over the years?

FITZGERALD: I’ve made minor changes here and there. We used to use metal plates at one point, but we graduated to film.

ARNOLD: Tell me about the 1983 lawsuit concerning bootleg copies of Golden Legacy.

FITZGERALD: There was this fellow who wanted to know what I had done and how many issues I had printed. Then, he had World Color Press print them. I could tell by the letterhead that he went to them and lied to them about it. They printed up 50,000 sets of Golden Legacy, which they had to compensate me for later on. Those books were later than the ones I’m still selling. That’s how I made the hardcover book, with some of them.

ARNOLD: Apart from publishing, what other fields have you been in?

FITZGERALD: I was an accountant.

ARNOLD: I was just curious if you had steady income from other work when you were publishing comic books.

FITZGERALD: I worked for Ebony magazine for a while, for about six months, and I also worked for the [New York mayor Ed] Koch administration for a couple of years. I created those publications called Cranes. It was an offshoot of Advertising Age. It was like Advertising Age. I did a book on Mayor Koch. I ghost-wrote an article called “How Am I Doing?” and Koch had to make sure it was written in an acceptable way, but after that the deputy mayor had hired me.

ARNOLD: You were recently honored at a convention called the “East Coast Black Age of Comics.” Is that correct?

FITZGERALD: Yes, it was in Philadelphia, and they gave space to people who did that, and they wanted me to come all the way down there, and I went by car. I did get there a little late and it was a long trip. I think the person who was doing this was a fan of Golden Legacy. They gave me an award and I have it on my mantle above my 49" TV stand.

ARNOLD: Do you attend any other conventions?

FITZGERALD: Yeah. I attended one with Stan Lee. He and I both were there to get awards, and guess which one did everyone go see? [laughs] MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian with many articles in BACK ISSUE to his credit. His latest book, If You’re Cracked, You're Happy: The Cracked Magazine Story, was issued by BearManor Press in 2011.

FITZGERALD PUBLICATIONS CHECKLIST GOLDEN LEGACY Golden Legacy #1 (1966): Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Birth of Haiti Written by Leo Carty. Art by Leo Carty.

Golden Legacy #2 (1967): Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People Written by Joan Bacchus. Art by Joan Bacchus and Tom Feelings.

Golden Legacy #3 (1967): Crispus Attucks and the Minutemen Written by Tom Feelings. Art by Tom Feelings and Ezra Jackson.

Golden Legacy #4 (1968): Life of Benjamin Banneker Written by Francis Taylor. Art by Ezra Jackson.

Golden Legacy #5 (1969): Life of Matthew Henson Written by Joan Bacchus. Art by Joan Bacchus. Additional art by Howard Darden.

Golden Legacy #6 (1969): Alexander Dumas and Family Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Ezra Jackson. Additional art by Gene Williams.

Golden Legacy #7 (1969): Frederick Douglass, Part One Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Howard Darden. Additional art by Joan Bacchus.

Golden Legacy #8 (1970): Frederick Douglass, Part Two Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Howard Darden. Additonal art by Ezra Jackson.

Golden Legacy #9 (1970): Life of Robert Smalls Written by Bertram Fitzgerald and Don Perlin. Art by Don Perlin.

Golden Legacy #10 (1970): Joseph Cinque and the Amistad Mutiny Written by Joan Bacchus. Art by Joan Bacchus.

Golden Legacy #11 (1970): Men of Action: White, Wilkins, and Marshall Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Ezra Jackson, Don Perlin, and Tony Tallarico. Additional art by J. Scott.

Golden Legacy #12 (1972): Black Cowboys Written by Don Perlin. Art by Don Perlin.

Golden Legacy #13 (1972): The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Don Perlin.

Golden Legacy #14 (1972): The Life of Alexander Pushkin Written by Warren Parker. Art by Tony Tallarico.

Golden Legacy #15 (1972) : Ancient African Kingdoms Written by Robert Fitzgerald. Art by Howard Darden.

Golden Legacy #16 (1976): Black Inventors: Latimer and Woods Written by Bertram Fitzgerald. Art by Leo Carty and Tony Tallarico.

Golden Legacy #17: Rosa Parks (unpublished) Golden Legacy #18: Mary McLeod Bethune (unpublished) Golden Legacy #19: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (unpublished) Golden Legacy Hardback (1988) (Compiles all 16 Golden Legacy issues in a gold-bound hardback book.)

FAST WILLIE JACKSON All issues written by Bert Fitzgerald and Gus LeMoine. Art by Gus LeMoine.

Fast Willie Jackson #1 (Oct. 1976) Cover – Dancing (white background) “Do it Again, Willie” – 1 page “They’re Cool, Bad, Fast and Together” – 1 page Fast Willie in “Finders Keepers” – 6 pages Jose Martinez in “Spanish Food for Thought” – 1 page “Happy Birthday, Frankie” – 6 pages “Don’t Tread on Dee Dee” – 6 pages Jabar in “The Good Old Days” – 2 pages “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Fast Willie in “Lost Souls” – 3 pages Hannibal in “King of Kung-Fu” – 6 pages Write On … to the Editor – 1 page Jabar in “the One and Only” – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #2 (Dec. 1976) Cover – Dancing (yellow background) “Willie Has a Test” – 1 page Fast Willie in “There’s No Business Like Show Business” – 6 pages Dee Dee in “All Hands” – 6 pages “Frankie’s Favorites” – 1 page Jabar in “No Way Out” – 6 pages Fast Willie in “Spice of Life” – 2 pages “Classroom Cutups” – 1 page “Officer Flagg’s Future!” – 3 pages Hannibal in “No Way Out” – 1 page “Double Feature for Willie” – 5 pages “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Write On … to the Editor – 1 page “Branch Out With Jo-Jo” – 1 page Dee Dee in “Try it, You’ll Like it!” – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #3 (Feb. 1977) Cover – Merry Christmas Frankie Jo-Jo in “The Name of the Game” – 1 page “Let’s Dance, Officer Flagg” – 6 pages Jose in “Cents Sense” – 2 pages Fast Willie in “The Shakes!” – 6 pages “Frankie’s Night Out” – 6 pages “If the Suit Fits, Wear It” – 3 pages Write On … to the Editor – 2 pages “Rock, Willie, Rock” – 6 pages “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Fast Willie in “If It’s Relative” – 1 page “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #4 (Apr. 1977) Cover – Protesting at the Newsstand Fast Willie in “Mad Dog Days” – 1 page “Not Up to Speed!” – 5 pages “See You in the Comics” Contest ad – 2 pages “Sooner or Later…” – 1 page Dee Dee in “Beauty and the Pest” – 6 pages

“The Waiting Game” – 6 pages Frankie in “Decisions, Decisions!”

– 4 pages “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Write On … to the Editor – 2 pages “Hi! I’m Jo-Jo! Fly Me!” – 5 pages “Jo-Jo’s Cool Comebacks” – 1 page “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #5 (June 1977) Cover – Basketball Fast Willie in “Tall Fall” – 1 page Fast Willie in “That’s the Spirit” – 7 pages Fast Willie in “Washed Out” – 1 page Fast Willie in “Now Hear This” – 3 pages “The Devil You Say!” – 6 pages Write On …,to the Editor – 2 pages “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page “Tickets Now on Sale” – 6 pages Fast Willie in “Turkey Burger” – 1 page Fast Willie in “Watch the Birdie” – 5 pages “Jabar’s Puzzle Page” – 1 page “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #6 (Aug. 1977) Cover – Bikini Beach Fast Willie in “Picture This” – 1 page Fast Willie in “Failing Sailing” – 5 pages “Who is Fast Willie Jackson” – 3 pages Jo-Jo in “Mr. Fix-It Man” – 5 pages “See Yourself in the Comics” Contest ad – 2 pages Fast Willie in “Homework Horrors” – 6 pages “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Fast Willie in “Cattle Crossing” – 3 pages Write On – 2 pages Frankie in “What – Me Worry” – 5 pages “Jabar’s Puzzle Page” – 1 page “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #7 (Sept. 1977) Cover – No Credit No Se Fia Fast Willie in “Owe Woe” – 1 page Frankie and Jo-Jo in “Unmatching Fools” – 6 pages Harry the Wino in “Poor Judgment” – 2 pages “See Yourself in the Comics” Contest Winner “Girl Trouble” – 2 pages “See Yourself in the Comics” Contest ad – 1 page Fast Willie in “The Slave Ship” – 5 pages Fast Willie in “What’s Your Beef?”

– 1 page Write On – 2 pages Frankie in “Soap in My Eyes” – 5 pages Fast Willie in “Cool Fool” – 1 page “Golden Legacy” ad – 1 page Officer Flagg in “Everything by Degrees” – 6 pages “Ms. Jane Fronda’s Art Class” – 1 page “Fast Willie Jackson” ad – 1 page Fast Willie Jackson #8 (Dec. 1977) (unpublished) Cover – Wax Museum (unpublished) Dee Dee in “A Pose in Time” – 5 pages (unpublished) (other material unknown) Drugs … Where It’s At (1970) Written by Bert Fitzgerald. Art by Tony Tallarico.

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As 1976 dawned in the United States, it was hard to escape the fact that a significant birthday was coming up. Commemorations of the country’s 200th birthday were increasing by the week, and the likes of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams once again became household names. But nowhere—not in school or on television or in magazines—would you find such historical revelations as the fact that Superman had prevented the theft of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, or that Captain Marvel and Black Adam had buzzed the Boston Tea Party three years earlier. For those, you had to read DC comic books.

There are moments during the American Revolution that are burned into the minds of every student—Paul Revere’s horseback warning that the British were coming. George Washington’s Christmasnight voyage across the Delaware. And these words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence, from which that sentence sprang, served notice to Great Britain that its colonies in North America weren’t going to tolerate its tyranny any longer. The Declaration was formally approved on July 4, 1776, a date that would be known from that date forward as the birthday of the United States of America.

Nearly two centuries later, the United States was mired in an intractable war in Vietnam, and its president, Richard Nixon, was caught up in the Watergate scandal that would ultimately see him resign from office, succeeded by Gerald Ford. In the face of national apathy and distaste, plans for a massive exposition centered around Boston and Philadelphia were shelved in 1973.

THE FREEDOM TRAIN The abandonment of a centralized celebration actually seemed to have turned out for the best.

Instead, individual communities across the United States were encouraged to organize their own celebrations, thousands of them receiving official sanction from the government’s American Revolutionary Bicentennial Administration (ARBA), retooled in 1974 under new supervisor John Warner.

Among ARBA’s initiatives was the Freedom Train, a locomotive carrying some of the country’s most historic documents—including the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution— on a trip across 48 contiguous states. The project drew its inspiration from an earlier Freedom Train that had traveled the country from 1947 to 1949, and would now include modern pieces of Americana such as Judy

DC’s Declaration The Man of Steel witnesses the Founding Fathers’ signing of the Declaration of Independence on this Bates/Swan/ Blaisdell splash from Action Comics #463 (Sept. 1976). Scan courtesy of John Wells.

TM & © DC Comics.

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by

John Wells

Garland’s dress from The Wizard of Oz and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s robe and pulpit.

The original traveling exhibit inspired two separate comic-book stories during the spring of 1948. The wicked Dr. Sivana attempted to destroy the Freedom Train’s precious cargo in Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures #85. DC’s All-Star Comics #41 hedged a bit by referring to the locomotive as the “Liberty” Train, but its contents were the same. In “The Case of the Patriotic Crimes,” the Injustice Society stole the entire train and then went after other landmarks like Plymouth Rock and the Washington Monument before the Justice Society of America stopped their spree.

DC reprinted the JSA story in mid-1974’s Justice League of America #113, complementing the tale with a two-page feature on the original Freedom Train that incorporated art from various earlier stories.

Two months later, Hal Jordan boarded the Spirit of ’76 Train in The Flash #230 (Nov.–Dec. 1974), admiring the artifacts inside that included the pistol that Vice President Aaron Burr had used to kill his rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Hal soon leapt into action as Green Lantern when robots dressed as Colonial soldiers flew off with the locomotive car (villains in the DC Universe rarely did anything small) and wound up in a spacecraft face-to-face with the real Aaron Burr.

Burr, it was explained in Flash #231, had been plucked away from Earth by aliens on the eve of his duel with Hamilton and replaced by a clone. The extraterrestrials wanted his expertise as a statesman to lead their own society out of chaos, and the former vice president had succeeded to a point. He’d also attracted his share of enemies, one of whom tried to kill him before Green Lantern stepped in. The time differential

related to space travel accounted for Burr still being alive past his 200th birthday, and he further elaborated that his theft of the Spirit of ’76 Train had been motivated by pure homesickness. Setting foot on Earth, Burr fell to his knees and wept but conceded to GL that he couldn’t stay. He’d committed to help the alien race and refused to renege on his promise.

Scripted by Denny O’Neil, the story tapped into the writer’s passion for history, actually referencing the nonfiction book Contest of Power that he’d written about presidential elections in 1968.

Even as the JLA and Flash issues were going on sale, a four-car Preamble Express was hitting the rails in the summer and fall of 1974 as a test run for the Freedom Train’s official journey scheduled to begin April 1, 1975.

In June, the Liberty Express pulled out of a Gotham City terminal in The Brave and the Bold (B&B) #121 (Sept. 1975), and Batman and the Metal Men got into the act.

As fanciful as Bob Haney and Jim Aparo’s story was, it played on genuine fears that the upcoming Bicentennial events would be targeted by radical groups. Indeed, the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock had been disrupted by a real Indian-rights group in 1970. On Thanksgiving Day, the American Indian Movement stole a reproduction of the Pilgrims’ Mayflower.

In B&B, a trio of Native-American historians took control of the train and threatened to destroy the Declaration of Independence, et al. unless President Gerald Ford granted their people enormous financial and territorial restitution. In the third act, foreign terrorists were revealed to have planted a bomb of their own on the train, forcing the heroes and the Native Americans to join forces before they all perished.

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Riding the Bicentennial Train (left) And you thought Sinestro was the only person Green Lantern dueled with! The splash from the GL tale in Flash #230 (Nov.–Dec. 1974). (right) Haney and Aparo’s Batman/ Metal Men team-up in Brave and the Bold #121 (Sept. 1975) featured the artifactpacked Freedom Train. Scans courtesy of John Wells.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Batgirl’s Bicentennial Minute Barbara Gordon vs. Benedict Arnold, from Batman Family #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1975).

Script by Maggin, art by Grell. Scan courtesy of John Wells.

TM & © DC Comics.

read this will have any idea who Rhoda Morgenstern was? Or Barry Goldwater, for that matter?) National self-awareness was a valid coin of the realm back then— much more so than now—so certainly that affected this story and generally also the most effective stories of the period quite a bit. It was a time when your sense of place in time and space was very significant.”

In June of 1975, Batman Family #1 (by Maggin and artist Mike Grell) opened with Congresswoman Barbara Gordon recording a Bicentennial Minute about Colonel Benedict Arnold, noting in the last sentence that he ultimately betrayed the United States. She wasn’t prepared for Arnold to leap forward to defend his reputation. The balance of the story found Barbara (as Batgirl) joining forces with Robin to thwart the demonically resurrected traitor from seizing control of Washington, D.C. Exasperated that Arnold couldn’t accomplish is goal of claiming the two heroes’ souls, Satan himself—cloved feet and all—snapped that “the American spirit is as strong as ever” and dragged his minion back to Hell in a cloud of brimstone.

“Whatever we call this immortal evil,” Barbara Gordon later said at the House of Representatives, “we never fully understand it … any more than we will understand the true nature of courage, justice, or truth itself … but we must always understand the American ideal and guard that dream bravely so that such forces may remain strong. That is the debt we owe the past and our responsibility to the children of the future.”

Over the next year, communities throughout the country staged colonial-themed events, typified by a sequence in Batman #273 (bottom left) where Gotham City residents reenacted a Revolutionary War battle. In the real world, though, a team dressed as Redcoats didn’t disrupt the proceedings as part of the Underworld Olympics.

TM & © DC Comics.

THE BICENTENNIAL MINUTE

A MONTH-LONG SALUTE

Perhaps nothing stirred interest in the United States’ forthcoming birthday more than the Bicentennial Minute. Beginning on July 4, 1974, between its regularly scheduled programming CBS aired a 60-second spot each night in which a celebrity recounted a historical event from 200 years ago on that date, closing with the tagline, “And that‘s the way it was” (a play of newscaster Walter Cronkite’s closing line, “That’s the way it is”). Predictably, CBS executives initially balked at losing even a minute of airtime to a public-service segment, but cooler heads prevailed and the Bicentennial Minute became a hugely popular fixture with the American public.

In an interview for BACK ISSUE, former DC writer Elliot S. Maggin recalls, “The Bicentennial Minutes were everywhere in those days. The big deal was, who would get to do it today? Brenda Vaccaro? The Cookie Monster?

Barry Goldwater? There were only three networks and everyone was plastered to at least one of them a good chunk of the day. There was lots more shared experience then. Everyone went on Rhoda Morgenstern's honeymoon, for example. (How many of the people who

Most comic books of the mid-1970s were dated three months past their on-sale date, a ploy to maintain a longer presence on spinner racks. Consequently, it was April when DC’s 33 comics dated July 1976 went on sale.

Every one of them bore a red, white, and blue banner atop their covers declaring “DC Comics Salutes the Bicentennial” followed by numbers between one and 33.

An advertisement inside told the tale. “If you send us at least 25 different cover headings,” it explained, “we will send you, free, a metal Superman belt buckle!

(In antiqued silver polish!)” The offer expired on July 4, 1976. Taking into account that DC’s regular comics cost 30 cents (with five of the 33 retailing for 50 cents), it would require a minimum of $7.50 and over two dozen defaced comic books to claim the prize.

The promotion was conceived by longtime DC employee and brand-new president Sol Harrison, whose promotion came after the January 19 dismissal of publisher Carmine Infantino. Paul Levitz recalls that the event was “launched in the two weeks between Carmine’s firing and [new publisher] Jenette [Kahn]’s arrival.”

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“As I recall, there was a good response,” Bob Rozakis tells BACK ISSUE, “though we talked in the office about fans who would have to either buy second copies or cut up their beloved books in order to get the belt buckle.” For his part, Levitz has “vague visual memories of envelopes full of the clipped cover strips, but no concrete sense of how many that was. Still have a nifty Superman belt buckle Sol gave me, though.”

Of the 33 comics in the promotion, only one actually had a patriotically themed cover. The left side of Adventure Comics #446 (right) portrayed Aquaman riding a seahorse while holding an American flag that waved beneath the book’s logo. In issue #448’s letters column, reader Scott Gibson raved about the cover art while noting the irony that Aquaman himself was the king of Atlantis. Paul Levitz responded, “We felt that since Aquaman is an American (he was born on US soil— and his father was an American lighthouse keeper), and Adventure is the longest-running comic around (from any company), that this was the appropriate place for DC to pay its Revolutionary tribute.”

One week after Adventure #446, Sgt. Rock stood tall against a red, white, and blue backdrop on the cover of Our Army At War #295. The interior Rock story had no particular patriotic theme, although the “Medal of Honor” story in the back of the comic profiled World War I hero Sgt. York. (And on an unrelated note, this issue was one of two DC titles to carry the first edition of DC’s weekly coming-attractions page, The Daily Planet.)

heroism and the birth of a nation. And through him, Superman salutes the Bicentennial.”

In other words, a collection of stories starring frontier-fighter Tomahawk was being sold as a Superman comic book. “Sol gets the credit/blame for the Tomahawk stories,” Bob Rozakis asserts. “We wondered if readers would complain about the contents, but I don’t recall ever getting any mail about it.”

“I know I put the reprints together (I was a big Tomahawk fan at one point), and I think I coordinated the rest,” Paul Levitz adds. “The project was Sol’s— one of the few things he ever had an editor credit on—probably in part from his relationship with Fred Ray in the old days. I believe Sol actually inked one or two Tomahawks over the years.”

Created in 1947, Tomahawk and his partner Dan Hunter had been the Batman and Robin of the Revolutionary War, garnering enough success to push the real Robin off the covers of Star Spangled Comics and acquire a successful Tomahawk title in 1950.

As DC’s foremost hero of the American Revolution,

TM & © DC Comics.

TOMAHAWK’S SNEAK ATTACK That same week, DC released Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-47, part of its series of giant-sized reprint books.

The tabloid editions’ size and more durable cardboard covers helped get them distribution in outlets like chain stores and gift shops. In short, it was the perfect vehicle to publish “Superman Salutes the Bicentennial.”

For the cover, DC chose a stunning image by artist Fred Ray that had originally appeared on Superman #14 in late 1941, one with an eagle perched on the Man of Steel’s arm and a flag shield behind him. And the back cover featured miniature portraits of all 37 Presidents of the United States, from George Washington to Gerald Ford. It was an irresistible package.

Some readers took issue with the interior, though, which amounted to a bait-and-switch. A foreword by Sol Harrison celebrated Superman’s role among the pantheon of great American fictional heroes before revealing that “we want to pay tribute to our founding fathers using the Superman myth. Here are tales of an ordinary frontiersman, a fictional character with all the strengths and weaknesses inherent in any human being. Through the course of events, he is caught in the tide of revolution, and becomes far more than just an ordinary man.

“Here, then, is Tom Hawk, the mortal Superman through whose eyes we shall see the days of American

Super Sucker Punch Readers expecting the Action Ace in “Superman Salutes the Bicentennial”—published as Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-47 (Aug.–Sept. 1976, cover seen in the inset)—were surprised by recycled Tomahawk stories and reprinted historical pages like this one, by Fred Ray. TM & © DC Comics.

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Tomahawk was the most appropriate choice to star in a Bicentennial collection, but he was also a non-entity to most of the 1976 audience.

The only solution was to use a red-and-blue-costumed front-man.

Superman basically only appeared in a two-page introduction drawn by Curt Swan (and likely written by E. Nelson Bridwell) with headshots used to introduce five 1950s reprints from Star Spangled Comics #121, 126, 127, and Tomahawk #45. Also included was a redrawn excerpt from Star Spangled #73 featuring George Washington. Nearly all of it was drawn by Fred Ray—coincidentally, the cover artist—whose passion for American history extended to several self-published booklets. One of those, a 1951 pamphlet on Valley Forge, was also reprinted in the tabloid. The book ended with two faux newspaper editions of the Bicentennial Planet reporting the beginning and end of the Revolutionary War. One of those newspapers featured an Al Plastino drawing of some of the founding fathers that was taken from a 1962 Superboy story (Adventure Comics #296). That particular episode might have been a good prospect to reprint in the tabloid except for the fact that it not only ignored the historical chronology of events but diminished the roles of everyone from Paul Revere to John Hancock by having Superboy secretly help them. However much a cheat the cover may have been, the Tomahawk adventures had an authenticity that would’ve been lessened by costumed co-stars.

Be that as it may, Action Comics #463—published just a week before July 4, 1976—almost seemed like penance. Scripted by Cary Bates with art by Curt Swan and Tex Blaisdell, the story was the climax of a four-parter in which Superman had fought an alien named Karb Brak. At the end of Part Three, Clark Kent had been thrust back in time to July 4, 1776, and brainwashed into believing he was a reporter for Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette. (In the real world, Franklin sold the paper a decade earlier.)

En route to cover the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Clark repeatedly found himself unwittingly using his powers, whether stopping stampeding horses or shrugging off bandits. By the time he remembered he was Superman, though, the Declaration had been stolen by Tory spies and the Man of Steel had to inconspicuously recover the document so that history could take its proper course.

Spirits of ’76 (left) This Bicentennial Planet page repurposed Superboy art by Al Plastino. (right) DC’s celebration of the Bicentennial came to a close with Ghosts #51 (Jan.–Feb. 1977).

Cover art by Ernie Chan and Vince Colletta.

TM & © DC Comics.

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OTHER BICENTENNIAL SALUTES Superman was by no means the only fictional character to visit 1776 during the Bicentennial. On Saturday mornings, Filmation produced The US of Archie cartoon with the teenagers of Riverdale taking part in historical moments from the past two centuries. Debuting in the fall of 1974, it continued in reruns through 1975 and 1976.

In newspaper comic strips, adventure hero Steve Canyon dreamed that he was part of the events of July 1776, while Dennis the Menace—without explanation—shifted to a Revolutionary War setting in the weeks preceding the Bicentennial bash. In the final issue of Charlton Comics’ Phantom title, the legendary hero’s 1776 predecessor traveled to Philadelphia, too.

In addition to the specialty Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar and a time-travel story featuring Ben Franklin in Dr. Strange #18, Marvel published a tabloid-sized issue “Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles” (Marvel Treasury Special #2) in June. Unlike DC’s volume, this one was all new and, by bouncing Cap throughout American history, actually starred the title character! (For younger readers, Cap joined Spider-Man in thwarting Kang the Conqueror’s attempt to derail the American Revolution in Spidey Super Stories #17.

The issue closed with the two heroes inserted into a portrait of the founding fathers at the Declaration’s signing.)

Also on sale on June 28 was DC’s Shazam! #25, where Captain Marvel’s nemesis Dr. Sivana vowed to destroy America one city at a time in a story entitled “The Bicentennial Villain.” What followed was a series of stories set in some of America’s oldest cities, including Washington, D.C. (#26), Boston (#28, with a time-travel jaunt to the Boston Tea Party), Buffalo, New York (#29), and Pittsburgh (#30).

Issue #27’s Philadelphia-based episode was peppered with genuine landmarks and appearances by heroes and villains from America’s past, ranging from Benjamin Franklin to Benedict Arnold. In a cute touch, Sivana’s attempt to turn the Liberty Bell into a super-bomb was thwarted when Arnold—resurrected by the villain—changed sides. “You should never have trusted a traitor,” Cap smiled.

Sunday, July 4, 1976 was, by all accounts, a splendid, sunny day, filled with parades, fireworks, celebrations, and blanket TV coverage.

Stars and Stripes Did anyone at DC Comics, who owned Quality Comics’ superhero version of Uncle Sam in 1976, notice this crossover in their competitor’s “Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles” Marvel Treasury Edition? Original art page by Jack Kirby and, possibly, inker Frank Giacoia, courtesy of Anthony Snyder (www.anthonysnyder.com).

To view this page in pencil form, see TwoMorrows’ The Jack Kirby Collector #34.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

For one day, at least, the country could forget about the scandal and turmoil of recent years and accentuate the positive. The continued interest in American history prompted CBS to prolong its Bicentennial Minutes through December 31 (the same day the Freedom Train ended its run) before filling the slot with a Newsbreak in 1977.

A Black Canary story co-written by Bob and Laurie Rozakis in Detective Comics #464 (Oct. 1976) depicted the heroine’s home base of Star City celebrating its tricentennial—this despite the best efforts of the villainous Calculator to drive out its residents and effectively steal the metropolis. It was a nice reminder that many communities on the east coast were far older than the formally recognized United States itself. (After DC’s continuity was revised in the mid-1980s, incidentally, Star City found itself on the west coast and lost its colonial origins.)

Outside of Shazam!, the last vestiges of the celebration showed up in Ghosts #51 in October. The coverfeatured “Haunting Spirits of ’76” offered three pages of vignettes about colonial-era specters.

GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1976 The degree to which the country embraced the Bicentennial exceeded all expectations. At the start of 1975, US politician John Warner had projected perhaps 5,000 individual events, but the final tally charted some 27,146 projects in 1976. According to the 1977 World Book Year Book, “states were given $20 million in matching grants, and revenue from other sources, such as the sale of Bicentennial medals, license fees, and royalties, totaled nearly $18.5 million.”

Sadly, that sort of widespread interest in celebrating American history would never be seen again. In 1987, for instance, commemorations of the bicentennial of the United States Constitution passed almost without a ripple. Interestingly enough, though, Superman saluted that anniversary, too, and he did it without a proxy.

The September 13, 1987 edition of the New York Daily News Magazine ran a feature on the Constitution from the perspective of children and commissioned a new six-page Superman story as part of the issue that was written by Joey Cavalieri and illustrated by George Pérez.

Discovering that history had been changed and that Lex Luthor was now President for Life, Superman determined that the time stream had diverged at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Traveling back in time, the Man of Steel found Luthor disguised as Ben Franklin and using drugs to persuade luminaries

such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison into eliminating the division of power among several branches of government. Superman nipped the plot in the bud and brought Luthor back to 1987.

Two hundred years earlier, the real Ben Franklin reflected on what he’d witnessed. “Having seen a glimpse of the future,” he mused, “I truly can see the significance of this day and the prosperity that lies ahead.”

Unlike Mr. Franklin, we have no hints as to what the future holds. But leave a note for your heirs to download the latest edition of BACK ISSUE a century from now to read all about how former comics publisher DC Entertainment saluted the Tricentennial.

JOHN WELLS, the so-called Mark Waid of Earth-Two, is a comics historian specializing in DC Comics.

He’s written for a variety of publications over the past quartercentury ranging from the Comics Buyer’s Guide to Alter Ego. John recently assisted with Paul Levitz’s 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking.

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TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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For many of us who collect comic books, there is that special, early memory of the first comic we bought off the newsstand, or that favorite issue we read over and over again until it was barely hanging by the staples.

For me, that favorite memory is of a book, Origins of Marvel Comics.

It may be hard for those who don’t remember Richard Nixon as president to imagine a time in which we didn’t have trade paperbacks and graphic novels.

Today, many fans eschew the comics themselves in favor of the collected volumes. But there was a time, before the Internet and eBay, when just trying to find a back issue of your favorite comic was a hit-or-miss proposition. A friend of mine tells the story of how, back in the early 1970s, he saw an advertisement from Richard Alf for a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 with a “heavily taped cover, but intact” for $25.00. He saved up his money, doing extra chores around the house, and several weeks later mailed off the money to Alf, only to have it returned to him because the issue had already sold.

Reprints were also somewhat scarce at the time.

Marvel Comics did have a few reprint titles, including Marvel Collector’s Item Classics, which started in 1965, but it was canceled after 22 issues. Marvel Tales became a reprint title in 1966, initially including classic stories from Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, and Tales to Astonish, then later focusing solely on reprints from The Amazing Spider-Man. Lancer Books was the first to publish a series of paperbacks in the mid-1960s that reprinted selected early stories of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, The Mighty Thor, and The Amazing Spider-Man in black and white and reduced size. But one of the problems with reprints was that they sometimes omitted panels or whole pages from the stories to make them fit the available space, and learning about the origins of your favorite characters was a challenge. It was not until 1974 that an opportunity arose to read the complete origin stories of the best Marvel characters in color and their original size.

When I asked Stan Lee what prompted Marvel Comics to start the Origins series of books, he replied, “Me! I had a zillion requests from fans to write a series of Origins books—and I thought it was a great idea and enjoyed writing them.” But the Origins books were more than just reprints, as Lee described in his January 1974 Soapbox column, “…the great new ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, the blockbuster book which features the entire early history of your all-time favorites … you’ll have the unedited origin stories, plus more recent yarns, plus page after page of straight-from-the-shoulder secrets of who did what, and how we did it … we’re also reproducing the actual cover of each magazine in which the origin stories appeared, thus making THE ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS the most complete history of Marvel’s golden age ever published!”

Light My Fire(side) Origins of Marvel Comics, first published in 1974 with this John Romita, Sr. cover, ignited the publisher’s popular reprint line with Fireside Books.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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by

Dewey Cassell

Terrific Trio Romita covers grace these three editions: (right) Son of Origins, (inset) Bring on the Bad Guys, and (below) detail from the cover of The Superhero Women.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

To produce the books, Marvel teamed up with Fireside, an imprint of the publishing company Simon & Schuster. Comics were not new to Fireside, who had published books like the Charles Addams collection of New Yorker cartoons entitled Monster Rally in 1950.

For the first volume in the Origins series, Marvel chose legendary characters that had launched the superhero revolution of the early 1960s—the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and Dr. Strange. True to Lee’s word, the book featured not only origin stories of each hero or team, but also other key stories that included characters like the Silver Surfer and the Sub-Mariner. (Although the Sub-Mariner appears on the cover of the book, his origin is not presented.) The original comic-book covers were included for all but the Strange Tales stories. The book also featured a preface and epilogue, as well as introductory remarks for each chapter, written by Lee, in which he discussed his early days at Timely Comics, the artists he worked with, how Fantastic Four was created in response to DC Comics’ success with Justice League of America, and why Steve Ditko drew Amazing Spider-Man instead of Jack Kirby. The book was originally published in hardback for $9.95 and paperback for $5.95.

The next year, Marvel followed up the success of Origins of Marvel Comics with a second volume, Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. For this tome, many of the characters selected were considered “second tier” at the time, although several of them enjoyed tremendous popularity in later years. Among the heroes whose origins were featured were the X-Men, Iron Man, the Avengers, Daredevil, Nick Fury–Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Watcher, and the Silver Surfer. Son of Origins followed essentially the same format as its predecessor, although the only additional key stories included were of Daredevil and Iron Man. Fireside subsequently offered a boxed set containing later printings of both Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins. Conspicuously absent after two books was the origin of Golden Age hero and fellow Avenger, Captain America.

For the third volume in the series, Marvel turned to the villains in a book entitled Bring on the Bad Guys.

The “bad guys” selected were the best of the worst, including Dr. Doom, Dormammu, Loki, the Red Skull, the Green Goblin, the Abomination, and Mephisto, arch enemies of many of the heroes featured in the first two Origins books. Lee confessed his affection for the bad guys in his introduction to this volume, noting, “the main appeal of our frisky little fables must lie with the villains we concoct … you’ve got to be as interested in the scoundrel as you are in the stalwart in order for the story to work.” In fact, Lee said fully half of the fan mail dealt with the villains. With this Origins volume, only Loki and the Red Skull merited additional key stories, and gone were the original comic-book covers, replaced by chapter-title-page illustrations of each character, drawn by John Romita, Sr. The fourth Origins book, published in 1977, was called The Superhero Women. This volume is especially enjoyable in that the stories feature a very eclectic group of heroines, including Medusa, Red Sonja, the

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Invisible Girl, Ms. Marvel, Hela, the Wasp, and the Black Widow, as well as Shannna the She-Devil and the Cat, both of whose series only lasted a few issues. It also includes a ink-and-wash story by Lee and Romita called “The Fury of the Femizons.” As for the characters chosen for the book, Lee notes, “We didn’t have that many superheroines, so I had to pick whatever I could, even though some may have seemed a bit obscure.”

The following year, Fireside published three more books in the Origins series. Marvel’s Greatest Superhero Battles was technically not about origins, but rather classic confrontations between icons like the Hulk and the Thing, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer versus Thor from the rare fourth issue of the Surfer’s solo title.

It was the last of the Origins books to feature multiple heroes. The remaining volumes in the Origins series focused on a single hero in each book. The other Marvel Origins books published by Fireside in 1978 were The Best of Spidey Super Stories and The Incredible Hulk. What is noteworthy about the latter title is that it was published in a larger format than the previous Origins books, measuring 81/2 by 11 inches. The Incredible Hulk reprinted not only the origin of the Hulk from his own comic book, but also an early appearance in Fantastic Four, as well as a sequence of stories from Tales to Astonish. In 1979, Fireside published four other Origins books for Marvel: Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, The Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts.

There was one other Marvel title published by Fireside in 1978, but it was not an Origins book. It was a graphic novel, the first by Marvel, written by Stan Lee and

Early Graphic Novel (left) Fireside also published this 100-page Lee/Kirby Silver Surfer one-shot in 1978.

Cover sketch by Jack Kirby, painted by Earl Norem. (below) Marvel’s CBS-TV live-action stars headlined these Fireside collections.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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TM & © DC Comics.

You Mad, and a collection of the best puzzles and games from the five “Fun Books” called The Mighty Marvel Jumbo Fun Book. In all, there were a total of 24 Marvel books published by Fireside.

Part of the charm of the Origins books, and what set them apart from the comics, was the covers. Each of the Origins books bore a beautiful painted cover in vibrant color, rendered by artists like John Romita, Bob Larkin, and Earl Norem. Sometimes the artist created multiple preliminary variations of the covers and the versions not chosen were often equally compelling. With the classic comic stories reprinted in color and the behind-thescenes commentary by Stan Lee, wrapped between gorgeous painted covers, the Marvel Fireside Origins books were entertaining, enlightening, and unique.

Well, okay, not exactly unique. In 1976, DC jumped on the bandwagon with Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes, published by Harmony Books in a larger size, comparable to the Marvel Fireside Hulk book, and including Golden and Silver Age origin stories of Superman, Batman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Hawkman, the Atom, Captain Marvel (Shazam!), and Plastic Man. Then, three years later, Fireside began publishing books for DC Comics, in a similar size and format as the Marvel Origins books.

However, the DC Fireside books were organized around a theme, rather than one or more characters. The first volume, America at War–The Best of DC War Comics, was published in 1979 and featured classic stories from four decades about the Haunted Tank, the Unknown Soldier, Blackhawk, Enemy Ace, and Sgt. Rock, as well as one of the USS Stevens stories. Also included was a detailed introduction by Michael Uslan and a bibliography of DC war comics. The second book, published later that same year, was Heart Throbs–The Best of DC Romance Comics,

Romita Rough Stuff Jazzy Johnny’s unused cover preliminaries for the Sons and Bad Guys Fireside editions.

Compare these against the published versions seen earlier in this article and note the changes in characters’ positions.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

illustrated by Jack Kirby. The Silver Surfer was an original story featuring the Sky-Rider of the Spaceways doing battle with his old foe and master, Galactus. Asked why Marvel chose this format to publish a new Silver Surfer story, Lee replies, “I don’t remember. Perhaps because I had established a relationship with the editor. Also, I always thought S[imon] & S[chuster] was a prestigious company and Fireside was part of it.”

But that was not the full extent of the relationship between Fireside and Marvel Comics. During the same years the Origins books were produced, Fireside published several other books for Marvel. In 1976, Fireside released The Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book, a series of exercises designed to help kids get in shape, as well as the first of what would be five volumes of The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Fun Book, a collection of puzzles and games featuring various Marvel characters, illustrated by Owen McCarron. The following year, Fireside published The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Cookbook, featuring fun recipes supposedly favored by the superheroes—like Ka-Zar’s Steak Kabobs, the Thing’s Clobbered Omelet, and Spider Man’s Chocolate Web Pancakes—illustrated by Joe Giella. In 1978, Fireside released The Mighty Marvel Pin-Up Book, featuring oversized illustrations of Marvel characters in action, suitable for framing or displaying on your bedroom wall. In addition, Simon & Schuster published The Amazing Spider-Man Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978. That same year, Fireside also published the book How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, in which Stan Lee teamed up with John Buscema to provide detailed lessons to aspiring comic artists.

A video (and later DVD) was made with the same title, starring Lee and Buscema. Then, in 1979, Fireside published Marvel Word Games, Marvel Mazes to Drive

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DC’s Late Entries Two of three DC collections published

by Fireside: (right) America at War, with a Joe Kubert cover, and (far right) Mysteries in Space, with a Murphy Anderson cover.

TM & © DC Comics.

CHRONOLOGICAL CHECKLIST OF THE MARVEL AND DC FIRESIDE BOOKS 1974 Origins of Marvel Comics 1975 Son of Origins of Marvel Comics 1976 Bring on the Bad Guys The Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Fun Book 1977 The Superhero Women The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Fun Book #2 The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Cookbook 1978 How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way The Best of Spidey Super Stories The Silver Surfer The Incredible Hulk Marvel’s Greatest Superhero Battles The Mighty Marvel Pin-Up Book

1979 Captain America–Sentinel of Liberty The Fantastic Four The Amazing Spider-Man Doctor Strange–Master of the Mystic Arts America At War–The Best of DC War Comics Heart Throbs–The Best of DC Romance Comics The Mighty Marvel Fun Book #3 The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Fun Book #4 The Mighty Marvel Fun Book #5 Marvel Word Games Marvel Mazes To Drive You Mad The Mighty Marvel Jumbo Fun Book 1980 Mysteries in Space–The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

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which included covers and stories by artists like Jay Scott Pike and commentary by Naomi Scott, as well as letters and advice columns. The following year, the third and final DC Fireside volume was published, Mysteries in Space–The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics, which reprinted 11 stories from the original series Mystery in Space, plus 13 stories from other DC science-fiction comics. While compelling in their own right, the DC Fireside books focused more on the past, with the heyday of war, romance, and science-fiction comics, rather than the more popular superhero comics of the time.

The Fireside Origins series was a success, as Lee notes, with one caveat: “Although the books sold well, I was very disappointed by the fact that they had so little promotion.

I feel they’d have been longtime bestsellers with better marketing.” The books did, however, lay the groundwork for a burgeoning industry. In 1983, Marvel began publishing its own series of books, the first of which was Mighty Marvel Team-Up Thrillers. Then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Marvel reissued Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins, as well as new volumes titled Grandson of Origins and Bring Back the Bad Guys. However well intentioned, the new books lacked the charm of the originals from the 1970s, perhaps because there was nothing unique about them at the time. Fortunately for the nostalgic among us, the original Fireside Origins books are readily available on the secondary market, although hardback copies and the DC books fetch a handsome price.

Why not turn off the HD TV, put your feet up, and do a little reading by Fireside?

DEWEY CASSELL is a frequent contributor to BACK ISSUE and author of The Art of George Tuska (order at www.twomorrows.com).

He is currently working on a book about Marie Severin. Sincere thanks to Stan Lee for the interview.

Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

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Richard Scott’s Aquaman II article in BACK ISSUE #46 mistakenly credited the Aquaman Shrine (www.aquamanshrine.com) to John Schwirian. John, an occasional BI contributor, instead produces the self-published fanzine The Aquaman Chronicles. Rob Kelly is the person responsible for the Aquaman Shrine. BACK ISSUE regrets the error.

TM & © DC Comics.

YOUR PASSPORT TO GEMWORLD The letters page of BACK ISSUE #46 offered me the same electric thrill at 39 that Blue Devil offered me when I was 12! There was my letter! I beamed as I read it out loud to my wife, and she offered the same sentiment as my mother all those years ago: “That’s nice, dear.” Some folks just don’t get fandom.

What a terrific issue, by the way. I’ve always enjoyed “Greatest Stories Never Told,” and was in particular interested in the sequel to Aquaman’s 1986 miniseries. Craig Hamilton amazed me not by his fluid pencil line or budding anatomical skill, but by his page design. As a future graphic designer, I was always fascinated by artists that thought outside the box, literally.

I’m thrilled that you’re considering the Wolfman/Kane run of Action as a feature. As long as I’m on a roll, you might consider covering Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, and it’s follow-up series. Mishkin and Cohn could do no wrong in the early to mid-’80s, with Blue Devil being another amazing run. What’s interesting about Amethyst is the crossover appeal from boys and girls. I made a best friend for life with a female reader via Amethyst. In particular I’d be curious to know what made Keith Giffen decide that shoehorning his Lords of Chaos and Order into the continuity made sense. He seemed keen on this concept for any book he approached in those days.

Enough for now! Again, much thanks for the thrill, and keep on keepin’ on!

– Scott Millen Scott, here’s another printed letter to show your wife! And we covered Amethyst back in BI #24, our “Magic” issue. It’s available in print and digital form via www.twomorrows.com.

– M.E.

BI #46 ROUND-UP Underdog and Courageous Cat? It’s the World’s Finest team of the funny-animal world. I would’ve picked up that book.

A VISION OF WHITE First off, great to once again see one of my letters grace the pages of BACK ISSUE [#45], especially with the nice little reproduction of the cover of The Brute #1 that accompanied it, although it was a pity that there was no room for the pictures I sent in of the Pumaman action figures. Oh, well, hopefully I got the website address right this time so anyone who’s interested can track ’em down!

BACK ISSUE #45 was another great issue as usual. Nice articles on Power Man and Iron Fist, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and Daredevil and Black Widow, and it is always nice to see anything on the old Justice League comic.

My favorite of the issue, though, was the one on the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, as the former is one of my all-time favorite superheroes. I have to agree with the article’s writer, Karen Walker, that the Android Avenger never really recovered from John Byrne’s shocking decision to have him taken apart by evil scientists who erased his memories and emotions. Byrne has a bad habit of rebooting characters back to the way they were when he first saw them, sometimes dumping decades of continuity and character development in an attempt to recreate childhood memories.

Still, I must admit I always liked that all-white costume Byrne came up with. There had been many attempts in the past to turn the Vision into a dark and spooky creature of the night that, despite the best efforts of some fine writers and artists, is very difficult to do with a scarlet-faced character in a bright green-and-yellow super-suit! At least in the white duds he looked suitably eerie and ghost-like, and I have to admit when I dream about the character (come on, admit it … all fans have superhero dreams!), that is what he is usually wearing.

1970s Time Capsule Issue

•

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Send your comments to:

“The Lady and the Cat”: Great work by Fradon on that Cat storyline. I agree with Dewey Cassell concerning Ramona’s career at Marvel had she stuck around. I could see her drawing Spider-Man, maybe on Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Thor? Not so much.

“Whatever Happened to Warlock #16?”: That is some excellent work by Alan Weiss. Oh, by the way, Alan, reveal the name of the guy.

I think the statute of limitations on stupidity has passed already.

Captain America Musical: I didn’t realize this progressed as far as it did. Shame Andy [Mangels] didn’t have the photo that was published of John Cullum the costume. I think Ken Howard would’ve made a better choice of a middle-aged Cap on the verge of retirement.

Savage Empire: I love how the DC Comics submissions department sent back the Savage Empire package back to Grell as rejected even though DC had been publishing Warlord for a while at that point.

Batman/Star*Reach: I think the perfect artist to finish Batman: Dark Detective II is Michael Golden, who was one of Rogers’ contemporaries during the late ’70s.

FF Fathers and Sons: Even if this had been completed and released at the time, I couldn’t see paying graphic-novel prices for either Mark Bright or Al Milgrom.

“Failure to Launch”/Black Canary: The Mike Sekowsky art looks better than that one issue of JLA he did during the ’80s that was inked by Tom Mandrake.

Aquaman II: I was really looking forward to that. For the brief period I was almost Rick Bryant’s assistant he told me that the reason that never came out was because Hamilton was very late on it.

Looking forward to the Dave Stevens issue.

– Delmo (The Saint) Walters, Jr.

BACK ISSUE • 79

Oh, by the way, I should probably tell you that Filmfax #125 has just reprinted the article Brett Weiss did in BACK ISSUE #31 on Thundarr the Barbarian. They have a somewhat controversial habit of reprinting recent articles from other magazines, and while they did show a bit more artwork from the old cartoon show, it would have been nice if they had updated the article to mention Thundarr’s release this year on DVD as part of the Warner Archives collection. Still, I guess I can forgive them because they stuff so much other cool stuff into their pages, including in this issue the first part of an in-depth look at Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, which I happen to think is the best bad movie EVER (only saw it once way back as teenager on the late show but for the last four decades or so I have been imagining and drawing the further adventures of the low-budget B&W sci-fi fright-flick’s title damaged and disfigured android astronaut … which I suppose would be rather sad if I didn’t enjoy it so darn much!).

– Jeff Taylor Jeff, have no fear, that Thundarr article was reprinted with BI’s knowledge and blessing. And on that topic, it was a concern about permissions, not space, that kept photos of the Pumaman action figures from accompanying your letter— but we suspect those interested in seeing them did so online.

– M.E.

TAYLOR TIMES TWO BACK ISSUE #46 was another great issue as usual.

Loved seeing one of my letters in print again, but boy, I did go on a bit there with that one, didn’t I? I really enjoyed all the “Greatest Stories Never Told” stuff. Glad you decided to devote an issue to it!

I found the article on the planned-but-never-produced Captain America musical fascinating. Pity they never managed to get it enough together to do a clunky, stripped-down, cardboard-set version on videotape like they did with It’s A Bird … It’s A Plane … It’s Superman for ABC-TV so that we at least had some record of the actual show.

Also got a major kick out of the one on Mike Grell’s Savage Empire strip. When I was a teenager I was a big fan of The Warlord back for its heady mix of swords, science, sorcery, and dinosaurs (although I must admit I kind of lost interest when Grell decided to drop the dinosaurs...).

The other articles were great, too, and I hope you plan more of the same in the future.

Feeling a bit under the weather so I’ll cut it a bit short this time (think of it as an ever-so-brief vacation from the excessive verbosity I usually subject you to!).

Looking forward to the next issue as always.

– Jeff Taylor Hope you’re feeling better, Jeff. And you’ll note that you have two letters in this issue! (Curiously, while sales were solid, BI #46 garnered very few letters…)

Next issue: BACK ISSUE turns 50 (issues-old, not years) and celebrates with a “Batman in the Bronze Age” theme and our first-ever FULLCOLOR ISSUE! Featuring: a DENNY O’NEIL, NEAL ADAMS, and PAUL LEVITZ “Pro2Pro” interview, Batman’s Unsung Creators (DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN), In Praise of JIM APARO, the Batman Family, Joker’s Daughter, Nocturna, Batman in the early 1980s, Untold Legend of the Batman, Batman collected editions, and Dark Knight. With art by and/or commentary from JOHN BYRNE, GENE COLAN, GERRY CONWAY, DOUG MOENCH, FRANK MILLER, BOB ROZAKIS, LEN WEIN, and more. With a beautifully Bronze Batman and Robin cover

by Jim Aparo! Don’t ask, just BI it!

See you in thirty!

Michael Eury, Editor Batman and Robin TM & © DC Comics. BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows.

80 • BACK ISSUE • 1970s Time Capsule Issue

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 (emailed or on CD, or to our FTP site; please inquire) .

Clear color or black-and-white photocopies BACK ISSUE is also open to pitches from writers for article ideas appropriate for our recurring and/or rotating departments.

Request a copy of the BACK ISSUE Writers’ Bible by emailing euryman@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

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #57

“Unfinished Sagas”—series, stories, and arcs Kirby never finished. TRUE DIVORCE CASES, RAAM THE MAN MOUNTAIN, KOBRA, DINGBATS, a complete story from SOUL LOVE, complete Boy Explorers story, two Kirby Tribute Panels, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, pencil art galleries, and more, with Kirby’s “Galaxy Green” cover inked by ROYER, and the unseen cover for SOUL LOVE #1!

“Legendary Kirby”—how Jack put his spin on classic folklore! TONY ISABELLA on SATAN’S SIX (with Kirby’s unseen layouts), Biblical inspirations of DEVIL DINOSAUR, THOR through the eyes of mythologist JOSEPH CAMPBELL, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, pencil art from ETERNALS, DEMON, NEW GODS, THOR, and Jack’s ATLAS cover!

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Dead Heroes”! JIM (“Death of Captain Marvel”) STARLIN interview, Deadman after Neal Adams, Jason Todd Robin, the death and resurrection of the Flash, Elektra, the many deaths of Aunt May, art by and/or commentary from APARO, BATES, CONWAY, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GEOFF JOHNS, MILLER, WOLFMAN, and a cosmically cool cover by JIM STARLIN!

Special 50th Anniversary FULL-COLOR issue ($8.95 price) on “Batman in the Bronze Age!” O’NEIL, ADAMS, and LEVITZ roundtable, praise for “unsung” Batman creators JIM APARO, DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN, Joker’s Daughter, Batman Family, Nocturna, Dark Knight, art and commentary from BYRNE, COLAN, CONWAY, MOENCH, MILLER, NEWTON, WEIN, and more. APARO cover!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

Urban Barbarian DAN PANOSIAN talks shop with editor MIKE MANLEY about his gritty, design-inspired work, DANNY FINGEROTH interviews “Billy Dogma” writer/artist DEAN HASPIEL, plus more of MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, product and art supply reviews

by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

Looks at the LEGO MECHA genre of building, especially in Japan! Feature editor NATHAN BRYAN spotlights mecha builders such as SAITO YOSHIKAZU, TAKAYUKI TORII, SUKYU and others! Also, a talk with Brian Cooper and Mark Neumann about their mecha creations. Plus mecha building instructions by SAITO YOSHIKAZU, and our regular columns on minifigure customization, building, event reports, and more!

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Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. (& LEGO! ) ®

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Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by BAKER, FINE, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others! “Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, MAYER, SIEGEL, and DONENFELD! Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, Comic Fandom Archive, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by SpiderMan artist DAVE WILLIAMS!

Spotlight on Green Lantern creators MART NODELL and BILL FINGER in the 1940s, and JOHN BROOME, GIL KANE, and JULIUS SCHWARTZ in 1959! Rare GL artwork by INFANTINO, REINMAN, HASEN, NEAL ADAMS, and others! Plus JACK MENDELSOHN Part II, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by GIL KANE & TERRY AUSTIN, and MART NODELL!

The early career of comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART: Defenders, Captain America, Master of Kung Fu, The Beast, Mantis, and more, with rare art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, STARLIN, SUTTON, HECK, BROWN, and others. Plus, JIM AMASH interviews early artist GEORGE MANDEL (Captain Midnight, The Woman in Red, Blue Bolt, Black Marvel, etc.), FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and more!

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts

by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

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